For r/fanfiction's August 2019 Prompt Challenge.

Prompts (that I tried) to use: "key under the doormat", second-person POV, unreliable narrator, scent.

deep city.

A sickly, sweet scent lingers in the air when you return to Deep City after the death of the Porcelain Lady at the hands of the humans allied with your king. Deep City is abuzz with joy at the news that the infiltrator hiding among Armoroad's rank has been slain, the city coming to a halt to watch as the unofficial procession makes itself way through the sea of residents - including the ones that would not be able to pass as human at all.

The humans handle it adequately enough. Only the tall, blue-haired sailor boy trembles and keeps his head pointed towards the ground before the eyes upon them from every angle. The others carry on as they usually do - as if what they've accomplished is but another day's work. It's an attitude you acknowledge as respectable, yet, in spite of everything that has come to pass, you feel nothing.

The eldest of the group, a woman from a distant land specializing in an obscure combat style - ninpo, your memory banks quickly supply - gestures towards the Twinkling Tavern. If you were human, you may have felt an urge to sneer. Resting now, when they should be reporting to the king -

You pause upon a closer examination of the humans, their face and clothes covered in frost that has yet to melt and that disgusting, sweet grime characteristic of the Deep Ones.

The small hoplite girl, in particular, is in especially poor condition. Hair ribbons lost in the Porcelain Lady's brutish first attack, long silvery strands can only attempt to curtain the places where the girl's heavy armor caved beneath the monster's mindless wrath. The girl hadn't complained once on the trek back, even though you can immediately see how she's favoring her left leg over the other. Her face is impassive and dignified, as though she isn't using her broken polearm to hobble along.

Slayers of the Porcelain Lady these humans may be, you think, but in the end, they are humans - fragile and having lifespans that mean as much to you as those of insects do to them.

"Would you judge me for this?" the Porcelain Lady sneers. Her pale, pale skin becomes transparent as the glassy forest around them, and you see the humans shudder at what lies beneath that veneer of humanity. "Then try to slay me!"

As the humans get some much-needed rest, you linger, seeing as they are the ones responsible for reporting to king, and offhandedly tell Angie about this fragrance reminds you of fruit rotting in water.

The little innkeeper laughs at you, even though there is nothing to laugh at.

"Maybe you need a check-up," the girl says with a curious tilt of her head. "Your sensory data might need to be recalibrated after coming into contact with so many new stimuli in the Porcelain Forest."

You nod. It's a sensible course of action that merits no further thought, yet when you arrive at Celestial Palace, where the king waits patiently for news of success, you are overcome with this impulse, this urge, this… feeling to tell him such.

The King is not really looking at you, staring off into the distance in a way that you've never really seen him do before. He doesn't even so much as acknowledge that you've spoken, not even with the nods he had given the humans when they gave their report.

"You…" he says finally when the humans have finally taken their leave. "Olympia, you must be imagining things."

You look at him strangely. You were created entirely by the Great Tree - you cannot imagine things in the way the former human speaks of. Perhaps he retains vestiges of his human spirit when his consciousness was transferred to his body, but for you - you, Olympia - the king's eternal bodyguard, messenger, confidante, and right-hand man -

You were never human. There was nothing for the Great Tree to salvage when you were created.

You go in for the routine check-up, and the results come back negative. The sweet, watery scent still lingers, and the impulse to tear at your armored shell and rip out your artificial hair almost becomes reality. This defect displeases you immensely, but that is not a problem can be fixed by the average maintenance unit.

Instead, you demand the replacement of your sensory modules immediately, and had you not been the king's most prized soldier and servant, such irrational behavior would have been grounds for a complete memory wipe.

The other units hum nervously as they go about their work, eyes flitting over to you, lying on the operating as though you may reach up and suddenly tear one of their number to shreds.

As though it would be productive for a combat unit like yourself to spend precious energy on attacking units that don't even have the capacity to defend themselves.

In the end, nothing changes. You still detect that sickliness wherever you go.

