Long ago, in the barrios of Arcadia, there was a cuento viejo, an old story, about three stones.

The first stone was a pebble. Tiny. Insignificant. When children walked the dirt roads, they’d pick it up, toss it into the air, and laugh as it skipped across the water. The pebble never left a mark. It never cracked the surface. It was light, powerless, nothing more than a toy.

Ese es tú, Destructo.

All your rage, all your attitude, all your shouting… yet you are still just a pebble. People have picked you up—men like your father, men like Doom—and tossed you wherever they pleased. You’ve been thrown from hand to hand, used and discarded. But no matter how many times you’re thrown, you don’t make a scratch. You never will.

The second stone was larger. A medium-sized piedra, heavy enough to bruise, to crack a window if hurled just right. But by itself? Still harmless. It could sit for years by the roadside and never do anything at all.

Ese eres tú, Capitán Arcadia.

A man of honor, sí. A man of valor. But a man so obsessed with being the good guy that you never realize the truth—you are only dangerous when someone else holds you. You were used once as the Yellow Python, your hands guided by another’s, your power wielded for someone else’s gain. And you will never allow that again, because deep down you fear your own weakness. You’re a rock, Arcadia. Capable of damage, but incapable of inflicting it alone.

The third stone was a boulder. Enorme. Powerful. Too heavy for any man to lift. A mountain of force.

Y tú, Narcissa, eres esa roca.

You are a boulder. You have strength, beauty, presence. You take up space like few others. But even you—sí, even you—are useless unless moved by someone else. And the truth? No one can pick you up. You are too heavy, too consumed by your own weight. Immovable. A monument, sí, but an obstruction.

That was the lesson of the cuento. Three stones. A pebble that was too small. A rock that was too unsure. A boulder that was too heavy. And all of them, in the end, were useless. Because a rock is just a rock.

But me?

Yo no soy piedra.

I am the pickaxe. El pico.

The tool that breaks the stones. The edge that splits them open. The weapon that makes the useless useful by reducing them to dust. I do not sit and wait like the pebble, the stone, the boulder. I do not need another hand to wield me. I am the hand. I am the strike.

At Ascension, I will do what I was forged to do. I will break each of you piece by piece until there is nothing left but dust beneath my boots.

Because the story does not end with the stones. It ends with the pickaxe, relentless, unyielding, eternal.

And I am El Dragón Caído.

The pickaxe. The breaker of stones. The one who clears the path so that nothing stands between me and the legacy I am carving into Arcadia.

Pebbles scatter. Stones crack. Boulders split.

But the pickaxe always wins.