Note: This is the third episode of a series. If you haven't read the first or second episode of the series, click on my profile to get started. Thank you.
Previously on Life is Strange: After the Storm...
"Have a seat, Ms. Caulfield," asked Mr. Wells. "We have much to discuss."
"I'm not blaming you for my son's death. But as crazy as it sounds, I'm starting to blame you for what happened to this town. All want is the truth. Do not lie to me. I'll know if you're lying. Is it true that you have a secret power to control time so to speak. And if you do, is it true that your power caused what destroyed this town?"
"The National Guard found my little girl's body thrown out of car the next morning after the storm...and was confirmed dead. Tell me, Ms. Caulfield, if my daughter's death was caused by terrorism, who will avenge that tragedy? Who will bring her death to justice and who is the real person responsible for six-hundred deaths including hers that laid waste to this town?"
"Max, that butterfly you took the picture of gave you the powers you have now. When you were in that bathroom that day and the butterfly appeared, it chose you to have the powers. Legend has it, the butterfly spirit carries the power of the butterfly effect. AKA time bending. Capable of manifesting that power to anyone with the highest purity."
"According to the legend, the person chosen to have the power of the butterfly effect is the one with the purest vibes."
"You of many people contain a high purity of vibes. Meaning you share the greatest emotional atmosphere towards others. That's why it chose you. That's why you were given this power. That's how it's earned. The joy, the harmony, the nobility that turns people pure."
"Chloe, there are people out there that know about my powers. People that have known about my powers' existence from the very beginning. Somehow they know what I've done. What I did to this town. They know I was the reason behind the storm."
"Okay, Max. This is crazy talk. You? Terrorism? Really? Why would someone like the District Attorney and Prickscott convict you of such a thing?"
"I thought you were dead, Rachel," shouted Chloe. "You hear me?! I thought you were fucking dead!"
"Chloe, I owe you big explanation for this. I really do. Just hear me out for moment of your life. It's no surprise you'd be pissed for me showing up like this."
"Try me. I'm listening."
"There are no secrets kept from the law, Max. The Sheriff got a call from some guy named Crosby who's running this Chrysalis Corps saying they've been watching you and targeting you as some time traveler or some other weird shit. So do you mind telling me why?"
"Let's just cut to the chase. There's you need to learn about Chrysalis. They are out there. They don't just study the effect of quantum chemistry. Their an elite organization trained to hunt down time travelers and destroy them if they have to. If they discover any threat towards time and space, they'll do whatever it takes to eliminate that threat. One way or another."
"Why are you telling me this? You say this like I'm wanted dead or something."
"They'll be coming for you, Max. And they won't stop ever, until they've captured you...or they've killed you."
"Captain Clayton Cage. Chrysalis Security Task Force," the lead soldier introduced himself with an ID in his hand. "We're here for Max Caulfield, of course. We have warrant for her arrest as we have a warrant to search the school."
"What the fuck happened back their, Max," she asks driving as quickly as she could. "Are those assholes trying to start World War III?"
"Just fucking drive!"
"I got this. I got this. I don't got this!"
She pulled the truck over exactly at the dead end steering it swiftly to the left allowing my chance to jump for it. I jump as high as I could straight out of Chloe's truck and just barely grip my hand on the dangling hook. I hold on as tight as I could with one and then both. While I'm dangling like a fish on a hook on the side of the bridge, I just notice that there's stacks of wood built on my side of the bride. I braced myself for impact.
The chopper came tumbling down the road like a bowling ball when it hit the ground. Before it blew up, it came rolling down over the truck I was on and I use my time rush to jump out of the truck before the crashing choppers hits the truck and explodes with it. I land on the top of the last remaining vehicle of the convoy. A Chrysalis SUV with a passenger and a driver. I hijack the SUV by throwing the driver out, shooting the passenger, and hopping straight with my seat buckled. I also throw out the dead passenger, as well.
"Max, take my hand!"
"Just shoot that fucker! Take him out!"
