Disclaimer: I do not own the Power Rangers, they belong to their respective copyright owners and are used here without permission. No money is being made from this fic.
Authors Note: This is an alternate universe with an alternate time line.
Cosmic Gods
With The Creator guiding the process, the universe was taking shape, just as The One desired. His time away from the throne while brief had allowed the destructive energy to build up, an event that required urgent action. So while the process of creation continued, The One concentrated on maintaining the stream of energy needed to sustain life until The One's servants had successfully made the modifications to allow the planets to sustain themselves.
The Creator's servants had spread out through the cosmos, seeking out the seeds that The One had cast and tending them until they were properly embedded. As they did so, they gave the rough foundations structure, form and function. Where once the universe had been a flat construct, the adaptations had led to the creation of layers with The One's planet and its nearby galaxies at the top. And at the bottom of the many layers was a dimension that served as the eternal prison of The One's greatest regret: The Dark One.
At the beginning The One had appeared in the darkness and had given birth to existence. As the universe had expanded, the energy from which he had emerged gave form to other entities. Although they were one and the same, they were also separate and different. For those that could still see the planet, they appeared as one entity shifting as each personality took control for the time needed to complete their tasks. Up close it was evident that they all existed simultaneously.
Since those looking on assumed that they were seeing a single being, they came to associate each form with a function and named them appropriately. They had given many names, among them: The One, The Creator, The Presence, The Source, The Voice, The One Above All Others and even just The God of the Universe. He had willed the universe to exist and then expand. It was at his urging that existence grew beyond a simple series of galaxies into the complex structure those that came later would inherit.
At the beginning, The One had been restricted to the planet while The Creator worked to stabilise his work. The energy that was a part of The One was untamed and too volatile to move around freely. The Creator had given the energy its own place, just slightly apart from the rest of existence, but until the transference was completed, The One had been forced to sit back as a mere spectator.
And so the energy in response to desire to travel freely and study the cosmos, had brought forth two new entities. While they were crafted from the same energy as The One and The Creator, and were part of The One, they were also individuals with the freedom to travel The One desired. One shone as brightly as the stars and had been named The Luminous One, while the other was as dark as the void and had been given named The Dark One.
Somehow The Dark One had been corrupted and had spread that corruption to others. They turned on universe and The One, declaring war on those that would stop The Dark One from taking the throne. In the end the first clash between Good and Evil had taken millions of years to truly commence and had then taken much longer to reach a point where it appeared The Dark One had gone to far.
It had ended in moments when The One had finally decided to intervene and had broken the restrictions upon his movement. The Dark One, the almost-all-powerful force of darkness within the fledgling existence had been defeated by the superior being. His army was dismantled, his generals were taken away from him and he had been banished far away, forcibly imprisoned in a place beneath the lowest plane of reality where he had been locked outside of existence for the rest of his days. It was an extreme punishment and an act of mercy; it was a weakness The Dark One promised The One would come to regret when he broke free.
As for The One, he returned to his world at the very top of creation, looking down upon The Creator's work and approved of his labours. In his absence there had been a lack of control and the process had become random. The One found he approved of the change and so decided to sit back and watch as the cosmos grew without intervening.
But before he did so, he willed a final change to the grand design. In the beginning the cosmos had been constructed without barriers. The Dark One's actions had shown that there were those willing to usurp the order of things. Never again would the population enjoy the freedom they had once possessed. The Creator agreed to the change and existence was divided into planes where different forms of life could be found with walls to prevent them from straying from their natural place.
As they worked, The Creator's servants followed their instructions precisely, separating all layers of existence from the lowest dimension where The Dark One fumed and threatened his revenge all the way to the highest point of existence where The One rested upon his throne.
As time passed, many tried to enter The One's presence, finding ways to defy his will and breach the barriers to reach his planet. Some even believed that he had vanished and sought to sit upon his throne and claim his power. They never returned and their bodies were used to build walls separating his plane of existence from the rest of the universe. Only those He deemed worthy could enter and the bodies of those that had tried to usurp him stood as testament to the fate of that defied him.
The first conflict between the forces of Good and Evil had ended when The One had personally intervened to stop The Dark One. The Dark One had been subdued with ease and offered the option of being stripped of his power and being left to wander the cosmos, or to retain his powers but remain imprisoned in a place of The One's choosing. The Dark One had selected the latter option and had been placed within a prison far beyond the reach of any of his remaining followers.
Meanwhile Paladin, the leader of the Army of Light, had survived his grievous wounds due to The One's intervention. But despite his survival, he was no longer the being that led the Covenant of Light into battle.
For a time, peace reigned.
Before the emergence of Paladin and the Dark One, the cosmos had reacted to The Creator's need for his work to be finished while he concentrated on driving the expansion of the cosmos. A race of servants to finish the construction of the universe, using what The One had provided as the raw material. They had been named the Celestials and while Paladin and the Dark One had led their little armies and fought their war, the Celestials had carried on with their task of creating worlds throughout the many dimensional planes and seeding them with life.
