(A/N) If you didn't see it, I changed the last chapter to be the "Final Prelude". This chapter is now when the story actually starts.
Hope you enjoy!
Fragmentum's Homeland(er) 1.1
Terra is a planet that is almost an exact copy of Earth. Despite the fact that the Earth of this universe is lightyears away, despite the fact that there is no way to tangibly connect the two planets, the similarities between Terra and Earth are way too exact to be considered a coincidence.
But the universe apparently has a morbid sense of humor.
The distance between Terra and the Sun of its solar system is the same as Earth and its Sun. The tilt– and the tilt's direction– of the planet are the same. The length of the days are the same and the number of days in the year are the same. The placement of the continents are the same.
However, that brings us to the difference– the ones living on each planet.
On Terra, humanity has been brought to its near extinction time and time again over the past thousands of years, from an existence that the humans have dubbed; the "Fragmentum". But all of that changed approximately five hundred years ago, when the first "superhuman" was born.
That superhuman brought about a change to the world, in some morbid way one could call him a "messiah".
Years after the Messiah's birth and death, many more superhumans were born into the world. No one knew how. It was as if those born super were god's chosen ones. They lived longer, they are far stronger than any human. They manipulated parts of reality to their own whim. Yet despite how strong many of the superhumans are, none of them came close to the Messiah.
Except for the unnatural birth of one superhuman. Prompt up to be the world's next savior, as a symbol of hope and peace.
His name is—
The continent of Evergreen is a feeble and truly unnecessary attempt at humor. Historians aren't supposed to be funny, they're supposed to be giving facts about history.
Evergreen, despite the name, is not green, in fact there is no sign of green anywhere within it. The largest "forest" on the planet of Terra, enough to cover an entire continent, and it is entirely corrupted. The grass is stone gray, the plants are charcoal black and the leaves are an unnatural glowing orange.
The Fragmented Continent; Evergreen.
That is the name that it's known by throughout the planet of Terra. It's an existence that has confused many historians and those that study the corrosion of the Evergreen.
It's a "corrosion", meaning that it's supposed to spread, if whatever power that controls Evergreen truly "willed" it too, the corrupted forest could expand across the entire planet, but it's almost as if it's adamant about staying within that forest. Instead, it spreads its corrosion through a different method.
Deep within the forest, animals are corrupted, split and reformed, mutated into nearly alien-like versions of themselves.
This is where the Beasts of the Fragmentum comes in.
On a large country sized island that lies next to the continent of Evergreen— a country that's been named "Nihon"— lies one of humanity's largest military bases.
"Doomsday beast incoming!" Near the frontlines of this grand military base, multiple artillery units stood stationary. From the water emerged a massive creature– one that looked like a deformed crocodile. Its six arms were as long as a freight train and eyes traveled all across its back.
Humanity's greatest weapon's technology attempted to push the monster back. Tanks the size of large buildings and with the fortification of a fortress. Helicopters that held dozens of soldiers, all aiming their weapons. Weapons of different shapes and sizes, the smallest being a large sniper rifle with bullets made specifically to deal with these creatures and the largest being machines that held at least a dozen "mini"-guns.
Of course, even with all of these weapons nothing short of an atomic bomb would deal any sort of lethal damage to the beast.
This was all to simply stall it until he arrived.
The beast in question roared against the wave of explosions. Some of the explosives hit directly against a couple of its eyes, causing some damage; however, it wasn't enough. The monster took each and every rocket and bullet without moving back a single inch. Each eye that was hit proceeded to close. They didn't know for certain if it had any healing properties, but humanity's experience with these creatures pointed towards it being able to heal.
So they kept firing, the monster didn't take a single step back but it also wasn't able to take a certain step forward. A stalemate that could have lasted for days, were it not for one thing.
"Sorry I'm late!" A voice boomed across the battlefield. A few of the soldiers– the ones that weren't actively firing– turned towards where they believed the source of the voice to be.
