“You understand how insane that answer sounds, correct? That a super powerful species from another universe has chosen a completely unimportant part of the galaxy as the starting point for their invasion,” she said. Cal did, in fact, very much understand how insane that sounded.


    “Kid’s telling the truth, honestly doesn’t make a lot of sense unless there’s something we just haven’t found yet, which considering we’ve only started trying to figure out what they want, it’s entirely possible there is some stupidly powerful artifact hidden out there,” Twonger said. Considering the involvement of just whoever Merlin actually was, that wasn’t all that far-fetched, but until Cal found a way to actually talk to that man, he had no idea how to determine what secrets his solar system might just have. Maybe it was time for a search of all the other planets, after a vacation of course. Next loop, they desperately needed a vacation.


    “Hrm, believe it or not, I believe you,” she replied.


    “Why are you so interested in the Gryalth anyway? No one else seems to care all that much here,” Cal asked. Twonger’s people hadn’t seemed to care, but maybe they just had other bigger current problems. Either way, he wanted to know why she cared so much.


    “They stiffed me. One of their people arranged a large purchase order from my syndicate, and instead of paying for it, they killed everyone and took the merchandise. So the answer as to why I care is rather simple. I will not have my reputation sullied,” she answered. That answer had apparently been too much for Twonger as he burst into laughter. “I’m sorry. Did I say something funny?”


    Choking back the waves of laughter, Twonger answered. “This is all about your damn reputation? And here I thought for a second you might have been considered doing something good for the universe, but nah, you just can’t let anyone know it’s possible to rip you off. Well, at least you’re consistent I’ll give you that.” He only managed to hold the laughter long enough to get those words out.


    “You’re lucky I’m in a good mood,” she replied.


    Twonger’s laughs died in his throat, and his face went deadly serious as he slammed his fists on the table. “No, you’re lucky I want something out of you. You have absolutely no idea what I’m capable of these days, let alone my new associates. And I’m real tired of your bullshit. Cal agreed to your terms. Now get that collar off, Sean, before I decide to try a different approach.” Cal hadn’t ever heard that level of aggression in Twonger’s voice before. He felt like he had missed something between these two.


    She reached into a pocket and pulled a small device, looked over it briefly before tossing it across the table to Twonger. “The keys to remove his collar are loaded into this; hold it near the collar and press the button,” she instructed.


    “If there’s any trick here, I promise we will make you regret it,” Twonger replied as he stood up and walked over to Sean. His hands shook slightly as he lifted the device to Sean’s collar and pressed the button. As the collar fell off, clattering to the ground, Cal released a breath he hadn’t realized he had been holding. No matter how many times he had been blown up in his life, he still really hated the experience. It was just something he was sure he’d never get over at this point.


    “Uh, I feel strange,” Sean said.


    “What do you mean by strange? Describe exactly how you feel,” Andy said as he rushed to Sean’s side.


    “Like there’s something inside of me trying to put itself back together. It’s crawling through my whole body, and none of my usual channeling is working. I’ve never felt like this before,” he said, sounding scared. It had to be his mana spirit trying to fix itself, but Cal had no idea if that was even possible, considering the likely damage it had suffered.


    “This a new area for us, but that might be what remains of your mana spirit. I think it might be best if you just try to heal and don’t channel anything. Now, I wish we had brought Melissa along. I don’t know why I didn’t consider this problem,” Andy said.


    “Too late to worry about that now. Lilibi, what happens to him from here?” Cal asked looking at the still seated woman.


    “No idea,” she answered, not sounding remotely interested in the outcome.


    “How can you have no idea?” Bill shouted, surprising Cal. He hadn’t expected the capybara to be the one to lose their temper.


    “Because I don’t generally care what happens to those once the collar is off,” she answered.


    “Yeah, told you, she’s pretty much a monster,” Twonger said.


    “If we are done, that device is loaded with the codes for any collars on your planet. I’ll expect one of their weapons in a year. Now kindly leave,” she replied, finally standing up and looking around the room with deeply uncaring eyes.


    “Sean, can you walk,” Cal asked the man, worried about how easily getting out of the place would be.


    “Yeah, I can handle that much, but I’m going to need to lay down sooner rather than later,” he answered.


    “It’s fine. There’s a place we can stay nearby; I’m sure Klorn can afford it,” Twonger replied as he walked over to Sean and pulled one of the man’s arm over his shoulder. “Come on, let’s get outta here before we decide Lilibi is too annoying to stay alive.”


    Surprising Cal, they saw no one else on their way out of the building. He guessed Lilibi had ordered everyone out of their way. Soon, they had a large room in a nearby hotel, and Sean laying down on a bed. The man was looking worse by the minute.


    “Any idea what to do? I don’t know that he’s going to make it back to Earth like this?” Cal said, looking down at the man as he moaned in pain.


    Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    “It’s true you have a mana spirit now, correct Twonger?” Bill asked as he examined Sean.


    “I do, yeah, why?” Twonger asked back, his anger still in his voice.


    “Because it’s looking like we are going to need to try something I read about in the Under Library. I wish we had brought Melissa or Bug, but it’s too late for that now,” Bill said, chittering his teeth nervously.


    “What exactly are you planning, Bill?” Andy asked the small capybara.


    “In theory, we can use our mana spirits to commune with Sean’s, possibly even give up some of their energy to heal his, but I’ve only read about it, never seen it done, and I’m not sure it’s even been done in our universe. Problems of reading things in the Under Library,” Bill explained.


    “Got it. Since our choices are limited, what do we need to do?” Cal asked, wanting to try something as soon as possible.


