For Cid's perspective.

Native Earth Languages

Midgar Languages

Everyone else only knows one of them so they're all unbolded unless anyone wants me to do otherwise.


Supposedly there was now a military base in Ishinomaki, and they were being led there. Through the streets as strange as they were with vegetation overgrown and grasping towards the buildings around them. As though seeking to reclaim the city for the ages with the power held within.

And failing to do so.

For almost every building they passed was still complete and perfect even as roots and vines scrabbled helplessly against walls without a crack in them. Nine in ten buildings having withstood the assault without a wound. Some even still had lights on. Like beacons shining out into the night.

The other ones were annihilated entirely. Crumbled walls and broken windows showing completely cracked and broken by the new plant life around him.

Only one guard stayed anywhere near to them, the others fanning out to root out through the wreckage around them, even as he caught the furtive glances back. They were afraid of him then, but then he wasn't wearing a mob costume anyway, so they were right to be.

Eta sidled up beside him a finger pointing towards the soldier ahead. "They have no magic running through them, how do you think they work?"

She almost certainly meant the people rather than something more benign. But it was a bit sudden when they'd only just met. "We'll find someone who deserves it for you to dissect a bit later."

"Urabe." The guard waved at he said his name. "Given you were pointing at me."

He waved back politely enough. The lie coming as easily as breathing. "She's interested in the night vision goggles we don't really ever use such things in Atlantis."

Urabe looked back to his comrades as they advanced down the street then back to him. A hand reaching up to clasp the latch on his helmet as he grinned. "Well would you like to see how it works?"

Eta reached out a hand that then became a tentacle of slime reaching across the divide. The marine flinching even as it wrenched the helmet from his grip and pulled it over to Eta herself to look over. A finger stretching out to run over the goggles. "Like the telescopic lens?"

He nodded easily enough as he took the helmet from her hand. "Better than a telescopic lens, you have all these switches here that can change the type of vision you get. Night vision, infra-red and a bunch of other stuff you'd normally use magic for recreated through technology."

He dug his thumbs through the side of the helmet to make room for her ears and turned to put it on.

"No magic in this either." The words left the real question silent even as she looked at him questioningly.

But this too was shadow wisdom. "It uses a type of magic inherent to the natural world to run it, but before you take it apart we'll pick up some more batteries so you don't only have one to break."

She nodded and started fiddling with the switches as she looked around through her new goggles.

"I'm off to meet the locals for a bit so don't do anything I wouldn't do." He half turned in his step, realising that truly there were very few things he wouldn't do. Then shrugged because it wasn't like it was that big a deal.

"Cid." He sidled up to the soldier who was being friendly. "All the corpses left in the buildings?" He could feel them each as a massive concentration of magic unmoving forever. "I mean if it was recent you'd think you were trying to move them and yet you've left them there."

Urabe looked away. "They were caught in the first wave that came out of the gate I guess and now… we can't move them. Well even the effort to get into the buildings is too much most of the time and there are better uses for their time."

He shrugged. "Well as long as you're not worried about the dead rising again that's fine, glad to see you've taken care of it."

The guy did a double take. "That can't happen right? I mean we haven't seen it at any of the other gates. I think a zombie apocalypse would be the last thing we'd need. Although I guess they'd all be stuck in the buildings as well if it ever happened. At least tell me zombies don't know how to turn locks."

He laughed to diffuse the tension even as he listened to the report from further up. The person reporting had switched to English probably in an attempt to stop him from understanding it. Being a Code Blue was at least close to his magic colour, although in honesty he would have rather been placed as Code Violet. "I think zombies would be the least of your worries, even with an indestructible city you lost the northeast side."

The path heading out into the mountains was devastated with broken buildings and ruins littering the landscape. It had been the first place he'd looked considering Mt Jobon had been about where he'd died.

Urabe looked awkwardly to the east and winced. "That land ah well, it's Kaiju territory these days. Doesn't Atlantis have to deal with monsters as well beyond the gate."

He laced his fingers behind his head and grinned. "You just get a pet to look out and be scary and they all run away, loyal and dependable you need to learn to rely on man's closest friend more."

Urabe swallowed as he fixed his eyes on the road taking a moment to think about his answer. "If you could manage it I guess such a thing is possible." He didn't sound convinced at all but that was all part of the game. "I couldn't do it to something I cared for."

"Really we found it to be pretty easy. I hear a lot of people balked at the idea at the beginning but in the face of disaster everyone knows what you have to do."

"If it had that kind of loyalty in life to always return I wouldn't be able to." Urabe looked a bit too sombre for a joke but oh well. "You wouldn't feel bad about it?"

"Nothing ventured nothing gained." Cid grinned as the punch line came up. "And that's why Atlantis has a Guard Dragon just like you'd expect it would. The founder just walked up to the biggest monster he could find and challenged it to a game. That in defeat it would swear loyalty to him and act as a defender to the city for the rest of time."

The guy slapped his forehead. "That was not where I thought this conversation was going at all."

He was innocent in every way possible. "Of course everyone knows that for dragons defeat means friendship, all you have to do is toss a nuke at them and they'll laugh right along with you and be friends for life."

He did the Godzilla walk arms outstretched like claws and the other guy started laughing. "Everyone needs a dragon to stand against the darkness when they're not there, no wonder your civilisation is collapsing if you haven't even made friends with one yet."

