"Let me get this absolutely clear now. My dear buddy here is the last of his bloodline of you-kai, whatever that is, and is embroiled in magical stuff and the likes. Why does that sound like a freakin' Sat-AM cartoon?"

"But to me, that's reality," I answered. "I wished I could just go back in time and say, look, this did not happen, and I ain't gonna screw my life around with girls who think they can make me a world of fantasy just by wearing fancily like those costumed Japanese girls. The problem here is I can't help myself there, because they actually can! And they're real to me!"

T.J. stared forward for a few moments, looking on at the damage done to the Hollywood sign. Now even the letter H has been destroyed, leaving just the "OW" standing; it was as though the Russians were mocking and challenging us. A sense of hatred rose through my heart; admittedly, even though I've screwed this nation in my cursing ten times over and then some, this is still where I belong, and to see it getting hit this hard made me angrier.

"Them Ivans will get it from us when we level their Cram-leen or whatever they call it, along with that White Palace thing and whatnot. They ain't getting away from us for this," T.J. suddenly blurted, which brought the already-weird conversation to an awkward stop.

To me, the events of the past two days, everything, including the onset of war and the realization of a power I have never ever had, was beginning to overwhelm my head and already, after the hell ride in the morning aboard that chopper, I was already beginning to feel pretty dizzy.

Then suddenly I realize that the Hollywood sign doubled itself, and it began to read "OOWW". As if that wasn't enough, there were suddenly two buildings ahead of us when there should only be just one.

"Pas… Pas?"

I could hear him, but I couldn't open my mouth to respond in time… or rather, at all. The next thing I knew, everything went from double to black nothing, and I could feel my head crashing into the rubble we were walking on.

"Pas! Hang on dude! Guys, we need some help over here. Send a medic over, quick!"

All I could feel at that moment was black, for want of a better word to use. I could feel what was happening to me; T.J. and some of the people from the shelter were rushing to carry me back into the safe haven, and I could feel my body being held onto on all fours. I just couldn't respond at all, not even opening up my eyes.

I remember what this feeling is called; it's called helplessness.

""""""

"Hey. Hey, you hearing this or seeing this at all?"
"Hu… huh? Ugh…"

I rubbed my eyes hard, but I couldn't feel my hands move; I could see them move, though, which was the only kind of confirmation I could ever get. It was rather scary when I realized I suddenly had no sense of touch.

"Nothing's wrong with you, kid," the voice spoke. "But I… don't know if you still remember who I am."

I could hear a distinct chime in her talking, but I struggled to remember who it was.

"Remember how you had to duck a flying chair when I got out of its way?"

"Uhh… I couldn't really remember your name, but I remember you carry an umbrella around with you that day."

"Well… it doesn't really matter. In any case, I'm going to say this only once so listen carefully."

"…okay," I blurted, thinking it should be a rather serious matter if someone involved in the inside has to interfere with dealings on the outside.

"You have to be aware that you cannot succumb to any call to arms, aside from whatever you had done to keep yourself alive."

"Huh? But… why? Like, this is my homeland and she was the one getting hit for something I don't know nuts about!"

"Because behind the scenes, there's a man controlling everything, but even if I told you the name of this guy you're not likely to know who he is, and knowing will only land you in hotter soup."

"So you're telling me to just abandon my homeland?"

"Human boundaries are much more malleable than you think," droned the voice, sounding impatient. "Remember, we've more or less established that you are not exactly a human, so it would do you very well to not think of yourself as human anymore."

"B-but how can I—"

" Don't meddle in their affairs – you most likely can't afford to."

""""""

"HAAAAAA-!"

I snapped awake, opening my mouth, wanting to shout and scream in horror. I then realized it was rather futile, since my larynx was rather strained and my throat rather dry, so what I did ended up feeling rather painful.

"Ungh… huh? Pas, you're awake! You had me worried for a second there, mate."

I took a look around; we're in some sort of makeshift tent, and given the beds you see in hospitals, I guessed we were in a temporary hospital.

"The doc's words had me worried for a sec there, bro. He said you were completely fine, but given that I saw you collapse it was rather worrying, I thought you might've gotten yourself some disease or something he can't tell or something."

"Chill already, T.J."

"Oh, hey, sup guys. Glad to see you're awake now," blurted Jack, who held two cups of coffee in his hand.

"Hey, Jack, gimme a cup as well."

"Sorry man, they're all out and this all I got. Hang on."

He scooted off while T.J. kept fussing over me to make sure I really was fine – which I was, other than the initial throat pain. Jack came back to the ward with an empty cup, and proceeded to pour some coffee each from the two cups.

"Here you go – coffee for us three brothers. Tell me more about it, man, while this coffee's still hot."

