text: s it night-time?"
  
  "It was."
  
  "And he defeated me?"
  
  "He did."
  
  "How. He can't possibly have illuminated the entire night."
  
  "Lights are just one of the things he uses against you. He has this gun, which fires baryons...or something like that, and when he hits you, your body soaks them up and becomes temporarily materialized, allowing him to touch you and...well...knock you out."
  
  "You said that there are children here. Is Eve's child here?"
  
  "Yeah. The little rascal's somewhere in the civ area" Brute says.
  
  "But...if Eve is dead..."
  
  "I know, but it's been difficult on all of us. World War 3 isn't exactly what I had in mind when I joined the Imperfects. Still, if I hadn't, I'd probably be dead right now" Grove says.
  
  "Alright, then on to the matter at hand. What do we do?"
  
  "Well, you're the leader, you know. I'm just your substitute. So what do we do Liberator?"
  
  > go after the Paladin.
  "The first step is clear. We go after the Paladin."
  
  "The Paladin?"
  
  "He killed Eve, our leader, our friend. He put me in a vat and took away my memories. We have to take him out, we have to show everyone that no one will stand against us."
  
  "Alright. How will we do that?"
  
  "There's a lot of us. His weapons are designed to target me, not you or Brute or Haste."
  
  "He's not defenseless against us, you know."
  
  "As Imperfects, we've taken down gigantic titans. How? Not because we were powerful, but because we worked together."
  
  "Actually, we defeated Hybrid because you were powerful" Haste says.
  
  "And Virus" Grove then adds.
  
  "You're missing the point. Together, we can easily defeat him, and he needs to be defeated. Eve deserves to be avenged."
  
  "She wouldn't like you trying to avenger her, you know?"
  
  "Even so, the Paladin must die. Where is he?"
  
  "Just show your face and he'll be there. His primary objective is to take you out. That's what his suit was made for."
  
  > prepare an ambush.
  I decide to do what I'm supposed to have done and challenge Paladin to fight us in Russia. Around three-hundred Imperfects lie in wait, while Zachary superspeeds away and gets a camera, which he hands me.
  
  "What's this for?"
  
  "You probably don't remember it, but you often video-taped you talking about stuff and then broadcasted it around the world."
  
  "I broadcasted it?"
  
  "Yeah. Something about electro-pulses something something dark side. Anyway, now, you're going to broadcast a message, stating that you have been freed and are back in action. Hopefully, the Alliance leaders will realize that those are the Ural mountains in the background, and send Paladin to dispatch you. He'll then run into all of us, and we'll kick his ass. Capiche?"
  
  I nod at Zachary and he hides himself as well. We'll have to have Paladin think he's coming to find me alone.
  
  > record and broadcast the message.
  As Haste directed, I raise the camera into the air, channel my eyes in front of it but make sure that I'm transpherent enough for the Ural mountains to be visible.
  
  "Alliance people. This is to all those out there who persecute others for no other reason that they are different. The name you know me under can be different. I have been called Baryon, Karma, Demon, Liberator and probably more, but no matter what people call me, it is clear that all you out there fear me. Why do you fear me? Because of what I can do? Perhaps, but I think that I, same as with everything else, am feared simply because you lack the intelligence to understand me. It is amazing how often people think they're problems go away simply by locking them up. Well, they don't. I am no longer in that cage, and I challenge you to try and understand me, and end this fighting once and for all. But we all know that's not going to happen, don't we?"
  
  I then switch the camera off, and while I was recording it, I try to do what Haste said and channel the video as a frequency and have it replace the transmissions the Russian televisions are sending. I obviously can't do it globally, as the night only covers half of the planet. Haste vanishes in a blur, and then returns, giving me a thumbs up, indicating that my attempts to broadcast the transmission was a success.
  
  > wait for Paladin.
  For approximately two hours, all the mutants hiding on the ground wait there, lying absolutely still, while I make sure that my green eyes are visible in the air, to help lure the Paladin in. Soon, I detect a large powerful light enter the night, and approach this location rapidly.
  
