1936, THE OKLAHOMA PANHANDLE
Roland Fisher walked slowly back from town, pulling his mule alongside him. A couple sacks holding meager groceries were slung over the animal's back. He had hoped to get more but there just wasn't enough money. Not to mention, even if he had more money there likely wasn't enough food to purchase anyhow. There wasn't any water, which meant there weren't any crops. No grain for bread. No vegetables for stew. And certainly no grass to feed any cattle. No, this part of the world seemed to be more and more barren everyday.
His Mama told him stories about what this land had looked like 16 years ago when he was born. Obviously, Roland couldn't remember that. He'd had to take her word for how nice their little farm had been back then. His Pa never talked about that. In fact, he never really talked at all. When he did, it was usually out of frustration or anger. In fact, Roland wasn't looking forward to getting home with the meager groceries he had purchased. The money they had given him was gone and he had only managed to get half of what they had expected. Pa would be angry.
He wiped the dust from his eyes and stopped dead in his tracks. Ahead of him was a man, just standing in the middle of the road looking back at Roland. No one moved for a long while but eventually the boy stepped forward, knowing full well he had to continue on the path to get home. The newcomer waited until he was closer before he spoke, "Well hello, young man. How goes it?"
Roland noticed the man was white, not exactly the type of person a black teenage boy wanted to run into out in the middle of nowhere, "I'm fine, sir. Thank you."
He smiled at Roland and pulled out a water pouch, taking a long drink. He looked the boy up and down and offered the pouch to him, "Awful hot and dry out here? Would you care for a drink?"
Roland didn't move at first. He wasn't sure what to do. However, his water supply had run out miles ago and he was thirsty. He cautiously reached his hand out and took the pouch from the stranger. As he drank the man continued to speak, "My name is Nate. And you're Roland."
Roland almost choked on the water, "You know my name?"
Nate smiled, "I know a great deal more than your name, Roland. In fact, I'm willing to bet I know more about you than even you do."
Roland didn't like this, not at all. He wanted to get home and get away from this crazy white man. As he tried to pass, Nate put his hand out and gestured for Roland to wait, "I'm not your enemy. I know you and your family are struggling, like most folks right now. I can help. All I need from you is a bit of time. For a conversation."
Roland looked Nate in the eyes, "A conversation about what?"
"Your future, dear boy. Your future."
Timeless
Moderators: VagueDurin, Nichalus, WoH Coordinators
Dark Lord of the Grill
Posts: 1947
Joined: Fri Jan 23, 2004 8:41 am
Joined: Fri Jan 23, 2004 8:41 am
Location: Searching for a nursing home for Nichalus
Re: Timeless
1916, THE GREAT WAR
THE EASTERN FRONT
RUSSIAN COAST OF THE BALTIC SEA
Roland stared down at the warzone below him. He watched intently as soldier killed soldier. His experiment had failed. Again. He had lost count how many attempts he had made. Subtle attempts. Extreme attempts. This time he had wiped out the Black Hand, the organization ultimately responsible for the assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand. So many lives he had taken, and yet, the Great War still swallowed the world in darkness. His sacrifices had been for nothing.
Behind him he heard crunching on the gravel as boots walked up the hill to join him. Roland didn't need to look at his companion. He knew who it was, "I told you, you can't change it. No matter how hard you try the timeline corrects itself, or at least remains similar to what came before. All you did was create another rogue timeline full of variants. And you know what that means?"
Roland didn't respond to Nathan. Almost on que the pair watched as agents of the Time Variance Authority appeared from nowhere, culling those that got too close to them. This always happened. He was the cause of the break in time, the changing of events. He was the epicenter. The TVA could detect his energy but they could never find him specifically. That said, they were here to do a job. They would set off a time bomb, a device that would wipe this timeline out. It would be completely erased, his failed experiment known only to himself and Nathan.
Roland's eyes didn't change as his gaze settled solely on the agents prepping their weapon. His face was emotionless. Nathan put his hand on Roland's shoulder, "I wish you would learn this lesson, my friend. We are not here to master time. We are not here to conquer it. That is the goal of the others. We are here to stop them."
Roland's voice was much deeper than it had been when Nathan, or Nate at the time, had found him, "I understand our mission completely. I also understand that we are losing. We need to use the weapon of our enemy to defeat them. Time can be our blade, Nathan. We can wield it like a master swordsman."
Nathan forced Roland to turn and look at him, "That is not our way. You know that."
The other man stared at his mentor, "It's not your way, Nathan. I have not decided what my way is it yet but it certainly isn't bringing words to a knife fight."
With that Roland walked past Nathan and stepped through the portal that would take him elsewhere and elsewhen.
