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Chapter Five

It was as if the device held between Chrono's fingers had glued them together. The energy in the air danced all around him, creating a force against him that he could not escape and keeping his stubby digits closed around the strap of the watched-shaped machine. It was as if the world itself was pressing against him, drying out the air around him and keeping him from breathing. The field of energy burrowed into his bones, pulsating through him, and bubbling up all throughout his exterior.

He could almost taste it. It was time. He didn't understand how it was possible to know what time felt like or even that time itself had feeling at all, but here he was frozen like a statue by something meant to slow him to the point he might as well be stopped.

This is a new experience, he considered sardonically, wishing that he could find the ability to sigh. She duped me and then some. I guess I deserve this. It was too much to hope that she might be looking for help in all of this... I mean, she appears to be alone, just like I am, but that doesn't mean she's desperate like I am...

Chrono's mind shifted towards his pack and what they would say in this situation. "You'll always have me... you'll never be alone," Wendy would say. Classic... she never said that sappy stuff in earshot of the others, but... he knew that would be just about right. She had always been too positive, but I guess if she hadn't been then I wouldn't be as happy a person as I am now... It was a somewhat agitating thought, and Sandstalker wished he could frown.

Ian would just shake his head with that knowing smile and comment something along the lines of: "You're always so negative." It's not like I don't have reason to be negative, Chrono was sure, and I have gotten better... Ian accepted that, but would always say something like: "There's a lot of bad in the world, but we're here to make a difference. If you didn't believe that, you wouldn't be here now. You'd have given up a long time ago."

Martha would give him that motherly grin of hers, moving a long gray hair out of her eyes, and say that he should know better by now than to think he was ever truly alone. She had taught him so much when it came to confronting the troubles of his life. She would always say... that "though we are the product of the events of our lives, the events of our lives are the product of us" which, lets face it, is completely true. I know how much one person can make a difference just by being the only person who has any hope to make a difference now.

Alpha... Al... he'd try and convince me all over again that the whole reason any of us were together is that we need each other to survive. "We're family," he would say. "Sure, we're fighting for a greater cause, but would any of us be here right now if not for the others?" It was a good question, one that Chrono had contemplated many times over the course of this uniquely traumatic experience. He knew that the only way he was going to survive the aftermath of this whole situation would be with his pack.

Being that their relationships hadn't moved forward in years might actually make all those points moot... but were these hypotheticals instead in the context of some previous time or place then those sentiments would certainly have weight. As it was, they couldn't even understand what was happening him. Five days wasn't even enough time to explain. He knew. He had tried. Ian and Wendy... he had science to help him out there. Martha could take a certain amount on faith, but the others... not so much.

Joseph and Benjamin might just agree with him on being alone. The two of them were orphans just like he was. They had a tendency to take pessimistic outlook on life that they would each claim was instead merely a 'realistic' outlook. They had a lot of reasons to think that way, and though Chrono went through a period of complete agreement with them, he had come around over time to the idea that life is what you make of it... not what you let it make of you.

And then, of course, there was Chester. Fuck Chester, Chrono felt anger rising in his chest that he couldn't just growl to let lose. Chaz would tell me to stop being emo... that if life keeps poking at you from the other side of a fence, bite its fucking finger off. He wanted to growl, but it wouldn't come. He seethed as he though of how Chaz could just stand aside of him and make fun of him as he remained frozen in time.

Focusing on his hatred towards Chester, he realized that his last thought was true. If time was going keep picking a fight with him, then he needed to find a way to not just defend himself, but also to fight back.

Only a moment had gone by when Chrono realized that the lights of the room going bright and dark over and over again had given him a headache. Either that, or thinking about Chaz had. He was pissed, sure, but at this point it wasn't really any one thing. He had blindly sought out the alien woman straight away just because "Nameless" was different. She was an outside factor... and surely anything outside of this redundant workweek of reality, anything different at all, had to be a good thing.

It was silly, of course. Just because something was potentially an agent of change didn't mean that the change it brought would be a positive influence. Whoever she really was, it wouldn't be some caden who would sway her with simple math over the course of twenty minutes. No, she had come here through some motivation of her own. He had known that, but he had been foolish enough to hope.

Probably the scientific curiosity of a vastly superior race, Chrono conceded. If she can avoid being affected by time, then what other reason could there be for her to be here. He wanted to shake his head. He wanted to clear the last thought and change the subject, but being stuck where he was had him dwell on it a moment longer. Perhaps it was for the best, as he felt a realization strike him. The complex... that's really the only other thing. Forget the time nonsense... if that is somehow a function of the base and her ship is of a similar design, then I've been thinking too deeply.

