Chapter One

Allen was nervous, though not visibly; all the skills he had been taught over his first ten years on the
Kantalan were being put to the test. he was standing in a depressingly deep pit partially filled with
sand, under a large blue and gold Endrite dome that was the roof of the Kantalan’s stadium. On the
ground in front of him there was a large metal door with a lock on it. he had been told that under that
door some of the most vicious creatures ever known were held.

When the tournament began, the human guards would open that door and the creatures would clamber
out of that hole and attack me and the other trainees. The trainee’s goal was to tempt the alien species
back under the door without being killed - not too hard!

Just then a loud trumpeting noise erupted around the walls of the stadium and the humans standing at
the edges of the pit shuffled to the metal door and reached down. One of the humans lifted a key from
his belt and slotted it into the lock on the door. The others braced to pull on the edge of the door.

The lock gave a sharp click and the humans pulled. As the door was lifted, the pit underneath
swallowed the light. A pair of horns poked from the blackness, followed by a third, much shorter horn
and then an armoured head. The graxh’s eyes flicked around in their sockets as the creature surveyed
its unfamiliar surroundings. Then its eyes settled on me, and only on Allen. It waited a second for him
to run and, when he didn't, it leaped out of the hole and charged.

As it reached the red line a metre in front of the trainees, I considered running, but the graxh could
out-run me in a few seconds and pound me to a paste. There was just no point in running I decided,
but my train of thought was disrupted by someone near me shouting “Run!” at the top of their lungs.
The rest of the trainees fled as the graxh lowered its head and pointed its three horns at me.

If He was scared he didn't show it., “Could you please stop waving those things in my face? It's not
very polite” Allen said. The graxh had expected Allen to run, so when he didn't it stepped back a bit
and shook its head in confusion.

I noticed this hesitation. It was small, but it was enough. I grasped the two longer horns on the graxh's
head and gripped tightly. I could feel my fear of this huge creature, but I would not back down. I felt a
sharp pain surging up through my legs. I glanced down and found my clothes steaming. I looked at
my bare hands and they were glowing like a light and growing brighter by the second. Annoyingly my
pain grew with it. I looked closer and found miniature flames curling around my fingertips. My first
thought was, ‘Hey, why aren't I burning?’ I could feel myself getting hotter until I was glowing with
heat. The graxh’s horns started to burn and did not stop until there were only smouldering stumps
remaining.

As the graxh ran yelping into the dark hole, I stood panting in the middle of the pit, with sand
whirling around me and settling in huge mounds on the ground. I could feel the pain and heat draining
out of me, leaving me cold and shivering before the hole.

A slithering noise echoed around the sides of the stadium. A mass of tentacles squirmed from the
hole, followed by a small, green-shelled head on a short neck connected to a mound of flesh mostly
covered by a large dark-green and blue crusty shell. Compared to the graxh, this slithering beast was
huge.
It slid ominously across the sand to the group of young trainees. As it pulled itself along the ground,
its seeking tentacles reached their full extent and the Trillik heaved a trainee off their feet. I realised it
was Violet, a trainee I had made friends with in training sessions. The girl was carried towards the
beast’s massive jaws by long tentacles.

Violet’s view was now of long, pink, fleshy tentacles extending from small depressions that had
grown in a rough circle around the animal’s maw. It’s terrifying mouth sported a long, forked tongue
lurking behind seemingly continuous rows of small sharp teeth.

I knew that if I did not do something soon Violet would not survive. I reached down for some sand
and threw it at the beast in my frustration. As I did so I felt myself heat up again. The sand leaving my
fingers hardened into glass. The blast of heat travelled through the cloud of thrown sand forming it
into sharp daggers. They flew towards the creature and I was convinced they would bounce off the
beast’s sturdy shell, but instead they soared through it and punctured the flesh. In pain, the large
Trillik dropped Violet who started running for the door, dripping with Trillik's rubbery saliva.

The Trillik writhed in the sand and then squelched to the large doors that were the trainees’ exit out of
the stadium. It slid straight over the guards and their electrically charged spears. The sheer weight of
the dangerous being was enough to snap the nearly unbreakable Endrite poles that the guards gripped.

The Trillik’s head acted as a battering ram as the hulking beast broke through the heavily guarded
door. Its flippers pounded as it charged up the stairs and out into the large corridors that ran through
the whole interior of the Kantalan.

