The moment stretched between them like a held breath. Nathaniel's armor powered down slightly, the weapons retracting as doubt crept across his face.
"...That wasn't how I meant it to go," he said quietly.
Blink nodded. "Then try again."
CRACK.
A sniper shot split the air, barely missing Blink's head by inches. She dove sideways, purple energy crackling around her hands.
"Down!" Khan shouted, embiggenning instantly to shield them from the next blast. Her massive form covered the rooftop as energy beams scorched the air around them.
Dean squinted across the skyline, spotting a figure in blue and silver armor on a distant tower. "Is that—Kang? Of course. Can't time-travel without your evil older self-showing up to ruin the mood."
Nathaniel's face went white behind his faceplate. "No. He's not supposed to be here. This timeline—"
"Kid, your timeline knowledge needs an update," Khan said through gritted teeth, deflecting another blast with her enlarged forearms.
Across the plaza, Kang the Conqueror raised his weapon for another shot. But something was wrong. His form flickered like a bad video feed, pixels of his armor dissolving and reforming.
"This isn't supposed to happen," Nathaniel whispered, staring at his future self.
The flickering got worse. Kang's left arm vanished entirely, then reappeared, then glitched out again. His targeting system sparked and failed.
Reality around them began to warp. Buildings in the distance started collapsing mid-frame, not crumbling but simply ceasing to exist, leaving perfect geometric voids in the skyline.
Then the sky tore open.
What emerged defied every horror movie Dean had ever seen. A massive skull—part machine, part decomposing flesh—dominated the tear in reality. Purple and black energy crackled around its eye sockets. Mechanical appendages writhed where a body should be, each one crackling with temporal energy. Ancient circuitry pulsed beneath rotted pink flesh, and cables hung like twisted hair from its crown.
The four of them stood frozen, staring up at the cosmic nightmare.
"What... what IS that?" Nathaniel whispered.
"The Time-Eater," Blink breathed, her voice barely audible.
Dean's mouth hung open. "Holy... okay, that's definitely the final boss. Like, end-of-the-universe, delete-your-save-file final boss."
The creature's attention fixed on Kang, who was now more glitch than man. With a sound like reality tearing, it reached out with one massive claw.
Kang didn't even scream. He just... deleted. Not destroyed, not killed—simply removed from existence like a bad save file.
"We went from Kang to Cursed Gundam real fast," Dean muttered.
The Tallus on Dean's wrist began screaming—not beeping, but literally shrieking like a smoke alarm having a breakdown.
[WARNING: DIMENSIONAL COLLAPSE IMMINENT]
[EVACUATION PROTOCOL ACTIVATED]
[TIME REMAINING: 47 SECONDS]
"Okay!" Dean shouted over the chaos. "Shared power test! Gomu-Gomu whip!"
His arm shot out unnaturally, wrapping around Nathaniel and yanking him back from the edge as the rooftop began to dissolve beneath their feet.
Khan scooped up the two terrified civilians with one massive hand, cradling them against her chest. "Blink! Portal! Now!"
Blink's hands blazed with purple energy as she tore open a rift in space. "Everyone through! Go, go, go!"
The tower beneath them crumbled into geometric fragments, reality eating itself from the inside out. The Time-Eater turned its hollow gaze toward them, and Dean felt his sanity slipping.
Dean dove through the portal with Nathaniel in tow. Khan tried to follow with the civilians, but the portal flickered and contracted. She had to choose—jump through safely or risk them all getting caught in the collapse.
She made the hard choice and leaped through alone.
The civilians' screams cut off as the tower—and that entire section of reality—simply ceased to exist.
They tumbled out onto the observation deck of The Unseen's Observatory. Stars wheeled outside massive viewports, and the air hummed with the gentle thrum of artificial gravity generators.
Nathaniel sat on the floor, staring at nothing. His armor had retracted completely, leaving him looking exactly like what he was—a traumatized sixteen-year-old.
"So... the fight?" Dean said, trying to process what they'd just witnessed. "Kang got Ctrl+Z'd by a void god. That's new."
Khan had shrunk back to normal size, her face grim. "What the hell was that thing?"
Blink stood at the viewport, watching the space where Earth-18651 used to be. Now there was just... nothing. Not empty space, but actual nothingness—a hole in reality itself.
"We're not dealing with chaos," she said finally. "We're dealing with design."
Nathaniel looked up at her. "What do you mean?"
"It chose Kang specifically. It could have taken any of us, but it went straight for him." Blink turned from the window. "If it's choosing targets... then we're not just fighting entropy. We're on someone's hit list."
Dean flopped down on a nearby chair. "Cool cool. So, the cosmic horror is playing chess and we're the pawns who didn't read the rulebook."
The Tallus pulsed again, its display shifting to show new coordinates.
[NEXT DESTINATION LOCKED]
[DIMENSIONAL ANCHOR STABLE]
[PREPARE FOR TRANSIT]
Dean looked at the readings and groaned. "I swear, if this next world doesn't have a decent support healer or even one cat girl, I'm done."
Blink smirked. "Your priorities are fascinating."
Khan rolled her eyes. "Can we focus on the cosmic entity that's hunting time travellers?"
Nathaniel just groaned and buried his face in his hands.
A new portal opened, swirling with familiar purple energy.
"Well," Dean said, standing up and stretching. "At least we didn't let the traumatized teen become a time-traveling dictator. That's... something."
He looked at Nathaniel. "You coming with us, or are you planning to sulk until the Time-Eater finds you?"
Nathaniel was quiet for a long moment. Then he stood up, his armor reforming around him—but different now. Less aggressive, more protective.
"I'm coming," he said.
Dean's System Notification suddenly pulsed with notifications.
[Karmic Battery: +25 Units]
[Action: Risked personal harm to protect Potential Exile]
[Total Charge: +50/100 (Tier-0)]
"Huh," Dean said, looking at the display. "Apparently, the universe approves of our therapy session."
The portal opened wider, swirling with familiar purple energy.
"Come on," Blink said. "Let's see what fresh hell awaits us."
The four of them stepped through together, leaving the observation deck empty. Behind them, in the void where Earth-18651 once existed, something vast and hungry turned its attention to their next destination.