"About… what? T.J., don't tell me you ratted off…"

"Don't blame him – I coerced him," Jack smiled slyly. "Hey, give me a fair chance y'know, you got to work with them A-Team or something so at least lemme have some of the spoils in your rather fantastic adventure. As for this bugger, he always remembers things in parts so he couldn't even give me a full story."

"Can't I tell you another time? It took me about two hours to finish talking to T.J. about it."

"Well, you see… I am thinking of signing up for boot camp. Once it's finalized, I'm leaving in about two days."

"Wait, why? Most of us here don't even know why this war began!"

"Well, you know, I still had a sister right? I took up temporary work at the UCLA's temporary mortuary today, and… and… there she was in the cold room. I fucking swear…"

"Oh, that's cool. How's she doing?" T.J. had to ask, but I roughly expected something chilling, given how Jack's voice shook when he was talking.

"Well, T.J… She smiled. In her death."

Upon hearing this, the whole atmosphere sunk and the aroma of coffee suddenly became rather poisonous. It was never easy dealing with death. I wouldn't know what I'd do if I had lost T.J. or Jack.

"Dammit. Sorry about it man."

"No, you don't have to be," replied Jack. "That's why I thought of signing up for the Army even though I know it probably would suck. I'm prepared to join Tina in His arms, but I must settle this score with them fuckin' Ivans."

Dammit, can't I even give an answer to this scenario?

Yes, you can. Try this: "Live well, for it is the greatest revenge".

"Live well, for it is—" wait a minute, who the hell is this speaking to me?

"Huh? Pas, bro, you all right?"

I recognized that voice – it was the same lady that spoke to me while I collapsed.

"Pas… Pas, yo, Earth to Pas?"
"Huh? What? Oh, right. Well, you know, Jack… I ain't gonna hold you responsible if you want to screw me over with this."
"I won't. We're bros."
"Okay. Then listen – we shouldn't think of revenging ourselves against anybody anymore."

The two guys stared at me as though I was speaking Martian to them.

"Uhh, Pas dude, did the collapse knock your head off or something?"

"No, T.J., I'm serious. I've been thinking about stuff for a while. I had nightmares last night – " that was a lie – "of us dying in Russia. Can you imagine us getting hit by bullets in a land we don't already know, like these kids fighting us are, too? They're about our age, and we're pointing guns at each other. That's really wrong."

"Well, basically no one gives a shit about this during a war. It happens, or it doesn't."

"But I cannot stand the thought. I've read some shit about veterans of wars getting guilty-wracked and all because they couldn't save their buddies in this fight or the other. I don't want to spend the remainder of my life thinking what I could've done, you know, if it ever came to that. I'm sorry I'm such a coward."

All three of us went silent for a moment. T.J. was the first to come up with a response.

"You know, Pas bro, that hit the spot with me. I probably wouldn't know how to respond either."
"Me neither. I hadn't considered what I'd do if I knew I could have saved you, or what you would do for me if you thought you got me killed."
"So, we're settled right? No more talk about going to Russia."
"Hell yea. Every fight we fight now, we only do it to protect ourselves –"

There was a loud boom from I don't know where, but the boom certainly shook the room quite hard.

"Holy shit, did you guys see that?"
"Huh, what happened?"
"There's this blue wave of thing in the air! Look!"

T.J. and Jack decided they'd rush out to see what the commotion was all about, while I decided to contemplate my next course of action in the relative darkness of the room.

Not a moment too soon, however, I was greeted by the sight of the space in front of me tearing apart. I expected it was someone from within Gensokyo, so I wasn't shocked anymore. If it were my brothers, they'd probably be shocked beyond all reason.

"…I see you've adapted yourself to the strange and unexplained," answered the blonde lady from within the portal, as though she could read my mind like Yuuji does.

"It's hard not to when you've lived within it for a while," I replied. "What's the matter now?"

"This war will end tomorrow."
"Cool. So what's wrong with it?"

"But the reason for its ending will destabilise this country fundamentally."
"Wait a second," I halted her. "Didn't you like, just told me you didn't want me to get enlisted in the Army? Why're you doing this for, then?"
"I owe George a debt. That war hero with white eyes sacrificed his youkai powers to create your country – if you choose to call it so – and prior to that I owed him a debt for saving me in a witch hunt."

I paused for a bit, thinking through the more important Georges we can have in this country.

"By no chance you meant George as in George Washington?"
"Gosh... Maybe I should view you as a being somewhat more enlightened."

I wasn't flattered by that rather rude commentary, but unlike Suika I don't know what this woman is capable of, so I just kept my trap shut. In the midst of this, I was quite aghast at the thought that the father of our country, is himself a youkai.

"Therefore, knowing all that now, you will have to do something tomorrow to assist me."

"Me?" I pulled my patient garb forward. "See this? It's called a patient's garb. I'm hospitalised, how'd you expect me to help you?"

