Fallen Star Anchorage

War rained down from the boundless sky upon Ahatopia. The Nameless, whose Trailblazing had brought them to this world, paused and reached out a hand to a world teetering on the edge of destruction. Against wave after wave of endless monsters, the Astral Express became the spark that ignited the hope of the Ahatopian people. They looked up, and there it was. The Express, like a roaring Giant Dragon tearing a path through the flames and ash, shielding every last civilian in its wake. At the end of that surging tide of war, the Nameless aboard the Express came face to face with the one behind it all: the Demon Lord From Beyond. That dice-headed figure appeared simultaneously across every front, leaving apocalyptic devastation wherever it went. The red-haired girl, imbued with the blood of Destruction, secluded herself in her studio, imagenating Legion after Legion into existence. The greenhorn Nameless fell to unforeseen catastrophe. Battle-hardened Trailblaze pathstriders succumbed to despair... Amid the Demon Lord From Beyond's laughter, amid the tears of the Ahatopians, the Astral Express plummeted like a falling star, howling as it crashed to the ground. The red-haired girl stepped out of her dwelling amid the deafening roar, and saw that the Express upon the earth had become a tower of immeasurable height. The surviving Nameless fought on valiantly, and gazing upon the monsters born of her own brush, she understood destiny's cruel joke. No, even if she could only paint with the might of beasts, she would never again turn her brush against her own people. Instead, she would repaint this scarred and broken world. With every stroke of imagenesis, she would think of those Nameless, their young, tender smiles, their silhouettes pressing onward despite being terrified... "Go where the fire burns. Go where the people cry out..." Eight Supplicants, united in concerted effort: She gathered all their Wishpower and encanvased the world within a scroll, buying Ahatopia a precious moment to breathe. Prosperity began to grace this land, and the family bearing the name of "Murata" spread far and wide. Yet the Express was marooned inside the canvas, never to soar into the cosmos again. A long time later, Ahatopia turned completely upside down, and the people, intoxicated within their arcadia, even forgot the origins of "Murata." Within this desolate World in Canvas, waves beat upon the shore, their waters washing over, echoing beneath a star-filled, desolate night... ...Until another red-haired young woman found that infinite tower.

The Express was the girl's shelter. Amid the abandoned cars, she searched for surviving logs, imagining a day when she, too, would roam the cosmos like the Nameless. She sketched out those dreams. Where the silver rails stretched beyond the horizon, she would pilot the colossal robot "Starblazer," pull into the station at Cygnus, watch fifty-two sunsets and sunrises on an asteroid, dig up fossils buried in the Rosette Nebula... But one glance back at the sanatorium behind her, and the gray of reality would always remind her that the end of the line lay just ahead. Sketching herself in the image of those veteran Navigators, she drew the ideal version of who she wished to be, hoping someone else might walk the path of her dreams in her stead. It seems no one ever imagined that, amid the endlessly recurring Phantasmoon Games, the giant who walks alongside the Express would make such a dreamlike return. They channeled every ounce of their Wishpower to imagenate Pegana's colossal machine, shattering the opponent that had been slaughtering its way through Planarcadia. Nor did anyone know what the girl had offered the gods in exchange, just to draw a little closer to that impossibly distant wish... "The Trailblaze is not a road already laid, but a silver rail yet to be forged." Before her departure, she turned to look back one last time, past the crumbling academy, past the desolate shoreline, past the clamor of the streets, past the hustle and bustle of the alleyways... Stroke by stroke, she had once drawn a trail that wound around the stars, sketched a passage that spanned the firmament. An invisible star rail, extending from the depths of a shattered world of paint, slowly reaching toward the brilliant cosmos. She lifted her gaze. The cosmos remained mute, yet she could hear a beckoning from deep within her heart. "Don't be afraid. Walk on." A millennium ago, the Nameless arrived to the sound of a whistle, and made their sacrifice upon the earth of Ahatopia. A millennium later, she stood quietly at the edge where earth met sky, and sounded the Express's departure whistle once more. The Express's lights illuminated the night sky, and fell upon the eyes of Destruction in the distance. She did not know what lay at the end of the silver rail, just as she knew nothing of her destiny. But the Trailblaze has never changed. Board the Express. Press onward. That's all there is to it.