Claremont Academy Session 3 – Rewind

Chris was furious. It was nothing less than a total abuse of religious freedom that they were being forced, against their will no less, to dress in school uniform on a Sunday and attend a church service in the school chapel. A total abuse of power, ‘he’ fumed, that every one of the boarders had to attend the service regardless of their religious persuasion or lack thereof. It was wrong, wrong, wrong. The ‘day-trippers’ didn’t have to attend, unless they wanted to of course, so why were they not being forced to go?

He headed downstairs, where a worried Gustav was already waiting. In his case, his mood were due to what the student councillor, Mr Dean was trying to get him to face; his so-called superstitions regarding his vampyric weaknesses. He had been inside the church building before of course, for Religious Education classes, but hadn’t been inside the chapel itself yet with its religious crosses, crucifixes and religious icons which he imagined would be plastered on every wall.

The reason for the service, however, they understood and respected. It was the anniversary of the so-called Terminus invasion when a couple of interdimensional breaches had opened above Wessex and London and an invasion force poured through, only for them to be forced back, and the ruptures sealed.

However, in the process, ten people at the school died and the old school so badly damaged it had to be demolished. This was a service of remembrance for those who’d died that day.

To Gustav’s surprise when he entered the chapel and sat down, that there were no crosses or crucifixes hanging on the walls except for a stylised embroidered tapestry on the pulpit, in fact apart from the stain glass windows showing scenes from the Bible, the chantry was plain and comfortably decorated.

The priest (minister?) from St. Mary Mede kept the service simple and non-denominational with a sermon about the Good Samaritan and then the names of the departed were read out and a silent prayer said in their memory.

It was as Charles Edward’s name was read out that Chris noticed the Albion House Cleaner, Martha (they’d had to learn her name as part of their first ethics test) quietly crying and being comforted by Old Man Summers and Ms Zyn.

Then he remembered what he’d overheard some of the HCP teachers mention Down Below, that Charles was, had been, Martha’s son. His tombstone was in the school grounds, but was such a plain little memorial. He wondered why, then the priest mentioned the hero Relentless who died defending the school pupils and suddenly he remembered something else he’d overheard the faculty mention, that Relentless’ body was never found and that he’d been a pupil at the school.

Had Relentless been Charles, and therefore was the simple grave in the grounds empty?

Monday started with double period of English followed after recess with two sessions Down Below in the HCP. The first session was held in the VR chambers – a type of virtual powered tag with both of them trying to ‘tag’ the Amazons who had to not move. They lost, but not by as much as they expected

An Ethics Class then followed this on teamwork. ‘Beaky’ Hawke took the class this time.

He began the session with a question, “What is better, working solo or as part of a team?” He continued, “Teamwork is one of the hero’s greatest advantages. Teamwork is what often gives them an edge over most metas who break the law. It can only come from trust, which can only come from not suspecting your teammates are looking to get an advantage over you, which is where most villain team ups eventually fall apart. Nearly all HCP graduates have been or still are part of a team. Why? Because it’s a system that works. Some teams are based on friendship, others consist of well-thought-out, balanced and co-ordinated strike teams. Both strategies work.  Please discuss which would work better for you and why?“

It proved quite a thought-provoking session. Ashen initially went with working on your own being the best option since he was a bit of a loner or possibly in pairs as it reduced the risk of collateral damage  while Firewall also felt it was best to be alone than be with the wrong people but saw the advantages of working in partnership with others. It was agreed by everyone that large teams of more than six often ended up operating as two teams anyway. Several others also felt that it was best going it alone but thought partnerships formed out of friendship worked best and team-ups did reduce the possibility of tunnel vision, meant you had someone watching your back, and provided a second opinion as to what to do next.

Eventually, as the session ended, they’d both found reasons why three heroes working together might even be preferable, even if it was only because Ashen wasn’t that effective in the mornings or early afternoon.