At the sudden noise of the reinforced door cracking, the rest of the trapped creatures surged from the
hole and out into the stadium. Allen backed away as a herd of Crelbar emerged, large animals with
eight eyes, six legs and hairy bodies. There were Trellis, grey, adult-sized humanoids with four arms.
And there was a creature that he had never seen before. It was huge! Larger than any other living
thing in the stadium, and it was covered in what looked like flaming ice (this should be impossible,
but the Ice was not melting!).

Its huge hands pounded the metal grid that enclosed the deep sandy pit. The audience screamed and
the icy creature emitted a long ear-splitting noise that came from its black, tunnel of a mouth. It raked
its claws across the grid that enclosed the sandy arena and the grid immediately gave way, collapsing
with the loss of structural support.

Around me armed Trellis charged the dazed arena guards, while a cohort of fully armed security
guards tackled more Trellef that had invaded the stadium's top box.

The guards sent out a distress call, then started to round up all the citizens and direct them to the
safety pods - all spaceships of the XY-232 class, including the Kantalan, had a gallery of safety pods
in the same design as those used as escape craft in the war after the Galactic collision. The pods had
small rockets on long wings and an aerodynamic cockpit that could house up to fourteen people for
long flights and twenty people for short flights. The pods would navigate themselves to the nearest
planet or moon with an atmosphere containing the vital ingredients for life. As Allen ran to the
trainees’ pods, he saw people from various planets starting their safety pod escape programs.

Looking back Allen could see the large icy creature tearing several girders from the ceiling. As he
watched, part of the ceiling collapsed, spilling space’s cold vacuum into the once-warm corridor…

I could tell that something was wrong, I didn't know how, but I just could.
My suspicions were confirmed as a huge white and grey head crashed through the wall beside me.
And my only thought was ‘that shouldn't be happening!’. As the hole widened, a group of four-armed
grey skinned aliens charged the humans standing guard outside the stadium's main entrance.

I fled, (oh, brave me!) running down the corridor. As I turned to face the door that should lead to the
ship dock, I saw a group of particularly nasty looking grey aliens, then felt a sharp pain in the back of
my head as the world went black.

When I came to, I saw a few large grey faces grinning down at me. ‘Hmm’ I thought ‘I may need a
way out of this’. Just then, as I started trying to form an escape plan, something flew across the room,
leaving the aliens standing with surprised expressions as they noticed the new holes in their chests
(nice new fashion statement!) They tipped and fell, crashing to the floor at the same time, making a
mess that I doubted the janitors would want to clean up.

A trainee limped into the corridor, a look of exhaustion on his face, he collapsed about a metre from
me. I got up and walked to his side “You okay!?” I said.

“...Yes…I think there's...one...one escape pod...left…”. The trainee gasped and held out his hand, and
I realised he wanted to be helped up. I grabbed his hand and pulled him up. “Come on, it's this way”
he said, and he started walking towards the door that led to the dock. Sure enough there was one X-
3437 class escape pod left hovering just inside the dock’s air bubble. “Hurry up!”, the trainee’s voice
echoed around the dock. I ran to the space pod and clambered inside.

The trainee introduced himself as Allen and then promptly passed out, falling onto the only bed
available. That left me one, bed-less, and two, to start the ship. Well, at least I know how to do that.
Once I had got the ship on a course straight to the nearest hospitable planet, I went to see how Allen
was doing, I found him in the dining room of the ship, drinking Apzeles juice from a bottle the size of
a chair. Just as I was about to ask if I could have some too, the ship listed to one side and the wall
seemed to get bigger as I fell towards it. THUNK!, “Ugg!” my vision clouded as I veered into a state
of unconsciousness.

(dear reader, that may sound undignified, but it was only because they had just made an incredibly
crash like landing and Brian passed out before he could tell his comrade what might have brought
them down).

As I opened my eyes I was welcomed into a dark but beautiful flowery forest environment by a wet
lick from the tongue of a cute little creature the size of my middle finger with golden brown fur and a
thin fluffy tail, it cocked its head to one side when I reached out to brush it off where it lay on my
chest, I hesitated, trying to decide whether or not to brush the cute creature into the thorny
undergrowth when a disembodied voice said “hello, what’s your name?” "Aahh!!!” I yelled “who,
what and where are you?” “ooh, it speaks!” another disembodied voice drifted through the trees. Then
a louder voice cut through the noise “silence! we must answer their questions! Okay, creature, to
humans we are known as the pygmy marmosets or Cebuella pygmaea, although we call ourselves,
the mighty, and, to answer your second question we are all around you” Allen chose that moment to
wake up and heat up, lighting the area and showing us where the voices were coming from, showing
us that they were thousands of tiny monkeys, at the sight of Allen, or maybe his “power” they
scampered away. Soon the forest was silent apart from my slow breathing as I settled into a slight
sense of security “okay...what exactly were those?” “Those were Cebuella Pygmaea, if I’m not
mistaken” a new voice, a female one this time, sounded right behind "Ahh!” I whirled to face the
noise and found a humanoid creature staring at me with big, brown, unblinking eyes “EEEK!!!” I
screamed “who are you?!”