  "I think it's him" I whisper to all the Imperfects, but I then realize that I'm wrong. The light is an illuminated vessel of some sort, that lights up the immediate area, and from it, a horde of men wearing some sort of power armors leap off. However, they're not headed towards me, they're headed towards the mutants. They seem to know it's a trap, and because of the lights, I can't defend the Imperfects.
  
  Grove however seems to realize this, as the light shining all around them is fairly visible, so he commands all the Imperfects to attack the armored attackers. I may be cut-off from the fight, but like I did with Virus, there are still things I can do from range.
  
  > concentrate on attacking the troopers.
  I grab chunks from the nearby mountains and start hurling them at the battlefield beneath me, aiming for the armored troopers. I get a lot of them, which seems to make the whole battle easier, however, Haste, as he superspeeds across the battle-field, fails to realize that, when he superspeeds towards a trooper and knocking him out, he placed himself directly in path of one of the boulder I threw. Haste never was too careful about things like this. Suddenly, a familiar sight leaps at Haste and pushes him out of the boulder's way: Claymore the alleged mutant face-collector I rescued.
  
  > Continue.
  We didn't loose that many, but any casualties are unacceptable.
  
  I channel myself towards Grove, who seems to be making a body-count.
  
  "This didn't go like we wanted it to, did we?"
  
  "Why didn't they send the Paladin? Why would they send people that can barely do anything against me in response to my message, instead of sending someone specially outfitted to be able to defeat me?"
  
  "Isn't it obvious? They knew it was a trap. They knew we were trying to draw the Paladin out and they knew that we'd be lying in wait. Seems they incorrectly guessed how many we'd be though."
  
  "How would they know?"
  
  "Paladin is a good tactician. Maybe he felt the hints towards where the message was sent from were too obvious. Maybe he thought we'd never unintentionally make that mistake. I don't know."
  
  Claymore then approaches and says "we captured one of them alive."
  
  Grove nods and says "We need to interrogate him. Let's go back to base. Baryon, you can inflict more pain than anyone else in the world. You'll interrogate him whenever you're ready."
  
  > return to base.
  As soon as we return to the base, Leksiah approaches me and tells me to join her in her room, as she has something she wants to discuss. I follow her and ask "what is it? What's going on?"
  
  "You asked me to investigate why you were twitching, right? Well, even though you're not twitching anymore, I continued to check it out anyway, fearing that it might return. Using the sample of you you gave me, I think I've been able to analyse what it is."
  
  "Oh? What is it?"
  
  "You...how do I put this. You have your own way of aging. Your entire physique is...unstable, and because of that, it is constantly deteriorating."
  
  "Deteriorating?"
  
  "Yes. You are slowly becoming more and more unstable. Eventually, you'll completely unravel. And that's not all. I tried introducing the sample of you to baryons, which the sample of course absorbed...it deteriorated more while it was absorbing them. Once it had absorbed the baryons, it deteriorated at a normal speed."
  
  "And what does that mean?"
  
  "It means that the more you use your powers, the faster you deteriorate. One thing that puzzles me is why you aren't twitching any more. The twitching was caused by the instability in your body, and it's impossible for it to just become more stable all of a sudden."
  
  "Well, I can regenerate while in the..."
  
  "You're body can't create stability. No matter how much of you it regenerates, it'll always be as unstable."
  
  "Maybe...I don't know. Maybe this is somehow dependant on my memories?"
  
  "No. This is physical, not mental."
  
  "So...what, the Alliance fixed me?"
  
  "That's the only thing that comes to mind. Maybe they...I don't know, created another you and used memories from the original Baryon, only the memories were copied at that point eight years ago and put into you. If that were the case, then your last memory should be of your memories being copied...unless you were unconscious at the time. What was your last memory eight years ago?"
  
  "I encountered another Baryon, that was twitching, and then I woke up in the vat."
  
  "That's...odd...if he was twitching before you were, then that must mean that he was created before you were created. But there's no record of a second Baryon."
  
  "I don't know where he came from. He just showed up, didn't said anything, and the next thing I remember was being in that vat."
  
  There is a knock on the door then, and Grove enters the room. "Baryon, the sooner you get information from that guard, the better."
  
