Time Twins "Stranded"

Time ticks away

Bright white light engulfed the world around the Time Twins as the Iron Doom’s system failure alarm rung out loudly in the background. Then, it went silent. And the pure white world faded to black. Krux opened his eyes slowly, trying to adjust to the light. He didn’t know how long he’d been out for, but by the control panels sparking and the size of his headache, probably not too long. He was belly down on the floor of the Iron Doom’s cockpit. That was the last place he remembered being, so it didn’t surprise him. However, something felt very wrong; and it wasn’t his aching body. As much as it hurt, he was more terrified about the silence. It was completely quiet.

‘Acronix is never quiet.’ He thought.

It was painful, but he managed to sit up and look around. His twin wasn’t there. Krux felt his heart race as he began to have flashbacks of waking up alone those 40 years ago. He had panicked after realizing that Acronix wasn’t with him. As the years passed, he had begun to think that he had somehow perished in the time vortex. The terrible image of his poor brothers beaten, dead body floating around in the rift came flooding over him once more. But no. Not again. There was no way that he’d truly met that awful fate. It was impossible. Krux used the destroyed control panel to stand up, and began to look out of Doom’s mouth at the landscape. It was grasslands as far as he could see; no signs of civilization, or implication of when they were. Selfishly, he sincerely hoped that it was the past, so that he wouldn’t have to deal with technology. Under him he could see one of the robot’s arms busted on the ground, along with quite a few other pieces that had been ripped off. Krux scanned the ground only to be met with a wave of horror washing over him. Sticking out from under a bunch of debris, he could make out one of his brothers’ arms. In a panic, he made his way down Doom and rushed to his crushed brother. Krux didn’t care how much pain he was in, his only goal was to dig Acronix out of his suffocating prison. He cleared out most of it, now revealing his twin’s top half. His face was pained, and he was unconscious. Krux tried desperately to remove the last and biggest piece of metal off, but it was too heavy, and he was far too weak. A large pipe was crushing Acronix’s torso, making it difficult for him to breathe. The more Krux struggled with it, the more desperate he became. Where the pipe was squashing him most, was a wound that was still bleeding. He may have not died a terrible death in the time vortex like he feared, but he was certainly about to do so here. In a final desperate attempt to save him, he rammed into it at full force. The metal finally bugged, and Krux pulled his brother out; panicking. Acronix let out a few coughs as he gasped for air. It was clear that his wound was causing him immense agony. Krux normally wasn’t one to show emotion, except maybe anger, but the situation was breaking him. He felt his heart throb with tribulation as he watched his poor brother struggle. Then a memory smacked him in the face. Right as they were getting the Iron Doom ready, he spotted Acronix load a bunch of stuff into one of the compartments in the cockpit. It was seemingly random junk that you’d pack on a camping trip. Blankets, water bottles, snacks, etc…
“We’re going to battle, not a campsite!” he remembered scolding.

“But these are all necessities! Time travel still counts as a trip, and the internet would never lie to me about the necessary things to bring on one!” Acronix had countered.
Oh, how ignorant he was. But then again, he had also dragged a hilariously large medical kit along with it. It was the size of a small suitcase, and his excuse to drag that along was-
“Just in case something went wrong in the battle.”
And truly, something did. Something VERY wrong. “Brother, your useless junk might not be so useless after all!”

After digging around for a moment, he found the kit and used it to help Acronix’s wound. It was bleeding quite heavily, which scared the heck out of Krux. He was in danger of bleeding out. As Krux tried to help stitch up the injury, his brother kept yelling out in pain.

“Acronix, please…” He begged.
“I know it hurts, but you have to stop. Haven’t your poor lungs had enough already? You need to understand that I’m trying to help you! Please calm down…”

Then, his cries slowly stopped, his tears were still rolling, but he mostly fell silent. Krux took a brief sigh of relief, thanking him for finally being quiet. Then it hit him again.