Chương 209: Book 3 Chapter 41: Lee's Last Loop

Lee woke up on a couch that was more comfortable than any other bed she'd ever owned. She was in the living room of someone else's dorm, but she felt more at home than she ever had. She had abandoned her family, and felt more loved than ever before. All thanks to the school she attended, and the people she'd met there. She stared up at the ceiling without a word. It was graduation day. She was leaving.

"How does it feel?" Lee asked.

"You know, graduating."

"That's kind of the weirdest part," Leanne said.

"It doesn't feel like anything. There's no cosmic lightning, no weight lifted off your shoulders. You're just... done." Graduating any under circumstances felt like a momentous occasion, but when graduating from a mysterious cosmic timeloop of apocalyptic proportions, expectations were even higher. As Leanne could attest, though, those great expectations met a mediocre reality. Graduating was just graduating.

"I don't know if that's good or bad," Lee sighed.

"Sometimes things aren't good or bad," Leanne said.

"They're just things."

"Well. I won't take up too much of your time," Lee said.

"It is still the first loop, I imagine you want to raid the lunchroom or something."

"I'll be fine," Leanne said. She'd stay right here with Lee as long as she was needed.

"Good morning various nerds," Harley shouted. She slammed down into her usual seat at the table, with Vell sliding into his seat shortly after.

"Happy graduation day!"

"You're remarkably chipper," Lee said.

"Hell yeah I am," Harley said.

"My family's coming to the island tonight! My mom has been dying to meet you for four years, Lee. There's a pretty good chance she and Vell's mom are going to fight over who gets to legally adopt you."

"That won't be necessary," Lee said, blushing. Both mothers had actually offered, and Lee had politely turned them down. Not only did it feel just plain weird to be adopted as an adult woman, it felt unnecessary. The bonds she shared with Vell and Harley were already beyond anything paperwork and formal processes could do.

"My parents do say congrats, but they're not coming around," Vell said.

"Same with Renard. He did send some food, but, uh…"

"You have Renard food?" Leanne snapped.

"Where?"

"It's not exactly, well... he sent Lee's favorite soup."

"So how did he-" Leanne's enthusiasm for Renard's delicious cooking died in a second, and she laid her hands flat on the table.

"He sent it in an envelope, didn't he," Leanne said. Vell nodded.

"Oh, Renard," Lee sighed. Their dear friend was a cooking prodigy and an everything-else idiot, but they loved him anyway.

"We'll live," Harley said.

"Lee makes a damn good soup too. Not that I want you to cook or anything, I just like hyping you up."

"And I appreciate being hyped," Lee said.

"Cooking might be a good idea. I feel as though I should be doing... something, you know. This is our last time in the loop, after all." Once the graduation ceremony was complete, Lee and Harley would no longer be students at the Einstein-Odinson College, and therefore no longer aware of the time loops.

"Hell yeah, one last all-out hedonism bash to celebrate our last consequence free day," Harley said.

"I imagine you'll be off with as many paramours as you can court," Lee said.

"Not unless you guys change your mind about boning me," Harley said.

"I'm sticking with you guys, one hundred percent."

"Well, maybe not all of us," Vell said.

"I think I'm going to be vigilant, keep an eye on things. There's still the whole apocalypse to deal with. I'll deal with it so you guys don't have to."

"I kind of want to deal with it too," Harley said.

"Doing all that crazy shit was part of the fun, right?" Lee bit her tongue. Harley was already talking about it all in the past tense.

"I'll still keep you guys aware," Vell said.

"But seriously, relax. Enjoy this. I'll be keeping an eye on things. I've already got Hawke keeping an eye on some geology department thing dealing with-" Vell was blown forward in his chair as a thunderous boom rang across campus, shaking the entire island. The brutal shockwave was followed up by an intense heat and the smell of sulfur.

"-volcanoes." Lee was the first one out the door, and looked up at a sky that had turned vibrant red. The air was choked with the scent of sulfur and boiling saltwater, and bubbling red lava was coating the portion of the island where the geology department had just stood.

