(HS) The Tale of Two Slayers

Chapter I:

The time while I was whole is very vivid. The first thing that happened was that I was greeted by this boy with a skateboard. He asked me about some device, a... H.A.L.droid, was it? Not knowing anything about it, I turned him away. After about ten minutes of him trying to explain it to me, I was ready to throw him off a cliff. I could feel the darkness coming to my fingertips, but being unarmed and not even aware of what I was wearing, I figured it best to not pick a fight just yet. Eventually, I was able to convince him that I understood him and he left with an accomplished look on his face. When he was out of eyeshot, I made a break for the city, to a little place called Liberty Square.

Upon reaching the Square, I dropped to one knee; the light inside my dark heart was acting up. I managed to use my own darkness and suppress it, and was able to make my collapsing appear to be me simply tripping. The people in this town were so insistent in making sure I was okay. It was sickening to me. I eventually found my way into an alley, where I finally had a chance to look at myself in a broken mirror I found in a dumpster. My head had swollen greatly from the size it was while I was on Lore. My hands and body were about the same, but my legs... they developed into a point where the foot would go. I was wearing a lab coat, which was wavering between black and orange. With a bit of focus, I managed to make it turn orange and stay that way. My eyes glowed a dark red... my skin was pale, almost white... there were two scars running over my left eye... I was wearing red goggles... and my hair... was a mass of flames! I sat there for... a few minutes? An hour? Maybe it was even a full day of me just sitting there taking in the new me I saw in the shards of mirror. Eventually, I managed to compose myself. I was unarmed with a new face on a new planet that was just looking for a new Big Bad....

I strolled down the street, looking for a decent weapon. I stopped in this little store called BOOMINGdales. Inside, I found no staves or wands, the very weapons I had become so accustom to on Lore. Instead, there were a small array of swords and axes, and a large array of guns. I picked up a gun – it was red and shiny – and examined it. Not knowing how it worked, I ran my hand down the machinery, examining its every feature. As I ran my hand by this particularly loose piece on it, it suddenly let out a large blast. The window at the front of the shop shattered. I ducked down, dropping the gun, when an employee dashed from the back room. He began yelling at me, calling me stupid, explaining how I could have killed someone. I explained to him how I didn't know how to work a gun, and he suddenly became very understanding. He explained to me how a gun works and began showing my a wide variety of firearms.

I eventually came past one that I couldn't set down. It was yellow with some tubes running from the handle to the barrel. When the trigger was pulled, it shot flames across the store. The man had an easy sale, and he took me to the register to sell me my new weapon. However when I tried to hand over some of the Gold I still had on me, he refused it. He told me that Gold was of no worth on this planet, but instead there was a currency called 'Fame'. I asked him if he would just let me use the Gold to pay for it. I was determined to keep my new flamethrower. After about fifteen minutes of me attempting to get him to make an exception, he stood stubbornly by his word. I could feel my temper flare. The darkness was returning to my fingertips, and this time I couldn't hold it back. I lifted my hand toward the cashier, chanted a few words, and a rift into the Realm of Darkness appeared at his feet. Tentacles sprung out and wrapped themselves around the man, covering his mouth to stop his screaming. Then, the tentacles yanked downward and carried the man into the darkness, and the rift faded from existence.

I left the store with my new weapon, spinning the 'Open' sign to 'Closed' so that nobody would know what happened there. I continued down the street, new weapon at my side. Pretty soon I came by a bank. The alarms were going off and several robotic insects were crawling into the bank. Knowing that it would be dangerous to use my powers to get what I needed anymore, I decided to join in raiding the bank. I rushed in to find the bugs directing the bank's inhabitants into a back room. I waited in hiding for the bugs to come out, then ran toward the room to rob the people of whatever they had left. I slammed the door open and heard a crunch of metal from right behind the door. I looked to find a crushed Ant-robot. The people emerged from their hiding place in the back corner, cheering and applauding me. I pointed my flamethrower at them, but they assumed I was joking around. The light in my heart surged at the sense of me doing a good deed, so I ran from the room and suppressed it away like I did in Liberty Square.

Suddenly, I heard a scream. A giant red robot with bags of Fame had grabbed on of the people from the room. I asked about what that robot had, and someone told me that he had taken all the Fame in the bank and the top cashier. Knowing I needed the funds a lot more than any robot would, I dashed after it. I chased it up the stairs, through a burning hallway, and onto a balcony. The robot dangled the lady over the edge, threatening to drop her. She had a terrified look in her eye. I shouted at it about how I didn't care if it dropped her, but how it was going to get beat down unless it handed over the money. It suddenly threw the lady at me. I ducked out of the way and she crashed through a window, but I'm pretty sure she was okay. Seeing that as the first action in a fight, I pulled out my flamethrower and pulled the trigger. The robot backed up a bit from the sudden flames. It teetered on the edge of the balcony, but refused to fall. So, I rushed forward and pulled the trigger at it again. This time, the robot was unable to stand its ground and fell backwards, smashing up on the cement below.

The people from the room came outside. They looked from the robot to me and then came up the stairs. The lady, who by now had made her way onto the balcony again, tried to explain how I would have allowed her to die, but the others dismissed that fact din light of what they assumed. They lifted me onto their shoulders, cheering and congratulating me, saying how I saved the bank and the life of one of the workers. The light in me surged again, more powerful this time. I couldn't suppress it very easily, so I did the best I could, shook myself loose from their grasp, and ran for it. I never did get to claim the money I worked so valiantly to steal....

I found myself back in the alleyway where I first saw my new self. Collapsing to the ground, I grabbed my chest and tried to suppress the light again. With every passing second, I could feel myself losing the fight against the light. I sat in agony, wanting nothing more than for the light to go away. I managed to work my way up onto my knees, when it happened. A beam of pure light emerged from my chest. It folded in on itself in two places, forming the shaped of a spider's leg. Then another beam emerged and did the same. Then a third, fourth, fifth, and finally a sixth. I could feel nothing at this point, and I could feel my being getting ripped apart. The six beams suddenly placed their tips on me; one on each shoulder, one on each hip, and one on each side of my ribcage, about midway between my hip and armpit. I was fearful now, not knowing if this was the end of my thousands of years of work. Then the beams, all in unison, pushed against me. From there, I was no longer part of either form.

I was no longer in the realm of existence. I exist now in a realm of my own. I was staring down at what I had become now; two beings sat in the alleyway. One was a being of the deepest darkness, passed out on the ground, a shell of the form I spend my time on the new world in. It was black as a shadow, glowing a deep red with more black flames covering his entire being. The other took the form of a goddess made from the purest of light. She hovered near the wall across from the darkness being. The broken mirror reflecting the radiance of her being all over the alleyway. I existed in neither of them, and yet I am both of them. And this, here and then, is when the tale of the two Slayers begins....