The world was coming to an end. It tried to do that a lot.

Overhead, the golden leaves and black branches of an endless living forest whipped by, the rumbling of an engine echoed amongst the field of trees. A flatbed truck raced along a dirt path, while on its back, the demon adventurer Serra Pyrreb fought for the fate of the world.

Serra was a towering demon, her height remarkable even among the demonic race, with a stature just over seven feet tall and a powerful build, snow white skin marked by countless scars and huge, vicious horns curving back from her forehead over long black curls. She wore a defaced military uniform, a seafoam overcoat, decorated by simple white epaulets and a white fourragère on the right shoulder, cut above the midriff and worn open over a pastel pink crop top, freeing the slit–like vents in her sides. She paired the coat with matching pants and a pair of fingerless white gloves.

Her opposition, the Knights of the Unending End, clad in shining white armor, all spikes and hard edges. Their blades, solid steel and dipped in silver, burned Serra’s skin as they struck at her, kept barely at bay by a furious whirlwind of claws, teeth and tail. For every knight she sent careening towards the edge, another two were always there to catch them, ringed in by a barrier of shields.

“Rally, men! A thousand apocalypses await us! We will–”

The slow, rising rumble of a bass guitar disrupted their fight. Music permeated the air like a strange energy, building to something higher. From amongst the trees, a rose red sports car ripped onto the path, swerving to trail behind the Knights’ truck. Standing in the backseats was Roxie Cass, musician and adventurer, playing a gorgeous black and gold bass guitar. At its wheel, the automaton chronomancer Autumn, eyes darting between the road, the truck and the sky.

Roxie was a fairy, a miniature three and a half feet. Her skin a purest black, mischievous scarlet eyes and burgundy hair, cut to just above her shoulders. She wore a studded black jacket over a half–tucked red button–up and a pleated black skirt, clunky red shoes leaving mud on the seats. Above her back, small, semi–translucent red wings fluttered to the rhythm as she strummed her bass guitar. The white strings shone with gleaming light as she plucked them, and the shape of the instrument itself shifted in her hands, four strings became six as the low rumble of a bass was superseded by the roar of an electric guitar.

The upswing in energy surged through Serra’s body, the echoes of the bass blended with the electric guitar to create an impossible song that filled the demon with power. As the knights rushed forward, they found themselves met with a renewed vigor that their shields could no longer ring in, tumbling into the dirt, left behind in blood and broken bones.

Autumn swerved to avoid their broken bodies, though one of them was caught under the tire with an alarming thump and crunch; it barely caught Autumn’s attention, glancing again to the threads, endless potential futures visible only to Autumn’s eyes, countless black strings that wove through the sky overhead.

But the threads were wrong. Autumn could count only a handful, twisting between each other. The greatest disaster of all time loomed before them, an Apocalypse Trigger, one of a few dozen potential events foreseen by the diviners of the past generations. That which spelled the end of the world, which could only be avoided or prevented, lest certain doom arrive.

Their synthetic voice filled with alarm as they counted, “We’re wasting time,” they cried, “we know where to go now, finish them!” Autumn took a hand off the wheel as the Threads diminished further, invisible magic swirled about their fingertips as they cast a spell into the ether.

The air shuddered. The winds began to pick up and on it Autumn caught the whisper of distant voices, an incantation in a language they could not understand, but in their wires and gears they knew its purpose. Autumn’s magic had stabilized the situation, but another force attempted to guide the future along a certain path, marching the world to an unpreventable doom.

Serra drew a pair of polished revolvers from holsters beneath her coat. She squeezed the triggers, met by disappointing clicks as they both manage to misfire.

“Oi, the fuck, Auts?!” she shouted. The momentary bad luck cost her a glancing blow across the cheek, answered by a flash of claws that sent the knight into the dirt.

“Leave nothing up to chance, someone is turning fate against us!”

Serra caught a knight with one hand as they leapt at her, slamming him repeatedly against the truck bed, leaving him broken in the resulting dent, “can you put it right?”

