Nobody dies.

Kayden had that clear. But that didn’t mean he wouldn’t fight. He would fight to save everyone. He knew that for that he’d have to make sacrifices. But he wouldn’t kill. Neither would he leave someone to die.

Nobody dies.

Kayden’s first move was to head over to the wounded guard, and pursing his lips, regressed time on him by a full ten seconds. He appeared standing back on his feet, slashing the air with his sword as if Kayden was still standing there. Kayden slammed the flat side of his own sword onto the guard’s head, dropping him unconscious to the ground.

As soon as his breath stabilized, he headed towards the stunned Magnetbender guard, taking off his armor, leaving him with just his basic clothing. Kayden clothed himself with it, disguising himself as a guard. He then retrieved a set of keys from the fallen belt, removing his shackles and putting them on the guard he had just taken the armor off of. Others wouldn’t take long to find out the deception, but it should buy him some time.

As if on cue, a group of five guards stormed into the cavern-cell, their weapons at the ready.

“Thank goodness you arrived!” Kayden exclaimed, feigning fear, thinking fast, hoping for the best. He closed his right eye for the guards to not see the difference in color with his left one. “The prisoner freed himself, but my fellow guard and I stopped him, leaving him stunned on the ground.”

The other guards quickly rushed to the prisoner-look-alike guard, pulling him to his feet. As they did, Kayden used the distraction to casually walk away. As soon as he was out of his cell, he rushed away, into the rock corridors lighted by torches, their fire dancing with sharp and violent moves.

But he wasn’t out yet. And he wouldn’t get far with this stock longsword. He had to get a greatsword. As he was pretty sure he would have to fight some more before this was all over.

Fight…

He still felt sick from seeing the gurgling blood earlier. But why? He’d doubted he was that way before. After all, skill-wise, he was still an outstanding fighter. No time to reflect on his actions, though. Maybe later. He didn’t like how torch fire moved in this place.

He approached an innocent-looking guard.

“I’m new here. The armory?” he asked, trying to keep his heartbeat and breathing stable, still closing his blue right eye.

The guard, seemingly not knowing yet what was going on, pointed a thumb up a corridor, giving him directions.

Kayden headed that way, trying to look nonchalant, and soon, got to an open door. Hesitant, he peeked inside. It was a big room carved directly into the rock, with dozens of weapons hanging from the walls. There was of everything there: swords, axes, maces, bows, trees, bread, sticks.

He quickly headed towards the biggest sword in the room –a black steel greatsword, with a thick and broad blade almost as tall as Kayden himself. Kayden picked it up, feeling its weight. His weak muscles suffered as he swung the massive greatsword around with a two-handed grip, but he felt at ease knowing he now had something better to defend himself with. Of course, it wasn’t as strong or as sharp as Bakor’s sword, but it would have to do. Who was Bakor anyway? He didn’t remember. He really hoped he didn’t get the chance to use the sword, though. He didn’t want to get dizzy from seeing blood again.

“Hey!” a voice called out to him out of the blue. “What do you think you’re doing?”

Kayden frowned. He looked around for the source of the voice. He finally noticed it was the greatsword he’d just picked up, complaining as everything else in this place, vibrating slightly with each word.

“...What?” Kayden asked the sword. “I’m wielding you. That’s what people do with swords.”

“I’m no normal sword!” the sword complained. “I’m a Capital Sword, unique in the world. I’m the Mimicker!”

“I don’t really have time to–” Kayden pressed.

“I don’t care! State your quest. I’ll deem if it’s worthy or not.”

“Uhhh, for now I’m just trying to get out of the prison,” Kayden replied, getting nervous. He didn’t have time to debate with swords.

The Capital Sword that called itself the Mimicker paused. “Out? To the outside world?”

“Yeah.”

“All right then, what are we waiting for?” the Mimicker exclaimed. “Let’s go!”

Kayden frowned. Weird folk around here. Nevertheless, he sprinted out of the armory with the Mimicker on his back, many of the other weapons calling out for him to take them as well. He dashed aimlessly through the pulsing rock hallways, his new sword held tight behind him, still wearing his stolen guard armor. The rock walls were beating rhythmically now, as if following the unheard music of invisible war drums.

He passed tens of confused guards as he ran through the maze of corridors and passages, and after several minutes of confusion, getting lost, and hearing distant shouts behind him, he arrived at a gate leaking sunlight from some fissures.

But nothing seemed to be easy in this place. There were easily ten guards posted in front of it, five of them wielding shortswords and the other five holding five strange wooden and metallic tube-like artifacts he had never seen before, with one end to their eyes and the other end pointing at Kayden. All of them were wearing leather armor as well –it was common practice for anyone about to fight an unknown Lawbender.

“Stop right there, guard!” one of the strange artifact wielders shouted as soon as Kayden came into sight. “Go back to searching for the prisoner. We’ll handle this spot.”

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Kayden without missing a beat sprang towards the middle of the group, gripping the Mimicker far to the right, his weak muscles aching but holding up. He slashed in a long horizontal arc with his greatsword all around him, about to cut through three guards. He winced as he did, expecting blood to shoot out, but instead, the sword that was the Mimicker just… changed. It shifted into a sort of massive mace, slamming into the guards and throwing them towards the nearest wall. Two of them fell backwards, but the third held his feet, his armor having absorbed most of the blow. The Mimicker reverted back to sword form as soon as he finished his slash, and Kayden set back to his base stance, letting out a breath.

Kayden didn’t know whether these guards were Lawbenders or not, but there was one massive advantage to fighting with a greatsword –as his current greatsword was about a meter and a half long, it mostly kept his enemies out of range, besides the surprising fact of whatever the Mimicker had just done. That meant they couldn’t use their Lawbending unless they were extremely powerful.

