Day one of preparation felt like organized chaos.
Kyla and Josh were flown to Alaska first, where one of the three possible breach points was located—a remote area north of Anchorage, in the middle of a glacier field. The temperature was already below freezing, and according to Dr. Walsh's readings, it was getting colder.
"Dimensional energy is building here," Dr. Walsh said, bundled in a thick parka as she monitored her equipment. "The barrier is definitely weakening. This could be the spot."
"Or it could be Greenland or Antarctica," Captain Rodriguez added. She'd arrived with two hundred soldiers, all equipped with the latest flame units and cold-weather gear. "We're spreading ourselves thin defending three locations."
"We don't have a choice," Kyla said, watching military engineers set up the resonance amplifier. The device was massive—easily the size of a small building—and required a portable generator to power it. "If we guess wrong and the King breaks through unopposed, it's over."
The Alaska site was impressive in its efficiency. Within twelve hours, they had defensive positions established, heat barriers set up, and supplies for a week-long siege. Similar operations were happening in Greenland and Antarctica, coordinated through satellite communications.
"It's amazing what humans can do when the world's ending," Josh observed, watching soldiers work. "Two weeks ago, most of these people didn't believe in other dimensions. Now they're preparing to fight an interdimensional king."
"People adapt," Stevens said. He'd volunteered for the Alaska team, along with six other Tides officers. "It's what we do."
That night, in the temporary barracks set up for the team, Kyla couldn't sleep. Tomorrow was the day. The celestial alignment would occur at exactly 11:47 PM—the same time the original portal had tried to open in Tides, the same time all the weak points had activated. It wasn't a coincidence.
She found Josh outside, staring at the aurora borealis dancing across the sky. The northern lights were beautiful, green and purple waves of color against the darkness.
"Couldn't sleep either?" he asked as she joined him.
"Too much thinking." Kyla leaned against him, sharing warmth. "What if we're at the wrong location? What if the King comes through in Greenland or Antarctica and we're here, useless?"
"Then the teams there will handle it. We've trained them, given them everything they need to know. We have to trust them." Josh put his arm around her. "And if the King does come here, we'll be ready."
"Are you scared?"
"Terrified," Josh admitted. "This is different from the creatures. We've fought them, learned their weaknesses. But the King? We don't know anything about him except that he's powerful enough to command an entire dimension."
They stood in silence, watching the aurora. Somewhere in the Frozen Realm, the King was preparing to cross over. And somewhere on Earth, they'd make their stand.
"Josh?" Kyla said quietly.
"Yeah?"
"If we don't make it through tomorrow... I want you to know that these past few weeks have been the best of my life. Even with the ice monsters and near-death experiences. Maybe especially because of those things, because they showed me what really matters."
Josh turned to face her fully. "Kyla Martinez, are you getting sentimental on me?"
"Shut up." But she was smiling. "I'm trying to have a moment here."
"Okay, moment time." Josh took both her hands. "If we don't make it through tomorrow—which we will, but if we don't—I want you to know that meeting you was the best thing that ever happened to me. You made me want to be braver, better, stronger. You made me realize I could do impossible things. And I love you."
Kyla's breath caught. "You... what?"
"I love you," Josh repeated, looking nervous. "I know it's fast, and we've only known each other a few weeks, but when you're fighting interdimensional invasions together, time kind of speeds up. And I needed to say it before tomorrow, just in case—"
Kyla kissed him. Not the brief kisses they'd shared before, but a real kiss that said everything she couldn't put into words. When they pulled apart, they were both smiling.
"I love you too," she said. "And we're both going to survive tomorrow so I can say it again."
"Deal."
They stayed outside until the aurora faded, then headed back to the barracks. Tomorrow would come whether they were ready or not. At least they'd face it together.
The next day passed in a blur of final preparations. Dr. Walsh ran diagnostics on the resonance amplifier repeatedly, making minor adjustments. Captain Rodriguez drilled the troops on defensive positions. Kyla and Josh reviewed tactics with the team, going over every possible scenario.
By six PM, everything was as ready as it could be. The resonance amplifier hummed with power, the defensive lines were established, and three hundred soldiers stood ready to fight. Similar reports came in from Greenland and Antarctica—both teams were prepared and waiting.
"All we can do now is wait," Morrison said through the satellite link from NYPD headquarters. She was coordinating global communications, keeping all three sites connected. "The celestial alignment begins in five hours and forty-seven minutes."
Those five hours felt like an eternity. Soldiers tried to rest, checked their weapons, wrote letters to loved ones. Kyla called her mom one more time, telling her she loved her, avoiding specifics about what was about to happen. Josh called his family, his voice thick with emotion as he talked to his younger sisters.
At eleven PM, the temperature dropped sharply. Even with their cold-weather gear, everyone felt it—a bone-deep chill that had nothing to do with Alaska's natural climate.
