NOTE TO PROSPECTIVE READERS: Expect this to be experimental as hell. This prologue literally has a hip-hop breakdown because I was listening to Hamilton at the time, and I fully expect that to be par for the course. I'm not writing it to write a good story, I'm writing it because it's been bouncing around in my head for literally half a decade and I need to relieve some stress. Why post it online then? Because it's fanfiction, and people enjoyed fanfiction that I wrote once upon a time.

This can also be found on my Archive of our Own page (google my username + archive of our own, I don't think links work), where I'll be able to interact with people who post comments, but I'll post to both simultaneously. No favoritism.

Enjoy it if you feel so inclined!

Wind roared, earth shattered, water raged, fire blazed, just so. The elements, Alchemy, rightfully unleashed for the first time in untold centuries. And of all things, in the form of a trap, to slay its would-be liberators and secure its own cage.

Menardi spared but a glance at the doomed town in Mt Aleph's lap. Her legs worked beneath her, long strides eating yard after yard as the mountain did its damnedest to consume her. Saturos ran for his life at her side. Ran for all lives.

They had volunteered for this mission, they and their associates. It had been the greatest battle-party Prox could afford to dispatch because they knew that there were no second chances. Diplomacy had failed. Confrontation had failed. The world was dying, and Prox, positioned literally at the edge of civilization, had a front-row seat. Perhaps that was why they understood, and no one else cared.

She would have spat if she had the breath to spare. She swerved around a tree, felt the heat as it was incinerated behind her by a molten projectile from the sky. Certainly, this current situation was an argument for why Alchemy should remain sealed. Menardi felt a shiver, planted her feet and dove to the side as the spot she had stood upon flash-froze. Her hands began to sink in the mud as the earth grabbed at her, and she flared heat to cook it to ceramic in an instant, shoved against it as she pushed to her feet to continue running.

The Vale Elder Council held to their beliefs like to a branch above a chasm. They had refused to help. If they'd even known anything, they didn't share it. And thus, a score of Prox's warriors were forced to enter Sol Sanctum under cover of darkness. They found the secret paths. They reached the top.

And then in an instant nearly all of them were dead.

Saturos was struck by lightning. He stumbled. Menardi grabbed his hand, ignored the sting as residual energy crossed into her arm, dragged him a few steps until he regained his footing. He nodded her way.

The two of them had survived, when all the others died. A single Proxian battle-pair. Menardi didn't believe in fate, not in a world this cruel, but hell if it didn't seem convenient. They would return home, share what they had learned, and next time, they would be ready. Saturos and Menardi, back with a vengeance, prepared and armed with knowledge. They would retrieve the fabled Elemental Stars, light the Lighthouses, bring balance back to the world and restore its vibrant lifeblood.

The air calmed from a lethal, almost sentient storm to a mere hurricane. Lights from the town below reached them through the rain. Was this deliberate? Had Mt Aleph somehow spared Vale the worst of Sol Sanctum's wrath? If so… they were out.

They were safe.

Saturos stopped against a rain-slick rock face and leaned against it. "Only the two of us survived," he called to her through the storm. His voice was full of awe, though not dull with shock. Death was a frequent visitor in Prox.

She approached him at a walk, now that she could afford to take her time. "How could we have anticipated Sol Sanctum would unleash such fury?" she agreed.

Despite it all, they would live to tell the tale. This was no failure, it was a setback. And next time-

She heard a whistle. Her heart rushed into her throat, and as she looked up at the rapidly approaching shadow, she thought of her sister-

Isaac threw himself at the wall the moment he felt the ground shake. Another errant boulder, thrown by the mountain above - not THE Boulder, that had already fallen, but still a deadly projectile - and something that huge might keep rolling. He pressed beneath the overhang.

The voices he was sure he'd heard through the storm had ceased. Was it a trick of the rain? Was he hallucinating? He waited several long seconds. Nothing. The… the boulder would have come down by now if it was still rolling, right? It was safe to come out?

But he couldn't bring himself to move yet, because… because something needed to happen, and it hadn't happened. Yes, part of it was fear, but… there was something. A part of his brain that was frozen, waiting, sleeping.

Waiting for a signal that hadn't come.

"Isaac! Wait!"

Garet. Not the signal, but, wait. What signal? What had he been thinking of? There was a crash, and terror, and confusion, and that was all he could remember.

"Isaac, I'm here to help. Times like this, we men have to stick together!" Garet ran up, grabbed him by the arm, dragged him bodily out of his reverie.

And it was thus that they ran to town, desperate to find just one more person who could help. But in a disaster such as this, everyone had a story to tell, everyone had a crisis to handle, no one had time to spare.

And it was thus that a week later, the bodies of Felix, of Jenna's parents, of Isaac's father, were finally found and buried, and the reality sank in, and closure draped over the town and the fall of the Boulder was left safely in the past.

And it was thus that they grew older, the three of them. And it was thus that they grew wiser, learned from the past, studied their history, studied Psynergy, studied combat, to prepare and step in if disaster struck again (though they knew deep down that it never would).

And it was thus that Kraden died. And it was thus that Isaac took over his studies, to ensure that his mentor's efforts not be forgotten, to learn about the event that defined his childhood, and it was thus that Jenna joined him. It was thus.

They lived, they learned, they survived.

The stars shone in the night sky,

the sun lit up the day,

and somehow, some way, they found that in each other,

a life awaited,

a promise of safety, of stability and purpose,

and at first

there was doubt,

life would always change,

misery and loss lurked and in every other shadow danger waited to take it away,

but they made it.

Through sickness, through health.

Not the journey they waited for

but the journey that came,

and for once there was no shame

in hope.

And it was thus that thirty-three years passed, and in the Vale behind the veil, they heard nothing of the world's death.