AN: So… where to begin. I suppose I should start with an apology to all my fans of my first two works, "Her Love, His Promise" and "A Knight and her Ninja,"for not continuing either of those stories – and let me be the first to tell you all, that yes, I will not be revisiting those stories anytime soon. At least, not in their current form. Both of them were made on a whim, a whim with no guide or future plan set. I was simply writing those for the sake of writing and wanting to scratch that creative itch. Then life got in the way, school took over and soon enough I find myself in college with two jobs. If I ever do decide to dust off either of those stories and publish more chapters, I will be reworking them from the ground up. No exception.
Now, I suppose I've rambled on enough about my previous works and where I've been. Allow me to introduce you readers to my latest obsession, and one that's been in the works for a month now,
"In the Garden of Elysium."
From the wonderful story Square Enix brought to the IOS, Android, and PS Vita, (and my personal favorite of the Chaos Rings series), comes my retelling and adaptation of Chaos Rings III. Fair warning, OC's WILL be heavily present in this, but only two. With that out of the way, take a seat and fasten your seat belts everyone, we're in this for the long haul!
In the Garden of Elysium
Prologue:
Satellite Base Theia, for everyone who lives on her, is the only home humanity has safely known for the past one thousand years. It is a home that has kept the surviving remnants of humanity alive in space, safe from the hidden dangers lurking on Marble Blue's beautiful surface. For centuries, the humans living on Theia struggled to regain their footing after an unknown alien attacked Marble Blue and nearly forced humanity, living on the sparkling blue, mother planet, into extinction. The Entity, as it was named, razed chaos and destruction in its path where-ever it went before retreating from the planet once its appetite for death was fulfilled.
However, the worst came when monsters, for a lack of better term, suddenly began to appear around Marble Blue in overwhelming numbers. Monsters: creatures of mutated origins, some originating from certain known species of animals, mammals, and reptiles alike and some of which could only be born from the craziest of imaginations. All of these creatures crusaded against the surviving humans and wiped the last civilizations out. Humanity was forced to flee from their planet of birth in order to survive using terraformer transports to spirit away the remaining humans alive. A thousand of these transports were built, each with the purpose of bringing humanity to a new home and terraform it to fit their needs. However, two terraformers were unable to make it out of the planet's reach. One terraformer crashed upon taking off, killing all the humans on board while the other, Satellite Base Theia, suffered critical engine failure and now lies within Marvel Blue's orbit, forever locked within its gravity well.
Theia is an oval-shaped starship of epic proportions in length, almost two thousand kilometers in length and width with a set of external dorsal fins to power the shields and ward off any sort of debris floating in space. A perfectly clear glass dome arched over the colony's base, allowing everyone on-board an unobstructed view of Marble Blue in all her beauty along with the stars behind her. Theia's passengers lived on large floating island chains, linked to a massive central island as the populaces' main hub of activity, known as Neo Paleo, in a sea of artificial clouds which spanned the entire length of the ship. The clouds preformed their job well of blocking the sight of an immeasurable drop to the ship's rough bottom where it's internals rested, powering the rest of the colony day and night.
On an average day for the citizens of Theia, the rather dull sight of the sea of clouds simply drifting below the islands would be an all too common view none would spare a glance at. It was for this reason that a large warship was able to peacefully cut its way through the ocean of artificial clouds during the colony's night cycle, large engines humming loudly as it pushed the dark-grey vessel towards an unknown destination. The vessel, a Jatayu Class Dreadnought developed by Volhelm Industries, was a rather unappealing sight. Two pairs of bulky wings on either side of the rectangular chassis sustained the warship. Its front being a flat arrow head with an impressive array of armaments and weapons meant to tackle only the most dangerous of enemies. With such an overpowering display of weapons, its mission would only make sense to be one of destruction. The destruction of what, however, was a closely guarded secret only few knew and unfortunately for the vessel and its crew, one such person was determined to stop it.
Within the bowels of the ship, heavy foot-falls echoed through the empty pristine, metallic room, devoid of any life besides the sole occupant there. Two raised pillars of steel supported the room's integrity in the center with a metal walkway leading towards the only two doorways at opposite ends of the room. A map rested on the wall for any lost crew, showing with an indicator any personnel would be near the engine room. These details were not lost on the individual who regarded the map for a few moments before turning his attention to the door at the far end of the room.
