Chapter 16

“What happened to Robert?” Akemi asked.

“You have bigger problems!” Derrick shouted.

For a short time, the Feather Armor wielder’s attention was on the vacancy of where Robert once stood. The blue-skinned, red haired changeling named Jennifer stood alone as she smiled sickeningly. Akemi was lost for lack of an explanation as to how he could just pop out of existence.

But she heeded Derrick’s advice once Omar raced at him. He attempted to slash at her but Akemi instinctively backed away from the advancing changeling. She then flew into the air, the once human creature glaring up at Akemi. Her wings carried her backward as she gained a better view of Omar’s transformed state. He was more bestial in nature than the women changelings.

His body was covered in something akin to hair but it was so matted and thick it looked like black moss. Every portion of his from the neck down was armored in it, making him look like he crafted a skinsuit out of a dark blanket. Omar’s face had tapered a bit so that his head was almost wolf-shaped. This was complete with sharp, silver fangs that he bared as he growled at Akemi.

His hands and feet were an odd combination of human hands and canine paws, the digits stretched to be longer than a grown man’s but with animal nails and covered with a bit of fur. Omar’s thin tail was as long as his body but covered in what looked like silvery metal. At the end of the tail was an orange crystal that was similar to the others covering his body.

An orange crystal grew from his forehead, both sides of his hands and the tops of his feet. To Akemi’s curiosity, this was a feature the other changelings shared. However, she did not look too closely as she flew into the air to avoid Omar’s grasp. He then pointed the crystal on the end of his tail at her before it glowed a bright orange.

A laser of brilliant, sunset colored light shot upward before Akemi avoided the beam of light by flying to the side. He then fired more beams of light at her, only for Akemi to weave through the air in avoidance. She saw the blasts burn holes in the ceiling once they missed. However, she soon found a problem.

The scaffolding and ceiling of the warehouse was getting in the way of her being able to dodge the orange beams. She could not fly higher to evade the lasers by sheer distance but also couldn’t move too far sideways. With each maneuver it was getting more and more difficult to totally avoid them. Derrick took notice of this.

“You will need to attack in order to defend yourself,” he said within her Soul Chamber. “If you keep moving like this in such an enclosed space…you will eventually get hurt.”

“You always want to be the first to fight,” Akemi said.

Akemi stood on the blood red floor of her Soul Chamber as Derrick’s pitch black face laid in the middle of it. Every time she stood within the dimension of the room, she could feel his regret of being a soldier. The dark red floor represented the immense amount of blood he shed as a soldier of Fulir. His tar black face represented Derrick seeing his own soul as corrupted and darkened by his history as Fulir’s assailant.

But despite Derrick’s hatred of killing, he hated Fulir more. His past was so stained with blood he saw that there was no reason to avoid it any longer. His conscience was stained with so much violence it mattered little to him how many Fulir operatives he killed now.

It was a sick paradox that disgusted Akemi whenever she spoke to Derrick. Not because she hated him but because the former wielder’s disgust with himself permeated the entire chamber. She could not help but share Derrick’s vile hatred of himself.

“You will have to confront him head on, eventually,” he said.

“I will not fight Omar!” Akemi shouted. “He was the only man who ever loved me!”

“That man is gone,” Derrick said. “You know that changelings are no longer their former selves once manipulated by Yeltael. When a person’s memory is gone…so are they.”

A sudden fear jolted through Akemi that he was right. That there was no returning Omar to his former state. A spark of hope welled up when Akemi saw him in the warehouse. How could she let this opportunity go to waste?

Is he better off dead? Akemi wondered.

Her thoughts distracted her as she didn’t notice the last blast that Omar shot at her. She tried to avoid it too late, flying to the right only for the orange beam to sear right through her left wing. Akemi screamed in pain before plummeting to the floor, the hard metal of the warehouse only exacerbating her agony.

She looked up to see Omar’s hand crystals glowing this time. He pointed them at her as their light reflected an orange sheen on the floor. Akemi hopped to her feet and flung her right wing forward once she stood up.