While Deep City throws its first celebration in a long, long time over this decisive defeat against the Deep Ones, you do not join in on the celebration - not when you see the shifting of royal purple hair and cloak gliding in the dark towards the twirling pink lights of the Geomagnetic Pole. The king vanishes into nothingness, the sounds of festival behind you ringing so loudly.

You have been following from a safe distance, wary of being caught. The Geomagnetic Pole is cast in the light of Deep City, the light that you have turned your back to. You reach your hand out, slowly, hesitantly -

A forest of glassy trees and floors. Water and ice and flowers. A cloud of deep red, swirling like ink in the puddles of the Porcelain Forest - the final bastion of the monster who wears the guise of Armoroad's princess.

The shogun who called himself Kujura lies motionless and facedown in the water, and the Porcelain Lady screams with inhuman rage. The five humans ready for battle as her fragile legs shatter like glass, an incoherent mass of tentacles, claws and other appendages spilling forth to replace them. The humanity that she discarded is but a pearl against this hideous oyster that is her true form - one of the unholy followers of the Evil One whose ranks she joined for immortality.

You remember her gasp as her body dissolved like watery bubbles with the final blow struck, a single name on her lips -

You do not follow your king.

The King keeps doing this - wandering back to the very clearing where the Porcelain Lady lay dying at the hands of the five humans allied with Deep City. He goes, yet he voices that he does not know why. You don't know why.

You aren't capable of anger, but if you were human, you would be very angry indeed.

You order a few standard level combat units to escort with him as you are the only unit with the authority to wait for the human guild in his place. You almost shift into combat mode to gut the one that dared a question in response to your order. There is no logic to such a thing - the unit in question is neither a threat to you nor to the king.

When he comes back, you can't stand to be in his presence. Death and rot linger on him - and it's a smell that reminds you of the humans you led to their deaths in the Underwater Grotto, the fruits which spoiled in the Waterfall Woods. Worst of all, there's that faint reminder of water that seeps from every inch of his person, dripping from the seams of his artificial body like dew in the early hours of morning.

Only a week after the battle in the Porcelain Forest finds the human heroes shunned, if not chased out, by their peers in Armoroad.

"It's an unfortunate turn of events," the King sighs, his voice sympathetic to their plight. "I suppose it would be too much for the average human to understand that their princess was the enemy in their midst all along." His face goes completely blank at the word "princess".

You are unamused.

"At least, not for a while," the leader of the humans says solemnly, a princely young man with a regal air that could rival the King's .

"I don't think we're ever getting back our ship," the other male in the guild mumbles remorsefully - the buccaneer, you recall. "They'll… well, they'll definitely chase us out if we so much as set foot upon city grounds."

The King laughs. "You are exceptional humans. They are not in a position where they can stop you, even if they wanted to."

The humans exchange looks. Three of them grimace - the leader, the sailor, and the hoplite. The ninja and the zodiac's faces betray nothing whatsoever. Human emotions and politics are such an inconvenience.

"The King has a point," you agree. "What compels you to leave?"

The leader looks as though he wants to say something, but when his eyes fall on you, he stops and directs his gaze elsewhere. "...In a city mourning the loss of its princess, for we, as her killers, to walk freely among them - such a thought did not sit right with me."

Neither you nor the King is moved by this admission, and the human (yes, this slayer of the Porcelain Lady, the bane of the Deep Ones is merely human) almost cringes.

"To approach Lady Flowdia after we murdered her liege as if nothing happened..."

"That relic is old," you say without skipping a beat. Humans are pointlessly sentimental. "She does not have much longer to live."

At the corner of your field of sight, you see the King frown. He himself does not appear to notice.

You give the report of the guild's progress to the king, the humans making swift progress through the Cyclopean Haunt. You estimate that they will reach the depths where the Abyssal God is imprisoned within a month.

The king is not paying attention. You frown. He's looking at you, but his eyes (visual receptors, you tell yourself) are glazed like a human's would be. "Master, the guild is going to slay the Abyssal God soon."

"Yes," he sighs. "You're right, Olympia."

You have so many questions for what will happen to Deep City once the humans complete the mission that its residents (you included) had devoted their entire existence to (and had failed to do, you recall with dissatisfaction) but when Seyfried looks at you longingly, all of them vanish.