Aged, gold eyes narrowed slightly as he calmly walked towards the door leading to the next room, one step closer to his destination. Leather brown boots with dark brown straps securing the footwear tightly to him echoed on the metal floor as the elderly man crossed the room he was currently in with white flowing locks dancing from the movement. The man's attire consisted of his reddish-brown boots secured to his legs which were dressed in black pants. A red and white patterned belt was fastened to his waist, securing the heavy white flap which hung below. His upper body was protected by a tan and black armored platting that was rather form fitting without sacrificing any protection. His right arm, which was the only arm visible had a leather bracer attached on-top of his armor with brown gloves protecting his hand. The rest of his body was concealed by a long, torn and damaged white cape which fell to just above his shins, covering his back entire while concealing most of his face.
"The engine room's up ahead," Johannes of the Thousand Voyagers grunted, his voice a deep and gruff baritone as he strode towards the metal doorway. The door slid open with a hiss and mechanical precision at his proximity, allowing the explorer to enter further into the dreadnought warship. The next room was a much larger one than its predecessor, opening up to a raised platform above him with a catwalk running throughout the room. Johannes craned his head to the side and casually took in the two behemoth mechanical war droids located on the left and far end of the room. Both mechanized giants were easily four times his height, something not to be scoffed at due to his own height being over six feet tall. The golden-eyed Explorer noted that the war droids held a roughly humanoid upper body, but that was where the similarities ended. The robots' feet were made of many jointed legs similar to a spider's while its arms were instead fin-like protrusions with clearly hidden missile compartments. These behemoths were rather new models to Johannes, and he gathered they held more nasty surprises in store for anyone foolish enough to get in their way.
He dismissed them without a second thought. They were no threat to him in their deactivated state, and he doubted Volhelm or any-other would allow those giants to rampage through the warship to eliminate an intruder. More harm than good would come from that course of action. He stalked his way towards the end of the room which wrapped around the second war droid, a few more rooms after this one and he would arrive at the engine room if the map was correct. However, his rather uninterrupted intrusion was abruptly ended by the loud screeching of metal as two mechanized, robotic soldiers dropped from the ceiling above the doorway before sliding their way towards him with impressive speed. Sparks flew from the contact of metal on metal from their feet as they came to a halt in front of him, their weapons readied to end his life in a moment.
"Intruder detected. Orders to eliminate any intruders received," one of the pair of robots spoke from its speaker, a harsh and cold voice of indifference that offered no chance of mercy or negotiation.
Both units towered over Johannes by several feet and were more humanoid in shape than their colossal brethren, having a pair of thin metal legs of deceiving strength to carry their bulky square chassis. Their long arms supported both their main weapon and wide reaching hands capable of grabbing an average man and crushing him in their grip with ease. The difference between the pair lied in their armaments. The one on Johannes' left held a Gatling gun, the large multitude of barrels supporting what he knew to be an impressive fire rate. The other droid on his right held an oddly shaped sword, but instead of a blade, the weapon held two arching super-heated prongs that would easily cut through most armor with ease.
The Explorer's golden eyes assessed the pair of mechanized warriors… and found them wanting. Sulfuric eyes closed as he connected with his Gene, the power of an ancient being or legend given life by the planet's magic, and voiced his thoughts to his long-time partner.
"Old friend, I am in need of your assistance once more." Deep within his soul – his very being, something resonated within him. Something ancient, mysterious, and powerful. Johannes felt the silent respect of his Gene and its assent to his request. The elderly man was suddenly filled with an almost unfathomable amount of power. Magic coursed through his body and empowered him. His strength, speed, durability, and perception elevated to new heights; beyond anything a normal human could ever work towards if they spent every day of their natural life training.
Gold eyes snapped open and Johannes stretched out his right arm. Red magic circles surrounded it of varying sizes, each circle filled with intricate runes of a forgotten language no longer remembered to the humans of today. A bright flash erupted before his arm was replaced by a disproportionately mammoth, armored, and bulky arm that almost reached the floor. In its grasp was an equally massive and generally unwieldy broad sword. The sword itself was unnaturally long to the point of being impractical, having a double-edge blade with chains and straps wrapped around it.
