The next morning, Talia woke to the sound of something shattering in the café below.
She bolted upright, heart pounding.
Kai.
By the time she stumbled downstairs, the chaos had already begun.
Jasper stood frozen mid-sip, his glasses fogged with steam. Xander had a knife in each handthough whether it was for defense or dramatic emphasis was unclear. And Kai?
Kai was perched barefoot atop the counter, holding a teacup that was most definitely levitating.
"It's not broken," he announced, as if that explained everything. The cup wobbled mid-air, then righted itself with a soft plink.
Talia rubbed her temples. "Why is it floating?"
"Time birds needed a bath," Kai said matter-of-factly.
Jasper choked. "You bathed them in my good china?!"
"They were sticky."
"From what?!"
Kai blinked. "Existential residue."
Xander sheathed one knife and pinched the bridge of his nose. "I'm going to need a flowchart."
The white cat, now curled atop the sugar nest which had expanded to include a pretzel drawbridge flicked an ear. "Congratulations. Your child has invented fourth-dimensional poultry care."
Talia groaned. "System, please tell me this counts as a parenting win."
The system didn't respond.
She groaned again and rolled her eyes.
Jasper pointed to the levitating cup. "Are they done bathing?"
Kai tilted his head. "Do you want them done?"
"Yes!"
"Then no."
Xander muttered, "I'd rather go back to fighting the apocalypse."
By noon, the café had settled into its usual rhythm, if "usual" included Kai attempting to teach the espresso machine Morse code.
Talia watched, arms crossed, as he tapped a spoon against the steam wand. Tap-tap. Tap-tap-tap. The machine gurgled, unimpressed.
"It's not working," Kai observed.
"Because it's a machine," Talia said.
"So am I," Kai replied, completely serious.
The cat, now draped around Talia's shoulders like a smug, purring scarf, rumbled, "He's got you there."
Talia sighed. "Fine. But if it starts screaming in binary, you're fixing it."
DING!
[New Notification: Guardian Bond – Phase Two]
[Kai's emotional sync has deepened. Memory Link stability increased to 75%.]
[Warning: Shared memories may now trigger involuntarily during high-emotion moments.]
Talia frowned. "What does that mean?"
The cat's tail twitched. "It means if he has a nightmare, you're going to see it too. Enjoy."
Talia groaned and grabbed her hair. Argh.
Kai, oblivious, had moved on to stacking sugar cubes into a precarious tower.
"Talia," he said suddenly, "do mothers teach things?"
She blinked. "Uh. Yeah?"
"Teach me something."
"Like what?"
"Something yours."
Talia hesitated, then reached for a spare notebook. "Alright. Let's start with something easy." She quickly sketched a coffee cup, steam curling into a heart. "This was my first latte art. Took me a week to stop drawing blobs."
Kai studied it closely. Then, with startling precision, he copied it perfectly on the next page.
Jasper let out a low whistle. "Kid's a prodigy."
"Or a mimic," Xander muttered, eyeing the faint glow on Kai's fingertips.
Kai ignored them, already turning the page. "More."
Talia grinned. "Oh, you asked for it."
That night, the café was quiet.
Kai slept curled in a nest of stolen aprons, the sugar birds (now "gifted" to Jasper as "custodian") tucked neatly into their teacup roost.
Talia sat at the counter, nursing a mug of something strong enough to dissolve regret. The cat sprawled beside her, tail flicking lazily.
"You're doing better than you think," it murmured.
She snorted. "At what? Keeping a time-warping gremlin alive?"
"At being his mom."
Talia glanced at Kai's small frame, rising and falling with each breath.
Her thoughts drifted to the memory she'd glimpsed the ruined city, the broken moons, the desperate boy running barefoot through unraveling time.
She took a slow sip. "That memory... could it mean Kai's connected to the apocalypse?"
The cat yawned. "Wouldn't be the wildest twist. I mean, the kid's got time-warping powers. It tracks."
Talia didn't hesitate. "Doesn't matter what he is. I'll take care of him."
"That's the spirit. Knew you had a mom in you."
She glared at the cat.
Then looked at Kai again.
Gently, she clinked her mug against the cat's paw.
"Yeah," she whispered. "I'll take it."
The next morning, sunlight streamed through the café windows as the mismatched family settled into their routines. Jasper tinkered with the espresso machine, muttering about "quantum steam pressure." Xander sharpened his knives with rhythmic precision. Kai perched on a stool, swinging his legs as he sipped a hot chocolate that changed color every few seconds.
Talia leaned against the counter, watching them all with a quiet smile.
Then...
DING!
