Not a word was spoken as Nemesis combed through the wreckage of the ritual zone. Tears streamed down four young faces.

But not Bob's.

Bob was completely silent, focused entirely on the ground, his eyes narrowed into slits and brow furrowed. His heart pounded as he rushed through the clearing as fast as he could move.

He would find her.

He had to.

And then…

He found something.

An empty set of clothes, belonging to Wilson.

But no sign of Elise.

Bob fell to his knees.

His eyes started to water…

“Bob-sama, I found her!”

Bob leapt to his feet in an instant, rushing to Nana’s location.

And then he froze.

There she was.

Burnt skin.

Twisted, half-melted metal armor.

Something like a black aura, dimming the light around her.

And a motionless robotic eye and lightless core.

Bob closed his eyes as the moisture grew.

But as he did, his suit ran an automated scan.

“Heartbeat detected.”

Bob’s eyes shot open.

“Saydaa, she’s alive, but not for long!”

Saydaa nodded and immediately moved over, drawing a magic circle in the air. But the red lights started to fade the moment they touched the black aura.

Elise didn’t stir.

Bob grit his teeth. The residual void energy would block any sort of magic. Worse, it would keep her cybernetic components disabled. And Elise’s body and internal organs were intertwined with her implants. She could not survive for long without them, not in the critical state she was in.

She would not last until the void energy faded.

Saydaa tried to overpower it but there was too much. Nana tried to seal it away, but the seals lost their power on contact with the void. Arvid tried to cut through them, but even the magic power of his blade could be drained by the void. Kiyosuke tried to remove her from out under it, but the power of the void was running through her circuits and veins and he could not separate it from her.

Tears filled Nemesis’s eyes again.

“Bob-sama…is there nothing…we can do?”

Bob’s eyes narrowed.

“We need more time.”

Nana suddenly opened her eyes and pulled out her phone.

“Hang on a second, I’ll call Chronolock!”

Bob shook his head and walked back over to Wilson’s empty clothes. He ruffled through them…

“No, I have a better idea.”

He found it.

A high-tech gauntlet.

Wilson’s Chrono-Shifter.

The power of the void had been delivered directly to Wilson’s core, and so the power he had already obtained had kept it contained within him. As such, only Wilson himself was affected. His clothes were not.

And so neither was the Chrono-Shifter.

Bob opened a compartment and placed the Chrono-Shifter on it. The high tech gadget began to integrate with his suit…

His suit chimed.

A wavy line with branches veering off it appeared in his suit’s UI.

“We have all the time we need right here.”

The compartment opened up and the gauntlet rose out of it. Bob lifted his other hand.

His eyes narrowed, finally filling up with the tears he had been holding back.

“I’ll save you, whatever it takes.”

Bob pressed the gauntlet.

And vanished with a flash of light.

Bob spent a while planning and came to a simple conclusion.

He would aim to save Elise in the present, rather than kill Wilson in the past.

After all, the Wilson in the past had a Chrono-Shifter of his own. Bob apparently defeated him many times but never killed him before he could escape through time, including scenarios involving Xiong Huang. So trying to kill him again or disrupt his plans to prevent this from happening could and likely would end with Wilson escaping once more. Then he’d end up in a war across time against a far more experienced time traveler. Elise had killed him cleanly, once and for all, at a point where the time traveler was committed and couldn’t go back to fix his mistakes. The safest thing to do was to take that victory.

And Bob didn’t know much about time travel, about what the full consequences of his actions might be. And while he would do anything necessary to save Elise, that didn’t mean he would act haphazardly.

So what would be the safest thing to do?

Gather things in the past that he could use in the present.

Things that had already gone missing as far as history was concerned. And so things that would not be missed.

And so Bob began his time heist.

Mount Fuji, Japan, 210 BC

A man in fine silk robes strolled up the mountain. His back was perfectly straight, his stride unerring despite the rough and rocky terrain. His robes remain straight and neat despite the snowy winds blowing around him.