"Undersea lava bursts coming all the way to the surface," Harley said.

"Damn, they must've fucked up real bad."

"It's isolated for now," Vell said.

"Maybe if we get over there we can stop it." The crumbling of the island below them signaled that it would not be so easy. The surface below them cracked in half, opening a vast chasm beneath their feet. Leanne grabbed Lee and flung her forward, to safety, and did the same to Harley a second later. She had just finished throwing Vell when the chasm cracked open fully and tore the ground out from beneath her feet. Leanne plummeted a few feet downwards before managing to grab on to a rocky outcropping.

"Little help here?"

"I got you," Vell shouted. He grabbed on to the ledge and held out a hand, and Leanne made a few quick climbing jumps to grab on to it.

"Thanks. Knew I could count on you."

"Any time." The moment of sentimental friendship was cut short by a lance of boiling fire shooting up out of the chasm. Vell reeled from the intense heat just a few inches from his face, and when he could finally open his eyes again, he found himself holding on to a severed hand, with everything below the wrist utterly incinerated.

"That's unpleasant." A cracking sound from below him reminded Vell of his own precarious position a little bit too late. The ground gave way, and Vell plummeted downwards, out of sight.

"Vell!" Lee rushed to the edge of the chasm, and got pulled back by Harley.

"Woah, Lee, that is the exact opposite direction we want to be going," Harley said.

"Safety is-" Harley pointed west, away from the two lava flows, and immediately heard an explosion from that direction.

"Okay I don't actually know where safety is," Harley said.

"Maybe nowhere." Chaos and destruction was rapidly spreading spreading across campus as the sea boiled around them, the island crumbled, and more lava flows burst forth. It was a scene Lee and Harley had seen dozens of times before, but would hopefully never see again.

"Well, that's fucked up," Harley said.

"But we know where it started, and Hawke probably knows what did it." Thanks to Vell's canny preparations and Hawke's scouting, this final apocalypse, while early, was likely well under control. Lee stared blankly at the final devastation.

"I don't know about you, but incineration is one of my least favorite ways to go," Harley said.

"You still have that supply of cyanide tea?" If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

"I suppose we could... No!" Lee's blank eyes snapped to focus, and she darted upright like a hound on the hunt.

"Harley, think about it," Lee said.

'Do you remember how our last two years ended?" It didn't take much for Harley to remember. Last year a magic fish had nearly torn reality asunder by granting Kim a wish, and the year before that Vell had been abducted and nearly killed by their former principal.

"Uh huh, uh huh, I see what you're getting at," Harley said.

"You think there's probably going to be some other wild bullshit happening behind all this lava."

"We at least need to check," Lee said.

"We need to be vigilant, for as long as we can." Lee grabbed on to her purse and set out across the rapidly-collapsing campus, followed by a significantly less determined Harley.

"Hello, Dean Lichman?"

"Lee! Thank god!" The frazzled and slightly singed Dean put down a phone and turned his full attention to Lee.

"I got as many people out as I could, but the teleportation circles erupted," the Dean said.

"Kim was trying to build a boat, is she done?"

"Oh, I don't know," Lee said.

"Just out of curiosity, have you or any members of the Board of Directors made any plans involving Vell?"

"What? Lee, the island is collapsing, do you have a plan-""Yes, I do, but right now I need to know if there were any plans related to Vell," Lee said.

"I don't know," the confused Dean insisted.

"I was thinking about inviting him to lunch and checking in on him after you two graduate, beyond that, nothing!"

"Oh, thank you for that, I'm sure he'd appreciate it," Lee said.

"Sorry for sounding so suspicious, I'm just trying to be thorough."

"I understand completely, but I believe we have higher priorities at the- Look out!" The structurally unstable building started to crumble around them, and the roof was the first to crumble. Dean Lichman dove forward and pushed Lee out of the way of the collapsing rubble, moments before being caught in it himself. His partially decayed hand twitched once as it stuck out of the rubble and then fell still.