The lady wasted no time putting her hand forward. I noticed she suddenly stuck her hand through my body, but I could feel nothing at all… until I suddenly felt fitter than ever before.

"There. Sickness and health are all but opposite sides of the same coin."
"What the… hey, what the hell did you just do to me?"

"Oh, I just twisted your status around. You were 'sick', right?"
"Yea. What's the deal with that?"
"I could just twist it around to make you the opposite of 'sick', which is 'healthy'. How hard was it to comprehend that, newly-minted youkai?"
"Hey, I ain't no factory produce, mind you," I blurted.

"Huh." She gave nothing more than an exasperated sigh, before tearing the space apart again and stepping right into it.
"I've lived long enough, but I haven't seen an 'important figure' being a worse… if I may, 'pussy'… than you. So it does look like there can be something different about this world after all."

Once again, I wasn't quite able to swallow the insult, but now, more out of moral obligation than anything else I had to. She disappeared into the gap seconds before my brothers came back, their face a look of anything but calm.

"Bro… you can't believe what we all just saw," blurted Jack, his voice trembling. "There's this cloud of blue coming out somewhere east."

""""""

It was hours since this "blue cloud" appeared in the east and dawn quickly approaching, but no one could give a definite answer as to what it is. As I walked out of the ward area and into the clear open, it became clear that electronic communications were halted, as I spotted more and more people punching their phone's keys hard, presumably hoping the harder they pressed the more likely their calls will go through.

"Phone couldn't get through," sighed one of the middle-aged guys, his brows creased and caked with dirt, presumably from doing a lot of carrying work. "Now I've lost my only way of calling my ma."
"Strange, even my satellite phone don't work now. Did someone just kill a satellite up there?"

Given the strange circumstances behind that blue cloud, it dawned on everyone – myself included – that the cloud could be linked to the calls that couldn't get through. Still, why would anyone want to do that?

"It just doesn't make sense," blurted Jack. "I ain't no master tactician, but neither side would risk blowing a satellite down because they need it themselves…"

It was around this time that that guy… I think he's called Face, from A-Team, showed up from a collapsed building nearby.

"Washington's EMP'd. Nobody can call across the country now," he remarked. "As far as I'm concerned, every pilot as far as Chicago can't fly their bats and birds."

"How'd you know that?"

"Because I, His Majesty Murdock, the greatest pilot on God's greenest earth ever, nearly crashed while flying my little Apache across the country, that's how I know," smirked a skinny guy, whom I recognized as this morning's crazy-ass pilot guy.

"Y'gonna say that all day, or admit that your flying sucks, Murdock?" came the snicker from the bl… wait, no, African-American… guy in the car earlier, I think his name was B.A. or something.

"Cut it out, you two. After so many years in and out and bones getting all crackin' and beat up, that's pretty embarrassing from you both," growled Face. "Now, as it is, we've also got word that Houston has lost contact with the International Space Station."

"That… isn't that like, this huge freakin' satellite? Don't tell me…" Jack's voice was a bit worried.

"Unless I'm dead wrong about it, the EMP must've hit the ISS and any other satellites unfortunate enough to be in the vicinity."

"That's why satellite phones don't work, either, huh?"
"Well, they're called satellite phones for a very good reason," retorted Jack. "So what's the deal now? Are we going to get any sort of help from now on or we're just gonna 'F' ourselves here?"

"There's two extremes to this. One, the Russians may become frightened by the attack and stop whatever war operations they were at – after all, most of their main force is either dead or in pieces at this time. The other one would be that their forces will just go attack anyone and anything."

As we spoke, a column of what seemed like war vehicles began to roll from a distance.

"Did you guys schedule any deployments?"
"Not that I know of. You can go ask the soldiers at the back of this place," answered Jack.

Face took off hastily, while B.A. urged everyone to pick up whatever firearms they could find. As far as they were concerned, it seems, anyone coming in like that is an enemy. I couldn't really handle firearms, so I did the next best thing; I flipped over some stuff in the makeshift kitchen and got me a butcher's chopper, then ran to hide in wherever they could conceal themselves.

"What the hell, bro? What are you going to do with a bloody chopper?"
"I can't shoot," I blasted at him. "I can still miss even if my target is as close as you are to me right now!" That much is true; the memory of me shooting Zachary in his bejeweled region wasn't that far off.

"First time I've seen someone with such bad aim, then," growled the big man. "Shush everyone, here they come."

The vehicles made a rather irritating whirring sound as they rolled into our area. Gradually, the vehicles stopped and a lot more familiar accents were heard as orders were being shouted and stuff.

"Get a move on! We need to secure any and every supply we get! We're moving to Hotel Site Bravo in sixty mikes!"
"What the… isn't that our guys? Why'd he think this place's dead?"
"Shush. I don't get a good feeling from this," signaled B.A.

