Sitting on the floor and watching an already-seen movie on the wide screen of the computer, Robert’s thoughts were elsewhere. Floating chaotically, they were jumping from one topic to another, rarely pausing on something specific. Building odd connections between unrelated things, they seemed to be injected with adrenaline, failing to dive deep enough before launching themselves into another direction. It felt like it was impossible for them to focus their attention, turning Rob’s head into some kind of blender for everything. And he had a reason for it - the past time loops weren’t easy.
Dealing with the teenager noticeably drained his mental strength. In the end, Robert only got a few contacts, the code to the hide-out, nothing about the location of a laboratory with a serum, and an allergy to the bombs. Despite the visible easy-going behavior and readiness to talk, the kid didn’t trust him in the slightest, each time trying his explosive escape or other stupidity, somehow believing it would work against Rob. The boy’s traumatic experience also wasn’t helping to develop trust toward the stranger after being rescued. Maybe the time would help, but Rob didn’t have enough patience to be a mixture of a babysitter, an older brother, and a psychotherapist. He needed the latter himself after all he went through. Moreover, the thought of repeating the same process of convincing the kid again and again only for everything to be reset made him terrified. Therefore, after getting what he could, Robert stopped any attempts to pull this second version of Gray Lin from the prison truck.
After that Robert methodically started to check criminal groups, trying to get anything that could potentially help him in the loop. However, the problem was that most of those criminals were indeed like the kid described – ruled by greed, they were too cautious to use supers in their activities. In most cases they just hired several for their protection, but nothing else. And obviously, they had no desire to face CSA and especially Demonologist, focusing solely on earning more money. Even the threat of the city’s destruction only led to a hast selling of all property in a single case, when someone actually believed Robert. But help? Nope, it was absolutely out of the question.
At least Rob managed to use the same approach in getting all the information to save time – brute force. If he had no problems with killing the scientists, the criminals had it worse. Much worse. Rarely were there any survivors after Robert’s visits, and even they looked like the work of a mad butcher. The reason for such bloodthirsty behavior was in CSA as the agency never stopped searching for him, making it hard to travel through the city and limiting the time for conversations. That, in turn, led to the life of a hunted person, who had to hide all the time in the basement, waiting for an opportunity to come out. His “crusades against the criminals” didn’t help to calm down the city, pushing more and more police on the streets.
From time to time he had to end the loop prematurely, forcing his way into the facility to break the forsaken machine when there was no chance of escaping from the stubborn chasers. Still, the more he spent in these loops, the easier it became to avoid unnecessary attention. Robert couldn’t remember the location of each camera or the routes of every potential witness, but hiding for so long developed more like intuition that was based solely on accumulated experience. He knew where the possible camera might be and what principles it used to identify the subject. He knew how the police liked to act and what shortcuts in security measures they could use to save time during boring patrols. He knew the city, easily finding the way back to his starting point. He developed some skills in disguising himself.
The extent of his unwanted knowledge didn’t end in being a “perfect fugitive”. Robert became more experienced in torturing, knowing how to cause real pain without an unlucky target dying in the process of intensive questioning. He finally learned how to control his strength, hurting but not actually killing with a single slap. Reading dozens, if not more, books, while waiting for another window of opportunity to get out from the hide-out, he widened his expertise on many subjects. Obviously, most of them weren’t so useful in his current situation or even in other realms, but not that he had much to do anyway. His metallic body appeared to be a bigger issue, considering his mentality that demanded the action.
A few loops were spent in an attempt to find anything that could bring him any pleasure to distract from his pitiful circumstances. Unfortunately, the previous troubles only intensified when Robert got more free time. Sleepless, senseless, with no needs, his body felt like a piece of block. On the other hand, his mind wasn’t any better, damaged by wars and all the blood he spilled. Therefore, books and training were his only solutions for not going completely insane, locked in one place and without the ability to move freely. Nothing else helped, especially in a society with paranoia toward any super or physical differences. With more awareness about the realm, Robert knew it was impossible to get normal treatment in this place for anyone with powers and an odd appearance. Too much time and effort were used to change the crowd's attitude, no matter how CSA tried to backtrack it. The invisible pressure was always there, despite all the bright smiles from other super on social media.
His training also progressed. With more time passing, Robert increased control over the reactor core and both variants of his steel. And with more energy produced, his forgotten trait from the dragon kicked in, making him continue his growth in size. That caused another cycle of active squeezing to keep an average height. These repeats made his body even tougher than before while increasing his weight. The latter was the most annoying thing, preventing him from using any furniture, lifts, cars, and other convenient things that came with technology. However, instead, it granted him more might. And soon Robert planned to take another step toward it, raising his chances of surviving the nuclear blast in case he would be caught in the radius of the explosion.
“It’s about time,” watching the clock, Robert tried to loosen up the tension, but it was hard. The thunderous roar of the demonic beast was already resounding from above, penetrating the ceiling of his basement. The following destructive walk caused noticeable trembles, shaking the floor with each step of the giant monstrosity. However, that wasn’t the scariest part as the soon-to-fall missiles with nuclear warheads were the ones that made Rob feel anxiety. In the end, it was the first time Robert decided to meet the blast sitting a mere kilometer (0.6 mile) from the future epicenter.
If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.
So many repeats gave him enough information about when and where the event would take place. Surprisingly, the kid’s hideout appeared to be located not far from the finishing point of the loop. Or maybe it wasn’t as the teenager might have planned to hide somewhere after getting out of the underground facility. Only several more miles separated the place from the hideout, making the basement quite a convenient place.
