Arcadia City always sounded alive, even in the dead hours of night. The clock towers breathed with gears behind glass faces, elevated rails hummed between brass-rimmed platforms, and the enormous central chronometer at Epoch Square chimed every quarter hour with a tone so deep it seemed to roll through the stones beneath the streets. On ordinary nights, Cole Beckett found the sound soothing. Tonight, however, the square was bringing him a whole new problem.

It floated above the cobblestones like a wound cut through glass, its jagged edges pulsing with time pressure. Beyond it, Cole could see a battlefield. Burning towers rose in the distance. Soldiers ran beneath torn standards. A storm of green lightning crawled through black clouds above a ruined plain.

Ty Mercado walked up beside him holding a burrito that he subsequently dropped. His tropical shirt was already soaked at the shoulders, his hair clung to his forehead, and his eyes kept darting between the fissure and Cole’s face, searching for any sign of just how bad this was.

Ty Mercado: Cole, buddy, I need you to use words that are going to make me feel better about whatever this is.

Cole did not look away from the fissure.

Cole Beckett: I don’t have those words.

Ty Mercado: Then lie to me with confidence?

The wind pouring out of the rupture intensified, sending rain sideways across the square. One of the clock towers groaned as its hands spun backward, stopped, and then began moving forward too quickly. Cole watched it happen and felt the cold settle deeper into his bones than the rain ever could.

Cole Beckett: This isn’t a normal fracture. I mean what fracture is normal, but this is something new.

Ty Mercado: You're the guy that almost turned into time itself...and this is...new?

There was something about this fissure that felt different. This wasn't like anything that had attacked Arcadia before.

A shape moved behind the battlefield image.

Cole’s fingers tightened near the Driver.

Cole Beckett: Ty, get behind me.

Ty immediately stepped behind him, then leaned around his shoulder to take a look.

Ty Mercado: You got me shaking, hermano! What's going to happen?

The fissure pulsed.

The air collapsed inward as the square warped, stretching forward and backward simultaneously. Cole grabbed Ty by the arm and tried to activate the Chrono Engine Driver, but the device sparked violently, as it hadn't been working right since the final battle against the Maestro of Axis Nova.

Cole’s eyes widened.

Cole Beckett: Oh no.

Ty Mercado: Oh no what?!

Purple light swallowed the square.

Cole felt the ground vanish beneath his feet. Ty screamed beside him, though the sound stretched backward before it reached Cole’s ears.

Then they fell.

Cole slammed shoulder first into mud hard enough to knock the breath out of him. Rain pelted his face, colder and harsher than the city storm. He rolled onto his side and immediately heard screaming, but not the panic of civilians. These were battle screams. War cries. Horses. Steel. Thunder. Fire.

Ty landed in a hay cart fifteen feet away, broke straight through the rotten boards, and vanished into the heap with a miserable groan.

Ty Mercado: Maybe the third worst landing I've ever made.

Cole forced himself upright, coughing as mud slid down his sleeve. He looked around and felt his stomach drop. They were no longer in Arcadia City. They stood at the edge of a military encampment stretching across a rain-soaked valley, where thousands of tents, siege wagons, banners, cooking fires, and wounded soldiers filled the muddy ground beneath a gray sky. Beyond the camp, a fortress city rose against the mountains, its towers marked with the ancient emblem of Avalon. Farther still, on the horizon, green lightning flashed over a blackened battlefield where monstrous silhouettes moved through smoke.

Cole knew about this place. He had read about it. Books of ancient history. Tales of long ago. He had studied enough of Avalon’s history to know exactly which past.

Ty staggered out of the hay with strands of straw stuck in his hair and a deeply offended expression.

Ty Mercado: Okay, I’m alive, but is that a good thing? Where are we?

Cole stared at the banners.

Avalon.

Magnus Foundation.

Nightrook Society.

The Zauberers.

The Church.

And among the soldiers, the name passed from mouth to mouth like a prayer.

Mercer.

Cole swallowed.

Cole Beckett: We’re in the Great War.

Ty stared at him.

Ty Mercado: THE Great War? Ay Dios Mio.

Before Cole could answer, a horn blared from the nearest watch post. Soldiers turned toward them. At first, confusion marked their faces. Then suspicion. Cole realized too late how badly they stood out. His navy hoodie, Ty’s soaked tropical shirt, the Chrono Engine Driver, the modern sneakers half-buried in medieval mud; everything about them screamed wrong era, wrong place, wrong problem.

A soldier in dented chainmail pointed a spear toward them.

Avalon Soldier: Worzol infiltrators!

Ty immediately raised both hands.

Ty Mercado: I would like to strongly object to being called whatever that was!

Second Avalon Soldier: They speak strangely!

Ty Mercado: I speak just fine, dude!

More soldiers drew weapons. Cole shifted his stance, trying to calculate how to de-escalate without transforming and making the timeline even worse. He could fight his way out, but every move here risked becoming history. Every person he knocked down might be someone’s ancestor. Every decision could ripple forward into catastrophe.

A soldier lunged.

Cole sidestepped, caught the spear shaft, and redirected the thrust just enough to send the man stumbling past him instead of breaking his arm. Another came from the left. Cole ducked beneath the swing and shoved him backward into a pile of shields. Ty, meanwhile, grabbed a wooden bucket and held it like a weapon.

Ty Mercado: Back! I have medieval Tupperware and I’m not afraid to improvise!

A third soldier charged him. Ty yelped and hurled the bucket. It struck the soldier’s helmet with a hollow thunk, and the man dropped to one knee more from surprise than pain. Ty looked at his own hands in astonishment.

Ty Mercado: I have discovered my war calling.

Cole grabbed Ty by the sleeve.

Cole Beckett: Don’t celebrate. Move.

They ran through the camp as soldiers shouted behind them. They soon found themselves surrounded.

Ty Mercado: You sure you can't transform?

Cole Beckett: We...we surrender!



Ty Mercado: I don't think they're taking prisoners today, hermano.




Episode 22: Through the Portal of Time

Back in Arcadia City, the Kishirangers arrived on motorcycles, their engines cutting through the panic like a battle cry. Trace Mercer led the formation, red light reflecting across the wet road as he leaned low over the handlebars, his longer hair whipping in the rain behind him. Ashlyn Westbrook rode close beside him, her black motorcycle throwing sheets of water behind its tires, while Roland Vander, Miles Rowan, and Lena Solis followed in tight formation. They braked together at the edge of the square, tires skidding across polished stone before the five of them dismounted and stared upward at the impossible tear in the sky.

For several moments, no one said anything.

The fissure showed them Avalon.

Not modern Avalon, but the Avalon of the Great War. Rolling green hills stretched beneath a sky choked with smoke. Fortress walls stood proud in the distance, banners snapped in violent wind, and far beyond them burned a battlefield marked by siege fires, marching armies, and the sickly emerald glow of the Worzol Dimension.

Trace stepped closer before he seemed to realize he had moved. The rain ran down his face, but his eyes were fixed on the hills beyond the fissure with a softness Ashlyn had almost never seen in him. He looked younger somehow, not in body, but in spirit. The guarded weight that had followed him since his return from captivity eased beneath the sight of a world that no longer existed, and yet there it was.

Ashlyn noticed his hand find hers before he did.

His fingers closed around hers instinctively, like a man reaching for the one thing that made the impossible bearable. Ashlyn looked down at their joined hands, then up at him. Trace remained transfixed by the fissure until the warmth of her hand registered. He blinked, realized what he had done, and turned faintly red despite the rain.

Trace Mercer: Sorry. I didn’t mean to—

Ashlyn tightened her fingers around his before he could pull away.

Ashlyn Westbrook: Don’t apologize.

That silenced him instantly.

Miles Rowan pushed wet green hair out of his eyes and stared into the fissure with a mix of awe and extreme inconvenience.

Miles Rowan: So that is definitely a time hole, right? I’m asking because I’ve only seen, like, none....ever.

Lena Solis stepped forward, holding her hand near the fissure. Yellow light flickered across her Oathlink. Her expression tightened as Zauberer instinct seemed to help her understand.

Lena Solis: The Sanctum current is being pulled through it, but it isn’t natural. It feels like something punched a tunnel through time and left the wound open.

Miles Rowan: You're getting REALLY good at the whole Good Witch of Avalon thing, I must say.

Lena Solis: ...Miles.

Miles Rowan: Well, I don't HAVE to must...but I'd like to.

Roland Vander examined the fractured edge with the calm intensity of someone mentally building and dismantling several bad possibilities at once.

Roland Vander: If that wound continues expanding, it could destabilize more than Arcadia City. A fissure this large may eventually affect the surrounding region, perhaps even Avalon.

Trace finally let go of Ashlyn’s hand, though he did so slowly, as if he regretted losing the anchor even for a moment. He stared into the ancient hills beyond the fracture.

Trace Mercer: Whatever caused this is on the other side.

Ashlyn nodded, her eyes still on him more than the fissure.

Ashlyn Westbrook: Then we go through, find the cause, and stop it before this thing grows enough to swallow Arcadia.

Miles gave a strained smile.

Miles Rowan: Yes. Let's do that. Jump into a historical disaster. That's the Great War, mind you! The thing we're still dealing with today!, all because of this Grail!

Roland Vander: You brought it with you?

Miles Rowan: I could not help it! It's muscle memory!

Lena looked toward Trace.

Lena Solis: Are you sure you’re ready for this?

Trace’s answer came after a long breath.

Trace Mercer: No. But I know that place.

Roland looked at him.

Roland Vander: Then you lead us.

Trace’s jaw tightened, but he nodded. The five Kishirangers stood together beneath the storm, modern warriors staring into the age that had forged the first shape of their legacy. Then Trace took one step forward and jumped into the fissure. Ashlyn followed immediately, then Roland, Miles, and Lena, each disappearing into the purple-blue crack as the time wound pulsed brighter over Arcadia City.

The passage through the fissure was nothing like ordinary travel. It was pressure and memory, like being dragged beneath the surface of a river. Then they fell onto a hillside outside Avalon.

They landed in tall wet grass under a gray morning sky, far enough from the main road that no soldiers immediately spotted them. The air was cold and clean in a way the present never felt, carrying the scent of rain, horse leather, woodsmoke, damp earth, and distant iron. The hills rolled down toward a fortified city in the valley below, where enormous stone walls wrapped around towers and banners that snapped in the wind. Beyond those walls, fields stretched toward the dark line of a distant battlefield where smoke climbed into the sky in thick black columns.

Trace stood slowly, mud clinging to his boots. His expression changed with every second he looked across the land. The hard edge of the modern world fell from his face, and for once he did not look like a displaced relic trying to understand a future that kept asking him to adapt. He looked like a man who had found his way back to the language of his own soul.

Ashlyn stood beside him and watched that realization settle over him.

Ashlyn Westbrook: This is really it.

Trace nodded.

Trace Mercer: Avalon. My Avalon.

Lena stared toward the city, her eyes wide.

Lena Solis: The Ehrvolt energy here is unreal. It’s everywhere. The ground feels alive.

Miles looked down at his own clothes, then at the distant road where several riders passed in chainmail and cloaks.

Miles Rowan: Not to ruin the majesty of the moment, but we are dressed like we are not dressed for this. We're really standing out.

Roland glanced at his own modern suit, which had survived the trip remarkably well and still looked absurdly pristine considering he had just fallen through time.

Roland Vander: He is correct. We need period appropriate clothing immediately if we intend to avoid unwanted attention.

Trace looked toward a cluster of abandoned supply shelters near the tree line.

Trace Mercer: Scouts used those during rain rotations. If this is where I think it is, there may be spare cloaks, tunics, and travel gear inside.

Miles gave him a look.

Miles Rowan: You remember all that stuff?

Trace started walking.

Trace Mercer: I was responsible for keeping people alive. I remember.

The shelters were exactly where Trace remembered, built from rough timber sealed against the weather. Inside, they found old but usable clothing, woolen tunics, leather belts, cloaks, boots, spare trousers, travel wraps, and simple armor pieces meant for messengers and lesser retainers rather than knights. Trace immediately took charge, sorting through the supplies with a familiarity that made the others realize just how much of his life had been spent in conditions like this. He gave Roland a blue-gray cloak and a plain leather jerkin to dull the obvious richness of his presence.

Trace was adjusting his belt when he heard a frustrated sound from behind a hanging canvas divider.

Ashlyn Westbrook: How do I put this thing on?

Trace turned without thinking.

Trace Mercer: The inner lace goes beneath the side—

He stopped dead.



Ashlyn stood behind the half-open divider in the middle of changing, her modern outfit folded beside her and the borrowed clothes not yet pulled into place. His eyes widened, his face went red, and he stepped backward directly into a bucket.

The bucket rolled.

Trace’s foot went with it.

He fell backward into a stack of wooden shields with a crash loud enough to startle birds from the trees outside.

Ashlyn yanked the canvas shut.

Ashlyn Westbrook: Trace! Trace? Trace, are you alright?!

Trace lay buried under three shields, one cloak, and his own humiliation.

Trace Mercer: I saw nothing!

Miles Rowan: You absolutely saw something because you fell like you got smote.

Lena covered her mouth with both hands, failing miserably not to laugh.

Lena Solis: Are you alive?

Trace stared upward at the shelter roof.

Trace Mercer: I really need to pay more attention. I'm a little...out of it.

Miles Rowan: Homecomings can be like that.

Roland, from the doorway, looked as though he was trying very hard to be dignified about the entire situation and losing by degrees.

Roland Vander: Perhaps everyone should face a wall until she's changed.

Ashlyn’s voice came through the divider, mortified and irritated in equal measure.

Ashlyn Westbrook: Sorry everyone, I'm working on it!

Trace slowly sat up, one shield sliding off his chest.

Trace Mercer: I am going outside.

Miles grinned.



By the time they finished changing, they looked convincing enough to pass at a distance. Trace wore red-brown traveling armor with a weathered cloak. This wasn't a disguise to him. They descended toward the city carefully, avoiding the main road when possible. As they walked, Trace’s expression grew more serious. The closer they came to Avalon’s walls, the more frequently they saw signs of war. Refugees moved in groups beneath guard. Wounded soldiers were carried toward the inner gates. Messengers rode hard along the roads, while priests, healers, and supply workers moved between camps with practiced urgency. This was not the polished legend of the Great War that had been written about in books. It was the living disaster that legend had grown around.

Ashlyn walked close to Trace.

Ashlyn Westbrook: Your younger self is somewhere here, isn’t he?

Trace nodded without looking at her.

Trace Mercer: If this is time I think it is, yes. He would be alone. The rest of the team had been betrayed and slain. He would be working to hold the alliance together before the final battle.

Ashlyn Westbrook: That must feel strange.

Trace’s mouth twitched faintly.

Trace Mercer: Most things lately have been quite strange. This certainly ranks highly.

Ashlyn laughed despite the tension.

Lena, walking behind them, suddenly slowed.

Lena Solis: Wait. If young Trace is here, then Jeanne Ark is here too.

Ashlyn stopped walking for half a breath.

The name hit her like a bell.

Trace glanced at her, concern softening his face.

Trace Mercer: She may be.

Ashlyn looked toward Avalon’s gates.

Jeanne Ark. The ancestor she had only recently learned belonged to her bloodline. The woman whose legend stood behind so much of what Ashlyn was becoming without her ever knowing it. The possibility that she might be walking somewhere beyond those walls, breathing the same air and carrying the same war, made Ashlyn’s chest tighten with something she could not easily name.

Ashlyn Westbrook: I don’t know if I want to see her or if I’m terrified of seeing her.

Trace’s voice was gentle.

Trace Mercer: That's understandable.

They entered Avalon City near midday, blending into a stream of travelers, soldiers, merchants, refugees, and camp workers moving through the western gate. The city was vast and alive, less polished than modern Avalon but richer in texture and noise. Smiths hammered armor in open workshops. Children carried water between stone houses. Market stalls sold bread, dried fish, wax tablets, knife belts, charms, and small carved symbols meant to ward off Worzol corruption. Above it all rose the royal citadel, golden banners snapping from its towers beneath the watch of a clouded sky.

The crowd drew them toward a broad square before the citadel steps, where hundreds of people had gathered to hear the conclusion of a royal address. At the top of the steps stood King Aurelius Arcturus, even more resolute than the heroic statues in modern Avalon made him look, and no less commanding. He wore a heavy crown, a dark blue cloak lined in gold, and armor that had clearly seen battle rather than ceremony. His face was marked by exhaustion, but his voice carried across the square with a strength that made even the restless crowd quiet.

Behind him stood two figures.

Trace Mercer.

Young, resolute, and unmistakable in his Kishi Red armor.

And beside him, Jeanne Ark.



Ashlyn stopped so abruptly that Lena nearly bumped into her. The sight of Jeanne at Young Trace’s side did something to her. Jeanne looked neither distant nor unreachable now. She looked human. Strong, yes. Radiant in presence, yes. But human, with worry in her eyes as she watched the crowd with the full knowledge that inspiration came with the burden of being believed.

King Aurelius lifted one hand, bringing the crowd to silence.

