Prologue: Apocalypse

If Ray was given one wish, she would definitely ask for a world without world-ending prophecies. Actually, that wasn't true: she would wish for a world where she could sleep for more than five minutes without worrying about someone dying. There wasn't really a difference at the end of the day.

She sighed and called all four En spirits to her side. First, a gentle breeze began to tousle her hair: Wind. The playful touch normally made her smile. Not tonight. Sensing her distress, the small waft became a current that lifted her off the earth—where irises had begun to bloom. Flower was easy to miss if she didn't look. Just as she told Wind to release her the moon's glow went from bright to blinding. It was far from subtle, but Moon never bothered to be: the spirit would likely have screamed her doubts away if it had a voice. When her feet returned to the ground a dove perched on her shoulder. Bird had never really wanted anything other than eternal peace.

"Remind me why I haven't surrendered." Because, when she entertained the thought, it really did seem like it would have made her life much easier. Immediately, the four spirits became one and that being became her. Ray made the request so frequently that she knew exactly which memories to expect. The first scene was of Affectua City: her city. Glass buildings stretched to meet the sun and warm light glowed in every window. The tallest tower housed the Dueling Domain where Ray saw a younger, far naiver version of herself walk into the stadium for the first time. Then, that same battle played out before her eyes. No matter how many times she brought the memory up, it still felt so foreign to see people fighting with smiles on their faces. It was even stranger to see Duel Monsters still confined to their cards. She'd won, claimed some gaudy golden trophy, and practically danced her way home. It had been her first championship victory.

The next scene was a recap of the day Affectua fell. Time was supposed to heal wounds, but it hadn't bothered to touch this one. Once proud structures crumbled, the stench of burning flesh polluted the streets as corpses were dumped onto each other, vehicles were clawed apart, and roads turned to rubble. She stood uselessly in the middle of it all, not crying, not screaming, somehow not even injured, but still breaking. That was also the day the En came to her, but with so much damage done and so little experience with them she hadn't made much of a difference.

Then… Then there was Zarc. That was the name Ray knew him by at the time. She didn't remember their encounter well having emerged from it bloody and bruised, but the expressions he'd made were forever burned into the back of her mind. When she confronted him, he was manic with glee: so, so pleased with destruction all around him. Nothing about that had made sense. Wasn't he just another duelist? They'd fought before and while he'd been overeager at some points the man definitely hadn't been drunk on sadism. She sent Wind to bind him and demanded that he snap out of whatever stupor he was in. He changed. His bones bent and joints writhed under the strain of some unimaginable power and his skin shifted between something human and something not. Teeth—fangs—tore through his lips coating themselves in a fitting crimson. Pupils shrunk and expanded before forming slits and he screeched as his hands twisted into claws. Wind released him and slammed into her in its haste to escape what was now an utter abomination.

At some point, he'd begun to weep. In that moment, Ray knew everything she needed to. She knew they were connected in that they were destined to rip each other apart. She knew this fact had been decided the second they were both born. And above all of that she knew that nothing about this was intended to be fair. So she struck, with every intention of dismantling the monster that had done the same to her home, and with every intention of putting a pawn of fate out of its misery. "I've seen enough." Ray didn't need to see that battle. She'd be reliving it soon enough.

—————

To the universe's credit, she was able to spend three minutes drifting to the brink of sleep before someone came for her.

"I'm sorry to wake you Milady." Raine shifted from foot to foot and made a point of avoiding eye contact. She had joined Ray's forces less than one month ago and had yet to adjust. At her feet a Madolche monster, Cruffsant the dog, whined while looking between its master and Ray.

"It's fine. Have we lost any?" Ray had already shifted back into get role as a commander.

"No, but...," The young girl shivered. "Starve Venom and Dark Rebellion are here."

Wonderful. Simply wonderful.

—————

In the brief time before everything as she knew it was separated from itself, Ray made one wish. She asked for a world without destiny. Her wish was not granted. However, fate had been rewritten.