Mai sucked in air as her consciousness. Cold tainted air filled her lungs and she hacked as she pushed herself onto her hands and knees. She had been faced down on the cold stone, rough stone, by the feel of it, though she was too occupied by the drastic fall in air quality as tears began to well in her eyes. It took it several seconds for her to recompose herself as the stink of many things burning greeted her, along with the faintness of death.

With the coughing under control, Mai sat back on her heels. Before her, a massive gothic cathedral loomed over her. Its massive stone architecture was lined with zigzagging black lines pulsed with an all too familiar black aura.

“Miasma…” Mai sighed as she caught her breath.

High up, the blue sky was dotted with white clouds and floating chunks of rocks. Some were just large rocks, but others seemed to be entire portions of some foreign city with tall towers on it. They floated in place with the only movement being up and down as more of the black lines wrapped themselves around them. To her sides… There was nothing by empty blue sky. The black stone ended almost two hundred feet away on either side of her, with more of the lines. She now saw that there was a long inground planter behind her. It was lined with beautiful pink flower trees that were almost heavenly in appearance. Most of the trees also floated in the distance, attached to most floating black surface chunks.

Behind her, the floor ended about ten feet away, on the other side of the planter and she froze... Its contents were unimportant as she saw more foreign buildings that floated on even more chunks of rocks. But that was not what stilled her. No, it was the massive miasma storm that seemed to brew off in the distance like a tsunami. Purple lightning illuminated the many different shapes in the clouds and… She felt fear.

She’d seen that kind of storm a few times when Morrigan brought her to patrol the coast of the Blighted Lands, or more known as the Demon Realm. Despite what most people thought, there was actually a large swath of coast between the No man’s land and the Sun Kingdom. Many incursions to set up bases on that coast were quickly annihilated by the sheer amount of demons that resided within that Demon Realm, thus, it was to only be patrolled by sea.

On the day when the miasma gets too thick and begins to bleed over the mountains, it would brew a storm similar to this. But it was never this thick - this intense. Mai, for a moment, believed that she was seeing a vision of the future, that Morrigan and Haven failed to stop the Sun Kingdom and Hades won.

For several minutes, Mai watched in despair. But she then noticed that the storm never actually moved from its current encirclement. It was stalled.

“Okay… So… I’m safe for now…” Mai said as she collected herself. “There must be some sort of barrier up. So, for the moment, I need to figure out what’s going on…”

Mai got to her feet, still shook. She organized her thoughts, drafted an outline of a plan. The first point was to find someone. The second point was to figure out what the hell was going on. The third point was to try and get back to her realm. Or time. Or… World…?

She shook her head. Don’t panic… Panic leads to death. Think… What would Desmond do…

Mai cursed herself for bringing up that stupid human and --- He was not stupid… He was amazing… Smart… And not a fanatic like her. She was the first one to admit she placed too much faith in her magic and physical power rather than her intelligence. Desmond was not a strong man or kingdom-crushing stunner. He was of average strength and average looks, but… Damn… Was that boy smart. And somehow, that made Mai smitten with him to the point she’d look to him for when she needed help…

“Desmond is just a human…” Mai grumbled. “He can’t help you here, you stupid guild. Remember your training and--”

“Who are you…?” A child-like voice interrupted Mai.

Mai nearly jumped out of her skin, but caught herself and spun around. She had not sensed anyone sneaking up behind her. The figure behind her turned out to actually be human child. Female, black hair, pale skin, and --- It was not human…

Two deep golden cat eyes stared up at her with the curiosity that befitted a child their age. However, there was a small sliver of energy that radiated from her. And just that was enough to make Mai’s tail fur stand on end. It felt… Mai felt a purer divinity than she had felt from Morrigan when she shifted into her true form… And it also reeked of demon, but not in a repulsive way - no to be more accurate, there was death in that energy.

“I’m Avery, what’s your name?” Avery said

“I am Mai of the Autumn Tribe,” Mai said as she examined the child further.

She wore a simple fitted black dress and nothing else as far as she could tell. Even the dress was plain.