King Aurelius Arcturus: We have lost villages, fields, and good souls to the armies of Vantrex. We have buried sons and daughters beneath banners that should have flown over weddings, harvests, and homecomings. I will not stand before you and pretend the road ahead is gentle, because every person in this square has earned the truth. The Worzol Dimension marches against our world with hunger in its heart, and if we stand divided, it will devour us one death at a time.

The square remained silent.

King Aurelius Arcturus: Yet look around you. Avalon does not stand alone. Magnus has sent its best. The Zauberer have joined us. The Church has brought faith into the mud and blood where faith is needed most. We do not gather because we are the same. We gather because the darkness believes our differences will make us weak, and by God, by crown, by spell, by steel, and by every promise ever made to the children who will inherit this world, we shall prove it wrong!

The crowd erupted.

Ashlyn barely heard the cheers.

She was watching Young Trace.

He smiled at something King Aurelius said quietly after the speech ended, and the expression was so familiar and so different at once that it made her ache. The man beside her, the Trace she knew, watched the same moment with a complicated softness. He did not look jealous of his younger self. He did not look afraid. He looked as though he were standing outside a memory and finally seeing why someone else might have believed in him.

Ashlyn glanced at him.

Ashlyn Westbrook: You were good at this.

Trace kept his eyes on the steps.

Trace Mercer: I just stood there. I was just a rallying point.

Ashlyn Westbrook: No. You were more than that.

He did not answer, but she saw the words reach him.

Miles, who had been scanning the crowd with the instincts of a former thief, suddenly tilted his head.

Miles Rowan: I hate to interrupt the historical feelings, but I hear a fight.

Lena frowned.

Lena Solis: Where?

Miles pointed toward a side street leading away from the square.

Miles Rowan: That way. Shouting and running.

They pushed through the crowd and followed the noise into a narrower street where several soldiers had cornered two very out of place men near an overturned produce cart. Cole Beckett stood with his hands raised. Ty Mercado stood beside him, holding a turnip defensively.

Ty Mercado: I am warning you, I'm deadly with a vegetable.

An Avalon soldier leveled his spear.

Avalon Soldier: Sorcerers from the Worzol ranks!

Cole’s eyes flicked toward the Chrono Engine around his waist, then toward the soldiers. He clearly did not want to transform. Trace understood immediately. The clothes, the confusion, the restraint, the way Cole kept trying not to hurt anyone. Future. They had to be from the future.

Trace stepped forward before the others could stop him, lowering his hood and deepening his voice just enough to disguise himself from anyone who might have heard Young Trace speak at the square.

Trace Mercer: Hold your steel. I’ll test them.

The soldiers looked him over. In this era, confidence carried weight, and Trace wore the posture of a battlefield commander whether he meant to or not.

Avalon Soldier: Who are you?

Trace did not hesitate.

Trace Mercer: A soldier who knows evil when he sees it, and these two are too confused to be spies.

Cole looked at him sharply.

Trace quickly lunged.

Cole reacted instantly, dodging the first swing and blocking the second with his hands. Their movements looked violent to the soldiers, but Trace spoke as they grappled against a wall.



Trace Mercer: Future?

Cole’s eyes narrowed.

Cole Beckett: Yes. You?

Trace Mercer: Same. Sort of. Keep up.

Cole Beckett: I was about to say that to you.

Trace almost smiled.

Then the duel became spectacular.

Trace forced Cole backward into the street, and Cole responded with a burst of speedy footwork that made him seem to appear half a step ahead of himself. Trace adapted immediately, making each strike wide enough to look painful but controlled enough to avoid forcing Cole into a real defense. Ty dove out of the way as they crashed past him, still clutching the turnip.

Ty Mercado: I don't even like turnips!

Miles appeared beside him.

Miles Rowan: Here, let me help you up.

Ty looked at him.

Miles looked at Ty.

Something immediate and terrible passed between them.

Ty Mercado: Thanks. Finally a friendly face from the past.

Miles Rowan: I get the feeling we're from the same place. Love the tropical shirt by the way.

Ty Mercado: We’re going to get along.

Miles Rowan: Obviously.

Meanwhile, Trace and Cole leapt over the overturned cart, exchanged three fast blows, and landed in the center of the street. Trace let Cole drive him back just enough to impress the watching soldiers, then twisted, locked Cole’s arm, and slammed him harmlessly against a wooden post in a move that looked like a decisive victory.

Cole gave a dramatic grunt.

Cole Beckett: That was rude.

Trace Mercer: Sell it better.

Cole let his knees bend slightly.

Cole Beckett: Agony. Betrayal. My pride is in ruins.

Trace turned toward the gathered soldiers.

Trace Mercer: Enough. These men are not Worzol spies. They are strange, yes, but courage often comes in unfamiliar forms. This one fights with restraint when he could have maimed you, and that one defended himself with a turnip rather than a blade, which is either mercy or madness.

The soldiers murmured.

Ty raised the turnip slightly.

Ty Mercado: It can be both.

Trace ignored him with heroic effort.

Trace Mercer: They are warriors from a far-off land, drawn here by the same darkness we all seek to crush. If they have come to help us break Vantrex, then I say we welcome every blade, fist, and questionable vegetable willing to stand against him.

That landed exactly as Trace intended. Soldiers cheered. Someone clapped Cole on the back. Someone else raised Ty’s hand, turnip and all. Ty looked deeply confused.

Trace turned toward Ashlyn across the street, clearly meaning to signal that the deception had worked.

Then he froze.

Jeanne Ark stood beside Ashlyn.

Close enough to touch.

Trace’s eyes widened in absolute panic.

For one instant, Ashlyn saw the ancient warrior who had faced monsters, curses, and armies become a man terrified, and it befuddled her.

He turned and walked away very quickly.

Almost ran.

Ashlyn stared after him.

Ashlyn Westbrook: Trace?

Jeanne turned toward her, eyes narrowing slightly.

Jeanne Ark: Forgive me. Did you see where that soldier went? I thought I heard a familiar voice.

Ashlyn’s entire body went stiff.

Lena stepped in immediately, smiling with desperate brightness.

Lena Solis: He went that way.

She pointed confidently in the opposite direction.

Jeanne looked that way, then back at Lena.

Jeanne Ark: My thanks.

Ashlyn could barely breathe.

Jeanne’s gaze lingered on her for one moment longer than expected. A flicker of curiosity, on her face, before she walked away.

Ashlyn exhaled hard.

Ashlyn Westbrook: I almost died.

Lena nodded solemnly.

Lena Solis: Historically, emotionally, and possibly genealogically.

They regrouped at a crowded inn near the edge of the market district, choosing a back room where the noise of soldiers, travelers, and merchants would cover their conversation. The inn smelled of stew, wet wool, woodsmoke, and spilled ale. Trace returned through the rear entrance. Ashlyn gave him a look that promised questions later. He avoided it with skill.

Cole and Ty were now in proper attire for the time period and sat across from the Kishirangers at a rough wooden table. Ty had already acquired bread, stew, and a suspicious cup of something that Miles told him not to drink unless he wanted to see God sooner than later.

Cole studied the group carefully.

Cole Beckett: So you’re from the future too.

Trace nodded.

Trace Mercer: Like I said, sort of. They are definitely from your time, while I took the long way around to get back to the time I'm originally from.

Cole’s gaze flicked over him.

Cole Beckett: You’re Trace Mercer.

Trace hesitated.

Trace Mercer: Yes.

Cole looked toward the street, where the younger Trace’s banners still flew in the distance.

Cole Beckett: Yeah not the right one for this time though.

Miles Rowan: Great observation.

Ty leaned toward Miles.

Ty Mercado: Is this normal for you guys?

Miles considered that.

Miles Rowan: Lots of things have become normal, but not time travel. This one is new.

Ty Mercado: That's great, hermano. Glad I'm not the only one panicking.

Roland sat upright, hands folded.

Roland Vander: We came through a fissure in Arcadia City. It appears to have been opened deliberately, and unless we find the source, it may expand enough to destroy the city.

Cole’s expression hardened.

Cole Beckett: I saw a symbol while inside the fissure before it fully pulled us in. I believe I recognized it. Axis Nova.

Lena frowned.

Lena Solis: Those guys? That strange company that tried to do business with Worzol?

Cole leaned forward.

Cole Beckett: Axis Nova is an organization from further ahead in the timeline. They want control over all time and space. They rewrite causality until history itself serves them. Kamen Rider Tempo and I defeated the Maestro of Axis Nova and wiped out the timeline he was trying to force into existence. At least, that’s what I thought happened.

Ashlyn’s eyes narrowed.

Ashlyn Westbrook: But someone escaped?

Cole nodded.

Cole Beckett: Praetor Null. I don’t know his name because I met him. I know it because the fissure showed me fragments, and to make a long story short, I once almost became time itself, so some things are still rattling in my head. He survived the collapse of an erased timeline and dragged himself backward through broken history. If he’s here, then he’s trying to make sure the future that defeated him never happens.

Miles Rowan: Did you just say you almost became time itself?

Trace looked down at the table, jaw tightening.

Trace Mercer: He's going to change history by helping Vantrex win the Great War.

The room went quiet.

Even Ty stopped eating.

Cole looked at Trace.

Cole Beckett: If Vantrex wins, what happens?

Trace’s answer came quietly.

Trace Mercer: The world ends, swallowed by the Worzol Dimension.

Miles Rowan: I did hear right that he almost became time? Right? Anyone?

Later that night, the seven of them moved through the woods east of Avalon under cover of darkness. Lena could feel the energy leading them, while Cole used his Chrono Engine to try and assist in tracing a path to a person who should not be in this time. All of them were giving off a signature, and this one was a major difference. Cole called it a paradox. Trace led them along old scout paths he remembered from campaigns long past, avoiding patrols with unsettling ease. For all his confusion in the modern world, here he moved with calm familiarity. Ashlyn watched him become more himself with every mile and felt both happy for him and afraid of what that meant.

The trail led them to a hidden encampment beyond a ridge where Dreadlings and human collaborators gathered beneath black banners marked with Worzol symbols. The human traitors wore scavenged armor and painted their faces with green ash, while Dreadlings crouched around fire pits, snarling and scraping claws against stone. At the center of the camp stood Praetor Null.

His armor was not medieval, not Worzol, and not modern. It was angular and black, marked by pale lines that glowed like cracks in dead starlight. The Axis Nova symbol burned across his chest, and around him time behaved incorrectly. Sparks froze midair. Flames reversed into wood and then burned forward again. Shadows arrived before bodies moved. His helmet was shaped like a broken crown, and behind him floated fragments of circular machinery like pieces of a clock that had forgotten what time meant.

He addressed the camp with a voice that omit before he spoke.



Praetor Null: I have seen the future you were denied. I have seen worlds chained to order, empires perfected by Axis Nova, and time itself made obedient beneath the will of those strong enough to command it. Then I saw that future murdered by rebels, Riders, and the diseased chaos they call freedom.

Cole’s fists tightened.

Praetor Null raised one hand.

Praetor Null: I survived the erasure. I crawled through the collapse of my own history and found the first wound. Here. This war. This fragile alliance. This age of heroes that becomes the root of every rebellion yet to come. Vantrex shall have his victory, Axis Nova shall have its correction, and together we will build a paradise of chaos!

Trace’s eyes narrowed.

Trace Mercer: He caused the fissure.

Cole nodded grimly.

Cole Beckett: Not just one. He probably ripped through multiple time periods to get here.

Roland looked toward the camp.

Roland Vander: Then we definitely have to stop him to erase those fissures.

Miles Rowan: So we hit him now.

Ty looked from Miles to the heavily guarded camp.

Ty Mercado: Just so I understand, the plan is seven people attacking that monster army and that big dude in the middle?

Trace drew Oathrender.

Trace Mercer: Yes.

Ty nodded slowly.

Ty Mercado: Clear. I Hate it, but clear.

Cole Beckett: It's going to be six. You stand back, Ty. We don't have Clockwork Runner with us.

Ty Mercado: I can't let you do this alone!

Ashlyn Westbrook: He's not alone.

The Kishirangers stepped forward together. Their Oathlinks ignited in muted light.

Trace Mercer: Oath forged.

Roland Vander: Knowledge guarded.

Ashlyn Westbrook: Courage sworn.

Miles Rowan: Wild heart awakened.

Lena Solis: Truth shone.

Together, they raised their arms.

All Five: Kishiranger, arise!

Colored light erupted across the ridge. Red, black, blue, green, and yellow armor formed beneath the medieval night. Cole gripped the Chrono Engine Driver as sparks burst across its face. For several seconds, the device resisted him, damaged by the time displacement and Praetor Null’s interference. Cole clenched his teeth, forcing his own temporal pressure into alignment.

Cole Beckett: Come on. You dragged me here. Now work.

The Driver clicked.

Steam burst from the side vents.

Golden clockwork light spun around his waist.

Cole’s eyes sharpened.

Cole Beckett: Calibrate. Lock. Ignite. RIDE THE PRESSURE! HENSHIN!

The Chrono Engine lit up.

The transformation was violent. Steam erupted around him in a circle, forming a glowing ring of light. Plates of bronze and black metal clamped onto his limbs like shackles, twisting into segmented armor. Gear teeth spun across his chest as the red gauge on his belt slammed into place.



Ty stared at them.

Ty Mercado: I am both inspired and wildly underdressed.

Then the heroes charged the camp.

The first impact scattered Dreadlings like leaves in a storm. Red Kishiranger cut through the front line with Oathrender. Black Kishiranger moved beside him with Gravebrand, the black blade carving through corrupted armor in arcs. Blue Kishiranger drove forward behind Shield Vanguard, protecting their flank as enemy arrows and Worzol blasts slammed uselessly against his barrier. Green Kishiranger moved through the chaos in flickers of afterimage, Gungnir striking from all angles. Yellow Kishiranger brought Aymr down with enough force to crack the earth, sending waves of Sanctum energy through the camp. Gauge fought differently from all of them, using timed bursts of acceleration, pressure vents, and counters to appear where enemies least expected him.

Praetor Null watched them approach without fear.

Praetor Null: Cursed Paradox, I see you followed me, and brought some friends.

When Trace and Cole reached him together, the villain finally moved.

His first strike hit both of them at once.

Trace blocked with Oathrender, Gauge crossed his arms defensively, and the force still drove them backward across the dirt. Praetor Null followed without seeming to hurry, his blade forming out of nowhere.

Praetor Null: Red Kishiranger. Kamen Rider Gauge. Two errors standing side by side.

Gauge lunged.

Praetor Null parried and fought him off with ease.

Cole Beckett: Careful, he's reading causality.

Trace Mercer: He's what?

Cole Beckett: He's got a feeling of what we're going to do before we do it. Trust me!

Trace attacked from the opposite side, but Praetor Null twisted through the strike and slammed a gauntlet into Trace’s chest hard enough to crack sparks from the armor. Ashlyn immediately intercepted the follow-up, Gravebrand colliding with Praetor Null’s blade in a burst of black and violet light.

Ashlyn Westbrook: Stay away from him.

Praetor Null tilted his head.

Praetor Null: Attachment. The driving force of history. It's a mistake.

Ashlyn Westbrook: It's my mistake to make.

Before the fight could press further, a grotesque Worzol lieutenant lumbered from the back of the camp. It was massive, hunched, and covered in layered bone growths, with four arms ending in jagged hooks and a mouth split too wide across its face. Green fire burned inside its ribcage. It roared and charged directly toward Lena and Roland, forcing the team to turn their attention as it began tearing through both heroes and its own allied humans without care.



Praetor Null looked toward the distant battlefield where Vantrex’s main army gathered.

Praetor Null: The final battle nears. I have no need to waste this night finishing you.

Gauge tried to pursue, but Praetor Null stepped backward into a fracture of violet darkness.

Cole Beckett: Null!

The villain’s voice lingered after his body vanished.

Praetor Null: On the battlefield, Rider. The future dies there.

The fracture closed.

The Worzol lieutenant attacked again, forcing the heroes into formation. Trace and Ashlyn exchanged one glance and moved together.

Trace Mercer: Final Vow!

Ashlyn Westbrook: Twin Judgment!

Their red and black energy spiraled together into a devastating blast that struck the lieutenant square in the chest. At the same moment, Gauge’s Driver vented steam and golden light wrapped around his leg as he launched himself upward.

Cole Beckett: Steam Spiral Kick!

Gauge came down through the center of the Twin Judgment blast, his kick drilling into the weakened monster with clockwork force. The Worzol lieutenant screamed as the combined attack tore through it, and the creature exploded in a wave of green fire that lit the encampment like dawn.

For a moment, the battlefield fell quiet.

Then hoofbeats thundered from the ridge.

A white horse emerged from the trees, carrying Jeanne Ark beneath a rain-dark cloak, her banner strapped across her back. She reined in hard at the sight of the five armored Kishirangers standing among the ruins of the Worzol camp.

Her face went pale.

Ashlyn froze.

Trace’s entire body went rigid.

Jeanne looked from Red to Black to Blue to Green to Yellow, disbelief and pain colliding in her eyes.

Jeanne Ark: The Kishirangers?

The words were barely above a whisper.

She dismounted slowly, staring at them as if ghosts had stepped out of fire.

Jeanne Ark: Trace, what is going on? The other four are dead. Slain by the traitor who shattered the oath.

