Save State Hero 3 -CHapter 12-

Chapter 12

“Okay. Okay, I’m… I’m.. Okay. Whew!” Claire said, laughing as she got comfortable in a very confused looking Ryker’s lap. She adjusted her dress, cleared her throat, then looked to Edmund.

Only to laugh and wave a hand at him as she leaned into Ryker.

“It’s good to see you Edmund, dear,” murmured the beautiful crazy woman. “How’re things? Last I remember you were working at saving Nadine? As well as some of Vince’s people?”

“Nadine… really is alive?” Ryker asked Claire in a whisper, his arms loosely around her. The man seemed to adapt almost instantly every time Claire showed up and smothered him in love and care.

“Yes, dear,” Claire whispered back and gave him a quick kiss before pushing closer into him. “Edmund?”

“I was working on it. Skipper kicked my ass I guess,” Edmund said with a shrug. “If I hadn’t been wearing my helmet apparently I’d be dead. I seriously under-estimated her.”

“Most people do,” Claire murmured, one hand idly toying with Ryker’s hair. “Honestly, she’s not good looking, she’s not intelligent, and she’s not even that cunning. She’s just very good at using her power and very good at leveraging it to catch people offguard.

“Honestly, if she puts her mind to it, she can be a real problem. Even for Ryker, and he’s a brilliant madman. My brilliant madman. Aren’t you honey-bun.”

Claire said the last while turning to Ryker and began kissing him once again.

Sighing, Edmund looked to Runner.

“Could you finish up with my power-set? You and Ryker made me first so… if anything you need to do that so I can access my powerset,” Edmund asked, now giving up on Claire and Ryker for at least a few minutes. “If you can do it on your own that’d be great. Claire usually doesn’t let up for at least three or four minutes once she decides to go in on him.”

“I can, yeah,” Runner muttered, looking away from Ryker who was currently being mauled by Claire. He shook his head, blew out a breath, and looked to his feet. “Uhm… I’ll just… this… and… that.”

Edmund watched as Runner did nothing.

There wasn’t anything he was doing that Edmund could see. Nothing outward that let him know or see what he was doing. Only reinforcing to Edmund that while Runner was fallible, he was still, godly.

Still divine.

“Done,” Runner stated and then looked to Edmund. “Give it a go for me?”

Looking to the side Edmund called up his Save-state power.

It activated with a strange stutter and he could see the current Save-state.

Far, far, far to the side, was his original Save-state set.

The way it looked was odd on the whole of it.

“Huh,” he muttered, looking it over. “It’s like looking at a massive redwood next to a shrub. Two different trees entirely. I guess… I guess this is right though.

“This is the moment after I was created. Immediately after my power-set was made. As if the first breath was taken, and then held. THere’s nothing beyond this because none of it’s happened.

“And after this the world will become real. You’ll get kicked out of this world with Ryker and the whole of it will go silent other than Zeus running it.”

“That happens?” Ryker asked, pulling away from a very needy Claire. “We-we get kicked out?”

“Yeah. I don’t know all the details but yeah. A number of your people betray you or just don’t help. I think… I think you mentioned War not taking your side at some point?” Edmund answered, then ignored the three people in this room and went back to his Save-state power. Looking over what was available to him.

Because it wasn’t just the fact that he was in an entirely different Save-state, it also seemed as if he couldn’t acces a great many of his original Save-states. They were all grayed out much like how he used to see Save-states beyond his active ones.

The only available to him was almost in his last moments in Australia with Iren.

“Oz, that Skipper attack really fucked me, didn’t it?” Edmund inquired. “Because I can’t even access a great deal of my Save-states now. They’re all inaccessible.”

“Yes. You’ve been shifted to a time period that doesn’t actually exist,” Oz confirmed. “Even now, as you sit here, you are technically in a period of time that shouldn’t even line up here, except, there is no other period for you to go to.”

“Are… you saying that I overflowed the integer?” Edmund asked with a laugh. It was the only analogy he could make.

