Neo-Pandora Prime shimmered like a mirage, its merged timelines bleeding into one another. Skyscrapers flickered between glass spires and rusted ruins, citizens clutched their heads as dual memories clashed—a child laughing in a sunlit park while ash fell in another life. Lila Kane stood atop the Temporal Museum's fractured roof, the Chrono Compass in her hand spinning wildly.
"The merge is unstable," she muttered. "We're running out of time."
Below, Zara Voss staggered through the streets, her neural implant searing with Elias's fragmented warnings. "It's in the code… the Core's in the code!" Her reflection in a shattered storefront shifted—versions of herself as a thief, a hero, a corpse—as the implant glitched.
"Get… out… of my head," she snarled, slamming her fist into the glass.
---
Jax Maro found his resurrected squadmate in the ruins of the Mirage Market. "Ryn?" he whispered, staring at the woman in tattered Echoes armor. Her face was hers, but her eyes glowed spiral-blue.
"You left us, Jax," Ryn hissed, a Chrono-Lance materializing in her grip. "You ran. Now the Core makes you pay."
Jax's plasma cutter trembled. "You're not her."
"Aren't I?" She lunged, her blade carving a temporal rift. Jax phased, but not fast enough—the lance grazed his arm, aging his skin to parchment.
"I'm not running anymore," he growled, severing her weapon with a crackle of energy.
---
Lila and Elara stood before the Hourglass vault, its cracks leaking spiral light. "The merged timeline can't hold," Elara said, her hybrid form flickering. "To save one world, another must fracture."
Future Elias materialized, his scar pulsing. "Told you. Mercy is a weakness."
"There's another way," Lila insisted, activating the Compass. It projected a hologram of the Core's prison—a black star threaded through every timeline. "We don't destroy. We redirect."
"Redirect to where?" Elara asked.
Lila's gaze hardened. "A timeline without anchors. A void."
---
Zara collapsed in an alley, her implant burning through her skull. Elias's voice roared, "Let me in! I can stabilize the merge!"
"You'll erase me," she gasped.
"Yes."
Tears blurred her vision as she synced the implant to the Hourglass network. Light erupted from her eyes, her body convulsing as Elias's consciousness surged—merging with the Core's code, rewriting it from within.
"Do it," she whispered.
The city shuddered.
---
The team reconvened in the leviathan fortress, Zara's body limp in Jax's arms. "She's gone," he said, voice raw.
"Not gone," Lila said, pointing to the Compass. The Core's prison now orbited a void—a timeline stripped of life. "She's holding it there. But the second we sever the link…"
Future Elias scoffed. "You'll kill her."
"We have to try," Elara said, stepping forward. "For Kael. For all of them."
---
As Lila severed the link, Zara's body dissolved into light. The merged timeline stabilized, Neo-Pandora's spires solidifying. But in the silence, a laugh echoed—a familiar, honeyed venom.
From the darkest crack in the Hourglass vault, a hand emerged.
"Did you really think it would be that easy?"
Dr. Nyx Veyra climbed free, her mosaic-body reforged, the Core's spiral burning in her palm.
"Welcome," she smiled, "to eternity."
---
The vault's Hourglasses shattered, each shard birthing a new Nyx. The team stared, outnumbered, as the Core's laughter swelled.
And in the void, Zara opened her eyes—alive, but not alone.
To Be Continued…
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