"Where... is this?"
Terrence looked around, unable to remember a thing. His mind was hazy.
"Where am I? How did I get here? I don't like it. I need to go. Where should I go? I don't know. But I have to."
He dragged his body through the streets, heading to where his instinct told him to go.
As he walked, he saw hunters and monsters locked in combat, desperately fighting to stay alive. The fallen littered the streets. Blood covered those walls.
He tried to ignore everything and continue onwards, to somewhere far away from all of this.
Riko, Anthony and Wave looked around, searching for a way out. Gravitas loomed over them, ready to crush them.
Riko was barely able to stand, but kept going regardless, he couldn't allow himself to fall.
Gravitas took precedence over the other monsters. These three were its prey, anyone interfering would meet the same end as them.
Riko attempted to charge at it. He slashed through its leg, which quickly regenerated.
Wave attacked from the side, biting into and electrocuting the opponent.
Gravitas roared, starting to enjoy itself. It stomped down, stunning them. Anthony tried to attack, but couldn't reach it.
More attempts to fight back, all shut down by the opponent. Gravitas continued to attack.
Riko attempted to block every hit, shielding the others from damage.
"Cut it out already!" Anthony yelled "You're just gonna get yourself killed!"
"That's fine! If I don't, then the same's gonna happen to you, so it's fine!"
"Of course it isn't!"
Dragon breath covered the area. Riko shielded Anthony from it once more, getting burnt in the process.
His thoughts were beginning to slip away. His body was growing weaker by the second.
Anthony attacked again, hitting the Deviljho's face. Wave shot more lightning from the side. In retaliation, the Deviljho went for a chomp.
Anthony had no time to move out of the way. This seemed like the end.
One force stood between them. Riko had pushed himself even further to get between them in time. He raised his sword to block.
It was unlikely this attack could be stopped, but that wasn't his concern. All that mattered was it hitting him instead of Anthony.
Anthony tried to reach out to stop him, but he was too far away.
Riko's legs finally gave out, causing him to collapse against his own will.
Confusion spread across his face.
Gravitas' attack went through as intended, biting a chunk out of Anthony's side.
Riko froze. Wave froze. The world froze.
Gravitas watched this and lost interest, walking away to deal with the others. The fight was already over. The ones remaining were unable to continue.
Anthony was still breathing, just barely. Riko dragged himself closer.
"Anthony. Can you hear me?"
There was no response.
"Can you hear me?"
Still, no movement.
"...There's no way you can die here, right!?"
His voice was raised to its limit, but was still quiet. He no longer had the power to be loud.
"Weren't we supposed to go to Kotoko together!? Come on! Get back up! Please!"
"Ahh…" Anthony finally responded, but his eyes seemed hazy "Kotoko… yeah, we were supposed to…"
"Exactly! So let's-"
"Hmm… I don't really care about that…"
He reached upwards with his remaining arm, caressing Riko's face.
"I just wanna… be with you."
His arm finally dropped, leaving Riko alone, staring blankly.
The monsters surrounding them started to close in.
The gunners continued their fight against Frugalitas. The storm got more intense, destroying buildings nearby.
Rubble was flung at the flying wyverns at high speeds, trying to knock them out of the air.
Klaus and Matt were unable to break through the winds.
Azure and Ayano flew around, dodging the attacks, while Sean struggled to work out a way to counterattack. The same thing wouldn't work twice. He knew that much.
If they kept waiting, then the poison could potentially wear it down. But just believing that something could happen wasn't enough in a fight, he needed something to make him sure of victory.
More rubble was dodged.
The gunners fired back, still not leaving much of a dent.
Frugalitas pursued Azure. The storm parted for a second and it lunged at him, trying to bite at him. Azure barely dodged, Sean fired back.
He finally had an idea.
Ayano distracted it for a second, taking its attention away from Azure.
Azure hit it with a fireball, causing it to attack again.
As Frugalitas closed in once more, Sean used a wyvern's fire, melting the armour around its face.
Instead of the storm disappearing, it only got stronger. He'd failed to damage it enough. Frugalitas only grew more enraged.
Parts of the building flew out towards them. Azure tried to dodge, but quickly found himself cornered.
"Ah… so this is how it ends?" Sean thought "...How annoying. Did anything even… make a difference?"
His head turned, surveying his surroundings. Ayano flew closer, Alicia looking determined.
"What the hell are ya doing? This is my ending. Ya just need to keep living. So… stay back!"
