Well folks, things are chugging in my brain again. I have no clue of the pace of these last chapters and sub sections will keep up or not, but here's another.

"It's time Ev. We've got to call her."

"Oh, Don, are you sure there's no other way?"

"If there is, I haven't seen it. The closest we ever got was when they came late and she sided with us against the Kitain. Nuke is out of the picture. From everything she said, she was fighting for you, not with us. And gods, Ev, we almost made it that time.

Every time since, I've tried to duplicate that timing, and it's too fucking unpredictable. She's unpredictable. Even when I get things almost exactly the same, she swings out of nowhere. Turns on us, goes ham on her own, runs off to find you and your parents to, well, she tries different things."

"That I can believe. She never can tell if she loves us or hates us."

"Exactly. Every time I tried to recruit her, even when I told her everything, she laughed in my face. When she was feeling nice. She killed me five times, messed me up three or four others. A couple she went after you.

We've only got a few years before they come. We need that time with her. To show her we can be trusted. To convince her to let Kerry help her."

"She won't. When her power kicked in, it broke her just as bad as Finale broke you. My parents tried to get her help. They tried so hard, Don."

"I know, baby, I know. It's okay. It's going to be okay. I promise. I can keep you safe. She can't hurt you, or your folks, not for real. I can't die baby. I'll always fix it. I loved you a dozen times before that interview that worked. I've fought every single cycle to never go back before it because you are my reason."

"Don. You can't make me everything. Nobody can be that, do that."

"Ev, my love, my eternity. I'm half convinced that meeting you is the entire reason my power exists."

"Damn it, Don. I can't tell if you're joking."

"Not really. But maybe a little. I have no clue if there's a reason for any of this, any of us that develop power accidentally, or with no warning. I just know that when the dying gets too bad, to where I'd just give up and hide instead of trying to move things to survival for this shitty world, you're what makes it worth it. Don't get me wrong, the team, my friends, they help. But you're the one that keeps me going for thousands of years."

"And Elaine really is the key to not having to die any more?"

"If she isn't, then I don't know what to do."

"What if I can't get her to meet alone? What if she asks about Nuke?"

"Doesn't matter, really. Since Kerry tuned me up, I've gotten better control over exactly when I pop back in. If I'm careful, I can peg it down to maybe fifteen minutes, if I don't want to just do a full loop. That won't last forever, but he said he should be able to keep me tuned well enough to get Generator with us like that. Once she's on board, nothing needs that degree of precision, or it hasn't when we've failed to recruit her.

If she asks about Nuke, tell her the truth. He died from injuries sustained in fighting us, and we'll release the body to her in person, or arrange for it to be handled however her and the rest of The Ragnarock prefer. There's no way to keep it secret, and I plan to tell her when I talk to her anyway. I plan to tell her everything. If it screws things up, well, I'll give you a different answer next loop."

"Okay. And if she doesn't answer?"

"Then we try again. It's all we can do, Ev."

It took a few minor adjustments, but here we are. I hate that she insisted on Ev being here too. If she freaks out, I'm going to lose it. No. Kerry is standing by. The team is in the transport, and Switch is primed. I got this.

I sit the urn beside me and stand, checking the tree line. Movement. It's her.

Generator doesn't look as terrifying as she can be. She's positively dainty. Always dressed like she's going to a charity ball. But she barely comes up to my chin, which has never stopped her from punching it. Hard. Her powers aren't physical, but she trains with Devastation, and that asshole prides himself on not needing powers to kill. Without a gun, she can wipe the floor with me. She's done it twice. That's with Del training me, or trying to.

Her hair is green this time. There's a daisy tucked behind her ear. Ev is shifting on the bench, I can almost hear her pulse spiking.

"Hello. Should I call you Generator, or Elaine?"

"Just because you married my sister doesn't put us on a first name basis, Eternus."

"That's why I asked. Do you want the remains now?"

"Yes. Asshole. Did you kill him? One of those special bullets?"

"No, but I would have. He's... He was a threat that made a bigger threat even more dangerous."

I picked up the urn and handed it to her, "I am sorry for your loss. Genuinely. I don't like the killing."

