Location: Vire-Laravé – Sector 5-H, Inside Lira's Home (Emergency Blanket & Panic Edition)
Time: [Cycle 4 : 00:37 : Local Drift]
Ren had done a lot of weird shit in the last few days.
He fell through a glitchy portal.Got possessed by ancient eyes.Beat a floating eyeball monster with a stick made of air.Watched a magical not-kid explode into a hot death sorceress for 12 seconds.
And now?
Now he was kneeling on the floor of Lira's floating home, holding her unconscious, barely-breathing body, wrapped in a levitating thermal blanket that beeped every time her heartbeat got spicy.
"Core, help me out here. Is she dying or just doing an anime-level nap?"
CORE (flatly):
"Hard to say. Her energy signature's in freefall, and her stabilizer crystal is fractured beyond auto-repair. Could be a coma. Could be... spontaneous energy dispersion."
"That sounds like 'dies with sparkles.'"
CORE:
"Yep. But aesthetically pleasing."
BLAZE:
"You've got fragments. Give her one."
FROST:
"It might overload her."
BLAZE:
"Or it might save her. Better overloaded than decomposed."
Ren stared at Lira's face.
Even in this tiny, cursed state, she looked peaceful — which made him want to scream more.
🌀 Memory Echo — Her Words Before Fainting
"I wasn't supposed to use that much…"
"I'm not stabilized yet."
"There's more you need to know…"
"I was—"
"I was what?"
What the hell was she about to say?
"Fine," Ren muttered. "Let's roll the dice."
He reached into his jacket.
The fragments pulsed faintly. All four shimmered like half-lit embers... and then one — the faintest, the softest glow — reacted.
Not to him.
To her.
CORE:
"That's the one. She must have been partially linked to it before her compression. This could… undo the lock."
"And if it doesn't?"
CORE:
"We put her in a nap pod and pray to whatever gods still answer voicemails."
He pressed the fragment gently to her stabilizer crystal — the cracked orb at her chest.
It sank in. Slowly.
Light bloomed. Not violent. Not burning. Just… whole.
And then—BOOM.
Not a real explosion. Just a discharge of compressed magic that knocked Ren on his ass and made the walls of the house fart with wind pressure.
He scrambled to her side again, eyes wide.
She was still small. Still unconscious.
But the crystal?
No longer cracked.
CORE (quietly):
"You did it."
FROST (softly):
"That won't fix her curse entirely… but it'll stop her from dying."
BLAZE:
"Give her time. She'll wake up."
Ren sat there beside her, exhaling hard. For a while, he didn't say anything.
Then:
"...I'm not gonna let this city lock her up again. I don't care what she used to be. I care who she is now."
CORE:
"Then prepare, Ren. Because after tonight… the Guardians won't just be watching."
Outside, down in the lower sectors of Vire-Laravé, glowing glyphs appeared in the sky. Massive projections. Announcements. Wanted alerts.
Two faces.
One: Lira.
The other: Ren.
Ren sat beside her for what felt like forever.
She looked peaceful now. Her breathing steady. Her stabilizer orb no longer flickering like a dying lightbulb in a haunted apartment. The Aetherium fragment had bonded, but not like it did with him — with her, it felt like it had come home.
Suddenly, her fingers twitched.
Then her eyes opened.
"Ren?" Lira's voice was hoarse, soft. "You didn't run?"
"Run?" Ren snorted. "Nah. I was considering crying and throwing up, but I figured you'd make fun of me when you woke up, so I stayed."
She chuckled — barely.
Then she sat up slowly, staring at her own hands.
"The compression... eased," she whispered. "Only for a moment. That fragment… it was mine, wasn't it?"
"Yours now," Ren said. "I figured if it exploded you, we'd just pretend it was a firework and keep moving."
Lira turned to him. Her expression shifted — vulnerable now. Hesitant. Like a curtain had been peeled back, just enough to glimpse the shadow behind it.
"I owe you the truth," she said. "At least… some of it."
"I'm listening," Ren said, already bracing for something ridiculous.
"I used to be one of them," she began, eyes distant. "A Guardian. But not just patrol or enforcement. I was a Chrono-Warden. I didn't just monitor timelines... I judged them."
Ren blinked. "Judged, like... traffic tickets?"
"No, idiot. Like existence. Whether or not a branch of reality deserved to continue."
"So… cosmic executioner?"
"If you want to make it sound unnecessarily metal, yes."
She stood up, slowly, as if the weight of what she was saying started settling again on her shoulders.
"I was loyal. I believed in the Order. I believed in protecting balance. But then…"
She hesitated.
"I interfered."
"With what?"
"...Someone," she said. "Someone I wasn't allowed to protect. And by doing it, I broke the Prime Law: No Guardian may alter a timeline they have emotionally anchored to."
Ren's heart jumped. "Wait—you cared about them?"
She didn't answer directly. Just nodded slowly, gaze far off again.
"I tried to rewrite a moment. Just one. I paid for it with my body, my age, my rank. They didn't kill me. They cursed me. Compressed me. Locked my core behind fractured memory barriers."
She turned to him again.
