Chapter 1 - An introduction to godhood



↤Prologue
Glo rolled over in bed, trying to close his eyes again. The clock next to him told the man that it was early in the morning, too early to even be thinking about getting out of the warm confines of his bed.

Glo groaned and blinked his bright scarlet eyes, rubbing them with an ashen white hand before using the other to run through his deep blue hair. The man had dyed it, so it stood out a little less in a crowd, it was rather unfortunate that his pale skin still drew stares whenever he was outside.

He blinked again before risking looking out of his shadowy room at the window set into the wall farthest from his bed, luckily for his poorly adjusted eyes, it was still dark outside. He didn't understand what had woken him up but theorised that it was probably one of the uncountable nightmares that had been plaguing him since the war began.

Glo was what we on Earth would consider an alien, the albino man hailed from a far-off planet called Nova. The planet was covered almost completely by a city with only a few sparse pockets of nature left here and there. Glo frequently dreamed of the planet, every time he watched the sphere burn from a spacecraft. He was completely unable to do anything. His home would be destroyed over and over again while he just sat and attended the Ragnarök blossoming before him, unable to do anything even as the tears rolled down his cheeks.

Glo shook the image out of his mind and pulled the covers down over himself, his efforts to get back to sleep were futile really; now he was awake, Glo would never crawl back into his hopefully dreamless sleep.

He swung his legs out from under his sheets and felt the cold floor under his bare soles, wincing as he touched down on the uncomfortably freezing ground. Glo didn’t really need to sleep all that much, but he enjoyed it as much as he could.

Glo took the time to shower, feeling better as the water rushed down his body. Walking out of the shower, he checked his clock again and rolled his eyes as it told him that maybe five minutes had passed in the bathroom.

He got dressed and checked his tablet, nothing exciting besides a rather choice message from his close friend Izzac. He chuckled at his friend and shot her back an equally snarky reply.

Glo quickly checked over the functions of the little device and made sure they were still in working order after his modifications to the little screen had sent the device smoking the evening before. Izzac's name was a curious one in the Novan alphabet, considering the letter "Z" doesn't exist in their smaller alphabet, replaced with an "S" noise. The word is pronounced with a slight hiss between the teeth, "Ishick." 

Everything was working remarkably well considering how drunk Glo had been the evening before, everything apart from his universal translation program. It was displaying information about a coding error that Glo decided he would fix later. Slipping the device into his pocket, the Novan man stretched and cracked his back. Izzac had replied to his comment, requesting to meet about something important but not missing out the very flamboyant vocabulary he knew her for and a rather apt description just how much she didn’t care that he couldn’t sleep.

Glo had known Izzac pretty much all his life, the other Novan was about a year older than him; something that she took great pleasure reminding him about at every opportunity even though the hundreds of years had blurred into one messy timeline Glo honestly wished he didn't remember all of.

Glo and Izzy were extremely close friends, the pair of them being practically inseparable since they met at five years old. Glo stood up and grabbed a coat, at night Nova was a cold, desolate planet and he was not in the mood for a frigid early morning walk. The Novan pushed his door open and stepped out into the brightly lit corridor of his apartment complex, the dark grey carpet was still singed from a fight the Novan man had had to deal with a few weeks prior. The apartment complex was a huge building, over five thousand Novans lived in this building alone. around the block Glo lived in were countless identical towers housing thousands more Novan men, woman and children.

It didn’t take him long to get to the ground floor; the lift was exceptionally fast compared to what we have on Earth. Glo slipped his coat on and shrugged the hood over his head before stepping out into the dark night. Now he looked decidedly emo; The crimson, pigmentless eyes and albino skin coupled with wearing nothing but black didn’t help with most other Novans’ opinions of him, Izzac frequently joked that he should get some dark makeup and daub it under his eyes to complete his skeleton-like look.

The lobby was empty besides the humanoid android that happily wished him a good evening, Glo waved at the humanoid robot rather dismissively. The android was dressed rather smartly for Novan standards, a dark grey jacket with a cord strap around its shoulder like a sash. Glo didn’t remember when he last bothered to dress formally; It might have been at his brother’s wedding or something like that, Cyan wasn't all that memorable.

The Novan man exited the apartment lobby and shivered in the sudden frigid air, his breath clouded in the air in front of him. He knew before stepping out that it would be cold outside, but not this cold. Glo muttered quietly that he’d be in his right mind to go back inside and go back to bed, but Izzac was expecting him and he couldn’t let her down. 

The city itself was inordinately futuristic compared to the cities we live in, dark with the lack of sunlight at night, someone had thrown a dystopian shadow over the buildings and streets like a thick, smothering blanket.

There were still some Novans out on the streets, late night revellers drunk off their faces needing to get home before some officer of the law came around and rounded them up like cattle. Glo walked past them towards the place he and Izzac had arranged. A small bar that you could find open all day – every day, the fluorescent sign above the door read Ders’ Bar and Diner, named after the android that ran the small establishment.

The ‘Diner’ is somewhat of an opinion considering Glo didn’t think he’d ever eaten something palatable there, but the android certainly knew how to make a good drink.

