Zed was a little early out his front door this time, as he watched False appear over the horizon, bringing slime once again. He still couldn’t quite work up the same delight at seeing another person as he had the first time around, but he did manage an excited wave as the two made eye contact across the water. As she pulled up to the shore, however, a thought struck Zed. Would changing this event have any effect? Well, only one way to find out! He made his way down the mountain to meet False halfway.
“Oh hey, Zed!” False greeted. “Cool base, you a mad scientist or something?”
“Yeah, thanks.” Zed chuckled, fidgeting with the sleeve of his lab coat.
“Oh, here’s your slime.”
“Oh! Yeah, thanks! Again!”
“Are they for science?” False asked.
“Sure, something like that.” Zed nodded.
“Well, as long as the science isn’t being done on me!”
With that, False bade Zed farewell, and boated off into the distance. Zed watched her go, surprised by how the interaction had played out. If his memories served him right, the conversation had gone pretty similarly, although it had definitely felt less awkward. To be fair, that was probably less the location and more the fact that Zed had already gone through this moment twice.
With that thought, he turned and returned to the shell of his base.
———
“State your name.” Zed smiled as Tango dropped into the chamber.
“Sorry?” Tango asked. Zed internally smacked himself as he realised he’d forgotten to tell Tango to look around.
“State your name,” he repeated.
“Tango. Of the Tek variety.”
“No, no. State it.”
“My name is Tango of the Tek variety.”
“Good,” Zed nodded. “Now, I’m going to show you a series of objects, and you are going to tell me the first word that pops into your head.”
“I am?”
In lieu of an answer, Zed pulled out a beetroot.
“Uh! Okay! I… I am going to beet you to death!”
Zed made a note, more for appearances’ sake, and then presented a saddle.
“This, uh, this experiment is a wild ride!”
And now, it was time for the variation. Fumbling slightly in his inventory, Zed pulled out a nether star.
“Don’t get me star-ted!” Tango told him, much more clearly than the other associations. Zed frowned. He suspected there may be some form of déjà vu going on with the time loops after Impulse’s little incident in the Mitey Maze last time, and this only served to confirm it. Zed just hoped he could harness any residual regret or fear to make sure Tango didn’t go off and get himself killed.
“Good,” Zed told Tango, instead of voicing any of these thoughts. “Now, build yourself a friend.”
“Okay.”
Zed watched as Tango rummaged through the chests in the chamber, looking for an armour stand. When such a search proved fruitless, he made his way over to the crafting table, only to find the recipe, as always, missing from his book.
“Uh, Zed? Do you—do you, uh, know the recipe for an armour stand?” He sounded sheepish. Zed chuckled. Really, he should be the one acting sheepish out of the two of them.
“Subject shows signs of subpar intelligence. Do not recommend aeronautics,” he spoke over the intercom instead, then paused a suitably dramatic amount of time before adding, “Sorry. That was meant to be for my notes.”
“Ha,” Tango laughed back, humourlessly. Zed sighed a sigh of relief. The first seeds of doubt had been planted. Now he just had to get through the rest of this. He reached for the lever and, in one swift movement, flicked off the lights, eliciting that terrified screech from the man inside.
The rest of the experiments went roughly to plan, although Zed kicked himself when he realised he’d forgotten to ask Tango to discover a ding, which had been one of his favourite experiments from the lineup. Still, Zed supposed it wasn’t the worst loss, as that experiment didn’t really have much to do with the point that Zed was trying to make about Tango’s adventures in space.
Tango didn’t respond the same to his final task, either. Instead of suffocating himself in sand, he just chugged an invisibility potion, despite Zed very clearly remembering not having one of those in the chamber. Maybe he’d messed up? Maybe it was the déjà vu again? Either way, Zed supposed, it was interesting.
He broke through the glass to let Tango out, tossing Tango a bucket of milk, which he thankfully chugged, returning to visibility.
“Well?” he asked, stepping out of the chamber, a dumb grin on his face. “How’d I do?”
Zed looked him in the eye, and, completely deadpan, replied:
“Terrible. You were the worst test subject. You failed everything. You’re practically cursed.”
“Oh no!” Tango laughed, “What a tragedy!”
“Simply detestable,” Zed nodded along, a smile threatening to break his facade.
“Okay but seriously, how did I do?” Tango asked again.
“Well, I haven’t processed all the results yet,” Zed spoke as he flipped through his notes, “So I can’t tell you everything. However, one obvious conclusion can be drawn.”
“And that is?”
“Don’t ever go to space. I mean it. It will break you. It will break me. It will break everyone.”
“No space, got it!” Tango saluted, laughing, and turning to go. Zed grabbed his arm.
“Tango. Listen. I’m being serious.” Tango turned, and the two made eye contact. The look on Tango’s face changed from its previous lighthearted smile to pure dread as he saw Zed’s pleading expression. “Don’t… don’t.”
“Ok, I won’t.” Tango held his hand over his heart. “Promise.”
Zed let out a sigh of relief, relinquishing Tango.
“Is… is everything okay?” Tango asked, frowning.
“Fine!” Zed lied, brightening. Tango knew Zed was lying. Zed knew Tango knew he was lying. Neither said anything about it.
As Tango left, however, Zed did feel a little better, some small warmth blossoming at the fact that he could change things, that he could save someone. If Zed could save Tango, he could save everyone else, too. If Zed could save Tango, then there was hope. If Zed could save Tango, then maybe everything would turn out fine.
