The Time Sweeper

by Muei-Tou

Chapter 2: First Encounter

"Time disturbance 9 klick's due south from our position. If you hurry Jasper you can make it within and hour or so depending on terrain."

Wait, what? Hello? Nothing else was said from the AI, but it said there was a time disturbance 5.6 miles south from here. If I could remember anything from the game a time disturbance had to be a time monster or boss. Well I didn't feel like getting anywhere near those creatures it was my only lead up to this point, so I strapped down my messenger bag along with my sweeper and started running toward the direction I was given. Hopefully it's not something to crazy.

Running for a good forty-five minutes I was quite surprised about keeping pace since back in my original body I would have just been able to run a mile and tire out mostly since I was an indoor more than a outdoor person so my fitness lacked from just sitting about luckily though my body burned calories pretty quickly anyways time to get back on track. My sweeper started to inform me when we started approaching our destination.

Crossing over the last steep hill I seen the town/city towering the coast. I stood there admiring the view before making my way down ever so near until I made it towards the outskirts which quickly turned out to be rather un-normal since I couldn’t hear any noises populating the city. I unstrapped my sweeper from my back preparing for the worst since my sweeper said there was a time disturbance here. When I was about to continue forward my sweeper spouted rerouting coordinance then addressed me to put on my goggles.

Shrugging my shoulders I decided to listen to the AI and put on the goggles to be met with a heads up display outlying my route to what I could only assume was the boss along with the sweepers time control uses and the inventory for the sweeper. Hm, well that's rather handy. At least now I don’t have to guess or look at the device to now what I have left though it’s rather reasonable since I highly doubt that a time sweeper would have enough time to check while in combat.

Walking through the small city which I learned was called Vanhoover from the small establishments, newspapers, and tourists. I also found out that the inhabitants here are small multi-colored ponies with horn, wings, and normal ones that had neither making me come to a conclusion that I was nowhere near home or possibly even on the same planet for all I know. Sigh, whatever now's not the time because right now it’s finding a way in helping these ponies from this time disturbance that’s stopped the flow of time upon this city. Since who else is going to get rid of these time monsters or answer my questions?

Nothing so far, but it’s only a matter of time if the sweepers gauge is anything to go by plus the further I travel into the city the more of the inhabitants I encounter frozen doing daily activities. I was then caught off guard when a spiker shot through a window aiming itself directly at me. Barely with enough time to react I quickly dodged right with the spikes grazing my face and then a trash can impacted my back making me smack toward the gravel. Grunting from the pain I did a ninety degree turn to see the dust herder firing off again being a bench this time. Reacting hastily I rolled to the side completely avoiding the bench that made a sickening smack telling me if that hit me I was out for the count.

I quickly did a kick up just in time before the spiker shot pass where I laid at before then sprinted toward the sweeper vacuum in the distance while having to dodge debris from the dust herder. Closing the gap I was almost in reach of the sweeper before a octoballoon blocked my path and fired off a steel ball directed to me face with no time at all I decided to use my momentum and did a barrel roll underneath the ball and octoballoon while at the same time grabbing my sweeper. The sweeper in hand I used slow-mo jumped out of the barrel roll then quickly vacuumed up a lamp post before time resumed and fired off at the octoballoon.

The lamb post impacted the octoballoon then the creature fell to the ground disappearing then time crystals took its place. I finally landed in time to vacuum up the debris coming from the dust herder and skid to the side dodging the spiker then activating time pause to get a direct hit on it from traveling to fast for me to hit in normal time. Done with the spiker I started to charge the dust herder while having to avoid its debris firing off rapidly getting in a couple of good hits I vacuumed up the steel ball from before readying to line up a shot at the dust keeper.

My eyes widened when a bench hurdling toward me with little room to do anything. So I had no choice, but to use slow-mo. Jumping on the bench I used it as a stepping stone to jump over the nonsense and spin around before firing off the steel ball at the dust keeper.

I seen the fear of defeat written on its face before all to quickly it fired off a bomb right when it was defeated. I knew this was its last resort to end me and I was in a tight position since I had no time uses left. Putting my arms in front to shield me. I'm was screwed. The explosion sent me flying into a building knocking the wind out of me after that I was falling toward the ground then everything went blink.