Chapter Sixty-One

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It only takes a few minutes for two of you to find all the bandits in their little camp. It’s not a very impressive place. Half a dozen wooden shacks set in a sort of semi-circle around the entrance to a small cave.

Your two clones look at each other, then one of them starts smiling all smug and gloat-y. “I got here first,” you say to yourself. “I get the headpats.”

“No, you didn’t,” your other you says right back. “I got here first so I get the pats.”

You narrow your eyes at yourself.

Then one of you swings a tentacle and the fight is on.

The bandits scream and run out of their huts to watch as two of you spin and roll across the ground of their camp, tentacles spearing out every which way as you try to be the first to grab yourself. One of you gets lucky and manages to poke a tentacle through the other you’s chest.

“Got you!” you scream.

“No, I’ve got you!” you scream right back, revealing that it was a trick to get you to lower your guard. You gasp as you crash into yourself and wrap little hands around your throat to throttle your head into an unlit firepit. Tentacles are wrapping around each other all around you to keep them away from the fight in the centre.

Just as quickly as it begins, the fight ends and only one of you is left standing, bloody and with some broken bits, but still standing proud. “I get the pats!” you declare before your tentacles spear into your dead body and start eating it.

The bandits who have been watching all along don’t seem to know what to do about this, but they're just stupid mortals who won’t get any headpats. “Who the hell are you?” the biggest, burliest bandit asks.

You slap him across the face with a tentacle for interrupting your fantasizing about all the headpats you’re going to receive. He flies off, teeth spraying out of his mouth.

The you that’s next to Abigail, the best you, according to yourself, turns around to look up to Abigail. “I found them,” you say. “Do I eat them now?”

Abigail shakes her head. “No, no just, um, can you keep them from moving?”

You consider this. Movement is a change in location. Moving is the act of doing that change. They can’t act if they’re not in the same time as you, so all you need to do is tell time not to mess with them for a little bit.

Or maybe they would stay where they are and the planet would keep on moving and that would punch a bunch of holes through it. Which is rude, especially after the planet helped you so much. “I can tie them together with tentacles,” you say.

“That would work, yes,” Abigail says. “Can you lead us over?”

“Are you going to loot them or will you wait for us to arrive?” Charlotte asks.

“Loot?” you repeat.

Charlotte grins and there something feral there. “Loot,” she repeats. “As in, take everything they have worth taking. It’s like stealing, but without the whole moral issues.”

You crane your neck back to look at Abigail who sighs. “You can loot them,” she says. “But don’t hurt them too much and don’t eat anything valuable.”

“Okay!”

A few more of you arrive at the camp, all of you pouty and miffed that you weren’t the one to find the bandits and so won’t get to be patted for your efforts. The bandits are starting to look very nervous now that there are a hundred or so of you all around them, pretty dresses writhing as you prepare combat tentacles.

“Okay,” the you who won the right to headpats says. You’re done eating your own body and fixing all the holes in yours. “All you bandit people get ready to be looted please.”

Abigail would be very proud of you, you’re being polite and haven’t killed any of them yet.

“Who the fuc--” A speartacle pokes through the rude bandit’s head. A bunch of you glare at the you who stabbed him, but you just shrug.

Well, Abigail doesn’t need to know about that one.

“On the ground now.” you chide the others. “I’m going to loot and tie you, and then my friends are going to come here.”

The bandits are surprisingly fast to comply. You start looting the whole camp, bursting into their shacks, eating all the food they left behind and taking all the shiny stuff that Abigail and the others might want. You make a big pile in the middle of the area that’s full of swords and coins and things.

Looting, as it turns out, is a whole lot of fun! You shove tentacles in all of the bandit’s pockets and when they struggle against that, just take all of their clothes. Some of them even have food hidden away in pockets and such.

One of you ends up with your small body very wobbly after drinking a bunch of fruity things in glass bottles and another one of you explodes into giblets when you chew on something you think might be a grenade, but overall it’s a net gain.

You wonder what it would be like to loot an entire city. So much food!

Abigail arrives and just sort of stares for a while before taking a deep, shuddering breath. Then the you that found the camp rushes over. “Abigail! I’m the one that deserves the pats!” you say.

The other yous cross their arms and pout a bunch, but it’s true, you do deserve the pats.

“Ah, well, um, good work,” Abigail says as she pats you on the head.

You beam.

Then the best you gets tired of having so many other yous around, especially if you’re going to take Abigail’s attention away from yourself. Yous start to pop and collapse into heaps only to be picked up by passing tentacles and tossed into holes in reality.

The bandits, all of them naked, stare in mounting horror as all the yous are eliminated.

Then there’s only one you. You think.

You’re mostly sure that none of the other yous escaped and that’s good enough.

“Look,” you say as you point to the pile of stuff. “Loot!”