  > interrogate the guard.
  I enter the holding cells. The guard's armor has virtually been removed, and the lights are completely off. I forcibly wake him up, and as he looks around, I make sure he sees my green glowing eyes.
  
  "You work for the Alliance?"
  
  The man says nothing.
  
  "You work for the people that justify the killing and incarceration of the innocent, with fear?"
  
  The man still says nothing, so I channel myself into him and induce pain, until he can't prevent himself from screaming. His scream however soon turns into laughter.
  
  "You find something funny?"
  
  The man looks at me again and says "this place, this whole place, along with the monsters that dare refer to themselves as people will be razed to the ground."
  
  "Killing mutants is against the law here."
  
  "You think that'll hold after what you done? You're constantly showing the world what a danger you freaks are. All this conflict is doing is proving us wrong."
  
  "We're fighting back. We're defending ourselves."
  
  "And what, the best defense is a good offense? Do you know how many people you've killed?"
  
  "Do you?"
  
  "Those things we've killed aren't people."
  
  "At least they're not monstrous murderers like you."
  
  "No? Do you even know what kind of monsters they are?"
  
  "You mean like the sort of people that give someone who's done nothing but give to this society, the option to fight back or die, and then punish her for fighting back? Those kinds of monsters???"
  
  "If one of ours killed someone, then that someone deserved it. You all deserve what's coming to you."
  
  "And what's coming to us?"
  
  The man smiles at me and says "they're coming. All of them. Paladin too."
  
  "Impossible. They have no idea where we are."
  
  "They do now. You were supposed to take me captive. You were supposed to take me to this base, so Paladin could track the transmitter that's been planted into my body."
  
  "That's...no. I would have detected it."
  
  "You can't detect all kinds of frequencies. We used our time while you were imprisoned to study you. We know how you tick."
  
  I then hear the sound of a loud explosion coming from deeper inside the base.
  
  > confront Paladin.
  I channel myself to where the explosions are coming from, and I see Paladin enter the base along with several armored troopers.
  
  The other Imperfects quickly arrive to see what's going on.
  
  "All of you. I am required by law to take you in. Surrender, or I will be forced to put you down" he says.
  
  "Required by law, huh? Just like we're required by law to crawl into a hole and die?" Grove says.
  
  "I don't write the law. That doesn't give me the right to ignore them."
  
  "The moment the law take away people's freedom regardless of whether they deserve it or not, something has gone wrong."
  
  "Don't turn this into a conflict. I don't want to have to hurt any of you."
  
  "Like how you didn't want to hurt Eve? She trusted you, you know?"
  
  Paladin pauses for a bit, but then says "she gave me no choice. Don't do the same mistake."
  
  "Like defend our rights to be human beings? That mistake?"
  
  Paladin aims the cannon grafted to his arm at Grove and says "last chance. Surrender now!"
  
  Brute yells and leaps at Paladin. Paladin fires the baryonic cannon at him, and Brute momentarily turns into a black hole before vanishing completely. Due to Brute's leading charge, the rest of the Imperfects attack Paladin and the rest of his troops. Paladin blasts an Imperfect off himself and then aims his cannon at me.
  
  > put something in the way.
  I grab a random table from deeper within the base and put it at close to Paladin without the light emitting from his armor interfering with me. The cannon hits the table, and the table absorbs the baryons instead of me and so it is converted into a black hole before disappearing utterly. Now I should concentrate on attacking before his cannon charges up again.
  
  > collapse the roof onto him.
  I channel myself into the roof above Paladin, which is far above him enough not to be significantly illuminated by the light emitting from him. The ceiling comes crashing down at him, but he fires his cannon at it and it is vaporized. He then charges his cannon up again and approaches me.
  
  > evade his cannon.
  I try to move myself out of his firing range, but even so, his attack seems to hit me. My entire body absorbs the baryons fires from his cannon, forcibly materializes, shrinks to human size and collapses onto the floor.
  
  Paladin approaches me and says "you know, the great thing about shooting a target that's everywhere, is that you can't miss."
  
  He then steps towards me, but Haste then rams him on superspeed, causing the attack to miss me, as I am no longer everywhere. However, some of the baryons his fired enter Haste, and, like Brute, he turns into a black hole and vanishes. This however gives me the chance to dematerialize again and connect with the shadows once more.
  
