A new year was soon to pass--just days away, and the world was in no better of a state. So many societies had been wiped off the face of the planet, all due to the scourge of the Shades, the creatures of pure shadows that plagued the world and snuffed out any and all life it encountered. Not even the smallest of creatures, rodents and insects, or the most unlikely existences, flora--trees, mosses, ferns, none of them survived. All that remained from those masses was a dead land, ruined and harvested of all life, left in a state of emptiness, clouded over by thick shades of gray that threatened to fog the empty lands.

And now, the Guardians were threatened. An organization such as theirs, spread out and carried through in such meticulous means, avoiding detection by even the wiliest of political figures, had been sniffed out by the shadows. The threat was not upon their spread out members, though it may have been previous--no, the foreboding shadow lingering over their hearts threatened to strangle the very heart of their organization: the Sky Temple.

Darkness lay on the horizon, reaching over the mountains as a lethargic tidal wave, a hurricane of shadows eclipsing the moon. It was building power, stretching, growing, but had little to feast on: the lands to the south, Prompt, from which the darkness was coming, was devoid of populous . . .

And yet, it continued to fuel itself. There was no rhyme or reason to it. The expanse of shadows never lasted this long--never longer than twelve hours, never in the day. And yet, even when the sun was up days ago, it was still set as a blot of obsidian upon the horizon, now a full fledged hurricane. It defied all logic--every study on the shadows had been proven wrong, every piece of information gathered, all excepting those of Purple's, whose research had been burned. That, they had all made sure of.

The man with the Silver lined cloak stood behind the shadow of the Sky Temple, staring across the land, watching the fully blackened horizon. The shadows were spilling into the valleys, vastly outnumbering what Enigmas they had to defend--what little, spread out group they had left, all fending for themselves over time, with leadership that continued to weaken over time.

But this fortress could not be abandoned. There was no other place for them. There were others--few. So many had not made it back, potentially lost during their missions and assignments, or lost to that darkness spreading over the land, spilling in through the dead lands of Prompt. So many numbers unaccounted for, but there were still few, and more could still arrive. It was for them that Silver waited.

Missions had been canceled.

Orders had gone on hold.

There was only one mission delivered to each of the thinning, spread out Guardians of Utopia--the "enigmatic organization": to return to the Sky Temple immediately. "Take the north route; there is sanctity no longer in the South."

He did not arrive via the safe northern route as surely many of the other Enigmas would, nor did he come from the more dangerous south. The Orange Enigma had few things he could call advantages over his comrades, but the one thing he certainly could do better than perhaps any of them was get from place to place. With his Glyphs of Teleportation set up around the entrance to the temple he could be within a few minutes walk in the blink of an eye from anywhere in the world.

The orders he'd received were vague in some ways, but quite clear on one: he was to return to headquarters regardless of whatever mission he was currently on. This was both alarming and relieving, the former because he had never heard of anything like this occurring before, and the latter...well...

There was a lot one could say about Lemon, but one thing for certain was that it was taxing to be around him for any length of time. The man just didn't think in the same way as anyone else, and though his assignment had been to watch him, Eilert had to wait and find a time when his guard was down enough so he could leave. The psychic had taken an interest in him, and while he couldn't be certain what the man would do if he told him he had to leave he didn't want to risk upsetting him and having him try and keep him from leaving, which he had no doubt Lemon was capable of.

Thus, regardless of the severity of the situation part of him felt like he was getting a reprieve by being told to return alone. Still, he was anxious to find out what his new orders would be...though he was fairly certain it would have to do with the masses of darkness visible from the mountain.

He approached the Silver Enigma, coming up behind him as he gazed out at the landscape. It was always impossible to tell what he was thinking, so he hesitated a bit before speaking up. "Orange, reporting in," he announced quietly.

". . . Eilert," Silver acknowledged him, not by the color oriented codename, but his real name: Eilert Draugr.

For a Prime Director to do such outside of their fortress, even if they were simply standing beneath of it, would be vastly unexpected--enough to tell the operative exactly how dire of a situation they were in. It was unlikely that Silver was going to reveal his real name, if only because it would take time that they didn't have, but if he had by this point, he more than likely would not have cared if Eilert referred to him as such, inside or outside of the Sky Temple.

The threat of the encroaching darkness trumped manner, respect, and protocol.

"Before us lay the End," announced Silver, his foreboding tone distinctly different than his usual voice--he spared stoicism entirely.

Whereas, it was normally difficult to discern how Silver felt or what he was thinking of, it was easy at this point: he was standing his ground. They all were. Given the Prime Director's tone--the only commanding officer left to the Guardians of Utopia, he didn't need to say any particular to suggest his intentions, he needed only to speak.

