Chapter four:
What the FXQWHGADS? Travis screamed in his mind. He started frantically searching his surroundings.
"Relax young man, over here. Said the increasingly familiar voice, chuckling he added. "By the way, nice reference, but I doubt many will get it these days.
Feeling a presence above him. Travis turned his perception up and beheld a large entity, completely dwarfing him in size by a whole order of magnitude. Within the beings body countless orbs filled with galaxies, nebula's, and comic event's were all interconnected in a golden web that seemed to radiate life. Amazing Travis thought to himself. Moving backwards to try and behold this entity in it's full, he found that this entity was vaguely human shaped. That's right... what do I even look like right now?
Rather than that, the thing you should concern yourself with is stabilizing your existence."
Said the booming voice, that for some reason made Travis think of his encounter with a guy cosplaying as Thanos.
Stop! Don't imagine it. Instead, eat more. While doing so, think of manifestations or personifications of concepts like Eternity, Infinity, Order, Chaos', Life and Death."
"But why?"
"Trust me, it's necessary. We all have to do it at one point or another. The sooner you do, the more stable you are."
"Well, alright. Travis turned once again to the swirling mass of food and started thinking about eternity and what it means. Eternity to Travis meant... something timeless, going on forever and existing in all points of time. As he thought about it he also thought about what would be a representation of it. Timelessness, longevity, frozen in time, but flowing ever onward, water, solid but flowing. The line of thinking brought him to thinking about eastern mythology a bit. If he remembered correctly, the Chinese deity that represented water, winter, and the nothern direction was...
Xuanwu.
At the utterance of the name, Travis felt a shift in the concepts he had consumed. These concepts had not yet affected the energy and mass that were already a part of him. They swirled, separate from the rest. At first it was amorphous, just a large swirling blob of existence and nothingness new being came into view.
A gigantic entity, with four scaly legs, an angular head and a dome like shell covered in hexagonal plates. Instead of a tail, a snake flowed out from behind it and began to wrap around the shell. Each scale on both the snake and the tortoise looked as if the Big Bang was occuring continuously within them.
As Travis looked upon him, he inwardly smiled. It looked to him like a giant snapping turtle made of the cosmos with a snake for a tail. At the same time, it reminded him of the giant lion turtles in Avatar the Last Airbender.
As if he could feel the creators thoughts, Xuanwu looked into the chaos of creation he found himself in, eyes glowing and radiating cosmic power and roared.
"Huh, this is new, definitely non cannon." The entity, Travis started to assume to be Jack, muttered to no one in particular. "Continue, quickly!"
But Travis didn't really need the urging. Even without it, he felt he had begun a process that cannot be stopped. Even with the inclusion of eternity within himself, although Travis felt a bit more complete, a bit more solid, but it was not enough. He pushed off those thoughts and their implications for a later time and began to comprehend infinity.
Infinity is possiblity, potential, probability, the unreachable apex. Infinity knows no bounds, across universes, timelines, makes up the multiverse, strives for higher heights, breaking boundaries, all encompassing, all embracing, a mother to possibility, nuturing potential.
Again this line of thought brought Travis to eastern mythology. A woman known as the mother of humanity, a race said to have infinite potential across time and space. However, the difference between that and Travis's vision was that this particular manifestation will acknowledge the potential of all sapient life rather than just homo sapiens.
Nuwa.
The Primordial chaos, as Travis decided to term it swirled and compressed once again as a female figure emerged to stand next to Xuanwu, her full height reached the top of his shell. She wore a blue dress of stars and cosmic dust and had a mature, motherly figure. Eyes glowing blue and skin of gold with black hair decorated with nebulous clouds of potential energy. She places a hand on Xuanwu and he begins to rapidly change shape into a man equal in height. With a body and flowing robe both seemingly made of the cosmos, the man looks upon his new form and nods to his sister and returns to the form of a giant tortoise. Travis inwardly remarks that she's already doing her job helping others realize their infinite potential.
Both beings stand beside one another, seemingly waiting for something.
Travis, seeing this begins to think of what order and chaos means to him. Chaos means change, violence, an absence of rational thinking, disorder, confusion, flux. It precedes creation, yet is necessary for it. Chaos strives to bring about itself ever more in order to bring about itself ever more in order to bring about evolution and change, it is free as the wind, ferocious, feral, never yielding in it's pursuits like an unsheathed sword.
Chaos is eventually order. As much as order eventually begets chaos. When the destruction and dust settles, what rises is uniformity, rigidity laws. However, order must also be able to bend and sway, in order to stay rooted and survive the inevitable chaos that tries to destroy it. It is majestic, towering, a symbol of civilization and is it's patron, filled with wisdom.
Bailhu and Qinglong.
