Chapter 105: Book 2 Chapter 23.2: Circa 1 BV (Before Vell)

As XL led the way across campus, Harley followed behind, pulling up a map of the campus on her phone.

“So where exactly are we headed?”

“Extraplanetary Research,” XL said. She checked the map Harley displayed and started heading in the right direction. “And we need to get there there fast. The teleporter will be activated soon.”

“But that rock won’t be showing up for a while, right? We should have some time.”

“Handling things sooner is often better,” XL said. “Whatever’s going to go wrong was likely not a single incident, but a chain of events set in motion from the very beginning. We should aim to disrupt it as soon as possible.”

“Well, when you put it like that, yeah,” Harley said. “Lead the way, boss.”

XL, who had been leading the way, stopped in her tracks, nearly stumbling and falling as she did so.

“Boss?”

“Well, you have like two percent of an idea what’s going on,” Harley said. “And I’m running on zero, so I’m just going to follow your lead for now, if that’s alright.”

“Oh, two percent is incredibly generous, I don’t know, does anybody really have to be ‘in charge’? I mean, we are both just doing what needs to be done, no need to put a hierarchy on anything.”

“Are you uncomfortable with the idea of being in charge?”

XL had rarely been confronted so bluntly. She responded in kind.

“Yes.”

“Okay, cool, I’ll be in charge then,” Harley said. She stepped up and took the lead in the walk to the research lab. XL almost immediately felt the weight of the world drop off her shoulders -momentarily. Then she recalled that the weight of the world was still very much on the shoulders of herself and Harley. She waddled towards the lab a little faster.

“So once we get to the lab, what exactly do we do?” Harley asked. “Is your whatever you did back with those other guys going to work twice?”

“Maybe,” XL said. She certainly hoped everyone on this campus wouldn’t fawn over her father like an idiot.

“So, just for reference’s sake, what did you do?”

“I was...persuasive.”

“Okay, I guess,” Harley said. “You should probably come up with a different way to phrase that, though, because other people are going to make some assumptions you might not like.”

“Like what?”

Harley decided to save that talk for another time. She was starting to get the idea that this woman (who still hadn’t told Harley her name) was a bit odd. Not necessarily in a good way or bad way, but she was certainly some kind of way. However, Harley’s list of priorities now included saving the island from a falling chunk of mars rock. Helping her new friend would have to wait until she was no longer at immediate risk of getting squished to death.

Every step (or waddle, in XL’s case) closer to the Extraplanetary Research lab took them one step/waddle closer to stopping that disaster, and soon there weren’t many steps/waddles left. A conspicuously large sign above the door showed off an astrological model of the solar system, which Harley thought was overkill. They were in the astronomy building, everyone already knew they dealt with space.

“Alright, so, we go in, talk it out, see what the situation is, you maybe do your mystery thing that convinces people to do whatever you say,” Harley said.

“Right.”

“Easy,” Harley said. “Let’s save the world.”

Harley opened the door, expecting the worst, and she got it. For the first time in Harley’s life she was grateful to be short, because otherwise the rock that sailed overhead would’ve cracked her right in the forehead. XL was luckily standing to the side, and so she didn’t get her nose broken by the ballistic martian stone. Harley grabbed XL by the wrist and dragged her out of the doorway as she slammed it behind them.

A maelstrom of swirling cosmic energy surged in the middle of the room, hurling flares of energy, and the occasional rock, throughout the lab. A few scientists were scrambling back and forth to stations all around the chamber, dodging rocks and energy surges all the while.

“So you guys seem to be ahead of schedule,” Harley shouted, as she ducked behind a sturdy-looking workbench. The ping of another martian pebble bouncing off the walls confirmed she’d made the right choice by running for cover.

“A little bit, yeah,” some scientist shouted. “Who are you?”

“Call us concerned citizens,” Harley shouted back. “You guys need a hand with anything? So you don’t, you know, accidentally teleport a big martian boulder onto campus and kill us all?”

“Hah, as if,” someone else shouted back. “Don’t worry about it. That would require hours of sustained magical energy flow. Dr. Malon is working on interrupting the flow as we-”

Harley and XL heard a very loud bonk from across the room.

“Uh oh.”

“Did Dr. Malon just get killed by a space rock?”

A suspiciously long silence followed.

“No.”

“Did Dr. Malon just get knocked unconscious by a space rock?”

“Yes.

“Do you have anyone else who knows how to stop the thingy?”

“No.”

“Are we allowed to be worried now?”

“Yes.”

With the only scientist who’d been managing the chaotic flow of magic now unconscious, the twisted portal flared with new life. The sparking energy shot out in broad lances, scorching the walls, and the rocks being flung through the spacial distortion increased in size. XL ducked her head out of cover for a second and dared to examine the scene. A quick scan showed her everything she needed to see.

“Oh! I know how that works!”

