First King: Original Sin. A waververse story
The story that introduced Alulim to the waververse is also one of its most popular; having had a number of reimaginings or adaptations and marks the end of the first major post-war arc, being the capping point of a number of stories leading up to the emergence of Alulim. Alulim, the first and most wicked of the kings of Sumeria, he of the reign of twenty eight thousand years, and the "first of all kings", is found in the far north of the world; frozen in ice. The story goes on to explain how Alulim came to be frozen, showing his twenty eight thousand year long reign as one that grew increasingly despotic as his arrogance only increased as the years of his reign went on. Specially bred by the Mesopotamian gods to have the best lineages from the Gods and of Humanity to lead the first of the mesopotamian civilizations and oversee the founding of Sumer. However, Alulim grew arrogant tot he point that the gods themselves became seen as just more beings who should exist purely to further glorify his reign and his people increasingly became used for the sole purpose of expanding his glory, building monuments while he went around the world to gather treasures for his mystical vault and satiate his ego with more victories. Eventually he was overthrown by Alalngar and was exiled from the lands of the fertile rivers; sent to wander aimlessly through the world before he eventually came to the northern lands where he tried to impose himself on the Aesir and was frozen by Frigga for his troubles. For countless thousands of years, he lay frozen; locked in suspended animation until Swedish troops uncover him and thaw him out.
After this introduction, Amanda Aaron; the chosen guise of Columbia, avatar of America; is seen with Molotok in his guise as the schoolboy Fyodor Davidov as they head to Sweden clandestinely in a flashback sequence. The two are chasing down remnants of the Swedish national socialist movement and have decided to avoid too much notice in capitalist Sweden by maintaining their civilian guises as long as possible; convincing everyone else that they're just a couple of kids out to meet relatives in Sweden. Molotok notes that the flags are at half mast, and says that the Swedish King must have died recently. Amanda recalls his role in getting the fascists in power in Sweden but also his role in getting Sweden out of the war when he realized he was on the wrong side after all. Fyodor tells her she's getting soft as of late, and makes a little smirk and asks if she's going to be in mourning for the King now, to which she essentially responds with "eww no". After some intrigue elements where the two investigate the trail of the Nazis, including a sequence where they infiltrate their compound in the far north; sharing no small amount of banter as they make sure to only reveal themselves at the last second to make sure as few people escape as possible; they eventually come across Ulfrik, whom they've been hunting down and who tries to stop them from destroying the base when Columbia decides she's rather tired of this infiltration and just rushes headfirst into a fight when she sees one worth having. The superpowered werewolf calls forth his pack to try and take the two down after they have a bit of banter. But ultimately Ulfrik and his pack are annihilated when Columbia releases a "lance of progress" channeling forth a burst from her spear that can obliterate mountains and has grown in power since the atomic age, wiping them all out while Molotok brings forth the "hammer of modernity", bringing forth an enormous lightning blast that wipes out most of the complex. After the two leave however, some Swedish officials come to the base and try to piece together what happened, discovering the plans of the fascists and deciding to go ahead with them; taking them to where the Swedish National Socialists found where Alulim was frozen. Molotok does mention that he thinks Columbia's perhaps a bit /too/ eager to get into a scrap, trying to tell her she can't just improvise everything. Columbia blows him off, stating her belief that a good improviser can deal with the best planner any day as they can keep someone on their toes; plus she has raw power to compensate when winging it can't win the day.
Once the magic ice is sufficiently melted by the rituals of the Swedes; he shatters his prison and the handsome figure with skin akin to platinum in complexion and hair of gold and menacing red eyes to signify his divinity thanks the Swedes for freeing him before he summons his gold and platinum suit of sumerian styled and gem encrusted plate armour; his treasured "Walls of the Euphrates" armorsuit, calling it forth from his vault due to being tied to it at a conceptual level despite the Norse dwarfs having taken pains to try and hide it away after stripping it off him. Clad in his resplendent suit, the King makes a simple demand "you may either bow before me or perish where you stand, insects." The Swedes, having expected to make him a servant, try to make demands of him; upon which he slaughters them all by opening a series of portals to his mystic vault and impaling them with a number of magic weapons he's collected. Weapons that cut the very soul away, that burn a target from the inside out, that struck before being swung by reversing cause and effect, and more wiped out the researchers for having the audacity to claim authority over the first and rightful King.
