Continuation...
MICHAEL
Dust stings my eyes as a soldier kicks me to my knees. The desert sun is merciless—so are the hands that yank my arms behind my back and snap cold iron around my wrists.
"Hey, easy! I need those hands to... y'know... save the world," I mutter, but the soldier doesn't flinch. His grip only tightens.
Beside me, Emma is already chained, her chin lifts in defiance. Charlotte, of course, is still arguing like we're at a town hall meeting instead of being hauled away like cattle.
"This is a mistake!" Charlotte barks. "We're here to help your king. We came to warn him!"
The soldier dragging her doesn't respond. Not even a blink. These guys must've been trained by statues.
"I'm serious!" Emma adds, twisting her neck to address the squad. "There's an evil emperor coming—Emperor Erebus. Sounds scary, right? That's because he is! And we have the only thing that can stop him!"
She gestures with her chin toward the bag—now in the possession of the nearest officer—where weapons is stashed. The soldiers don't even look.
Charlotte snorts. "Right. Ignore the women trying to save your kingdom. Classic."
Emma sighs dramatically. "It's like talking to stone walls. Very muscular, sword-wielding stone walls."
I try not to laugh, but it comes out anyway—a small breath through my nose. Even with chains digging into my skin and the heat soaking through my shirt, these two still manage to find the humor in everything.
A soldier pushes us forward. "Walk."
We're marched to a big, wide and open wagon parked under a withered palm tree. Its wooden frame creaks as another group of soldiers tosses two sacks of grain inside—followed by us. Like we're just extra cargo.
A rough, probably silent soldier picks me up by the back of my shirt and drops me into the wagon bed. I land hard on my side, wincing as the chains bite into my ankles. Charlotte lands next, more graceful than I expected for someone literally shackled. Emma follows, swearing under her breath in five languages.
"Well, this is cozy," Charlotte mutters, adjusting her posture. "Anyone got a mint? Or maybe a plan?"
I squint up at the officer who climbs onto the front of the wagon. He's got a saber, a rifle, and the expression of someone who eats nails for breakfast. Still doesn't speak a word.
Emma shifts closer to the edge. "Listen, at least tell your king this: Erebus is coming. He will do whatever it takes to take Fortune Helmet, and kill whoever tries to stop him.... We're not invaders. We're messengers!"
Still nothing.
Charlotte leans over to me and whispers, "I bet if I offered them a sandwich, they'd still ignore us."
I smirk. "Depends on the sandwich."
She nods solemnly. "True. If it's falafel, we might stand a chance."
Emma groans and drops her head against the wagon wall. "Indeed, we're so screwed."
The wheels begin to roll, jolting us as the horses start pulling. The desert stretches endlessly ahead, with Cairo somewhere in the shimmering heat.
Charlotte settles back with a dramatic sigh. "Well... at least we'll get to meet the king."
Emma cracks one eye open from where she lay against the bench, sweat on her brow and chains on her wrists. "Assuming they don't toss us into a dungeon first," she murmured.
I glance down at the iron cuff biting into my own skin. Then out toward the land that doesn't look like Earth in the slightest. No city lights. No sky scrapers. Just wilderness and ruins.
"One step at a time," I muttered, more to myself than anyone else.
A moment passes, then Charlotte breaks the silence. Her voice is soft, like she doesn't want to disturb something sacred.
"You know what's crazy?" she said, staring through the bars of the wagon. "I never believed in any of this. Superpowers. Other planets. Saving lives." She let out a dry laugh that faded fast. "And now I'm a damn superhero."
She shifts her weight, the chains clinking as she leans forward. "I used to stand under spotlights, not on alien planet. Memorize scripts, not enemy movement. I was living my dream, Michael. The red carpets, the premieres... I'd made it. I was somebody."
Her voice catches for a second, and she swallows hard.
"And now I'm here. On another planet. Chained up. Wearing super costume like I'm in a war movie without a script." She shook her head slowly. "I never signed up for this."
Emma stirs beside her, lifting her head, her voice steadier but laced with longing. "I also miss things. Calculation," she said. "Not just numbers—certainty. Chemistry, physics, math... those things had rules. You work hard, you get answers."
