Synopsis:
"You are a monster, Adam, but you didn't choose to be. Make your first choice."\
Molded into a mindless killing machine from birth, psychic prodigy Augustus Adam makes his first real choice and frees himself from the shackles of his upbring. But it is too late.
After being tried for his crimes against humanity, he is sentenced to summary execution after a short trial. Unwilling to let his mind be studied to produce more psychics like himself, he does the only thing that ensures humanity's freedom from psychic tyranny: suicide.
Though death's embrace is sweet, it's surprisingly short as Adam awakes in an unknown forest, learning soon after that he is in a world of magic, of swords and sorcery. Accompanied by magical beasts that could flatten a mountain if they so wished, Adam sets forth into this new world, hoping to make a positive difference this time around. It was his choice, a real chance for freedom, and he wasn't about to let some demon lords, necromancers, or gods get in his way towards redemption.
***
Note:
A rewrite from a previous version, this story is a slice-of-life adventure of an young man blessed with powers but burdened by a heavy and troubled past, hoping to reconcile himself with his innate humanity. Though the premise is magic vs psychic power, I also want to explore the human heart. I believe that there is good in people, but they all need to make the choice. This story follows that line of thinking. Any and all constructive criticism is encouraged and appreciated.
Next / RoyalRoad
______
Prologue
From the moment I opened my eyes and saw the silhouettes of masked men and women looking down on my feeble body, I realized that something was wrong. I was a fully conscious and thinking mind trapped in a newborn's body. I knew not my name, nor if I ever had a life before this one, and still I recoiled from the truth laid bare before me.
It had been barely a few seconds since I emerged from that tube. I could still remember being submerged in water, my body connected to machines as it grew and matured. When I got out, I was a toddler. A baby. They checked me, ran their tests, and examined my mind.
I could remember them nodding at each other, satisfied at what they saw within me. At the time, I didn't understand their words, but now I did.
"His psychic potential is enormous. A first for the program. Make sure he survives." I remembered my mother saying. She was the leader, the head researcher of the group, and she led her team with efficiency and effectiveness.
She was my mother by blood, for she provided the egg that allowed me to form. I did not know my father, but it didn't matter. I was shaped by that woman from the moment of my conception, and controlled by her throughout my childhood. Other than that, she was nothing more to me. Nothing but a monster, a manipulative hag who shaped me into something I was not.
As I grew old, they placed me in a facility deep beneath the ground. They trained me in the ways of battle, taught me in the ways of war, and instilled upon me the obedience of a mindless drone. Despite my conscious mind, I was weak-willed and easy to manipulate. It was an ironic reality, considering that my power relied on the strength of one's will.
I knew I was being led astray, and yet it felt so good to hear their words. Their lies. The deceit.
Each year without fail they would examine my mind. They would measure my intelligence and understanding, forcing me to answer questions in all manner of subjects. Most of these subjects were beyond my child's mind to take, showing poor results that made my mother and her team frown. They hated my supposed stupidity.
Despite that, I excelled at one thing, and that thing only. Psychic powers. I remembered the first time I grabbed something with my mind. I was 2 years old, barely able to stand upright. In my frustration, I held out my hands and pulled at one of my toys in the distance. The stuffed bear moved, hurling itself towards me with surprising speed before slamming against my body. My caretaker at the time was quick to help me, but quicker still to inform my mother that it was time.
Thus began my real training. I learned how to handle my power, harnessing the potential within me. As I grew older, so did the strength I wielded. When I was 5, I destroyed a boulder with a mere clench of my hand. When I was 10, I stopped a wave of HE shells mid-air before sending them back to the tanks that fired them. When I was 15, I pulled down a warship as it descended from orbit, slamming it into the ground and leveling an entire city.
Now I was 20, cuffed and standing alone in the middle of a vast room with bright lights focused on my person. There was a device wrapped around my neck, whizzing and flickering with small lights. It was a so-called psychic dampener, a device designed to inhibit my psychic powers. It was the reason why a crowd was gathered on the nearby stands, shouting obscenities and their demands. They felt safe to do so, thinking that I was powerless.
"Death to the monster!"
"Kill him! Kill him for the demon he is!"
"Avenge our worlds!"
The courtroom was far from peaceful as it filled even more with people, all longing and clamoring for my demise. I could not blame them, and I expected justice to be swift in its judgment of my crimes.
I was a monster, there was no denying the magnitude of my crimes. Billions lay dead on my feet, their blood an ocean in which I drowned. It took me a while to realize that I was the product of a harrowing effort to create the ultimate weapon utilizing humanity's greatest asset: the mind. Specifically, it was found that a certain mutation allowed for the human brain to control reality. Unfortunately for myself, I happened to be born with the mutation. Worse yet, it was the most potent of its kind, allowing me to shatter records, and planets.
The courtroom erupted into a further uproar as the judge and jury entered the chamber, followed by a stream of additional soldiers to keep the crowd at bay. The soldiers, formerly rebels under the banner of the Colonial Freedom Movement, looked at me with disdain. A few glared with hate. Cameras pointed in my direction as flashes of light bloomed from the crowd. Journalists spoke into their microphones, reporting live for whatever network that employed them.
The presence of so many emotional humans meant that my senses were overwhelmed by the noise of human emotion. Their hate and anger were a constant stream of pain that poured into my mind with a ferocity that - if I was any weaker - would have easily killed me via an aneurysm. It felt like I was being suffocated while being nailed multiple times by a hundred hammers.
Unbearable, and yet I bore it still.
The judge came to his stand and struck down his gavel, calling the courtroom to order and silencing the crowd. All eyes were on the judge as he cleared his throat and began to speak.
"Through the powers vested in me by the Laws of the Transitionary Government for the Restoration of Humanity, I hereby begin the hearing of Augustus Adam for multiple counts of crimes against humanity and multiple counts of war crimes too long and varied to name. This court is now in session."
The session took a mere 30 minutes. Prosecutors flooded the floor with accusations and evidence to back them up. Scenes of destruction and death were projected in 3D holographic images for everyone to see. An entire list of my atrocities was read out, only for the prosecutor to claim that it was an incomplete compilation.
It was impressive to hear and see how extensively they documented my actions through the decade-long galactic civil war. My mother told me that the colonies deserved to be brought low for their rebellion, conveniently leaving out the many, many facts of repression and inequality.
The crowd grew ever restless throughout the sham trial. I felt the intense gazes as voices rose once more. Dozens of cameras zoomed on my face, trying to see if I would react in any way. I gave them a blank expression, keeping my thoughts to myself.
If I had been the person I was a few years ago, I would have collapsed the courtroom, killing everyone inside before escaping. The psychic dampener was utterly useless. It worked on other psychics, but not on me. The gap between my powers and the others with the same power was so wide it's almost imperceptible.
But I was not my mother's son anymore. I was alone, and I felt regret. Regret for my crimes. Regret for not realizing sooner the monster I was becoming. Regret for not acting against it sooner. I was, indeed, a monster. However, no amount of repayment would be enough to make amends. I had to die.
Everyone knew I was guilty and my punishment had already been prepared beforehand. Immediate execution. When the show concluded, the judge and jury unanimously agreed on my punishment. I was to be put to death by firing squad, with what remained of my brain to be stored for further research. This was met with thunderous applause.
After the trial, I was led out into an open yard by the soldiers while the crowd surrounded us. Many were eager to kill me themselves. They pushed and shoved, trying their hardest to get through the wall of power-armor.
A bright sun greeted me as I looked at the sky. There were no clouds to offer shade for there was only the clear blue sky, and the collective cacophony of humanity demanding my blood.
I was left alone in the middle of the yard. My cuffs were removed while my dampener was tightened further. After that, a line of soldiers took positions several meters away in front of me. They raised their rifles and aimed their sights, but as they were about to pull the trigger, the world stopped.
A wave of psychic energy exploded from my person, destroying the psychic dampener around my neck before shoving back the crowd and soldiers.
I raised both my arms and looked at the crowd, their hateful eyes replaced by fear and horror. This was my mark on the human race, my legacy in history. I was a monster in a human's body, a dreadful existence that did not deserve to continue any longer.
I opened my fists, felt my head, and clenched.
My ears rang and my eyes blurred. The world slowed down as I felt my brain implode into itself. I subconsciously tried to fight back against my own attempt as two sides of the same power rammed against one another.
In the end, my will to die won. My final moments were grotesque. An implosion of flesh and brain matter, followed by a catastrophic explosion that left a crater where I stood, a violent result of me crushing matter too tightly together in a small space.
My mind was potent enough to know my final moments up until when the last threads of my consciousness were severed forever. What I did not expect, however, was to see my life flash before my eyes. It was as if I was reliving every single moment.
As the memories rolled, so too did my emotions boil. I felt anger and sadness, regret and horror. The human mind was capable of great calamity, drawn to destruction and even malice. But it was also capable of kindness and good deeds. In the end, what separated humans from other animals was our humanity, our inherent capacity to care and do good.
I realized this when I made a choice. My first ever free choice. The horrified look of my mother as I clenched down on her throat was a priceless sight. I freed myself from the clutches of a mad woman and struck her down, removing my chains. In doing so, I became a weapon no more. Merely a tool, a criminal, a monster.
Now I was not a slave to any other but my own hate and anger. Hate against myself. Anger against my actions. I could have, and should have, done better. The choice I made could've been done sooner. Billions would still be alive.
The sharp pain I felt was replaced by an icy chill. Eventually, coldness filled my mind and numbness overtook the rest of my body. The memories faded away, giving space for one more brief glimpse of the world I was soon to leave behind.
I saw myself splattered against the dusty ground as blood formed a pool around my soon-to-be corpse. My mind looked around one last time, using what remained of my power to see the world. The crowd looked in stunned silence. The soldiers walked towards me with weapons raised, themselves alert and cautious. Confusion fluttered within all their minds. Content, I closed my psychic sight, and allowed my consciousness to fade.
And on that empty, open field, I found my demise, surrounded by the people I wronged. Maybe in a different time, I would have lived a normal life. An unimpressive yet happy existence. A life of friendship. A protector of peace.
If only.
_____
Next / RoyalRoad

A little idea that I had, Evolved Godzilla in GxK was just way too fucking cool, and I feel he was kind of underutilized. Especially for the extra little additions he had in his design, and in this story I want to put him up against the main threats that Goji himself had previously fought in the Monsterverse, just with his evolved state instead.
Will this be fair? Absolutely not lol, but will it be fun to write? Hell yeah.
Ao3 link if you want to read it there: https://archiveofourown.org/works/54956917/chapters/139311436
No one could have foreseen such a catastrophic event.

Ishiro Serizawa's heart pounded in his chest, threatening to burst entirely as sweat poured from his weary head. He couldn't sit straight upon the metal seat he had confined himself to, no one at Monarch could say otherwise too. The subtle rocking of the aircraft carrier certainly didn't help the pounding sensation in his head either, further adding to the stress placed upon the old doctor's mind. The sleepless nights ever since... it broke out had taken their toll upon the man, his brows furrowing as he clasped his hands together.

He had seen it for himself after all, to say Janjira was an absolute disaster would be the greatest understatement in the past century of human history. They thought they had everything under control, how could they not at this point? They had studied it for a decade without an end in sight, making sure that they could pull the plug on it. The kill field around the spore was capable of outputting enough electricity to power half a damn city...
And it shrugged it off like it was a jolt of carpet static.
In hindsight,he could do nothing but mentally curse himself over their own hubris. Monarch had become another example of mankind prancing its supposed control over the world, and the world was quick to put their arrogance into the ground. Nature came knocking, and its message was one that was echoed through the annals of human history.
Nature was a beast, a beast like no other. No amount of technology, science, religion or whatever else Mankind could conjure would ever be truly able to conquer and tame it. The creature that sprouted from the ancient spore exemplified such a thought like no other. Those deep crimson slits it had for eyes spoke of total and utter malevolence, like the world itself bored back into their souls... seeing red at them playing god.
"Sensei..."
He was broken out of his crushing thoughts upon the soft voice of one Doctor Graham, who was quick to sit beside the Japanese man when she had seen her mentor so deep and stuck in thought. The brit was always a comforting presence to him and to many other people at Monarch. Even if it did little to alleviate the old doctor's stress at the moment, it was something at the very least.
"Ah, Forgive me for my current state... there has been much on my mind."
A dry scoff emanated from the woman upon hearing his words, looking to the side of the doctor's head.
"There's been a lot on everyone's minds as of late."
Her shoulders sagged as she sighed, a finger of hers going up and rubbing one of her temples. The old doctor leaned back a little, looking up at his apprentice who looked no better than him in this state. The bags under her eyes said it all, she too was at the containment site when the creature emerged. They were lucky to have escaped relatively unscathed, the same could not be said for the Brody's.
"Has it been located?"
The old doctor's thick accented voice asked, rearing his head from his palm to look towards his apprentice. The expression on her face said it all, the shake of her head only cemented such a fact. The thought of that creature, being completely left unattended to and free to wreak havoc upon... anywhere for all god knew in the world was beyond horrifying to Serizawa.
"No... but I saw something in the audio readings..."
She paused, standing up and going towards one of the computer screens of the control room they were in. Tapping on the keyboard and bringing up something on the green tinted screen. The old doctor sat down in front of the computer, seeing that it was the audio patterns recorded through the minutes of hell when the creature broke free. He was unsure on what Graham wanted him to see, but she looked over from behind the screen and briefly gazed at him.
"Keep scrolling, before the EMP." She urged, as he complied to her request. Skimming through the readings, just seeing the spikes in audio through the graph made those chilling noises ring out in his ears again, but he kept going.
"This." She pointed and tapped on the screen, an all too familiar pattern to the both of them at this point. The call of the thing. But what really caught his attention was what sat right next to it.

