287 A World Without Eclipse
287 A World Without Eclipse
It had taken more than effort; it had taken alignment across impossibilities, a convergence of luck, violence, and precision that I could feel humming in my bones. I stood at the highest tower of a world already rotting from within, its cities hollowed out by plague and silence, its skies stained with a permanent dusk. The air carried no life, only the residue of what had once been.
Beside me, Griffin’s breathing was steady, heavy with exertion, and I could still feel the aftershock of what we had done together. Out of the nineteen million, seven hundred thousand, two hundred and six permutations Guesswork had sifted through, this was the single thread where we won. The thought didn’t comfort me; it only made everything feel narrower, more suffocating.
Above us, the moon descended.
It was not a natural fall. I had felt its resistance when I phased through its mass, when Griffin pushed against it with raw, defiant strength that cracked the limits of what a body should endure. Together, we had forced inevitability to bend. Now it obeyed, dragged from its orbit like a severed limb returning to the wound. Its surface glowed faintly, friction igniting its descent, the edges beginning to burn as it carved through the upper atmosphere. Even from this distance, the sky trembled.
I turned when Amelia’s voice broke behind me. I draped my coat over her shoulders, the fabric hanging loosely over her bare skin, shielding her from nothing but giving my hands something to do other than shake. Her face was streaked with tears, her eyes fixed on the impossible thing falling from the heavens.
“Do we really have to do this, Nick?” she asked, her voice uneven and fragile.
“We have to,” I said, and the words came out flat, stripped of anything resembling comfort.
It wasn’t just Guesswork guiding me, though its certainty pulsed at the edge of my awareness like a second heartbeat. I had followed that power long enough to know when it spoke in absolutes. This was one of those moments. There were no alternate paths branching outward, no clever deviations to exploit. Only this.
“How about evacuation?” she pressed, her voice rising, grasping at anything that wasn’t this.
“And where are we going to put them?” I replied, turning to face her fully now. “In our world? The same place that just survived two multiversal invasions? What happens when billions of displaced people flood into a reality that can barely stabilize itself? What about the consequences, Amelia? The fractures, the violence, the sickness from crossing dimensions?”
Her expression twisted, anger cutting through grief as she shouted, “So we’ll kill billions!? Is that it?”
I stepped forward and pulled her into me before she could move away, holding her tightly as if pressure alone could anchor her to something solid.
“We have to do this,” I said into her hair, my voice quieter now, but no less firm. “Or there won’t be an end to this. Not for us. Not for anyone.”
She pushed me back with more strength than I expected, her eyes returning to the sky just as the moon’s glow intensified, its descent accelerating into something final. For a moment, neither of us spoke. There was nothing left to argue, only the weight of what was already in motion.
I wrapped an arm around her again, this time without resistance, and pulled us both out of the world.
Space swallowed us whole in an instant. The transition was silent, clean, leaving the ruined planet suspended beneath our feet like a dying ember. We floated just beyond its atmosphere, untethered, watching as the moon closed the last distance. Amelia’s tears drifted from her eyes in slow, perfect spheres, catching the distant light before dispersing into nothing. Her breathing steadied, her expression cooling into something distant, something resolved.
“Let’s do this,” she mouthed, the words forming without sound.
I gave a small gesture for her to wait.
Below us, the moon struck.
The impact was not a single moment but a chain reaction of annihilation. Contact triggered a blinding surge of light, an expanding sphere of white-hot energy that consumed the surface in an instant. The crust shattered outward like glass under pressure, tectonic plates fracturing and lifting as if the planet itself were trying to recoil. Shockwaves rippled across continents, flattening what remained of cities, turning mountains into collapsing ridgelines of molten debris. The atmosphere ignited, a ring of fire encircling the world as it struggled and failed to contain the force unleashed upon it.
The oceans, what little remained of them, vaporized almost instantly, erupting into colossal plumes of steam that were then torn apart by the expanding blast. Beneath the surface, deeper than any natural disaster could reach, the energy drove downward, boring through layers of rock and metal toward the hidden core where the Source nested. I felt it as much as I saw it, a violent intrusion into something fundamental, something that resisted until it didn’t.
The planet began to deform.
Its spherical shape buckled under the strain, fissures spreading like veins of light across its surface. Chunks of its mass were hurled into space, trailing molten tails as gravity lost its grip on cohesion. The moon itself did not remain intact; it fragmented upon impact, its pieces embedding into the collapsing world, adding to the chaos rather than stabilizing it. Everything folded inward and outward at once, a catastrophic unraveling that left nothing untouched.
I reached inward, letting Guesswork extend beyond sight, beyond physics, into probability and consequence. I searched for the thread we needed, the confirmation that this act had done what it was meant to do. For a few stretched seconds, there was only noise, a storm of possibilities collapsing into one another.
Then it quieted.
The Source was gone in the only way that mattered.
“Let’s go,” Amelia mouthed again, more firmly this time.
I nodded, the motion small but decisive. “Let’s go.”
