Gacha God: The Inherit Dangers of Time Travel (ch. 2) (Patreon)

I had wondered what was up with that picture, I thought as I sprinted through the halls that were filled with panicking students and teachers struggling to keep a handle on the chaos. They were completely torn on what to do and which drill was applicable. Wasn't like there was an alien invasion drill, and worse, Stark Tower wasn't exactly far from Midtown. The clock was ticking down for the aliens to reach them and the only thing that was slowing them down seemed to be laying waste to downtown New York.

Shoving past students, I sprinted up the stairs, heading straight for the rooftop. The picture had been weird -- clearly in my handwriting, but aliens and a city on fire? Not exactly something that made sense until you saw it for yourself. I thought it meant that spaceships were going to set the city on fire rather than an invasion. Luckily, the staircase led straight up to one of the entrances to the rooftop. Picking the lock with the paperclip took all of a second -- I was far from the first one to pick it -- and I slammed my way through the door.

It took a few seconds for me to find my stuff that was arranged in a neat pile -- Air Treks, Golden Scarab, gun, and… "Oh, I got something else? Perfect timing," I muttered, grabbing the jug and reading the message. Divine Water, huh? The talk about bringing out someone's inherent potential was interesting and I think it would help with the situation. I could hear the sounds of chaos off in the distance, echoing down the streets as people screamed and fled the invasion. The mention that everyone that drank from it fucking dying was a bit of a downer, though.

I blew out a breath, looking up at the sky that was currently shitting out aliens. The initial stream had thinned out a bit, but there were a lot. Hundreds. I couldn't tell from where I was. I just knew that I needed every single advantage I could get if I wanted to show these punk-ass aliens their place. With that thought I mind, I popped the cork to the Divine Water and grabbed the wooden ladle that came with it.

Taking a scoop, I saw that the water was kind of murky and greenish. Like someone had dropped a bath bomb in a tub. "Down the hatch," I muttered, knocking the Divine Water back and… despite its appearance, it just tasted like normal water. I felt it settling heavily in my stomach as I set the ladle aside, lightly frowning to myself. "Well, that was underwhelming," I muttered, looking down at the jug. Refreshing, but underwhelming. I expected a surge of power to flow through my vei-

The thought was cut off by the sensation of fire erupting in my gut like I just swallowed gasoline and a match. I coughed, curling into myself, and let the hot, agonizing pain spread throughout my body. I felt fire in my veins, cooking me from the inside out. I rasped, falling to the side before I coughed again, sending a splatter of blood over the rooftop. More blood came welling up out of my lungs and they burned, rebelling as they filled with blood. It began to leak out of my pores as well, and by that time, I realized that the pain was getting less intense.

Not in a way that it meant I wasn't going to die but more in a way that my nervous system was shutting down.

Crimson blood leaked out of my mouth and with fumbling hands, I reached up to the Time Turner. My vision was getting blurry with dark spots forming and my lungs screamed for air, but I could only take ragged gasps in. I think I spun it once, but it was impossible to tell. Shifting where I laid, summoning up the last vestiges of my strength, I dipped a finger into my blood and began to spell out a message.

I only got halfway through when my heart went still in my chest and everything went dark.

…

-thought it meant that spaceships were going to set the city on fire rather than an invasion. Luckily, the staircase led straight up to one of the entrances to the rooftop. Picking the lock with the paperclip took all of a second -- I was far from the first one to pick it -- and I slammed my way through the door. Running to the center of the roof, looking for my… oh.

"Did I die?" I muttered, spotting a neat pile of my stuff. It was all there -- Air Treks, Golden Beetle, gun, and apparently a future me had gotten their hands on something new. A clay pot with a Japanese kanji on it, but I was far more disturbed by the amount of blood that had soaked into the concrete. Enough that no one could survive losing that much. Some of which was used to spell out a word. Well, most of one.

In what I'm guessing was my own blood was 'Don',' with the the T half finished directly in front of the… Divine Water, I learned with a touch. That was as clear of a warning that you could get, really. Seems like I wasn't the chosen one who could guzzle the stuff down and be fine afterward. Sucked, but it was what it was. I could find a use for it later, but right now, I had bigger fish to fry.

