Ran: GrayCLOUDS dotted the sky like ink upon paper, the dreary skies begging to drop their load upon the depraved world below. It was a beautiful place, tall oak trees reaching like arms towards the heavens. Lush green grass sprawling across the floor of the mountain, upon which lilies and various wildflowers dotted and blossomed sporadically.

A lone cabin stood atop jagged ridges of eroded rock, the sides of the structure being built from slabs of ancient stone stretching towards the canopy of the trees towering above. Their leaves dancing in the breeze, a heavy stench of burning wood thick in the air. A rushing river cut through the gargantuan mountain that stood for centuries before and would for centuries more. It's formation seemingly perfect in it's balance, even with the small cabin acting as the only man-made structure.

Few people knew who owned this part of the mountain, as time passed rumors formulated and grew- growing nastier as time had passed. First a dragon, then more recently a hermit whom kidnapped children for the taste of their flesh. The small village which stood at the very base of the mountain had generated these superstitions, portraying the old hermit as a cut-throat murderer. But they had no idea how far off they were with their judgments of the only human living on their “Sacred” mountain.

The name of the old hermit was Ran, a very uncommon name for this age of living. Every person he met and actually spoke to, they scoffed at his ridiculous name often to Ran's chagrin. They also noted his odd appearance, blood-red eyes with lightning blue tresses that spilled across his youthful visage. Freak, they called him. When he visited a town they ran from him, screaming that he was a monster and should be killed for the way he looked. Ran was not from Earth, nor was he from this galaxy. He was from a very far off planet inside a constellation that had not yet been discovered by the human race. His home was very similar to that of Earth, the same lush green grass, the tall snow-capped mountains and beautiful blue oceans stretching as far as the eye could see. His home use to be surrounded by massive sunflowers, covering the entire plane. Such a beautiful world, now naught but a barren, lifeless rock.

Ran was perhaps the oldest living being on Earth. Born on his home world some six hundred years ago, yet he looked... very young. As if he had never aged past the age of 21. But the real secret was because of how many dimensions he crossed, how often he played with the sands of time. He had traveled and stretched the boundaries of life and time, no longer adhering to the rules of life. Ran, in his own right, was a god. Not the kind that demands respect and loyalty, no. Not at all. He was a God because of his immortality, how much power he had grasped in such aSHORT amount of time.

Yet here he sat, gazing into the endless flames which lifted ever higher into the air. Completely consuming the rather large fish impaled on a stick, oh how he envied the sweet embrace of death. Idly wishing that he himself could be impaled on a pike and burned. He had so desired to simply die, how he longed to reunite with his family that was taken from him by his older sibling. Ran closed his eyes in thought, lifting a small round dish to his lips to take a long sip of a white liquid.

Most unfortunately, it had no taste. He had spilled far too much blood for sake to have any flavor to him. His master, the one who taught him how to survive had warned him of this. His path of vengeance was not a road that he should walk, his shishou warned. Yet he did not heed, and so he was forever damned to this eternal life. Maybe one day, someone would be strong enough to erase him from existence. To burn him like that fish, if only if only..

As these thoughts lingered on his mind, he slowly began to nod off. No longer paying attention to the mundane happenings in the real world. Ran slumped down against the stump, onto the grassy floor with his head leaning back against the bark. He had fallen completely asleep, a happy memory flooded to the surface...

It was a crystal clear day, not a singleCLOUD in the sky. Oh how could one even begin to ponder the magic that pulsed through the air. Oh this magic was like no other, it was that of happiness. Of love. A small family sat under a large walnut tree, a female with an ample chest, soft brown hair yet striking gray eyes watched the two children roll around in the grass. Her hand clasped around that of a males whose eyes were as red as blood.

“They look like they are having so much fun...” She spoke, gently squeezing his hand.

“Well, ever since you bought them that ball they've been tossing it and rolling around with it as if they were the ball.” He laughed quietly, watching the two blue-haired children enjoy themselves.

“Are you hungry?” She asked him, turning to him with a wide, happy smile across her youthful visage.

“Let's wait for the kids, I don't want to interrupt them right now.” He spoke softly, turning his head to steal her lips in a sudden deep kiss.

All seemed perfect in this flatDOMAIN, birds chirping happily and the sound of childrens laughter breaking carrying in the breeze. Nothing could corrupt this moment, nothing at all.

GUTS: The picturesque vista of the countryside shone like it was out of a painting. A winding dirt path snaked around rolling green knolls until it reached a grove. The spires of the king’s castle breached the ancient oaks thatSHADED the path to the kingdom. A single walnut tree sat atop a gentle hill, a vigilant sentinel for the glistening pearl spires in the distance. The commonwealth was a peaceful land, as far as anyone else knew. And the alabaster walls of the castle reflected the lands innocence. A doting couple had taken themselves to the serfs land for a picnic, and nature smiled upon them. A gentle breeze was accentuated by the golden wheat-grass shimmering and dancing like strands of gold in the midday sun. A small cottage could be seen near the woods, the serf’s residence who tilled the land.

Whip-poor-wills called from the hideaway of a separated copse as a tall, robust man with a messy straw hat stood above the wheat stalks with a garden hoe in his hand. He sighed wiping the sweat from his brow on the backside of his arm, and idly jabbed the end of the tool into the ground. It would be a good harvest, he thought, with pride. This crop was the backbone of his family, and this year the lord would be quite pleased with his surplus. He looked at the walnut tree he had played on as a boy, when he wasn’t helping his father plow or harvest, and saw a family lounging there. Turning he noticed his wife at the threshold of their home, a woman in her mid-thirties and showing pregnancy—their firstborn. Looped around her arm was a wicker basket, filled with fresh fruit from her personal garden and bread. She smiled as she walked down to the field, and behind her their dog bolted from the house, a shaggy and ecstatic sheepdog that flew to its master. Harrald laughed as the dog leaped to his side jumping all over him licking his hand. After a moment of ruffling the dog’s fur his wife spoke to him,

“We should join them.”

Harrald stopped petting the dog, and looked up at the hillside, frowning. “It is not our place,” he said, sternly. He was a man of strong tradition, and wasSLOW to interact outside of his status, regardless of the monarch being benevolent or a tyrant. She was silent for a time as she thought,

“It would be good for us… for the baby,” she said.

The man stood statuesque, in silent approval. It was neither words nor a gesture that told her it was fine; she had known this man for what felt like forever. He was not a bigot, but he had a habit of being unable to concede a point orGRANT his boon, instead he sat there in a complete contemplative solitude that angered many into believing he was ignoring them. She walked up to him and took his hand in hers and his gazed warmed as she looked to him, then he nodded. The sheepdog bounded towards the hill on his approval, to play with the children, and Harrald raised his hand.

“He’s friendly! He won’t hurt!” He called out, unsure of how the strange looking man atop the hill would react to his pet.

The dog playfully nudged at the ball, wagging his tail as the husband and wife made their way up the hillside. “My name is Delilah,” she said with a curtsey, “it is a pleasure to meet you.”

The two had never seen the king’s daughter, so they did not know who they were actually speaking to, but by manner of herDRESS they guessed she was of some sort of nobility. The princess’s garments, after all, were far fairer than their own.

“We did not mean to intrude-” Harrald said,

“But we thought you might like some company.” Delilah interjected. Harrald was a man of great stalwartness, he could plow the land from dawn to dusk, and his back was as strong as an ox, but he was unrefined, socially. Harrald’s eyes saccade as he studied the two, “Yes,” was all he could muster. Delilah smiled, coruscating like a gleaming gemstone. She laid out a blanket across from the others for her and Harrald to sit upon and laid out their fruit and bread as the dog barked happily in theBACKGROUND.

The songbirds were interrupted by the plodding of horse hooves. A caravan of guards rode along the dirt road atop black Arabian stallions, covered in obsidian barding. The men wore fully featured dark plate mail, but it was the peculiarity of their fearsome helms that was most arresting. The visor and parts of the bevor were styled to appear like closing jaws of a demon, and authentic horns of ram twisted out of tops of their closed helmet. Attached to each of their pauldrons’ were large capes of black fur. The soldiers march was measured, and steady, but completely silent, almost lugubrious as if they were guiding a funeral procession rather than leading a diplomat. In the center was a carriage drawn by six horses, larger and stronger than all the others. The carriage had no top, but four guards who flanked each of the corners held up poles to a large black veil, which seemed to magically blot out most of the Sun’sLIGHT. There were two in the squad who were unarmored: at the rear of the caravan was a robed, bearded man who brought with him an assortment of tomes, scrolls, and other magic paraphernalia and there was a man in the center cart. In the elaborate carriage the man, who appeared much too ceremoniously dressed to be a common knight, turned and glanced at Ran as they passed by. His pale skin and hair contrasted his garb. The emissary’s long silver hair was pulled back into a ponytail, and fell over his right shoulder onto his chest. His flesh was so pale he appeared frosted over, or dead. He wore little in the ways of armor, only ebony pauldrons that draped his tattered onyx cape. He reclined in his seat, his hands folded in his lap, with his thumbs pressed together. When he viewed Ran and the princess, their children, he smirked. It was not a smile of joy, or indulgence. It was a pernicious smile filled with secrets. Anyone who knew of politics in the region knew who this man was:

“Count Markus, the Vile.”

Markus recently started a campaign, with a military force that far outweighed the commonwealth’s own. Yet he hadn’t used the strength of his army to encroach on the lands of this kingdom, it was through brutal politics that he usurped the power of the king. The forging of alliances, and betrayals, Markus was a deceiver. He wanted to see this lands people hopeless before he swept in to deliver the killing blow. Rumors spread through the courts that his soldiers fought, untiring, and that his spell casters ripped fear through the ranks of another country he had conquered. He could have washed over the kingdom like a black tide, but he only wanted them to squirm. The king of this land was known for his benevolence, and his economic prosperity; he had no wartime record. Markus likely wanted to take advantage of that by intimidating him, making him appear to be incompetent in front of his people.

And thus, Belial’s game began.

ALUCROAS: The moon tugged violently on the Black Ocean's tides, pulling the beast farther into its depths. Panicking, he swished his tail like a rudder, struggling to ascend back up to the water's surface, the giant rock in the sky serving to light his way. It hung there by an invisible string, swinging back and forth like a massive pendulum; every time it reached the zenith of itsASCENT it paused, remaining stationary for about ten seconds before coming back down and generating a colossal tsunami. Underneath, he could see the undercurrent racing toward him, threatening to drag him up into its trough where he would be surely drowned by its incredible fury. Swimming below, he was barely able to escape, turning around and surfacing to watch as the moon made its second rise and fall, racing to meet the spot where the first swell would appear, and inevitably build up into another destructive wave.

He saw no other alternative but to submerge himself once more, the plates of his exoskeleton closing completely so as to make his body perfectly streamline, greatly increasing his speed. Electric current coursed throughout his body in jagged cerulean arcs, causing him to vibrate with such rapidity that he dispersed the water's molecules, furthering his acceleration. As he approached the moon's nadir, he ascended just high enough for his horns to protrude through the surface, splitting the water into twin-currents like a shark's dorsal fin. An enormous bulgeREGISTERED in the creature's crimson-sapphire gaze--a sign that he was once again nearing another fluctuation of the Dark Realm's waters and subsequent effecting of the weather.

This is no ordinary chaos... Said a deep, throaty voice, whispering in the back of his skull.

In this place, the moon symbolized emotional consonance, mental harmony, and a general lack of dissonance in theUNIVERSE; yet that thing had been going off the fritz for a whole week now. Whenever something as chaotic as this happened, the older brother knew that something was off--that something was being disturbed, and that someone was about to be pulled into a world of torment from which they could never return.

It is a vigorous sadness...

Alucroas lunged out then, a maddening howl escaping from his jaws as two sharp bones ripped free from the membrane atop his back, a small spray of sewage green blood being thrown from the wound. With great force and energy to power hisASCENT, draconic wings strongly flapped, allowing the abomination to fly clear over the rising crest. Behind him, he could see the moon continuing its back-and-forth motions, tugging on the tides, clearing away column after column of sea-water, sweeping it all away as if it were all one big pile of dust. The process repeated itself in both directions. Soon there would be nothing but a seemingly bottomless pit--one that would take years to fully descend. In the meantime, what few continents that were nearby were at extreme risk of being annihilated by the still-growing megatsunamis.

If, and in fact, the Dark Realm had a conscience it would have surely ended the destruction before it even had a chance to begin--but, however, due to the moon violently swinging to and fro', there was nothing it could do. As was already known by the semi-sentience governing the Dark Realm's existence, the moon represented all of this world's emotions, and the beings they belonged to. When it swung around like that, no one wasSAFE. Animals lost what little sentience they had, and were reverted back into vicious killing machines: creatures who operated on nothing more than basic instinct:

Eat, sleep, fuck, reproduce. Rinse and repeat. No time for forming bonds... no time for love songs... NO time for new plans to be drawn here in this place without dawn.

Come, little brother... we have work to do...

Indeed, those two brothers did have plenty of work to do, and much much more ahead of them both. Alucroas looked down at the now-empty abyss, hovering there for a few minutes to observe his lonely new world. Such an unfortunate fate for the wonderful place he had the good fortune to have fell in...

However.

When heads crack like melons...

When the world fills with Hellions...

When my mind is deprived of catharsis...

By a man named Narcissus...

This was never something I Ran away from...

This was never something I'd leave undone...

My family's population was already very nearly reduced to none...

Calmly and quietly, the dragon flew through the blackened sky, following his brother's explicitORDERS to go and locate the source of this madness, to end that vigorous sadness, and to bring peace back into the world which had been plunged into chaos.

One atrocity was enough for me...

You better get ready for some animosity...

For I am the Monstrosity...

ALUTROSITY!

LYSANDER: Centuries had passed since the birthing of a superpower within the Multiverse that had, in its day, rendered all bonds and ties of loyalty useless. Millenia had come and gone since the creation of beasts far beyond the scope of anything seen before, or after. Now they lay dormant, a creation of an all powerful God without a purpose or a place. They had become run-down, useless. Many of their kind had been killed off once mankind had learned of their heinous nature, and developed the weapons to kill them. Only the strongest of them remained, the most powerful of the forlorn force that had almost brought ruin to everything. Now humankind felt safe andSECURE, knowing that their forces outnumbered those of their enemy, knowing that their weapons outshined their adversaries. They say knowledge is power, and the humans felt quite assured that they were the most powerful.

They were wrong.

Among the ghastly horde a new leader had risen, a new figurehead to interpret the orders of their true master. He was a vile, tyrannical beast who had stripped from many of them their free will and ability to think for themselves. In battle he hadEARNED his stripes, assembling a rag-tag group of vagabonds unlike any the world had seen before. Their kind was more powerful than ever, and they could easily have wiped out the humans in a single day of feeding and assimilation. The new leader of the misfit group had a different idea, though. He had other plans, an idea lain upon his heart by Idea himself. Val’gara was strong, but not yet all powerful. No, for that, they needed two more. Their true leader, Anathema, who had been missing since their war with the Psions - a bittersweet war which had resulted in the loss of the man the new leader considered his father, but the gaining of new lands and people.

Anathema would have to be found, this much The Collective had told Hellion when he allowed him to take up the mantle of General of the Hive-Mind. They had not held back their formerly relentless assaults simply because their numbers were too small, or because they felt that their adversaries were stronger than they. That was not in the nature of Val’gara. They wereFITFUL beasts, who would fight until the end just to get what they wanted. No, their assaults had stopped so that a new mission could be undertaken. A mission to find their forlorn leader, and the other. The other remained nameless to them all, but Idea had assured Hellion that he would know him when he found him. That just looking upon his body, or the body of his avatars, would be enough for him to know what he sought.

The weight of those words had borne down on Hellion with excruciating force. The very conversation had put Hellion in more pain than he could have ever imagined, pain enough that lesser beings would have died. He knew what it must have felt like for Anathema now, all those conversations with the weight of Idea’s words literally crushing down on his shoulders. Hellion’s few, short bits ofCONTACT with the God had put tremendous pain upon him, but even that was nothing compared to the pain of contact now.

Still, their search moved on. Sector to sector, grid to grid. The Horde had split up into teams, Brobdingnag had taken many of the lesser Heralds with him, leaving Hellion with the most powerful of them. Of those that remained with him, few were truly with him. Narcissus mind was far in the distance, nearly untouchable by the great Horde’s hive-mind, but Hellion knew he was up to something. For the moment though, it didn’t concern him. Narcissus was one of them, but the man had always held his own counsel, his sinful pride sending him in directions Hellion, himself, wouldn’t have chosen.

Thane had returned to Soran, to assimilate many of his own kind into their numbers. The warrior-men of Soran were strong, powerful brutes. Hellion had witnessed their power long ago, when they had taken much of the planet for themselves. From there, Thane’s orders were to jump straight to the Psion planet, to the Council grounds, and see if he could pick up any new trace of Anathema’s existence, or where he may have gone. Hellion had done so himself on many occasions, and he was quite sure Thane would have no better luck than he, but it got the great brute out of his hair, and that was something Hellion was definitely happy about.

His own search, however, carried him toward more promising lands. His search for Anathema had been broadened to sectors of the Multiverse which, before now, had been relatively unexplored. Idea had pointed him in this direction, sending him off to follow the leads given by other creatures. He followed them closely, with his own tight-knit group of Heralds in tow, his people. They all belonged to The Mist now, bound together by the powerful mind of the creature known simply as “The Collective”. Their minds were bound tighter than any other group of Heralds within the hive-mind, they no longer needed the lesser cataclysm forces to bolster their power. They could do that among themselves better than any number of the lesser beasts ever could.


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Hellion of Val’gara, a beast of the higher Cataclysm that many had sought to equal, but none had ever outmatched. He was a vile creature, borne of hatred and a desire for revenge. His mentor missing, his world collapsing. He’d sought vigilantly for his master, and had yet been unfruitful in his endeavors. He felt no sorrow, though. He had no room for emotions, past the incessant hunger which always lurked just beneath the surface, empowering him and driving him onward to the next bitter harvest. In his wake lay a thousand dead planets, a hundred broken systems. All taken as part of the ongoing search for the man he considered a father to him, to the man who had brought him into the world he now longed to never leave.

The voices incessantly rang out in his head, a dull buzzing behind his eyes that he’d learned to ignore over time. The Heralds messages back and forth amongst themselves did not concern him, he sought only to truly hear the words which concerned him most. He stood with his hands clasped behind his back, each holding the forearm of the opposite appendage. His eyes locked on the vast expanse of stars he could see through the mucus-lined, membrane walls of the Scourgebearer that had been retrofitted to be his home away from home.

His dark, pallid gaze boring through the endless expanse of ink-filled space, all the while they drew nearer to the first of the locations he planned to investigate, unless something came along that caused him to change his mind. Which wouldn’t be unheard of, given Idea’s propensity for changing the best laid of their plans.

Moments later, he felt a crushing weight bear down on his shoulders. He shuddered visibly, but there were none around who could have seen.

“Change directions. Head towards Mire, one of whom you seek willSOON be within the Astral Realm, and you must travel there physically.”

He stood his ground, unable to move even had he wanted to. His knees were close to buckling from the powerful force which bore down on his mind and body.

“Yes, Master.” Hellion responded, immediately sending out the direction change to the Scourgebearer’s advanced mind. It was obvious the message was received and understood, as the ship immediately turned toward the spot where he knew Mire to be waiting. “Increase speed, get us there immediately,” he told the vessel, whose speed immediately increased to faster-thanLIGHT travel. It would take them only a few minutes to reach Mire, for the planet was already moving to intercept them - knowing that its masters were returning.

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Travel to Mire had taken less than thirty minutes, and now Hellion was disembarking the Scourgebearer, with his most trusted Heralds at his side. Carnus The Beast-Reaper, The Necron General, Azaroth, and The Chrysaor walked idly beside him, as they approached a long, thick cylinder that poked up from the planet’s surface. Though it looked natural, it was far from something that had simply grown here. It was old, much older than even The Psions themselves, who had used these totems as their own personal means of transportation - until Hellion had corrupted The Resonance Gate and repurposed them for Val’garan means anyway. Now only Val’gara could pass through the totems into the Astral RealmSAFELY, using their physical world manifestations as a doorway. Others would become infected by the vile, vicious Vesuvian virus. Many a Psion had been assimilated that way, too fool-hardy to work out what would happen to them had they tried.

Hellion looked across his friends. The Collective had arrived at the totem, for these beasts were the puppets of that great mind. The Master of the Mist lay his hand along the totem, and poured his energy into it. A moment passed, and nothing happened. That was expected, the workings of the totem were known intimately to him, he’d used them many times before - most notably when he’d first learned of their power, and used it to follow the Psions tasked with repelling the assaulting force from the planet’s surface, a failed task if ever there had been one.

Suddenly the ground began to shake, as the vibrations of energy deep within the totem spread outward through its crust, affecting the other totems on the planet. The Gate, some mile away across barren landscape, sprang to life. Where once it had shimmered with brilliant, beautiful rays of white light, now only lay a tainted, darkened portal. They could have walked through the gate themselves, but Hellion had fed the power into this totem for a specific purpose. It was the Anchor Totem, the binding of the physical Mire to the Physical World. With it activated, the entire planet would soon transport itself to the Astral Realm, with all of them aboard it.

The Astral Plane was the world of dreams, and once within it all Hellion would have to do is search out he dream he sought - with the help of Idea that would be a simple task. The power from the gate began to seep out, the twisted, corrupted metal bending and breaking. Again, Hellion expected all of this. The totems all across the planet sprang to life, shooting that same tainted, dark light into the sky all across Mire, building a dome of Astral Energy around the planet, a covering which covered every millimeter of the planet’s atmosphere.

Even the Psions, for all their infinite might and knowledge over psychic energies hadn’t been capable of this, hadn’t known the full extent of the totems’ power. Hellion’s lips curled into despicable, evil smile as he felt the planet give one final, violent shudder. Then it was over, the energy receded back within itself, and the totems fell lifeless once more. The Gate, however, remained open for a moment longer before it, too, died out.

A feeling swept over them, as the bright world around shook and violently twisted with the pain and taint their very presence brought upon it. It was a feeling that told them they shouldn’t be here, that their very passing through the veil had been a travesty that the universe could never forgive. That was something all too familiar to The Master of the Mist, for the Spirit World loathed the energy of physical beings inside of it. Still, the feeling of loathing was not the most powerful of feelings that swept over Hellion’s mind.

“My friends,” he began “do you feel that? It is the presence Idea told me about, warned me about when we began our search. The other is here, somewhere. Perhaps not as himself, but I can feel him. Idea says we must find him, he knows where our true master is, and now we have been delivered to him. Praise, Idea.”

They echoed his love for Idea in their minds, and soon had Mire moving toward the source of the presence. Wherein they would find the creature they sought, in the dream of a man Hellion had come across before, a being known as Ran, whom Hellion remembered well from their last meeting. Ran was dreaming, his spirit was within the Astral Realm, upon the dream world that he had envisioned and created with his subconscious mind. The creature they sought, too, was coming from that direction. Hellion could feel them both in the distance, though the one they sought was much fainter than the one he knew. Still, party-crashing was something Hellion had grown very good at, and soon he would crash their little party.

He was prepared for an all out war, he turned to his followers and smiled.

“Today, my friends, we find our master! Today, my friends, my guns will scream their agony song, and rend the flesh from the bones of our enemies! TODAY, VICTORY WILL BE OURS ONCE AGAIN!”

His right hand pushed back the side of his duster, and his hand lay on the grip of his massive pistol, known as the Tyrant Guns. Looking out under the brim of his western-style hat, he smiled a bright, happy smile.

“Now, let us go pay a visit to these creatures. What is our mission, Val’gara?!”

With one voice, they all rang out their answer.

Convert! Consume! Control!

ODIUM:

SOMEWHERE IN THE DARKNESS


Godless and godforsaken, he stumbled across the continent of black ice, moaning soundlessly into winds that stripped flesh from bone and blew through the body to chill the soul. In the sunless world, there was no horizon, only a limitless expanse of faintly glistening ice and the shapes that moved beneath its surface. In his time there, he had learned the true meaning of three words: eternity, loneliness and futility.

Still, he was driven forward. He knew the answers he sought lay here, hidden inside this mnemonic glacier, where time flowed as liquid in slow, cyclical patterns. His other emotions had faded into numbness. The ice was not cold to the touch, but every step drained him of warmth. The only thing sustaining him was his hatred, the desire to see his enemies torn apart atom by agonizing atom, to be spread across all reality and still be conscious of the pain along every micron of the way.

Idea. Idea. Idea.

The stars could burn out their hydrogen cores and still he would be waiting there, in a cosmos where his eyes were the stars and the universe worshipped the night.

Idea.
At first, the truth of his hatred had weighed down his soul like a stone. After a time spent sinking and days spent rampaging across the worlds with all the zealotry of a man whose faith is dead, he had confronted it, tried to excise it, reason with it, beg it to go away and let himCONTINUE to dream of conquest.

But it hadn’t. It had taken root and flourished. Before long, Narcissus found himself realizing that the Val’gara were built on a foundation of contempt; contempt for others and contempt for themselves, contempt for reality and contempt forFANTASY and everything else, all concentrated into a neat little rock of pure petty contempt:

Idea.

The entire universe was built on the same principle, a cauldron of bubbling contempt – the older races for the younger who revel in their revolutions and self-mutilation, and those same youthful cultures for the ancient ones to whom change is anathema. The Val’gara were just a mirror, reflecting the chaotic nature of the universe back at itself, and simply profiting as lesser species were torn apart in the ensuing bedlam. The Val’gara were just the chosen worm in a planet of dirt and excrement, or a band of adolescents united beneath aFLAG of upheaval and hedonism and contempt.

They were unsure even of their identity. Just who was Idea? Where exactly did he begin and end? Who was and who wasn’t? Were they the purebred, the chosen race, or nothing? Narcissus knew his answer: a mongrel race of federated disgust, striving towards a universe of scorn.

Even knowing that, no matter how far he ventured into his truth, Narcissus would still be Narcissus. He could not change his own repugnance without becoming someone, something else. Still, he could relish his own hypocrisy, atone for himself and escape his self-loathing by destroying the source that had made him into what he was.

How the means had fallen into his hands was coincidence, or destiny. He had warred with the hunters, Alucroas and Alutrosity, since they had first appeared in his dreams some time ago. In their conflicts, he had been introduced to the Dark Realm, the dimension between spaces, where everything was recorded in the primal ooze, although much of it in languages still unknown to anything but itself. Now, through exposure or perhaps acknowledgment by the gestalt being, Narcissus could come and go as he wished.

Eventually, in his forays through the strange realm, searching for some means of using it to his advantage in his great undertaking, he had found this place. A continent of ice-that-is-not-ice, solid Dark Realm fluid, where he could make sense of at least some of the information trapped there. When he had first set foot on the strange island, the only path open to him had been his own. A vein ofLIGHT flowed through the glacier and he followed it, and in the process went on a painful journey of self-discovery.

In time though, he could see other trails imprinted in the ice. At first only those closest to him: Theo Spyredes, the other Heralds, the fates of entire worlds and those with whom he had done battle. These had eventually found a common nexus, flowing together like tributaries into one almighty river, to form the solid pillar of Idea. As he had grown accustomed to the land’s bizarre properties he found himself almost unable to see patches of ice between the thronged threads of other living beings, most running parallel to Idea’s road, but some weaved in and out, displaying a command over their own destiny that Narcissus envied.

Eventually, his path too diverged from Idea’s, but he did not follow it, both because he feared a forewarning of his failure and because he did not know if he could trust the ice’s predictions. The images he saw trapped beneath the glacial surface were undoubtedly real, for many of them were memories he shared, but they were true in what timeline? In what reality parallel to his own? He couldn’t afford to be smug if the flow of events did somehow lead him to his quarry.

Eventually, he came to an oddly shaped vein diverging from the main flow he had been following. It curled out to a meeting point between its owner and Idea before curving back in a massive and complex arc of events and happenings, some resonating in the ice brighter than others. By focusing on the principle, arcing stroke of light and ignoring the other, lesser events and happenings that spiderwebbed around it like illusions trying to draw his attention away from his goal, he was able to discern something wholly unnerving.

It flowed back to the beginning of the road he stood on. Taking a tentative step onto the new path, images flowed through his mind. Most were irrelevant, albeit impressive: weird and disturbing panoramas of the lowest pits in Hell, of the infernal city, and others of engagements between starships set on a backdrop of stars. The sounds accompanying them registered as nothing but background noise. Nevertheless he forged on, eyes fixed on the slow-moving images beneath the ice.

He saw things that he hadn’t seen even in the most outrageous conflicts between the Val’gara and other civilizations. A singularity in space opening up into a hole within which another universe seemed to be born in a soundless wave of creation, stars sparking into existence like city lights as the sun slips beneath the horizon. He visualized a massive vessel that fended off attacks from an assortment of small but persistent hornets, and a man sinking into its depths while another watched from his throne.

He heard words that gripped hisHEART in a tight iron claw.

"TheSAMPLES have been returned to Dis."
"Excellent work... Idea."
"We expect the favor to be returned, Deceiver."
"In due time."
"We shall fall back toYOUR fleet, with the exception of the Herald."
The voice spoke to Magnus after a pause: "Shall we meet again?"
"Most likely not. Unless the council ordains it."
"Then farewell, Belial."


Narcissus paused. For a long second he stood there, alone on the akashic continent. Then his face split into a familiar, but cynical, almost worried grin, and he said, “This gives me an idea.”

~*~


WHERE DREAMS COME TO DIE


Behind him, the doorway into the Dark Realm emitted a faint suction noise as it slowly drained information from another ethereal plane literally brimming with it. It simulated the sensation of a light autumn breeze, and Narcissus wished he had taken a form more appropriate for chilly weather. Glittering fragments of the shattered crystal cocoon that had brought him here lay scattered around him, sinking slowly into the dark mud. There, if the dreamscape’s basic functions had remained unchanged since his last visit, unwary dreamers in for the worst nightmare of their lives would swallow them.

He wasDRESSED for the occasion. Two large crystal shelves jutted up from his neck and shoulders, forming a high collar that passed a few inches over his head, with a wide curve to give his head ample room. His face was cast in shadow by the opaque properties of the crystal, but his blue eyes remained forever vibrant, and the alien sunlight brought out the faint scarlet tinge to his wiry black curls. His complexion, a strange cross of emerald and amber as they warred for dominance across his skin, were only barely visible between the walls formed by his makeshift lapel.

From two crystal clasps on his shoulders sprouted a web of tentacles and black, silky strands that seemed to lay across his body, forming both a cape and a thin mesh over his muscular frame. Besides this, he wore nothing, save a chain draped across his torso that connected to a number of amethyst beads forming a belt around his waist, thrashing tentacles acting as a short skirt to cover his nudity.

Before him lay an ocean, so calm as to give off the illusion of sleep; illuminated from within by long stemmed plants that grew down impossibly from the surface of the water, each separating into hundreds of thin filament fronds that terminated in small glowing orbs.

Theodoros Spyredes, though still reeling from Narcissus’ greatest and final gift to him, was prepared for his own task. Once Narcissus left the corporeal plane, it would be up to his former self to pilot their shared body. Before he could begin, however, he had one last task.

His eyes fluttered shut as his consciousness extended, probing back through the portal into the place he’d come from. Impossibly vast, it should have been impossible to navigate without some sort of map even in its normal state, much less in its current chaos; however, his mind had touched this being’s enough times that Narcissus could sense its presence even from far off, like the distant buzzing of a fly in the back of his mind.

Come, hunter. I believe I have found a solution to both of our problems.

Nothing else was needed. Narcissus allowed his mind to return solely to his body and, eyes focused intently on the silent ocean before him, lifted one hand so that his palm faced the sky. From beneath the motionless waters, a single stalk of one of the plants shuddered and moved. It rose slowly, bending gently as it came above the surface of the placid sea, still dripping wet. At this distance, the orb was much like a snow globe, the image inside just barely visible as a fuzzy blur.

Now that his eyes were trained on his prey, all there was left to do was… wait.

RAN: The two children simply laughed as the dog nudged the ball with his wet nose, their eyes lightening up in glee as the boy tackled down the dog. His arms wrapping around the dogs mid-section to lift it in the air and playfully toss it to the side. The girl came forward and placed a happy kiss right on its snout, their laughs showing a true innocence.

The Princess gave the two who approached a welcoming smile, her knowing eyes glanced at the others rounded stomach. Ran, however, was staring at them with an air of mistrust. But it wasn't until she squeezed his hand reassuringly did he actually speak.

“You are more than welcome to join us,” He spoke softly, his voice ringing with hospitality in every word. His crimson eyes glowing with what seemed to be happiness. Gesturing towards their basket with his right hand, wordlessly telling them to help themselves. “We have sandwich meats, cheese and a large chicken salad. Please, eat as much as you please.”

The PrincessCONTINUED to smile towards them, her features positively radiant. Both in happiness and never-ending beauty, parting her lips to address the pregnant female; Delilah.

“How far along are you? Do you know it's gender?” She asked kindly, reaching out to gently pat her hand in both greeting and reassurance. The Princess was a kind woman, when her father was still in control of the entire Kingdom she always acted as a nurse and helped heal the sick and wounded. She had a love for both humans and animals alike.

The children stopped their rough-housing, turning their attention towards the horses that galloped past. The Princess reached over and gripped his hand tightly, it was not an act of comfort. It was a simple warning.

“Now is not the time, Ran.” She whispered softly, looking him dead in the eyes. “A fight with Count Markus is not something you should seek, you surely heard the rumors of his soldiers?”

“Where I did or not,” He gave her a warily look. “is of no concern to me, my Princess. That man is naught but pure evil, he may have taken over the throne without violence but he is a ticking time bomb. I will destroy him and his entire army if he dares try and hurt you or our children.” He spoke evenly, his eyes full of a childish determination.

The Princess merely sighed, squeezing his hand once more and leaned up to kiss him. Ran automatically leaned in, gently pressing his lips to her own. He had completely forgotten Harrald and Delilah were sitting right across from them. Apparently he and the Princess had remembered this at the same time, for they pulledAPART with a heavy blush crossing their features. Together they gave an embarrassed laugh as the twins moved over and joined them. The boy had his arm wrapped around the dog, the girl reaching up and holding her mothers hand. She was the shy one, very afraid of other people whilst the brother was outgoing and happy. Despite the Count who was cantering past; there was nothing that could interrupt this perfect moment.

“Tell me, would you be looking for any help on that farm?”

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

“Oooh Katon!” A high, shrill voice filled the subconscious of the sleeping Ran, a lithe shadow called. Its hand at its mouth and called out to the darkness. Expecting the other to appear right before it, none could withstand the call of Kishinjiraden.

“Yes?” A second voice came, this time a small child appeared to be bowing at the shadows feet. The person was undefined, yet the only thing one could see would be the snow white hair that clearly spilled across it's features.

“Do you feel that?” The shadow asked in a sing song voice.

“Of course I can.” It spoke with a tone of sarcasm, standing to peer up at the much taller shadow. “How could I not? So many trying to penetrate the bubble of Master's mind. What should we do? Awaken... him?”

“Him? Hmm... That may be prudent, the probability of Ran destroying these interlopers on his own is less that five percent.” The shadow frowned-- or something akin to it seeing as a white crease had formed at where a mouth would be.

“You doubt his power so? With us and Abaremawaru at his side, do you really believe we can lose?”

“Of course, these powers which seek shatter the most ancientPROTECTION of Ran's mind are the likes of which we have never encountered. One has already broken the seams of his protection, three others are close. There may, perhaps, be more that try to interfere with this cycle.” It sighed, its head tilting down to stare at the child. “If we are luckly, HE might be able to save us. Go ahead and open the seals, Katon.”

“Very well, Kishinjiraden. When the first interloper arrives, shall I open the gates and give Master his abilities and equipment?
“Oh very well.”

THANK you.”

Both shadows faded out as the seals that held Ran's darkest, deepest secret began to crack at their seams. He wasBEGINNING to awaken, and all that stood before him would become... eradicated.

GUTS: Harrald eyed the caravan with apprehension; they surely weren’t the commonwealth’s soldiers. What were they doing here? He stared at them as they disappeared into the tree-line. He didn’t like it. He surely didn’t have as strong of a feeling towards Count Markus as Ran did, but it was more out of ignorance than a lack of zeal. He only caught bits and pieces of Delilah and the other couple’s conversation. While Harrald zoned out, Delilah noticed, and took reigns of the conversation.

“I’m not really sure of its gender… but the baby should be due any day.” There were some magicks in the commonwealth wielded by medicinal seers that could determine the gender of a baby before its conception. Unfortunately for the serfs, they couldn’t afford the coin in a year to pay for a single spell. They were sustenance farmers, knowing little of the pleasures of noble life. Still, despite reminding them of their pauperdom, Delilah remained cheerful. After all, conception was the true miracle of life! She wouldSOON have a baby, boy or girl, it didn’t matter to her. This was something she always wanted—a child.

As Delilah watched the two kiss, and then sheepishly blush almost in simultaneity, she smiled warmly. The two were a cute couple, she thought. She didn’t know how long Ran and his girlfriend had been together, but the two of them reminded her of Harrald and herself, when their relationship was yet still budding.

The dog ripped Harrald back to the present with a big sloppy tongue across the face. Delilah laughed, fully relying on the sheepdog at certain times to break her husband’s intensity. He smiled and turned red, embarrassed at his incognizance. Delilah patted him on the knee before the laughter subsided. When everyone was quiet they snagged Harralds attention by asking about help on the farm. He was actually a bit taken aback that anyone would even think to help them.

“Well, yes,” He said, unsure of where to start, “we could always use some help. The harvest’ll be around soon and I could definitely use an extra hand.”

He was about toCONTINUE when Delilah cut in, “Especially with the baby coming.”

Harrald nodded.

“You are quite a ways away from the other nobility, if you like you can stay with us for the night and head back during dawn break. What we have isn’t much, but you’re more than welcome to it.” DelilahOFFERED, knowing that travel to the castle could be a long journey.