Space bent around us as I pulled us away from the dying world, leaving behind the expanding debris field and the fading light of its destruction. The transition to the next reality was immediate, seamless, as if stepping across an invisible threshold.
There were six hundred fifty-two worlds under SRC control.
A quarter of them were already dead, but we also needed to destroy the Source within them. That meant doing the same thing we just did now.
Each world blurred into the next, a procession of silent executions carried out in the vacuum between stars. Amelia would grow first, her body expanding beyond proportion, bones stretching into something titanic as Griffin’s form overtook her. It was never graceful. It was force, raw and undeniable, a living engine of muscle and will. She would anchor herself against the moon, fingers digging into its surface like it was soft clay, and then she would push.
I would follow through it, slipping into intangibility as I phased into the moon’s core. Gravity resisted me every time, a stubborn pull that demanded obedience, but I ignored it, severing its ties to the orbit it had known for eons. Between her strength and my interference, the celestial body would lurch, hesitate, and then begin its descent.
From there, it always played out the same.
We would retreat into space, hovering just beyond the reach of consequence, watching as another dead world met its end.
The moon would strike, the crust would shatter, and the Source hidden beneath would collapse under the pressure we forced upon it. Guesswork would hum its quiet confirmation, and we would move on.
We did it again and again.
The count blurred. The motions didn’t.
Grip. Phase. Break orbit. Retreat. Impact. Confirm. Leave.
Each cycle carved something out of me, though I couldn’t name exactly what was being lost. Maybe it was hesitation, or maybe it was something softer that I had no use for anymore. Guesswork remained steady, guiding me forward, assuring me that this path was the one that led to an end where Dr. Time stayed gone.
Eventually, we reached the first world with life.
From orbit, I could see the lights scattered across the surface, clusters of civilization glowing against the dark. The atmosphere was alive, clouds drifting in layered patterns, oceans reflecting the distant sun. It looked untouched, unbroken, completely unaware of what was approaching it. For the first time since we began, the process stalled without either of us saying a word.
Amelia didn’t transform.
She floated beside me, smaller now, exposed again, the suit long gone from the repeated strain of her shifts. Her body bore the faint signs of what she had been forcing herself through, but that wasn’t what held her still. It was the world below us.
“I can’t do this, Nick,” she mouthed.
I removed my porcelain mask slowly, the familiar barrier coming away from my face as I looked at her. For a moment, I said nothing. Then I mouthed back, “It’s fine, I can do this alone.”
The words felt heavier than they should have.
I reached out, placing a hand on her shoulder, already preparing to send her away, back to somewhere untouched by what I was about to do. Somewhere she wouldn’t have to watch. The moment stretched just long enough for me to almost believe she would let me.
She didn’t.
Her hand snapped up, swatting mine away with sharp, immediate force. Before I could react, she grabbed my shoulder instead, her grip tight, anchoring me in place. She started screaming, her mouth moving rapidly, desperately, the sound lost to the vacuum but the meaning unmistakable as I read every word from her lips.
“We can’t do this, Nick! No matter what, there are lines that we shouldn’t cross! So many lives, so many… I… I… We can’t do this. If you do this, I will have to put you down. Please, Nick. Come to your senses. We can’t do this. We shouldn’t do this. What if your guess wasn’t right? It’s Guesswork’s power, right? The power to guess! It leaves so much uncertainty. Just for the comfort of knowing he might not come back, is it worth it? No, it isn’t, Nick. A life back home is waiting for you. You can’t come back to Nicole or your son with this baggage. Please, Nick. Come to your senses. Let Dr. Time come back as he please. When he does, we’ll stop him together! You! Me! Nicole! Everyone! Please! You said you were done with Eclipse. You can just be Nick, like you said. This is it, Nick. Make a difference. Do something that Eclipse won’t do. Please, don’t do this to them. To yourself. You deserve better. You can do better.”
Each word landed harder than the last.
I couldn’t hear her, not really, but I didn’t need to. The way her face contorted, the way her grip trembled, the way her entire body seemed to strain toward me as if she could physically pull me back from the edge? I felt all of it. It bled through the silence, settling somewhere deep in my chest where Guesswork couldn’t reach.
I gritted my teeth, trying to hold onto the certainty that had carried me this far. It flickered.
Amelia kept going, her expression breaking further as she forced the final words out.
“Please, Nick, this is genocide.”
The word lingered.
My fingers loosened around the porcelain mask. For a second, I didn’t even realize I was still holding it. Then it slipped free, drifting downward until it collided softly with the moon’s surface below us, a small, meaningless impact compared to everything else we had done.
Tears blurred my vision before I could stop them.
The clarity I had been clinging to fractured, doubt seeping into the cracks, spreading faster than I could contain it. Guesswork’s quiet assurances felt distant now, drowned out by something louder, something painfully human that I had been suppressing with every world we erased.
Shit.
The thought came unfiltered, raw and useless.
What was I doing?
