Chapter 13 - Rebirth Of the LIGHT Member

"This is Team A. There seems to be no sign of life. Bodies are scattered everywhere, no movements whatsoever."

"This is Team B. There seems to be no sign of any threat."

"Roger that teams A and B. Rilles and I are on standby. Report if there is anything suspicious."

The plan has commenced. Hopefully nothing changes just like all the scenes that I have been through. Soon we received news that Raz and Kyro had finally returned from the conference. The result is a success. They managed to get cooperation from the government to work together in case everything turned out bad. The plan is to mobilise emergency responders to evacuate the city. So far nothing seems out of the ordinary.

"I would like to ask you, Rilles. What made you decide to come up with this elaborate plan? It seems like you know everything beforehand. It raises concern instead."

Well I can't tell him that I was dead before thanks to his plan. He managed to make everyone guilty of my death just by his plan. To prevent that I need a way.

"Let's just say a bad premonition struck my head before this mission. Since I am a bit superstitious about this kind of thing, I decided to come up with a plan."

James stared at me in total disbelief about what I just said. I was hoping that it would distract him for a while.

"I hope it is not something that you made up. I trust you all this time, that is why I agree with your plan."

"Sending me in would only be suicidal."

Well that sort of work as an excuse.

"This is Team A, we have a visual on Nathan in the white room."

James looks at me as if I have predicted everything before hand.

".....Engage as planned. Beware of the electricity."

"I am not bluffing, am I?"

"Are you a god or something? This is not supposed to happen. Wait, I can't brain this stuff out."

As confused as he is, I am more worried that everything did not go to plan. I know the story, I know what Raz, Vulcan and James have encountered. I know how Arcadia fights from fighting them, but I am not sure if Fate Changer changes a lot of things. The memory I have is all done by Fate Changer, but the motive is unclear.

"This is Team A, we have secured Nathan's head. I repeat, we have secured Nathan's head, proceeding to transfer."

"Roger that, team A. Team B, standby on alert for Arcadia."

The plan is closing in. We have retrieved Nathan's head. It makes me wonder that Nathan could be fought that easily. But not Arcadia. James then commanded us both to enter the area to secure the head. As we walked up to the entrance, Arcadia suddenly appeared out of nowhere and smashed Elita to the ground, killing all of Team A.

"Team B to HQ. We are under attack. I repeat we are under attack. Send reinforcements."

Arcadia then looks at us with his red eyes while holding his blue light sword, Elita in rage. He then proceeds to speak in an angry tone.

"You. Rilles Gregory. I thought I had seen this coming. But I have not expected you to sit outside and wait. I have a dream. A good dream that I killed you in the white room. But of course dreams lie."

Fate Changer turns that timeline into a bad dream to Arcadia. Now I know how powerful Fate Changer is.

"Alex. I know your motive for a new Azalea. But sadly, my answer remains no. And will always be no. In case you are inviting me."

"You are different from whatever I have encountered. Where is the rest of your team?"

"You could wait a bit longer, or you go through me first."

Arcadia grins. Provoking him will trigger his anger which powers the sword. My goal is to take away that sword and return it back to its owner. While Arcadia abuses this sword's power to spread his ideology by sword.

"Is that what you wish for, Rilles? I am concerned, but amused by it. You dare challenge me knowing nothing about me? Then, COME FORTH THIS INSTANCE!!!"

Arcadia powered his sword and began charging at both of us.

"James retrieve the head. Team B, cover James."

I ejected my dagger and immediately went into defence mode and repelled the attack at an instance. I know a bit about his ability, so I need to be careful of my movements.

"Time Defy-Stop the time."

I threw five daggers at him and resumed the time immediately. As time resumes, he manages to deflect all of the daggers with his shockwave power. But at that instant he immediately dashed behind me and stabbed me in the same place where I was injured before.

"I stabbed you here in my dream. But at a different location."

"Then....you.....have made.....the wrong....move"

It's time to test the change made by Fate Changer to my ability. He told me a few things, but the main word he said is I could not only stop time, implying that I could bend time in unexpected ways.

