Birth - Legend of the Slayer, p1 of 100
(Crossover with DC Comic's New Gods)
Ficlet written for the TTH100 challenge
Prompt: #040 Birth
There came a time when the Olds Gods died. The Brave died with the Cunning. The Noble perished, locked in battle with unleashed Evil. It was the last day for them. An ancient era was passing in fiery holocaust.
The final moment came with the fatal release of indescribable power, which tore the home of the Old Gods asunder, split it in great halves, and filled the universe with the blinding death-flash of its destruction. In the end, as the sounds of cosmic thunder faded, silence closed upon what had happened. A long, deep silence wrapped in massive darkness. It was this way for an age.
Then... there was new light. And from this light would rise the New Gods, who would wage war across the cosmos in the ultimate struggle of good against evil. This is not the story of the New Gods, though.
The terrible power unleashed by the destruction of the Old Gods filled the universe, a phenomenon that would later be called the God Wave. In its wake it planted the seeds of divinity on hundreds of worlds. One such world would one day be called Earth.
Earth was a barren wasteland in those times, ruled by terrible creatures that had been cast out of the heavens eons before. Gods they had been, now humbled and reduced to mere demons and devils. They ruled over the lesser worlds, unable ever to return to their home, taking their hate and frustration out on those too weak to resist.
The thunder that spelled the end of the Old Gods also spelled the end for the monstrous rulers of Earth. For the seeds of divinity blossomed into flowers and gave rise to the gods of men. They would carry many names in the future. The Ancients. The Powers That Be. The Elders. With their newfound power they cleansed the world of the old evil and banished it to the deepest pits of the universe.
The God Wave, though, did not bestow its power exclusively on those who would use it for Good. It also gave birth to a new breed of Evil. Many were the faces of this Evil, its machinations myriad.
One such Evil was the creature known only as Shadow. Born from the ashes of the Old God's most foul darkness, it was feared even by others of its ilk, for it took special relish in slaughtering its own kind. It existed solely in the action of death and slept on a bed of bones.
Eventually, though, it came to the attention of a group of human shamans calling themselves the Shadowmen. The Shadowmen leashed and redirected the fury of this creature, bound it to the mortal form of a young girl, and set it loose upon the Evils of the world. Thus was born the world's greatest supernatural defender:
The Slayer.
THE END