On a planet at the rim of the galaxy, ten times the volume of Earth, a portal formed.
The portal whirred as it spun out of thin air with electricity crackling at the periphery. Not long after forming, both Starfallen and Jacek fell out of the portal in quick succession. Having fallen to the ground, they both picked themselves up immediately.
With the bright and burning high-noon sun shining down directly overhead, their eyes had yet to adjust before they first heard a thunderous applause welcoming them. The ground beneath their feet trembled, and their ears rang.
As their eyes adjusted, they found themselves standing in the middle of a massive stone avenue lined on both sides by tens of thousands of spectators. Bordering the avenue on both sides were increasingly large pyramids leading up to a single largest pyramid directly ahead at the end of the avenue.
Both Jacek and Starfallen began to walk forward in silence and in shock as they remained bewildered by the manner of their arrival.
Jacek had to yell in order for Starfallen to even barely hear him despite standing only a foot away, “You didn’t tell me we would be so warmly welcomed!”
Starfallen yelled back, “I had no clue! I’m just as confused!”
“But those are your family’s flags flying, yes?!” Jacek pointed to banners hanging and lining the path ahead of them.
“Yes!” Starfallen answered as she stared at her own sigil with both curiosity and confusion.
Then a booming voice came over the speaker system, “People of the Starfallen Empire! Welcome back your envoys! The legendary Envoys of the End!”
Jacek looked to Starfallen for an explanation; however, she merely met his gaze shaking her head and shrugging her shoulders.
As they reached the end of the avenue, a man with an oversized security detail descended the pyramid’s steps to greet them.
“Welcome! Welcome! I am Steward Royce. I have so much to catch the both of you up on. And then, I believe you both have quite the number of details to catch me up on as well.”
Jacek and Starfallen merely looked at the man who then said, “Don’t be shy. You’re heroes!”
He then raised his hands with a smile, and the crowd’s ongoing cheering reached even greater heights. Steward Royce motioned with his hand for them to follow him up the pyramid, “Follow me! I must catch you up to speed at once. Come, come!”
Starfallen and Jacek remained bewildered as they followed the man up the stairs and entered the pyramid.
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Elsewhere, on the same planet, in the middle of a vast and barren desert, another portal whirred and cracked with electricity.
A hulking figure with a massive war hammer fell out of the portal with a soft crash into a dune of sand. Nero looked to the portal behind him awaiting both Constance and Xenia; however, the portal soon closed with no further arrivals.
He stood, shaking the sand off of his body. He then grunted and surveyed the desert while gripping his hammer at his side.
Unphased by his solitude, he then sat back down and began to meditate deciding against moving on from his current location on the chance a second or third portal ferrying Constance and Xenia should appear.
After meditating for hours and hours with fine sand particles blowing in the wind against his face and body, he opened one eye just in time to catch a cloaked figure ducking behind a sand dune in the distance.
He stood immediately assuming an offensive posture only to find that he was surrounded by multiple hooded and cloaked figures surrounding him at a distance. After several minutes of stalemate, he counted thirteen.
The thirteen figures then all stood at once with their hands outstretched, and Nero felt a slight twinge inside of his body. He couldn’t be sure because the feeling was so weak; however, he was shocked to admit to himself that the twinge reminded him of bloodbending.
Annoyed by the presence of bashful assailants, he decided to kill two birds with one stone – kill them while also testing his theory of potential bloodbending.
He gripped the staff of Blood Cry and spun his body around before releasing the hammer into a spin towards one the cloaked assailants. The hammer spun as it hurled towards its target.
As it closed in, Nero noticed the other twelve figures moved their hands to focus on the hammer, and as they did, the hammer slowly lost speed like an airplane losing altitude until it crashed into the sand just before reaching its target.
Nero grit his teeth and bloodbent his hammer recalling it into his hand against the meager forces of the now-proven bloodbending of his opponents.
As the hammer slammed into his hand upon return, he lowered it to his side with the intention of now exchanging information with these strangers rather than killing them.
He stood in place awaiting their arrival to him, and sure enough all thirteen began to approach slowly. Once within twenty feet of Nero, the thirteen cloaked figures bowed down in a circle around Nero and began to chant.
Nero furrowed his brow as he slowly turned 360-degrees watching the cloaked figures chant at his feet until one of the figures raised their head and removed their cloak to reveal a beautiful dark-haired woman.
The woman remained bowing as she looked up at Nero, “You must come with us at once.”
Nero grunted and reaffirmed his grip on his hammer. He then snarled at the woman as he raised his hammer across his chest.
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Without a trace of his empress, yet with newfound bloodbenders right in front of him, Nero finally answered the woman, “Fine. I will go with you.”
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Elsewhere, on the same planet, a portal formed in the back alley of a market street within a large metropolitan city. The portal whirred and crackled with electricity as Constance fell out of the portal with a thud on a cobblestone alley way.
“God damnit! That hurt!” Constance stood from the ground brushing her shoulders off before then fixing her long flowing hair.
She looked up over the small buildings in front of her to see a sprawling downtown comprised of numerous skyscrapers lighting up the night sky in the distance.
She also recognized the notable absence of Nero or Xenia as she looked around.
In the quiet alley, she could hear the sound of waves crashing as they met landfall in the distance. Before she could investigate further, a young man in his late twenties came rushing out of the back door of one of the shops.
“Are you okay!? I heard a big crash! Was that…” The man suddenly froze while staring at the most beautiful woman he had ever laid eyes on.
“That was me.” Constance smiled at him like a cat eyeing its prey, “Could you come look at my shoulder? I think it’s really hurt.”
“Uhhh, uhhhh. Sure. I mean, yes, of course!” The man walked over to Constance and looked at her shoulder.
