Well you humans have a saying… 'if you want to tell a story, you gotta start at the beginning….
January 5th 1408
In a village near the north castle. A pair of young boys were playing knight with a pair of sticks. The shorter boy had darkish brown hair and purple eyes, he wore a white puffy shirt and pants and black shoes. The taller boy had blonde hair and blue eyes, he wore a green shirt with brown pants and shoes. "Ha take that fiend!" The black haired boy said heroically. "I don't think so, knight!" The blonde haired boy said proudly and thwapped the younger boy's stick away and knocked him to the ground. "Awe you always win!" The boy pouted. "Well you can't win them all, Lance!" The older boy laughed, grabbed Lance's hand and pulled him up before he pointed forwards. "Blaine look!" He pointed to a group of knights riding their horses and patrolling the village. "Someday that's gonna be us!" "You sure? I mean being a knight is a really big deal!" "I know but one day you and I shall become great heroes of this life and maybe in the afterlife!" Lance struck a heroic pose. "Wow the afterlife? How do you know that?" "I don't know but I'm sure what we'll face we'll face it together! Brothers till the end!" The two side-hugged with glee….
My brother and I were aspiring knights and wanted to make the world a safer place, one that reeks of honor, justice and loyalty!
10 years later…
The brothers, now fully grown, moved with the wind as they trained to be in the royal guard. They were on their way to becoming heroes of honor and heroism, as they trained their skills had improved faster and faster than any other knight. The two quickly became top of their class.
By the time we graduated and became knights, we were treated with respect and honor. But like they say… nothing lasts forever….
August 7th 1422
It was the night of the royal ball, when the king was being escorted by Lance and Blaine, dressed in their silver knight armor. "Now you two don't need to worry, I'm sure I can take care of myself." The king assured. "Cannot take any chances, your majesty!" Blaine said worriedly, "Yeah, who knows when a villainously diabolical fiend may come to find you and off you the second you're vulnerable!" Lance added dramatically, "He has a point!" Blaine pointed out, "Albeit a little over the top…." Lance scoffed, "you know that bandits these days are almost everywhere!" "Ok fine you two can come along, maybe even enjoy yourselves!" The king replied, soon they began to follow the king and scouted for any nasty villains….
Unbeknownst to them, one of those fiends, an assassin, had hid in the rafters and pulled out an Arquebus and aimed directly at the king's forehead. Lance had looked upwards seeing the assaniation in progress and instantly ran to protect his king, throwing himself in front of him just as the Arquebus fired, the bullet had pierced through his armor and his body.
Lance flopped to the floor bleeding like a hole in a barrel full of water. Everyone screamed in the terror as the assassin frantically reloaded his gun and made a break for it. Blaine, full of rage and grief for his lost brother, quickly rushed after his brother's killer. By the time he caught up with him the knight tackled the murderer to the wall just as the Arquebus dropped and accidentally fired.
Blaine dropped onto his knees… and fell to the ground… at least he was going to reunite with his brother very soon…
Turns out that bullets are a lot more effective than swords, especially on knight armor. I guess you could say that I invented the saying: 'taking a bullet for something….'
But just because me and my brother's lives have ended doesn't mean that our story has as well….
Blaine quickly woke up gasping for breath and examined his environment, it looked like some kind of empty void only lit by a trail of blue light. He got to his feet and witnessed a line in front of him. "What in…?" "Blaine!?" The knight suddenly turned around and saw his brother with a gunshot wound in his armor and blood staining his uniform. "LANCE!" Blaine immediately hugged his brother before looking at him. "Where are we? What happened to us?" Blaine stopped upon noticing something, his brother's heart wasn't beating… and neither was his…. "Did… Did we just die…?"
The two realized their horrifying situation. "Wait… if we're dead… does that mean we're in…?" The two started panicking frantically thinking that they had entered the depths of hell where they would suffer for the rest of eternity, "ok I understand that our predicament is rather severe—" "SEVERE?! THAT'S MERELY AN UNDERSTATEMENT!" Lance screamed. "FIRST WE FIND OUT THAT WE LITERALLY DIED, THEN WE END UP IN GOD KNOWS WHERE, AND NOW WE FIND OUT THERE'S A CHANCE THAT WE'LL END UP IN HELL TO BE TORTURED FOR ALL OF ETERNITY!" "Hey, quiet back there!" The two looked forward, seeing an old man in front of them. They looked to the side and saw at the end of the large line was a bright shining light, "Well that looks… ominous…." Lance commented frighteningly. "Please you should be scared about where you're gonna go when you reach the end!" The old man replied, making the brothers even more nervous….