Noel Burrows’ insistence that his daughter follow in his footsteps actually benefited XL for the first time in her life. The console that controlled the teleporter’s energy flow was Burrows tech. She knew how to operate it -and also how to make it explode, if necessary. XL assumed making it explode would be counterproductive, though, so she focused on how to turn it off.

XL hit the deck and started awkwardly army-crawling across the floor of the lab towards the control panel. A few ballistic chunks of mars rock slammed into walls overhead, but XL managed to reach the console unharmed. With Harley right behind her, for some reason. She had expected her impromptu partner to stay hidden, away from imminent danger.

After ducking to evade yet another ballistic martian projectile, XL raised her head to examine the control panel in front of her. Sure enough, everything looked familiar. XL excitedly slammed a finger down on a button that would cancel all mana flow and shut the portal down. Then she slammed a finger down on it again. And one more time. After that she stopped slamming and started spamming, mashing the button as fast as her skinny fingers would allow.

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“This should be working,” XL shouted. “It’s not working!”

“Oh, Malon probably got far enough to activate the security measures,” one scientist said. “I can disable those if I-”

A loud bonk sounded out across the chaotic room. XL breathed a very deep sigh.

“Got a plan B?” Harley asked.

“I could manually disrupt the flow with magikinesis,” XL said. “But it’s a longshot.”

“Also probably our only shot, so go for it,” Harley said. After seeing the look on her new friend’s face, she reconsidered her words. XL didn’t appear to be handling the pressure well.

“In the meantime,” Harley said loudly. “I’ll try and break that security lockdown. You give the magikinesis thing a shot, though.”

With a deep breath, Harley crossed her fingers and hoped her next trick would work. She reached into her bookbag and removed the makeshift frame of Botley, who had been resting contentedly in her bag up until now. He was still a bit fresh, and hadn’t really learned anything Harley had been trying to teach him.

“Botley, good to see you. This is...uh...this is a new friend,” Harley said. She still didn’t know XL’s name. “You work on the security console while she does magikinetic stuff.”

Harley hadn’t given Botley any tools capable of cracking a security console (yet), but acting like he was doing something took pressure off of XL. Under the impression that the weight of the world no longer rested entirely on her shoulders, XL took a deep breath and focused on the mana flowing through the machinery.

The attempted portal had become a recursive loop -it had tapped into a source of mana on the other side, drawing that power through and allowing the portal to fuel it’s own existence. It would only take a momentary disruption to break that cycle, but even a momentary disruption would take an immense amount of power. But power should be easy. Strength in magic came from willpower, and willpower was a simple extension of motivation. XL needed to save herself and the entire island. She could think of no better motivation than that.

XL had to believe she could do this. The world needed her. She closed her eyes and focused on the machine, and on the flow of magic.

At the exact second XL closed her eyes, the portal flared with energy, and manifested a chunk of martian rock the size of a minivan, aimed directly at XL. Harley saw it coming and did the first thing that came to mind.

By the time XL opened her eyes, she was already on the ground, with Harley pinning her to the floor. She took all of this in and then took in a very large rock currently occupying the space where her head had just been. She also took in a set of bulging muscles that had caught the very large rock.

Leanne grit her teeth and tightened her grip on the boulder. Harley’s dive had given her the room she needed to leap in and catch the boulder before it squished both of them, but not by much. She shifted her balance and then tossed the boulder back the way it came, sending it hurtling back through the portal. Harley, who was now realizing she had not been squished, turned around just in time to see Leanne chuck the boulder back through the space hole. Leanne turned to the two of them and gestured for them to continue what they’d been doing before moving to intercept another space boulder.

“Thanks, random muscle chick,” Harley said, as Leanne dashed across the lab. She stood up and watched the superwoman for a moment. “Man this place is wild.”

XL stayed on the ground for a moment, staring up at the empty space where a lethal boulder would have been. After the enormity of her near-death wore off, she looked at Harley.

“You saved me.”

Harley stared right back at XL, tilted her head, and squinted.

“Yeah?”

XL had been expecting a reasoning. A justification. She expected Harley to say she was necessary, that her expertise made her essential in preventing disaster. But Harley didn’t have a reason, and the idea that she needed a reason to save someone, other than the simple fact that she was saving someone, was confusing to her.

Harley offered her hand, and XL took it. Once she was upright, XL crouched in front of the console yet again. The room was only marginally less distracting now that a towering Finnish superwoman was dashing around to catch boulders. XL braced herself just as she had before. She focused on her motivation.

She could do this. The world needed her.

Harley needed her.

Purple flares of light shot out from XL’s hands and entangled the chaotic flow of mana with the machine. With one mighty pull, she leashed the rampant mana and pulled it in line, causing the portal to spark and flare with disruptive energy. XL clenched both fists and closed the circuit, hoping to cause at least a momentary disruption. She succeeded in causing a disruption, though it was far from momentary. Her forceful spell created a total collapse of mana flow that shattered the portal instantly, in such a spectacular burst of power that it actually took a moment for the room to catch on to the fact that the portal had been shut. Leanne moved to catch a boulder that would never come before realizing the room had gone quiet.