The other two guards approached him, but he slashed at one of them with his sword. The guard immediately jumped backwards as expected, dodging the blow, as the other thrust his own sword at Kayden. Kayden reached out with his Timebending, regressing time on the incoming sword, which appeared behind the guard instead of remaining in his hand.

Kayden then kicked at the guard, swiping his feet from below him, and as the guard fell to the ground, Kayden thrust the sword down upon the guard’s own weapon. The Mimicker transformed into a strange pair of oversized scissors that sheared through the guard’s sword, snapping it in half.

Nevertheless, Kayden knew he couldn’t fight every guard one by one. He could already hear more shouts approaching, and the beating of the rock was getting more intense. Therefore, he started to spin around, swinging his Mimicker –back in greatsword form– in circles, keeping the remaining sword-wielding guards at bay. They all stumbled backward, and Kayden stopped for a moment to recover his breath. But as he did, he heard it. Two tiny explosions from the artifact-wielding guards.

The next thing he knew, he was on the ground, bleeding as two small metal balls bit into his flesh, gasping and out of air. He felt as if two daggers had stabbed deep into his flesh, but at a speed no swordsman or knife fighter should be able to accomplish. Were there Speedbenders in the group? No, he would’ve at least seen something. He then realized. The long artifacts the guards were carrying. But it was too late.

Gotta regress time, he thought. But he just couldn’t manage himself to stabilize his breath. The more time passed, the harder it’d be to regress time to heal his unknown wound. The metal seemed to burn the flesh around the wound, poisoning it with whatever monstrous machination it had.

A second passed. Horrible numbness in his pierced stomach. Two seconds. A rising dizzying sensation like when one’s about to vomit. Three seconds. Intense burning throughout his whole stomach. Four seconds… Blackened edges of his vision. Five seconds… His whole body dropping to the ground.

His life flashed before his eyes as he bled out.

Millions of scenes in quick succession, all blurred and mixed together. But two elements rose clearly above all others. A smiling girl. Lauren. Kayden and her as small kids, playing around, laughing, theorizing, wondering. Sitting at the edge of the world. Imagining they were adventurers. Imagining they were heroes. On the other hand, the Skylands. The floating islands Kayden had sworn to protect. His quest.

Both of his reasons for living as a final reminder and testament to his existence.

Lauren!

Kayden’s eyes snapped open. He couldn’t die yet. He wouldn’t die yet!

He took a deep breath, and regressed time on himself.

Instantly, he appeared standing on the ground, his wounds vanished, his memory from those painful few seconds gone. He was now surrounded by guards, easily thirty of them now in the hallway.

Immediately, he rushed forward. Not towards any guard, but towards the lever supporting the gate. He was still too far, and so pointed his sword at the lever amidst the mass of guards.

“Mimicker, do your thing!” Kayden shouted.

As he did, the Mimicker’s blade seemed to peel open like a fruit, revealing layers upon layers of white teeth below it with a long and thick red tongue at its core. The Mimicker itself roared, its tongue shooting forward, grabbing the lever, and pulling it down. The gate started to rise centimeter by centimeter.

All guards went into action, moving to intercept Kayden’s way. His sharp evasive movements made the Mimicker lose balance, and it pulled back into sword form, snapping the lever with its retreat. The gate, which had risen halfway through, started to fall abruptly.

Before it did, Kayden slid underneath it, getting to the other side mere seconds before it crashed back down into the ground, leaving the several dozens of guards trapped inside. The dungeon itself screamed guturally and shook in frustration as the guards shouted and cursed the Timeless’ name.

And then, just like that, he was out.

He gasped, seeing the outside world once more. How long since he had last seen this sky, these dancing mountains, and the burning sand? Fresh air filled his lungs, and the distant singing of charmbirds reached his ears.

Kayden ran away from the mountainside the gate was in, rushing freely through the wilderness, the Mimicker on his back and a broad smile on his face. He left the massive prison building and shouting guards behind, progressing time on himself to transport himself forward time after time.

Kayden was free. But, where? And, when?

The landscape he was in was completely unfamiliar to him, a long but thin valley with mountain ranges on both sides, almost fully devoid of grass.

But then, he saw it, and froze.

“What happened?” the Mimicker asked from the sheath behind his back, confused.

“It can’t be…” Kayden muttered. Tears welled up in his eyes.

His eyes felt sore from so long spent without crying. As sore as his heart.

The enormous shadow cast over the continent couldn’t be anything else. A shiver ran down Kayden’s back as he saw the massive landmasses levitating in the horizon, high in the sky. The floating islands he had so much strived to protect.

His home.

Skylands. And they were visible.

Kayden didn’t remember the last time he’d seen the Skylands. The whole point was for them to be too high above the clouds for the human eye to see. Not anymore.

That meant they were going down.

“We fought so hard,” Kayden whispered in a flickering moment of remembrance.

He could see the Skylands’ roots. He could see the roots. They were pulling downwards, desperate to join Mother Earth once again.

The human world wouldn’t survive something like that. The chaos and war that would ensure would be too much for any civilization to handle. Kayden couldn’t allow the world to become a battlefield once more.

We need the Skyguard, he thought. But then, he remembered. The Skyguard had indeed risen.

It had failed. It was too late for that now.

Kayden fell to his knees as he winced.

Did I really come back to this?

Someone had to stop the Skylands from falling. Kayden knew it. But it wouldn’t be him. It was over. True, he had come back, somehow. But it was too late.