I was shrouded in darkness. Engulfed by heavy burdens. I heaved, I heaved, and I heaved.
Gasp…!!
I awakened from unconsciousness, opening my eye that'd been engraved with grime. I was stuck under a pile of debris and gravel. I could smell dust in the air, opaque like it had been before I was taken into Chrono's hideout.
Am I outdoors…?
I pushed the heaviness off of me, lifting myself through the rubble that'd settled over my beaten body. The last thing I remembered was Orius achieving a Fractal Activation before everything had erupted and I was knocked out unconscious. To awaken to open air and the sight of the sky was both fascinating and terrifying.
Orius' 'Pulse: Evermore' was so strong that I was blown out of the underground… back up to the surface!
Although I had only just recently parted ways with it, I could already feel Flow State's absence. Not knowing how long I'd been unconscious for, and also being unaware of where I was, put me in a vulnerable position that Flow State could have kept me alert for. Instead, here I was manually tapping into my senses to get a feel of the position I was in.
Dusty, opaque air. The ground is unsteady—it's all gravel and rubble.
I looked around me. The space was wide open, but my eye opened wide when I finally recognized my surroundings visually.
That building, and that building. I remember those. This is…
I was standing in the middle of downtown Melysia, most prominently the clubbing district. The gravel and rubble beneath me were the remains of Cyber City.
It's all gone…
Soon after the incident at Cyber City with Zion resulting in all of those innocent deaths, they had the club demolished immediately. I never would have guessed that Chrono's hideout was hidden beneath all of it.
But it makes sense now. Zion had powerful influence at Cyber City, which was probably due to the convenience of being situated right underneath it. Maybe Cyber City was just a money laundering scheme for Chrono all of this time.
I also recalled that Rai had told me 'this is all your fault too' when we had arrived at the hideout with the bag over my head.
It makes sense for him to blame me. After all, I was the reason Cyber City got reduced to this state. I chased after Zion, he expected it, and our exchange caught dozens of lives in between. That confirms it then. Cyber City was truly just a cover-up for Chrono.
I patted the dust off my clothing, which had blended-in with the blood on my skin. The knife was still in my hand. It seemed I'd maintained a firm grip on its handle before the Pulse eruption. I was in a pit of gravel, and ahead of me was a mound of debris. Listening closely to my surroundings, I heard something other than wind in its direction.
"Dad…! What do we do…!?"
There were voices just past the mound. I carefully climbed it and peeked over.
"Mom doesn't have her Fractal anymore…!"
My eye widened. Out in the open expanse of debris and destruction, Chrono's family sat in their hideout's remains. Vex sat by his father who lay on the ground, with Delfina aside looking more disheveled than ever.
He survived that?
The most shocking thing to me was that the man on the deathbed, Delfina's husband, had managed to come out unscathed from Orius' blast. This led to my next worry.
Where is Orius…?
I looked around me in a panic, but the space and winds were empty. Only the discourse from Vex could be heard.
"I told you we shouldn't have trusted him…! How could you just take a stranger to our hideout like that, Mom…!?"
Delfina responded. "I used Time Prison on him before taking him home, just as I have with everyone else…! He acted like it worked. It should have worked…!"
I continued to listen to them.
"How long did you put him in Time Prison for?" Vex asked.
"Ten hours."
He lashed out. "That's not long enough…!"
"Tsk..! I couldn't take too long... It felt like someone was watching us…! That Sin of Discrimination is always lurking somewhere…!"
I raised my eyebrows. They'd just reminded me of Seris. I looked up into the sky above me, searching for her. In the northeast direction, black birds flew overhead in a united formation. In the southwest direction, a single black bird remained afloat past the clouds.
Wait…
I squinted my eye to see more clearly. It wasn't a bird.
There she is.
Hanging up so high in the sky, oblivious to everyone else below, Seris hovered in her flapping black robes looking down at us, watching me. I was reminded of the current circumstances, and what was waiting for me.
I'm almost done, Soho. Just hang on a little longer.
I continued to listen to them.
"What are we supposed to do…? If your Chronostasis is gone, it means dad's lifespan is running out even faster than before…!"
I'd just heard an intriguing thing.
Delfina was using Chronostasis to extend her husband's lifespan…? By extending his perceived time from seconds into hours, his body perceives it too? How confounding.
Delfina was growing anxious. "I know, I know…!"
