Victor jerked back in his sofa. There was a can of coke in his hands and his TV was playing the news.

Back here again… he sighed. But at least there was one change Victor could look for.

He opened up the menu like it was second nature to him.

[

NAME: Victor Amadi

AGE: 26

SEEDS: [[Timewalker’s Origin]]

[[ ]]

[[ ]]

[[ ]]

[[ ]]

STATS:

STRENGTH: 40

SPEED: 20

SENSES: 17

RECOVERY: 25

SENSE OF TIME: 41

ABILITIES:

(Timewalker’s Origin): [Unlock Sense of Time] [Anchor Placement] [Carryover Bestiary] [Carryover Item Compendium] [Sense of Time Boost x 5] [Strength Boost x 4] [Speed Boost] [Recovery Boost] [Senses Boost] [Slowdown]

]

He could already feel the strength from the boosts in his veins. He could outlift anyone on the face of the planet if he pushed himself to it. If only it wouldn’t matter in a few hours.

Victor thought as he walked. He grabbed all of the non-perishable foods in his pantry and texted Amadeus at the same time.

It was therapeutic. It was insane he thought of preparing for the apocalypse as such, but it was.

Victor texted a few people whose numbers he remembered. That would help put them where he needed them. then he fired up his Mustang and ran the same course as before across the city.

This time he didn’t leave for the park Amadeus worked at. He didn’t need to, when Am would come right to him instead.

****

Victor tapped his fingers on his side as people rushed all around him. A few Vintaric corpses lay around him, remnants of the ones that had tried to eat him up after the Fall. It’d been hard, especially since he only had knives at this point and not the dual pistols he sorely missed from his previous loop.

I’ll have to figure out where those come from. Grab them every time. The list of things he needed to track kept increasing. That wasn’t a good sign at all.

He’d cleared the little shop he’d taken refuge in and waited afterwards for the gun store across the street.

In a few moments, it would be visited by a special kind of Vintaric. One that would bring with it the Weaponsmith Heart.

He hadn’t missed it as much in his later years as he thought he would, but its presence would still be reassurance to Victor. His bullets were little more than pellets to his enemies at the end of his previous loop. He’d come to rely much more on his blades and shrinking powers to make do instead.

But I guess I have neither right now… he looked up when shattered glass sprayed across the pavement.

That’s my cue, Victor thought as he held up the knife he’d used. Maybe he should’ve brought a gun instead, but he’d wanted to keep the shop open in case it affected the Vintaric’s judgement.

Victor walked in through the door as quietly as he could, but it still noticed him. before it could take an action, Victor touched it and slowed it down. The bug moved sluggishly to attack him and Victor dodged to the side.

“Hope you’re the right one,” Victor said.

“Iiiiiiiiiii…. Ammmmmmmmm….”

Victor plunged the knife into its head.

“Sounds like what I remember,” Victor said idly.

He then kicked the writhing body into a rack of guns and watched it die. A Seed materialized out of the top of its body and Victor smiled for the first time in ages.

He plucked the mechanical beating heart away from the Vintaric and took it into himself once more.

[Seed Integrated: Weaponsmith Heart]

[Ability Unlocked: Unlock Structural Sense]

[Ability Unlocked: Basic Strengthening]

[Ability Unlocked: Ammo Counter]

The same familiar abilities greeted him like an old friend. But this time, they came with something a little extra.

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[Ability Unlocked: Time Bullet – Slowdown]

People shouted outside and Victor had to stop himself from running out. It was always a pain forgetting the habits he’d built up. Were it him from the last loop, he could’ve taken on the entire invasion single-handedly.

Or maybe I’d become another corpse floating in the lake…

He slammed the magazine into his twin pistols. These would have to do for the time being.

Victor walked out of the store while taking a look at his new ability.

[[Time Bullet - Slowdown]: (Requirement: Timewalker’s Origin) You can use Slowdown through your weapons, but its effectiveness is reduced by half.]

A Vintaric swarm was rushing overhead. They chased a poor fool who cradled his cut arm to his chest. Victor stepped to the side to let the man go and faced the crowd behind him. He felt both of his Seeds trigger, and their magic flow right into the pistols.

The first bullet pierced through the Vintaric’s body. It slowed behind the other Vintarics and Victor smiled. He unloaded the entire magazine into them.

The monsters slowed significantly, but it only made them change targets. Their eyes fixed on the single human who’d dared to go against them.

They tried to surround him but he ran. The bugs gave chase easily, and were picked off just as easily.

Victor’s speed, his training and his abilities let him take care of the bugs with ease. He stabbed into them with knives, blew holes in their heads and crushed them with his fists. By the time he was done, a large pile of corpses lay in the middle of the street.

Unfortunately for him, that was the end of his revelry. He heard the heavy stomps of a Wetajha Vintaric following soon after. The large beetle-like Vintaric hadn’t spotted him yet, but it wouldn’t be long before he did.

****

Victor’s car pulled up beside a closed park. There was a disappointed blonde sitting on the curb with a harrowed expression his face.

“Amadeus? Are you alright?” Victor asked from his seat.

“You… you’re the one who called me?” Amadeus replied. He had not a hint of recognition on his face. Victor wouldn’t get used to the pain that caused him. But he gave him a slight smile anyways.

“Yeah. I hope I got there in time,” Victor told him.

