“Fulginanis, I do not care if it’s a trap. Everyone is now there. We don’t have a choice but to smash through it,” Cal said out loud instead of mentally as his anger flared.

“Frank agrees!” Frank added. Cal didn’t have the heart to tell him Fulginanis couldn’t hear him.

“Cal, can you hear me?” It was Harold’s voice in his head now.

“I can. How are you doing this?” Cal asked in confusion.

“I am broadcasting Harold into our conversation; he has important things to say, and it seemed easier this way,” Fulginanis explained.

“Okay, you aren’t going to convince me to stop either, Harold,” Cal said, annoyed.

“Not planning to, you’re right. This has gone way too far on their part. We can’t lose that many people and expect to win. We may as well restart the loop, but we have too many assets for that right now. I doubt they are honestly expecting you to come at this point, it’s a colossally stupid move tactically, but also, I’m sure they aren’t expecting you to have much help to bring,” Harold explained.

“Okay, that part’s true, though. I don’t really have any help,” Cal replied.

“There’s Alfred of course, plus Libby, Serilina, and her cat are going to join you. I want you to have Frank keep you safe long enough to get a new portal opened there. Once that happens they will join in the fight. Andrew is working on something as well, but no promises beyond that. Remember though, it’s not important we win here. It’s important we get everyone home,” Harold said.

Cal was glad someone agreed with his plan. His vision blurred for a second, and he was onboard Twonger’s ship. There was no going back now, anyway. “Five minutes,” he told Fulginanis.

“We will be ready,” the mana spirit replied.

“Alright, Frank, here’s the plan. You keep anyone off me until I got a gateway open, once that’s up, we don’t stop until either we can’t fight anymore or everyone is safe in the void house. Sound good?” Cal asked.

“Frank is ready,” was all the response Cal was given. They waited the next five minutes in silence. Cal’s vision blurred again, and he was in the middle of a battlefield. The fight was still raging on. There were capybaras leaping onto soldiers, tearing with their teeth, some hitting them with sticks. Stan was bruised and bleeding, fighting an ever-increasing number of ogres while Bug and Gretel were loudly chanting. He couldn’t spot Twonger and had no time to search as Frank intercepted their first attack.

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“Fulginanis, drop the gateway here, quick. Everyone is still up, I think, but I have no idea how long that will last,” Cal yelled in his own head and watched as, within seconds, a portal appeared in front of him. He turned around to give Frank new orders but saw the tree man had already gotten directly into the fight. He had two rescued capybaras on his shoulder and was holding an ogre in on hand, swinging the person like a club into the soldiers.

Cal saw several figures come out of the portal as he added his own contributions to the battle. Several well aimed arcs of lightning through as many of the soldiers in front of his father as he could. He had finally spotted Twonger as well. Bug and Gretel were standing on his downed form, protecting him. That likely meant he was still alive.

A tidal wave of water came sweeping out from the Gryalth woman to Cal’s side. Strangely, she had brought her cat just like Harold had said. He was sitting calmly on her shoulder. Cal was too late to react as he saw the plasma blast that had nearly killed him before going straight for the cat, only for the cat to calmly raise a single paw and bat it away and then start cleaning the paw.

He was forced to ignore the disbelief at what he had just seen for now as several ogres were now in front of him. This wasn’t going to be easy; he was still exhausted from the previous three raids of the day, but he didn’t let that stop him as he threw the ogres into the air as he rose the stone below their feet rapidly upward. Behind him, two more figures came charging through the portal from the void house: a polar bear and Captain Lightspeed covered in some sort of armor. Cal realized he was being ridden by Gus, of all people. Gus was carrying some sort of gun.

The dog chanting had gotten much louder. Alfred had made it to the other two. There was a real chance they were all going to get out of this with some returned friends. “Everyone start falling back!” Cal screamed this as loud as he could. The capybaras took up the call, making sure everyone had heard him.

“Libby, keep track of the capybaras. We want all thirty-six back to the other side. Serilina, follow me. We’re going to make sure everyone has a path to retreat through!” Cal barked the orders out. He and Gryalth woman advanced towards where his father and the dogs were fighting, electrifying and washing away everyone that stood in their way.

“Good to see you, Cal, gonna be honest, didn’t think this was remotely possible to win, we ready to go?” Stan asked.

“Yep, start moving backward. I’ll keep the fight up if you can grab Twonger and any capybara we see,” Cal replied, launching several void balls in front of him to break up the newly swarming soldiers.

Slowly, they fell back, gathering up several capybaras and a certain tree man as they moved. Cal still wasn’t sure how the polar bear had gotten here, and it was hard to believe Gus was riding across the battle, blasting away at people, but even they were now falling back. Captain Lightspeed had a few extra riders, and even two capybaras were clinging to the fur of the bear.

“Libby, how many capbaras do we have?” Cal asked as they neared their gateway home.

“Counting everyone with you, we are still missing one,” the robot answered.

“Dammit, does anyone see the last capybara?” Cal yelled before spotting the little guy himself. One of the Agency soldiers was punching him on the ground. Cal’s temper exploded as he poured every last bit of mana from his core out into the ground, sending shockwaves rippling through the parking lot and throwing everyone, ally and enemy alike, to the ground. A small earthquake shook the countryside. The last thing Cal saw as he fell to the ground unconscious was Frank carrying the wounded capybara.