Meeting him was fate.
It wasn't the kind of meeting one anticipates, nor was it something that could be avoided. It felt... inevitable.
Like the universe had already written our names side by side in some celestial ledger, long before our lives ever began.
Like threads in an intricate tapestry, we were already knotted together, tangled in a pattern only fate could understand.
Strangely, I didn't resist it.
I should have. He was a stranger. A powerful one. A man cloaked not in shadow, but in sheer, undeniable presence.
He bent minds to his will like blades of grass to the wind...entire crowds silenced with a glance, leaders kneeling with a whisper. It was unnatural. It was terrifying.
And yet, I wasn't afraid.
I felt something... familiar. Like I had known him in another life, or perhaps every life. As though we had fought side by side, laughed together, mourned together, and bled together before.
A bond beyond explanation. When he insulted me, I should have been furious. Instead, I acknowledged his words.
When he invaded my mind, I should have resisted.
But I allowed it. When I should have fled, I stayed.
Was it admiration?
Gratitude?
Or was I already under his control?
Perhaps I was going insane.
Or perhaps… I simply didn't mind.
That single meeting changed everything. The moment our fates collided, I felt a fire ignite within me ,something I hadn't felt in years.
Purpose.
Drive.
I turned my gaze back to my bloodstained legacy and reclaimed it.
I tore the rot from my family's heart, exterminated the traitors who orchestrated my father's death, and seized what was mine by birthright and justice.
One by one, the obstacles fell.
And when all was laid bare, when my enemies were ash and my house stood tall again...he returned.
He offered no praise, no congratulations. Only an invitation.
To conquest.
And I, like a moth drawn to flame, accepted.
Together, we crossed deserts, stalked jungles, scaled frozen mountains and burning peaks.
We carved a path through kingdoms and empires, silenced tyrants, crushed rebellion, and built a new world atop the rubble of the old.
His ambition was boundless, and I followed willingly.
In time, the world bowed.
But he never smiled.
Not once.
It was as though he had always known, at the end of this road wasn't peace.
It was the apocalypse.
They came not from the sky nor from under the earth, but through rips in the fabric of our world, gaping wounds in reality, shimmering like heatwaves.
Portals.
Tears.
Gateways.
Whatever they were, they brought monsters.
Horrors from myth and nightmare.
Beasts we had only read of in dusty tomes, and others whose forms defied all comprehension.
They came to slaughter, to devour, to extinguish.
And yet, we prevailed.
Because we were united. Because he united us.
And still, despite all that, I died. Not by fangs or claws, not by some otherworldly horror...but by some unknown guy's hand.
Was he even human?
I don't know.
All I know is that I fought him with everything I had.
And lost.
"Bravo. Bravo."
The clapping echoed through the nothingness, each strike resonating through the silence like thunder.
The void around me shimmered with the sound, as if space and time themselves acknowledged the applause.
She was there , existing and listening to my stories. Her presence was shifting, ethereal. Her eyes were dark and empty, her smile ancient and amused.
She is Fin.
"What a beautiful story,"
she cooed, voice dripping with mockery.
"So tragic. So... human."
I remained silent. What could I say?
"Well then, child,"
Fin said, resting her chin on her hand, eyes twinkling with mischief.
"What do you wish to do now?"
I hesitated.
"What can I do?"
"You may spend eternity with the ascended...your fellow gods,"
she offered.
"Or perhaps battle endlessly in the void. Or... return to the mortal world, if you still harbor regrets."
I looked at her, stunned.
"I can return?"
"Of course,"
she said, as if I were slow.
"Nothing is impossible here."
I didn't even pause to consider.
"Then I want to go back."
Her smile widened.
"Your wish is granted."
She snapped her fingers.
The void...black, formless...was instantly consumed by blinding light. Not warmth, not hope...just light. Searing and endless. It swallowed me whole.
Her voice, distant now, echoed one last time.
"Well then... I hope you entertain me more."
I gasped...a desperate, choking breath that tore through my throat like fire.
