The crimson light of the Zenith Watch still shimmered against the vast crystal floor when the girl collapsed to her knees, trembling.
"Why can I hear you?" she gasped, clutching her head. "Why can I hear your voice inside me?"
Grant froze. The Watch was silent but alive around them, the table of Earths humming softly, its patient constellations turning in endless orbit. Yet somehow, impossibly, this girl stood inside it—breathing, terrified, perceiving what no mortal should.
"That's not possible," he murmured, more to himself than her. "No one should—"
"Grant," Anna cut in, her tone sharp with fear. "What does she mean?"
Before he could form an answer, the girl's panic broke into words, spilling over in fractured urgency. "Since the blast, I've heard you—your voice, like thunder under my skin. And now I'm—" Her breath hitched. "I blinked and suddenly I was here."
Grant stepped closer, steady but wary. "What's your name?"
The girl flinched, biting her lip. For a moment it seemed she would refuse—but the truth slipped free, ragged with desperation. "Jazmine."
Anna moved quickly, crouching beside her, one hand hovering as if touch alone might shatter her further. "Jazmine, listen to me. You're safe here. No one's going to hurt you."
Jazmine shook her head violently, hair streaked with pink-tipped strands catching the Watch's cold light. "Safe? You don't understand—I was in your world, I was just there. Then the ring… I touched it. I didn't mean to. And now I'm—" She spread her hands wide at the impossible chamber, the galaxies wheeling beyond. "Here. In this place—what even is this place."
Grant's face hardened, but his eyes betrayed a flicker of unease. His words came low, threaded with the weight of what he didn't yet admit: "If you can hear me in while on earth… and stand in my Watch… then something is binding us. Something that shouldn't be."
The Watch pulsed, the spheres of Earths flickering with faint static as if her presence distorted their harmony.
Jazmine's gaze snapped to him, wide and fearful. "Then tell me why you sound like the end of everything."
Grant reached to steady Jazmine, his hand hovering near her shoulder, but before his touch could ground her the Zenith Watch began to tremble. The crystalline walls shuddered with deep vibrations, and the living table of worlds fractured into stuttering pulses. Each Earth flickered off-beat, like stars being smothered.
Anna staggered back, clutching the edge of the table. "Grant—something's wrong."
The Ring of Transit ignited, crimson veins racing up Grant's arm—then faltered. A streak of pink flared from Jazmine's chest, syncing with his glow in a rhythm that wasn't his heartbeat, but theirs.
"No…" Grant muttered, his jaw tightening. "This isn't me. It's her."
The resonance built, violent and uncontainable. The Watch groaned under the strain, universes grinding against one another in flashes of red and pink. Then, with a soundless detonation of light, the chamber collapsed inward.
The two were hurled through the rupture.
When the chaos eased, Grant gasped, pressing a hand against cool tile. His vision cleared to reveal fluorescent lights buzzing overhead, sterile white walls, the antiseptic tang of disinfectant. Beside him, Jazmine clutched her head in dazed panic.
Muffled cries bled through the corridor. A nurse hurried past with a gurney, oblivious to their sudden appearance.
Grant's breath caught. On the wall, a clock ticked beneath a fading calendar: June 1971.
Jazmine froze, her eyes darting between the nurses, the dated uniforms, the hospital signage in faded print.
Grant's voice low with dawning dread. "We're nineteen years in the past."
Jazmine staggered down the sterile corridor, her shoes squeaking against the linoleum as the fluorescent lights buzzed overhead. A pull she couldn't explain dragged her toward a wide observation window. Her hands slapped against the glass—hard, trembling—and she froze.
Inside, doctors rushed around a woman on the delivery table, sweat slicking her pale skin, hair plastered to her face as she screamed through the contractions. The sound didn't reach through the glass, but Jazmine felt it vibrate in her bones.
Her throat tightened, breath catching in a ragged gasp. Recognition carved through her like a blade.
"...Mom?" The word slipped out, fragile, cracked like glass.
Her knees nearly gave way. The truth hit her all at once: she wasn't watching just any birth. She was watching her own.
