Dream Drive: Yuri Ch. 01

"Yeah, ok," he said, confused. "Alright, settle down, now."

She hugged him tighter and whispered into his ear, "Please, Savior, don't mention my magic talent. Please. Not to anyone."

"Cara, my dear," the elder called up to the wagon, "release the Savior, so that he may come into the tent. Savior, please, join me inside! There is much we need to speak on."

Cara let go of Yuri. He quirked an eyebrow at her wide, blue eyes. She discreetly shook her head and put her finger to her lips. She mouthed another "please" at him. Confused, Yuri gave her a simple nod and let it go. He had a plot dump to get to.

He got off the wagon. The elder held the tent flap open for him. Yuri ducked inside. Two carpets covered the ground in the center of the tent. The grass around them was sparse and very short. A pillow was in the center of each carpet. The tent itself was a collection of sheets suspended over long, twisted branches that had been driven into the dirt to serve as poles.

"Forgive the accommodations, Savior," the elder contritely said, "all our furnishings have perished in the fire."

"That's perfectly alright." Yuri sat on one pillow, lotus style.

The elder tried to mimic him on the other pillow, but had to settle for kneeling atop it, when his limbs proved too stiff.

"So, you have a tale to tell me?"

The elder looked surprised. "Well, yes. I guess you could call it that. I have a sacred charge... All of us elders had been given a sacred charge by the Fallen Angel." His expression slowly became pleased. "Since I had the honor of meeting you first, I shall be the one to tell the tale."

"I'm listening."

"You see, five years ago, we elders began receiving dreams from the Fallen Angel who calls himself The Trickster." Yuri's brow rose. The elder smiled. "I can assure you, the Trickster is a very benevolent angel. Of all the angels, Fallen, or otherwise, he is perhaps the most understanding, when it comes to humans. In the dreams, the Trickster told us that five years from then -that is, now- saviors would be summoned from another world. It is a world which is the highest level of the Tower of Babylon and the closest to Heaven itself. The saviors would come here, they would be drawn to the Mountain and they would save Heaven and all the worlds the Tower connects."

He looked at Yuri expectantly. Yuri simply stared back. Somewhat stymied, the elder continued his narration. "Yes, well, let's start at the beginning, shall we? A long, long time ago, the Trickster revealed to our ancestors, the true story of the Battle of Heaven and the Fall of the Angels. I shall now relate it to you, in an abbreviated form, as the Trickster instructed.

"In the beginning of time, God created the Earth and created humans in His image. He granted dominion of the Earth to humans and decreed that they shall fulfill a great purpose on the Earth in His name. God created the angels and set them to watch over His creation. He created Guardians, led by the archangel Michael, to safeguard the Earth from any interference and maintain order. He created Reapers, led by the archangel Samuel, so humans would be mortal and only have a limited time on God's creation before the Reapers would lay claim to their souls and usher them into the afterlife. This was a key point to God's plan for humans, that we should only have a limited amount of time on this Earth to play our part. Individually, that is. God's grand plan is concerned with the whole of humanity, you see.

"But, there was a problem. The humans were not doing what God wanted them to do. They were as animals, just following their instincts and ignoring the three glorious gifts He had given them; their souls, their free will and love. God decided to coax them into fulfilling their purpose by creating two more breeds of angels, the Muses and the Cherubs. The Muses, led by the archangel Gabriel, were to inspire the humans to achieve their destiny. The Cherubs, led by the archangel Danyael, were to make sure the humans used their capacity to love in accordance to God's plan.

"Still, the humans failed at their appointed task. The Muses gave them ideas, but humans did not act upon them, preferring to stick to the known and comfortable. The only thing they did was paint the caves in which they dwelled. The Cherubs made them fall in love, but the humans did not act upon their emotions. They bred like animals, with no regard for their mates. Indeed, they mated wildly amongst themselves, in orgies. Their children grew up with no knowledge of who their father was. Only maternal siblings were counted. Family was the same as the tribe, but the tribe was not as warm and supportive as a family would be.

"Each new generation of humans behaved exactly as the generation that preceded it. They were not advancing according to God's grand design.

