A little tentacle was outside playing in the rain. It was acid rain, but that was normal for Sporknein. Also normal for Sporknein was reproducing asexually, but I’ve told you that before. Anyway, up above, an animal that sort of looks like a giraffe made of strawberry pudding was flying by. It was making the standard sound a strawberry pudding giraffe makes: “HONKA HONKA! WHHUUUUUUU! HONKA HONKA! WUUUUUUUUUUP!” He looked up, smiled, and grabbed his glerbin. That was a pretty rude gesture for a tentacle. His mom saw it and hopped outside to yell at him.

“Just what do you think you’re doing, young man!”

“Playing.”

“Playing with yourself, I see!”

“Awww mom!”

“Don’t you awww mom me! What if the neighbors saw you? We’d be executed for sure!”

“Awwww mom you worry too much!”

“Don’t you tell me how much to worry! You’re going to go blind and grow hair on your eyes if you keep doing that!”

“I am not! You’re just making that up!”

“We’ll see, we’ll see how much I’m making it up when you’re blind!”

“Shut up, I hate you! I hate this family! I’m going to clone myself and move to Rrrlaablasburg!”

“Don’t you talk about that, you know how I feel about those people!”

The kid curled into a ball and started oozing. His mom continued to yell at him. “There you go, oozing like a little baby! You’re just like you were before you reproduced yourself and died!”

His mom left him oozing on the sidewalk and went back in their house. That’s when someone poked his head out from behind the bushes. He was on a flying bathmat. “Rlablasburg huh kid? You want to go have sex with yourself? That’s pretty weird.”

“No I d-don’t! Who said that?”

“I did. You know back on my planet we had a city just like that, full of people boning themselves. It was the capital of the country.”

“Nuh uh! Shut up! You are not from another planet!”

“Shows what you know.”

Back on parallel Earth, in the year 1991, some kids were picking on another kid. A coffee cup, actually. Being poked at by three snot nosed beakers. Well, one snot nosed beaker, one bratty little bastard with clear sinuses, and the third was kind of standing there nervously. “Hey, it’s that stooooopid cup! Hey cup, want me to put some cream in you? Heh heh heh.” The cup didn’t say anything; he just looked at the ground. “Hey Jimmy, look at this!”

“Yeah?”

“You ever seen a coffee cup that can talk?”

“Nooo, and I ain’t never seen one so ugly either! Heh heh heh!”

“Ahh ha ha ha!”

The third beaker shifted his feet, and tried to get them to stop. “You guys - I don’t think we should be here ...”

“Aw be quite you NERD!” The biggest of the three pushed the third and he tripped, and fell. “Look at that! Heh he wants to make out with the cup! Wha ha ha ha!”

“You ... you guys ... leave him alone ...” The littlest beaker was on the ground, starting to cry. The coffee cup just stood there, watching them.

“Well?! sniff You gonna say somethin’ or not, you fat loser!” The snot nosed one shoved the cup, and he stumbled back, almost falling over, but catching himself. He still didn’t say anything.

“Come on .. come on guys, that’s enough!”

“You think that’s sniff enough? That’s sniff nothin’ crybaby!” A bigger beaker was walking towards them. They didn’t see him coming. “Hey cmon, let’s beat this nerd up! Heh heh!” You could give them one thing - they were straightforward. He reared back and was about to punch the cup - who was still just staring at them - when the beaker who had been walking towards them grabbed his arm, and threw it on top of the school. With him attached, of course. He hit the brick wall with a loud CRACK! The second one gasped and turned, saw Billy standing there, and tried to run away. But he was too slow. Billy grabbed him, and threw him even farther - over the school. He disappeared out of sight. A few seconds later, there was a loud CLANG! in the distance. Then he turned to the kid still on the ground. He just leaned over, squinted, and didn’t say anything. The kid hurried to his feet, and scrambled away, falling down a few times in the process.

The cup was staring at Billy now. Billy straighted up, and turned toward him. The cup sighed, and exasperated said, “Why did you make me regenerate anyway.”

“You had to. You were passing out too much.”

“Maybe I needed some rest!”

“Rest, pfft. You were out of it, Coffee! Look, just like seven more years, and we’ll be out of here. You can handle it.”

“Bimaadizi. And no I can’t.” He started walking back towards the school.

“Stop telling people that!”

“It’s my name.”

“It’s not your name, they just said that when they saw you know, a living container?!”

