The dreamscape trembled beneath their feet, still fractured from the last clash. Mydei hovered in the air, shadowy wings outstretched, eyes burning with crimson fury. His form was a manifestation of loss, vengeance, and power unchecked. Below him, Firefly stood resolute, armor scorched, yet her stance unwavering.
"You're persistent," Mydei growled, descending slowly like a reaper from on high. "Why? You know you can't win."
"Because Yuri still believes in you," Firefly replied, panting, fists clenched. "And so do I. Even if you've forgotten what it means to be human."
Mydei's face twisted. "Human? That weakness is what killed me. What killed us."
He dove.
Firefly barely had time to brace before he struck, their impact sending shockwaves that split the ground apart. She was driven back, metal screeching as his halberd dragged across her chestplate. She retaliated with a pulse grenade at point-blank range. The explosion engulfed them both, but only Firefly stumbled away, coughing through the static of her comms.
Mydei emerged through the smoke unharmed, the shadows around him shielding him like a second skin. He reached out—and from the air, conjured a dozen spectral blades. With a flick of his hand, they launched toward Firefly in a perfect, spiraling storm.
She activated her chrono-field, time slowing just enough to weave through the barrage. One blade nicked her helmet. Another sliced across her thigh. But she pressed forward, leaping from fractured ground to floating platforms, each step propelled by grit and defiance.
Yuri watched, hands trembling. The vision blurred between memory and now—he saw Mydei laughing with him, training with him. Then blood. Fire. Betrayal.
And now, Firefly.
She reached Mydei again and slammed into him with a shoulder charge, sending them both spiraling into the air. There, suspended in the white void, they clashed with the fury of gods.
Mydei's attacks were relentless—his weapons changed with every strike: glaives turning into flails, then into scimitars of shadow. Firefly's suit began to falter, servos whining, her HUD blinking red. But she adapted. She didn't match his strength; she matched his rhythm. Redirected. Absorbed. Countered.
"You fight like him," Mydei hissed, after she blocked a crushing blow. "But you're not him. You'll never be him."
"I'm not trying to be!" she shouted, launching an EMP blast that disrupted his form momentarily, freezing his wings in mid-beat. She followed it with a rising knee to his chin and a flurry of punches to his torso.
He crashed into a broken shard of the void's floor, a crater forming beneath him.
Yuri stepped forward, the voices in his head deafening now. Flashes of who he once was clawed at his mind. The feel of a blade in hand. Standing atop mountains of ruin. Mydei's voice—Brother, don't fall behind now!
And Firefly's—so clear in the present—You don't have to carry it alone.
Mydei rose again. His form was flickering now, unstable. "Yuri," he called out, his voice soft. "Do you see it now? What they made you forget? What they made you leave behind?"
Yuri didn't respond. He watched, eyes torn between past and present, as the battle raged on.
Firefly charged again, not with desperation, but precision. Her body moved like instinct, every feint and strike perfectly placed. Mydei intercepted her with a spinning back-kick, then followed with a barrage of clawed swipes. The air itself screamed from the force of his attacks.
She caught one strike on her arm, twisting to redirect his momentum. Her gauntlet cracked from the pressure, but she used it to leverage a powerful slam into his ribs. Mydei gasped and retaliated with a dark chain that burst from the ground and wrapped around her leg, yanking her downward.
"I will not be denied...my revenge!" Mydei yelled out.
Firefly knelt amidst a field of shattered light, her breath labored, the ground beneath her scorched and broken. Her armor was damaged, systems flickering. She had given a lot towards this fight, but it wasn't enough. Not against him. Not yet.
Mydei walked toward her, each step cracking the ground like thunder. "You should have stayed down," he growled. "You were never meant to carry this burden."
"Neither were you," Firefly shot back, dragging herself to her feet, fists clenched. "But here we are."
Their powers clashed again in a burst of brilliance and shadow. Mydei was relentless, weaving between forms of devastating grace—blades shifting, shadows grasping, striking with both memory and malice. Firefly fought back with stubborn resolve, parrying with kinetic bursts, dodging through instinct and grit, but she was slowing. Wounds mounting.
Yuri stood at the edge of the chaos, paralyzed. The visions in his mind blurred: Mydei laughing with him as a brother, bleeding in his arms as a martyr, and now, standing as a tyrant bent on tearing reality apart.
He didn't remember how it all fell apart.
But something inside him knew.
Firefly screamed as Mydei slammed her into the ground, a crater forming around her. He hovered above her, halberd glowing with unholy energy, ready to strike the final blow.
"Stop!" Yuri shouted.
Mydei paused. His gaze flicked toward Yuri, red eyes flickering. "You of all people should understand. They took everything from us. I became this so you wouldn't have to."
"No," Yuri said, stepping forward. "You became this because you couldn't let go. Because you let the pain rewrite who you were."
Mydei turned fully toward him. "Then show me who you were, Yuri. Strike me down."
Yuri hesitated—then moved.
He dove toward Firefly, helping her up. Her eyes widened, but she said nothing.
"I don't remember everything," Yuri said, his voice low. "But I remember enough. And I know this ends with us. Together."
Firefly nodded, her strength renewed by his choice.
Mydei roared, unleashing a torrent of shadow. Yuri raised a hand—and light answered. Not memory. Not vengeance. But hope.
The battle resumed, but now Firefly did not stand alone.
And Mydei, for all his fury, was no longer certain of victory.
With a flick of his wrist, Yuri summoned a series of glowing blue rings—portals shifting in and out of time. Mydei's strike lunged toward them, only to be deflected as Yuri stepped through one portal and out another behind him, landing a precision blow to his back. Energy burst from the impact, momentarily staggering the fallen knight.
Firefly took the opportunity, launching herself into a high-speed spin, lashing out with twin plasma arcs that carved through the air like meteors. Mydei snarled and met her blow-for-blow, but Yuri bent the battlefield itself—time stuttered, slowed, and rewound in fractal blinks, giving Firefly the upper hand.
Mydei tried to adapt, wings of flame unfurling as he split his halberd into a sweeping vortex of destruction. Yuri raised a temporal barrier, distorting the wave just enough for Firefly to slip underneath and land a vicious strike to Mydei's chest.
Damn it...Both of them together is going to make this a pain...
Mydei was losing now.
Together, Firefly and Yuri charged. One a beacon of kinetic fury, the other a phantom dancing between seconds. Mydei fought with everything he had left—raw, brutal, desperate—but their unity broke through his chaos. Yuri unleashed a storm of rifts around Mydei, locking him in a prison of light and warped time. Firefly, breath heaving, unleashed her final strike—a concentrated pulse that shattered the dreamscape around them.
Mydei was flung back, defeated but not destroyed, laying down from the impact of the wrath brought to him.
The world held its breath.
And for the first time, Yuri and Firefly stood side by side—not just allies, but destiny's answer to the storm.
"I may not know what I once was to you Mydei but...I cannot let you deny our current reality." Yuri spoke out.
"You want to truly...know..?" Mydei responded back as he got up.
Mydei laughed briefly before speaking once more.
"Allow me to show you..."
Mydei clapped both his hands together before yelling out.
"Vivid Dimensions."