“Not exactly but I can understand what you mean. Regardless, it looks as if the only Save-state you have available is exactly seventy-two seconds before the storm Skipper started arrives,” Oz explained. “Which isn’t much time and once it washes over you, I do not think you’ll be able to go anywhere other than this location.”

“In other words… I need to do the… speed-runner thing,” Edmund breathed out with a long sigh.

“Yes and yet no,” Oz stated. “The storm is random. It’s an edge-case. Completely. There isn’t really an opportunity for you to run it over and over.”

Thinking on that, Edmund realized that Skipper had really buttoned him right up.

If he stayed here in this Save-state, he’d be more likely to die of old age, or something worse, long before the world caught up to where it should be. Or he worked off the timer that was stuck to him.

In the storm being an edge-case he couldn’t just wriggle his way out of it and get back to where he should be.

The extreme time shift and it happening in Australia and it’s calamity, had ruined his chances of managing to use the Save-state direct in Australia.

“I can’t outrun it on my own,” Edmund stated.

“No. Truth be told, if you’re caught by the storm again, you might not ever be able to escape it. Going back to the previous Save-state will not reset your timer,” Oz added unhelpfully. “It’s multiplicative as well.”

Edmund groaned and put his hands to the faceplate of the helmet.

“One life, one shot, no mistakes, no Save-states,” he muttered. “My only real chance is mounting Iren having her ride me out of the storm. Could you even guide her if you told her where to go?”

“Not truly,” Oz answered. “I could give her a direction and coordinates but… there’s no way for her to truly understand how to make that work. The spaces between the storms were very small.”

“Can you tap into my helmet and give me directions and I try to guide Iren? I mean, you’ve had access to other things like the Log, right? Can you get into my helmet? Or tie… the Log to my helmet and then you intersect with either of those?” Edmund asked.

“I… well… Srit?” Oz asked.

“Yes, we can tie them together,” Srit said though her tone sounded reticent. “We would need to be swift about it as soon as Edmund moves to the other Save-state.”

“Alright… then… well… shit,” Edmund said with a laugh. “It sounds like it’s just time to get right into it. No time like the present. If this is my end, then it’s my end.

“You ready, Oz, Srit? Claire? Time to get your kissing squared away and send yourself whatever you want. I need to go see if I die or not.”

Claire lifted her head up at this point from where she’d been quite literally making out with Ryker.

She watched him for several seconds.

“You’re with Iren?” she asked, watching him.

“In Austrlia? Yeah. I’m with Iren,” Edmund agreed.

Claire sighed, shook her head, and then shrugged athim.

“I’m sorry. I put a tiny spell on her last time to help her growth speed up but there’s not much else I can do if you’re in Austrlia,” she offered up even as she began fashioning a new spell. Her fingres working together in concert to quickly put together new constructs and runes.

“Dot’s magic looks far more like Ryker’s,” Edmund said, watching Claire’s fingers. “Yours looks a lot like his, just without form or structure. I wonder what would happen if you two tried to form spells together like he does with Shirley.

“Probably far more versatility and strength but also lacking in some other things like defenses. Or is that how you three structured I? Ryker is the control, you’re the power, Shirley is the shield?”

Claire froze as her spell was cast and she looked to Edmund. She tilted her head to one side, blinked, then smiled at him.

“You see us three as one unit?” she asked.

“I mean, yeah? Shirley’s your sister, isn’t she? Every time I see you three working together to fight Zeus it’s always effortless. You’re family. Though I do admit I missed out on Bianca. She’s as lovely as you are,” Edmund admitted and then blew out a breath. “All done, Claire?”

“Yes,” she whispered, watching him. Then she made a tiny flick of her fingers with a small flash of light. Staring at him in a way that made him nervous. “All done.”

Breathing in and out several times, Edmund gathered himself up, and then flung himself into his only available Save-state.

“Iren, quick, transform into a dragon. I need to mount you,” Edmund said and moved away from Iren quickly.

“Huh, oh, okay,” Iren without any hesitation. She immediately went down to hands ands knees and shifted into her dragon form. The large and rather terrifying looking Green Dragon that she was.

