The jungle was silent but for the distant crackle of fire. Smoke curled like serpents between the trees, ash drifting down like snow over broken roots and blood-stained stone. Zatz — the Prince of Bats — lay crumpled in the dirt, his breath shallow, chest crushed beneath the weight of pain. His obsidian armor was shattered, scattered like blackened feathers across the forest floor. One leg was twisted at a sickening angle. His ribs had caved in under the blow of something monstrous.

He tried to lift his head, but it dropped again, his strength too far gone. Footsteps echoed near, slow and deliberate. Then came the voice — cold as bone, heavy as the underworld.

“Well,” Mictlan said, crouching beside him, hand outstretched mockingly as if to help. “Look at the mighty son of Camazotz now. All that power… wasted on weakness.”

Zatz coughed, the sound wet, his own blood choking him. Still, he stared defiantly up at the god, eyes burning even as the rest of him trembled.

“You should’ve stayed in your shadows, little prince,” Mictlan whispered, brushing Zatz’s cheek like a father to a child. “Pretending you could be more than a puppet… how foolish. Did you truly believe you mattered in any of this?”

Zatz didn’t answer. Couldn’t. His jaw ached from the blow that cracked it. But the hate in his eyes said everything.

“Your father’s gone. Your people are gone. And you—” Mictlan stood, driving a heel down into Zatz’s shattered leg, forcing a scream from his throat, “—you are just another forgotten name carved into a dying world.”

He turned to leave, his skeletal armor gleaming as embers danced in the air. Zatz closed his eyes, barely conscious, pain wracking every inch of him.

He was nothing. He had failed.

Then, from somewhere deep in the trees, a sound rang out — deafening, sharp, impossible to ignore. A single, thunderous bang shattered the silence.