She looked toward the black armor.

Her voice became cold.

Jeanne Ark: Mordred Vander.

Roland went still.

Miles looked sharply toward him.

Ashlyn turned.

Trace said nothing.

The rain fell harder around them as the name echoed through the broken camp, and somewhere in the distance, the armies of Vantrex began to march toward the final battle.

To Be Continued...

Last edited by Machismo (6/03/2026 3:08 am)

Episode 24: Great War and Beyond

The final battle of the Great War began beneath a sky that looked as if heaven itself had been wounded.

Dawn had not truly broken over Avalon. The sun existed somewhere beyond the clouds, pale and hidden, while the horizon burned with the reflected light of siege fire, spellcraft, and the unnatural radiance spilling from the open gate that Vantrex had forced into the heart of the battlefield. The land before the gate had become a churned wasteland of broken shields, fallen banners, shattered siege engines, and smoking craters where magic and steel had already spent themselves in impossible quantities. Armies that had sworn for generations never to stand beside one another now fought shoulder to shoulder under the desperate command of the last alliance. Zauberer mages formed circles of blue flame around exhausted archers. Magnus knights moved through shadow and struck at the flanks of towering Worzol beasts. Priests from the early Church raised hymns over the clash of iron, and warriors of Avalon held the center with blood on their armor and faith in their teeth.

At the very heart of that storm, young Trace Mercer fought beside Kamen Rider Magnus and Kamen Rider Ash.

The younger Trace still carried the same fire in his movements, the same relentless refusal to yield ground. His red cloak had been torn nearly in half, his sword arm shook with exhaustion, and dark smoke clung to the edges of his armor, yet he kept pressing toward Vantrex with raw courage. Magnus and Ash fought on either side of him, their Rider armor catching the terrible light of the gate as Vantrex dragged the Rune Lens toward the threshold that would let the Worzol Dimension swallow the world.

Trace Mercer, the Trace from the future, watched that battlefield only for a moment before he tore his eyes away and fixed them on the black valley below.

Praetor Null had brought an army.

The Dreadlings poured over the broken ridges west of the final battlefield in a vast, crawling wave of jagged armor, bone masks, hooked blades, and green-black fire. They moved with terrible discipline now, no longer scattered raiders or warped remnants, but a true incursion force marching under the will of a man who should not exist. Praetor Null stood at their head, the mark of Axis Nova burning on his chest. He had found the one moment where a single interruption could break all of history, and he was driving everything he had toward it.

The Kishirangers stood between him and the final battle.

Trace lowered his sword and felt Ashlyn step into place beside him. Ray, Miles, and Lena formed the line without being asked, their Oathlinks already humming against their waists. Jeanne Ark stood slightly ahead of Cole Beckett, her banner-spear planted into the mud as her eyes followed the thousands of monsters advancing through the smoke. Kamen Rider Gauge turned the Chrono Engine Driver with a sharp twist, steam venting from the side of his armor as his orange lenses narrowed toward Praetor Null.

Ty Mercado stood behind them, mud on his face, a borrowed sword in his hand, and the expression of a man who had no idea what he was doing, but he was going to give it his all.

Ty Mercado: I just want everyone to know that when I said I wanted to see old Avalon someday, I meant like a guided tour of the ruins.

Cole Beckett: We tried that once. You complained when the tour guide didn't have snacks.

Ty Mercado: She tried to placate me with raisins...raisins, Cole.

Jeanne glanced back at them with the strangest mixture of confusion and fondness.

Jeanne Ark: Are all warriors from your era like this?

Cole Beckett: Just be happy Tick and Tock didn't get dragged with us.

Trace kept his eyes forward. The Dreadlings were close enough now that he could see the light in their mouths, could hear their layered shrieks rattling through the ground. His heart was not calm, but it had become steady. The past was raging behind him, the future was waiting somewhere beyond a fissure, and standing beside him was the woman who had become the one truth time could not devour.

Ashlyn’s fingers brushed against his.

He looked at her.

She looked at him.

No speeches passed between them. Their Oathlinks spoke for them in the rising glow that ran from red to black, from black to red, a pulse of power so complete that the air between them shimmered.

Roland noticed first. He turned his head slightly, his blue visor catching the light.

Lena noticed next and immediately set her jaw as if she were trying very hard not to smile in the middle of the end of the world.

Miles stared at their wrists, then at their hands, then at the approaching army.

Miles Rowan: Is this a bad time to point out-

Lena Solis: Yes.

Miles Rowan: Understood. It can wait.

Praetor Null raised his blade, and the Dreadlings charged.

Trace lifted his Oathlink.

Trace Mercer: Kishirangers, charge!

The team answered as one. Their Oathlinks flared, and the five symbols of Avalon ignited in the air before them. Red, blue, black, green, and yellow light, followed by the steam and temporal pressure of Kamen Rider Gauge.

Jeanne did not transform. She simply lifted her banner-spear and charged ahead, fearlessly.

The armies collided.

The first impact threw mud, fire, and broken weapons into the sky. Trace met the foremost Dreadling with a slash that cut through its shield and breastplate at the same time, then drove his shoulder into another hard enough to send it crashing backward through three more. Ashlyn moved beside him in a black arc, her blade sliding through the gaps in armor with surgical precision before she spun under Trace’s follow-up strike and severed the arm of a Dreadling captain reaching for his flank. Their movements joined without hesitation, each attack creating space for the other, each step drawing power from the Oathlink bond that blazed between them.

Roland took the left flank with disciplined brutality. His shield flashed blue as he forced a path through a wedge formation of spear-bearing Dreadlings, blocking five thrusts in quick succession before driving a kick into the lead monster’s chest and using the recoil to pivot into a sweep that split the entire rank open. Lena guarded his rear with golden force, Aymr striking like judgment as she smashed one Dreadling into the ground and used the rebound to hammer another through a ruined barricade. Miles moved in bursts of green, Gungnir spinning in his hands as he vaulted over a line of crawlers, landed on the shoulders of a siege beast, and drove the spear through the glowing sigil at the back of its skull.

Cole charged straight through the center.

Kamen Rider Gauge: Boiler Breaker!

Steam exploded from Gauge’s armor as he punched through a wall of Dreadlings, the Chrono Engine building pressure with each strike. He ducked beneath a cleaver, caught a second blade against his forearm, and drove his knee into the attacker’s ribs before twisting the Driver again. A pulse of compressed temporal force blew outward, freezing a dozen Dreadlings for the span of a heartbeat. Jeanne used that heartbeat with terrifying efficiency. She swept in behind him, banner-spear glowing, and struck every frozen enemy in a single circular motion. When time snapped back around them, the monsters collapsed all at once.

Jeanne Ark: Your machines are strange, Cole Beckett, but I confess they are excellent in battle.

Kamen Rider Gauge: I wish I could quote that for my shop sign, but who would believe me?

Praetor Null entered the fight like a blade dropped from the sky.

He struck between Trace and Ashlyn with enough force to split the earth, and only their linked reflexes saved them. Trace crossed his sword low while Ashlyn crossed hers high, their weapons catching Null’s descending strike between them. Black and red energy erupted from their Oathlinks, but Null leaned into the clash and forced both of them back several steps.



Praetor Null: You don't belong here, Blazing Oath!

Trace Mercer: I’ve been told that a lot lately! I don't care!

Null twisted his blade, and a burst of energy ripped through the air. Trace rolled through it, came up with a slash toward Null’s side, and found the attack blocked by a black shield that unfolded from Null’s gauntlet. Ashlyn attacked from behind, but Null’s shadow split from his body and met her blade with a mirror weapon of its own. The shadow had no face, no voice, only the cruel outline of something erased from time and dragged back wearing hatred as a skin.

Ashlyn planted her heel, drove her sword through the shadow’s blade, and forced it to buckle.

Ashlyn Westbrook: Trace, low!

Trace dropped without looking.

Ashlyn’s strike passed over his shoulder and cut through the shadow’s neck as Trace swept Null’s legs from under him. Null caught himself on one hand, spun in the air, and kicked Trace square in the chest, sending him backward into a broken wagon. Ashlyn leapt after Null, black energy spiraling down her blade, but Null caught her by the wrist and slammed her into the earth with enough force to crack stone.

Trace was already up before Null could finish the motion.

The red Kishiranger struck him with a shoulder charge that carried them both across the mud and into the remains of a Dreadling siege tower. Wood splintered around them. Null rammed his elbow into Trace’s helmet once, twice, and then drove a blade of black light toward the crest on his chest. Ashlyn’s chain snapped around Null’s wrist before the strike could land. She pulled with both hands, dragging his arm wide, and Trace answered with a rising slash that carved sparks from Null’s armor.

The Oathlinks flared again.

This time the glow was so intense that even the Dreadlings staggered away from it.

Cole turned while fighting, one gauntlet locked around a Dreadling’s throat.

Kamen Rider Gauge: Okay, that’s new.

Ty ducked behind a broken shield as a Dreadling axe flew over his head.

Ty Mercado: I really shouldn't be out here!

Miles landed beside him and skewered the monster trying to climb over the shield.

Miles Rowan: You're doing doing great! You're not dead yet! You've exceeded expectations!

Ty Mercado: That is the kind of blind confidence I can hide behind.

Roland Vander: What is happening over there? The light, it's so bright!

Lena Solis: That's love! THAT'S LOVE!

Trace and Ashlyn stood together as the light between their Oathlinks became a single blazing chain of red and black. Their armor answered the bond, crests glowing, gold trim igniting with power that ran down into their weapons. Praetor Null stepped back for the first time, and through the black visor of his helmet, something like recognition moved.

Praetor Null: You two...can't be doing this!

Ashlyn Westbrook: You keep talking like love has rules.

Trace turned his sword, the red light wrapping around the blade in a spiral. Ashlyn lifted hers beside it, black fire rolling along the edge.

Trace Mercer: It doesn’t.

They moved together.

The Final Vow Twin Judgment had always been powerful, but in that ruined valley of the Great War, with young Trace fighting for the world behind them and future Trace fighting for the love that waited, the attack became something greater than a technique. Trace and Ashlyn crossed their blades, as Roland, Lena, and Miles lent their energy to the attack.

Trace Mercer: Final Vow!

Ashlyn Westbrook: Twin Judgment!

The powerful blast tore through the battlefield like a red-and-black sunrise. It struck Praetor Null square in the chest, lifted him from the ground, and drove him backward through his own front line. Dreadlings disintegrated in the wake of the attack, their forms unraveling into ash before they could scream. The blast carried Null across the valley and slammed him into the ridge that overlooked the path to the final battle. For one long moment, the entire Dreadling army faltered.

Then the ridge exploded.

A pillar of red-black light climbed into the sky, drowning the green fire, drowning the gate’s glow, drowning even the screams from the final battle beyond. When it faded, Praetor Null was gone, and only a crater remained where he had stood.

The Dreadlings broke.

Ray, Lena, Miles, Jeanne, Gauge, and the allied soldiers who had followed them pressed the advantage with everything they had left, as they sent the Worzol hordes retreating.

Trace stood breathing hard, the glow of his Oathlink slowly dimming.

Ashlyn stepped close to him, her shoulder brushing his.

Ashlyn Westbrook: Did we get him?

Trace watched the crater, his sword still raised.

Trace Mercer: I want to say yes.

The air above the crater split open with a thin line of green-black light.

Praetor Null’s voice emerged from it, distorted and distant.

Praetor Null: You have delayed me. You have protected your precious fixed point. You have convinced yourselves that history favors you because you know how the story ends.

Cole turned sharply.

Kamen Rider Gauge: Come out here and let me finish my job! I have a Rider Kick with your name all over it, Axis Nova trash!

Praetor Null: This isn't over! I will make everyone pay!

Trace and Cole changed at him, but he disappeared just before they could get to him.

Silence followed, broken only by the retreating screams of the Dreadlings and the thunder of the final battle in the distance.

Then, beyond the ridge, the gate collapsed.

The world shook.

A column of light rose from the battlefield where young Trace, Kamen Rider Magnus, and Kamen Rider Ash had stopped Vantrex from carrying the Rune Lens through the gate. The terrible wound in reality folded inward, shrinking from a sky-splitting maw into a single point of screaming green fire, and then that point vanished. Across the plains, exhausted armies lifted their voices in ragged disbelief. The Worzol advance had been halted. Vantrex had been beaten back. The Great War had reached the moment history remembered as victory.

Trace did not celebrate.

He knew what came next.

The Kishirangers reached the overlook just as the gathered leaders formed a circle around young Trace. Kamen Rider Magnus and Kamen Rider Ash stood nearby, battered and silent, their armor damaged from the final clash. The Rune Lens had been sealed away from the gate, but the Worzol Curse had already begun to spread from the collapsed threshold. It moved like living shadow across the ground, searching for a vessel strong enough to contain it before it burst outward and poisoned the world.

Young Trace stepped forward before either Rider could move.

Even from a distance, future Trace could see the argument begin. Magnus reached for him. Ash turned sharply, shoulders tense, clearly refusing the sacrifice before it could be spoken. Young Trace looked between them, then toward the exhausted armies behind him, and made the decision without waiting for permission from anyone.

Ashlyn took future Trace’s hand.

He gripped it as if the world might tilt under his feet.

The curse rose around the younger man in black coils. Priests and mages shouted in alarm, but young Trace plunged his sword into the earth and took the darkness into himself. The force of it bent him backward, his red cloak snapping in the wind, every muscle in his body locking as the curse tried to devour him from within. Magnus and Ash rushed forward, but the sealing circle ignited beneath their feet, preventing anyone else from entering. Young Trace screamed once, as if the pain had to escape the body or tear it apart.

Ashlyn’s fingers tightened around future Trace’s hand.

Ashlyn Westbrook: Trace...

He could not answer her at first.

The sealing chamber was prepared quickly. Stones marked with Avalon’s oldest vows rose from beneath the earth, called by the combined magic of the alliance. A sarcophagus of white stone and gold binding opened at the center of the circle, its interior glowing with suspended light. Young Trace staggered toward it under his own power. He refused to be carried. He refused to be pitied. He reached the edge of the stone resting place and finally turned back toward the world he had saved.

His eyes moved across the crowd.

They settled, impossibly, on the place where future Trace and Ashlyn stood hidden in the distance.

Perhaps he saw them. Perhaps time itself had bent gently for one mercy after all the pain it had demanded.

Future Trace’s breath caught.

Young Trace lifted his hand.

Future Trace felt Ashlyn trembling beside him and realized that he was trembling too.

The stasis light began to climb around Young Trace.

Future Trace turned to Ashlyn. All the things he had avoided saying, all the careful walls he had built around his own heart, all the fear that loving her would endanger her more than distance ever could, fell apart beneath the sight of his younger self choosing fifteen hundred years of silence so that the world could continue.

He took her other hand and faced her fully.

Trace Mercer: I’m on my journey to you.

Ashlyn’s eyes filled, but her smile came through the tears.

Ashlyn Westbrook: Then I’ll be there when you arrive, and you'll never be alone again.

Trace kissed Ashlyn with the full weight of the years he had survived and the future he had chosen, and she answered him as if every moment that had led them here had finally found its shape. Behind them, the younger Trace was lowered into the stasis that would hold him for fifteen hundred years, but in front of him stood the proof that the road had an end, that the curse did not get the last word, that the boy entering the long sleep would wake into a world where he was known, loved, challenged, followed, and finally home.

The team stared.

Lena’s mouth opened slightly.

Miles pointed, lowered his hand, then pointed again as if the gesture needed a second attempt.

Roland turned away, staring at the ground.

Jeanne Ark looked between them with soft, dawning delight.

Cole crossed his arms.

Ty leaned toward him.

Ty Mercado: Do we tell them we already knew?

Cole Beckett: What? No. Why?

Miles finally found words.

Miles Rowan: Are we allowed to clap? Are we happy? I need leadership here.

Lena wiped at her eyes with the back of her glove and immediately glared at him for noticing.

Lena Solis: We are happy. It's about time.

Roland Vander kept his gaze on the ground.

Roland Vander: ...Happy.

Trace and Ashlyn parted, though neither let go of the other’s hand. The stasis sarcophagus closed around young Trace in the distance, and as the sealing light settled over the stone, a final red glimmer passed through the battlefield. Future Trace felt it in his chest, not as pain, but as recognition. The loop had held. The man he had been had entered the long dark. The man he had become stood beneath the same sky with Ashlyn’s hand in his.

Victory should have brought rest.

Instead, armed riders arrived before the last echoes of the sealing rite faded.

Avalon’s royal guard surrounded the team with respectful caution, their spears lowered.

Royal Guard Captain: By order of King Arcturus, the warriors who held the western road are to come before the throne.

Ty looked down at the mud on his shirt.

Cole Beckett: That sounds like it could cause a major paradox...unless I'm right about my theory.

Ty Mercado: You brought that up last night. What theory?

Trace looked toward the distant battlefield, then toward the sealed resting place of his younger self. Ashlyn squeezed his hand once before letting it go, though the warmth remained.

Trace Mercer: Let's go.

