There are places so lost in time that even memory forgets them.
The Never-When is one of those places — a realm not erased, but abandoned. A place time tried to write, then crumpled and threw away. No beginning, no ending. Just fragments. Echoes.
And versions of people who were almost.
Elion stepped into it, the edges of his cloak flickering in a wind that didn't exist. The sky above him shimmered with shattered timelines — colors that bled into each other like bruises across reality. His boots crunched on ground that pulsed like a dying clock.
Behind him, Lyra paused. "It's cold," she whispered, though her breath didn't fog. "But not in the body. It's like… the soul remembers failure here."
Elion nodded. "Because that's all this place is."
The Never-When was not empty.
Scattered across the cracked, flickering landscape were structures—partial memories of buildings, sideways roads, staircases to nowhere. But worst of all were the statues. Dozens of them.
All of them… Elion.
Each frozen mid-motion. Each caught in an impossible fate—some screaming, some weeping, some reaching out as if begging for a chance they never got.
Lyra walked beside one. It had a cracked Hour Ring fused to its chest and an expression of pain carved into stone.
"Are these…?"
"Yes," Elion said quietly. "Failed versions of me. Variants. From timelines where I lost."
As they walked, the wind picked up.
Not a natural wind—but a pull. A spiraling current tugging at their thoughts. Time bent here, not like metal—but like will. And something was waiting in the center of the bend.
Elion followed it.
They came to a massive crater, where a flickering tower of broken clocks stood. At its base: a campfire.
And around that fire… sat five versions of himself.
Each slightly different. Each marked by years and wounds Elion didn't yet bear.
One stood the moment he saw Elion. He was taller, older, with a missing eye and a fractured ring on one wrist.
"Well," he said, arms crossed. "About time you got here."
The others rose.
Elion Red, who burned his Hour Rings for power and scarred the sky with every use.
Elion Glass, who had traded his body for a timeline where his city never fell—now more machine than man.
Elion Dust, who had failed so completely he no longer remembered when he came from.
And the one who spoke first — Elion Prime, or so he called himself. The closest version to success.
They circled Elion like tired wolves.
Red spat on the ground. "You think you're special because you made it this far?"
Glass's voice echoed mechanically. "You're just another roll of the die."
Elion stood his ground. "I don't care what happened to you. I'm not here to join your pity party. I came to learn."
Dust laughed—a sound like dry paper folding. "Learn? From us?"
Prime finally stepped forward.
"No. Not learn." He looked into Elion's eyes. "Decide."
They walked together toward the tower of broken clocks.
As they entered, Elion saw timelines trapped in the walls—moments that had never happened. A version of himself standing beside a living Biggenator, both smiling. Another where Lyra was the Chrono-Lord, and he had died in the first battle.
Prime led them to the summit, where a mirror made of pure time shimmered. It reflected not light… but potential.
"This is where the First Decision was made," Prime said. "The moment we all split."
Elion stared into the mirror.
He saw his younger self, standing before the Chrono Chamber, holding the Hourcore for the first time. The decision to activate it or not.
"That one moment?" Elion asked. "That's where we fractured?"
"No," Prime said. "That's where you became responsible for every other version of yourself."
Silence fell.
Then Prime turned sharply. "You want to stop Biggenator? You'll need to use Echo Fusion."
Elion's brow furrowed. "What's that?"
Prime looked around at the other Elions. "It's how we become one. Every lesson we learned. Every mistake we made. Every pain we suffered."
Dust stepped forward, trembling. "But it means we go away."
Red growled. "It means trusting a version of us that hasn't broken yet."
Glass said nothing, but stared into the void with tired eyes.
Prime looked back to Elion. "You're the last. The one who made it this far. We've waited because none of us could do it alone."
Elion looked at them all. Different paths. Same pain. Same desire to fix what was broken.
Then he stepped forward.
"I accept."
One by one, the Echoes reached out.
And as each hand touched Elion's, a rush of memory flooded into him.
He felt their victories, brief and beautiful.
He felt their failures, deep and scarring.
He felt their love for Lyra, in timelines where she lived, where she died, where she was the villain.
And then—
He was whole.
When Elion opened his eyes again, he stood alone at the top of the tower.
But his shoulders were heavier.
His mind fuller.
A fifth Hour Ring now floated behind him — ghostly, flickering, made of all that might have been.
The Echo Ring.
A ring that allowed him to summon the strength and skills of every version of himself — for one moment, one strike, one breath.
Lyra climbed the tower moments later, panting.
"Elion?" she asked.
He turned, his eyes glowing silver-blue.
"No. Not just Elion."
He reached out.
"Let's go end a god."
Far away, in the deepest corner of the Expansionverse, Biggenator suddenly paused.
He felt something shift. Something unify.
He whispered into the folds of creation:
"Ah.So the Echoes chose him.Then I'll bring all versions of myself…and meet him there."