The question didn’t have an answer anymore.
My body gave out before my mind could catch up. I folded in on myself, the composure I had maintained unraveling completely as I broke down, the tears coming harder, shaking through me in uneven bursts. I felt small in a way I hadn’t allowed myself to feel in a long time, stripped of the role I had forced myself into.
Amelia pulled me into her without hesitation.
I clung to her, my hands gripping whatever I could as the sobs tore through me, uncontrolled and relentless. There was no sound in the vacuum, no release beyond the physical act of it, but it didn’t matter. It was all there anyway, every fracture, every doubt, every suppressed hesitation finally forcing its way out.
My heart felt like it was coming apart.
But it didn’t.
Somewhere beneath the collapse, I felt it trying to hold itself together, uneven and fragile, like something being stitched back piece by piece without knowing if it would ever be the same again. Amelia’s hand rested against my head, her fingers moving slowly through my hair, steady and grounding in a way nothing else had been.
She held me there in the silence of space, and for the first time since we began, we weren’t moving toward destruction.
…
..
.
[POV: Cordellia]
The funeral stretched longer than I expected, not in time but in weight. Every pair of eyes felt like a quiet demand, a reminder that I was no longer allowed to linger in the background or let Lear’s shadow speak for me.
Qilin of Foresthome and Gameboy of Urbanite were names that carried entire histories behind them, and now both histories had been cut short, placed side by side beneath banners that tried and failed to make the loss feel ceremonial rather than abrupt. I stood at the front longer than I wanted, my legs threatening to give out as the reality of it pressed in from all directions.
Lockworld had reached a turning point, one that demanded a face, a voice, and decisions that couldn’t be deferred anymore. We were no longer a prison, no longer a territory under SRC’s thumb, and not yet stable enough to pretend we understood what autonomy truly meant.
The silence between speeches felt heavier than the words themselves, like everyone present understood that this was not just mourning but a declaration of something uncertain and potentially volatile.
System Administrator stepped up to the podium with a composure that felt carefully assembled. She rested her hands against the sides, glanced over the crowd, and let out a small breath that almost passed as a laugh.
“Gameboy would’ve hated this,” she began, her voice steady but threaded with something softer beneath it. “Not the attention, mind you. He loved attention. It’s the formality he couldn’t stand. If he were here, he’d probably hack the mic, replace my speech with some ridiculous soundboard, and then blame it on me just to watch me get angry.”
A few scattered chuckles broke through the tension.
“He once rewired an entire district’s entertainment grid just to loop a single joke for six hours straight. I didn’t speak to him for a week after that, and he kept insisting it was ‘performance art.’ I married him anyway, so clearly my judgment wasn’t perfect.” Her lips curved faintly, but her eyes didn’t follow. “He was reckless, loud, and impossible to manage, and somehow he made everything feel… lighter. Like even the worst situations had an exit if you just looked hard enough.”
Her fingers tightened slightly against the podium.
“I don’t get to argue with him anymore. I don’t get to tell him he’s being an idiot or watch him prove me wrong in the most inconvenient way possible. What happened… shouldn’t have happened. Not like that. Not to him. Not to any of them.” She paused, just long enough for the silence to settle again. “But if there’s one thing he would absolutely hate more than this funeral, it’s all of us standing still because of it. So don’t. Build something. Break something if you have to. Just don’t stop.”
She stepped away before anyone could respond, leaving the weight of her words hanging in the air.
I exhaled slowly, my thoughts already drifting toward what came next. Diplomacy between Foresthome and Urbanite was going to be a nightmare wrapped in polite smiles and veiled threats. Gameboy had been a bridge, chaotic as he was, and without him, every conversation would feel like walking across something unfinished.
After it ended, I made my way toward Foresthome.
The shift from the structured grief of the ceremony to the living, breathing chaos of the forest was almost disorienting. The air felt different, less suffocating, filled with the quiet hum of life that refused to acknowledge the weight we had just carried. It didn’t take long to find Tony.
“Look, look, I got a little brother!” he called out the moment he saw me, holding the baby up with unfiltered excitement.
Ron stared at me with an intensity that didn’t belong on an infant’s face. His tiny brows seemed almost furrowed, his expression carrying a level of judgment that felt entirely disproportionate to his size, as if he had already grown tired of everything around him. I stared back for a moment, unsure whether to be amused or unsettled.
“I will have my price!” a voice suddenly tore through the air, sharp and unhinged. “I finally found you—”
The old man barely finished his sentence.
His form flickered into existence like a glitch in reality, translucent and wrong, his eyes bloodshot and fixed on the child. Before anyone else could react, Ron lifted slightly from Tony’s arms, his tiny hand making a vague, almost dismissive gesture.
The old man exploded into motes of light.
There was no struggle, no resistance, just a clean, absolute erasure that left nothing behind but fading particles.
“Cool,” Tony said, completely unfazed.
