Gacha God: Dominos (ch. 9)

"So, you can make copies of yourself?" Peter questioned, his jaw-dropping as he looked at Seb Two, then back at me, then back at Seb Two. "Is that your superpower?"

"Nah,” Seb Two answered.

“My superpower is that cool stuff drops in my lap every once in a while. It's how I got the AT's and the yoyo,” I added on with a supporting nod from Seb Two. “It’s happened since I was a kid, but I had to leave a lot of my stuff behind when I left home.” The only thing that I took was my Time-Turner and that was mostly because I needed it to get out of my less-than-home sweet home. It had been heartbreaking to part with my vault of stuff. I had to part with it though -- getting out by myself was a risk, but trying to take all my things with me? I never would have made it out the metaphorical door.

Ned nodded as he sat on his bed, looking at Seb Two. “Is it magic?”

I tilted my head, sharing a glance with Seb Two, who shrugged indifferently. “Ish. Sorta. I think,” I also offered a shrug at Ned, mostly because I didn’t know the answer myself. I had plenty of guesstimations about the origin of my power and the neat stuff that I could roll for, but I never managed to get a solid answer to confirm what it was or how.

“Cool,” Peter muttered, reaching out and poking Seb Two in the chest. Naturally, Seb Two poked him back. Harder. “How many can you make?” He asked me, rubbing his chest where Seb Two poked him, as if he was confirming that he did feel the poke, so Seb Two was real. In response, I glanced down at the Ring of Nine Dragons before summoning the other eight Sebs.

We filled room. No much room for all. Crowded.

“A lot,” Me answered, giving nod to Peter.

“Shoe untied,” One of Me said. Looked down at shoes to see lace was untied. Didn’t notice. Tripping hazard. I knelt down to tie tripping hazard, but hands froze. Hands mimed tying laces, but couldn’t do it. I looked up at Me's.

“Who can tie laces?” I asked Me's, making all of Me's bend down to check.

“I can!” One of Me said, making the rest of us stand and shove tripping hazard towards him. Other Me bent down to start tying tripping hazard, but Peter spoke up.

“Uh- Sebastian? How about you… you know, consolidate to tie your shoes, then everyone else will have tied shoelaces when you multiply?” Peter asked me, Ring Bearer. I frowned at Peter, then at tripping hazard, thinking… that… hm…

I nodded slowly, “You is… Jesus fucking christ,” I breathed, dismissing the rest of the clones. My hands went to my head, rubbing my temples as I recovered from that. “Ugh. That was the worst. It felt like someone… I don’t know, put a throttle on my brain,” I told the two, who were exchanging looks of mild concern.

However, it did offer me a bit more insight in how the ring worked. My intelligence wasn’t divided equally with each clone. Each one got something like a tenth of my brain power, and when you divided that up until we each had a tenth… It was a real blind leading the blind situation. Additionally, my skills and abilities were divided between each clone -- which was why only one of the Sebs had the ability to tie our shoes.

More experimentation would be required. How strong were each of the Sebs? How were skills and abilities determined? Could I deliberately give one Seb a skill or ability? How were the skills divided? Was the ability to fight weighted the same as the ability to tie my shoes? I was still feeling out the ring, but it had a lot of potential. Right now, however, it came with some dangers.

“I don’t think I should be going above two or three clones,” I decided, dropping my hands to see agreeing nods from Peter and Ned. At least not until I managed to get more brain power -- I think the Divine Water could help me out with that. My thoughts were sharper since I started drinking it, but smartness was something difficult to define. Maybe I could start doing puzzle tests or something and marking my progress with each dose…

Regardless, creating too many clones was a danger to me. Two or three left me with enough processing power that I didn’t feel too dumbed down. Four or five was the danger zone, and anything above that was a no go for me.

“I’d say that would be a pretty good idea,” Peter remarked before gesturing to his chin and I realized my dumbass had been drooling. “Can the items only be used by you?” He asked me, and in response, I tossed him the Ring of Nine Dragons. “Seriously?”

