The power spread across the world.

It was unlike anything that had ever existed, formed by a freak accident and shaped by a diabolical intellect. It raged, it burned, it poisoned and it healed. It toppled towers and grew trees. It boiled the seas, it shook the mountains and it spread, growing more and more powerful with each interlocking ripple.

But it did not go unnoticed.

There were beings in the cosmos that took notice of the strange new energy. These beings were embroiled in a struggle that had raged across the universe for longer than the earth had existed. They were alien things, aloof, superior and, by all of human definitions, omnipotent. Being involved in an eternal struggle gives you a tactical mind, and both beings saw a great opportunity in this new source of energy that saturated the atmosphere of this backwater world. Both made contact briefly, and within a few heartbeats, agreement was reached. The beings used their vast array of abilities to seize the power that still emanated from the remains of Castillo's final device, and they shaped and moulded the power as they went. The power was raw, and unsullied by any outside influences. Thus, the beings were able to shape it in any way they saw fit.

One being sought around the planet for a source of fuel, and found some almost immediately. The beings saw all and felt all, and the world was full of things to see and feel. Most prominent in the being's sight were some of the more intangible objects in our world, such as hope and joy. The being found a vast reservoir of hope, and a pool of loyalty, and here and there other good qualities such as love and altruism. Grasping the power, it soaked it in the good energy it had gathered to itself, and released it back into the world.

This enraged the other being. Its opponent had got a quick jump on it, and had released its power before the other had even begun. Desperately it sought around the planet for incredibly vast amounts of energy, and up on one of the larger continents, it hit pay dirt. A vast source of power, made up of fast, fleeting feelings and desires such as rage, revenge, fear, and spite. The being knew that power steeped in this energy would have a severely painful and heartbreaking effect on anyone it tied itself to. It soaked it in anyway. When the soaking was done, the being sensed around, trying to see what its opponent was up to. Seeing that the other being was busy watching and occasionally guiding its power flow, it moved swiftly, giving the power in his possession a little extra something. Pure, unadulterated madness. Finally, it tore up the power into small slivers and scattered them among the people of a valley near the explosion site.

The power had been changed, strengthened, given purpose, and released. It was going back into the world to do what Chavez and Castillo wanted it to do. It was going to seek out people, empower them greatly, and raise them up above all other humanity. But it did one thing that neither the beings nor Castillo had ever anticipated it would do. It found that some minds were more susceptible to it than others. Minds malleable enough to accept the power, yet smart enough to know what to do with it. And so each and every sliver of power tied itself to an unsuspecting human, and awoke within them vast reserves of strength and energy.

And every last human they tied themselves to was only fifteen years old.

Seeing this, the beings desperately tried to recall the power. Their legacy was not destined for children. But it was already too late, the power twisting its way irrevocably into the souls of its hosts. The beings only succeeded in grasping the power that was not already absorbed. Each of them debated, and agreed. The remaining power was shaped even more than the power that had already been released, and this time the beings guided it, searching the areas near the blast for the perfect host children…

Chapter 1

The Change

Jeras sat on the hillside and watched the world pass by with a look of thought and contemplation on his face. His tangled brown hair hang down to his shoulders and his fringe partially obscured his deep blue eyes. The wind rumpled his clothes and the song of an unidentified bird was in his ears. Life passed by generally as it always had. Everything was fine and normal for a lazy Sunday afternoon.

The bird stopped singing.

A rumbling sound grew in the ground and Jeras opened his eyes in confusion. The rumble grew louder, and looking around, Jeras saw a beam of pure white light arcing up towards the clouds beyond the hills in the neighbouring valley. Jeras's jaw dropped as the light shimmered and danced, curving slightly towards him, and finally fading away. The rumble in the ground died, and everything was eerily still. Looking towards the hills, Jeras could see a cloud of black smoke slowly rising. Jeras watched for a few more minutes, rising to his feet. Then he began to feel dizzy. His brain felt like it was being seared with red-hot iron from the inside. He dropped to his knees in agony and his consciousness melted away into bright white light.

Eric sat on a mound of dirt in the corner of his backyard with a look of rage and pain on his face. His raven-black hair hung in ragged, dirty locks and his dark eyes held a hint of scorn, matched by the automatic sneer on his mouth. Blood dribbled from a cut in his side he had given himself jumping over a pointed wooden fence. The wail of police sirens was in his ears and in his hand was the stolen purse he had snatched from a passing woman. He knew he would have to move soon, before the police found his hiding place. He rose to his feet, and felt a rumble in the ground. Swaying unsteadily, he looked around for its source, but the nearby houses blocked his vision. Shrugging, he began to choose which direction to run in, but reeled again as his head was seized by an unseen hand, which began to squeeze. His head felt like it was about to implode. Eric threw himself forward, trying to escape the grip, but the grip followed him, bearing down on him like an inescapable doom. He had time for one last feeling of confusion before he sunk into inky blackness.

