Loopers: #BattleTheBeast

Quentin leaned forward. "So, remember that scrying glass?"

"The one you stole from the dean's office that almost got us all expelled?" asked Margo sweetly. "No, honey, we totally don't."

"Wasn't even worth it." Eliot waved his hand dismissively. "People are boring and do boring things. Ugh."

"Maybe, but -  I used it before I returned it," said Quentin.

"Voyeur!" Margo smiled, this time for real. "Did you watch me?"

"No, no, I-" Nonplussed, Quentin started over. "I used it to watch a rough cut of the Doctor Strange film."

"You magic-stalked a studio so you could see a superhero movie early?" Penny shook his head slowly. "You. Nerd."

"Hey, it's about a magician! We're magicians!"

"Who do real magic, not comic book crap."

"It actually presented some pretty interesting applications- Look, never mind. It gave me an idea how we can beat the Beast, or at least get him to go back to wherever he came from and leave us alone."

"Continue, obviously," said Eliot.

"Okay, so Doctor Strange traps Dormammu - he's the ruler of this place called the Dark-"

"Q," Julia gently interjected.

"Sorry. Anyway, Doctor Strange traps him in a time loop that he can't escape from unless he agrees to what Strange wants."

"A time loop?" asked Julia. "Is that even possible?"

"It's possible," said Alice. "My father is an expert in historical magic. He has all sorts of books on temporal spellwork. I've read them. I can cast it."

"What resets the loop?"

"Oh. Um, in the movie, it's every time Dormammu kills Strange. But we'll have Alice watching us, somewhere safe, and she'll reset it," Quentin continued, "so the rest of us can...keep trying new things until something finally works."

Eliot raised his hand. "So, we won't die?"

"Um. No, we might. Will die, probably. Maybe lots of times."

"Ah. But we won't remember it?"

"No, we need to remember," said Alice. "We need to know what we did so we can do things differently."

"Mm-hmm." Eliot's hand slowly lowered. "A horror-movie version of Groudhog Day, starring moi? I'm out."

"It's more like that Tom Cruise film," said Quentin, "but - Eliot, you told me magic comes from pain. We time-loop, we die, we remember, we come at the Beast even harder next time until he cries uncle or he's dead."

"What does kill us makes us stronger?"

"Exactly."

Penny stood up. "Well, I'm out."

Julia grabbed his arm and pulled him back. "You want him out of your head, right?" The scowl on Penny's face didn't budge, but he stayed seated.

"Okay, smart guys," said Margo. "If Alice is looping us, she'll remember, but how will we? I doubt the Beast is gonna let us huddle up and chat about it."

"There's a spell for that, too," said Quentin, moving to the chair's edge. "You've all heard of the Vulcan mind-meld, right?

"Seriously!" Penny stared icepicks hard enough to make Quentin flinch. "Nerd!"

"Hey, Star Trek is mainstream," argued Julia. Margo put a manicured hand on her knee. "Sweetie, it really isn't."

"The point is, we can do that, with all of us," said Alice. "Everyone joins minds with me to remember, and to each other, to fight better, as a unit."