She looks at me, eyes shining in the fading light. "I had purpose. I had a classroom. Students. A chalkboard. I mattered. And now...." She trailed off, glancing around the wagon. "Now it feels like we're making it up as we go. Pretending to be heroes. Like we're wearing borrowed suits."
I lean back against the wooden wall of the wagon, letting the ache settle in my chest. "Whenever I've spare time, I always think about the Cyclotron," I said. "All those years of planning, perfecting it. How could something so carefully built just... explode?"
They are both looking at me now.
"It doesn't make sense," I go ahead. "We ran every test. Triple-checked the design. It wasn't supposed to fail. If it hadn't—" My throat tightens. "We'd still be home. Charlotte would still be on magazine covers. Emma in a lab coat. And me? I'd be somewhere safe, chasing particles, not getting chased by warlords."
Emma doesn't blink. "But it did explode."
I nod slowly. "And everything changed."
"Now we're risking our lives," I said quietly, "every single day. For people who don't even know us. Some of them innocent. Some of them monsters. And it all started with Chase Morgan."
Charlotte shivered at the name.
Emma looks at me then, eyes calm, voice low. "That's fate," she said. "Whether we like it or not, this is our path now. We're protectors. Even if we didn't choose it. Even if we're still struggling to accept it."
She reached out and gently tapped the chain between us.
"Oprah once said, 'The biggest adventure you can take is to live the life of your dreams—even if it's not the one you planned.'"
She smiled faintly, but it was sad. "I didn't plan this. None of us did. But maybe... this is the life that chose us."
The wagon jolted as we crossed a ridge, and the sky outside dimmed into a deep, alien twilight. I stared through the slats at the stars beginning to appear, and let her words settle in.
Maybe this was the life that chose us.
"Maybe it is," I whispered.
And for the first time in days, I let myself believe it.
EREBUS
The throne hall breathes like a living beast—walls trembling beneath gold, firelight dancing off stained glass, and silence too thick to be peace. Agrona and Jabez follow me without a word. Our boots sink into the red carpet. Each step presses deeper, warping the air behind me.
He's already standing.
Khedive Ismail. Broad-shouldered. He takes off his coat is midnight blue and stitched with golden vines curling along the lapels and cuffs. He removes green silk sash runs across his chest, pinned with stars, medals and golden epaulettes gleam on his shoulders. quiet confidence of someone who's never needed protection.
"It seems I didn't made myself clear enough," he says, his expression hardens more
"Of course you did. But if you want me to go through you to take it, then I will." I answer, frowning.
Instantly, the second, third, and last wife rush through side doors with their children, silk robes clutched in fists, bare feet slapping against stone. Courtiers and servants scatter, knocking over oil lamps and fruit bowls in their panic. No one wants to be caught between gods and kings when the walls start to bleed.
My hand cuts the air, fingers curled, drawing the world with it. The ground bends under my command—gravity twists, walls shimmer like heat off metal. His balance is gone before he reacts.
But then—he's in front of me.
A fist crashes into my jaw, compact, clean, brutal. The shockwave ripples outward—columns explode, stained glass shatters behind me, and I'm launched across the hall like a cannonball. I slam through a pillar, reducing it to a cloud of stone and gold, and skid across the marble floor like a broken blade. Half the throne steps collapse.
Dust rains down. Rubble groans.
I rise, blinking through blood.
He's faster than I expected. And far more controlled.
I rush again. No games this time. My heel leads a snapping kick to his chest, followed by a chain of low sweeps, palm strikes, elbows—all aimed to shatter joints and collapse the ribs. Strikes honed to end fights.
But he doesn't stagger.
He slips under my third strike, rotates into a shoulder throw, and drives me face-first into the floor—so hard the marble splinters like glass, sending a fissure spidering up the wall. The impact sends a burst of energy through the floor, and part of the ceiling caves.
He grabs my collar mid-roll, lifts me overhead, and hurls me like I weigh nothing.