A second call... a response.
Serizawa looked back to his apprentice at the realization of such a thing. It couldn't have been... could it? That second spore...
"A response." He muttered, his eyes wide as he considered the possibility of another MUTO having been awakened. But how? That second spore from the Philippine dig site that decade ago was wheeled off to storage probably far, far away from any source of radiation, unlike the spore in Janjira...At least to his knowledge. Writing this fact down onto his notes, he pondered such a scenario. As if things couldn't have possible gotten even more grim for not only Monarch but the world.
Vivienne went off to talk about with the other personnel present in the room, but quickly the attention of all those present was drawn to something else.
"We've received reports of a nuclear Akula 50, disappeared about 50 nautical miles from Hawaii." The voice of the officer was both heard by Admiral Stenz and the two Monarch scientists in earshot. Instantly that caught their attention, making Serizawa spring up from his seat and Vivienne to look over to face the Admiral. Stenz's gaze upon the two scientists still exhumed an underlying hint of contempt, one that the both scientists picked up on but disregarded for the time being. There were far better things to worry about at the moment anyways.

"A Russian sub's up and disappeared off the coast of Hawaii... could be the Muto." The admiral reiterated their own assumption that they thought of, and the screens behind the Admiral showed that they were about to get their answers soon enough...

---


The depths of the world were a place that human hands had not touched in many millennia. In times immemorial, when man walked alongside their gods... their titans, both lived in coexistence with each other. It was not one without conflict of course, but it was an existence of stability thanks to the efforts of beings were larger than life, to the eyes of men who were but ants to their splendor.
But as time flowed and the great wars began, when the aureate storm came and ravaged the lands, and when the crimson tyrant obsessed over total dominion upon nature...

One stood.

A king amongst the old gods of the world, the one that cheated death. The last one of a once great race, a guardian to all those who sided with his cause, that being the continued stability of nature. But to those that basked in anarchy, spreading it forth like a malignant cancer...
He was a monster.

And as the great wars raged on across the lands, the monster set forth upon innumerable battlefields. The auric wings of destruction found their match against the wrathful king, forging a rivalry etched into the very fabric of the world. The crimson tyrant learned to feel fear in his blackened soul, weeping in the shadow of the God-King.
In the end of it all, the king emerged victorious. But it was not a victory without bloodshed, not only of his enemies and himself but also of those he held dearest to him. The unwavering martyred in his name, The little ones caught in-between the battles of titans, his beloved queen...
Never again, he promised to himself. For all his might he couldn't save them. The queen would return, he knew that she wouldn't just fade away into nothingness like that. But that never erased the sorrow, the pain, the grief on his soul. He may have won the wars in placing the golden death in an icy prison and locking away the crimson tyrant deep below, but he was nearly destroyed in the process.
Defeat was never an option, and the wars had been the absolute closest the lord of the titans was to being gobbled up by the jaws of defeat. As of late the king of the monsters had decided that his form was not sufficient enough to cement his dominance over his enemies. Evolution was in order, to be a proverbial step ahead over what threats lied in wait, threats that he knew would come one day to jumpstart the cycle once more.
Evolve he did, the primordial minerals of the Hollow was something his kind always had been able to utilize, blessed with the ability to draw power from the crystalline materials. That was how they were blessed with their fire after all, but some sources yielded more interesting results. Said sources however were considered taboo to him and his lot, as there was really no telling what could possibly come out of consuming such things, the ones that did try usually succumbed to madness or explosive demises at the hands of volatile energies.
It was a gamble really, but one that ended up paying off. That fucshia-tinted nest of the serpent was quite the deposit of the volatile energy, one that she would never have let go without a fight. She was to be removed and besides, he already had a distaste for Tiamat anyway. Robbing him of the satisfaction of bringing down the rival that had cast him out from his territory long ago, and having the gall to side with the Golden One in the great war, and her being in the way of power that would make his job easier in the future was another thing to add onto the pile.

It was either her life or the world potentially being in jeopardy in the future.
A very easy decision that was to the leviathan.

Now transmogrified in the depths he remained, the crushing pressure of the entire ocean at this level made sure that very little life persevered here, let alone life that was intelligent enough to do anything to pose a threat to him. He rather enjoyed the relative silence, the only things being audible to him was the low churning of the rock all around him and the water rushing against his gargantuan form as he effortlessly glided through the water. Some peace and quiet was exactly what he sought, taking in those magenta crystals was quite the process he had to endure, but one that was worth the time to evolve.
The new form that he wore now was taking some getting used to, it felt like he had put on a completely new layer of skin to replace what once was. The lack of bulk in some areas was something he would have to rectify at a later occasion, but even then he hadn't felt so spry and filled with energy in a very, very long time. The more armored scales all over himself was something that he very much appreciated, the extra plates on his elbows and tail-tip were welcome additions of weaponry to use. Sustenance was in order if he wanted to regain his bulk and his home deep below would be able to quell the hunger he felt at the moment.

The peace ever since the last freeze proved to be a long one, but peace never was a permanent thing especially to him despite how much he would yearn and plead silently that it was. Despite the little ones unearthing him relatively recently, nothing seemed to come of it except for the strange incident at the remote atolls. Whether the little ones wanted to feed him or kill him was something that still eluded the leviathan but he definitely was displeased at seeing the damages that were incurred by the strange cylinder's detonation.
Continuing to trudge through the abyss and back to his home, the thought of him being overtly paranoid about all this crossed his mind. The innumerable sun cycles ever since the deep freeze started by the mother of ice marked a strange and silent point in his existence. At first it seemed too good to be true, but that first millennia going by without incident after the freeze started lulled him into a sense of security. Perhaps he was being overtly cynical about all this, evolving for threats that may never rear their ugly heads ever again. Had the Moth been around, perhaps the two of them could have finally gotten to "living a little." as the queen said to him.
A low grumble escaped the leviathan's throat, unheard to anyone in the depths as those bitter memories reemerged. How much he had wanted to have the "happy ending" that the goddess wanted not only for her, but for the both of them. A true sense of happiness was something that became a rarity to him long ago, when the wars first broke out at the auric death's arrival, it might as well have died alongside the queen in the last stretch of the conflict. He knew she would return, she would never be content to just fade way like that, even if it took millions upon millions of sun cycles for her to return, he would count down each and every day. In the meantime, he would ensure he did her and his own kind proud, continuing to tend to the lands as they always had done. But for now, home was calling.
When she did return, he would make sure that she would never fall to death's clutches ever again.

Come heaven or hell, he would make sure of it.


---

The air was tense upon the carrier, the two doctors watching the screens displaying the body cams of personnel on the ground. If a Nuclear submarine had gone up and missing near a relatively high-populated area like Hawaii would definitely be a cause for concern.

Especially considering there was a two hundred foot tall winged monster on the loose.

The nuclear submersible disappearing alongside the fact that the titan's main source of nourishment being radiation certainly painted a grim picture in their heads... that thing possibly being around, completely free to trample over the isles was a mortifying thought. The possibility of Monarch's secrecy to the public had now completely gone up in flames, but that was secondary to the potential millions that the existence of but one active titan could do. It was a nightmare born straight out of the darkest conceivable timeline to both Dr Graham and Serizawa, the top priority now in this dire situation would be to get a visual on the MUTO, and assess how to deal with it from there.
The men continued to march through the brush, being watched over by the two doctors from the screens, the night vision of the body cameras still doing little to give the clear picture to both of them. The disturbance that was picked up by the military at the very least was being taken completely seriously, both men on the ground and the air force had been called in for this, for a disturbance near Honolulu, combined with that sudden disappearance of that sub on top of the MUTO's escape probably had everyone on edge at the moment.

"We played god..." The old doctor thought to himself. How much he wished he could turn back time, destroy the damn spore the moment it had come to Janjira and nestled itself atop the irradiated wasteland. Nature was certainly giving him and everyone else at Monarch a hell of a lesson in not playing with flames they should never have even stoked in the first place.
"The consequences were bound to rear their heads at us eventually." Another thought ran through his mind, as he wiped the sweat from his weary head. Were they even able to do anything to the creature had they found it? He hated to be pessimistic, but considering the kill field around it's spore didn't even earn so much as a twitch from the thing as it was electrocuted... he had his doubts.

Though now... the prospect of him emerging again became very, very real.

"Gojira..." The old man whispered under his breath, to which his apprentice picked up on.
"Do you think he will come, sensei?" Graham replied back.

Had the tales been true, the old legends of a wrathful king emerging to weed out anything and everything that threatened the natural balance, Serizawa could only pray that forgiveness was something in Gojira's forte. They certainly did not give the King of the Monsters a welcoming taste of the modern world considering the in retrospect, utterly futile attempt on the King's life back in 1954 with Castle Bravo.
The aged man reared his bespectacled head to Graham, a look of uncertainty shining through his eyes.
"If the tales are to be believed... he will come. Nature's power will rise to alleviate the blight we have wrought upon it."
"We can only pray, that he does not consider us among the blighted."
Such words made chills run down Vivienne's spine, when Serizawa spoke in that way, she knew he was being more than serious. Others may have called his reverence of Godzilla as ludicrous, foolish even for placing his faith to tales of ancient 'uncivilized' humans, venerating what was 'just' a big animal. Serizawa saw it differently though, and while she couldn't exactly know why, she too believed in the old man's faith.
"I suppose we'll see." The English woman replied back, uncertain yet cautiously optimistic about it. Had Godzilla emerged due to the MUTOs, he would likely be at very least, focusing on them first and foremost. Whether he somehow knew that humanity was responsible for their reawakening was a scenario that she silently pleaded not to happen.

The eyes of all in the control room returned to the array of screens showing the men finally laying their vision upon something... it was hard to make out from the fuzzy vision of the cameras projecting the image and the nighttime darkness, but there was some sort of vague shape stuck up in the tree line. Was it the creature again? They got their answers quickly, when the group reared their lights upon the shape...
"Looks like we found your Russian sub." The stunned voice of one of the soldiers came over the comms, his camera completely frozen and transfixed upon the vehicle in very much not the appropriate terrain for it.
To everyone's total horror it was indeed the very submarine that was reported missing, stuck dozens of feet up in the tree line and from the looks of things, covered in some sort of viscous substance. Both the people watching from the carrier as well as the boots on the ground were all in utter shock, there could only be one thing responsible for the submersible's current predicament. The searchlights from the choppers above quickly got to scanning the immediate vicinity and from behind the suspended submarine... there was movement.
The choppers reared their way towards the flanks of the submarine, and everyone both watching and on the ground at that moment gasped from the sheer horror. It was not immediately spotted, but now with the illumination upon the side, the abyssal tinted hides of the MUTO once again showed itself... those crimson slits it had for eyes shining at the cameras like the uncaring gaze of a malevolent demon, the almost insectoid creature's dagger toothed jaws had been clamping down and munching upon the nuclear payload of the submarine. Just like they had suspected, these titans fed upon radiation. The question of if this MUTO was feeding just out of hunger or for something else crossed Serizawa and Graham's minds, but their current shock pushed it into the back of their minds.

"Cat's out of the bag now doctor..." The admiral's glare at Serizawa now returned, still maintaining a sense of calm but subtly the Doctor could tell that the current situation had definitely struck a chord within the man.
"No more keeping things under wraps, the public's safety is our utmost priority now." The admiral added, before going off elsewhere in the room as nearly everyone was sent into a complete panic as all hands on deck were sprung into action quickly, for the situation has now reached levels of potential danger that bode a grim outlook upon the local population on Hawaii.
Amidst all the panic now though, the doctors overheard another announcement from an officer manning the Radar...
"Second signature's coming in from the Pacific!"
Immediately, both doctors present knew immediately just who was coming... and just how utterly out of proportion this horrid situation that they already found themselves in had just gotten.

The king was coming.

For decades the great leviathan had remained docile and under the radar despite the uncalled provocation that was the welcoming he had received from Humanity in 1954, but now that Humanity had truly tipped the scales of the natural balance in a way that had never been shifted for countless millennia. Nature's power was to be called upon once more and Serizawa definitely wanted to be one of the first to witness such an event.
He sprung into action, quickly making his way out of the control room and into the busy halls of the manic carrier.
"Where are you going?!" Graham shouted as she followed the old man, nearly falling over due to the sudden rush.
"I have to see this!" Serizawa yelled back, his stride not breaking in the slightest as he practically sprinted for the main deck of the aircraft carrier.