"We do. I do. So, tell me why I'm not going to kill both of you? Evelyn said you'd answer anything I asked. Anything."

"My word on it. You might not like the answers, and you might not understand all of them, but I'll answer with truth."

"Well? Why am I not going to kill you?"

"Oh. I thought that was a threat, not a question."

"It's both."

"Fine. You won't kill us for two main reasons. First, if you do, the entire planet is doomed. Second, you can't. You can't kill me. You've tried."

"I don't give a damn about the planet. All of you can go straight to hell. I'm aware I haven't killed you yet. What makes you think I can't?"

"Because I'll just come back and do better."

"You fucker!"

I could see the realization click into place. She'd seen the interview, everyone had, "Yup. Misdirection. I had plenty of practice keeping a straight face and playing it off. It's why we could catch Nuke. It's why we will eventually catch Devastation and Quake. You get enough tries at it, and it's easy. I've killed all three of them. You're the hard one to kill. But I don't want any of you dead. I've been working hard to avoid it. Nuke just wouldn't let us. He fucks it up every time, or you and your so called horsemen do while trying to rescue him.

So, this time, when he died, I didn't try to fix it. And won't, unless you can convince me that there's a way to get you here peacefully, with an open mind, ready to talk without him dying."

"There's nothing you could say. I wouldn't believe it, I'd think you had a psychic fuck with me. It's been tried. The psychic part, I don't know about your time manipulation."

"It isn't manipulation. If I die, I go back. It's automatic. I can control some part of when I go back to, but it happens without me being conscious or aware. My team? We all keep passwords for it. Codes they can give me that I can tell them in the past to convince them to do something batshit crazy without having to explain a plan. Most of the time, they just trust me and roll with it. Sometimes, well, I've had to shoot Streak a lot. He kept getting us killed fighting the four of you."

"And you say you don't like killing. You sure did a good job of blowing Cinder's head apart. You tore Finale to pieces. You're like me. Like Devastation."

"No. I'm not. I just get fucking tired of dying. It fucking hurts. I noticed you didn't mention Quake."

"He's not like us. He doesn't enjoy it. Very much a means to an end kind of guy."

"Good to know. Again, I don't enjoy it. Sometimes there just isn't a better option."

"You're right about that. That's how I learned to like it so much. Enough prattle. You didn't let your secret out to keep darling Evelyn alive, or yourself. Why did you really want to talk?"

"I want you on the team. We need you, Generator. The second best option didn't work. Even when you four weren't causing interference. In a few years, back in my original timeline, our team managed to take Quake, Nuke, and Devastation in. We get back home, and there's an alarm.

The Kitain. They wiped us out in minutes the first time. Back there, I would only loop a day or so. I'd die, come back maybe the night before and get a re-do. After the Kitain wiped us, I went back a decade. Back to my first day with the team. Without you, I don't think it's possible to win. I know they handled all four of you several times. In minutes. We tried just ignoring you and preparing for them. You guys are just too powerful, too dangerous to ignore. You are why that is. The other three? They're world shakers solo. But you make them world breakers.

We need to be world breakers too."

"Did you really think that would work?"

"By itself, no."

"So you just wanted to waste time? You have to have more of a plan than that, or is this just a test run?"

"Well, it is the first time I've managed to get you to agree to a meeting."

"Wait, why should I believe any of this shit? How do I know this isn't some kind of bullshit psyop?"

Damn it, don't lose her Don. Don't let her slip into the crazy, "Because one time, out of all the attempts we've made to keep the world alive and in one piece, the only time we got close was with you helping. And we talked some. You told me that you didn't want to die without taking some of them out with you, and you wish you could have Charley with you.

I didn't know what that meant at first. Now I do. I think you do too, and I think that when I give him to you here in a second, you'll have to decide if you really did tell me about him, or if it's some psychic shit."

I promise, I didn't end it there to be an asshole. I have to make a couple of decisions, and I don't want to have to undo anything, even though that's the whole concept of Eternus. I think it's insulting to do something that cheap. This chapter snuck up on me before I could really buckle down and know where the next chain of events would go. So it has to pause here until I can figure out which version, which possibilities really work, and which of them spark enough inspiration to give me what I need to be able to write.