Power coalesced, drawn from the grail before its time.
It hurt, more than anything as fire burned through her entire body, as it became more flame than flesh. A tool built for a single purpose, broken and abandoned to make this one dream come true.
Anger poured out, the strongest servant for the little time she had left, and it only hurt more. Pain etched upon anguish as she poured meaning into her suffering and willed for it to be made real.
The cold winter air fading away beyond the flames of her own hatred.
The starting penalty is five.
Light poured into the world, and from its grasp stepped a man
He stood in the aftermath, and she felt for the connection between them, and it sat empty. Barely a drop of mana pouring through to sustain it into the world.
"How pitiful you are."
Anger welled up in her heart, whispering with a voice not her own in her ear. A penalty for being loved, for being abandoned, for deserving to be abandoned.
A single finger came crashing down on her brow, ring glowing in the light as the voice was driven out. "This world is broken to allow it, to curse you all with such short and broken lives."
And for a moment she felt the bond returning, an ocean of power pouring in reverse as she touched on an endless ocean. Rage beyond measure, anger beyond reason burned itself into her mind and overflowed out into the world.
The winter chill ended, snow turned to steam in moments, the entire forest burning under the weight of his gaze as he smiled down at her. "This world is broken is it not my Master, but we are here to fix it."
Rich crimson carpets, golden opulence spread throughout the room. A palace with all the power that money could buy.
From the peak of technological marvels, down to the very dregs of human trafficking all combined into his perfect mana battery able to maintain his servant at full power. His grin grew wider as he marvelled at it all.
And at her, beautiful beyond compare as an endless well of power touched at his senses. Primal power beyond anything he had ever felt in his life poured out into the world around them, filling it with a sense of mystery lost to the world.
He had stacked the deck beyond all measure and drawn the strongest card to complete his hand. Only he could be capable of sustaining such a powerful servant in this world, and all that remained was to reap the rewards of glory, to use this most powerful weapon to slaughter all of those who had looked down on him and claim it all at the summit.
A wish, capable of rewriting the world itself to achieve his goals.
"Come we have a war to win."
She stepped away, tearing across the room in an instant as it broke around her to touch the glass of the battery. A delicate hand resting lightly on the surface as it traced the child inside. The next moment it shattered as she plunged inside it, blood and flesh pouring free as she screamed. "KRTRKTKKRKTKRKTKTKRKKTKRKKTKRTKKKRTKTKRKTKTKKRKTKTKRKTT."
Blood stained the world itself as the liquid grew form as a tide of monsters spewed forth from the broken flesh within. Screaming and writhing the fell upon one another in an orgy of violence, each new nightmare tearing their way free of the madness. Until the stench of carnage filled his lungs even as the death rattle filled his ears.
Revenge for the lives trampled by their passing.
He wretched at its touch circuits burning to life as he vomited the curse back out into the world and rejected it. It was his birthright to have this power, the very essence of meaning his family had found amidst the chaos to wield it. The will to walk with death and hold one's head high as he faced the world…
They stared back at him slavering in their hunger.
His circuits burned to life in an instant, pouring out his will into a miracle made manifest as the chains of the grail were made real. "Protect me." Oath and power bound into one as he shackled the servant bound to his will once again.
Covered in blood and cradling the child within she ignored his plea. A single contemptuous glance the only acknowledgement he'd even tried.
The monsters closed in.
"Rejoice." The priest smiled down upon them, a sick and twisted smile that should have brought him anger at the injustice of it.
Once upon a time it had, he had struggled in futility and rage, screamed silently with the expectation that one day he would be able to escape from this place. To struggle against the monster that kept them here.
After ten years he only felt empty as he stared back at it.
The room was bathed with light, and it stirred nothing in his heart. His flesh crawled like maggots writhing around his body, and the only thing he could wish was that they were devouring him faster. But the end wasn't something that would come.
She was there.
Perfect and resplendent with a smile that captivated his heart and soothed his pain. A promise and a kindness all wrapped into one as his senses lived once again.
What little strength he had soared, will overcoming flesh in a single instant as everything he had pushed to move just once in his life. To be noticed by her and taken away from this place.
"You're wasting them away like this." Her voice as soft as silk flowed into him, leaving his flesh burning and tugging at his heart to the point he moved. Strength flowed alongside it, the gift of an angel as he felt for himself once more. "They could be so much more."
Like a shadow covering the Sun the priest obscured his view. "You don't find their current predicament amusing in its own right?"
The goddess stepped past him once more. Radiant in all her glory. "It's boring, wasting their lives away like this."
The touch of warmth as her hands lightly caressed his flesh, and a gaze that seemed to peer into his very soul bathed him in its luminance for a single perfect moment.
As though all the disasters in his life were worth it if he could see her for a single moment.
"Will you die for me little one?"
It rose pristine in glimmering white as it towered over the world. Stronger than the mountains, faster than the wind, trampling over everything that stood in its path. Human and monster alike shattering and cowering before its majesty.
The other rose afterward, ever stepping in its shadow as they passed over the world. Revelling in the destruction they made as it grew larger in its wake. A promise expanding out into existence carved through shared purpose. Revenge for the world broken by their inaction.
An understanding existing almost at the edge of words, the sky thundered in answer as lightning poured free and tore the world asunder.
A world purifiedRuined.
