Warships lined the palace's eastern yard, their once dormant engines now pulsing with artificial breath. Agastya had overridden the hangar lockouts just in time. Massive, silver hulled vessels relics from a forgotten age shook free of the dust and flickered to life, their boarding ramps unfolding like bridges between despair and escape. From across the city, civilians poured in women dragging wounded husbands, rebels carrying the broken bodies of their comrades, children stumbling through smoke and debris. No more orders were shouted. No more battle cries filled the air. Just motion, relentless and desperate.
Pawan and Sumit were the first to meet the arriving crowd. They sprinted across the platform, pulling civilians into loading bays, scanning wristbands, guiding children. Mansi and Suchitra directed foot traffic with the precision of battle-hardened tacticians, their faces streaked with ash, their eyes never blinking. Suchitra stood atop a lifter, her voice booming through a makeshift comm system, coordinating pilots and rerouting overcrowded ships.
Not one of them had asked to leave. They all stayed. Those who had crossed into this world, who had walked through fractured time to fight this war they remained behind, every one of them.
Inside the palace, Shivam and the others moved swiftly. They checked blast shielding, monitored boarding rates, double checked the outer rim in case any small ships could be reactivated. Each moment brought more tremors. The city itself felt like it was trying to tear free from its foundations. When they reached the final launch bay, half of the warships had already begun lifting off. The sky was filled with their engines rows of flying fortresses pushing through the ashen clouds, descending toward the ground far below, carrying what little hope they could salvage.
And then came the moment they hadn't dared hope for.
A static laced voice crackled through the comms.
"This is Commander Rathod of Mayapuri. Reinforcement ships inbound. Drop points synced. Stand by for support."
Heads turned. Shivam's heart jolted.
In the far horizon, ships emerged smaller than the palace carriers, but fast, sleek, fully armed. Dozens of them. They streamed in through the cloud breach, forming a shield wall across the sky. Rathod's lead vessel pulled ahead, and right beside him, unmistakable in his signature black armor, stood Robin Rayudu. The Mayapuri forces had come not for war, but for evacuation.
The final hope had arrived.
Shivam let out a slow breath as more civilians surged onto the palace platforms, pouring into the new ships. The load balance started to stabilize. There was a chance now an actual chance that everyone could make it out.
Everyone but them.
He turned. Adhivita stood a few paces behind, silent, watching him. She had known the choice was coming. It had always been coming. Her eyes were dry, but the pain in them said more than any tears could. She stepped closer, and the movement of her hand reaching for his felt like it stretched time.
"You're not going to stop me," she said softly.
Shivam looked down; his hand still wrapped around hers. "I have to."
"I'm not just some heir. I'm not just another name in a bloodline. I want to fight with you."
"And you have," he said, his voice low, hoarse. "More than anyone."
The silence between them was heavy, dense with everything they hadn't said and everything they already understood. Around them, the final ships were beginning their ascent. The city was hollowing out, losing weight, losing life.
Adhivita stepped forward, her forehead resting gently against his. "I'm not ready."
"Neither am I," Shivam whispered.
They kissed.
It wasn't dramatic. It wasn't fiery. It was quiet, still like the end of something beautiful rather than the start of something new. When they pulled apart, she lingered a moment longer, eyes locked with his.
"Try to be alive," she said, smiling through clenched teeth. "Just… try."
He nodded, though the motion hurt more than he expected.
Aanchal appeared behind her, gently touching her arm. Naina joined too, and together they pulled her away not with force, but with understanding. Adhivita didn't fight them this time.
As the final ship's ramp closed behind her, she turned and looked back one last time. Shivam raised his hand. She placed hers against the glass. And then the ship rose.
The wind swallowed her silhouette. Her figure became smaller, smaller until all that remained was light. Back on the ground, Shivam turned. The others were waiting. Aman, Naina, Aanchal, Dikshant, Pawan, Sumit, Suchitra, Mansi, Anchal Rathod ten of them now, standing side by side at the edge of a world about to end.
None of them spoke. They didn't need to. They already knew what came next.
The moment the last ship vanished into the clouds; a strange stillness fell over the city like the calm before a breath no one wanted to take. The ten of them stood there for a while, staring into the sky, trying to hold on to what they'd just let go.
