African-American Superhero's World

The name is Marcus Pierre. A caramel-skinned, curly-haired and green-eyed young Black man living in the city of Boston, Massachusetts. I'm just a brother with a story to share. You see, although I look like an ordinary person, I'm far from it. I'm actually a superhuman. You don't get that when you look at me and I guess that's a good thing. Wouldn't want everyone to know I was different. A six-foot-three, 250-pound black male student-athlete at Northeastern University. That's me in a nutshell.

By birthright, I am more than human. Genetically speaking, of course. For I am the son of Krazull, one of the shape-shifting otherworldly Immortals whom the entirety of the planet Earth once worshiped as the Gods and Goddesses of various Pagan religions. My dear mother, Marcia Pierre was an ordinary woman in the eyes of the world but she's a hero to me. This regal black lady whose good looks attracted the lust of one of the Masters of the Cosmos. She took care of me all my life. Unfortunately, she died recently. And I must face my destiny. Alone.

Folks, I got big news for you. There are aliens among us. They came to this world tens of thousands of years ago. They call themselves the Travelers. Throughout history, they've been worshiped as Gods and Goddesses. And why shouldn't they? They have fabulous technology the likes of which even modern scientists would be baffled by. At a time when humans were still living in caves, the Travelers were soaring through the galaxy in spaceships. They came to the planet Earth around 25 000 B.C. and have been here ever since. For thousands of years, the human population worshiped them as deities. Until one of them rose against the others and freed mankind from their tyranny. His name is Krazull, and he is my father.

We've only met a few times. I can never truly know when he's around. You see, like the rest of the Travelers, he can make himself look like any human being he's ever touched. Any man or woman. Any age group or ethnicity. That's what makes him and his kind so difficult to find. They're still around, though not in their original numbers. Twenty five thousand years ago, the Travelers came to Earth en masse. There were tens of thousands of them. A race of sentient humanoids from a planet called Krazao. Their world exploded when its sun went supernova. They came to Earth to forge a new life for themselves. And for ages, they ruled our world.

Krazull rebelled against his former spouse Galima, the Supreme Matriarch of the Travelers. Hundreds of other Travelers joined his cause. For many Travelers had grown fond of the human species and felt humanity deserved to be free from the so-called Gods from outer space. The faction among the Travelers who followed Krazull were called the Wanderers. In the end, they won the war. The Travelers who were loyal to the Supreme Matriarch were imprisoned in secret underground chambers by their victorious enemies.

Once the war was won, Krazull disbanded the Wanderers and they went back to living their lives in relative anonymity amongst ordinary humanity. In time, their stories became the stuff of legends. The world forgot they ever existed. That was over ten thousand years ago. Humanity was allowed to be free and make its own destiny for the first time in thousands of years. Krazull and his followers thought they had won. Unfortunately, the followers of the Matriarch have been freed by someone and now, they threaten humanity once more. They're out and about in our world again. And they want to rule humanity as Gods and Goddesses once more.

That is something which I absolutely cannot allow. My father showed me what the Travelers did when they had absolute power. Any human who disagreed with the rule of the Gods was executed. Sometimes, the Travelers would annihilate entire populations by bombarding specific areas of the planet Earth from orbit. And humanity could do nothing for they lacked anything which they could fight the so-called Gods with. Fortunately, things have changed. I don't think modern men and women will simply kowtow to some millennium-dead monsters from outer space who feel that the world is theirs and humanity ought to be their servants. The fate of humanity, that's why I fight.

I feel responsible for what happens partly because it was I who freed the Traveler known as Lavalena, one of the most powerful of all Travelers, from the prison where she was entombed for so many thousands of years. It happened quite by accident. I was in the city of Atlanta with some friends of mine during Spring Break 2008. I was a college freshman enjoying his first Spring Break and I was having a dandy old time. Yeah, those were the days.