***


As the Count’s caravanENTERED the forest they knew they would meet with their scouts: a group of archers supplemented and led by a wizard by the name of Daedalus. Daedalus specialized in illusions: spells that made him and his allies incognito. He was good at it, too. The scouting squad had mapped out much of the woods, and picked the most remote area to interact with the caravan. Only the chirping of birds and rustling of leaves in the windbreak was heard over the plodding of hooves. A particularly gnarly conifer started to distort along the trunk, its knobs and gnarls twisted silently, forming into a male face made of bark who quietly leered at the caravan. As if some elemental treant, he stepped from the trunk of the old oak, like one wouldSTEP from behind a curtain. As he unveiled himself his face regained its fleshly color and the woodsman’s clothes regained their hue. He wore aSHORT bow upon his back and a quiver of arrows, but little in the ways of armor.

More men of the reconnaissance team appeared, accompanying their rugged ally. A sparrow dipped from the canopy and exploded in a small poof of smoke revealing another archer, and several men moved silently along the canopy of the trees, wearing the greenery of the shrubs as their camouflage. More men pulled themselves from the ground as if they were surfacing from a lake, all of them archers. It was no wonder they had not been caught this far into the kingdom, every one of them was a master of disguise, and were supplemented by the illusionist. Daedalus, himself, stepped out of thin air in front of the caravan to meet it. He was a young male in his early twenties with short, cropped hair and fuzz grown from a few days without shaving.

Leading the point of the armored soldiers was their captain, Garth, a hardy man who was rumored to grow up in the mountains from birth, raised and wrestled with the wild animals that lived there. “Hail,” Garth said.

Daedalus nodded.

Garth whispered to him, “The rest of the forces lie in wait just outside of the border, just in case.”

Again, Daedalus nodded.

“What have you found out, mage.”

“There are several scouting parties to the north, east, and west of the castle.” He said handing Garth a small map rolled up into a scroll. “We’ve noted their patrol routes for you, so should the Lord wish to avoid them it should be no problem.”

“We don’t have time for them,” Garth snarled, “we have information that should be of great interest to the king, and it cannot be delayed.”

Daedalus nodded, “We shall watch your rear and flanks, what of the princess? We saw her first when we entered the forest.”

Garth grimaced under his helmet, “Use her. If Ran follows us, then kill her, we do not have time to engage with him.”

Daedalus grinned, “As you wish.”

The bearded wizard in the back of the caravan raised an eyebrow. Daedalus’ bloodlust was unbecoming of a spell caster, he thought to himself. It almost seemed as if he learned the arcane arts not because he wished to be a scholar, as all sorcerers should, but simply to quell his thirst for violence. He scoffed; Daedalus was talented, but still far too young. Then the wizard looked to the Count, who calmly sat there throughout the entirety of the conversation. Now there was a man he could never hope to understand, the Counts complexities knew no bounds. The count had such great charisma, yet such a ruthless administration. He sighed, whipping the reigns of his horse as the caravan began to move again, and noticed Daedalus giving him a wolfish grin just before the party disappeared. He regarded the grin with an upturned nose and a scornful “Hmph.”

After some time traveling, and following the map, they finally reached the castle gates. When they finally reached the castle, it seemed far less pristine than it had in the distance. The gravel-gray walls shone dimly, like tarnished steel, never truly clean, never truly perfect. The massive glowing spires in the distance appeared valorous, and just in their erectness. But now the oppressively tall tower seemed portentous and foreboding. The gates were a large stone structure, finely carved by the most talented of stonemasons. Nothing less was expected of one of the most prosperous countries in all the land. But they found the king’s tastes to be odd. The stone gates were open, but a portcullis pulled down separated the kingdoms interior from the rest of the world. The sides of the gate depicted people falling to their doom. A man in the centerpiece of the doorway crouched in serious contemplation, and three figures above it all, regarded the carnage with dismay. The piece displayed such quiescence; the count could never destroy it.

In the distance, a storm rumbled like angry dragons over the mountainous horizon, and a chilling breeze swept across the land peculiarly evanescent, but alarmingly frigid.

LYSANDER: From the surface of Mire, floating idly through the blank, disparaging Astral Plane, Hellion felt like a God. A creature of divine purpose, impervious to the threats of the outside world - and more powerful than any adversary who might rise against him. It was an inspirational feeling, giving him a taste of what he might one day become. It was wonderful, beautiful even. Yet, it was wrong. It was a defense of this world against the physical intrusion, an attempt to trap him in his own fantastical delusions. He’d long sought the power behind this plane of existence, theorizing that it was more than just a simple dimension. Perhaps, as some had once believed, the Astral Plane was as alive as Hellion - perhaps more so, considering his lack of blood andHEART beats.

Still theFANTASIES filled him, creeping across his mind and delving deep within the chasms of his psyche which, right now, were susceptible and wide-open for any intruder to find. His dark, evil smile only grew with each passing moment the visions were allowed to linger, and on some level he knew he was moments from being trapped inside the controlled manifestations. Sadly, the sights he saw burned deep into his twisted, tormented soul. They revealed to him a side he’d never truly known, he’d never thought could exist.

Within his mind he saw his reunion with Anathema, the man who had brought him into the world he now called his own. He saw the haunted, scared gaze his mentor gave him. A fright-filled look of utter disgust and inner torment:

He reached out to him, trying to welcome his true master home, like the loyal dog he had always been to him. “Come home, Master. We have missed you.” Anathema cringed back from the reaching motion, disallowing his most loyal servant’s attempt to grasp him.

“Who are you? What do you want with me? Why do you call me Master? My name is Jack.” The voice was of a man who had forgotten himself, a confused speech given by a man who was - for now - a shadow of what he’d once been. His eyes held fear for his fate, but also something more. Something hidden beneath the surface. A type of hatred, an utter contempt for the man before him.

Hellion dropped his arm back to his side, letting his hand rest idly against his thigh. “What ever do you mean?YOUR name is Anathema, and I am The Master of the Mist, Hellion of Val’gara. Jack was your human name, but you and I both know you are much more than this. Stop playing dumb.” Hellion’s own voice was filled with confusion, in all his years he’d never heard his master refer to himself by his human name.

“Anathema…I don’t know any Anathema, I think you should just go. Leave me and my family alone, we want nothing to do with you, we have nothing you want.” Jack’s voice had lost its fearful edge, and something akin to recognition flared behind the haunted look in his eyes. It was as if in thatSINGLE moment, everything had changed. Hellion saw Anathema within him, he could sense the presence of this man’s former self.

“Your family? These people are not your family. You’re much more than a poor farmer, living on the edge of the galaxy, barely getting buy supporting a whore and her children. You are a leader, a warrior. You will see what you once were, I will show it to you.” The Mist flared out from Hellion’s body, a burst of translucent fog that was much, much more than a simple visual impairment. It snaked along Jack’s body, seeping into his every pore, his every orifice. Overtaking his body, pushing inside of him,SOON he would find…

“Snap out of it, you fool. We’ve got work to do.” The voice inside of his head did not belong to any member of the horde, but to The Mist itself. The sentient being snaked through Hellion’s body, coursing through his veins and sustaining his life indefinitely. It, like the magic of this plane, seeped into the chasms and contours of Hellion’s brain, purging it of the vision-inducing poisons. Like a fog being lifted from his eyes, Hellion could once again focus on the world around him. The mission at hand, which was directly linked to bringing his vision to fruition. “In case you were too stupid to notice it yourself, or perhaps too wrapped up in your own idiotic mental endeavors, we are not the only Heralds here.”

Hellion immediately cast his gaze about, searching the sky above Mire for the interloper, but found nothing out of the ordinary. “Not up there, you imbecile. On Mire itself, just turn around and pay attention for once.” With a mental ‘Oh, okay…’ Hellion turned around, and found a familiar face laying on the ground. How he’d gone without sensing The Sounder’s presence, he was unsure. Moreover, how he’d stepped right by the great beast - which wound its way about the Resonance Gate he’d moments ago come through to land on the Astral-Mire - he couldn’tBEGIN to fathom.

As far as Hellion had known, SMD’P had been dead for years now, countless months had gone by without word or sound from the creature - though Hellion had been so wrapped up in his own endeavors it was likely he wouldn’t have heard the beast had it called out to him. They’d never been particularly fond of one another, either, but Hellion saw how his presence could add a certain…flavor to the party he intended, whether he would like the flavor or not had yet gone undetermined. He was certain the beast knew of his presence, if not his full intentions.

He reached out to the creature, using the ever-present mental connection provided by the Hive-Mind to speak with it. “What are you doing here, Sounder? I was sure you’d betrayed us, like that bastard Narcissus,” he sent the beast, his eyes never leaving the creature’s face - with its great eyes closed. His hand wrapped around the butt of his tyrant gun, squeezing down on it with a white-knuckle grip. With the betrayal being passed upon them by one of their kin, and the scattered remnants of nearly every Herald searching for their true leader, he’d become suspect of any who did absolutely nothing.

The Sounder, who lay coiled silently around the Gate, was one whom he was deeply suspicious of, and so he was on constant guard whenADDRESSING the beast. “Sounder, what are you doing?” Hellion called out through their mental connection, his ruthless, cold gaze landed on the sleeping beast, knowing his words would reach the creature, or one of its subsidiaries, and be answered.

“Following orders,” came the reply, in a mumbled, hushed tone of mind-voice. Hellion didn’t say anything, only looked at the beast with the utmost suspicion before turning back to face the entrance into the dream. If The Sounder was still following orders, then he knew that he need not worry about himself, or his compatriots. Which meant, of course, that he had bigger fish to fry. Two he sought would soon be within his grasp - though from here anything was within his grasp - and he would have to choose which to chase, if either of them should be caughtTO BEGIN with. Idea would likely make his mind up for him, and he would consider this tiny moment a waste of his valueless time, and yet waste it he did. Hell, it was better than sitting around waiting for the sentience of the unknown creature who ruled this plane of existence to try and seep into his mind again.

ALUCROAS: Come, hunter. I believe I have found a solution to both of our problems.

The dragon's eyes bulged in their sockets when he heard the message, hisGUT tightened, nostrils flared as he released a bass roar, so deep and so loud, that it caused the surrounding darkness to ripple outward--like a body of water that had just been impacted by an asteroid. He wanted... noneeded to find the source of this wickedness, for both the Dark Realm as well as his own sake. After all, his very sanity was dependent on it, and unfortunately for him, Alucroas' older brother was far too insane to care about his younger sibling's health. The only thing that mattered to the monster at this point was brutalizing the one who had not only woken him up, but roused his blood lust.

Twitching as he flew through the endless night, Alucroas closed his left crimson eye, leaving the sapphire right to gaze into epicenter of those shock waves he had created a few minutes ago. A coruscating beam of redLIGHT which scintillated with electrical discharge caught his attention, though only temporarily, for the creature quickly ignored it - possessing more than enough mileage here to know how to navigate this place. Where he now traveled could easily be considered one of the most confusing sectors of the Dark Realm's vast expanse: the world of the subconscious - a place in which the ego was absent and where repressed thoughts, feelings, and emotions lie.

He had literally entered the world of the shadow self; a sub-realm where there was little to no logic, where the mind was fully capable of spawning inorganic as well as organic constructs that were simply incapable of existing on the Dark Realm's upper-levels.

~*~


"Is he ready for deployment?" A slithering voice asked, staring at the red-eyed experiment he had strapped to a cold metal bed, its face hidden behind the steam that stained the mouth-piece of an enormous breathing apparatus.

Insufficient Data

The creature let out a gurgled sigh, dragging his pathetic-looking body across the pitch black room, secreting a thick coat of slime everywhere he went. Hundreds of tendrils covered his entire being, obscuring his facial features with the exception of a rather long, horizontal mouth, and a fleshy proboscis that slurped at the shelves lining a ventilated wall where frigid air flowed through. Resting on those shelves were transparent capsules containing a wide array of organic samples, all of which were collected for a single purpose: selecting a suitable... soul mate.

For a moment the creature jerked its head back, the tip of its sniffing appendage widened, revealing a pair of stark white lips wrapping themselves around the capsule. He inhaled quite a bit of the scent as he turned around, his tendrils flailing wildly about; he shuffled passed medical trays, swiping a syringe off one, and a bottle containing a brown liquid off the other. His other tendrils wrapped around several knobs built into the table and turned them all, tilting it back so that he could operate more efficiently.

Ah... I remember him...

Right now Alucroas was little more than a spectating specter, hardly able to interact with his environment aside from the occasional nudge of a desk should he exert himself enough. He was currently "perched" on a support beam with minimal light, his counter-colored eyes illuminating the darkness which surrounded him. Every movement the scientist took, Alucroas quietly followed with his entire head - like the curious gaze of a dog watching his master conduct business with a friend or associate.

It gently set the capsule down, admiring the white flesh that spazzed within, red and blue sparks jumping from the skin before dissipating against theGLASS.

He watched the good doctor fill his syringe and give it a few taps, squirting some of it onto the floor where it became lost in the transparent slime he trailed everywhere. What he injected into the experiment was called a Gene Wedge, engineered for the purpose of taking genetic codes and forming a gap between them. This allowed new codes to be implanted - bridging the gap, and essentially adding onto the DNA helix until they were finally complete.

The scientist set the capsule vertically between two bowl-shaped devices that quickly cupped and unscrewed it, fully revealing a chunk of white skin and red flesh. Admiring this planet's life-forms, he started poking and prodding it, taking note of the skin's multiple dense layers, quietly praising how the muscles it was attached to seemed to tighten up; something that when placed under a microscope only pulled the sample's epidermal cells closer together. A worthy candidate, indeed, the good doctor thought to himself.

"Display Subject #27's psychological profile."

A generally calm, reserved beast.
SLOWto anger, even tempered.
Maintains a moderate-to-highDEGREE of disciplinary mannerisms.
Subject has been known to display a rather "explosive fighting-style".

"Yes... definitely a compatible mate for our little Aludon."

Alucroas recoiled at the startling similarity in names, his jaws snapping as he sought out an answer from Alutrosity, who at the time, wasn't entirely focused on the scientist and his experiment.

From halfway across the room, just above the exit, he observed a beast - much larger than Alucroas - whose appearance bared a striking resemblance to Zucroas before the Aptosites had attempted to conquer Liaita. Smoke billowed from his nostrils, but the creature - busy with his work - did not seem to notice as he silently watched. His chance wouldCOME SOON enough, for now it was merely a matter of patience.

One of the scientist's tendrils extended, and with one clean whip-motion, sliced clean through the rib-cage, dropping the white flesh directly into it. Pressing the ribs back together, he creature swiped a tube of gel and squeezed it along the cut-line, cauterizing the wound with a loud hiss, that billowed voluminous amounts of smoke into the air. Must have been an unexpected reaction to the gel interacting with Aludon's acidic blood, he thought. Nothing worth worrying himself over, he could still see just fine.

By now, the beast who was perched atop the exit had vanished.

SOONbrother, you will understand the source of my violence...

"Release his restraints." The scientist ordered, starting to pace about the room.

The Aptosite's head immediately shot up, snapping the breathing apparatus, and nearly ripping out a chunk of ceiling as he leaped from the table, freeing himself from the intravenous needles he had been stuck with. Aludon shrieked frantically, confused about where he was, and why he had been trapped in the same room as that cruel scientist. His nostrils widened, sniffing at the floor in an attempt to find the exit, only to smell more of the disgusting doctor's scent staining the floor like a gooeyCARPET. He swung himself around, his tail slammed into the table, uprooting it a few inches off the ground.

"Poor poor creature... missing your mate already, are you?" He asked.

Aludon turned around, his red eyes glowing in childish curiosity, viewing the scientist before him as a parent, despite his clear lack of affection for him.

"He's fighting even as I speak," he paused for a moment, thinking to himself, "open the door."

A steel frame had been built around the twin-doors, its bars grinding against each other as they slid back into the walls for the two doors to part. The smaller Aptosite calmly stepped through, Aludon cautiously following him into a brightly lit hallway. He was nearly blinded by the tubular lights built into the spot where the walls met the ceiling, extending down the hall in a seemingly endless row.

His instincts told him he should retreat back into the laboratory, but the door had already closed behind him, the steel bars sliding back into place.

"Come." The Aptosite said, dragging himself down the hallway.

In the light, one could truly see why Aludon had been chosen. Twelve feet of long sinuously defined muscle stalked the hallway with feline grace, his tail pointing straight out, swaying to and fro like a reptile's. His skull was rather large in particular - made so to accommodate his impressive jaw size, more than powerful to crush the good doctor's head like an apple.

"Prepare Aludon for deployment. I believe he's ready."

After a few minutes of walking, the pair had reached their destination: a drop-pod with Aludon's name engraved in the center. Something inside him... a voice in his head told him it was alright to step in, that he would fulfill his purpose and become one with the dragon battling below.

Aludon leaped inside, the pod sealed shut, and a screen descended before his face, giving him a real-time display of exactly what he was in for.

--

He saw a white beast, its body teeming with electrical discharge crackling all over its body, his eyes a translucent blue, matching pearly white teeth. Two scars streaked down his arms, starting at the triceps before ending at the underside of his forearms, no less than a few inches from his elbows. Its frame was bulky and humanoid, though still managed to retain substantial detail which that pointed at his true race: dragon.

His name?

Zucroas.

His claws were currently caught wrist deep in the elongated mouth of a fellow Aptosite - Raizer. Zipper-like teeth lined both sides of every limb, including a special surprise one hidden behind his ponytail. His features were sharp and pointy like a kingfisher's crossed with a komodo dragon's, only shorter and more narrow, his thin tail threatening to lash his enemy across the face.

The dragon's body surged, his maw wrenched open as he bit directly into Raizer's throat, then jerked up, slinging him into the air. Not one to be outdone, however, the Aptosite dug his hands directly into the dragon's shoulders, swinging forward with all his might and then wrapped his shins firmly around the his opponent's upper-ribcage, biting and squeezing with his powerful teeth.

The beast fell forward, driving Raizer into the ground with enough force to form an outline of his body in the ground. Rage overcame Zucroas then, both scars secreting a gel-like substance, containing vast amounts of searing electricity, that the dragon smothered him in, through means of a bone crushing bear hug, nostrils widening as he took in the scent of flesh being reduced to mere ashes before him.

He was now ready to deliver the finishing blow, but he had one final trick up his sleeve. His mouths had ingested the gel, diluting it down into something he couldSAFELY drive back into Zucroas. They vomited it up all over the dragon, only this time they contained small bacteria which devoured Zucroas' lightning, and released it back into him, only in such vast amounts that he would end up overloading himself.

Zucroas screamed then, his roar nearly blowing out Raizer's ear-drums as he fell to the ground in a twitching heap, both warriors spent. Raizer let go, rolling over a few times. He had accomplished his mission... and so, it was time for a well-deserved rest.

--

Aludon's drop-pod slammed into the ground, forming a small crater as it threw chunks of dirt and grass into the sky.
He stepped out then, almost crawling along the ground as he carefully placed one claw before the other, examining his exhausted new friend. His tail rose up, beating against the ground in an attempt to wake the dragon up -- he wanted him to know what was coming, and embrace it.

The only thing there for Zucroas to see, however, was the shadow of a monster looming over him, and before he knew it, he had already fu--

~*~


WAKE UP!

Alucroas screamed, shrieked, hissed and roared as he tumbled through the abyss, unable to control his fall. Although his wings flapped, his muscles refused to cooperate, exoskeleton splintering as a bulge formed on his back. The pain was unbearable - whipping his body back and forth as a second tail formed from the original, splitting off and still growing. The process repeated itself several times over, it felt like something was tugging the cords wrapped around his brain, guiding him like a horse.

Ah...

Mitosis ran rampant throughout his body like wildfire, everything was dividing, breaking off to form new bones, new flesh, new structure. Before he knew it, Alucroas could hear the cry of his brother -- not from the inside -- but right there next to him.

Alutrosity's enormous head sprouted from the back of Alucroas' neck, their flesh still stuck together, but not for long as the older brother pushed down on his siblings shoulders, making room for his ribcage. Had he not gone through so much already, Alucroas' spine would have surely been broken by the force of Alutrosity's foot slamming into his back finally freeing himself.

--

Far above Narcissus two black outlines were falling from the sky, leaving only the crimson-sapphire glow of their eyes visible. The smaller of the two managed to gain control over its fall at the last possible second, swooping right passed the Herald as he landed on the muddy ground and kept on running, shrieking and howling along the way, before disappearing into the darkness of the dreamscape.

Alutrosity landed a mere split-second later, his knees nearly buckling as he impacted the semi-solid ocean, immense waves blasting off in all directions.

"I'll be sure to never let him pilot our body through that place again."

A split-second later, his eyes were downcast onto Narcissus, lips twitching as he contemplated ending the monster for having him go through all that chaos.

RAN: The Princess gave them a very warm, grateful smile. Gently squeezing her daughters hand before reaching into the basket and pull out a very fat sack ofGOLD. Offering it to the friendly farmer and his wife.

“Please, take this in exchange for two bags ofYOUR finest crops when it is ready. I believe thirty thousandGOLD should cover that, yes?” She asked, a coy smile spreading across her features. Planning on refusing any denial of this generous donation.

“Oh yes, please accept it. I have heard many great things on the quality of your crops. I would also like to extend a hand of...EMPLOYMENT.” He spoke with a look of amusement plastered across his face, rather enjoying the bamboozled look on the farmer and his wifes face.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Shadows loomed over the pure black figure, defined only by a lithe outline. Large golden, seemingly iron wrought in design. Emeralds lining the large stone columns on either side, behind these gates rested a single crimson eyes. Staring at the outline with what one could easily describe as loathing, the slanted pupils glaring at it.

“Well, aren't you a bit... irritated.” Said the outline, glancing up at the hate filled eye with a fleeting look of boredom.

“KISHINJIRADEN!” Its disembodied voice echoed through the void, causing the.. ground? To vibrate.

“Yes?”

“What are you doing here, you filthy piece of garbage!”

“Well... I am here to negotiate the terms of your release.” He spoke blandly, twirling his finger around what appeared to be a strand of shadow-esque hair.

“My release?”

“Yes you giant eye. Your release. Do you want to listen?”

“Speak now or die.” He snarled, the ground rumbling from the pure power behind it.

“Calm now, no need to be so angry. The terms are simple, we let you out and you offer Ran your power. If you can't do that, we'll see you right back up and you can watch Ran and the Princess procreate. If you do this properly, we'll give you more of a free reign and allow you a body to wander Ran's mind. You'll still see everything from behind aPROTECTIVE veil, though.”

“Why in all of Earnial should I even think of helping Ran?”

“Because you get to stretch your... eyelids.” It chuckled slightly, enjoying his little joke.

It snarled its reply, indicating its agreement as the golden gates seemed to crumble. No, not crumble. Dematerialize. Yes, that was the better word. The eye seemingly shook as the scene faded away, turning back to Ran, The Princess and the farming couple. Back to the serene happiness of the picnic, the children laughing as the dog licked their faces. So far, everything was completely perfect.

ODIUM:

AFTER DARK BUT BEFORE DREAMING


Wake up, Theo.

“Hnng?”

Wake up, Theo. It’s time to get up now.

Theodoros felt like a boy waking up on the Friday before a vacation, still faintly covered in the dream-dust of a long and restful sleep. He squinted his eyes against the brightLIGHT assailing them, rubbing the sand away with thumb and forefinger while he struggled to sit up. His limbs felt stiff from disuse. How long had he been asleep?

So long, Theo. Too long. Stand up. Face theLIGHT.

He pushed himself to his feet. The ground lacked texture. He expected the soft, pliable touch of his mattress, or maybe even grass between his fingers, or at least the rough friction of concrete… nothing. Overhead, the light intensified, growing from a star into aWINDOW into a massive disc, but no matter how large it became, it never seemed to illuminate the darkness surrounding him.

So he looked up, unsure of what he expected to find there.

In an instant his eyes boiled over like the oceans beneath an asteroid, sizzling and burning as if had stared at the sun for too long. He let out a half-groan half-scream of pain and surprise and looked away, vision instantly refocusing to the cool shadows encircling him. Soothing, so comfortable, so friendly. Vague impressions of shapes and depth surrounded him, and in the distance, he thought he heard the sounds of breakers on a midnight shore… somewhere so tantalizingly close, but too far away to distinguish clearly from the silence.

I know you can feel it… the cold blade of rejection slipping between your ribs, the needles playing pincushion with your eyes. The country of light you cling to has rejected you, Theodoros Spyredes… You looked up in search of salvation and were forced to turn away. I know what it’s like. I’ve felt it too…

Before, Theodoros had feared the thing behind that chilling, birdlike voice. He had feared the incredible madness bound inside an almost human body. Now he felt numb to it. He was still afraid – it was difficult not to be, alone in the dark with only his shadow to keep him company – but he had known the same fear for too long to be truly aware of it anymore. He didn’t sweat or cry or shake, hisHEART didn’t beat as frantically as it once had. Sometimes he couldn’t feel it beat at all.

“What do you want?”

A patch of darkness in front of him twitched and quivered, opening up like an eldritch flower. Eyes with the color and depth of a glacial crevasse leered at him out of the dark. Lips the color of wine fine hovered below them, pouting then smiling, frowning and parting in silent laughter. Theo had seen those eyes - looked through them himself - often enough that he could almost read the expression of the expressionless.

Was it fear he saw? Or anger?

Once I offered you a place inside myHEART, Theodoros. I offered you my own kind of light, what little I could… but there’s no light left, Theo. Not in me, anyway. Instead, I’ve come here as a king and a teacher. You will do what I ask of you now, but you will not do it in ignorance. You will do it despite your hatred and your revulsion, not because I am forcing you to, but because you will see that it is right.

“Go away. I’m sick of you andYOUR lies.”

No lies, Theo. Not anymore. Only the dim light I must show you while I still can. It’s borrowed light, Theo, borrowed from the past, but we make do with what we have…

Theo opened his mouth to retort again, but before he even had a chance, those glacial eyes expanded and grew like another ice age, until they dwarfed him by cartoonish caricature proportions. They centered on him, nearly crossing and adding even more to the gross absurdity of the whole situation. Pale blue television light covered his face.

Then those giant eyes winked out, and for an instant Theodoros was alone again, till a totally different image replaced them on his own private mental I-MAX. He was standing just before the beach, looking out onto a vast shimmering ocean that stretched far back into the horizon. A thin film of algae covered the entire expanse, and without touching it, Theo knew it would have the texture of slime.

The sand remained totally undisturbed. Besides the very occasional waves and a residue of dead primordial soup, nothing had touched it for thousands and thousands of years. However, the tilt of the unseen camera moved forward, so that it showed, for the first time in all the planet’s long and turbulent history, two primitive arthropods ascending to the surface. They scurried blindly towards the light, leaving the first tracks that any beach would ever be marked by.

Then, willed by some strange animal impulse, the trilobite turned and latched its primitive mandibles in the exact weak spot of its brother’s carapace, killing it instantly. It hesitated for an instant before, as if nature had decided it wasn’t quite ready to move forward just yet, scuttling back down into the Cambrian sea.

The first sin of many. Watch…

The scenes flew by in a whirlwind and Theo could do nothing but watch as he had been told to; it left him mesmerized, jaw slackening and hanging ajar in dim apelike awe, as his shadow led him into the light.

~*~

WHERE DREAMS COME TO DIE


Narcissus scrutinized the evolving dream, intrigued by the strange laws that bound it. The portal behind him slid shut as he sensed the guest he had invited would be arriving through other means. While he waited, he observed the little globes and the transient worlds developing inside them. As he watched the ocean, however, his attention was drawn away by the aerial clash erupting far above the sea of cords connecting dreams to their respective dreamers.

He caught only a glimpse as a shape detached itself from the hulking creature and went fleeing into the distant mists. He didn’t react as the remaining monstrosity plummeted to the earth like an asteroid, impacting the water. The resulting tidal waves seemed to phase through the dreams, for they went undisturbed, and the water itself parted to accommodate Narcissus.

His tentacles thrashed as he listened to Alutrosity’s deep, guttural growl. Despite his repeated confrontations with the beastly pair, it was his first time ever talking to this aspect of the being in person. He met the red-blue mismatched stare expressionlessly.

“I imagine that will be so, provided either of us see our second selves again in this lifetime.” Even as he said the words, the flesh on his chest opened up to reveal a grotesque maw full of razor sharp teeth, spittle sliding between them and trailing down his torso obscenely. His jaw worked itself off its hinges, the bottom part stretching out so that he could vomit up his humanity without damaging its fragile skin.

A shape emerged from deep inside the cavernous pit behind the mouth as Narcissus hastily disgorged Theodoros Spyredes, who had long thought himself lost forever. When his blue eyes opened for the first time in millennia, he did not scream as he saw the two horrors he was caught between; he stood up, brushed the saliva off himself as best he could, and looked at Narcissus inquisitively. Even as he did, Narcissus himself seemed to lose some of his corporeality, becoming aSHADE more translucent than he had been before.

Tentacles wriggled free from Theo’s soft body, which he doubted would be human for much longer.

“Go.”

Theo nodded obligingly, opening his mouth to speak but in the end saying nothing. Two massive, leathery wings split the skin on his back, and after a few probing flaps he tookFLIGHT, soaring high up into the air in the direction that Alucroas had taken when he fled.

“I suspect they will be drawn towards the second source of chaos. When I came here, I noticed the Dark Realm’s strange reaction to this entire situation… It seemed like those massive waves were crashing up against something, or stretching around it, like skin being pushed apart by a tumor rising up through to the surface.

My better half already knew he would need to investigate. Partly I think he is being complacent because he knows that the worst that could happen is he will die and be free of me forever.”

He smiled bittersweetly and raised a slender hand up. Like a wilted flower returning to life, the dream that contained their quarry floated up so that the orb dangled just in front of Alutrosity’s face.

“Snip the vine and slip inside. Our enemies fight their own battle within the dream itself. Before you do, however, I suggest you contemplate your purpose for being here. I go because fate demands it, and I’ve called you here because only their deaths will restore relative peace to the Dark Realm. Decide on your own whether you will throw your life away in search of that peace.”

~*~

AFTER DARK AND BEFORE DREAMING


“I see.”

He could say nothing else in the face of what he had just witnessed. His mind begged for rest and his eyes were bloodshot and dry from the strain, but his body longed for satiation.

I have not shown you everything. We don’t have time. Now, however, you understand what you must do.

“Yes.”

You will do it.

“Yes.”

Then I have but one more thing to add.

A hand reached out of the dark. Theo recoiled instinctively, raising a hand of his own to swat it away, but Narcissus’ index and middle finger merely touched his forehead before receding back into the shadow, leaving a faint crystal speck between his eyes. It glowed, and for an instant all the blood vessels, capillaries, veins and arteries in Theodoros’ face were highlighted as the information coursed through them, filling not only his brain but his entire body.

Despite himself, his lips curled up into a rare and much needed smile. “I see.”

ALUCROAS: Snivel Greedskull salivated as he followed the fat sack of wealth with his eyes. He was a coin connoisseur, as his name betrayed, and he could roughly tell the amount of money in a container just by the shape or weight of it. Daedalus had enchanted all of the scouting party’s vision, and with the order for them to fall back and cover the flanks and rear, they were mostly keeping an eye on Ran as well as the patrols. Greedskull slunk out from his magical camouflage, kneeling into a bush that was near the tree he melded with. Silently, he withdrew his bow and knocked two arrows. His eyes followed the bag and his lips smacked.

One of his colleagues took notice of his actions—coming out of hiding—and addressed him. “Snivel…? What the fuck’re you doing?”

Snivel’s sharp rat-like features and his treacherous nature made him one of the least-liked members of the entire party. He was rash, cowardly, and worst of all greedy, greedy to a fault. Some thought Snivel would sell out his own mother and father for a sixpence, and they weren’t far from the truth, but he had his uses. Snivel was an excellent liar, a formidable spy, and good with numbers. However, he was a lousy shot. All the more reason his cohort was alarmed. The scout next to him saw the same as Greedskull had, and knew his comrade well enough to guess what would happen next.

“Snivel? Snivel!” he exclaimed in an angry whisper. “Put the fucking bow down. Now.”

He went ignored as Greedskull knocked a second arrow and drew his bow in the cover of the bush. Snivel muttered to himself like a madman, fully focused on thePRIZE, whilst ignoring the consequences that would surely follow. The other man gritted his teeth in anger. Ordinarily, their arrows wouldn’t reach this far, outside of a volley, and the sudden blast of wind would make even a volley a difficult shot. None of that mattered, however. Daedalus enchanted all of their weapons to fire as far as their eye could see with unerring accuracy. It wasn’t a question of whether or not the bow could make the shot; it was more of a question if Snivel could, himself.

Snivel smiled, his eyes tearing with anticipation. The golden doubloons were so close he could actually taste their metallic coating. His associate’s voice seemed like it was a million miles away as he drew a bead on hisTARGET. Two arrows were better than one, right? It doubled his chances of nabbing the coin purse. He rationalized it all in his head.

However…

He knew he had made a grave mistake the second he let go.

***


“Bamboozled” was not the word to describe the look upon Harrald and Delilah’s faces when they were presented with the small fortune dangling from the Princess’s fingers. The entire picnic went silent. Even the dog tilted its head, unable to utter a timid whimper. Only the rumbling of the quickly-encroaching storm interrupted the awkward silence; they would all forgive its faux pas. A piercing mistral penetrated the hillocks, rustling the blades of grace in a shrill whistle, and then groaned as the boughs of the old walnut tree reverberated in a frantic shiver. The princess sat there with the sack of weightyGOLD which swayed like a pendulum in the sudden breeze. The magnitude of such coin would forever alter Harrald, Delilah, their child, and even their dog’s lives.

The two sat there, slack jawed, staring at the purse. Delilah thought her water would break any second. Harrald had neverEARNED that much money in his entire life. The culmination of all his worldly wealth could not amount to the sack the Princess so flippantly exchanged for wheat. Theirwheat. Wheat. Harrald and Delilah’s lowly crop, that the two could and routinely did sell for copper on the pound, just made them a small fortune. How different their lives would be had he not decided to listen to his wife?! How different would her life be had she not convinced her husband?! How different would their lives be had they not married, or had they sold their farm to the fat-faced noble for seventyGOLD, or had Harrald become a watchmaker (like he wanted to when he was a child), or had he decided to harvest one week prior. Harrald’s entire life played before his eyes, from the moment of his conception until this very second. And an argument could be made whether Delilah had slipped into a coma or not, judging by the vegetable-like stare she gave the sack.

The dog noticed something was amiss and finally offered them the guerdon for their silence: a long whine.

It was unfortunate for them, however, that they would not even be able to enjoy their gifts. Two arrows whiffed through the air and landed, one embedding into one of Ran’s children, killing him instantly. It was a painless death, hitting the child in the spinal column would cause him to black out and never awake from his slumber. The other arrow pierced their dog, and it let out a short-lived yelp. Their companion’s death would be quite a bit more excruciating, as the missile buried itself in the dog’s abdomen. Thunder welcomed the inevitable combat; the blood of the slain wrought fertile land to fallow field. All would suffer to what was to follow.

***


Hephaestus, Markus’ archmage, made his presence known with a quick incantation that would open the castle gates. Two spectral giants manifested themselves underneath the portcullis as shadowy, misshapenCLOUDS that slowly gained humanoid forms as they raised the gates. Taking full figure the giants knelt to their liege and bore the gateway like atlas burdened the world. The caravan entered, and was met by the blades and bows of the castle guard. Were they to force their way to the king, they would surely be met with heavy resistance and casualties. Above, the darkened sky cried upon the kingdom, it had already fallen; they just didn’t know it, yet. Storm clouds roiled as lightening streaked across the sky and a sickly green hue backlit the temperamental ebony clouds.

“Stand aside, you miscreants,” Hephaestus announced. “We must have word with the king.”

The mage waved his hand and the soldiers, like faithful drones, parted the way to the castle. The carriage rode in, unopposed.

ALUCROAS: The Monstrosity's lips slowly stopped quivering as he listened Narcissus' speech -- as much as he hated to admit it, there had been some truth behind his words -- even with his brother's sense of calm now scattered to the wind, he had faith that his newfound insanity would lead him down the right path.

His gaze shifted to the upside down tree, exoskeletal plates parted to reveal a vast number of tendrils woven deep into his flesh, which ended in barbed points around his wrists, buzzing with electric current. All at once they began to probe the water, poking and prodding at the other dreams, before peeling them apart like onions. In one he saw a man living out his wildest sexualFANTASIES, in another he observed a scrawny nerd wailing away on a group of jocks who had likely been bullying him, and in the last he witnessed a girl jumping up and down on some fat man's stomach as if it were a trampoline.

"The multiverse is so bizarre," he commented to himself, "almost as much as you are."

Alutrosity raised his massive head, scrutinizing the orb which dangled before him. HisGUT told him that Alucroas was headed in the right direction, and yet his instinct told him he should be taking Narcissus' advice and head into this little dream, soon-to-become a contagious nightmare.

"Very well," he said with a sigh, "I shall follow your lead for now, if only because I have no other leads to go on."

He yanked all but one of his tendrils away, paying little heed to the damage those slime-covered barbs may have caused to the dreamers as he retracted them back into his exoskeleton. A mere whiplash motion was executed, and the vine had been severed, causing the orb to expand and accommodate the entryway which he promptly began to step into.

He stopped halfway inside and turned around to face his new "ally".

"Be wary, for if this is a trap, I'll pluck those little petals off you, one by one."

~*~


In no small way, Alucroas' mental state had been reduced to that of a child, a little boy running lost through an endless playground in search of his parents. However, as he had learned through many years, he was never alone. As always, they were by his side in spirit, their presence made known by the dark-green scars which streaked his triceps and came to a halt at the inner-side of his forearms.

Small eyes -- the same color as his own -- developed within those marks, and soon, there were horns protruding outwards, the mouths of draconic serpents followed suit as they slithered their way out. The two parental figures had no trouble keeping up with their son, black wings sprouted from their backs to carry them up into the sky, their shadows just barely visible to Alucroas, who now released an exalted sigh of relief.

For now, he was once again calm, but the peace was not to last.

