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"How did it come to this?"
That's what Quincy was asking himself as his father looked at his friend's keychain with a smug, satisfied look.
"Father, please," Quincy pled breathlessly, "You have no idea what you're doing."
Nearly everyone Quincy knew was here. All the Key Guardians, Suzie, Mr. Riffraff, even Zavier. They all tried to stop his father from getting his hands on those keys, but his Doodles were too strong. All the fights had ended in losses.
Suzie herself, the lovable idiot that she was, tried to fight Charles hand-to-hand for lack of a Doodle team of her own. Of course, Charles was never one to fight fair, and now Suzie was unconscious on the ground.
"You're wrong, Quincy," his father responded coldly, "I have every idea what I'm doing. This is for the betterment of DoodleCo! For the betterment of the island!"
"It's for the betterment of yourself," Zavier spat. Quincy was surprised. He was about to say the exact same thing. "It always has been."
"Behind this door is a very powerful force, Zavier," Charles said, "You said so yourself. If I use it, I can make the island a better place for everyone! Even you!"
"The Elder sealed that door for a reason!"
"The Elder sealed this door because he wanted power all for himself! I suppose you do too, since you tried to stop me! Who even are you, anyways!? I know Zavier is not your real name!"
"If I told you, it wouldn't stop you. You never cared about who you hurt anyways."
"This won't hurt anyone! You're trying to manipulate me into stopping!"
"Where do you think I came from!? Why do you think I wear these!?" Zavier tugged lightly on the bandages wrapped around his right palm. "Everything about me goes against your story and still you won't stop! You are so egotistical!"
"It's useless to try to convince him with words," Mr. Riffraff said, "Like you said, he doesn't care about anyone but himself."
Quincy saw an opportunity and seized it. His father was distracted.
He took out his capsules from his bag and quietly released the Horbeast inside. It was about to cry out in pain, but Quincy quickly raised a finger to his lips to stop it. He drew some Bandages from his bag and began to tend to its wounds.
"Father's Doodles are likely weakened from all those battles," Quincy whispered, "If we--"
"Quincy!!"
Quincy was torn away from his Doodle so fast he thought he got whiplash.
Quincy strained his neck to look behind him. One of his father's security officers was holding him in the air by the collar of his shirt like how a mother Lumiline would hold her newborn Glimmew.
"Just what do you think you're doing?"
"Put me down! Father, tell him to put me down!"
"I thought you of all people would understand, Quincy. I was a fool to think I could trust my own son." He turned to the man holding Quincy in the air. "Put him down, but keep him restrained."
Quincy was violently shoved to the ground. He pulled himself to his feet, but was only standing for a second or so when his hands were grabbed and painfully pulled behind his back.
"I refuse to be distracted by you any longer!" Charles began removing the keys from the keychain one by one, placing them in the locks of the door that sealed the apocalypse.
"Stop it!! Please, you have to stop!" Zavier pleaded.
Charles ignored him, placing the last key in the last lock.
"No!!" Zavier screamed, "You are going to destroy yourself, fa--"
A blinding flash and a deafening roar. Quincy had the vague sensation of being lifted off his feet before slamming into the ground again and seeing only darkness.
Regaining consciousness, the first thing that Quincy grasped was that his ears were ringing.
A relentless, high-pitched shriek, like the cry of a Voltatoo. Even though it was deafening, Quincy could tell the world around him was eerily silent.
The second thing he grasped was that he was lying on his back, looking up at the sky. It was nighttime, even though it wasn't even sunset when his father unlocked the door.
Quincy sat up and looked around. The door was open. Behind it seemed to be nothing but an empty black void. The grass that once surrounded the area was brown and wilted, killed as the seal was broken and whatever was behind the door forced its way out.
But one detail of the scene around him chilled Quincy to his core.
Bodies.
Everyone around him had been knocked unconscious by the blast.
The man who had restrained him had hit his head on a rock, and was now bleeding heavily. Quincy shuddered and turned away.
A few steps away from him was his Horbeast. Quincy rushed over to its side.
"Horbeast! Horbeast, can you hear me?"
It opened its eyes with a pained whimper.
"Don't worry. I'm gonna heal you up good as new, okay?"
He began frantically looking around for his bag. It had to be around here somewhere. Even if it had been launched away, it couldn't have gone far, right? Right?
Quincy was beginning to panic. What happened if he couldn't heal Horbeast in time? Oh no. Oh no no no. He couldn't let that happen. He had to find his bag. His bag had medicine.
He wasn't thinking straight, and nearly tripped over a rock. No, it wasn't a rock. It was someone else's bag. It wasn't his, but it would do.
He grabbed it and rushed back to where Horbeast was, but it was missing.
No. No. Where did it go?
"Horbeast? Horbeast!!"
It was called to his attention with another whimper from farther away. It didn't seem pained, more so anguished and grieving.
Quincy turned his attention to the new location. Horbeast had crawled over to an unconscious human and placed its head on her body.
Suzie.
Quincy knelt down at her side. A piece of shrapnel, a large splinter from the door, had pierced her straight through the chest.
"We have to help her."
