Monstrous Guardians Project

Inspired by Madame Macabre's song: The Monsters Underneath Your Bed, and by Gamer95's Project Motherhood.

Foreword:

Since the time when men and women huddled together for safety in caves with fear gripping their hearts as great beasts clashed for supremacy over the primordial earth, with little but the dim light of their fires and the distant glow of the moon and starts to illuminate a world wreathed in shadows, man has told stories of the great and terrible beats that dwell beyond the light of the fire, of the monsters and creatures that dwell within the stygian shadows of the dark recesses of our world.

It comes as no surprise that given the situation our ancestors were in at the time, a world that was wholly foreign to them, a land of great trees and dense forests and towering beasts, with deep oceans that spread further than their eyes could see, the murky depths filled with beasts that would haunt the dreams and nightmares of man for years to come, and great towering mountains and equally immense cavernous canyons and deep ravines. That the minds of a race who had just begun to leave their cradles within the sides of mountains would find themselves filled with such a mixture of horror and wonder that their minds would call to mind all sorts of great and terrible and wondrous beasts.

These tales filled the minds of primitive men and women, the thoughts that out there, deep within the shadows, there laid a great and terrible beast, a force of such awe and dreadful power that it could turn all that man had made into ash and dust or perhaps water the green earth with the scarlet blood of those who thought themselves the rulers of itsworld.

Perhaps it was this dread, the fear and panic that can only come forth when one fears that they and all that they cherish is in danger of being destroyed, that drove man to strive so hard to carve for itself a place in this harsh and unforgiving world.

Perhaps, our ancestors believed that if they were to claim dominion of the world, to shine the light of their torches on every dark shadow and stygian depth, that the dread that gripped their hearts would vanish. That they would be free of the fear that came with being the creature that rested at the bottom of the food chain.

And so, man lit its torch and began to trek out, from the bosom of the mountains where it had hidden, and into the darkness of the world, ready to put at ease the fear in it's heart.

And so, the millennia passed by, and dominion of the earth ceded from the great and unstoppable giants and creatures of old, to the young and frail race of man, and yet the stories of these great beasts never left and instead continued to expand, forming the myths and legends that now form the basis for countless stories and works of both science and fiction.

The time when the word 'monster' would illicit the reaction of all of those who gathered around the fire either fleeing in panic or grasping for their primitive weapon to make a stand to defend their families, has long since passed. The word now used commonly to describe men and women who turn their back on their humanity, giving into the darkest parts of their humanity, abandoning the light of our world in favor of the stygian blackness that lurks within each of us.

Yet, there are always tales being told of beasts and creatures who, by the laws of our ordered and scientific world, should not exist, walking amidst the moonlit woods of the world, or perhaps swimming within the deepest reaches of the murky depths of the oceans and lakes and rivers of the world, or maybe they dwell within the deepest confines of the world, those areas long lost to time and the realms of fantasy and wonder.

Perhaps, the Age of Monsters never truly ended.

Perhaps, these creatures of myth and dread and wonder and horror, have merely taken their bow from the limelight of the world stage and have instead decided that they would let this young and frail and foolish race have its own time within the spotlight before the time when the spotlight meets its inevitable end, and the shadows that once ruled the world return to reclaim their rightful place as its sovereigns.

Yet...what if the monsters that our imaginations gave faces and names to, were not the beats of terror and dread that we had for so long assumed them to be?

What if these great and terrible forces of old, these beings that had haunted our nightmares since the moment that man had dared to being to dream of what may dwell beyond their caves, were like us?

Frail and scared of the world that they had been born into. Possessed of the same dread and panic that had for so long seized the hearts of man when it dared to look out into the shadows.

What if these beats of old, these monsters born from the darkest pits out imaginations, were possessed of something that made them our equals in a way that mere sentience could not...something that we have for so long claimed to be the sole true heirs of, something that we in our grand pride and arrogance dared to name after us. A trait that we were so eager to assign to those that stood with us, and all too eager to claim that our foes did not possess.

Humanity.

For what is humanity if not the ability to perceive the world around you with sympathy and empathy within your heart? What is it if nothing more than a name given to those who are able to think and learn and grow and evolve? What is it if not the ability to be kind and courteous to others, to know when to reach out and shield one from the horrors of the world, and when to reach out and crush those that would so readily align themselves with said horrors?

