"What is this…?"
Sav pulled the microchip out of Garren's neck.
Cynthia's eyes grew wide upon realization. "The Controllant?!"
Celeste looked to her with confusion. "The Controllant? What's that?"
She looked at what Sav held, and she looked back at me. Her face was full of shock and skepticism.
"How did you…?"
I can't give her any time to form suspicion as to why I knew the Controllant was there.
I immediately bolted for the wall perpendicular to me, displaying my move to give them no time to think. When running along the wall, I jumped from the halfway mark and dashed through the air right towards them. In my peripheral, I saw Soho catching up to our level.
"Static!" She yelled, as she landed on the same platform as the rest of them.
They were all stuck in place, and my immediate target was Sav. His reaction time to warp out was quick, but with how fast the current events were succeeding, I knew it wasn't quick enough. The gap between my knife and his neck were closing, but I'd underestimated Cynthia and Celeste's quick-thinking, both of whom were right next to him.
"Sav—!!" I saw Cynthia reaching far to touch him with her hand, even while stuck in place.
She's trying to pass her Fractal onto him! Once he gains the Hardened state, my execution will be impossible!
That's when my instincts struck me up with adrenaline. My Flow State was indicating that I had to predict an upcoming event.
Celeste—!
His arm was already retracted with a handful of sharp screws, ready to be thrown in my direction. I was mid-air. The maneuver to dodge his attack would be impossible.
"Kinetic!!" Soho screamed.
They all slipped off their feet. Cynthia, who'd nearly touched Sav, fell forwards past him unable to make the necessary contact. Celeste, who was about to throw a barrage of screws in my direction, fell backwards and lost grip of his handful of weapons. In just the right timing, Soho had reacted first and prevented their defensive measures from taking place.
As Sav slipped-out from his feet and began falling to the floor, he was in the perfect vulnerable state to be executed. There was no time for him to manifest a wormhole as he fell, and he had no room to avoid the incoming attack.
It was checkmate.
Shrrk—!!!
The platform they all stood-on suddenly crumbled into hundreds of cross-slashed pieces, as they all fell through and towards ground floor.
What—!?
In a quick glimpse of their descent, I spotted Garren's nails—extended, and sharpened.
He cut them loose from the platform!
Soho jumped backwards onto another platform to avoid falling with them. I went and landed alongside her, reuniting for the first time since the battle's initiation.
"This is just constant back-and-forth, isn't it?"
I scoffed at Soho's statement realizing how accurate it was. "Whenever we're just about to finish things off, they find a way to counter just in time."
"So we just have to counter their counters!"
"It'll be hard, though. I'm sure they're aware that we're targeting Sav by now." Realization quickly hit me. "Don't keep your eyes off of them. No matter what, don't let Cynthia pass Harden onto Sav."
"Got it." She hopped down from the platform and towards ground floor where they fell. "Kinetic!"
I followed after, descending the factory. I made sure to stay on somewhat high ground to avoid slipping on Soho's Kinetic-studded floor. When pacing around to look for where they landed, Soho spoke over the ear-piece.
"I've only found Cynthia and Garren. I think she passed Harden onto him. But he's unconscious now, probably from the blood loss."
"This is perfect. Use Static and keep them there. This will ensure that Cynthia can't protect Sav with Harden, especially if Garren can't cut them loose from your Fractal anymore."
"Got it. Static!"
Now, once again, Sav and Celeste are somewhere on the loose.
"I need you to join me this time, Soho. Keep Static active on ground floor, but join me on high ground."
In a matter of seconds, she rejoined my side.
"You've realized it too, haven't you? Kinetic can prevent both Sav and Celeste from using their Fractals. They both need balance to activate them," I said to her.
"Yeah. What are you insinuating?"
"Split-up, but stay close. I'll find those two and engage, and you sneak-up with Kinetic ready. When I strike, activate it. It's the only way I can get to Sav without him warping away or being contested by Celeste's Trajectory."
"You can count on me to keep them off balance." She began pacing away, only to a distance from which we could both still see each other. I nodded, and began moving around the factory as well.