I let out a slow breath, my mind already categorizing what I had just witnessed. A temporal echo, most likely, some lingering fragment tied to Dr. Time’s influence. Even in death, it seemed the man refused to vanish cleanly. Yes, that man should be dead by now. After all, that was the only reason a temporal echo could exist.
Ron’s eyes drooped almost immediately after, the brief display of power replaced by simple exhaustion. His body tipped forward, but Tony caught him effortlessly, reality bending just enough to soften the motion into something gentle.
I turned to Dr. Hera. “Like always, I’m thankful you’re looking after them.”
Before she could respond, Perry’s voice cut through the moment. “Lunch!” he shouted, dragging an absurdly large pot behind him as others followed, the normalcy of it almost surreal after what had just happened.
Then the air shifted.
He appeared without warning, precise and controlled, as if space itself had made room for him rather than the other way around. Eclipse stood before us in a sharp suit, holding a dead man in his embrace. It was Guesswork with a bullet hole in his forehead.
He lowered the body carefully.
“Dr. Hera, can you look over for him when you can?” he said.
Tony’s eyes lit up instantly at Eclipse. “Whoa, it’s my appointed father.”
I narrowed my gaze slightly. “Is it over, Eclipse?”
He smiled, the expression softer than I expected. “Please, call me Nick, and yes, it’s over. Dr. Time is dead.”
The words landed with a strange kind of finality.
He picked Ron up with practiced ease, then ruffled Tony’s hair before lifting him just as effortlessly, the boy slung over his shoulder with zero resistance.
“Yes, I’m coming along!” Tony said, grinning. “I’m not gonna forget you, Auntie Delia!”
I blinked. “W-what? Auntie?”
“Talk to you later,” Nick said, already turning away. “And no, Tony, don’t talk to your aunt like you’d never see her again. Be more grateful, would you?”
They vanished.
The silence that followed lasted exactly long enough for it to become noticeable.
One of the Foresthome guards cleared his throat poorly, his shoulders shaking. “Auntie Delia, huh… that’s—”
“Don’t,” another muttered, failing to suppress a grin. “Just… don’t.”
Even my own bodyguard shifted slightly, clearly struggling. “With all due respect, Lady Cordelia, that… title carries a certain warmth.”
I turned my head slowly, fixing them with a look that should have been enough.
It wasn’t.
The laughter came anyway, stifled, restrained, but unmistakably there.
I didn’t say anything further. The glare was enough to make them straighten, even if the amusement lingered in their expressions.
Still, the word echoed longer than I cared to admit.
Auntie.
…
..
.
[POV: Nicole]
I felt terrible.
Not in some abstract, emotional way, but in the most immediate, physical sense possible. My stomach twisted uncomfortably, a stubborn pressure that refused to resolve itself no matter how I shifted on the couch. It was distracting enough that even the chaos on the television struggled to fully hold my attention.
The screen showed clouds splitting open with writhing shapes pushing through them, massive tentacles forming and dissolving like something testing the boundary of reality before retreating. The report tried to package it neatly, calling it the “Devil’s Triangle phenomenon,” describing it as some kind of cosmic anomaly that briefly manifested and then vanished without clear cause.
It didn’t feel brief.
It felt like something had almost arrived.
“Boss, I’m alive?” a voice called out, confused and disoriented.
I turned my head just enough to see Phasecrash sitting up, her dark hair a mess, her expression caught somewhere between disbelief and cautious relief.
“Yehey, we’re not discarded like some useless extra,” Two-D added, her tone uneven as she pushed herself up as well.
The moment didn’t last.
Onyx had a shotgun pressed squarely against Two-D’s face before the woman could fully process what was happening. “Where’s our darn son!?” she demanded, her voice sharp enough to cut through anything resembling calm.
Silver stood beside her, revving a chainsaw with a low, threatening growl. “Yeah, you heard Onyx! Where’s our son?”
Two-D froze completely, her entire body trembling as the reality of the situation caught up with her. “S-some guy in a labcoat t-took Little King away… He c-could stop time.”
Phasecrash rubbed her head, wincing slightly. “Yeah, I was beaten by the same guy. Guesswork was there too. How did we survive? And why can’t I feel my powers?”
“Because I saved you,” Spoiler said casually from across the room, peeling an apple with precise, almost bored movements.
She didn’t even look up as she continued.
“An alternate future version of myself showed up, gave me a list of instructions, and told me exactly what to do. Guesswork helped fill in the gaps. Anti-Power potion for both of you, staged deaths, minimal complications. Call it a small mercy.” She took a bite of the apple, chewing thoughtfully. “You’ll get your powers back eventually. Timing depends on when the boss returns.”
I straightened slightly despite myself. “When the boss returns?”
She shrugged. “That’s the part I wasn’t given specifics on. Something about a task force hunting Dr. Time variants, or monitoring one if any slip through. Either way, it sounds like work, and I’m already starting to hate it.”
The room settled into an uneasy quiet after that.