Omar screamed as three sharp feathers pierced his chest. He staggered backwards as attempted to rip the projectiles from his body but Akemi had gotten to her feet again. She flew toward Omar with a flap of all four wings before plucking a feather from her left wing.

Once it was in her hand, Akemi willed the feather to grow four feet long and stiffen before slicing into Omar. The changeling roared in pain as the edge of the feather made a deep slit in the black material covering his body. Yellow blood spilled from in a perfectly cut line that traveled from his left hip to right shoulder.

However, as he glared at her, Akemi felt guilty. Despite his bestial appearance, those were Omar’s black eyes. There was no mistaking them, even if disguised within the veneer of some alien creature. Akemi dropped her elongated feather rushing in guilt, unable to grasp what she had just done.

“I just hurt the man…” she said. “I love.”

“He is not that man any longer!” Derrick said. “Akemi…I’m sorry but he’s gone! You must realize this or you will die!”

Akemi only stared at the wounded creature, sharing his pain. Every grunt of agony Omar spat out gave the woman her own pang of guilt and discomfort. His eyes were looking oddly human and familiar to her, the rest of his appearance standing in direct contrast to that. Unable to control herself, Akemi rushed toward Omar as he groaned as more yellow blood leaked from him.

“No!” Derrick shouted. “What are you doing?! He will kill you! It’s just a ploy!”

Akemi kneeled down beside Derrick and wrapped her left arm around him before looking him in the eye. She held his face up to her with her right hand as Omar groaned in pain. Yellow blood spilled onto feathers the two of them were so close.

“Omar!” Akemi said. “Are you alright?! Please-Please be alright!”

Once she raised his face to her he sneered at her.

“I see you retaliated when faced with potentially deadly force,” Omar said. “That was the first thing us psychic changelings were supposed to see…if you would attack your loved ones or rather get killed before ending our lives.”

“Come on, Omar!” she said. “Please! Please…I can help get you out of here!”

“No!” Derrick said. “No!”

“It’s too late for that,” Omar said. “I serve Fulir now. And now…I must continue my mission.”

“What mission?” Akemi asked.

“The experiment,” he answered.

Every orange crystal growing from his body glowed at that moment. Akemi’s world disappeared in a burst of sunset colored light before fading. Once it faded, she found herself in a very familiar place.

She now stood on a sidewalk with several brick buildings in sight. Most of them appeared to have at least two floors as most of the windows were very high above her. Akemi was surrounded by a green lawn with people who looked to be in their mid-twenties lying on blankets on the grass. Many of them had textbooks open in front of them.

When she overlooked the scenery she found mostly young adults walking on the sidewalks. They passed around Akemi as if they could not see her. One young blond woman lost her balance and fell to her left, right into Akemi.

She attempted to avoid the woman, only to find the blond woman’s body fell through. Her head and shoulders phased through Akemi as if the Armor Wielder was nothing more than a hologram. After tripping into the grass, the blond girl picked herself and began walking back to where she was going.

She gasped in realization, unable to believe the truth at first.

“I’m back at my old college,” Akemi said. “While studying abroad.”

She turned back to Omar, who was panting in pain as yellow blood continued to ooze from his body. He stood in spite of the pain and met her eyes. Despite being a changeling, Akemi never could mistake those eyes for anyone else.

“Why…?” she said. “No…how? How is this possible?!”

His gaze was narrowed almost to a leer as he straightened his back, despite the pain.

“Answer me!” she shouted.

“That is what psychic changelings are capable of,” Omar said. “When we share a memory with someone…we can travel back into time to any moment that happened in. So long as it truly happened and was not an illusion or false memory.”

“So then where are we?” Akemi asked. “Are we even in Orange Grove anymore?”

“We are,” Omar said. “Sort of. This takes place both within our memories and within real time. Our bodies are physically within the changeling conversion factory at Orange Grove while our consciousness has been transported to another part of time entirely. No matter how much time we spend in this timeline it would be as if no time has passed to those outside. Until we leave this place at least.”

“That’s crazy!” Akemi shouted. “You expect me to believe that?!”

“No,” Derrick said. “It is not.”

Within her Soul Chamber, she could feel fear rising from the former wielder.

