Chapter 0: Once upon a time

Once upon a time…

The Gods ruled in total dominion over the entire earth. They protected the earth from harm and safeguarded every fiber of reality. Be it invasion from demons and creatures of the void, battles between empires which threatened the balance or even petty squabbles caused by a shortage of resources, the Gods put a stop to them. No crime, no war, no prisons- all those stupid enough to commit crimes were killed- only peace, tranquility and prosperity. This period of peace and protection was, however, short-lived. The Gods solved problem after problem until the chief God Zeus saw that humanity had grown weak and complacent, unable to decide their own fate.

He had a quarrel with his wife Hera and the other Gods. "we interfere," he said. "with both past and present and future, natural and divine, life and death and the humans can't lead lives of their own and they cannot grow. A child cannot survive with milk for his entire life, he must gradually eat harder food to sustain them as they grow. So too we need to let them experience their hardships, grow and be able to fend for themselves," Zeus said.

And with that, the 12 Olympians, alongside their offspring and all the other gods, unanimously decided never to intervene. They would protect their creations but not interfere with their futures as they had done in times past. To do this, they chose 7 Guardians, their representatives on earth, the protectors of all they had made-The Elementals.

Yet they had to uphold the decision of the Gods, to protect and not to rule, to safeguard their free will and not to interfere with their choices. To cherish and nurture not to destroy, to honor, both the earth and their sacred duty towards the creations of their creators. The Gods then vanished from their temples all over the earth. Most of their followers believed them to have forsaken them, but little did they know. Their gods moved back to their birthplace- mount Olympus, never to be seen or heard from ever again.

After the departure of the benevolent Gods and the creation of the elementals. The elementals began their duties and toiled day after day, carrying them out meticulously. They discovered other individuals who carried the blessings of the Gods, gathered them and together they formed a race of people from every corner of the world- the race of guardians. They formed a council of 12 to rule over the guardians as they carried out the solemn duties.

  The guardians, together with the elementals, would protect the earth from every collective evil whilst never interfering in anything which didn't reach the intervention threshold. The council was called 'the council of the elder 12'. They retired and sought refuge in a place which would later be known as the Bermuda Triangle. The triangle was a region which had a weak dimensional fissure. Any powerful enough source of magic would unveil the dwellers of the void upon the earth and in dwelling within the triangle, they were the first line of defense against the void. They hid their presence under the unnatural events and disasters plaguing the region.

One of the 12 individuals was named Oracle, after his purpose, of course. He was the mouthpiece of the Gods and the one in charge of communication between the Gods and the guardians. Through him, the Gods had set a scale by which all threats were classified and ranked. Should the threat reach an overall threat level of 5/12, one elemental was needed. As it rose from 5 through 10, an additional elemental would join with them to form a group. When it reached 10/12D.S, all guardians needed to come together. A level of 11 and above all, the guardians and the 'Council of The Elder 12' would be required to band together to vanquish the threat.

The elementals helped the earth through its darkest times but downplayed it so much; they were regarded as nothing more than folktales. Soon the humans stopped believing in the elementals and even in the Gods their creators. Peace reigned, and the greatest threat in a thousand years was a level 2/12 on the D-Scale.

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The scale is called the 'Disaster Scale' or the D-Scale for short or x/12 DS

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With the advent of such peace and development to mankind, the guardians rarely interfered except when humanity was on the verge of destroying itself. This had a unique place on the D-Scale of 4.9+.

All those years, the guardians' numbers increased. The Gods' blessings on various individuals made them perfect candidates for recruitment and they became part of guardians. Others were gifted individuals. Some had simply lost everything to disasters in which the guardians had intervened in. Even from those in which they were forbidden to intervene in, were eventually saved and were rescued by the guardians. They were not allowed to interfere, but they could spectate nonetheless and save those who caught their eyes.

After 2000 years of nothing up to a 4/12 D.S, the guardians, with permissions from the Gods, retreated from mankind to give them space to develop as the God's before them had done.

They created a separate dimension for their people, who now numbered over 10,000 guardians plus the 12 members of the 'Council of The Elder 12' and the elementals, as well as the hundreds of thousands of animals of all types. They left with all of their own and only a few of their deeds remained as folktales or even bed stories for children.

The dimensional fissure over the Bermuda Triangle would serve as their anchorage to the earth from their new home, and it would also protect the earth as well. Any beings from the dimensional void would have to pass through the guardians' new home to come to the earth.

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Dimensional fissures are a crack in space and time. They allowed creatures from the infinite void to plague on the other realms.

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Some who remembered the elementals believed they went into isolation as a result of their failure to prevent the collapse of Atlantis.

Sometime before their disappearance, Triton, the elemental of the mind, gifted Poseidon's trident to the royalty of Atlantis as a gesture of good faith. Once the city collapsed underwater, it was said the guardians were finally disappointed with mankind and left them to fend for themselves. Needless to say, Atlantis collapsed because of a civil war which ended when Poseidon's trident was used as a doomsday weapon. In truth, most of its people, legendary flora and fauna, were saved, and they were the last to join the elementals to go to their new home, Asteria.

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A/N

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