Chapter II - Repetition

Reviewer's Comment (Awnro)

Well, it’s still confusing the bejeebers out of me, but at least we met some characters in chapter one. The second chapter isn’t forgiving on the onslaught to our minds, noting Colms destructive nature; he probably planted hidden subliminal messages into FFG to decompose our brains to nothing…anyways, minus a couple twists, chapter two consists of more setting and character development the second chapter really starts to pick up with the usual incoherent arguing and senseless name calling that we have all come to love. Keep plugging away though, I can guarantee that it will get good. ;)



Reviewer's Comment (Mirar)



Oh god Colmy, just one Shandor was bad enough. Look at the chaos with, what is it, 11? Really, its all your fault. You invented the boy. I don't wanna sound obsessed with my own character, but I really like this line, 'The non-slumbering Mihndrid surveyed the situation silently, then thought nametags could come in useful.' I also really like, 'I’m going to bust out Slicy McDicy in a minute if everyone doesn’t shut up.’

‘Hey, that’s my sword! Back off.’ ....Slicy McDicy. Haha xD



Chapter II – Repetition



“You are here, alone again,
In your sweet insanity.
All too long you hide yourself from reality,
Do you call it solitude? Do you call it liberty?
When all the world turns away and leaves you lonely?”

~ Yuki Kajiura, ‘The World’



In the middle of a rather nondescript, and rather pointless field, in a very wide, but still pointless valley, with smidges of trees scattered about, a blue-white swirling portal popped into existence. It spewed the group from it before leaving for more exciting pastures.

Portal travel, it has been officially decided, is not the most comfortable way to travel. Shandor was a perfect example when he was thrown into a tree.

‘Ugggh,’ he groaned, rubbing his head, ‘Rilnae really needs to work on softer landings...’

Mihndrid, who was currently trapped under Kalypse and Varadrion, mumbled through the ground in agreement.

Lesharn was the last to be thrown out of the portal, and he crashed into Kalypse and Varadrion and knocked them off Mihndrid.

‘Thanks,’ Mihndrid said, checking that all her belongings were still with her, and enjoying being vertical again.

Rilnae blinked into existence a few yards away, ‘Okay, that went a bit rougher than I expected, but,’ she shrugged, ‘Not much you can do, eh?’

Shandor glared at her, getting to his feet.

Rue just lifted a boot off her head and got to her feet. Santhorpe, owner of the boot, and its foot, apologised repeatedly. Silvan looked nervously at the countryside, ‘Is it safe here?’

Rilnae turned to him, checked a small pad she was holding and nodded, ‘Yes, there’s some wildlife over there, but I don’t think they are carnivorous.’

Shandor tried to get a peak at the pad, ‘What’s that?’

‘It’s... I have no idea, someone on a higher plane gave it to me. Anyway, this dimension is rather nondescript, your standard flora and fauna, no humanoid species, but there is a promising lizard that could evolve into something interesting.’

Shandor commented about the pad, ‘It’s the junior encyclopaedia to the universe.’

Rilnae glared at him for a second before reading the title of the pad, looking away, then saying, ‘There’s a good area to set up camp while I find the next conduit. Could take a few hours.’

Lesharn nodded eagerly and patted his belly, ‘I wouldn’t mind a meal!’

‘Okay, okay, Rilnae, lead the way.’



It took nearly an hour to find the remote clearing a little way up the valley side. It was a roughly flat grassy area surrounded by trees. Night had crept up quickly on the group, and a sea of stars were twinkling down upon the unlucky few. Rilnae had disappeared to go conduit-finding, the rest of the group had assembled a fire, ate a small meal from what they could scavenge and were currently telling each other what they would do when they get back.

‘There’s going to be a lot of work.’ Rue commented, ‘Half of the planet’s been destroyed.’

‘Good time for bricklayers.’ Varadrion stated.

‘I’m going to Tildruin to see if my shop managed to survive. Knowing my luck, it survived the initial destruction only to have lightening hit it that night.’

Mihndrid smirked, ‘Always looking at the positive...’

‘Yeah, the lightening could of hit a tree which hit your shop.’ Rue giggled.

‘Very funny. What about the rest of you?’