The words left his mouth before he realized it. Horbeast lifted its head and crawled back a few paces.
Quincy grabbed hold of the splinter and pulled it out with all his might. Immediately more blood began to flow.
As soon as Quincy saw the red liquid pooling on the ground, he knew he had made a terrible mistake. He needed to stanch the flow of blood.
Desperately, he removed his sweater-vest and pressed it to the hole in the girl's chest. The blue was being covered in sickly red, and Quincy would likely never be able to wear it again, but he didn't care.
All that mattered was Suzie's life.
"Please..... please, please, please....." Quincy whispered under his breath, "Please don't die, Suzie...."
Quincy was becoming more and more frantic. He was putting more and more pressure on Suzie's wound, eventually placing so much of his body weight on it he was almost lying on top of her.
That's when Quincy noticed the silence.
Despite the fact that his head was so close to her chest, he didn't hear the rhythmic thump of a heartbeat or the slow breathing of someone who was unconscious but alive.
His heart began to sink.
No. No, no, no. She's not dead. Suzie is not dead. She can't be dead. She can't.
Suddenly an idea formed in Quincy's head.
Her Doodles.
Maybe one of her Doodles would be able to save her. Quincy frantically searched for where Suzie might've kept her Capsules. They had to be here somewhere.
Then he remembered, and he would've facepalmed if he hadn't been in such distress.
Suzie wasn't a Tamer. She had no Doodles. That's why she tried to fight Charles hand-to-hand.
So Suzie was dead.
"Heh..... kyeh-heh-heh....."
Laughing. Why was he laughing?
"Isn't that just.... hilarious.....? Heh...."
Horbeast crawled over to Quincy and tucked itself underneath his arm.
"She's dead, Horbeast. Isn't that just the funniest thing in the whole world....?"
Droplets of water mixed with blood began to fall onto Suzie's cheek. Quincy looked up at the sky, but it wasn't raining.
They were tears.
His dry laughter had turned into sobs.
When Quincy first met Suzie, shedding tears over her seemed impossible. But now that she was dead, treating her death with indifference was equally inconceivable.
"Why did I pull that out!?" Suddenly Quincy was screaming into the night sky. "I'm so stupid!!"
His own voice echoed back at him, as if the universe itself were making fun of him, laughing at his grief.
If he could go back in time, he would've slapped himself in the face before the idea even came to him of trying to save Suzie on his own.
If he could go back in time, he would've made sure he won that battle against his father.
If he could go back in time, he would've.....
If he could go back in time.....
Chronos.
The idea was horrible. A terrible mistake if he ever went through with it, Quincy knew. But that glimmer of hope was too much to ignore.
Zavier hadn't regained consciousness yet. If Quincy could steal Chronos from him without waking him up.....
Quincy crept over to him as quietly as he could. Now that he was closer to him, Quincy could see that Zavier was much younger than he imagined. Only sixteen or seventeen at the most, not much older than himself.
He also didn't seem very hurt by the explosion. He must've been spared the brunt of it by someone in front of him.
And his jacket was....
Oh.
His jacket was a different shade of red in some places.
Quincy pressed two fingers to the side of Zavier's neck.
He didn't feel a pulse.
Dead, just like Suzie.
And suddenly attempting to steal Chronos from him felt so much worse. Before, it was just theft. But now, it was looting a corpse.
But if I steal Chronos from you, I can save you too. I can save everyone.
Why should Quincy care about an evil maniac like him? The answer was he shouldn't, but all he knew was that he did. Zavier was only trying to help his people, whoever they were. Thinking about it, they were just like one another. Maybe the people they were trying to save were different, but their motives were entirely the same.
Quincy removed Zavier's jacket to get better access to his belt, where most Tamers kept their Capsules. Five of them were the standard Capsule variants that any Tamer could buy at the Doodle Depot, but one was a Golden Capsule. Very expensive, guaranteed to catch a Doodle no matter what. It could only be bought with a currency called Robux, so rare and valuable that few people knew how to earn it.
That had to be the one.
Quincy took the Capsule and released the Doodle inside. As he expected, out came Chronos. It was so large up close, bigger than Quincy by a lot. It looked down at him, and the lightning around its glowing eye began to crackle with rage.
"Chronos, listen to me," Quincy said, as firmly as he could muster, "Zavier is dead."
It looked over at the corpse, then back to Quincy.
"I want to help. I want to go back in time and stop my father from ever letting this happen. My friends will live. My family will live. Zavier's people will live. It's a win for everyone."
Quincy couldn't exactly read Chronos' face, considering all it had was a glowing dot where an eye should be, but he could tell it wasn't mad at him anymore.
"Please. You're the only one who can help me with this."
It stared at him for a while, then nodded. Quincy felt a wave of relief flood his body.
"Thank you. Thank you so much."
Quincy slung Zavier's jacket over one of his shoulders. Maybe it would be cold, wherever they're going. Besides, it felt right to honor the man he was trying to help.
"I've got no experience here. It's all you," he said to the Doodle.
Chronos started slowly floating away from the scene. Quincy began to follow it.
The destination was unknown, but he knew that when the journey was done, everyone would be happy.