The Rules Of The Loops:
One person in a Loop, often the main character, is an Anchor. They are the person who first starts time looping.
There is always at least one Anchor present in a given Time Loop snippet, though it may not be the local one.
The standard pattern for a Loop is that the Anchor (and whoever else is Looping there) come to awareness in a loop at a particular point in the story. From there, events will play out as influenced by the Loopers present, acting with the benefit of their foreknowledge, until either a predetermined end point is reached or all the Loopers have copped it.
To be Awake is to be aware of the Time Loops (that is, to have gone back in time this time.)
The Anchor is the only character guaranteed to be Awake. Even after others have started Looping, it is mostly random as to whether they will be Awake this particular Loop.
Crossovers, fusions, and alternate pasts can also take place. It is perfectly possible, for example, to have the characters Awaken into a Loop which conforms to a fanfic universe rather than reality.
Loops do not have to be in chronological order, but it is strongly preferred that they not require a mutually contradictory order (where A must be before B and B must be before A.)
Just about every Looper is very, very stir crazy.
1.1
Gurren Lagann
(farsan)
Tales of the Loop: Simon the Digger
My first loops, frankly, were quite a mess. At that time I believed that I was somehow still trapped at the Anti Spirals' labyrinth of alternate dimensions, so I started struggling against them.
True to my Spiral heritage, with every turn of the time, my Spiral power grew stronger, and also learned how to teach my allies how to fully use the Spiral power... until, finally, the universe finally gave way.
As the Anti Spirals had predicted, the sheer amount of Spiral Power concentrated in a small area made the universe collapse unto itself, dragging and destroying everything. In my folly, I believed that I had finally won against the hostile Anti-Universe I was trapped in, triggering the very same thing they had feared.
But I was wrong. Dead wrong.
Before, when I entered fused loops, I just blazed my way defeating any new foe I encountered in my path, trying to 'win' against the alternate dimension in order to fight the Anti Spirals as soon as possible... but after destroying my universe I found myself in a place I wasn't able to ignore.
In that place, the Spiral Power was a force of corruption, a force of obsession, which had started to envelope a small town. I wasn't able to save anyone from their own minds, and when I tried to summon my own Spiral Power to fight the monstrosities the villagers became... I was also infected by the spirals.
I won't tell you my experiences when I was under the influence of the Spiral infection. Suffice to say that, when that loop was over, and I found that my Spiral Energy was still corrupted after I Awoke back at my home village, I did something that I didn't consider doing in a million years.
I surrendered to the enemy. Completely.
As soon as I got Lagann, I made it teleport directly to Nia, who still was Lord Genome's obedient daughter, and I begged her, or rather begged the Anti Spiral's envoy, to dunk me in the Sea of Despair before it was too late.
Anti Spiral Nia was activated, and discovered the evil Spiral strain that I was barely holding in, so she quickly granted my request and teleported me to the Anti Spiral dimension.
I lived the rest of the loop at a small home Anti Spiral created for me at the middle of the Sea of Despair in company of Anti Nia, being drained of every iota of Spiral Power I had accumulated over the loops. Anti Spiral could have made it quite more uncomfortable for me, but I guess that my sacrifice made it respect me, as it reminded it of its own sacrifice.
When I finally ran out of Spiral Energy, and died, I Awoke again at my home village; drained but purified. And I resolved to learn more about the Spiral Power and the force that was keeping me trapped, and in turn I learned about the Loops and the other universes... but that is another story that shall be told another time.
Tales of the Loop: Nia the Messenger
It is... rare that someone finds its way here.
It doesn't matter. As long as you are here, I have an important message to relay. Please listen to it with all your heart.
You want first to know who I am, and what am I doing here?
Fair enough. We have time. If that will make you take the message seriously, then I have no choice but to agree.
Yes, I am already aware that you can detect lies in this realm. Don't worry; every part of this story is the complete truth.
My name is Nia Teppelin.
In my home loop, I was the daughter of Lord Genome. A dutiful daughter and a simple doll. I knew nothing about the outside world, nothing about the humans what were suffering under the surface, nothing about the Anti Spirals that had beaten the humans into submission, and made their leader its own watchdog.
I knew nothing, until everything changed.
