Fanfic / The Shape of Things to Come

From El-Hazard: The Magnificent World, ''The Shape of Things to Come by Dooky-Chan is a Continuation Fic that explores the return to El Hazard. It is a very faithful continuation of the series, continuing after the Alternate World and outright ignoring the Wanderers continuity.

Taking place immediately after the finale of the Magnificent World, wherein Makoto brings Ifurita back to El Hazard, things are taking shape. Two new travelers have come from Earth, the Bugrom are on the march again, there's civil unrest with the Opaques in the allied nations, and a great evil has awoken that threatens to destroy everyone and everything. So, pretty much it's business as usual in El Hazard.

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The Shape of Things to Come contains examples of:

• All Love Is Unrequited: Mari's true love is Nanami, though there are hints it might be requited in the future.
• Aloof Dark-Haired Girl: Mari, black haired and very aloof, though not without a heart.
• Alpha Bitch: Mycea. She seems determined to be a miserable person to any fellow waitresses she works with, bullying Mari and outright trying to make Tenax's life absolute hell, the later of which simply because she's "blue".
• Arranged Marriage: “The Rule” for the royalty of El Hazard means princesses must be married in their twenties, so naturally both Rune and Fatora were nearly victims of this. Thankfully, Fatora marries early on to avoid this, and Rune simply hasn't found anyone since her previous fiancée turned out to be a Phantom Tribe spy.
• Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: Tenax. She's a capable Medical Student, and can show surprising Hidden Depths, but on the surface, can quickly be distracted.
  Tenax: "Oooh look, a kitty!"
• Babies Ever After: In addition to the birth of Princess Hotaru, there's the possibility raised that other couples might have a kid as well, such as Makoto and Ifurita.
• Babies Make Everything Better: In the finale, when Princess Hotaru is born, everyone is gushing about her.
• Berserk Button: Naturally, Jinnai's profound hatred of Makoto comes up at the mere mention of his name, convinced his eternal rival is always out to try and destroy him. Exploited later in the story specifically to trip him up. Meanwhile, Sakura has one whenever people fail to recognize who she is, since as a Pop Idol, she's convinced she's the greatest thing ever, and people (especially teenagers in her demographic) should worship the ground she walks on (and later flies over). Since Mari doesn't know her (or care for her), she's almost a walking Berserk Button for Sakura the same way Makoto is for Jinnai.
• Big Bad: Arjah, aka Jahad Ito Arundel.
• Blue-Skinned Opaque Babe: The two most prominent Opaques in the story, Doctor Amiri and medical student Tenax, are these, though the latter moreso, especially after getting into a relationship with Parnasse.
• Bouquet Toss: During the royal wedding, Alielle does the tossing. Despite many candidates to catch, it winds up in the hands of Afura, the Wind Priestess, almost by accident. She’s dumbfounded, and has to has the custom explained to her.
• Brainless Beauty: Sakura. About the only nice thing you can say about her is that she's pretty, which is how she became a Pop Idol. She can't even sing. And she's selfish, vain, and generally a jerk to everyone she meets. And while becoming a prototype Demon God for Zero Energy does make her a lot more dangerous, it doesn't do her IQ any favors.
• Brought Down to Normal: The Phantom Tribe, when Makoto uses a new invention to neutralize their illusion powers, permanently. Most do not take it well, Nahato in particular.
  • To a lesser degree, Arjah also suffers this, going from a (seemingly) all knowing deity to a living man again... seconds before Ifurita kills him.
• Character Development: Across the board, but most prominent with the two Princesses Rune and Fatora, the former who learns to lighten up, relax, and have fun, and the latter who learns when to straighten up, be serious, and do her duty. As well as become a loving wife and mother.
• Chick Magnet: Makoto remains this, despite having Ifurita back, adding even more interested girls to his Unwanted Harem. Mari also becomes something akin to this, snagging the interest of both Fatora and Alielle, amongst others.
  Fatora: "If you're hoping to develop a pathetic crush on him, there's a queue a mile long..."
• Child Prodigy: Cerev. Despite being very young (exact age unspecified, but implied to be only ten or so), he reads the newspaper in his free time, solves mathemathics for an advanced class he's not even in, and finds grammatical errors in a paper his teacher wrote (though to be fair, almost everyone did).
• Chosen Conception Partner: A rather odd example. After an assassination attempt leaves Rune Venus unable to conceive, Princess Fatora is saddled with the burden of giving birth to the future of the Roshtarian royal line. When they find out they can conceive artificially thanks to Opaque medical techniques (and better, not involve a male's DNA at all), Fatora plans initially to be the birth mother of the child of her and Alielle. At the last minute, however, Alielle takes the burden on herself, and the egg is implanted in her instead.