“What do you believe I’m–” they caught the question, “just keep hitting people!” a knight leapt from the truck onto the hood of the car, arming sword flashing out towards Autumn. The chronomancer slid their seat back and, with a snap and flourish, summoned a rapier to their hand. Autumn jumped up, a foot on their seat and the other on the windshield, ducked a wild swing and drove their blade into the knight’s throat.

Autumn was a humanoid automaton, built of a series of intricately engineered metal plates, whirring and clanking quietly with each shift. Their eyes, metal spheres with pinpoint white pupils, glowed dimly as they scanned every detail of the ongoing car chase and potential wreck. The chronomancer wore a deep cut, pale green shirt tucked into dark green rockabilly shorts, around their shoulders a long brown coat and matching knee–high boots. On their left thigh was printed the letters, “A.T.U.M.” in black.

They pulled their rapier from the knight’s throat and swept them to one side, dropping back into their seat to regain control of the car, the rapier dissolving into thin air. Reaching into the passenger seat, they seized a pair of curved katana blades, tossing them to the truck with a shout, “Serra!”

The demon caught her blades, sliding the pink wood sheathes onto her hip, she drew them in one smooth motion. Her very willpower surged from her palms into the white wrapped handles, running down the edge of the blades, unleashing a wave of pure force that carved Knights into chunks and splits the truck’s cab in half.

Its driver dead on impact, Serra leapt from the truck onto the passenger seat of the sports car. Roxie’s song finished as the truck swerves, tumbling into a cloud of dirt and blood. The fairy heaved a heavy sigh and sat down on the trunk, flexing her fingers with a smile.

“How’s my new baby holding up?”

“Handling is excellent, durability and speed as well,” Autumn nodded running a hand along the wheel, “how much?”

“You don’t wanna know,” Roxie smiled and leaned forward, crawling over Serra to get at the glove box, extracting a granola bar from within and passing Serra some bandages, “we’re on, what, nine hours? How’s my gas?”

“Roughly a quarter tank,”

“Not bad!” Roxie bit off a chunk of the granola bar, flashing a wide grin.

Serra hastily wrapped the worst of her wounds, guzzling a warm energy drink from the glove box, “fuck I’m tired,” she gasped.

“Fate of the world, just a little bit longer,” Autumn assured her.

“Fate of the damn world,” Serra wiped her blades clean and refocuses on the road, “what’s it supposed to be? Buncha knights and that King?”

“Don’t forget the Harbinger,” Roxie chimed in, stuffing the other half of the granola bar into her face, “fuck, my hair’s all fucked up now.”

“How many times do I have to say you’re perfectly capable of playing in your seat?” Autumn passed the fairy a comb from their pocket.

“I can’t get into it!” Roxie stuck her tongue out, gently combing her hair back.

Serra turned one of her swords over in her hand, thinking to herself for a moment. The light caught the blade, revealing a few words at the base, inscribed in a demonic language by the tsuba.

“Make it happen.”

–

In a clearing at the heart of the forest, a gorgeous arch of white stone had been erected amongst the white, iridescent grass. Beneath it stood a knight bigger than even Serra, clad in golden armor and a flowing blue fur cape, a longsword on his hip, and a force of armed knights behind him. The King, self–styled ruler of the Knights of Unending End, at his feet lay a withered golden sapling, sliced in two.

“The end is nigh! The first of a thousand apocalypses, of which we shall be heralds of the endless death and rebirth! Worshipped and revered!” he raised his arms, the arch began to resonate, a harmonious, angelic sound like a choir that grew louder and louder, “we shall be as gods! I shall be a god–”

The roar of Roxie’s engine crashed onto the scene, Autumn swerved the car to smash side-first through the arch, screeching to a halt in a shower of splintered and shattered stone.

“I–”

“Shut the fuck up!” Serra stepped over the windshield, kicking the King in the chest with enough force to send him tumbling back. He landed on his feet and drew the longsword from his back, stepping into a swing at Serra.

Pure willpower coalesced as energy across the blade, barely met by Serra’s own. Powerful energy from the swings released as slashes that carved deep into the earth around them.

“Shit, the blade’s oathsworn! Watch your fingers!” Serra called to the others as she clashed with the King, their blades swung like clubs at one another, carving gashes into the ground. Beneath their car, the remains of the stone arch continued to reverberate, growing stronger.

