The universe trembled before the battle even began.
It was not a sound nor an explosion, but a change in the breathing of reality.
The clouds split into straight lines. The oceans curved upward. The celestial clocks of creation faltered in their rhythm.
And in the midst of that vibration, Astrid rose.
The rift she had begun to open in Vita —that thread of darkness slipping through like a living wound— was slowly growing, fed by her will. It was as if the very fabric of the cosmos refused to be torn apart, but her fury was stronger than any law.
Before her, the Guardians descended once again, surrounded by floating geometries that glowed with golden and silver tones. Their presences were so vast that the air solidified around them.
"Stop, Astrid," Equilibrium said in a voice that was both a prayer and a command. "You can still save existence, and you can save yourself, but if you open that rift, you will unleash hell on Earth."
Astrid simply watched them in silence.
Her gaze burned with a cruel serenity. Behind her, the rift pulsed like a dark heart.
"Then it will be very simple, because I... have already been there," Astrid finally said.
The brooch on her chest spun, emitting a constant hum, a single note that vibrated through every molecule in the air.
Causality stepped forward.
"You don't understand what you're doing. The rift will not bring your world back. It will only drag everyone into ruin."
"That's what I hope," Astrid said, and her smile became a blade.
The ground split apart.
And the sky, which had been blue, turned black.
The first assault was a song.
The Guardians moved their hands, and a set of rings of light descended upon Astrid.
The energy twisted, transforming into a thousand symbols representing the stability of the cosmos. They were the very essence that held the multiverse together, the living equation of order.
But Astrid raised the brooch and, with a violent gesture, shattered the structure.
The rings broke like glass, and the sound they produced was so pure that it pierced through galaxies.
On the nearby planets, the auroras lit up as if the universe itself were crying.
The battle began.
It was as much a clash of ideas as it was of power.
The Guardians were pure force: equations, concepts, balance, conservation.
Astrid was chaos, passion, and pain distilled into energy. Every time her brooch shone, a star was born and died at the same time. Every time she extended her hand, the horizon lit up completely.
The space around them glowed as if it were daytime.
And Astrid fired a beam of light toward the Guardians, creating an explosion that shook and scattered them all.
The smoke moved like waves, and the sound of the attack mixed with the roar of existence itself trying not to collapse.
Astrid, after the attack, charged at Entropy first, rushing toward him with a blow that sent him crashing into the planet's moon. But Astrid did not stop there. She flew at an incredible speed, and before Entropy could react, she struck him again, splitting the moon apart and sending him crashing into a planet this time. Astrid was already flying toward him again to attack, but this time Entropy managed to react and used the nearest stars, launching them as projectiles toward Astrid, who shielded herself by forming a field of power around her.
She endured all the shots, but then the other Guardians appeared at the scene and, together, broke Astrid's field. They then aligned themselves and created a synchronized shockwave that sent her back toward Vita.
Astrid was about to crash into the planet, but she managed to regain her senses in midair before impact. She then opened a portal behind the Guardians and fired a barrage through it, causing all of them to take the attack head-on, sending them flying toward Vita as well. Astrid met them with another attack that sent them crashing into the ground.
Astrid was already charging a sphere of power and was preparing to launch the attack and destroy them along with the planet, but at that moment Equilibrium raised his hands and sealed the skies, trapping her inside a sphere of pure light. Astrid shattered it from within, and an explosion of light swept across the entire battlefield.
The air disintegrated. The colors lost meaning.
It was a symphony of destruction, a dance of ancient wills.
Causality was the first to fall.
Astrid took advantage of the distraction she had created with the explosion and quickly moved behind him, launching a beam of light so powerful that it completely disintegrated him. His form vanished like a comet losing its trajectory.
Before disappearing, he extended his voice toward Astrid, with infinite sadness.
"You can still stop. What you seek no longer exists, but you do... you can still exist with purpose."
Astrid did not answer.
The glow of the brooch intensified, and Causality dissipated into a tide of light that became one with the rift.
Then Entropy fell, as everyone was still disoriented by the explosion, and this attack stunned them even further. Without wasting any time, Astrid lunged toward him and split him in half with a beam of light that formed in her hand.
