SUPREMACY- Clash Between Heroes and Villains Chapter 54:Westonglappa at War

 The next morning came early in Starrup, and the green continent wore it well.

Sunlight bled through the high glass of Starbeam's residence in Termal City, painting the corridors with soft emerald bands. Outside, the metropolis was already awake—hover traffic humming in neat lanes, distant transit chimes, the faint whisper of wind over elevated gardens. Everything looked calm enough to convince a weaker mind that war was a rumor.

Inside the guest wing, two doors remained closed.

Sunbeam and Moonbeam—two Absolute Leaders, two allies who had arrived as emergency guests—were asleep in the same suite, exhaustion pulling them down like gravity. The night had been too long, the terror too close. Even immortals could feel the weight of hours when the world refused to stop bleeding.

And then, quietly, the wrong kind of "hospitality" drifted in.

Starley moved through the doorway with practiced confidence, like someone who belonged anywhere she wished to be. She had the easy grace of a swan—petite, polished, beautiful in a way that looked effortless. The air around her smelled faintly of perfume and warm steam, as if she'd already bathed and decided the day could wait for her.

She looked at the sleeping pair, and her smile sharpened into something playful... and something else. Something private.

Starley leaned near the bedside and, with slow, deliberate mischief, tugged at blankets and clothing with the care of someone staging a scene. Not violence. Not damage. Just theft—of privacy, of dignity, of control. She adjusted fabric, slid garments aside, and hovered like she was trying to decide what kind of story she wanted them to wake up inside.

Sunbeam shifted with a soft grunt, his brow tightening as if some instinct had sensed intrusion. Moonbeam exhaled in a small, sleepy sound, her arm curling—half-dream, half-reflex—like she was reaching for warmth that wasn't there.

Starley watched them breathe.

"Cute," she whispered to herself, and there was no kindness in the word—only possession.

Sunbeam's eyes fluttered open.

For half a second, he didn't understand the room. Then he saw her, close. Too close. Her hand near the bedding. Her expression too satisfied.

His voice came out low and sharp, like a blade half-drawn. "What are you doing."

Starley pressed a finger to her lips, smiling like the world was a joke she'd already solved.

"Shhh," she murmured, and her tone was light, almost singsong. "If you shout, she wakes up. And then it's awkward."

Sunbeam's stare hardened immediately, the orange in his eyes brightening—not with heat, but with warning.

"Step back."

Starley's smile didn't vanish. It widened.

"You don't want a scene," she said softly. "Neither do I."

Moonbeam shifted again, a sleepy murmur catching in her throat, her face relaxed in the fragile safety of unconsciousness. She had no idea. That was the point, and Sunbeam realized it so cleanly that his jaw tightened once—hard.

He didn't move like a man who feared harm. He moved like a leader protecting a boundary.

Starley finally lifted both hands and retreated a step, still amused, still unbothered. "Fine, fine. I was just checking on my guests."

Sunbeam sat up, pulling the blanket higher with controlled irritation. His voice lowered, carefully measured so it wouldn't carry.

"Do not," he said, "ever cross that line again."

Starley tilted her head, pretending to consider the warning like it was an invitation.

Then she turned away as if bored, gliding toward the door with the same ease she'd entered with.

As she left, she paused with her hand on the frame, speaking over her shoulder.

"Rise and shine, love birds."

The knock came a moment later—loud, cheerful, and performative.

Then the door opened again, as if she'd never been inside the room at all.

Starley stepped in wearing a bright morning gown and cute shorts, hair done, posture perfect—an innocent host in a peaceful country. She blinked at the scene like she'd stumbled into it by accident.

"Oh my," she said with a little giggle. "You both look... rested."

Sunbeam's expression didn't change.

Moonbeam's eyes were open now, confusion settling across her face as she took in disheveled bedding, missing clothing, the strange sense that something had happened without her permission. She gripped the blanket tighter, instincts flaring.

"What...?" Moonbeam began, voice cautious. "Why are we—"

Starley waved her hand like the question was silly. "Travel fatigue. You probably undressed in your sleep. Happens alllll the time."

Sunbeam's eyes cut to Starley—one clean warning.

Moonbeam's confusion sharpened into suspicion. "That doesn't—"

"Ooh! Shower time!" Starley cut in brightly, clapping her hands once. "Come on. It'll help you wake up. We can save water and time—Starrup efficiency!"

"No," Moonbeam said, flat and firm.

Starley blinked. Her smile twitched, but she recovered quickly.

Sunbeam stood, calm but dangerous in the quiet way he carried authority. "We will handle ourselves. Please leave."

For the first time, Starley looked faintly annoyed—like she wasn't used to being refused.

But she still smiled.

"Fine," she sang. "Breakfast in twenty."

And she left, footsteps light, as if nothing had happened.

Moonbeam's gaze stayed on the door after it closed.

Sunbeam looked at her, voice low. "I woke up and caught her trying to stage... something. I stopped it."

Moonbeam's eyes narrowed, a coldness gathering behind them. "Then she's not playing games. She's testing borders."

Sunbeam nodded once. "Exactly."

And somewhere deeper in the residence—two doors down, behind another wall—Starbeam was already awake, already at his desk, already letting the day's reality slam into his brain like a report that never ended.

He sat in front of his laptop with a cup of coffee that had gone half-cold, green eyes scanning classified emails with ruthless precision.

Starkohm: airport updates, incoming traffic logs.

Stargin: a casual invitation to play pool—too normal for a world on fire.

Stargale: brief morning greetings—routine pretending to survive.

Starcrystal: public news reports—Sunbeam and Moonbeam's presence becoming a political storm inside Starrup.

Starrigan: missing ammunition delivery for the Starrperion ship.

Starshine: financial anomalies—sixty trillion chromebytes recovered like it was pocket change.

Starbeam read them all without changing his face. It was the only way he stayed sane.

Then he opened a separate inbox—one he didn't check often.

Yellow-gold highlights.

Galaxbeam's old messages.

Months old. Some older than that.

Training notes. Philosophy. Warfare math. Environmental doctrine. Martial discipline. Predictions written like reminders from someone who didn't experience time the way others did.

Starbeam rubbed his forehead, a faint ache behind his eyes. He didn't fear Galaxbeam.

He feared what Galaxbeam implied.

A knock interrupted the thought.

"Hey, Starbeam baby!" Starley's voice—bright and sugary—slipped through the crack of the slightly-open door before she even entered.

She walked in wrapped in a bath towel, hair in another towel, wearing the smug expression of someone who had already done something and expected to be forgiven for it later.

Starbeam stared at her without warmth.

"You're up early," she said, as if that was the important thing.

Starbeam's reply was flat. "Don't involve allies in your... impulses."

Starley pouted. "Hospitality."

Starbeam didn't blink. "Violation."

A small silence fell, sharp as glass.

Starley's smile returned, but it wasn't sweet anymore. "You're no fun."

"Correct," Starbeam said, standing. "Get dressed. We're having breakfast. Then we move to the fortress. We have a war to prevent."

Starley huffed like a spoiled actress denied applause, but she obeyed—mostly because she liked the idea of being seen beside power.

Breakfast later happened with polished cutlery and an ugly undercurrent.

Sunbeam ate with controlled calm, refusing to look rattled. Moonbeam ate less, eyes scanning the room the way a commander scans exits. Starley sat across from them with dreamy intensity that made the air feel uncomfortable—her gaze lingering too long, her smile too pleased.

Starbeam read a green newspaper like he could bury himself inside policy and pretend social dynamics weren't a battlefield.

Sunbeam finally cleared his throat. "Starbeam—"

"Ohhh don't disturb him," Starley chimed in, wagging a finger. "He's busy."

Sunbeam blinked, confused by the audacity.

Moonbeam's stare turned colder. "We will be speaking to him."

Starbeam lowered the paper without looking at Starley. "You will. After we arrive at the fortress."

His tone ended the conversation.

Outside, Starrup's sky was partly cloudy, and the city looked beautiful enough to make tragedy feel obscene.

They arrived at the fortress, walking wide hallways where green banners hung like quiet promises. The place smelled of polished metal and faint ozone—power running clean, infrastructure humming, an empire that knew how to survive pressure.

Down the hall, three elites waited.

Starcraft. Starwars. Startrek.

They stood at attention, crisp and proud, eyes sharp.

"Xtreme Vice Colonel," Startrek reported. "Objective complete. Enemy units cleared from the northern region of Sollarisca."

Starbeam's hand lifted slightly—an invitation for Sunbeam to receive the report.

Sunbeam's posture tightened, eyes narrowing as if the word "Sollarisca" physically hurt.

Startrek continued. "Your footholds are no longer occupied, General Sunbeam."

Starwars added, stern. "Remain on guard. Retaliation is likely."

Starcraft stepped forward, studying Sunbeam with open curiosity. "So you are the one everyone is talking about. Sunbeam. Nice to meet you."

Sunbeam forced a diplomatic nod, but his shoulders were tense. "People here don't look like they want me here."