For is it not humane for one to end the life of something that is suffering?

Is it not the humane thing to do whatever it takes to protect the lives of one's mate and their young?

Is it not humane to reach out and comfort those who are in pain?

Perhaps one of the easiest and most efficient means of gauging the humanity of something, is to see how said entity reacts with not only its own kin, but also those who exist of different race and blood.

For if something that is of a different species is willing to reach out its arms and comfort a member of another species, if it is willing to stand up to defend them, to rise to meet each and every threat that bares its claws and fangs at them with its own claws and fangs, to comfort one who is in distress and pain, or even heal those who are suffering. Then is it not the correct assumption that said creature is possessed of humanity, of humaneness?

These are the thoughts that echoed within our head as we listened to both Madame Macabre's song, "The Monsters underneath Your Bed," and as we read the wonderful works of the author Gamer95 and his Project Motherhood series. It was these thoughts, as well as the support that we received from a comment we posted on one of the aforementioned sources of inspiration. (To those who know which one we thank you for your support and hope we live up to it. Please keep the name we were using a secret as we do not wish for those who know said name to constantly harass us when we are not writing about what we write:)

This story is a series of both oneshots and multiple part stories that are written to show the creatures of our nightmares in ways that we may have never dared see them. In ways that makes our fear and hatred of them seem to be the height of the folly of a race that is both young and proud, a race who is both foolish and yet also wise.

So our friends, if you are still with us, we bid you welcome to our own little compendium of tales of those creatures of the world who are willing to show more humanity then we ourselves may be possessed of.

Bare in mind that these creatures will come from across countless different universes.

From the terror inducing Xenomorphs of the Aliens franchise, to the sultry and lascivious monster girls of the Monster Girl Encyclopedia and Monster Musume universe, to the fearsome youkai and monsters of the Rosario + Vampire Universe, to even the terror inducing eldritch beings of the lovecraftian universe, to the myths and fables of our own reality.

Perhaps you can expect to see different takes on the same monsters such as a Vampire from MGE in one chapter, to a Vampire from Rosario + Vampire in another.

Sometimes we may use an existing character such as Akasha Akashiya or Gyokuro Shuzen of Rosario + Vampire or Miia of Monster Musume, and sometimes we may create and entirely unique OC to use as the star of the chapter. So needless to say, some of these characters will be a little OOC, but we are just going with what strikes our fancy at the time. We may even use characters who we feel are in need of rescuing and being given an actually competent and kind guardian such as harry from Harry Potter, Shinji Ikari from Evangelion, or even Sakura Matou, from Fate/Stay Night. Some of these characters will also be OOC as well, just to forewarn you.

Expect for updates to be sporadic at best, asd we have more ideas that we can keep pace with, and having only one writer and one computer makes getting all of our ideas out...well to put it plainly a bitch. That and our work, despite being only part time, has recently decided to pick up a bit, on one hand we have more hours, on the other we also have to try and squeeze in some work on each day before and after work, assuming we feel up to writing on said days.

If you have an idea for a oneshot or a oneshot of your own that you wish to add to this story, then feel free to contact us via either a PM or a comment, although we encourage you to post your own stories so that you may savor the feeling of being an author, if you are unable to do so for some reason or perhaps merely wish to add your own page to our story, we will always be willing to listen to said request unless it is something that we feel we will be unable do ourselves.

As always Flames will be used to bake delicious S'Mores that we will not share, and reviews will be welcomed.

So, let us begin our journey into this new tale, together shall we?

Sincerely- The Greatest Show

P.S. Sorry if this chapter is everywhere, we write what is in our mind, and given how chaotic our mind is...well...We think that you can see where this is going. Either way, let us know if it needs to be re-written or edited to be made easier to read.

P.P.S. Sorry for the lack of a humorous little skit at the beginning like we try to do with most of our story, but we felt it more appropriate that we take a bit of a more serious tone with this Foreword.

P.P.P.S. We had to use the Misc/Anime Manga category as well as the Mythology category on Fanfiction as they were the best fits that we could find for this story. On Archive of Our Own, it will probably be the same with us adding more fandoms as we go along. Sorry if this causes any confusion. We have also rated this story M just to be safe.