Now that she thought about it, in the heat of panic and horror, the day had begun on a bad note when a high priority message from the main research facility woke her up at night and she could not catch a wink of sleep after that. Not too surprising since the facility was more of a haunted house rather than a place of marvel and technology.

She was shaken up after that, sensing something horrible on the horizon but without her own place to live and alone, she donned on blue pants and an old black jacket and arrived at her workplace an hour before she was required, as was expected of her. The creepy old man was the first one to arrive and the smile that he gave her made her skin crawl.

He yelled out in that sickening, raspy voice of his, claiming that today was the day for the breakthrough, where he would be crowned the Prince or whatever the hell made sense in his demonic mind. The more deluded scientists basked in his nihilistic speech while those under his thumb could only nod.

Then, the catastrophe occurred, like she had been dreading. At midnight, when she was stationed at the main hall, overlooking what was supposed to be the final few minutes of analysis, something happened. She remembered a surge of something dark and evil, harsh enough to burn her eyes before a screech came down from the skies and the tank containing filth and monsters exploded-

She survived by the skin of her teeth, summoning at the last second but even then, she suffered damage as the impact of the horrendous explosion rearranged her organs and levelled the facility with the first impact but when she was desperately trying to hold onto her concentration to remain alive, she heard the dying laugh of the old man behind her. The bastard was laughing like a demon while being burned to ashes, yelling about him being immortalized in the eyes of Nyx-

Whatever had caused the explosion escaped from the lab and she collapsed to her knees, already out of breath but then she looked around to understand what the hell happened and nothing made sense anymore.

The world was green, the moon outside was shining yellow and with a few steps forward, she saw a line of coffins in the streets.

"What is going on…?"

The new world, soaked with blood and populated by coffins made her nauseous but then she heard a roar from the streets, one that reeked of death and decay. She took a step back as a reflex when her head and heart yelled at her to do so-

"Aigis!"

Her insides churned at their voices and she had half a mind to summon and destroy the bastards or maybe just beat each one to death with her bare fists for what they had done but she also knew that only the disgusting Kirijo scientists had to solution to the new problem ravaging the streets.

Aigis listened to the briefing of the suicidal mission and her objective was to beat the thing down and bring it back, with minimum damage possible as the creature was a culmination of decades of hard work. She gritted her teeth and listened as they went on, talking like a master would to a servant, yelling at her to kill herself if need be but the beast back to the lab on the other side of the city, where they would be waiting to begin the madness anew.

Aigis was about to leave for her final mission when a lone scientist stopped her for a few words of his own and then she took off, giving one last look to the place that was the bane of her existence and now-

"What sort of hell is this?" Aigis wondered as she inhaled the vile air of the new world and her lungs suffered as a consequence, making her hack out. The stench of death and decay was heavy in the air and she was already dreading facing the creature responsible for bringing the unholy hour to this world, a shadow so strong that the scientists had named it-

"Death…"

She heard the beast roar out to the heavens and ran in the direction of the voice, following the path of destruction the shadow had left as it moved towards the Moonlight Bridge. She caught more of the same, coffins, coffins in the cars, shops and in the streets, making her wonder if the coffins were actually the people trying to hide themselves from the monster roaming the streets.

The foul odor of blood was already strong but it got worse as she arrived at the bridge, her human heart shrieked at the prospect of a battle with the almighty shadow but trained in combat and put through hell throughout the past few years, the blonde girl steeled her nerves and caught the flicker of dark flames in the middle of the bridge, the objective of her suicidal mission.

She could feel her skin burning with every step, fear and confusion prickling up her throat and her limbs protesting to her choice by numbing with every step she took. She gave her surroundings a quick glance and grimaced as the once bustling bridge was now littered with broken coffins, totaled vehicles and puddles of blood.

Finally, she came across her foe and bit back on a gasp. The shadow caught her as well and sensed her potential, marking her as a hindrance to the revival of the great entity. The oppressive atmosphere intensified and she started to pant, trying to retain her sanity in the face of the amalgamation of shadows until a strong cough alerted her foe and the entity snarled in her direction-

The tattered cape, a dinosaur like mask, broken chains and a sword almost twice her height, the shadow was truly unlike anything she had come across before and Aigis somewhat accepted that she was not leaving the battle alive and even if by some miracle, she would survive, she was never going to be the same again.

The human heart was fragile after all, vulnerable to mental and physical scars and long lasting damage, both to the body and the soul. She gave a bitter laugh, wishing that some of those Anti-Shadow Suppression Weapons were still around to deal with this mess, not an already broken girl who was already ripped away from a normal life and kept as nothing more as a pet by the Kirijo Group.

Another roar made her wobble and second thoughts began to creep inside, about jumping into the red sea and swimming to safety but after a quick shake of her head, Aigis locked her sights onto the mass of shadows and released the axe that was strapped to her back, slowly raising the weapon towards the creature but unable to hold the hollow stare for long.

She cursed as the shadow took notice of her stance and screeched at her again, the hollow eyes on the mask widening and shining a crude black. Death raised its blade in her direction, signaling that her death was imminent.

Aigis' short life flashed before her eyes and and she gritted her teeth, cursing the world for giving her an end as hopeless and dreadful as this one, the lone prey for a monster in bloodied world populated with coffins-

"Attack now!"

The earpiece blared into her mind and Aigis took off after a speed buff, ignoring the cries of someone behind her as she closed the distance, her axe gripped with both hands and her eyes now locked but during her run towards Death, the shadow screeched, vicious and bloodcurdling, potent with fear and power and while she did not stop her, she swore that her heart did.

She was human, after all-

SMASH-

"Athena!"

Have fun with the human life you wanted, Aigis. ._.

Another teaser cause my workplace got closed down after another cluster of cases. Ah well, 2021 is season 2 so nothing new.

I'll expand on the next chapter but do let me know what you think. As always, warning that this will cold and dark. This is a new game fic... without being a new game fic. ._.

Cheers!