Blinx: Before the Time Sweeper

Chapter 5: Be there or Time-Square!

Time-Square - Centre Plaza.

TS-1000 visor: Time-zone designation - "B1Q64" - domain of Princess Lena the fifth corrupted (influx of time-energy is threatening to implode).

The Present

Took a while but everything did manage to come back together, and here I was thinking I could maybe sleepwalk the entire way through this thing. Blinx – you really are just an idiot: just a big, dumb, dumb, stupid, idiot... nincompoop, but whatever... maybe the view will be nice at least?

Time-Factory: Boot Camp

March, 15th XXXX

13:20pm (TF Timezone) - The Past

TS-1000 visor: unstable time-flow detected is affecting subject's presence of the present, and past: memories linked to that location may appear, and distress subject due to their contents.

"What do you think you're doing!? Dodge!"

This was the fifteenth time I got hit by that same, dumb (not very big on words, are ya?) Chronoblob at the start of the level. It was easy to dodge - it telegraphed it's attack so obviously you could probably predict it with your eyes closed, but let's just say: these bones of mine really aren't made for somersaults or handstands... or at least the flips that were required to get out of time.

Huh, what's even going? Am I reliving moments of my life? Is that what the instability of time does to you? Warp you so badly you're doing double? Huh, maybe this'll come in handy...

And then out of the streams of light that never seemed to end: the darkening sunset of Time-Square showed itself in all of its splendor, and the ceremonial greeting of all Sweepers, Blinxes and jingle-jangles alike came to match.

"HEYYABAAASH!"

The place remained exactly unchanged from how the simulation thought it would look like if the time here was frozen, and didn't look at all how Necoji himself described sweeping through it so many times before, even down to those useless arrows beside the maps of the each section that even the Time-Factory thought was a good idea for the one-way platform that made up the brunt of the hallway (that always moved in the exact same direction, so what was even the point!?). It didn't help that the lampposts themselves were shining a really eerie sort of green hue over the lonely pavements and roads that made the place seem straight outta an alien invasion movie, but at least it matched my eyes.

There was even a light falling of snow to support the whole lot of Christmas decorations left around the place, clearly the people here were caught right in their celebrations (which is probably why the Tom-Toms chose now to raid the place, and the Moon from what it looks like). All of it layered upon the greens and yellows of Halloween around the windows of the buildings, and even the richly stone-paved streets themselves. The entire place was dead with only the wind, and little roosters on the rooftops for that added creepy creak you always needed, and for a second I felt more glad than I ever did in an unknown and likely dangerous world before.

Then finally the New Year's welcoming party themselves: those same unblinking eyes.

Wow – they actually looked uglier upfront than they did in the simulation, and Necoji himself really let down the number of ways he could have described just how round, and green they were, but that isn't a surprise at all – what's with the ears though? I feel like smoke is gonna come out any second as they think of the many ways they can charge in only one direction, or I'm probably just gonna start choking on the smell of garlic any second - that is if the smell of fresh sea-weed wasn't ringing round the place. Nobody could mistake these pin-the-tail, googly eyed, suction-cups for party balloons for just about anything else, but I guess the underwater caves weren't 5 star enough for their ego-driven ideas of accommodation. It wasn't like they'd be low on trash either - they already plenty from the deserted street corners, and vastness of space itself.