These aren't prototype things... the corridors down below are ancient and falling apart. Maybe this event... her race's ability to control time... all connects. Maybe she's here not to stop it, but to find out what it even is. Witty said neither of use could control him... had she said as much? Had she commanded that he stop? And, seriously, who is Witty?

Chrono wanted to frown. He didn't feel stuck in place even though he obviously was. Of course his outstretched hand was holding the strap of the device, but it didn't feel that way. It felt, instead, like a dream... where he had realized what was going on around him and his mind was waiting there for him to continue. It was as though reality was stuck, waiting to see if he would fall all the way back asleep or instead rouse himself to wake.

An epiphany: I shouldn't be able to think right now. The realization sat there in his mind for a long moment. I shouldn't be able to think faster than normal... my mind is moving but I can't tell if my body has in the slightest.

It was true. All this time that Chrono had remained stalled in place, he had the time to contemplate his situation from many different angles. During the time he took to consider what his pack would think, all the way back to Witty, and then even to what the alien might be doing here... he had scantly moved even a centimeter in any direction.

I'm already partly through it... I have to be. Maybe its my experience with time, maybe its-- No! There is no other explanation! Nothing in life prepares you for this shit... not even my life! Out of all the crap I've done... over all these days and days of time... nothing has ever worked! No hope has lasted, no changes have persisted... nothing!

Chrono felt the beginning rumble of a growl building up in his throat.

But that energy... time_. What felt like a haze when it first happened... later manifested as a blinding while light... then there was color... cool tones like blues and purples. Being able to tell when there was a difference in it or not-- I didn't feel time over this ship, I felt the_ difference between one time and another. The... perimeter, the bawn, the shell of the bubble of the disparity in time. That is what I felt...

The energy itself had become uneven over Chrono's fur. The growl that tried its best to push up through his throat and be heard seemed as though it was channeling some untested force of will. His eyes narrowing, he focused himself to the singular task of loosening his fingers and releasing the device. As he tried to pry open his digits it felt like the universe itself was pressing down against him... almost as if his fingers were magnets of the opposite polarities. Frozen in a moment that went on forever, he felt like his muscles were sore from pressing against an immovable wall for hours on end.

Releasing his mind from that train of thought, Chrono could feel the attempt wearing down upon him. The rumble in his throat petered off as his determination waned. Even though he'd managed an action, it was still slow. Trying to press outwards against the influences of time either was hard or straight-up wasn't working. He couldn't be sure.

Maybe it is more like a Chinese finger puzzle, he considered after a long pause. Maybe I'm not supposed to try and push outward but allow it to press in against me. Disregarding how bizarre this whole situation was... that he had somehow learned to feel out differences in time... that he could feel time pressing down upon him... Chrono again set to the task of freeing himself...

Chrono meditated on the thought for a little while and then calmed himself. Thought the last death wasn't a very tranquil experience he recalled it just the same. At that time, a chill had passed over his spirit as he accepted his failure to save his friends... his acceptance of that finale had in turn lessened the pressure upon him and his soul--or whatever it was--and had congealed back into a solid form at the start of the next loop.

Taking a long, slow breath, he became hopeful once again as it was the first breath he had taken since that alien woman had handed him her little trap. Chrono let the energy being emitted from the device push over and into him, blanketing him with its energy. Much like learning to accept in oxygenated water, Chrono let the time flow over his body as it had so many Fridays before.

It flowed like water or wind, passing around his form, slowly eroding the edges of the time that cut him off from the world. His mind wrapped around the idea of slow moving current in the flow of time. Instead of fighting against it, he could feel as if his skin had become numb. The area of time difference had shrunk to within his body, and that realization hit him hard. A part of his body had now been severed from the rest because it existed a different version of reality than his mind occupied. It hurt. It pinched... and he could feel the rip through his physical form quickening.

The eroding accelerated and in the next moment there was almost nothing of Chrono left slowed compared to his surroundings. Thrust forward into some other version of events, it was at that very moment that Chrono's fingers snapped open quickly and dropped the device. As it impacted the floor, Chrono could feel his body stagger forward as if stumbling off the top of an escalator. He tried to catch himself on the banister of the stairs as he moved forward across the room, but he failed. Tripping, he landed hard on the last step, taking most of the impact into his left shin.