Moonbeam murmured, "I feel the same."

Starbeam's reply was calm, but absolute. "You are welcomed in Starrup. I made that clear."

Then he turned and moved them toward the intel wing.

Inside the intel room, only Starintelligence waited—sitting with his back turned, typing on a laptop, sipping coffee like he was trying to convince the morning to behave.

He spun around.

"Good morning, Xtreme Vice Colonel."

"Morning," Starbeam replied.

Starintelligence's gaze flicked to Sunbeam and Moonbeam. "Starwis and Starwise are off-duty today. But they left notice. You are accompanied."

Starbeam nodded. "Where is Starley."

Starintelligence's mouth twitched, like he regretted the next sentence. "She's... around."

As if summoned by the word, Starley appeared behind them, smiling too brightly.

"I'm here," she said. "I had errands."

Starintelligence didn't bother reacting. He moved on.

"There is someone who arrived without clearance," he said. "He requested to meet you, Sunbeam, and Moonbeam. And you as well, Vice Colonel."

Starley perked up instantly. "Me too?"

Starintelligence sighed. "Presumably. He didn't give a name. He didn't want his description disclosed. He is waiting in a private conference room."

Sunbeam's skin prickled. "That gives me chills."

Moonbeam nodded once. "Let's see."

Starbeam led them down the corridor and placed his hand on the security reader. The door slid open with a clean hiss.

A young man stood inside—seventeen in appearance, adult in presence, gold-yellow hair and eyes like captured sunlight. His attire blended traditional Chinese elegance with the weight of something futuristic: cloak, formal dress, heavy astronaut-like boots. He smiled like the universe was his classroom.

He saluted.

"Greetings, Xtreme Vice Colonel Starbeam. General Sunbeam. Mistress Moonbeam. And Starley."

Starley blinked. "How do you know my name?"

Starbeam's face changed first—subtle, controlled, but real. Recognition.

"Professor..." Starbeam's voice lowered. "Galaxbeam."

Galaxbeam's smile widened. "Duh duh. Nah nah. Relax."

Sunbeam stared, unsettled by the gold radiance. Moonbeam's eyes narrowed, instinctively defensive.

Galaxbeam spoke rapidly, like a man who had rehearsed being impossible.

"I won't waste time pretending I followed rules," he said cheerfully. "Your security is great, Starbeam. I enjoyed walking through it. Time froze. I moved. I arrived. Done."

Sunbeam started to speak, but Galaxbeam lifted a hand and cut him off with a calm throat-clear that felt like the universe itself saying wait.

"Too many questions," Galaxbeam said, amused. "Let's relocate. This room is boring."

Starbeam didn't protest. He only nodded, like part of him already knew resistance was pointless.

Galaxbeam snapped his fingers.

The world shifted.

Not blurred—replaced.

They stood in a vast room decorated with astronomy murals and time-clocks, a university-classroom aesthetic built like a command sanctum. The ceiling looked like a controlled night sky. The air smelled crisp, like a place where thought was treated as law.

Starley gawked. "Whoa..."

Galaxbeam laughed softly. "See? Better."

They moved through hallways filled with youthful faces of similar gold-yellow features—students, elites, attendants—who watched the visitors with quiet certainty. No shock. No alarm. As if their arrival had been scheduled months ago.

Soon they entered a wide command hub where two figures waited.

Galaxxus greeted them with measured respect.

Galaxtres leaned in and kissed Galaxbeam with casual intimacy, like this was a normal morning.

Starley's eyes widened again. "So you're really—"

Galaxbeam waved his hand. "Yes. No. Whatever. Titles bore me."

He turned serious enough for the room to feel colder.

"The Darkened and Blackened Regimes will strike again," he said, looking at Sunbeam and Moonbeam in sequence. "You have survived the first wave. That does not mean the ocean has stopped."

Moonbeam's voice was controlled. "Why tell us this."

"Because," Galaxbeam said simply, "you keep treating the next attack like a surprise. Stop."

He spoke of patterns. Of retaliation. Of escalation. Of how villains never forgive humiliation—they avenge it publicly, brutally, and with timing meant to break morale.

Then he softened again, as if realizing he'd walked them to the edge of panic and didn't want them tumbling over it.

"Tea," he declared. "Twenty minutes. You look like you're going to faint from prophecy."

On the seventh-floor deck, wind moved gently through the air, and far below, the Galaxenchi city-scape glittered like a patient constellation. Fortune cookies arrived with fresh tea.

Sunbeam cracked his open and read a line about rebirth.

Moonbeam's said something similar.

Starley's fortune teased a future moment "when the time is right."

Starbeam's warned about faithfulness to one's deeds.

Sunbeam didn't laugh. He didn't argue. He sipped tea and watched Galaxbeam as if trying to decide whether he was ally, threat, or both.

Galaxbeam watched him back like a teacher reading a student's homework without touching the paper.

Then Galaxbeam clapped once. "Alright. Enough. I return you."

A snap.

They were back in Starrup's conference room.

Another snap.

Moonbeam vanished—returned to Lunna, to her headquarters, to her own responsibilities.

Another snap.

Sunbeam stood on a hill in Sollarisca, wind cutting over his armor, the sky cloudy and quiet as if it didn't know it was being watched.

Galaxbeam remained with him—only a moment.

He pointed up.

"There," Galaxbeam said. "The dormant I.S.I.S. cannon. You don't have time to debate me. Destroy it before it wakes."

Sunbeam's voice tightened. "How can you—"

"Less questions," Galaxbeam cut in, tone almost kind. "More action."

Sunbeam lifted his left hand and focused.

Orange energy gathered, burning hot and disciplined—condensing into a visible radiance that pulsed like a second sun forming in his palm. The air around him shimmered. The clouds above thinned as if frightened.

He fired.

A bright orange ray tore into the sky, vanishing into orbit with impossible speed.

Seconds later, the heavens answered.

A distant flash. A swelling bloom of light.

Then an eruption—massive, violent, clean—engulfing the superweapon and its repair drones in a single annihilating burst.

Galaxbeam watched, pleased.

He held up a large tablet connected to Galaxy Regime satellites, showing the cannon's systems blinking out, tumbling into dead silence.

"Excellent," Galaxbeam said lightly. "Now the Blackened Regime loses a cornerstone."

Sunbeam stared at the screen, breath caught. "So you really are—"

Galaxbeam's smile softened into something almost human. "I know more than you. That doesn't mean I solve your life for you."

He glanced toward the ruins of Sunbeam's cities, the scars across Sollarisca.

"Shame," Galaxbeam said. "You've suffered too much infrastructure loss."

Sunbeam's voice went quiet. "We'll rebuild."

Galaxbeam shrugged. "Or..."

He snapped his fingers.

And across Sollarisca, lights returned.

Not slowly. Not in stages.

Instantly.

In Oranjukai, inside a major military building downtown, Solarstorm and Solarstream were meeting Commander Starrastride near a convoy of supply trucks when the room's dead monitors blinked alive at once. The hum of power surged through walls that had been quiet for weeks.

Outside, soldiers shouted in disbelief as ruined structures straightened. Streets sealed. Broken signs restored. Systems rebooted like reality had been given a new operating system.

"What is going on?!" a Sunsoldier yelled. "The city rebuilt itself!"

"How—?!" another shouted.

"Report this to intelligence!" someone screamed, sprinting.

Within minutes, emergency channels flooded with footage—power plants humming, advertisement screens returning, traffic returning, people pouring out of shelters into streets they thought were dead forever.

In Lunna, the same phenomenon struck like a miracle with teeth.

Moonbeam arrived in her intel wing and found Moonwisdom already surrounded by glowing monitors—social media footage, news broadcasts, civilian recordings.

"Lady Moonbeam," Moonwisdom said, voice tight with shock, "the entire continent is restoring. Power is online. Cities are rebuilding in seconds."

Moonbeam stared at a message Moonwisdom pulled up—anonymous, simple, chillingly familiar:

Your future dreams of reality shall be granted upon a second chance.

Moonbeam's eyes narrowed. "Lock down the cyberinternet protocols. Harden every credential. If this is a gift, it can still be exploited."

Moonwisdom nodded quickly. "Yes, my Lady."

Back in Starrup, Starbeam moved like a man who knew exactly what miracles cost.

He entered the intel room and spoke to Starwis, Starwise, and Starintel with clipped certainty.

"Summon the commanders," Starbeam ordered. "We mobilize. We prepare for retaliation."

Because the villains would not interpret restoration as kindness.

They would interpret it as provocation.

Hours later, Sunbeam watched Sollarisca's skyline breathe again—cars moving, civilians returning, workers reclaiming routine. It should have felt like peace.

Instead, it felt like the eye of a storm.

Galaxbeam's voice echoed in his mind: They will strike back harder.

Sunbeam returned to MI7 SUNTRE HQ and turned restoration into momentum. He ordered rallies, conscription openings, naval and air readiness, coastline fortification. He met Supreme Commanders. He met intelligence. He met government. He delivered speeches—not as vanity, but as pressure-management for an entire nation.