Me and Rachel are about to hit a diesel truck with a kerosene trailer and Rachel power slides her bike underneath the trailer to prevent impact. Only to allow the rolling Chrysalis van to combust into the trailer instead and simultaneously create a massive explosion destroying the van once and for all. Like a Michael Bay action movie.
"Rachel, you knew how Chloe would feel. You knew running away was not going to solve anything. You knew Chrysalis was coming after me sooner than I expected. And you knew Blackwell was the last place I should've been to begin with. I not only put myself in danger, I put the whole school in jeopardy of my fugitiveness. Maybe even the whole town. Chloe is right. There's much you could've done to protect us more. It's bad enough I had to extinguish hundreds of lives to let Chloe. Now I've caused even more bloodshed killing a bunch of Chrysalis troopers during their assault on Blackwell and beyond."
"The moment you showed up on my lawn on Friday," she began. "I thought back to that day you told me to prepare for the worst. Was this what you spoke of? Was this what I was supposed to be prepared for?"
"I wish I knew the answer to that question, Chloe, but I don't. I really don't."
"Of course you don't. You never know shit. You know what, we're done with you. From now on, you stay away from Max. You stay away from me. If I ever catch with her again, I'll turn you in to those Chrysalis bastards myself. I mean it. Nothing is going to divide me from Max ever again. Nothing."
"HQ to Caulfield. Come in Caulfield. This is Chrysalis HQ. On behalf of Sean Prescott's orders, please respond."
"I'm giving you the option to either surrender yourself or Rachel Amber to Chrysalis in my name. It's that simple. You have one hour to decide. Whoever you choose, meet us at Town Hall. It's either you or Amber. The choice is yours."
"Chloe...I'm...I'm so sorry, but I'm going."
"Max, don't do this to me! I love you!"
"Freeze!"
"Stay right where you are!"
"Don't move!"
"On your knees, Caulfield! Now!"
"Congratulations, Caulfield. You're a criminal," said Prescott.
Prologue
Max
Six Months Earlier...
October 18th, 2013
9:30 AM
Arcadia Bay, Oregon
Arcadia Bay Cemetery
Tears poured down for the Prescotts. It was time to mourn the death of Nathan Prescott. The beloved son, brother, cousin, and heir to the Prescott family. Every mourner arrived at the cemetery just in time for Nathan's funeral. Dressed in their funeral clothes.
The people attending the funeral were a majority of the Prescott family and everyone else Nathan was close to. That included Nathan's parents, Sean and Adrian Prescott, Nathan's older sister Kristine; and his aunts, uncles, and cousins from outside the state. There was also the Vortex Club attending. Which included Victoria, Taylor, Courtney, Dana, Juliet, Logan, Zachary, and Hayden. There was also Principle Wells, David, Joyce, Warren, and Kate arriving at the funeral. And finally, there was me and Chloe prepared to mourn.
There were black cars, SUV's, and limos parked by the gate of the cemetery. As well as a hearse that carried Nathan's coffin. There were also men and women wearing suits and shades that was the Prescotts' security detail. Guarding the gravesite where Nathan's tomb had been built, a picture frame of himself with a memorial reef decorated on it stood, and his coffin was prepared for burial.
As soon as everyone including myself gathered around crowding Nathan's burial and the Prescott security suits got to their post guarding the graveyard and surrounded the mourners, Kate's father Pastor Richard approached with a shovel in his hands and began to preach for Nathan's funeral.
I stood between Chloe and Warren during the funeral. I turned to my right and saw Nathan's Mother weeping with tears running down her cheeks and leaning against her husband's shoulder. Who had a look of guilt and sorrow in his eyes. Blaming himself for letting his son die by the hands of a photography snob named Jefferson. Nathan's sister Kristine stood next to Adrian comforting her during the sorrowful hour.
I turned to my left and saw Victoria standing between her friends Taylor and Courtney with a tear running down her cheek, too. She had been a little more than just friends with Nathan. They had been a thing together for a time being.