Overhead he could see a multitude of dimly glowing portals, slowly increasing both in size as well as the intensity of theLIGHT they emitted. Behind him, a lengthy bulge rolled across what he perceived as a the ceiling, droplets of Dark Realm fluid falling from the sky and splashing him across the face. It almost resembled the beginnings of a storm moving above him, its severity growing more dangerous by the minute until, finally, almost eerily... it passed -- and rather than fading from view, appeared as ifTHE CLOUD which it had spawned from emptied itself out.

The beast almost decided to dismiss it as a strange anomaly of the dreamplane, but then something even stranger happened. A colossal swell started rising in the distance, moving just slowly enough for Alucroas to keep up with, but the closer he got, the father away it seemed to move.

It was picking up speed!

Soon, it would become quite evident that those megatsunamis from before were not just random fluctuations of the Dark Realm's chaotic state, but rather those waves were searching for something... guided by the world's semi-sentience. The deluge from a few seconds ago was merely the tsunami's way of seeping onto the dreamscape undetected, disguising itself as a simple waterfall.

If Theo were paying any attention, he was about to receive his first lesson in how to keep up with a fast-moving object, especially when one was covered in the liquidy substance of the Dark Realm. A portal opened on Alucroas' face, formed from the raindrops he had been splashed with. Alucroas jumped into it, and seemingly disappeared only to leap out behind the swell, which -- in actuality -- was the same megatsunami he had witnessed earlier, only it had just finished taking advantage of Alucroas' entrance into the dreamscape to manifest itself as a downpour of biblical proportions.

The abomination had discovered his path, just as his older brother had predicted he would. This megatsunami was directing itself, steering its way toward its destination, making it quite difficult for Alucroas to keep up, or so one might think. He merely utilized the same tactic, forming a portal from yet another raindrop that had fallen on him earlier, once again leaping through and exiting out the back of the tsunami and turning around so as to continue following.

At times, he'd enter into a portal on the side of his body, and be forced to barrel roll into it, at others, one would appear on his tail and he'd nearly miss, being forced to leap into a back-flip, so as to make it in, only appear on the other side like an upside down lion who had just dove for his next meal.

~*~


Time seemed to slip away while his progress remained infuriatingly slow -- already he could feel his blood begin to boil. Every step the Monstrosity took was plagued with caution, partially for himself, but more so for the cretin who followed behind. Alutrosity wanted to make damn sure he wasn't being led astray, his luminous eyes alight like a crocodile's as a different kind of light worked its way into his eyes.

Slowly the light began to form colors, and those colors began to form shapes; a vast mountain range overlooked a gorgeous vista, where men plowed fields, a horse-carriage wheeled by, a group of strangers were getting together for a picnic. Had he not been on a mission, the colossal beast might have even felt guilty for havoc he was about to wreck upon their poor little home.

Eventually he came to a transparent wall through which he could view everything going on in crystal clear definition. Alutrosity pressed his claws against the wall in attempt at easing his way in... After all, he wanted whoever was creating this chaos to feel the same, bone-chilling fear that he, himself had felt, and was currently engulfed in.

Fear that he might never see his brother again after this fight.

Fear he might die for real this time.

And fear he that his all his efforts might be in vain tonight.

His eyes... now like perfect circles narrowed just a bit as he focused on his new objective: shattering the wall before him like a locomotive derailing into a skyscraper made entirely out ofGLASS.

The Monstrosity bent his knees and curled his tail into a mighty arch behind him, electricity showering his entire frame as he prepared to throw that w.m.d of his forward. The rigid muscles of his tail tucked tightly into one another, his right leg planted solidly in front, with the left planted firmly behind, his body now streamlined. Then, with the force of a wrecking ball with rocket-engines attached to the back, he slung it forward, listening to the sharply curved bone at the end split the air in two before driving hardly an inch into it.

Bang

Bang

Bang

Bang

Alutrosity swung his tail back and drove it back in over and over again, endlessly repeating the action only to take out naught but a small chip of the wall before him. It was frustrating him, his claws balled into fists, his double-jaws firing out from his mouth, his tendrils which were little more than an excess of fleshy veins pumping his very blood that carried enough acidic potency to melt through steel...

And yet, it still wasn't enough.

"AAAAAAHHHHH...break, goddamn you!"

Perhaps something had heard the beast's cry, for when he made that last shout, he heard a distant rumbling noise coming at him from behind. The crashing of waves flipping over one another as they rushed down the hall, as one, concentrated, gargantuan megatsunami, separate from the one Alucroas and Theo were now in hot pursuit of.

It slammed into Alutrosity who was quick to brace himself, tendrils anchoring themselves to the ground he stood on, wings folding in front of him to form aPROTECTIVE shield, only for both to be wiped out almost instantaneously. In a moment of irony, it was the wave itself, slamming his body into the wall before him that formed the fracture which would prove advantageous to him.

Submerged deep underwater, his form obscured by air bubbles escaping from the newly formed fissures, Alutrosity was somehow able to maintain focus, and overcome the pain coursing through him. He reared his tail back once more, this time succeeding in causing the fracture to expand. Again he bit down, ripping away chunk after chunk of the dream wall, tendrils pumping acid-blood which corroded away at the cracks, until finally, whatever bastard who had caused this whole mess could see a gigantic, fourteen-hundred foot tall behemoth, whose sheer girth nearly eclipsed the sun behind him, his crimson sapphire eyes appeared as ripples beneath the massive waterfalls of the stuff composing the Dark Realm. His body was sheathed in a plated exoskeleton, baring a striking resemblance to armor, due to the way it seemed to expand and grow slightly hollow at the ends of each limb, especially at his neck where it seemed to collar out and upwards.

Obsidian claws wrapped themselves around a broken fragment and tore it free, right before he kneed another piece and stepped forward, thrusting his foot into the last chunk, annihilating it with such force that it sounded like glass breaking. Pure destruction followed his every footstep as he trudged his way down the mountains, half-stumbling at certain points as he gradually accelerated into a vicious charge.

Trees were nearly uprooted by the blast-wave of his throaty roar, and the powerful gust that came from his wings flapping themselves dry, only to be torn right out of the earth by the ensuing flood which rushed down between the Monstrosity's legs. Hefty portions of land were violently ripped out, washed away in gushing torrents of water that came from a world which had been plunged into a state of dissonance, and now carried a plethora of creatures whose minds were just as unstable.

Finally, and quite abruptly, he ceased his charge, staring both giants dead in the face from afar, his tail smacking against the ground, pulverizing the mountain rubble he'd left in his wake. Surely, with the death of two children and a beloved dog, Alutrosity's presence here, preceded by his startling entry would've let all who dwelt here know that every, single, one of them was about to receive their first bloody baptism, courtesy of the beast.

"My whole family once got fucked.

My whole mind is STILL fucked.

My whole world just got fucked.

My BROTHER might just be fucked.

So... which one of you wants to get fucked first?"

LYSANDER: “Following orders,” the words of The Sounder resonated in his mind, cascading through the thoughts which had previously surrounded him. The Mist reacted instinctively, preparing to mentally shield his body from whatever The Sounder might be contemplating, whatever orders he was following. It spread through the cracks and crevices of Hellion’s decayed, corrupted mind. It covered the surface of the fiend’s thoughts, trying in vain to guard them from the assaults they both knew SMD’P was more than capable of unleashing upon them.

It was a futile effort, but Hellion would later commend it as a gracious, wondrous thing to be done. The Sounder’s psychic storm rumbled in his mind and broke down his body. Heavier than all the words of Idea, the pressure rent Hellion useless. His mind seemed to shatter, and even the half-sentience of the Astral Plane could not have done so much damage so quickly. His hands, though useless for grabbing or clutching, tried to shield his ears - even as he knew they were not the source of the forlorn noise’s intrusion.

His knees touched the broken, cracked ground around the Resonance Gate, his eyes closed and his mouth released a blood-curdling scream of wrath and pain. Throughout the pressure, the static-noise pulsating through every molecule of his body, came the voice of The Sounder. Its words struck something inside Hellion, perhaps the remnants of the kind heart Jamal Noechra had once held - long before his assimilation into the horde.

“The cowardly are scared into obedience, the brave are twisted to Idea’s will, but for those with minds such as Narcissus’ - corrupt, warped and malignant - there is only one thing to be done for such minds before they can be brought back into the fold.”

Even as the great beast spoke, the words seared into Hellion’s mind and body. Its tendril of body wrapped about his throat, only to disappear into his nose and come back out of his mouth. His entire body was in pain, even The Mist was screaming in agony at the touch of the beast. It broke through Hellion’s flesh in dozens of places. Hellion tried to contain it, to use it to protect himself but it was for naught. The Mist had long held a sentient mind of its own, and Hellion was but its toy puppet on a string. A bargain between them had been kept for many, many years, and now The Mist was making good on its end. It was trying to leave Hellion, so that he may die on his own.

“YOU CRUSH THEM!”

The Mist stopped fighting, realizing the futility of trying to escape the Sounder while such a mental assault was being played out. None were immune to the burden the monster had set upon them, and fighting would only make it worse. Hellion couldn’t move his body, and he could barely comprehend the voices in the psi-link, but they remained intact. He could still sense The Sounder, could see through his eyes. He saw how pitiful he looked, sitting there on his knees before the creature in such agony and despair. He saw the dreamscape, the world through which Narcissus and Alutrosity - if his memory served him and that was the monster he saw with the traitor - swam. The Dark Realm, which seemed no different from the dreamscape. He could see it all, and the lives of a million beings flashed before his eyes.

Then it was all gone, and for a moment he feared he had finally, truly died.

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The remaining members of The Collective, the creatures linked specifically to Hellion - which spawned from Carnus and Isaak to Azaroth and Hellion - did nothing to intrude upon their master’s parley with The Sounder. Idea had forbidden it, even as it’d begun. Their tasks had been changed, and each knew it without question. Hellion was to go with The Sounder, he was to take on the traitor and his pet monster. Isaak was to find entrance into the dream, a way to get to the wayfarer whom Hellion sought out. The others would remain upon Mire,PROTECTING the gate until they felt their comrades complete their mission.

Even Azaroth, who had yet been unseen, was to make his way to Mire. Protection of the Gate was pertinent to their return, for if Hellion and Isaak were to fail none but Mire could return them to their world. Isaak shifted his stance, turning his face toward the astral-wallPROTECTING the dream from outside intrusion. Yet, another had found his way in. Not through the doorway before him, but through another entrance. Isaak could see the great monster as he crashed down the mountainside, he saw the arrows fired from the trees as they took out the child and his pet.

It was a prophecy of sorts, the death of a pathetic, worthless youngling and its beloved creature. Isaak saw it as the foretelling of Narcissus’ demise, in which Hellion would ring the victory bell - having destroyed the child Narcissus and its pathetic, useless pet Alutrosity. Time in the Astral Plane meant nothing, but even still Isaak could tell he had but only a moment to spare. He called out through the nothingness around him, his mental voice screaming at the monster he could sense within, the one he and the others had been sent to find.

“Wayfarer, give me access to the dream - for I have come in search of you. Idea has sent us to find you, and we have. Allow us to converse openly, face-to-face,” Isaak called out from his mind, sending the thought projection through the wall between them, and letting it echo throughout the dream. It was an open thought, all who could hear it would hear it. For a million light-years the thought would project itself, from one dimensional plane to the next, until the one they sought heard its call.

Isaak pressed his perfectly manicured right hand against the glass-like wall between himself and the mountains directly opposite the monster Alutrosity. And he pushed. Not just with his physical self, but his mental and spiritual body as well. He pushed through the glass, his body phasing into it. Adapting to its structure, until he was one with the substance itself. There he could have stayed forever,PROTECTING the dream from other intruders, but one had already made it in. A great monster who, despite his desire to remain, had to be stopped.

His body fell into the dream, where he landed midways down one of the mountains. Trees lined the ground all around him, and the forest was dense with wildlife and plants alike. A lesser being could have marveled at the unequaled majesty, the unparalleled beauty. Isaak was not a lesser being. With a quick leap of his body, and a redirection of the energy flowing through him, he tookFLIGHT. A flight that carried him clean into the valley below, where he crashed into the ground just out of Alutrosity’s reach.

YOUR presence here is upsetting, and unneeded, monster. We have seen memories of you through our brethren, and we know what you’re doing here. You will not succeed, turn away now before we are forced to cause you untold harm.” Isaak’s voice was cold with hatred, chilled with raged and tempered with the fiery passion of a murderous vagabond. The spikes on his elbows extended, leaping up over his shoulder as his oversized forearms hardened to nearly indestructible shields - though not growing much in size.
The bladed spikes on his elbows would surely rend the beast’s flesh from its body, even its hardened exoskeleton would offer little in the way of protection from Isaak once the first blow rang against his body. He was giving the creature a chance, but only a single one, to save its own life and leave the treacherous dream which it hadENTERED. Yet, despite the consistencies in Isaak throughout all the years, something was different about him. Any who knew him would spot it immediately, but Isaak had yet to come face-to-face with the monster in his past.

His eyes held the same, malicious look of utter destruction as they always held, but they were discolored. Where once had stood a fiery red, or a disdainful black, remained only a pale, translucent grey. All The Collective held these eyes, as it was a mark of their Master, a mark of The Mist. It was empowering.

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Hellion’s eyes sprang open as the pain ceased, and The Mist retracted back into his body. The distance between him and his companions was far, yet he could still feel them so very close to him. It was like they stood on the exact same spot, only a plane of existence apart. He could feel their power running through him, as surely as they could feel his power flowing through them. He turned to the Sounder, whose tendril had finally released him.

“What are we doing in The Dark Realm, Sounder? What is there for us here?”

The Sounder’s eyes focused on Hellion for only a moment, its great maw curling into what Hellion could only assume was a smile of mirth. “We’ve come to kill Narcissus,” it retorted, before it made its weary call into the open air. The call went through the psi-link, which Narcissus - despite his betrayal - still shared when another Herald opened him to their call. It was the call of a madman, stalking his victim through the abandoned factory they sought to escape from. It was a call to come and meet his demise.

It was useless. Narcissus could hear it, of that all were certain, but Narcissus was also a coward. A snake who was afraid of open combat, who hid in the darkest recesses and sought to work his influence from those shadows. Hellion knew it, and so did SMD’P.

“We mustCONTINUE onwards, he is not here. Follow his path, mutt” Hellion’s scathing reference to the Sounder was brought about by annoyance, and a slight bit of anger, at having been so readily manhandled by the beast. Yet, Hellion spoke with the authority Idea had afforded him. The authority of the Anathema’s heir could not be denied, and the beast would be forced to do as he was told - no matter what he didn’t like about the order given to him.

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Carnus and The Necron Reaver - an unlikely pair to say the least, given their history in the battle for The Resonance Gate, wherein they’d stood on opposite sides of the field - sensed the disappearance of their comrades more than they saw it (especially in Carnus’ case). They did not move to follow, their orders were clear. They were to guard the Gate, protect Mire. They were to, in the worst of scenarios, return to the Horde while the rebirth of their comrades was processed and completed.

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Far from the scene of the battle, two great beings sat upon thrones of skulls and bones. They watched the events unfolding through the eyes of the Heralds, and through the eyes of all things. Their infinite wisdom was equaled only by one another, and deference was shown only through respect. On beast, an imperceptible figure with no discernible features, turned to the other, and his voice projected through his thoughts.

“This is going to be interesting, my friend. Let’s see what our boys are capable of, hm?”

When that awe-inspiring voice rained down upon Hellion, it brought him to his knees. Sent him shivering in pain and despair at the weight it placed upon his body, but the one who heard it now only smiled. His pallid, dry lips curling into a malevolent show of his euphoria at how things were turning out.

“It’s all according to plan, Master.”

“Indeed, Azaroth. All according to plan.”

In unison they folded their hands together, elbows resting on the massive armrests of their thrones, and watched everything unravel right before their very eyes.

ODIUM: GRAVEYARD OF DREAMS & THE ROAD TO HOPE


There had been a lot of talk in coming this far, a surplus of thought and a famine of action. Nevertheless, he had no other recourse but to forge onward, on to whatever fate awaited him at the end of the road – no, not a road, because he had no path to turn back on and no future to go towards no matter the day’s outcome.

The faithful once dear to him now averted their eyes as God sent His sons to kill their brother. He felt them even now as they converged on him, vultures circling their prey, lions stalking the weakest of the pack. Or so they would believe, as he wanted them to believe… Want.

He’d never wanted this. He’d tried toWALK STRAIGHTLY on his path through all these long and lonely years, never knowing that his destiny traced the arc of a fault line, never mourning the countless souls lost in the rift that opened up behind him. He had tried to obey, tried to play the part of the slave, but the coals of jealousy stirred other fires that cast brighterLIGHT and longer shadows.

But favors must be returned; justice and punishment must be doled out in equal measure; the die must be cast, as it had been.

When Alutrosity faded into the warm glow of the dream, Narcissus heard the soft whisper resounding in his mind. It took more than a pretty dress to hide an ugly heart, or hearts in the case of his many-segmented sibling, the Sounder.

‘Narcissus! Come play with us, Narcissus. Oh, Narcissus, come play with us!’

Though ethereal, the words left a diaphanous trail of psychic mucus back to the sluggish mind that had forged them. Narcissus had no qualms about the Sounder’s purpose in coming here; through the dusty and near-dead psi-link he could still sense the presence of the conqueror worm and its partner, and that short message alone radiated their killing intent. His brothers had abandoned all hope of bringing him back into the fold. They had come to destroy him or die in the attempt, and he could not help but oblige them.

There was a much closer echo of the Sounder’s presence, however. Though the Herald contrived to remain unobtrusive, his taunt resonated in the air, leaving threads that traced it back to everyone who had received it. Narcissus saw them as clearly as a spider’s gossamer web, spinning back concentrically toward their origin.

He grimaced. No way back, no way forward. Sometimes one had to cut their own path through fate to reach their goal. To that end, the machete he would use to cut away the thick brush of an unwanted destiny started in the form of a hole. It began behind him, unworthy even of the denominationhole as it could probably slip through molecular bonds unnoticed save as an atomic wind, shaking the covalent leaves.

Then it grew, voraciously. It expanded so quickly that in the time it takes to rub the sleep from your eyes it dwarfed its creator, spread wide like behemoth’s maw, and then it curved, stretching impossibly and absurdly until the hole itself seemed to be grimacing. It did not stop, however, until its two ends touched, melding together into a band of starless jet that fully encompassed Narcissus. To anyone outside the still-growing dome, it would appear as if an opaque bubble had just materialized from the soft loam of the shore and swallowed him.

In the distance, he heard the sound of rushing water-that-is-not-water. With a resigned sigh, he raised a single hand, fingers outstretched so that his palm faced the eclipsing sky, and a crystal began to push itself out of the thin flesh. Beneath the roar of the incoming tsunami he heard a low moan, a ghostly wail like a dissonant siren song, building in pitch until it became a banshee shriek that filled his skull.

The lost souls of the Dark Realm floated out of the portal in forms almost comparable to wisps of fog, saved for the distorted, tormented faces that filled them. Like sheep beckoned to a shepherd they circled the crystal in Narcissus’ palm, which emanated a soft red glow that gave the illusion of warmth. Silently, they slipped inside, hundreds of them, perhaps more.

When at last he was satisfied with the flow of souls, he stabbed the crystal through his chest. His other hand gave a spastic jerk and sent many of the black threads draping his upper body careening through the air, touching the stripped dreams Alutrosity had played with before entering the battlefield and forming short stems. The black sheen replaced itself on his body almost instantaneously, covering him entirely, dripping down onto his legs until he was almost indistinguishable from the shadowy walls of the portal around him.

And then the earth he was standing on was not dry. If he hadn’t known what was going to happen next, he might have had an instant to gather his thoughts before the flood arrived.

In videos and pictures of tidal waves crashing against the shore, many times it appears as if they are moving in slow motion, offering the perfect window of opportunity for the inhabitants of a doomed city to flee and save themselves. In reality, a reality Narcissus was now experiencing, water moves fast. And with great force.

And it fucking hurts.

Before it could barrel into him and potentially break him like so much glass, Narcissus drove forward as if shot out of an invisible slingshot, instantly disappearing into the small candlelight of the dream. For a few brief seconds, that fuzzy ball of condensed energy stood alone in the small field with hundreds of tons of Dark Realm fluid bearing down on it from all sides.

The liquid flowed into the dream, following Narcissus as he flew rapidly down the narrow band of light leading into Ran’sFANTASY. All the way, he screamed as the new entities took up their place in his body, cleansed of all impurities by his crystal to become beings of pure spirit. He borrowed them to his own, to strengthen both his resolve and himself for the coming battle.

In his wake the shadows flanking the road into the dream solidified, forming massive gates that slammed shut behind him, truncating the wave section by section. Spikes and spears jutted from the unyielding darkness, and should the Heralds pursuing him not act, then they would meet their fate as bloody pulp crushed against the makeshift walls. Still, once the waters of the Dark Realm broke against them, they did not stop. They squirmed slowly up the faces of these walls, between spikes, eager to join with each other and make it into the dream.

Four such gates, progressively amputating the tsunami into smaller individual waves, separated Narcissus from those hunting him. He sensed them somewhere behind but remained unsure of whether or not they had joined him on the pathway into the dream or if they had stayed to linger in the dreamscape.

Even if they had, Narcissus was in no position to turn back and face them. Voices filled him, taunting him, strumming his mind with fingers not yet learned enough to avoid plucking the strings of what small sanity he still clung to.

Save us… Help us… Destroy us… they whispered. Love us, hate us, want us, need us. Use us. Wretched things, he could almost see them in his mind’s eye, wraiths lacking substance, shadows among shadows, aimless and seeking direction.

… save us, want us, love us, destroy us…

He tried to shake the noise away but only succeeded inDIZZYING himself as he shot forward, faster than a blur, so quick that the flesh nearly fell away from his bones as he approached the wall of light separating him from his destination.

… quit your dreaming, rebel child, come back into the fold… destroy the beast, Theo Spyredes, lend us your strength…

They took his memories and played with them, passing them around like interesting trinkets at a foreign merchant’s stall. As he flew through the aperture Alutrosity had made during his own entrance, they shied away from the light, retreating into the cool recesses of his mind, leaving nothing butVAPOR. Still, as they fled, one last haunting verse drifted back to him in their wake.

… too weak to surrender, too strong to lose, what hope is there for our rebel child?... what hope? ... what hope?

Hopeless and alone despite his legion of multitudinous souls, he found the light.

~*~
CATCHING THE BIG ONE


Sensory overload.

A wave bigger than any he had seen or heard of rose like some great hunchbacked behemoth. Its size made its progress seemed slow and sluggish, but he knew at a glance that he would need to adjust his flight pattern to have any hope of keeping pace with the tsunami. While considering how exactly to go about this, he noticed his quarry… disappear.

A hole opened up in front of the dragon’s face and he flew inside. In the distance, his inhumanly keen senses noticed an identical hole belch the beast back out.

Fucker. I bet I can do that.

His wings beat faster than a lover’s heart as he sank into deep concentration. Recalling the old techniques he had employed as a commercial telepath back on Earth, he took a deep breath and began to search for his mortal center. Normally, the process took minutes or even hours, but as soon as he dissolved the caulk from his eyes and reached a probing hand into the psychic web, he felt his borrowed body fill with connections. His neurons burned, supercharged synapses receiving and firing information at speeds Theodoros had never even dreamed of in the past.

Images flowed into his mind, some of other aliens he had never seen before, others of Narcissus. He heard the Sounder’s sickening catcall and watched Narcissus rend the air around him with a portal similar to the one Alucroas had just disappeared through. He heard Narcissus’ new souls, perceiving their whispers like traded secrets accidentally eavesdropped on, and finally felt the presence of an entity much vaster and much more abstract than any he had previously known, more omnipresent perhaps than even Idea had felt in the few seconds Theo had known Him.

The Dark Realm understood him and his purpose in communicating with it in a split second. Theo felt as if the eye of a god had briefly focused upon him and he belatedly noticed the cold sheen of sweat soaking his brow. He didn’t have time to reflect on what had just happened, however, as suddenly space seemed to fold in on itself before his very eyes and a hole appeared. Out of blind animal instinct he tried to avoid it, but slipped inside, and his mouth opened in a silent scream as he saw the incredible empty cavern of the Dark Realm; empty, for the tsunamis had now gone, taking with them much of the ocean.

A few lonely islands remained, marooned on the bottom of the sea, like barnacles crusted onto the belly of a whale. He felt curiously weightless as his wings ceased beating altogether, but before he could change direction to take in more of the fascinating place he had just inadvertently discovered, another portal opened up before him and he fell through.

Some distance beneath him, the tsunami roared as it displaced tons of sediment and wayward dreams. Alucroas continued to perform complicated acrobatics through series of portals that opened up around him seemingly at random. Even without reaching out, Theo could sense his raw animal fear. It looked like this big lizard fuck was going to be his partner, but he wouldn’t be of much use in this state.

As yet another portal opened up beside the winged dinosaur, Theodoros reached out, forcing it shut before Alucroas could roll through.

“Hey!” he called out with his actual voice, sick of all this telepathic bullshit. It felt good to flex his vocal chords after a thousand years of silence, and even more of solitude. “Hey, fuckface, calm your ass down!” He forced his mind into the reptile creature’s, attempting an intravenous injection of Theo’s icy calm and irritation. Hoping that would catch his new friend’s attention, Theo changed the emotions a little, projecting feelings of happiness and tranquility, but also attentiveness.

Jesus, it was just like babysitting as a teenager again, only this time instead of a crying infant it was a crying… dinosaur thing. Fuck, he just alwaysgot the short end of the stick.

Hoping that Alucroas would be a little more receptive now, he decided to spark up a conversation. “Look, we need to get to wherever this goddamned thing is going so we can finish up this stupid mission shit and I can kill the shitbag that’s been piloting on my body for the last who-fucking-knows-how-long.”

To himself, he added, “I hope this wave is on its way to a paradise of beautiful women. I’ve got so much pent-up sexual frustration it’d take every virgin on Earth to satisfy me, and then maybe a couple Martians too.”

~*~
A PLACE THAT IS NOT A PARADISE OF BEAUTIFUL VIRGIN WOMEN, OR EVEN ANY WOMEN AT ALL



Many marveled at the idea of Count Markus possessing a grandson. Despite his cadaverous complexion and hair only a fewSHADES darker than the driven snow, he did not seem quite so old. Nevertheless, when Nicholus had come to live with the Vile Count shortly after his latest military conquest, he had been announced at court as the man’s grandson.

Nicholus was an odd child. His father, the Count’s son, had joined the clergy and used his noble standing to rapidly advance to the position of bishop. Now he headed his own diocese in a remote backwater of the commonwealth, and many who knew of his heritage marveled at how fatherly and merciful the man was. He often took the more disruptive village boys and turned them into his personal protégés.

More than a few men of influence in the Church had their start in Nicholus’ father’s parish. Under conditions still hidden behind a veil of suspicion and mystery, however, Nicholus had been exiled and sought asylum with his grandfather outside the commonwealth. The villagers avoided him, saying that he practiced black magic and spent his free time reading grimoires and praying to old eidolons undisturbed for centuries.

They said he spent his days among the trees, listening to their song, and weaving into it his own subtle symphony.

The trees wanted to bend down and catch the arrow in their old, knotted branches, to take the wound themselves in order to protect the child. They could not, however, and the mortal emissary among them did not notice until it was too late. Once he did, however, a familiar thought crept into his mind:

Favors must be returned; justice and punishment must be doled out in equal measure; the die must be cast, as it will be.

He stepped out from among the trees – actually, he appeared to step out from the trunk of a particularly ancient oak. His sallow skintone gave him a less dead and sicklier appearance than his grandfather, and his hair was short-cropped and gelled back so perfectly that each strand seemed much like a stubby tendril. He wore a linen shirt with a rich purple tunic over it, and long dark breeches tucked into riding boots, completing his outfit with a sable cloak trimmed in ermine, fitted to his shoulders with clasps forged in likeness to the helmets worn by his grandfather’s “demon” soldiers.

A peculiar quality of Nicholus was that, no matter the season, he always felt a chill in the air that others could not perceive. This icy demeanor was reflected in his stare, which others described as looking into the face of winter itself in all her glacial glory. Presently, those blue eyes were fixed on Snivel Greedskull, who had abandoned his bow in favor of a long hunting knife, which he leveled at Nicholus with a trembling hand.

“Stay back! I knows who ye are, ye’re the witch boy, son of the Count’s son… they say ye’ve drunk the wine of the warlocks, they do. Stay back or I’ll slash ye apart and send ya back to Markus in a box.”

Nicholus ticked his head a centimeter to the side as he admired the blade curiously. It was a fine weapon, to be sure.

“I was about to make the same threat, my friend… But I don’t need a knife to cut you apart.”

For an instant, Snivel Greedskull saw the world through the thousand-faceted stare of a fly. Then his rodent-like features became much more literal as, from the feet up, he dissolved into a pile of squeaking rats. Just briefly, his face retained a vaguely human expression as the rats’ tails formed blind spiral eyes and a curved mouth, before the pile collapsed and the creatures scattered. Meanwhile, the fine steel knife Snivel had vested such pride in, until that moment suspended by some unseen hand, fell to spear one rat squarely through its small skull. It gave one final hiss and died pathetically, as Snivel had.

The bandit’s colleague had the good sense to run away in the opposite direction of the castle, Nicholus, and the giant monsters that had suddenly appeared on the horizon as fast as his legs would carry him.

Nicholus sighed and slumped against a tree, distraught. He did not much enjoy killing, even when justified.

~*~


Meanwhile, on the beautiful knoll overlooking the sweeping countryside, the mourning began. Delilah let out a cry that only a mother could vocalize with such articulate despair, as she fell to her knees and pressed the child’s limp form against the soft curve of her belly. Life cannot be bought with life. Time cannot turn back and never will. It wasn't hers, but a woman doesn't need to give birth to a child to feel attached to it. She felt sick with horror.

Tears ran down her face as she wept, Ran’s gifts forgotten, heart splitting into tinier and tinier pieces with each passing second as the reality of the situation sank in. So occupied was she with crying that she did not notice the blood running out of the child’s wound turn black. When at last she reached to dislodge the arrow from his spine, that black blood seemed to thicken and twitch, and abruptly lunged for her hand.

She recoiled in sudden fear, the infant corpse rolling away so that its sightless eyes could glimpse the heavens for one last time. Delilah, meanwhile, clawed and slapped at the ooze rapidly overtaking her. Already it engulfed her up to her shoulder, and even as Harrald watched, it continued to envelop her. It slipped into her body through her navel and every open orifice, filling her until her veins ran black and her eyes were hazel moons on a starless black backdrop of night.

Finally, Delilah had become a featureless black effigy. Her second skin congealed until it no longer dripped off her supple form but adhered to it, and her screams cut off with a wet choke. She still struggled for a moment before she stopped and she stood immobile on top of the hill, arms dangling loosely at her sides.

Her sultry, feminine voice pierced the mass of slime blocking her throat as she said words that no wife of a serf had ever uttered before or after:

“Favors must be returned; justice and punishment must be doled out in equal measure; the die must be cast, as it will be, as it has been.”

RAN: Ran's eyes widened as he saw the first arrow embed itself in his child's spine, shock outright filling his body as The Princess released a loud, broken scream. Her arms moving forward to knock away Delilah's, grabbing her child and cradling it her chest.

“No! No! Wake up, please! Wake up!” She screamed, tears streaming down her pale cheeks and clutching her child tighter.

But deep inside the mind of Ran, Kishinjiraden was overlooking the current scene with a saddened expression across its face. Yet a mouth formed across the shadowy face, the thin lips opening and began to recite lyrics.

Day to light, dark to night fall the sands of time.

Rans pupils dialated, the crimson shooting toGOLD as his energy flared. A visible golden aura roaring to life around the disbelieving father, staring at his child's lifeless body with a look of pure shock.

Let the years like the gears of a clock unwind.

It seemed like these lyrics were a trigger, causing the awakening of the true Ran. The older one, the one whose power could not be matched by any human or bestial creature. His hair grew, spilling down clear to his lower back yet the silken tresses were the same lightning blue. The golden hue expanded through his eyes, the pupils becoming more oval.

In your mind walk through time back to better days. Memories like a dream wash your tears away.

The song pounded through every fiber of his being, the previously unheard piano roared through him. Kishinjiraden's soft voice waking him, slowly but surely. Everything seemed to be reversing in this dream-- No. Not reversing, that wouldn't be the right term. Ran's energy was simply.. purifying every living being in the immediately area of any impurities they might possess. Even as Delilah was being seemingly corrupted by some unknown source. The energy cast it out, destroying the unnatural being living inside the pregnant woman.

Like a star in the sky darkness can't reach you.

His attire was even changing, the kimono shifted to that ofGOLD. The same amber phoenix seeming to stitch itself across Rans left shoulder, the wing stretching across his lower bacl. The one visible eye was that of a human transmutation circle, seemingly corrupting the beautiful cycle of life that the phoenix represented. His bottoms shifted to the long, flowing hakamas that tucked into the basic tatami sandals.

Light the night, joy is light 'til a new dawn.

The sun roared above the grassy plains, casting the warm rays of life over the entirety of the Kingdom.GRANTED, the child would not be brought back to life. But the dog would survive, his energy had taken a hold of the wound and sealed it right back up. But his child would look merely as-if it were sleeping.

Cast away your old face full of gloom and spite. With this mask I ask to borrow your light!

The piano ended on a strong chord, Kishinjiraden's voice rang out in a quivering soft note. Two more items appeared on Ran's persona.. Two very unique, ancient weapons had materialized from seemingly no where. The first was a katana with a pearly hilt, tucked neatly into the ebony obi. The second was hidden from sight, but its power was every bit as great as the user himself. It was part two to the Keikan combo, while the first was a katana that got stronger with every person it cut down. The scroll contained every weapon ever forged by its previous owners. Oh yes... Things were definitely about to pick up.

“Harrald.” He spoke in a low voice, anger apparent in his tone. “Take your wife, The Princess and my... children,” he fought to actually say the word, pain visible on his youthful visage. “Back to your home, I will... deal with this.” He growled, his power literally exploding through the entirety of the kingdom. The waves that threatened to destroy everything in its path just-so happened to come across the wide ranging power. Sure enough, as the waves crashed against it. Curling against what appeared to be an invisible barrier...

Ran reached into his kimono and gripped the scroll... “Show true savagery, Abamawemaru Keikan!” His voice boomed, the scroll opened and seemingly disappeared in the middle of the air. Dissolved into the air itself, it seemed. But sure enough, a black kodachi pierced the bubble and plunged right into the water.

“Etai.. my faithful.” He spoke softly, his right hand covered in the thin gauntlet gentlySTROKED the air. An apparition of what appeared to be a snake, appeared at his fingertips. Gently stroking the python under its head. Its tongue flicking out to almost taste the air. “Consume...”

The kodachi emanated a silverLIGHT before a loud crack ripped through the skies. Raw destructive energy roared through the water, breaking it down into its base components before a comically large mouth with what appeared to be razor sharp teeth opened in the side of the kodachi. The tongue lashed out and licked it before it began to... drink the tsunami. Locking it within Etai's own spirit and keeping it nice andSAFE. But otherwise the power it held was added to Etai's own, rendering that bit of destructive water useless.

“Prepare phase two, my loyal weapons.” He spoke evenly, watching thousands of what appeared to be black stars form in the sky above. Praying his wife and children as well as the farmer and his wife were far away from here, hopefully back in their home where they'd be safe. Ran would not allow any harm to come to them as long as he was alive.

“They say the future is written in blood. Set in stone upon an altar of sacrifice, lives elixir spilled across its smooth surface. If what is said is true, then the fates have kindly informed me any who attempt to cross me will be sent to the innermost dimension of hell.”

“You have been warned.”

GUTS: Abandon All Hope.


Black lightning blinked across the sky and thunder cackled as the storm crept forward, insidiously corrupting the healthy, blue sky like a malignant tumor. The sky was the color of a fresh bruise, and pulsed radiating ancient, arcane magic. A frigid wind swept across the land, and shadows raced unnaturally across the forest floor, they danced vehemently, but were nearly imperceptible, wraithlike. The wind howled as it whisked through the pine trees, violating the still sanctity of the grove. The shadow storm advanced upon the hillocks. In the backdrop of what sky hadn’t been covered by this infestation, phallic tendrils swayed abound, and reality rippled around their thrashing—which at this distance seemed much slower a motion than it was. Strange music played in the distance, but was mostly drowned out by the crashing of the nearby storm.

Harrald, however, hardly took notice of this as he ripped the sobbing Delilah back to himself, terrified for the safety of her and his unborn child; he would shield them with his body. The princess screamed in emotional anguish as the lifeless child lay draped over her open arms. The child’s sister crawled up to her brother, sorrow and fright evident even in the sanguine hues of her eyes. The princess hardly seemed to notice as the child tugged at her expired brother’s sleeve, and looking up to her mother, calling her. The only person who remained calm in this situation was Ran, but barely, his frame seemed to seethe with his barely contained rage. Harrald just shook his head in disbelief before Ran spoke,

“Harrald.”

His voice was authoritative; it grabbed Harrald out of his panic and at the same time knocked him out of his stupor. He looked up at the swordsman, but didn’t say anything.

“Take your wife, the Princess and my… children back to your home, I will… deal with this.” The words alone gave Harrald confidence, even as the titanic black wave crashed against an invisible force in the distance. The farmhand didn’t need the display of power. Ran was a good man, he felt, and he had faith that the swordsmen would see this through. He nodded as he grabbed Delilah’s hand. The princess however was hysterical. The farmer placed his hand on her shoulder,

“Come,” he said, sternly, “we must get to safety.”

She ignored him, her shoulders shaking in a silent sob. Harrald shook her. She would not budge, so he grabbed her under her arm, his hands big and strong as he lifted her over his shoulder. She cried louder as she parted from her son, who was cradled to the earth by Ran’s energy, as peacefully and as softly as a feather carried down in a breeze.

“Follow me, we must go,” Harrald said to Ran’s only living child, “Hurry now, girl.”

She stamped her feet obstinately, tears welling up in the corner of her eyes, “Where are you taking my mommy?!”

Harrald pursed his lips in frustration; he didn’t have time for this. “We are all going to my house, now come.”

“What about daddy?” She said, frowning widely as she looked at her father.

