The Final Bastion

The dragon and Hunter stood there, opposite each other, in the middle of a desolate and empty street. For a while, neither spoke, until Grey broke it. "Kingdom of Nohr? Hm," Grey repeated. "Can't say I've heard of it."

Of course he hadn't. By this point the two of them had reached the same conclusion: she was very far from home indeed.

"She can shift forms and claims to come from another world?" Saratoga spoke. "You think she's an..."

'Ahamkara?' Grey finished. He didn't speak, only voicing his thoughts in his head. Saratoga was the only one who could hear him. He was sure Corrin couldn't, since she continued studying her surroundings like a dog exploring its new home. 'Don't think so. She hasn't really done anything that would say otherwise. Besides, Riven was the last, and she was slain a year ago.'

"Yeah, and she placed a curse on the Dreaming City, remember? Locked them in a three-week time loop for Guardians to kill her over and over again," the Ghost argued. "I'm pretty sure at least a couple Guardians have killed her more than once."

"Hm," Grey muttered. True, over a year ago, the Young Wolf led his fireteam deep into the Keep of Voices within the Dreaming City. The Ahamkara had been Taken, and it could be argued that she was the one who was truly responsible for the death of Cayde.

Fueled by vengeance, the Wolf ventured into her lair, battling her across the physical and Ascendant planes and eventually finishing her by destroying the Blight around her heart.

However, her death at the hands of the Guardians was exactly what she planned for. She transcended death, granting one last wish made by them and unleashing the curse on the Dreaming City. The Awoken city was cursed to repeat the same three weeks over and over again, a curse that had yet to be broken.

On the other hand, the fact that the city reset every three weeks meant that every enemy slain within would come back to life, which also meant that Guardians could endlessly slay the same enemy over and over again. Not to mention Riven. It seemed that each cycle a new fireteam would venture in to slay her again.

The Hunter glanced back to Corrin's dragon form. 'Don't think she's one of 'em,' he told his Ghost. 'She hasn't really done anything that would say otherwise. She ain't even from around here, and she probably doesn't even know what an Ahamkara even is.'

His Ghost sighed. "Alright, I'm trusting you on this. But what I'm saying is that this is something you might wanna keep a secret. Don't know what's gonna happen if the old vets find out."

Even after the Red War extinguished a significant number of Guardians, the City was still home to many Great Ahamkara Hunt veterans, such as Shaxx and Saladin. The ones who personally hunted down and killed many Ahamkara when they became too much of a threat to the City. That was over a century ago.

'I'll take your advice on this,' Grey agreed. 'I ain't gonna risk it. Oh, and by the way, call my ship, willya?'

"Already on its way. Called it during the whole Sparrow chase. It'll be here in under a minute."

Their discussion over, Grey turned back to Corrin. "Can you turn back, kid?" He asked, getting her attention. "We should head back to the City. Safer there, and I'll answer all your questions along the way. I'm sure both of us have a ton."

The dragon nodded her head. "Of course."

The same swirling mass of magic surrounded her once again, this time her figure shrank in on itself. Limbs shortened, the wings folded and then retracted, until Corrin stood in her human form. The glow of her dragonstone was the last to fade as the magic dissipated.

"So, to this… City then?" She flashed a smile.

The Hunter allowed himself to relax once she had changed back, holstering Austringer back on his hip. He nodded at her. "Yeah. The Last City. It's on the South American continent, only a little less than an hour's flight from here."

The princess nodded, stepping towards him. She seemed poised to ask a few more questions, when a screech interrupted them. They turned to see more Fallen emerging, along with the Pikes. Grey drew his gun to fire, but there was a sudden flash in the air above, a flash Grey knew all too well.

A Fallen Skiff blinked into existence, unloading more reinforcement of Vandals and Wretches and Dregs, all dropping from the hovering ship.

"That… looks bad," Corrin stammered out, nervously gripping her sword as she took a step closer to Grey. The Hunter seemed more annoyed than anything else. Obviously, he didn't exactly favour a prolonged engagement. He raised his gun to fire.

Before he could fire off a single shot, however, it was struck by a barrage of missiles and Solar energy shots. The lightly-armoured Fallen transport, unable to withstand the firepower, promptly exploded, its burning wreck crashing to the ground and crushing a few unlucky Vandals who were slow to get out of the way.

Grey blinked, and then turned upwards and grinned as he saw their saviour. "Well, lucky me."