Setting the Divine Water to the side, I shoved the gun into my waistline and put on my Air Treks. After tying up the laces, I pressed a heel down on the throttle and I shot off of the building, only barely saved from breaking both of my legs by catching the lip of the building and skating down the side of it. Landing on the sidewalk in front of the school, I shot off towards the sounds of chaos down the street.

People were fleeing in droves or they were shoving their way into buildings. Cars slammed into each other on the road in attempts to force their way through traffic, and worse were the sounds of explosions off in the distance. The sounds of screaming shook the air as I leaped from the roof of a car to land on the side of a building, clinging to it for a short moment before touching back down to weave between cars. As chaotic as it was, my eyes were glued to the sky.

I saw my first alien and it was probably rude to judge them by human beauty standards, but I couldn’t help but notice he was an ugly fucker. Deep gray skin that was oddly chitinous in some places while also wearing thick armor that was highlighted in gold. There were three of them on the speeder-looking thing that let them fly through the air -- one controlled the thing but the other two were the gunmen. Golden cannons or thin rifles were attached to their arms and each time they fired, blue blasts of something struck the target like the fist of an angry god. Concrete was punched through like wet tissue paper, cars were flipped over as they exploded.

People? People were reduced to a fine red mist, the force of the explosion sending any parts that managed to survive flying. It was a haunting sight, I decided, gunning the throttle, leaning all the way into my instincts and trusting that they would get me through this mess. A taxi cab flipped into the air as the speeder raced forward, creating a perfect ramp. Leaping up, I shot up the side of the taxi as it started to flip in the air, sending me directly at the speeder.

At this close range, I saw that the aliens were even less pretty up close than they were at a distance. They were an odd blend of biological and technological from what I saw given that the driver literally had his head as the steering wheel. The other two quickly took notice of me -- one because I drop kicked him, planting my feet into his chest, and nearly knocking him off of the speeder. I would have managed it if it wasn’t for the chain that connected it to him.

The other alien let out a warbled yell as it shifted an energy gun at me, firing off a shot that I dodged mostly because my footing was unsettled. It punched through the side of the chariot the three were in, leaving me time to go for the gun in my belt and pull the trigger. It jerked in my palm, shaking my entire arm from the recoil, but the alien wasn’t bulletproof. I squeezed the trigger a half dozen times in a handful of seconds, the alien spurting out purplish blood before it began to slump over. A hand grabbed onto my ankle, telling me that the other alien wasn’t out of the fight yet.

As it used me to haul itself back into the chariot, I reached out for the laser gun that had dropped by the dead alien. My fingertips brushed against its surface, brushing it away, only for it to roll right back to me when the chariot shifted to dodge something. Maybe a building. I was just thankful because just as the alien managed to haul itself up, I swung out blindly with the energy blade of the weapon, catching it in the arm, and the energy blade cut right through it like it wasn’t even there.

The alien screeched in pain but it still came for me, a single hand going for my throat, but shifting the grip on the weapon, I drove the nozzle into his ribs before pulling the trigger. This close, I felt the shockwave travel through me while the alien was ripped in half. Shoving the corpse away from me, I took a moment to gather my wits and take a breath.

“It’s going to be that kind of day, huh?” I muttered to myself, turning around to look at the driver. I’m not sure if he was aware that his buddies were dead, but he was still happily firing upon the civilians below. Hefting my new weapon, I gave myself a moment to check it out -- a slender barrel with a grip that certainly wasn’t made with human hands in mind, and an energy axe blade under the stock. I had no idea how many shots it had, so I rolled over to the pilot, put my old gun to the back of his head, and emptied what was left of the mag into the base of his skull.

Immediately, the speeder began to drop and I bailed out, throwing myself towards a building that I was able to skate down. Even as the speeder crashed and burned, slamming into a delivery truck, another two speeders rounded a corner to pick up where it left off. I leapt from the building I was drifting down, landing on the street and taking aim with my new alien gun and pulling the trigger.

If it wasn’t for the blue blast of energy flying upwards, slamming into the base of one of the speeders and destroying it in a blast of orange flames, I might not have realized that it had even fired. There was no recoil of any kind. The other speeder began to bank, zeroing in on me as I began to speed past it, taking a few shots at it, only to find the first shot had been beginner's luck because all three of them missed. The speeder returned fire as I weaved through the destruction, my lungs filling with smoke and my eyes began to water from it.