“Fulir has been experimenting with strange and paranormal subjects for a while now,” he explained. “One of which is psychic powers. They do this by tampering with the consciousness of living, sentient organisms. The consciousness is the closest thing Fulir researchers have come to confirming non-material, namely supernatural truths about the universe.”

“What he says is the truth,” Omar stated.

Akemi turned to Omar with another gasp. Derrick’s normally stoic expression also contorted in surprise. The changeling standing in front of them sighed in pain, as if explaining was only inducing more agony.

“Psychic changelings were only experimental or highly volatile in nature up until now,” Omar said. “We are the early batches of the completed changelings.”

“And you can apparently eavesdrop on what goes on inside us,” Derrick said. “I see telepathy was finally refined as one of your abilities. The psychic prototypes didn’t have near that power.”

“Reading minds and perceiving the speech of the dead wielders within an Access Armor user exists better in some than in others,” Omar admitted. “But that is not the true purpose of our existence.”

“And what is?” Akemi asked. “To trap us in this…this nightmare forever?”

“It is to discover the full range of the abilities that someone who can manipulate a consciousness can access,” Omar answered. “In all honesty, what we do is similar to what the Access Armor does when it traps the consciousness of its former host upon them dying. It creates an alternate dimension for them to exist so that they still remain within the Armor.”

He then gestured to their surroundings.

“This,” Omar said. “Is a dimension where space and time are bent to the will of our memories. A place that brings us back to a time I wish to go to by linking my memories with that of someone I share them with. And now we exist in this dimension until I leave or…it is significantly altered.”

“Altered?” Akemi asked.

“I did say this was time travel, didn’t I?” Omar said. “If you so choose to…this place can be altered…thus altering the future. This entire experiment was conducted to see if Fulir could travel back in time to alter future events as well as see if the soul was truly a supernatural component or merely a product of material phenomena.”

“And how would time travel have anything to do with proof of a soul?” Akemi asked.

“Because the theory of a soul is how we were able to arrive here anyway,” Omar said. “The Fulir researchers who created me believe they tapped into a component of the sentient creature that can only be called supernatural because of the strange powers we possess. The soul…it seems to defy physical and logistical constraints. It can’t be explained, put in a box or captured. In fact…”

He pointed to something across from them. Akemi turned to look, forcing herself to gaze past all the other people around her, to find what Omar was speaking of. She couldn’t see it at first.

“The soul does not seem bound by time,” Omar said. “Souls do not age and seem to permanently connect points of time and space through memories. Being able to jump backwards in time through a connection of the memories is evidence for the soul…”

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Akemi finally saw what Omar wanted her to, the girl stunned and shaking with anticipation at the sight.

“But Fulir wants more evidence than just that,” he said. “After all, much of the scientific community rejects the idea of a soul as needless superstition.”

Akemi watched as a younger version of herself was wrapped in the arms of an equally aged Omar. Akemi was leaning against the brick wall of the science building, the two somewhat obscured by the shadow. He held her chin up to his face and he looked as if he was going to kiss her. However, guilt welled up inside her as well.

“This…” she said as tears watered her eyes. “This is…one of my happiest memories. I thought you were going to ask me to marry you.”

“Yes,” he said. “Before my mind and body were further altered by Fulir, it was one of mine as well.”

She was overwhelmed with pleasant emotions as their romance was a wild one. Akemi had only ever read about something like this in lurid novels or trashy magazines. From the moment they met, they had not been able to keep their hands off each other.

Akemi wanted their whirlwind romance to last forever. It was so wonderful and adventurous in comparison to her background. Her parents had expectations for her to get into the best of colleges and become a banker. Akemi’s childhood was mostly spent by herself, isolated from the rest of the world as they tried to make her a respectable member of society.

She was not allowed to date or befriend anyone of a lower social class. It would distract Akemi from her grades and her parents feared the bad behavior of the poor would rub off on her. Now, she was able to live out her wild fantasies she’d never been able to in high school with Omar.

“This memory…” Akemi said. “To me…it tastes as sweet as honey.”

She turned back to the changeling behind her.

“You said we could alter the future here,” she said. “How…How?”