"We don't even have the Null anymore…! Klyson's probably dead from the blast… Even Orius died from his own pulse…! Everyone is dead…!!"
Everyone else died from that blast…?
I climbed overtop the peak of the mound, revealing myself out in the open.
There's no use left in hiding anymore, is there? With Delfina's Chronostasis and Orius' Pulse out of the picture, including all of the other Chrono lackeys, I only have these three left to deal with. And among them, only one has a Fractal, non-applicable in battle.
"Klyson? It's Klyson!" Delfina shouted as she saw me appear from a distance.
Vex stood up tall. "You fucker!! You did this! You did all of this!"
"Me? Me? You think I have a Fractal to cause widespread destruction like this? I'm just like you, Vex."
"That's not what I mean!" He grunted. "You dismantled our place and family from top-to-bottom the moment you showed up! You erased everyone's gifts from MONA!"
I nearly scoffed. "It's absurd you say that, considering you were never even blessed with a gift from Her yourself."
"Shut the fuck up!"
"As for all of this destruction, and the deaths of everyone else? You can blame your own mother for that."
"Don't even listen to him, honey," Delfina interrupted me. "He's going to spew nonsense."
I continued anyways. "She's the one who gave Orius the go in killing me with his Fractal, resulting in his Fractal Activation. She wanted me dead."
"Hey, that's not—"
"She said that all you need for the Shattering is your father's Reversal. That you can do it without the Null."
Vex, seemingly surprised, turned to his mom. "We don't need the Null for the Shattering…?"
"We do, Vex. I only said that at the time to encourage Orius to defend us, otherwise Klyson would have gotten to dad and erased his Fractal!"
"And how effective really was that, Delfina?" I asked.
She looked at me with rage, similar to the state of emotion that'd consumed her to command Orius in killing me. But she took a deep breath.
"What more do you wish to do, Klyson? How much farther are you willing to go against us?"
Unbelievable.
I responded with disbelief. "Now you want to act like the victims? Only after things finally stopped going your way? Don't act like you haven't been trying to kill me or use me all this time. You've only got what was coming to you."
"Don't talk to my mom like that."
"You're a victim too, Vex." I made my voice stern. "Just like how I was used by Ian for my Fractless capabilities, you too are being manipulated into believing that you're the star of a bigger cause that you can't even fathom. You're just blind to it all because you were raised under that roof."
"I don't want to hear any of your nonsense, Klyson!"
"Look around! The sky is endless! There's no ceiling out here! And yet, you're choosing to stay enclosed within your parents delusions? Can't you tell that you're being used?"
"I'm choosing to do their bidding, Klyson. I'm not forcing myself the same way you must have. We are different."
I began to descend the mound, approaching him. "We aren't different, but these infectious beliefs of Chrono make you feel like you are. You may tell yourself that you're choosing to do all of this, but did you really ever have a choice, Vex? If you've been raised under this dogma your whole life, your path was drawn-out for you from the start! You don't even know how to branch out on your own."
"And why would I want to?" Vex began to walk towards me too. "I know what greater cause I'm going to bring about, and I want to play that role. Who cares if that's been defined for me from the start?"
I was sickened. "You're so imposed-upon by your parents that you can't even realize that you're just settling for what's comfortable for you. Just because it's comfortable, doesn't mean it's right for you!"
"Only I get to tell myself what's right or wrong for me!" He started to sprint.
"Don't you want to make your own choices? Live your own life?" I readied my knife. Vex was unarmed.
"I choose to do what I've readied myself to do my whole life! You can't tell me otherwise!"
I can't get through to him. Just like everyone else in Chrono, he's deluded beyond reach. I have no choice.
I matched his pace towards me. Our clash was inevitable.
"Kill him and take the Null, Vex! We'll transplant it somehow!" Delfina yelled from afar.
"I hope you know that it's a lost cause, Vex! The Null cannot be transplanted!"
"Tsk!" He ignored me, throwing the first blow. I blocked it, before retaliating with some attacks of my own. I swiped my knife at him to which he weaved and dodged, and we continued to exchange blows with neither connecting.
Flow State would have gave me the edge by now, but due to its absence we're at a standstill. I have no counter against him since he has no Fractal to erase. I just have to overpower him physically.
