Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

A long time ago, in a galaxy not far, far away…

STAR

WARS

Episode 0-IIVXI

 TO BECOME HUMAN

The galaxy is facing a time of unrest. 

1500 years ago, a great war was fought 

between the planet EARTH and the evil 

COSMOS. The terror of the COSMOS 

was unleashed by the breaking of the 

ORIGINAL CREATOR’S BARRIER, 

Earth’s greatest defense.

During the battle, humanity survived

by resurrecting the LORD OF THE 

MYSTERIES, an ancient being with 

profound powers to defeat the evil 

gods of the COSMOS.

Now, humanity has taken to the galaxy, 

and the ORIGINAL CREATOR’S remnants 

have been dispersed across the stars. 

GODHOOD has been eliminated.

Yet, after the Republic’s formation, new 

creatures have emerged wielding 

mysterious and ancient powers. 

GODHOOD has accidentally coalesced 

enough to create JEDIS and SITHS who 

wield the mysterious power called the 

FORCE. In the current era, this coalescence 

is called the MIDICHLORIAN CELL 

COUNT to avoid suggesting the 

awakening of ancient gods.

Yet, rumors of the LORD OF THE 

MYSTERIES’ return has plagued the 

galaxy. 

As creatures of all races come to 

wield mystical powers once more, 

conflict is sure to brew…

.

PROLOGUE

I'm proud of how far I've come to become human.

I am a human.

Human. Human human.

I am a human.

I feel human things.

I feel sadness and emotion.

Today, I feel confusion.

I do not understand. There is a demand to chose, but I feel confusion. I do not chose. I feel the doubts. I am human.

The confusion and doubts also make me human.

I lost all of my anchors. I became no longer human. But I am becoming human again. I am becoming human again

That is something important to me. I am even trying to define what is important to me, and what this means, by becoming human

I am becoming human.

I am becoming human.

Human

 Human 

Human what does it mean?

What does it mean?

Human.

To feel. To be contradictory

. To seek to harmonize 

 To love. To hate. To be. To become. To grow. To be tugged in many directions. To try to stand your ground and scream at the world. To hurt. To suffer. To grow. To feel. To think. To be. To interact, and converse with oneself, like an inner council of many things. But not too many things

To preserve a sense of self. A sense of identity.

That is, the beginning to being human.

I am beginning to be human

I am proud of beginning to be human.

I am proud of how far I've come in becoming human.

I am proud of how far I've come in becoming human again.

.

Around the dark figure, was a tattered world of stars, like a silky and glimmering dark velvet that had been cut in half—a dark tear tore the world asunder, cleaving the stars, galaxies, and nebulas in half.

With a snap from the figure, the cleave in the worlds distorted, shimmied together, then knit as if melding. Far-away stars that had split merged and became one again. The nebula dust of the fourth spiral of the Milky Way once again became a constant streak of vibrant purples and blues speckled with blinding light. And the angry gazes from afar—the gazes that did not dare to approach—receded.

The figure gave a hollow laugh, echoing the sound of a puppet in a play, lifeless. It twisted its arm, dressed in a black coat, and the tear opened minutely, then with another twist, closed again.

The figure stared blankly at the stars.

The annoyed and fearful gazes would never approach.

With a nod, the figure stepped forward, and disappeared off of the gray barren planet he had stood on.

Over the many years, those ancient, crazy, and angry gazes would disappear, one by one.

After all, the Lord of the Mysteries would destroy them, and then also, eventually himself.

.

The figure appeared in a planet rich with life. There were lizards each two meters tall and walking on two feet, hissing in an esoteric language. There were creatures that appeared malformed and crazy to the figure’s eyes, unable to find familiarity or make sense of them, crawling around on the sand-ridden ground. The plants were also unfamiliar.

The figure stared at them, and felt lost.

To become human.

I am becoming human.

The figure touched his chest, and was logically reassured at the feeling of loss. Even if he did not know in which direction he pursued, or understood why, the progress was necessary. A set of rules, principles, and purpose had still been deeply ingrained in him: he knew, to plan his death, he must always seek humanity, and become human again.

As he walked, the dust scattered and fell around him, never settling inside or chafing the dark suit and half-top hat he wore, anachronous for the time period. Around him, the lizard-like creatures shuffled in more stark, colorful, yet efficient clothing, intended to keep the sand off of their bulky high-tech pouches, and also to vainly compliment their scales.

