Edit 5/15/04
A/N: The formatting on these has always bothered me, so I took the time to go back through and fix it.
The invitation to flame still applies, as does the one to give constructive criticism.
I also edited the small bits introducing Traveler and Wanderer; I felt I was tying down my characters too much, and so decided to make it a bit vaguer.
P.S. I really, really hate this stupid fucking QuickEdit thing.
Now, look who's coming
Yeah, look who's back
Quick drop the bombshell straight to the track
The 21st century killing machine
Burnt on the inside,
A five-headed team
Now I'm not the same because you're not the same,
Well you're not the same because I'm not the same,
We're not the same, this could never be the same
And we just wanna survive...
Powerman 500 -- Bombshell
Prologue: Journey
The public often call them gods and goddesses; the more informed know that they were once human. The once human part doesn't matter much, what matters now is that they control powers way beyond those of regular humans. A few still pass for human, preferring a mundane life despite their awesome powers. Others would like to live that life, but are unable to for some reason or another. And still others pretend that they were never human, but always immortal, and purposefully forget their mortal lives. Most have lived for so long as immortals that their humanity has been lost to them, buried beneath time and experiences.
These awesome powers were discovered in each immortal by accident. One day, they just woke up and they had powers. No strings attached. Every little kid's dream, right? However, there was one requirement that came sooner or later... service to whichever power decided that they deserved to be immortal. Most often, the person did great deeds while they were human. Sometimes, however, merely being related to another immortal when they were human is enough to discover powers. And some immortals... well, no one is quite sure why they have powers, but they do have them. Oh, the old religions still persist, as most of the new immortals try to avoid advertising for their works. They prefer living without the restrictions of having a full religion. As well, it is easier to work without having someone follow your every move and having to watch what you say every single second.
All immortals have a few common powers that come in largely varying degrees (paltry compared to the real beings of power), such as healing, telepathy, telekinesis and others along those lines. In addition to these common powers, each immortal has their own... specialties. But one of the only real powers in the worlds, the one who makes many of the decisions involving who receives immortality and who remains human... is Chaos. Entropy. Pandemonium. Disorder. But not evil. There are no such things as 'evil' or 'good'. Only Chaos and his opposite, Order. Each has their soldiers, and each has their 'pets'.
First in Chaos' army of minions are the five. The Dragon, The Guardian, The Silence, The Shadow, and The Fury.
Each contains a small part of Chaos within themselves, mainly so that the entity would not have to search them out and waste precious milliseconds of his time to order them around. Chaos wished its orders to be carried out without delay. Each was a killer at heart, despite outward appearances. But while a killer, it was the kernel of Chaos inside of them that brought this part to light and erased all the conditioning against murdering that they had built up. They may kill purely for joy, but they do not do so in excess. Too much death, then it becomes the norm, and there is order. Chaos does not like order, to put it mildly. So, at best, they are unpredictable. They delight in wars, they delight in peace. But their world fast became boring. There is only so much to do before everything becomes repetitive and has an order. The five were his pets, his babies, and for them to grow bored meant the destruction of complete dimensions in his quest for their happiness. And so the entity Chaos provided more for their entertainment.
The Wanderer and The Traveler were born. Chaos sifted carefully through all of the humans in that particular universe before he found the two that he could turn most easily to his ways and commands. While having lived a vaguely normal life, or as normal as one life could be in the mayhem that is humanity, these two were possessed of a certain kind of flighty soul that makes attachment nearly impossible. Instead, Wanderer and Traveler saw humanity as playthings to amuse their passing fancies. However, the fact remained that they were of a different breed of killer than the original five... these two belonged to the kind that has always preferred mind over matter; manipulation gives as much joy as torture, and seeing a well-laid trap play out to fruition is divine. But even with the advent of these new "activities", there was only so much to be done... so Chaos gave them something extra. It gave them the ability to travel between worlds, dimensions, universes, realities... all of it. Everything—literally—became their plaything. This ensured that his pets would never grow bored again, and they could spread his will across the multi-verse. After all, they now had eternity to mess around with.
