Oh my god I am literally doing this from a tablet at a Verizon store since I already had this in Doc Manager. I greatly respect those individuals capable of typing up whole stories on tablets.
Thank you to Pulsar747, rozenmiko, Paint the Wolf (Guest), majishan, ShepardisaBOSS, Dragonfan47, and bLuewErewOlf47 for reviewing last chapter! I'll respond to reviews through pm if I have time or the next time I get a hold of WiFi.
Paint: I hope you got that account!
The Adventures of a Time Traveling Padawan Chapter 16
16.1
Ezra Awoke to a controller in his hands and a large man glaring him down. Judging by the vague feelings of smugness left from before he Awoke and the bewildered/angry look on the man's face he'd been pulling a hustle.
One glance downwards at the robot massacre going on in the small arena - and the realization that his current body had muscle memories so well he hadn't even noticed that he was controlling the remote - and he had a better idea of the loop.
'Wait just one second… Why is my body a wimpy noodle?' Only his experience hid the quakes of fear. Why the heck was his PreAwakening-self hustling violent backstreet gamblers when he probably couldn't jog around a block without falling on his face?!
Immersing himself in loop memories, Ezra's eyes widened when he got an idea of just how intelligent the person he was replacing was.
"Sorry about this," He said just as he directed Megabot to go for a clean kill and destroy the bot's head. "Hey, you know what? Keep the money. I really just needed to test drive my new bot." Ezra schemed fast to try and save his hide without resorting to using any powers. Looking at the angry man in front of him he could tell Yama wasn't buying it. "Um, I'm really REALLY sorry?" He grinned sheepishly and backed away from the arena.
"Nobody hustles Yama!" The fat man yelled.
Ezra was about to bolt when there was the sound of an engine revving.
"Hiro, get on!" The young man who'd just skidded in on the moped blinked oddly at Ezra before shaking his head.
"Thanks!" Ezra didn't think, trusting his loop memories giving him a good feeling about this guy and the Force vibrating pleasantly around him, and jumped on behind him.
"Are you okay?"
"Yeah!" Ezra gasped as the breath was knocked out of him by the rough ride.
"Are you hurt?"
"No, I'm fine!" Ezra called Megabot back with the remote, though barely hanging on. That type of tech was advanced even in his home loop! He was so going to be examining it in detail later.
"Then who are you?! You're not my brother!" The young man was too busy driving like a maniac to look back but Ezra could already feel the NonAwake Hera's patented 'I don't know what's going on and I know it's weird and will probably screw me up but I will still find out so you'd better tell me now' look on his face.
The anchor nearly facepalmed. Only the need to hold on kept him from doing so. He only just now received that certain portion of his loop memories that told him Tadashi Hamada was 'his' brother.
"Oh, are you a looper?"
"Looper?!"
"Time travel." Ezra clarified.
"Yes!" Tadashi chanced a glance back.
"Okay, well, no I'm not your brother. I can explain later." … "…Why are we about to vault over a wall?"
"I set the ramp up earlier because usually if we go any other route than over this wall we get arrested because bot fighting is illegaaaaal!" Tadashi belted out right as they drove up a steep ramp and over a stone wall.
"Tech – oof!" Ezra had the air knocked out of him at the landing. "Stupid noodle body..! Technically bot fighting is perfectly legal, it's only betting that's illegal."
"Yeah, suddenly I see why you're here instead of my brother." Tadashi finally stopped the moped and they both got off. "So, explain."
"Time loops." Ezra nodded. "Do we have a time frame for me to explain? The explanation tends to get really long and I need to know if I should compress it."
"Aunt Cass is at beat poetry night, which usually gets interrupted by having to pick up her nephews from prison." Tadashi folded his arms. Ezra snorted.
"I'm getting a very Kanan feel from you. I like it, feels very homey." Ezra grinned when Tadashi looked at him strangely. "Okay, so, first. Yggdrasil."
...One explanation backed up with a powerpoint and holographic presentation later...
"Alright, I told you so you tell me. What's this loop like? Is Hiro the Anchor?"
"No, actually…" Tadashi scratched the back of his head. "My robotics project is."
Ezra blinked. "Huh. Haven't heard of many loops with robots as anchors before. AI?"
"Yeah. Hiro turned what was supposed to be just a healthcare companion into an armored superhero." Tadashi grinned slightly. "The circumstances weren't all that great but I can't say he didn't do a good job."
"Circumstances?"
"I died in a fire the first time."
"Owch."
"Yeah."
"Hello, I am Baymax."
Ezra stared at the giant marshmallow robot.
"I was going for a huggable design." Tadashi grinned slightly at him.
