The Zenith Watch hung above eternity, its chamber drowned in the shimmer of countless worlds. The great table pulsed with soft blue light, each miniature Earth revolving in its patient orbit. Quish stood at the center, infinity pressed in, not silent but vast—an endless weight settling into his bones.
Then the calm broke.
A single globe at the table's edge flared red—an urgent, violent flash that sent ripples through the entire holographic sea. Earth-17. The miniature world throbbed like a wounded star, its light strobing against the crystalline walls.
Quish's breath sharpened. The signal carried more than color; it vibrated through his bones with the unmistakable pull of warped gravity. He felt the strain of tides too vast for oceans, the low roar of something colossal drawing near.
Images flickered across the hovering sphere: cityscapes bending beneath invisible weight, clouds spinning in unnatural spirals. Space itself seemed to twist around the planet, as if an unseen giant had reached out and clenched its fist.
This was no tremor. It was the first breath of collapse.
Without hesitation, Quish reached forward. The holographic surface yielded to his touch, the burning globe rising into his palm as a perfect replica while the original continued its frantic orbit. The small sphere pulsed like a heartbeat gone wild.
He turned the Ring of Transit in his other hand. Its dark band caught the crimson light and answered with a faint, hungry glow. Quish set the replica into the ring's center. Energy surged between them, a silent promise of passage.
One decisive motion: his fist cut the air.
Space split with a soundless flash, a vertical wound of red and shadow tearing open before him. Through it bled the chaotic light of a distant sky—storm-dark, streaked with collapsing stars. The gravity of Earth-17's crisis pressed outward, tugging at the chamber with invisible hands.
Quish stepped closer, the charged air prickling across his skin. The Core trembled. The Watch would hold, but only if he answered.
He inhaled once, steady and deep, then moved into the portal and let the Zenith Watch vanish behind him.
Brooksqueen stretched below Quish, its skyline a jagged crown of steel and glass bowing beneath the sky. The air itself seemed heavier here, each breath laced with metallic grit and the tang of ozone.
Above everything loomed Nemesis.
The rogue planet filled half the heavens, a dark, pitted sphere wreathed in violet storms. Its gravitational pull churned the world like a restless ocean: tides heaved inland in walls of black water, and entire districts shuddered as if the ground beneath them had become a living creature desperate to escape.
Quish emerged from the crimson portal onto a cracked rooftop. The skyscraper sagged beneath him, its steel bones groaning before the storm's roar devoured the sound. Lightning ripped across the horizon in frantic chains, each bolt a searing white against the purple clouds.
Below, the megacity writhed. Highways twisted like ribbons under impossible strain. Windows shattered in waves, releasing clouds of glittering debris that the gale carried like deadly snow. Sirens wailed only to be drowned by the thunder of collapsing towers.
Quish's eyes swept the chaos, crimson sparks crawling across his suit as his senses stretched outward. He felt the planet's magnetic field buckling, the molten core of Earth-17 responding to the proximity of Nemesis like iron to a magnet. Even the rhythm of time seemed to falter—seconds stretching, then snapping back.
A passenger jet, caught in an upward current, careened sideways and burst into a bloom of fire. Farther out, an entire harbor emptied in a single, impossible heartbeat as the ocean receded before another colossal surge.
Quish clenched his fists, every nerve demanding action. But the command echoed through him like iron: Observe—until the Core itself calls
He leapt from the tilting tower, a streak of scarlet through the bruised air. The gale howled around him as he descended, surveying the fractures spidering through the city's bones. From this height he could see Nemesis turning, its storms boiling like violet tempests of living glass, its surface alive with slow, grinding motion.
Brookqueen teetered on the brink. One more gravitational convulsion, and the city would tear itself apart.
Quish landed on a fractured skybridge, crimson energy flickering across his arms, the silent question hammering in his chest: how long could he merely watch while an entire world unraveled beneath a dying violet sky?
****
The ruined avenues of Brookqueen became a labyrinth of shadow and siren light as the city groaned beneath the weight of Nemesis. Shattered skyscrapers leaned like half-fallen dominoes, their glass spines sparking in the violet dusk.
High above, a silver thread sliced the storm. Arachno swung from tower to tower, white suit flashing electric blue with every flex of his web-gauntlets. His vibrational sense thrummed like a second heartbeat, warning of stress fractures before steel could scream. Each time a building quaked, he dropped in a blur, cocooning civilians in silk-strong nets and slinging them to safer rooftops. The faint glow of his lenses pulsed with quick calculations as he muttered half-formed equations under his breath.
A ripple of static heralded Shadow Lynx. She emerged from the smoke as if the night itself had shaped her, violet sparks flickering along her claws. Security grids sputtered and died where she passed, her bio-photonic camouflage rippling like liquid ink. She guided panicked families through blacked-out corridors, voice low and teasing even as her eyes narrowed with deadly focus. Every movement was a quiet dare to the chaos: Catch me if you can.
Then came the droning hum. Black Vesper plummeted from the clouds, gold-edged wings spread wide, the sound of their vibration setting nearby windows trembling. He landed in a gust of acrid wind, compound eyes reflecting a dozen burning skylines. With a sneer, he seized a crumbling bridge span in one hand and tossed it aside, clearing a path for fleeing commuters. Efficiency, not mercy, drove him—yet the act saved hundreds.
Crimson light flared across a tilted rooftop. The portal snapped shut behind Quish, leaving only the soft echo of displaced air. The three champions converged in instinctive formation, their separate trails of smoke and electricity weaving toward the newcomer.
Arachno hung from a single line, blue highlights flickering like a living pulse. "Whoever you are," he called, voice steadier than he felt, "this city's off-limits to tourists."