You are reminded of the bloody bubbles that were the Porcelain Lady's last words and feel ice cold, even though your sensors indicate no temperature anomalies.

Your king would grieve more for an enemy than he would you, you cannot help but think, resentful almost. He doesn't know what the Porcelain Lady used to be. You… You have a suspicion.

(She died human. No matter the atrocities she committed to extend her life, in the end, she, unlike you, had been -)

She let herself be used by the Deep Ones. She would have been their point of attack on Armoroad. Angie and the other residents are happy. The King ordered you and the humans to kill her. This was what he wanted.

You don't say anything else even as he looks as you like you're the solution to all his problems and leave, the sickly stench of the dying (human) Porcelain Lady haunting you all the way.

armoroad.

Your armored skeleton smells bittersweet when you wake up this morning, and you think of glassy water creeping into every crevice and fire that cleanses it out with ash and smoke.

Other than that, all is well. All your joints are in order as if they were brand new, though you don't recall having any of them replaced recently. You flex your metal fingers some unknown reason and pat at your outer armor once, twice as if you don't expect it to be there.

What an irrational train of thought. A check-up is in order.

As you leave, you come across a strange sight: a massive stream of residents moving at a crawl across streets, like a trail of ants, leading to -

To the incinerator, fueled by the magma of the Molten Caves below.

You reach over with a metal arm and effortlessly lift one resident by the neck, along with everything he's carrying, off the ground. The others give you a clear berth.

"It is not disposal day," you state. "If there were a rescheduling, why was I, of all units, not informed?"

The resident, one of the more human passing units, squirms beneath your grip. His facial expressions are perhaps among the best you've observed among the Deep City units, but aboveground, they would be barely passable. You don't understand why the Great Tree wastes time trying to improve that worthless trait over combat specs, especially when the remains of far too many yggdroids have their final resting place within the Abyssal Shrine.

"We are under orders from the Great Tree," he answers. The confidence in his voice against the tremble of his frail body almost makes you frown.

You give him a good shake, and his limbs noisy rattle against each other. "Why was I not informed of such orders?"

" ...Maybe the Great Tree did not give you them?"

He lets out a gasp as your grip around his neck threatens to take his head off. You almost do so, only pausing when you realize you can hear the way the Great Tree writhes in the dark, growing stronger yet.

Why? What could have been happened? You don't remember anything of that sort happening -

Your head turns towards the center of Deep City where the Great Tree serves as its heart, its mind, its womb.

The Abyssal God must be slain, the Great Tree says to you, a grieved whisper only you can hear. Five humans will come to you, Olympia. They are strong. They will be the ones to defeat the abomination which I have held back for millennia.

None of it makes sense, you want to say! How can five humans never heard of before this point do what the entirety of Deep City could not? The Abyssal Shrine is cluttered with the parts of fallen units which have failed to reach the teleporter to -

The teleporter is accessible now though, your memory bank supplies. The city's Geomagnetic Pole can take you to it.

You unceremoniously drop the resident and head for the Celestial Palace, the scent of burning following you. There you will stand as its eternal sentinel, as you have for centuries - quietly and dutifully carrying out the will of the Great Tree which created you.

"Angie, who are they?" you ask later that day. "The Great Tree speaks of humans that are somehow strong enough to defeat the Abyssal God. Five frail humans."

You don't anticipate the way the innkeeper shudders, shying away from you as though you will destroy her and leave her smoking remains. "Why are you asking me this?" she pleads, casting watery eyes that are almost human upon you. "Olympia, why? Why? You're not one to be so… so cruel."

You can't find it in you to say anything, not because you feel bad but because you have nothing to say. There is nothing to apologize for.

You turn around and take your leave. You hear something that sounds like glass chimes. What a peculiar thing -

Because yggdroids cannot cry.

Of the five fabled humans, only a little zodiac girl bothers to show up, a peculiar looking yggdroid unit obediently trailing behind her, much to your shock. No amount of armor and cloak can hide the familiar metals which the Great Tree uses to craft the body of countless soldiers, and while the human ear would not be able to hear it, you can detect the low whir of this fellow yggdroid's fans, keeping it cool beneath the cloak which hides its true nature.

