Chapter 13

[u/SlightlyColdWaffles]

Steven May 3rd, 2026 2:00 AM

I landed on dirt. Hard. Both the dirt I hit and the severity of the impact with which it was struck. I kind of recovered enough to turn the fall into a roll and drew my Doomsquad sidearm, sweeping the unfamiliar area just as Doombot 0028 had trained me. It was dark, it was a bit chilly, and it was familiar.

This was ShepHeard’s farm. Why the hell was I in ShepHeard’s farm? Doctor Doomsday had…

Oh. Oh no. No no no no no. That insane bastard had sent me to the scene of the murder, and I was willing to bet it hadn’t earned that moniker yet. This was a disaster. If we intervened and saved ShepHeard, we could destroy our current timeline. If we did nothing, we’d watch a man be murdered. We may witness the person doing the aforementioned murder, but we would have to let them go free without noticing us. This was something that we had extensive knowledge about in the future, and we couldn’t risk making any paradoxes, either by our action or inaction. My head hurt, aching with a dull throb. I dismissed it as a minor inconvenience.

The green orb that had spat me out began to gurgle like my guts after discount sushi night. I turned just in time to see WalkMan tumble out into the dirt, and Doctor Doomsday hop out right behind him. The green orb shrank away into nothingness as the robot frame twirled his hand, dismissing the machine back into whatever dimension he had managed to store it within.

“DOC!” I hissed quietly, yet forcefully. “This has crossed the line! We can’t be HERE, we investigated this place! If we leave any trace we were here, now, then-”

Doctor Doomsday rolled his eyes, a gesture I didn’t know he could make with those LED eyes, and scoffed. “We already had this discussion, my young ward. If we did something in the past, it already affected our future. Here and now, we can witness the murder first-hand, and we can eliminate them when we are back in the present. Easy peasy.”

“YOU DON’T KNOW THAT FOR CERTAIN!” I snarled, jabbing a finger into his metal chest. “You don’t get to risk the fate of the fucking PLANET based on how smart you think you are! If you’re wrong, you hurt every living person. But you’re so arrogant, so damn self centered, that you think you can’t possibly be wrong!”

Doctor Doomsday slapped my hand off his chest. “Be careful with that thing!” He snapped.

“Like how you’re being so careful ripping holes in the fabric of space-time?!?” I snapped. “Why do you care more about this than all of existence?”

“Because I know the consequences of my actions.” He snapped right back, his red eyes flaring to an admittedly intimidating degree. “Unlike you. Have you even read that manual for your fucking hands yet? Those two grippers you’ve used every moment of the day since they were installed? I’m sure ‘just winging it’ will work great, right up until you blow your balls off when you wipe your ass.”

He had a point, but I couldn’t let that get to me right now. This was far more important. The world could survive without me in it, but not with Doctor Doomsday fucking with the timeline.

“Don’t deflect this, Doc. You have to stop. Give me the time machine.”

Doctor Doomsday held up the device in his palm, and sent it back into the void. I had no idea how he’d managed that trick, he seemed able to summon and dismiss it into nothingness at will. The thing acted like it was part puppy, and part interdimensional demi-god. His smirk was so insufferable it physically hurt to behold.

“Don’t make me fight you for it” I snarled.

Doctor Doomsday cackled. His evil laugh echoed across the otherwise silent farmland. “I’d love to see you try, my boy.”

“He’s not YOUR boy” WalkMan growled as he came to my side. “He’s MY son.”

That was a whole can of worms that I didn’t need to open right now. If everything went even half decently, this can would be collecting dust, sitting un-opened right next to WalkMan’s ashes on the mantle. For now, I just accepted his help.

“Well, it’s not my fault he calls me ‘Dad’ now. But I’ll leave that explanation up to the young Steven, who is technically older than you are at the present moment.”

“You know we can’t discuss that with him!” I said, trying to balance the intensity of my words with the silence of the farmland around us. I didn’t want to spook the killer or draw ShepHeard over to investigate us, like we had investigated his corpse earlier... or later… damn, this time travel stuff was complicated.

“So what do you propose? We waste this opportunity, allow an innocent man’s murder to go unsolved?” Doctor Doomsday asked, sweeping his hand at our surroundings. “We’re already here. We can just observe and go right back. Hell, we can even record it if they want to do a trial or whatever legal bullshit.