The royal court of Avalon had no time to become ceremonial after the battle, but even wounded and exhausted, it remained magnificent. The throne room was filled with commanders, healers, mages, priests, and soldiers who had survived the final day and did not yet know what to do with survival. Blue banners hung from the high arches, their golden lions dimmed by smoke drifting in through shattered windows. King Arcturus stood before his throne rather than sitting upon it, his armor still marked by battle.



He turned when Trace entered.

For a moment, the king’s expression changed so completely that the entire room seemed to quiet around it.

The king descended the steps.

King Arcturus: Trace?

Trace bowed his head.

Trace Mercer: Your Majesty.

King Arcturus: You returned to us in the hour of ending, bearing companions I have never seen. Jeanne Ark once mentioned something like this in a vision, and it seems like all her visions do, that it came to pass. You are the young man who just sacrificed his life for our Kingdom, and for this world. You're from the future.

Trace almost smiled.

Trace Mercer: The future is messy and loud. It's bright and crazy, but it brought these brave heroes with me, so I could ensure the last stand would remain a victory.

The king’s eyes softened.

King Arcturus: Then I am pleased to know this future has you in it.

Ashlyn watched the exchange carefully, her mind catching on the warmth beneath the king’s words. Roland noticed too, though he said nothing. Jeanne, standing beside the throne with her banner resting at her shoulder, looked at Arcturus with quiet knowledge,=.

The king raised his voice to the court.

King Arcturus: These warriors held the western road against and invading evil. Had they failed, the gate would have fallen into chaos at the final hour. The Great War would not have ended in victory. Unfortunately, this act must remain hidden in history, but Avalon will not allow such service to go unrewarded.

A royal attendant carried forward a velvet-lined case.

Inside it rested five Zircons, each cut in a different shape, each burning with a muted inner light that matched one of the Kishirangers. Red, blue, black, green, and yellow gleamed beneath the throne room torches like captured stars.

Arcturus lifted the red Zircon first.

King Arcturus: These are Oathlink Zircons, refined from sanctified stones beneath Avalon and tempered in the vows of those willing to defend more than their own age. They will strengthen your transformations and grant your armor a greater channel for the power you already carry.

Roland stepped forward first when the blue Zircon was offered, then Ashlyn, Miles, and Lena. Trace waited until last. When Arcturus held the red Zircon before him, the king paused.

King Arcturus: I offered you such a stone once before.

Trace accepted the Zircon slowly.

Trace Mercer: I remember.

King Arcturus: You refused it.

Trace Mercer: I did.

King Arcturus: May I ask why?

Trace looked back at his team. Roland stood steady and silent. Ashlyn watched him with the faint smile of someone who already knew his answer. Miles tried to look noble and almost succeeded. Lena folded her arms, but her expression was gentle.

Trace turned back to Arcturus.

Trace Mercer: Because it wasn’t something I wanted unless the whole team was there together.

The king’s pride showed for only a second, but in that second it was unmistakable.

King Arcturus: Then you chose well.

The Zircon settled into Trace’s Oathlink with a clean flash of red light. Across the line, the others did the same, and the five devices answered one another with a soft harmonic chime that rose into the vaulted ceiling.

Cole, still in partial armor with his helmet dismissed, stared at the glow with a fascinated look.

Cole Beckett: That is incredibly beautiful technology.

Ty Mercado: Don’t lick it.

Cole Beckett: Right. It's not. I'm not making that mistake again, hermano.

Jeanne laughed softly despite the exhaustion in her face.

Jeanne Ark: I will miss them when they go.

That word settled heavily in the room.

Go.

The fissure had not appeared.

The team had completed the battle they believed they had been pulled into the past to fight, yet the way home remained closed. Trace looked toward Cole.

Trace Mercer: Why are we still here?

Cole’s humor faded as he stepped toward the center of the room, eyes narrowed in thought.

Cole Beckett: Causality. If my theory is right. This is all because causality.

Roland Vander: Please explain.

Cole pointed loosely toward the battlefield beyond the broken windows.

Cole Beckett: We keep thinking of this like we changed something by being here, but what if we were always here? Think about it. Why wasn’t Jeanne Ark at the final battle in the old stories? Because she was with us. Why did the western road hold when every map said it should have collapsed? Because we held it.

Cole continued, pacing now.

Cole Beckett: If the fissure hasn’t opened, then the loop isn’t done. There are still things that need to happen because they already happened. We didn’t come here to alter history. We came here to fulfill it.

Miles Rowan: You know I had a dream like that last night.

Lena Solis: What do you mean?

Miles Rowan: I keep dreaming about this guy, and he was wondering what we were doing in the past. Said his name was Nacht.

Cole Beckett: I'm sorry, what did you just say? Nacht?

The doors to the throne room burst open before anyone could answer.

A wounded scout stumbled inside, one hand pressed against a bleeding cut at his side. Two guards caught him before he fell, but he forced himself upright long enough to speak.

Avalon Scout: My king, the black-armored one lives. He was seen beyond the western ravine. He rides with what remains of his monsters toward the sealed resting place.

Trace’s blood went cold.

Ashlyn Westbrook: He’s going after your younger self.

The scout nodded, pale and shaking.

Avalon Scout: He means to kill Lord Trace in his slumber.

Praetor Null’s final threat returned like a blade sliding between Trace’s ribs.

King Arcturus turned to his guards.

King Arcturus: Muster every rider still able to hold a spear.

Trace raised a hand.

Trace Mercer: No. By the time an army forms, he’ll already be there.

Roland stepped forward.

Roland Vander: Then we go now.

Miles spun Gungnir once and caught it tight.

Miles Rowan: New power, old enemy, fate of the timeline at stake. I understand the assignment.

Lena gripped Aymr, the yellow Zircon shining at her waist.

Lena Solis: Finally.

Ashlyn stood beside Trace.

Ashlyn Westbrook: He doesn’t touch you. Either version.

Trace looked at her, and this time he did smile.

Trace Mercer: Together.

Ashlyn Westbrook: Together.

Cole checked the Chrono Engine Driver at his waist and grimaced.

Cole Beckett: I should mention one small thing before we rush into the fight.

Cole Beckett: I don’t have my cores. Valve, Ignition, Voltage, all of them are back in the future because I didn’t expect to fall into medieval causality loop. That means we only get one shot at this.

Trace nodded to him.

Trace Mercer: Can you still fight?

Cole snapped the Driver into place.

Cole Beckett: For my new friends, and the future that has Aria waiting for me? You bet I can fight. Always.

The sealed resting place lay beneath a hill of white stone overlooking the battlefield, already guarded by a ring of Avalon knights and mages who were in no condition to repel what came for them. Praetor Null arrived with the remains of his Dreadling elite under a moon veiled by smoke. His armor was cracked from the Final Vow Twin Judgment, his left arm hung stiffly, and the Axis Nova mark on his chest burned through the damage with a poisonous green light.

He cut through the first line of defenders with contemptuous precision.

The Kishirangers reached the hill before the second line fell.

Their Oathlinks rose together, connecting to their Oathbucklers.

Trace Mercer: Kishirangers, transform!

The Zircons blazed.

Sir Mercer: Burning Oath!

Ashlyn Westbrook: Darkness Conquered!

Roland Vander: Shield of Justice!

Lena Solis: Magic and Might!

Miles Rowan: Knight of the Wind!

The bucklers flashed.

All Five: Kishiranger, arise!

This time the transformation came with a deeper sound, like cathedral bells struck beneath the earth. The familiar armor formed first, but the Zircons ignited at the heart of each Oathlink and sent new light racing through the suits. Gold trim sharpened. Crests brightened. Subtle white-gold channels opened across the armor, carrying Sanctum power through the chest, shoulders, gauntlets, and boots. Their capes lengthened slightly and flickered at the edges with colored sparks, while the emblems on their chests glowed with living force. Red stood out with regal fur lining his collar.



Trace lowered his sword as power settled across his armor.

Ashlyn’s black armor gleamed with faint violet-red highlights, her blade humming with Oathlink resonance.

Ashlyn Westbrook: Now we end this.

Praetor Null turned from the entrance to the resting place.

Praetor Null: I will have the future I desire one way or the other!

Trace stepped forward.

Trace Mercer: Your time is up.

Cole Beckett: I believe...that's my line. Calibrate. Lock. Ignite. RIDE THE PRESSURE! HENSHIN!

The final battle with Praetor Null began at the door of the long slumber.

Null attacked with everything his broken body had left. Blades unfolded from his armor in jagged arcs, striking every direction, and the Dreadlings around him surged in coordinated waves to force openings in the team’s defense. Roland met the first wave with a charged up Vanguard. His shield trailing a luminous afterimage as he pushed back three enemies and redirected a fourth into Miles’s spear. Miles drove Gungnir through the creature and released a burst of green energy that pinned an entire line of Dreadlings against a stone wall. Lena raised Aymr and brought it down in a golden shockwave that shattered their armor before Jeanne Ark charged through the opening with her banner-spear and finished the line.

Gauge vented steam into Null’s shadow step, disrupting and attempted time-skip just enough for Ashlyn to intercept the strike meant for Trace’s back. He used compressed pressure bursts to knock Dreadlings off balance, then let Ty trip one with a fallen spear and a panicked shout.

Ty Mercado: I contributed! Nobody saw how scared I was!

Kamen Rider Gauge: Everyone saw, but yes, you contributed!

Null drove Trace backward toward the resting chamber doors, blade locked against blade.

Praetor Null: I will kill the sleeping boy, and every oath you cherish will unravel screaming.

Trace pushed back, the red Zircon burning brighter.

Trace Mercer: You keep mistaking pain for weakness.

Ashlyn appeared at Null’s side, her sword cutting across his damaged chest.

Ashlyn Westbrook: That’s why you keep losing.

Null staggered, and the team closed around him. Roland struck low. Lena struck high. Miles hurled Gungnir through a gap in Null’s guard, forcing him to twist directly into Trace’s slash. Ashlyn followed with a burst strike that pinned Null in place, and Gauge slammed a pressure-charged kick into the Axis Nova mark on his chest.

The mark cracked.

Null screamed.

Trace lifted his sword, and the team’s Zircons answered. Red, blue, black, green, and yellow light gathered into a single royal crest above them. Gauge stepped into the formation as well.

Kamen Rider Gauge: I don’t have cores, but I’ve got pressure.

Trace Mercer: Gauge, with us!

They struck together.

The Burst attack hit Praetor Null in a flood of color and steam, carrying him away from the resting place and into the open field below the hill. His armor ruptured under the force. The Axis Nova mark shattered. Green-black energy burst from him in violent streams as his body lifted from the ground and detonated in a massive explosion that lit the entire hill.

For a moment, everyone believed it was over.

Then the green fire rose.

Null’s laughter rolled across the battlefield as the energy gathered into a colossal shape. His broken body expanded into a towering giant of black armor, warped horns, and burning fractures, large enough to blot out the moon. The remaining Dreadlings dissolved into him, feeding the monstrous form as he slammed one hand into the earth and cracked the hill from base to crown. The impact sent the tomb falling beneath the surface.

Miles took one step back.

Miles Rowan: And that explains why we found Trace sleeping like a baby under the ground! We do have an answer for this, right?

Lena looked toward the castle, then toward the ancient battlefield.

Lena Solis: The Stahlritter.

Roland’s visor lifted toward the distant war machines housed in Avalon’s sacred hangars, the legendary knight constructs that existed in this era as living weapons of the alliance.

Roland Vander: They are available in this time period.

Cole laughed once, exhausted and delighted.

Cole Beckett: Close the loop!

Trace raised his Oathlink toward Avalon.

Trace Mercer: Stahlritter, answer our oath!

Across the battlefield, ancient stone hangars split open beneath the castle ridge. Five colossal Stahlritter emerged into the moonlight, each bearing the colors and heraldry that would one day become legend: Krieger in red, Hector in blue, Drakken in black, Kestrel in green, and Spiegel in yellow. They moved like knights awakened from prayer, their eyes igniting as the Kishirangers were drawn into their cockpits by pillars of light.

Null roared and swung a massive blade of green fire toward the sleeping hill.

The Stahlritter intercepted him before it could land.

Krieger caught the blade with both hands. Hector and Drakken struck from either side, driving their weapons into Null’s arms. Kestrel swept low with a spear thrust that took out one knee, and Spiegel raised a golden barrier over the resting place as the shockwave rolled outward. Gauge stood below, taking in the fight.

Kamen Rider Gauge: I feel as helpless as you do, Ty!

Ty Mercado: HEY!

The five Stahlritter rose into formation.

Trace Mercer: Combine! Voll Stahlritter!




The machines separated into streams of light and armor, joining in a majestic sequence of steel, gold, and roaring power. Krieger formed the core, Hector and Kestrel locked into the arms, Drakken and Spiegel formed the legs and stabilizers, and the combined crest of Avalon blazed across the chest as Voll Stahlritter stood over the battlefield. The giant knight drew its massive blade, and the ground beneath it cracked under the weight of its oath.

Praetor Null lunged with a scream that resonated for miles.

Voll Stahlritter met him head-on.



Their clash shook the final night of the Great War. Null hammered the giant knight with fire, but Voll Stahlritter advanced through it, step by step, the Kishirangers’ voices joining in the cockpit as their Oathlinks synchronized. Trace felt Ashlyn’s presence beside his own in the control stream, steady and fierce. He felt Roland’s discipline, Miles’s courage, Lena’s bright defiance. He felt the team as a single living vow.

All Five: GRAND CROSS!!!

Voll Stahlritter fired a concentrated blast to the very core of Praetor Null. His giant form froze, cracked, and erupted in a pillar of green light that bent inward upon itself until the Axis Nova energy collapsed into nothing. The explosion that followed roared across the empty field, but Hector’s barrier held over the sleeping chamber, and when the smoke cleared, no trace of Praetor Null remained.

This time, the silence held.

Later, after the wounded were gathered and the dead were honored as much as time allowed, the team stood once more within Avalon’s throne room. The fissure still had not appeared. The loop was nearly complete, and every event had begun to settle into place like stones in an ancient road.

Trace looked at the Grail in Miles’s hands.

Trace Mercer: Miles. The Grail.

Miles held it tighter on instinct.

Miles Rowan: Yes, I still have it. No, I did not drop it. I only almost dropped it twice, and both times I made a quick save. No idea why I thought to bring the world ending game changer.

Trace stepped closer.

Trace Mercer: The Grail was created after my slumber began. I believe that's what the legend said. It was made to act a barrier to keep the dimensions separate. But we brought it here. We brought it to the past.

Cole’s eyes widened.

Cole Beckett: You mean...it exists...because you brought it here, and will leave it here to be found later? Closed loop.

Ashlyn looked from the Grail to Trace.

Ashlyn Westbrook: We place it where we find it fifteen hundred years later.

Roland Vander nodded slowly.

Roland Vander: Ensuring the Worzol Dimension never obtains it.

Lena exhaled.

Lena Solis: We were part of the legend the whole time.

Jeanne Ark smiled at them.

Jeanne Ark: Trace, you have brought together a most wonderful team, and I could not be happier for you. You have truly come into your own, as a worthy leader of Kishiranger.
 
Trace Mercer: All of us are important, together. One team. One mission. An oath that will not be broken. We are in this together.

Ashlyn Westbrook: Together. Jeanne, you brought together so many in this era. I vow to do to the same in the future. I've seen what can happen when we're all working together. I'm convinced it's the way to go.

Jeanne Ark: Wonderful.

They carried the Grail beneath the throne room to a hidden chamber of white stone, gold seals, and ancient protective scripture. King Arcturus came with them, as did Jeanne, Cole, and Ty. Trace placed the Grail into the stasis cradle with his own hands. The moment it settled into place, the seals ignited one by one, accepting the artifact.

The chamber closed around it.

History became whole.

When they returned to the throne room, the fissure waited for them.

It shimmered in the air before the throne, bright and impossible, its edges glowing with the familiar light of home. Beyond it, Trace could feel the pull of the future era, the future that had seemed so far away while Avalon’s ancient stones held him in the world that made him.

King Arcturus stood before him.

For a moment, no one spoke.

Then the king placed one hand on Trace’s shoulder.

King Arcturus: Whatever road waits for you, walk it as you have walked this one.

Trace bowed his head, but the gesture carried more than respect.

Trace Mercer: Thank you, Your Majesty.

Arcturus’s hand tightened slightly.

King Arcturus: Thank you, Trace.

Jeanne embraced Ashlyn first, then Lena, then Miles with enough force to make him wheeze. She clasped Roland’s arm solemnly and bowed to Cole with formal respect before turning to Ty.

Jeanne Ark: Ty Mercado, you brought joy and laughter to my heart. It's a shame you have to leave.

Ty placed a hand over his heart.

Ty Mercado: Aww, thank yo- wait what?! I COULD stay!

Cole shook his head.

Cole Beckett: I really don't think so.

Jeanne laughed, then faced Trace.

Jeanne Ark: Go home, Sir Trace. The world you saved is waiting for you.

Trace looked toward the fissure.

Ashlyn stood beside him. Her hand found his, and this time she took it openly, without hesitation, without hiding from the team, the king, Jeanne, or history itself. The others stepped through first: Roland with a final nod, Lena with one last look around the castle, Miles carrying the relief of a man no longer carrying the grail, Ty waving dramatically, and Cole nodding with respect.

