AN: This is my first bit of fiction that I have published on here and I'm mainly just looking for advice on improvement and constructive criticism. Hopefully you can enjoy the fruits of 3 days of boredom in a computer room.
It was a truly unremarkable day when it happened. The museum to the glory of their departed Gods was packed with children and tourists as usual, the sky was clear, and the weather was warm. It was a single visitor which disturbed the comfortable normality of the building.
They stood in the wing that was dedicated to their deities defeat of the Great Demons of the Kental Spiral Arms. They had slipped in with the crowd, somehow, despite being pink skinned to their dark grey. They were clearly infirm, leaning on a cane seemingly made form a black hole in the world, gazing up at the central exhibit, the Cube of the Abyss.
One of the custodians, a veteran of the war, approached her warily, as if nearing a dangerous predator, silencing the murmurs in the room. "What are you doing here human? The war is over," the man spoke, clearly ready to flee at a moment's notice.
"I have come to see the last legacy of your Gods, that which they attempted to throw us into the mud for," the human spoke, their voice sending a wave of instinctive fear down their spines. The custodian tensed but was visibly dismissed.
The woman, for with a voice like that they could only be female, visibly snorted in contempt. "I am not impressed. You are the people they obliterated the Basilisk Constellation for? Races like you are the reason we ruined half the galaxy fighting because they thought we should leave beyond the edge and make room for you? Your Gods were warmongers dressing up as philosophers."
The rage seemed to drain out of her, leaving behind an age-old tiredness. She turned to the custodian noticing for the first time the fear that hung around him like a cloud. She looked him over, spotting the uniform patch on his arm. She reached out delicately and stroked it, an almost nostalgic look on her face.
"I remember this. The 229th Rentara Raiders, I fought you on Utopia Secondus. You were honourable opponents, enough that we were unwilling to simply obliterate the regiment from the face of the galaxy," she huffed slightly, glancing up at the sound of light humming, into the lens of a camera drone.
"Surrounded, outnumbered, trapped in an archology, you still fought, releasing the civilians trapped within. We couldn't kill you, wo we hit the building with a neural spike and rendered you all comatose. The next you woke was in a prison camp honour intact."
The memory seemed to bring some energy back to her as she began to pace before the cube. She became visibly more agitated the longer she paced, the man following her and camera drones dogging her steps. Suddenly she whirled towards the entrance to the hall, eyes alight with purple flames.
At the same moment, the entrance doors exploded, and armoured soldiers poured through brandishing plasma rifles. As they fired, the demon threw her can at them. The cane seemed to disintegrate, flecks of black falling from it, and just for an instant the world was bathed in the light of a naked singularity, the heart of a black hole.
The singularity consumed the plasma bolts, before it was once again encased in blackness, before returning to its mistress' hand. With a wave of her other arm, and a burst of purple flames, she summoned up a field of force that slammed the soldiers into the ground with a crunch of multiplied gravity.
The rage was back, alight in her eyes as the violent flames spread to the rest of her body.
"I can hear the thoughts echoing in their heads, prayers of deliverance to Gods that cannot answer. Cease your prattling, the last of them died with my hands around his throat as I consumed the Light of his Soul."
She spun back to the Cube, unleashing a blast of power that forced the walls and roof of the building to disintegrate leaving them surrounded by the city. It was another trivial flex of power that destroyed the colossal glass box that housed the object. Then she struck it with her cane.
There was a pause, as if the universe held its breath, and then the grinding started. Plates o the surface of the Cube began to shift in seemingly random patterns, and symbols lit up all over the surface in a poisonous acid green light. Soon a humanoid form, created from the same green light flickered into existence and spoke, "I am Epimetheus, Guardian of the Ark of Pandora. Who comes before that which guards all the evils and hopes of the galaxy?"
The woman drew herself up and replied in a booming voice, "I am the Lady Pandora Starslayer, of the bloodline of Terra. It was I who put out the thousand suns of the Pentrokoi and left nothing but dying planets in my wake. I brought the Lifestealers of the Silent Stars to heel and so finished conquering half the galaxy. I am the last of humanity, the Bearers of the Holy Truth, killer of the last of the Lords of Light. I command you Guardian, open the Ark!"
Epimetheus was silent for a few moments, unmoving, before he bowed his head in deference, "very well my Lady. The Ark shall open."
There was a high-pitched whine, followed by the thunks of enormous bolts shooting back not their housings, before the face of the cube facing Pandora fell forwards with a crash. Black fog flowed from the hatch, and a sense of wrongness pervaded the area, just as a human hand grasped the edge of the box.
