"And through mine eyes, do many worlds appear." Tobias says aloud to the emptiness. It's a little saying he's thought of to describe himself. Most of the time when he says it, it's more flippant than inspirational. What in all the worlds of all the galaxies does Tobias have to be inspired about? The past twenty-seven years have been nothing but torture, pain and complete misery for Tobias...and the enemies of his captors. He has cursed his mutant powers every single day of those twenty-seven years. Almost ninety-thousand, nine-hundred curses he's uttered upon himself...and nothing has changed over that seemingly-infinite span of time. Perhaps his curses have only further driven the spike of death into his heart, only working against his freedom.
Tobias' "curse" is actually an amazing gift: he has the ability to see absolutely anything he chooses. There is no thing in all the universes that cannot fall under his infinite gaze. He has seen beautiful things, when he had the will within himself to actually spend his free time to do something that made him happy, and he has seen terrible things, that made him wish he could rip his eyes from his skull completely...and he has tried. However the race of extraterrestrials would not appreciate the loss of their most valuable tool...and would merely kill him for his boldness. And thanks to the fact that he can look upon the world of the dead at any time he chooses, the notion of dying to go on to a "better place" and be with those he loves that have passed has become somewhat moot. His life may be a distorted, twisted and cruel form of living than what he had hoped for himself so many years ago, but it is still life.
The Worlings felt Tobias' presence when he tried to find the world he had seen in visions on more than one occasion, and tracked him, through dimensional rifts, to Earth after they realized his gift was something of incredible value. With the power of Tobias' infinite sight, the Worling battle lords could use Tobias to see into their enemies' defenses and weaknesses and exploit them to take over more and more worlds. And thanks to their inter-dimensional-capable technology, and to Tobias' curiosity, they have found whole new universes to conquer for their already-endless Empire.
The Worlings are unstoppable with Tobias Beckett as their prisoner and weapon. And his masters, uncompromising and horrendous as they are, refuse to view Tobias as a herald, as a hero to their kind...but rather choose to continually torture Tobias to do what they want, threaten and control him. They have, though, had to use their incredible technological advances to reattach a hand or so every now and then, the violence would be so terrible.
When Tobias is not unveiling the great, crippling weakness to the Worlings' next victim in their conquest, he remains locked within a room made completely of bright light, which is extremely painful to Tobias and causes nauseating headaches and faintness of breath, thanks to his mutation. It is the only way the Worlings have decided to control Tobias...to keep him from escaping, or doing much else....
**
How many is a thought Tobias has thought many times. Though he has infinite sight, he has never actively chose to witness all of the deaths he has caused. How much suffering has he wrought at the whims of the Worlings? How many heroes, how many civilians, how many families…how many people have died from his doings? A single tear falls from his long-jaded eyes for the millions of lives who have senselessly died on all the planets, worlds, space stations, colonies and settlements the Worlings have attacked.
Tobias had only begun trying to think of any way he could permanently distort or destroy his curse, a thought he entertains frequently, when a loud buzzing sounds that causes his hands to leap up and clap over his ears. They are coming. The lights all around him, walls and floor and ceiling, shut off with a loud bang, leaving the room nearly pitch black for a few moments as the residual heat from the bulbs dies. A seamless door in one of the walls appears and slides open as three Worling thugs with full guard armor enter to subdue their captive and bring him to his feet.
The Worlings are, in a word, ugly, Tobias had long since decided. They have multiple mandibles that all end in long, overlapping, sharp teeth and upper jaws that are the same. Their lower faces are actually a mass of mangled, dangerously powerful teeth that appear to be impossible to talk through. They have high cheek bones that seem to pull their tight, dark green skin taut across their faces, distorting the sockets that hold their large, blood-red eyes in place, which gives them the sort of appearance that they’re always furiously glaring. The Worlings have high, pointed ears with many piercings each, a feature they hold in high honor along with their well-groomed, long black hair. Nearly every Worling has their hair in a high, narrow ponytail and they either braid or band the hair to keep it from flowing around uncontrollably. The species as a whole is well-built and muscled, though not at the standard most humans would place a body-builder. Finally, their other most defining feature are their claws – each finger ends in a long, retractable claw, the muscles in which pull the skin back to rest at the lowest knuckle while retracted, and the claw beneath the skin pushes it out to full stretch when it unsheathes. The Worlings favorite method of killing involves the claws and the various orifices of the heads of their enemies.
