Ultimatt, Matthew, Kevin and Cecilia took the limousine to the fanciest place Cecilia could think of: Olive Garden. They were seated quickly, with the kids facing each other and the gacha facing each other, respectively.
“I’m sure you wondered why I called this meeting,” Ultimatt quipped, prompting giggles from the rest. A passing waiter offered him a sample of wine. “Oh, no thanks, I’m three days old,” he said, waving it away. “You know you’re dating a newborn, right, Matthew? That’s pretty screwed up. Shame on you.” Matthew just rolled his eyes.
“Is-- is this a date?” Kevin asked. “Just to clarify. I mean, I, uh, I hoped it was, of course, but--” Everyone else nodded and said that yeah, of course it was a date. They wouldn’t have gone to Olive Garden if it wasn’t. He turned red at this, turning redder still when Cecilia playfully kicked his foot under the table and winked.
“He really is a smart kid, I swear,” Ultimatt chuckled, pouring a glass of water from the needlessly ornate glass Acqua Panna bottle and taking a sip.
“No, I just… you know,” Kevin replied. “I figured, but I still can’t understand why… you know…”
“Why a rich chick would be attracted to a homeless kid?” Cecilia finished for him.
“I would have worded it a little differently, but, uh, yeah.”
“Because,” she said, gently taking his hand on the table and rubbing it softly with her thumbs, “you’re not just some homeless kid. You’re confident, you’re sweet, and you’re genuinely a kind person, in spite of everything you’ve been through.” She looked away and sounded a bit sadder, adding, “I have more in common with you than I do with my stepbrother or stepfather. I was raised poor, on the border of homeless a few times, and I was happier back then than I ever am now. I know it’s a cliche, but wealth isn’t really everything. I like you partly because I dorelate with you--I’m not just the girl in the silver tower, Kevin. I’ve been through so much crap you wouldn’t believe; I gained a mansion but lost everything else I ever had.”
She locked eyes with him again, forcing a small smile. “Strength isn’t gained from the cards you’re dealt in life. Strength is smiling through the pain, protecting those you love, and not becoming a terrible person when you draw the Joker every time. The boys my stepfather would try to set me up with have never faced a struggle in their lives, and they’re all the worse for it. They think they’re kings when they’ve never earned a single thing in their lives and treat everyone like a servant or a second-rate citizen. I’d rather take the world’s poorest strongest boy than the richest if he thinks he’s a god but he’s actually… you know…”
“A veritable fountain of douchebaggery?” Matthew suggested.
“We can’t all be gods,” Ultimatt added, winking.
“Yeah,” Cecilia replied, exhaling. “Does that make sense?”
Kevin nodded, trying to hide the happy tears in his eyes. He’d never seen himself as strong or desirable before. “Yeah,” he replied. “I guess it does.”
“It’s okay to cry,” Ceci chuckled, handing him a satin handkerchief. “It’s not good to bottle up your emotions. You end up like Gerald.” Matthew spat out his drink through his nose, despite trying very hard not to.
“That’s attractive,” Ultimatt added, motioning to his own nostrils as a very flustered Matthew turned away.
“I’m curious now,” Cecilia said, “what do you like about me? You were the one brave enough to ask me out, after all. Nobody else has even tried, though I’m not sure if it’s due to my imposing figure or fear of castration from my father.”
“I honestly didn’t know much about you yet,” Kevin replied, “but two things drew me to you. First of all, you’re the prettiest girl in school, and I’m not blind, but second, you know that, and yet you still act like a real person and treat me nice even though I’m… in the situation I am.”
Ceci’s lips curled into a real, true, genuine smile. “You’re pretty cute yourself. There’s a reason you’re bullied even though you’re broke. A lot of guys are jealous of you, I’m sure. They have so much more going for them and are still ugly and unliked.” Kevin chuckled, gently squeezing her hand. It was an amazing feeling--being this close to her, knowing the person you had the biggest crush on in the universe felt the same way about you. In that moment, all was bliss for Kevin, for the first time in… well, for the first time he could remember, actually.