The seven were good for each other. Never tiring of the killing, or of the saving, they continued on with their immortal lives. Leaping from world to world, from reality to reality, eventually leaving each behind when it grew boring. Each left behind as a mess. Each a perfect joy for their 'father'. Each eventually succeeded in regaining some measure of normalcy— if there is such a thing— only to be brought back into chaos by their own misdeeds and Order's failures. This continued on for countless millennia, until one day Wanderer tired of the endlessly alike universes. In a spate of boredom, all were transported to a place completely different from their current location. So quickly, that Chaos was not able to interfere. So quickly, indeed, that Wanderer had not fully made a decision on which universe to visit and tried to send all involved to two different universes at the same time. The pain resulting from this split of attention rendered Wanderer unable to correct the mistake, and so they continued on their course, between the two chosen dimensions.
And so the seven arrived, whole, in a previously hidden place. One that had been cloaked behind countless others, separate and beautiful, it was its own multi-verse, completely apart from that of Chaos' dwelling. This multi-verse existed in the emptiness of nothing between each universe of Chaos' dwelling, looking like empty space and therefore unable to be visited. It was by pure fluke that it happened to be in the exact spot between the two previously chosen universes. It also looked, once inside, outwardly similar to any other universe visited so far, and therefore, just as boring to the un-seeing eye. But the seven were unable to notice anything other than their own plight.
Deep down inside of each of them was a suddenly empty spot. The kernel that linked each to Chaos evaporated in the same way that Chaos' constant presence in their subconscious did. This sudden emptiness was so painful that each reached out to the others with the last of their minds, begging for a relief. If one's own healing powers could not deal, then reinforce them with the others' was the common thought. But all the mind contact between their fading minds did was increase the intensity of the pain beyond rational thought, so that only one thing was able to penetrate their pain saturated minds as they faded into the dark with one last power surge...
This world is horribly wrong...
A/N: The formatting on these has always bothered me, so I took the time to go back through and fix it.
The invitation to flame still applies, as does the one to give constructive criticism.
I also edited the small bits introducing Traveler and Wanderer; I felt I was tying down my characters too much, and so decided to make it a bit vaguer.
P.S. I really, really hate this stupid fucking QuickEdit thing.
Now, look who's coming
Yeah, look who's back
Quick drop the bombshell straight to the track
The 21st century killing machine
Burnt on the inside,
A five-headed team
Now I'm not the same because you're not the same,
Well you're not the same because I'm not the same,
We're not the same, this could never be the same
And we just wanna survive...
Powerman 500 -- Bombshell
Prologue: Journey
The public often call them gods and goddesses; the more informed know that they were once human. The once human part doesn't matter much, what matters now is that they control powers way beyond those of regular humans. A few still pass for human, preferring a mundane life despite their awesome powers. Others would like to live that life, but are unable to for some reason or another. And still others pretend that they were never human, but always immortal, and purposefully forget their mortal lives. Most have lived for so long as immortals that their humanity has been lost to them, buried beneath time and experiences.
These awesome powers were discovered in each immortal by accident. One day, they just woke up and they had powers. No strings attached. Every little kid's dream, right? However, there was one requirement that came sooner or later... service to whichever power decided that they deserved to be immortal. Most often, the person did great deeds while they were human. Sometimes, however, merely being related to another immortal when they were human is enough to discover powers. And some immortals... well, no one is quite sure why they have powers, but they do have them. Oh, the old religions still persist, as most of the new immortals try to avoid advertising for their works. They prefer living without the restrictions of having a full religion. As well, it is easier to work without having someone follow your every move and having to watch what you say every single second.
