Armageddon
I am certain, for the record, that this most likely bears no resemblance whatsoever to the actual imagined chain of events that made the world happen. A practical mind designed it, and what I've heard, while slightly anticlimactic, is refreshingly solid and most definitely not dramatic. I have never been accused of not being dramatic. I promise nothing.
The story of one famous (or infamous) Alter Aeon NPC, his return (both mental and physical) from super-enhanced human to demon of the Outer World, how Dentin found him, and his role in the breaking of the world of science. Just thought I'd give the game-world's origins a WEIRD twist... Don't kill me. Rated T for violence and, well, I'll give it away so you'll just have to read.
Not all the music perfectly meshes, I am not a soundtrack composer, but if I were you could bet money on me writing one.
Listen to:
Sully Erna - Sinner's Prayer Breaking Benjamin - So Cold Disturbed - Indestructible
And as you move between the worlds... such sorrow makes us real. As first and last they journey same through nature's passageway... You're welcome, soul, to be with me. I'd happy be your guide. Teach to me what's been forgot, the old ways by and by.
-Aine Minogue - Between the Worlds
Prologue
One of the most distinguished warriors of the Third Age of the World-and a noted one of our own, the Fourth Age-was then called X, for he had shed his name and had no past. Most people simply knew him as Death, but until the Creator-Destroyer found him, he was nameless.
Surprisingly, he symbolized the dawn of the end of the Third Age. He still lives today, all these centuries later, the masked bringer of death, standing ever vigilant under Dentin's command. But no one knows that his origins are intertwined with the turning ages.
We live and breathe magic. It is as common as air, taken completely for granted. We draw on the colossal forces trapped within the earth to make us the superhuman elite, the Master-race. The ending of the Third Age rent the barrier between our world and others asunder. We commune with spirits and elements and time, we walkers of the worlds, but our hardships are many. We have no idea what the wonders of the previous age could have given us, and so long as the barrier between the worlds lies open, we will devote our time to keeping our world safe. We will never advance. When the next great War of Time approaches, when Dentin descends to Earth and frees Death from his binding, when the Gods again shake the essence of the universe with their words, we will stand gloriously on the brink of the Fifth Age of the World-and at our greatest moment we shall find our end, and the Gods' most trusted servants will follow them into exile.
But there was a time when that was unheard of. When the Creator sent his army, and his loyal face of Death, to break the barrier and destroy the armies of the Other Side, that world was finally ended. The dawn of the age of magic succeeded the age of science, but in its way, none of those worlds truly ended. The story is shrouded in myth, and of those who remain earthbound, only Death knows it in full. But he will never speak again, for Death is silent until he steals your life.
Chapter One
The transition between unconsciousness and wakefulness was so smooth, it was as if he had simply not existed, as if he had come into the world new and whole. His breathing and heartbeat did not change, and for all the others in the room knew, he was still sleeping.
He was acutely aware of his surroundings before he ever opened his eyes. There was an obstruction in the airflow, human-shaped, standing beside the table. He cast out with his senses and found that he was in his own room, but the familiarity of the surface beneath him could have told him that. A current of air flowed into the room to the left, but it was narrow and flowed several feet above his head. The door was partway open and someone was standing in it, and by the shape of the obstacle he judged that it was Taneia Amaari. Her breathing was tense and expectant, her heartbeat elevated with anticipation. The figure beside the table fidgeted nervously, shifting from foot to foot, and he could taste the human's nervousness riding the air. Something was seriously amiss, for little escaped Amaari's notice, and even less escaped the attention of the focus of a sixty-year project.
He opened his eyes. The man by the table cast a quick glance in his direction, and he savored the look of fear and deference in the man's eyes. That was as it should be, for he was the Nameless. If he wished it, the man would be dead before he could cry out.
"You're awake," Amaari said.
He sat up and nodded. As was his wont, he was silent and still and watchful.
"You're on a new mission," Amaari said. "I brought Dr. Alexander here to brief you."