"I only got fragments of who I used to be when I met you. When I touched your energy. Something in you…"
She frowned, the next part clearly unsaid.
"...triggered it."
"What are you saying?" Ren asked softly.
"I'm saying," she said, sitting down across from him again, "we might not have met for the first time."
Silence hung between them.
Not awkward. Not heavy.
Just… unfinished.
CORE (quietly in Ren's mind):
"She was a Warden. And she fell for someone. That's rare. That's dangerous. That's... irreversible."
BLAZE (softly):
"And now she's with you."
FROST:
"That's a cosmic knot waiting to strangle the universe. I love it."
Ren didn't know what to say. So he just leaned back against the wall, beside her.
"So... wanted criminals, ancient war crimes, unprocessed feelings, and maybe a second-chance fate-thing between us."
"Sounds like a Wednesday," Lira muttered, exhausted.
They sat like that.
No time tricks.
No cosmic prophecies.
Just Ren and Lira.
Two broken pieces in a world already falling apart.
And outside…
Their wanted posters burned like neon fire in the sky.
The glow of the wanted sigils in the sky didn't fade.
Ren barely had time to process everything Lira had said before the walls of reality started knocking again.
Out the window of her floating home — now forcibly being lowered by city command — he saw the worst possible sight:
Patrol drones. Masked Guardians.
Local enforcers in hover pods.
And the system-wide announcement blasting from hovering glyphs:
🔊 "All homes are under security audit. Unauthorized movement will be penalized. All minors and unregistered Resonants will be apprehended."
"They're sweeping every damn house," Ren muttered, pulling the curtain shut. "They're coming for us."
Lira sat up, swaying, the fragment stabilizing her life but leaving her body weak.
"I can't run," she whispered. "Not like this."
"You don't have to. I'll carry you."
"Ren—"
"No arguments. You saved me. Now it's my turn."
💨 The Escape Begins
Ren grabbed her cloak, wrapped it gently around her small frame, and lifted her into his arms. She was light — too light, like she was still fading.
CORE:
"Park route is sealed. Sky-paths are blocked. Surface exits are guarded. You have one option."
"Underground?"
CORE:
"You always were a rat when it counted."
"I'm taking that as a compliment."
He dashed through back alleys, avoiding spotlights and patrol fields.
Lira clung to his jacket weakly, whispering directions between breaths.
Finally, they reached the base of a half-buried shrine — an old, ignored temple that leaned slightly to the left like it hadn't made peace with gravity yet.
"Here," she mumbled. "City temples are built on old sanctum tunnels… they connect under everything."
Ren didn't hesitate. He kicked the rusted gate, cracked a padlock with his invisible rod, and slipped inside.
🛕 The Temple Below the City
Location: Vire-Laravé – From Sector 5-H to the Outskirts of the Forgotten Temple
Time: [Cycle 4 : 01:11 : Local Drift]
It was dusty. Quiet. The air felt like forgotten incense and old stone.
He found a trapdoor beneath the altar, just as Lira predicted.
And then they were crawling.
Crawling for what felt like forever.
Through ancient tunnels carved from red stone and layered with old sigils. Every time he thought the tunnel would collapse, it didn't.
At last, after hours that felt like days, they emerged.
The tunnel ended behind a worn-down statue of some long-forgotten goddess holding a candle in one hand and a scroll in the other.
And there, nestled at the bottom of a thousand stairs climbing up a mist-covered hill...
Was the temple.
🏯 Welcome to the Temple of a Thousand StepsEvery step was carved from obsidian with silver veins that shimmered faintly under moonlight.Each staircase bent gently to the left, spiraling around the mountain like a coiled spine.Stone lanterns floated mid-air at every twenty steps, softly humming as they pulsed with old prayers.At the top: a single wooden gate, aged and massive, with vines crawling up its side and a rusted bell tied to a dragon's jaw.
Ren collapsed halfway up the final flight of stairs, panting, Lira still in his arms.
"You couldn't have picked a shorter sacred refuge?"
"It's built to test your soul," she muttered weakly. "...Or your quads."
👴 The Priest Appears
When they reached the top, barely conscious and covered in dirt, the temple doors creaked open.
A figure stepped out: a very wrinkled, suspiciously spry old man with one eyebrow, glowing sandals, and a walking stick that looked like it was borrowed from a lightning god.
He squinted at them.
"Hmph. You look like soup that tried to climb a mountain."
Ren tried to bow while still holding Lira.
"We need shelter. Just for a while. Please."
The priest studied them a moment longer. His eyes passed over Lira — paused.
Then softened.
"...She's been touched by the Core."
"Yeah. She's also been touched by half the city's wanted list."
The priest waved his hand.
"You may stay. One week. But I require something in exchange."
"Money?" Ren asked.
"Pfft. What do I look like, a bank? No. You'll help me do what the temple needs most."
Ren squinted. "And what's that?"
The priest smiled with way too many teeth.
"You'll help me clean. The. Entire. Staircase."
Ren: speechless.
"You're saying... I carry her up a mountain and now I'm gonna mop it?!"
"Exactly. With sacred soap. And no shortcuts."