Welcome to the Dark Angels

Richard Waller, the professional-looking man, wearing a suit and tie, pushed up his glasses before speaking to the four young mutants in front of him. "You may be thinking to yourselves, 'What exactly are the Dark Angels?', well, as I said, they are a task force meant to take down rogue mutants."

Waller started pacing back and forth with a confident stride, placing both arms behind his back as he continued to lecture his young pawns. "You see, there are a handful of mutants out there who are... let's say threatening public safety. Rather than letting your lives go to waste, I decided that you should be of use. It took a lot of convincing to get the government to agree to allow forming this team, however, once they were certain you wouldn't be able to disobey me, they were on board."

Waller then stopped and used his right hand like a puppet before mimicking a kid's voice. "B-but Mr. Waller, sir, how could you know that we'll always obey? Great question!" the four pawns looked at him with concerned looks, thinking that this guy was for sure off his rocker. "You see, well, as you saw, there are bombs implanted inside of your skulls that will go BOOM if you disobey or attempt to remove them. In other words, you will either listen to what I tell you or you will die."

The girl that Ky sat next to, the one with long brown hair that was divided into two long pigtails, raised her hand with a blank stare. "And what becomes of us once we follow your orders? Are we then freed?" she spoke as if she were a machine, having no signs of human life in her voice.

Waller laughed. "Well, of course! You will all be freed once you fulfill your duty!" he told them, which was half truth and half false. They'd be freed, but only to be immediately transferred to a camp where they'd be executed immediately.

"Ky Thatcher, 1226. You seem to have some sort of ability that warps time, as does your brother." bringing up Ky's brother immediately compelled him to raise a certain question.

"Is Ken alive?" he asked with urgency, only to get laughed at in response. "Maybe. Maybe not. Let's worry about fulfilling your duty, then you can worry about your brother. Besides, if he is alive, he isn't here."

That feeling inside Ky, that pained sensation of not knowing where his brother was would not go away. Waller's words only made it worse.

"Anyway, 1226, you're up first. Please head through that door over there." Waller pointed over toward the main training facility, prompting Ky to stand up and reluctantly walk through the door to head inside. As soon as he walked through the door, it shut behind him, generating a loud mechanical thud.

The walls inside the main training facility had projections on them to make them look like a grassy field with a sky and everything. Behind Ky, there was a one-way glass, one that allowed his fellow, so-called Dark Angels to watch him, along with Mr. Waller.

In front of Ky, there were targets moving side to side. Closer to him, was a table with a handgun on it. Along with the handgun, there were multiple magazines of ammo. He figured out what they wanted him to do naturally, but Mr. Waller spoke to him nonetheless. "As I said earlier, based on our observations, it would seem either you or the driver of that car is capable of some sort of time or prediction ability, correct? Show me."

Mr. Waller and his crew looked into the footage of Ken and Ky fleeing from the police, teleporting everywhere while also being able to seemingly predict where the police were to avoid them. They had a few ideas when it came to what Ky's powers were, so they wanted him to show them.

"Oh, and 1226. Please do impress us. If not, you will be seen as unfitting for my Dark Angels and executed on the spot." Ky said nothing in response to those words and grabbed the handgun. He was nervous since he hadn't used one before. Knowing that if his performance wasn't satisfactory, he'd be murdered, didn't help him calm down either. However, his new ability gave him a little bit of confidence.

Ky aimed his gun at the moving targets, which were simply going from side to side, before firing a bullet at one of them. His bullet missed, however, Ky simply reversed time, and as he did, the bullet slowly came back into the barrel of his gun.

This gave him more of an idea of just exactly how his powers worked. When he reversed time, everything, including himself, was moved back to the exact positions they were one second prior. He couldn't move freely as he reversed time, but he still had the knowledge of where his next target would be.

He shot again, missing once more but coming close. Just like before, he reversed time. He kept repeating this process over and over again until he hit the target. The bullet striking the metal target let out a satisfying, metallic pinging sound, bringing a small smirk to Ky's face.

He was starting to get the hang of it, firing his gun and resetting time over and over until hitting the next target. Before long, he'd only need to revert time every one or two shots, and sometimes, he hit the target on his first try.

