Previously on Watcher of the Infinite...
In my world, they call me Velocity X. I am the second fastest man to ever exist, living in the shadow of my father, the man who saw the end of the world and ran into the past to save our future.
But I am not a speedster by birth. I am a child of science, a designer of heroes. I was the one who tailored my father's suits and studied his vitals, learning the secrets of the Positive Tachyons—a gift from the universe that could not be replicated. In my desperation to protect our city, I created my own: Negative Tachyons. I became a speedster to save our streets, but the power began to speak to me, telling me I could be greater than my father.
I was wrong. My mother, seeing I had become rogue, used my Negative Tachyons to follow my father into 2012, but it shattered her molecular stability. She is vibrating at a frequency so high that the Earth itself is swallowing her. She is sinking through the solid ground of 2026, and the only thing that can stabilize her is the Genesis Core inside my father's chest. I am not here to destroy the past—I am here to save my mother from the ground that wants to bury her alive.
The street outside our family house in the estate didn't look like a suburban Nairobi road anymore. Under the crushing weight of my arrival, the tarmac had cracked and groaned, turning into a swirling pool of violet-black energy that hissed like a cornered mamba. I stood in the center of the destruction, my Velocity X armor flickering like a broken neon sign in downtown CBD. Every breath I took felt like inhaling cold ash and wet charcoal, a constant reminder that my speed wasn't a blessing—it was a parasite eating my soul from the inside out.
The front door of the house flew open with a bang that echoed off the neighboring walls. A golden light, so pure and brilliant it blinded my ocular sensors for a microsecond, erupted from the hallway, cutting through the purple gloom of my aura. My father, Carel, stepped out onto the porch. But he wasn't the broken, siphoned man I had left bleeding at the National Museum. He was glowing. He was radiating the kind of Positive Tachyons that I had spent a lifetime trying to synthesize in a laboratory. He looked like a god carved out of Kenyan sunshine.
"Elias," he said, his voice echoing with a deep resonance that shook the jacaranda trees lining the street, sending purple blossoms raining down into the darkness. "I know why you're here. Pendo told me everything. I know about the future, and I know about the choices I haven't made yet."
"Then you know I don't have a choice!" I roared, my voice distorted by the negative energy until it sounded like a choir of demons. "Look at the sky, Father! Look at the rift above Nairobi! Mom is trapped between the ticks of a clock! She is falling through the crust of the Earth in 2026 because you chose to be a 'Watcher' instead of a husband! You left us for a mission, and now I'm the one picking up the pieces! Give me the Core, and I can pull her out of the dirt!"
[ADVANCED RAW SYSTEM: NEGATIVE VELOCITY OVERLOAD]
USER:Elias (Velocity X / Void Speedster).
CELLULAR STATUS:92% Corruption (Negative Tachyon Poisoning).
OBJECTIVE:Extract Genesis Core (Success Probability: 34%).
VITAL SIGNS:Blood pressure rising / Molecular cohesion failing.
SENG NOTE:Wueh! Elias, maze, you're burning from the inside out like a transformer that's been hit by lightning! Your 'Synthetic Force' is eating your DNA. You think you're saving Beatrice, but you're bringing a virus to 2012. If that Negative Tachyon heart of yours touches the Positive Genesis Core, it's not just a 'fix'—it's an anti-matter explosion! Nairobi will be a crater before the 7 PM news even starts! Kaza butu, but think with your head, not your anger, kijana!
Carel moved. In 2012, he was still a "Velocity Man," still learning his limits, but with Pendo's sacrifice, he was moving with a precision that defied physics. He appeared in front of me in a heartbeat, a blur of gold against my violet shadow. The air between us cracked with the sound of a thousand whips.
"I won't let her die," Carel said, his hand catching my fist mid-air with a grip that felt like a mountain. The collision created a shockwave that shattered the windows of every house on the block and sent dust rising from the gardens. "But I won't let you destroy this world to save her. There has to be another way, Elias. A way that doesn't involve stealing the life-force of a nation and plunging the past into darkness!"
"There is no other way! In my time, hope is a luxury we can't afford!" I screamed.
I kicked him, my leg vibrating at a frequency so high it bypassed his physical armor, hitting him at a molecular level. We spiraled into the night sky, two streaks of light—one gold, one purple—tearing through the clouds above the Nairobi skyline. We bounced off the sides of the KICC and the Times Tower, our kinetic wake shattering glass from Westlands to Upper Hill. To the people below, it looked like a meteor shower had gone rogue over the city.
