Chapter 20: The Archive of the Lost
The North Atlantic didn't just want to reclaim the space; it wanted to drown the anomaly. As the charges Steve and Bucky set detonated, the base of the obsidian spire shattered. But instead of falling, the Generator began to cave in on itself, creating a gravitational pull that threatened to swallow the USS Erebus and everyone on it.
The Last Anchor
Arthur stood at the edge of the collapsing reality. His [Spatial Anchor] was the only thing keeping the Howling Commandos from being shredded by the temporal winds. Through his [Chrono-Vision], he saw the "Future Hydra" fleet—thousands of ships—frozen in the translucent layer of the rift, waiting for the bridge to stabilize.
"It's not enough to break the machine," Arthur realized, his [Mercury Catalyst] blood singing a high, mournful note. "I have to delete the destination."
[ SYSTEM NOTIFICATION ]
Sync Level: 30% Threshold Reached.
New Protocol Unlocked: Record Overwrite.
Warning: Using this on a mass scale will drain your Core Integrity to 5%.
The Sacrifice of Data
Arthur ignored the warning. He drove his staff into the heart of the swirling purple vortex. He didn't use lightning or kinetic force; he used the [Broken Chronal Core] he had just ripped from the Inquisitor.
"You wanted to edit history, Thorne?" Arthur's voice echoed through the rift, overlapping with a thousand versions of himself. "I'm the one with the final word."
[ SKILL ACTIVE: RECORD OVERWRITE ]
Arthur began to broadcast the "True" 1944 timeline into the rift—the memories of the Commandos, the grit of the trenches, the smell of cheap tobacco, and the unshakable hope of Steve Rogers. He forced the chaos of the future to be overwritten by the certainty of the present.
The "Future Hydra" ships didn't explode. They simply ceased to have ever been built. They faded like old ink on a damp page, their metallic shrieks silenced by the weight of a corrected reality.
The Fall
The recoil was absolute. The rift collapsed with the sound of a closing book.
Arthur felt his Core Integrity shatter. The blue light of his staff died, the Tesseract shard going dark for the first time since the bunker. He felt the cold, salt spray of the Atlantic hit his face as the "bridge" vanished beneath him.
He was falling—not through time, but through gravity.
"ARTHUR!"
The last thing he felt was a heavy, vibranium-coated shield sliding under his arm, and Steve Rogers' powerful grip catching his shroud before the dark waves could take him.
The Aftermath
Three days later. The USS Erebus sat docked in a secret UK harbor.
Arthur sat on a medical cot, his body wrapped in bandages. His staff lay across his lap, cracked and silent. The [Archivist Protocol] was stuck at a flickering 29%, slowly rebuilding its corrupted files.
Steve walked in, carrying two mugs of coffee. He looked tired, but his eyes were clear. "The rift is gone. The scientists can't explain the 'purple aurora' everyone saw, but the war feels... different now. Lighter."
"The future is still coming, Steve," Arthur rasped, taking a sip of the bitter brew. "But it's a future where we get to decide what happens next."
Arthur looked at the system message flickering in his peripheral vision.
[ CHAPTER 20 COMPLETE ]
Current DP Balance: 11,200 (Major Narrative Milestone).
Divergence: 12.2% (Historical Stability Restored).
New Item: [Seed of the Chronal Core] — Can be used to repair the staff.
"We have work to do," Arthur whispered. "I need to talk to Howard Stark. We're going to need more than just 'cooking' for what's coming next."