BLACK PANTHEON
Chapter 1: "The Boy with a Broken Heart"
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Opening Scene (Flashback - 17 Years Ago)
We open in a burning ancestral temple, half-collapsed and filled with the chanting echoes of Orisa names. A man stands in silhouette—Oguran, Bakari's father—his arms covered in pulsing KHA tattoos, chanting in an ancient tongue.
A baby wrapped in cloth lies on a ritual slab, screaming. Oguran carves the first divine tattoo onto the baby's chest with a needle carved from a meteorite fang.
"The world will hate you for this, my son… but the gods will fear you."
Lightning crashes as Orunmila's eye opens in the sky, watching.
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Present Day – District of Ironbone
Seventeen years later, the story shifts to Bakari, now a teen living in a junkyard district known for scrapped tech and spiritual debris. He's a smart-mouthed, wild brawler who makes money through illegal underground Pulse-Fights — no Orisa blessings, just raw KHA brawling.
Bakari's known as "The Broken Flame" because his KHA doesn't glow, making him a joke in serious combat circles.
He wears a patchwork Ankara hoodie, old boots, and his tattoos are hidden under wraps. He doesn't know what they do — they only burn when he's near danger.
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Fight Scene: Pulse Pit Underground
Bakari gets into a fight with a much bigger fighter from the Nyoka Faction, who uses Venom Style Pulse Arts. The crowd jeers, thinking it's a mismatch.
But when Bakari gets cornered and nearly impaled, his chest tattoo ignites for the first time — a blazing storm spiral bursts out and knocks everyone back.
His enemy screams: "That symbol… That's forbidden!"
Bakari: "What symbol? That's just my chest acne acting up."
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Mysterious Figure Appears
After the chaos, a mysterious woman watches from a rooftop. She wears a robe covered in Anansi Web glyphs, with spider-leg jewelry twitching around her fingers.
"The boy's KHA has awakened.
Just like his father's.
The Obsidian Throne won't ignore this…"
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Clues Start Dropping
• Bakari finds a burned metal plate during cleanup with an ancient Sankofa bird carved into it. It reacts to his tattoos.
• A Pulse Guild enforcer warns him: "Don't chase birds that fly backward."
• First mention of his father Oguran, who supposedly died as a traitor to the Griot's War.
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End of Chapter – Nyoka Strikes Again
At night, assassins from Nyoka attack Bakari's shelter to retrieve something from his body — but the tattoos form a living barrier of light, and a voice speaks from within him:
"You are marked by the old laws.
And the old laws do not die quietly."
Bakari collapses from the energy surge.
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Chapter 2: "The Snake & The Spider"
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Opening Scene – Dreamscape of the Dead
Bakari is unconscious after the KHA overload from the previous night's Nyoka attack.
He wakes up in a surreal space — a vast desert filled with floating bones and constellation lines. A giant, twisting tree stands in the center, its bark covered in tattoos identical to his own.
A voice — not his own — speaks from the tree:
"Your heart is not your own, Bakari.
You carry the covenant of your blood.
When your tattoos burn, the gods remember."
He's pulled toward the roots by invisible threads. A symbol flashes in the sky: — the mark of the Sankofa Code.
Before he reaches the base of the tree, a serpent of black ink slithers up his leg and hisses:
"He's waking up…"
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Back to Reality – Junkyard Rooftop
Bakari jolts awake. He's been patched up by a mysterious woman sitting nearby, playing with spiderweb threads between her fingers.
She introduces herself:
"Zamzah of the Web. Anansi sent me."
Faction: Anansi's Web
Role: Information thief, spiritual coder, trickster mentor.
She speaks cryptically but reveals this:
• Bakari's tattoos are a forbidden operating system.
• The Sankofa Code has begun to "sync" with his heart.
• She's here to guide him — or betray him later. She hasn't decided.
Zamzah tells him the tattoos on his body aren't decorative — they are ancient glyphs that act as keys, and only 13 marked ones exist in the world. Each "key" unlocks part of the true memory of the Orisa war — the one erased by the Obsidian Throne.
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First Lore Drop (Woven into Dialogue)
Zamzah shows him a hologram woven from spider thread. It displays a vision of Oguran, Bakari's father, surrounded by burning books and collapsing temples. He's yelling at someone off-screen:
"If the throne writes history… then WE become the myth. The truth dies with the griots."
We learn:
• Oguran was part of The Griot's War, a rebel movement that tried to reveal the true memory of the gods.
• He gave Bakari the tattoos as a last-ditch way to protect the Sankofa Code from being destroyed.
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Tension & Humor
Zamzah:
"So… you're basically a walking ancient USB drive.
With a broken screen. And a smart mouth."
Bakari:
"Wow, thanks. You want me to die, or just get possessed?"
Zamzah:
"Both are likely. But not today."
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Snake Returns – Nyoka Assassin
Suddenly, a sleek Nyoka agent appears — a young man named Kuba the Molt, cloaked in serpent tattoos that ripple when he moves.
"Return the key, or your heart gets recycled."
Bakari stands to fight, but Zamzah restrains him — "Watch. Learn. Let your KHA choose you."
Bakari's chest tattoo glows again, and this time, ink flows from it, wrapping around his arm, forming a storm-sickle weapon.
