The roaring cheers of the stadium were a distant, absurd static to Dr. Elias Soh. She didn't hear the confetti, the commentators, or the broken sobs of the Titans' coach. All she heard was the frantic, high-pitched *screaming* of the **Temporal Decay Alert** blaring on her monitors.
Aris had succeeded. Chronos had won. And in doing so, he had ripped the fabric of reality a new, irreparable hole.
"Elias! Stop! You've gone too deep! You're creating an irreversible paradox!"
The echoing warning she had screamed moments ago—a desperate, unauthorized transmission into the adjacent AETHEL booth—had done nothing. Elias knew Aris's brilliance; she also knew his madness. He wouldn't stop until he reached **$100\%$ efficiency**, even if it meant his own destruction.
She slammed the emergency containment field over her **Vanguard Booth**'s observation window, sealing herself away from the victorious arena. The air in the sterilized room felt thick, tasting of ozone and burnt copper.
### The AETHEL Aftermath
She stared at the monitor feed of the now-silent AETHEL booth.
It wasn't empty. It was **flickering**.
The furniture, the consoles, and the very air inside were cycling through states: one moment, pristine and modern; the next, covered in centuries of dust; the next, melted into liquid slag. And in the center, slumped over the control desk, was **Chronos**.
But it wasn't the man she knew.
Aris Kaelen, the driven, haunted coach, was gone. In his place was an entity—a distortion. It was a man-shaped volume of *time itself*, visibly struggling to hold a single form. His hands weren't just pale; they were transparent, phasing through the desk, then suddenly becoming gnarled, ancient fists. A faint, residual **Rewind Echo**—a ghostly, looping curse from a defeated player—emerged from the anomaly.
*...lost his world entirely.*
"The perfect, terrible memory," Elias whispered, tears stinging her eyes. She reached a trembling hand toward the monitor. "You didn't win, Aris. You became the **Singularity**."
His absolute victory had required an absolute assimilation of the future, a consumption of the timeline so complete that his consciousness now served as the anchor point for every possible past and future decision. He was no longer a person; he was an archive, a paradox made flesh.
### The Protocol Omega
Elias straightened, wiping the moisture from her face. Emotional paralysis was a luxury she could not afford. She was the project leader, the guardian of the temporal science. She was the **Vanguard**.
She opened a secure channel to a hidden satellite link, bypassing the stadium's network entirely.
"This is Dr. Soh. Protocol Omega initiated. Repeat: **Protocol Omega.** I have a catastrophic localized temporal instability."
A curt, toneless voice answered immediately. *"Vanguard confirmed. Coordinates locked. Status?"*
"The subject, Chronos, has successfully anchored a **Temporal Singularity** at the maximum viable depth—a $6$-second jump, maximum consequence load. He is currently stabilized within the AETHEL command center, but the decay is accelerating. Estimate $T$-minus four minutes until complete timeline collapse in the immediate vicinity."
*"Assessment: Containment or Dissemination?"*
The choice was horrific. **Containment** meant trapping the distortion—and Aris—forever, erasing his existence to save the greater timeline. **Dissemination** meant trying to *fix* him, which could propagate the temporal corruption throughout the world.
Elias's jaw tightened. She had dedicated her life to this science, not to a single man.
"Initiate **Containment**. Target is the AETHEL command center. Use the final-stage dampeners. I will provide the anchor coordinates from my location."
She opened the console beneath her desk, revealing a massive, brass-and-crystal lever—the manual override for the **Omega Array**. This array wasn't designed to send players back in time; it was designed to stop time entirely.
### The Last Command
As Elias pulled the lever, the Vanguard Booth shuddered violently. A low, subterranean **thrum**—deeper and more painful than Aris's earlier reset—began to vibrate through her bones.
The screen displaying the AETHEL booth went white, then black. She saw no flash, no explosion, only the sudden, absolute **absence** of that space. The temporal dampeners were working.
Elias slumped back in her chair, her entire body shaking. She had just trapped her greatest student—her only true scientific peer—in an eternal state of non-existence. She had saved the world, but at the cost of the singularity he had become.
The stadium lights flickered once, then stabilized. The crowd noise slowly returned, a rush of sound that was both celebratory and entirely oblivious. The timeline was stable. The Championship was won.
A single, metallic **thrum** echoed in the silence of the Vanguard Booth. It was too late. The system was off-line.
Elias looked at her main clock. The timer for **Protocol Omega** was counting down, but not from four minutes. It was counting down from $30$ seconds.
And she was still there.
"No," she whispered, her voice cracking. "The Singularity wasn't just him."
Aris hadn't just *become* the anomaly; he had **corrupted** the adjacent system before being contained. His perfect memory—his **Rewind Echo**—was now lodged in the *Vanguard's* timeline.
A small, new readout flashed on her console, a single line of text:
**VANGUARD: $100\%$ EFFICIENCY ACHIEVED. PROTOCOL INITIATED.**
Dr. Elias Soh, the woman who fought to stabilize time, felt the metallic taste of copper and the familiar, violent pull of the **Temporal Anomaly**. She hadn't trapped Aris; she had simply been the next step in his horrifying, perfect plan. The Chronos Singularity had found a new, *living* anchor point.
She had won the battle, but Aris had won the war, dragging her into his eternal perfect game.