Chapter 72: Blackest Night

Romaine's POV

Back at the lab, Dondre was there as I'd suspected, and Kyle seemed partially amused that now I was the one being carried around by speedsters.

"Good seeing you all again." he said

"Likewise." greeted the Prince

"Kyle what's this all about?" I questioned, "You just came yesterday and posed there being a traitor then left. What the hell man?"

"I don't seem to remember you being in charge of my life, Romaine." He rebutted, "And in any event, it isn't currently any of your business."

"What is it you want, Kyle?"

"Just to give a bit more information, after that I'll be leaving to visit an old home of mine."

"What more information do you have?" Cas questioned

"In around a month from now, there will be a large scale prison break."

"By who?"

"Cas, bring up a video feed of all the Taylor's Clients being transported to Brinestone."

Though the request was odd, Cas complied, bringing up the footage of five separate events.

In all cases, the vehicles transporting the criminals were suddenly halted, then right after the criminal being held inside would exit in some fashion.

"Wait, how's this possible?" I questioned

"The X-Gene dampeners don't apply to Type 2's." Kyle explained, "And after escaping, the six of them rendezvoused on the outskirts of the city, planning a big prison break to take place next year."

"Ok, but why tell us this now?"

"As we've seen with previous events, this team doesn't exactly react well to sudden disaster, which is why this time you know what's happening over a month in advance."

"Was that it?" Dondre questioned, "If so then I'd like to not be in the same room as the person who killed my mother any longer."

"Hold on, Dondre." Kyle stopped him, "You'll want to hear this."

"What is it."

"Not only do I know the identity of the traitor, but I've also uncovered the identity of Black Zero."

A majority of the room gasped, desperately waiting for him to say who it is. Though I noticed Dondre gritting his teeth.

"Well get on with it." He rushed, "Who the hell is he?"

"I won't be disclosing that here." Kyle said, "Solely because doing so would put all your lives at risk. But I promise, I'll let you all know before it's too late; the time just isn't right."

"It's never the right time for you Kyle, is it?" I mumbled

"I'm sorry Romaine, all of you, but I have to go now."

"Kyle wait," older me stopped him, "don't do this to me again, please. There has to be another way."

"You of all people should know, there is no other way." With those final words, Kyle stepped into the elevator, leaving once again

Once he did, Dondre seemed to have had enough of being in the same place as me, so he opted to leave as soon as the elevator came back down.

"I'm leaving." He scoffed

We were all taken aback by the new surplus of information. Though while the rest of the team spent the next few minutes discussing the prison break, I went into the next room to sit alone and think over everything that'd happened.

After a while my future version approached me in the dark room.

"What are you doing here?" I questioned him

"Just to talk is all."

"Oh wow, time to receive sage guidance from my older, more experienced self."

"I'm not all that bad, you know. I get that you may dislike me for messing up your timeline, but a lot of these things were unavoidable."

"It's not you I'm mad at. It's myself. I screwed up Dondre's life, and now I don't even have the speed to fix it. Plus it's not like I wouldn't have come back in time to stop Zero anyways. So we'd be in the same situation."

"Well, now that your timeline is quite clearly diverging from mine, I can tell you a few things that happened to me. Any questions in particular?"

Though I had a lot of questions to ask him, I inquired the one that was bugging me the most.

"Do I ever get my speed back?" I questioned, glaring in his eyes for hope

Any bit of positivity in his eyes died, as his face turned more grim and he looked away from me.

"No..." he muttered, "I never got my speed back...instead I grew reliant on a speed drug that Cas developed years later."

"Oh. So that's it then. I guess Velocity's no more."

"There's no need to give up now; just because something happened in my timeline doesn't mean it has to in yours. We've already seen how different the two are. But there's no known way to undo the effects of the philosopher's stone, since it completely dried your gland."

"Maybe I can prevent all of this, by using the drug Cas makes in the future to stop myself from going after Zero that night."

"You know, it's actually best you mess around with time as little as possible, because you'll just end up changing the lives of everyone."

"Then why'd you do it?"

"I just wanted a better future for everyone, even if it meant paying the ultimate price for doing so."

"And what's that price?"

"Due to how changes in the timeline work, once you travel through time you end up creating a parallel timeline. Initially, the timeline is identical to the one you came from, but as you change more things, it ends up becoming unidentical to the original timeline starting from the point you traveled to."

"Ok, I follow."