The road twisted round into what looked like an unmanned checkpoint. Even as his magic sense could feel something humming through the space between. The very edge of it lined with a flickering device that the other soldiers walked through without hesitation.

If only he knew how it worked, because it was obviously some kind of scanner for infections or something. And then he could fake being a monster, have it go off the moment he stepped through and look around in horror. Begging for them all to realise it was a mistake before they shot him.

Alas it was not to be. But he was still going to go through first as he signed a message to Eta to hold off for a minute.

He stepped through to silence. Not even a beep out of the thing that he could use to call out injustice. It was the greatest disappointment in his life as an opportunity wasted.

Then the first bullet crashed into his shoulder, and he let surprise and shock appear on his face even as he raised his hands in front to protect his head. A fusillade of bullets crashing towards him as he let himself spin wildly from the impacts.

A rictus of pain spread out on his face even as he casually caught the bullets aimed at his head and tossed them aside. Idly making a sign with the slime behind his back to tell Eta to play along with his game.

After twenty seconds the salvo ended and he stared deeply into the eyes of Urabe, his broken body barely holding itself up as he stumbled and he croaked out "Earthlings we could have been friends, we wanted." He coughed up blood. "We wanted to do right by you and stand as brothers against the darkness, and yet you have betrayed our kindness."

Another bullet hit him and he shrugged it off. "You will regret your actions today."

He let himself fall backwards arms wide as though the last of his strength had given out even as he signed for Eta to come to his rescue. The character who got gunned down at a checkpoint mercilessly was within his reach and he had pulled it off perfectly.

Eta wasn't even looking at him. A small shield of slime covering her against the hail of bullets that had now resumed as she idly studied the sensor that he had set off.

He fired a tiny droplet of slime at the back of her head. Finally she decided to turn around.

Eta's eyes widened slightly. "Are you done playing? Should I kill them all?"

He signed a no, because this was his dramatic breakdown of negotiations and only in the future could they regret it. Instead he signed for her to carry him off.

Eta turned away looking back at the sensor embedded in the wall, even as she reached out and grasped it tearing it away. What followed was the least dramatic walk she could have ever managed; she wasn't even trying to look concerned about him.

A shadow standing above him even as there was a pause in the bullets as people had to reload.

His breath hitched in his throat. The words gasping out as though he was a dying man. "Eta please, at least look more dramatic about it when you carry me off."

A moment later he found an arm under his knees, the other resting on his back as she hoisted him off the ground. "Princess carry?" The fingers at the end made a v.

He gave her a v back and lay back prone. Waiting as she sombrely walked off of the battlefield carrying his dead corpse. Until they were out of sight of the wreckage. "Ah you can put me down now." He let his wounds heal as superficial as they were.

"I wanted to go into their base and take their stuff." It was the most petulant he'd seen her in a long time.

He patted her gently on the head. "Would you bring them to the greatest and most treasured of your laboratories, or leave them in a waiting room with nothing of value?"

Eta nodded. "I'd take their things and kick them out."

He grinned. "But this way they have to send their greatest weapons after us, to unleash their deepest and darkest secrets that we might pry them and take them for ourselves."

Eta brightened up considerably at that.

He turned to the most salient point once more. "Eta by the way I did say you could put me down."

"I can." Eta nodded bluntly and then continued walking at a sedate pace.

He considered his next words. "There is a difference between can and must I suppose it is true, but do I really have to give you an order at this time."

"Not enough for you?" She considered her own words for a moment.

Eta tossed him up into the air, his body finally free as he looked out over the sky behind them as a hundred whirring lights started rising in the distance. So there really was going to be a pursuit and once he'd had some time to set things up it would be fun to play with them too.

A pillar of slime rose up into the air to meet him, Eta standing atop it as she slipped her arms back into place to carry him once more. "Is this better.."

He nodded along and patted her on the head. "Yes standing in the sky is always a bit more dramatic, but." She had forgotten one thing as he reached out through the slime and pulled it from out of her control. Flipping himself in a moment as he appeared under her and caught her as she fell. "We need to go a bit faster right now, so I think I'll carry you instead."


To his left the streets were overgrown, slowly being reclaimed by the natural world as weeds started to encroach their way through asphalt and out into the world once more.

To his right there was merely devastation. Buildings shattered by the immense weight of a monster far greater than the streets had ever been prepared for. Trees chewed up, scratch marks tearing their way through concrete and wood alike.

His own old house stood at the exact dividing line between the two. To the point that the left side of it as he approached had overgrown extensively with weeds, and the right had claw marks right up to the edge of the gate itself, and lay barren as every plant on that side had died.

He approached the door and looked at Eta with her arms still firmly wrapped around him. Had he gone too fast? Well she would get used to it soon enough so there was nothing to worry about. "We have arrived my lady if you would like to get down."

He got a hug in response. "Am good."

He really did spoil her sometimes. "I'm going to drop you."

Aurora spoke from his cloak. "Shouldn't there be a reward when the knight puts down the princess."

Which was preposterous because not only was he not going to spoil her more for disobeying him. But also Beta was the princess girl, and Eta wasn't into that kind of roleplay.

