We shape our world and its inhabitants in various ways, saying a simple yet memorable sentence, offering a hand of selfless or selfish intent, or starting or ending a world-impacting event. Whether they did the world right, wrong, or in the rarest of cases, both can only be decided by you and others...
When you acknowledge this fact, you can only have two choices that will forever change everything...
Will you learn from the past and take another way for the better...?
Or will you repeat the same mistakes as many others have...?
What you do decides our world's fate... or rather, your world.
Remember, no one can decide for you... you will.
Have the strength to accept what can't be undone, have the audacity to change what you can, and have the sense to tell the difference...
-ZD
If people say they already saw what violence, horror, carnage, death, hell... and monsters are genuinely like.
Then you could say those words fit perfectly for what's right in front of this young girl.
When she came to, she found herself in a burning city.
It all happened in an instant like lightning just coming out of nowhere and then suddenly vanished, but in this case, it wasn't lightning. It was a fire.
No... hellfire sounds more like the preferable description since the flames were precise as such. It had the usual warm colors but with a hint of pitch-black darkness infused in it.
And the air felt too horrible for the girl, and there was fire everywhere. The atmosphere was devastatingly hot.
It was like she was in hell.
She only had one thought racing through her mind.
'It burns.'
'It burns.'
'It burns!'
'It burns! It burns! It burns! It burns! It burns! It burns! It burns! It burns! It burns! It burns! It burns! It burns! It burns! It burns! It burns! It burns! It burns! It burns! It burns! It burns! It burns! It burns! It burns! It burns! It burns! It burns! It burns! It burns! It burns! It burns! It burns! It burns! It burns! It burns! It burns! It burns! It burns! It burns! It burns! It burns! It burns! It burns! It burns! It burns! It burns! It burns! It burns! It burns! It burns! It burns! It burns! It burns! It burns! It burns! It burns!'
'IT'S BURNS! IT'S BURNS! IT'S BURNS! IT'S BURNS! IT'S BURNS! IT'S BURNS! IT'S BURNS! IT'S BURNS! IT'S BURNS! IT'S BURNS! IT'S BURNS! IT'S BURNS! IT'S BURNS! IT'S BURNS! IT'S BURNS! IT'S BURNS! IT'S BURNS! IT'S BURNS! IT'S BURNS! IT'S BURNS! IT'S BURNS! IT'S BURNS! IT'S BURNS! IT'S BURNS! IT'S BURNS! IT'S BURNS! IT'S BURNS! IT'S BURNS! IT'S BURNS! IT'S BURNS! IT'S BURNS! IT'S BURNS! IT'S BURNS! IT'S BURNS! IT BURNS! IT BURNS! IT BURNS! IT BURNS! IT BURNS! IT BURNS! IT BURNS! IT BURNS! IT BURNS! IT BURNS! IT BURNS! IT BURNS! IT BURNS! IT BURNS! IT BURNS! IT BURNS! IT BURNS! IT BURNS! IT BURNS! IT BURNS! IT BURNS! IT BURNS! IT BURNS! IT BURNS! IT BURNS! IT BURNS! IT BURNS! IT BURNS! IT BURNS! IT BURNS! IT BURNS! IT BURNS! IT BURNS! IT BURNS! IT BURNS! IT BURNS!'
IT'S BUUUUUUUURRRRRRRNNSSSS!
That was one of the very few things that were going on in the girl's head. Honestly, she even thought she already lost it.
But in the end, the child managed to keep her sanity. It was a wonder how she's even sane today.
And she was only six years old when it all happened.
And she remembered all of it, every terrible vivid detail.
The young girl searched for her mother, she didn't know if she was alive or dead, but she needed to find her regardless.
From how it all looked when she was walking around, just about everything was set ablaze and destroyed.
But that wasn't the terrifying part... to the girl, there were things far worse than possibly burning to death.
First: Dead bodies were lying around in the most horrible conditions possible it could cause a kid to be completely and utterly traumatized for the rest of their lives by sight.
They were either burned from the inside out... crushed... devoured while little remains were lying around.
Second: The other people who haven't died yet were doing the most inhumane acts. It sickened the young one to the core.
They were mercilessly slaughtering each other, and it didn't matter if they were each other's loved ones; they killed them anyway while laughing or screaming. They were also committing more heinous acts such as... no... it doesn't matter how to describe it.
The girl could see the absolute insanity in their bloodshot eyes; there was no conscience, no reasoning.
Just destroy.
And finally, there's the third.
The third.
That was the terrifying part.
Monsters.
Real monsters.
The little one couldn't exactly make out what their full appearances were like, but there was no doubt in her mind they looked unbelievably horrific.
They were even worse than the psychotic people.
The monsters devoured them; blood was everywhere.
But... there was one particular silhouette of a monster that didn't escape the girl's sight.