THE EASTERN FRONT
RUSSIAN COAST OF THE BALTIC SEA
Roland stared down at the warzone below him. He watched intently as soldier killed soldier. His experiment had failed. Again. He had lost count how many attempts he had made. Subtle attempts. Extreme attempts. This time he had wiped out the Black Hand, the organization ultimately responsible for the assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand. So many lives he had taken, and yet, the Great War still swallowed the world in darkness. His sacrifices had been for nothing.
Behind him he heard crunching on the gravel as boots walked up the hill to join him. Roland didn't need to look at his companion. He knew who it was, "I told you, you can't change it. No matter how hard you try the timeline corrects itself, or at least remains similar to what came before. All you did was create another rogue timeline full of variants. And you know what that means?"
Roland didn't respond to Nathan. Almost on que the pair watched as agents of the Time Variance Authority appeared from nowhere, culling those that got too close to them. This always happened. He was the cause of the break in time, the changing of events. He was the epicenter. The TVA could detect his energy but they could never find him specifically. That said, they were here to do a job. They would set off a time bomb, a device that would wipe this timeline out. It would be completely erased, his failed experiment known only to himself and Nathan.
Roland's eyes didn't change as his gaze settled solely on the agents prepping their weapon. His face was emotionless. Nathan put his hand on Roland's shoulder, "I wish you would learn this lesson, my friend. We are not here to master time. We are not here to conquer it. That is the goal of the others. We are here to stop them."
Roland's voice was much deeper than it had been when Nathan, or Nate at the time, had found him, "I understand our mission completely. I also understand that we are losing. We need to use the weapon of our enemy to defeat them. Time can be our blade, Nathan. We can wield it like a master swordsman."
Nathan forced Roland to turn and look at him, "That is not our way. You know that."
The other man stared at his mentor, "It's not your way, Nathan. I have not decided what my way is it yet but it certainly isn't bringing words to a knife fight."
With that Roland walked past Nathan and stepped through the portal that would take him elsewhere and elsewhen.
"I'd like to nominate Cazzik for the Sexiest Man on Earth 2010." --Balsa
Dark Lord of the Grill
Posts: 1947
Joined: Fri Jan 23, 2004 8:41 am
Joined: Fri Jan 23, 2004 8:41 am
Location: Searching for a nursing home for Nichalus
Re: Timeless
2047, NEW YORK CITY — EARTH-838
The skyline was jagged and broken, a twisted version of the one Roland remembered from his first trip here. Towers still scraped the sky, but many bore the scars of war—glassless windows, slashed steel, reinforced battlements. Drones buzzed overhead in tight patterns. Surveillance was constant. Freedom, absent.
Roland moved through the back alleys and shadows, cloaked by tech centuries beyond this world’s time. He had arrived hours ago—clandestine and undetected. Even here, the TVA couldn’t pinpoint his presence right away. This world had already splintered, corrupted by too many players meddling in the stream. It bought him time.
He stopped beside a crumbling monument. Once a statue of liberty, now hollowed and scorched, her hand reaching skyward without a torch. Someone had painted the words “Hope Burned Here” across her robe in white ash.
Roland pulled the small brass device from his coat—no bigger than a matchbox. It ticked softly, rhythmically, in sync with the pulse of the multiverse itself. He tapped the side. Holographic strands of time unspooled from it, fanning into dozens of overlapping possibilities.
At the center of the web: a name.
"Chronos Dominion."
They were here.
Nathan had warned him. Again and again. “Time is not your sword,” he’d said. “It's a river. You can swim in it, guide it, but you cannot impale your enemies with it.”
Roland no longer agreed.
From behind him, a familiar voice spoke. “You shouldn't be here, Roland.”
He didn’t turn. “And yet, here I am.”
Nathan stepped from the mist, older than Roland remembered—grayer, leaner. “You’re chasing ghosts in a fractured dimension. The TVA marked this one for pruning years ago. It’s unstable.”
Roland finally faced him. “Unstable is exactly why they’re here. The Dominion is feeding on broken timelines—building armies from the displaced and the desperate. They’re not correcting time. They’re colonizing it.”
Nathan’s jaw clenched. “And you’re planning to stop them by becoming them?”
“No,” Roland replied, cold and sharp. “I’m planning to stop them before we all become casualties in someone else's version of history.”
They stood in silence, the ruined skyline crackling in the distance from another energy discharge.
Nathan stepped forward, lowering his voice. “What did you do, Roland?”
Roland met his gaze. “I made contact. With a Variant of myself. One who chose the blade over the words. He’s fighting them too—just from a different angle.”
Nathan paled. “You opened a doorway to a rogue you. Do you know what kind of damage that can—”
“I know exactly what kind of damage it can cause,” Roland said, eyes narrowing. “And I also know he’s winning.”
A sudden ripple shook the air, the horizon distorting like heat rising from the asphalt. Roland’s device lit up in his hand—pulsing brighter, faster.
Nathan looked toward the horizon. “That’s not a pruning event.”
