Note: Mainly inspired by Skrunks now defunct "Das Ende" piece, this one shall take place after his was supposedly done and finished. The plot will be inspired by Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha: Another Crisis series doujin, and technology mainly from the Crytek game Crysis 2. If this fiction gets any interest, that is. That being said, I hope you enjoy this piece as a current "stand alone" for now.
Summary: The angel has failed her mission, having lost herself to vast nothingness and time. The friends she loved were gone again. Her entire universe has collapsed with the brunt of a thousand year war reignited. Humanity was now extinct. With no logical hope left, she opts for the last way out.
TearJerker fact: Read as you listen to Hepatica. Seriously. Just do it.
Author Reinforce Vier presents...
At the Ende of Her Road
Epilogue
"Bardiche, play track one."
A moment's hesitance. "That...one sir?"
"Yes." A dreary silence of uncertainty as painful memories assaulted her broken mind once again. "That...one..."
A soft spoken voice of a woman let the words flow, accompanied by a grand piano stroking it's soft middle keys. For a moment, everything was silent as the soft piano keys and angelic voice of the vocalist seeped into the listener's core. The lift of a head and a sigh which seemed to release all of the shattered soul.
The tears finally stopped.
It had taken an ungodly five years, five years of pain mixed with pleasure, but finally, it had come true. The first dream she experienced those years ago had finally come true, in a hazy frightening display of raw power. That power compressed everything she had felt and experienced in her life into one final desperate suicide attack. As her most loved friends had died all around her, falling to the enemy one by one before her eyes, all the memories, past present and future, had flashed before her eyes.
For what had seemed like forever and yet a moment, a blinding white haze had encompassed the sun.
Everything she knew had died shortly after.
Now, with the graves of both fleets adrift in cold space and every planet within trillions of light years silenced, she was truly alone.
So her tears had stopped.
And so had she.
She was completely spent. Physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. By clinical and AI standards, she would be brain dead.
"Sir?"
But she was not.
Not even a hint of acknowledgement; just the labored painful breaths of scarred lungs intaking recycled oxygen. The mournful angel's voice singing that lullaby.
She had seen too much. So much for one fragile soul to handle. So her eyes remained closed. Unseeing, because she never wanted to see ever again. Darkness was her only comfort.
"Sir. Your functions are weakening..."
The artificial voice trailed off as her mind lost itself in her sorrow, replaying the events which had happened not too long ago a thousand times in a fraction of a second. She experienced the pain of being shot a thousand times, at the same time. She experienced the tears and ache as she held her dying friend close to her being, feeling hot blood and slick flesh a thousand times. She experienced the raw power as she unleashed her entire soul in a blind rage, her body literally bursting apart and melting away. She experienced the white blindness which not only turned the world white, but the entire universe, for those moments. She experienced the final absolute silence and stillness as the entire universe she had fought to save, went silent.
All a thousand times.
Lesser constructs would have gone absolutely insane from replaying those final events all at once. But the last living being in existence was no lesser. No matter what she had tried, from fatal gunshot wounds to simply letting the elements claim her, the body she inhabited simply refused to cease function. It was as if she was cursed to live alone, no matter what she would do, no matter what incarnation she was, no matter what universe she would exist in.
Or maybe she was already mad and just simply accepted it.
Absently, worn fingers gingerly lifted the tags hidden under the fabric of her uniform to her vision. Barely legible due to age and elements having worn it out, her heads-up display scanned the tag and enhanced the script which had been once stamped upon it to center.
[Vector Ind. KP-X KOS-MOS, ser. 001]
Order. Her name had meant order in an ancient dead language. Right before he had...
How meaningless.
The track reached a crescendo. Synths and violins came into play.
