This is from a stupid Ragnarok Online/Rockman crossover idea I had - the fall of Glast Heim. It's never clarified in RO exactly what happened there, but it's obvious something did- it used to be a whole city but is now overrun by demons and the undead. This is my on-crack interpretation of it.
Snow drifted silently from dark clouds made darker by the concealed night sky. The snow flitted on strong winds, stirring flakes of snow to form clumps which fell to the ground at a faster rate. It floated down through the darkness, spiraling in lazy circles over the white landscape below until it was abruptly evaporated by the searing heat rising from tongues of flame lashing up into the dark heavens. Red struck out at white angrily before drifting back down to the bowels of the fire cradled among stone. Walls of stone remained standing despite the raging inferno within, fiery equine creatures braying from the highest towers and cackling down into the flames before diving down inside. Blood was dried rapidly by the fires, crusting and staining the walls and floors; beyond the horror, tapestries disintegrated into ash, and skin and tissue bubbled on the bodies of dead soldiers, their armor blackened by soot.
"This way!" the captain of the guard hissed as quietly as he could over the roar of the flames, sweat streaming down his face and dripping from raven-colored hair. His armor was slick with the blood of the creatures invading the castle, torn in some places where a ghostly knight's sword had found its target. A second knight quickly rounded the corner followed by a third and then a man in scorched robes, none in any better condition than the captain. "Crash, Ballade," the captain continued breathlessly. "Hurry to the lift with the king – I'll watch our backs!" He dared to glance back down the previous corridor before following his comrades.
The dark, gaping cavity before them was actually a comforting sight – as far as they knew, none of the invaders had made it this far. The king was the first through the massive doorway followed by his two bodyguards then, finally, the captain. As soon as all four stepped onto an unsteady platform, the king threw a lever at the far end, and with a lurch and the grinding of old gears, the platform descended into darkness away from the red light of the blaze engulfing the castle.
"I'm exhausted!" King Ulrich Stockholm gasped, leaning forward and resting his hands on his knees as he panted, "Can't we slow down?"
"There's nothing we can do as long as we're in the dark about their intentions," Captain Kouma stated as he checked his damaged crusader armor to assure himself that none of the blood coating the metal was his own, "Our duty is to protect the king – and in order to do that, we have to flee the castle as quickly as possible." He looked upwards to the fading red blaze. "What in hell could they want? Attacking in the middle of the night like this..."
King Stockholm snapped in response as he tore charred pieces of fabric free from his once white robes, "And I am the king now that my brother has fallen – with or without a crown. Blast it all!"
The taller knight snorted and spat onto the floor as he placed his hands on his hips and flipped a fringe of sweaty black hair out of his face. "Then, find your own way out if you're going to be stupid about it!"
"Hold your tongue, Ballade! We are in the presence of the new king!" Kouma snarled at his subordinate; at this, Ballade spat again.
The third knight ignored them, watching the last light of the blaze disappear above them. He muttered mostly to himself, "A surprise attack in the middle of the blizzard. Captain." He turned to his superior knight, "Do you think they might be after the dragon?"
Kouma frowned at the wisdom of the observation, a chill of dread spreading through his overheated body. "The dragon...it's a possibility. Do you think it's worth something to them, Crash?"
King Stockholm was even more outraged by this, sputtering for a moment before forming coherent words. "My dragon? They're after my dragon?" he stammered, his face assuming an interesting color as he paled from fear and flushed with rage at the same time. "I won't let them have it! There's no telling what they'll do with it!"
Crash answered his captain, ignoring the king's outburst, "It's a possibility we'll have to live with – I don't know what they may want it for, but if it means letting us live..." He let his statement trail off as the platform shuddered and ground noisily to a halt, and the king's infuriated glare shifted from the knight to the pathway before them. The way was straight without any branching hallways or rooms, and it was eerily quiet compared to the roaring inferno and noisy elevator they had just left. Their steps echoed loudly, fraying already unstable nerves with the constant clinking of the knights' metal boots and dull tapping of the king's worn shoes.
Time dragged out to a stressful eternity as they made their way carefully down the corridor, keeping their steps slow and steady. Ballade and Crash watched the shadows nervously while Kouma kept his attention on their backs, his sword held tightly in both hands.
"Us first," Crash hissed as he and Ballade both unsheathed their swords and dove into the chamber at the end of the corridor, eyes darting to each corner of the room and to the two doorways on either side. King Stockholm and Kouma stayed in the main doorway until their comrades signaled with a whistle that the room was clear.