Before the food even came, Cecilia’s cell phone rang. She reluctantly took her hand away and checked it, just in case it was an emergency. It was one of the servants from the manor. “Hello? Yes, this is Cecilia…” Her face suddenly became very serious. “I guess I’ll take the good news first.” Nobody was sure what had been said, but a sudden calm washed over her face, and all the tension fell out of her body. She exhaled, a tear in her eye, looking both deeply relieved and guilty for it. “I see. Thank you for telling me. No, I’m fine. It would be inappropriate to describe my feelings on the matter, but I think I’ll recover. And the bad?” Suddenly, all the tension came back. Her hand trembled, her mouth frozen agape, her face turning ten shades paler. The voice on the other end stopped, but she did not reply. Finally, after several moments of shocked, trembling panic, she shakily exhaled and let her tears flow. “I see. Thank you. Yes, I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
“What happened?” Kevin asked, panicked.
“Well,” she softly said, “he did it. He actually did it. I… I guess I can talk about it now, on the bright side.” She tried to chuckle, but it came out as sobs. She rose, mouthed the words “excuse me,” and quickly left the restaurant.
“I’ll--I’ll go make certain she’s alright,” Matthew said, but Ultimatt put out a hand to stop him.
“You don’t know where she’s going,” Ultimatt replied, “and you can’t rewind her if she gets in trouble. You stay here and update Kevin on the crap she’s talking about. I think I have a vague idea already, and I think she could use a fresh face to talk to about it who… you know… doesn’t live there with the two dudes in question.”
Matthew hesitated, but nodded affirmatively, sinking back into his seat.
Ultimatt joined Cecilia outside the restaurant. She’d wandered over to the edge of the property, standing in the grass, sobbing into her scarf. He placed a friendly arm around her, giving her shoulder a squeeze. Her face glistened under the glow of the streetlight overhead, tears shimmering like glitter across her soft cheeks. “They killed each other, didn’t they?”
She looked up at him amazed, her eyes swollen with sorrow. “How’d you--”
“Doesn’t take a 5 Star Legendary to figure that out,” he replied. “Listen, not to diminish your sorrow or anything, but you know that I can bring him back, right? You’ve seen me do it before.” To remind her, he turned both palms towards a dead bird in the ditch, the reels on his wrists spinning as the color and life returned to it and it flew away. “It’s kind of unfair, I admit, but I can basically revive the dead indefinitely this way, if there’s enough left of them.
“I know,” she said, sitting down on the cold grass. He joined her. “That’s the problem.”
“I… look, kid, not to be contrarian or to screw up your grieving process or anything, but I don’t see how me being able to bring your dead brother back to life is a problem.”
“It’s just… both of them left corpses behind.”
“I mean, great. Like I said, I can bring your crappy brother back, then. Boom. Problem solved. Done. Let’s go have our ravioli and then stop by the Manor.”
“But,” she added, crying harder and turning to face him, “you could bring him back, too. My father.”
“I mean, theoretically, yeah, but I didn’t really think that--”
“That’s just it,” Ceci replied. “I couldn’t bring myself to kill him even if I could. I couldn’t live with that burden. You could bring them both back--right now, they are both alive, in terms of potential. If Gerald had lived, I’d just be letting fate run its course, no blood on my hands. But if I choose to have you only bring Gerald back, then… then essentially…” it took her a second to regain her breath through the sobs, “... I’m the one who killed my father. No matter how badly I want him dead, I can’t live with that weight on my back, on my shoulders, haunting me--”
“Listen,” Ultimatt said, pulling her into a gentle hug she fell limply into. “It’s not up to you to decide. I’m a free gacha. Matthew told me about your old man and what a giant dickwaffle he was. I was willing to bring Gerald back, since I’d killed him for being a huge turd and knew I could bring him right back when I had, but your dad’s a monster. I wouldn’t bring him back if you grabbed my leg and begged me and offered me a million bucks.”
“You’re just saying that,” she giggled through the tears.
“Nah,” he replied, “I don’t ‘ just say’ things. I’m kind of a free spirit, if you hadn’t noticed.”
“Alright, break it up!” a booming voice from behind them interrupted. Ultimatt leapt to his feet to see a familiar uniformed police officer looming behind them. “You’re coming with me.” A few middle-aged patrons on the benches outside the restaurant fumbled nervously with their buzzers as they turned to watch the spectacle unfold.
