The first explosion swallowed the horizon.
The second and third came so close behind it that the thunder stopped being separate blows and became a single rolling roar, one that shook the scorched earth at the edge of the continent and rattled the teeth in every skull on the field.
Two armies met in the smoke. On one flank, the Terran Federation advanced as though the war were an equation waiting to be solved.
Soldiers in matte-black nano-tech suits marched in lockstep, every boot landing on the same beat, every visor turning in the same direction at the same instant.
Behind them, armored tanks crawled forward beneath the weight of their energy cannons and missile pods, their long shadows sliding over the cratered ground like the shadows of gravestones.
Energy rifles snapped in staccato bursts, thin lines of blue-white light stitching the air, and above the rifle fire a scattering of gifted Terrans hovered with their palms aglow, defying gravity as casually as men standing on a street corner.
Opposite them, the Fantasia Alliance came on like a tide of polished steel.
Their ornate armor flashed in the sunlight, and their ranks moved with the practiced grace of warriors who had been bleeding on battlefields for centuries.
Mages traced glowing runes through the air with their fingertips, and the symbols flared, then burst into fire, lightning, and howling wind.
The ground shuddered as mythical beasts thundered into the fray, scales glinting like wet gemstones, and swords and shields shimmered with the pale green aura of ancient power.
Then the lines collided. Energy bolts struck blades and bucklers with a sound like glass shattering underwater, the shockwaves flattening the grass for yards in every direction.
Fantasian shield-bearers conjured walls of wind, fire, and stone, and the Terran barrage chewed through them one layer at a time.
Swords of hardened light, their edges molten orange, rang against blades steeped in the primal energy of nature, and every clash threw out a spray of sparks that painted the smoke in violent colors.
Above it all, the sky had turned into its own battlefield. Drones and fighter jets screamed overhead, engines howling as they twisted between bursts of elemental fire.
Winged Fantasians dove from the clouds on the backs of scaled beasts, their eyes blazing, breathing storms of flame and lightning that rained down on the ground like the wrath of a drunken god.
Black-suited Terrans darted through the chaos to meet them, weaving upward as though the air itself were a floor.
The cost mounted quickly, and it was staggering.
Jets spiraled out of the sky and broke apart against the earth, their wreckage strewn across the field like the twisted corpses of metal birds.
The ground grew slick with blood and oil. The air thickened with smoke, scorched flesh, and sweat, until every breath tasted like burnt copper.
Bodies lay piled in the craters like discarded dolls, and still the soldiers pressed on, boots grinding over the fallen without so much as a glance down.
In the middle of that slaughter, one figure stood apart.
He was young, hardly more than a boy, clad in a black nano-tech suit that made his hair stand out like a wound. Red, streaked with black at the temples.
His eyes were the same shade of red, and just as cold. A glowing blade hung from his right hand and an energy rifle from his left, and six soldiers had him surrounded.
Three wore Terran nano-suits, their faces twisted with a mixture of rage and desperation.
Three wore Fantasian armor, their weapons raised, their eyes burning with a stubborn, fearless light.
Not one of them looked away from him.
"Is there a point to this pitiful resistance?" the red-haired soldier asked. His voice was flat. Empty.
His gaze slid to the Terran traitors, unhurried, as though he were weighing them. "And why are you siding with them?"
One of the three, a man whose face was pale and slick with sweat, forced the words out between ragged breaths. "Because what you're planning to do is wrong."
A black-haired girl with black eyes stepped forward. Sadness and resolve warred on her face, and neither was winning. "Why are you set on doing this, Na—"
"Do not call me by that name."
The words cut across hers like a blade. His expression had frozen over, and every trace of warmth had been scraped out of his voice.
"You lost the right to speak it the moment you joined the enemy."
The girl bit her lip hard enough to whiten it. Tears gathered at the corners of her eyes, but she held his gaze. "You don't intend to stop this. Do you?"
He smiled. It was small and precise, and it frightened her more than a snarl would have.
"No. I don't."
He tipped his chin toward the three Fantasians. "Not until they're all dead."
The last of the Terrans, a broad young man whose fists had been shaking at his sides, finally snapped. His face flushed crimson.
"Are you insane? Not even the Council would do what you're doing! There are innocent people over there, men, women, children!"
His arm swept out past the edge of the continent, toward the distant sea, and his voice cracked in the middle of the last word.
The red-haired soldier didn't turn to look. "It doesn't matter."
Then, softer, and far worse: "Every Fantasian will die, innocent or guilty, grown or child."
The silence that followed lasted a single heartbeat, and then one of the Fantasian soldiers took a step forward, his eyes blazing. "I won't let you."
Pale green power surged along his blade and washed over his armor, the same primal energy his comrades had been wielding across the field.
His voice trembled with fury, but his feet did not.
The red-haired soldier looked around the ring one last time, letting his gaze rest on each face in turn, as if committing them to memory.
"So be it."
White light tore out of his back. Wings unfurled from between his shoulder blades, vast and glorious, each feather shimmering with a radiance that had no business existing on a battlefield soaked in blood.
They struck the air once, and the ground fell away beneath his feet.
He rose into the smoke-stained sky, red eyes burning, a figure so beautiful and so terrible that even the fighting around them seemed to falter.
And then he dropped toward them like a falling star, and the beginning of the end of the war began.