Rain fell in sheets, hard enough to blur the city lights into rivers of gold and gray.
Detective Aria Vale gripped the steering wheel tighter, her knuckles white against the flickering dashboard glow. The wipers beat furiously, slashing at the storm, but the world outside remained a blur streets shimmering, shadows moving where they shouldn't.
While Aria parking her car, her radio crackled.
"Vale, do you copy?" came Chief Rowen's voice, static cutting through the urgency. "We lost the suspect's signal five minutes ago. You're going in alone."
Aria pressed her earpiece tighter. "Copy that. Don't worry, Chief. I've got him."
Her voice was steady—too steady. Anyone else might have mistaken it for confidence. But Aria knew better. Her pulse was pounding, every instinct screaming that tonight wasn't just another case.
She parked near an abandoned warehouse on Dock 13, the kind of place where screams vanished faster than smoke. The rain hadn't stopped, it came down harder, drumming against her leather jacket as she stepped out. The air smelled of rust, salt, and darkness.
She moved quickly, flashlight in one hand and gun in the other. The floor was slick, her boots splashing through shallow puddles.
Every echo, every whisper of metal shifting in the dark, made her heart beat louder.
"Landon Reeves," she called out, voice cutting through the storm. "You're surrounded. You know it's over."
A laugh low, broken, and far too calm answer her. From somewhere above, she saw a figure step out of the shadows. The suspect. He looked just like his file photo, tall, gaunt, and smiling like a man who already knew how the night would end.
"Detective Vale," he said, voice smooth as oil. "Always the hero, aren't you?"
Aria lifted her gun. "Put your hands where I can see them."
Instead, Landon held something out, a small black drive, glinting in the lightning flash.
"Isn't this what you've been chasing?" he taunted. "The truth about your department? About your Chief?"
Her breath hitched. "Don't play games with me."
"I'm not. You're already in one." He shout while laughing
The next second, the lights exploded, literally. Sparks flew, glass shattered, and the sound of gunfire filled the air.
Aria dove for cover, the bullet grazing her arm as she hit the ground. Her gun clattered across the floor.
She bit back a scream, rolling behind a stack of crates.
"You think you're the only one who can smell blood, detective?" Landon shouted, his footsteps echoing closer.
She grabbed a shard of glass beside her, pressing her palm against the wound to stop the bleeding. Her mind raced. Every piece of training she'd ever had screamed at her to fall back, but something about that drive… something about the Chief…
No. She had to see it through.
Aria lunged from cover, tackling Landon just as he raised his weapon again. The gun went off, once, twice, deafening in the small space. They struggled, rain and sweat and blood blurring together.
Then, a flash of metal. A sound like a whisper.
Pain bloomed in her stomach.
She staggered back, her eyes widen, looking down at the knife that buried deep between her ribs.
Landon's smirk faded into something almost… regretful.
"You were too close," he murmured. "You shouldn't have looked for the truth."
He pushed her back and fled into the storm, then his footsteps fading into the darkness.
Aria fell to her knees. The world tilted. The sound of rain softened, becoming a lullaby instead of a warning. Her vision became blurred and her fingers slick with blood.
She tried to crawl toward the black drive lying a few feet away, the one she'd risked everything for. Her fingertips almost brushed it, cold, wet and lifeless. Just like her.
"No," she gasped. "Not yet… I'm not done—" The words caught in her throat as her body gave out. The ceiling above her seemed to collapse into stars, and the warehouse lights twisting into something strange, something golden.
For a heartbeat, she wasn't on the ground anymore. She was falling—through darkness, through time and through a silence that stretched forever.
Until her lungs burned and her pulse roared back to life.
"Your Majesty," someone whispered to her, trembling. "You've returned."
Aria's fingers twitched. Her bloodied jacket and wound has gone. And when she tried to move, the weight of a golden crown shifted on her head.
She wasn't in a warehouse anymore.
She was lying in a royal bed, surrounded by terrified maids and marble walls painted in gold.
"Where… am I?" she breathed.
The women stared at her in awe and fear.
"Y-Your Majesty," one of them said, bowing so low her forehead touched the floor, "You are in the Palace of Vaeloria, you've awakened at last." she added.
Aria blinked, she felt her throat dry and her mind racing to catch up.
"Awakened…?" she repeated.
Another maid, weeping with relief "The Empress is alive!" she said.
And as the words echoed in her ears, Aria Vale realized something impossible—The detective who died chasing the truth had just been reborn…
in the body of an Empress.