For he sought the heavens, so how could he be stopped by the trials of Earth? What was mere weather and climate in the face of a servant of the First Emperor?

And he was rewarded for his labors.

For there, at the peak of the mountain, was a star burning bright in the midst of snow and gale.

Xu Fu smiled as he saw it.

A simple flower, one that might be found anywhere else.

Were it not for the raw power dwelling within its petals.

He had found it.

For nine years the Emperor of All Under Heaven had sent him on his quest. He and his entire sect. The core disciples, the mighty archers who had felled the terrifying monsters of the deep. The craftsmen and alchemists, the holders of ancient lore and expert skill. Even the next generation, three thousand young boys and girls upon whom the future of the sect might one day rest. Long had they toiled and strived, through deadly waves and savage lands.

But it had all been worth it.

For he had found the mythical Blazing Dragon Flower. The rarest flower on Earth that is said to bloom only once every thousand years. The key to immortality.

Now he could return to the Emperor with his head held high. Now the Emperor would conquer the heavens themselves, establish a dynasty that would last a thousand years and beyond! And sitting at his right hand would be the mighty and victorious Xu Fu! The Emperor over heaven, Xu Fu over the Earth! Now, nothing could…

There was a flash of light.

Some sort of armored warrior appeared before him.

“Who are…”

The warrior raised an armored hand that glowed purple.

The Blazing Dragon Flower leapt into the air and flew on its own into the warrior’s hand.

“Hey! Wait!”

Xu Fu leapt after it, but the warrior grabbed the flower and then vanished with a flash of light.

Xu Fu stared at the empty snow between his hands.

He began to tremble.

But he straightened his back and calmed his breathing.

Clearly this was just a tribulation from the heavens. The secret to immortality would not be granted so easily, after all.

And he was a servant of the Emperor! He would hold his head up high, no matter what challenges he must face, and do what he must.

And he knew what he needed to do.

And so Xu Fu, mighty court sorcerer of the Qin Dynasty, sent by the First Emperor himself on a quest for the elixir of life, the man burdened with great and glorious purpose and destined for legendary deeds…

Bravely turned his tail and fled!

Later a certain sorcerer from far away lands would be worshiped by the locals as a god of farming for the new and advanced techniques he brought as he settled in the land, but that is a tale for another time.

As for the Emperor…after Xu Fu failed to return he gave up on the Blazing Dragon Flower, which he assumed was truly a myth after all, and turned to other methods of obtaining immortality. Such as drinking mercury.

It didn’t work.

Yucatán Peninsula, 65 Million BC

A large city sprawled out across the peninsula, shining in the midday light. For every part of it, from the streets to the buildings to the people’s clothes were forged from gold. Dinosaurs of every type carried luggage loads and passengers as the pedestrians went about their business.

Oh, and all the people were lizards.

A large golden pyramid sat at the center of it all. And in a throne room at the top of the pyramid sat Necuametl, king of the world. The lizardman scoffed.

Not a cloud in the sky. Not a single whisper of the ‘disaster’ his cowardly court wizard had raved about.

The fool had run off earlier with a bunch of fanatical followers, the hunters had yet to find them. But once they did, there would be reckoning. For none can defy the order of the king.

Well, it didn’t matter much to him.

His was a dynasty that had endured over a million years. And would endure for a million more. He would not let the ravings of one madman sour his mood. Besides, there was some rare shade today, bringing blessed relief from the summer heat.

Shade?

Necuametl looked up into the sky.

It was a rock.

A very large rock.

Falling from the sky.

He scoffed.

So this was the ‘disaster’ that fool foresaw? Pathetic.

He lazily motioned at a nearby servant. Hardly a few minutes had passed when the entire city began to glow, ritual formations built into the very streets humming to life. Light surged through the streets and converged on the central pyramid, which fired a beam into the sky, creating a massive shield encasing the entire city.

This was hardly the first meteor they had dealt with. After all, what was a mere rock against all the lore and power of a civilization that had endured for countless millennia? The rulers of all the earth?

