[Katherine’s PoV]

  “Are you sure they’ll reach us?” Katherine asked, unable to keep the worry out of her voice as she looked toward her brother.

  John York didn’t even glance away. His posture was calm, like a man who knows every possible outcome.

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “It’s better this way.”

  Katherine’s brow tightened.

  John continued, his tone measured, almost gentle. “If they can’t make it here, then it means it isn’t his time yet. And if it isn’t his time, then it’s better not to face the Emperor. Not now.”

  Katherine swallowed, her eyes drifting back to the Imperial Courtyard ahead.

  White stone stretched beneath her boots, polished so smooth it reflected light like water. Towering columns lined both sides of the open space.

  This place wasn’t just beautiful. It was a weaponized monument, architecture designed to inspire awe and enforce obedience.

  She could feel it.

  The air itself was heavy here. Not with smoke or dust, but with Energy, the invisible weight of the Emperor’s presence pressing down from somewhere deeper within the palace.

  He’ll come, she told herself, her jaw tightening. He will. Meanwhile, I need to do this. At least this much.

  Ahead, at the center of the courtyard, a small group was already waiting.

  The White Ranger—Stewart, Sixth General of the NEA—sat as if the courtyard belonged to him alone. Even seated, he radiated control, his gaze level and cold.

  Around him stood three Purple Rangers, each one silent, motionless, their visors aimed at Katherine and John as they approached.

  Katherine’s eyes narrowed.

  Only three?

  The Imperial Guard was supposed to be in the hundreds. If only they stood here, then the rest were somewhere else.

  Inside, she questioned. With the emperor?

  A chill crept down her spine.

  Stewart spoke without rising, his voice carrying easily through the open courtyard.

  “John,” he said, as if greeting an old acquaintance. “It would be wiser for you to turn back. I’ll handle the rebel and the Nameless.”

  Katherine’s fingers tightened, her muscles coiling as she prepared for his attack.

  But John didn’t slow.

  He kept walking. His gaze remained fixed forward, unshaken.

  Yet the air around him began to change.

  A golden glow bloomed around his body, forming lines first. Threads of light tracing across his shoulders and arms, then solidifying into plates.

  Golden Armor.

  It assembled itself around him with divine precision, each piece locking into place. The finished suit gleamed like a star forged into steel.

  Katherine followed instinctively.

  Her own Energy surged, and crimson light flared around her. The familiar Red Armor formed.

  She didn’t move ahead of John. She stayed half a step behind, close enough to follow his momentum, far enough not to be swallowed by it.

  Before any of them could speak, John extended his arm.

  [Zeus’ Rage]

  Lightning burst from his hand in branching spears. It didn’t scatter randomly. It chose. Each bolt snapped toward a target, carving a path through the air toward Stewart and the Purple Rangers flanking him.

  The bolts slammed down, and Stewart answered.

  He touched the ground. The courtyard’s white stone rippled, then heaved upward. A wall rose between them in thick slabs, layered and dense, a brutal barricade that looked less like construction and more like a fortress tearing itself out of the floor.

  John’s lightning struck the wall and spread across it, spidering over the surface and exploding into sprays of light.

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  The wall held, absorbing the fury with a low, grinding groan. Cracks formed, but they were shallow at first, thin fractures that glowed and then cooled.

  John’s voice carried through the storm, calm but sharp.

  “That's my answer.”

  John continued, as if the violence was merely punctuation.

  “It’s been a long time since I wanted to bring the Emperor down. Now it’s… convenient.”

  Katherine’s hands tightened. She didn’t want to be dragged into the center of a duel between a Golden Ranger and a White Ranger. The two of them carried enough power to become natural disasters with legs.

  John’s lightning brightened again.

  His arm steadied, his posture tightening, and the storm intensified. The bolts thickened, the arcs longer and heavier, slamming against the wall until the entire barricade began to glow at the edges.

  John’s voice hardened.

  “But what I want most is to know who ordered my brother killed. I’ll get the answer out of your body or out of the Emperor’s.”

  The wall finally began to fail.

  Cracks widened into jagged lines that raced across the stone. Pieces broke free and dissolved into dust under the sustained barrage.

  Katherine watched the barrier’s collapse with a calculating stillness. She tracked the Purple Rangers’ stance changes—tiny shifts of weight, fingers tightening. She watched Stewart’s posture, how he didn’t retreat even as his wall disintegrated.

