Chapter 50: Temporal Rewind

Temporal Rewind: the ability to rewind time.

Josh sprints to the building, teleporting inside and being instantly cramped between the fox's head and a row of seats. Dozens of bystanders have either been crushed to death or trapped by the crash.

He reaches for the person closest to him, grabbing and teleporting them to the outside. His head spins as he returns to get more folks out of the crumbling theater. One, two, four, eight, he's emptied out the place of about a dozen injured person when he reaches the dead ones.

For every person he saved, there seemed to be probably two gang he didn't. Limbs jut out of every empty space. Blood poured out of the walls and onto the carpeted mess of a floor, like the building itself was alive and dying.

From the his peripheral, Josh sees a small hand sticking out of the rubble, squished between cracked wood and the handle of a wheelchair. One of the support pillars had collapsed when the fox landed. The couple and their daughter must not have made it far enough inside in time.

Rage boils his blood, making him clench his fists and drove it through the pillar, which explodes into splinters. His ears are ringing from the loud crash, so it takes a moment for them to adjust to the chaos around. He first hears the screams of the people he's pulled out of the rubble, then Tyler's irritated voice coming over his radio.

"Fuck!"

"Icarus, answer your goddamn radio!" Tyler yells, his voice coming out with static.

"What?" Josh snaps.

"We need an out, we're stuck in the hall! They-"

A crash and then the radio cuts out.

Josh looks around at the people he saved, some running to the hospital, others just standing there, watching in shock. They're out of any immediate harm, and Tiana has always been able to handle herself.

"Okay," he responds, still shaking with anger. "I- I'll be there in a blip. Kitty Hawk, can you handle this?"

"Oh, I'm just fine," Tiana grunts. "Go get 'em."

He nods and closes his eyes, teleporting across the street from Canopy Hall.

A huge hind leg blocks the entrance. The rest of the dismembered robot body is in pieces, both on top of the decimated building and on the street. Dust settles in the air, thick and suffocating. What's left of the wooden roof and beams are on fire and losing their strength fast.

"Where are you guys?" He asks, scrambling towards the leg, digging through the remains of the building for a way in. "Hello?!"

A hand emerges from the ash covered rubble, and Josh, thinking it's Tyler, immediately grabs it. He pulls with all his strength. Hayley rises out, writhing and gagging, her face covered in blackened dust.

"Y- you were right," she coughs. "It was a trap. They wanted us to separate."

"But this isn't how the dream went. This isn't how it's supposed to end," Josh says.

She looks at him with eyes so white he can't even see her pupils, and Josh realizes that her bandana isn't around her face anymore. "It won't end like this. I am not losing anyone else."

Josh helps her get her legs out from underneath the pile, seeing a huge gash in her left thigh. "Oh my god, are you okay?" He asks.

"Huh? Oh," she says, grimacing as she pats it. "Just a flesh wound."

"Are you sure? Can you walk?"

"Yeah, I'll be fine. Help me find tyler, he was inside when it fell."

They both go get start rummaging through the trash, neither of them finding any sign of Tyler. Josh hears a soft crackling and turns to see the roof finally collapsing, and down comes a body with it.

He runs ahead of Hayley, catching Tyler before he falls into a pile of broken wooden chairs. Tyler's unconscious, mask intact but blood staining his forehead and cheek. His eyes are closed, and dozens of little bloody cuts cover his body. Even with how tough the fabric is, it couldn't withstand whatever caused the wide, gaping hole that stretches across Tyler's stomach.

Hayley catches up to him, putting a hand on his shoulder, and he teleports the three back to the hospital.

"You guys are back?" Tiana says. "Good, because I'm in a bit of a pickle right now!"

Hayley takes Tyler from his arms and he takes off. Josh teleports to the backside of the lioness, right behind Alley Cat. He turns around just as Josh punches him in the gut, making him double over.

Tiana comes up and kicks him to his knees, her face cut up and limping.

"Hell yeah!" She says, raising her arms in triumph.

A metal rod shoots out of the robot's side. It stabs through her waist, a spray of blood exploding out of her front.

"No!" Josh cries, grabbing Alley Cat's head and slamming it into a wooden slab. Tiana stumbles forward before stopping, the rod keeping her in place. Her knees give way.

Alley Cat's arm quickly moves forward, grabbing a broken piece of glass and swinging it. Josh dives back, the shard grazing his chest. The villain, whose face is bloody and twisted in madness, takes another stab, and the glass finds a home in Josh's shoulder.

Josh grabs Alley Cat's wrist and twists it until it cracks. His free hand comes up and covers the bottom half of Josh's face, scratching at his jaw. A wave of disorientation makes Josh let go of Alley Cat, who kicks him in the chest and sends him off of the lioness.

Quickly gaining his senses, Josh tries to teleport back to the robot's back, but-

But he can't.

He panics, having one fleeting thought before Josh hits the street.

I broke my promise.

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