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The Path
Chapter 1 - The Golden Man

Chapter 1 - The Golden Man

The boy sat on the  building looking up at the stars.

Something that was practically impossible to do because of how deep within the planet the layer the boy lived on was.

It was only possible because the building that the boy  sat on was due for demolishing and the owners had cleared the airspace so that they could erect some giant commercial structure.

It was different from the permanent darkness that he lived in.  It was something different from the shadows and the  wiring, bits of metal and neuro-concrete that made up the underbelly of the higher layers underneath which he lived.

It was different from the lurid lights and the neon flashes of permanent advertising that made up the day underneath which the boy lived.

He liked to look up at the sky and dream. The sky was so much cleaner and brighter. It felt big. He felt like there was so much more space and opportunity in comparison to the cramped space that he lived in.

He felt as if he could breathe if he could see the stars.

A rare glimpse. These spots were fought for by the other denizens of his level. The permanent ones became luxury apartments or bars or hotels. The semi-permanent ones were fought over by other street kids and thugs.

But this spot was his. He was the only one brave enough to climb the building and risk being taken by security company that had locked down the building.

What he saw wasn't technically the stars though. It was a reflection from the dome.

It was beautiful though. He saw the stars flickering as if someone had tossed diamond dust deep into the sky.   In some places they were a bright birthstone-blue all a gleaming and glittering. Intermixed within the blue were specks of molten gold, a sequinned silver, a bright polar white and solar yellow.

It was a privilege for him to witness it.

Something interrupted his star-gazing though. A shadow covered the stars.  

He had been sitting on a bare metal rafter floating above the core of an empty building.  

The space through which he saw the stars was rectangular.  The shadow started off as a small speck.  

It only covered the bottom right corner. Then it grew and grew until it covered his whole view and hid the stars.

The boy sighed. Someone had probably moved or rearranged something and his view was finally gone.

But as he continued to stare he saw something that made him gasp and stare slack jawed.  

****

There was a giant golden man falling from the sky.

The boy couldn't tell the exact size of the man but he was several dozen meters tall. Long golden hair. Golden skin. Golden eyes.  

He could make out more details.

He wasn't falling. He looked like he was flying. Trying to escape.   

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The golden man was fighting against some one.

Not someone.

He was fighting against several dozen ships.

He had a giant golden sword in his hand. It was a giant broadsword as tall as he was.

He would flip and dodge and rotate from moment to moment, avoiding the lasers of the ship.

If any ship managed to get close then his sword would slice the ship to pieces.

The continued this crazy battle as they hurtled downwards towards the ground.

Towards the building on which the boy sat.

"Shit" said the boy to himself. He had to escape.  

He stood up and carefully watched the fight happening above him. He moved quickly and carefully from the beam to the half crumbled top floor of the building.

It only took a brief moment.

He saw more clearly details of the battle as he crossed the red metal beam.

The man actually had a second golden sword on which he stood as he flew downwards.

He was humanoid. Except for being gold. He had 3 other heads and about a dozen other hands. Not just two.

The other hands also had identical broadswords. The other hands were busy fighting and countering the laser blasts and the attacks of the other ships.

Each hand either smacking the laser away or back towards other ships and blowing them up.

There had been several dozen ships while the boy had started watching but the man had managed to whittle them down to only a dozen.

The ships were all identical. They were black, triangular wedges with four wings that sat at the base of the triangle.  

They fired lases from the four laser cannons that sat attached to the edges of the wing, the two cannons from the front of the triangle or from the cannon on the center of the fuselage.  

The man couldn’t manage to keep his performance for long though. Unluckily one of the ships managed to clip his chest.

A giant spurt of golden blood flew out from his chest as his fall went from controlled and delicate flying to  uncontrolled.

Several dozen other shots managed to hit him while he fell until he managed to control himself.

While he recovered he managed to slice five ships that had closed in on him attempting to take advantage of his moment of weakness.

The dozen arms holding broadswords vanished. Leaving him with only two.

You could see specks of blood and sweat flying from the man as he fought.  Another disaster befell the golden man.

A laser managed  to hit and destroy the sword that the man was flying on. The sword shattering into dozens of fragments underneath him.

He managed to redirect a laser shot and there were only six ships left.

He truly fell from the sky this time.

An uncontrolled and terrifying fall.

He was only several hundred meters above the floor which the boy stood on.

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