Victor came out the other end of the portal coughing. It was as if he’d been drained of his power in a single moment.

His feet slipped and Victor fell forwards. Right into Lillie’s arms.

“Victor…” she said sadly.

“Oh… hhey, Lil, don’ kill the Professa, pleaz?” he muttered to her with slurred words.

She glared up at Cooper but relented.

“Sure. At least until you explain yourself,” she told him.

Victor was dragged along with her to one of the cars. He was laid down and they left quickly afterwards. And though he knew Jeffords was on his tail, Victor couldn’t help but collapse into sleep at that exact moment.

****

The car jumped. Victor jolted awake when it came back down, and he scrambled up to find the source of the commotion. That’s when he noticed that instead of the red and yellow sands that had surrounded them in New Columbia, they instead had a lush forest surrounding the road.

“I’m sorry, sir. Madam Lillie said we have to be quick,” the driver told him.

He pulled out a water bottle and handed it gently over to Victor without taking his eyes off of the road.

Victor was confused, but more than that he was thirsty. He emptied the bottle before he speaking another word.

“Quick enough for what?” he asked in his half-woken state.

“To stay ahead of the New Columbians,” the driver replied.

Victor noted then that Lillie and Amadeus weren’t with him. They were on the other cars instead, keeping vigil in case of an attack.

“They’ll want to know you’re awake. I’ll contact them,” the driver said.

He picked up a walkie-talkie from his chest.

“No need,” Victor replied.

I’m alive, Victor Whispered into the winds, a message to Lillie, Amadeus and Cooper. The rest would find out once they stopped.

As soon as the message reached their ears, Victor heard a command come over the walkie-talkie.

“There’s a forest to our right. Let’s find a clearing and stop there,” Lillie spoke with static.

“Understood,” the driver replied.

Victor watched the cars veer away from the main road and into the forests. When they finally discovered a spot to rest, they stopped their cars and some of the Wielders helped hide their location.

Victor came out of the car on shaky legs. Guess I’m still not 100%.

His friends surrounded him in an instant afterwards. They bombarded him with questions left and right, and he could barely parse a word between them.

“Can I get something to eat first?” he asked.

“Right, sorry, Vic,” Amadeus said.

They brought out some more rations and Victor wolfed them down immediately. Amadeus and Lillie watched him eat but didn’t join in, and in between the both of them Professor Cooper and his friend sat.

When Victor was done, Lillie spoke up.

“Now, can you tell us what these two were doing with you?” Lillie asked.

“Bit harsh to speak like that,” Cooper said. Lillie gave him an incredulous look. She’d just heard the pot call the kettle black in person.

“They saved me from Jeffords, Lil. Only I don’t know why,” Victor replied.

“I thought the reason would be quite obvious, since you figured it out yourself. Do tell me, which of your Seeds gives you that ability you demonstrated back at the camps?” Cooper asked him. “I don’t think it was one I saw you use before.”

“It was something I unlocked recently. I guess I must’ve forgotten to tell you about it,” Victor looked away.

“Hmmm, quite. Is it a Synergy or something only related to one Seed? Or maybe three, though those are quite a bit rarer th-”

“You can quiz him on the specifics later, Professor,” Lillie interrupted his tirade, which annoyed the Professor.

“Jeffords was manipulating the populace into subservience. And you didn’t agree with him, I guess,” Victor repeated.

“Even I’ve a limit. So I grabbed my personal assistant, Edward, and took off,” the professor replied.

Edward gave a little shake of his hands but didn’t speak.

“Now Jeffords has another reason to hunt us down,” Amadeus said to himself.

“He’d have done that regardless. I do hope you know what you’re doing, Victor, now that you’ve angered him. He won’t be easy to lose,” Cooper told him.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

“I’ll try my best. And you? what do you plan on doing?” Victor asked.

Victor saw the professor take on an expression that was alien to him. Sadness.

“I’ll have to catalogue my research from the start again. It’s going to be an arduous process. And finding the equipment will be no easier…” Professor Cooper explained.

An opportunity presented itself there to Victor. Something he could use in future loops. After all, if he had someone to research the Fall and its effects, maybe they could even find a systematic solution to preventing it?

“You were their main researcher on Seeds and everything on the other side of the Gates. Do you think, if provided the materials, you could help close them down?” Victor asked.

“I can’t promise anything so grand, Victor. But I can offer my expertise. I want those monsters gone as much as anyone else. And I’m willing to do a lot in that pursuit,” Cooper replied. A cold silence fell upon the both of them as Victor considered the man’s words.

Then he offered his hand to the Professor.

“I’ll take any help I can get. We’d be welcome to have you, Professor,” Victor told the man.

Cooper took Victor’s hand in his own and shook it awkwardly.

Afterwards, Victor grilled him on information dating back to the start of the Fall. With it, he’d know where the Professor was and how to get him to join his group. That’d make all his future endeavours much easier.

Once they were done and the drivers rested, they continued. Their destination hadn’t changed, even if the circumstances had. They needed to get to Los Angeles, and help them however they could.

****

When the broken Hollywood sign appeared on the horizon again, Victor was almost glad to see it. Despite the fact it had dilapidated further in the time he’d been gone.

