The first Camorian silhouettes broke the dawn like dark teeth against the twin suns. From the parapets of the Serein Gate, warning chimes rolled across Vey-Ra's terraces; blue ward-runics woke inside the pylons and climbed the air like vines of light.
Baako Osi stood rigid at the balustrade, helm tucked under one arm. "Nine hulls," he said. "Delta formation. No banners flying."
"Ready the artillery. Hold fast. We strike on my command," Queen Bella Tukana replied, gaze steady. "If they're hunting cover under our shields, I want answers before I want wreckage."
A comms officer lifted a crystal rod. Its face bloomed with rippling glyphs, then resolved into the strained features of Mar'ral, the Royal Harbinger—soot-streaked, one cheek bandaged, Camorian brass behind him.
"Your Majesty," Mar'ral said, his voice tinny through the static. "Request permission to dock at Vey-Ra Central. I am aboard the Camorian flagship Ravennos. Camoria has fallen. Queen Amala Barca is with us—alive. Your emissaries live as well."
Bella did not move, but the room tilted toward the transmission. "Docking granted," she said. "Corridor Three. Medical and shielded bays are open."
"Understood. We have wounded and… we carry grave news."
Bella continued, "Baako, lower the artillery."
Sabelo exhaled like a growl. John Maux, standing at the rear of the room in a fresh linen cuirass and bruises from the morning's drills, felt his chest tighten. Another empire fell while he still fumbled with a blade.
The Ravennos descended under escort, its hardened onyx armor scorched black and silver where plasma bolts had chewed through the plating. When its ventral ramp struck the stone, heat washed over the receiving gallery—smoke, iron, and the faint salt of tears.
Queen Amala Barca emerged with a commander's posture and a survivor's eyes, her platinum crown dusted with ash. She stepped down beside Mar'ral, Cade Calibur—her most trusted champion and Grayson Emir, her cousin and a royal duke of Camoria.
Amala bowed, not deeply equals, and had no time for ceremony. "Your Majesty."
"Queen Amala," Bella replied, tone stately, stern the smallest warmth buried beneath duty. "How can we help?"
Prideful and chin up, Amala exclaimed, "Nordenheim, the Berserkers came by storm. That duplicitous Princess LuZhanna Jaxdóttir led a covert mission to weaken our planetary defense systems under the guise of an information-sharing visit. During a break in our briefing with her and her sister Bruna, their father, Jax, led their Berserker phalanxes on a raid of our capital that spread to the outer regions. He was halfway through the assault before we even knew who we were fighting—as all our surveillance systems went down. Through the carnage, we nearly had them defeated. I was able to injure Bruna before their colossus, Thrak, laid waste to our command center."
Queen Bella interrupted, "But you have the mighty MoRauk. He could handle numerous legions himself."
Referring to MoRauk, the renowned mutant rhino juggernaut—Camorian Enforcer, fully infused with Prime Fluid—thought by most to be an immovable force on the battlefield.
Amala slightly lowered her gaze along with Cade, took a deep breath, stiffened her stance, and replied, "MoRauk fell in battle. We do not believe he survived."
Sabelo interjected, "How? The Nordenheim don't have warriors powerful enough to defeat him. This is preposterous. I don't believe it."
Cade barked, "The audacity to accuse Queen Amala."
"Cade, it's okay. Let's focus on the enemy at hand," Amala interrupted.
"It is true. MoRauk was defeated. Nordenheim seems to have grown powerful over the years. They must have been building their forces in secret. They didn't just attack with Thrak… they brought an Ice Titan—one powerful enough to wield Mjölnir, or a version of it. It looked upgraded. They also had a mutated panda monster—although I've never seen such an abomination before, I swear I've met that beast before but I can't place it at the moment."
Bella turned to Mar'ral, eyes sharp with disbelief. "Is this true?"
Seeing the concern in her face, Mar'ral nodded solemnly. "With my own eyes, I witnessed the carnage. I saw the frosty titan and the voracious panda slay MoRauk outside the Camorian Royal Palace."
Amala glanced toward the battalion of soldiers exiting the remaining Camorian vessels. "They didn't come for our throne. They came for our heart. They seized the Onyx Stone of Camoria."