As if History hadn't already been changed enough with the return of a Titan, now the very King of all the Titans was now coming. From the tales he knew of Gojira, while benevolent to the continued safety of the Planet he was also as capable of destruction like no other. As wrathful as he was merciful, for he himself was a true paragon of the two sides of Mother Nature itself, like the oceans as beautiful as they were yet capable of raging like no other...

He could only pray the his mercy graces humanity.

---

He had heard it.

Those familiar calls... reverberating through the murk, immediately being picked up by his senses.
A parasite.

The time of peace and introspection had now passed... and a king's work had to be done. Disorder had dawned upon the lands once more, and his services had been called upon once again.
Effortlessly, the leviathan shifted his course from headed back towards his undersea home and in the direction of the calls. The water around him raged and surged, heralding the king's incoming movements as he began to rise quickly towards the ocean surface from the crushing depths. This new body of his already proved its usefulness, the increased levels of energy that surged all around every ounce of his being giving him far greater speed than ever before. All that much better to address this tumor upon the balance he had tended and watched over from the shadows for all this time.
Rising and rising ever closer towards the water's surface, the moonlight gleaming through the waves that now swelled to be as large as trees to the beast's gigantic body waded past the waves. The adrenaline running through Gojira's veins were much like the very waves that he had kicked up now, driving him further and further as he felt his dorsal plates protruding above the ocean and knifing through the frigid air.
Focusing his eyes forwards and now seeing the deep abyss of the ocean give way to outline of land beneath the waves, he was close to making landfall now. Rearing the still massive bulk of his evolved form further and further towards the surface as he continued to trudge along... the subtle swishing of the air was audible to him, followed by the beating of what seemed to be... wings?
His momentary confusion was only furthered, as beams of light from all around traced over him and the beating and swishing grew louder and more intense as he travelled closer and closer inland. Averting his eyes up above and even through the rough waves he was kicking up, the lights seemed to have been coming from strange creatures that were tracking and following him as he swam.
They were nothing like he had ever seen before, those 'wings' that he had heard earlier spun around in a circular motion atop their strange looking frames, the lights attached to them were more like lamps that the little ones would use though even these ones were nothing like what he knew. What was stranger still, was that he could sense the little ones riding these metallic looking 'birds'. Truly strange creatures they had tamed, or maybe had even created but that was of little concern to him now.

If they still knew who he was, then they would stay out of his way.

Looking forwards once again now, the king was forced to slow down his current pace as what seemed to be an island came into his trajectory. Only upon another momentary inspection... this was no island at all. It was floating atop the water, the metallic material that made up it's land was a hallmark of being made by the little ones, much like the 'birds' that were illuminating him at the moment. It was less of an island and more like a manmade whale, and here too he could sense countless amounts of the little ones within and atop the 'whale'.
Rearing his body down below the waves once more, his dorsal plates narrowly missed ripping straight through the 'whale'. They were not his concern at the moment, and it would do him nothing to cause needless casualties towards the little ones when a potential disaster was running amok on the lands ahead.

Leaving the metal 'whale' behind but still having the 'birds' follow him from above, he picked up speed once more.

Land was ahead now... and a legend would voice his will once again.

