Veyra Labs, 2239
The air in the lab was thick with the sterile chill of preserved time. Zara and Jax stepped through the fracture into a corridor frozen in the past—walls lined with holographic schematics of the original Temporal Engine, its design eerily similar to the Fractured Hourglass. Zara's neural implant buzzed, her senses flooded with the metallic tang of chrono-radiation.
"This place is a tomb," Jax muttered, his phasing arm flickering as he scanned for traps. "And not the fun kind with treasure."
Zara ignored him, drawn to a sealed door labeled PROJECT ANCHOR. Her implant synced with the lock, hacking it open with a burst of static. Inside, rows of stasis pods glowed faintly, their glass fogged with frost.
"What the hell…?"*Jax breathed.
The pods held bodies—variants of Elias Voss, each frozen mid-scream.
---
Lila Kane stood in the rain, facing the man who wore Elias's face. His eyes were wrong—too sharp, too hungry.
"You're not him," she said, the compass cold against her palm.
"No," the impostor agreed. "But I carry his code. His purpose." He stepped closer, the air warping around him. "The Core needs a vessel, Lila. Why not choose a familiar face?"
Before she could react, he lunged.
---
Back in Veyra Labs, Nyx materialized like a vengeful ghost, her mosaic-body casting fractured shadows. "You shouldn't be here," she hissed, static dripping from her fingertips.
Zara backed toward the pods. "What did your family do here, Nyx? Turn people into batteries?"
"They tried to save us!" Nyx's voice splintered, revealing the girl beneath the Curator. "The Core promised power. Control. But it lied."
Jax phased his arm, the prosthetic sparking. "So you're what? Its janitor?"
"I'm its reckoning."
Nyx unleashed a storm of stolen memories—screams from the Fracture Wars, Kael's laughter, Elara's final plea. Zara's implant overloaded, visions of her mother's death merging with Elias's sacrifice.
"Run…!" she choked, collapsing.
---
Lila fought the impostor in a blur of phased strikes and temporal distortions. Each blow eroded the illusion, revealing glimpses of the Core's tendrils beneath his skin.
"You're a parasite," she spat, dodging a blade of solidified time.
"And you're a relic," he sneered. "The Reformation was a cage. Let me show you."
He pressed a hand to her chest, and the compass screamed.
---
In the lab, Jax dragged Zara into a service elevator as Nyx's storm consumed the room.
"The Core's first host," Zara rasped, uploading stolen data to her implant. "It wasn't Elias. It was Elara."
The revelation hit like a bullet. Nyx froze, her static veil slipping. "She… she volunteered. To save Kael. But it changed her."
Jax slammed the elevator button. "Family reunions are overrated."
The doors closed as Nyx's scream shook the walls.
---
Zara awoke in a med-bay, the data from Veyra Labs searing her mind. The Core's origin, Elara's fall, and a single, damning file: LAZARUS PROTOCOL 2.0.
"We need to find Lila," she croaked.
Jax tossed her a chrono-pistol. "First, we survive."
Across the city, Lila knelt in the ruins of the Institute, the impostor's corpse dissolving into ash. The compass in her hand pulsed with a new directive: FIND THE SOURCE.
And in the shadows, Nyx reassembled her fractured form, whispering to the Core.
"They're close. Let them come."
To Be Continued...