The Still Before the Shatter

The battlefield was gone, but the war still breathed.

Not in smoke or flame.

But in silence.

In the quiet regrouping of forces.

In the sharpening of blades no longer meant for old foes,

but something new—

something worse.

Zion Stood Among the Pillars

The last echoes of fury still shimmered in his aura.

The rage that had stopped time had since cooled,

but his presence still bent the air.

The 99 stood at his flanks, each marked by the fires of the coliseum,

their spirits scorched into steel.

Not a single one had fallen in the war against the Hive's first wave.

But 27 would never again hold their blades without pain.

They stood, not broken—but sacrificed.

"We are not soldiers," Zion had once said to them.

"We are memory turned into motion.

And when the gods forget what it means to fight, we will remind them."

And they had.

Even now, blood still dried on their armor,

and their sigils—some cracked, some glowing brighter than ever—pulsed with uneasy anticipation.

The Five Priestesses

Ayola stood still, eyes closed, ears tuned to the secrets of crossroads and chance.

Whispers curled around her—echoes of Papa Legba. She smiled faintly.

Ayomi, still cloaked in faint shadow, had not spoken much since the Queen was taken into Ginen by Baka la Kwa.

But her silence now was different. It was heavy.

Baron Samedi was stirring beneath her skin.

Sael sat with her eyes on the clouds, weeping once, then not again.

The Hive that had mimicked her—she had destroyed it herself.

She carried love and wrath in equal weight.

Erzulie had given her both.

Thalia, still wounded, had been carefully bandaged by the chosen of other pantheons.

Her breathing was steady. Whether she would wake… no one dared ask aloud.

But her sigil still glowed faintly.

The Seven-Faced Ogou had not left her.

And Elis—she watched the sky.

Not with fear.

But expectation.

She whispered to the spirits of the dead with the certainty of Mama Brigitte's blessing on her every word.

The Five Armies

The leaders of each pantheon had returned to their realms,

but their chosen warriors—those marked by divine essence—still stood.

Warriors of flame from the fire gods.

Shields born from the iron womb of earth.

Windwalkers and stormcallers from the sky realms.

Bone-dancers and void-cutters from lost civilizations.

Together, they did not form a single army.

They were a living constellation of power—each star brighter when fighting beside the other.

Zion saw them all. And they saw him.

No crown.

No throne.

But every being here would follow his word if it came.

Because he had bled with them,

had screamed when Thalia fell,

had held the line as others turned.

And Now… Something Shifted

Not in the sky.

Not in the earth.

But in the soul.

A priestess turned. A warrior of the 99 flinched.

Not from sound. Not from threat.

But from something just beneath the fabric of their awareness.

Ayola whispered, "Something is learning us."

Ayomi opened her eyes. "It wears faces now."

Sael rose, her tears dry.

Elis touched the air and said, "We've been seen."

Zion drew his blade slowly.

"Then we show it," he said, "why we are never seen twice."