Part One: The Becoming, Part Two
Puck: Noun, a mischief-making sprite of folklore, often cavorting and accosting humans….
NOVEMBER SIXTEENTH, 2000, SOMEWHERE IN THE ETHER…
Puck the half-Drac stood in the Ether, the gap between dimensions, the gateway into dreams, a deeper portion of what some mortals would call Z-Space, others calling Hyperspace, it had many names among mortals. None correct.
Puck was depressed. Taggart had a death-mark on his head, his Master was in a foul mood, Duriel was being a snot-nosed fool, and Tyrak, the Shrike who had been sent after the Antimorphs, had returned broken and defeated to Gharanz-Tyre. The Machine had stripped It of all power. It was now making amends.
"Time to pay my favourite little Kelbrid midget a visit," Puck mused.
With a thought, Puck was within the confines of Crayaks fortified dimension, in the mind of The Drode: Crayaks chief lackey.
The Drodes mind was asleep, so Puck made himself available in a dream. Even all of Crayaks power hadn't stopped him from putting the Beast inside in the form of David Hunting. Some things you couldn't change, no matter how much power you had. Dreams were one of them.
When a mind was asleep, it was easily susceptible to invasion from foreign powers. If you had the power to cross dimensions, you could use the Ether as a jumping point to get wherever you want, assuming you had the ability to force your way in.
Compared to Puck, the Drode was weak and flabby, even though their jobs and positions were essentially the same.
"Oh damn! Not you again, Quinz!"
The Drode was now fully aware of Pucks presence, and took a form, a mirror copy of its flesh and blood body.
"Nice to see you again, too, Drode. Been working out?" Puck sneered sarcastically.
"Cram it, Quinz! What business do you have here, besides trying to mess with my life? Why cant you just leave this dimension alone? Just leave Hunting alone!"
"No can do, little man. Hunting is going to be very important to Taggart. Very important. Hunting could still go either way, you know. Ever since that little incident with the Time Matrix he's been on the edge. Oh, and I especially enjoyed the nice long rant you gave. You know the one, where you revealed my entire plan to them? Well, not all of it, but I think a few of them actually got the idea. You know what would happen if The Machine took this world, don't you? Crayak would be unmade, and you would be tortured…by me…for all infinity."
"Come on! What do you have with coming here and mocking me, Quinz? I'm just a messenger, why do you have to keep picking on me?" The Drode sounded much like a school boy who was being teased by a bigger, uglier bully. He was practically whining.
"Listen, you obviously don't know what your talking about. Want to hear a little story?"
"No, but I have a feeling your going to tell me anyway."
"Damn straight I am. Where do I begin?"
The Drode muttered, "Maybe at the beginning."
"Good idea. You know Drode, there are moments that can change a person for all time, and change the universe they occupy with it. Single, powerful moments. You'll see what I mean."
LONG, LONG AGO…DIMENSION OF EDEN…
Quinz the Hass was not more than twenty cycles the day his world changed.
The world of the Haas was perfect. There was no other word for it.
Quinz say under a giant Kuluptos tree, eating a sweet Visma fruit, a female lying naked at his side.
His world had fields of long, purple grass, a comfortable, temperate climate, six moons and a green sun. It was, considered by the Maiar, to be the jewel of all Realities.
"Tell me, Thenz, do you ever wonder if there is more than this? A greater…purpose, to existence?"
"Mmmm…no…" Said the female, purring softly, attempting to stroke Quinz's genitalia, though the larger male resisted her advances.
"Life has to be more than just eating and mating, why do our people not leave this world? We have intelligence, why not use it?"
"Anyanka didn't make us for that, Quinz, she made us to be…happy. Not soldiers. Not warriors. Why do you think we don't go and fight with the other races, against the Dracs?"
"Because we aren't threatened. No Demon can get in here, not until a Haas lets them. Our 'gift' is being able to control who comes in and out. You should know that best of all, Thenz, your father is the Gate-Keeper."
"I don't concern myself with that stuff. It isn't my place. Thinking like that, fighting and traveling, and technology, is what made Marius Fall."