Before either of the mechanical guards could react, Johannes burst towards the Gunner, as the Gatling-gun droid was known as, with supernatural speed. The droid's processor couldn't register the man's movements before it suddenly found itself cleaved in two at the waist. Johannes' sword cut through the droid's chassis like a hot knife through butter, separating the two halves of the now bisected droid with contemptuous ease.
Johannes felt his eyes shift to his right, deftly moving his sword to block the incoming attack from the Axer. Two super-heated metal prongs met unfailing steel and stopped, Johannes' weapon easily standing up to the brute force of the assault. The Voyager stepped on his back foot, shifting away from the current engagement and bringing his sword back for a parry at the droid's next attack. His riposte followed a second afterward, vertically cutting the droid from the hip to the shoulder after the parry left it completely exposed. And like that, the battle ended.
Johannes let an exhale leave him as he de-materialized his armored arm and weapon, a bright red flash of light enveloped his arm before motes of light floated away, leaving his right arm back in its original state. The Explorer made to move forward, but was stopped once more by a distinctively female voice appear over a speaker somewhere in the room following a blaring alarm. He inwardly gave a sigh, knowing his job had only gotten more bothersome.
"ALERT CODE: E60. INTRUSION DETECTED. INTRUSION IN PROGRESS, BLOCK 7. ALL PERSONNEL TO BATTLE STATIONS, DEPLOYMENT TYPE 1. I REPEAT, ALERT CODE: E60…"
A passive expression betraying any annoyance he felt inside covered his features as he brushed an intrusive white strand of hair from his view, setting back off on his path to the engine room. The next room he entered was a walkway that overlooked what appeared to be a large staging area with one of Volhelm Industries mass teleportation pads located in the center. He didn't give it much though as he sprinted down the walkway. With the door in sight, he narrowed his eyes as his senses suddenly screamed at him. He stopped dead in his tracks before leaping back, and just in time as a spear of ice landed right where he had been moments before, erupting into a patch of deadly ice spikes. He glanced to his left where the deadly attack, a simple Cocytus that was a common spell among most water affiliated Genes, landed and analyzed the pair of flying Heterocera blocking his way. Their forms were of a similarity to jellyfish or squids, with four tentacles that actively moved around their mechanical bulbous frames while four deadly pincers angrily twitched, simulating mouth movements. Hateful red eyes glared at him from behind the pincers, promising only death and agony for the intruder.
Summoning his armored arm and weapon again, Johannes only narrowed his eyes at the pair of obstacles preventing him from his destination. With a simply mutter of an incantation, the battle began in earnest.
"Augmented Electra."
Electricity containing thousands upon thousands of volts sparked from his sword before he aimed it at the nearest Heterocera. Lightning flew from the sword and at its target, electrocuting the robotic squid which spasmed from the attack, circuits and other sensitive electronics frying from the sheer voltage output of the magical attack. With one of the Heterocera out of commission, Johannes leaped at the remaining one with an impressive jump, clearing the distance in the span of seconds. With its partner down, the final mechanical squid fired another Cocytus at the Voyager, planning to impale the Explorer while he was in the air. Johannes dashed any hope of this possibility when he swung his sword with frightening speed, breaking the ice-based attack into harmless shards before he landed on-top of the Heterocera. He didn't waste a moment to impale his sword through the face of the droid as it struggled beneath him before its life was quickly ended. For a second, the robot's engines struggled to keep it afloat before those cut out when its fuel supply ended. Johannes kicked off the now eliminated droid, using the momentum to withdraw his sword from the corpse as he back-flipped back onto the walkway. The droid crashed to the floor below next to its fallen brother, letting out a pitiful whine of denial before shutting down forever.
The gold-eyed Explorer de-summoned his weapon and arm once more when the slaughter ended, making his way to the door after checking to make sure both droids wouldn't be bothering him again. The final room before the engine room was wide and open with a single raised platform in the center of the room. Two more of the behemoth war droids he saw a couple of rooms ago flanked either side of the platform, once more deactivated like its brethren. However, despite the quietness of the room, that didn't deter his senses and instincts which screamed at him that this was a trap. Despite the certain possibility of this indeed was an ambush of some type, Johannes carried on down the staircase leading to the platform with absolute confidence he could handle whatever was thrown at him.
