Chapter 20: Timeline 175

April 9, 2007. 18:32:17. Timeline 175.

The man looked up from his watch and observed the clearing in front of him.

The view was majestic. A lush clearing filled with perfectly green grass extended in his view for miles, eventually meeting with a series of gigantic purple mountains in the distance. The sky was a brilliant blue, the sun was a fierce orange: it was so picturesque, it almost looked fabricated.

He felt the tremors going out across the multiverse, the sensation of them all being reset reverberating through his gut.

The man sighed, and retreated into his own home. He was about to pick up the phone when he suddenly felt something in his pocket. Something that shouldn't have been there.

The man took the object out of his pocket to find that was an old-fashioned recorder that was, oddly enough, glowing green at the edges.

He knew what that meant. What all of it meant.

Tim hit play, and the sound of his voice speaking filled the room, filled the room with the story of the timelines before.

Sometime later

Tim was much too tired at this point to punch, kick, or pound anything at all.

How? How could he beat them? He needed something to balance out Frisk. Something, someone that was just as powerful and just as determined.

A lightbulb popped into his head. Of course, why hadn't he thought of that before?

But how to fix that nasty problem of the barrier? Who was stopping him?

That problem, too, got fixed in a moment by a flash of insight.

For the first time in a very long time, Tim grinned. He picked up the old-school telephone on his kitchen counter, the kind that plugged into the wall, the one that he was never supposed to use unless he truly needed to.

He heard a rustling behind him, a presence. "Ah. Hello, Phone Guy."

"Tim. How many times have you been here?"

"That's none of your business. Now, then. It's time for you to repay your favor."

"Oh, goody. And what would that entail?" said Michael.

Tim grinned. "Take me to that place I said I'd never go. Baldi's Basics. His office."

Tim walked down the hallway calmly, clutching the knife that had once killed Joey Drew.

The man kicked open the green door to the office, his palms sweating a little in anticipation of what he was about to do.

There stood the man himself. Mysticman12.

"Hey, Tim. I thought I might be seeing you one of these days." The poorly rendered figure's mouth did not move at all, but his voice was certainly loud and clear.

Tim took a step towards him. "You die. Here, now. And there's nothing that you can do to stop me."

Mysticman got up from his desk. "We'll see."

All of a sudden, a dozen Baldi's appeared around the room, all slapping towards Tim in maximum overdrive.

Tim ducked, weaved, and stabbed as the crowd of teachers began to increase in number, until they were so many of them that it seemed as though there was a whole wall of human flesh blocking Tim.

Tim crouched and vaulted over the teachers, felt three rulers graze his pant leg, perfectly stuck the landing, and charged at Mysticman.

Inexplicably, the room began to lengthen, Mysticman's desk now seeming a mile away, at the end of a long hallway, where more and more Baldi's were being spawned into being.

Tim ran, ran as fast as he ever had in his entire life, a sea of Baldi's now right behind him, their slapping a constant buzz.

But it was all futile. Tim knew he couldn't keep this up. Eventually, one of the Baldi's would hit him. The desk grew farther and farther away.

With a desperate thought, Tim suddenly saw that he had green sparks flying off of him. He stopped time.

And it was just so, because as he turned around, he saw a Baldi swinging his ruler, impossible to dodge.

Tim realized he could move. He calmly walked down the hallway, ignoring the frozen Baldis around him.

After a while, he finally reached mysticman's desk. He climbed on top of it, and unfroze time.

The creator's eyes widened as he suddenly he realized what had happened, a platoon of Baldis appearing right next to the two of them.

But it was too late. Tim had already thrust in with the knife.

Every Baldi stopped instantly. Mysticman coughed once and slumped over his desk. Dead.

"Thanks for the lesson," Tim whispered as he withdrew his knife.