"Two and a half months ago, that darkness swept over the nation to the south--Prompt, a nation that should have been protected from the shadows," he recalled the massacres in Prompt, events which fell before Eilert was to keep an eye out on Lemon, before he had lost track of the telepath, and spent time searching for him--only to be recalled before he could locate him. "A nation which we made it a point to protect."

Silver turned to face Eilert, the cowl of his hood still over his face--but the dress of protocol and privacy had been ignored to a point, rushed to an extent. Silver generally wore enough to cover his entire body from view, but here, he had forgotten to slip gloves of any sort on. It was the first instance of the man showing his skin, however little was provided to be seen: blue. It was the only way to describe his skin color. A hazy, smooth, light hue of blue, but with no discernible olive, tan, or pale natural skin color.

"And now, it threatens to sweep over us--the only ones left to protect this world."

The fact that news of Prompt's fall came as a surprise to him was a testament to how out of touch Eilert was with the world. It was difficult to imagine an entire country simply gone, razed of all signs of life and civilization. Silver spoke of the end, and the way he sounded it wasn't a metaphorical end.

"The End...of the world?" he asked, seeking to confirm his thoughts. He wouldn't have believed it, but the army of dark creatures currently gathering for battle led credence to the notion. If they could take out entire countries, it truly was a threat of those proportions.

He felt uneasy again...he had long been separate from the world as a whole, and even those places he had been familiar with were now foreign to him. Among the Enigmas, he was probably one of the older ones of those still around. It was truly descriptive of their organization that guarding the gates to Heaven and Hell was one of the easier jobs.

Before he could comment on his thought, that the world he knew had ended long ago, his eyes were drawn to Silver's hands. That was no shade of skin that could be achieved naturally, even through sickness. And he would know, after all. Is he not human? The notion didn't bother him much, but it did surprise him. Because of the nature of their duty, the Enigmas were a xenophobic bunch--he now understood why the superior wore garments that covered his entire body and face.

"Our mission then is to protect headquarters?" The thought that the world rested on their shoulders...it stirred something in him, when he'd long been numb to...well, just about everything.

"Correct," replied Silver, his ominous tone blunt--simple.

The wave of shadows were not moving at a slow pace--their march was swift and steady, yet erratic and difficult to predict. Some fronts trudged forward quicker than others, slowed, and others dominated the path in their stead. The only appearance of lethargic marching stemmed from the distance. The Guardians had time to prepare--days, even. That was how long it had taken for most of their ranks to be reached and brought back to the Sky Temple. Most. Not all. Since the loss of the Gold enigma, several more had perished.

Nonetheless, they had their time to prepare, but now it was not a matter of days. A full day, at best. With the horizon covered from edge to edge, they were going to need every second. For that, Eilert was the best that the Guardians could boast, even superior to that of Crimson, second to Orange in the abilities of trapping and sabotage. Sadly, that was a man--and his entire squad--that the Guardians had lost contact with some time ago.

"Shades--the creatures that she birthed into the world," it almost seemed as if Silver was talking to himself, but only for a brief moment, "The creatures that Sturm cultivated and raised into this world from her shadow. They are being lead here with no rhyme and reason. They intend to rid the world of its final defenses, and eclipse it in shadows--and that will be the final whimper with which this world dies."

He spoke with a sense of urgency, and it went without saying that he was trying to instill that same panicked, anxious sense of necessity and importance within Eilert. They all needed that feeling--the knowledge that the world was resting upon their shoulders. For the Guardians, it always had; it was their purpose to keep foreign influence from the world, so not to allow it to overtake them. Somehow, they had failed.

"There are artifacts in this fortress that we cannot risk moving," Silver remarked as he raised his hand, motioning towards the Sky Temple above, "Artifacts necessary for the survival of this world. Artifacts we cannot afford to lose. The defense of this fortress has become top priority."

Shades--not a creature Eilert was terribly familiar with. Hailing from neither Heaven nor Hell, his encounters with them had been confined to any that wandered near the gates. He wasn't sure if they were intelligent, but after the first few they'd stopped showing up, so at the very least they decided venturing near the gates wasn't worth it.

But it didn't seem like he had time to learn, either. He knew that a Glyph of Banishment would send them away, and a Glyph of Eruption was enough to destroy them. That was good enough for him.

Silver's words hardly fazed the Orange Enigma. The weight of the world was a hefty one to be sure, but in Eilert's mind he was still a fairly insignificant part of their group. He didn't realize just how much he would be counted upon to defend their headquarters--to some, perhaps even their home.