"The others didn't feel comfortable showing up after what happened," the girl says matter-of-factly. She's looking at you in a way that you would classify as ravenous, in the way that the beasts of the labyrinth treat their countless human victims.

If you could sneer, you would. This puny human, thinking she is the hunter and not the hunted? The human is dwarfed by the machine-like wings which keep her afloat, and it's a surprise almost that she hasn't collapsed beneath the weight of the device on her left shoulder.

The hardness of metal and machinery does not change the fact that humans are so soft and easy to destroy.

"I don't know what you mean," you reply tensely. You care not for human sentimentality, but there is something that you're missing. It doesn't make sense.

You really need that check-up.

The girl scoffs. "I don't get them either. They're being sentimental and wasting time on things they can't ever fix. But pointless details aside, I'm here at the behest of the Porcelain Lady, who wishes to visit -"

"No," you say. There is no evidence, no basis for such a behavior. Why did you speak so suddenly?

"You didn't even hear me out."

"Unless the Porcelain Lady wishes to slay the Abyssal God herself," you find yourself saying almost aggressively, "I have no interest in whatever that sheltered girl demands of me."

Right, that girl is useless. She has no pertinence to the objective here. Forget about her. She means nothing to you. It is just preemptive measures.

The human raises an eyebrow, mockingly perhaps. "You seem angry."

"I am not capable of anger."

There's a look in the zodiac's eyes that you don't like, and she hums as though this whole affair is about as simple as cloud watching. She's so small, you think. So easy to kill with one accidental hit.

"Olympia," she says, drawing out the name in a way that sounds far too familiar for someone she's just met. "Do you believe in fate?"

"Humans ascribe such things to events because their brains are prone to making such flimsy connections and treating them as fact," you reply flatly.

The girl laughs, and it is a haunting thing. You don't understand.

"What do you think of this sword?" the girl asks suddenly. You then realize that the far most panel of the zodiac's wing is actually an enormous sword and -

A burning wreck hisses as it crumbles into the puddled forest floor, smoke and steam curling away from the body like blood in water.

You instinctively lash out, lunging straight at the small girl, every nerve of your being screaming out in anger. However, the yggdroid at her side blocks your blades with a shockingly solid arm of its own. Its armor unsettles you, the enormous clawed blade fanning out from its right arm even more so.

You gasp. Of the yggdroid models, you are certain that you are the single unit above the rest which the Great Tree has created. Yet this is…! This is far beyond your own specs. How could a human girl create something which surpasses that of the Great Tree?

Illogical, illogical! This can't be! But it was not made for you - the blade is meant for a bulkier, slower unit. There is no such unit, so how…?

The girl's eyes are cold, and you feel like you've seen them before.

"I told you that I'd be able to create one better than you," she says almost mockingly. A cruel smile makes its way across her face, her light purple hair (purple like yours, purple like - whose? who are you referring to?) curtaining across her face as her head tilts to one side.

You want to yell at her and tell her she's lying, but yet, yet…!

You meet the five humans the Great Tree speaks of -

The little zodiac with cruelty shining in those dull eyes, that husk she calls your superior looming over her minuscule form like the shadow of death.

The sailor who seems especially cowed in your presence. That a human would look at you so pitifully makes you want to snap him in half.

The young armored girl who glares at you and gives you the urge to tear at her twintails. The ugly scorch marks on her armor almost make you smile.

The cold older woman, dressed in the garb of the ninja, her face and posture betraying nothing. A neutral face - if not a little bit scowl.

You haven't met them, according to all records. You haven't. So why…?

The young princely man clad in armor is their leader. His pale blonde hair is inelegantly cut to a little above his shoulders, yet you can't help but think longer hair would suit him. He carries himself with a regal air that makes you think he'd be a better fit for the throne that goes empty in Celestial Palace.

You frown.

You have never sat in that throne before. It had never even crossed your mind.