"Your physical body is identical to Hiro Hamada but your electroneural signals and eye color indicate that you are not Hiro." The robot pointed a finger in the air.
"Yeah, Hiro doesn't have electric blue eyes. It's how I knew you weren't him."
"You are indicating signs of shock and amusement."
"Pfffffffffffff-"
"Oh come on."
"-fffffffffffffffffffffHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"
"It's not that funny."
"-HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"
"I do not understand how the situation is entertaining."
"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"
"I swear if you don't shut up I can and will get you grounded with Aunt Cass. Even if you AREN'T Hiro."
"Haha!" Ezra wiped the tears out from under his eyes with a wide grin. "Oh, ha! Oh gosh, I'm sorry, it's just..! Robots in my loop are made for war, computing, or maintenance. I've never seen a robot that looked like a friggin MARSHMALLOW..!" He couldn't help but start laughing again.
"I do not understand."
"Just... let him get it out of his system Baymax." Tadashi rolled his eyes but frowned in slight worry at the mention of war.
"What do you MEAN in your loop you're A REBEL AGAINST A GENOCIDAL, RACIST, HYPOCRITICAL EMPIRE?!"
Walking up to the college where Tadashi (and usually Hiro) went, Ezra tilted his head when Tadashi stopped and frowned.
"What is it?"
"I… I think one of your friends is here. Or, well, I don't remember Gogo having THAT many colors in her hair." Tadashi tilted his head. "Wow, so THIS is what it's like having different loop memories. Weird."
"You haven't had a loop different than baseline yet?" Ezra looked up at him in confusion. Curse his tiny noodle body this loop. How did Hiro deal with it?
"No, Baymax says he has but even Hiro hasn't had very many resets… I mean, loops, yet. I've had even less." He motioned to the red suitcase he was pulling.
"So is it just you three?" They strolled into the lab.
"Nope. Weirdly enough one of our friends started looping before Hiro." Tadashi waved to someone. "Hey, Fred! We finally know what's up with the resets!"
"Resets?" Multiple voices echoed.
"Really?!" Only feeling the human presence under the monster suit that popped up in front of him prevented Ezra from whipping a lightsaber out of his subspace and decapitating it out of reflex. "Woah, what's up with your eyes Hiro?"
"That's Hiro?" A girl popped her head out of an area. Yep, that was a Sabine hairdo alright.
"Sup." Ezra waved. 'Sorry I didn't ping, had to explain the loops to my 'brother' this loop.'
'It's fine, I don't sense anyone else along the bond anyways.'
"Sort of. Hold on, let's tell the others." Tadashi nodded.
"You tell the nonloopers?" Ezra looked up in surprise. He was fairly certain he heard a squeak come from Sabine/Gogo about 'cute'.
"Yeah." Tadashi shrugged. "It's usually pretty easy. They're all openly scientifically minded and we can prove it easily most of the time."
"What?" The nonloopers had gathered and seemed to be as curious as they were confused.
"Lucky…" Ezra pouted, solely to hear his girlfriend squeak again. "We can never do that in our loop."
"Stop doing that!" Sabine was stuck between squealing and scolding.
"Doing what?" Innocent eyes.
"You know what you're doing Ezra Bridger." Uh oh, danger voice…
"So she is one of your friends…" Tadashi hummed and rubbed his chin. "Hey, think you can show the powerpoint to them? I still haven't completely wrapped my mind around the idea of it."
"Sure."
"Wait wait wait, how can you expect-"
"Us to believe something so crazy?"
"How-"
"Did you know I was going to say that?"
"Stop-!"
"Saying exactly what I'm going to say?"
"…" Wasabi was about to speak again when Tadashi beat him to it again.
"Alright, we're listening." Tadashi grinned a troller's grin. No other way to put it.
"Does this work every time?" Ezra asked in fascination.
"Nah, sometimes it doesn't because they say something different but I'd say it works, like, ninety percent of the time." Fred drawled. "Their faces are always just as funny as it was the first time." He laughed.
"I bet. That plan would tank miserably in our loop." Ezra chuckled. "Everyone seems to change just a little bit with every loop, even when they're not Awake."
"Stop doing that!" Sabine growled.
"I have no idea what you're talking about~" Ezra smiled innocently.
"UGH." She twitched.
Seeing Tadashi's curious look, Ezra grinned. "In our loop I'm usually a few years older, a heck of a lot taller, and a lot different in general. We're dating."
Tadashi burst into laughter, the nonloopers' eyes just about popped out of their heads, and Fred was looking back and forth between them.
"Hiro..! Sometimes the 'nonAwake' Hiro has..! A crush on Gogo..!" Tadashi cackled.
