COPYRIGHT DISCLAIMER: I don't own ANY characters in this story! All rights belong to Dontnod Entertainment!
Time Seizure
Chapter 1
"Max… it's time."
Dread unfurled through her body as she stood on the cliff next to the lighthouse, watching the menacing tornado creep closer towards Arcadia Bay, a monster she created. Everything that happened, all the death and destruction, was her fault. All she had to do to undo her mistakes was to go back in time through her photo, the one she took of the blue butterfly in the girl's bathroom back in Blackwell and…
Max squints hard in contempt. She couldn't even mentally put the words together what she had to do.
Standing right beside her was none other than the reason for all her decisions, Chloe Price. Her best friend, her partner in crime, whom hadn't always been the most pleasant of individuals, especially to her, was now offering her life in exchange for everyone else.
After everything they had been through, their reunion, their fun, their fights, their adventures, and every other nook-and-cranny of moments they had shared up until this moment… all of it had to be erased for the 'greater good'.
No.
It can't be.
After all this… is she really supposed to just let her die, believing Max had abandoned her? Is she meant to die, not knowing what happened to Rachel? Believing she had NO ONE? To just let her bleed to death in some smelly old bathroom, with Nathan Prescott standing over her?
"IS THAT WHAT YOU WANT!?"
The bluenette standing by Max flinched at her sudden outburst. She wasn't yelling at her, but rather at the storm, or whoever up there was the twister mastermind of all this.
The brunette stared outward, panting in fury, the photo clenched in one of her fists. Choosing to say nothing out of fear that it would sway her decision, Chloe waited. It had to be this way.
"No…" she heard her mutter.
Before Chloe was given even a second to process what Max meant, Max tore up the photo and let the wind carry it away.
"Max!"
"This is MY timeline!" Max cried, eyes welling.
Chloe froze in shock, and Max followed suit. It didn't take long let sink what she had just done; she had denied Chloe her original fate to let her live… at the expense of everyone else… just to save her.
She should have felt a surge of rage that Max decided to sacrifice all her friends that are surely down there, as well as her family. Instead, what she felt was fear, regret and… relief?
The tornado had finally breached the shore, and only continued to move inland to begin its massacre. Everything in its path was kicked up, ripped open, turned over, and dismantled.
When the realization of how many people that she condemned could be down there, the time-bender's anger and triumph at her defiance were replaced with horror and regret.
What have you done?
Without turning to face her friend, she could imagine those same exact words spiraling madly in her head as well, just like the tornado. She can't look at her now. She had lost her anyway for sure now. She would never forgive her for this.
"I'm sorry." she mustered the courage to say, still without looking at her, her timid voice drowned by the wind, yet was heard.
Max drops to her knees and wails, grief overpowering her. Her screeching alone pierced Chloe more than any noise the storm could offer, and it was unbearable to listen to.
After a moment of hesitation, Chloe closed their gap of uncertainty by embracing her from behind, resting her head on Max's shoulder to provide whatever comfort she can in the wake of all this.
"It's okay, Max."
"No…" Max shook her head.
"I'm here. Still here."
Max just continued to sob loudly to try and mask the distant sound of the town getting torn apart, possibly masking the screams of those lives being ripped from them simultaneously.
Something in the back of her mind was telling her that a price would still have to be paid… just not with Chloe anymore.
The morning after the storm, Arcadia Bay was left a scrambled landfill of what it once was. Bodies sprawled, vehicles overturned, houses scalped, and all sorts of other structured chucked where they shouldn't be; in fact, nothing here was where it belonged anymore.
"Max?"
Max jolted from her daze to squint up at Chloe sitting next to her in their pickup truck; her friend had been driving them through this muddle. Throughout the whole trip, Chloe stayed focused on the road, hell-bent on finding any survivors, whereas Max was elsewhere; she had been uncomfortably quiet since the storm had passed. Her friend didn't like this demeanor.
Once they had come across a roadblock made by a timbered utility pole, Chloe stopped her truck and set it to park. She rested a hand on her forehead, tired, frustrated and worried.
Max appeared as though she hadn't slept for a week now, and who could blame her? Looking at her friend now, it's like all the colours had been sucked dry out of her. She had to reach out; they needed each other more than either could yet realize.
"Max… there could still be some people." Chloe placed a hand on her shoulder, but felt her tense up.
"Some people…" Max was like a shivering stowaway, "out of how many?"
"We can't lose hope." Chloe reassured her, though actually half-believing her own words. "For all we know, my mom and… step-dad… could still be alive, holed up in the Two-Whales. Heck, Warren could even be there."
Max sighed and managed to ease to her touch a bit. She also managed a small nod as well.
"Look at me, Baymax."
Taken a little by surprise at her nickname, Max turned to finally lock eyes with her, and suddenly, she found herself lost in the warmth of her blue ones. She remembered now why she made this choice.
Chloe too took comfort in the faint smile that eventually formed itself on her best friend as she chuckled at her new nickname.
"Lean on me."
Automatically, Max lowered her head on the punk's shoulder, the one with her sexy tattoos. She felt her pain subsiding, and that was good enough for now.
Somewhere else, away yet not too far from Arcadia Bay, something else manifested in the flattened woods where the tornado had finally, mercifully, ended its path of destruction.
A glowing matter, the colour of amber in its dead center, expanded and grew tendrils that formed two pairs of legs, then a body, and then a head, which then formed ears. Its birth wasn't pleasant. Rather, it was jittery and unstable.
The aura finished and had taken the form of what appears to be a doe.
It lingered momentarily to stretch its back, neck, and legs, and then proceeded away from the deforested site. It was drawn to a source of power that felt somewhat familiar to this being, and it was going to seek it out.
Eventually, the amber doe found a road passing through the trees and decided to follow this route, as if knowing it would lead where it desired. Shortly enough, it passed a sign that read, You are now 5km from Arcadia Bay.
And as if it was an afterthought, a long blue feather materialized, hanging under the doe's right ear.