His final gesture was an attempt to close the rift with his energies, but Astrid's brooch shone intensely and ultimately absorbed him.
Entropy tried to resist, but the brooch roared like a sun and engulfed him as well.
Only Equilibrium and Silence remained, who finally reacted and, in desperation and anger, trapped Astrid together inside another sphere.
"....Fuck," Astrid said, before being sent flying throughout the entire solar system, crashing into every planet as if she were inside a pinball machine.
Astrid tried to endure inside the sphere, but the moment she crashed into one planet, she was already being sent toward the next, making it extremely difficult for her to do anything.
However, after several seconds, Astrid, completely fed up, decided to create another, smaller sphere around herself as well, allowing her to stabilize herself. She then launched herself, wrapped like a comet, toward Vita.
The Guardians saw her approaching and launched another combined energy attack that collided with Astrid's sphere.
The three began a clash of powers, and instead of trying to win it, Astrid decided to divert herself and attack from the sides, changing her direction and flying to the right, striking Equilibrium head-on. He received the full impact, which was so massive that it completely destroyed him, causing him to explode and creating a shockwave that sent Silence flying again and crashing into some nearby mountains.
Silence was badly wounded and looked at Astrid from afar, no longer with fury but with sorrow. Astrid was walking calmly toward him, almost as if savoring the moment.
For a second, he saw the girl she had been, the one who had once dreamed of saving worlds.
And when Astrid finally stopped in front of him, the two stared at each other for several seconds. Astrid looked at him with such a penetrating and determined gaze that it almost seemed as if she were looking directly into his soul, her yellow eyes shining so brightly that they almost seemed to emit a glow. Silence looked at her with a mixture of fear and sadness before asking her one last time:
"Why?" Silence asked, almost in a whisper. "Why deny yourself the peace you sought so desperately?"
Astrid held his gaze.
Her voice was an icy thread:
"Because peace born from a lie is not peace. It is submission."
Silence lowered his head, and Astrid disintegrated him in a flash that left not even a trace of him behind. He was completely erased from existence.
The universe stopped.
The rift continued growing, spreading like a network of black veins across the sky.
The echoes of the Guardians dissolved into it, as if their essence were being absorbed to feed the wound.
Astrid finally fell to her knees, panting. It had been a much more difficult fight than she had expected.
The power of the brooch vibrated in her chest, too strong, too vast.
The air curved, the continents trembled, the seas retreated toward the edges of the world.
She stood up and then looked at the rift she had created, which was now beginning to grow. She then began using her powers to make it larger and larger, but before she could open it completely....
She heard a voice.
"Astrid..."
The voice came from nowhere, and yet it was everywhere.
It was soft, familiar, ancient.
Astrid looked up.
Before her, a figure emerged from the shadows, materializing: Elisa.
The goddess had returned.
Her form was human, but her presence was not.
Her long hair seemed to contain stars, and her pupils looked like galaxies glowing with a radiance that hurt the eyes.
When she spoke, it seemed as though everything else had stopped, as if all of existence itself had fallen silent to hear her.
"Stop, Astrid."
Astrid slowly rose, her face soaked in sweat and rage.
Her breathing was a fiery pant.
"You," she said, her tone somewhere between resentment and restrained fury. "I knew you had to appear sooner or later."
Elisa watched her with an expression of sorrow, almost maternal, almost guilty.
"I didn't want it to come to this," she whispered to herself. "I didn't want to take physical form again... this puts the entire balance at risk. But if I don't, everything will end too soon."
Astrid frowned.
"What are you muttering now, Elisa? Another speech about balance and eternal love?"
Elisa took a step forward.
"No, Astrid. I just want you to listen. I did all of this for you, for everyone. I tried to bring back what was lost... I couldn't let suffering be the only thing that remained. I only wanted to restore them."
Astrid laughed, a broken and empty sound.
"For me? For everyone? Don't make me laugh." Her voice rose into a scream. "This isn't my world! They aren't my people! You killed them all and then put imitations in their place! Is that compassion? Is that redemption?"
Elisa closed her eyes, the pain evident on her face.