I catch myself mid-air, twist, land in a crouch—but the landing craters the tiles, sending jagged shards outward.
The moment my feet touch ground, I strike again—this time bending the space between us. I flicker from one side to the other, fists landing from impossible angles. The air burns with every blow. Each contact sends blasts of kinetic force that shatter statues and shred tapestries lining the chamber.
Still, he adjusts. Blocks. Dodges. One precise movement at a time. His technique isn't flashy—it's flawless.
He waits until I overreach, then steps into me with a rising knee that caves in my stomach. The sound is like wood splintering under iron. The wind leaves my body. The hall shakes with the recoil.
I fall to my knees, gasping.
He walks toward me slowly, hands lowered, unhurried. The floor behind him cracks with every footstep.
I force myself up. Clench my fists. Summon everything inside me. The light fractures around my form. My bones scream with pressure. I explode forward, feet barely touching the ground.
We meet mid-charge.
The exchange is thunderous—blow after blow carving shockwaves through the hall. Walls crumble. Pillars disintegrate. The ceiling groans. A roundhouse from me—blocked. A spinning elbow from him—lands. My knee drives into his ribs, and for the first time, he grunts.
I go low, sweep him. He stumbles. I jump, driving both fists down on his chest like meteorites.
He crashes to one knee—but not for long.
He lifts his head. Eyes burning. A low hum vibrates the space around him, like reality is holding its breath.
Then he rises—slowly, but with purpose—and punches the air.
I never see the blow land.
I'm just gone. Slammed against the far wall, stone erupts around me. My body folds into it. My ribs crack. My vision swims. A statue collapses nearby, decapitating itself under the pressure.
I roll, bleeding, panting, and throw out a desperate hand. The space between us collapses again. He should fall. He should fold under the pressure.
But he steps through it. Walks through the broken laws like they're mist.
He raises his hand. The room darkens. The floor crumbles beneath us. Support beams twist. Flames burst from fractured walls. The palace screams.
I lash out with everything—energy, precision, speed. My fists find his face, his ribs, his spine. Every strike sets off small shockwaves that destroy what's left of the thrones, murals, tapestries, relics.
He keeps walking.
He ducks, grabs my leg mid-kick, and slams me into the floor. Once. Twice. Then hurls me into a golden pillar, which explodes on impact, taking half the balcony with it.
I try to rise.
I can't.
He stands above me now, shadow stretching across my broken body. The hall behind him is half-ruined, fires licking at torn drapes, smoke curling through sunlit holes in the roof.
"You built your power on control," he says. "But power is earned through war."
He lifts me by the neck. My arms flail. My body is spent. No force answers my call.
He slams me into the stone throne behind him. The throne splits down the middle. My spine arcs. Stone dust erupts in my face.
I cough. Blood runs down my chin.
He kneels beside me, calm. "My apologies for making you bleed, Erebus. However, You brought this upon yourself."
His hand closes over mine—and I feel it.
The end.
My fingers go limp. My vision fades. And the last thing I see is him standing, back turned, walking through the falling dust, unshaken.
AGRONA
The moment I strike the floor with my fist, the tiles explode upward in a shockwave, forcing Shehret to leap. Jabez is already airborne, reshaping the chandelier's metal into lethal ribbons. Shehret lands hard with a scream and a seismic punch that cracks through the palace's foundation. The wall behind us caves in.
Sunlight floods in. We spill onto the steps of Abdeen Palace. Tewfik hovers above the carnage, rising slowly, like a prophet untouched by gravity. Rubble smolders beneath him. The Fortune Helmet, glowing with runes, stops orbiting and intead drifts forward—silent, deliberate.
It seals over his face like a divine command.
The moment it touches him, a ripple of golden energy erupts from his chest and races outward, devouring his clothes in light. His form reshapes mid-air—fabric replaced by a shimmering battle robe of woven arcana and gold, layered with hieroglyphic patterns that pulse like veins of living magic.
His chestplate gleams with a radiant geometric seal, orbited by metallic straps etched with sacred symbols, anchored by three golden medallions at the collarbone—each glowing faintly with cosmic awareness. His arms are wrapped in ornate golden vambraces, their surfaces detailed with ancient spell-scripts that flicker as if whispering secrets.