A murmur rippled through the chamber. Baako's fingers tightened around his helm; Sabelo's eyes narrowed like blades.
Bella's voice remained even. "The ancient Onyx Stone of your ancestors—the Atlanteans?"
"Through treachery and duplicity," Amala confirmed. "The wards failed. LuZhanna walked the shadows like a native daughter. Jax Magnison struck the vault doors himself."
Sabelo's eyes widened with revelation. "These attacks are clearly coordinated. If they bring the Onyx Stone here, they can use it to harness the full power of the portal and transport any number of life forms anywhere in the universe where another portal awaits. Their reach will be unlimited." He turned to Bella and Baako. "We must ensure the security of the Ouricium Key. Otherwise, Earth will fall to their ambitions—and we will be powerless to stop them."
Amala's mouth thinned, she looked at Sabelo, curiously, "Attacks? What else has happened?"
Bella replied, "There's much to fill you in on. But it seems they are in league with the Toroxans. We were lucky to fend them off," she said, turning her gaze to John at the rear of the room.
John, still in the back of the crowd, onlooking and listening in stunned silence, wondered where Ronni and Paul were in all of this.
Amala glanced at John with a look of arrogance. "Who is this boy?"
Bella motioned to Amala signifying that she would respond to her question shortly, then turned to her aides. "Secure medical quarters for the Camorian wounded and provide space in the barracks for their battle-ready soldiers. Integrate their sensor logs with our Serein lattice. Baako, audit the armory and distribute arms to the most effective legions. I want Camorian raiders paired with Eramet guardsmen in every district. We need to sweep for spies, assassins, and nefarious operatives of all kinds. Sabelo, resume Prime training for the boy at first light, and pull two cadres for close-in defense at the Gate."
Sabelo nodded in agreement. "As commanded. And, my queen, would it also be wise to search for Kago and Nandi? We'll need Kago's strength and Nandi's sorcery to survive the onslaught to come."
Bella replied, "Yes, Lieutenant. I'm tasking Baako and Mar'ral with that. Your talents are needed elsewhere."
John hesitated, then spoke. "I'm grateful for your confidence, but until three days ago, I was just a graduate student in Arizona—lifted weights, trying to build a social app. Now I'm hearing I need to fight berserkers, ice monsters, giant pandas, and some Thor-powered beast? I'm not sure I can do anything… except not die?"
His face grew more concerned by the second. Bella locked eyes with him, searching his soul. "You will live long enough to be useful," she said, stern but not unkind. "And you will help us open the portal—to reach our allies, the Akush and the Sulu."
John relaxed slightly under her gaze, his compliance rising subconsciously. "Thank you…? I think," he said, confused.
Bella continued, "Relax, John, my dear boy. Lieutenant Sabelo has more battle experience than anyone in our empire—or yours. He was born only a few Earth years after the Great Cataclysmic War that destroyed Maldek and flooded Earth. He's fought in the Remnant Wars that stabilized your galaxy and that of our ancestors. If you want to keep Earth intact, and its people from becoming servants of Nordenheim and Torox, you must learn from the Lieutenant."
"Maldek?" John frowned. "What are you talking about?"
"Yes. Now go." Bella turned away.
"Ah—Your Majesty, may I interject?" Naki, the Eramet Chief Engineer, stepped forward.
"Please," Bella said.
"The young man has an engineering background. And somehow, he thrust himself into the portal," Naki said.
"Yes, get to the point… fast."
"I'd like to bring him into the reactivation efforts my team is conducting on the portal and the communication beacon to the Amadonnia Galaxy."
Bella's eyebrow rose. "Young man—work with the engineers tonight. Resume training with the Lieutenant in the morning." As she turned to leave with Baako, Sabelo, and the Camorian entourage, she called over her shoulder, "Naki—I need that portal operational as of yesterday."
The Broken Portal
Hours blurred as the engineers labored in the bowels of the ancient intergalactic portal. Engineers from Eramet and Camoria stood elbow to elbow beneath the singing pylons, sleeves rolled, skin luminous with rune-dust. The cosmic arrays of electro-magnetic rifts flickering. The portal's connection to the tall obelisk conductors were failing to secure connective stability. The Toroxan attack jolted the network and the Ouricium key was only partially functional. The golden coils beneath the portal had been ripped open by Toroxan saboteurs at the onset of the attack and lay open like ribcages; and its crystalline organs flickered and stuttered.
