"Did anybody get the number on that train," Banks said, opening his eyes to find himself lying atop a small bed of mediocre quality. Every single part of his body hurt and he stretched his memory back, before grimacing as the scenes from the past returned to him. Poor Ascrew. His hand went over his own chest, before it paused and then roamed his bare chest searchingly. Surprisingly there was nothing wrong, when there really should really be. Those punches that the orc goddess landed were definitely not imaginary.

  "You're up," a painfully familiar voice sounded and Banks looked up to see that his previous opponent had silently arrived. She was still half-dressed in that primitive gear, but as he looked closely he could see that there was a surprising lack of battle trophies for a race that put a lot of emphasis on collecting them. Her entire body was still, no breathing, no muscle twitches, not even a blink, as if her form was only paying homage to life rather than truly being alive itself.

  "You healed me," Banks remarked as he stood up from the bed. It looked like he had been dumped in a nearby house. There were holes in the walls through which a great portion of an absolutely destroyed street could be seen. A testament to the utter destruction inflicted on the surroundings by their short and one-sided clash.

  "One should always learn how to heal themselves," Nime stated. "I believe it to be a fundamental magical skill. Once that is learned then it is fairly easy to transition to learning to heal others."

  "No, I mean why did you heal me?" Banks asked.

  "I want to fight your sister," Nime stated. "Having you alive and in my custody means that sooner or later she will come to rescue you. I could kill you, but I have no idea how to broadcast your death in such a way that she would find out, and my instincts are blaring that actually killing you may lead to some undesirable outcomes."

  "Especially for me," Banks remarked. "Have I ever told you I'm allergic to dying?"

  "Apparently allergic to humor as well," Nime remarked. "How long will it take before your sister tracks you down?"

  "Between two days and negative three days," Banks replied, causing the orc's eyes to narrow.

  "Explain," she said.

  "Did you not know we're in a time loop?" Banks asked. "Seems like somebody is being kept outside of the loop. Well still in it technically. You know what I mean."

  "I was not made aware of that," Nime confirmed, a lookg of anger flashing momentarily across her face before it was instantly quenched. "How many times have we had this conversation?"

  "First time, I'm afraid," Banks said. "I usually avoid walking into places that will result in me getting my ass kicked. Makes for a much more enjoyable day. Where's the assassin by the way."

  "Dead," Nime said. "Although I guess from your perspective he may still be alive and well."

  "My perspective is constrained by the limitations of the time loop," Banks said shrugging as he pulled himself to his feet.

  "Is your sister constrained by the loop as well," Nime spoke up. "Is there a possibility that she will never reach you?"

  "No," Banks admitted truthfully. "We're twins, bunkered together in the womb for half a year. She has a lot of my antibodies. Nearly completely immune to time fuckery as a result. Most likely the world will continue looping and she will be stuck in the same spot."

  "So how long has it been since she would have started looking?" the orc asked. "Just want to know if there's a possibility of arriving in this loop?"

  "Hmm and if she's not will you kill me?" Banks asked casually, he didn't really care about the answer. "She's probably found about it by now, but we don't really have any magic to locate each other and she would have problems trying to sense me from very far away. The real issue is that continent spanning sensory magic basically pings everybody indiscriminately and so she would rather wander around forever rather than actually use it to any real extent. Also, while I do love her, she is very bad at keeping focused sometimes. There is a very good chance that midway through her exploration she was distracted by something she deems interesting."

  "That's demoralizing," the orc said, letting out a sigh, the first time that Banks had heard her breathe since he woke up.

  "If it helps I can send her your way once she does show up," Banks said. "She will eventually show up I mean, time shenanigans. She's going to suspect I'm behind it."

  "You're not, are you?" Nime said with some suspicion.

  "No, I'm not behind it, I'm trapped in here," Banks admitted. "I'm a victim of whoever the fuck broke time and trapped me here in this time. I don't really want to be here."

  "Right, well I have nothing else I would like to do," Nime stated. "Anywhere you wanted to go."

  "I was planning on going to the market and getting the old five finger discount," Banks admitted. "I reckon it must be pretty empty right about now."

  "Wow, you are a scoundrel," Nime said shaking her head. "Well, we orcs have a somewhat proud tradition of raiding so I might as well join you. "Which way is the market?"

  "West side of town," Banks said stretching his body. His clothes were a bit tattered once more, an experience that would keep repeating unless he managed to find a really good tailor. He slowly walked out of the room, past the orc testing his body and was slightly surprised to find there was absolutely no damage. His body felt as good as it did this morning, maybe even a bit better. The thoroughness of the healing perhaps targeting hidden injuries or looming sicknesses. A notch was raised in his already high assessment of the orc that was long ago enshrined as a god. He stepped out of the building, door noting that it had been blasted off it's hinges, a casual knuckle print indicating the source.

  The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  On the opposite side of the street leaning leisurely against the wall was Ascrew's body, in a position that might have indicated him napping if it wasn't for his complete lack of a head. His clothes were surprisingly well off, a testament to the single dreadful blow that took his life as well as the quality of his own tailor.

  "He put up quite a fight," Nime stated, her voice full of approval.

  "Goodbye Ascrew, you were a decent assassin," Banks said lamenting his lack of alcohol to pour solemnly over his corpse.

  "He was easily one of the strongest assassins I've ever faced," Nime pointed out.

  "Yeah, but I have to deal with him in future," Banks pointed out as he started walking. "So, I don't want to give him too much credit. How hard was he for you?" He openly probed her strength.

