Nemesis [i]cracks[/i].

Reality cracks with it. The perfect, endless blue sky above fractures like glass, huge channels running along it, separating the stars and refracting light along its bleeding edge. This planet should not be here and, as the orbital ring detonates and falls apart, the chains binding it here begin to snap one after another. Through holes in the sky, blackest night becomes visible. 

And it is a huge letdown. 

One of the galaxy's greatest explosions is happening and, despite your front row seats, you do not get to watch it. Its explosion is literally transforming the most fascinating skybox in history into a boring standard night sky viewable from anywhere in the galaxy. If there is any consolation to be had it is that you must be cool girls of the highest magnitude not to look at this explosion.

Speaking of explosions not happening, you cannot help but notice you are not being turned into mincemeat by the Avatar of War and her god-cutting blade. Given the sheer, hellish weight that the Shogun had drawn around herself the idea that it would not happen quickly already seemed like an impossibly long shot - it takes genuine mental effort to even float the idea that it might not happen at all. 

But sure enough, there she is. Standing in one of the last cracks in the sky, silver blade in hand, mark of Mars upon her brow - looking at you with a predatory grin before she touches her index finger to the brim of her hat and turns her back. She abandons the chase and leaps into the sky to rejoin her war fleet, turning her back on a screaming Aphrodite. Her people are about to embark on the greatest military campaign in galactic history and there is literally nothing the Gods can offer her she would prefer to that. And if Artemis had happened to whisper in her ear and remind her that she had signed no oaths to finish this Hunt, who could blame her? Those were just the facts.

And so the sky slams shut. The Plousios hovers above a ruined battlefield and shattered palace. And all about, a dull roar starts to raise. A sound like the ocean, but arrhythmic, scattered. Cheers. Applause. The ragged, mud-streaked and bloodstained defenders of the first world to ever survive Nemesis are emerging from their bunkers and bastions, looking up at skies emptied of wolves. In disbelief and shock and relief they embrace each other and give praise to the Gods. You do not know these people or their stories, how every one of them had been destined to die on this battlefield and give their bodies to the Cycle of Demeter. The colours of their banners, their noble traditions and codes of honour that set them against a storm that had burned across the galaxy for two centuries - it would take a lifetime to immerse in this culture and learn just how much this impossible miracle meant to them. 

But it is not to be. The stars call, one final time.