It was his jumpship, his NS22 High Water. It was an older Near Star 22 model jumpship, but had been upgraded and modified for his purpose. It packed heavier armour and more weapons, and it was a fully combat-capable craft. He was rather grateful for the fact that it had survived destruction at the hands of the Cabal during the Red War, unlike a ton of his stuff he kept in the Vault. The drab grey craft was hovering in the air, laying down some firepower on the hapless Fallen troops.

Next to him, Corrin simply stared at the ship, completely dumbfounded. She'd never seen anything quite like that before. Honestly, it felt a little… anticlimactic.

Still, she was happy to be avoiding more fights.

Grey cocked his head at his ship, motioning Corrin towards it. "Come on, let's go," He said, moving towards the still-hovering ship. The princess followed after him a little hesitantly, but stopped in her tracks when he suddenly seemed to vanish in a flash of light.

"Hey wha—" she was cut off as a sense of weightlessness overtook her. Getting your component atoms in your body deconstructed and then reconstructed in an entirely different location would do that, really. She squeezed her eyes shut and when they opened again… she was standing inside Grey's ship.

Or at least she assumed she was.

She had reappeared in what seemed to be a small room, with blinking lights and buttons and knobs she couldn't identify all around her. Grey was in front, seated on a chair. In front of him were a set of devices she assumed were the controls of his craft. The outside could be seen through windows around the room, which was strange, considering how she hadn't seen any earlier. More magic, she supposed.

The Hunter grabbed the controls, and his ship responded, tilting upwards. Grey pushed the throttle, the ship's thrusters igniting and propelling the ship upwards and into the clouds at great speed. Corrin had to hold the wall for support, trying to keep on her feet.

"We're heading to the City, kid," Grey told her, not looking back. "Won't take that long."

"I… I don't..." Corrin struggled to find words as the craft shot towards the clouds. "How did we wind up in here? "What brand of magic allows this to be possible? I've never seen anything like it before!"

"Transmat," Grey answered simply. "Matter-transport tech. Teleportation, basically. And there ain't no magic that goes into this, just some fine engineering and elbow grease."

Corrin's face scrunched up in confusion. Little about this world was familiar to Corrin, aside from the destruction. Though no city had faced such levels of destruction in Nohr, she knew some smaller towns had been decimated during the war with Hoshido. But not even that compared to this.

"No magic?" She asked, skeptically as she sat down on an empty seat. She looked around and frowned. "Then… what powers such feats? The… the light, your weapons, this...this vessel..."

Grey held up a hand, cutting her off. "Like I said, we get to the City, I'll answer your questions."

The jumpship continued to shoot forwards at great speed, cruising above the clouds at the upper stratosphere. The puffy white clouds rapidly passed by below. Grey set his ship on autopilot as he turned around. "All in a day's work. Could go for some whiskey right about now…"

His eyes suddenly lit up as he remembered. "Oh, right! I do!" He reached underneath, opening a compartment and then pulling out a bottle of golden-brown liquid. He popped off the cork, and Corrin smelled strong alcohol.

Safely above the clouds and within the confines of his ship, he lowered his hood. "Toga," The Hunter said suddenly, confusing the princess. "Helmet."

His helmet vanished in a flash of light, revealing a surprisingly youthful face, far younger than his demeanor and skill would imply. His short and somewhat messy hair was a rich, reddish auburn, and his eyes emerald green. Especially prominent and distinguishing was a large vertical scar at the edge of his right eye.

Corrin gaped slightly at the revelation. He was surprisingly handsome, but he couldn't have been more than a year or so older than her!

"Whoa!" She chirped in surprise. "You're… much younger than I'd thought you'd be."

The princess chuckled a little nervously. "But your skill suggests many years of combat experience."

She couldn't help but feel even more outpaced, knowing her saviour wasn't much older than she was.

Or so it seemed, as Grey only cracked a wry, knowing smirk.

"No, I'm not," he told her rather cryptically and was quite amused when he saw her expression change into one of confusion. He'd expected her to say that, after all. Many did. A vast majority of Guardians didn't look their age, after all, considering the fact that they all looked as they were on the day their first life ended.

Corrin supposed he could be older, but the way he spoke sent a shiver down her spine. There was definitely a story there, but now wasn't the time, she supposed. Perhaps it was possible that humans in this world aged differently, or maybe something more insidious was behind it. Given the state of the world, Corrin had a sinking feeling it was the latter.