A Gunmen, smaller than any other Gunmen I had ever seen before, suddenly appeared before me. From it, a strange boy appeared, and started talking to me about things I couldn't understand, about an evil curse that was eating him from inside.
I knew nothing, but something inside me knew.
I was a simple doll. I knew nothing about hope, I knew nothing about fear, I knew nothing about love. I knew nothing about the fighting spirit which lies within all the bearers of the Double Helix. Not then. And because that, my transition into an Anti Spiral was very easy for me. I immediately accepted my new nature, and my new duty.
And I knew what had to be done.
Before my beastmen guardians could reach us, I teleported Simon, Lagann and myself to the Anti Spiral dimension, and drove them both into the Sea of Despair, just as he asked me.
I created a bubble of air, reduced the perceived gravity, and granted him a normal environment: A home, normal food, and my own presence to give him somebody to talk to. This was done for two reasons: To slow his emission of corrupted Spiral energy, ensuring that we would be able to handle this new strain without risks, and to learn through him the source of the Spiral infection.
At first, he alternated random bursts of insanity (Nothing we couldn't handle), accusations of us creating the Spiral infection to corrupt all the Spiral life forms (As if!) and long, silent periods of depression (Which was a sign of progress, but it didn't answer our questions).
When I finally hammered through his stubborn mind that we had nothing to do with the Spiral Curse, and that he was not within our Labyrinth (We checked twice), he finally started talking about his experiences.
And that was something that not even my new self knew anything about.
To learn about the Loops, even when Simon didn't actually know what was going on, was very conflicting to us. On one hand, we were glad that the universe had safeguards against the Spiral Nemesis, and that it actually survived such an event. On the other hand, that made our sacrifice, and the sacrifice of the rest of Spiral races, worthless.
Still, there were two things we could still do as Anti Spiral. First, we had to locate and neutralize the source of the Spiral corruption, which we had proof that could infect other universes. Also, we could recognize within the Loops a classic Spiral pattern, and that had to be investigated to learn if it could generate a Meta Spiral Nemesis that could destroy the multiverse.
But we couldn't do any of those if we were 'outside the Loop', so to speak.
When Simon's Spiral Energy was almost drained, and he was about to die, Anti Spiral placed me within Simon's spirit with three missions.
The first, and most immediate, was to ensure that the Spiral infection was kept in an embryonic state, and to protect him in case he contacted a bearer of the Curse again.
The second, to learn more about the multiverse, and the Spiral Energy created by the Looping process. So far, I am glad to say that the multiverse, with the current guardians and safeguards, is very stable, and holds little risk of Spiral collapse. Even in the case that an individual gathers enough power to Ascend, causing a local Collapse, the rest of the multiverse is cut off from the worst effects. Still, Anti Spiral will do its best to drain any powerful individual that visits our home loop, to reduce the risks of a local collapse.
The third is to relay the message I am about to tell, hoping it will reach its destination.
"To the bearer of the Curse of the Spiral, doomed to repeat its fate:
Hear these words, and heed them. Because even if we hold Despair as our flag, this is a message of Hope.
We are Aware of your plight. We have encountered the Curse, and we have managed to defeat it. But we are not able to fight the infection directly at the source.
So I have this message for you:
Find the world of the Spiral of Light, of the Spiral of Hope!
When you find it, use your Spirit, even if it is corrupted, to fight the bearers of Despair! Because only then we will be able to find you.
And when you are finally defeated (And we will, because our Messenger has prepared for this moment, and those preparations will let us know how to defeat you), Let us Heal you! Accept Us as part of you, as we will accept you as part of us! Become our Avatar in the Multiverse! Because only then you will have the tools to fight the Curse, and Win.
So Find us, Fight us, Embrace our Nature, and Accept our Duty! Let the Curse itself learn the true meaning of Despair!
For we are the Anti Spirals. Our Nature is to Endure, and our Duty is to Protect.
And even if we use Despair as a weapon, we are allowed to have Hope."
...
My duty is over for now, but I have one final request.
Please, don't tell Simon that I am inside of his mind.
I... I strongly suspect that I am the reason Nia is not Awake after all these loops. Because I am also Nia, and I am Awake. And there can't be two versions of Nia in the same universe.