A deep crimson cloak, heavy and regal, spills from his shoulders, clasped at the front with an interlocking ring of sigils. It floats as if weightless, its edges fluttering in a wind only he feels. His posture becomes stiffer, priestly—hands gloved in etched gauntlets, one lifted, fingers poised in a sigil-chanting gesture. Ancient sigils circle his wrists. The air burns with ozone, ash, and ancient magic.
"Careful," I mutter to Jabez. "She's rage. But he's sorcery refined."
Shehret rockets forward. I summon stone armor to my limbs—she punches through it like wet paper, smashing into me with comet force. I skid across pavement, ribs crunching. My back slams against a column.
I snarl. Regenerate.
"Power without control is just noise," I spit.
She howls and fires beams from her eyes—I twist, summoning a wall of spectral bone. It sizzles, cracking under the pressure. Jabez redirects the beams with a magnetic curve—aiming them at Tewfik.
Tewfik's cloak flutters.
He raises one hand. A mirror glyph forms mid-air, rotating—reflects the beams right back. Then—he splits into three phantoms, cloaked in golden flame, and disappears.
Illusion.
"Jabez. North wall. Behind the statue!"
Jabez hurls a concussive shockwave through the marble. The statue explodes—and the real Tewfik stumbles out, floating above the ground, bleeding light. His hands flash through a series of complex sigils, and suddenly—
Jabez freezes mid-stride. Locked. Limbs rigid. Eyes wide.
"Temporal bind," I hiss.
I slam my palms into the ground. Necrotic vines erupt from below, crawling up Tewfik's legs. He speaks a counter-incantation—but I disrupt his magical flow, rotating the spirit field. His phasing spell shatters mid-cast.
He's stuck.
Shehret screams behind me. She launches forward again—I yank metal from the wreckage and forge a towering iron wall between us. She crashes through it like a beast, blood painting the steel.
She doesn't stop.
"You'll have to kill me!" she shrieks, eyes ablaze.
"No," I growl, stepping toward her, "but I'll make you beg for death."
I manifest a bone-shield in one arm, a crimson halberd in the other. She comes at me wild—I block her hammerblow, deflect her elbow, and slash deep into her thigh. Blood sprays. She groans—drops to a knee.
Then Jabez, free again, clenches his fists. Every iron shard in the courtyard twists into a brutal spiked sphere.
He flings it at Tewfik.
Tewfik's lips move silently—his astral form slips sideways, flickering—
But Jabez was ready.
A second sphere follows.
It tears through the illusion—and connects.
Tewfik crashes into the courtyard, cloak shredded, blood streaking the stones. But even on the ground, his fingers draw a glyph in the air—a trap.
I surge forward and stomp the glyph, disrupting the cast. The arcane backlash rips into him—flesh burns, blood darkens his robes.
I plant my foot on Shehret's chest.
"Stay down."
She trembles—body wrecked—but tries to lift her arm.
I shove her down harder.
Around us, the battlefield is ash and ruin. Tewfik lies broken, sigils fizzling out in midair.
"The Helmet is ours," I whisper.
I look at them both—bloodied, scorched, shattered.
"Your king… is next."
The smoke still lingers in the air—like the final breath of a dying god. Heat shimmers along the warped columns. Flames crawl hungrily around fractured pillars. I step over shattered marble, the Fortune Helmet clutched tight against my chest. Jabez follows in silence. We both freeze mid-step as we see him—
Erebus.
Crushed against the ruins of the throne.
Blood trickles from the corner of his mouth. One arm twisted grotesquely, his body crumpled, motionless.
Lifeless.
"No…" I whisper.
This can't be real.
I glance at Jabez. His lips part, but nothing comes out. The fury in his eyes drains, replaced by something colder.
Grief.
I rush forward, dropping to my knees beside Erebus. "Hey… come on." My fingers shake his shoulder. He doesn't stir. His skin feels cold.
Then the floor shudders.