My body jolted upright as if struck by lightning. Pain surged through every nerve, raw and electric. My lungs felt like they had never drawn air before. My heart thundered in my chest, rapid and unfamiliar. For a moment, the world spun in a blur of color and silence.
Then clarity struck.
A bright white ceiling greeted my eyes...sterile, clinical, almost too clean.
Panels of soft, artificial light hummed overhead, casting a cold illumination over smooth, metallic walls. The scent of antiseptic and ozone clung thick in the air, sharp enough to sting my nose.
I was in a room...not a hospital, not exactly...but a facility beyond what the average human could imagine.
I blinked, my vision sharpening.
Where… am I?
My lips cracked as I croaked,
"Hospital?"
My voice sounded foreign. Dry, brittle...like it had been unused for centuries.
"No,"
came a calm, familiar voice. Warm, slightly amused, but edged with exhaustion.
I turned toward the source.
He stood at the foot of the bed, tapping something on a glowing holographic interface.
His blonde hair caught the light, perfectly swept back, not a strand out of place.
His blue eyes shimmered with an analytical glint, constantly observing, constantly calculating.
He wore a pristine white lab coat over a sleek black suit, and around his neck hung a chrome ID chip marked with the insignia of the World Unity Science Division.
Johnathan
Not just a scientist.
The mind of our generation.
The architect of the new era.
The man who singlehandedly dragged humanity into its golden age.
He was the invisible force behind every major breakthrough in the last two decades...agricultural revolutions through next-gen GMOs that allowed rice and wheat to grow to full harvest in a matter of weeks; the stabilization of nuclear fusion, which wiped the word "energy crisis" from the dictionary; the eradication of cancer, Alzheimer's, and more through adaptive nanotherapy; and even the reconfiguration of atmospheric processors to end global pollution.
He wasn't just a genius.
He was the genius. The one other geniuses feared. The smartest man alive and ever will.
Sometimes I wondered...if someone like him were granted real power, not just intellect… would he surpass even him?
He glanced at a screen beside my bed, scanning my vitals.
His face was unreadable, as always, but there was a flicker of something in his eyes...relief, maybe? Or curiosity.
"You're alive,"
he finally said, his voice matter-of-fact.
"You don't sound surprised,"
I rasped, trying to sit up. My body ached in places I didn't recognize.
The skin felt new.
Too new.
"I'm not. But I am impressed."
He set the tablet down and leaned on the edge of the metallic table beside me.
"You were… clinically dead, Jessica. Your head was gone and you were missing an entire limb. Even your spinal column was ruptured. You shouldn't be here."
My eyes drifted to my hands...whole, intact. I flexed my fingers.
"I reconstructed your physical body using regenerative stem cell protocols and genetic memory backups from your last scan,"
he continued.
"But your soul? That's not something science can repair."
He leaned in, eyes narrowing, voice lowering to a whisper that felt more like an ancient truth than a question.
"Tell me, Jessica...was there an afterlife? Is there… a God?"
I held his gaze. Silence stretched between us.
Then I gave him a soft smile.
Tired.
Knowing.
"You already know the answer, John."
His expression didn't change...but the corner of his mouth curled slightly, as if the weight of confirmation brought both dread and satisfaction.
"Perhaps I do,"
he murmured.
Then his tone shifted.
Serious.
Urgent.
"Well, then...there's no time. You need to move. Now."
A sharp knot twisted in my chest.
"What happened?"
Johnathan turned the floating tablet toward me, revealing a live feed...grainy, chaotic, red with alarm notifications and status alerts.
"Pentagram,"
he said.
"The UN base. It's under full assault."
My blood turned cold.
"By who?"
I asked, though part of me already knew the answer.
Johnathan looked me dead in the eyes.
"The same man who killed you."
My pulse surged. The world snapped into focus.
I didn't need any more details. I didn't need a plan.
I immediately teleported to the Pentagram.
The room flashed in a pulse of blinding light.