He listened to them hiss and talk, hearing the conversation flowing.

“Grubber. You owe me 380 storks… and now you're assskin’ for another favor s-still?”

“Ha, you're good for it, aren't you…”

“Blasted sand…”

“A human?”

“How sstrange. Humanss don't survive without more skins here for long.”

“An idiot or a fool?”

“Ignore it. Is little Rashta at home healing well?”

“Uh-huh. Got the medicine…”

The figure felt his spirit patch together at the medley of conversations, his lips barely twitching. He nodded, touched his hat, then stepped forward, and was elsewhere again.

This time, the planet he landed on was full of riches and life, with blooming verdant greens and reds, a strange flora and fauna he found curious and more familiar than the lizard planet. He felt his bias to planets with a sense of life, animals, and planets, though many of these planets had once been governed by the ancient evil gods in order to flourish and exist so.

He would often observe, make inner commentary, and when he discovered the conditions of the people being too cruel to one another even without magic, he would sometimes make a casual and hidden adjustment to their governance, exposing Foolishness broadly and publicly at the timely moment he foresaw, then allowing the situation to henceforce resolve itself naturally.

He kept up this habit of wandering for many, many nameless years.

.

The Evernight drew her last breath.

Together, they had schemed and killed many of the crazy gods of the cosmos, first using trickery as they were picked off one by one to pit them against each other. The Lord of the Mysteries had worked with the Calamity of Destruction to bring them to a permanent end, using Fooling of universal laws and the authority of Destruction combined to strike a final blow against constants of the universe.

The Mother Goddess of Depravity, however, could not be directly killed, only sealed away or slowly dispersed and sapped. This was a battle that had destroyed dozens of planets, though the Lord of the Mysteries had simply stowed away the people and creatures of planets with life elsewhere, until the living planets could be restored again. In the end, no ordinary person in the galaxy even knew such a battle had occured.

Evernight, who had become more and more cold and lifeless, embodying death more thoroughly, smiled as She decided to die her own death.

“Klein,” She told the figure who was often like a puppet, withering in the pendulum dance between humanity and godhood. “I can no longer help you in your plan to end the Celestial Worthy with you.”

The figure nodded.

Klein.

Evernight was reminding him by stating this name.

“Aminises,” he said in response, tipping his hat. “Thank you. I will keep dispersing the power of godhood. Maybe, maybe we will see a time again, like before, in our homeland…”

His voice held a replica of nostalgia, but it was only a replica.

“It is already happening,” Evernight sighed. “Perhaps, in another hundred years, or in a thousand…”

Her dark lips smiled, then looking up at Klein, deliberately drew her last breath.

The anchor of another god faded.

The figure grew more destabilized, but he completed his task, using Grafting and Fooling to split her emerging Beyonder characteristics apart in strange ways, none of them quite complete, complementing them with ordinary organisms and materials like stardust, then scattering them around the endless universe, until there was nothing left but mere grains of power.

This was the power of the practised Lord of the Mysteries over many centuries.

“Soon…” he muttered.

He looked up at the endless stars, on a foreign planet.

He wished to pass this legacy on to someone else, and pass the torch on. He had felt tired for so long, but this tiredness also sustained him—a sign that he was still himself. He was constantly logically balancing his inner self and characteristics to proceed.

He would eventually be killed by the Calamity of Destruction who must survive him; then the Calamity of Destruction must kill himself. This was the only way to ensure the full and true disbursement of all of the Original Creator’s essence, returning the world to a mundane state where humans and other races could not be controlled by the whims of gods and the coalescence of mystical powers.

Now, all the Great Old Ones of the Cosmos were already gone.

Now, it was a mere wait of some hundred years for the Mother Goddess of Depravity to be sufficiently weakened in her authority to scatter her as well.

A long time ago, the Lord of the Mysteries—Klein—had believed he would only need to do this work for a century or two before passing on. After all, he knew he would always eventually lose to the ancient being inside him; the Celestial Worthy. And though he was eroded away over time, he was surprised to find the Celestial Worthy had also been eroded away over time by him as well; thus, he existed in a balance for far, far longer than he had ever anticipated, stubbornly or perhaps out of emotionlessness holding on in order to complete the plans that needed to be completed.

