Homeworld Visit: 6th October 2021
In the end death comes to all things. It is one of the most finite and inevitable elements within the known universe, and even within divine spheres there is an ending. Yet for many on earth, that finite and one true path has always caused anxiety and fear. The thought of time wasted, time lost, and of all those 'things' that had not yet been experienced or achieved. To feel this anxiety, to feel this terror as one stood at deaths door was completely normal. To come face to face with one's end and meet it was courage was not necessarily something that each human could do.
...To fear, was to be human.
Even though he knew that life began again after centuries or millennia in the cauldron, that still didn't settle his nerves. Those perfectly normal and expected doubts, the trepidation, each tumultuous emotion kept him company as he strode through the petrified wasteland. He knew what he had to do, understood why it needed to be done, and even as his gaze fluttered across the sickly black tar that wove through the piles of dust, he hesitated.
This was a thing that his own kind had been unable to stop. It had posed such a risk to their allied nations that they had given themselves to hold it back. The life that had pulsed through the planet wavered, and with every step the vaguest sense of familiarity. He had lived through this before, he could remember the shrieks, the howls of pain as each of his kin had held the line and been consumed. Nevertheless they had held, and in doing so they had given those in the very depths of the warrens and farthest reaches of the planet time.
Every gate.
Every ship.
Every semblance of a means to escape this world had been not only shut down, but destroyed.
They had made a promise to their allies, even those who had forgotten them, that they would always ensure they were safe. In the midst of battle they would hold the line, where the vulnerable lay, they would stand as their shield. In the face of an insurmountable 'monster', one that their own blades couldn't fell, they would see its progress halted. An oath that those outside the Hive often scoffed at, expressed their doubts, and firmly believed that any and all species would always seek to preserve themselves... and yet.
He paused, turning his gaze to look at the monolith. Each now cracked, ruptured and sparking with putrid lightning. The world was in pain just as it had been so long ago and instead of the thousands that had fought then to preserve the life of their allies, it was just him. He could be forgiven his doubts as he returned his attention to the looming archway of the pyramid. They had managed to halt this entities progress, bringing it's onslaught to an end on their planet and he had assumed they hoped that this would be where it met its final resting place. Alas, in the grand scheme of things, it shouldn't have come at any surprise that such creatures (whatever they may be) were not so easily destroyed.
It had hungered and then it had slept.
He had been born, he had extended his hand towards his world and it had flourished.
And then it had woken.
He knew at his very core that this was not what they had wanted and even as his powers waned and the planet struggled for its last breath, he knew that he had to make it right. After all, if he didn't manage to bring it to heel then everything they had fought for, and everything that he fought for, might well be lost. No, even as his stomach roiled, he knew that the entity that had sought to consume everything in its path needed to be cut down. If he were to fail here then there was nothing to stop it from finding its way off this planet once more... There was nothing to stop it sniffing out those planets that had begun to thrive as each senshi returned.
"Now or never," he uttered softly, sliding down the now clay filled slope towards the entrance to the structure.
With only the click of his sandals for company his lonely walk towards his inevitable end was a lonely one indeed but in the end, necessary.
*****
Within the Pyramid a faint light greeted him, the flickering gems that Voyager had managed to activate in his brief time here. Though they scarcely lit up the walls it was enough for the man to follow and provided him with much needed guidance as he descended into the depths of the Hive's spindled warrens.
Echoes replaced muffled thumps, rippling across the chasm that lay between the terraced stairwells. He had never quite come to understand what once lay in the middle, no flash back had ever sought to provide him with that detail, yet even now he wondered.
...Perhaps it was for the war steeds he had once seen?
While largely irrelevant now, the musings provided a much needed distraction as he proceeded far further than he had ever been before. Though in halls unchartered, it was a place that he knew he needed to be, a place he had seen only in dreams. If he was to believe what he had seen, then at the very bottom of this pit he would find his quarry and it would be there that he bade his final farewells and threw himself into the maw.
It was for the best.
He understood that, deep down he did, but a selfish part of him couldn't help but wonder if perhaps he could have been like the others. Other senshi had called for help, others had assisted them in their endeavours and won. However, having witnessed one such battle, Athalia had to acknowledged that they hadn't been assaulted by something that disintegrated anything it touched. Selfish as his desire might have been, this world and its monster were no place for another to play hero and he would have never forgiven himself if they had fallen by its influence.
They had their duties, he had his, he could only hope that eventually they were grow into themselves and find a means to destroy chaos even if he couldn't be there. After all, until the time they found a means to act as one, they would always be at a disadvantage...
He continued to wander downwards for a few more hours, jaw set and eyes forward until at last he seemed to reach the last stair. It was here that the light left him, and though the faintest of flickers did manage to illuminate a hallway before him, there was nothing to guide him through it.
A deep breath, and he stepped forward.
*****
None but the most trusted of warriors may pass.
A sliver of a memory, a flash of himself as he lifted his hand to press his palm against the seemingly solid wall at the end of the hall.
My Primus.
A clunk and a shudder, his presence enough to activate the mechanisms hidden somewhere nearby. A wall once solid cracking to display spirals, a brief flash of light, and then they rotated away to press against the walls. What little energy left now solely there to power the larger glowing rocks that lay at each cardinal direction within the room.
Our heart.
In the centre of the room he saw it, a withered tree and in its depths the faintest of lights. Though the walls had long been petrified around it, a magic held the toxic influence of the entity at bay. Perhaps it was the will of those who had gone before him, their one last desperate act, all magic gathered into one spot to shield the singular 'voice' that lay within. He didn't know what it was but given the efforts that had been made to protect it he could only assume that it was sacred.
...And the blackened mass stirring above it was poised to launch its final assault.
What fear he had once settled, a strange sense of acceptance and understanding washing over him as his eyes rested on the entity that writhed above him, tendrils extended towards the battered tree. There was something special within that tree, something that it wanted, and so long as it didn't get it then it would always stay here.
If he had to ensure that it never left then that was what he would do. If he had to shackle the beast to him so that it might never reach out to threaten those he loved and all they had worked so hard for, then that was precisely what he would do.
"Our allies may be the sword, the healer, or the art that brings joy in life... But we are their shield."
You sought to harm them?
"Then you go through me," Athalia growled in a tone most feral, fists crashing together as he ran forward towards the beast; a mirror image of a Primus long past. A enraged shriek echoed through the halls, cast up through the chasm for the long dead to hear.
Tendrils thrust forth, piercing through shimmering shields. Coiling around an entity that did not disintegrate at first touch.
A single and intense burst of light as the lone senshi called forth his power in a vision of what it ought to be.
A wall slammed shut as tendrils reached that which they hungered for, and the final 'wish' of another of the Hive as his Aegis coiled around the chamber; and the golden chains that his kin had prayed for swept out to shackle the beast within.
*****
None would walk out of that hall in the days that followed.
Or the weeks.
Or even the months.
But amidst the battle of wills that small light sheltered beneath the roots of the withered tree flared, pulsed and sang…
Word Count: 1,674