“You will address me as your highness, but my name is Rebazzena Caleren Evozi-jala Harovi-sha”

“Rebazzena who what-what who?”

“Sorry, please forgive my comrade for stumbling over your divine name, Princess Rebazzena Caleren
Evozi-jala Harovi-sha” “Oh, you’re interesting, I shall take you back to the campsite with me” as she
turned to look at Allen and Princess whoever whatever who what-what, I noticed that they seemed to
be the same species, big brown eyes, blue skin, and slightly larger and longer limbs “come on...wait,
what's your name?” “Tezren” “right, let’s go” “come on, you slowpokes, I’ll leave you here if you
don't start moving!” “Yes, yes, we’re coming” and when I noticed Allen shooting daggers at me I
added, “Princess”.

As Tezren waited for my plasma shield to charge, he walked up and down the line of Trelias the army
of my people had taken as prisoners in the battle at the edge of the forest.

As they lay coughing and dehydrated, Tezren felt pity, because why should any sentient species, or
any species for that matter, suffer like this, in the scorching heat of the desert, out of their natural
habitat and with little water.

He heard somebody moan in pain and turned to face the sound. Tezren found a teenager around the
age of fifteen with his arm wrapped around a crying child, “is he okay ” “just lightly sick, sir” the
Prisoner replied “if you have any medicine for fevers that would be good” “well lucky for you I have
some right here” I reached into my pocket (legionnaires always had something to keep them safe from
colds and fevers) and pulled out a bunch of flower petals that were a highly effective cure for almost
any sickness.

“There you go” I leaned closer while giving the medicine to the Trelias and whispered in his ear ‘I am
planning to free all the prisoners really soon, trust me, but not the other legionnaires, pass it on’ the
message was passed down the line as I returned to pacing and whistling in front of the poor prisoners.

Just then I hear the dull thudding of feet on the compacted sand of the campsite and the painting of a
sentry running in full armour. as he rounded the corner he said, “All legionnaires to the guest house,
we have visitors'”.

As I neared the guest house, I heard loud roars of the counsellors debating whether the new guests
could stay.

when the door was opened and I was inside, I saw the counsellors were all there, and the Princess was
seated at the end of an incredibly long table with a human resting his head in his hands and looking
exasperated. While a strange caverebian stood still (impossible for me) next to the Princess with a
serious face on (I have never been able to manage that either).

I took up my position next to the entrance while a few more legionnaires.

Once I had positioned myself I listened in on the conversation that was going on in front of me and
flinched when the high counsellor roared “THEY CANNOT STAY!!”, “what about the peace treaty
my father was trying to form with other planets, this could help” the Princess put her legs up on the
table and leaned back, picking her fingernails and looking up passively at the high counsellor “plus, I
do have a much higher status than you, eh, don't I? So, I mean, I could order you to let them stay”.
“yes, my Princess” the counsellor snarled “You could, normally, but this time I have been given the
right to emergency control by your father the king and so even if you-” his sentence was cut short as
the Princess brought her left hand forward in a fist, catching the high counsellor in the stomach and
flinging him off his feet and towards the hard pillars of stone.

He hit the wall and slid to the floor, unconscious and winded.
The princess stood brushing her hands on her clothes as though getting imaginary dust off her hands
“now that's how I deal with people who disagree with me! “She stared at the counsellors who
remained on their feet ‘Right then, the guests will be dining with the remaining counselors and me at
dinner, and in the meantime somebody go and get me a drink.

Fnn (pronounced Fen) waited quietly in his cell for the Caverebian guard who would(supposedly)
free them and take them back to the forest.