Gritting his teeth, he growled at length from the pain as it shot up his leg and hovered within the wrapped gash at his left side. At the same time he couldn't help but smile at once again being free. Lifting his head up, he managed a pained chuckle at his first victory over time itself.

Unfortunately, the feeling of freedom quickly bled away as he considered that he had been standing in the control room for an unknown total of days while the world continued to exist outside the construct of this alien vessel. What would that mean for him? Had anything changed? Maybe the time loop had finally ended...

...No. Probably not.

Rolling over to his side on the stairs, Chrono reached up to the railing and tried to pull himself upwards. He felt weak. Sore from a kind of physical effort that he was certain no one had ever experienced before, he settled on laying against the stairs on his back. His butt slid slowly off the last step and onto the floor as he stared forward into the main control room. His light brown tail to his side, he looked up and around the room to see if anything had changed.

The front windows were still caked in dirt and soil as the ship lay slanted within the ground itself, though there appeared to be a smattering of blood sprayed across the inner side of the right-most vertical panel. Almost all the lights in the room were off and it was dark. Reminds me of the complex. In the far edges of the room were small, dim red lights that pulsed softly like some kind of heartbeat of the ship itself. Emergency lights? he wondered, taking a long deep breath.

It smelled... a lot. Chrono winced a little as his nose curled back, taking in all the scents that had not been there just moments earlier. Or is it days ago? Weeks? Moments, whatever, he thought, shaking his head as his heart began to race. Moments ago for me! I know what I mean, he frowned. Glancing around, he realized that he was now arguing with himself. Just what I need... more crazy. Chrono put a hand onto his chest and closed his eyes, taking another deep breath and attempting to calm himself.

The smell was death... or more accurately it was decay. I remember a dead body. Narrowing his eyes a bit, the scars to either side of his replacement eyes gave his orange fur a deep furrow, his left eye squinting almost shut from it still being puffed up and bruised. Putting his left hand forward onto his left knee, he reached up with his right hand to pull himself up using the banister. I know I saw a caden... for just a moment. And it kind of looked like Benjamin and--

The sound of something crashing could be heard behind him, down the stairs towards the back of the ship. His shoulder-length orange hair waved out behind him as he quickly turned his head to look that direction. Reaching down to his waist, he found his Five-Seven still in its holster. Swiftly flicking open the fastener on the strap holding it in place, he pulled out the gun and pointed it down the stairs towards the back of the green colored ship. The smell of death was ahead of him, and it was from that direction that the oder of decomposition seemed to emanate.

She's never fixed the ship. Still buried and at an angle... wonder why not. Five days not enough time? He smirked. No, he knew five days wasn't a lot of time. Hey, Alpha... I need to know more about our mission. Let's say it has something to do with temporal anomalies... silly, huh? What if I could tell you what you said, verbatim, for an entire conversation you know I wasn't even around for because I was out with Wendy? I can, because I heard you say it some other day--blah, blah, blah... cursory convincing, but still not enough time for the higher ups to approve anything--oh, look it's Friday! Well, fuck, that didn't work...

The sound of a second crate falling over could be heard ahead of him and it snapped his attention back into the present. Chrono could feel the pumping of his heart speed up again, just a little bit. Focus on what you're doing, you twit, Chrono growled softly, chiding himself. You hear shit ahead of you... pay attention! His elbow already felt heavy from holding up his gun, the soreness of freeing himself from time persisting as stepped off the last step and onto the floor that traveled forward towards the cargo hold.

The hallway seemed darker, and Chrono realized it was in part due to the little red lights along the edges of the floor being completely dark. All the doors were shut as he moved forward into the ship, though. He checked both the first set and the second set as he moved up to the open door the led out to where the cargo had been held at the back of the ship. There was a pungent oder of blood as he moved closer to the back of the ship.

Maybe she died, he considered for an instant before he could hear her. She was talking to herself, again. Or, at least, whoever she was talking to wasn't responding... again. Well... the last time she was talking to a picture, so there's a least a precedence for her talking to herself this time, he considered as his allowed himself a small grin over his muzzle.

Tilting his head forward, he peered into the back cargo bay to find things not at all like he remembered. Many of the crates and barrels were simply missing.Three crates were smashed into pieces, their insides revealing nothing. One barrel was on its side, almost entirely empty, leaking what remained of some bright yellow liquid onto the back floor of the ship like so much spilt mustard.

