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Author's Note: Feeling the need to actually create something of an actual story rather than a long series of drabbles for the upcoming holiday season, I present to you the result of a conversation that involved classic and modern anime, an old fanfiction or two of mine, and an overabundance of sugar and caffeine. Admittedly, I had planned for this to be a strictly Halloween-style fiction (that is to say naught but horror and the like) but given my love of this particular franchise and my inability to keep the romantic in me silent I've decided to extend this story out all the way to New Years. This won't be a long story per say, hardly more than twelve chapters if even that much but I sincerely hope that it's one that you all will enjoy it. That being said, allow me to present to you:
The Gathering
By Corvus no Genmu
00: Prophecy
"There is no darkness, only a lack of light. There is no cold, only a lack of heat. There is no peace, only a lack of war."
A bloodied red sky sits like the final curtain call over a dead husk of a world. Vivid blackened rips tears like lightning across a once pristine field of blue and now a dirtied rag of red. A blackened eye what once was called the sun sits on the horizon, an everlasting twilight across an unmoving world. Shattered pieces of ivory, what once was the moon, circle like ethereal grave markers in a red sea. On the surface of the dead world, towers of unbendable steel and pristine glass are naught but heaps of rubble, half-leaning monstrosities that are teetering on the edge of their full oblivion. Cars litter the streets like scattered toys and everywhere, as far as the eye could see.
Nothing living.
Nobody dead.
No one but her…
Standing in transfixed terror of the corpse that her world had become, her eyes wavered about like a cornered animal trying to find something—anything—to bring back a spark of hope to this horrific place. People lay scattered about her, none alive or dead but simple there, as shadows of what they had been all laid down gently to sleep as the Earth started to wither and die around them. She ran through the sleeping crowd of the dead, trying to find at least one person awake, one person standing up against whatever caused this horror to affect the world.
Her eyes fell upon seven figures, five of which she knew almost instantly. A small spark of hope was lit in her heart for though she did not recognize all of the gathered women, she was well aware of the power in them. The majority shined with the power of the elements themselves but the strongest of the gathered seven shined like the heart of the cosmos compared to the others in her midst.
She raced to them, calling to them in the soundless void and choked on the words that could not be heard. For though the seven soldiers were standing, they too had not been left unscathed by the eldritch horrors. The heroes were dead, turned to breakable stone, forever frozen in their defiant stances against the hellish force that brought them to an end, the light of their magic but a faint cinder in the void of what remained of their souls.
Looking around her, she saw that what she had presumed as abstract pieces of rubble at the heart of the Silence were in fact people, all turned to stone just like the heroes. Yet where the heroes stood facing the growing Silence, the people were caught frozen in fear, all running away from the same terrible thing. Her eyes shot upwards as the terrible nothingness —The Silence— appeared on the horizon, a fierce gale shooting past her as black tendrils writhed and drew closer.
In the soundless city, the sound of church bells ringing was startling, even more so because of its source. Whirling behind her, the young maiden saw a shining sun, the only light in this bleak and blackened world. It chimed once more before splitting itself asunder into three shining stars that shone with holy brilliance. For a moment, she thought this miracle had come to help but the trio of lights vanished away from The Silence, uncaring for the poor souls they had abandoned to eldritch horrors.
The song that angels sing…
She collapsed to her knees, looking back to the approaching wall of nothingness and watched with tears falling from her eyes as it reached the city limits and with the slightest touch, tore whole building asunder while cars were sent flying as though smacked by a giant unseen hand. The bodies of the dead proved to be just as brittle as the stone that covered them for they shattered to dust before they were swallowed by the merciless Silence.
"The spell that calls The Gathering…"
She looked up and saw the expanding void pause in its steadfast approach. Silken tendrils hesitating in their outstretching grasp before a multitude of energies flew overhead. Powers beyond mortal comprehension impacted against The Silence and it writhed in a soundless agony, flinching back from the onslaught that would not end so long as the eldritch abomination continued its advance.
"The magic that might bring…"
Roars of great beasts echoed once more, a brilliant flash of light shining, and five armored figures appeared to stand beside the frozen soldiers. The Silence trembled and rose swiftly in a terrible fury, charging forward with greater speed for no longer did these interlopers frighten it into submission. No, they had earned its inherent rage, its inhuman hatred, and would pay the price with their hearts and souls alike! The armored warriors raised their weapons high, roaring in challenge to this unspoken decree and raced forward to meet the void headlong.
"Eternal life… The Gathering!"
Next time...
Sway
"We pray for our sorrows to end, and hope that our hearts will blend. Now I will step forward to realize this wish. And who knows: starting a new journey may not be so hard, or maybe… it has already begun."