And across the AES—Solar, Lunar, Star—factories roared. Shipyards lit. Airfields moved. Training bases filled.

In Galaxenchi, Galaxbeam sat back in his office later, feet on his desk like the universe was a lecture hall.

"War never quits," he murmured, half amused, half grim. "Villains never get tired of trying."

His phone rang. He answered it, smiled, and vanished—leaving behind only the quiet suggestion that even gods had personal lives... and limits.

Across Titanumas, the day ended with the heroes working.

And somewhere beyond their borders—where the BRD watched, counted, and remembered humiliation—plans began to sharpen again.

Because if the AES had gained their breath back overnight...

Then the BRD would come for the lungs.

The retreat bought minutes, not mercy.

When Sunbeam's solar flare blinded the street and Galaxbeam folded his lattice into a narrow escape path, the evacuation lanes cleared just enough to keep Havenjade from becoming a trap. Then the clause snapped shut behind them. The Authority Zone sealed like a document approved in court, and the moment the gods were no longer physically inside the city's throat, Darkwing stopped pretending this was a test.

He turned the whole state into a filing cabinet.

In the haze above the Halcyon Bastion approach, maroon script crawled across concrete and steel, neat as printed type. Doors that had been doors a second ago became "access points" that required "compliance." Roads that had been roads became "routes" that could be revoked. The deep-world ping didn't echo from devices anymore. It came from Darkwing's presence, each interval steady enough to make human teeth ache.

Darkhit and Darkhitter moved first, because they loved being the first thing people remembered. They didn't scream. They didn't posture. They simply arrived where defenders were weakest and made motion feel like debt. Anchor spikes stabbed into asphalt at angles that didn't make sense, and the ground responded the way ground responds when the owner tells it to: it obeyed.

Havenjade City was the first to lose its breath.

The outbound lanes that Sunbeam had kept alive started "reviewing" themselves. Green arrows became polite black arrows. Radios that had regained noise fell back into sterile silence. A transport hub door sealed with clean text that glowed faintly on the concrete, and a crowd's panic hit a wall so sudden it sounded like a wave striking stone.

On the Havenjade local feed, a shaking anchorwoman tried to keep her voice professional.

"We are receiving conflicting guidance from municipal signage," she said, eyes flicking between two monitors that refused to match. "Citizens are advised to follow uniformed personnel, not... not the arrows. The arrows are changing. The arrows are—"

Her sentence died when the studio's teleprompter rewrote itself mid-scroll into a single calm line:

COMPLIANCE ROUTE ACTIVE.

The camera stayed on her face as she realized she wasn't reading the news anymore. The news was reading her.

A Westonglappa sergeant in a dust-streaked helmet tried to hold the last open stairwell with a line of soldiers. He shouted until his throat bled raw. He shoved civilians through. He physically pointed them toward safety with both hands like his body could substitute for a map.

Then Darkhit stepped into the street beside him and planted a single obsidian spike.

The sergeant didn't die dramatically. He simply went still, knees buckling as if gravity had been recalculated. His men surged forward to catch him—brave, loyal, doomed—and Darkhitter's mace swing didn't crush them so much as "dismiss" them. Their line broke because the world stopped granting them traction.

Darkwing watched from the center of the city like a judge watching clerks move paper.

"FILE HAVENJADE," he said in FULL CAPS, bored and absolute.

And Havenjade's signage agreed.

Polonodo City fell next, not by fire, but by permission.

Polonodo was organized. It was proud of its grid. Its traffic was disciplined. Its citizens were the kind who believed order would protect them.

Darkwing used that belief against them.

Every intersection became a stamped choice. "Authorized" streets remained open. "Unauthorized" streets subtly narrowed, edited at the edges until trucks clipped curbs, buses stalled, and crowds compressed into chokepoints that felt accidental until you saw the maroon text faintly glowing in the cracks.

A platoon tried to form a barricade at a bridge approach. They laid down portable barriers, stacked vehicles, took positions like they'd practiced.

Darkenedye arrived behind Darkwing's forward elements, calm as a clerk and colder than a blade. He didn't roar like the others. He didn't need to.

He raised two fingers and drew a thin rectangle in the air.

The rectangle became a "boundary."

The barricade wasn't destroyed. It was reclassified. The soldiers looked down at their own feet and saw a clean line of text on the bridge deck.

UNREGISTERED DEFENSE. INVALID.

Their rifles felt heavier. Their knees felt weaker. Their courage didn't vanish, but it was suddenly forced to fight physics.

One of them managed to fire anyway—pure stubbornness—and the bullet struck a Darkened infantry plate and sparked harmlessly.

Darkenedye's mouth twitched in something that wasn't quite a smile.

"Your intent is noted," he said, voice low. "Your authority is not."

Negraska City tried to be loud about resistance.

Negraska had always been the city that thought volume was power. Sirens, rallies, street broadcasts, the kind of civic pride that insisted it would rather burn than bend.

Darkwing loved cities like that.

He let Negraska's sirens rise—then stamped once and dropped the pitch.

The entire city's alarm system resumed, but quieter, as if Negraska itself had been told to speak respectfully. People heard it and shivered because they understood, in their bones, that something had grabbed the throat of their home.

Auttumotto State News cut to a shaky drone feed above Negraska's eastern district. The footage showed maroon banners appearing on rooftops like a decision made by the skyline itself. The Darkened emblem—circle and spikes—hung perfectly straight despite the wind.

A field commander on the Negraska line tried to hold an intersection with armored carriers. He shouted orders. He was still shouting when Darkhit blurred past him and touched the carrier's hood.

The hood didn't explode. It "failed." The engine died mid-rev as if the concept of combustion had been revoked in that spot. The commander looked at his own vehicle like it had betrayed him.

Darkhitter stepped up behind Darkhit, swung once, and that intersection stopped being defensible.

Fortborter Town took the longest, because Fortborter was built to refuse.

It was walls, bunkers, old stone and new steel, a place that had survived centuries of smaller wars and learned the simple rule: if you can't win, you at least don't let them pass.

Fortborter met Darkwing with everything it had left.

The defenders turned rooftops into firing decks. They lit the sky with flares. They opened old artillery bays that hadn't been used since the last era. Their last commanders stood shoulder to shoulder with ordinary soldiers, because in Fortborter, rank mattered less than being present.

For a while, it almost looked like it could work.

Then Darkwing decided to stop paying them the compliment of effort.

He walked to the main gate and looked at the ironwork like it was an unpaid invoice.

"FORTBORTER," he said in FULL CAPS, gentle and devastating. "ACCESS REVOKED."

The gate didn't shatter.

It simply stopped being a gate.

The hinge pins refused to turn. The locking mechanisms refused to acknowledge keys. The stone around the frame grew a thin web of maroon script like veins of ink, and the entryway became a sealed paragraph.

A captain slammed his fist against the metal until his knuckles split. The gate didn't react.

On the Fortborter internal channel, someone whispered, "It's not locked. It's... denied."

Darkwing's response carried through the air like a stamped order.

"GOOD."

Sidetown City fell like a rumor becoming fact.

Sidetown was smaller, full of alleys and markets, the kind of place that depended on neighbors more than infrastructure. People tried to hide each other. Families tucked strangers behind counters and under stairwells and in basement pantries, whispering prayers like prayers could be encryption.

Darkened infantry didn't search like normal soldiers. They didn't kick down doors randomly.

They followed the state's "updates."

Each time a citizen panicked and ran, the ink rewrote around their feet, drawing them into the wrong corridor. Each time someone shouted directions, a false sign appeared two streets over, matching the tone and font of the original, leading the next group into a dead-end.

The resistance died in fragments—small brave clusters that never got to become a mass.

Lavaton City tried to flood its own streets to slow the Darkened advance, opening canal gates and emergency reservoirs.

For ten minutes, water surged through the avenues, pushing cars, soaking sidewalks, turning intersections into rivers.

Darkwing watched it with mild interest.

Then Darkendstream—one of Darkwing's Supreme Commanders, broad-shouldered and grim—stepped to the edge of the flooded district and drove his palm down.

The water didn't freeze.

It "complied."

Currents reversed into neat lanes. Floodwater organized itself into a corridor that served the invasion instead of resisting it. The city's own attempt at defense became a guided path for Darkened armor.

Pendammal Town fell quietly, which was the cruelest kind of falling.

Pendammal had no grand walls. Its people were the kind who believed, sincerely, that if they stayed out of a war's way, the war might pass them by.

Darkwing stamped "REASSIGNMENT" into the ground outside the town hall.

The town lights stayed on.

The water still ran.

The streets were still intact.

But Pendammal belonged to someone else now, and the people felt it in the way the air changed—like their home had become a building under new management.

Opragend and Sufast went next, back-to-back, because Darkwing understood the value of momentum.

Opragend tried to mount a last-minute militia line at the industrial outskirts. Sufast tried to evacuate through woodland routes.