Soon Fnn heard shouting and looked for the cause of it. There were two humanoids that were too far
away to note their specific species, but one was burning, like, on fire, and the other was twirling a
spear around. A few seconds later the guy stopped burning and muttered something along the lines of
‘‘holy sh** I didn’t think that would work again!”. Fnn realized what the two people were doing and
whirling around shouted to his cellmates (or whatever they should be called) and shouted at them,
“time to go, get ready to run!”. The burning guy walked over and melted the bars with his hand. With.
His. Flaming (literally). Bare. Hand! The guards threw their spears at him trying to stop him, but it
was all for naught (or in vain) as the supposedly un-meltable metal melted millimetres from his skin.
When Fnn stepped out of the cell he realized that the burning guy was a caverebian, like the people
who had imprisoned him, but for some reason he was helping the other guy, who was the guard from
before who had given me a bottle of water because of the heat of the sun and the scratching sand. He
held his hand as if to shake hands and then looked down at his hand, somehow stopped the flame and
said, “oh, sorry, I’m still getting used to it”. Fnn didn't know what that meant but shook the other
teenager’s hand anyway, “I’m Fnn, how about you? you look like you grew up in the middle of
nowhere with those clothes of yours and the, ah, burning hands. They are not exactly a fashion at the
moment”, “oh, I’m Allen, you're probably thinking that's not a normal name for a caverebian, but I
kinda was raised in the middle of nowhere, in a spaceship that used to hold monsters from another
planet. The monsters escaped during an event and broke the engine and the whole ship came down,
we were the last ones that jumped into an escape pod”, “‘we’?”, “oh, right, Brian come here!”. A
human appeared out of the shadows right next to Fnn and Allen, “um, hi,” he said, “I’m Brian,
human, uh, thief, and engineer”, the prisoners with important possessions edged away from him
slowly, Brian laughed “hah, no, I don't steal any more, I was a thief, sorry”. The prisoners stopped
edging away and looked cautiously at Fnn as if for reassurance, “um, I trust them, I guess?”.

"Anyway “said Allen, “we’ve come to free you and get you back to the forest”. The prisoners all
started to look hopeful and a few seconds of nervous chatter later a prisoner yelled, rather too loudly,
“well then, let's get going!”, “shut up, the guards will hear us” Fnn mouthed.

Suddenly there was a roar, and a guard ran around the corner with his titanium shield on fire. “The
genFive dragons are free!” (yup, there are genetically made dragons now). The guard neared a
weapon rack next to the cells when a blast of fire knocked him over, “Allen, don't do that” yelled
Brian” he might be on our side!”, “it wasn't me!!!” Allen yelled back, “what was it then!?” Brian
yelled again. A scaly head peeked around the corner and roared, shooting flames at the wall, and
making the guard cower in a half-melted prison cell. Fnn grabbed a bow from a nearby weapon rack,
picked up an arrow, nocked and fired in one swift movement. The arrow hit the dragon and bounced
off the cobbles. “Oh crap” said Fnn, the dragon turned towards them and shot fire at them, in seconds,
they were engulfed in flame.

I hope you never get to experience the bathroom being stampeded by giant, hairy, six legged beings
while you are washing your hands, it is not fun. sadly, violet is experiencing it right now.

Their six legs made holes in the floor and I reached for the dagger that hung in my belt, when I felt the
leather of the handle I drew it out of its light scabbard and turned to face the Crelbars.
The Crelbars were facing the wall on the opposite side of the room to the one I was standing in and
paid me no attention when I shuffled slowly towards them, dagger at the ready. When I could have
reached out and touched the bristly hair on the Crelbars legs I swung the dagger at them and left one
with five legs and another with a shaved head. I ran to the door and looked back, and the Crelbars
were still paying me no attention! So I sat there and observed the strange behaviour of the large, hairy
beasts as they scratched and bit the wall.

As I sat there I became aware of a strange whirring sound that came from the direction of the engine
room, when I poked my head around the engine room’s door there were large humanoid creatures
whacking the engines housing with spanners and wrenches, ‘they're destroying it!’ I thought, ‘the
ships gonna lose all its power if they get through that and start whacking the engine’ then I
remembered that the engine had a thick endrite layering that could not be pierced by the regular
electro spears, or, for that matter, spanners, and wrenches. Just as had assured myself that the engine
was almost invincible I realised that it was almost invincible, there was only one thing that could
destroy reinforced endrite was a model II core destroyer with star flame ammunition, but there was no
possibility that primitive creatures like the ones I saw in front of me could have one.

The sound of bare feet slapping against the floor made me hide behind the nearest door I could find,
which led back to the girl’s bathroom, the one with the Crelbar in it, the one with the Crelbar in it that
were now looking at me and emitting a noise that sounded like nails being dragged across a
blackboard and occasionally swiping at me with their long, clawed legs.

