Chapter 1: Fire in the Sky
Bold text is as translated from the Elder Tongue
Dark clouds rolled over a peaceful meadow, ignored by the wildlife. Rain began to fall, which would be normal were the droplets not aflame. Plants withered and animals fled in terror as the sky opened a cauldron of burning oil upon them. In the midst of the hellish chaos stood a monolith, circled by five men wearing white hooded robes, a green eye on the front of the hood. They too succumbed to the falling flames, burning away to dust and bone without so much as a whimper. The great stone pillar remained untouched, ash sliding off the smooth surface.
Walking without a care for the pouring blaze was a human boy, lean body tanned by years away from civilization. Lavender eyes gazed out from in between shocks of ebony hair. Twin vicious daggers lay sheathed, attached to tattered black pants. Sturdy grey sandals crunched over charred grass and piles of ash. A tattoo sprawled across his bare back, depicting a feral demon.
The boy, Akuma, stalked up to the monolith, kicking a blackened skull and shattering it against a tree. Drawing a dagger, he carved ancient runes into the stone. The flames ceased to fall, the forest rapidly burning to the ground.
"The Elders return," he scribed. The symbols were precise, if rough.
A twig snapped. Akuma's head whipped around, tracing the noise to it's source. An angel bearing a tauren cesta stepped into the clearing, staring at the destruction in bewilderment. His eyes found the trail of footprints left behind by the violet eyed boy, and followed the path to the creator, only to see nothing as the ebony haired teen disappeared. The Angel stepped up to the monolith, studying the Scripture.
"Lady Palutena? Viridi? It's… all gone. Everything. The entire forest burned to ash. There's a rock with something scratched in, but I can't read it."
Akuma watched the angel as one might a newfound creature. He listened attentively, noting everything about the newcomer in a predatory fashion. His combat-weathered stance, his familiarity with the bull-shaped cesta he wielded, even the way his wings twitched. Akuma's hands drifted towards his daggers, Sodom and Gomorrah, but he checked them halfway. The angel seemed confused, more than anything.
Light enveloped the winged teen, pulling him up and out of the smoldering ashes. Akuma watched as his newest near-encounter floated up before vanishing. Just before he blinked out of sight, the angel glimpsed Akuma and shouted. Whatever words erupted from his mouth were lost on the howling winds.
Pit rose with the sun. He stretched, reaching high above his head. Stepping out of bed with a spring in his step, the young angel burst from his room in full gear.
He immediately left for the practice range. Along the way, he stopped by the Arms Altar. He began to browse through the numerous divine weapons, eventually settling on the Taurus Arm. He spent an hour destroying targets before heading for breakfast.
The meal consisted of grapes, orange and apple slices, and a stack of pancakes drowning in syrup. All alongside a tall glass of milk. Pit was part way through demolishing a pancake when he was contacted by Viridi.
"Hey, Pit!"
Pit nearly spewed his half chewed pancake. "Oh, hey Virihi," he greeted with muffled words before swallowing his slice of pancake.
"Couldn't you have just waited until you swallowed? That's gross," Viridi scolded.
"No, because then you would have yelled at me for taking too long to respond!"
"No I- oh whatever. Look, there's something weird going on and all my commanders are who knows where doing other things. I want you to go check it out for me."
"Sure thing, lemme finish my breakfast," Pit declared. He wolfed down the rest of his breakfast, nearly choking on the last pancake. Not five minutes later, he had the Taurus Arm re-equipped and stood at the gate. "Alright, I'm ready to go Viridi."
As he was about to leap out the door, a familiar voice broke through Pit's thoughts. "Good morning Pit. And to you too Miss Cactus. Where were you headed?"
Pit, too off balance to stop, floundered as Viridi activated the Power of Flight. "Lady Palutena! I was just about to check something for Viridi!"
"Weren't you supposed to be training the centurions today? And Viridi, why not have one of your commanders look at this... whatever it is?"
