"Is there ever a time that you're not fighting for your life?" Layla scolded as she healed my injuries.
"No, he pretty much thrives on danger and fighting people that want to kill him," Yasmine said, shooting me a flat look.
I rolled my eyes and looked away from her. After my skirmish with Kiera, I had made my way to Layla's place to get healed up before I headed to the Sentinels headquarters to tell them what I had found out about Alexis and her plans. What I hadn't been expecting was for Yasmine to be there with Layla which led to one of the most awkward reunions I had ever had with someone. We hadn't spoken to each other since I left with Whitaker and Kelly and I had held our hope that things would've smoothed over between us during my absence but she was still giving me the cold shoulder so that hope quickly died out. She was sat next to me wearing a pair of black leggings and a grey tank top. Her curly hair pulled into a messy bun as she eyed with an expression that held barely contained annoyance, whether it was at my injuries or my presence was a mystery.
"Explain what happened again," Layla said, trying to break the awkward silence.
"I, uh, got attacked by a girl wearing a mask," I mumbled, rubbing the back of my neck sheepishly.
Layla sighed. "Well she didn't hurt you too bad but you're gonna be sore in the morning for sure."
"Nothing new," I said with an attempt at a shrug, wincing slightly.
While Layla continued to heal me I replayed my meeting with Alexis in my mind. Now that I knew exactly what she was planning, everything was starting to make a bit of sense to me now. Her ability to peer into alternate universes explained how she was so methodical with her plans and why she seemed to always be three steps ahead of the authorities. She had seen her path to victory and knew what she needed to do in order to ensure that nothing got in her way. So did she know that I would move to Charter? If what I knew about multiverse theory was correct then the alternate universes out there were merely timelines where things played out differently than in the main timeline of events. The main universe was our own so all the other ones were just various different timelines where certain things happened in a different way than in our universe.
But which universe is the one where she wins? I thought to myself.
Alexis said she had combed through various alternate universes to find the one where she succeeded with her plan so who's to say that the other version of her hadn't done something similar but with the purpose of finding a universe where she failed so that she knew what steps to take to avoid that? It was mind numbing honestly but if there were alternate versions of Alexis then….there had to be alternate versions of me. Right?
"You're over there thinking awfully hard. Mind sharing your thoughts with us?" Yasmine said, arching an eyebrow at me.
I blinked, suddenly realizing that I must've been frowning while trying to organize my thoughts and understand everything better. I shook my head to try and clear away the thoughts I was having then turned towards Yasmine who had gone back to looking at something on her phone after her snarky comment towards me. There was another thought on my mind that I had been putting on the back burner since I'd been away training but I figured it was better to act on it now than to stall and have it eat away at my sanity.
"Lay," I said quietly. "Can you gives us a moment?"
She didn't say anything but gave me a reassuring shoulder squeeze before heading into the next room over and closing the door behind her to give me privacy. Yasmine must've sensed something was up because she put her phone down and gave me her full attention as I put my shirt back on and turned to face her completely. After taking a moment to gather my words, I spoke as clearly and calmly as I could.
"I think we should call it quits."
At first Yasmine just stared at me with wide eyes not saying anything and I was afraid she had stopped breathing but then her expression turned into of anger and indignation once she processed what I had just said to her.
"You think we should what?" She said, her icy tone causing me to wince inwardly.
"I think we should-" I began.
"No I heard you," Yasmine interrupted. "I just would like to know what the hell your reasoning is for dumping me after three months."
Keeping my tone neutral, I responded "You blatantly ignored me for an entire week after I left school and not to mention you gave me the cold shoulder when I came to tell you bye. You see the correlation here?"
That one struck a nerve. Yasmine's began to glow as she jumped up from her place on the couch and got in my face, her expression a bit off putting but I had to hold my ground and see this through. I calmly grabbed her wrists and looked her in the eyes and I'd be lying if I said that it didn't break my heart a bit to see tears of anger and hurt beginning to well up in her eyes as she continued to look at me with that same furious expression. As much as it hurt me to do this, it was necessary for us both. Yeah, I cared about her and I was evening beginning to feel feelings of love towards her but I knew that I wasn't meant to be with her because of the path that I was now going to have to take to keep not just the city but everyone that I cared about safe and I knew that it meant that I couldn't afford to have her in the midst of my battles.
"I'm sorry!" Yasmine said, slightly raising her voice. "I'm sorry, okay?! I didn't…I was going to text you but I was just angry and upset and just needed to take some time to myself! We don't have to break up, Josiah, we can get past this!"
I shook my head slowly.
I could see that in that moment, I had firmly shattered her heart with that one gesture. She closed her eyes in defeat and the tears began to fall, a few splashing silently onto my jeans as Yasmine quietly sobbed and I looked down in between my feet to avoid looking at her. I could feel my own tears beginning to form but I held them back and forced myself to look back up at Yasmine.
"Together or not," I said softly. "I'll still be here….as a friend and I think that's where we messed up at when we got together. We jumped right into it without taking a second to try and establish a friendship prior. Yeah we were a couple but we didn't know each other like we thought we did. So I think….this is for the best, Yas. And I hope that you can eventually understand that."