Previous First Next
(Story is available on Royal Road as well.)
I hadn’t seen my brother in over a year, not until his unarmored back crashed violently through the garden door, his airborne body flying out from the manor proper.
Bastion’s grunt was loud and frustrated as he hit the ground and worked himself up to his own two legs. His hand was still on his sword; the fact that he’d managed to keep a hold on it, without dropping the weapon or nicking himself with it, despite taking a tumble like he had was something I found impressive.
Bastion glanced to my father. A small, apologetic smirk was on his face. “Father,” he acknowledged the suddenly solemnly exasperated looking patriarch of the family, before glancing to the shattered wood of the entryway his body had cracked asunder, “sorry about the door.”
“I can fix it,” our father said simply. “It’s good to see you, son.”
“Ah yeah, you too, dad,” Bastion said as he brought himself to his full height and rolled his shoulders, “I’ll try to keep the damage from here on out to a minimum, but you know mother—”
Just as Bastion was starting to explain the situation, a wild animal with a flowing mane of crimson burst through the destroyed doorway that my brother had just sailed through.
She was swiftness and elegantly efficient brutality personified. I only ever saw--or rather, barely saw--her move like this against my brother. Against no one else I knew did she unleash her power in this way, certainly not with me. Bastion was so amazing that she apparently didn’t feel the need to keep the training gloves on with him.
I could barely track the red-headed monster’s movements; her sheer speed burnt the air with the scent of a passion-charged aura.
This was my mother’s movement skill then.
Bastion exhaled deeply and, as mother approached in all her excited fury, he winked at me.
“Earthbound parry,” he announced the name of his skill out loud, likely for my benefit.
Swords clanged--real weapons, made of metal and death, not of wood and study. My mother was only momentarily visible as her weapon slipped off of Bastion’s at the moment of their impact. Our mother was clearly the fleeter of foot out of the two, but my brother's large, athletic shoulders seemed to draw strength from his firm footing and he twisted her airborne body away from any direction of cut that could strike him true.
If my mother was a violent beast, barely visible to the naked eye, then Bastion was an unmoving boulder. I saw the first contact of their swords, barely grasped the next by keeping my eyes anchored to Bastion’s less fast-moving sword, and could only hear the third strike as glimpsing it was beyond me.
“Fortress!” Bastion shouted at the second strike; his almost immoveable looking footing gave way and he slid back against a thunderous crash as mother put her entire weight into a sideward swing of her weapon.
As soon as he’d announced his skill, however, I watched as Bastion's feet sunk into the stone pathway of the garden, as if he’d grown much heavier. His sliding backwards slowed to nothing, his boots leaving deep gouges in the garden path.
“Hrmph!” my brother exhaled in a very obvious effort, following the third clanging of swords, as he connected his boot against the blur that was his opponent as she sought to press the advantage of her previous strike.
My mother tumbled and somersaulted backwards to fall into a ready, animalistic crouch; her recovery appeared entirely supernaturally graceful—and even much more agile than Bastion’s earlier one had been when he’d similarly been sent airborne.
There was a massive, menacing smile on the woman’s face as she settled onto the ground comfortably.
Pure focus and determination filled her gazed as she stared up at her firstborn. She grasped both hands onto her longsword and leveled it towards the ground, off to her left side.
My mother’s blade began to shimmer, to twist and ripple the space around it as if it was burning something in reality itself, but I felt no tangible increase in heat. There was a pressure, however, and I suddenly felt my chest tighten as that thickening of the air reached my lungs and skin from where mother stood and encased me like a very hot-feeling, contrastingly cold sweat.
My mother took one step forward and every part of her body flexed. Her muscled, curved quads appeared as if they’d burst at any moment, and my heart began to beat violently as if sensing an oncoming disaster.
“Dad,” I gasped.
I felt my father’s hand fall on my shoulders.
“Mom wait… Oh shit,” Bastion muttered as he took in the sight before him and, as if making a quick decision out of necessity, brought his sword over his left shoulder.
“She’s got that look in her eyes, eh?” my father muttered, a small smile, that I simply couldn’t currently turn my head to see on his face, was still noticeable in his tone.
My brother’s eyes steeled, and I felt a sense of resignation billow from him. A faint green sheen began to flitter off of his physique; in contrast to mother’s billowing red-flaked aura, his aura was barely visible but building nonetheless as if it was bristling deeply within his stoically standing form and waiting to be released, only slightly leaking out as he concentrated it.
The sound of an explosion shook and rocketed through the air as my mother’s step turned her into what I could only describe as a force of nature. To my eyes, she simply disappeared. Perhaps Bastion could track her where I couldn't; I sincerely hoped he could. Mother wouldn’t attack him with something she didn’t think her son could handle, right?
I felt my father’s firm, comforting hand bristle on my shoulder and watched him raise his other fingers into the air.
A few hurried words that sounded elegant and esoteric, but strangely comforting—like a mix between a silent forest breeze and, somehow, the sound of a mountaintop snowstorm—left my dad’s lips. An earring, affixed on his left ear, wrapped in what appeared to be tiny roots with an aquamarine stone in their middle, began to glow lightly in the sunlight against his skin.
“Air funnel!” he shouted after completing the magical incantation.
The sky was clear. Only a few, fluffy balls of white filled the stretching blue, and, yet, I suddenly felt as if I were standing on the edge of a buffeting rainstorm--sans the rain.
The loud, stone-cracking reverberation of my mother’s crashing step was soon drowned out by the deafening summoning of an abrupt cyclone of spinning, blunt-feeling winds bursting down from the clouds themselves.
There was a feminine grunt of surprise and annoyance from the epicenter of my father’s spell, as the blast of air slammed into the pathway between where my mother had been initially and where Bastion now stood.
Then it was over. The winds dissipated as soon as they’d come; my father flicked his wrist to the side casually, and his spell faded obediently off to rustle through the many surrounding trees—as if the massive, summoned gale force winds had only been a gentle breeze all along.
“I guess I got carried away,” my mother said as she slowly rose to her knees and then feet, right where my father’s spell had landed.
She didn’t seem mad at all, despite being hit by something that had seemed to me to have all the force of a hurricane.
Her red hair was a frazzled mess, but her clothes and body appeared relatively unscathed. She glanced to my father. “Sorry, honey. I wasn’t thinking. I could’ve really messed up your garden and the house.” Her eyes glanced to the huge crater she'd left from where her final attack had started. "I guess I sort of did, huh?" Then she smiled at my father sweetly, "but it could be worse."
“Phew,” Bastion exhaled and dropped his sword arm down to his side and looked to me. “That was close, huh, kid?”
If I were being honest, I really had no idea about at least half of what happened, but I was sure of two things: Bastion and my mother were still amazing, and that everything that had just taken place was really awesome and terrifying. Could I ever be that strong? Surely not?
“Uh, yeah?” I replied to my brother.
Bastion sheathed his sword and shook his head. “Well, mom, that was fun.”
“Mhm,” mother said as she sheathed her own, longer weapon. “You’ve gotten a little more relaxed with your skills. Getting used to the new style?”
“Something like that; mostly just growing into the new tier. You know how it is, always an adjustment when you break through,” Bastion replied with a smile on his face. “I think I could’ve caught you there.”
My mom returned the smile, but there was a hungry bite to her next words. “There’s an empty field a mile or two from here, if you really think that."
My father patted me on the shoulder and walked to his wife.
“Maybe after everyone gets settled in,” he said and put a hand to my mother’s cheek and swept some of her free-flowing hair out of her face.
Mother turned her gaze, a bit of lingering fierceness still mixing with her usual bubbly cheer. “Don’t like when I look wild anymore?”
Father’s expression shifted as if to say it wasn’t the time for her tone. “Help me pick up the door?”
Mother’s eyes only grew more fierce as she reached past my father’s own hand and touched his own face, to line up a slow kiss on his left cheek. “Right away, dear.”
I could’ve sworn I saw a bit of reddening set in on dad’s skin in that moment, but his visage remained otherwise composed--for the most part.
My mother brushed past father and, making the largest of the heavy, oaken door fragments look like it weighed little more than a small knick-knack, hefted up what she’d damaged and brought it over to the frame it’d been busted off of.
“Thank you,” dad said as he walked to where mother now stood.
My father trailed a hand along the door; his eyes examined the damage and seemed to be refamiliarizing themselves with the make of the craftsmanship.
A few simple words in druidic left my father’s mouth and a pulse of sap-scented mana left his fingerpads and flowed into the door. Soon, there was a groan of creaking wood, as new growths burst from the otherwise dead wood along the edge of the door’s damage. The sprouts grew, lengthening and twisting together until they’d filled the missing pieces of the door back out, but the newly repaired segments were admittedly bare and lacking the designs of the rest of the door—instead being plain wood.
“It’ll work for now,” father told mother, as the woman set the door back on its damaged hinges and then used her fingers to push the fallen nails back in to restore the restored object to its proper position.
“Practically good as new,” Bastion said from behind the two. "Mostly."
“I liked the door’s design,” mother mused a bit sadly.
“You broke it; don’t complain,” Father scolded her.
“But my wonderful husband will fix it for me, won’t he?” mother said and grabbed dad’s arm, pushing herself up against him.
“I’ll bring my carving tools out here later and make it match,” father promised.
Mother nuzzled her thick hair against her husband’s arm.
“They never change do they?” Bastion looked to me.
“I guess not,” I replied.
Father and mother had been the same ever since I could remember. Dad might not show it, and might be a lot less affectionate towards his wife than she was to him, but he always looked slightly embarrassed and moved by her flirting tone—yet he rarely outright scolded her about it or asked her to stop unless there was something pressing to do like fixing the door. I was pretty sure he loved it. In fact, I’d never heard him scold my mom about nearly anything other than her destructive tendencies and lack of foresight—he never, ever attacked her personality directly.
Bastion smiled at me and spread his arms. “Well?”
I smiled back and, as I sat down the basket my father had handed me, jumped into my brother’s arms. He hoisted me onto his broad shoulders and suddenly, it was like he’d never been gone at all.
“I can’t believe you’re almost twelve already,” he said. “I remember you being born like it was yesterday. You’re getting big, I don’t know how much longer I’ll be able to hold you on my shoulders like this.”
My brother had said the last part with a good-hearted laugh, but it had made me feel a little sad all the same. I liked sitting on his shoulders and I knew he was plenty strong enough to manage it no matter how much I weighed.
A lot of things seemed to be changing lately. I'd been doubting myself a lot more and... now my brother was saying other things would be changing as I got older too.
"I like doing this,” I said.
“Huh? Well, you still have a small bit before you’re too old,” he said. “I don’t think it’ll bother you anymore by then.” Bastion then turned his attention towards our parents and began walking towards them. “So, guys, what are we eating for lunch?”
My dad looked to the two of us with a small, proud smile. “Dinner is your and your mother’s favorite. Lunch will be lighter. We have some pheasant breast leftover that I’ve got Lila garnishing with some odds and ends from the garden. ”
“I caught a pair of gruff boars this morning and picked a few black quail from their branches,” mother replied.
“It was a long ride, I’m looking forward to you guys’ cooking again,” he said to our father. “And I bet you have something extra special planned for tomorrow?”
“That’s a surprise for then,” father answered.
“Sure, but you can tell me once me and Pery get done catching up, yeah?” Bastion asked.
“I’m not so sure you wouldn’t ruin the surprise,” father retorted, causing my mother to snicker. “It’s the same reason I wouldn’t have told your mother if she wasn’t the one who hunted for us.” That one caused mom to almost growl.
“Bah,” Bastion said, seeming to match my mother’s wavelength in response. “We’re not that bad.”
“Yes, yes you are,” my father replied calmly. “Though there are a few things I want to talk to you about later.”
“Everything alright?” Bastion asked.
“Everythings fine,” my dad assured him. “Just want to clear up what we wrote each other about.”
“Ah, that. Yeah, sure, whenever we get the chance,” Bastion replied.
“Pery can show you to your room for now,” Father offered.
“Fine by me,” Bastion said and looked up to me. “Same one as ever, yeah, kid?”
“Yeah,” I nodded. “They always keep it ready for you.”
“I know,” my brother smiled and looked to my parents appreciatively. “Well, let’s go then. My bags are out front with Windtide. If she didn’t get startled off when mom all but ambushed me earlier.”
Windtide was my brother’s horse. A gift from his lord and now father-in-law. She was a beautiful battle-mare, from a mana-blooded line. She was larger than a mundane-stock steed and stronger than any normal stallion. I was somewhat excited to the see the magnificent horse again.
“You should’ve been prepared,” mother taunted him.
“You didn’t hit me with your first strike, did you?” Bastion asked as he brushed past the woman into the house. “I’ll come catch up with you guys more once we get my bags up there.”
“That reminds me,” I heard my father say to my mother as we began to walk away. “You did go through the house to get out here. What else did you two break before you got to my door?”
“Well… maybe your table,” I heard my mom admit.
“I bet Windtide didn’t run away,” I said to my brother as we walked through the house, my eyes noticing a few knocked over pots and a table that’d been cleaved cleanly in two. “Dad is gonna be mad about that one.”
“If it had just been me who’d done it? Sure, but mom cut that one up, her style is a lot more violent than my new one,” Bastion said.
“Dad said you had a surprise for me?” I asked.
“Well yeah, I was going to give you the sword mother gave me when I was eight—” Bastion remarked absentmindedly, but cut himself off hallway through his word, “hey, you weren’t supposed to know that.”
“You told me,” I said. “I just asked.”
“Bah,” he made the same sound he’d made with dad a moment or two earlier. “Guess the old man was right. I can’t keep surprises to myself.”
“I don’t have a real sword, though,” I tried to make my brother feel a bit better about his slip but was smiling inwardly. I had known what I was doing after all. “I can’t wait to see it.”
“Nice try, kid,” Bastion replied. “You don’t get to see it until tomorrow. That does remind me, though, you’re getting closer to the competent level with your sword, yeah? That’s impressive.”
“But you did it a lot earlier,” I said.
“I’ve never rubbed that in your face, have I?” Bastion asked. “A few years is nothing when you’re as young as you are. Most talented swordsmen don’t see the competent level until they’re adults, but I guess having mom around really helped us out, huh? That woman is a monster with the blade.”
“You looked scared when she was getting ready to hit you before dad stopped her,” I remarked.
Bastion scoffed good heartedly as we exited out the front of the manor door, which was thankfully intact. My brother sat me down in front of a gorgeous, silver-haired steed whose eyes were a deep purple. “I talk a big game to ruffle mom's feathers, but the only one defintily capable of stopping our mother in that moment was dad--and even he might have trouble if she were that close and not focused on me.” My brother walked past me and grabbed the bridle of Windtide and began to lead her over to the open-front stable that opened off to the side of the main courtyard of our family home. “Let’s get her settled before we take the bags off her.”
“So you would’ve lost if she went all out?” I asked.
“You never know if I’d get really lucky,” Bastion replied, “but probably. It’s hard to beat someone who spent the first half of your life teaching you every move you knew up until that point. I’ve picked up a few tricks since joining the Host of the Stone, but… she’s at least a tier higher than me in her style and—honestly—I’d say hers is the stronger of the two in direct combat.”
“But you’re a journeyman in both hers and yours!” I said as Bastion began to situate Windtide in her pen. “And why did you switch styles if yours is weaker?”
“You have a lot of faith in me, kid,” Bastion said, but I could see the slight, self-contented smile on his face as I praised him. “I’m actually an expert tier in my own now, though, and I’m pretty sure she’s nearing the master tier. If she hadn’t retired out here with dad… well, she’d probably already be there.”
“Okay,” I admitted, “but you didn’t answer my question, though.”
“Oh? Yeah, the thing about styles. That was just an off the cuff remark, but, let’s see… Styles are made when someone forges their own path with the blade. The System recognizes you and grants you a named style when you create something unique; you can teach that to other people a lot quicker than you taught yourself too," Bastion explained. "Maybe it’s wrong to say her style is strictly better than mine, but it’s definitely far more designed for single combat. That woman’s methods were made purely for putting down things stronger and faster than her before they can use their strength and speed. Mine is for protecting allies and those behind me. It’s for working in a team."
"So they both have their uses, right?" I inquired.
"It mostly suits the life I’ve chosen for myself better, and just me in general. I love testing my mettle against others, sure, but you’ve seen the look mom gets in her eyes when she fights, right? It’s ecstasy. If I’m just having fun when I spar, then she’s reveling prematurely in her own personal afterlife when she crosses swords with someone who can keep up with her.”
“It sounds like your style isn’t worse, though, just that mom is really strong,” I observed as Bastion began hefting his two bags onto his bristling shoulders, without so much as breaking a sweat.
“She’s strong and skilled,” Bastion remarked, “I mostly fight monsters too weak for me to get anything out of absorbing their cores nowadays, or other warriors. I can sharpen my proficiency score against the latter, but I don’t get any attribute boosts out of slaying either of them. Mother, though? She wasn’t the sort of swordswomen that you usually sent after bandits or that you deployed in a platoon," Bastion explained. "She’s told you her stories about her and dad, I’m sure. She was an adventurer with the guild and a highly ranked one. She only got her knighthood after she retired from adventuring and married dad; it opened that door since he’s from the low nobility, not that she probably couldn’t have managed hurdling that barrier on her own if she’d had any interest in an official position before she’d started a family. Anyway, she’s absorbed hundreds of monster cores. Far more than me. When she gets serious, I’m simply outclassed by her raw speed, agility, and power.”
“I’ve never absorbed any monster cores either?” I told Bastion as we entered the manor and began climbing the leftmost, winding staircase of the main foyer. “Am I going to be weak if I don’t start soon?”
“Not really,” Bastion said. “Your attribute scores only reflect how strong you are compared to someone of your race and age. Even if you absorbed some cores, you still wouldn’t get the full strength out of them until you’d grown into your build. Not that you wouldn’t be stronger than the average adult if you managed to reach the competent level in brawn, or something.” I walked up to the door to Bastion’s room and opened it for him since his hands were full, each one hefting one of his massive bags. “Besides it's good to have a good base in your proficiencies before you start relying on your brawn or dexterity, even having too high of an endurance could lead you to not cutting out unneeded movements; don’t want to get lazy and forget the value of technique,” my brother explained as he entered his room and placed his bags down on his bed. “Ah, hey, the rooms just like I remembered it.”
“It always is,” I commented. “I told you earlier.”
“It’s still nice to have somewhere to come back to and to appreciate it out loud when you do. I have two homes now, one here and one with Samantha, but you can never have too many places where people smile when they see you and you can smile back at them,” Bastion explained the reasoning for the contented, nostalgic grin that was back on his face.
The room was pretty sparce, despite his reaction to it. A bed. A trunk. An armoire filled with his old clothes, or at least the ones he hadn’t taken with him when he’d moved out.
My eyes, however, were drifting to the biggest of the two bags he’d sat down on the bed.
“Eh?” Bastion made the noise and turned to me with curiosity. “Looking for your sword? You’re not getting it early. The weapon a warrior gets when they’re twelve is a milestone; might be bad luck or something if you don’t wait.”
“It’s not that,” I said a bit annoyed. “Is you armor in there too?”
Bastion nodded. “Oh, I see. I’ve never actually put it on when I visit, have I? Hey, tell you what, I’ll show you how to put it on.”
“Really?” I asked.
I could feel the excitement growing in my chest. I’d seen mother don her armor before, when she’d gone out with dad to deal with the local monsters, but mother didn’t carry herself quite like a knight and she certainly didn’t wear a full coat of plates since she preferred to stay agile. Bastion was a real knight in shinning armor. I bet he'd look so cool if he were all suited up.
“Sure, kid,” Bastion said and stepped beside me to untie and flip over the flap of his oversized backpack. My brother withdrew a sword-sized bundle of wrapped cloth and laid it to the side, shooting me a momentary look that warned me against trying to sneak a peek at my present before it was time. He then started removing pieces of silvered metal plates. “Usually I stop at just the cuirass and pauldrons if I'm by myself, but I bet you want to see what the full set looks like. I’d need a squire to help me get the whole thing on in a timely manner. Think you can handle that role for today?”
“Yeah!” I replied without missing a beat.
Bastion laughed. “Alright. Mom and dad can wait for a minute. They’re probably fixing the furniture that mother broke anyway. Let’s start from the bottom up.”
I listened carefully as Bastion instructed me how to buckle the straps and interconnect the plates of his gear. We started with the sabatons, the armor that protected his feet, and then moved up his legs as we went. Occasionally, Bastion would correct me and tell me to position a piece in a different way than I’d interpreted from his instructions. Thanks to my born trait, I’d never exactly forget the words that left his mouth and could replay exactly what he’d said as I worked, but—as my father had been quick to point out to me once—knowledge did not equal skill or muscle memory. I’d never performed the duty of armoring a knight and so the process was slow and clunky.
By the time we’d finished, my mother was watching as I gazed up at my big brother with admiration in my eyes. He was the exact, spitting picture of a knight. He had my mother’s beautiful, strong features, with just the slightest touch of my father’s angularity, along with sporting dad’s blonde hair completely, albeit cut very short on the sides, rather than having my mixture of our two parent’s color.
The man’s armor was somewhat elegantly boxy, the chest a series of thick and tapered down interconnecting plates rather than a rounder cuirass. His leg armor kept the straight-edged design that folded to follow his musculature. His pauldrons were large enough to provide some protection to his neck and traps, but I knew he had a high enough brawn score to easily bear the weight. Engraved onto the largest chest-plate was an abstracted ring of stone, the symbol of his order.
Somehow, Bastion looked even more stalwart and professional in his war gear than he always did. If I didn’t know he had a tendency, inherited from my mother, to be a bit scatterbrained and ditsy then I’d never have guessed he wasn’t every bit the calculating and tactical warrior—then again, maybe he also was just that, considering how poised and carefully he’d deflected and directed my mother’s vicious assault earlier. If my family had taught me anything then it was that people could be more than one thing.
“What’s it made of?” I asked, dumbstruck by the sight.
“It’s mostly steel, but there’s a bit of elf-silver blended in to provide some magic resistantance—not a lot though, I could barely afford the little I got,” Bastion admitted.
“Is it that expensive?” I asked.
My mother took the opportunity to interject herself with a tsk, apparently having come up into the doorway behind us. “Not if you’re an adventurer. Local knights don’t make nearly as much as an adamantine rank.”
“Mother,” Bastion said with a bit of a diplomatic tone, “that’s only true for the best of them. Most of them do alright but make much less than even a novice knight’s retainer.”
Mother crossed her arms coly as she leaned against the door frame. “What’s the point in basing your expectations off being in the bottom rung?” She then turned her attention to me. “You want to be an adventurer don’t you, Pery? A strong one?"
“Well…” I trailed my voice. “I’m not even competent tier with my sword yet.”
Mother was hard to argue with. She clearly wanted me to follow her path, even if she was technically a knight now. Father was more balanced when it came to the topic of my future, he encouraged me to follow my heart; both of them, however, seemed to have fairly high expectations for me.
“You’ll get there in a year or two, probably less,” my mother said and seemed to completely miss my conflicted tone.
I did want to be an adventurer--and a mage. And I couldn’t just give up on my swordsmanship now that I’d tried so hard with it.
“Okay,” I said a bit torn in multiple directions.
Bastion shot me an empathetic gaze, before looking back to my mother. “He could learn a lot as a squire too.”
A squire? My heart shot back up. Could I be? That’d mean I’d be in training to be more like my brother, but how would I still practice magic?
“He’d also miss out on a lot of real-world experience and have a hard time building his foundations with cores,” my mother said.
“Not if he was with someone who looked out for him; besides, squires get sent to deal with the local, low-level threats,” Bastion replied. “There’s plenty of room for them to build their attributes up to at least the journeyman tier if they’re not lazy.”
My mother smiled, her previously combative face suddenly seeming approving. “I see.” She then turned her attention to the bundle of cloth on the bed. “Is that Mytharis? I haven’t seen that in ages.”
Mytharis? Was the sword Bastion was planning to give me his old, named blade? I remembered him using it when I was younger. How could I deserve something like that.
"Mytharis? You mean you're going to give me that?” I asked.
“Well, it helped me to push past the lower levels—” Bastion caught himself as he further spoiled the surprise. “Mother…”
Mom chuckled. “It won’t hurt anything if we give it to him just a little early.”
Bastion put a hand behind his head. “Well, I won’t say I hadn’t thought of it.”
“Absolutely not,” a male voice cut into the conversation. “He only has to wait a few hours before tomorrow. We’ve waited this long, let’s practice some restraint and discipline as the adults here.”
My father’s stern face appeared beside my mother.
“Yeah, dad, I guess,” Bastion changed his tune, though it was clear he somewhat sided with mom.
“Restraint,” my mother cooed the word back at my father. “Haven’t I taught you that you don’t always have to have that, honey?”
My father’s lower lip twitched. Like he was trying to hide a smirk again. “Celis.”
“You’ve always been such a worry-wart,” my mother continued, laying on a sweet tone. “What’s some old superstition really going to do?”
“Superstition and beliefs have power,” my father replied a bit less assertively than before, but still in a firm tone.
“I really don’t mind waiting,” I said to the assembled group of adults.
I also really didn’t want to ruin a good thing.
“Awe, Pery, you’re too sweet,” my mother said with a loving smile. “I was trying to be on your side.”
“Um, sorry, mom,” I said.
My mother chuckled at that. “You don’t have to apologize.”
“Excuse me, Magister Borncrest and Lady Borncrest,” a formally intoned, but comfortable sounding woman's voice interrupted the light-hearted squabble between my parents. “Lunch is ready.”
My father glanced to our maid, Amelie, with a look of gratitude. I looked to her too. She was a woman of average height, with short blue-black hair, but she had a very sweet and pretty face that just made me feel happy and calm in general. She’d been my wetnurse and had always helped to take care of me; she was something like a second mother to me, if I were being honest. Behind her diminutive leg, there stood a little girl that looked very much like her. I smiled at her daughter--and my best friend, other than Bastion, of course--Rosaria.
The girl smiled back.
“Well, let’s get to it,” mother said and instantly turned to walk to the dining room.
“Food,” Bastion said with excitement and clapped his hands together.
My brother began to follow our mother, who was also quickly turning to hurry towards a potential meal.
“You’re still in your armor,” I said.
“I’m pretty used to it,” Bastion raised a hand to waive away the concern; he was already out of the room.
My father looked to me. “Let’s just go join them, then?”
And so we ate together, our family reunited now that Bastion was back. It was nice and reminded me of my earliest memories before my brother had left to venture out on his own.
Previous First Next
(Story is available on Royal Road as well.)