Darkhit hunted the militia line like a game and made it vanish.

Darkhitter struck the woodland paths with gravity swings that didn't crater the earth so much as "invalidate" the route. Trees leaned. Trails narrowed. People found themselves running in circles without understanding why.

Blelens held for half a day because it had an old watchtower system and a stubborn local commander who refused to break.

The commander stood in the tower's top room, binoculars shaking in his hands, watching maroon banners spread across the horizon like a tide.

His radio crackled once—then snapped into clean silence.

He looked down at the radio like it had died.

Then, faintly, the deep-world ping sounded from inside the tower itself, as if the building had been rewired to Darkwing's heartbeat.

Kropolis was where the Auttumotto media finally admitted what everyone already knew.

The Damont Ledger—broadcasting from a fortified studio—put a map on screen. City names blinked. Colors changed. One by one, the towns and districts turned maroon.

The anchor swallowed hard and read the words that felt illegal to say out loud.

"Havenjade is under hostile control. Polonodo is under hostile control. Negraska is under hostile control. Fortborter... is no longer responding."

Her hand trembled as she tried to keep the professional cadence. "Kropolis is experiencing authority disruptions. Citizens are advised to remain—"

Her earpiece shrieked. The teleprompter wiped itself.

A single line replaced it, calm as paperwork:

NEXT STAMP: DAMONT.

Then the feed cut.

Damont {capital} did not fall in a single strike.

It fell in stages, like a court ruling being implemented.

The outer checkpoints failed first. The city's perimeter sensors went clean and sterile, reporting nothing—because the state had decided certain truths were no longer allowed to propagate.

The inner districts started to "edit." Streets shifted by meters. Addresses changed by a digit. Navigation apps insisted a hospital was a parking structure. A shelter entrance became a "restricted facility" and refused to open for people who were shaking and pleading and bleeding.

Damont's defenders fought anyway.

They set up armored wedges. They deployed drones. They called in every reserve they had left.

Darkwing let them work.

Then he arrived at the central avenue, in full view of the capital's last standing battalion, and spoke in FULL CAPS as if addressing a room of frightened clerks.

"DAMONT CITY," he said. "UNDER TRANSFER."

A maroon seal burned itself into the boulevard.

STATE PROPERTY.

The battalion didn't break because they were cowards. They broke because the city broke around them. Their formation lost meaning when the road stopped agreeing that forward was forward.

Eslurg tried to flee into mines. Akrutwell City tried to lock down its rail hubs. Esroidon City attempted an airlift of civilians from rooftop pads. Vireldawn City lit every floodlight it had and dared the night to stay honest.

None of it mattered.

Darkendale managed logistics with terrifying calm, turning seized supply lines into precise corridors. Darkendstride cut ahead with rapid units, arriving in districts before warnings could reach them. Darkendstorm's siege phrasing—half magic, half law—turned artillery into rulings that landed exactly where hope had gathered.

Bronzemere Town held a single bridge until the bridge "updated" itself out from under their feet.

Thornwick Hollow tried to hide behind ancient stone and superstition, only to learn the Darkened Regime had their own rituals and theirs came with ownership.

Mistbarrow City watched its fog become ink, the streetlamps glowing faintly through maroon haze like eyes behind a curtain.

And Clattermoor Keep—the last proud fortress in the northern spine—finally understood the truth that Fortborter learned too late:

You cannot out-wall a power that doesn't break doors.

You can only endure until the state decides you are done.

Clattermoor's defenders stood at the battlements as Darkwing approached, maroon banners rising behind him like a verdict's shadow. Some prayed. Some cursed. Some simply stared, because courage sometimes looks like refusing to look away.

Darkwing looked up at the keep as if evaluating architecture.

"THIS IS AN UNREGISTERED STRONGHOLD," he said in FULL CAPS. "REGISTRATION DENIED."

The keep didn't crumble.

The keep went quiet.

The gates refused to open from the inside. The drawbridge refused to lower. The mechanism wasn't broken—it was revoked.

A final broadcast, shaky and rushed, slipped out on a pirate frequency before the air itself shut it down. The voice was a young soldier, not a journalist. He sounded like he'd been crying and didn't care who heard it.

"Auttumotto is gone," he said. "We can't move. The roads won't let us. The doors won't let us. The signs keep lying. If anyone can hear—"

The transmission ended in clean silence, snapped shut like a file drawer.

By nightfall, the map was simple.

Havenjade City, Polonodo City, Negraska City, Fortborter Town, Sidetown City, Lavaton City, Pendammal Town, Opragend, Sufast, Blelens, Kropolis, Damont {capital}, Eslurg, Akrutwell City, Esroidon City, Vireldawn City, Bronzemere Town, Thornwick Hollow, Mistbarrow City, Clattermoor Keep—every name now carried the same invisible stamp.

Under review.

Under procedure.

Under ownership.

Darkhit and Darkhitter stood at the edge of Damont's central square, armor still humming with anchor light, waiting like dogs who'd done well. Darkhitler lingered nearby, posture subtly altered again—not self-authored, not proud, simply filed under the real Authority.

Darkenedye stepped close to Darkwing, gaze flicking across the capital like he was counting clauses.

"The state is cohesive," he said. "Transfer complete. Resistance patterns minimal. Survivors rerouted into compliance zones."

Darkwing's mouth curved with faint amusement.

"GOOD," he said in FULL CAPS.

Somewhere far away, beyond the sealed lines, the AES would receive the reports and feel the weight of them. Sunbeam and Galaxbeam would know what the retreat had cost. Starbeam's truth lattice would show a maroon block where a living state used to be. Moonbeam's lantern pylons would pin truth everywhere they could reach—except where ownership had been filed as physics.

And in Auttumotto, the deep-world ping continued—perfect, even, unforgiving—because Darkwing didn't need to chase the war anymore.

He had turned a whole state into a door.

And now he could decide, at leisure, which continent he wanted to open next.

The moment Sunbeam and Galaxbeam pulled back, Auttumotto did not "recover."

It got processed.

The Authority Zone that had been fighting to become a page finally became a page with the owner's thumb pressed into it. The maroon script that had been crawling across Havenjade's outbound lanes stopped improvising and started finalizing. Screens that had flickered between truth and lie went clean again—too clean—then repopulated with calm fonts and official arrows that no longer needed to trick evacuees.

They simply overruled them.

In Damont City, the capital's morning broadcast began as it always did, with polished anchors and a skyline shot that tried to look normal. The first thirty seconds were careful.

"...unconfirmed reports of continued instability along the Havenjade—Fortborter corridor," the anchor said, voice tight under practiced composure. "Residents are urged to remain calm and follow—"

The feed hiccuped.

A single tone chimed through the studio speakers—perfect spacing, identical pitch—and every monitor behind the anchors updated at once. Not to emergency maps. Not to evacuation notices.

To a seal.

A circular maroon emblem appeared, crisp as stamped wax. Beneath it, text populated as if typed by an invisible clerk.

Auttumotto State: Under Review
Transit: Restricted
Compliance: Required

The anchor's eyes widened. Her mouth opened.

No sound came out.

Her microphone still worked. Her lips still moved. The studio's audio simply refused to acknowledge her without permission.

Somewhere in Havenjade City, Darkwing watched a civilian's phone display the same seal and smiled like a man reading his own name on a deed.

He did not chase Sunbeam. He did not gloat about "winning." He turned his head toward his Supreme Commanders the way a judge turns toward a clerk.

Darkenedye stood nearest, posture immaculate, aura contained like a blade kept in a sheath until the moment it mattered. Darkenedale's eyes drifted across the streets as if he could already see tomorrow's headlines. Darkenedstream listened to the sea through the concrete. Darkenedstride flexed his fingers once, impatient, like a runner waiting for the pistol. Darkenedstorm's presence crackled—barely restrained, eager to make a point. Darkeneddenominator looked bored, because boredom was what you wore when you did math no one else understood.

Darkhit and Darkhitter waited at the edge of Darkwing's shadow like attack dogs already trained to bite at the word walk. Darkhitler, calm and perfectly placed, watched the city like a ledger that was about to get balanced.

Darkwing's voice rolled out in FULL CAPS without volume and still managed to crush the air.

"WE ARE NOT HERE TO FIGHT THEM ANYMORE."

His gaze slid over the barricades, the broken signage, the scattered evac tape that Sunbeam had used like lifelines.

"WE ARE HERE TO OWN THIS STATE."

He lifted one hand.

The deep-world ping answered, perfect and patient.

"BEGIN THE AUDIT."

Havenjade City fell first, not because it lacked courage, but because courage does not stop a road from rejecting your feet. The remaining defenders—Westonglappa police, local militias, exhausted soldiers with soot on their faces—tried to form a line at the transit hub where Sunbeam's last solar lane had faded.

They shouted. They aimed. They did what humans always do when gods stop standing in front of them.

The air tightened.

A maroon boundary line crawled across the street like ink finding paper grain. The line did not burn. It did not explode.

It simply declared.

