When you see a man like the commander, you don't see a god, a story to be told and embellished, the commander was just a man capable of everything you fear and hope for; nothing was out of reach when he fought, and he fought tooth and nail for it all.
Fighting for unity, for peace. Hell froze over before he stopped, his crew knew it and so did she: She knew his fight had been at its apex when he shuttled her off world and promised that he would rebuild what they'd lost and she begged him not to leave again.
It wasn't enough that she mourned him once but now she was forced to lose him all over again, all of Remnant watched as the queen's forces drop from the skies all across the world and the Atlesian fleets erupted into blazing inferno of dust and bodies raining down, she was devastated when scouting reports returned that the commander was missing in action and his file was allocated by her personally; she refused to believe he was killed in action during the fall of the demoness 'he's far too stubborn and resilient to die!'.
No one was surprised when the now CEO and now ranked Admiral to her own private army renamed: hades corps. She and the rest of his crew stuck together when she asked for help and none of the kingdoms and the members of the Council could tell them less than what they wanted to do, all 400 of them were off the reservoir and essentially couldn't be controlled or led away from where and when they traveled.
*Vale city 0100, pergola wreckage just before detonation*
His bloodied armor had scorched into his skin after the largest explosion he'd experienced in battle and he survived it, he had his pistol and ten rounds in his last remaining mag.
He trudged towards the lift that awaited him to face the queen herself and he had things to talk about before he set off the bomb strong enough to vaporize the building, but it wasn't simple; she held the key to its detonation.
Charred flesh screamed at him to be still but he never stopped moving until he reached the lift, pushed up and sighed as he racked the slide as best as he could and flipped off the safety.
The elevator chimed softly as the doors slid open, revealing her pale figure standing serenely in the dim light.
"The prodigy returns," she said with a faint, almost playful smile. "I feared you might have perished down there, along with your lieutenant."
"And the woman who stayed up here to die," he shot back, his voice bitter and sharp. "Waiting to be entombed under thousands of tons of concrete."
She tilted her head, her eyes gleaming with confidence. "You seem awfully sure of yourself for a dead man. Tell me, what kind of brother threatens his own sister?"
Her words hit him like a thunderclap, and for a moment, the world seemed to tilt around him. His mind reeled as her smile, the warmth in her eyes, even the familiar lilt of her voice fell into place.
"No…" he choked out, tears streaming down his cheeks, falling to the floor in heavy, silent splashes. His throat tightened, but as the revelation settled in, sorrow twisted into something darker, fiercer. Fury roared up from the pit of his stomach, making the metallic taste of blood and bile barely noticeable.
"Thousands are dead," he whispered, eyes fixated on the floor before rising to meet her gaze, his voice cracking with anguish. "Was everything I lost just a game to you!?" His voice rose, trembling with the weight of his grief. "My wife, my mother, my mentor… all of them gone. The friends who died so I could live." His voice broke, tears mingling with his rage. "You have no idea what you took from me!"
He raised his gun and shot her in the face four times, once in her throat and five times in her chest. Tossing aside his gun he tackled her out the window and took the detonator and screamed, "this is the end for us both" before he pressed it and kicked her into the building at the same time.
The sheer force of the explosion catapulted him from the crumbling tower washed into an orange ball of fire towards the city and just as he lost consciousness her wedding ring flailing in the wind met his eye, it was attached to the tags he wore around his neck.
with a smile he fell unconscious before his body crashed into the ground and after a few hits and rolling into some rubble he lied there like a king sitting on his throne covered in blood and the armor atlas made specifically for him and despite taking the brunt of the impact he was lucky to have still been in one piece, pure luck had lifted him mercy, he could finally have peace….
