Chapter 5 - Slipstream

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Inside a huge and luxurious high-end laboratory a large number of people could be seen working on various tasks, sharing notes, forming blueprints, reformulating theories, and so on.

Among these people, one scientist in particular stood out, none other than the world-renowned scientist David Shield.

David was a tall person (185cm), his honey brown hair and beard looked messy, his round light blue eyes which were hidden behind glasses had a friendly but intelligent look in them, he was currently dressed in a dark red shirt, gray pants, black shoes and a white lab coat over his shirt.

He was sitting in his personal office reviewing some recent reports from I-Island, mainly about site security. As a representative of the most technologically advanced place in the world, he had a responsibility to protect the thousands of projects under development, and secretly hide the more... illegal ones.

It was during one of these reports that he remembered the Quirk Detection Machine he made some time ago along with his good friend Winston, unfortunately they hadn't been able to talk much lately mainly due to David's own responsibilities.

'Maybe staying awake 19 hours a day is not a good idea... I should invent a pill to eliminate sleep?' David thought with amusement as he kept scrolling through reports.

Apart from the reports, he was simultaneously reviewing his daughter Melissa's studies, although as she always had perfect grades in school, in fact she had skipped a few grades, David believes that she could easily graduate from college before the age of 13 which filled him with pride for his daughter's intelligence....

Looking at the side of the computer he saw a picture of himself a little younger holding a Melissa no more than 4 years old.

'How quickly time goes by...' David thought as he smiled looking at the photo wistfully.

RING~ RING~ RING~ RING~

Suddenly in the middle of his computer appeared the icon of a blinking red colored phone, below the icon he could see the person who was calling him: Winston Oxton, his old friend.

"Speak of the devil and he'll show up...I wonder how little Lena is doing?"

Accepting the video call in good humor, David was about to greet his friend but upon seeing him he frowned with concern.

His appearance could be described in one word: Gaunt.

Winston had large black bags under his eyes, his eyes were red as if he hadn't slept in days, his clothes were in disarray, and let's not talk about his hair....

Winston's eyes widened with relief to see that the call had been answered quickly. "DAVID! I NEED YOUR URGENT HELP!" shouted Winston with desperation in his voice. "I-"

"WOW! What happened to you?!" David exclaimed concerned for his fellow scientist's health.

"That doesn't matter! Are you going to help me?! Yes or not?!" shouted Winston back as he looked wearily into David's eyes, you could see his body enlarging and starting to grow black fur along with a few pairs of sharp teeth....

"WINSTON!" shouted David forcing Winston to come to his senses, and mostly to calm him down as he didn't want his Quirk to activate in his agitated state.

"Grr..." Winston growled as he glared at David in blind rage.

David had gotten his attention. "Winston, breathe...inhale, exhale, inhale-" David quickly reassured Winston as he slowly but surely calmed his friend.

After a few minutes of relaxation, Winston deeply apologized to David. The latter only dissipated his apology because he was curious about his friend's emaciated state.

Winston sighed heavily, exhaustion showing all over his body. "It's Lena."

"Lena? What about her?" asked David with concern, it may not be official but he considered Lena his niece. "Is she okay?"

"I- I don't know okey?... she took her Quirk further than she should and..." Winston began to explain as he takes a cup of coffee to keep himself awake although it seemed to be barely having any effect in keeping him awake. "I don't know, I knew something would happen b-but I didn't expect this..."

Possibilities ran through David's head as he remembered his niece's peculiar Quirk "Time travel?"

"You'd better see for yourself..." Winston answered with heaviness and sadness in his voice, turning the computer camera to focus on a large capsule which had hundreds of wires connected to each other, it seemed to be made of a very resistant material in addition to having small windows to see inside which seemed to be on.

At first David did not understand what the capsule had to do with Lena until...

Shizz

David's stomach sank as he saw that inside the capsule Lena was teleporting uncontrollably, each pose she took was different but each one made David's heart clench tightly.

In one pose Lena seemed to be staring into the void in boredom, in another she was crying, in another she looked scared as she tried to get out of the capsule, in another she seemed to be trying to smash her head against the capsule....

David's breath had caught in his throat as he looked into the camera. "What the- Winston... I- what am I seeing?"

"I don't know... you know Lena could manipulate the 'Entropy', the 'Entropy' the further into the future it goes the more chaotic it becomes, to the point where nothing can be understood and only eternal chaos remains.... while I believe that Lena didn't get to the point of 'Eternal Chaos', she got half way and this was the result... the other theory is that as Lena possessed in 'Secondary Quirk' of 'Entropic Union' and 'Entropic Resistance' she could somehow put an instinctive limit on herself.... Assuming 'Endurance' refers to how much she can withstand the remoteness of the future to the present with her physical body, while 'Union' is what anchors her to the present and keeps her physical body stable as well as helping her to 'Recoil' and 'Accelerate'... but this is just speculation and none of this is proven..." Winston said as he looked at Lena's capsule with guilt and remorse. "I don't know anything... it's frustrating... even with all my knowledge I can't help her... haa... this is my fault..."

