Chapter one
"Jacobs? This is HQ. How is the ship running?"
I heard over the telecom. With a smile, I looked down at the console. A blinking blue light alerted me to let me know I have a caller from home. This meant that Houston was trying to video chat with me. Hitting the button made the screen on the console light up and let many faces appear on the screen. These faces ranged from young to old, male to female, but all were in the communications room. This is what I referred to as HQ since they were the ones relaying all information to the real HQ.
"Good morning Houston!" I said to the group and they all smiled when they saw my face. "Does anybody have a good joke today?" I asked and the group just sighed to each other.
"Jacobs, can we get a full report on-" Cutting the person off, I spoke.
"No joke!?" I exclaimed in a over dramatic fashion. "That's ok, I got one." Most of the workers in the room sighed at my response and waited for me to get the goofiness out of my system. "Why did the man fall out of the tree?" I asked the room.
They gave me no response and just waited.
"Because he had no arms." I stated with a chuckle and the entire room just groaned.
"Are you done?"
One of the men asked me and I nodded. "Good. Can we have that report?" The man asked me.
"All systems are green and the ship is running like a gem." I told them and many started to clap. "For the fastest ship we've ever built, I'm surprised it's running so smooth. Well done!" I stated.
"Says the only man able to pilot it." Said a female with a smirk. "How are the mini satellite's chain system working so far?" She asked me.
With a firm nod, I pulled up the blueprints of the experimental satellites. "So far so good." Was my response. "One of the satellites got jammed, but I was able to get it to launch successfully after manually removing it from the outer hull."
These satellites were pretty much beacons and receivers that were placed onto my ship. At a certain distance, I would release a mini satellite that connects to a chain of other satellites that I released earlier and lets me connect with HQ instantly. The chain systems are the collection of the mini satellites that I had already released and a line of them are left in my path leading back to Earth. Technologically speaking, it was a bold step in space travel, and has made a huge difference in many Astronauts performance. However, that was only one of the reasons I was able to make this journey. The new propulsion system was also experimental. Although, it has outperformed all of our expectations in the first week. Where normally it takes a massive amount of liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen to even make it into space to begin the launch. My ship was built at one of the space stations that rotated around Earth. It took over seven years for the ship to be built and many were uneasy about the experimental ship, but it's worked out great so far. Instead of using all the fuel that the rockets use to get into space, they decided to send it up to the station in increments. In doing so, my ship has several month's worth of rocket fuel to boost me through our Solar System.
"What caused the malfunction on Mini Satellite launch?"
One of the older men in the room inquired. Looking at the man I began to explain the issue. "One of the fins holding the satellite in place malfunctioned. The other three had released the satellite, but the last one got stuck in place. To remove it, I had to take some tools and remove the fin so that the satellite could actually launch." I reported.
Many looked around the room and the old man started taking some notes. "Very well. Is there anything else you need to report?" The older man questioned as he placed the notebook down.
"I caught the dumb, I can't brain today." I said in a Patrick Star voice.
Many of the group chuckled and smirked, which made the old man walk away letting the female take back over.
"Keep up the good work Jacobs." The female said. "Will do ma'am. Jacobs out." I said and pressed the same blue button, thus ending the call Truthfully, I was the only astronaut that met all the requirements necessary to pilot this new space ship. It used multiple rockets to get it into space piece by piece, but other than that, it was our first real space travelling space ship. We call it this because my mission is to scout different galaxies and see if any of the planets we found via remote drones and satellite imaging, might be inhabitable. This is my mission and my ship is technically a prototype. Our goal was to build this ship and the next one is too explore our galaxy and all of the planets that might be available to us since they are closer. Many of them were very excited for this mission and I had the experience to pull it off. Being 29 years old and your average Caucasian male from America made many nations nervous. However, after meeting several world leaders and letting them know that I was doing this for all of humanity and not just America, seemed to put them more at ease. Some other nations even helped fund the exploration so they could be kept up to date and receive real time information. Not just what will be reported to the news and public, but real data and reports from me directly. Other than that, there was nothing special about me in anyway according to most people, that is, until I was hired as the pilot for this ship. Before this mission, I had an impressive military career, which is one of the reasons why I was selected to participate in the earlier stages of the project. This led to me becoming the only individual able to keep up with the project and every vital function on the ship. Back on Earth, I had a family or the remains of one at least. There was an incident when I was still young that broke my family apart and while I still love my sister, I'm afraid the feeling isn't mutual. My mother poisoned my last sibling against me after she framed me. Another reason I'm on this space ship. So, I wouldn't murder my mom if I ever saw her again.