"Well, yeah, but can't training the centurions wait until later? Besides, Viridi said her commanders are busy doing other things."
"Things more important than serving their goddess, huh?"
"Yes Palutena, things more important than serving me," Viridi cut in. "If you're quite done with your little interrogation, I need to borrow Pit."
"Oh, I see how it is. Sure, you can borrow him." One could practically hear Palutena's smile.
"Hey! Don't get any ideas," Viridi snarled, slightly flustered.
Palutena queried, "So what are your commanders off doing?"
"Arlon is still working on the replacement for the Lunar Sanctum, and Phosphora is taking the Lightning Chariot out on a different mission. And Cragalanche is, well, Craganlanche. He wouldn't be much help with this," Viridi explained. "Happy?"
"Yes, very," Palutena grinned.
Pit noticed he hadn't moved at all. "Uh, Viridi? Can we get a move on," he asked. "The power of Flight only lasts five minutes, remember?"
He suddenly found himself soaring at incredible speeds, so fast his cheeks rippled rhythmically.
"Vir-rid-di! Sl-lo-ow do-ow-wn!"
"Shut up," the childish goddess snapped. "We've wasted too much time already!"
"What's the big deal? You haven't been this upset since the war over the Wish Seed," Palutena demanded.
"You know how storms are part of nature?"
"Yeah?"
"That means I cause storms."
"Is this going anywhere?"
"There's a storm I didn't cause, happening right now!"
"Couldn't it just be the work of some other god?"
"What god turns rain into fire?"
"I think I see your point."
"Um, hey Viridi? Where am I going?" Pit watched the land fall behind him in a blur.
"You'll be landing soon. See those clouds below you? Your destination is below those," Viridi clarified.
Pit felt himself angling towards the clouds moments before plunging into them. The first thing he noticed was how bright it was despite the ashen grey exterior. The second thing was the overwhelming heat. Pit took note that the rain cloud was actually made up of ash and embers, creating the dark shell. When the flightless angel broke through the bottom, no fire fell and no forest remained. Nothing but ashes and dust.
Viridi directed Pit towards a clearing devoid of life, cooler than the surrounding desolate powder. He wandered through the charred stumps in a daze. Crunch! A twig snapped underfoot, unnoticed by Pit in his stupor. His gaze swept across the scorched landscape, halting on a standing stone, seemingly untouched by the blaze that destroyed the forest. He meandered up to the stone, staring at the runes carved in.
"Lady Palutena? Viridi? It's... all gone," Pit whispered. "Everything. The entire forest burned to ash. There's a rock with something scratched in, but I can't read it."
"Oh, the great master of literature can't read something," Viridi taunted.
"Now, now. Viridi, you know fully how hard Pit is working on learning to read," Palutena scolded. "These symbols don't appear to be Greek."
"Well then miss know-it-all," Challenged Viridi, "why don't you read it?"
"I can't."
"Come again?"
"I can't read it. The language, if it even is one, is foreign to me."
"You're telling me that you, Palutena, the goddess that knows everything under the sun, don't know how to read something scribbled into a rock?"
"That is what I'm telling you. Pit, I'm pulling you out, there's nothing here."
Pit felt the familiar tug of a teleport pulling him up. Out the corner of his eye, he noticed someone watching him. Turning mid-teleport, the angel saw a human boy with black hair and violet eyes staring at him.
"Lady Palutena! Viridi! There's a survivor," Pit cried out too late.
The light enveloped Pit, carrying him back to Skyworld. He found himself standing in front of an absolutely perplexed Palutena.
"What do you mean," She queried, "That there was a survivor?"
"Yeah Pit," Viridi chipped in, "Who could have survived that?"
"Well, it was a human boy," Pit explained. "He had black hair, purple eyes, and shredded black pants. He was armed with twin daggers, though they were sheathed. He had a weathered look to him, as if he's seen things no mortal should see and survived."
"If he's human, I should have been able to see him," Palutena noted. "I didn't see anyone aside from you."
