| The tale of Cain is a long one. In his early days, Cain was the son of a powerful sorceror-king, in a plentiful land located on a parallel Earth. His father, who's identity Cain revealed to only a handful of freinds and lovers, was the most powerful sorceror in the known world, while his mother was a concubine and an acolyte of his fathers sorcerous cult. By his nineteenth year, the young Prince Cain was married to a women from one of the northern lands, and was the father of twin children, a son named Naphtal and a daughter named Mirheon. When Naphtal and Mirheon were two, Cain's father unleashed a magical force which would change their world, and the fate of billions across the Megaverse. Whatever Cain's father had been trying to acomplish with his magic, the surrounding lands were stripped of vital energy, creating scorched desert where fertile plains and forests had been. The change in Cain's father, and later, his acolytes and concubines, was even more fearful. Where his father had once been a merciful and wise ruler, whatever force he had unleashed burnt away any goodness in his soul, replacing it with pure Darkness. Calling themselves the Darklords, Cain's father and his followers began using their new found powers over matter and energy to subdue and conquer all surrounding nations. To feed these powers, the Darklords required the life energy of others to replace the portion they had lost in their transformation. Infants were a source of abundant energy, so a policy of sacrificing the first born of every family was instituted. Cain and his wife, who had stood mutely by as Cain's family and freinds looted and pillaged with impunity, were spurred into action when they realized that neither of their children were exempt from this so-called "Tax of Living Flame". They tried to spirit them away with the limited spell casting ability they posessed. The first child to be teleported, their daughter Mirheon, dissapeared in a flash of blue light, with her only destination being a mental guide leading her to "a place of love and refuge". Her brother Naphtal would have joined her, had it not been for the infernal intervention of Cain's father. The High Dark Lord, accompanied by Cain's mother, his leading Dark Lord general, and ten other Dark Lords, strode into Cains fortified retreat, slaughtering his loyal honor gaurd, and entering his personal sanctum unimpeded by the defences Cain had in place. His father demanded that Cain turn over his children. Cain refused, and attempted to finish his teleportation of Naphtal. With a flick of his wrist and a swing of his Rune Staff, the High Dark Lord cleft the infant Naphtal in two, feeding off of the dying boy's life force. Dumb struck by the death of his son, Cain stood motionless as his father mockingly passed an official death sentence on Cain and his wife. Fortunatly, Cain's wife was not as stunned as he was, and with her magic fueled by her grief and anger, she unleashed a barrage of mystical energy against the assembled Dark Lords. The Lords easily countered her assualt, however, and Cain's mother personally disintegrated her with a shower of acid, which she created by transmuting the air above his her. As Cain slumped apathetically to the floor, awaiting his own demise, his father spoke. "Cain Molekath. You have disgraced the house of your father, and for that you deserve nothingless than death. But as your fathers house no longer exists on this ball of dirt in any such form as you would recognize, a more fitting punishment would be to let you live. I banish you from this realm. Return not, as my mercy is more finite than my power." With that, the Dark Lords focussed their power on Cain's fallen form, and like his daughter before him, he disappeared into the familiar blue light. Then the Dark Lords turned, as one, and left the ruins of Cains fortress. Cain would not bear witness to his fathers followers subsequent war against the LIght, nor their banishment to the Lands of Night, or their further transformation into the Ba'al-ze-Neckt - The Night Lords.When Cain reappeared, he found himself lying on a pile of metallic rubble. Looking around, he realized that he was on a strange new world quite unlike his own. For day's he wondered the the desert landscape in a daze, stopping only to skulk in the ruins of the star ships and military bases that littered the landscape. On the fifteenth day of is wandering, Cain collapsed just feet away from a small spring, hidden in the shade of an ancient combat robot's remains. As he lay in the light of the scorching green sun, Cain had a vision. In it, a flurry of colored sparks, some in hues and shades he knew only his mind could perceive, formed into a shifting face, the face of a strangely familiar young women. The glowing face spoke to him, and offered him a chance to right the wrongs of his world and many others, and to restore the light he lost to its full radiance. Confused, but hopeful, Cain accepted, and was bombarded by thousands of simultaneous visions of himself with countless others, in scenes of war; in scenes of love; and finally, in scenes of his own death. When these subsided, Cain felt a pain lifting from his body. When his sight returned, he found himself standing in a large smoking crater. But as he looked down at his body, he knew he was not the Cain he once was. His body was sheathed in a suit of green and gold armor, and he could feel the raw power flowing through him. Suddeny, an energy blast struck him in the chest. Half expecting a hole in his chest, Cain