Erend wiped the blood from his face as they cleared the last of the first wave of Eclipse. There had been no machines, just soldiers. Working together, the Nora and the Vanguard had taken them all down, despite their use of fire bombs. None of the Nora or Erend's men had been killed, just several wounded, Erend included. Just a scratch, really. He had been caught across the forehead by an Eclipse knife. It was the only hit the man managed to land before Erend cut him down.

They were dragging the dead Eclipse to a pile, making sure the battlefield was as clear as it could be to avoid slip-ups when the next wave came. As he dropped the last man, a sense of something terrible washed over Erend. He ran to one of the lookouts and saw the machines begin their attack on the ridge. He watched the Carja soldiers charge the machines, striking again and again until the machines fell to ground, nothing more than smoking piles. Bigger machines came into his line of sight, far off in the distance to him, but so much closer to the city gates. He heard Petra Forgewoman's cannon roar to life, and he knew who was behind it.

Glinthawks dove into the battle, forcing Aloy to abandon one cannon for the other, dodging attacks between firing. She rolled between cannon stations, taking out the metal birds before returning her focus to the Deathbringers in the distance. She fired away with the Oseram cannon, trying to ignore the bone rattling pain it caused her. Pain didn't matter. She had to stop HADES from getting to the Spire. She brought down machine after machine, and she watched the people around her do the same. They were winning. She was hopeful that they could hold HADES back.

Two missiles fired from a Deathbringer. That's all it took. The stone walls came crashing down around her, pieces falling on top of her. The world came in flashes of color, interrupted by moments of blacking out. Everything hurt. Everything was painful. Breathing. Thinking.

The Deathbringer made its way through the hole it had created. The last thing Aloy saw before succumbing to the darkness tearing at her vision was the entity it pulled behind itself.

HADES.

Erend fell to his knees seconds after he saw the ridge go up in smoke. He waited, holding his breath to her the whir of the Oseram cannon, but it never came back to life. He heard the screams of the dying at the ridge, the roar of the machines tearing a path to the Spire, but never the cannon. Never a sign that Aloy had made it.

He knew if she was gone, the rest would fall. There was no point in fighting. He sank further into the ground, tears pooling in his eyes. He didn't want the world to end. He didn't want to die. There was so much left for him to do. So much left for him to tell her. But if she was dead…

Suddenly, he was being pulled to his feet. Varl, the Nora brave hauled him off of the ground.

"Get up! We have to defend this place! That's what she asked us to do! She may be dead, but we can still do what she asked!" Erend went numb at the word "dead". He didn't want to exist in a world without her. She had saved him. She had given him something to move forward for. How was he supposed to keep going when he knew she wouldn't be there?

"We can't just stop moving when the people we love die. There's more for us to do." The words she had said to him when he was ready to die after Ersa's funeral rang through his head. In that moment he decided: for her, he would fight until his last breath.

He barely got his feet under him before the machines attacked. They blew the bridge as they came up the ridge, swarming Erend, the Vanguard and the Nora. The Eclipse came with them, weaving through the machines and finding cover where they could, loosing their arrows at those defending the Spire. Erend charged at the nearest machine, swinging at it with his hammer. Varl, Sona, the rest of the Nora and the Vanguard followed suit. They were outgunned, outnumbered and surrounded, but they fought like they were going to win no matter what.

"Aloy! Aloy! Aloy!" She opened her eyes to find Teb looking at her, his face a mixture of distress and relief.

"Teb?" She pulled herself slowly to her feet, assessing her injuries. Broken ribs, deep muscle bruises, countless cuts and scrapes.

Still alive.

"By All-Mother, you survived! I thought you were killed."

"The others, are they... " she was almost afraid to ask.

"No, no - wounded, but alive, mostly! The machines blasted through, then kept going. They marched on the Spire, dragging that… thing with them." Aloy's heart was racing. Erend. Her legs began moving toward the Spire on their own.

"Take care of the others, Teb. I've… got to go." She ran toward the Spire as fast as she could, repeating the same phrase over and over again. "Just come home safe." She ran through the open space between the ridge and the Spire, dodging machines and fire and Eclipse. She drew closer, and red light erupted from the Spire, filling the sky. She stopped for a moment, chest heaving. "It's begun! HADES is broadcasting!" She ran again, faster than she thought she could. "If HADES has started the signal… it must have gotten through the defenses!" What had happened to Varl and Sona? Erend? What had happened to Erend? "I have to get up there." She scrambled up the rockface, ribs and aching limbs protesting. She ran up the last set of stone stairs, rounding the last corner before coming to a halt. "They're alive!"