Eta hesitated and then released him settling down off to his side as he rejoiced at his newfound freedom. And whatever gift Aurora meant he'd just dump some piece of technology on her and let her get to work with it.

The next moment Eta leaned in and gave him a peck on the cheek. "Your reward."

He looked at her again. She was at that kind of age he guessed. He'd have to put more effort into playing along as well then. "Thank you for your favour fair lady. May I take you to your castle?"

But that just meant that he could use his house to build up some new Atlantean lore. For this was a place he'd said he had been in the past and now was his chance to prove it. "Long ago Atlantis sealed itself away from the world to free themselves from magic itself, but the gates to the world have been slowly breaking open time and time again. Until now the magic has returned to them after all."

After a quick series of movements, the spare key he'd left before he died fell into his hand. Fitting easily into the door which opened for him as though he'd only just left.

Even as the outside world had changed, the act of coming home hadn't. The building exactly as he left it. "This here is a secret cache I set up the last time I visited Atlantis and even now it stands untouched by the ravages of time in this frozen city."

"A special place for me alone that no one would dare enter."

"You see the Atlanteans are afraid of this place, for it stands on the edge of the territory of the one whose footsteps fall like thunder, a monster so terrible they can only quake at its coming. But I need fear no monster making it perfect for our own use."

Eta nodded at his words

He flicked the light switch on anyway by force of habit, and it worked as light filled the room. "As you can see even without things like magic they were capable of making many wonders, these are electric lights filled by letting a current pass through a thin filament of wire."

"And at their height there were entire cities lit as bright as day for all to see,

There was only a moment of clarity, his hand moved before he had even thought about it. Which was a good thing as he seized Eta's hand and pulled her away. "Do not stick your finger in the plug socket."

"But I wanted to see how it worked."

He walked the walls to the microwave casually pouring a glass of water… the taps worked as well? He shrugged and put it in and turned it on. "Isn't it more interesting to see how they worked rather than plug yourself into the mains directly."

The blank look on her face said it was not.

"Very well, then I shall let you take apart the fridge."

She was still looking at the mains outlet. "Just once can I touch it?"

He paused, she probably would survive it she was a tough girl. Then with the tiniest bit of wisdom he had left he decided that sticking himself into a possibly infinite power source that shouldn't be working was a task to try on something else.

There was truly nothing for it, he let a segment of his slime suit come loose and attach to the ground. "Watch closely then and you shall understand." Without touching it the other end raced into the plug socket and struck the mains, sparks flickering out and vaporising it a moment later.

Eta looked on in wonder. "They have lightning in the walls just waiting to touch it."

"Of course, for lightning was the first true magic of the world, the spark of existence brought to life all those eons ago. And the people in this place have found many ways to harness the thunder and turn it to use." He gestured back to the fridge which was far safer than the mains power line.

"This device here turns the power of lightning into ice and cold, and if you want you can take it apart." He nodded seriously to her watching as her slime suit started dragging the fridge out into the centre of the room. "But we will not be here for long, because there are other marvels, and it is their weapons we seek to steal first and foremost."

Eta ignored those last words. Already poking at the back of his fridge and slowly going over the components.

Cid turned away to something a bit more sentimental as he rummaged through the cupboards.

John's old dog bowl sat in front of him. But already he could see the marks of time as well as destruction strewn throughout the city. A golden retriever would live for ten to twelve years and John hadn't been young even before he'd left.

His grave was likely in America which was a bit of a trip right now.

He idly let his finger drag on the bowl in front of him, and the fun memories they'd had together. But there was nothing for it as he turned away again. "Come Eta I want to hunt our enemies."


He had faced trials and tribulations in his quest, seen failure and defeat and not been deterred by either. And now in his moment of triumph the drone in front of him was disarmed.

The accursed bomb built in that had destroyed his last three trophies was gone and now he had his very own RC high tech helicopter.

The transponder on it that was beaming back to base working perfectly as he dragged it back into their new little alcove. Not his home he would keep that hidden a bit longer, but a fun place to take it apart.

The metal coating it tearing apart easily as he removed the frame until he had just the motors and the battery left on it. And the gun, a strange thing that had never managed to hit him, rather than a bullet it had a simple crystalline protrusion, and a set of rails.

Railgun, he knew the term easily enough. Had seen plenty of them in videogames but for now he had a real life one sitting in his hands. And only the question of why a crystal left to decipher. Still the spoils of war were for sharing as he divided them out. The battery and the motor for Eta, to express the use of turning lightning into motion.

He watched as she put her hands on either side of the battery and shocked herself. Maybe he needed to give her a full safety course first.

She shocked herself again, and a third time. "I could use this to make artificial muscles as well Master couldn't I."

"You have gained wisdom to understand its purpose in such a short period of time."

Eta smiled and lifted her fingers in a V. "Then I won't have to move my real arms at all and can just make the machines do it for me."

"Indeed." He turned to his own trove of treasure, the crystal…

It was gone. And as there were only three possible culprits, and he alone was the only trustworthy one amongst them all he turned to the obvious villain. "Aurora is it such a beautiful crystal that you felt you needed it for yourself."

He turned back and found she was eating it. The entire thing half gobbled down her throat before he'd even had a chance to experiment on it. "I see you have found my gift to you most delicious."

Because reaching down her throat and prying it back out was out of the question.

