Christian begins looping. It does not end well.

The Sixth Looper: Christian

It took a while for Punk to get used to looping. Part of it was due to his, admittedly, naturally serious nature. He took everything seriously, wrestling most of all before the McMahon machine ground him into dust, so it was hard to mesh with the almost laissez-faire approach everyone had to the loops. They had already done everything there was to do when it came to wrestling, so most of the time they spent it taking over the WWE and using it as their live simulation for whatever crazy scenario they had thought up that loop. But for Punk, who still couldn't find it in himself to go back to the company after all this time, even when it was under new management, found himself bereft and at a loss. There was no AEW to jump ship to yet, after all.

Mox had been the one to give him a new direction, confessing he had felt the same after his first few loops. He suggested that Punk tried to find a new passion outside of wrestling, something he felt comfortable doing when he didn't feel like getting throwing around the ring all the time. Sami had suggested the same, but it was only now that it was beginning to sink in. The thing is, because the loop varied on whenever it started, Punk was usually under contract with WWE or ROH and in the midst of his professional wrestling career, and without a college degree it was very hard to translate to something new. Sure, Mox had in-built failsafes for these kind of things and worldwide memory magic if need be, but then came the part of actually figuring out what to do. Punk already had plenty of money from loops where things started after his WWE career, but where to direct it had always been the question.

He tried college first, because he still had a high school degree and it was easy to get into when you had enough cash. General classes while he tried to figure out what degree he wanted, and he had originally gravitated to things like politics and rhetoric, because it involved lots of talking, and nobody talked better than CM Punk. Unfortunately, despite thoroughly enjoying his courses and finding the idea of politics tempting and tantalizing, there was already a preexisting ban on any involvement of politics, stemming from a bad Presidential run that Mox, Randy, and Sami absolutely refused to talk about. So Punk had spent those loops starting cults instead and inducing multiple revolutions.

That got boring after a while, so he tried something else. And that's when the moral dissonance really hit its stride, because Punk found that his newest passion, almost as much as a match for his love of professional wrestling, was wetwork.

More specifically, playing secret agent. Including such things as assassination.

Part of it, admittedly, probably had to do with his first loop being a fused loop as John Wick. Punk had gone all in on that, and that meant inheriting a gift for murder that should be way more soul-crushing than it actually was. The reality is that Punk could kill, and kill in a way that allowed himself to detach himself from targets/victims. He didn't delight in pain like Randy did, but he could kill without remorse, stabbing someone in the heart one second and politely ordering for his diet pepsi the next. It was frightening when he realized it, and even the others were concerned too — that level of detachment usually precipitated Sakura Syndrome, and Sakura Haruno was the absolute last person Punk wanted to be like.

But it wasn't just the art of murder. It was the duplicity. The plotting, planning, and scheming. That small, subtle manipulations that made his missions so successful. Punk had always been good at that, good at putting on a show, and that's all being a spy was — a show. A grand performance that no one but a select people got to see, usually with the fate of entire countries on the line. Punk had never been afraid of risk, that's how he got so far in his career, so playing secret agent came naturally to him. He spent loops joining different agencies, working his way up the ranks to deepest, dirtiest assignments, and thrived over it.

He shouldn't be so good at it. He shouldn't love it like he did. But the reality is, he did.

Punk didn't like to think about what that all meant.

(Honestly, there were days where he didn't like to think at all.)

Punk Woke Up, turned around to see Stephanie's McMahon steel-cold blue eyes staring daggers at him, groaned, and immediately turned on his side and tried to go back to sleep. He was not in the mood to deal with the Billion Dollar Princess this loop. Or any loop. Or ever again, for that matter.

But apparently, Stephanie was of a different mind, because she immediately kicked him in the side with her stupid, pointy heels. "Get up. I know you're awake. It's not like you ever really sleep, anyway."

He was tempted to just draw out a gun from his Pocket and shoot her, but he wasn't really willing to deal with the potential fallout if he did. So he just sighed and got up, accessing his loop memories along the way. It was a variant, unsurprisingly, one where a massive, unidentified catastrophe hit the arena the WWE were performing in for RAW and stranded him with Stephanie McMahon in one of the inner bowels of the building. Judging by his t-shirt, they were somewhere in 2013, a little after his return after his loss to the Undertaker at WrestleMania. About six months before he finally had enough and left.