“I don’t see any keep off the grass signs, dad,” Ultimatt scoffed.
“Not you, five star,” John Omni replied, grabbing Cecilia by the arm and forcefully yanking her to her feet. Ultimatt reached out to rewind the man, but suddenly found himself completely frozen, with time feeling like it had slowed a hundred times over.
“I don’t actually know what that trick of yours does,” Omni laughed, “but I don’t think it’s something I want to happen to me. Good save, Existentia.” An Existentia floated out from behind him, nodding affirmatively. “Alright, Cecilia, you’re coming with me. You’re under arrest--you’re a suspect in the murder of William Blackmore.”
“I have an alibi! I’ve been with Ultimatt the whole ti--”
“Oh, golly, see, that’s just too bad, because…” he cleared his throat and changed to a forced shout-speak, “WE HAVE YOU ON CAMERA MURDERING HIM, SINGLE HANDEDLY, SO LET ME MAKE IT VERY LOUDLY CLEAR THAT IT’S TOTALLY LEGAL FOR ME TO TAKE YOU, HERE.” Omni lifted her up to his level and whispered, “no we don’t, actually, don’t worry, I just need an excuse to kidnap you so I can steal your blood, play along.” Cecilia thrashed wildly about and bit his bulbous forearm, but her non-magical teeth did nothing to his powerful skin. Annoyed, Omni pulled out a taser and electrocuted the tiny girl until she went limp and silent, the scent of sizzled flesh permeating the air.
Ultimatt moved as fast as he could, thrashing around, jumping, screaming, but nothing actually happened to his body. He heard the words in slow motion. He tried to rewind himself, but his reels were moving so slowly that they had no tangible effect—in this nearly frozen state, his reels, and therefore rewind abilities, were useless. Omni pulled a knife out of seemingly nowhere and threw it at him, winking, and then strolling over to his cruiser with the unconscious girl, turning on his headlights and flooring it out of the parking lot. As he left, he heard a loud sound like a shockwave, so he launched a blast of red magic from his palm towards the parking lot behind him just in case.
Ultimatt saw the knife coming for him in slow motion. It had to be a magic-infused knife: this cop had a gacha Ultimatt had never seen before, so he must know his way around the rules of all this gacha shit. The blade inched slowly closer, closer, closer, Ultimatt watching with horror as it neared his forehead, unable to even make his body twitch. Every powerful beat of his panicking heart reverberated slowly through his body: massive, panicked, slow-motion explosions. Every moment felt like he was on the very brink of death.
Ultimatt managed to move just his eyelid, focusing all of his sonic energy on it. His eyelids closed, creating a shockwave like thunder, sending the knife dropping to the ground next to him. This process, too, felt like slow motion, until a sea of mysterious red energy flooded through him.
Suddenly, Ultimatt could move again, but he couldn’t remember why he had been unable to. Had he come out with somebody? He couldn’t recall. Maybe he took a smoke break? No, he wasn’t holding a cigarette. Why was there a butcher knife on the ground?
Ultimatt wandered back inside, blankly, wondering why he felt like part of the night was missing. When he got back to the table, Kevin asked, “Where’s Ceci?”
“I don’t know, dude. Why?”
“Because she went with you?” Matthew replied, raising an eyebrow.
“Oh.” Ultimatt tried to think back. The filing system in his brain remembered where this piece of info should be stored but came up with only static when trying to access it. He felt sick, dizzy--he braced himself on the table to keep from collapsing, barely catching himself in time.
“Do you… not remember?” Matthew asked.
“I don’t know why I was outside,” Ultimatt replied, swallowing hard. “I just was, and then there was a knife next to me on the ground.”
“This is seriously not good,” Kevin said.
“Ultimatt, come with me, please,” Matthew insisted, taking his hand and guiding him to the men’s restroom. “I don’t know if this will work,” he said, guiding him to the sink, “but I implore you to try. I want you to rewind the mirror.”
“To what?”
