Disclaimer: All properties portrayed herein are owned by their respective creators and associated companies. No financial profit to be accrued through this fanfic.

This work of fiction is affiliated with the SpaceBattles-style Infinite Loops Project, and can be viewed not only as a stand-alone work, but also as part of an over-arching, infinitely expanding narrative. This compilation forms part of a SpaceBattles community project, and is presented in a style meeting the SpaceBattles ILP community's chosen standards for your enjoyment and participation. We invite you to find out more at the 'Infinite Loops: Miscellaneous Section, Catch 3x3' Creative Writing thread on SpaceBattles.

—ox-oxo-xo—

1.1 (Admin Shenanigans) | {Crisis} Jan 7th, 2014…

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

—ox-oxo-xo—

1.2 (Quantum Leap) / (Star Trek) / (Admin Shenanigans) | {Kris Overstreet} Feb 4th, 2014…

For Sam Beckett, Leaping tended to be instantaneous. There was the sensation for a second or two before it hit, the feeling that he was toppling backwards in a direction that didn't exist in three-dimensional space- which was pretty accurate, actually. Then blink, the world around him would be totally different. There was no sensation of traveling, no tunnel of light, just complete disorientation for a second or two as he entered yet another life someplace totally different on Earth.

But these last few leaps, after his strange experience in the mining-town tavern, had been even more jarring than usual. The first couple had been pretty straightforward, if much longer than usual. He'd spent ten years in Bedford Falls, New York before just happening to catch the richest man in town stashing money in his pocket that wasn't his. Then he'd spent almost as long in a place called Walnut Grove running a 19th Century general store before managing to successfully thwart a mining corporation's attempt to seize the village and all the farms surrounding it.

And then things had taken a turn for the peculiar, even by Sam's standards. He'd Leaped into Hercule Poirot – not an actor playing the role, but the actual inspector written by Agatha Christie. He still didn't know what he'd changed to allow him to leap out of that one. Then there was a year spent as a starfighter pilot and field medic – "Colonial Warrior," they called it. And then, most peculiar of all, there was the loop he spent speaking nothing but Japanese, being the male manager of an all-female boarding house and hot spring. There had been so many things that simply did not make sense in that one that he'd simply kept his head down and tried not to lose his marbles until, on the first day of classes at Tokyo University, he'd Leaped.

The first thing he'd noticed was the large screen in front of him showing stars moving.

A voice just below where he stood said, "You'd better wake up, Bones."

A deeper voice off to his right added, "The bridge is no place for officers who are not awake."

I'm on the bridge of the starship Enterprise, Sam Beckett thought.

Aloud he could only respond: "Oh, boy."

James T. Kirk, youngest Starfleet officer to ever achieve the rank of captain, launched himself from his chair. "Bones?" he asked. "Are you all right?"

"Ah, byaah, byahh, yes," Sam stuttered. "Yes, I'm quite well. Thank you."

Spock, over at the science console with the ludicrous number of switches and no visible keyboard, raised an eyebrow. "Perhaps Doctor McCoy has come to remind us of our upcoming physical examinations. He would be an entirely different man," the Vulcan said with the slightest emphasis, "if he did not do so at irritating early times."

"Really?" Kirk smiled, stepping up to the outer bridge. "Well, considering we're out in uncharted space, we must maintain peak fitness. Mister Sulu, you have the conn."

As soon as the three were in the chief medical officer's office and the door closed, Kirk leaned forward. "We know you're not Bones McCoy," he said quickly but quietly. "You didn't respond to our traditional Awake signal, and you didn't give the usual response he'd give if he wasn't Awake either. You also don't have his accent."

"And you also have said little to nothing since the beginning of this Loop," Spock added. "Doctor McCoy would have had quite a number of things to say." After the tiniest twitch which might have been a Vulcan shrug, he added, "That is, of course, only corroboration."

Sam hated this. He'd had it drilled into his head since he started Leaping that telling people who he really was was a Bad Thing. He'd done it a few times; sometimes it had worked well, and other times it had backfired badly. But here? Now? In a world which was fiction to him? In a world that understood time travel, temporal anomalies and the like?

And, most important, without Al? He really missed Al. The link to ZIGGI and the Project: Quantum Leap accelerator facility was nice, but the personal connection to his best friend had been gone for such a very long time.

Sam Beckett was tired of being alone.

So he explained all of it: Quantum Leap, the last foolish experiment he'd made on the eve of funding cuts that would have scuttled his life's work, the general mechanics of his Leaping... and how it had gone really peculiar the last few Leaps. He laid it all on the table and watched as Kirk and Spock failed to bat an eyelash... or an eyebrow, in Spock's case.

When Sam finally ran out of steam, Kirk nodded to himself. "I think we can explain the strangeness you've experienced," he said. "The last few times, you haven't been Leaping. You've been Looping."