UNAUTHORIZED FORMATION
DISPERSE

Half the line tried to step forward anyway.

Their boots slipped, not on oil, not on ice—on refusal. The road denied traction. Knees hit asphalt. Weapons clattered.

Darkhit moved. A blur, a snap, a sudden vacancy where a defender had been standing. Darkhitter followed with a heavy swing that didn't crush bodies so much as crush intent. The street cratered, not to kill, but to disrupt. To break the shape of resistance into scattered fragments that could be stamped flat.

A sergeant—Westonglappa-born, face streaked with grime, voice raw from screaming orders all night—spat toward Darkwing's formation as if spit could rewrite a deed.

"You maroon ducks!" he yelled, half rage, half desperation. "Come on, then—!"

The air froze.

Darkwing's head turned slowly, like a courtroom turning toward contempt.

"DO NOT," he said, each word landing like a gavel, "CALL ME A DUCK."

The Authority Zone surged, and Havenjade's streetlights dimmed as if the city itself had decided it would rather not be seen.

The sergeant tried to stand again.

The ground refused him.

Darkwing stepped once.

The line of defenders didn't just break. It became irrelevant—redirected by invisible lanes of "permitted movement" that bent them away from each other, away from cover, away from cohesion. Those who tried to fight found their routes collapsing into dead ends. Those who tried to retreat found the stairwells sealing behind them with clean, glowing text.

ACCESS DENIED
RETURN TO DESIGNATED ZONE

Darkenedye walked through the chaos like a commander inspecting a parade. He did not waste energy on screams. He pressed two fingers to a spawn scar Sunbeam had partially cauterized earlier and smiled faintly.

"Still bleeding," he murmured.

Gold wasn't his color. Precision was.

He snapped the wound shut with maroon geometry and the last "breathing pocket" in Havenjade's infrastructure stopped breathing.

Fortborter Town tried to become a lifeboat. The harbor lights came on. Ferries warmed their engines. Families ran with bags and children and whatever they could carry that looked like a future.

Auttumotto's news feed—what was left of it—captured shaky footage of people crowding onto docks while officers screamed for order.

Then the sea went still.

Not calm. Stilled.

Darkenedstream arrived at the waterline and lifted his hand like he was conducting an orchestra that only knew one note. Heat and pressure braided across the harbor mouth. Tides locked. Currents folded into invisible walls. Boats that tried to depart stalled mid-movement as if the ocean had become paperwork.

PERMITTED EXIT: REVOKED

A captain shouted and slammed the throttle.

The boat did not move.

The water refused to acknowledge "forward."

On the docks, panic surged—then was harvested.

Darkenedale moved among the crowd without rushing, adjusting signage with the gentle care of a man straightening paintings. Every "EXIT" became "ASSEMBLY." Every "SHELTER" became "WAIT." The fonts were polite. The arrows were calm.

The result was a stampede that never reached the water—because it never reached the truth.

Polonodo City went next, its factories still running on the miracle-restored power that had returned only days ago. The city's leaders tried to negotiate, as if negotiation mattered when your state was being transferred.

Darkeneddenominator walked into the industrial district and didn't look at the workers, didn't look at the guards, didn't look at the mayor trembling behind a podium.

He looked at output.

He listened to machines and made a soft sound that was almost amused.

"This is inefficient," he said.

A maroon lattice unfolded from his fingertips and wrapped the main production line. Metal didn't break. It obeyed. Conveyor belts slowed, then reversed, then realigned toward newly printed loading bays that hadn't existed an hour earlier.

The mayor shouted, "You can't just take our infrastructure!"

Darkeneddenominator blinked once, like the sentence had been written in a childish hand.

"I can," he replied. "It's already mine."

Negraska City tried to muster a "last-stand" myth. Fields surrounding it were wide and open, and the defenders believed open land meant they could see the attack coming.

Darkenedstorm loved open land.

He arrived like a storm that didn't need clouds. Pressure rolled out in concentric rings. Grass flattened in waves. Watchtowers groaned.

Auttumotto soldiers—brave, outgunned, shaking—raised rifles anyway and opened fire.

The bullets didn't bounce off him.

They simply failed to matter.

Darkenedstorm's grin widened and his voice rose, ugly and delighted.

"YOU THINK YOU'RE IN A WAR," he roared, "YOU'RE IN A TANTRUM."

He slammed his hand down and the ground didn't explode—it declared collapse. Trenches caved. Defensive lines sank. Panic rolled through ranks the way water rolls downhill.

Sidetown City tried to hide behind bureaucracy. They issued emergency curfews. They sealed internal roads. They deployed police on every corner with megaphones and bright vests, trying to make law louder than fear.

Darkwing's law didn't need megaphones.

Darkenedale stepped into the city hall lobby and watched the building's digital directory update itself.

Mayor's Office: Closed
Emergency Command: Reassigned
Authority: Transferred

The police chief's hand trembled over his radio. "Who is doing this?"

Darkenedale smiled. "Your new owner," he said softly.

Islantown tried to vanish. It was small, coastal, proud of being overlooked. When the first reports came in, people thought maybe if they turned off lights and killed comms and pretended not to exist, the storm would pass.

Darkenedstride appeared at the town's edge anyway, because hiding was just another route—and routes were his specialty.

He moved so fast the first thing the town saw was not an enemy.

It was their own gate closing.

Not pulled shut. "Approved shut."

ACCESS DENIED
AREA UNDER REVIEW

Westronbumg City—tall, dense, modern—believed skyscrapers meant control. Camera grids. Drone patrols. Automated turrets. Enough technology to convince themselves that "this time" they could hold.

Darkhitler walked through their command center like he belonged there. Hands behind his back. Expression unbothered. He glanced at their tactical map and watched it redraw itself under his eyes.

He said nothing.

He didn't have to.

The turrets turned thirty degrees and aimed at empty streets instead of incoming threats. Drone feeds mirrored themselves and showed loops. Officers screamed as their own systems became a hall of mirrors that kept reflecting the wrong truth.

Darkhitler's posture shifted slightly, like a man finishing a form.

Then the lights in the command center dimmed into maroon.

"Filed," he said.

Damont City, the capital, was the only place that tried to pretend the state still belonged to itself.

Sirens wailed. Barricades rose. Government convoys raced through streets with hazard lights flashing, trying to reach the central hall where emergency authority could be declared, where speeches could still sound like power.

The broadcast tried to return. Anchors tried to speak. The seal remained on-screen.

Auttumotto State: Under Review

In the central hall, officials crowded around a table, faces pale. Some argued for evacuation. Some argued for surrender. Some argued for "calling the AES," as if calling a god who had already withdrawn would reverse a clause that had already been stamped.

The doors opened without a dramatic boom.

They simply acknowledged entry.

Darkwing stepped into the hall alone, as if he didn't need guards.

The room's air compressed. Knees hit marble. Papers slid across the table like frightened animals trying to hide.

A governor—older, proud, shaking—forced himself upright and shouted, "You have no right—!"

Darkwing's FULL CAPS cut him off like a blade.

"I HAVE ALL RIGHTS."

He lifted his hand and stamped the floor.

A circle of maroon script spread outward. Not flames. Not darkness. A seal.

STATE TRANSFER: APPROVED
OWNER: DARKENED REGIME

The governor tried to speak again.

His mouth moved.

No audio came out.

The microphones refused him.

Behind Darkwing, the capital's huge wall screens updated at once. The same seal. The same approval. The same calm font that made it worse because it looked civilized.

Auttumotto didn't explode.

It got filed.

Pizzahunt City broke in the most humiliating way. Not by siege. By compliance.

Food lines formed. Emergency kitchens opened. People who were starving lined up because hunger is a stricter dictator than pride. Darkenedale walked past the first "relief center" and adjusted a sign with a small, careful tilt.

The sign now read:

NUTRITION DISTRIBUTION
COMPLIANCE CHECK REQUIRED

A mother hesitated, child on her hip.

A soldier behind her whispered, "Just do it. We need food."

The compliance scanner chimed.

Perfect. Even. Unforgiving.

Toonstop City, a place that had once been proud of animation studios, billboard art, and loud broadcasts, became Darkwing's stage. Every screen that used to play music videos and comedy now played the same calm advisory.

"DO NOT PANIC," the text read, polite. "DO NOT RESIST. REPORT FOR REASSIGNMENT."

Darkeneddenominator watched the metrics climb on a stolen tablet and nodded faintly, pleased.

"Information control," he murmured. "Efficient."

Then came the forts.

Fortnono tried to refuse the first stamp by firing artillery at the horizon where the Authority Zone pressed forward. The shells flew beautifully.

They landed in the wrong place.

Not because of bad aim—because the air itself "edited" their trajectory. The fort's gunners screamed and recalibrated and fired again, and again their shells curved away like the sky had politely declined to be struck.

Darkenedye stepped into their range, raised two fingers, and snapped the fort's central seal generator into silence.

Fortblade attempted a heroic charge. Their commander led from the front, sword out, voice shaking with the desperate conviction that bravery would be remembered even if it failed.