“Listen, Ulti. I think something tampered with your head out there. You might be able to get your memory of the vent back if you rewind yourself to that state, and if you aim your rewinding reels at a mirror, I think perhaps it will--”
“Bring it back,” he replied.
“Yes.”
“Worth a shot.” Ultimatt took a deep breath, then raised his hands to the mirror, the reels slowly spinning. He took care to only rewind his state and not his position, going very carefully back so he wouldn’t rewind his memory to before the event entirely, until--bingo.
“Get Kevin,” Ulti said, barely audible. “Ceci’s in big fuckin’ trouble.”
The limo driver was surprised to see the kids back so soon, and without Cecilia, but put out his cigarette and took them out of the lot post-haste after hearing what had occurred. “This is all my fault,” Ultimatt mumbled, staring dissociatively at the space next to Matthew’s head.
“No, it’s not,” Matthew replied. “You were ambushed.”
“That cop has to know better than to think it’s actually her fault,” Kevin reasoned. “He’s got some ulterior motive, I think.”
“Obviously,” Ultimatt replied. “But unless we can figure out what, then--holy hell, stop the limo! Stop the limo!!”
The loud outburst startled everyone, most of all the driver, who slammed on the brakes. Thankfully, there was nobody behind them.
“Look over there,” Ultimatt continued, pointing to a gravel side road where a totaled police cruiser lay, lights still dimly flashing. The taxi pulled up next to it and Kevin and Ultimatt got out to look, insisting Matthew stay inside to protect the driver should things go south.
“I don’t see another car,” Kevin said, thoughtfully stroking his chin. “Doesn’t look like any trees around either. How did this car get destroyed like this? And where’s the driver?”
“Looks like he’s over here,” Ultimatt said, rushing over to a filthy, lifeless body on the ground. He flipped it over and nearly fainted upon seeing Detective Lashbrook, skull smashed in, freshly murdered. Even by the dim light of the moon, it was a grotesque and clear sight to behold.
“What is it?” Kevin asked, running over. Ultimatt threw up his hand and shouted “Don’t,” stopping the boy in his tracks. “Get back in the limo.”
“Wh-what’s--”
“It’ll be fine in a second. Go inside. Now.”
Kevin had never heard Matt be so authoritative and paternally strict with him, but he obliged, rushing with great concern back into the limousine.
“Ya’ old bastard,” Ultimatt muttered quietly, his lips quivering. “You better not be too far gone to be rewound.” He put his hands over the old Detective and let his reels slowly spin. Ultimatt was eager to bring him back but wanted his memories of the incident intact—so he had to take care not to overshoot. After a few seconds, Lashbrook’s brain matter and blood rushed back into his skull, and the dent in his head filled itself in. He gasped, consciousness still stuck in the horror of the moment.
“You’re not Chronos Omni,” Lashbrook said, bewildered.
“And you’re not nearly grateful enough to the punk dude who just brought you back from the dead,” Ultimatt chuckled, smirking.
“Holy crapoli, you’ve uh… you’ve grown up, Matt. How many years was I out? Where’s Kevin? Is he okay?”
“My name’s Ultimatt now, actually, long story but I can rewind people like video tapes now, it’s pretty sick. You were only dead for a few minutes, I think. And yeah, Kev’s fine. But, uh, are you?”
“Yeah, never better, kid,” Lashbrook replied, wincing as he forced himself to his feet. “Turns out I actually got lucky that you broke all the glass in my car yesterday, though. I could’ve been sliced up like a thanksgiving turkey. I’ll heal fast now I’m alive again--turns out I’m a gacha. There’s just one problem: that son-of-a-bitch Chief of Police is one, too.”
“I know,” Ultimatt replied, offering a stabilizing arm to Lashbrook and helping him hobble over to the limo. “We’ve met. He kidnapped Kevin’s girlfriend for some reason and had his crony freeze me in time.”
“Wait,” Lashbrook replied, incredulously, “Kevin has a girlfriend? You sure I was only dead for a few minutes!?”
“And I got a boyfriend. It’s been a whirlwind of a day, dude,” Ultimatt laughed. “Matthew, meet Detective Lashbrook. Detective Lashbrook, meet my terrible, bourgeois boyfriend.”