Still, Rob was reluctant to test the nuclear strike himself, trying to use every single option he could before jumping into the potential fight. He had no second chance if something went wrong. Therefore, he tried to get some futuristic gear or weapon, recruit powerful allies, warn authorities, and many other things his mind managed to come up with after so many days of thinking. The outcome of all his efforts was already known – total failure. The armor couldn’t handle his weight and strength, the weapons lacked the firepower to do something against the gigantic dragon, CSA in the form of Agent Bell was a dead end, etc.
As always, I need to rely only on my strength…
So, the increase in his destiny together with improved control over the destructive layer gave Rob a belief that he could withstand the nuclear blast, especially after taking multiple direct hits from plasma missiles with their enormous temperature. However, his survival instincts and the responsibility of failure made him conduct the first test from a relatively safe distance. At this point Robert knew that even the facility wasn’t destroyed in the blast – the fall of the time machine was caused by an EM wave that artificially intensified in the nuclear warhead. Otherwise, Rob didn’t know how this effect could be so powerful, penetrating the thick concrete and disabling the energy source. And he had plenty of knowledge in weaponry, learning it as an operator of mechanized armored squads back in his first life.
His chaotic flow of thoughts was interrupted by another loud roar that was cut short by a knocking sound. An instant later the shockwave came, wiping the shop above him and smashing the surroundings into pieces. Rob’s body, already clad in armor, withstood the wall of particles, but the force behind their flight was still strong enough to throw his body with ease, despite all his weight. Then everything became a twisted mess, burying him under the rubble. However, it lasted for a fraction of a second when the wave from the second strike had reached him. The following vertigo tried to rip his body apart only to be interrupted by the darkness before Robert once again dropped onto the floor in the familiar laboratory.
Okay, I may do it… Now to the serum…
Repeating the deeply engraved actions to get into a hideout, Robert got to the hideout almost on autopilot. At this point, he barely paid attention to others as there was no point in building relationships with anyone only for everything to be turned into a blank piece of paper after another reset. So, speaking the learned phrases as if it were just a drama play on the scene, he acted completely absentmindedly. Not involved, even detached, Rob’s mental focus was aimed only at reaching the goal. It felt like he postponed everything in his life until he would save the city. At least the goal became closer and closer with each next step.
Therefore, spending a week in a hideout for the first point in time, when it was relatively safe to come out, Robert moved. The illuminated streets were almost empty with rare passersby and cars. Adjusting his hood, Rob slowly started his long walk toward the place. Having no ability to use a car, he relied only on his feet. The problem with such a method was its slowness as he simply couldn’t run at full speed, attracting unwanted attention. On the other hand, Robert wasn’t in a hurry, enjoying the feeling of being just another night owl, who didn’t like the crowdedness of common places during the daytime. Even temporarily, but to become someone ordinary, forgetting about his experience.
I think I need to repeat it more often…
The endpoint of his two-hour walk was a huge pet shop. Situated in a standalone building, it was enormous, easily competing in size with supermarkets. Currently closed, it appeared to be a perfect spot to test the influence of the serum on living beings. Robert had to spend several loops to unravel the ball of threads until he got the one that led him to this location. The kid didn’t know the exact place, trading the serum through the fixer. Unfortunately, Rob didn’t have such an option, lacking needed funds. Maybe there was an option to get them somewhere, but he decided to skip this part, going for the serum from the beginning.
Another nice thing about the place was its underground location. Robert still remembered how irritating it was to climb on the highest floor of the residential skyscraper, where a self-proclaimed “criminal overlord” liked to observe “his city”. The biggest shock was to get to the top through the thousands of stairs only to find out that the man just used a lift to leave the place for the very late dinner. The following loop was filled with violence and crushed lifts. Fortunately, this time he had no such problems. On the other hand, some of the latter tried to find him.
“Hey, moron, are you lost?” Appearing from the shadows, the man asked, while demonstratively playing with a baseball bat.
“It’s a bad idea for the sheep to walk into a den with wolves,” the other one added, grinning with a wide smile that showed the absence of several teeth. Putting his hands on the waist, he exposed the gun.
“Are you two alone? Oh, I see, there are more…,” Nodding to himself, Robert caught a glimpse of more moving figures among the shadows, “Mind inviting them to save my time?”
“So, you are the super who isn’t scared us, mere mortals, right? Boys, come out, we have another costumed freak, trying to show off his new abilities,” not batting an eye and without a hint of fear, the man with a baseball bat called loudly. Soon, there were at least a dozen criminals around Robert, eyeing him with smiles. At least half of them had a different type of cold weapon, while the other was equipped with more technological guns. One of them had something akin to a laser rifle. This one had kept the distance, pointing the weapon at Robert and putting his finger on the trigger, ready to shoot at any moment.
“Is it all? Or do you have more inside?” Rob asked calmly, continuing to hide his face under the hood.
“Oh, we do have MANY more, but…,” Even before the man with a bat managed to end his speech, the wielder of the laser rifle shot, making a tiny hole in Rob’s chest. Or precisely speaking, in his clothes. The powerful concentrated energy still managed to leave a small mark on his skin, signifying how destructive the beam was… for everyone apart from Robert.
“Well, that was rude… Okay, I have a suggestion,” A following intensive wave of bullets tore the fabric that covered his grayish body, exposing it to the lights of the night city, but failing to do anything else, “I am trying to be a better man, so I don’t want… Okay, you know, fuck it. It’s time to die, retards!”