And only two months or so before the Authority came into power. Wonderful, just wonderful.

(Not for the first time, Punk had a sinking feeling that Palaestra had it out for him.)

The moment he was on his feet, Stephanie pointed towards a pile rubble on their left. "Dig."

"Seriously?"

"My family signs your paychecks, and I'm certain you don't want to die here any more than I do. So. Dig."

Grumbling under his breath, he briefly entertained the idea of letting himself die anyway and quickly moving on to the next loop. But that usually contributed to a loop crash and if the loop did indeed crash thanks to Mox somehow dying after him, that meant Eiken. And there was no way in hell Punk was ever going to Eiken if he could help it, even if it meant avoiding obeying orders from Stephanie McMahon again. That place was hell, if only for how freaking boring it was.

So, he dug. And dug. And dug and about fifteen minutes later, the complaints started.

"Can't you go any faster?"

Punk resisted the urge to snarl at his much unwelcome companion. "It would go faster if you'd actually bother to help instead of sitting on your pretty little behind and doing nothing," he said instead, with as much false sweetness as he could manage.

He heard Stephanie's breath hitch and the telltale sounds of another berating at the tip of her tongue, because God forbid Stephanie go a day without emasculating someone, but the sound of rumbling and a shake of the building stopped her. He could sense the fear rolling off her, a control freak unable to control anything around her but him, and even then, barely so. A sense of pity washed over him; as much of a bitch Stephanie could be, in the end she was just a scared woman, trapped in a terrible situation and desperate to get out of it. Punk was a jackass, but he wasn't that kind of a jackass.

"Stephanie, c'mon. Help me," he said, this time much more gently. "Let's get out of here."

There was a moment of silence, and then the click-clack of those heels, and before Punk knew it, the heat of her body next to his. Stephanie crouched down carefully, and began lifting a piece of debris and tossing it behind her. Punk followed her lead and continued with his own work, and they stayed like that for a while, digging through the mass of broken stone and wood.

Punk lost track of the time as they worked, just mindlessly going through the emotions as they tried to make a big enough of hole to escape through. The building still shook from time-to-time, sometimes only minimally, sometimes a million times worse than the first time. Stephanie always froze up when these happened, clenching her eyes shut and bending over, trying to keep her head as close to her knees as she waited it out. One time, she almost fell face first into the rocks, only for him to save her by grabbing her arm and pulling her back. She had actually thanked him for that one, which showed how much the situation was getting to her.

Finally, after what seemed like forever, they had a big enough hole for both of them to fit through. Stephanie moved forward to step through, but Punk stopped her. Her head whipped behind her as she turned to glare at him. "What are you—?"

That's when the zombies darted out.

Stephanie shrieked, scurrying away in fear like any sensible person would. Punk, sensible, but also not really a person anymore, reacted on instinct and summoned a shotgun from his pocket and put one right through every single eye, watching as they collapsed from the attack like marionettes with their strings cut. Unfortunately, that only stopped the first wave — the second soon followed, and Punk backed away, keeping Stephanie behind him as he tried to kill them all off.

Eventually his gun ran out of shells. One he heard that telltale sound of an empty click, he turned the gun around and used the butt of the weapon to smash the head off one of the undead before throwing it aside. Fuck the masquerade. He was not ending this loop eating brains.

Taking a stance, blue fire sparked around his hands, a gift from when he had been Prince Phillip of the Fire Nation during the Hundred Year War — before he defected to join Avatar Jon Moxley, of course. He threw two fireballs, one left and one right, before jumping up and performing one of his signature roundhouse kicks, creating a wave of cobalt flames which cut through the approaching army like knife to butter. They died again, screeching and screaming and rolling around, trying to put out the flames. Punk took in a deep breath, surveying the carnage.

"What the hell!"

Right. Stephanie.

Punk turned around to see his boss staring at him like she was seeing him for the very first time. Stephanie's jaw had dropped, her eyes wide and bugged out. It was almost comical, if it weren't for the current situation. A zombie apocalypse — that was the last thing he ever wanted to deal with when it came to a loop.