Edmund quickly got on top of her just behind her head, dug his thighs and ankles into her, and grasped her horns.

“Get us moving. Quick. Back the way we came as fast as we can!” he ordered. “We’re going to—”

Iren was already airborn as soon as he finished his request. Beating her wings rough and hard as if she were scraping for every scrap of speed she could muster right out of the gate.

“Hahaha! Are we flying for our lives!?” Iren shouted even as she pumped her wings wildly. Gaining speed with every flap. “This is always normally exciting, but this is a lot more wild right now! You sounded desperate!”

“I am! If we fuck up, I’m dead! I won’t live through this! My life is in your beautiful hands, Iren!” Edmund confessed.

Iren’s neck stiffened beneath him as he said and he felt it when she started flapping insanely hard. Her entire body jerking with the strength of each pull of her wings.

“What?” squawked Iren, sounding very much like someone else entirely. Not at all was she the fun-loving, easy-going, Iren anymore. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

“Nope! Already failed this once and I ended up in a place before time and space. Wasn’t great, but not awful either,” Edmund said as his vision failed suddenly. It was shocking to the extreme. The helmet was so comfortable to wear that he’d genuinely forgot he was wearing it. The view of the world reappeared only seconds later. “Ah? Ah, yeah. Anyways. Failed! Now I’ve got one try left and I’m betting everything on Iren.”

“I’m not the one you should be betting on!” growled the Dragon as her wings slammed downward and he could feel her whole body pitching forward at the same time. She was throwing everything she had into this. “This is more of a Dot, Alina, or Ellie thing. Even Adeena or Harper would be better!”

“Connected,” Oz stated.

“Okay, tell me which way to go so I can survive this!” Edmund demanded as if he were speaking to the log.

His helmet display flickered and a waypoint appeared.

It was fifteen miles away.

“Iren, I love you, I need you to go this way,” he declared and eased her head partly to the side by pulling at her horns. “Apparently this is the way out according to the log. That’s where I have to go to survive.”

“Then that’s where were damn well going!” growled Iren, her wings beating furiously at the air. “Even if my damn heart bursts. I-I swear it, Teddy!”

“Oz, Srit, how’re we looking? The log gave me a direction to go in. Is this the right way to go?” Edmund asked, holding onto Iren tightly.

“No,” Oz said after only a second. “You’d survive there but you woudn’t be leaving from there.”

“I concur,” Srit stated after a pause.

“Shit okay, uh, log… where do I need to go to make sure I can return to my own Save-state timelines?” Edmund asked. “Even if we have to cross over some other points.”

A waypoint immediately appeared to the left and not far away at all.

“Iren, hon, I’m sorry but I’m gonna ride you like a damn horse,” Edmund growled, hissed, and pulled at Iren’s head while trying to steer her neck with his knees.

“Do it already then, it’s not like you don’t ride my ass often anyways,” Iren spat out and turned in the direction he guided her.

“Holy shit there’s a height element,” complained Edmund even as he pulled Iren’s horns up a bit. She corrected her altitude moments before they went through the waypoint and another appeared a mile away to the south.

“Storm’s incoming in five seconds!” warned Oz.

“Will we feel it?” asked Iren as she continued to respond to his directions.

“No. It’ll be almost as if nothing happens,” Edmund responded, waited, then tried hesitantly. “Oz? Did we lose you?”

“No, I am here. Though if you hadn’t made that first waypoint, I wouldn’t be here. We are approximately at the dawn of time. There are cave-dwelling ancestors of yours all over,” answered Oz.

Edmund only grunted to that and continued to push Iren forward. There wasn’t much he could do other than provide her guidance and all she could do was get them there.

The waypoint slowly came closer and Iren flapped right through it, only for a waypoint to appear almost behind them and much higher up.

“Iren it’s way the hell up there,” Edmund growled and tried to pull her around.

She flattened her wings out, angled them up, and they did a sudden and steep u-turn right there in the air. Only for her to begin flapping once they completed the turn. Lifting them slowly up into the air and toward the newest waypoint.