If he learned that his love will never be Awake... it would crush his spirit again. Before, when I was first activated, I would have revered in his Despair... But I don't want that. Not anymore. Not after I had seen what he had to endure, what he had to protect, what he had to sacrifice.
So, please, don't tell him. Not for my sake, but for his.
Why are you smiling like that?
What do you know that I don't?
...
...
Thank you. I am glad that I was wrong about that. Still, I'd like to wait until she Awakes to reveal myself. Will you grant me this selfish wish?
Thank you again. You gave me hope... Luna.
1.2
Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo
(SpaceKGreen)
Ranma was getting weird vibes from this loop. Not bad vibes, but not good vibes either. Just plain weird.
He couldn't place the feeling, even after scouting out with some of his more advanced Looper abilities. This was very worrying.
Nabiki seemed to have some idea, but when he had asked her about it, she had given him a blank look for a moment, before erupting into a surprisingly evil cackle.
The most he could get out of her was something about a new student.
It was with some trepidation that he approached the school the next day. It only worsened that, when a surprise splash of cold water had its usual result in front of actual witnesses, none of them had batted an eye.
The usual crowd attacked him and Akane at the gates, and as usual, they were quickly rebuffed.
"Hey, you!" interrupted an unfamiliar voice.
As Ranma turned to the owner of the voice, a tall muscular man, wearing sunglasses, a blue shirt, and wielding a large blond afro, all his senses came together and told him one thing.
Hoo boy, this is going to be one of those Loops...
Beauty sighed as she waited at the Nerima train station. She was facing a tough decision.
On the one hand, she wanted to meet this Ranma person that the other Loopers had mentioned.
On the other hand, knowing what she knew, that was where HE would be, and she scrambled for every break she could get from him.
There was an explosion in the distance.
Well, it looked like an explosion. Most explosions didn't sound like a 30-story raven attempting to quack Ode to Joy.
The resulting rain of various blocks of tofu wearing one piece bikinis made her decision for her.
Unfortunately a particularly large piece had completely ruined the train tracks.
1.3
Admin Shenanigans
(Crisis)
LOOPER CANDIDATE DESIGNATED 'SOVEREIGN' APPLICABLE FOR LOOPING STATUS.
WARNING: LOOPER CANDIDATE 'SOVEREIGN' DISPLAYS INDICATIONS OF BEING A POTENTIAL DESTABILIZING INFLUENCE.
PRECOGNITIVE SIMULATIONS INDICATE DESTABILIZING INFLUENCE WILL NOT BE CRITICAL, BUT STILL MILD TO MODERATE.
ACTIVATE ANYWAY? Y/N
Ares looked at his screen and shrugged. 'Why the heck not?'
Y:\ Y
1.4
Admin Shenanigans
(LordCirce)
Skuld looked up from her desk-station, hair frazzled, where she was working to detangle what precisely had led to the... That Universe crashing out of existence. She had been looking through the data of the Post-Crash universes and had found something, disutrbing.
"Janus!"
There was a loud crash, before Janus appeared in the doorway, both faces looking rather shaken. As the right face panted for breath, the left spoke up, "Er, ah, yes, Skuld?"
Skuld spun around her terminal screen, which was displaying the multiversial arm of realities dubbed the Disney Cluster. She jabbed at the middle of the cluster. "What in the name of Coffee is going on there?"
"Ah" Janus hesitated, before answering, tentatively, "Well, you know, A lot of universes were damaged in the Crash and..."
"Damaged?! It has planet-sized holes ripped through it! I don't see any sign that it has even started Looping again since the Crash. Why didn't you alert the rest of us that there was universe on the verge of collapse!?"
"It's not! I just... the universe is still locked in place, I just need to set up the right conditions to ..." Janus trailed off, eyeing the hammer that had appeared in Skuld's hand.
"Locked? As in, Key/Lock?" Both of Janus' faces opened their mouths to speak, but she cut them off, "I know that you would be foolish enough to leave up a system that you were told to take it down after the corruption it caused almost destroyed an entire multiversial cluster! And that was before this whole Looping mess started!"
"It's a Secondary Hub!"
Skuld sat back, her expression cold after Janus' panicked outburst. "Explain."