With trembling fingertips singed by octarine energy, XL stared at the empty, quiet space.

“I did it,” she said, as if she didn’t quite believe it herself.

“Fuck yeah you did!”

Harley, on the other hand, had absolutely no problem believing what XL had done. She swept her impromptu partner in world-saving off her feet in a massive bear hug. XL squeaked with surprise as she was held aloft and swung around in celebration. That feeling of bewilderment didn’t fade until a few seconds after Harley had put XL down and turned her attention elsewhere.

“Do you also want a hug, random muscle chick?”

That “random muscle chick” was currently occupied making sure Dr. Malon and the other scientist got medical attention, so she politely declined the hug. Once the two probably-concussed scientists had been carted off for proper medical care, Leanne approached the two new loopers and gave them a thumbs up.

“Yeah, you too, good job,” Harley said, returning the gesture. “So what’re you here for? You just hear the commotion, or…”

In answer, Leanne picked up one of the loose Mars rocks, dropped it on her palm, and then tapped her head.

“Oh, you remember that too,” Harley said. Leanne was pleasantly surprised to be so easily understood. Naomi and Dominic still claimed they couldn’t understand her gesturing. “Why are you gesturing like that, though? Are you mute?”

Leanne shook her head and pressed a finger to her lips in a “shush” gesture.

“Oh, just quiet, okay,” Harley said. “Can I at least get your name? You can write it down, if you want.”

After considering a search for some pen and paper, Leanne decided it wasn’t worth the effort.

“Leanne,” she said, as she extended her hand. Harley took it and shook it eagerly, marveling at Leanne’s grip strength all the while. Then the two released their grip on one another and turned towards XL.

“So, can I finally get an introduction out of you?”

Now that the crisis of the martian apocalypse had been averted, priorities were starting to normalize. Harley’s priority shifted to learning her new friend’s name, and XL’s priority shifted to finding a way to make sure Harley never knew her name.

XL-X8 C/P Burrows was a cage, not a name. It tied her to the twisted legacy of her father, and more than that, it marked her as an oddity, an outcast. If she was ever going to be free of anything, she needed to be free of her name. She needed a new name, a better name, a normal name like Leanne or Har-

“Lee.”

XL went red in the face as soon as she said it. She’d just borrowed the last half of Harley’s name. It had been a stupid, childish thing to say, and she knew Harley and Leanne would call her out on it instantly, and they would think she was an idiot.

“Lee. Nice to officially meet you.”

“Lee” blinked twice. Nobody was scolding her for her mistakes or calling her an idiot. They were just smiling in her direction.

“Yes. It’s...nice to meet you too.”

With the introductions done, Leanne turned towards the door, and beckoned for the two new loopers to follow. Harley picked up the pace almost instantly, but “Lee” was caught in a haze of emotions and stayed in place. Harley noticed that her new friend was falling behind and called out for her.

“You coming, Lee?”

Even though it was a made up name, “Lee” snapped to attention the moment it was called. It felt right.

“Yes, just a moment, dear.”

XL got left behind, but Lee followed.

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

“And that about sums it up,” Naomi said. “Everybody dies, time loops, we stop everybody dying the second time around.”

Harley and Lee stared blankly at Naomi. Leanne had led them to her for the sole purpose of having Naomi explain the time loops. She would warn them about Naomi being a piece of shit later. Right now they seemed to be struggling with the revelation of the endless cycle of death and time recursion they’d been trapped in.

“Like, every day?”

“When classes are in session, at least,” Dominic explained. “So we get two days off a month, plus holidays.”

“Cool! So this is all going to happen again tomorrow?”

“Well, it won’t be a big rock, but yes,” Dominic said.

Harley took a few seconds to process that.

“I need a drink.”

Lee had never tasted a single drop of alcohol in her entire life, but she agreed.

THIS DAY

“And then we got like two beers and Lee got absolutely shitfaced because she’s a lightweight,” Harley said. “And then the next day we did it all again, and the day after that, and the day after that, and so on and so forth until we met Vell and things got way more fun.”

“Aw.”

“Yeah yeah, I love you, you skinny bastard,” Harley said, as she kissed Vell on the cheek. “Story time over, go to class, you’re going to be late to your exams.”

Harley slapped her friends on the shoulders to get them moving, until it was just her and Lee sitting at the table. Lee looked like she was barely holding back some tears.

“So you borrowed half my name, huh?” Harley said. “That’s new.”

“Less borrowed and more stolen,” Lee said. She tried to quell the emotions surging inside her with humor. “I’m not giving it back.”

“Eh, you can keep it, I got a spare,” Harley said. “Don’t expect me to start calling myself Har, though.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Lee said. “I’ll only ever call you my best friend. And occasionally, whore, if the mood strikes me.”

“And I’ll continue to call you a bitch. Sound good?”

“Of course,” Lee said. “I love you.”

“I love you too. Now get your ass to class, you’re going to be late too.”