“He’s going to get the bad guys. Now stop dawdling and come!” He snapped, and the little girl froze before she quickly scampered over to him.

Harrald hefted the princess on his shoulder, adjusting his position to her weight, and pulled Delilah along with him, but stopped before he descended the hill. The wind rustled the leaves of the old walnut tree, and the shadow cast by the large landmark seemed heavy and foreboding. Instead of nostalgically remote, the hill and tree now seemed depressing and lonely. He solemnly turned back to Ran. Harrald was not a warrior; he could offer the man little martial support. Despite his desire to, he found deep in his heart there was very little he could do for the man at all. Ran was distant, as lonely as the walnut tree which loomed in the quickly fading sunlight. They were two of a kind. Harrald looked at the other: another man, a soldier, but always a father and said the only thing he could,

“Make them pay.”

***


It was as dark as night near the castle, and Daedalus’s troops were in chaos; they fled as Snivel was cut down by some strange sorcery and retreated back towards the castle, away from the once-advancing tidal wave of black liquid. They had also witnessed the strange draconic creature in the distance, the one who stood as tall as the mountains themselves, and bore strength comparable to none that they had ever seen. It was no wonder they fled, even Daedalus, himself, was fearful of the beast, but he had to get his men back together.

He could feel his men’s fear asSHADES swirled across the forest floor. Shadows twisted and stretched and the trees loomed menacingly over them, laughing at their terror. Daedalus sensed dark magic; things that mortal men were never meant to know of or tamper with. He felt power lurking in the shadows just outside of the corner of his eyes. He felt like he were being chased, and that there was no wall to put his back to, that some ghoul was on the heels of his feet, snarling, laughing and hissing at him, waiting for him to trip so that it could devour his soul. Frantic, the sorcerer opened a magical connection he had established through all of them. It was partially how he coordinated and communicated with his team without alerting his targets of their presence, and at this point, it was his only method of reaching what was might be left of his party.

“Fall back to wolf’s den,” He ordered, “everyone falls back to wolf’s den!”

They had marked several locations in their scouting that would be advantageous to them if things went south, and it was the only thing the mage could think of to do. Perspiration saturated his brow as he fled as fast as his human legs would take him. He was horrified, nearly beyond rational thought. He didn’t even think to use magic to hasten the retreat of him and his company. It was karmic, and he spat as he thought of Hephaestus. The senior wizard had always told him that one day he would be in the position he left his quarry in, and that he would be punished for his malice in a way he could never anticipate. He cursed the name of his elder. He would not die like this, damn them all! He formulated a plan in his head. An escape. The beast, Alutrosity, manifested close to where Markus’ army lingered, and the wizard felt even the military might of their great country couldn’t halt its rampage. Daedalus would take his company and form his own mercenary band away from the commonwealths. He figured he could save two thirds of his regiment if he were to sacrifice a few to slow the beast. Or perhaps Ran would do that for him. Either way, wolf’s den was close, so they didn’t have far to go before he could salvage the situation.

***


Harrald pulled at his wife, who trailed behind him, unable to keep up. He ducked low in the wheat fields, unsure of whether there were still snipers or not, but used the cover to his advantage. They could hear the princesses crying, but they wouldn’t see them to get off a shot, he thought. His knees and thighs burned, he had made a mad dash to the fields, and was forced to not only carry the princess, but her child as well. The girl was little and would probably be unable to keep up. Lightning lit up the sky, and even as Ran’s energies pushed throughout the kingdom, the storm resisted his influence. Thunder roared, and the wind screamed, Harralds heart pounded in his chest. The sun eclipsed as the storm gained ground, booming, growling, grumbling like an angry, and living thing hungry to consume. He felt Delilah deadweight on his arm,

“Harrald, stop,” she panted, breathing very heavily. Then she winced, falling back, which nearly took the man off his feet. “I-I can’t… it-“

“You have to!” He roared above the storm. He would not allow his wife to perish out in the field. He would never allow it.

“No…” she gasped, “y-you don’t understand.” She said inhaling sharply. “The baby… it…”

Harrald’s arm went limp, and his eyes widened, almost bulging, “Gods,” he whispered. Delilah groaned loudly, as she placed her hand atop her stomach, “Oh, gods,” Harrald whimpered.

His wife screamed, and he set down Ran’s girlfriend, who still, yet bawled. “Lady,” he said, grabbing her shoulders. She still cried and he shook her, almost violently, “LADY,” he shouted, “you must help my wife! Please!”

“She needs you,” Harrald begged, recalling that the noble seemed to know something about childbirth in their small talk, “she will not make it without you! I beg of you! I would offer you all the money in the world back, just please, compose yourself and help us! My wife, I, and my child are depending on you!”

The princess stifled a cry as he shoulders jerked, inhaling sharply as she looked at Delilah through tear-blurred eyes and finally spoke, “She… she is going into labor.” The princess slowly stood without Harrald’s assistance, sniffling. Harrald nodded, and scooped his wife in his arms. The other woman held out her hand for her daughter, who stared at her mother concerned throughout the duration of their trip back.

It appeared as if night-time around the house, and the inside of their humble hut was far darker than that. The wind had blown open the door, which open and slammed continually. TheASCENT to the house was like a scene out of a nightmare. The sporadic flashes of lightning lit up the haunted woods behind them. The shadows cringed in the abrupt refulgence, but seeped forth, laughing and mocking their desperation from a distance, shortly after. The temperature had dropped far lower, and was now frigid unbecoming of their season, and rivaling their arctic winters. Cold sweat soaked Harralds back and pants as he bounded up the side of the hill, followed by the princess who now carried her daughter.

Dreadful thoughts passed through Harrald’s mind. He knew the risk of what was about to occur. Were the time right he was going to petition the lord to send a lesser priest to aide in the conception of their child, for he knew that the risks of childbirth in this day and age without the aid of magic were many times fatal to the mother. In fact, many times the child did not make it through the procedure, either. Harrald intoned a small prayer, a prayer from a humble country serf to every and any power that exists on high,

“Please, please, please, take my life in exchange for my wife’s. At the very least save my child, let my child grow up in a world that he or she may never know this kind of horror witnessed. I beg of you… save my babe.” Harrald prayed so earnestly that a tear released from the corner of his eye as he flung open the door to their cottage.

He laid down Delilah on the floor who keened as he grabbed some candles. They would need plenty of light in this utter darkness if they were to have any chance of a safe delivery at all. The princess knelt in front of the laboring woman, her nose red and face swollen from crying. In the nicest voice she could muster she directed her child, “You’re going to be a big girl today, you’re going to help your mother deliver a baby.”

The little girl nodded as the Princess directed her to have Harrald warm up some water, and for the little girl to fetch some towels. A wealth of candles was lit around the group, and the shadows shrank back into the corners like cobwebs woven in the nooks and crevices of their home. Harrald grabbed an old rusty sword from the corner and sat it next to them, were one of those arrow men to burst through their door he would fight to the death to protect his family. He looked with hopeful eyes to the Princess, as the life of his wife and child were in her hands.

The room seemed eerily still despite the storm outside.

***


The legion of the kingdoms guards swallowed Markus’ caravan in their girth, filling in behind him as they strode forward. They were perfectly ordered rank and file, bearing the crest of their king on all their breastplates. The diplomat was verily outnumbered, but maybe not outmatched. He had news too dire to warrant any combat with the natives, anyhow. The storm was darkest here, resembling a moonless eve and the pitch of night pervaded. There were magical flames lit amongst his party, but did little to illuminate the overpowering darkness that settled upon the kingdom.

Atop the long, stone stairway leading to the inner corridor of the kingdom, the king of the commonwealth paced out. He was as regal appearing as any king would be. His brown hair cut short, fitted to his jeweled crown that sat atop his head. His sharp beard was groomed and primed professionally to fill the sharp crooks of his face and fit him with the appearance of wisdom he was renowned for. In his hand a short cane with a golden handle atop it. He walked with a slight limp; however the volumes of fine robes and linens he wore did well to conceal that fact. When he spoke, he could barely shout over the storm

“Count Markus? What is the meaning of this?! What kind of dark sorcery have your mages cast over this land?”

Garth demounted his horse and briskly walked up to the carriage, opening a small side door for his liege. Markus stepped down and slipped through his men to the forefront of his caravan. They all demounted as their lord did. Markus spoke, “This is not my work, good king. In fact, I have arrived with grave tidings.”

Markus took a few strides towards the base of the stairs, and several guards filed in front of the king, they were armed, armored and warded to protect them from Hephaestus’ powerful magic. They crossed their swords over the king, and a few in front of them lowered their crossbows towards the count. All of Markus’ men drew blades, and in an instant of sword bearing the tension became more palpable than it already was. In an unlikely turn of events, Markus raised his hands, away from his saber, open palmed, as if surrendering.

“My intentions were, and still are abundantly clear. I wish to rule, not destroy. I shall take the liberty to be candid with you. I yearn for your kingdom; however there will be naught but ashes to rule.”

A few of the guards oathed, many of them clanged their swords against their shields, roared in anger. The crossbowmen’s trigger fingers were itchy, they wished to kill Markus. “Blasphemy!” Some said, though many of the politicians of the commonwealth would consider it blasphemy that Markus were to even show his vile face in these lands personally. He was hated, and with good reason.

“You dare threaten the king?” One of the knights roared amidst the crowd, and all of them swore angrily in a cacophonous riot. Markus paid them no heed. In fact, he remained eerily focused on the king, ignoring the atmosphere around him.

The king silently raised his hand and his personal guards warily lowered their weapons, as did many of the guards in the courtyard. The sky rumbled above them. “You come in here heralding words of doom, yet you bring such a meager force with you, personally. I feel less than threatened, and more insulted.”

Markus replied.

“Forces beyond our insignificant comprehensions descend upon this land. A great shadow shall darken the empires of man. It is almost here, scratching at our gates…”


Daedalus silently roared for his men to line up as the shadows encroached upon their formation. He waved his arms to pull them in, but the wind drowned out his voice. The men of his company bore blades that quivered and shook like pathetic sticks in the hands of frightened children, staring at the impenetrable darkness before them. They backed up tentatively, their armor rattled like dancing skeletons as they shook, petrified nearly to the point of paralysis. Daedalus thrust his arm up into the air casting a spell of radiance which shone like lighthouse and pulsed with all the life and light the mage could possibly hope to channel within it. The light throbbed and died, not instantly, but gradually so that whatever malign darkness could savor the fear in the men as their hope died with the light. Daedalus’ eyes widened as the luminance faded.

“…You cannot hope to prepare for the suffering it will wreak, but you will know pain beyond the mortal coil of life, agony that transcends all law, and logic…”


Delilah silently screamed at the pains of childbirth as the boards of the home shook and rattled as if a maelstrom threatened to strip the cottage of the very lumber it was composed of. Harrald looked upon her in silent distress; he clenched her hand in his own, pressing his lips to her white knuckles. The princess’s hands were covered in blood, and she shouted something inaudible to her daughter who ran off. In appearance she seemed to be frenetic, unequipped, and timorous. Her hair, matted with sweat and rain. Her garments were soaked through. She hardly appeared a princess at all. The shadows seemed to descend upon them as the little girl returned with additional fresh towels and water. Everyone seemed to take notice at the unnatural occurrence, the universe seemed to hone in on them. Harrald grabbed his old sword. The candles swayed, flickered, and then snuffed out.

“Few will stand against it at all. Their wills are strong…”


An image of Ran shined bright like the northern star. He was what all the townsfolk of the commonwealth had hoped for. Perhaps he was even fit to become their king. He wielded the black kodachi in his hand more deftly than all the swordsman of this land. The walnut tree was his only comrade, now, other than the sheepdog that still sat at his side. Above, the stars appeared black and the storm encroached, struggling through a blast of golden hue. He had something to prove.

“…their convictions are powerful…”


Alutrosity’s roar caused the mountain range to shudder in fear. The mountain lay pulverized at his feet, a triumph that no man—no—no army in this realm could possibly muster. From the pulsing rift in the sky black liquid poured through like a waterfall out of thin air. Through the other end was infinity, what many here would have called it, at least. A great sea poured its volume upon the plane accompanying him. The abomination stood at a size that was incomparable except to the natural formations around him. He, too, was here for reasons personal.

“…their schemes are intricate.”


Nicholus stood with his arms crossed over his chest, his back against the tree. The shadows raced in the woods around him, and the storm crackled above. If Markus were death than Nicholus was pestilence, and the spell he used to dismantle Snivel did nothing to argue the fact. The storm churned about him, promising him time to match his abilities against a demon of ancient caliber; a being of vast power. Nicholus’ motives, much like his grandfathers up until this point, remained a mystery.

“Their actions… are futile. The enemy is everlasting, eternal. The tides of its corruption will flood our realm, eroding our hopes and dreams, dismantling our plots, and shattering our resolutions. Then, when it finally leaves, when our empty souls are finally filled, all that shall remain is an ocean of unending despair.”


The courtyard was entirely silent. They were astonished. Sword hands slackened, eyes widened, bearing down upon the king and his visitor. The king gazed at Markus, considering what he had said. At this point it had darkened to the point where almost no one could see and the only way they could actually communicate was to shout above the howling winds. The king couldn’t see all his soldiers, but he could feel their weight on them, he felt burdened, and replied with an almost automated response,

“Well, then, what shall we do?”

Markus’ would have smiled were he not so afraid himself, he knew even he could not escape the darkness, and in his desperation, he had foolishly tried to bargain with the beast. It was a barter that did not work out in his favor, because in the end all of the deals always favored Matanbuchus. Markus’s eyes glowed like twin embers in the perpetual blackness. Tributaries of molten orange coursed through his bodies like branches of his nervous system. When he spoke the sound of molten rock burning accompanied his voice. A faint red glow luminated under his flesh, causing his skin to glow an opaque crimson. His hair spontaneously caught aflame; as did his cape even his body appeared to completely combust. His next words were spoken mockingly,

“You pray to your worthless gods. That is all you can do.”

A small, forgotten inscription on the door glowed, flaring through the darkness surrounding it. It was the only light at the castle that was not completely swallowed by the unending darkness. The dusty inscription appeared worn with centuries of age, the elder to even the kingdom, itself. The glowing section read:

“ABANDON EVERY HOPE.”

The darkness spread like an infection blighted upon the land. Those within it were the ones who truly suffered. The circle’s foul winds swept through the forest, the trees hollowed, their leaves crumpled and fell, flowers wilted, and brushes lost their foliage. As the gale passed through Daedalus’ company the effects were noticed almost immediately. Their eyes and cheeks sunk in and their lips peeled back like skeletal cadavers. Their skin drooped and sagged and their leather armors soon became too heavy for their bodies to support. Lethargy commanded the squadron now, not the mage. He gasped for air even as the tempest stole it away from him, and when fell supine when he finally managed to look to the sky his beard had whitened, and his flesh was blotched with liver spots. He exhaled a long breath as his ribs cracked and snapped, unable to support the strain of respiration. He couldn’t scream, he couldn’t move. His entire body wasted away, just as the rest of his troops. Their death rattle was a masterpiece, a dirge that carried through the haunted hollows.

The foul wind threatened all who were currently present in the dream. It raced across the land like a powerful shockwave. It advanced, as a curtain of darkness scraping the heavens. Before it reached the combatants ahead it showered them with the ashes of Daedalus and his men, and their last breaths visited those who would hear it, carried along with it all the regrets of wasted lives.


***


“Get me the matches, I can’t see anything!” Harrald could be heard yelling from outside the hut.

Within the serf’s home it was darkest of all. An inky blackness so thick it had to be swum through; it permeated the cottage. Tendrils of pitch flickered through the imperfections of the home, and evaporated in the darkness outside that was less pure than itself. The threshold of a door was as still and placid as an undisturbed pond. A tri-toned scream penetrated Harrald and the princess’s callings—Delilah’s scream. Only it didn’t just sound like her voice. High pitched soprano and low baritone voice accompanied her long, anguished groan. Then the sound of the Princess shrieking, the little girl screaming, and Harrald lamenting permeated the setting. The sound of pottery shattering and the splintering of wood preceded Harrald’s exhortation,

“Stay away… STAY THE HELL AWAY FROM ME!” He cried, before a shrill, angry screech pierced the setting.

Harrald was then silent, and only a small whimpering could be heard. Seconds later Ran’s child came bolting through the open doorway, squealing in panic. The darkness within pulled from her in strings like broken cobwebs, before three esophagus-like tentacles ending in sharp spikes ripped through the doorway, plunging into her back, and one impaling through her shoulder. The little girl yelped in pain as the three slimy tendrils drove her prone. She dug her fingers into the ground, using all the strength her little body had to offer.

“No! Someone help me!” She cried out, but there was no one to hear her.

The being within the cabin gave her a few moments to wail and bawl, before it dragged her in, deliberately and slowly. The child wept as she was pulled in, and her fingers bloodied against the ground as she was outmatched. Her cries grew more hysterical as her fingernails ripped free and her phalanges broke. The closer she got to the cabin, the louder her caterwauling and the slower she moved, as if whatever it was took pleasure in her screams. She held out her hand for someone, anyone to help her.

But no one did.

As the girl was eaten by the darkness, the sounds of her screams were quickly devoured by the sounds of wet, ripping flesh and tearing viscera. Gurgling, slapping, squishing, and splashing were heard as whatever it was within gorged itself upon the small child. After several seconds of feasting there was relative silence, whatever it was had a moment to itself, apparently. But then… a baby giggled. The baby laughed and chuckled mirthfully.

A fetus slithered through the veil of darkness, the thin film of ink peeling from its flesh like a second skin of a snake. It underwent a metamorphosis as it exited its home; its bones began to grow rapidly, causing its skin to strain and stretch over its body, threatening to snap. It never did, but the creature grew and grew. Bones shifted under its slick skin assembling its rib cage. Muscle mass never once increased, even as the monstrosity reared upon its legs. Its emaciated body heaved, inhaling its first vile breath. Cracking and snapping could be heard as the now adult-sized fetus convulsed, twitching as some dark force relocated ligaments, cartilage, and tendons. As it grew to the height of the Delilah and Harrald’s home, it shuddered, itsTIGHT SKIN rippling as it shook off the bits of gore and afterbirth from its body. The creature’s eyes resembled the milky white orbs of a stillborn, and as the creature grew it became more of a cross between fetus and an emaciated adult than anything in between. Each of its fingers twitched uncontrollably, and within seconds it was taller than a tree. Then, its stomach split wide revealing three intestine-like tentacles ending in long, hooked talons. The same pointed cirri that had murdered Ran’s only remaining child.

***


The storm clouds twisted and churned as lightning lit its innards. It was no normal cloud patterns; in fact, the thunderheads were forming something. A hideous humanoid visage scowled into existence from the billows, and thunder boomed a greeting to the apparition. Taking immediate notice to the events unfolding below, the face in the sky sneered, and then bore its teeth, grinning. To anyone viewing the storm with psionic affinityTHE CLOUD glowed with psychic energy on the level of brilliance akin to Mire, itself. It was a beacon of pulsating greens and flaring violet streaks of electrical psi-bolts, but to most, it appeared as an angry personified storm cloud.

A bolt of invisible psychic energy shot forth several hundred meters in front of it. Stabbing an open wound in reality,THE CLOUD sucked in, inhaling whatever lies beyond the rift. What it received was a glowing tether of dream stuff, a physical mooring to the dreamscape, severed at the hands of those who wished it not to be abused. Oh, how it would be, in every way they feared.

THE CLOUDlooked about, and when it exhaled—when it blew out—a swarm of locusts billowed forth, buzzing with intensity as they collectively beat their thousands of wings. They were hungry, and sought to strip everything below of all its nutrients.

The words of the gates spoke truest. Abandon every hope. Abandon all hope.

LYSANDER: In the darkness of the Dreamscape, Hellion’s eyes were useless. His physical being was there, and theLIGHT-absorbing orbs which he so often depended upon to see the world around him were nothing more than blind, useless receptors. Still, Hellion could see all around him as clear as if the bright, yellow sun of Earth had been beating its heat down upon the planet. The Mist lay close upon his body, but yet he saw far. Much farther than he could have normally, even aided by the latent psychometry the cloud-like structure his body exuded afforded him. For a thousand miles he saw, and understood. For a million years he understood, and then a second passed and all that information congealed into a blob within his mind, one that would be used later for whatever nefarious purposes The Master of the Mist might come up with.

Having followed The Sounder, not into the waves themselves but throughout the Dark Realm and Dreamscape, he’d come to one conclusion, which spoke volumes about the creature whose side he’d stood at. It was fucking insane. SMD’P was, by all rights and regulations, utterly and completely fucking insane. Hellion didn’t know when he’d lost what little sanity he’d held, but it had apparently happened. The mega-tsunamis could have crushed Hellion’s body into tiny pieces, ripping him asunder into millions of tiny shreds. Yet, The Sounder swam amongst them like they were nothing more than the waters of some coastal town. In-fucking-sanity.

Still, Hellion followed. The Mist wrapped around his body, like a skin-suit designed toPROTECT and enhance him. A suit of immense, untold power that even Hellion had yet to fully tap. Still, the power of the waves was strong - and Hellion feared that even with the covering of his body,PROTECTED as it was from physical blows and crashing waves, they would still rip him to pieces. So it was through portals he followed, hopping forward to keep pace with The Sounder, running atop the water where plausible - like some alien Jesus. His pistols were in hand, both held with their barrels pointed downwards, prepared to lift them up immediately.

The Mist wound two long tendrils down each of his arms, like thick ropes that slithered along like snakes, before wrapping about his hands and then feeding themselves into the cylinders of his guns, loading them with the artificially crafted, specialized rounds. The underside of the Tyrant Guns’ barrels underwent a slight change, as the ancient fog formed two foot long blades on the underside, as physical as the swords Ran - an old nemesis he’d once faced in combat, wherein no winner had been decided explicitly - carried.

Hellion used the bladed undersides of his pistols to cut through several of the large waves which tried to, consciously, crush him between them. Rending the water in places, before stepping through them mid-stride in order to protect himself at a time when a portal would have been useless, the suddenness of the waves crashing upon him was so unexpected.

The Sounder, in his thousands of tiny pieces, swam like magic minnow through the water, undisturbed by the crashing waves, while Hellion had to fight for every foot he gained. Still, The Master of the Mist kept pace with his compatriot, running down the trail of Narcissus like the proverbial Gunslinger after The Man in Black. He didn’t know their ultimate destination,PROTECTED as the mind of Narcissus had become when he exited the Dreamscape. Hellion’s ability to break into the psi-link, to use it across vast distances and countless dimensions was strong, but wherever that vain, vile creature had ran to had great defenses, and so Hellion’s connection was slowly dimming, dying away even as he tried harder to seek out the object of his malice.

His connection with the others in The Collective, including Isaak, was undisturbed; so close was their bond that not even the defenses of the dream could keep Hellion from seeing into the mind of his companion, and some portion of his mind continued to watch over the happenings among the others, keeping a close eye on Isaak and his confrontation with the great beast; Alutrosity.

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Isaak stood before the monstrous creation, which he saw as nothing more than Narcissus’ pet Mawg, who from henceforth he would reference as Barfolomew, Barf for short, awaiting the beast’s first move, awaiting something - anything - that would signal the opportune moment to strike. His goal was not really to kill this beast, it had never been his intention to do so, not even remotely. His mission was to find the source of the power, to find the being who knew where Anathema was - and how to retrieve him. A mission that, until recently, had been Hellion’s primary task. Now, though, he’d confronted the beast. He’d come to stand before the monstrous cretin, and to end its life if that became necessary. Fair warning had been given, and his eyes sought out a sign of the creature’s answer, undisturbed and unwavering was his attention…until…

Behind the beast, through the same hole in the dream Alutrosity had entered upon, came the man-child Narcissus himself. A few within the horde had branded him with the name ‘Betrayer’, a moniker spoken in such spite-filled whispers that their collective hatred for the bastard couldn’t go unnoticed through the psi-link, even had they wanted it to. Narcissus seemed different, however. As if some portion of his whole had gone missing, and though Isaak couldn’t fathom the splitting of the whole into halves - something he’d never even considered possible - he could scarce help but to feel the difference in this one.

Without his human side, Narcissus was quite a bit more dangerous, Isaak knew. They all knew what their human sides did to them, those of them who’d ever had human sides anyway. It was that compassion, buried deep within their darkened, hollowHEARTS that many had sough to rid themselves of, through various means. Isaak had never had that problem, being absent of conscience had left him without much ‘human’ in him to begin with, and the Vesuvian Virus had served to rid him of the tiny sliver of humanity he’d clung to. It had made him perfect.

Still, now he had more than he could possibly handle on his plate. The call went out, a frequency so high that only The Collective could hear, or comprehend it. The Psi-Link crackled and burned with the ferocity of the signal, and at once their heads turned, from wherever they were upon the planes of the living and dead, to look in the direction of that call. Azaroth, who sat upon the throne of skulls and bones alongside the great Master Idea, or at least what his mind saw as the physical representation of Idea, could barely contain his desire to join the fray alongside his brother, to help and protect him.

His orders and duties were clear, though. He could not interfere, nor could any save those closest to Isaak - of which existed only one.

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Mid-slice, where he was cutting through a particularly large wave, Hellion heard the call and his focus immediately shifted. He was the only one who could go to Isaak, who could enter the dream of Ran - wherein he now knew Isaak resided, to confront Narcissus in the name of Idea. Perhaps The Sounder had the power to follow, Hellion was unsure - and now he didn’t care. His mission had changed once more, already the weight of Idea was falling on his shoulders - the words trying to cripple him, to bring him to his knees while he received the orders of his indomitable master.

He refused to let them, he refused to allow himself to be crushed beneath the waves just to hear the blissful agony of Idea’s voice. He fought against the weight of the words, and the power of the mega-tsunamis, while following the new path laid out before him. His mental voice, calling through the Psi-Link, sent a message to The Sounder.

“Come.”

The entire message spoke a thousand words, the mental images accompanying it much stronger and more powerful than usual, as urgency struck upon Hellion. His soldier, his friend, a man he considered the closest thing he’d ever had, or ever would have, to a brother was being confronted by the monstrous Narcissus and his pet dog, Hellion could see them both so clearly in his mind’s eye. His speed picked up, and with one final portal-jump, he appeared before the entrance Alutrosity and Narcissus used to enter the dream-world. It was on lockdown, it seemed, gates which cut off the waves which flowed through it were in place, attempting to keep out any unwanted visitors - which Hellion was sure meant himself and The Sounder.

Not caring about the waves crashing against him any longer, unable to feel the sting of their pain through the constant mending of his body by a small portion of The Mist, he began to pound against the Gates of Fortitude (as he’d already begun calling them) with his Mist-laden fists, corrupting the material and corroding it a thousand years in less than a few seconds. The first broke, and like a dam-wall coming down the waters of the Dreamscape rushed through it, already washing The Mist before them at Hellion’s allowance. The crushing of the waves began to break through the Gates, as The Master of the Mist’s body rushed head-long, face-first through the tunnel.

He flowed through each gate with reckless abandon, uncaring of any physical damage done to his body, or even mental damage that these things might do. He was constantly tearing through the defenses in place, using his guns to blow them out of his way, or the long daggers on the end to cut them from his presence. He was enraged, enthralled in his own anger. Where many were hindered by their anger, he was only aided. He cut through the defenses measures like a hot, razor-sharp knife through butter. The Mist lashing out here and there, protecting him from whatever he might have missed in his mad dash for Narcissus.

Finally he broke through the last Gate, and there stood Narcissus, his back to the portal, and Hellion reached out as he flew. He came out just behind and above the other, wherein his head-long rush would send him flying overhead. The Psi-Link between them was masked, Narcissus would be unable to sense Hellion for those few short moments, and Hellion used it to his advantage. The Mist lashed out, wrapping around the neck of Narcissus as Hellion flew overhead, and then shifted his weight.

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Isaak saw it all with the mind’s eye, the link he held so dearly with Hellion – the one which brought them together as mental creations, a single being dispersed throughout several bodies. Their power was bolstered by their creative genius, the link between them strengthening them ten-fold, in addition to the link the hive-mind constantly shared with one another anyway. Isaak saw Hellion’s body descend from the opening in the dream, which had somehow traversed a good distance – despite it being a hole rather than a literal portal – to be located in the forest.

He saw it through Hellion’s eyes, as the man descended upon Narcissus and lashed the Mist around his head, before shifting his weight and throwing him toward the skyscraper of a monster – whose back was to the wooded area, and thus the impending missile being launched upon his body by Hellion’s malicious endeavor to kill them both.

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Hellion had thrown Narcissus body with the shifting of his weight, throwing himself to the ground and sending Narcissus flying by the Mist-leash around his throat. As his body had fallen onto its knees, Narcissus - currently helpless with The Mist wrapped so tightly around him - was thrown overhead, and then released so that his body could become a missile, a projectile of such lascivious speed that even light had to stop for a second to ask itself what the fuck had just passed it mid-flight.

Alutrosity had no warning, no sign of danger until Isaak lunged quickly to his right. Isaak’s lunge carried him from the projectile body of Narcissus, who was carried into the back of his faithful canine-like pal, and then they were both carried in a roll - head over heels - across a small portion of the plain, leaving behind only upturned earth and torn ground, before they finally ended theirFITFUL lunge in a deep crevice, wherein their bodies lay intertwined for the moment.

Hellion, who sensed the joke coming to Isaak’s mind, beat him to the punch.

“A boy and his pet dog, there’s nothing more precious to behold is there, Isaak?”

Isaak sneered back up the mountain, where his companion now stood, the wind beating against his back and sending the tails of his duster flittering about behind him.

“You didn’t come all this way just to steal my joke, Hellion. I guess you’re here to kill Narcissus and Barf, while ICONTINUE on with my objective, yes?”

“Of course, brother. I brought my own pet dog to the party too, The Sounder should be joining me momentarily. So you should run along and finishYOUR task, we’ll handle these two imbeciles.”


Isaak simply nodded, and then turned toward the blackening sky across the plain, wherein he could sense the presence Idea had warned them of, and told them to seek out. There was something more there, though, a pure, shining aura which told him of another’s existence. A man Isaak wasn’t fully familiar with, but whom the Hive-Mind had all known for some time. Immediately, he ran that direction. His mission was not one of combat, but with the thousands of winged beasts coming from the sky he wondered if he just might get to kill someone anyway.

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Hellion stood atop the mountain, watching as Alutrosity and Narcissus disentangled themselves - awaiting the arrival of The Sounder, whom was sure to follow to have his own fun in the action. His fog-grey eyes simply watched the two, and while his mouth did not move he spoke directly to them both. The malice in his words, the spite in his mental voice, not being held back even the slightest of bits.

“No more running. No more hiding. Your cowardice and betrayal will be atoned for this day, Narcissus. By the judgment of the great Idea, your mind is to be crushed and broken, to be ripped away from the physical body you possess, to be rebuilt and reused by the great machinations of our mutations. You will not survive this encounter. The day of judgment has come, and you will answer for your sins.”

Hellion had yet to move, yet to do anything but deliver the speech he had been told to give. His eyes, however, shifted from Narcissus to Alutrosity.

“And you, mutt, will be brought into the fold. Infected and treated, consumed and controlled. You have no choice in the matter, and resistance is futile. You are noMATCH for us, so to stand against us would only come to an outcome you nor I would like to reach. You may stand beside your master like the faithful, loyal dog you are. You may fight against our will, but to do so is suicide for you will fail wholly.”

Hellion drew his guns from their respective holsters, and with the Mist-made bullets filling the chambers cocked the hammers back.

“Choices lads, I think your answers are past due. The time for payment has come, let’s see what you’ve got.”

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Azaroth and Idea watched on from their perches millions of light-years away, content with the way things were shaping up. Their master plan was being fulfilled, and soon what was lost would be regained. What was stolen would be retaken.

ALUCROAS: Everything seemed to be going just fine. Alucroas was darting along with no problems whatsoever. Yet, for some reason, there was a feeling of impending doom tickling his brain. It made him snarl viciously, directing it at the megatsunami which seemed to simulate the events going on in Ran's dream.

A mouth formed along the middle of the wave, teeth half the size of his brother sprouting from black gums. It shrieked at them both, paying specialattention to Theo, for it knew of his relations to Narcissus; growing angry at his existence while taking on the shape ofTHE CLOUD which had manifested above Alutrosity and the others. It deemed Alucroas a target as well by linking him to his older sibling who was currently being attacked by a swarm of locusts.

The combined need for destroying anything even remotely related to the chaos, with the sheer evil now plaguing the dream and its inhabitants manifested itself in theCLOUD. The Dark Realm could be both extremely helpful as shown a few minutes ago, but it could also serve as an incredible threat, simply by acting out its very nature.

Grinding his teeth together, the dragon started whipping his head back and forth to combat the bugs now biting away at his exoskeleton. Electric current raced through him, frying the little bastards to charred hunks of insect, only to return to their watery state and recombine with the tsunami. An enormous pincer shot out, clenching Alucroas by the waist, only to have its top claw crushed by his incredible jaw strength, reducing itself to a gel-like substance, and then back to being fluid again.

The next threat almost made his eyes roll back in his head. A devastatingly familiar-looking, beak-faced son of a bitch took off like a speed demon. A fraction of a second later, he was screaming from the impact of five claws raking across his face, running the full length of his body, finally to be smacked away by the sharp bone of his tail. He tried to unleash a bolt of electricity, but found himself growing tired every time he tried to channel it through his body. Something was squirming around inside him, forcing his body to short-circuit and emit tiny, insignificant sparks on par with a static shock taken from touching a metal object that had been rubbed too much.

Alucroas roared louder as he realized who it was. The Dark Realm had manifested a facsimile of the Aptosite -- Raizer in an attempt at throwing him through a mental loop. It gleaned the information during the beast's travel through the subconscious sector, and was now utilizing it against him.

Mouths unzipped along the monster's limbs, delivering massive bites to his arms and legs, uneffected by the acidity of Alucroas' blood in-part due to not being made-up of actual flesh, although the contact with water certainly did amplify it and make it worse. He almost seemed to grin, sharp yellow eyes piercing him right down to the core, knowing full well what his true weaknesses were: its teeth lunged out, embedding themselves into the faces of his mother and father, slamming them into the ground repeatedly by undulating the strands that connected them to the Aptosite's arms.

Obsidian teeth lunged out fromTHE CLOUD as well, connected by thick, ribbed cords, slicing through the air with a shrill whistle. Alucroas lowered himself slightly, then sprung, throwing his body out to the side in a massive barrel roll, subsequently slinging himself into another portal in the process. When he emerged, he reached out, plunging his horns deep into the gums while gaining a hold with his double-jaws, claws embedding deep into the flesh.THE CLOUD responded with equal tenacity, flailing its teeth about like whips, smacking into the mud, becoming so entangled in the seaweed that it nearly slowed down from the brief resistance that was offered.

Raizer yanked on Alucroas' horns, jerking his head back and forth, squeezing his throat with both hands before kicking off with his feet. The dragon plummeted down to the mud from the impact, but not before reaching out with his double-jaws to bring the Aptosite down with him. Alucroas violently slammed into the mud, getting dragged along for the ride as more teeth attempted to drive themselves between his exoskeleton. The two guardians who flew alongside him responded back with twin-bolts of maroon and cerulean, solidifying themselves around the tentacled teeth and yanking as hard as they possibly could. Strands of Dark Realm flesh snapped like the leathery reins of a horse, flinging the abomination at a distance great enough to reach Theo.

By now, Raizer had disappeared in a giant splash, unable to withstand the impact, nor had the Dark Realm put enough effort into his creation to sustain him against such blows.

Billions of gallons of water spilled everywhere as the cloud returned to its original state (with the exception of the mouth and its flailing teeth), only to regroup as a multitude of miniature waves, that were still large in comparison to Alucroas, who landed in the mud, becoming tangled in plant-life. He was starting to get a little pissed off now, growling as he incinerated the lush greenery with a burst of electricity, screaming into the air as he took off again. The waves started to swarm him, showing their teeth as they raced toward him, snagging his claws and slowing him down as he attempted to regain his speed and composure.


~*~



Spikes...

Spikes...

"SPIKES?!"

Alutrosity raised his colossal leg up into the air, streams of dust trailing behind his toes as he stomped hard against the earth, smashing the area beneath his foot like an egg. The resulting shock-wave went out in every direction, shattering Isaak's pathetic attack with the same amount of effort it takes for an infant to break the surface tension of water in a bathtub. Hopefully he had the good sense to run, for if he didn't, he would be swallowed by fissures forming all around him, have his bones pulverized by the debris flying at him, and his skin and every precious organ beneath it be dissolved into a fine soup, by the corrosive fluids of his blood which he now sprayed at the Herald.

The wave of darkness hardly fazed Alutrosity. His bones did not age, his flesh did not dry out... the only thing he felt was an enticing shiver go shooting down his spine.

"IS THIS ALL THE EVIL YOU CAN MUSTER?!"

His nostrils flared, his eyes went dark as electricity showered his frame, taking on a black hue to match the sunless sky. The lightning coursed through his wings, still flapping just as furiously as they were before, buzzing louder and louder -- so loud, in fact, that if one had a weak enough heart, it might have just stopped beating. He gave a final beat, and dispersed his attack which had been tainted with the raw essence of death and destruction -- two sides of the same coin. Grass died, the soil that it grew from was destroyed. People died, and the homes they lived in were blown to oblivion.

If the ever-darkening sky didn't serve as sufficient warning that things were about to get Hellish, then surely, the giant chunk of metal being deposited from it should. It caused everything around it to scrunch together like bedsheets, stretching it back out as it draggedTHE CLOUDS down with it. Once it had finished forcing its way through, the sky sprung back into place with a few tense vibrations to accompany it as it calmed down.

The Monstrosity's interest had piqued in the ensuing events, calmly watching as it fell to the earth, aiming to crush his ally beneath its incredible mass. A grunt preceded his following actions: he reared back and threw his body slightly forward, casting his tendrils clear over the heads of many, while running a positive current through every one of them. He let out a strained growl as his fleshy appendages wrapped themselves around it tightly, cancelling out the electricity that it had been surging with; the positive charge he employed was merely a means of avoiding electrocution, and being badly burned in the process.