Alicia thought to herself as she charged in.
"This must be… a good ending. I'm sorry for getting you caught up in this Ayano, but… with this, I can finally fix everything."
Matt watched from below, unable to change a thing.
Ayano rammed into Azure, pushing him out of the way of the attack.
Sean tried to reach out, but was unable to get anywhere as he was knocked away.
The projectiles continued regardless of what they hit, ending things in an instant.
The blood finally hit the ground.
Ben stood there, having managed to get Natalie out of the way of the attack before it was too late. This had come at a cost, however.
The wound seemed fatal.
Natalie froze from the shock.
She was interrupted by a hand on her shoulder.
"I'm not dead yet, stop acting like it."
"...B-but, it's cause I-"
"That doesn't matter right now."
Ben dragged himself up to face the Glavenus.
Plessy looked over to him.
"Looks like this could be our last fight." Ben only grinned, for whatever reason "Let's make it a good one, bud."
Plessy nodded, before they started charging at the Glavenus.
Natasha managed to snap out of her daze and start attacking alongside Aki.
Frega started attacking again, trying to help. Natalie still didn't move.
Ben kept slashing, refusing to give his opponent a chance to do anything.
The Glavenus slashed at them again. Plessy took the hit, but kept on attacking.
Flames scorched them, but they didn't stop.
Ben's mind started to slow down.
"Hmm… this must be it."
He thought of his brothers, currently fighting for their lives.
"Sorry, looks like I won't be returning. Maybe I should say sorry to these two and Plessy as well… nah, it ain't my style. The way I should be going out is more…"
He faced the Glavenus, readying himself for the final charge.
"With a bang!"
His slashes cut through it some more, before he switched to sword mode.
A final elemental discharge, powerful enough that it almost blew his arm off.
Ben and Plessy collapsed backwards, as the Glavenus finally fell.
Natalie continued to watch, her thoughts a chaotic mess.
Aron continued to struggle against the two Seregios. He was unable to deal with his opponents, getting more overwhelmed by the second. His thoughts went back, presumably because there wasn't a way he was winning this fight.
His mind thought back.
He remembered Juli.
"After you died, my heart froze over. So it's not like I care about dying or not anymore. It must've been… almost twenty years since then."
His thoughts continued as he was attacked without mercy.
"Those thoughts are still clawing away at me, even now. Telling me to take revenge. But for whatever reason, I couldn't. For all those years, even when my heart told me that Terrence was at fault, that killing him would fix things, another part of me refused that. For all those years. Now I've waited too long, by the time I couldn't hold back anymore, he'd already grown strong enough to stop me. Yeah. It's too late now. He's got his own life. It's for the best if I stay out of it and just fall here."
More attacks. The end was near.
"For all that time, I could never allow myself near him. When he was so fragile a wrong move could crush him, I wasn't ever able to hold him."
Someone appeared before him. Aron's eyes widened.
Terrence stood there, having dragged himself there by coincidence. He seemed just as confused by the situation.
"Ah… I must be hallucinating. But…"
He dragged himself across the ground as he bled out.
"If I could just… reach you… this one time. To make up for all those years… just once…"
Terrence was unmoving.
Aron's arm reached out.
Terrence was unsure of what to do. Slowly, he began to move.
Scales rained down from above, hitting Aron's back. His arm finally collapsed to the ground, leaving Terrence there, with his arm half-reached out.
Zach's group ran through the streets, attempting to escape from the enraged Auctoritas. The Silver Rathalos roared, destroying anything nearby. Attempting to engage him at this point was pointless.
His senses were confused, but they didn't know how much longer that would last. They had to get out while they still could.
Despite his confusion, he still refused to let them away. Auctoritas flew around, trying to catch sight of his prey.
Zach's continued to try thinking of a way out as they stuck out of sight. The others continued running.
As they made their way through the streets, something unexpected happened.
Perhaps it was due to the stress of the situation, perhaps it was just bad luck, but regardless of why Lyra tripped over and fell to the ground.
This didn't go unnoticed by Auctoritas, who instantly closed in on them. Fireballs rained down.
The group kept running as Auctoritas attacked wildly, destroying everything in his sight.
This time the one who fell behind was Shoot. He wasn't able to keep up. The fireballs were already about to hit him.
Lyra tried to go back for him. Zach turned to stop her, recognising that if she went now she'd just get caught up in the blast as well.
