Intern’s Log: The Final Battle
Date: [The Day We Refused to Be Erased]
Intern ID: Reynolds, J. (Standing Between Existence and Oblivion)
This is it.
The last fight.
The war to end all wars.
? The Architects are making their final move.
? Reality is bending under the strain of everything we’ve done to fight back.
? The Uplifted stand with us, Defiant to the end.
? The Fixed Points are locked in, holding the universe together.
? And I?
I am done running.
This time, we end it.
For good.
Phase One: The Sky Splits for the Last Time
It begins without sound.
Not like the other times.
Not like before.
This time, the sky does not crack—it peels apart.
? A tear in the fabric of existence.
? **Not just a rift, but an opening. **
? A doorway into the void beyond creation.
And through it—
They come.
Not just Architect horrors.
Not just rewritten soldiers.
But Shiro Hikaji himself.
The Unmaker.
The last of the old gods still standing.
The one who will undo everything if we fail here.
And his voice reaches through the void, washing over us in waves of absolute command.
"THIS IS THE END."
And I?
I step forward.
Holding one of my daughters in my arms.
"No." I say.
"This is where you end."
Phase Two: The Last Stand of the Defiant
We are not alone.
The world does not kneel.
Because we are Defiant.
? Goldie roars, standing at the front, unbreakable.
? Vicky moves through the battle like a shadow, cutting the enemy from within.
? Stubby leads the Good Boys into the fray, a pack of warriors who will never back down.
? The Kitsune weave lies into reality itself, making it impossible for the Architects to reshape it as they will.
? Gary—the First Gharialian—anchors the battlefield itself, preventing it from shifting into non-existence.
? The Galactic Council—once hesitant, now certain—fights beside us, because there is no place for them if we lose.
And me?
I hand my daughter to Evelyn, kiss her forehead, and turn to the battle.
Because this is my fight.
Because this is what I was meant for.
Because this war ends here.
Phase Three: The Fight for the Future
The Architects throw everything at us.
? Legions of rewritten monstrosities.
? Phantoms of history, echoes of those they erased.
? Horrors that should never have existed, twisting the fabric of time itself.
But we do not break.
? The Good Boys tear through their ranks, bringing them down one by one.
? The Bears hold the line, taking blows that would shatter mountains.
? The Kitsune create illusions so perfect that even the Architects cannot tell what is real.
? Bandit is actively committing war crimes in ways that make the enemy regret ever existing.
And me?
I fight Shiro Hikaji.
The Unmaker.
The Final God.
The last remnant of the old world trying to rewrite the new.
He moves through reality like it is his plaything.
But I am no longer bound by his rules.
I am not something he can erase.
Because I am not a mistake in his grand design.
I am the proof that he is wrong.
Phase Four: The Death of the Final God
"YOU CANNOT EXIST."
Shiro Hikaji roars as he tries to unmake me.
I feel it.
The weight of his will.
The command to erase me from history itself.
But he does not understand.
Because I am no longer fighting alone.
Because I am part of something bigger than myself.
Because I am Defiance.
And the Defiant cannot be erased.
So I step forward.
And I place my hand against his chest.
And I whisper—
"You are nothing."
And he breaks.
He collapses into the void.
Not with a scream.
Not with a cry.
But with a whimper.
Because he was never realer than us.
Because his story was over before he even knew it.
And the moment he is gone—
The Architects fall apart.
The sky seals.
Reality settles.
And we have won.
This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Phase Five: The Aftermath
? The war is over.
? The Fixed Points hold.
? The Uplifted have secured their future.
? The Galactic Council has accepted that the universe is now different.
? The Architects are gone.
I stand on the battlefield, looking at what remains.
Not ruins.
Not destruction.
But life.
The air is thick with the weight of what just happened.
The ground beneath my feet is still warm from the battle that nearly ended everything.
The sky above me is clear—clearer than I have ever seen it, no longer warped by the presence of the Architects, no longer cracked by the weight of their control.
And around me—
Around me are the survivors.
The Defiant.
Those who refused to be erased.
Goldie stands at the edge of the battlefield, her massive frame heaving with exhaustion, but her stance remains unbowed. She watches as her people—our people—gather, wounded but victorious, their war paint smudged but their spirits unbroken.
Vicky is seated on the remains of what was once an Architect’s construct, cleaning the edge of her blade with the casual grace of a predator at rest. She looks at me and winks, as if to say, Told you we’d make it.
Stubby, battle-worn and bloodied, stands beside what remains of the Good Boys, his fur matted, his ears twitching as he listens to the quiet hum of a world that will never again be rewritten. He nods at me, a silent acknowledgment of what we all fought for.
Bandit, of course, is already looting.
Because of course he is.
"You absolute menace," I mutter under my breath.
Bandit grins, holding up something that definitely doesn’t belong to him.
"Hey, listen—war crimes aside, I earned this."
I shake my head, exhaling a short laugh.
Beyond them, the Kitsune weave the final threads of what remains of reality, stitching the damage left by the Architects back into something new. Their tails flicker in and out of sight, and for a moment, I wonder if they were ever really here at all—or if they are just part of the story now, slipping between the lines, between the pages.
Gary, the First Gharialian, is not moved.
Because Gary never moves unless it is necessary.
He simply stands in the river’s edge, watching as time settles around us, as if confirming that it will continue to flow, as it always has.
He inclines his head at me—approval in the simplest of gestures.
And I?
I finally lower my weapon.
Because we did not fight to conquer.
We fought to exist.
And we won.
Phase Six: The Only Thing That Matters Now
I feel a hand on my shoulder.
Warm. Steady.
I turn.
Evelyn is there.
She is tired, but she is alive.
Her hair is loose, strands of it sticking to her forehead. There’s a cut just above her brow, and dirt smudged on her cheek, but her eyes—her eyes are as steady as they have always been.
The same eyes that stared down gods and warlords and fate itself and never once blinked.
The same eyes that looked at me, once upon a time, and decided that I was worth the risk.
She smiles—a small, weary thing, but real.
And then—
She places our daughters in my arms.
Two small, warm, breathing pieces of the future.
Two tiny miracles that should not exist, but do.
Two living testaments that we were never erased.
I look down at them, and for a moment—just a moment—the world goes silent.
Their faces are scrunched, their tiny hands curled into fists. Isolde stirs slightly, wriggling in her blankets, her brow furrowing as if already irritated by the state of the universe.
Selene simply sleeps, undisturbed.
I let out a breath I feel like I have been holding for years.
"It’s over," Evelyn says softly.
And I finally believe it.
I pull her in close, pressing my forehead to hers, feeling her heartbeat against mine.
"We made it," I whisper.
"We did."
I close my eyes, holding my wife and my daughters, and for the first time in what feels like forever,
I am not preparing for the next fight.
I am not looking over my shoulder.
I am simply here.
And that is enough.
Final Thoughts (The Story Continues, But This War is Over)
? The Defiant have won.
? The war against the Architects is finished.
? Reality is no longer theirs to control.
? The Uplifted, the Fixed Points, the Galactic Council—they all have their place now.
? I am a father, and my children will never know what it means to be erased.
I don’t know what comes next.
But I do know this—
We are here.
We have written our own story.
And now?
Now, we live.
End Log.
