The distortion finished closing like a wound that refused to bleed.
Reality folded inward, compressing into a spherical pressure field that hummed with wrongness. Light bent along its surface. Sound warped and arrived late. Inside, motion blurred into fragments that could not be tracked.
Allium and Khelos vanished from normal space.
The garden fell silent.
Then—
impact.
A shockwave rippled across the clearing, knocking loose leaves from branches and sending ripples through the leylines beneath their feet.
Cassidy staggered back, breath hitching.
"Khelos almost had me," she said, voice shaking despite herself. "He activated the node—he's stuck in there with that thing."
Jax swore under his breath, planting his boots. He did not move from her side.
Thane stared at the distortion, jaw clenched. "That's not a fight. That's a grinder."
Weaver stepped forward, panic leaking through the cracks in his composure.
"Allium!" he shouted. "Can you hear us?"
The sphere answered with distortion—noise stretched until it screamed, then collapsed back into silence.
Inside, something hit something else.
Hard.
Rose stepped forward instinctively.
She didn't make it two steps.
Pain lanced through her chest as the edge of the distortion flared, frost exploding from her boots as she was forced back. She gasped, one hand braced against the ground.
"No," she whispered. "I can't reach him."
Weaver tried.
Threads unfurled and snapped toward the sphere—only to recoil violently, unraveling mid-extension as reality rejected them.
Hopeless.
For half a second, that word sat heavy in the air.
Then Weaver's eyes sharpened.
"Nina," he said quickly. "The last node. How far from this one?"
Nina checked her scanner, fingers moving fast. "Thirty-five meters. Roughly northeast."
Weaver turned to Cassidy.
"I need your help," he said. "Use your Mark. Find a frequency that can hurt him. I'll pull the node here—bring the trap to Khelos."
Cassidy swallowed hard.
Her Mark flared, brighter than she liked.
"I'll try," she said. "I don't like how hard it's pushing back."
Jax stepped closer, grounding presence at her shoulder. "We're here. You're not doing this alone."
Thane nodded. "Yeah. Future, math, destiny—whatever it is. We've got you."
Rose pushed herself upright, already steadying her breath.
"I'll help pull," she said. "Just tell me where."
Weaver nodded once.
"You and me," he said to her. "The rest—stay with Cassidy."
Jax didn't argue. He stayed exactly where he was.
Inside the sphere, the world fractured into angles.
Allium stood opposite Khelos, orange glow compressed tight against his skin. The distortion refracted him into half-images, afterimages, false echoes.
Khelos moved first.
Not a strike.
A sway.
His body mimicked the motion of wind through tall grass, joints folding at impossible angles. The movement triggered a cascade in Allium's perception—ten Khelos, then twenty, each emitting a slightly different energy signature.
A leg slammed into Allium's side.
Then another.
Then another.
He hit the ground, rolled, forced himself up as impacts kept coming—calculated, relentless.
He caught one.
Hands locked around a limb and tore.
The shriek that followed wasn't sound—it was vibration. Pain rippled through the distortion, energy surging outward in a violent pulse that rebounded off the sphere and came back at him.
Allium dodged.
Again.
Again.
Overload pressed harder.
Then—
webbing.
It snapped around his arms, his chest, pinning him mid-motion. He strained, glow flaring—
The energy sphere detonated against him in a blast of deep, unnatural purple.
Allium screamed.
Not in fear.
In effort.
The pressure inside him surged, white clawing at the edges of orange, whispering release—
But cornering a wounded animal has consequences.
Allium's eyes flickered.
Not white.
Something else.
The pupils narrowed, vertical, predatory. A low, inhuman growl rolled out of his chest as instinct replaced restraint.
Khelos froze.
"…different…" it clicked. "…new…"
The webbing ignited in orange and dissolved.
Allium was on him.
No hesitation. No restraint.
He didn't punch.
He slashed.
Energy sharpened along his fingertips, forming claws that tore across Khelos's form with surgical precision. Khelos phased, vanishing into shadow—
—and reappeared behind him.
Above him.
Within the distortion itself.
The fight fractured into violence at every angle.
Cassidy's vision shattered again.
Failure.
Another future collapsing in on itself.
Her eyes burned. Tears streaked down her face as she staggered, hands braced against her knees.
"Nothing works," she gasped. "Every outcome ends the same."
Jax caught her before she fell. "Cass. Look at me. Breathe."
Thane crouched beside her, eyes sharp. "You're thinking too big," he said suddenly. "Stop looking at time. Look at the thing."
Cassidy blinked. "What?"
"The stake," he said. "Not the future. The structure."
Something clicked.
She shifted perspective—away from visions, away from fate—
—and saw wiring.
Faulty alignment.
A single weak connection.
"Thane," she breathed. "You genius."
She tore the casing open, fingers flying as she realigned the wire, hands steady despite the tremor in her Mark.
Thirty-five meters away, Weaver wrapped threads around the final node.
It did not move.
He grunted, teeth clenched. "This thing weighs like the planet itself."
Rose stepped in beside him.
"Then we pull like we are the planet."
Her aura flared—sky-blue light flooding the garden, tattoos igniting as frost curled outward in controlled arcs. She gripped the node and pulled.
It shifted.
Barely.
Weaver exhaled sharply and summoned more threads—dozens, then hundreds, wrapping, anchoring, straining.
They pulled again.
The node crept forward, inch by inch.
Time bled away.
Inside the sphere, something howled.
Cassidy slammed the casing shut.
"It's ready!" she shouted. "Just get it close enough!"
Inside the distortion, Allium and Khelos collided again—
—and this time, something was breaking.
Not the cage.
Not yet.
But Allium could feel it.
The animal edge was still there.
And he didn't know how long he could hold it back.