It was party time! I had my peeps with me and everything. My friend Justin Landon was there, along with his girlfriend Natalie Woodrow and their pal Josephine Smith. Justin is a big and tall young black man I've known ever since our days as varsity soccer players at Brockton Community High School. We ended up being teammates on the Northeastern University men's Soccer team. His girlfriend Natalie is a tall, slender and sexy young black woman who plays ice hockey for UMass-Boston. Yes, black college students play ice hockey too. Get over it. As for their pal Josephine, she's a big and tall, plain-faced and big-bottomed black chick from UMass-Boston who looks like she could play professional Rugby. She's got a major attitude problem and she really doesn't like me. Vacationing with her was a thrill. Because she's my buddy's girlfriend's best friend, and we were staying at her parents Atlanta house, I couldn't say anything.

There we were, just four college students having ourselves a grand old time in the most beautiful city in the South. Having some fun in the sun while our pals up North were freezing their asses off. We went to the beach. Justin and I went diving while the gals lay there, tanning and sipping their drinks. I have always loved swimming. And not just because I can breathe underwater. It's a gift I inherited from my biological father. You see, the ancestors of the alien race known as the Travelers were once amphibious. Equally at home in the water and on land. Modern Travelers retained their ancestors natural ease in aquatic environments. And as a half-human, half-Traveler hybrid, I am like a fish in the water.

I went diving deeper and further than Justin, simply because I could. About a mile from the beach, I found a strange sarcophagus in a cave. I brought it back to the surface, and what I found inside absolutely stunned the hell out of me. Seriously. Inside the sarcophagus was a gorgeous, black-haired, brown-skinned and green-eyed woman. Thus I freed her. I brought her back to the beach. I thought she was a long-lost Traveler. How was I to know she was Lavalena, First Handmaiden of Queen Galima, the Supreme Matriarch of the Travelers.

Of course, I only found out about this much later. After I brought Lavalena back to the surface. I brought her back to the beach. The sight of me walking out of the surf with a gorgeous naked woman in my arms was not something Atlanta's residents were likely to forget. I had to tell everyone something. I told them Lavalena was a drowning woman whom I rescued. I convinced my friends to let her stay at the house with us. I don't know why I did that. I mean, I'm not exactly captain chivalry. I've met a lot of dangerous women in my day and although I respect the female of the human species, I don't get the urge to play rescue hero around them anymore. Seen them destroy too many guys. Like that poor bastard Chris Brown. I don't think he did what everyone says he did. I think there's more to the story than we've heard. Anyhow, I rescued Lavalena. She was unlike any woman I had ever seen. For she was literally from out of this world.

I felt like we had a special connection. When I brought her back to the surface, she was too weak to even move. Yet hours later she was walking and talking. When she looked at me, I felt like she could see right through me. The things she could do absolutely amazed me. I mean, I consider myself special because I've got superhuman strength, I've got sharp senses, I heal really fast and I can breathe underwater. What Lavalena could do stunned me.

The gal could move objects with her mind. She could also change shape. I've seen my father make himself look like a number of people. Male and female, old and young, black and white, Travelers can make themselves look like anyone. Lavalena took it a step further. Not only could she make herself look like anyone, she could also make solid matter change form merely by touching it and altering it at the molecular level. Even more fascinating were her linguistic abilities. She learned the entirety of the English language rapidly. This from a woman who was speaking ancient Navajo mere days before!

Quite frankly, I was amazed. All this, of course, she only showed to me. She sensed that I was different from the others. My friends were smitten with her. Even Justin's usually suspicious girlfriend Natalie and her obnoxious friend Josephine thought Lavalena was a nice gal. Lavalena was gorgeous, friendly, charming and sensitive. Everything I liked in a friend. Everything I wanted in a lover. And I didn't even know it.

When my friends went back to Boston, I stayed behind in Atlanta to help her get acclimated to her new environment. She told me about her life among the Travelers thousands of years ago. She told me about her homeworld and how much she missed it even though it had been dead for tens of thousands of years. She told me about the woman who raised her. The wise and wonderful woman who was the leader of all Travelers.

