Chapter

Fuck, I am tired Jack thought as the hot, heavy air tried its best to smother him. Jogging was a relatively new routine for him, and he preferred to do it where no one could see his trudge. Luckily, there was a nature trail along the river that hardly anyone used less than a mile from his house.

The air blowing off the water helped to keep him from overheating, but when there was no breeze, the humidity of the forest made every step a practice in torture. The whole American East Coast felt like one big swamp during the summer and central Virginia was certainly no exception.

It was such a breezeless day. Jack was barely a mile into his run and contemplating giving up and accepting his lot in life as a fat man. He looked up to the heavens hoping to receive some divine motivation, and in the partly cloudy sky, he noticed what looked like a tiny floating ball of fire.

Assuming that he was about to be smushed by a meteor, Jack made his peace and prepared to meet the Reaper at only twenty-five years old. Fortunately, his luck was not quite so horrible. The falling object's position in the sky began to move west, indicating that it would not land right on top of him.

As it was close to touching down a few hundred yards in front of him, Jack covered his ears and took shelter behind the largest tree near him. What the hell are you supposed to do when a meteor is about to land right in front of you? Duck and cover?

He put his palms over his ears and waited for the shockwave to pass. He was so close that the ground was noticeably shaking before the ear-shattering boom reached him. With hands shaking from excitement, or fear, or both, Jack started running in the direction of the landing. How many opportunities would he get to be the first in the world to see a spacerock fresh out of the sky? Maybe it was even made out of something valuable.

Jack approached the edge of the crater with greed on his mind, his exhaustion forgotten. It landed a few dozen yards from the trail in a section of thick brambles and trees.

As he pushed his way up to the edge of the 15 yard wide crater, he finally saw the cause of the devastation. An eight foot tall bald man with light blue skin laying on his back.

Covered in white plastic looking armor over dark blue, skintight cloth, the man looked like a statue of legend come to life. Bulging muscles and a ridiculously square jaw, and most importantly, a gaping wound in his chest.

A chest that, Jack noticed with wide-eyed surprise, was miraculously still rising and falling.

Without thinking about what he was doing, Jack jumped into the crater and climbed down past the scattered tree stumps and demolished branches to the godlike man at the bottom. From his extensive experience watching action movies, he knew that the most important thing to do in this situation is to cover the wound and put pressure on it.

Jack removed his own sweat covered white shirt and used it as an extremely unsanitary bandage that he balled up and shoved into the hole in the white armor and pressed down hard with both hands.

As soon as he touched the wound, the god man's eyes opened and he took Jack in with big, metallic silver irises. It was that moment when he decided that he had gone insane. Maybe the meteor had landed on him after all and this was just the last hallucination of a dying brain.

The wounded warrior struggled to lift his arm, which was almost the size of Jack's torso, but it wouldn't budge. He looked at Jack with a pitying expression, as if he weren't the one with a hole in his mutilated chest.

The huge man tried to speak past the blood in his mouth, which was definitely not a good sign of his condition, but was barely able to mumble a few bubbly syllables before his silver eyes rolled back and his head fell.

Jack pressed harder on the giant chest, his white shirt now the deepest crimson, but it was like a baby trying to perform CPR on a fully grown man.

"No no no" Jack said to himself starting to panic. This was not quite how he had expected his daily jog to go.

Suddenly, the big guy's unmoving eyes began to glow with white light bright enough to be clearly visible in the middle of the day. Jack could feel the warmth from this light touch his face like he was sitting too close to a fire.

The pale white light rising from the giant man's eyes condensed and began to take the shape of many tiny stars orbiting a larger, brighter sphere in random directions. It looked like a thousand lightning bugs flying around a painfully bright light bulb. All of these lights seemed to flicker like a bright white fire.

At any other time, Jack may have been fascinated with this display, but by this point, he was starting to become numb to the extraordinary. The orbiting sparks were spinning faster and faster and the sphere in the middle shone brighter until it was blinding.

Jack tried to shut and cover his eyes, but painfully bright white light was all he saw. He tried to turn his head away, but had the sickening realization that he could no longer feel his body.