    “Okay, Cal, Twonger, I need both of you on either side of Sean, and I want you two to focus on your mana spirits. Basically, try channeling some magic, but instead of forming an attack, push that energy into Sean,” Bill explained.


    “I take it you two can’t help here due to your lack of true spirits?” Cal asked, looking at them.


    “Correct. Since we manifested our abilities in this bond, we don’t have a separate entity to draw mana from, and it would just run the risk of killing us,” Bill answered while Andy looked on worried.


    “Got it, come on Twonger,” Cal said, moving himself to the other side of Sean and reaching deep into himself toward his core energy as he did. He could feel all three of his primary bonds there and carefully started to gather up as much energy as he could safely mix from each. Once he had a nice concentrated mass of it, he gently placed his hand over Sean’s forehead and slowly worked the energy from himself into the bigger man, making sure not to allow any of it to manifest outside either of their bodies. He didn’t want to risk any transformation from potential energy into raw magical destruction.


    Across from him, he could see Twonger doing the same thing. Sean’s painful writhing was decreasing as they added more energy. Cal had no idea if that was a good or bad thing, but as Bill was just nodding at them to continue, he didn’t let up. How much energy could he safely part with before it became a problem for his own core? He assumed much more than Twonger, considering the three spirits, but he had no idea where the limit was.


    The room disappeared. Suddenly, he was in a small office with a single man sitting behind a desk. A familiar, if slightly more kemp version of a man Cal had known for a very long time now. How the hell was Andrew here?


    “Just so you know ahead of time, Cal, this is a programmed simulacrum of myself. It will not be able to answer every single question that pops into your head, but I believe I’ve covered the majority of things, especially the important ones,” the Andrew figure said.


    “Where am I, and how do I get out?” Cal started with, not believing for a second this was the real Andrew or even something he left behind.


    “You are in an Ogre’s brain. You get out once our conversation is finished. It was the only way I could find to get a message to you at the right time without the possibility of it being intercepted. I also know you very much doubt I’m Andrew, and the reality is I both am and am not. I’m likely not the one you know, and I can’t predict what happened to him in this new iteration, but I am Andrew from the first iteration of the loops,” the new Andrew said. Cal still very much doubted it was telling the truth, and what the hell did it mean by the first iteration of the loops?


    “Explain more because so far, you’re right. I don’t believe you,” Cal replied.


    “The second time we met was when you attempted to deliver food to the building I was working in; I brought you into these loops. I spent the majority of my time stuck in the other dimensional voidhouse as I wasn’t capable of leaving without destroying myself. Right now, you are attempting to heal an ogre after removing its collar. I do not know which one. I also don’t know how exactly this proceeds as this a huge deviation point from the first iteration,” new Andrew continued. Okay, that was starting to convince him. No one else should really know those details outside of the inner circle.


    “What were you angry at me about early on in loops?” Cal asked, pushing for some real information.


    “Assuming things remained true there, which I hope they did. I was likely angry about the wrong brand of soda,” new Andrew said. Damn, that meant this really was somehow Andrew, but a previous loop Andrew? Cal wasn’t entirely following the interaction point the figure was making.


    “Okay, let’s say I’m starting to buy what you’re saying. What do you mean by previous iteration?” Cal asked, wanting to understand at least what they were talking about before he pushed further.


    “Before the loops you are in, a first set of loops ran, and eventually, due to a series of issues we didn’t know at the time, they started to unravel, forcing us to act against the Gryalth much earlier than we would have liked. We lost, and in doing so, we further unraveled the time loop,” new Andrew said.


    “So then, how are you here? Or, for that matter, how are there a second set of loops?” Cal asked, still not understanding what this figure was trying to explain entirely.


    “So by this point you should be well aware of loop-awareness, and I’ve likely even devised a way to bring more people into it in a limited degree each loop?” new Andrew asked.


    “I am, and you have,” Cal answered, not sure where he was going with this.


    “Well, as it turns out, which you may already be on the path of, all those memories, experiences, built-up knowledge, that all has to be stored somewhere for it to reenter those within the loop at the start of a new loop. It also turns out there is a maximum safe number for people that can be added into this before the thing starts to degrade,” new Andrew said.


    “Wait, what happens when it degrades?” Cal asked, worried he already knew the answer.


    “Those being reborn each loop like yourself have their memories start to be affected. At first, it’s just small things, but it grows and becomes increasingly noticeable as the information load becomes too large to pass through each new loop,” new Andrew explained.


    “Great, so another problem we have to deal with, what’s the critical mass for people when this started happening?” Cal asked, suddenly worried about all the kids they were going to add to the loops.


    “We started seeing it around one hundred thousand people,” new Andrew answered.


    “Well, that’s a giant relief. We are absolutely nowhere near that. I guess that kills part of my build-an-army plan. Then again, maybe not. Does this only apply to people who start the loop outside the voidhouse? How did it work with you?” Cal asked, now starting to realize something.


    “When the loops broke down after our final attack failed, there was a cascading effect across all the realms controlled by those within the loops, but for some reason, and I can only assume it has to do with my own unique existence within them, I was thrown free, backward in time, finally existing in the regular world again, and yet without all of you,” new Andrew explained. Oh, considering everything Andrew had been through with them and the growth the man had experienced, to finally lose all of that. That sounded miserable. Cal felt for the man.


    “How far back?” Cal asked.


    “About a hundred years and as you’re experiencing now, and I apologize deeply for out of control it all grew, I made one major change to the timeline, hoping to help you when the time came,” he said.


    “And what change was that?” Cal asked.


    “I founded the Agency in an attempt to stop Gryalth early,” new Andrew answered.