Or perhaps he was like Nyx, then. She had encountered the Dark Mage with the Nohrian Army at Fort Dragonfall on their way to the port town of Dia. Initially, she had mistaken her for a lost child, as she appeared to be no older than in her early teens.

However, it soon became clear that she was much older than that. Years ago, she had accidentally unleashed a spell on herself, an unbreakable curse that rendered her unable to age, stuck in her youthful body for the rest of eternity. She was at least a few decades older than Corrin herself.

Corrin wondered if it was the same with Grey. At least, however, if he was truly unable to age like Nyx, he had the fortune to be already an adult when whatever spell was bestowed on him. Like Nyx, the way he talked and the way he acted suggested that he was much older than he appeared, perhaps decades older just like her.

Right now, she was really beginning to look forward to when they landed in this city. Hopefully she'd get the answers she was looking for there.

After taking a rather long swig of his bottle, Grey turned to her. "Now then," Greyson's voice was much clearer now that it wasn't muffled by his helmet. "I'm sure both of us have lots of questions for each other,"

He leaned forwards. "How'd you end up in a city that's been abandoned for centuries and right in front of the target I've been hunting down for the past week?"

The princess paused for a moment, trying to recall the events that led up to her… transition. "I was attempting to leave the castle and head to my uh… private… uh..."

She scratched at her cheek and shifted in her seat, trying to find the right words. "I've uh, never had to explain it aloud before. Um... Back home I am able to access a well, private space. It's… smaller than a world, really but that isn't the point. It resides in a realm outside of my home, normally I am able to access it easily through any doorway but..."

She looked to Grey, and saw that even he seemed a little lost. Her heart sank a little. Was he even listening?

"Uh..." she tried again. "I don't know how I came to be here, I can assure you my arrival and interference in your work was not intentional."

The Hunter leaned back in his seat, tapping the side rest of his chair in thought as he placed down the bottle of whiskey. "Kid, I've been at this for a long time, but, well," he finally spoke, giving a low chuckle. "That's new, even for me."

"You're from another reality, or another dimension more like," Saratoga summarised for them, appearing next to Grey's head. The Hunter realised that he hadn't introduced him yet.

"This is Saratoga," Grey introduced. "He's a Ghost. More importantly, he's my Ghost."

"Yep, that's me," the Ghost gave a curt nod of his body. "Now, I'm guessing you're gonna want to find a way home, yeah?"

Corrin took a moment to reply. She seemed a little too transfixed on the little Ghost. It was the one to heal her, after all. "Uh, yes!" She nodded her head. "I would very much like to return home, though I have no idea how to get back there. Travelling between my home and my uh... well, private space has never resulted in such wildly incorrect results".

"I guess that's the problem, then," the Ghost said, turning to Grey. The Hunter sighed, leaning back in his seat.

"Listen, kid. Interdimensional travel ain't exactly my thing. I'm a Hunter. I hunt. I leave the Warlocks to do this kinda thing," he leaned forwards. "I've got a Warlock in my team back in the City. You can ask her."

"You have mages here?" Corrin asked, tilting her head to the side. Warlock certainly sounded like the name of some kind of spell caster. Whoever this Val was, Corrin was hopeful that she would be able to help her. Still, there was something exciting over the notion of being in an entirely new world.

"Yeah, guess you could say that," Grey said, shrugging. "Warlocks are the ones who have the most mastery over the Light, and use it the most. They study it, trying to gain more power from it," The Hunter pulled out his knife and spun it with his index finger. "As a Hunter, I rely more on my gun and blade."

He tossed his knife into the air and caught it, then realised that he hadn't told Corrin what the Light was yet. "Light's what we call magic 'round these parts. Grants us incredible powers."

He held out his knife, and suddenly, it ignited.

Corrin watched in surprise and a little fear as his arm up to his elbow seemed to be aflame, and yet he suffered no ill effects at all. Even before that, his entire person had been enveloped by flames, and yet that only seemed to make him stronger.

Grey continued. "The ones who can wield them are known as Guardians. I'm one."

"You know, we don't even know if Val's even willing to help," Saratoga muttered. "You know how she is. Spends all day locked in her room."

The Hunter rolled his eyes. "Yeah? Well, I can bet a thousand Glimmer that this is something she'll be interested in."