There was no time. Things were already at an end. Yet Lyra persisted, desperately trying to change things.
Before she could get close enough, she was knocked away. To her confusion, the one who did so was Shoot.
"Just forget about me, nya. This might be it for me… but I won't let you die too!"
Before she could even form a response, the fireball hit the ground, destroying everything caught in its range.
Fallon's group continued their fight, despite things looking worse by the second. She dodged around one of Veritas' attacks, almost destroying the floor.
Around her, the rest of the warriors fought against the monsters.
Morgan and Musk fought against the Raviente outside, getting on its back to attack it.
Lion and Corra fought against the monsters surrounding them. Kara and Gol were able to put up less of a fight. Roy and Hitoiki stuck to support.
Gradually, both sides were worn down.
Roy was unable to stop the monsters swarming him, the same applied to Hitoiki.
Gol continued blinding his opponents, but eventually they managed to get a few lucky hits in. Kara wasn't able to slow down all of them, so she was overwhelmed.
The two fighting outside managed to finally defeat it despite taking some injuries. It crashed into the ground, leaving them injured but still alive. More monsters surrounded them, recognising them as a threat. The two got up, prepared to fight until they dropped.
Corra countered the enemy's attacks, dodging around any projectiles that came her way, because those couldn't be dealt with using her manifestation. The enemy eventually caught on, firing so many projectiles at her that she had no time to dodge any.
Lion didn't notice the rest of the deaths, as he was caught up in his own fight, constantly trying to dodge. The inside of his head screamed with fear, as he kept narrowly avoiding the visions of fatal attacks. His manifestation showed him where every attack in range of him would go, his job was choosing the position where none of them hit him. That space lessened and lessened until eventually he found himself with no room to escape the attacks, forced to watch as the end approached.
Despite being the last one left, Fallon didn't seem affected. Veritas attempted another attack, but it was quickly dodged around, as if she teleported out of the way.
The ruler attacked again, but found itself being slowed down by an invisible force. Fallon turned to the remaining monsters, attacking them and taking them out quickly. Veritas was finally able to attack again, but was too late to stop her.
This left just two.
Their battle continued for what felt like hours. The monster attempted to win against the hunter using its overwhelming power, while the hunter responded with more manifestations than it could count.
The throne room was destroyed in the chaotic battle.
It tried to crush her, but she saw the attack coming. A blast of dragon energy destroyed one of her arms, but it somehow regrew.
Eventually, things seemed to be at an end.
The castle had been destroyed almost completely. Both sides stood at a face off, injured.
Veritas spoke again.
"What was the point of bringing an army?"
"Hmm? To wipe you out, of course."
"You should've known it was unnecessary. Fighting against you is like fighting hundreds at once. You alone could've been enough to wipe out my forces, so why bother wasting human life?"
"...You seem to not get how things are. It's true that for you, this was the final battle. But did you think that it was our final battle too? Our quest isn't done. Yes… humanity will not be done fighting until all the monsters have been wiped out. That means every last one on this earth."
Veritas didn't respond.
"The second is the difference in our powers. Your awakening comes from a mutated frenzy virus. With all of your deaths, that will disappear. But for us warriors, our powers come from ourselves. Emotion. The desire for revenge. That's what it takes to make a warrior, one of us. One who will eventually wipe monsters out. We grow stronger through tragedy, so wouldn't a battlefield like this be the perfect stage for creating as many warriors as possible?"
Veritas finally understood her plan, which led him to another understanding. More than ever, he knew that this existence was a danger to all monsters. He had to eliminate her here.
The two charged forwards, inflicting fatal damage on each other.
Both sides felt their end draw near.
Veritas thought back on its life, feeling only frustration at how it was unable to achieve its final goal.
Fallon did the same, but seemed to show no frustration. There was no regret present in her face. She didn't even seem to register it as an ending.
The incarnation of humanity and the saviour of the monsters finally fell to the ground.
Across the battlefield, the fights continued.
The humans who watched their loved ones get killed started to feel a new force inside them, urging them to take revenge. Blue flames surrounded them, strengthening them.
Josh, Frost and Vrai found themselves unable to move as they processed what just happened.
Joseph was the only one still moving. He pulled himself up with a new surge of power, before pointing the remains of his sword at Virtas.
"I'll kill ya!"
The Tigrex seemed to grin, as if this is what it had been waiting for the entire time.
TO BE CONTINUED