The rain was like a cold slap to the face. Flat on their back on the cold concrete of the walkway, Oasis stared at the grey sky uncomprehendingly for a couple of seconds. They had more or less forgotten that rain used to be a thing in this part of the world. Damned climate change. Still, the cold September rain drenching them head to toe was a blessing, in a way.
For the first, it indicated that the time travel had been successful. For the second, the rain had forced most people in the streets to seek shelter inside, and thus, no one had seen them suddenly collapse and then gasp for air as thirty years of future memories snapped to place in their mind.
Fat raindrops rolled down their faces like tears, the smell and sound of Toronto so overpowering as to be alien for a second. Between the tall buildings stretching over their head, they could just barely see the tip of the needle tower, still standing and, incredibly, intact.
It was a very inconvenient place to arrive in the past, they realized as they slowly sat up, their entire backside now drenched from laying on the wet pavement for however long it had been. Had they taken the time to think about it beforehand, they might have timed it better. Chosen to do this at night, perhaps, when their younger self had been reclining in a bed and not standing in a street in full view of everyone. They looked around themselves and saw their messenger bag laying a few feet away. Had they been on their way to work? It was hard to say. What, to this body, had happened just a few minutes ago was lost in the fog of thirty years of brand new memories all trying to make space in their brain at once.
Perhaps, they considered, this had been a badly conceived plan. They’d been running on desperation and trauma, a feeling of sickening urgency that now felt mildly like nausea and would probably settle into a truly impressive case of PTSD once their head felt less like a scrambled egg.
That is to say that they hadn’t really had the time to plan their little trip to the past all that well, and the day of their arrival had been more important, in the grand scheme of things, than the hour or even the place of it. Besides, they’d forgotten to take other people and their possible reactions into account. They had, quite frankly, forgotten people altogether.
What an awful thing to forget.
For their defence, in the future people were an optional feature of cities. Most of Canada and America, that they knew of, was void of people, and communications had been too spotty in their last months to confirm the state of the rest of the world, but it hadn’t looked good.
With a sigh, Oasis stood up, turned up the collar of their jacket and started walking toward the promising light of a convenience store in the distance. If they could just get their hand on a newspaper (and oh, the cliche of that), they could check the date and reassure themself that they hadn’t accidentally tossed themselves too far back, or too little.
The plan, simply put, was this: go back to the past, and prevent the future from happening the same way as it had before. Prevent the Tyrant from coming to power, destroy the items of powers he’d used, save the world from destruction, etc.
A more detailed version of it included getting their sword from their apartment at some point, as a superhero known for their sword could hardly go superheroing without their signature weapon. But that bit involved running into their roommate (and cousin), who would be alive at this point in time, and that… that could wait. Until such a time as Oasis wouldn’t burst into tears upon seeing her, at least. They’d need significant time to prepare themselves for this particular encounter.
They entered the convenience store with a relieved sigh, only to immediately freeze once the cashier greeted them. Oasis managed to groan out something approximating a greeting, if one was very generous, and fled to hide between the tall shelves.
People. Their heart was beating wildly. And here they had thought that seeing other humans again would be a relief, but now all they could conjure up was dread. They closed their eyes and leaned their forehead against the cool glass of the beer fridge. What a mess. They’d need to get a therapist, they supposed, if they wanted to be able to go through any of this.
They had been to many specialists before, in their long career as a superhero. But not very recently. It’s not like there had even been any therapists left between the end of the world and when they’d finally managed to find a way back. But perhaps they should accomplish their mission beforehand. Any same person, upon hearing their story, might try and stop them, and that was the last thing that Oasis wanted.
Yes, they thought firmly. Mission first, and then if I’m still alive, therapy later.
They eventually managed to make their traitorous legs work, and emerged from behind the shelves to grab a newspaper at the front, where the cashier could see them. Heart beating, they tried as hard as they could to ignore his curious gaze, and looked for the date.
14th october 2017. Well. It worked. That was what they’d been aiming for, wasn’t it? Then why weren’t they… why did everything still feel so wrong?
They stared, unseeingly, at the front page of the newspaper for a bit, feeling like their hands weren’t really their own, and like the entire world around them was coated in cotton and getting further away. Flat on the ground, their feet felt like they were levitating. Long minutes passed, stretching into eons in between each heartbeat. Eventually, they blinked.
Under their hands, the photo on the front page resolved into something clearer, and they stared at the grinning, maniacal face of a super villain as their world slowly realigned itself.
‘The Vampire Queen strikes again’, read the headline, and eventually Oasis managed to feel enough like themselves to smile a bit. They flipped through to the article, reading it diagonally, just to refresh their memory of this particular event. The Vampire Queen, as she’d been called by the papers, wasn’t just any super villain. She was their super villain. Their Nemesis.
Well, SwordBright’s nemesis to be exact, but Oasis had been donning the mask for so long, now, that they didn’t really know where the hero ended and the person began. And the Vampire Queen was an integral part of the plan that had led them here. An infinitely easier part than going back to their apartment, that was for sure.
They wouldn’t even need their sword for this.
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