“I don’t think you could’ve done this in your original form or size,” Edmund remarked evne as they continued to gain altitude.

“Oh fuck no,” confessed Iren with an indelicate laugh. “I was a real shit Dragon ya know? Weak, small, lack of endurance. I was only good against humans and things. Not against other peak tier shit like Dragons. I can’t even imagine trying to fight Goldie.

“She would’ve just backhanded me and told me to try again in a month after my jaw repaired itself.”

Raising his eyebrows at that, Edmund really wasn’t sure what to say.

He liked Goldie.

She’d always seemed deeply conservative, kind, and warm to him. Almost ideal in many ways to what he would’ve pointed at and immediately said ‘I want that’ if he were given a prefrence somehow.

Only for him to realize in that moment that he did have that.

Ellie.

“Fucking tired already,” grunted Iren as she continued to climb. Then passed straight through the waypoint.

Only for another to appear.

“Log, how many more waypoints are there?” Edmund asked. “And are they time based?”

A mutlitude of waypoints appeared. At least fifty of them. Several were timed and had a ticking clock on them.

“I… ah… alright,” Edmund mumbled as he took in the situation. This wasn’t going to be easy.

Or even quick. It would come down to Iren’s stamina and his ability to get her there within the limits of her endurance.

Pushing in with his knees, pulling at her horns, he started guiding her back around to another waypoint.

“How we doing Oz? Still watching cave-people have dirt sex?” Edmund asked.

“Yes,” answered Srit. “They’re still very much in their grunt, fuck, eat, phase. It’s amazing to see how far humans have come when you look back at the starting point. It really is a ‘standing on the shoulders of giants’ situation.

“Without a few key cultural changeovers and passed on knowledge, it isn’t as if you’d be any different than them. Biologically, your ancestors are exactly the same as you at this point.”

“Wait, is Oz okay?” asked Edmund.

“Ah, yes. He is alright. He is attempting to make sense of what the log has given you instruction wise to determine if there’s another quesiton, shortcut, or answer we can use,” Srit explained.

“Let me guess, Iren is going to run out of gass before we make it to the end,” Edmund surmised.

“Hell yeah I am,” Iren said with a breathy laugh even as she flew on. “The up and down is killing me. If I could just glide or stay at one altitude I could do this. This is going to break me though.”

“Log, is there a different route we could take that’d have a series of waypoints Iren could manage?” Edmund asked. “Before she runs out of stamina that is. Cause I can’t fly and without Iren this won’t happen, will it?”

The waypoints started to shuffle, change, and reconfigure themselves.

Quite a bit, in fact.

Only to return to the original alignment that they had begun in.

Or so Edmund thought.

He really didn’t want to tell Iren that it seemed as if this was more or less the only possibility.

Before he could say something, the waypoints shifted a final time.

All the timers ceased to exist, there were more waypoints, and a great many of them were low on the ground. As if they were meant to be walked across.

The next, was in fact, at ground level.

“Yeah, that looks bad, but I don’t want to question it,” Edmund got out with a sigh. “Our next waypoints are at ground level. I don’t really think that’s—”

Iren suddenly twisted in the air, rolling her body to the side almost entirely, and nearly falling out of the sky at the same time.

A different Dragon blew through the air where Iren had just been. Their wings snapping out after passing through nothing due to Iren’s last moment dodge.

“Fucking hell,” Edmund grumbled and looked down at himslelf and opened up his Save-states.

The only functional location he could go to was the start of the world in the other tree. None of the others in his own were open or able to be moved to.

Thinking quickly, and because he had no other options, Edmund snatched up a far distant Save-state. One where he had been fighting in the registration mission in fact.

He had abandoned it right before he likely died.

Grasping at it, he didn’t try to activate it.

Instead, he went to take from it.

Or more accurately, to rip the equipment off that Edmund, and give it to himself.

It didn’t seem possible, didn’t seem likely, but right now, he didn’t have a weapon.

If that meant tearing open reality to force something, he’d do it. Even if it meant creating a brand new calamity for Australia.

So… Edmund pulled with all the strength he could manage.