Thus Speak Prodigal
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Disclaimer : Any description of characters which resembles real-life or cyber characters are merely coincidences.
Heaven and Hell (Part I)
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(a) In the Garden of Runoa
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Elsewhere, in a realm where there was no day and night, where good and evil had become meaningless, where time and space were nothing but constructs by matter of the elegant universe, where it is the home of a group of powerful beings named the Endless. The Equinox stood in the midst of day and night, where Runoa, the goddess of love, was currently tending to her plants in her beautiful garden which was filtered with lotus, roses, lilies and morning glories.
Runoa was a graceful and beautiful angel in her own light. She was dressed in a beautiful piece of white dress with a beautiful translucent blue scarf, and had a pair of beautiful eyes. She was the goddess of Love, the person who controlled the fate of many men and women in the mortal world. Recently, to her own amusement, she has her highpriest to construct a game in Canada called "Change of Heart", where it was used to test couples. She was terribly amused by the change of heart in human relationships. To her, love is something sacred and being the goddess of Love, she have to be firm in tying the knot between a man and a woman, and sometimes, for a man and a man, and a woman and a woman. She has her tenets on Love on her sigil, a small shiny diamond necklace which she wore on her neck.
At that instant of eternity, she felt the presence of another powerful being nearby. It was a man in dark grey robes. He was hidden before the hood.
"Brother, why are you here?" Runoa asked.
"It concerns him," the man in robes spoke. "There is nothing which I do not know of, for I am the beginning and the ending of our Universe. For I begin and end the story of many people. Despite he has abandoned us, but he has re-surfaced again in the mortal world."
"U mean him," said Runoa. She was longing to see him again. The man whom she was a close friend to, had finally appeared. "The last thing I heard from him was an electronic mail which depicted the situation in a world called Sgforumsia."
"Yes," the man in grey robes spoke,"You would be leaving this realm soon to meet him."
"No way," said Runoa in an assertive manner,"he abandoned his responsibility as an Endless. Besides, what makes you so sure that I would meet him? I know that you know all that is past, present and even the future. Tell me, brother, what has happened to him?"
"You do not understand, but you will," said the man in grey robes,"I shall take my leave." He disappeared into thin air.
"But brother...," Runoa did not have her questions answered. Immediately, she raised her hands and concentrated. Suddenly, she felt an anomaly in spacetime. She realized that the anomaly actually came from Hell. Without any thought, she summoned her flying steed and returned back to her castle. After her departure, the man in grey robes re-materialized and said,"and so it begins.."
(b)Hell is a place on Earth
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On the other end of the Universe, was a battle among the cosmic powers of the cyberuniverse. The three friends were now trapped in the depths of the Nine Hells. Bish, Torrants and Prodigal are now to face their most powerful adversary of all time, the Devil aka Lucifer S.A. Tan, with his newborn image. You know the one that look like Leonardo Dicappucino. He was accompanied by his pretty concubine, Dr Hallo Kathy, and Dear Donald, his right hand man who had appeared with all the hell demons.
"This is not a good situation," Bish said, as he looked at the Prodigal, who kept quiet. Suddenly, he felt that the Prodigal looked more serious as before.
"Welcome to Hell," S.A. Tan spoke,"You have fallen into one of my grand schemes to conquer the human race."
"Where is my bride, Mayar?" Torrants spoke with anger and he demanded to know where his bride to be was.
"You don't deserve the Lord of Hell to answer your question," Hallo Kathy refuted the God of Time.
"I do," Torrants said as he raised his harp and played a tune. The tune took the form of a few streams of lightning and seared across to the Devil. He did not care about his life anymore, because he would not rest till he get the answer to find his bride. However, the effort was futile. The Devil took the lightning into his hands and made them vanished into nothingness.
"Don't waste your effort, Torrants," the Prodigal said,"You are now in his realm. He is the controller of the game."
"May I know who you are then," the Devil said, as he stared right into Prodigal's sunshades.
"My name is of no importance to you, S.A. Tan," the Prodigal said.
"What do you want from us?" Bish was getting impatient, and drew his battle axe and rushed towards the Devil.
"No, Bish," Prodigal tried to stop his friend. But Bish was too fast for him. He charged towards the Devil. However, when he slashed his axe into him, the axe just went pass him.