“No,” Roland confirmed grimly. “That’s a summoning. The Dominion’s moving.”
He looked back at Nathan, resolute. “We can argue philosophy later. Right now, we either fight together—or we disappear like every timeline they’ve touched.”
Nathan sighed, long and heavy, before unbuckling the device from his wrist. His own time-thread projector unfolded.
“Then let’s go make some noise.”
Together, they stepped through the veil—into the heart of a war no one remembered, in a time that shouldn't exist. But did. Because of them.
And the clock kept ticking.
The skyline was jagged and broken, a twisted version of the one Roland remembered from his first trip here. Towers still scraped the sky, but many bore the scars of war—glassless windows, slashed steel, reinforced battlements. Drones buzzed overhead in tight patterns. Surveillance was constant. Freedom, absent.
Roland moved through the back alleys and shadows, cloaked by tech centuries beyond this world’s time. He had arrived hours ago—clandestine and undetected. Even here, the TVA couldn’t pinpoint his presence right away. This world had already splintered, corrupted by too many players meddling in the stream. It bought him time.
He stopped beside a crumbling monument. Once a statue of liberty, now hollowed and scorched, her hand reaching skyward without a torch. Someone had painted the words “Hope Burned Here” across her robe in white ash.
Roland pulled the small brass device from his coat—no bigger than a matchbox. It ticked softly, rhythmically, in sync with the pulse of the multiverse itself. He tapped the side. Holographic strands of time unspooled from it, fanning into dozens of overlapping possibilities.
At the center of the web: a name.
"Chronos Dominion."
They were here.
Nathan had warned him. Again and again. “Time is not your sword,” he’d said. “It's a river. You can swim in it, guide it, but you cannot impale your enemies with it.”
Roland no longer agreed.
From behind him, a familiar voice spoke. “You shouldn't be here, Roland.”
He didn’t turn. “And yet, here I am.”
Nathan stepped from the mist, older than Roland remembered—grayer, leaner. “You’re chasing ghosts in a fractured dimension. The TVA marked this one for pruning years ago. It’s unstable.”
Roland finally faced him. “Unstable is exactly why they’re here. The Dominion is feeding on broken timelines—building armies from the displaced and the desperate. They’re not correcting time. They’re colonizing it.”
Nathan’s jaw clenched. “And you’re planning to stop them by becoming them?”
“No,” Roland replied, cold and sharp. “I’m planning to stop them before we all become casualties in someone else's version of history.”
They stood in silence, the ruined skyline crackling in the distance from another energy discharge.
Nathan stepped forward, lowering his voice. “What did you do, Roland?”
Roland met his gaze. “I made contact. With a Variant of myself. One who chose the blade over the words. He’s fighting them too—just from a different angle.”
Nathan paled. “You opened a doorway to a rogue you. Do you know what kind of damage that can—”
“I know exactly what kind of damage it can cause,” Roland said, eyes narrowing. “And I also know he’s winning.”
A sudden ripple shook the air, the horizon distorting like heat rising from the asphalt. Roland’s device lit up in his hand—pulsing brighter, faster.
Nathan looked toward the horizon. “That’s not a pruning event.”
“No,” Roland confirmed grimly. “That’s a summoning. The Dominion’s moving.”
He looked back at Nathan, resolute. “We can argue philosophy later. Right now, we either fight together—or we disappear like every timeline they’ve touched.”
Nathan sighed, long and heavy, before unbuckling the device from his wrist. His own time-thread projector unfolded.
“Then let’s go make some noise.”
Together, they stepped through the veil—into the heart of a war no one remembered, in a time that shouldn't exist. But did. Because of them.
And the clock kept ticking.
"I'd like to nominate Cazzik for the Sexiest Man on Earth 2010." --Balsa
Dark Lord of the Grill
Posts: 1947
Joined: Fri Jan 23, 2004 8:41 am
Joined: Fri Jan 23, 2004 8:41 am
Location: Searching for a nursing home for Nichalus
Re: Timeless
3131, THE RUINS OF THE QUANTUM STRAND
The sky shimmered with fractured light, bleeding hues of violet and silver across a landscape that wasn’t so much destroyed as unwritten. The air tasted like static. Time had collapsed here—entire centuries devoured in an instant. No stars, no sun. Just suspended particles and the echoes of what had been.
Roland stood alone at the edge of a broken causeway. Before him, the shattered remains of a temporal archive hovered in place, like shattered glass frozen mid-explosion. He had followed the signals for weeks—trail markers left in fragmented code across failing timelines. All of it had led here.
To them.
His hand hovered over the control ring at his wrist. He adjusted the dial to phase through localized entropy, slipping past the defensive locks. The archive shimmered, and then opened. Light bled out—raw and blue.
Inside: holograms.