He turned his eyes on the man by the table, scrutinizing him more closely. The doctor averted his gaze, and he didn't let the little flicker of satisfaction that he felt show. Those he went to find rarely saw his face, but he knew what he looked like to the man. He was tall and forbidding, his powerful body shrouded in black. His seldom-exposed face was full of plains and angles and hard lines, with a strong chin and prominent, angular cheekbones. His forehead was high, his nose angular, his eyes deep-set pools of utter darkness. They pinned the middle-aged scientist with a silent intensity that few could look into, flickers of red fire sliding by in their black depths. His jet-black hair was cropped closely around his unreadable face. The dim light accentuated the long plains of his cheekbones and cast shadows over the sharp angles above. His chin was in shadow, and darkness surrounded the burning glimmer of his eyes.
Dr. Alexander was thin, nearly skeletal, and terribly pale from living underground for years. His hands were large and spidery, his fingers long and nimble. He was all arms and legs, and would be much taller standing. His face was long and expressive, and his teeth flashed brightly against the white of his skin. His eyes were close-set, small, and watery, a blue so pale that it was a wonder he could see with them. His hair was pale too, and hung around his face in unkempt strands. He was fidgeting with something that glinted silver in the cold light.
"We have rumors of a new dimensional disturbance," the man said. "We're sending you to go check it out, in case anything comes through."
X let the silence that followed stretch out, amused at the man's discomfort, waiting for him to continue. He was many things, but patience was not one of X's strong points.
"Don't toy with him," Amaari snapped.
X spoke after a moment, but he directed his words toward Taneia. "If the mission is so routine, why send a human to brief me?" His voice was almost painfully deep, a bass you could nearly feel as well as hear. It was almost without inflection, but the word "human" was touched with the barest shade of contempt. In X's experience, that tactic spoke volumes more than overusing emotional tones, and he didn't miss Dr. Alexander's slight wince in response.
Taneia looked pointedly at the jittery scientist, and he continued, his thin tenor weak against the resounding darkness of the altered man's voice. "There could be Anti at the sight of the fracture."
Anti, X reflected thoughtfully, could pose a slight problem. But either way, its presence should not stop him. His senses were more than adequate enough to detect and avoid it.
"We have some protection for you against Anti, but it's obviously never been field-tested. Theoretically, it should afford some resistance for you, in order for you to dispatch the ... creatures more easily."
"There are few things that could become a serious threat to me alone," X said. He was more talkative in those days, but even this was a long speech for him. "It would take a strategically organized attack to bring me down, or a being of immense power. I was at the site of the last breach. It was too minor for a large-scale attack or an entity of any true power to cross."
"We examined your report. We understand the extent of the damage. But we think the ..."
"Eternals," Taneia supplied.
"... have staged another massive attack on the Barrier."
The existence of the Barrier had been known for about seventy years, since Zeia Amaari had proven it in 2010. It was now 2080. They had made X in 2020, in response to the rising demand for a solution to the Barrier's dissolution. X was a perfect killing machine, using the best of genetic engineering and what they could use of the Other Side's energy-channeling techniques. His bones were reinforced with special steel, which had been impregnated with Otherworld magic in its very forging. His organs were reinforced with superhealing viruses, which were in turn bolstered by pure power. His own mind was an extension of the Other Side, for much of his senses depended on what the augmentations from beyond the barrier had given him. If the barrier returned to full strength, he would die. If the barrier went down, he would turn into something never seen in any world. As it was, he had to remain close to places where it had become apparent. The complex was located deep beneath the Arizona desert, adjacent to a cave system where a lot of Other Side activity had been dealt with, and it was here that he was strongest. The farther X went from a hotspot, the weaker he became, until eventually he would be as close to a normal human as he could be. He would have the advantages of this world, but none of those from the others.
"Where?" X asked tersely.
"A place in the mountains of India," the scientist said. "That region is notorious for dimensional perforations." He rose and motioned, and the lights darkened completely) One wall lit up and a cool voice queried, "Authorization?"
"Charles J. Alexander, A3347902CG16, Code Black, status yellow."
"Authorization granted."
He made a few gestures in the air, navigating through flickering screens until he stopped on an image of a map of the world. Red dots glowed on its surface, signifying open breaches. That number was growing disturbingly large, along with the yellow dots that signified perforations. He gestured over Asia, and it enlarged to show a glowing red dot in the south, in the mountains of India, near the foot of a particular smooth-faced mountain which the invisible line of the border of Tibet cut neatly in half.