Two of the Worlings lift Tobias to his feet while his eyes still attempt to adjust to the lack of painful, bright light and begin to haul him out of his cell and down the familiar hall that leads to a lift and eventually to the breathtaking bridge of their flagship. By the time the guards arrive at the ornate doors to the bridge, Tobias’ eyes have adjusted and he’s able to see again, though his eyes remain a somewhat odd mixture of pale and bloodshot (pale from the constant exposure to light, almost bleached). He sees the bridge once more, a sickeningly familiar sight, and his stomach drops within him like an atom bomb.
The bridge of the flagship Ruin is gigantic, easily and comfortably fitting five square football fields. It is an endless walk to the front, where the general awaits as always. The entire front three-quarters is adorned with a wraparound window for easy view of their surroundings, and there are countless stations placed strategically and purposefully throughout the entire bridge, many of which are sunken into the floors to preserve space for those above. At the nose of the bridge, there is a second, lower floor where a second arm of the battle stations and attack positions for the Ruin are housed. Out beyond the window, straight ahead of the ship, is an orange and red planet with a line of cruisers much smaller than the Ruin are awaiting their arrival.
Once Tobias has reached the general and his captains, a group of Worlings standing together at the main commanding station, he is thrust forward with a shove to his hands and knees at their side.
"Tobias. Your next, beautiful work of art is ready for your skilled brush." The Worlings had long ago learned about language barriers, long before they even knew about Tobias, and had implanted a translator, what they called an Equalizer, into his head. Tobias had decided it looks something like a cochlear implant, without the piece inside the ear canal. This device allowed Tobias to understand the Worlings’ complicated, cacophonous language of clicks, grunts, vowels and punctuating whistles, converting it to words in English that closest represent their intent. Their implants translated Tobias’ words for them, in return.
“This won’t get you what you want.”
The Worling general and his captains laugh at Tobias’ futile attempt to talk them down from the disgusting devastation they were planning here at this planet. Tobias knew it did nothing…but it’s something he has been saying before each of these tragedies as a sort of tool to keep himself as sane as possible through all the death he causes. "Your efforts are as humorous as they are ridiculous, as always. You truly do not understand what we are doing here, do you?" The Worling general, whom Tobias knows as “Keetomb” or something pronounced similarly, chuckles in what sounds like a chuffing, snorting noise as he turns to his two captains and orders the halt as well as a channel to be opened to the lead cruiser between the Ruin and the orange planet.
A communication screen almost instantly pops up on the front of the window, huge so that almost the entire bridge can see, with the face of a monster so hideous that Tobias must look away to keep his stomach. He also fights the urge to think that this just might be the first race, ever, he has helped the Worlings dominate and exterminate.
The alien most resembled a gigantic fly...a rotting, gooey, hairy, melting fly. It had three huge, compound eyes with thousands upon thousands of tiny windows each that all seem to be vibrating, giving the perception that each giant eye is literally crawling with smaller insects. The fur all around the head is matted, blotchy and, in several places, oozing with puss and filth. Their long feeders curl and uncurl with what seems to be rhythmic breath, and gurgle disgustingly when they speak. It does speak then…and Tobias is thankful for his Equalizer, which drowns out the actual sound of those who speak with the English words in his brain.
"You are not to proceed any further, strangers. Take your vessel and return to whence you came!" Needless to say, the Worlings are not welcome. General Keetomb chuffs his little chuckle and gives a nod to a lieutenant at the very edge of the upper floor of the bridge, who shouts down to the lower, second floor, to open fire at the previously-targeted cruisers. Out the panoramic window, five brilliantly bright lances of white light pierce silently through the blackness between the ships and successfully strike five of the smaller cruisers. The lances seem to sink into each of the ships like a retractable blade, not coming out of the other sides at all, as if they were absorbed into the hulls…before massive explosions tear the five unlucky ships to pieces. Those ships on either side of the dying cruisers take damage from debris blown into them, three of which are announced disabled from the lower floor of the bridge.