You head into the Cyclopean Haunt to find the humans swarmed by monsters. You are disappointed: Is this all that the Great Tree's supposed champions can hope to achieve? You prepare to shift into battle mode, words of reprimand already at your mouth when the little zodiac girl speaks up.

"They're all weak to volt," she says. "CR-S01, standby for Uzurai."

The last word makes you frown. This nonsensical command should mean nothing to you, and yet -

The girl and that thing launch a combination volt attack which tears through the masses of monsters like the scythe of death, arcs of electricity cleaving through foes at random. You do nothing as the monsters plummet to the stratum floor like ashy shooting stars, the remains hungrily pulled by the mass of living tentacles which make up the entire stratum.

The scent of burnt flesh lingers in the air, yet beneath it is something worse, the reminder of a fire that is destruction incarnate, smothered by sickly sweet water -faint yet unbearable, creeping into every piece of your being.

The zodiac girl smiles at you. She means it to be cruel.

"Impressed?"

You don't understand what she wants. You don't want to give this human child what she wants. The nonresponse makes the human huffily blow at her bangs a little.

"I'm preparing fire and ice variants," she says conversationally. "Volt came the easiest."

She looks at you, eyes teasing you with knowledge she won't give you but will dangle in front of you because she can. There is no practicality behind such a thing, only her own amusement. How disgusting.

The rest of her guild do not speak up, though the buccaneer shoots her a rather appalled look.

"What?" the small girl says, voice dripping with too much sugar, especially for a little demon wearing human skin. "Do you want to have a go?"

You immediately understand that she means for you to be the participant and not the victim, but the thought angers you - if you were even capable of anger.

The girl notices this and smiles even more.

"You know who's stronger," she says as she's scolding a child. "Maybe fire would be fun."

We've never fought, you want to say. Even though there's something nagging at you about how the Great Tree's heroes must have come from above.

But then, they must have reached your trap -

The Abyssal God must be slain.

They must have made it past Ketos -

The Abyssal God must be slain.

This must not have been your first time seeing them -

The Abyssal God must be slain.

The Abyssal God must be slain.

true ending.

The king has left with his sister. They should be happy.

You stand alone in the Celestial Palace where your King would have stood, and all is quiet. All you have to do is wait for the human guild, give them orders, and note their progress. They have already proven themselves to be strong enough to topple the evil so close to both Armoroad and Deep City.

Deep City mourns its king. Though he has regained his memories of when he was human, Seyfried was still their king above all else - the man who gave up his humanity to craft himself into the champion against the Deep Ones.

Without him…

Without him…

What is Deep City?

What now?

You visit Armoroad, even though the Porcelain Lady's shogun squints at you suspiciously through your barely human disguise. A different cloak, your hair completely down, different headphones, different iris color -

"What are you here for?" he hisses, a hand immediately going for his katanas. He freezes, realizing what such action from the Porcelain Lady's retainer would imply before stiffly relaxing. "Some of the guards may still recognize you from your stunt in the Grotto."

You narrow your eyes at how quickly he has shifted from open hostility to a reserved carefulness that you suspect he only offers important allies. You hardly consider him the same, seeing as he could never match up to the five humans, though you suppose any human who can survive an encounter with you is worth some acknowledgment.

"If Flowdia told them what they needed to know, it would have been clear that what I did was under orders from my King," you reply drily. "Besides, decades of my crimes had gone unpunished before that guild outed me as the traitorous bringer of death. Your guards are hardly competent enough."

He glares at you but shoves you along to the Senatus, unceremoniously declaring you the Deep City's envoy as opposed to calling you by name. He may not be as awful as you remember your battle in the Abyssal Shrine, but he's still just another human. Evidence pointing to the fact that it was the guild and not he who brought this story closer to its end doesn't salvage your impression of him.

In the halls that remind you much of Deep City's, the old woman who stands at the head gasps when she sees you. "You," she rasps as though she has seen a ghost. "What are you-"

"I am - was - the King's most loyal soldier," you say flatly. Her stricken reaction is bizarre but hardly a threat. That answer does not get you the response you were expecting as the woman lets out a pained "Seyfried, Seyfried… my prince… my poor, poor prince..."