It was a decent cover though, letting me suddenly flip around to skate backward to fire up at the speedster. When I felt a flash of heat on my face, I knew that I nailed it. It crashed into the ground hard, flattening an SUV, telling me that despite being able to fly, the speeders were heavy. I continued on, now freshly armed with a much more powerful weapon. I spotted the aliens climbing on the building so I started taking shots at them as I raced by. I missed every other shot, but even with a miss, I destroyed what they were climbing on and they fell. Hopefully to their deaths.

The further I got into the city, the worse it seemed. The invasion had hardly begun and the devastation was widespread, filling the streets with debris and signs of carnage. I raced through them all the same, taking shots where I could before an explosion up above caught my attention. A speeder exploded overhead without me taking a shot at it, making me look around for who did it. While I didn’t find the source, I did find something else interesting as I rounded a corner, skating off the side of a delivery truck that headed up to an overpass in the city.

Some guy was beating the absolute shit out of a bunch of aliens with a shield. Awesome, but when he threw it and it bounced off a half dozen aliens without anything remotely resembling respect for the laws of physics, I knew exactly who it was. I just about ate it when my concentration lapsed when I realized that I was looking at Captain-motherfucking-America. If him being dressed in the rather unfortunate red white and blue costume -- mostly blue with an odd cap thing -- wasn’t big enough of a hint that it was him, then the sheer amount of ass he was kicking was.

My less than graceful entrance as I tripped, rolled uncontrollably for a solid thirty feet, and me slamming into a taxi alerted Captain America to my presence while I tried to get some air back into my lungs. My arms and legs were covered in scrapes, leaking blood, and I think I’d have rather broken a bone than deal with scrapes. A bone was more debilitating but scrapes just hurt more. Forcing myself up, I caught a flash of movement out of the corner of my a split second before a round red, white, and blue shield slammed into an alien that had lunged at me while I was down.

“You alright there, son?” I heard as I stood up, looking up to Captain America. Holy shit. This was pretty cool.

“I’m good. Would like to know what’s going on, though,” I added, grabbing the alien’s gun since I think I lost mine in the fall. Almost immediately, I started opening fire on the aliens. “The alien invasion is more pressing, but I would like to know what's going on with your whole situation. Didn’t you die in World War II?” I asked while Captain America did his thing. He even banked one of my shots by throwing his shield in front of one that would have missed, redirecting it so that it found its target, then he caught his shield without missing a beat.

“Long story on the last one, and you don’t have time for the first one. You need to get out of here now, kid,” Captain America stated, blocking a shot from an alien. “This is a battleground. It’s not place for a child.” I always thought it was an act, but Captain America sounded exactly like he did in the PSAs. That was pretty wild. And a little alarming that that was his baseline personality.

“I’m actually about a thousand years old, I just look sixteen,” I told him as I took the situation in. The aliens were still pouring out of the hole in the sky, and for every one that we killed, two more seemed to take their place. Without my mobility, as I was forced to dodge between cover on the narrow street, I found that combat was a lot more dangerous as a blue blast whizzed right by my head. “So, give me the cliff notes version.”

“You’re- Well, it wouldn’t be the weirdest thing I’ve heard this week,” Captain America started before our position started to get hammered harder by the aliens, and it must have been pretty wild if he just instantly bought that. “Long story short, we’re being invaded by aliens from another dimension called the Chitauri. What’s sustaining the portal for them to come in is on top of Stark Tower, and right now we’re taking the hits until the rest of my team can close it.”

Huh. Okay. “And where is the rest of your team? Are the rest of the Howling Commandos here with us, fightin’ the good fight?” I asked, weaving through the cars on the overpass, and dodging blasts. The aliens, the Chitauri apparently, really were focusing on Captain America. I mean, I would to. It wasn’t often that I felt completely outclassed in pure badassery, but as far as badasses go, it was hard to top the guy that punched Hitler.

Almost as if in response, I saw another figure join the fray. A woman, with scrunched up shoulder-length red hair and wearing a skin-tight matte black suit that bore a red belt buckle shaped like an hourglass and… the S.H.I.E.L.D emblem.

Figures that they would be here.

Like me, she wielded a Chitauri gun as she made her way to us with far greater grace and efficiency than I could manage, firing shots seamlessly before switching to hacking away at any alien that got too close to her. She rolled over the hood of a car, dodging a shot that punched through the windshield, and landed on the side of it, killing the offending alien with a single well placed shot.