A swedish tank regiment attached to the researchers tries to stop Alulim, but he kills them all in the space of a handful of seconds; obliterating them with his collection of treasures and knowledge of old and powerful magics, not so much as bothering to look at the hapless Swedes as he decides to head south. Using his power to tear away what he needs to know from the mind of hapless Swedish villagers, what the world has become in the tens of thousands of years since Alulim last ruled has the ancient king sneering with disgust. Ideologies he never even thought possible were putting insects fit only to grovel at his feet into power, man had grown so numerous that he failed to see a point in bothering to keep all of them alive. When he was king, life was rare and precious enough that even a slave was worth saving, now the world was awash with "insects and mongrels" whom he believe contributed nothing of value to society. And furthermore, his ancient homeland in the near east had gone from the cradle of civilization to the puppets of the descendants of the savages who once lived to the west.
Alulim heads west into the volatile post-war world and first makes a name for himself by simply crossing the border between west and east germany and slaughtering over a hundred thousand soldiers on both sides when he makes demands that both armies surrender themselves to his leadership; only to be met with their weapons fire and responding in kind with his arsenal. Unfortunately for his enemies, his power proves to be far too great for the conventional military to handle and tanks, jets, artillery and soldiers all fail to make a dent in him as swiftly slaughters them by the thousands at a time, not even taking the fight seriously as he casually berates the soldiers for having the audacity to fire upon their rightful king, ending by killing the commanding officer there by drawing him into the air with his magic; restraining him with a spell and then running him through with an ancient spear, calling him a failure as a commander for thinking his army of peasants could hope to best the first king of the Earth. He soon conjures forth servants; fantastical constructs called forth from his vaults as well as the now skeletonized retainers that served him in life but are now bound to him forever in death by his conceptual hold over them; to go forth and do his will. Though he finds Necromancy distasteful (something that would become apparent in his encounter with Koschei in later stories), he rationalizes that the unliving retainers belonged to him in life, so there is no reason for them to not still serve him long after life has left their bodies.
At this point, Columbia and Molotok have been dating for a substantial period of time, and their journey to Spain is meant to be a way to enjoy the winter holidays in some place warmer than their homelands. They muse a bit about the devastation the war brought to the country before, noting that it was a pity that so much devastation was dealt to the country due to people being unwilling to accept that it had changed. Since the war, Columbia and Molotok have had a more quiet life than the near constant fighting that defined the their time in the war together, and even now the general scale and stakes of their fights seemed lower as a rule despite tensions with the exohumans (the scientific term for the various superpowered people) of the parts of the world that had yet to undergo socialism. They exchange a number of jokes and overall seem to get along quite well, having found their greatest joy in trying to get the other to bust out laughing through silly shenanigans. Amanda manages to succeed first by putting on a Grucho Marx disguise and trying to give a mock lecture Fyodor as if she were a stern father and the two share a hearty laugh with each other.
But all is not entirely well, as Alulim's machinations begin to be felt elsewhere. The first sign of something being amiss though are some of Alulim's servants manifesting in the streets and causing a mess as they tango with the Spanish militia who manage to take some of them down as they try to steal from a Museum for the artifacts within so as to help Alulim with his goals. When confronted by the pair, they identify themselves as servants of Alulim, and say that by right he is the rightful king of the world, something immediately argued against and deemed ridiculous by the two before the servants try to force the two to bend knee, only to be quickly dispatched. Molotok does have some issues as he wasn't expecting a fight at the moment, and Columbia's eagerness for the scrap helps them carry through and stop basically all the potential casualties. With the foe dealt with the pair try to find more about what just happened, wagering that Alulim is likely a mesopotamian name and so try to pour through the library for more information. However they are rather disappointed as they find that scarcely little on Alulim was written beyond that he was the first of the Sumerian Kings, ruled for twenty eight thousand years, and that he based his power in Sumer. They talk about a number of things, particularly music as she quickly decides to pick up a nice hat largely on impulse, to which Molotok questions her a bit on her impulses, but it's mostly just ribbing. But their musings are interrupted by the gathering of a crowd around the radio.Sshe catches word on the news that someone identifying themselves as Alulim has just launched a series of devastating strikes on both east and west Germany and is conjuring some form of gate for purposes unknown. She looks to Molotok, also in his guise at the moment and asks if he's willing to accompany her to see just what's really going on in Germany. He asks if she's going
Alulim in the mean time is creating a gate to the realms of the Mesopotamian gods in planes beyond the material one, planning to call forth a great army of monsters and dead figures of mesopotamian legend to serve as his army to conquer the world; assembling it through not only his mystic might but also his legions and those he has forcefully press ganged into constructing his great gate on the pain of death. His gate takes the form of a great ziggurat whose materials are; due to him feeling that it would be a waste to spend his magic on conjuring them, drawn from the local area to serve in their construction. Franco-british attempts to stop him via air strikes, exohuman teams and more have failed, and his servants are keeping the likes of Aramelle, Amazonia, and Arthur away from his construction. Noting that he requires some additional materials, he soon heads to a town in nearby Czechoslovakia where Soviet officials discuss a means of dealing with the rising danger and call forth some helpers they have on hand.
