Chapter 4

Dragon couldn’t believe his eyes as he flew in lightning speed through countless galaxies, past giant planets and monsters as big as the former, floating in the airless space. It was an unbelievable and at the same time terrifying sight. Tiger, Hawk, Snake and Turtle experienced the exact same things as they were flying shoulder to shoulder.

After a short moment the five brothers became faster, faster and faster until they couldn’t see anything except for their own hands.

Suddenly, without any signs or warnings they stopped abruptly. Under their confused and amazed gazes a giant planet was visible.

The planet was countless times bigger than earth, one could say it was as big as the complete Sol-System, which the brothers came from, but even that may be an understatement. It was the biggest thing Dragon had ever seen. He felt like he could wander through this world for his whole life, without seeing something twice. It was an amazing and absolutely exciting feeling and as he looked at his brothers he could see the same excitement in their eyes. Dragon had just opened his mouth to tell the others how he felt as, again without a warning he was shot towards the surface of the planet.

‘I always hated carousels!’ Dragon thought as in his mind alarm bells were ringing endlessly. Besides him the other four flew in high speed towards the planet, obviously thinking similar thoughts.

With an electric sound, which strangely reminded him of electric razors, the five brothers shot through the outer atmosphere, then the inner atmosphere , then the clouds and finally they were as high as the mountains. For them it felt like seconds, but in reality the people of this world on this day saw five different colored meteorites striking down from the universe towards their planet. Unknown to them, a lot of monstrous beings of which the brothers couldn’t even dream of, were noticing the arrival of the ‘meteorites’ and decided to travel to the impact point.

Meanwhile Dragon and the others came closer and closer to the ground.

Underneath him Dragon could see a giant city, formed like a hexagon, with blue and black roofs. The ground came closer and closer, they already thought they would just directly crash into it, but suddenly they abruptly stopped again. They stopped a few centimeters over the ground, floating. Around them was a dirty alley, filled with garbage and rats. Brown, dirty snow was lying around in big patches everywhere. Dragon looked into the sky. It was night and far away in the sky, he could see countless stars. Much more stars than on earth.

Unexpectedly a voice traveled to his ears and as he turned around he discovered what the four other brothers had discovered directly. In front of them, on the ground were five boys. They were very weak, thin and overall were simply dying. The noise came from a comparably muscular boy, who was at most five years old. He tried to embrace the other four boys, to give them their warmth, to prevent them from dying. As Dragon saw this boy, he saw himself. He would do the same for his brothers. Everytime, everywhere. Sadly it was obvious that none of the five young children would live to see the day. They were just too weak.

“Brothers! Brothers! We have to become strong! We have to become the strongest, find a loving wife, have kids and finally become immortal!”

The boy said with a hardly understandable voice because he shivered way too much.

The other boys nodded seemingly with the last strength they could muster and hope strongly filled their eyes. Dragon and his brothers looked at the boys with tears in their eyes as they knew that they would never achieve their dreams.

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“Become Immortal!” the boy said weakly, but his eyes remained hopeful, as if he could already see himself flying through the skies, killing monsters, finding treasures.  With these words the boy breathed his last breath and he too, as the last of the five orphan brothers died to the cold and hunger.

Tears streamed down the faces of Dragon, Tiger, Hawk, Snake and Turtle. Pain filled their hearts, unbelievable pain. This was just too brutal. They had seen almost everything in their old lives, but something like five boys succumbing to cold and hunger with the same strong brotherhood as them and such strong hope just crushed their hardened hearts.

“We will fulfill your dreams brothers as you are now the same kind as us. We will remember you for the rest of our lives. We are you and you are us. Our dreams are the similar and so we will live them for you!” Dragon said solemnly with tears still streaking down his face.

The other four brothers solemnly repeated the verse as it were just the right words to express their feelings and at the same time send them on their way.

This will forever be one of the saddest moments in their entire lives.

After a few minutes of complete silence, with snowflakes falling on the cold bodies of the boys, Dragon decided to say something.

“Brothers…” his voice was hoarse “Brothers, even though we only believe in us and not in something like god…or destiny, this must have something to do with a higher power! These boys are us. They don’t look like us, they are not as old as us, but one thing is true…they are us!” With these words his soul slowly floated towards the boy who spoke earlier, the leader and touched his chest with determination. Slowly a silvery glowing chain floated out of the boy’s chest, closing in on his severed end of the chain.

“I think this is our chance at a new life and at the same time the only possibility to fulfill our oath. We will fulfill the dreams of our brothers!” Dragon said and his voice was certain. The four other brothers looked at the determined eyes of their leader and, without much hesitation, did the same as Dragon.

Tiger touched the chest of a boy with scars and wounds all over his arms, a boy which looked like he was able to fight when he was still alive.

Hawk touched the chest of the smallest boy, who looked weak on the first look, but had great potential for speed.

Snake touched the chest of the most common looking boy. He was average overall. Average body, average hair, average height.

Lastly Turtle touched the chest of a boy who looked a little bit out of place next to his four skinny brothers, as he was kind of plump.

As soon as all of them had touched the chests of the five boys the chains started to appear on them as well.

Dragon looked into the eyes of his brothers, which were similarly looking into his:

“Together…” he whispered and simultaneously with his brothers he pressed the severed end of his chain against the half of the chain from the boy. Neither he nor his brothers knew what they were doing, but it felt right and so they continued.

A blinding flash, which bathed the whole alley in ghostly white light and the souls of Dragon, Tiger, Hawk, Snake and Turtle vanished, together with the chains, which bound their souls.

The instant they entered the body of the boy they chose, they lost consciousness and fell into darkness again.

Unknown to them in the body of each of them a colored energy was generated in the middle of their chests inside of their bodies. Slowly the colored energy, which looked like fog traveled through every vein, every cell, every muscle, all the bones and lastly through the pores and hair.

Dragon’s body was producing yellow colored energy, a hot, wild aura was exuded from it.

Tiger’s body was producing red colored energy, which exuded an aura of bloodlust and fights.

Hawk’s body was producing blue colored energy, which exuded a sharp and yet carefree aura.

Snake’s body was producing purple colored energy, which exuded an aura of poison and it seemed like shadows were slowly drifting around it.

Turtle’s body was producing a green colored energy, which looked hard as a diamond, yet exuded the aura of the softest flower.

With the changes inside of their bodies, the outside of their bodies couldn’t stay the same and the former blond hair of the five turned black, growing several inches longer in an instant. Their skin, which was rosy before, was becoming paler until it looked more like the skin of an Asian human from earth.

The last change wasn’t visible for the eye of the beholder, as the eyes of the five boys closed in the moment the souls entered their bodies. The eyes, which were ice blue before, were now slowly turning pitch black and forming slightly similar to Asian eyes. Only in the middle, closest to the pupil, the color of the eyes changed into the color of the energy inside of the body of each of them.

With this the changes inside and outside of the five brothers bodies halted.

This was a new starting point.

They had a dream and an oath to fulfill.

This will be the start of their journey to become Immortal.