Master of Time

Legion is just really good at kidnapping and molesting a person. He had plenty of experience in another reality. He can also copy her memory and personality more or less perfectly, allowing me to truly test her power and whatever biological ability that she is hiding.

Obviously, examining her ability inside a spatial dimension is not as good as doing so in the real-world with realistic conditions unless I emulate the world and everything within it, including people.

I could actually do that with all the technology and magic at my disposal, but it feels like a huge amount of work for just a single person. Work that I don\'t really want to do because I am generally lazy about these things. It also seems unnecessary when there are a lot of easier options.

In addition, I am unsure what effect a soul or lack thereof has.

But I do know for a fact that clones do not have a soul, and therefore, it isn\'t really the same as having the originals. They also cannot use spiritual abilities or similar.

That doesn\'t mean that they are immune to spiritual threats, as demonstrated by Zeus earlier today.

Those spirit beasts from the Twisted Nether are as dangerous to him as they are to me, and he doesn\'t have a soul at the moment.

Strangely enough, the Catholic Church is right about clone not having a soul, but it wasn\'t simply due to the church not wanting to become irrelevant with the changing time. The people in control do miss the days when they are in power, before the separation of Church and State.

In any case, the Catholic Church does have a name for clones and any soulless biological construct.

Homunculus.

This also means that the Church must have come into contact with a soulless being before, and maybe the Church might even manage to create one in the distant past, not an actual clone like I can through science, but something akin to one.

Getting a bit freaky, to be honest. Frankenstein level.

But that is the conclusion I have reached from all the data and information I have collected so far. It is the combined knowledge from more than one desolated future of the prime-reality.

There are quite a lot to go through, and most of it isn\'t really relevant to the cause, at least not directly, so I didn\'t bother wasting time speculating and theorizing. Time that I could be doing something else more beneficial.

I am still unsure what to make of the warning message in my databank. Whoever manage to send that warning shouldn\'t be taken lightly, considering that it was sent through my personal network.

Has my personal network been compromised?

It doesn\'t appear to be so, but even if it did, Legion should have become aware of the breeches.

While Legion is not a real artificial intelligence yet, he is pretty much close to one with the computing power at his command, so he should have detected a security breech within my personal network.

So far, my network is as secured as it can be. It also helps when I am the only person who have access to it. I mean aside from Legion and Selene of course.

Don\'t tell me that one of them is the sender. I mean one of my virtual intelligence becoming self-aware without my knowledge. I will have to run diagnostic on all of them just to make sure.

I have Legion do that right now unless it is Legion himself.

Honestly, I could speculate all I like, and it will probably not get me anywhere.

I suppose I will find out who the sender is eventually. I couldn\'t be me since I do not exist in the normal flow of time whenever I jump to the future. It isn\'t like I can send my consciousness into the future as my body continues to live like I would.

Even using a clone wouldn\'t yield the result that I have planned. I have already tried that.

Anyway, I will eventually find out what is exactly going on with the Catholic Church. I am unable to get more information through mere observation alone. That is because whatever the upper echelons are involved with, it isn\'t seeable on the Mortal Plane from the look of it.

I will keep an eye on the Church regardless. Me personally since Hydra doesn\'t have a mean of defense against spirits and spiritual-based abilities. They don\'t even know that ghost and spirt exist yet.

And once I tell them otherwise, those Hydra scientists will be bitching all over again.

Those guys could accept that magic exists because the effect of magic is still grounded in science due to whatever law that magic must follow, but for them to learn about ghosts and spirits is crossing that imaginary line of logic.

Did I just use logic and imaginary in the same sentence?

Never thought that I would, but honestly, those Hydra scientists are already having a really hard time in accepting that supernatural monsters exist in an alternate reality.

Monster such as werewolves and vampires.

And it isn\'t because of those monsters\' appearance as Hybrids can have the same appearance through some real ingenuity.

It is actually due to the supernatural powers demonstrated by the monsters.

Mostly just vampires, actually.

It is hard, probably impossible, through science to explain how a being can turn into dust and mist and even shadow, not to mention becoming intangible, capable of negating any physical traumas.

That intangible ability alone makes vampires quite hard to kill even with all the toys that Hydra has at its disposal.

