Time did not shatter loudly....
There was no explosion.
No dramatic sky tearing opening.
It simply stopped behaving like itself.
Time swap noticed it when the alarm rang for the third time in the same minute.
He stared at his phone.
"Okay... Either I'm extremely committed to waking up ," he muttered, "or the universe is glitching again."
The alarm rang.
Same tone. Same vibration. Same exact second.
He slowly turned his head toward the window.
Outside a bird flapping it's wings....
...and stayed in the air.
Not hovering.
Not flying
Just paused.
Like someone pressed pause on existence and forget to press play again.
"...yeah. That's new."
Time swap blinked.
Across town, wasp time was already halfway through her morning run twice.
She stopped abruptly when she realized something was off.
Not slow.
Not fast.
Just wrong.
Her foot hit the ground, but the sound came late.
She froze.
Then tested it again.
Step.
Sound.
Delay.
"..Nope ," she said. "I don't like that. Not even a little bit."
She speed up.
The world didn't keep up.
Spider web was sitting on a rooftop, watching the city like he always did.
Except today.
The patterns were broken.
He didn't just see events.
He felt them.
Connections.
Threads.
Invisible lines tying moments together.
Today those lines were tangled.
Knotted.
Snapped.
He exhaled slowly.
"... Something is pulling at time," he whispered.
And it's not gentle
And somewhere between seconds that refused to pass ..
He arrived.
Strange Doctor did not walk in.
He stepped through a fold in reality like it owed him an apology.
His coat moved before the air did.
His eyes scanned everything at once the frozen bird, the delayed echoes, the fractured seconds
He looked tired.
Not physically.
But like someone who had seen this problem before and knew how bad it gets.
"We're late, he said to no one. Then paused. Or early.
He sighed
I hate when it's both.
Minutes later or perhaps the same minute pretending to move forward. All four of them stood in the same place.
An abandoned clock tower.
Because of course it was a clock tower.
Time had a sense of humor.
A terrible one.
Time swapped crossed his arms.
"So let me get this straight," he said. "Time is broken, reality is acting weird, and you came to us?"
Strange doctor looked at him.
"Yes."
Wasp time scoffed.
That sounds like poor decision making.
"Statistically," strange doctor replied calmly, "you were not my first choice."
"Wow," Time swap said. "I feel very selected."
Spider web stepped closer to the center of the tower.
There was something there.
Not visible.
But present.
Like a heartbeat beneath the floor. There's something under us, he said.
Strange doctor nodded slowly.
"Yes he said"
The time Gate."
Silence
Then
"Wait," Time swap said, "like an actual gate?"
"Yes"
"To Time"
Yes
"And it's under a random clock tower?"
Strange doctor looked at him.
"It was not random when it was built
"...fair."
The ground shook.
Not violently.
But enough to remind them that stability was no longer guaranteed.
A low hum filled the air.
Deep.
Ancient
Wrong.
Cracks begin to form along the floor glowing faintly with a strange, shifting light.
Wasp Time stepped back.
"…Tell me that's supposed to happen."
"It is not," Strange Doctor said.
"Great."
The crack widened. And from it
Something moved.
Not fully visible.
Not fully formed.
But undeniably there.
A shape made of broken moments.
A creature stitched together from missing time.
Time Swap leaned slightly toward Strange Doctor.
"…You want to explain that?"
"Yes," he said calmly.
"That is exactly what we are trying to prevent."
The creature twitched
Then lunged
Okay!" Time Swap shouted. "New plan RUN FIRST, ASK QUESTIONS NEVER!"
Wasp Time was already moving.
Spider Web's eyes widened as threads of time snapped around them.
Strange Doctor stepped forward instead of back.
Of course he did
The first battle for time...
..had just started