(Previously on Immortal Wars.)

Disclaimer: Immortal Wars was the book I came up with and wrote in high school.  I hadn’t even hit college by the time I wrote the first two books.  That means I hadn’t developed my style yet, wasn’t good at self-editing, and the story was fairly basic. So, you’ve been warned that this is the ultimate author throwback segment for my blog and will show my author origins.  FYI-  I put the first book (The Summoning) through a Print-on-Demand publisher and the second one (Light, Blood, & Tears) never saw the light of day.  Enjoy!

In the central hall there are several bright, turquoise lights in the ceiling, but there aren’t any windows.  Weird alien symbols, written in olive paint, cover the murky brown walls and black ceiling.  The villains’ hovering chairs are set around a rectangular table in the middle of the central hall and at the head of the steel table is a hovering, pure ebony throne.  The throne’s thick arms are shaped like the necks and gaping mouths of ferocious dragons.  Currently, six of the evil immortals are seated when their seductive and voluptuous leader, Adriana arrives along with the resident moron, Hellax.

Hellax is a tall, muscular man, whose bright red eyes make him resemble a slightly terrifying monster.  His brown hair is slicked back because he claims that it gets into his eyes, even though it only reaches the middle of his forehead.  He wears a suit of golden armor along with red, clawed gloves that are always on him since he has trouble figuring out how to get the suit of armor off.  Strapped to his back is a heavy battle-axe with crimson edges on the axe-head and glistening, oval jewels all over the wooden handle.  Hellax is almost as strong and fast as Draveon, but Hellax’s intelligence is so low that he has forgotten his entire past and occasionally forgets his own name.

The true leader of this vile band is the conniving Adriana.  Unlike her small-minded ally, she clearly remembers that she came from a village outside of Athens.  Before she had discovered her immortality, Adriana lived an easy and carefree lifestyle.  Her father was a rich merchant and her mother had died during childbirth.  One of the first lessons Adriana had learned was how to use her beauty to get what she wanted from men.  Adriana’s birthright power, to seduce any man she wants, had helped her get everything she had ever desired.  Her braided, blond hair and enchanting, emerald eyes make the opposite sex stop before her, even without the aid of her birthright powers.  She only uses her powers in case of emergencies, so Adriana depends on her intelligence and cunning instincts to maintain her position.  The evil leader’s outfit of dark pink, skin-tight fabric and a tiny, red tiara allow her to rely on her natural beauty if everything else somehow fails.  As always, in her right hand is a strange four-foot staff that silently radiates a blue light.

“Since all of you are probably wondering where Mindtrigger is, I will tell you.  He is . . . He’s. . .Um.  Where is he, Adriana?” stutters Hellax as he walks over to his chair.  All of the villains stay silent and some of them shake their heads in disbelief, except for Kilanus who starts giggling at the fool’s mental lapse.

“Ahem.  Stop laughing, Kilanus.  What Hellax is trying to say is that Mindtrigger is currently studying the potential problem that we could encounter when our plans finally reach fruition,” explains Adriana as she sits on her throne and turns away from the team’s blundering idiot.  He is still trying to remember where their absent friend is and a sudden look of intense pain shows up on his dull-witted face.

“What is this problem that you say we will encounter?  Is it what all of us have feared since we returned to this galaxy?” says Startrix, who has a truly magnificent weapon with her.  In front of her, on the smooth table, is an elegant silver longbow with a thin black string.  But from what one can see, Startrix does not seem to have any arrows, or even a quiver, with her.

“Yes.  I had hoped that we succeeded in preventing their appearance.  Actually, it is too soon to find out if they are going to be either a real problem or just a minor headache in our future.  You see we have discovered four of the new planet guardians on Earth.  Need I remind you of the 1985 trip we took to Earth in order to dispose of the second generation of guardians before they matured?  We exterminated four of the new guardians before they could get to Solix and develop their powers.  But it seems that four others have survived and Solix has made contact with them.  Now we kind of know why these problems have come up, but there are still some mysteries.  For some reason these four did not show any signs of their guardian potential until now.  Thankfully the fifth one has not shown up yet nor is there any indication of one appearing any time soon.”

