There's the Ancient One: a figure who, seemingly at the helm of the battle, cast his shadow over it in fear; such was Sam and the rest of the Vanguard's reaction to it. The towering Rift Hunter roams the streets of Alexandria froze in its bowing manner, under the influence of its master.
"Stop him!" Lyra commanded, her voice hard as steel. The Vanguard fired with all their might at the Ancient One, yet no shot seemed to have any effect. Bullets and blasts of energy dissolved before they could reach him, swallowed by the distortion of time surrounding his body.
Sam's mind was racing. She had seen enough to know this wasn't some ordinary rift. The Ancient One was far, far beyond what they could currently comprehend—he was playing with time itself in ways that even the Vanguard did not fully understand. If they could not stop him now, the whole timeline might unravel.
Lyra flung down her spent sword and drew her blade as if in a final move. But even before she reached him, the Ancient One swept his hand and it seemed that time twisted around her. Lyra froze midstep, suspended in air as if held in a loop.
"No!" Sam shouted running towards her but was restrained by Finn.
"We can't touch her!" Finn protested urgently. "She's caught in a temporal stasis. Contact could cause a paradox."
Sam stood powerless as Lyra hung frozen in time, her fierce expression set in a moment of defiance.
The Ancient One's cold gaze came back to Sam. "You still do not understand, do you?" he murmured softly. "Time is mine to command. The past, the present, the future-they are all merely threads in the tapestry I weave."
Sam clenched her fists, thinking furiously for an answer. She looked down at the stabilizer in her hand. That wasn't enough to close the rift this time. They had to disrupt the Ancient One's control over the timeline itself.
"Finn!" she screamed out, shaking with adrenaline. "We have to overload the stabilizer!"
Finn's eyes went wide. "That's gonna rip an awful gap in the fabric of time! We're gonna wipe out the whole era!"
Or we could stop him!" Sam's temper snapped. "There's no other way. We have to break his hold on the timeline."
Finn was hesitant for only a moment before nodding. "Okay. I'm with you."
They rewired the stabilizer, flooding its core with energy. The thing hummed perilously, its lights flickering as it generated power.
The Ancient One leaned back in his chair, impressed. "Think you can stop me with that little toy? How sweet."
Sam ignored him. Her hands were shaking as she manipulated the wires. She was playing with forces far beyond their control, and she knew it. There was no going back now.
As the stabilizer has finally released its pent-up energy and detonated, it throws a shockwave around in all directions. Even time itself seems to bend under the sheer force as the ancient streets of Alexandria waver and ripple like a mirage.
This causes the Ancient One to stumble backward. His control is disrupted by the shockwave, leaving something other than confidence in his eyes: surprise.
"No!" he spat, his voice heavy with anger. "You cannot undo what is done!"
It was too late for that, however. The tear constricted in on itself, and with it, the Ancient One's hold on the timestream began to unravel. The massive Rift Hunter dissolved into nothingness, its body disintegrating as the temporal energies which had sustained it were ripped away.
Sam and Finn crashed to the floor, gasping for breath as the world steadied about them. The flames engulfing the Library of Alexandria died down, and the streets fell silent in the aftermath of the battle.
Lyra dangled in mid-air but then thudded to the floor, no longer clinging to the Ancient One. She took a step forward and grabbed onto herself, steadying herself; her eyes found Sam.
"You did it," Lyra said, her voice rough but steady. "You actually stopped him."
Sam shook her head, still trying to wrap her mind around what had just happened. "No. We didn't stop him. We just delayed him."
Lyra frowned, but Sam continued, her voice quiet but resolute. "He's still out there, somewhere. We've only just begun to scratch the surface of what he's capable of."
Lyra's face was grim. "Then we will be ready. We will seek him out. And next time, he will not have his chance."
Sam nodded, but on a very deep level she couldn't help but feel that the Ancient One was already ten steps ahead of them, at least. He had told them this was just the beginning.
And Sam knew that the end was still far, far away.