“We locked up early after the call. No one trapped inside. But now the place is infested with… them,” Amadeus said, pointing behind him.

“The place was supposed to make people happy, kids and adults alike. They’ve turned it into a wasteland in just a few hours,” Amadeus said angrily.

“Want to change that? Cull them all?” Victor asked him as he stepped out of his Mustang.

“What are you on about? These aren’t just normal bugs I’m talking about, you know?”

“Oh I do. I’ve got a special kind of poison for these ones,” Victor said as he pulled out his pistols.

“Am, get the gate for me,” Victor asked.

Amadeus sighed and stood up from the curb. He had a ring of keys around his belt that he used to unlock the chains around the amusement park.

There wasn’t any of the turmoil and discarded costumes and toys on the footpath of the park like last time. Instead, it was a cozy kind of infestation, with Vintarics clinging to benches and buildings like bugs usually did. Their antennae twitched in response to Victor’s arrival, but he had accounted for that.

Amadeus stuck close by behind him, rarely speaking.

He shot the first of them with his Strengthened pistols. It fell from the wall and the others were alerted to his presence.

“What are you doing!” Amadeus asked, exasperated.

“Trust me on this.”

Victor fired more bullets into the Vintarics, piercing shells and slowing down others. He handed off one of the AR-15s to Amadeus and showed him how to fire it slowly.

“You’re a good shot, you just need time to practice,” he advised as the blonde youth held the rifle in shaky hands.

“You’re insane… what am I doing around you…” Amadeus spoke with widened, shocked eyes.

As they carved their path deeper into the park, they found it was only the simplest of Vintarics that greeted them. there were a few of the Mariticide Adolescents, but their claws were no match for him.

They reached the end of the park, where benches were piled on high in a small hill. Atop it lay a single Vintaric, who looked more confident than its peers.

It didn’t make a grand speech towards him. But Victor knew it was the one when its screams produced sparks in the air.

“Unload the whole magazine into that one,” Victor ordered Amadeus. He was so out of it he obeyed, and Victor had to remind himself to be a bit softer the next go around.

The bug tried to shoot lightning in their way but Victor slowed it down. He shoved Amadeus behind a stand while he continued unloading his gun. When he was out, he rushed in with his knife and gutted the creature as quickly as he could.

Green blood sprayed all over him and a Seed materialized just moments after he was done.

Victor quickly jumped down from the pile and threw it to Amadeus before hurrying back to his car.

“Use that, come quick. We don’t have all day!” Victor shouted for him.

When Amadeus wouldn’t listen, he dragged the man by his collar and shoved him into the car. they’d have plenty of time to talk on the drive to Los Angeles.

****

Picking up Loki was easy. He was barricaded behind some tables in his office. They threw a fire extinguisher at Victor but he caught it easily enough. He helped the other survivors along to someplace he knew would fill with survivors and took off with Loki.

“You were that scammer this afternoon?” Loki asked him.

“Am I much of a scammer when what I told you was going to happen, happened?” Victor fired back.

“You could’ve eased me into it.”

“I’m not going to take this from someone who doesn’t even have a Seed yet,” Victor muttered under his breath as he put his foot on the pedal.

“You should be more careful…” Isabelle said timidly from the backseat. She had no Seed either, but Victor had felt bad leaving her behind.

When they drove down the road to Los Angeles, Victor lamented the wasted time. Loki and her were relegated to being innocents he was having to protect since they’d missed out on their Seeds.

Doesn’t matter. I’ll get them new ones. Hell, maybe even better ones.

They arrived near the fallen city that hosted Angel Heights and Victor let out a breath of relief. This would be where the bulk of his work would be done. And he wanted to get a head start on it.

****

[Ability Unlocked: Structural Sense Boost]

[Ability Unlocked: Structural Sense Boost]

[Ability Unlocked: Strength Boost]

Victor shot down the Metamorph with prejudice. He was gaining his boosts quicker this time around, and he couldn’t place why. Maybe it was just an old muscle he needed to practice once again to get the gist of the Seed.

If that were true, that’d mean he could go back to his other Seeds as well, and progress them further too…

“Victor?” Isabelle asked him as she traversed the dangerous caves of Angel Falls.

They were on the first mission again. Daphne was alive and well, and Lillie was keeping her distance as always. Losing Daphne is what made her closer to Victor, so without it, that path was cut off.

Victor wanted to open it again, but his own motivations warred inside of him. He just had to bear with it for the time being.

They returned successfully from the mission, with the Half-Light Pane in tow and Seeds for the Butcher twins, Victor made his way back to Angel Heights. There he helped the old woman set up defences against the Vintarics once more.

And Vintarics there were. There were a few things he’d changed this go around, but Victor knew the main reason the bugs had arrived in the city was because of him. His Weaponsmith Heart must’ve given off a stink so severe the bugs were attracted to it.

He helped shore up the sound weaknesses around the camp, but that wouldn’t get to the root of the issue. Vintarics were a bigger threat than mere Metamorphs, and that meant Victor had to get rid of them before they could find him and kill him.

That meant he needed to investigate, and that would go by much quicker if he had a certain professor with him.

Victor hopped in a stolen EV and sat Amadeus beside him. He’d warmed up a little to Victor over the last few days, and even more so upon the promise that Victor would save his kids.

Victor just hoped he could deliver that to him. He drove the car as fast as he could, all in the hopes of reaching a better conclusion this go around.