Continuing the set course, I was soon away from my home Solar System and heading towards the edge of the Milky Way Galaxy. The ship made it past Pluto in a matter of 15 days, which was astounding and made it out of our Solar System in 75 days. May not have been light speed, but it was still impressive and the engines were working at their full potential. The hope was to get out of the galaxy in a few years, but it'll be interesting to see with the new engines. Leaving the control panel, I went back to my bed to relax. It was a busy morning trying to get that satellite to launch. In this situation, I could pack quite a bit of stuff that was essential for me and by essential, I mean a ton of manga among other things. I needed something to do during this time when I wasn't working, which was most of the time, so I was allowed to bring massive amounts of personal items to keep me busy and thus distracted from being alone in the middle of space. HQ even let me bring a laptop with tons of different anime shows stored on it and movies. On top of that, they supplied it with a huge wish list of mine of things that I would like while on my mission. This included multiple video games, movies, TV shows, books, manga and more, but it had the entire Devil May Cry game series on the computer. Seeing as it was my favorite video game series it only made sense to have it on there. My laptop also had Avatar: The Last Airbender on it as well, which I really liked because it was American, but you could tell it was influenced by anime. The mission I'm on isn't so bad. It allowed me to catch up on an ass-ton of shows and I even downloaded some I had never seen. I was rereading Naruto, just because why not. I wasn't a huge fan of it anymore because of the Shinobi war was way too long, but I didn't mind the ending. I fell asleep while I was reading and slept for quite a while. Unfortunately, I was awoken by the sound a blaring siren. Instantly awake, I rushed to the cockpit. The siren usually meant serious danger, like a rogue asteroid or something like that, but this time, it was much worse.
Once in the cockpit, I strapped myself in and began checking over all the ships systems. I didn't have time to put on a space suit, if the ship was destroyed, I wouldn't survive anyway. I then proceeded to run through evasive maneuvers for whatever might have been causing the alarm.
Pushing the same blue button from earlier, I sent a distress call to HQ. "Houston. Come in Houston!" I said over the telecom. Soon the black screen came to life and I instantly saw HQ.
"This is HQ, Jacobs. We saw the alert, what's happening?"
A man asked me. "I am unaware myself." I told him. "I was woken up by the siren, but I don't see any -" My conversation was interrupted as I felt the ship lean heavily to one side as if it had been hit by some unknown force and I grunted as the ship shook.
"JACOBS! What happened!? Report!"
The man shouted. On the console, I saw many going haywire on their computers trying to figure out what sort of damage the ship might have taken.
"The ship has been hit by something! Doing a maintenance check now for damage!" I said as I started to go through protocol, but something was wrong. The ship wasn't damaged in anyway. Looking back towards the screen confused, I spoke. "It appears the ship is fine..."
"We have the same report."
The man said, also confused.
"Any idea what happened?"
They asked me. "Hold that thought." I said as I unbuckled myself. "Let me check from the observation deck." I said as I stood and rushed towards the room. It was a room that was on top of the ship that looked over the entire ship and allowed me a full 360 degree of the ship since it spun around the entire ship. Instantly, I began looking for any damage the ship might have sustained, but didn't see anything, until I saw a flash of light from my left. At that moment, my blood ran cold. Running as fast I could back to the control center I buckled back in. I immediately went to work on evasive maneuvers, hoping to get away. "Evasive action is required! Pumping fuel into the right thrusters and engines!" I shouted and when HQ saw this they became very worried.
"Report Jacobs! What did you see?"
A female asked me. "The ship was hit by the shockwave of an exploding star! It is now forming into a black hole and the gravitational pull is trying to suck the ship in!" I responded as I frantically tried to get away.
"Jesus!"
One of the men said.
"Can you escape its gravitational pull!?"
He asked me. "I'm trying to reroute power from the left thrusters all into the right thrusters for short bursts. The power boost should be enough to get the ship to safety if the engines can hold out." I said as I continued to work.
"That will put the ship in an uncontrollable spin! You won't be able to control where you are going!" The female said. "Not to mention launch you from your projected path!"
"It's the only chance I have!" Was my response. The small tug on the ship became stronger as I felt the ship leaning heavily to one side now. I rerouted the thrusters fuel all into the right thrusters and started to increase its energy output. Unfortunately, as soon as it started to work the thrusters blew out. I couldn't believe it.
"FUCK!" I shouted and started to try anything I could to get it back online. Having the engines blow out and not respond sealed my fate. Slowly, I sat down as a look of disbelief overtook my facial features.
"Jacobs! What Happened!?"
