Cassian Vey had been in bad situations before. Being shot at? Regular Tuesday. Jumping blind into unstable time rifts? Nothing new. But getting trapped in a firefight while hungover, sleep-deprived, and seriously questioning his life choices? That was starting to become a habit.
"Remind me again," Cassian grunted, ducking behind a metal crate as plasma bolts sizzled past. "Why did I let you talk me into hiding here?"
"Oh, I don't know," Rory yelled back from behind an overturned console. "Maybe because you were being hunted by time-traveling assassins and this was literally the only place not crawling with them?"
Cassian peeked out just as a Syndicate enforcer—helmeted, armored, and carrying a rifle the size of a small child—lobbed a pulse grenade their way.
He groaned. "Well, it wasn't crawling with them until about two minutes ago."
The grenade beeped ominously.
Rory cursed and threw a small, disc-shaped device. It landed with a soft plink—and then the grenade froze mid-air, stuck in a time-lock field.
Cassian blinked. "I love it when you do that."
"Yeah? I'm starting to hate it." Rory flipped a switch, and the grenade reversed in time, flying back toward the enforcer who had thrown it. He barely had a second to scream before he was launched backward by his own explosion.
Cassian winced. "Oof. That's gotta be embarrassing."
More enforcers were pushing in, led by a towering figure in heavy armor—Kane, the Syndicate's infamous hunter. He moved with terrifying precision, his chrono-scythe glowing as he sliced through one of Rory's defenses like it was butter.
Cassian grimaced. "Okay. Time to go."
"On it." Rory pulled a device from her belt, twisted a dial, and slammed it to the floor.
A pulse of violet energy spread outward. Reality twisted—walls flickered, gravity wobbled, and for a brief second, Cassian saw multiple versions of himself in different timelines, all looking equally annoyed.
Then—
WHOOOSH.
They were gone.
Cassian's vision spun as they landed—rather unceremoniously—on a hard wooden floor.
He groaned, rolling onto his back. "Please tell me we didn't land in another collapsing hellscape."
Instead of alarms and gunfire, a low hum of chatter filled the air. The scent of cooked meat, fried spices, and something vaguely alcoholic drifted past his nose.
Cassian sat up, blinking at the scene around them.
They were in a restaurant. A normal restaurant.
Dim yellow lights flickered overhead, illuminating wooden tables filled with patrons. A neon sign buzzed near the bar, displaying unfamiliar symbols. The bartender was wiping a glass with the kind of bored expression that suggested he had seen it all before.
Cassian grinned. "Oh. Oh, this is nice."
Rory coughed beside him. "Yeah. Real nice. Except for the part where we have no idea where the hell we are."
Cassian brushed himself off and strolled toward the bar like he owned the place. The bartender barely glanced at him as he took a seat.
"Cold bottle of Long-Raged Bitter Back Beer," Cassian said, tapping the counter.
The bartender arched a brow but nodded, grabbing a dark glass bottle from beneath the counter and sliding it to him.
Cassian twisted the cap off with a practiced motion, took a long swig, and sighed. "Ohhh yeah. That's the good stuff."
Rory sat beside him, glaring. "How do you always know what to order?"
"Instinct." Cassian winked.
Rory shook her head but grabbed a drink of her own. "Alright, fine. But we need to figure out where we are."
Cassian took another sip and glanced around. The people here looked… different. Not in the "evolved beyond humanity" kind of way, but in the "not used to time chaos" kind of way.
"This place is too normal," he muttered.
Rory nodded. "Right? No time glitches, no dimensional rifts, no weird physics breaking down. It's like… a timeline we've never seen before."
Cassian frowned. "Which makes no sense."
"Exactly."
They sat in silence for a moment, nursing their drinks. Then, a waiter came by with the bill. Cassian glanced at it and immediately reached for his pocket.
"Cash," Rory muttered.
Cassian rolled his eyes. "Yes, I know how to lay low."
He tossed a few crumpled bills onto the counter—thankfully, currency from most timelines worked the same way. The waiter nodded and walked away without another glance.
Cassian exhaled. "Alright. Let's find a place to stay before we figure out how much trouble we're in."
They checked into a run-down motel on the outskirts of the city, paying in cash to avoid leaving a digital trace. The room smelled like damp wood and bad decisions, but it had a bed and four walls, which was good enough.
Cassian collapsed onto the mattress with a groan. "Alright. This? This is luxury."
Rory kicked the door shut and sat on the edge of the other bed, studying him.
"…Okay," she said finally. "Are you gonna tell me why the Syndicate is still after you, or do I have to guess?"
Cassian sighed, rubbing his face. "It's complicated."
"We have time."
Cassian snorted. "Ironically, that's the one thing we don't have."
Rory folded her arms. "Cass."
He groaned again, sitting up. "Fine. You really wanna know? It all started with The Great Eclipse. The moment reality fractured, the Syndicate saw an opportunity. They figured out how to harvest time itself—siphoning energy from doomed timelines to fuel the ones they wanted to keep."
Rory frowned. "Yeah, I know that part."
"What you don't know is what I found out." Cassian leaned forward, his voice dropping. "The Syndicate isn't just trying to harvest time. They're trying to rewrite it. Merge every timeline into one. Under their rule."
Rory blinked. "That's… insane."
Cassian laughed bitterly. "Tell that to them." He took another swig of his drink. "When I realized what they were doing, I tried to stop them. I sabotaged a harvest operation, freed an entire timeline from collapse. Pissed off a lot of powerful people."
"…So they put a bounty on your head."
Cassian nodded. "Biggest one in the multiverse."
Rory exhaled. "You really don't do things halfway, huh?"
Cassian grinned. "What can I say? I'm an overachiever."
Rory groaned, rubbing her temples. "Alright. Well. Now we're both screwed."
"Nah." Cassian leaned back, smirking. "We're just getting started."
Outside, the neon city flickered, time humming beneath its surface.
Tomorrow, they'd plan. Tonight, they'd drink.
Because no one outruns the Syndicate forever.
But Cassian Vey sure as hell was going to try.