As they worked their way down through the dimensions and further away from The One's sight, the worlds they created grew less impressive and the life forms that evolved upon them held less potential. Each dimensional plane had different physical laws and this along with the lack of creativity by the Celestials limited the growth of some beings. Some made great progress while others never seemed to evolve beyond simple albeit powerful beasts.
It did not help that in the war between Paladin and the Dark One, the lesser beings had been recruited and altered to serve as soldiers. Such corruption of the Celestials' work ruined the grand design, but the Celestials had been given a task and that mission did not involve going back and fixing problems outside of their control.
As the Celestials reached the point at which they planned to turn back and inspect the progress of their creations, they put the finishing touches to their work. Here they created a realm that allowed its people to grow and evolve without limitation. It was a place where the energies emitted by The One barely reached, where the majority of its population would have a limited life span. It was the realm of mortals.
As they finished seeding the worlds that would serve as homes for the universe's lowest denizens, the Celestials allowed themselves to indulge their curiosity for once, tapping into the vast energy of existence and sending forth a wave of energy that would allow some of those it encountered to grow beyond the limitations of their mortal forms. Some would be able to ascend beyond the limitations to occupy the higher dimensions where the environment would make them more than simple mortals. But that would not occur for a long time.
Unbound from his previous role, Paladin discovered that he retained the powers he had enjoyed in his previous role and that he was able to create new beings to help rebalance the cosmos.
Paladin had realised during those moments he had been on the verge of death, that the universe needed a struggle to survive. When at peace for too long the universe stagnated and shrank, while the struggle between the opposing forces kept the universe growing. Those he created were released into the cosmos and allowed to fall through the dimensions from the highest planes close to where The One and those that now worshipped him resided, down to those levels that the Celestials had recently completed.
These were beings of great power and potential that could one day guide the cosmos in a new direction. He granted them the freedom to decide upon their own morals, seeking a balance between the good, the evil, the chaotic, the lawful, the creators and the destroyers. He made certain there were those that represented various states of balance and neutrality. Groups formed among the many dimensions, creating the cosmic pantheons that would be a dominant force for eons to come. Some chose forms that the mind could not comprehend while others chose to resemble beasts.
Some of his creations chose to isolate themselves from those they considered inferior. They took control of the boundaries to the planes and realms they occupied in the belief that the conflict would then be something they could escape when they wanted to. But such efforts only led to divisions within the pantheons as their memberships divided along the old lines of light and dark. It seemed that while balance and neutrality were acceptable, existence had no tolerance for peace.
The Cosmic Gods soon grew weary of the constant fighting between good and evil. Being formed from Paladin's altered essence, they did not have the strict black-and-white view that their predecessors held. Even the most noble of their kind was flawed in some way and even the most wicked possessed a small redeeming feature.
One thing they did enjoy was playing with what they considered the lesser races that had started to emerge in the lower dimensions. The Mortal Realms were filled with those they could influence and torment without fear of reprisals. They allowed the flawed little people to battle on their behalf, often throwing obstacles in their path for fun. But while they amused themselves by believing that they controlled the events in the Mortal Realm, they failed to understand how they had been rendered unimportant by the weaker but by no means inferior creatures.
At the very depths of the cosmos, there was a scar. An ugly reminder of the fall of the Dark One. For beyond that disfigured star system lay the entrance to the Dark One's prison. It was there that The Dark One waited and licked his wounds as his strength recovered, for his loyal followers to release him. The One had not intentionally hurt him during their confrontation, but you did not endure a struggle with a being that powerful without receiving some physical harm. Just as he was certain that The One would feel the effects of his attempts to break free.
As time passed The Dark One rediscovered the abilities he had lost during the shock of being cut off from the universe. His strength while important was of lesser value than the to perceive what was happening outside of his prison. He soon discovered that his key servants had been imprisoned, just as he had, and realised that his release would take time and be dependent upon them breaking their shackles. In the meantime, even while trapped outside of the universe, he retained the ability to reach out to those that would serve him, turning them to his cause.
He soon came to understand that The One's wrath had been swift and brutal, but the intention had been to remove The Dark One from causing further damage, not to punish or contain him. And although The One had taken steps to make sure the wayward entity remained imprisoned, he had not taken all of the precautions to keep The Dark One from continuing his evil ways.
Physically The Dark One was trapped within his prison, but his mind was free to wander through existence, seeking those that would aid him and setting in motion the plans for his release. And despite his prison being located at the very depths of reality, The One had overlooked the connection that the shared to the energy that powered the universe. The One had not broken that link and The Dark One could still draw upon the power. He was just extremely limited in how he could use it.
The energy flowed through The Dark One's prison, just as it did the rest of reality. And as it did so, he was push his darkness into it. His presence was able to corrupt it and the creatures that dwelled within. He was as much a part of that energy as The One and Paladin. And his presence created an impurity within the energy, dividing it between the untainted energy that had once been there and the dark energies that served the Dark One. Over billions of years his presence would taint the it further, creating a darker side of the second dimension and weakening The One in the process.
It was all a matter of patience. The Dark One had grown to understand that his release would take time, but as the long years passed, he had grown to accept that vengeance would take a while, but when it came, he would make The One and his creations suffer.
End of Part
This site has been visited: 1598692 times