"Make it two thousand."

"Fine," Grey sat back, extinguishing the flames on his knife and then putting it away, before turning to Corrin and giving her a small smile. "We'll find you a way home. I ain't saying I'm making any promises, though."

Corrin stared at him for a moment, before she returned the smile. She was quite thankful that he just so happened to be there when she ended up in this world. Otherwise, she dreaded to think what the Fallen might have done to her. It was a welcome coincidence that the two had met in such a way, really.

Perhaps it was fate, or perhaps it was destiny.

She looked around the ship once again, each time there was something new to catch her attention. She had so many questions, and it was hard to pick just one to ask. She sat there, thinking of one.

Light was this universe's variant of magic. Corrin wondered if she could learn to manipulate it. Her magical knowledge was outpaced by her swordsmanship, but she'd learned a thing of two from Leo. She doubted her paltry know-how would translate to anything from this realm.

"Light is what grants you your abilities, and only Guardians can use it, interesting…" she scratched her chin. "And so I take it Hunter and Warlock are two different varieties of Guardian. Are there others? Are all Guardians as deceptively young as you?"

"Deceptively young?" Grey let out a loose chuckle at that. "Well, when you put it that way, yes."

"Does the Light fuel most of the unusual weapons I've seen, oh, like this blade?" She gestured to the sword she'd stationed on her hip. She didn't carry her blade around the castle, but her armor still held a small loop to hold a blade.

Grey shrugged. "No, not really. But in a way, yes. Us Guardians can wield the purest and most potent form of the Light, while the stuff that goes into this ship and that Shock Blade of yours are, well, byproducts," he said, trying his best to explain. "Look, I ain't exactly an expert on this kinda thing."

He hadn't really spent as much time studying the Light as Val. Even then, the Light was still barely-understood by even the best Warlocks and scientists in the City.

Corrin's eyes were still wide with wonder. "There're... so many things I want to ask, everything is so vastly different from my home. It's.. .a bit overwhelming if I'm being honest," She chuckled softly.

"I think that goes for both of us…" Grey nodded. At the back of his mind, however, he just couldn't help but wonder how a simple bounty mission for the Spider ended up like this.

His companion too had many things on her mind. She wondered how this Light was condensed into this and many other forms. If such a thing was possible in Nohr... the possibilities could very well be endless when it came to application. She imagined Leo would have a field day studying such a concept.

Thinking of her brother was quick to remind her of the fact he, along with the rest of her family, had to be worried sick about her. She missed them, and hoped they avoided trouble while she found a way back home.

A sigh escaped her lips as she looked out the viewscreen and to the passing terrain, together with Grey. By this time, the air around the ship had grown frigid, and the ground below was mountainous and covered in snow.

"City on approach," Saratoga spoke up.

Grey nodded, turning his seat back around and gripping the controls. "After the Collapse, survivors gathered underneath the protective shields of the Traveler, establishing small campsites there. Over time, that camp grew into a village, and then a town as more and more refugees travelled to it under the watchful eye of the first Guardians."

The jumpship streaked through the air, above the snowy mountaintops and trees that passed by below. "The City's construction brought an end to the Dark Age and thrust humanity into a new era: The City Age. It took centuries to build, surviving countless Fallen raids and civil wars. Now, the last survivors of humanity live there, protected by walls on all sides."

Storm clouds were up ahead, the dark punctuated by streaks of lightning that illuminated the ship as it passed through. "We Guardians were brought back to defend humanity and protect the City at all costs, and to reclaim what we lost."

There was a warm glow at the end of the tunnel, and as the jumpship burst through the clouds, a massive city surrounded by colossal walls came into view. There were countless buildings in dense clusters, the streets lit by glowing electric lights. Large airships transported its inhabitants around. In the middle of the City were several skyscrapers that housed the Consensus, the government that ran the City.

However, what was most eye-catching was a gargantuan spherical object, floating silently in the air above. Its shattered fragments orbited around it, but light shone through the gaping holes in its shell.

The Traveler.

Corrin shot to her feet, rushing over to the front. Her mouth slowly dropped open as she gaped at the spectacle before her. "That... I…" She struggled to find words to describe what she was feeling.

She did, however, feel small. Very, very small.

The Hunter, meanwhile, only chuckled at her amazement as he steered his jumpship to the Tower.

"Welcome to the Last City."