They tore free once again, shadow crashing back out of existence within moments as the weight of the world pressed down against it. A single roar raging across the world as it declared absolute supremacy.
Each tread of its paws driving it further away in a cascade of broken dreams as the mud clinging to it was washed away. With a breath the sky was shrouded in clouds blocking away the sky, and rain poured out in torrents cleansing it where it stood. A flood touching upon the world as it felt through existence at the tiny lives beneath it.
Monsters born from blood barely touching upon understanding beneath its gaze, humans weak and frail before its might, the shadows a stain upon the world daring to tread under its sight.
A weapon, a shifting place in the boundaries on the world as it grew into a tiny fractured existence of its own. Made in purpose to understanding to cull things away, born amidst bloodshed and fire, a thought passed through the boundary of the world as it resonated for a moment. Sympathy between two weapons made for the killing of man.
It stood frail and weak amidst the rot that cowered in their homes. A path barred between the monsters and the humans within. With a single step it brushed them aside and stood above it echoing its own fervour as it towered over the sputtering flame.
The other whispered once more. Failure and flames futilely burning away. Death chasing ever in its footsteps. With a whim the wind carved forward tearing flesh and shattering bone as the world pressed down upon the boundary and crushed it once more. Spilling steel and fire out into the world in a moment of fury.
Those that remained were merely dregs, soon to be devoured as they had devoured the world in turn. The wind spun as it touched the world, the image of a blade superimposed upon reality to scythe them down and end their burden.
Broken and shattered, the little demon stumbled forward on limbs of fire and steel. Futility and failure even as it sought to step between it and the prey before it. A glimpse of something beyond pain and despair cast in the light of the flames. An echo of a thought cast out between them.
Even if I die, I won't resent them.
Like the last regret of a dying world. The futile last moment of failure aching in the memory of its creation. The blade fell upon the darkness.
The air filled with the buzzing of a thousand wings, the ground writhed as more and more worms coursed to the surface in one final respite. A pit of filth that stained the world with the stench of rot and poured ever more indignity upon the altar of humanity.
And one girl, safe in her arms.
Each step carried them further free, over the melted stone and through the smoke and ash, the mere touch of her presence enough as everything turned to ash around them.
Until the cellar itself became nothing more than a memory. Giving way to a building that might have once been a home.
Its walls stared back written in hatred and anger instead, fear radiating outwards even as the most precious bundle in her arms whimpered amidst it all. Ages past made only to torment, the façade of normality existing only as a counterpoint to the horrors therein.
With a touch it faded away, light beyond reckoning bleaching the world of colour and shattering the last remnants of madness as nothing more than a dream.
And finally, they stood outside under the night sky, before a world shrouded in darkness. With one hand she turned it aside as the Sun rose once more, her gaze stretched out over the world. A broken world that had abandoned her, and everything she had ever loved.
And still her precious princess struggled in her nightmares, touched by all the evils humanity had poured against them for eternity. "It's okay little one, I am here now.
"And I will never let them hurt you again."
Nine tails raced outwards in a catastrophe, their presence erasing the mansion in an instant and turning the entire mountainside behind her to ash and dust as fire raged across the city. With a glance the flames spread further, spiralling further and further out of control as smoke and ash stained the sky.
At the edge of the disaster it rose, standing betwixt the boundary between light and dark, a shadow waiting at the edge of the boundary of dreams. "Would you like to be free?"
It could not speak in return, but then it mattered only in what it represented. A nexus point of all that was evil, of the trials and tribulations that had been forced down upon her charge without mercy or kindness.
"Incandescent amidst the flames from the origin. I grant thee dominion under the domain of those who stand as the untold wishes granted to humanity."
"Shut, (Fill)
"Shut, (Fill)
"Shut, (Fill)
"Shut, (Fill)
"Shut, (Fill)
The chant continued, power coursing through the world until it stood as real as any monster waiting to fall upon humanity.
"Go little dragon and wreak your revenge upon humanity, devour them as you will." The gate opened as she stepped up beyond the fabric of the world, pulling her beloved alongside her. "I give this world to you to do with as you please."
As the Sun left the world behind.
Water dripped down from the roof of the cave.
Apart from the world, an isolated dream left behind by humanity in a place where no one would ever look. A single perfect and pristine cup standing at the centre as a monument to what humanity could be, a receptacle for the dream that this world was not enough.
"I've arrived." A sweet voice full of cheer rang out, and she stood as a saviour to them all. "I'll save you all from this cruel world."
For what human could wish to be inconsequential? To be devoured by monsters that swarmed over the world.
Nor left at the mercy of those greater than them, trapped in a world they could not understand.
If they had been abandoned in this place, if their sins had built up an overflowed.
"I guess it's time to start preparing for my scenes for real now." With a smile she left behind the empty cave, to fade away into timelessness once more.
For a wish that everyone could be safe.
Well Redone Prologue - yeah this was one of my possible plans for prologue and should have been the one that I used. It was discarded as I originally planned each of them at 2000 words and that isn't really a prologue at that point, but carving it down into smaller snippets makes it much better.
I think this is an improved version at least.
Ramax: 5th grail war with all beasts summoned is more correct in answer to that review. If others are that confused I do readily answer pms etc, otherwise for the moment it is how it is written. Oddly stylistic is perhaps how I would describe it. Ah well.
You can rest assured its me and not you and don't get too worked up about it.