Dozens of them. Lifelike and in motion. Roland stepped forward and saw the truth unfold.
They called themselves the Chronos Dominion.
But they were the Council of Kangs.
Variant after variant of the same man: a conqueror, a scientist, a pharaoh, a tyrant. All versions of Nathaniel Richards. Some wore battle armor, others lab coats, others still carried nothing but charisma and a smile that sent chills down Roland’s spine.
Each of them speaking, debating, orchestrating plans to dominate time itself. Every action across the multiverse—a test run. Every timeline—a battlefield. And every rebellion—a minor inconvenience.
He saw their wars. He saw their puppets. He saw their failures and their triumphs.
And then… he saw him.
Nathan.
Standing among them. Not fighting them.
One of them.
A younger version, to be sure—less scarred, less cold. But his voice was clear. Measured. Calculated.
“We cannot allow uncontrolled variables to propagate,” Nathan said in the recording. “If the multiverse is to survive, it must be guided. Carefully. Relentlessly.”
Roland’s hands clenched into fists.
Behind him, soft footsteps echoed.
“I had hoped you’d never find this place,” came the voice. Familiar. Calm.
Roland turned slowly, jaw tight. “So it's true.”
Nathan stood just beyond the threshold, coat fluttering slightly in the gravity-warped breeze.
“You’re one of them.”
Nathan said nothing at first. Then: “I was.”
Roland stared. “The Council of Kangs. You called them the Dominion. You called them the enemy.”
“They are the enemy,” Nathan said firmly. “I left them. I disagreed with their methods.”
Roland’s eyes burned. “But you never told me you were one of them. You let me trust you. You guided me—taught me—to fight your own kind without ever admitting the truth.”
Nathan stepped forward. “Because I knew you’d never believe me if I did. And because I wanted you to trust me for who I am now—not what I was.”
Roland shook his head. “No. You made me a weapon. You made me believe I could fix time. You let me believe we were the good guys.”
“We are the good guys,” Nathan insisted. “But good doesn’t mean clean. Or perfect. I walked away from that council because I believed in something better. I believed in you.”
Roland’s voice dropped, dangerous and low. “You believed in controlling me.”
Nathan looked genuinely hurt. “Roland, that’s not fair—”
“I don’t care what’s fair,” Roland snapped. “You told me we were fighting to stop time from being ruled. Turns out, you just didn’t want your version of rule to win.”
The silence between them was heavy.
Then Roland turned back to the archive. He reached into the interface, hand trembling, and shut it down with a flicker of command.
“You lied to me, Nathan. And now I don’t know who the hell I’ve been fighting for.”
Nathan said nothing.
Roland stepped past him, activating his wrist gate.
“You wanted me to see the truth?” he said coldly. “Fine. I see it now.”
And with a flash of blue light, he vanished.
Leaving Nathan alone with the echoes of a fractured empire and the weight of a betrayal that might never be forgiven.
The sky shimmered with fractured light, bleeding hues of violet and silver across a landscape that wasn’t so much destroyed as unwritten. The air tasted like static. Time had collapsed here—entire centuries devoured in an instant. No stars, no sun. Just suspended particles and the echoes of what had been.
Roland stood alone at the edge of a broken causeway. Before him, the shattered remains of a temporal archive hovered in place, like shattered glass frozen mid-explosion. He had followed the signals for weeks—trail markers left in fragmented code across failing timelines. All of it had led here.
To them.
His hand hovered over the control ring at his wrist. He adjusted the dial to phase through localized entropy, slipping past the defensive locks. The archive shimmered, and then opened. Light bled out—raw and blue.
Inside: holograms.
Dozens of them. Lifelike and in motion. Roland stepped forward and saw the truth unfold.
They called themselves the Chronos Dominion.
But they were the Council of Kangs.
Variant after variant of the same man: a conqueror, a scientist, a pharaoh, a tyrant. All versions of Nathaniel Richards. Some wore battle armor, others lab coats, others still carried nothing but charisma and a smile that sent chills down Roland’s spine.
Each of them speaking, debating, orchestrating plans to dominate time itself. Every action across the multiverse—a test run. Every timeline—a battlefield. And every rebellion—a minor inconvenience.
He saw their wars. He saw their puppets. He saw their failures and their triumphs.
And then… he saw him.
Nathan.
Standing among them. Not fighting them.
One of them.
A younger version, to be sure—less scarred, less cold. But his voice was clear. Measured. Calculated.
“We cannot allow uncontrolled variables to propagate,” Nathan said in the recording. “If the multiverse is to survive, it must be guided. Carefully. Relentlessly.”
Roland’s hands clenched into fists.
Behind him, soft footsteps echoed.
“I had hoped you’d never find this place,” came the voice. Familiar. Calm.
Roland turned slowly, jaw tight. “So it's true.”
Nathan stood just beyond the threshold, coat fluttering slightly in the gravity-warped breeze.