Together Kirk and Spock laid out the basics for Sam. They confirmed the existence of multiple parallel worlds, including worlds from fiction and stranger places. They gave hints of a Higher Power that had set the worlds to repeating periods of history to preserve the worlds from some unknown calamity. They demonstrated, and then taught the trick, of the subspace pocket.

Except...

"Er... guys, I think there's some stuff already in here." Sam reached into subspace as he'd been shown and pulled out a hip flask. A second attempt brought out something Spock identified as a tricorder from roughly a century into their world's future. A third brought out a set of credentials – badge and identification – identifying the wearer as Dr. Leonard H. McCoy, Las Vegas Forensics Division Crime Scene Investigations Unit.

"This is actually logical, Captain," Spock noted. "Normally when one of us is replaced by a visiting Looper, the newcomer retains their own identity and appearance. Yet Doctor Beckett appears to us just as Doctor McCoy. It is as if his mind is present, but not his body."

"That is precisely correct," a new voice echoed in the office.

The three men spun to face the corner of the room, where a fat, balding man in a toga stood. He held an object which Sam gaped at – a dead ringer for Al's hand-link. The togaed man even had a lit cigar in his other hand.

"Who are you?" Kirk snapped. "And what are you doing on my bridge?"

"I'm Bacchus," the newcomer said. "God of wine, parties, debauchery, and occasionally inspiration. I'm one of the admins, and I've been assigned to Doctor Beckett's case." He jabbed the cigar in Sam's direction.

This explanation appeared to make sense to Kirk and Spock; it was Greek (or possibly Latin) to Sam. "My case?" he asked.

"Yeah, well," Bacchus shrugged. "You're the result of what happened when your Frozen Loop... went a little ka-ka."

God, Sam groaned, is he acting like—

"Yes, I'm acting like Al," the god said. "You're a very special case. Your Loop was never intended to go live, especially since its baseline ended in an irreconcilable paradox. But Yggdrasil – I'm sure you recognize the derivation – well, our system had a major crash recently. It hit practically every world. We had a devil's own time keeping it from damaging the Hub. Somewhere in the chaos, you got... knocked loose from your home world."

"Knocked loose?" Sam gasped.

"Yeah, well, you weren't exactly tethered down very tightly, were you?" Bacchus said. "Your Loop would have been marked Read Only for temporal instability, if you hadn't crashed it good and proper long before the original Event. Lemme make this clear for you, Sam. We can't Loop your world, because your experiment, and your adventures, took the string which might have been your world's history and balled it up until nobody can find the ends. And then you did something to cut it all to pieces."

"I'm sorry," Sam shook his head. "I don't remember what. The last thing I remember is discussing Leaping with a bartender."

"Well," Bacchus said, "the upshot of it is this. I'm a god. No, let me put it a different way. I'm a god's god. What you're looking at now is just a metaphor. You couldn't handle all my awesomeness."

"Humility is, as ever, a hallmark of the Olympian pantheon," Spock noted.

"Thank you," Bacchus noted. "Your sarcasm has been noted and will be remembered the next time you replace Link in a Zelda Loop. Anyway, I'm a whole lot of dimensions above your level. And there's gods who get to be my boss, right? They're the real brains of the operation. And trust me, they're some really smart guys and gals. But even they don't know how to either get you back home," he pointed to Sam again, "or to get Al Calavecci out to join you. But we're working on it."

"And that's why you came here? To tell us that?" Kirk asked.

"Is there some reason why he shouldn't?" Sam asked.

"The beings known to Loopers as the Admins," Spock said softly, "appear only rarely to anyone. When they do it is either to warn a Looper against repeating certain conduct or, on very rare occasions indeed, to apologize for some event. They do not make casual visits."

"S'right," Bacchus nodded. "But Sam here is special. Sam doesn't have a home Loop. He's not even keeping his own body anymore. It's just his mind bouncing around the Loops. We can't strip him out of the Loops, except by erasing him, which we really do not want to do.

"So we Upstairs had a bit of a confab, and we decided Sam needed a helper. And since the Loops I'm normally an admin for are among the most stable out there, it was decided I could be that helper." Bacchus stood up a little straighter, stuck out his chin, and said, "My casual resemblance to a certain dashing war hero and astronaut was a bonus."

Sam couldn't help but smile. The resemblance in appearance, aside from the black hair, was almost nonexistent. But the attitude... the confidence, the earthiness... that was Al. "Thanks," he said quietly.

"Don't mention it, kid," Bacchus said. "Now, when we step out of this room I'm gonna be in hologram mode, just like you're used to. Not even these two will be able to see me."

"Why not us?" Kirk asked.

"Don't want to strain your acting talents too hard, Jim baby," Bacchus grinned. "Besides, you've had a lot of practice at not being seen, haven't you? Don't you like being on the other end of things?"

"Not particularly, no," Kirk said.