She blinked back at him. "I… I'm actually not sure why I did that. It just sort of happened when I saw it without really thinking about it."

"I see." He did not see at all, but that was a problem for tomorrows Cid. "Knowing it was so useful to you I had intended to gift it to you if you had but waited." He had nothing left for his own gift anymore, the one part he'd been intending to poke gone before he'd had the chance. Truly the seven of them were a terrible influence on poor little Aurora who now had learned to steal all the things he wanted.

"But that is fine for it is time for the real reason I brought it here." He stood to his full height and grinned down at her. "Because we have company of course, and I want to entertain our guests well. Let us see what they have brought to amuse me."

He hoped it wouldn't take too long after saying something like that. I mean the drone had a transponder and he'd brought it with them, so of course they were narrowing down on this position to give him the fight he wanted.

Aurora bubbled up. "You could feel them already even though they've only just entered my range. That's kind of unfair don't you think?"

He could not feel them already. "Perhaps one day you will be able to perceive as well as I do what the future holds in store. But that day is not today for I am one who understands the truth of all things and possess sight beyond seeing."

There was silence between the two of them for a moment longer and then he felt it too. A glowing beacon of magic on the wind moving unerringly in their direction. Power wreathed around the human form like a beacon, like a torch glowing in the night.

And yet they moved so slowly that he was almost disappointed from the beginning. But if they would not come to him in good time, then he could at least introduce himself properly. His cloak wrapping around himself for a moment as he took to the sky. Leaping off the buildings to get as much height as possible.

Then he let himself plummet. Crashing down in front of his foe even as he let his own shadow writhe around him. An unending night that ate and devoured all light to stand against the glowing hero in front of him. "I see the courage of men has not died on this day, and there are still some who dare to face me in person. However foolish that choice might be."

The man across from him had his entire body covered by some kind of armour that exuded light all around him. A gruff voice answering him back. "You are the weaker of the two monsters then. I was hoping to meet the girl instead."

He raised his brow in response. "Can you defeat her? Such arrogance you have but then I expect no less from those who stand against the tides threatening this world. Allow me to teach you then the difference between us."

The two of them faced off over the deserted street, even as he let the knight draw his weapon. A meter and a half long staff that he held with both hands even as the light around him was pulled into it. The entire apparatus humming as it moved to glow at the end.

Cid blinked staring again. Because the magic wasn't just wreathed around his foe, it was only wreathed around him. Not a single drop flowing through his body to reinforce it and make him faster. No wonder the guy was so slow in getting here.

If you couldn't even reinforce your body then trying to make an external attack was just pointless, the magic control needed for it a thousand times greater to maintain even a glimpse of cohesion.

Yet as it extended it never wavered. A perfect white blade of pure magic extending out into the world more than twenty meters from the edge of the lance. An impossibility in its own right.

He tossed away his planned phrases and eyed the knight in front of him again. Bunching his legs up as he waited for the swing, because even if the body was slow, if the blade didn't add weight it could move quickly at the edge.

They swung horizontally and with a moments release he was airborne flying high above the battlefield as he looked down.

And the blade tore through the building below him like it was made of paper.

He blinked as he watched the knight almost trip over themselves at the end of the swing, even as he landed across from them a cocky grin on his face. "Even the perfect blade is useless in the hands of an amateur."

Even as his eyes roamed over the scene before him. The line was perfect and for just a single moment the building had hung in the air, as though waiting for gravity to notice it had been cut. Which meant that just this once, he was intrigued enough to not try it on himself.

"They say a true swordsman needs only one cut, yet that doesn't mean you should give up so easily come swing again. Try and prove yourself worthy and I might even draw a blade of my own." A single droplet of slime appeared on the tip of his finger, magic swelling up as an attack waiting to be released.

The next blow swung in, and even as he ducked casually around the blade without even trying he left the droplet between them, a blow of his own to meet it.

For what would happen when unstoppable force met an immovable object?

It crashed through without the least resistance as his droplet shattered and ceased to exist beneath that blade, and a second step had the knight bring it round again the edge of the blade trailing after him.

He hopped over it, letting his body race into the sky even as the night became his wings and a single flap brought him out of reach. "So slow little mortal why do you not try a bit harder."

His opponent looked back. "How are you moving so fast?"

He let his hands fall into pockets in his slime suit, it wasn't like he needed them right now. "All you need to do is to let the magic in, flow through your veins like fire and be changed by it. Or does such a thing frighten you?"

The man across from him took stock. "So that flowing cloak around you really is a mutation caused by magic, unlike the Nephilim that grow larger you've what become more sinister instead."

"Making oneself smaller is just a matter of control, if I were to stop well you would wonder." He let the slime around his form begin to balloon up and stretch out until he was a monster with arms of shadow trailing around him. "Is this form one you are less comfortable with mortal?"

The other side shut up, the lance blade flickering in front of him as though it was a shield rather than a weapon. A horrifically poor stance to go on the offensive. "Oh frightened so easily then, what a pity it seems this world needs a better knight than you."

He raised a great fist letting it fill the man's vision as he prepared for a clash of titans.

And then the tentacle of slime he'd let travel along the ground shot up and split in two. One segment grasping the lance as it yanked back, the other slamming full force into the knight himself. Separating the two of them as the now dead artifact fell uselessly to the floor.