Ashlyn lingered with Trace at the threshold.

Ashlyn Westbrook: Part of you must want to stay.

Trace looked across the throne room, at the banners of Avalon, at Jeanne, at King Arcturus, at the stones of the home he had lost before he ever understood how deeply he loved it. Then he looked at Ashlyn, and the answer came easily.

Trace Mercer: I am going home.

Her smile softened.

They stepped through the fissure hand in hand.

The light closed behind them.

For a long while, the throne room remained silent.

Jeanne Ark stood beside King Arcturus as the last shimmer faded from the air. She looked at the place where Trace had vanished, then at the king whose face held grief, pride, and wonder in equal measure.

Jeanne Ark: You had another chance to tell him, and you let it go.

King Arcturus: He didn't need that pressure weighing on him. He's going where he belongs. This is a secret that can stay a secret, for his sake.

Jeanne Ark: You should be very proud of your son.

King Arcturus: I am. Trace has exceeded all of my hopes. He is a true hero.

Beyond the throne room windows, Avalon’s bells began to ring for the end of the Great War. The sound rolled over the wounded city, over the sealed resting place, over the hidden chamber where the Grail waited for the future, and over the first fragile morning of a world that had survived because heroes from its tomorrow had fought for its yesterday.

The legend was complete.

And somewhere fifteen hundred years away, the future was waiting to welcome them home.




In the Worzol Dimension of present day, Vantrex sat upon his throne, clenching his fist.

Vantrex: Axis Nova failed. This time remains. We will not be aligning with them any further.

Malvora: Your powers have returned to full strength, my lord. The Kishiranger and humanity can not stand against you now.

Vantrex: To conquer alone is one thing, but I wish for their world to know the chaos of the Worzol Dimension. After all, that's why it chose me. That's why it made me what I am. It is my purpose. To answer the will of chaos within the Worzol Dimesion.

Vire the Swift: Well, I may have just the thing that could help us!

Vire the Swift appeared in the chambers from a portal carrying a large tomb behind him.

Vantrex: What has my General brought before me?

Vire the Swift: A little present from the past. Those fissures that opened up. They made traveling quite easy for me. I took a peek, and even brought back a souvenir. You wanted a fourth general, and I bring to you a better candidate than Mordred. Your ultimate trophy in fact. I bring you the corpse of-

To Be Continued...

Last edited by Machismo (6/01/2026 5:05 pm)

Episode 26: Strings of Betrayal

The roof of the KED Building had become one of the few places in Avalon City where Trace Mercer could hear himself think, though even there the city tried to intrude. Traffic murmured far below in steady waves, air conditioners hummed along the edges of nearby buildings, and aircraft lights blinked in the pale morning sky. The sun had not yet fully climbed above the skyline, and the building cast a long shadow across the street, stretching toward the academy district.

Trace stood near the edge with his arms folded, his new haircut still feeling strange whenever the wind touched the back of his neck. Ashlyn had done a good job. He had told her that more than once, though she had teased him for how formal he was, but after what they had shared, he somehow felt the need to be more formal. He was feeling more like himself than he had in some time, but he still knew the curse was still within him, looking for a reason to break out.



Roland Vander also stood on the roof, facing the city with one hand resting on the rail. He had been there when Trace arrived, though Trace suspected Roland had known he was coming before the access door opened. Since their return from the Great War, that stillness had hardened into distance. He attended briefings, answered when addressed, and fought when needed, but his voice had lost any attempt at warmth. The team had noticed. Ashlyn had noticed. Miles had made jokes because that's what he did. Lena had stopped joking because Roland’s silence had begun to concern her.

Trace stepped closer, but not close enough to crowd him.

Trace Mercer: You have been avoiding the team.

Roland did not turn around.

Roland Vander: Good morning to you as well.

Trace Mercer: It is morning, and I am trying to make it good. That requires my team not falling apart.

Roland’s mouth twitched without becoming a smile.

Roland Vander: Your team.

Trace heard the edge beneath the words and did not pretend otherwise.

Trace Mercer: Yes. My team. That means when one of us pulls away, I need to know why.

Roland finally looked at him, and the expression on his face was calm, but only on the outside.

Roland Vander: That is very noble, Trace. Very leaderly. I am sure it sounds excellent when echoed off the walls of an ancient throne room.

Trace held his gaze.

Trace Mercer: Say what you mean.

Roland laughed once, quietly, and turned fully from the rail.

Roland Vander: What I mean is that this team has been built on secrets from the very beginning. Secret bloodlines. Secret relics. Secret enemies walking openly through our schools and businesses. Secret pasts. Secret feelings. Secret destinies. Your teams was barely holding together from the beginning, and it's only gotten worse.

Trace Mercer: You are talking about yourself.

Roland’s fingers tightened around the rail.

Roland Vander: I am the kin of Mordred Vander.

The name seemed to darken the rooftop air.

Roland watched Trace carefully, as if waiting for the inevitable recoil.

Trace gave him none.

Roland’s composure cracked slightly at the absence of judgment.

Roland Vander: My family spent generations polishing the name until people forgot what was buried beneath it. Vander Industries built hospitals, funded reconstruction, provided clean power, advanced defensive technology, and hid old shame beneath modern philanthropy. I continued that work because helping people was the only inheritance I could accept without choking on it. Every contract, every charitable foundation, every rescue system we funded, I told myself it was atonement. Not enough, never enough, but something.

Trace listened, and the city continued moving below them.

Roland Vander: Joining Kishiranger was supposed to be different. It was not only duty. I saw Ashlyn, and I saw Jeanne Ark’s blood standing in the modern world with her chin up and her blade ready, and something inside me decided that if my ancestor had betrayed the old heroes, then I could spend my life protecting the one descended from their saint. I could be her knight. I could prove that the Vander name did not have to end as a curse.

Trace’s expression shifted, but he remained silent.

Roland’s voice lost some of its polish.

Roland Vander: Then you returned. The way Ashlyn looked at you. She kept looking. Everything she had, every ounce of loyalty and fury and hope, turned toward you. I tried to respect it. I told myself I was above resentment because resentment was the soil Mordred grew in, but there it was anyway. I stood beside her while she worried over you. I fought beside her while she ran toward you. I watched her become more alive every time you gave her hope.

Trace swallowed, not from guilt, but from the brutal honesty of it.

Roland stepped closer.

Roland Vander: I understand how you fell in love with Ashlyn, Trace, because so did I.

The morning wind pushed across the rooftop. Trace thought of Ashlyn. He thought of her hands in his, of the words she had needed him to hear, of the way love had given him a place to heal. Roland’s confession did not threaten that. It revealed how much animosity had been standing near them the entire time.

Roland Vander: We will never be a team if I keep pretending this is only about leadership styles and mission priorities. We will never be on the same page if I keep burying what I feel inside. I am tired of carrying everything politely.

Trace nodded slowly.

Trace Mercer: Then what do you want from me?

Roland’s eyes hardened.

Roland Vander: I want to know if you are worthy of her.

Trace did not flinch.

Roland Vander: Not as a prophecy. Not as the man who survived fifteen hundred years. I want to know if the man standing in front of me deserves the woman I could not stop loving even after she chose him.

The Oathlink on Roland’s waist glinted in the light.

Roland Vander: Duel me.

Trace studied him for a long moment.

Trace Mercer: You sure this is what you want?

Roland’s face tightened, but he nodded.

Roland Vander: Yes.

Trace Mercer: You know I would never claim that defeating you proves anything about love.

Roland Vander: I know.

Trace Mercer: Then this is not about Ashlyn.

Roland looked away for the first time.

Trace lifted his Oathlink.

Trace Mercer: It is about you needing to stop hating yourself through me.

Roland’s jaw set.

Roland Vander: Please, fight me.

Trace breathed once, steady and deep.

Trace Mercer: Burning Oath! Kishiranger, arise!

Roland Vander: Shield of Justice! Kishiranger, arise!

Red light wrapped around Trace in a brilliant spiral, forming the armor of Kishi Red over his body as his sword appeared in his hand. Across from him, Roland lifted his own Oathlink, and blue light flashed across the rooftop. The two warriors faced each other above the city as the wind snapped at their capes.

Roland attacked first.



He moved with sharp precision, not wasting a step, not throwing himself into rage even though rage clearly stood behind his shield. Trace caught the first strike with a low parry, turned the second aside, and stepped back from the third as Roland pressed him toward the center of the roof. Their weapons rang against one another, each impact sending sparks into the morning. Roland fought with a rage he'd never shown before, while Trace did all he could to contain the curse within. The difference made the duel difficult to read. The rooftop became a narrow world of steel, breath, and old pain given motion.

Roland drove Trace backward with a powerful shield bash from Vanguard. Trace blocked, slid one foot behind him, and let the force turn his body rather than resisting it directly. He answered with a shoulder strike that pushed Roland off line, then swept low, forcing Roland to leap back. Roland landed near the edge, cape snapping behind him, and lifted his blade again.

Roland Vander: You always do that.

Trace Mercer: Do what?

Roland Vander: Refuse to accept defeat.

Trace stepped forward.

Trace Mercer: It has kept me alive.

Roland lunged again.

Their weapons collided hard enough to rattle the roof access door. Trace saw the opening in Roland’s guard and did not take it, which only seemed to anger him further. Roland spun into a backhand strike, and Trace blocked at the last second, boots scraping against concrete. The duel quickened. Roland’s shield came in sharp arcs toward Trace’s ribs, shoulder, and neck. Trace defended each one, but Roland began folding in feints, forcing Trace to commit before redirecting. The edge of Vanguard clipped Trace’s shoulder plate, throwing sparks and earning a grunt.

Trace shifted his stance.

Roland noticed.

Roland Vander: There. Now you take me seriously.

Trace Mercer: I took you seriously before the first strike.

Roland Vander: Then stop holding back.

Trace’s sword lowered slightly.

Trace Mercer: You are not your ancestor, Roland. I do not blame you for his sins.

Roland charged.

Roland Vander: Then forgive me for my own!

The next exchange hit harder. Trace met Roland’s aggression directly this time, and the sound of their weapons became a rapid, ringing storm across the roof. Roland’s fury finally bled through his control, turning each strike heavier, each step more committed. Trace used that weight against him. He slid inside a wide cut, struck Roland’s wrist guard with the flat of his blade, then kicked his knee out from under him. Roland recovered before falling, but Trace was already there, sword crossing his chest.

Roland twisted free with a burst of violet energy, forcing Trace back.

Both men paused.

The rooftop beneath them was scored with weapons marks.

Roland’s breathing had grown rough.

Trace’s armor sparked at the shoulder.

Roland Vander: You should hate me.

Trace’s answer came without hesitation.

Trace Mercer: I do not.

Roland Vander: I challenged you because I wanted to see you bleed.

Trace Mercer: I know.

Roland Vander: I wanted to prove that Ashlyn was wrong.

Trace Mercer: I know.

Roland Vander: Then fight like it!

Trace’s grip tightened. This time he moved first.

Roland had expected strength. Trace gave him speed. Kishi Red closed the distance in a flash of red light and struck Roland’s shield high, then low, then high again, driving him backward with precise blows that left no room for counterattack. Roland tried to regain control with a thrust, but Trace turned sideways and caught the shield against his guard, locking it in place. He stepped in, swept Roland’s leg, and released the lock at the exact moment Roland lost balance. Roland hit the roof hard, Vanguard skidding from his hand. Trace’s blade stopped inches from his chest.

For several seconds, neither moved.

Roland stared up at him through the visor.

Roland Vander: Finish it.

Trace dismissed his helmet. Morning wind touched his face.

Trace Mercer: No.

Roland Vander: If I were Mordred, you would.

Trace held out his hand.

Trace Mercer: You are NOT Mordred.

Roland looked at the hand as if it were more dangerous than the sword.

Trace Mercer: Some of my closest friends in the past began as enemies. Some of them stood across from me with weapons drawn. Some had every reason to believe alliance was impossible. Then we stood together anyway, and that alliance saved the world.

Roland did not take the hand yet.

Trace kept it extended.

Trace Mercer: I would like to be your friend, Roland. Not because it is easy. Because the world is better when men stop letting dead traitors decide who they are allowed to become.

The words landed somewhere Roland had no armor for.

He took Trace’s hand.

Trace pulled him to his feet.

Roland dismissed his helmet, and the grief on his face had nothing polished left to hide behind.

Roland Vander: I am sorry. For the fight. For my silence. For what my family carries. I have spent my life terrified that the Vander colors would become synonymous with betrayal again, and then I found myself envying the man leading the team I swore to serve.

Trace sheathed his sword.

Trace Mercer: Envy is not betrayal.

Roland Vander: It can become it.

Trace Mercer: Then we stop it here.

Roland nodded, slowly at first, then with more certainty.

Roland Vander: I pledge myself to Kishiranger, to you. Fully. No more silence. No more hidden resentment. I will respect your leadership, Trace, and I will respect what you and Ashlyn have chosen together.

Trace looked at him for a long moment.

Trace Mercer: Then we start again.

Roland gave a tired, almost disbelieving laugh.

Roland Vander: You make forgiveness sound infuriatingly simple.

Trace Mercer: It can be simple.

Before Roland could answer, both their Oathlinks chimed with an emergency signal.

Trace looked toward the city.

The morning had ended.

Far across Avalon City, dark energy rose like ink through smoke.

Avalon Academy had never felt more beautiful to Ashlyn Westbrook or more treacherous.

Its old stone buildings stood beneath bright light, wrapped in ivy and history, with courtyards full of students carrying books, drinks, instruments, sports gear, and all the ordinary burdens of people who did not know that half the faculty might belong to ancient orders. The academy’s bells rang between classes, as Ashlyn found herself looking up at the towers feeling she might be being watched at that very moment.

She sat beneath a tree near the eastern courtyard with three textbooks open in front of her and understood almost none of them.

Professor Halden’s name appeared at the top of the syllabus beside one of the classes she had stopped attending. At the time, skipping had felt justified. Learning that her professor had ties to Der Gralsbund had made sitting through his lectures feel absurd. How was she supposed to take notes while wondering whether the man speaking had personally signed off on abducting Trace? Not attending class was killing her grades, and it was only getting worse.

Ashlyn pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes.

Ashlyn Westbrook: Jeanne fought a war, united factions that hated each other, and still probably would have better grades than me.

The thought of Jeanne softened her irritation into something more complicated. In Avalon, Ashlyn had watched Jeanne stand beside people who had every reason to distrust one another and call them toward something greater than old wounds. Trace had done the same. King Arcturus, the early Church, the Zauberer, Nightrook, and countless warriors who might have chosen suspicion had instead stood together because the world demanded more from them than fear. Ashlyn had returned from that era with a vow of her own. If Jeanne and Trace could help unite a fractured world at the edge of the Great War, then maybe the modern world did not need to split itself apart between Kishiranger, Der Gralsbund, the Zauberer, and every other hidden faction clawing for control.

Then she looked at Professor Halden’s syllabus again and groaned.

Ashlyn Westbrook: Working together would be easier if the enemy did not assign essays.

A shadow fell across her books.

???: Oh my gosh, you are even cuter up close.

Ashlyn looked up.



A purple haired girl stood over her with both hands clasped near her cheek, swirly glasses flashing in the sunlight. Covered in pink buttons all over her pink jacket.

Ashlyn blinked.

Ashlyn Westbrook: Excuse me?

The girl gasped as if Ashlyn had performed a miracle by speaking.

???: Your voice matches too. That is so unfair. Some people get the whole aesthetic package, and the rest of us have to build ourselves out of clearance bins.

Ashlyn stared at her for another second.

Ashlyn Westbrook: I am not sure what that means.

???: It means hi. I am Rikka Spiral. Technically Rikka S. Parrow on my school forms because my parents hate whimsy, but in all online spaces that matter, I am Rikka Spiral.

Ashlyn glanced around to see if this was a prank. No one nearby seemed to be laughing. Several students were deliberately avoiding eye contact, which suggested Rikka Spiral was a known phenomenon.

Ashlyn Westbrook: Ashlyn Westbrook.

Rikka leaned closer.

Rikka Spiral: I know.

Ashlyn’s expression sharpened.

Rikka immediately waved both hands in panic.

Rikka Spiral: Not in a creepy way. Well, maybe a little in a fan way, but not a stalking way. You were in Professor Halden’s class, and also your style is legendary. Black hair, black outfit, tragic heroine posture. You look like you have a soundtrack.

Ashlyn relaxed slightly despite herself.

Ashlyn Westbrook: I've never exactly heard any of this about myself.

Rikka Spiral: You're aspirational.

Rikka started following her and noticed her grades.

Rikka Spiral: Oof. Academic suffering.

Ashlyn sighed.

Ashlyn Westbrook: I need to figure out how to fix my grades. I missed too many of Halden’s classes.

Rikka Spiral: Professor Halden is a grade goblin.

Ashlyn Westbrook: That is one way to say it.

Rikka Spiral: I can tutor you.

Ashlyn looked up.

Ashlyn Westbrook: You?

Rikka placed a hand over her heart as if wounded.

Rikka Spiral: That sounded suspicious. I will have you know I am academically excellent.

