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  Chapter 2

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  Westland, The Land Of Steel.

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  The first thing Tiamat noticed when she crawled to the surface was the sky. Staring at the crimson stained mass of roiling clouds oozing with fell magic and the taint of something utterly alien, she could only sigh. She had wanted to see the sky for the first time, and it seems this grim apocalyptic future had robbed even that from her.

  Her long ascent to the surface had been sufficient time enough for Tiamat to contemplate her inherited memories and the nature of her existence. Actually sitting down and taking some time to sit down, think and experiment a bit had revealed some interesting details.

  It was one thing to intellectually 'remember' knowledge and information from her past lives, but none of the 'experience' of doing those things had actually carried over. For all intents and purposes, she was a newborn who had been born with the knowledge, the certainty that the sky was blue, the grass green, but without any first-hand experience of what any of that actually meant. It was moments like these; when she stared up at the crimson sky and seeing naught but ash, blood and the vapors of forgotten dreams, when her heart was filled with such profound longing for something that she had never seen, that Tiamat remembered that much like the original, she too was built from scratch to enact the will on the planet, and not the girl from her memories. She was not the original Tiamat, who loved everyone and everything indiscriminately, only to be met with betrayal at the hands of her own children. Nor was she the little magus who wasted her life away futilely attempting to ensure that her parent's sacrifice was not in vain, only to amount to nothing in the end; merely another newly established magus lineage extinguished in its infancy, like so many more before her.

  She was the Ark, Tiamat II, and she had never seen the clear blue sky. And she knew, instinctively, and with certainty, that she would not be able to pass through. The magic woven into the diffused alien blood that permeated the cloud sky would not permit it. She glared at the barrier that had stolen her inheritance, her future, and even her purpose from her, and decided that it needed to go.

  Tiamat amassed all the ether her still growing form could generate at that moment, and pushed it to her eyes - eyes that were a reflection of what the inner sea of the planet used to be.

  A black beam of ether, concentrated with enough energy to level a city, and enough mystery and myth behind it to erase all resistance, met the bloody sky, and… did absolutely nothing. The beam of energy passed through unobstructed, but not in the way it should have. The sheer force and thermal energy behind the attack should have scattered all cloud cover for quite a distance. But instead, the crimson clouds near the entry point simply swirled a bit faster, but otherwise remained undisturbed. It acted more like a liquid than anything else, letting some things through, but filling back in just as quickly.

  Ironic, that she whose origin was that of a sea goddess was prevented from leaving the atmosphere by a sea in the sky.

  "I need more information." Tiamat sighed.

  Tiamat set both her feet on the ground, and started to walk. It was odd, walking that is. She by design, was not a creature meant to survive on land - her intended destiny was always linked to the sea; Tiamat, when matured, was to be the nexus from which the primordial sea that birthed all life would emerge. Being on land as an embodiment of the sea weakened her. Severely. She could technically get around that by limitation burning ether to levitate over it instead, but some part of Tiamat, the human part, said 'fuck that noise, I'ma walk'.

  And so she did.

  Tiamat walked through the desolate landscape of what had once been a flourishing civilization. She walked atop barren soil and rusted metal that lay scattered in great heaps that stretched to the horizon, the eerie blood sky painting both red in a depressing reflection of itself. But the most unnerving part of it all was the sheer stillness of it. There was no life to be found here, not even under the great damp heaps of layered detritus that should have revealed something - tiny ecosystems of insects or scuttling cockroaches, anything. But the only thing she found while she rummaged through this land of steel was only more steel.

  Occasionally, she would spot the dead remains of some creature, but it was all wrong. Once, she had found the corpse of a man wearing a futuristic military-adjacent outfit. It was clear from the blisters on his skin, the ground down look on his body and the bleached colors of his clothes that he had been exposed to the elements for a long time, but there was not even a hint of decomposition to be found. His corpse almost perfectly preserved.

  It unnerved her.

  There was no life, no natural cycle, no movement, only death and ruin.

  Tiamat started to hyperventilate as the reality of her situation closed in on her. She didn't want to be here anymore. She wanted to - she needed to leave! But how?

  How?

  And then she felt it, in the distance. Mana. No, Ether. No, that wasn't it either, it was the same corrupted poisonous ether that permeated the air - Grain, but concentrated and more importantly, active. And when she looked in the direction of the surge, she saw it - an aircraft!

  Despite the sheer distance that separated them, her eyes were able to focus on the distant aircraft that looked like the futuristic equivalent of an airdrop plane. How did she know this? Because the hatch at the back began to open, and someone fucking jumped off.

  It was not the controlled descent of a parachuter or a glider, but the supersonic explosive linear movement of an individual who could have only achieved the feat with some seriously impressive super-human physicality.

  The person landed a couple dozen meters in front of her in what seemed an instant, throwing up dust and debris in a massive explosion of displaced air. When the impact cloud cleared, it revealed a man wearing sleek black armor adorned with carefully placed spikes worn over a grey coat and a skirt-like attachment. He also wore a black helmet vaguely reminiscent of those power ranger costumes from Japan but far more… grounded in reality.

  The man stared at her for a long time, and then slumped. He held a hand up to his helmet, presumably to his ear as she heard voices coming from it - in English, thankfully. He had a vaguely American accent but it was too mixed to tell for sure.