Both hands up just in front of his face, he held his pistol with the muzzle upwards as he slowly stepped around the corner of the doorframe and into the lifeless cargo hold. Taking a few tentative steps towards the back of the ship, he could hear the voice of the drasomian woman again as it sounded like she might be complaining to herself about something. What do you know... complaining to yourself does actually sound crazy from the outside, Chrono smirked as he took another two steps forward.

Beyond the edge of the long ramp that jutted out over the desert sand, Chrono could make out the from the dimming light that it was dusk what with the darkness being deeper to the eastern side of the sky directly ahead. He could make out deep grey clouds that covered most all the stars in that direction. Sandstalker frowned a bit to himself, realizing that the approaching thunderstorm from the south only occurred on Friday afternoon... and that he was about to witness first-hand whatever happened at the end of the time loop now that he was no longer part of the infinitely running gag.

As he looked out over the end of the loading ramp, a coyote appeared over the edge and came towards him. Chrono brought his sights up to shoot the animal... but it just flopped over onto its side, a gash readily apparent along its belly. Its lifeless form dripped blood onto the metal grate over the back of the ship. The wolf smirked, fairly certain he knew what its appearance was all about. With a simple sniff, he determined that it was the same creature who's territory he usually woke up in each Monday morning.

Chrono took a few more steps forward to look towards where it had been thrown from when a set of fingers appeared up over the back end of the vehicle. His ears swiveled forward and his tail wagged slowly from side to side. Quickly he moved forward to the edge of the back ramp, looking down at a familiar set of deep blue eyes. "Hi," he said, his lips curling back from his teeth as he aimed his pistol down at her. "How ya doin'?"

Energy danced through Chrono's chest, but it didn't press against him like the small device's energy had. He had forgotten what benign time felt like. The "time shield" that protected the ship from alteration in the timeline floated in the air just over the back of the ramp and back at an angle to the top back of the ship. He gritted his teeth a bit, standing with the field going right through him as he looked down at the reptilian figure.

The lizard woman he had met before let out a startled yip and fell backwards onto her rump. As Chrono stood at the very back of the ship, he could look down at her from a little more than eight feet in the air. The female form below him was wearing an outfit that was obviously stolen from of an American soldier at some point in the past. It was covered in gray squares and had the last name of two of Chrono's packmates shown on the name patch on the left side.

Chrono let out a growl as he narrowed his eyes in the woman's direction. The shirt itself was ripped and he could make out what looked like a thin metallic suit colored a deep red being worn behind the fatigues. It resembled the same design as her heavy armour he had seen before, though between it and the covering of the shirt was obviously Benjamin and Joseph's upper body armour. The entire outfit, including the pants that went with it, were covered in blood stains. Given the likeliness that she had killed the two of them at some point in the past to attain it, he doubted how much of the blood on the getup was her own.

Laying there on the ground, her tail flopped out beside her. She was covered in scratches, gashes, and scars that weren't there before Chrono had been left as still life at the front of her ship. Good, he thought, I hope we gave her some of those... I hope she's had a rough time while I've been 'away'. He moved his arm so that his gun was pointed right at her chest. Taking a moment to consider that he didn't know were her heart was--or that she might even have more than one--he moved his arm again so that his Five-Seven was pointed right between her indigo eyes.

"Chronochhotakela!" she exclaimed with eyes wide.

"I've never heard those seven syllables come out of someone's mouth so fucking fast," Chrono derided. His tail sped up, quickly moving from side to side. I've got you now. With a smug smile forming on his face, a part of him badly wanted to hurt her for what she had done to him and now, apparently, his squad.

"By Kysis, I never thought you would move again!" she said, her voice unmistakably electrified by shock.

"That a deity or a person?" he asked with a frown.

"B... both?" she stuttered, lost at how to answer such an abrupt change in conversation. "How did you--"

"No, no," Chrono interrupted, shaking his head. "You tell me, now... what was your master plan with that? You semi-freeze me on your bridge and just decide you'll leave me there forever?" He was growling again, though his anger merely fluttered over his frame as he calmed at this line of questioning. He had an opportunity to get some answers and he was going to take it.

"That's not how... I mean," she raised her left hand and golden bracelets jingled around her wrist as she did so. "I wasn't thinking," she bit her lip. Nameless frowned, looking up at him as she sat there on the ground looking up. "I mean... I was thinking, at the time, but not very far ahead. I thought you meant to do me harm. I--"

"You'd left your doors unlocked," Chrono said, cutting her off again as he looked down at her. "And when I find you, you're bloody, naked, and crying and I get your attention... I actually get your attention, toss away all our weapons, and open up a dialog. We maybe seem to have hit it off and I left you to wash up--!" he barked at her. "And the next thing I know you're all dressed up, trying to be sexy--"

"Trying!" she quickly exclaimed, taking offense.

