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Caesar didn't cry. He just stared.
For a moment, everything went silent inside him.
Then something darker rose.
"CHAAAAARGE!!"
With a roar that split the heavens, Caesar mounted his horse again.
Spear in hand, face twisted in rage, he led a final charge down the burning hillside.
Koba, Rocket, and a handful of surviving warriors followed on horseback or swinging down from trees in a last, desperate assault.
The human soldiers dug into reinforced trenches covered by machine-gun nests and saw them coming.
"Incoming targets—seventeen… no, twenty apes. Front quadrant."
"Let 'em come. They want to die, give it to 'em."
"DA-DA-DA-DA!!"
Gunfire poured from emplacements.
LMGs and belt-fed heavy machine guns cut the air like buzzsaws.
Grenade launchers thumped, their rounds exploding mid-flight.
Ape after ape fell—spears dropping, bodies crumpling, horses stumbling over broken roots and torn earth.
But Caesar didn't stop.
He dodged left, right—his horse weaving between mortar craters and falling branches.
A bullet grazed his arm. Another took down Rocket beside him.
Caesar threw his spear with all his might—it struck a gunner dead-center in the chest, knocking him backward.
He leapt from the saddle and landed amidst the soldiers with a snarl.
Hand-to-hand chaos erupted.
One soldier raised his rifle—Caesar kicked it aside, spun, and stabbed him through the gut with a broken branch.
Another came at him with a combat knife—Caesar ducked and slammed his elbow into the man's face, sending him sprawling.
Koba, roaring like a demon, tore into two men with nothing but his claws and teeth before falling under a hail of bullets.
Blood stained the dirt. Smoke swallowed the sun. It was madness.
And still… they kept coming.
Even the humans were stunned.
These apes weren't wild beasts.
They were soldiers—driven by pain, loyalty, and vengeance.
"What the hell are these things…?"
"They're... they're organized."
"They're fighting like us."
But the difference in weapons was too great.
No matter how bravely they fought, the apes were being slaughtered.
Then—suddenly—the battle paused.
A shockwave rippled through the air.
Leading the final charge, Caesar let out a thunderous roar and hurled his javelin with all the strength he had left.
The weapon cut through the air like lightning and found its mark.
THWACK!
A soldier, caught mid-reload, barely had time to look up before the javelin pierced his faceplate and drove deep into his skull, killing him instantly.
Blood sprayed the soldiers beside him.
"Throw!!" Caesar shouted hoarsely.
All around him, the last surviving apes unleashed their javelins in unison.
Dozens of crude but powerful projectiles soared into the sky and rained down on the human formation.
Several soldiers went down, pierced in the arms, legs, or chest.
Cries of pain erupted through the squad comms.
"Take cover! Behind the vehicles! MOVE!"
The human soldiers reacted fast.
Many dropped behind armored Humvees, felled trees, or dug into shallow foxholes.
The hail of primitive weapons slowed, but the opportunity had already been seized.
Caesar and his kin crashed into their ranks.
"CHAAAAA!!!"
It was a brutal, close-quarters brawl.
Fists met rifles, teeth met flesh—the apes, outmatched in technology, made up for it in raw fury and desperation.
One ape slammed a soldier's head into the ground until his helmet cracked.
Another ripped a rifle from human hands and beat its owner to death with it.
Caesar, bloodied and breathless, fought with savage precision, knocking men unconscious with backhands, parrying knives with bare hands, spearing two enemies with a scavenged bayonet.
But bullets still flew.
Apes dropped one by one and were torn apart mid-charge. Explosions burst in the tree line.
Chaos and smoke choked the battlefield.
"Kill them all!! Don't let any survive!!"
From above, the shrill whine of rotor blades grew louder.
The Falcon Combat Aviation Brigade had returned.
Apache gunships and Kiowa scouts swooped in, opening fire with miniguns and rockets.
The ground lit up again—trees exploded, apes vaporized in mid-run.
Human soldiers regrouped under the aerial cover and closed in from all sides, tightening the net.
Caesar turned just in time to see apes gunned down while shielding wounded juveniles.
Koba, surrounded and wild-eyed, let out one last roar before a grenade ended his life in fire and smoke.
It was over.
The battlefield, once filled with howls and chaos, now echoed only with gunfire, sobbing, and death.
Caesar stood alone.
He staggered forward, blood pouring from a dozen wounds.
His fur was matted red, his eyes fierce but fading.
"For… ape…"
Then—a gunshot.
BANG!
The bullet struck Caesar in the side.
He gasped, stumbled… and collapsed.
The world spun. The screams faded.
The smell of blood and smoke drifted away.
Lying on his back, Caesar turned his face to the sky.
Now sinking beneath the forest horizon, the sun burned orange and red.
It was beautiful… and final—the end of his kind.
Is this… the sunset of the apes?
But just as the light dimmed…
Something passed over him.
A fast, silvery-white cloud cut across the setting sun like a comet streaking from the heavens.
What... is that…?
His pupils widened.
The shape moved unnaturally fast, flickering like lightning.
Radiant. Surging with energy.
A soldier saw it too, looking up from his visor.
"What the hell—?"
And then came the shockwave.