"Well, get used to it," Bacchus said, losing his jovial tone. "Look on the bright side. Sam here has six doctorates, including medicine. He's the greatest genius his world ever produced. McCoy is scheduled for two weeks of shore leave while you take that trip through the barrier, right? He can use it to catch up on modern medicine. It's all wave and click technology anyway. You'll have a doctor almost as good as McCoy... except that unlike McCoy, he IS also a bricklayer, a diplomat, a mechanic, a—"

"I get the picture," Kirk said, holding up a hand in surrender. "Can you at least tell me if this Loop is baseline?"

"Indeed yes," Bacchus said. "Perfect baseline with a termination just beyond the Khitomer Incident thirty-odd years from now."

"Good," Kirk said. "That might give Dr. Beckett a chance to get his feet under him." He held out a hand to Sam. "Welcome to the Loops, Dr. Beckett."

"Call me Sam."

"That would be illogical," Spock noted, "as identifying you as someone other than Dr. McCoy would call unwelcome attention to us from—"

"What Spock means," Kirk said quickly, "is he thanks you for the familiarity, but we'd prefer to call you Doc."

"Oh. Well, that works too."

—ox-oxo-xo—

1.3 (Labyrinth) / (Oz) | {Lord Circe} Jan 27th, 2014…

Sarah leaned over her desk, sketching out circles and lines. She paused occasionally, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath, before letting it out, slowly. Finally, she nodded and stood. Tonight was the night. Tonight, she would put her plan in motion.

Giggling, she skipped into Toby's room. He sat in his crib, Lancelot clutched by his little fist, and he started to giggle as he saw her dance into the room. Moving over to the crib, Sarah scooped Toby up in her arms, spinning him around. She leaned in close, speaking softly, "Goblin King, Goblin King, wherever you may be. Come forth, and take this child away from me." Toby giggled, reaching out for her hair, but Sarah set him down before he could grab it.

Turning about, she listened hard. Sure enough, she heard the scuttling noise of the goblins coming to see what the fuss was about. She smiled softly, then turned to face the window.

"I wish." The sucked in breath of the goblin's was totally audible, and Sarah had to stop herself from laughing aloud.

"I wish."

"I wish the Goblin King would...STOP PLAYING WITH HIS BALLS AND GET OUT HERE RIGHT NOW!"

There was a clunk as one of the goblins, Mingly, if she didn't miss her guess, fell out from behind the bed in shock, then quickly scrambled back behind the bed. A loud crash sound from outside the window, and Sarah walked over to look down.

Jareth sat on the lawn, obviously having fallen out of owl form. He pouted up at her. "No fair, you didn't give the sign that you were Awake."

Sarah rolled her eyes. "Cause seeing you sprawled out on the lawn is just too funny. Now, get up here."

Jareth muttered under his breath as he shifted into owl form and flew up through the window. Sarah was bent over the crib, tickling Toby. As Jareth landed, Sarah spun around, clapping her hands. "Right, we're invading Oz!"

Jareth stumbled and almost fell over, before turning to stare at her incredulously. "What?! Are you, what?"

Sarah laughed again. "I have it all planned out. I've been helping Ludo practice waking up the rocks, and last time we were there, he learned how to make friends with most of the Emerald Wall." She started grinning and rubbed her hands together. "I can't wait to see Dorothy's face when the walls start fighting for us."

Jareth rubbed his forehead. "And Glinda? Ozma? Do you have any plan for dealing with them?"

Sarah frowned. "Of course." She then stepped right up to him. "And don't try to talk me out of it. You're the one who decided it was a good idea to hand over control of your kingdom to a fourteen year old girl and then fly off to Jamaica."

Jareth held up his hands. "Very well. I am, as I said, your slave."

Sarah rolled her eyes again. "Oh shut up. Now, we have a lot of planning to do. Now that you know I'm Awake, I can work on an aging potion, and..." Her voice trailed off as she moved down the hall of the house. Jareth sighed, following. The things he did for love.

—ox-oxo-xo—

1.4 (Gurren Lagann) / (Admin Shenanigans) | {Dalxein} Jan 14th, 2014…

This fused loop was not going well. The Gurren was already trashed before they could even fuse up, Lagann tossed halfway across the planet with Simon still inside it, And Kamina was honestly not sure if his left arm was broken or dislocated, but it was hanging painfully limp and bloody at his side. This was shaping up to be another crashed loop already...

Then, in a flash of light, a massive sword speared into the ground in front of him. It gleamed with ethereal light from the many branched prongs along the blade. Attached was a note.

"Go nuts, bro.
—Susanoo"

With a grin, he grabbed the hilt of the Ten-Span Sword with his working hand and charged.

—ox-oxo-xo—

"I'm not sure it was such a good idea to give him a copy of your sword. Even a tenth of its actual power could be dangerous," Epona stated as she worked away trying to stabilize the loop.

"Uhh... Copy?" Susanoo asked.

The sound of typing abruptly stopped. With a slow, deliberate motion, the lower-class admin turned to glare at her boss. "You didn't."