"Once you create that parallel timeline, returning to the original is impossible, instead if you attempted to do so, you'd actually be going to that point in time in the new timeline. And because of the fact that there already exists a past version of you in the new timeline, there isn't room for the future version of you."

"So if you travel back in time then... you're doing it purely at the cost of your own life. And not just your own life, your future, your timeline, everything..."

"Yep, all in the hopes that your alternate version and everyone else will have a better future than you did."

"How did you manage to make time travel sound so deep and philosophical?"

"No idea." He chuckled

"So then, what happens to you?"

"Me? My life is no longer of any consequence, since if I die it wouldn't directly impact the timeline. And because I'm the only thing left existing from my timeline, I'm what's known as a time remnant."

"A time remnant?"

"Yep. I've categorized them into two: an Alpha or Short-Term Time Remnant and an Omega Remnant, or Long-Term if you prefer. Though all time remnants can majorly impact the timeline, what can differ them is how far back in time you traveled, increasing the scope of their effect."

"What do you mean?"

"To create a time remnant, you just have to travel back in time, that way you would become the remnant, and your parallel version would be affected. If you travel back to the same point you left, you're essentially left with a clone of yourself; neither of you would have more knowledge than the other, being that no time elapsed between you leaving. In that event you'd be an Alpha-Remnant. On the other hand, an Omega-Remnant is created by going farther back in time to any period; it could be as little as a minute or hour, or as much as 10 years, but once you possess knowledge of the original future events of the parallel timeline you're classified as an Omega."

"I see I haven't gotten any better at explaining things over the years." I mumbled, "But based on what you said, that means that you're an omega remnant."

"Yep. But whether you're an Alpha or Omega, you still have no place in the new timeline once your task is completed, otherwise you could negatively affect the timeline and prompt unnecessary time travel."

"So what are you gonna do then?"

"Well, right now Cas is working on a simple version of the speed drug I'd used, and once it's done I plan on facing Zero myself."

"I can help though, just give me a dose of the drug when it's finished."

"As with regular doping, taking the drug has it's drawbacks, so I'd much rather not get you tangled up into all of it."

"But I have to be able to help."

"Romaine, I already chose this fate the moment I decided to become a remnant. But right now, you should go after Kyle; after I went through all of this, I myself wished that I'd gone after him."

"Go after him, but I have no idea where he is."

"I know you'll figure it out. Now get going."

I got up and he led me to the elevator.

On our walk I'd questioned what could've possibly happened in his timeline to make him give up everything to create a future he won't even see.

"Where are you going?" Melany questioned

"I'm going to talk to Kyle." I answered

Once I'd made it into the elevator, my time remnant waved me off.

On the way up I was left to think about Kyle's possible whereabouts. He said he was going to an old home of his.

Well they say home is where the family is, and he mentioned before that the only family he had was the Rising Sun, so I guess it's safe to believe that he's somewhere related to them. Their bodies weren't recovered, so it couldn't be their graves, and the only place letf that I can think of is their secret base.

"Hey, Future Me." I called, pressing on my ear piece

-"Here."- He replied, -"Did you figure it out?"-

"Yep. Can you give me directions to the Rising Sun's hideout please?"

-"No problem."-

~~~~~~~

Though I didn't have superspeed, I got there on my own time. But of course, given my normal walking pace, by time I arrived there it was already nightfall.

The hideout itself seemed to be in good shape on the outside, but once I'd entered the building, I quickly saw past its facade. Inside was a complete mess, almost as if the place had been robbed or something.

"Kyle?" I called out

The lights didn't work, so I was barely able to maneuver myself around. The main room looked like an office of sorts, with a lot of living room furniture around the place. I entered the neighboring room to my left, which greeted me with the pungent smell of blood.

I was admiring the state of the room itself before my attention was drawn to the ground. My body froze in shock, helplessly unable to move as I stared. I was left shaking, having negative flashbacks of when I'd witnessed others die.

Kyle was laying right before me, nothing more than a bleeding husk. I fell onto my hands and knees, soaking them in his blood. This had Zero written all over it; Kyle's chest was wounded by Zero's knife-like claws.

"That bastard." I gritted my teeth, punch the ground, "That bastard. That bastard! Not Kyle!"

Consumed by the pain, tears flooded my eyes. Hatred filled my mind, but in the end, there's nothing a normal person can do against someone like Zero.

I collapsed, falling onto the ground. And there I laid, in the pool of blood; slowly embracing the darkness.