OH GREAT /u/nysra I ASK OF THEE TO GRANT SHINE OF THE ARCHANGEL CHAPTERS A FANFICTION FLAIR- ahem.
"Oh, no, I'm doing that thing again where I start a bunch of fanfiction and finish none of them. I know, I know, I HAVE to finish The Defense Destroyers, but I saw the new transmogs and I just couldn't help myself. I'm hoping this is a one-shot story, because I really don't wanna take on the responsibility of another fanfiction when I already have ten million waiting for me."
This was the author's note I wrote when I first started this story. Sorry, past me, but it looks like we've got another fanfiction to fill the void of writing The Defense Destroyers. Basically, the main characters are the monsters from the newest transmog pic (minus Xiao Chun because I honestly tried to write him and I hate his character) plus Elsharion.
I hope you all enjoy this fanfiction, because I know this one's going to take just as much effort as The Defense Destroyers to write! I'd appreciate it SO MUCH if you could vote and comment on the chapters you like, too! Thanks again!
Chapter 1
Rebirth
Amelia
Let me tell you a story.
This is the story of how we caused the extinction of humans, by failing to defeat the madman who wanted to execute them all. This is the story of love and loss, and how monsters could go endless lengths to find the one they had lost so long ago. But I suppose we must have some back-story, before the tale begins.
Artamiel always blamed himself for the kidnapping of Elsharion.
In all honesty, it was a mix of everyone's fault – Elsharion's included. I could still remember the day that we lost him; the light Ifrit, the one who brought our team together at first to deal with the heavens and the underworld; things the legendary Defense Destroyers themselves couldn't even dream of. I am the guardian of starlight; I was the record keeper of the now broken group.
"The constellations never forget," I used to say. But I could never forget that day, no matter how hard I tried.
On that day, we lost Elsharion.
On that day, Artamiel disappeared without as much as a goodbye.
On that day, there were no more humans.
"Go for Woonsa first, Amelia!" Artamiel had snarled as he leaped up into the air, wings spread open and sword in hand. "He will destroy us all if we do not take him down before anyone else!"
"Yes, sir! Understood, sir!" I had saluted. Together Lushen and I performed a tandem attack on the Pioneer of darkness. The young man gasped in pain as the razor edge of Lushen's cards zoomed by him and sliced at his skin; followed up be a sharp blast of ice that froze him in his tracks.
Elsharion called out, "To your left, Lushen!"
Lushen threw a card to the left wall as told; slicing the throat of a Gina. The dark Mystic Witch gaped, her hand flying to her throat as she fell backwards; glowing red staff clattering to the ground. Elsharion threw a "well done" in his direction. Lushen grinned in return.
"I call upon the damned souls to rise up; attack this woman!" Grego snarled, bony claw closing as three hands rose from the ground and began to grab onto Kamiya's limbs; sucking the very life out of her undead body. The Kitsune's hairpin dropped out of her hair as she fell to the ground. The hands lowered back to below the ground, and a there was a newfound shine in Grego's blank eyes.
Grego, though you would think he was one of the enemies, was actually on our team. The dark Lich was a cursed soul who had once been a pirate; reanimated from the dead to wreak havoc on the world. …At least, that's what the witch who placed the spell on him said. Now, however, he was one of the strongest people in our team.
Together, the five of us fought endlessly, clinging onto the hope that we would push through and force Veromos out.
The memories of the war were blurry in my mind, but the ending was something I will always remember; the very moment that kept me up for countless nights. A portal to the underworld opened; a hellish place where monsters of darkness roamed. That was where Elsharion's brother, Veromos, ruled. The Ifrit was the king of the underworld, and his intentions were…frightening.
"There is no way we can defeat Veromos from here!" Elsharion cried out as Lanett opened up a black hole; the powerful winds whipping through the skies. "…I have to go in the underworld and face him myself!"
"Elsharion, no!" Artamiel extended one arm, but by then it was already too late.
