The King's Famous Legacy

The King’s Famous Legacy

By Jesse Ackerman-Hovis

This book is dedicated to a couple of people. The first people I would like to dedicate this book to are my family for their support, encouragement and inspiration they gave me during Maple Leaf. I would also like to dedicate this book to Ms. Diane for all of the work she helped me do. The final person, or should I say canine, I would like to dedicate this book to is my dog Bertie for sitting on the couch with me while I wrote this story.

Maple Leaf Writing Challenge

Brattleboro, VT

2017-2018

Our story begins on a planet called Mammoth-II and as the name suggests the planet is huge. Then there is a king called Kazar the Behemoth, better known as “The King.” The King was rich but not greedy and gave lots to the poor. The only thing he was greedy about was getting remembered as the most important person in history, and not just in Mammoth-II history but in the Universe’s history. So he put up pictures of himself everywhere on the planet and made speeches everyday to command everyone to put him in their prayers. But that wasn't enough for the King, so he found more unruled worlds and became ruler of them and put up more pictures of himself and told more people to put him in their prayers. But that was still not enough for him so he decided to take over Earth - but how? At this moment in 2139 the planet Mammoth-II was not on very good terms with Earth, after Mammoth-II’s army tried to steal some ships with advanced warp engines and information about the Bamorith species. But the King had a plan.

The King’s plan was to go to Earth but not present day Earth. The King wanted to go to past Earth where no one would know him or have seen him. But how? The King knew that he would have to build a time machine to go there, but how could he build such a complex thing? If he could get a few more parts he might be able to pull it off.

It took 4 months before he could get the parts to build his time-machine. He had to search hard for the parts because there was a shortage of them. One day he found an old man who knew of an old rusty warehouse stocked with all the tools and equipment he needed. After the King found the warehouse it took him a short amount of time to build his time machine. Once he built it he had to decide where to go first in time. He finally decided to go back to the time of Ancient Egypt in 1300 B.C. Because no one in that time period had even found out about his world yet, let alone have his astronomical advancements, there was a 0% chance anyone in Ancient Egypt would recognize him at all.

The plan was set. It would happen on Shemp Day in the morning at 5 am. Shemp Day is the 10th day of the week and yes, on Mammoth-II they watch American comedies like The Three Stooges. On Shemp Day morning the King left Mammoth-II for Ancient Egypt. When he got there he was in shock and horror of how they did things. People walking. No hover ships or tanks going through the streets. He felt very out out of place and wondered how he could ever get his message through that he ruled the world.

As the King stood shocked, a child came running out of nowhere and smashed into the King. The King looked down and saw a tanned girl wearing old, dirty ragged clothes yelling something to a crowd of passers by. He couldn't completely understand what the girl was saying, but his cybernetic brain told him the girl was speaking in Egyptian. His cybernetic brain switched the language translation from Egyptian to Mammoth and heard the girl saying “The Queen is approaching! The Queen is approaching, move out of the way.” In a few moments a large group of people gathered around a woman wearing a headdress. No one told the King her name, but it didn’t matter. All he wanted to do was poison her and kill her and proclaim himself King of Egypt and then the world. Unfortunately things sometimes don’t go as planned and improvising just makes things worse. That's what the King found out with his assassination plan.

You see the King had an arch nemesis named Kalazar the Master of time, space, and all eternity of the universe. When Kalazar found out that the King was attempting to take over the universe he jumped into his time racer and sped to 1300 B.C. There Kalazar found the King and kidnapped him from Earth and Kalazar took him to his lair. Kalazar kept the King for ten years behind a metal door and only fed him this stale, crunchy, bland thing called bread and a clear flavorless liquid called water. When Kalazar let the King go, the King asked Kalazar why he had imprisoned him for ten years? Kalazar said, “I took you away from that Ancient Egypt because you being there could make catastrophic changes in the historical timeline. And if you kill the Queen of Egypt it will change history forever. So promise you will not kill the queen?” But the King said, “No, I have to kill her and if you get in my way I will kill you also.” So Kalazar said “Then I can’t let you go.”

When the King heard those words, he snached Kalazar’s crystal sword and slashed him right through the chest. In an instant Kalazar’s face went from all flesh to just bone. A loud voice boomed around the King saying, “Now that you have killed me, you are a bigger threat to yourself than anyone else in the galaxy. If you kill the Queen, you will be so ashamed of your greed for power and remembrance that you will not have anyone who will stand up for you. That is my warning for you.”