Fallout 4 is the only game where you can’t just stow it in your inventory with the other items.
In Fallout 3 and New Vegas, it worked like normal armor. In Fallout 1 and 2, it took up most of your inventory, but was still able to be tugged around.
Even in 76 you could stow power armor in your inventory and just drop it down whenever you needed it, despite the design looking as if weighed a ton.
Newer depictions of power armor make it look more like a vehicle rather than anything that could be realistically carried around, yet 76 still has that option to stow it in your inventory.
Looking at the power armor frame, I could somewhat see that if you were to strip all the armor pieces off, it could probably fold in on itself and be able to be carried around, but you’d still have to carry around the massive armor pieces.
I understand that all of this can just be explained as gameplay mechanics or oversight, but that’s boring.

My normal posts are 2-5 paragraphs. This is long because it's a starter.
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Mahzadi stood beneath an overhang on the tiny guest balcony, muzzle lifted as she gazed dully out across the Inner Sea. On a clear day one could make out the Morrowind mainland from here, a flat smudge of brown on the horizon, but today a dreary gray haze concealed all. It wasn't yet noon but felt much later. Thick clouds lowered the sky and an intermittent drizzle cast pockmarks on an opaque and steely sea. The light of Magnus shone down only in narrow shafts where the clouds parted. Seastacks dotted the waters for as far as one cared to look. When traveling in small groups around the Telvanni Isles, the Dunmer preferred to use flat-bottomed skiffs, and in fact Mahzadi was watching for just such a boat now.
One hand gripped the woody stalk that formed a living rail. Tendrils wove together to form the balusters, with smaller vinelike offshoots curling into delicate filigree. The balcony the Khajiit stood upon was a fungal shelf growing from the fleshy surface of Tel Nivayn. Pale green in color with a slightly spongy texture – as if walking on moss – the shelf was a perfect semi-circle, with a smaller shelf overheard providing shelter from the elements.
In her other hand, the one not gripping the rail, the Khajiit held a bottle of Sujamma. Presently she lifted the bottle to her lips and let a sip of the liquor wash over her tongue. It was good stuff, a hint of saltrice bread hiding under acrid harshness. The fire it lit in her belly was a nice contrast to the cold drizzle.
A cathay-raht, the Khajiit stood head and shoulders taller than the average Dunmer. Every part of her was powerfully muscled and thick, right down to a heavy-looking skull and big blunt muzzle that would have looked natural on a sabre cat. She was black-furred save for a splash of white across her muzzle. This white mark continued down her throat in the one direction, while in the other it tapered into a little stripe that disappeared between the lobes of her sloped forehead. Her eyes were hazel-green, irises rimmed in brown. To run fingers through her pelt would reveal a gritty texture, as if she hadn't bothered to groom herself in a while.
She was clad in bonemold. The couters flared into paddle-like spurs at the outside of each elbow, subtly advertising that the armor was of Telvanni make. The pauldrons were rounded and unadorned, but a deep burgundy cowl lay draped about the chest and shoulders. It matched a decorative loincloth. The greaves had been specially made to fit Khajiit legs, protecting the thigh and shin in the front, while the back of her legs were protected by padded chauses dyed black. A steel mace hung from a ring on her belt.
Her gauntlets and helm sat on a small table nearby. The helm was an open-faced variety that would smush down her ears when worn. It was tiresome to be stuck in bonemold all day, but the master of Tel Nivayn required that she be dressed so during the day.
Good Gods, why had she accepted this posting? Tel Nivayn was a dreadfully boring place and the Mage-Lord of the island, Uradras Nivayn, could be described as nothing other than an eccentric twit. Two months she had spent here now, with nothing to do but drink and stare out at the sea... The days ran together in the same sort of gray haze that obscured the horizon.
Tel Nivayn was an impressive place to call home, Mahzadi had to concede. The interior was cramped but opulent. (As all Telvanni architecture felt somewhat cramped and claustrophobic to her. She supposed that such towers were designed with economy in mind, seeing as the fungi were living organisms that required magicka or nutrients from the dirt or maybe even sunlight to stay alive. Bugger if she knew how they worked!)
The tower shadowed every corner of the small island it loomed over. A central stalk branched into several separate, bulbous turrets capped with sharp spires, while flattened tendrils spiraled around the tower to form walkways between the turrets. A multitude of thinner tendrils branched away from the walkway, bifurcating again and again to create a jumble of coiling, twisting, curling runners that ended in tips crooked like gnarled fingers. Lanterns hung from some of these tips, the ones that grew near enough to the walkways for servants to reach.
There were two balconies. The largest was accessible only through Master Nivayn's private rooms, and then there was this one, accessible from the “guest wing” which was perpetually deserted. Nivayn had never had any guests since Mahzadi had come. Mahzadi herself officially lived in an outbuilding, a single room pod-hut standing with a row of others behind Tel Nivayn, but she spent all of her waking hours in the tower proper.
The only conventional structure on the island was a rickety wooden dock, and even the ramp leading from the dock to the main entry was the same green fungal tissue Mahzadi now stood upon. The doors and their jambs, too, those were ordinary wood, but they fit into the walls so perfectly that they truly seemed to have been grown along with everything else.
Movement caught Mahzadi's eye. She leaned over the rail, squinting. Yes, that was the skiff now, its Dunmer helmsman deftly maneuvering around the stacks as he conveyed Uradras Nivayn's newest employee to the isle. A corner of her mouth lifted. Something, finally, was happening.
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OOC Information:
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Hello! Today I'm itching for an adventure story with a gradually developing romance set in The Elder Scrolls lll: Morrowind, but I'm open to other settings as well. (Sorry in advance but I'm not interested in roleplays based on Skyrim or ESO!)
Mahzadi is a mercenary with a surly attitude. She can be difficult to get along with. She drinks too much, swears too much, gambles, and picks fights with others out of boredom. She's a little too narcissistic for a traditional love story, but I am looking for a story where an intimate, affectionate relationship between our characters can grow.
I understand that this character may be a hard sell. This prompt is a suggestion; I am more than willing to tailor my character's personality and physical attributes to suit your tastes, within reason. I appreciate partners willing to do the same. My “type” that I'm most attracted to are men with average bodies in the 40-60 age range, with realistic personality flaws.
I prefer to reply more than once a day. 2-3 replies per day would be ideal, but I understand life gets in the way. I usually write 2-5 paragraphs, or 150-450 words per post. This starter is much longer than my typical post length, but my lengths vary according to need. If I'm introducing a new character or setting a scene, my post might go up to 1,000 words.
Please send a writing sample if you have none in your post history. No need to custom write anything for me, old samples are fine. Click here to PM me!

I have a curiosity with examining armor in video games, and aside from general nitpicking regarding "hOw rEaLiStiC iS iT?" I find myself staring at the "endgame" armoclothing. I feel like combinations for mage types are easier in general, but when it comes to actual armor wearing characters, I find that many pieces have a piece missing.

• Stygian Omen, for example, has a relatively matching looking leg piece called Vigilant Greaves, which appear to be similar to the design, but the armor rading isn't endgame level, which I find strange. Executioner's Greaves don't seem to match it, its just "good enough". Neither Blazing Soul or Subjugator's Sallet seem to match, they have different armor tints.
• On the note of helmets, why are there dressings that hang down behind the helmet? Normal designs may have chainmail or a hanging neck guard of some other variety. The plume is usually put on top of the helmet. This design choice in particular is weird, because it also seems to clip and clash cloaks and other torso armor pieces.
• Many armor pieces out there look great on their own, but I can't seem to find any set pieces that go with it. Prime example is the Valiant Armor chest piece. The Brutal Cuisses obviously are supposed to go with the Grand Cuirass, but that's seems to be more the exception than the rule

Maybe I'm just thinking about it too much, would kind of like to have the armor types named similarly - i.e "Grand Cuisses" and "Grand Cuirass" so I know which goes with which, or have descriptions that are similar enough. In general the armor all looks really cool, but I have a hard time matching pieces in the end game, and as someone who really enjoys armor design in fantasy games, I find that very distracting.

First, the armor passives aren't anything new. Not a fan of their designs either, personally.
Second, the sound profiles for the new weapons aren't very interesting, with the AR and SMG sounding identical. The SMG in particular looks like a copy of the SMG we already have, which seems to be a problem for weapons in general.
For example do we really need 3 different liberators? In my opinion there should only be one lib with different ammo types (standard, armor-piercing, and concussive, whatever else in the future). Same with the slugger and punisher shotguns which are nearly the same model.
If AH are gonna add new weapons make them unique with new model and sound profile. Not just copy pasting and tweaking an existing one and slapping "concussive" or "incendiary" on it. I'd rather get two really interesting weapons than 4 mediocre/ copy pasted ones.
I would also like to see AH exaggerate a little more in regards to unique sound profiles at least. Especially the laser and plasma weapons.