The light Ifrit pushed his way through the mob of darkness and into the portal. We all tried to hold him back. We couldn't, though; and Elsharion disappeared, his white hair billowing behind him. Artamiel wanted to go after him, but the portal closed up just as he opened his wings. As far as we knew, Elsharion was gone and there was no way to get him back.
I wish I could say that Elsharion had won against his brother, but by the end of the day, humanity was gone. The islands had fallen; every last human hunted down and speared with weapons of darkness. From that day on, there were no more Summoners; just monsters. Now, monsters have reigned for 20 years over the world that humans once had.
The era of human ended, breathing life into the era of monster.
Most monsters celebrated the death of humans. No longer were they enslaved on rocks and forced to endure battle after battle in the Giants' Keep, Dragon's Lair or Necropolis. Now all monsters were free to live the lives that humans once had. To them, Veromos was their savior. I can still remember his evil voice as he spoke to the monsterkind.
"Gone are the days of hardship and war!" He boomed, sounding as if many people from different directions were speaking in unison. "As of today, we are all free from Summoners! We will not be treated as slaves anymore; destined to fight or to become nourishment for stronger warriors!"
That was when it felt like every last monster in the world erupted into cheers, screaming their last breath out.
Of course, there had been some monsters who resisted this way of thinking. Not all of humanity was as bad as Veromos made them out to be. There were kind Summoners out there, just as much as there had been cruel Summoners. At one point, The Defense Destroyers – Randy, Copper, Olivia and Bulldozer – tried to storm the underworld.
Now, it has been 20 years since the four have broken apart; the only ones alive now Olivia and Bulldozer.
Olivia, the only ghoul-monster hybrid in this world. Olivia, who was once known as The Consumer but fed only when she was on the verge of dying without the taste of monster flesh. Olivia; whose wings were like fire and crystal. Olivia couldn't save Randy and Copper from their inevitable doom. I'm sure she blames herself for it.
Bulldozer, the Frankenstein with a psychopath as a Summoner. Bulldozer, whose arms weren't flesh and bone; instead metal and wire. Bulldozer, who was Olivia's first friend and her right-hand man. Bulldozer couldn't save Randy from being skewered on a spear of darkness, or Copper from being ripped apart limb by limb because of Lanett's black holes. I know Bulldozer can never forget what he has seen.
They weren't the only ones to try and stand up to Veromos. Countless others tried their best, and they all met similar fates to Randy and Copper. There used to be a resistance; a secret group of rebels who wanted to take down the new dictator. The town the rebels lived in was wiped out by a blast of pure darkness ten years ago; no one who was anywhere near the town at the time had survived.
I saw what was left of that town after the blast, to try and find any survivors, but there was no one; just ashes. Through the rubble, though, there was a filthy teddy bear that had somehow survived the explosion; green buttons for eyes. The name "PUFF" had been stitched onto the bottom of the bear's foot. When I saw the bear, my hand covered my mouth; these kinds of teddies belonged to Occult Girls; who were so young and innocent.
I reached down and touched it. The memories of the object were everywhere; talking to me, telling its story. A tiny girl; no more than 13, clutched it closely to her chest as she watched a Dryad flit around the girl's brother. His armor was a bright golden; almost like sunshine. His four wings had been sliced cleanly off of his back, and he bled heavily. Like Artamiel, he was an Archangel – but he was dying.
I could hear the girl's voice, begging for her friend Herne to save her brother. Herne, with blue leaves for hair, tried and tried to keep him alive, but in the end the archangel's consciousness slipped away, and so did his life. Herne sobbed to the girl that Eladriel was gone.
"I'm so sorry, Charlotte," Herne covered her pale face with her tiny hands, and together the two cried. Herne looked up in the distance, where an evil darkness was coming. The memories ended all of a sudden, and that's when I realized I myself was crying. Charlotte had been so young, and now she'll never have a future.