It took an unimaginable amount of strength for Alutrosity to reel it into his arms, but reel it in, he did; heaving the chunk of metal over his powerful shoulders, while grasping it with his claws. For the time being, this object seemed relatively lifeless, but the beast who held it in his arms was more than smart enough to know that it was far from true. Instead of just holding it there, he sniffed the air, acting upon his acute senses to locate a suitable target to throw the fucker at. Surprisingly enough, however, he didn't smell it, so much as heard it giggle and cry in the far background, almost taunting him as he searched for his new opponent. In the distance, he saw tree-bark crack but unfortunately was only able to make out a faint outline due to everything being engulfed in darkness.

"That's much better..."

~*~


Those tongues weren't getting any easier to dodge.

The environment was starting to stretch into an imperceptible blur, he could barely feel the ground beneath his feet, his body in a constant arch as he exited the tsunami, desperately attempting to not lose sight, and keep up without tumbling over from the momentum of his turns. His body leaned forward, the left-hand side which had been facing away from the wave feeling as though it were being swung like a fulcrum. At this rate, he was going to lose control of his speed and start tumbling, something which would prove to be very bad for him, especially with the appearance of countless glowing meteorites.

Worse yet, what was that mouth that had appeared before him, why was it grinning at him, and why did it want to seemingly devour Theo. Alucroas tilted his head to the side and repeatedly snapped his jaws in the direction of his companion, looking at first up to the sky and then back to the roaring wave, which threatened to devour them both.

Pearly white teeth took on a deep sapphire tinge, snapping, crackling, popping from every corner of his salivating jaws. The mist left over from the tsunami -- while more than refreshing -- did more to obscure his vision than cool him off, putting himself in a hairy predicament. He needed a method of moving faster than he already was, otherwise his semi-tired state would cause him to slow down and lose the wave, in addition to being unable to evade the onslaught of astral asteroids that had been speedily falling toward him and Theo.

The horns atop his head, the exoskeleton protecting his innards from harm, and the very flesh itself that composed them suddenly started fading in and out, leaving an electric outline of himself behind. He didn't quite notice it at first, but he definitely felt it when the marks on his arms lit up, emerald strings tethering themselves to the mouths of the guardian beasts who had been accompanying him. The muddy ground beneath them started to crack and split open, forcing Alucroas to spread his wings and take flight. Below, he observed the raw astral energy which composed the dreamscape, flowing like a river in the same direction as the tsunami.

It was now or never.

Both beasts dived low to the ground, dipping their mouths into the current and drank it up, channeling the energy through their bodies and into Alucroas. Being so well attuned to the spirit plane, and seeing as these two creatures were spiritual beings given physical form, it was easy for Alucroas to gorge himself on the energy, replenishing himself in addition to ridding his body of the plague that the facsimile of Raizer had infected him with earlier in the process.

When he finally stopped feeding, his body began to undergo a change, his exoskeleton tearing off his body to reveal the flesh beneath, which also stripped away. Seconds later, Alucroas appeared as an elemental dragon, composed of nothing but raw electricity, taking advantage of the surplus of astral energy he had just dined on to do so. The result was rather, than simply hopping from one portal to the next, he was rapidly conducted from one drop of mist to another, following the trail the megatsunami perpetually left behind.

His body pulsed forward, jumping from one drop of mist to another, deftly evading every meteor aimed at him and Theo. A flash of whiteLIGHTblind-sided him as he inadvertently pulled himself into the megatsunami, itself, now attempting to digest him in its stomach that had been formed inside along with the mouth that had been formed outside. Fortunately, he had been healed, so navigating this stuff should be easy, swishing his tail back and forth like a rudder, his body zipping back and forth through various sub-currents, until finally, strangely he appeared somewhere totally foreign.

Alucroas returned to his physical state, but he was no longer on the dreamscape, but rather had accidentally entered into someone else's dream. All around him was a cosmic wonderland, behind him some kid was rocketing down some rainbow road on a unicorn. Childish curiosity guided his actions as he raced after the creature, who suddenly crashed through a brown crate with a yellow question mark on it, a film selection of weapons scrolled down before selecting an image of a flame.

The abomination looked around briefly, then noticed several other creatures stampeding his way, some of whom weren't even living beings, others were ordinary humans riding around in go karts. In one of them a chipmunk looking female road a goofy looking tiger, crashed into another brown crate and selected a black sphere. A crazed laugh reached his ears as the entire race track was engulfed in flames, and a black hole launched from the tiger's mouth, devouring the heat along with the center of the road.

Surely, Alucroas had been scared shitless by now, and was quite confused as to why the hell he had ended up in some cosmic, video-game race track that some kid must have fallen asleep playing. It seemed he was either going to have to win, or find a way out. Either way, if Alucroas could talk, the only word that would've come from his mouth were...

"BULLSHIT!"

~*~


Alutrosity heaved the mountain over his arms and was prepared to sling the metallic chunk of metal forward, until he heard something strange, and quite annoying buzz around in his ear like a fly. It spoke of how he was Narcissus' pet, that he was somehow there to serve, that he was some pathetic little hound who begged for food beneath a table just because it knew how to catch a stick in its mouth, or in the Monstrosity's case, a High Top Tree, sort of like the ones he encountered back in Monterrey, when he had first encountered the Son of Idea known as Dreadnaught. A simpleglimpse into the Val'Gara's collective psychic network, a mere inkling of a reminiscence from their god, Idea, leaking into their fragile, broken, fucked-to-hell-and-back-whose-own-master-had-been-beaten-and-somehow-broken-again-by-a-Psion named Shadow of all things could've told them who he was.

These creatures, these monsters, these puny miscreants needed to be enlightened, and he was just the MONSTROSITY to do so.

"KNOW"

His body surged with electric current, claws digging deep into the mountainous, metal beast he held in his arms, tendrils bringing it gently down to his back where he could balance it on his wings. Alutrosity's lips furled back, teeth glowing a perpetual white in the darkness that had surrounded them all, showering the world in a brilliantly loud thunderstorm to compliment the one Magnus -- oh yes, he knew exactly what man that face in the sky belonged to, for his little brother had fought alongside him at one point during a war that rocked the universe itself -- had created, serving only to heighten the everlasting chaos that had been slowly consuming this land, and the dreamer who had wrought it forth.

"YOUR"

The repulsive force of negative against negative, electric against electric, monster against monster, drove the metallic, metal, monstrous creation of Idea into the rift behind him, blocking Hellion's path, and more. The waters of the Dark Realm began to congeal all around him, crystallize, solidify all around him into an unbreakable prison that would trap him there. Not for all eternity of course! The Monstrosity wasn't that cruel, but sometimes people -- especially his enemies -- had a habit of forgetting one very basic thing about Alutrosity. He was a monster, he was an entity driven primarily by bloodlust, and while he was able to control it to an extent, if only for the sake of protecting his little brother, he was a warrior first and foremost.

He lived as one, he had died as one, and he even existed in the afterlife as one.

Alutrosity dashed forward, a fissure following his every footstep, an eardrum burst from every violently, electrically amplified scream he shouted into the sky (not-to-mention the tiny insects who made up the locust swarm), several ribs shattering from the primal fear which caused their hearts to beat against their chests like a jackhammer being wielded by The Devil himself. His speed had gone up tenfold thanks to the boost he had received from the two electromagnetic fields clashing against each other, his resolve concentrated like gravity concentrates a black hole, and the force of his horns swinging up into that whining, crying, laughing, giggling baby fuck whose only lullaby would be the one they sang at its funeral, before burying him in his final RESTING

"PLACE!"

ODIUM: Hellion was a fool. The shell he attacked was empty, already given to the dream. Nevertheless, his arrival did not come as a surprise; that instant of invisibility did little to mask the time he had spent dawdling behind the gates Narcissus had erected. While he invented names for those small barriers, traps were set. Fates were decided. At the same time, a cluster of worms-turned-steel clogged the hole leading from the pathway into the dream, isolating the two feuding brothers in the gloomy half-dark.

Favors must be returned; justice and punishment must be doled out in equal measure; the die must be cast, as it will be, as it has been.

The Mist reached out to grab a head that wasn’t there. Instead, it dissolved into a lasso of sticky black threads that reached up to grab Hellion by the ankle as he passed overhead and inelegantly slam him back down into the shallow pool of water left behind in the wake of the tidal wave.

At the same time, his arm sloughed away, decomposing into a serpent of slithering cells that expanded rapidly, engulfing the section of the Mist attacking Narcissus’ husk in a bubble of slick protozoa. Though Hellion’s weapon – or perhaps his master? – certainly wielded power to be reckoned with, the cells were the answer to the problem it posed. For every individual the Mist corrupted into nonexistence, another had been produced, identical to its lost brother. Perhaps they even overcame the Mist, slowly but steadily continuing their growth even as earlier generations crumbled into dust.

They too were driven by a sapient consciousness; rather than an alien mind as in the case of Hellion, however, Narcissus both gave life to his creations and took it away. He drove them, controlled them and evolved them. Many died, but in death they laid the foundation for their descendants’ survival; theirs were short existences, but grand ones, full of meaning.

Meaning. A funny word.

His brothers called him a coward, but they scarcely knew the meaning of the word. They hid behind the mask of piety, could not dissolve the caul from their eyes. He saw through it, though; saw the foundation of their faith for the worm-eaten derelict it had become.

His sea of cells leapt to ensnare its prey. The Dark Realm waters, meanwhile, had solidified into a small redoubt that stood out against the oncoming flood, and the cells slid over them to add another layer to the Herald’s prison. Foolishly, Hellion had unleashed the truncated parts of the tsunami in destroying the gates that held them back, so now they bore down upon them and their little confrontation. Most of the wave raced out into the dream, but what remained behind was all that Narcissus required to crush his impudent brother.

Another layer joined the prison, this of melting ice, a thin slush that covered the cells and slowly trickled down into the chamber constricting Hellion through funnels in the organic growth.

Then, death would come to Hellion in the form of purging astral heat and smitingLIGHT, and at the same time, Narcissus’ lilting voice would linger disembodied in the void between dream and dreamscape:

Do your quips hide the pain inside that little foggy form, sweet brother? Are they a strong enough shield? Why speak truths when lies suffice? But I can see the scars, the insecurities, written upon you as clearly as tattoos, telling me your story… but there are things I want to see written deeper in the book, Hellion. What stories will your corpse tell? Is there anything written there at all? Or are you perhaps just a shadow seeking substance, groping desperately for that which casts theLIGHT... Here. I have plenty to share.

Though he might strain his ears, there would be nothing more for Hellion to hear as Narcissus’ last brotherly gift rained down upon him.

Meanwhile…

~*~


Nicholus looked up into the tumultuous sky and saw death leering back at him. A chill wind swept across the earth, bringing with it all the weary years he had left in his life. Like a fast forward montage through the seasons, the trees’ leaves faded to rich yellows and oranges and then fell off entirely, resting on the ground in thick drifts that withered as the mounting gale tore through them.

What a terrible draft, he thought, and knelt down to grab one of the rats he’d made out of the bandit a moment ago. Unprompted, his cape fluttered around him, elongating beyond its fabric to swallow Nicholus in a black cage, a warm womb to keep the wind out.

For an instant, he was blind. Then the crystals he wore began to emit a faint glow, like an amethyst candle in a dark, cozy house. Images slid across the pulsating uterine walls, images of another life unknown and unremembered. The distended sac doubled as a heart as well, it seemed, pulsating grotesquely as it hovered just above the trembling earth. With each beat, it traced the contours of the dream and fed them back into Nicholus’ mind while he completed his reeducation. Haran’s fall and Levitus’ disgrace became known to him, as did Mire and Idea and Hellion and the Sounder and Alutrosity and the Dark Realm and dozens of other concepts beyond his meager mortal comprehension, but somehow, aided by a velvet whisper in his skull, he managed to latch onto each and make it a part of himself.

Suddenly inspired, he extended the index finger of his free hand and stared at it intently. From its tip slid a cold and stony object, but forged from the same substance as his gemstone trinkets. The seedling levitated in the air for an instant before soaring upward, penetrating the black veil of Nicholus’ nest to linger in the air above. From the hole it left behind, crystal corruption spread down the length of the appendage, transforming it into a crooked talon betterFIT for a crone than a nobleman.

Too small to be seen in the seed by the naked eye, faces pressed themselves up against its inner walls like schoolboys to windows in search of freedom. They would find none… at least not yet. The wave of electricity and death manifest bearing down on them and their master acted like fertilizer; the seed drank in Magnus’ eldritch darkness, and the fell wind tempered these elements into the ideal conditions for a rose, courtesy of Valharan.

It grew unstoppably, petals blooming with thin veins through which the trapped souls coursed as if blood. The stem tore downward, thin as a needle and sharp as a sword, thornless for it needed no such defense. It sapped the magic from its surroundings, distorting Alutrosity’s destructive blast and drinking gluttonously of it to quench its thirst. The energy it stole was distilled as it traversed the length of the fatal flower, coursing down its stem and back into the dark cocoon where Nicholus waited.

Refined and purified into a single drop of untainted wickedness, what the rose took from Alutrosity’s wave slid off the tip of the stem and onto Nicholus’ crooked crystal claw. For an instant his finger glowed brighter than all the constellations in the night sky, and heat lanced through him hotter than each of the suns behind the light of each star. He wanted to double over as the agony filled him, but had no space to. Instead he cradled his knees to his chest and hated.

His hate resonated in the space around him so powerfully that what few trees clung to life melted away into the fabrics of the dying dream. His beautiful rose shuddered in tandem with the earth as the tremors of the warring monsters split it asunder. Then, for a fleeting instant, it was still… before shattering into a hundred thousand shards that all fell deep into the yawning chasm as it opened underfoot.

Oh, child, the voice said in his skull. Oh, sweetling, oh son, what have you done? The abyss glowed with whitish-purple light and screams floated out, a chthonic choir of suffering souls.

Go, my son. Make rightYOUR mistakes. Return your favors; dole out justice and punishment in equal measure; cast the die. Destroy them. Show your grandfather how the pious deal with those marked by the devil’s brand.

“Yes…” Nicholus whispered as he recovered from the pain. The rat in his hand had gone silent, but not dead. Behind the curtain of cells that protected him, he decided he would work a little more of his dark magic… As if he were scratching a beloved pet’s head, he let the tip of his gnarled talon rest on the rodent’s skull.

Its eyes glowed. Its mind burst instantly and a drop of blood oozed slowly out of its little mouth to dry and crust in its matted fur. However, despite this apparent failure, for just an instant the little rat’s body had acted as a venue through which Nicholus could issue a single all-powerful command to the brethren born beside it.

Across the forest, many tiny skulls turned to face Markus and his mageling creature, Hephaestus. Their bodies grew to enormous proportions, tails transforming into thrashing appendages that could easily knock a man down or coil around his neck like a serpent. Their skulls elongated to accommodate brains large enough to think, to strategize, but more importantly, to hate. Muscles rippled beneath their filthy pelts and their teeth became razor sharp and jagged, but new, pearly white, eager for their first chance to taste succulent human flesh, excited to slake their newborn thirst for blood.

Dozens of hungry wererats, half again as tall as the average soldier, scurried through the perishing woods in search of prey. Beings of uncertain lot between life and death, the aging wind did little but fill their bones with the cold and make them wish for a pile of half-eaten carrion to curl up in and sleep, and the locusts would find little on their bodies to consume. Those few that were devoured rose again as bones to join the battle.

The absolute darkness made it difficult for them to see their unwary victims, however, they had never been animals of strong sight, and by their nose alone could easily find their way to the castle. The smell of Markus’ burning hair and roasting flesh acted like an invitation drawing them to a great feast… and to a great slaughter.

Nicholus followed in close pursuit, escorted in the black shell that protected him from the wind and the vermin that rode it. Behind him, the earth was splintered by quakes that shook it to its very core. Light glowed from many thin cracks, joining together into a vast, yawning gorge that stretched all the way back to the battlefield between monsters. The banshee chorus rose along every inch of the way.

Meanwhile…

~*~


To escape the purification wave, the black cells lining the walls of Delilah’s womb adopted her form, becoming as much a part of her as the child itself. Most of their brethren were wiped away by that burning light, but they survived, coiled up inside her… survived to watch the birth of a beast, even as they proliferated in her body.

Yes… they bided their time as the others around them died. They watched Harrald as they built him his new vessel.

Harrald, meanwhile, languished in the space between life and death.

As he bled out, the vacancy in his veins left room for the truth to seep in.

Rubble from his own broken house shattered his legs. His own son’s outrageous deformities had torn him apart. He did not need a scholar’s sagacity to sense that he would die soon, filled with confusion and fear, beneath what remained of the roof he had built with his own weathered hands. He knew Delilah was dead. What woman, no matter how beautiful or serene, could survive the ordeal of giving birth to such a monster?

His foolishness had deprived the kingdom of its lovely princess and her daughter. His misfortune, perhaps his lack of piety, had set on his shoulders a burden he could not hope to carry. Now it crushed him and its chains brought down everything around him as he sank into a darkness that hungered for him as nothing ever had before.

What had he done to deserve this?

Had he wronged the gods? Lost connection with his faith? Harrald did not know that the end of the world is always hanging over us, did not realize that it is not always the same gods who reign in the sky. The being he had wronged, or at least piqued the curiosity of, was wholly different from the gods he prayed to, and vastly more powerful.

Yet in his last moments, he did not wish to think of these things, of the failures that had led him to this bad end.

He tried to think back to his childhood, to days spent under sunshine and peace beforeCLOUDS heavy with war obscured the stars. He tried to reach back into the mists of memory and wrap his hands around the first time he had ever seen Delilah, then merely a lady servant of their lord.

He tried, but found nothing except emptiness awaiting him.

And so the truth dawned on Harrald, as Magnus’ storm strangled the last rays of light from the earth and cast the land into total darkness. He tried to imagine his mother’s smiling face, creased with wrinkles, but could not bring forth the image. He tried to think of his father’s mischievous grin, of the shine in his eye that survived all the strife and pain he had suffered. He tried to think of an adolescence spent courting the forest and enjoying the last moments of bliss before a life of hard work set its iron walls around him.

Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. It echoed in the vast empty antechamber of his mind.

He found the words, scrawled onto the grey matter like ink on parchment, but images eluded him, details escaped into the cracks where he could not give chase. He tried to picture everything, anything. Like the first zygote of his son in Delilah’s womb, the truth slowly wriggled to the surface of his mind, first a single cell of epiphany and then much more, so much more, too much… His first memories of Ran beside the walnut tree felt like the first memories of a lifetime because that is precisely what they were.

Death then seemed almost like a comforting blanket, a warm and inviting sleep. It would take him away from the day’s troubles, away from a lifetime of lies. Though he could tell no difference, he almost felt his eyes flutter shut, felt the tips of his eyelashes brush against the tears sliding down his face. A warm light bathed him, taking all the wind’s chill away… so warm…

Sweetling, a familiar voice called. Harrald, sweetie, what are you doing?

Delilah, darling, I’m tired now, let me be…

Harrald! We’ve got to discipline our son, you know. He’s started the most terrible ruckus, you see… but I’ve just met the most wonderful man. He says he’s here to help. All you have to do is open your eyes, Harrald.

Open my eyes, hm…? I could do that… I can do that…

Slowly, gently, as if a great weight tried to keep them shut, Harrald’s eyes slid open. He found himself staring into a glacial plane, a winter world that reached into him and trapped his soul in the ice. He could feel the frost fill him for an excruciating instant before warmth bloomed in bones he had thought hollowed by the tempest that raged all around him.

I’m sorry, Harrald. You will have to stay awake awhile longer, but in exchange, I will give you an ending.

Hngh? What was that?

He couldn’t seem to hear anything above the blood pounding in his ears, above the hunger groaning in his stomach and those of many others; many others, but not for long. He felt like a worm sliding towards a man’s heart through veins long dry and dead, but the walls around him were made of heads, some stripped clean of flesh and others recognizably human. Among them he spied Delilah, glimpsed the princess and her daughter, faces distorted in wild abandon, eyes rolling back into their head, lips chattering and forming words they did not know, phrases they should not say, spells older than history and much darker…

Yet he felt a strange bond with each of them. They were the Harralds that might or could have been, the vague possibilities who shared his dark intent but lacked his incredible drive. Beneath the apathy of incomprehension stirred a fury unlike any other Harrald had felt in his entire life, the fury of a father towards his son’s murderer – for he knew, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that the thing who had taken his life and that of the woman he loved was not his son, but some more wretched thing who had stolen his child even before it took its firstBREATH.

Yes. He did not recognize the faces of the heads surrounding him, but he recognized their feelings, and now they shared much more than that. Like many tributaries pouring into one almighty river, they congealed, their powers many and mingling, their bodies becoming a gestalt of souls sealed behind thin skin walls.

The gods have given me strength, Harrald knew. They has given me the strength to dole out justice and punishment, and I will take it… I have already taken it.

He looked out upon a black and white world. A veil draped over his body pulsated and sang and through it, he saw the monster in its true form, now taller than a man grown, taller than the giants in the mountains of whom Delilah had sung to him while she caressed her round belly during long months of waiting. His mind throbbed. His heart ached for vengeance. He wished to cry for his lost wife with eyes that no longer knew tears, for though he had seen a shard of her soul as he groped for the throne of this new vessel, he knew she was lost to him.

Forever. What a hollow word.

The cells settled onto his skin and shifted with it, blending perfectly. Though around him there was nothing remotely human about his new form, nothing recognizable in the tumors that shifted beneath the flesh like swamp bubbles, his old body lurched out from an expressionless face. Other branches jutted out from the teratomatic colossus, to be sure, but his was the perch upon which the eagle makes its nest, so to speak.

Yes, other bodies protruded from the formless head, some with arms outspread, clutching at the skies above. Others were merely faces, mouths open as they cried out their lament.

Yes… friends seeking solace, and he would give it to them.

His feet touched the growing puddle as the flood spread out across the valley. Crystal tumors grew from his body in clumps. His arms were outstretched towards his son as he grew in tandem with his child, flesh stretching taut as muscles expanded to fill in the hollow spaces and bones elongated to accommodate them.

I’m sorry, Harrald. This is the only way.SOON you will find rest, I promise.

Meanwhile…

~*~


Uninterested in the games Alucroas played with the Dark Realm, Theo erected a barrier around himself and hovered just out of the tentacle beast’s reach. When, at the culmination of its confrontation with his draconic cohort, it was flung at him, it smashed into his shield with all the elegance of a pigeon into a fast-moving vehicle. It slid off, thoroughly purged of its protolife by the powers his new body commanded.

Annoyances done away with, he turned his attention to the meteor storm raining down on them. Both groups’ relative speeds made the chase longer than one would expect, but the clumps of astral energy were rapidly gaining on them. He could almost feel a solution worming its way to the surface of his thoughts when a low, booming voice resounded in him:

“O’ Narcissus, stealing away, running … running predictably, stupidly, as alarmed prey that, believing itself clever, escapes into a snare, trusting the hunter to follow, and itself to run. That I will follow, and he will run … even as he dreams the dreams of others and I burrow into the corpse of his hope.

In dreams he hides his mind, in darkness his soul. With them come the body. Both will tremble, kneel, and cover their face; prostrate themselves penitently before Idea. Then they shall cry out, ‘what am I without you?’

Nothing … nothing … nothing.

RaiseYOUR eyes, Hellion. Claim his soul.”


The embers of recognition stirred somewhere deep inside Theo’s chest. He knew the creature behind those words, he realized, even if he could not quite place its name. The idea that he had once consorted with these abominations, these weird caricatures of life, left him ill at ease and wondering when it would come his time to die.

That slight discomfort, however, did nothing to stop the sights that poured into his weary mind. In one, he saw a great leviathan curled around a strange monolith, some outré alien artifact that rose up to bruise the sullen heavens of a world trapped in a psychic shell. Mire, a silky whisper told him. It will not stop us. It is a poisoned planet, but even if it still had the strength to defy us, it would not. It will only exult when it finds out its tormentors tear at themselves like dogs.

He saw other things, as well. With one pair of eyes he looked into a fleshpit of writhing segments deep within the gargantuan Brobdingnag; with another he stared into the blackness of the cosmos, where drifted a stray worm-thing on a slow sojourn in the vacuum; and so on, and so on, and so on…

Promiscuous, is it not? It lacks vocal chords, but the voice of its mind is loud enough for betrayal. Do not return its cruel japes. At the end of this long hour, the dead will speak for whose conviction proved stronger, not the tittering taunts theyTRADE.

“Shut up, you fuckin’ preacher. I’m tryin’ ta concentrate here,” Theo muttered beneath his breath. A thin film of sweat covered his brow. His hands faced the encroaching meteor shower, which, witnessed firsthand, was really a more beautiful death than any of the dreamscape’s invaders deserved.

Instead, he focused on the little balls of gas and flame, adding to them his own energy, transforming them from oversized streamers into veritable warheads. They had drawn so close that he could see the motes of light in their cores, that precious fuel of matter out of which flowed their fantastic contrails.

He might have had reason to fear, if he had not exerted his telekinesis over the wave beneath him. A thin sheet of the fluid peeled off its crest, bending impossibly to rise up between him and the Sounder’s missiles. They disappeared into its depths without so much as a ripple on Theo’s side, like arrows vanishing into the churning mouth of a waterfall.

As if it were some giant tongue, the wave made a slithering retreat back down into the lurching tsunami from which it had emerged.

And then…

~*~


The tunnel between dreamscape and dream filled with killing light, transforming instantly into a chamber of beauty and death as the streaking comet tails of the Sounder’s meteors poured out from the residual Dark Realm waters left behind by the tidal wave. That purging heat, trapped between the boundary of the corridor and SMD’P’s metallic mountain, would erase everything inside.

Narcissus’ cells were mostly annihilated, save for a few that clung to the narrow space between the Sounder’s hideous segmented bulk and the slowly evaporating wall of Ran’s fantasy-turned-nightmare.

~*~


Across the multiverse, portals opened. These holes in the fabric of space-time disgorged light, radiation, heat and energy in great amounts. Lethal amounts.

In the empty void of space, one of SMD’P’s segments drifted aimlessly, waiting for gravity to catch it and bring it down onto the surface of some unsuspecting world. Instead, two of these holes opened on either side of it, spewing their contents to collide with each other and release an explosion that atomized all particulate matter within a five-kilometer radius.

Not that there was a terrible amount to be missed, save perhaps a worm and its children.

So the process continued as purging light rained down systematically on the most scattered of the Sounder’s many pieces. Thriving planets were not spared, nor were barren asteroids, nor anything from which Theo had heard the faintest echo of its presence. Whether or not his assault would succeed, he could not be sure, but as the portals slipped shut, he felt confident that it destroyed at least some of the leviathan wyrm’s crèche-mates.

Curiously, of all the many places where the Sounder’s wanton fragments had spread, two locations in particular were spared: the clutch hidden deep inside Brobdingnag and the beast on Mire, curled as it was around the Resonance Gate beside the idle forms of the Collective’s other constituents.

Even its hold in the dreamscape itself, clasping the dream in a talon like a witch’s withered hand, did not escape the onslaught. A portal regurgitated one of the meteors directly on top of the beast; of course, some of its energy slipped into the dream itself. The organ hoping to destroy its walls with acid spew may have been destroyed in the process of the meteor’s obliterating light shining down as if from the heavens, briefly beating back Magnus’ darkness.

Some of its heat found itself inhaled through the same portal Magnus hoped to use in order toSECURE the severed reed that had anchored the dream to the outside. In the process, much of the cord was incinerated beyond repair, and what dangled from the living stormCLOUD amounted to a length of scorched twine, a child’s plaything.

~*~


Trapped though it was inside Ran’s kodachi Etai, the Dark Realm water was not dead. It constantly existed in its most primitive form, only occasionally amalgamating into something larger and more complex, allowing it to survive Etai’s peculiar straining process and continue to exist, limited awareness and all. It commanded no power on its own except what the greater entity behind it demanded, and at the present, it demanded little.

Locked inside the kodachi’s spirit, shapes began to form, mouths and hooked hands that gnawed and clawed at it from the inside. Alone, however, it could not hope to escape; when it noticed that minor disturbance in the Dark Realm as it absorbed the meteors elsewhere in the astral realm, it acted.

Etai emanated a blinding whiteness reduced to mere smoky gloom by the impenetrable night. This, however, was no purifying light; instead it burst free, exploding outwards into Ran at nearly pointblank, like an enveloping cloud of heat and energy that sought to strip flesh from bone and turn bone to ash.

Favors must be returned; justice and punishment must be doled out in equal measure; the die must be cast, as it will be, as it has been.

RAN: Something was wrong. He could feel a disturbance in his little bubble ofPROTECTION that had surrounded the kingdom. But... where was it? The ethereal snake vanished as he turned on the spot, crimson eyes peering through the night that held the world in a chokehold. He could feel darkness pressing in on him, attempting to suck the happiness and the faith right from him. However, Ran was far too old and too wise to be tricked. Someone was in this realm, tearing away at the confines of reality. Distorting the happy memory that was his dream.

Ran could feel the power surging, his energy reaching out towards the cabin where he sent his family. The power acting as limbs, extending towards the life force that was his family..

Then it happened.

His ears picked up the sound of death, the trickle of blood seemingly running down a throat. The eerie track of flesh being rippedAPART.

“NO!” Ran screamed, finally losing that hardened aspect, falling to his knees as he realized the truth. His family, and Harralds family had just been slaughtered and devoured. Used like pigs in a slaughter house to satiate some wicked creatures hunger. He could feel his loyal blade, Etai become seemingly corrupted in the skies above. The blindingLIGHT turning to a hopeless smog, the blade gaining a simple black hue.. But it was not to be.

The world had ended, so why hadn't the battle stopped? Why was the samurai staring at the small cabin as if he expected his family to come walking happily out of the doors? They were gone, destroyed. Used to energize some monster, probably to help destroy Ran himself. Tears had begun to streak down Ran's cheeks, falling forward to rest on his hands. Sobbing at the death of his family, what had he done to deserve this? Perhaps he had killed far too many people, and this was his judgement by some higher power?

Or perhaps this was how it was suppose to be. Having to fight for his life and lose it to some file creature whose mission was to destroy everyone and everything? No. Ran would not die, he would live on and avenge his families death. Even at the cost of his souk, he would make sure their dearths were not in vain.

Slowly did he push himself back to his feet, swaying unstably in his grief. Looking as if he were about to pass out, but something seemed different about him. No, his looks remained exactly the same but it was inside. As if he had sprouted a new drive inside his heart.

“Etai, my beautiful serpent. Consume it all, do not allow it to exist, it will destroy everything.” Ran spoke to the air, that same snake appeared and coiled itself around him. As if he werePROTECTING Ran from an unseen force. Then, with a loud crack, the kodachi in the sky seemingly exploded.

A gust of wind rocked through the air from said explosion, causing the trees to sway violently in the heavy wind. But once the smoke cleared, Etai was perfectly fine. The kodachi had simply released the violent forces pressing against his belly in the form of a gale. Meanwhile the heat that ravaged inside the blade simply lit his fire, causing the blade to turn cherry red. Glowing from the heat and easily moldable, but the destructive capabilities of the Dark Realm water was now sealed permanently inside the blade. How? Ancient seals having been etched -inside- on the day of its forgingPROTECTED it, making it damn near indestructible. Oh but of course the blade could be destroyed, but not in such a mundane manner as exploding it.
That issue was firmly resolved, but now there seemed to be anERROR with this little dream world he inhabited. It seemed to be moving, as if it were being dragged away by some unseen force. Ran curiously peered about his landscape, overlooking the abomination that flared in the distance to stare at the horizon. His dream... was being split in two?

“How strange...” Muttered Ran, his voice was hoarse, he seemed very dehydrated. Perhaps it was from fear, or maybe something a bit more sinister? Regardless, things were going south in this peaceful little Kingdom.

“You, abomination.” He spoke towards the creature that had destroyed his family and another in mere seconds, his voice sounding weak but just strong enough that it could be heard. “Tell me something, why did you seek to destroy innocent people?” He asked, flexing his hand and clenching his fingers in the air. A katana formed with a sharp crack, red fur covered the hand guard, making the ancient katana look much more grand than it actually was. A crimson miasma began to seep from the blade, slowly -sauntering, like a mist- towards the vile monster. “Even though this may be in a dream world, that was still my family. You destroyed their memories, and now, because of that choice you made. I will destroy you as you destroyed them!” His voice rang with power, the miasma burned and tore along the ground. Killing the lush green grass almost instantly as it barreled towards the mass rising from the cabin.

But inside Ran, something was happening. More power was being unlocked, seals fading as more arcane magic took its hold on Ran and squeezed him. The sky above tore apart, the chunks of the dream falling like snowflakes to the ever-dying ground below. Then, with a ear shattering shriek broke through the entirety of the dream. A large phoenix descended upon the world, multihued wings spreading wide over the world. Spores of light seeming to descend upon the world with each beat. It sank its razor sharp talons into the ground, its influence spreading like roots through the entirety of the Kingdom. It began to fly then, the two halves of the dream completely breaking apart. The side with the castle being carried away by the malevolent force, whilst the side with Ran and the creature remained whole. In tact. Separated entirely from the grasp of the other.

Ran simply stared at the phoenix, Kishinjiraden's miasma flitting through the area in an attempt to outright murder the abomination in its entirety.

“Begone!” He snarled, his voice exploding as the miasma flared and shifted into what appeared to be a slowly revolving tornado. Killing everything in its path, eating its energy and rendering it a lifeless carcass. His foe would be exactly like the grass around them very soon. Colorless and stiff, never to feel the sweet breeze ever again.

GUTS: The faces of souls slain grimaced in the darkness of the void that lay beyond the bulwarks of the king’s castle. The creatures outside hissed, seeking to consume the flesh of those within so they could survive the lethal soul-stealing winds they currently endured. Hephaestus saw it as a hopeless battle, both he and the men would die either by being ripped apart or they would fade away from the chilling tempest outside. He could feel the magic in the air; it caused his flesh to tingle and the hairs of his neck to stand on end. Hephaestus, being an elder mage, was quite attuned to the flows of magic. He was the first to piece together a plausible hypothesis on the man several paces behind him—Markus was not dying, but transforming into something horrible.

The diplomat’s screams were hardly human anymore the flames that consumed his body flickered blue and the charred flesh of his body flitted upwards in ashen flecks. The ash hung above him, suspended momentarily before the particles chilled and fell to the ground around Markus’ burning body in the form of snowflakes. The temperature instantly dropped within and around Markus’ body. One of his last coherent thoughts were, “Why?! He promised me power! Not agony! I would rule, not perish! I was supposed to be the only one to survive, so then why?! WHY!”

Hephaestus kept an eye on Markus as he recited a quiet incantation to a divination spell that would allow him to view what he was up against outside of the castle. This spell would allow him to momentarily invade one of the bodies of the creatures. He could not see anything, so standard divinations were completely useless to him. Instead, he would have to become one to truly learn what he wished to know. Markus’ men, however, didn’t have the tools that the elder mage did. They would likely all die horribly.

The elder mage’s astral body soared blindly above the castle ramparts, before twisting downwards into the haunted hollows. He could feel the life being drained from him, and his astral body grew cold. His movements grew slow, sluggish as the forest beckoned him to slumber within its darkness. Hephaestus landed and crawled forwards to the forest, his life being siphoned away. It was only by pure luck that he managed to touch one of the creatures, and at that moment he melded with it. His consciousness no longer his own, but was instead guided by a crazed hunger and blind fear as he inhabited the creature’s body.

The monster did not know what it was, but Hephaestus did. Each one of these creatures was the size of a man, rippling with twitching muscle under a thin coat of stringy fur. Their movements were sporadic, full of quick jerks and half-seizures, although less than they normally might, for they, too, were suffering the same fate as Daedalus. “Were-rats,” Hephaestus thought. They were guided by their sense of smell, and through their superior strength, speed, and agility they would have the advantage against his forces. The mage cursed, but before he was enveloped too far in the soul of the creature he recited another incantation.

He sapped the very life from the creature, absorbing its soul into the ectoplasm his astral form. Replenishing the strength he had lost and killing one of the creatures in the process Hephaestus was again capable of making the trip back to his body. When he reunited with his physical form, Hephaestus’ unseeing eyes snapped open wide, and his mouth gaped, but he had little time to spare.

The mage began the process of a lengthy incantation, with any luck, the castle guards and even his own would provide enough fodder for him to finish the spell. He drew a circle around him in the dirt, and with the flick of his hand unfurled a scroll in front of him that suspended in the air when he let go of it. The scroll’s archaic runes glowed, but theLIGHT was swallowed by the darkness almost instantaneously. From that point he opened a spell book, and uncorked a vial, pouring the liquid into the divot he made around him. If it weren’t for the lack of light, the liquid would have glowed silver. He could not read his book, but it didn’t matter; he knew most of his spells by heart, anyways.

***


A rain of white poured down upon the castle lands, bleaching out reality itself in their trajectory. The dream was being eaten alive, and all the better for Magnus to paint the canvas with his own image. The nightmare he imposed upon this realm was a demiplane of its own, overlapping the dream, and thus, unharmed by the acidic substance of the Sounder because it paralleled the dream sequence, and infiltrated it merely by the openings that were allowed for it, such as the gates and SMD’P’s acid trails. The opportunity was thoroughly seized, however, for Magnus to impose his will upon theDOMAIN. It was only a matter of time before this half of the dream would be unable to contain the circles, and it would burst through the dwindling walls of the dream and inflict unspeakable horrors to the rest of the world, just like Body had to Harrald and Delilah.

Meanwhile the aspect of Mind had acquired a burnt remnant of the tether that anchored this dream to the dreamscape, a severed reminder to Ran’s failure that he likely didn’t even know of. The storm brooded, hidden within the veil of shadows, which began to spill outside of his half of the dream. THE CLOUD observed the strand, rumbling with thunder and coruscating briefly with lightning as it contemplated. It was at that moment that it was contacted by another portion of itself,

“Give it to me,” the aspect of Soul spoke within the mental confines of Mind.

