Year 5515...Day 60...Muspelheim...Central Eastern Region…

The march persisted for days and nights on end.

Fifty six people total marched through the barren landscape.

Rusty wind barred their path forward, a torrent of violent rock splitting force swept through the lifeless soil and left trenches and crevices in its wake.

The party huddled together, shields bared, a powerful silver coloured mist amassed all around them.

The outermost circle was formed of women clad head to toe in armour. Even their dresses, which were ankle length and wide as a bell, clacked with the sound of chain and plate.

The thirty of them held up steel tower shields as large as their own bodies to withstand the battering of the storm.

Behind them, in the second circle were twenty more women wearing armoured uniforms. They were not covered head to toe in bulky plate however, for they did not need it, in fact it may even be a detriment to them. The silver mist escaped their flesh and fabric, but steel would surely bar it.

That mist formed a dome of slowly rotating fog around them. When the rusty wind struck the dome, sparks scattered, but the dome endured.

Behind those twenty women stood four clad in uniforms, but they wore no armour to speak of. The silver mist congealed around their bodies, forming a solid structure, a suit of armour made of hardened mist sturdier than steel.

“Our luck’s pretty bad this time,” One of them grumbled as she peered out into the rust red storm.

“Shut up and pull your weight, you can complain about it afterwards!” Another said as she raised her arms, covered in gauntlets formed from the silver mist.

Their armour sparked, tethers of mist emerged to join with the dome, reinforcing it with a slight tinge of solidity.

The woman who’d just been told off scoffed, but then followed suit regardless.

She turned her head to see the two people who sat in the centre of the circle.

One was a young man covered head to toe in cloak and shroud. His hood waved in the wind as his empty gaze pierced into the storm.

The other was a girl clad in gold, her form akin to a regal princess, which truth be told she actually was.

The girl was meditating, her form, like water, was ever shifting. She must’ve sensed her gaze, because she opened her eyes and then looked the woman dead in the eye, which caused the woman to turn away.

The princess cared not, she glanced towards the boy before her, the only male among them, and then closed her eyes with a sigh.

That boy turned his head to gaze upon the backs of the women who surrounded him. He was short, small and fragile looking, comparable to the Bronze Class women, if not a little smaller still, nevermind the Silver Class behind them, or the four Gold Class, or the Platinum Class princess herself. He was almost...mortal, he almost did not seem to have any powers at all.

The Princess looked upon him through one only slightly open eye, she watched his dead gaze as he spied the raging heavens.

This had been their third storm, a substantial delay to their journey, but not an unexpected one. The boy had barely said a word since the passing of the last one.

He seemed lost in his own world, buried in his thoughts. Now however was not the time to ask him what was on his mind, far from it, she had to focus on keeping their little group alive.

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The storm subsided, the group continued on.

They walked down south for the remainder of the day.

The brilliant moon moved through the heavens, slowly but surely it began to darken the sky.

The Princess, Lucretia of Jupiter, paused her steps and then peered into the horizon. She turned her gaze upon the masses as they pitched their tents in the field behind her.

The boy, Rapture, sat beside the fire, poking it with a stick that he’d taken from the arid soil. Her gaze passed over him and shifted to the far distance, towards the rusty wind that was pushing further and further north.

The boy sensed her glance, then looked back towards her in return. Fog-like substance radiated from his flesh, same as the rest of them, but it was pitch black and eerie in colour.

Occasionally, dreadful illusions took shape within that aura, some which even she could not deny filled her with unease.

“We’re a ways off yet,” She said, “we’ll rest here, don’t worry, we’ll get there eventually.”

“That’s what you said a few days ago,” Rapture replied, his gaze now settling back upon the crackling fire.

Lucretia could not refute him, the distance to walk from Venus to Jupiter was not to be taken lightly, especially in these conditions.

She peered once more towards the raging storms that weren’t likely to let up any time soon. What else could she do but shrug.

She rose to her feet and then faced the gathering masses. Fifty four female soldiers, only from Venus City could one see a gathering like this.

She gave no orders, but her gaze alone told them what she wanted from them. They finished setting up their tents, then sat around the fire as the princess retired. The boy, Rapture, then heaved a sigh and turned away.

He rose to his feet, glanced long but only once towards Lucretia’s tent, and then he walked away toward his own.

His tent lay far removed from the rest, indeed it was distant enough to be called orbital from the campsite. Truth be told, he preferred it so, indeed none of them had forced it upon him and nor, indeed, did any of them mind it.

The women soldiers of Venus gave him his space away from them, for they knew he was in dire need of it.

The boy slumped down upon the beast skins, his head heavy with troubled memories. He closed his eyes and rolled onto his side. With an exhausted sigh, he tried once again to fall asleep that night.

However, the sad truth of it was that every time he closed his eyes, every single time, he’d find himself back in Venus City, back in the smoke and fire.

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The boy sighed and stared at the sky. Yet another sleepless night.

He crept outside in the early hours. The women on watch noticed him swiftly, the Ash of all six of swept over him to grasp his movements in the dark.

He did not let it bother him, however, and they too did not seem too concerned by his behaviour. He casually strolled forward and approached the sentry that sat closest to his corner of the camp.

“Going for a walk?” She asked him. The boy faced her and nodded, then she looked at him with pity. From what she knew, he did this quite frequently, every night he couldn’t sleep would be spent wandering the terrain around their current camp. “Don’t forget to come back by daybreak,” She said, “And don’t stray too far.”

“Yes,” He said with a nod as he lifelessly passed her by. The woman took in his lost countenance with solemnity, and then looked up to face the pitch black sky as if to pray.

The moon blocked the sun, forming what could only be seen as a ring of fire in the darkened heavens. Truly it was an ominous sight, but nothing new to the children of this world.

She remembered; they all lost something when Venus fell, all of them, yet only he, only Rapture, remained inconsolable.

Nobody blamed him really, he was still young, still unworldly, but the world had no mercy.

She returned her gaze upon the field and looked for the spot where mere moments ago the young boy had been standing.

He was gone, and all she could do was sit in silence.