I turn my eyes forward. Starring at the coffin concealing the boy who had been a puppet so unfairly used under a heavy sociopathic influence. I couldn't blame myself for Nathan's death the way I put myself at fault for all the other six-hundred deaths I caused. Nathan indeed deserved redemption for what he had sinned, but there some people who can't be redeemed. Even when they can be redeemed, it can always easily be a missed opportunity.
Frank had arrived at the scene overwatching the funeral from a distance with his dog Pompidou. He had been clients with Nathan in the past as he had with Chloe. Despite Frank and Chloe's hatred for Nathan because of his actions with Rachel, they had to say their goodbyes anyways just for Nathan's respect. Even though there really was no respect to return for them from their perspective.
This was the price I paid for what I did. Where there is death, there will always be death. There are some fates that are easily preventable as they are inevitable. This was the fate I chose to be inevitable. The best of both worlds. For Nathan. For Arcadia Bay. For Chloe. And with Chloe still by my side who had been there for me to live through this, I knew everything would be just fine.
Until now.
Chapter 1 Detained
Max
Present Day...
April 14th, 2014
7:44 AM
Quantum Prospekt
25 miles from Arcadia Bay
"Ms. Caulfield!" shouted Karen as I snap back to reality.
I sat down in an interrogation room handcuffed to the table and wearing my prison jumpsuit. I was now being questioned by the two District Attorneys Karen and Burke. There were guards in the room watching over us as well as a security camera recording us. With a glass window I couldn't see through but the guards on the side could. I had been starring down at a picture of me shooting the soldiers who assaulted me on the school grounds of Blackwell. Karen had took the picture in her hands away from my sight and repeated her question.
"I'm going to ask you again. What were you thinking?"
I remained silent. I couldn't answer the question. It disgraced me to see me locked away in a nut house built for time loons like myself, but I had to cooperate."
"You do realize that only your interference with Rachel Amber led you here, but your actions at Blackwell did," said Burke. "You were given a direct order to cease any activity with time manipulation and you did the complete contradictory. Do you have any idea what charges you're being pressed on or what allegations you're confronting? Mm? Do you?"
"For all I know, I'm a teenager locked up in some hellhole by a bunch of bureaucratic assholes like yourselves."
"Ms. Caulfield," Karen snapped. "Perhaps you didn't take us seriously when we specifically told you that we were watching you. You knew what the consequences would be. You knew you would end up here. And to make matters worse, you killed forty-five Chrysalis troops in Arcadia. Forty-five. As if those six-hundred souls you exhausted weren't enough for you. Do you have any idea what you've become until now?"
I scoff.
"Do you how ridiculous you sound accusing an eighteen-year-old girl of a fucking tornado storm? There is so much you don't understand."
"We understand that the point of this interrogation is not only your actions at Blackwell and forth, but also the tornado storm your being prosecuted with," said Burke. "In fact, we never asked you why you would cause such a thing. So go on and tell us if you please. We're listening."
I sigh. How do I even answer a question that involves Chloe's life, Kate's suicide, Rachel's decoy, Nathan's murder, Jefferson's dark room, and a storm I was set up with? Where do I even began with that kind of question? I give the two DA's the best answer I can give them.
"I never asked for any of this. Do you really think I meant for any of this to happen? From Chloe dying in a bathroom to me getting kidnapped to a dark room, it was a hell of a week for me. The week I first used my power. All I ever wanted was to be together with the one person who means the world to me. Without my power, I would not be holding arms with her everyday. She would've died a sad miserable person instead of a girl who smiles and giggles with me each day. There goes your answer."
"If you think for one minute that what you just said will count for your credibility, you'd be dead wrong missy," said Karen. "There are far more imperative things at stake than your ever-lasting relationship with Chloe."
Before the two attorneys could say anything else, the prison Warden Simon Moss walked in the room to dismiss them.
"Caulfield has visitors who are extremely urgent to see her," said Warden Moss. "I'm afraid I'm going to have to dismiss the two of you."