Jeras.

Jeras opened his eyes and sat up. He was in a place of bright white light that hurt his eyes, but it faded as he looked upon it. It was a bare room with a ceiling that seemed to go on forever, and a single door in the far wall.

Jeras.

Jeras sought for the source of the sound in complete confusion, and the door opened.

An angel stepped through.

Jeras looked at her in complete rapture. Her face was the most beautiful thing Jeras had ever seen, beautiful yet firm, as if she had been carved out of stone. Her voice was melodious, and she wore a simple toga-like garment of white, with a golden cord tying it to her waist. But the two most beautiful things about her were her eyes, of deepest brown that seemed to go on forever, and her large, golden wings that curved up behind her back and gave her twice as much height. She smiled at Jeras, and a chorus of unseen voices burst into song. Jeras wanted to join in, so captivated with beauty as he was. The angel began to speak again, but it was not like ordinary speech. It was as if she projected her words directly into Jeras's brain, and what he had mistaken for speech was in fact telepathy. He paid complete attention to her words.

Long ago, before your planet was born from the cosmos, there was a race of great power. Accompanying her words were images, and Jeras saw the race as clearly as if they stood before him. Some had wings, like the angel before him, some looked vaguely like crocodiles, all green scales and powerful limbs, some had vampire fangs, and some changed from form to form in the blink of an eye. All of them shifted from form to form occasionally, and Jeras saw them travelling the stars and performing great feats that he would have thought impossible before. He accepted it now though, as this was what the angel was telling him, and nothing she said could be wrong.

In our arrogance and corruption, we turned upon each other, and the galaxy boiled in the grip of an incredible war. Here the choir turned from exultant and uplifting to a regretful dirge of sadness, and the angel drooped, her wings sagging to the floor. Jeras was gripped with scenes of incredible chaos, as beings allied, slew, and turned against each other in an incredible, deadly, free-for-all. Eventually, their numbers thinned, and the dead piled up, until thousands were fallen, rotting and fading. Jeras watched in horror as a harpy-like woman was slain by a large worm with many teeth, and the worm in turn devoured by a large fish, which was roasted on a spit by a vicious, grinning demon. At last, only two were left, the angel and the grinning demon, and they traded blows faster than the eye could see.

We were evenly matched, he and I. We could not defeat each other, so we made a truce. The demon and the angel bowed to each other, and disappeared, only to reappear in a few seconds to fight again. It did not last. I would not stand for his atrocities, and he did not like my meddling. And so we have been fighting for the past millennia, neither able to gain the upper hand, each of us using both open warfare and subversive tricks, pitting planets against each other and annihilating whole galaxies across the universe. This was how it was until recently, when something new happened.

Jeras saw the light, literally and metaphorically.

A man named Castillo found something that both of us had overlooked. An untapped energy source that granted extraordinary powers to those exposed to it. An accident caused vast amounts of this energy to be released into your atmosphere. We seized this power, and set it to work for us. Unfortunately, the power seems to be solely tying itself to children. Jeras saw boys and girls of around fourteen or fifteen falling to the ground in apparent agony, and then getting up off the ground, looking around in confusion. We could not extract the power from the children, for all our abilities. Instead, we took the last of the power, shaped it even more, and set out to find the perfect children to serve us, and to lead the fight that will decide the doom of one of us, and the victory of the other. Whoever is chosen must fight and destroy the other, and in their victory and triumph they will raise their master to the status of a god. I have chosen you. The voices rose in triumph. You are the chosen. Will you serve, Jeras?

Jeras was struck dumb for a moment by the enormity of it all, the impossibility and the incredibility. Then he found his voice, roaring out into the chorus of voices, roaring out his joy and rapture with all his heart.

YES!

The angel smiled again, and held up a hand. Then, Jeras Thorn, by my right as the true heir to the powers of the First Race, and my considerable abilities, I name you as the bearer of my will on the planet known as Earth, and charge you with fighting the bearer of the will of the false heir to the power with every last breath of your body. Do you accept?

Jeras was beyond doubt. YES!

The angel reached out and laid a hand on his forehead. I grant you the power I have to give. I grant you command of the elements, I grant you control of the void, I grant you the leadership of the Light, and I bind you to my cause, by both this gift and your acceptance. Go now, into your world, and fight the enemy, and triumph for the greater glory, and the survival of the universe. Go!

The angel stepped back, and the light receded. Jeras reached out a hand towards the angel as she slowly faded away, but she was beyond his reach. He found himself lying upon the hillside, with the pressure gone and not a doubt in his mind.

