Zach: Guardian of the Multiverse

Chapter 21: London and premonitions

    Once Tracer and I came out of the underground hanger, I noticed Tracer was wearing different clothes. She was wearing jeans, a shirt with a fish on a recliner eating French fries and a caption that said, "Fish and Chips." Hey, I thought it was kind of clever. She was also wearing a large brown jacket over the device on her chest, probably to cover it up. Even her orange goggles were off. I asked why she was wearing all that, specifically about the jacket and the device on her chest.

    "Call me Lena, chap." She said, "And it's a very long story. I'll tell you on the way to my flat." It took me a moment before it dawned on me that a flat was the British way of saying apartment. Give me a break I never left the continental US growing up.

    After looking around for a bit, I realized we were walking around in London. We were walking over a bride over the famous river Thames to a set of tall buildings probably the tallest being 20 stories tall. We walked to this modest apartment building a few dozen blocks away from Big Ben. We walked in the lobby and found an elevator, once inside Lena pressed the 14 button, noticing the lack of a 13th floor. That made me smile a bit, knowing superstitions are multiversal. Once we stopped we walked down a long hallway and came across a door with a number 1414. Lena opened the door and lead me into a decent looking apartment, with a blue couch over in front of a window over looking the Thames, a coffee table in front of the couch, a table with a cable box, DVD player, and a large wide screen TV on top. Over to the right of me in the doorway was a small kitchen area with a fridge, a dishwasher, a small gas oven, that's very classy, a microwave installed in the cabinets, and a sink on top of the counter. I also noticed some strange devices in the upper corners of the apartment, they were definitely not security cameras, that for sure. There were some doors to the left of me. One was clearly marked as a bedroom with Lena and another name on it.

"Jenni, I'm home!" Exclaimed Lena as we walked in and she put her duffle bag down. Out of the bedroom came a woman, read head, probably mid 20's, wearing pajama pants and a red tee shirt. She ran right over and kissed Lena right on the lips.
"I'm so glad you're back!" She shouted. "I worry every time you head out to fight Talon."  I noticed she didn't have  a British accent, but an American one. I raised an eyebrow, which Lena must have seen. "She's my girlfriend, love?" I said nothing as Jenni stopped hugging Lena and looked at me. "Who's this guy?" She asked.
"E's our guest. While we were fighting, we accidentally trashed his hotel so I offered him to bunk 'ere. Sorry I didn't call ahead."
Jenni sighed, probably because I ruined her moment, "Fine, since he's here I guess we have to be good hostesses. But he'll have to sleep on the couch."
"I'm fine with that. I'm Zach, by the way." I said as I held out my hand for a hand shake. After a few moments of awkward silence, she shook my hand and Lena took off the device on her chest.
"I've been meaning to ask, Lena, what is that on your chest?" I asked.
"It's a long story, love. I'll explain later. For now, I just want to sit and watch the telly with me mate." She said. "I can understand that," I said "get some rest and we can have a chat later."

After an hour or so, Lena sat on the couch with a bowl of potato chips and told me her story. Apparently, after a test flight gone wrong she essentially became trapped in time, blinking in and out of existence days, weeks, or even months at a time until Winston made her that deceive, called a Chronal Accelerator, to anchor her in this time. He even made her smaller versions in her apartment so she wouldn't need to have it on at all times. Unfortunately she can't take off anywhere else or else she would be trapped in time again. Well, that was the short version anyway. By the time she was done, Jenni had already ordered Chinese food and we were all eating teriyaki chicken and Lo Mein. Fun fact: before the blast, I hated teriyaki as it was way too sweet for me, but after spending three weeks in the forest I wasn't picky. Later Lena and Jenni went to bed and I was left on the couch with a spare pillow and blanket. Another fun fact: before the blast, I needed supplements of melatonin to get me to sleep otherwise I would be up for hours begging for sleep. But once my head hit the pillow I was out like a light, or so I thought.

When I was a kid and when I was asleep and dreaming, sometimes I would see a few seconds of the distant future mixed in those dreams. It would happen less and less as I got older but it still happened every once in a while. Often I would forget I saw the future until weeks or months later when those two or three seconds actually happened, creating a sense of serious Deja Vu. This was one of those times.

A few hours into my sleep I was dreaming about some things that happened today, my brains way of organizing todays events, when I got flashes of me in the future. I saw myself fighting the Beast, except he was flesh and blood and coming fast. My body was racked in pain, blood coming out of my arms, face, and chest. This fight was a fight to the death, and I was losing.

I gasped awake and sat up fast, sweating profusely. Did I just foresee my own death?

A/N: If anyone knows the canon name of Tracers girlfriend let me know. Also the before the blast moments are actually true.