With one last moment of consciousness, Jack's only thought was, What the fuck is happening?

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Zachias opened his eyes. They were green now, he remembered. He felt sorry for the young man who previously occupied this body, however, he vowed to make good use of it in his honor.

With a calming breath out, he closed his eyes and turned his focus into himself. This body was pathetic. Even for such a lowly species, it was not even in good shape. It would take him a daunting amount of time to return anywhere close to his former strength, even with the resources he had on his former person.

Looking down at his magnificent former body, Zachias sighed. He thought of all of his most important treasures locked inside his personal dimension. How long would it be before he was powerful enough to access it again?

A glint of metal caught his attention and he looked down to his old body’s left hand. There was a fingernail-sized square of scripted metal hanging from a chain around his wrist. Zachias now remembered that he had been wearing this bracelet since he was weak enough to need it.

It was a spatial artifact that he had never bothered to throw away even after he had reached the point where he could create and interact with his own pocket dimensions. Zachias refused to admit even to himself that he continued to wear the bracelet as a memento of his former master.

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He connected with the artifact and scanned its contents. Fortunately, there were some resources inside that had become useful to him again. He would need those now more than ever, since he had regressed to a lower stage of advancement than he had been as a small child.

Closing his eyes and focusing his perceptions inward, he began to move his new body's Qi in a counter clockwise motion around the ribcage like a small tornado. It was slightly more difficult than he thought it would be. Apparently, this young man's Qi was a bit denser than he expected.

Why was his body so weak then? Zachias mentally shrugged and focused on creating the vortex motion with his energy. This would collect the ambient Qi even when he was not meditating, although it would be painfully slow.

Turning his attention to the small square of metal, he cast his mind into the fractal pattern and removed a small glass jar with a crimson tincture inside. This was a fairly rare elixir that would have done nothing for his former body. For this new one, it could turn out to be a great blessing.

He poured the Worldsense Elixir down his throat and swallowed. It had a deliciously sweet taste. The taste of power.

While waiting for the elixir to get to work, Zachias considered his current circumstances. Stranded on a nowhere backworld, and stuck in the pitiful body of a hairless ape.

He would have to lay low while he gathered what he needed to take his revenge. The amount of time that it would take to come up with that kind of power was harrowing, but Zachias' will was not shaken. He would do whatever he needed to do and woe to any who got in his way.

First things first, he moved his old body into the pocket dimension with the spatial artifact. The last thing he needed was for someone to stumble onto the scene of his death.

He turned and leapt to the lip of the crater. Just that small three meter leap was enough to put a serious strain on his new body. Before today, he would have been able to jump into orbit without a problem.

He knew that he would eventually ascend to that level again, but it seemed like an impossible distance to trek. Zachias picked up his right leg to take the first step on that long journey, but he was suddenly struck by a piercing head pain.

He stumbled, bent over and grabbed his temples, letting out a guttural yell. Recognizing the source of the pain, he closed his eyes and allowed his subconscious mind to consume his senses, taking him into his inner world.

"Impossible" Zachias spat in his original voice, deep and booming, like thunder. He narrowed his silver eyes at the confused figure standing before him.

"What the fuck is happening?" Jack demanded, with extreme stress clear on his face. Zachias looked closer at the human, searching for something.

He had straight dark hair that fell just past his ears and bright green eyes. Despite the fat on his chin, he had a relatively square jaw and high cheekbones. For a human, he was somewhat tall, standing a little short of two meters.

"How are you doing this?" Zachias demanded, towering over Jack. In this world, Zachias still took the form of his original body. He attempted to use his superior size to intimidate. "No pathetic mortal should be able to breathe in my presence let alone resist my will."

"Mortal? What were those strange lights that came out of you? What is this place? And a hat the fuck did you do to me you overgrown Smurf?" Jack's panic was quickly turning into rage as he realized that the giant blue man in front of him was the source of his current troubles.

Zachias chuckled at the threatening tone. This human had some courage at least.

"I do not know what those are, but I have to assume they are extremely handsome. That light was my Inheritance. You received it, but of course your will was too weak to conquer mine, and so, you cannot feel your body because it belongs to me now."