“You’re one of them.”
Nathan said nothing at first. Then: “I was.”
Roland stared. “The Council of Kangs. You called them the Dominion. You called them the enemy.”
“They are the enemy,” Nathan said firmly. “I left them. I disagreed with their methods.”
Roland’s eyes burned. “But you never told me you were one of them. You let me trust you. You guided me—taught me—to fight your own kind without ever admitting the truth.”
Nathan stepped forward. “Because I knew you’d never believe me if I did. And because I wanted you to trust me for who I am now—not what I was.”
Roland shook his head. “No. You made me a weapon. You made me believe I could fix time. You let me believe we were the good guys.”
“We are the good guys,” Nathan insisted. “But good doesn’t mean clean. Or perfect. I walked away from that council because I believed in something better. I believed in you.”
Roland’s voice dropped, dangerous and low. “You believed in controlling me.”
Nathan looked genuinely hurt. “Roland, that’s not fair—”
“I don’t care what’s fair,” Roland snapped. “You told me we were fighting to stop time from being ruled. Turns out, you just didn’t want your version of rule to win.”
The silence between them was heavy.
Then Roland turned back to the archive. He reached into the interface, hand trembling, and shut it down with a flicker of command.
“You lied to me, Nathan. And now I don’t know who the hell I’ve been fighting for.”
Nathan said nothing.
Roland stepped past him, activating his wrist gate.
“You wanted me to see the truth?” he said coldly. “Fine. I see it now.”
And with a flash of blue light, he vanished.
Leaving Nathan alone with the echoes of a fractured empire and the weight of a betrayal that might never be forgiven.
"I'd like to nominate Cazzik for the Sexiest Man on Earth 2010." --Balsa
Dark Lord of the Grill
Posts: 1947
Joined: Fri Jan 23, 2004 8:41 am
Joined: Fri Jan 23, 2004 8:41 am
Location: Searching for a nursing home for Nichalus
Re: Timeless
1889, LONDON — EARTH-5123
WHITECHAPEL, MIDNIGHT
The fog hung thick in the air, yellowed by the flicker of gas lamps and stained by chimney smoke. London breathed in soot and exhaled silence. Horses clopped on cobblestone a few streets away, and somewhere distant, a drunk sang to no one.
Roland Fisher moved through the alleys like a man without a map — or a mission. His coat was dusted with grime, his boots damp from sewer runoff. He hadn’t eaten in two days, but he didn’t feel hunger. He didn’t feel much of anything. Not since the Quantum Strand.
Nathan’s betrayal still echoed louder than any gunshot.
He’d seen the man—his mentor—standing among tyrants. Not resisting them. Not warning him. Leading them.
The Chronos Dominion.
The Council of Kangs.
Lies wearing familiar faces.
And now? Roland didn’t know who he was fighting for. Or if he even was fighting anymore. Maybe he was just running. Jumping from ruined time to ruined time, waiting for something to make sense again.
The wrist device on his arm gave a faint pulse. He didn’t look at it.
Then the static hit.
A buzz behind his eyes. Pressure in his ears. Like reality grinding its teeth.
He spun.
A shimmer pulsed in the alley mouth — fog curling inward, gravity twisting ever so slightly. Then the shimmer resolved. Stepped forward.
A Chrono-Hunter.
The armor was darker than TVA standard, built more like a knight than a bureaucrat. Polished black plating with exposed gears and glowing thread-line veins. A mirrored mask reflected Roland’s face back at him — fractured and distorted.
“Roland Fisher,” the figure said, voiced a mechanical growl, “by command of the Authority, you are hereby ordered to cease all traversal and surrender all temporal devices. Resistance will be met with erasure.”
Roland exhaled slowly, eyes tired. “You’ve already erased everything that mattered.”
He unhooked his baton from his hip.
“So come finish the job.”
The Chrono-Hunter moved first — fast, inhumanly so. A long staff unfolded from his wrist with a snapping chkk, edged with oscillating blades on either end. He lunged, aiming for Roland’s ribs.
Roland barely twisted aside, the blade nicking his coat and scoring the brick wall behind him. He spun, baton igniting with a burst of entropic charge, and struck the Hunter’s side — sparks flew, but the armor held.
The Hunter countered with a kinetic pulse from his gauntlet, blasting Roland off his feet. He hit the wall hard, breath knocked from his lungs, but rolled before the next strike could land. The staff cracked the stone where his head had just been.
“You don’t talk much,” Roland muttered, ducking under a swing and slamming his baton into the Hunter’s knee. A joint gave with a hiss, forcing the Hunter to stagger.
“Talking is inefficient.”
Roland smirked, despite the blood in his mouth. “Tell that to your maker.”