He threw a punch, I parried it, loosening his footing with a stumble that gave me the opening I needed. I pierced my knife forwards towards his chest. His arms weren't raised, he didn't even try defending against my attack.
Giving up already?
Clank—!
Just as the tip was soon to plunge his chest, he parried my blade, smacking my arm and causing me to lose hold of my knife. It was knocked aside, falling down the debris.
He reacted to that in time?
The counterattack from him began. He threw a punch. I blocked. He threw a kick, to which I also blocked. With his fist, he aimed for the side of my head. I raised my arm to block it in time, but the instant happened quicker than I'd imagined. His hit connected.
Jak—!!
My head whiplashed aside. Shocked by his quickness, I switched off the defensive. I threw up a kick that I knew he'd try and block, but it was a feint. I carried the momentum into a strike to his face. In my mind, it connected. But in reality, the instant that it should have hit was a block on his part. Once again, he'd reacted quicker than I anticipated. To follow up, he jabbed me in the stomach. I retracted myself for a moment.
He's fast, but I've been hit harder. This guy isn't anything special.
When suddenly—
Jab—!!
My stomach was hit again in the same exact spot.
"Urk—!!" I stumbled. I looked ahead and saw that there was distance between us.
He only hit me once, so how did he land that second blow? He isn't anywhere near me!
He moved towards me in pursuit, catching me off guard. I raised my arms to block his incoming attacks—about five to seven punches—before he retreated himself. I was confused by his tactic.
What are you trying to do—?
Suddenly, those punches I'd endured on my arms as blocks reinstated themselves, all on the exact same spots.
Jab—jab—jab—jab—jab—jab!!
A flurry of pain had just beat my arms, even though Vex was nowhere near me. I was truly confused beyond measure at this point, and Vex could see that.
"Have you not attained that state yet?"
My mouth opened. I finally understood.
Is this Vex's form of my Flow State? Just like how Enzo had his own Adrenaline State?
"I had it. It disappears once you inherit the Null."
"So you no longer have it?" Vex nearly smirked. "Then you have no chance against me."
The next instant, Vex bolted towards me, seemingly skipping entire steps in-between. He'd appeared before me much faster than I could anticipate. He struck me in the chest, a split-second faster than I could block. As I slid back away from him, recovering my footing from the attack, that same strike re-established in the same spot he'd landed the blow.
Slam!!
"Urg—!" The pain was doubled in that spot. "How the hell are you doing that!?"
"Stutters," Vex said. "I honed my Fractless capabilities because that was necessary to inherit the Null, wasn't it? Mom put me in Time Prison to develop those capabilities without wasting a second. As a result, I was able to develop a state in which time stuttered—freezing for a moment just like in Time Prison—where I could align my actions with the path in time that I saw fit. We stutter for a moment to recollect what we mean to say. But my stutters give me a moment to do what I intend to, without wasting the second in real-time to think about doing it."
I was astonished. Whereas my Flow State slowed-down reality to my own speed, and Enzo's Adrenaline State allowed him to increase his own speed faster than reality's, Vex's state allowed him to stop reality itself to give him a frozen moment's time to establish his next move.
A Stutter State.
And it was all because he was constantly subjected to Time Prison by Delfina, to which his Fractless State essentially adapted to. Now, he's able to impose short Time Prisons on his own perspective to formulate his best next move without wasting time to second-guess it. That explained his instantaneous ability to block my attacks when they were most likely to hit, because he was essentially skipping a frame in time to get to that moment quicker. Same went for his movements, whereas rather than lagging behind, he was skipping forward and getting ahead of me.
But it still didn't explain one thing.
Jab—!
He struck me in the side. I took it on and threw my own punch in return, but the attack fell short when the second-impact of his punch came through.
Jab—!
Again, the same sensation of the same attack in the exact same spot, even though he hadn't physically used that attack a second time.
How!?
The physical disruption on my face fueled Vex's initiative. He hit me with more attacks, doubling the impact on every single one of them as he continued to throw them. I was being rained-on with the impacts of punches and their after-images.
"I can even Stutter the moment I land hits, resuming their impacts at a delayed time!"
I was bruising. My skin was tearing open from these strikes and I was bleeding. But I finally understood how his attacks worked now.
He Stutters the attacks he lands, freezing its moment in time. Then, he resumes those moments later on which makes me feel a continuation of its impact. I'm just feeling two halves of the same attack at two separate times. It's a double-impact attack.