Face dashed back from the far side and came back signaling a thumbs-down. B.A. snapped his rifle ready, while I grasped the chopper on my hand.

Gunfire suddenly rang out from the far side, and then in an instant the whole area went to hell.

"Enemy contact! Contact!"

The whole place rang out with all sorts of gunfire and screaming. My brothers and I could only huddle behind a nearby building rubble/cover while B.A. and everyone else kept firing forward. T.J. chucked a few grenades forward, but to no effect. The response, however, was really overwhelming; a couple of rockets came flying our way and it definitely was going for the home run.

It was there that, in full view of the entire crew, my time-slow manifested itself as it activated without warning once again. I literally went up to the rockets, then struck them really hard and then backed out of the area.

I pressed on the stream of electricity that came from my hand, and time returned to normal as the rockets exploded. B.A. urged everyone into his jeep, which thankfully wasn't parked too far from our area, and soon about ten of us squeezed into the back of a MPV meant for five.

"There they are! Get them!"
"Open fire! Open fire!"

Oh shit, this is not good. I pressed on the electricity too soon and now, the soldiers are getting way too close and are firing on us.

""""""

To the gods above,
lend me your strength
so I may shield my dear friends…

"Time Technique [Twilight Zone Snap], activate!"

""""""

What the hell happened? That was the first line I asked myself as I looked at the situation around me the moment I uttered that line out of nowhere. Every hostile soldier was covered in some sort of eerie, metallic blue that I could not figure out at all.

"… Pas bro, just what the hell did you do to them?" blurted Jack, as the rest began to recover. Most of them were originally sprawled all over the MPV, and it seemed, judging from their relieved expressions, that they were cocksure that they would die there and then.

Indeed, it looked hopeless for a moment there. Even I nearly gave up.

"Whoa, that's some serious magic you pulled there… what the hell happened to those soldiers? They're all blue…" T.J. gasped, still over-awed by the sight of the blue soldiers.

"… I… I don't know."

The electricity was still flowing from my palms, so I know the spell, the magick, whatever it is, is still pretty much active, but for the life of me, I don't know what the heck I just did. I don't even remember what I uttered in the heat of the moment.

Like Jack and the rest of the bewildered onlookers, every hostile soldier that came within range turned solid blue. With the spell still active, I tried touching one of the soldiers; that soldier began to 'melt' rather literally until it was a blob of blue on the floor, leaving only his firearm and whatever he was wearing.

One curious bee from among the escaping people then went to touch another blue-covered soldier. That soldier 'melted' too, but so did the fingertip of the poor curious guy, as he went yelping and screaming that it was 'hot' and that 'something is eating into his index finger'.

"…I think I get it now," blurted Jack. "My wild guess is that whatever spells you just casted, froze them in time. Touching them tore their very existence asunder, and thus they, unable to exist at the same time in their frozen timeline and this one, melted to the floor."

"Um, Jack, when did you get so good into this sort of thing, Jack?" I asked, incredulous that Jack was able to come up with an answer that flew over my head.

"Well, I was just making up sci-fi shmuck. But it isn't that long a shot is it?"

"As long as them idiots are dead or immobilized, everything's okay for me," grunted the bl... I mean, B.A.
"Now you two get in the car. Get that curious injured John Doe in the back too, my first aid's under the carpet."

I was tempted to feel sorry for that "John Doe"; somehow B.A. made his rather pathetic predicament sound hilarious.

As for me, I didn't dare touch anything or anyone because of my electrically-charged hands, so I could only ask Jack and T.J. to help me into the overloaded MPV in a rather awkward manner – with my hands up in the air the whole time. I don't even dare touch the roof of the MPV for fear of poking a hole through it… and that's the least of damage I could potentially cause.

"Damn, I don't know, Pas bro, your existence now either rocks or sucks. There's no middle point right now," joked Jack as he heaved all eighty kilos of me in.

"Hey, Jack, stop rubbing it in," chastised T.J. "B.A. boss, can we move now?"
"Well, we're waiting for Murdock and Hannibal to get out… though, if I had a chance I'd rather just leave Murdock here-"

"Ahem! No badmouthing His Majesty behind his back, B.A.!"

Two men approached our vehicle from behind the rubble. My first impressions were that they were a bit roughed up, presumably from the fighting, but once they saw the blue guys and the MPV whirring they made a dash for us.

"Sorry, we were caught up in the fighting for a bit," apologized the older guy whose name I couldn't quite remember.
"What the hell were those blue statue-like things? And kid, what's wrong with your hands?"
"… long story, sir. I'll explain if I get the time and the chance but can we leave this god damn place first?"

Damn, I hate having to repeat the same story over and over again.

And it was at that moment that something incredulous happened. Specifically, someone incredulous happened.

"Hey, Pasonya, long time no see!"

I just felt my world go black once again. Oh the good times.