Everyone is the hero of his or her own story. I guess I shouldn't have expected Lavalena to paint herself as the villain in her own tale. Proves to you how little I know about such matters. Give me a break, will you? I'm only nineteen. And my experience with otherworldly women was limited at best. Still, I didn't think Lavalena was one of the tyrannical monsters my alien father warned me about. I've only faced friendly Travelers before. Beings of great power and knowledge who went about disguised as ordinary men and women. Striding through twenty-first century Earth. Those were the friendly Travelers. My father's companions and former allies from ancient times.

Lavalena was something else entirely. This ageless, beautiful woman was once worshiped as a Goddess by primitive humans. And she wielded considerable power. Just like all of her kind. The thing about both Travelers and Wanderers is that they all have different powers. Standard issue abilities shown by all of them are superhuman strength and speed, along with the ability to regenerate. I've already told you about their amphibious nature. Individual Travelers and Wanderers have varying abilities. Some, like Lavalena have phenomenal mental powers due to breeding and intense training.

Others, like my sire Krazull, have the ability to generate massive amounts of energy. My father's energy generation came in the form of lightning. Due to his abilities, Krazull was worshiped in ancient Greece as Zeus, King of the Olympian Gods of the Greek Pantheon. The Romans knew him under the name Jupiter. It made him a very powerful member of the Travelers. I thought Lavalena was like him. One of the benefactors of mankind rather than those who had risen from the darkness to enslave us. As they did so long ago that we forgot all about them.

I soon found out how wrong I was. Lavalena and I took an airplane back to Boston. I wanted to show her my fair city. Show her how much the world had changed in the eons since her slumber. I also wanted to reintroduce her to her own kind. I tried reaching my father by phone and by email but he was nowhere to be found. I didn't think much of it at the time. Sometimes, Krazull goes for weeks without talking to me. He's busy roaming the world, making sure humanity doesn't wipe itself out. He and his Wanderer buddies are the true powers behind the United Nations.

So anyway, Lavalena and I returned to Boston. I decided to stay with her until I made contact with my father. The legendary leader of the Wanderers. We got back to my dorm, dropped our stuff and then I took her for a tour of the city. We walked around until nightfall, and sat on a park bench near the Charles River Bridge. That's when she made her move. Put the whammy on me, as they say. One telekinetic blast from her and I was out cold. She would have killed me if I hadn't fallen into the frigid waters of the Charles River. Any other time she would have gone after me, but she had a thing about icy water. The Travelers, just like the Wanderers can't withstand extremely cold temperatures. Since I'm half human, I can take it better than they can. Lavalena wouldn't risk leaping into the icy river after me. She took off.

When I came to, I was at Mass General Hospital. I was surrounded by my so-called friends. Justin, Josephine and Natalie. They just sat there, looking at me sympathetically as I kicked myself mentally for acting like a fool for the past week. I owed them an explanation, but I didn't feel like talking. Man, I felt like I'd been played. Feeling like a dumbass. It's not pleasant. Lavalena used me and tried to kill me after I saved her sorry ass. If I ever see that bitch again, I'm going to deck her. No ifs, ands or buts about it. The next day, I was discharged from the hospital.

After my first class, I was approached by a tall, strange-looking man in a dark trench coat. He was in his fifties, with long black hair, light brown skin and pale gray eyes. Immediately, I recognized my biological father. I often recognize him regardless of his disguises. It's the psychic-magnetic bond between Travelers/Wanderers and their offspring. It was a new look for him. The last time I saw him, he looked like a stocky red-haired Irishman in his late sixties. I must say I liked the new look. He looked at me with what seemed like worry in his eyes. I pulled him aside into the Student Center and told him what had happened to me. His eyes widened in shock, and he asked me to describe my newfound enemy in vivid detail. The more I told him, the more alarmed he became.