King Stockholm immediately ran to the opposite side of the room and leaned against wrought iron railing, sighing in relief when he saw his prize still in its place in a rocky area carved straight out of the ground. The bleached white bones were still and silent where they rested in the earth, and they seemed to emit a soft, eerie light of their own. The skull was easily three times taller than the tallest knight, Ballade, and barely fit inside its alcove, its bones curled in on itself. It skull stared emptily up at the humans, tilted so its empty eye socket watched them directly, and its decayed, leathery wings were still held up, spread and secured by steel chains crafted by the most skilled blacksmiths in the kingdom. Just being in the presence of the skeleton sent a chill down the knights' spines, a chill which was not fueled by a breeze from the back gates of the castle just down the next hallway.
"Good, it's still safe," the king said softly as he gripped the railing tightly, "Glast Heim Knights, you must protect it!"
"Protect it?" Ballade snapped and shot King Stockholm a glare. He pointed to the bones with his sword, outraged at the order. "You expect us to protect that thing when giving it over may be the only way we'll be able to survive this? In case you haven't noticed, we're the only ones left, so don't you dare assume that I'm going to throw my life away for a pile of rot!"
"Ballade!" Kouma reprimanded.
"This is no ordinary 'pile of rot', knight!" the king snarled in response, "My dragon is very important to those invading beasts."
"All the more reason to get the hell out of this room and run for it."
"Shh!" Crash suddenly hissed, silence falling over the room immediately. Grips on sword hilts were tightened painfully upon hearing scraping, unsteady steps from the hallway leading to the outside. Kouma quickly positioned himself out of sight next to the doorway, his sword held up to strike.
"It's me," came a soft voice, recognized by all present. Their guard was immediately dropped when their fellow fighter limped into the chamber, his scarlet hair almost the same shade as the blood staining his wounded thigh. His dyed brown clothes were torn and clawed open in much the same way as Kouma's armor, and it was all he could do to keep his sword from dragging on the floor from fatigue.
"Quick!" Ballade was the first to vacate the king's side to help the injured high swordsman, sheathing his sword so he could carefully take the other's arm. "Your leg – what happened?"
Quick laughed in spite of his exhaustion, "Oh, now I'm holding you back?" He tried to sound less anxious than he really was. His smile faded when he looked from Ballade to the others present, his heart sinking when he saw how few they were. "Was the rest of your party...?" He could not bring himself to complete his question – the silence was all he needed as answer.
"Let's get out of here," Ballade insisted, turning to his captain and Crash for support in his decision that giving up the dragon was the only way.
However, Kouma was not convinced. "Handing over the dragon would bring disaster to all of Rune-Midgard, not just this one kingdom."
"Exactly!" King Stockholm sniffed as he tore some more singed threads from his robes, "I'm not leaving my dragon, and it's your sworn duty to protect me, so you have to protect it to protect me." He nodded, satisfied he had won the argument.
"Brave words for a coward," Ballade muttered. "You wouldn't be saying that if we weren't here to save your sorry–" He cut himself off and looked away from Quick's admonishing glare.
"You'd best be glad he didn't hear that," he whispered to him.
"Very well," Kouma spoke up, straightening his back and tightening his grip on his sword's hilt, "Crash, you guard the door we just came from. Quick will watch the gate to make sure nothing followed him. Ballade, you and I will guard the king and the dragon." He ignored Ballade's snort of contempt as he and the other knights took their positions. "They'll find this room eventually, so we must be ready for them."
Crash nodded and turned to take his position by the doorway leading back to the lift, but he jumped back with a startled yelp as something flashed in front of him, and an axe crashed into the floor just inside the room. He instantly recognized the axe as belonging to one of the lost members of his party – one of the blacksmiths who had been separated from the rest. "Captain, it's Magnet's axe!" he called over his shoulder before stepping forward and whistling down the dark hallway before him. "Magnet! Are you down there?" He stooped to pick up the axe, and when his fingers brushed the wooden grip a burst of light erupted from the weapon. Ballade cried out his friend's name and started to run to him, but the blonde knight was gone – only a few spatters of blood remained where his body had disintegrated upon contact with the enchanted weapon.
"Crash!" Quick cried. Kouma reached around to grab King Stockholm's wrist and pull him more securely behind himself, his free hand holding his sword steady. Ballade and the king could not tear their eyes away from where Crash had once stood, their gazes unwavering as chills of dread flowed through them.
"The knight...in one blow..." It was all King Stockholm could say, his voice shaking as much as his body.
Kouma muttered in a failed attempt to still his own voice, "Only three of us left. If they can kill one knight so easily..."
The humans all shielded their eyes with a chorus of surprised yelps as a bright white light suddenly flooded the room for a brief moment, and a new form appeared on their right side. Kouma was the first to recover from the stinging light and also the first to react to the newcomer, tightening his hold on King Stockholm's wrist and steadying his sword once more. The other two remaining fighters also tightened their grips on their weapons, wiping all emotion from their expressions so the invader would not see how frightened they were.