"How—"

"I'll explain later," Punk said, cutting her off as he grabbed her by the hand and went towards the other direction, away from the hole. Now that the jig was up, there was no point in holding back; the moment he made it to the wall, he covered his free arm with armament haki and smashed right through it.

"Wha—How?—Why didn't you do that earlier!" Stephanie was clearly losing her mind, and Punk was sympathetic but right now the zombies were beginning to smother the line of fire he had created to warn them off, so he ignored her questions.

Instead, he heaved her up and threw her over his shoulder, and ran like the wind.

They ran into a few more hordes, but luckily Punk had long since mastered the art of armless firebending and had been able to ward them off with some precise slices of fire from his feet. A few of the zombies he recognized, several of them his now-former coworkers, and he couldn't help but wince when he saw them, trying to remind himself that all of them would be okay the next loop. It didn't make it any easier to see, but it did make it easier to deal with.

Things really didn't start looking up and until he saw Mox, dressed in his old Shield gear, hacking away at all the zombies with a sword. From what Punk understood, it was something he well-practiced at after looping in as Jon Snow during a fused loop with Game of Thrones. Quickly determining that they would be safest with their loop's anchor, he darted towards the other man, kicking away any and every zombie trying to scratch their eyes out. Mox spotted him, and after exchanging a single nod, they both unleashed their Conqueror's Haki at the same time, the resulting collision of wills creating a big enough shockwave to knock away and destroy every remaining zombie in the vicinity.

Once the coast was clear, Punk headed towards his Anchor, setting Stephanie down once they were close. The poor woman looked completely frazzled and lost, whatever remaining composure she had long gone. Punk kept a steady hand on her shoulder as he spoke with the other man.

"Rollins and Reigns?"

Mox winced, swallowing and shaking his head.

Punk pursed his lips. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be. Not your fault." The older looper shrugged half-heartedly. "It's not like this is the first time."

That was a loaded statement if there ever was one, and Punk quickly ignored it, not wanting to unpack everything that it meant. He was dealing enough internal crises as it was, thank you very much. "Right. Got any place we can hide? And have you found any of the others?"

The other wrestler shook his head. "Haven't had the chance to do a ping. And I'm guessing you haven't either."

No, no he hadn't. They shared another look, and on silent agreement, sent out a ping, Mox first, with Punk following in response. They got three more in return, two in much farther distances while one was nearby. Becky and Sami and were likely the former two, while Randy was the latter. Considering the current situation of the loop, it was better to rendevous with the Viper first before going after the other two — safety in numbers and all that.

Unfortunately, there was a snag, and only now was she coming out of her stupor.

"What is going on with you two?" Stephanie demanded, only now finding the will to speak again, if only out of frustration and confusion over what was going on. Where did Punk get that gun? How he was able to throw fire around like that? What the hell was that shockwave? "How…"

The two men exchanged looks and sighed.

"Time loops?" Stephanie asked skeptically, arms crossed as they trekked through the rotting bodies. The trio ignored the smell and the sight as much as they could, especially if they spotted the corpse of someone looking vaguely familiar. They were going to have enough nightmares as it was, no need to add another face to haunt them. "Are you two serious?"

And here it comes, Punk thought languidly, as Mox summoned his lightsaber in one smooth motion. Stephanie openly gaped at the sight, which would've made Punk laugh under less dire circumstances. "Close your mouth, Steph," he said instead, voice flat. "You'll catch flies like that."

The woman snapped her mouth shut and glared at him. He gave her an unimpressed look in return, and a few seconds they engaged in a battle of wills. Unsurprisingly, Stephanie was the first one to give in, now well aware of the fact that the only way she was getting out of this alive if she stuck with them. Hell, the only reason she was alive right now was because of them.

"So what next, then?"

"We're linking up with Randy, first," Mox answered for both of them, probably to stave off some kind of argument. Even before the loops, he always was more sensible than he'd let on to others. Now that he was an Anchor, wizened from millenia after millenia of living — well, there was a reason he was one of the few Punk was willing to defer to for anything. "After that, we'll see about getting out of here and finding Becky and Sami."