[System Alert: Emergency Hibernation Initiated]
[Reason: Temporal Anomaly Detected in Proximity]
[Estimated Downtime: 7 Hours]
"Not again..!" Talia barely got the word out before her limbs turned to lead. Her mug slipped from her fingers, shattering in slow motion as the world dimmed.
Across the café, Jasper slumped over the counter, glasses askew. Xander's knives clattered to the floor as he collapsed mid-stroke. Kai's eyes widened, glowing faintly before his small body folded like a marionette with cut strings.
The last thing Talia saw was the white cat stretching, bones cracking as it shifted into its humanoid form, mismatched eyes scanning the windows where the light bent wrong.
'The cat can transform?' she thought.
Then...
Darkness.
---
Talia woke with a gasp, her cheek pressed against cold wood.
"Ugh... not again," she groaned, pushing herself upright. Around her, the others stirred, Jasper blinking owlishly, Xander already reaching for his knives, Kai rubbing his eyes with tiny fists.
The cat back in feline form licked its paw. "Good morning, sleepyheads."
"I swear I saw you..." Talia started but was interrupted.
DING!
[System Alert: Relocation Complete]
[New Coordinates: Temporal Flux Zone "The Hourglass Wastes"]
[Warning: Local Time Operates in Reverse Cycles]
Talia's head snapped toward the windows. Outside, sand dunes stretched endlessly under a violet sky but the grains flowed upward, defying gravity. A distant clock tower stood frozen at high noon, its hands twitching counterclockwise.
Jasper paled. "We're in a time anomaly."
Xander's grip tightened on his blade. "Hostile?"
Before anyone could answer, the café shuddered. The walls warped like melting wax, the floor rippling beneath their feet.
CRACK.
A fissure split the air above the counter—a jagged tear in reality, leaking swirling chrono-energy.
Kai's breath hitched. His eyes glowed gold-blue, pupils dilating into hourglass shapes. "No no no..."
Talia lunged for him. "Kai? What's..."
The fissure pulsed.
And something reached through.
A skeletal hand, wreathed in black smoke, fingers elongating like stretched film. The air screamed with the sound of a thousand clocks winding backward at once.
Xander moved first—a dagger flying end-over-end to embed itself in the entity's wrist. It didn't flinch.
Jasper grabbed a salt shaker and hurled it like a grenade. "Eat seasoning, you chrono-creep!"
The cat's fur stood on end. "Talia—Kai's destabilizing!"
She whirled. Kai was flickering, his edges blurring like a staticky TV screen. His small hands clutched his head as he whimpered, "Too loud too loud—"
Talia didn't think. She wrapped her arms around him and the world snapped.
SHHKKT!
For one vertigo-inducing second, everything rewound,
The fissure sealing like a zipper.
Xander's dagger flying back into his hand.
The salt shaker reassembling mid-air to land neatly in Jasper's palm.
Then there was silence.
The café stood intact. Outside, the sands now flowed downward. The clock tower's hands crept forward.
Kai went limp in Talia's arms, his glow fading. "Oops," he whispered.
The cat exhaled. "Well. That happened."
DING!
> [New Ability Unlocked: "Chrono-Anchor"]
> [Kai has instinctively stabilized localized time!]
> [Café Integrity: 100%]
> [Side Effect: All spoons are now slightly younger.]
Jasper picked up a teaspoon, squinting. "Is it... shinier?"
Xander sheathed his knives. "I hate time magic."
Kai, now half-asleep in Talia's arms, murmured, "Time birds helped."
---
Talia looked down at him, then at the others at their café, somehow still standing at the edge of impossibility. She exhaled, long and slow.
"Alright," she said, hoisting Kai higher. "Who wants pancakes?"
The cat purred. "Now that's a time loop I can get behind."
DING.
The café door creaked open.
A man stepped inside.
He looked like he'd wandered in from the wrong novel entirely top hat tilted just so on his dark hair, trench coat dusted with glittering ash, and eyes like violet. A smile played on his lips, as if the café were a joke only he understood.
Talia froze.
He looked at her and paused.
"Now this," he said, voice smooth as lacquered wood, "feels familiar."
Jasper squinted. "You lost?"
The man chuckled softly. "Chronically."
His gaze lingered on Talia. "You look like someone I failed to save. Or maybe you're someone I haven't lost yet. Always hard to tell."
Xander's fingers inched toward a blade.
The man raised his hands playfully. "Easy. I come bearing no threat. Just... curiosity. And a rather persistent sense of déjà vu."
He walked further in, boots silent on the floorboards, coat brushing past time-bent shadows.
"I heard this café serves sugar and second chances," he murmured. "Would it be terribly rude to ask for both?"
Kai stirred in Talia's arms, eyes half-lidded. "He's weird."
The man grinned. "Flatterer."
Then he looked Talia dead in the eye.
"Let's die together sometime, shall we?"