Magic can explain that ability, but no magical energy is detected during the onslaught, so it is not really magic, at least not any magic that I am currently aware of.

Even so, magical energy should still be detected if it is a form of magic. This is true as long as it is magic, regardless of how suppressed or contained it is.

Due to the extreme risk of trespassers, that temporary rift is in locked down at the moment. Actually, all of the temporal rifts are locked down due to my standing order.

I will send a clone to each one of those temporal rifts to deal with whatever on the other side when it is time. I probably will not go personally anyone because I don\'t want to father children accidentally, mostly it should be of my choice, not simply because I have to as the Aspect of Time.

How annoying.

Honestly, the better choice is simply to collapse those temporal rifts, but I don\'t think sticking my head ignorantly in the sand is a good option anymore.

As much as I like my small pond, being manageable and all of that, there are waves on the ocean, and those waves will manage to invade my pond no matter how inland it is. It will be a clusterfuck if a real tsunami comes my way.

That is just a metaphor for saying I cannot remain uninvolved in this that not directly contribute to my main goals. At least the goals I have for humanity of this reality.

Likewise, I will have to deal with the Hybrids.

Allowing them to roam freely will be a huge problem, but most of them aren\'t rogue group.

They are actually sanctioned by their own government, so waging war with them outright with Hydra is not a good idea, especially when it will fuck up my plan with Atlantis.

Some people are aware of Hydra since it is very hard to hide such a global organization. While they do know Hydra exists, they are not aware of how deep and far reaching Hydra is at the moment, and it is preferably that way.

I can\'t have them killed either because of their position within their government or organization. Thus, the next best thing is to simply give them something to worry about, like a real threat, not that Hydra is not a major threat itself.

Besides, it isn\'t like they aren\'t at war with each other at the moment.

Those American-Japanese Hybrids are not distancing themselves when Legion is nearing Chinatown. I believe that neither side want an outright war, but I guess any group has black sheep.

Honestly, if those stalkers are thinking intelligence, they wouldn\'t be following me when I have already made my peace with their boss. This does show that the old man is losing control over his own people, especially that of the younger generation.

They are letting too much power go to their head.

Since it is unnecessary for me to go personally, I will just take control of an avatar instead. It also allows my body to rest and become further augmented. Not only that, the biomechanical avatar has abilities that my real body doesn\'t

Shapeshifting for example.

I take a rest in the master bedroom, which has never been used before.

There is actually no need to use the master bedroom since I had never brought anyone home. I guess I should use it more often from now on, just to create an impression for Christina, at least at night.

I will enroll her in school tomorrow. It is probably more normal to wait a few days to do that or maybe a week, but that would mean I have to stay home to entertain her. I rather she plays with people her age, and school is a best way to do that.

Or I could take her to Terra Entertainment.

I will think more on this later, but I am already leaning towards enrolling her into school. She actually wants to go to school.

Lying on the bed, I close my eyes and allow Selene to connect my mind to a biomechanical avatar that is sitting in my car as it drives around Chinatown in Pittsburgh.

I take back control of the vehicle and find a suitable underground parking lot. This allows the car to be out of view momentarily, but it is enough to disguise the car into something else entirely.

Instead of driving back out, I park it before sitting back and waiting for my stalkers to come. I also have my appearance transforms into that of a Chinese man. Now I just need a name and a super arrogance personality.

Seems easy enough.

"The car went into there, but I don\'t think we should. Those guys standing guards outside aren\'t really human. They smell a lot like you, Akira."

One of them speaks up while hanging around outside. I have an insect-size cloaked drone following him, and from the look of it, he hasn\'t notice. None of them did.

"What the fuck does that supposed to mean? I don\'t smell bad."

Akira responses, annoyed. He also sniffs himself to make sure. From the files that I have on him, he is of the second-generation.

In fact, all the stalkers are, and they are siblings, all having the same father.

Each of their mother died in childbirth due to complication. That is what on file, but I know the actual reason. It is not uncommon for those that carries a hybrid child because the child usually claws its way out of the womb, causing massive internal bleeding.

