Herrscher: (An Elsword/Goddess of Victory NIKKE Crossover)

[Stimpak Medic]

Prologue: Wanderer

"I have but one purpose to my creation. To restore the El, then to disappear as all things that have lost their use should."

Those were the words of Ainchase Ishmael, the creation of the Goddess Ishmael as he descended from Heaven to the lower world. It was a confirmation of his existence. His divine purpose.

He met the El search party not long after, and found light in the hope of mortals. Ishmael was truly wise in offering the El to the lower world. It brought the barren lands from bleak wastelands full of death to these teeming with hope, life, and joy, even among the darkness brought by the Demon World.

Unfortunately, old wounds began reopening, and the seed of chaos had taken root deep in his body, waiting for the time to grow into a fully realized future.

Henir was patiently waiting for his plan to come to fruition.

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It had been several weeks since Ainchase had broken away from the El search party, and his Goddess was not responding to his prayers. He wandered the lands on his own, searching for the El shards that had shattered in the last conflict with the Demon God Sult. Each prayer unanswered dug into his heart. Had he failed his Goddess? Had she forsaken him?

Was he truly so pathetic?

No. His faith would remain strong. This was a test. He needed to restore the El before all hope was lost.

And so, he journeyed to Feita. To the Temple of his Goddess.

What he found there chilled him to the bone.

The El, symbol of his Goddess's kindness to the world, and the source of life for many in the world had been corrupted, blackened by demonic power. It was unthinkable. Impossible.

"This can't be.." he whispered, dropping to his knees in front of the broken altar that housed the corrupted El.

Was this the fate that would befall the world? To be corrupted without the protection of his Goddess? Where was Ishmael? Where did she go?

Even more so, his purpose in existing. His reason to keep going on. It was all utterly pointless. One big joke.

He felt rage. He raged at himself. He raged at the foul demons that corrupted the universe. He raged at his helplessness.

Soon, that rage turned to hopelessness and sorrow. As he knelt in front of the desecrated altar, his robes dirty and his hope gone, his eyes dulled.

From within his heart came one conclusion.

He had been abandoned.

Left purposeless and with no future, he waited for his existence to fade away, yet it never did. He stayed in front of the broken altar in the empty temple for many hours, not speaking or breathing. Just silently existing. It was the best he could do.

He was a forsaken being, a creation with no use. He could not afford a purpose, nor a future.

Standing up from the ground slowly, Ainchase slowly came to terms with his existence. He had to destroy the corrupted El. It would kill him, but he already knew he was to be used and disposed of, so this fit quite well with his purpose.

Raising his arm up, he summoned Erst Bohren from the divine treasury. At least his power remained to be commanded.

Bringing the spear of light down upon the corrupted El shard, the divine spear bit into the shard, causing a titanic celestial overload of Godly power that erupted from the wound in the El shard that swallowed the whole city in an explosion that erased any and everything with divine and demonic energies that clashed and corrupted all that remained.

When the immense explosion died down, all that was left was a smoking crater where Feita once was, and the shattered broken fragments of the corrupted El.

Ainchase was no longer there.

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When Ainchase awoke, he was greeted by a strange sight. Foreign architecture lay broken and destroyed all around him, and a different sun looked down upon him from the sky. However, to him the blinding brilliance was dull and cold, just like his heart had become.

Abandoned. Broken. Alone.

Getting up slowly, he reached his senses out. Perhaps he hadn't been sent too far from the El?

However his worst fear was soon confirmed, he could not feel the corrupted power of his Goddess, and that was what fully squared the circle for him.

This was another universe entirely.

He could sense no interference from demons, nor any God or Goddess in this strange world. It was alone and abandoned to the cosmos, just like himself.

After he gained some of his senses again, he realized that this world was a perfect reflection of his existence, and there was no longer confusion in his eyes.

His white and blue soft robes with their golden edges had been marred with dirt and dust, and it was slow to be removed. Still, after a small application of his energy, the dirt was removed. Leaving him a bit more respectable looking. His grayish hair was no longer white tinted, and instead had become more silver in the place of the white that had once been.

His green eyes had dulled from their bright emerald to a grayish green, signifying the loss of his connection to his Goddess beginning to manifest. However, he was pulled out of his malaise by the arrival of a dozen Nasods, or well, upon closer inspection, creatures that resembled Nasods.

They flew through the air towards him with their metal bodies and black flesh that seemed to be grafted to them where their metal carapaces did not cover.

Red eyeholes glowed with malice towards him as the beings approached, easily the size of a human and more with cannons primed at him.

Folding space around him in a barrier, Ainchase was quick enough to protect himself before rounds that could shred tanks and aircraft alike flew into his barrier from in front, and were expelled out the back of it only to tear apart the building behind him.

When the barrage stopped, he raised his left hand out towards the creatures that attacked him, and he whispered softly.

