⏳ --

Temporal Tower stood tall and ominous – wicked against the red sky – in the distance, a field of blood red poppies growing in the divide between us and the structure. It was hauntingly beautiful. It reminded me so much of Flanders Fields. I fought on that battlefield in the Great War; the First World War. I remembered my time there too fondly – I'd shaved my head and posed as a man for months in order to fight. Why, you might ask? Because I was ordered to – I was ordered to by Eilian. And, no, I'm not going to explain why. My time there was one I'd like to forget.

I led the way through the poppy field like I was walking on eggshells. The place was eerily silent. I could only hear my slow breathing and the thumping of my heart and my blood thrumming in my ears.

"How is this possible?" Steve whispered.

I knew what he meant. He was wondering how flowers like these could grow in a place so desolate.

"The Chronos didn't always look dead, Steve," I replied, hand out brushing against the soft petals of the poppies.

Approaching the double doors of the tower, I noticed that they had been destroyed, ripped off the hinges and destroyed, splinters sprinkled everywhere. The heels of our boots echoed around us as we entered. It was dark, a little too dark to see, so I opened my palm to create a ball of golden light, raising it high above our heads.

Inside looked like it was inhabited once. The rotted wooden tables and rusted metal braziers were proof of that. A stone staircase was attached to the wall, spiralling up and up with tower above to an unknown destination. I walked over to a table and sprawling chairs with broken legs. Plates and cutlery were strewn across the stone floor, rotten food not far away.

"This place was abandoned decades ago," Steve said.

I moved to a bookshelf beside the table and pulled a book off the shelf, the cover decayed and the spine broken. I opened it and the pages fell out, the cover soon slipping from my grip. "From what I remember, those who once lived here had a duty to protect the Time Stone, guardians with just as much power as the Lord himself. I don't know why they would abandon this place and leave the Stone unguarded."

I heard Steve kick a plate, it skidding across the floor loudly. "Unless they were taken care of instead."

I looked at the stairs. "We have to get moving."

We climbed the stone steps up towards the very top of the tower. The staircase had no railings, so one wrong move and it was a long drop to death.

"Do you think the tower's been ambushed?" Steve asked, following me up. "Why else would the front door be destroyed like it was and the guardians gone?"

Thinking about the possibilities of the door's destruction made me nervous. For all we knew, Eon was at the top waiting for us. That thought made me stop in my tracks, and place a hand on the wall to steady myself.

This was it. Everything I'd done in my life had led up to this point. If Eon was waiting for me at the top, there was a good possibility I was walking to my end. And, surprisingly, I was...okay with that. If that was to happen, I was fine with accepting my fate. I was tired. I was tired with everything. I felt like it was time for the end to finally catch up with me. It was time to stop running. I'd been alive for more than five-hundred-thousand years, too long a time to live. If Eon was waiting at the top for me, to end my life, I would fight for the Chronos. I would fight for my friends and for those I love. I would fight for Steve to the last breath. But if Death came for me, I'd embrace it.

I jumped suddenly when Steve's hand rested on my shoulder. "You okay?"

I took a deep breath, moving my hand off the wall. "Yeah. Just...anticipating."

"Everything's gonna be fine. I'm here."

I turned to look at him. "I know."

We continued to ascend, going higher and higher up the decrepit tower. The higher we climbed, the darker it got, the further away we moved from the golden ball illuminating the area down below.

The wall we remained close to transitioned from ordinary granite to polished stone, artistry carved into it of battles, landscapes, and the tower itself, the Stone glowing at its peak, the guardians of the deadly weapon surrounding its base with hands raised to the sky in worship of its power.

When we came to the door leading to the tower's peak, I had a plan in mind. A plan I hated, and a plan I knew Steve would too. But I had to carry it out. If Eon was truly ahead, this was between me and him. I refused to let anyone else I love be destroyed, to be murdered, by his hands.