Was pulled back immediately to his hand as he studied it. The creation drinking his own magic without a thought as he felt the flow and let it happen just to see it for himself.

An ethereal violet blade emanating out as the magic ran through the conduits inside of it, as beautiful as the night itself and as ethereal as the shade.

By which he meant that he could already feel it flicker in his hand, as unstable as any other magical blade he'd ever thrown with magic. The destructive power gone as it entered his hands until his own was only a half baked imitation.

Swung loose the moment he turned the blade aside to disperse harmlessly against the world. "You rely on this weapon too much, now that I have taken it what can you do if you will not touch the magic directly yourself?"

The guy might have answered but he wasn't listening.

What could he do if no matter how many times he poked this thing it didn't even have the sense to do what he wanted? He probed the construction further, letting his magic touch every part of it looking for some kind of hint as to what was doing the heavy lifting.

It had channels to condense the magic yes, and he could do that already.

It had a core that absorbed magic and seemed to be the main focusing point of the effect, yet when he filled it nothing worked the way it had for the other man.

He felt his cloak move around him as Aurora reached out. "Can I try it? It feels familiar to me."

He raised it up in his hands like an offering, even as she took form above him dragging herself together from his shadow as it came to rest in her hand. And a moment later the same pure white light began to emit from the end.

And kept going as it raced across the skyline in a single arc, tearing through the world and crashing through the skyscraper in the distance. A second gash appearing as it split the building once again and still it did not fall.

Aurora covered her mouth with a hand even as he felt a tinge of amusement, and frustration as well. "That isn't quite what I expected to happen either."

He grinned back down at the knight who was slowly rising and trembling as he looked at the both of them. "My dark lady has made her intentions clear has she not, we wish to challenge the one who put that scar in the world, to demonstrate that none have walked this path further than we have on this day and to usher in a new future."

"You aren't relaying anything like what my words actually mean to them are you?" Aurora spoke from above.

He focused only on the knight instead even as the man spoke. "She is gone. The first generation of knights are all gone unlike you they never changed back." There was a tremble at the end as though afraid he would punish him for the words.

He couldn't let that get in the way of a good story now could he? "Then bring forth your greatest champions, for you will need them in the battle ahead, and if they should be as lacklustre as you, know that all will be devoured into the abyss."

The knight was trembling looking up at Aurora. All of the confidence from earlier gone. "You're letting me go?"

Contempt flowed through his gaze as he let his monstrous form look down upon the man. "Do you believe you are worth killing? You have not even begun walking the path and yet think I would stain my blade for you? You must drink deeply of the power before I would need to do something as base as kill you mortal."

Aurora paused above him. "Are we playing Nyarlathotep right now?"

"You rate him that highly?" Well now that she'd said it of course they were. "Lady Nyarlathotep has asked that I offer you a boon." He pulled up his sleeve even as a blade formed and he cut into his flesh. Letting the blood pool into a droplet floating before him. "Drink and let the magic flow through you, give up your humanity and become one with the tides."

"Or leave, the choice on whether you will walk with madness is up to you."

The man ran so he really must have been pulling off the look well. Even as Aurora settled back down into his cloak. "What did you even say that had him run off like that?"

"Isn't it obvious?" He felt the cloak shake around him instead of seeing a response and laughed. "I offered to help him of course, in good faith even. Who knows why he chose to run away so quickly after something like that."

Hands clasped over his shoulders as she peered over his shoulder. "Somehow I think that is only half of what you said, or maybe less even than that."

Would he lie to her? "The other half may have been me thanking him for such a magnificent weapon that I might use it to cut the entire city in half later."

"You think and yet you won't be able to." She hummed lightly in response. "And even for me it is rather exhausting to use so alas the city might just survive."

"Are you going to dissipate here then?" This far away from the Sanctum where her true body was she might not even be able to make it back. But she had been hesitant to manifest at all for long so she must be tired. "Should I be doing anything?" And why was she so confident he couldn't use it even after a bit more practice.

"I have already found a better place to sleep than in your coat, although." She paused, a twinkle in her eye as she smiled at him. "Perhaps a demonstration of how far you are from understanding it will aggravate you more."

Well, he was lying for her so it was all fun and games. "There are always new horizons to conquer, the fact that you consider that a threat rather than an encouragement shows you are not ready to teach me."

"Eta."

At the far end of the road the girl had come out from her experiment to watch. And Aurora brandished the spear in front of her.

Eta looked on in curiosity at the blade, even as Aurora gently passed it down to her. And he prepared himself with a witty retort about it being harder than it looked to ease her inevitable failure. For she was more like him than she was like Aurora, and he was confident it would sputter for her as well.

Eta took it and the Blade burned and blasted forward like a torch, uneven and broken as it tore through the world in front of them. Far less force than Aurora had produced, but still the same kind of effect that made him the only one who couldn't get it to burn white.

The only one who was still trying to figure it out while everyone else found it simple.

"It is an interesting trick, but it is not the magic I came to this world seeking. Eta I entrust it to you for it will surely serve you well on this expedition." He paused to look at the sky. "Even if it is draining to wield there is a truth hidden within and perhaps you may be able to uncover it."

And Eta was already slumped over where she stood, the weapon planting into the ground as it supported her. A moment later Aurora was there, gone from his own slime suit and melding into Eta's instead.