I drew my dagger from where I had sheathed it in its scabbard and advanced slowly. One of the
Crelbar stepped forward and snarled at me, making me shuffle backwards a-bit, but just as I was about
to continue my advance somebody said, "Any bad moves and you’re out the airlock”, then I felt
something sharp being poked into my back “now move! we’re putting all you leftovers in a pod and
letting you go, he, he, he, oh and by leftovers I mean the ones who didn’t make it to the escape pods
when they were supposed to, which means that they will have a few ‘minor’ injuries from a few
animals that escaped the tournament or whatever it was along with us, but not to worry” I got poked
again and then I started walking, away from 0the sharp thing that had poked me in the back twice. But
sadly, in the direction that I was now walking lay the engine room, noises were coming from the
engine room, loud, banging noises, and the sound of cranking, as I was poked past the door, I saw
some of the “primitive” grey aliens powering a model II core destroyer and a heap of star flame
ammunition lying in the corner of the room and I thought ‘say whaaat now? How did they get that
stuff?’, but soon I had been poked past the doorway and towards the pod gallery.

We (the being poking me and me) were motioned towards an old, rusty little spaceship by a short, fat
human with an evil smile on his face. When I entered the pod, it took me a few seconds for my eyes to
adjust but then I saw a dozen or so young teenagers huddled in one corner, talking to each other in
hushed voices. When they heard my feet shuffling on the dirt covered floor they stopped whispering
and looked up, I said “hi I’m-” but I was cut off by the short human before I could finish speaking,
“silent! After my men have gone and double-checked all the rooms and hallways and brought back
anybody they find I will fire you out into space, I would you over to Scorch the almighty, where you
would live, but I no longer serve that heap of robes and crowns, so I will do it my way for once” then
he shut the hatch with a slam.

A few minutes and a dozen or so failed attempts at conversation with the teenagers later I stopped
trying to create an escape plan and started trying to get out of the little ship in which we were
imprisoned. I soon found that although the walls were rusty and had many holes in them they were
harder than stone (I don't know about you, but I definitely can't punch through stone!) so I gave up
and plonked my bum down on the creaky floor and sighed, I guess this is the end, then. wait a second,
the floor! that's my way out! I started pounding the rusty floor with both my fists and soon part of it
gave way, but just before it hit the ornately carved ground I caught it, making sure none of the grey,
inhuman guards noticed. I punched the floor some more times and another piece gave way, and then
another, and another, soon there was a gaping hole through which a thin person could fit, so I lowered
myself feet first through it and onto my hands and knees and shuffled towards the edge of the ship and
looked around, there were three guards following the short man and at least a dozen more guarding
the entrance and exit of the pod gallery, ‘damn’, I thought ‘my only way out of this place is blocked,
think Violet, think’ slowly I looked around and looked for options, there was an air vent, patch up hole
in the wall, and a laser blaster on a bench. The air vent was too obvious, the small man would have
positioned guards everywhere. The noise from firing the laser blaster would make everybody come
running. And so that left the patched-up hole in the wall, which was also a bit obvious, but sadly it
was the only way out. So I crawled slowly towards it and had soon reached the easily breakable fabric
that covered the hole.

I hit the cover a few times and it tore, then I climbed into the space between the inner and the outer
walls of the spacecraft. It was cramped and musty, but I could fit if I stood horizontal to the outer
wall. Soon I had reached the captain's office, I knew this because I could hear loud rock music and I
could feel the floor vibrating underfoot. I put my ear to the wall and listened to see if the aliens were
in there, after a few seconds of listening, I was sure that there was nobody there, so I started to kick
the wall, and since it was thin and flimsy I was through in seconds. As I surveyed the room I saw a
long-range communication device, a space suit hanging up in the flash cupboard, and a jet back
leaning against the wall and I thought, 'I know what to do with this!’

Chapter Two
High up on an artificial floating island (yes, there are non-artificial floating islands. Seriously) a
human was relaxing in the hot sun. This particular human had never really liked the black castle idea
that warlords were supposed to have and had decided to go for a more modern look, so he had a flat
roofed, stone walled house. With a pool flowing over the edge of the floating island into a pond that
had carved a pit into the very tip of a nearby mountain the building was probably the costliest as well
as the most spectacular human creation ever. The human’s name was Roland, he was human not
because he came from earth (because he didn't), but because his parents came from earth, and his
parent’s parents, and so on. Roland’s father had been an intergalactic warlord and now Roland was
one too, although he was less on the intergalactic scale. Roland’s friend, Rebazzena Caleren, was the
daughter of the king of half a planet and had become a warlord just like her grandfather (is she a
warlordess then?). Rebazzena, called Rebel by her friends, had her own castle just three kilometres
from the half of the planet that the king didn’t own. The side that they didn’t own, the forest,
supposedly uninhabited (the king thought this) area was inhabited by a humanoid species that Rebel
had been using as slaves. lately a few had escaped, aided by a human and two cavarebians, one of the
cavarebians a guest invited to dine at a feast along with the human, the other a guard.

