Unmei Force X Fortune's Soldiers
Prologue: Two Tales Bound Together Once More
A/N: This story is a collab with Siege25, who is a good friend of mine, and has been linking stories with me for a while. This story is fully canon to the story-line of the Unmei Force, and plays a present, but minuscule part in the overall DH multiverse timeline, with the events detailed in the final chapter of the story. Also note that this story is situated within Richard and Siege's home reality, so characters listed here, are not the same as their counterparts in the DH multiverse. A prime example of this, is the characters from Fire Emblem: Three Houses, which debut in this chapter. Otherwise, enjoy the story.
In the GFS Ryujin...
The bridge of the space fortress was hard at work, as the crew were ensuring that their role for the fortress, which was ensuring that the fortress's various capabilities were kept at optimal state.
Suddenly, one of the bridge crew received a strange signal on her display, as she immediately scanned it, analysing the visual data, as well as all kinds of information regarding it. When she finalised her analysis, she found that the signal was a stable portal, except that the source of it... was something alarming, as the bridge crew member's eyes widened. She immediately turned to the acting supervisor of the bridge.
"Sir! We found something of great interest to our leader!" She declared.
"What is it?" He asked calmly. "Surely that you must have found something to have stated that."
"I have managed to find a very prominent signal originating from a nearby world." She responded back. "The signal composition... It shares more than 90% similarity... to signal code 'Sigma-Alpha-25'!"
"'Sigma-Alpha-25'...!?" The supervisor exclaimed with shock, before he composed himself. "This is indeed of great interest to our leader...! That signal type... He's been waiting for that signal code to appear for a long time... It has been 10 years since that signal type has returned...! He must be informed!"
He then immediately activated his wrist-held communicator, as he immediately called for Richard.
Down in the corridors of the space fortress...
Richard was walking down the hallways, as he greeted a group of soldiers passing by, before his communicator immediately began to sound off, causing him to activate it and receive the call coming towards him.
"Speak." Richard stated sharply. "What is it that you wish to tell me?"
"Commander... We have found something of greatest priority to you...!" The supervisor reported back. "Signal 'Sigma-Alpha-25'... There is a strong signal appearing in a nearby world...! We can confirm it as a spatial portal... Which means... that our other allies are coming!"
Richard immediately froze stiff, as his eyes widened greatly, as his hands began to tremble.
"You're... You're absolutely sure that you have confirmed the signal, supervisor?" Richard tried to ask back, reining in the shaking in his voice, caused by sher shock of hearing something that he hasn't heard for a long, long time indeed.
"Indeed we have." The supervisor responded back.
Richard then immediately opened a sukima in front of him, before rushing through it.
He soon found him on the bridge, as he immediately sat down on the captain's chair, rapidly inputting commands.
"Put the feed on! Show me the location of the signal, NOW!" Richard shouted to his crew members forcefully.
As the bridge crew all worked frantically to follow his order, the feed began to appear in front of Richard's display, showing a large golden portal, which was laying in the dark plains of one of the worlds. When Richard saw the portal, his mind immediately recognised what is was, and more importantly, who is belonged to.
"That portal... I know it anywhere... It has to be them...! It must be!" Richard shouted. "I have to get there immediately! The others will need to see this!"
Down at the location of the portal...
The entirety of the initial members of the Unmei Force arrived in front of the golden portal, as Richard stood frontmost, staring at the large thrumming portal before them.
"Richard, you sure this is..." Gus was about to say.
"SHUT UP!" Richard snapped at his friend. "This is most definitely what I'm thinking... This has to be...! No-one else uses that portal except for a certain group of people... One that we have never met for so long..."
After a few moments of waiting, the group watched as the portal began to flicker and ripple, as several figures immediately appeared through it, as they seemed to be from another world, one being a silver-haired woman in a golden crown and red royal queen robes, with a large shell-like axe in her hands, a man with blonde hair, a black eye-patch over his right eye, dressed in black armour, with a blue cape, wielding a large halberd spear in his hands, a man with dark brown-hair with sideburns and earrings, wearing a combination of leather and golden armour, with a large mythical composite bow in his hands, a man in dark grey robes with gauntlets and leggings, turquoise hair and a large saw-toothed blade in his hands.
Soon two others appeared through the portal, as one of them was a young lady with silver hair and deathly pale skin,dressed in dark female princess armour, and a large golden crown around the back and top of her head. And the other...
"Siege..." Richard remarked. "Siege...!"
The last of the figures was a man with spiked up black hair, with a very bulky figure, dressed in black military gear, vest, boots, pants and all. The only difference that Richard noted from the Siege before him, and the Siege he knew, was that this Siege had several skin-deep scars on his skin, and his right eye was covered by a eye-patch. Everyone was stunned, as they all knew Siege, and were most surprised by his appearance before them.
However, no-one was more surprised by Richard, whose heart literally stopped for a brief moment, as the sheer shock of encountering his long-lost friend, caused him to literally shut-down temporarily. Siege, unaware of what is happening to Richard, turned to him, before giving him a welcoming smile and a salute.
"Richard... 10 years... quite the long time old friend." Siege spoke in a voice that was far more mature and deeper than what Richard knew before. "I never thought that we would meet again in these circumstances. I never thought that I would be able to finally track you down to this place."