"One potential threat down," Lee said. Harley looked down at the Dean's undead and now re-dead hand, then looked back up at Lee.

"Hello Kim, nice boat," Lee said. Kim, like all the loopers, wanted to avoid unnecessary casualties even on the first loop, so she was helping desperate scientists build an ark that would hopefully save the surviving students from the boiling seas around them.

"Lee, you're alive? Where have you been?"

"Scouting," Lee said.

"Have you been contacted by an otherworldly entities of any kind lately?"

"Why the fuck would I have been contacted?" Kim slammed a piece of heat shielding into place and turned on her angry face.

"What's going on? Who do I need to punch?"

"No one that we're aware of, yet," Lee said.

"Lee's just trying to take some precautionary measures," Harley said.

"Kind of thinking about those big end-of-year incidents that happened with you and Vell, you know."

"No, nothing on my end," Kim said.

"Been surprisingly quiet, even. Vell says he hasn't even seen Quenay lately. Is he alive, by the way?"

"He is very much not," Lee said.

'Thought so," Kim said.

"I'm about to launch this thing, you two want on board?"

"Thank you dear, but no," Lee said.

"We have a few more angles to investigate."

"Suit yourself," Kim said. She braced her back against the massive arc and started pushing towards the boiling seas.

"Good luck!" The massive boat hit the boiling tides and started to sail towards safety, a journey that last exactly seven seconds before a lance of lava burst out of the tides and melted the ship in half. Harley covered her ears and tried not to listen to the screams of people being boiled alive as Lee set out towards their next lead.

"Joan? Joan, are you there?"

"Lee?" Lee and Harley walked into their own dorm, where Joan had apparently decided to take shelter. The heat and volcanic gases were so thick that Lee had been forced to cast some protective spells on them, though Joan had no such protections. She stumbled forward, coughed furiously, and collapsed, though Lee caught her just in time.

"I was looking everywhere for you," Joan mumbled. She was already lightheaded from the heat and toxic gases.

"I've been looking for you too," Lee said.

"Listen, Joan, I need to ask you something." A faint smile crossed Joan's face, even as the focus faded from her eyes.

"Do you know if Kraid has any evil plans?" The focus came back into Joan's eyes as they took on a look of bewilderment.

"What?"

"Kraid. I know he doesn't tell you everything, but has he done anything suspicious lately, asked any odd questions?"

"I don't... I don't know... I-" The confusion did nothing to help Joan's lightheadedness, and she passed out in Lee's arms. Lee stared at her motionless form for a moment, felt an inexplicable sense of regret, and then got over it. She dropped Joan on the couch and brushed some volcanic dust off her hands.

"Well, that was useless," Lee said.

"Lee. Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, my shields are holding," Lee said.

"Shame we got to her too late, we could've used some extra help with this search. Let's move along, then." They had run out of along to move. The entire island, and beyond, had been entirely consumed by lava. The furious volcanic activity was spreading, and Harley could see that everything for miles around had been consumed in lava and boiling seawater. It was entirely possible the entire planet had been engulfed already. If it hadn't been, it would be soon.

As the entire world died beneath them, Lee and Harley stood on top of a magically floating platform, while Lee shouted at the sky.

"Quenay! I know you're there!" Lee cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted a little bit louder.

"Quenay!"

"Lee." The response came from Harley, not Quenay, so Lee ignored it.

"Quenay, you're an immortal entity, I know a little lava won't hurt you."

"Lee!"

"Quenay, I just want to know if there's anything untoward happening. I'm not accusing you, but you'd know, is the thing."

"Lee!" This time, Harley did not allow herself to be ignored. She grabbed Lee and spun her around forcing her to look Harley in the eyes.

"Harley, don't interrupt the investigation."

"There is nothing to investigate! Look around you, Lee!" Harley pointed downwards at the ever expanding maelstrom of magma.

"Even if there was some evil scheme happening, it's all fucking lava now!"

"Well that won't affect Quenay," Lee said.

"I know she's only appeared to us once before, but I think I can get her attention."

