Ben 10 Radiant War, Vol.2

The Anomaly.

It felt surreal to be sitting through the same breakfast for the 13th or maybe 14th  time in a row, at this point Ben wasn't keeping count, but Ben diligently did so. Each day pretty played out the same until the eventual random reset.

Ben would wake up, Ophelia would explain what happened during the time he was out before trying to initiate some romantic actions only to be interrupted by Erice. Depending on whether Ben remembered to head off Ophelia with a random subject change, Erice would either depart peacefully or kick and hit Ben in various ways, usually a kick to the gut or a punch to the head.  

At some points, Ben wondered if this was the 'difference' or 'anomaly' that both he and Shi Jian were looking for, but as it turned out, no matter what number loop you were in, things usually only turned out generally the same and not 100 percent.  

"Of course it'll turn out like that." said Shi Jian after the 4th loop in which they met at the same diner after school.  "Time is a continuously branching tree which is constantly branching over and over again at even minute moments. The Butterfly Effect is fickle. Most of the time small changes can't actually do anything to a time line, but sometimes they DO in rare instances, like a butterfly landing on a flower causing an Earthquake on the other side of the world. Thing is, time is a force, much like wind and gravity. And forces of nature don't run on robotic programming, they'll veer towards their goal in different ways if they're forced to go on repeat.  There are different theoretical ways to time travel in a way that ACTUALLY changes your future instead of making another timeline and changing nothing. Three in fact."

"Those are?" Ben had asked. 

"Number one, is Constant Existence Monitoring. You develop a constant communication method in real time with a person in your present as you travel through the past, that verifies your existence as a person of your timeline, and keeps the timeline from branching, instead causing genuine transformation in the current timeline through your manipulation of the past. I believe some Time Travel organization from another universe found a way to do it.. they had a radio style communication from their headquarters in the present to the person being sent to the past with a powerful heroic Familiar.. I think they called it.. I don't know.. Ray Eating? Nah.. Lay  Fishing? no.. Ray Shi-?"

"My brain hurts, what are the other two?" Ben asked. 

"There is Existing on All Planes of Time at once, in other  words, having an existence that circumvents time itself to the point where your own existence is everywhere and every-when. You won't perceive time the same way, and you will be able to see and change all of past and future at the same time in every branch of the Cross Time-verse and change  it. Only Eldritch Gods and High Planar reality manipulating beings can do that." said Shi Jian before stuffing a burger in his mouth.

"And the third?" Ben asked. 

"Well that's the situation we're in now. Literally hitting the Undo button on Time itself." said Shi Jian.  "The first method I mentioned involves going UP and Backwards up an existing timeline. Like think of it as a videotape."

Shi Jian took out a pen and paper and drew a line going across the paper. He then drew a red dot on one end and a green dot on the other. "We're the green, and we're traveling up in time by going to the red. And when we're done, we run back down the line to the red, that's how Ray Bitching or whatever works when it's done properly. And its why if they do NOTHING while time traveling, time won't make even a slight shift from how its going. The coffee will always be set down on the table precisely the way it was before you time traveled, etc as long as nothing the time traveler has done would effect it.

"And how does the third method change it up?" Ben asked. 

"Well this is what I like to call the reason why Free Choice exists, or somewhat proof of that." said Shi Jian with a grin. Because instead of going UP the line.. we're doing this."