"None of this was pleasing to God, so He washed the Earth clean of humans and started over. Only, this time, He first created another angel. This angel would be more powerful than any of the archangels. A shard of his very essence would be placed into the soul of every new human God created. It would be perpetuated throughout humanity, for as long as it existed, and it would be the very thing that would drive humans towards the destiny God had appointed for them.

"This new angel was the archangel of disobedience and God dubbed him The Morning Star."

Yuri raised an eyebrow. "Lucifer?"

The elder nodded. "Yes. The one and the same. A tiny shard of his very essence lies in the heart of both you and me. It is what drives us forward. It is what will drive us towards the ultimate fate of humanity, as appointed by God. Indeed, ever since that day, humans began to make use of their free will. With each coming generation, they strove to take in more of God's creation and so they expanded and mastered it. God looked down upon their efforts and was pleased. He left the realm of Earth to the care of humans and charged the archangel Michael to safeguard it and make sure His plan was not derailed. Michael would brook no dissent.

"However, The Morning Star disobeyed God's orders, as was in his nature, and began to work to overthrow the order of things. He convinced Gabriel to his side and even Danyael. The Reapers remained as indifferent as ever. The Muses and the Cherubs marched against the Gates of Heaven, intent on overthrowing Michael and the Guardians and remaking the Heavens and the Earth. A terrible battle was joined. The Cherubs' hearts were not really in it and, when the battle started to cull them, Danyael led them away. Gabriel repented for his betrayal and The Morning Star was left weakened and betrayed by his allies. Still, he was the strongest and he marched against Michael, alone if need be.

"Michael ordered the remaining Guardians to sacrifice themselves and they joined into his Flaming Sword. The Sword, when wielded, sang with the Voice of God, for God had spoken the true name of each angel as He had breathed life into them. His voice was within them, within their essence. When they gave up their individual existences to fuse their essences into the Sword, they fused the Voice of God into it, as well. Michael wielded the Sword and struck down the Morning Star, making him fall from the Heavens in a maelstrom of God's lightning. The angels that followed him were banished by Michael, too. They became known as The Fallen.

"Michael couldn't go against God's Will, which included the creation of The Morning Star and fusing his essence with each human's soul, so he didn't kill him. He used his Flaming Sword to slash the mountains and rocks at the place in which The Morning Star fell to Earth and melt them into a set of unbreakable chains. He used those to bind the archangel of disobedience and thus Lucifer was entombed forever under the Earth, from where he can only be released by God Himself.

"Even as Michael won and cast Lucifer down, the fallen angels did a clever thing. They captured the sound of the Voice of God, the Flaming Sword being wielded. Using these recordings, they began to remake the Earth, according to their desires. Michael tried to stop them, but he was left all alone in Heaven, the remaining Guardians fused into the Flaming Sword. He could not abandon his post and remains guarding the Gate of Heaven to this very moment. The Reapers were as neutral as they had been since the first day God created them. The few Muses and Cherubs that remained in Heaven were very reluctant to rise up in arms against their brethren of yesteryear, especially as those brethren now outnumbered them and had the power of the recorded Voice of God on their side.

"With Lucifer entombed and Michael stuck at his post before the Pearly Gates, The Fallen rallied and worked to fulfill Lucifer's original idea. They wanted to recreate the Earth, but they soon learned that they couldn't. Not while they were upon the Earth itself. Using the Voice of God, they created a new world, another Earth, and moved to it, to try and recreate the Earth from this new world. It did not work, but the fallen angels learned two important things. The first was that truly changing the Earth according to one's whims could only be done from inside Heaven itself. No matter how many new worlds they made with the recordings of the Voice of God, they could never truly unmake anything that God had made. Not unless they were inside Heaven. From outside Heaven, they could only copy and modify and that was not enough for their ambitions.

"The second thing that they learned was that the creation of this new world brought them closer to the Gates of Heaven. If they created more interconnected worlds, they could reach the Gates themselves. Thus, they began to create world upon world, connecting them into a great edifice. They dubbed it The Tower of Babylon."

