There was no acting involved with the smile on Vell’s face. A little reluctance, maybe, but no acting. He had to go see the Marine Biologists, which was rarely fun, but he also got to see Skye, which was almost always fun. She was mixing a few different vials of something when Vell found her, which was usually a sign she was about to put the “almost” in that “almost always fun”.

“Hey, Skye, what’re you mixing?”

“Growth serum,” Skye said. In addition to her Marine Biology expertise, Skye was also a little bit of a mad scientist -technically. She’d flunked out of mad scientist school, but she still carried on with her genetic engineering studies.

“Right, is that the growth serum you used on the sea snake or the one you used on the manatee?”

“Sea snake,” Skye said. Vell breathed a sigh of relief. That was the stable formula. “So what are you going to use that one on? And what are the other guys up to?”

Much like Vell, the other loopers were supposed to have stopped in with Skye before heading to the Marine Biology department proper.

“Well, those two facts are kind of related,” Skye said. “First answer, after your friends told me my compatriots were mixing up kraken bait, I started mixing up this.”

Skye patted her various vials of concoctions. Her fellow Marine Biologists had spent the morning mixing up chum to attract fish, which for some reason also included some icelandic fermented shark that apparently worked as kraken bait. No one bothered questioning why the Marine Biologists would do something like that at this point.

“I’m going to give this growth serum to Mindy, she’s a rehab sea otter, and octopus is her favorite. She should be raring to go to fight a kraken,” Skye said. “Which is exactly what I told your new friend with the glasses, right before she called me a lunatic and said she’d handle things herself. The rest of your friends went off to handle her handling it.”

Vell rubbed the bridge of his nose. He wondered if this was what a migraine felt like.

“That sounds like Alex,” Vell said.

“I don’t really understand how recruitment works in that little club of yours, Vell,” Skye said. “But you might want to try for a do-over.”

“If only,” Vell said. “You seem like you’ve got a handle on things. I’m going to go handle them handling her handling it.”

“And I’ll be along soon to handle you handling them handling...I lost track,” Skye said. She gave Vell a kiss on the cheek and then started walking him towards the door. “After all the handling’s been handled, you want to have dinner tonight?”

“I’ll try,” Vell said. “We’ll see how things go.”

----------------------------------------

Things were going well, relatively speaking. For everyone but Alex, at least. The rebellious new looper was dangling in the air, heels swinging, as Kim held her off the ground in an ironclad grip.

“So this is the approach you decided to go with?”

“It’s working, isn’t it?”

“This would be considered assault in some places,” Alex said.

“Yeah yeah, it’s for your own good,” Kim said. “You get another formal complaint and you’re expelled, right? Michael Watkins files formal complaints when people sneeze too loudly.”

The patriarch of the Marine Biology department had a long list of grievances against everyone and everything other than himself, and he liked to make sure the whole world knew it. He’d filed thirteen so far this year, and they were on day two.

“The Dean would understand my reasoning,” Alex said.

“I assure you that he would not,” Kim said.

“Either way, you can put her down now,” Vell said. “We have a plan that does not involve the giant sea otter.”

Kim gently lowered Alex to the ground, and though she eyed the door, Alex did not leave yet.

“But I want the giant sea otter,” Hawke said. “I want to pet it.”

“We all want to pet the giant sea otter, Hawke, but a kaiju battle is a less-than-ideal solution,” Vell said. “Prevention beats a cure. If they have kraken bait, we just get rid of their bait.”

“That was what I was going to do,” Alex protested.

“Yeah, but you were going to do it bad,” Samson said.

“I was not-”

“Do you need me to pick you up again?” Kim asked. “Because I’ll do it. My arms never get tired, kiddo.”

“Enough,” Vell said. “Listen to me. Alex, the Marine Biologists don’t know you yet, so you’re going to be in charge of sabotaging the bait while the rest of us sneak in and distract them by pretending to sabotage something else.”

“I see,” Alex said. “A sensible plan.”

“So the lady who’s done nothing but go rogue gets the most important job in the whole scheme?” Samson asked. “Is that smart?’