*Pergola wreckage 1700, current time After detonation*
He awoke to a world drenched in red, a hazy blur that seeped into his vision. The only sound in his ears was the relentless, thunderous pounding of his own heartbeat, a grim yet miraculous reminder that life still clung to him, though everything else seemed determined to be consumed by death. Above him, the sky was a sickly shade of black, as if the heavens themselves had recoiled from the horrors below. The stench was unbearable-a vile mix of burning flesh and decaying bodies, mingling with the acrid scent of smoldering fires that had long since lost their fury but continued to choke the air with ash.
Pain raged through every inch of his body-waves of torment, each more unbearable than the last. But it wasn't the physical agony that consumed him; it was the searing ache in his chest, deeper than any wound, far more brutal than any broken bone. His heart screamed for something more than vengeance. It yearned for the soft, melodic laughter that had once echoed in his ears, a gentle sound from a time that seemed so distant now-The beauty, effortlessly beautiful in her knowledge of dust and technology, giggling at one of his stories, her voice light and teasing, as she recounted embarrassing moments They had shared. The memory of her mumbling softly in her sleep, those quiet, secret thoughts she would only utter in her dreams, haunted him like a ghost.
The weight of the present came crashing down as he rose from the macabre throne he had found himself upon-an unholy mix of broken rubble and blood-soaked debris. He staggered to his feet, the world spinning in a chaotic whirl. His muscles screamed in protest, his bones felt like they were splintering with every movement, and his mind teetered on the edge of collapse, caught between the madness of battle and the crushing weight of grief.
But none of that mattered. All that drove him now was the singular, agonizing desire burning in his veins -to find her again, to see her smile, to hear her laugh once more. Even though the world had descended into hell, and his every breath was steeped in agony, He moved forward, fueled by that desperate need, that last flicker of warmth in a world gone cold.
Each step was a battle, each breath a fight against the suffocating darkness pressing in from all sides. But through the haze of pain and blood, one thing remained clear-his undying love for Her, the only thing keeping him from succumbing completely to the endless agony that had become his existence.
'No seat has power unless the man in it is honorable at heart'
Lungs screamed to stop his breathing.
His body burned and cracked.
Bloodied and dry lips ripped up as he grinned baleful when he saw people from Rose's camp spotted him staggering past them. They were watching a corpse smile at them and after rose had been ripped in two from his bare hands they ran away screaming about a dead man walking.
His throat was dry and every breath made him retch up blood that threatened to choke his lungs and drown him but he couldn't stop. He just couldn't stop walking no matter what.
"Ironic they feel such fears " he chuckled raggedly.
After an eternity of walking he was spotted limping towards the gates of a military base by sentries, whom called for paramedics and an emergency alarm all across base as they collected He after he dropped in the center of the road and rushed him to be treated as soon as possible.
Weeks bled together as He drifted in and out of consciousness. Time was an abstract concept, lost in a haze of pain and fragmented memories. Sometimes he opened his eyes to the sterile glow of medical lights, the relentless beep of machines tethering him to life like shackles. Other times, he was caught in vivid nightmares, twisted distortions of reality where She stood just out of reach, her figure blurred by the swirling fog of his mind. He would call out to her, voice raspy and broken, only to have her vanish like smoke the moment he tried to touch her.
The lines between hallucination and reality blurred further with each passing day. He no longer knew if the faces he saw were real or if they were conjured by his own tortured mind. His spirit clung to him, tenacious and unforgiving, as though it refused to release him from this living hell. It was a bitter joke—his body begged for release, for death, and yet, like oil smeared across his soul, life clung to him stubbornly, refusing to let him go.
In those fleeting moments of consciousness, could feel the machines breathing for him, the mechanical whirring a constant, intrusive presence in the back of his mind. Tubes fed him, wires monitored him, and every fiber of his being screamed for release. And yet, his heart continued to beat—an involuntary rebellion against his desire for oblivion.
He whispered for Her, her name a plea he didn't fully understand. Sometimes he begged her to come to him, other times he begged for death to claim him, to let him slip away into the blackness that waited at the edge of his vision. But the machines hummed on, their cold efficiency keeping him tethered to a life that no longer felt like his own.