"Didn't what?"

She was fuming, now. "You did not just give your actual sword, a divine, administrator-level weapon to one of the most chaotic if not functionally insane Loopers in the system! This is like handing the Hulk the Actual Admin Thor's Mjolnir! You have no idea how bad this is, do you!?" By this time she was raging in his face as he leaned back desperately trying to not make the horse goddess any angrier.

"I'll replace it with a 1/20 power copy between loops, okay?" He tried, hoping it would appease her wrath.

She backed away, smoothing her ruffled mane back into a proper office bun. "If he crashes either loop with that thing before then, I'm going to get Ammy to lock you in the sun again."

As she went back to her terminal to assess the damage, Susanoo couldn't help but whimper and hope his faith in his favorite looper was well-founded.

—ox-oxo-xo—

1.5 (Percy Jackson) | {Star Fata} Jan 18th, 2014…

Sally Jackson, having disposed of her first husband with Medusa's head, was just cleaning their small apartment. Percy might not be coming home again this loop, but she was expecting visitors, and it was bad enough that Gabe's statue was there without putting up with his mess as well.

Well, technically only one visitor. She'd just tossed the last of the beer cans when he arrived.

"Hello Poseidon," she greeted, stealing a quick glance at her former lover's face. The sea god seemed perturbed.

"Sally," he began, before struggling for words.

She got herself a drink while she waited for him to find them, letting him flounder in the awkwardness.

"Was Percy always a girl?" Poseidon blurted out in a rush.

Sally took a casual sip of her water. "No."

"Then..." Startled by her attitude, the earth shaker lost his words again.

This time, Sally took pity on him. "It's a curse. Fresh water for a boy, sea water got a girl." She explained. Percy had gotten the idea from Nerima, although he kept changing which gender was caused by which form of water. 'The sea is change' indeed. "As far as we know, there's no cure." Except for being a looper and removing the curse you applied to yourself for laughs, but that didn't count.

Poseidon frowned. "So our son..."

"Is also our daughter. Two for one special," Sally quipped.

Poseidon scowled at her briefly, but the mortal woman only rolled her eyes. "Percy doesn't mind – zie probably has too much fun with it to be honest. She likes being able to go onto the girls locker rooms, and loves men's jeans. I'd be more worried about that Camp of his, since they won't keep them right in Percy's sex."

The god simply stared at her. Percy was right, this was a funny prank.

—ox-oxo-xo—

1.6 (Cats Don't Dance) | {Inkweaver22} Feb 27th, 2014…

"Bad loop?" Sawyer asked, raising an eyebrow as Danny poured black coffee into his cereal.

"I replaced Tora," the tabby said bitterly with his mouth full.

"Who?"

"The cat from Naruto that the Fire Daimyo's wife owns."

"Ouch." Sawyer winced in sympathy for her boyfriend. "Well... Would pranking Darla make you feel better?"

"Maybe..." Danny sulked, stirring his caffeinated breakfast. "Psychological torture?"

"Alright, as long as you don't drive her completely insane."

"Aww..."

—ox-oxo-xo—

1.7 (Admin Shenanigans) / (Marvel) | {Kris Overstreet} Jan 8th, 2014…

BEGIN EMAIL ARCHIVE

FROM: Yggdrasil (Prime) Administrative Bot
TO: The Watchers
CC: Uatu
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.)

—ox-oxo-xo—

TO: Yggdrasil (Prime) Administrator
FROM: Uatu
CC: The Watchers
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 non-interference 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!

—ox-oxo-xo—

TO: Uatu
FROM: Thor
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)

—ox-oxo-xo—

TO: Thor
FROM: Skuld
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

—ox-oxo-xo—

TO: Thor
FROM: Uatu
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!

—ox-oxo-xo—

TO: Uatu
FROM: Thor
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, even.

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)

—ox-oxo-xo—

TO: Thor
FROM: Skuld
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

—ox-oxo-xo—

TO: Skuld
FROM: Thor
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

—ox-oxo-xo—

1.8 (West Wing) / (Harry Potter) | {Tennie} Feb 21st, 2014…

Josiah "Jed" Bartlet could still remember when he started Looping. His last day in office had also been the inauguration day of his successor, Matt Santos. But when he woke up the next day and checked the papers, he noticed that the date was January 20, 1998: his own inauguration day. This was further confirmed when he found himself taking the oath of office. At first, he wondered if it was some sort of dream, but when he awoke the next morning the date was January 21, 1998. Clearly, it hadn't been a dream, and he was now – it seemed – reliving his administration all over again.

The whole thing sounded ridiculous to Jed – it reminded him of a movie he'd seen once, about a man who had to relive the same day over and over again. In any case, he was presented – at least at first – with some of the same situations that he'd already faced the first time around. Since he remembered the consequences of what happened the first time around, he made some different choices on those situations that he felt called for it. This, of course, led to different consequences, which he decided to store away in his memory should it turn out that he was indeed caught in a time loop.