The fear that Jack had shown before was completely gone now, replaced with an icy calm. He had always been able to keep his head in a crisis. "If that is true, then why are you here?"

Zachias was taken aback for a moment before he quickly wiped the surprise off his face. He was starting to suspect that there was more to this pathetic human than he had first suspected.

"Yes, well, I came to make a deal with you." Zachias said matter-of-factly, hiding the concern that he was beginning to feel. "I want you to willingly give me control of your body. You will cease any struggling. In return, I will grant you anything that you wish for." Jack's face did not hide the skepticism that he was feeling.

"Not to point out the obvious, but if I did give you control of my body, how would I receive my payment?" Zachias smile showed teeth and he raised his pointer finger.

"Once you give me control and relax your mind, I will place your consciousness in a dreamlike simulation where you could do or have anything. You would be absolutely content. If peace of mind is what you crave, then prepare for pure bliss. Or perhaps you would rather experience a physical sensation? You could have anyone or anything you desire. You will be limited only by your imagination. Seize this opportunity and become a god!" Zachias finished his pitch with confidence, sure that the human would accept.

Jack looked at him with a blank face, considering his answer. "Sounds like I would have everything but meaning” he said. “What is your name?”

"My name is Zachias" the blue man replied proudly.

"Nice to meet you Zachias, I'm Jack."

“What do you think about my proposal?" he pressed.

Jack stared blankly at him. “I think I liked you better when you were dead you Ginyu Force looking ass mother fucker. I’m not going to go willingly into some eternal wet dream while you steal my real life. I’ll take my body back for 400 Alex.”

Zachias' façade broke, the rage behind his calm demeanor showing through.

"That was never an option" he grumbled. "I wanted your cooperation because it makes things easier, but I do not need it. I will simply throw your consciousness in a dark corner of this mind and bury it. You will never find your way back."

"Then why haven't you already done that?" Jack pointed out. "I think if you were really as powerful as you are pretending to be, I wouldn't have found you mutilated and dying from a sucking chest wound."

Zachias' rage became tangible as Jack spoke, his nostrils flaring and face flushing.

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Before the alien could bluster anymore, Jack focused on taking back control of his body. He would have liked to jump at the eight foot tall light blue douchebag, but this was not a fist fight. He could feel a wall between his consciousness and his body's senses.

He set his willpower to push through that assuming that it was what was keeping him from controlling his own body.

As soon as he started pushing against it, Zachias' eyes widened and he grunted. Jack felt the wall warp and surround him. He suddenly understood what a smushed penny feels like. His will compared to Zachias' felt small and pitiful.

Jack sensed Zachias as an ancient presence containing a bottomless rage. His will was absolutely smothered by that rage, crushed by a pressure that would crack diamonds. Jack's determination crumbled like a cookie, surrendering to the weight immediately.

He lay at Zachias' feet defeated, waiting to be stuffed into a subconscious oblivion.

In his final moments, he saw not his own life flash, but the faces of the people that he was leaving behind. He imagined his parents and sister, confused and devastated. He saw his best friends trying to speak to the possessed version of himself, unable to reconcile his new personality with anything that they knew about him.

He saw his own hands covered in their blood when they inevitably attempted to confront him.

The thought of the inexorable fate of his most cherished people was too much for Jack. He screamed his frustration, and the air shook with his will. The crushing force that had broken him before slowly became bearable.

Jack uncurled himself from the ground and the next thing he knew, he was on his feet glaring his absolute hatred at the being who dared to violate him and threaten his family. His wrath was like a physical presence in the mental world. It crackled in the air like fire, becoming focus and will.

Growling, Jack started forward, imagining his willpower as many blades that spun around his body in a chaotic storm. He walked toward the blue behemoth with a face of determined vengeance.

Surprised, Zachias tried to quickly smother him again, but even his ancient mind was no match for the terror and fury that Jack was brimming with. Jack's blades of will shredded Zachias' mental barrier and then tried to attack him directly.

Zachias did the only thing that could possibly save him in that moment. He fled and allowed Jack access to his senses once again.