Wrinkled bony hands seize your own with a frail grip. You could throw her off if you really want, kill her with a hard enough swing to the head, but the humans would disapprove. That guild would disapprove. Your king would disapprove.

(Your king is not here.)

You have pulled along into a room that has long gone unused. There is dust everywhere, and the old woman kicks it up as she rips open a dresser, pulling out a delicate dress in white.

"Wear this," the woman rasps as though it is her deathbed wish.

You oblige, mostly because it's not as though you have anything better to do and it is a harmless request. The way that the woman openly weeps at your satin clothed feet, however, is enough to register as disturbing.

You stare into the dusty mirror in the corner even as her sobs echo through the room. You are dressed in porcelain white silk, embroidered with gold thread and translucent veils. Your metallic nature is still very much visible beneath this veneer of delicacy - a skeleton capable of taking the most brutal of blows, claws that have only grown harder and sharper over the decades, outer armor that is the color of skin bu too shiny, too hard.

You scowl at how your joints and limbs jut out at hard angles, pushing the silk almost to its breaking point. A soft smell wafts up, even among what you would consider to be the bloodiness of metal.

It doesn't suit you at all.

"Why didn't you tell us to go to the prison?" the buccaneer from the guild of humans asks, his voice betraying his hesitance and fear.

You've just finished destroying the Eldest One's jail as well as lead the dismantling of the Gatekeeper. It will need to be reprogrammed to not kill any humans it comes across, though its use in annihilating any Deep Ones who have survived will remain the same.

"What makes you think I knew that there was a solution under our noses all along?" you ask in response, satisfied to see how the young man practically withers under your gaze.

"You're the outsider to this situation," he says, and you almost want to bristle at those words. "Seyfried and Gutrune lost themselves almost entirely for the sake of their goals. But you… you're more of an impartial party."

Impartial, you want to repeat mockingly. If anything, you are the furthest thing from impartial in this century-long story of two estranged siblings who threw away their humanity for each other.

"The shogun," you say instead, not pleased with the path this conversation is treading down. "What about him?"

The buccaneer frowns. "He's human. With how dedicated he is to Gutrune, he's honestly more biased than you might expect from someone as stoic as him."

"Take it," you had told your king, voice almost defeated. "Please take it."

You couldn't deny the truth that there was power within the Porcelain Offering. Where the whispers of the Great Tree failed to reach your king in his current state, you could hear the pride with which the Great Tree relished in the death of the Eldest One.

The humans are too strong, even for your king. You think (no, you know) he cannot win. Not if he couldn't defeat the Eldest One and instead resorted to imprisoning him.

You do not want him to be destroyed for no reason.

You're slipping, letting imitations of human emotion get to you because the young man suddenly crosses the distance between you and takes you into his arms, stroking your shoulder as if you need his comfort.

You can detect how much he's perspiring due to the heat of the Molten Caves, and it only highlights that musky yet organic smell -

You push him away, rougher than you should be when handling a human. There's a sorrowful, regretful look on his face, and you want to brutally smash it into the ground.

"I'm sorry," he mumbles, looking down at his feet. "I… I shouldn't have said that. I'll… I'll just go check on how the sentries are doing."

"Go do that," you say monotonously. His scent lingers on you, painfully strong in the heat of the caves as he hastily makes his retreat.

Every time the humans report their progress in the Cyclopean Haunt to you, you're left with an overwhelming sense of anticipation.

What will happen, you wonder, when the Abyssal God is slain? Will your purpose have finally come to an end?

… Will you be shut down?

The Great Tree does not answer your question. Not like it would have for the King, you imagine. If the King was here, you would have accepted your ignorance, but the Celestial Palace is empty but for you. You, who might as well be a mere -

The buccaneer gives you a piteous look from where you stand next to an empty throne as his leader tells you that they've arrived on the next floor of the labyrinth.

You give no sign that you notice.

There's…

There's only one more floor left.

"When we first met you, didn't you teach us about setting up camps?" the leader of the humans asks nostalgically, daring to walk over to where you sit again a tree, on the opposite side of the campfire from the humans. The sentimentality in his voice does not move you.

