The chamber was silent. The air was so still it felt as though time itself had stopped. Sid and the others had just returned from a mission when the summoning bell echoed from the depths of the Axis halls.
Lucien froze. His hand trembled slightly as the sound reverberated through his bones.
"...That's for me," he whispered.
Sid glanced at him. "What do you mean?"
Lucien's usually calm eyes flickered with unease. "It's Baros… he's calling me."
Before anyone could respond, a crack of golden light split the floor beneath Lucien's boots. Time itself warped, bending the shadows and light into a spiral. Before Sid could reach out, Lucien was pulled into the vortex.
"Lucien!" Sid shouted, but his voice was swallowed by silence.
Lucien opened his eyes to find himself in a place that felt nowhere and everywhere at once. A vast hall stretched endlessly, its pillars carved from shifting sands of frozen time. Clock hands hovered in the air, spinning and reversing, breaking and re-forming in endless cycles.
At the center, a man stood.
He was tall, cloaked in garments stitched with flowing sands. His face was partly hidden by a hood, but his eyes burned gold — not with fire, but with the endless patience of time itself.
Baros. The god of time and memory.
"Lucien Valehart," Baros's voice rolled across the hall, resonant yet calm, like a grandfather's tone carried by eternity. "You walk the line between loyalty and fear. You wield my blessing, yet your heart trembles with doubt."
Lucien knelt instinctively, though his voice wavered. "Lord Baros… I have followed your guidance. I have wielded your Aegis in battle. I've—"
Baros cut him off with a soft motion of his hand. "Words are fleeting. Memories are heavier. You doubt the boy named Sid Valehart. You fear that by standing at his side, you may betray me."
Lucien flinched, his chest tightening.
"…I…"
Baros stepped closer, his shadow bending time itself, stretching across centuries with each step. "So I shall test you. Prove your loyalty. Will you anchor yourself to him, or abandon him when the storm arrives?"
Suddenly, the hall shattered.
Lucien gasped as he stood on a battlefield made of broken glass and fading sands. Figures began to emerge around him — Sid, Nox, Reinhardt, Kael — but they were pale imitations, shaped from shards of memory.
Then a voice rang out. Sid's voice. But not the Sid he knew.
"You'll fail us, Lucien. You've always been too afraid to make a choice."
Lucien's chest tightened as the false Sid's eyes glowed black, shadows twisting around him. The impostor raised a hand, and chains of void lashed out.
"No… this isn't Sid," Lucien muttered, stepping back.
Baros's voice echoed overhead. "Every man wears two faces: the one he shows to the world… and the one you fear he will become."
Lucien gritted his teeth and summoned the Timeglass Aegis. A shimmering dome of golden sand whirled into place, deflecting the chains. Sparks of time energy burst into the air.
"Sid has trusted me!" Lucien shouted, pushing forward. "Even when I faltered—he never let go of me!"
The false Sid only smiled cruelly. "And when the daemon inside him breaks free? Will you still follow him into the abyss?"
The words cut deep. For a moment, Lucien's guard faltered. The Aegis cracked.
Baros's voice pressed into his ears, low and stern. "Answer, Lucien Valehart. Will you bind yourself to Sid Arkwood… or let time strip him from your memory?"
Lucien closed his eyes. Memories surged. Sid's awkward grin, his stubbornness, his fire that burned even when everyone else doubted him. The boy who looked at Lucien not as a tool of Baros, but as a friend.
Lucien roared. "Even if Sid falls into darkness—I will be the one to drag him back!"
The Aegis shattered—not in defeat, but in transformation. The sands spun wildly, collapsing into Lucien's hand, condensing into a single clock-hand blade. Time itself bent at his will.
"Chrono Collapse!" Lucien cried.
The world froze.
The false Sid's movements halted mid-swing, every shadow locked within a single heartbeat of eternity. The battlefield itself became silent, frozen in one second. Lucien stepped forward, pressing the blade to the impostor's chest.
"This isn't him," he whispered. "This isn't Sid Arkwood. He's not my enemy. He's my ally."
The false Sid cracked apart like glass, shattering into sparks of sand that vanished into the winds of time.
The battlefield dissolved. Lucien stood once again before Baros in the timeless hall. His chest heaved, but his eyes burned brighter than ever.
Baros regarded him with quiet satisfaction. "You chose. Not out of fear… but out of conviction. That is the path of memory. That is the loyalty I desired to see."
Lucien lowered his blade, bowing. "…Thank you, Lord Baros."
Baros's gaze softened. "Chrono Collapse is yours. Wield it carefully. For freezing a soul within a single moment is power that can wound not only the body, but the heart."
Lucien's lips curved into the faintest of smiles. "I'll use it only to protect. Especially him."
Baros nodded, and the sands swirled, swallowing Lucien whole.
Lucien blinked, stumbling as he found himself back in the Axis hall. Sid caught him by the shoulder.
"Lucien! You just disappeared—are you okay?"
Lucien stared at him for a long moment. Then, for the first time in weeks, he let himself laugh softly.
"…Yeah. I'm fine."
Sid frowned. "You sure? You look like you've seen a ghost."
Lucien smirked faintly. "Not a ghost. A god."
Sid's eyes widened. "…Baros?"
Lucien nodded. "He tested me. And I made my choice." His gaze sharpened, steady as steel. "No matter what happens, Sid—I'm staying by your side."
Sid blinked, a little caught off guard. Then he grinned. "Heh. Took you long enough to say it out loud."
The two clasped hands. The bond of trust, tested by time itself, now burned stronger than ever.
Somewhere far above, the sands of time whispered in approval.