"Nothing really ends. It just… fractures. Like us."
Location: Periphery World Delta-Kai / Decay Sector
Years Since the Final Battle: 2
The skies bled violet above a torn skyline. Buildings floated in slow-motion ruin, their foundations unraveling in silence. This was a dying timeline—one of the many still corrupted by remnants of Null Omega's twisted reach.
But inside a ruined observation tower, a familiar blue glow flickered to life.
ZRAKKKTTT–!
A transwarp fissure opened with a growl of raw electricity, and out stepped Mira.
She wore a long, tailored cloak over modified Ranger tech, her visor retracting to reveal older, sharper eyes. Her expression was grim, almost haunted—but determined.
"Stable. For now," she muttered, checking a glitched-out scanner. "Temporal decay levels holding."
Behind her, a second fissure snapped open.
WSSHHHHH!
BOOM.
Thorne crashed through with all the grace of a brick, landing hard on one knee with his axe slung across his back. He looked… the same, mostly. Scar over his left eye. Arms heavier with plated armor.
He grunted, "Still dramatic as hell, Mira."
Mira didn't look up. "And you're still late."
Thorne smirked. "Wouldn't be a reunion if I wasn't."
Then came the third.
Not through a fissure.
Through the ceiling.
CRASH!!!
"…Ow," came a voice beneath a pile of rubble.
Ayla.
Half buried, half laughing, she emerged with dust in her hair and her signature yellow jacket now patched and plastered with stickers from a dozen timelines.
"Okay! That was not the entrance I rehearsed," she grinned, brushing off. Then she saw Thorne.
And Mira.
And the silence between them.
Her smile faded slightly. "…No Kael yet?"
Mira just shook her head.
But then—without sound—a deep red ripple burst across the room like wind from a distant memory.
Kael stood in the corner before anyone had even noticed him arrive. No fissure. No entrance. Just presence.
His armor was older. Worn. The red had darkened into maroon, like dried blood. A single half-cape hung at his shoulder.
He spoke softly, "I was already here."
Ayla blinked. "What?! For how long?"
Kael's eyes didn't move. "Long enough."
He stepped forward. And for a moment, the four of them—what was left—stood in a rough circle. The silence weighed heavy.
Thorne broke it. "So. Mira. You said the Grid trembled again."
Mira nodded. "Not just trembled. It pulsed."
Kael's tone turned sharp. "That hasn't happened since…"
"Since Rin."
Ayla's eyes flicked down, her fists tightening slightly behind her back. Her voice, usually laced with humor, was thin.
"Are we sure it's him? Not a… glitch?"
Mira opened her palm. A holographic glyph rotated in the air—ancient, golden, shaped like a ranger morph sigil… but fragmented.
"It's real. The signal matches Rin's morph signature. Muted, but unmistakable."
Kael stepped closer, his voice nearly cracking. "Then he's alive."
Mira's gaze dropped. "Not alive, exactly. Not whole. But aware."
"Trapped," Thorne said quietly.
Ayla stared at the glyph. Her voice barely a whisper.
"…Can we bring him back?"
Mira looked at them all, then pulled out a rusted piece of tech—long, jagged, pulsing softly with primal energy.
"The Keystone of Vey. It's a relic older than the Grid. It can act as a stabilizer. If we use it to replace Rin's anchor point in the Grid…"
Kael's voice returned to command mode. "We extract him."
Mira nodded. "And we give him his body back."
Silence.
Then a beat of raw hope.
Thorne exhaled. "About damn time."
Ayla smiled.
But then her expression shifted. Just slightly. Her eyes didn't match her grin.
She knew something none of them did.
She'd been hearing his voice. In dreams. For weeks.
And he wasn't just calling for help.
He was warning her.
________