Right now, Roland was outside in his half-a-kilometre long garden reading the latest letter from Rebel
and polishing his set of white Endrite Armor. The letter bore bad news, the escapees had started
planting trees that grew and planted themselves and so the forest had started growing rapidly. so had
the population of creatures that now roamed near the forest's edge and occasionally the large ones
created holes in the castle wall when out hunting and let in the forest people who then planted trees
inside the grounds.

Just then, as Roland finished reading the letter, he heard a snapping noise and turned around. He heard
the snapping noise again and the teleporter that was in the centre of his house buzzed and turned on.
Again, he heard the snapping noise behind him and realized it was coming from the twigs that lay
scattered around the garden, then he heard somebody's voice right behind him, "Are you Roland?”
“yup” Roland said and turned around and got hit in the face with a lump of metal (we think it was
metal). Then, everything went black, at least for Roland it did.
Today’s earth was a mix of every year, place, and living being that ever existed (-on earth). Each day
new things appeared. new places suddenly existed. things from the future came flying past Neolithic
settlements, things from the past appeared out of nowhere. All this was caused by a rip in the fabric of
the Multiverse. On one occasion Theia crashed into earth a second time- and wiped-out half of both
planets’ populations, unlike scientists (as well as other people) thought, there was sentient life on Theia.
After brief discussions of peace and a few one-hundred-year wars called The Unearthly Wars the two
species settled into coexisting. The peace was broken when earth scientists from the year twelve
Theiarthillion, created a bomb that worsened the rip in the fabric of the Multiverse and let myths and
thoughts come into the real world, and as the theians said “this means war”. But honestly, it means
dragons and giants, as well as the Apollo crew not landing on the moon, that's now forever a crescent
made of cheese (yellow cheese!, with holes!) and has a face so, yeah.

Anyway, onto the story.

Sven BjØrnslakter (young warrior bear slayer), was the son of chief Erik Eriksonerikson… (Erik son of
Erik son of Erik…), ruler of many lands. Sven had killed a bear when he ran away from home (for five
minutes) and stumbled into a bear cave at the age of seven, Sven had continued being one of the
strongest kids to have been born into a Viking band. Today, Sven had some form of warrior training on
the stormy seas of loch uvoiuer. Sven’s instructor today was Erik Erikbro, brother of Erik, a Viking
from the “future” (today, but about one billion years further) with a hammer forged from endrite and a
piece of cheese from the moon. On such a cloudless night the moon could be seen smiling down at them
from the sky (oh, the moon is also the sun now (I think people actually believe that).

“So”, said Sven “what are we doing today”

“Shh!” the instructor said, “we are waiting for the saber toothed starling chicks to come out” (me: uh
oh)

This class was for the overachievers who had beaten Cal the weakling, a Viking who only just made
through warrior training in the old days of the Viking empire, and Erik Eriksonerikson.

Suddenly a loud snapping noise came from over the edge of the longship, Sven peered over the side and
got a face full of fangs as a chick rocketed out of the water at top speed, its beak wide open.

I bet you are all thinking “how could a baby bird be so scary”, but seriously, let's take a moment to
imagine the chick and how terrifying it must have been.

Since it is the future and the past and everything, starling chicks are not cute. Its jaws were out of
proportion to the rest of its body, they held rows and rows of needle like teeth, its claws were long and
crooked, it had a strange green light coming out of its eyes, and it held an old book in its front hands (it
has four arms and two legs, two of its arms had wings with taloned hands on the end and its other arms
had what seemed to be magnetic fields floating on the ends(weird)).

So, anyway, Sven was pulled over the edge of the boat and into the ice filled loch by the chick’s long
talons. He was dragged deeper and deeper by the water breathing chick, soon he could see the sand and
shipwrecks at the bottom. As the chick swam along it drew the attention of many other sea dwelling
creatures, after a while he closed his eyes and focused on not drowning, the one thing he was any good
at.

After what seemed like hours Sven could hold his breath no more and opened his eyes and then his
mouth, instantly his insides were flooded and he started wriggling, trying to free himself from the
chick’s grasp and get to the surface, but no matter how hard he pulled, and no matter how hard he
pushed or wriggled the chick kept a firm hold of Sven’s arm. In a few seconds Sven’s vision clouded
and went black.

