The First Hand

PROLOGUE

As offsprings of the primitive world in the autochthonous system; you humans hold a rather vast and several unrelated doctrines about the dawn of creation. To many of you, which of course I am referring to you intellectually deranged inhabitants of the Yellow Sun's Shelter, you assume the making of everything is from one place which you call heaven. While the rest half of you worship the scientific theory of the universe advancements and its mechanism. Well let me tell you something... you're right. And also very much wrong about a lot of things. You're ignorant, you lack knowledge of the Yellow Sun's Shelter.

Which is why I have subjected myself to the Enlightenment Will. A forever course that only those who have been chosen by the Order of The Hand can carry out. It takes honour, courage, and loyalty to uphold this mantle. For I, I have been chosen, I have become a hand.

My name is Taurus Optimus from a different Yellow Sun Shelter. I have come to pass on my role as I am old and cannot carry out the wishes of the Hand anymore. I am weak and impotent. My life force has been drained during my transit to this Yellow Sun Shelter. It took 454,455 years to get here, but upon my arrival, I was met with nothing but the remnants of chaos.

I have being walking this world for the past 3 days and still no life have I encountered. I know all is lost, but the virtue and dignity I uphold would not let me be at peace.

The third and only of the world in this Shelter has been razed to ashes. As I may know it, the third world of this Shelter, but as you may know it – Earth.

I was supposed to save them. I was expected to avert the deception of the Encounter. I failed.

My calculations weren't wrong. I came to the exact time the Encounter was meant to happen. A time which the offsprings of this world would call year 700,456 — that is the approximated time from their zenith-century to this very date

But I am late. The Encounter started and has ended. My fate to enlighten this world on their ignorance has failed, because of my late arrival.

Despite my unsaid agony, I have formulated a countermeasure to this problem.

'Pyon Di-nosium.'

'YES-OPTIMUS.' a deep gruesome and monotonous voice responded.

'How far is our time to this world's apex of discovery.' a man wearing a futuristic armour requested as he spoke to the hologram shooting out from his forearm.

'Calculating the distance.. approximately 500,000 years from my calculations.' the hologram replied.

The man in the futuristic armour signed gently inside the suit before speaking, 'How much time do I have left?'

After his question, there was an interior noise that came from inside his suit, like the clash of metallic objects clanging themselves and afterwards, the hologram scanned his entire body with an orange ray of light. Then it replied, 'Your body has less than 30 years remaining of its life force.'

The man in the suit looked around the deserted field calmly. The sun could not be seen even when from his readings, it was midday. Not even the moon was present, he only shook his head. There was only a reason to this, they both were destroyed and the energies within their inner core were stolen and taken away.

The mountains were flattened, the oceans dried up, the forest razed to ashes. An ordinary man would not find the way around because of the darkness, but for him, his suit emitted powerful rays of bright light from the palm. So looking around wasn't much of a problem.

'Di-nosium,' he gently called out.

'Yes, Optimus.' the hologram replied.

'Can we evaluat—'

'Commander!' a faint call resonated around the destroyed field.

The man in the suit looked over his shoulder immediately before touching the side glass protecting his face, saying, 'Grimm..what do you have.'

'I-I-I don't know... C-c-commander!'

Hearing the disquiet voice of his apprentice he rushed to meet her. Immediately the under of his feet released a high screeching noise and later it started to combust inside. This combustion caused flames that took the man up from the ground and straight to where his apprentice stood.

His apprentice armour wasn't so different from his, like astronauts but with gadgets none has ever seen around her suit. When the man got to her position he was dumbfounded by what he was met with.

'My god...' he whispered.

This sudden emotion was due to a hole. A hole so large if one stood on the moon they would clearly see the hole, covering some parts of the earth's circumference.

Not just the hole, but many other holes lesser in size were also in sight.

'They were feeding on its core..' the man commented.

'The other squad is still in transit to its bottom, Commander.' said his female apprentice.

'Call off the search!'

'Sir..?'

'I said call of the search..!!' the man yelled even louder than before.

'Y-y-yes Sir..!' she responded immediately. Reaching straight to her breastplate, she touched a button and shouted, 'All units, the search to locate any last-survivor have been denied, I repeat, denied. You're all requested to return to base with immediate effect!'