That is exactly how the Queen of Diamond died even if she is one of the strongest Insect-Hybrid that Hydra was able to produce during the Hybridization Project, let alone a normal human body.

They just can\'t give birth to Hybrid children normally.

Obviously, Hydra could have saved the Yumiko\'s mother when she was born, but her father fears that the scientists will kill him and her mother before turning her into a science experiment.

It is not an unfounded fear due to his own experience at the hands of Hydra, but honestly, the old man should have though about it more.

If Hydra actually wanted to, he and all of his friends wouldn\'t be alive right now. Also, I think I should stop calling him old man, as he isn\'t old. He is only like in his 40s, but because of the animal genes, his body age a lot faster.

That also means his children grows a lot faster too. Yumiko is only 12 or 13, but she looks like she is in her mid-twenties. Same as these stalkers.

Hydra never really fixes the rapid aging process, so I suppose I should, but I probably need some blood sample. All the old samples are destroyed in the destruction for research facility.

"Melvin means that they are of the same species as you, Akira."

The only girl amongst them speaks up. She seems to be the voice of reason from her file. She actually goes with her old brother in order to stop them from doing something stupid. Something like camping outside a Triad\'s hideout.

"But seriously guy, we shouldn\'t be here."

She continues.

"Shut up, Sara. You sound just like dad. Why did you even come with us? Go home and watch dad sits on his ass all day. He is going to die on that couch, I swear. What a fucking waste.

All of them. Seriously, what happen to take no shit from these cunts?"

Melvin snorts and heads towards the building with a hood over his face much to the shock of others.

Just like he could smell them, the guards standing outside could also smell him, and with their elevated sense of smell, they know that he isn\'t one of them.

"Move along, kid. I don\'t want to have to send you home to your parents in a coffin."

One of the guards tells Melvin, making him snort while his eyes shine. He then flips upwards and kicks the man across the head, but the man manages to grab his ankle and slams him into the ground.

"Ugh!"

Melvin gasps before the huge man stomps down on him, forcing him to roll to the side. From the floor, he leaps upwards and overs the man. He lands behind the man with a smirk. A folded knife in his hand.

"Fuck. That hurts, you piece of shit."

The man roars as a deep cut runs across his face. His eyes have slit in them for a moment, but they are gone as soon as the cut across his face heals itself.

"Guess, I will have to cut deeper."

Melvin responses before dashing forwards at speed that shocks the guard. He immediately blocks the barrage of slashes, that instantly dice his clothes and create deep slashes all over his body.

"I\'m going to kill you!"

The guard roars out and sends Melvin flying upwards.

The boy flips around and lands gently onto the side walls before using the moment to surge forwards.

With his speed, Melvin could toy with the guard effortlessly, but the cuts are pretty shallow, not nearly enough to cause any real damage, especially against someone with accelerated healing factor.

It is quite interesting to watch. The other guards seem to think so, deciding not to help out their buddy due to their own amusement.

But this is hardly the limit of Melvin\'s ability. He really needs to go up against someone stronger.

I head out of the car and walk out of the carpark to watch the brawl right there on the street. Since it is late night, there aren\'t anyone around to watch aside from some surveillance cameras belonging to the building itself.

"What the fuck is going on here?"

I question on my causal approach.

The other guards notice me, and while they don\'t recognize my face, they can smell me. This is another ability that an avatar has. It can falsify smells.

Therefore, they show me a lot of respect, as they assume that I am one of them. Currently, I am. It will allow me entrance inside freely.

Melvin distances himself from the bloodied guard, who is extremely furious. He is one of those muscle for brain guys.

"Wow, did you have to call for your dad?"

Melvin questions while spinning his blade on the tip of his finger.

"Japanese? No. Not entirely. Why are you here, kid?"

I question as I vanish, causing him to widen his eyes. He immediately distances himself away from me, but the shock and surprise didn\'t leave his face.

"Nice knife."

I comment as I mimic what he did before, spinning the blade on my finger tip.

"Bastard. Give that back –

Melvin utters before his body recognizes the pain. Blood runs down both of his hands as he has been cut multiple places.

"What? When?"

Melvin utters when he realizes he has been slashed several times, with his own weapon no less.

"You are just really slow."