There he finds the people of the town already waiting for him with weapons a plenty; determined to fight him to the bitter end. Once again brushing aside their attacks, his remarks when he sees female fighters quickly leave behind no doubt that the first king's ideals are far behind the times. But before he can wipe out the village he is soon challenged by his first Exohuman; facing the metallic behemoth Draguv from the Soviet Union. Much like Alulim, Draguv is not an Avatar of any group; but instead the literal man of steel; a machine built at Stalin's request with a combination of science and mysticism to create a hulking machine who would continually grow stronger, tougher, faster, and repair itself more quickly the longer it fought and the more emotionally invested it was in a fight or a challenge. Accompanied by the speedster; Zaibas; a woman from Lithuania, and the energy manipulator Zeras; a black man from the UASR, Draguv tries to overwhelm Alulim as he would with most other foes; through sheer brute force and power while the other two try to keep him on his toes. However Alulim simply keeps on bombarding them with devices and weapons from his arsenal until he finds ones that help him counter their abilities; wearing them down while he doesn't even seem to take the fight particularly seriously, barely even bothering to move from his spot.
This arrogance is what lets Columbia and Molotok's first attacks on him as they fly in unannounced like a bolt from the blue; having used their senses to track him down; strike him to some of the first real effect anyone has had on him so far, knocking him forward and causing him pain to his surprise. Getting a second such set of blows on him however, proves to be more difficult as he now turns his attentions to the pair and; having not seen his method of combat before, find it difficult to come to grips to him when he calls forth a series of mystical bows and simply rains the area in a hellstorm of magic arrows, though he admits to surprise when he sees that Columbia's shield is capable of blocking his attacks to no damage to herself no matter how hard he tries to hit her. In the process however; Columbia's helmet is forced off her head by a blow and Alulim's attentions refocus on her. As she tries to push through and get at him once more, he seems almost pleased while she spits back a rejection of the principles he's been ranting on the entire fight; but his tone in his responses changes substantially as he tries to make an offer to her to give up on her ideals and become one of his brides, fixating on her as she tries to push through his storm of weapons before he is informed that others of his forces have provided him his materials and disappears through his own mystic portals to reattend to his construction.
In light of the encounter; Columbia makes the decision to call in Hua for help; reaching through a quick spell of communing that gets the Chinese avatar's attentions quickly. Explaining her situation' it takes only a brief conversation to get Hua to come over to them, but she informs them that she's going to be taking a quick detour to find Gilgamesh again; explaining that she thinks he'll be able to offer some light on who it is they're facing. Molotok instead makes an offer for them all to meet Gilgamesh again together, which Hua agrees would be wise. Draguv is asked if he wishes to come, but he insists on staying here until ordered otherwise; believing that the people need to be protected in case of any further attacks, and with that they depart. It doesn't take very long to find Gilgamesh, who's busy in Poland trying to impress the women there. A quick whistle from Columbia is all that's needed to get his attention though, and the two share a fond greeting even if the legendary hero still finds her to be "a bit of a silly girl." When the name Alulim slips though, Gilgamesh's mood immediately worsens. If he is walking the world again, it will take great effort to stop him as he almost certainly intends to take over the planet. However, Gilgamesh admits that to his knowledge, Alulim rarely displays much in the way of skill, so perhaps that could be a weakness of his; and insists on coming along with them to face Alulim.
