Just because Victor had to rest didn’t mean he was going to sit by idly the whole day. Instead, he was helping Amadeus improve his Seed’s power.

“Why don’t you try controlling it after you’ve fired it?” Victor asked.

Amadeus let loose another bolt, cracking and breaking apart one of the soda bottles they’d lined up on some boxes.

“It’s too fast!” Amadeus replied. His aim was good, but predictable.

“Slow it down then,” Victor said back. He chewed on a nutri-grain bar.

While Amadeus lined up his next shot, Lillie fired off one of her own. It hit the back wall of the building instead of any of the actual targets.

“Am’s right, this is harder than it looks,” she said with a grimace. A bottle of water sat beside her, and she took a swig of it.

“That’s because you’re still thinking of it like real lightning. It’s more than that. You can control it if you try,” Victor lectured.

It was the same lesson Amadeus had told him in his previous life. He was just paying it forward. The next few shots were mildly slower as the two of them got a better hang of their abilities. Victor mostly practiced with his Bladebody Edge, popping swords in and out as quick as he could.

Jared was the only other combatant there, and he was struggling against Victor despite his arguably better Seed. Victor took a few jabs, popping blades when needed and receding them afterwards. He avoided shooting them out because he didn’t want to hurt Jared. Instead, they kept to the lighter stuff.

Jared was getting better though, and faster to boot. If he’d have to bet, he was already superhuman by actual swordsman standards. The armour helped in that regard, boosting his stats even more.

A downward slash was parried. Then Victor twisted Jared’s arm, forcing him to drop the blade. He kicked it up with his feet into his hands. A moment later, it disappeared.

“Hmm,” Victor noted as it came back to Jared’s hands. “At least you can’t be disarmed,”

“I’m tired…” Jared said, panting.

“Take five and we’ll come back to this,” Victor told the boy.

“Sweet!” Amadeus replied from across the room. He took a break around the same time, almost skipping his way across the room and towards the rations. Seeing how many they were eating up made Victor cringe a little.

Alex said they can’t take care of everyone. They’re going to need to find a Seed if they want food to grow rapidly.

He’d given her his suggestions, but even those were hard to find. She’d dispatched a search team through one of the other Gates in search of them, and he hoped they’d return with better news. Even a single Seed related to crops or food could help an entire settlement to survive and start thriving.

He leaned against the wall near Amadeus.

“Even when you’re supposed to be resting you won’t take a seat,” Amadeus said.

“I am resting… If I wasn’t, I’d be training against you, not the kid,” Victor replied.

Lillie had chosen not to join them. Instead, she was firing off shots wildly into the targets. Her aim was off, but it was getting better ever so slowly.

“Do you think more Metamorphs will find us?” Amadeus asked.

“If they do, we’re prepared,” Victor said.

But that was only then. What if he had to loop back again. He’d lose all of his newfound abilities. The only thing he’d retain, his damnable Timewalker Seed, hadn’t even unlocked a useful ability beyond any statistical boosts.

“You’ve got that moody look about you, Vic. Tell me, what’s on your mind?” Amadeus asked him.

“Just… thinking about Seeds.”

“I’d be hard-pressed to find a time when you’re not thinking about them.”

Victor frowned. He wasn’t obsessed or anything.

“But it’s about one in particular, isn’t it?” Amadeus asked with a knowing smile.

“Maybe I should tell you and the rest about the Timewalker’s Origin,” Victor muttered quietly. Jared and Lillie couldn’t hear them amidst their training, so it gave them some privacy.

“That’s what it’s called? Cool name for something like that,” Amadeus replied. “So what? Does it let you see the future? Is that how you know where things are?”

“It lets me live the future, Am.”

“Oh…. That’s… much stronger. Any reason why you haven’t told the others about it, then?”

“It has a limit. Ten years before I can leap backwards in time. and if I die before that, that’s it,” Victor explained. “I thought if I showed it off too much, it’d paint a target on my back. People would hunt me down just to take it for themselves.”

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

Amadeus idly fingered a bottle of water.

“Ten years…. Is that how long you’ve known me and Lillie?” Amadeus asked.

“Just you. Lillie… didn’t make it out the last time,” Victor said.

“Wow, so you actually changed it. What about the others? Loki, Ashley?”

“Didn’t meet Loki that time and don’t know what happened to Ashley. I didn’t even know I had the Timewalker’s Origin the first time around.”

“Maybe you picked it up along the way?”

Victor shook his head. “If that were true, then I’d remember. No, I remember reaching my ten years, dying at the end of the world, then poof! Right back in my apartment, coke in hand as I’m watching news of the Road to Hell opening up.”

“Wait, back up- The world ends?” Amadeus asked in shock. A look of worry overcame him.

Victor didn’t meet his gaze for a long time. he just nodded silently.

“Then… I guess you’re our only hope, huh?” Amadeus said, looking up.

“What?”

“Vic, you’re the only one who knows how it happens. You can fix it.”

“How, Am? I don’t even know what that thing was that even killed us!”

“You’ll figure it out. Even if it takes you years,” Amadeus consoled.

“I don’t even know how to progress the damn Seed,” Victor grunted.

“You’ll figure that out too.”

“Real helpful, Am. ‘I’ll figure it out.’ And how long will that take me?” Victor asked.

Amadeus shrugged. “Don’t know. You’re the immortal, you tell me.”

Victor sagged his shoulders a little.

“Give it time, Vic, you’ve got a surplus. If not this round, then the next,” Amadeus patted him on the back.