When he woke up he coughed up the water that remained and looked at his surroundings. Surprisingly,
he wasn’t drowning, then he looked up and saw the moon and a few trees, he looked down at his legs
and found that most of his body was under the water. He got up and turned around drowsily, after his
vision had focused he heard a voice say, “are you okay?”, “yeah” Sven replied while coughing up water,
“good” the voice said, and then Sven felt pain and fell into unconsciousness for the second time.

Ten years ago, in a space station, a young girl called Heather had been extracted from a cryogenic
chamber on board the Wave, and taken to the Magician, a planet sized space station that contained a
city, a forest, and a large ocean. Apparently she had been frozen at the age of three and left for over a
thousand years. It had taken her an awfully long time to catch up on the differences of her time to that
of now.

Anyway, over the years she had been put through several tests to determine her grades and, after
many shocked remarks she had been enrolled in an overachiever’s college. In the year after that she
had:

1. Graduated from college

2. Earned a PhD in twelve subjects
3. And started a company that created human-like A.I (where she was the only worker)

Now she had sold the company and was living at the edge of the city and working for a company who
were trying to create a Dyson swarm.

Now, she was walking up the uphill street that takes her to work. She passed a large power plant when
she heard a cracking noise, and she looked up and saw a hunk of cement falling from the side of the
building where she was. She planned its trajectory and calmly stepped to the left, the hunk hit the
space where she had been standing and rolled over a sapling that had been planted at the side of the
road and continued rolling down the steep hill. She looked up again and saw several larger chunks
falling, this time scattered around the area. She sidestepped one as it landed and was narrowly missed
by another while the rest landed harmlessly a few meters away, she glanced up for a third time and
grabbed her phone and called the police.

She was getting sick of waiting for them to pick up when a voice came through the phone’s speaker.
“yes?” it said, Heather sheltered behind a steel car as another stone feel, “sir, I am being bombarded
by stones at the plants for the future power plant and I was wondering if you could do anything, with
you being, like, the safety crew for this planet sized space station?”, muffled voice as though the guy
had his hand over the phone “safety squadron to plants for the future” and it hung up. Heather
suddenly felt a shudder in the ground and looked up at just the moment the largest chunk of cement
came out of the wall directly above her, and since she wasn't very sporty or anything but smart instead
she knew that there was not time to escape this last one, she thought “damn, I’ve got no last words”,
closed her eyes and imagined all the possibilities of what could happen, sadly, the only one that
happened was that she was crushed.

The end, bye.

Or, at least, it should be the end if her powers hadn’t kicked in.
Yes, her powers. When the cement was only inches above her head a glowing, translucent “half-
sphere” blinked into existence over Heather’s head. The chunk came crashing down and cracked a bit
on the top of it, leaving heather with a stony dome over the top of her.

She opened her eyes and brushed the dust off her clothes, then she looked around and noticed the
chunk and slowly disappearing sphere and screamed the sphere dissipated and heather jumped to
avoid the stone balancing on top.

So, at a guess I would say that her powers are that she can create some sort of solid plasma forms.

Soon the safety crew had appeared, and Heather was sitting in the corner wrapped in a blanket and
wondering if she had gone mad. The safety crew left after a quick survey of the damage and told her
to go and rest.

She was walking home when suddenly a deep, growling voice said, “don't move!”. Heather was about
to ask why when she felt something cold and rough against her hand, she looked down and found a
long snake slithering its way up her arm, and then it. She was about to flick it off when it disappeared
in a flash of smoke, only to reappear on her other side on her shoulder. it continued to teleport until it
was Suddenly it flashed again but this time it appeared in a glowing, floating net that had not been
there a second ago, then the mysterious voice said, “it's safe now”.

Considering what had happened to her this evening she stayed reasonably calm, and when I say
reasonably, I don't really mean reasonably, I mean that she fainted, after yelling.

“it's safe, is it?! Hah! This evening I was almost crushed to death by cement, and then discovered that
I have some weird ability, and then this teleporting snake and then…” she was saying when she
whirled to face the voice, and then stopped, because the owner of the voice was a large, humanoid,
wolf. Or at least, there was a wolf head on top of a furry humanoid body with human-ish hands and
arms, and oversized wolf legs (they were larger than normal wolf’s legs), he/she/it was wearing a
large endrite chest plate and was holding a small green stone in one hand. “who, are you?”, the guy(is
that what I should call it/him/she?) walked away slowly and then smashed the stone down onto a
fallen piece of cement, it dissolved into the air and then a hole appeared in the pathway near the wolf
guy. He(i’m deciding to call it a he) turned around and beckoned to Heather, she hesitated for a
second and then thought “well, compared to the rest of the things that have happened, it can't be that
bad'', and walked over to the wolf guy, he jumped in and soon Heather could no longer see him. She
stared into it, wondering what it was.