Yasmine didn't say anything but the look in her eyes told me all that I needed to know: she was absolutely heartbroken and devastated and she wanted nothing to do with me at all. Sighing, I let go of her wrists and her eyes stopped glowing as she backed away from me and left the room through the door that Layla had closed. I dropped my head into my heads and contemplated if I had done the right thing. I sat there for awhile before I felt someone place their hand on my head and ruffle my hair softly, causing me to look up despondently into the eyes of Layla who gave me a sad but understanding smile as she sat next to me and wrapped in a comforting hug.
"I heard everything so you don't have to explain yourself," she said quietly. "You did the right thing."
I tried to force a smile but all I could do was cry as I felt the tears I'd been holding back suddenly rush forward as I sobbed and broke down. I had just broke someone's heart while breaking my own in the process and it hurt like hell. It was like being stabbed and having the knife be twisted over and over again and hated the feeling. I knew that what I did was the right decision but why the hell did it have to hurt so much? Why did it make my chest feel so tight? Why the hell did break ups have to so shitty?
…
After I gathered myself, I told Layla bye and left to head to the Sentinel's headquarters. Yasmine had been standing in the hall as I was leaving and the last thing I saw before I zipped off was her tear streaked face looking at me with a mixture of longing and resentment before she had turned away and Layla shut the door. I flew through the sky towards the downtown area of the city, using various buildings and streetlights to launch myself from so that I didn't lose momentum or speed. I spotted the roof of headquarters as well as several figures standing atop and I zoomed down, using to an energy blast dispersal to slow my fall as I landed next to Kyoko who gave me an affectionate hair ruffle before returning her attention to the other Sentinels there. Among the group was Derrick, Ayleanna, Whitaker and Mr Knight who looked like he hadn't gotten any sleep lately. They were all dressed in casual clothing but the atmosphere seemed tense and heavy, it was almost palpable in way.
"Josiah, good to see you, my boy," Mr Knight said, giving me a tired smile. "You said that you have some information for us."
I gulped. "Things are way more dire than we initially thought. Like on a universal scale."
Whitaker sighed. "I swear we don't get paid enough for this crap."
"What's going on, Josiah?" Ayleanna asked.
"Alexis is planning on assassinating the Director tomorrow at Hofstadter Plaza as well as trying to take you guys out," I responded. "I also got a glimpse at her ability and I think we might be out of our league here."
Mr Knight frowned. "I have a feeling that I'm not going to like what I'm about to hear."
I did my best to try and explain the details of Alexis' ability as well as what her overall plan was in the grand scheme of things while also telling them that our world was just one of many out there. I told them about Kiera as well. After my fight with her earlier today I considered her as much a threat as Alexis due to the fact that I didn't know her identity nor what her exact power was. She had been able to match my strength, speed and fighting skills to a T and had even outmatched me at one point. She had definitely been added to the list of people who could potentially kill me if given the opportunity to do so. After my explanation, the team all had the same worried expression on their faces and I couldn't blame them. If Alexis succeeded then the fragile power balance of the city would tip in her favor and things would get worse before they got better. There was also the very scary possibility that she wouldn't just stop at Charter or even our universe. It was very likely that she'd try to do the same thing to other universes throughout the multiverse and it would be the end of everything at that point.
"So what do we do?" I asked, breaking the heavy silence.
It was Kyoko who spoke. "We have to stop her at all costs. We need to cancel the rally tomorrow and start prepping for an end of the world scenario."
Mr Knight nodded grimly. "Kyoko's right. This girl is far more dangerous than we had anticipated with an ability that neither of us could hope to stand against."
"So we're just gonna let her scare us?" Whitaker challenged. "I say we face her head on and take her down before she can enact her plan."
Derrick said, "I'm with Whitaker on this way. While it is a gamble, calling off the rally would do nothing but give her the idea that she has us cornered. I say we still hold the rally but just beef up our security detail and have eyes on Director Abina at all times."
"I think we should let Josiah decide," Ayleanna said, raising her voice to quiet everyone else.
All eyes turned to me and I suddenly felt like a deer in headlights. They wanted me to decide? I looked between the five of them and I could tell that they were serious about me being the one to decide what our plan would be for tomorrow. In retrospect, Whitaker had a point. Alexis thrived off knowing that she had control over a narrative and that people were afraid of her, it's what her dangerous. She controlled things through manipulation and fear and us calling off the rally would do nothing but bolster her plan to show the people that the authorities were cowards. But if went through with holding the rally and she managed to kill not only Director Abina but the Sentinels as well then it would prove her ideology that those in power weren't strong enough to protect the people if they were killed while on national television. It was a gamble either way with both choices having a high risk tension to them. The only way out was to possibly try and outsmart Alexis and I think I had just the idea of how to do it. I ran through the scenario in my head several times just to make sure that I wasn't missing anything then looked up at the Sentinels who were all watching me with anticipation. If we managed to pull this off, then we'd be throwing a huge curve ball in her plans and that was something that I could definitely risk it all for.
"Okay," I said with a deep breath. "Here's the plan."
Once I finished explaining myself, all the Sentinels stared at me wide eyed. Whitaker let out a low but impressed whistle and laughed to himself while Kyoko and Ayleanna both smiled proudly at me. Derrick gave me a nod of approval to let me that he was onboard with my idea. Mr Knight chuckled but gave me an approving smile.
"It's a bold idea but I think it'll work."
I smiled. "Let's hope it does."
Because if it didn't….we'd all be in for a fight.