Then Aman broke the silence.
"Well, that was dramatic as hell," he said, nudging Shivam with his elbow. "You kiss her, the ship rises, she stares out the window, you stand there looking noble. I swear, if you had a cape, it would've fluttered."
Shivam let out a dry, half laugh. "Shut up."
Aanchal tilted her head. "You did look like a rejected poem when you raised your hand."
"Truly tragic," Naina added, nodding sagely. "You'll make an excellent ghost."
Even Pawan chuckled, and the sound felt like air in cracked lungs. For a moment just a flicker of time they were not saviors or soldiers or sacrifices. Just friends. Stubborn, stupid, brave friends who had made their choice.
Rathod stood nearby, arms folded, gaze distant.
Pawan glanced sideways, then reached out slowly hesitant, uncertain. His fingers brushed against Rathod's, and to his surprise, Rathod didn't pull away. Instead, he looked down, blinked once, and gently threaded his fingers through Pawan's.
Neither of them said anything. They didn't need to. Some stories didn't start with explosions. Some just needed a hand held at the end.
Shivam looked at all of them their dirt streaked faces, the dried blood on their uniforms, the ridiculous pride in their tired eyes. "Let's end this," he said.
They walked together.
The Space Time Ripper pulsed in the center of the palace's engine chamber like a beating heart on the verge of a seizure. The room was hot sickly hot as if the machine had bled into the air, infecting it with radiation and raw energy. Sparks leapt from broken conduits, electricity cracked across the ceiling, and the core itself rotated erratically, glowing brighter with every second.
They spread out without needing instructions.
Shivam approached the central brace. Aman and Aanchal took the western pylons. Naina and Dikshant moved to the capacitor banks. The others surrounded the containment housing. Every step they took crackled with resistance magnetic pressure pushed against their bodies, warping the space around their bones.
Shivam grabbed one of the central rods and began to pull.
It resisted, groaning like a dying beast. Metal warped. Steam burst from its edges. He grits his teeth and yanked harder. Across the chamber, Aman let out a battle cry as he tore a panel free, exposing the spinning internal drive. Naina focused her last few arrows and fired them like surgical blades into the machine's weakest links.
Aanchal used her sword as a lever, prying apart a reinforced conduit. Sparks exploded, cutting her cheek open but she didn't stop. Sumit and Mansi worked in tandem, disabling key control circuits while Rathod and Suchitra attacked the outer shielding with raw force and detonation charges. Dikshant's gauntlets overloaded one of the core's feedback rings, flooding the chamber with searing light.
Shivam gave one final, desperate pull and the central brace snapped.
The light inside the machine pulsed once. Then twice. Then everything began to vibrate.
"It's breaking," Dikshant shouted. "The core's destabilizing!"
"Back to the center!" Shivam called. "Now!"
They regrouped, standing shoulder to shoulder around the exposed, trembling machine. It wailed like a creature torn between realities. The energy beam flickered above them, then began to spiral inward collapsing instead of rising. Time twisted. Colors inverted. Their skin burned from the pressure.
No one spoke. There were no speeches. No declarations. Just hands. They grabbed one another fingers interlocked, arms around shoulders, leaning into each other as the chamber filled with white. And then Silence.
A white explosion swallowed the floating city whole. There was no sound. No debris. Just light rising, expanding, and then vanishing in an instant like breath into the stars. From the window of the final evac ship, Adhivita saw it all.
She had watched the city fade into the clouds below, watched the sky fracture, watched the beam collapse in on itself. But when the explosion came, she couldn't breathe.
The light filled the horizon. For a moment, it looked like dawn. And then it was gone. She pressed her hands against the glass, heart pounding like it was trying to break out of her chest.
"No," she whispered. "No, no, no"
Tears streamed down her face, hot and unrelenting. She didn't wipe them away. She just stared. Waiting. Hoping for a miracle that didn't come.
The sky sealed. The breach between worlds closed. And the floating city, along with everyone who stayed behind, was no more.
Adhivita collapsed to her knees beside the window, sobbing into her fists, as the evacuation ship cut through the clouds carrying freedom, and the unbearable weight of those who bought it.