"Dimensional energy is spiking," Dr. Walsh announced, monitoring her equipment. "Something's happening."
The sky above them began to shimmer, like heat waves but reversed—cold waves that made the air itself seem to crystallize. The aurora returned, but wrong, the colors darker, more ominous.
"It's starting early," Captain Rodriguez said, checking the time. 11:23 PM. "We've got twenty-four minutes until the full alignment."
"Maybe the King is impatient," Josh suggested, raising his flame unit.
Then they heard it—a sound that came from everywhere and nowhere, like ice cracking on a massive scale. Above them, the sky began to tear. Not like the weak points they'd seen before, but bigger, more violent. Reality itself was being ripped apart.
"This is it!" Kyla shouted. "He's coming through here! All teams, defensive positions!"
"Antarctica and Greenland teams, redirect!" Morrison ordered through the radio. "King is manifesting in Alaska! I repeat, King is manifesting in Alaska!"
But it would take hours for those teams to reach them. They were on their own.
The tear in the sky widened, and through it, Kyla could see the Frozen Realm. But instead of the empty wasteland they'd glimpsed before, she saw a city—massive towers of ice, structures that defied physics, and at the center, a palace that seemed to stretch into infinity.
And standing at the edge of the tear, looking down at them, was the King.
He was enormous, easily fifty feet tall, made of ice so clear it was almost transparent. But inside that ice, Kyla could see movement—shapes, faces, souls of those who'd been frozen and absorbed into his form. His eyes glowed with blue fire, ancient and intelligent and completely alien.
"Humans," the King's voice echoed across the glacier, speaking directly into their minds. "You have resisted for so long. Destroyed my heralds. Closed my gates. Killed my soldiers. For this, I should simply freeze your world and be done with it."
"Then why don't you?" Kyla shouted back, trying to sound braver than she felt.
The King's laugh was like an avalanche. "Because I am not without mercy. Serve me, and your world will be spared. Become part of my realm willingly, and I will make you immortal, powerful, eternal. Refuse, and I will take your world by force, and everyone you know will become part of me, frozen forever in service."
"We've heard this speech before," Josh called out. "The answer's still no."
"Then you choose extinction." The King began to step through the tear, his massive form descending toward the glacier.
"Now!" Dr. Walsh activated the resonance amplifier.
The device screamed to life, generating waves of energy that hit the King like a physical force. He stumbled, caught mid-step, pushed back by the counter-resonance. The tear in the sky flickered, destabilizing.
"It's working!" Dr. Walsh shouted. "The barrier is pushing back!"
But the King roared in fury, and the temperature dropped even further. Ice began forming on the soldiers' weapons, on their armor, even on their skin. The resonance amplifier's hum changed pitch, struggling against the King's power.
"He's fighting through it!" Captain Rodriguez observed. "The amplifier isn't strong enough!"
"We need more power!" Dr. Walsh was frantically adjusting settings. "The generator can't provide enough energy!"
The King pushed harder, and the resonance amplifier began to crack, ice spreading across its surface. In minutes, it would fail completely, and the King would break through.
Kyla's mind raced. They needed more power, more energy to push the King back. But where—
"The fragments!" she said suddenly. "Dr. Walsh, what happened to the fragments from Tides? The ones we neutralized?"
"They're in storage back in Tides, why—" Dr. Walsh's eyes widened. "You want to use them as a power source?"
"They're dimensional energy generators, right? If we can reactivate them and channel that energy into the amplifier—"
"It could work," Dr. Walsh said quickly. "But we'd need to fly them here, reactivate them in a controlled way, and integrate them into the amplifier's system. That's hours of work!"
"Then we buy you hours," Kyla said. She turned to the assembled soldiers. "We hold the line! Keep the King occupied! Dr. Walsh, coordinate with Tides—get those fragments here now!"
"On it!" Dr. Walsh grabbed her radio, shouting orders.
Captain Rodriguez was already directing troops. "All units, open fire! Aim for the King! Slow him down!"
Three hundred flame units opened up simultaneously, streams of fire hitting the King from all directions. He raised one massive arm, and ice shields materialized, absorbing the flames. But it was slowing him, forcing him to focus on defense instead of pushing through.
"Keep the pressure on!" Rodriguez ordered. "Don't let up!"
The King swung his other arm, and a wave of ice spikes erupted from the ground, impaling three soldiers before they could dodge. Their bodies froze instantly, becoming ice sculptures.
"Fall back to second line!" Kyla ordered, horror and fury mixing in her chest. "Spread out! Don't give him grouped targets!"
They fought with everything they had. Flame units, explosives, even small arms fire—anything to keep the King distracted. But he was too powerful, too ancient. Every attack barely scratched him, while his counterattacks killed multiple soldiers with ease.