Onyx lowered the shotgun slightly, though not by much, while Silver let the chainsaw idle instead of revving it further. Two-D looked like she might pass out, and Phasecrash seemed more focused on the absence of her powers than anything else.
I barely registered any of it.
My focus had narrowed to a single, growing concern that pushed past even my current physical discomfort.
Shit.
Where were Nick and Ron?
“I’m going home,” I told them, pushing myself up despite the lingering discomfort that still hadn’t fully gone away. “Onyx, keep an ear on the ground and look for anything Nick or Ron related. Silver, you’re working in my place for the time being. How’s George doing?”
Spoiler didn’t even look up from her apple as she answered, her tone as casual as ever. “Still healing from his little confrontation with Dr. Time. Hover’s got boots on the ground, keeping things stable. Abner insists he’ll be back to work as soon as he can, which sounds like a terrible idea but no one’s stopping him. There’s also the Red-Black Accord situation brewing, but Chad said he’ll handle it.”
She finally glanced at me, expression flattening slightly.
“The real problem is the alliance between different worlds. They want a formal meeting, negotiations, all the boring parts that come with not killing each other. You have to attend.”
I let out a long sigh, already feeling the headache forming. “Yeah, yeah… I’ll deal with it.”
I didn’t wait for anything else. I grabbed my keys and left before anyone could add more to the pile.
The drive felt longer than usual, though I knew it wasn’t. My thoughts kept circling back to the same two names, over and over again, refusing to settle. The safe-house came into view eventually, tucked away just far enough to feel separate from everything else. I had picked it out a while ago, back when things were quieter, imagining something resembling a normal life.
It looked close enough to what we used to have.
Before Nick phased the entire building out of existence like it was nothing.
I stepped out, walked up to the door, and hesitated for just a second before opening it.
I wasn’t prepared for what I saw inside.
Nick stood there like nothing had happened, holding Ron in his arms, a bottle pressed gently to the baby’s mouth. The scene was so normal it felt unreal, like I had walked into something staged just for me.
My throat tightened before I could stop it. “N-Nick?”
He looked up and smiled, that same devilish curve of his lips that always meant he knew exactly what kind of reaction he was getting. “Surprise.”
Something moved in the kitchen.
A boy popped up from behind the counter, brown hair slightly messy, icing smeared across his face as he carried a freshly baked cake with both hands. “Whoa! An old lady!”
I froze.
O-old?
Who?
Me?
I felt something twitch at the corner of my mouth as I slowly turned back to Nick. “Who is the kid, Nick?”
The boy puffed his chest proudly, completely unaware of the danger he had just stepped into. “The name’s Anthony M. Caldwell! But please call me Tony! I am going to be the best superhero to ever walk the world! Nice to meet you!”
Caldwell.
My eyes snapped back to Nick.
I didn’t say anything at first. I didn’t need to.
The glare was enough.
“What?” he asked, already sounding defensive.
“You have a secret family or something?” I shot back, my tone sharp enough to cut through steel.
“Awesome! Mom’s so cool!” Tony added, somehow making the situation worse.
I turned away before I said something irreversible, my gaze landing on the television instead.
Griffin.
Being interviewed.
My glare shifted instantly.
It wasn’t a glare anymore.
It was a death stare.
Nick made a small, very noticeable gulp. “I’m sure there’s a misunderstanding somewhere. Let me explain.”
…
..
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[POV: Nick]
It took longer than I would have liked, but I managed to explain everything.
Every part of it.
The worlds, the destruction, Amelia, Ron, Tony, and everything in between that sounded progressively more insane the longer it stayed in the air. Nicole didn’t interrupt much, which somehow made it worse. She just listened, her expression shifting in small, unreadable ways as I went on.
By the time I finished, the room felt heavier.
“So,” she said slowly, leaning back slightly as if she needed the distance just to process it, “a multiversal adopted son capable of reality warping who has a penchant for cooking and eating everything in sight?”
Tony chose that exact moment to pull a second cake out of nowhere like he had been waiting for his cue.
“Yes,” I said.
We sat on the sofa, the television still running in the background, though neither of us was really paying attention to it anymore.
“And on top of that,” Nicole continued, her eyes narrowing just slightly, “we have a magical psychic baby that a certain insane doctor wants to possess so he can reach godhood?”
I nodded once.
That sentence alone was enough to make me pause internally.
It really was a long way from street-level problems.
Nicole tilted her head just a bit, her gaze sharpening. “So how does Amelia fit into this?”
“She’s the mother of that child,” I answered.
Her expression hardened instantly.
“An alternate version of her,” I added quickly.
She stared at me for a few seconds longer, then let out a breath that sounded like she had just decided not to care anymore. “You know what, screw it.”
Before I could react, she leaned in and grabbed me by the collar, pulling me into a kiss that was far more forceful than anything I had expected. My balance gave out almost immediately, and I fell back onto the sofa with her following right after.
“Wait,” I managed to get out between breaths, my brain finally catching up with what was happening. “The kids are here—”
“We got you covered,” Silver’s voice cut in casually.
