Victor returned to Angel Heights and spread the communication Seeds among the rest of the settlements. That helped them to get on the same level, and wherever the Wielders were needed, they went.

While that went on, Amadeus’ children and the Wielders he’d brought with him set themselves up in an abandoned mall. The building had to be cleared out of monsters first, but they brought part of it back online with Amadeus’ help.

There, they cleaned up the place and made it a home over the next few months. And so did many other people. As it turned out, the more they helped around the city, the more people came out of hiding. They offered their services and set up little hovels inside of the mall, helping to expand the place and bring it back to life.

The mall became a hub of activity over the coming months, and the monsters seldom came close. When they did, Wielders were on watch making sure they were eradicated. But those Wielders were limited, and Victor had to find a way to increase their numbers.

That was compounded by the end of the year, when the first of the angels broke through the Gate and flew through the skies.

****

“Take him down!” Victor shouted at his allies. All flavours of magic flew in the air to smite the flying angel. The monster’s armour made it difficult, however, and they were forced to jump to another building.

A beam of light crashed through the apartment complex they’d been standing on, levelling it instantly. Victor turned to look at the Angelo who caused it, the monster smiling in his face.

He shot more bullets into those eyes. The Angel flinched at the impact, and then focused solely on him.

More light beams fell and Victor had to struggle to avoid them. he fired blades and bullets to ail the monster, but it kept up.

This one was much stronger than the one that had given him his Ant-to-Man Tesseract. Loki let loose a flying slash that clipped the monster’s wings, and it fell a long distance before recovering.

That was enough for Victor, however, who jumped off with helicoptering blades around his forearm. He landed on the Angelo’s back and doubled his size immediately. Then he popped more blades from his hands and slashed down at the base of the monster’s wings.

“You insolent-!” it screamed at him before the shout slowed and slurred.

Victor’s slowdown gave Amadeus just enough time to fire up his thunderstorm. The dark clouds gathered over the Angelo’s head, and Victor grabbed his wings. He held them up to the skies where the clouds gathered and thunder fell upon them with vigorous force.

The monster screamed in defiance, but it was done. It careened towards the street and broke apart the concrete.

Victor jumped off and the rest of his forces finished off the monster. They only truly stopped when in the remains of its body, three Seeds materialized.

****

“You want to send in miners?” Audrey asked him. she was only one head of the coalition they’d built, but the biggest among them.

“The Altesians were inside mining for Seeds. We’re going to go back and overtake that operation. Bring back those Seeds for our own use,” Victor explained.

“What if more of the angels break through once you’re gone?” Audrey asked.

Victor winced. It was a trade-off he’d have to make. They needed more Wielders, especially as more of the Angelos came through. He just hoped the Seeds they’d get from it would be worth it.

“I’ll make sure there’re enough here to defend the place,” Victor said.

“You’ll be going into their territory. If they find out the operation, they’ll kill you for it,” Audrey told him.

“Which is why they’re not going to figure it out. You know just as well as me that not enough Seeds are coming through the mines, Audrey. We’re going to need to do something or the monsters are going to overwhelm us.”

By the end of the week the first patrols were sent out. Some went through the Gates laid around Los Angeles to find old mining points the Altesians had used while others made their way further out into the desert, where the Gates would connect to the Deltani Plains.

****

More months passed as the force bolstered. Victor and Lillie were up helping Mrs. Wilson move her things to the mall.

“It just doesn’t feel homey,” she grumbled the entire way.

Victor placed the old woman’s memorabilia across the tables. Lillie was across from them, re-opening a clinic that had closed down way before the Fall.

“Home’s where the people are, Mrs. Wilson,” Victor replied as he swept an arm around him.

With the number of people running around, people would be remiss to think it was anything but a normal day at the mall. But when you looked closer, saw the gauntness in the cheeks, the dirt and grime underneath fingernails and food courts, you’d realize it was all a desperate facsimile of the real thing.

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“And the people are here, whether I like it or not,” Audrey replied.

“It’s better defended too,” Victor told her.

“Talk about something, anything else, boy. A single-track mind on survival can’t be good for you,” Mrs. Wilson said.

“…What would you want me to talk about?” he asked as he hung up clothes in a closet. The old fashion shop made for a good place for the old woman.

“That lass Lillie, for one. Take her out somewhere,” Audrey said.

“Sure, but help me out here with the choices. The Vintaric-infested cinemas or the waterpark clogged by Metamorph clay?” Victor asked.

“A small place in the mall, where you can have a proper dinner,” Audrey replied.

He shrugged. There was no point in either until they were safe. He didn’t have time to dally around and play at dating. It wouldn’t be fair to the people around him.

He could probably date anyone he wanted. All for the feelings to fade as soon as time itself reset. And then what would the Timewalker have left? Some feelings for a person that no longer exists, and a painful reminder in them for the next loops.

He liked Lillie. He could admit that. But he couldn’t bring himself to get any closer, knowing that.

Someone came running down the wide corridor of the mall and skidded to a stop.

“Mr. Victor!” the man shouted. By his gun, Victor could tell he was one of his guards.