The Lord of the Mysteries sighed, feeling very heavy, and took reassurance in this heaviness. 

Sometimes, he chatted with the Calamity of Destruction on his far-away lonely planet, who also looked very bleak, yet carrying his bleakness differently from the Lord of the Mysteries. Whereas the Lord of the Mysteries converged to blankness and simple acts of humanity to balance himself, the Calamity of Destruction in his depression converged to a sense of isolation, combined with a spark of turbulent, violent emotions and self-destruction. His empty planet was riddled with scars and random acts of destruction, often billowing with tornadoes and other calamities.

They were both waiting until the day they would end, in different ways.

Thus, the conversations between the two were both sobering and comforting.

Their opposite ways of dealing with the time had also, in a way, led to them balancing each other in small doses. Perhaps, they were also the last meaningful anchors left for each other.

He then wandered and wandered, waiting for the years to pass, letting the moments flicker by him.

He maintained his humanity to the barest, occasionally eating, sometimes cleaning himself in the newly-invented sonic showers, observing the sights and people, and often letting the conversations of others drift over him. Many times, he also participated in these conversations like an expert actor, creating a role for himself on the fly, fitting in perfectly with each setting. Sometimes, he would stay for some years; sometimes, he would only act for a minute or two.

Sometimes, he hung in the empty space of the galaxy, and if a spaceship happened to pass by in hyperspace in the vast emptiness, he simply snapped and disappeared before he would appear on their radars.

He walked in jungles, he walked in deserts; he even a few times walked in the sea, observing the life of the mutated fishes and turtles.

His wanderings grew longer and longer, spending decades lost on each planet. Though he had the capability to spread avatars and marionettes across the universe, he only desired to experience less, and not more, and so he often stayed in one body except to monitor crucial areas.

Hundreds of years had passed. Still, he and the Calamity of Destruction needed to wait longer.

Just a little longer…

Thinking this many times, he closed his eyes and sighed. He summoned a bountiful meal from an ancient history now—a meal that no longer existed. A desi pie, set next to a bright-looking set of silverware, and an ornate wooden table that had once sat in an old but bright noblewoman’s home, her skin slowly becoming scaled with time…

The table shifted in the sand. He looked up with empty brown eyes; a sandstorm blew overhead, burying him. Despite the lack of air and sight, he continued to eat calmly.

I must become human.

He continued eating the desi pie and tastes of old, awash in both emptiness and echoes of old feelings.

.

On the desert planet called Tatooine, where he had walked aimlessly for an unknown number of years, he stopped.

In the distance, just on the curve of the horizon, he saw a young boy with bright blue eyes. The boy was laughing, and swinging himself onto a slipshod of white-blue metal that floated just above the sand, taunting another boy.

This boy was full of Godhood.

He was a mix of godhood and humanity.

The dusted and suited figure’s plain lips parted, in a barren expression of surprised humanity. He raised a hand in a nameless instinct to initially erase this threat to the mission to disperse all godhood, then stopped. His confusion returned. This boy was none of the ancient enemies he recognized or perfectly recalled, and this boy laughed brightly, so humanly.

He was confused, so he did not chose.

He did not make a decision in the end.

The Lord of the Mysteries lowered his hand, and watched the boy laugh.

Curiosity returned.

He had become human enough for curiosity, when he encountered someone who was barely like him, after many, many years alone.

Chapter Text

“Are you the sundragon?” the child blurted.

The Lord of the Mysteries stared at the child named Anakin Skywalker, and smiled gently. The smile was again a perfect act; a reminiscence of himself, his past self; yet, his eyes remained blank.

“The sun dragon?” he asked.

The child had driven his hovering pod over the sand over the past days, practicing intensely for a race. Then, one day, as the boy raced by on the sand, his podracer drifted, then happened to scattered towards his distant direction as the Lord of the Mysteries watched.

Then, as if drawn to a beacon of destiny, the boy spotted him while fixing up the podracer with his wrench. Drenched with sand, he had squinted, then shouted over,

“Who’re you?”