"You know, people outside this dimension are afraid of even saying that name? Even the Maiar don't like to say it."
"I don't get you."
"Marius wasn't doing a bad thing in leaving. He was choosing His own path. Who gets to define morality? The Power? The Maiar? Us? Marius did what He wanted. He isn't evil. He knows what He wants and takes it," Quinz said, "Wish I could be like that."
Quinz fell back, into a deep, dark sleep.
In his dreams was a figure. Not a Haas, not a Maiar either. It was Mephisto, speaking to him, calling to him.
"Let me in, and I shall give you all you desire. Let me in, Quinz. Let me in and all you desire shall be yours. Let me in."
As Quinz awoke, he still heard, in his back mind, "Let me in…"
"Let me in!" Quinz called out, waking up alone under the tree.
Thenz was gone. How typical. Probably went off to screw some other male. All the Haas did was eat and fuck. Eat and fuck. Eat and fuck.
"I can't take this world anymore!" Yelled Quinz, standing up on his thick hooves. He looked like what one race, the humans, called a Satyr. All Satyr's did was eat, get drunk and fuck.
Life was so empty.
But it was all he had.
"What do I do?" asked Quinz, to the air, and thinking aloud.
The wind seemed to carry a voice.
"Let me in."
"Then that is what I shall do."
Quinz moved across the vast plains of Eden through the night, towards the nearby kingdom of Aman, where the Gate-Keeper dwelled.
The Gate-Keeper alone had the power to open the doors to Eden. The Gate itself was a hundred meter in diameter stone seal on the ground. The Gate-Keeper carried a key that would let any who wished to cross over, do so.
When Quinz arrived in Aman, he found no guards. No sentries. No walls or defences.
Quinz was angry, "Are you so foolish you would leave your backs exposed?" He cried to the air.
Aman was asleep. Only a few Haas were in the streets, drinking Lespos Juices and mating.
For the first time in his life, Quinz saw how small things really were. How menial their lives. It was…beneath him.
The happy and go-lucky behavior of his peers sickened him. It was meaningless! And to think, just a few hours ago, he had been one of them; so small and insignificant. No purpose but to procreate. A life without substance.
The males led their lives with their dicks, unable to find one female to actually LOVE.
"Lots of love-MAKING but no Power-damned LOVE in here," Quinz muttered as he walked the streets of Aman. Streets that the Haas hadn't even built for themselves. Houses and inns and statues and hospitals and temples…all built for them, from the Maiar.
"We don't even fucking FARM!" Quinz ranted, throwing a nearby, Zeltaip (an alchoholic substance) sapling.
"They do it FOR us!"
By now, the few Haas still in the street were looking right at him. The crazy male, doing things and showing behavior that was not in their nature.
For a moment, all just stood still. No one moving, or speaking. No one breathing. Just looking.
"You…disgust me." Said Quinz, slowly and cold.
Quinz resumed walking, not sure what had brought over his sudden new revelations on life. Was it the fact that Thenz never understood him? Something that had been building up for years, waiting to come out? The fact that life had just become boring? The strange dream he had had just hours before?
It didn't matter. Ahead of him, stood Thenz's father: Jilix-Qua, the Gate-Keeper.
"Young Quinz? Is that you? Why come you to Aman, at this time of night? Why are you so distressed?"
"Distressed?" Said Quinz, laughing at the audacity of it, "Distressed? No, it is not I! But you, who would call yourself Gate-Keeper, it is YOU who shall soon be distressed!"
Quinz looked at the old Haas, and saw the key, made of blue stones, hanging from a simple rope pendant around Jilix-Qua's neck.
"Out of my way, old fool," said Quinz, calmly, yanking the key from Jilix-Qua's neck and pushing him aside.
"He took the key!" Said someone, in a new crowd of Haas that had been awakened by the commotion.
"He's gone mad!" said another.
Quinz didn't care. Barely a hundred feet along was the Gate. And, at the nearest end, the Alter, where the key would be inserted to open it.