The female asked. My mouth opened, but no words formed. "Report! Jacobs!" She shouted.
"Overriding the thrusters and increasing their output made the thrusters blow out. I have no power to get away from the gravitational pull of the black hole. The ship will only last a few more minutes as it gets closer to the black hole..." I said softly and the entire HQ went silent.
My eyes watched as many started to cover their mouths in shock and others had tears in their eyes. I have known these people for 8 years while I was going through the training for this mission. Truthfully, I wanted to cry as well, but decided to help them with my last moments. A smile took over my face as I began to think about possible improvements for the next ship design.
"Houston! The ship design is very well done, but for your next mission, I propose more thrusters with a backup engine. It may change the design of the ship to be a little bulkier, but I believe it will help avoid this problem in the future." I stated.
One of the men through a hoarse voice said.
"We read you Jacobs. Thank you for the help."
He told me sincerely. "Oh, and maybe add a muffin button next time." I said with a small pathetic chuckle. Those who had watched TFS knew what I was referring to and gave a sad chuckle. "Tell my sister, that I'm sorry and that I love her very much." I told HQ.
"We will and you will go down in history Jacobs in more ways than one."
A man told me. "You are the first man in history to reach journey past our Solar System and will be the first to see the inside of a black hole." He told me and a woman smacked him for his insensitivity.
That made me chuckle. "That doesn't sound too bad." I said with a smile as the pull from the black hole got stronger. "It should be interesting to see the inside of one." Was my answer, even though I knew my body would probably be torn apart.
Soon electricity started to fly around the counsel and the video got choppy. "Ja- Com- n! Ca- Y-u H- us?" I heard through the telecom.
This was it. My body quickly felt the strain from the gravitational beast as the ship started to move faster towards the black hole. Hearing parts of the ship being ripped apart terrified me as I felt my body being pulled in different directions. What happened next confirmed many theories people have thought of black holes for many decades. Time seemed to accelerate as I felt my body slow down. I couldn't help but scream in pain as it felt my body was being dematerialized, stretched, aged and put back together again. The worst part was, I knew that Houston could hear me, but I still couldn't stop myself. However, I saw the ship become more and more decrepit as time passed. Like it was aging in front of me. Nearby stars exploded in the background and others formed. My screams of agony might have been heard in the beginning, but I was watching time flow by in front of my very eyes. Like I was watching the universe on fast forward. If they did hear me, they are all probably dead now and I doubt they were going to turn off the telecom as my screams began... It was valuable information after all.
The pain was horrendous, but after a while everything went silent and I couldn't even hear my own screams. Figuring the hull had been finally breached and I was now unprotected from the black hole entirely. My body was ripped from my chair and I flew out one of the many breaches in the ship. Instantly, I was in cold space, but directly inside of the black hole. I screamed silently in pain from the cold and force being put on my body, as I felt my body disappearing. My eyes tried to watch everything, but they soon froze over making me go blind to the wonders and horrors of the black hole I was inside. Soon there was nothing left of me but my consciousness. It finally happened. The pain was finally gone and I was at peace. No more having to live with the things I've done. I could finally rest. I was finally dead. Something I had searched for passively time and time again. However, something was off. My body felt light, almost like a spirit just floating around and I assumed I was dead. Nothing hurt me anymore as I wandered aimlessly, but continued further into the black hole.
As I travelled the black vortex, it seemed to be a pitch-black abyss with nothing to see in sight. However, soon I was spit out of the vortex into a giant bubble that seemed to focus around a dim pink light in the middle of the area. It appeared to be an anteroom of some kind in the form of a giant sphere. Willing myself to move towards the light, I slowly floated over to it. As I got closer, I saw the light to be some sort of creature. This creature was emanating light from its body which was very curious to me. Once I was close enough, I saw that the creature started to take a more familiar form. It possessed a human body, but with no human facial features. I seemed to startle the creature awake as it looked my way in surprise.
"A guest."
I heard it speak in the echo of many voices. It sounded female and motherly. "It appears we have injured you." It told me in a sad tone and it approached me. Seeing as though I had no body at this point, I was still shocked to say the least, but I couldn't speak anyway and should be dead already, so I didn't move.
"We are this star's essence and we are rebuilding ourselves somewhere else."
The creature spoke.
"We have seen thousands of years go by and have decided to move ourselves. Another galaxy perhaps."
I was confused as to why it was speaking in multiple voices and about the entire situation in general, but was even more confused about the fact that this unknown creature could exist in this amount of raw energy that was generated from the black hole. To me, the star creature in front of me almost seemed godly.
"However, we would not feel right in leaving you in this state."
She echoed in the empty space.