Karen and Burke packed their files they brought with and were leaving the room so my visitors would come inside.
"This discussion isn't over, Ms. Caulfield," said Karen. "We will see you in court two days from now."
When they walk out the door, the Warden leaves the door open for none other than the two people who gave birth to me and brought me into this world...my parents. Of course. How couldn't it be. I knew that they would tell. I knew how they would feel. And I knew they would be here. My stomach cringes into nervousness and I put my head down on the table.
"You have five minutes. Don't waste it," said the Warden.
The Warden walks out of the room with the door shut and back into the security room next door. I lift my head up off the table and stare firmly at my Mother and Father who look unsurprisingly less than splendid to see me what I've become. A convict rotting in a private maximum security prison in the middle of Oregon.
The sight of my parents makes it even harder on myself to even think about what I would say to them. They probably told them everything, but exactly what do they want to hear from me that would make them feel better? I don't say anything the second my parents take a seat towards me. I wait for them to say something so I could at least allow words to exit from my mouth as well. And I do.
"Well Max, what do you have to say for yourself," Ryan asked angrily.
I bit my lip and say nothing. Already, I'm making myself look foolish in front of my parents as I expected.
"Maxine Caulfield," Vanessa snapped. "I don't know how incompetent you think we look or what this is all about, but they told us everything. I suggest you answer your Father's question this instant before we walk out of this room like idiots."
"I don't know," I reply. "I don't even know where to begin."
"Max, you're gonna have to give us a better answer than I don't know," said Ryan. "The Warden gave us five minutes to be in here and that was fifteen seconds ago. Start from the beginning."
I clear my throat tell them how it all started.
"Let's say that this all began on an ordinary day at Blackwell six months ago. Monday morning to be exact. I was in the bathroom minding my own biz until a boy named Nathan marched in mumbling to himself and Chloe showed up. I saw her get shot by Nathan and that's when my powers first manifested. Which helped me stop Chloe from getting shot."
"Keep going," said Ryan.
"I meet up with Chloe for the first time again and we spend the rest of the week together before the storm hit. There were times when I would need or want to use my rewind powers. I used them to stop Chloe from hurting herself or getting herself killed for the most part. They're thinking the use of my powers effected that storm and killed innocent people in Arcadia. The core reason I'm rotting in this hellhole."
"What daughter of mine would kill innocent people with some tornado storm just to keep her best friend alive," said Vanessa hysterically. "Let alone shoot down a bunch of soldiers who ordered you to surrender!"
"I didn't kill those people, Mom! At least I don't think I did. And even if I did, I never meant for that, okay? I didn't ask for any of this shit anymore than you didn't. And don't get me started on those Chrysalis fucks."
"Max," my Dad shouted. "Do you what know you've put me and your mother though? Do you even know how embarrassingly disgraceful it is for us to have a daughter facing federal charges of terrorism? Do you?!"
"I know that I was set up! Alright?! I never meant for any of this to happen. Yet here I am being falsely accused of a fucking tornado storm!"
"Max Caulfield," my Mom scolded. "You either speak to your parents in a respective manner or we walk out of here knowing we've wasted our time with our convicted daughter! Exactly what do you mean you never meant for any of this to happen? Answer the question!"
"Alright!" I sigh. "I didn't want to kill all those innocents of Arcadia Bay. Nor all those soldiers. All I wanted was just to see Chloe again from all those years apart. To keep her alive. So we could grow old together and not make our lives such wreak from each other. God, I - I..."
"Max, just stop talking for second, okay," asked Ryan. "You're saying you never meant for this to happen. That we get. What we don't get is what this has to do with Chloe. What does she have to do with it?"
"You should both know that Chloe is more than just a friend. Me and her are a thing together. I didn't only use my power to save her life, but also used it to help Chloe find her missing friend Rachel. Chloe had offered me a way to save everyone by going back to the day she originally died just to prevent that disaster from occurring. I rejected her offer and chose Chloe over everyone else. I just couldn't let her go. She means to much to me to let her go."