After lunch, Chris and Gustav back in school uniform headed for the main hall and the School Science fair. Chris’ project was a data streamer experiment, which involved reading bankcard details, just as they do for contactless payments, but from a distance of 75 feet. This enabled, potentially, the locating of lost and stolen cards and the identification of suspects as it tracked the movement of the chip but, as the teachers were glad to discover, did not allow the withdrawal of funds. Several teachers were already crowded round his table, checking out just what data the skimmer was accessing.

As for his science experiment, Gustav used this as an excuse to get his hands on some coffee. He presented a study on GM vs Naturally Selected beans to produce several variations on taste and caffeine levels to the imbibers most positive benefit, while trying to reduce the negative impacts and come downs. He was also betting that some teachers would be able to be bribed by a nice brew, especially as he’d had to borrow ‘Ant-man’ Andrews coffee machine from the Housemasters lounge for his experiment without permission. Gustav was quickly told to put up a notice stating that pupils had to be 16 years or older to participate in his experiment.

Having set up their tables, they then wandered the hall looking at everyone else’s exhibits. As well as the usual vegetable-powered clocks and volcano models on display, there were a number of innovative student projects. These included Solar energy panels, a lightning generator, a facial recognition search engine, social experiments (to try and identify which students were the rule breakers and which obeyed the rules), a bio-diesel generator, Plastic-Eating Microbes, Computer Speed Enhancing Software and even Mind Controlled Prosthetic Limbs. It was quite the exhibition.

Alaina (Bubbles) had an experiment whereby, since she was already outed as a Meta, she was creating stronger meta-bubbles than usual – using a chemical spray on her wrists to cover her meta-bubbles and strengthen them enough that they were able to hold strong weights (up to a 100 kg) for several seconds before they burst.

The table next to hers was the scene of the real excitement though.  Shini Koyama, currently in crutches rather than her powered wheelchair, had apparently built a model of a prototype working fusion reactor. Two teachers armed with Geiger counters (why would they have Geiger counters in a high school, Chris couldn’t help wondering) had confirmed that the radioactivity levels were within normal parameters. Whatever radioactive isotope was being used to power the model was securely shielded, though Shini was now on the far side of the hall with several teachers trying to explain her choice of project and how she’d managed to obtain and then sneak radioactive material into the school.

Little Chris’ Templar was allowed back to the table next to hers and had set up his project, a weird-looking device that when switched on suddenly floated above the ground. It appeared to be generating a fluctuating gravity field and was apparently some form of gravitic drive. Its sudden hovering attracted a few other pupils to wander over to stare at Chris’ triumphant project and glower at Shini’s reactor.

Then Gustav saw Dimitri Ronan, standing immediately behind Shini’s model and saw him grin as a spark of electricity pulsed from his fingertips at the prototype, which suddenly and very impressively overheated with a flare of energy.

Even Dimitri obviously didn’t expect the reaction his prank caused, and he fell backwards and to the floor as something in the model flared into intense light and, With a brilliant flash, overheated. The energy arced across to little Chris’ floating gravity unit, which suddenly overloaded and exploded.

Suddenly everything around Chris and Gustav turned grey and misty and they found themselves with several other pupils standing in an empty but collapsing hall, so unlike their own schools. There was a zooming sound like numerous aircraft coming from outside, and ceiling panels and beams were starting to come loose from the ceiling. Looking up, they could see through gaps in the roof to the sky outside as something large and metallic moved past.

They looked around; there were six other pupils transported with them. Young Chris’, Bubbles, Shamus O’Reilly – Sham and the grey-skinned non-powered Meta breakthrough, Rachel Izaaksi – or Smiler as everyone knew her.

With them were also two senior year pupils that Chris and Gustav knew by name and reputation, but had never spoken to before. Angel Summerville was THE girl in school, the queen bee. Her red hair, amber coloured eyes and flawless skin as well as a model’s figure meant she was extremely popular with all the males, and hated but doted after by all the girls.

