CHAPTER TWENTY SEVENRussell's awesomeness CLAIRE’S POV:“Listen, younger Claire. It’s really confusing having you around, and I don’t want to mess this up, okay? Go home, please. It’ll be like this never happened in a few minutes.” Future me said.
She had run into the backyard with the others, leaving me standing out in the street, confused as all hell.
I considered teleporting home, but just as I was about to go, there was a big flash of light. The ground shook as Jen’s backyard was exploding.
I stopped time and ran to the backyard. There were flames everywhere, frozen in place. I said a few curse words as I saw my friends scattered around the place. I looked down at my own dead body and retched.
Disgusting.
“Jen!” I shouted and ran over to her, helping her stand up. She was in better shape then the others, since she was immune to fire.
“This is all my fault, I have to go back again.” I said to her, and it was like watching a DVD. Basically I pressed rewind.
I watched as Jen sat back down, got thrown backwards through the air, as well as Ken, Rachel, Anna and myself. The flames all went back into Jen’s hands. Everyone started running backwards out of the backyard.
It was extremely weird yet extremely cool to see.
I tried to change time so that no one would have to die. I tried five times and each time my friends died, each time ended in that single explosion that killed them all.
I froze time and sat outside Jen’s house in the gutter.
Every time I tried to save my friends I ended up killing them. This time travel stuff sucks.
“Dammit.” I muttered. I finally realised that I had an idea. It was the only choice I had left.
I rewound time again, going back to the start. I waited for Jen and Issam to show up and run into the backyard. At the last second I teleported them away, down the street and away from where the explosion was happening.
I was launched through the air and fell to the ground. It all went black.
RACHELS POV:I met up with the others at the morgue. Claire was dead. None of us could believe it.
“This wasn’t supposed to happen.” Jen said sadly. “She saved me…”
After a long time of us saying our goodbyes to Claire, we left the morgue.
We were walking through the woods, all of us, with Ax.
“Wait, stop! I hear somebody, well I hear their thoughts…” Ken said hurriedly.
We all crouched down and hid behind some bushes and scrubs. A boy ran towards us at top speed, going past us and continuing to run away from us. Soon enough two people and two Hork-Bajir controllers ran after him.
“Holy crap!” I muttered.
“The guy, he’s not a controller. He’s free, he escaped. He’s Visser Threes human morph! His name is Russell, and he’s 18.” Ken revealed.
The boy stopped running in a clearing not too far away from our hide out. The human-controllers and Hork-Bajir stopped.
“Enough of this!” Russell yelled.
“Let’s morph.” Jen said. “We could get caught just sitting here. Battle morphs, now. Let’s go.”
Russell raised his arms, and the trees around him began to sway.
<What the hell is he doing?> I wondered, as all of us tried to creep closer, still not being noticed.
Russell’s eyes went wide when he saw us, and slightly nodded.
We knew he had a power, which Visser Three would also have. He was there in his human morph, one of the human controllers we could see.
ISSAM’S POV:
“Are you sure this is going to work?” I asked.
“Trust me, this guys power never fails.” Shanker replied.
I had met up with Shanker and his crew after the explosion. I had been betraying my friends, helping Shanker for a while now. And now Claire was dead. I hadn’t wanted that to happen.
Shanker knocked on the door to someone’s house.
“This better work.” I said.
The door opened, it was just some guy. “You ready?” Shanker said. He had already spoken to the guy on the phone earlier.
“Yes.” The guy answered. He has a slight Jamaican accent.
We drove to the morgue in silence, I had no idea what to talk about. I just hoped this worked.
“Are you sure this will work?” I finally said.
“For the last time, yes. I’m sure, isn’t that right, Rich?”
“Do not call me Rich.” Richard said.
Soon enough we arrived at the morgue and went inside. It was shut, so Shanker put some acid on the doors to let us inside.
I searched for Claire’s name. “This is it.” I pulled out a drawer from the wall, it revealed a person in a bag. I unzipped it and it was Claire.
She looked just like I saw her last, except she was burnt along her face and her clothes were scorched black.
“Okay. It is time.” Richard said, holding his hands out on Claire’s forehead.
A few seconds later, Claire sat up and coughed, looking around at us.
CLAIRE’S POV:I coughed violently as I sat up. “What the hell just happened?!”
“Claire! You’re alive!” Issam said.
“Oh it’s you. The traitor.” I laughed.
“Hey, me and Shanker organised this. Without us you’d still be dead. Thanks to our friend here you aren’t.”
“Yea I know.” I said. “I missed you guys. Playing nice was starting to get annoying.”
“Let’s get out of here. We have things to do. We need to meet up with Kat and Sakae soon.” Shanker said. “Rob and the others are already there.
RUSSELLS POV:I was slightly nervous, using my power against Visser Three like this.
The Andalites Visser Three called “Andalite bandits” happened to be close by, so I was less worried after that.
The trees around me swayed, and soon they took a step towards Visser Three. He did the same to the trees around him, but I had more experience with the ability. I used my power on a log next to Visser Three. The log stood up and slammed into Visser Three, knocking him to the ground.
He slowly stood up, and the Andalites took the chance to start fighting.
A bull ran straight into the Hork-Bajirs, knocking them off their feet.
Visser Three began to morph, so I used the opportunity to continue to use my ability. Every inanimate object around him became animated, attacking him. He continued to morph, eventually stopping as a small bird. He flew away, no matter how hard I tried to stop him from getting away.
The other human controller was long gone, ran away when the bull came along.
The Andalites turned to walk away from me, but I didn’t want to be left in the middle of the woods.
“Wait.” I said.