Delving into the second room of the clock tower, we find it to be a much taller space. Upside down metal steps and guard rails twist and turn about the walls, splitting off and reconvening further in, which will be nice considering how cramped this all feels already. Less nice is the greater count of mechanical bodies strewn about the room, some collapsed onto the platforms, others hanging off the rails, dangling upwards. Worst of all are the ones that appear frozen both fully and partially in the icy walls, looking as though they’re clawing their way out, metal faces contorted into wailing screams, forever frozen in time…

“...What the fuck is wrong with this Janus person…?”

Oddly enough, Liz is silent, not even offering a quip, a jest, or a fun fact regarding the twisted time keeper. Instead, her eyes are glued to the machines littered about the clock tower, squinting and sneering at each, almost as though she’s looking for something.

“Something you wanna tell us, miss rat?”

“Hmm~?” she hums, turning back to me and walking backwards, her composure returning at frightening speeds. “I told ya, didn’t I? My rats ain’t seen no motion down–”

As if on cue, the gears beyond and jutting out of the icy walls seize up, the entire tower shuddering and nearly sending the rat falling down the stairs when she failed to grab onto the railing like the rest of us.

“...Radiants have pretty strong control over their realms…do you think Janus is watching us–” I begin to ask, only for Vivian to yank my back by the collar, just in time to spare me a surprise attack from the machine being stuck in the wall next to me, clawing violently at the air where I once stood. Before it can go for another swing, I summon my spear and pierce through its palm as it winds back to attack.

“Fuck– I promise, you won’t have to keep saving my ass, Viv.”

The girl chuckles as she draws her blaster, quickly shooting at any loose bots shambling out of the ice and blowing them to bits.

“This is literally my job, don’t worry about it.”

As the gears beyond resume their rotation twice as fast as before, I give Vivan a smirk and a nod, leaping over the railing and swooping below to where the goo girl can’t aim, skewering a machine as I land.

“Gimme some backup, rat!”

She doesn’t even get a chance to respond before I find a rat peeking over my shoulder with a little sniper.

“You’s thought I hadn’t thought ‘a that~?”

She’s so irritating. Regardless, I keep on my toes, watching the bots’ movements, noticing how jittery and stuttery they are, their actions seemingly interrupted to glitch back to the pose they took half a second ago. Besides that, there’s not much seemingly special about them, in fact, it’s barely as if they’re fighting, more like they’re trying to get somewhere that we happen to be right in the way of.

Still, the force with which they move is anything but harmless, so we all continue fighting. Vivian carefully makes her way down the stairs, hacking with her shear and shooting at anything that moves and isn’t furry, while Liz rushes down, ordering a swarm of rats to black out the sky, parachuting down to meet the mass of writhing metal rising from the fog below. Our assassin keeps her covered on the way down to meet me, but I take over as she gets closer, staying close and sticking to slashes and stabs, unable to do much casting with so little space. With all our forces combined, however, we clear a path deeper into the dungeon with ease, storming the surge of mist to bring our unwelcome advance closer to Janus.

Yet always just as far as the moment before

 

The deeper we descend into the cold, the louder the whistling of falling metal becomes only disorienting us further as the sound swarms around us. Its origin seemingly moves, or rather, as it becomes clearer with each step our perspective appears to rotate around it. It all continues to spin until one more step moves me farther than the last, and I step up and out of the fog, finally finding the source of the noise.

A completely endless expanse, fog consuming all as metal rains down from the heavens, sinking through the mist we step through and coming back out the top to fall over again, perpetually tumbling around a giant steel gate held up by churning cogs. We all approach cautiously, however, nothing appears to threaten us, not even the scrap rain, always falling just meters short of us. With only the gate impeding us, I stow my spear away and pry open the doors, entering into a wall-less void. The floor and ceiling do nothing to ease the constant sense that each step I take is closer to the edge of an empty space of moving images…wait…

“Guys, isn’t that…us?”

