hey guys, so, this is an interest check sorta kinda
if this post gets 15 likes I will work on posting chap 1
below the cut is the prologue to my original story, TFOB (acronym explained in later chapters)
In a distant universe of portals, spaceships, aliens, and assassins, trouble is brewing.
All seemed peaceful and quiet in Dimension 1, formerly known as Zandia. The night air is cool, and star-shaped leaves, navy blue and burnt magenta, rustle along the street in the otherwise silent capitol, Altol. This dimension is not ultra-modern, like some, and the citizens live simple lives, farming and selling their goods. At a glance, the city is perfect, a well functioning colony comprised of a few species from nearby planets. When the sun goes down, everything goes dormant, as if it were long abandoned. A towering black castle looms over the cobbled streets and apartments. In an alleyway near downtown, the trance of silence is broken by the long, slow whine of an old wooden door opening. A small figure creeps out, that of a young woman, her body covered in a long cloak and her face shrouded in shadow. She is human, unlike most of the inhabitants of this planet, though dimension 1 is more diverse than some. Her face turns up toward the night sky, seeing the planet Despok framed by the shops on either side of her, but not really acknowledging it. For a moment, it sheds a soft green light onto her small, determined face; but then the moment is gone. After checking that the way is clear, she marches confidently down the main street toward the center of Altol, toward the black castle. Her cloak rustles around her ankles in the slight breeze. She passes the Inter-Dimensional Travel Center, a huge white dome with revolving doors and a sign proclaiming itself the IDTC. There are trees planted around it, some large ones with navy blue leaves, and some small, trimmed, cube-shaped ones that would be magenta by day, but are now only illuminated by the faint green light from Despok. The girl knows that she will be back here once her task is finished, if she completes it successfully. But if not… no. She clears her mind. She doesn’t want to think about the ifs.
The inky blackness of the night is palpable around the castle, undulating and swirling with the wind like a chaotic sea, unbeknownst to the only other being that is conscious at this midnight hour. He is so tired. Not physically. Physically, he is wide awake, unable to sleep. He is sitting on his cot, in his stark gray cell, which is situated in the middle of the black castle of Altol. That is probably to make it harder for him to escape, but he knows that he won’t ever be able to. He is not a fighter. He can’t even get rid of the chain around his ankle, the one that fastens him to his bed. And anyways, he’s already been here for five long years. He’s not going anywhere anytime soon. This boy is unique and strange in several ways. First of all, he is not human. He will live for several hundred years. His race was ancient and powerful, and had the ability to mildly influence the thoughts and feelings of other beings. But now; his face falls at the thought of it; he is the last one left. His skin is light blue, his hair is black, and he seems to… glow, though very faintly. His white jumpsuit looks stretched on his tall and gangly form, which contrasts with his young looking face. One of the strangest things about him is a strip of metal that stretches around his head. It has several small colored lights on it, and it looks as though it has been welded into his flesh. It is part of probably the most advanced machine in all of Dimension 1. He hates it with all of his heart. This machine enslaves all of Dimension 1, and Dimension numbers 2-19, as well. And there might be more by the next time he hears an update, which is not often. This machine takes advantage of his unusual power and amplifies it a hundredfold. Whoever controls the rest of the machine controls the thoughts and decisions of all the sentient beings around it. The boy is so, so tired of feeling like it's all his fault, like if he’d been a little stronger, he’d never have been caught. He’s tired of being a puppet, and feeling responsible for the misery of millions, no, by now it is billions of beings. A small noise, like that of a knife being drawn, jerks him out of his thoughts. Looking up, he sees the young woman outside his cell, looking in through the bars. She has her hand in the long cloak she wears, pulling something out. Her eyes widen as she realizes he is awake.
“You’re not a guard.” he whispers as they meet eyes. “How did you get in here?”
Silence. She looks away, unfocused, shaken, “You know,” she mumbles, almost to herself, “This is for the best.”. Faster than blinking, her hand flicks out of her cloak, and in the same instant, the boy’s expression morphs to shock, as the throwing star buries itself in his throat. His face pales light blue to stark white, and sky blue blood seeps out of his neck. He collapses backwards onto the cot, choking on his own blood. With his last coherent thought, he fixes his gaze on the prison bars, but the girl is already gone.
She speeds through the hallways, confident enough in her knowledge of the castle that she barely hesitates at every turn. Except for one. She falters at a gigantic, towering doorway, not insecure about her location, but about what lies within. From the entrance, she lays eyes upon a monstrous, behemoth machine. It runs all the way around the room, clinging to the walls like it’s growing on them. Pipes, wires and monitors of all shapes and sizes crowd even this huge space, every piece of the maze of metal winding and worming its way back to the central control panel, where seemingly thousands of buttons and switches are clustered. The thing exudes a sense of evil and not-right-ness that makes the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. She takes a couple cautious, silent steps into the room, passing a holographic image depicting electrical currents, and a moving map of nearby dimensions, shifting on their different planes of reality. This is the other half of the machine that can control billions of lives. The assassin despises it, and all that it represents, but she can’t destroy it. Not only does the mere act of looking at it send a shiver of fear down her spine that she hasn’t known in years, but looking at it now, if she tried to do anything to it, it would be just as likely for her to accidentally destroy the world with it than actually destroy it. She decides that murdering its organic power source will just have to be enough. Glad to be free of the hateful machine and the ‘being watched’ feeling it gives her, she backs out of the room. Racing down the passage, she smirks arrogantly, all her confidence returned now that she’s back in her element. Her subconscious notes how dependent the security is on every citizen being under trance. High walls, sure, but no guards, no forcefield, and only a few cameras. By the time they know she had been here, she won’t be. The black cloak billows out behind her as she sprints for the large window down the hall, pulling a strange-looking blaster out of her inside pocket as she does so. She fires it at the glass, blazing a beam of bright green light straight through it, and sending sharp shards raining down on the grounds, ten tall, terrifying stories below. Stowing away the blaster, she removes another, gun-like object, with four barbed prongs protruding from the barrel. She fires the prongs into the wall below the window, and, still holding the device; now attached to the prongs by a shimmering, metallic rope; climbs carefully through the broken window. Once on the ground, she takes off running through gardens. She has places to be. Or rather, one place not to be. Here. The assassin vaults over the last wall using the hook, and escapes into the pitching, turbulent night.
