The top floor was no longer architecture.
It was a cosmic fault line where light, memory, and destiny carved each other open.
SFX: KRSHHH—BOOOOM—RRRRRIP
White fire.
Black shadow.
Living starlight.
They tore across the sky in perfect, terrible symmetry—the last three forces in a world that had forgotten what balance meant.
The Spire screamed.
Not metaphorically.
SFX: SKREEEEE—SKRRRRAK
Stone cracked.
Air bled.
Reality frayed like ancient cloth pulled too tight.
And in the center of this storm stood six impossible silhouettes:
The cohort—no longer echoes, no longer ghosts.
Souls with weight.
Souls with judgment.
They had chosen.
They had taken sides.
They had drawn the lines.
Effie chose first.
Iron skin gleaming, massive, grin wide and wild, she strode toward the young man like a charging avalanche.
SFX: DOOM—DOOM—DOOM (her footsteps bending the stone)
She planted herself beside him, folding her arms.
"Kid's got the right idea," she rumbled, voice warm as a forge cracked with laughter.
"No more cages. You kept the world breathing. So I'm keeping you breathing."
She punched her palm.
SFX: CLANG!—a war bell made of her own bones.
The storm shuddered.
Kai followed.
He moved like mercy given shape.
Wings of pure starlight folded behind him, unraveling soft golden fragments with every step.
He placed a gentle hand on the young man's shoulder.
"You kept hope alive," he whispered.
"I'll keep you."
His wings flared in a radiant halo.
SFX: WHOOOM—SHAAA
Light swept outward, a shield against the advancing dawn-fire.
Jet took her place with Nephis.
Winter coat pristine. Breath misting silver in the burning air. Eyes sharp as frozen lakes.
She didn't need words.
Her loyalty was a blade honed centuries ago.
With one step, frost surged across the broken stone.
SFX: KRRRRRSH—KSHHHH
Ice versus dawn.
Winter bowing to a new sun.
Mordret drifted to Nephis as well.
Mirrors for skin—reflecting fire, shadow, starlight, and a thousand sins with perfect cruelty.
His voice spilled out in a dozen stolen tones, layered, discordant, amused.
"Order is boring," he purred.
"Burn it all. Start again. I like a woman with vision."
He smiled—too many teeth.
His mirrors drank Nephis's fire and hurled it back in fractal brilliance.
SFX: FWWWWW—TING—TING—TING!
Light ricocheting like madness.
And Cassie…
Cassie remained in the middle.
Her blindfold was gone.
Her eyes were pure light—no iris, no pupil, no human softness left.
She looked at Nephis, at Sunny, at the young man, and saw everything.
Then she lifted her hands.
Light, shadow, fire, and starlight answered her.
"I choose none of you," she said softly.
"I choose the prophecy."
The battlefield rippled around her.
SFX: VOOOOM—THRUM—HRRRMMM
Cassie became the axis upon which fate turned.
The Lines Were Drawn.
Effie and Kai behind the young man—
Jet and Mordret flanking Nephis—
Cassie anchoring the center like a divine metronome.
And Sunny—
empty of shadow, empty of flame, empty of everything except will—
stood between all of them.
The war began in earnest.
Effie moved first.
She charged like a landslide of iron.
SFX: THOOM—THOOM—THOOM—BOOOOOM!!!
Straight at Jet.
Iron met winter.
Effie's fist hammered into Jet's frost shield.
SFX: CRRRRRRACK—KSHAAAAA!!!
Ice detonated.
The shockwave ripped a canyon through the ruined floor.
Jet retaliated instantly—
a spear of compressed winter slicing through the air.
SFX: SHIIING—PSSHHHK!
Right through Effie's shoulder.
Effie grunted.
Then she laughed.
"Still got one good arm!"
She yanked the frozen spear free and swung it like a club.
SFX: WHOOSH—BANG!
Winter turned into a weapon against itself.
Kai vs Mordret
Kai's wings flared—
a torrent of starlight blades raining down.
SFX: SHHHHHHH—TATATATATA—SHIIINK!
Mordret's mirrors caught them.
Bent them.
Split them.
Reflected them back a thousandfold—each blade now warped, a lie given shape.
SFX: TING—TING—TING—FWWWIP!
Light carnage.
Kai dove through the storm, shielding the young man with his own body.
Every strike that should have pierced the throne-child instead shredded Kai's wings.
He winced, his face serene despite the pain.
"Keep going," he whispered.
Nephis vs the Child
Nephis raised her hand.
White fire gathered—gentle, warm, absolute.
It rushed toward Sunny.
Sunny did not move.
He didn't have anything left to block it with.
The young man stepped in front of him.
SFX: VWOOM!
Starlight sphere—perfect, unbreakable.
The fire hit.
SFX: WHOOOOOOOM—CRRRRK!!!
The sphere cracked.
The young man staggered backward.
Sunny caught him.
Human arms.
Bleeding arms.
Empty arms.
Nephis's gaze softened for a heartbeat.
A smile—not cruel, not triumphant.
Small.
Sad.
Proud.
The kind of smile that said:
You finally came back to me.
You finally grew up.
You finally stand.
It cut deeper than fire.
The Battle Fragments
Jet and Effie collided like mythic beasts—
winter storms freezing iron skin
while Effie swung frost spears like divine hammers.
SFX: KRAK—BOOM—FSSHHHH—HAH!
Mordret's mirror swarm sliced through Kai's damaged wings—
each shard reflecting the starlight he tried to defend with.
SFX: TING—TING—TING—SLASH!
Kai cried out but didn't fall.
Cassie walked untouched.
Every attack bent around her like space refusing to disobey its chosen axis.
Sunny—Human, Empty, Unmoving
He stood at the center of all of it.
Between Nephis and the child.
Between past and future.
Between the woman he failed
and the child he raised.
He had nothing left.
No flame.
No shadow.
No power.
Only stubbornness sharpened to a blade.
Only will forged into armor.
Only love—terrible, fragile, infinite.
The Spire Cracked Wider.
SFX: GROOOOAAAAAAN—CRRRRRRRAAAASH!!!
The battlefield split, stone falling upward into the bleeding sky.
White fire burned.
Starlight bled.
Laughter echoed.
Ice shattered.
Mirrors sang.
Prophecy waited.
And love—twisted, violent, faithful—clashed with itself.
The war was no longer fire against shadow.
It was love against love.
And love was the most dangerous weapon ever forged.