"So the Time Stone's through there," Steve deduced, followed by a tired huff. "Here goes nothing."

As he took a step forward, I held out an arm to stop him, my heart thumping in my chest, adrenaline pumping through me. I looked at him with a guilty expression. He looked back, confused. "Andi?"

I swallowed the lump in my throat. "I'm sorry."

As fast as lightning, I shoved him backwards. I placed a hand on the door, the carved lines in it glowing golden, granting me entry. Yanking open its heavy frame, I slipped through what little space if offered, and used all my strength, pushing my body to the stone, and closed it behind me.

"Andi!" Steve yelled from the other side. "Andi, open the door! What the hell are you doing?!"

"I'm sorry, Steve." I rested my forehead on the frame, fighting to hold back the tears. "I can't let Eon kill anyone else. Of all people, I won't let him kill you."

"You can't fight him on your own! He'll kill you! Andi!" His voice was pained, and it was agony to my ears. I clenched my jaw to stop the tears on the brink of falling, to try to stop my entire being from falling apart. "Andi, please. Please let me help you."

I took a shaky breath. "I can't. If I let you come with me, you'll die."

I heard his body leaning against the door slide to the floor. "But if you go, you'll die."

His words were shattering to me. I could hear his tears bubbling up the surface like mine was. We'd just made it. We'd just made our bond stronger by coming together again, after this whole ordeal with Eon and the Chronos so far. And I was shattering it. I was shattering it to save his life.

"And perhaps that's for the best." I balled my fists. "I think it's time. I think it's time for me to go, for good this time." I took a step away from the frame. I looked up the few steps that led to the tower's peak, the red galaxy sky swirling above, lighting my way up with blood red illumination. "I love you, Steve. Never forget that."

I climbed the steps.

★ ★ ★

⏳ --

We were off to see the Wizard, the wonderful Wizard of the Chronos. Well, if you ask me, I'd say he's the Dickcheese of the Chronos after everything this guy has done. If you didn't understand that subtle reference, you didn't have a childhood.

But, seriously, I'm not kidding when I say that we were literally walking on a yellow brick road to a green city in the distance.

"So," I broke the silence, "did you plagiarize the name and the entire setting of Oz or did Baum?"

Wanda stared at me inquisitively. "I did not know you read books."

I grinned. "There's more to me than you realise, Wands." I frowned. "You thought I was illiterate?"

"The Emerald City has stood in the Chronos long before that buffoon wrote his silly novel," Lady Bitch replied coldly.

"And how, if you don't mind me asking?"

"A naïve Walker thought it would be a lovely idea to bring him to the Chronos to see the City, breaking a vital rule of our creed. Let's just say that the Walker never travelled again."

I swallowed. Guess breaking the rules really did mean death, and I knew for a fact that she was not joking.

Anyway, following the yellow brick road, it wasn't long before we came before the gates of the city. Four guards stood on either side, armored up and armed to the teeth. I snapped my bow open and Wanda powered up next to me, but it seemed to me that we were only along for the ride, that Lady Bitch didn't really need us as much as Cap thought she did.

The guards stiffened at the sight of us advancing, and I watched most of them grip their halberds tightly. One, assumed to be the captain, stepped forward dangerously. "Turn back, milady," he warned, "you are not welcome here."

Primavera didn't say a word as bright, white energy blasted from her palms directed at the guards. When the light died down, the guards were nowhere to be seen. What was left of them were piles of dust, and the gates were ripped from the pillars holding them aloft. She'd completely disintegrated them!

"Holy shit," I gaped.

Silent, the woman continued to thunder into the city, a woman on a mission who would strike down any who stood in her path.

"I do not understand why we are here," Wanda said. "She appears to be able to take care of herself."

"Just go with the flow, Wands." I pulled an arrow from my quiver and notched it. "Just go with the flow."