“Above,” Autumn leapt over both their heads, landing before the contingent of cultists, only now rousing themselves from shock. Autumn summoned rapier to hand and flicked it to one side, a wall of pure scarlet flame erupting across the group.

“You cannot stop it! The first of a thousand ends is already here!”

Roxie stood up in the backseats, striking a chord on her guitar. A sonic burst caught the King across the face and he staggered back. Serra slashed him across the chest with one blade, bringing the second down to take his arm clean off, whirling to smack him back with her tail. Autumn spun around his side, catching him under his helmet with their rapier and stepping back to join the others.

The King raised his longsword with one arm and, “volley!” he cried.

From behind Autumn’s wall of flames, a haphazard smattering of arrows whipped by the king. One of them caught a gap in Autumn’s shoulder plating, the horrible sound of groaning gears rewarding its effort, while another flew by Roxie’s head, nicking her ear.

“Autumn!” her eyes flicked between her friend and the flames, “fuckers!” she returned a riff from her guitar, sonic blasts ripping wildly into the wall of fire. Her ears perked up to the tune of groaning and screaming as at least a few shots found their marks, but another sound dropped her heart into her stomach.

One massive, echoing boom silenced everything. The trio whipped around and came face to massive face with the form of a living colossus, its ancient form rising higher and higher from below the trees. One long neck stretched up, rising to don a crown of clouds, as legs like tree trunks reached down to meet the earth, and shattered stone cascaded off its pitch black form. A long, whip–like tail swept across the ground, uprooting a hundred trees in the motion.

The sky turned dark, clouds rolled in faster than any they had seen before, thunder rumbling, the breeze turned to a gale, but no rain came. A single, glorious bolt of lightning split the sky in half, meeting the crest on the creature’s head, its body like the endless void lit up with a blood red bioluminescence, pinprick red eyes gazing down at the insignificant mortals it found at its feet.

“Harbinger’s up!” Autumn abandoned the fight and leapt into the driver’s seat.

“Is that a fucking dinosaur?!” Roxie dropped into her seat, “awesome!”

“Guess there’s no going brach now,” Serra clambered into the vehicle.

“We’ll bury you first, Serra!”

“The Primordial Reckoning, Terminus… its beauty…” The King’s eyes grew wide at the sight of the beast, its ancient majesty overtaking him with joy, “now, my knights! The first of a thousand apocalypses begins! To your mounts, we ride! The whole world shall know of its coming by our hands!”

The King turned just in time to see the headlights of Roxie’s car bearing down on him, he tumbled over the hood and flew past the trio into the dirt. Roxie stuck her tongue out as he passed by.

Autumn’s eyes were drawn upwards, to the threads above. They were so few now, but not yet singular. Opportunity yet existed to change the future.

“Serra! It must pay attention to us!”

“Let’s try this again…” Serra drew her revolvers, but Roxie stood up first, cranking the volume on her amp to max.

“This’ll wake old Terminus up!” she launched into a feverish rock song, challenging the crashing heavens themselves for sound. The beast’s head turned, soulless eyes locking onto the little sports car as it ripped around to one side.

“You shall not prevent our apocalypse!” Serra glanced between Roxie’s legs, spotting what remained of the Knights of Unending End, speeding after them on a motley assortment of vehicles. The King stood upon the back of a buggy, supported by a knight on either side. He shouted to his men, “my knights! Strike down the blasphemers!”

“Go home you bastards!” Serra yelled back, taking a shot at the King that bounced off his helmet.

Autumn’s eyes were glued to the road ahead, fighting to control the vehicle with the arrow in their shoulder. Lightning cracked overhead, contending with Roxie’s music for control, the hulking form of the Primordial Reckoning watched as they sped around its side. Rain began to pound the group, sheets of water cascading down upon the forest, obscuring their vision.

Serra wiped the water from her face, to no avail, breathing heavily. She adjusted the pistols in her hands, watching as the Knights began to gain. Their vehicles were not as durable as Roxie’s sports car, but somehow, they were keeping up. Yet another question to add to the pile, but a different thought plagued Serra’s mind as certain doom approached.

“Man, I want to go home…”