"Yeah, I'm starting to see why I'm replacing him." Ezra nodded.
Hiro had spent the entire time so far as 'Ezra' about to cry. His brother was nowhere to be found, he apparently lived in an abandoned tower all alone, he didn't recognize anything, and there were what appeared to be aliens around every corner. If he weren't so confused he supposed he would have been fascinated by the advanced technology but as it were he spent the entire time freaking out and screaming at everything.
"Hello?" He jumped when a voice echoed around his tower.
"Um, hi?" He poked his head around a corner cautiously.
"Hi there, I'm Kanan Jarrus." The man at first looked surprised but smiled kindly. "Who are you?"
"Hi-" Hiro stopped himself. The weird second set of memories said that wasn't his name. "Ezra Bridger."
Kanan apparently noticed his hesitation. "You wouldn't happen to know anything about time restarting, would you?"
Hiro's eyes widened. "You know about the-!" He shut his mouth. He couldn't trust this guy. He didn't even know him!
"Relax," Kanan chuckled. "Let me explain about the time loops."
Once Hiro had heard everything, he was very relieved to finally have an explanation for the 'resets'.
He was also happy to have the group of people help him out with getting used to their loop. His 'loop memories' had everything but he couldn't seem to feel them as being 'his' memories. Kanan had told him that was probably a good thing, since that could lead to him getting even more confused. Apparently that was something that messed with the minds of 'rookie' loopers a lot.
"This is weird." Hiro announced when Kanan grinned at him.
"No, it's to be expected since you replaced Ezra this loop." Casually walking through the pieces of machinery floating around Kanan stood in front of him. "Any idea how this happened?"
"I wanted to see how it worked." Hiro grinned sheepishly. "I guess I got a little too absorbed into it, because this happened…"
"Well, all I can say is I've never seen anyone fully disassemble a holocube before." Kanan said matter-of-factly. "Now let's see if I can help you put it back together…"
16.2
"NOPE." Ezra Awoke and immediately decided that what had just happened during the recent extension of the loop was NOT going to happen again.
Kanan Awoke and immediately decided that he was going to FIX that GLARING hole in the plan that he'd come up with during the recent expansion of their loop.
Hera Awoke and immediately began to cuss Kanan's NonAwake self to hell and back because she could NOT believe he'd pulled that idiotic self-sacrificing card!
Sabine and Zeb happened to Awake in the same room and immediately began to scheme of ways to rescue Kanan right away if what happened during the loop's extension happened again.
Chopper Awoke and immediately sent an email.
BcktPrnkstr: Yoyo tell me you're looping.
Yoyo'd: Here.
Yoyo'd: What happened this time?
Funny how amusement and exasperation can leak through an email.
BcktPrnkstr: Have you gone through the loops recent expansion yet?
Yoyo'd: There's been a new expansion?
Yoyo'd: …
Yoyo'd: Send me the info.
BcktPrnkstr: :DATAFILE-EP_CALLTOACTION:
Yoyo'd: …
Yoyo'd: …So how do we prank the Inquisitor this time?
16.1
*Guess who watched Big Hero 6 what feels like forever ago and needed to do something with it. :)
*Come on, you can't tell me you guys didn't connect Gogo with Sabine.
*Hiro is a tiny noodle boy. Ezra is amused and slightly afraid at some of the things he learns the noodle boy does in baseline.
16.2
*And now you know just how far I was backed up, since this was written when I first heard about the episode Call to Action and what happened during it... There's only two episodes I haven't watched in Rebels, and that is Call to Action and the beginning part of Rebels Resolve. I also haven't watched the newest movie Siege of Lothal yet but I will eventually. (I currently have little cable and purposefully watching something by looking it up on YouTube doesn't really work for me)
*Time flows on as normal in the loop up until the newest "expansions", or, the new episodes We get. By the end of the episode/expansion the loop resets and they do it all over, this time with the expansion sticking. Thus their loop continues getting longer.
*Kallus is usually the last to learn about any new expansions. He and Chopper have taken to pranking various figures in the Empire every time an expansion crops up because of the things that tend to happen. Kallus will also give advice on pranking/kicking the ass of his NonAwake self because honestly he is incredibly disturbed and pissed off at the things his NonAwake self does. He can't exactly kick his own ass (despite what many memes will try to convince you) so he leaves that to the other loopers to do it for him and show him pictures.
Because some of the things people have asked are great and the answers are somewhat important to plot I'll add in a chapter full of the questions people ask and my answers every once in a while. So ask me questions about the looping crew! Thanks for reading! Read and Review please!