Nathaniel Emmitt they both knew by sight. He was part of Ces’ Morgan’s crew of bullies, a hulking, silent type that seemed to be in total awe of Ces’.

Gustav leant over towards Chris, “Any chance you could google what happens when you mix space-time and energy bursts?”

Chris reached out with his powers, but to his surprise there was no Wi-Fi he could find, though he could sense that there was a primitive Ethernet connection nearby. The building they were in was old, looking like it had been built pre-1950’s and then as a beam collapsed in he saw the plaque on the wall “St. Thomas Aquinas Grammar School” and it all came together. “We’ve somehow been sent back to 2009 and the day of the invasion.”

Young Chris’ moved over to one corner and was seemingly suffering from severe anxiety and anger. His fists were clutched tight and he was physically shaking. Under his breath, he kept on muttering to himself, “Why can’t I? Come on, I need you now… Come on, I need you…”  He was so close to tears that Gustav felt really sorry for him. If, as he suspected, Chris’ was Smash’s ‘co-pilot’ then time travel appeared to have broken the transformation connection.

Everyone was already in a state of panic. Bubbles joined them, whilst Angel seemed to be using Nathaniel as a shield, cowering behind him. Smiler had crossed to try to comfort young Chris who was mattering repeatedly “he’s not coming, he’s not coming.” There was a lot of noise and the sound of lots of people running coming from the corridor just beyond the hall.  The beams holding up the roof suddenly began to fall, forcing them to have to choose between heading into the corridor or outside into the playing fields. If they remembered correctly, most of the school had been destroyed in the attack, better possibly to head outside rather than into the school corridor and take their chances outside.

Chris rallied everyone round them and explained that he was now sure they’d somehow ended up back in 2009 and if they wanted to survive they needed to get out of the school. As soon as she heard this, Angel immediately began to freak out shouting that he had to be a liar, that there was no-way they could have travelled back in time and that this had to be some form of mass hallucination.  “That stupid woman, her experiment must have released some form of gas that’s affecting me.”

Nathaniel on the other hand, despite saying nothing, seemed to be fully in control of himself as he began to usher a screaming Angel towards the fire exit, noting as he did so, the St. Thomas Aquinas plaque on the wall.

Gustav leant over and asked Chris if he would do him a favour and hit him, Chris shrugged and socked him in the jaw. “Ok, so that confirms it’s not a hallucination.” They did notice that as they walked towards the exit that they seemed to pass through grey mist, as though they weren’t fully there or were looking at 2009 through a series of windows or doorways. When they stepped through, everything became brighter and more vibrant.

Gustav used his Voice of Allure on Angel and the others, “Calm down, we need to get out of here before the ceiling collapses on us. We’ll find out how to get back, but we can’t do anything here.”

Angel at least seemed receptive to his power and the others seemed calmer, even young Chris though he continued to mutter under his breath, “he’s not here, he’s not here”.  Gustav reached over and asked, “Who’s not here, Chris?” The youngster seemed startled, as though he hadn’t realised anyone else could hear him, “It doesn’t matter. Let’s get outside” and rushed for the door.

As they all moved towards the exit, Gustav noticed to his surprise a sparkly barrier suddenly appeared around his friend’s body, Chris had elected to put up his protective Firewall. Chris had just outed himself as a Meta in front of the others!

There were gasps from the others as they saw the glittering barrier flow round Chris’ body. Alaina pointed at him and said, “I didn’t know you were a Meta?” She seemed pleased. Nathaniel on the other hand had a look of sheer disgust on his face and seemed to be trying to decide whether to punch him out or run away. He was part of Ces’ gang of mutie-haters after all.

Chris, Firewall as he now thought of himself despite the lack of costume (it was underneath his school uniform – he liked to wear it as it helped flatten his figure) didn’t care. This was a life or death situation and he had to be ready, and none of his powers were subtle like Ashen’s.

Gustav played along by asking how long he’d been able to do this? Before he could make something up, one of the beams collapsed and they were forced to run for the door.

