Vale looked at Sylas, smiling. It was a perfect, professional smile that didn't touch his vivid yellow eyes, which held the serene fury of a predator that had just spotted its prey. Sylas took a subtle step back, gaze darting to the side as if suddenly fascinated by a floating chunk of pavement.
"So, that's that," Sylas whispered, beginning to edge away. "Great catch-up. See you next apocalypse—"
"And where," Vale's voice sliced through the silence, still perfectly calm, "do you think you're going?"
Vale didn't move. He simply gestured with one hand, his fingers tracing a complex sigil in the air. Around them, the frozen devastation began to rewind at a dizzying speed. A skyscraper reassembled itself from rubble in reverse. Glass shards flew up to mend windows. The city block was stitching itself back together around them, making Sylas's dramatic exit look decidedly petty.
"You're not just going to leave," Vale continued, the smile finally dropping as he took a single, deliberate step forward. He was taller, and seemed to loom even larger in the restored, pristine street. His yellow eyes were now openly, blisteringly unamused. "Not after you left a signature trench across a continent and gave the local Sweepers a nervous breakdown."
"Umm, what are we talking about?" Sylas said, adopting an expression of profound innocence. "I just… efficiently neutralized a planetary threat. There was a form. I filled it out with my sword."
"Really?" Vale's voice was dangerously soft. "You caused more collateral damage than the anomaly. By a factor of, oh, several hundred miles."
"Wait, huh?" Sylas blinked, the act crumbling. "How is that even possible? It was destroying buildings!"
"It was destroying blocks. You bisected a mountain range. There's a new canyon on the satellite maps. They're naming it after you."
"Oh." Sylas took another step back. Then another. "Well. That's… flattering?" He spun on his heel and broke into a full sprint. "Gotta go, new mission just pinged!"
"You think I'll let you get away with this again?" Vale's calm evaporated. He was suddenly in motion, a grey blur closing the distance with terrifying efficiency.
"Wait! I didn't mean to!" Sylas yelped, dodging around a freshly restored fire hydrant. "The anomaly was running! It was a tactical pursuit!"
His escape was cut short by a firm grip on the back of his collar. He was hauled to a stop, his boots skidding on the pristine asphalt. He sagged in defeat, letting out a long, suffering sigh.
"Okay, okay," he mumbled, looking back at Vale's triumphant glare. "Can we… let this one slide? Just this once? I don't want my vacation shortened again. I had spa days booked. Ethereal spa days."
Vale's satisfied smile returned. "Nope. In fact, I'm making a special call to ensure they shorten it by an extra week. For the canyon."
Sylas's eyes narrowed. In a flash of movement, he twisted, slipped his coat, and pulled the Axiom Fragment from its sheath. With a grunt of effort, he slashed at the empty air, tearing open a jagged, personal portal.
"Then I'm turning myself in before you can file the report!" he declared, leaping through the rift. "My confession will sound more sympathetic!"
The portal snapped shut.
Vale stared at the empty space where Sylas had been, the tip of his perfect leather shoe tapping once, twice, on the sidewalk. He let out a sharp, annoyed "Tsk," smoothed his suit jacket, and turned back to the remaining Sweepers.
"Just… finish the mountain, please," he said wearily, pinching the bridge of his nose.
Sylas stumbled out of the portal into the vast, humming quiet of the Nexus Management. The jagged tear in reality sealed itself behind him with a sound like a sigh.
He took a moment, catching his breath and brushing nonexistent dust from his coat. Around him, the heart of civilization beyond time unfolded.
The main hall was staggering. It felt less like a room and more like standing inside a living, breathing clockwork universe. Polished golden floors, impossibly smooth, stretched into the distance. Beneath his feet, circular pathways of pristine glass revealed a luminous river of deep blue—the temporal stream itself, shimmering with pinpricks of starlight that flowed in gentle, silent currents.
The air carried a soft, resonant hum, the sound of reality in steady motion.