“Charmed,” Matthew said, politely taking Lashbrook’s hand to kiss it, but the Detective, confused, gripped it instead and shook it vigorously.
“Yeah, yeah, same to you, punk,” Lashbrook replied. Kevin rushed over, waving excitedly. “Hey, Kevin! Good to see you again, too. Listen up, kids. I think your friend’s in trouble. Here’s the low-down: I’m a gacha, my memories are bullshit, the Chief of Police summoned me to work there in place of the real Lashbrook who he killed, but I found him out, so he killed me too. Turns out I’m a pretty damn good detective in spite of being almost literally born yesterday. I don’t know why he kidnapped Cecilia, but I do know that he keeps human beings as blood slaves to summon more gacha for his army he plans to wipe out humanity with. I also know that his last two human blood banks ran out of juice, so I don’t think his intentions with Cecilia are good. Oh, also, I’m apparently immune to magic, but not to regular old human weapons, just so we’re on the same page.”
“Do you have any idea where they could be now?” Matthew asked.
“No idea in hell,” Lashbrook replied, “but Omni’s working on a massive scale. He’s not going to be subtle, whatever he tries to pull, so he shouldn’t be too hard to track down.”
The limousine first went back to the Blackmore Manor. Ultimatt insisted Kevin stay in the limousine to protect him from the gore inside, taking Matthew in with him instead and leaving Lashbrook behind to watch out for him. Kevin complained about not being able to come in at all, so Ultimatt conceded and let him and Lashbrook stay in the house-sized den to watch TV on the largest projection screen they’d ever seen. The servants eagerly guided the Matts to the site of the carnage, stepping politely aside as Ultimatt threw the door open.
“Holy hell,” Ultimatt said, feeling a wave of nausea come over him, “it looks slash smells like the dumpster of a fuckin’ slaughterhouse in here.” Organic scraps of fallen gacha littered the floor, slowly floating about like toy boats in the sea of blood. Midway through the room slumped the fallen patriarch, flies swarming his halved skull. A few feet from him, Gerald slumped, looking pretty rough himself but sporting an uncanny self-satisfied grin plastered across his shitty face anyway. “Here goes nothing,” Ulti sighed.
Ultimatt rewound the boy back to just before he’d died, who sat up and kissed him on the lips passionately. Gerald opened his eyes and looked disappointed, mumbling, “you’re not Carrie-Anne Moss.”
“And you’re no Keanu Reeves, jackass,” Ultimatt replied, spitting on the floor next to him and wiping his mouth on his sleeve. Unfortunately, he had not rewound Gerald to the point before his wounds became fatal, so he slumped over dead again. Ultimatt sighed and rewound him faster, back to before his hands had even been bitten off. He woke up entirely lucid this time, confusedly looking around the carnage.
“What happened?” he asked.
“You won,” Matthew replied, crying and smiling a charming, crooked smile.
“You killed your pops and then died, so I brought you back,” Ultimatt elaborated.
“Just like in the Matrix,” Gerald gasped. “Except in the Matrix, a busty chick saved our dashing protagonist, and not a gay One Star.”
“I’m not a One Star anymore,” Ultimatt growled, wishing silently the kid had stayed a dead hero and not come back as the same old turd.
The Matts explained the full situation to Gerald, who listened surprisingly seriously and intently. “This is not exactly the best situation,” Gerald added.
“How astute of you,” Matthew replied.
“Well, as the new owner and CEO of Blackmore Enterprises, you should know that you have every asset of ours at your disposal. I know father has some heavy-duty vehicles from his shady trades with foreign oligarchs, some of that should at least prove useful.” He seemed quite proud of himself and pleased but froze when he turned to leave the gory throne room and noticed the corpse of his Fem-Fatal, wounded from the headshot but not consumed by Temparment like the rest. He didn’t say anything, and tried to retain his composure, but started weeping in spite of himself.
“Oh, for the love of god,” Ultimatt sighed, rewinding her back to life. She and Gerald embraced, and she offered Ultimatt a big kiss as thanks. He quickly and enthusiastically declined.
“Say,” Matthew said, “Miss Fatal, you can enchant objects to make them magical, can you not?”
“Simplest thing in the world,” she replied in a seductive baritone.
