The elevator doors whispered open, a soft hiss that barely registered in the quiet hum of his penthouse. Legnus Cross stepped onto the private landing, his boots clicking against the polished floor, and for a brief moment he allowed himself to imagine that this place, his home, could provide some small measure of refuge. It was a strange fusion of luxury and obsession: sleek chrome counters, minimalist furniture, and yet a scattering of mechanical instruments and soldering equipment hinted at the mind that never rested. The faint smell of coffee lingered, mingling strangely with the sharp tang of ozone and metal. He had come home tonight seeking solitude, a moment of quiet in which the world outside could not intrude.
But the quiet had a fragility to it. Even before the world betrayed its normal rhythm, Leo felt the tension pressing against his nerves. The air seemed too still, the hum of the ventilation system too deliberate. He walked to the bar, poured himself a generous measure of amber liquid, and allowed himself the brief comfort of its warmth sliding down his throat. He turned toward the holographic display, a remnant of his old life, and replayed recordings of his experiments. Seeing the younger version of himself, fervently working, body bent over delicate instruments, brought a sting of both pride and regret. The old wounds still throbbed: the public humiliation, the career that had ended too soon, the clashes with Ethan Vale that had pushed him further from the world than he had intended.
Then, without warning, the earth itself seemed to protest.
The glass in his hand trembled violently against the countertop, spilling its contents. The holographic display flickered and stuttered, twisting into a maze of static before shutting off entirely. Bottles toppled from their shelves with a crashing chorus, and the structure of the building groaned, as though it resented the disturbance. Leo's body tensed. His prosthetic right hand flexed instinctively, the servos whining softly beneath his skin. Every muscle screamed at him to move, to prepare, to survive.
He lunged to the window, pulling back the heavy, sound-dampening curtains. His heart caught in his chest. The city that had always seemed solid, dependable, now looked fragile and small beneath the shadow of an impossible sight.
A black-metal pillar, impossibly vast, descended from the sky. Smooth, silent, and absolute in its presence, it struck the outskirts of the city like a spear against flesh. Buildings crumbled instantly beneath its weight. The streets became rivers of dust, and the pre-dawn sky glowed with the shock of shattered concrete and twisted steel. The sheer immensity of it was terrifying, a structure that made skyscrapers appear as toys, and yet there was no sound. Or rather, the sound traveled slowly, as if reality itself had lagged in recognition of the calamity.
Leo's mind raced. He tried to process the impossible geometry, the sheer size of what he was witnessing. Each thought was a struggle against disbelief. This was not an earthquake, not a missile, not even the erratic collapse of a satellite. This was something else entirely. Something deliberate. Something alien.
His comm-unit blinked insistently, buzzing with urgent notifications. News alerts screamed from every channel, emergency signals overlaying each other until it became a cacophony. He ignored them. There was only one focus. Only one thing that mattered. The pillar.
Across the sky, the clouds ruptured in a ribbon of blinding light. It was as though the heavens themselves had torn open. Leo squinted, shielding his eyes, and the figure appeared: impossibly tall, impossible in scale, a presence that bent perspective itself. Its face was indistinct, almost an abstraction, but its voice was precise, omnipresent, echoing through every device capable of transmission.
"You have had your magic for one hundred years. You have learned how to use it. Now the games will be fair. We do this because we care. It is time for Earth to join the Games."
The words were calm. Detached. Almost gentle. And yet the meaning carved into the city beneath him was devastating.
Leo's chest tightened. His thoughts scattered and collided. One part of him wanted to flee, to vanish, to pretend that this was some elaborate simulation. Another part, the part that had spent years perfecting machines, predicting outcomes, dissecting variables, wanted to understand. What was this structure? Why now? Why Earth? The questions collided like steel in a forge, but no answers came.
The comm-unit chimed again. This time it was persistent, insistent. He hesitated before answering, his thumb hovering over the call. Jessica. He knew she would be frantic. She always was when the world tilted even slightly from what she considered normal. He took a breath.
"Leo! Are you alright? What the hell is going on?" Her voice was high, edged with panic, and something in that tone pried at a part of him he kept carefully locked away.
"I am fine, Jessica. As fine as anyone can be when alien monoliths are crashing through their city," he said, his voice flat, controlled. The words sounded hollow even to him.
"Do not joke, Leo! Mom and Dad are frantic! They said you would not answer them. You always do this. You vanish. Why is it always like this? Now of all times!"
He pinched the bridge of his nose. The world was ending outside, and she still clung to old grievances. "I am aware. I do not pretend they are not concerned. But this is not the time for old arguments. Nothing we have ever fought over matters compared to what is happening right now."
"You always say that! You always retreat behind your knowledge, your work, your experiments! Mom and Dad were never cruel, Leo! They just… had rules, traditions. You cannot justify everything with your own suffering!"
Leo clenched his jaw. He could almost see the stubborn streak of their childhood battles in her voice, the same insistence he had met a thousand times before. But it felt irrelevant now. All that mattered was survival, comprehension, the unbearable weight of witnessing something so incomprehensible.
"I am hanging up, Jessica. Stay safe," he said finally. Her voice faltered for a moment, and he ended the call.
Alone again, the city below him writhed under the touch of the pillar. Emergency lights cut through the rising dust, the distant wail of sirens a constant reminder that humanity was scrambling, panicking, failing. He felt a cold emptiness gnawing at his chest. The old arguments, the old wounds, the old disappointments—they meant nothing. They could wait. This was real. This was now.
Leo stepped closer to the window, his reflection a ghost against the chaos beyond. He flexed his prosthetic hand, feeling the servos click softly under his skin. He did not know what the Games were. He did not know what this figure wanted or why humanity had been chosen. All he knew was that the world had shifted in a single moment, and that the next steps would be his alone to choose.
He drew a slow, deliberate breath, tasting the cold air through the sealed window. And in that instant, a thought struck him: if the world had become this strange, this impossible, perhaps it was time for him to stop hiding. Perhaps it was time to face the future without apology or hesitation.
The pillar, black and unyielding, gleamed faintly in the early light. Lightning forked across the sky, illuminating the devastation in sharp, fleeting bursts. And somewhere deep in his mind, beneath the panic, beneath the awe, beneath the lingering bitterness of old wounds, a spark ignited. He would survive. He would understand. And when the time came, he would act.
For the first time in a long while, he felt the smallest flicker of certainty amid the chaos.
The world was ending, but Leo Cross would not go quietly.