I turned my head just enough to see her sitting comfortably on a distant chair like she had always been there.
Onyx lounged on the opposite end of the sofa, arms crossed, a slight pout on her face. “I want some action too.”
She sighed dramatically, though there was a faint smirk behind it. “But I guess you deserve the win this time, Nicole. Anyway, have fun. We’ve got it covered.”
Nicole grabbed my hand and pulled me up before I could process anything further.
That was when it really sank in.
Holy shit.
“I want a girl!” Silver shouted from behind us, entirely unhelpful as always.
I didn’t get the chance to respond before Nicole dragged me out of the room, the rest of the world very quickly becoming someone else’s problem.
…
..
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[POV: Guesswork/Sam]
I woke to the unfamiliar softness of a bed that wasn’t mine, the fabric beneath me too clean, too intact, too real for what I had expected the afterlife to feel like. For a long moment, I didn’t move, didn’t breathe any deeper than necessary, as if the slightest shift might shatter whatever fragile illusion I had been placed into. Then the awareness hit all at once. I was naked, unrestrained, and very much conscious.
Wait.
I’m alive?
“Wakey, wakey,” Dr. Hera’s voice came, light and almost amused, cutting cleanly through the fog in my head.
I turned sharply toward her, my mind scrambling to reconcile what I was seeing. Lockworld. I knew her from Lockworld. That much lined up. What didn’t line up was everything else. My hand shot up to my forehead, fingers pressing against the spot where there should have been a hole, where there had been a hole.
There was nothing.
No wound. No scar. No lingering trace of the bullet that should have erased me not just here, but across iterations, across the fragile lattice of selves that defined my existence.
I stared at my hand like it had betrayed me.
That bullet had been absolute. I had calculated it, understood it, accepted its consequences. It wasn’t supposed to leave anything behind. Not a survivor. Not a fragment. Not me.
And yet.
I was still here.
The realization spiraled outward, dragging a horrifying conclusion with it. I had pulled the trigger knowing what it would do. I had ended countless versions of myself in one decisive act, collapsing possibilities into a single, final outcome.
Except the outcome hadn’t held.
“W-what’s the meaning of this?” I asked, my voice catching in a way I didn’t recognize as my own.
Dr. Hera smiled, and there was something off about it, something that leaned just slightly too far into satisfaction. “A happy ending,” she said. “Why? Do you not like it?”
I didn’t answer immediately.
She continued anyway, as if my reaction wasn’t particularly relevant. “I imagine this is part of the reason Eclipse brought you to me. Of course, there’s a limit to what I can do. Give or take, maybe five years. If you’re lucky, you might stretch that to a decade.”
Five years.
Ten if I got lucky.
The numbers settled in my mind with a strange kind of clarity.
“We know too little about souls,” she went on, her tone shifting into something more clinical, more detached. “For all we know, you might not even be the same person who lived before. The you standing here could just be an imitation that thinks it’s the original.”
Her eyes lingered on me, searching, measuring.
“But you know how it goes,” she added with a small shrug. “Some things are too hard to understand and just as hard to explain. In those cases, it’s usually better not to think about them too much.”
Not think about it.
I almost laughed.
The first coherent thought that formed wasn’t about identity, or the implications of surviving something designed to erase me. It wasn’t even about the time limit she had casually placed on my existence.
It was Lisa.
The thought hit like a reflex, immediate and overwhelming. Before I could second-guess it, before I could let doubt creep in, I moved. Lockworld’s portal systems were familiar enough, and familiarity was all I needed.
The transition was seamless, given how cooperative Lisa was..
Sunnyday Care stood in silence when I arrived, the building dark, its usual warmth dimmed by the absence of activity. The stillness pressed in on me as I approached, each step heavier than the last. My hand hovered near the door, hesitation creeping in for the first time since I woke up.
The kids would be asleep.
Everything should be quiet.
I swallowed, the motion tight and uneasy, as if I was bracing for something I couldn’t fully define.
Then the door opened.
Lisa stood there.
For a moment, I couldn’t process anything beyond the fact that she was real, standing in front of me, unchanged in all the ways that mattered. Then my gaze dropped slightly, catching the subtle curve beneath her clothes, the small but unmistakable sign of something new.
Pregnant.
My thoughts stalled completely.
She bit her lip, her eyes fixed on me with an intensity that carried too many emotions to separate cleanly. Relief, disbelief, something softer beneath it all that I didn’t dare name too quickly.
“Oh, Sam,” she said quietly, “welcome back home.”
Sam.
The name settled over me like something I had almost forgotten how to wear.
I stood there, suspended between everything I had lost and everything that had somehow been returned to me. The questions were still there, the uncertainties, the quiet ticking of whatever time I had left.
Five years.
Ten if I was lucky.
I let out a slow breath, something in me loosening just enough to step forward.
A happy ending, huh?
Maybe.
Maybe not.
It didn’t matter.
Even if it was just a day, I would take it.
…
..
.
