novelraw Chapter 312: Change
Chapter 312: Change
Stella slowly lifted her head from where she was lying on the ground. She couldn’t remember why she was in the ground, or where this even was.
The last proper memory she had was so vague that she couldn’t even tell if they were her memories anymore. There was something else other than memories and that was an understanding that whatever was happening to her at the moment had been the result of her using her power.
She knew for a fact that she had given up part of the years she had lived and every bit of memory, skill, and relationship that came along with it. And she had given it up to create that very sword that the young man was using to fight off the wolves.
This meant that she had been helping him, which in turn meant they were together in this. Why were they together? Why was there a fight?
Why was there a corpse close to her of the lifeless young woman?
Stella couldn’t help but panic with all the thoughts. Were they being targeted for some reason? Had the information that she was a Nova already been revealed? Had they come for her?
Was the young man protecting her thus?
She watched him fight off the wolves and then fight the man. But then, his head was wrapped in a cluster of grass and she could see that he had no way of clearing them up.
He nearly defended himself against the woman who tried to stab him from the back, but then he was swinging his sword aimlessly. He needed help.
She needed to help him.
"Behind you, 5 meters away!" she shouted from far away.
Stanley heard her voice and was confused for a second. He couldn’t tell who was speaking, but if they were saying those words, then it had to be for him.
Stanley turned around and dashed ahead swinging in front of him.
He slashed through something alright, but it didn’t feel like a human. It was the roots he realized.
"Alice! Get out of here," the man shouted. "Kill that girl."
Stanley heard the muffled voice of the man and tried to slowly turn toward him.
"A little more to the right," the voice came again.
Stanley turned a little more.
"A little more."
A little more.
"Straight ahead. 20 meters away."
"Goddamnit! Shut that bitch up!"
Stanley ignored the man’s shouting and rushed straight toward him. He swung aimlessly at first and then met the roots again. By this time, the grass on his face had begun to move away.
He needed the grass around his face to be considered a single thing before he could use his time reversal skill on it. The grass flew away from him, returning to where it had come from.
Stanley saw a wall of roots before him and cut through it to come to the other side. A wave of grass assaulted him again, covering his face once more.
Stanley thought of reversing time again, but instead, he used a different power. He immediately used Retrocognition to look through the history of the grasses.
He didn’t watch all the history, just the most recent one. And through it, he saw a vague image of where the roots were, where he was, and where the man was standing.
He could see it from all the different angles the grass blades had been to, so he could simulate the entire dome of root in front of him. He knew where to attack.
He dashed forward at once, not letting the man any chance to dodge. He cut through something again, and this time the scream let him know it was the man.
The man thumped into the ground and Stanley felt the power disappear from the grass that surrounded his face. It all fell to the ground.
He coughed up what was in his nose and mouth and opened his eyes to see what he had done. It turned out that he had cut through the man’s legs, right above the knee.
He had fallen to the ground and was bleeding out. If he didn’t get any medical attention, he would die. Stanley looked at the man for a moment and wanted to help him no longer suffer.
But at that very moment, he heard the carrier landing. ’No!’ Stanley thought. If he wasted any more time here, the carrier would leave.
’I need to go,’ he thought, running back outside, leaving the man to continuously scream as he died from blood loss.
* * * * *
Stella forgot about the woman until she was stabbed in the back. Only, the stab didn’t work as her skin was still fully steel.
"What the fuck is wrong with the both of you? How can a knife not work on you?" she shouted.
Stella turned around frantically, only now remembering this woman existed. The thought of having forgotten her was enough to cause her to fear, but it seemed the woman had no other powers than being forgotten, so that gave her some relief.
The woman still pushed on Stella, slamming her to the ground where she repeatedly tried to stab her through the chest.
Stella wasn’t cut, but she still felt pain. It was a dull pain, but not completely nonexistent. She racked through her mind, trying to get think of something she could use.
But her mind was muddled at the moment. What she had given up for that sword took away too much and she was left with memories only from so distant in the past that she could not remember it properly.
She slowly reached her hand out and grabbed the woman’s face. She remembered a vague memory of when she worked in the science lab, working hard to become a nurse in the future.
CHANGE!
She turned the liquid inside one of the woman’s eyeballs into acid. The eyeball popped and the acid flowed through the inside and outside of her skull.
The woman screamed as the acid ate through her skin, burning as it went down.
Stella pushed her to the side and got up just in time to see the carrier land.