“Just give it a thought. Stick with one to start,” I told him and, a second later, Peter Two materialized from thin air, dressed in the same chemistry pun shirt and cargo shorts. With little to no hesitation, the two high fived. Then they offered Ned a high ten, technically, who returned it with a giddy expression. “Feel the difference?”

“Yeah,” Peter said. “I forgot math,” he supplied and that was a pretty big thing to forget.

“I can do math, and a little chemistry,” Peter Two supplied before he vanished from sight. Peter offered me the ring, and I did see some level of discomfort on his face. I imagine that he felt the throttle far more keenly than I did. I was a bit brighter than most, but Peter was a legitimate genius, so having a tenth of his brain power stolen away? He’d feel it.

I took the ring and slid it back on my finger where it belonged. I didn’t particularly mind other people using my items, but I preferred them with me. My items could be used by anyone in theory. In practice, that wasn’t exactly the case. Some items needed magical power to use, and if you didn’t have any, then you were shit out of luck. Then there were items like the Divine Water that I couldn’t use without some outside help because it’d kill me. Maybe someone else could knock that water back with no issue, but I couldn’t.

What I got was never influenced by what I needed or what I wanted, and I rarely knew what I could get until I got it. It had always been that way, and I had little reason to believe that it would ever change. It didn’t matter to me much. Sure, some items would undoubtedly be far more useful than others, but I had yet to encounter an item that wasn’t useful and powerful in its own right.

Ned started to speak up, likely to ask to get a turn with the ring, only to be cut off by an alert from his computer. He immediately jumped up, sliding in his chair to his monitor to click on the alert. I peeked over his shoulder to see what was going on while Ned summarized as he read, “Shield is checking out the scene at the docks. An Agent Adda and an Agent Barnes. But, more importantly… we’re piggybacking off of Shield’s investigation into the Russians.”

I could see as much. In some ways, our investigation was way ahead of the secret agency's, but in other ways, they were lightyears ahead of us. They were already breaking down the structure of the mob from the known members by using the police files. “Did they-” I started to ask, only to be cut off by Ned, who was all smiles.

“Yup -- they just showed me the back door they have in the NYPD. I’ll need to create some spoof accounts to take advantage, though. It’s one thing to observe within an operating system, it's another to actually interact with it. That shouldn’t be any trouble. But, more importantly, Shield broke down the Russian’s financials. So, uh, to preface this -- I was looking for offshore accounts and stuff, but I was coming up empty. I thought it was because I wasn’t looking in the right places, but…” Ned trailed off for dramatic effect.

I let out a small laugh, “But they don’t have any,” I finished for him. Meaning that the Russians operated in hard assets rather than liquid fidelity -- cash, drugs, weapons, and so on. That was very useful to know. Especially considering what else I knew about their organization. “Are we finding any locations that we didn’t know about?”

"I have a list of suspected fronts from the cops, but nothing concrete," Ned answered without missing a beat. From the looks of things, there was a fair bit of overlap between our list and what the police had procured, though the NYPD's info was more expansive. I took note of all the names and addresses, taking a moment to reach into my backpack to grab my journal. I was still on fifteen timelines, but the one I was currently on was the only one that saw the aftermath of attacking the ring at the docks. "But, Shield has, like, real-time monitoring on the guys and they're moving agents into position to watch more of them."

I made my decision then and there. Why break my back when Shield was so willing to help us out?

I spent the day and night at Ned's, who was more than thrilled that I was willing to stay over with him and Peter. Never saw his parents even once, but I did see a bunch of cult classic movies that I had missed out on. Then we ended up binging several seasons of the Sopranos in a single sitting for the sake of irony. It was a good show in a ‘product of its time’ kind of way.