  > throw something at him.
  I throw a random table at him, which is hit by the cannon instead of me. The table absorbs the baryons and is converted into a black hole before disappearing utterly. Now I should concentrate on attacking before his cannon charges up again.
  
  > drop the floor from beneath him.
  I channel myself into the floor, and although the light emitting from him renders me unable to manipulate it as perfectly as I otherwise could, I am able to render the floor weaker, causing it to collapse under the weight of his heavy metallic armor. Paladin crashes through the floor, and lands in the power area. He fires his cannon upwards however, and as he hits the floor, a portion of it vanishes in a black hole, causing the mutants on it to get sucked in as well. Seeins as how I'm going to have to defeat him, and save my allies from him, I go down to the power area to face him.
  
  > fight Paladin in the power area.
  I am not sure who has the advantage here in the power area. There's more light here than in the rest of the base, but it seems light isn't too much of a disadvantage for me in this fight, for as long as I have some shadow, because that makes it more difficult for him to hit me.
  
  "You seem to be learning Baryon. You always thought that the night would keep you safe from me."
  
  "Learning? How could you expect me to learn when you take away your memories?"
  
  "Your memories? Why would we care whether you remember something or not? You weren't supposed to escape in the first place. It seems the only way to permanently remove you from the battle is by killing you" he says and aims his cannon at me.
  
  > illuminate a portion of yourself.
  I channel an electric wire of some sort to the portion of me that Paladin is firing at, causing that part of me to be illuminated and the baryonic shot goes through me and hits a wall behind me. The wall vanishes and reveals a giant power station behind it. Now he's charging his cannon so I should strike.
  
  > throw a generator at him.
  With great force, I hurl a power generator at Paladin, and as his cannon is still charging, he is unable to vaporize it, so the generator hits him. Upon impact, the generator shatters, delivering a powerful electric jolt to him and throwing him into a wall. Paladin then falls to his knees but gets up quickly. He aims his cannon at me, but as he fires, he finds out that the electric shock has caused it to overload. He is helpless against me now.
  
  > electrocute the Paladin.
  I connect the Paladin to the power station behind that vaporized wall, causing his entire armor to overload, and it fries him inside it. Paladin and his charred armor then collapse motionless to the floor, and the rest of the Imperfects cheer from above. The fight is over. Eve has been avenged.
  
  > talk to Leksiah.
  I transport myself back to the main area of the base, where I see Leksiah, smiling.
  
  "You did it Baryon. You stopped him."
  
  "It came with a cost."
  
  "It always does."
  
  "When Paladin shot someone other than me, they vanished. Why?"
  
  "You use baryons to control your mass, to control how atomized you are. When something fully atomized is filled with baryons, the mass becomes to much and it essentially forms a black hole, although the black holes are very small and so they are unable to sustain themselves."
  
  "But...I can absorb baryons."
  
  "Yes?"
  
  "So if I absorbed too much, I could turn into a black hole?"
  
  "Yes. You build up mass with it so your mass can go over the top as well."
  
  "But what if I could survive it? They can't, all the others. They aren't made of dark-matter, but I am. What if I could survive a journey through a black hole?"
  
  "Then...I don't know. No one has done that..."
  
  "I think I have. Me from this future. You said I was twitching, and that twitching comes automatically when I grow older. The only way I could have stopped twitching, is if I am a younger version of the me you knew."
  
  "So...you time travelled?"
  
  "Yes. What if I can absorb baryons to the point where I convert myself into a wormhole, and I can travel through it to another point in time? It explains everything, doesn't it? My lack of memories, my lack of twitching and it explains the other Baryon that there have never been any records of. The reason for that is that there is no second Baryon. That was me."
  
  "Well, what are you going to do?"
  
  "I'm going back to the past."
  