"Time Defy - Rewind the Timeline"

Rewinding the timeline is effective for me to evade all of his upcoming moves. But I could only rewind to a maximum of six seconds ago and I cannot just spam it anyhow I want as it took my energy. As expected, the whole thing returns back to its initial position where Arcadia successfully deflected my daggers. I immediately jumped behind and deflected his next incoming attack with my dagger just in time. We then clash weapons among ourselves. Some of Team B decided to shoot towards Arcadia, but Arcadia just dashes towards them and slice them into half. I charged at him with both of my daggers to distract him from attacking the others.He read my movements, and block my attack

"I gave you a chance to be a better person, Rilles. I read your background and you don't seem to have a good life."

"Your father took everything from me. And you decided to follow your father's footsteps."

"I don't. My father has a different motive, while I have my own motive. You don't compare me to him."

"But the name isn't out of respect??"

"Shut it. You don't know a thing."

Arcadia in total anger triggers his shockwave power sending me to the ground. He then charges at me while holding his sword up high. As his sword is about to hit me, a firing bullet managed to make its way hitting the sword away.

"Rilles, we recovered the head. Let's get out of here."

"You go, we will handle this."

What appears behind Arcadia is no other than Raz, Vulcan and Kyro who instructed James and the others to return back to base. And they all look really unhappy.

"Arcadia. What brings you back after you are supposed to be dead by my gun?"

"Raz. You betrayed me. You left me alone to make this decision."

"You turned yourself to be like this. You wanted to save everyone in the tower, but you forgot someone important. And now you want to "restore" Azalea City to its glory days?"

"You won't understand it, Raz."

"THEN MAKE ME UNDERSTAND IT ALL!!!!"

Raz began to fire his guns rapidly. Kyro projected his swords using dark arts as well as Vulcan. They both charge at Arcadia while their swords are projected midair targeting Arcadia

"Time Defy- Stop the...."

"DON'T YOU DARE!!!!"

Arcadia knows that I will throw one of my daggers towards his gadget responsible for the shockwave after reading his premonition. So he decided to dash towards me. I know this is over at this point, but a miracle could only save me, which it did. One of Kyro's projected swords isn't going towards Arcadia, but is intentionally missed towards that direction, which the sword managed to stab Arcadia on the back, injuring him. Now I remember. Of all the footage I watch, James's sniper is the one that proved this concept. The fact that Arcadia is so focused on one thing reveals this weakness. I did not know that using my ability would force Arcadia into attacking me.

"I can't afford to see you dead once again, Rilles."

Wait, what?

Arcadia took out the sword that stabbed him and went back into fighting. Kyro, who mastered the dark arts, managed to have four daggers circling both of his wrist and punched the air to shoot out the four daggers on his right arm. Arcadia swings his sword to deflect it. Raz uses his Metavoid and splits himself into two to fire his gun at a much effective rate. Vulcan jumps into the air and projects as many swords as he could. While I jump behind and shoot daggers to surround him. As we all have our iconic attacks on standby Arcadia became extremely pressured which resulted in him shouting at the top of his lungs. The scream accompanied by him smashing the sword into the ground shatters the whole place and displacing us all from our position.

Smoke begins to surround the area and making it all fuzzy. Soon enough, the research centre collapses into rubble and a huge crater is formed in the centre. Thus, the whole research centre literally becomes a big empty space. All of us are in the crater for some reason. Did not expect that sword is this powerful. As far as I am aware I am the only one still conscious. I see no sign of life, so I have to rewind it.

"Time Defy-Rewind the....."

"No. Don't do it."

Vulcan, who is still conscious, pulls my arm.

"Why? How did you know I am going to rewind."

"I had enough after what we went through. And I can't fight in this scenario again."

Fate Changer. What the hell did he do to them? Why the hell is Vulcan aware of my evolved ability?

"Do you have a bad dream?"

"...."

"Let's find the rest."

Perhaps silence is the best option. I need to know what the hell is going on.