"I didn't kill them, Astrid. I just... reintegrated them into the flow. Nothing is lost. Everything changes."
"No," Astrid interrupted. "You destroyed them. Just as the Guardians destroyed the first existence, you destroyed the second. You didn't create anything new; you only used the ashes."
She pointed toward the ground, trembling with anger.
"This place we're standing on is a monument to death. This infinite and endless multiverse is nothing more than a grave that you call creation."
Elisa took another step forward, her voice trembling.
"I tried to give you a new chance. A life free from pain, a different path."
"And who asked you for that?" Astrid replied, with tears boiling on her cheeks. "I didn't want to forget! I didn't want to become someone else! You decided for everyone!"
Her voice broke.
"You stole our choice... you stole my world, and now I swear I'm going to steal everything from your poor and miserable existence too, you damned wretch."
The silence that followed was unbearable.
Elisa lowered her gaze.
".....I really didn't want to do this, but... I understand now that I can't save you," she said, in a whisper filled with sadness. "I can only stop you."
Astrid raised the brooch.
"Try it. This time it won't be the same as the last time we fought."
The battle between the two rivals began once again, as if they were destined to face each other regardless of the world or the moment.
Elisa conjured entire black holes to halt Astrid's advance, and every time she did, Astrid dissolved them with bursts of light that made the darkness vanish.
The air turned into fire; time itself seemed to slow down to witness the battle between them.
It was almost poetic to see how Astrid's light and pure creation fought with the intention of destroying everything, while Elisa's void and darkness fought to protect it.
For a moment, Astrid managed to wound the goddess. Her brooch emitted a wave of light so intense that space itself warped. But Elisa did not hesitate.
Her power was older, deeper, a force of pure nonexistence. Astrid believed she was putting up a fight, but to Elisa, this wasn't even a challenge. The power she possessed as a divinity was something Astrid couldn't even comprehend.
And after the fight progressed, Elisa, finally fed up, raised her hand and knocked Astrid down with a single attack of power. Astrid didn't even have time to react, taking the attack directly before being sent crashing straight into the ground like a leaf struck by a storm.
Her body trembled. Her energy was exhausted.
The brooch flickered weakly, and she lay on the ground.
Elisa slowly approached, her face sad.
"Forgive me," she whispered. "I truly didn't want it to come to this."
Astrid struggled to raise her head, her eyes clouded.
Her voice was barely a thread.
"Why does this have to happen to me again..." she gasped. "I'm going to die again... why, no matter what I do, does it feel like existence itself is against me? It's not fair... if only I were more capable... if only I had more power..."
She let her head fall to the ground, her face darkened by defeat, while she could only watch Elisa standing before her, charging an attack.
"Please... I don't want to die. Someone... save me..."
Then, the voices came.
"Astrid..."
The young woman opened her eyes, astonished.
"Who... who are you?"
The voices sounded double, male and female, mixed together as if two consciousnesses were speaking in unison.
"You already know perfectly well who we are, Astrid. We've been whispering to you for a long time... but this is the first time you've wanted to listen to us."
Astrid breathed with difficulty.
"What do you want? Won't you let me die in peace... for the second time?"
"Please, Astrid," the voices replied in an almost gentle tone. "Think for a moment. We only want to help you. Just look around you... you said it yourself, didn't you? It's as if all of existence were against you. It's not fair that no matter what you do, you can't win."
The rift behind her pulsed. From within it came a faint glow, as if two shadows were watching from the other side.
"But we can help you," they continued. "We can give you the ability you've been seeking for so long, the true second chance you so desperately desire."
Astrid closed her eyes. New, burning tears ran down her cheeks.
"It's true... I don't have the strength to win. This world... has always been against me."
"That's right," the voices whispered in unison.
"You... can really help me?"
"Of course, Astrid," they answered. "We can give you the power you want so badly. Just take our hand."
Elisa, on the other side of the devastated battlefield, felt something change in the air.
Time froze for an instant.
Astrid slowly raised her hand, trembling.
Her voice, barely audible, was a whisper that cut through the night:
"Yes... thank you for this second chance."
The rift lit up.
And the voices laughed softly.