Stevens went down with a frozen leg. Delgado was hit by ice shards, her arm shattered. The body count was rising, and the King was still pushing through, the resonance amplifier failing inch by inch.
"How long until the fragments arrive?" Josh shouted, melting an ice spike before it could impale Kyla.
"Twenty minutes!" Dr. Walsh responded. "They're being flown in by military jet!"
Twenty minutes. An eternity in combat. Kyla didn't know if they could hold that long.
The King raised both arms, and the temperature plummeted. Soldiers' weapons started freezing solid, flame units sputtering out. Even the defensive heaters were losing their battle against the cold.
"He's too strong!" Rodriguez said, her breath coming out as ice crystals. "We can't hold him!"
Then Josh did something incredibly stupid and brave. He grabbed a flame unit with a full tank, modified it quickly with parts from his belt, and turned it into an improvised explosive. Then he ran directly at the King.
"Josh, no!" Kyla screamed.
But Josh was already moving, sprinting across the ice, dodging the King's attacks. He got within fifty feet of the massive figure and threw the explosive directly at the King's face.
The explosion was enormous, flames engulfing the King's head and upper body. For the first time, they heard him make a sound of pain—a shriek that shattered ice formations for miles around.
Josh ran back toward the defensive line, the King's attention fully on him now. A massive hand swept down, and Kyla watched in horror as it caught Josh, lifting him into the air.
"JOSH!" She ran forward, firing her flame unit uselessly at the King's arm.
The King held Josh up, examining him like an interesting specimen. "Ah. You are the one who closed the first gate. The one who started this resistance." His voice was colder now, personal. "For that, you will have the honor of being the first to join me."
Ice began spreading from the King's hand, covering Josh's legs, his torso, reaching for his head.
"NO!" Kyla fired point-blank at the ice, trying to melt it, but it was spreading too fast.
Then she heard the sound of jet engines. The military transport was arriving early, pushing its engines to maximum speed.
"Fragments in position!" Dr. Walsh shouted. "But I need five minutes to integrate them into the amplifier!"
"We don't have five minutes!" Kyla screamed. The ice was reaching Josh's neck.
That's when something impossible happened.
The ice suddenly stopped spreading. Josh's eyes snapped open, glowing with the same blue fire as the King's. And when he spoke, his voice echoed with power.
"You made a mistake," Josh said, but it wasn't entirely Josh speaking. "You thought we were weak. You thought we'd break. But humans... we're survivors. And we learn."
The ice covering Josh shattered outward, exploding like a bomb. The King stumbled back, releasing him. Josh fell toward the ground, and Kyla caught him, both of them hitting the ice hard.
"Josh! Josh, talk to me!" Kyla held him, terrified. His eyes were still glowing, and his skin was cold, so cold.
"I'm okay," he managed, though his voice sounded wrong—overlapping, like multiple people speaking. "The ice... when it touched me, I felt the dimension. Felt the King's power. And I took some of it. Just a little. Just enough."
"Impossible," the King said, sounding surprised for the first time. "No human should be able to withstand—"
"Fragments integrated!" Dr. Walsh announced. "Activating now!"
The resonance amplifier roared to life with ten times its previous power. The dimensional energy from the fragments channeled through it, creating a wave of force that hit the King like a tsunami.
He roared in fury and pain as the barrier pushed back hard, forcing him away from Earth. The tear in the sky began to close, reality reasserting itself.
"No!" The King fought against it, but the amplifier's power was too strong now. "This is not over! I will return! I will—"
The tear sealed shut with a thunderclap, cutting off his words. The King was gone, pushed back to his own dimension.
Silence fell across the glacier.
Then cheering erupted from the surviving soldiers. They'd done it. They'd actually stopped the King.
Kyla held Josh, who was still glowing faintly. "Are you okay? What happened to you?"
"I don't know," Josh admitted. His eyes were returning to normal, the glow fading. "When the ice touched me, I felt... connected. Like I could feel the Frozen Realm. And I just... pushed back. Used his own power against him."
Dr. Walsh rushed over, scanner in hand. "Incredible. You've somehow absorbed dimensional energy. You're radiating the same signature as the fragments." She looked at them seriously. "Josh, you might have just become the first human-dimensional hybrid."
"Is that bad?" Josh asked.
"I have no idea. But we're definitely going to study it." Dr. Walsh was already taking readings. "This could change everything about how we fight dimensional threats."
Captain Rodriguez approached, looking exhausted but satisfied. "Casualties are heavy. We lost forty-seven soldiers, another sixty-three wounded. But we won. The King is back in his dimension, and Earth is safe."
"For now," Kyla said quietly. She'd heard the King's last words. This wasn't over. He'd be back.
But that was a problem for another day.
For now, they'd won. They'd saved the world.
And somehow, impossibly, she and Josh were both still alive.
End of Chapter 22