Cynthia won't be there to defend you, and Garren won't be there to help you escape this time, Sav.
The conditions for our success were higher than ever at this moment. We just had to find them now.
"I've got eyes," Soho said. "The catwalk connected to Camp."
'Camp' was what we called the management office where we'd set up our sleeping-bags and supplies. Now I knew exactly where they waited. I jumped from pipe to pipe, wall to wall, and spotted them from afar. I could see that Celeste was already ready with a screw in his hand, while Sav had his hands already pre-positioned to warp.
They were ready, and so were we.
From one wall, I pressed off my feet with flying strength, soaring directly towards them. I'd engaged in contact and stolen their attention. In the moment that they both began to activate their Fractals to counter, Soho appeared on the catwalk behind them.
"Kinetic!"
They began to slip. Sav disengaged his wormhole-manifesting hand formation immediately to catch his fall, but it was Celeste who surprised me by maintaining his throwing form. He threw the screw as he fell, but it was nowhere close to my direction.
He missed?
"I expected this!" He yelled as he landed on his back.
My eye widened.
Clink! Clank—!
The piece he'd thrown was not directed at me, but rather, at the complex layout littering the factory. It bounced from place to place, ricocheting through a spider web of paths that I knew only he could see with his vector visualization in Trajectory. Then, as I'd lost sight of the screw while I soared through the air towards them, my senses flared that something approached my head from behind at an alarming velocity.
He couldn't aim the screw directly at me while off-balance from Kinetic, so he opted for what he could aim—by ricocheting off of the factory parts!?
I couldn't maneuver in time to avoid what was soon to hit my head.
Flow State, please.
I had to come up with something within the split-seconds before my demise.
Flow State!
What did I have on me that could defend me at this moment?
Flow State—!!
I had one hand on my knife, which was in front of me. There was no time to swing it backwards to block the shot. My other hand was on my holster.
Flow State!!!
As a last resort, I detached one of the flashbangs holstered to my belt. With my downward momentum, it immediately flew upwards, intervening right at the point at which the screw was about to hit. Intersection occurred, right behind my head.
"Fuck—!!"
Bang!!!
A blinding explosion of white erupted behind me, as the screw tore through the flashbang that'd blocked my head just in time. The flashbang exploded, blinding everyone's sight who looked its way, all except for me who's back faced the event. The eruption of the grenade propelled me forwards, and I now soared directly towards a fallen Sav and Celeste who were momentarily blinded by the flash.
This is it!
I stuck my hand forwards, with the knife's tip aimed at Sav's neck. But just as I was about to make contact, Sav, with heavily squinted eyes, stuck his palm out towards me.
"Gateway: Time Warp!!"
The knife suddenly dissipated from my hand. In the same moment, I'd crashed and made contact with Sav, landing a strike to his neck with only a bare hand.
My knife is gone—!?
Then it hit me, what Sav had said. It was the first time I'd ever witnessed him use the time-orienting variation for Gateway. He must have placed a wormhole for my knife in the direct line-of-path that I was heading in order to transport it through time. As I landed on the floor of which Soho simultaneously disabled Kinetic, I recovered myself while recalling that Sav could only transport subjects back or forth in time a maximum of 9.87 seconds. It would make no sense for him to send my knife ahead in time in this situation, so I was quickly alerted when realizing that in the last 10 seconds, I'd been carrying my knife towards them—in my current position—at an increasing speed.
Behind me—?!
I glanced back at the direction I came from, and for a split-moment, I was face-to-face with the knife I'd previously held which had traversed back in time and was now soaring towards me.
Shank—!!
I'd narrowly weaved my head aside just in time to avoid it, and it embedded into the catwalk's floor. Recovering on the same ground just in front of me were Sav and Celeste, both of whom looked at me with shocked expressions as their visions cleared. They rubbed their eyes as if in disbelief at what they saw. It confused me, because throughout the entire fight until the current moment, they'd never looked at me this way. It wasn't until I saw that the mask I had been wearing was on the floor in front of me.
The concealment of my identity had fallen off my face.
"Klyson…?"