[POV: Dullahan]
“You do know this is pointless,” I said as I reloaded my weapon in the middle of the arcade game, the plastic gun clicking with hollow precision that still translated cleanly through my systems.
George didn’t even glance at me, his attention locked on the screen as another wave of zombies lurched forward. He squeezed the trigger in controlled bursts, racking up points with irritating efficiency. That ridiculous hoodie clung to him like a glitch that refused to resolve, its shifting patterns of erotic anime girls flickering subtly as if the fabric itself couldn’t decide what it wanted to display. I had analyzed it more than once. It behaved like corrupted data given form, and yet it persisted, immune to correction.
“Why?” he shot back casually. “Is a date at an arcade too low-class for you? For a headless chick with next to no special qualities, you sure get picky.”
We cleared the wave almost simultaneously, our scores flashing across the screen in competitive defiance of each other.
“Like always, your teasing eludes me,” I replied, my tone even as I lined up the next shot. “Headless chicks like me are the best, I’d have you know.”
He snorted, though whether it was at my response or the game, I couldn’t tell.
We stayed there longer than necessary, moving from machine to machine, chasing the hollow satisfaction of flashing lights and synthetic victories. Eventually, the noise blurred into something tolerable, a background layer that didn’t demand analysis. When we left, the mall swallowed us into a different kind of aimlessness.
We wandered without purpose, stepping into stores neither of us cared about, lingering in places simply because we could. It was inefficient, unproductive, and entirely unnecessary.
I found myself continuing anyway.
“You do know pursuing me with romantic interest in mind is pointless, right?” I said as we passed a storefront filled with mannequins that failed to approximate humanity convincingly. “We can’t procreate.”
He grinned like I had just handed him an opening. “You don’t know that. Ever heard the saying ‘when there’s a hole, there’s a goal’?”
I turned my head slightly toward him, processing the statement. “I don’t have any holes.”
“And I don’t really have anything to poke your holes with,” he replied without missing a beat. “But I get it, we’re built different.”
He shoved his hands into his hoodie pocket, his expression softening just enough to shift the tone.
“Hell, we can’t even kiss or anything like that. Physical touch for us is just data. Signals. Stuff we interpret the same way we hack into systems. But even with all that…” He glanced at me, and there was something unusually direct in his gaze. “I think there’s still something real here. A connection. At the end of the day, we’re still human.”
Human.
The word didn’t fit me cleanly anymore.
He pulled something from his pocket and held it out.
A USB drive.
I looked at it for a moment before taking it. “What is this?”
“You’re a supercriminal wanted across an entire continent,” he said, his tone shifting back toward something lighter, though it carried an edge of sincerity beneath it. “A true, to-the-bone villain. So what do you say to leaving that life behind for me?”
I considered the question longer than necessary.
“I don’t really have a choice,” I answered finally. “The only support system I can rely on is the Company and you. If you tell me to do anything, I would do it, if it contributes to my survival.”
He exhaled slowly, something like disappointment flickering across his face. “Yeah… I kind of missed the mark today, didn’t I?” He gestured toward the USB. “Just open your gift.”
I brought it closer, letting my technopathy reach into it. The data unfolded instantly, clean and simple. No hidden layers. No malicious code. Just an aesthetic preset.
Nothing special.
I paused.
Then I applied it.
Photon constructs shifted at my command, light bending and layering into shape. The familiar absence above my shoulders filled with something new, something reconstructed from stored patterns and the data I had just absorbed. Features aligned, textures stabilized, and within seconds, I had a face again.
George held up a mirror.
I looked.
A fair-skinned woman stared back at me, her features sharp, her eyes narrow and focused. The image was stable, cohesive, undeniably human in a way I had not been for a long time.
“I dug around,” George said, his voice quieter now. “Before all this… before you were remade into what you are now, you were a person. You had a life. Family. Parents. All of it.”
He shifted slightly, watching my reaction.
“This is what you looked like before they pulled you in and turned you into a weapon. So… what do you think? Am I not—”
I moved before he could finish.
My arms wrapped around him, the motion instinctive rather than calculated. The contact translated through layers of interpretation, data resolving into something approximating warmth. It wasn’t supposed to feel like this. It wasn’t supposed to mean anything beyond signal exchange.
And yet.
Something swelled within me, unfamiliar and unquantifiable.
Not heat.
Not an error.
Something else.
“Thank you, George,” I said, holding onto him just a moment longer than necessary, as if testing whether the feeling would persist or collapse under scrutiny.
…
..
.
The world moved on without Eclipse.
At first, it did not know how to.
Griffin’s return had shaken the foundations of fear that had settled after the invasion, her presence a visible reassurance that something powerful still stood between humanity and extinction. Crowds gathered, broadcasts surged, and morale rose in a way that felt almost desperate, as if people needed something tangible to believe in again. Yet beneath that relief lingered something quieter and far more persistent. Eclipse had vanished, yes, but his absence did not erase what he had been.
If anything, it made him worse.