The void itself projects a dozen moving images at once, each depicting a moment of our descent through the tower repeated on and on, but…different? We seem to simply walk to the end without any pushback, eventually meeting–

“Me.”

My ears twitch and I cock my head at the voice that finished my thought for me, seeming to emanate from the hourglass in the center of the room, if it could even be considered one. Instead of sand sitting at its base, however, water rushes and whirls into a constantly moving pool, even as the glass floats up and–

No need for another introduction. Fast forward.

“--am I to presume the cold reception earlier means discussion is off the table?”

The time keeper’s legs of ice float up and cross, and their orbiting icicles mimic hands in a thoughtful position.

“That has already been decided. In another time. I will have more than enough time to talk and the like. You should make better use of your time, Player 1. Though, you did return faster than previously, despite the intrusive event.”

I find myself utterly bewildered by every word this anomaly of a person speaks, but looking around once more at the events repeating over and over, I try piecing it together.

“What, so we’ve met in some alternate timeline or something? How does that determine what we’re gonna do here?”

Their wide grin only grows, still unmoving in speech.

“An amusing assumption. I believe your aimless wandering in the dark is more fun than shedding any light upon your unfortunate situation.”

“Alright, dis fucker’s had long enough to spew some real bullshit, I’M TAKIN’ EM OUT.”

In trying to keep up with the rat’s rashness, I spin my spear out the moment she starts shouting and shooting, looking to Vivian and nudging my head towards Janus, the alien nodding and taking to the front as I–

Fast forward.

–into the air and driving my spear downwards at Janus alongside my…huh? M-my reaper isn’t here–

“HISSS–”

 

Pain seeps past my clenched teeth as a bullet tears through my abdomen, then another, still managing to execute my attack, if much more sloppily before falling to my paws shakily, having only chipped Janus’ glass slightly. They look somewhat faded, yet with each passing second a clock ticks and they begin to regain their colour. I-I try assessing what the hell is going on as the time keeper floats back in slow motion, first looking back to see horror in Liz’s eyes.

“Wh-what da fuck…”

“CAT!!”

Vivan shrieks, moving to my aid while blasting explosive seeds at Janus, not seeming to do much damage, but at least pushing them back further so they can help me back–

Fast forward.

–up…? The time keeper flashes back to full colour, and the very next moment, Vivian is further up slashing at them, leaving me to fall back down while Janus kicks back at the alien’s attacks, though my grunt of pain seems to surprise and distract the assassin. Janus, now dull and flashing once again, takes this moment to grab her arms in their icicles, quickly freezing the goo solid where they touch, causing Vivian’s body to bubble violently. Though it looks incredibly painful, she doesn’t scream at all, holding back all the noise in her to be as professional as she can.

“You fucker– LET GO OF HER!!”

My paws burn as I pull myself up, ready to pounce until I hear the rat shouting behind me once more.

“DON’T. MOVE. CAT KITTEN.”

 Turning back, I see Liz’s eyes darting about the room frantically, seemingly calculating something as her rats crawl out from over the edge of the void and towards Vivian, some with grappling hooks, others with flamethrowers, all scrambling to aid the girl as Liz’s heels clack closer–

Fast forward.

–then stopping, suddenly appearing between me and Vivian. I can still tell she’s grinning from the playful way her tail wags, not budging from where she stands as her rats, seemingly unaffected, turn and point their flames to Janus, the others pulling our assassin away with their hooks.

“You’s thought I was comin’ sooner? Think again, fucker.”

With that, the rat pulls out her bat, Janus attempting to stop her swing with their icicles, but the flames made them too melty to be of any use, allowing Liz to get a clean SMASH to their noggin. The hourglass goes flying into the void before stopping with stiller waters than before, no longer rushing rapidly about its containment as their clock face flips to the other side, a more subtle smirk lighting up her face as opposed to the sinister grin from before.

“I was growing tired of that game anyways. There is no more future for you regardless. There is only present. Stillness. Waiting for nothing.”