Of course, saving people required work. Zed figured he’d need to go talk to Xisuma at some point, since Tango’s plan had turned out to be a bit of a bust. Still, it could wait until the rush of euphoria that was making its way through Zed’s system faded somewhat.
Until then, Zed supposed that he could just be content that he’d saved someone.
———
Zed wasn’t entirely sure what to expect as he entered the Evil Emporium, looking for Xisuma. He knew X had been… wrong… last time around (for lack of a better word), but he didn’t know how that would manifest in this place. However, he definitely hadn’t expected to see X just standing there, the thousand-yard stare on his face boring into the distance.
“X!” Zed called out to the man in question. “Xisuma!”
Xisuma, for his part, did not respond. He just kept staring blankly into space. Zed waved his hands in front of the admin’s face, then snapped a couple times, but Xisuma didn’t even blink. Was that bad? Did axolotls need to blink? Zed wasn’t sure, but the lack of reaction served to unnerve him either way.
“Okay, then. Uh. Who do I speak to?” Zed asked no-one in particular, looking around.
“Oh!” X suddenly snapped to life, still not looking at Zed. His motions and speech looked rehearsed. “If you have any questions, you want to talk to Evil X!” he supplied, his voice cheery in the way a tired customer service worker would sound cheery.
“Evil X?” Zed asked.
“Yeah! They’re in charge of this whole operation!” X’s eyelid twitched.
“Okay…”
“Goodbye!” X waved mechanically, then returned to his catatonic state. Zed stepped away, thoroughly disturbed by the whole ordeal.
As he walked through the halls of the Evil Emporium, looking for Evil X in order to ask them what in the name of Vex was going on, Zed convinced himself more and more that they were somehow to blame for X’s state. He didn’t like thinking ill of his sidekick, but by the time he got to their office, he’d fully braced himself for the version of them that had trapped him in that dungeon back in season 5.
“Evil Xisuma!” he stepped into Evil X’s office, putting on a bit of bluster. Evil X didn’t know he was Worm Man, and for now that was a point in Zed’s favour, but that didn’t mean Zed couldn’t at least try and sound confident.
The person in question turned to look at Zed, the light-up eyes on their visor showing an expression of mild disinterest.
“What’ve you done to X?” Zed asked, a bit put off. This situation didn’t seem the sort of one to provoke disinterest from EX, Zed thought.
“My X-olotl?” EX asked, shrugging. “Just asked him to do me a few favours. You know how it is.”
“I really don’t. He didn’t care when I warned him about the apocalypse, EXy,” Zed retorted, only catching his slip-up too late. “I mean—uh—I don’t know you…” Zed trailed off as EX stood up, looming over him.
“Oh,” EX spoke, a cruel grin audible in their voice. “You’re Worm Man, aren’t you? Well. That’s interesting.”
Zed froze. He may have been consistently playing some level of dumb and/or actually severely concussed when hanging around them in the past, but he did actually know a thing or two about his sidekick, and that phrasing was the most un-EX-like phrasing he’d ever heard. Something was off. Something had to be controlling EX.
“You’re not yourself,” Zed gasped, barely above a whisper.
“What?” EX turned, their gaze piercing, like a shark that had just smelled blood.
“You’re not yourself,” Zed repeated, emboldened, maintaining eye contact for all it was worth.
EX just laughed at that, a heavy, dark laugh. Nothing like their usual friendly, if dry, chuckle. Zed tensed, but retained his stance. The two remained locked in their standoff for mere moments, then all in the blink of an eye, EX lunged.
The breath left Zed’s lungs as EX slammed him against the wall with unexpected strength. He was pretty sure one of his ribs cracked, but obviously he had slightly more pressing issues.
“You are an idiot, aren’t you?” EX hissed. “I’ve always been evil. I’ve always just been tricking you, time and time again, and you’ve always fallen for it.”
“EX—please—If you can hear me in there—” Zed choked out.
“But now, you’re in my way,” EX continued, ignoring Zed. “So now, finally, it’s time to get rid of you.”
With that, EX shifted their hand so that it rested directly over Zed’s heart, and a moment later, Zed felt like every nerve in his body was on fire, and he couldn’t move his muscles, and someone was screaming. Then, the electricity—because that was what it had to be, they must have zapped him with electricity—stopped, and Zed’s world began to spin and fall, until suddenly he was sideways and much lower down. He wasn’t quite sure how that had happened. His brain felt all fuzzy and weird.
Another jolt of lightning surged through him, and he felt his limbs beginning to twitch and spasm, even after the pain went away. It was getting harder and harder to keep his eyes open, and through his blurry vision he could see that his skin was taking on a bluish tinge. That was around the point Zed realised he couldn’t hear his own heartbeat thudding in his ears anymore, and he blacked out.
———
Zed’s eyes snapped open, a strangled gasp pulling itself from his lungs. His blanket half fell off as he sat up. He was in the empty shell of his base again, the sunlight streaming through the window, casting the room in a soft blue light, a comforting respite from the harsh reds of the Evil Emporium. He dragged himself up out of bed, still shaking slightly from the shock (ha) of what had just happened.
He was about to reach for his communicator to confirm that time had actually reset, when he noticed something on his neck in his reflection in the mirror behind it. Frowning, he undid the top button of his cardigan, and saw that what he’d spotted was a scar that snaked down over his collarbone, joining a branching mass which, as he pulled at his collar to trace its path, found its root over his heart, which pounded in his chest with the fresh terror of realising that these deaths had a permanent effect on him.
That, as far as Zedaph was concerned, sealed the deal. These next six months, this particular loop, would be dedicated to figuring out what was controlling Evil X, and saving them before it was too late.