"Winston is not-"

"YES IT IS! I should have stopped her! I should have watched her better! I-...I'm her father dammit, if I can't even take care of her myself, then I'm a failure..." Winston's broken voice said as tears welled up in his eyes.

David gritted his teeth tightly. "Don't blame yourself Winston, you didn't know this would happen, no one could have known. You've been a good father, you've taken care of Lena since she was a baby, you've been there for her every step of the way, haven't you? You can't give up now! Lena needs you more than ever!" David encouraged Winston as he pounded his desk table loudly. "You are her Hero Winston! But most of all you are her Father!"

Winston looked back at the capsule for a minute in total silence before taking a deep sigh and wiping away his tears. "You're right... I can't afford to give up, not for her..."

Looking at Melissa's picture he couldn't help but be filled with determination to help his friend, even if it meant delaying any of his projects.

***

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Lena was very confused and scared.

She didn't understand anything.

She didn't feel anything.

But she felt everything.

But she understood everything.

She felt as if her body was constantly changing, in one moment she felt that her legs were becoming liquid, in another they became gaseous and finally solid only to repeat the process eternally.

Worst of all were her senses.

She heard screams of pain, joyful laughter, crying and laughter without a pattern. All at the same time but not at the same time.

Her fingers sometimes seemed to curve at odd angles touching different surfaces, some were smooth, some were rough and some in pain.

Her taste and smell... well, that was about the only normal thing. Odd considering all the chaos around.

And her vision... she didn't even know what was going on, only that the world around her was changing.

First there was an old basement, then she was in a capsule, then she was seeing Winston holding a baby, then there was her fighting the robots....

And the sights went on and on, she didn't know where she was anymore, and she almost forgot her own name a couple of times, her body sometimes started to ache like never before without explanation.

She felt like her sanity was lost for minutes at a time, only to be fully restored again and then disappear again at the same time.

She no longer knew what time, day, or year it was....

She could barely form a coherent thought, only vague, unstable thoughts remained.

She felt like she was going into a mess with no return only to be put backwards backwards constantly.

She was honestly going through hell itself, she didn't understand some things anymore, she could see a teenager around 16 years old punching a giant green robot hard destroying it to pieces.

Then I could see a bald man destroying a planet with a sneeze.

Then a small man with a big forehead dressed in strange clothes fighting a man with spiky hair and orange clothes.

Then...

...

..

.

FUUUUUMMM!

With a loud sound suddenly everything stopped ....

Lena felt as if she had woken up from a dream-, no, a nightmare.

Looking in front of her was a person with black hair and green eyes looking at her with joy and relief.

"Lena!" The person shouted as he hugged her tightly, she could feel a part of her clothes starting to get wet from the man's tears.

It took Lena a moment to recognize the person who was hugging her, she felt as if she hadn't seen this person in years. Slowly Lena hugged her father back as she sobbed heavily....

After a few minutes the two separated and were able to see each other better.

Winston looked like he hadn't been able to sleep in weeks because of his huge black eyebags, his hair was a mess and he smelled terrible.

Lena on the other hand seemed to have grown up a bit, her formerly brown eyes now glowed an eerie sky blue. Her clothes were tattered in several places and mysteriously appeared to be a different color.

Lena could feel something poking her hand, looking towards the culprit she saw... a large machine that seemed to emit some sort of blue energy which was spinning in some sort of vortex. Instinctively Lena knew what that blue energy was, Entropy, her Entropy.

Winston could sense Lena's confusion and curiosity, "This is the prototype 4.0 invention it will help you maintain your fitness, I call it: Slipsteam."

Lena was impressed by the fact that it took a machine to keep her fitness stable.

She turned her head to try to talk to her father but....

"..." No voice came out....

Winston was confused because his daughter seemed to speak but no words came out, until he remembered what David told him.

"There is a possibility that because of the constant travel between past, present and future that Lena is in she may forget some things. For us a day is 24 hours, but for Lena who is constantly time traveling, a day can be up to a year... in fact I would be surprised if we could recover her without any mental side effects... the other case could be that the Slipstream cannot fully recover anything that has been affected by Entropy, this including, memories, instincts, movements, speech, hearing, senses, among many more things."

Remembering this Winston decided to diagnose Lena to see if she had lost more than just forgetting her language....

Winston tried to sign to Lena but she didn't seem to understand him, so looking for a notebook he started writing in English to see if she remembered her native language....

Surprisingly she could understand it, but for some reason she couldn't speak it or write it, Winston thought that what was happening to Lena was some kind of Amnesia or a Mental Block...

"Looks like there's more work to be done... but if it's for Lena it's worth the fatigue..."

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