Boboiboy L/S: A Loophole in Time (BOOK 2)

The Girl on the Tree

"Gopal!" someone shouted from a long way ahead. 

His entire body was frozen where it was, vulnerable, shocked. Even if he did want to run, he couldn't. His eyes widened as the tsunami rose above him, a hungry monster that was going to consume everything in its path. His nerves wanted him to go, but his body refused to. 

"He's petrified!" Ying said, terrified. "Someone help him!" 

"Shadow ropes!" Fang cried.

Five strings of darkness raced to Gopal, and tied themselves around his legs, arms and body. With a wave of a hand, Gopal was pulled back towards land. The water crashed harshly at where he was a second ago.

"Quick! We have to stop it, or else we'll all drown!" Lia said loudly over the crashing of the waves, which were consuming even more land as they spoke. They were wasting time.

"Slow-motion speed!" 

A bubble of blue engulfed the entire sea shore. The tsunami slowed down, but not the Super Six. 

"Go!" Ying commanded, her hands straining under the pressure of sustain time in a large area. 

"Shadow slap!" 

Fang summoned two enormous shadow hands to help in beating some of the waves back. He repeated the actions as fast as he could, but the waves only inched little back. 

Gopal seemed to struggle with himself before saying, "Ice transformation!" 

The entire tsunami froze on the spot, changing into shards of sparkling crystals that gleamed under the blazing sun of Blazeland.

"Sound and gravity impact!" Yaya and Lia yelled.

Together, with Yaya forming a powerful wall held together by her strongest force of gravity, and with Lia using her sound powers to screech as loud as they can, the tsunami shook. And when the two powerful forces hit the frozen sculpture, it shattered into a million pieces. Just then, Ying retracted her time sphere, and millions of ice shards rained upon them.

"Shadow shield!" 

A flat black sheet blocked their heads from the incoming mass of spikes. The Super Six could hear the tapping of the shards as they bounced off the shadow shield. Then, once it was over, Fang wrapped the ice shards in a shadow ball and threw them back into the ocean.

"Yay! We did it!" Yaya and Ying exclaimed in unison, hugging each other.

Fang smiled, but then there was this great blast of wind. This others had felt it too, they clung onto each other, but Fang had no one and was trying to steady his feet on the retreating sand. He looked up to see a silhouette of something- no, someone, standing on the branch of a tree not far from here. That person was observing them, he could tell, but what was that person doing here? Didn't they told everyone to get off the beach?

"Hey, girl!" Fang yelled in the direction of the figure. He guessed she was a girl because she had shoulder length hair. "Get out of here! It's dangerous!"

The figure tilted its head to the side, like a child curious on finding such a creature. There was another blast of stronger wind, stronger than the one before, and this time Fang had to close his eyes to shield himself from the sand threatening to fly inside them. At last, it stopped. Fang looked around. The mysterious figure on the tree had gone.

"What was that about?" Gopal asked blankly, peeking through his arms that were shielding his face.

"Dunno, but-" 

Fang was cut off by a scream, a scream that expressed pain, shock and agony. He stopped, just in time to see Yaya dropping to the ground.

"Yaya!" everyone shouted, shocked.

They rushed over to her side, checking what has happened. Yaya was unconscious. 

"What...what happened to her?" Fang spluttered, startled by the sudden attack of Yaya.

"She just...shouted." Lia said, her brown eyes wide with fear. 

Ying bent down to check on Yaya, her fingers shaking. She checked for a pulse. 

"She's alive." she said, relieved, but then frowned when she saw blood spreading on the sand. "Wait."

Lia helped to flip Yaya over to reveal a hole of a bullet, blood-stained and hollow on her left shoulder.

"We have to get Yaya back, now." Fang said stiffly.

***

Boboiboy laid down on his bed staring at the plain ceiling. The cold chains still bounded him to the bed, and his mouth was salitaped shut, so he had no choice but to do nothing but stare about. Then he heard the front door open, and wondered whether the others had came back already: he longed to be free of this state of boredom.

Then Ochobot flew in and unlocked the chains, and then removed the salitape off Boboiboy's face. 

"Are you OK?" Ochobot asked worriedly. 

"I was chained to the bed. What was the worse that could happen to me?" Boboiboy grunted, his voice cracked with the lack of use.

"Astor's back, by the way." 

Boboiboy raised an eyebrow. "Oh, really? That's great news."

Ochobot looked sad. "He did this for your own good."

He crossed his arms haughtily. "And what good is it?"

"You should talk to him you know..."

Boboiboy frowned, thinking.

"OK, fine. But only because you asked so cutely."

He went out into the living room, expecting to see Astor there, but not even a single being was there. He thought that Astor might be in the garden, and he could fetch a drink before seeing him. But when he was only halfway to the kitchen, he heard some sobbing coming from his right, only to realise it was Astor's room.

He simply stood there, dumbfounded. How could he stay angry at his brother now? Was it because of him? Was it because he had been angry at him? He didn't know what to do, was he supposed to comfort him? 

Gently, he put his hand on the door but hesitated. Maybe he should leave him alone first, wait for him to calm down then apologise to him. Sadly, he left the door, with guilt in his heart.

How can he consider himself as a good brother?