  > Chapter 3-Showdown.
  As soon as I absorb an amount of baryons far beyond anything I have done before, I feel exactly the same thing I felt when my future self transported me to the future. I am absorbed into nothingness, and for a while, I almost feel non-existant. There are...like thousands of screens before me. No, more, much more. In fact, the highest number conceivable by a human mind couldn't even describe a fraction of how many they are. And they're not screens, not exactly. They are more of projections of the universe. Each one as large as the universe is at any given moment, and even despite how large each of the projections are, I have perfect oversight over each inch of the universe at each moment. These projections, they display every moment as a still 'frame' the universe has ever experienced, and I quickly spot the one I'm heading to, the moment by future self sent me back in time. I can see, as I skim through the projections, that in the future, he's going to annihilate a city, trying to force Novarra to change the law. As most countries, they don't take kindly to terrorism, so they try to fight back, and when he returns, he both annihilates another city, as he had promised, and kills everyone trying to attack him. Soon, the Imperfects get wind of what's going on, and they strike. Eve is not physically able to enter combat due to her pregnancy, so Freakshow acts as field commander. Future Baryon kills them, even though he could easily just render freeze them in the night. I've seen enough. I have to stop him.
  
  > confront your future self.
  As soon as my future self returns after sending me to the future, I appear behind him. He turns around and says "welcome back."
  
  He is twitching. This is definately the guy.
  
  "You were expecting me?"
  
  "Of course. I learned to do it, so it was quite obvious you would as well."
  
  "I have seen what you will do. Do you know what you're going to do?"
  
  "Whatever I must."
  
  "Did you know that you'll kill the Imperfects?"
  
  He pauses for a little moment and then says "then they gave me no choice. You have been to the future, my future. You have seen what I am fighting for."
  
  "And the people you're going to kill? All those innocents?"
  
  "And what about the innocents that die in the war? Innocents killed by their own governments? Innocent kind people forced to fight for their lives because of the ignorance and stupidity of others? What about them?"
  
  "That doesn't give you the right to kill..."
  
  "Why not? Why not kill the ignorant ones that caused all this? Are they not to blame? Is that not the fate they deserve, Karma? You saw what is going to happen. You witnessed a future where heroes were killed for standing up for what's right. I sent you there to show you the truth. Did you learn nothing?"
  
  "Is that why you sent me there? To show me what was going to happen?"
  
  "In part, yes. I knew you'd learn to time travel eventually and that you'd return as soon as you did."
  
  "You knew? I guess that's what you did? If I'm encountering myself from the future, then surely, you must have encountered yourself from the future once."
  
  "No. That is not how time works. The universe does not expect time travel. I never encountered myself from the future, and if I had, I would have let him continue his work and go back to the future."
  
  "Go back to the future? Why? If you'd truly agree with him, then why wouldn't you just stay and support him?"
  
  "That's the second reason I sent you away. The universe consists of a certain amount of energies, systematically growing, but constantly reusing its energies for everything that it consists of. Rain evaporates and turns to clouds, clouds then morph into rain or snow and go back to the earth, where they refil the waters, or the snow melts. Either way, they turn to water again, just to evaporate all over again. An antilope eats grass, and then gets eaten by a lion. The lion dies of old age and turns to dirt. From the dirt, grass grows and antilopes eat the grass, and are then eaten by other lions. Everything is recycled. But when we time-travel, we don't use energies from the point of time we are going to, we take the energies we consist of from our point in time and are constructed of the very same energies once we arrive."
  
  "What does that..."
  
  "What that means is that right now, the universe consists of too much energy, as we are both at the very same moment. When I replaced you, my energies fulfilled the gap the lack of your energies created, and your energies did the same when you took my place in the prison."
  
  "And what happens then?"
  
  "Eventually, the universe collapses. I considered killing you, to make sure you couldn't interfere with my work, but if I did that, your energies would still exist in this universe, spread around as you had evaporated. Rain would have become clouds, and if I did that, I wouldn't be able to send the correct amount of energies out of this universe to create a suitable gap for me to fulfil. Besides, we are the same person. Surely, you must agree with me. Let me stay, and return to the future. Perhaps there is still something you can do to fix it."
  
  > Agree.
  I nod and say "yes. You are right. The world needs this. The world needs you" as I transport myself back to the future. The future he will take the world to will undoubtedly be a different, but hopefully, I can make everything better in this time-line.