• The Chosen One: Subverted with Katsuhiko Jinnai. It is revealed by Diva's reincarnation she knew his claim of being a messenger from God sent to lead the Bugrom to victory was bunk from the beginning. She just played along because he knew strategy. So when the war is over, she has no further need of him and does not put up with his delusions one second longer than is necessary.
• Color Motif: Black. As Makoto attempts to explain to Ifurita, it's both the combination of all colors and the absence of colors, meaning it both is and isn't a color. The same way Zero Energy both is and isn't an energy. Its also heavily associated with Mari, who plays a key role in the events of the story.
• Damsel in Distress: Alielle, and to a lesser degree Mari.
• Dark Is Not Evil: Mari. She's gloomy, pale, dresses in black, and frequently mistaken for the literal personification of Death (in El Hazard, at least), but she's really a nice girl, if a bit anti-social.
• Death by Irony: Turns out, while he may have been mad enough to create Demon Gods and other Weapons of Mass Destruction, Jahad Ito Arundel was clever enough to want to avoid this sort of death, so he designed all of his weapons with a genetic identifier to keep himself safe. It continues down his bloodline to the present day with Qawoor. It doesn't save him when Three disables Ifurita's sensors, allowing her to give him exactly this as his very just desserts. Makoto also mentions the inventor of the guillotine when discussing this trope, and the popular myth that they also succumbed to their own invention.
• Death Seeker: Three. With their love interest gone, they find no meaning in their life and seek death in order to reunite with them. Changes in the finale, when sealing up the breach and taking the place of Arjah to watch over existence gives them new purpose to their life.
• Demonic Possession: Later in the story, Arjah possessed Qawoor, since she is descended from him (its implied that's the only reason he's able to), and uses her body to further his plans.
• Dogged Nice Guy: Paranasse thinks he's this, but he is really barking up the wrong tree when it comes to Mari. He has marginally better success with Mycea and later Tenax.
• Do Wrong, Right: When confronted by a man spreading slanderous (and blatantly racist) propaganda, the ever-diplomatic Rune Venus full on punches him right in the face. Per Mr Fujisawa:
  Fujisawa: "It was a good punch. She kept her balance well and put her full weight behind it."
• Dreaming of Things to Come: Makoto seems to have gained this second ability in addition to his ability to interface with machines, witnessing things before they yet come to pass. It's unnerving, especially since he rarely sees anything good.
• Expy: Sakura seems to bear a resemblance to, both physically and in mannerisms, to the dim-witted, black-haired Ifurita from the Wanderers continuity. She's much less nice, however.
• Fantastic Caste System: Among the Phantom Tribe, those without the power of illusion are treated as second class citizens. Eventually, they rebel and flee to the Alliance, becoming the Opaques.
• Fantastic Racism: Towards the Opaques, on both sides of the equation. El Hazard does not trust them, and the Phantom Tribe considers them traitors. It takes a long while for the prejudice to start dying down, and even then, many attempt to use it for their own benefit.
• Fate Worse than Death: Played With. Sakura is punished for her time as a Demon God by being made a servant for Princess Formyka, with the implicit suggestion that she's being made a Sex Slave in all but name.
• Go Mad from the Revelation: Arjah. Seeing all of Time and Space really did a number on his sanity.
• Goth: Mari, who ticks just about all the major boxes. She's a little less gloomy than most examples, however.
• Greater-Scope Villain: Arjah is this, having built many of the WMDs of the series, as well as manipulated events that brought many of the travelers from Earth to El Hazard, all with the goal of his resurrection in mind.
• Healing Hands: Mari Kurai. Its the ability bestowed upon her by coming to El Hazard.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Three ultimately gives her life to ensure the stability of the Eye of God gateway, preventing the release of Zero Energy that would threaten the multiverse.
• Hidden Depths:
  • Mari knows a surprisingly large amount of information on insects, enough to question how Bugrom can breathe given their unusual size. She also plans on studying medicine in the finale, with every implication she should do well at it.
  • Alielle also reveals she can be surprisingly political as the story goes on, knowing a great deal of how to play the game, so to speak, and simply never bothered before.
  • Surprisingly, "Groucho" of the Bugrom seems to be pretty on the ball too, for someone who's usually portrayed as dumb muscle. Granted, most of his speech is in bugrom gibberish, but based on how Jinnai reacts, he seems to understand exactly what's going on, often before Jinnai even does.
• Hive Mind: The Bugrom, at least insofar as they share their pain with Queen Diva.
