Aghnar

Unnatural Birth

Othon von Salzas, Aghnar's father, had been castrated when his pelvis was blasted by a thief, meaning that he could not have children. Aghnar was only born because his mother was Honorata, a priestess of the Shabda-Oud. She had many unexplained powers, one of which allowed her to turn a drop of Othon's blood into sperm inside her body so she could be impregnated.

Nine months later Othon's servant told him that his concubines had taken Honorata to the top of the palace and were going to throw her off. He took his horse and rode to his armory. Loading one of his guns with a dart full of epiphyte, he ran to a ledge where he could see his concubines about to jump with his wife. As they did, Othon shot Honorata. She floated and her would-be murderers fell to their deaths. Othon got in his ship and went to pick Honorata up, but before he could, she gave birth in midair. Once they were in the ship Honorata told Othon that she had given birth to a son and they named him Aghnar. She also told him that he could never tell anyone that Aghnar was a boy. She then revealed why.

Honorata had been sent chosen by the other priestesses of Shabda-Oud to be Othon's gift in order to seduce him and have a special child. She had planned on giving birth to a hermaphrodite so it would fulfill a prophecy saying that an androgynous being would one day rule the galaxy. It's father being the most dangerous man in existence would also add to its power. Fortunately, in her time with Othon she had genuinely fallen in love with him and so she gave him the son he had wanted.

Part of her plan had included kidnapping the child when it was 7 and delivering it to her masters, but now that she loved Othon, they had to figure out a way to protect his child. They settled on keeping the child's sex a secret for the seven years, hoping to have a proper plan by then. That night while they were sleeping, Aghnar started to float out of his crib. As soon as Othon realized that the epiphyte that had save Honorata's life had made his son weightless, he screamed in fury and took up a knife to kill his son, a boy that would never become a real warrior. Honorata was only able to stop him by revealing that the effort that she had used to have the boy had left her sterile, meaning that if he died, there would no chance for Othon to have another son. Honorata clamped weights on Aghnar's legs so he would be grounded and Othon decided to let him live, but said that he could not bear to see his son. Honorata agreed to take him away and train him for the seven years that were assured to them. At the end of that time they would return and Othon would test him to see if he was worthy, and if not, he would kill the boy and himself, ending the line of Metabarons before it started.

The Seven Years

Honorata took Aghnar to the sacred mountain Anasirma. It was a forbidden and dangerous place with deadly chasms and even more deadly beasts. They found a cave of crystals and made that their home. In the cave Aghnar found and befriended a woolly toad and even taught it to speak. When Aghnar turned five, Honorata told him to kill his pet and friend. Before dying the creature asked, "Why Master?" and Aghnar responded, "Duty comes before love." Aghnar took his sword and sliced him in two, shedding one tear as he did so. For crying, Honorata whipped him, leaving a scar that would never heal. Using Shabda-Oud meditation techniques, Aghnar learned to control his nervous system and free his body from the tyranny of pain. After this had been mastered, Honorata began to train her son in combat. She fought him at every opportunity, often ambushing him as he did routine chores. He learned never to trust anyone, not even his mother, and eventually he was no longer caught off guard when she attacked. She periodically added more weights to him to build up his strength as they trained. Honorata had superhuman strength as well as psychic abilities and he was forced to fight her every day, learning to use and defend against weapons of the body and the mind. On the day before his seventh birthday Aghnar finally beat his mother. She clad him in armor and gave him a sword, telling him that the next day he would meet his father. Riding a winged beast, Aghnar and Honorata returned to Othon and his castle.

Testing

To test Aghnar, Othon had decided to pit his son against a robo-killer, a nearly indestructible machine with eight blade covered arms. The only way to destroy it was by avoiding the arms and setting off its self-destruct mechanism. The battle lasted for over an hour but Aghnar eventually won. Othon was displeased because Aghnar had used his flying abilities so he devised another test. He put his sons legs in a device that would squeeze them until Aghnar told it to stop. It was horrible test of his strength of will and pain tolerance, but Aghnar passed, not protesting once until his legs were completely removed. After the ordeal, Othon grafted robotic legs to his sons body, finally giving him real weight and making him a Metabaron.

Soon after that, three priestesses of the Shabda-Oud arrived to inspect Othon's son. Aghnar went to meet them acting as if he would show them that he was indeed a hermaphrodite, but he instead attacked them with his claw-tipped prosthesis that were coated in epiphyte, which caused the witches to float, making them easy targets for him. He then faced the Mother Superior in a telepathic duel and after tapping into his mother’s psychic powers, won the battle.