Grant stepped up behind her, his eyes narrowing at the scene. He had seen countless worlds, countless moments frozen in the Watch, but never had the multiverse hurled him into something so personal, so impossibly precise.
"This…" he whispered, gaze flicking between Jazmine and the woman writhing in labor, "this is the moment you enter the world."
Jazmine's palm pressed flat against the glass, tears streaking down her face as the cries inside crescendoed. "Why here? Why now?" Her voice cracked, shaking as the chaos in the delivery room blurred through her tears.
Grant had no answer. All he could feel was the weight of something greater—something intentional—pressing down on them both.
Grant guided Jazmine up the narrow stairwell, each step echoing with her sobs, until they burst out onto the hospital roof. The night was thick and cold, clouds shifting over a fractured moon. From below came the muffled cries of life entering and fading—the woman's labor reaching its breaking point.
Jazmine's hands shook as she clutched her arms around herself. Grant didn't have to say it aloud; he could feel the truth written in her pulse, the dying rhythm of the woman below. Her mother would not survive.
Before he could speak, the air on the rooftop shifted. Shadows peeled back, revealing a tall figure striding forward with unshakable grace. His presence bent the night itself, the silence bowing to him.
Celestius.
Light radiated faintly from within his form, not blinding but steady, like the first fire ever lit. His gaze fixed on Jazmine, calm but impossibly heavy.
"Do not mourn what was always meant," Celestius said, his voice a chord resonating deeper than thunder. "You are her legacy, child—and mine."
Jazmine blinked, stunned. "Yours…?"
Grant froze, his chest tightening. "What are you saying?"
Celestius stepped closer, his hand brushing the air near Jazmine's shoulder without touching. "She is my daughter. The spark within her is no accident—it is inheritance. The same essence that once awakened in you, Grant. She is destined to walk the path of Protector, or a creator."
The words struck Grant like a blade. Another Protector, birthed from Celestius himself. His throat tightened, the balance of the multiverse shifting before his eyes.
Jazmine shook her head violently, tears streaking down her cheeks. "No… no, I'm just me! I didn't ask for this—I don't want this!"
Celestius's gaze softened, but his tone remained resolute. "Want is irrelevant. The multiverse has chosen. You carry my light. You will rise, whether in hope… or in ruin."
The weight of his words sank into the night.
Grant finally stepped forward, his voice low but defiant. "And what of the dark stirring in the Negative Zone? You wouldn't appear unless you knew the balance was cracking."
Celestius's eyes shifted, deep wells of endless space. "You sense it already. Gravax stirs beyond the walls. Even Protectors cannot ignore it."
Grant's hands clenched, crimson light flickering between his fingers. His reply was steady, filled with grim certainty.
"I know. Gravax is coming."
Jazmine's voice cracked as she stumbled toward Celestius, hands trembling. "You're my father… then see me! Say something—anything—that isn't just about destiny. I don't care about sparks or Protectors—I just want to know you."
Celestius's face was carved from stone, unreadable. His light dimmed, not with sorrow but with restraint. "You mistake me for comfort, child. Blood is not what defines you. Only strength will decide whether you rise or fall. The multiverse spares no one. Training and inevitability—that is all you need to hear."
The words hollowed her. Jazmine staggered back, her breath breaking into shallow sobs.
Grant's fury erupted. He moved between them, crimson light burning at the edges of his fists. His voice cut like steel. "She's not your weapon. She's not your experiment. She's under my protection now."
Celestius regarded him, silence stretching across the rooftop like a blade held at the throat. Then, with a faint incline of his head, he murmured: "You'll learn that guardians are forged in fire, not love."
He raised a hand. The air cracked. A circular aperture tore into existence, glowing white-hot, its rim bending and warping like glass melting in a furnace. The portal pulsed with impossible depth, promising both path and peril.
Grant didn't wait. He seized Jazmine's hand and pulled her toward him. "We're done here."
Together, they plunged into the searing light, their forms swallowed by its violent shimmer.
Behind them, Celestius's voice carried into the void, calm and final:
"The best of protectors are born together. Remember that, Quish."