“Yes, because of the whole ‘they’ve never seen her before’ thing,” Vell said. “Also, before you act like she’s getting the glamorous job, let me finish. Alex, you’re going to get rid of their rotting fish offal-”

Vell stuck a hand in his bookbag and reached deep into the extra-dimensional storage space Lee had magically built into it. An entire arsenal of relics and remainders from past apocalypses was at his disposal, and the thing he was looking for magically appeared in his grasp at a thought. He pulled his hand out and withdrew a bucket of slimy gray viscera that stunk up the whole room as soon as it appeared.

“-by replacing it with this rotting fish offal,” Vell said. He handed over the stinking bucket to Alex. “No kraken bait included.”

Alex tried not to hurl as she grabbed the handle of chum bucket. Something inside the bucket writhed as it changed hands.

“You just had this lying around?”

“Yes.”

“Is it too late to trade roles with Samson?”

“Yes. Let’s get going, the faster we get this done, the less time you spend holding the bucket,” Vell said. That got Alex moving faster than any motivational speech ever could.

She hustled off in the direction of the Marine Biologist’s supplies while Vell and the others headed for the docks, where the scientists were gathered. The entire crew let out an audible groan as soon as they saw the loopers approaching.

“Good morning Dr. Watkins, long time no see.”

“Doctor Professor Michael Watkins,” he insisted, as he always did. Michael’s obsession with both his titles was obnoxious, but always good for a few seconds of distraction. “What have you come to ruin this time?”

“Nothing, I just wanted to say hi,” Vell said. “It’s been a while, and I haven’t even properly introduced myself to Michael Jr. yet.”

“Don’t make direct eye contact with me,” Michael Jr said.

“Okay. Is that like a personal preference thing, or just because you hate me?”

“Because I hate you,” Michael Jr clarified.

“Alright then. What are you guys up to? Already taking a huge expedition this early in the year?”

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

“Yes, we’re seeking out the fabled land of Nunya Bizness,” Michael Jr said.

“Junior, please,” the elder Michael scolded. “We are his intellectual superiors, our banter cannot be so juvenile. Try again, and do better.”

“Hmm. We’re going on a journey to find...someone who cares about you?”

“An improvement,” Michael Sr said. “I appreciate the implication that Vell is inherently unlovable, but your verbiage should be more scathing to wit.”

“Thanks dad. I’ll keep working on it.”

The father-son bonding moment would’ve been almost heartwarming had it not been centered entirely on insulting Vell. He ignored the casual insults and kept working on the distraction. Alex was still weaving among the boats behind them, working on sabotaging their kraken bait.

“While you’re working on your insults, uh, maybe keep in mind I am, provably, at least a little lovable,” Vell said. “I mean, you work with my girlfriend. Sometimes. You’re leaving her out of this expedition, apparently, which is rude.”

“She’ll keep herself busy,” Michael Sr said. “Mixing concoctions or whatever it is she does. Besides, we don’t have room for her anyway.”

“You are taking literally every boat on campus,” Hawke said. He almost raised his hand to point at the fleet, and then remember Alex was still weaving among them. “You could bring like eighty more people.”

“We need the extra room for...fish,” Junior said. “We’re going to...catch a lot of fish.”

“Why are you saying that like it’s a lie, that’s what you’re doing,” Samson said.

“Our plans are none of your concern,” Michael Senior snapped.

Behind the crowd of Marine Biologists, Alex’s head popped up from behind a boat. She gave a thumbs up and held up an empty bucket before dashing off.

“Actually you know what he’s right we don’t need to know any of this,” Vell said. “Bye Michaels!”

The two Michaels did not bother to say goodbye, only scoffing haughtily as Vell took his friends and left. By the time Vell and company were slinking back into their secret lair, the Marine Biologists had set out, deploying their oversized fleet for a glorified fishing trip. Vell wondered how they’d gotten approval to appropriate the school’s entire research fleet, and then realized they probably hadn’t. Dr. Professor Michael Watkins was the type to ask forgiveness, not permission. Actually, he wasn’t the type to ask for forgiveness either. He just did what he wanted, consequences be damned. Vell had a lot of those kinds of people in his life.