“By choosing to interact with this dimension’s checkpoint,” he said. “You see, we are anchored here by the emotional weight that is when we passionately embrace. That feeling within your being is the linchpin that allows us both to exist in this dimension. According to Fulir scientists, that is due to the soul being an immaterial entity not bound by space or time if the emotions to a certain point in history are strong enough. If you wish to change the future…you must interact with that linchpin.”

“O-Okay,” Akemi said. “How? Should–Should I just say something to…to him?”

“As long as you purposefully interact with them,” the changeling answered. “You can’t do it by accident. Your will has to be focused.”

She immediately took off her armor. The feathers sprouting from her body shrank until they were the size of a child’s thumb before disappearing underneath her pale skin. Her wings retracted back into her body as did her talons and beak. Distrust permeated Akemi’s Soul Chamber as Derrick watched her.

“No!” he said. “You can’t trust him! You don’t know what he’s planning!”

“I have to try!” Akemi said. “I’ll never forget Omar or what he meant to me! Between my awful parents and disappearing into the underground, he was probably the only good part of my life!”

“But you can’t trust Omar as a changeling!” he shouted. “This could just be some trick! Some elaborate illusion!”

“But what if it’s not?!” Akemi asked. “What then?!”

“Then what will you do?!” Derrick said. “What could your past version or his past version do to aid you?!”

“To never let me find this Armor in the first place,” she answered.

But Akemi kept running despite his warnings against it. After racing through every college student in her way, she finally reached the two of them. Omar was no longer holding Akemi’s chin. Their younger versions were skipping class as they locked lips in the shade of the science building.

Omar was sifting his hand through the younger Akemi’s dark hair before she tapped him on the shoulder. To her surprise, when she did, her finger flickered as if made of light. It reminded her of a malfunctioning hologram.

He turned to her in surprise, his eyes going wide. Omar then turned back to the woman he was just kissing before turning back to Akemi. He still looked as though he couldn’t believe it.

“Wh-What?” he said. “What am I seeing?”

“It’s me!” Akemi said. “It’s…it’s a future me.”

“What-?” he asked.

He then turned back to the woman in his arms.

“Omar?” her past self asked. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” he said. “I-I just…just thought I heard a voice that…that sounded like you and…looked like you…”

He then turned back to Akemi.

“It’s gone now…” Omar said.

He then turned his head.

“Wait,” he said. “No it’s not. I-I think I still see you…”

“Omar!” the future Akemi shouted.

He jumped in surprise. Omar looked very frazzled now. He was shaking now.

“What?!” he asked.

“What?” the woman he held asked.

“I want to tell you two to never go down Broadview!” Akemi shouted.

“Never-” Omar said. “Never–Never-!”

“Omar,” the past Akemi asked. “What’s wrong? Who–are you talking to someone else?”

“I-I-” he said. “I don’t know. Someone…someone said something about Broadview.”

“Yes!” Akemi shouted. “Don’t go down to Broadview! You and I will find some device…it’ll be pink and weird looking, almost like it’s alive! And…and you’ll ask me to pick it up because it’s buried underneath some trash!”

Omar looked at her with a squinting gaze, as if he was trying to gain visual of something that wasn’t quite there. It then occurred to Akemi that he was losing sight of her. She was like a mirage that was slowly fading from view. Akemi felt as if she was going to start crying.

“Please!” she shouted. “You have to believe me! Never let me pick up that thing! Just…just let me leave it alone and don’t let me even touch it!”

Omar then turned back to the past Akemi, the young man shaking his head.

“I-I-” he said. “I guess the heat’s messing with me.”

“Oooommmaaaarrr!” she shouted. “Omar!”

“Let’s go inside,” Akemi said. “I’d rather be somewhere more…private than out here.”

She watched as Omar and her former self turned and walked back to their door, arm in arm. Akemi could feel her breath shutting off at the sight. Air couldn’t properly fill her lungs and her throat began to burn. Tears welled up so that she couldn’t properly see.

“O-Omar…” she said.

She grabbed her chest as her heart began to ache. She leaned to the right in pain, feeling like a stroke was rocking her body. In all her years of fighting, Akemi had never been in so much pain before.