When the Explorer stepped in the center of the platform, he glanced off to the end of the room where a pair of doors laid, one being the entrance to the engine room while the other led to any number of places he hadn't bothered to remember when he memorized the map he had found earlier. Sulfur eyes suddenly narrowed when the loud sound of metal clinking quietly against metal assaulted his sensitive hearing. He glanced up, locating the source of the noise on the ceiling of the room and felt his eyes widen for a brief fraction of a second before they settled into stoic apathy. His surprise came from the fact that a large robotic spider several times his size clanked noisily against the ceiling. Six long mechanical legs arched from the Arachdroid's body with the feet being sharp talons capable of piercing even some of the sternest steel should enough force be put into it. The spider droid suddenly leaped from its perch on the ceiling, landing in front of the Explorer with a loud crash. Johannes took a moment to analyze the body of the droid, noting it was shaped generally like all arachnids with a pair of equally sharp fangs twitching in restraint from rending his flesh from his bones. Where an arachnid's mouth would be, however, rested a large caliber gun of some kind instead.
Johannes grunted as he re-summoned his armored arm and sword, taking comfort in the flood of strength filling his body as he accessed his Gene and prepared for what was hopefully the final battle in this dreadful warship. The Arachdroid took this as an act of aggression and released an ear-piercing mechanical cacophony of noise that passed a roar at him before leaping at its prey. The Voyager jumped back, dodging the opening leap as two sharp claws impaled the spot he stood on only a second before. Angry at missing its prey, the Arachdroid renewed its assault on him again with a vicious swipe of one of its clawed legs. Johannes merely blocked the attack with his massive sword, locking the assaulting limb with his blade in a contest of strength before punishing the spider droid with a counter attack of his own, twisting his blade out of the lock before hacking the mechanical limb off with a quick slash of his own.
The beast recoiled, shrinking back in a quick retreat from the man as it processed the unexpected outcome. The shining red orb in the center of its head, resting just above its large caliber gun, analyzed and reevaluated the threat Johannes presented. Algorithms and information were written and categorized as it formed another plan to eliminate the Explorer.
Johannes calmly stood in front of the Arachdroid, not making a move to eliminate the threat in front of him despite it being in his capabilities to do so. For now, he momentarily reveled in the feeling of being in combat against a foe that put some effort into making him move. But, he had a job to do. A job that took priority over the small pleasure he found in the middle of combat. The golden-eye Explorer took a step forward, and his foe immediately registered the action. The Arachdroid quickly reacted to his movement and fired a large explosive round from its now identified cannon. The high-explosive round traveled the distance between the Arachdroid and Johannes milliseconds, impacting the Voyager directly as an explosion consumed the elderly man. A cloud of smoke filled the space from the resulting explosion, blocking the spider's sensors momentarily from detecting if Johannes survived the attack or not. Several seconds passed and not a sign of Johannes appeared on its sensors. Content, the droid prepared to send an all clear signal to the rest of the ship through its integrated communication array before its sensors suddenly blared an alarm at it. The Arachdroid didn't have any time as Johannes launched out of the cover of the smoke, a word on his lips that its language module barely picked up.
"Rakshasa Lotus."
Johannes' already impossible sword swing speeds became nothing but blurs as he delivered three consecutive deadly blows to the droid. One swing disarmed the Arachdroid entirely of its primary weapons, severing the cannon barrel and its fangs along with a few of its cameras in the form of a handful of red eyes on its head. The second swing cleaved off several of its legs, causing it to collapse onto its belly, leaving the mechanical beast scurrying to get back up. Johannes' final swing rendered any hope it had of escaping impossible and it severed another portion of its remaining legs, rendering it immobile.