Out of the shadows of the unlit wing of the room came a figure adorned in a long, black satin coat, the inside fabric the color of blood. Jet black hair was smoothed back neatly past pointed ears, white, lacy frills gracing his chest. Folded tightly against his back were large, bat-like wings, the same stark black as his clothes. He did not walk, but his wings did not move either. Still, he glided across the stone floor on cold air from the outside, keeping his distance from the crusader's sword, exuding a feeling of amusement as if he was toying with them.
"Greetings," the invader spoke, "You may as well surrender now – you have no hope of defeating us. We are far superior to you fleshlings, and you will fall. It would be in your best interest to make it easy on yourselves."
Quick shook his head, logic wanting to deny what he could clearly see – wanting to tell him he was not seeing what was truly before him. This creature was not like the ones which had set fire to the castle. They could not speak their language, much less form proper sentences. "I thought...I thought the Demon Race was only a legend!" he gasped after finding his voice again, cringing when his statement elicited a hissing mix of a cough and a wheezed laugh from the winged creature.
"And yet here I am in front of you," he responded as he glided around so he floated in front of the doorway leading back to the lift platform, leaving the humans with their backs to the dragon and the one doorway with which they could use to escape. "I don't have much time right now, so shall I get to the point? I want that thing behind you – the 'dragon', I think is what you called it. Will you hand it over easily, or shall I take it by force?"
The will to survive collided with the will to protect the decayed form in the cavern behind them, fear shooting through already frayed nerves like a needle driving into a vein. Cold sweat of terror began to bead on fevered skin in the seconds between the Demon's statement and the outburst which followed.
"Yes!" King Stockholm blurted as he tore his hand free of Kouma's and dodged around to the front. He clasped his hands together and crawled in submissive fear toward the Demon. "Yes, take it! Just let me live!"
"No, majesty!" Kouma cried, "You mustn't!" He reached forward to grasp at the king's robes but jerked back with a startled gasp when he was blinded by the same burst of light which had enveloped Crash. When the crusader opened his eyes once again, all that was left of the king was a splash of blood and a few tatters of his robe drifting to the floor.
"I'm sorry," the Demon taunted them sarcastically, his hissing laugh echoing in the room. "All I can give you in return is a painless death."
"You bastard!" Ballade roared in outrage and took a small step back when the winked creature turned to face him, the sight suddenly blocked by Kouma's back as he stood between his remaining knights and the Demon. "Captain!"
"Ballade, Quick, get out of here!" he commanded, holding his sword steady in front of him with both hands as the Demon slowly glided toward them, "You must escape and let everyone in Rune-Midgard know what happened here!" Ballade started to protest, but a hand rested on his arm and gripped his tunic tightly. He gave one last glance to his captain and a heated, hateful glare to the monster in black before he turned and ran from the room with Quick, ran toward the one escape left in the castle.
"Alright, you monster," Kouma spoke calmly at the creature, surprised at how level his voice was. "If you want them, you'll have to go through me." The hissing laugh once again violated Kouma's ears as the Demon responded gleefully.
"Gladly. This should prove entertaining."
---
The back hallway of the castle was almost as cold as the blizzard outside. Now the battering wind frequently blew snow in on the long, red carpet from the open gate, ice beginning to coat the front stone tiers which stretched up to the night-darkened ceiling. Smoke from fires in other areas of the castle had blackened portions of the snow near the gateway to the outside. It melted slightly part way into the hall but quickly froze once more into a thin layer of ice.
"Where did they come from?" Ballade growled as he glared ahead at the swirling snow down the corridor, "In the middle of a blizzard...it's going to be hard enough for us to get out of here – we're surrounded by water, there's only one access road...how did they get here!" He hissed sharply and sighed when Quick tied a rag around a wound in his arm to slow the bleeding. "God, and now the captain is–"
"I know," Quick sighed, taking a deep breath to keep his voice from shaking, "All we can do is make sure we survive and do what the captain told us to – tell the world what happened." He checked the bandana he just tied around Ballade's arm, frowning when blood began to seep through within moments of being secured. "This is a nasty wound."
"It's not as bad as yours," Ballade argued, his voice tired. He looked down at the gash on Quick's thigh then away again. "We'll come back someday. Maybe we can get help from the sister kingdom so we can come back and kill them all. Prontera's forces are equal to our own."
"Already thinking about revenge?" Quick scoffed as he checked his own wound to make sure it had stopped bleeding.
"Of course!" Ballade answered, "We can't let these monsters get away with this. We–"
"We nothing," Quick countered, "And you call yourself brave – that isn't bravery, it's stupidity."
"What are you saying?"
"You call throwing your life away bravery? You know as well as I do that we won't be able to avenge the kingdom for a while – those monsters are far too strong. If we, the elite Glast Heim Knights, were massacred, what do you think will happen if we bring another kingdom's army to take revenge? The exact same thing."
Ballade crossed his arms at his outburst and tilted his head to the side curiously. "Oh? So what do you consider bravery, mister High Swordsman?"