"All those deaths in Arcadia just to save your girlfriend from dying," said Vanessa. "Unbelievable. I'm out of here."
"Vanessa, please. Just sit down for a minute," Ryan begged.
"No, I will not sit down for a minute. Besides from the fact that our little girl is dressed in rags and locked up with animals in this shit hole and is now telling us she destroyed a town to save her girlfriend, I've wasted enough time here as it is."
The Warden walked back inside and told my parents their five minutes were. Then I had another visitor willing to see me as soon as my parents left the room. It was none other than Derrick Crosby. The head of Chrysalis Corp. The Warden allowed him to spend as much time as he needed with me under his own authority. Crosby took a seat across from me and started his conversation.
"I did once say that Sean's jurisdiction got the better of me," Crosby reminded me.
"What do you want," I reply. "How could this happen? I did everything I could to acknowledge Sean's warning."
"Here's all I know, Max. You're interference with Rachel became a liability to Prescott. He couldn't take any chances having you and her getting funny ideas with your powers. That is why he sent my security force after you and her."
"Couldn't you have done something? You're the head of Chrysalis right? You couldn't at least taken control over your forces?"
"I'm sorry, Max. But Prescott had put to much authority on my security force to do that. I have spoken with your parents about everything and I tried to get them to understand as much as I could. And I have. Though it wasn't easy. Prescott has put your town under martial law with the help of my troops to protect it from Quantum Terrorism. Now let's cut to chase. I'm here to make an offer. An offer I know you won't refuse."
"And what offer is that?"
"I spoke with Warden Moss and requested to have you transferred over to our Chrysalis facility down in Portland where you'll be experimented on."
"Experimented on? I'm supposed to be your lab rat now?"
"More or less. We're not only doing this for a routine experimentation. We're doing this for something for your parents to see. To see who you really are."
"You want me to perform time stunts in front of my parents? Don't you think it's bad enough having them go through my imprisonment being here? Who knows how they'll react when they see my powers."
"Max, it's no surprise to me that your parents have hysterical over the position you're in. But they need more answers than one's you've given them minutes ago. I'll even allow your girlfriend Chloe to stop by if she can."
"Chloe knows my powers all to well to see them compared to my parents' knowledge. Why bring her up?"
"Well, I'm glad I actually did bring her up, because there's something I want to offer her, too."
"And what is that?"
"Your trial begins in two days. Karen and Burke are all prepared for prosecution. If Chloe is allowed to, I'll let her help defend your crimes in court by my side."
"You want Chloe to stand up for me in court as your defense client? What make you think she has any experience talking to a jury or a judge inside a federal courtroom?"
"I'll be doing most of the talking in court. Chloe can be one of your witnesses who'll take the stand, as well. Now I won't lie to you Max, but you're going to need all the help you can get winning such a case like this. There have been many convicts like yourself that have lost cases like these and I wouldn't like you to be one of them."
"Have you talked to Chloe at all about this?"
"Not yet, but I will. Chloe is already in trouble for her interference with your actions back in Arcadia Bay. I'll try talking her parents into helping. Now we won't be transferring you to our facility until tomorrow morning. Over there, you'll be provided with a cell down in the research labs. We'll be testing your powers in the simulation rooms to see what you can do. With that said, Ms. Caulfield, do we have a deal?"
Crosby leans his towards mine so I could shake it and make it a deal. Despite my hands cuffed to the table, I'm able to take his hand and shake it.
"It's a deal," I said.
Well, I hoped you all enjoyed the first chapter of episode three, everyone. It wasn't easy, but I gave it my best effort. There is much to happen in this episode that will be exciting to read.
If anyone thought that funeral scene in the prologue that Max flashbacked to was a little forced, that's okay. I always thought Nathan deserved to be missed, too. And he did. Despite being a hated character in season 1, it didn't excuse him from deserving better.
Until next time, stay tuned!