Directly above, massive floating clocks and rings of glowing time-data spun slowly, their faces and glyphs updating in a constant, silent ballet. On a high balcony that ringed the hall, faint silhouettes—Managers and Seers—observed the flows below.
Across the open space, which had the grand, impersonal scale of an interdimensional airport, clusters of Voyagers and field operatives like himself waited on floating seating platforms. At various counters, sleek, clockwork Chrono-Smith constructs processed requests alongside living Analysts, their fingers tracing streams of light in the air.
Sylas ignored it all. He'd seen it a million times.
With a purposefully casual stride, he began walking, his black boots clicking softly on the glass over the river of time. He headed for a wide, arched hallway leading away from the main concourse, where the ambient light dimmed to a softer, more administrative glow. He just had to reach the mission desk before Vale's complaint did.
If he could file his "confession" first, maybe, just maybe, he could spin the whole canyon thing as "necessary landscape alteration."
A few minutes of walking brought Sylas to a familiar, unremarkable door. He straightened his coat, composed his face into something professional, and pushed it open with practiced confidence.
"Hello, I'd like to file a comp—"
The needle stopped an inch from his face.
It was absurdly large, more of a thin spike than something meant for sewing, its tip gleaming with something that was probably not anesthetic. Sylas had caught it between two fingers without breaking stride.
He lowered it slowly. "That's not a very nice welcome."
Behind the cluttered desk sat a small figure, dwarfed by towering stacks of floating and physical paperwork. Blonde hair, tied in neat pigtails, framed a face currently buried in whatever she was scribbling. Round glasses sat perched on her nose.
Sylas tossed the needle aside. "Head Manager. Or should I say Astrea?"
Astrea continued writing, her pen scratching across parchment with aggressive focus. Then, at her name, she looked up.
Her eyes were striking. Heterochromatic—one a warm, ordinary gold, the other a ticking clock, its tiny hands sweeping in silent, infinite circles. Dark circles hung beneath both, the universal sign of someone who hadn't slept since approximately the last century.
She blinked. Once. Twice.
Then she launched herself out of her chair.
"WAHHH! YOU'RE BACK!"
Papers erupted into the air like startled birds as she crossed the room in a blur of motion. Sylas barely had time to brace before small but surprisingly strong arms wrapped around him and spun him in a full, undignified circle.
"Yeah," he managed, his voice compressed. "I'm back. Hi."
The hug tightened. Astrea's face pressed into his coat with the enthusiasm of someone who hadn't seen a friend in several geological epochs.
"Hey—hey, you can let go now. Breathing. I need it."
She pulled back just enough to look up at him, her golden eye bright, her clock-eye ticking peacefully. Her expression shifted from delight to something far more knowing.
"You caused trouble again, didn't you?"
Sylas met her gaze for exactly one second before looking away, suddenly very interested in the ceiling.
"Of course not. Me? Trouble? I'm the picture of professionalism."
Astrea stared at him, unblinking.
"...There may have been a small incident. With a canyon. And possibly a mountain range." He cleared his throat. "But it was mostly the anomaly's fault."
She finally released him, stepping back with a stretch and a jaw-cracking yawn. Her pigtails bobbed as she tilted her head side to side, working out whatever eons of desk work had stiffened.
"Gosh," she murmured, rubbing one eye. "How long has it been?"
"Uh, well. Time here and in the lower realms is—different." Sylas shrugged. "I honestly lost count."
Astrea looked at him, her curious, ticking gaze suddenly very awake. "I don't even know the last time I saw you. A couple million eons? Maybe more?" She waved a hand dismissively. "Anyway. How was your journey? The worlds below?"
Sylas considered the question. "It would take years to tell you all of it." He paused. "But first—I need to file a complaint. Before Vale does. So they don't shorten my day off. Again."
Astrea's arms crossed. Her expression flattened into something deeply, profoundly unimpressed.
"I knew it." She sighed, the sound heavy with the weight of countless eons dealing with the same man. "I knew you caused trouble again."
Sylas offered a weak, hopeful smile.
She did not smile back.
-End of the chapter.