"How long do we have?" he asked quietly, eyes cast at the ground. He was truthfully waiting for more explicit instructions, but given Silver's nature he wasn't sure he'd get them.

"At their pace . . ."

It was hard to say, really. They had less than a day, that much was sure. The wave of shadows were too close by this point, already having crested over the mountains, for them to have a matter of days to prepare. It was just unfortunate that Eilert had been located so late. Had he been found sooner, their preparations against this amassed group of shadows would have been much, much more refined.

Silver turned from Eilert, facing the wave of shadows lingering ahead of them. He went silent for a moment, calculating their time in his mind, until he finally turned to face Eilert once again:

"Fifteen hours," Silver finally replied, "If luck is on our side. Realistically, we have thirteen hours."

And those two hours would certainly make a difference. With minimal manpower, having fifteen hours to prepare against an assault of that magnitude compared to thirteen could make all the difference in the world. Quite literally. If the world truly was resting on the shoulders of their weakened organization, then if luck could possibly be on their side, whatever gods deemed it fit for them would have to be thanked in excess . . .

"That is...not much time." He'd been hoping for days or even weeks. If that was the case, they stood a good chance of being able to repel the invasion. With less than a day though...and who knows how many would get the message and actually make it in time.

The fate of the entire world...would this be humanity's last stand? A lone temple on a remote mountain, where only a handful of humans had ever set foot. The world really was a strange place.

"What is our plan?" he asked, almost afraid of the answer. Silver was, as far as Eilert knew, the current acting head of the entire organization. He wasn't certain what (if any) powers the man had, but he must have battle plan. Did the temple have any built in defenses, he wondered?

A plan--Silver actually hadn't figured that Eilert would ask. Then again, Eilert didn't know how invaluable of a member he was to their organization . . .

"Considering the numbers we're dealing with--thousands, if we're lucky--and how much manpower we have--just shy of two dozen--" Silver sighed, "A full counter-assault is impossible. In a ground war, we would fall within minutes. And that is why it is imperative that you have come."

It was short, but Silver then had a story to tell--an anecdote introducing the "battle plan" he had in mind. If Eilert was aware of some more renowned tactics employed by other members of their organization, he may very well have recognized the story from the beginning.

"When the Crimson Enigma, Prez O'Connor, caught word of a demon king marching upon Rivenfelde City, Xexoria, he and his partner Sade mapped out the course of the army's movements and spent the entire day prior to the invasion planting remote explosives in the sand for miles. When the army stopped at the city gates and prepared declared their intents, O'Connor stepped outside, alone, and detonated the explosives, effectively halting the movement of the army. Even though the demon king made it through O'Connor and took the throne of Xexoria, he had no army with which to defend himself in the end; it had been defeated by a man and woman."

Needless to say, the tactic was nothing short of legendary amongst the Guardians. It was proof enough that two defiant individuals could stop an army if they had the knowledge and resources to do so. Notably, O'Connor and Sade were renowned as some of the physically and magically weakest of the organization. Obviously, their skills lie in quick thinking and planning--sabotage.

In case Eilert still did not understand his importance, Silver finally remarked: "Unlike O'Connor, you are not restricted to mechanical means only."

Slowly, the point of Silver's story dawned on the Orange Enigma. A pair of them had defended against an entire army using detonations. They had days to prepare, though, whereas the shades would likely be on them in a matter of hours. Thirteen to fifteen hours--for manually building defenses it wasn't nearly enough time to make a difference, little better than no time at all. To a man who could set the equivalent of a buried bomb in a matter of minutes, even thirteen hours seemed like an eternity.

The Enigmas were a varied group to be sure, but the primary specialty of most of them was combat. Combat alone would not win the day, however...this would take strategy and tactics, and they would have to implement them very quickly. And as Silver already knew and Eilert was just realizing, there was no one better suited to that than him.

The fate of the entire world possibly rested on his shoulders. Not his alone, but it was his abilities that would play the biggest role in the battle to come.

"I...understand." To any normal person, such a responsibility would be crushing. And indeed it seemed to rattle Eilert, but it remained to be seen whether or not he would crack under the pressure or...

"Map," he mumbled. "To start, I'll need a map of the area."

"Good," replied Silver.

It would have been understandable if Eilert decided that the burden was too strong to bear. Anyone would have felt that way. If Silver was correct, and the weight of the world rested on their organization--and Eilert just so happened to be the best fit to set up defenses against the shadows . . . it went without saying that some would cave under that sort of pressure. The very fact that Eilert was more than willing to commit was a relief to Silver. He wasn't lying earlier when he talked of how ill-prepared they were for this situation.

