Ethan stepped out of the core, the weight of his decision settling over him like a second skin. The loop was rewritten. The system was no longer theirs. But that didn't mean the fight was over. It meant it was just beginning.
Lyra's console flashed with incoming signals—new timelines syncing, erased identities restoring, gaps in history filling themselves in. She exhaled sharply. "The network is stabilizing, but the top-tier protocols… they're still locked."
Cassandra frowned. "Meaning?"
Aiden's smirk faded. "Meaning the Time Loop Bank still has failsafes."
Ethan's pulse remained steady. "Then we take those too."
The halls around them were silent, but Ethan knew it wouldn't last. The operatives, the enforcers, the ones who profited from controlling time—they wouldn't just let this happen. They would fight to keep what they had stolen.
Cassandra's voice was sharp. "They're going to send everything they have."
Lyra pulled up security feeds, scanning the movements across the corporate sector. "They already have. Enforcer teams mobilizing. They haven't figured out what changed yet, but they know something is wrong."
Aiden nodded. "That gives us a window."
Ethan met his gaze. "How long?"
Aiden smirked. "Five minutes. Maybe less."
Ethan didn't hesitate. "Then we finish this before they stop us."
They moved fast, weaving through the infrastructure beneath the city, past old control hubs and forgotten maintenance tunnels. Every step brought them closer to the final layer—the place where the remaining locks held the last remnants of the Time Loop Bank's authority.
Lyra checked her console. "The failsafe servers are in the control wing. If we wipe those, every trace of their control disappears."
Cassandra exhaled. "And then what?"
Ethan's jaw tightened. "Then they can't rewrite anything ever again."
The final door stood before them. No keypads, no terminals. Just a reinforced vault built to outlast time itself.
Aiden stepped forward. "One way in."
Ethan didn't hesitate. He placed his hand against the biometric scanner. The system hesitated—then it accepted him.
The vault opened.
Cassandra's breath caught. "How?"
Aiden smirked. "Because the system doesn't belong to them anymore."
Inside, the failsafe servers pulsed with artificial life. Rows of quantum nodes, a digital graveyard of every erased name, every stolen moment, every rewritten second. This was where the Time Loop Bank had built its last stronghold.
Lyra's voice was quiet. "This is it."
Ethan exhaled, stepping forward. The final command waited. One last action to erase their control forever.
He didn't hesitate.
He reached for the system.
And then, the alarms screamed.
They weren't alone anymore.
The war had arrived.