"Be still" he softly said, and he clenched his fist.

Instantly, the space around the creatures warped and spiraled, causing the creatures to be torn apart and twisted into unrecognizable shards of flesh and metal that dropped to the street with soft thuds and clattering.

There was no cheer in his eyes at his victory. It was as pointless as his existence. In the first place, if he couldn't destroy these creatures, then he would deserve what violent end came to him.

He glided forward down the street in front of him, as a soft summer breeze blew through the surrounding buildings. There was no destination to arrive at, but he felt he had to move, lest he attract more of these hostile beings.

With nowhere to go, and no one to see, Ainchase was now simply a wanderer.

No, he was not Ainchase Ishmael anymore.

He was now the wanderer Ain. A being with no future or purpose, abandoned by his Goddess and left to find his own future in the rubble of time.

 

[Stimpak Medic]

Chapter One: First Contact

As Ain floated in the air not too far above the ground, barely more than a few feet, he glided down the broken and cracked concrete street. The buildings all around looked as if they had been in a warzone. Scorched walls, shattered stone, and warped metal were quite common, and craters from bombs or artillery were even more common than the holes and blasts on the walls.

Aside from the strange Nasod-Like creatures that attacked him, there was nobody he could see or sense. Granted, he could only really sense life energy, magical energy or divine power with precision in a short distance, but there should have been something else there. However aside from those creatures, he could not sense anything.

Worlds shouldn't be like this. Had a God or Goddess found this world, perhaps whatever catastrophe had befallen it would have been averted? It was at that moment when a spasm rocked his body. He fell to the ground as his powers were stripped from him momentarily, and he landed on his knee, hunched over with a face of purest agony. He clenched his teeth for quite some time before the pain left him.

He had thought that he had lost his purpose, but he had made one huge error in judgment. His purpose did not depend on his mind. It was baked into his very being, and the longer it took for him to complete it, he would likely face harsher repercussions. However, he could not return back to his universe. It was too far away for him to sense or teleport to, much less easily return to.

He was in a sense trapped and fated to die by the very powers that made up his being. He knew of no way to escape this.

Golden blood trickled from his pale face out of his shut lips and down his chin, dripping to the broken earth beneath him.

"I must endure." He grit out as the pain lessened, and his muscles that had tightly clenched slowly relaxed. It took him several shaky seconds to get up, and his power returned to him, though he felt it was ever so minutely harder to control, as if something was growing within it. It was a blackness that simply devoured his connection with his Divine powers ever so slightly.

As if the connection was never there in the first place, and it seemed to start to affect his mind as well. It was becoming hard for him to remember if that part of his connection existed in the first place, or if it was a trick of his mind.

He realized who this power belonged to almost immediately.

Henir.

The two had fought briefly in the past. No, fight wasn't the proper word for it. You couldn't fight something that did not exist in the first place, something that lacked body, mind, soul or even the concept of existence. He had merely delayed the consequences of Henir's avatar for some while. In that time, Henir had clearly done something to him that lay dormant and untouched for many centuries, finally revealing itself now.

Not only did he have to deal with the consequences of his failure to complete his mission, but he also had the seed of Nothingness planted in his body, and it would eat away at him the more he used his powers.

He would die and be consumed long before he could find his way back to his world, back to his Goddess.

It was at that moment that he knew the full stinging wound of hopelessness. He had been left to die on a world with no Gods, Goddesses or magic to help him. His days were alarmingly numbered.

His dull grayish green eyes darkened even more with the weight of his knowledge of his fate, and he looked up at the summer sky, where little cloud wisps floated lazily through the ocean of blue. Oh how he wished to be free of this fate. To shed this horrible future.

Alas, he had no way to do so.

"It's not all hopeless, little angel. Meet me at the edge of everything and nothing when you are ready to be free." A voice spoke in his mind. It was soft and deep, like a deep river lazily flowing across the land.

He jumped up, spinning deftly, his bluish white divine power filling his hands like blazing fire.

"Who's there?" He shouted, fearful and shocked. However, no answer came. It was just him and the summer breeze.

Only then did he see something flying through the sky. It looked like a moderately sized metal transport ship going somewhere he did not know. Inside of it, he could sense some life forms. Humans, and some not quite human beings. They still had souls, but they were faint, dulled, and to some extent diminished.

he stopped, then turned away.

No, he would not involve humans in his inevitable death. It was not fair to them. they would not be safe near him. He could resist the void of nothingness eating away at him due to his divine power and his Goddesses lingering protection, but humans with no magical or divine protection would be instantly devoured helplessly, not even knowing what erased them. There would be no afterlife for them, for no soul would remain to be brought there.

It was a fate only he could bear.

A ground shaking explosion erupted in the sky behind him.

He grit his teeth, clenching his fists.