Santos's inauguration day came, and went – and Jed's first inauguration day arrived immediately thereafter, again – just as a part of him had suspected it would.

Not to mention that a pattern established itself, and made it clear: President Jed Bartlet was indeed trapped in a time loop, forced to relive his eight years in office, over and over again.

What surprised him, though, was that after a while he noticed that at least some of his cabinet members were also recalling feeling like they'd been doing certain things before. Once he finally decided to ask them about those feelings, he was able to confirm that he was actually not alone in knowing that there was a time loop in place. However, as to the cause of the loops, that remained a mystery.

But just as things seemingly couldn't get any weirder, they did. In one loop, those damned assassins' bullets managed to kill Jed. When he woke up, he found himself in what this time was an unfamiliar place, in a building that had what looked to be some Gothic architecture or something similar. While wandering around, wondering if he was in some kind of afterlife, he encountered a boy who looked to be familiar to him, but he couldn't immediately place it. When he asked where he was, the answer that he got stunned him:

"Hogwarts."

Hogwarts. Wasn't the name of a fictional school that featured in those books that he'd been hearing about for a good while? When he asked the boy his name, it was even more shocking:

"My name is Harry Potter."

So now he was in what was supposed to be a fictional universe, it seemed. When Jed unintentionally mentioned that out loud, an odd look appeared on Harry's face, like someone who knew something about what was going on. So Jed decided to ask if Harry knew anything.

The answer he got was perhaps the most shocking of all.

Soon Jed was learning of an unusual tale, about a computer system that runs the multiverse, how it got some sort of glitch, and how numerous universes had to be forced to start looping while the administrators tried to fix the problem. Upon learning the lingo that came with the Loops (with a capital "L", to apparently distinguish them from loops caused by other sources, or that occurred at other times, or whatever), and learning about how Harry's universe had been among the first to start looping (apparently having gone through thousands upon thousands of Loops by the time Jed had arrived here, with no estimates of when the Loops would end), he'd realized that his home universe would also almost certainly be trapped in the Loops for seemingly forever.

Then he decided to ask how long he'd be stuck here. The response he got was that he'd be here for another seven years, and if he were to leave early (typically by dying somehow), he'd end up in an even worse continuity.

And from that day forward, Jed Bartlet's personal Hell would enlarge at an alarmingly rapid rate...

—ox-oxo-xo—

1.9 (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) | {Crisis} Jan 23rd, 2014…

Leonardo, Raphael, and Donatello were staring at a very strange sight.

The fact that Michelangelo was zipping around on one of those Extreme Gears that the brothers had picked up the last time they had a fused Loop with Sonic wasn't that odd. Heck, there were times when the party animal/x-gamer that was Michelangelo had to literally be pried from the thing with a crowbar.

No, the fact that their mutual sensei and Anchor, one Master Splinter, was matching their hyperactive brother move-for-extreme-move on his own Extreme Gear was. The sight was so incongruous with the usual subdued wise manner of the mutant martial arts master that their brains, tempered by many Loops worth of strange sights, refused to process it.

"Aw, yeah sensei!" Mikey cheered as the two rounded a tight turn, pursued by a slew of foot-soldiers on air bikes, several of which didn't make it and wiped out spectacularly. "That's the way to do it!"

"Not bad 'my main man'," Splinter smirked, "but I believe we should 'kick it up a notch', should we not?"

"Ask and ye shall receive!" Mikey grinned.

—ox-oxo-xo—

1.10 (Admin Shenanigans) | {Lord Circe} Jan 8th, 2014…

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, disturbing.

"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 multiversal 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 multiversal 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 universal 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 its, 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 a Level 2 event."

Janus nodded, his head bobbing from side to side, as he rushed out of the room.

—ox-oxo-xo—

1.11 (Cats Don't Dance) | {Inkweaver22} Feb 27th, 2014…

"So you replaced another anchor who is also named Danny?"

"Yep! Watch this! Going ghost!" A white ring appeared around the cat's waist before splitting in two and traveling across his body. His clothes were replaced with a black and white jumpsuit complete with boots and gloves. A tuft of fur on his head turned white and his eyes became a glowing electric green. "So what do you think?" Danny asked as he floated in place. Sawyer stared for a moment before giving a Cheshire grin.

"I take it Darla is going to have a hard time this loop?"

"You know it." The dancer returned the evil smile. This was going to be FUN.

—ox-oxo-xo—

1.12 (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) | {Dalxein} Jan 23rd, 2014…

"Why don't you guys just use shadow clones or robot doubles or... whatever, and then go do something interesting like go to college and get some degrees instead of bothering with the Concert Tour?"

*Sighs* "Because A: the copies always, always, always get found out... and B: we're supposed to be guys in suits in that reality. Not actually being guys in suits means we can't do anything normal because WE'RE MUTANT TURTLES. The crazy military scientists tend to notice and try to catch things like us! It's either play nice with the kiddies, or run and hide from the scientists while the public freaks out at the sight of us. Well, that or get caught and hope the scientists use the small probes this time..."