“What…?” she said. “Happened?”

“The researchers of Fulir predicted this to be a possibility.”

She turned around to find Omar the changeling walking up to her. Just like with her, he phased through people as though they were mere mirages. He glared at her.

“What…?” Akemi said. “How…? No! No! No!”

She attempted to straighten herself up and glare at him.

“Y-You-!” she said. “This isn’t possible! You said I could ch-change the fu-future by inter...interacting with the linchpin of–of these memories!”

She then gestured to the Omar and Akemi walking away from them.

“And are they not the linchpin?!” she demanded.

“They are,” the changeling answered. “But there are two possibilities. Either souls do not exist or…you were not attached to them enough–namely my past self–to change the future.”

Akemi’s eyes widened in surprise.

“The Fulir researchers did not expect you to interact with the past Omar and change the future,” Omar said. “They predicted your failure.”

“How?!” Akemi said.

“In order for the future to be changed,” the changeling said. “Your soul must be very deeply connected with another person. It must be irreparably intermingled with another sentient being. The linchpin to travel back in time isn’t just the soul to be alive…but for it to bond with another soul. In other words…love must be shared between them.”

“What?” she asked. “B-But I loved you! There was a deep connection!”

“No there wasn’t,” Omar said. “Sexual desire and sensual pleasure are not the same as true love. The difference between that and love is the difference between the body and soul. Precisely what the researchers would set this experiment up wanted to investigate.”

“No!” Akemi shouted. “You-You allowed me to escape from my horrible life! Even if we couldn’t have sex then I would still want to be with you!”

“Of course you would,” Omar said. “Because my family was immensely wealthy.”

“What?” Akemi asked.

“All the conversations we had you were very interested in the amount of money my family had,” he said. “You always talked about how you were afraid of not making enough money for your family to be proud of you and…my parents are millionaires.”

Akemi felt as though she had pierced her with a blade. She did remember how many of their conversations went. She constantly asked how much money Omar’s parents were willing to spend on him. Akemi pressured Omar into asking his family to give him more in his monthly allowance. It might have seemed shallow and predatory by some but to Akemi it just completed the fairytale facade of her life.

Between the handsome boy she was always spending time with and the possibility of living the rest of her life in luxury was beyond her wildest dreams. Akemi’s parents made her believe her life would be a hard, dreary reality of pushing for the highest income possible. With Omar, she could gain that without any effort once-so-ever.

“I did want that,” Akemi said, tears rolling down her face. “I was never in love with you…I just wanted your love and…and this whirlwind romance to exist forever.”

Her shoulders relaxed and her whole body went limp as she felt despicable.

“I…” she said. “I am a truly terrible person. I’m garbage. But why? Why did you need to go this far?”

She then turned back to the changeling.

“If you or your researchers or whoever guessed this would happen…” Akemi said. “Why enact this experiment?”

“Because they were not sure,” Omar said. “Science without evidence is no science at all. It is merely speculation. And we needed a compare and contrast of different test subjects for this experiment, your’s of which just so happened to be the expected failure.”

“What?” Akemi asked. “What do you mean?”

“Fulir researchers follow a process similar to the scientific method you humans have,” Omar said. “We create a series of events that each subject is put within and see how each different subject is affected by the same course of happenings. Some of you were expected to successfully change the future but you were not.”

“So-?” she said. “You knew that my love for you…you…was fake from the start?!”

The changeling nodded, causing Akemi to cry more.

“I told you that you were being manipulated,” Derrick said.

The woman felt was crushing her. She felt as if a giant weight was stomping her into the ground until she was five feet under. Akemi was dying from the shock. She could feel it.

I was this selfish all along. She thought. How…How could I have just been using Omar this way? He was so kind to me and…and in the end I was nothing more than a…a cheap whore. How-How could I…I be like this?

Unable to stand, she fell to the ground as her legs gave out. She stumbled to the ground as her weeping increased. Akemi became secretly relieved that she was invisible to everyone around her. She never wanted anyone to see her cry this badly. Her screams must have been deafening as it was the only thing Akemi could hear.

