The transition was less a step and more a physical collision with the past. When Quinn opened the heavy oak door of the Archive, the scent of roasted coffee and the comforting hum of Manhattan air were violently sucked away, replaced by the raw, metallic tang of 120 AD.
Quinn stepped into the mud of Northern Britannia, his boots sinking into the sludge. His shoulders tightened as the Paradox Pressure took hold. To him, the air didn't just feel cold; it felt dense, like he had just walked into a pool of water.
"It is... different this time," Elara noted, her hand hovering near Quinn's elbow, though he remained perfectly upright. She looked at the grey, weeping sky.
"The air feels like it is pushing against my skin."
Quinn straightened his trench coat and adjusted his dirty blonde hair. He pulled his silver pocket watch from his vest. With a sharp click, a shimmering golden holographic display projected into the mist. 00:30:00.
The numbers began to bleed away.
"Thats because it's a broken timeline," Quinn said, his voice calm, carrying that signature hint of intellectual arrogance.
"We are a virus in the bloodstream of this timeline. Right now, the timeline is just trying to nudge us out. It starts as a pressure — a 'Weight' — but eventually, it becomes a cage."
Elara looked at his silver cane.
"And your magic? Is it as heavy as your breath?"
"My 'signal' is tethered to the Archive," Quinn explained, looking back at the door that now looked like a shimmering rift in the fort's stone wall.
"Think of me like a lamp with a very long cord. The further we go, the dimmer I get. I can't just 'delete' the world out here like I can close to my shop. I have to be precise and efficient."
He looked her in the eye, his mercury-grey gaze steady.
"Thirty minutes. After that, the universe stops nudging and starts deleting itself. Do not get distracted by the ghosts. We are here for the Standard."
Elara nodded, though her eyes drifted toward the flickering shadows of the fort.
"Understood. The Standard first."
They moved toward the Principia, the heart of the Legion's command. The fort was a nightmare of "Static Lag." Soldiers were caught in three-second loops, Marcus was perpetually dropping a crate of pilums, his face a blur of shifting pixels that never quite settled into a human expression.
"Why do they look so... broken?" Elara asked, her voice a hushed whisper.
"They're lagging behind reality," Quinn replied. He flicked his cane toward an encroaching Echo—a jagged shard of midnight. Instead of a grand spell, he emitted a sharp Static Pulse. The Echo didn't shatter; its legs simply "desynced" from the floor, causing it to face-plant into the mud.
"The timeline is being pruned. They're like ink being washed off a page."
They reached a collapsed section of the upper balcony. A ten-foot gap of swirling grey void separated them from the headquarters.
"The floor has been erased," Elara noted, her hand tightening on her scutum.
"A simple fix, if you have the will," Quinn said. He stepped closer to her, his presence radiating a cool, stabilizing energy.
"Use your Aegis Lock. I'll provide the bridge."
Elara slammed her shield down into the open air. Usually, the Lock required solid ground, but as Quinn tapped his cane against the bronze rim, blue geometric ley-lines flared. A bridge of hard, translucent light extended across the gap.
"What is this?" she gasped, stepping onto the solidified second.
"It's a 'Static Bridge,'" Quinn said, walking behind her with effortless grace, though the "Weight" was now making the stones beneath his feet groan.
"You aren't locking to the ground; you're locking to a coordinate in time. To the universe, that empty air is now as solid as a mountain because I told it to be."
They reached the overlook above the central quad. Below, the Principia glowed with the white-hot intensity of the Standard.
But Elara froze.
In the center of the courtyard, a small group of survivors were huddled. Among them was a boy — Caius, her younger brother — waving a training sword at a circle of encroaching Echoes.
"Caius!" Elara cried out.
"Elara, stop," Quinn said, his voice dropping an octave. He didn't sound panicked; he sounded bored. He checked his watch. 00:22:10.
"That isn't your brother. The timeline knows you're an anomaly, and it's using your memories as bait to keep you rooted here until the timer hits zero."
"He is screaming my name, Paradox!"
"It's a recording, Centurion. A very good one," Quinn said, leaning casually against the stone railing.
"If you jump down there, you're playing into a Trap. We have a mission."
"I am a Roman!" Elara snapped, her eyes blazing. "We do not leave our blood in the dirt!"
Before Quinn could stop her, she vaulted over the railing. She hit the courtyard mud like a comet, slamming her shield down.
"Aegis Lock!"
A dome of blue light erupted, shielding the boy. The Echoes recoiled, hissing like steam.
Quinn sighed, adjusting his part as the wind picked up. "Stubborn. Brave. And remarkably predictable."
He didn't scramble down after her. He stood on the balcony, watching as a massive, seven-foot monstrosity merged from the shadows a bloated Echo with a central "eye" of swirling void energy. It began to charge a blast that smelled of ozone and endings.
Elara was trapped. To protect the boy, she had to keep the Lock active. But the Kinetic Feedback was already biting. The "Static" from the Echoes' strikes was grounding itself in her body. Her arms were turning to cold, grey stone, fusing her to the shield.
"Paradox!" she yelled, looking up. "I can't move!"
The monstrosity's eye flared with a blinding purple light.
Quinn didn't flinch, he didn't even look stressed. He simply raised his silver cane and pointed it at the monstrosity.
"I told you, Centurion," Quinn said, his voice carrying clearly over the roar of the Void.
"I hate bad endings. But more than that, I hate being ignored."
He didn't fire a weak bolt. He twisted the head of his cane.
"Static Burst: Zero-G Protocol."
The air in the courtyard didn't just vibrate; it inverted. The monstrosity and the surrounding Echoes were suddenly violently hoisted into the air, their gravity deleted. They flailed in the sky, drifting upward like ash.
Quinn began to walk down the stairs, his steps heavy and deliberate, the "Weight" finally visible in the way the stone steps cracked under his heels. But his face remained a mask of calm confidence.
"Now," Quinn said, reaching the courtyard and looking at the 'boy,' whose face was now flickering into a mess of black pixels.
"Look at your brother, Elara. And tell me if he's worth turning into a statue for."
The monstrosity, drifting thirty feet in the air, began to stabilize. Its eye flared again, preparing to fire from above. Elara, arms bound together by the stone, could only watch as the purple light gathered.
"Check your watch," Quinn whispered, his mercury eyes glowing with a faint, dangerous light.
"You're out of time."
The monstrosity fired.