"This is to teach you not to mess with me, boy," a voice came behind Bish and it was a hand filled with an evil vortex which would devour the God of War into nothingness. Just as Bish was to have his fate sealed, a simple hand caught the Devil's hand and the whole area exploded in a split second. Bish was thrown off apart and Torrants rushed to hold him after the tremendous explosion. At the next instant, the dust settled down and there was only 2 people in the centre of the mountain : the prodigal and the Devil standing face to face against each other, a man in white and the other in black. The howling winds blew in Hell, and lifting their trenchcoats in a beautiful manner. Hello Kathy and Dear Donald were standing on the other side of the red bloody hills.
"Indeed, you are of no ordinary cosmic power. You are one of the Endless," the Devil said,"This makes the plot even interesting. I will make you a deal, if you could defeat me, I will let you all go."
"That is not good enough," the prodigal said.
"You should never try to cut a deal with the devil," the evil one spoke.
"Well, I doubt that you can even deal with me, since I am one of the Endless. The Endless controls beyond the Creator and your realms." the prodigal said in strong confidence.
"Alright, if I am defeated, and your friends are not killed by Hallo Kathy and Dear Donald before the battle between us is over, I will reveal the whereabouts of Mayar then."
"You mean, Mayar is not in hell," Torrants realized that it was a ruse to lure him here.
"Alright then, start the battle then, S.A. Tan," the prodigal spoke. At this instant, both entities flashed into oblivion to begin their cosmic battle while Torrants and Bish had to face the fury of the demoness and her consort.
The demoness and her consort began their summoning and each of them had conjured a sword to their hand. Suddenly, they were transformed into a woman in white which resembles that much of the ugly Fish Wong, and the man resembles that much of Chris Dee. They were transformed into the condor villains. Immediately, they unleashed their swordsplay towards Bish and Torrants.
Torrants summoned his harp and fired streams fo lightning against the demented duo. However, they were flying in such an agile manner that his lightning bolts were of no match to them. Suddenly, two blades seared right in front of him. The two blades were intercepted by a strong battle axe. Bish was here to the rescue.
"Nobody messes with my friend, not even you two, Yang Beng and Xiao Lian Nu!" the God of War muttered as he slamed his axe towards them but well parried by the combined effort of the Beng-Lian "Jian Fa"(swordsplay). Torrants transformed his harp into a sword and attacked the duo. However, both of them were too fast for him. Bish and Torrants immediately took a back to back formation.
"They are too fast to be hit by us," Torrants said to his friend, as he lifted his blade ready for the next assault.
"No one has ever defeated the Beng-Lian formation, face your doom, Torrants and Bish," the duo spoke, as they were summoning a terrible tornado which was ready to smash the two manifestions.
(c)I quit
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The prodigal was seated still, as he was sitting in front of the table in a seemingly Japanese setting with a cup of hot tea and a old fashioned small and delicate chinese pot right in front of him. On the other end of the table, was the Devil, who was seated with a similar cup of hot tea and the same pot. On the centre of the table, was a burning kettle with the water half-filled.
This is the way how a battle will work between very very powerful cosmic beings. They no longer need weapons of extremly ultra high magnitude which could cause cosmological damage, for example a thermonuclear bomb which is a billions time more powerful than the hydrogen bomb that could destroy a whole supercluster of galaxies. There is no point because they would lose their playground. They don't need to use any form of energy blasts on each other. All they ever need are just nothing but exchange of words between each other. The pen is mightier than the sword, and the suan is mightier than a pun. It was a philosophical battle between the prodigal and the Devil.
"S.A. Tan, before we will begin the battle, there is something I do not understand. Why do you want the God of Time and War in your realm?" the prodigal spoke, as he took the warm cup of tea with poise and style.
"Well, Prodigal," the Devil said in a cunning grin,"My motives are only that which I understood, and no mortals could. Even gods do not understand me at times. Those mortal idiots think that the end of the world would end in their so-called Millenium, but they were all idiots. Consider the source where they quote their information from. To think that they are indoctrinated by that stupid book called the Bible. Besides why should I go and make love with a woman to end the world? There are so many ways to end the world, and only they can think of a major cataclysm, while they are destroying themselves with their own technology and inventions."