A sharp whine rises behind us.
I spin around—just in time to see Khedive Ismail stepping through the ruined archway like a force of nature. His coat untouched by the wreckage. His eyes—hard, merciless.
He lifts an arm—
A searing laser beam slices through the air.
"Jabez!"
The blast hurls him into the wall before I can react. I scream as another beam flashes. I twist—but too slow. The Fortune Helmet slips from my grasp and skids across the rubble-strewn floor. I crash down, agony splitting my ribs.
Khedive strides forward, boots grinding over debris. He picks up the helmet without even glancing at me.
"It belongs to me," he says.
He turns his back and walks toward the far exit.
And then—
A voice.
Erebus.
But not from his broken form.
"I thought you were smart enough to catch my trick."
"Didn't think you'd fall for it."
Khedive stops dead.
Turns, slowly. Eyes narrowing.
The broken body by the throne… begins to dissolve—crumbling into sand and ash, scattered across the bloodstained floor.
His jaw tightens. "No…"
A violent gust tears through the chamber.
A portal materializes—and from within it, he emerges.
The real Erebus.
Perched atop a fractured balcony, cloaked in surging shadows. Bloodless. Alive.
And furious.
"I'm done holding back."
Khedive doesn't blink.
He lunges.
And the hall detonates.
---
The Rematch.
I dive behind a shattered statue as the first shockwave erupts. They collide mid-air with a deafening sonic boom. Stone rips apart. Chunks of the ceiling crash down like meteors.
Erebus twists, flickering like a phantom, and drives a brutal fist straight into Khedive's throat. The impact sounds like wet concrete under a sledgehammer. Khedive stumbles—just before Erebus spins and snaps a roundhouse kick into his chest, sending him careening through the last standing pillar.
But Khedive roars back, launching upward—
He grabs Erebus mid-air, twists, and hurls him through a bronze archway. The wall behind it crumbles, a cloud of fire and smoke swallowing both men.
A shard whistles past my ear. I duck.
When I look again—
Erebus emerges from the wreckage, limping, but intact. Blood drips from his mouth, teeth clenched.
Khedive charges.
They meet in a savage brawl—
Fists like steel, knees like hammers. Erebus lands a shot to the ribs. Snap. Khedive rams his shoulder into Erebus's chest, driving the air from his lungs. But Erebus won't stop. He powers back in—faster, sharper, relentless.
Their silhouettes blur in the firelight.
One strike lands.
A second counters.
A third bites deep.
Khedive spins, elbow aimed for Erebus's skull.
But Erebus slips beneath.
Hooks his leg—
And slams him face-first into the floor with such force the marble fractures.
Erebus drops on top of him, fists raining down like sledgehammers. Every punch sinks deeper, heavier—ripping past defense, battering into bone.
"You think power's earned through war?" Erebus snarls, voice raw and venomous. "Then fight like someone who's survived one."
Khedive howls and blasts upward, energy crackling from his chest in a concussive wave. Erebus is thrown back—
But before I can blink—
He bends the shadows—vanishes—
Then reappears mid-air above Khedive, driving both feet into his chest like a meteor. The floor beneath them shatters.
Khedive coughs blood. His eyes go wide. He claws at the ground, trying to rise. Arms shaking.
Erebus approaches—slow, deliberate.
"You lost," he says, voice iron and gravel. "Not because I'm stronger—because I've bled more."
He raises a hand.
A pulse of pure force detonates from his fist.
Khedive is hurled across the throne room, slamming into the back wall. He slumps, unmoving, smoke curling from his chest.
Silence falls.
Only fire crackles in the distance.
I crawl forward, numb. Jabez stirs behind me, dragging himself upright.
Erebus turns toward us. His chest rises and falls, bruised and burned, but unbroken.
"Get the helmet," he says.
Jabez pulls it from the rubble.
And for the first time—
I see Khedive afraid.
Not of Erebus's strength—
But of the truth.
He lost.
And Erebus?
He just walks away—slow, bloodied, triumphant.
Smoke trailing behind him like the breath of a god.
To be continued.....