However, to those spectating him, he was hitting the targets on his first try every time with perfect precision. Once his magazine ran out, he fumbled for a little bit trying to figure out how to switch it to a new one, trying to emulate what he'd seen in movies and video games. Once he eventually figured it out, he continued firing at the targets, appearing to hit them all with his first attempts until he was out of ammo.

Everyone watching was at least a little bit impressed that he didn't miss a shot since the targets were moving and he definitely seemed inexperienced.

Once there was nothing left, he turned around to look at the one-way glass. "What's next?" as Ky said this, the bracelets around his arms magnetically pulled themselves together and reactivated, holding his arms in place while also dampening his powers. "We're going to turn it up a notch." said Waller.

A few guards came in and brought in more weapons and ammo before leaving the room once more. Once the door was locked behind them, Ky's arms were free and his powers were no longer restricted by the power dampeners.

Ky turned back around to see the targets begin moving in completely untrackable motions. They were no pattern in sight, as they jerked to the side and moved around sporadically. Regardless, the spectators watched as Ky seemingly predicted where the targets were going to be and hit them all without missing a single shot by resetting time to fix his mistakes.

This time, everyone was astonished. There was no way anyone else in that room could've landed those shots.

Ky turned to look at the one-way glass once more before speaking to whoever was watching on the other side. "So... is that all?" he asked them, getting an answer from Waller almost immediately. "Almost. Turn around."

Ky turned back around to see part of the wall behind the moving targets begin to slide down, revealing a gun to him. Seeing the gun aimed right at him, ready to fire, Ky reverted time, which caused him to turn back around to the moment when Mr. Waller was about to speak. "Almost. Turn-" before he could finish his sentence, Ky dodged to the side, avoiding the bullet without even having to turn around. From everyone else's perspective, he didn't do anything but dodge the bullet without ever seeing the gun itself.

Ky's eyes were wide. 'Holy shit...' he thought to himself, seeing how close he was to death if he had hesitated for even a moment further. However, Ky's nose began to bleed and he fell to his knees, feeling his brain pulsating in his head. He hadn't thought about it until now, but his brother had a downside to his ability as well. Ken could only stop time for five seconds. After waiting for about ten seconds in real-time, and not a second earlier, he could stop time once more. What Ky was realizing at that moment was that he also had a limit. If he used his time-reversing ability too much, this would be the result.

'Damn it. I should've been keeping count of how many times I reverted time. Maybe fifty? Maybe sixty and it adds up to a minute?' Ky thought to himself, very quickly and unknowingly coming up with the correct answer.

Ky's powers, from his understanding at that point, worked in a very specific way. He could only go back in time for one second. When he went back in time, he could not stack time reversal, in other words, he could not go back in time twice in a row to effectively go back two seconds. Also, when he reversed time, his body would also be restored to its original position. Finally, if he went back in time for a cumulative of over a minute, his body would begin to shut down. He had no clue how long his "recharge" time was, but he was determined to find out and perhaps use his powers to escape this place.

"What's wrong, 1226?" Waller's voice asked through the intercoms. "Explain in detail what is happening. Every sensation. Every thought. Every emotion. Explain it to me!" Waller was speaking with a voice under a drunken psychosis, one high on the obsession of his occupation. His favorite thing in the world was wondering how exactly mutants worked.

"My head... I think my brain is leaking." Ky muttered. "I think I went too far..."

"Too far!? Tell me more!? Is it time warping!? Is it true that you are warping time!? Is that why it appeared as if you knew where the targets were going!? You knew where the targets would be because you reversed time itself!" Waller's obsession grew more apparent with every word that came from his now crazed voice, a far cry from the old calculated one.

"I can turn back time for one second at a time... But I think I can only use my ability a certain amount times before- agh!" In this moment, Ky was panicking. His brain was literally leaking from his nose. He was also very afraid and thought, maybe these guys that study mutants could help him if they knew what exactly happened. Therefore, he told them briefly about what happened out of desperation.

Ky's brain continued to throb, feeling as if it were about to slowly expand to the point of blowing his skull to pieces. He could hear it thumping, punching itself against the inside of his head, increasing in intensity every second.

"Get him help! This one's too good to let die!" as Waller instructed, medical units sprinted into the room and started escorting Ky out of the room. His consciousness slowly started to fade as he was carried out until he shut his eyes, falling unconscious.