  This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

  "No, it wasn't an Aristotles, Rey. It hasn't breached the cloud barrier yet, thankfully." He reported, and her heart nearly stopped at the blase tone he used to refer to the fact that a world ending threat was ACTIVE and was just… ROAMING AROUND? What in the actual fuck was wrong with this future? she had nearly gone down to the ground and became a fucking doomsday prepper when she had read a report of one twitching in its sleep!

  "No, it wasn't sabotage either. It's just an A-Ray child messing around." The voices on the other end started arguing with each, and he laughed, his tone slightly self-depreciating. "Yeah, she's packing some serious heat with that energy output but hey, you know how it is. I was born a freak of nature too, even if I'm useless compared to the others."

  "Hm?" He turned to her when the voices asked a question. "Oh yeah, she's not hostile, just unwise." Did this guy just call her stupid? "And quite confused as well."

  Another question from the comms device. "Ah, I'm not sure. She has horns, really long blue hair and a tail. Freaky mystic eyes too, but she doesn't look like any clan we know of. But then again, they've been experimenting with creating new bloodlines the entire time, so who can tell? Maybe it's a new one. I'll ask."

  The man showed his arms and approached her like one would a rabid animal, and crouched down to meet her at eye level.

  "Hey kiddo! I know it might be rude to ask considering they're not here, but do you know if your mommy and daddy are alive? Do you even have them? I'm sorry but I think there was an A-ray species that grew like a fungus." The comms screamed at him. "Hey! I don't know how to talk to kids alright? It's been years since I've last seen one, cut me a break!"

  It was at this point that Tiamat realized that she was talking to an idiot.

  "I'm fairly sure that's not how you're supposed to talk to people in general. I'm also sure I am older than you, even if most of that time was spent sleeping" She replied blandly.

  "As for what I am, I'm not quite sure. You can probably classify me as a Sub-bell or a Great-Mother fairy, but I'm not really an elemental. I think. My origin predates the classification." And while she did have a lot of similarities to the original, like the fact that she was technically a goddess, it was best to keep those things under wraps for now.

  The man froze, suddenly looking nervous as his communication device practically exploded as voices started shouting at each other.

  "Ah. Elementals were what they called the original A-rays, yes?" He said, sounding resigned. "Would you happen to be some ancient newly awakened relic of a bygone era?"

  Tiamat smirked. "Indeed, though you seem to have experience with those."

  The Super-Sentai wannabe shuddered, and Tiamat could almost feel the grimace.

  "You could say that." And then he added, voice low. "And just when I thought we were done with those, too. Oh well." The man had an intimidatingly lukewarm reaction to learning he was in front of the closest equivalent to a living god. The hell?

  He then turned to her. "Ah I forgot, what should I call you?"

  "Isn't it rude to ask for a name without introducing yourself?" She asked.

  "Aha! I knew I was missing something!" The man beamed and took off his helmet. He was… younger than she had initially estimated. Vaguely Asian, but not quite. Late teens or early twenties at most. He had a rugged look to him but his youth clearly shone through.

  He then struck a pose, hands to one side similar to a dab, but with legs held one in front of another. Then he struck a different pose… and proceeded to cycle through a few more. Tiamat watched the entire spectacle in baffled silence as he finished and then posed. Again. Dramatically.

  "Young lady, you stand before Ado Edem, defender of humanity, and the Ether Liner with the coolest knight arm you'll ever meet! Come with me, and maybe you'll even get to see it."

  Ah. Was this the future equivalent of luring a child into a black van(plane) with the promise of candy? She had no idea what a knight arm was, though from the context it was probably a well renowned mystic code of this era if the common populace were excited to see it as he implied. The fact that the moonlit world was common knowledge also baffled her, but she supposed the proverbial rabbit has long since left the bag and enacted a massacre ala Caerbannog with the blood sky and a fucking Ultimate One stalking the land.

  A voice in the comms made a comment, and Ado Edem gasped dramatically. "You take that back, my Slash Emperor is not oversized and unwieldy! It's perfect just the way it is!"

  Tiamat smirked, eyes full of amusement. "I'm going to overlook that you offered to show me your massive sword-" she drawled the last part almost seductively "-but I'll need to get back in contact with civilization, so I'll come with you regardless."

  The man shuddered in revulsion, and chopped her head with his hand.

  It hurt.

  It wasn't even that he did it, How was it even possible that could he hurt her so casually? Tiamat could tank a nuke - literally - and walk it off without a scratch as she was now. What the hell were they feeding this guy and where could she get some? "Do not take that tone of voice when you look like jailbait, woman. That's just plain creepy. Please don't do it in front of anybody - I'm already in hot water with collateral damage as is, and I don't want to deal with any allegations."

  "No promises."

  "Oi!"

  "Whatever. You can just call me Tiamat. But in any case, where are we currently? From your accent, somewhere in America?"

  Ado Edem rubbed his chin with interest. He also didn't react to her name, clearly not recognizing it. It was obvious that these people lost far more than just their planet.

  "America eh, the old term for the Westlands? You really are old."

  'This kid…' Tiamat's eye twitched. She would get back at him for that.

  But then she realized what he said and blinked at him slowly. "What kind of stupid name is 'the Westlands'?" She asked.

  He shrugged. "Hey, don't ask me! Most nations collapsed after the Grain contamination spread and the great war that followed it. This was where the western colony was established, so it's called the Westlands."

  "Fair enough." She sighed.

  "Ah, cheer up! The colony is nice! Way better than the European one. We even have actual synthetic meat here. We also have the last authentic burger joint on Earth, if you can believe it!" He laughed.

  Ah. She truly was in hell…

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