He raised his eyes to the sky. "Atlantis is steeped in Ancient magic the likes of which you have never seen before, and I have come for one piece in particular that you will understand it when you see it and know why we had to come here."

Eta nodded at his words, confident in her belief in him. Which just meant that he had to figure out what this cool new technique was so he could show it off and live up to that faith.

He posed in the moonlight. "But that time is not now, for the plan comes ever closer to fruition and it would be unwise to keep our other guest waiting."

"Can I?" Eta's question hung in the air as he looked back at the two of them.

The intent obvious even without it being fully enforced. "Go ahead you are free to experiment on Aurora as much as you like."


The first bullet had fired too early, an itchy trigger finger that could have caused a disaster. But he couldn't blame the soldier who'd fired it after seeing what the scanner had shown. For while they looked like humans, they clearly lacked any understanding of them.

Flesh and blood and magic stitched together into the semblance of clothes, when it was really a second skin coating them bonded only in imitation. Magic pulsing through it erratically even before the girl had shown that it was as easy to move as a human's limbs.

Had the bodies originally been human? It was hard to tell because a quick glance showed entire organs missing and only the basic resemblance.

It was a patchwork attempt from a creature that had never seen or understood a real human, or one who had walked far enough along and touched magic so far that all that was left was insanity.

The only mistake had been firing before a weapon on site that could handle it had appeared.

And even the weaker one who had been surprised had regenerated easily enough over the course of hours. Had matched a third generation knight without even breaking a sweat upon revealing its true form beneath the façade. "You said he wanted challengers?"

The knight saluted, even as he could tell the man was still shaking. "Yes sir, but the output he produced."

"We will be bringing all three of Japan's second generation knights who still live out of retirement." He'd discussed it with High Command already, because while the three of them were a weapon of last resort. While none of them matched up to the strength of the first generation.

He was not letting Ishinomaki become the next Florida. "Code Violet has been approved, all we can do is stand and not let another containment breach like the Leviathan happen."

"I will head out again even if only as support, I won't shame myself again."

The kid was blaming him for something that wasn't his fault. "It is fine, the Nephilim have been silent for so long, to find yourself in front of one of them is, anyone would lose their nerve."

He got a nod in return. "The worst case scenario?"

"The US has an ICBM pointed at us, let us hope we do not have to test it, and better yet hope that it doesn't fail." They'd all go together if it came down to it. "There are already no civilians left in the city, all that is left is to do our duty."

"Now I think it's time for the most unpleasant part of my meeting today." For while there were monsters at the gate, sometimes there were worse ones in your own home.

"They already have him ready on screen."

Nishino Akira, the man responsible for the first research into how magic affected a human when he'd deliberately exposed the survivors of Ishinomaki to it, just to see what would happen.

The screen came to life, and from his cell the thirty year old man smiled back at them. "Greetings to what do I owe the pleasure, I mean if you want to discuss research you can see all of the new plans I've been preparing if only you gave me permission."

"We will not." Final, as it had been every time he had asked. "Today we've come to talk about one of your old experiments." Again.

Akira grinned. "You have more footage I take it, I am always so curious how the Alliance of the Nephilim continues to advance even if you all seem to resent them."

"You will see for yourself." He played the video footage from a dozen drones that had captured the events.

Nishino was grinning at the screen, enthused rather than disturbed by what they showed to him. "You know some of my experiments said it, before they died. A siren song calling them from the abyss as it spoke, calling them alone into the night."

He had at least a cursory knowledge. "That isn't recorded anywhere in the records you handed over as part of the first knight program."

"Of course not, they were dying and dying men all say whatever it is that pleases them, so I paid their screams no mind." A look of almost regret seemed to cross the man's face. "Such a wasted opportunity it was, if I had known there was a real creature waiting on the other end I would have thrown them by the dozen into the gate to bring her out."

"Don't you think you did enough to your classmates?" He regretted the words as soon as he said them, because if Nishino had been someone who could regret he wouldn't have been locked up.

The smile that answered him only proved it. "Of course not, I mean look at this video isn't it obvious. A way to turn back the Nephilim into humans again was always possible if I kept trying and then there would be a path forward for humanity to embrace magic ourselves. Won't you consider giving me some new test subjects to work with now you know it is possible,"

He schooled his expression. "You know no one will give you approval for it, so stop asking. Back to the truth you recognise that he is one of the Nephilim you created, one of those truly broken by the magic when it touched them. He was one of your research subjects tells us of him."

"Alas he was not one of mine I'm afraid, as much as I would like him to be." A wistful sigh came from the man. "But I remember him, Kagenou Minoru is the name you have me searching for."

A grin appeared on Nishino's face, "Ah yes I cannot tell you much about him, except that my sister cared for him. So much so that when the gate on Mt Jomon opened, after it sucked in everything on the mountainside she believed he might still be there waiting and went to look for him.

"Such a foolish sister I had, and my parents forced me to go out and drag her back." A wistful expression formed on his face. "Perhaps if they'd come too they would have survived. Alas it was that chance that left me in the mountains when the deluge came down and magic flooded through the valleys, which left me standing atop the world and out of reach as everything below me died."

"As the one who lead me on to find the shard all those years ago, I suppose I must thank him as a fellow researcher of the light beyond the gate, I suppose in a way you could consider him Knight Zero, and it seems he intends to offer you all up to the things beyond it."