“Hold on, Adriana.  What’s the point that you’re trying to make?  We slaughtered the original guardians centuries ago without breaking a sweat.  None of us can possibly be scared of these four amateurs.  They should be pushovers!” exclaims Tegam as he sits on the cold table instead of his chair.  Attached to his green, turning orange, belt is a six-foot long whip that he occasionally pets like a cat.  The simple weapon is made out of a copper rope, which could only have been forged by a being of pure, raw magic.

“You should be severely embarrassed, Tegam.  That is exactly what Hellax said before we walked in.  But these new guardians are definitely more powerful than their predecessors were.  These new immortals are not experimental creations from a test tube like the originals.  They are natural immortals just like most of us here, which makes them a lot more powerful than the ones we killed.  They could even be as strong as we were when we had just started out.  Without enough training they can’t possibly get any stronger,” responds Adriana while she stretches her arms over her head.

“You forget that we are a lot stronger and much deadlier than we were before,” argues Psylon.

“So?  Not to steal Tegam’s cliché, but what’s your point?  We still don’t have any idea of what these fledgling immortals’ birthright powers are.  The information we have is only based on their dormant fighting abilities.  Even that data is somewhat lacking in the very important details.  Mindtrigger has not been able to do a full gene scan.  He’s working on it as we speak, but something is disrupting the scanners.  As our leader, I see no reason to assume that these infants are incapable of defeating us.”  Adriana hops off of her throne and slowly begins to circle the large table like a cunning lioness.

“Regrettably, I am forced to agree with Adriana’s concerns.  No matter what any of you think, we were very lucky to defeat the original guardians.  We were even luckier to survive the full power of the Solstar medallion.  At least most of us were lucky in that respect.  May I remind all of you that my body took the brunt of that attack.  Anyway, we might not be so lucky this time around,” says Cybro.

“Don’t forget about Solix.  The sun guardian is still alive.  I can just feel his presence in my blood,” mentions Draveon.

“Every offense to my old teacher, but who cares about that weakling?  He’s probably too weak to use the Solstar medallion at full power again without bringing extremely serious harm to himself.  And by extremely serious harm, I mean total oblivion.  The end of his miserable, despair-filled life will come to pass,” replies Adriana with a small, half-hearted laugh.

“What do you mean by he’s too weak?  He didn’t have any trouble, or get hurt, the last time he used it at full strength,” says Tegam.

“That is because he was much stronger back then.  Mindtrigger has discovered that the sun weapon draws the extra life energy from the person that uses it.  Centuries of mourning for his dead friends and moping around have turned Solix into a weak and senile, old man.  He doesn’t possess the internal power that he used to have.  He’ll be shooting blanks like every other being whose time is up,” explains Adriana when she stops behind her daughter’s chair.  She flips onto the back of the hovering chair and crouches on the top like a cat, so that everyone can see her.  The silence that follows lets all of the words Adriana has spoken slowly sink into everyone’s mind.

“Who are the guardians?” asks Kilanus.

“What?  We have gone over this before.  They are the people who guard this particular solar system from people like us.  That is why we must destroy them,” answers Cybro as he moves next to Kilanus’ chair.  Adriana swiftly kicks the cyborg in his head from her perch.  His head goes flying across the room and the rest of his body gets up to reattach it.

“I still don’t understand.”

“Just ignore Cybro.  He must have another one of his short circuits.  Mindtrigger must really look into that.  You see, the guardians are the creatures who unfairly exiled us from our home.  We may have done something that was slightly wrong.  But we didn’t deserve the pain of losing contact with our families and never being able to see our home again,” states Adriana as she pats her daughter’s head.

“Now I get it.  They’re the bad guys.”

“I can’t fool you, little angel.  Now, I think we have said enough about our past, current, and future problems.  All of you can go about your business until I have to call for you again.  Which, if I’m lucky, won’t be for a very long time,” orders Adriana.

Everyone slowly leaves the central hall one by one and goes about their business.  Some of them wander about the warship and look out at the galaxy that they want to conquer.  Others begin to prepare themselves for the violent war on the darkening horizon.