From out of the ether, two forms emerge. One a personification of energy Travis is still consuming. In the form of a ferocious and beautiful white and black tiger whose stripes are always changing colors and in flux like the energy outside. She roars upon fully forming and moves to stand beside her siblings. Grinning malevolently in anticipation for the future.
The other is a flash of azure as an immensely long dragon steps out. Every scale perfectly symmetrical and shining with a bright glow, horns like branches or antlers coming out of the top of his head. Seven claws adorn each foot and a majestic mane erupts from behind his head and extends all the way down his spine to the end of his tail.
Rather than roar the dragon float's before his siblings exuding the natural aura of a wise, rational, and just elder. He looks to Bailhu and snorts derisively. At this the lady tiger snarls but with a glare from Xuanwu and Nuwa, the two fall silent.
Travis chuckles, which seems to reverberate throughout himself as the four suddenly shiver and bow to no one in particular. He looks upon them with love and affection before turning his mind to the last step (?) in this process. His confidence now soaring to new heights as he ruminates over life and death.
Life is a spark, a flame, that burns and brings about destruction and creation. It is the fire of destruction and rebirth. It actualizes the potential of energy.
Death is cold, calculating inevitable. It has no element in nature other than decay and brings about the destruction of matter into reusable elements so that anything can be reused for creation once more. Death comes to all and welcomes all into her embrace.
Zhuque and Siwang.
A clarion cry bursts from the mist of existence. Heat prevades the region as a gargantuan red and golden phoenix of prey soars around her brothers and sisters. The epitome of vibrancy, she lands among them and begins to preen. Joyful and happy to be born.
Unfortunately, this joy is short lived and her eyes narrow towards the swirling nothingness. Coldness undercuts all other feelings in the area. Even Xuanwu, a representation of not just time but winter, ice, and water in general, shivers at the coming presence.
Somehow, a bell with deep cold tone sounds in the region and, as if walking on a hard surface, the sound of heels clacking on stone echoes slowly. Then, from out of the form of darkness a black gloved hand appears and swipes it away, converting it into a cloak that wraps around an obviously beautiful feminine figure. She is the embodiment of death. Within her hood resides a human skull whose sockets glow with an eerie red flame, rather than heat, emit a chill. Somehow, even with that, her figure undeniably shows that there is beauty in even death.
Stopping in front of her new family, she regards them for a moment, and then step's off and lean's against nothing. She looks to Zhuque, who tenses up. Both of them feeling each other out, before both nod in begrudging but mutual respect for one another. Crossing her arms under her chest. Siwang looks away from them.
Travis continues to look over them all with affection and love until the sound of someone clearing their throat breaks him from his reverly. Once again looking outward, and feeling more himself and satisfied than anytime previously while in this form, Travis looks upon Jack Kirby, the One Above All, in all his glory, who begins to speak.
"I have to say, that was certainly a nice approach. As a Marvel fan I assumed you'd create copies of the Living Tribunal, Infinity, Eternity, Death, the Phoenix Force, Master Order, Lord Chaos, and Oblivion. But what you've done is create something all own your own, even if based on a different mythology. Which is retrospect, is probably for the best. Something different should shake things up. So congratulations. You've created your Primordial Deities. Now-" Travis took the chance to interrupt.
"Oh! That reminds me, thanks Jack. Give me a minute."
"Huh? Uh, ok."
.
Travis then gorges himself on the Primordial chaos to prepare. And after feeling suitably stuffed, he begins to envision something new.
Above all but me, my representative when I'm unavailable or for matters beneath my notice, who reports to me and me alone the things going on in the coming law justice, perfect arbitration, and ombudsman. Decidedly neutral in all things, but brings judgement on any who stray too far from the balance. Strives only for equality in all dualites of nature the protection of each universe. Good vs evil, light versus dark, creation versus destruction, chaos versus order. All shall have Equilibrium.
Hera the Queen of the gods.
At the words sound, before he even says the name, space inside Travis starts to rumble, startling the new born gods, and they watch as perfectly equal parts mist of existence and nothingness form into a woman twice the size of the Primordials, as Travis decided to call them. Wearing what looks like a Greek dress intricately embroidered with gold and sapphire. A sash flows over her arm and a gladius made of what seems to be, but decidedly is not, gold rests within a loop on her right hip, Greek military krepis (sandals) cover her feet. She has long brown hair pulled back into a ponytail and piercing blue eyes, that are brighter than the sky or the ocean.
As she approached, all the Primordials quake in realization that this being, while not able to kill them, can reset them to their base states at the time of their creation, and there's nothing they can do to her, even while cooperating. They knew what her purpose was, and that was to make sure they never went too far in any given direction. They knew she was a representative of their father.