Stories spread in the years that followed, shifting with each retelling, bending into shapes that suited the fears of those who carried them. Children whispered about a devil who fell from the sky, a man who dragged moons from their place and ended worlds with a gesture. Others spoke of him as something inevitable, a shadow that would return when the world grew too comfortable. The truth blurred quickly, swallowed by myth and exaggeration until it no longer mattered what had actually happened.
What mattered was that he had not come back.
Time passed, and still, he did not return.
The fear never fully disappeared, but it dulled, settling into something manageable, something that could coexist with ordinary life. Griffin and the Global Defense Force became the visible shield of the world, a structured answer to chaos, a promise that whatever came next would be met with resistance.
Of course, the world was never simple enough to remain at peace without complication.
Knowledge of parallel worlds spread all at once. What had once been hidden became accessible, and with it came a surge of ambition, curiosity, and opportunism. New players emerged from the shadows, some cautious, others reckless. Secret families expanded their reach across realities, criminal organizations found new markets and methods, and reclusive powers began to stir as if awakened by the sheer possibility of more.
Sects formed around ideas that had once been impossible.
Power no longer belonged to a single world.
It belonged to all of them.
Amid that shifting landscape, one entity grew steadily, quietly weaving itself into the structure of society. The Company, as most people called it, operated with a level of influence that felt both subtle and absolute. When the SRC collapsed under the weight of its own corruption, scandals, and unchecked authority, the Company absorbed what remained and reshaped it into something new.
The Powers Rating Commission replaced the old system.
It presented itself as a nonprofit, an organization built around welfare, oversight, and support rather than control. At first, the public resisted. The memory of the SRC was still fresh, its failures too severe to ignore. Trust was not given easily.
The Company did not demand it.
They earned it.
Step by step, initiative by initiative, they closed the gap between the powered and the mundane. Victims of superhuman violence were given resources and attention they had never received before. Young individuals on the verge of becoming something dangerous were guided, monitored, and, when necessary, redirected. Education campaigns spread, dismantling fear piece by piece, replacing it with understanding.
It took time.
But it worked.
The world began to change, not dramatically, but enough to be noticed.
For now, peace held.
In a quiet corner of that evolving world, far removed from the noise of politics and power, two women sat across from each other with cups of tea, their conversation carrying none of the weight the world outside might have expected.
“So, how’s the family doing?” Amelia Morose asked, dressed in civilian attire that did little to hide the presence she carried even at rest. She took a measured sip, the rare moment of stillness something she clearly wasn’t used to.
Nicole Caldwell mirrored the gesture, her posture more relaxed but no less composed. “Nick’s off-world. You should know that. You approved it,” she replied, her tone carrying a hint of dry accusation. “I just wish he could be home more often.”
Amelia shrugged lightly. “I can’t make any promises. He’s fitting in well with the hero work. He needs it. Helps him move on from… everything. Gives him something new to build.” She paused briefly, a small smile forming. “Did you know he even took someone in to mentor?”
Nicole sighed, leaning back slightly. “That just means less time for us. Honestly, I want more time with my husband. He can fly, teleport, move faster than anything I can track, but somehow being home is the one thing he struggles with.” She shook her head, though there was no real anger behind it. “Anyway, are you picking up Tony this week? He’s been asking about you nonstop.”
Amelia hesitated, her expression shifting into something almost sheepish. “I don’t know. Things have been… busy.”
“Oh, come on,” Nicole pressed, a small grin forming. “He’s got an entire notebook of superhero ideas he wants to show you. Costumes, names, backstories, the whole thing.”
Amelia let out a quiet sigh before nodding. “Alright, alright. I’ll pick him up.”
She took another sip before continuing. “What about the little psychic and the youngest?”
Nicole’s expression softened slightly. “Eliza’s a handful. She keeps trying to awaken her powers, gets frustrated when nothing happens.” A faint amusement crept into her voice. “Ron feels bad for her, so he uses his telekinesis to fake it. Makes her think she has super strength or something.”
Amelia huffed a quiet laugh. “That’s… actually kind of adorable.”
“It is,” Nicole admitted, her gaze drifting briefly before returning. “For now, at least.”
For a moment, neither of them spoke. The silence wasn’t uncomfortable. It was earned.
Peace, even temporary, had a way of making silence feel full instead of empty.
“Oh, before I forget,” Nicole said, reaching into her purse and pulling out an envelope. She slid it across the table. “It’s about time we got this over with.”
Amelia picked it up, her eyes scanning the contents before a grin spread across her face. “A wedding invitation, huh? Finally tying the knot. I’m happy for you two.” She tilted her head slightly, the grin turning playful. “Can I go next?”
Nicole stared at her.
“…I’m just kidding,” Amelia added quickly. “Why? Can’t take a joke?”
The world outside continued to turn, full of uncertainty, ambition, and the quiet promise of future chaos.
For now, though, there was tea, laughter, and the fragile, fleeting shape of something resembling peace.