In the world of Remnant, the rise of the foul creatures known as "Grimm" is a tale not known by many, nor do those who know it readily speak of it.
It is a story of creation and destruction, of vengeance that begets ruin, of the hubris of man and the judgment of Gods. Truly, the genealogy of mankind's decadence can be traced to one singular event.
Once a proud and mighty race, man had stood second to none, save for the twin divinities: The God of Light and the God of Darkness. It was with their own two hands that these deities had molded the land from barren earth, the heavens from chaotic aether, and man from lifeless dust. For a time, all of creation had sung their praises, as was their due.
But such worship was not to last. Over time, man grew, forming sprawling kingdoms where once lay wilderness. Their dominion over the land grew, and In their opulence and in their pride, man came to resent the Brother Gods. Why should they have to venerate Gods that cared naught but for themselves? What use was there in kowtowing to divinities that never left their sacred thrones?
One soul, shining with the light of eternity, embodied this resentment. Salem was her name, and with honeyed words coating her tongue, she sought out the leaders of man. She seduced the mightiest of kings and the noblest of warriors to march under her banner with the promise of power unbound and grandeur most resplendent.
Like moths, they hungrily swarmed at this light. They were led astray. Those promises of glory fell upon their ears like choral hymns and they moved to usurp their great creators. The land would fall fully under the rightful sovereignty of man. The age of gods was at its end.
In a sense, it truly was.
Man could not hope to contend with the divine. Disgusted by the arrogance of those they had raised, the God of Darkness banished humanity to nothingness. From dust they had been made, and to dust they were returned. Only Salem, stricken with a curse of true immortality, remained upon a dead and desolate world.
And then the Gods left, shattering the moon with their departure. For many days and many nights, the fragments of that sundered luminary pelted the land and gouged at the earth, and when all had settled, there was nary a soul left, save for a lone, weary wanderer.
The time of the Gods' dominion over Remnant had ended, and with it, so too had the first era of humanity.
Evernight Castle, The Land of Darkness
"I wish to form a partnership."
It was an unexpected proposal. An absurd one. And it came from an equally absurd interloper.
Unfortunately, Salem was in no mood to entertain guests. The recent events of her existence had been bitter, coating her heart with a layer of frost that refused to thaw.
At least, she assumed they had been recent. She had been unbound from time. The passing of the years had lost all meaning for her, and it seemed as if centuries rushed past each time she blinked. She did not particularly miss them, but it was still a disconcerting thing to experience.
Ozma had finally been given back to her, but, in what seemed to be the very next breath, he had abandoned her once more. He had opted to die with their children rather than acquiesce to her grand plan for a perfect world.
It stung. Her human heart had long since been smothered, perhaps by time, perhaps by the grimm corruption, but even so, it still stung. After all, had he not been the whole reason for this sordid affair? Was it not because of him that she existed as she did? As some undying monstrosity cursed to walk the planet until the end of days? How could such a betrayal not sting, even to a heart as callused as her?
Ozma then had the audacity to return. He had been granted a laughable form of immortality to match hers. Reincarnation. To live endlessly, but to still experience death. Truly, the Gods had a twisted sense of humor. One that she did not share, as she now had to contend with her former-beloved in an endless, bitter campaign throughout the eons. The gods had left Remnant to its own devices, abandoned it, so why could they not simply leave her be?
She had been in a foul mood for the better part of a century, and this day would be no different. It was through the haze of her perpetually stewing thoughts that she became aware of an intruder upon her domain.
The very fact that something had entered the Lands of Darkness at all was enough to rouse her interest. The grimm were under her control, and humans did not tread here. Even in the days before the fall, scant few could muster the courage to approach this domain, and fewer still were permitted to leave alive. Certainly, there had been no such incursions previously in her tenure over these lands
She noted with some interest that the intruder progressed rapidly, traversing vast swaths of land in moments. A grimm seer that lounged along the trajectory of the unknown interloper found its faculties wrested from it, the face of its queen flickering to life upon the orb of its face, peering curiously into the gloomy, barren wasteland. Black eyes narrowed as they attempted to focus on the oncoming storm that seemed to approach at a nauseatingly rapid pace with each great, bounding leap.