The fight twisted through the alley like a storm — brick and smoke and steel. Time pulses cracked the walls, slowing and speeding patches of space unpredictably. Roland would swing, and suddenly the world would lurch forward — or freeze. The Hunter moved like he was skipping frames, phasing through reality just half a second ahead.
Roland dropped a time anchor grenade. The device detonated with a violet pulse, locking the immediate area into stabilized flow. The effect lasted three seconds.
It was all he needed.
He charged.
This time, his blows connected. Baton to jaw. Elbow to throat. A sweep kick that sent the Hunter sprawling into a stack of rotted crates.
Roland tackled him before he could recover, slamming the baton into the chestplate again and again. Sparks flew. The armor cracked.
The Hunter surged with a desperate scream and drove a dagger from his gauntlet into Roland’s side. Blood burst from the wound — hot and red.
Roland howled, grabbed the Hunter’s wrist, and snapped it backward with a wet crunch. The scream that followed was distorted but unmistakably human.
The baton whirred. One final blow.
Crack.
Crack.
Crack.
The body slumped.
Smoke rose from the ruined armor.
Roland staggered back, holding his side. Blood soaked through his shirt, but he barely registered it. He dropped to one knee and yanked the helmet off the dead Hunter—
—and stared.
The face beneath was younger than he expected. Clean-shaven. Intelligent eyes.
Nathan.
Or a Variant. This one was early—idealistic, even in death.
Roland’s hand shook.
“You,” he whispered.
The Variant coughed, wet and shallow. “We’re not… enemies.”
“Then why do you all keep trying to kill me?”
The younger Nathan blinked slowly. “Because you… won't submit.”
Roland leaned in close. “Damn right I won’t.”
The Variant’s last breath rattled, then stopped.
Silence again.
Just the fog. Just the blood.
Just the burning in Roland’s chest — betrayal, grief, fury.
He stood slowly and tore the gauntlet from the Hunter’s arm. His own time-thread interface unfolded in response, synchronizing with the new hardware. The tech was clean. More advanced than anything he’d seen outside the TVA.
He strapped it to his wrist.
This wasn’t scavenging.
This was reclamation.
He activated the device and pulled up a coordinate grid. Dozens of realities flickered into view — some pruned, some corrupted, some untouched. All of them vulnerable.
The Dominion.
The TVA.
Nathan.
All of them had their fingers in history’s throat.
He was done trusting any of them.
Done listening.
Done asking for anything.
Roland glanced once at the corpse at his feet.
“You told me time was a river,” he muttered. “Maybe it is. But I’m done swimming.”
He tapped the device.
A gate opened — brilliant blue against the blackened walls.
He walked through without hesitation.
WHITECHAPEL, MIDNIGHT
The fog hung thick in the air, yellowed by the flicker of gas lamps and stained by chimney smoke. London breathed in soot and exhaled silence. Horses clopped on cobblestone a few streets away, and somewhere distant, a drunk sang to no one.
Roland Fisher moved through the alleys like a man without a map — or a mission. His coat was dusted with grime, his boots damp from sewer runoff. He hadn’t eaten in two days, but he didn’t feel hunger. He didn’t feel much of anything. Not since the Quantum Strand.
Nathan’s betrayal still echoed louder than any gunshot.
He’d seen the man—his mentor—standing among tyrants. Not resisting them. Not warning him. Leading them.
The Chronos Dominion.
The Council of Kangs.
Lies wearing familiar faces.
And now? Roland didn’t know who he was fighting for. Or if he even was fighting anymore. Maybe he was just running. Jumping from ruined time to ruined time, waiting for something to make sense again.
The wrist device on his arm gave a faint pulse. He didn’t look at it.
Then the static hit.
A buzz behind his eyes. Pressure in his ears. Like reality grinding its teeth.
He spun.
A shimmer pulsed in the alley mouth — fog curling inward, gravity twisting ever so slightly. Then the shimmer resolved. Stepped forward.
A Chrono-Hunter.
The armor was darker than TVA standard, built more like a knight than a bureaucrat. Polished black plating with exposed gears and glowing thread-line veins. A mirrored mask reflected Roland’s face back at him — fractured and distorted.
“Roland Fisher,” the figure said, voiced a mechanical growl, “by command of the Authority, you are hereby ordered to cease all traversal and surrender all temporal devices. Resistance will be met with erasure.”
Roland exhaled slowly, eyes tired. “You’ve already erased everything that mattered.”
He unhooked his baton from his hip.
“So come finish the job.”
The Chrono-Hunter moved first — fast, inhumanly so. A long staff unfolded from his wrist with a snapping chkk, edged with oscillating blades on either end. He lunged, aiming for Roland’s ribs.
Roland barely twisted aside, the blade nicking his coat and scoring the brick wall behind him. He spun, baton igniting with a burst of entropic charge, and struck the Hunter’s side — sparks flew, but the armor held.
