Arius (spinoff)

## Intro

In the dead deep of space, a ship appears through light speed. It begins moving slowly, revealing a land with broken grass and rock surrounding them. They lower away from the rock and grass, revealing a stormy landscape.

* **Daria**: I never have seen this much destruction.
* **George**: Yeah, I know. I never have seen this much since the attack on Versailles.

They manage to fly through the sky and lower town onto an empty part of the land. The ship's door opens and the soldier drops down with his plasma rifle in hand. He turns to see Daria, who is near the backdoor of the ship.

* **George**: I'll meet you back around two days or less if I alert you. I'll see what is up and then get the data I collected to the Counsel!
* **Daria**: Don't get yourself killed!
* **George**: Don't worry, just remember. As long as I keep my head, I'm gonna be alive!
* **Daria**: That's not how it works!
* **George**: I'm going to be alright! Don't worry!

Daria then ship door then closes up and the vessel flies off. George turns on his plasma rifle and hooks it on his back before walking through the destroyed and empty-looking town. Upon inside, he walks around snow like area with buildings surrounding the areas. He sees a figure slowly moving and begins slowly walking over the figure.

* **George**: Hey, buddy. Is there anybody here?

The figure ignores him.

* **George**: Hey, are you...?

He is cut off as the figure is revealed to be an undead being. He quickly gets his plasma rifle on, aims it and quickly shoots down the zombie. The blast echos throughout the empty city, causing a moment of silence before angry roars are heard over. He looks behind himself, revealing zombies a group of zombies bust out of a nearby apartment house, causing George to run away.

## Story

He manages to make it to the other end of the town, only to reveal that he is blocked off by a gate. He pulls out a rifle and attempts to blow the gates out with it but fails as it flies out of his hand, he runs towards the rifle and quickly gets back to the gate. He begins to aim at the horde of undead charging after him and proceeds to pull out his communicator.

* **George**: DARIA! YOU NEED COME HERE AND SAVE ME, NOW!
* **Daria**: I'm on my way!

He turns on his rifle's rapid-fire and begins firing upon the horde but the group keeps on getting bigger and bigger until George decides that his time is up. He raises his arm in the air and braces himself before the undead could touch him he is soon surged with electricity and teleported, with the zombies standing and staggering.

George wakes up, seeing a blue and black void-like sky along with a grass-like place and a stadium connecting to a village looking house. In the stadium, reveals a hooded figure staring at the sky as George stares at the back of the figure.

* **George**: Where am I?
* **Echo**: You're in Prixama...

Echo explains as George hears her voice echo through his mind.

* **George**: You can read my mind?
* **Echo**: No... I can talk to you through it though. I am Echo.

She turns around, revealing a creature with only her mouth physically present. George, overreacting, pulls out his rifle and aims at it before she manages to throw the rifle away from him.

* **Echo**: Is that how you thank people for saving you? Don't be alarmed, I come in peace.
* **George**: Huh... So, what... are you?
* **Echo**: To explain who I am is to explain why the place that we're currently at is all... messed up but I gotta ask, why are you here?
* **George**: I'm here because I noticed Prixama from my homeworld but it wasn't investigated a lot by my people because of stories that we're not sure is true. So, the Counsel sent me here to see what is up.
* **Echo**: Well, you came to the wrong place but if you want a story, a story you'll get. Follow me.

Echo levitates from the ground and moves through the path that leads to the house along with George. They make it to the house, revealing a fireplace with only one chair and a furnace on the back wall in the same direction as the chair.

* **Echo**: Go, take a seat.

George walks to the chair and sits in it. Echo walks in front of him, near the fireplace. She pulls out a book and gives it to him, revealing the book to be a journal that belongs to someone named Arius.

* **George**: "Arius", whose Arius?

A moment of silence passes.

* **Echo**: This is where our story begins.

A flash explodes, revealing both George and Echo in Prixama before it was decimated by destruction. Revealing a sunny city and creatures similar to Echo in different like clothing.

* **Echo**: Prixama was responsible for the creatures you call "aliens." We were called the Marchers and we were once naive but smart individuals. We had alien technologies nowhere similar to your homeworld, what made us naive was that we've believed in a false god...

### **Years Ago**

A marcher is writing under the sun with a journal about information based upon the story about the Cosmic Ones. He tries strategy to figure out how to find his way into space. A female marcher walks up near him.

* **Echo (past)**: Arius.
* **Arius**: Hey, Echo. How are you?
* **Echo (past)**: I'm alright. What are you doing?
* **Arius**: Oh- uh, nothing. Just work stuff, you?
* **Echo (past)**: Nothing really. You aren't working on that rocket, right?

Arius puts away his journal and pockets it.

* **Arius**: Even if that was the case, do you think that I could succeed?

Echo sighs.

* **Echo (past)**: I guess not but you shouldn't be worried about that. Whatever the Cosmic Ones are, you'll find out soon.

Echo from the present and George watch as they witness Arius walking from that spot.