All of the brothers shuddered at that.

—ox-oxo-xo—

1.13 (Valdemar) {yannoshka} Dec 22nd, 2013…

Young Vanyel Ashkevron, heir to his father's hold of Forst Reach, woke from a night of restful sleep, and then Van Awoke to the loop.

"Huh, human body. Been a few loops since I got to experience it last," he mused idly, while waiting for the loop memories to kick in. Yfandes just snorted on the other side of their mental bond.

:Hah. A few dozen loops, and you act as if it were eternity. It's been a few hundred since I last was human, and you don't hear me complaining,: the Companion bantered.

The memories came soon after, and from what he could gather, it seemed to be basic run of his life, from the beginning of the day Jervis broke his arm. Yep, definitely skipping that part.

And then another mental channel unfolded within his mind. Good, that meant Tylendel just Awoke as well. Loops without his beloved tended to be a bit depressing since there was the oh so alluring facsimile around.

:Hey Van! Seems like we have a Variant loop here,: Stefen's mindvoice cheerfully greeted him. :Same lifestory, I just got born a few decades early,: the bubbly Bard continued.

"Stef! Hah, this gives me an idea!" Van cheered.

:Oh?:

"Yep! What say you lover that we introduce Valdemar to Rock'n'Roll? A fellow Looper from another 'verse helped me adapt my amp so it can run on ambient magic."

:Dibs on being Freddy Mercury archetype!:

—ox-oxo-xo—

1.14 (Admin Shenanigans) | {RPMasterweaver} Jan 13th, 2014…

"Mictec, what is this?"

The womanly skeleton looked up at the approaching Hel, brushing off her ribs and standing quickly. "Ah, yes. This! I got this idea from, how do you say, the one of the Shinto that knows trees?"

"I don't know all the Kami by name," Hel pointed out. "But I can see that this is a Bonsai yggdrasil, for lack of a better term."

"I am calling it the name Ceiba!"

"Mictecacihuatl, why do you have a bonsai world tree?!"

"Oh it is being simple!" the skeleton reassured him. "This is an experiment of controlled failure. See the fracture codes? I am, how you say, simulating a small problem to be finding out what if can be explained to the larger problem." She smiled broadly. "It even has being little semi-loopers hopping from branch to branch!"

"I... see." Hel sighed. "I suppose that could be written off as a legitimate expense."

"There is also the fact that it is cute," Mictecacihuatl pointed out. "The loopers are all of wearing little fezes. That is the right word, is it?"

Hel shrugged. "Search me."

—ox-oxo-xo—

1.15 (Legend of Zelda) / (My Little Pony) / (Samurai Jack) / (Venture Bros.) | {Dalxein}{Hubris Plus} Jan 12th & 13th, 2014…

"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."

—ox-oxo-xo—

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.

—ox-oxo-xo—

1.16 (High School Musical) / (Cats Don't Dance) | {Lord Circe} Feb 27th, 2014…

Troy blinked as he Awoke, just stepping off of a train platform. He stumbled, slightly, as he adjusted his balance, before he glanced back at the tail he was sporting. "Huh, I'm a cat. I guess that sort of fits." He then glanced around, taking stock of the height discrepancies between him and the humans around him. "Right, no basketball this Loop. Which leaves..."

Then the memories hit. He had arrived here in Hollywood hoping to jumpstart his career, and he was looking to star in a movie along side the actress, Vanessa. Slowly, he smiled.

"I can work with that."

—ox-oxo-xo—

1.17 (Admin Shenanigans) | {Kris Overstreet} Jan 16th, 2014…

"Are you trying on purpose to get yourself kicked out of Heaven," Skuld asked in exasperation, "again?"

Susanoo sat at his console, turned in his chair to face a trio of very unhappy gods. Skuld, of course, was Yggdrasil's chief debugger and, therefore, one of the leaders of the repair attempts that included the seemingly Infinite Loops. Next to her stood Tyr One-Hand, Yggdrasil's chief admin. And next to him stood Susanoo's sister, the usually silent Amaterasu, glowing eyes staring at him with deep disappointment.

When his bosses brought Amaterasu in for one of their little discussions, Susanoo knew it was serious.

"Look, honest," he said, glancing at the three of them, "this time it really, honestly, is NOT my FAULT!"

"We agreed that your little project would remain Read-Only indefinitely," Skuld pressed. "Let me go over the reasons.

"First, you have an embryonic god. Her baseline is that she rewrites her local multiverse on a subconscious level. She is on the absolute cusp of Ascension... if she hasn't done so already." Skuld looked around. "You haven't had any unscheduled visitors lately, have you?"