Loved the game and cant wait for more. Here is my wishlist for a dlc: - One new continent, a little bigger than Bastorias or Albion. (Amalia mentions there is more than Fevrith out there, hmmm) - Unicorn - 1 new Bestral class (Wereunicorn?) - 1 new Angel class - 1 new Elf class - 2 new Human classes - A new race with 5 new classes - A new game plus, where enemies are maxLv full troops and you keep your characters - An endgame roguelike mode to build a single troop of mercenaries, from low lv to max lv to 1 member to 5 members. Kinda like an Express adventure mode. - 15 more unique itens - More troop slots, infinite if possible
Some design ideas - An Armored Caster besides Alcina - A class that does melee with Staff - Spear angel? - Dwarves? - Elven cleric? - An AoE class that does not simply nuke the enemy - A charge based class that does not charge a nuke - An assist skill similar to Elven Archer pure field if statuses became more prevalent - Maybe create a new promoting for every class, raise max ap/pp to 5 and new lv cap with much more hp to survive all this XD

I had a showerthought I wish to convey. I went from maining arguably the strongest character (Feng) to - in preparation for Lidia - alt-ing one of the arguably weakest (Leroy), and I believe I've pinpointed what makes the game and many characters so frustrating to play against.
Most opponents use an onslaught of moves against you like a punching bag and hope you don't know how to deal with it. Plus frame move strings. Flying moves. Heavily chipping moves. Rage arts. Armor moves. Low high mixups. Low starter launchers. Oppressive mids. Heat smash. Throws. All mostly without considering what you're doing and what you're about to do. Now, bear in mind, I understand that most of these have counterplay - however, that isn't my main point. My point is, the reward for guessing right does not feel adequate. So, the way to win most of the time is to force, through sheer tools of your character to not guess, but only have the opponent guessing. You reduce your mental stack and increase that of your opponent.
Playing a weaker character means I can't just trade strong moves and hope for the best. I have to not only account for my own moves, but I also can't count on my neutral tools to win a tug of war, meaning I have to play defensively as there's absolutely no way I can win mashing anything. I can't trade near-anything. And if I make a mistake and press a button at the wrong time, it doesn't matter if the move you risked is a 6 damage jab; if you mistime it during that onslaught, you'll eat a counter-hit launcher combo for half your health. The odds are tilted against you.
And what's the payoff on Leroy? A bit over 40 damage on a perfect parry. It's not even guaranteed, it can be stuffed even on perfect frame! How about a launch combo? A bit over 60 damage on a successful launch. Compared to near double that on Feng Wei - don't even get me started on their neutral tools. A bit of a sad joke for one that released in such an overpowered state in Tekken 7. With none of the evasiveness and none of the free damage that comes with punishing anyone daring to press a button that Feng has for near-free.
Additionally, there's more to consider. There appears to be a lack of intuitive responses in the game. For instance, if an opponent is flying, I expect a jump kick to deal with that, but more often than not, it won't. Something that looks very linear and frontloaded should feel sidesteppable often isn't. Attacks striking visually low are often mids and attacks striking visually mid are often lows. Moves should arguably by design convey visual cues indicating whether they are plus frames or minus frames. It's all down to labbing the matchup and the unfortunate thing is that for a lot of the more oppressive tools, the best thing you can do is block or sidestep.
To summarize: 1) Strong characters can overwhelm you with sheer tools that don't have intuitive or equally rewarding counterplay with little thought put into their gameplan. 2) It feels bad when the opponent doesn't actually interact with you and treats you like a punching bag. 3) There's a distinct lack of clarity when playing defensively. To some extent, I believe that's intentional.
To conclude, I'm not whining. I accept the game as it is. However, I felt like knowing why the game is frustrating helps me deal with it more and I figured that by writing this, it might help you too.

I'm currently playing Rule The Waves 3, and am new to naval battle sims. When I set up my armour in the ship designer, I can click the Gun Data button and see some damage ranges. I'm told my ship has an "Immunity Zone" from 1k to 8k yards against a certain calibre of gun.
I could not find a clear explanation in the manual about what the Immunity Zone is. Should I be aiming for armor that puts me in the IZ, or is that not enough to keep my ships alive?

I've seen way too many people who say Owl Father is the hardest boss fight in the game, but I completely disagree. He is hard if you've relied on gimmicks for the majority of the game. If all you've tried to do is abuse shinobi prosthetics or combat arts, sure I can imagine him being difficult, but he is the embodiment of testing you on your ability to play the game as perfectly as you can without relying on gimmicky aspects.
​
I encountered Owl Father for the first time like an hour ago and just beat him a minute ago. This is my first playthrough and I've been making it a point to fight the hardest bosses with attack and deflect only, or minimal use of combat arts and prosthetics. I experimented with ashina cross, ichimonji double, floating passage, and mortal draw without actually trying to beat him just to see which combat arts were fair and which ones were cheesy. I settled on mortal draw just to lower health faster, and once my 6 spirit emblems ran out lmao, I used ichimonji double for the sole purpose of resetting my posture bar.
​
Considering the Owl Father fight takes place in the same arena Lady Butterfly's fight took place, it also mimicks the lady butterfly fight to an extent. Lady Butterfly's fight relied on lowering health until posture lowered fast enough to trigger a deathbow, her fight also had several aerial attacks and shurikens that could either be parried or dodged last minute to give you an opening to get hits in. Other than that, staying hyper-aggressive, trying to get in as many attacks without overcommiting in a trade, and parrying the final hit of a combo (or dodging for a slightly longer opening) are aspects of both fights.
​
I'm not sure if I'm completely off the mark here, but my guess is that after Lady Butterfly, when the skill tree, prosthetic tools, and combat arts opened up a lot, many players relied too heavily on using the most optimal/fastest/cheesiest/gimmickiest method of dispatching foes and bosses alike and settled into that habit. Owl Father felt like a fight that tested your absolute basics - when to attack, deflect, when to dodge, when to jump, when to mikiri, and when to simply walk around the boss for an easy opening. Sekiro isn't a game like Elden Ring where many bosses require changes in playstyle to a large extent or changes to stats, weapons, armor, and talismans. Sekiro is just hit hit deflect repeat at its core, so it blows my mind that people find Owl Father so incredibly difficult.
​
With any properly designed boss in a video game, you can dissect it into a set of unique moves and figure out the best way to exploit each move while still being prepared for the next possible move. Owl Father is no different, and even normal Owl's healing disable or poison puddles weren't so cheeky that they couldn't easily be dealt with by simply walking around them. I get if Sekiro is your first game, it would be difficult, but just slowing down for a moment and observing the boss helps a lot, so seeing so many people be stuck on Owl Father felt like it showed me that people would rather take the easy way out just to get reminded that their basics aren't the best rather than improve their fundamentals and stop relying on additive skills. I get that part of a game is using all the tools it provides you to beat it, but abusing all the tools just to get stuck when your fundamentals are tested and then go make a rant on a subreddit about how you can't beat a boss is a little bit silly to me.

First Chapter Next Chapter> (Coming soon)
Now, in the previous post, the one detailing how I was unable to post chapter 12 just yet, there was only one reply, from u/Kovesnek. They asked for an overview of the Reliant, and a small bit detailing how this universe is different from the canon NoP’s timeline. Both will be presented here. If you’d like another post like this, please tell me! This was tons of fun to write. I hope you enjoy.
The Reliant is a Medium Odysseus-class Exploration Cruiser, designed by the Combined Star Systems Federation Engineering Corps, and built in the Highburn Citadel Shipyards. It is 4,632 meters long, and is crewed by over 47,000 CSSF personnel, with a sizable marine contingent for power projection on planets, ships, and stations. Internal security falls to the security division, who uphold the laws and rules set by the CSSF onboard the Reliant.
The Reliant is a long-range exploration cruiser, designed to be fully self-sufficient, with growing beds for food production. On-board fabricators allow the Reliant to make anything from spare parts, to entire small stations and ships. Cyro pods allow the ship to put its crew under for enormous amounts of time, owing to the automated repair and maintenance bots under the control of the ship-board AI. This ship, given enough time, could “restart” the CSSF, through the onboard Federation Database.
The Federation Database is something akin to a huge library, with billions of files, containing the sum of human knowledge. This database is updated regularly through the massive communications relays in every CSSF controlled system. It contains everything from geological surveys of a particular area on some forgotten moon, to the blueprints of the very ship that carries it. If the CSSF were to ever fall, the hundreds of thousands of ships would be flung into the deepest stars, to restart the CSSF. This plan was originally founded after the Devastation War on Old Terra in 2063. This war destroyed much of the collective knowledge of humanity, and to avoid this scenario again, the Federation Database was created.
The Reliant, due to its wide mission profile, and its military use, contains a wide variety of weapons systems. CSSF naval warfare doctrine uses three types of weapons. Ballistic weapons, Energy weapons, and Exotic weapons.
Weapons like Autocannons, Chainguns, Heavy Cannons, Missiles, Railguns, and Accelerator Cannons are all examples of Ballistic weapons.
Energy weapons, like Plasma Guns, Lasers, Pulse Lasers, Fusion Rounds, Electric Shock Weapons, Stun Weapons, and EMPs, are all examples of this weapon type.
Exotic weapons are rarely deployed, due to their danger, and costs.
Exotic Weapons, ubiquitously nicknamed “Black Magic” by Federation Marines across the galaxy, is a term for a weapon that does not rely on physical projectiles like ballistics, or using power like standard energy weapons. They usually combine both of them with a powerful force to make a highly destructive weapon. Exotics are banned from use in atmospheres, due to the inimical effects on biospheres. Only in space combat do exotics come to play. One excellent example of this are anti-matter cannons. Anti-matter cannons are used to fire a shell made from a compound of highly gunfire resistant metals, with an electromagnetic field to keep the antimatter contained within from touching the shell. If the shell hits an enemy ship, the electromagnetic fields turn off, releasing the antimatter, which then consumes the shell, producing an explosion that will punch through the most powerful shields or armored hulls.
The Antimatter shell is but one example of an exotic weapon. Typically, they are more like munitions for what is termed a “real” weapon. However, there is the rare weapon that is a mount instead of a munition. One commonly used exotic weapon is the Anti-Matter Beam. This weapon creates a cylinder of magnetic fields to contain a stream of antimatter directed towards an unfortunate enemy ship. This weapon is used sparingly, because of the incident over Procyon A.
The Reliant mounts the two primary types of weapons, and has the ability to deploy Exotic weapons. They can only be used with approval from High Command, or the entire command staff of the Reliant, in the case that High Command cannot be reached. The choice to deploy these weapons can never fall to just one person.
Thousands of point defence systems litter the hull, with secondary missiles and lasers to intercept fighters and missiles. Some systems are so precise, as to allow them to intercept kinetic rounds. If an enemy’s shots manage to scrape through the wall of flak and counter-fire, a shield stops them, produced by generators that are hidden by meters of thick armor plating. These shields are wrapped around the entire ship, encircling it with a protective shell of invisible particles. Underneath these shields, a 3-meter thick carapace of high-resistance alloys sits, ready to absorb damage, for whatever the galaxy may throw at it. If an enemy pierces all of these defenses, they would find that these same defenses, minus the point-defence and weapon stations, lays between two hulls, the outer hull, and the inner hull. The outer hull is full of weapons stations, anti-boarding defenses, hangers, cargo bays, and systems that are not needed for the ship to survive. The inner hull holds crew quarters, the bridge, the reactor, and other various computer systems. Between the two hulls are the same shielding systems and armor plating. All of these systems are designed to strike a balance between crew survivability and functionality.
For every shot that scrapes the shields and armor, for every round that is stopped by point-defence, ten more are sprayed out of the Reliant’s versatile weapons systems. An Accelerator Cannon, whose shells travel three-fourths of the ship's length before being spat out, poses a significant threat to any enemy, and can even be used to bombard a planet. Smaller secondary railguns mounted on huge turrets comprise a heavy anti-capital option, with autocannons and missile launchers spraying fourth like the angered scions of Zeus, punching holes in armor and shields alike. These weapons are hidden beneath layers of armor and hatches, ready to whip out and dash unsuspecting hostiles on the rocks of human weapons development.
This is supported by an enormous hangar and strike craft deployment system, with the capabilities to launch and recover hundreds of fighters, bombers, interceptors, and whatever else is needed to overcome the enemy. Combat craft are accelerated though light magnetic rail tubes that end near the side of the hull, throwing strike craft out from the Reliant.
Although the Reliant may be formidable in war, that is not its primary purpose. Instead, it is an exploration ship, designed to survey the cosmos, meet new life forms and polities, and expand humanity’s collective knowledge. Whether that is through cataloging the different types of moss that may grow on some long forgotten moon, or initiating first contact protocols with new empires, it does it all, and more. However, to do this, the Reliant’s crew needs to first be able to leave the ship without it landing on every planet, and docking with every ship. The crew need transports. They need shuttles.
Cargo and personnel shuttles launch from normal hangers, mostly found on the bottom and rear sides of the ship, near the primary engine. These are protected by huge blast doors that shut in the case of combat. Huge secondary hangers are used to fabricate and maintain strike craft and secondary craft, while also serving as storage for any craft that may need it.
The Reliant cannot function without a proper power grid. It is powered by one central reactor, an Ishwara-Jyoti class. The name “Ishwara-Jyoti” is derived from the Sanskrit words for “divine light" and “power”. This reactor contains a very small, but highly radioactive and bright star, about eight meters in height and width. It is permanently contained within the confines of the reactor, and no person, human or otherwise, has seen into the core. And no one ever will. The entire inner core is so irradiated that to open it would be to expose your body to enough radiation to kill you almost instantly, about 118,000 rads. The space inside is so tightly controlled, with thousands of safety systems, backup safety systems, backup-backup systems, and so much more. An entire department of personnel is dedicated to maintaining this reactor.
The power is generated by turning the extreme amounts of heat, radiation, and light, into useable energy. A small trickle of mass is constantly fed into the miniature star, to keep it from collapsing. In an emergency, the reactor can be “turned off”, by artificially, and safely, collapsing the miniature star. Reigniting it requires an immense amount of mass and energy, which is usually unfeasible for smaller ships. Secondary fusion reactors serve as a backup, and larger ships will sometimes have more than one central reactor complex. The reactor itself is decently sized, but most of the space taken up by central reactors are huge slabs of protective systems and shields.
The Reliant must also be able to navigate the universe, both in star systems, and between them. The Reliant uses huge fusion engines for traveling in a star system, with millions of maneuvering ports and secondary engines to be able to maneuver in the six degrees of freedom that are available in space.
Now, for getting between stars, taking the “normal” route by slow boating it between star systems would take far too long for any nation to remain together. Instead, the CSSF developed the jump drive. It allows a starship, once it is beyond a star’s gravitational field, to “jump” to another star. The hyperdrive does not push the ship through space, but it merely creates a “bubble”, in which the ship exists. Think of the jump drive as a door, in and out of realspace and Hyperspace. Our dimension, otherwise known as “realspace”, follows the standard laws of physics, and is considered “normal”. Hyperspace is something else, something much older than our realspace. Hyperspace and realspace are directly connected, effecting one another. The huge gravitational fields produced by stars and other stellar phenomena interfere with Hyperspace, creating a “blockage” in Hyperspace, blocking any ships from passing. Hyperspace is a direct reflection of realspace, but it lacks anything other than the “blockages” produced by gravitational fields. Now, why does the CSSF, and other nations, like the [EXPUNGED], the [EXPUNGED], the [EXPUNGED], and even the now long-gone [EXPUNGED] use Hyperspace?
Because, Hyperspace is significantly smaller, allowing for an extremely faster rate of travel compared to standard drives. Because it is a direct reflection of realspace, but extremely dense, ships can traverse the space between stars in mere days or even weeks, depending on the distance. This allows for a functioning galactic polity, unlike one that relies on slow-boating.
Now, Hyperspace is not without its dangers. Hyperspace is a tumultuous dimension, with dozens of different hazards, ranging from intense heat and cold, to the ruined wrecks of failed jumps. Thus, ships that enter Hyperspace tune their shields to defect debris and block radiation and extreme temps.
A failed jump is only possible if the jump drive, and its dozen or so backups fail. The ship is stuck in hyperspace, and will be slowly worn away unless it can reach a gravitational field in time. Even then, the soft exits that a jump drive provides will not happen, meaning that internal compensators will fail in an instant, smashing the ship, or flinging the damaged wreck into pieces. The crew of a ship are unlikely to survive such an event, but so many safeguards have been put into place, that the only chance of an event is if it is sabotaged.
This concludes the basic overview of the Reliant and its technologies. Now, for the changes I made to the NoP timeline to result in the current situation, here’s a little description.
In the canon NoP timeline, Earth was saved by the timely arrival of an Arxur fleet headed by none other than Isif. In this timeline, his fleet was intercepted by an Arxur Dominion fleet, allowing the Extermination fleet to bombard Earth indiscriminately. Meanwhile, the Reliant was on a survey mission of a nearby star system, when it detected the presence of repeating radio signals, potentially indicating the presence of sapient life. After alerting CSSF High Command, they jumped, and within a few days, arrived at the Solar System. The jump went undetected by the Extermination fleet, and the ECM and sensor dispersion protocols managed to keep it that way, despite its size. Only when an incoming squadron of Federation capital ships was detected, did Captain Artemis decide to reveal themselves to the unknown ships.
If there is anything in this post, you have questions on, such as the tech, or any other changes, please ask me! I will be happy to answer any question.
First Chapter Next Chapter> (Coming soon)

