Ethan stood at the edge of the ruined vault, the echoes of collapsing time still reverberating through the city. The war was over. The Time Loop Bank was gone. The Architects had vanished. The world was no longer under anyone's control. But that didn't mean the fight was finished. It just meant it had changed.
Cassandra scanned the skyline, her fingers tightening into fists. "Everything's different."
Lyra checked her console. "Not just different. Unstable. The loop is gone, but time is still correcting itself." She turned the screen toward Ethan, showing flickering data streams struggling to realign. "We freed time, but it doesn't know what to do with itself yet."
Aiden smirked. "Sounds familiar."
Ethan exhaled. "What's the damage?"
Lyra swiped through the data. "Good news? The people who were erased are back. Bad news? So are some who shouldn't be."
Cassandra frowned. "Like who?"
Lyra's face darkened. "We won't know until the world catches up. But if the Architects were rewriting history, that means some of the most dangerous people in existence could be walking around like nothing ever happened."
Ethan clenched his jaw. He had spent his entire life fighting to survive the system. Now that it was gone, he was realizing something much worse. Without control, time wasn't just free—it was unpredictable.
A sudden explosion rocked the city below. Smoke rose from one of the lower districts. Cassandra sighed. "Didn't take long."
Lyra cursed under her breath. "It's a power grab. The ones who knew the system existed are already trying to claim what's left."
Ethan's pulse remained steady. They had just won a war. Now they had to prevent another.
Aiden folded his arms. "So, fearless leader, what's the plan?"
Ethan looked at the city. No Time Loop Bank. No Architects. No resets. A world without control. A world where people could rewrite their own future.
But first, someone had to make sure the past didn't come back to destroy it.
He exhaled slowly. "We rebuild."
Cassandra arched a brow. "You mean clean up the mess we just made?"
Ethan nodded. "We didn't fight for a world without control just to let someone else take it."
Lyra crossed her arms. "So we become what? Time's new protectors?"
Aiden chuckled. "That's ironic."
Ethan's voice was calm. "No. We don't control time. We make sure no one ever does again."
Cassandra smirked. "That's a big job."
Ethan smirked back. "Good thing we've got time."
The city burned below, power shifting, history rewriting itself in real time. And Ethan Carter?
He was finally ready to live.