It was a person.
A person that surged forth with the ferocity of a howling gale, devastating anything in its path. Her mightiest grimm had been chaff before this raging storm of a person. It was an inexorable force, cutting a bloodless swath through the heart of the Dark God's territory-now her territory-and making an unmistakable beeline to her castle.
The destruction it wrought was not brutal or savage in its nature; it was meticulous and cold. Grimm were dispatched with the unnerving precision of a surgeon, the assailant already gone before the corpse had hit the ground.
That was all she saw before the seer she was looking through fell victim to that very same violence. Salem leaned back into her throne, a slight frown adorning her face. At its pace, that thing would be here in a matter of minutes. Might as well wait.
As predicted, the great, arching doors of her castle opened a quarter-of-an-hour later, admitting the very same figure she had observed through the eyes of a now-deceased grimm. Surprisingly, the door had been pushed gently open, rather than knocked down, as she would have expected. Her surprise was compounded upon realizing that the being that stood before her was a girl, and hardly a grown adult.
An odd energy seemed to surge from her, manifesting as errant crackles of static and arcs of lightning that lashed about her person. Salem would have called it magic if not for the fact that she could sense nothing of the sort upon this person. What she found instead was something entirely foreign to her. It burned her senses like an acrid miasma if she attempted to observe it too closely, so she instead turned her focus squarely upon the person in question.
Something about her unnerved Salem. Something in her bearing reminded her of a feeling that she had not felt in a long, long time. This girl did not cower in fear before the revelation of Salem's power, nor did she come offering the appropriate obeisances.
Instead, she had come to parley with an offer of partnership, of all things. Salem could only draw a single conclusion, which set a black and ugly storm roiling in her gut.
This girl viewed them as equals.
Salem's temper flared. She dared? With but a thought, a wave of razor sharp blackness shot at the offending figure. Salem could not help but let a sadistic smile split her face. This upstart had torn apart her grimm and invaded her castle. Certainly, she could always make new grimm, but that was beside the point. She was a goddess. To raise the blade against her was a crime that could only be punished with death.
Her smile fell just as quickly as it had appeared.
Reacting swiftly, the girl shifted her weight, sidestepping the attack with contemptuous ease. A rain of lightning seared the ground around Salem, as if in response to her attack. It seemed almost reflexive, as if the girl had not put any real thought into the counterattack-it had simply happened.
The girl herself seemed unperturbed by the show of power, simply watching the Queen of Grimm, her stance deceptively relaxed, if ready. The tension and stress one would expect in a person facing down what was, ostensibly, a deity, was absent. Instead, serenity seemed to waft off of her-a peaceful calm that clashed horribly with the carnage that she had wrought thus far.
Was she confident, or simply stupid?
Salem's interest was piqued, though she allowed it no bearing on her outward facade. This girl was strong. Ridiculously so. She sensed a beast that had been testing the waters, but had yet to truly bare its fangs. It was almost oppressive: an overwhelming tide of force restrained only by self control and careful judgement. Her lithe frame gave little indication of the destruction she could wield, but Salem had witnessed it firsthand: she was strong.
She rose from her throne, reassessing the warrior in front of her. The most striking feature was the angled, black mask obscuring her identity. Four glowing slits on the otherwise featureless face seemed to serve as "eyes."
Her attire, equally black and form-fitting, covered only her torso, leaving the upper arms and thighs bare. Her legs were clad in dark combat boots while a pair of gauntlets adorned her forearms. To her waist trailed a cascade of grey hair, restrained loosely in a low tail.
"You clearly know who I am," Salem spoke slowly, carefully. Certain situations were best handled with diplomacy, and she had a feeling that this was one of them. "You would not have sought me out otherwise."
The girl remained silent, so Salem continued, "You clearly know what I represent and what I am capable of. I suppose you know of my goal as well. Why would you, a human, wish for a partnership with me?"