"--and handed me that little... stop... watch. Stop watch," he considered the term, licking his lips. "That's funny... stop watch. Never thought about it like that," Chrono said, chuckling a little, glancing up over her at a flash of light in the distance. Shaking his head, he turned his eyes back to her. "It looked like a little Dick Tracy watch and it slowed time for just me..." he trailed off. "Lost my thread... what was I saying?"

"That I wasn't sexy," she said, putting her hands quickly onto her upper legs as she looked up at him. There was a rumble behind her, and she turned to look at it.

"You don't have any breasts!" Chrono exclaimed, his hand shaking at bit as he roared at her. Nameless flinched and looked back up at him. "You're not even my species!" he blurted. "Some people might be into that... but, quite frankly, I have a girlfriend so you can just bugger off," he said, waving his right hand as he held the pistol in his left. "What I was saying was that you seemed really vulnerable when I found you and I wanted to open up negotiations--communication... and after I tried to do that... and you seemed receptive... you went ahead and put me in a little time bubble by what you just a moment ago exclaimed you had intended me to stay within for--what?--ever?"

"I wasn't thinking... I am sorry," she said, lowering her eyes. Glancing over her shoulder, she fidgeted in place as she watched another flash of lightening spark far off in the distance.

"You're sorry. That's great," Chrono retorted sharply. "Explain why you are sorry."

"What?" she asked, looking up at him.

"I'm gunna be honest with you... I'm pretty pissed about this and am likely to be hostile towards you for some time to come... but you are still the only person on this fucking planet that has any idea what is going on," he growled. "But you're going to have to tell me why you are sorry. Also, why you are here. Also, how many people came with you because you sure as shit don't act like commander-in-charge of any mission that wanted to succeed," Chrono said, keeping the gun trained on her.

"Can... can I explain that... inside the ship?" she asked, glancing over her shoulder again.

"You have thirty-seven and a half minutes... plenty of time to give me a few details... you know, just the Cliff's Notes," he smirked.

"No, I don't... I don't know what those are. I don't know what the details of a mountainside have to do with this," Nameless frowned.

Chrono blinked, looking down at her. His mind spun gears for a few seconds as he tried to understand what she had just said. Tilting his head to the side, he considered the implication of notes about cliffs. "The... the short version," he explained. "The highlights. The major events, important plot points... a quick summary--"

"Was that an exact measurement?" she interjected, going back to what Chrono had said before trying to explain Cliff's Notes. "You understand exactly when events are going to happen?" she wondered, moving her hands outwards and up as she asked the question.

"You're still not answering my questions," Chrono sighed, frowning as he looked up at the sky. "But, yeah... as Doc Brown would say... 'a bolt of lightening!'," he noted, pointing with his free hand at the sky just before a flash of light went off. "'Unfortunately, you never know when or where--'" he continued the quote, pointing to two distinct portions of the sky one after the other, each with their own flash of light just after he motioned. "'--It's ever gonna to strike!'," he concluded. "Except for this giant three-strike web you're about to see... take a look, it's really nice," he motioned up towards the sky with his right hand, palm up.

Nameless looked back behind her and, sure enough, three distinct strikes of lightening branched out in a giant pattern across the sky, weaving together and creating a spectacular effect that looked not unlike a spider's web. It was only in the air for an instant, but it lit up the entire sky in all directions. It was quite a display of mother nature, and Chrono had called it on the spot.

"Amazing," the drasomian woman noted, looking back up to Chrono with eyes wide.

"What can I say... nature can be quite a show," he smirked, looking back down at her.

"Not that," she blinked. "You. You knew those events before they happened."

"They've already happened," Chrono corrected, taking a moment to give another deep sigh. "Every day is yesterday," he said, glaring at her. "I know these five days inside and out... There's a lot left to understand in the world, but... I've had to learn timing by instinct or else go insane," he said simply. He motioned at her again with his gun. "You have thirty-three minutes left until the white light comes and resets the world."

"White light?" Nameless wondered, lowering her arms to her sides as she leaned back to look up at him.

"OK, seriously... I don't know what's going to happen to you outside of your little ship when the wave of energy hits, but I presumed it was going to be bad," he said simply, his brow furrowing. "Is it not going to be bad? Can you just sit out there and nothing happens to you?"