He would fight for his angel.

Eric opened his eyes and leapt to his feet, ready to fight or flee. Looking around, he realized that he was in a place that he had never been before, and that meant trouble. It was a bare, dark room with a single door and no decoration. Prison cell, thought Eric in frustration. He had let himself be caught yet again. There would be no warning this time. He would be sent straight to a correction facility for 'troubled youth'. Eric shook his head in resignation. It was his fault for being caught.

The door opened, and a man in a black suit stepped in. Eric didn't even bother to look at him. Typical. A cop, all sophisticated and polite, attempts to connect with the child and get him to accept the consequences of his actions. Eric sneered. It wouldn't work on him.

Had he actually taken the time to look at the man, he would see that he was very tall, over six feet. If he had looked closely he would see that the man's fingernails were sharp and slightly curved, like claws. If he watched while the man spoke he would see serrated fangs, and if he looked into his eyes he would have seen a burning fire. But he did not look.

The man spoke. "Eric Michaels?"

Eric curled his lip. "Who wants to know?"

The man smiled. "Such arrogance. You will do."

Eric began to feel a little confused. This wasn't ordinary for a policeman. "Do for what?" he said, turning to face the man.

The man leered and gestured at the walls, and they disappeared, melting away like mist. Eric watched in amazement as they looked out upon a vast, wasted landscape, devoid of any sign of life that went on for miles.

"What…is it?" Eric's voice held a slight waver.

"Why, it is your planet. In the near future. This wasteland will cover the whole globe and all life will be utterly extinguished."

Eric turned back towards the man, and finally took in those little details he had missed before. He took a step backwards. "What are you?" he choked.

The man smiled again and disappeared. A pillar of flame appeared, roaring and searing Eric's face, and then a rotting corpse with the face of a man Eric had once known, and then a large raven that cawed and flapped its wings angrily. Finally it was a man again, and it took a step towards Eric.

"I am whatever I want to be. I am the doom of the universe. I will destroy creation, simply because I can. I am the kind of being who would turn the universe upside down and shake it, just to see what fell out. And I come before you with an opportunity."

He flicked his fingers, and the wasted plain disappeared, to be replaced with a dark void of emptiness. The demon-man clicked his fingers, and an angel appeared, floating before Eric with a vapid look on her face. "This one thinks that she has the power to stop me, and through uncanny luck and treachery she has succeeded so far. It has gotten to the point where we can no longer fight each other, as neither of us can gain any ground!" He slammed a fist into the angel's midriff, and she broke apart into motes of light and dissipated. The demon-man continued. "There is a large amount of excess power in this world, power that we are exploiting and sending into inferior humans such as yourself. Unfortunately, not only is the power attracted to inferior humans, but to inferior human children! The situation is nearly intolerable, but I managed to make things better slightly."

He opened his hand, and a large dark globe appeared there. This globe immediately entranced Eric. It was fascinating to look upon, and it seemed to be filled with smoke, as the patterns on its surface shifted continuously.

"Wow." Eric breathed.

"This is the last remaining source of power that has not been put into a human host body. Your world will burn, and your race eradicated, but with this ball, you can be free, and sit at my feet as I rule the universe!" Here he held out the globe. "Do you want it?"

Eric stopped himself reaching out automatically. This creature was undoubtedly evil, but it certainly had the power to do what it promised. That's presuming this isn't all a hallucination, he told himself sternly, but he doubted it. This was real, and he was being offered power. He reached out and took the globe. The demon-man smiled, exposing sharp fangs, and then laid a claw on Eric's forehead. Eric flinched, but didn't draw back. "Then, Eric Michaels,by my right as the true heir to the powers of the First Race, and my considerable abilities in my own right, I name you as the bearer of my will on the planet known as Earth, and charge you with fighting the bearer of the will of the false heir to the power with every last breath of your body. Do you accept the charge?"

Eric nodded solemnly, but a grin of anticipation was on his face.

"Then I grant you power. I grant you control, I grant you command, and I grant you right of lordship over the night. I bind you; by the power I give, by the madness that seizes you, and by your acceptance. Go now, and conquer the foe, and doom your planet and your people, and claim your power."

The globe shattered, and the smoke rose up and enveloped Eric's head. He felt the smoke seeping in through his mouth and nose, and as it was absorbed into his head he felt the power fill him, and he reviled in it, and he felt the taint poison his mind, and he fell into madness. The demon smiled, and clicked his fingers one last time. Eric sank into unconsciousness, his head pounding and mocking laughter in his ears. He woke up in his backyard, the wound in his side closed, the power filling him to the brim, and the light of madness in his eyes. He clicked his fingers, and the yard fence burst into flames. He smiled.

Let's see them take him to a correctional facility now.