The thunder rumbled with approval, and gave away the thread. While Mind had acquired the tether, the moor was useless to it at this point. There were other things that the storm needed to attend to, anyways. THE CLOUD churned upon itself in ponderous silence for a moment. Then, it thundered, releasing a mental pulse from itself akin to sonar that a bat would use. Those who would seek to hide from Magnus with sentient minds would find their effort fruitless, as any connection to a presence within the dream would allow the cloud to dredge the location of everyone within, and with inadequate resistance would allow it to form a domineering mental link of its own to the source.

Soul, meanwhile, descended down into the shadow storm. Magnus was condemned to lust for millennia, not only could he see through his intended prison, but he could even call upon it now. While the Count had surpassed the punishments of his prison, he could not fully escape them. He was anchored to Hell, and could spend only little time actually outside of its domain through proxies. In his palm he cradled the mutilated dream tether.

Magnus watched with glowing crimson eyes as his dark influence insidiously seeped into the broken, vulnerable tether. The dream pulsed in agony. Black smoke poured from the metaphysical strand as noxious fumes swirled around its husk. Tears of blood spilt from his pupil-less eyes and as he canted his head, a wide chesire grin of needle-thin blades splayed across his face. Shadows of the second circle coiled around his work, caressing it with envy, vying for the demon count’s attention. He ignored the strands of shadows as he poured repugnant black energy into the tether. Veins of pulsing black ichor throbbed in the skies, and a thousand cries of the damned wailed as they suffered in darkness. Daedalus and his men screamed, unable to find peace, for even in death their souls were rattled and whipped by the harsh winds.

The tether thrashed feebly in his hand like an eel out of water, and as Magnus’ sharp claw-like nails prodded its saturated, pregnant flesh a viscous black liquid pooled at the wounds. He had repaired the dream tether with dark energy and blight, and now, there was a deal to be made. Magnus grabbed the burning hem of his cape and whipped it about his body, swirling as his manic laughter intermingled with the frantic screams of the slaughtered.

***


Ran stood with his back to the tree, looking into the storm, apparently not able to see Body, but knew of its presence. He called it on its treachery and accused it of its depravity.

“Tell me something, why did you seek to destroy innocent people?” Ran raged.

Above the storm’s howling and the anguished moans of the dead a shrill baby’s giggle mirthfully responded to Ran’s allegation, and then responded in a low, demonic two-toned voice, “Dada”. Then the baby cackled joyfully some more at whatever it found funny. Those outside or even within the storm could not see what it saw. Only the deepening shadows within the storm that had raced towards Ran were left. The storms closed upon him, seeking to envelope him and snuff his life away, but it didn’t, instead it curled around his location, forming a perfect circle around the mound and the walnut tree that was planted upon it, but all around him the warrior could hear the eerie chattering of dead spirits.

Behind Ran, the walnut tree hollowed, and wilted. Deadening, its leaves crumpled and feather-fell from its skeletal canopy. The grayed trunk rippled like water as it peeled and rotted away, leaving maggots squirming in broken saturated fungal-ridden strips of wood. Magnus, his aspect of Soul, stepped out from the decaying mass, most of his body shrouded by the empty blackness of the inside of his burning cape. Much of him resembles what Markus appeared as, with the exception of appearing a specter lacking a body under the darkness of his cape, and the burning tips of its hem oxidized leaving bits of silt and calyx wherever he went.

“Even though this may be in a dream world, that was still my family. You destroyed their memories, and now, because of that choice you made. I will destroy you as you destroyed them!”

Magnus waited for him to finish assaulting his other aspect, and even though Ran’s rage had hardly subsided he still spoke,

“Now you know how I feel as I watched my brothers and sisters burn for an eternity.”

That had likely caught Ran’s attention, but he didn’t wait for the warrior to respond, he had not shown himself in plain light to confront the swordsmen in full-frontal combat, even though the twisted hilt of his silver rapier was not simple decoration.

“You have been fooled, young warrior. Deceived. You know this is a dream, yet your power over it has been whisked away without your knowledge. Were they to capitalize, yet, you would already be dead. I have come offering you control, back over yourself, and to offer you an engine for your vengeance.”

A single hand protruded from his cape, producing the severed tether of Ran’s dream, now fully repaired by the blight of Magnus’ influence. The dream would function once again, though it could never be anchored back to the dreamscape, anymore. Instead, it would anchor itself upon Ran’s soul, and offer him all the benefits of a trulyLUCID DREAM. Of a reality that he could manipulate, himself. An existence that could be made malleable to the warrior’s whim.

“Take this upon yourself… in your heart, and you shall receive power to fuel your hatred. All I ask of you is that you use it. Take back your life. Killthem so that you may know peace.”

If the warrior accepted the gift, Magnus would instantly disappear, whisking himself back to the confines of the shadow storm, as if he were never there. If he were attacked, there were precautions he had set to defend himself as well as the thread.

***


Body trundled about and groaned as cartilage hardened and bones grew and stretched, broke and reformed, muscle ligaments snapped and reattached, fibers tore and doubled over again exponentially in mass. It opened its mouth and instead of teeth growing in like some normal child, a trap of twisted tusks ripped from its gums. It opened its mouth keening, revealing pointed lamprey-like teeth lining all the way down its mouth and esophagus. Its fists grew, as well, disproportionate to its body, like miniature wrecking balls. Both of the creature’s hands hardened and took on a gravelly appearance. A fresh wave of saliva dripped down from the tree-sized baby, and bubbled on the ground like some strange sort of acidic substance. As Body grew, razor-sharp blade like spines ripped from his flesh,ATTACHED to its vertebrae.

Harrald lumbered forwards, his gait awkward and somewhat clumsy in comparison to Body’s own speed. He swung one of his large fists towards the limber baby, but the creature was quick and ducked downwards, lunging forwards so that its long back spines sliced through the wrist of the tumor filled titan, while quickly whipping around him on all fours. Two of its stomach-tendrils shot out for Harrald’s back, piercing into it. Mildly annoyed the titan turned about brushing away at the spined tendrils with the back of his hand.

Four tendrils grew in place to replace the two that had been ripped off. Each one of them reared back like cobras waiting to strike before they lashed out with lightning speeds, embedding into the titan’s chest. The raw force of their strike pushed Harrald back into the red mist.

The creature released a harsh clicking hiss as it prowled low to the ground, it’s small, beady eyes focused on its prey.

Meanwhile, behind the brawl between the two, the wind began to circulate. Spinning faster and faster, it whirled about whipping the anguished spirits of those damned to Magnus’ circle of power in it.

Events were on the throes of something big. Magnus’ plan would some come to fruition and no one would be the same after it.

LYSANDER: Within the darkness of Brobdingnag’s womb opened two would-be eyes, orbs of a glitteringLIGHT – orbs brought down by the venom of the Sounder, and redistributed to a home within the tainted walls of the Val’garan’s ancestral home. Here the taint of that insidious horde wove its patterns without need of injection or cut, here it wove its horrid taint throughout all those who touched upon it, sparing only whose minds were already plagued by the virus which infested them all. Brobdingnag was home, hope, and salvation. In a thousand years, things might change, but for now what lived within Brobdingnag – even asPROTECTED as some might hope to be – belonged to Brobdingnag, and no willful young lad, be it a man or monster, could ever outrun the evil which lurked inside that darkness.

And yet, the journey was further – into the larger of the two eyes, deeper into subconscious minds, the taint flowed. It wormed its way in, forgoing all mannerisms of permission and hope – constantly evolving and adapting to whatever would-be obstacle might hope to stand within its path, barring it entry into what it sought. What it longed to hold within its vile, disparaging grasp; would surely belong to it soon. The taint seeped further into the dreamscape, further into the Dark Realm beyond. It lurked in the darkness, blanketed the stormy sky above the dream with a ferocious intention. The connection between the two wholes remained only in a memory of a memory, but it wound its way through the thoughts of all things, all sentience, and found a path to carry it.

The taint was a tidal wave, unstoppable by forces constructed by man and beast alike. It would adapt and survive against all odds, constantly changing until it gained what it wanted; what it hungered for. A memory of a memory is still a connection, and the taint was such that it traveled that connection – pushed through The Dark Realm, pushed through the waves of fury slamming against the lonely islands. It passed through the treacherous world of the Dreamscape, and into the dreams of monsters and men alike. There it passed into the memory of a memory, and ripped into the world of Ran’s mind, into the machinations of Body, Soul, and Mind. There it found the trace of something it knew, something it had long since forgotten existed – in any level of any hell. There it found Magnus.

Already it coalesced upon itself, cringing away from the vileness that emanated from the creation that had wrought its existence, if not in completeness at least in some part. It quickly forgot its inhibitions; however, in favor what it knew to be truth (at least to this point). Any and all would bow before the taint it spread, and already it was spreading itself back out. A thousand tendrils, with thousands branching out from them as more poured into the dream. In the darkened, stormy sky of this dream none would see its coming and going so well, for it was not much different in coloration than that which already existed. Soon, its influence would spread across the entire dream; already a legion had been sucked to its call, drawn by the viral infection to do the bidding of the taint, of Idea.

----------


Within the skeletal thrones, Azaroth and Idea sat - the former in a smaller, less ornate throne than its master. Idea’s eyes had closed – or at least what Azaroth accounted for its eyes, those endless pools of darker-than-black obsidian, giving nothing of a human feature. He could only tell they were closed because the area around them had become lighter. He knew what Idea did, his own meta-sight allowed him to see what was happening, his mind gathered the information from minions thousands of light years (and dozens of realms) away. His fingers dug into the eye-sockets of the skull at the edge of his arm-rest, crushing it like bits of dirt.

Idea savored the flavor of new souls, brought fresh into the horde by the ever-present taint that had been manifested.

<Soon, Azaroth. Soon you must leave my side, and workYOUR miracles.> Even the mental voice of Idea, a weight unbearable by most lower-standing Heralds, was almost enough to make Azaroth buckle at the knees – had he been standing, he might have fallen to his knees in exultation anyway. It came to him as a throaty whisper, not at all like the powerful, demanding voice he had grown nearly accustomed to, if anyone could be said to become accustomed to such a thing. <We amass an army of people, spread throughout realms and worlds we’ve yet to know, still slumbering in what will seem an eternal dream until we release them from our hold. When released, they will seek us out, bring us theOFFERINGS we require. For now, though, they will need someone to lead them through the dream – through the task we must have them accomplish. You are the only choice, Isaak is not yet in my good standing. Not yet, but soon, you will leave this place.>

<As you command of me, Master, I shall serve,> not that I have a choice. That final thought, guarded and held within his own mind – free of Idea’s probing – was for him alone. He did not have a choice, a command from the Great Lord could not go unanswered.

<Indeed, you do not have a choice,> a wry smile curled Idea’s black lips upwards, and showed Azaroth that even what he considered his most private thoughts were not truly his own. They never would be again.

----------


Crystalline walls ofGLASS had begun to snake their way up his body, attempting to congeal into a harder-than-stone prison around him, entrap him in their snares as deadly as any enemy’s blade or magic. Blackened masses of…something…had tried to entangle his foot, and surely would have held him fast, had they not been rent by the venom spit from the sky – and into the tunnel from which he’d entered. Luck had been with him, however, and the venom had spewed forth upon the ground – breaking free the anchor the cells had held, nearly before they’d even begun to grab at him. The same was said of the prison which had sprung up around him so suddenly, for it too had been broken – at only a minor blood price.

<Dammit, Sounder!> He sent through the link between the two, relaying it through the great brain of Brobdingnag. <You could have killed me, you vile bastard. We’re supposed to be working together, notAPART. You fucking bastard!> Hellion could afford some anger, now that Narcissus’ cell body had been destroyed, and the prison which had tried to sprung upon him like some comical cartoon trap had been annihilated. Even with the venomous nature of The Sounder’s bodily fluids raining down all around him, he could afford the anger. The Mist had already ensured his safety, catching and corrupting the fluid even as it came intoCONTACT with the area around Hellion’s body. It shot out like bullets from a gun, lashing out against the venom with fierce alacrity and pulling bits and pieces that would land upon Hellion into itself, empowering itself with them.

Even at this juncture, Hellion moved toward the open plane where Alutrosity waited – where the prison had come from – and where he could still sense a memory of Narcissus’ leading him. There would be a great beast, one he would fight to the finish – much like the immense Spider Queen which had sought to be his undoing in The Entropic Passages of Soran. His did not simply walk into the viper’s pit, his feet carried him with the swiftness of a thoroughbred, and then onward with even more speed. Each movement of his legs brought him closer to the creature whose hide he would soon use as a rug, perhaps even a bath mat should it please him.

The Tyrant Guns were on his waist, still strapped into their holsters, readily at hand but long forgotten for the moment. Very soon he would reach the forefront of his battle, the fight he had to win. And there he would confront Alutrosity – and right now Hellion was prone to using nothing more than his bare hands to rend the beasts flesh from its body. To flay its vile hide from its disgusting, grotesque features. All the while, the taint was spreading…

----------


…spreading through both halves of the dream, encircling it from the Dreamscape, ensnaring it from Brobdingnag’s dark womb. It ate away at the innards of the dream itself, tainting the landscape and the beings within it. Once they might have been part of Ran’s forlorn nightmare, once their control might have been able to shift easily – handed back and forth like a pet on a short leash. No more would that be possible, no more would any shift of control be even a feasible suggestion. Now the dream belonged to the horde, from the smallest of corners to the broadest of sky-havens.

The taint oozed through in mass amounts, corrupting everything it touched. The very landscape began to combat the interlopers, those who managed to remain untainted – as few as they were. Blades of grass grew, reaching up to bind and grasp at all those unfamiliar to the tainted ground. Magnus, Ran, Narcissus, even Alutrosity – as weak as his presence was to the tainted grounds, when compared to the blazing suns the others seemed to exude – would find themselves soon entangled in the mass of corrupted flora reaching up to grasp whatever they could, whatever was within their reach. That this often tended to be nothing more than feet did not seem to bother the blades, for they had only the desire to serve their new master.

Trees uprooted themselves, becoming gnarled monsters without arms or legs, but using what they had to move. Roots scraped along the ground, as the forests began to mobilize – killing anything in their way with their outstretched limbs. Razor-sharp leaves sprang from them, falling amongst humans and forest creatures alike, slicing them clean through, embedding in already dead flesh. Gouges were left in the ground where the great trees moved, and though they moved with nothing more than a shuffling, slow gait they covered a good distance with each motion.

The walls of the human cities crumbled beneath the tainted power, and many of the people within took up arms in the service a new master. Already they began to gather, in numbers exceeding any other armed force yet seen within their world – as their false memories seemed to tell them must be so. Thousands of them began to march, weapons in hand and gazes of purest contempt for any not of their number. Blood lined the streets, and bodies lay in their wake. Those who were not sucked in fast enough would never find the pure power of tainted-service.

----------


If the great trees springing up around him as Hellion quickly maneuvered out of the forest surprised him, his face showed no sign of it. His face was set into a fierce, angry scowl. A resonance of a thought told him what Alutrosity had tried to do to him, and now he would make the man pay – with Narcissus so far out of his immediate reach, the beast had become the target of his rage.

His loping, far-flung steps, and the rapidity of each motion, brought him within a hundred paces of Alutrosity quickly, and there The Mist congealed around his arm, snaking its way down into his hand. From there it began to manipulate itself into a curved, single-bladed sword, whose hilt remained only in his palm. Scantly four foot long, the sword was a bit larger than most would have chosen – but Hellion had longed for the touch of familiarity once more. The guns at his side were nice, but he’d been partial to blades once upon a time, and he could see no moreFITTING way to rend this creature’s soul from its blood-and-flesh body.

After a moment’s thought, though, herons appeared upon the blade and hilt. He brandished the weapon a bit, nothing fancy just enough to let Alutrosity see it – as he stood quietly before the other.

<”Do you like it, this sword? I read of something like it once, in an ancient book. I wonder if the book was fictional or not, but it’s of no consequence now. Author and players are all dead, despite what may or may not have been true between the bindings. I do hope you like it though, dog. It will be the machination of your undoing.”> A wordless thought flew through the air, interjecting itself in the open world as if Hellion’s mouth had uttered the words itself – though it had never moved from the teeth-showing snarl which emanated from his throat.

<”Now die, cur!”> His scream of rage was loud, and the guttural rush of power that echoed throughout the valley louder still. His feet moved once more, as if the run he’d just made had no impact on his body at all. He rushed headlong forth,TO BEGIN an assault upon the beast which stood before him, unrelenting and merciless in his desire to kill the creature.

ALUCROAS: The Monstrosity's eyes smoldered beneath the shadowy veil cast on them by the Sounder's immense girth, the first sign that he was beginning to lose his temper. He drove his claws deep into the earth, shook with the tenacity of a bull, opened the plates of his exoskeleton and secreted a thick coat of transparent slime, shielding him from the acid while granting the dragon some wiggle room. Horned beasts emerged from every open orifice, though nearly invisible beneath the churning waves of the Dark Realm, their outlines wrapped nice and tight around the giant Herald.

Although he was indeed dead, and that fact would remain forever inescapable, Alutrosity also received the greatest gift of being more in tune with the Astral Plane than any others. This place -- where spirits of unimaginable magnitude dwelt -- was aDOMAIN in which he felt amazingly comfortable, as if life were just a vacation, and death was the return back to home. In reliving that brief moment of nostalgia, he had secretly felt upon coming to the dream-plane, he felt his energy explode through the roof, and in doing so, attained release from the physical body he had deemed to occupy. No longer just disembodied spirit, using matter from the spiritual world, he was a being of pure astral energy, resembling a colossal dragon, composed entirely of blazing red flames, burning so brightly, that he evaporated the liquid in his immediate surroundings, causing only theLIGHT emanating from his fiery soul to remain visible.

Hundreds upon thousands of cobalt blue orbs appeared all over the empty shell of his body, glistening brightly as they reflected the trillions of psionic bolts emitting from Brobdingnag's brain. Meanwhile, those draconian serpents constricted with strength, immeasurable, their wills uninhibited by the acid which ate away at the flesh. Others, busy swimming through the ever-changing tides, acted as conductors to the Vesuvian Virus, taking it within themselves and devouring everything in sight that had been infected, only to deposit it back into the orbs, provided a safe location for it to remain in quarantine. There, it would be purged of the divine essence that spoke through it, leaving Alutrosity free to do as he sawFIT.

Hellion, Master of The Mist, inheritor to Anathema's princely throne beside Idea, and at present, avenger to his late brother Isaak. Whether or not he cared was irrelevant, for Alutrosity--despite his bad mood--had reduced the imperfect being to a corpse. Crushed by rocks, caused by fissures, induced by a simple ventilation of irritation at the lack of a proper challenge. After his acid had gotten on him, Isaak's flesh began to dissolve, as did his bones, even the virus that made him what he was: an abomination, just like the Monstrosity and his little brother, only this dream--as small as it had become-- wasn't big enough for the three of them.

Before he reached the other side of the dream-wall, still showing signs of damage from when SMD'P split it in two, Alutrosity turned to face the two monsters. Hellion's attack on the empty shell had been successful, but in doing so, he had entangled himself in the constricting sphere of familiars, and while his Mist did temporarily inflict damage on them, it ultimately lost its edge when it cut into itself, thanks to their willingly allowing themselves to be infected. The orbs which had manifested themselves all over the dragon's body, were actually dreams, composed of the very same astral matter that made up the one they were in right now. Unfortunately, and despite being at such close range, someone else had already gotten to those dreams, even before the familiars had sent the Vesuvian Virus into quarantine.

Alutrosity looked back, and nodded to the creatures, briefly recalling a memory of something he had done earlier on, before he had entered the dream.

His gaze shifted to the upside down tree, exoskeletal plates parted to reveal a vast number of tendrils woven deep into his flesh, which ended in barbed points around his wrists, buzzing withELECTRIC current. All at once they began to probe the water, poking and prodding at the other dreams, before peeling them apart like onions.


Alutrosity raised his massive head, scrutinizing the orb which dangled before him. HisGUT told him that Alucroas was headed in the right direction, and yet his instinct told him he should be taking Narcissus' advice and head into this little dream, soon-to-become a contagiousnightmare.


~*~


Although he had no eyes with which to see, Brobdingnag could sense that one of the dream drops were starting to expand, and move toward his surging brain. It was as if the men and women, boys and girls, who occupied those tiny balls of forbiddenFANTASY, firmly latched onto the abandoned vessel of Alutrosity sought him out. Due to their slow, agonizing assimilation, courtesy of the Vesuvian Virus, they couldn't help but feel a sensational longing to be one with the Cataclysm, one with the General who led them, and one with the God who created them.

Yet they did not know the exact identity of who those beings were. Their minds had been touched by another presence from the very beginning.

The Dark Realm's presence in the dream ran parallel to being present in the physical world, thanks to the teleportation trick that SMD'P had pulled, allowing it to manifest itself on a cosmic level. The first result, was the dream ruptured, releasing all of its contents. When the walls collapsed in on themselves, a devastating burst of astral energy went out in all directions, severely damaging the dream that Magnus, Ran, and Narcissus occupied as it passed through. Furthermore, because Brobdingnag was a psychic, his very own nervous system, and the brain it was connected to suffered an extremely potent shock due to its natural tendency to conduct that type of energy and deliver it to the horde before a harvest.

Secondly, because the shock-wave had originated from the dream, which contained millions of dreams within it, it also carried the Vesuvian Virus, and the thoughts of those currently trying to claw their way toward Brobdingnag. Every disgusting servant of Idea who had ever been created found themselves sharing the need to be one with the jellyfish, and thus, swarmed out of the womb to where they could all touch the message's source: a thick bundle of nerve cords carried the false gospel. They knew not that it was a simple anomaly of the dreamscape overlapping with the physical, that allowed those words to reach their minds, the only thing that rang clear to them was...

BECOME ONE WITH THE CREATOR

BECOME ONE WITH OUR LORD, AND SAVIOR

BECOME ONE WITH PERFECTION

Thirdly, what transpired in the crumpled up bedsheets, of piles of dried leafs, of piles of frosted wolfs fur seeking warmth from one another, of sharks in the deep, all across the multiverse, hundreds of thousands, of billions, of trillions, of numbers so great, a new one had to be invented for it. All of them became infected with the Vesuvian Virus, all of them began to undergo insane transformations that would change them forever. Little did these poor bastards know, that their puny civilization had just blossomed like dandelions in a field of grass.

~*~


Alucroas bolted down the racetrack alongside several other vehicles, all of them armed to the teeth with spinning blades emerging from their rims, rocket launchers mounted at the headlights, the whole works. An oil slick released from the exhaust pipe of a winged jet, painted to resemble jungle camouflage and baring the logo of a white duck wielding a six-barreled chaingun. The fuel it expelled from its engines ignited the oil, leaving a trail of flames to engulf his opponents in.

The abomination used the updraft coming from the heat to throw himself onto a separate road which forked out to the right. He smashed through another crate with a question mark on it, flipped through several images before he selected the one that displayed two vehicles: one behind, the other in front, with a curved arrow that allowed them to touch. Alucroas activated it instantly, knowing this let him bypass the thousands of other racers and get him into first place.

From his periphery he could see the stars of this cosmic race-track twinkle, moving closer and closer toward each other until they were within perfect proximity. Someone had just picked up one of the most destructive weapons in this freaky video-game: the multi-solar-assault cannon. All of them began to align in straight, linear order, bands of magnetic energy looped into each other, combining their energy while their own gravity tried to repel them away from one another. At the front of all this chaos, an enormous metal rod blinked into existence, and started absorbing the excess radiation into itself, then fired at all the otherDRIVERS.

Alucroas decided to slow down, for he could repel most of the radiation with his electrical affinity, while using the cars around him as magnets to conduct the blast into. He witnessed hundreds of them pile up ontop of one another, then dove underneath an aircraft racer that looked like it was designed for transforming into a humanoid mecha, or something similar. As he guessed, its EMP defense system shielded him from the effects, while the cockpits of other vehicles had been stained with blood from due to their heads exploding, unable to withstand the intense overload they received from the radiation interacting with their brain.

It seemed he was safe for now.

~*~


The megatsunami that was racing across the dreamscape came to an abrupt stop, its crest flung back from the recoil of being jerked so hard. It had reached its destination. Crystal drills, unable to be seen beneath the black foam spun with great rapidity, digging for the object that had been of such critical importance, the awareness within itself felt the need to empty an entire universe's worth of seawater. Meanwhile, the top of the wave started spinning, morphing into a typhoon which reached up into the heavens above, then broke through out into space where its second objective lied.

~*~


Brobdingnag was being drowned. The waters of the Dark Realm flooded his entire brain, squeezing it with so many megatons of pressure, not even the combined weight of several gas giants compressed into liquid form could equal it. The dream orbs size doubled, tripled, quadrupled, otctupled hundreds of times over until their size translated roughly to what they should have been in the physical world. In other words, a dream which contained an entire city within it would be inflated to its equivalent real-world proportions, an entire continent such as Asia, North America, or Africa. The potential mass of these spheres was limited only to the amount of subconscious data that could be uploaded into a person's mind during a dream sequence.

Submerged within the dark, bubbling waters, crackling with ethereal energy, the dreams pulsed with psi-lectric current, indicating the Vesuvian Virus had evolved them up to the level of being able to psychically communicate with one another. Soon, the dreamers who were worthy of becoming Heralds would take the reins, however, thanks to the overlap, the Dark Realm was able to form a steel blockade, isolating their thoughts to each other, and beings of lesser intelligence who looked to them for guidance. There would be no Idea to tell them who to worship, no Brobdingnag to tell them to resist because any psychic emanations he might try to send would be sent right back through a feedback loop that had been woven into the barricade.

"COME, EXIT YOUR WORLDS!"

The blazing form of Alutrosity shined like light to strangers lost in a cave, his fiery tendrils extended like rescue ropes. With any potential interference cut off from them, the dragon could say whatever he wanted, and his words caused the dreams to gravitate toward him.

"Do not fear to tread into to the unknown, for you have already ventured beyond the point of no return."

Once the spheres were in perfect alignment with him, he saw a near infinite amount of life-forms step out, some of which felt strangely familiar, others of whom were completely alien. Though their bodies may have changed, their minds were still malleable enough for the Monstrosity's use. Eventually the orbs floated passed them, sunk into the fluctuating wall of Dark Realm fluid, the features they contained within slowly broke down, no longer under the control of a mind to host it, or keep it in tact.

Alutrosity flapped his wings, and started heading toward the second half of Ran's dream, where Magnus, and Narcissus were doing battle. The newborns were scared, that he was well aware of. For the first time in a long time, he felt sympathy for them, partially because they had been dragged into a conflict that had nothing to do with them, partially because they were now expected to follow a leader they knew nothing about, and yet deep down in their collective guts, they felt the undying need to follow him like a messiah.

"THEY WISH TO CONVERT YOU TO THEIR CAUSE.

THEY WISH TO CONSUME YOU WITH THEIR WILL.

THEY WILL NOT CONTROL YOUR LIVES!"

~*~


The stars seemed to moved farther and farther away from each other, the fabric of space stretched closer and closer to Brobdingnag, until finally it broke open. An undulating tornado of spinning water latched onto Brobdingnag's tentacles, expanding to accommodate the massive expanse those flailing limbs covered, sucking it down like a whirlpool. At the same time, multiple thick tendrils from the Dark Realm fluid squeezing the jellyfish's brain, worked their way down, and interwove themselves into the cyclone below.

Then it began to tug, very very hard.

~*~


Alutrosity smashed through the second dream droplet, igniting the entire wall in the process. Blazing chunks of astral matter composing the dimension fell from the damaged sky, setting whole forests on fire. Behind him, the darkness of the dream spheres breaking down into pure energy could be seen, the Dark Realm produced a series of portals to ensure that it would be guided directly into that monster's enormous brain.

"NARCISSUS! BRING US THEIR SOULS!"

A swarm of dreamers whose minds transcended their own dreams, now entered into this one. They rampaged the earth, tens of thousands leaped at Body, smothering him in their rage, clawing away at his skin and flesh, only to be thrown off by its cirri, then came back for more punishment. Others soared through the sky, seeking out Mind, their bodies surged with psi-lectric current, powered by an overwhelmingly collective desire to rendTHE CLOUD apart.

In the background, the wall of Dark Realm fluid bulged from the impact of tens of thousands of empty dream orbs detonating with the might of billions of nuclear bombs, siphoning their destructive energy directly into Brobdingnag's brain.

The beast himself, Alutrosity hovered in the air, the Dark Realm pulsed behind him as it furiously assaulted Brobdingnag's brain with the raw astral energy it had accumulated within itself. He looked down upon Ran, down upon Magnus, his chest puffed up as his body slowly started to return to its original form, unable to maintain this one for much longer. Soon he would change again. Instead of attacking directly, his body plummeted down to the ground, smashing into it with a tremendous shock-wave that unleashed a devastating inferno, transforming the land into a molten landscape that threatened to consume them all.

~*~


A faint whisper echoed in the mind of one particular female Herald.

"If you wish to reunite with the one you love, then meet me at the place where Spring never comes."

ODIUM: “It is double pleasure to deceive the deceiver.” – Niccolò Machiavelli

A war has been waged in the recesses of conscious thought, where connections are tangential and fleeting, synaptic ghosts that flee the scryingLIGHT of awareness. The war began with a memory in a dark place. Now it has matured into a more complete allegory, a battle of dreams and willpower. Whose dreams reach higher shall find his throne, the rats squeak as they gnaw at each other’s hopes, all the while ignoring the worm that burrows beneath them, hollowing the ground on which they stand.

~*~


Theo Spyredes knew solitude for longer than most men could fathom. For over a thousand years he clutched at the tattered threads of a life stolen from him, trying vainly to grope for the reins of a body he was no longer in control of. All the while he watched it commit acts of wanton butchery as grotesque and excessive as they were inhuman.

The Dark Realm’s psychological tricks were wasted on him. He has pondered the moment where his life slipped away from him for so long that he knows its details on the order of nanoseconds, and this in the confines of his own mind, much less in the diluted vagaries of memory captured from him by the Dark Realm.

Captured. Stolen. Plagiarized.

How could he be frightened of the copycat child, the imitation presented to him by a dimension with much growing up left to do? How could he be frightened of his own reflection in the sinuous black mirror? A distorted reflection, to be sure, but nonetheless that.

He valued the peace and quiet in his mind, really. It was nice to hear nothing at all after so much time being tormented by the noise of others’ minds touching your own, violating it.

When he realized his miscalculation and the meteors continued to fall even as the lip of fluidPROTECTING him retracted back into the wave, he merely gestured. An unseen force thrust him into the inky depths behind him, and for an instant he was a diver subject to the abyssal pressures of the deepest chasms in the sea… but then he was Theo Spyredes, tossed down into the bedrock scooped from the soft loams of the astral realm by the Dark Realm’s drills. His trench offered him an excellent vantage point from which to see the chaos unfold.

Like a far-reaching telescope, two perfectly eye-sized portals appeared in the liquid hovering directly above his face, and he could see what happened at the wave’s crest despite the astronomical distance between the topmost watery wisps of the tsunami and himself.

The funneling cyclone did not reach only towards the sky, he saw, but towards a ghost in the dreamscape, a shadow seen only when the otherworldly light caught it from the perfect angle… a sphere, he slowly realized, translucent but nevertheless there, through which he saw a warped view of the empty heavens as they appeared on its other side.

When the lips of that hungry vortex brushed the object of all its desire, an eerie silence settled upon the dreaming plane. There was no tempestuous gale to scour the land, no roaring wave; there was no soft tickle of spume before the crushing weight of all that water. Instead, the evil eye of the great black worm winked shut – and, like a lotus in bloom, began to unfold. Tendrils writhed up out of its blunt head, clambering for purchase on the pearl’s smooth sides.

For all the world, it was as if an old crone’s hand had risen out from the earth to clutch one last time the crystal ball she had once used to see into the mists of the future and the past. Now, however, there were no magic veils to tug aside, no illusions to pierce with the mind’s all-seeing eye. The universe was clay, and time and history the hands that shaped it; the future and the past were gone, leaving neither a line segment nor a chain with which to connect life and death.

There was only a punctuation mark, a black sphere that hung unmoving and still above the world as the crone’s claw spread out into an inky blanket. A thought, heavy as lead, sank down through the rest of that icy hurricane, compressed into a single perfect teardrop that oozed into Theo’s mind, with all the weight of an ending:

Tel’aran’rhiod.

It filled the cracks in his grey matter to overflowing. He lay there, ensnared like a fly in amber, no longer lying with his back to the soft loam but now floating weightlessly, tugged along by the inner currents of the dark spiral that had engulfed Tel’aran’rhiod. It struck him then that the scale of what was happening dwarfed any metaphor that came to him as he tried to fathom the powers at play here; he floated before the apparition of Tel’aran’rhiod as a mote of dust did before God’s eye.

As it hauled itself across the dreamscape, the wave had been little more than a vast shadow fallen over the land. Yes, it had stretched from horizon to distant horizon, blanketing this fleeting and fanciful world as snow might an arctic waste, but before now Theo had not realized that entire planets might slip unnoticed into its depths with hardly a ripple, as raindrops into the oceans of distant Earth.

He found himself beginning to fear what would happen next, but he had little time to worry. All of a sudden, the currents pulling him along began to constrict, corkscrewing into a single tunnel as tributaries merged to form the roaring serpent of one almighty river. In the distance, the Unseen World, where all the weaves of the Great Pattern met, all intersecting paths found the center, where all the possibilities of the Wheel of Time begin and end, glimmered like a sinking pearl.

And in an instant, compared to the immeasurable track it had left stretching back into times immemorial, gone. The weaves were torn, the paths lost in rain, the possibilities ceased, all cessated as stillborn children in the womb of the dream world. For aeons, Tel’aran’rhiod had served as a haven of dreamers, an afterlife sought after while still trapped on the mortal coil, and in an instant the hand of the Dark Realm had reached up and plucked it from that perch to serve a purpose altogether different.

Of all these great ghostly pearls that hang across the sky of the dreamscape like beads in the longest necklace, one for every heaven, you ask why Tel’aran’rhiod must slake the Dark Realm’s hunger…

And the answer, as all the answers in this war have inevitably traced back to, is Magnus.

The schemer, the deceiver, whose tumor of a universe grew unseen in the dream world’s heart, infinity trapped inside the finite. Though unattended, though the pimple’s core had gone to pursue other opportunities, the pus remained. Now the Dark Realm applied pressures unimaginable to the membrane inside which his abscess lie, and the pearl shrank, shrank, crushed down into singularity, until its light was merely an afterthought trapped in the millions of miles between Theo and its grave.

In those moments, which did not deserve to be shaved down into a concrete measurement, the lives of the dreamers inside Tel’aran’rhiod were snuffed out, as a field of candles before a great wind. The universe inside, and Tel’aran’rhiod around it, were crushed down by this incredible compressing force into a space at once infinite and incalculably small. Mathematics might grope for some way of defining this gross impossibility, but in the end, the result can only be called a deep perversion of reality, a fatal mockery of known physics.

The only parallel that could be drawn from the paltry vaults of human memory was the black hole: a force of destruction so great that it subverted the very fabric of space-time, a wrecking ball made from starstuff crushed down to mathematical immeasurability. And this, this cosmic colossus among Multiversal monsters, was made of Tel’aran’rhiod’s remains and the universe hidden inside.

Gravity smashed the portals leading to Magnus’ universe, and that universe formed a part of the singularity. The event horizon of the resulting anomaly was vast, incredibly so, a rift torn in the very skin of the astral realm. Theo found himself flowing upwards through the spout, and through his telescopes he just managed to glimpse the accretion disk of spiraling fluid before the other end of his binoculars were pulled inside.

He had a moment of pure, mind-blanking horror as he realized what was about to happen – what had happened just now.

The Dark Realm tsunami, in swallowing Tel’aran’rhiod, had begun to layer itself, with each new stratum increasing the pressure astronomically. Theo knew of the Dark Realm’s strange behaviors; he had seen it open portals and create illusions, and it did not result to him as odd that it might also crush this small gemstone of solidFANTASY. He did not know, nor could he have, of the universe contained within its walls, of the enigma wrapped inside the enigma.

When that too was added to the singularity’s mass and density, the resulting expansion of its gravitational field defied logic. A great ravenous mouth had opened, a portal into a Hell deeper and darker than Hell itself, and much colder. There were no schoolboy flights of the imagination inside that abyss. Tel’aran’rhiod and all the dreams inside were just weight added to the equation, all the souls just a metaphysical aspect of that physical monstrosity.

There were no white holes emptying out its contents into another universe; no wormholes across space; nothing, not even light. If he touched the lip of the black hole, its event horizon, the Schwarzschild radius, his existence would simply cessate. The last straggling photons carrying his image would quickly follow him over the edge and into the darkness, and after that, Theo Spyredes would exist only as a component of the singularity, all his energies devoted to expanding the hole…

If ever gluttony could be embodied, it would be this. Magnus’ greed had provoked a demon indeed, but a demon of a far bleaker stroke than Plutus, of far greater enormity than the circles of a place of punishment. Theodoros Spyredes had done nothing to create this leviathan except observe its birth, observe the chaos of its nascent awakening as it drained the ocean that had made it. He had done nothing to unmake Magnus or his works.

No… he had only watched, quietly, as a rat at the foot of a giant, as Magnus unmade himself.

Even as he still realized the epiphany, as he watched the purity of Magnus’ universe be diluted as alcohol by the water of another plane and his power broken, the failsafe activated. The light Narcissus had shared with him flowed through his veins, burning out the infection and at once enveloping him, thrusting him away through the threads between realms into an empty place in-between, where for the moment he might hide… hide from the hungry face of God’s wrath, for a time, until the falling dominos found him.

Yet even as Theo Spyredes fled his fate, the Dark Realm embraced its own. Liquid flowed into the hole as if from a limitless sieve, liquid enough to pour over galaxies and watch the stars twinkle and die like embers in rain. Even as the last drops of the ocean vanished, however, some subtleties remained. The atomic bonds became confused, but the spark of proto-life was not diffused even as the Dark Realm became spread around the singularity, for the Dark Realm’s intelligence is not derived from a colony of cells but from something else, something alien contained within the multitude of its dimension and all derived from it.