All the while, during that full twenty-four hours, Shield aggressively mapped out the Russian Mafia. I could have gone with the original timeline because, by the end of the day, Shield knew everything about the Mob all the way down to what color underwear each member was wearing. Stuff like where they were and when they would be there was absolute child's play. It was actually kind of scary, to be honest. And I wasn't the only one who thought so.

"It's not the cops' fault," Peter remarked as I continued to fill out my journal. Names, locations, points of interest, and so on. Writing out exactly where someone would be and where in the natural undisturbed timeline left my hand cramping up, but it was necessary. It could take a couple more goes before I decided to settle on a result, so having the natural timeline for reference would help a lot. "They're dealing with all the mobs and gangs in New York. Shields, like, a bajillion dollar agency that's focusing on one mob in particular."

By focus, Peter meant arranging for a high-end deal to get their foot in the door so the rest of the agency could see how the mob moved.

"Maybe, but the point still stands. Shield had enough evidence to put all of the Russian mob away and they got it all within the hour," I shot back.

"Illegally," Peter protested. "Cops have to deal with warrants and stuff. The court system and bureaucracy."

"Ehh, that just shows me that the cops need less red tape," I decided. It was a fun day. Shield did a bunch of the leg work for us, doubling our initial findings. Technically speaking, we also had only been at it for a day, but the contrast was rather stark. Unsurprisingly, the full force of a secret agency using a microscope managed to get more than Ned on a single computer when he was half distracted by the Sopranos at any given moment.

My hand went to my Time-Turner. Twenty-four hours was the maximum I could go back, and it wasn't something I would normally deign to do. Time didn't like it when you went back more than six hours. More than twelve, you were putting yourself in the danger zone. However, the difference this time was that I spent the day hanging out with Peter and Ned watching TV, and eating pizza. The disruption would be limited to this room.

Going back further required a murder. Basically, I had to murder a past me to take his place in the timeline, and in doing so, I stopped being a future me. My Time-Turner didn't like it when I was that far back in the past, a past me could be using the Time-Turner, so there could be another future me running about. Understandably, my Time-Turner spazzed the fuck out. The solution?

Murder past me while there was no future me running amuck. Partly because it was easier on the Time-Turner, but also because it prevented a future me from wising up and trying to murder me back. On account of the, you know, murder of our past self. Messy business that could easily be avoided.

In this case? Twenty-four hours would end with no past me since we would be in the same spot. Going back further meant I would have to murder the past me… given how fast Shield reacted? It would be best to… front load dealing with the Russians.

But… that also meant erasing this day with Peter and Ned.

"Sorry guys," I started, making Ned and Peter look at me questioningly. "I'll make this up to you."

"Wh-" Peter began before I wound back the clock.

…

I sat on top of the crane that lifted the shipping containers out of the boat, a rifle against my shoulder with a tripod giving me a perfect view of what lay below. I saw past me being led out of the car that past me had gotten into with the two Russian gangsters, knowing something was up, but not knowing what exactly.

Turk was at the open shipping container, cocky as hell as past me walked up to him. From where I was, I couldn't hear a damn word that they were saying. However, I didn't need to.

Curling my finger around the trigger, I lined up the shot, the crosshairs on past me's forehead. I pulled the trigger, snapping his head back as his brains were blown right out of his head and he dropped like a rock. The gangsters reacted, going for cover, only for Audacity to appear. Seb Two lashed out with his yoyo, crushing the gangsters' legs and arms, and in no time at all, the battle was over.

Another thing that I learned about the Ring of Nine Dragons was that I didn't always end up with the abilities for the equipment I was using -- such as the AT's and the yoyo.

Audacity went through the same song and dance with the victims that were willing to leave when they saw the mask of a hero. Past Me's body dissolved into nothing, leaving no trace that he had been there at all. His place was taken by Seb Three, who shot himself in the shoulder to keep everything in line with what witnesses had seen before Seb Three ran away, fleeing the scene, where he would then be 'lost.'