[SYSTEM INTERFACE: NAIROBI THUNDER PROTOCOL]
LOCATION:Airborne / 500 Meters above Uhuru Park.
ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT:Local weather patterns disrupted. Thunder rolls across the Rift Valley.
TACTICAL ADVISORY:The Void Speedster is using 'Phase-Stabbing.' He is trying to reach into Carel's chest without breaking the skin to pull out the Core.
SENG NOTE:Carel! He's trying to 'ghost' through your ribs! Use the 'Nairobi Thunder'! Clap your hands at Mach 10 and create a localized vacuum. It'll blow the Negative Tachyons right off his skin like dust off a matatu! Elias is fast, but he's unstable. He's like a matatu with no brakes on a downhill slope at Limuru—he can't stop once he starts! Use his own momentum against him! Tunasonga mbele!
I felt the ground far below us, the city of 2012 looking so peaceful, so unaware of the tragedy of the future. My mother was down there, somewhere in the future of this very spot, screaming as she became one with the red soil of Kenya. The thought drove me into a blind frenzy. I began to vibrate my hand, the Negative Tachyons turning my fingers into a blade of pure, screaming void.
"Just give it to me! I won't let her sink anymore!" I lunged, aiming for the golden light in his heart.
Carel didn't dodge. He stood his ground in mid-air, his eyes glowing with a fierce, fatherly love that I hadn't seen in twenty years. He clapped his hands together with a sound that literally cracked the sky, a boom that was heard as far away as Machakos. The Nairobi Thunder erupted, a shockwave of golden energy that stripped my violet armor away in jagged layers, revealing the scared, broken man underneath.
I fell, crashing back down toward the estate, hitting the tarmac with enough force to leave a crater right in front of our house. I tried to stand, but my legs were failing. The Negative Tachyons were retreating, leaving me weak, cold, and mortal.
Beatrice—the 2012 version of my mother—ran out of the house, ignoring the sparks and the danger. She stopped just a few feet away, her eyes filled with a grief I didn't understand. She saw the man I had become, the monster her own son would grow up to be in a world without his father.
"Elias?" she whispered, her voice a soft prayer that cut through the roaring in my ears.
"Mom..." I wheezed, reaching out a blackened, trembling hand. "I'm doing this for you. You're... you're falling through the ground. I have to save you before the earth takes you."
Carel landed softly beside her, his gold light fading into a warm, protective glow. He looked at me not with anger, but with the same pity he had shown the petty thieves he caught in the CBD. He was a father again, not just a hero.
"You're trying to save a ghost, Elias," Carel said, his voice gentle. "But look at her. She's right here. She's alive. If you take this Core, you kill the mother standing in front of you just to save the one in your memories. You would trade her life for a shadow."
[SYSTEM STATUS: TEMPORAL RECOIL / PARADOX PURGE]
USER:Elias (Velocity X).
ENERGY:0.5% (Critical Depletion).
DETECTION:The Earth's timeline is beginning to reject the Negative Presence.
WARNING:The Void is pulling Elias back to 2026. Paradox Correction in progress.
SENG NOTE:Wueh, the party is over, Elias. The timeline is 'puking' you out like bad street food. You can't stay here anymore. You've caused too much 'vibration' in 2012. Look at your hands—you're turning into smoke and purple sparks! Carel, give him a message for the future. He needs to know that being a hero isn't about the speed—it's about the choice to stay home when it matters. Tunasonga kwa mwisho!
I felt the pull—a terrifying, cold gravity from the future. The rift above the house was opening, a dark maw of violet energy trying to drag me back to my broken 2026. My body began to flicker, my atoms scattering like dust in a dry Nairobi windstorm. I was disappearing.
"I failed," I whispered, looking at Beatrice one last time. "I couldn't save anyone."
"No," Carel said, reaching out and grabbing my hand. He didn't pull me back; instead, he closed my fist around a tiny, brilliant spark of the Genesis Core's gold. "Take this. It won't save her world, but it will stabilize her long enough for you to find a real solution—a scientific one. Tell her... tell her I'm coming home. Not as the Watcher, but as the man she married."
The rift roared, a sound of cosmic hunger, and with a final, violent flash of purple light that illuminated the entire estate, I was gone.
The street went silent. The gold faded. The 2012 Nairobi night returned to its peaceful, cricket-filled hum. Carel stood there in the middle of the road, his wife and his younger daughter watching him from the porch with tears in their eyes. The "Velocity X" threat was gone, but as he looked at his hands, he knew the war for the infinite had only just begun. The hero had won the battle, but the father had a long way to run.