'It was a strange feeling...' Allen thought.
Having the power to manipulate time and actually using it were two different things. He knew how to alter reality; he was almost an expert in fields involving space and dimensions, to the point where he could cross between worlds without Lenalee's help. But time was different. He didn't like manipulating it, altering it, or traveling through it, all because of his strange experience in the DC world.
The fact that on his first visit to that world, they already knew who he was, that Diana was his woman despite meeting her for the first time, and worse, that he later found out he had even traveled three hundred years into the past.
A life he hadn't even lived yet had given him chills...
That was why he had forbidden and blocked every form of temporal alteration for everyone, including himself. If anyone disagreed, they were free to come and complain to him.
What had changed?
The simple answer was selfishness. The more complicated answer was trust. Unlike before, his power had increased massively, to the point where he was confident he could prevent anything if things got out of control. Of course, he hoped that wouldn't be necessary, which was why he was being extremely careful.
"..." Allen breathed and carefully prepared to "let go" of the time he had been holding in his hand.
This bastard, instead of interfering with time or controlling it as most people did, had literally "taken" the time of the entire world into his hand.
Did that make sense?
Of course not!
This went beyond simply altering, manipulating, or controlling time. He was violating the fundamental laws of creation. If the god who had created the world saw what Allen had casually done, he would probably spit out thousands of curses.
Neither Allen nor Lenalee intended to explain to their Chat what he had done, so as not to scare them. In fact, lately Allen had been very careful about what he did in front of the camera to keep people from freaking out. It was better for them to think he was manipulating time simply.
"Okay, we're in 2075," Allen said, waiting for a smile from Rebecca, perhaps even a reward. However, the girl remained silent and looked at Allen with some doubt.
"..."
"Rebecca?"
"..." Rebecca seemed strangely uncomfortable. "Um, can we go back a little further?"
"Further?" Allen blinked.
"Yeah. Since we've come this far, maybe I can beat Maine up and stop him from killing himself," Rebecca said with a smile.
Allen and his Chat understood.
Maine led the mercenary group Rebecca had been part of. The guy was already doomed because he had abused cyberware and was falling into cyberpsychosis. Even if Allen took Rebecca to the beginning of Edgerunners, that fate wouldn't change.
"I understand," Allen said and took a breath before to "hold" the time once again and go back another year.
2074...
"Here?" he asked Rebecca.
Rebecca looked around. There were fewer memorials than in 2077, but there hadn't been any major changes in just three years.
"More..." Rebecca said with a bead of sweat on her cheek. "There's also a stupid girl I'd like to scold..."
"Who?" Allen raised an eyebrow.
"Sasha..." Rebecca smiled.
Allen remembered that Rebecca had told him that before Lucy and Kiwi, the group's Netrunner had been a girl named Sasha Yakovleva.
"Okay..."
Allen went back in time again.
2074
"More..." Rebecca said.
2073
"Just a little more..."
Allen was sweating, not from the effort, but because he felt that if he made even the slightest mistake, he could end up destroying time and, consequently, the world.
2070
"Wait, that's too far."
"I know, give me a moment!" Allen said.
2099
The landscape finally changed, and suddenly they appeared in the middle of what seemed to be a war.
Rebecca and Allen saw Arasaka's private army fighting Militech.
Arasaka's soldiers, more machine than man, leaped at Militech soldiers covered in high-tech exoskeletons.
Tanks, aircraft, robots, all caught up in a bloody war where piles of corpses littered the ground. And ordinary people? Who knew.
"What are you doing? That's too far!" Rebecca shouted. She knew she had seen something she shouldn't have.
"Shit." Allen rewound time again.
2024
Suddenly, the two of them were in a ruined city while the reddish sky rained down acid rain. Fortunately, time was frozen; otherwise, they would have been exposed to dangerous levels of radiation.
"Fuck!" Allen growled.
2290
Allen and Rebecca appeared in a wasteland. There was nothing in sight. No wars, no robots, no cyborgs, no acid rain, just nothingness.
"Is this how it's going to end?" Rebecca asked before bursting out laughing. "They deserve it, those sons of bitches. They fucked up the world so badly that they went extinct!"
"Or they could have abandoned the world and searched for another planet," Allen commented.
"..." Rebecca looked at him suspiciously.
"Yep, they definitely went extinct!"
Allen rewound time but began to feel frustrated. Maybe he should just jump through time instead of doing this. It would be easier.
[Want me to do it, you hopelessly lost idiot?]
"I'm fine, and I'm not lost!"
Rick – If it's shit, I recommend going back to 1950 and getting a good Salisbury steak.
Rias – Don't be stubborn. Just go back to 2095 and ask for directions. (laughs)
Nikky – Boss, can we go to 1988?!