They battle:
• Kuba uses Venom Pulse Style, slicing with fang-shaped daggers and poison smoke.
• Bakari, still clumsy with his Ase, fights more instinctively — but when his blood hits the ground, it burns into ancestral script.
Bakari:
"I don't know what this is… but it feels like my bones are remembering something I forgot."
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Just when Kuba is about to retreat, he utters:
"You're the last Marked.
The Obsidian Throne knows.
And the Lion's Requiem is hunting you next."
Then he cuts his own throat, dissolving into black mist — a Nyoka suicide failsafe.
Zamzah pulls Bakari aside and looks genuinely unsettled for the first time:
"The Throne doesn't move this fast unless they're afraid.
Something's waking up inside you, Bakari.
And it's not just tattoos… it's a god."
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End of Chapter 2 – Tease for Chapter 3:
"Next: Roar of the Forgotten" – Bakari is hunted by the Lion's Requiem, ghost-warriors cursed with eternal memory, and visits a tomb city built into a volcano… where his next tattoo unlocks."
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Chapter 3: "Roar of the Forgotten"
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Opening Scene – The City of Ashbone
Bakari and Zamzah arrive in Ashbone, a volcanic crater city built into the skeleton of a dead Orisa — said to be where the Lion's Requiem once ruled.
The place is hot, hollow, and echoing with ghost chants. Statues of lion-headed warriors with broken swords line the molten gates.
Zamzah:
"This city breathes grief. Keep your heart steady… or it'll call them."
Bakari scoffs until he sees an entire building cry lava tears.
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Faction Lore Unfolds: The Lion's Requiem
Ashbone was once the sacred stronghold of the Lion's Requiem, a warrior-brotherhood who refused to forget the crimes committed during the Orisa Rebellion.
When the Obsidian Throne erased their history, the Requiem branded themselves with molten glyphs to remember forever.
But they paid a price:
Their memories became weapons. Their minds broke.
Now they're cursed to relive the same day of war every time they awaken.
Zamzah warns:
"If they smell your tattoos, they'll think the war has started again."
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Tattoo Trigger: Bakari's Second Glyph Unlocks
Inside the city, Bakari's arm tattoo begins pulsing like a heartbeat. A deep, slow lion growl fills the air.
He passes an ancient shrine where he sees a massive broken sword stabbed into the bones of a lion-headed corpse. His tattoo reacts — the glyph on his shoulder ignites in a shape resembling a clawed pawprint merged with a broken crown.
He suddenly remembers something that never happened:
A battlefield.
Fire.
His father Oguran, standing among the Lion's Requiem warriors, shouting:
"The throne will bury us. So we burn the sky before they do."
Bakari drops to his knees.
Zamzah: "It's the memory loop. They're sharing it with you."
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The Lion's Requiem Attacks
The ground trembles.
From the lava fog emerge three massive figures — each wrapped in ancient armor that moves like it's breathing.
Their names are spoken telepathically:
• Malik of the Red Scream – Carries a lion skull club and speaks in riddles of war.
• Ajaka the Memory Blade – Her sword sings every name it has ever slain.
• Tau, the Hollowed King – His body is made of smoke and gold bones.
Malik:
"You walk with the liar's blood.
Speak the truth of Ashbone… or fall to the roar!"
Bakari: "…I have no idea what any of that means."
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Fight Scene – Memory vs Instinct
The Lion's Requiem attacks. Zamzah disappears into the shadows, refusing to help — "You need to earn the glyph, boy."
• Ajaka slashes with a sword that whispers. Every cut makes Bakari remember someone else's death.
• Malik bellows a roar that causes the tattoos on Bakari's back to convulse.
• Tau tries to possess Bakari's body, merging his memories with Bakari's identity.
Bakari struggles — until his back tattoo erupts, taking the form of a burning lion mane made of ancestral script.
His eyes glow. His voice is not his own:
"I REMEMBER TOO MUCH TO DIE."
He enters his first Partial Synchronization Form:
"KHA State: Lion Pulse"
• Strength increases.
• His voice projects as ancestral echoes.
• His strikes leave memory-burns on enemies, forcing them to relive their guilt.
Bakari defeats Malik and Ajaka, but refuses to kill them. He offers the sword of the shrine to Tau.
Tau halts. His form flickers.
"You carry his voice… Oguran's son.
The Lion remembers you."
They kneel.
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Lore Unlocked: The Memory Blade
Ajaka gives Bakari her broken sword:
"The Blade of Names" – a weapon that only speaks truth. It will not cut unless the wielder speaks honestly.
Zamzah returns, visibly impressed:
"Congratulations. You've just inherited trauma forged into steel.
Also… the Throne just felt that pulse. You're out of time."
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End Scene – Message from the Throne
Back at the Obsidian Throne, in a vast hall of floating black stone tablets, a single glyph begins to glow red.
A shadowy figure stares into it — we only see his back. A voice echoes across the chamber:
"The boy awakens.
Prepare the Ancestral Choir.
And send the daughters."
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End of Chapter 3 – Tease for Chapter 4:
"Next: The Daughters of Damba" — Bakari is hunted by Orisa-born warriors who fight through rhythm and dance, and must confront the truth of love as a weapon."
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