Darkhit met him.

The commander swung once.

Darkhit was already past him.

The line broke behind the commander like a rope cut at its anchor.

Fortgrowl tried psychological warfare—sirens, floodlights, taunts through loudspeakers, a desperate attempt to make the Darkened hesitate. Darkenedstorm laughed so hard the floodlights flickered.

"YOU'RE TRYING TO SCARE ME?" he barked, offended. "ON MY OWN CONTINENT?"

He slammed the ground and the fort's outer wall "reconsidered" itself, cracking along legal seams that weren't made by explosives but by permission revoked.

Fortcutter died fast. Fortgrinder died slower, because Darkenedstride made sport of denying their escape lanes. Fortshredder tried to retreat into internal corridors and found the corridors shortened, edited, collapsed into dead ends that didn't exist on the original blueprints. Fortspiker attempted a final evacuation through underground tunnels.

Darkenedale stamped the tunnel entrance with a smile.

ACCESS DENIED

Fortpuncher held long enough for a few civilians to flee into the hills. That tiny victory mattered to the humans who made it out.

It did not matter to Darkwing.

Fortbatterer was the last symbol of Auttumotto's pride—its biggest guns, its thickest walls, its final myth. When it fell, the state's morale didn't just drop.

It hollowed.

Inside Fortbatterer's command bunker, an officer whispered, "Where is Sunbeam? Where is anyone?"

A younger soldier, eyes red, shook his head. "They retreated. They—"

The bunker's intercom chimed with the deep-world ping, and the bunker's own display screens updated to the maroon seal like a judge turning your testimony into a footnote.

Darkwing's voice arrived through their speakers, FULL CAPS and perfectly calm.

"THIS STATE IS CLOSED."

A pause.

Then, with the kind of cruelty that sounded like paperwork:

"THANK YOU FOR YOUR COOPERATION."

When the sun set over Westonglappa, it set over a different Auttumotto.

Not a ruin.

A possession.

Maroon banners rose over Havenjade's transit hub. Fortborter's harbor became a locked mouth. Damont's skyline carried a new overlay on every screen, a permanent watermark burned into the city's identity.

Auttumotto State: Owned

In the streets, survivors moved quietly, watching their phones and public screens the way prey watches a predator's shadow. The news anchors returned to sound, but their voices were smaller now, their words shaped by what the microphones permitted.

"...citizens are encouraged to comply for safety," the anchor said, tears in her eyes, hands trembling behind the desk. "There is... there is no confirmed external relief at this time."

Somewhere far from Damont, on the edge of Westonglappa's dark hills, a handful of evacuees huddled around a small heat source. They listened to the broadcast and felt something colder than fear settle into their bones.

Defeat that didn't come with an explosion.

Defeat that came with a signature.

And in the heart of Damont City, Darkwing stood at a balcony and looked out over a state that had become a document with his name on it. Darkenedye waited behind him like a blade. Darkenedale watched the screens like a director watching ratings. Darkenedstream listened to the sea to make sure no hope slipped out. Darkenedstride rolled his shoulders, eager for the next sprint. Darkenedstorm grinned, still offended by the echo of that word. Darkeneddenominator tracked new output lines like a man counting money that wasn't his yesterday.

Darkwing's FULL CAPS carried into the night, not shouted, not screamed—filed.

"AUTTUMOTTO IS MINE."

He paused, the faintest edge of rage sharpening the last line as if he could still taste the insult.

"AND I AM NOT A DUCK."

The deep-world ping chimed once more, perfect and on time, and the state answered him in silence—the kind of silence that meant the paper had accepted the signature.

Somewhere beyond Westonglappa's borders, the AES would see this. They would feel it. They would measure it.

But for tonight, Auttumotto belonged to the Darkened Regime.

And the war had learned a new rule: if you couldn't kill the gods, you could still take what they were sworn to protect—one city at a time.

When Sunbeam and Galaxbeam withdrew, they did it the only way Absolute Leaders ever retreat without dishonor: they retreated so civilians could live.

The last orange lane Sunbeam carved through Havenjade did not collapse behind him by accident. It collapsed because Darkwing wrote it that way—because the state itself began to behave like a document that had finally found its owner.

In the minutes after the withdrawal clause stamped into the road, Auttumotto stopped feeling like a place and started feeling like a contract. The air stayed compressed. The deep-world ping became steady enough to measure heartbeats against it. Every screen that still functioned displayed the same calm, polite prompt, as if the world was simply asking for a password.

COMPLIANCE CONFIRMED?
YES / NO

Most people didn't even touch the option.

Because the real question wasn't on the screen. It was in the pressure pushing their knees toward the pavement.

Darkwing stood near the Halcyon Bastion approach like a judge who didn't bother sitting. His maroon aura didn't flare wildly, didn't "rage" the way lesser villains performed rage. It simply authenticated. Roads stiffened when he looked at them. Doorways that had been broken for weeks clicked shut because the hinges "remembered" how to obey. Sirens lowered their pitch like the city had learned manners.

And then the Darkened Regime arrived in full, not with fanfare, but with administration.

Darkhitler appeared first—calm, hands clasped behind his back, posture immaculate. He looked like a man who had never run in his life, because he had never needed to. Behind him, the Supreme Commanders fanned into position with the smooth certainty of a faction that had already rehearsed victory.

Darkenedye's eyes scanned every signal tower, every fiber line, every emergency broadcast node. The man did not smile. He didn't need to. His presence alone made the city's remaining networks feel like they were being audited.

Darkenedale drifted beside him, quiet and watchful, the kind of commander who didn't care about the battle's fireworks—only what changed on paper afterward.

Darkenedstorm rolled his shoulders like a coming thunderfront, hunger held on a leash. Darkenedstride didn't roll anything—he simply vanished and reappeared in new positions the way a blade appears in the hand of someone who had already decided where the cut belongs.

Darkenedstream stepped to the edge of Fortborter's coastal air and listened to the water like it was reporting. Darkenedpuff moved through the rear with a soft, almost friendly posture, speaking to trembling civilians in a tone that sounded like comfort—until you noticed every comfort ended with the same instruction: comply.

And Darkeneddenominator—eyes half-lidded, voice low—murmured numbers no one else could hear, predicting where resistance would bloom so it could be strangled before it became a headline.

Darkwing looked at them all once.

"BEGIN," he said in FULL CAPS, bored and final.

The conquest started the way the end of a civil day starts: with a broadcast.

Auttumotto News Network had stayed live through bombings, through sieges, through propaganda storms. They had lost anchors, lost studios, lost transmitter stations—and still, some stubborn producer had kept a backup feed running from a reinforced basement in Havendale.

The camera shook. The lighting was wrong. The anchor's tie was crooked because he'd been sleeping in the studio.

"We—" the anchor began, voice tight, "we are receiving reports that Halcyon Bastion's frontline has—"

His teleprompter wiped itself clean.

Then it repopulated.

Not with a hack's messy text, not with a glitchy ransom message.

With clean, legal typography.

STATE OF AUTTUMOTTO — PROVISIONAL REVIEW
CIVIL MOVEMENT SUBJECT TO AUTHORIZATION
DO NOT RESIST OR OBSTRUCT INSPECTION

The anchor blinked hard. "That isn't—"

The deep-world ping sounded through the studio speakers.

Perfect.

The anchor's knees buckled. He caught himself on the desk, breathing through the pressure like a man trying not to drown on land. Off-camera, someone sobbed.

A shadow moved behind the camera.

Darkglimpse stepped into view like he'd always belonged there—one of the Darkened elites, lean and unhurried, eyes bright with the simple joy of steering a room. He didn't carry a rifle. He carried a small black device no bigger than a phone, and the screen on it mirrored every broadcast feed in the city.

"Keep it rolling," Darkglimpse said, voice pleasant. "People love continuity."

The anchor forced the words out, fighting not to look at the figure standing behind Darkglimpse—because behind him, just outside the studio's reinforced door, Darkhit and Darkhitter waited like guard dogs with no need to bark.

"This is Auttumotto News Network," the anchor choked, because the state still demanded introductions even while dying. "We... we are under emergency—"

Darkglimpse leaned in and gently adjusted the anchor's tie as if fixing him for a photo.

"Say it clean," Darkglimpse whispered. "Or the next time you blink, your studio won't recognize its own doors."

The anchor swallowed.

"This is Auttumotto News Network," he repeated, voice steadier only because terror had forced his throat to learn control. "Auttumotto is currently under... provisional review. Please remain calm and comply with instructions."

Darkglimpse smiled.

Out on the streets, people heard the message and—because it sounded official—some of them obeyed.

That was how Havenjade City fell.

Not in one grand explosion. In ten thousand small misdirections.

Havenjade's evacuation lanes had been heroic minutes before. Orange heat-lines still scarred the road from Sunbeam's earlier work, evidence of refusal. Medics were still guiding families down stairwells that smelled like smoke and wet concrete. Westonglappa soldiers were still shouting the old route names like prayers.

