Planets Divide, Worlds Collide

Chapter 0 (The Story Hasn't Really Started)

You didn't usually see a cadre of aliens, anthros, and especially a human in one place in Oukwarl. You even MORE especially rarely see them with weapons. Oukwarl, for a long period of time, was a peaceful nation. The military was modest, and the politicians even more so. Few were outspoken on Teraniam's Senate, save for the fiery Marson, but that's a story for another chapter. The long political and military war between Slovankal and Triel had started to decline, but the war raged fresh and anew between other countries, such as Lolo and Popawi.

The war had started when Triel, a cold and morbid land, devoid of much light but filled to every inch of every nook, cranny, crevice, and wormhole, of shadow. Trees, huge and gnarled, soaked up light to keep their struggling branches and roots alive, while any other shadow was casted politically by the fascist government that ruled it. Triel had attempted a land grab at Slovonkal, a relatively small but powerful country, full of minerals and supplies useful to a militant empire. However, when that advance failed due to the aid of the NAAPE, the Natural Alliance Against Penultimate Evils, and war ensued. Other countries vented their hate, grudges, and political rivalries through murder, looting, and in the case of Lolo, more recently, mass rape. Oukwarl was a country that only aided the side that benefited it most for a few battles, and then returned to a mostly peaceful state.

However, a few senators recently stepped down in the Senate, and the world of Teranium changed forever as Marson took one of the top spots shortly after. A feisty man, he was small and stocky, but well-built for his size and fierce. Holding an impressive white mustache that connected to a fading red beard gave him muttonchops that, while often mocked, gives way to his nickname Ares. He claims that he once killed a battalion of soldiers so brutally that his beard turned red, and his white, thin comb over, white eyebrows akin to caterpillars, and the aforementioned mustache, give this credit. Or he just dyed it.

Either way, Ares was a name that fit: he was an angry, vicious little man, always believing that war should teach nations a lesson about violence. The irony was lost upon him for years, and only a few years after our story starts does he realize this.

As soon as he was appointed, he took to the streets, the castles, the hallowed halls of the Academy, and even the backyards of the Grand Hall, searching for the greatest warriors. He may have been a resentful warmonger, but his eyes would gleam as he stares the small walls of villages, the regal banners of the royals, and the lowly, dirty streets of the Human district, searching for a fiery spirit, just desperate for a match. He found one, two, three, and then four, but he needed a control, someone to balance them...that's where our trouble begins.

But first, back a bit.

Teranium has long been an "alien" world, inhabited by creatures that humans once would find odd. Humans would find them to be much different after subjugation, as humans attempted to forcefully assert themselves into society. Didn't work well for them. And this is why in the social class of the world, humans are almost always at the bottom: slaves, workers, or servants. They weren't considered absolute filth, but many were treated as such: living in slums or shantytowns, and one would see a picture straight out of a 1950's New York area, if at that, a poor one. Bars and poker rooms were common, and it's here we find our Gunslinger.

Webber Trawley was not born on Earth, the Homo Sapien's home planet, but rather on the planet Seksis, dominated mostly by women. He was one of the rare few men born, and was as such an outcast. At the age of 2, he was odd and irrational: he would be quiet on his own but would go into a small rage if someone upset his quiet; if things were loud, he would have trouble walking or talking; he often babbles incoherently despite knowing TransGalactic Mid-Code (essentially Mandarin, but in Space Speak. For the sake of this book, this will be written in "English"), and had a vicious determination to avoid contact with others he didn't know. He was diagnosed with SocioCranial Malfunction Disorder, or "Autism", in a rather high end of the spectrum at just age 8. This further distanced himsel from others, and after another 4 years of anti-social behavior and a desire for quiet, he was sent to the nearby planet of Teranium, before humans attempted to widespread assert themselves. He grew up with a Tarkalian family until the age of 21, when all humans not connected to politics were sent off to slums, or killed, if they resisted. Now being with the rowdy and roughest, he adapted in a rather odd way.