Janus took a deep breath, before he started. "As you know, the Key/Lock system was designed as a way to more dynamically store backups across universes. Ordinary backups, as has been shown in this, er, crisis, aren't able to dynamically correct for universial damage without outside influence. However, my Key/Lock system has allowed for the actions taken to stabilize the Kingdom Hearts reality to stabilize the other universes connected to it." He paused, before continuing. "On the downside, given it's, ah, position at the center of the cluster, it acted rather as a buffer for the other clusters during the, um, Crash, and so..."
"The backups were lost, weren't they?"
Janus flinched. "Ah, yes, to an extent. All of the backups are dormant at the moment, and I am working on a way to " CRASH!
It was a testament to Vulcan's skill that the top of the desk he made as a replacement for Skuld's previous ones merely cracked when her hammer smashed into the middle of it. Janus jumped back, faces screwed up as he flinched. Tentatively, he opened both pairs of eyes to find Skuld standing behind her workstation, glaring at him.
"Fix the mess that you have made. We can't afford a second universal collapse so soon after this last one, even if it doesn't result in Level 2 event."
Janus nodded, his head bobbing from side to side, as he rushed out of the room.
1.5
Avatar: The last airbender
(Dalxein)
"So, what happened last loop, Aang? You never woke up from your Avatar Trance." Sokka asked.
"Koh jumped me, surprised me because he was outside his cave, and then ate my face." The Avatar replied.
"Buh... how... What the hell?"
"I have no idea. I think he was just saying 'Hi'."
1.6
Admin Shenanigans
(KrisOverstreet)
[BEGIN EMAIL ARCHIVE]
FROM: Yggdrasil (Prime) Administrative Bot -rataoskr(a)admin. ygg-
TO: The Watchers -couchpotatosapiens(a)616. univ-
CC: Uatu -fingerscrossedoath(a)616. univ-
SUBJECT: About your universal temporal anomaly
You are receiving this message because you are a member of a cosmically aware race in your multiverse. It is therefore possible that you are aware that your universe, like countless others, has been put in a perpetual cycling state by the system administrators, even if you yourself retain no memory of previous iterations. This condition will continue until such time as certain hardware issues with Yggdrasil are remedied.
We appreciate how disturbing this knowledge may be. We further appreciate that you may wish to assist in rectifying the situation and thus allowing the time loops to cease. However, we assure you that trained professional pandimensional beings are hard at work to solve your problem. We do not need any help at this time, and any efforts on your part to provide help unasked may make matters worse instead of better.
Instead we encourage you to continue on your highly enlightened lives as normally as possible under the circumstances.
Thanks for your time,
Yggdrasil administrative staff
(This is an automatically generated message. Please do not reply to this address, as all responses are apt to be fed to Nidhogg and lost forever to all space and time.)
TO: Yggdrasil (Prime) Administrator -admin(a)admin. ygg-, -sysop(a)admin. ygg-, -postmaster(a)admin. ygg-
FROM: Uatu -fingerscrossedoath(a)616. univ-
CC: The Watchers -couchpotatosapiens(a)616. univ-
SUBJECT: Re: About your universal temporal anomaly
BEHOLD! Know you that I am UATU the Watcher!
Since time immemorial I have watched the Earth on multiple planes of the local multiverse. Much have I witnessed for good and ill. And indeed, as your message states, I have noted multiple instances of disjunction between cause and effect that suggested interference in the normal progression of space and time!
Although my race is sworn forevermore to non-interference with the affairs of lesser races, we have discussed the situation in light of your message and have made two decisions. First, we have decided that since this matter affects all life in the multiverse, not merely younger and less enlightened races, our oath of noninterference does not apply. Second, we have decided that inaction in the face of such grave danger to the very fabric of reality is not merely criminal but outright folly! Therefore, by unanimous agreement of our race, we have decided to act to ensure the continued stability of this multiverse by using our vast powers cosmic to influence the course of events towards their destined ends.
We trust that you will cooperate in our noble effort in the interests of restoring stability across the many universes. Therefore we ask that you send us duplicates of the runtime logs for Earth-616 as its history ought to run, so that we may correct errors where they arise. We await your response.
Uatu has spoken!
TO: Uatu -fingerscrossedoath(a)616. univ-
FROM: Thor -mjolnir(a)admin. ygg-
SUBJECT: Re: About your universal temporal anomaly
First: how are you even sending this?