“NO!” Tobias shouts, but receives a heavy-booted kick to the right shoulder from one of the three guards still hovering around him. He sprawls to the floor and that nauseating feeling returns to his stomach as he relives all the past massacres in dreaded anticipation for what’s to come. Negotiations never work with the Worlings – they had learned their lesson.
**
The captain on the communication screen shouts in horror at seeing many of his friends perish around him. He screams in fury at General Keetomb and fires off a long string of curses that Tobias’ Equalizer is unable to translate properly, and causes it to buzz and fuzz slightly in his mind. Keetomb simply laughs again. "Good sir, you now see that we are here to do what we wish, and you stand no chance of remaining in our way. Either die here…or live to witness our glorious transformation of your world."
"Insanity!! You will never take our home! RELEASE CANONS!" The fly-like creature demands the return fire and the remaining seven cruisers ignite with a dazzling show of sparkling light. Their weapons resemble golden, twinkling particles of energy sprayed out like an aerosol. The dusty energy slams at high speed into the Ruin’s shielding systems, which light up in brilliantly bright green sections all along the nose of the much larger ship. Once the billions of sparkling particles stick to the shields, it takes only a couple of seconds before they all release their stored energy together in a massive explosion of dancing fire, which is quickly evaporated by the airlessness of space. Tobias watches, amazed at the display and innovation of such genius weaponry, and feels the deep pit within his stomach tighten and twist at the sorrow he already feels for the fate of this inventive species.
Reports come shouting from the lower, battle-ready station of the bridge, stating that there is minimal damage to the incredible, energy absorbing shield system the Worlings have developed and General Keetomb lifts his right mandibles in what Tobias has come to recognize as a smirk. Destroy them all." He says with a dismissive wave of his clawed hand. No sooner had Keetomb said it than seven more lances of white light issued from the bow of the Ruin and sank into the remaining cruisers...which all, in turn, explode into nothing more than space junk. The communication screen breaks and goes to black before one of the two Worling captains at Keetomb’s side takes it down. Tobias lowers his head in remembrance of their brave last stand. But it’s to Tobias that Keetomb turns to now....
Now, my servant, you will gaze down to the surface of this barren planet and tell me of their populations, their cities and developments." Keetomb stoops down over Tobias, reaching his greasy shining claw down to his jaw to force Tobias’ eyes to lock upon his own glaring red ones. You will tell me what you see and where their strongest points are. You will give me targets." Despite the Equalizer’s welcome knack to drown out an alien language with the translation in the wearer’s head, Keetomb had pulled Tobias’ face so close to his own that Tobias can still hear the grunting, clicking and whistling of the Worling dialect alongside the English in his mind. Tobias never understands why the maniacal general always does this…as if twenty-seven years of intergalactic conquest haven’t already taught Tobias the routine they follow...every time. He knows his role, no matter how much he hates it.
**
This time, though, Tobias cannot stand it. His hand whips up – the hand that’s already been reattached by the Worlings’ doctors from the torture he’s endured – and slaps Keetomb’s arm aside. Tobias reaches up, then, and grabs a hold of the folds in the general’s ornate, onyx armor and pulls himself to his feet quickly in one swift move that’s punctuated with the crown of Tobias’ head slamming into the Worling’s toothy mouth. The general reels back and roars, a noise that’s rarely heard from the species outside of battle, while the two guards that brought Tobias to the bridge from his cell bear down on him: one clapping him on the back of the neck with his armored forearm, the other kicking his knees out from behind him. Tobias hits the solid, smoothly polished surface of the floor and rolls quickly aside to get out of the way of any incoming rebuttal (which comes in the form of a large boot stomping down where he was).
Tobias quickly pushes himself to his feet before shoulder ramming one of the guards while one of the captains draws his firearm and levels it at the desperate human. Keetomb has since recovered from the headbutt (the mandibles and jaw being a somewhat soft spot for the Worling race) and quickly grabs the captain’s arm and wrapping his other arm around behind the elbow…after which a sickening snapping is heard as Keetomb destroys the captain’s arm. The decorated Worling is then finally punished by Keetomb’s elbow cracking into his jaws.
"HE IS NOT TO BE KILLED!!!" Keetomb screams.
