The Shadow Guardian towered over them, its body a grotesque amalgamation of clock faces, broken gears, and black, viscous chains that seemed to writhe as though alive. Each clock embedded in its body displayed a different time, some fast-forwarding at lightning speed, others ticking backwards or frozen.
When it moved, the sound of grinding gears and shattering glass echoed back through the chamber. Its eyes were like molten gold, burning with an intensity that made even Kai's fingers tighten on his blade.
Juno's voice cut through the tense silence:
"Okay… I'm officially putting this thing on my 'Top Ten Monsters I Never Want to See Again' list. Anyone got a plan?"
"Yeah," Kai said, stepping forward. "Don't die."
The Guardian raised one massive hand. Time rippled outward in a visible wave, distorting the air. The team barely jumped aside as the wave struck the ground, freezing a chunk of the floor into a crystalline stasis where even the falling dust particles hung in midair.
"Reiss!" Mira shouted. "Any weak points?"
Reiss frantically scanned the Guardian with his wrist console. "There!" he pointed to the glowing cracks running along its chest, where the largest clock face ticked erratically. "That's its core. But hitting it won't be easy. Time shifts around it like a shield!"
The Guardian roared, and the world lurched. Suddenly, Kai found himself mid-swing, but his blade struck empty air. The Guardian had flickered backwards in time, dodging an attack that hadn't even landed yet.
"The hell was that?!" Kabackwards.
"It's reversing our movements before they even happen," Reiss explained, ducking as another time wave pulsed outward. "It's reading our future actions and undoing them!"
Juno snarled, taking aim with her rifle. "Let's see how it handles this."
She fired three shots, but midway through, the bullets froze in the air, spinning backwards before flying back toward her. Juno cursed and, dove out of the way.
"Okay, that's off-balance cheating!"
Mira leapt forward, her dual blades glowing with a faint blue aura. "We'll just have to be faster than time itself."
Kai's instincts kicked in. Every movement of the Guardian's massive arms created a shockwave of frozen time pockets. He dashed between them, his blade sparking as it clashed with the Guardian's chains.
The chains writhed like serpents, striking at him from impossible angles. One wrapped around his arm, and suddenly, he felt himself being pulled backwards, not physically, but through time. Memories flickered in his mind, flashes of battles, backwardness, and Lyra's face.
"You can't escape what time has stolen," a deep, resonant voice echoed inside his head. "You can only relive it."
Kai roared, forcing his blade upward. A surge of energy erupted from him not the dark, chaotic power he feared, but something steadier. Something anchored. The chain snapped.
Meanwhile, Mira danced across the shifting battlefield with the precision of a predator. She had fought fast enemies before, but this was something else entirely.
As she closed in on the Guardian's chest, time stuttered, and she found herself suddenly back where she'd started, as though rewound.
"No," she hissed through clenched teeth. "You're not stopping me."
She activated the energy pulse embedded in her gauntlet. A shockwave burst out, disrupting the time distortion just long enough for her to slash at one of the smaller clock faces on its arm. The clock shattered, and the Guardian screeched a sound like a hundred clocks breaking at once.
"I think I pissed it off!" she shouted.
Reiss had taken cover behind a cracked pillar, his fingers flying across his console. He wasn't built for close combat, but this fight wasn't just physical it was a war of systems.
"Listen up!" Reiss yelled over the chaos. "This thing isn't just controlling time. It is time, or at least the anomaly's manifestation of it. If we don't stabilise the Fractured Clock while we fight, this chamber might collapse
and take us with it!" Stabilised behind him, firing a burst of suppressive shots. "Then multitask, genius. We'll keep it busy."
Reiss swallowed hard, tapping deeper into the system. "If I can sync our time signatures… I might give us a few seconds where we're immune to its distortions."
"How long will that take?" Kai shouted, blocking another chain strike.
"About thirty seconds."
"Then you've got twenty," Kai growled, "because I don't think this thing is giving us thirty!"
Juno smirked, rolling out from behind cover. "Alright, big ugly, let's see if you can rewind this."
She grabbed a pair of temporal grenades from her belt experimental tech Reiss had cooked up. Pulling both pins, she hurled them at the Guardian's feet.
The grenades detonated with a flash of white light. For a moment, the Guardian's movements slowed, like a scratched record.
"NOW!" Juno shouted.
Kai and Mira struck at the same time, their blades crossing in an arc of light that tore through one of the chains and slammed into the Guardian's chest. Sparks flew. The main clock face cracked.
But instead of falling, the Guardian screamed, and the entire room exploded into a storm of distorted time.
Suddenly, they weren't in the chamber anymore.
Kai blinked and found himself back in the street with Lyra. But this time, Mira, Juno, and Reiss were there too, standing confused and disoriented.
"What… what is this?" Mira asked, looking around.
Reiss's face was pale. "It's pulling us into fragmented timelines. The Guardian's core is breaking apart, and it's dragging our memories and fears with it."
The street melted away into the hospital room from Juno's past. Then it shifted again, turning into the burning lab from Reiss's trial.
"This is bad," Reiss muttered. "If we don't finish it soon, we'll all be trapped in these loops forever."
The Guardian emerged through the burning lab wall, its chains now snaking through fragments of memories like they were solid ground.
Kai sprinted forward, leaping from one collapsing memory fragment to the next. "We end this now!" he shouted.
Mira joined him, her blades leaving trails of blue light. Juno covered them with precise shots, each bullet piercing through the chains that tried to ensnare them.
Reiss's voice echoed in their comms: "I've almost got it synced! Just hold it off a little longer!"
As the Guardian raised its massive arm to crush them, Kai's dark aura began to flicker. He could feel that familiar temptation the whisper that he could end this in one strike if he just gave in.
Lyra's voice echoed in his mind. "Save me, Kai… change it all…"
He gritted his teeth. "No. I won't become that monster. Not again."
Instead, he focused, pulling not from anger or regret, but from something else his determination to protect the team. The dark energy around him shifted, becoming lighter, almost silver in colour.
"Everyone, clear a path!" Kai yelled.
He charged, his blade glowing as he struck the Guardian's chest with everything he had.
The main clock face cracked and then shattered.
The Guardian let out a distorted roar, its body collapsing into fragments of broken time. The chains dissolved, and the fractured memories faded.
The four of them stumbled back into the real chamber, the Fractured Clock spinning wildly above them.
Reiss slammed his hand on his console. "Now! While it's vulnerable!"
He synced the team's time signatures with the Clock, and the massive gears slowly began to stabilise. The spinning stopped.
The room was eerily silent.
"…Is it over?" Juno asked, lowerstabiliseifle.
"For now," Reiss said, though his tone was grim. "But that wasn't the real threat. That Guardian was just a… gatekeeper."
As they caught their breath, the Fractured Clock emitted a low hum. Symbols of light appeared on its surface, forming words none of them recognised except Reiss.
His eyes widened as he read. "No… this is a warning. It says: The Arc recognised watching. The First Cycle will begin anew."
Kai frowned. "The Architect?"
Reiss turned slowly. "Ozymandias."
The chamber shook again, this time not from the Guardian, but from something deeper. Something far below them.
Mira tightened her grip on her blades. "Then we'd better move before this whole place collapses."
A door of light opened on the far side of the chamber, leading into a spiral staircase descending into darkness.
Kai looked back at the now-silent Fractured Clock. For a brief moment, he saw a reflection of himself in the glass but it wasn't him. It was… older. Harder. With glowing golden eyes.
He shivered and turned away.
"Let's go," he said. "Whatever's down there… we finish it."