Looking down at herself, she took that question in and mulled it over for a moment. It's like she's considering being truthful, or lying, Chrono thought, watching her as she seemed to make up her mind. "If you keep me out here, I will probably cease to exist," she admitted.

"Then you better answer my questions," he said flatly, his tail going still.

The reptilian woman looked up at him, those deep blue eyes staring out from within that grayish purple face. Chrono met that gaze and kept his sight fixed on hers. After a moment, she looked away, "I'm sorry because I misjudged you. I didn't know what kind of person you were or what you were trying to accomplish. I didn't fully understand... and your language was very unclear to me at the time," Nameless said, looking up at him. "You had come at me that second time... and I thought you would pursue me each cycle if I didn't stop you."

Chrono thought about arguing the semantics of stopping him or slowing him, but decided she had very little time left to make this count. No reason to be a dick.

"As for the notes, I guess you could say I came here looking for answers about the history of my people. Myself and my entourage... my protectors... we came here in the three ships we had left. The last planet we were on had information which pointed us in this direction and we thought that the grand quarantine over your system must be hiding something of importance. We took the ships and piloted to this system, just the twenty of us."

"History of your people... what, were your observing the evolution of my race over the past thousand years or something?" Chrono asked. "Is that what that giant... facility... is meant for down below?"

"Maybe... but if records exist elsewhere then they are sealed back home," she said simply.

"And you can't ask for those records, I take it?" She nodded. "I want to ask why you are Nameless," Chrono stated, looking back into her eyes.

She glanced away as he looked at her. "I would rather you did not," she glowered, lowering her head and looking to the side. "And even if I felt up to answering you, thirty of your minutes is not enough time to do the tale any justice."

"One last thing and then I'll let you up," he told her. "You're wearing my packmates' uniform and armour. Did you kill them?"

She took another long breath. She's weighing her options, thinking over her words, he was sure. Do you lie to sound good, or do you just tell me the truth? After a moment, she nodded. "I have killed the two-headed wolf three times," she replied, watching his reaction.

"Bicorporeal, Siamese, Conjoined Twins... Benjamin and Joseph were not fully separated at birth," Chrono explained.

"I know how it happens," she stated simply. "I just couldn't remember what you called it. It... is exceedingly rare among my people."

"Mine too. Perhaps one in every thirty thousand," he explained as he watched her begin to stand up. "Why did you kill them? Did you kill the rest of my pack? And... based on what you just said, I suppose they didn't stay dead?"

"I thought you only had one more question," she said as she looked up at him, appearing uncomfortable.

"I said one last thing... one more topic... not one more question," he smiled down at her. "You've got twelve minutes left, easy," he nodded, his gun still leveled at her head. "Now. Answer."

"They were trying to harm me... it was only after the third time in a row did I realize that powering up your communicator was allowing your fellow warriors... um... packmates... to find out where you were," she explained. "And, yes, I killed others of them... as well as many others of your race who came to look into my craft or come for backup," Nameless said.

"My communicator?" Chrono asked. Blinking, he briefly looked back towards the front of the ship, then back down at her again. Reaching in to his shirt, he put his hand in the empty space where his iPhone would normally have been. "You have my phone?" She nodded. "Toss me my phone," he commanded, as his black lips pulled back from his teeth once more. With his hand out towards her, his ears shifted to the side and went flat against the top of his head

Reaching under the torn up digital camouflage shirt, she put her hands to the same space in the chest armour she was wearing that Ben and Joe would usually have their own pocket computer. Removing it, she threw it up to him. Catching it in one hand, Chrono rolled it around in his free hand, looking it over. It was covered in gouges, light scratches, and the screen had a hairline crack through it. At the bottom, the small port for data transfer looked to have been chopped open by force, an additional black metallic piece seemingly welded onto the bottom of the device.

"Your coding languages make no sense, but eventually the ship suggested a modification that would allow me to use your computer," she explained. "I use to build little machines when I was young, so your device was easy enough to understand as far as hardware goes. Software was a nightmare. Had to teach myself enough to bypass you're default--"

"You jailbroke my phone," Chrono said simply, tapping the home button and sliding his finger across the screen to unlock it. The interface was crude, now, green and golden designs agains a black backdrop. None of his usual apps were there, and there was nothing that resembled a home screen. Frowning, he saw that everything was in another language, presumably drasomian. "And now I can't read it."

"I can fix that," Nameless said. "Now can I come in my ship?"

