2Fuu suddenly yelped as her bottom crashed against the metal framework behind her. It hurt extra because there was nothing covering her bottom. She flopped weakly over her dashboard as Windam was the last to fall.
Hikaru and the girls were ready for a weekend of relaxation and meditation. Their bodies were stretched over silver furniture, their limbs were hanging sluggishly at their sides, and their clothes were completely off. All they needed was for some dark and handsome stud to bring in the aromatherapy.
Rayearth and Selece were crumpled in motionless red and blue heaps. Windam made a few pathetic efforts to move its legs before giving up and sinking into the ruins of a warehouse beside the other Mashins.
To say the sky over Tokyo was dark wouldn't be expressing how grave the situation was. The sky looked like no other sky seen before. The boundaries between Earth and Cephiro were being torn down by a colossal vengeful spirit materializing as a surreal storm cloud.
Zagato had returned as a nebulous being of pure hysteria. Cephiro couldn't be his. Emeraude couldn't be his. His own life couldn't be his. So he had come back using the dark arts to start both worlds over from scratch. It seemed not even suicide could keep a good lover down.
Pilots of Mashins came with only one body type: Nude. When a Magic Knight entered her machine-god, she would mystically shed off all of her impurities and physical burdens and become the manifestation of her own pure soul. It was the only way for a maiden to truly bond with her god while she was in control. For Hikaru, Fuu, and Umi, however, this time it only wound up leaving them more vulnerable when they fell in battle. The Knights had tried and failed to use their Mashins to hold back the mist-like creature tainting the air.
Their heads felt distant and dizzy. Their bodies were sore all over. They sunk pathetically over each of their control altars as if the unyielding metal was a hammock. Zagato's massive spectral clouds hovered straight above them and they weren't even roused by it as they faded in and out of lazy dreams.
It's not that they couldn't escape. They were in trouble after being pummeled so close to unconsciousness that they couldn't perceive what was about to happen. They had no idea Zagato was looking down on their bare forms and seeing the three Pillars who would hold up his paradise.
The swirling howling storm started to move lower. The bright red, blue, and green of the Mashins became lost in violent black currents as the storm touched ground. Inside each cockpit, the Magic Knights were joined by the presence of black vapors.
While the storm outside was powerful enough to blow out windows and tear apart buildings, the air wafting over the Magic Knights lightly grazed their worn muscles with a cold touch that made their breath sigh and their aches fade away. Their noses twitched as they gently inhaled wisps of black smoke and felt it relax the backs of their throats and tickle their minds.
The vapor became more dense and ominous while the dazed Magic Knights only became more calm and unsuspecting. The black void looming in each cockpit easily could have formed into hammers and crushed the three soft flakes of flesh into oblivion, but it only ever showed them tenderness and compassion. Their ambient and spiritually-charged complexions made their bodies appear like soft lanterns about to be covered for the night under black sheets.
Zagato's eerie presence settled over each Magic Knight long before they regained enough of their senses to realize the danger. Their bare figures became lost in the mist the same way their collapsed Mashins became lost in the ferocious storm. They closed their weary eyes and surrendered to the forces embracing them, allowing their pristine souls to be swallowed up in utter darkness.
The Pillars had some interesting jiggle physics considering their name suggested they should be completely rigid and carved out of solid rock. Wafts of black smoke swirled around their bare feet as they walked with a small playful hop in their strides. The hop started at their slender ankles, curved upward through the intricate web designs that covered their skin, and ended at their icy blue lips curled in subtle mischievous smiles.
Perhaps their stride was simply their attempt at being seductive to lure in unsuspecting mortals. Or perhaps they thought of themselves as rabbits who had taken over Mokona's role after they ripped his head off and mounted it on a spike.
The moon was quietly hanging over Tokyo as the Pillars rose out from the darkness and made their nightly rounds as gardeners reaping souls. They moved silently and left no trace of their presence when their feet walked across concrete or asphalt. But when they walked over natural grass, anything touched by their soft footprints was quickly embraced by death.
The forsaken Magical Knights wore their naked piloting forms full-time even though they would never mount inside a Mashin again. Pillars in the new system were carefully crafted from the materials Zagato was able to catch, and the Magic Knights had been caught with their chests hanging, backs stretched, and panties off. On plus side, their nature as pure spirits separated from their physical bodies made them immortal and preserved their mysterious beauty. Fuu never needed her glasses. Umi never needed to waste hours trimming and brushing her elegant blue hair.
Even back when the world was a brighter place, the old Pillars of Cephiro were expected to bare their hearts and think of nothing but their sacred duties to the universe. Apparently baring their bodies had been added to list of job requirements as well.
Somewhere in the calm and distant horizon of the city were the collapsed statues of the Magic Knights' abandoned Mashins. The once sacred machine-deities were now simply landmarks in a ghost town surrounded with rubble. It was a fitting end that reflected the fate of their pilots; only Hikaru and her friends managed to sell the idea more attractively.
Their appearances could best be described as sleek but necrotic. Their skin was pale sapphire bordering on white. Their veins had turned black and left intricate patterns of spider webs wrapping through their bodies. Their eyes were solid black and looked like opals.
Each one had a special mark on the right cheek of her face and left cheek of her rear so she would be easy to spot from both front and back. The symbol for Zagato's Pillars was a black heart impaled by an arrow next to a Roman numeral. Umi was I. Fuu was II. Hikaru was III. They used to be noble riders who drove colossal mechanical beasts, but now they had surrendered their reins and proudly wore their brands to show their tainted love for their ghostly master.
Making eye contact with them was enough to paralyze anyone. A single touch from any one of their lithe hands would bring death almost instantly. The Pillars controlled all aspects of life by deciding exactly when it died. If anyone was foolish enough to challenge them, they could change the quality of the air with their magic or alter the shape of the ground underneath their feet. But their power mostly came from calling on the souls of the dead.
Zagato was still trying to perfect a way to bring back Emeraude's soul. Now that his Pillars had restored order and he held the reigns over the universe, it was only a matter of time before the solution bared itself to him.
Author's note: The BGM for the Pouty Poltergeists / Catastrophe Cupids / Nasty Knights / Betwixt Bitches / whatever you want to call them is the Arcane Golem theme from The Messenger.
Author's note 2: This story sorta makes sense if you watch that Endless Waltz-esque OVA they made after the Rayearth TV show ended.
