Shadows of Destiny
Jaxon Kade stared out at the smoldering horizon, fists still aching from his latest assignment. Ever since the Coalition had taken him in, war and violence had shaped his every thought. Born into chaos, he learned early that only strength mattered. Now he was the Coalition’s iron fist, traveling between eras to force their vision of the future, no matter the cost.
This time, however, his orders struck a nerve he’d never felt before. A group of rebels—barely trained, led by a few disillusioned Time Keepers—had discovered a way to alter destiny itself. Instead of snuffing them out as usual, Jaxon hesitated. Because rumor whispered the rebels came from the same war-torn homeland he once escaped. They intended to dismantle the conflicts that built him into a warrior. Everything he stood for—the brutal power he upheld—might vanish if these rebels succeeded.
He found them hidden in the ruins of a long-failed timeline: cracked pillars of marble, scorched fields that still smelled of ash. They were huddled under a makeshift shelter, planning jumps through history to sever key battles and alliances. One leap at a time, they aimed to undo the Coalition’s iron grip. Jaxon advanced, heavy steps echoing in the rubble. Every fiber of his body remembered how to kill—how to crush hope. His Coalition masters had tempered him for that purpose.
Yet he paused as he recognized a face among them: a scrawny youth who couldn’t be more than fifteen. She had Jaxon’s old eyes, the same haunted look from a life where bombs rained daily. He realized she was from his own past, from the same ravaged city. Had she survived the same war he’d grown up in? If these rebels ended those battles before they ever began, that city might never fall. Could it be saved?
He clenched his fists, torn. The Coalition demanded results—destroy the rebels, reclaim the stolen watch calibrations. But the concept of a tomorrow without the scars he carried drew him like a ghostly beacon. Was it possible to break the cycle that forged him? Could he allow himself to hope for a gentler timeline?
The rebel leader, an older woman, met his gaze. “So you’ve come to end us.” She sighed, hand resting on a worn $TIME watch. “We know who you really are, Jaxon. We fight so children never endure what made you… unstoppable.”
Jaxon’s throat tightened. A memory surfaced: he was six, cowering behind a half-demolished wall as mortar shells lit the sky. The Coalition found him in that rubble, shaped him into this unstoppable man who believed destiny was a lie. Only power mattered. Yet here, in the flicker of the rebels’ hope, he saw a chance to free himself from the future he’d spent a lifetime enforcing.
At that moment, the Coalition’s plan snapped into clarity: without these tragic wars, there’d be no Jaxon Kade. He was their creation, forged in the flames of conflict. If they lost him, they lost a weapon built for centuries of subjugation. His eyes burned with realization. The idea of a better world took root, cracking his iron will.
A hush fell. The rebels braced for an attack. Instead, Jaxon slowly unclenched his fists. “Show me,” he rasped, voice thick with an emotion he didn’t know how to name. “Show me how you plan to rewrite it all.”
In that fractured moment, the future teetered on a knife’s edge. Jaxon Kade, once the Coalition’s darkest blade, now held the power to help heal the broken world that made him. Whether he’d become its savior or remain its destroyer hinged on the next breath. And somewhere in that ravaged place, for the first time, he allowed a fragile spark of hope to guide his choice.
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