* **George**: That's Arius?
* **Echo (present)**: Yes, he was in the Medical branch of the Marchers. Within it, Arius specialized in the bodies of other marchers. He was pretty much a pathologist but besides his job, he always worshipped the Cosmic Ones.
* **George**: The Cosmic Ones?
* **Echo (present)**: The Cosmic Ones were polytheistic gods in stories we all heard in history. Apparently, they were responsible for creating Prixama and the origins behind the creation of the Marchers. I never bought the story but a lot of marchers believe this to be the case. Arius was, unfortunately, one of the believers and truth be told, the only reason why I suggested for him not to obsess about it is that the Prixama law restricted space travel due to the fast unknown but that didn't stop him.
* **George**: Was he obsessed?
* **Echo (present)**: In a way... yes.

A white flash appears, teleporting them into an abandoned workshop where it reveals Arius fixing up a small pod-like spacecraft with a sky opening above it. He blowtorches the thrusters on the bottom of the pod and sets it up.

* **Arius**: Finally, it's time. Time to meet our elders.

Arius goes inside the pod and turns it on. He turned on the mass thrusters and immediately flies off with the G-Forces pushing him back within the pod and him only on onto its bars. He gets out a small tube and places it within a small empty compactor and closes it. He presses a yellow button, causing the pod to hyperjump.
George and Echo looking up at the sky.

* **George**: Is this where everything started?

A small slience is felt.

* **Echo (present)**: Yes...

In space, Arius is looking in the front of the pod, revealing stars and the blackness of space itself. He begins to write in his journal, detailing the first day in space.

* **George**: So wait, so this is how he started? Just sent himself to space and never came back?
* **Echo (present)**: Of course, not. However, he spent a long time in space before he found the "Cosmic Ones."
* **George**: How long was he in space?
* **Echo (present)**: 6 Months.
* **George**: Wow, how did he last that long?
* **Echo (present)**: We marchers don't need food to survive. It's a commodity and besides, the only thing that exists we eat is fruits but that's irrelevant.
* **George**: So wait, what happened after those 6 months?

Echo points, revealing an extreme humming sound. A green and blue explosion appears, revealing a large green and blue mist with lightning through it.

* **Arius**: Oh my God...

The mist slowly moves as Arius turns on his ship and moves in within, disappearing within it. Within it, Arius grabs his journal and begins writing in it but after he is done, the pod begins to shake before a yellow lightning bolt strikes the ship, causing Arius to be hit through it. He lays, unconscious, in the ship.

* **George**: So wait, he just...?
* **Echo (present)**: He encountered the "Cosmic Ones."
* **George**: And they're not as cosmic as they thought?
* **Echo (present)**: In religious terms, yes but technical, no. The Cosmic Ones were never Gods, "they" were simply a sentient space mist. However, this mist had properties unlike anything we encountered and as a result, Arius changed.
* **George**: What happened back at Prixama during all of this?

A white flash appears and they're teleported back to the homeworld. A past Echo looks at the tree that Arius was last at and places her hand on it.

* **Echo (past)**: Where are you, Arius?

The present Echo and George watch.

* **Echo (present)**: Many people, including me were confused. A well respected Medial professional within Prixama disappears out of nowhere. At the time, I simply thought something bad happened to like his obsessions got him but... That's when he-

Echo is cut off from talking as she and George look up to see a green big comet crash land in the grass fields a couple a miles away from the main town. The comet is revealed to be the pod that came from the mist. Arius punches his hand, busting out the pod's door and him flying out of it. He looks at the town before looking at the sky and throws up his hands in the air. A small black hole begins to form in its sky.

* **George**: What's happening?!
* **Echo (present)**: Chaos...

Arius begins to stretch the black hole before collapsing into itself, causing it to implode cosmic energies through the sky, causing mass destruction similar to a planet being slowly destroyed. He then stretches his arms out, causing humanoid zombies to grow out of the ground, causing a producing a massive horde.

* **Arius**: It's time. The end of all worlds.

Arius points at the town, causing the herd of undead to charge after the town itself. A white flash becomes present and both Echo and George are teleported back into the cabin.

### **Present Time**

* **George**: Holy... so that's how everything became to be but wait, how- how come you have similar powers to him.
* **Echo**: I... I had to eat one to save someone but it was futile as they soon were mauled to death. Afterward, I started feeling sick and as a result, I gained these powers but I don't see it as a power. I see it as a burden.

A moment of silence is felt.

* **George**: I'm... I'm sorry. You probably dealt with a lot...

Silence is felt again.

* **George**: But wait, how did you manage to take me to those places.
* **Echo**: When we are there, they were simply visions within the town. The past and the present. All we saw were visions, nothing more.

George gets a beep from his communicator and turns it on.

* **Daria**: Hey, George! Where are you?
* **Echo**: You must be going...
* **George**: Wait! Is there a way to stop him?

Echo doesn't give a response as he is flashed into the empty city.

* **Daria**: George? George?

George grabs his communicator.

* **George**: I'm here.
* **Daria**: You've found the data you got? That was fast.
* **George**: ...Yes, yes it was.

George walks off, leaving the decimated city abandoned once again. In the Cosmic Ones, Arius is assembling a orb like device. He turns to pieces together and he turns it on, revealing a galaxy.

* **Arius**: This is my next stop.