Voices whispered to Cal. A chorus of sounds, both familiar and alien, laid out the reality before him. The fight was already lost. He could not win.
“Cal, it’s okay, son; sometimes we just lose; no matter what happens, we can’t always fight; it’s time to stop." His father’s voice was the first he recognized from the crowd, but there were more.
“Hey, you’ve done enough. You tried, and you failed; that’s just the way it is,” Andy said.
“The Gryalth are just so much more powerful than us; what can we really hope to do?” Ralth’s voice added on.
“It’s possible if we surrender now, the Agency could find a way to beat them. It’s not like we will actually be able to win against them either,” Andrew said.
Waves of sorrow washed over Cal as he realized the reality he was in. They were right. He wasn’t someone who was cut out for fighting an alien invasion. Who was he to think he could do better than a group of trained soldiers? What he really needed to do was lay down. After a nice long sleep, that was the time to make the surrender call. He knew it needed to be done, but it would be easier with some rest.
He did wish the baby would stop crying though; through everything, it had been there in the background, quietly crying. Why wasn’t anyone checking on it? Who just leaves a baby alone to cry nonstop? As these new thoughts started to take root in his head, a voice cut through the rest of the chatter.
“I am Bug. I’m also a dog, that means my job is to help people, all people, and I want you to know I am deeply sorry for what has happened to you. The people that did this to you are monsters. They are still controlling you, but if you let me, I can help you. We can work through the pain of what they did to you. They took a lot of my friends too, and that makes me sad, but what they did to you makes me angry, so you should let me help you. I know it hurts to ignore their orders, but I promise I’ll help you; just walk away from them and come over here.” Bug was speaking gently but firm, and with her voice, Cal felt the despair melt away.
The opressiveness of the air around him vanished. He opened his eyes and found that he had laid down on the ground. Twonger was on the ground next to him, also slowly opening his eyes. In front of them stood the horror that had caused this, but it was no longer crying. The soldiers behind it were though, as they dropped to their knees, wailing in pain. The monster reached out one hand slowly and then gently pet Bug’s head. “Good dogie” one of the heads said.
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“Thank you. Now I want you to come with us, okay? When we finish, you’re going to come home with us too, and we will figure out how to help you, and I promise that every loop I will come save you,” Bug said, and Cal noticed the tears in her eyes.
“Bug, are you and your new friend good?” Cal asked as he stood up and shot a blast of lighting down at the remaining Agency men.
“No, but they will be,” she said, her voice now a low growl.
“Okay, now I’m pissed!” Twonger said, moments before he ran ahead, kicking in the first door in front of them. Cal heard the cries of surprised people on the other side of the door, but the fight was over before he reached it. Twonger had not needed any help. Twonger and Cal repeated this display at every door down the corridor. Not a single person offered surrender; most attempted to fight. None of them stood a chance.
“Alright, hopefully our new friend was the worst they had to throw at us, so let's dismantle the rest of this place and get going,” Cal ordered after they had cleared the area and found an entrance leading further down.
They were too late to scavenge anything on the lower floor, as it was already on fire by the time they found it. It appeared the Agency had realized fighting back was a lost cause and instead moved to torch whatever records they had had down here. Cal fired off several balls of lightning, just to stop any of them that may have been slow to evacuate before they climbed back up to the spot they had come in. The building was now pouring out smoke, and flames were starting to engulf whole corridors.
They found the room occupied by the other three already as they entered. Frank was carrying two men in collars while Stan had a third with zip ties on his hands in front of him. “Prisoners?” Cal asked.
“Kind of, this guy surrendered; only one; the other two are ogres we managed to take down without killing; who is your, uh, friend?” Stan asked, gesturing to the monster behind them.
“They are my new friend, and I’m going to fix what the Agency did to them, and then they are going to help us repay the Agency for every monstrous act it has ever taken,” Bug said, her growl still there.
Something exploded in the distance, and the floor shook. "Alright, time to go; this place doesn’t have much time left,” Cal ordered.
Stan pushed his prisoner through, following behind. Cal let everyone go before him, wanting to make sure everyone was safe before he was willing to make his own exit. He stood in front of the gateway, charging up the biggest lightning blast he could, dropping every bit of extra mana he could pull from his core into it, and let the ball fall at his feet as he leaped through the gateway and closed it behind him. He did not see or hear what happened next, but he knew there was no way the building would survive that. They had sent the Agency their next message and soundly won the second battle of the loop. While he knew there were many more to come, it was still reassuring that it was possible to fix the damage they had done.