The meteor crashed into the shield…

And the shield immediately vanished.

Necuametl simply stared, standing completely still as the meteor continued to fall.

It turns out…

That was no mere rock.

The meteor smashed straight into the central pyramid.

Oh, and the shield hadn’t just vanished.

The meteor had absorbed all that energy.

And amplified it.

It had started glowing even before the impact.

And so…

The meteor then exploded.

Throwing mystical, energy-absorbing dust and debris across the world. And a wave of magical power that disrupted the flows of power within the Earth itself.

The dust absorbed the magic from the very atmosphere, rendering magic unusable on the surface for millions of years to come, drastically changing the environment of the planet. And the very flows of magic deep within the Earth shifted. A civilization that endured for over a million years vanished that day, all their civilization and artifacts and lore rendered useless overnight. The survivors were thus unable to endure the global climate changes that resulted, save for those who had fled underground to hibernate at the behest of the court wizard. Ecosystems across the entire globe would feel the effects of that day for millions of years to come, rendering entire species extinct as every creature struggled to adapt to the sudden changes.

As for the meteor…the explosion had shattered it, tossing small pieces of it all across the world. A decent chunk of it remained in the crater, however.

And it was shortly after that that an armored man appeared and began chipping away at those remains.

After all, Iesnorium is hard to find.

Director Green’s Secret Base, During the Construction of the Mental Unifier, 2010s AD

Director Green stormed out of the room, having just finished a call with Bob. She walked out into a workshop. A spherical device was under construction by a handful of engineers, each personally screened by Roxanne for treachery or ulterior motives. Assisting them were a swarm of grav-projector equipped drones, using the ILS's grav-tech to lift heavy pieces of metal with ease. Dr. Fraser sighed as he saw Director Green approach.

As Dr. Fraser went to relay some personal concerns to Director Green, a small spider drone climbed onto his terminal. It plugged into his computer and began downloading some of the most tightly guarded blueprints Londyn ever possessed…

And so the blueprints of the Mental Unifier were preserved after all.

Tanifuji Workshop, During the Vophae Invasion, 2010s AD

Kanna wiped a single tear from her eye as an armored suit walked out of the workshop, Bob taking her masterpiece out to join the war.

Then she turned back.

“Welp, that’s that! Let’s clean up and get started on our next project, Klara!”

Klara just sighed.

“I mean, I enjoy it too, but don’t you ever take a break, Mrs. Tanifuji?”

“Nope! Work is my break!”

Suddenly there was a flash of light behind Kanna. She slowly turned around and gasped.

“Bob! What are you doing here?! I thought you just left!”

“Different Bob, I’m from the future.”

“WHAT?!”

He reached out a hand and dropped a bunch of stuff.

Kanna’s jaw dropped.

There was the largest piece of Iesnorium she had ever seen.

Oh, and a bunch of random parts and scraps that looked suspiciously close to those Vophae ships that were just on the television.

“Ask me in the future when you meet me at these coordinates. For now I have a job for you.”

The Indian Ocean, just after Nemesis breached the ILS Vault, 2010s AD

Aurora Legion sighed and leaned back into their chairs. They had to scramble out here after the sudden appearance of a supervillain with a bunch of Vophae tech, but they had managed to get there in time. Still, it was a hard fought battle, to the point that none of them felt like speaking much afterwards. They were all looking forward to getting home.

Suddenly the jet wobbled a bit.

“What was that?”

Wonder Knight just shrugged.

“Probably turbulence?”

Aurora Legion all shrugged and sat back in their seats.

And then the back door of the plane burst open. An armored suit walked into the plane. Wonder Knight’s eyes widened.

“You’re…”

He didn’t have time to finish when lightning surged from the suit. The five teens screamed as the lightning shocked them.

The group came to, just barely in time to see the armored suit lift an unconscious Voidspeaker over his shoulder.

Chronolock extended her hand.

“VOID!”

The suit vanished in a flash of light.

And Voidspeaker with it.