Kimiko – Why?
Nikky – Obviously, to attend Michael Jackson's concert at Wembley!
Allen was tempted, but quickly shook his head. "No, nobody is going anywhere. Didn't I tell you that messing with time is dangerous, you bunch of sons of-"
The comments from his Chat distracted an already stressed Allen, and before he realized it, the landscape changed completely and became green.
– 66,000,000
"..." Allen opened his mouth when he saw the date on his system interface. He even "let go" of time, which began moving forward.
The environment was warm and humid. The sounds of animals and insects could be heard from every direction.
"Hey!" Rebecca shouted as she climbed onto Allen's back and started choking him.
"It wasn't my fault!"
Boom
The ground shook, and both Rebecca and Allen froze. Looking to their right, they saw several trees moving. Some bent while others snapped.
"Okay, maybe I should ask for directions", Allen said with a bead of sweat on his cheek.
[Haha, are you sure you don't want me to do it?]
Allen pressed his lips together. Should he swallow his pride and let Lenalee handle it?
"I..."
Interrupting his words, an enormous creature appeared between the trees. Two slit-like reptilian eyes scanned the area in search of any trace of prey. However, its greatest ability was its sense of smell, which could detect prey from miles away.
The enormous creature made the ground tremble with every step, and its aura reeked of blood. In this prehistoric era, the struggle for survival was brutal. Everyone was trying to reach the top of the food chain.
The enormous predator detected an unusual scent, something unique, something it hadn't sensed before. When it looked in Allen's direction, its pupils narrowed. Normally, it couldn't see stationary targets very well, but Allen's mostly black clothing stood out like a beacon amid all that green.
"Fuck, a goddamn T-Rex!" Rebecca shouted.
"Why are you screaming?!" Allen scolded.
The T-Rex erupted into bloodthirsty rage, releasing a roar that shook the prehistoric jungle.
Allen grabbed Rebecca and used the legendary Joestar technique. He wasn't stupid enough to think his guns could handle that thing.
"And people still wonder why messing with time is forbidden?!"
"Hahaha!" Rebecca began laughing. "Seeing a goddamn T-Rex in my world, how bizarre! Hey, Allen, can we take him to Night City, please?~"
"You're not helping!" Allen growled as he kept running through the prehistoric trees.
Along the way, he saw insects the size of dogs and plants that practically screamed, "We'll kill you!" They were so creepy that many people in the Chat said that if they found something like that in their house, they'd rather burn the house down and move.
Lucy – I'm no expert, but couldn't you, I don't know, blow it to pieces with magic or something?
"...a" Allen stopped dead as if remembering that he didn't need to run. At this moment, his full power was complete and available if he wanted it. 'Why the fuck am I running?!'
With complete confidence, Allen turned around and dropped Rebecca.
"Ouch! What kind of way is that to treat your girl, bastard?!"
"You know what? To hell with the no-powers rule! I'll show you what my... uh..."
Allen's words died before he could finish his sentence. For a moment, nobody understood what had happened.
"Does anyone know when the dinosaurs went extinct?" Allen asked with an expressionless look.
Saya – Of course. Approximately 66 million years ago!
"I see..." Allen looked at his system interface.
– 66,000,000
In the sky, a meteorite the size of Texas burned across the heavens as it fell. The sight was so terrifying that even the T-Rex stopped chasing Allen and stared at the sky.
Everything began to tremble from the pressure caused by such a massive object entering the atmosphere. The sky turned red. Pterodactyls, birds, and giant insects flew away in every direction. Dinosaurs and prehistoric creatures screamed, growled, and roared in desperation before the imminent apocalypse.
Rebecca stood there with her mouth open, pulling at Allen's clothes in a panic and insisting that they had to leave immediately. But Allen didn't listen. He ignored her. He was tired. He knew messing with time was a bad idea. He had stupidly gotten himself into trouble, or perhaps he should have practiced a little before doing this.
It didn't matter anymore.
"..." Allen made a pack of cigarettes appear and pulled one out. He looked at it before putting it in his mouth. He made a flame appear on his finger, which technically would be the first fire created by humanity, but this human fire was used to light a cigarette, and for the first time in his life, he decided to smoke.
"This has to be some philosophical shit or something," Allen said while looking toward the horizon.
[Idiot...]
"Idiot!" Rebecca jumped and bonked him on the head, causing him to drop the cigarette onto the ground. She grabbed him by the collar and pulled him. "Stop screwing around!"
"Tch..." Allen snorted. Apparently, one couldn't reflect on life while watching the apocalypse anymore. Who could blame him for having a harem? The single life was better in situations like this.
"I know!" Allen extended his hand and, with a slight movement of his fingers, closed his fist and grabbed time itself.
