Year 5515…Day 15...

Within the rust coloured wastelands the survivors marched on heavy steps. The disaster was behind them now, many days so. Crimson wind assaulted their vision, the weakest among them were weeded out. She fell to her knees, another face among the crowd. She faced the heavens, a tired young girl. She was of the Bronze Class, and but seventeen years old. The crowd marched on, only Mortuus glanced back at her.

Her eyes glazed over, facing the endless red. His power could heal her, but even though it was doing so she still did not rise. He sighed as he faced her. The girl’s unwillingness to move wasn’t an unfamiliar sight to him. There was no saving the unwilling. Thus it was that he turned to leave. The girl continued to stare off into space, then she collapsed. She lay on the ground unwilling to move as the scarlet windstorm covered her. She wasn’t the first but she was, ultimately, the last…

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The storm subsided and a lake came into view, the survivors settled down, now a solid sixth smaller in number. They had marched for days on end in the harsh environment of the Muspelheim Continent. They had not brought food, they had not brought water. This small place, this lake and the greenery around it, wasn’t some place they just coincidentally discovered either. There were signs of wooden walls ancient and rotted in the distance, signs of the Sanctuary this place once was.

Rapture stared at those walls, then the lake, it all brought back memories, memories of much happier times. This wasn’t his mom’s Sanctuary, it was much too small, much too old and withered. He turned his head as Venus’ soldiers marched upon a withered waystation. Tents and quilts were thrown to the floor.

“Fortunately we’ve enough to share,” One woman muttered as she counted their number.

“Only because so many of us-” another started to say, only to silence herself mid sentence. She and the others turned back, they looked towards the lakeside where their lady stood. She was not alone, many of their kin, be they men or women, now stood in the water washing off the colours of the crimson storm.

Alexander leaned against the tree behind her. He stared at her back in melancholy as her milky white back rose from the water. She pulled her hair over and started to comb her hands through it, scattering rusty particles into the lake. The woman walked over and glanced just once at Alexander. The man met her gaze, his eyes were warning her, telling her to be cautious, but he did not actually try to obstruct her in any way. She acknowledged his presence and then faced her new crowned master. “I want to go back...and look for survivors.”

Silence befell the people of the lake. Far off to the other side of the lake one man glanced her way as he leaned his back and elbows upon the soil behind him. His legs crossed in the water, his gaze pierced into their new master. Back there, in Venus’ ruins, he had lost both a wife and daughter, it was only natural that he’d want to go back. Before he could speak this desire however Rusalka calmly turned to face her husband and then asked him a question.

“Were there any survivors?” The silence returned in full and everyone turned to face the man laying his back against a tree. He, who could sense things they couldn’t, was the best judge of who had survived and who had died. Even Rusalka herself wondered if they had left anyone behind, Indeed it was a concern most human. Alexander sighed, he faced the masses with a frown. There before him lay a lake full of flowers, the most attractive women in the world, over a hundred of them in number, yet all he felt was sombre at how few of them survived.

“Don’t ask me that,” He said only this. Rusalka’s body trembled and her fingers stopped combing through her locks of hair. She bit her lip, her body language was enough to expose her emotions on the matter. The words she spoke were few but loud and clear.

“No one goes back.” Her command was met with silence, some of the people shot over a saddened glare. Not even six hundred survivors lay here.

Rapture beheld that scene from afar. He turned his solemn eyes away. Behind them, marching in the crimson storm, was a figure clad in writhing Ash. He frowned, a rumble resounded loud in the wind. Many figures soon burst into view, black fleshy masses emerged around the walls of the Sanctuary. They did not appear near the people, in fact they gave them a wide berth. Regardless the men and women in the lake were naturally alarmed, they leapt to their feet. One woman grabbed her clothes and complained about not catching a break as she zipped up her shirt and jumped free from the water.

Ash then permeated the air around them, slowly but surely they prepared for a fight. That Ash formed a white mist in their surroundings, whatever was coming would not be able to see them before they attacked. Then finally, they noticed something off. Alexander opened his eyes, it was the first time he moved since all of this began. He did not seem alarmed, only curious, and after a few moments he looked towards Ru, who was in the process of walking out of the lake and putting on a jacket to cover her body. She met his gaze and watched him shrug. He was too calm, even taking a moment to make himself more comfortable.

“We’re not in any danger?” She asked.

“I don’t think so, the person out there is familiar to me.”

“Who is it?”

“You’ll see,” Alexander said with a cheeky smile. Then came a second rumble, low and short, like a tremor in the earth caused by a cannon going off. After that a few figures fell from the sky one after another. They slammed into the water behind Rusalka just as she emerged. She turned her bare feet to face the lake as the displaced water settled. One by one a figure emerged, some weren’t conscious, others emerged gasping for breath. They were women mostly, yet three or five men lay among them. They were the fallen who had left them on the road, those who had given up on living and were left behind.

Rusalka’s pretty eyes opened wide in surprise, she couldn’t close her mouth from shock. She was not unhappy to see them, on the contrary she was in disbelief at the scene. Only then did Alexander raise his head. He looked at the walls of flesh which had thrown those people over. Those walls surrounded them, yet did nothing to actually close them in, if anything all they managed to do was keep out the crimson wind. Finally he rose to his feet before their eyes and turned to greet as a shadowed figure emerged from the wind. Clad head to toe in a hooded shroud, a male frame appeared before them.

Rusalka stepped forth, yet did not take one step past her husband just in case. The Ash in the Sanctuary boiled as the power of over two hundred Silver and Gold Class soldiers readied themselves for whatever action the man chose to take. The man paused his steps and then looked around at the people who now had him surrounded. He raised his hands, then lowered his hood, a familiar face then cast them a smile. Rusalka stopped and stared, her kin seemed unsure of whether or not to lower their blades. She peered towards her husband for confirmation of the man’s identity.

Platinum Class shapeshifters could always imitate a person’s form, but they could never copy the uniqueness of their Ash. Alexander faced her and then nodded, he had scanned the man with his Ash many times and though it did not feel normal, it even felt like two entities inhabiting the same vessel, it was Rudolph’s all the same. Rusalka’s eyes watered up, she turned to face the man as her people lowered their blades. He stepped forward, Rudolph, her mentor, her father, smiled back at her. She embraced him.