The elder leaned in, his nostrils flaring and his brow beaded with sweat. "Of course, reaching the Gates would not grant them accessthrough the Gates. Not with Michael and his Flaming Sword standing guard. Even if all the Fallen struck at him, Michael would strike them down with one singing slash of the Flaming Sword. The Voice of God is still in his hand." He leaned back, wincing at the pains in his knees, and adjusted his position on his cushion.

Yuri stared at the elder, unsatisfied with the pause in the story. "So the Fallen gave up on their grand plan and...what? Turned to tormenting humans out of petty revenge?"

The elder shook his head. "They were ready to spend millennia on the problem, but they came up with the solution quite quickly."

Yuri raised a questioning eyebrow.

"They realized that, in order to overpower Michael at the Gates, they would have to attack him from behind, from inside Heaven."

"Sounds like a catch-22," Yuri said.

The elder nodded and then paused. "A catch what?"

"Never mind."

After a brief pause, the elder shrugged. He leaned in with a wicked gleam in his eye. "They're stuck outside and can only win by striking a blow from behind, but they can't get behind him, as long as they're stuck outside." He chuckled. "Insurmountable for us mere mortals, eh?"

Yuri shot the man a slightly insulted look. All problems could be solved, given enough time and effort. Before he could set his mind to it, though, the elder gave the solution.

"You see, there were still Reapers in Heaven. They still had their purpose of ferrying human souls into Heaven. If enough innocent souls were to be ferried at the same instant, then the Gates would have to be thrown wide open, knocking Michael off his perch."

Yuri frowned. This game's pivotal plot point seemed to have a fairly large hole in it. He decided to poke around. "I don't think Michael throw open the Gates while they were under attack."

"Michael has no say in the matter. The Reapers have control of the Gates."

"Surely, the Reapers would not throw the Gates open while Heaven was under attack?"

"They have no free will in the matter. They are bound to ferry all innocent souls to Heaven and will brook no delay. If enough innocent souls were to be reaped at once, they will throw the Gates wide open and allow the Fallen to overpower Michael, Sword and all."

"Ok, and how exactly would the fallen angels reap enough innocent souls to get the Reapers to throw open the Gates? Are we talking virgin sacrifices? How many are needed?"

The elder sighed and shook his head. "To throw open the Gates, the Fallen would need to kill all the humans on all the worlds at the same time."

"Wow."

"I know it sounds impossible, but the Fallen have created new worlds and into each new world, they brought humans and set them to master that new world. Each world was a copy of Earth, slightly different from the original, so the humans had little trouble with mastering it. They would grow populous and prosperous. As each world became so populated that humans began to squabble over limited resources, they turned to making more and more effective weapons of war.

"The Fallen paid special interest to these creations, copying them for their own use and nudging the humans further. The ones that made the best weapons were brought into the new worlds when the Fallen created them. The Trickster told us that, in the last world that had been created, the humans had created incredible weapons capable of unleashing a heat greater than any known to man. These weapons can consume entire cities in the span of a heartbeat. I know that this must sound preposterous to you, but-"

"Not at all. Proceed."

The elder seemed surprised by how easily Yuri adopted the incredible concept of city-burning weapons. Then he slumped with a groan. "A thousand apologies, Savior. In all the stress of the day, I completely forgot the most important part of the prophecy about you. I most humbly beg your forgiveness. It is not every day that one sees one's home burned down, or fears for his only child's safety, and these things have conspired to-"

"It's perfectly alright," Yuri said, raising a hand. "I forgive you. But, please, do tell me this most important part of the prophecy about me."

The elder bowed his head. "Thank you for your forgiveness, Savior. The most important part of the prophecy concerning you is that you are from this last world."

Yuri's brow wrinkled.

"You are from the Overworld and you know of these weapons, far better than I."

Yuri chuckled softly. This game was so meta, it was off the chart. First this guy's daughter sees Yuri's menus and now he himself knows about Earth and nuclear weapons. If nothing else, it was a novel approach to gaming. Usually, in a role-playing game the backstory of the fantasy world had absolutely no connection to real world history. Some events and historical figures might have parallels in the game, but that was it. Once you were in the game, the real world didn't exist, for all intents and purposes.