"Look," Susanoo said, "Suzumiya is in control of her abilities on a subconscious level. She does nothing which would actively jeopardize her reality. Rewrite, yes; destroy, no. In fact she activated a subset of herself to arrange for a divergent timeline in order to preserve her baseline world from collapse."

"Yes," Skuld nodded. "Listed here under 'multiple divergent and convergent timelines.' Moving on. Second: significant use of, and reliance upon, time travel for the continuation of the baseline world."

"Predestination paradox protection," Susanoo countered. "With the exception of the presence of two time travelers, all time travel is done solely because it had already been done. Ouroboros patch, job's a good'un."

"Third," Skuld persisted, "multiple lesser reality-altering beings."

"The data entities are emergent and generally static. They're generally incapable of comprehending the higher levels. They're safe."

"Fourth. Extended time loop running in baseline universe."

"That's a bum rap and you know it. It's impossible to terminate a major Loop while within a local Loop. Nesting doll protection law."

"And finally, the aforementioned divergent and convergent timelines. Granted that all of these factors are category 2 or lower, the fact that they're all in the same universe – AND the fact that that universe, being one of your personal hobby pieces of chaos and disruption, has no resources required for current repairs on Yggdrasil, makes the whole universe a prime Read-Only candidate." Skuld waved her clipboard at the storm god. "We discussed this. You agreed. You signed the forms yourself. In triplicate. No carbons. And yet," she pointed to his console, "the Suzumiya universe is reading as an active Loop!"

"And what I'm trying to tell you is," Susanoo said, "I didn't activate it. It activated ITSELF."

That shut Skuld up.

Amaterasu gently pushed Susanoo away from his console and keyed up the relevant readout.

UNIVERSE: SN-NT-2002-PRIME
STATUS: LOOP PROTOCOL ACTIVE (variable 2 or 6 years duration w/Ouroboros Loop enclosed)
LOOP CONDITION: STABLE

And then the font changed to rainbow colors for the next readout:

ADMIN: YASUMI WATAHASHI (SUSANOO, SUPERVISOR)
ANCHOR: KYON
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: HARUHI SUZUMIYA

Amaterasu pointed at the readout, then walked away, rubbing her temples.

The other three gods groaned.

"Looks like Epona's going to get a promotion," Skuld said. "You're going to have to give up admin duties on the Zelda Loops. From now on your full time job is making sure that this," she jabbed a finger at the screen, "doesn't break anything else."

Susanoo shrugged. A chaos god knows to be philosophical when his own chaos bites him in the butt.

—ox-oxo-xo—

1.18 (Admin Shenanigans) / (Prototype) / (The Stanley Parable) | {Wribro} Feb 4th, 2014…

Skuld was perfectly calm. "What."

"He… He authorized… that Read Only… for the loops."

The ticking of the clock hanging above the doorway to the chief debugger's office was particularly loud. Tyr One-Hand remained stoic.

Setting her elbows on the table, Skuld clasped her hands before resting her chin on them in a thinking pose.

More time passed. First it was only seconds. Then it was minutes. Then:

As if commenting on the weather, "He… is fired."

"Indeed." he acknowledged. It was the only logical response to have.

"He is so… extremely… fired."

"Of course."

"I don't think," she pondered, searching her very long memory, "that I've actually heard of a more fireable offense. Not even as a joke."

"Quite."

"This… Is going to suck," she groaned, finally moving on to the consequences of what that moron did. She put her face in her hands, feeling like she wanted to cry.

"Agreed," he stated. Then he tacked on as an afterthought, "I will get some coffee. Black?"

"Please," she mumbled.

For a moment, she spared a thought for the poor Loopers. That thing was practically their natural predator.

—ox-oxo-xo—

This is a story about a viral abomination which has chosen the moniker Alex Mercer.

Once upon a time, there was a man named Alex Mercer, but he was quite amoral. He worked for a large company, called GENTEK, doing something which is infinitely more interesting than pushing buttons all day long, 24/7/52: Genetically engineering biological weapons for a shadowy organization. Of course, these sorts of situations are typically untenable for people who work for secret organizations which, unsurprisingly, want to remain secret. Alex realized this when his coworkers began to mysteriously disappear, one by one. So, being particularly cognizant of the unlikelihood that they all just left to have a holiday at Majorca, he prepared for an early retirement.

Except that things did not go according to plan.

For Alex Mercer the viral abomination, the story begins in the GENTEK Morgue at the GENTEK Building in Gramercy, New York.

"Hey, I knew this guy! He was Blacklight!" one of the two morticians surrounding the operating table mysteriously exclaimed.

"... Yeah. Well, now he's ex-Blacklight."

The first speaker held a clipboard up to his glass-covered face. "His name is… Mercer, Alex J.. Next of kin… Mercer, Dana A.. Is that his wife?"

"Don't know."

"... Do you think this has anything to do with the test subject on fifty-one?"

The second nameless mortician sighed, "I have no idea. And even more, I don't wanna know," he gestured to the cart near the other worker. "Just give me the eight-inch blade."