  "Not much trouble," Nime admitted. "A lot more than you however." She paused, as if debating whether to continue her words, before she came to a conclusion. " You did have a Sacred Body when we fought Reincarnation and yet you don't have one now."

  "It broke," Banks stated concisely.

  "The destruction of a Sacred Body is merely an opportunity to forge a new and better variant," the orc said. "It's common knowledge that the first time to condense a Sacred Body is the hardest. Even now it shouldn't be hard for you to forge a new one." Banks sighed, at the question as they walked down the empty streets. He pondered for a moment and then sighed, too lazy to evade the question.

  "My Sacred Body requires water from the River of Time as a key catalyst to it forming," he admitted. "And since I'm trapped in the time loop I can no longer freely enter the River of Time, therefore I lack the ability to recreate my Sacred Body." He was firm with his words, theoretically it would be possible to find a substitute, but realistically there was no substitute for the River of Time. "Right now I'm capped out at a mana level of a thousand even if all my mana veins were full clear."

  "That's unfortunate," the orc said, her voice surprisingly sincere. "This may be an ignorant question, but doesn't the river exist through the time loop as well. Time is moving forward from my perspective, doesn't that mean there is some river water?"

  "It's complicated," Banks started, before thinking for a bit and correcting himself. "Actually no it's not really. Do you know what shape the planet is?"

  "It's an oblate spheroid," Nime answered, causing Banks to lose his train of thought.

  "Okay, I would also have accepted round or a sphere," Banks said. "Anyway, I suppose you are aware that this oblate spheroid hangs in the void of space, circling a sun and surrounded by a few moons."

  "Two moons," the orc said.

  "There's actually three, but one is never visible from this side of the planet," Banks said. "Wait, not the point. So the planet is in space right."

  "Correct," the orc said.

  "Are we in space?" Banks asked causing them to fall silent.

  "I see your point," Nime said after a few seconds thought.

  "Exactly, the planet is in space, we're not in space. This timeline is in the River, we're not in the River," Banks lamented. "Because of that a large portion of my power is sealed off."

  "Frankly from my perspective it reads as if you overly relied on your inherent abilities and then fell into a ditch as soon as they were suppressed leaving you in the unfortunate position you now find yourself in," Nime stated mercilessly. "Were you under the impression you could immediately recreate your Sacred Body or were you confident in your ability to escape any confrontation?"

  "Rude," Banks said. "But not incorrect. I just didn't want to fight anymore. I still don't really want to be here, Nime."

  "Well suck it up," the orc said unsympathetically. "We don't always get to choose where we end up. We are just forced to make the best of it." She wasn't wrong and he was cognizant enough to realize that his explanation had turned into whining. "How much further to the market?"

  "I just know it is on the west side," Banks said. "I'm not a resident of this town." He paused and walked towards the nearest cluster of signs, watching as his translator ironed out the local miscommunications and then sighed as he realized that it merely gave the names of the nearby local streets.

  "No luck?" Nime asked.

  "No luck," Banks admitted. "Wait, this street looks vaguely familiar. I have been here before. We're very close to the gardens. How knowledgeable are you about plants."

  "I died millennia before this time," Nime stated. "How knowledgable do you think I would be about the plants of the day."

  "Even if you don't know the exact type of plant you may still be able to identify the family," Banks said. "Plants seldom spring up out of nothing. Behind every leaf, stalk and flower there is a lineage just as great as any one of us. All descended from the Primordial Slime."

  "One's lineage is the starting point however," Nime stated. "Neither brothers, sisters, father or mother, ever reached the heights that I did."

  "Or descendants," Banks asked.

  "No," Nime stated. "And you. Do you consider yourself lesser than your sister, despite being born of the same seed and womb."

  "I consider myself weaker, not lesser," Banks said, drawing a firm line. "Her power is like an ever expanding ocean," he thought before frowning at the poor analogy. "What I mean to say is that my sister only grows stronger, never weaker. While I tend to be like the tides, rising and falling in power. That level of consistency, that degree of maintenance required, to keep up a constant rate of improvement will forever be beyond me. I've tried to muster up determination, but sooner or later, most often sooner I just burn out." The tides was a much better analogy.

  "Carried by your inherent gifts," Nime snorted dismissively.

  "And cursed by my inherent flaws," Banks stated, his own voice melancholic. "Do you think we can ever change our inherent nature?" he asked. Not defending himself, just curious as to the orc's response.

  Nime opened her mouth to speak, but whatever opinion she may have ventured was snatched away as a thunderous explosion tore the silence apart. In front of them, far off in the distance, one of the mountains in the distance ruptured chunks of rock and dirt flying everywhere, before with a horrific gurgle that turned his stomach a massive geyser of orange and black spurted from the top, like pus from a wound. A vile sickly sweet smell swept through the streets nearly making him gag as it did so. Great fist sized globs of that liquid slammed down with a sickening wet slap, covering the road in thick blisters of the orange and black fluid, liked diseased landmines.

  "A god?" Nime asked, as her eyes were locked on the explosion. A glob bounced off a shield of mana a couple centimeters from her face.

  "A god?" Banks confirmed.

  "Little good comes from trafficking with strange gods," Nime stated.

  "I agree," Banks commiserated. No other words were said as the pair watched the disaster in front of them unfold. With an eruption no less deadly than if it's contents were magma a long slumbering god entered the world again.