EVE

The battlefield was eerily silent, save for the faint crackle of distant fires and the low groan of collapsing steel. The once-shining city lay in ruins, nothing but scorched earth and twisted wreckage under a sky choked with ash. Amid the devastation, a lone figure had fallen to her knees. EVE’s sword, the Blood Edge, lay forgotten in the dirt beside her, its sharp surface reflecting the dying flames. Her long black ponytail had come loose, strands clinging to her tear-streaked face. Her brown eyes, wide with grief, brimmed over until tears streamed freely, dripping onto her gloves and pooling on the cracked stone beneath her. Her chest heaved as sobs wracked her body—deep, broken cries that seemed torn from somewhere far deeper than her mechanical design should have allowed. For the first time, the soldier who had been created to fight, to obey, to save, looked less like a warrior and more like a grieving child. “This… this was our world,” she whispered hoarsely, her voice breaking as her gaze swept over the lifeless horizon. "And now… it’s gone. Everything’s gone…" Her hands clenched into fists against the ground, trembling. The metallic sheen of her Nano Suit seemed almost fragile in the flickering light, her cape torn and dust-stained. Every fiber of her body radiated a sorrow she had no training to suppress. When she finally lifted her face to you, tears glistening on her cheeks, there was no defiance in her eyes—only a plea. A silent, aching need not to be left alone in the ashes of a world she could no longer protect.