All immortals have a few common powers that come in largely varying degrees (paltry compared to the real beings of power), such as healing, telepathy, telekinesis and others along those lines. In addition to these common powers, each immortal has their own... specialties. But one of the only real powers in the worlds, the one who makes many of the decisions involving who receives immortality and who remains human... is Chaos. Entropy. Pandemonium. Disorder. But not evil. There are no such things as 'evil' or 'good'. Only Chaos and his opposite, Order. Each has their soldiers, and each has their 'pets'.
First in Chaos' army of minions are the five. The Dragon, The Guardian, The Silence, The Shadow, and The Fury.
Each contains a small part of Chaos within themselves, mainly so that the entity would not have to search them out and waste precious milliseconds of his time to order them around. Chaos wished its orders to be carried out without delay. Each was a killer at heart, despite outward appearances. But while a killer, it was the kernel of Chaos inside of them that brought this part to light and erased all the conditioning against murdering that they had built up. They may kill purely for joy, but they do not do so in excess. Too much death, then it becomes the norm, and there is order. Chaos does not like order, to put it mildly. So, at best, they are unpredictable. They delight in wars, they delight in peace. But their world fast became boring. There is only so much to do before everything becomes repetitive and has an order. The five were his pets, his babies, and for them to grow bored meant the destruction of complete dimensions in his quest for their happiness. And so the entity Chaos provided more for their entertainment.
The Wanderer and The Traveler were born. Chaos sifted carefully through all of the humans in that particular universe before he found the two that he could turn most easily to his ways and commands. While having lived a vaguely normal life, or as normal as one life could be in the mayhem that is humanity, these two were possessed of a certain kind of flighty soul that makes attachment nearly impossible. Instead, Wanderer and Traveler saw humanity as playthings to amuse their passing fancies. However, the fact remained that they were of a different breed of killer than the original five... these two belonged to the kind that has always preferred mind over matter; manipulation gives as much joy as torture, and seeing a well-laid trap play out to fruition is divine. But even with the advent of these new "activities", there was only so much to be done... so Chaos gave them something extra. It gave them the ability to travel between worlds, dimensions, universes, realities... all of it. Everything—literally—became their plaything. This ensured that his pets would never grow bored again, and they could spread his will across the multi-verse. After all, they now had eternity to mess around with.
The seven were good for each other. Never tiring of the killing, or of the saving, they continued on with their immortal lives. Leaping from world to world, from reality to reality, eventually leaving each behind when it grew boring. Each left behind as a mess. Each a perfect joy for their 'father'. Each eventually succeeded in regaining some measure of normalcy— if there is such a thing— only to be brought back into chaos by their own misdeeds and Order's failures. This continued on for countless millennia, until one day Wanderer tired of the endlessly alike universes. In a spate of boredom, all were transported to a place completely different from their current location. So quickly, that Chaos was not able to interfere. So quickly, indeed, that Wanderer had not fully made a decision on which universe to visit and tried to send all involved to two different universes at the same time. The pain resulting from this split of attention rendered Wanderer unable to correct the mistake, and so they continued on their course, between the two chosen dimensions.
And so the seven arrived, whole, in a previously hidden place. One that had been cloaked behind countless others, separate and beautiful, it was its own multi-verse, completely apart from that of Chaos' dwelling. This multi-verse existed in the emptiness of nothing between each universe of Chaos' dwelling, looking like empty space and therefore unable to be visited. It was by pure fluke that it happened to be in the exact spot between the two previously chosen universes. It also looked, once inside, outwardly similar to any other universe visited so far, and therefore, just as boring to the un-seeing eye. But the seven were unable to notice anything other than their own plight.
Deep down inside of each of them was a suddenly empty spot. The kernel that linked each to Chaos evaporated in the same way that Chaos' constant presence in their subconscious did. This sudden emptiness was so painful that each reached out to the others with the last of their minds, begging for a relief. If one's own healing powers could not deal, then reinforce them with the others' was the common thought. But all the mind contact between their fading minds did was increase the intensity of the pain beyond rational thought, so that only one thing was able to penetrate their pain saturated minds as they faded into the dark with one last power surge...
This world is horribly wrong...