"Throw me your weapon, and then you can," Chrono said, switching his Five-Seven to his right hand and holding out his left hand. Nameless blinked, watching his motion. She opened her snout to say something, but Chrono spoke first. "You cut open the coyote and you've made a valiant effort to keep your back to me as you remained there on the ground," he said. "Toss me your weapon unless you want to cease to exist."

"What will it take for you to trust me?" she asked him.

"Firstly, I should be asking that question as I am the only one of us to be stabbed to death by the other and the only one who was stuck like a statue for who knows how long," he growled. "Secondly, it'll have to happen after you toss me your weapon since as much as I'll need your help, I refuse to be stupid. Presumably if you kill me on this side of your time shield, I'll stay dead," he explained. "So... weapon. Toss," he moved his stubby fingers back and forth towards her as he held his outstretched hand.

Though the wide shoulders of Benjamin and Joseph's uniform did mange to cover the upper body of Nameless, there were still a set of tears in it vertically on either side of her back. From there were the two large, scarred lumps of flesh that Chrono had long since wondered about. It was between those two, above her tail, that she reached to and pulled out her machete. It was scuffed, stained, and obviously having gone without proper upkeep for some time.

She took a moment to look it over, shaking her head side to side as she seemed to take in the prospect of once again being unarmed. Holding it by the end of the blade, she tossed the weapon to him, hilt facing up. Quickly he snatched it out of the air with his waiting hand and looked it over. It had a black hilt wrapped in what appeared to be a soft wrap of cloth. There was a small emblem on the very end of the hilt which looked exactly like the one on the flags far below in the complex.

Sliding the bladed weapon once more into the side of his waistband, Chrono stepped away from the edge of the ship and back through the distortion of time fluttering there in the air. He shuttered a bit at the tingling sensation felt the energy pass through his head as he moved. "Come on in," he said, putting his other hand up to his pistol as he watched for her fingers at the edge of the cargo ramp.

"Not going to help me in?" she asked, watching him step out of view.

"No," he said, Because I'm not risking having you pull me down and toss me outside. And it was at that moment a new thought occurred to Chrono: If I'm in here, then what happens on Monday morning? Is there another me out there somewhere?

Her fingers appeared at the edge of the ship just as they had moments earlier. As the drasomian woman moved her scaled hand forward over the top edge of the loading ramp, Chrono's eyes were lost in thought. Looking up at him as she pushed her feet against the underside of the vessel, she felt compelled to ask, "What is it?"

"Your toy made it so I never jumped back to Monday properly," he stated, looking down at her as she pulled herself up and into the ship, his pistol once again following her as she did. "Does that mean... is there another me out there somewhere? One who appeared in the proper place when Monday's dawn comes?"

She stared up at him and slowly stood up, wiping dirt off of her knees, "Normally it would," she nodded. "But as you have long since been removed from the normal flow of time so... it doesn't affect you that way."

Chrono raised an eyebrow, "You removed me from the normal flow of time?"

"No," she waved a hand to the side. "You wouldn't be alone as the world repeats around you were you within the normal flow of time. Already removed from the steady and outward progression of time, you only have the experiences you have because you are able to fight the... I'm not sure what word you might use."

"Current? Like a river of time..." he asked.

"That might be appropriate, yes," she nodded. "Time is a bit more like an ocean, than a river."

"Ocean still has current," he said, looking just over her shoulder at to the view out behind her. She nodded. "So what happens... I just don't appear between Buster and Conner come Monday morning."

Stepping away from the back of the ship, Nameless raised her hands up and looked at Chrono as he kept the gun trained. "Yes," she said simply. "The black and white colored caden, Buster, puts in a call of your disappearance and how you were all attacked while moving across the bridge," she explains, looking over the gun Chrono still had aimed at her. "Which I would be interested to ask you about as time seems to have a fancy for allowing increased perception of it after a period of awakening, I've heard. Sometimes, it is literal."

He didn't respond to her last statement, instead turning his head to look out towards the back of the ship. With a little effort, he opened his swollen left eye just a bit wider as he did his best to keep her in view while looking out towards the night sky. "Now... when I mentioned the white light before, you acted confused," he said, turning his eyes to look at her, then back towards the back of the ship. "Is that right? When the loop restarts you don't see a light?"

She shook her head, turning to look out the back of the ship as well. "No... but I have heard of that phenomena as well. A skelartanus I rescued spoke of it often, though for him it was more like a flash... a white pulse and then everything would drop into cool purples and blues," she explained. "But his perception was over a different aspect of how time flows. What you describe comes at the end, right before a repeat. The two ends of a Kunichi Loop where the one serpent eats its own tail, Lacirtafintum..."