Stephanie blinked. "Becky and Sami?"

"Becky Lynch and Sami Zayn," Punk elaborated for her, scanning the area with a keen eye. It had been a while since they encountered any zombies. He didn't have a good feeling about that…

"What about my kids?" Stephanie demanded. "What about… about everyone else! Do we even know what caused this?"

Punk glanced at Mox. "My loop memories had nothing. Yours?"

"Nada. Woke Up, checked my memories, found nothing out of the ordinary besides something wrecking the arena and then nearly got my brain eaten by a zombified Nikki Bella. Been on the run ever since," Mox answered. He turned to Stephanie. "As for your kids — do you even know where they're supposed to be right now?"

"Yeah, at home with their usual nanny. All the way in Connecticut. If you guys are really these all-powerful time travelers, you can take me to them, right?"

Mox bit the corner of his lip. "If you had a picture of your house, we can side-apparate you there. But only after we find Randy, alright?"

Stephanie fumed, but Punk interjected before she could get a word out. "Stephanie, all of our phones are broken, and neither Mox nor I have telepathy, so there's no way we could even get the picture to apparate out of here anyway. We're better off finding Randy — safety in numbers and all that. Plus, who knows — maybe we'll come across a working cell or something on the way."

It was a reasonable solution, and after a moment, Stephanie gave it a single nod of agreement. But both men could see she was still upset about their choice. Making a split-second decision, Punk put a hand on her shoulder and guided her forward. She gave him a hard look, but didn't push him away.

They traveled for what seemed like hours, their pace considerably slowed thanks to a combination of having to protect the more vulnerable Stephanie, and overall caution over being ambushed by overeager flesh-eating zombies. Already, they had nuke like three different hordes, and it had done little to calm any of their nerves. Punk and Mox couldn't sense a living thing for miles beside themselves, Stephanie, Randy, and one other unfamiliar life force near their fellow looper. Probably another survivor Randy had manage to snag before everything went to shit.

The breaking point came with the next horde. Though it wasn't really a horde so much as a familiar in a suit, with his back turned towards them. Stephanie recognized him immediately, her face lighting up like the sun. She pulled away from Punk's guiding hand and ran to the form of her husband, feeling relief and some semblance of hope again.

Stephanie failed to notice the way both of her other companions tensed up when they saw Triple H.

"Hunter—"

Hunter turned around, and Stephanie shrieked, far louder than she ever had before.

Her loving husband of ten years, the love of her life, was now a dead, drooling husk, his skin already decaying thanks to whatever virus that was zombifying people left and right. Not-Triple H let out some kind of garbled roar, spit flying into her face even as she continued screaming, and roughly grabbed her by the shoulders. Stephanie, in complete shock, stood frozen as death approached her in the form of her zombified-husband's advancing jaws.

At least until Hunter's head exploded into blood, flesh, and brain matter, his entire body collapsing now that there was no surviving semblance of a brain to control it. Stunned and still in shock, Stephanie looked down and stared at her hands and forearms, now covered in the remains of the man she loved. Almost robotically, she turned her head to the direction from where the bullet came from, and saw the source as Punk, his arm still stretched out with the smoking gun in hand. The moment he caught her gaze, he dropped his arm and stepped towards her. "Stephanie—"

He didn't get to finish. It was barely a moment before she burst towards him and buried herself into his chest, sobbing in grief and terror. It had finally become too much.

It took a while for Stephanie to calm down. Punk had done his best to soothe her, trying to remind her that she wasn't a looper, that she wouldn't remember when the loop ended, that when it did she and Hunter and everyone else would be okay. It wasn't really comforting, but it's all he had to give her — her husband was not just dead, but his zombified remains had attempted to eat her. There's not much they could say to that.

When she finally did calm down, she had quickly stripped herself of her blazer and used it to wipe off every bit of Hunter that was still on her. Once she was done, she tossed it away towards the direction of the body, keeping her eyes screwed shut as they directed her away from it. Obviously, Stephanie couldn't bear to see her husband like… like that again.

"How far are we from Randy?" Punk whispered to Mox about a half-hour later. He was holding the hand of a listless Stephanie, trying to keep her moving. It seems the farther they got away from Hunter's body, the more unmotivated she became. It was almost like she was losing the will to live.