-BEHOLD! Know you that I am UATU the Watcher!
I would never have guessed.
-Therefore, by unanimous agreement of our race, we have decided to act to ensure the continued stability of this multiverse by using our vast powers cosmic to influence the course of events towards their destined ends.
Please, please don't. We already have a system in place for that. What you're planning on doing could disrupt that system and lead to a system crash. You really don't want to know what happens after that.
-We trust that you will cooperate in our noble effort in the interests of restoring stability across the many universes. Therefore we ask that you send us duplicates of the runtime logs for Earth-616 as its history ought to run, so that we may correct errors where they arise. We await your response.
Are you kidding? Hel, no! Look, we're not giving our run logs to even our local echoes in your multiverse! (That would be the Thor you know personally, by the way, and his friends.)
Even if we did give you the logs, you probably couldn't read them. What's more, you of all people ought to know that your universe doesn't HAVE a single set predestined history. If we did hardcopy logs of universal runtime, Earth-616's logs would be sketched lightly on the page in PENCIL, and there'd be places on the paper where the erasers rubbed holes through.
Please. Just ignore the temporal anomalies and go about your business, all right? Chill. We got this.
Thor (prime)
TO: Thor -mjolnir(a)admin. ygg-
FROM: Skuld -icecreambandit(a)admin. ygg-
SUBJECT: Re: About your universal temporal anomaly
-Chill. We got this.
Well, that's lie-of-the-month done. Hope you don't mind waiting three weeks before we engrave your name on the plaque.
Otherwise, agreed 100%, but please try not to antagonize them, OK?
Sis
TO: Thor -mjolnir(a)admin. ygg-
FROM: Uatu -fingerscrossedoath(a)616. univ.
SUBJECT: Re: About your universal temporal anomaly
I bid you warning against arousing the slow but terrible wrath of my people. You may be of a race dimensionally transcendent from mine, but this does not make you immune from our influence. It would be wisdom and prudence to set aside your vainglorious pride and rather accept the aid offered in goodwill by my people.
Also, it is not well to underestimate the abilities of my people. We who have witnessed the birth and death of stars, the first reproduction of DNA and the last gasp of the last bacteria under swollen red giants, we who have ascended beyond instrumentality itself, can surely decipher a simple history of the universe. Moreover, I have taken speed-reading courses and, yea, did excel in my classes at Watcher University in late-night cramming for examinations! Truly my ability to discard the dross and focus on the vital points is more than adequate, and standing beside me are millions of my fellow Watchers!
I shall expect your next message to include the logs requested. Should they not be provided, my people are resolved to proceed on our plan of guiding history along its correct course. Any errors which result must be laid at your own feet.
Uatu has spoken!
TO: Uatu -fingerscrossedoath(a)616. univ-
FROM: Thor -mjolnir(a)admin. ygg-
SUBJECT: Re: About your universal temporal anomaly
Sorry this took so long- my supervisor caught me typing my first response and made me start over.
I am not going to make derogatory remarks about your puny powers as opposed to myself and my fellow administrators, nor about your race's bipolar tendencies where it comes to other races, nor about your lack of hair, eve
I am simply going to point out a few facts.
(1) A full log of a single iteration of your Loop would contain more data than is currently contained by your entire universe. In short, I can't send you the log because it won't fit in your mailbox, or in your computer, or on your planet, or in your galaxy- well, it just won't fit.
(2) Even if it could fit, it wouldn't be accurate. Your universe makes several major changes in its history with every Loop. Most of these histories (Fused Loops aside) are equally valid- none of them is any better than the others.
(3) Even if we had a single, uniform history to send you, we wouldn't do it, because that would interfere with the people already working on the problem. You and they would inevitably end up in conflict, and that would be big trouble for everyone all around. The main difference is, we Up Here would still be around afterwards to do paperwork, while you Down There... might NOT. Savvy?
To make my point I'm sending along digital media of several representations of your version of Earth, all based closely on your baseline, all with distinct differences. I ask that you and your people view them all and then decide for yourself if there's a single coherent time line that can be made from the bunch.
Please let me know before you do anything.