"Well, at least they made a fool out of you in Arnie's new movie 'The End of Days'," the prodigal said in sheer sarcasm,"They made you a moron by making you to have a sexual foreplay with your bride to be only in 10 secs before you have to wait for a thousand years. The most funniest part was the 666 twisted into a 999 thing. They made you a senseless rapist who just sleep with whichever woman and that includes your highpriest's wife and daughter. I was amused that the Devil would take the form of a bloodsucking banker. That is the only thing that resembles you."
"That is not the most moronic thing that they have done," the Devil refuted,"The verdict to the end of the world is not fixed, and they believed in that stupid book. The Bible is not written by God, but by men. The rules and regulations set forth by the church were not made by God, and it was men who made it, and broke it."
"Well, I am duly impressed by your efforts to tempt the mortals to the evil path for at least 5 millenia, since the dawn of the human race," the prodigal said, as he lifted his hand and manipulated the kettle towards his pot to boil the tea leaves in his pot. The Devil unleashed the hot tea from his drink and tried to stop him. It all went so fast, and at the next instant, the kettle was placed back on the stove, and the prodigal drank his tea.
"Those Christians and Catholics are a useless bunch of morons. They warred against themselves all the time, in their own denominations. They made their own stupid rules and regulations. The most stupid thing is that they follow literally every statement in the bible and interpret their own way. The most funny thing is that they become intolerant to other religions in the world, and condemn those who are not with them to hell. They did not realize that they were committing a sin in the process by forcing people into their religion and not practising the proper virtues of their religion. The life of a Christian is very hard one, and for me, it is very easy to corrupt these humans. I understand that old man better than these mortal humans. All I ever did was to sow discord among these factions with my agents and I never did anything to tempt them by myself. You see, crusades were made and wars reigned otherwise Bish would have nothing to do, and many people lost their lifes, committed sins and in the end, they would still believe that the old man would pardon them thru his son Jesus Christ."
"Well, at least there are the holy ones which you fail to corrupt," said the Prodigal. "Then again, there are mortals who managed to see your plot, like C.S. Lewis with his book 'Screwtape letters'."
"I do agree that he is the one of the cleverer people who saw through my trick. Then, I don't corrupt most of the people these days to my side. Times are changing, even hell needs to be computerised and have internet connection because we are now packed with billions of tormented souls. Instead I used a new form of philosophy to corrupt mortals to secularism, making them believe that God is uncaring to them, and so you see all the violence and materialism flourished in the cities. Atheism, Agnosticism, Islam and Buddhism are more the choice of common men but not Christianity anymore. These people have no idea that they have already forgotten what religion meant to them. Serial killers are more rampant, and people started worshipping these killers, look at the movie "Natural Born Killers", that was one of my good work," the Devil retorted in a smile.
"Well, surely, you would understand that good and evil are just plain labels between the Creator and you, both of you are just playing the cosmic game to see how the humans are made to play your games. The people who chose to disbelieve in both you and the Creator namely these atheists and agnostics, had found their way out of your cosmic game." the Prodigal said.
"Yes indeed, and the Endless too, who exist outside the realms of us. Besides, there are the Manifestions and the other pantheons of gods, like the Greeks, Egyptians, Vikings, and etc.." the devil smiled as he gazed straight into the prodigal's eyes. That gaze was filled with evil and attempted to induce fear into the Endless.
"Yet till now, you have not told me why you lured Bish and Torrants here." the prodigal said in a smile,"Stop beating about the bush, S.A. Tan. Why did you ask them here?"
"Well, at the first sight, the reason of luring them here is for the same reason why I am battling against you now. It just made my plot much more interesting than I expected. Now that I have gotten a much more powerful being to play my cosmic game, an Endless, what more can I ask for?"
"So, why don't we just stop talking crap and start your game?" the prodigal gestured with his hand, signalling to the Devil to begin their battle now.
"The game is very simple," the Devil smiled as he took out a key from his pocket and threw it. The key landed right in front of the prodigal,"I have decided to quit my job in Hell and you can now have it!"
"What?!!!!" the prodigal was caught in a state of surprise before the Devil. He could not believe that the owner of Hell has decided to quit.
[to be continued]
[This message has been edited by prodigal (edited 08 February 2000).]
[This message has been edited by prodigal (edited 08 February 2000).]
