Chapter 10

Someone coughed from within the dust cloud where the glider had clashed.

His patience had finally paid off.

Hiding behind the wreckage, Ash sprang up and started blasting at Kaecilious' previous position. The plan had been to move in closer but Ash could not resist taking advantage of the opening while Kaecilious was distracted.

The blaster hummed as the pulses of blue energy left the barrel. He fired, utterly pelting the surroundings until the blaster cooled down to recharge. Ash had no idea if he'd managed to tag the Sorcerer. All he could do was hope that at least Kaecilious was injured.

The top of the concrete debris he was hiding under was shaved off by a sword construct. 'Fuck, guess that answers whether he's alive or not.' Ash calmly rolled away from the next attack. A lance that stabbed down on his position, failing to hurt him as if he knew the attack was coming. The lance exploded in a massive wave of power, sending the boy flying off and hitting a pillar from the destroyed buildings.

Strangely enough, what hurt him was his back colliding onto the pillar. Not the explosion of mystic energy. That changed a split second later, when Ash found himself pinned to the pillar by a lance going through his left shoulder.

He shrieked at the unexpected pain, grabbing the shaft of the spear and trying to pull it out. Kaecilious had sent the attack flying after him, only a short distance behind.

It was a testament to Ash's growing strength that he managed to pull it out by an inch, all the while groaning before he had to stop. The spear had immediately burst into a scalding hot flame, badly burning his right palm.

"Gaaah!"

Ash yelled and let go of the shaft.

"Who..." Cough. "Who the fuck are you?!"

Kaecilious demanded, emerging from the wreckage with a badly injured arm and with dust covering his gray clothes.

Once his gaze properly landed on Ash, a shocked expression appeared on his face.

"What the...what the hell is this?!"

At first Ash thought he was surprised by his age but Kaecilious' next words disproved that thought.

"Your body is pulsing with temporal magic. Did she put you up to this!"

"I got...I got no idea what you're talking about."

Ash managed to bite out. He was losing blood fast and his eyesight was fuzzy. Ash felt Kaecilious grab him by the cheeks and slap him frantically, trying to keep him awake long enough to answer some of the questions the desperate Sorcerer had.

"...can survive so much Mystic energy in them. No one! So how are you doing it!? Is it a relic? Forgotten magic? I need to know! What are the effects... ANSWER ME DAMNIT!"

Ash groaned in pain when the spear was violently twisted inside his shoulder. The ache grew to unimaginable levels.

"It's..."

Ash whispered, prompting Kaecilious to come closer to hear the words clearly.

"It's simple...ask your mom."

The spear in his shoulder was ripped out and immediately shoved back into his body through his chest. Ash widened his eyes when he felt the mystical construct puncture through his heart in one move. Blood lurched out of his mouth as he coughed. The last thing he saw was Kaecilious' hard face staring at him with a crazed look on his face.

Yeah, your momma jokes? Maybe he should avoid them.

Loops remaining 6/20.

6 loops remaining and then he was dead. Ash was determined to ensure that this was his second to last loop however. He now had a way to kill Kaecilious. The problem was surviving without life changing injuries. Which was easier said than done. Any casual attack Kaecilious made would definitely leave a mark.

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He had to find a solution for that.

He did everything in the same order he had established before, careful not to change anything. The interactions with Anthony and Linda were second nature now. He had done it enough times to know what they were going to say before they said it.

The fight with the Chitauri was carried out with even more efficiency. At the end of it, soaked in blue blood, Ash was standing before the first Chitauri he had slain, which was now missing it's head. He wanted to see if he could remove its armor and use it for himself. This was a gamble.

He knelt before the alien and ran his hands all over it's corpse mechanically. Had it been the him before he started looping, Ash would have no doubt vomited at the distinct body odour coming off the alien creature. Its scent was...unnatural. Like the way you imagined a fruit from a different planet would taste or smell like. Distinctly unearthly.

He brought his hands to the underside of his dead foe and fiddled around for a clasp, latch, switch or anything. He couldn't find any however,the armor seemed to be fused to it's body. A carapace of some kind.