Above them towered a gigantic robot-like figure, easily 25 metres tall, wrecking what remained of the roof of the hall. A Terminus Probot! 

In the distance, they could see pupils being herded by teachers towards the school gates and the buses. That’s when Gustav realised that the school uniforms were different, Instead of their blue and yellow colour scheme all the others were wearing green blazers. No one seemed to notice, though, in the confusion.

For some reason, the Probot accompanied by several flying armoured figures seemed to have made the school their primary target, firing at the fleeing unarmed students and teachers.

Angel’s screaming matched in with everyone else’s in the confusion. They’d appeared to have arrived in the middle of the invasion. About 14 or 15 pupils had gathered, huddling around a small wooden pole painted red where in their time a red-coloured column which disguised a secret entrance to Down Below. This was obviously used as a gathering point for fire drills.

A blurry figure suddenly appeared running towards the gathered figures, identical to the blurry ghost-like figure they’d seen once before in the big house. As it ran across the field, it seemed to solidify into a figure they recognised from the photographs shown at the Service the day before (or several years in the future, thought Gustav). Relentless, in a hooded costume and goggles, ran up grabbed a couple of the younger pupils and made them run away from the probot, which had now obviously decided to head towards the old mansion. Relentless made the kids head away from the pole – some others started to follow, only to change their minds as blasts fired by two of the armoured figures on sky-sleds played with their lives.

Suddenly, everything started to turn blurry. It had been something like 15 or 20 minutes since they’d first arrived. It was as though they’d blinked and, to their annoyance and disgust, they found themselves back in the old hall standing exactly where they’d stood the first time they’d seen this place.

There was a difference this time, however. On the ground, smoking but otherwise dead, was young Chris’s gravity unit. Gustav figured it out first, “Time loop. Welcome to a very short groundhog day!”

The device meant this time was different. They quickly checked; other than a still hysterical Angel who was now convinced someone had given her some bad pills or gassed her, they were all sure that they were back when they first started, but the actions of the last 20 or so minutes were still in their minds. Chris’ turned and looked as several roof tiles cascaded to the ground, exactly as happened last time. It was a temporal reset.

They tried to lift the unit from the ground and failed. It was extremely, inhumanly heavy. Firewall knelt down and said, “I think it was an energy burst at this device that caused us to jump back in time. I’m just wondering if we could somehow replicate that effect, whether it would allow us to jump forward in time?”

Gustav interrupted, “if we had the opportunity to change the past, to save lives and change things, shouldn’t we try?” Firewall interrupted quickly, “No, no, we mustn’t mess with time. We mustn’t try and change the past.” “But what if we were to save some of the people named on the Memorial Rock?”

Firewall continued, “Listen, our time is fairly stable, I quite like where I am at the moment.” Gustav interrupted, “Do you? So why are you trying to change so much?” Firewall continued, “I don’t like who I am but I do like where I am, I don’t want to live in a world where people like me are persecuted or a world where the Conservative party’s in power or anything weird like that. Anything could change as a result. We’ve already affected things just by being here, I’m sure. Let’s not risk making things worse.”

While they argued, the rest of the group, with Angel being dragged by Nathaniel, ran for the exit before the roof spar collapsed in again. The two of them tried to lift Chris’ gravity unit, but even with Gustav’s meta-strength, it remained where it was. Gustav thought that it had to be still working but instead of creating zero-g or some form of contra-gravity, it was increasing its own gravity field.

Firewall shouted, “Leave it. We have to follow those idiots before they start messing around and changing all sorts of things.” They left it where it was and ran for the exit after the others.

They pushed through the crowd running towards the gates outside and saw the group they had come through with heading towards the field with its cowering pupils and red pillar. They’d all came through together, and they all had to head back together.

The probot lumbered by, same as last time, confirming to Chris’ memory that they were trapped in some sort of time loop.