 

The time keeper doesn’t move very fast on their way back from the outskirts of the void, giving us each ample time to push an assault, both Vivian and Liz blasting away at Janus, making the hourglass flinch with each direct hit, while I plant the base of my spear to the floor and begin spinning. If we’re to beat a timekeeper, then our best bet may be to call upon one ourselves…

Pause.

Shit. Beneath the icy floor and above the chilly ceiling, I see two gears manifest directly overhead and below me, spinning, charging some kind of attack, forcing me to abandon my summoning sphere, leaping to the side and–

“FUCK– GODDESS ABOVE–!!”

Tears and blood flood my vision, a pale translucent cylinder appearing instantaneously between the gears, and inside that tube…my spear and arm, torn from the shoulder, remain frozen in time, leaving me gasping deathly breaths while attempting to cauterize the wound with a burning paw. My allies turn in shock and disgust, granting Janus a brief respite to float back while Vivian rushes to my side, reaching into a pocket and procuring some kind of yellow glowing fruit with one hand, and pulling out a pink alien vine with the other.

Play.

The gears and the cylinder disappear, sending the arm and spear hurtling towards us, my goo friend reacting accordingly and snapping the vine towards my wayward limb, nabbing it before it could collide or fly past us and into the void.

“Cover us, Rat Queen,” Vivian commands, Liz gritting her teeth and calling in rat copters to circle and annoy Janus with a hail of aerial bullets. “Cat, take a deep breath, and eat this, it’ll only hurt for a second.”

Seeing her line my limp arm up to its bloody socket, I feel a sickening churn in my gut that I force back to take the fruit and chomp into it, eyes going wide in the next moment as the pain where my arm once was flares even hotter. Suddenly, the feeling of my nerves snapping my bones back into order forces another cry of pain out of my clenched teeth, my arm seizing up and promptly spasming until I regain control.

“Just what the fuck else can alien crops do…?!” I pant out, standing up and resummoning my spear, noticing an agitated look in Janus’ eyes, pointed directly at Vivian.

“You are so ANNOYING.”

PAUSE.

Vivian shoves me out of the way in time for my still recovering senses to notice the gears above and below the goo girl, who stays perfectly still and takes a deep breath as the cylinder appears and freezes her in time. By now, the timekeeper has returned to shore, forcing me back as the numbness in my arm slowly fades, a dull soreness replacing it.

For once, Janus seems to be fighting back herself, mist and icicles swatting at the rats around her, while her massive pillar legs kick and knee at Liz. Though, the timekeeper does seem incredibly sloppy and uncoordinated, despite seeming physically fine aside from a few scratches and cracks. Maybe she’s just not good at close quarters combat…? The rat easily swings her bat at Janus’ blows, allowing me to get a few clean stabs and jabs in.

PLAY.

PAUSE.

The moment Vivian is freed from time jail, Janus sets her focus on Liz, the gears ready to contain her, but the sinister grin on her face tells me she won’t be held down so easily, not without a fight.

“SPREAD OUT ‘N HOOK ‘EM, BABES!!”

The rat sticks her bat out as if it were a rapier poised to stab, becoming frozen in that position the moment after her rats scatter out of the time prison, hurling grappling hooks at Janus and yanking her forwards. Her body ignores the frozen time and her face smashes right into the end of Liz’s bat, sending her recoiling back while the Rat Queen’s shit eating grin remains picturesque within the still time.

PLAY.

“I. Am going to have fun. Playing with YOU next time,” Janus spits at the rat as she’s freed, the water at the base of the timekeeper’s hourglass rising up in a whirl before freezing over the clock inside, all that’s visible being a grinning set of black teeth.

“Unfortunately for you, next time is still my time. Time. Is. Up. But first…”

Janus spins over behind Vivian, one set of icicles grabbing at her waist, the other behind her head, the timekeeper smiling over her shoulder at us, our friend’s face grimacing as Janus begins freezing her body again, though, not physically...seemingly freezing it in a pale veil of time. Vivian’s eye opens wide, terror twisted over her face as Liz and I move to free her once more, spear and bat primed.

Stop.

 

Click.