‘I don’t think there’ll be much call for assassins when I get back. I may have to rethink my line of business.’ Varadrion said.

‘Honestly Varadrion, I don’t know how you can kill people for a living.’ Kalypse shook her head.

‘Yeah, it makes a much better hobby.’ Shandor commented dryly.

‘I don’t know what I’ll do...’ Alril squeaked.

‘I hope my parents are okay,’ Silvan whispered on the other side from Alril.

The night slowly, gracefully settled in as the group wondered how Earth was getting on without them.



In the middle of a rather nondescript, and rather pointless field, in a very wide, but still pointless valley, shrouded in a veil of darkness, a blue-white swirling portal popped into existence. It spewed the group from it before leaving for more exciting pastures.

‘Ugggh,’ Shandor, who had just been hit off a tree, was not in a very conversational mood and merely groaned, rubbing his head, ‘Rilnae really needs to work on softer landings...’



Alril turned uncomfortably. He had just been hit by a small ember from the fire, but had not woken up. A second ember struck his face. Groaning, he opened his eyes, realised how close he was to the fire, shuffled back a bit and looked at the slumbering group. No-one was on guard, but it wasn’t really necessary. He let his eyelids droop down and slumped back against a tree when he heard several branches snapping. Fearing a wild animal, his eyes shot open, darting about the impenetrable darkness. Another snap. His hand had automatically began swatting the nearest person to awaken him or her.

Kalypse was hit around the face several times as she woke up. Blurry from fatigue, her eyes tried to adjust to the relative darkness. Alril had been swatting her. ‘Alril? What’s the matter?’

Alril could only make odd wheezy-squeaky noises as his eyes did a few cartwheels while trying to look in all directions. Kalypse had moved into a more comfortable crouch as she peered into the darkness.

Shandor appeared from the shadows, near the two. He looked rather confused.

Kalypse looked to Shandor, then to the sleeping Shandor, then to a third Shandor that had emerged from the other side. The two Shandors were looking at each other, then at Kalypse and Alril, finally at their sleeping counterpart.

Suddenly, Mihndrid stopped next to the second (or third depending on your viewpoint). Rue then came next to the second non-sleeping Shandor. The non-slumbering Mihndrid surveyed the situation silently, then thought nametags could come in useful.

Alril’s shocked noises had awoken a couple of the others, who were now watching there doppelgangers stop next to the other Shandors. Shandor, the now-non-slumbering Shandor, just looked at them all, pinched himself a few times, then just looked at the fire.

‘So,’ the first, second and third Shandors all said at the same time, ‘This is odd.’

‘Hey! I said that.’ The first, second and third Shandors all said at the same time.

‘Gee, this is getting pedantic.’ The three Shandors agreed, at the same time. The narrator also agreed.

‘What’s going on?’ the first, second and third Varadrions all asked at the same time.

‘Hey! I said that.’ The first, second and third Varadrions said in unison.

The narrator smacked his head off his desk.

‘Rilnae!’ Three-Shandors said.

Not even one Rilnae came.

‘Look, me and myself, I’m the one who’s talking, so you don’t. ‘Kay?’ Three-Shandors said.

‘Why should you be the one to talk? I should be the one to talk!’ Three-Shandors shouted.

Three-Mihndrids shook their heads in disbelief.

Three-Santhorpes found this terribly fascinating.

‘Look, Shandor, Shandor and Shandor, it isn’t going to do any of us any good if we keep yelling at each other.’ Three-Mihndrids stated.

‘Exactly, that’s why those two Shandors should let me speak.’ Three-Shandors replied.

The once-slumbering Mihndrid felt like smacking her Shandor over the head with her mace, and was certain the other Mihndrids felt the same.

At that exact moment, everyone, save a few threes, burst into conversation. Some fighting with themselves trying to be the leader, others just having general conversations. The resulting noise was deafening. The thirty-three people currently talking were not helped by the introduction of a forth set of the group.

‘STOP!’ Three-Shandors bellowed.

‘You two too!’ Three-Shandors shouted. The forth Shandor had been smacked by the forth Mihndrid “for some reason”.

The area fell silent.

‘Something very odd is clearly going on. Any explanations?’