Thankfully, they’d retained their memories from their last time round. Except this time, they could actually see Relentless sprinting across the field towards the pole, or was it towards the old house? This time round, there was no blurring, no misty greyness. He was fully substantial from the moment they saw him.

The large Robot was also heading for the house, though its route would take it passed the gathered pupils cowering by the red pillar.

They followed the direction towards the mansion and realised that it was actually on fire, blue flames were coming from the windows. They hadn’t noticed that last time. Blue flames..? Time was so weird, surely it wouldn’t matter what they did, as it would have already happened anyway?

There was so much happening that they hadn’t noticed last time. Some of the people gathered at the pole were suddenly vanishing. As they looked the 20, became 18 and then 15 or 16? It was happening so fast, it was hard to be sure. Within seconds, it was down to 14 as Relentless got close.

This subtraction from danger was accompanied by a quiet, whirring sound… Teleportation or a speedster? If only they could slow down time and check.

This matched the vision they’d seen as they’d approached the pole last time. The giant robot lumbered towards the pole as Relentless grabbed a couple of the youngest kids and as soon as he got past the robot tried to get them to run away towards the buses. Some others started to follow, only to change their minds as blasts fired by two of the armoured figures on sky-sleds.

Ashen had enough, these kids needed help and at the very least, they could provide a distraction. They had a couple of minutes at most. Most of their group were themselves trying to run away and both of them were glad to see that. At least they wouldn’t have to worry about them being caught in the possible crossfire. Bubbles on the other hand, her backpack and spray in hand, were running towards the gathered pupils, young Chris just behind her. Bubbles was projecting her strengthened bubbles straight at the grav-sleds as a distraction and temporary barrier as young Chris’ tried to encourage the remaining pupils to run away.

Firewall wasn’t going to wait any longer, and Gustav elected to risk using his powers in front of these two. Meanwhile, Relentless was heading towards the mansion, his back towards the others, chasing after the alien attack-bot. Gustav, Ashen, took off flying towards the robot. Bubbles let out a “Wooow” while still sending up large bubbles that actually seemed to be affecting the air attack, bounding off the sleds and causing them to wobble, though as soon as they were hit by the Omegadrone’s blasters they immediately popped out of existence. That didn’t stop her trying, though.

Ashen flew down, grabbed at one of the robot’s legs, and tried to stop it from moving towards the fiery mansion. He couldn’t quite stop it, but he did manage to delay it, whilst making it aware of his presence.

The robot unleashed a blaster attack at the figure holding its ankle. It almost hit, but Ashen dodged out of the way just in time, and the blaster melted part of the heel off instead. As its foot came down, it staggered, off-balance.

Firewall noticed a moment as two more of the pupils vanished from beside the pole. For just a second he caught an image of their rescuer, possibly the last person he expected to be a speedster; a much younger version of one of their teachers, though the David Dean they knew was paralysed from the waist down and relied on a floating chair to get around. The rumour around school was that Dean had once been the hero Raven, seems that rumour was inaccurate.

The figure speeded up again and became a blur as the world greyed over as the future pupils all found themselves back in St. Thomas Aquinas school hall for the third time. Young Chris’ device still lay on the ground between them. Had their actions made the slightest bit of difference?

Angel was almost hysterical by now and was being protected by both Sham and Nathaniel, who seem to have silently come to an understanding and agreement to shield her from the reality of their circumstances. To their surprise, Nathaniel seemed very protective of her.

Firewall took Ashen to one side and explained that, “Attacking that big robot thing doesn’t seem to be the way to go, you were very, very lucky to have dodged that blaster. I really think we need to attack in a co-ordinated way or focus on taking out the scouts. What do you think?”

“So, what do you think happened to Relentless? His body was never recovered.”

Chris paused and then spoke up quietly, “All I think that is known is he vanished in the attack.”