"Quinz!" Said the old Gate-Keeper, "Give me my key!"
"Your key?" Asked Quinz, turning back towards Jilix-Qua, sneering, "YOUR KEY? It is not YOUR key, you old fool, it is now HIS key."
With that, Quinz did something that no Haas had ever before done.
He raised his fist, and punched the Gate-Keeper, knocking him down.
The crowd went up in gasps. All were shocked. But they made way for Quinz, on his walk to the Alter. No one attempted to stop him, though with every opportunity, they could have prevented disaster.
When he reached the Alter, Quinz raised the key into the air, slamming it down into the stone.
Suddenly, a loud rumble was heard. The rumble became a scream of pure malice and terror.
The Gate turned a bright red, and the stone exploded.
Wave after wave of Drac's poured out, into the sky. The crowd was screaming now,the sky had turned pitch black. The stars themselves were gone from the sky.
Fire was everywhere. Drac's poured from the Gate like blood pouring from a wound.
But none touched Quinz. He just stood there in amazement.
To most, the scene would seem like the ultimate evil. Innocents caught up in an invasion and a genocide.
Quinz saw it as a cleansing. A new start for a better, more efficient world. A clean slate.
Then, a single Drac, a Drac-lord (known as a Dracyak) landed before him.
"Drink." Came the same cold voice from the wind.
And so Quinz did. He slammed hi teeth into the Dracyak's neck, burning red blood flowing all around. Quinz swallowed it all.
The Dracyak fell dead.
Quinz stood tall. From his head, two horns sprouted. His eyes narrowed and his skin turned a burning red.
"Serve me. Serve me and you shall be a god."
Quinz needed nothing more.
"I shall serve you."
CITY OF GOMORRAH, TERRA FIRMA, 1290 BCE…
The Sorceress, Velana, stood in her cold tent. Waiting for the Demon to show was always a chore. Rarely was Dezmadonus on time, and rarely did he have many manners.
Velana had sacrificed a lot to have her powers-used almost always for the good of her city- including dealing with the Demon worlds.
Dezmadonus claimed himself to be only a businessman. He may have been. But like all businessmen, he was a liar.
Velana was young-only nineteen- and had never before known the touch of a man. The Demons had told her that if she did, her powers would be gone and she would be but a peasant woman again, a whore like her mother.
Just when she had given up all hope, Dezmadonus appeared.
He looked much like the tales of Satyre's from the Greek-lands to the north west, though he bore horns and dark crimson skin. His humanoid features were both sinister and handsome at the same time. He never asked much; a pig, a chicken, an infant, to sacrifice.
Until tonight.
"Sorry I'm late. The boss was really ridin' me."
"What tribute must I pay this night?" Asked Velana, slowly and cautiously.
"Well, unfortunetly for you, a simple sacrifice wont cut it this time. What WILL…well…I'm afraid that my new plan would get only one thing… I haven't gotten a fuck since I rammed Thenz. And that was eons ago!"
With that, Dezmadonus slapped Velana to the ground, kicked her with his hooves, and violated her.
The union of the half-Drac and the human sorceress shook the city of Gomorrah to the ground.
One day later…the Beast was born, killing its own mother on its way into the world. It assaulted the nearby City of Sodom. None survived.
……………………………………………………..
"And the rest," Said Puck, "as they say, is history."
"Quite a story," Said the Drode, "And just WHY have you told it to me?"
"Tell your master we know whats going to happen with Hunting. My boy Taggart will whoop his sorry ass. And when he does, its open hunting season on his ass, same with that goofy schmuck, Ellimist. Oh, pardon my pun."
"I'll make sure he gets the message."
"And remember, Drode, I wasn't as different as you were. Feel free to tease those Animorphs a bit more. I love to see them squirm."
As he left the Ether, Puck said, "Good luck with that little bitch Rachel. Seriously. Your going to need it. Big time."
And he was gone.
AUTHORS NOTE: Remember: Keep up to date with One Least Likely by Augestine Quill to get the complete story!
Episode six will be a little darker than previous episodes. Only two more to go!