And then the route names changed.

A street sign rotated without wind. A transit board updated without power. A stairwell door clicked shut because an invisible clause decided it had done enough charity for the day.

A squad of Auttumotto militia tried to force the door open with crowbars.

The crowbars bent.

Not because the door was stronger, but because the idea of opening it had been denied.

Darkmole watched from a half-collapsed subway entrance across the street, crouched like something born underground. Another Darkened elite—silent, patient, built for infiltration. He had mud on his boots and a calmness in his eyes that suggested he found this work soothing.

He slipped beneath the street through a maintenance tunnel and emerged inside Havenjade's transit hub where families were clustered around a broken vending machine, sharing stale snacks like it was a feast.

A mother looked up and saw him.

"Please," she said instantly, because she could tell he wasn't one of theirs. "Please, we're just trying to—"

Darkmole raised two fingers.

The words froze in her mouth. Not by ice. By permission. Her lips moved and nothing came out. Around them, the air tightened again as if the building had decided to enforce library rules.

Darkmole stepped past them and pressed his palm to a support column.

Anchor magic threaded into the concrete like roots, quiet and intimate. The transit hub shuddered. A new sign appeared above the main exit.

RETURN TO DESIGNATED ZONE

A Westonglappa sergeant burst in from the far stairwell, rifle raised. "Everybody move! Don't listen to—"

He stopped mid-stride.

His boots would not cross the new boundary line on the floor. Not a physical wall. A thin black seam in the tile, like a pen stroke.

Darkmole looked at him with mild curiosity.

The sergeant tried again, muscles straining.

The tile refused him.

Darkmole lifted one hand, and the sergeant's rifle became heavy—impossibly heavy—like gravity had been reassigned to punish resistance. The sergeant dropped it with a curse that sounded like a prayer breaking.

Behind Darkmole, Darkhit appeared in a blur, too fast for the civilians to track. Darkhitter followed with the weight of a collapsing building, mace resting on his shoulder like it was nothing.

The sergeant made a decision anyway. He lunged with a combat knife, because that's what humans do when they run out of options.

Darkhit's fist struck once.

The sergeant went down like a switch flipped off.

Not gore. Not spectacle.

Just the brutal truth: a human body is a human body, and elites are not.

Darkmole didn't even watch the fall. He was already moving deeper into the hub, planting quiet anchor points that turned exits into traps and traps into "official procedure."

Above ground, Havenjade's skyline didn't burn brighter.

It simply went quieter.

Because the city's ability to organize itself had been rewritten.

Fortborter City tried to resist differently.

Fortborter was a port city. It thought in ships and logistics, not alleyways and stairwells. Its admirals and harbor-masters didn't trust street signs; they trusted water and steel.

So when they heard Havenjade's feed turn polite and wrong, Fortborter's command staff initiated their own plan: sail everyone out.

They pushed refugee barges into the bay. They loaded hospital patients onto cargo ships. They lit every floodlight along the dock like brightness could intimidate the dark.

Then Darkenedstream arrived.

He stepped onto the water as if it was a floor that owed him rent.

The bay calmed unnaturally. Waves flattened into an obedient surface. Then heat—maroon, heavy, wrong—spread in disciplined lines across the sea like someone drawing borders on a map.

The first refugee barge tried to move.

Its engine screamed.

The water in front of it turned into refusal. Not ice. Not rocks. Simply a corridor that the boat could not enter.

The captain shouted, "We're stuck!"

A harbor-master slammed a fist onto the console. "Push more power!"

The boat shuddered.

The bay did not care.

On the dock, Darklance appeared with a squad of Darkened elites behind him, posture straight and eager. He carried a long spear of black-maroon energy that flickered at the tip like a signature about to be stamped.

He looked at the Fortborter marines lining the pier—young, scared, trying very hard to look brave.

"Cute," Darklance said, grinning like this was sport.

They opened fire.

The bullets hit the air and... slowed. Dropped. Fell to the dock like the world had decided they weren't permitted to travel.

Darklance laughed once, not because he was insane, but because the outcome had been decided before the first shot.

He drove his spear into the pier.

A seal spread outward through the wood and steel.

ACCESS DENIED.

The marines tried to charge anyway—some because of courage, some because of panic, some because of obedience to the only life they knew.

Darklance swept his spear in a clean arc.

They went down.

Behind him, Darkenedstride blurred into the airspace above Havendock City, catching evacuation drones and messenger craft mid-flight, redirecting them into the bay where Darkenedstream's refusal waited like a locked door.

Havendock's skyline still glittered in the sunrise.

But the sunrise didn't feel like hope anymore.

It felt like light illuminating a surrender.

Damont City lasted longer, not because it was stronger, but because it was proud.

Damont was the administrative heart of Auttumotto. Its citizens believed in policy and procedure the way other cities believed in guns. They convened emergency councils. They issued executive orders. They tried to coordinate a "defense of the state" as if defense could be passed with a vote.

Auttumotto's governor stood in the central chamber with advisors around him, hands shaking only slightly because he had learned to perform courage.

"We will not—" he began.

The doors opened without permission.

Darkhitler walked in as if arriving for a scheduled appointment. He did not wear a crown. He wore calm.

Behind him, Darkenedale and Darkenedye entered like twin lines of inevitability—one to handle governance, one to handle systems.

Darkhitler stopped at the center of the room and looked at the governor.

"Proceed," Darkhitler said softly.

The governor swallowed. "This is an unlawful—"

Darkwing's presence rolled in behind them like a pressure front.

Not dramatic. Not fiery.

Just the absolute sensation of being watched by the author of your own laws.

The governor's mouth stopped working.

Darkwing stepped into view. FULL CAPS without shouting.

"THIS IS REVIEW," he said.

A document appeared on the chamber's central screen—already formatted, already stamped, already bearing the state seal.

Only now the seal was maroon.

Darkenedale placed a pen on the table, gentle as a nurse setting down medicine.

"Sign," Darkenedale said, voice polite, almost respectful. "So your people stop dying in the streets."

The governor's eyes darted to his advisors. Some were crying. Some were angry. One tried to stand—an old councilman who still believed in speeches.

Darkenedstorm glanced at the councilman like he'd noticed a fly.

The councilman sat back down.

Not because he agreed.

Because his spine remembered fear.

The governor signed.

And when he did, Damont City didn't explode.

It transitioned.

Street grids updated. Law enforcement channels rekeyed. Emergency broadcasts rebranded themselves. The city's own systems began treating Darkened authority as the default.

Outside, Damont's police officers received new deployment maps. They stared at the screens in disbelief.

The green route—safe routes—had vanished.

All routes were now maroon.

In Celestia City, the conquest wore a different costume.

Celestia was a university city, full of research towers, hospitals, and people who believed knowledge itself was a shield. Their last working labs were racing to build countermeasures to Darkened anchoring: signal stabilizers, door overrides, anti-propaganda routing.

Darkenedye walked into their network like a man walking into a room he owned.

He didn't smash servers. He didn't fry computers.

He changed credentials.

Researchers watched their access evaporate. Lab doors refused badges they'd used for ten years. Patient databases stopped recognizing doctors as authorized caretakers.

A hospital surgeon slammed his palm against a scanner. "Let me in! My patient's in there!"

The scanner flashed a polite blue.

INSUFFICIENT COMPLIANCE.

Darkenedpuff appeared near the triage line with a gentle smile and a calm voice.

"Breathe," he told the terrified nurses. "We will provide new authorization. We want the same thing you want. Order."

Some nurses stared at him like he was a demon.

Some stared like he was a lifeline.

That was the uglier tragedy—how quickly desperate people will accept the hand that is strangling them if it promises relief.

Above Celestia's central square, Darkglimpse hijacked the city's emergency alert system and turned it into a lullaby. Every phone pinged at the same time.

Citizens looked down and read:

REPORT TO NEAREST COMPLIANCE CENTER FOR SAFETY AND RESOURCES.

A mother, shaking, read the word resources and started walking.

A student, furious, threw his phone and screamed that he would never obey.

Darkcard—another Darkened elite, broad-shouldered and smiling like a gambler—stepped out of an alley and caught the student's thrown phone midair.

"Bad bet," Darkcard said casually, and flicked the phone back like a coin.

It struck the student's forehead hard enough to drop him.

Darkcard didn't kill him. He didn't need to.

He just pointed.

"Center's that way," he said.

And the student—dazed, terrified, human—stumbled in the direction he'd been told.

Westwind City tried to fight like a machine.

Westwind was wind farms, power grids, turbine towers that fed half the state. When the first cities started falling, Westwind's engineers decided they would at least deny the Darkened Regime the state's electricity.

They initiated a controlled shutdown. They prepared to burn their own transformers.

Darkpulse arrived with a squad of elites and touched the main relay station like he was greeting a friend.

The shutdown sequence reversed.

Not because Westwind changed its mind.

Because the grid stopped recognizing Westwind as its owner.

Lights across the city flared on bright and steady, even as people screamed in the streets.

