"What are you going to do?" Sheila asked without immediately handing over the gun.

"I’m going to use my powers," Stanley said.

Sheila frowned a bit. "Your powers?" she asked with a confused look. "What can you do with your powers?"

"I told you, didn’t I?" Stanley whispered, not letting the mayor hear his next set of words. "I can see the future. I’m going to try and shoot him."

Sheila was still frowning, but she had no choice. She would have to use anything she could.

Stanley saw his hand move in advance and grab the gun that was presented to him. It was a weird sight for him as he wanted to see it inside of his mind, but rather in real life.

His hand moved at the right time as Sheila handed over the gun. He grabbed the gun and turned it around.

The gun moved multiple times in his vision as he saw both the future event and the present event at the same time, confusing him a little.

He wanted to make it stop, but he needed it right now. "What do I do exactly with it?" he asked.

Sheila sighed. "Put your fingers inside that hole and push on the switch inside," she said. "Also, be careful. It only has 3 shots in total."

"Alright," Stanley said and properly held the gun before pointing it at the mayor that was wondering what they were whispering about.

"What did you two come up with?" the mayor asked, sitting on the table with a leg dangling while the other leg stepped on it. "I’m surprised you haven’t already run away. The Crawlers will be coming to this place very soon, you know?"

Stanley pointed the gun at him from outside the shield, which the mayor was simply not worried about.

"Can you do it?" Sheila asked in a whisper.

"You said that yellow wall goes on and off 100 times in a second, right?" he asked.

"Yes," Sheila said. "And it’s quite strong too."

Stanley took a deep breath and aimed. All he had to do was press something around his fingertip and it would shoot.

He looked at what was happening before him. The gun was stable, his hands were stable and nothing in front of him moved.

In a matter of seconds, the present and the slight future merged into one, making it difficult for Stanley to tell which one was which.

The ground shook ever so slightly, blurring the edges of the lines in his vision, but overall, everything seemed the same.

The gun didn’t shoot in the future. He waited for it to happen so he could follow, but it didn’t. Was there a reason why he wasn’t shooting his gun in the future?

’Is it because I’m not shooting it that it’s not happening in the future?’ he wondered. Sheila said there were 3 bullets in the gun. He would have to waste the first one on a try.

He pushed the trigger, but before that even happened, he saw the gun shoot and the red bullet fly out of the gun. It struck the yellow barrier before being deflected back into the wall far away.

Stanley saw the future, but he was already committing to the present. The bullet shot and reflected back towards the wall.

The mayor didn’t even flinch when it happened. He simply laughed.

"It’s an older model gun, you idiots! It can’t resonate with the shield and bypass its random refresh rate. You’ll never be able to—"

A bullet hit the mayor on his left arm and then hit the wall in the back. It only grazed the mayor’s arm, but enough of his flesh was seared off that he immediately screamed in pain.

Stanley’s eyes widened in surprise at the fact that he did it. It had worked... somehow.

After the first time around, he figured out that he had to think about pushing the switch and stop at each instance after seeing the results in the future.

However, he couldn’t do it enough times at once to make it work for something that flickered 100 times in a second. However, just as he was thinking that he had felt the world gradually grow still as he focused everything he had on this one task.

He imagine pushing the switch multiple times and at one of those times, he managed to see one future where his bullet actually passed through the shield.

He waited what felt like 10 seconds to push the switch, and when he did, the future he saw came true. The bullet hit the mayor inside.

"Dammit!" Sheila shouted. "It wasn’t a clean hit. Shoot him again."

Stanley nodded and tried to shoot again, but the mayor ran away from where he stood. He wouldn’t be stupid enough to keep sitting around after the first bullet.

Stanley moved around, trying to get a good angle, and that was when he heard the loud voice over the speakers.

"Sister! Help! I need help!" he shouted.

Sheila frowned. He was calling his sister Raven? She panicked. There was no way they would survive when the Nova came for them.

"What do we do?" Stanley asked, turning around toward her.

Sheila struggled to make a decision. "We have to leave quickly, but... we also need to get that door opened in the cave," she said.

"But how do we do that?" Stanley asked. "We need to—"

He paused for a moment before looking back toward the room. "Dammit! I’m stupid!" he shouted at himself. His new evolved power had taken away his focus so much that he didn’t even see what else he could do.

The mayor was terrified and stayed by the corner of the room where the bullet couldn’t get to him even if it was shot in.

However, what came in next was no bullet at all.

Stanley himself popped out in the middle of the room, holding his long sword. He quickly looked at the mayor in the room and his eyes narrowed.

The mayor’s eyes widened in fear. "Shit!"