Would You Trust a Time Traveler?

Rewinding Death

Warning: This chapter is very violent.

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Gura cries out as a bullet tears through her shin, and she crumples to the ground, clutching the bleeding wound tightly, staining her hands red. Tears fall from her eyes. Large hands grab her by the shoulders and throw her into the back of the alleyway, causing her to tumble to the ground in a heap. Three men stand over her, blocking the exit.

Gura blinks back the tears and stares up at them. They all have guns pointed at her and one is holding up what appears to be a folded up map. She knows what they want and what would happen to her relationships and her life if she didn't come tonight, and had planned to come and fight for the memory of her people instead, but had not expected this.

"You're going to tell us what we want, shark, or you're losing another leg."

Gura summons her trident and props herself up on one leg with it. "Over my dead body." Her voice doesn't sound as threatening as she'd hoped. Another deafening bang sounds out and ancient instincts kick in. She swings her trident up and in one motion both deflects the bullet and pierces the stomach of one of the men. Blood splatters onto her hoodie and she retracts the trident from its victim just in time to block a second bullet, but the third hits her from the man with the map. She collapses again as pain courses through her body, dropping her trident. There's a bullet in her torso. Every movement sends burning fire through her system and she's on the pavement, shaking.

Bang.

Her good leg has a hole through it now too. She lets out a blood-curdled scream and she can't think, the pain is too much, it's too much, it's too-

She's grabbed by her hair and hoisted upwards, a fist colliding with her stomach. The bullet makes it excruciating. Another fist hits her square in the face and she feels blood flowing down her nose. She's limp.

"Listen, fish scum. Your people are long gone. You don't belong up here and never did. Tell us where that old city is if you want to keep your life." A gun presses to the side of her head. Her heart is pounding and blood is dripping to the ground as she's held up painfully. She lets out the tiniest whimper and a map is unfolded. It's got the ocean beds marked out. Gura doesn't feel she has the strength to even lift her arm like this but the weapon pressed to the side of her head forces her arm up. Through blurry vision, she shakily taps a spot deep, deep in the ocean on their map. Tears spill from her eyes. She thinks of her old home. Her old people. Their millennia old, undisturbed city and graves. The extravagant world, lost to time. Rage at the thought of its desecration leads her to summon her trident to her hand once again and she swings it to the side, stabbing the man's arm all the way through, but at the same time, reacting to the attack, he pulls the trigger.

Bang.

Blood and a body fly to the ground, unmoving.

Amelia, standing on a nearby rooftop, looks away and takes out her watch.

She wipes tears from her eyes. "Now I know what happened, at least..."

As she hears the murderers hiding the body of her friend under a pile of trash as well as taking her trident as they go, she turns the dial.

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Amelia Watson walks alongside Gura as they both head together to the rundown part of town a ways away from the apartment. Her mind is filled with anxiety. She's got both hands in her pockets, her right desperately grasping her revolver, and her left clenched into a fist, filled with fear over the emptiness in it, the lack of feeling the hum of power and vibration of ticking each second. Trust Gura, is all she can tell herself. It won't happen this time. She's going to live. Part of the reason she wanted to come was the hope that, with her here, at least if something goes wrong and Gura, well... can't rewind, she can get the watch and do so herself. If fate really is still against Gura even like this, then the watch would be forever lost upon her death. Amelia won't let either happen.