“Then why did they call you Gishkibidagunnun? Huh?”

“Because they didn’t have a word for beakers, you fruit!”

“I’m not gay, we’re in fifth grade.”

“You sound pretty gay to me.” They were walking into the school. Just then, there was a shout from outside. “Mister Roberts! Aaron is on top of the building agaaaaain!”

Three million years earlier, on the inside surface of a Dyson sphere containing the two binary suns of the Alpha Centauri system, a native child woke up from a nap. He was wearing a headband with shoulder length hair, tied back into a ponytail. He had a slot to tie his feathers into the front of it, but he wasn’t old enough yet to have earned any. It was a clear day as always, and he was dozing in the middle of an artificial field. There was a man nearby, meditating. The kid walked by, and unconsciously sighed to himself. “Prince! What are you sighing for?”

“I’m just bored, is all.”

“Is all!? Have you done your chores? Have you completed your studies?”

“Yeees ...”

“Good, then you have time to study the prophecies.”

The Prince let out another big sigh. “Those are just ...”

“Silence! You will study! The time will come when you rule this land, and you must be prepared for the Ancients to be woken!”

“Oh there won’t ...”

“I said SILENCE, young man! You WILL study the Prophecies of the Ancients, and you will prove your worth as a man! If you do not, pestilence and death will befall you, and all around you. This kingdom will be shattered to bits, and the starving, homeless descendants of the dead will weep and curse your name! The legends foretell of one much like yourself bringing ruin to this sphere, our lands - by waking the Ancients, who will leave death and destruction in their wake. Now study the Prophecies, or woe unto you and all who will follow you!”

It’s quite a thing to be told to study, but it’s quite another to be told you’re going to cause Armageddon, and this worried the Prince more than just a little. For one, he didn’t know much about the Prophecies, other than he believed they were nonsense. Maybe he should study, just in case there was something in there he needed to know about. He was hoping to somehow get out of being king someday already - and now he was sure he wanted out.

He sat down and began to read. There were horrible stories about the waking of the Ancients. “The Vessels of Ancient Power. They would destroy us.” The things the three of them would do. The destruction. The chaos. Two suns, with all of their planets exploding into bits. Shards of a civilization. All caused by a little boy; a boy much like the Prince. A boy with an evil, terrific laugh on his face, holding a scepter towards the sky; lightning, clouds, the Ancients turning against him. Pulling his organs out bit by bit. All that would remain would be a golden scepter, with jewels of blue, green, and red. One of the Ancients would sacrifice himself to destroy the civilization - the other two flying away to do the same somewhere else. And it said this little boy would cause it all. This seemingly harmless, yet evil child - his weapon gleaming and glowing in the eerie daylight of two suns that never set.

Ancients beings calling to him; daring him to obey them, to give them life. “Protect the barriers. Protect them or they will destroy you. Kill them or be killed. Death is your only destiny.” Three pedestals around him - their birthplace, his graveyard. Still, he would obey. He would have no choice. The Prince was terrified at these thoughts; that his people had come up with such darkness, such a horrible idea. Then forced generations of their children, their grandchildren, to learn of it; remember it; live day to day with it. He was terrified of these ideas and he was terrified of his people. He took the book and threw it to the ground. It bounced, and something broke loose; A metal strip, an alien cable - part of the Dyson sphere he was standing inside of. Slowly, he reached down, bent over, and pulled it loose. He examined the damage he had done. A long thread of a circuit and protective shielding. Broken wires protruding out, threatening to stab him.

He looked down at the ground to see where it had lead. And he saw dark spots where the circuitry had failed; showering sparks all around them. Three square, impenetrable tiles of misery before him - peering out from their neon brothers. A glaring abyss boring into his soul. The Prince began to shake. He slowly, carefully as if to wish it to disappear, looked at the circuit he was holding - mouth agape at the red, green, blue wires emerging from it. The power glowing in his hands. Trembling. He held it as far away as he could, and threw it to the ground. Then, he ran. He ran as fast as he could. Over the artificial fields, over the rolling hills that weren’t really there. Over the rainbow of endless electrons and mysterious computations. He didn’t see it coming; he couldn’t have. He ran, and ran, and tripped into a canyon - a bare, empty void in the sphere where there was nothing. A maintenance shaft. He fell. He tumbled. He broke his neck. The Prince was a prince no more.