  He wanted John to come closer, and John did.

  The lightning ceased abruptly, leaving a ringing silence in its wake.

  For an instant, the courtyard was filled with drifting dust and the soft crackle of residual Energy skittering across broken stone.

  Then John moved.

  He didn’t run. He launched. Golden light snapped around him as he crossed the distance in a heartbeat, the ground fracturing beneath his feet.

  Stewart rose from his seated posture with a smooth, practiced inevitability, as though he’d been waiting for the correct timing.

  The two of them collided.

  The impact came without sound for a split second, then the shockwave hit, slamming into Katherine’s armor like a physical blow. Her boots scraped across the white stone as she braced, one foot sliding back. The nearest columns rattled, shedding fine flakes of stone.

  John's attacks weren’t just fast; they were final. Each motion carried the weight of a finishing blow. Lightning crawled over his gauntlet as he drove forward, his Energy output so dense it made the air shimmer around his fists.

  Stewart didn’t yield.

  He met the assault with controlled brutality. The space between their bodies filled with sparks as Energy slammed into Energy.

  John’s power was monstrous. Any normal Ranger would have been crushed within seconds, overwhelmed by the sheer volume of Energy he commanded. Even Unique Armors would falter under that kind of relentless output.

  Yet, Stewart was still there, still moving, still surviving.

  The Purple Rangers kept trying to slip into the duel. Timing their steps between John’s strikes, searching for the half-second where the Golden Armor’s storm left room for someone else.

  Katherine didn’t give them that room.

  “As if I'd let them,” she muttered, setting her feet on the white stone as if she were bracing against a wave.

  [Blood Coffin]

  The air around her flashed crimson.

  Blood burst into existence in thick sheets, as though the courtyard itself had been cut open and decided to bleed. Three enormous coffins formed in a blink, each one a vertical cage of the red liquid.

  The Purple Rangers reacted too late.

  Two of them were caught mid-step, their posture still arrogant, their weight still forward. The third managed to shift, throwing up a barrier of Energy at the last instant, or triggering some unseen Boon, but even he was forced to brace.

  The coffins slammed shut with a violent finality. Spines grew inward like spears.

  Katherine heard it. The crunch of armor under pressure, the ugly scrape of metal and crystal-plating trying to resist being pierced from every direction at once. Even Unique Rangers weren’t supposed to take a hit like that cleanly.

  The blood held for a heartbeat longer, then dissolved. Evaporating in drifting red mist that faded into the courtyard’s bright air.

  The results remained.

  Two Purple Rangers stumbled free with their armor punched full of holes, ragged punctures across the chest and shoulder plates. They weren’t dead, but they were hurt, and Katherine could see the hesitation in their footing now.

  The third stepped out almost pristine, his stance tighter than before.

  Katherine didn’t waste the moment.

  Blood surged over both her forearms, crawling like living armor. It hardened into shape, edges sharpening into twin blades that extended from wrist to elbow.

  She wasn’t wearing a Unique Armor. She didn’t have the raw, effortless speed of a Purple Ranger.

  But she didn’t need it.

  She moved like something honed for war. She was fast and agile.

  The Purple Rangers spoke as they repositioned, voices cold behind their visors.

  “The General doesn’t need our help.”

  “Then we end her first.”

  “A rare prize. An ex-general. A princess.”

  They sounded amused, not showing the respect needed.

  Katherine preferred it that way.

  She vanished from their immediate sight—not by teleportation, not by a blink, but by sheer timing and footwork. One step became three. A shadow became distance. When they adjusted their sight, she was already elsewhere.

  Their confidence fractured in small, silent increments.

  “You have no idea how many Unique Rangers I've faced,” she scoffed.

  Her attacks came from angles that punished arrogance. Right side, left side, behind a column’s shadow, from the edge of their peripheral vision. When they managed to track her, she shifted targets, forcing them to turn, forcing them to lose alignment.

  She struck at seams and joints, at damaged plating, at the places where her Blood Coffin had already weakened the structure. Each hit wasn’t meant to kill. It was meant to keep them moving, keep them busy, keep them from interfering with John.

  Breathe. Maintain the rhythm.

  She kept the rhythm.

  She kept them occupied.

  In that relentless cadence—blood-blades flashing, boots skimming across white stone—she missed the sound of footsteps approaching.

  Three sets.

  Adrian.

  Mordred.

  Oliver.

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