When I finished my spiel, my father stared at me. His face was filled with deep despair. I asked him about it, and he told me. When he was done, I wished I hadn't asked. According to him, the woman I rescued from the underwater prison was Lavalena, the most trusted servant of Galima, the Supreme Matriarch of the Travelers. My father told me how he waged war against the Matriarch and her Handmaiden for hundreds of years. The Travelers slaughtered hundreds of thousands of people during that conflict and enslaved millions more. In the end, the Wanderers were on the run. The Travelers outnumbered them. The only way Krazull was able to turn the tide of the war was by unleashing Doomsday.

The Doomsday Device, as he called it was exactly that. A viral agent which would strip all alien life-forms, both Travelers and Wanderers, of their superhuman abilities. Leaving any unaffected aliens, such as Krazull himself and a handful of his most trusted warriors, with a definite advantage. The scientists working for Krazull tried to find a way to inoculate their own against the effects of the virus but they couldn't find a cure in time. Krazull decided to chance it. He wanted to win the war by any means necessary. Even if it meant sacrificing the bulk of his armies to destroy his enemies. When the day came, he left Earth on a spaceship with a thousand or so Wanderers. Thousands more Wanderers were still on Earth, waging war against the Travelers who outnumbered five to one.

The Doomsday Device worked perfectly. It not only took away the abilities of Wanderers and Travelers alike, it also froze them in whatever form they happened to be in. Fortunately for all involved, the effect wasn't permanent. After a few days, they regained their powers. Krazull and his fellow Wanderers descended upon the Travelers, slaughtering them. The Travelers were rounded up and imprisoned. When their powers returned, it was too late for them. According to Krazull, Lavalena and Galima, the Supreme Matriarch herself, were among the last Travelers to be captured. Them and the High Council of the Travelers.

Those who resisted were killed by Krazull himself. For the first and only time in their history, Wanderer and Traveler alike died. The virus had temporarily rendered them mortal by stripping them of their powers. Surprisingly, the Matriarch and the Handmaiden almost managed to escape to Deep Space. Even temporarily stripped of their powers, they were still the most dangerous of all Travelers. While various Travelers were buried in various places on Earth, the Matriarch and her Handmaiden were hurled to the bottom of the ocean by Krazull himself once they were captured. Once their powers returned, he couldn't kill them anymore. So he did the next best thing. He imprisoned them for all eternity.

Krazull stared at me, his eyes boring into me. He asked me if I understood the gravity of what I'd done. I had freed one of the greatest enemies the human race had ever known. My father admitted to me that he wasn't sure he could stop the Handmaiden and the Matriarch a second time. The last time, it cost him the lives of friends. Beings who were destined to live forever had given their lives to save the human species. And I had undone their work in a moment of compassion. I lowered my head in shame. According to Krazull, the Handmaiden would not rest until she located the strongest of all Travelers. Once they had risen in sufficient numbers, they would go after the Matriarch. Once she was awakened and freed, they would take over the world.

I wasn't too sure they could do that. Not in today's world. Humans had come a long way. We had televisions, computers, airplanes, sophisticated communication systems, helicopters, advanced medicine and weaponry. We wouldn't bow down to the Matriarch and her horde of alien conquerors. Not without a fight. Krazull reminded me that the Matriarch and her followers had forbidden alien technology hidden all around the world. In time, they would find it unless they were stopped. And it was up to my father and I to stop them.

Thus I walked out of the Northeastern University campus in Boston. I didn't know when I would return. Or if. Truth be told, I don't know how I feel about that. My father told me I didn't have time for any goodbyes. The fate of the world was in my hands once more. By his estimate, Lavalena had already freed at least some of the imprisoned Wanderers. And they in turn would free many more. It was up to us to stop them before we had a full-scale war on our hands. Krazull had contacted his friends around the world. Once again, it would be Wanderer versus Traveler, with the destiny of mankind in the balance. I don't know if we can win this. But I promise you on all that is holy that I will fight. Until I die, or we drop-kick the last Traveler out of this planet. You feel me? Cool.