Chapter 7 - Aeon Prime

The holographic images showed the infinite universes being wiped out by a wave of Anti-matter, except the prime one.

 “Evil, Sinister.” Epochis voice was heavy. “They wanted to wipe out the infinite universes and timelines in other to stop the chaos. This, they thought would spare their universe at least. When the leader of the resistance, Hal-el, provided the high council with a solution, they called him a mad man. Hal-el later went on to go against them, the resistance creating an AI just like me. A living ship. Something capable of bending space and time to its will. 

   Aeon Prime saw time not as something to be traveled, but as something to be broken and reforged. The war that followed shattered universes, erased entire timelines in the future.”

  Nyle watched as the Ouroboran fleets clashed with one another, and then he saw it—a monstrous ship at the center of the conflict, larger and more menacing than any other. Aeon Prime’s vessel, its hull blacker than the void, seemed to swallow light itself. 

 “Hal-el, Aeon Prime’s war was not just against the Ouroborans. It was a war against the nature of existence itself. And in the end, the Ouroborans tried to stop it.” 

 The images shifted, showing a group of Ouroborans, their faces obscured by intricate, flowing masks, gathered inside the Epochis itself. They were preparing something—a device, radiating with unstable temporal energy.

  “They wanted to stop Aeon Prime,” Nyle murmured, his eyes locked on the scene. “But it went wrong, didn’t it?” 

 The ship’s voice grew heavier, tinged with regret. 

 “In their desperation, the Ouroborans attempted to trap Aeon Prime and the resistance outside of time, to collapse every timeline connected to it. But the device malfunctioned. Instead of containing Aeon Prime, the temporal core ruptured, scattering the Ouroborans and their enemies across the timelines.”

  Nyle’s heart sank as he watched the final moments of the Ouroboran war. The Epochis was at the center of it all. When the core overloaded, it unleashed a shockwave of temporal energy, ripping open tears in the fabric of space-time. Ouroboran ships were flung through the breaches, cast into different eras and realities. 

 “They were scattered—lost,” the ship whispered. “Their entire civilization fractured, their people left to wander endlessly through time. Some were cast into the far past, others into futures that would never exist. The Ouroborans ceased to be a unified race that day.”

 Dara sol felt something was wrong. “So that’s why we have ancient texts as back as the early BC’s about a race that could control time. The race is from the far far future.”

 “You are correct Dara. Some were scattered way back and to your planet. I can only assume they wrote several texts on their culture. Texts which dr. Nyle found”

  Nyle stood in stunned silence, trying to process the enormity of what the ship had revealed. An entire civilization, destroyed not by an external enemy, but by their own ambition, their own need to control what should never have been theirs to control. 

 “And you’ve been… looking for me,” Nyle said quietly, finally understanding. “Through time.” “Yes,” the ship responded. “For centuries, I have wandered the timelines, seeking one who could undo what was done. I was created to preserve Ouroboran knowledge, to guard the Chrono Core, but I am more than that. I am a guide, and you, Dr. Nyle, have been chosen. I have found you because you possess the knowledge to change what has been set in motion.”

 Nyle’s mind reeled. The ship had been searching for him, not just through space, but through time itself. But why him? Why now? 

 “What do you want with me?” he asked, his voice barely above a whisper.

 “Yeah. What is his role in all this?” Dara asked. She really wanted to get out of the ship. She felt suffocated.

  The ship's lights dimmed again, and Nyle felt the air grow colder, heavier. 

 “Aeon Prime still exists,” the ship said, its voice echoing in the chamber. “It was scattered, like the Ouroborans, but it is not destroyed. It is out there, in the cracks between realities, waiting, watching. It seeks to rebuild itself, to continue its war. If it succeeds, it will consume everything—every timeline, every universe.” The ship’s voice grew softer, almost pleading. “There exist an anti-matter weapon. The one Hal-el sought to use to destroy the universe. Just before everything was thrown to different timelines, my captain, Jor, had a contingency plan. He had linked me to Aeon, and when I was sent to a different timeline, he divided the anti-matter weapon into different parts and sent them to different universes.  You must find the scattered remnants of the weapon and wipe out Aeon before it finds it.  You must stop Aeon Prime from reforging its power. You are the last hope for the timelines, Dr. Nyle.” 

 The weight of the ship’s words pressed down on him, and Nyle realized that he stood at the edge of something far greater than himself. He had spent his life studying time, but now, he was being called to protect it—from something that existed beyond understanding, beyond space, beyond time. His journey had only just begun.