"We can return you to a body and to a world of your choosing, but you must focus. Do you understand?"
It asked me. I didn't understand at all, but I nodded regardless or at least, I think I did.
"Good, but you will have to consume part of us to do so."
It stated, which confused me even more, but I still couldn't ask for clarification so I just nodded again.
"Think about your body and what it looked like. We shall return you to it and any abilities you might have had. Keep in mind that we are eternal and have the power of the cosmos, so any abilities you might've had or want, should be within our power. It is the least we can do for putting you in this situation."
It informed me. Instantly, I started to think about my favorite amines, games and TV shows. Dante's appearance from Devil May Cry 5 and his abilities popped into my head for what I wanted my new body to look like. His white hair was my favorite feature of his, but I wanted. It's not that I didn't like my original body, but this was a chance of a lifetime. My mind raced to different games and shows as I thought of Naruto and the Sharingan abilities.
"We have a grasp on your appearance and abilities."
The creature told me as it moved closer and enveloped me.
"Most of these are acceptable, but we will not give you your quicksilver ability. Time is a sacred thing and must not be tampered with. We also will only reconstruct some of your more used weapons such as your sword."
It informed me. I was a little confused, but couldn't ask the creature to specify what it meant. "Now, we want you to think of the world you belong to or always wanted to belong to." It told me. "If it is within our power, we will send you there. Such a tormented soul deserves a paradise of his choosing." It stated and I was surprised by its word choice. Although, once again, I couldn't inquire as to what the star creature meant. I smiled at least I think I did and spoke to the creature. "I don't really care about where as long as I can fight besides that I don't care."
"We understand and we believe we can accommodate your request."
The pink star creature told me as it broke off a part of its body and pushed it into where my lips used to reside. This startled me as I felt something touch where my mouth used to be and part my ghostly lips to force its way in. Looking up at the star creature as I slowly floated away, it almost seemed sad, but soon ignored it as I felt a burning sensation as I ate the part of the creature that the star woman had given to me. The creature then used its pink arms to cast me away and throw me into a new vortex. Once again, I went through the pain of having my body being torn apart and forced back together as I tumbled through the horrific pain. I had to endure the pain in silence because I still couldn't scream due to a lack of lungs. However, as my body put itself back together it felt very different. I felt taller, stronger, more intelligent. Soon I had a body and I could move, but it didn't help any as my new and improved body was thrown like a rag doll through the black holes vortex. However, I could scream now and my lungs held nothing back. Blood began to line the walls and teeth in my mouth and I'm guessing the strain on my new body was more than it could take. Thankfully, the vortex ended as the pain began to worsen and the pressure on my body immediately lifted. Being thrown from the vortex surprised me as I saw that it was night time as I fell into the new world from the sky. I saw I was fall over a large Diamond shape building. "The hell!?" I crashed through the roof of the building and made a crater after crashing into the floor.
"WHAT THE!?"
"GET PINK DIAMOND OUT OF HERE!"
I slowly started to get to my feet when someone jumped on top of me. Threw my elbow back and felt it connect with someone's face. They were forced off me from the hit.
"AAHHH!"
I jumped to my feet and saw I was surrounded by many large and small woman. Many had yellow skin and orange and dozens of four-foot women near a six-foot tall pink woman. She had puffy pink hair and on a ballerina like outfit. As I looked at her I was grabbed from behind and I felt something on my back now I turned my head to the side and I the handle of Rebellion Dante's sword. I was restrained as the Pink woman walked over to me.
"What is this strange creature?"
"What are those things on his side and it back?"
I saw one of the red woman said as she reached for my waist. I looked down and saw Ebony and Ivory on my side.
"They won't work if you try to use them." She stopped and looked up at me. Then the pink one grabbed my face and made me look at her. She smiled as she looked at me.
"You can talk?!"
She spoke excitedly and I spoke again. "Yes, my name is Dante." 'New life new name.' She raised ab eyebrow as she looked at me.
"A Dante? What is a Dante?"
I laughed and nodded my head. "I'm a he not a what and if whoever is hold me will let go I will hand over my weapons. No, reason I should fight my way out right now. Not knowing where I am or how far I am from my home." She looked down at me for a few seconds then waved her hand.
"Ok, Jasper release him."
"But…"
I saw the pink woman look at her clearly angered.
"I said release him."
My arms were release and I stood up straight. I looked at her and I saw I was taller then her by four inches. I smiled and grabbed Rebellion's handle then took it off my back. I held It to the red woman and she took it and I drew Ebony and Ivory and we all started to walk to the door. 'Well let's see where this leads.