"Then we will fight, with everything we have."

Akira smiled. "If you just let me restart my research I could make more of them, the first generation the real monsters. But then you won't so perhaps all that is left is to watch you all die."


Wrong.

Everything wrong like dust and death as it crawled through the lifeless rock. Tendrils drilling out as it sought to infect everything it touched.

Hungry, so hungry even as the lifeless rock would never be food.

Thirsty even as it sipped the stagnant waters that fell from the sky and found them wretched.

Suffocating even as it breathed, for the air was lifeless and stale that no living creature could breathe it.

The whole world was death and emptiness. Tied to form even as it broke and writhed into the world around it in a hundred myriad ways seeking for something to leech sustenance off of.

A fragment stood before it.

An untouched radiance, a glimpse known even as it had never seen it before. For it was eternity that hung inside the void, unbound and unbroken as it stretched on forever, unchangeable and infinite.

An action existing without a reaction.

It burrowed inside, infecting the emptiness and filling it with its own power, merging itself with the glimmer of light within. Rising up inside the vessel as it breathed again for the first time since it had come to this wretched world.

There were more of them, countless glimpses of broken tiny infinities and as it reached out it pulled them all in, a thousand bodies rising up as one.


Sherry Barnett hadn't left her room in three days. They had still brought her food it was true, and water so it wasn't like she was waiting to be executed. But as the person responsible for the Sanctum, as the one who was watching over it the only place the responsibility for it could fall was on her.

Maybe if Cid came back and she pleaded with him she could get forgiveness, or Nu who had at least known her well. Now the ten members she knew best, the ones she'd spent the most time with were dead.

The rotting flesh that had been growing over them, the damage caused by the scream was obviously the symptoms of demonic possession. Gamma had seen it and shown the same look of concern and all of them had died.

A knock at the door broke her from her recriminations. "Lady Gamma has requested your presence."

The walk through the desolate halls had never been quite as lonely as it was today. It had never felt longer either as her dread only continued to grow.

The room itself was dark, ten members in attendance each with their face cloaked in the shadows even as she turned to the head of the table where Gamma was seated. "We have been expecting you take a seat."

She stuttered. She often stuttered but worked through it to raise her voice. "Before we begin, can I know what happened to them, I had been working with them for some time now."

"You can rest assured they have been taken care of." Nu had smiled at her as she said it, and perhaps it was for the best. Having to sit with them and watch them degrade further into their own decaying corpses would be crueller. It had been a mercy.

Gamma at the head of the table nodded and smiled sweetly at her. "It was perhaps the simplest part of this whole ordeal to resolve, and now its over and done with."

It shook her to the core. Because Gamma had been nice to her ever since she'd come, like an overly enthusiastic big sister filled with kindness. For her to discard her subordinates so quickly and easily after their death.

Lutheran had been someone she'd trusted as well, as she looked back at the older girl. Kind and helpful right up until the moment he wasn't. "I suppose it is time to get down to business then."

A third member spoke, her hood slightly off to make room for two giant ears marking her as a therianthrope. "You have seen much that was forbidden; things that have been hidden from the world for an age over these last few days."

A fourth member rose from her seat and stepped towards her. The tell-tale shade of one of the slime weapons coating her executioner's hands. As elongated fingers that could become a blade at any moment approached.

She closed her eyes praying that at least it would be a painless death.

A heavy thud crashed down in front of her.

There was no pain and as she slowly opened her eyes again she saw that a book had been placed on the table in front of her, opened to a page filled with the ancient language from the very beginning of Midgar as a country.

The girl beside her leaning over even as she felt a large chest pressing into her back. "It's this part specifically we think it has something important to do with the gate, but it was left untranslated."

"What?" She blinked at the book that was barely visible by candlelight in the room, and then at the person leaning over her shoulder. "This isn't about how I got them all possessed and failed to maintain the Sanctum like I was supposed to?"

Gamma tilted her head. "Why would it be about that?"

She shrank into herself words gushing out. "I mean you were all talking about how I have seen forbidden knowledge, and those other girls with possession have been taken care of and none of you care that their gone and now you're acting all scary." She was hyper ventilating and she knew it.

Silence hung over the room.

After a while Nu broke it. "She wasn't ever one of the possessed I don't think we actually mentioned we could cure them to her."

The others all looked between each other, and she felt she had missed something terribly. A moment later the curtains were drawn back and light filtered into the room to reveal all those present to be girls just a few years older than her.

The girl behind her, twitched her elongated hands, and as she saw them she startled. Because the entire hand seemed like it was made out of it rather than just some blades. "So first I can cure the possessed, it's a special trick we learned from Shadow and so all of them are just waiting for check ups in the medical wing."

She blinked. "Then what was all the stuff about forbidden knowledge."

"Forbidden knowledge is cool." The therianthrope girl who said it was looking lost.

Gamma nodded to herself. "For the moment we will adjourn this meeting to give Sherry time to calm down, and just this once we will hold the next one in a lighted room in consideration for the fact that this one seems to unnerve her."


AN: Poor little Sherry is still learning to become at home in the darkness of the world. Well I do need to give her some more screen time before Cid takes her to meet her father. And it was plot relevant. Everything is plot relevant, even the things that haven't yet become plot relevant are plot relevant.