“Do you know where Morrigan is…?” Avery asked. “She said she would come soon to take me away from here…”

Mai’s heart ached a little at how the child deflated. “H-How long ago was this…?”

“I don’t know…” The girl said as she looked at her feet. “The sun never sets so I can’t count the days. And more of the garden floated away some time ago… So I can’t go play there anymore…”

“Oh…” That was the only response Mai could give to that.

“And Morrigan said I can’t play in the church. She said I’ll get scared, but she’d take me in there once she brought me back something I lost…” The child looked up to Mai. “Do you know what I lost? You have to know since you came here. Morrigan said no one can come here unless they have the know-how, so you must know what I lost.”

“Oh!” Mai began to piece together some sort of picture in her head now. Morrigan wanted me to bring the orb to our Goddess myself!

Avery saw her reaction and she began to get excited. “You know?”

“I do, litt-- I mean, My Lady.” Mai gave a sincere smile. She would fulfill her Master’s wishes. This opportunity had been given to her, and she would do her best to serve her Goddess as her priestess. Yes, this must have been what Lady Morrigan wanted… To finally live up to her title. “I had an amber orb I was supposed to bring, but I don’t know where ---”

Avery pointed to something above Mai. “You mean that?”

Mai looked up and saw that the orb was above, floating silently and undetectable. She nodded and pulled it down without effort. Mai then presented it to Avery and kneeled before her. “This is for you, My Lady. It is your Control Orb, lost to you many years ago.”

Avery took it without thought and held it. Her eyes grew wide and she became expressionless.

“Your servant Morrigan and I, her servant, had labored much to piece it back together,” Mai said. “It must be the reason you’ve been in this… Realm… For so long.”

But Avery never responded. Mai was about to ask what was wrong until she noticed that the light in Avery’s eyes had dimmed. Her pupils had become thing slits that stared into the orb as it tried to see something deeper within.

“Lady… Avery…?” Mai asked just as the piece of rock they were on began to rumble.

Thunder rocked the world around them, and dark clouds began to form overhead. The storm in the distance began to close in around them. The floating piece of what had apparently been attached to the lands around the church began to crawl with shadowy figures. Their voices were cryptic and scratched at her ears. At first, it was just a few, then tens, then hundreds.

“I’ve finally found you, my sweetest daughter.” A deep and menacing voice echoed around them. Mai looked around to try and find the disembodied voice but found nothing. She only ceased her fruitless attempts as a golden light began to illuminate the darkness that was filling the once bright area where they stood.

Avery began to dissolve into particles of golden light that slipped into the orb itself, and it was over within a few seconds. This left the orb to float where it’d been held as golden particles danced around it. With the light of the sun gone completely as the miasma storm swallowed the nearby rocks, and the storm clouds overhead, only the golden light of the orb illuminated the area around them.

“Dammit!” Mai cursed as she tried to take the orb. It refused to be held and instead, floated away at a speed that made Mai have to sprint after it.

It flew towards the church’s front entrance, blowing open the doors with an unseen force before it barreled through its lobby. Miasma began to spill in around the lands that’d once been illuminated by the flaring light of the orb. With the absence of light, the darkness consumed everything left behind. Trees aged years within a second and then died. Flowers wilted and the ground became barren. The black floor lightened and cracked. All things it touched died.

Silvery light flared within the darkness and the ground shook violently as if something had touched down. Two glowing red orbs opened up in the heart of the darkness behind Mai as a large and imposing humanoid figure began to drift out of the rolling miasma that chased after the light.

Mai no longer looked back, and only focused on keeping up with the orb that was now disappearing into the belly of the building. She scrambled through the once grand and luxurious lobby, now filled with black roots that pulsed quickly as broken furniture and bits of the building itself began to float up towards the roof. Even the doors to the inner sanctum were slowly being ripped from its hinges. She barreled through the entrance just as the light faded from the lobby and a black blade with glowing red streaks crashed down just before the inner doors.