And I vanished...leaving the sterile lab, and Johnathan's haunted expression, behindI reached the United Natioons Base in an instant...its once-gleaming towers now scarred by battle.
My footsteps rung as I run through it.
Smoke.
The scent of iron and blood.
But it wasn't just destruction.
It was desecration.
I stepped into the Grand Hall...and froze.
And what I saw tore through me like a blade.
Our base , once the heart of the United Nations Government...was a graveyard.
What remained of Elite Zero lay scattered across the room like discarded dolls.
Flair was impaled on a broken console, her breathing shallow, eyes glassy with shock. Her once vibrant energy was gone, replaced by dull pain.
Frost was curled in a fetal position,having trouble breathing, his chest shattered beyond repair.
Rock had tried to crawl toward the exit ,his blood smeared a long, desperate trail. His lower half was gone.
And Leonardo...
Leo was already cold.
His body slumped against the main terminal with a hole in his chest , blood pooled beneath him, eyes open and lifeless.
A look of confusion frozen on his face , as if he hadn't even seen it coming.
My knees buckled.
"No…"
I dragged myself forward, one step at a time. My legs felt heavy, as if the gravity in the room had changed.
The hallway was littered with bodies. Some had been vaporized into blackened husks. Others were torn limb from limb.
Blood streaked the walls in patterns that looked ritualistic, unintentionally artistic in their horror.
Gunfire damage.
Swords.
Claw marks. Something had torn through this place with indiscriminate brutality and destruction.
I stepped over a fallen soldier, his face half melted, his badge reading
"Citadel Guard... First Division."
Down the corridor, more bodies. Some I recognized.
A woman I had trained with during the unification war.
A man I had once laughed with over drinks.
All dead.
Without hesitation, I activated my teleportation . Space folded with a wrenching pull, and in the blink of an eye...I was there.
In the War Room.
Or… what was left of it.
The moment I arrived, my breath caught in my throat, stolen not by smoke or ash...but by the silence.
The room, once bustling with life, voices, strategy, and defiance, was now nothing more than a mausoleum. A tomb carved in flame and ruin.
The once polished floors were now scorched black, littered with cracked glass, twisted steel, and the charred remnants of men and women who had once stood side by side with me.
Tactical screens...shattered.
Communication consoles...melted and dripping like wax.
The central holomap table...the heart of our defense...had been reduced to slag, still hissing with dying embers.
Everything was ash.
Everyone was ash.
The walls, reinforced with the strongest alloys humanity had ever engineered, were warped and crumbling, as if reality itself had been melted down by some cosmic fury.
The scent of burnt flesh, of electrical fire, of death...it invaded my lungs and clung to my skin like a shroud.
I stepped forward...barely able to move. My legs felt like stone.
My eyes searched the room, desperate, wild.
Maybe someone survived. Maybe… maybe one of them...
But every body I saw was unrecognizable. Blackened bones. Shriveled limbs. Faces contorted in silent screams, their final moments frozen in agony.
I stumbled.
My knees buckled.
And I fell.
The cold, scorched floor greeted me like judgment.
I didn't resist it.
I let the pain of the moment crush me.
Let the truth seep in through every broken pore of my being.
My hands trembled.
I hadn't even realized they were clenched so tightly until I saw the blood dripping from my fists...crimson rivulets trailing down my fingers, staining the floor, mingling with the soot and ashes of the fallen.
Tears welled in my eyes...but they refused to fall.
Not here.
Not now.
I had come back.
Fought my way through death itself.
But I was too late.
Too late to stop the slaughter.
Too late to protect those who had trusted me.
Too late to save anyone.
Something in me cracked.
Grief? Rage? Guilt?
Maybe all of it.
My team.
My leader.
All gone.
And yet...I was back.
Alive.
For what?
And in that moment, as I knelt in the grave of heroes...alone, hollow, drowning in failure...I felt something deeper than rage.
I felt helplessness.
And then…
A low vibration stirred the air.
I turned, eyes narrowing.
There was still a presence here. Faint.
Watching.
He was there.