“Alright, good job,” Hawke said to Alex. “Got it done and you don’t even smell that much like fish.”

“Thankfully for us all, I’m incredibly good at magic,” Alex said. She snapped her fingers, and the empty bucket flew across the room and slammed into the open storage locker, which also open and shut magically. “No better way to avoid getting your hands dirty than not using them.”

“Oh, great,” Vell said. “We’ve been lacking magic know-how since Lee graduated.”

“You should’ve mentioned that earlier,” Alex said. “I’ll happily assume the role of magic expert.”

“Oh, it’s not like a role, we just do what we’re best at,” Vell said. “I’m the rune guy, uh, and I’m in charge, Kim handles the punching, Hawke and Samson handle communications and computer technology-”

“About as irrelevant as you’d expect, most of the time,” Hawke said. Samson nodded in agreement.

“And you just speak up whenever you’ve got magic know-how,” Vell said. “Just do what you can when you need to.”

“An informal and vaguely communist organizational structure, but I suppose it can be effective,” Alex said. “Will that be all for the day? I have coursework I’d like to catch up on.”

“Yeah, we should be good, go do some studying. Schoolwork is still important.”

Alex nodded and then shouldered her pack to leave. It jingled.

For a moment, Vell contemplated jingling. Her backpack had not jingled earlier, which was suspicious. Things didn’t start jingling randomly, but there were also a lot of reasons things could start jingling. There might not be a problem, and even if there was a problem, maybe it didn’t have to be Vell’s problem.

Vell rolled his eyes. Everything ended up his problem. Might as well have it be on purpose.

“Alex. Why did your bag jingle?”

Alex immediately stopped in her tracks and shifted her backpack to the shoulder further from Vell.

“Is that any of your business?”

“It’s a little bit my business,” Vell said. “And it became more my business when you started acting suspicious.”

“Incorrect on both counts,” Alex said. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Alex, what did you do?”

Alex did not dignify Vell with a response, but she did stop in her tracks when Kim placed herself between Alex and the exit.

“All this for some loose change?”

“If that’s all it is, show me a handful of quarters,” Kim said. “I’ll get out of your way. I’ll even say sorry.”

There were no eyes on Kim’s face to glare with, but the intensity of her voice carried the message all the same. Alex froze in place. Kim did, after all, handle the punching.

“Fine. I acted in compliance with rule two.”

“Rule two?”

“Yes, your rule two,” Alex said, as if she was offended they had forgotten. “Without significant change to the timeline, events will repeat themselves.”

“Oh god, what did you do?”

“I had concerns that your plan to switch out the bait was lacking,” Alex said. “If there were bait stockpiles we weren’t aware of, or any residue was left over-”

Kim lost patience, grabbed Alex by the backpack, and stuck her hand into the pouch the jingling had come from. She pulled out a handful of loose metal components, most of them still stained with engine grease.

“Alex! Did you sabotage the boats?”

“Only the engines,” Alex said. “And all non-critically. They’ll work long enough to get offshore before the Marine Biologists realize the problem and turn around.”

“Alex,” Kim said. She snatched the new looper by the shoulders and held her aloft for the second time today. “They’re run by a megalomaniac! They’re not going to turn around!”

“Well that’s not my fault.”

Kim slammed Alex back onto the ground and pushed her away.

“God, I can’t believe you’re making me rescue Marine Biologists,” Kim snapped. In spite of that protest, Kim still ran out the door and towards the beach.

“They’ll be fine,” Alex protested.

“They took every boat for two-thousand miles and now they’re dead in the water,” Samson said. “What part of that sounds fine?”

“I’m sorry, aren’t these Marine Biologists supposed to be the villains. Why do you care what happens to them?”

“They’re not evil, they’re just dicks,” Vell groaned. “We say mean things about them, we don’t leave them to die adrift at sea.”

Vell ran off to save the Marine Biologists, though even he would admit he was doing so reluctantly.