The Emerald City was beautiful to say the least. Towering buildings rose high into the sky, the spires gracing the starry galaxy above. A path wound around the small, green houses, leading to the biggest building in the city: the stronghold, the castle, the House of the Big Kahuna, whatever you wanted to call it.

Storming the city, we took down anyone who tried to stop us. I couldn't say the same for Lady Bitch, but Wanda and I tried as much as we could to stun the Walkers rather than kill them. I was giving them all the benefit of the doubt that they were under mind control. I'd been in that position before, and I wasn't a fan of it. But the way our fearless leader tossed her power around...she wasn't leaving any survivors. It seemed that whoever sided with Eon was destined for death in her eyes.

Though storming the lower parts of the city was more or less a breeze, I had a feeling that breaching the stronghold was another matter entirely. Primavera appeared to have the same line of thinking as she created a portal leading into some sort of courtyard. She spun to glare at Wanda and I, holding out a warning finger. "We do not split up. Do so and you will die."

"Is that a threat?" Wanda asked dangerously, holding the Lady's glare.

"No. It is a warning. You are no match for those who await us in the palace. You will be disintegrated before you can say 'assemble', as you Avengers say." The way she said Avengers was in a tone of disgust. Someone had a chip on their shoulder. "I have little patience left for you mortals. So if you wish to live, you will stay close." Her gaze rested on me. "After all, you do not want your new son to live without his father if you made the ignorant decision of dying here."

A cold breeze rushed over me at those words. How had she known about my son? If she knew about him, she knew about the rest of my family. It dawned on me that the more she talked the more untrustworthy she became, in my opinion. And I wasn't afraid to admit that it made me nervous.

I felt Wanda's hand on my back as she steered me after Primavera towards the stronghold, continuing to pick off stragglers who managed to escape her large berth of power blasting out of her palms. We shouldn't be killing any of them. For all we knew, they were under Eon's control, and that meant we were killing innocents. Well, correction: Lady Bitch was killing innocents; Wanda and I were just stunning all who dared come near.

Climbing the stairs towards the front door, the palace towered before us, a hold that looked almost unconquerable. Holy shit, I was going in with a bow and an almost empty quiver of arrows. On a scale from one to screwed, I was one step above; I was fucked.

Disposing the guards with a single swing of her power-filled arm, Primavera kicked open the gigantic double doors, the mighty metal groaning as they swung open. More than fifty Walkers halted in their place as they turned to look at us. With a single slam of her foot on the marble floor beneath her, white power exploded out in a wave from Primavera's form. Screams echoed around the hall as all who were caught in it disintegrated to dust.

I lowered my bow, an expression of disgust plastered on my face. Wanda powered down with the same expression mingled with shock.

"You did not need to kill them," she said.

"Those who ally with the enemy are no allies of mine," the Lady of Time retorted. "Those who ally with Eon have signed their death warrants."

"Have you even bothered to consider that perhaps they're under mind control?" I did not release my grip on my bow when those words drawled out of my mouth, for I was wary that she may act.

She turned on me, eyes coldly glaring at me, burning holes through my skull. "Words can inspire, archer. And words can destroy. Eon knows how to use his words to recruit an army. Perhaps you should choose yours well."

My knuckles bleached white such at wild statement. She was claiming that these people had been convinced to join Eon, rather than forced. All of them? Thousands of them? Hundreds of thousands of them? That couldn't be possible, right?

It was widely known that Eon had lost all his marbles and couldn't find them, that he'd spilled his lollies long ago. That he was one crazy fruit loop. Why would anyone ally with such a nutjob? The answer: no one. No one sane, that is. Mind control seemed like the only reasonable answer, and an answer that I kept to myself as I watched Lady Bitch investigate the hall. The halt in progress allowed me time to have a look around my surroundings.

I remembered listening to Thor describe the inside of the Asgardian palace. This hall and his descriptions were strikingly similar: a high, doming ceiling, two mighty thrones, so many stairs, and a lot of gold; well, what looked like there used to be a lot of gold, which was now replaced with a lot of black with strays of remaining gold as if totally corrupted by Eon.

