Determined, Lester and Franklin set a trap instead of fighting.

  No more charging into battle. No more playing by the Cycle’s rules.

  This time, they led Watts where *they* wanted him.

  Through careful maneuvering, they funneled him into a void of ink and shadow, a space between realities where time itself unraveled. Franklin’s darkness wove the walls; Lester’s ink sealed the door. It wasn’t a prison—it was an erasure. A place outside the Cycle, outside existence itself.

  Watts struggled, his energy crackling like a dying storm, but the void was absolute.

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  As the final strands of ink wrapped around him, sealing him inside, he stopped fighting. His smirk faded. For the first time, he looked… almost relieved.

  “This is bigger than me,” Watts whispered.

  Then he was gone.

  And the world reset.

  Lester shot up, gasping for air.

  Not the briefing room.

  Something was wrong.

  The sky above him twisted, shifting through colors that didn’t belong—deep reds, piercing blues, void-like blacks. He was floating, or falling, or *both.* Shapes flickered at the edge of his vision, shadows of past battles, echoes of his own deaths.

  He wasn’t back in the loop.

  He was *outside* it.

  A cold realization settled over him. Watts hadn’t been lying.

  This wasn’t just about the war.

  The Cycle wasn’t just repeating reality.

  It was something *alive.*

  And it had noticed him.