Ashlyn Westbrook: Yeah?

Rikka Spiral: I never miss a class! I LOVE history!

Ashlyn almost smiled.

Ashlyn Westbrook: Why would you help me?

Rikka’s expression softened beneath the swirly glasses.

Rikka Spiral: Because I like making friends!

Ashlyn closed one of the books.

Ashlyn Westbrook: I would appreciate the help. I can't go to the classes, but if you can help me take the tests.

Rikka lit up.

Rikka Spiral: Yes. Wonderful. Friendship acquired. Tutoring pact formed. You must take one of my key chains. Here. This is a special edition Java Coffington. Very limited! I also have a Trevor Mach or Tack Angel if you'd li-

Ashlyn Westbrook: Uh...I'll take the Java Coffington I guess? Thanks.

Rikka Spiral: No, thank you!

Ashlyn shook her head, but the smallest laugh escaped before she could stop it.

Rikka grinned behind her glasses.

Far across campus, Lena Solis sat in the cafeteria with a cold drink, and a stack of assignments. Miles Rowan sat across from her, eating fries from her tray with sly swiftness.

Lena Solis: I am serious, Miles. My grades are terrible.

Miles Rowan: Define terrible.

Lena Solis: Professor Halden wrote, and I quote, Miss Solis shows me a lot by her absences.

Miles paused with a fry halfway to his mouth.

Miles Rowan: He's trying to provoke you.

Lena glared.

He put the fry back.

Miles Rowan: Tragic. Deeply unfair.

Lena looked down at the papers.

Lena Solis: I do not know what is easier right now, being the CEO of Vander Industries or being an unemployed knight with trauma and no marketable modern skills. However, they both sound easier than trying to pass these courses.

Miles Rowan: Unemployed knight comes with fewer board meetings.

Lena Solis: It also comes with no dental plan, or insurance, or money of any kind.

Miles Rowan: Strong point. Very strong point.

A girl their age sat down beside Lena without asking.

She had pale blonde hair braided over one shoulder, clear gray eyes, and a uniform worn with such perfect neatness that it made the rest of the cafeteria look sloppy by comparison.

Miles opened his mouth.

The girl whispered a word beneath her breath.

A faint silver spark touched the edge of the table.

Miles’s eyes rolled upward, and his head dropped onto his folded arms with a soft thump.



Lena immediately stood halfway from her chair.

Lena Solis: Who are you?

The girl lifted one finger, calm and precise.

???: Please do not shout. He is not harmed. He will wake with mild confusion...and a possible headache.

Lena’s hand moved toward her Oathlink.

Lena Solis: You have three seconds.

The girl inclined her head.

Klara Morgenstern: Klara Morgenstern. I am Zauberer, as you are.

Lena froze.

The cafeteria noise seemed to pull away from her.

Lena Solis: That is not funny.

Klara Morgenstern: It's the truth.

Lena scanned her face, searching for the lie, the trick, the sign of Worzol corruption or Gralsbund manipulation. She found neither. Klara simply waited, hands folded in front of her, as if she had all the time in the world.

Lena Solis: There are other Zauberer at Avalon Academy?

Klara Morgenstern: There are other Zauberer in many places. We are not as extinct as you may think. We have survived by becoming difficult to notice.

Lena sat back down slowly, though her hand remained near her Oathlink.

Lena Solis: Why talk to me now?

Klara’s gaze lowered briefly to Lena’s wrist.

Klara Morgenstern: Because your powers have awakened beyond what anyone expected. Because the Ehrvolt in you has grown since your return from the past. Because old battles are stirring, and there are those among us who believe you should be received as one of our own before others decide what you are for.

Lena Solis: I already have a team.

Klara Morgenstern: I did not say otherwise.

Lena Solis: Then if you want to talk, talk about helping us defeat the Worzol Dimension.

Klara’s calm expression dimmed slightly.

Klara Morgenstern: Some of us want that.

Lena narrowed her eyes.

Lena Solis: Some.

Klara Morgenstern: Others are considering alignment with Malvora.

Lena nearly knocked over her drink.

Lena Solis: Malvora? Are you insane?

Klara Morgenstern: No. Divided.

Lena Solis: She works with the Worzol.

Klara Morgenstern: She also claims leadership by blood, power, and the old succession rites of our clan.

Lena leaned forward.

Lena Solis: What does she want with me?

Klara’s voice softened, though not enough to become comforting.

Klara Morgenstern: You belong to Haus Morgenstern, Lena Solis. Whether your family remembered the name or buried it for safety, the blood remains. Malvora knows it. Others know it. Our clan is at a crossroads, and you may become the road everyone is forced to choose.

Lena stared at her.

Klara Morgenstern: I will speak with you again when you are ready to hear more. Vantrex is the tip of the iceberg. Believe me.

Lena Solis: I did not say I was done asking questions.

Klara gave the faintest smile.

Klara Morgenstern: I know.

The world blinked.

Lena sat at the table with her hand around her drink, and Miles lifted his head with a groan.

Miles Rowan: OW! Where did this headache come from?!

Lena looked across the table.

Miles rubbed his forehead.

Miles Rowan: Did I fall asleep?

Lena stared at the empty chair.

Lena Solis: I think we have a problem.

Miles Rowan: Is it MY grades? Because I actually think I'm doing better than you. I don't TAKE history! I live it...I guess?

Across the city, Asher rode in the back of a black sedan toward the KED Building with one hand resting over the old scar beneath his collar and the other holding his phone. It was still awkward to him.

Asher: You have closed off your experiments on creating rune lenses, correct?

Blake Faust: Buddy, you think I'm trying to mass produce your ancient technology?

Asher: Yes.

Blake Faust: ...Well not for general use! I'm thinking of an army to protect against the Death Realm! Upgrading the powers of Kamen Rider Faust! Stuff like that!

Asher: I trust you, Blake. I just need you to be cautious. The grail is out of play, but the mission is the same. They're looking for the technology. They're looking for us.

Blake Faust: Well then I need you to be careful, chief. You know our mutual friend is nearby too. Maybe he can lend a hand.

The city passed outside the tinted window.

Asher looked into the reflection.

A woman stood on the roofline three buildings back.

She was gone when the car moved past a delivery truck.

She appeared again on the glass side of an office tower.

Malvora.

Asher’s expression did not change, but his thumb moved across the phone.

Asher: Blake, I'm going to have to call you back. Driver, please alert the team. Quietly.

The driver glanced at him through the mirror.

Driver: Sir?

Asher: Now please.

Asher opened the door while the vehicle was still moving.

The driver shouted, but Asher was already rolling across the pavement, coat snapping around him as he used the momentum to carry himself into a low crouch. The sedan swerved away under remote instruction, tires shrieking as it sped toward the next intersection. Asher stood in the middle of the street and turned as Malvora descended from the side of a building with impossible grace.

She landed several yards away, her dark robes fluttering around her like smoke, eyes bright with amusement.

Malvora: You saw me. You were always very so perceptive. To be honest, I kind of hoped you would notice me. Always thought you were cute.

Asher: I'm sure.

Malvora smiled.

Malvora: I did not need you to lead me to the Kishiranger base, if that is what concerns you.

Asher: Then why follow me?

Her smile sharpened.

Malvora: Because you were the one I was looking for.

Asher lifted his transformation device.

Ash: I should probably stop you right here.

Malvora: Vantrex is returning to an old ambition. A Rune Lens can still tear a permanent gate into the Worzol Dimension if held long enough at the correct threshold. The Great War denied him once. Your modern age may be more cooperative.

Ash’s eyes hardened.

Asher: The Wraith tried that a couple of times too. It did not work out for them.

He moved to transform.

Malvora whispered.

Black violet runes snapped around his wrists, throat, and chest. Ash stiffened as Zauberer magic bound him in place. His transformation device sparked, but would not activate.

Malvora: You carry too many old grudges, Kamen Rider Ash. The Wraith. Ha! Nothing more than monsters that lurk in dark places. This is so much more. It's not a dark reflection of this world, it's a better world. Hmm, maybe your lens would suffice. I wonder if-

A yellow streak of light slammed into the street between them.

Lena Solis emerged from it with Aymr in her hands and fury in her eyes.

Lena Solis: Get away from him.

Malvora’s delight seemed entirely genuine.

Malvora: There you are.

Lena Solis: I am not in the mood to do this with you.

Malvora: That look on your face. They must have finally spoke to you.

Lena lifted her axe.

Lena Solis: I have been having a day. Magic and Might! Kishiranger, arise!

She transformed in a burst of yellow and gold light, armor locking into place as her upgraded Oathlink flared in her hand, responding to the Oath Buckler. Malvora’s eyes followed the energy with open fascination.

Malvora: Your journey through the past changed you. The new Zircon raised your Ehrvolt higher than it had ever been, and beneath that, I feel the old Zauberer power rushing through your blood with every breath. Magnificent.

Lena Solis: Creepy.

Kishi Yellow charged.

Aymr met Malvora’s staff with a blast that shattered nearby windows. Asher struggled against the binding runes while Lena drove Malvora back across the street, each swing carrying enough force to crack asphalt. Malvora moved with infuriating grace, parrying, slipping, redirecting, never quite where the axe landed. Lena pressed harder, golden energy roaring around her armor as she used the upgraded power from Avalon to close the gaps.

For a moment, Malvora seemed impressed.

Then she raised one hand and caught the haft of Aymr inches below the blade.

Malvora: Better than before.

Her eyes glowed.

Malvora: Still not enough.

A pulse of Zauberer magic slammed into Lena and sent her skidding backward, boots tearing lines in the street. Lena recovered with a snarl and came in again, but Malvora’s staff traced a sigil in the air, and dark strings of magic snapped around Lena’s arms and shoulders. Lena broke the first two with brute force, but the third dragged her strike wide. She rolled beneath a counterattack and came up breathing hard.

Lena Solis: Strings. Really?

Malvora: A preview of my latest handiwork.

The emergency signal reached Trace and Roland as they descended from the KED roof. Ashlyn and Miles were already moving from Avalon Academy, their voices cutting through the communicator with equal parts urgency and confusion.

Lena hit the side of a parked delivery truck hard enough to dent the entire panel, and for one breath she saw nothing but sparks swimming behind her visor.

The street around her had become a torn corridor of smoke, shattered glass, and dark violet spell light. Malvora stood in the middle of it, one hand holding her staff, the other raised toward the bound Asher. The runes around Asher’s wrists and chest had tightened, glowing with an ugly pulse every time he tried to move. Lena could feel the power in them from where she knelt. Zauberer magic. The power of Sanctum reality itself.

She hated how familiar it felt.

Somewhere beneath her anger, Klara Morgenstern’s words kept scraping at the inside of her skull. Haus Morgenstern. Malvora claiming leadership by blood, power, and succession rites. Lena had spent most of her life believing she was a mostly normal girl. Now everyone seemed to have known more about her blood than she did, and every answer came with a hook to it.

Malvora smiled as if she could hear the thought.

Malvora: You are distracted, little Morgenstern.

Lena pushed herself upright and tightened both hands around Aymr.

Lena Solis: Do not call me that.

Malvora: It is your real name. Lenora Morgenstern, actually.

Lena Solis: I already have a name.

Malvora lifted her staff, and black and violet strands of magic unwound from its head like living thread.

Malvora: You're going to need more than that.

Lena rushed her before the next word could become another spell. Aymr came down in a golden arc, and Malvora moved aside at the last possible moment. The axe bit into the street and threw a wave of cracked asphalt into the air. Lena twisted with the momentum, dragging the blade free and swinging again. This time Malvora blocked with her staff, and the collision sent a shockwave up the block. Asher grunted as the binding around him flickered under the pressure, but it held.

Malvora’s eyes brightened.

Malvora: There it is. The Ehrvolt surging through you is almost singing now. Avalon’s little upgrade did more than strengthen your Ranger armor. It awoke the power in your blood.

Lena Solis: If this is your recruitment pitch, it needs work.

Malvora: I am not recruiting you today.

The dark threads snapped forward.

Lena cut through three of them with Aymr, ducked under a fourth, and kicked off the side of the damaged truck to avoid another. She landed in a low slide and sent a crescent of yellow energy screaming across the street. Malvora raised a sigil with two fingers, and the attack split around her, carving through the walls behind her instead.

Malvora: Today I am measuring you.

A red slash tore through the sigil before Malvora could complete the next spell.

Trace landed beside Lena in Kishi Red armor, Oathrender lowered and cape snapping behind him. Ashlyn followed a heartbeat later, black armor gleaming beneath the smoke, Gravebrand already drawn. Miles dropped from above with Gungnir spinning in one hand, while Roland landed beside him holding Vanguard.

Malvora looked over the gathered Kishirangers and laughed softly.

Malvora: The whole little court arrives.

Trace glanced toward Ash, then back to Malvora.

Trace Mercer: Release him.

Malvora: No.

Miles pointed his spear toward her.

Miles Rowan: What if we ask? Please?

Ashlyn Westbrook: Lena, are you hurt?

Lena Solis: Angry.

Miles Rowan: She's fine then.

Malvora turned her staff slowly, and the violet threads around it stretched upward into the sky.

Malvora: I had hoped for a little more time, but perhaps this is better. You have returned from your heroic little journey with brighter armor, deeper bonds, and the charming delusion that old enemies can become allies simply because your ancestors managed it once while the world was burning. How precious.

Trace stepped forward.

Trace Mercer: It worked.

Malvora: Once.

Trace Mercer: Once is enough to prove it can happen again. Ashlyn believes in it, and I believe in her. We can make it work.

Ashlyn Westbrook: Trace.

For a moment, Malvora’s amusement thinned, and something colder looked through her eyes.

Malvora: The Worzol Dimension has been feeding on this world longer than you understand. Every breach, every relic, every careless transformation, every faction hoarding power for its own righteous little cause has made the veil weaker. The longer it feeds, the stronger the things that crawl out of it will become. How do you intend to fight that? How do you plan to stand in the way of the inevitable. This worls WILL be consumed by the Worzol Dimension, and chaos will reign, because that is what it does!

The ground beneath the street split open.

A stage rose from the crack.

It was not a real stage, but a grotesque platform of black wood, bone, and red curtain cloth, all stitched together with Worzol flesh and held aloft by crooked legs like those of a spider. Upon it stood a monster with a porcelain mask, a crown of bent nails, and a body built like a puppet master fused with a marionette theater. Its arms were too long, its fingers needle-thin and jointed, and from each fingertip dangled glowing strings that moved independently through the air. A giant wind-up key protruded from its back, turning slowly with a grinding metallic sound. Dozens of tiny puppet dolls hung from its shoulders and waist, each carved to resemble a faceless knight, a crying child, a laughing king, or a broken angel.

The creature bowed grandly.

Malvora: Kishirangers, allow me to introduce Marionettor.

Marionettor’s mask tilted toward them.

Marionettor: Dance, little heroes. Dance until your strings snap.

Miles lowered his spear slightly.

Miles Rowan: I don't like her. Something out of a nightmare, Nacht didn't prepare me for!

Lena Solis: Who?

Roland Vander: She has not attacked yet.

Miles Rowan: She introduced herself like dinner theater murder. That is enough.

Marionettor flicked one finger.

A silver string shot forward and latched onto Miles’s wrist.

Miles’s arm jerked upward and smacked him in the side of his own helmet.

Miles Rowan: Betrayed by my finest limb.

Lena cut the string with Aymr, but three more snapped toward her. Trace intercepted one. Ashlyn sliced through another. The third wrapped around Roland’s sword arm, pulling his blade toward Trace’s side before Roland braced both feet and forced the weapon back by sheer strength.

The battle erupted all at once.

Marionettor danced backward on the warped stage, fingers twitching, body swaying, strings darting across the battlefield from all angles. Each string that touched armor seized a part of the body and tried to turn it against its owner. Trace’s right arm pulled upward as he charged, forcing his guard open. Ashlyn stepped into the gap and blocked the incoming strike from one of Marionettor’s puppet dolls as it sprang to life and slashed at him with a wooden blade that burned green at the edge. Lena swung Aymr and found the axe yanked sideways, the momentum nearly carrying her into Miles, who ducked with a dramatic yelp.

Lena Solis: Stop moving into my swing!

Miles Rowan: I am not in charge of me right now!



Roland was about to cut free, and the cut Miles loose. He then pivoted as two puppet dolls leapt onto his back. He slammed himself into the side of a building to crush one, then tore the other loose and hurled it into Marionettor’s stage. The monster laughed through its porcelain mask, a sound like applause in an empty theater.

Marionettor: So many vows. So many bonds. So many little handles.

The Worzol monster spread both hands.

Strings exploded outward.

Malvora watched from a rooftop above the street, holding Asher bound beside her.

Malvora: All it takes is the right pressure, and every bond becomes a leash.

Trace gritted his teeth and pulled against the string on his arm. Red energy surged from his Oathlink, burning along the strand, but Marionettor tightened its control. The sword in Trace’s hand turned slowly toward Ashlyn.

Ashlyn saw it, but she could not move away.

Trace Mercer: Ashlyn, move.

Ashlyn Westbrook: I can't.

Trace Mercer: That was not a suggestion.

Ashlyn Westbrook: I know.