“Come on!” Derrick said. “You have to get up! Come on! Fight and escape!”

She merely laid on her side against the grass, nearly curling up into a ball. Her tears wetted the blades of grass closest to her face. She tried breathing but that was out of the question. Her throat was on fire and trying to gasp for air was the equivalent of swallowing flames.

“Come on!” he said. “You have to get out of here! Force Omar to take you out of here by killing him!”

Akemi continued lying on the ground, pain ricocheting through her body.

“Akemi!” Derrick shouted.

“Derrick…” she said within her Soul Chamber. “My life is terrible. It always has been. Even before living underground with the others…my parents. They hated me unless I made them look good. They-They never loved me unless I’d guarantee them honor and money. To think I treated Omar that way…just using him for pleasure and money…I’m a disgusting person…a disgusting person for that.”

She snorted in pain, snot spraying on the grass in front of her.

“I hate myself,” she said. “I’m rotten to the core.”

“No,” Derrick said. “You were just a young woman confused and infatuated. There are plenty of people-”

“They kept me imprisoned in a fortress of homework and obedience schooling,” Akemi said. “My family…my family treated me like I treated Omar. Except I was more devious about it while they were at least open about it. I-I couldn’t do anything while I lived under my parents’ clutches. I had no friends. Just endless work. And then Omar appeared in my life once they sent me off to college…and then…and then…”

More snot spat out her nostrils as tears rolled down her face.

“And then we found that stupid Armor and it latched onto me!” Akemi said. “I had to leave Omar behind to flee into the bowels of Seren and I’ve never been happy since!”

“A-Akemi-” Derrick said.

“Shut up!” she screamed within her Soul Chamber. “Shut up!”

“Hmm,” Omar said. “I see this is a bit of an unexpected result.”

“He…” Akemi said within her Soul Chamber. “Was the only sliver of my life that was pleasant and meaningful. Otherwise I was just living under the oppressive clutch of some giant. My life under my family’s rules was as restrictive as the life in the Remnant Village.”

She finally went silent, only occasionally whimpering.

“I…” Akemi said. “I feel this is the cruelest thing you could do to someone. To give them a terrible with just a sliver of hope…then darken their world further and offer that sliver of hope again. Only…only to eradicate any good memories associated with that little bit of light.”

Akemi then began thinking of a way to gain relief before stumbling upon one.

“I know what I must do now,” she said within her Soul Chamber.

She slowly stood up, activating her Access Armor. However, she was still in such great sorrow that even that felt laborious. Usually armor materialized in less than a second. This time, Akemi the feathers were taking several seconds to grow to full length. She kept her emotions and motivation hidden from Derrick, the former wielder’s confusion permeating her Soul Chamber.

“Akemi,” Derrick said. “You’re hiding something from me. What-What are you-?”

She mentally blocked off his will so that he could no longer speak. A few feathers on Akemi’s arm finally grew to their normal length. She plucked one from her right arm and held it to her face.

“I see you’re still attempting to fight me,” Omar said. “Well…the researchers did guess that this would be a possibility-”

“No,” Akemi said. “I don’t care anymore.”

The feather in her hand elongated and stiffened before she turned it on herself.

“Akemi wait-!” Derrick shouted.

But it was too late. Akemi stabbed herself with the sharp feather. Omar screamed in panic before rushing toward her as Akemi ran the object through her heart. After driving the feather sword all the way through her chest it came out the other end.

“Akemi!” Omar shouted in surprise.

“No!” Derrick shouted in her Soul Chamber.

Akemi fell to the grass as blood gushed from her wound. In her last moments of lucidity she found her wound was painting the grass red before the scenery changed. It then began painting the gray floor of the warehouse red. Omar kneeled down, trying to pick her up, only to feel her body go limp. Akemi smiled at the sight.

“I’m free now,” she said. “I’m…free.”

“No!” Derrick shouted. “No! This…this isn’t right! Akemi…!”

The scenery around her resembled the warehouse before everything went cold and dark. Akemi was relieved to no longer have to go back to the Remnant Village. Or back to her parent’s. And at least her last sight was Omar.

“What a terrible life,” were her final words. “At least I met you…Omar…”