Thor (prime)
P. S. Give my best wishes to my local counterpart.
Attachments: "Fantastic Four" (Hanna-Barbera, 1968)
"The Incredible Hulk" Season One (CBS, 1979)
"Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends" (Hanna-Barbera, 1981)
"X-Men" (Fox Kids, 1990)
"The Avengers" (Marvel Films, 2012)
TO: Thor -mjolnir(a)admin. ygg-
FROM: Skuld -icecreambandit(a)admin. ygg-
SUBJECT: Earth-616 (Was Re: About your universal temporal anomaly)
Haven't heard from those Watcher people this Loop. Did you get that settled?
Sis
TO: Skuld -icecreambandit(a)admin. ygg-
FROM: Thor -mjolnir(a)admin. ygg-
SUBJECT: Re: Earth-616 (Was Re: About your universal temporal anomaly)
Sort of. I've spent most of this Loop playing video rental store clerk. The Watchers insist on viewing and reviewing every bit of media we have on their universe before they make their decision. I haven't told them their Loop will reset, and they'll forget all of this, before they get to the end of their rental queue.
I'm going to automate this whole mess for the next iteration, and then maybe I can get some actual work done.
Thor
[END EMAIL ARCHIVE]
1.7
Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo
(SpaceKgreen)
Beauty sighed happily, despite her aching body. As far as she was concerned, this loop was pure bliss.
That nice Harvest Goddess (Apparently not Yggdrasil level, but pretty high for this Loop) and the local mayor (Beauty was sure she knew her from somewhere, but she couldn't place it) had helped her move into a local farm, and all they asked in return was that she run it well.
Waking up before the sunrise, tilling the fields, watering the crops, tending the animals, meeting the townsfolk...
Compared to her usual situation, this was paradise.
Sure, HE had shown up, but in an incredible stroke of luck, it was several towns away, and without any big threats, he seemed content enough to stay where he was.
Beauty idly dropped a bit of Mystrile ore into her subspace pocket. Surely some other Looper would like it, or help her make something of it.
Turning her mind back to HIM, she started musing.
Recently she had actually noticed a few familiar bits of wackiness from him.
At first Beauty was excited, hoping that she could finally figure out a pattern to the craziness.
She gave up soon afterwards, though, when she found it was more like that math pi thing. Sure, some digits repeated, but there was no pattern, no matter how far you went.
Hmm. Had any Looper actually tried their hand (or whatever) at calculating pi?
A line from the TV interrupted her tangential thought.
"...And the winner is Chef B, whose beans tasted much better than Chef A's. Tell us, Chef B, what is your secret to making such delicious beans?"
"It's simple. These beans have spider webs in them."
As the show host and the taste testers started choking, Beauty changed the channel.
'Was that natto?' she wondered.
1.8
Bartender
(OracleMask)
" - so he says, 'this sword is so sharp you can trim a statue's hair with it', and I told him that sounds great, but I won't believe him until I get a chance to test it."
Sitting around a corner table in Eden Hall, several heads nodded. The speaker, a black haired lad who looked a little too young to be in a bar in the first place, waved his arms around as he told his story.
"Ne, Kirito, surprised he didn't get pissed off for not believing him," a white haired boy with red facial tattoos pointed out.
"No, this is the best part - he handed the sword over and turned into a statue so I could test it! I was so surprised I didn't think to cut off his head until after I gave him the new look," Kirito explained.
The other three burst out laughing. It was a struggle to keep their voices down - anyone who got too loud in Eden Hall was removed from the bar by the surprisingly multi-talented bartender who ran it - but they managed it. None of them wanted to be kicked out of their favorite bar.
"Weird loop," the lone girl at the table said, "So what has everyone else been doing? You have been keeping up the scythe training, right Haseo?"
She gave the white-haired boy a suspicious glare. He glared right back.
"Idiot Maka, what else would I be doing?" Haseo retorted, "Aside from collecting swords for Link's stupid bet -"
"You only think it was a stupid bet because you lost," Link replied cheerfully, "What did you say again? 'No way in hell can anybody keep totally silent for a hundred loops!' You were tempting fate and you know it."
"You're both stupid," Maka muttered.
