On Your Marks

“Bloody sirens again.” Juror slammed her hand to her wrist and Breached towards the origins of the noise. The Bailiffs were swarming the centre of the room again. This time, instead of Brian, Time was in the compromising position, captured and ready for punishment.
“Very funny. We going to get me down?” Time wriggled but there wasn’t much movement in its bindings.
“Computer, add Time to the whitelist.”
“I’m sorry. I do not know how to add time to the whitelist. Please restate your request.” If it could have, Time would have facepalmed.
“Computer, add the individual currently trapped in the conduit interface chamber to the whitelist.” Lore smiled.
“New entry created. Standing down alert.”
“Thank you.” Time exhaled deeply. “I think we’re almost ready.”
Lore nodded. While they had seen the size of their clone army, they hadn’t seen how the others had gotten on. “How are we doing?”
“I went around the multiverses and spoke with their respective Cornerstones.” Time left a pause.
“And…” Char gestured for it to continue.
“I managed to get the support of forty nine of the fifty two sets. I think thirty seven will switch once they see what we’re planning but the rest I couldn’t confidently bet on. Not complete sets but the more the merrier?”
“Are we included in that forty nine or do we actually have fifty sets?”
“You’re included.” Time looked like they had bad news. “But that’s where our luck ran out really. While we’ve allied ourselves with the Cornerstones, in some realities, the carriers of the Reaper Matrix really don’t like the Cornerstones.”
“So how many of them have we got?” Fingers crossed.
“Including yourselves, we managed to convince twelve.” Lore had hoped for more but with the Cornerstones as well, they should have more than enough power to do what they wanted.
“Less than we hoped for but more than enough.” Lore smiled seeing the silver lining. “It won’t matter soon anyway. If the plan works then we’ll be more than equipped to stop Reality.”
“Lore, can we talk for a moment?” Piper pulled them aside.
“What is it?” Lore gestured for them to sit on the corridor floor.
It took him a moment to speak. He seemed lost in thought. “It keeps happening.”
“What does?” Lore laid their arm around his shoulder.
“The closer we get to the final battle, the more often I see it.” Piper was beginning to hyperventilate.
“Woah, woah, woah. Deep breaths. Nice and slow.” They mimicked the behaviour they wanted to see, embracing and reassuring him as he did it. Slowly, they managed to get his breathing back to normal.
“I know how this ends.” He paused. “I think I do anyway. But I can’t tell you because if I do, it changes.”
“I know.” Lore smiled. “It’s a fine line for anyone to walk.”
“You’ve said that so many times. But how do you know? You see the present, everything around us.”
“But I also know when time can be changed. I know when it can’t too. You’re lucky. You get to know exactly when and where you can share your secrets, I have to wait and see.” Lore thought about their next sentence. It felt right. “In the future, your future, you’re going to go back in time and meet me and your mother. She isn’t going to have a clue about who you are because we haven’t had you yet. Rather early on, you’re going to tell me everything and I’m going to have to keep those secrets from your mother. Some of them I couldn’t reveal until after you were born. Some of them, she still doesn’t know.” Lore nudged him. “Point is, you’ve got to pick and choose your moments because the right word at the right time can do a world of good or damage.”
“I think the time is right then.” Piper got himself up before offering his hand to Lore. He sped away back to the main room. “Reality is going to have the same idea.”
“Sorry, what?” The room erupted in confusion.
“We’re bringing together as many people as possible to defeat Reality. Well, while we’ve been working on that, I can only assume Reality’s been going the same. When we reveal ourselves in our purest form, Reality will do the same. From what I saw, he only managed to recruit a few but that’s more power than we’ll have.”
Silence. Lore smiled confidently. “I’ve got a good feeling about this.” The atmosphere around them so tense that to cut it with a knife would have had a similar effect as cutting a stretched rubber band. “So, things sound bad. I admit, I am somewhat worried. Reality stealing a move from our routine isn’t cool but it is something we should have expected. Even then, it doesn’t change how we’re going to go about this. We have the numerical advantage, our plan is solid, we either win this or we tear a hole in the side of the megaverse so large that we have to unite with Reality against Du’Walles. Either way, either result, I have hope enough for all of us that we’ll succeed. Everyone who goes into this is coming out. Everybody lives, no caveats, no excuses. We’ll win and we’ll win well.” Lore’s speech was building their confidence too. “And if we lose, we’ll have given it our best shot.” Time raised its hand. “Yes. Before you ask, I do have a contingency plan. Should anything go catastrophically wrong, things are in place to correct that.” Time lowered its hand. “We’ve not got long till this begins. Final checks then we go.” Lore gave the finger guns.
Spirits lifted, those gathered around them scattered to finish whatever preparations they had left. Lore may not have said much but the way they had shared their optimism; it had put more than just a pep in their steps, they were beginning to believe they could succeed. The stakes couldn’t really be much higher but they felt ready.
Char looked to Lore and couldn’t help but cry. She jumped at them, her arms extended, and wrapped them as tightly as she could. “Ok… not that I’m not a fan of this, because this is nice, but why?” Char didn’t respond, burying her face in Lore’s shoulder. Get Set, Go.