I watched curiously as Primavera circled the centre of the hall, hands outstretched as if trying to sense the location of her husband. Wanda stood next to me, arms crossed and watching her just as suspiciously as I was. Guess she was honing her Spidey-senses (yes, I've heard there was such a guy, and, no, I've never seen him nor met him, no idea what he looks like).

Primavera's hands balled to fists suddenly. "He is here."

"Care to tell us where?"

She looked to the floor. "Below. He is below us."

I mimicked Wanda's stance. "Let me guess: in a rotting and moldy dungeon hanging with the rats? Because that's as cliché as it gets."

She sent me a heated glare, and I regretted my words instantly when they left my mouth. I really did have to watch my mouth, even though it was so inconveniently located under my nose.

"That is not a bad place to lock away prisoners," Wanda said. "Especially if this place is as deep as it seems to be."

"The Emerald City dungeons are more brutal beyond compare. You will not survive a single day down there. Cliché? Indeed, for these dungeons are the models for multiple throughout history." She spun on her heel and stormed towards a nearby downwards staircase. "Remain close, mortals."

Wanda stayed as close to me as possible as we followed Primavera down the staircase. The darkness came rushing up to meet us the further we descended. And then the screaming began – blood curdling and piercing and terrible. Screams of agony. Whatever monstrosity was happening down here, I was glad I was on the outside. And if the Lord of Time was truly locked up there, I bet my bow that he was getting the end of the stick when it came to the handing out of punishments.

What sounded like some ancient language being spoken reached my ears. I didn't understand it, it was completely foreign to me; I'd never heard anything like it.

"Akkadian," the Lady said as if she'd heard my questioning thoughts. "It is a dead language. Only a few Walkers still speak it."

I raised an inquisitive eyebrow at her. It was clear that she understood what the voices were saying. It made me think: how old was this broad? She spoke like she was old in a stronger way than Andi did, so she was around the same age as her. She had eyes much older – much colder – than Andi's, so it was clear that this woman was much older than our Time Walker. From what I've heard from Cap, Andi was a Trojan, so Primavera was even older than that judging by, well, everything. Holy shit...

The stairwell ended in a hallway of dark, damp cells, the source of the screaming and crying. Almost every cage was occupied with no less than five prisoners in each. The smell was almost unfathomable, like a sewer had been flushed through here. The prisoners m looked bone thin and haggard, like they hadn't been fed in weeks. They reached out to us, calling out to us in too many languages to comprehend, screaming at me to free them. Wanda and I continued to follow Lady Bitch, her arm outstretched to Spidey-sense the guy we were looking for.

"Primavera?"

The voice calling the name was...sad. As weird as it sounded, the voice sounded incredibly ancient. Andi's voice had that same tinge mixed in with her British accent to a lesser degree. Primavera held an even more older tinge. But this voice. This voice took the cake when it came to age in the tone. The sound of it sent cold shivers down my spine, and turned the blood in my veins cold. Eon's booming and dark voice held that same effect.

"Lord?" Primavera called.

Out of the darkness of the cell at the very back of the hallway, the outline of a face materialised with startling blue eyes, a beard peppered with grey. He looked worse off than everyone else in the dungeon – covered with scars, incredibly thin, and absolutely powerless, the complete opposite of everything I'd heard about him. I kind of knew this first meeting was going to underwhelming.

A weak smile touched his face. "I knew you would come for me, my love."

❈Author's Note: Hey, there! So this was a fairly long chapter, the one of longest I've ever written for the series. It was originally two separate ones, but, in all honesty, I want to move this story along and complete it. I know that sounds bad that this book will be completed in a few more chapters, but I don't want to drag it out with multiple small chapters. But don't worry! The next few chapters are going to be amazing, I promise you that! :D

If you liked this chapter, please consider giving it a quick vote! Thanks for reading!