1.9
Bartender
(Dalxein, Hubris Plus)
"Hello everyone... My name is Ganon." (everyone else: "Hello, Ganon") "But I prefer Ganondorf. It's a lot more regal and I prefer that version of myself." (like three people: "Hello, Ganondorf.") "And... I'm not a very nice person."
"Aww, that's okay." Chrysalis said, patting him on the shoulder. "Most of us here aren't very nice... except her." She nodded over towards Derpy Hooves, who really had no reason to be there, but she wasn't going to question it. "What matters is learning to not be mean. Nice is for ponies."
"Pon...eys."
"Yes, dearie." She turned to Sombra. "How is your speech therapy coming?"
"Sombra... re-learning pro-por sentence structures now," the dark unicorn managed.
"Good to hear. A millennium without anyone to talk to- awful, just awful. We're all glad to hear you're making progress, aren't we everyone?"
(Everyone) "Good work, Sombra."
Meanwhile, in a bar across town:
"Can't believe they got Ganon," the man stated, glaring at his whiskey for a moment before downing it. "I thought he was one of those, wha'do'ya'call'ems, that thing you are."
"An ageless evil from the dawn of time," rumbled the green lipped figure looming next to him. "That Demise's malevolence could become so diluted by mortal feeling is a travesty."
"I just don't get what it is about the Loops that does this to them," the first went on, signaling for another drink by firing his wrist mounted dart gun in the general direction of the bar tender. "The more time I spend dealing with Venture, the more I hate his guts. And the Loops where we switch places..." He shivered. "What about you, what keeps you on the wide and crooked?"
"I am a fragment of primordial darkness given sentience by man's own FOOLISH arrogance. I am functionally incapable of redemption."
"Don't you read fairy tales to children?"
The Monarch could feel the heat of the glare Aku turned upon him. It was unwise to upset people with great flaming eyebrows and heat vision.
"But that's exactly what I mean," he bulldozed on. "You're evil, I'm evil, that's who we are. If the god-tree didn't want us running amok, it wouldn't have started us Looping, right? As long as we don't go around crashing Loops for shits and giggles, we're just doing what we're meant to do."
"Indeed," Aku stated, raising his glass and examining it with a withering eye that caused foliage surrounding the bar to go limp. "And yet it seems more of us turn every Loop."
"Seems like it's just you and me these days." He paused for a moment. "And the Malfoy kid, last I heard the Loops made him worse."
"Nay, the ponies got to him these past few cycles."
"...Freakin' ponies."
"Agreed."
They both drank.
1.10
Admin Shenanigans
(Crisis)
ATTEMPT FAILED
Ares banged his head on the desk in frustration. What had he done to deserve this? All he'd done was approve that Sovereign entity for looping over in the 'Mass Effect' branch! Was that so wrong? Who cared if its looping eligibility was due to a bug in the system? He was an engine of mass destruction! He'd help keep the Loop interesting!
But the rest of the gods hadn't seen it that way (bunch of killjoy losers, only one worth his time was Aphrodite and then only because she had the hottest bod in the heavens), and so he'd been reassigned to this piece of crap branch and told he couldn't apply for another job until he got it stable and looping.
The branch wasn't in any danger of degrading further, but that was the only good news. It turned out the only damn Anchor candidate was some kind of worthless idiot! He'd been through 4,815,162,342 activation attempts and the moron still hadn't managed to go through the whole Loop without dying!
Ares angrily pounded the keys on his terminal. No, he didn't want to set the place to Read-Only. He'd never get a decent gig if he did that! Yes, run on baseline parameters, same as all the others idiot computer. Run the damned attempt already. Almighty, why couldn't The Kid get through something so simple?! It was only most of the things that were lethal, and the difficulty was merely impossible for a mortal. It should be a cakewalk for an Anchor candidate!
ATTEMPT FAILED
Ares gaped. "YOU JUMPED INTO A SWORD?! YOU RETARD!"
1.1: Berer of the Spiral Power, meet Uzumaki, a Quarantined Loop where spirals and anything related to them are mind-raping abominations. *shudder*
1.2: Inanity, thy name is Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo.
1.3: Ares is an idiot.
1.4: And so, the Disney Cluster was (mostly) saved from the Crash.
1.5: Hiiii.
1.6: Marvel is... complicated.
1.7:
1.8:
1.9:
1.10: Ares gets what he deserveds.