"Pit was probably just seeing things," Viridi fired. "There's no way some lowly human survived that," she added with an audible sneer.
"Will you give up on that already? There are humans that worship you and live in nature and stuff," Pit exclaimed. "They're called 'druids' by the rest."
"There are, are there? Well Pit, this is not a case of a few bad apples spoiling the bunch," Viridi retorted. "This is a case of one good apple out of the whole orchard!"
"I hate to agree with her on the frailty of man, but Viridi's right," Palutena cursed. "There's just no way a human, no matter how well adapted, could survive that."
Pit shuffled his feet uncomfortably. "He was real! Don't tricks of the mind only last a couple seconds? He was there, staring clear at me, for at least a minute!"
"Pit, just drop it for now," Palutena ordered. "The stone, what can you tell us about that?"
"It was tall, three sides slowly curving to a point. It had some weird symbols scratched into it, like letters. Whatever it was, I couldn't read it."
"Are you sure those 'symbols' weren't just messy writing?"
"Hey! I can read messy writing!"
"You can barely read in the first place."
"And who's teaching him," Palutena interjected.
"I- um- I am…" Viridi stammered.
Pit tried to save the nature goddess from further embarrassment. "Thanks for that by the way!" He only succeeded in turning her face redder.
Viridi silently thanked telepathy for ensuring that she didn't have to be talking face to face with them. "Anyways, what state was the stone in?"
Pit sat silent for a moment. "It was pristine. Nothing on it, save the scratches I mentioned," he described. "It was like nothing had ever come within a continent of it."
"That's strange," Palutena commented.
"All hail the goddess of obvious," Viridi jabbed, reusing her old insult.
Pit cut short the impending argument. "Is it safe to say we don't know anything?"
"Yes Pit, it is," Palutena confirmed, smiling at the young angel.
"As much as I hate to admit it, chicken wings is right," Viridi begrudgingly agreed. "Is it safe to say I can call on Pit if this happens again? Even if only a little, he's now the most experienced with this."
"I think it is," Palutena smiled with a small chuckle. "I think it is."
Akuma crouched on the crest of a hill, left hand on the ground and right on the handle of Sodom. Just over the hill, in a small grassy depression, a cluster of Underworld minions swarmed around a stone. Three Ornes stood guard, watching for intruders with unwavering, malicious stares. A bound Clubberskull lay in waiting. Most worrying to the violet eyed boy though, was the Great Reaper overseeing the whole operation.
Akuma tapped into his power, drawing upon himself a cloak of shadow to sneak unnoticed. As the magic darkness settled into place, the gaze of the Great Reaper washed over Akuma. It hovered there for a fraction of a second. Akuma silently thanked his arcane ability, and the entity granting it.
"What do you think," he whispered.
A hollow, echoing voice, as if three people spoke at once, replied within his head. "New leader. This is far too organized for that gargantuan idiot to have set up," the voice commented, referring to the Great Reaper.
"Good point. Kill them all, or all but the Great Reaper and interrogate him?"
"Let's slaughter them!"
"I figured you'd say that."
Hey guys! I have a few things to say here.
First off, my sincerest apologies to the readers, followers, and favoriters of Rise of the Old Ones. This is the reboot. I did not like how that story was turning out at all, and couldn't stand leaving it up. It was just too terrible. So yes, this is Rise of the Old Ones, but renamed and redone.
Second, my apologies for taking so long. Reason: Terraria. DAMN that game is fun. So yeah, I will be more writing oriented in the future, I just was on a huge Terraria kick for a while.
Third, I got a copy of Uprising a few days ago, have beaten the campaign, and still enjoy the game immensely. I play the multiplayer from time to time, tag Crow3man (Big surprise), so yeah. Might see you online, might not.
And fourth, thanks for reading! Make sure to leave a review, and tell me what I can improve. PLEASE! All begging for reviews aside, enjoy the story and check out my RWBY story, Twenty-Four Hours.
Anyways, thanks all and enjoy! Until next time.