"Not far," Mox whispered back. "In fact, we should be closing in on him in about—"

"Now."

The trio blinked as Randy Orton came into view, considerably less put together than he usually was. The Apex Predator was covered in dirt and grime, looking like he had just gone through a warzone — which, to be completely honest, he probably had. But he wasn't the only person of note. Standing near him, carrying a metal pipe and looking completely out of his mind, was—

"Christian?" Punk demanded, the first to get any words out.

"Punk. Mox. Stephanie," Captain Charisma greeted them, his grip on his pipe remaining tight.

"He's looping," Randy elaborated for all of them, sounding exhausted, though not in a tired way, more like in a 'I'm so done with today' way.

"Time loops, freaking time loops," Christian complained. "I thought I was done with that shit when the Brood ended, but nooo. The universe just likes fucking me over, and now I'm stuck with this guy for the rest of eternity." He jabbed his thumb towards the Viper, looking supremely unhappy.

Everyone stared at him. "And Punk and I," Mox pointed out. "Becky and Sami too."

"Yeah, but you lot aren't nearly as frustrating as this asshole," Christian said, waving the statement off.

Randy, naturally, took offense. "Frustrating, am I? Who's the asshole who hounded me for months, demanding one more match?"

"Who's the bastard who took out my best friend right after his return and tried to justify it by claiming he was 'helping' him not get himself killed in the ring, when in reality he was just a jealous little bitch, because he hasn't gotten a pop that big since 2015?"

"Who's the little bitch who ran off to TNA because he couldn't hack it in WWE and was constantly living in the shadow of his best friend?"

Their volumes rose higher and higher as they bickered, while Punk, Mox, and Stephanie found themselves reduced to being the peanut gallery. "Um…" Mox started, bewildered.

Punk, not so much. "They've been like this ever since their feud back in 2011," the Best in the World explained, exasperated. Figures this is something the loops wouldn't change. "They would bitch at each other all the time when they were backstage, even after the feud ended. It was kind of a relief whenever Christian was injured, it kept all the arguments down. I'm like 75% sure that one of the reasons Randy went after Edge in baseline is because it would piss off Christian."

"You're kidding," Stephanie said disbelievingly, grief and fear briefly forgotten.

"I wish."

Meanwhile, the other two members of the group were not listening to them, to busy screaming red into each other's faces. And then, the weirdest thing happened.

Christian's eyes started glowing. He began to float. And everyone felt a fierce power slam into their heads like a freight train.

"What the fuck," Mox deadpanned.

"What the—all this crap is you, isn't it!" Randy yelled in realization, glaring up at Christian's form. Christian responded by using his awesome new mind powers to lift a nearby crate and throw it at Randy. Randy retaliated with projecting green energy from his hands and throwing it around, combined with some nice acrobatic martial arts. It was completely ridiculous and yet something every looper present expected of their lives now.

Punk groaned and drew out another gun from his pocket. "Christian is fucking zombie Carrie, and we're stuck with that for the rest of forever, and Randy's back to 'fuck you, I fucking hate you' mode, and we still got a bunch of zombies to deal with, and I fucking hate everything. How can this possibly get any worse."

"Hey guys!"

Randy and Christian kept fighting. Everyone else turned around to see a frazzled Becky and Sami running towards them, being chased by…

"Is that King Ghidorah?" Stephanie gaped.

"I hate everything," Punk declared, right as Ghidorah fired lightning at them all.

Yeah, I didn't know how to end this loop, so I went random. As it should be with the Infinite Loops. Besides, I got the important parts out: Stephanie, and of course Christian and Randy. They're going to be a lot of fun to write, once I get them where they're supposed to be. You'll see.

In other news — it's finally happened. Vince is retired and gone. The company is now being run by his "idiotic daughter and doofus son-in-law". Punk is truly a prophet. It makes me wonder what's going to drop in the next few weeks.

So, in recognition of that, I'm dropping this chapter. Do note that this chapter is more about Stephanie than Christian, because she's going to be an important character moving forward. Don't worry though — our Captain Charisma will get his day in the limelight eventually.