The safehouse sat three hours outside Noxus—abandoned waystation, half-collapsed roof, no witnesses for miles.
TF set the Chronolith on a crate that served as table. The artifact caught morning light streaming through holes in the ceiling, temporal energy making the beams bend strangely. Five people stood around it, exhausted from escape, staring at the thing they'd risked everything to steal.
Nobody spoke for a long moment.
Then Graves pulled Destiny, checked the chamber with practiced precision. "So. Here we are."
"Here we are," TF echoed.
"Got the thing. Survived the impossible. Now comes the part where we decide who gets it." Graves didn't point the shotgun at anyone. Didn't need to. The threat was implicit. "Anyone want to start?"
Silence. Tension thick enough to choke on.
"We should discuss this rationally," Seraphine said carefully. "We're all intelligent people. We can—"
"Rationally?" Samira laughed—sharp, bitter. "There's nothing rational about this. We all want it. We all have reasons. Someone loses. Probably violently."
"It doesn't have to be violent," Ekko said. But his hand drifted to where his Z-Drive used to be—now just empty space, the device destroyed saving them. He looked vulnerable without it.
"Doesn't it?" Samira's hands rested on her pistols. "TF, you assembled this crew. You knew this moment was coming. What's the plan?"
TF had been dreading this question since the job started. Had run through a hundred scenarios, none of them good. Con artist instincts screamed to grab the Chronolith and run. Survival instincts screamed to fight. But something else—something newer, more fragile—whispered different advice.
Be honest. For once in your miserable life, be honest.
"There is no plan," he admitted. "I knew we'd get here. Didn't know what to do when we did."
"Helpful," Graves muttered.
"What I do know is this: every one of us has a moment we'd kill to change. I got mine. You all got yours." TF looked at each of them. "Question is—who deserves it most?"
"Deserve?" Ekko's voice went hard. "You're talking about deserve? I watched Ajuna die in my arms because I was three seconds too slow. Three seconds. That's all I need from the Chronolith—just enough to save her. Who deserves that if not me?"
"Someone died on my watch too," Samira countered. "My entire squad. Executed because I showed mercy when Noxus demanded brutality. You want to talk about deserve? They had families. Children. They died screaming my name."
"My parents died," Seraphine said quietly. "While I was on stage, singing to thousands, they suffocated in a chem-spill. I chose fame over family. I chose wrong."
Everyone looked at Graves.
He was quiet for a long moment. Then: "Two years in prison. Two years of hell because TF ran instead of staying. That's my deserve. That's what I'd change."
All eyes shifted to TF.
His turn. His moment to lay it bare.
"Five years ago, I betrayed my partner," he said. "Took the score, left him to take the fall, ran because I was scared of what caring about someone meant. Graves did time because I'm a coward. That's what I'd change. That's my deserve."
The confession hung in the air.
Graves's expression was unreadable. "You'd use it to undo that? To save me two years?"
"To be better. To not be the kind of person who runs."
"But you'd still be you, TF. Just you who didn't run that one time. All the other times? All the other people you've screwed over? Still there. Still real." Graves's knuckles whitened on Destiny's stock. "Changing one moment doesn't change who you are."
"Then what does?" TF asked. "If the past doesn't make us who we are, what does?"
"The choice we make right now." Seraphine had moved to the Chronolith, hand hovering over it. "The past shaped us. But this moment—what we do here—this defines us."
"Pretty words," Samira said. "But pretty doesn't solve problems. We still have one artifact and five people."
"Then we fight for it," Graves said flatly. "Simple. Last one standing wins."
"No." Ekko stepped forward. "We're better than that. We worked together this far. We can figure this out together."
"How?" Samira demanded. "Draw straws? Vote? Those are just different ways to choose, and whoever loses still loses."
"What if nobody uses it?" Seraphine suggested.
Everyone stared at her.
"What if we destroy it?" she continued. "Or lock it away? What if we decide that changing the past is wrong—that we're meant to live with our mistakes?"
"That's easy for you to say," Ekko said, anger flashing. "Your parents died, but you became famous. You built a foundation that helps thousands. Ajuna's death just left a hole. There's no silver lining, no greater good. Just loss."
"And my squad?" Samira asked. "What greater good came from their execution? What lesson was worth their lives?"
"You left Noxus," Seraphine said. "You chose different. That's the lesson—that mercy matters more than orders. Would you undo that growth?"