“Master Gerald, escort us to these vehicles you were talking about, if you would be so kind. I have an idea.”
Gerald took them down a gold-plated elevator to a hidden floor only accessible via a secret code, an armored dungeon full of illegal weaponry and equipment. Matthew walked right up to a modded-up Type 96 Armored Personnel Carrier from 1995 that the US Military was almost certainly not officially missing. The car was loaded with weapons to be enchanted along with it. “Miss Fatal,” Matthew crooned, “if you would do the honors?”
The only issue plaguing them now was that they had no idea where they were actually going. Omni wouldn’t be dumb enough to run back to the police station, and a siege there would almost certainly lead to the death of countless human officers with rewritten memories simply caught in the crossfire. He had to have somewhere in mind… but where was it?
The answer came from the den. Lashbrook and Kevin stopped them to show them a very strange commercial they’d seen once during their aimless watching, then recorded on a blank VHS the next time around. Kevin popped in the tape and hit play.
The production quality was atrocious, looking like it had been filmed in a cave or a warehouse on a cheap home video camera. The GachaCorp logo, however, was rather professionally emblazoned all official-like in the bottom-right corner of the screen. A kindly old Japanese businessman stood in the center of the screen in front of a massive crate labelled “NEW GACHA,” smiling at the camera.
“Thanks to all of the support we have received in the WOODRUCK , we are pleased to be able to open our new official headquarters in your lovely location.” He had a pleasant voice, albeit with a thick accent that could only be described as somebody from Outer Space who had never heard a human voice before trying to do a Japanese accent after reading an article about them once. The word “WOODRUCK,” though, seemed to have been dubbed in by a text-to-speech program. “We will be making many exciting new gacha, but first we would like personally to thank all of the lovely customers who have been making this the best year for Gacha Glove ever. Tomorrow, we will be having an open house starting at ten AM to meet me, CEO-kun, and ask any questions you might have about the lovely and fun wonderful product of Gacha Glove. Please to be there at ONE HUNDRED TEN NORTH AVENUE, WOODRUCK.” The address sounded equally dubbed in, and his lips seemed to be saying something entirely different. The screen cut to a quick anime-style chibi animation of a Linguine Arf, Matt, Breakfast Dragon, Tiffany, Nyancy, and Throckmorton all bowing to the viewer and saying “Mucho Arigato!” Then, it was on to an advertisement for 3D Doritos.
“That’s gotta be where Omni’s going,” Ultimatt said, swallowing hard.
“Bingo,” Lashbrook replied. “Omni’s mad at GachaCorp for making him to begin with, and double mad for letting the Glove control gacha. He told me he was going to attack their CEO and force him to reveal a way to eliminate the Glove’s control over them so he can brainwash the entire city’s worth of gacha and lead his crazy uprising against humanity. My best guess is that he saw this ad earlier today, and now his plan is to take Cecilia into HQ with him and bleed her dry to summon all of the new gacha going to be revealed there for his own usage.”
“We’ll attack tomorrow, then,” Matthew replied, heart pounding. “We have to catch them before Cecilia gets hurt.”
“ Agreed. In the meantime,” Lashbrook continued, “we can’t stay here. Omni pulled off this entire little gacha invasion with the help of William Blackmore--though he apparently didn’t have anything to do with HQ popping up, oddly enough. Either way, this will be the first place he looks if he decides to come after us pre-emptively tonight. My apartment was set up by Omni, so it’s gotta’ be a trap—that’s off the list—and I’ll be shot up the second I step into the station at this point, no doubt. We’ll need a room somewhere neutral to strategize.”
Gerald stepped forward eagerly. “I’ll need to remain here to maintain things and to be on guard if Omni shows up, but I’ll give you plenty of funds to purchase a hotel.” He handed a credit card to Lashbrook, who graciously accepted it.
“Alright, it’s settled,” the Detective boomed. “We take that armored magic-infused vehicle out of here and park around back at the Hampton Inn, book two rooms under fake names, sleep through the night with the most safety possible, then we siege HQ in the morning, get Cecilia back, and demand answers from the bastards who created us. Are ya’ with me?”
The room cheered.