Learning to Love Time Loops Without Going Insane

They had decided on a relatively simple plan for the end of this loop. Cal didn’t want anything overly complicated, he figured masterful tactics would come later, once they had a good idea of what the forces aligned them truly were. Andy, Many Legs and Himself would ambush the aliens inside the building that they knew about. Stan, Jen, Ethel and Bug would stay outside taking down any extra intruders. After the building was secure Cal and company would head outside and link up with his father’s team to see how things progressed.

Ralth declined to participate in the initial fighting, he said his presence would draw more attention than they wanted that early. He did promise that as long as Cal could manage to stay alive he would join in before the loop was over.

Cal was looking forward to seeing just what kind of insane powers his brother had at his disposal. He had barely shown him anything during their training sessions. Almost all of it was spent on mindfulness, and better internal communication with the spirits. Which had Cal no complaints about, especially considering he was able to talk to Bolt mentally now. In fact he was hopeful that in the next loop he could bring the other two spirits in.

Ready Bolt?

I am Cal.

Good, because it should start any minute now.

He found it took some getting used to, talking to her and not just thinking the thought, but he mostly had it down now. Well he had down at least while not under pressure. This would also be a test of how well he could separate the thought processes in the chaos of a fight.

“Cal I see them, they are heading down the corridor towards you now. There are four of them in total. As soon as you engage, we will come from behind. Remember we need as much of their tech, suits, or even a dead body as we can get for Andrew.” Andy’s voice came through the earpiece Cal was wearing. Cal only remembered seeing two in his very first loop, but he also hadn’t been on this floor very long.

“Understood, we drop them, toss their gear and possibly a body in the crack and make our way to the main fight.” Cal flexed his arms, trying to work out some of the nervous energy quickly before they came in view. He wasn’t successful. Cal saw them pass the door he had cracked on their way to the staircase. He had no intention of giving them that chance.

He pulled the door open quietly, stepped into the hall and blasted several shots of lightning at them while pulling up the floor up into a shield to block any retribution. He felt much more in sync with the lightning energy than ever before. Ralth was certainly onto something here.

Cal heard the skittering sounds slightly before he heard their weird gurgling screams. He dropped his rock wall and propelled himself forward, sending small arcs of lighting from his fingers at the two not currently being torn apart by Many Legs. One of them went down, but the last one raised its weapon pointing directly at Many Legs. Cal was faster. He turned the bolt of lightning from his arm into something closer to a laser and brought it down onto the attacker's shoulder. Their arm hit the ground and the glow on the weapon faded. Its screams were quickly drowned out by Many Legs thrashing torso.

They had won their first skirmish and no one was hurt. Andy came running down the hall. “Quick Many Legs grab that slightly charred one, its body is the most intact. Cal help me grab all their equipment.”

Cal listened to his friends orders, they had agreed beforehand that he likely had a better grasp of war gaming than Cal did, and he would defer to him for orders. They all ran to the lobby carrying their salvaged goods and tossed them into the crack and made their way to the doors. From the door windows Cal saw his father fire several rounds into another one of the Gryalth. It went down. His father turned around, likely to fire at more incoming. This meant he didn’t see the other three come around the building where he had just been firing.

Cal pushed the doors and tried chaining a lighting shot through all three of them. He did it, but appeared to have weakened on each jump as only the first one went down. The final one barely looked fazed at all. As he was pouring energy into the group to pull up a rock wall Andy raced behind him and tossed two grenades from his pack at the remaining two aliens. The explosions vibrated his shield hard enough to crack it in several spots, but the aliens were down and that was what mattered.

Cal and Andy ran to Stan’s position, Many Legs soon followed. “How are we doing dad?”

“So far so good, Ethel is on the roof across the street and says that Jen just took down the last two she could see. Bug is with her, so it looks like we all made it through this.”

“Good, time to get back to the house and prepare for whatever is next.” Cal had managed to gain more control over his nerves as the fighting continued. For better or worse he was getting used to fighting for his life. As they waited in the street for Ethel and Bug, they started to draw an audience. Many people had seen Cal use his powers against the aliens and thought he might have some answers to what was going on.

“I’m sorry, I don’t have any real information about what is going on beyond what you all just saw. Just take your family home and try to stay safe. Listen to any emergency broadcasts, they will help.” He knew he wasn’t reassuring anyone, but he really didn’t have anything he could do to help them all yet. One day though he would. He extracted himself from the crowd and forced his way back inside after his family and friends and they made their escape through the crack back home. Cal hoped no one had time to search the back of the utility closet as he didn’t think they should close it behind them.