Quick did exactly what he expected him to – he avoided the question. "Enough chattering – let's go before that thing finds us. At least it'll be harder for him to track us once we get into the blizzard." Ballade rolled his eyes, but he agreed – they had already wasted enough valuable time just tending to their wounds behind the icy tiers. "Go ahead and check the outside. I'll watch our backs."
Ballade nodded and tightly gripped the hilt of his sword still in its sheath, hugging the wall and stone tiers as they cautiously started toward the open gate. Quick's steps dragged slightly because of his wounded leg, but he managed to maintain a distance of about eight feet between himself and Ballade. Ballade slowly stepped through the blackened snow, pressing his back against the stone wall as he carefully glanced around the corner into the snow and darkness. He hesitated a long moment before allowing himself to relax slightly.
"It's clear, Quick," he called over his shoulder as he stepped out into the blizzard and headed toward the forest which was barely visible against the dark horizon. He jumped at the sound of metal gears and chains grinding and clanking together behind him; quickly, he spun around to run back to the opening as the gate slammed shut with his remaining comrade still inside. "Quick, what are you doing!"
"I can't get out with this wound," Quick hissed in response, keeping out of sight behind the column hiding the chain wheel for the gate's pulley system and tightly gripping his once again bleeding wound.
Ballade reached through one of the grid-like openings in the iron wall separating him from his fellow knight, his voice pleading. "Open the gate, Quick! You're the one who said throwing your life away is stupidity, not bravery!"
Quick let a humorless laugh escape his throat. "There's a difference there. I fight to protect something important to me – I won't gain anything, but I won't lose anything either. Protecting something important to me isn't a waste of life. And I don't want to lose you, Ballade."
"Nor I you – open the gate!" His voice was becoming hysterical, and he had to resist the urge to cringe.
"You must tell the world what has happened here," he stated calmly, "I'm a high swordsman. Don't worry – I have no intention of dying here." A small grin crossed his face, and he risked glancing around the pillar to look at him. "That bandana I wrapped around your wound was very expensive – I can't die until I get that back," he offered in an attempt to lighten the shadows seeping nearer. Suddenly, Quick gasped and shielded his eyes from a bright flash of light just down the corridor, and he looked back up at Ballade's roar of rage.
"Ah, there you are," the voice of the Demon spoke, "You are the last humans left here. Are you ready to die with the rest?"
Quick limped to stand in front of the gate, blocking the black Demon's view of Ballade on the other side as he unsheathed his sword and turned so he was facing the monster with only half of his body exposed, his injured leg facing away from his adversary. "Have courage, Ballade!" he hissed fiercely. "Run, and don't look back!"
Ballade's voice shook as he answered weakly, forcing himself to let go of the metal gate and back away, "I promise...I promise I'll return your bandana." He spared one last glance at crimson hair flowing in the cold, wet wind before turning and fleeing through the snow.
Quick turned his full attention on the winged form before him, snarling, "You killed everyone else here, but you won't have him. Not as long as I'm still alive."
The Demon hissed his torturous laugh as he slowly glided closer to the swordsman. "It's a dead end – there's no way out." He reached forward with bloody claws, his crimson eyes shining brightly against the darkness. "Can't you see? My body is trembling with joy."
---
The dragon's empty eyes seemed to watch him since he entered its chamber. He basked in the soft, powdery glow its bones emitted, his creamy mane glistening from the still burning torches on the walls to either side and behind him. Hollow and lifeless though it appeared, he could hear its spirit fighting to awaken, pulsing like a heartbeat, and his muzzle pulled back into a smile. How fitting that the humans who dreaded them so greatly still protected the true source of their fear instead of destroying it while it remained dormant.
He sensed rather than saw or heard when his companion returned, not bothering to turn around even as the light which marked its presence shined brightly then faded again. He spoke to his companion, never taking his yellow eyes off of the skeleton, "Did you find any survivors?"
"Two, but one escaped – I lost him in the blizzard," the Vampire replied in its hushed voice.
"And the other?"
"Yes, the other...I believe I have a use for him." The winged Demon glided to its commander, also gazing upon the dragon. "Our goals are finally within reach."
"Yes..." the other answered, his voice calm despite his anticipation, "Soon, my friend. Soon."
I know I was incredibly vague with some of them, so in case you're confused, Kouma isCentaur Man, and the "Demon" is Shade Man. The furry one at the end is RO's own Baphomet.
This is supposed to be a precursor to a full blown crossover I can't get out of my head but also can't drag up the words to write. I don't want to sound like an attention whore, but I honestly can't get up the will to work on it since only one person is interested in it that I know of.
(and if you're thinking "so write EC's sequel, you fucktard!" which I'm sure some of you might be (LOL), I blame the X series on its delay. D: I hate the X series, and it's the main focus. Le sob)