As they went on the two became more and more worried about what their fate awaited them, seeing people going into a light, some of them leaving a burst of stars feathers and laughter, others leaving a burst of brimstone and fire. The two were anxious as they reached closer and closer to the end of the line. Next to the light was a being that looked like a human with large beautiful bird-like wings and dressed in a glistening silver robe with blue highlights and a single eye pendant stitched into it. The being had a glowing orb and was sitting in a chair. Once they neared the line, the old man stepped forward. "Name please!" The being asked, "Orindal Humphry!" The old man, "Humphry… Humphry…." The being checked the orb, looking for something in it. "Here you are Mr Humphrey! Oh… sorry says here you were the culprit behind several murders involving a failed robbery!" "Hey didn't we catch you a couple years ago?" Lance asked the old man, "Yeah and you were imprisoned for life!" "Wait, I knew you looked familiar!" Humphrey growled. "I'M GONNA STRANGLE YOOOOOO…." Humphrey was immediately thrusted into the light in a burst of fire and brimstone.
The two knights quickly held each other in fear. "You must be next, name?" The being asked, "I-I'm L-Lance… and this is my b-brother B-Blaine!" Lance introduced nervously as they saw what happened with Humphrey, "A-and you must be…?" "Oh I'm Azreal! The angel of death!" Azreal introduced, "Now your last name?" "S-Shadows…?" Azreal checked the orb. "Shadows… Hmm says here that you had executed multiple criminals in the past." "Yeah not our proudest moments…." "But you also have resulted in saving your kingdom and king from various threats… leading you both to have committed acts of holy and of sin." "So what does that mean…? Do you flip a coin or something…?" Lance asked, confused. "Not really, you are qualified for the underworld!" "The under wha—" before Lance could finish his sentence the two were thrusted into the light, leaving a burst of purple mist and bones….
The two found themselves falling from the sky, screaming in terror before landing onto the ground, once they landed the two got up on their feet. "Oh I think I bruised my bum…." Lance groaned from the nasty fall. He turned to see his brown only for both to scream in terror, they had completely changed! Their skin had turned gray and lifeless, Lance lost his right eye and his teeth had become crooked. Blaine lost the skin of his lower jaw and some of his hair and some of their bones were exposed. "You look like a corpse! So do you!" They screamed at the same time before noticing the giant gate next to them. "How did we not notice that?" The two brothers stepped forward to the gate where a skeleton sitting on a stool greeted them with a board expression on his face. "Welcome to the underworld, how did you die?" It asked, nonchalantly. "Uh… gunshots to the chest…?" Lance answered. The skeleton then pulled a lever as the gate opened.
The two stepped through the gate and looked around their new environment. It looked a little barren with the reddish brown stone floor, the sky was dark blue with fractures of light piercing through. There was a large crypt with other undead denizens entering it. The two wandered inside where it was designed similar to that of an auditorium with multiple denizens sitting in the chairs, the two took their seats and waited.
Soon a spirit appeared on stage and began some kind of presentation. "Hello there newcomers! Welcome to the underworld! If you're here then you have walked The middle path of both holy and sin!" It began, the two looked confused, middle path? That's an actual thing? "I'm sure you're confused, allow me to explain!" The spirit then took out a small pouch and threw it on the ground. It exploded into a flash of green mist that swirled into various images. "As you may know, there were two afterlives, heaven and hell. At first they had a good system, the good go to heaven and the evil go to hell, but then god and satan ran into a problem: there was a rise in people who committed both acts of holy and sin, due to this most of them became unable to move on without a proper place to go." The mist swirled into what looked like god and satan speaking with someone else. "Seeking help they turned to their Greek friend Zeus for help who turned to his brother hades, hades came up with the idea to make a new land for people who walked this path, he named it: the underworld!" Lance raised his hand. "Yes, you in the back!" "How come none of this is mentioned in the Bible?" "Let's just say they had to leave a few things out due to celestial issues. Anyway as the souls began to migrate into the underworld they were reborn as underworlders, named after their home world. They come in many different factions: spirits, zombies, vampires, gargoyles." "Gargoyles?" "It's complicated, with these factions, they made their own homes and civilization, which leads us to the land of the dead we see today!"
The mist then morphed into a group of warriors wearing armor and wielding different weapons. "But with this new civilization can bring thieves and villains from all sides. So the king of the underworld, king scargoyal, formed a band of undead heroes, each obtaining the power of a different element, they named these warriors: THE CRUSADE!" Lance saw this part interesting, undead knights!? Maybe he can join those ranks! He immediately raised his hand. "Is there any way to join this crusade?!" He asked. "Well, there is a way but that's up to king scargoyal himself, but if he did you'd be lucky enough to at least get one of the other elements." The mist then formed into five different elements: earth, sky, water, ice, and magic. "The elements of light and dark are a bit more complicated to get into." "What about fire?" "We don't talk about fire…."
After the orientation, the underworlders were left to explore their new home in the afterlife. The two brothers had looked at their environment. This was their home now….