“Maybe we need to know more about Chris’ device?” Ashen walked over and used his Voice of Allure on young Chris, explaining that this was likely to keep on recurring again and again, each time increasing these people’s torment unless we do something to break the loop. What is the deal with this device and who were you looking for?” His voice washed over the youngster, “It’s just something I found in the grounds near the mansion. I’m just surprised no-one found it before me. I discovered what it could do and thought it would make a good project for the science fair. Generating gravity fields would be a real cool project.”

“Where exactly did you find it?” Chris’ wandered to one of the windows overlooking the mansion and pointed to one side, where in this time a number of outhouses stood. This had been where the giant robot had been heading.

Firewall sighed, “Sounds like we need to stop the Probot from reaching the buildings if we can.”

Ashen again tried to lift the device, this time using all of his strength. It wobbled then slammed down as though the weight (or gravitational pull?) had suddenly increased but there was no indication it was actually functional.  Firewall joked about all that caffeine had gone to his head and he wasn’t superman after all.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the hall, away from where the beam would fall soon, sat Angel with Sham and Nathaniel standing guard. Smiler wandered over to Chris and Gustav. “Pays to be popular, doesn’t it?” and laughed as she hugged young Chris as everyone else gathered around. It seemed that everyone remembered them outing themselves.

Sham offered to stay with the device and young Chris who was trying to figure out how to reactivate the device, and Nathaniel refused to leave the quietly sobbing Angel. In the end, only Bubbles joined them in leaving the hall this time round as she was on a high given that last time her powers had actually been helpful, a big smile on her face. As they headed out of the fire exit, they passed the crowds, witnessed the people vanishing from around the pole, and then saw the two Omegadrones strafing the remaining pupils by the pole with their blasters. Bubbles ran at full speed towards them, unleashing a cascade of strengthened bubbles as a shield between the kids and their attackers.

Firewall shouted, “We need to take out the scouts” as Ashen took off flying towards them shouting back, “next time round we need to set off earlier.”

They were a lot faster at flying than Ashen, but they weren’t expecting him. He reached out for the closest flier and tried to grapple him. He pulled the creature into a hold and held on. Firewall meanwhile unleashed a blast at the remaining flier, hitting and causing it to spiral towards the ground just as the world turned grey.

Damn he was sure this time had happened faster, though admittedly they had wasted so much time in the hall.

Back in the school hall, Ashen just grabbed Firewall and headed straight up and out of a hole in the roof and straight towards the mansion. On the ground, they could see the 20 pupils suddenly shrink to 18 as a blur rescued the first two.  The Probot was making its way towards the pole, whilst Relentless was heading towards the old house. Firewall unleashed a powerful laser blast straight at the robot’s face-mounted blaster.

It hit, melting part of the barrel of the blaster and knocked it out of alignment. Ashen got close to the ground and dropped Firewall before flying straight towards the building, trying to discover what the robot and Relentless were so determined to get to.  A blast flared out from the robot, straight at the running Relentless. Ashen was sure it hit, but it must have missed (or Relentless was unaffected by it, was that possible?) as he continued his sprint. He got close to the building and looked through the ground floor windows. The whole building was on fire, with blue flames everywhere.

Inside, he could see a figure in an old-fashioned school uniform completely on fire walking calmly through the building. Everywhere he stepped, flames flared out, threatening to burn the whole building to the ground. Then, on the stairs, she saw two very young and terrified pupils trapped behind the flames. Unbidden, he remembered that there were legends about this mansion burning down several times in the past. There were tales about a burning man in a couple of those stories.

Ashen really didn’t know what to do. He flew inside and through the flames and tried to avoid being burnt as he grabbed one of the trapped kids and flew them to safety, though the heated air risked scorching his throat on the super-heated air. Outside, he dropped him to the ground with a hoarse cry to make his way to safety.

The flying Omegadrones meanwhile were attacking Firewall and Bubbles, who was drawing them away from the ever shrinking group of kids.

Firewall successfully dodged, but one of the blasts hit Bubbles in the arm. She still maintained a stream of dense bubbles despite her injury.

Ashen headed back inside and found the other pupil on the stairs, unconscious or dead. Ashen grabbed him and again flew him outside, dropping him on to the ground. If only he knew CPR!