A second later, a yellow glow covered the beast, and it was tossed back, its body almost flipping over in the air. The monster roared, it crashed into the water behind it on its back, causing the ground around it to shake and for the water to fly upwards for miles. Some of the helicopters were almost drenched, though a few were unlucky.
The monster attempted to get back up, but the yellow light surrounding its body began to glow brighter. It screeched as its body began to squeeze. Like an invisible hand wrapped itself around the monster, it attempted to move by squirming, but it couldn't.
The yellow glow intensified, and the one controlling the glow finally appeared. A handsome "young" man with messy blonde hair and bright sky-blue eyes. He floated in the air, above the monster and above the humans. He snapped his fingers with an unnerving smile.
It died with a large squelch followed by a huge crack. Its arms dismembered and its head twisted a full 360 degrees.
All of this happened within a single minute.
All movement from the beast stopped, silence reigned the battlefield. The soldiers have been holding the beast back for half-an-hour, yet this man, this person, this superhero, killed it within a minute.
The smile shifted from unnerving to cocky. He floated downwards towards the soldiers— more specifically, towards the General.
A middle-aged man wearing black modern armor with a black helmet and visor.
With a sigh— one filled with both exasperation and relief— he greeted the superhuman.
"Elohim."
"General." The superhuman— named Elohim— gave a respectful nod, but that cocky smirk never left. He moved his gaze towards the battlefield around him.
"How many?" Elohim asked, to anyone not in the know (like the general public) they would have assumed the question came from concern towards his fellows.
But the General saw something in Elohim's eyes when he answered, "Only a few casualties."
The smirk on Elohim twitched upwards slightly, if it weren't for the visor on the General's face he probably wouldn't have seen it. The glint in Elohim's gaze did not hold any comfort– filled only with confidence and superiority that only someone such as Elohim could have with no repercussions.
"Well, I'm glad that we didn't lose too many." Elohim spoke to the General, his cocky smirk still present. "Sorry I'm late, by the way, I thought Kalpas had been sent here but it turns out I was wrong."
Then his eyes slightly widened, having remembered something. "If Kal wasn't here, then is the core still up?"
"We assume so." The General nodded. "But we already sent someone to go deal with it, by orders of Jackal."
At the utterance of the name Jackal, Elohim's eye twitched slightly. "Is that so? How many did you send?"
The general hesitated to say, but the gaze that the "Hero of Humanity" gave him held no room for lies nor hesitation. The General cleared his throat. "Raiden was here earlier. Jackal had ordered her to deal with the Core."
Elohim's eyes twitched harder at the mention of her name. "Is that so?" His tone no longer held the cocky superiority that annoyed the General, instead it was filled with annoyance.
But that annoyance vanished as fast as it appeared. With a shrug his egotistical visage returned. "Well, if Jackal said so then I have no room to complain."
"So, how many did you see?" Elohim changed the subject, looking back at the large beast that began he dealt within a minute. Its limbs twisted in ways that would cause anyone to cringe.
Most Fragmented monsters fade away as soon as they die, but those of the highest class (Doomsday Beast ) don't fade as long as their Core is still around. That is how these creatures work on this planet.
"As you can already tell, only one Doomsday beast appeared here, but the Core isn't anywhere within sight."
"Maybe it's within the Ocean." Elohim muttered, staring at the water that went on for miles towards the horizon.
The general shook his head. "It isn't anywhere within sight, but sensors have picked up its energy on the edge of the Evergreen continent, right across from Nihon. That is where Raiden has been sent."
A chorus of roars broke them out of their conversation, many canine-like and human-like Fragmentum beasts appeared around the corpse of the Doomsday Beast, they bared their fangs and their sharp arms. Elohim took in their appearance with a sigh.
"Well fine, I'll let her have the credit this time." The yellow glow from earlier enveloped the Hero of Humanity. "I'll deal with the ants."
A seventeen year old girl stood on a beach, one that belongs to the Evergreen Continent. A breeze flowed through her purple hair and her violet eyes examined the forest in front of her. Her goal is simple: destroy the Fragmented Core of the Doomsday Beast.