Ash sighed in disappointment, deciding to give up. Before he could though, his hand tagged something hidden in the shin piece of the leg armor. He wrapped his hand around the thin pencil like object and pulled it out.

He turned it over in his hand, studying the black rod curiously. There seemed to be a button on it's...

A look of awe appeared on Ash's face. The expression was soon replaced by a look of glee. This...he could work with this.

Unfortunately, this loop was probably already done for, the Chitauri distraction only worked within a short time frame that Ash had only happened upon due to luck. There were an infinite number of ways each action could go. That didn't mean he couldn't still make it useful.

Ash had heard what Kaecilious had stated about temporal energy swirling around him. From the way the Sorcerer worded it, Ash suspected that he was not talking about the looping. Well, he kinda was yet... Wasn't? Ash had this unfolding idea at the back of his mind. The only problem was that he couldn't piece everything together the correct way.

But he knew of a way for that to happen. He could simply ask the expert. Ash jumped on the glider and stormed out of the building. If it wasn't for the time constraints, he would have even tried to find out a general direction to the New York Sanctum. Too bad he got sent back everytime Captain America died.

The glider landed on an unfamiliar parking lot. Based on the directions he had taken, this was actually the site of the destroyed buildings where Kaecilious usually held up.

The hum of the glider died out as Ash jumped off, holding his weapon before him in a vigilant pose. He turned around, staring at the empty parking lot with a lot of trepidation.

"Kaecilious!!" He called out. "I know you're here. Show yourself."

Reality shattered like a pane of glass struck by a rock.

"Oh crap."

A second after the drop of those words, Ash saw vines break through the concrete floor and bind him tightly. The Chitauri weapon in his hands skittered across the floor, followed closely by the floor sinking into sections, then shattering under him.

Ash flailed his body as gravity grabbed him and pulled him towards a fast rising ocean.

"Oh! Oh shit..."

The water imploded upon itself, twisting and churning like an angry star about to go supernova.

Then it exploded into a surge of blue that slammed onto Ash's face like a sledgehammer. Ash coughed out, his cheek parallel to the dusty ground where a second ago, it had been water.

He wasn't given enough time to ponder on what was happening as he was roughly hoisted up and held in the air by bands of energy circlets. The sudden actions in the past few minutes made Ash nauseous. And he couldn't contain it.

Vomit surged out of him, splattering onto the ground in a messy fashion.

"Discusting." A voice drawled. Ash blinked and looked around. They were back in the parking lot. It felt like no time had passed at all.

"How did you do that?"

Ash asked. A slap spun his head to the other side.

"I ask the questions." Kaecilious warned, grabbing Ash by his black hair and turning his head up.

"Now, I am going to ask you only once. What are you? Why is there so much time energy revolving around your form? And how did you know I was here?!"

On the palm of his right hand, a knife manifested with orange spikes. The pointy head was placed precisely on Ash's neck. Kaecilious applied more pressure while also leaning closer to Ash.

"Answer me or..."

At that moment, something sparked inside Ash. His prodigious senses started working overtime, capturing data and processing it. His spirit surged as something in him recognized the opportunity presented at his feet. A chance he had not thought would come so easily during this loop. Yet here it was, staring so coyly before him.

Ash had not killed a human being before. The Chitauri aliens were different. Those fuckers had loved making Ash squeal in pain. They had relished it. And Ash had relished destroying them. This was different.

He had thought he would hesitate. That his hand would seize up mid action as he came to terms that he had just tried to take a life.

None of that happened.

What happened was that Ash had pressed a button on the end of the pencil like rod. A plasma blade 8 inches long and thin had burst apart the mystic binds Kaecilious had cast on him. And then his trajectory had continued and the plasma blade stabbed, burnt and sliced into Kaecilious neck.

The other bindings fizzled out as Kaecilious choked, falling to the ground. Ash couldn't believe it. Dressed in a towel, a jacket, blue blood covering his body and holding a thin plasma blade that he had come across by chance, Ash only had a few words to say,

"Well, that was easy."

(Mission Successful)