Those were helpless humans there. One of his Goddesses commands was to save Humans if he came across them in his travels and they were in danger. But the seed of Nothingness could spread to them.

He sighed and slowly began walking away. It wasn't worth it. Even the chance of exposing a human to the Void was much worse than whatever fate they would face at those mechanical creatures.

"May the Goddess Ishmael bless your bright souls." He gave a small prayer to his Goddess, which also went unanswered as had the many before it.

The sound of gunfire and the shouting of a woman could be heard behind him, not very far away. He stopped again, unable to move forward. Leaving those humans to die was no longer an option. He had within his heart hoped that they had died in the explosions, but it seemed some had survived.

Turning around, Ain raised his right hand and drew several symbols in the air in quick succession, their blue and white divine energy shining radiantly.

When he was finished, a portal that connected a short distance of no more than a mile between space was formed, and he stepped through the blue round gate.

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"Commander! Stay with me!" Marian's panicked shouts could be heard as she knelt over the Commander that had been in the transport with her before it got shot down.

The Commander opened his eyes, seeing her right above him.

"Smile if you can hear me." She said with a deep relief, leaning closer to him. Something about him was so appealing, so attractive. She could barely hold herself back from jumping him then and there, but she held herself back. She was a Nikke, and he was a Commander. They were two completely different statuses of being. Her desires and attraction would go unrequited.

"Alright, alright. I'm smiling." He said, with his perfect smile and his suave demeanor. He was just too perfect for her.

She let out a sigh of relief before asking something.

"Where are you from?" She asked excitedly, her eyes flashing red for a fraction of a second.

"Central Government. Nikke management division." The man said, his corded muscles expanding and contracting on his chest as he got up next to her.

"Understood. From this point on, you will be my Commander. Can you do it?" Marian asked him, supporting him gently as he rose. His human body was oh so fragile, yet at the same time to her it was completely indestructible, as if there was nothing more stable and secure in all the universe.

"I'll do it." The Commander said with vigor not matching his injured body, and his voice was firm and determined.

Seeing him having a hard time walking, Marian spoke up.

"That explosion has bought the attention of every rapture for miles, we have to get out of here fast. If you're having a hard time, I can carry you." She said gently, but there was some restrained urgency from within her tone.

"No, I'll manage. I'm okay." The Commander said, but his limp was pretty bad. It was obvious that his leg had been fractured or worse in the crash which he was very lucky to have survived. Needless to say, the other passengers and pilots were not so lucky.

"Don't worry about me, lifting you is as light as lifting a feather for me." Marian explained, but the Commander was resolute.

"No. I'm fine. Really." He said, but his wince right after spoke of other truths.

Marian frowned deeply, but she respected the Commander's wishes.

"I understand, but at least hold onto me." He said, taking his hand and putting it over her shoulder.

"Thanks." He smiled a bitter smile.

"You don't need to thank me Commander. I'll do anything to protect you." She responded instantly, with a haze of affection in her eyes and voice. Almost as if she was aware her end was nearing, but not consciously.

The two trudged through the rubble and shattered concrete of the dead city before Marian quickly exclaimed her worry.

"Raptures are approaching. Take cover, Commander. Marian combat mode activate." She exclaimed, placing the Commander behind a tall wall near her before taking cover across the street, in order to distract the approaching Raptures.

Flying through the air, and skittering sideways across the ground were mechanical monstrosities that had pushed Humanity deep underground, unable to reclaim the land that was once theirs.

Marian was a good shot, and with the support of the Commander, things were going well. Almost too well.

The assault of the Raptures was quickly dealt with, with only minor damage to Marian's right leg from a stray laser beam that burned through the synthetic skin..

However, she had missed one rapture in the fighting.

One had silently floated around them, flanking them from behind, and was quickly approaching the Commander.

Marian's eyes widened, and she jumped up, ignoring all the fire coming towards her. There was only one thought on her mind.

Save the Commander.

Raising her rifle, she began to pull the trigger, sending her shots towards the Rapture that was now hovering mere meters from the Commander, cannons priming.

"Be frozen in Ice." Came the sound of a young man just down the street, and with those words, the Raptures, the ground, the buildings, and everything else besides her and her Commander froze solid in a thick encasing of ice which shattered moments later like thinly spun glass. The buildings crumbled, and the Raptures lay in shattered shards on the ground around them.

Marian froze. How did she not detect him coming? She would have heard him approaching, yet it seemed like he had just appeared there from nowhere.

Getting a better look at him, he looked both wretched and divine. Broken, yet powerful. His white, blue and gold lined robes fluttered in the wind generated by the power swirling in his hands. She could see the hopeless look in his eyes, yet she could also see a tiny spark of satisfaction. However, this wasn't the time to be sentimental.

She hadn't determined his affiliation, and someone like this was dangerous.

"Stop! State your affiliation." Marian shouted to him, lining him up in her sights. She couldn't let this dangerous man harm her Commander.

