1 Chapter 1: sole survivor

A young man with dark hair and piercing grey eyes walked aimlessly through the destroyed remains of Aegis city. His name was Ren, and he was possibly the last human alive.

This city was built after the collapse to show human perseverance, but it was now hauntingly empty, with the exception of a few mutant beasts fighting for territory.

"5 years..."

Ren muttered to himself, he's been aimlessly surviving for 5 years after his younger brother sacrificed himself to save him. Ren looked around the destroyed tents and buildings, remembering the night that the intelligent mutant tiger attacked the city.

"Maybe I shouldn't have come here..."

Ren sat down and started to work on a fire for the night, he never got to learn any elemental manipulation powers like his little brother Jun. Come to think of it, he was always the one being protected back then, despite being the older sibling.

*Fwoosh* As Ren looked at the fire and his surroundings, emotions thought to be lost to time came back to him.

These past 5 years were exhausting, Ren wandered the world in search of other survivors, only to become more and more disappointed as time went on. As Ren wallowed in his misery, a keen pair of blue eyes watched him from the darkness.

Noticing a chill on his back, Ren glanced at his bag. He calmly got up and reached for his bag, but before he could, a white tiger with a half burned face lunged towards his hand.

*Crash!* Anticipating this, Ren kicked the campfire towards the tiger, burning his eyes with the ash before he began rummaging through the bag.

"you..."

Ren widened his eyes in surprise, a familiar monster was before him once again. Feeling a rush of anger, Ren grabbed a blue crystal from his bag and crushed it in his hand, enveloping him in a blue hue.

Jumping back a few meters, the tiger and Ren began staring each other down. Ren charged in, hoping to catch the tiger by surprise, but the tiger dodged Ren easily.

"ROOOOOOOAAARR!!!!"

The tiger's voice echoed through the city, and every mutant beast stopped to listen. Ren looked around, anticipating an attack.

Then, Ren felt a deep rumbling in the ground as every mutant in the area had began gathering towards the tiger, rushing Ren down.

"FUCK!"

Jumping a few meters into the air, Ren bought himself time to search his bag, he pulled out a red crystal and crushed it.

"Dammit, I'm struggling so much in one fight, if only I hadn't broken my weapon last week"

Ren, covered in a red and blue aura lands among the mutants, creating an explosion. Disintegrating every mutant in a 5 meter radius of him. Then, Ren noticed a green glint among the splattering remains of the mutants, His eye's lit up, immediately making a dash for it.

Trying to stop his efforts, the tiger lunged towards the crystal as well. Just before the two could touch the crystal, Ren moved to the right side of the tiger.

Taking advantage of the tigers blind burnt side of his face, Ren delivers an explosive kick to his head, knocking the tiger back just enough for Ren to take the green crystal.

"It's been a while since I've used an agility crystal, seems like one of your underlings was special." Ren then crushed the small green crystal, and a green aura appeared around his legs.

"Tch, of course it wasn't enough for a full body, otherwise he wouldn't have been under you"

Ren stared down the tiger, who was couched and ready to make his next move. Ren dashed towards the tiger at lightning speed, delivering explosive attacks after another throughout the night.

As the sun came up, Ren and the tiger were both bloody and battered, Ren was missing an arm, while the tiger's jaw was hanging wide open.

"you're weaker now tiger, did age catch up to you?"

Ren mockingly said, staggering towards the tiger. The tiger glared at him for a moment, and ran off.

"Oh no you don't, I waited too long for this"

Ren mustered whatever strength he had left to chase, navigating the broken down city he once called home. As he drew near the tiger, Ren saw the tiger waddling towards a rainbow crystal in it's nest.

"is that...?"

Ren widened his eyes, ignored the tiger and immediately made a dash for the crystal, desperately using the last of the agility crystal. The tiger caught on and made a mad dash for the crystal as well, completely ignoring his own well being. As the both of them touched a half of the crystal, they immediately crushed their half.

A golden light shone on both the tiger and Ren, lifting the both of them up through a small hole in the sky.

"So the rumours were true, the time crystal exists and you found one..."

Ren stared at the tiger, Disbelieve apparent in his eyes.

"what kind of monster did you have to hunt to get something like this? I went through hell to get my explosive buff crystal"

The tiger looked proud for a moment, before the scowl returned to his face. At the end of the tunnel, Ren woke up in his old house, before the collapse.

Ren quickly got out of bed to check the date, July 20, 20XX, a few days before the first wave. Collapsing into the sofa, Ren tried to collect himself, before deciding to take a shower.

"How long has it been since I used running water? 7 years?"

Ren mused to himself, as he took his shirt off, he noticed something strange on his right shoulder. Turning his head around to get a better look, Ren found that something was staring back at him.

"HOLY SHI-" Ren caught himself, he didn't want to startle his sleeping brother. Taking a closer look, a moving tattoo of the white tiger was staring back at him, pacing back and forth on his right arm.