She lifted Gravebrand and placed its edge against his sword, holding the blade in place rather than striking the string. Her black Oathlink light flared toward his red, and the two energies met where their weapons crossed. The connection that had burned so brightly in Avalon answered again. Trace stopped trying to overpower the string alone. Ashlyn stopped trying to guard herself alone. Their Oathlinks pulsed together.

The string snapped.

Trace’s sword fell away from her.

Marionettor recoiled.

Marionettor: No. No, that is not how puppets behave.

Ashlyn angled Gravebrand toward it.

Ashlyn Westbrook: We are not puppets.

Trace stepped beside her.

Trace Mercer: We choose our own path.

Miles groaned as he forced his own arm down.

Miles Rowan: Beautiful. Inspiring. Someone choose to stop her before we start hitting each other.

Roland took position at his side without hesitation. Miles glanced at him, surprised, then nodded once. Lena reached deep into the new strength burning beneath her armor. Not Zauberer energy, but the resonance of the Oathlink. Yellow energy burst outward from her Oathlink and burned through the strings around her shoulders.

Lena Solis: I am done being toyed with!

She hurled Aymr.

The axe spun through the air in a blazing golden circle, cutting a wide path through Marionettor’s strings. Ashlyn and Trace charged through the opening. Miles and Roland moved behind them in perfect rhythm, one spear and one shield covering the angles while Lena called Aymr back to her hand and smashed through the puppet dolls trying to flank them.

Marionettor shrieked and sent every remaining string toward Red and Black.

Trace crossed low.

Ashlyn crossed high.

Their weapons caught the attack between them, not unlike the way they had stopped Praetor Null’s descending strike in the Great War. Red and black light erupted from their Oathlinks. The strings wrapped around their blades and began to burn.

Trace Mercer: Final Vow!

Ashlyn Westbrook: Twin Judgment!

The red and black slash tore through the street and struck Marionettor square in the chest. The monster raised every string it had left to defend itself. For one breath it seemed as if the attack might be caught, the glowing threads forming a twisted web before its body. Trace and Ashlyn pushed forward together. Their Oathlinks blazed, the power from Avalon rising through the upgraded Zircons in a perfect pulse.

The web shattered.

Final Vow Twin Judgment ripped through Marionettor and hurled it from the stage. The creature crashed through the intersection, body splitting with green fire, puppet dolls exploding one by one from its shoulders as it screamed.

Malvora released Asher with a flick of her wrist and stepped back into a widening veil of shadow.

Asher hit the ground hard but forced himself to one knee.

Ash: Running already?

Malvora looked down at him with a smile.

Malvora: I have seen enough for today.

Lena pointed Aymr toward her.

Lena Solis: We are not done talking.

Malvora: No, little Morgenstern. We have barely begun.

The shadow swallowed her, and Malvora vanished.

Marionettor’s broken body twitched in the street.

Miles lowered his spear.

Miles Rowan: Please explode normally. Please explode normally. Please explode normally.

The monster’s wind-up key spun wildly.

Green Worzol energy surged through its cracks.

Trace sighed.

Trace Mercer: It is not exploding normally.

Marionettor erupted upward in a pillar of green fire, growing into a giant form that towered above the district. Its stage expanded beneath it into a colossal theater platform with hanging curtains made of shadow. Huge strings dangled from the sky like glowing wires, and the monster’s porcelain mask spread into a moon-like face with a painted grin. The giant wind-up key in its back turned with thunderous clicks that echoed across the city.

Marionettor: Bigger stage. Bigger dance.

Trace raised his Oathlink.

Trace Mercer: Stahlritter, answer our oath! Krieger!

Ashlyn Westbrook: Drakken!

Roland Vander: Hector!

Lena Solis: Spiegel!

Miles Rowan: Kestrel!

The five Stahlritter arrived in streaks of light and steel, descending around the giant monster with a force. Krieger drew its sword in red flame. Drakken lifted Gravebrand’s giant counterpart in black energy. Hector raised the Vanguard Shield, Kestrel leveled its spear, and Spiegel hefted its massive axe as golden light surged through its frame. The Kishirangers were pulled into their cockpits.

Marionettor attacked before they could combine.

Colossal strings shot from its fingers and latched onto Krieger’s sword arm, Drakken’s shoulder, Hector’s shield, Kestrel’s spear, and Spiegel’s axe. The Stahlritter lurched violently as the monster tried to make them strike one another. Hector’s shield swung toward Krieger’s head. Krieger twisted aside. Kestrel’s spear stabbed toward Spiegel’s side, only for Lena to force her machine’s axe down and catch the blow against the haft.

Inside Kestrel, Miles strained against the controls.

Miles Rowan: I do not enjoy being a puppet on either size setting!

Roland Vander: Focus. Don't get so worked up. You'll fall deeper into the trap.

Miles Rowan: Roland, buddy, I appreciate the calm instructions, but my giant spear is trying to attack you.

Drakken’s cockpit shook as Ashlyn fought the pull on her machine’s arm. Marionettor’s strings dragged Gravebrand toward Krieger, trying to force Black to strike Red. Ashlyn locked both hands on the controls, her jaw tight.

Ashlyn Westbrook: Trace.

Trace Mercer: I trust you.

The words were simple.

They changed everything.

Ashlyn stopped fighting the string directly. She let Drakken’s arm move until Gravebrand came close enough for Krieger’s sword to meet it. Red and black energy connected again, and the string burned away under the shared power of their Oathlinks. Krieger and Drakken turned together, cutting a path through the giant web around them. Hector used the opening to shield Kestrel, while Spiegel’s axe cleaved through the strands controlling its leg.

Trace watched the battlefield pattern form.

Trace Mercer: We combine. Now.

All Five: VOLL STAHLRITTER!

The Stahlritter surged toward one another in beams of colored light.

Marionettor screamed and threw every giant string it had into the combination, trying to seize limbs and weapons before they could lock together. The Oathlinks flared as one. Red, black, blue, green, and yellow power formed a circle of light, burning through the strings in a roaring wave. Krieger formed the core, Hector and Kestrel locked into the arms, Drakken and Spiegel formed the legs and stabilizers, and the crest of Avalon ignited on the combined chest.

Voll Stahlritter stood against the giant puppet master.



Marionettor bowed in mockery.

Marionettor: One puppet is easier than five.

Its strings shot toward Voll Stahlritter.

They wrapped around the giant knight’s wrists, ankles, shoulders, and helmet, dragging its sword arm upward and forcing one knee to bend. The cockpit rocked as every Kishiranger fought against the monster’s control. Warning lights flashed across the displays. The controls resisted them as if an invisible hand had settled over the machine.

Lena Solis: It is trying to take the whole thing.

Roland Vander: It is succeeding.

Trace looked across the linked cockpit displays at his team. Miles strained against his controls. Lena’s eyes burned with frustration. Roland remained composed, but his jaw was locked tight. Ashlyn met Trace’s gaze and did not look away.

Trace Mercer: Oathlinks together. Do not fight separately. Move as one.

Roland Vander: Understood.

The five Oathlinks ignited.

Voll Stahlritter stopped struggling.

Marionettor laughed for half a second, thinking it had won.

Then the giant knight moved.

Not against the strings, but through them, following their pull just long enough to create slack, then cutting at the precise point where all control converged. Its massive sword carved upward. Every string on its left side snapped. Hector’s shield arm tore free next, smashing through the web around its chest. Spiegel’s energy surged into the legs, breaking the restraints holding them down. Drakken’s black power and Krieger’s red power crossed through the blade together.

Voll Stahlritter charged.

Marionettor panicked and summoned a curtain of puppet dolls the size of buildings. They dropped from the sky on strings, wooden mouths open, blades raised. Voll Stahlritter plowed through them, shield forward, sword cutting left and right.
Trace lifted the sword high.

Trace Mercer: Everyone ready!?

All Five: Grand Cross!

The crest of Avalon blazed across Voll Stahlritter’s chest. Marionettor raised its hands, weaving every remaining string into a vast shield. The Grand Cross struck with a blast that split the clouds overhead and drove the monster backward across the fields beyond the city limits. The shield collapsed. Marionettor’s body cracked from mask to chest, and green fire poured out as it crashed into the earth.

Somehow she did not explode.

Miles leaned toward his display.

Miles Rowan: What just happened here? It didn't die?

A train whistle answered him.

The sound cut through the battlefield with cold certainty.

Silver light appeared along the old rail line beyond the fields, and the armored Der Gralsbund train emerged from a curtain of steam. Its black and silver plating gleamed beneath the afternoon sun, sigils shining along the reinforced cars. The train did not slow until it was nearly upon the fallen monster, brakes screaming sparks across the tracks. Four giant machines launched from its opened cars.

Silberritter landed first, silver armor bright and severe, its greatsword drawn.

Three Gralsbund Stahlritter followed, taking formation around it.

The Kishirangers went silent.

Ashlyn’s voice broke first.

Ashlyn Westbrook: Ray.

Silberritter lifted its sword toward Voll Stahlritter.

Trace’s expression hardened.

Trace Mercer: He is not here to help.

The Gralsbund machines attacked.

Silberritter came in directly, its silver blade striking Voll Stahlritter’s sword with enough force to drive the combined machine back a full step. The Gralsbund Stahlritter slammed its shield into Voll Stahlritter’s side, while the second one used its spear to hook the giant knight’s leg and pull it off balance. The third machine moved past them, deploying heavy containment chains from its arms toward the fallen Marionettor.

Lena Solis: They are taking the monster.

Roland Vander: Alive.

Miles Rowan: That seems like the worst possible idea! Ray! Stop this! Do you realize what you're doing?

Trace pushed Silberritter back, but Ray matched him with controlled precision. The duel of giant blades sent shockwaves across the fields. Voll Stahlritter could overpower them one on one, but the strategy was keeping it off balance. Every strike forced the Kishirangers to defend rather than pursue. Every shield bash and spear hook kept them away from the containment team dragging Marionettor toward the open train cars.

Ashlyn opened a direct channel.

Ashlyn Westbrook: Ray, listen to me. Things are different now.

Silberritter’s sword pressed against Voll Stahlritter’s blade.

Ray said nothing.

Ashlyn Westbrook: The Grail is gone. Whatever Father Lughbow wanted from us, whatever he thought we were hiding, that fight is over. We need to talk.

Silberritter shifted, blocking another attempt to move around him.

Ashlyn Westbrook: We can work together. We should work together. We did before.

For a moment, Silberritter stopped attacking.

Inside Voll Stahlritter, no one spoke.

Then Ray’s voice came through, quiet and distant.

Ray Matthews: I'm sorry, Ashlyn.

Silberritter struck the ground with its sword, releasing a silver shockwave that forced Voll Stahlritter backward. The Gralsbund train sealed Marionettor onto a long platform. Black chains locked over it ironically. The three support machines leapt back onto the train, and Silberritter followed last, landing on the rear platform with its sword lowered.

The train pulled away into a cloud of steam and silver light.

Voll Stahlritter stood in the field, unable to pursue without risking the city behind them and the damaged battlefield around them.

Ashlyn stared at the vanishing train.

Trace’s voice was low.

Trace Mercer: We will have to fight him someday.

No one wanted to answer.

Roland finally did.

Roland Vander: Yes.

Miles exhaled.

Miles Rowan: I hate that answer.

Lena Solis: We all do.

Ashlyn closed her eyes for a moment.

Ashlyn Westbrook: Then when it happens, we make sure it is to bring him back.

Trace looked toward the rail line long after the train had disappeared.

Trace Mercer: Agreed.

The days after Marionettor’s abduction did not become easier, but they became clearer. Ray had chosen Der Gralsbund again. Malvora had revealed that Lena’s blood tied her to a hidden Zauberer clan. Ashlyn had gained a strange new tutor. Roland had brought his shame into the open and, in doing so, had stopped letting it steer him from the shadows.

Ashlyn stood near the observation rail with a drink in her hand, watching Trace and Roland cross swords in a controlled sparring match below. The tension between them had not vanished, but it was different now. It no longer hid behind polite conversations and distance. Roland pressed Trace hard, and Trace answered without holding back. When Roland slipped past his guard and landed a clean touch against Trace’s side, Trace laughed and reset his stance. When Trace disarmed Roland with a turn of the wrist, he immediately offered the sword back hilt first. They were not easy friends yet, but something like respect had taken root between them, and that was enough for the first day.

Lena walked up beside Ashlyn with a bottle of tea and followed her gaze.

Lena Solis: Look at that. Boys solving feelings through sword violence.

Ashlyn smiled without looking away.

Ashlyn Westbrook: It seems to be working.

Lena Solis: Boys with their toys. Maybe it's just something we can't understand. I notice Miles wants no part of that training.

Below them, Miles sat cross-legged on a bench with an ice pack on his shoulder. He looked up as if sensing slander.

Miles Rowan: I heard my name and felt judged.

Lena Solis: Good.

Ashlyn laughed softly.

Lena leaned against the rail, studying her friend’s face with growing curiosity.

Lena Solis: So. You and Trace.

Ashlyn’s smile became suspicious.

Ashlyn Westbrook: What about us?

Lena Solis: Do not do that. You have been glowing since Avalon. I am happy for you, but I am also nosy and morally weak. I guess I'm bothered you haven't shared details yet.

Ashlyn took a slow drink to buy time.

Lena Solis: How is the great romance going?

Ashlyn Westbrook: More than I ever imagined.

Lena waited.

Ashlyn stared at the sparring floor.

Lena waited harder.

Lena Solis: Is that all?

Ashlyn Westbrook: Isn't that enough?

Lena Solis: Ashlyn.

Ashlyn’s cheeks warmed.

Ashlyn Westbrook: What?

Lena’s eyes narrowed with the gleeful suspicion.

Lena Solis: Wait a second.

Ashlyn looked away too quickly.

Lena straightened.

Lena Solis: You and Trace got closer in Avalon than we realized, didn’t you?

Ashlyn’s blush deepened.

Ashlyn Westbrook: We were already close.

Lena Solis: Ashlyn.

Ashlyn watched Trace laugh at something Roland said below. Her expression softened, and for a moment the embarrassment gave way to something more tender.

Ashlyn Westbrook: He was...my first.

Lena had just taken a drink.

The tea left her mouth in a spectacular spray.

Down on the training floor, Roland took the full hit across the shoulder and side of the face. Trace turned at the exact wrong moment and caught the rest across his chest.

Miles fell backward off the bench laughing.

Roland stood frozen, dripping tea, sword still raised.

Trace blinked down at his soaked shirt, then up at the observation rail.

Ashlyn covered her mouth with both hands, horrified and laughing at the same time.

Lena stared at her, eyes enormous.

Lena Solis: YOU MEAN FIRST FIRST?

Trace’s face went crimson.

Roland slowly lowered his sword.

Miles, still on the floor, wheezed for air.

Miles Rowan: Avalon had more side quests than I thought!

Ashlyn buried her face in her hands.

Trace looked as if he was considering escape.

Lena pointed at both of them with the bottle still in her hand.

Lena Solis: Nobody move. I need details, and possibly a chair.

Roland wiped tea from his cheek with absolute dignity.

Roland Vander: I believe I will take my leave.

Trace nodded far too quickly.

Trace Mercer: Excellent idea. I'm going with you.

Miles raised one hand from the floor.

Miles Rowan: I live here now. Continue, Ashlyn.

Ashlyn laughed so hard she could no longer hide behind her hands, and after a moment Trace laughed too, red faced and overwhelmed but happy in a way that still felt new enough to frighten him. Around them, the team’s problems remained enormous. Ray was gone. Der Gralsbund was moving. Malvora had begun pulling at Lena’s bloodline. The Worzol Dimension was growing stronger.

For one ridiculous moment, they were simply home.



To Be Continued...

Episode 28: The Lion’s Legacy

Ashlyn Westbrook had spent most of her life knowing Jeanne Ark as a name carved into history, a saintly figure trapped in stained glass, old prayers, and heroic stories. Jeanne had always felt enormous, distant, and impossible to reach. Then the time fissure had taken the Kishirangers into Avalon’s past, and Ashlyn had stood close enough to see Jeanne breathe.

That had changed everything.



The training room beneath the KED Building was quiet except for the clash of practice blades and the steady rhythm of Ashlyn’s boots against the mat. Trace Mercer moved across from her with a wooden sword in his hand, his expression focused but gentle, never mocking, never careless, never forgetting that she had asked him to push her harder than usual. He held back his newly restored long hair with a bandana after several failed attempts to pretend it was not bothering him, and the sight still made Lena Solis smirk every time she passed by.

Ashlyn struck toward his shoulder. Trace turned the blade aside, stepped in, and stopped his own sword an inch from her ribs. She exhaled sharply, reset her stance, and attacked again. This time she feinted high, cut low, and forced him to move back a step. That small victory brightened her eyes for half a second before Trace pivoted, caught her wrist with the back of his blade, and used the motion to turn her off balance. She recovered before falling, but the exchange ended with Trace’s sword once again poised near her chest.

Trace Mercer: Better.

Ashlyn Westbrook: Better still means I lost.

Trace Mercer: Ashlyn, my lady, you have been at this for such a short amount of time. Your progress is remarkable. You're pushing me to get better too. This is working.