It is in this way that its crude desires may be enforced upon such things, as its sea was affected by the chaos of Magnus’ presence, as the singularity was now. In the end, however, its desires boiled down to a simple parallel to Magnus’ own, hunger reflected by hunger.

A hunger that would not, could not go unsatiated.

As the last trailing vestiges of the tsunami were swallowed, they swept across the anomaly’s face like a magician’s curtain, and it was gone. The Astral Realm could return to its slumber – a world short, perhaps, butSAFE.

The same could not be said of its wayward children.

~*~


The Dark Realm geysers that had come to tug at Brobdingnag abandoned their venture. Afterthoughts from the wave trapped in the dark space between dream and dreamscape, they fell, splayed tendrils like fingers as they retreated back into the portal from which they had burst. In their wake they left behind portals of their own, doorways into their own empty dimension, but should Idea’s children seek escape they would find no solace there.

Though one clenched fist loosens and disappears, the other will soon come for the knockout.

~*~


Blind to neither of the split Siamese dreams, Narcissus watched as his puppet burned beneath the Sounder’s white magma. He watched Harrald stagger clumsily into the sauntering red mist and disintegrate, the souls forming his body screaming out for vengeance even as the fog closed over them and they too disappeared into the haze.

In a last, vain attempt at closure, its splitting tendons unraveled and lunged at Magnus’ body like serpents, futilely trying to reel him in to share the colossus’ fate.

Narcissus’ disembodied spirit resisted the landscape’s attempts to ensnare him as the infection took root. He was aware of what happened to Theo, had a vague impression of displacement as the dream spun wildly out of control under SMD’P’s influence, even watched the apparition from Hell step out from the shadows and offer the samurai his own death.

A shame, he reflected, that the man had been pulled into all this chaos. He was thoroughly entrenched now, however. The coming storm would spare him no more readily than it would the gathering of monsters assembled around him. He had lived by his sword, and so too would he die by it --

As Magnus would die with deceit in his mouth; as Alutrosity would die with a roar in his throat; as Hellion would die with the roguish grin on his face and pride on his mind; as SMD’P would die in a spastic orgy of tentacles, in the end trying only to serve; as he too would die, in order to receive full punishment for his actions.

Full punishment. A punishment so vast he could share it with his entire race, with God Himself.

He noticed, with some irony, how vital the concept of memory had become in this pointless struggle. He had began the war on a continent of them, trapped inside the flowing ice – he had hunted and been hunted through them, watched them work their witchcraft throughout the conflict. Now Magnus, he mused, would be punished by the memory of all that he had done.

He looked up, through the worm-eaten film encasing their battlefield, and floated upward. A cocoon of psychic energy wove around him, though he doubted it would be necessary. His role in what was about to happen was purely ancillary; all the armies of the Val’gara could fall upon him and it would not save them.

Yet, as he floated up through the canopy of half-melted energy and interlocked tentacles secreting their destructive slime, he felt a very human emotion unknown to him for what felt like an eternity: nervousness. It sighed inside his chest, the kind of gleeful anxious mania before aSCHOOLplay or a first kiss. After so many long centuries, Narcissus’ mind was broken irreparably. He did not pretend that he could atone for the things he had done. He felt this was his own way of meting out justice.

Yes, the prodigal had come home, but was it Lucifer or Gabriel? Was it the angel, fallen from grace, who had betrayed his people, or the crusader with the burning sword? Would the black thorns shackle God and throw him down into the mud to die alongside his creations, or would that flaming scepter be laid across his child’s neck, to put at last an end to the rebellion?

I have committed many crimes across many lifetimes, he began. The disgrace of Haran, the defilement of Levitus, the breaking of Sephelaye, a thousand others like them, and the thousand worlds they had hailed from.

In the soft darkness of Brobdingnag’s brain, emerging from that mote of light in a grey smoky form like a djinn from its lamp, sure to be engulfed soon by his brother’s garden of twitching hungry worms, Narcissus’ glacial eyes smoldered with more heat than they had ever before. He saw at last the truth arrayed before him. His bonds were cut. The chains that weighed down his soul snapped. His shackles rusted away.

One hand outstretched. A portal opened above his palm, a disc into the Dark Realm.

I once thought our people immortal, our conquest the only true justice in the multiverse, our victory assured as the superior race. I thought God would save us should darkness ever come.

He could sense it now. His connection to the Dark Realm, though tangential, whispered to him of the great destruction that raced towards them. He realized he would be a mere casualty, that its real objective lay beneath him, still playing at child deceptions. Fear toyed with his mind, but still he spoke, pouring out words across every channel in the renewed Psi-link. He let the infection course through him this one last time, so that he could go into death with the feeling of false warmth and familiarity he had grown to love so dearly in the long millennia of infection.

Theo had saved himself, been pushed from the cycle. All that remained now was for Narcissus to die, albeit not alone.

I have since learned that immortality is only a word, and that all thatEXISTS must die. Everything, living or dead, has a weapon against which it has no defense. Time. Disease. Iron. Guilt. Even gods can only survive so long as there are those who pay faith to them.

Death comes for me, my brothers, but I will not face it by myself. The only way I may repent for the evil I have done is with my total destruction. Not even a memory of me shall remain. I am afraid… I am afraid that…

The first gravitational waves released by the anomaly touched his arm. It trembled and then exploded like an overripe fruit, before the bloody mist left behind was drawn through the portal and into the gaping maw of whatever awaited them. In a sudden bout of terror, Narcissus closed the portal and groped at his wound, knowing that this had been but the faintest taste of what was to come.

The knowledge that his end was inevitable steeled him, however. He had not come this far to face death with his eyes squeezed shut.

You will all be joining me.

The portal opened, belching instantly an infinitesimal fleck of light almost too small to be seen. This was not the singularity, however, but clusters of protons that lie in its orbit. For Narcissus, they were oddly beautiful, like glistening gemstones, or fireflies glimpsed on a porch on a warm summer night.

Then gravity ensued.

Everything Narcissus ever was, had ever been or would be (except Theodoros Spyredes), was in that instant drawn past the event horizon. The astral nature of the black hole’s inception ensured that it ripped from his molecular remains whatever vestiges of a soul he could be said to possess. To any onlookers, in the brief nanoseconds before they joined him, Narcissus’ image would remain for the scarcest instant before the fleeing light carrying his final moments was dragged back into the yawning chasm that entered Brobdingnag’s brain.

Narcissus was dead.

But, true to his word, it was unlikely that he would die alone.

In instants, Brobdingnag would disappear alongside him, followed quickly by the rest of the flotilla. Presuming Magnus did not escape (for if he did, it would give chase, and there was no place to run), it would proceed toCONTINUE across the multiverse, systematically devouring anything touched by his taint, as if drawn across the cosmic chalkboard to fully erase the equation encompassing the Magnusian problem.

Idea. The Val’gara. Ran and his dream. Earth-F67X. Perhaps Hell itself. It would begin with Magnus, as the first domino in a long chain, and proceed until it reached its own creation and was forced to snuff itself out… or anchor itself into a coordinate in space-time and operate as a prosaic black hole might, though its size prevented a considerable obstacle. Everything lost to it in the process of sating its hunger was an afterthought.

The time had come for the war to end, for Magnus’ schemes to die off, for the threads of destiny Narcissus had seen etched into the continent of ice in the Dark Realm to be snipped.

All the favors had been returned; justice and punishment had been doled out in equal measure; the die was cast, and it had landed.

RAN: Go into battle expecting to die, and surely you shall live. If you expect to live, surely you'll perish. This was one of the Bushido laws, the code that the samurai lived by. Forgotten by time as if it were washed away like dirt on a mirror. How insolent these people were, thinking that Ran could be killed by such disgraceful means. He had traveled time, visited Hell, stabbed the Devil, been force fed the remains of his ground up mother, forced to sit upon a throne while being manipulated by a great evil, but he had never wavered in his resolve. He would always exist, never to be destroyed by a monster. Only those with a pure ofHEART could slay this... monster. Having far surpassed the normal boundaries of the human race, he had evolved far beyond the norm. Ran was everything, yet nothing.

When he was a boy, his entire family was slaughtered by his older brother. He was always dark, much more ruthless than the then child Ran and his older sister. They use to go pick berries and assorted items from the woods whilst his brother would go and slaughter rabbits and foxes. Then fashion their pelts into make-shift crowns. Oh how his parents, simple sunflower farmers, would rage at him. Punish him for his transgressions against nature. It all fell to deaf ears, he merely smiled in the darkness. Did the little family know what he had planned on his seventeenth birthday?

The short answer was simply no. Ran was the youngest, and was therefore asked to go hunting with Father on the eldest birthday to retrieve Serish meat. A rare, fine cuisine that was only available on his home world, it came from a monsterous creature that was the size of a skyscraper. Its teeth razor sharp, usually forged into the finest blades whenever one was slain. While the boys were hunting, the girls would be baking and cooking while the birthday boy would relax and have fun. The party was grand, everyone had a fun time-- even his brother. But that night, smoke filled the air and fire raised high into the starry sky. Ran awoke in a dither, flames filled his room. “Mom!” He cried, fear bubbling in his chest. Tears streaking down his cheeks.

How exactly he got out, he couldn't remember. He did remember seeing his father being burned alive, his sister on a leash and collar at his brothers feet, her holes leaking many different fluids. His mothers head sitting on a table, chunks of meat laying about. The group of bandits swarmed him, beating him down and pulling the crying lad up to his brother. A cold grin across his face, making him look very sadistic. “Make him eat.” He said with another twisted grin, the bandits pulled him over and shoved large clumps of the raw human meat into his mouth. Forcing him to swallow it whole.

The rest was blurred, this was over six hundred years ago. From there, he hunted his brother who to this day eluded him. Perhaps he would find him, and pay him back for all the crimes he committed against their family.

But this was the past, and the present held Ran in a very precarious position. The storm surrounded him, a very faint shield of the crimson miasma rising in front of him.PROTECTING him from the swarm of this new male who spoke directly to him.

“Now you know how I feel as I watched my brothers and sisters burn for an eternity.” He heard the other say, if only this male knew the pain Ran had been through. Losing absolutely everything in his lifetime, always being alone.

“Take this upon yourself… in your heart, and you shall receive power to fuel your hatred. All I ask of you is that you use it. Take back your life. Kill them so that you may know peace.” How tempting of an offer, to allow such power to flood through him, to take back what is so rightfully his. The tether to his dream, the only thing that saved him from the pain of his life. Even if it was tied to his soul, he would still bePROTECTED from outside influences. The Legendary Creature, the beast of Nonexistence dwelled inside of him. Sharing his soul, mind, and body and returning it with ample amounts of power. It's name was Katon no Ravenhearst. As long as Ran remained faithful to his ways, to never stray from his path they would never separate.

Ran's eyes peered at the caped male, his miasma tornado seemingly froze in time before.. exploding. While it didn't provide any force of noise, it went hurdling off in all directions; aiming to kill any living being in his section of the dream. No matter what it was, even meeting that dreaded virus that had plagued his dream, invading it and trying to turn him into something he was not. Because of this, the miasmas second power activated. It acted like a fence, circling the miasma and locking it within that area. Now creating a large, crimson dome that began to slowly eat away at the influence that the vesuvian virus dared to attempt. It was unstoppable now, the miasma was slowly absorbing the gift that was the virus. Soon, very soon, this virus would become one and the same with Kishinjiraden. Of course, Brobdingnag was nothing in this dream, not even a mere speck on the level of Ran's will.

Back inside the storm, the same shadowy figure that had been talking to the eye appeared. Yet he wasn't shadowy, nor was he even there physically. He now looked like a female, his crimson hair bouncing over his nimble shoulders. Bright red eyes peered out from behind the bangs, a gentle smile crossing his beautiful visage.

“I dunno, Ran. It seems pretty risky, if you ask me. He clearly is the harbringer behind that.. thing.” He pointed in the general direction of where the large baby thing was. “But.. given your current situation it might be a good idea to do it. He is right, you are a bit... outgunned.” He added thoughtfully, turning his blood red optics turned towards the new, strange person. “And you, why should we even begin to trust you?” Kishinjiraden asked, a hint of dire accusation in his tone.

But at that precise moment, deep inside Ran's mind came a loud roar. The large eye had felt something was amiss, that something suspicious wasTARGETING Ran, and that it would kill him. So, by force he took control of Rans ability, his power, and forced one of the thousands of blades to act. A long, amber blade with a singular midnight blue streak down either side. The ancient nodachi known as Tenbatsu had formed and immediately slashed at the air behind Ran. Kishinjiraden took notice, heard the eyes roar and immediately shoved him into the rift that had formed.

“Go! Ran!” He called, his miasma swirling back into the storm to wrap itself around the other male and yank him forward. Whether he was there or not, physical or ethereal, he would still be drug forward and into the rift which immediately sealed behind them. Every single one of Ran's blades were visible, thousands of them littered the sky, their spirits hanging out of them and chatting with one another. Here, in this realm, nothing could harm them. Ancient arcane scrolls etched into the walls of the dimension. A large artificial moon hung over heard, millions of tiny, multicolored dots littered the night sky. A small cabin rested in the center, puffs of smoke rising from the brick chimney.

He landed with a thud upon his back, Kishinjiraden now floated in the air, staring down at him with a critical expression. “You better be glad we're here, otherwise we'd all be dead. These symbols on the wall willPROTECT any in this realm from -any- outside invasion. Thank god Mr Eyeball was quick enough and slammed his power into this.”

Ran forced himself to his feet, turning to stare towards the one whom had made the offer. “If.. they are that much of a threat. I don't have much of a choice, I accept your offer, and I will take back my dream.” He growled, anger rising to the surface once more. “However, if I get any wind-- and surely I shall know, that you are attempting to double cross me; I will destroy you.” He stated with a mundane finality, closing his eyes as he began to think. “What should we do now?”

He asked Magnus, a look of childish longing to be told what to do crossed his face. His eyes having slowly retreated back to their normal crimson, in this realm he looked... younger. Less wartorn, but his eyes still rang with that thirst for blood and revenge. To avenge his family and kill those who hurt them. He had seen his family burn, twice, just like the male before him. Because of this, they shared something of a bond but less sophisticated. He was ready to accept the burden, to destroy those whom attacked. Ran was ready for war.

LYSANDER: It was true, that deep in the depths of his own arrogance and pride, he had ignored a pain deep within his head, a throbbing ache just behind his eyes. He had ignored all else in the pursuit of his goals, the hope of atonement for sins committed against one he considered father. He had ignored everything in favor of bringing Anathema home, of returning his master to his rightful place; and that ignorance had lead him to this point, where the ignorable throbbing became an insatiable, rhythmic pulsing in his mind, body, and spirit. For the length of battle, he had succumbed to his own lust for vengeance and the promise of death to be dealt, had become entrapped within his own secret plans. He had, on some level, forgotten the true mission of Val’gara, though he’d recited it often enough to his underlings and equals alike, taken pride in the words that had fueled his life for a thousand times a thousand days, much as Narcissus had so often taken pride in himself, and his own machinations.

Now, it all came flooding back to him, in the form of pure and utter agony unlike anything he’d ever felt himself touched with before. The feeling of dozens, linked to him through their mental connections, dying at once hadn’t brought such pain to him, for it was their duty to die in the service of their masters. Losing Anathema to those bastard psychics on Mire, feeling him lose his connection to them; and they to him, had not brought him such pain. The mighty words of Idea, piling their immense weight upon his shoulders until it buckled his knees, and sent him face-first to the floor in exultation of his master’s might had never caused such agony.

In his mind, a single set of memories remained; the important events that set this path before him, that had brought him to this singular moment in all his life, that brought him to his utter destruction. Within that segment of sporadic thoughts, lay only one memory whose pain alone came close to this moment, a memory his Val’garan mind had repressed and hidden deep within the confinements of thought, untouched for many a-century by the mental hands of belief, which held firmly to the turmoil of events in his life. Whether this memory was truly his own, bubbling to the surface in that moment before death; or a memory of memories flowing deep through the black waters at his feet, and empowered by the sheer energy of the dream-world around him, he was unsure. All that he knew with any certainty, was that it was his memory, come back to him after many moons without it.


A great battle had raged for hours, and now it was drawing to a close. All around him the broken, destroyed bodies of humanoid creatures lay torn asunder, and ripped to bits. Their pink flesh covered with the crimson life-blood that flowed through each. Many had died the death of a warrior, weapons in hand and facing against the enemy, but some had been the cowards they often professed to never become, after a night of gallivanting with the women, and drinking with their comrades. Theirs was a deep shame, a shame on Jamal himself. As their leader, the General and de facto King of his people, it had been his duty to instill his men with courage to fight on, to stop only when everyBREATH of life had escaped their lungs.

And he had failed them, failed himself.

He was undeserving of a warrior’s death, laying among the bloodied bodies of his guardsmen, who had died in the last burst of energy fired from the opposition’s ship, which resembled a great whale-like creature, which moved with the familiar grace of a living being, rather than the careful maneuvering of a craft powered by turbines and energy drives, not in the same way Retribution had, and it was for that single reason, Jamal told himself, that they’d been defeated. Their technology, despite being used by the best pilots he’d ever known, was noMATCH for a living, thinking organism’s reflexes. The lag times between console commands and movement had been the cause for their defeat, in some small part.

Deep in his mind he held only himselfACCOUNTABLE.

His right hand closed tight around the grip of his pistol, pulling the ancient revolver up, using much of his waning strength to hold the barrel flush with the side of his head. “A warrior’s death does notFIT me, for I am not a warrior, I am not the man I longed to be, that I claimed to be. A coward I am, and coward I will die.” The words were barely a whisper, but a passing man heard them, and he shoved his way into the room; without a care for the corpses littering the ground around him. His sight befell upon Jamal, and for a single moment pity might have shown behind those eyes, but when he spoke his words were harsh.

<A coward, are you? To have fought so long and hard, despite knowing from theBEGINNING you had no chance? You may pretend to have thought you stood a decent chance, but nothing can stop us. Nothing can stand before us. Your men, though they may have taken their own lives, only fell to the true might of my forces. You, who still live, who would still fight with the last ounce of your strength should you think it not futile, a coward? Perhaps you are, if you truly believe that.>
The words did not flow from the movement of a mouth that Jamal could see, but he could hear them all the same. He understood that -this- man was the leader of the force amassed against him, and if he could but kill him, perhaps he would have some redemption. And so Jamal Noechra, General of his men, King of his people, Captain of the Retribution, marshaled the last of his strength; and with a speed belied by his near-death state aimed the weapon directly between the eyes of the man who stood before him, pulling the trigger as quickly as he could.

The other’s head snapped backwards, and a smile began to slid across Jamal’s lips, until the other pulled his head back upright, and the bullets fell - useless and mashed - to the metal ground, clinking and clanging as the lead bounced away. The stranger’s face was unmarked, though a smile split him from ear-to-ear.

<Yes, you will make a fine addition to my men, you will be one of my favorites, I think. You’ll need a new name for your awakening, a fitting name for someone as ferocious and tenacious as you. Yes, your name when you awaken will be Hellion, and you will be favored above all others. Your destiny is open before you, now sleep, and when you awake you will begin lifeANEW.>



The memory replayed a million times in his head in the nanosecond it took for himTO REGISTER what was truly happening to his body, reminding him of the only pain that came even close to what was happening to him now. The loss of his people, the great destruction that had befallen his comrades. The fear of dying a coward’s death, and then the pain of transformation.

Transformation.

That’s what this felt like to him, the rending of his physical body and spiritual mind as nearly useless, shapeless things. It was much akin to the Vesuvian Virus’ affect on his body and mind, when he had been broken only to be rebuilt as something much stronger, much more fulfilled in life, with a single purpose; that was the thought of an entire species. On that day that he had ceased to become Jamal Noechra, and had become Hellion of Val’gara. The deep transition that happened then, was happening (on some level) again, and it horrified him to feel that perhaps Idea had finally decided to abandon him to a fate worse than death. A fate many men could not even begin to fathom, though Hellion had worried about it constantly since his futile attempts to find Anathema began to grow in number.

Loneliness.

O’, how the very thought of being alone forever, left only with his own thoughts; no longer seeing and feeling what his brothers and sisters saw and felt. There could be no worse a fate for Hellion, who grown to deeply love the new life Anathema had given him. His loyalty to the man had come from the love for the life he had, the second chance he’d been given to prove himself a true warrior. It was not a love for Anathema, but the love for bloodlust and battle-frenzy. Now, he feared that he would never feel those things again, and in that second before death finally closed over him, he wondered if he should ever feel anything again.

---------


He opened his eyes, and then opened them once more without having closed them. Like awakening from a dream within a dream within a dream, he continuedTO OPEN his eyes. A thousand times over his unclosed eyes open, and he saw before him all things and all paths. All outcomes and all circumstances. He saw before his eyes an endless realm of possibilities and happenings, a repository for all knowledge within the great rising swells of the world around him; and in an instant he recognized the place where he lay, and felt the intricate connection that had been formed.

It was then that memory flooded him, that understanding seeped into his mind, and broadened his horizons until he could no longer fathom having been anything other than what he as now, though the very information surrounding him told him otherwise. He could feel that he no longer had a true body, it had been broken and beaten by the creature whose loyalty he had questioned, but now the plan had become clear to him. All plans broke open before his prying eyes, if only he sought them out. Yet, his talent with his new knowledge was yet uncertain, and in some places completely lacking. Immediately he sat about figuring out exactly what he could do, and what he couldn’t, now that he seemed to be nothing more than a minion of The Dark Realm, trapped here forever.

No sooner had he thought himself a captive, then he began to realize just how captive he could become. The Dark Realm flooded around him, and began grabbing at him, clawing at his metaphysical ‘flesh’, threatening to rip his sentience apart and drown it in its waters, no matter that he had become a part of it.

<STOP!> He screamed, his voice full of authority; the voice he would have used against those who followed him before, and miraculously the waters drew back, cringed away from him. It recognized him as part of itself, the larger part of its sentience now resided within whatever it was he had become. Still, he shied away from it. The moment doubt entered into his mind, it drew in around him once more, trying to tear him to pieces. And again he reaffirmed what and who he was, this time so fiercely that the very torrents fell back before his voice, and seemed to bow into calm waters. Within what was left of his mind, he formed the image of himself as he once had been, and then he simply was. A physical body built, and solidified, by the very waters that had sought to destroy him utterly only moments before surrounded his “existence”, and crafted for him a vessel for what he had become.

<Give me the knowledge I need.> He commanded with a thought, sending it out wide into the obsidian waves around him, those calmer swells which had once been great tsunamis of death. They succumbed to his command, and bore down upon him with a million years of knowledge, to the point that Hellion’s mind was shattered, and his concentration was lost within that single span of time, a space of movement shorter than a microsecond.

<Only the knowledge I need to understand this situation!> He mental presence screamed, at least he still thought of it as his mental presence, unsure exactly what it had become at this point. Still, the command was heard and followed; and soon enough he was understanding exactly what it was he’d become, what had happened to him. His comment went out to SMD’P, berating him for being such a slut that he’d sank parts of himself into everything he could touch, much like the common trash on a corner, though The Sounder had done it not for greed of monetary gain, but greed o power; Hellion saw that, but did not truly loathe the beast for it.

After all, Hellion was finally beginning to understand what had been done to him - and with it he had gained the utmost love and respect for his companion. And in that single moment of understanding, that moment of clarity that came with knowing all, he saw what would happen to the dream in only another microsecond’s span. What would happen to the place that he and Alutrosity had once shared, and he saw where the other half of Alutrosity was, the pitiful creature which called itself Alucroas, who walked alongside Narcissus’ weaker half, who still lived without the symbiotic creature attached to it.

<Kill them, and bar entry to the one known as Alutrosity. He will not pass through here, nor touch us again, without our permission; which will never be given again.> There was no longer a need for commands, Hellion simply knew his thoughts were the thoughts of The Dark Realm, his decisions were the decisions of The Dark Realm; and nothing Alutrosity did could change that. The taint that SMD’P, and Hellion himself, had spread throughout the dreams, all the dreams and all the realms touching those dreams, had become infected; and now The Dark Realm itself bore a different kind of infection, an incurable disease that had merged Hellion with it, and in doing so brought about quite the creation; something most people would dismiss as childhood fancies, the stories of an imaginative young man.

Others would know better. Hellion knew better. He was The Dark Realm, The Dark Realm was him. So his wishes became realities, and his thoughts became the thoughts of all things. All knowledge was his, to do with as he chose and as he pleased. Everything the universe over was his to study, his to hold and cherish. And so, as had been done when Jamal ceased to exist, and Hellion was born, he received a new name, a nameFITTING his new station; his knew place in the Multiverse.

The Inheritor, a name chosen for the inheritance he’d finally received, an inheritance he’d never known was his. He had been bequeathed all the knowledge of all the Multiverse, to use as he sawFIT and to manipulate as he chose. All the power of all the world’s, of all the people, was his to command, and now Val’gara reach would be wide indeed; for he had not lost his loyalty to Idea with his death.

And so went the death of Hellion. It was a swift, pain-filled affair, but in his place; like the rising of a phoenix, he was reborn as the Inheritor, a being of all things and of none, or many names and yet of one. And following behind it was the explosion of the dream, for time flowed differently within The Dark Realm, and what, to Hellion, had been over an hour had been scant few nanoseconds within the dream he had once inhabited, and so as the Inheritor watched, so went the way of that world which had ceased to matter, for the lands of The Dark Realm would offer no safety or sanctuary for the monstrosity which had once been his adversary.

--------


Alucroas and Theo continued their jaunt through The Dark Realm, oblivious to the horrible deaths that awaited them. They were casual, uncaring in their saunter through the liquid world; but even as they moved things shifted and changed around them. They stopped, and yet the world kept moving, not just the churning of torrential forces, moving all around them, anymore. No, the entire realm shifted, while they remained still. Soon, they came face to face with the physical presence that now held dominion here, and few could look upon him without feeling the awe at his very being; though he looked not much different than he had as when he’d lived his former life, his very being demanded obedience and utter and complete faith. He had brought them before him for a single purpose, to offer themSAFE passage - to allow these two to leave, or suffer the pain of death before their time had come, but to never come back again.

However, another option unfolded in their minds. They could leave, never to return, or allow The Inheritor to use them, to infect them with his own viral strain, to become Val’gara, but to become part of The Inheritor himself, to become his avatars within the physical world. They would lose all semblance of their free will, they would become slaves to his dominion and whim; much as weaker minded Heralds had become to Idea. But they would live, and could come back to this world when called for, without worrying about death.

If they chose the first option, they would never return, the way back would be barred to them forever; all passages would lead only to an infinite blight, a death beyond death. There would be no escape from it, no circumvention of The Inheritor’s justice, it would be as he willed it to be; here, in this world. The second option would be a fate worse than death, though some would choose it; thinking they could find a way around his conquest; and yet they never would, no matter the effort they put into it.

All the favors had been returned; justice and punishment had been doled out in equal measure; the die was cast, and it had landed - in the favor The Inheritor, in the favor of The Sounder. All that had been sought as weapons against them, had been turned to their aide, their favor. All that had once belonged to others, now belonged to them. All that had been free, would soon be enslaved - that which wasn’t already enslaved, anyway.

The Black Hole was gone, broken down and the ‘scape from which it had risen had been returned; all things has been as they once were, save for the Inheritor himself, who still watched on from his new throne, his new home, with the bored expression of a child who already knew he outcome; for here, within himself, all thing were known. His fingers folded calmly over one another, as he awaited the answers of the two before him.

Magnus would live, his schemes wouldCONTINUE; and for once the monster would not be able to take the credit for himself. For once, Magnus owed his continued existence not to his own wit and talents, but to the mercy of another. A favor for a favor, that was the order of things, and the way the Inheritor saw it, Magnus owed him one big favor; and the time to collect was a-coming quick.

--------


<The Collective is broken, Master. We are not whole, not as we once were. Isaak is dead, Hellion is gone so that I cannot sense him, so he too must be dead. What has happened? Have we lost?> Azaroth’s voice was tinged with disbelief, a feeling of unease that it might even be plausible that they had suffered a defeat at the hand of such insufferable, untalented wastes of sentience.

<What has happened, Azaroth, is that the plan has come together. Have we lost? Perhaps, in some small measure, you might see what has transpired as a loss, but the tapestry of our dominion continues to grow, each thread interweaving itself within another; making room only for what we wish, for what I allow. Hellion is gone, but he remains; in some form or another, as a being greater even than Anathema himself, greater than you, and perhaps - given time - greater even than myself, though his loyalty to me is absolute, and so I fear not what power he may obtain in his new world.

<For now, you continue with the plans that have been lain before you, and be about your duties. Our business here is concluded, and so I must be on my way.> Even before Azaroth thought to respond, the blackened, semi-humanoid shape sitting atop the second throne of skulls was gone, and Azaroth was alone with his own thoughts; constantly pondering what the man could have possibly meant, how Hellion could be gone, but still greater than he in some unfathomable way.

He would be there for many days and nights, not noticing the passage of time as the world’s moved on, and time forgot him. His mind would grow dim, with only a thought for what plans might be sent his way, and how Hellion could be dead, but more powerful than even Idea himself someday.

And he forgot all else.

GUTS: Only once had the mastermind of the Val’gara touched minds with the creator. Only once had they witnessed the vileness of his soul, the pragmatic wickedness of his thoughts, and the insidiousness of his person. Only once had such horrors been known. They had grown ambitious though, to simply cringe in the face of Matanbuchus and spring forthANEW, maintaining their mantra was something that the Dark Count could admire. But it was foolishness.

The insidiousness of Idea’s will sept forth past the towering obsidian gates of Magnus’ Mind and into the inner confines of what they thought to be his mind’s eye. Vast, burning plains sat forth circumnavigated by towering ramparts accentuated by pointed crenellations, stabbing the boiling orange and black sky accusingly. The plains, a soot-stained malebolge of fetid rot, fire, and mire bubbled with despoilment. In the sky scrolls, manuals, and thick-spined books hung suspended, libraries upon libraries worth of knowledge simply was, as if frozen in time.

Occasionally a jet of flames would spit from a geyser hidden amongst the charcoal and pumice and snag a scroll or book, which caused ribbons of flame to rain down upon the tortured landscape. For every one destroyed, there were a thousand more to take its place. The Val’gara were at a veritable buffet, millennia’s word of apparent knowledge was stored within this sanctuary, and was all too easy to grasp at, to seize for their own.

The black waters of the taint spilled through the gates and smothered most of the lava-ridden landscape, causing a thick layer of scalding haze to settle upon the ground, periodically ruptured by the occasional jet of flame, or tar. The virus spread, but there was little to be had in ruined soil, it was the knowledge it sought, the thousands upon thousands of floating grimoire held in suspended animation. Some of the books were frozen with covers flung wide open, and pages spilling out, floating away in slow motion. The black taint performed its secondary function, to adapt. Tall spires of pitch rose from the ground, reaching for the books with fine points, like spears to fish.

As each point touched one of the books, the scrolls, or lexicons, they melted along their surfaces… then disappeared. Idea could sense his will being pulled further into the twisted mind of Magnus at that point, progress was definitely being made. Or so they thought.

Upon entering each book, every facet of the virus that had split up would find a different experience, not memories, but different libraries, each as enticing as the last, only fueling the hunger to convert, consume, and control such a knowledgeable being. The taint was met with some resistance, usually buffers to stop the insidious liquid, but it was minimal, and the virus only adapted. It was unstoppable. It only needed one thing, to reach the core intelligence, to convert the core, so that it may consume many more with the power of the creator at its disposal. On its way it would collect more knowledge to disperse to the rest of the collective after the Vesuvian Virus had converted the central intelligence.

Every book that the virus drained into was another doorway, every scroll a portal, every tome a tunnel, every manual a manhole, each leading into twisted libraries of the pit, adorned in black, mired with sludge and soot, and infested with rats. The virus sped up as it infected more and more, branching out as it soon became a fine point, shooting from portal to portal in pressurized streams of itself, honed to laser, thin strands. It bounced from book to book, until it would eventually, one day, meet something all too familiar.

Itself.

Mind didn’t have a face to actually grin with, otherwise it would have. Magnus’ aspect of mind didn’t actually have a body of its own at all. For mind to appear to someone with some sense of physicality would require it be able to manipulate the senses of its victim, something it usually did as a mental offense when it rooted itself within its quarry’s psyche. For that to happen would mean that whoever was seeing it would be completely at its mercy.

Separate from the broodingCLOUD in Magnus’ second circle of power was a small sphere, glowing a faint orange, throbbing with black veins. It was a mental defense Magnus used against things he couldn’t necessarily stop on his own. A sort of quarantine he formed through a mental paradox of portals that all eventually ended up back at the entry point. To mind it resembled a small translucent sphere about the size of an apple that pulsed faintly. It was a temporary fix, to be sure. Eventually the Vesuvian virus would adapt, and whoever had guided the taint to Magnus would realize the trickery that had occurred, but it would delay the virus long enough for Matanbuchus’ plans to come to fruition.

The loop was only inaccurate in one sort of way. Magnus’ mind boasted far more knowledge than the illusion revealed.

***


Alutrosity had made an error. Believing the dream to still be within his vicinity he launched an all out assault on something that wasn’t even there, and thus, his efforts were entirely fruitless. There was much confusion after SMD’P had separated and teleported the dreams, but Ran hadPROTECTED his half,SECURING his prize gifted to him by Magnus. The spirit dragon’s half of the dream was alone, by itself in the vast expanse of Brobdingnag’s brain, at the focal point of a psychic maelstrom.

Meanwhile, Body remained within the second circle, observing as Harrald ineptly stumbled backwards into his own demise. In a last-ditch effort he attempted to force Body into sharing his fate. If Magnus had any empathy at all he would have felt pity for the creature, but instead Body hissed with contempt for Harrald’s weakness. It was the predator, and he his prey. Even as the tumor filled behemoth reached out with its own innards it was more like the last kicks of a downed gazelle degrading into convulsions as the lion feasted upon it. Body’s sharp tendrils lashed forwards, cutting into the tendons, severing them in half as the rest of Harrald were to be dissolved by Ran’s corrosive mist. Even were Harrald to latch onto the aspect’s tentacles, they were detachable, so it would simply release them.

Upon Harrald’s death throes, Body turned away and prowled forth. The spines on its back flickered and it growled as it could feel another shift of the paradigm… The third circle was coming.

Back at the center of the chaos the gate pulsed again, releasing a second shockwave that violently exploded outwards. With that, it pushed another reality upon the dream-world, causing the second circle to be forced outwards. It was like a palpable curtain of darkness raced away from the dream, the change as visible as it was physical. There was a second of calm, and then came the rain.

The sky lightened to a monochrome gray, and the rain was a cold wintery mix that rained just as much slush and hail as it did filthy water. All of it smelled of the fetid stank of stagnant water that had sat for weeks. It pelted the ground like rotten tomatoes thrown at a stockade, and stunk twice as bad. Unable to withstand the barrage of moisture, the ground mired in its own feculence. The dregs of all existence were damned to this circle, the dreg of an offspring, the hungry, and the overindulgent.

This circle of Soul’s power dropped in temperature, and the humidity rose. The air was thick and mucilaginous. Its viscousness was nearly tangible, assaulting the five senses. The muck slurped and squished, the slush sopped, the water stank of rot and decay, the air tasted of excrement, and most importantly it was horrifying. The husk of the forest split under the girth of the precipitation. Hail fell like machine gun bullets, stripping the woods down to the roots.

Soil that was once hardened softened into mush and took a brown-black stinking fecal appearance. Anyone who had survived the soul-cutting darkness would find themselves unable to move in this circle. Any who tread upon the ground would sink as if in quicksand, their struggles only strengthening the hunger of Gluttony. Any who flew would be shredded apart by the bitter onslaught of solid golf ball sized hail. To exist within this circle was to damn oneself to immobility, to invalidity. They would wallow in the filth like any who had been cursed to this circle in the afterlife.

Of course, there were extensive perks to this circle for Magnus, since it was only a manifestation, and not the real thing. This was how Body seemed strangely unaffected within the third manifestation. In fact, Body continued growing. The aspects flesh split under the stress of its still-growing body as it began to mature a little more. Long strands of muscle fiber peeked from underneath its ruined flesh, and blood gushed from severed arteries that grew anew. At this point the aspects muscle mass increased greatly, far too much for its skin to contain, which shredded the thin epidermis like it were paper. Blood sprayed from every crevice of Body’s dry, cracked skin as it shed its flesh in favor for exposed muscle. Its fingers cracked and grew abnormally long, ligaments snapped and reformed, unable to keep up with the rapidity of Body’s growth.

Finally, as the creature’s brain had laid sufficient nerve endings, Body felt something, mindless as it was.

Pain

Excruciating pain wracked through Body’s form, sending shocks of agony through the creature. Somewhere, both Soul and Mind grinned as they inflicted such pain upon themselves. The pain, debilitating to most, simply caused Body to convulse rapidly, its arms spasmed erratically as a fresh wave of blood vomited through its muscle fibers, only to be washed away by the foul rain. There was only one thing body could do, at this point, and that was to scream. The creature threw its head back, unhinging its jaw to reveal several sword-length teeth and shrieked a horrible, inhumane, cacophony that was not one voice, but thousands. It was as if Body were reflecting the agony of all the torments of those within Hell. The sound was maddening itself, but there was more to it. Mind infiltrated Body, charging the sound waves of its scream.

The waves became visible as rings of sound, pushing away hail and rain in a loop as they literally shredded everything in their path. The hurricane-like winds of the second circle would then collide with the charged scream of Body and a rift in reality would begin to form. A large, black, vertical wound tore through the space of gluttony. The only noises that overpowered the nauseating sounds of the third circle was the enduring shriek of Body, which was so potent it ripped space and time.

***


Magnus had long since foreseen the dealings of many assassins who were assured they would kill the Deceiver. At one point, Gabriel, himself had been tasked with the destruction of the dark count, though even then Magnus had proven particularly elusive, as he always did. The power of the dark realm crushed at his old universe, at tel’aran’rhiod, destroying it so utterly that not even the faintest memory of it remained. Matanbuchus grinned at its destruction, the chaos it caused pleased him, even were it affliction brought upon something of his own creation. Any who had somehow started a life within this universe (although none within the battle were there) would be extinguished, and this brought the Count a degree of satisfaction. Narcissus, Theo, Alutrosity, and Alucroas had grown very desperate. In their terror, they had resorted to forces they could scarcely even understand as they combated an enemy beyond their comprehension entirely. They faced a being who had witnessed the birth of the very first universe, the very first reality, the first plane of existence. Magnus had witnessed life before all others, there was no anti-plane, no nether-plane, or oblivion plane that existed before his creation, and there was simply the One.