Strap in, this is a long one. Hope you enjoy it! SPOILERS for Tears of the Kingdom, Breath of the Wild, Ocarina of Time, and the Wind Waker.
Please keep in mind that, due to TOTK's mysterious nature, much of this is pure speculation trying to fill in gaps or place things in the correct location timeline-wise, taking events and quotes and trying to give them context where it fits. And of course, directors didn't think about things such as the Zonai back in the day. But it's not about planning ahead 10 years; it's about going back and giving new context to previous games, giving details new meaning. Let's begin.
I think the Zonai are the closest race to the Gods - and I believe the Gods are merely the 3 Golden Godesses, as well as Hylia. There are spirits existing, but as for actual gods, there are only really these 4. The first ones and the main Godess. The Zonai are the closest race to these, acting as their "servants" or as their closest relatives, living high up in the heavens - and they are the ones who "own" or protect the Triforce, explaining the Triforce symbolism on their clothes. The Zonai only come down to the surface when called upon with a Triforce wish, because they are the ones hearing and granting wishes from the Triforce.
PRE-SKYWARD SWORD -> OCARINA OF TIME
Demise arises from a fissure in the Earth. This clearly indicates that the "evil realm" from where Demons originate is below the earth (keep in mind for later.) The Oocca from Twilight Princess is a level lower than the Zonai. Divine beings, assisted by the Zonai. They helped the first humans, and helped Hylia creating the first Temple of Time (the broken one we see in Skyward Sword). This is where we end up in Twilight Princess' dungeon. The Oocca eventually returns to the sky, leaving only the Dominion Rod behind as a way for the Royal Family to communicate with higher beings. The Sheikah exists at this point already, and due to their closeness to the Royal Family and the Gods, their symbol is taken directly from the Zonai. As we learn in TOTK, the tear from the Zonai relates to memories, secrets, history. I believe the truth about the Sheika's symbol is that they are literally carrying the secrets, the memories, of the Gods/Zonai. That's why their teardrop eye symbol exists already as early as Skyward Sword.
Fast forward to Ocarina of Time. Link defeats Ganon, and he is sealed in the Evil Realm by Zelda and the current sages. Link is then returned to his own time, leaving the Adult Timeline without a hero.
OCARINA OF TIME -> WIND WAKER
Years and years go by, and Ganondorf starts "crawling out from the depths of the Earth" as Wind Waker explains to us. This, again, tells us that the Evil Realm isn't a different dimension, but rather a place far below the surface (unlike the Dark World, which is the Sacred Realm corrupted). People eventually summon the Triforce and wish for help.
What happens isn't the wish of an almighty deity. If that was so, Ganondorf would go away in much simpler ways than flooding an entire kingdom... This is because, when the wish was made upon the Triforce, the Zonai descended upon Hyrule. Who else would tell the people to flee to the mountain tops? Voices echoing through the sky? No, it was the Zonai. They descended from the Triforce wish, built the Tower of the Gods to prepare a future hero, told people to flee to the mountains, before flooding Hyrule. And who do we know have a source of infinite water in the sky in the form of a water temple? The Zonai. After the deed was done, and the wish fulfilled, the Zonai returned to the sky, only coming down if the Triforce wisher called upon them.
Hyrule is forgotten, generations pass by, and Ganondorf eventually escapes the seal, where Link ends up as the new chosen hero by the king. They eventually reach the Tower of the Gods, being a Zonai structure seen by its swirly patterns, eyeballs, constilations on the exterior, and pure white building material. At the top, Link fights a Zonai construct, Gohdan, seen by its red eyes, yellow crown, swirly pattern, and blue-green colors. Later, Link is transported to Hyrule and the new Hyrule Castle built after its destruction in OOT. Hyrule is completely gone; all that's left is a few ruins, and Hyrule Castle itself. The rest is gone (important for later)
By the end, we fight Ganondorf, and there are 4 points of interest when it comes to him:
-The green necklace around his neck
-The sheikah symbols outside his hut in Forsaken Fortress
-The dragons on his robe
-A quote before the final battle
Ganondorf has a new necklace around his neck that he's never had before or since. It's a green face, with big ears, and a shiny orb above its eyes... This, alongside the sheikah symbols outside the hut, tells me that Ganondorf has seen the Gods. He has seen the Zonai. Not only this, but his robe has 2 dragons facing each other, each grabbing a round orb. This means he has witnessed draconification. Possibly, this is where the 3 dragons from BOTW/TOTK originates. 3 Zonai who ate their secret stones in an attempt to stop Ganondorf, unsuccessfully, which resulted in the Zonai flooding Hyrule as a last resort. If the Zonai truly came down from the Triforce wish, attempted to stop Ganondorf by turning into dragons, building the Tower of the Gods and flooding Hyrule, it would explain Ganondorf's necklace, and his strange and specific robe design.
And, it would explain his quote before the final battle: "That when power, wisdom and courage come together, the Gods would have no choice but to come down". It could be a figure of speech, a way of saying the Gods come down to our level to grand our wishes. But what if Ganondorf meant it literally? What if he witnessed the Gods actually coming down? This would all explain the Gods not being all-mighty, it would explain the flooding, it would explain the Tower of the Gods, and it would explain the details around Ganondorf.
WIND WAKER -> THE IMPRISONING WAR
Link and Tetra travel far away. But, the Koroks (who are Koroks due to the Great Flood) are planting seed all over Hyrule. In an uncertain amount of time, the islands WILL connect and form a fully new land. This we know. But what happened with that land? We never got to learn this, as we followed Link somewhere far away.
This is where the Zonai once again descended upon this new, unnamed land, most likely from a Triforce wish. This new land had no structure or civiliced society or towns or anything. The Zonai helped bring power and structure to this new land, and most likely, they shared their technology with the Sheikah, explaining how they became so technologicaly advanced. Zoras return to the land, make a new domain, and recieves water from the Zonai's water temple. The Zonai found a huge land deep below the surface... The Depths. The Depths is in fact the old, flooded Hyrule, explaining the extreme amount of huge plant life. There are no structures left of the old kingdom because, as Wind Waker showed us, all of it was completely destroyed by Ganondorf. Add houndreds, or even thousands of years of water in there too, and there's nothing left...
...Except for remains of the ancient Hyrule Castle from Wind Waker, which is part of the few bits of ruins left we see in the depths on our way to Ganondorf in TOTK, which obviously has been added onto with Zonai architecture. It's why it's named Forgotten Foundation; this is where the original, old Hyrule Castle once stood. The Zonai started mining Zonite and built mines down there.
After their job was done, after they had fulfilled the wish of the Triforce, they once again left and returned to the sky like they should... Except for Rauru. Rauru had met Sonia and had fallen in love. Sonia shares the same tan skin as Tetra, and also isn't named Zelda, because Sonia is a long descendant of Tetra. Sonia comes with Rauru to this new land, learning that Sonia has royal blood, and they decide to esetablish a kingdom, a monarchy, in this land, becoming a king and queen. This explains why Rauru and his sister were the only Zonai left. Rauru stayed for Sonia, and they founded a new Hyrule together. The Triforce was forgotten.
From here, Zelda arrives from the future, which is why and how the name "Zelda" came back into the royal bloodline. A new Ganondorf, with no ties to or knowledge of the triforce, goes to war, and the Imprisoning War happens below the old Hyrule Castle in the Depths, before a new Hyrule Castle is built on top to help keep Rauru's seal in tact.
IMPRISONING WAR -> TEARS OF THE KINGDOM
The sages help bring most of the Zonai architecture into the heavens beyond the cloud barrier. Eventually, Ganondorf's powers leak out, and Calamity Ganon is formed. Sonia's descendant, a princess Zelda, fights him alongside a strange hero wielding the Master Sword. How? Mosty likely, this hero (who has Zonai ancestors) originates from the Depths, possibly resembling the strange statue found down there. So where did the Master Sword come from, if it went with Zelda after she became a dragon? The Ancient Hero found it in the Depths. It was still down there from when Link defeated Ganondorf in the Wind Waker. The Sheikah also provide assistance with the technology they learned from the Zonai, in the form of Guardians and Divine Beasts that were named and designed after the sages from Rauru's time. The tech was then banned and hidden away, remaining so for thousands of years.
Calamity Ganon is defeated, and thousands of years of prosperity comes, except for resurfacing of Calamity Ganon.
We reach the present day in BOTW and TOTK. Calamity Ganon is defeated yet again, before Zelda and Link finds its source deep below Hyrule Castle, even below the Depth's surface. Ganondorf is later defeated and destroyed.
As mentioned, this land, this new Hyrule, is the very same land that the Koroks started on in The Wind Waker. This is why there are such a massive amount of Koroks all over Hyrule. This is why there's rock salt everywhere. This is why Ritos exist alongside Zoras. And this is why there's a seemingly endless ocean surrounding Hyrule... because this is the rest of the very same Great Sea that wasn't covered by the Koroks.
To prove this further: The landmark "Breach of Demise" shows strange rocks, but if you go to that exact location in the Depths, you will find a hole in the ground sealed off by boulders... indicating that Demise breached HERE, and that he originated from somewhere even deeper. The Depths was the original surface, and the arena we fight Ganondorf in is the Evil Realm itself.
FINAL QUESTIONS
If this truly is the Adult Timeline, what about armor sets from the other timelines found in the Depths? I do not have a good answer for this. For me, it's one of two options:
-Because the Depths has turned into a place where restless souls end up and the Bargainer Statues reside, souls and dead spirit artifacts from other timelines and worlds end up here, drawing in from other timelines
-The Upheaval caused fracturing. Not only did the cloud barrier break and rocks started falling from the sky, but it started leaking in elements from the other paralell timelines, which naturally ended up in the Depths, as that's where the original Hyrule was - and still is, in the other timelines. And yes, they did exist in BOTW before the Upheaval happened, but I do not consider the armor sets from BOTW canon, but rather a non-canon fun amiibo- and DLC bonus.
Next, could the Zora engravings that talk about Ruto be about the unnamed sage from the Imprisoning War? Possibly. But due to certain details, it's much more likely that this truly is OOT Ruto, which adds to the Adult Timeline's credibility even more, as Ruto never fought alongside Link in the Child Timeline.
CONCLUSION/SUMMARY
When people prayed for Ganon's defeat pre-Wind Waker, the Zonai came down and 3 of them underwent draconification to try and stop him, which are the 3 dragons we see in BOTW/TOTK. They built the Tower of the Gods for later, told people to hide on mountains, and used the Water Temple to flood Hyrule, before leaving for the Heavens. This all explains Ganondorf's Zonai necklace, the dragons on his robe grasping an "orb" or secret stone, and his quote about the Gods "coming down" when the Triforce is used. BOTW/TOTK's Hyrule is the same map as in the Wind Waker, after the Koroks grew new land and connected it all, meaning the Depths is the ancient and original Hyrule.
Zonai came down due to another Triforce wish and helped rebuild society and started mining in the Depths, as well as teaching the Sheikah their tech. They left back up, but Rauru remained and married Tetra's long decendant - Sonia. They refounded Hyrule, and Zelda's arrival is the reason the name "Zelda" came back into the royal bloodline. The Ancient Hero has Zonai ancestors but has evolved into something else, which is what the statues in the Depths are. The Master Sword is here because it was found in the Depths after it was used to kill Ganondorf in the Wind Waker.