In fact, all you had to do to see it... was looking upwards...
And all you could see was one skyscraping and terrifying beast.
Like the hellfire, it only appeared out of the blue, and just like the other monsters, she couldn't tell what it looked like from all the smoke in the sky, but the shadow was unmistakable. Aside from the size of it, there was something else the girl could feel radiating from the giant creature.
Evil.
Pure, dreadful, unforgiving evil.
...she ran, she ran from all of it out of fear. The little girl didn't care where she was going; her only option was to run away as far as her small legs could take her.
SPLISH
But that only proved ultimately futile for what would've sealed her fate.
The scared child was fatally wounded.
A ghoulishly pale hand with razor-sharp claws just ripped through her small stomach. When the monster pulled it out, she fell to the ground on her back, a pond of blood spreading around her. The girl looked up to see her assailant; sadly, it was just a random monster that ran off, possibly off to find a new victim.
The girl laid there... dying... and all alone.
She was desperately gasping for air, but it didn't help preserve her short life even a little.
She was scared. Tears formed from her eyes and dripped down her face.
Her few final thoughts raced through my mind.
'I don't want to die...'
'I want to see my mommy...'
'Mommy, where are you...?'
'Help me...'
But the poor child's silent pleas went unanswered.
Her eyelids started to drop ever so slowly. She knew just trying to hold on any longer was useless at this point.
That's why she let her eyes close for the last time, and all she saw was darkness...
"...mm...oom...y..."
...and at that moment, she breathed her last breath.
She was dead.
...
...
...
But then...
"Red... my sweet little girl... I love you... please forgive me..."
A Voice bemoaned in sorrow and despair.
"...and please my daughter..."
To the dead girl, somehow able to hear the calls of the voice. It sounded so faint yet ever so familiar.
"...live..."
And then she heard the voice scream her name.
"RED DRAGNEEL!"
And after that...
She opened her eyes.
She was alive.
The girl shot up from the ground, gasping heavily for the air along with a few coughs.
She looked down to her stomach to find the wound was completely gone like it was never there.
The girl looked around at her surroundings; she was in the same spot where the monster killed her.
Many thoughts were racing through her head, questions mostly. Like for starters: Why am I still alive?
Not to mention, there were a few noticeable things that caught her attention.
The hellfire was gone - all of it.
And so was the massive monster.
All there was left was destroyed and burned buildings, smoke, dust, and a dark, starless night sky.
And a numerous amount of burned, crushed, or intact skeletons of the monsters and people laying around on the ground.
And Instantly, the girl was hoping her mother wasn't among these lost dead souls.
"Mommy! Mommy, where are you!?" she yelled quite loudly, hoping her Mother would hear her. she didn't care if there were monsters that were still alive that could hear her; she just wanted her Mom.
Suddenly, fatigue washed over the child. She fell to her knees, unable to bring herself to stand up. She felt so sick everywhere she thought she would vomit at any moment.
Her eyes looked at the ground to see a red liquid she hoped she wouldn't see again soon.
Blood.
But she knew it was more than just blood.
She moved her eyes to the left to find the source of this puddle of red; in fact, it was right next to her.
She was right next to her.
The Girl's mother was right next to her.
There was a hole in her chest, torn right inwards.
She wasn't moving.
She wasn't breathing.
The little girl merely stared at her blankly, unable to comprehend the sight in front of her. She put her tiny hands on the woman's right arm, "Mommy...?" She shook her arm gently.
The woman didn't respond.
"Mommy... get up... please get up..."
Tears started to form in the girl's eyes once again as visions of her Mom's last moments flashed through her mind. She slowly began to grasp reality finally.
Her Mom was dead.
The only thing she could do... was screaming in agonizing misery for her mother.
To think the girl, named Red Dragneel, was the only survivor of the city called Luminous destruction years ago.
And all that day left for the girl was...
Despair.
"Why Him?"
"You know why."
"I thought I did, but now I don't."
"We need him for what's to come."
"You want the young lad for your own personal gains."
On a high platform of dark stone outside of Tuatha De Danann, also known as the Empyreal Fortress, stood people. One of them is a large man with dark green eyes in his early forties judging from his brown hair and beard greying, wearing a dark green coat over a brown shirt, black cargo pants, and steel-capped boots, sternly gazing at his colleague on his left side.
The other, also male but younger, wearing formal clothes of black, his face completely covered in darkness from having a hood of short robe over his head, and wield a rather disturbing looking staff in his left hand. He didn't meet the harsh glare of his ally, only looking down at what his focus of the matter far below from what they are standing on.
"Brax, Considering my role in all of this, I don't see how I can gain anything for myself." The hooded man monotonously stated, not fazed by the older one's accusation about the topic of his goals. "Not that I want matters. That's how it's always been in my life for all I could remember." He continued in an impassive tone.