I was crying for all the lives that were cut short that day; innocent Charlotte one of those lives. God, there had to have been thousands of monsters there; some of them as young as 6. Thinking about them makes me tear up. No one else cared about the lives that were gone, though, too busy with their own freedom to pay attention to the resistance.
The world has been rebirthed into a grotesque dystopia, and most monsters are too blind to see the nightmare in front of them.
Our own group was now gone, the world never the same. Most of the buildings and architectural achievements that humans have created have gone abandoned and no longer taken care of. Vines cover the walls of what humans once knew as the Eiffel Tower; the Empire State Building's windows shattered and the foundations covered with rust. There was no way to go back from this now.
I never gave up hope that maybe Elsharion was out there somewhere, but everyone else did. No one knew where Elsharion was after he entered the underworld; not even me. I had tried and tried, desperately, to find some trace of him, but not even the constellations were able to detect even a breath. We all thought he was dead. Even Artamiel had given up hope, and he took to the skies, never to be seen again. One by one, our group had dissolved, without Elsharion to weigh us down.
…But then, one day, the constellations told me something.
I had prayed to the stars to please, please, just give me a sign that Elsharion was still out there. I had done this every day; in hopes that there would be something left. 20 years had passed, and not a single peep from the stars that would indicate his life still goes on. I would pray and pray for hours on end to the stars to just give me a sign; a single sign. But there was always dead silence, and I would stay there in the grassy field I went to every night under dawn broke.
If someone were to see the memories of this field, they would see a heartbroken young woman, crying every night as she looked up at the stars and howling at the sky to save a man. They would think the woman lost a lover, from the way she grieved and wept. Though Elsharion was not my love, he was perhaps my closest friend.
He was the man who dragged me with his bare hands from a dark place that I might not have escaped from myself, and I owe him my life for it. I wasn't going to give up, even if there had been no results for what had been ages. I kneeled in the grass and prayed to the stars to help me find Elsharion, expecting no results.
Yet, after 20 years, that day was different, and I felt it.
A heartbeat that was not my own rang in my ears. Though it was faint, it was definitely there. After two decades of silence, finally some part of Elsharion was alive. The stars glimmered in the night sky, as if rejoicing the fact that the rock that held our group together was alive. Tears streamed down my face as the heartbeat gently thrummed, and I fell to my knees.
"Elsharion…" I sobbed, my face twisting into a smile. "You're alive…You're alive!"
Determination flooded my body – determination to save Elsharion after all these years.
"Can you hear me, Elsharion?" I held my hands up to the night, unable to stop crying. "Please, if you're there, give me a sign! We're going to save you, dear friend! We will save you!"
As if he were speaking to me, I heard him. It was a faint whisper, like a breeze, but nevertheless, the voice was his familiar, deep rumble of a voice; calling out to me.
Amelia… He whispered. Oh, god, he sounded so real, like he was really right there with me; sighing into my ear. I don't know how to explain it. Such a thing had never happened before; not just with Elsharion, but with anyone who the stars could find for me. They never directly spoke to me; but with Elsharion, something was different.
…Amelia, is that you? He breathed, as if he couldn't believe it either.
"Yes, yes, Elsharion, it's me!" I clasped my hands together. "Can you hear me? Where are you?!"
Underworld… Elsharion murmured. …please, help…I can feel you…there's still hope…
"Elsharion, I'm going to find you! All five of us are, and then we're going to save you! So don't you dare die on me!" I couldn't stop myself now. "God, I've waited 20 years to hear your voice again, and I'm not going to let you slip away again! I'll bring our team back together, and we're going to get you out of there!"
Thank you, Amelia… Elsharion choked up, and then his voice was gone.
I just sat there on my knees, crying into my hands. But for once, the tears weren't spilled from grief; instead from a joy that burned like a fire deep inside me. I didn't care if the other four members of our team were in different corners of the world anymore. I would go to the underworld and back to reunite us all, and that was exactly what I was – no, what we were going to do.
For the first time in twenty years, there was hope for us.