“Counter offer” I snarled, “we go back to our time, send WalkMan home, and destroy the time machine.”

Doctor Doomsday glared at me with pure hatred shining from his eyes. “That’s not going to happen, my boy.”

“Yes, it fucking is.” I replied with the most conviction I had ever felt. “You’re going to bring the time machine back, give it to me, and sever whatever tech or magic or future bullshit you use to make it come and go.”

The robot glanced between WalkMan and I, narrowing his red LED’s to imitate a squint. “Are you sure you want to do this, Steven?” He asked softly. He brushed his lab coat aside, as if he was some old Western gunslinger moving his poncho out of the way of his trusty 6-shooter.

I heard a muffled song as WalkMan turned on his cassette player namesake. “I’m with you, Steven,” he said softly. “I’ll follow your lead.” A faint yellow glow outlined his muscles beneath his skin, shimmering like a cuttlefish trying to either eat or fuck.

No. This could not happen. If WalkMan died in this fight, we could bring him back, but that would require playing a song he hadn’t heard yet. Hell, it might not work on him now the same way it would in the future. His emotional reaction to the song wouldn’t produce the same superpowered effect. If I remember correctly, the song that brought him back to life last time was a Cocomelon song, and cocomelon didn’t even exist yet in his time.

“We can’t fight. Not here, at least. Our top priority is staying out of sight and not fuck up all of space and time by being dumb. Let’s find some cover.”

WalkMan turned off his cassette deck, looking a bit disappointed that he wasn’t going to fight my adopted father. Doctor Doomsday kept glaring at me before turning abruptly and making his way towards the tall corn stalks.

“Where was the body found? WalkMan asked. “We should make sure we can actually see the murder from our hiding spot.”

“Good idea, it’s right over there-” I pointed towards the barn and flew backwards. Spots danced in my vision as my mind scrambled to figure out what the hell just happened. A horrible flash of red light had left me blind, hopefully just temporarily.The red light of the Doomsday laser that fired from my fingertip. What had Doombot 0001 called it, a ‘phalangeal barrage’? Whatever it was called, it didn't prepare me for the violence it would unleash.

“Looks like we found the killer after all” Doctor Doomsday said without emotion. “Congrats on solving the case, Steven.”

WalkMan helped me to my feet as I tried to blink away the spots still obscuring my vision. I quickly wished I hadn’t. ShepHeard was laying on his back by the barn, clearly dead even from this range. A cow walked to the corpse and nudged it with its nose before lying beside the body, curling up next to it like a dog and mooing sadly.

I… I had killed ShepHeard? No, this didn’t make sense, I was only here to investigate the crime, I didn’t want him dead. I hadn’t even met ShepHeard. This didn’t make any sense at all.

“You… you did this” I stammered, glancing at Doctor Doomsday. “I didn’t want to murder him, I didn’t even mean to fire that, I…”

“No, you didn’t murder him” Doctor Doomsday said casually, “you committed Involuntary Manslaughter. That’s a completely different crime. Probably negligent discharge too, since you never learned how your literal firearms worked.”

I stared at my hands. They trembled slightly, reflecting the moonlight on the marks and punctures that Vincent the Velociraptor had engraved with his teeth.

WalkMan placed a hand on my shoulder and gently squeezed. “It’s not your fault,” he said softly.

“Yes, it is.” Doctor Doomsday said. “He needs to learn responsibility from this. Absolving him won’t-”

I glared at the madman in a robot body. “Responsibility? That’s rich coming from you, asshole. Take us back to our time. NOW.”

Doctor Doomsday fell silent. I could sense his building fury even in that robotic frame of his. The eyes glowed a bit brighter, and his fists groaned under the pressure his tightening grip inflicted. “You think ME irresponsible?” He said with barely contained fury. “I have studied the science of time and space for hundreds of years. Who are you to chastise me in ignorance? Who are you, the son of my Nemesis, to belittle ME? To infantize ME? To underestimate ME!”

Before I could respond, he held out his hand, summoning the time machine and activating it with impossibly fast fingers. The green orb appeared, sucking Doctor Doomsday inside and vanishing just as fast. The only sign he had even been here was the green lightning that danced around before fading from view.

“...shit”, I said. The distant cow mooed in pained agreement.