This is a bit different, but please bear with it.  It starts out
original, but the next part on will have Blueseed elements mixed in.
PM Productions Presents
A Phillip Masters Fanfic
Melody of the Night
Part One (Prologue)

     It's a long time.  Sundown to sunup, that is.  Yet, I suppose
that's what I get for deciding to work the night shift.  Everyone,
including my best friend Soya, said I shouldn't do it.  He said there
were better places to be than the Yards in the middle of the night.
Yeah, knowing him, that would be Tono's for as many drinks and women as
he could suffer.  I can remember the countless nights I had to pick him
up after shift, passed out on the front step of the bar.  
     That's not a life I want to live.  I want something interesting to
happen to me.  I know, that's been considered evil to most, but I think
it's alright.  Even if something terrible happens, it's still
*something*.  I feel like I'm wasting away.  Like I have absolutely no
direction.  Or maybe I'm just bored.  I don't know, perhaps I shouldn't
know.  Perhaps just discovering what it is I want to do is the discovery
itself?
     I shake my head.  Shey, but the Yards can bring some strange
thoughts into your head.  I look out into the vast wasteland.  Brown
dust lies as far as the eye can see.  The landscape isn't marred by
anything, not a single rock or plant.  It is a desert without dunes, an
ocean without water.  No wind blows across the featureless plain.  It's
deathly quiet, yet amazingly serene to stare at.  It is said that the
Yards can swallow your soul.  Some men have stared upon it for a time
and were never the same again.  They were living, but not aware, not
able to function in society.  They are considered lost, and named Antak,
or The Empty.  
     A person has to pass a battery of tests to guard over the Yards.
Extensive psychological testing must be endured before being seen as fit
to look upon the plain of lost souls.  Even then, I find it to be quite
difficult to fight the pull myself.  I passed all the tests with more
than average skill and still it calls to me.  It tempts me, night after
night, with only the light of the moon shining down on it.  Shadows
begin to appear in the darkness.  Creatures start to rise from the sheet
of nothingness.  
     Wait.  That's not an illusion.  That's the reason I'm here!
     My hand flies out to strike the alarm.  The small metal box I'm in,
located at the edge of the city wall, comes to life.  Screens light up
around me as the cannons screech into motion.  I know that all around
the perimeter similar silent alarms are going off, alerting the others
of enemy movement.
     The Iro are rather hideous creatures.  'Monsters' might be a better
term.  Whatever you call them, they are evil.  Pure and simple.  Just
downright *evil*.  So much so that many call them demons, demons sent to
wipe the plague that is man from the planet.  I don't buy it, they're
just scavangers.  
     Now, don't get me wrong.  Scavangers they may be, but it's what
they scavange that makes them evil.  They take that which is most
precious to us.  Our dead.  If they take our dead, many believe no more
shall live.  It's not reincarnation, more like conservation of energy.
There's only so much, and once it's gone... that's it.  If it's being
used to feed the Iro, then it is not being used to perpetuate us.
     Not that I buy the whole load of nach, but it is what I was raised
to believe.  Also, shooting the ugly bastards in the night makes me a
whole lot of money.
     I bring the plasma cannon to bear on a group of Iro, which are
approaching at an incredible rate.  No one knows how they travel, just
that it's fast.  They just seem to hover above the ground, cruising
easily toward the city.  No one has ever studied a Iro, due to the fact
that they disappear after death, and woe betide one who gets near one
that's alive.  They say just getting near one will cause death.  I'm not
sure I buy that either, but I'm not willing to test it out in person.  
     I look at the imaging screen, looking at my targets.  They seem
fairly harmless in themselves.  They stand about five feet tall, and are
covered with dirty rags.  If they weren't flying through the air one
might mistake them for common street trash.  Yet, we kill them too, so
the distinction is rarely cared about.
     The greatest thing about the Iro though, is the fact that they're
really easy to kill.  In fact, it rarely takes more than a few seconds
to destroy them.  
     Case in point.  I type in the access code for the cannon, bringing
it on-line.  Instantly, the dual barrels of the weapon light up with a
greenish glow.  It's charging, preparing to rain death on our foe.  
     I get poetic sometimes before I'm about to kill.  Lousy character
trait, but my fellow bunkmates seem to get a kick out of it once and a
while.  As long as the verse isn't bad.  This means I usually sleep in
the dumpster.  Those guys have no sense of humor whatsoever.
     The cannon is finally charged and ready.  An orange light on the
monitor is the only indication I have that the device is prepped.  I
reaim the gun toward the middle of the Iro and calmly press the 'fire'
button.  It's become so commonplace that I don't even have to be looking
at the keyboard anymore.  I could find the activation button in my sleep
and upside down.  Killing is very very easy.
     Immediately upon striking the key, a neon green beam lances out of
the cannon.  It flies into the middle of the Iro band, who are still a
number of klicks away.  No way to tell by looking, have to use the
distancer on the cannon.  The Yards are immeasurable by the naked eye.  
     Once the beam hits an enormous explosion results.  The Yards are
lit up with an intense green.  At other points in the distance I can see
similar phenomenae from the other posts.  The large fireballs engulf the
entire area outside the city, striking its very walls.  However, the
towering blast shields hold up, as they have done for many generations.
My brown hair is blown ever so lightly by the backwash of winds.
     As the plasma disipates, I can already see we were successful.
Nothing remains once more.  The Yards are unmarred by the blasts,
stretching into the distance, just as featureless as ever.  No one knows
why this is either, as no one has ever ventured into the Yards.  To step
foot outside the city is to instantly be taken by the Iro.  Once again,
I don't know this for fact, but am not willing to put it to the test.
     The scanners do a quick search of the area, then settle.  Finding
nothing, the box shuts down, once more leaving me in darkness.  I sigh
lightly, leaning back in my chair once again.
     As I pull a smoke up to my lips, a red light in the sky catches my
eye.  The cig stops two inches from my puckered mouth while I watch a
long streak of fire fall from above.  The trail of flame slams into the
Yards, about a klick away.  I can only tell this by the dull thud I can
feel in my rear from the impact.  I can see a small cloud of dust that
was kicked up by the force of the blast.  Whatever that thing was it's
gone now.  Once the small puff of fine sand settles not a trace of the
crash remains.  The Yards swallow all, and everything.  
     I snicker, maybe the thing took out some more Iro... or perhaps
just broke up whatever party they have raging beneath the mysterious
surface of the Yards.  Who knows?  None of my concern, I just sit here
and make my pay.  No more, no less... yeah, this is my exciting
existance.
     I light my smoke and blow some smoke out toward the void.  It
floats out into the nothing, soon to join it in its infinite anonymity.
My mind soon follows, the recent phenomenon forgotten.
END PART ONE
Yes, believe it or not, this will be a crossover.  It is an
Original/Blueseed crossover.  This part is meant only to introduce the
main character (Aethis) and the beginning environment.  The only aspect
of Blueseed to be present at first will just be the motama.  Later, more
of the story will be incorporated.  Please stand by... 
Send comments and thanks for reading...
PMasters
P.S.  This is more or less in honor of finishing the BlueSeed series,
finally... at least the first series that is... on to Two!

"I'm only holding back the rain.  So many raindrops, so many pains.  I
want to find my train someday.  As seasons go past the station." - Tokyo
Babylon OVA 1
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