It was like a small black hole, it wasn't much of a hole but a place where the pavement just
disappeared, leaving nothing there. Suddenly she heard a poof and the snake appeared on her arm
again. She struggled to get it off and forgot about the hole. She stumbled over the edge and fell in.

The sensation was horrible, it was like repeatedly falling nettles, the (almost) worst thing was that it
was just falling, falling and falling and falling.

Heather didn't even notice when she fell out of the “hole” and into a lake, because she was wriggling
in pain and trying(plus failing) to not notice it.

When the snake hit the water it poofed again and landed on the shore.

The wolfman yelled at her from the other side of the lake “quickly, swim towards me before the
carnivorous coral gets you!”

She looked under the water and sure enough, there were long yellow and purple tentacles of coral
snaking towards her.
“EEK!” she screamed.

The wolf guy threw a spear and for a second Heather thought she was trying to kill her, but instead,
the spear flew past her and pinned the coral to the sandy lake floor.

“Quick!” he yelled.

Swimming wasn't Heather’s strong suit and so she started sinking

“Help! Help! Hel-glub” heather screamed as her mouth filled with water.

The wolf guy jumped into the lake and swam surprisingly fast and was hauling Heather out of the
water and onto dry land in a matter of seconds.

When Heather sank underwater she started to faint, and by the time she was safe and on the beach, she
was fully unconscious.

So now, she lay “sleeping” with the quiet wolfman sitting on a log and feeding a fire.

The sun fell, and then rose again and heather still didn't wake.

As the sun fell again little, glinting eyes started to appear out of the darkness. Soon the whole area
was surrounded by small blinking “lights”.

Then small, clawed hands reached out of the darkness, and then? Then the fire went out.

Sven was not in a good mood when he woke up, and he instinctively rolled to the side and got up.
Good thing he did, because just then a large, mad looking bear tore through the bushes and landed on
the spot where Sven had been a second ago. It turned to face him and Sven got a better look at it. It
was foaming at the mouth and had several cut marks on its legs and face.

It snarled at him and he ducked as it jumped at him, it sailed over and landed in a rose bush (ouch!).
An arrow flew past his ear so close that it nicked his ear. He dodged the next one and the third went
right through his shoulder.

He doubled over in pain and his eyes were clouded with pain, he felt a rough bag shoved over his
head, but he didn't care.

Then he heard a growl from the bear and through a small hole in the bag he could see the bear being
dragged off into a cage by four heavily armoured men(no wonder it's crazy). “Let me go!” Sven
yelled. The people holding him kept on walking as though they were only dragging a bag, and not a
fellow human.

After what seemed like hours of being over rocks down a hill they arrived at what Sven hoped was the
ending of his horrible overland “journey”.

The bag was taken off his head and as Sven’s eyes adjusted to the light he saw a large man sitting in
what looked to be a throne. The man was wearing a large mask that seemed to be “who is it?”

The guy standing next to him said, “We found this guy lurking in the bushes around the camp and we
unleashed the bear because he looked like a Viking, and you know how dangerous they are”

“Hey!” Sven yelled indignantly, “I am Viking!”

“Not with that axe-less belt you aren't” the guy replied.

“Silence!” the large man bellowed, “throw him in the dungeons!”

Sven was dragged bodily back along the ground to a building about halfway between the shore and
the throne. The building consisted mostly of a large, stone roof and walls of a similar type. They were
sheltering a long flight of stairs.

Sven was pulled to his feet and the one of the two guys got out a knife from his belt and poked me in
the back, “down ya’ go”.

He prodded Sven again, “come on! Hurry up!”

Sven hung his head in despair. Was this to be his doom, Rotting in a dark dungeon on an unknown
island?

But wait! if it was unknown then how could they know what a Viking was. That must mean that there
has been, or is another Viking on this island.

Sven kept his head low and his face expressionless as he walked slowly down the steps.

“Common!” one of the guards shouted, “we don’t have all day!”

Sven sped up slightly and then whirled round and kicked out at the guard. He was caught full in the
chest and he fell to the ground, winded.