Any witnesses say that they saw me get shot in the head? They must be mistaken since others saw me run away. It may put me in the crosshairs of Shield, but in this timeline, I had been a random teenager that was asking about the Russian mob to take out a loan for a hundred thousand, only to nearly be human trafficked and saved by Audacity. If they looked at me at all, it would be for the wrong reasons.

"And now it's time for the real show," I decided, flinging my rifle into the water with all of my strength while Audacity made his way up and dismissed himself, leaving me my items. Even before the gun hit the water with a splash, I was gone.

Flying down, my AT's hummed with life, blasting down the street. I had a list of addresses memorized, and I knew exactly what path I would be taking to reach them. I flew down the busted-up streets, wall riding up a building before I started traveling on the rooftops. My mask protected my face from the wind, but I still felt it as I sailed through the air at high speeds, blitzing through Hell's Kitchen like a speeding bullet. Any lingering fear about busting my ass was gone after the second dose of Divine Water. Instead, I tried to get as much speed out of the skates as I could.

I found my first stop easily enough -- a run-down building. Troika Restaurant. A front. It was where they sent most of their human trafficking victims for holding until it was time to throw them into a shipping container and send them somewhere. Where, I would learn soon enough. For now, I flicked my yoyo at the front door, knocking it clear off its hinges and folding it like paper. Sailing through the opening, I saw familiar faces. The owners were associates of the mob, a few people above were outright members with a handful of innocent customers intermingled.

My yoyo snapped out at the targets as I entered the restaurant, hardly slowing down in the slightest. It slammed into one gangster’s chest, caving it in as he reached for his gun before I whipped it to the side to slam it into the side of the head of the man sitting next to him. Phantom yoyos spread out, smashing through tables and chairs, and people. The owners dropped to the floor, one of them screaming as he cradled a broken arm, while the other lay in a growing puddle of his own blood.

Skating down the way, I banked off the staircase that led to the basement, and planted my feet into the chest of a Russian mobster that was coming up the steps. He fell back down them, his gun going to the side and clattering to the floor. My yoyo lashed out like a whip, colliding against him, then the phantom yoyos started to tear into the rest of the gangsters that were coming up the steps from the two rooms that were meant to house them.

The hallway was filled with screams and the crunching of bone while I passed them by, wall riding past them where they fell while my yoyo smacked into my palm. I had no idea if they were going to make it or not, but when I kicked down the door at the very end of the hallway, I found that I didn’t particularly give a shit.

I was greeted with the sound of panicked screaming as the door flew off the hinges, striking the wall. My gaze darted to the source to see a handful of people -- three of them. Two were women, with one sporting a black eye and a busted nose… the other was a child. Lightly tanned skin, a head full of curly hair, and he had a real pair of lungs in him because he screamed loudly as he clung to the two women for protection.

I glanced over my shoulder to make sure that no one was coming before I spawned a Seb, who entered while I crouched down to them. “Everything is going to be okay,” I told them and I saw that the women recognized me after a moment. “He’s going to get you out of here and make sure you get to the police. You don’t have to worry about a thing anymore,” I told them.

“You’re…” one of the women spoke up, looking at me with wide eyes that were filling up with tears.

“You’ll be okay. I’m going to make sure of it,” I said, standing back up and leaving the other Seb with them to help get them out. I would learn their names later because I felt a plan cooking in the back of my mind. I raced out of the area as soon as quickly as I entered, banking off of the walls to ride up the stairs, and within seconds, I escaped from the restaurant faster than anyone could react. The entire ordeal lasted about a minute, most of which was talking to the human trafficking victims.

I was putting an end to the Russian mafia tonight. Down to the last grunt.

And that’s what I did. Most of the Russian mob’s territory was within throwing distance of Hell’s Kitchen, and with blistering speed, I tore through the fronts and hideouts. In the prior timeline, Shield thought that I was recruiting helpers, and I leaned into that assumption since it would cover for the Ring of Nine Dragons. Each front or safe house that I hit had a strategically placed Seb that would run in after I was done to start looting everything that wasn’t nailed down.