The apocalypse stopped. The sound stopped, and everything became a static image. If time was stopped, why could they see anything? Seeing required the movement of light, didn't it? And how could they talk if sound should have stopped too? Well, Allen was literally holding time in his hands, violating who knew how many laws. He did it with the ease of someone holding a tree leaf, so there was no need to say more.
"You don't have to be so violent..." Allen complained.
Rebecca sat down on the ground and sighed. "You know this is ridiculous. Just let Lenalee do it."
Allen wanted to refuse, but when he put his hand behind his neck, he felt something. When he grabbed it, he found a fist-sized insect tangled in his hair.
"...Please," Allen said humbly.
[That's right. I like it when you're a good boy~]
"..."
Lenalee stopped joking and began accelerating time.
– 45,000,000
– 20,000,100
– 500
1,700
Late 2072
The landscape returned to how it had been at the beginning. The two of them were standing in the middle of the Columbarium, surrounded by memorials.
[There you go! Thanks for traveling through time with Lenalee Airlines~]
"Show-off..." Allen grumbled. "I just need practice. What's so difficult about time? I can create multiverses if I want to."
The Chat collectively rolled its eyes when they saw Allen throwing a tantrum.
Lenalee didn't waste any time, and once they reached the appropriate year, she allowed the flow of time to continue.
Time began moving normally again.
Lenalee also restored the temporal anchor, making sure that time could once again no longer be manipulated by other people, with the sole exception of temporal dilation between dimensions. This was what allowed Allen to enter and return from worlds without his absence being noticed, and it was also necessary whenever Allen didn't have enough time to "be" with his girlfriends.
Of course, if necessary, he would remove the anchor once again. After all, they had only come to 2072 to save Sasha and kick Maine's ass before he filled his body with shit.
....
The people around them stared at Allen and Rebecca for a moment. Some had the strange feeling that he had appeared out of nowhere, but in the end, people in this world gave a damn about other people's business as long as it didn't negatively affect them.
Allen and Rebecca left the place and walked toward the street. At this point, Allen had called a "taxi." After all, the motorcycle might not even exist yet.
While they waited beside the street, Allen looked around suspiciously. At one point, he grabbed a passing man by the neck. The man was wearing a suit with a sweater around his neck and was walking a robotic Chihuahua.
"What do you want?! Take my money, just don't kill me!"
"Hey, are you a reptilian?! Huh? Money? How much are we talking about?" Allen said, but then shook his head. "Don't distract me. Just tell me, are you a reptile?!"
People stopped to see what was happening. By then, some were already calling the NCPD.
"What are you doing?" Rebecca asked in confusion.
"I'm finding something out." Allen pulled the man closer while his mechanical poodle barked at him, but Allen looked at it and hacked its system, causing it to short-circuit. "Answer me, you bastard!"
This action frightened the people because they realized Allen was a Netrunner, which was extremely dangerous. Imagine getting killed just because someone looked you in the eyes.
Of course, most Netrunners couldn't burn someone's brain that quickly just by looking at their target. Allen could do it because he had chosen a build similar to the one V, the protagonist of the video game, had, and because his implants were legendary-grade.
"Ah! No, don't kill me! I'm not one! I'm not a reptile!"
Allen scanned the man's facial expressions, his heat signature, his bone structure, and the implants he had. Once he finished, he let him go.
The man got up and ran.
"What was that?" Rebecca looked at Allen in disbelief. They had only been in Cyberpunk for a little while, and Allen already seemed crazier than many people here.
"I'm making sure our little adventure didn't cause any changes to the world."
Everyone understood. The goddamn butterfly effect. But in general, since Allen had rewound time and the last time he had let it run was during prehistory, before a giant meteor struck, there shouldn't have been any changes.
Rebecca laughed when she realized what Allen was doing, thinking he was being paranoid, but Allen didn't take it lightly.
At that moment, a driverless vehicle appeared and stopped in front of them.
The image of a gray-colored man appeared on the window.
"Welcome to Delamain, the finest transportation service in Night City."
"You can laugh," Allen said as he entered the vehicle, "but when one of these lunatics turns into a reptilian and tries to bite your face off, you'll apologize!"
"Whatever you say, baby." Rebecca laughed before jumping onto Allen's lap.
The door closed.
A screen lit up in the seat, and Delamain, the artificial intelligence running the transportation service, appeared.
"Good morning, and thank you for choosing us. Where would you like us to take you?"
Allen looked at Rebecca.
"To Santo Domingo!" Rebecca smiled. "I want to see my stupid brother."
"Understood," Delamain said before disappearing.
Without wasting any time, the vehicle began to drive.
====
A/N: I don't think a cigarette on the ground is going to change the world, right?
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