Novels2Search

Loop 254 - Part 6

It was two weeks after their failed trip to Titan, and he had decided it was time. Cal and Andy had assisted with building a gateway to Pluto and then spent a few days resting up before moving on to Cal’s next goal this loop. He was still determined to attack the place where the Gryalth had held him prisoner many loops before.

Jen had been surveilling the place for the last forty-eight hours and reported several unusual transports. She hadn’t spotted any Gryalth themselves, but one of a few of the human mercenaries she saw matched the little he and Andy remembered from the loop long ago.

They had pulled a map of the hotel from the city archives and were gathered in the situation room to go over it.

“So the bad news is obviously we have no idea how accurate this map is. Andy, do you remember much about your trip?” Cal asked his friend.

“A little. I can tell you for sure that this door here does lead to a control room, and this stairway leads to the basement you were held in. What any other doors or rooms contain, I can’t tell you. Also, I want in on the attack.” Andy had a determined look on his face that Cal knew from experience meant any arguing against it wouldn’t help.

He, of course, tried anyway. “Not that I’m against having a friend help me smash up an enemy building, but why exactly do you want to so badly?”

“You weren’t there for the phone call or Bug’s face when I found her after what they did. They deserve to be hurt for that alone.”

“Alright then, let’s do this. I say we just go in with overwhelming force, and if we can do it, we take a Gryalth alive. I want to get every bit of info out of one as possible.” Cal wasn’t sure how far he was willing to go for that information, but it was something they increasingly needed. If they were going to have to find ways to increasingly defend larger parts of the world, they would need to know what level of forces they were up against.

His biggest question was how they were controlling the human mercenaries. Maybe he was idealistic but the idea of them just taking cash to directly help end the world seemed unreasonable. If he could figure out exactly what their motivation was, it wasn’t out of the realm of possibilities. He could get them to switch sides, and that would be something incredibly useful when the time came. He doubted he would ever actually trust them if they went that route, but it was still a great potential solution.

If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

“Overwhelming force, eh? I’ll go get Frank then.” Andy smirked.

“Hey, I can smash just as much as him, well, okay, maybe not just as much, but I can smash things pretty well, and I’ve got this fancy new class to try out.” He sighed. “Yeah, grab Frank, probably Bill too.”

“Will do, I’ll grab Stan as well. Probably best we don’t drive ourselves to the location.”

“Yeah, when you’re in the Under Library, see if you can find a way for us to grow up faster. With my mana channels the way they are, there just isn’t any benefit I see anymore to being a kid again every time.” Cal stretched his arms above his head.

He hated being this short. It threw off his entire fighting style every time he had to do anything in this smaller frame. That was one of the reasons he preferred waiting on confrontations until near the end of the loop, but he had decided to start working past that. Considering the Cyclopean brothers, it was possible he’d be forced into more situations where he had to fight in this body, even if he preferred not to.

“That’s actually a great idea. I’ll have Bill add it to our list of things to investigate. Maybe we can even find a way to get Ethel back into her prime years. Just imagine her crankiness in a younger body.” Andy laughed as he saw Cal’s face, clearly trying to picture it.

“Ugh, she’s already strong enough. I don’t want her to fight off the Gryalth without us.”

He joined his friend’s laughter.

Finding Ethel was one of the best choices he made in these loops. Despite the joking, if Andy could find a way to return her body to its prime, it would be a giant boon to the fight. He had learned recently that she apparently siphoned off a large chunk of her core mana to feed her realm’s retrieval system that she called the root network. It was one more reason to see what he could learn from her this loop. It was unfair that she had taken up a burden like that alone. They should all share the mana costs, especially for such a great cause.

Cal met back up with Andy about thirty minutes later in the kitchen of his Earthbound home. Andy had Stan, Frank, and Bill with him. They all looked ready to go. Cal assumed this meant Andy had already briefed them on the plan.

“Alright, so are we all ready to go smash up a hotel and take a few prisoners if we can?” He asked anyway. He had an image to keep up after all.

“Frank, the great tree titan, will make those puny fleshlings run in horror from his leaves. Yeah!” Frank swung his branches around the kitchen, knocking a blade off the ceiling fan in the process.

“Woah, already there, big guy. I know we rarely live here anymore, but I’d rather keep it looking not like a disaster zone in case we need the house for anything.” Stan, himself somehow nearly the size of Frank, worked to calm the excited tree man down.

“Sorry, Stan, I’ll be more careful.”

“Thank you, Frank. Alright, everyone, let's get in the van and hope we don’t get pulled over by any cops on the way.” Stan laughed.