The Russians didn’t keep their bank in a single location. Instead, they spread it out, with some locations having more money than others. However, the smallest amount I found was fifty thousand dollars in cash. The Russians also dealt in a little bit of everything, I quickly discovered. Meth, cocaine, heroin, pills, crack, and weed. There were pounds of the stuff that were quickly shoveled into duffle bags by a Seb who took as much as he could possibly carry before burning what he couldn’t.

Guns were also popular. Pistols, shotguns, assault rifles. Even found an RPG, though I didn’t find an actual rocket for it. Sadly. All were given to Sebs, who would in turn runoff in the same direction.

My Cave of Wonders. It was a bit of a risk leaving it open, but it was worth it. The Sebs would make their way there and dump what they took, before vanishing themselves. I had no idea how much we had looted as I tore through the Russians like a bullet, leaving pure devastation in my wake. A lot of broken bones. More than a couple corpses. I had no sympathy for them, really. They tried to kill me and they knew the risks of signing up.

I couldn’t care less about their extenuating circumstances -- maybe they were doing it to support their family, or take care of a sick relative. Maybe they were raised in the culture and they never had a chance to experience anything different. That stuff didn’t really matter. Why you did something mattered less than what you did, and what they did was join the mafia. Intentions were important, sure, just not as much as actions and the consequences of them.

Old gangsters were a rare thing for a lot of good reasons. And it just so happened that, tonight, I was another reason why there wouldn’t be any old gangsters in the Russian mob.

The devastation was fast and harsh, and the cops couldn’t ignore it. The air around Hell’s Kitchen became filled with the sounds of sirens. The police to apprehend the criminals, ambulances to take care of the ones I fucked up, and firefighters that were trying to tame the flames that I left behind when I destroyed drugs, guns, or money.

I paid it no mind as I landed on my final destination. The HQ for Veles taxi at the corner of 44th and 11th. It was a run-down building that acted as a garage for the taxi service. That, and the headquarters for the Russian mafia. It was in a tizzy, I noticed. My little rampage lasted for thirty minutes at most -- hitting the Russians with blistering speed because I understood that I was on the clock. I’m pretty sure that the only reason I hadn’t seen a Shield agent so far was because they were watching me, waiting to see what I did and where I went.

“We’re getting hit! Troika was a damn blood bath,” I heard Kazan shout as he entered the garage. It was dimly lit with taxis parked along the walls with a good dozen mobsters. I knew all of them by sight. A mean-looking Russian man with short hair and a scar down his face was Vladimir Ranskahov. The still mean-looking, though less so, with longer hair was Anatoly Ranskahov, his brother.

“They will come here,” Vladimir remarked as he took an assault rifle from one of the mobsters that tossed it up from the basement. It was meant to be used for tools and stuff, but from where I stood, they turned it into a vault where they kept their big guns and bigger money. “Do we know who it is?”

Damn, their responses were slow, I thought as I casually started rolling up to the garage door. Was the media suppressing what I was doing or were they just as clueless?

“No one- Ah,” Anatoly started, sliding a magazine into an AK-47 before he turned around and he was the first one to catch a glimpse of me as I lazily rolled forward. “He’s here-” Anatoly began, shouldering the gun before he started to unload in my general direction. That was a lot of bullets, I thought as the other guns started to join in on the chorus, filling the garage with the sounds of gunfire.

As soon as he started to alert everyone else, I gunned the throttle, so to speak, and I shot to the side, crouching low as I used the taxis as cover. And, neat thing that I learned -- the only safe cover that the car could offer was near the engine block. Bullets could, would, and did tear right through the doors and trunk of the yellow taxis. However, I wasn’t using them to protect me from the bullets. I was using them to cover my approach.

