A large, brown, furry wolf-shifter howls, head pointing up. A howl of triumph, triumph against the tribulations. She runs at lightning speed towards Marten, a tall brown-haired, dark skin soldier in black and navy green uniform, no armor. As a dragon shifter, he rarely needed it because his skin was tougher than most metals. However, a large sword hangs in the strap on his back. In his human form, he was just as deadly as a dragon.

“It worked. They are gone!” Marten exhales, nearly breaking a smile on his strong face as he shields his face from the bright orange burns, hand hovering just above his sweaty eyebrows. After all hope was lost, who would have thought Earth would be the victor in this cruel war against dangerous man eating invaders. Everything felt so surreal, so much so that he thought he was imagining it.

However, the loud cheers erupting in the background of that icy terrain said otherwise. Proof that he was in reality. The combined shouts of men and women, who sacrificed everything fighting eight-foot monsters, caused the ice beneath their feet to tremor.

“It's all over, no more fighting.” Janette shifts back to her human form, morphing into a short-haired woman in black uniforms, iron pauldron on her right arm, metal claw at her fingertips. Her uniform is partly shredded, with cuts and tears all over. The shapeshifting magician stands beside the tall soldier, sore red eyes searching for any trace of enemy left. The sky is empty of metal and ground scarce of flesh eating monsters. “Five years and Earth is ours again.”

Janette's brown eyes follow the Healers, soldiers in coffee brown uniform, as they attend to the wounded. Unfortunately, there were more unconscious dead soldiers than injured. A sinking feeling of exhaustion floods Janette. “We've lost so many.”

“We would have lost lots more if the queen hadn't stepped up.” Marten says in a dismissive tone, more focused on the clearing sky. No Angels, no monsters, no portals, meaning they couldn't come back. The war is really over. “When she said she would return the Angels to their worlds, I didn't think it was possible,” he starts feeling guilty of his lack of faith. At the time, he saw her as a mad woman for planning something so outrageous. But here they were, enemies destroyed and banished. 

“Where's the queen?” A wave of excitement holds his heart.

He asks Janette, as she was the Queen's second, wherever the queen was, Janette was there at her side ready to take orders.

“I don't know. Last I saw her, she was headed straight to attack the mothership before it…" Janette furrows her eyebrows in realization. “…exploded—”

“You haven't heard from her since?” Marten asks, recalling that he sighted the queen high in the sky seconds before a white light burst into a wave of explosions, destroying the enemy in one sweep. The monsters and weapons of the enemy that hadn't been affected by the blast mysteriously disappeared that very second as well.

“No.” Janette nods as she begins to gaze at her feet. 

Marten nearly laughs at a stupid thought. The thought that the Queen might have perished along with the enemy in the explosion. 

No. It couldn't be. “I will reach her through a mind link. She's probably somewhere celebrating…” Marten chuckles in denial.

“Your highness, The Angels have fallen, congratulations. Where are you?” Marten says in his head trying to communicate with the queen telepathically.

Silence. There's no response from the other side.

"Your Highness, what is your location?' Marten tries again, voice sounding more desperate.

The people around who could hear Marten's voice in their heads begin to tense from worry as they wait for a response as well.

Again nothing. 

Slowly, the celebration faded into silence. Even the elves and mages who couldn't communicate telepathically noticed something wrong. They, too, began trying to reach her with their magic, however…

“She hasn't been responding to our callings. People are starting to worry, rumors are spreading.” A white haired man named Jae approaches the two boldly as he walks on the snow aggressively. “Everyone saw the queen create the last explosion, and now she's quiet. What's happening—” 

Marten hangs his head low. Thoughts in shambles. 

“Marten answer me!” Jae growls. “Don't you shifters have that bizarre connection thing?”

“I don't know. I am not sure. I… I can't feel a trace of her.”

“No!” Janette screams as she drops to her knees and cries.

Jae looks at her and then Marten. “What does that mean?”

“She could be dead.”

Those few words echoed, farther than it should have, as others who heard began to mourn. 

Jae's eyes widens as his hands fall to his side, speechless. “She's… dead?”

Gloom takes over the minds of everyone as they can no longer celebrate. 

They defeated the enemy but at the cost of something more precious, their hope. Their hero. Their leader, The one who rose uniting the three Earths as one. The Earth of the elves, Earth of the mages and Earth of the shape-shifters during the era of its greatest horror. 

“I refuse to believe our queen is dead,” Marten spits out with a frown.