Prologue
Thick, broad hands caressed a gavel covered in bright rhinestones.
A broad-shouldered middle-aged man sat on an elegantly formed high chair made of the most expensive metals. He carried a squared chin with thick white mustachioed whiskers falling away from the sides of his mouth.
He stole one last look of regret towards the prisoner before exhaling a deep sigh from his large mouth.
Down below on the white sandy arena floor, a small platform had been built, on which three unlikely individuals shared the center stage.
A priest. An executioner and a prisoner.
The prisoner remained on his knees with his head drooped low. His two arms were tied together, and his tattered clothes practically clung helplessly to his back.
"Jurren!" thundered the great voice through the ivory-stoned coliseum. Twenty-eight rows of seats were purposely built into place here, seated against which were the most important people across the confederation of 9 galaxies.
"Jurren Zachary Lynch! On behalf of the United Confederation of Galaxies. Citing Law 67.1 of our 400-year charter. You have been found guilty of several counts of terrorism, joint enterprise with the enemy. And suspicions of espionage and murder!
"Before our great sovereign council. Before the eyes of the law. You have been sentenced to death by beheading."
The speaker's voice covered every row, corner, and crevice of this grand monument like a megaphone rousing the hearts of the dead. A section of the seated onlookers kept their thoughts to light hushes, others vocally sang their jeers and desire for blood.
The executioner wrapped his burly hands over the iron handle of his axe.
The priest mumbled a benediction beneath his breath before slightly lowering his head in pity.
The prisoner sat unmoved.
The colours. The voices. The noises. It all meant nothing to Zachary right now. A stream of warm blood trickled down the side of his mouth. And by instinct, he slowly turned his face one way.
With eyelids half opened, his expressionless dead gaze fell towards the crowd. And there he saw them. The only two faces he had ever cared for. They held each other's hands proudly.
Now that his fate lay bare for the entire federation, they had no reason to hide it. Zachary saw their union as the final accord, which drove the nail of their betrayal into his heart. He had given everything to the federation, his family, and even to them, his most cherished friends.
The woman stood feebly. Her freckles shone against the sandy brown skin, which looked gold beneath the sunlight. Her beauty was said to be unrivalled across the stars, and yet right now, that same beauty had contorted several times between panic and grief.
Zachary understood her feelings somewhat; she was his first love many moons ago. They were both children during that time. Ever since, there seemed to be an unspoken truth of their love for one another, despite neither of them ever admitting to it.
Beside her stood the only friend he truly had. His own face paled slightly, and he looked visibly shocked once their eyes met. But at the same time, he also wore a smugly proud look, as though to say he had finally beaten him at something. Zachary never cared about any of those things; his interests were buried in the larger lens of the world: explorations, discoveries, world peace, and cures for the most heinous diseases.
The prisoner creased a toothy grin. He should've seen this coming earlier. The schemes and the lies were all there to see. He just didn't look hard enough. No, rather, he chose not to look. Perhaps that's where he went wrong—pretending not to care.
The gavel slammed down once more. The sound caught him unawares; his beaten and malnourished body slightly flinched as anger spiked through his veins.
"Disgraced Captain! Do you have any last words?" the speaker announced to the uproar of the seated audience.
Zachary felt the warm blood beneath his skin turn cold. It seemed that the final remnants of his pathetic life were set to unfold this way. There was an animosity in his heart, a coldness derived from the depths of everything he hated, feared, and chose to hide all his life.
His dark shadow finally revealed itself, and he suddenly realized the truth of all the questions he had been asking.
"What a joke..." he muttered.
"What? What did you say?" the speaker urged.
His face contorted into a mask of deranged laughter.
"Kuh-uh-ha-hu-Buahaha!"
"Y-y-you find something funny, prisoner?"
"What a cruel joke! HEAR ME! All you liars out there! Do you think killing me will absolve your crimes? YOU FOOLS! YOU WILL ALL DIE BENEATH YOUR IGNORANCE!! YOU WILL ALL BE TRAMPLED BY YOUR BROKEN CHARIOTS!"