"Shit!!" I was stepping backwards as I tried to block every attack that I could, while cautiously anticipating the pain of their second impacts and not allowing it to stagger me.
This is fucking hard without Flow State!
I parried an attack of his and countered myself, but he easily blocked it. He was always a step ahead of me because of his Stutter State. I opted to retreat as far back as possible.
Tap—tap—tap—!
He began sprinting towards me again, with every step seemingly skipping forwards in time with his Stutters. I had no Flow State to keep up with it, so I could only rely on the instincts I had left.
One… two-three. One… two-three. One… two-three—
His Stutter steps followed a rhythm. I read it and synchronized with the tempo, performing a timely block to his attack when I should have least expected it.
Jok—!
The block transformed into a parry, to which I stepped forward to initiate a counterattack.
But his Stutter State will allow him to expect this, so instead I should—
I stopped my strike, mid-counterattack, but he still fell into a defensive stance that would have blocked my attack in time.
As expected.
I realized that I could fake-out his responses, because even though he had Stutter State to think ahead of my moves, it was still based on his assumptions. The near future wasn't guaranteed until it arrived in the present, so I just had to oppose what I expected him to predict of me.
Jagg—!!
I threw a heavy punch at an opening in his defensive stance, throwing off his stability. Rather than follow in pursuit of this opportunity, I drew myself back instead. He recovered himself in an instant.
"Trying to read into my Stutters? There's only so much you can keep up with!" Vex began Stutter-stepping towards me even quicker than before, and the rhythm was all gone. It had become an incohesive flow of movement that I couldn't possibly read. So with no way of timing my defense to his offence, I was inevitably a victim to his next onslaught of attacks.
Jurk—! Jab! Juk—!!
In the stomach, in the right temple, in the liver, in the left arm, I was struck by his attacks. Instantaneously, the stuttered double-impacts followed immediately after. I was subdued by the pain.
"Urg…!" I fell backwards, landing heavily on my back. He followed pursuit and landed a blow downwards onto my chest. Air left my lungs. "Ack—!!"
I can't do anything! I'm at a disadvantage!
I grappled with my pain to recover myself, but he kept me pinned down.
Slam!!
He struck me on the ground and began beating my face. One punch after the other, my face was slowly bruising. Although his hits weren't too strong alone, his Stuttered double-impacts multiplied the pain by two. I couldn't overpower him with how physically drained I already was at this point.
Jab! Jab!
He punched and he punched, and blood spewed everywhere from my face.
This hurts. It hurts so much.
He wouldn't stop striking me. His hands were lathered with my blood.
Blood.
My Null craved blood, but this exchange only involved the blood of Fractless.
For fuck's sake!!
I was enraged. I raised my hands over my face to block the onslaught of facial punches beating my skull. When I did, he switched to pummeling my lower body—ramming my rib cage, brutally battering my liver. The inconsistent flow of Stuttered hits was beginning to put me out of commission. I was losing consciousness, and I could barely hang on anymore.
"I was supposed to have the Null! I was supposed to bring about the Shattering! I was the chosen one!!" Vex continued to beat me. In the background, Delfina watched with hope, and her husband continued to lay by her side. I realized the fact that since both Reversal and the Null still existed was what gave undying hope to Vex and his parents.
If I could just erase that one last Fractal, Reversal, the dream for Chrono can forever die. The Shattering is impossible without it.
But how I could possibly attain that feat in my current position was impossible to fathom.
Jab—slam!!
A punch right to my chin nearly dislocated my jaw. My eye almost rolled up without return.
I can't do it. I can't beat him here. He has a Fractless State and I don't. He overpowers me in every category.
With all hope lost, I nearly wallowed into self-pity territory before realizing it wasn't worth it. My best chance at surviving was holding out until he deemed me finished.
Jab! Jak!
He continued punching my face. But throughout that barrage, I caught a momentary glimpse of something in his eyes. It was a glimmer, a shine, an innocent sparkle of light.
Innocence. Naivety.
I saw myself in him. The old me.
Back then when I didn't know any better.
As a result of that trait, I was manipulated. Even until now I was doing someone else's bidding. But my ideals have budded off since then. I was looking for my opportunity to diverge into myself, and myself only—away from Ian and Heathen and A.X.A.
Is this why I can't help but pity Vex?