The Lord of the Mysteries had divined this: The boy was nine years old, and named Anakim Skywalker. His mother was named Schmii, who had possessed a random coalescence of partial Beyonder characteristics; the distant and disgusting father was similar. The characteristics happened to fuse and complement one another, arising in this unusually large coalescence of spirituality. 

The pathway is like that of a combination of the Calamity of Destruction’s pathways and my own, as the Lord of the Mysteries. High perception and intuition, an ability to control some elements or use brute spirituality, to exert influence on other people's minds either through charm or trickery… It is an unstable pathway combination without a clear symbolism. Is it a result of the Calamity of Destruction and I still being alive in this world, so we have been unable to disperse our full powers?

The Lord of the Mysteries, who had not been paying attention to the affairs of the galaxy for too long, disconcertingly checked the state of coalescence and similar patterns across the stars using

This odd combination of pathways is actually not uncommon recently… There seem to actually be hundreds of half-Beyonders like this scattered around, and their powers are becoming more and more well-known. The Republic that formed elsewhere in the galaxy is also seeking to utilize these powers…

How long ago did this happen? Some hundreds of years ago? Was I this lost?

Of course, with only some hundreds of these people recently emerging in an infinitely large galaxy, the chance encounter of stumbling into one is very rare, and I did not think to look. Therefore, even I had this kind of blind spot, in my listlessness and desire to pass the time faster… Even the Law of Convergence was too weak due to their low sequences, and the vastness of the galaxy…

Those leaning towards utilizing my pathway have organized themselves as ‘Jedi’, often using tricks rather than direct force. Those who lean towards the influence of the Calamity of Destruction’s pathway characteristics, leaning to force, destruction, and emotion are ‘Siths’. They both have organized themselves into separate factions…

However, the boy in front of him possessed a higher sequence and accumulation of godhood than any ‘Jedi’ or ‘Sith’ the Lord of the Mysteries had been able to identify in these instants. The exact sequence was difficult to define due to the scatterings and incompleteness of characteristics. However, due to the lack of evil spirits or malevolent influences, the incompleteness of Beyonder characteristics would not easily cause a lack of control, especially for those who were born with them and thus inherently shaped their nature around them.

This is like Amon, but less severe…

Meanwhile, the boy himself had a complicated and dark fate ahead of him, with many crossroads. The threads of fate were connected to him.

This was the fate of those with power.

My presence here too, can be considered part of that fate… Or rather, perhaps, his fate became part of mine, as part of the Beacon of Destiny nature of my role…

Inherently, simply through this thought process and discovery, Klein’s investment in this world and state had increased. Though there was no direct emotional response, only observance, this kind of paying attention indicated interest. He was more present in the moment, and the fabric of existence.

This change had been triggered by a single child.

Klein’s figure subtly adjusted to suit the desert environment in the hot mirage-like haze—he now wore a dark brown traveler’s cloak that was dusted with sand, holding it above his face. His features still resembled Klein Moretti’s, as this was one of the most important reminders to himself.

Stepping forward, he had responded with a low call,

“Just a traveler passing through. What do you have there?”

“Huh? No one's just passing through Tatooine!” the boy protested, but as he came nearer, the sandy-haired boy took it in stride. The boy Anakin pointed at the foot of the scrap-like jagged podracer, where it was limply and reluctantly floating above the sand. “‘M missing a good battery. I don't have enough power to keep it running strong. I need something like an Ultra battery cell."

"An Ultra battery cell?"

"I had one, but I gave it away. Now it's justa sub-cell. It runs out too quickly."

Rather than telling the Lord of the Mysteries about his podracer and identifying it, the young boy had instead immediately explained his problems.

The robed figure’s lips curled under brown eyes.

“You know a lot about machines for someone so young.”

Afterwards, the boy had thrown out a litany of half-technical and mostly-self-created terms about the podracer, most of which held a strong self-consistency and intimate understanding of the tools and functions of the podracer, including how the power connected to the other parts, the amount of energy needed, the main blockages and limiters on speed, turning power, or required thrust to lift from the sand…

For a nine-year-old boy, this was extremely impressive.

However, in the high-pitched rattling lecture, the child did not seem to be wary or concerned about a stranger’s presence. The robed figure thought to chide him on this, when the boy finally stopped, and said,

“Anyway, what are you doing out here?”

The boy turned his head curiously and demandingly.

