A/N: I re-wrote this chapter, because I thought it sounded confusing. Please tell me what you think.
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Phalanx home-world, ancient antiquity:
I am called Redan Neo-Va. Roughly translated this means New Life in the common languages. And I am--or was the New Life for my people, the Phalanx. I was the first Phalanx to breathe new life in an eon. I was the youngest of my kind.
I have recently changed my name to Redan Fin-Va. Last Life. For I am the last of the Phalanx because the One, the Soul-Eater, left no others.
I am carefully winding my way down the rolling She-dan Plains. Strewn across the purple prairie grasses lie the lifeless bodies of my people. Each green Phalanx form is sprawled mercilessly on the ground, three upper arms and two lower arms twisted erratically. We Phalanx had known from the beginning that we would fail, but we had to try.
Now this battlefield, these listless bodies are all that remains of the glory of my kind, of the glory of the Phalanx.
The Phalanx. We are--or were-- an advanced and peaceful race. Although our population was small in number, it was proportional to our life span. We have life spans longer than those of newly formed stars.
When my people were young enough for curiosity, we explored our galaxy, and others far beyond. This was many eons before I breathed life, but my father tells me that in our searching, we never encountered a race as old as our own.
After my people had satisfied their space-flight curiosity, we settled on a planet similar to the one that had birthed us. In our new home we lived in the simplicity of nature and only permitted contact with the short-lived races for trade. It was after the Phalanx had re-settled the planet, that I was gifted to my parents. I was the first Phalanx to be born in an eon, and my people rejoiced.
My childhood memories are happy ones. I recall long walks around my parents' hold and late-night story telling with my father. There was laughter. There was peace.
Now there is neither. The One has taken those things.
Perhaps it was our own fault. In our arrogance, we isolated ourselves from the happenings outside of our own atmosphere. We only tolerated foreigners for necessary trade, but otherwise we had little contact with the other races. We believed that if we did not look for trouble, trouble would not find us.
For the most part, this isolationist policy was successful. The few times that trouble did find us, we simply demonstrated our very advanced technology.
But we never went looking for trouble. The Phalanx did not intervene in the affairs of other species. We did not feel responsible for protecting the shorter-living races or for aiding them in battle.
I once asked my father why the Phalanx did not aid the other short-living races. During that time, I had tried to convince him that we should join the Toltar tradesmen in repelling the Squew from the invading the Toltar planet.
"Redan, why should I care for the power- squabbles of the Toltars?" My father had replied after I'd urged him to join in the Toltar's war. "I watched the Toltar planet shape from small particles of space-dust into a sharp-edged yellow sphere. I followed the Toltars evolve from tiny single cells into the walking, sulfur-breathing, quadrupeds they presently are. I will watch as the Toltar planet finds its golden era, and then diminishes. And I will still exist after the planet returns to space-dust and the Toltar are preserved only in my memory."
And now that the Phalanx are lost, who will preserve our memory? Thinking of my father causes a sharp pain in my hearts.
I wearily plod across the wispy purple grasses of the She-dan plains. As I come closer and closer to the heart of the battlefield, I encounter another familiar face; I feel another stab of pain as I recognize a friend, a cousin, an uncle--all people I have known for star-lives. All are staring listlessly at the crimson-flushed night sky.It almost seems that they are all asleep, until I notice that none of them are breathing.
Looking down, I distinguish the outline of a very familiar figure, Thelia, my first math teacher. Like the other Phalanx, Thelia shows no sign of the struggle. If only her eyes are not widened in horror, or her mouth contorted with pain--then I would not know whom she has encountered. Whom she has fought.
The One.
Soul-Eater.
The One has robbed Thelia of her essence, of the very core of her being. The One has eaten Thelia's soul. All that remains of my teacher is a body, nothing more than an empty shell.
The One.
We first heard of the evil thing from the Toltar tradesmen. They rumored of a great evil, a creature that destroyed entire races. A creature that was invincible, one that fed upon the soul.