Richard wordlessly approached Siege, as the first four companions of Siege eyed Richard with suspicion, as they lowered their hands towards their weapons. The last one however, wordlessly looked at Richard, as if she wasn't suspecting of Richard at all. Siege, however, was confused at what Richard was doing. And when Richard placed his hand on Siege's face, everyone was shocked, as Siege was startled by Richard's invasion of personal space, as Richard slowly caressed Siege's face, as if he was feeling for something on it.
After a few moments, Richard slowly lowered his hands. "Siege... Is that you...?" Richard muttered in a gentle whisper.
Siege didn't say anything, but he nodded slowly. As he saw the nod, tears began to leak from Richard's eye, despite his expression not changing at all.
"It's you, Siege... It's really you... After so long... I finally see you again..." Richard muttered softly, as the tears ran down his cheeks. "I thought that I would never meet you again because of everything that had happened... But I'm relieved... I'm so relieved... that you're still here... still existing... still there where I can rest easy knowing you still remain, even through everything. You look so torn, but you're still the same Siege I met back then..."
Siege was about to say something, but he opted instead to use his own hand to wipe several of Richard's tears off, with a sympathetic expression. "I guess that you have been through a lot through all of these years, Richard... And it must have hurt to be without me." Siege told him back. "You look so different as well, yet I remember you as the same despite this..."
The two of them stared at each other, before Richard closed his eyes, and allowed the rest of his tears dry off. He then raised his eyes to face Siege. "I guess that we have our own stories to tell." Richard stated back. "Should I tell you mine, before you go and tell yours to me?"
"...I think I should start off here." Siege responded back, before looking back at the companions with him. "After all, you need to know what is going on with my side of things, because I think that it's very dire in our point of views. I'll summarise with this: Hel, the very embodiment of the concept of death, is at the cusp of resurrecting, likely within a year or so. There are people trying to speed the process up, and we'll need a hell lot of allies if we're going to take her down."
"Hel... You mean 'that' Hel..." Richard remarked back. "The same one who cursed Alphonse to die?"
Siege nodded in response. "Yeah, that one." He answered back. "You know, I wanted to get to you as quickly as possible to warn you of the situation, but we can't seem to access Gensokyo at all... No matter what means we try to get there, all attempts to reach the place have failed, and we kept on trying and trying. That's when we found your signal, and managed to get here. I take it that you found us as well, so that it saves us the hassle of having to search this entire dimension for you, right...?"
"...Heh... I guess that if you put your back into it, I doubt I would ever shake you off..." Richard chuckled lightly, before his tone suddenly turned into one of sadness. "I guess that this is where I should start with my story. It'll most likely explain why you weren't able to reach or contact us."
"...Go on." Siege answered back. "And by the way, I noticed that neither Heiwa or Cirno with them. Although I could see that all of your people are familiar faces to me. Why's that?"
"Siege... I have to tell you something..." Richard responded back, before he took a deep breath. "Gensokyo... It's tearing itself apart... The very fabric of our dimension is tearing apart at the seams. And we've been looking for a way to reverse the inevitable destruction of our homeland, through any means. So far, not even Yukari could do anything about it. At best, she could only help to prevent further disasters with this and delay the fraying of the fabric of reality for our world."
"What...!?" Siege exclaimed with pure shock. "Gensokyo... It's... It's dying...!?"
"That's why we left the multiverse, searching all possible realities for an answer." Richard answered back. "Out of all of the realities, we recently found out the answer is in this multiverse. It's a fairly chaotic place, and many things have happened over the time that you left Gensokyo for so long, up until now. We couldn't risk bringing Heiwa or Cirno into the other realities, lest they suffer an untimely demise as a result, and there is only so many residents that Yukari's one-way trip for us out of the corrupted Gensokyo could take, and that took a decent toll from her."
"Shit... I guess we've got our own share of problems here..." Siege remarked, before he then smiled. "But look on the bright side, we can work together to solve the problems together. After all, two heads are better than one, and the sames goes for fighting with a hand or two."
"Yeah, I guess. It's been so long since I worked with you, that I forgot how nice it felt." Richard remarked.
"That's my brother in arms right there." Siege said with a smirk. "Just like old times pal. You and me, my friends and yours, old and new, side by side, and we'll take down death itself, and at the same time, we'll find a way to fix Gensokyo up back to shape."
The two of them immediately reached out a hand, as they clasped the other's hands, shaking it, as the feelings of friendship and companionship, that was thought to be lost for so long, have been reignited with a single shake of the hand between both leaders.
"Together again, it seems. This time, you better not suddenly go off and disappear like that again. Heiwa and Cirno are fairly concerned about your long-time absence." Richard smiled back.
"Same to you, you damn bastard!" Siege laughed, as he pat Richard's back heartily. "You better not go anywhere either, because we've got a goddess of death to bring down!"
Richard then nodded, before he then wrapped his arms around Siege, before uttering the few words that he most wanted to say for so long.
"Welcome back... my dearest friend, Siege."
Unmei Force X Fortune's Soldiers
Two old friends, fighting together under a common cause... once more.