She lowered her sword but did not smile.

Ashlyn looked toward the mirrored wall. Her reflection stared back at her in black training clothes, hair tied up, face flushed from effort, shoulders tense with frustration. Behind her reflection stood Trace, patient and concerned, the man she loved. The past loomed in her mind.

Ashlyn Westbrook: Tell me about her again.

Trace lowered his sword fully.

Trace Mercer: Jeanne?

Ashlyn Westbrook: What she was like when everything was falling apart? What was she like when it wasn't?

Trace Mercer: She was young, like me, when it all began. The stories make Jeanne feel like she was born standing on a battlefield with a banner already in her hand, but she was human. She got tired. She got afraid. She doubted herself when people were not watching. Then someone would need hope, and she would find more strength.

Ashlyn sat on the bench near the wall.

Trace joined her.

Ashlyn Westbrook: Asher was telling me how she united the factions before the final battle. Impressive feat.

Trace nodded.

Trace Mercer: It was. Avalon’s armies were exhausted. The members of the church that would become Der Gralsbund trusted almost no one. The Zauberer had their own wounds and their own pride. Magnus and Ash were fighting battles on too many fronts. The early Church was trying to decide whether half the allies standing beside them were miracles or heresies. Jeanne walked into the center of all of that and made them remember that Worzol did not care what banners they carried.

The door to the training room opened, and Asher entered with Dorian Vale, both deep in conversation until Asher noticed Ashlyn watching him. He paused, then seemed to understand the question already hanging in the air.

Asher: Jeanne did not unite them by pretending they liked each other.

Ashlyn looked up.

Asher: She stood before people who had reasons to hate one another and told them hatred could wait until after the world survived. She did not ask them to become one kingdom or one order. She asked them to stand in one line.

Trace looked toward Asher with quiet appreciation.

Trace Mercer: Avalon, the Church, Magnus, Der Gralsbund, the Zauberer, independent knights, even mercenaries who had spent the war selling their swords to anyone still alive enough to pay. She pulled them together.

Asher’s eyes darkened slightly.

Asher: All except Nightrook.

No one noticed Miles Rowan in the hall outside.

He had been walking past with a drink in one hand and a bag of chips in the other, likely on his way to contribute absolutely nothing useful to someone else’s serious conversation. The name stopped him cold. Nightrook. The old faction. His faction. His bloodline. The shadow in his family history he spent most days pretending was only a costume color and a few inconvenient archive entries.

Inside the room, Ashlyn turned toward Asher.

Ashlyn Westbrook: They did not take part in the final battle?

Asher shook his head.

Asher: They refused the call. Some claimed they were preserving their people. Some believed Avalon would fall anyway. Some simply did not want to kneel beside old enemies. Whatever reason they gave, they were absent when the last gate opened.

Miles lowered his eyes.

The chips crinkled softly in his hand.

He slipped away before anyone could notice the silence he left behind.

Ashlyn looked down at her hands.

Asher: Jeanne stood beside all those people and made them believe. She had to work for it though. It wasn't easy. She needed a big game changer to win over all the people. Then...she fought beside Gideon Mercer, the first Kishi Red, and they became the kind of heroes history still remembers.

Trace went still at the name.

Ashlyn Westbrook: You don't talk about him much.

Trace’s jaw tightened with old grief.

Trace Mercer: Gideon raised me. He found me when I had no name worth keeping and gave me his. He trained me. Fed me. Raised me. Pushed me harder than I thought was fair sometimes, but protected me more than I understood. He was the first Kishi Red. The Lion of Avalon. When I was young, I thought heroes were simply born different. Gideon taught me that heroes were people who kept choosing others when fear gave them every excuse not to.

Ashlyn took that in quietly.

Ashlyn Westbrook: What was he like? A gentleman like you?

Trace smiled faintly.

Trace Mercer: Better posture. Worse temper.

Asher gave a soft laugh.

Asher: That is generous. Gideon Mercer could glare an entire war council into silence.

Trace’s smile faded into something warmer and sadder.

Trace Mercer: He made people brave. Jeanne made them believe. Together, they made Avalon feel possible.

Ashlyn looked back toward the training floor.

Ashlyn Westbrook: I want to be that kind of partner for you.

Trace turned toward her.

Ashlyn Westbrook: Not someone you protect. I want to fight beside you forever and actually keep up.

Before Trace could answer, Lena’s voice came from the doorway.

Lena Solis: You know, you have paid way less attention to history since you started keeping living history in your arms.

Ashlyn’s face went red instantly.

Trace coughed into his fist.

Asher looked politely at the ceiling.

Dorian made the wise choice and left without a word.

Ashlyn Westbrook: Lena.

Lena Solis: What? I am supportive. Deeply supportive. Embarrassingly supportive.

Trace stood.

Trace Mercer: I should check the latest reports.

Ashlyn grabbed his wrist before he could escape.

Ashlyn Westbrook: Coward.

Trace Mercer: Strategist.

Lena pointed at him.

Lena Solis: Run along, Knight Boy. I need to a have a girl to girl talk with Ashlyn.

Trace looked at Ashlyn. She nodded lightly, and he squeezed her hand before leaving with Asher.

When the room emptied, Lena sat beside Ashlyn and let the humor soften into concern.

Lena Solis: You are doing that thing again.

Ashlyn Westbrook: Training?

Lena Solis: Creating a problem.

Ashlyn leaned forward, elbows on her knees.

Ashlyn Westbrook: I met Jeanne, Lena. I watched her speak, and people who should have hated each other listened. I watched history happen around us, and every time Jeanne moved, the world moved with her.

Lena listened.

Ashlyn Westbrook: I am her descendant. I carry her blood, her name, her legacy, and half the time I feel like I am just a girl with a sword trying not to fall behind this incredible, kind, gentle, and powerful Knight.

Lena’s expression sharpened, but her voice stayed gentle.

Lena Solis: Trace did not fall in love with Jeanne.

Ashlyn looked at her.

Lena Solis: He fell in love with you.

Ashlyn swallowed.

Lena Solis: Jeanne was amazing. Nobody is arguing that. She stood in the middle of a broken world and helped stitch it back together. But when Ray betrayed us, Jeanne was not here. You were.

Ashlyn looked away.

Lena Solis: When Trace was ready to break himself open trying to carry everything alone, you were the one who reached him. When the team was falling apart, you kept us moving. When he was trapped in his own curse, you were the first voice he heard. You led us in our darkest moment, Ashlyn. Not because history told you to. Because you chose to.

The room felt quiet around them.

Lena Solis: You do not have to become worthy of standing beside Trace. You already are.

Ashlyn blinked quickly, refusing to let the emotion spill over.

Ashlyn Westbrook: You are getting annoyingly good at this.

Lena Solis: I know. It's disgusting. I might need to insult Miles later to recover.

Ashlyn laughed softly.

The alarm struck before either of them could say more.

Red lights swept across the training room. The KED emergency system roared through the speakers, and the main wall display lit up with live footage from downtown Avalon City. Smoke rose between office towers. Dreadlings poured through a torn rift in the middle of the street. Civilians ran in every direction. Two larger figures stood at the center of the chaos, both unmistakable.



Garrikus rolled his shoulders, massive and armored, as Dreadlings smashed cars aside. Vire stood beside him, elegant and cruel, long blade resting across his shoulder while his eyes swept the city like a butcher evaluating meat.

Ashlyn and Lena were already running before the second alarm pulse sounded.

In the KED command chamber, Asher stood frozen before the screen.

Garrikus lifted his axe toward a news drone hovering too close and bellowed loud enough for the microphone to catch every word.

Garrikus: Magnus Foundation! Come crawling out, or we tear this city down stone by stone until we find the hole you hide in!

Asher’s face went pale.

Asher: No.

Trace entered behind him with Roland and Miles close behind.

Trace Mercer: What is it?

Asher gripped the edge of the console.

Asher: The name of the Foundation must remain secret. If Worzol forces the public to connect those words to our work, every hidden safeguard, every protected archive, every family tied to our network becomes a target.

Vire turned toward another camera and smiled.

Vire: We smell you, Magnus scum. We smell the hands that sealed doors meant to open. We will find your sanctuaries. We will find your bloodlines. We will find every last coward who thinks history can stay buried.

Asher turned toward the team.

Asher: Defeat them quickly. Please.

Trace’s expression hardened.

Trace Mercer: Kishirangers, move out.

The five of them arrived downtown on their motorcycles between the Dreadlings and a line of trapped civilians near a collapsed bus stop. Trace stood in the center as Kishi Red, cape whipping behind him in the smoke. Ashlyn landed at his side as Kishi Black, Gravebrand already drawn. Roland took position just behind them, blue armor gleaming as he raised the Vanguard Shield. Lena spun Aymr into her grip while Miles rolled his shoulders and leveled Gungnir toward the enemy line.

Garrikus grinned wider.

Garrikus: Finally. Something worth hitting.

Trace pointed his sword toward him.

Trace Mercer: You wanted to pick a fight. You got us.

Vire laughed quietly.

Vire: We want Magnus, not you guys.

Lena Solis: Too bad!

The Dreadlings charged.

The Kishirangers met them head on.

Trace carved through the first rank with a sweeping red slash, sending three Dreadlings crashing into a wrecked car. Ashlyn moved with him, black energy trailing from Gravebrand as she slipped under a spear thrust and struck upward, cutting the weapon in half before driving a kick into the attacker’s chest. Roland advanced like a wall, shield raised, absorbing a volley of dark bolts before slamming forward and sending the shooters tumbling across the pavement. Lena’s axe smashed into the ground and released a golden shockwave that lifted a cluster of Dreadlings into the air. Miles leapt through them with Gungnir spinning, striking each one before landing beside Lena with a flourish.

Miles Rowan: That was stylish.

Lena Solis: It was adequate.

Miles Rowan: Oh come on, you loved it.

Vire appeared between them.

His blade flashed.

Miles barely caught the strike with Gungnir, and Lena stepped in with Aymr before Vire could cut through his guard. The impact forced both Kishirangers back.

Vire: Nightrook and Zauberer standing together. How sentimental. Your ancestors must be weeping from confusion.

Lena’s eyes narrowed behind her visor.

Lena Solis: Good. Let them watch.

Miles shifted his grip.

Miles Rowan: You're the one I want, Vire. Let's dance.

They attacked together.

Across the street, Garrikus swung his massive axe toward Trace, Ashlyn, and Roland with enough force to shear the front from a building. Roland intercepted with the Vanguard Shield, boots digging into asphalt as the blow drove him backward. Trace moved around the shield and slashed at Garrikus’s flank, but the Worzol General twisted faster than his size suggested and caught the blade against his armored forearm. Ashlyn appeared behind him in a black blur, Gravebrand cutting toward the back of his knee. Garrikus stomped down, cracking the street and forcing her to leap clear.

Garrikus: There it is. That Avalon stink.

Roland braced his shield.

Roland Vander: Avalon stands tall against Worzol. Remember the name, Roland Vander!

Garrikus laughed.

Garrikus: I know what your blood is.

Roland surged forward and struck him with the shield hard enough to snap the laugh from his mouth. Trace followed with a sword slash across Garrikus’s chest plate, and Ashlyn used the opening to drive Gravebrand into his side. Garrikus roared, not in pain alone, but in enjoyment.

Garrikus: Better!

He spun, throwing all three of them back with a dark shockwave.

The fight spread across the avenue. Trace, Ashlyn, and Roland moved in a triangle around Garrikus, striking from different angles, testing the limits of his strength. Garrikus had fought armies. His movements were brutal but experienced, every swing designed to punish hesitation and every step heavy enough to turn the terrain into a hazard. Roland blocked what could not be dodged. Ashlyn cut into openings the instant they appeared. Trace pressed the center, refusing to let Garrikus dictate the entire battle.

For a moment, they forced him back.

That made Garrikus angry.

He slammed his mace into the street and dragged it upward, ripping a jagged line of Worzol energy from the ground. Roland blocked the blast, shield flaring blue, but the force drove him to one knee. Trace and Ashlyn crossed in front of him, red and black energy joining as their blades carved through the remainder of the attack. Garrikus saw the connection between them and grinned.

Garrikus: Lovers. Imagine what it'll look like when I deprive you of each other.

Ashlyn’s voice went cold.

Ashlyn Westbrook: You know nothing about us!

Garrikus: I know enough. Love makes warriors predictable.

Trace stepped beside her.

Trace Mercer: Predict this.

He lunged high. Ashlyn went low. Roland drove from the side with his shield. The three attacks landed nearly together, forcing Garrikus backward for the first time with a visible crack across his chest armor.

On the far end of the avenue, Vire fought like smoke given a blade. He moved around Miles and Lena with infuriating elegance, slipping through the arc of Aymr, forcing Gungnir aside, and striking with precision.

Vire: You both carry such interesting shame.

Lena swung for his head.

He ducked beneath it.

Vire: The Zauberer girl afraid of her own blood.

Miles thrust with Gungnir.

Vire parried.

Vire: The Nightrook boy pretending he's nothing more than a thief.

Miles’s grip tightened.

For half a second, the old guilt from the training room hallway returned. Nightrook had refused the final battle. Nightrook had stayed absent while Jeanne Ark united the others. His people had not stood in the line when the world needed them.

Vire saw the hesitation and struck.

Lena caught the blow with Aymr before it reached Miles.

Lena Solis: Hey.

Miles looked at her.

Lena Solis: Do not let tall, pale, and dramatic write your biography or your obituary!

Miles exhaled.

Miles Rowan: Right.

He spun Gungnir.

Miles Rowan: My biography will be written by someone with taste and a poor understanding of my flaws.

Lena smiled.

Together, they drove Vire back.

The battle had shifted. For the first time since their arrival, Garrikus and Vire were no longer simply enjoying themselves. They were fighting seriously. Garrikus planted his feet and swung at Trace with killing force. Vire’s blade became a blur around Lena and Miles. Dreadlings continued pouring through the side streets, but the Kishirangers cut them down without letting the Generals reclaim momentum.

Then the air turned cold.

Malvora appeared atop the broken shell of a bus.

She wore a smile bright enough to be cruel.

Beside her stood a tall figure covered by a black cloth.

Every Kishiranger felt the change immediately.

Lena turned, Aymr raised.

Lena Solis: Let me guess. New monster?

Malvora laughed softly.

Malvora: No. Not just some monster.

Ashlyn’s heart began to pound.

The cloth shifted in the wind.

Something about the figure beneath it carried a terrible stillness.

Malvora: A General.

Trace’s sword lowered a fraction.

Malvora looked directly at Ashlyn, and her smile sharpened.

Malvora: Brought back from the past when your little team opened the road to Avalon.

Ashlyn felt the world narrow.

No.

Not Jeanne.

The fear struck so hard she nearly forgot where she stood. She imagined Jeanne Ark beneath that cloth, eyes emptied, faith twisted into Worzol obedience, the woman who had inspired her reduced to a weapon meant to break everything she loved.

Trace sensed it and took one step closer to her.

Ashlyn Westbrook: Who is it?

Malvora tilted her head.

Malvora: Do not look so frightened, descendant of Jeanne. We tried. Truly, we did. I couldn't take the living.

Ashlyn breathed, but the relief did not last.

Malvora gripped the cloth.

Malvora: Fortunately, we found a perfect candidate.

She pulled the cloth away.

The battlefield went silent.

The man beneath it wore ancient red armor scarred by a thousand battles. It was not the modern Kishi Red suit, but the old Avalon mantle from which all others had descended, lion-crested, heavy at the shoulders, marked by burns, blade cuts, and the weathering of wars that had passed into legend. A red cloak hung from his back. His hair was dark with streaks of iron gray, his face strong and severe, his eyes gold and empty beneath the shadow of Worzol control.

Trace stopped breathing.

Asher’s voice crackled over the communicator from KED, shaken beyond anything the team had heard from him.

Asher: That is impossible.

Roland knew the armor from old records.

Lena felt the Ehrvolt signature.

Miles stared without understanding until he saw Trace’s posture collapse by an inch.

Ashlyn whispered the name before Trace could.

Ashlyn Westbrook: Gideon Mercer.



Trace’s sword trembled in his hand.

The man who had raised him stood across the battlefield like a ghost dragged out of sacred memory and chained to enemy will.

Sir Gideon Mercer.

The Lion of Avalon.

The First Kishi Red.

Trace’s master.

Gideon opened his eyes fully.

His gaze moved across the team, passed over Roland, Lena, Miles, and Ashlyn, then fixed on Trace with no warmth, no recognition, and no mercy.

Gideon Mercer: Identify yourself.

Trace’s voice broke.

Trace Mercer: Master...?

Gideon drew his sword.

The blade ignited with corrupted red light.

Malvora’s smile widened.

Malvora: Welcome back to the war, Lion of Avalon.

Darkness swallowed the battlefield in the silence that followed.

To Be Continued...




Later, long after the emergency signal from downtown had thrown the KED Building into controlled panic, a motorcycle roared through the lower access tunnel and slid to a stop beneath the security lights. The rider removed his helmet slowly, revealing wind tossed hair, and a curious gaze.



Jonathan Angel around him.

Jonathan Angel: Asher? Is this the right place? What's going on here?