----------------------------------------

“You know, when you called me,” Skye said. “I was really hoping it’d be for a date.”

“Is this not a romantic evening?”

Skye managed a chuckle at that as her giant sea otter towed another boat back to shore. Between the power of modern technology and the power of a genetically modified giant otter, they had been able to locate all of the Marine Biology department’s drifting boats and start towing them back to shore. There was only one boat left to save now, and Skye had saved the worst for last.

“Next time bring some candles,” Skye advised. “And leave the Michaels out of it.”

“I’m pretty sure I can do both of those.”

“Aren’t I a lucky girl,” Skye said. She hopped on the back of Mindy the giant sea otter and headed out for one last rescue mission. Vell waved goodbye and turned his attention to the rapidly growing fleet of disabled boats. He had to find a way to return all those missing parts and repair the damage without anyone getting suspicious. Or more suspicious than they already were, at least. An entire fleet of ships didn’t just randomly stop working. He was not good at improvising elaborate cover stories, so he turned to his friends.

“Okay, what’s our cover for this one?”

“What cover?” Kim asked. “Alex did it. Why bother saying anything else?”

“I don’t know, I just thought-”

“Vell, if it weren’t for you she’d be expelled already,” Kim said. “And instead of appreciating that and behaving, she disobeyed you and sabotaged school equipment. She’s endangering people, Vell.”

“I kind of agree,” Hawke said. “We’ve already got a lot to deal with, Vell, and Alex is going to make it worse. Let’s just let her face the consequences.”

“Oh wait, actually, I have an idea,” Samson said. “What if instead of Alex, we find a way to blame this on Helena?”

“What?”

“Look, Helena’s probably more evil and destructive than Alex is, right?” Samson said. “But she kept her shit on the first loop where there’s no evidence, so it’ll be hard to get rid of her. We can blame this on Helena and get her expelled, and then Alex will do another dumb thing tomorrow and get herself expelled too. Alex is bad, Helena’s bad, we use them against each other and we don’t have to deal with either of them!”

Kim turned to Vell, expecting to find him already formulating an idea. Instead, she found him with a hand on his chin and wrinkles on his forehead.

“Oh, he’s thinking,” Hawke said. “Four wrinkles already.”

“He better be thinking of ways we can ditch them,” Samson said. Knowing Vell, there was a decent chance he was going to start yapping about some plan to redeem both women and make them better people. Samson would probably be convinced by it, so he took time to hate the idea while he still could.

“You know, just once I’d like to beat you to the scene of a disaster,” Dean Lichman said. He shuffled up to the docks and examined the arrays of boats with a sigh. “First a hole in a laboratory wall, now an entire fleet disabled. What was it this time?”

All eyes turned to Vell. He spent a few more seconds in forehead-wrinkling thought, and then snapped to attention.

“I think it was laziness, actually,” Vell said. “Somebody tried to use magic to repair all the engines at once and it ended up backfiring.”

“Vell-”

“We’ll see about finding if the pieces got teleported somewhere, or they all disintegrated, or what,” Vell said, cutting off Kim’s protest. “It looks like they all got warped somewhere, though, so hopefully we’ll be able to get all the engines fixed.”

“Very well,” Dean Lichman said. “I’ll leave you to your...whatever it is you do.”

The undead faculty head nodded deferentially and then walked away from the docks before Michael got back and made the bad situation much worse. Kim and her two human friends huddled in around Vell.

“What the fuck was that, Vell,” Samson demanded. “That doesn’t get rid of Alex or Helena!”

“I know,” Vell said. Kim tilted her metal head and stared at Vell like she was trying to see through him, and she did.

“You have a plan, don’t you?”

“Yes. And not just a plan,” Vell said. “I would go so far as to call it a scheme.”

“Oh, now I’m intrigued,” Kim said, as she rubbed her hands together with anticipation. Vell was not generally the scheming type.

“Alright, well, step one,” Vell began hesitantly. “We need Alex and Helena to stay.”

“Not off to a great start, bud,” Samson said.

“It gets better,” Vell mumbled. He hoped it did, at least.