Xtreme Saga - Book One: The War for Rig

Chapter 12 - Divine Retribution

In the countless eons that Ios and XPG had been together, there were three sensations that they had never experienced. The first was sadness. To feel sad requires some form of loss. But to feel loss one must first feel a connection to something that can be lost. It's hard to define love between any two beings. Much more so between two all-powerful entities not bound by the limits of time and space. One could argue that all was theirs. Or one could argue that nothing was theirs. In either case, for their entire existence, the Originals had never wanted for anything. They required no food or other form of nourishment. They required no shelter or protection. One might say they required companionship, but they had always had that in each other. As they never had anything to lose before, neither of them knew the sting of loss. Thus neither knew what it was to be sad.

When Ios destroyed Cell without his brother's consent, he stole the joy of observing that planet and its inhabitants from XPG. It was a new sensation he felt when he saw all that life suddenly cease to exist. He did not know it at the time, but this was sadness. The feeling hurt him. Deep within the depths of his essence, XPG felt a strong negative emotion that he could not understand. It caused him what could only be described as emotional agony. The Original did not understand it. All that he knew was that he did not like it and that it had been caused by the actions of his brother. So he fled from him. Far away into the unending space that is the Valorus Galaxy, XPG traveled, never so much as looking back or leaving a trail for the only being he had ever known personally to follow. For the first time in their entire existence, Ios and XPG were isolated from each other. What had always been two were now one and one.

When XPG left his brother's presence, Ios was suddenly hit with the same sensation that his brother had felt with the destruction of Cell. The Original also felt sadness. For now he too knew what it meant to suffer the agony of loss. Ios tried to find his brother. He searched far and wide across the galaxy, but he could not find that which did not want to be found. Valorus was too large, and XPG had masked his presence. Something that Ios wasn't even aware that they could do until his brother had done it to stay hidden away from him. Like his brother, Ios did not like this negative emotion. As XPG had blamed Ios for causing this sensation, so too did Ios blame XPG for causing the same thing in him.

XPG found peace in his solitude. He explored the galaxy with new eyes. The eyes of someone who had seen the tragedy of life lost. The eyes of someone who saw the value in all living things. He felt that Ios had made Valorus worse by taking something original and beautiful away. But he took solace in the fact that the Cell would forever live on in his memories. So he scoured Valorus, looking for life. Wherever he found more advanced species, he observed them; and remembered them. This was his new calling. To preserve the knowledge of those that were and those that had been.

There was one race that XPG found that he liked quite a bit. They appeared to be a simple people, but were actually quite advanced compared to much of the other life he had encountered. Though they hadn't existed for quite as long, they were already far more intelligent than the Cell had ever gotten the chance to be. These beings walked upright on two legs. They had smooth skin and fur, rather than feathers or scales. They could communicate with each other in a coherent language. Not simply sounds with coherent meanings but a full set of rules and an established vocabulary. It was the first highly intelligent race that XPG had come across. He called them the Fiore. After observing them for some time, he came to understand their language. That was the first word of theirs he understood. "Fiore" was their word for friend.

One day, XPG tried to communicate directly with the Fiore in their own language. At first, they were afraid. Never before had they encountered something outside of their species that could communicate with them. Never before had they encountered something from outside their own planet. XPG decided that it was best not to tell them everything about who he was and what he was capable of. He did not want to scare them. He certainly didn't want them to know about the actions, or even existence, of Ios. To his dismay, the Fiore came to see the Original as a deity rather than a friend. They did not use the word "fiore" to define him as he had them. They used the word "torecrea" to refer to him. In their language, it best translated to "almighty spirit."