Constance moved it and pretended to wince in pain, “Maybe if you massaged it. I think that would help.”
The young man gingerly and hesitantly put both of his hands on her shoulder and began to rub softly. Constance laughed, “I don’t bite. Promise!”
The man laughed while rubbing her shoulder, “How does that feel?”
“Much better. You have such a gentle touch.” The two locked eyes for a moment until Constance asked, “What’s your name?”
“David. My name’s David. How about yours?”
“Constance.”
“Constance. That’s a cool name. I don’t know any Constances in this city.”
“I’m new here.” Constance then looked over her shoulder, “Do I hear waves?”
“You must be new here. Those are definitely the waves of the Great Divide.”
Constance leaned in towards David, “Sounds romantic. Tell me more.”
David stopped rubbing her shoulder and grabbed her hand, “It would probably be easier if I showed you.”
“Even better.”
The two briskly walked several blocks towards the sound of the waves until they came upon a beautiful white sands beach.
“Here it is! The ocean!”
Constance gazed out into the ocean, “It’s beautiful. Sit and watch with me!”
She sat on the sand while dragging him down with her.
David was surprised by her strength, “Wow, your shoulder is back to full strength already it seems!”
Next, he was surprised again as Constance grabbed the hair on the back of his head and pulled it tight, “Maybe I just wanted to feel your hands on my body.”
He nervously laughed, “I thought you didn’t bite?”
“Oh, I don’t bite. But I do kiss.”
Constance leaned in to kiss David. He couldn’t believe his luck as he leaned towards her and met her lips as they kissed under the night sky to the sound of the crashing waves of the ocean.
As they kissed, Constance held the back of his head infusing ki into his body. After a moment, she then broke their kissing off and seductively smiled at him caressing his face, “Now you’re going to tell me everything I want to know. My little shadow slave.”
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On the same planet, on the other side of the Great Divide, a portal formed out of thin air whirring and crackling with electricity. Xenia stepped out of it with utmost grace standing with her boots firmly on the ground as she immediately looked around.
She nodded her head as she begrudgingly accepted the notable absence of both Nero and Constance, and she shot her eyes around her surroundings lit up only by moonlight.
She stood on a bed of smooth rocks worn down by the tide of the beach. The beach had white sands which were abbreviated by a towering cliffside which she stood adjacent to.
In the distance, down the beach, she eyed a large, anchored ship with one small boat ferrying a single man ashore. She began her march down the beach to meet her first inhabitants of this new world.
Xenia stood in the shadows near the cliffside as the man came ashore, and she muttered to herself, “My first subject of my new world. How exciting.”
The man was muscular and tall and equipped with armor but no weapon; a profile Xenia recognized as that of a ki user. He marched towards the cliffside and almost immediately began to climb without hesitation.
Xenia followed stealthily climbing the cliff behind him without him noticing. Eventually, halfway up the cliffside, the man crawled into a wide opening.
Xenia continued following quietly; however, as she crawled into the cliffside opening, the man was waiting for her.
He held his arm out with a charged up ki blast pointed directly at her head, “Move one more inch, and I will end you! Spy!”
Xenia had only just crawled into the cliffside opening. She stood on the very edge with a relaxed posture, “Spy? But I don’t even know your name? Who is it I would be spying on?”
The man tilted his head in frustration, “Don’t play dumb with me!”
Xenia looked past the man and nodded her head, “What’s in there?”
A large, cavernous space with numerous cave holes leading in all different directions was illuminated by fire torches behind the man.
He was met with some confusion as the woman before him seemed honest in her questioning. Xenia then smiled at him, “Whatever it is, let me help you obtain it. I can sense something powerful in there.”
The man scoffed, “And to what would I owe such a generous offer?”
Xenia walked slowly towards him saying, “Something even more important to someone like me. Information.”
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On the same planet, in the capital city of the Western hemisphere, a government building bustled with daily activity. Men and women moved with purpose throughout the building running operations like a well-oiled machine.
Deep underground, a woman in the Intelligence Division monitored for spatial anomalies within the atmosphere. She had collected information on four distinctly separate anomalies, yet as she input data into the permanent database, she entered only one anomaly.
The other data from her readouts was promptly destroyed in a permanent manner with no way of retrieving a shred of insight to the other three anomalies.
After deleting the information, she picked up the phone to contact the Starfallen Empire, “I am picking up trace evidence of a single anomaly in the Starfallen Empire. Have your guests arrived as planned?”
A man answered, “Steward Royce has received our otherworldly guests. He did ask me to confirm, only one anomaly has been detected, yes?”
The woman smiled to herself as she answered, “Yes sir. Only one.”
After concluding the call, the woman made haste towards the exit of the building. She then walked several blocks over to a large mansion with gothic style architecture.
Upon entering via security passcode, she moved with purpose past several security checks. Several women within the mansion scurried to flag her down saying, “You cannot go in there. She has only just begun her meditation for the day.”
The woman from the intelligence division turned around with a smile, “She will want to hear this. This is why she meditates.”
The woman’s colleagues stood frozen in shock. She then entered deep into the mansion until she entered a dark room with an elderly woman meditating in the center.
She entered and kneeled before the elderly woman, “Reverend Mother, I come with…”
“Yes, child! I have felt it too! How many know of the others?”
“None, I have deleted the data. The official record reflects only one spatial anomaly.”
“Excellent work my child. Excellent.”
The woman remained kneeled and asked, “Should I alert out network?”
The elderly woman raised her head to reveal a sinister smile, “Alert them to our cause but emphasize discretion or they will answer to me.”
After a moment of prolonged silence as the kneeling woman waited to be dismissed, the Reverend Mother sharply said, “Find her! She is here!”