Alison's boot heels struck the bunker's cold metal floor as the stomp of Nazi soldiers' jackboots closed in from both ends of the corridor. She wiped blood from her ,the newborn pocket watch pulsing in her palm—cracks on its dial spread like veins, each marking a temporal coordinate where Charles had collapsed. In the distance, the grind of mechanical gears echoed; the hourglass device's location was now locked by the watch's hand.
Deep in the bunker, Nazi scientist Hans von Schmidt stood before a colossal glass apparatus, his pupils stained purple-red by experimental serum. The hourglass consisted of two mirror discs rotating in reverse, with marrow core energy condensing into liquid black light at its center. Around it lay preserved specimens of Alison's corpses from different timelines. "Just one final dose of 'temporal catalyst,'" he murmured, stabbing a dagger smeared with Alison's blood into the hourglass interface. The mirrors suddenly erupted with Charles' snarl: "Expedite the process! History's rewrite must conclude tonight!"
Alison dropped from the ventilation shaft, cobalt serum boiling in her veins. She hurled the watch, its mirror shattering into a temporal blade that severed two soldiers' throats. Von Schmidt spun, his glasses reflecting her distorted silhouette. "So you came... the 'Reverser' in Charles' prophecy." He slammed a console, and the bunker walls oozed mirror fluid, congealing into dozens of mirror demons—their bodies stitched from WWII soldiers' remains and Charles' faces, claws slashing toward Alison.
The battle unfolded in a labyrinth of mirrors. Alison manipulated time flow with the watch, kicking one demon into a "slow zone" and cleaving its skull as it staggered. But more demons poured from bunker fissures as von Schmidt sneered beside the hourglass: "Your serum and marrow are our project's ultimate materials. The Führer requires a rewritten defeat—Stalingrad 1942 must be erased!"
She glimpsed a horrifying truth at the hourglass core: Marrow energy was reversing footage of WWII's pivotal battles, reconstituting Soviet tank wrecks in reverse within the mirrors. "Charles used Nazi ambition to incubate his rebirth," the alchemist's memory stabbed her mind. "The hourglass isn't just a history tamper... the temporal entropy it collects births new Charles avatars."
A demon's claw pierced Alison's left shoulder. She bit into her marrow curse, blood incantations flaring. Blue light incinerated the monster into mirror dust, but von Schmidt had already raised a metal cage to capture her. "Your struggles only accelerate the process." He activated the device, sucking Alison into a translucent mirror membrane as her skin oozed the same liquid black light as the hourglass.
"Hitler's occult program needs a living marrow core," von Schmidt thrust the dagger toward her heart. "Every resistance you offer infuses the Third Reich with victory."
Alison triggered the watch's "time anchor" from within the cage, her body abruptly disassembling into light particles. The mirror membrane couldn't trap her atomized form; she reconstituted above the hourglass, injecting a mix of cobalt serum and marrow energy into its core. The liquid black light exploded, and the hourglass gears began rotating in reverse—WWII images like a rewind, Stalingrad's smoke re-engulfing Nazi regiments.
"No!" von Schmidt roared as mirror demons charged. Alison created a mirror labyrinth with her watch, trapping them in a dimension of infinite reflections. Turning, she saw a symbol pulsing on von Schmidt's chest—identical to the "Alison" name curse embroidered under the alchemist's robe.
"Are you also Charles' 'backup'?" she demanded. Von Schmidt's face split, revealing Charles' Nazi-era avatar. "I planted seeds at every historical pivot... including you."
Alison smashed the watch into the symbol, reducing von Schmidt to mirror dust. The bunker began collapsing, but the hourglass core birthed a temporal egg—Charles' new embryo writhing in entropy. She sealed the shell with marrow incantations, dragging it into the watch's rift.
"The game isn't over." She stepped over the crumbling bunker, the watch hand turning to a new coordinate—Hiroshima, 1945.