A hint of a smile graced her battered lips as she reflected one last time. In those last moments, her features relaxed as the exhaustion finally caught up to her, the dull feeling her in heart spiking in twisted agony for a moment in memories; then dying down back into dullness once more. Slowly but surely, strength was leaving her. It...wasn't like anything she had imagined. At least, not like that. Unlike previous attempts, this one was more...calmer. More natural, if she could put it that way. Her eyelids grew heavier than they already were, despite them being closed in darkness by choice. Feeling was also fading away fast, quickly replaced by a vast nothing.
Maybe...
The image of her putting a bullet in her head came to mind, then her body simply leaning with it's back to the wall, blood and matter splattered all across burnt out bulkhead of what used to be her home. A grim smile came upon her as blood trickled down the side of her cheek. The affirmation-
A heavy head shook no as reality recalled, lips part slightly open in a nervous laugh.
She would drift off into a dreamless sleep, then her auto reboot functions would force her awake. Back to her reality. Back to were she was needed, yet not. Back to her unwanted pain. She vaguely recalled the words which had been said to her those thousands of years ago. Was...she really needed? Still? In her world which had been erased from existance?
Alone.
Just maybe...she would rest.
Red and blue streaked across her bare vision as static formed, gibberish which she had noticed but not taken too seriously, skirting and dancing all across her perception. Eventually, they had resolved into a red DNA chain which only lasted for a second, and then eight joined hexagons which formed a flower.
"...Maria..."
All became light again.
Closing Notes: Not sure to keep this as a one shot or a continuous fiction. Either way, I do not know much about the Xenosaga universe, having only played the game once and studied the Wiki about four years ago. Studying the XenoWikia now, I remember the information previously four years ago, which once had been extremely lengthy but a vast wealth of data for me to analyze and understand the storyline. Now, the Wikia is extremely lacking in details, the only good information available being ironically, KOS-MOS' profile, which I mainly had to make due with. Sadly enough, Skrunk's now defunct fiction was the one which I learned from the most. Bonus points if you understand the first and last parts of this current oneshot here. As always, please do kindly leave a review. I would appreciate it if I got one.
As a teaser for a possible story, here is one for you.
KOS-MOS slumped her exhausted body against the shattered brick wall of the building, her mind trying to register what the hell had happened. She had just watched two full armor suited men casually execute what looked like a member of an official military force. What was worse was the fact they were hunting a super prototype down and apparently over-rode any actual military command. And the bodies she had encountered in the earlier rooms - Oh god, the hundreds of body bags - did not help things at all. Never mind much less how in hell she had found herself in civilization once again, only to be implied that super prototype to be terminated with extreme prejudice.
She took a gaze at the empty silver framed pistol in her grasp, the interface of her systems IDing it as "Magdalene 18". The words of someone echoed in her isolated mind...
"Ye shall be as gods..."
With a grim pout on her features, gloved hands tightened on the only weapon available to her. As soon as she poked her head out to have a quick peek, a baritone male voice almost startled her.
"Tactical Options Available."
She'd have to worry about that later.
A yellow hexagonal marker labeled "1" had displayed itself on her under HUD, just in front of a massive shipping crate. Below that hexagon was a simple word. Resupply.
There was ammunition to procure for her weapon and two mean goons out there. And one dead person.
It would be three dead people very soon.
Without a second thought, KOS-MOS vaulted from the broken side wall to avoid detection and easily ran over to the huge shipping crate, ensuring she stayed out of view of the patrol. Crouching near a green box which had conveniently been already opened, her hurried gaze picked up four pistol magazines and five larger ones which were most likely meant for an assault rifle of some type. Without wasting any time at all, a free hand grabbed one of the four pistol magazines and slid it into the grip housing with an audible clack.
"What was that?"
Shit, these goons were smarter than she thought. A thumb hit the side lever keeping the slide in place, sending a fresh bullet home into the chamber. Standing up, her body whirled around to face the crate and in a few moments, expose herself to potentially fatal body piercing bullets. A deep nervous breath was sucked in...
'Time to get to work, KOS-MOS.'
She leaned half her body from the cover of the crate, lined up the Nova sights to the first white helmet she could see, and gently pulled the trigger.