Their cars drove only to the outskirts of the city, and stuck there to avoid the Vintarics that would be swarming around. Or would have been swarming around, but Victor could scarcely see a single one.

What’s going on? Even at the start of the loop, there’d been none. He’d thought they were just slow to roll in this time. Some sort of butterfly effect, but they were just not present.

In their place were just a variety of Metamorphs. Some small that rolled across the ground while others took to the skies in flight. Victor got out of his car and led his group through the streets in small groups.

It was better for them if they scouted out separate areas of the city. Victor had taken the direct route to Angel Heights, whereas the other ones would be searching around the city for other disparate groups of survivors and connecting them.

In Victor’s group stuck the people that he trusted most. That, and the Professor. He prowled through the streets with his pistols in hand, waiting for a Metamorph to jump out at him.

When the manhole cover ahead of him began to shake and tumble, Victor aimed his guns at it.

The cover popped like the cork of a wine bottle into the skies, and out of it came flying a giant Metamorph Brute that popped its skin in screams.

Victor would’ve shot down the beast right then and there had the monster not stopped. It stopped popping its skin, and reverberations went across its half-formed body.

And then the top half of the Metamorph slid off its bottom. It fell onto the street in clumps, its core cut in half.

What the…

Victor watched the Metamorph collapse before his eyes. He looked at his teammates, wondering which one of them had been the ones to end the monster. They looked just as surprised as him.

A figure dropped to the ground ahead of him. Human this time, and with a face Victor recognized.

“Loki?” Victor asked.

“Hello there, Victor,” the man said in a casual tone. He walked up to the Metamorph’s corpse with quick and measured steps, waiting for a Seed to materialize out of its body.

“That was you?” Victor asked. It’d only been a year. How did the man take out a Metamorph Brute in a single hit. Even he hadn’t been able to do that, not even with his Weaponsmith Heart. Not until he was at the tail end of his life.

“It is a surprise to see you as well. Audrey had almost given up hope,” Loki replied to him.

He looked different to Victor then. Taller, stronger in some ways and more worldly. There was a dangerous edge to him that he’d lacked before, and a fullness in his eyes. In some ways he seemed more alive than before.

“Where did you… get that kind of power?”, Victor asked. Perhaps it wasn’t the most important thing to ask in the moment, but his curiosity got the better of him.

In response, more Metamorphs flooded out of the markets around them.

“It seems they were expecting an ambush,” Loki replied. There was nary a hint of worry in his eyes.

He could take them on and still come out the victor. Something Victor felt jealous of.

“We’ll talk after this,” Victor said, shooting a few Metamorphs ahead of him.

“Of course,” Loki replied. He flicked his hand and an arc of invisible force cleaved the monsters in front of him.

Show off.

****

The monsters proved no trouble for them at all. The streets were covered in the mud of their bodies as they left the scene.

They reached Angel Heights soon after. The building looked in better condition. It was boarded up, and Victor could see the surrounding buildings were similarly locked.

He strode up to the door and tried to remember the sequence of knocks, but Loki put them in for him instead.

The door opened and Umer answered, the bearded man smiling when he realized Loki had brought along other people.

“Come on in!” he said, and Victor realized he wasn’t holding a gun anymore.

Victor entered and was pleased to see the inside was in good shape. There were still children running around, but their voices didn’t reach outside.

They listened. He was glad.

Audrey herself came down from the steps to greet them, beaming when she saw Lillie. She ran for her first, grabbing her in a hug that squeezed her tight. Lillie and her laughed together for a good while.

“You can let go now, Mrs. Wilson. I’m fine, I promise!” she replied. Audrey replied by grabbing the sides of her face.

“Are you sure? You look so gaunt!” she said.

Dean came down after her, scratching his head.

“She just needs some food in her system. Ain’t the lass’ fault she can’t find any,” he said.

“I’m working to amend that, Mr. Wilson,” Loki said respectfully. The old Irishmen waved him away.

“You need your own fill, lad, what with all the running around you do,” he said.

Audrey then turned to Victor and the two guns that hung by his side.

“You’ve been gone for a good long while. Any reason you came back?” she asked him. Her suspicion of him hadn’t faded one bit it seemed, as she scrutinized him with her glare. She also spared a glance for the man in the lab coat and the soldier that hung beside them, but her focus was still mostly on Victor.

“A good long while means a good long number of things I need to tell you…”

Victor and the others were taken to the meeting room they’d used before, with its red couches.

He explained his entire journey up to that point, from the start to their meeting with the Altesians, what happened in Washington and Charleston, as well as the journey back and their encounter with the former President.

All through it, Audrey looked at them with a disbelieving expression that only grew more pronounced as their talks went on. She asked for a demonstration of his powers and Victor obliged, followed by Amadeus and Lillie as well.

When they were done, the old woman had needed a moment, and Victor took his crew with him outside.

“I will help guide your people back to Angel Heights, though I fear that we won’t have the space. We’ll have to put them in one of the other buildings,” Loki told him.

“That’s fine by me,” Victor said.

He already had a lot of work to do. Nine years of it. And he wasn’t entirely sure they would all go as smoothly as his first.