The Zenith Watch lay in a vast stillness. At its center, the living table of worlds pulsed with soft radiance, millions of Earths orbiting in slow, endless spirals.
Quish stood at the rim of the great chamber. His gaze lingered not on one world, but on the pattern they made together. The hum of the table was steady.
Yet his own thoughts were less certain.
He remembered the clash with Argorion, blades moving at impossible speed across the arenas of broken space. He remembered Nemesis looming over Earth-17, its shadow dragging oceans skyward until mortal champions rose in defiance beside him. He remembered Tarragon's stolen dominion, the Gauntlet cracking beneath his strike.
Each memory burned sharp, yet when he set them against the vastness of the Watch, they blurred into one repeating song. Power seized, power broken. Worlds threatened, worlds saved. Mortals rising, mortals falling.
Conflict. Always conflict.
Quish's eyes traced the orbits of the nearest spheres. One world glowed bright, peaceful blue, but he knew even now its leaders quarreled in hidden rooms. Another flickered between light and shadow, a civil war raging over borders that would not matter to the stars. Even the calmest Earth carried unrest, like embers waiting for wind.
He spoke aloud, though the Watch had no need of sound:
"Is this what eternity is? Watching the same struggle over and over again?"
The words dissipated, absorbed by the infinite air. No answer came.
He thought of the mortals he had met—Dylan, who wrapped his city in silk to hold it together; Lena, who bent shadows to carve out paths of survival. He thought of Ignis and the Volts, who fought not just with their strength but with belief, their unity brighter than any weapon.
Perhaps conflict was inevitable. But so too was resilience.
The duality gnawed at him: Was his purpose to crush the flames of ambition before they consumed a world, or to let them burn until mortals learned to master the fire themselves? Was he guardian, judge, or guide?
The living table pulsed brighter, as if sensing his turmoil. The orbits shifted subtly, aligning into patterns only he could perceive—like constellations sketched across eternity. For a breath, Quish felt as though the Core itself whispered to him, urging patience.
He placed his hand against the rim of the table. The touch sent a faint vibration coursing through his body, grounding him. His reflection shimmered across the spheres: a lone sentinel cast in crimson, small against infinity yet bound to it all the same.
Quish straightened. The silence remained, heavy and absolute, but within it he found clarity.
Conflict may never vanish. But neither would hope.
And as long as hope endured, he would remain—watching, waiting, ready to step once more into the eternal echoes of the multiverse.
Quish let his gaze settle upon a single Earth among the countless that turned within the Zenith Watch. Earth-61724. His origin. His anchor.
From here, beyond its stream of time, the world appeared fractured—threads of history unraveling and crossing in dangerous knots. He reached out, letting his hand hover above the shifting image. It stirred at his touch, offering glimpses of moments he could never truly set foot in without consequence.
The Ampers stumbled through the corridors of the 1980s and 1990s, their presence like stones dropped into the waters of history. Each decision they made threatened to ripple outward, rewriting not only their own futures but those of countless others. He could see their confusion, their arguments, their determination to endure even as paradoxes sharpened around them like glass shards.
Elsewhere, the Volts carried wounds not of the body, but of spirit. Their battles had worn their unity thin. Leaders faltered, once-bright ideals dimmed under scrutiny, and the people they swore to protect began to waver in their faith. For the first time, their strength seemed brittle.
Quish's chest tightened with the pull of return. He longed to step through the veil, to steady them both—to tear away the shadows that closed in on the world he had once walked as mortal. His hand pressed harder against the sphere, and the image flared brighter, tempting him with the familiar.
But then came the memory of Celestius's words, sharp as a blade in stillness: Do not disrupt what is not yet multiversal.
Quish withdrew his hand, the light dimming back into the rhythm of the table. The warning was clear. To act now would risk unbalancing not only Earth-61724, but all that its gravity touched. Yet the urge lingered, gnawing at him—the silent ache of a guardian forced to watch but not to hold.
He turned from the sphere, though his thoughts did not follow. Home called to him still, a tether unbroken, and he knew it would not be silent forever.
A shiver that ran not through its walls but through Quish himself. He paused, head tilting as a low vibration threaded into his bones—a soundless echo, a memory of power that should have been silenced.
The Gauntlet of Dominion. Though he had shattered it, fragments of its resonance still drifted across the multiverse like shards of a bell that refused to stop ringing. It was faint, but undeniable, a pulse that whispered of dominion not yet undone.
He focused, tracing the ripple backward, through countless Earths, until it touched one that was all too familiar. Earth-61724. His home.
There, the signature coiled and breathed, not as a broken artifact, but as a man. Tarragon lived in that world, not a multiversal tyrant but its first Gifted, the root from which all others had sprung. The revelation cut deep. The enemy he had faced was not confined to a single universe; his essence persisted, woven into the very history Quish had once called his own.
Unease spread through him, heavy as iron. Victories did not vanish when the battle was done—they left remnants, scars, and echoes that could take new forms. Even in triumph, shadows remained, waiting for their chance to rise.
Quish closed his eyes against the glow of the table, but the truth lingered. The fight with Tarragon was not over. It had only shifted closer to home.
He stood adrift in its silence, and for the first time it felt alien to him. Time did not flow here as it did below—there were no seasons, no aging, only the ceaseless churn of infinite worlds in motion.
He caught his reflection in the crystal wall, and the sight unsettled him. His face was the same, features fixed in their ageless rhythm, but his eyes—older, heavier—belonged to someone else. How many centuries had passed for him already, in moments stretched thin? How many more before he ceased to remember the rhythm of mortal life?
Memories came up in that stillness: Anna's quiet words that reached him even from the void, Nullis's sharp defiance, Brakkon's storming rage. Faces vivid in his mind, yet blurred by distance. Would they know him if he returned? Or had the Watch already stolen too much, carving a gulf that could never be bridged?
The table flared suddenly, drawing him forward. A vision spilled across its surface—Earth-61724, his home universe, but not as it should be. He saw fractured cities, the Ampers scattered, their unity dissolved into blood and ash. A shadowed battle rose like a scar in history, a collapse where strength should have been forged.
At its center stood Tarragon—not as tyrant, not as conqueror, but as savior. The one meant to bear the mantle of first Gifted, the one the world should have rallied behind. Yet the vision twisted: the Ampers, driven by fear and fire, had battled him four years before. They had struck him down. What should have been a foundation of hope had been shattered, leaving only ruin.
Quish's hands pressed against the living table, the silence of the Watch pressing harder around him. If this vision was truth, then Earth-61724 was walking a path toward despair. A world without its first light. A future where no savior remained.
He lowered his hand until it pressed against the sphere. The surface felt alive, warm, carrying the echo of every voice, every heartbeat below. His voice, when it came, was steady, but the weight in it lingered like stone.
"If I am to protect the multiverse… I must begin where I belong."
Crimson light stirred at the edges of his arms, flowing upward in steady waves, spilling into the Watch itself. The chamber darkened, as if recognizing the choice being made. The tether tightened, pulling him not just toward his Earth, but into its current of time. He set his anchor deliberately—two years before the unraveling, before the Ampers fractured and the world spiraled toward ruin.
The sphere flared in response, threads snapping into alignment. The crimson light surged, consuming him in a radiant flare that swallowed both his form and his doubts.
As the Zenith Watch fell silent once more, the only trace of his presence was the fading glow of Earth-61724—its protector bound once again to its fate.
And in that binding, the path was set: Quish would return, not as distant witness, but as one ready to face the storms of his own world.