"You will use our new Otherverse bridge technique to get there," Alexander said. "You don't need to fuel the process alone-we've got you linked to the upwelling here." He was referring to the energy spring the breach in the nearby caverns had created.
Amaari withdrew something from beneath her coat and advanced further into the room, the dim light of the screen accentuating the exotic angles of her dark, fine-featured face. Her eyes were pure grey lances of light in her ebony face. Her black hair hung down her back, so completely dark it was like a captured fold of night flowing around her body.
She extended one long-fingered hand, her deep blue nails gleaming in the dimness. In it was a heavy gold chain, coiled around something that glinted like a distant star.
He took it from her without even touching her skin. As he raised the necklace, its thick gold chain uncoiled slowly, and a heavy pendant swung free of her grasp. It was made of intricately-carved jade, the image of a proud bird with a white diamond chipped into the shape of a seven-pointed star set in its chest. Its eyes were perfect droplets of clear onyx, and he could discern each feather shaped with painstaking care.
He reached up and fastened the chain around his neck, and it fell beneath the rough black robe he was wearing.
"That pendant will enable you to link to the spring here using your innate abilities," Alexander said. "That way you can gate to India without too much trouble. We'll put you in a sim so you can learn the technique, but I hope you can do it quickly. We needed you there yesterday, and as it is your last chance is tomorrow morning." He didn't wait for X to respond, which was probably best. "Our sensors detect a small host of demons led by a mid-level sorceress and a battalion of undead soldiers. The problem won't be their abilities but their numbers. Dr. Amaari trusts your strategic abilities, however."
"Out of the fifty years we've been privileged to have X working with us, I've been head of the project for ten," she said. "He certainly has never given us reason to doubt his abilities. His ethics, however ..." She trailed off meaningfully. X was essentially a mercenary. There were rumors around the world of a creature called simply "the Executioner," or even more eloquently, "Death." There had been more than one event in which he was involved in the last five decades that didn't have to do with interdimensional matters.
"Well, X," Amaari said, "your sim is ready for you. Shall I leave you to it?"
He nodded silently. Dr. Alexander deactivated the screen and said, "Good luck." He turned and left, letting the door close behind him.
"I know you have an innate ability to rub people the wrong way, but do you have to be so condescending?" Dr. Amaari said.
Long familiarity with X gave her some leeway, but not much. "As you have always said, why should I deceive them?"
She sighed in exasperation. "That's not the point."
"Some things they will come to understand," he said. The ghost of a smile flitted across his face, but it was nothing like a smile on anyone else's face. It was a cold thing, a humorless curl of lips that spoke of many things, but joy was not one of them. "That is as it should be." The set of his face was utterly confident, the glimmer of his red-flecked eyes dangerously cold. He rose and went through the only other door in the room, to ready himself for the day and the coming mission. Taneia turned and left through the far exit.
Dr. Alexander was still on the other side, gazing thoughtfully at the door. He turned toward Taneia Amaari and sighed. "What have you created?"
"I?" she said. "I have created nothing-only improved on the original."
"Improvement ..." he murmured. Then, louder, he said: "I've seen his files. I know what he is capable of."
"I do not believe that man is yet soulless," Amaari said, "but I think he is close. If he reaches that point, he will have realized his full potential. And I don't think any of us want to be around for that."
"Are you sure he is still a man?" he asked.
"Functionally I know he is, there is an entire file on his physiology," she said, "but in any other way ... that's a good question."
"An important one!" he said harshly.
"Don't raise your voice," she said. "Even in his rage X is logical. There is no logical reason to betray us."
"He could eventually decide that his own survival was more important. If we close the barrier, X will die."
"As far as he knows, we're only trying to keep the outbreaks in check," she said.
"He's not an idiot, Taneia," he said. "How long until he realizes that we want it closed? How long until he decides we are simply expendable? We may not survive it if he figures out our deception."
"He doesn't know that," she said.
"Do not underestimate him," Alexander said. "It very well may be the last thing you ever do."
"I'll keep it in mind," she said, adding mentally: Your dramatics, that is. "Goodbye, Doctor."
And she turned away from him as well.