"Why are you talking to me?" you ask, already uncertain of why you had accepted the humans' invitation to stay at their campsite. The sovereign had asked, and you had complied - maybe because he, on a very shallow level, reminds you of -

No, you remind yourself. He is not your king. He will never be.

"We were just novice adventurers back then, so your advice made all the difference," he continues, as if oblivious to your apathy. "Especially since none of us were all too proficient in healing magic at the time."

"It's the same spiel I gave the rest who ended up dying one way or another," you say coldly.

You get the reaction you want, a flinch from the human, but foolishly (boldly, almost) he continues.

"Just out of curiosity, how long have you been leading explorers to their deaths in…" The young man's voice trails off as if he somehow thinks you have feelings which he can hurt.

If anything, it's surprising to see him talk about the very trick you had used to try to kill them so nonchalantly. Then again, that they are not ordinary humans, and the proof is that they are sitting right in front of you now - closer to the Great Tree's goal than anyone, including yourself, has ever come.

"Far longer than any of you have been alive," you reply. "Why the question?"

"Do not drown in or become drunk on blood," the princely young man says hesitantly. "That is what the Eldest One told us as he perished."

You rise to your feet. A human of all people, taking pity on you?

"Do you think that I need to be saved, just like my King?" you hiss. Though you do not send the command, your weapons and claws fan out around you, a powerful reminder of what lies beneath your human facsimile. "A little project to sate your conscious after everything that has happened - is that what I am to you?

"No," the young man begins, a stricken look on his face. "Not at all -"

You lunge out at him, only to find yourself pinned to a tree with sturdy wires attached to needles. The ninja has not gotten up from where she is tending to the fire, the little zodiac girl napping away in her lap. Her arm is outstretched in your direction. The buccaneer is looking between you and the woman in faint horror, a hand on the pistols he has holstered.

"Think what you want of my liege," the woman's low voice says coldly, barely audible above the crackle of the fire. "But as long as I breathe, you will not hurt him."

You narrow your eyes but do not resist. She is merely doing her job.

A job, a purpose that is no longer yours.

You don't join the party, even though the humans look at you with thinly veiled disappointment. You are not moved by their sentimentality, knowing fully well that you won't be of any help.

Nevertheless, you agree to strike at the main tentacles which house themselves on the deepest floor of the labyrinth. It's simple enough even though you go alone, and after a daylong ordeal of carving through monsters and the Abyssal God's limbs, you hear what must be a scream echoing into the night. The forest shudders as if it, too, is screaming, and suddenly, all is quiet. It must be over.

The eyes which decorate the area slowly flutter close, and suddenly, it gets that much darker, the forest floor no longer getting the additional light which had reflected off each one.

You should go to greet the humans and congratulate them on their success, but you stop and look up towards the forest canopy - towards the dark, writhing mass which barely let the light from above through.

You may actually be afraid to go meet them, knowing that it means the end of everything as you know it.

"Join us," the leader says. He reaches a gloved hand out and you -

You take it.

Notes:

The Abyssal King has regained his memories. It is a joyous occasion. And now I will be left alone... - Olympia, True Ending Credits.

I have a lot of feels about Olympia, my favorite EO NPC. She doesn't exactly get the happiest endings in any of the routes, including the True Ending, and if Atlus ever makes an EO3U, I hope she and Kujura can be recruitable on the routes you don't kill them on. I'll take them as temporary battle allies though.

I haven't played this game in years, but I tried to look at route ending videos for details I may have forgotten. Nevertheless, I always remembered the gist of Olympia's fate in each route (unable to help a king who does not know why he's mourning, having forgotten everything about Seyfried, being essentially abandoned by him).

Other random things:

1) Olympia is stated to be modeled after Gutrune's pre-Calamity appearance.

2) Uzurai is the combination volt attack Seyfriend and Olympia use during the Armoroad final boss fight.

3) The zodiac is in possession of Durandal - the weapon created by Seyfried's material drop. As for the yggdroid following her around, I think you can guess.

If you're reading this, thank you. :)