Meanwhile, the Probot was trying to target Relentless who was physically lifting its foot, causing it to lose its balance and crash into and totally demolishing the outbuildings young Chris had identified earlier.

The head of the robot hit the ground and smashed into several bits. The body shuddered with the fall.

One of the Omegadrones targeted Firewall on the ground and fired its blasters at him. He dived to one side as the blaster fire peppered the ground where he’d been standing only seconds before. He looked up and saw the last of the pupils and bubbles vanish, transported away by the speedster but before he could make a clean getaway, a lucky shot hit the blurred figure in the back and the kid and the very surprised Bubbles rolled away from their severely injured would-be rescuer.

Back at the big house, Ashen checked the pupil he’d rescued was breathing and confirmed he was alive. He tried to get closer to the building and the flaming ghost destroying the mansion, and used his Voice of Allure. He tried to explain to it that he needed to stop its path of destruction, and hoped instead that he might be able to redirect its rage against the attackers from the Terminus.

Despite the heat and the damage to his vocal cords, he tried using everything he had, but realised this was no longer human. His power did seem to reduce its rage and hunger for vengeance though, as it seemed content to settle for merely burning down the big house, not the whole school.

Firewall had enough; no way was he going to allow these flying brutes to attack the teacher or Bubbles again. He unleashed a burst assault first on one of the attackers, leaving it dazed and wobbling in the sky, whilst a second burst took the second flier out completely.

The last thing they both saw was Relentless, hunting through the shards of the shattered head and pick up a very familiar looking object from amongst the wreckage. It glowed just like its time-twin had when it had sent them back in time as he raised it high above his head, intending to plunge it deep into the ‘bots power unit as it tried to stagger to its feet to continue its attack.

Then things again turned grey as time reset. This time Bubbles still had a wound on her arm and Ashen’s vocal cords were still damaged from the smoke and heat last time round, which just added to Angel’s ever-growing hysteria, and she began cowering.

Ashen coughed and muttered, “I don’t know about you, but I’m really looking forward to living the rest of my life in 20 minute increments. What about you?”

Nathaniel looked at them both, muttered, “Do what you can” and grabbed Angel, putting her over his shoulder he sprinted out heading for somewhere safe.

“So what do we need to do to end this once and for all?”  Firewall wandered to beneath the hole in the roof, “I think we need to engineer it so that that unit ends up in the robot’s chest before time resets. It may just be a coincidence, but we can’t keep this up forever.”

Bubbles, Sham, young Chris and Smiler agreed to try to help with protecting the pupils at the red pillar whilst they set off to help Relentless to bring down the Probot before time reset again.

Behind them, Bubbles set up a multi-layered shield of bubbles to refract the blaster bolts, whilst the others tried to lead the others away before the Omegadrones could get close enough to be a threat.

Meanwhile, Ashen flew with Firewall towards the big house and from there they could see the Probot heading towards them with Relentless racing it up the hill. Ashen used his energy to fly as fast as he could whilst dodging the blasts aimed at them and at the mansion. Before it got closer, Firewall unleashed an area blast at the head, which took out most of the chest and neck area, whilst Relentless again grabbed at its foot and tried to tip it over.

The head fell off and hit the ground, shattering. Relentless rushed in amongst the fragments and grabbed the same unit as last time and went to ram it into the chest power unit.

Whilst Bubbles was trying to prevent one of the flying drones getting to the screaming pupils by the pole, the other drone flew at Firewall and unleashed its power staff straight at him.

It hit his energy firewall but failed to get through. Ashen rushed to help Relentless thrust the powered unit straight into the power plant with all of his strength. Together they rammed it in hard, short-circuiting the robot’s CPU in the process. There was a bright, unearthly flash around the Probot and also back at the school hall, where the unearthly light shone through the damaged roof. Then they suddenly found themselves once again standing in a deserted hall.