“What’s wrong?”

“Someone broke into the garages! The cars are all destroyed!” he told him.

Victor glanced over at Audrey, who nodded back to him. He set down the clothes and came running out of the mall.

****

Burnt. Right to a crisp. The building had collapsed in on itself and was swarming with Vintarics afterwards. Victor watched from afar, stood upon a building along with many of his new Wielders.

“Damned Vintarics…” one of the soldiers cursed.

Out of a portal on his side came Professor Cooper, who looked on the scene with vague interest.

“What do you think, Professor?” Victor asked him.

“Did you keep your guns in there with the cars?”

“No?”

“Then it clearly wasn’t them,” Cooper concluded.

Though when they observed for a while longer, something popped out of the wreckage. One of the Vintarics swept aside a large pile of rocks and grabbed a M-16 out of the rubble. It chomped down on it with glee, like it was the first good meal it had had in years.

“If you didn’t plant those guns on the cars, then who did?” Cooper asked.

“That’s what I want to know too. The answer doesn’t seem like it’s going to be pleasant,” Victor replied.

“A Thinker Metamorph could accomplish it,” Cooper suggested.

“Most of them have been trying to get us out of the city, Professor. Whoever did this, I think they want to keep us in,” Victor concluded.

Their transports were sacked. Amadeus was the one to despair most, as he’d recently just filled up their batteries for the future. Victor grew more anxious afterwards, and more signs appeared all around him.

As the months passed and people came to Los Angeles for asylum, he found that the character of some was shifty. Thefts started happening around the mall and associated settlements around the city.

It was small at first, but as their influence around the city expanded and they retook more and more from the monsters, it increased. What bothered Victor the most, above anything, was that most of them were military.

That only pointed to one conclusion in his mind, one that was confirmed after a long night.

****

They’d taken back a quarter of the city by that point. It was a huge feat, and they even had a Gate in the middle of it to show their dominance. Walls were set up along the perimeter, though they did little against anything that wasn’t a basic monster.

Whenever an Angel dared to show its face around the Gate, Wielders would bombard it so heavily with magic the corpse would drop within the second. After a while, they seemed to have learned their lesson, when the people of Los Angeles started sending bodies back with their wings clipped and Seeds harvested.

That’s when Jeffords arrived.

His storm came first, and Victor could feel him even through the thick of its dust. He could hear the roars of the engines from his position on the outskirts of the city, see the clash that was going to happen. And he hated it.

Hated because he knew what he’d have to sacrifice.

“Move into position!” Victor shouted for his soldiers.

Wielders who he’d trained to fight against all manner of creatures. They fell from the buildings and formed a bulwark against the coming storm. And they fired their magic inside.

A rainbow of lights impacted the dust storm and the first car in the lead spiked into the ground. It dulled the pursuit of the cars behind it. At that point the dust storm faded, revealing the full might of the army that Jeffords had brought forward to him.

Victor stood at the helm of his force in wait. He wouldn’t admit it for many years after, but he’d already given up on this loop right then and there.

Jared stood beside him in full armour then. The boy was much taller than the first time Victor had met him, and wore the armour as it had moulded around him.

“When do we go?” Jared asked as a greatsword materialized in his arms.

“Now,” Victor replied.

Portals opened up to carry them across the battlefield. Others flew over the terrain entirely to reach the approaching vehicles. Walls rose up for the cars to crash into and the enemy Wielders kicked up a concentrated storm to send their way.

Victor came for those storm generators. He fired his ignistone and frigustone pistols into their backs, uncaring of whether they saw him. He cut them down without giving them a word in edgewise.

A moment’s hesitation could’ve cost him his life. He wouldn’t let that happen. He jumped between the cars as they moved, digging into their metal with blades extended from his feet. The drivers died iced over and their cars went awry. Victor would then jump to the next and continue.

The fighting only grew fiercer the closer they got to the city. Victor wouldn’t let them reach it, not without a fight.

He kept jumping between cars in search of Jeffords’. Between one of his jumps, he got carried into the air by the dust storm. The cloud of dirt around his waist formed into a hand and a face came out of the storm.

“Victor Amadi! Stop at once and surrender! You will not be given a second chance!” the voice boomed out of the clouds.

Victor freed an arm from the storm and fired bullets into the centre of the storm. They whizzed right past its incorporeal form, leaving no impact.

“Blow off,” Victor cursed as blades popped out of his forearm. They spun around in a fan and pushed away the dust. Victor Enlarged the blades and it dispersed even further, before the storm finally let him go.

He fell onto the ground behind the brigade of cars. Victor rolled around on the ground for a while before finally pushing himself onto his feet.

The cars ran ahead of him, but the storm persisted. Dirt and sand coiled around his legs, moving in in front of him. It coalesced into the form of a large titan from Greek myth, before screaming in his face.

Its fist came slamming down right in front of him. it shook the ground and made him bounce. But Victor wasn’t paying attention to the monster.

His eyes were solely on the line of Wielders hidden behind it, the puppet-masters pulling the strings of the colossus.

He took aim at them, and fired his guns.