In the meantime, Alulim is facing a veritable army of exohumans at his construction site as people from both sides try to get through to him; but are constantly thwarted by his repetoire of items such as chains that strengthen in response to the divinity of their target, staffs that easily spit forth potent spells, shields to defend himself from attack, and weapons of just about every pre-modern kind. The heroes get into place to observe him not too long into the engagement and Hua notices that in the cases where he actually goes into melee, he doesn't seem to actually know much about how to actually use anything he has, showing the wild and exaggerated motions of a novice at combat and noting that many of his weapons could probably be used to much greater effect if he did anything but the most basic of uses out of them. He does however, reveal his mightiest weapon in response to an attempted nuclear strike on his ziggurat; unveiling a lance to undo the boundaries of space and time, his "nameless spear", a brief blast from the weapon overwhelming the shockwave of the nuclear warhead detonated near his ziggurat; though he seemed unperturbed by the heat.
The group quickly hashes out a strategy. However this time they decide to neither try to make an ultradetailed plan with a million contigencies to all be followed exactly nor do they attempt an indy ploy; trying to create a strategy that while detailed, is flexible and can be adjusted on the fly. Molotok's caution lets them get a good grasp on the field while Columbia's eagerness quickly lets them bowl into Alulim's armies; cutting a swathe through them as they quickly get Alulim's attention after seeing the first opening they could find and grabbing it with relish. Alulim invites them to speak, holding back his armies as he exchanges words and tries to convince them into joining his cause; though he offers no such kindness to Gilgamesh with Alulim's specifically calling out Gilgamesh as a loathsome betrayer of the Antedeluvian lineage while Gilgmaesh responds with accusations of Alulim being a tyrant in return; and once again convince Columbia in particular to give in, stating that the battlefield is no proper place for a girl her age and with her fairness. She brushes off the comment and questions his right to rule, with him trying to lecture them on his divinely given right to be the king of all humans and beasts, while the others quickly shut him up with a reminder that even Kings can't rule when their people don't want to be ruled. Alulim then asks Gilgamesh if he honestly believes any of this, and reacts with disgust when he finds that Gilgamesh in fact; does believe it, though he doesn't get too long to rant as Gilgamesh immediately attempts to strike him with his preferred bow. starting up a duel between the first King and the First hero while the other three engage in a melee melee with the constructs and the undead under the command of the first king. Hua figures that through her ability to copy any device, she could manage to overwhelm Alulim and his reliance on simply lobbing objects out of his gate, but she'd need to force him to focus his attention on them. She figures that a triple whammy of a direct challenge to his pride and his interest in Colombia would be able to get him to pull back his armies. Columbia quickly sets up a "fastball special" with Molotok, who throws her directly at Alulim head to throw him off balance and leave him open to Gilgamesh's own; albeit lesser version of Alulim's ability to summon from his collection, though Gilgamesh is much more skilled with it despite him only being able to open a dozen gates at once to Alulim's virtual barrage esque thousand and one gates.
Molotok says that the gate will need to be destroyed before it can summon forth its monsters, and suggests letting Columbia deal with the Ziggurat. Hua points out that a Nuclear blast wasn't able to work, Alulim was able to shrug off the blast and drive back the shockwave, but Molotok shakes his head and insists that she can do it; the ideals she represents are all about overcoming even the most severe of odds. Molotok on the other hand; will take on the army himself. At the same time, Gilgamesh and Columbia are managing to hold against Alulim, but he soon gets his chains to wrap around Gilgamesh to restrain him while he focuses on Columbia, whom after a particularly intense barrage where he manages to force off her helmet eventually manages to impale her through the leg with a godly sword crafted to pierce through anything and to strike before it is swung; pinning her right to the floor with a summoned blade, temporarily immobilizing her as Alulim once again makes his advances upon the far younger woman, already seeing her as his own prize and finding her adamant insistence on her ideals to be endearing. But he remarks that the moment he always enjoyed most with his servant girls was the look of despair upon them when he decided to exercise his divine right upon them. However, as he approaches; Columbia thrusts her spear forward at close range, Alulim's reflexes preventing him from getting impaled but not sparing him from the resulting blast of deadly mystical energy that brings him to a knee just in time for Hua to kick him in the head.