The crowd stirred in their seats. Their jeers were growing louder.
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"I gladly die knowing that I, Captain Zachary Jurren Lynch! Did everything in my power to oppose this broken regime filled with gluttonous tyrants and cowards on every corner. Beyond my death, if there is a God out there, then…I can only hope that vengeance rests in its hands. Go ahead and kill me. I'm already dead. And I have no wishes to repent nor beg you idiots for mercy."
The crowd were up on their feet. Raining curses at the platform.
Zachary tilted his head back; he wanted them to all have a good look at him. He spat out a phlegm of blood and inhaled a deep breath. He raised a shaking hand covered in blood. Zachary focused, curled his fingers into his palm, and slowly raised his middle finger towards the crowd. A bloody grin creased against his features.
"F*** you all. And I'll see you in hell!"
The gavel slammed down again.
"ENOUGH! Kill him." Roared the speaker with venom.
Zachary creased a cruel smile. He stroked his thumb over the ring he carried against his index finger. The message travelled silently to the chip inside his ear.
The self-destruct protocol swiftly initiated.
The executioner angled the broad axe over the prisoner's neck. A cold wind swept upwards.
Zachary closed his eyes and counted to 3. A series of beeps chimed from the golden clasp against his ear. The executioner brought his crude iron down a second too late.
A blinding light pulsed. Followed by the most terrible-sounding blast anyone had ever witnessed.
Explosions rippled across the towering colleseum
Jurren Zachary Lynch Died.
Age 19 years old.
Other POV
There is a place hidden in secret where an endless expanse dwells.
A space filled with countless stars stitched against the formless fabric of the great and uncharted space.
A place where asteroids roamed. And where vast and colourful nebulas streaked magnificent swashes of vibrancy across the dune of darkness, like broken railroads of lights.
Not so far away, clothed in very strange, royally looking clothes. A peculiar thing observed these wonders with mixed feelings. A thing by name, especially to those not privy to seeing what aliens looked like. But to others, they might call these peculiar-looking fellows something else entirely.
Gods.
A half-broken golden crown sat on the top of its glassed dome head. True to its description, a small group of goldfish swam within the water-filled bowl where its head should be.
The fellow wore a long red robe with golden embroidery meshed against both the sleeves and hem. The collar was fixed upright. The being wore bizarrely tailored shoes, the sharp, pointy ends curled into a spiral.
With two white-gloved hands clasped behind its back, the fishbowl-headed figure stood idly in wait, seemingly enthralled by the silent cosmos as it stood on the edge of a slow-moving asteroid.
It waited for what felt like an eternity until the perfect silence was disrupted.
Bzzpt!
Bzzzzzzzzppt!
A tiny blue spark of electricity traced into a tall, oval-shaped door. The door was filled with a violet expanse, moving with a watery shimmer. Seconds passed before the fishbowl-headed beings' predictions came alive, and another strange figure slowly emerged from the portal.
First appeared a tall white hat shaped like a spire with a golden clock face in the middle. A little furry white foxy yawned before making itself comfortable on the small nest on top of the hat.
This fellow stood mightily tall, with pale snow-white skin, and was clothed in a pristinely white one-piece suit, sleeveless, with a tall collar buttoned up its tall neck.
Sharp catlike eyes framed the oval face with a thin mouth, and her lips were symmetrically painted black and white just through the middle. Moreover, distinct cyan-coloured stars tatted down the left side of her cheeks.
Her eyes quickly scanned the vast expanse before they fell upon the being standing atop the slow-moving asteroid. A playful smile creased against her strange-coloured lips.
"Greetings King Kuma. I hope you haven't spent much time waiting for me."
Her voice sounded as soothing as choral music. King Kuma tried his best to remain composed. An inward fear ran through his clothes, and he shuffled away from the tall woman before clearing his voice and replying.
