This is my tribute to Monty Oum. May he rest in peace.

This doesn't have any real place in this story's timeline.

God

The rain fell thick and full, blanketing Sanstrum in it's shadow. Atop the massive plateau that the city was built beneath, the students of Lantern Academy sprinted to and from their classes, their footsteps splashing the muddy water on the ground onto their uniforms.

"Where in the hells did this rain come from?" Nikita shouted, shielding herself from the worst of the rain with her note binder. Gavin made a wordless grunt of agreement as he ran alongside Alicia, the heiress using her weapon's secondary form to protect herself and her companion from the rain. Markus, meanwhile, said nothing, his own footfalls slowing as he stared out at the horizon.

"Hey, pup! Come on, you'll catch a cold!" Nikita shouted, sprinting backwards and tugging at the larger boy's arm.

"You feel like something important just... Vanished? Something you can't seem to place, but never-the-less..." Markus said softly, his ears flattening against his head. Nikita looked at her partner for several moments, before slowly taking his hand in hers and squeezing it tightly.

"Yeah. I can feel it too."

In his office, overlooking the entire Academy, Xehron Nort looked out at the dark skies above, and sighed. His bandages hung off the edge of his desk, long since removed to expose his concealed eye. Brushing aside his greying hair and looking out towards the sky with mismatched eyes, he then took a sip from his glass of whiskey, and sighed deeply, his eyes full of sadness.

"Our god has died, and no one even noticed. Mayhaps we are beyond hope." Xehron then felt a hand on his shoulder, and looked up to see his partner standing beside him.

"No, Xehron. Not all of us are blind to the world. We see, and we pray," Mares Bartimas said, his own glass full to the brim. Turning his head slightly, Nort saw Gwen Marian and Johnathan Bain seated on the edges of his desk and leaning against a bookcase respectively. Sighing once more, Xehron then stood and approached the glass doors leading to his office's balcony. As the skies began to clear, he smiled softly, looking down at the students running across the grounds. He then noticed a pair standing be themselves, and his smile grew confident.

"Of course. Our god may be dead, we are not. We stand. We live." Xehron then drained his glass, the rest of the teachers, no, his team, doing the same. They all then spoke the same words, at the same time.

"We fight."

We all lost someone great. We are all grieving. But we would be doing Monty a great disservice if we simply curled up and wept. We owe it to him to keep on creating, to keep on weaving his world into tales that we, as a fandom, as a FAMILY, are proud of.

Thank you, Monty, for all you gave us. May you find peace.