The suddenness of the declaration causes even the fighting Tobias to halt and turn to stare at the general. All eyes are now upon Keetomb, who rarely looses his cool, and the bridge is completely silent, save for the various beeping and clicking of stations and the routine noises of running a gigantic Worling flagship. Tobias knows this already, however, and has used the generals unwillingness to dispatch his greatest asset to his own advantage on more than one occasion. This does not stop the Worlings, though, from inflicting unbearable amounts of pain onto Tobias – he knows he will pay for this little insurrection later…after the campaign is won.
General Keetomb swiftly approaches Tobias and the guards next to Tobias grab the human to keep him from fighting what they all know is coming. The Worling general reaches out and swings his claw in viciously, swiping it across Tobias’ front. Tobias shouts and his knees buckle as he feels the sharp tips of those appendages rake through his skin beneath the rough clothing he wears. Keetomb’s brings the claw back around to thoroughly backhand Tobias against his cheekbone, which issues a solid grunt from Tobias’ throat. "You may not be expendable, but test me further, filth, and I will remove both of your arms...permanently."
Tobias lifts his piercing gaze to Keetomb’s and says nothing. Unfortunately, there is no hope of escape from the Worling ship Ruin for Tobias – he has thought through countless scenarios – and he has long since accepted the remainder of his life will be naught but servitude to a war-driven race of cruel aliens and he will die ashamed to have brought so much death to the universe the Worlings are set to conquer.
"Now win me this world." Keetomb grabs the blood-soaked front of Tobias and wrenches his body from the guards’ grasps and effortlessly tosses him five yards forward, toward the bow of the Ruin, where Tobias lands hard and attempts to grit through the pain. Time to go to work.
**
Tobias closes his eyes. Reaching through his mind and out through the space beyond the wreckage of the twelve cruisers and into the atmosphere of the orange and red planet ahead of the Ruin. Down under the cloudless air, Tobias glimpses the rotted, scarred surface. He can see, from the nearly mile-high heat waves coming off the ground, that it is extremely hot on the planet…he also spies the source of the red veins he can see from space: fresh lava floes cut across the barren landscape of burned rock and mounds of filth. Cutting across quickly to the nearest thing that resembles a city, which is just larger piles of filth, molded closer together in a kind of settlement, Tobias spies large groups of the fly-ish species assembling together to talk about the coming invasion above.
Seeing no threat to the Worlings here, Tobias moves on to find more and more settlements, nothing worthy of note in any of them, until he finally finds a huge collection of slithering filth, out of which hundreds of the species crawl out of two holes near the top. They all carry weapons and assemble on the ground outside. Though, the strange thing is, Tobias sees no evidence of any aircraft or spacecraft like what was destroyed by the Ruin. Tobias pulls back, opening his eyes on the bridge of the flagship.
With a sigh, Tobias doesn’t look up from his fixed gaze on the floor in front of him as he addresses General Keetomb. “They pose no threat to you.” He is monotone with sadness, not wanting to see the methodical extermination of yet another planet.
The general gives his smirk again and gives a nod to the one remaining captain that Keetomb didn’t punch out. The captain then starts issuing orders to assemble the invasion forces and to load the pikes for launch. "Show me where, Tobias." Keetomb approaches the kneeling human and squats beside him. Tell me where to send my warriors." Tobias nods slowly, explaining the conditions of the planet below (while leaving out the extreme heat) and informing the general about the war mounds he saw, where their enemy’s troops gather. Good boy."
Tobias looks away, not wanting anything to do with Keetomb right now. He stands up abruptly and starts to turn to walk away…down away from this end of the gargantuan bridge, but Keetomb is one step ahead. He rises just as quickly and grabs Tobias’ shoulder roughly to stop him and spin him around to face the planet. NO! You will watch this. For your behavior, you will watch this." The general’s mandibles spread apart widely, a Worling smile, as he holds Tobias in place and shouts back to the captain, LAUNCH THE PIKES!!" Keetomb chuffs in the way he laughs as a fierce, thunderous rumble as explosions beneath the Ruin propel gigantic pikes that resemble vampire stakes through space and down toward the planet. It’s over now. Once those pikes smash into the planet’s surface below, and the Worling slaughterers break out among the masses, this world will belong to General Keetomb...and countless more lives will have been spent thanks to Tobias’ curse.
***