"No trouble, no trouble. Besides, take a look over there." He gestured towards a peculiar white light glowing in the far distance.
Unlike the glittering stars around it, this peculiar light had a bizarre flickering glow and was gradually getting bigger.
The tall woman emphatically narrowed her gaze while craining her porcelain neck forward.
"Oh my." Her eyes flashed open as she spoke.
"So there was one last door fufufu, and here I thought things were destined to be boring." Her long fingers playfully twirled the silk strands of her black hair.
"Amongst the 231 doors opened. 229 were explored and closed. Leaving us with two chances to get this right."
King Kuma breathed a deep sigh through his missing mouth. He still couldn't understand how on earth this fell onto his lap. The other guardians were either too busy salvaging what was left of their broken universe. Or cowering in fear, waiting for the Demon King to hunt them down.
"And all because you all conspired to abduct a family of mortals ."
King Kuma shook his glassed dome head. To think a foolish thing like that would undo the great watchers of the galaxies. He almost felt glad that he had decided to avoid that place called 'Earth.'
Nothing good came from those pompous, spoilt life forms.
"Only 2? So what they foretold has already come to pass, then? I take it."
"A lost mortal embarked on an odyssey to reclaim his world and rescue those he loved dearly. Only to fall deeper into the abyss and become the very thing he hated. An invader and destroyer of worlds." lamented King Kuma.
The guardian scratched the side of his fishbowl head nervously. That story always made him uncomfortable, and he always silently rejoiced that the incident had happened outside of his jurisdiction. It had been widely agreed upon that this entire debacle lay at fault with the so-called powers that used to be the previous eight guardians of the Spheres.
'8 high realm realities gone just like that.'
Because of the sheer embarrassment and complete mess his ancestors made, it was agreed that the eight high realms would need to be rebuilt over time.
Time? King Kuma had learned from the errors of the previous 8. That time wasn't something always promised.
And so King Kuma had other ideas.
"And you're sure you know what you're doing." This time the playfulness had been sucked out of the lady in white's voice. A glazed coldness seemed to fill the atmosphere suddenly. King Kuma felt the need to step further away from her.
King Kuma stretched his gloved hand and waved it across the space before him. A long silver sceptre appeared. 128cm long, with an ornamented emerald orb sitting on the end of the relic.
He held the staff outward, aligning the point towards the distant white fire burning in the expanse. King Kuma remained still and breathed a deep breath. The fish seemed to grow agitated inside the tank. And a red light started to illuminate from inside the fishbowl head.
"Redux…Remove. Resolve. Tear of thy mother. Let death bend on the whims of my truth. Find one. The nought. The last vessel to restore. Repair and Release."
A loud thrum quaked throughout the expanse. The nearby asteroids rumbled before splitting apart.
A wave of power crawled across the formless space and wrapped around the white fire. The distant white fire glowed and then burst furiously open. Two golden clawed fingers, wrapped in burning white fire, pried away from the tiny gap of white. The golden fingers pulled the fire apart and tore open a pale doorway, cracking against the expanse like a forcefully torn door.
The lady in white appeared beside King Kuma in a flash. She held out her long, dainty arm, and a violent flower emerged from her palms. The flower crawled upwards a little, twitched, and then burned into a blue flame. The flame crystallized and turned into a small purple cube. Countless lines of code appeared until the entire cube was covered.
A pretty smile creased against her lips.
"For better or worse, this would be the last of my creations. It is the final version of the most sophisticated system in my world. Rise and go. Little creature"
The cube levitated against the air before homing towards the white gate.
King Kuma stood there exhausted. He keeled over his short legs and tried to gather his strength. Footsteps approached as he slowly twisted to one side.
"Job well done! Let's hope 'she' takes care of things on her side."
King Kuma nodded, although he held little to no hope concerning the moral compass of those beings on the other side. There was no denying that no one wanted to see the Demon King complete his crusade.