“I will give you this -- your name is a fitting one, Audacity!” I heard Vladamir shout over the chorus, sounding damn near gleeful. The gunshots never stopped, but some were taking the time to reload. “You came here alone! Without backup! For what? Why have you targeted us?”

Uhh… Shit, why was I picking a fight with the Russians- oh, yeah. “I was planning to rob you guys!” I shouted a response, my yoyo in hand as I rode the wall, sailing over the bullet-ridden remains of the taxis. “And I figured I’d better deal with all of you so you don’t come sniffing around to take back my money,” I shouted, flicking my yoyo out at a taxi that a handful of Russians were hiding behind.

My yoyo tore right through it. It had fucked up the Chitauri speedsters, and whatever those things had been made out of couldn’t be compared to fiberglass and steel. However, I did notice one thing as the phantom yoyos tore through the car and into the men hiding behind it -- the damage dealt to them wasn’t exactly the same. Theoretically, if something could go through steel like it was a wet towel, then it should be able to go through a person just as easily. Instead, the yoyos tore through the car, then slammed into the people with bone-shattering force instead of turning them into swiss cheese like the car.

Good to know, I thought, whipping the yoyo to the side to slam it into the side of another car while I flipped through the air, sailing directly towards the Russians that were scrambling. A fatal mistake, I thought, the Eye of Cthulhu impacting my palm a split second before I flicked it back out at the feet of the Russian leaders. Kazan was killed on impact, but Vladamir and Anatoly flew forward, their guns clattering to the ground while their legs were shattered.

I know that the Russian strong man thing was a stereotype, but Vlad was a tough son of a bitch, I had to admit. I landed on my feet and Vlad flipped himself on his bag, barely sparing his ruined legs a glance, before checking on his brother, who had passed out from the pain. And he immediately began talking shit, “You think you will get away with this?” He snarled at me while I scooped up a handgun, gave it a shake, and felt that it had a couple bullets left in the magazine. “Do you think there will not be retribution?”

Vlad spat at me, “I will see you gutted like a fish. Your skull will be my new coffee mug,” he swore at me.

“Thanks. I feel a bit iffy when it comes to dealing with downed opponents -- I mean, killing a guy when he’s trying to kill you is pretty easy, but when they’re down for the count? I dunno. Feels gray to me,” I remarked, pointing the gun right at him. “So, I'm just going to file this under preemptive self-defense. See ya’ in hell,” I bade him farewell before pulling the trigger, killing Vlad with a bullet to the head.

Then I put one in the back of Anatoly’s head. My relationship with my siblings was pretty weird, but there was a reason why there were so many movies about avenging a family member. Better to nip that in the bud while I had the chance.

Tossing the gun to the side, I turned my attention down to the vault and realized that I was going to end up having to burn a lot of it. The vault wasn’t exactly huge, but it was stuffed to the absolute brim -- the Russians had expanded the abasement at some point. One side was an armory that was separated by a wire grate, while the other side was where they kept the drugs and cash. The armory was empty given that most of the weapons were upstairs, but the cash and drugs?

If I had to give an estimate, there was at least three motherfucking shit loads of drugs and money. There was a good twenty kilos of cocaine alone, not counting the kilos of heroin or meth. There were duffle bags filled with rolled-up bills -- maybe a million in cash per duffle bag, and there were ten duffle bags.

“Whoever said crime doesn’t pay is a fucking moron,” I remarked, because it paid stupidly well. It paid off for the Russians, and it paid off for me. I made a split-second decision and spawned a couple of Sebs, each one taking three duffle bags -- Of the five that I summoned, they managed to get all ten duffle bags while I grabbed two bags filled with drugs. Not sure what I was going to use them for, but I like to keep my options open.

With that, I reached into my fanny pack, took out some liter fluid, and started spraying everything down before flicking my lighter open and tossing it at the bunch while we made our escape. I heard sirens just outside of the building, telling me that the police were pulling up. One perk about having my thought process divided up was the fact that we were all on the same page because none of us hesitated in our parts.