The Hunter countered with a kinetic pulse from his gauntlet, blasting Roland off his feet. He hit the wall hard, breath knocked from his lungs, but rolled before the next strike could land. The staff cracked the stone where his head had just been.
“You don’t talk much,” Roland muttered, ducking under a swing and slamming his baton into the Hunter’s knee. A joint gave with a hiss, forcing the Hunter to stagger.
“Talking is inefficient.”
Roland smirked, despite the blood in his mouth. “Tell that to your maker.”
The fight twisted through the alley like a storm — brick and smoke and steel. Time pulses cracked the walls, slowing and speeding patches of space unpredictably. Roland would swing, and suddenly the world would lurch forward — or freeze. The Hunter moved like he was skipping frames, phasing through reality just half a second ahead.
Roland dropped a time anchor grenade. The device detonated with a violet pulse, locking the immediate area into stabilized flow. The effect lasted three seconds.
It was all he needed.
He charged.
This time, his blows connected. Baton to jaw. Elbow to throat. A sweep kick that sent the Hunter sprawling into a stack of rotted crates.
Roland tackled him before he could recover, slamming the baton into the chestplate again and again. Sparks flew. The armor cracked.
The Hunter surged with a desperate scream and drove a dagger from his gauntlet into Roland’s side. Blood burst from the wound — hot and red.
Roland howled, grabbed the Hunter’s wrist, and snapped it backward with a wet crunch. The scream that followed was distorted but unmistakably human.
The baton whirred. One final blow.
Crack.
Crack.
Crack.
The body slumped.
Smoke rose from the ruined armor.
Roland staggered back, holding his side. Blood soaked through his shirt, but he barely registered it. He dropped to one knee and yanked the helmet off the dead Hunter—
—and stared.
The face beneath was younger than he expected. Clean-shaven. Intelligent eyes.
Nathan.
Or a Variant. This one was early—idealistic, even in death.
Roland’s hand shook.
“You,” he whispered.
The Variant coughed, wet and shallow. “We’re not… enemies.”
“Then why do you all keep trying to kill me?”
The younger Nathan blinked slowly. “Because you… won't submit.”
Roland leaned in close. “Damn right I won’t.”
The Variant’s last breath rattled, then stopped.
Silence again.
Just the fog. Just the blood.
Just the burning in Roland’s chest — betrayal, grief, fury.
He stood slowly and tore the gauntlet from the Hunter’s arm. His own time-thread interface unfolded in response, synchronizing with the new hardware. The tech was clean. More advanced than anything he’d seen outside the TVA.
He strapped it to his wrist.
This wasn’t scavenging.
This was reclamation.
He activated the device and pulled up a coordinate grid. Dozens of realities flickered into view — some pruned, some corrupted, some untouched. All of them vulnerable.
The Dominion.
The TVA.
Nathan.
All of them had their fingers in history’s throat.
He was done trusting any of them.
Done listening.
Done asking for anything.
Roland glanced once at the corpse at his feet.
“You told me time was a river,” he muttered. “Maybe it is. But I’m done swimming.”
He tapped the device.
A gate opened — brilliant blue against the blackened walls.
He walked through without hesitation.
"I'd like to nominate Cazzik for the Sexiest Man on Earth 2010." --Balsa
Dark Lord of the Grill
Posts: 1947
Joined: Fri Jan 23, 2004 8:41 am
Joined: Fri Jan 23, 2004 8:41 am
Location: Searching for a nursing home for Nichalus
Re: Timeless
EARTH-2791 — THE ASHEN SANCTUM
The sky above the ruins pulsed with violet fractures, each one a scar left by time made unstable. Once, this Earth had thrived. Now it was a graveyard. The cities were blackened husks. The oceans were still and wrong. Lightning forked in the sky without thunder.
This was the Council’s handiwork.
High above the crumbled continents floated what remained of the Ashen Sanctum — a broken temple held aloft by ancient spells and sheer willpower. Its foundation hovered in shards, drifting in solemn orbit. Time didn’t flow cleanly here. It warped and rippled like heat on glass.
Roland stood at the edge of it, fresh from a gate that snapped shut behind him. The air was thick with magical residue. The Sanctum still lived, barely, like a creature on its last breath. He said nothing.
He didn’t have to.
She was already watching him.
Kayla Winters emerged from the shadows of the inner sanctum — taller than he expected, her presence a storm in stillness. Her hair was streaked with silver now, though the red still flared through. Her emerald eyes glowed softly in the half-light. She wore her mantle like a crown, and her silence like a sword.
When she spoke, her voice had the weight of history. “You shouldn’t have come.”
Roland didn’t flinch. “And yet here I am.”
Kayla stepped forward, boots tapping against floating stone slabs that obeyed her movements. The Sanctum bent slightly toward her with every step. “This world’s thread is unraveling. The Council made sure of that. You’re walking through the ashes of what happens when resistance fails.”