Strap in, this is a long one. Hope you enjoy it! SPOILERS for Tears of the Kingdom, Breath of the Wild, Ocarina of Time, and the Wind Waker.
Please keep in mind that, due to TOTK's mysterious nature, much of this is pure speculation trying to fill in gaps or place things in the correct location timeline-wise, taking events and quotes and trying to give them context where it fits. And of course, directors didn't think about things such as the Zonai back in the day. But it's not about planning ahead 10 years; it's about going back and giving new context to previous games, giving details new meaning. Let's begin.
I think the Zonai are the closest race to the Gods - and I believe the Gods are merely the 3 Golden Godesses, as well as Hylia. There are spirits existing, but as for actual gods, there are only really these 4. The first ones and the main Godess. The Zonai are the closest race to these, acting as their "servants" or as their closest relatives, living high up in the heavens - and they are the ones who "own" or protect the Triforce, explaining the Triforce symbolism on their clothes. The Zonai only come down to the surface when called upon with a Triforce wish, because they are the ones hearing and granting wishes from the Triforce.

PRE-SKYWARD SWORD -> OCARINA OF TIME

Demise arises from a fissure in the Earth. This clearly indicates that the "evil realm" from where Demons originate is below the earth (keep in mind for later.) The Oocca from Twilight Princess is a level lower than the Zonai. Divine beings, assisted by the Zonai. They helped the first humans, and helped Hylia creating the first Temple of Time (the broken one we see in Skyward Sword). This is where we end up in Twilight Princess' dungeon. The Oocca eventually returns to the sky, leaving only the Dominion Rod behind as a way for the Royal Family to communicate with higher beings. The Sheikah exists at this point already, and due to their closeness to the Royal Family and the Gods, their symbol is taken directly from the Zonai. As we learn in TOTK, the tear from the Zonai relates to memories, secrets, history. I believe the truth about the Sheika's symbol is that they are literally carrying the secrets, the memories, of the Gods/Zonai. That's why their teardrop eye symbol exists already as early as Skyward Sword.
Fast forward to Ocarina of Time. Link defeats Ganon, and he is sealed in the Evil Realm by Zelda and the current sages. Link is then returned to his own time, leaving the Adult Timeline without a hero.
​

OCARINA OF TIME -> WIND WAKER

Years and years go by, and Ganondorf starts "crawling out from the depths of the Earth" as Wind Waker explains to us. This, again, tells us that the Evil Realm isn't a different dimension, but rather a place far below the surface (unlike the Dark World, which is the Sacred Realm corrupted). People eventually summon the Triforce and wish for help.
What happens isn't the wish of an almighty deity. If that was so, Ganondorf would go away in much simpler ways than flooding an entire kingdom... This is because, when the wish was made upon the Triforce, the Zonai descended upon Hyrule. Who else would tell the people to flee to the mountain tops? Voices echoing through the sky? No, it was the Zonai. They descended from the Triforce wish, built the Tower of the Gods to prepare a future hero, told people to flee to the mountains, before flooding Hyrule. And who do we know have a source of infinite water in the sky in the form of a water temple? The Zonai. After the deed was done, and the wish fulfilled, the Zonai returned to the sky, only coming down if the Triforce wisher called upon them.
Hyrule is forgotten, generations pass by, and Ganondorf eventually escapes the seal, where Link ends up as the new chosen hero by the king. They eventually reach the Tower of the Gods, being a Zonai structure seen by its swirly patterns, eyeballs, constilations on the exterior, and pure white building material. At the top, Link fights a Zonai construct, Gohdan, seen by its red eyes, yellow crown, swirly pattern, and blue-green colors. Later, Link is transported to Hyrule and the new Hyrule Castle built after its destruction in OOT. Hyrule is completely gone; all that's left is a few ruins, and Hyrule Castle itself. The rest is gone (important for later)
By the end, we fight Ganondorf, and there are 4 points of interest when it comes to him:

1. The green necklace around his neck
2. The sheikah symbols outside his hut in Forsaken Fortress
3. The dragons on his robe
4. A quote before the final battle

Ganondorf has a new necklace around his neck that he's never had before or since. It's a green face, with big ears, and a shiny orb above its eyes... This, alongside the sheikah symbols outside the hut, tells me that Ganondorf has seen the Gods. He has seen the Zonai. Not only this, but his robe has 2 dragons facing each other, each grabbing a round orb. This means he has witnessed draconification. Possibly, this is where the 3 dragons from BOTW/TOTK originates. 3 Zonai who ate their secret stones in an attempt to stop Ganondorf, unsuccessfully, which resulted in the Zonai flooding Hyrule as a last resort. If the Zonai truly came down from the Triforce wish, attempted to stop Ganondorf by turning into dragons, building the Tower of the Gods and flooding Hyrule, it would explain Ganondorf's necklace, and his strange and specific robe design.
And, it would explain his quote before the final battle: "That when power, wisdom and courage come together, the Gods would have no choice but to come down". It could be a figure of speech, a way of saying the Gods come down to our level to grand our wishes. But what if Ganondorf meant it literally? What if he witnessed the Gods actually coming down? This would all explain the Gods not being all-mighty, it would explain the flooding, it would explain the Tower of the Gods, and it would explain the details around Ganondorf.
​

WIND WAKER -> THE IMPRISONING WAR

Link and Tetra travel far away. But, the Koroks (who are Koroks due to the Great Flood) are planting seed all over Hyrule. In an uncertain amount of time, the islands WILL connect and form a fully new land. This we know. But what happened with that land? We never got to learn this, as we followed Link somewhere far away.
This is where the Zonai once again descended upon this new, unnamed land, most likely from a Triforce wish. This new land had no structure or civiliced society or towns or anything. The Zonai helped bring power and structure to this new land, and most likely, they shared their technology with the Sheikah, explaining how they became so technologicaly advanced. Zoras return to the land, make a new domain, and recieves water from the Zonai's water temple. The Zonai found a huge land deep below the surface... The Depths. The Depths is in fact the old, flooded Hyrule, explaining the extreme amount of huge plant life. There are no structures left of the old kingdom because, as Wind Waker showed us, all of it was completely destroyed by Ganondorf. Add houndreds, or even thousands of years of water in there too, and there's nothing left...
...Except for remains of the ancient Hyrule Castle from Wind Waker, which is part of the few bits of ruins left we see in the depths on our way to Ganondorf in TOTK, which obviously has been added onto with Zonai architecture. It's why it's named Forgotten Foundation; this is where the original, old Hyrule Castle once stood. The Zonai started mining Zonite and built mines down there.
After their job was done, after they had fulfilled the wish of the Triforce, they once again left and returned to the sky like they should... Except for Rauru. Rauru had met Sonia and had fallen in love. Sonia shares the same tan skin as Tetra, and also isn't named Zelda, because Sonia is a long descendant of Tetra. Sonia comes with Rauru to this new land, learning that Sonia has royal blood, and they decide to esetablish a kingdom, a monarchy, in this land, becoming a king and queen. This explains why Rauru and his sister were the only Zonai left. Rauru stayed for Sonia, and they founded a new Hyrule together. The Triforce was forgotten.
From here, Zelda arrives from the future, which is why and how the name "Zelda" came back into the royal bloodline. A new Ganondorf, with no ties to or knowledge of the triforce, goes to war, and the Imprisoning War happens below the old Hyrule Castle in the Depths, before a new Hyrule Castle is built on top to help keep Rauru's seal in tact.
​

IMPRISONING WAR -> TEARS OF THE KINGDOM

The sages help bring most of the Zonai architecture into the heavens beyond the cloud barrier. Eventually, Ganondorf's powers leak out, and Calamity Ganon is formed. Sonia's descendant, a princess Zelda, fights him alongside a strange hero wielding the Master Sword. How? Mosty likely, this hero (who has Zonai ancestors) originates from the Depths, possibly resembling the strange statue found down there. So where did the Master Sword come from, if it went with Zelda after she became a dragon? The Ancient Hero found it in the Depths. It was still down there from when Link defeated Ganondorf in the Wind Waker. The Sheikah also provide assistance with the technology they learned from the Zonai, in the form of Guardians and Divine Beasts that were named and designed after the sages from Rauru's time. The tech was then banned and hidden away, remaining so for thousands of years.
Calamity Ganon is defeated, and thousands of years of prosperity comes, except for resurfacing of Calamity Ganon.
We reach the present day in BOTW and TOTK. Calamity Ganon is defeated yet again, before Zelda and Link finds its source deep below Hyrule Castle, even below the Depth's surface. Ganondorf is later defeated and destroyed.
As mentioned, this land, this new Hyrule, is the very same land that the Koroks started on in The Wind Waker. This is why there are such a massive amount of Koroks all over Hyrule. This is why there's rock salt everywhere. This is why Ritos exist alongside Zoras. And this is why there's a seemingly endless ocean surrounding Hyrule... because this is the rest of the very same Great Sea that wasn't covered by the Koroks.
To prove this further: The landmark "Breach of Demise" shows strange rocks, but if you go to that exact location in the Depths, you will find a hole in the ground sealed off by boulders... indicating that Demise breached HERE, and that he originated from somewhere even deeper. The Depths was the original surface, and the arena we fight Ganondorf in is the Evil Realm itself.
​

FINAL QUESTIONS

If this truly is the Adult Timeline, what about armor sets from the other timelines found in the Depths? I do not have a good answer for this. For me, it's one of two options:

1. Because the Depths has turned into a place where restless souls end up and the Bargainer Statues reside, souls and dead spirit artifacts from other timelines and worlds end up here, drawing in from other timelines
2. The Upheaval caused fracturing. Not only did the cloud barrier break and rocks started falling from the sky, but it started leaking in elements from the other paralell timelines, which naturally ended up in the Depths, as that's where the original Hyrule was - and still is, in the other timelines. And yes, they did exist in BOTW before the Upheaval happened, but I do not consider the armor sets from BOTW canon, but rather a non-canon fun amiibo- and DLC bonus.

Next, could the Zora engravings that talk about Ruto be about the unnamed sage from the Imprisoning War? Possibly. But due to certain details, it's much more likely that this truly is OOT Ruto, which adds to the Adult Timeline's credibility even more, as Ruto never fought alongside Link in the Child Timeline.
​

CONCLUSION/SUMMARY

When people prayed for Ganon's defeat pre-Wind Waker, the Zonai came down and 3 of them underwent draconification to try and stop him, which are the 3 dragons we see in BOTW/TOTK. They built the Tower of the Gods for later, told people to hide on mountains, and used the Water Temple to flood Hyrule, before leaving for the Heavens. This all explains Ganondorf's Zonai necklace, the dragons on his robe grasping an "orb" or secret stone, and his quote about the Gods "coming down" when the Triforce is used. BOTW/TOTK's Hyrule is the same map as in the Wind Waker, after the Koroks grew new land and connected it all, meaning the Depths is the ancient and original Hyrule.
Zonai came down due to another Triforce wish and helped rebuild society and started mining in the Depths, as well as teaching the Sheikah their tech. They left back up, but Rauru remained and married Tetra's long decendant - Sonia. They refounded Hyrule, and Zelda's arrival is the reason the name "Zelda" came back into the royal bloodline. The Ancient Hero has Zonai ancestors but has evolved into something else, which is what the statues in the Depths are. The Master Sword is here because it was found in the Depths after it was used to kill Ganondorf in the Wind Waker.