Getting a good look at her, I saw that she was pretty. Pretty and badass. I think I’m in love.

“For a thousand-year-old, you sure do seem to drool like a normal teenager,” the woman remarked, tossing the weapon to the side before picking up another. I skidded to a halt near them as she and Captain America linked up.

“Getting older is mandatory. Growing up is completely optional,” I quoted, and I knew for damn sure that she didn’t leave the zipper to her jumpsuit half unzipped by accident. She knew she was sexy and she rocked it. She inclined her head to me while Captain America frowned.

“You have a name?” He asked me, lowering his shield when he saw that the aliens had thinned out. He started moving, ready to chase them down, determined to be in the thick of the combat. You couldn’t be an American without knowing all the stories about Captain America. He was as intrinsic a piece of American history as George Washington was. I always figured that the stories were puffed up and exaggerated. Or the parts where he was probably a racist or misogynist were conveniently forgotten.

I’m not so sure, now. Looking at him up close, I think he might be one of those rare men that actually lived up to their reputation.

“Sebastian,” I answered, rolling along.

“Sebastian, I know you want to help with this, but you can do more by aiding evacuations. Find people and get them down into the metro stations and tunnels. Try to find police officers to coordinate with. Leave the fighting to us. The Avengers,” Captain America said, coming to a stop, placing a hand on my shoulder, and giving it a squeeze. He sounded earnest.

I glanced up at Stark Tower and I came to a conclusion easily enough. The devastation was widespread and we were barely thirty minutes into the invasion. A future me had gotten my stuff, but the fact of the matter was that I didn’t have the stopping power to unfuck this clusterfuck. To that end, this timeline was defunct. I needed to go back with some odds and ends to streamline this whole mess.

I offered a small nod, “If you think that would be best, sir,” I lied to Captain America as easily as I breathed. Captain America did seem a bit surprised at my easy agreement but he gave me a thin approving smile and a nod. Trading a nod with the redhead, I started to zoom off and started thinking of a plan.

The city became more of a mess the further you got into it, and I could easily see signs of battle from the so-called Avengers. Not really sure what was going on there, but I’m sure a future me would figure it out eventually. To that end, I needed to get the future me supplies to get the job done. I wasn’t going to be the one to show the Chitauri their place, but so long as a version of me managed to do it, then that was all fine and dandy.

I ignored the sounds of combat in the city and the Chitauri streaming overhead. Occasionally, I heard sounds of explosions and screams following them. I also saw what I think was Iron Man, or Tony Stark, flying overhead once. The people needing help went ignored as they fled the invasion and death -- it was pointless to help them. The clock was about to get rolled back anyway.

Instead, I focused on finding weapons. The Chitauri had fifty shots in their rifles before they needed to be replaced -- there may be a way to refill or recharge them, but I had no idea how to do it. So, I went with quantity. I searched the leftovers from the battles with the Avengers and began to build up a stockpile in the back of a van. About an hour into the invasion, the military finally responded to the attack and they got their shit absolutely fucking wrecked by every metric. Their weapons went into the van as well.

I did see Iron Man flying above overhead more than once during that time, but it was impossible to tell if Tony Stark ever noticed me. What I did see was him fucking up some aliens, which was nice because it meant I could more or less just follow and pick up after him. Once the van was filled, I broke into a department store to grab a few other odds and ends. Things that I thought would help. Like shin guards. And a mask. And a journal.

Once everything was done, I calmly drove back to Midtown High School, dealing with the bumpiest ride of my life, but as far as I could tell, the Avengers were containing the damage mostly to downtown New York. It was still chaos everywhere else, but when I turned the Time Turner twice, putting me back two hours, the traffic got a lot more manageable.

With two hours on the clock, I went to work as fast as I could in the city. I didn’t use my Air Treks, which would have made things so much easier, but would have screwed over past me if he was the one that got to kick the Chitauri in the teeth. Instead, I started dumping the weapons throughout the city and spray painting a Payday symbol where I did while marking a map of it.

It was a good dozen drops that more or less marked a path to Stark Tower. If more were needed, then another future me could expand the pick-up points. The work was fast and it was exhausting, my shirt was soaked through with sweat when I finally made it back to Midtown High and climbed up to the roof just in time to see myself getting dropped off by the bus. I could look at past me, but past me seeing me would cause problems. It was an instant game over for one of us and the cleaning that the timeline did was more expansive than just erasing the variable.