The older man, named Brax, softened his glare towards the one in black, knowing his sad circumstances. But, he does not relent, wanting his opinion to be vocalized for what morals he still held.
"Just because you have the ability to allow someone to participate in this godforsaken war doesn't mean you can force them to join our cause... even if they could bring some sort of difference in how all this goes." Brax closes both of his hands rather tightly; he turns his gaze away from his ally to look down to see what they came for.
Who they came for.
Far down below them was a large crowd of fighters, heroes. About almost half an hour ago, they fought, from what Brax could gather, an ancient evil monster named Ishmelga, the source of most of the strife and violence of this world. The heroes fought valiantly and, by some miracle, none of them had fallen in battle against their enemy.
But out of all of them, there was one young man among them that finally ended Ishmelga's existence and finally being freed from a curse the evil creature inflicted on this man.
He had unkempt dark hair with a blue tint to it, fuchsia eyes that from a glance had so much kindness in behind them.
And Brax knew that someone having such kindness in their eyes means that they have suffered all the worse.
"He... from what we've seen throughout his life, he has suffered constantly through it all; it's a wonder how he didn't break. He just lost his father, with whom he never got to know better, and is finally free from the abomination that ruined his childhood before he was adopted. But now... here we are, going pull him into another war-no, the worst war anyone would have no choice but to fight in our world. The boy would have to fight enemies far worse than who he has fought today and from his days past and would have to live thinking if he'll survive the next day." Brax's voice grew somewhat harsher sounding while sadly looking at their target.
"And what worst of all... he may never see the people he loves again until the day he dies. Not to mention those who love him back will be heartbroken to lose him after he finally gets to be free suddenly, and they wouldn't know why! If he is going to fight in this war, shouldn't we see if they would volunteer to help him so he can have a fighting chance to survive!" Brax growled while once again fiercely glaring at the man beside him.
The black-clothed individual was silent, all the while still not facing his angry comrade.
The wind gently blew around them as they stay silent. Brax began to calm down and loosened his fingers, and he looked at his palms to see he had unintentionally dug his nail in them, blood slowly seeping out. Brax drops his hands to his sides and once more glanced at the man in black, waiting for an answer.
...
...
...
"I know" He started with a hint of sadness and guilt.
"I admit... I sympathize with him for all pain he endured. And for some reason that I can't quite put my finger on... I'm envious of him."
Brax quietly listens to his ally's speech, but he hid his surprise at the man he knew for a long time, feeling envious towards another.
"However... We can't afford to let ourselves falter out of pity for him. One of the reasons why I feel he's worthy of that... creature's power is because he actually took out a malevolent being that was at fault for many of this continent's tragedies with his comrades and the very same accursed power Ishmelga was responsible for. Now it's gone... he can finally become its host... and he will have greater power he never thought possible. And as for the people who love him... I'll put it bluntly, they would be useless and get in his way." The hooded man's tone went cold and dismissive, any of the emotion he once held in his voice suddenly gone. Brax lost his bewilderment of him quickly.
"Besides, I will be sending a few more fighters from this world along with him... only some of them he hasn't met yet and one more he is acquainted with but isn't exactly on good terms with." He finally looks away from down below and looks at his colleague straight in the eye despite Brax's inability to see his face.
"He is my... He is Natsu and Red Dragneel's last hope to finally be free from their family's dark history because of that God and bring an end to this wretched war."
...
...
...
...
Brax sighs somberly, knowing he can't make any counter-arguments over this matter, and grudgingly accepting this is how this was meant to be. "How long does he have before they come after him?" Brax questioned his ally about what they must do next.
The man looks back down to their target—silent after a few moments before looking back to Brax to give him his answer.
"He has until late February of this universe's next year, once they come after him to take his life, that's when we make our move... and he becomes the Revenet's new host."
Brax sadly nodded his head before turning around to walk away. "See you then... Z."
The man apparently named Z watches Brax walk away for a moment, then turns his head to the one far below him, see the Young man and all of his allies making their way to a massive Crimson flying cruiser.
Z muttered under his breath something akin to somewhat of an unknown farewell before he faded in the shadows.
"Enjoy what time you have left while you're still completely yourself before you're never the same man you are now and defy the darkness..."
"...Rean Schwarzer."
Rean ceased moving any further to the Courageous II. He looked up to the highest point of the outside of the Empyreal Fortress, feeling like someone was watching him from afar.
Rean sighed, feeling too tired to really give it any more thought. He turned his gaze forward to the Courageous II see all the members of Class VII and some other friends he made along the way, waiting for him to catch up with them.
And so, Rean Schwarzer moved forward to the people he loves...
...While blissfully unaware that soon, he would once again have to fight an even crueler war.