Kahli looked at the three timelines floating there beside her big left foot in the void, and focused her mental energy on the scenario on the far left. It was time to find out why her [Seismic Sense] [skill] had pulled her into a time freeze in this moment.
[First Scenario]
"How do you know what the anomaly is or isn't, miss?"
Kahli looked at Agent 42 with frustration. "Beause it's obvious, isn't it? The anomaly is clearly a perforation. Why else would all those skeletal monsters we encountered have crawled out of it? Do undead skeleton monsters come from anywhere else, other than perforations in our world and the spirit world? Everyone knows that perforations are the only way that something like that could even hope to come interact with us! And so, since they all came from that big beam of light, it's got to be a perforation. I mean, really, it has got to be one."
Sahdi sighed and buried her face in her hands.
"What, Sahdi? What is your problem?" Kahli was furious. Froufrou squelched in frustration, backing up her energy. "Seriously, Sahdi, no support from you. Regardless, Agent 42, you need to realize that I know there are more and more perforations popping up these days."
"Oh, you do?" Agent 42 replied suspiciously. He leaned forward, almost getting too close to Kahli in order to say the next part of his thought. "And how do you know that, ma'am?"
"My dad told me!" she said with a smirk. "He's dead, but he came back as a blue skeleton to tell me how to use my system that I got after my old master activated a prophetic scroll that summoned the Harbinger of Doom! Her name is Froufrou by the way, isn't she a cutie?" Kahli held out Froufrou in her purse with a smile. Froufrou immediately squelched one of the stinkiest squelches that she'd ever produced.
"Oh... Oh my gods..." Agent 42 looked faint, and waddled back a bit. "That thing reeks! My gods, the scent is absolutely unbearable! And it looks, gods, it looks like a bunch of slimy, rotten sausages writhing around together! It's wretched! Absolutely wretched, I say! By the gods, I, wow... What do I even... What am I saying? Nothing you've just said to me makes any sense. You must be crazy!"
"What?" Kahli felt offended. Did Agent 42 not believe her?
"Yes... Crazy... You must be some sort of a lunatic... A lunatic with a death wish... Normally, I'd use my F.I.S.T. tools to neutralize you, but I feel you're not necessarily a threat, despite your notably overpowered system for how apparently briefly you've had access to it... That's a strange thing to see... Regardless, you're making me very uncomfortable, and so I think I'm going to rescind my offer for a ride. I think it will be best for me to, if you'll forgive my language, get the hell away from you."
Kahli gasped as Agent 42 scrambled to shove himself back into his pod and slammed it shut. Then, he zoomed off in an erratic zigzag, clearly being guided more by fear than by logical reasoning.
"Wow," said Kahli. "What a jerk."
"Him? You're the jerk, Kahli!" spat Sahdi. "If you'd just kept your mouth shut, well, we would've been able to get a ride! But now we're off on our own. What if something bad happens?"
"Agent 42 and the rest of F.I.S.T. seem like they have everything covered. I think we'll be fine, Sahdi," replied Kahli knowingly.
Though, apparently, she didn't know that much. Because, as Agent 42 continued to zoom around in an uncontrolled manner, one of the wheels on his pod popped and snapped, and then the pod slammed into the sides of buildings, and then it tumbled over and crashed into another pod. And both of those F.I.S.T. pods caught on fire.
"Oh, fuck." Sahdi gasped. "Do you think he survived that?"
Both of the pods exploded in a flurry of flames.
Kahli grimaced. "I'd say, probably not." Kahli saw that, despite the explosions, the pods were now still zigging around, though they were blackened and falling apart at the seams. However, apparently their engines had somewhat gone haywire. The flaming pods started zooming around even faster and more out of control. Then, they bumped into some ofn the pods parked over by the perforation, and indeed they even knocked over some of the agents that had been using blasts of energy to try and control and condense the perforation light. With their beams of power away from the perforation, it immediately bloomed upwaards and doubled in size. Then, it tripled. Kahli and Sahdi were almost enveloped in its halo as so many skeletal beast began to crawl out and emerge that it was altogether overwhelming. It seemed like time itself slowed to a crawl as monsters surrounded Kahli and struck her again and again, ripping into her flesh and tearing her limb from limb.
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[You died]
[End scenario]
Kahli was once again in the endless, timeless, spaceless void with the big jellyfish.
