The world is coming to an end. It tries to do that a lot.

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

Serra is a towering demon, 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 wears a defaced military uniform, a seafoam overcoat cut above the midriff and worn open over a pink crop top, freeing the vents slit in her sides, and decorated by simple white epaulets and a white fourragère on the right shoulder. 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, burn Serra’s skin as they strike at her, kept barely at bay by a furious whirlwind of claws, teeth and tail. For every knight she sends careening towards the edge, another two are 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 disrupts their fight. Music permeates the air like a strange energy, building to something higher. From amongst the trees, a rose red sports car rips onto the path, swerving to trail behind the Knights’ truck. Standing in the backseats is 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 is 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 wears a studded black jacket over a half-tucked red button-up and a pleated white skirt, clunky red shoes leaving mud on the seats. Above her back, small, semi-translucent red wings flutter to the rhythm as she strummed her bass guitar. The white strings shine as she plucks them, and the shape of the instrument itself shifts in her hands, four strings become six as the low rumble of a bass is superseded by the roar of an electric guitar.

The upswing in musical energy surges through Serra’s body, the echoes of the bass blend with the electric guitar to create an impossible song that fills the demon with power. As the knights rush forward, they find themselves met with a renewed vigor that their shields can no longer ring in, tumbling into the dirt, left behind in blood and breaks.

Autumn swerves to avoid their broken bodies, though one of them is caught under the tire with an alarming thump and crunch; it barely catches Autumn’s attention, glancing again to the skies above. A practiced chronomancer, Autumn could see the Threads of Fate, endless potential futures, countless black strings that weave through the sky overhead.

But the Threads are wrong. Autumn can count only a handful, twisting between each other. Potentially the biggest disaster of all time looms over them, an Apocalypse Trigger, one of a few dozen potential events foreseen by the countless diviners over the generations. That which spelled the end of the world, which could only be avoided or prevented lest certain doom arrive.

Their synthetic voice fills with alarm as they count the Threads above, “we’re wasting time! We know where to go now, finish them!” Autumn takes a hand off the wheel as the Threads diminish further, invisible magic swirls about their fingertips as they cast a spell into the ether.

The air shudders. The winds begin to pick up, and on it Autumn catches the whisper of distant voices, an incantation in a language they cannot understand, but in their wires and gears they know its purpose. Autumn’s magic had stabilized the situation, but another force attempts to guide the future along a certain path, marching the world to an unpreventable doom.

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

“What the hell, Auts?!” she shouts. The momentary bad luck costs her a glancing blow across the cheek, answered by a flash of claws that sends the knight into the dirt.

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

Serra catches a knight with one hand as they leap at her, slamming him repeatedly against the truck bed, leaving him in the resulting dent, “can you handle it?”

“What do you believe I’m…? Just keep hitting people!” A knight leaps from the truck onto the hood of the car, arming sword flashing out towards Autumn. The chronomancer slides their seat back and, with a snap and flourish, summons a rapier to their hand. Autumn jumps up, a foot on their seat and the other on the windshield, ducking a wild swing and driving their blade into the knight’s throat.

Autumn is 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, glow dimly as they scan every detail of the ongoing car chase and/or wreck. The chronomancer wears a deep cut, pale green shirt tucked into dark green rockabilly shorts, around their shoulders they wear a long brown coat and matching knee-high boots. On their left thigh is printed the letters, “A.T.U.M.” in black.

They pull their rapier from the knight’s throat and sweep 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 seize 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 surges from her palms into the white wrapped handles, running down the edge of the blades, unleashing a wave of pure force that carves Knights into chunks and splits the truck’s cab in half.

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

“How’s my new girl holding up?” she asks.

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

“You don’t wanna know,” Roxie smiles and leans 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 bites off a chunk of the granola bar, flashing a wide grin.

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

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

“Fate of the world,” Serra wipes 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 chimes 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 passes the fairy a comb from their pocket.

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

Serra turns one of her swords over in her hand, thinking to herself for a moment. The light catches 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 has been erected amongst the white, iridescent grass. Beneath it stands 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, and 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 raises his arms, the arch begins 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 crashes onto the scene, Autumn swerves 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 steps over the windshield, kicking the King in the chest with enough force to send him tumbling back. He lands on his feet and draws the longsword from his back, stepping into a swing at Serra.

Pure willpower coalesces as energy across the blade, barely met by Serra’s own. Powerful energy from the swings releases as slashes that carve into the earth around them.

“Shit, the blade’s Oathsworn! Watch your fingers!” Serra calls to the others as she clashed with the King, a series of slashes that carve deep gashes in the earth. Beneath their car, the remains of the stone arch continued to reverberate, growing stronger.

“Above,” Autumn leaps over both their heads, landing before the contingent of cultists, only now rousing themselves from shock. Autumn summons rapier to hand and flicks 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!” the King laughs.

Roxie stands up in the backseats, striking a chord on her guitar. A sonic burst catches the King across the face, and he staggers back. Serra slashes 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 spins around his side, catching him under his helmet with their rapier and stepping back to join the others.

The King raises his longsword with one arm and, “volley!” he cries.

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

“Autumn!” her eyes flick between her friend and the flames, “fuckers!” she returns a riff from her guitar, sonic blasts fire wildly into the wall of fire. Her ears perk up to the tune of groaning as at least a few shots find their marks, but another sound drops her heart into her stomach.

One massive, echoing boom silences everything. The trio whips around and comes 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 stretches up, rising to don a crown of clouds, as legs like tree trunks reach down to meet the earth, and shattered stone cascades off its pitch black form. A long, whip-like tail sweeps across the ground, uprooting a hundred trees in the motion.

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

“Harbinger’s up!” Autumn abandons the fight and leaps into the driver’s seat.

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

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

“We’ll bury you first, Serra!”

“The Primordial Reckoning, Terminus… its beauty…” The King’s eyes grow 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 turns just in time to see the headlights of Roxie’s car bearing down on him, he tumbles over the hood and flies past the trio into the dirt. Roxie sticks her tongue out as he passes by.

Autumn’s eyes are drawn upwards, to the Threads of Fate. They are so few now, but not yet singular. Opportunity yet exists to change the future.

“Serra! It must pay attention to us!”

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

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

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

“Go home!” Serra yells back, taking a shot at the King that bounces off his helmet.

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

Serra wipes the water from her face, to no avail, breathing heavily. She adjusts the pistols in her hands, watching as the Knights begin 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 plagues Serra’s mind as certain doom approached.

“Man, I want to go home…”