In our arrogance, we Phalanx ignored the Toltars' warning. Invincible indeed! We had lived through much, done much; the petty problems of the short-lived tradesmen did not concern us.
But it should have. If only we had listened, we might have avoided this genocide. If only we had listened, we might have stood a chance.
I stoop down and gently close Thelia's unseeing eyes. Lowering my three upper arms, I kneel onto my two lower arms. I tilt my face to gaze at the ruddy red night sky. Quietly I perform the Last Rites.
"Thelia," I whisper. "May you find peace in death as you found in life. "
But will she find peace in death?
My eyes flutter across the battlefield, gazing at the hundreds of Phalanx bodies sprawled haphazardly across the purple plains. Will any of them find peace?
I did not know.
Leaving Thelia's body, I stand up stiffly, and survey the death-scene around me. I am very close now. I have almost reached the heart of the battlefield. It is there at the center of the battlefield that I am sure to find him, the One.
I have a plan. It is my father's really, a last resort. If my people lost the battle, then I was to find the Soul-Eater and trap him. That is why I did not join in the battle, because I was the back-up plan. That is why I am the only Phalanx left.
Since the One invaded my planet, my people have studied him. Although the One cannot die, or at least we do not know how to kill him, my people have discovered his weaknesses. The One is still constrained by physical forces. He cannot move through solid matter; he is subject to gravitational forces. He cannot roam freely through space.
And that is how I am going to trap the Soul-Eater, by playing off his weaknesses. I will lure the Soul-Eater onto a specially modified spacecraft, lock the door, and send him into the blackness of space. Inside of the ship there are no piloting controls, so the One cannot control where the spacecraft takes him. Instead, the ship is programmed to avoid large gravitational fields--the fields that would exist around planets, stars, asteroids, comets--anything that the spacecraft could possibly land on.
I pray that the ship is never found, never opened.
With one last parting glance at Thelia's body, I move cautiously through the high purple grasses, and closer to the heart of the battle. The closer that I come to the center of the battle, the more bodies I see. The more Phalanx I recognize.
But I do not see the One. He will be hard to spot, I know. The One can look like anyone whose soul he has eaten. He can look like Thelia or my uncle, Rutan. He can look like a Toltar tradesman or a Gorif warrior. In addition to taking the forms of the beings whose souls he has consumed, the Soul-Eater can also appear in his natural form. In his natural form, the One looks like a glowing blue haze with leering red eyes.
It is his leering red eyes that I am looking for. No matter what form the One assumes, his own form or a stolen one, the Soul-Eater cannot hide those terrible red eyes.
As I slowly drift onward, bodies surround me. Phalanx bodies sprawled everywhere. Dead. I try not to look at them, but one of the green forms catches my gaze.
The form is so familiar, the stately chest, the strong five arms, and the commanding blue gaze.
"Father," I moan quietly. With shaking fingers, I reach for my father's hand and grasp it. His fingers are numb.
"No," I whisper hoarsely. "No."
My father is dead. He is dead.
As I sink to my knees, I feel my breathing rate increase; my hearts are beating frantically. There is fire in my throat.
And then it comes, swelling like the tide. Grief. I had blocked it out, tried to ignore it, but now it overwhelms me.
My father is dead. My people are gone. And I am alone.
"Father," I cry softly.
I cry for a long time. I cry until my eyes are dry, and my throat is raw. I cry until I can cry no more.
I am alone.
As I gently close my father's eyelids, and perform his Last Rites, something prickles at the edge of my mind. I feel uneasy, like something is not quite right.
Laying my father softly to the ground, I slowly turn around. Through tear-stained eyes I see him—he looks just like my dead father.
But there is something wrong with his eyes. They are glowing red.
It is the Soul-Eater.
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OOC: okay guys, please give me an honest review. If you want to flame, please go ahead. I just want an honest opinion. Is anything really confusing?
DH