Shadow Lynx circled to the flank, vanishing in a shimmer before reappearing behind him. Her claws slid free with a faint metallic sigh. "Bold entrance," she purred. "Care to explain the fireworks before someone gets twitchy?"
Black Vesper's wings buzzed with a threat that set the nearby air vibrating. "Speak quickly," he said, each word a blade. "Or I decide you're part of the problem."
Quish stood unshaken, crimson aura fading to a steady glow. The winds howled around them, carrying the distant roar of collapsing towers, but his voice cut clean through the chaos. "I am not your enemy," he said, calm and resonant. "I am here to observe—and to aid if this world demands it."
For a heartbeat no one moved. Lightning raked the sky, casting the four figures in stark relief: the spider, the lynx, the wasp, and the stranger from beyond.
Arachno's lenses dimmed as he processed the quiet conviction in the intruder's tone. Shadow Lynx lowered her claws, though her eyes stayed sharp with curiosity. Black Vesper's wings folded with a hiss, suspicion lingering like static.
The uneasy truce settled between them, a fragile line drawn in a city trembling on the brink of annihilation.
Wind screamed through the skeletal crown of the skyscraper, every gust shaking the fractured platform where the four figures gathered. Far above, Nemesis filled half the heavens, its cratered surface glowing with a baleful red as it dragged oceans and clouds into a rising spiral. The air smelled of iron and ozone; the city below flickered like a dying circuit board.
Quish faced the others, the living table of worlds still pulsing faintly within his memory. "That isn't a rogue planet," he said, voice low. "Nemesis is the corpse of another Earth. Its frequency was drawn into alignment with yours—two realities fused until they occupy the same space. Only a force that touches the multiverse can push it back."
Arachno crouched beside a spar of bent steel, blue highlights crawling across his suit as calculations raced behind his spider-bright lenses. "If it's resonance holding it here," he said, "then resonance can drive it out. I can weave a silk field around the city's tallest structures—one massive harmonic net to amplify the right frequency."
Shadow Lynx leaned against a snapped antenna, the violet gleam in her eyes catching every flicker of lightning. "A net that size needs power no grid can feed," she said. Her claws sparked as she flexed her fingers. "But I can jump-start the entire system. My electrostatic field can overload and unify the planetary grid—one colossal surge to keep Dylan's web alive."
Black Vesper's wings unfurled with a menacing buzz, the gold veins along them burning like molten lines. "Electricity and silk won't be enough," he said, though his jaw tightened at the thought of helping. "I'll release the drone-swarm. If I sync their propulsion nodes, they'll create a planetary-scale thruster, a counterforce to Nemesis's pull."
The skyscraper groaned, dropping a slab of concrete into the abyss. Quish planted a hand on the warped deck, crimson light rippling outward. "Then we have a plan," he said. "I will anchor the resonance, guide the frequencies, and keep the dimensional tear stable."
For a heartbeat the storm quieted, as if the city itself held its breath. Four strangers—spider, lynx, wasp, and wanderer—stood shoulder to shoulder against a world-ending night. Above them, the red giant loomed closer, each mile of descent a ticking heartbeat toward extinction.
Arachno's webbing hissed as he shot the first anchor line into the smoldering skyline. Shadow Lynx leapt after him in a crackle of violet sparks. Black Vesper's wings roared to life, summoning a swarm that glimmered like a golden storm.
Quish raised his hand to the sky, feeling the multiverse tremble. "Hold fast," he said, eyes blazing. "The Core will not break tonight."
The upper atmosphere boiled with hurricane winds, violet auroras flickering like ghostly curtains across the dark. Nemesis loomed vast and furious, its scarred surface burning crimson against the thin black sky.
Quish hovered at the center of the resonance web, crimson energy spiraling from his palms into the silken lattice Dylan had spun across the planet's magnetic grid. Lena crouched at the hub's anchor, arcs of electric violet leaping from her fingertips to keep the entire field alive. Above them, Ethan's swarm roared like a golden hurricane, a million thruster-wings driving the net forward.
"Hold steady," Quish called, his voice carrying over the roar of storm and fire. The lattice shuddered as Nemesis's gravity fought back, space itself bending like hot glass.
Lena gritted her teeth. "Voltage stable. Just don't let go."
"I'm not the one with sticky fingers," Dylan shot back, his white suit glowing as he reinforced the vibrating strands. "And for the record, this is the weirdest group project I've ever survived."
A flash of scarlet light surged through the net. The magnetic silk caught Nemesis's pull and twisted, hurling the dead world into a slingshot arc. With a thunderous, soundless rush, the rogue planet veered away, streaking past the atmosphere in a trail of golden fire until it shrank to a spark among the stars.
Silence returned. The auroras faded to soft green ribbons.
On the highest spire of the shattered city, the three native champions watched the heavens clear. Dylan peeled back his mask just enough for a crooked grin. "Okay, mystery man," he said, catching his breath, "do you hand out business cards or just crash planets for fun?"
Quish landed lightly beside them, the last echoes of crimson fading from his hands. "I am Quish," he said, voice calm against the whisper of dying winds. "Protector of the multiverse. You are this world's strength; I am its witness."
Before another question could rise, he touched the ring at his side. A silent flare split the air, opening a portal of shifting starlight.
He stepped through without another word.
Far away, in the endless quiet of the Zenith Watch, the living table of worlds pulsed gently. The sphere of Earth-17 glowed a serene, steady blue. Quish rested a hand above it, eyes reflecting the infinite lights.
"I will remain vigilant," he whispered to the stars, and the chamber of worlds hummed in quiet accord.