The override chip clicked into place.Ares didn’t hesitate - not because he wasn’t afraid, but because the fear had been burned out of him long ago. In its place was something older, something earned. He pressed his palm to the biometric scanner. The console hissed, lights rippling across its surface like a living thing awakening. Lines of encrypted data surged in reverse as Kara’s fingers danced across the interface.“Severing him from the grid,” she muttered. “This won’t be clean.”Lysandra moved then - not violently, not with rage - but with a slow, pained step toward the glass pod.“You’ll kill him,” she said again. “Do you understand that? His brain has fused with the code. He doesn’t just use the network. He is the network. If you pull him out - "“I won’t pull him out,” Ares interrupted, voice low. “I’ll carry him through.”The room seemed to hold its breath.Mira narrowed her eyes at Lysandra. “You said you saved what was left of him. But you chose to use him as a battery. You

Ares didn’t look back.The path behind him was carved in pain - but it was safe now. Elijah was alive, breathing, dreaming. That dream was the only reason Ares had left the bunker’s warmth. Each step he took eastward felt like walking into flame - but flame he welcomed. Because this wasn’t exile anymore. This was the return.Reyes moved beside him, silent but alert. The wind had teeth here, biting across the rock ledges and through the narrow forest paths that twisted like scars. Distant echo of drones hummed behind the clouds - scouts from Wu’s surviving factions.“We’re going to need a distraction if we want to breach the eastern corridor,” Reyes said, adjusting his rifle’s grip. “They’ve fortified the refugee zones. Anyone who doesn’t comply is tagged as ‘unstable’ and disappeared.”Ares’s jaw clenched. “He’s doubling down on fear.”“That’s all men like Wu have when the data fails them. Fear... and fire.”They reached the crest of a ridge. Below them lay Sector 3 - once a market di

Elijah's arms were thin but strong around his father’s neck, as though in the days of sleep his boy had found new purpose - not just survival, but belonging. Ares held him close, his forehead resting gently against the boy’s temple, inhaling the scent of clean linen and warmth.“I missed you,” Elijah whispered.Ares’ voice caught before it could form. He didn’t trust it - too much gravel, too much memory, too much grief packed into syllables. So he simply nodded, hand brushing through his son’s hair.Mira stood nearby, unmoving - arms folded, but not in coldness. She was holding herself together. Her eyes shimmered, not with sadness, but with the fragile tension of a woman who had waited too long to hope.The silence lingered like a sacred thing.Then Elijah spoke again, smaller this time. “Is it really over?”Ares pulled back just enough to look him in the eyes. “The war is.”“But the world...?”Ares smiled faintly, brushing a hand along Elijah’s cheek. “The world’s broken, son. But

Ares didn’t sleep that night.While Mira and Elijah rested in the med-bunker, wrapped in peace they had long been denied, he sat outside beneath the concrete awning, elbows on knees, eyes fixed on the city slowly rebirthing itself. Lin City, for the first time in years, was quiet -not because it was dead, but because it had finally exhaled.His hands were still bloodstained, knuckles split. The fight with Victor Wu had been short, brutal - and necessary. But the victory hadn’t cleansed him. Not really.“You look like a man still waiting for the war to start,” said a voice behind him.Ares didn’t turn. “I’m waiting for the part where it’s actually over.”Reyes stepped into the light, carrying two cups of bitter soldier’s coffee. He handed one over. “You’ve done enough, brother.”“No,” Ares said. “Not yet.”Reyes sat beside him, grimacing as he lowered himself to the cold step. “You’re still thinking about Fallujah.”“Always,” Ares said softly. “Wu showed the footage for a reason. He th

“No,” he said. “But it’s beginning.”Elijah didn’t say anything. He just looked out across the river, toward the jagged skyline of Lin City - blackened, bent, but still standing. His small hand clutched Ares’ fingers tighter, not out of fear, but to make sure his father was real.The city was quiet.Not peaceful - just... quiet. The kind of silence that came after screaming. After bullets stopped flying. After people stopped dying. The kind that wasn’t earned but left behind, like a breath held too long.Ares crouched down beside Elijah and looked him in the eye.“You’ll hear people say it’s over,” he murmured. “But truth is, son... endings are easy. What comes next, that’s the hard part.”Elijah nodded slowly, as if he understood more than a child should.Ares ruffled his hair gently, then stood. “Come on. Let’s head back before the soup gets cold.”...The walk back was slow. Not because of Elijah’s pace, but because people stopped Ares every few steps.Not to thank him.Just to loo