The turbines began spinning faster than the wind justified, driven by an invisible permission slip.

A supervisor stared at the meters, voice cracking. "This is impossible—"

Darkpulse leaned in.

"It's just authorization," he said, and the words sounded so normal that the supervisor almost believed him for half a second.

Halcyon City—the symbolic heart, the bastion name itself—made its last stand with pride and doomed discipline.

Human soldiers stacked sandbags and mounted cannons, their faces gray with exhaustion. They placed banners on the wall not because banners stop bullets, but because banners stop despair from eating you alive.

Darkknight—an elite who looked like he'd chosen his name on purpose—walked forward with a grin and a blade of maroon energy that hummed like a closing door.

A human captain screamed, "Hold!"

The cannons fired.

The shells arced toward Darkknight—

—and then veered.

Not off-target.

Away.

As if the shells themselves had been informed that Halcyon City did not have permission to defend itself anymore.

Darkenedstorm lifted his hand.

Maroon sigils bloomed overhead like stormcloud punctuation.

The bastion wall didn't shatter. It didn't need to.

The defenders' resolve did.

Because the next sound wasn't an explosion.

It was the deep-world ping, louder now, echoing through the concrete, telling everyone present that time itself was keeping the enemy's rhythm.

In Fortglide, Fortwerr, Fortwerrland, Fortill, Fortlin, and Fortlins, the pattern repeated like a lesson no one wanted to learn.

Fortified cities tried to seal their gates.

The gates refused to close unless stamped.

Militias tried to set ambushes.

The streets rerouted them into dead ends.

Local politicians tried to enact curfews.

Their own police apps updated to new curfews authored elsewhere.

In Havendale, the last surviving city council attempted to shelter families inside a courthouse, swearing that "the law will protect us."

Darkwing stamped the courthouse steps.

The law obeyed him.

In Havenhold, a community of volunteers formed human chains to move food and water through alleys because the official supply routes were collapsing.

Darkverse—an elite whose eyes looked like empty sky—walked alongside the chain and whispered something that wasn't quite words.

The volunteers' sense of direction peeled apart. Left became right. Streets became unfamiliar. The chain broke in confusion. Crates fell. Water spilled.

A child cried because hunger is not philosophical.

Darkverse didn't smile. He didn't laugh.

He simply watched the consequences, as if studying human fragility like it was a subject in school.

Havenpiff tried to hide its children in a library basement. Havenroak tried to fight from rooftops. Havenwire tried to coordinate comms from an old broadcast tower. Havotown tried to evacuate by train.

Each attempt met the same answer.

Not always death.

Often something worse:

The feeling of being denied.

By the time evening came, Auttumotto's state map had changed color in every war room that still existed.

On the remaining ANN feed, the same anchor sat in the basement studio, face hollow now, reading messages he didn't believe in because belief was irrelevant.

"Damont City is under provisional administration," he said, voice flat. "Fortborter is under review. Havenjade corridors are closed pending authorization. Citizens are advised to report to compliance centers for—"

His words stuttered. He tried to stop.

Behind the camera, Darkglimpse lifted a finger, a gentle reminder.

The anchor continued.

Out on the street above him, Darkhit and Darkhitter escorted groups of civilians with the cold efficiency of guards who had stopped seeing faces. Darkmole's anchors stabilized new checkpoints. Darklance's squads posted at intersections like they were posing for a victory photograph.

In Damont's administrative chamber, Darkhitler reviewed documents with Darkenedale, already discussing how to "streamline" city policy to prevent future "evacuation disruptions."

Darkenedye monitored the cyberinternet and smiled for the first time—barely—when he saw the last resistance routing collapse.

"Signal is clean," Darkenedye said.

Darkeneddenominator murmured numbers and nodded. "Probability of successful uprising within seventy-two hours is negligible."

Darkenedpuff poured tea for a trembling local official and spoke softly. "You did the right thing by cooperating. Your people will suffer less now."

Somewhere outside, a human soldier bled out in an alley with his hand still on a radio that no longer acknowledged his voice.

Darkwing walked alone through the center of Damont City at sunset, maroon authority trailing behind him like a cape the world had agreed to see.

He stopped at the state's central monument—once a symbol of Auttumotto's identity, its pride, its supposed permanence.

He placed his palm on it.

The monument's inscription rewrote itself, letters turning clean and black.

STATE OF AUTTUMOTTO — FILED
ACCESS GRANTED TO OWNER

Darkwing turned, eyes bored, voice in FULL CAPS like a stamp landing with finality.

"AUTTUMOTTO IS COMPLETE," he said.

Darkhitler bowed his head just enough to acknowledge the verdict.

Darkenedstorm smiled like he'd been waiting for the next target.

Darkenedstride vanished, already moving to the next set of coordinates.

And far away—beyond Auttumotto, beyond Westonglappa—every AES command room that still had a working screen watched the same update appear.

Auttumotto had fallen.

Not because Sunbeam lacked power.

Not because Galaxbeam lacked math.

But because they had been forced to choose: hold the duel, or save the civilians.

They saved the civilians.

And Darkwing took the state.

The deep-world ping sounded one more time over Damont City, no longer a threat, but a metronome for occupation.

Then Darkwing spoke again, quiet in tone, absolute in impact.

"NEXT," he said, and the world felt the page turn.

As the last city in Auttomotto flickered out under the shadow of Darkwing's regime, the world's eyes remained fixed on Westonglappa—now a continent with a scar running through its heart. The great news tickers rolled relentlessly, every station from Leblaela to Sashax running the same story: Auttomotto Occupied – Authority Zone Expands. Crowds in city squares watched silent broadcasts of regime banners being raised over familiar landmarks, as if waiting for some miraculous reversal that never came.

Journalists, some brave, some desperate, reported on the devastation as Darkened Regime elites paraded openly through conquered streets. Darkflame made a show of igniting the old Auttomotto assembly hall, the fire spelling his name in burning script across the city skyline. Darkpalladium commandeered the local radio towers, declaring, "There will be order—by pressure or by flame." Reports emerged of Darkshadow hunting down the last of the city council, moving through the blacked-out tunnels beneath Zachon with cold, clinical precision.

Throughout the state, the true architects of defeat—Supreme Commanders Darkenedye, Darkenedale, Darkenedstream, Darkenedstride, Darkenedstorm, and Darkenedpuff—spread their influence, each leaving an indelible mark. Darkenedye orchestrated mass detainments with chilling efficiency, installing surveillance grids that turned every citizen's daily routine into a monitored transaction. Darkenedale, coldly methodical, oversaw the dismantling of local governance, handing out compliance writs that carried the weight of fate. Darkenedstream seized control of all waterways, using his mastery to blockade rivers and ports, cutting off any hope of outside supply or escape. Darkenedstride moved through the countryside and smaller towns like a shadow, stamping out any lingering resistance before it could ignite. Darkenedstorm unleashed his tempest on the central plains, sending arcs of unnatural lightning through entire battalions and reducing armored columns to blackened shells. Darkenedpuff, with a deceptive gentleness, entered refugee shelters offering "protection," only to convert them into indoctrination centers within days.

The military reinforcements sent from neighboring Westonglappa states arrived with banners unfurled and spirits high—only to be met, routed, and scattered within hours. Many believed themselves ready for an occupation; none were prepared for the overwhelming, coordinated wrath of the Darkened Supreme Commanders and their elite. In Leblaela, the news cycle struggled to keep up as columns of tanks simply vanished. Reports from Maylin described how Darktyrant alone had crushed a regiment, his laughter echoing across an empty battlefield as the survivors begged for retreat. In Sashax, the governor's last-ditch call for AES assistance went out over jammed radio waves, the reply never arriving, the city lost before it could be mourned.

In the days that followed, local news anchors' voices grew hoarse from reporting defeat after defeat. "Auttomotto is lost," they repeated, "and the Authority Zone is growing." In every conquered city, dark banners flew over former government offices and main squares. Screens everywhere displayed official statements of "Order Restored Under New Law." No one could mistake the meaning: resistance was crushed, hope forcibly rewritten.

Yet the continent's story did not end with silence. From the outlying states of Westonglappa, scattered columns of battered troops limped back to their home cities, bearing tales of monsters wearing human faces and powers that rewrote the rules of war. Civilians whispered, terrified, about the fate of those left behind. Editorials begged the Allied Evolution Salvation regimes—Solar, Lunar, Star, and Galaxy—to intervene before the tide swept further. "If not now," one commentator pleaded, "then never."

But within Auttomotto, the future was sealed in ink and authority. Supreme Commanders issued new decrees; elites hunted down the last embers of hope. The old cities took on new names, their maps redrawn and their histories amended. Across the world, watchers held their breath, knowing the next attack would not be slow—it would be inevitable.

Above the ashes, the Darkened Regime stood unopposed. The cliffhanger lingered not in whether they would be challenged, but how soon the challenge would arrive—
as the war pressed forward, and the shadow of the Authority Zone grew longer with every passing day.