I wrote this piece as some kind of introduction to a notes x Fate crossover that I'd been pondering together with some other people. I doubt I will ever expand on the concept, so I'll just dump in here so I can pretend there was some point to me writing it.
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Fate2104
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The year turned 2104.
Humanity had long since ceased celebrating such occasions.
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Roaring hellfire burned across the streets. In an instant, the core of the city had vaporized.
There was tranquillity to be enjoyed in the epicenter of such destruction. The death had left no immediate suffering to disturb the freshly created landscape. A landscape of smoldering ruin.
Surely, on the border of this destruction, lamentation and clamoring could still be heard. But not in the center. All had already perished. It was in some sense, a beautiful view.
This was the 7th one. The final piece. The fabricated piece. A self-inflicted wound.
Without it, the circumstances would not line up in the manner required for the ritual. And so it had needed a cruel judgment.
In this place, where hope had long since perished, where every year past 1999 was an unsolicited overstay, only the cruel could persist.
The death count numbered 2,320,477 lives. Unlike 7, this number had no meaning. Their lives no longer bore any meaning. Yet their deaths would.
A wind blew across the infernal hellscape. The billowing smoke erupting from the carcass of the inner-city covered the skies. Thus, the skies were gray. Thus, the skies were red.
And beneath the wreckage, something stirred. Had it been any of the lifeforms that still inhabited the dying planet, then surely it would not have been able to survive the onslaught of death that had visited the place.
Once more, it stirred.
And then, the tranquillity broke.
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The fractured state of humanity had left its will without direction. It could no longer provide protection for its herd. Not because it was impotent to do so, but rather because it did not know who to protect.
Who to destroy.
But this was unprecedented. The threat was clear now. Though there was no evil to extinguish, no beast to slay, the order had to be upheld.
And so the records were consulted. And with it, they descended.
It was just as it had once been.
7 was the number needed. 7 was the number they heeded. 7 was the number that had been ceded. Onto destruction.
Once more, legends walked the earth. They who had until now declined the call to aid humanity in their last struggles, had finally found an effort worthy of their stature.
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The stirrings grew, and from within the wreckage a figure burst. It was not a man, or a beast, or a living being at all. It was the trappings of a machine, wrought in the shape of a man.
Its metal frame cried out in agony as humanity's last wishes flowed into it. It seemed as if neither the machine, or the ghosts, had wished for their union.
It was an agonizing scream, one never before heard on the planet’s surface. It was clear now. Even in these moments did the ugliness of humanity not relent.
Those who had cried out of help, for salvation in face of such inhumane destruction, would not have their wishes fulfilled. The reason for the destruction had indeed been simply this:
To enslave the last path humanity had remaining for their salvation.
It bent and conformed, the inner pumps and machinery being hastily re-assembled to accommodate and form into a proper vessel for the ghosts that now inhabited it.
Pain had to be created, for pain is what it felt. And so pain was made.
Yet it would never be a perfect replica of the heroes that struggled within its chassi. No body was meant to be inhabited by so many. Compromises between them had to be made.
And not only that, but machine could never be human. Ought never to be human. This was a necessary step in the creation of the warrior that was being forged in the hellish landscape.
There stood the hero of the sword, languishing in agony.
SERIAL NUMBER: 07
CLASSIFICATION: “SABER”
DESIGNATION: “KING OF KNIGHTS”
So read the inscriptions, having been carved there before the conjunction.
A slave once again subject to the wishes of a sole individual. A Servant bound to a Master.
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7 “HEROES” have been resurrected into a mold of steel and circuits.
The place they have arrived at is not merely the places of slaughter that their own crucibles represent. It is the land that has surpassed the year of the Prophecy.
The children of Earth have valiantly persisted past their destined expiration date. And so their mother looks on in worry, the wounds inflicted upon her those of her own offspring.
The poison released from her soon-to-be corpse is beginning to fill the air, slowly choking out the life that still remains.
And yet… yet they persist.
They persist in their wicked ways. Humanity has begun its fracture. What should have been their final nail in the coffin has turned into a newfound strength.
Grain, the very poison that harbings humanity’s ultimate demise, gave rise to A-RAYs, the so-called Hundred Subspecies. For humanity, they represent the future, and the end of their own.
In order to survive, Grain must be conquered.
The 7 “HEROES” were thus called forth. In order to oppose the creation of the A-RAYs first step towards domination, they fight back.
The Six Sisters have come, intent on leading a new Primate Species towards the domination of the dying husk that still remains.
This is a battle… to preserve what little future there is left.