Around them were the others, who parted to reveal the kneeing form of Relentless. This hall was complete, undamaged and new. The plaque on the wall was the Claremont Academy’s crest. Several teachers came over and began leading the others away, while Nurse Joy tended to Bubble’s arm and Gustav’s throat.

The costumed person in their midst seemed completely confused as to what had happened.

Several hours later, Chris and Gustav collapsed into their beds, having been released from the medical bay with the others. No one mentioned their outing themselves, but both were sure it was only a matter of time before the whole school knew.

Down Below, several of the HCP facility had gathered.

Leroy Hawke was busy arguing with one of their visitors, who was explaining how he believed the presence of a Terminus interdimensional vortex phase disruptor had opened the breach and accidentally transported the students through time to when the Probot had first activated the unit, back in 2009. When Charles had used it to try to destroy the Probot, the power surge must have activated and thrust him and it into a temporal pocket dimension, which is why he vanished in 2009. When the unit started to power down, the unit must have subsequently rematerialized in the grounds, only for it to be found by young Chris.

Chris got it working thinking it was some form of gravitics generator for the science fair, however when it interacted with the reactor it rebooted and somehow linked with its earlier version in 2009.

David Dean smiled and leaned over to whisper to Duncan Summers, “So did anything change?” Summers pointed to the frozen image on the TV screen. “Dee seemed to think that this CCTV footage prevented that. Something called the observer effect prohibited certain events from being changed. If it had never been observed, then the past might have been able to be altered.”

David Dean nodded, “So, that throws the theory that the past is unchangeable out the window. The past can be changed, but only if the results appear to remain the same?”

Duncan Summers looked sadly at the old CCTV footage playing on a VHS video recorder dragged out of storage.

“Or it might result in creating a splinter reality, what Danni calls a parallel time stream or Paratime. I didn’t see any indication of that,” said the well-tanned, man with a greying beard and hair sitting next to Summers sipping a large glass of beer.

“Glad that didn’t happen, Dee.”

The tanned man replied, “If anything, this caused multiple alternate time streams to collide, creating an overlying single reality as a result.”

The head teacher continued, “Seems our hooded man on CCTV is, was, actually young Ashen and the team costume was actually a poorly remembered school uniform. We based our school colours on ourselves. What a paradox.

It explains though why none of the children around the pole actually died that day, despite everything. It seemed all of their loops somehow overlapped, resulting in what we thought was some form of teleportation rescue by an unknown team. I honestly never thought that Ms Waraich would turn out to be our force shield welding heroine, though.”

Hawke asked, “Any explanation for why young Chris couldn’t call forth Smash?” Summers smiled, “Smash was still travelling towards the Earth at the time and, unlike us, apparently, his race cannot be in two places at once.”

He turned to the teacher in his floating chair, “I’m so sorry David, we couldn’t think of any way to warn them beforehand. If we could have only found a way to be sure what would happen, why and to whom we might have been able to get a message back to warn you, you might have come out of this uninjured…”

Dean raised his chair slightly, “It explains why we don’t have more names on Memorial Rock, and they did manage to bring Charles back. It was worth it. There was no guarantee that a warning, even if you’d known beforehand, would have stopped me being injured. No, what is important is that thanks to those young people, none of the students died at the pole and they even managed to rescue two of the pupils from the mansion. If they hadn’t gone back, I honestly wonder how many more people would have died that day.”

Dee leaned over to grab another beer, “And Charles?” Summers smiled, “He’s with Martha trying to catch up on the last nine years. I have agreed a leave of absence for her so they can try to sort out his life. On paper, he’s a dead 27-year-old in an 18-year-old’s body. They’ll need help sorting that mess out.”

Again, the blurry CCTV footage ran on screen as the facility members watched the footage from 2009 replay. The ‘unknown’ team of heroes could be seen apparently phasing in and out as they rescued pupils from the alien attackers.

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‘Day-Tripper’ – Boarder slang for a student who doesn’t live in the school.