The nature of Doomsday Beasts on Terra is something that many don't understand. It starts with a large crystal appearing somewhere (also known as the Fragmented Core), and from that mineral the Doomsday Beast will start to form.
The cores are formed in the Evergreen continent, and then are somehow thrown into the air. The process of their formation is unknown to the general populace, but what is known is the fact that once "thrown" from Evergreen, they fall from the sky towards random locations. These locations are truly random, with no pattern that can be seen from them. One year one may fall towards the biggest city on the planet, a few years later one may appear within a desolate land completely abandoned by society.
This is what Raiden Mei (A/N; first name Raiden, last name Mei. Yes, that is intentional for this variant of Mei) had been told by the military officials– minus the part where the process of the Core's creation is confidential information, that was told to her by the one she calls 'brother'.
As she stared at the corrupted land, the irony of the name "Evergreen" finally settled in. Of course, it's a joke on the planet that the people's ancestors had a horrible sense of humor, but just how desolate and corrupted Evergreen is doesn't truly set in for most people unless they've seen the land in person. The sand that covered this area replaced with stone, the tree bark looked like charcoal and the leaves looked rotten. If she focused her eyes, she could see a strange yellow energy flowing through the veins of the leaves.
Normal humans are extremely weak against the power that seeps through Evergreen. Many attempts to study this land ends up with those people getting infected and dying within seconds of landing.
However, superhumans had an extreme resistance towards the Fragmentum's corruption. Adding onto that, Mei herself is completely immune to its corruption for a simple reason.
The red horns on her head only proved how inhuman she truly is, not that it really bothered her. If anything, the politicians and officials behind the "Hunter" campaign loved the look it gave her.
She herself is only mildly annoyed by how sensitive the horns can be.
Static filled her left ear. She moved her hand to click a button on the earpiece that she had in her left ear, given to her by the military.
"Testing, testing, can you hear me, Raiden?" A voice asked through the earpiece.
"I can." She answered.
"We've already told you enough what your mission is, but just in case–" The voice was cut off by Mei, who impatiently responded,
"Find the Fragmented Core and destroy it completely, yes, you've all told me many, many times."
"Apologies, we have faith in you, but this is also your first official mission."
Mei responded with a sigh.
"Luckily, you won't need to be going far, as the sensors picked up the Core within three miles to your west. You won't be having to go deep within the forest."
A holographic map appeared in front of Mei, one that showed the land she was on for miles, a red dot signified where she was while a blue dot signified where the core is.
"The core will be easy to spot, but just in case, look for any large orange crystals."
"Large orange crystals, got it." That shouldn't be hard, considering how many things are orange within this damn forest. She sarcastically thought to herself.
"Good luck, Raiden." The voice cut off, and the earpiece turned off. Thus began Raiden Mei's first mission as a "Hunter".
She turned towards the west and took a deep breath. Lightning cackled across her form. She bent a knee– and then lunged forward, leaving a cloud of dust behind her.
A/N
The "Evergreen" spans across an entire continent and considering how similar the geography of Terra is to Earth, the closest comparison would be that "Evergreen" covers the entirety of the Asian continent, excluding the Middle East and the Islands that surround the "eastern side" of Asia—such as Indonesia, the Philippines and Japan— and yes that will be something expanded upon.
Also, this chapter was going to be the backstory towards the Mei of this world, but I felt as though that would be doing too much with too little, so before I start actually giving the backstory for any characters, I have to introduce them and the world of Terra first.
Also, I had originally wanted for Terra to be just like Earth except for the Fragmentum, but eventually my mind didn't want to do just that. I could have done something similar to Belobog- where it's one city that remains as the safe-space for humanity- but that would be too lazy. Think of Terra as "geographically similar to Earth but different in other aspects." I took inspiration from other franchises when creating Terra (aside from Honkai Impact 3rd, of course), you'll see eventually.
With that, I'll be working on the next chapter, hopefully I don't take as long.
Reviews, critiques, and comments are appreciated!
Much love
-an idiot on the internet.