An Ally in this Dark World

Flashback – 1st life

I have to say, watching myself gain the fight in my eyes after what Rain left me with gave me an extra streak of fighting spirit. I pulled Devon into the corner as I changed my clothes, put on my shoes, and started taking out the cleaning products and ripping apart the electronics left in the room to build a very rudimentary bomb.

"You can build a bomb," Devon laughed, his eyes lighting up as the last spark of my powers finished the circuit, and it exploded.

The door beeped open from the break in its structural integrity, and I was gone.

"Yes, I can do a lot of things. I specialise in biology, but I started with a major in Chemistry. They still caught me, though."

This was it.

The last scenes of my first life.

Now that I think about it, that stupid white room with the man opposite whom I had never spoken to before is strange. He was in the room the entire time but never came to the window at his door, so I only ever saw an empty room with the green numbers above on a rectangle screen.

"What is this place?" Devon's confidence had faltered, falling through the floor with shame.

"A research institute. Don't feel bad for things that you can't control. It hasn't happened yet, and it won't this time."

"But-"

"But nothing, Devon, not everyone in a family will be decent. If anything, it is normal, and let's put it this way, you never hurt me, and neither did your brother, and he has been my boss for over five years," I put my hand on his shoulder, drawing his gaze from my dishevelled self to the me that's real, "That Daria is dead. The one you see now is going to kill them all for what they did to her."

His eyes widened, and he turned to look back at me, meditating on the floor. The next few seconds moved by much faster than I remembered, the loud crash, the bullets ricocheting, the speaker declaring we're going to die today. It stopped when he spoke to me, slowing down so I could see him better. I walked to his window and touched his face through the bars.

"Nexus," Devon breathed from next to me, and my head snapped to the left in surprise.

He was staring straight at him, his face ashen, and the little light left began fading from his eyes as he listened to us talk. The lab rat comment is a little fucked up, I guess.

"You know him? Is his name Nexus? He made these next few minutes… bearable," I sighed, watching our faces hit the floor.

I pulled Devon back away from us and positioned us in the corner facing them.

"He was with you the whole time," he whispered, and my eyebrows furrowed.

"I was sent here by Rain three months after the apocalypse started. This was a whole year later, and the first time we spoke, he had never come to the window before, but he was always there because his number never changed," I explained, shuddering a little as Nexus made me look at him and the freaky little Zombie girl went past us.

"Oh god," Devon retched as she launched into me, tears falling from his wide eyes as he watched Nexus and I dying together.

'Warning, Daria! A powerful awakened has been detected, and they are using their power.'

What?

I straightened from the corner and stared at Nexus. He never broke eye contact with past me. I pulled the power portal up, and his body appeared on the screen.

"He saved my life."

Flashback End

Devon sprang up from our seated positions on the floor, fell into the corner by the door where the waste bin was and hurled up everything he had eaten that day. I took a deep breath, eyeing the power portal as it floated on my right.

It's taunting me.

Time Travel… what the fuck?

"Nexus is the reason I am sitting here right now. Where is he? I need to find him," I got up and rubbed Devon's back with a wince, "in the spirit of transparency. I killed your nephew, and he's completely under my control," I whispered, giving him a sheepish smile when he turned to look at me.

"I'd take a bet that the second you came back and saw him, you went rightfully nuts," he sighed, pulling a bottle of beer from the mini fridge to wash away the sick.

"You'd win that bet, the very second I saw his face I started screaming, scared the shit out of him," I laughed, shaking my head, "I took a shower and came back to him alive and acting like nothing was wrong. It's my power. I'm a zombie without being one," I dropped into my chair behind my desk, grumbling as a light knock hit my door.

I snorted in amusement. If we were doing anything, we wouldn't have heard that knock.

"I can hear that thing talking to you," he whispered, carefully clicking the lock on the door and striding over to lean casually against my desk.

'I'm not a thing! I'm a boy!'

A man, you mean.

'No, boy. I am technically not born yet.'

Devon's face was confused; I imagine mine didn't look much different. When the door burst open, Molly stood there with two cups of hot chocolate and a look of absolute innocence.

I rolled my eyes and leaned back in my chair with my fingers locked over my stomach. She stepped in and looked around the room, eyeing the wastebasket full of sick her eyes flashed with disgust as she looked back at us, but oh my, how this bitch could hide those pesky emotions so quickly. You'd almost believe you were imagining it.

"Uncle Devon, what happened? Do you need me to get you some anti-sickness meds?"

"He's fine. He found out something sickening and couldn't hold it in," I waved her off, already done with her existence in my fucking space.

She put my cup on the table and then handed Devon's to him with a strange glint in her eyes, and she kept watching him, expecting him to take a drink.

Don't fucking drink that she's done something to it!

His mouth stopped at the rim, and he effortlessly faked a few sips and put the cup down.

"Delicious, thank you," he faked with a sweet smile.

I smirked as her cheeks blew up, and she mumbled your welcome and walked off with her hands clasped behind her like the cute little backstabber she thinks she is.

Awww, baby thinks she's so bright.

The door slammed shut, Devon's demeanour straightened like a pin, and he sniffed the cup.

"It's probably MDMA. I bet it's in mine, too," I mused, dipping my finger in my cup and holding it up to my eyes.

System? Can you analyse this?

'Yes! I will add it to the item crafting inventory and analyse it.'

"That is an ingenious system you have," Devon laughed, and I grinned.

'You're correct, it is MDMA, A-Grade.'

Was he saying that I was correct or Devon?

Devon sucked in a breath and staggered back a few steps from the desk. He's being hit with one too many revelations today.

"Is she trying to kill us?" He hissed.

"No, she's trying to ruin my virginity and the entire family relationship. I do not doubt that she would slyly open the door and record everything to send around," I sighed, feeling my patience with her wearing incredibly thin.

"Why?"

"She wants Rain, and he's been ignoring her and belittling her since she came in the house a few hours ago, and then you come in here, naturally ignoring the shit out of her, giving little old me all the attention. I think she's lost it," I snickered, pouring our drinks into the plant pots on either side of the window behind my desk and sitting back down with the cups slightly off to their original positions.

"I can't even find the words for how devious she is," Devon grumbled as he hopped onto the desk.

"What's happened to Nexus? He's the little uncle that Rain always mentioned," I murmured, catching his sad eyes.

"He went missing a few months ago," he pulled his phone out of his pocket and tapped it a few times before handing it to me, "This is his file, he was helping our cousin to break into the entertainment industry and dropped off of the face of the earth after some big wig drugged her, and he beat the crap out of him."

"So, whoever is backing the big wig took him?"

"I already checked. It's Ferona, but she's clean."

My eyes lifted from his phone with a raised eyebrow. We had just seen Molly trying to drug us with some of the highest grade around, and Nexus went missing after being in contact with the same dealer.

"I don't believe in coincidences, Devon. Rain didn't know about that institute. He is as stupid as his muscles are big. It had to have been Molly, and then your little brother goes missing after being in contact with the same dealer she uses and gets thrown in the same institute as me. Either she told Ferona about it, or Ferona told her about it. Either way, Ferona has him, and we need to get him back before she sends him there!"