'All units do you read?!'

'All units do you re—'

'It's of no use.' the man replied slowly as he turned around. His apprentice too followed suit as she took a turn and said to him.

'What do you mean, Commander?!'

'We. Are. Not. Alone.' the man replied word afterword.

'Impossible! The Encounter has ended, how is it possible?!'

'They knew we would be coming. And they prepared for our arrival.' the man drawled.

The lady's pupil shrunk as she heard her Commander. She threw her head 360° and said without patience, 'We must leave. Now Sir!!'

'No!!' the man yelled back and turned around, 'We are yet to complete our mission! Innocent lives were lost because of me!'

At this point in time he fell on his knees as he said to the ground, 'And it is all my fault. I failed to reach here on time. I must correct my wrongs, no matter the cost.'

The lady looked completely terrified at her Commander. From her memories, there was only one reason for the cause of this catastrophe – planet worms. They were almost the size of this world's continent. It would only take a matter of second for it to get to the surface of the world and dig its way back again, destroying every last one of them.

Despite her dark thoughts, she sighed. She had a code to act according to. Going against this code meant going against her very existence. The code was loyalty to uphold her cause no matter the cost. She had been chosen separately by the Order of The Hand, to accompany the group on their mission. And that she must accomplish.

Thud!

She fell on her knees too and silently drove her head to meet her Commander's dissatisfied gaze, 'What..can we do?'

Her Commander responded by looking back at her. 'We must go back. To warn them.' he slowly said.

The lady shook her head before answering him, 'That's too far..we would lose our life force and outgrow our present time.'

The man responded by shaking his head, 'I am aware of the downfalls. That is why I have decided to go alone.'

'What..! You'll die before you even travel back that far!'

'It is a course I have chosen to take.' he said, 'You should go back. Tell the Order of The Hand the uprise of a new Hand, is at hand.'

'What..? No—!'

Just as they discussed, the entire earth began to tremble and shake, like the land had risen from its slumber.

'It is coming.. Go!!' he shouted.

The lady hesitated, but the second scream from her Commander woke her up, 'GOOO!!!'

With that said, she immediately ran passed him, signalling for their mother ship to come and pick her from this world.

'Dynosium...!! Initiate the negative protocol M-I 1!'

'I am sorry Negsus Grimm. It is not in my programming to answer foreign requests.' the monotonous voice sounded inside her suit.

'What..! Commander..?!' she yelled as she dashed through the air in her sky-suspending boots.

'Dynosium.. start the negative protocol M-I 1.' the voice of her Commander sounded inside her suit.

'Sir, are you aware that implementing this action without your remaining team would have you and them trapped in this world.'

'Do it! Dynosium!!'

'As you wish, Sir Taurus.'

Just as the lady was blasting off inside her suit, a very faint sparkle twinkled in the atmosphere, and with speed only seconds to that of light, a large spacecraft descended to her front. In comparison, she was like a speck of dust entering a lorry.

The moment she entered the spacecraft, the light automatically switched on and every machine starting booting systematically.

'Ready every firearm in this baby.' she said as she got in.

'I only answer requests to the Commander of th—'

'I am the Commander now..!! You answer to me Dynosium!!' she yelled.

Like the A.I on its own had a mechanism to think. It didn't refuse the lady's offer as it too knows that its previous Commander was on the verge of committing suicide. 'Yes, Commander Negsus Grimm.'

As for Commander Taurus, he slowly got up from the floor. Waiting for the moment he would finally go to eternal rest. He tightened his fist as he stood and listen to the cry of chaos itself seeping out from the end of the world.

The cry got louder and louder till the monster shut out from the mountains. Destroying every layer of the world in its ascent to devour. Even as huge as it was, it could smell the life force of an organism millions of miles away. It smelt a whole pack of aura remaining at the first layer of the world... which meant it hadn't completely devoured them all. To him, how fortunate.

The commander took two steps forward in agitation. He extended his hands and a staff made of pure blue light materialised in his grasp. Just as he was deep in thought, a shadow covered 50 miles around him. When he looked up, he saw his ship with enough battle power that could vanquish a dwarf planet all ready for activation.

With that seen, he whispered slowly, 'Let us end the destruction that vanquished Mankind,' and afterwards disappearing due to speed.