“But you’ll forget by then…”

Amadeus shrugged. “I can’t control that. And besides, you’ll come back for me.”

Even if Amadeus hadn’t the answers, it felt… nice to let out what Victor had been feeling this whole time. He’d already learned so much more this time. Even found a type of monster that was friendly. But the main goal he had remained unchanged.

Find his family. If he could do it this time, he could do it every time. If he could save his family, he could surely save the world along with it. But the weight of those words was not something Victor Amadi understood at the time. He just thought he was blessed to have the powers he did.

****

“A Synergy is an ability that uses both of your Seeds,” Victor told the three of them. He popped another blade for demonstration. It came out almost instantly from his forearm when he used the Synergy.

Jared raised a hand as if he were in class.

“Yes, Jared?”

“Which Seeds is that between?” he asked.

“That’s an interesting one. You can have it between any two or more of the Seeds you possess. Me? This is between my Bladebody Edge and… my Ant-to-Man Tesseract,” he said sheepishly. He recalled the blade just as quick as it had popped out.

“Stuff like Amadeus’ red lightning also counts as a Synergy.”

Amadeus raised a hand like a schoolboy.

“You can just ask the question, Am,” Victor told him.

“This way’s more fun! Why don’t we just keep taking Seeds that give you the same powers?” Amadeus asked.

It was a simple enough thing. And a mistake that Victor had learned from himself.

“It could help you shoot out stronger lightning, but you narrow yourself down. If you get Seeds that are related and could give rise to Synergies, often, you reach the same level of power behind your hits and get a new toy to play around with,” Victor told him.

“So, if I took another Crystallized Lightning?”

“No new powers. Same as mixing two of the same colours or flavours together. Synergies only work when you’ve got two separate flavours that complement each other,” Victor explained.

He paused then to sigh a little. Being a teacher was the last thing he’d wanted to do, and yet here he was, droning on and on about magic like it was a university-level course.

“Now, the next thing I’m about to show you is not a Synergy. It’s just an application of things I already know,” Victor said.

He once again popped a blade from his forearm, then enlarged it till it twice the width and length. He popped the blade out and shot it towards a wall, embedding the blade within. In moments, it returned to its original size and fell out of the hole it had carved.

“I created a blade using my Bladebody Edge. Then I enlarged it with my Ant-to-Man Tesseract. When it’s inside my enemy’s body, I let the enlargement go, leaving a gaping and bleeding hole.”

Jared nodded at the demonstration. Afterwards they dispersed and Lillie and Amadeus practiced their Seeds in tandem. Victor was hoping for them to unlock some new Synergies that day. They could be a useful tool in a fight.

And although he tried, he failed to gain any new progress on his own Seeds. The Whisperer’s Tongue lay in his pack waiting to be used, but Victor didn’t dare to take it. Instead, he concluded their session for the day and returned back to the base.

When he did, he was greeted by Alex, along with a few other survivors behind her.

“We have to talk,” she told him, dragging him off to a side room. When she was out of reach of the others, she whispered to him in a concerned tone.

“We’re running out of food faster than we thought, Victor. I don’t think we’ll last the month,” Alex replied.

“What about those scouts you sent out?”

“It’s only been a day. Won’t be hearing from them for a while.”

Victor considered his options.

“Some of the Gates around the city lead into the Deltani Plains. Go there and scrounge up whatever berries and animals you can find,” he told her.

“Will those even be safe to eat?” she asked.

“Safe as any animal if you prepare it right. And just wait then. I’ll be only a week with my crew before we come back,” he told her.

“That’s not the only issue…”

As they talked about the patrols and untrained Wielders they had in the hideout, Amadeus looked on with Yvette by his side from across the room.

“Why don’t you go for her?” he asked her.

“Alex? Not my type,” the girl replied.

“Really? Your tastes seem to change by the day. Who is your type, then?” Amadeus said.

Yvette thought for a moment before giving her reply.

“Lillie, I guess.”

“Ough, tough luck. That avenue’s completely closed down,” Amadeus told her.

“What?”

“You ever see the way she and Victor look at each other?” Amadeus asked. Yvette groaned in defeat, then glared a hole right into Victor.

The Timewalker felt like someone was trying to melt him with their gaze, but he couldn’t ignore Alex right in front of him. He stowed the feeling away for the moment, hoping it’d pass with time.

By the time he was free of her grasp, he found himself tired once again. Lillie had prepared their belongings already, and Amadeus had brought along an electric car on the road.

He stood with his back to the little EV. The Tesla he brought looked beaten up and needed a wheel replaced, but otherwise was fine. Victor shoved his belongings into the back seat and tried to climb into the driver’s seat, but Amadeus raised a hand.

“I’m the one charging the thing, I’m the one driving,” he stated.

“You sure you won’t be tired after filling up the battery?” Victor asked.

“Psh, I can rain down thunder. A battery’s light work.”

They brought it into the vast garage of the survivors’ hideout. There, it took them the rest of the night to replace one of the wheels.

Victor retired to his room afterwards. He laid his head flat down against the pillow they’d given him, unable to close his eyes. The others had long gone to sleep by then, awaiting the drive and the perils they’d face along the way.

But not Victor. His heart raced with words he should say. How he should greet his parents. Would he lose all hesitance like Amadeus when he met his own family? Would he become… a liability?

A single barred window looked out into the night sky. Not a single star to be found there. He wondered how long ago had it been that they’d be visible every night.