"In the fortress--search for your old Superior's office. One of your associates, Icsorue, is currently in charge of internal preparations and records. She should have a map available." Silver finally commented on Eilert's request for a map of the area--helpful information, at that.

Though it wasn't necessarily the time to be concerned about it, Icsorue was known for her battle lust and constant state of borderline insanity. She was certainly not the easiest person to get along with, especially considering her sadistic sense of humor, but given the situation, some particulars would just have to be ignored . . .

"I will get to work, then." And unless Silver had further instructions for him, he'd be off.

It was as he was walking the halls of the temple, searching for his former superior's office that the realized how little the term "the world" meant to him. It had been a long, long time since he considered himself part of the world--he was nothing more than its baggage, a leftover entity, a guest that had checked out but would not leave the premises. He knew little of it anyway; he had spent his entire life in Greoul, and even then what accounted for his "life" actually made up less than half of his existence.

He was supposed to fight to prevent the world's destruction, but he himself was little more than a void, a body that took up space, living in blissful oblivion. Not wanting to die, but not really wanting to live, either...

It was with these thoughts that he entered Gold's office. There was much on his mind...something quite unusual for Eilert.

The Sky Temple itself was in a state of chaos. As Silver had said, there were less than two dozen operatives available, most of which were resting. For a majority of them, singular combat was a specialty; the operatives that specialized in espionage, trapping, and sabotage had all been lost one way or the other--killed during a mission, found and captured, or somehow lost from contact. Many of those invaluable operatives, the reconnaissance specialists, had been squandered until there were few left--none of which could compare to Eilert.

The Pink Enigma, as she was most commonly known, sat in the large, somewhat bare office of the former Prime Director. Her coat had been discarded entirely, and the young woman with wild pink eyes sat where her and Eilert's Superior should have been, open scrolls laid out upon the desk in rows, provided glances, but attention was never provided to just one at a time. Icsorue, the strawberry blond, hot-headed investigator and executioner of the Guardians, was given a roll that she could not perform: finding the weaknesses within their fortress. The primary difficulty was that they had none, but were still susceptible to such a direct attack . . .

Hearing someone push the door open, Icsorue did not actually look up from the scrolls, but did--at the very least--give the person her attention. "The hell do ya want? Can't ya see I'm busy 'ere?"

To most, the Pink Enigma was an extraordinarily difficult person to get along with. However, Eilert was just plain unfazed by her complete lack of manners. It didn't even register to him. Saying that they got along would be a bit of a stretch, but he tolerated her much better than most.

"I need a map of the area," he replied unsteadily. It was somewhat disconcerting to see Icsorue where his former superior used to sit, but that was the least of the troubles on his mind.

The Pink Enigma was always energetic. That might not be the exact term most would use for her, but there was no denying that she acted with a lot of vitality. Normally it was just another thing he would have noted silently and shuffled into the far corners of his mind, but today had upset his normal mode of being enough that he felt the need to ask something completely unrelated to the task at hand.

"Icsorue...what is it that drives you?"

"A map? Wot the hell are ya gonna do with--" Icsorue was ready to scold this person that she presumably didn't know, at least until she looked up at him.

When she first looked up at him, she was glaring--her pierced brow furrowed and lips pursed in irritation, making her lebret pout out; truthfully, it was only when she had a wild fire in her eyes that she could ever come off as intimidating. Just looking at her, though . . . how intimidating could be be? No older than twenty three, multiple piercings on her ears, a nose ring, eyebrow ring, lebret piercing-- strawberry blond hair styled in some sort of wild, barely tamed bob cut. She altogether looked younger than she really was, and with her accent and vulgar nature, she could even sometimes come off as a joke, were she not threatening bodily harm.

But when she saw the orange enigma, her features softened. So he was here. That was one concern that a lot of them had--if they'd really have the means of fighting off this sort of attack, and Silver at least seemed to be convinced that someone such as Prez O'Connor or Eilert would have been able to do the job.

". . . wot the hell is--" she trailed off, going silent.

Wot koind of question is that?!

The question wasn't answered. Turning her nose up to him, she turned in the chair and reached back to other scrolls. There were a tone of them, too many for just one person to go over. There was a reason why her "job" at the moment was so hopeless.

"--'ere, a map of the place," Icsorue scoffed as she tossed a map at Eilert, but rather than going back to her investigations, she actually stood from the chair and . . . potentially waited--possibly for some response from Eilert, or for him to leave the room. Chances were, though, she was going to follow if he did . . .