Robert felt it. The urge. The power, flowing back steadily, beckoning. Just as before, he didn't understand anything about it, its boundaries, its limits, but he knew it was back.
The first thing he did was travel back to the past. Specifically, his past. There was unfinished business to tend to. First, he stopped by that wretched school. It looked the same as it should have. After all, this was before he had stolen all the C4 in the world. He walked across the empty red brick courtyard, surveying the trees and the empty lunch tables. All the bane of his existence.
He stepped out of that time, grabbed someone from a different location, and swiftly stepped back. It was Daniel.
"Holy crap! What? How?" Daniel sputtered. "Where am I?"
"In my mercy," Robert replied. Grabbing Daniel's shirt collar, he stepped into a different spacetime coordinate and dumped Daniel onto the middle of a highway.
A car sped by at eighty miles an hour. Lawbreaker, Robert sneered. Daniel shook, rolling further from the lanes.
"Daniel, look at me," Robert insisted. The terrified jock turned. "Why? Why do you do it?"
Daniel looked around, confused. "Um… why what?"
"Why do you do it? Why did you bully us, torture us?" Robert demanded.
"Look, man, I'm sorry," Daniel sputtered. "I'm sorry–"
"I don't want your apology," Robert insisted. "I want to know why."
Daniel took a few unsteady breaths. He looked absolutely terrified for once. "It's… fun."
Robert slammed Daniel onto the ground. "What do you mean it's fun? Someone else's pain is fun?"
"It's like revenge," Daniel croaked. "For what they did to me."
"Screw you!" Disgustedly, Robert pushed Daniel into the path of an eighteen-wheeler. The jock's frightened cries bounced in Robert's mind as he teleported to an even earlier time.
But that was the same reason he did it. It was a sweet form of revenge against all those people who tortured him, humiliated him. And somehow, knowing that made Robert feel a little better about himself.
The next target was set, walking down the across the courtyard. "Oh Robert," Danny said. "You got–"
Robert teleported in front of Danny and smashed him into the ground. Wordlessly, he pummeled the large, aggressive kid to the cement, one punch for every dollar stolen, every single word of spite spoken by that kid.
Stop, a voice spoke in Robert's mind.
Grunting, Robert smashed Danny's skull and teleported somewhere new, somewhere alone. "Claire, why are you in my head now?" Robert asked measuredly.
I'm not Claire, the voice said. This is Shadow.
Robert's eyebrows rose. "Shadow? Isn't that a Pokémon?"
No. But I'm curious, why did you stop when I suggested it? Shadow asked.
"Well, the last time I didn't listen to Claire, that wasn't cool," Robert admitted. "I'm not exactly stupid, so…"
Ah, it's nice to see you have a sense of self-preservation, Shadow said. So why did you leave?
"Leave what?" Robert asked. "Leave my sanity behind?"
Leave Mars. Why did you leave your team behind?
Robert paused. "Well, I guess I wanted to know if I could do it, that's all."
Well, I suggest you fix some of those messes you've made. Shadow paused for a long minute, suppressing Robert's ability to respond. There, I've reversed all the damage you've caused outside the gang.
"What!" Robert demanded. "What do you mean?"
Clean slate. Do with it what you may. A weight was lifted off Robert's chest and he knew Shadow was gone.
"What a weird world," Robert muttered before he teleported to the morning after the team fight fiasco.
ns 18.68.41.175da2