He stopped, and only then did she realize that he was hovering a foot or more above the ground, and there was no sight of jet boots or any such devices on his legs.

"I mean you no harm Human. Though your friend is in dire straights right now." The strange being said, pointing to her Commander with a pale finger. Was this a trap, a way to shift her attention before he attacked? Still, the Commander's safety was her top priority. Turning her head slightly, she looked over to her Commander only to gasp.

"No!" She shouted, abandoning her position and running over to her Commander.

Her Commander had been hit by a laser beam from a Rapture through the wall, and his shoulder was a mangled mess of burnt flesh and bone. He was gritting his teeth and attempting to get up, but he kept falling back down, and it looked that he might lose consciousness soon.

"Stay with me Commander! I'll get you back home. Stay with me!" He shouted, tearing off a part of his jacket and trying to patch the wound, but it did very little.

"Perhaps I can do something about his wounds?" came the voice of the young man, mere inches away from her.

She jumped into fight mode, raising her weapon at him.

"Stay back!" She shouted, but was quickly rebuked.

"He doesn't have much time left. I can heal him if you would allow me to do so" The young silvery haired man in the robes knelt down next to the commander.

Against her better judgement, Marian lowered her rifle just a little, and a blossom of hope rose in her voice.

"You can heal my Commander? Really?" Her voice squeezed out softly, almost desperately.

"Yes. Help me remove his jacket and shirt." The strange young man said, lifting the Commander's arm, eliciting a gritted through groan. It seemed that the commander had incredible resilience, despite his shoulder being almost completely blown off, with his arm barely hanging on.

"I'll trust you for now, but if you do anything to him, it'll be the last thing you do" Marian warned him, before she placed her rifle down next to her and began removing the man's clothes.

When the Commander's chest and upper body were bare to see, it wasn't a pretty sight.

"Great Goddess Ishmael, grant this faithful servant of yours your healing grace" The strange man chanted, and for a moment nothing happened, causing Marian to begin to lift her rifle, only for her to stop when a soft warmth filled the area, and a soft golden white light radiated softly from the man, and sure enough, she could see the bone, flesh, and muscle reforming on the Commander's shoulder, and even his leg repaired itself in those few seconds.

"She still doesn't respond even now." the young man's disappointed voice could be heard next to her, but Marian was just staring blankly at the miracle that was preformed by this strange robed man.

"How? How? How did you do that? Who are you?" Marian finally spit out, turning to the young man with shock and a slight reverence. She had never seen this power before in the Ark.

Did this mean people were wandering the surface even now. People with great power?

No, could a Human even do this? Then she realized something.

"I mean you no harm, Human" The young man's earlier words rang clearly in her head.

That meant he wasn't human. Or at least didn't consider himself one.

Was he a secretly developed male Nikke? Nikkes did have strange, almost supernatural powers, but he exhibited almost too many all at once back to back.

He also prayed to a Goddess.

Did that mean that he was really powered by a divine being? did Gods and Goddesses truly exist? Since when?

She felt that she was witness to something she wasn't supposed to see.

"He is healed now. And you are safe." The young man spoke before looking at her with a strange gaze.

"You have replaced your human body with an artificial replacement, why?" He asked, tilting his head curiously at her.

Marian winced, now was the time she would have to say it. She was used to people looking down on her when it was revealed.

"I'm a Nikke." She responded, as if such a thing was quite obvious and that he was the odd one for even questioning it.

"A Nikke? What is that? Are Nikkes a new race of Humans?" The young man asked, eying her with genuine curiosity.

She almost thought that he was screwing with her head, but his eyes gave no look of such thoughts.

"You don't know what a Nikke is?" She asked quite shocked, only to be interrupted by the Commander.

"Thank you for healing me, but we don't have much time. We can continue this conversation later when we get back to the Ark. You know what that is right?" he asked, and Ain just looked curiously back to him.

"The Ark? No, I have not heard of such a place. I apologize for my ignorance, but do forgive me. I have only arrived on your world mere moments ago" The young man spoke with a soft frown.

The Commander and Marian looked at each other warily.

"You mean you're an Alien?" Marian and the Commander both jerked back in worry and astonishment.

"I suppose from where you're standing I am. Though, I prefer being called a wandering servant of my Goddess, Ain. Alien is so simple and impersonal." Ain responded, not really offended or upset.

From where they stood, he was an alien that had just descended upon their world.

"I don't get paid enough for this." The commander joked as he lay against the wall, getting some rest. Healing magic did make one a little sick and tired after using too much, and this commander was a normal human without magical power, so his tolerance for healing magic was less than that of divine beings.

"I've never met an alien before, or well uhh....Ain. How does this work?" Marian asked, completely stumped. This was obviously far out of her experience.

Hopefully the Commander was better prepared for such a meeting.