Erend's eyes snapped up to a flash of fire coming around the corner. He thought his heart might beat out of his chest, and wondered if anyone else could hear it.

"Aloy! It's Aloy! Well - you can see that." Varl stepped forward, and Erend suddenly wished that he and Aloy were the only ones around.

"We thought you'd fallen at the ridge."

Aloy shrugged. "No, the ridge fell on me. There isn't a lot of time left. I have to face HADES." Erend's chest hurt. He had seen that… thing come up, fought as it had broken through their defenses. Now he knew he had to let her go and fight it. But he didn't have to let her go alone. Varl took the words right out of his mind.

"Not alone," Varl said. Aloy replied in typical Aloy fashion, with a line that cut Erend to his core.

"It's my fight. I can't ask you to come with me." Knowing she wouldn't want anything sentimental in this moment, not a line about how she had fought fights that weren't hers for everyone in Meridian, the Sacred Land, and probably the rest of the world, he shrugged and said something simple.

"We were just about to go over the top anyway. Right?" He turned and looked at the battered warriors around him. Varl nodded.

"Right."

"Hawk and Thrush. Let's go."

Aloy had to turn away and pick up stock from the supply boxes to ensure Erend didn't see the tears welling up in her eyes.

Erend would hear the voice of HADES in his nightmares for the rest of his live. If he ever had the chance to dream again, that was. The corrupted machines just kept coming. The Deathbringer was set on taking Aloy down, and it had very nearly done that on multiple occasions. She had cried out as debris had fallen on her when the machine took out her hiding spot, and screamed when a bullet buried itself in her thigh. Erend had swung his hammer directly into a stone wall to keep himself from vomiting. They kept fighting, Aloy most ferociously of all. Finally, the Deathbringer fell.

"It's down!" Erend roared. "Time to do what you came to do, Aloy!"

She ran to the body that contained HADES. She drove her sphere into it repeatedly, finally accessing the master override. She screamed as electricity passed through her body, and Erend dropped to the ground as she thrashed. Her movement came to a stop, and the air was filled with projections. There was HADES, a woman who he heard Aloy call Gaia, and another, older woman who looked exactly like Aloy. Elisabet Sobeck. A computerized voice spoke.

"Master Override, armed. To activate, state name and rank. Aloy reached towards the woman who looked like her, speaking in a strong voice.

"Elisabet Sobeck… Alpha Prime." Erend could've cried. You're not her, he wanted to scream.

"Master Override, activated. Purging extinction protocol."

It was over. They had won.

A wave of blue light erupted from the sphere that had housed HADES, taking everyone at the Spire to the ground. Aloy was the first to get back on her feet. She headed out towards the edge of the cliff. Erend followed. He moved through the brush, emerging to find her facing him, bow drawn and covered in her own blood. She relaxed her draw and turned back to the edge of the cliff, lifting the bow above her head, eliciting a massive cheer from the people gathered below. She turned back to him, a tired smile on her face.

"Someday, you'll stop sneaking up on me," she breathed. He smiled back, trying not to cry.

"Eh, I'll have to keep you on your toes somehow." His heart nearly burst at the sound of her laugh. Now, he thought. Now, or you'll never say it.

"Aloy, I -" Aloy screamed as a bolt tore through the space between her neck and her shoulder, then fell to the ground. Erend roared and turned to face the assailant, barely swinging his hammer up into the air before the Eclipse soldier loaded another bolt into his crossbow and fired it into Erend's chest. The white hot pain brought him to the ground and he looked down to find the bolt had buried itself down to the fletching in his gambeson. The soldier turned and left the cliff edge, leaving Erend screaming into the air.

He was going to die here.

He managed to drag himself to where Aloy fell, laying in a growing pool of her own blood. He propped himself against a tree and pulled her against his chest, ignoring the sharp pain as he moved her across the end of the bold protruding from his body.

"I love you," he whispered, throat thick with tears. "I love you and I'm sorry I didn't say it before. I love you." He held her as tightly as his broken body would allow as the world around him slowly went dark.