@original-character-championship
Kairos + others lore dump part 2,,
Well, to pick up right where we left off-
Lloyd, in a fit of rage, swears an oath of vengeance against Alex, as Emily sobs her nights away from her unaffected facade she puts up in front of others.
What happened was that Alex had a taste of power, perhaps one too generous, as he would abuse his powers to no end, learning more and gaining more as he neglected his wife, son and friends.
He then realized that to gain more power, he had to "optimize" his body for time travel.
He began to start making "improvements", ones that started small even back in his vigilante days.
These all added up and got a bit out of hand, especially after losing an eye in a battle.
He would then go by Kairos from then on, not associating himself with his past self anymore, setting his sights on a new goal much higher and much more delusional than his last - achieving godhood.
So, Lloyd and Emily decide to try and take down Kairos, starting by gaining power, knowledge and strength as to take the guy down.
Meanwhile, Kairos kinda purposefully fucks up everything throughout the timelines he travels through, (Kairos can not only travel forwards and back in time, but can also travel through alternate timelines. Think of them as like parallel universes) gaining some higher powers' attention who then later summons him to ask what he was doing messing everything up like that.
Little to their knowledge, this was on purpose as he wanted to join their ranks.
He explains this, showcasing his powers, getting nothing but a disdained sigh and a fool's errand, being told to "go make the people on Earth finally start believing in us again so we can become more powerful and then we'll consider it"
Kairos then gets really pissed, as he mutilated his body and dedicated years of research into this, (though some of it wasn't his) and so goes off the deep end and starts committing intertimelinial war crimes out of spite and as to threaten them into reconsidering.
What he did in the other timelines themselves are somewhat innocent at first, but due to his knowledge of the ins and outs of timelines at this point, and the utter potency of the butterfly effect, he had targetted the weakpoints, leading to utter carnage following the man wherever he went.
Or at least, carnage to the being's authority.
His message came across as clear as day once they caught on, and if there's one thing you learn from myths, it's that you don't fuck with power you don't know the extent of.
So when they finally caught him in the act, they end up sealing Kairos in a small pocket dimension out of space and time, all alone, doomed to wander the place forever, unable to escape, cursed by his own dedication to immortal youth.
While Kairos is stuck as he goes even madder inside his small pocket dimension, realizing that he can't rift his way outta this one, Emily and Lloyd are still gaining power to confront Kairos again, not knowing he'd just been sealed away.
Alex's family have no idea about his Kairos insanity, having searched for quite a while after the first appearance and later announcing him dead.
Thus, they just leave his legacy as Alexander Pascall, praising his diligence and good nature as well as his sense of morality and justice that he was remembered for before he disappeared. (they're kinda rich and famous as, well, while no one else knows how he did time travel, that wasn't the only breakthrough he'd achieved in the field of magi-tech.)
So his son and wife grow up together, missing him and relying on each other until the end of the wife's life, leaving his poor son an orphan, left to fend for himself.
Back to the duo set on vengeance, eventually, Lloyd gains his power in the form of an incredible amount of magical knowledge and experience from multiple grimoires thanks to his penchant for astrology.
On the other hand, Emily focuses on expanding her arsenal of weapons, and honing her ability to kill with no powers (as she never had any magical potential) to a concerning degree of success.
Time passes on, and Lloyd starts becoming a bit paranoid, noticing Kairos's concerning inactivity, expecting an ambush at any time.
He starts stocking up on extra, dubiously-sourced power unbeknownst to Emily, and decides to start an alter ego as to train his skills and actively bring attention and seek out Kairos.
Lloyd gets far too into enhancing his powers "as to be prepared for anything", until he, too, then goes missing in a fog cloud late one evening while on a holiday with his family, scarring his son and causing immense grief to his wife.
This son also eventually becomes an orphan down the line, but not due to natural causes this time, so take that as you will.
One late evening, Emily grieves and collapses one evening in the lab, ready to close up the place once and for all due to the horrible memories attached to it and it's now missing common visitors.
The strange sensation of deja vu from all those years ago was still acting up again and again, frustrating Emily to the brink of insanity herself, as she finally realized a few months ago what was going on.
She was pretty sure.....she was stuck in a time loop.
It'd started ever since that damn moment she got slashed by those golden hands.
And now, well, she's been stuck in a timeloop of this timeline, slowly learning to stiffen up and feeling much older than her body really was, with an immense amount of experience and wisdom, forced to be thrown back in time if she does even a single action out of script for the timeline’s list of events.
And yet, she didn’t even get to keep the damn memories of future sections, as every damn decision she made could loop her back to the moment she made said decision, over and over and over again until she got the right option.
And the only evidence of these previous decisions she made were blurry, fuzzy memories and maybe one or two words from the results if she was lucky.
As her mind wandered off to theories about how she could undo this curse out upon her, fingers fiddling with a toolbox propped on a desk that he’d never packed away. Might as well take it as to get some good use, or at least, cash, out of i-
Wait.
Someone’s here, aren’t they.
That’s what she thought she remembered happening anyways.
And sure enough…
WOOSH!
A shadow flicked out of the corner of her eye towards a pair of curtains.
Emily whipped out her spiked lasso, circling it round and round, ready to capture the invader.
She ran up to the window, eyes darting around as she tried to find the source of the shadows when a figure stepped out of them, bright nimbus behind its head aglow like the full moon outside.
He donned a dark purple suit accented with orange and yellow, wielded a cane with a crescent moon-shaped handle, and stared into Emily's eyes, the calm and collected smirk on his face unwavering.
She could immediately tell something was wrong, that something was off, that yet again, this friend of hers was not be the same person he was a year ago before his disappearance.
Tears pricked her eyes as Emily couldn't stop seeing Kairos in him, choking down sobs as she attacked the smug being that was once her friend.
That night Lloyd learned that perhaps, to change fate, you were supposed to do it out of sight and out of mind. Never directly.
And, well, they do say that pain can be a great teacher.
Moments after the encounter, Emily gave in to her heaving sobs, breaking down as her salty tears flooded the once pristine concrete floor.
And, well, that was the most recent sighting of anything that resembled Lloyd Dixon.
What happened to Emily, you ask?
Well, she would close off to others over time, still deciding to try and keep justice up in the local area and to save as many people as possible, but, she didn’t hesitate to sacrifice the lives of a few to save the lives of many, and in the end always chose herself.
How could she trust another after them?
