[Some moments ago.]
They hadn't had time to rest properly. Not truly. Not when the Shattercore's pull was growing stronger, and the boundaries of the Uncore were twisting like a maze written by a fever dream.
"Anyone else feeling like we're being watched by reality itself?" Lira muttered, brushing a smear of dried ichor from her cheek. "Like, from underneath the wallpaper of space."
"That's just Tuesday for us," Calyx said with a chuckle, bandaging her wrist. "Though, I wouldn't mind a Wednesday off for once."
Stanley muttered something incomprehensible as he rummaged through his spellbook, probably reorganizing a chaos matrix. Clara, leaning against a bent steel column, grunted. "What we need is a regroup point. A secure one. We're spread too thin."
As if summoned by fate—or perhaps Rafael's fragmenting memory—a low, familiar hum echoed from the broken doors of the cathedral.
A voice called out, smooth and sharp like a dagger drawn with style. "Still hogging all the apocalypses for yourself, Rafe?"
Rafael turned, blinking. That voice. That annoying, familiar confidence. The female bard he's been thinking about lately. Or forced to think, precisely. But she came back differently from what Rafael could remember.
"Juno?"
She strolled in like she owned the place. Tight black suit, armored seams glinting, two knives sheathed at her hips and a sly smile curled at the corner of her lips. Juno Reyes, tactician, infiltrator, and chaos enabler.
"Miss me?" she quipped, tossing a malfunctioning drone aside with casual disdain.
Right behind her, the opposite of subtle thundered through the doorway. A giant man in a cracked exo-plate suit that had clearly seen better days. Theo Harriman—Brick to his friends and boulders alike—ducked under the arch with a metallic creak.
"Yo, Boss!" he grinned wide. "I brought snacks!"
He was holding a dead glitch-wolf by the tail. The creature fizzled in loops of corrupted data.
"...Please tell me you don't mean that," Beatrice said, wrinkling her nose.
Brick laughed. "What? You don't like wolf tartare?"
Rafael blinked at the two of them. "How—? Where the hell have you been, Brick?"
Juno arched an eyebrow, she answered in Brick's behalf. "Tracking you, obviously. You guys split in the Eastern Threadblight when the Chrono-Spike blew. You were sent south. He went west. Fortunately I found him before he ran out of batteries. It took me weeks to find another functional anchor node to sync with your party's signal."
Something flew tight inside her head. A memory of past loops, a memory of their "party" back then. "Should've guessed you'd sniff us out," Clara said, cracking a rare smile. "You've always had a good nose for trouble."
"I'll take that as a compliment," Juno said, then turned to Rafael. "You okay? You look like you've seen a ghost."
"Or five of his past lives. With extra hot sauce," Lira added.
Rafael exhaled. "It's just... good to see both of you," then he darted his gaze to Juno. "Especially you."
[Flashback: The Threadblight Split]
It had been chaos.
The Eastern Threadblight had pulsed with erratic energy, threadlines whipping through space like frayed wires. The Chrono-Spike they'd been examining began vibrating ominously.
Rafael was arguing with Clara about which direction to lead the group. Then, the spike detonated—time surged outward like a tsunami made of broken clocks.
Rafael, Clara, Stanley, and a few others had been yanked southward by a collapsing rift.
Brick had watched them vanish into static mist. He cursed.
"NO!" he had shouted, diving for the breach, but Juno caught him by the collar and yanked him back. "We'll find them," she had said, voice calm despite the madness. "We always do. Like the old days."
"Who the hell are you?" Brick asked.
She furrowed, "you don't remember me, Tank-boy?"
"No I don't," he clenched his fist, realizing something. "You, don't tell me you're Echo's minion."
Juno hit his head. "I'm on your team, dumbass."
"When?"
"Some Rafael's loop ago!"
"I don't believe you," Brick said as he stepped forward to chocked Juno. But the energy inside his robotic body didn't allow it. He fell to the ground.
"Stubborn as ever," she sighed. "We need to go find some supplies for you."
From there, the journey had been madness. Phantom mercenaries left over from failed reboots. Dead timelines stacked like layers of ash. Anchor nodes half-corrupted. Their threadmap had to be redrawn from scratch—by hand.
Juno and Brick had fought temporal beasts, corrupted code-wraiths, and rogue constructs left behind by other timeline's defenders. Brick took a null-fist to the chest and kept walking. Juno once slept only eight minutes in four days.
They scavenged from ruins, hijacked a warp shard from a crumbling bridge-realm, and finally found a working anchor beacon just west of the fractured cathedral sector. It pinged Rafael's thread signature.
They were close.
[Back to Present]
The entire party had gone still at first.
Beatrice's hand hovered over a spell card. Calyx stepped forward, squinting. "Is that Brick? And—who's she again?"
"Juno," Rafael said. "I'll explain later."
Lira gasped. "Holy glitch, they're real."
Stanley blinked in confusion. "They were presumed derezzed."
"Aw, you do care," Brick said, setting the glitch-wolf down like a grotesque housecat.
Juno smirked. "Didn't think we'd let you steal all the glory, did you?"
There was a beat—then laughter, sighs, even Beatrice's tension faded. One by one, the party approached. Clara clasped Brick's forearm with a grin. Calyx saluted Juno with a glowing pebble. Lira even offered Brick a salvaged energy bar, which he devoured whole.
They set up camp for the night in what remained of the cathedral's underground vault. Rafael stood watch with Juno while the others tended to minor wounds or shared quiet jokes.
"So," Juno said, flipping a knife between her fingers, "how badly did you mess it up this time?"
Rafael sighed. "I might've... rebooted the apocalypse again. Accidentally."
Juno gave him a long look. "Damn. I was betting it was on purpose."
Rafael chuckled. "You never bet on me doing the right thing."
"Exactly," she said, grinning.
Brick snored from his corner of the vault, loud enough to shake dust from the ceiling. Calyx groaned and tossed a glowing pebble at him, which bounced off his forehead and made him snort awake.
Beatrice and Lira were already whispering over an altered sigil scheme, while Clara watched the ceiling, her sword on her lap. Stanley was quietly sketching sigils on the wall, reinforcing the wards.
Rafael looked around at them and felt—oddly—hope. Even if this team was a bit different from his last loop, it's enough. At least they're together.
Maybe this time, they'd pull it off. He hope so.
Maybe, just maybe, this loop could be the last one.
***