The Beginning of The End

"Okay... Here we go again."

The sky was a dark blue shimmering with the earth below covered by a settlement. Clouds littered the sky and as they they moved another darker cloud was brought out into view. An odd shape could be seen inside the cloud. A human shape was floating while gazing down determinedly. As he raised his arms, all the clouds in the surrrounding sky rumbled turning darker and more ferocious by the second. The beings at the settlement did not take notice of anything. Then suddenly a voice descended from the heavens.

"Arc Rain!"

Humdreds of arcs of lightning struck down randomly on the settlement. Screams could be heard sounding from every corner of the place. Fires erupted, some structures started crumbling. But if you look closely the settlement was built on the ruins of another settlement. This place used to be the human city of Moscow. Now razed to the ground and stripped of its former historical majesty.

"#%%a human mage%%#!!"

"#%%it's that cockroach Leonidas%%#"

"#%%prepare the defense%%#"

"#%%blast that bastard off the air right now%%#"

Chaos ensued on the ground as the beings cursed the human and began their efforts at retaliation. The human couldn't hear it though as they spoke different languages. Leonidas laughed as he realized that he didn't have to speak their language to imagine what they were saying. Canons the size of a 5 storey building were aimed high up into the air and they began buzzing excitedly, charging up the energy to be fired

"I guess that wasn't enough. Haaah, so annoying... Annoying, annoying, annoying!"

The clouds rumbled once again, seeming to be roiling with heaven's fury. The sky turned a blood red color and hundreds of arcs of red lightning descended and destroyed the canons and obliterated the aliens operating them. Some canons managed to survive though and as they charged to completion rainbow lights filled the sky.

"zzzzZZZWOOOooomm!!"

"Pfft, how many times have I told you guys... Your cannons are trash"

Immediately, the sky almost bent out of shape as if there was something that materialized there. When the aliens looked up they saw not the sky anymore, but their own razed settlement. They panicked as they came to a realization. The rainbow light bounced off and descended back on the cannons, causing them to explode. Explosions cascaded and built up into even bigger explosions obliterating everything in sight. Purple blood flowed on the streets. Limbs were littered everywhere. But not a shred of emotion could be seen on Leonidas' face. All this death. All this destruction. He had already gotten used to it a long time ago.

"Okay time to look for what I came for"

Leonidas slowly descended onto the floor and started walking around. He lifted his right arm up and used his *Spiritual Vision*. On the place where his hand was, he could now see circles and circles of light blue coloured energy. Runic symbols were constantly swimming around until they finally clicked into place. And then the whole energy structure started rotating and pulsating. The rotating circle left his hands and immediately flew off in a direction and Leonidas started following it closely.

Not much time later, he reached a place where the rotating circle had descended into the ground. He swung his hand to the right and all the rubble on the floor got forced to the left. He saw a trap door on the floor and used his arms to force it open. Then he descend down slowly still following the circle. When he landed he looked around and could not help but show a smile on his face.

All around him were boxes and inside these boxes were energy capsules which held an energy source humans call *Aethyr*. Aethyr is the crystallization of years of human efforts in understanding alien technology. It turned out the human energy source was 5x better than what aliens were using. So instead of killing every human they saw, the Kr'roga began enslaving them and forcing them to work at Aethyr Generation Plants and workshops.

When Leonidas wasn't liberating humans from workshops and factories, he was attacking storage depots like this one. This was one of the best loots he had scored in the past few years, so of course he would be happy about it.

"Now how do I transport all of this... Haaah, so annoying. Pfft Hahahaha! So annoying hehehe"

"The only thing annoying is you, Leonidas."

Leonidas was startled. He had fully surveyed the place with his original array *Life Vision*, but he still could not pick up where that came from. Worse yet, this was a human speaking.

"We know you can tell when there are life forces are around you. We're only talking to you through an android in the same room as you.", said the voice.

"We've had this talk before. And I'm not going to talk to a scumbag that turned his back against his own race", said Leonidas.

Some humans had surrendered early on, and although they were not treated like slaves,they would be killed if they ever didn't cooperate or groveled at the feet of the Kr'roga. They were promised passage off the planet once the visitors had completed their divine mission. They would be brought to another planet to either serve as farmers or servants for the rest of their lives. To them, this was better than death. Anything was better than death.

"Well that's a shame. Would you talk to me instead?" said another sweet voice. Leonidas recognized this voice immediately. It was the voice of Emily, his close friend and lover. Emily had been his rock, his shield and his everything for the past 10 years. Of course he would recognize her voice.

"Emily?! Where are you? Did they do anything?! ", Leonidas stammered on. They met 40 years ago after Leonidas rescued people from a factory in what was previously known as Bolivia. She had been malnourished and almost dead, but she still had such bright eyes that Leonidas had felt he needed to be close to her. Since then, Emily had joined the Protectors and worked beside Leonidas for 35 years. The rest was history. Or at least it was meant to be.