"In a heartbeat if it brought them back."
TF watched the argument escalate. Watched the crew fracture along fault lines he'd known were there from the start. Everyone desperate. Everyone wounded. Everyone convinced their pain mattered most.
He'd caused this. Assembled these people knowing it would end here. Knowing someone would suffer.
The Chronolith pulsed on the crate, patient and eternal.
"There's something I need to tell you," TF said. His voice cut through the argument. Everyone turned. "The reason I needed this job. The real reason."
"We know the reason," Graves said. "You got regrets. We all do."
"It's not just regrets." TF pulled the letter from his coat—the one the Broker had sent. Black wax seal, elegant script. "I owe a debt. To something called the Broker. Borrowed power for a score, used it, can't pay it back. The debt comes due in three weeks. Currency is the Chronolith or my life."
Silence.
"You planned to keep it," Samira said slowly. "This whole time. You were never going to share."
"I didn't know what I was going to do. Still don't." TF met their eyes. "But you deserved to know the stakes. You risked your lives. You deserve honesty."
"Honesty?" Graves laughed—harsh, broken. "Now you choose honesty? After everything?"
"Better late than never."
"No. It's not better. It's just another manipulation. 'Poor TF, he's got a debt, he needs our sympathy.'" Graves raised Destiny, pointed it at TF's chest. "How do we know this is true? How do we know you're not conning us right now?"
TF didn't move. "You don't. You have to choose whether to trust me."
"Like I trusted you five years ago?"
"Yeah. Like that. And I'm asking you to try again, knowing I don't deserve it." TF kept his voice steady. "I'm asking all of you. I need the Chronolith. But so do you. And I don't know how to solve that. I just know I'm tired of lying."
Graves's finger rested on the trigger. One pull. That's all it would take.
Then he lowered the weapon. "Damn you, TF."
"Probably damned already."
Ekko had moved to the Chronolith while they talked. Now he touched it, like Seraphine had before. His eyes went distant. TF saw visions play across his face—futures, possibilities, consequences.
"I see it," Ekko whispered. "If I save Ajuna, the Z-Drive works perfectly. I rewind those three seconds, get her out. She lives." His voice caught. "But I never rebuild the device. Never push it harder. Never learn the modifications that just saved us in the tunnels. Someone else dies in her place. Someone I haven't met yet. Someone I'd save if I'd learned those lessons."
He pulled his hand back, shaking.
"The Chronolith doesn't just show what you'd gain," he said. "It shows what you'd lose. And it's not worth it. Ajuna wouldn't want me to sacrifice my future for her past."
"Easy to say when you're young," Samira said. "When you've got future left." But her voice carried less certainty now.
"Touch it," Ekko challenged. "See what it shows you."
Samira approached the Chronolith. Hesitated. Then touched it.
Her face went rigid. TF watched her process whatever vision the artifact provided. Saw her jaw clench, saw tears she refused to shed, saw something break and heal simultaneously behind her eyes.
She pulled back. "My squad lives if I choose brutality. But I become something worse. Someone who kills without question, who follows orders into darkness. I become the perfect Noxian soldier—and I destroy myself becoming it. The mercy I showed? That hesitation? That's the moment I stayed human."
She looked at the Chronolith with something like horror and gratitude.
"I don't want it," she said. "I don't want to lose who I've become."
Two down. Three to go.
Graves approached next. Touched the artifact without hesitation.
TF watched his former partner see what might have been. Saw Graves's expression shift through rage to understanding to something complicated.
"You stay," Graves said, looking at TF. "In the vision, you stay. We get arrested together. Serve time together. Get released together. Stay partners." He paused. "But we never grow. Never learn. We're still doing the same cons, the same jobs, getting nowhere. We needed the separation. As much as I hate admitting it—we needed you to run so we could both become something different."
Graves stepped back from the Chronolith. Looked at TF with eyes that held five years of anger and, finally, the beginning of understanding.
"I don't forgive you," Graves said. "But I get it now. The why. And maybe that's enough."
Three down.
Seraphine and TF remained.
"You already touched it," TF said to Seraphine.
"I did. But you haven't." She gestured to the artifact. "Your turn. See what your debt really costs."
TF approached the Chronolith. The thing that had driven everything. The artifact that could save his life or end it. He reached out—
And stopped.
"What if I don't want to know?" he asked.
"Then you're still running," Graves said. Not cruel. Just honest.
TF touched the Chronolith.