Glo walked into the building and noted the quiet music that was playing through the speakers in the dim room's corner. Human music, not something usually found on Nova. Glo immediately spotted Izzy, the woman was leaning up on the bar and chatting up the robot that ran the place.

Izzy was albino like he was, ashen skin and normally bright red eyes, although she usually wore contacts that made her irises appear bright blue. While Glo favoured black clothing, Izzy was far more flamboyant – wearing bright colours and jazzy patterns. At the moment she was in a rather subdued outfit, a dark red skirt and a sullen pink shirt that clashed dramatically with her bright orange hair.

“Izzac.” Glo said, walking up to the bar and sitting next to her.

The other Novan turned to her friend and grinned happily, “Glowie!” She cried out and hugged him lovingly. Glo struggled in the vice-like grip of the other Novan for a moment before patting her back, he wasn’t too fond of being surprise-hugged but had grown used to it from Izzac.

“You will not like this, Timey.” Izzy purred, her voice was light but had a sly undertone that made her seem like she was constantly scheming something.

“Do tell.” Glo replied, prying Izzy from around him. He knew that the other Novan would complain about the was that war against the Abstracts that had started a few years ago.

“We've been drafted” Izzac rather bluntly said.

Glo took a moment to process those three words before asking, “We’ve been what?”

“Drafted, don't you have functioning ears Glo?” Izzac repeated, rapping Glo's forehead with a spoon.

“Yes I know what drafted means Izzac.” Glo replied, gently stopping another culinary assault from his friend.

“We’ve been told to jump into the war.” Izzac grumbled. “Consort must be really serious about ending it as soon as they can.” 

Glo and Izzac were both Noble Novans, identified by their commonly albino skin, it was the similarity that the pair had first bonded over. Nobles were practically gods, connected to intrinsic parts that make up the universe; Glo held vigil over time itself while Izzac took care of gravity and a few other forces.

There were hundreds of Nobles on Nova and other planets, each of them held onto different parts of the universe. Controlling them and protecting their parts of nature with their lives.

Glo shook his head, he didn’t want to use his powers to fight an unjust war. Three years prior, a series of high-profile assassinations on Nova had sparked the conflict.

The people of Imagination were known as Abstracts, elusive and secretive creatures who will kill anything they’re paid enough to. Abstracts were fascinating to Glo, he’d worked alongside a few of them before in odd-jobs where they’d helped break into places the Noble had never thought possible.

“I’m not too happy about this, Izzy. When’d this come about?” Glo asked, beckoning the bartender with a wave of his hand.

“About three hours ago, it's to be publicly released this afternoon… Scotia got me some insider info.” Izzac answered before pausing a moment. “I don’t like it either.”

“How’s our man inside?” Glo asked before ordering a drink from Ders, who zipped off along the bar.

“He’s thinking of making yet another attempt for power, not going to go well for him I don’t think.” Izzy replied. Scotia was another Novan, not a Noble though, he was one of the current governor’s advisors and another friend of Izzy and Glo’s. Nobles were forbidden to have any hand in the running of the planet and its moon's government so one of their buddies Cathode had thought to gain someone who had a direct influence in the empire's government.

Glo chuckled at Izzy’s news, Scotia had always held illusions of grandeur and believed that he’d get into a real position and make his mark on the universe. Ders returned with Glo’s drink and the noble paid with a quick fingerprint scan on the back of the robot's hand. Ders had filled the glass with a swirling, gently glowing white liquid.

“One of those?” Izzy asked, eyeing the drink.

“I’ve not been sleeping Izzac. Let me have my alcohol in peace.” Glo snorted at his friend before tipping the glass into his throat and smiling as the burning drink slid down his throat.

Izzy smiled and kicked herself up off her chair to hang gently in the air as if she weighed nothing, Glo looked over at her hand and watched the black ring of power that encircled her wrist. Izzy didn’t appreciate walking very much, usually just floating along through the air as she was now. The Noble of gravity shook her hair out and crossed her legs over.

Glo barely looked over to her, used to her normal mannerisms. Izzy lazily rolled over above the ground and requested a drink of her own. The Noble of gravity told Glo that she was being good and only having one tonight.

Izzac was known as being the heavy drinker of their friendship group, Glo had watched her down an entire bottle of something akin to harder space vodka without taking a moment to breathe. While he was rather impressed by her liver of steel, Glo had been exceptionally surprised when Izzac reintroduced most of the bottle to the world at a much higher velocity than any of them had appreciated.

The pair chatted for a while until daylight came around and Ders asked the pair to buy another round of drinks or leave. Izzy and Glo thanked the android and exited the bar, Izzac floating along next to Glo.

 “Lazy.” Glo heckled her playfully, “Use your legs.”

Izzac stuck her tongue out at him and kicked him from her position in the air next to him.

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Daylight was just peaking over the rooftops of buildings as Glo and Izzac parted ways, Glo was headed home to conclude the repairs to his universal translator and Izzy would go to find some other Nobles and let them in on the news that they were to receive a soldier's helmet.

Glo knew that several of them would outright refuse to fight against the Abstracts, while there would be a great number of them that’d fling themselves face first into the war with a vigour far too dangerous to go unchecked.

Chapter 2 - Quizzical?↦