‘We’re all dreaming?’ Four-Alrils suggested.

‘What the hell is going on?’ The forth Shandor asked, rubbing his head. This was the only unique thing he managed to say before he seemed to be sucked into synch with the others.



This chaos continued undisturbed for several minutes. Then, suddenly, everyone fell silent again. This time, no bellow had sounded. An elderly man had just stepped into the area. Even though grey had tainted his hair, and he looked more frail, it was obvious that it was Shandor.

‘Eep.’ Four-Shandors said.

The old Shandor looked at them, and shook his head. A younger elf came through a few seconds later, ‘Dad, hold up-‘ he paused after spotting the four groups, ‘Er... what’s going on?’

The four-Shandors’ mouths were agape.

‘Dad?’ Four-Shandors said.

‘Oh, great, more time-loopers.’ The old-Shandor grumbled. His son looked at them, shrugged and said, ‘Welcome to the party.’

‘Dad?’ Four-Shandors squeaked.

‘Um...hi?’ The son said.

‘Dad?’ Four-Shandors nearly collapsed.

The clearing was further confused by the addition of a fifth set of the group, and the rest of old-Shandors group, which included several children and a couple of grandchildren.

‘Dad?’ Five-Shandors gasped for air.

‘Everyone, stop talking!’ Five-Mihndrids shouted.

‘You stop talking!’ Five-Varadrions replied.

‘No, you!’ Five-Varadrions shouted at each other.

‘Shut up the five of you. And you four!’ Five-Shandors glared at each other.

The narrator resigned in protest, and on stress-grounds. Subsequently, the next section is just dialogue.

‘Would everyone just calm down.’

‘I’m very calm, its those four who aren’t calm.’

‘Me? You are trying to make me uncalm by copying me, but it won’t work because I’m the calmiest of all the calm people here!’

‘Shut up!’

‘Hypocrite!’

‘That didn’t even make sense!’

‘My brain is about to explode.’

‘I see your brain and raise you a mountain of crazy.’

‘I’m going to bust out Slicy McDicy in a minute if everyone doesn’t shut up.’

‘Hey, that’s my sword! Back off.’

‘This is really starting to grate on my nerves.’

‘Varadrion…s, just calm down.’

‘It’s grating my cheese.’

‘Oh, what cheese? I haven’t eaten in ages!’

‘You ate two hours ago.’

‘But I didn’t!’

‘No, not you Lesharn, but that Lesharn. No! Lesharn, stop moving! Not you... look, all Lesharns stop moving. Where’s the original Lesharn? No, my original Lesharn. My me, not you. Dammit… SIT STILL YOU MIDGET! Argh! This is so frustrating.’

‘Kill me now.’

‘Gladly.’

‘Shut up!’

‘You shut up!’

‘For the love of all the gods...’

‘Everyone including myself: SHUT. YOUR. FACES.’

‘Shouldn’t that be mou-‘

‘SILENCE!’

‘Why should we listen to you?’

‘Rilnae!’ Fifty-five group members bellowed at once. The more advanced, time-wise, group just watched, rather amused. A new narrator had been found.

No-one came.



When Rilnae finally did arrive, the sum total of groups had rocketed to elven. The original group was about to kill someone, the amount of times they had to explain what was going on. Rilnae just appeared, looked at everyone, and delivered her scientific assessment of, ‘Funky.’

‘That’s it?’ Eleven-Shandors said incredulously.

‘Very funky.’ Rilnae corrected.

‘Just fix it.’

‘Easier said eleven times than done.’ Rilnae smirked. She then looked away from the group, well, as best she could with the one hundred and twenty one of them and the older versions and finally the descendants. She appeared to be doing a rather amusing mine routine before she sharply stopped and turned to five of the Shandors, ‘Whoopsie.’

There was a long pause as each Shandor leaned slightly closer, expecting a follow on. After none came, ‘Um… whoopsie?’

‘Heh… see, this dimension has some unusual properties. Time loops. Like… a lot. Only, it slowly, slowly, goes forward in time as well. Remember the wildlife I told you about when you first got here? Well, the first group at least. It has been there, from your mind, for several years, repeating about a half hour or so.’

‘Please continue before I’m forced to smack my head off a tree.’ Eleven-Shandors stated.