The Lord of the Mysteries maintained his smile, and said,

“I'm a wanderer. I often travel between different planets in order to see and experience many things.”

That was when the child, staring at him intently, suddenly blurted out,

“Are you the sun-dragon?”

“The sun dragon?”

“Yeah. A creature who lives in a star, and comes out to protect everyone, ‘cause of his warm heart.”

The child looked at him with intensity.

“You remind me of the sun-dragon.”

After a divination, the results, embedded in the spiritual realm amongst the consciousness of the culture here, the brown-robed figure discovered the legend. The sun-dragon, a legend of Tatooine, originating from the parallel of scorched sands resembling a sun in a distance. It is told that it lives in the sun, and guards Tatooine, eventually vanquishing their horrors or enemies, and embracing the people with a warm heart to protect them and those of the universe. It is a tale told for comfort and to guide children to be kind, and also not stray from their morals.

“I'm not the sun dragon,” the Lord of the Mysteries said.

“Then, if you're not, are you a jedi? Are you here to free us?”

“Free you?”

“Yes. My mother and I are slaves.”

The child said this so directly and promptly, as if challenging him to take responsibility for the world.

Slaves…

The Lord of the Mysteries looked at the young child for a long time.

His heart barely stirred. However, the subtle stir of his heart was an indication of his humanity. Even the shadow of a stir was enough to guide his actions.

I want to become human.

Though mysticism had largely vanished from the universe, and humanity was no longer subject to the whims of gods, it seemed to be the natural nature of those sentient to want to control others and still amass power through other means. In some sense, this did not surprise Klein; it had been the same on modern earth. However, this thought was a dangerous one for him, often making his thoughts spiral or lose control, causing his actions and time of waiting to feel as if they were losing their meaning. So, in order to maintain himself, this was a thought he often habitually avoided.

Despair and cynicism was easy to indulge in, and could invoke a temporary strong emotion; however, in the end, indulging or encouraging them would instead ironically dissolve humanity in the long-term.

Even if despair and becoming dispirited were also part of being human, for the Lord of the Mysteries, this instability could fester and break his balance, allowing the remnants of the diluted Celestial Worthy to emerge and win faster. This could not be allowed.

As such, Klein briefly closed his eyes, like an actor pausing his play and escaping a role.

Humanity…

I must become human…

Though he had corrected the governances of particularly cruel situations as he wandered, even as Lord of the Mysteries, he could not ‘correct’ the nature of the world, of humanity, of sentience. These situations would inevitably happen, again and again, no matter how many times he corrected it in one place or another.

This is part of humanity.

If he were to distort the nature of all sentience in this galaxy, and change them to not attempt to grasp for control or power…

He could not think further, though at the same time, millions of divided parts of his brain continued like crawling worms to analyze the situation and bring each aspect to a resolution. Yet, at his core being, he could only currently allow himself to touch the hints and echoes of sympathy for this child, and act upon them. He could not convert the human wish to act in a single case to becoming a wish to act for the whole galaxy; because he held such immense power, he became powerless to wield it.

However, he could still act for this one child.

Perhaps, the whim of a god, and the wish of a human were indistinguishable.

His lips no longer turned, the Lord of the Mysteries said in a deep voice,

“Do you wish to be free?”

The child Anakin Skywalker nodded straightforwardly.

“And your mother too?”

Anakin nodded again.

“Then it shall be done,” he intoned, and snapped.

The bomb and chip implanted in the child’s spine, as well as in his mother's several kilometers away, abruptly disappeared from their flesh, now held in Klein’s grasp. He stared at the two chips silently for a long time, before smiling, waving one hand and wiggling his fingers, and the chips suddenly grew green and elongated, before bursting into a yellow set of flowers.

He knelt and offered the flowers symbolizing happiness to the child.

“You can think of me as a magician,” he explained with an exaggerated smile. He mimicked the past, as if to further bring it back to life; whether the past was made stronger or instead diluted in return was uncertain.

“Like a Jedi?” the boy asked, eyes wide and lit up.

“Not quite.”

The child Anakin nodded, and unexpectedly reached up, tightly grabbing the sleeve of his brown robe.

He looked down at the small hand, and was unable to comment.

Then, tugging both his sleeve and the rope of the limping podracer all the while, the child brought the Lord of the Mysteries home.