"Lee! Stop it," Harley demanded.

"Just stop! I know what you're doing. I know you're scared-""I'm terrified!" The slightest assault on the facade Lee had constructed was enough to shatter it entirely. In a second, Lee dropped the pretenses of curiosity and showed what she had been feeling all along: terror, confusion, and grief. Tears started to pour out of her eyes, and they began to boil as they fell.

"I'm terrified because I'm happy," Lee said, pouring out the pent-up emotions in a torrent.

"I used to be happy to see you, to see any of my friends, to do interesting things, and I thought that was it, but these past few months of freedom I'm happy just to wake up in the morning, I'm happy sitting alone, I'm happy in class listening to boring lectures." Only casting off her family had made Lee realize just how miserable her old life had been. She had woken up every morning with a burden she thought inescapable weighing her down, chaining any happiness she felt in the cage of a greater sadness.

She'd thought of happiness as an incidental thing, something that happened from time to time, not a way of life.

"I'm happier than I've ever been. Happier than I ever thought was possible," Lee said.

"And I'm terrified to lose that." Lee's shoulders sank, and she looked down at the world of fire below her.

"As soon as this loop is over, I -it's all over," Lee said.

"Everything changes, and I'm scared. I don't want my life to change, I don't want to lose what I have." Harley stepped up and grabbed Lee by the hand, giving it a tight, reassuring squeeze.

"I get it," Harley said.

"And I'm sure you're right. You're happier right now than you've ever been. But you know something?" Lee wiped away some tears, and humored Harley.

"What?"

"I know for sure you would've said the same damn thing in first year, after you met me," Harley said.

"Then again the year after, when we met Vell and got to know Leanne better. Then again last year, when we got Kim and Hawke and you got yourself a girlfriend." Lee's tear-stained cheeks curled into a bittersweet smile, and she nodded. Harley reached up to wipe some tears away and squeeze Lee's check.

"I know because I'd say it too," Harley said.

"That's why I'm not scared. Because every day since I met you, my life has been getting better. I know that's not going to change, no matter what else does." Harley could feel tears running along her thumb as Lee started to cry all over again, for entirely different reasons this time.

"I know being out of all this chaos and death and nonsense is a huge change," Harley said.

"But we're going to get through it together, just like we did all the actual chaos and death and nonsense, alright?" Lee pressed her face deeper into Harley's hand and nodded.

"Alright," she sighed.

"Alright."

"Good. So. Are you ready for a change?" After taking a second to think, Lee stepped forward and wrapped her arms around Harley in an inescapable hug.

"Just a moment," Lee mumbled.

"Yeah. Okay," Harley said, as she returned the hug.

"Just a moment." Moments passed, and moments returned. On the next loop, Kim and Hawke took a proactive approach to problem solving.

"Why would you even have a button labeled 'generate volcano', much less press it?"

"It's a very small volcano, for experimental purposes!" Hawke pointed at the dial attached to the device, which had been turned from one to eleven. He didn't appreciate the carelessness, though he did appreciate the Spinal Tap reference.

"Oh. We'll set that back to one, yeah."

"Nope." Kim walked up and ripped the entire console out of the wall, deactivating the device entirely.

"You can have this back after I remove every setting that isn't one," Kim said.

"Hey!"

"The responsible amount of volcano to have is zero," Kim scolded.

"You're lucky I'm letting you keep the one." The geologist disagreed, but he also didn't want to argue with a robot. Kim had very large metal fists to punch him with. She kept the volcano generating device under her arm as she and Hawke walked out of the lab.

"We got it," she said, as she waved the device at Vell.

"Did you rip that out?"

"Yes."

"And they let you do that?"

"It's less about 'let', and more about 'could not stop'," Kim said. Vell sighed. He wasn't looking forward to having to wrangle that attitude next year. That sobering thought reminded Vell of the next thing on his to-do list. He headed for Harley and Lee's shared dorm to help them pack. They had to be ready to leave tonight, but there were still a few more things to do before the end.