After a while, we managed to find Kyro and Raz. They both looked pissed as they lost Arcadia. But it doesn't matter, as long as we could trace where Arcadia's lair is and we could finish him off from there. Rescue team finally arrives to save the injured, but the ones inside the research centre cannot be attended as they are all gone in the rubbles. I then got a voicemail from James who is back at the HQ

"Hey, uhhh. About the head, I have sent it to the tech team to locate it. It is going to take some time, but not sure how long. It shouldn't be longer than twenty four hours. Anyway, I got a call from the reception saying someone wants to see you."

Great, hopefully it is important.

I then make my way back to the HQ and ask about this person who wanted to see me. The receptionist then mentioned that he is waiting for me at the training room. Well that is odd indeed, but I made my way there. As soon as I arrived, I saw the man himself. The same face, but he wore a black jacket this time. Just the person I need to find.

"What are you doing here?"

"Just checking on you. How has everything been? Are they to your liking?"

"What the hell have you done? I thought all the events in the previous timeline turned into a bad memory. Why is Vulcan aware of my movement and Kyro saying that he did not want to see me dead again?"

The man himself is the Fate Changer which tempered everything.

"Kyro might be overreacting about his dream. But I changed Vulcan a little. Not only his memory, but his fate."

It doesn't seem to be overreacting to me.

"Change? Change as in what?"

"Your fate is binded together with this kid. This kid has learnt from you and is able to deduce your ability just by seeing. So I tweak him a little."

I can't drag him further than he should. Arcadia is to be defeated as long as I am alive. But I am not sure about the premonition I had earlier.

"He had his own goal to defeat Arcadia. Don't drag him further than he should."

"The thing about Arcadia is that you can't just pinch him and he is gone. What if he returns? What does your premonition say? You won't be there to stop him, are you?"

"My son could carry on my legacy."

"Radii? Soon enough he is going to be important. I did not tweak that, but tweaking Vulcan will change everything, including you and Radii. You can thank me later."

"How sure are you? Yes, you could change fates, but not the person."

"You will know it soon enough. Your earlier premonition might be a hint to an upcoming event."

He then disappears into thin air as if he is a ghost or something. But what he said might be true, but what I don't understand is the term premonition that he used. Which one is he referring to? I ignored that remark and immediately went to a nearby vending machine to get some coffee. Coincidentally, I met Kyro who happens to be there as well.

"Hey, Kyro. I guess I owe you one."

"Don't be Mr Nice Guy or something. Because I am your partner that I go that far to defend you. I saw it coming. You try to do something heroic so I launch my sword there. Coincidentally, it hit Arcadia. It's just that I had a bad dream."

"A bad dream where I am dead? I had that too. But it reminds me of something. You are afraid to lose someone as your partner, right?"

Kyro looked at me in confusion.

"How do you know? I did not remember a thing telling you about that."

I had to play this out properly to get his perspective on what happened to Judy.

"Well, I came across a file while searching for Arcadia. The name Judy does have something to do with your current situation, right?"

Kyro takes a sip of his coffee and smiles at it.

"So they don't play around with being the detective you are. Yes, Judy is my previous partner who had affiliations with Arcadia of that time. But I went on a complete hiatus for years after losing her. She died fighting Arcadia. My motive for fighting is for her. To be honest, I am shocked that I have a partner this year and it turns out to be you. That time onwards, I decided to protect my partner with all I had as a memory of Judy."

"It's hard. But that rocket you failed to stop, brought one of the victims to you. I told you before right, I am sure you know something about that rocket that is why you kept silent about it?"

Kyro went silent for a while while looking at his coffee. He then took a deep breath and sighed.

"So you want revenge? I failed and took everything from you. Don't you think it is necessary to end it all here?"

"No. I just need you to protect Azalea City, and not to repeat that mistake. But anyways, I am glad you are my partner. Just maybe, open up a bit, and befriend others."

After I got my coffee, I immediately made my way to my desk to resume my work. Maybe I should have not pry on Kyro's backstory, but I just need to confirm something. Speaking of confirming, Arcadia's lair is about to be found out and we need to move out as soon as we find out. I need to make this life work out once again just like before. I have one try to bring down Arcadia.