EPILOGUE
Dawn of Defeat: Next Prologue
On that day, Orario faced its longest night. The city burned, the gutters swelled with blood, and many stars were snuffed out.
Though it was impossible to know at the time, all this destruction and despair was only the beginning—the beginning of a nightmare that would later be termed the Seven Days of Death.
After plunging Orario into chaos, Erebus and his two companions turned and left, smiling as if playing a game as they planned the next stage in the city’s demise.
On that day, Orario faced its longest night…and its darkest dawn.
A slanted stone arm poked out of the rubble, all that remained of a ruined statue. It reached up toward the heavens, as if seeking rescue through the cloud-blocked sky.
No sunbreak announced the dawn. Dark clouds rose off the city like a funeral pyre, gathering overhead and blocking out the light.
But all who were left behind knew that this was no funeral. There was no time for peace or acceptance. They had lost family, friends, companions, husbands, and wives. Their loved ones, nothing more now than clouds of ash obscuring the sky.
Weary people sat on the ground, unable to lift their necks, wallowing in despair as night slowly turned to day.
“Hurry!” came a voice. “There are still survivors in there!!”
It was Shakti, leading the wounded members of Ganesha Familia in the rescue efforts. Many of the buildings were still burning, and as Asfi beat a path through the flames with her firefighting magic item, she was shocked by the sheer number of bodies she saw on the other side.
“We need a mage!” she screamed. “Can anyone help?!”
There were not nearly enough magic users available to deal with all the fires and wounded. The voice of Perseus sounded like the weeping of a helpless young girl—which, being only fifteen years of age, she was.
“Somebody give me a hand! There are people trapped under the rubble!”
“I’m surrounded by idiots! Someone get me a healer!”
“Anyone will do! Dian Cecht, Miach, it doesn’t matter! Just bring someone, quick!!”
Alize, Lyra, and Kaguya all cried out in petition, rage, and unmitigated desperation. The soot-covered girls of Astrea Familia were working restlessly to rescue whoever still needed rescuing.
“Anyone who needs healing, come this way!”
“Bring the medicine over here!”
They had erected a tent to serve as an emergency field hospital. Inside, Maryu, Noin, and the other group members were doing all they could to process the interminable line of wounded.
“Ugggh…Agh…”
“Hang in there! Stay with me!”
The animal girl, Neze, kneeled beside an injured young man, trying to stem his bleeding.
“Please…don’t die on me!”
Her words went unheard. Seconds later, the light left the boy’s eyes for good.
Neze broke down into tears. There was no time to mourn the lost, but still she mourned. For every life their justice saved, countless more slipped through their fingers.
Lyu walked alone, stupefied, taking in the anguished wails of her compatriots.
“.….…. ”
The city was a smoldering ruin, cloaked in hollow silence. Lyu stepped through the rubble, gazing over the sea of lifeless strangers.
“…How many did we lose?”
The signs of death were everywhere she looked. The cruel scene scorched itself into her sky-blue eyes.
“…How many did they kill?!” she screamed.
She felt an agony like never before. An anger at her own powerlessness that slowly poisoned her heart.
“Lyu…” said Astrea, stepping forward to save the girl from herself.
“Lady Astrea…” Lyu replied. She thought for a moment, then asked the question that dominated her mind. “…What is justice?”
Her voice trembled. Her eyes moistened with tears. She looked to her goddess, hoping she could give an answer that would make all the uncertainty go away.
“Everything our justice bought…All the order we worked so hard to build…What good was it when it folds so easily to evil?”
“.….…. ”
Astrea did not answer. She cast her eyes downward, as if there was nothing she could point at to argue otherwise.
“What was it all for…? We couldn’t protect them…! We couldn’t save them…!”
Lyu wasn’t angry at her, or disappointed. She was seeing for the first time just how fragile and powerless her own justice had always been.
“Ardee…Ardee!!”
Before her goddess, she kneeled and cried out a name—the name of the friend whose smile she would never see again.
Her sobs echoed in the sea of rubble. A song of defeat, mixed with grief. A song of loss.
“Finn, wait!” cried Riveria, clutching her wound.
Displaced citizens flooded Central Park. Despite all the resources diverted there, there still wasn’t enough to keep up with the wounded and dying.
The prum answered without turning around.
“Go back and rest, Riveria. You’re still wounded. Healing the townsfolk is our top priority. We need you well.”
“It’s you I’m worried about!!” she said, running around to cut him off. “I know what you’re thinking. You mustn’t be hasty!”
Her face was covered in gauze, and her arm wrapped in a sling, but none of that stopped her.
“It’s too early to strike back; we know nothing! I understand time is of the essence, but you mustn’t let your feelings cloud your judgment!”
It was a desperate appeal. She was telling him—no, pleading with him—to change his decision.
“Which of us is letting our feelings cloud our judgment, Riveria? You know as well as I do that we haven’t the liberty to hesitate.”
The high elf clenched her fists. She wanted to answer—to say it wasn’t so—but she couldn’t. Finn was right, just like he always was.
“Right now we need to play all the cards we have,” he said. “Do you disagree?”
“Grh…!”
“It’s time for you to stop playing that girl’s mother.”
At those words, Riviera screwed her face up even more.
“But…she’s only a child!”
“A child who has more than proved her worth, against monster or man. She doesn’t need you to look after her.”
Then Finn started walking again, circling Riveria and continuing on. She no longer had any way to stop him.
“If the enemy keeps up their attacks like I’ve predicted,” he said, “we’ll need all the allies we can get—even her. You can hate me for it later.”
His words were cruel, cold, and calculating. The words of a tyrant, but also a master strategist. Finn pushed on toward the gates of Babel, to add a new piece to the board.
He found the girl he was looking for sitting on a step. Raul and the others were with her, keeping her occupied as though soothing a ferocious beast. Her fingers eagerly played with the hilt of the sheathed sword in her lap, as if waiting for a chance to unsheathe it.
“Are you ready, Aiz?” asked Finn.
The girl opened her eyes.
“…Yes.”
She stood, a fierce warrior in a young girl’s body, and took up her weapon.
“I will fight. Show me where to go.”
She spoke with nothing but a fierce determination.
And the clouds in the sky trembled and parted. A single golden shaft of light poured down from the heavens.
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