Fragmented

Chapter Fifteen

TW: Blood, needles, torture

By the time the Steves had finished explaining their history and the events of the last few years, it felt to everyone that multiple hours had passed by. However, no one had interrupted. Not even Alyssa, whose leg still hurt intensely. She was too interested in what the Steves had to say about their world.

When M and Light had entered the room, she had marveled at how different they were from normal humans. Light could have passed for a human despite his deathly pale skin except for his military-style cropped white hair, devoid of pigmentation of any kind. It was too colorless to look dyed, and his roots didn't have the smallest bit of brown or black or blonde that could normally be barely visible in dyed hair.

M's skin, on the other hand, was too unnaturally red. He could lie about having a medical condition, but his bright cherry colored hair was too big of a giveaway. And if that wasn't enough, his eyes were also a ruby red that glittered a bit when exposed to the light. It wasn't a natural color and the fact that they sparkled a little made him seem even more alien. Light's silver eyes also twinkled, but there was a bit more of it than M's.

Time was the strangest of all. His intricate mask hid his face from everyone. He wore a gold pocket watch on a chain connected to his fancy sepia coat. His beige skin tone was a natural human color, but numerous scars from long ago marred it. His ash gray hair always seemed slightly messy, disturbing his almost perfect look and personality of a renowned scholar. He was different with friends, though. She had seen that herself.

Sabre's hand in the entire thing was very valiant indeed. His many tales of bravery were things to be impressed by. The Steves also validated his words, even saying to him that he was underexaggerating, which Sabre denied. Not only was he a hero, but he didn't let it go to his head.

"That took quite a while," M said. "Hopefully the Professor didn't finish his invention before we finished our story."

"There's no way he could have," Time responded, tapping the side of his mask. His fingernail clinked against the glass. Sabre then noticed that the seconds hand wasn't ticking away rhythmically as it normally did.

"Wait- Time, did you stop time?!" Sabre exclaimed. "You know how dangerous that is for you! Remember last time?!"

"I didn't exactly stop time." As Sabre watched, the seconds hand slowly moved to its next position, making a dull thud instead of the crisp tick that it normally made. He put two and two together and smiled.

"Time, you genius." He grinned back. Alyssa was still confused about everything but understood what he had done.

"So you... slowed down time? Just now?"

"Yes. It's only been seven minutes and four seconds."

She was very clearly in awe of his show of power. "I didn't even notice." She glanced out the window. A small bird fluttered by at a considerably normal speed. Looking back at Time's mask, she could see that it was still slowed down.

"The birds outside are moving at the same speed as they would normally, though," she pointed out.

"Well, I didn't slow down time for everything," he explained. "Really, I sped a small area up, including a bit of outside. I also just let go of my hold on this area as you spoke, so that would account for some of it."

"Ah. But then why is your mask at a different time than it would be normally in this little area before you let go? It's hooked up to the time around you, isn't it?"

"It's synched up to the universal time, not any changes that I personally make. Although I've been known to some as the Master of Time, I can't really control all of it in every single world. I can freeze it in one world and all its dimensions, but only for a few minutes. After that, the wall between separate timelines begins falling apart and anyone in the immediate area is either torn apart by the cataclysmic forces colliding from different realities or, by my hand, are teleported through these timelines for a random amount of time, ranging from five seconds to a maximum of three minutes. They must escape the loop or risk becoming trapped in one of the alternate dimensions for all eternity."