“I must thank you, foolish little puppy.” The voice said. “Because of you, I was able to find my daughter much. If you had not come here, it would have taken me several more centuries to find this in the webs of the System. As thanks, I’ll give you the option to serve me, or have a quick, painless death.”

Mai did not waste her time with a response. There was no way after that she’d be stupid enough not to realize who the hell had just tried to strike her down. A response would just waste her energy, energy that needed to be directed to running towards the orb that now headed towards a vortex of white light that fought with the bitter cold darkness. It stopped just before the vortex where a semi-transparent plate appeared with writings on it just as Mai reached it.

Before she had the chance to look at it, the air began to heat up as orange light poured in from above.

“Edward!” Morrigan’s voice came out deeper and larger than before. Mai looked up and saw that she was now in her true form, that of a large red dragon with silvery eyes that glared down as a halo of fire hovered over her head. “Leave this realm, or I will fight you to the death!”

Edward laughed as if the notion was like a child threatening him. “We both know you cannot kill me, Morrigan. You’ll only be delaying the inevitable. I do find it rather amusing that you do not care for the little puppy that led me here, though.”

“You leave her out of this! She is unimportant right now!” Morrigan growled as swooped in, large claws extended.

“Do you hear that, little puppy? You were just a pawn to this pathetic rogue servant of mine!” Edward said as he caught Morrigan’s claw and slammed her down into the left side of the building. The wall crumbled and was sucked away into the twisting miasma storm. Morrigan morphed into her human form as a silvery outline protected her from the miasma.

“Shut up,” Morrigan roared as she flung herself at Hades and evaded another grab. She twisted midair and landed a kick to the right side of his head and sent him flying out the hole that had just been made in the building. “Don’t touch anything, Mai! You weren’t supposed to end up here! It was my oversight, I didn’t expect you to have such an affinity with the divine.”

Mai wanted to ask what she meant by that, but the conversation was cut short as Hade’s laughter echoed and a black and red sword pierced the air. Morrigan barely avoided it as Hades appeared next to her in the blink of an eye. He threw a punch to his gut and missed. Morrigan had proved to be far more agile than he had assumed, and twisted around it using the momentum of her last dodge. She then sent three punches to his chest that connected, though only served to push him back a few steps.

Hades let out a menacing growl that Mai took that he had not expected her to be… Powerful? Difficult? She did not know as their fight shook the very building around them. Each hit sent out a concussive blast that kicked up dust as both the figures were encased in their own silvery light. Though, Hades’ light had a visual corruption to it. Black waves danced over it, and it was duller than the brilliant silver of Morrigan.

Mai looked around for something that could help. Anything at all, and that was when her eyes came over the display above the orb.

[[ Release subject (Avery Bailey) from Memory Pantheon Actualization Stasis?]]

Just below it was a yes or no.

“Master!” Mai called out. “The orb is asking to release the Goddess!”

“Don’t Touch it!” “Don’t touch it!” Both the demi-gods said at once as they separated from each other for a moment, then went for each other’s throat at the same time.

Their attacks collided with each other and caused another wave that nearly swept Mai off her feet. She managed to hang on for dear life by using a Pillar cantrip that pushed up a stone pillar between her and them. The building around them was not as fortunate as it ripped more of the building apart to the point that it began to collapse. Rather than falling down, it fell outward into the storm.

Miasma swirled counter to the egg-shaped vortex of light. The air became charged as the light clashed with the miasma head-on. And with the building around them gone with only the foundation and feet high Wall remnants as a perfect circle encapsulated them. Even the air began to stir in two different directions as both powers fought for supremacy.

As if things could not have gotten worst, another silvery light appeared beyond Morrigan and Hades. Neither of the two reacted as now they wielded silvery swords and threw different offensive spells at each other. Morrigan’s spells burn the miasma away while Hades’ spells seemed to harness the miasma itself. With this stalemate, Mai thought that maybe a third contender would break it, though it was still a crisis in itself.

Mai clenched her jaw, spun, and slammed her hand down on the display. It fizzled out of existence and then the world was filled with golden light.

Then darkness once again…