‘Right, right. Anywho, we opened a portal here and hurled some matter out onto it which was now out of phase with this dimension. Subsequently, when time looped, a new portal opened (portals still exist in this dimension), but more new matter was dumped in. I’ve stopped the portal now.’ She paused to look as many Shandor’s in the eye as she could without doing herself an injury, ‘As I may have stated before, this dimension is *funky*.’

Eleven-Shandors rolled there eyes.

Eleven-Rues asked. ‘What about all of us? And how do we get out of here?’

‘I’m going to need a few more minutes. Enjoy the company.’ Rilnae chucked out in a second before disappearing, without a bang or noise, just gone. Eleven-Shandors didn’t even have time to object.

‘Okay, everyone,’ Eleven-Shandors began, ‘I am not in the mood for 121 of us screeching at each other; even if we could make the best damn choir ever. Now, here is what we are going to do, fortunately there are enough of us to do it. We will take one member of the group from each group and form a new group for discussions. Not a new group to run away and leave you all here – that would just be me. As for the... older versions of us, you can stay, you don’t seem affected.’

‘How do we decide who stays?’ Eleven-Varadrions asked.

‘I do,’ Eleven-Shandors began. At this point, the original Shandor suddenly lashed out and grabbed two of the other Shandors by the neck. He dragged them over to the edge of the clearing and shoved them away. He proceeded to do this, amidst several loud objections, to the other Shandors.

‘Okay,’ said Shandor, grateful to be singular. ‘The rest will go to separate areas to make camps, and we’ll signal you later.’

He then made quite a show of selecting the new group.

A few minutes later, there was only seventeen people there, and it was excellent. ‘Now,’ Shandor said, ‘we can wait for Rilnae without a migraine.’

‘How’d you lead us down this path?’ Varadrion asked, ‘All this end of the world rubbish.’

‘As I recall, I blame the elves.’

‘You are an elf.’ Rue reminded him.

‘Fine, I blame the gnomes.’

‘Hey! We did nothing, so back off.’ Mihndrid glared.

‘Jeesh, I just blame you lot.’

‘I was barely involved!’ Shivayon said defensively. Elsewhere, several members of the audience were snickering.

Shandor sneaked over to Old-Shandor and said quietly, indicating ‘his’ son, ‘You know, just out of curiosity, who’s his mothe-‘

Shandor was promptly slapped around the head by several people. ‘What!?’ Shandor complained.

‘Hey,’ Rue smirked, a devilish glint in her eye, ‘If Rilnae can be touched in this dimension...’

‘But, Rilnae’s like my step-daught-‘ Shandor paused in the middle of the sentence as his eye began twitching of its own accord.



The friendly banter, and mocking, went on for several minutes before Rilnae reappeared.

She dragged Shandor to the side and said, ‘Okay, look, if your original group goes through first, all the others will cease to exist.’

‘What about the old group?’

‘They shouldn’t exist at all, so how am I meant to know?’

‘Right. Okay.’ Shandor scooted away from the group and headed discreetly to his original group. Of course, he ran into three wrong groups before that, pretended to be the tenth group’s Shandor and ran for it.

Finally, he ran into his own group, Rilnae appeared in front of him saying, ‘You know, you could’ve just asked for directions.’

‘Oh hush and open the portal.’ Shandor grumbled.

Rilnae rolled her eyes, turned, whizzed her hands about, and the rippling form of a portal appeared, ‘Run little kiddies.’ She smiled.

Shandor let the others go first before turning to Rilnae, ‘First, never do anything like that again. Second, never ever think I’m handsome, I don’t want to go down that road again.’

Rilnae gave him a patented ‘Shandor, you dumbass, what the hell are you on about?’ look as he dived into the portal.



Ka’eil had followed this prey for a few hours, nothing spectacular. He wondered why Master bothered with such pointless kills. Ka’eil had been following along on the rooftops, watching as the creature went about its business; it was intending to have a piece of fish for dinner. Maybe Ka’eil would sell it. The target entered an alley. Now was the time to strike.

Ka’eil, lying on his belly, slipped over the edge and plummeted the fifty foot drop to his death.

That held him up for a good five seconds.