"Leo, my love, I'm fine. I'm better than ever. It's just a shame that you're not here with me. Leo, I thought about it a lot. All this fighting. All this pain. Why don't we leave it all behind? Why don't we join the Luminants?" Emily said

The Luminants were the Earth's betrayers. Humanity would not have fallen as quickly or as easily if the Luminants did not cooperate with the aliens. As far as the Luminants were concerned, the fact that the Kr'roga race were bigger, faster, stronger, and smarter than us was a testament to humanity's odds of survival. So they chose to capitulate. Even if it meant they would be servants or slaves it didn't matter to them. It's just natural selection.

"The Luminants? What are you saying?" Leonidas was confused. He started looking around searching searching for any sign that this was a dream or a ruse. He couldn't find any.

"Don't you get it dummy... I'm a spy. And a very good one as well. I was sent to infiltrate the protectors. I'm the reason why all of you have been dying off so quickly in recent years." Emily paused before she continued on "but I just couldn't get rid of you. I care about you because you're a genius. Even Gaia knows it. With you being a part of the Luminants, the Kr'roga will look towards you favorably. Hey, Leonidas why don't you join us"

Leonidas stood rooted on the basement of the underground storage and a lot of things started making sense to him. How the protectors had started vanishing or dying in quick succession. How supplies would start vanishing. How techniques on how to deal with aliens were always counteracted quickly and effectively. There were moles. And possibly thousands of them. And she was the highest ranking one.

The Protectors were established by 2000 awakeners who were one of the few people who could hear Gaia, the spirit of the earth, speak to them. Gaia would give them knowledge on how the universe works, how to influence matter, and how to do Magic. In the tens of millions of awakeners, Leonidas was Gaia's most talented and most powerful Awakener. The Luminants knew this and had been trying to get him on their side, "the winning side" for the longest time.

"what? E-e-e Emily.. You..."

"Yes baby I'm a spy. Gaia doesn't deserve you. Come with us. We'll join the Kr'roga and devour the galaxy... Maybe even devour the UNIVERSE!!" said Emily, possibly with a crazed expression.

"Emily why would you do this? All our years of hard work. All that time. Down the drain. WHY?!"

"We were playing for two different teams. But all that can change. We have you surrounded. Just surrender peacefully and everything can go back to the way it was. We can get to know each other truly this time. Please. Just surrender. Don't make this harder than it has to be. Or else-"

"Or else what? You're gonna kill me?!" Leonidas immediately used his *Life Vision* to look around himself and he saw 100 million odd powerful life signatures descending stealthily from flying ships. Fear Sstarted creeping up to him, but he also felt excitement. " Pfft how many beings have wanted to kill me for the past 50 years. Get in line Emily."

"Are you sure about this? You're making a big mistake. Those are Commander level Kr'roga war soldiers. All to kill you. You won't make it out alive!!", the voice behind the Android exhorted. Commander level warriors were capable of turning a mountain into rubble with one punch and they were also capable of flight. They were frightening opponents for most mages. Most.

"If I surrender right now I might as well have died. That's not who I am.", Leonidas said while preparing some arrays and magic. This was going to be an impossible fight, but he wasn't going to run. "And Emily, you better pray to your gods that I don't make it out of this alive, because if I do, I'm coming for you"

"What a shame... because you won't."

The recording device which was attached to the wall fell down lifelessly over the energy capsules, seemingly out of use. But Leonidas knew things wouldn't be that simple. He cast multiple defensive arrays and just as he was a ought to cast a flight array, the device exploded setting of a cascade of energy capsules explosions. This explosion could be heard from all over the city formerly known as Moscow.

Then, the area 5 kilometers around the underground storage suddenly shook and started sinking until a giant sinkhole could be seen. A ruin in the middle of ruins. Everything was quiet. Even the Kr'roga Commander Level warriors were quiet.

"#%%is he dead%%#"

"#%%humans like him deserve to die%%#

"#%%this is the power of us, the great destroyers%%#"

Murmurs could be heard all around. They couldn't believe this insane problem was easily taken care of like this. They could only thank their own God, the devouring spirit.

" #%%hail RAZ'NGA%%#"

" #%%hail RAZ'NGA%%#"

" #%%hail RAZ'NGA%%#"

Chants could be heard from 100 million individuals. This was the last line of defense. After this, there would be no resistance anymore. Then suddenly the ground in the middle of the sinkhole separated and the disheveled figure of a human could be seen groggily floating out. The human only had his left arm, the other, mangled beyond repair. His eyes were bleeding and blackened: he was blind. He ascended until he was overlooking the huge army of commanders and nodded his head appreciatively.

"Not a bad turnout. Are you sure there's enough of you? "

A Luminant mage began speaking, "Give up Leonidas. There's no need for any of this. If you stand down now we'll-"

"Oh shut up. Let's get this party started!!"

Right then the greatest battle ever fought was fought by one man. And he fell. Not before sending 35.6 million Kr'roga to the void. He now lay on the floor taking his last breaths. His body, or at least what was left of it was unrecognizable. After being decapitated, in a last ditch effort he set off a forbidden array which created a black hole, wiping out 50 million more Kr'roga Commanders. With the last light flashing in his eyes he swore "if I could go back, I swear I'll make these alien bastards regret ever coming here"

As his should separated from his mortal core it was embraced by a gentle energy. This gentle energy whispered to him lovingly...

"GRANTED"