From John's perception it reminded him of his father's 1999 Ford Taurus backfiring when he was younger and his father would take him and Ronni to school as children. The memory sparked an idea, crude, but maybe enough. "Feedback loops," John muttered, snapping his fingers. "You can't restore stability through brute force — you balance the inflow of power."
Naki glanced up from the console, brow furrowed. "What are you saying, Earthling?"
John crouched beside the fractured coil and tapped one of the damaged crystalline conduits. "Your power grid's overcompensating. The portal's pulsing out of sync with the magnetic cores — it's like a car engine misfiring when the pistons timing is off. You're flooding it with energy when it needs modulation."
One of the Camorian engineers scoffed. "He compares the Nexus of Realms to a… carriage?"
Naki raised a hand. "No, let him continue."
John motioned for a diagnostic crystal. "If we reroute the power through alternating channels and create micro-delays — three milliseconds, give or take — we can re-synchronize the energy flow with the portal's base frequency. It won't fix the ruptured arrays, but it'll stop the chain reaction from tearing itself apart."
The Eramet technicians exchanged uncertain glances, but Naki's eyes lit up. "You're suggesting temporal damping…"
"Exactly… Ah, maybe… Yes, that's correct." John said. "Like tuning an engine."
Naki barked orders in a rapid stream of Erametian. Hands flew. Runes shimmered. The coils began to hum in unison, their tones evening into harmony. The portal's tremors subsided, the light smoothing into a golden pulse — faint, but stable.
"Stabilization at forty-two percent," a technician called out.
"It's holding," Naki said, a slow smile spreading. He turned to John. "How did you…?"
John shrugged. "My dad taught me to fix things that were supposed to be junk. Guess I paid attention."
"Junk?… Boy this portal has been operational for over 100,000 Earth years and has connections to planets in 9 galaxies." Naki remarked with a sense of disdain.
"I didn't mean to insult you, I was just…"John was interrupted by a chorus of laughter from the engineers in the room and Naki's face flipped to a smile as he reached out and patted John on the back he said, "good work Earthling." The tension broke for the first time in hours. But before relief could settle, a sudden shockwave rippled through the chamber. The portal's core flared white-hot, then cooled to a deep, eerie violet.
Naki's readings spiked. "It's… reacting. But not to us."
A low hum built from within the chamber's depths, harmonic, almost alive. The Ouricium Key glowed, casting runes across the walls like starlight.
John stepped closer, voice barely a whisper. "Something's coming through."
The air warped, bending like liquid glass. For a moment, everyone froze, until a distorted silhouette began to form inside the portal, suspended in a vortex of fractured light.
Sabelo and Baako rushed in, weapons drawn.
Naki's voice trembled. "It's a signal lock… from beyond Nibiru. It looks like it's coming from Prodaria."
John's heart pounded. He could feel it now, a frequency that thrummed in his bones. The spark that had brought him here was answering to something… or reopening.
Through the shimmering veil, a figure began to materialize, blurred by energy but distinctly humanoid. The transmission pulsed once, twice—then solidified into a slightly more visible projection.
A woman's silhouette appeared visible from behind and looking upward and around at her surroundings as if to be amazed. The portal slowly began shrinking as the woman turned around, she had fiery red hair and freckles. John's eyes widened and his heart began racing. She called out loud and clear, her voice cutting through the static.
"John… Where am I? Where are you?"
In a blur, a shadowy creature with green and red reptile scales leaped into view, behind Ronni, it appeared to be about 2 feet tall shouted, loudly yelling through the portal, "Ronni behind you," simultaneously leaping toward the portal opening as it continued to close. Ronni turned her head and the creature stood up and stepped forward revealing it's true size, looking to stand as tall as a basketball goal towering over Ronni's short frame. She screamed in terror as the enormous creature reached out his raptor-like clawed hand grabbing her entire torso and arms with one hand.
The portal opening continued to shrink as Ronni's loud screams were muffled by the palms of the creature's claw.