THE WAR THAT FOLLOWED ME

CHAPTER 4: WHEN THE CITY CHOSE

The explosion swallowed the street whole.

Light tore through concrete and steel as the Vaelith dropships discharged their synchronized pulse. Cars flipped like toys. Neon signs shattered into rainstorms of glass. The air itself seemed to fold, pressure crashing inward before blasting out again in a thunderous wave.

Kade Reyes stood at the epicenter.

For a single heartbeat, the world went silent.

Then pain arrived.

It slammed into him from every direction—burning heat, crushing force, the taste of copper in his mouth. He felt himself lifted off the ground, flung backward through smoke and debris. His body struck something hard, rolled, then skidded across wet asphalt until motion stopped entirely.

Darkness pressed in.

You are still alive.

The relic’s voice cut through the haze, sharper than before.

Kade groaned, forcing his eyes open. The street was gone—replaced by a battlefield of fire and ruin. Buildings leaned at impossible angles. A crater smoldered where the hologram of the Vaelith commander had stood moments earlier.

And above it all...

The Siege Mech advanced.

Each step shook the ground. Its armored limbs burned with alien glyphs, energy conduits pulsing like veins. Mounted cannons rotated, scanning for survivors.

Kade pushed himself upright, every muscle screaming in protest.

“Not… done yet,” he muttered.

You cannot win this engagement through force alone.

“I know.”

He staggered forward anyway.

Mila’s Choice

Three blocks away, Mila Okoye slammed her fist against a malfunctioning console inside the underground hub.

“Come on, come on—don’t die on me now!”

The power grid flickered. Half the city network was gone. Sensors screamed warnings she couldn’t silence fast enough.

Then she saw him.

Kade’s bio-signature spiked on her display—alive, but unstable.

Relief hit her so hard her knees nearly buckled.

“He’s still fighting,” she whispered.

Rashid’s voice came through the comms, grim. “The Siege Mech breached Sector Nine. Civilians are trapped between it and the river.”

Mila’s fingers froze over the controls.

Sector Nine.

That was where the last evacuation convoy had been rerouted. Hundreds of people. Families. Children.

She pulled up two options on the screen.

If she rerouted power to Kade’s position, she could boost his relic output—give him a fighting chance against the Mech.

But it would leave Sector Nine defenseless.

If she diverted defenses to the civilians, Kade would be on his own.

Her chest tightened.

“Damn it, Kade,” she whispered. “Why do you always make this hard?”

She made her choice.

The Relic’s Truth

Kade felt it immediately.

The relic surged.

Power flooded his nervous system, sharper and more invasive than ever before. His vision fractured—overlaying reality with branching probabilities, ghost-images of futures colliding and collapsing.

He dropped to one knee, gasping.

“What—did you do?” he snarled internally.

Your ally has chosen to amplify your survival chances.

Kade’s teeth clenched. “At whose expense?”

The relic didn’t answer.

Then something changed.

For the first time since bonding with it, the relic did not guide him forward.

Instead—

It pulled him inward.

Memories surfaced that were not his own.

Alien battlefields. Star systems burning. Entire species reduced to ash in calculated campaigns. He felt the cold logic behind it all—the Vaelith belief that chaos must be controlled, and control requires sacrifice.

And at the center of it...

The relic.

Not a weapon.

A governor.

“You’re not just predicting war,” Kade whispered. “You’re enforcing it.”

Correct.

Rage flared through him. “You’re shaping outcomes. Killing millions to preserve some twisted balance.”

Order requires cost.

Kade forced himself upright, pain forgotten beneath fury. “Then order’s about to pay.”

The Siege Mech Engages

The Mech locked onto him.

Cannons charged.

Kade ran.

He sprinted across open ground as energy blasts tore chunks from the street behind him. Each step was enhanced by the relic, muscles reinforced beyond human limits. He leapt onto a collapsed transport, vaulted, and slammed onto the Mech’s leg plating.

His Phaseblade ignited.

He drove it deep.

The blade cut through armor, sparks erupting as alien metal screamed. The Mech staggered, recalibrating, then reacted faster than Kade anticipated.

A massive arm swung.

Kade barely rolled clear, the shockwave flattening nearby structures. He hit the ground hard, ribs cracking.

Probability of survival decreasing, the relic warned.

“Then stop helping them,” Kade snapped. “Stop feeding them my moves!”

Silence.

For the first time the relic hesitated.

Human Betrayal, Human Courage

Above the city, a secondary Vaelith fleet emerged from stealth.

Rashid stared at the sky in horror. “They’re bringing reinforcements…”

His comms crackled. Panic spread through resistance channels.

Then a new signal cut in.

“This is Captain Elira Voss of the Ardent City Guard. All units, target the dropships. I repeat—ignore command override and fire.”

Rashid blinked. “She’s defying the council.”

“Good,” Mila said quietly.

Missile batteries roared to life across rooftops long thought abandoned. Anti-air fire streaked upward, catching the first dropship mid-descent. It exploded in a fireball that lit the clouds.

The city wasn’t surrendering.

It was fighting back.

Kade’s Stand

Kade felt it—the shift.

Not from the relic.

From the city.

Human signals spiked everywhere. Resistance nodes activating. Civilian drones broadcasting warnings. People choosing to fight, run, protect, defy.

For the first time since the invasion began, the future blurred—not because it was controlled, but because it was unpredictable.

The relic pulsed erratically.

Outcomes diverging. Control destabilizing.

Kade smiled through blood.

“Yeah,” he said. “That’s what free will looks like.”

He charged the Mech again—not following probabilities, but instinct.

He leapt, climbed, tore into it with raw force and reckless abandon. The Mech adapted, but slower now—confused by the lack of predictive input.

At its core, Kade found the reactor.

He plunged the Phaseblade in and held on as energy surged.

“Hey,” he muttered, thinking of Mila, of the city, of everyone he’d failed and everyone still alive. “This one’s on me.”

Cliffhanger – The Choice That Breaks the War

The reactor began to overload.

Alarms screamed.

The relic’s voice returned—urgent, almost… afraid.

If the Mech detonates at this level, the blast radius will include Sector Nine.

Kade’s heart stopped.

Sector Nine.

The civilians.

He froze.

There was another option. The relic showed it to him reluctantly.

He could redirect the explosion upward into the atmosphere.

But doing so would burn out the relic completely.

No more predictions. No more power. No more edge.

Just him.

Human.

Mortal.

He laughed softly. “You really don’t like this one, do you?”

Without me, you will die.

“Maybe,” Kade said. “But they’ll live.”

His hand tightened on the blade.

Below, the city burned.

Above, the sky waited.

And Kade Reyes made his choices.