“I’m not here to resist,” Roland said. “I’m here to end them.”
She studied him, eyes narrowing slightly. “You sound like him.”
Roland didn’t ask who. He already knew.
She stopped a few paces away. “You carry stolen time. Chrono-Hunter tech. A fractured resonance I haven’t felt since the fall. You’ve killed one of them.”
“He came for me. I finished it.”
Kayla raised a brow. “And now?”
“I’m building a coalition. People the Council wrote off. People like you.”
She turned away, staring out across the fractured horizon. “I’ve buried everyone I ever trained. Everyone I ever loved. The Council of Kangs broke this timeline and left it to bleed.”
“Then don’t let it be for nothing.”
“You think this is the first time someone’s tried to fight them? I’ve seen rebels, uprisings, time-saboteurs. They’re all dust.”
Roland stepped beside her. “I’m not looking to win clean. I’m looking to make them bleed back.”
That caught her attention.
Her gaze turned sharp, calculating. “And if I say yes, what happens to your soul when we start fighting fire with hellfire?”
Roland looked out at the broken sky. “My soul’s already scorched. I just want to aim the burn.”
For a long moment, neither of them moved.
Then Kayla lifted her hand. A radiant sigil flared into existence beside her — a portal shaped from chaos magic and precision. She didn’t look at him as she stepped forward.
“You’ll need someone who knows how the Council thinks. Someone who survived the collapse of everything.”
She paused in the doorway. “I’m not here to follow you, Roland. I’m here to destroy them.”
Roland followed without hesitation. “Then we’re on the same page.”
They vanished into light.
And the ruins of the Ashen Sanctum kept drifting, alone in the void.
The sky above the ruins pulsed with violet fractures, each one a scar left by time made unstable. Once, this Earth had thrived. Now it was a graveyard. The cities were blackened husks. The oceans were still and wrong. Lightning forked in the sky without thunder.
This was the Council’s handiwork.
High above the crumbled continents floated what remained of the Ashen Sanctum — a broken temple held aloft by ancient spells and sheer willpower. Its foundation hovered in shards, drifting in solemn orbit. Time didn’t flow cleanly here. It warped and rippled like heat on glass.
Roland stood at the edge of it, fresh from a gate that snapped shut behind him. The air was thick with magical residue. The Sanctum still lived, barely, like a creature on its last breath. He said nothing.
He didn’t have to.
She was already watching him.
Kayla Winters emerged from the shadows of the inner sanctum — taller than he expected, her presence a storm in stillness. Her hair was streaked with silver now, though the red still flared through. Her emerald eyes glowed softly in the half-light. She wore her mantle like a crown, and her silence like a sword.
When she spoke, her voice had the weight of history. “You shouldn’t have come.”
Roland didn’t flinch. “And yet here I am.”
Kayla stepped forward, boots tapping against floating stone slabs that obeyed her movements. The Sanctum bent slightly toward her with every step. “This world’s thread is unraveling. The Council made sure of that. You’re walking through the ashes of what happens when resistance fails.”
“I’m not here to resist,” Roland said. “I’m here to end them.”
She studied him, eyes narrowing slightly. “You sound like him.”
Roland didn’t ask who. He already knew.
She stopped a few paces away. “You carry stolen time. Chrono-Hunter tech. A fractured resonance I haven’t felt since the fall. You’ve killed one of them.”
“He came for me. I finished it.”
Kayla raised a brow. “And now?”
“I’m building a coalition. People the Council wrote off. People like you.”
She turned away, staring out across the fractured horizon. “I’ve buried everyone I ever trained. Everyone I ever loved. The Council of Kangs broke this timeline and left it to bleed.”
“Then don’t let it be for nothing.”
“You think this is the first time someone’s tried to fight them? I’ve seen rebels, uprisings, time-saboteurs. They’re all dust.”
Roland stepped beside her. “I’m not looking to win clean. I’m looking to make them bleed back.”
That caught her attention.
Her gaze turned sharp, calculating. “And if I say yes, what happens to your soul when we start fighting fire with hellfire?”
Roland looked out at the broken sky. “My soul’s already scorched. I just want to aim the burn.”
For a long moment, neither of them moved.
Then Kayla lifted her hand. A radiant sigil flared into existence beside her — a portal shaped from chaos magic and precision. She didn’t look at him as she stepped forward.
“You’ll need someone who knows how the Council thinks. Someone who survived the collapse of everything.”
She paused in the doorway. “I’m not here to follow you, Roland. I’m here to destroy them.”
Roland followed without hesitation. “Then we’re on the same page.”
They vanished into light.
And the ruins of the Ashen Sanctum kept drifting, alone in the void.
"I'd like to nominate Cazzik for the Sexiest Man on Earth 2010." --Balsa
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