This game actually claimed Earth as another world that was connected to it. Yuri guessed that gamers worldwide would love the concept. Emil Mohammed would get several thick rungs added to his pedestal.

Yuri frowned. His research on Emil Mohammed indicated that he was a devout Muslim. Why was he having a bastardized version of the myth of creation in his game? In no other game of his had he even once touched upon Abrahamaic religions. It seemed like an oddity.

The elder smiled, somewhat confused. "I'm...glad you find this amusing. The Fallen angel said you might. He also said to tell you that this is real."

"Oh, did he now?"

The elder's face became deathly serious in an instant. "Yes. He said that you would come to us believing that you were playing some sort of a game. We must convince you that this is real. He said that, before you..." He seemed to fumble for his words. "Excuse me, he said that you would know what this means. He said that, before you," he strained to enunciate his next words, "log out next time, we are to mark your skin with our blood and instruct you to look for it in the Overworld. When you first return to your world, the mark will show you that the powers you have been given are real." He made a small noise in the back of his throat. "Since I'm the only elder left alive, I guess it falls to me to bleed on you."

Yuri could barely keep a straight face. This was the skunkworks guys' doing, he was sure of it. He felt a smidge of disappointment, since the game's actual backstory was probably something completely different. It didn't matter much. He had little intention of playing through the plot. Only the scenery held any real appeal for him. He decided to get back at the guys by poking more holes in their story.

"You know, in my world, the Overworld, we have cave paintings, left there by our ancestors, so I don't think that we've been transplanted to our version of Earth by angelic magic. We've evolved and lived there for hundreds of thousands of years."

The elder shook his head. "Whenever the Fallen create a new world, they copy some choice fragments of history from previous Earths to hide the fact that they have transplanted the most creative humans there."

"How do you know all of this?"

The elder sighed. "Well, most of it was taught to me by my father, who was taught by my grandfather, who was taught by my great-grandfather and so on, until the first of our people were taught by the Trickster himself."

"I'm sorry, I don't understand this one thing. The Trickster is one of the Fallen, correct?"

"Yes."

"And he told you all about the Fallen's secret plan to conquer Heaven?"

"Yes."

"Why would he tell you about a plan that he's working to accomplish?"

"Ah, you see, the Trickster is secretly workingagainst the Fallen."

"Oh," Yuri said, with exaggerated delight, "I see. He's a double agent."

"Yes. Exactly."

"So, as far as I understand it, Satan and the angels that had been banished from Heaven are going to steal all the Earth's nukes, deploy them in all the worlds of the multiverse, detonate them all at the same time, thus killing all humans in all of existence, all to get the Reapers to knock Michael off his perch in front of the Gates of Heaven, so they could beat him, get inside and remake Earth as they see fit. Remakeall the Earths as they see fit. Am I right?"

The elder seemed perturbed by Yuri's flippant attitude. "I don't know what 'newx' means, but yes, the Fallen will steal the great fire weapons and instantly destroy all of creation."

"And I am the only one that can stop them?"

The elder's face brightened. "You need not fear, Savior. You are not alone in this quest. The Trickster said that five thousand and sixteen shall be chosen for this great task, though he also warned that it is possible that fewer than that would accept the call to adventure."

Something about that number started raising alarm flags in the back of Yuri's mind. He had learned a piece of relevant information somewhere, he just couldn't recollect it at the moment. He let his mind work at retrieving it through associative exercises. The nearest number to that was the number of gamers in Crux's tournament, but those fell short of the mark by twenty.

"The Trickster also told us that the Fallen are helping to keep the Overworld locked into a perpetual state of war. Your entire world is at war with itself, is it not? The Fallen want to get enough of these fire weapons built so that they can fulfill their purpose. The Trickster told us that a prophet from the Overworld had contacted Lucifer five years ago and agreed to channel enough magical power to anoint five thousand and sixteen warriors of God. They would be sent here, to the original Earth, where they would begin their quest to save all of creation."

"Why here? I don't mean why Earth One, but why this place? Why was I sent to your town, of all the places on this Earth?"