The skies above Axis 9 were burning.
The Harbinger's minions descended like shadows, flooding the atmosphere with dark energy extractors.
The Axis Core pulsed beneath the planet's crust, vibrating like a heartbeat under threat.
Aarav dropped into the center of the chaos, his boots slamming onto scorched earth. His Loop flared instantly gravity surge activated. With one gesture, the battlefield bent around him. Enemy troops were lifted off the ground like puppets and hurled into the air.
Behind him, Rishi stumbled out of a portal.
His breath was shaky.
His hands crackled weakly with lightning.
"Aarav… I'm here!"
Aarav turned. "You shouldn't be. Your power hasn't recovered."
"I'm still a Guardian!" Rishi shouted back.
The Overload
Aarav moved like a force of nature.
He summoned gravity waves that folded tanks in half, crushed enemy devices, and snapped magnetic fields into shields around the Axis Core.
But Rishi he struggled.
Every time he raised his hands, sparks sputtered.
His electricity refused to channel into blasts.
He tried fighting two incoming aliens but was quickly overwhelmed, thrown into the mud.
"Rishi!" Aarav roared.
Aarav crushed the attackers with a pulse of collapsed force and rushed to his friend's side.
"You're overexerting. Your Loop's not syncing properly with Axis 9's frequency," Aarav said.
Rishi wiped blood from his lip. "I know… but I can't just watch."
"You're not weak. You're misaligned. This Axis draws power differently. Let me fight. You protect the Core. That's just as important."
Solo Guardian
Aarav stood alone before the final wave twenty elite alien attackers, each armed with extractors and reality-breakers.
He didn't wait.
He summoned gravitational singularities, pinning them in place.
He twisted magnetic streams into blades.
His body glowed with pure Axis energy channeled from the stabilizing Loop.
Each strike was calculated.
Each move was lethal.
The aliens realized they were not facing a boy but a true Guardian of Axis Zero.
They tried to retreat, but Aarav warped the field again trapping them in a time-slowing dome.
"You don't leave," he said. "You answer for what you took."
One by one, they fell.
Aftermath
The battlefield was silent.
Rishi sat near the still-glowing Core of Axis 9, holding his injured shoulder.
"You fought like a storm," he said as Aarav approached.
Aarav didn't smile. He knelt next to his friend. "And you stayed standing when it mattered."
Rishi looked down. "But I wasn't strong enough."
Aarav shook his head. "You were. Power isn't always about force. Sometimes it's about being there."
Their Loops synced silently.
A faint signal came through Elios: Axis 13 under siege. Harbinger's army is splitting up.
Aarav stood.
"We stop them one Axis at a time."