I pitied him because his opportunities to diverge himself existed, but his ideals to do so didn't. He was the exact opposite of me. Able, yet unwilling, while I was unable, yet more than willing.
You've been groomed, manipulated, and distorted so much that you could never realize it on your own.
I understood what this nagging feeling was now. It was a longing obligation to do for someone what no one was able to do for me.
When I needed help the most, I could only count on myself. I had no one to rely on. But now, here is a Fractless just like me, going through the same thing as me, who's unaware of how much he needs that same help.
My emotions revealed themselves through a single teardrop from my remaining eye. I was fighting someone who was in the same shoes as mine, who'd been in the same shoes as mine. But for the both of us, those shoes were always too big to fill on our own. The systems we abided by forced them on us anyways, and to this day, we both chased their impossible dream. Not our own.
A young, naive Fractless turned into what someone else expected them to be instead.
I couldn't just watch and standby as someone, like me, went through the exact same suffering as I did. I felt compelled to do something about it.
I want to help Vex. Despite his stubbornness, I need him to hear me out.
I looked deeper into Vex's eyes, even as he continued to strike my face. Underneath the heat of the moment, and the innocent, naive, hope in his goal, I could see what rooted from deep within—struggle, desperation, and a need for validation.
Jip! Jam!!
With my face swollen, I spoke through the blood and beatings. "Vex… Vex!"
He continued to punch away.
"You don't need to do this…! You don't need to!"
Jak! Jak!
"I know you think this is right because it's what you were taught! I know you know what's right to you!"
Jab! Jam!!
"I know you know what you stand for! I respect your dedication! But, listen…!"
He responded with more strikes.
"You don't always need to force yourself to fit the mold this world has given you!"
The punches stopped, just for a moment.
"It's okay to accept your doubts and be yourself, especially when this world is already full of people who constantly reject their own humanity."
He gave me a half-look of attempted understanding, before it was immediately over-washed with rejection.
"Who's to say I have any doubts about what I do and stand for?"
I looked at him with more intent than ever before.
"You do, don't you…?"
He panned his gaze away, genuinely pondering for a moment. He gathered his thoughts before finally replying.
"Who cares if I have any doubts? I'm already the hero of my own story. I'm doing what's right for me. Why are you trying so hard to tell me otherwise?"
"Because I've seen myself as both the hero and villain of my own story before. But in the end, it never changed anything. The outcomes were always the same, no matter whether I saw myself in the right or wrong. What mattered was what I chose to do in the end."
"What are you even getting at?" Vex asked.
"You're being used, but you've been shaped into something that restricts that thinking. I've gone through the same thing as you. As a Fractless, I know exactly how you feel."
"That shouldn't even matter—"
"But it does!" I interrupted him. "How often can someone in Melysia truly relate to you the way I do? We are part of the rare few that were born Fractless. Only we know what it's like to be Fractless. Only I would know what you could have gone through, and what you felt."
"So, what…?"
"So, break out of your mold! This isn't a storybook with a linear path. Write yourself the way you want to be, and not how the universe designated you. It doesn't matter if you've set yourself upon one path your whole life. There's no hurt in splitting off into another. Just because you're Fractless and you have these capabilities to produce the Shattering, doesn't mean that it's your destiny. You may think it's right for you and that you want it, but consider all of your own options before going on a path of no-return. Be Fractless. Be Vex. Be you!"
Be you.
Vex's face began to sour. I pushed back.
"If you keep going down this path, you'll lose sight of who you truly are forever!"
He scowled at me. "But what if it's already too late!?"
I grabbed his shirt firmly, practically shouting at the top of my lungs at this point.
"It's never too late to change how you want your story to end!"
Enraged by the onslaught of too many ideas that opposed his mind, he responded the only way he knew how to in that moment: with a desperate flurry of punches and strikes to my face, rejecting the unfamiliar ideals I'd set upon him.
"Shut up!!"
Jam! Jab! Jak!!
"Shut up…!"
My consciousness was fading out. Numb to the pain, my vision was blackening.
"Shut up…"
Blood rivered all over my face. My eye had rolled up. I'd faded away, knocked out from the damage I'd sustained until now.
But it was comfortable.
Even if I'd been defeated, I'd been able to say my truth. From here, it was up to Vex to decide which path he wanted to take.
Be you, Vex.
I'd dealt my card for another to take.