The Nexus hummed with a fervor for battle. Analysts pored over data, strategists debated over maps, and warriors trained without letup. The battle against the Ancient One was no longer something to be fought at some distant point in the future; it was an ever-present specter looming over every moment. For all their experience, the Vanguard had never seen anything like it. This wasn't just an enemy of the timeline; the Ancient One was re- writing history in real-time, twisting the very fabric of what history had become.
Sam stood before the giant viewport that looked out onto the temporal rift. It was marvelous, like an endless storm of color, constantly shifting and reshaping itself. But it was different now. More unstable. More.alive. A duel in Alexandria had sent their conflict rolling through the timestream. It had served to shift things for him, though not enough to stay his course. Nor to be an end.
Footsteps clicked toward them and Sam half turned to see Finn run in wearing the tablet under his arm. His face was pale, more so than ever, which replaced his nervous energy with something much darker-fear.
"Sam, we have a problem," Finn said breathlessly, pushing the tablet toward her. "A big one."
Sam accepted the device and scanned the data flashing on the screen. In almost every major era—from ancient to modern and into the far stretches of the future—temporal anomalies had skyrocketed. The timeline was breaking at an unprecedented rate, with a ripple effect that caused untold damage across history.
"We are running out of time," Sam muttered, her heart sinking.
Finn nodded grimly. "The Ancient One's play is already in the works. He's seeding temporal instability, seeding a chain reaction. If we are not able to stop him now, then the timeline will crumble."
She closed her eyes and battled the panic that threatened to surge up in her. All her life, she had known the Ancient One played with long games, but this. this was something different, something more. The timeline wasn't being attacked so much as it was unraveling.
Lyra stood there beside them, her eyes steady into the distance. "We found the source of the biggest disturbance," she said. "It is coming from a point in the far future-an era we haven't yet touched."
Sam shivered. The future is always that thin and delicate portion of the timeline. It's uncertain, ever-changing. She had been warned to avoid it; tampering with it would prove woefully dangerous. Then again, if the Ancient One was there working his magic on the events, then they didn't have any choice.
"Where exactly?" Sam asked, her voice steadier than she felt.
Lyra's jaw set. "The year 3021. A battlefront in the last stages of the Lunar War."
The Lunar War. Something Sam had learned about reading through the archives-a vicious struggle between Earth and her lunar colonies, almost tearing humanity asunder. But what was the point of trying to kill one of the Ancients at such a removed point in time?
"He's just using the chaos of the war as cover for his movements," Finn murmured aloud, interpreting Sam's thoughts. "It's perfect cover, actually. If he is changing the course of the Lunar War, he could very well change the entire direction of human history by way of any ripple effect,"
Sam clenched her fists. "Then we stop him. Whatever it takes."
The Vanguard prepared themselves for the most perilous mission into the far future, where battles across the ages had brought them. More explicitly stated, that meant war with unguessable dangers, devastations on both Earth and the Moon, and advanced technologies that hung over them like a landmine in waiting to explode. Sam, Lyra, and Finn stood in the launch bay with latest equipment for the jump through time. The time travel tech of the Vanguard had been pushed to the limit, but it was the only way they would reach the Lunar War on time.
"We're moving into the unknown," Lyra said seriously, her tone heavy with the weight of responsibility. "No one has ever jumped this far forward in time-not even Nexus itself. This could destabilize everything we think we know about the timeline."
"Is there even a way to stop him now?" Finn asked with his voice rife with doubt.
Sam turned to Finn, then to Lyra. "We've come too far. And if we don't stop him now, there's nothing left to save." The temporal gate of the Nexus roared to life, the whorls of energy in the rift intensifying as they prepared to step through. Sam's heart racing, this was it; the last hour: everything they had fought for, everything they had risked, came down to this moment. They walked toward the gates, and the whole world around them just seemed to melt into light. The familiar feeling of a time warp hit them all as one, though Sam focused on the task at hand-no time for shyness and doubts. The future was waiting.