Alulim demands to know who this person is for daring to stand against him; with her responding with "I am Hua, a humble village girl, oh first of kings", prompting him to spout a derogatory comment about her peasant status before conjuring a lance to try and run her through only for a copy of the very same weapon to crash into Alulim's weapon and deflect it, resulting in outrage from him at "copying my incomparable treasures". Hua then deliberately insults his pride, calling him a relic of a bygone era and saying just because he's the first doesn't make him the best, or even particularly good. She even directly calls him out on his lack of skill and tells him that "for all your power, you certainly don't seem to know how to use any of it. If you really do claim to be the first and best, then I will just have to show you how history has left you behind. So let's see how many originals you have in your arsenal, and let me show you what improvement is all about", making a single bring it on gesture as Alulim flies into a rage, ranting at her as he tries to overwhelm her with everything he's got, getting increasingly frustrated that he can't win through brute force as she quickly cancels out anything he can conjure while bringing herself closer and closer; berating his sloppy technique to get him to make more and more mistakes while at the same time drawing him away from his ziggurat.
As Colombia recovers from her injury, she quickly helps free Gilgamesh from Alulim's chains as Molotok reunites with her, though she shoos him when he gets overly nosy about her condition, insisting she'll be fine. Molotok looks at her spear and asks her if she feels ready to use it. She reassures him as she places on her helmet, the first waves of monsters beginning to emerge and forcing the three to deal with creatures such as Scorpion Men and Rabisus; Molotok clearing most of them out with a lightning strike potent enough to be visible from the moon; while Columbia weaves through a horde of a thousand serpents; slashing, stabbing and blasting as she goes through the creatures of the gods of Sumer before essentially skating on the back of one of the larger serpents; the spawn of Tiamat; to bring herself directly over the ziggurat, feeding it a blast from her lance that overloads the mystical circuits of the ziggurat and the portal; causing it to explode in a way that the American first secretary all the way over the Atlantic notices some items shaking on his desk. With Alulim's plan thwarted, he decides to stop holding back, snarling with fury that "he has to fight with all my strength against frauds, peasants and traitors like you!" as he utilizes the full strength of his abilities; calling forth every weapon he can in an enormous barrage avoided with what is "essentially a dance of dodging". Attempting to surround them on all sides with his gates to prevent them from dodging, he levels much of the surrounding area in the following blast only for Columbia's shield to have extended its protective effects over her team mates; drawing on additional resevoirs of strength as the people put their belief into her, letting Hua come forth with a blade in hand capable of cutting through Alulim's armour as he tries to draw his lance to wipe them out once he seems Molotok shattering his chains of heavenly restrain when he attempts to bind them with them.
Hua never lets him use his greatest weapon; cutting off his primary arm; though a contingent backlash spell quickly knocks her away from him and he quickly starts to regenerate, rapidly starting to overwhelm her now that she's off balance and can't quite focus on copying his weapons as the backlash spell disrupts her ability to concentrate, Molotok's hammer soon following up to crush open much of his chestplate while a dozen blades from Gilgamesh impale him shortly afterwards to let Columbia finally run him through with her spear; forcing Alulim to admit that he has been beaten, and how he finds Columbia all the lovelier for rejecting him; though she quickly finishes him off by charging up her lance once more blows open most of his abdomen and force him back into the Ziggurat's collapsing portal. With Alulim defeated and the remains of his army being sucked into the yawning vortex before it collapses upon itself, the heroes decide to retire for the night; heading off to Yugoslavia to "catch some sun for once". As they discuss what happened, Molotok does say Alulim was right about one thing; she is lovely; which gets an eyeroll and a punch in the shoulder from Columbia, who's come to realize that perhaps it's not always the best idea to just rush into something without thinking ahead while Molotok admits sometimes it is best to just go ahead and seize the moment. All do agree that Alulim lost because he refused to see the potential in other people he believed to be inferior for some reason or the other, and the four end up getting some decent time off at a Yugoslavian beach.
However, it is soon revealed that Alulim isn't dead, his body healing from the injuries dealt to him in the plane of his Gods, and he soon stands back up to life as the story ends.