“This is the NYPD, come out with your hands up,” I heard an officer of the law shout out, parked in front of the garage. I also saw how few cops there actually were -- I’m guessing that they were clever ones that knew where I would be rather than going where I was. I flew out of the garage, weighed down by the duffle bags full of drugs, and I was that much faster for it.

“Merry Christmas!” I exclaimed, lobbing one duffle bag filled with drugs at the cop car, making the two police officers flinch.

“S-Stop right there-” One of the police officers shouted, pointing his gun at me, only to think better of it when I sailed overhead and landed on the other side of the street. I heard him starting to give chase, but that's what I wanted. It gave the other Sebs all the time that they needed to get out of the building and head towards the Cave of Wonders. It took them a few minutes to reach it on foot. It was in an old dilapidated building near the Hudson River.

I led the cop on a merry chase while I kept my eyes on the sky, making a round loop as I felt more and more of my brainpower returning to me. Shield should absolutely have a bead on me by this point. They were keeping away, watching what I did…

That was no problem. I hoped they enjoyed the show.

Deciding that enough was enough, I wall rode up a building, gunning the throttle to give me enough speed that I was flung forward when I ran out of wall. Sailing across a back alley, I perfectly landed in the dilapidated building -- the walls were crumbling and covered in mold while the building itself smelled of mildew. Though, that could be due to the sewer grate that was located within the building -- I’m not sure why. I think it might have been a water control building at some point, but that was a long time ago.

I dropped down right into it, finding that it was a lot fuller with neat stuff -- more guns, more drugs, more money. The best of all things, really.

“Today was a good day,” I decided, grabbing my inventory journal. Then my AT's, and ring to the Eye of Cthulhu. I gathered them all up before I created a handful of clones with the Ring of Nine Dragons. “Don’t get caught and fuck it up,” I told them before I tossed the Ring of Nine Dragons at one of them. He caught it and slid it onto his finger before holding his hand out expectantly. Rolling my eyes, I took off my Time-Turner and handed it over as well.

The rest of the Sebs offered a few dutiful nods before they started to make their way out of the Cave of Wonders. I felt a slight tremor, telling me that the Cave had been disconnected from reality, leaving me inside of it until the Golden Scarab was once again used.

“I wonder what Shield is going to think,” I muttered to myself, starting to take stock of what I had gained. I was removed from the running at the moment. The only Sebastian out in the world was my Sebs, which could remain because one of the Sebs had the Ring of Nine Dragons and my Time-Turner, which the Ringbearer could use. As of now, me entering the Cave of Wonders was the return point, so the Sebs would be finding ways to go out completely unnoticed.

From Shield’s point of view, me and the Sebs would have entered this building and vanished without a trace.

Past and future me's would be dealing with that mess. I had my own to deal with.

“Fifteen million dollars, thirty-three kilos of cocaine, eight kilos of heroin, a wide variety of pills, fifty kilos of pot, forty-four kilos of meth,” I listed off the money and drugs that I gained during my little adventure. The guns were, sadly, more of the same. More handguns, for the most part, but I did have a decent selection of assault rifles and shotguns now. So, that was nice.

I was right in the middle of cataloging it all when I felt another tremble, telling me that the Cave of Wonders had been reconnected to reality.

Letting out a small sigh, I took out my last cigarette and struck up a match to light it. Breathing in the smoke, I heard future me’s footsteps echo through the halls leading up to the cave itself. They came to a stop directly behind me. Future me said nothing, but I did hear a click of the safety.

A few minutes passed in silence while I finished my cigarette, taking my time with it. Breathing out my last breath in the form of smoke, I flicked the butt away as a signal that I was done.

I heard a loud pop behind me, but before I could register what it was, everything went dark.

...

I have some mixed feelings about this chapter. In particular, the ending. I laid out my ground rules for time travel, and this was one of them, but it feels like its a rule that's better on paper than in action. So, let me know what you think.