Chapter 1: Rise of Imperio

 

                The year was 2023. I sat in my brother Steve’s car, waiting for a doctor’s appointment, but it seemed most of Youngtown was there. That’s when it happened. I never saw my brother again. Many panicking people suddenly ran out, and the entire building burst into flames. The car flung to the side and I blanked. Out rose Imperio, a strange person made of fire that ravaged the streets of Youngtown for years to come. 

 

---5 YEARS LATER---

 

                BOOM! The “gods” continued to fight each other over something stupid like boot color. I snuck up the manhole to watch.

                “Let’s go, Conner!” yelled my friend, Sirius. Being alive just plain sucked. 

                I pulled out my rifle and watched the battle through the scope. The dude in blue was shooting energy from his nose and burning the silver lady’s cape. 

                Sirius and I raced down the sewers to a farther hole. We got off our hoverbikes and left them in  the musky pipe next to our vehicle. It was an old space military shuttle that Sirius wanted to call the “Hovee”, for hovering Humvee.

                We were the survivors of the Trials, an alien experiment to test human resilience. When the experiment started, I was just 10 years old. Luckily, I was in a coma from my car fling at the time, so I was safe in a hospital as everyone else was in an every-man-for-himself war. While the experiments killed most, they gifted others, known as The Enhanced. I was gifted the ability to feel future threats, heal injuries, and launch ionized gas (lighting) from my wrists, so ooh, now I’m Steel, the guy with the cool superhero name that has nothing to do with how my abilities work.

I was helping Sirius because he was my best friend in school, and also, he’s a good shot. It’s been 5 years. We have been trying to establish a sanctuary half that time, and once we defeated the bozos with lasers, we could do it.

Sirius jumped as a stray power beam flew in his direction. “If I die, I’m gonna kill you,” he said. “Let’s just find another planet!” 

 

“Deal!” I gasped as a bit of ugly rubber boot flew into my windblown brown hair. We ducked into the man hole, packed up our guns and bikes and flew off. 

“Are the weapons primed? We’re about to blast through an Imperio Trooper checkpoint!” Imperio Troopers were the guards of the powerful Enhanced called Imperius, but we called them bums. 

Sirius burned out a few troopers with the ion shooter and slapped detonators on the others. BOOM! “Sirius, are you getting trigger happy back there?” I asked.

“YESSSSS!” He yelled. 

“Good, we got bums inbound!” We were almost out of the sewer, but we would need to make a 180 turn in about half a second or we would crash. 

“PEW-PEW YOUR’E DEAD PEW-PEW-PEW!” Sirius screamed maniacally.

I chuckled, raced around the largest building, and was off. “Where to next?” 

We went into light space, like hyperspace in Star Wars only about 5 times faster.  

 

Chapter 2: Draconis

       

                We landed on cold, rocky Aurum 7 for refueling and to pick up our mysterious ally, Unknown. Codenames, am I right? Then, when we got the guy on the ship, he had a ski mask and sunglasses on. 

                “I guess we aren’t going to learn much about our new bud,” I said. We took off and flew towards the A-13 Nebula. FWOOOM! A BLACK HOLE WAS FORMING! I steered the shuttle as far as I could, but we were caught. BLIP! 

 

3 hours later

 

                “uugghhg…” Sirius groaned painfully. We were on the surface of a strange, dark, ashy planet. A six-foot tall being clad with navy blue armor and a sword approached us. “why ardffe yqoghbu hetyure?“ he (or she?) said.

                “What?” I asked. The being must have taken it as a threat because they yelled and pointed a sword at my face. “you will face our KING, the god of darkness and death, Draconis“ A new taller being said. “PING!” My translator beeped. “The sounds of the language resemble a breed of ancient Roman text found on the bottom of the Rosetta Stone. If so, ‘you will face our KING, the god of darkness and death, Draconis‘ is what they said.” 

                 The Draconians dragged us through hallways of obsidian and diamonds to a large seat in which sat an eleven-foot-tall reptilian man stroking a small lizard. “WHAT IS THIS? GET THESE TINY PEOPLE OUT OF MY THRONE ROOM, OR I WILL DESTROY YOU!“ 

                “Why are they all speaking different languages?” Sirius whispered. I shook my head in dizzying confusion. 

                the large king, probably Draconis, said. “this language?? Oh, come on, I must have covered you language by now!!!!”

“Now you have!” Sirius laughed. I remained quiet, wondering what mess we were in now. “I am Draconis, god of fire and death, darkness and woe. You are of no use to me.” He said. “of darkness and.“ He grunted to a guard, who picked us both up clear off the ground by the shirts and brought us towards a putrid hole in the ground in the corner. Sirius struggled and the guard hit him unconscious. Suddenly, the Draconian who had first found us at our crash site ran up to his king. 

“fgdjhury e!they have technology that could save us!“ he gasped. “NEW TECHNOLOGY? WE DO NOT NEED HELP IN OUR WAR! 

“PING!” my translator for some reason just now beeped. “wait! they have technology that could save us!” “NEW TECHNOLOGY? WE DO NOT NEED HELP IN OUR WAR!” 

“HEY! What if I can help you?” I said. “TRY TO BREAK FREEE AND IT WILL BE THE LAST THING YOU DO.” was his response. I broke free and threw an open health serum over a wounded Draconian. Draconis raised his eyebrows. The Draconian slowly picked up his body from the table and stood. He walked over to me and stared into my eyes. He looked over to Draconis and spoke a short phrase. “PING!  He will help.” 

 

Chapter 3: Unknown Dangers

 

                By now you must be thinking, WHERE THE HECK DID THAT CODENAME GUY GO?!?