Setting the map aside, I popped open a journal and began writing down what I knew about the invasion and the Avengers, telling past me what he needed to know. My hand started to cramp up by the time I was done but when I was, I closed the journal, slid the pen into the spiral wire, and hid as past me came up onto the rooftop to collect his things. He never spotted me and when he was gone, I lit up my last cigarette and breathed in the rich smoke.

I only got halfway through it before I was wiped from existence, a full hour early.

…

-thought it meant that spaceships were going to set the city on fire rather than an invasion. Luckily, the staircase led straight up to one of the entrances to the rooftop. Picking the lock with the paperclip took all of a second -- I was far from the first one to pick it -- and I slammed my way through the door. I found my stuff near the ledge -- my Air Treks, Golden Scarab, gun, but there were a few things that I didn’t recognize.

A jug of water that was apparently called Divine Water. A future me had tried drinking it and died according to a journal that I found that listed some things out. It was pretty convenient -- I had dead drops leading up to the Stark Tower by the looks of it. However…

“I think you’re looking at it wrong,” I decided, zeroing in on one thing in the journal. It was probably because of the chaos and adrenaline, but past-future me had zeroed in on fighting the Chitauri like it was the best and only option, but that really wasn’t the case. I just needed to close the portal and then I could focus on kicking in the teeth of the Chitauri that were left. Easier and simpler that way.

Putting on my Air Treks, I grabbed what looked like a featureless white kabuki mask that hadn’t been painted yet, but the eye holes let me see easily enough. Popping it on, I realized it was going to be a bitch to breathe through and hopped off the building, making my way down to Stark Tower. I ignored the sounds of chaos and fighting as I blasted through the streets, weaving in and out of traffic as people fled for their lives.

I was doing what I could, I thought, lazily flipping onto a subway rail line that would take me closer to Stark Tower in almost a straight shot. Putting one foot in front of the other, I cranked the speed up as fast as I could go and found myself flying forward at near a hundred miles an hour. I would need to adjust the mask, I realized as I squinted through my eyeholes. The rest of my face felt fine but I would probably need some eye protection because the air blasting into them was tough to deal with.

I hardly slowed before I leapt off of the railing, sailing through the air with a lazy flip to land on a building that would give me a good start up Stark Tower. Hitting the ground running, I maintained my speed and flew forward, jumping with all of my strength to cross the street below. My heart hammered in my chest like it was about to bust out. My wheels caught the glass paneling at an angle, letting them catch and transfer some of my momentum to race up the Tower.

Lightly touching the glass as I made a wide circle, I flew up stories, but it only took a moment for me to realize something.

I wasn’t going fast enough. The building was too tall, too wide… and…

I was falling.

“Oh… bother,” I muttered unhappily, realizing that this wasn’t going to work as I began to fall. Turning around, I saw nothing but the ground beneath me, so no hope of breaking my fall. Not great. My hands went to my necklace and I turned the clock back to create a past me so this wouldn’t be the end. With that done, a hand fumbled for my cigarettes…

But I hit the ground before I could take a smoke.

…

-I hardly slowed before I leaped off of the railing, sailing through the air with a lazy flip to land on a building that would give me a good start up Stark Tower. At least, that was the plan if it wasn’t for a fucking stop sign poking out of a barrier getting in the way that I slammed right into. Plastic was still hard and I felt an arm snap like a twig when I came to a stop, my entire body aching from what the fuck just happened. A low groan escaped me, cradling my arm to my side and forcing myself to sit up.

Looking around, I realized that I lost my mask, but I also saw something else. Spray painted on the doorway that led up to the roof that I was one, I spotted a message from a future me. The word SPLAT, all capital letters, and a circle within a circle. My symbol for a time loop.

“Oh,” I muttered, realizing that I had just broken out of a time loop of falling endlessly from Stark Tower. Looking over the edge of the building I was on, I glanced at the tower, then at the ground, and I had to wonder exactly how many times I must have gone splat. “Wonder how I got out of that one? Must have thumbed the Time-Turner too many times,” I said, forcing myself to stand as I considered my options going forward.

I think… “Let's just take the stairs then. The boring way.”

No matter what, I would be getting to the top of that tower and I would be turning off that portal. No matter how many times I had to die or get erased from existence. I set my mind to the goal… and I would see it through.