Two weeks again. I have started writing chapter titles, currently I have put them up for the end of each arc, but was considering naming them all as

1-1 Name, 1-2 Name

Would that make things easier to navigate for you all.

I technically have written a title for each chapter not sure how people feel about them currently though so will leave them up as is. I warn you they are all pretentious.

Now on to talking about the main things going on.

Earth is in the age of dragons and things that failed to become dragons and just died. There is very little that exists between these two states. Plenty of cryptic remarks about magic, plenty that I felt was me being as subtle as a sledgehammer to the face.

I didn't get as much magitech as I wanted in this chapter, but hey this is the faction with more tech and less magic.

Anyway the most important thing, for ask and ye shall receive. (I will not be updating this every chapter but I will think about what way to make it accessible and more updateable.

Aniisomeone:

1st Seat: Vafthrudnir in name as the highest ranking member. though cannot really order anyone above 4th seat.
Successfully fused himself with part of Diabolos core,
Likes to portray himself as a man in his early twenties who is enthusiastic and cynical about the direction of society. Fundamentally disappointed with how the current rosters rates up to the previous one. Was equally disappointed with the old roster for not being fully obedient and allowing him to do whatever he wanted.
Is absolutely aware of the irony of those two statements.

2nd seat: Jorumgandr the Dragon. The strongest member of the Cult.
Both in the sense of being Vafthrudnirs close confidante and ally and being a literal dragon.
Currently declared to be sleeping at the bottom of the ocean, that they may only awaken him in times of crisis. Almost certainly not actually sleeping.
Probably not at the bottom of the ocean either.

3rd Seat: unmentioned so far
4th Seat: unmentioned so far

5th Seat: Fenrir (Dead and not yet replaced.)

6th Seat: Hrungnir
More than two meters tall, a Lion Therianthrope who runs of martial heroics and discipline.
Cult member in charge of Vegalta, although not actually taking the role of Emperor. Which places it as the Rome expy.
Unlike Fenrir he is all for training his subordinates to be a decent fighting force on their own, and to back him up in larger fights. Likes to play the role of a father to his men for the military and considers Vegalta a reflection of his own greatness.
Possibly could beat Fenrir in a fight. Vegalta certainly could beat Midgar if it came down to it. But handed over the Fifth position rather than fight Fenrir to the death over it because he fundamentally cares less about the exact number and didn't want the fight to the death it would entail.

7th Seat: Loki
Tends to like to portray himself as the wise elder, an old man watching down on the mortals. Kind and grandfatherly as the kind of person you should listen to.
But makes plenty of clones that look much younger and uses them to scout out and watch for dissent amongst the populace and considers people more like bugs than humans. That his experiment into raising cities in his image is like trying to build an ant farm and culling it whenever it goes wrong.
He is a vengeful God and knows it.
Rules the City State Alliance, both as a whole and via clones each individual state independently. This is
Orum: Headquarters of the Church where he mentors the Pope.
Laugos: The city of Science where he is not the dean, but is a member of faculty
Granzhelm: The trade hub of the world where he sits amongst the seats of the merchants guild.
Altena: A highly martialized society with a focus on military excellence and promotion based on skill at arms.

The point of it is to give a glimpse of a free thinking alliance where anyone is welcome, and freedom of movement enough that everyone can find a place to fit in.
Which belies the fact that it is a highly stratified society that Loki plays off against each other to give himself the chance to crush any dissent and runs it closer to a police state.

8th Seat: Hel
The bubbly red headed vampire mad scientist. Currently sitting things out in the lawless city, where she previously let the three factions fight as they please as long as it provided her with plenty of corpses to experiment on. The only member outside the main four to have her own immortality independent of Diabolos beads, she uses her allotment to make monsters out of corpses or whatever she can find.
Has less outright organisational backing then any of the trio above her had or even Mordred. But also is better beloved by the top four and figures if anything goes wrong she can sell them her research and move in with them to avoid the consequences of her actions.
Gets almost no harassment from the three higher than her because of it, and is pretty arrogant about that.
Only member who actually liked Fenrir, and treated his tendency to leave vast swathes of corpses out like love letters.
Was there to receive the train full of corpses when Cid wiped out Willow's troops, considers it a gift and a love letter all in one.

9th Seat (old): Mordred is very dead
9th Seat (New): Ymir (Freya)
Is being regenerated right now. Fatalistic and abused after being fused in the most painful way possible to a fragment of Diabolos. Freya is not happy, but she is loyal and doesn't want the world to end.

10th Seat: Petos (Father Fusk)
Loki's subordinate in the Church and holds a high rank amongst the Templars. Currently experimenting with trying to graft the flesh of members of the possessed onto uninfected subjects to grant them improved magic capacity among other things. Mostly working on orphans picked up by the Church.
One of the members who puts the Mortal in Immortal.

11th Seat (old): Nelson is very dead
11th Seat (New): Surtr (Olivier)
Currently working for Hel in the Lawless city, crushing vampires and trying to be upright and make the world a better place.
Working for Hel, which pretty much precludes making the world a better place.

12th Seat: Sir Gaunt (Lutheran Barnett)
Currently working for Vafthrudnir and a member of the Rounds who puts the Mortal in Immortal.