Around five hundred years later, inside a lab on the Dyson sphere, a scientist is experimenting with artificial life. He’s given birth to robots, to androids. Human clones, Half human half robot hybrids. He’s gone a bit mad trying to play god. Trying to create gods. He’s a familiar figure in the history of civilizations all over the universe. A mortal trying to be immortal. Trying to be more than he is. He’d heard of the wisdom, the terror of the Ancients - as all of their civilization had. He could bring them to life, and destroy everything. His name would live forever. Problem is, he didn’t have the whole story.

He was reading from the Prophecies of the Ancients, like everyone was. Three Ancient beings, vessels of pure energy. There weren’t quite gods, but close enough. They’d destroy everything they saw there, if they got the chance. That was their duty. Their reason for existence. Protectors. Destroyers. Judges, executioners. But that wasn’t quite the whole truth.

He was readying his lab; making the final preparations. He had three beakers lined up; just as they were depicted in the Prophecies. They were wired together; connected to machines he’d been working on for decades. Collecting rare elements from the far reaches of the Empire. Paying off collectors and statesmen for their treasures, and their silence. He was going to bring the Ancients to life, and they would make him infamous. Glorious. He was going to succeed. Only one problem - the Prophecies were wrong.

There was a tentacle oozing and sobbing a bit as a big, white beaker - filled with blue liquid - named Billy hovered over him on a dark green bathmat. “What planet am I from? Eh you’ve never heard of it anyway.”

“SO! You’re just some dumb - whatever you are!” He was sobbing harder.

“Yeah, I guess I am. And you’re a tentacle, and you’re not meant to be one. So I’ve got to take care of that. Sorry.” He shook his head, and some fluid spilled out, turned into some sort of electrified hexagonal beams, and burned the little tentacle into vapor. And he cried no more.

The scientist grabbed his hair and brushed it back. He was making a speech about history in the making; some mad scientist thing. I won’t subject you to it. He hit the switch, and the entire room dimmed. The building shook. The mechanical arm reaching down from the ceiling, holding it in place, vibrated so fast that it was invisible to the naked eye. Something was happening to the first beaker. It was glowing. The pedestal it was on started to spin. It was spinning so rapidly that it was a blur. Suddenly, the arm snapped in half, and the beaker went flying across the room at unimaginable, inhuman speeds. It hit the wall, knocking a hole in it and breaking the building in half. The insane scientist screamed with delight. “I’ve done it! I’ve done it! The first Ancient one has arrived!”

The beaker winced, opened its eyes, and yelled. “Son of a BITCH! Holy shit!” He walked back into the room and was watching the second beaker come to life similar to how he had. The scientist was not expecting those first words, and stared at him in disbelief. “Dude, that was fucked up! Whoa! Look at this shit!”

The arm holding down the second beaker raised, and he opened his eyes slowly. This beaker was smaller, rounder. If you didn’t know better, you might swear it wasn’t a beaker at all. Maybe a mug, a glass. Some sort of coffee cup. He jumped down from the pedestal and walked silently over to the other beaker, staring at the scientist. He turned around and watched the third without saying a word.

Power was attempting to flow into the third when the panels shook and buckled. Alarms went off through the system; throughout the building. The scientist screamed, and ran to his controls. “No power? No power!? What do you mean no power? That’s impossible! That - this is impossible!” He ran to the third pedestal, where a tall, empty beaker was sitting. “I don’t understand - I don’t ...”

The second beaker cleared his throat, and attempted to speak. In a gravely, quiet tone, practically unable to be heard over all the noise - he said, “It’s not - ahem - it’s not impossible.”

“Yeah. It’s - kind of expected actually.”

“What? There are three of you! There are supposed to be three of you! I conjured you! You’re here. Where is the third! Where is the second beaker from the Prophecy?!”

“The Prophecy? Whatever man. There’s only two of us.”

“No! There are three of you! Three Ancient vessels of power! Three gods sent to destroy life and creation; to rule the universe - to - to make me infamous!”

“Heh, wow.”

“I don’t know where you get your prophecies, but you’ve been had, cause there’s two of us and we’re it.”

“And - we ain’t ... well, we’re not going to be destroying any universes.”

“No! No that’s - no!” The scientist turned around, and grabbed the third beaker in angst, in failure. The system had been overloading, and it was done. One last surge of energy flowed in the contraption with no Ancients to conjure to absorb it. The beaker exploded, and the scientist absorbed the shards with his brain.

“Yeah we should probably get out of here.”

“Sounds good to me.”