• Hollywood Tone-Deaf: Sakura, despite being a Pop Idol, literally can't sing. She has her voice put through a machine for her videos. Contrast Mari, who delights others with her natural singing, albeit some of her song choices may not be perfectly suitable for children.
• Homosexual Reproduction: Fatora and Alielle's baby Princess Hotaru, as a result of gene-splicing and advanced medical science courtesy of the Opaques.
• Hot Consort: Mari briefly becomes a handmaiden/partner for Fatora and Alielle. She doesn't mind in the slightest. And of course, the Princesses are this to each other.
• Humble Hero: Mari is very much a selfless woman, taking absolutely no credit for saving countless lives over the course of the story with her healing powers, and generally seeks to deflect praise or glory, simply seeking to do the right thing simply because she can.
• Idol Singer: Sakura, albeit an example of some of the worst aspects of the trope. Both Katsuhiko and Makoto were fans of hers back on Earth.
• Incompatible Orientation: As in the series, Paranasse is quite the skirt chaser, but is flat out wasting his time going after Mari, who is only interested in girls (and one in particular).
• It's All About Me: Sakura. She has barely any concept of people beyond those that praise her.
• Jerkass: King Fran. Doht. Both are quite miserable people. Katsuhiko Jinnai also remains in fine form, and its rare for Sakura to meet anyone she doesn't immediately insult.
• Keystone Army: The Bugrom are reliant on a Queen to function. If Diva was ever killed, they would be ruined. And when she dies prematurely while her replacement is still un-hatched, the entire race falls into a coma-like sleep, only re-awakening when Chibi-Diva hatches.
• Law of Inverse Fertility: At the start of the story, Rune Venus is prepared to marry for politics and have children to secure the Roshtarian royal line, so her sister Fatora can Marry for Love and enjoy herself without worrying about raising babies. Due to a botched assassination attempt, Rune is rendered sterile (on top of nearly being killed), and the responsibility falls then on Fatora instead...
• Loners Are Freaks: Mari. She's usually first to admit it.
• Lovable Sex Maniac: Fatora, of course, and Alielle not too far behind her. Princess Formyka rarely goes a full sentence without some implications of past or future sexual shenanigans. She makes Fatora look downright tame, though to be fair the Princess mellows over the course of the story.
• Master of Illusion: The Phantom Tribe, as par the course. Also, later in the series Doctor Amiri taps into this briefly.
• Never My Fault: Fran. The man cannot accept into his head that anything he does is wrong, even when he leads his country to ruin following blatantly bad advice from his generals (Phantom Tribe spies).
• New Life in Another World Bonus: Mari gains the ability to heal upon arriving in El Hazard, while it seems that Makoto may or may not have gained a second ability to see the future as part of his many travels to and from Earth and El Hazard. Sakura also gains some new powers, though its a little different for her, having merged with a prototype new Demon God.
• No-Sell: Mari discovers her ability to heal (by speeding up molecules), also enables her to No Sell a Zero Energy attack, at least in small doses. Still hurts though. And does nothing to protect her from being hit by a Power Key.
• Not Brainwashed: At first, people are unsure just how much of Sakura remains in the Absolute Zero Class Demon God she becomes, and Makoto in particular believes she should be fine if she can resist her programming and become free, the same as Ifurita (and Three) did. Nope. Turns out Sakura really is that shallow and selfish.
• Paranoia Fuel: The Opaques spark quite a bit of it, unintentionally, since the Phantom Tribe look the same and are dead set on destroying the Alliance. Naturally, the Phantom Tribe also do this thanks to their myriad illusions, which only several characters can see through. King Fran, in particular, eventually becomes so paranoid of Phantom Tribe spies he's trigged by meeting Amiri (an Opaque), and gets himself killed by refusing to accept aid from anyone who might be trying to save him from a bomb the Phantom Tribe set.
• Playing with Fire: Nanami as the proxy Priestess of Fire.
• Power of the Void: Zero Energy. It both is and isn't energy, characterised by almost "black hole" like power and uncomfortably cold temperatures (possibly relating to absolute zero degrees). It's immensely dangerous to wield, and only one Demon God was successfully created to harness its power, though Three later learns to integrate it into her systems.
• Princesses Rule: Rune formally, but also Fatora, Alielle after marrying her, and in the neighboring lands, Princess Formyka is also the de facto leader of her nation. It seems a common practice in El Hazard. There's talk of setting up Adena, Alielle's mother as a Princess ruler in the finale, for a nation that had lost its own royal famliy.
• Red Baron: The Purple Lightning of Dorusland quickly becomes this, inciting Jinnai by attacking his Bugrom and making him look incompetent. It's also a useful cover, since the Purple Lightning is actually a moniker adopted by several members of Alielle's family.
• Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves: Afura Mann tries to play by the rules to see the Alpha Priestess, who as the head of her church can hopefully help the Alliance and its people (including the Opaques, who are discriminated against). As part of her loyalty, she's told to steal the Prophecy and bring it to them. And for this loyalty, they have Afura's Wind Lamp stolen, and the badly-interpreted Prophecy used to spread only more bigotry and hatred. Oh, and when the other Priestesses find out, they're not pleased.
• Running Gag: Everyone mistaking Mari for Death. Save for those who know her from Earth, or those who later get acquainted with her, everyone in El Hazard who meets the creepy goth girl in a black dress assume she's the literal incarnation of the Grim Reaper. One instance inverts this, playing it for laughs, as she tries to frighten away some Bugrom set to capture her by playing up her appearance and threatening them with death... only to realize they can't understand her speech.
• Sexual Euphemism: Per Formyka, regarding the Bugroms new Demon Goddess Sakura, she'd really love to:
  Formyka: "... wind her motor, if you catch my drift."
• Stripperific: Sakura as a Zero Energy Demon God is described as looking like she's wearing a metal bikini and very little else. Naturally, she flaunts this for all it's worth (which isn't much).
• Shout-Out: Quite a few to Sailor Moon, not surprising considering Mari is a fan of the series.
  • The new Bugrom Queen, since she looks like a younger Diva (and shares the same name) is named Chibi-Diva, in the same vein as Chibi-Moon.
  • In the finale, the princesses name their newborn little girl Hotaru.
• Stating the Simple Solution: What, just walk up to the Alpha Priestess and barge into her office? After she's been stonewalling you for weeks on end? Well that just might be crazy enough to work...
• Smug Snake: Nahato takes after his mentor Galus in fine form, oozing confidence in every scene he's in and happily kicking Jinnai anytime he's down, with full plans in place to betray the Bugrom after the Alliance is destroyed.
• The Prophecy: "Bear Witness Shape of Things to Come. When the time of the Holy Apocalypse is past, the Shadow Nation will become two, and the inert Shadows will make a formidable enemy. Though the land be strong, rebuilt after war's ravages, it will fall. All shall be nothing, and nothing shall be all. Before the end, there will be three signs. Two travelers will visit the land. The fatherless child will be born. And the demon ally will fall upon the touch of death. Then the land will be silent."
  • Prophecies Are Always Right: Retroactively, one can almost see it coming, but the so-called "Heretical Prophecy" is 100% accurate. They figure out pretty early on the two travelers are Mari and Sakura, at the start of the story, and reluctantly conclude the "inert shadows" might refer to the Opaques, who as Phantom Tribe without powers, well... of course...
  • Prophecy Twist: Since the prophecy was found in Bugrom territory, it was meant as a prophecy for them. The inert shadows are indeed the Opaques, who do indeed make Bugrom life difficult by aiding the Alliance. The fatherless child is Diva's reincarnation, their Demon God ally Sakura is defeated by Mari, who looks like death, and the land falls silent because peace is finally achieved.
• Third Line, Some Waiting: Lots of side plots, some of which are surprisingly relevant to the greater, over-arcing storylines, so some can go unmentioned for long periods of time.
• Too Dumb to Live: King Fran of Dorusland. If an intelligent, rational, and more importantly correct decision can be found... expect him to do the exact opposite. To be fair to him, some of his early decisions were influenced by Phantom Tribe masquerading at his advisors, but the man seriously has no intelligence or cleverness to him.
• Unfazed Everyman: Mari. Very little freaks her out, be it being stuck in another world or meeting a Bugrom for the first time up close.
• Villainous Lineage: Ifurita was based, appearance-wise, personality, and genetically, on the daughter of Jahad Ito Arundel, a genocidal Mad Scientist who tinkered with Weapons of Mass Destruction. So is Three, more loosely, since she is a copy of the original Ifurita. In addition, Qawoor is a descendant of his. Thankfully, despite the implications, none of them end up turning evil, though it comes close on a few occasions.
• Wardrobe Malfunction: Sakura. When she's finally defeated, her Demon God components are expelled, leaving her in the nude.
• Weapon of Mass Destruction: The Eye of God remains this, and of course the various Demon Gods in the series, including Ifurita, Three, and Sakura. The study of Zero Energy in general seems to be with this goal in mind, it doesn't seem to have any practical or beneficial side effects to it.
• With Friends Like These...: Fatora and Formyka, at least on the formers side. Even when she wants to strangle her overbearing, overly sexualized friend, Fatora never truly wants to see her hurt, and when her country is overwhelmed, spends days trying to get word that Formyka is alright.

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