Albert was in the room they returned to, collecting the items Andy had earlier deposited. They helped the capybara with his load and followed him into the much improved void realm. There were several that hooked into relays in right past the crack that fed in cell signal, phone, cable, fiber optic and power lines. This was so that when the loop ended they just had to run a new line as soon as possible to the relay and not rewrite the entire void base.

Off of the main platform was now a pathway that led to a large building. The building housed multiple laboratories, bedrooms and two kitchens. This was where the capybaras, Andrew and Ralth has spent most of the loop. This was also where Cal hosted D&D nights, as it drove Andrew insane to see his younger self wasting time on such games.

Right now they all made their way to the surveillance room. Multiple monitors were set up to stream live feeds and news from as many locations as possible. In the future this would be the center of their command center, for now it was just how they planned to watch the end of this loop.

“Hey weird question, but what happens if I don’t die? What if I just stay inside here. We’re pretty safe aren’t we?” Cal asked the room.

“No, either the mana drain would eventually destabilize this pocket reality or the Gryalth would find the entrance and we’d end up fighting them directly, leading to massive destruction of everything we have built here. So let’s not do that.” Andrew answered.

“Someday, you’re going to learn to be fun.” Cal told the grumpy scientist.

“Doubtful, apparently that route leads to Andy over there. He has no focus at all.” Andrew pointed at Andy while gently insulting him.

“Yeah, this is why I’m so happy I didn’t end up becoming you.” Andy shook his head at his elder self.

“Everyone quiet, we are getting some real news. Pay attention!” Stan shouted, ending any bickering.

They all watched in silence as the invasion’s scope grew beyond anything they were currently prepared to. Feed after feed went dead, usually preceded by one of the Gryalth throwing around power similar to Cal or by various large airships opening fire. In total it took roughly five hours for every feed from a major world city to be down. They had seen the militaries of multiple countries try to fight back only to meet what Cal could only describe as battle wizards. They were so far above his skill level that they momentarily made him doubt he’d ever catch up, time loop or not.

“Alright, I think we’ve all seen enough for now. Clearly the world is about to end and we can’t stop it. Wait, what’s going on there…” Ralth pointed at one of the feeds from Portland that had sprung back to life. There was now a man piloting a giant mech punching some of the invaders ships out of the air. The feed went dead again. “That was unexpected.”

“I think we know what at least one of the scientists did with this loop.” Ethel said.

“I wonder if we can find him, someone that smart should stick out in Portland next loop.” Cal liked the idea of another mad scientist, especially one willing to build a mech to fight aliens. He had potential.

“Something to consider, but for now I believe it’s time for me to join the fight. Cal I promised you’d see me go all out this loop, so anyone who would like to accompany me, I’m heading back to Dallas.” Cal watched Ralth walk away and started following. He had no intention to miss this.

They exited the crack back into Dallas, the building wasn’t really standing anymore. The closet itself was somewhat intact, but most of the walls outside were blown out. Cal wasn’t sure if the building would remain standing much longer, and made a quick exit, ushering everyone to follow.

“Cal, I want to know before you see this. All of us have a chance to grow stronger than anything you witness today. My abilities and strengths aren’t native to this reality, so despite how incredible they may seem at first, energy native to this universe has the potential to give us far greater gifts.”

“So does that mean our abilities will be weaker in other universes?” Cal tried to ask, but several Gryalth vessels came into view and opened fire. Instead of an answer, Ralth raised a hand and a shield of shimmering light blocked the oncoming blasts. Ralth then flew into the air, glowing a bright blue moments before he flew straight through one of the ships knocking it from the air. He then turned and fired what looked like lava from his hands into the other ships. Their exteriors melted with contact.

Cal watched this spectacle continue for several minutes until a group of a dozen of the Gryalth that Cal had earlier dubbed battle wizards appeared in the air. He guessed some sort of teleportation, but had no idea if that was right really happened. They all started chanting, the noise growing with each second. Buildings began to collapse around them. Cal saw something that looked like the sun strike Ralth, he felt pure pain in his eyes, the light was so bright that he could no longer see. It didn’t matter as he felt the world give way under him, then felt a stretching feeling, then he felt nothing.