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Benhow200 t1_ja9jcbb wrote

Tristan shivered as the atoms that sustained his body reformed, the first flicker of light striking his eyes as his retinas materialised. Sitting on the cusp of a pool of swirling power, he stretched, before inspecting a neon set of numbers engraved into the centre of his palm.

Run 5645

Sighing, Tristan got his nude form up, sauntering forwards through the circular temple. He blinked a few more times as his vision stabalised, strolling into the only passageway out of the expanse.

How many more runs? He inwardly pondered, dust billowing through the air in vivid detail, as sunlight filtered through a pair of gradually widening doors. How many more runs until my soul is properly ruptured?

Such was the cost of these endless rebirths. His anchor dragging him back to this archaic jumble of crypts was the soul-bond he had formed with it. Whereas his flesh may wear-away a thousand times over, his essence would only wilt to ash ever-so slowly, serving as the kindling to his brief jolts of life. Nevertheless, no resource was infinite. There would come a day when the core of Tristan would be undone, when the very iotas that sustained every crevice of his being would be sacrificed for the now.

But presently, he didn't have the privilege of deliberating over his own fate.

Tristan had watched this world fall to the forces of chaos countless times over, and if his soul would be the price to stop the slaughter, to put an end to the mindless bloodshed, he would gladly pay it.

He stopped at the brink of a wide opening leading to the hellscape that spanned ahead, breathing in deeply. He took one step forwards, and a timer above began counting overhead.

The beginning was always a blur, but as the hoarse screams of beings not of this world split the skies in twain, muscle memory alone allowed him to skirt away from the toppling clusters of shrapnel. Tentacles struck out at Tristan through tears in space itself, and, as if rehearsing a centuries old dance, he passed by them all without so much as a scratch.

Earth was upheaved, with creatures of unspeakable descriptions cluttering out of the Deep Below, traversing across entire dimensions to eradicate anything and everything in their path. Barely a thought stirred within the nexus of Tristan's addled brain, as he sidestepped past the fiends — knocking aside a few in the sheer ferocity of his breakneck pace.

Twenty seconds hovered above him, a blur of sparkling colour in his upper peripherals.

Faster! Tristan inwardly screeched, chomping his teeth down as with each passing second, thousands more were stripped of their lives.

One swipe of some distant god's blade, and the skyscrapers in the distance were sent buckling to their knees, the force of the blow resounding through the air for hundreds of miles all around.

Further than last time, just get further than last time!

The same thought that always spurred him into action surfaced in Tristan's mind, and, despite any forced motivation, some motion off to the side, and he knew it was over.

A being older than the very planet they invaded struck a gigantic head out the ground, sending Tristan scrambling. Empty eyes, impossibly ancient, bore into him, vacant of anything remotely resembling remorse. As Tristan anguished at his own pitiful inability to save his own species — not to mention the Earth he loved most dearly — monstrous teeth relieved his skin of its contents.

A few fuzzy moments later, and Tristan found himself sitting adjacent to that mystical stream once more. Breathing heavy, brain aching at the futility of it all, his palm came into crystal sharpness.

5646

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alternative_physics_ t1_jacfwm4 wrote

The summoning circle flared to life as this generation's hero summoned to the aid of the Free Peoples-

Who promptly vanished out of the summoning chamber in a blur of speed. Vaklos the court wizard blinked for a moment before hurrying after them.

"Which way?" he demanded from a very confused maid. She pointed towards the throne room with with her mop.

Vaklos nodded in thanks and took off with an undignified run. He managed to reach the throne room where the king was waiting to brief the hero upon their arrival, just in time to see the heroine (they were a woman this time, rare but it sometimes happened) waving her hand in front of the king.

"The Eldritch-" was all the king managed to say before she waved her hand again.

"Skip," she said in a flat monotone.

"The gates-"

"Skip. "

"Monsters are-"

"Skip. "

"You are-"

"Skip. "

And then suddenly the Sword of Light was in her hands, despite the box where it traditionally rested behind the throne still lying closed. Vaklos blinked at the impossibility but before any of the bemused nobles or even the fair princess could react, the heroine was already on her way out of the throne room.

Vaklos managed to see a strange stutter step motion her feet were making that really should have just tripped her but instead propelled her out through the doors in a dizzying blur. The royal guard knights had barely reacted before she was already gone.

"Vaklos, quite an impatient heroine we've got," the king mused as the nobles muttered among themselves. "I tried variations of our prepared speech but she seemed uninterested. "

Vaklos was about to reply when he felt the wards on the Royal graveyard ping about an intruder- and fire their traps- and report that the defences had failed, in the span of a single second.

"She's in the Royal graveyard," Vaklos reported dutifully.

The king sighed, "I think it is time we asked for some advice. "

"Are you sure? The Higher Powers are known to be... cryptic. "

"Any guidance is better than none. "

Vaklos nodded and began to incant the rite to contact a higher power. The king and princess and nobles watched with interest, keen to understand the mystery behind their speedy heroine.

In the middle of the rite, the two royal guards from the graveyard came running into the throne room. "My liege! The heroine has broken into the royal graveyard and stolen a glowing sword!"

That the graveyard wasn't supposed to contain swords didn't matter to the heroine's logic apparently. The kingdom would not have let a magical sword of any potency lie in a tomb when it could be put to use in these dark times.

"Where did she go?" the king asked.

The pair of guards looked at each other, then one of them said hesitantly, "she triggered the explosion ward on the inner castle wall and flew away. "

The throne room was in silence apart from Vaklos's muttering.

"What?" the king mumbled.

"She hit the wall with one of her swords and jumped over the explosion ward just before it triggered. The explosion sent her flying. "

Never mind that siege wards were not supposed to be triggered by sword strikes, nor that the heroine had somehow not been blasted into small chunks across the castle gardens.

"Where?"

"She seems to have been sent flying over the mountain range to the south. Straight to the Tower of Doom. "

Nor that not even siege wards had enough energy to send a person flying over a mountain range. She was apparently headed straight to the Dark Lord. At least it appeared their heroine was dedicated to stopping the Dark Lord from taking over the world with power stolen from a sealed god.

Vaklos's incantation completed and the outer gods reply manifested in his mind. He blinked in confusion and turned to the expectant king.

"When asked 'what is the hero doing?' the Higher Powers replied 'TAS speedrun. Sequence breaking. ' "

The court muttered in confusion. No one had any idea what those words meant.

Vaklos was about to ask for court historians to examine the records of all past Higher Power revelations when the cloudy sky parted in a sunbeam and singing angels descended to herald the destruction of the Dark Lord and the saving of the world.

- dramatized account of the Five Minute Heroine, adapted from interviews with Vaklos, court wizard

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