Chrono blinked, his head tilting to the side as he looked back over at her. "OK. So... Kysis is your deity, Sklatarnos was someone who had experience with a repeating loop of time called Koonishi, and you mysteriously also have a name for the serpent eating its own tail... another one of those bizarre similarities between our races from what little I understand so far. What we call Ouroboros, you call Lacertahfeum."

"Your pronunciations leave something to be desired... and skelartanus is a type of person, not the name of a person. The first had been cursed and sought to destroy Kysis because she lived outside of normal time without hinderance, while they lived outside of time in shadow of a life. You are a skelartanus, it seems." Her snout curved downward just a bit, into a frown. "Among the most religious of my people, you would be sought out to be destroyed for simply existing... the time-cursed are said to be bringers of Ghustove, the end and beginning of all things."

Chrono just shook his head, watching the back ramp. "No shit, I'm cursed... I could have told you that." He smiled a bit, thinking she didn't know the half of it. "Had bad luck my whole life... but this whole experience--which is the majority of my life at this point--is certainly the worst thing that's ever happened to me." He nodded, sighing a bit. "Ske-lar-tan-us... is that right?" She nodded. "You learned my language, the least I can do is try to learn yours... even more so if you have names for all this bullshit I've had to deal with up to this point."

"I didn't think that you had noticed."

"Trust me... that computer voice you had working for you before didn't sound like you at all," he said, his left hand's fingers playing over the top of his other hand as he continued to hold the pistol two-handed, pointed at her. "Which, I guess I have to ask... how long was I--"

Chrono didn't have the time to finish his question before he felt a shiver cross over his body. He knew with certainty what he felt this time, but it came across different. Whereas before, the end of the loop felt like an energy that pressed forward into him from outside, this time it felt as if it were a mist, a humidity. Heat, instead of fire. Fog, instead of rain, he thought as he closed his eyes and lowered his weapon.

"Here it comes," he said aloud. He felt like he would have mumbled, but he forced himself to yell it over the white noise pounding against his ears. "It's different this time... something is wrong," he said, as he swallowed hard.

"You're not inside of it," she said, and it felt like she was from some far off place, speaking from outside of reality. With his eyes closed, he could make out where she was even though he couldn't see her. He felt her presence, her disturbance in the flow of time. "If you feel anything, it would be different because you're standing upon the shore, overlooking the ocean of time."

"No," Chrono said sternly. The energy felt like it was licking at him from the other side of her time-shield. "No... we are in the ocean... it is all around us," he yelled out, the feeling of time crowding around him and drowning him out. He knew the moment in which the alteration in time happened... the roar of the serpent eating its own tail. It felt as if the ship rocked, and he fell over onto his side with a yelp. His eyes opened, and all he could see was white, blindingly bright. Striking the shielding of the ship, time crashed over it in all directions, rocking him down onto his knees.

Suffocation again, he realized, just like I last died... just like when regular time smashed into me at the front of the ship. The feeling of having no breath passed so suddenly, that he found himself unexpectedly sprawled out over the back ramp with one arm up behind him. For an instant, he thought that Nameless was trying to push him off the ship, but in the next instant he could tell she was wrenching him backwards into the cargo bay. Suddenly on his feet again, he stumbled and almost fell again towards the open door.

"Careful," she said simply as her tail lifted up behind him like a railing at his back, preventing him from falling over.

"Oh shit... oh shit," he kept saying for a few moments. "I had no idea it was that bad."

"You can put words to it?" she wondered. "I feel nothing when it happens... Tell me what you felt," she said, turning him with a simple motion of her tail so he could look into her eyes.

Chrono's eyes were wide and his heart was racing. "Your ship... it can't take much more of this..." he said, looking out as he realized dawn was almost upon them outside. "The lights," he realized, looking back at her. "Your ship is so dark... you're conserving power." Suddenly fully aware of the situation, his lips quivered as he spoke. "This isn't the shore at the edge of the ocean of time... you're ship is like a stone, being crashed and worn as the flow of time erodes it..."

"Amazing," Nameless said simply, though her tone was cool and calm, her eyes narrowed. "Yes," she spoke simply. "Each time this ship protects itself from the altering of time, its power drains."

All at once he took in the full implication of that realization. "If we don't stop this time loop," he said as his met her gaze, "you will cease to be, and I will be alone again."

She nodded, "Indeed."

End of Chapter Five

One Thing After Another