"Our goals align, if only for the time being." The words were bland, uninflected. They betrayed no hint of emotion. "You wish to stifle humanity, and I have reason to see them stifled."
Though Salem could not see her face, she had the distinct impression that an intense glare was being leveled in her direction. Words heavy and laden with meaning, the girl continued.
"I will not deceive you. I will not allow you to destroy humanity. Your ambitions will surely lead to this, eventually. Know that when that time comes, I will stand against you." The weight of the glare lessened, "But for now, our causes align, and I wish to ally myself with you. I have my reasons for seeing humanity's progress halted."
"Halted, but not destroyed," the queen mused aloud. "Now what would the purpose of that be, I wonder?"
"That is not something I wish to divulge."
A pregnant silence echoed in the vast hall for several moments. Salem mulled the proposition over. On one hand, this girl would eventually be an enemy, of that there was no doubt. On the other hand, the strength she sensed would be indispensable to her cause. If that strength was being offered freely, then it would be an even greater boon still.
Omnipotent, she was not. Though Salem had scores of grimm available to do her more violently inclined bidding, she had no way of infiltrating the remaining few bastions of humanity. To have an ally who could blend into the populace would prove useful in the event that sheer, brute force failed.
Her Ozma had been brought back, but he now chose to stand against her. With that man at the helm, she had no doubt humanity would survive. They would grow. They would prosper. They would retaliate, and she refused to be forced on the back foot. It would be wise to cover all of her bases.
So what, if this strange girl turned against her? She was immortal, she thought with no small hint of bitterness. What could anyone possibly do about that, no matter how strong? Truly, what did it matter? In less than a century, this girl would likely be dead, just like so many before her. It would be but a drop in the vast ocean of eternity that she was doomed to endure.
"Perhaps a partnership would be a prudent choice, for the time being." Salem's voice did not convey any lingering apprehension she may have felt. "You have done me the courtesy of stating your intentions, so I shall return the favor and confirm your suspicions. My goal is the eradication of humanity. When the time comes and you prove to be a hindrance, know that I will not hesitate to erase you as well. Until then, let's get along, shall we?"
A small pause, as if considering something important, and then the question, "Does my esteemed partner have a name? I can't very well call you 'you', now can I?"
The masked girl's stance relaxed minutely. She seemed to contemplate these words for a moment, growing silent before seemingly making up her mind.
"Certainly not. You may call me 'Phoenix.'
The old tales tell of shining stars of salvation. Stars that fell alongside the remains of the sundered moon on that day when the Gods departed. Of those that remember such stories, there are some who say that those stars still exist, somewhere in this world.
Drifting along on the inexorable tide of eons.
On an idyllic peak, overlooking vast swaths of land, a robed woman sat serenely. Far below, she observed the movements of people as they built their primitive settlements. In time, they would come to know civilization, but for now, there was naught to do but wait.
Scattered about the lands.
In an unknown time and place, a small girl sat upon a metal throne, seemingly deep in sleep. A dim, electric-blue glow just barely lit her features, and a nest of cables and wires intertwined about her limbs and body, binding her in place. She was to become the all-seeing eye.
Sometimes feared, sometimes revered.
Enshrined in a barred, wooden cage, a devil slept. Her body lay upon a bed of expertly etched wood, her head rested upon the finest, crimson silk. On the other side of the barrier, men and women prostrated themselves. Though she had never once awoken, their slumbering deity conferred her protections.
The flickering of their embers wane with time, but never truly die.
In the darkened, ruined edifice of great antiquity, a figure lay encased in a curious, metal-and-glass coffin.
The sound of excited voices and digging produced a crack in that sepulchral firmament. Soon, a feeble ray of light shone upon the ancient stonework for the first time in uncountable years.
With the widening of the rupture, the light waxed in strength, until it fell upon the face of the girl within the coffin, revealing a youthful face, and hair of the snowiest white.
They wait for the gusts of change to stoke them back to roaring flames.
