The sky tore open like silver glass.
Eight teenagers stood atop Obsidian Plateau, the wind biting their faces, hearts racing. Above, the temporal rift stretched across the horizon, pulsing violently. Reality trembled—cities froze mid-collapse, cars skidded backward, and people vanished and reappeared unpredictably.
Liora Vale's vision blurred as she traced the threads of time. Everything is unraveling, she thought.
"Are we ready?" Professor Halden's hologram flickered beside them. His tone was grave.
"The Chrono-Drive Experiment failed," he explained. "A NASA-like agency attempted to manipulate time for accelerated space exploration. They tore a hole in reality—a paradox that threatens to erase Earth entirely. You eight are the only ones who can fix it."
Ryn Sato's shadow wings flexed instinctively. "So we're cleaning up their mistake?"
"Not cleaning up," Halden corrected. "You're solving a paradox. Every action you take could affect multiple timelines. Fail, and Earth will vanish. You'll survive—but only in another dimension, stripped of your past."
Tavi Calder's flames flickered nervously. "So… every choice matters? Saving someone now could make things worse later?"
"Yes," Halden confirmed. "Your powers aren't just weapons—they are variables in a fragile temporal equation."
The rift pulsed violently. Threads of fractured time writhed like snakes. They could glimpse fragments of the past, glimpses of failed futures, even alternate versions of themselves—some erased, some twisted.
Liora's hands trembled. "We can't fail. We have to… fix it. Together."
Kairo Nyx's fists sparked with lightning. "Then let's start. We either stop this rift, or nothing we know survives."
Selene Mira formed psychic barriers around the group, violet energy rippling. "Twenty-four hours. That's all the time we have before the rift reaches critical collapse."
Orion Hale twisted gravity to steady the crumbling plateau. Ember Lyn shaped sound into shields. Vera Sol muttered probabilities under her breath.
The air shimmered. Time itself had become the enemy.
And the countdown had begun.