The descent into the storm was no longer a metaphor - it was war in its truest, rawest form.Ares led them down the frost-bitten ridge with the silence of a soldier but the fire of something older -something forged in the belly of failure, loss, and refusal to break. His boots crunched on gravel laced with ice, his eyes locked ahead on the towers stabbing into the cloud-thick night.Below them, the Central Convergence Zone lit up like a city caught mid-resurrection. Lights flickered across the rooftops. Massive generators pulsed in rhythm - heartbeats of a living machine. Each pulse echoed across the valley, humming in the bones of the five figures who had come to burn it all down.Reyes murmured under his breath, “I can smell the ion fields from here. She’s powering the ghost grid at full capacity.”Mira adjusted the strap on her shoulder, her jaw clenched. “Then we hit it before it calcifies. Before she locks in the rewrite.”Monk frowned. “Rewrite?”Kara, her voice tight, explained

Snow crunched under Ares’ boots as he descended the final slope of the ridge, Elijah bundled tightly against his chest. The boy had drifted into sleep - real, natural sleep - not code-induced stasis or fevered hallucination. Just breath and warmth. For Ares, it was enough.The wind carried with it the aftertaste of ionized air, the last breath of the ghost grid’s collapse. Behind them, blue flame still flickered on the horizon like a dying god’s scream, but ahead - only quiet. Only trees.Monk signaled a halt at the tree line. Reyes flanked left, his rifle sweeping the dark.“Nothing on scopes,” Monk muttered. “We’ve bought ourselves a window.”Ares didn’t respond. He was still watching the boy’s face - every small twitch of his eyelids, every breath. Mira stepped beside him, hand brushing his shoulder.“He’s holding on,” she said softly. “So are you.”“I have to,” Ares replied. “If I let go now, I lose everything I fought for.”From behind, Kara approached, carrying a small case she’

Ares walked through the bleeding edge of the city, where frost kissed shattered glass and the bones of rebellion had not yet been buried. The Oracle Tower loomed ahead - not shining, not proud. Just tall. Empty of soul, but filled with power.The wind howled as if warning him away.He didn’t stop.Every memory pressed in as he neared the gates: the nights in Fallujah when he’d dragged broken brothers through fire, the betrayal that had carved a hole in his chest when Mira married another, the moment he held his son for the first time and realized what kind of man he had to become.Now it all came here - not to win a war, but to end one.Reyes’s voice came through the earpiece. “You’re approaching blind. No active jammers. He wants you seen.”“I know,” Ares muttered. “He’s baiting me.”“Careful. There’s pride... and then there’s suicide.”Ares looked up at the Tower’s blinking apex. “This isn’t pride.”A silent pause. Then Reyes replied, “I believe you. Make it count.”The main doors w

“We’re going home.”Ares whispered it like a vow, pressing his lips to Elijah’s hair. The boy clung to him tighter, as if some part of him knew those words weren’t just comfort - they were a promise built on blood.Mira stood at his side, silent, her hand finding Ares’ without needing to search. The candles flickered across the plaza as families mourned, survivors whispered names onto the memorial wall, and city dust settled like ash after a storm.But beneath it all, Ares felt it.The quiet wasn’t peace.It was a warning....Back in the apartment - what was left of it - the old living room still smelled like soot and rust. Elijah was asleep on a makeshift mattress near the heater. Mira moved through the space like someone reclaiming old territory, her hands brushing across cracked walls, broken frames, and bullet-pocked memories.Ares stood near the window, staring out at the city that still looked half-drowned in smoke.“Everything feels... paused,” Mira said behind him.“It’s beca

The rain returned just before dawn.Ares stood alone at the old training field behind the Eastern Barracks. Not the sleek combat simulators they used now - this was dirt and grit, sandbags and rusted goalposts, where men once learned to bleed before they learned to lead. He held a wooden training sword in one hand, the other flexing and clenching like he could still feel the weight of Wu’s final blow in his wrist.Across from him stood Hawk, stripped to the waist, scarred and silent, watching.The silence between them wasn’t hostile. It was history.“You sure about this?” Hawk finally asked, voice rough.Ares nodded once. “I need to feel it. Not just the win. The weight of it. Otherwise... I carry it like a ghost.”Hawk didn’t question that. He simply stepped forward, raising his own dull-edged blade.The first clash was clean - a simple strike-and-parry. Then another. Then Ares stepped into the second blow, letting it scrape past his ribs as he turned and drove his shoulder into Hawk