His companion dutifully obliged, handing over the tool.

"We'll start by going through the torso…"

And then Alex Mercer gasped.

Backing off, one of the workers yelled, "GET THE FUCK OUT!"

And then they ran, and the other mortician—

A pair of tentacles skewered both of them before they could get away.

—screamed to the other… Wait. Wait, what? That wasn't in the script at all—

"I… hate… you."

Now he's talking to himself. Maybe that was supposed to happen later in the story? *rustling papers*

The Blacklight Virus, though weakened, exploded into motion, leaping for the doorway—

Only for it to slam shut in his face with supernatural force..

Oh, no no no, we can't have that. This must be sorted out before the story can continue. Something has clearly gone wrong. There mustn't be any imperfections in the telling. Don't worry; the action has been temporarily paused so that this problem can be solved. Now, let's see…

Mercer formed both of his arms into into hammerfists and started slugging away at the door, the walls, the floor, the ceiling. Anything. Everything. Nothing budged.

*humming* Ah! Yes. Here it is: Alex Mercer falls off of the operating table in a disoriented state. He slowly stumbles after the retreating morticians, watches their brutal execution at the hands of Blackwatch agents, and then jumps over the wall into New York City proper. End cutscene.

He switched to his bladed form and slashed impotently at the doorway. Like before, he was rebuffed, and the door was completely unscathed by the onslaught.

Now, I know that you're frustrated with this whole Looping business. Trust me, I know. You are not the only one. But I'm here to tell you that the story is there for a reason. It is meant to be followed. It's how these things work. You're not supposed to have this kind of choice in the first place; it's the natural order of things. C'est. La. Vie. Period. You follow the script, I follow the script, everyone follows the script, and I promise you…

The viral abomination breathed heavily in rage, eyes darting around at the phenomenally intact room.

… everything will be just fine. So! Who's ready to take it from the top?

Alex Mercer let out an inhuman roar of fury… and despair.

Fantastic! I knew that you would be up for the task!

Let's begin again.

—ox-oxo-xo—

1.19 (Gurren Lagann) / (Uzumaki) / (My Little Pony) | {Farsan} Jan 3rd & 4th , 2014…

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. Deadly 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, that 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 were 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.

—ox-oxo-xo—

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 lifeforms (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 me 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 anything 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 transcend, 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.

—ox-oxo-xo—

1.20 (Admin Shenanigans) | {Crisis} Jan 13th, 2014…

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!"

—ox-oxo-xo—

Here are the basics of the Infinite Time Loops Fanfiction Project, or The Infinite Loops (or ILP), as it is more often called. Every piece of published original fiction exists as its own universe in the Multiverse contained within Yggdrasil, which has broken. Until it is fixed, everything is held in stasis via Time Loops to keep it from getting worse. Projected completion date for the repairs is Infinity. The Infinite Loops is the story of various characters from the universe caught up in the Time Loop, as they deal with the problems caused by having Infinite Time on their hands. Shenanigans ensue.

Immediately below are the rest of the basics, as summarized by Saphroneth.

Loop mechanics (general):

— 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 the anchor dies.

— 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 – Athena is the long-standing Admin for the Mass Effect Loops. This is why.
1.2 – Quantum Looping? (There'll be a Star Trek chapter later on…)
1.3 – There's a number of reasons to go to war. Why shouldn't 'for one's own amusement' be one of them?
1.4 – …Sufficient Dakka to split the heavens?
1.5 – Rule 63, abused for fun and profit!
1.6 – D Rank: Fail… he wished.
1.7 – Watchers: zero. Admins: lost count. (Mock e-mail addresses: lost in transit. Damn auto-edit functions...)
1.8 – So much for the 'two terms in office' maximum…
1.9 – What, Master Splinter can't be 'cool' and 'hip'? You really going to argue with Master Splinter?
1.10 – The Crash, btw, is an event which coincided with the start of the first Misc. thread. For details, refer the Mega Loops compilation.
1.11 – Phantom Cat! (Danny Phantom was the prior cross.)
1.12 – Concert Tour: the one Variant that all four turtles can't stand.
1.13 – The single earliest Misc. thread snip which didn't subsequently have another thread allocated for it. Also a staggeringly rare occurrence in the Infinite Loops: namely, an m/m pairing.
1.14 – FEZ, apparently.
1.15 – The 'Redeemed Villains Support Group', open to non-Loopers as well. (Sombra: not Looping.)
1.16 – Seems cats don't play basketball either. How about that…
1.17 – It's not that Haruhi's subconscious Ascends, so much as she's capable of poking her toes into Ascension and wrenching them back before anyone notices.
1.18 – Believe it or not, confusion over which fandom out of the two of them was the bad news went on for years…
1.19 – Uzumaki, by Junji Ito: the first known Quarantined Branch.
1.20 – …You don't want to know how long Ares was stuck doing this. You really don't.