was shocked when he saw that his armor wasn't even blemished. Turning his attention to the source of the blast, Cain was astounded to see his assailant was a winged women clad in strange armor, weilding an even stranger weapon. The women apologized, and after introducing herself as Arai, a Seraph warrior, explained that the planet (?) he was on was once a colony world of a race of monkey like aliens, who had fallen prey to the depravations of the warlike Apsumera. Arai's band had arrived to help defend the world, but only Arai survived the attack. Arai had spent the last year randomly picking off any Apsumeran stragglers, but now she was unable to leave this world. Cain offered to stay with her and possibly find a way to leave the planet together. Arai was overjoyed at the thought of having some company, and the two soon became freinds. The Cosmoknight and the Spirt of Light wandered the planet for years, helping to repair the scorched earth with their powers. By the second year of their wandering, they Cain and Arai had become more than freinds. When the first search and rescue team's arrived on the planet, five years after Cain's arrival, Cain and Arai had succesfully reclaimed nearly two hundred acres of the war torn planet, with a huge area of grass land covering the area around their crashed-star ship home. The Cosmo Knight in charge of the rescue team, a Blood Lizard named Dirge, was so taken by this scene of tranquility in the midst of such devestation, that he offered to stay and assist in the reclamation efforts. With the aid of Dirge and one of the massive rescue transports, Cain and Arai soon had a full colony under way. Tragically, the years of peace that the colony attained, were shattered by an unpredictable chain of events. First, a dormant Apsumeran anti-matter bomb, buried under a residential district and undetected by the colonists, detonated, killing over a thousand innocent civilians. To add to that, Dirge soon became unstable and he Fell, losing most of his powers. Unable to bear his shame, and unwilling to accept Cain and Arai's help, fled to live out in the badlands. Two years after that, Cain's life was shattered again when he returned to his home after a long week of patrolling the outer security perimeter, to find Arai dead, the victim of an apparent demon attack. Once again stricken with greif, Cain resigned from his position as Cheif of Colony Defense and Security, and took to the spaceways. For over three thousand years Cain travelled through the Three Galaxies, battling enemies ranging from the Star Hives to the Dominators, until he received word that the world he and Arai had helped colonize had been over run by a new menace: the Splugorth. It seemed that one of these tentacled conquerors had personally set up his head quarters on the original colony site, after slaughtering it's defenders and enslaving the survivors. Realizing that he could do little against them without help, Cain turned his attention to gathering as many allies and potential resources, to use against the Splugorth. By going undercover in numerous law enforcement agencies, Cain was able to pull together a large network of long-lived contacts, like the disenfranchised god Demos, and the brother and sister Night Stalker dragon team of Sabbath and Jihad. Shifting his identity over the millenia, Cain spent another four thousand years wandering other dimensions, foiling Splugorth plots where ever he went, and continuing to build up his reserve of allies. Finally, upon his return to the Three Galaxies, Cain was ready to make his move against the Splugorth occupation force on his former world. Leading over two thousand powerful creatures, including ancient dragons, several gods, and numerous greater super natural creatures through a Rift opened directly into the center chamber of the Splugorth's pyramid, Cain was able to capture the facility and kill the Splugorth lord responsible. Within a year, the last pockets of Splugorth resistance were crushed, and Cain was able to return to his wandering. After disappearing for many years, Cain resurfaced in P.A. 4 as Head of Security and Hospitality aboard the tri-galactic pleasure ship Sector 69. S-69's reputation stemmed not only from their boast that "We're the most reputable house of ill-repute in the Megaverse", but also because in the short 102 years of their existence the ship and it's crew (including the owner, an adult Kumo-Mi dragon from China named Tian Yao; the god Demos, now Cains right hand Hospitality Agent; and the reformed Murex Metzla bartender Emil Sanchez) managed to liberate three Splugorth world's, destroy an invading alien intelligence in UWW space, and discorporate Modeus, Lord of Hades. Tragically, Cain and most of the ship's crew were killed in battle with none other than the Fallen Knight, Dirge. Dirge, who was revealed to be Arai's murderer, sucessfully opened a Rift into Hades, allowing the majority of the Demon Lord's there a chance at capturing the ship. Cain himself was killed when Modeus tore his skin and Cosmic Armor off, giving them to Dirge. Before he died, however, Cain was able to defeat Dirge, when Tian Yao tricked Cain into ttacking her out of anger. Cain's resulting Fall caused an energy feed-back loop which crippled Dirge, giving the ship's engineering crew enought time to space fold S-69 in on itself. Modeus, unaware of the space fold trap, stayed in the ship, even as it pulled itself and a fifty mile radius around it inside-out on the molecular level. So ends the tale of Cain. |