Then suddenly the King was back in the square with the queen and the girl as if no time had passed at all. The King wondered if he had really killed Kalazar. But what if Kalazar had infiltrated his mind and he had just imagined that happening? “Of course that's what happened,” the King thought, until he noticed a warm teal slimy substance on his hands. It wasn’t just any substance - it was blood. Then the King knew it wasn’t a dream. The King had killed Kalazar! Since Kalazar was a god the King thought, “Now I am a god also.” Then again, the King had only seen a god once and that was Kalazar, and aren’t gods immortal?

After the King saw what he had done he was reconsidering his choice to murder the queen. After killing Kalazart he felt terrible, even if he was his arch nemesis. But at the same time the King wanted more power, fame, and glory. Suddenly the Queen came over to him, and that's when he knew that she had noticed he was not human. He saw that guards were closing in on him, and he was out of there. The chase was on!

The chase for the alien ( a.k.a. The King) continued, and of course he really needed to get as far away from the Queen as possible. The Queen’s guards’ spears were knifelike, sharp, able to pierce anything or anyone they wanted to, and with hundreds of guards looking for him it was terrifying to think of what might happen to the King. After three hours of running and hiding, The King found his time machine. The King was thinking about leaving, but he also wanted world domination.

The King thought it was totally stupid of him to second guess the idea of getting in the time machine and going home. What if the guards found it and destroyed it? The King could never get home from Ancient Egypt. If his people saw he mysteriously disappeared, there would

be a massive riot across his planets. Innocent people who would get convicted and get the death sentence just because they were against the King’s policies.

Then it dawned on him that if the King murdered the Queen, all of her people would go through the same terrible suffering as his people. The King found in his heart that he couldn’t follow through with the plan of murdering the Queen. After killing Kalazar, that place where he kept the feeling of want for fame and power was now full of shame and anger with himself. And that’s when he noticed Kalazar’s spirit standing in front of him.

Kalazar’s spirit said, “If you murder her you will also die while trying because of the the shame you will feel. I know that you always do the right thing because you always give money to the poor and keep authority on your planet. But today I saw the greed in you take over, and the King I saw today is not the King I want to know. So tell me, King Kazar the Behemoth, are you going to kill her?”

“No, Kalazar, I won’t kill her. And I feel truly dreadful for killing you,” said the King.

“Very well,” said Kalazar. The King found that the he didn’t feel ashamed anymore. In fact he felt kind of happy now.

Suddenly the King realized that Kalazar wasn’t spirit anymore. “What happened?” asked the King.

Kalazar said, “I lifted the curse from you, that's what that ashamed feeling was.”

“But why did you forgive me for killing you?” asked the King.

Kalazar’s response was, “I forgave you because you learned to have restraint on letting your wants take over your actions, thoughts, and emotions. That's why I forgave you.” And suddenly Kalazar disappeared into thin air.

When the King stepped into the Time Machine he saw that someone had been in it because of the fingerprints everywhere. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a person. It was the Queen! She said “What and who are you? What are you doing here?” The King replied, “I’m King Kazar the Behemoth of Mammoth-II, your majesty. I came here to kill you, but I changed my mind.” Unfortunately he said the wrong thing, because The Queen had her guards take him to interrogation. If things couldn’t get any worse, all he had that night was that thin liquidy no-taste substance called water again. When the King woke up, he was in a jail cell.

The cell wasn’t like the one Kalazar had kept him in. It was dark and cramped and smelled bad. That day they kept interrogating him. The King told them all about his plan, about Kalazar, and about his planet and everything else that had happened to him. The Queen told him that he could go. The King was shocked. The Queen told him that he must never visit Earth again because now he was going to be remembered as an intruder to the human society for all through history. The Queen gave the King a mask that looked like bird so nobody would see him escape.

And then the King got in the time machine and went back to Mammoth-II in 2131 at the time of 25:48, only 59 seconds after he left. The King thought about his trip and what he had learned from Kalazar and the Queen. Where had Kalazar disappeared to in the galaxy? A lot of his questions had been answered, but still many of them remained unanswered. When he got back to Mammoth-II he wrote a book called The King’s Famous Legacy.