Well, that was certainly interesting, replied the jellyfish matter-of-factly. I do think it got a little wild there. If I were you, I would probably choose one of the other available timelines, Kahli.
Oh, you think? Kahli replied with sarcasm. I thought that timeline was great. I loved the part where everybody died.
But the time for bickering with the jellyfish had long passed. Kahli needed to know what her other options were, and was hopeful that she'd see something better come up next time. So, she once again looked down at her big left foot and this time focused on the second, middle timeline.
[Second Scenario]
"How do you know what the anomaly is or isn't, miss?"
Kahli looked at Agent 42 with frustration. "What else would it be, then? Does that not look like a perforation to you?" Kahli looked over to the abandoned pornography storefront a block away and pointed to the looming Bonereaper that was presently being lassoed with the powerful [skills] of three adept F.I.S.T. agents. "Does that not look like a Boner to you?"
"Oh, yes, that looks like a Boner," replied Agent 42. "A pretty big Boner, too, though not the bigger Boner I've seen or taken on. Regardless, enough Boner talk for now at least. When I look at that big, beam of light streaking up to heavens, I just see something that I'd consider an anomaly. Do you mean to say to me that you don't see this as an anomaly? You really do think it's a perforation between the living and dead realms?"
"Honestly, can I just butt in here for a second?" replied Sahdi.
"Sahdi? You're actually going to participate? Wow, I am shocked," Kahli said with a smile.
"Wow, Kahli. Wow," Sahdi scoffed and flipped her hair. "So uncalled for. Anyways, I do think it's a perforation, because a bunch of skeletal monsters climbed out of it and attacked us. You'd have to do something totally crazy, like wipe our minds or something, to convince us that it isn't a perforation. I mean, that is a textbook perforation to anyone with even a post-post-pre-primary education."
A glint shined in Agent 42's glowing, green eyes. "Yes, something crazy..." He pulled out two white gloves and stretched them over his hands, which had an awful rubbing sound as they stretched over the arm cuffs of his unitard and then snapped loudly as they tightened around each hand. Then, he walked up to Kahli and Sahdi and chuckled lightly. "Something crazy indeed."
Kahli gasped as his hands started to glow, and then her vision was engulfed in a harsh, yellow light. As the light faded, she notied that her memory was decidedly fuzzy. She knew she was in pain, and she knew she didn't like Sahdi, but she had absolutely no recollection of the previous events, or how she'd gotten to this situation where she was being greeted by a strange man in a unitard. The last thing she remembered was lowering Unit 5a23 to the ground in order to keep him from smashing to bits on impact with the cobblestone ground.
"What is going on? Who are you?" Kahli looked at Agent 42. "What's with the unitard?"
"Aerodynamics," said Agent 42 with not a small bit of self-consciousness. "Regardless, I must apologize to you two ladies. something terrible has happened. A number of different seemingly apocalyptic events have befallen downtown Gifflenberg, but not to worry. I am here to protect you, and take you away from the meteor, and the monsters, and the anomaly behind me that you should pay very little mind to. I am Agent 42. See my badge if you would like. And please, be my guests. Step into my pod, and allow me to take you both to the closest F.I.S.T. facility, of which I am an agent of, and we will provide you with resources and help to recobver from this dreadful event after a quick debrief. What do you say?"
Kahli had not a great feeling about this, but she wasn't sure why. What she did know, is that it wasn't safe to remain out in downtown Gifflenberg, and Agent 42 seemed to know what he was doing. With a shred of reluctance, she took his gloved hand - why did the gloves makes her shudder? - and followed him to the pod.
[End scenario]
It was startling to Kahli how, as soon as the scenario ended, she remembered everything she'd forgotten. In the moment, while viewieng the timeline, that hadn't been the case.
I hate how the second scenario always ends too soon, thought Kahli with an internal huff.
Yes, it's inconvenient that way, replied the jellyfish. All part of your [skill], though, I'm afraid.
That tracks. It was a really horrifying scenario, though, seeing me lose my own memory like that. I guess that means that if I choose that timeline, I'll lose some of my memories permanently, or at least for the time being.
It would see that way, agreed the jellyfish.
Kahli hoped this final scenario would be better as she looked down again towards her big left foot. She didn't want to sacrifice so much of her own agency if she could get away with it. So, what was the third option? Was she doomed to have her memorry taken away by an agent of F.I.S.T.? And what was F.I.S.T. really up to, anyway?