After this battle, Othon flew to space to destroy the witches’ cetacyborg ship but in the battle was forced to enter the living vessel’s mouth and inhale some of its digestive acids, which would eventually kill him. When he returned to the planet he decided they must leave it so the witches don’t come back for revenge, but Honorata revealed that she couldn't leave with them because the witches replaced her heart with a bomb and they would blow it up soon for betraying them. Aghnar and Othon left the planet as it exploded and journeyed to another planet where Aghnar would train in secret for the day he could get revenge on the witches of Shabda-Oud.

The Metabunker landed on the planet Perdita, a place with extreme gravity, enormous insects and floating apes. On the planet, Othon told Aghnar that he had spy-needles all over the universe that would tell him where the Shabda-Oud planet was, but it would be ten years before the signals would reach Perdita. That meant that Aghnar had ten years to prepare to face the witches of the Shabda-Oud. At that point, Othon told Aghnar that he would have to kill him. The acid in Othon's body would kill him in a few days but he wanted Aghnar to kill him before then. It would prove to Othon that Aghnar was truly worthy of being the next Metabaron. At first Aghnar refused but when Othon attacked he was forced to defend himself. Aghnar used the mental powers his mother had gifted him to paralyze his father but Othon told him that he had oko mini-bombs implanted all over his body and they would detonate if Aghnar touched him the wrong way. Aghnar reasoned that Othon couldn't have bombs in his brain if he could think properly, so he drove his weapon through his father's skull and killed him. 

Revenge

After killing his father, Aghnar transplanted all his mini-bombs into his own body and began to explore the planet. One day he saw a falling ape and rescued it before it landed on the ground and died. He found that it was sentient and let it take him to its people up in the clouds. Once there Aghnar saw why the ape had fallen. The eldest ape was defending its title as leader by killing its challengers. Aghnar decided to kill the leader and become ruler of the apes because before going up into the sky with the rescued ape, he had received a message from the spy-needles telling him where the Shabda-Oud were but he knew couldn’t defeat them and their cetacyborgs on his own and would need an army. After becoming the leader of the apes he told them that he would take them to a new and better place. With the help of the floating apes he took control of one of the cetacyborgs and its pilots, forcing to tell him their secret mission, which was to kidnap Oda, the most beautiful woman in the galaxy in order to produce a hermaphrodite. When Aghnar learned of Oda he instantly fell in love and decided he wanted her as his wife.

Aghnar was able to win the heart of Oda who agreed to help him with his plan for revenge. Aghnar, disguised as a witch, delivered Oda to the Shabda-Oud in order to gain entrance to their base. The plan went wrong when Jejoh, the witch’s invulnerable god was summoned and Aghnar was forced to act too soon.   He released the apes to attack the witches while he fought Jejoh, sacrificing his arm in order to kill him. With Jejoh and most of the witches dead, Aghnar fought the elder witches but needed Oda’s help to win. He defeated them and gave the apes a new home, but Oda’s mind was lost in the process. 

A Family

After the psychic battle, a mysterious woman appeared and brought Aghnar and Oda to safety. The stranger turned out to be Honorata, who had not died years before but had used her psychic powers to save herself by stopping time for 20 years (her perspective) 5 minutes before the bomb went off so her robots could study the bomb and remove it. With the remaining 5 minutes she had fled the planet and now had returned to her son’s aid and promised to save Oda, at the cost of her own life. The psycho-surgical operation was a success and Oda was saved. Aghnar and Oda conceived a child but on the day it was born Aghnar discovered that Honorata had actually placed her mind in Oda’s body. In a rage, Aghnar took his gun and blew off his son’s head. Aghnar advised Honorata/Oda to attach the baby to a machine if she desired to save it (he had only wanted to kill its spirit, which he did by blowing off its head) and that he would come back one day and kill the child. Honorata/Oda vowed to make the child the best warrior ever so he would take his father’s place as Metabaron.

After leaving his mother/wife and son, Aghnar made the position of Metabaron a mercenary one, demanding to be paid to kill instead of just serving the empire. He took many missions and killed many beings and even whole civilizations until one day, after years and years of murder, he was hired by another galaxy to destroy his home galaxy. To match the threat he posed, Aghnar’s home galaxy hired his son, now called Steelhead, to protect them.

The two mercenaries began a fight to the death in space that ranged through all dimensions. Neither could win until Aghnar used his psychic powers to overwhelm Steelhead. In response, Steelhead began to mutilate Honorata/Oda who he had brought with him until Aghnar surrendered. Unable to live anymore, Agnhar killed himself and Honorata/Oda joined him to be away from the monster she created.

Steelhead