The Final Battle Begins

Aria stood at the heart of the grand hall, the weight of her new task pressing against her temples. The room was silent, save for the distant hum of the city outside—Militia’s last, fading breath before war. Soldiers lined the chamber, eyes fixed on her, waiting.

She was queen. 

She exhaled slowly.

The Militian military had never been a place of warmth, never a home. Not for someone like her. But they had trained beside her, bled beside her. And now they looked at her not as a runaway, not as a disgrace, but as their queen.

Her hands curled into fists at her sides as the thought of Neon popped up in her head again. She held back the tears, sniffing quietly under her breath. 

She had never wanted this. But she had no choice. 

She stepped forward, boots clicking against the stone.

“You all know why we’re here.” Her voice was steady, cold. “We were built for war. Raised for it. Our entire existence has been defined by conflict.” She let the silence stretch, let the weight of her words settle. “And I am done letting others decide what that means.”

Somewhere in the crowd, a soldier stiffened. She recognized him. Ryo, one of the first to speak against her when she had returned. He flinched when her eyes met his.

Good.

“We fight because we must,” she continued, gaze sweeping over the assembled soldiers. “Because the choice was never ours to begin with. But this time—” Her voice sharpened. “This time, we make it our own.”

The tension in the room thickened, but no one spoke.

“We have fought each other for too long.” She clenched her fists. “Nyxia. Militia. Our people have been locked in an endless war for centuries, and for what?” 

Silence.

“For what?” she demanded, voice rising.

A few soldiers shifted, uneasy.

She knew why. They had been trained to obey, not to question. But they couldn’t ignore the truth forever. This was all ridiculous, always had been. 

She took a step forward. “You all see it, don’t you?” Her voice was quieter now, sharper, cutting through the silence like a blade. “The world is breaking. And we’re the ones who will decide how it ends.”

She turned, gaze locking onto the portal behind her. Its edges flickered like static, unstable, waiting.

Waiting for them.

“I won’t ask you to follow me.” She let the words hang in the air. “But if you do—” She exhaled, slow and steady. “Then follow me to our final battle.” 

For a moment, no one moved.

Then Ryo took a step forward.

Then another.

Then the room shifted, boots thudding against stone as soldiers straightened, weapons drawn.

One by one, they fell in behind her.

Aria swallowed hard.

They weren’t doing this because she was their queen.

They were doing this because it was the only way to make up for what they had said, what they had done.

They owed her nothing. But they would fight beside her anyway.

She turned back toward the portal.

Lina stood at the front, arms crossed. “You ready for this?”

Aria exhaled.

“Let´s settle this once and for all.”

She stepped through the portal. And the moment she crossed, she knew she had left Militia behind.

The air was different.

Not just thinner, but charged, humming like the static before a storm.

 She stepped forward, boots sinking into smooth, unfamiliar stone. The sky above her was dark—no, not dark. Alive. It twisted in shifting blues and reds, constellations burning like distant beacons, casting shadows across a city that should not exist.

A city of metal and light.

A city caught between two worlds.

“Where—” Lina’s voice faltered as she stepped up beside her, taking in the view. “What the hell is this place?”

Aria didn’t answer. She didn’t need to.

Because she already knew.

Origin.

The place where it had all started. The place where it would end.

She inhaled sharply. “Spread out. We have to inspect the energy source.”

The soldiers behind her fanned out, weapons raised, scanning the horizon. The ground beneath them was smooth yet uneven, pulsing with a strange, rhythmic hum.

Aria turned, eyes narrowing.

The energy—she could _feel_ it. A pulse in the distance, pulling at her like a thread woven into her very bones.

And somewhere, through the shifting lights of the city—

She saw him.

A silhouette in the distance. In her mind.

Neon.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Neon turned the second he felt it.

A pull, sharp and undeniable, cutting through the air like a whisper at the back of his mind.

And then—

He saw her in his mind.

His breath caught in his throat.

She stood at the other end of the ruined city, barely a silhouette against the shifting lights. The soldiers at her back, the weight of a crown she had never wanted pressing against her shoulders.

If this vision was true, she had made it.

She was alive.

His chest ached with something raw, something he didn’t have the words for.

But there was no time.

Because whatever had led them both here—whatever force had drawn them into this final stand—

It was waiting.

The pulse of energy deepened, a low, steady thrum beneath his feet.

Max stepped up beside him. “We should move.”

Neon nodded.

He tore his gaze away from Aria and turned toward the pulse of energy.

Toward whatever was waiting for them in the heart of Origin. And he started walking. The deeper they went, the stronger it became.

The pulse of energy, the pull toward something ancient, something alive. The city twisted around them, structures shifting like they _breathed,_ light curling around metal in strange, organic shapes.

And at the center—

A tower.

A spire of dark steel and glowing veins of energy, humming with something too deep to be called sound.

Neon stopped at the base.

Everyone stood behind him, waiting.

The final battle was here.

And they were ready.