Parallels- an MCSM AU [COMPLETED]

ELEVEN- Allies and Anomalies

tis Jess's pov again

enjoy

or not, because this one's boring
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The gauntlet. He had the gauntlet.

This was bad.

Lukas had come up beside me, and I could tell from his surprised face that he'd seen it too.

"Julia, Radar. Come here." I called, trying not to be too loud. They both turned and hurried over.

"What?" Julia asked, looking apprehensive and excited.

"I found the Prime, and when we are." I said grimly.

Her eyes went wide, and she grinned. "What, already? That's great!"

Radar, however, seemed to catch on that I wasn't pleased with the discovery. "It...is great, right?" he asked carefully.

With a shake of his head, Lukas said, "Not completely. He still has the gauntlet."

"...Oh." Julia's face fell. "Oh. Shit. We're in trouble."

'In trouble' was right. If the Admin hadn't removed the gauntlet yet, that meant it wouldn't be long before he was returning to Beacontown in his snowman form, trapping the town in snowy night and demanding that the Prime go through his icy palace of despair. And after that happened...

"Wait, how do we know that's actually the Prime? What if it's already Romeo in disguise?" Radar suggested nervously. I turned back to study the man who may-or-may-not have been a version of me. He had a very gentle, open face, and was smiling slightly as he spoke to the group of townspeople. From the gestures he was making with his hands, he appeared to be suggesting ways to repair the buildings the Admin had broken.

I was about to point this out, but Lukas spoke up first. "No. When Romeo came back as Jess, he wasn't wearing armour. And he didn't really talk to and help people, just strutted around being strange. That's gotta be the Prime."
His tone was grim, and I got the feeling he was mentally reliving the period of time where I'd been gone, when Romeo had completely overturned our precious town.

"What do we do?" Julia asked me. "I was intending to go straight in and tell him about the timelines like I did with you, but I don't know if we're gonna have time for that. If he's still in the middle of the whole Admin mess, we probably shouldn't distract him."

"Maybe we should go back to the In-Between and try a different timeline?" Radar tried.

"There's not that many other timelines, Radar. I really think this one's our best bet at the moment." Julia argued.

"Then the only thing to do is talk to the Prime." I decided. "We've got to figure out the missing constant, and soon."

Lukas was frowning worriedly as I said this. "But...you can't influence this timeline too much. That could create who knows how many deviations and just...other problems."

I suddenly remembered the paper I'd found that explained some effects of the deviations, and how it had said other people weren't meant to know about the timelines. Lukas was right in that we needed to be careful, but we had to figure this out.

God, we were stuck.

"Okay, here's an idea. You two," Julia started, pointing to Lukas and Radar, "need to hide, so no one sees you and gets suspicious. Jess and I will talk to the Prime, and try to get information without saying too much. With any luck, we'll be able to figure something out without disrupting everything too majorly."