The aged warrior regarded his foe for a moment before grunting out, "Time to clear the way." He leaped forward, channeling more of his Gene's magical power into his body. As he prepared for the final strike, he activated one of his more damaging techniques to finish off the fight. "Mercedes Zone!" Johannes stabbed his sword forward, impaling the droid's main body just below the head, several gold magical runic rings appeared, augmenting his strength even further as he sunk the blade into the droid's body, damaging its many internals. Without a word, he brutally ripped the blade out of the droid, running any surviving mechanical components before delivering a final slash across the Arachdroid's front, severing its head along with separating a portion of its body off. The spider droid collapsed onto the floor with a loud thud, immobile as its life was extinguished.
Johannes gazed at the now dismantled Arachdroid with a passive look, making sure it was really dead before dismissing his armored arm and weapon back into motes of red light. With nothing remaining in his way, he stepped through the far left door in the back of the room, entering his destination, the engine room. The loud drumming of the warships core engine drowned out any noise he made as he stepped along the narrow pathway resting on-top of the main engine.
Johannes approached the back panel resting on a wall above the engine at the back of the room. Spotting many important internals connecting the engine to the rest of the ship within the ship, the Explorer allowed faint twitch of a smile to grace his features as he identified an obvious weak point he could exploit to bring down the entire ship.
Summoning his armored arm and weapon one last time, Johannes infused the blade with a small amount of Bolt energy, encasing the weapon with sparkling electricity. With a heave, he dragged the sword across the ground, sending sparks flying before delivering a quick slash across the panel. Sensitive and important internal components were exposed to lethal volts of electricity and sparks from the friction made of metal scratching metal. The white-haired Explorer covered his face briefly as an explosion blossomed in front of him which set off a chain reaction in the engine. Systems erupted and safety contingencies failed left and right as an unstoppable chain-reaction of explosion erupted around the engine room.
"Sorry Volhelm, but you're not going anywhere near Mariv. I'll not have my wife bloody her hands today," he spoke aloud, addressing a man miles away with no possible way of hearing him. Emergency alarms began ringing all over the ship, advising the crew to evacuate as the warship began listing forward, its momentum abruptly stolen from the lack of engine thrust.
Johannes allowed himself a moment to breathe before using his own personal teleportation beacon to spirit him away from the doomed warship. A ring of blue light surrounded his form, light crackling and scanning his being before teleporting the Thousand Voyager to an unknown safe location.
As the Explorer left, the Jatayu Class Dreadnought suffered massive internal explosions which resonated all throughout the warship, detonating important internals and externals which kept the ship afloat in the sky while a colossal fire-trail followed the ship. With none of these fundamental components keeping the Dreadnought in the air, the ship sank below the sea of artificial clouds into the depths of Theia.
Theia's underworld, a name jokingly given to the space colony's depths below the clouds by its populace, was a near pitch-black area with a rough bottom holding tower-like buildings illuminated by a red glow and a central massive elevator connecting to the main island allowing engineers to repair and keep Theia maintained. The normally dark underworld was illuminated in burning light as the Jatayu Dreadnought fell like a burning meteor to the surface of the colony ship. In the dark, a massive bulky creature of epic proportions shifted its gaze momentarily to the crashing warship, the fire of the warship casting a glowing light on the rust-red colored creature, illuminating its roughly humanoid appearance with a vaguely female face. Two lengthy appendages on the creature's back appearing like shaved wings twitched with movement at the creature's drawn attention. The ancient being regarded the explosion of the crashed dreadnought for a moment before turning back to its task at hand as its tentacle-like hair shielded its long neck from the heat of the explosion. Large hands covered an equally large, webbed egg of mammoth size which occasionally pulsed with energy from the potential disturbance of the explosion. When the fire died down, the creature returned to its passive observations of the egg before it, watching over it like a mother would her young.
AN: And that's a wrap! Hope you all enjoyed the prologue and a preview of how a written form of Chaos Rings III would be in my interpretation. I always appreciate comments and constructive criticism to see what I can do to improve the story for both myself and you the readers. I'm currently in the process of writing Chapter 1 as I type this note myself, so the wait for it shouldn't be too long. As a warning and a restatement above, there WILL be OCs in this, one in particular which you will meet next chapter and be closely interwoven in the plot along with the other protagonists. Their role is to explore more elements in the story SE sort of left ambiguous and create some nice butterfly effects while still sticking somewhat to canon. Anyways, I'll see you guys next chapter! Swordsman out!