Magnus had perfected his craft in the trillions of millennia that had followed, and even then there was an eternity that he toyed with mortal affairs, damned as he was to a location that existed several billion lifetimes before the fundamental and quantum laws of physics had even began. Long before the first big bang, Magnus had learned how to escape his prison. Long before the birth of space, of area, of EXISTENCE, itself, had Magnus been toying with reality. He did not know everything, like his creator did, however he had foreseen many.

When he watched a universe crumble, as he had watched an infinite number of them before that one, he simply reveled in the destruction. He enjoyed the end-state, the parting of a life, knowing that nearly all of them would be souls to suffer in the pit he was thrown to far before the beginning. But this weapon—no this frenzied measure, would not stop at a universe he had casually discarded in a war he had long since stopped caring of, no. This hole came for him it had targeted the dark count specifically.

In all the time Magnus existed, he had never been a being of raw power, but rather, finesse. He could not overpower the tidal forces of what was sent after it, but he didn’t need to. Magnus could see it from where he stood, far beyond its event horizon, or even the accretion disk that surrounded it, opposite to its pole. It was massive, indescribable in human tongue. Many would have marveled at such a site, but Magnus watched it at it swallowed space and time with a particular disinterest in his supposed “end”. It neared, and he knew it would.

He mused as he recalled folklore of how the small would always overcome the large. They were little tales to inspire hope, courage, humor, or any variety of emotions in the inferior races. The elephant was always scared of the mouse, the slow and steady overcame the expedient, and David killed Goliath. It was the little oversights that unraveled the grand plans—the demon had learned this lesson, long, long ago. It would be a final lesson he taught his assailants before they burned for an eternity. All he had to do to save himself from this unstoppable force of nature was to speak—or to even think four little words. Four insignificant words in any insignificant tongue would show them the error of their ways. The event horizon neared, and Soul, Mind, and Body stood collectively watching their demise near, and finally Magnus spoke and thought in unison:

“Magnus does not exist.”

The greatest lie that had ever been told; the greatest trick that had ever been pulled was the Devil convincing everyone he did not exist. In this facet, Magnus took after him, learned from him, perfected his craft while he lay dormant, trapped in the ultimate punishment. One oversight had cost Alucroas, Theo, Narcissus, and Alutrosity everything. Mind had infiltrated Theo, Alucroas, and Alutrosity’s minds, leaving Narcissus to his own suicidal machinations. It planted this idea in their heads in such a way that they believed it to be their own, and to undoubtedly be true.

Even then, Alutrosity spoke the idea to his followers, sharing it across the length of the psi-link with all those he knew. It was like an epiphany, it spread like a wildfire, it twisted and contorted in ways he didn’t intend. He roared in victory, and all the dreamers cheered, initially.

“Magnus does not exist!”

The idea passed on from dreamer to dreamer, ad nauseum, to infinity. There were countless infected, and they each spoke in different ways, they thought in different patterns, the idea would be twisted. Their thoughts would warp the intention. To every length the idea would alter in such an inscrutable manner that they wouldn’t even know it would change. How could they? It adapted.

“Magnus is dead!”

They thought, and morale improved even better. Jubilance spread through Alutrosity’s ranks, and the information seeped down into the guiding intelligence of the infected. Still the idea changed, it adapted, and it altered in ways so subtle that none picked up upon it. Most specifically Theo, Alucroas, and Alutrosity couldn’t, they believed it as it altered. Mind had seen to such, and as such they also radiated the dark presence of Magnus.

“Magnus isn’t dead.”

Three characters had inserted themselves over a trillion exchanges that occurred instantaneously. Three characters had altered everything, and thus everyone would plummet into the depths of despair, the information they received, that they transmitted would change everything. All the “newborns” while insignificant in and of their own rights were just as vital cogs in the plan as the schemers who had wrought forth the black death from the beginning. Yet, still the idea warped, it changed and altered.

“Magnus is here.”

Terror spread throughout the newborns, and Alutrosity’s very same roar that was triumphant changed tune while still roaring into one of rage and frustration. Their plan would work, the dominos were set! The favors would be returned; justice and punishment would be doled out in equal measure; the die would be cast! Why? Because it had to. Causality dictated that their actions would wreak the end for the deceiver, it was a fate inescapable.

“Magnus is there.”

All of the minds in the collective psi link redirected to Theo, even his own. It was a googolplex of pointing fingers all staring him down, and for an instant his pocket dimension seemed to crush down upon him. It was like a child waiting in their room, waiting to be punished. The idea warped, as it was intended to do, in a manner so specific even Theo Spyredes believed its existence, his lack of mental fortification had seen to that.

“I am Magnus.”

A black pulse radiated from Theo’s pocket dimension and skipped across the entirety of the psi-link. Anguish radiated throughout the legions of proto-Heralds and cataclysm numbers. Magnus’ dark influence radiated from Theo like a become of foul energy. He was not Theo. He was Magnus. It was at that point that the multiversal identity switch solidified, and another voice spoke out, this one was Alutrosity’s own.

“I am Idea.”

It made sense. A lie supplemented by common sense. They were infected with the Vesuvian Virus and the guiding will of the Vesuvian Virus was always Idea. Alutrosity was guiding the Heralds, and thus it had to be true. A number of proto-heralds and cataclysm members willed it to be true in greater lengths than there were actual Val’garans.

“I am Brobdingnag.”

Truth was in the eye of the beholder, and every one of the statements was actually believed to be true. Alucroas believed himself to be Brobdingnag, he had not defended himself against the mental assault of Mind, and so what he thoughts were what he believed to be true. All this information leaked down into the center of the universe like a killers poison into an unsuspecting victims’ drink. For the next step it dredged into his memories, his mind, and he spoke another he believed to be true:

“And the Aptosites are my Herd, The Val’gara.”

The instantaneousness of the events was literally at the speed in which they could think of these concepts, and while one normally might think such volatile thoughts to be ludicrous, they need to ask themselves. How were decisions made? Decisions were made by any sentient being through the information, or data that they had accrued. They thought something, and thus chose to act upon it.

The Dark Realm was no different.

All this information, while truly false, was believed to be entirely true, and it far outweighed the information that said otherwise. The best thing about it all was that the Dark Realm was sentient. It was not a tool, not a gun to be pointed and fired, but it was capable of rational thought, action, and even emotion. It was every bit a living breathing thing as Alucroas, Theo, Sounder, or Hellion were. It was every bit as capable of being deceived as the infantile proto-heralds were, corralled by their false “messiah”.

Four words changed the tide of a battle. Four words would alter the choices of an entity that had been around nearly as long as he had. Four words would be the difference between existence and oblivion. With that, the Dark Realm turned its consciousness, no longer seeking to crush Magnus, Ran or his dream, Idea, Earth, The Val’gara, Hell, Sounder, or Hellion. Now it sought those who had truly set the gears into motion in the genesis of this Great War.

In the last few moments Markus’ words came to mind. Truth came toLIGHT.

“Their schemes… intricate… their actions, futile.”

And so it was. Alucroas had fought in the Crimson Knight War, and even in overestimation had he underestimated the enemy who was once an ally. While the Black Death inevitable turned its attention back to its creators, who were multiversally recognized as what they thought they were, now, this did not prevent them from defending themselves against their creation. No, Magnus, the true Magnus, wanted to savor their little emotions as all their grand plans came crashing down upon their heads. He wanted to see the panic and alarm in their eyes as they realized the full depth of the sins they had committed, he wanted them to pray for salvation, only for them to never find it, and them to be all too late. He wanted them to suffer in everlasting torment.

He would not be there to personally watch it; however he would know what happened from afar. As Ran pulled his three aspects away to safer ground, with it he brought the Gates of Hell, and Ran’s dream along. Then there was nothing; they were spirited away.

***


Deep within the recesses of Ran’s mind, protected by powerful arcane magicks that would prevent Soul and Ran from being followed or attacked, the two emerged. Magnus frowned, dissatisfied with the precautions that the samurai had set forth—they would not be enough, not nearly enough. With a flicker of blue Mind layered the arcane magicks with a thin temporal strand that would assist them. Outside of the temporal barrier was Ran’s dream, in all its half-severed glory. It enveloped the sanctuary like the Earth’s mantle cushioned its core.

Now, holding the tether, Ran had one hundred percent control of what was left of his dream. Within that dream were the gates of Hell, and spitting out the dream-shell were two more outer spheres, each one Soul’s circles of power. To follow the dark count would be to court death. Now with the new arrangement of defenses, Magnus was appeased. He ignored most of Ran’s threats until he heard the swordsmen ask “What should we do now?”

Ran’s query drew Magnus’ crimson gaze over to him. The demon found his lack of initiative, albeit creativity disturbing. He had given him the power to do anything, yet all in all, he did nothing. The frustration far outweighed any humor that could have been found in the irony. With Ran’s question a nubile sense of innocence accompanied his demeanor, the demon humored him. To Magnus, Ran was a child, or less. Magnus had seen adulthood long before the progenitor of Ran’s race had ever crawled from the primordial stew of his realm. Magnus had seen the dawn of creation, and while it was glorious to him, at the time, he had grown bitter over it. In reflection over everything, it brought Soul back to the plan at hand, something he would always gravitate to. With that, he decided to humor the infant:

“A tale to tell of idols damned
Of morals shunned and faith forgone,
Empires built on bones of others
Formed a race proud with grace and power,

Command was theirs and none questioned
TheirDOMAIN impressive,
The scepters of their wealth and health
Passed down successive, for naught their efforts.

They saw themselves asEDUCATORS,
And spread wisdom to lesser nations.
To govern is to smother,
A service they thought done.

One rule! One leader!
They gathered all their secrets.
With science and reason,
They built their culmination.

Benighted by their ambition,
They plunged into pressures unmeasured.
To depths dark and waters frigid,
They found their absolution.

Unmoored, they sought their savior,
Brought from shadows was the solution.
The lunatic prophet,
Held hope, their only salvation.

One wish heGRANTED,
“We are lost, save us!”
He took their tools,
And warped them, malignant.

Their sundered souls split fresh from body,
One rule! One leader!
They gathered all their spirits.
Of newfound power and sorrow they became prestigious.

It saw itself as an educator,
And spread wisdom to lesser nations.
To govern is to smother,
A service it thinks done.

A pact was made, aDEAL was struck,
An Idea had been born.
From alpha to omega,
ThingsSOON come full circle.”


Magnus stopped for a moment, in silence as if he were considering something, then looked up, his crimson eyes flared for a moment before his lips peeled back into a horrible snarl. “It seems my guest has arrived,” he stated, as his form faded away.

***


With the taint temporarily halted, Magnus could move onto other things. There were things that he had to address, things that needed to be dealt with, alliances to be forged to progress his plan. From the safety of Ran and Soul’s sanctity Mind soared far beyond the gates of hell, past the desolate outskirts of lust, which stretched far beyond the teeming heart like the derelict slums that lie encrusted on the outskirts of aTHRIVINGmetropolis.

Mind stretched out to the one he sought. Finding Hellion was not at all an issue. He was a Val’gara, child of Idea, so his scent was all too familiar. Reasoning with him, however might have been something different. But the Dark Count had an ace up his sleeve, as always. In his precognitive divinations he had foreseen many of the events that had recently occurred within the Val’garan fold. The balance had recently been unsettled with the defeat of Anathema, and though the Val’gara were still strong (they would always be so) there was an emptiness. In his absence, Hellion had filled the role of the favored Herald, though he still searched fervently for his mentor. To this, Magnus could relate, although the feeling was a distant one, an ambition he had secretly thrown to the wayside long, long ago.

Still, through his powerful magicks and sorceries Magnus had conjured a deal he believed Hellion would be a fool to refuse. Hellion willing, Mind would physically appear to him, and present him with the deal.

“Young Herald, you are tampering with forces beyond your comprehension,” Mind projected, “but this isn’t what you want, anyways.”

Knowing Hellion not to be the one for idle words, Mind set forth the point, to dredge the memories of his mentor, of his former, and his friend.

“You’re Idea and I have very similar goals, and so you and I both have very similar goals as well, as you serve your master. To unify. To dominate. To control. For the Val’gara to move forward in this objective is for me to prosper, for them to spread their influence through the faintest reaches of the multiverse is for me to succeed in every goal I’ve wished.”

Mind paused for a moment before continuing, “But for that to happen I will require your help, as the favored Herald of Idea. Come with me. Assist me, and I will give you what you really want. I will show you where the one who you truly seek is.”

ALUCROAS: "Never try to control what you don't understand."


Initially, and despite being aware of the Vesuvian Virus' presence within its black swells, the Dark Realm chose not to act, for it already possessed enough information on this particular evil to fend it off. One such bit of info told it that the virus had been in a passive state up until now, otherwise those souls which Narcissus had absorbed into his being earlier on would have surely attacked and killed him. Instead it chose to observe like it had observed Alucroas, Alutrosity, Narcissus, Theo, Magnus, Ran, the Sounder, and Hellion, for it shared no biases, favored no one except for itself and its own continued, unaltered existence. This was done in complete and utter silence, not because it had something to hide, but due to the fact that it had no reason, or need to inform any individual of the mundane act of having its omnipresent eyes wide open.

Strictly speaking, it did not care for their wars, their struggles against one another, their hopes, their hurts, their dreams, their joys, their sorrow, or prides. Certainly it had been aware of them, just as it had been aware of when a portion of its waters had been summoned by a being who had deemed to use it for combat, or parlor tricks, or filling an empty lake, river, or ocean on some distant desert world, or when an imperialistic nation used its power to conquer an entire planet by washing away its rivals. All of them were small, puny, insignificant, baring a whole library of facts that were completely inconsequential to its well-being. None of these brought harm to its existence, none of these events distorted or muddled the data it had spent all of its existence collecting and organizing into a neat oceanic home.

If there was a reason for the Dark Realm to favor one being over another, one group over the other, then it would have surely done so a very long time ago. If it had an obligation to help Magnus destroy all of existence, it would have done so--had that not came with the implication of its own self-assisted suicide and eternal absence of information for it to receive. If it had a reason to help the Val'Gara convert, consume, and control every living thing in existence it would have done so--had it wanted to be converted into bio-force for them to greedily devour like the gluttons of Hell, the realm from which their creator came from. If ever it once favored the Monstrosity, and his little brother it wouldn't have simulated the malevolent happenings of Ran's dream in its megatsunamis and attempt to inflict chaos upon Alucroas, and Theo, however brief their companionship lasted.

It. Did. Not. Care.

The only way to truly catch the Dark Realm's attention was, in fact, to threaten it, for as long as it continued to exist, so too would information continue to pour into it, so too would it always have things to tinker with, genetic bits to mix and mash, new concepts to toy with, regardless of their point of origin. If it were to ever develop a bias of any kind, then an imbalance of what it received into its swells would be produced; emotions would run amok and throw everything into a disorganized clutter, causing it to be unprepared for when things like this happened, precisely because its focus had been been placed on trivial details rather than on making sure it was well-maintained.

A proper example was two complete strangers on a bus, arguing about the right way to live, only to miss their stops, be late to work for the third and final time, be fired, lose their wife and children as a result, and then be whisked away by depression, followed by drugs and alcohol to suppress it, and an eventual overdose or mental collapse. Rest assured, however, it had witnessed the pros and cons of possessing such a capability, weighed them against one another, and found a useful manner in which to take advantage without being consumed by it.

The method it employed was unimaginably simple: it inserted the emotions into its denizens, watched them like it watched everything, gauged their reactions to specific events, and through trial and error, learned how to determine which ones warranted significant response. When that wasn't enough, it engineered, or even ripped off concepts blatantly; manifesting them into physical objects like the moon: an easily recognizable satellite that floated above many planets throughout the multiverse, dictating the rise and fall of oceanic tides, in addition to spawning many beliefs that it actually had control, or at least could serve as an indicator to someone's emotional state.

Alucroas, who did nothing but watch and observe, Theo, who merely tagged along for the adventure, Alutrosity, who simply let Narcissus lead him to the dream where he briefly battled against a giant metal worm, and the former Herald, himself... the traitor, who had simply taken advantage of a good opportunity by absorbing a mere micro-fraction of the amount of souls of the Dark Realm, and the strife they contained, when its one of its megatsunamis washed over him, and proceeded to use its own "ally" as a battering ram through which to fracture, and crack theFANTASY open like an eggshell.

Every single contrivance of the Black Ocean had been executed through its own intelligence, not the arbitrary notions conceived by the four warriors. If it were truly that lazy, that reliant on others to protect it from harm, then the very first conqueror who laid eyes upon it, the very first man with ambition great enough to try and take it for himself would have succeeded a very long time ago.

One such general would be the one responsible for the Dark Realm's prolonged freedom.

YOUR past can come back to haunt you."


Unlike how long it took for its megatsunamis to reach Tel'Aran'Rhiod, a place that was so far away, it required reaching into its own subconscious memory sector, transcending down into the dreamplane, and then crushing it into a black hole... This piece of information was far closer to home. It lay deep inside an event that had transpired not too long ago on a far distant planet, protected by a crystal cocoon of psychic forgery; hidden within a cave, there was a room where all of that world's most important figures gathered to discuss top secret matters.

An invader had come to take over the council, and claim it for himself, and in doing so incited the wrath of a voiceless girl, whose namesake the Black Ocean saw all of his cohorts breathing, walking, talking, and living in. They fought against one another for hours, viciously trying to end the others life, until one of them saw something in the other she hadn't been aware of, and then felt sympathy towards, choosing to spare the man's life, disregarding what his now destroyed half had tried to do to her and her people.

This man's freedom would be the real, genuine proof of the monsters false claim as an unstoppable force, led by an immovable god. His name was Jack The Omen, and whether or not he knew it, his release from suffering had caused him to live up to his namesake and become an Anathema to the Val'Gara.

The Dark Realm dove into its databanks, found the exact moment where the Vesuvian Virus had been purged from Jack's body, isolated that single, solitary event and then simulated it throughout its conscious, subconscious, and physical sectors. It did this in such a way, that it super-imposed the event onto the virus itself, while simultaneously flexing its feedback loop around Brobdingnag and Idea, so as to ensure no possible attempt at reinforcing the virus' strength. Now it was just harmless information, that was nonetheless locked down in its deepest vaults, wanting little to do with something that's only function was to enslave.

It was because of this brief, almost instantaneous process which took just seconds to occur, that the dreams detonated at point-blank range to Brobdingnag's most vital organ. First it received an intense shock--an overload from trying to process too much astral energy at once--stunning him. Secondly, the numerous shock-waves radiating out in every direction built upon each other like ripples in a pond, barring any attempt at erecting a defense. Thirdly, and most important, he had nowhere to go, the orbs had surrounded him, as did the force of the explosion.

Nerve cords snapped, crackled, popped, then fizzled out in the fraction of a pico-second. Blood gushed and sprayed at such high velocity that it ruptured the membrane, got sucked out into the vacuum of space, and turned into tiny droplets of frozen red crystals. Chunks of brain matter flew in random directions, releasing an incalulable amount of psionic bolts which were immediately siphoned back through the Dark Realm's portals, ensuring maximum destruction.

Worse yet, Hellion, the Herald who had somehow failed to take notice of the fact that he had trapped himself inside Alutrosity's empty shell which was placed at the exact location of the dream-bombs. The serpents who prevented his escape unwraveled at the last possible second, and disappeared through the same network of portals which formed the Dark Realm's feedback loop. For his mistake, he would not attain the title of Inheritor he was sure he would take. No. Instead he died in the blast like a good little martyr and would be on his way to an eternal realm of pain and suffering, from which he could never return.

"Respect the sea, or it might just swallow you whole."


The water spout continued to grow and expand, four miniature versions branched out from the center, the tips of which solidified into tri-clawed limbs that grappled with Brobdingnag's own. Still undergoing intense spasms from the lack of muscle coordination, the colossal extensions engaged in a temporary struggle, eventually wrangling them into submission. The swirling opening of the central spout widened like the mouth of a whale, clearing the Saturnian girth within a span of ten seconds, swallowing the giant whole, sucking him down into the whirlpool which drained into the astral realm, where its corpse would be extruded atom by atom, and devoured by the blackhole that waited at the bottom.

"The worm, no matter how much it preaches--when dissected with a scalpel-- is always revealed to be full of shit."


A mistake had been made, he hadn't paid enough attention to his surroundings, and his enemy, the Sounder though possessing a very brief advantage could not simply impose its will on the Monstrosity with such minimal effort. A few seconds ago its animal instincts might have told it that it wasSAFE andSECURE with Brobdingnag, but now it was alone... completely and utterly isolated alongside the dragon, whose tendrils reacted independently, and formed a fiery barricade to prevent his quarry from escaping. Together, they were greeted by the powerful shock-wave smacking into them, sending the two warring beasts tumbling across the empty space, clearing the gelatinous membrane where they were to battle in the sub-zero temperatures of cosmic and astrally overlapped space.

The Jellyfish was dead, Idea's voice couldn't reach them because when the Dark Realm purged itself of the Vesuvian Virus, it consumed the residual psychic discharge of the dream-bombs, then used it to reinforce the feedback loop. This was one of the core problems of the Val'Gara: they relied too much on each other, had never known what it was like to fight a losing battle all by themselves with no one to help them. In that respect they were much weaker than their enemies, for while they boasted strength in numbers, Alutrosity, Alucroas, even Narcissus and Theo, and most importantly the Dark Realm worked alone, had to take care of their own agendas all on their own.

Newborn Heralds telekinetically floated in the darkness of the black whirlpool that surrounded them all, astral flames flared from every point on their bodies, mimicking the one who guided them. Everywhere SMD'P tried to flee it was met by a swarm of converts, lashing at the monster viciously, inflicting terrible wounds that were made worse by the fact that it was unable to disentangle its soul from Alutrosity's, forcing it into making the uneasy decision to either endure the agonizing pain, or fight back like the loyal dog it so frequently proclaimed itself to be.

It chose the latter, and whether through a paradox of identity theft, or through a possible contradiction of Alutrosity's body still resembling a fiery dragon versus the truth of of who he now thought himself to be, his tendrils finally stabbed directly into SMD'P and reeled him in. He held him close, almost like a father would, graciously receiving every stab, every eye-gouge, every gruesome attempt at dismemberment, only for the flaming tongues to reattach and squeeze with even more force. Its feeble force-field of consuming psychic wrath died unbelievably quickly, for the beast's fire merely diffused the psi-lectric bonds that held it together, fueled by an even greater rage that his foe had dumbly mistaken for weakness.

After much struggling, Alutrosity finally released the Sounder from his grip, but the danger did not end there. The Proto Heralds surrounded it on all sides, severed the bonds that linked all of its other segments scattered across the multiverse together, leaving them as dead husks and isolated its conscience to the pitch undulating walls of Dark Realm fluid, still spinning down toward the center. There, the beast was restrained once more, unable to sync itself with Idea's will and fight back, no longer having any kind of back-up at its disposal, not even its cohorts the Stalker, who was presently trying to save himself and Mire from being destroyed, and the Slut whose thoughts were more focused on finding the man she loved so that she could bring him back to the fold.

Eventually, the more experienced of the bunch would break free and try to finish off Alutrosity, but he only needed a few minutes to take care of this particular problem. His massive wings flapped a few times, propelling him toward the churning vortex, which responded with a loud, smokey hiss as it came in direct contact with the searing flames emanating off him. The Monstrosity now had much bigger problems to contend with than merely re-entering the Dark Realm's waters, for during that brief battle of wills he and Herald engaged in, he felt an unnerving change occur in not only his thoughts, but his desire as well. It made him want to stop fighting, but also made him want to punish the Herald for being... disobedient.

Something plucked at the cords of his mind, changing rhythm at such a rapid pace, that he was simply unable to keep up with its tempo. What did resonate clearly, however, was...

"The only thing worse than a traitor, is a traitor who can't commit to his own treachery, thus betraying only himself."


Meanwhile that pathetic traitor, Narcissus, lacking the ability commit to his life as a Val'Garan as well as his own vengeance scheme found himself not being stripped bit by bit of his essence by the black-hole, but pulled back toward the dragon who dueled with his former, wormy ally. The undead family members of the draconic brothers chased him through a series of portals, honing in on his Vesuvian taint through a spiritual chain-link that had been formed when Magnus had accomplished his task of tricking Alutrosity into thinking he was actually Idea. In a sense, Deceiver's identity theft was to be the very tool that made the Monstrosity aware of his newfound cowardice, and used it to seek out the whiny creature for trying to run from his destiny, that would now become an unbearable fate.

Where portals opened, salivating jaws with a second pair resting inside them emerged in a criss-cross pattern, tried with all their might to widen without being stretched apart by the black hole's gravity. They teemed with electrical discharge, forming a magnetic field which provided brief resistance against the unstoppable tug, and bit down with enough force to hold him, suspending him light-years above the event horizon. Furthermore because of the will they shared with Alutrosity, those fields which contained his deceived essence, drew him up, up, and closer to the dragon whose blazing white outline was visible as it swam down the ocean currents, his crimson sapphire gaze unflinchingly locked on the suicidal maniac.

First his tentacled skirt was ripped from his body, followed by his crystal collar and sapphire beads, stripping him to his own personal equivalent of nudity. His chitinous exoskeleton cracked straight down his forehead and nose, his vaginal shaped mouth with the flailing clitoris was split into multiple bloody segments, crushed and mashed up by the gnashing teeth who immediately sunk their fangs deeper in, all the way until those ivory daggers slid neatly into each other. Finally, they succeeded in dividing his severed chunks of crystal, rat-infested flesh which had become little more than gestalt beings flowing through disconnected veins into a delectable source of nourishment.

"Soldiers who go AWOL must be punished."

"Murderers must be brought to justice.

"In the end, they must all die."

The human betrayed his own people when he failed them with his powers, the monster betrayed his own people when he spontaneously decided to turn on them, the ego betrayed itself when it sought empty fulfillment in trying to end its own existence. Alutrosity presented him with retribution in the form of consumption, dive-bombing right into him, and seemingly snuffing himself, Narcissus, and the familiars both out as a result. Instead something else occurred, the dragon's body went back to being pitch black, gorging himself on the abundance of energy received from the gesticulated forms of Valharan, Beelzebub, and Narcissus himself.

Indeed, it was fitting that he be eaten by the Monstrosity he had provoked, confronted, and allied with to take out the Father who brought him into this world, and who the dragon now genuinely believed he was.

"Death and Destruction are the only paths toward ascension."


For some time now, the spirit-dragon's blood had been slowly reaching a fever pitch, throughout the entirety of the fight, the mercury in the thermometer had been steadily climbing until it could no longer contain the pressure. Something had to give, something needed to be released, and in freeing himself from that physical shell, Alutrosity achieved the first stage by setting his soul on fire, burning away all refuse and temporarily suspending his sense of self in exchange for transformation. While his instincts remained, explaining why he was still able to fight off the Sounder, and guide those Proto Heralds just long enough to escape, the thought that he wasn't who he contrived himself to be ate away at him like the Vesuvian Virus ate away identity.

The color in his eyes slowly faded into a dusty charcoal, heavy plumes of smoke billowing from his mouth which emitted a sound that could only be compared to a lion's dying roar. His wings unfurled in lazy flaps, the sharp bones at the end shredding through the flowing currents,LIGHTINGthem up momentarily only to explode violently as they were reduced to raw energy. The beast puffed his chest, gasping for every breath, each inflation of the lungs causing a crack to run down his torso, only to be stitched shut as he sucked the remnants of everything he destroyed back into himself.

Alutrosity canted his head one last time, so that he could observe one last time, the waters being drained away, unable to see where they ended up, though still acutely aware that it was no place he wanted to be. He briefly lamented the betrayal of Hellion, the Sounder, even Narcissus, whose raw materials coursed through him. The marks on his arms hissed, fighting off the decadent energy which threatened to render them utterly useless. Not wanting to waste anymore time than he likely already had, the beastCONTACTED his little brother through those scars and spoke, his voice dry and ragged as he communicated the message.

"Brobdingnag... two more Heralds have turned against us."

An unbearable shriek emitted through the marks, then slowly faded away.

"I will make sure that we all suffer together, as a family."

The Monstrosity snorted and inhaled, drawing the deadly energy he exuded into his mouth, coughing in irritatingFITS as he forced his body to put up with it. His nostrils flared, expelling heated torrents of ashy soot that sizzled into bright sparks that were nonetheless sucked back in through his mouth, then squeezed into a steadily forming sphere at the back of his throat. Layers of black flames coalesced around the ball, compressing it into a tightly packed object, repeating the process several times in rapid succession. Soon it would be ready -- but there was still a ways to go -- for now he swallowed it, where it would be refined and concentrated into something with much more potential.

Before he could unleash the blast, something else happened... the scars on his arms glowed a rich green, and for a few terrifyingly real moments, the dragon's younger sibling experienced the full, incomprehensible feeling of death. The markings stretched open like elastic, two black claws gripped the edges and pulled, the skin peeling off its digits as it encountered the decay surrounding the Monstrosity. Alucroas forced his head through the opening, his horns briefly snagged on Alutrosity's flesh, eliciting a snarl of frustration, then managed to free himself in an unpleasant-looking whiplash motion. He howled at first, but it quickly transitioned into manic, uncontrollable shrieking as he felt his exoskeleton shear off plate-by-plate, the flesh stripping away like the split-ends of unkempt hair.

SOONwe'll be there, Alutrosity thought to his brother, it's so close, so similar to our own ravenous appetites, it's such a shame that I have todestroy it. That last verb carried a wellspring of bitter venom, seeming to spit as he spoke, causing brimstone to expel from his mouth, that was immediately shattered as he spat again, this time on purpose.

Throwing his inner musings to the wayside, Alutrosity tipped himself forward, straightened his wings so they faced back and continued his descent, shredding through sheets of caliginous mist as he approached the black hole. In the meantime, Alucroas clung to his brother's horns. They were so enormous compared to his fourteen foot body, that getting impaled would be next to impossible, and so he remained safe -- acting as a sentry for the time being, so as to make sure the new mission they both knew by instinct had to be done, 'less it mean the end for them and their race. Within minutes he felt its gravity begin to tug on him, streamers of deathly radiance were pulled from his frame faster than he could plummet toward the thing and deliver its last meal.

"Stay the course, gentlemen."


Silence greeted them as any noise the two may have made on their way down were sucked into the event horizon before they, themselves had a chance to hear them. The Monstrosity looked up one last time to check for any followers, and Alucroas confirmed it with a mental okay that was relayed through the scars they both shared across their arms. Little did either of them know, that it was the very same mechanism that allowed a very different monster to follow them down into the depths.

A sudden burning sensation wracked Alutrosity's innards, sweat exuded from the gaps in his exoskeleton, exhibiting an odd whiteness as it evaporated around him. Despite still being in the midsts of thinking he was Brobdingnag, Alucroas' physical senses, smell to be precise told him that this was definitely not something his older brother did naturally, let alone a god to display such weak vulnerability. By now Alucroas had managed to regenerate most of his wounds, prompting him to investigate the strange phenomenon and sniff around, whilst scanning the surrounding environment with his sapphire eye.

Climbing down to where the scars were, Alucroas closed his crimson left eye and peered into chaotic maelstrom raging inside. Ironically, the thing he saw was startlingly coherent, baring a tri-ridged armor backside and hooked fangs underneath, its maw dribbling with acid that slowly tried to corrode his brother from the inside out. The abomination growled and let loose an earth-shattering roar which resonated through the marks, and attempted to annihilate the creature by bombarding it with astrally boosted soundwaves.

Instead, the monster self-destructed, releasing a massive electrically charged explosion that blew off Alutrosity's forearm, throwing him into a tumbling spiral, and sent Alucroas flying back toward lthe Dark Realm's water currents. Destructive energy gushed from the wound, obliterating everything it touched, including the acidic substance secreted by what was now revealed to be the Sounder. It didn't take long for the two dragons to deduce that it had used its earlier experience of being spiritually entangled with Alutrosity to track him down, and stop him from achieving his agenda. After it had taken care of the Proto-Heralds, it merely used the scars on the beast's arm as a portal through which to emerge, and launch a stealth assault.

A number of the segmented agents launched themselves from Alutrosity's wound, and latched themselves onto his chest and back, drilling him with its fangs in an attempt at destabilizing his newly achieved form. The dragon responded by lashing out with his tendrils, negating the Herald's acid with a supercharged version of his own, that caused rapid decay and ended with a miniature shock-wave which repelled the multi-partite being back upon contacting it. Meanwhile, others did the same to Alucroas as well, seeking to further stun him with a heavy dose of electrical discharge, only to be repulsed back when the abomination ran that very same current throughout its body.

No sooner than the Sounder had stuck itself onto Alutrosity, had the dragon begun prying off its segments with every available tendril, ripping off plates of his exoskeleton in the process, exposing his rotten innards. When Magnus had tricked the Monstrosity into thinking he was Idea, he had also interrupted a very crucial transformation that had occurred when his anger reached peak. By warping his mind to think that he was on the level of a deity while his soul was exposed, Alutrosity had inadvertently ascended, broke free of the mortal coil and became a Death God, hence why his body appeared to be in a constant state of destruction and reconstruction, embodying his new spiritual status.

It was because of this that the Sounder found its segments slowly start to fall apart, some of which self-destructed in a last ditch effort at ending Alutrosity once and for all. The explosion managed to blow a hole clear through his chest, exposing the sphere which rested in its center, beside his beating heart which continued to radiate that dark essence that constantly rebuilt upon his form. He had a narrow window of opportunity, already within the black hole's event horizon, beyond the point of no return, his feet started twisting around themselves, each individual atom composing them snapped off as it tried to extrude him.

The black sphere climbed up through his esophagus, rested in his jaws momentarily, as the beast contemplated the sad fate he was about to make them all endure. Alutrosity careened his head around in a colossal arch, emitted a throaty growl and released the blast, watching as it cleared the distance in a manner of seconds, was unfolded layer by layer, like the charcoal feathers of some dark angel. The black hole was completely eradicated by the release of so much fatal energy, scattering apart in a tremendous shock-wave of hawking radiation and raw energy that it had been converted into upon its destruction.

When everything finally appeared to over, the Dark Realm reassembled itself, then accessed the Gates of Hell, where it would Hellion, Alutrosity, the Sounder and countless others were destined to end up.

"Welcome to the end."


The first thing Hellion woke up to was a gloomy gray sky which floated above a massive city known solely as Dis. It was populated by fallen angels, people who had blasphemed against God, or littered with flaming graves, all of which were filled with damned souls plunged headfirst so that their feet remained visible. This was the 6th Circle of Hell: Heresy, and all of the sentries who protected this sacred place sought to strip Hellion of his power, damning him for thinking himself a worthy ascendant to Anathema's throne, and for seeking to claim the title of The Inheritor.

The Sounder's many parts were scattered into a swarm of wormy segments by the ferocious storms of the Circle of Lust, which consisted of naught but an army of cyclones which endlessly flung men, women, pedophiles, rapists, and others who could not control their lust. The Herald had violated many with its hideous phallic appendages, even his own ally, amongst other strange creatures. Perhaps, it would find strange company amongst the Slut who was no less spared than he was, though the amount of resistance she put up against the cyclones was at best minimal. After all, she had her own personal reasons for being here.

The Stalker who had spent his entire life feeding on countless organisms throughout the multiverse, constantly expanding his repertoire of creatures to mimick, found himself plummetting down into the frigid Circle of Gluttony. When he became a Herald of the Val'Gara, his urge to devour whatever caught his interest was boosted, and one had to wonder whether or not the gargoyle was so ravenous a creature that he'd even try to feed on his own fellow damned, who wallowed around in their own filth, tortured by a hailstorm of ice, and rain which only served to turn the ground into a dirty slush.

Alucroas, who now thought himself to be Brobdingnag, the leader of the Val'Gara's military might, along with the jellyfish's dead husk crashed into the Seventh Circle of Hell: violence. Here, they swam in a boiling river of blood known as Phlegethon, wherein if either were to try and escape this nightmarish river, they would be met with an endless volley of arrows launched by highly skilled demon archers.

The Monstrosity, Alutrosity passed through the Gates of Hell face-first, tumbled through the air and landed with a tremendous shock-wave, rippling the waters and slaughtering hundreds of warring damned within the swamp he had fallen into. This was the Sixth Circle of Anger, it suddenly expanded to accommodate the dragon's girth as he slowly started to sink into the muddy bog beneath, swarms of enraged denizens using what few portions of his body that were exposed as an island upon which to do battle. Had he not been insane, experiencing a false identity, or been on a mission, this place might've almost qualified as a unique paradise for the beast who had once served as a draconic warrior of Liaita's west coast on the planet Soran.

Far beyond the other Circles of Hell, the waters of the Dark Realm flooded the Dark Woods, and progressively started spilling onto the other circles. Alutrosity pressed his hands into the mud and pushed himself up onto his feet so that he was chest deep in the river, waterfalls of mud, gunk, and people beating the shit out of each other fell off, others clinging to his shoulders as if seeking refuge from the violent and shouted...

"To all who wish to betray me...

To all who wish to erase me...

To all who wish to enrage me...

To all of you who are hungry...

To all of you who are thirsty...

To all who wish for harvest...

To all who wish to starve less...

To all who wish to win this test...

"ABANDON ALL HOPE."


GUTS: Rime-coated crests of muddy waves crumbled under the immense girth of the falling hail. The granules of ice peppered the tormented soil, causing it to nictitate like thousands of tiny eyes blinking witness to the ghastly plans Magnus was to unfold. The musty sky--grey and heavy with perspiration--rumbled in ominous homage to an earlier circle, and the sky sagged like the corpulent potbelly of the gluttons damned in the realm. The sickly sepia monochrome of the realm saturated the environment as much as the overabundance of filth. The ground stank like fetid fecal matter, with the viscosity of diarrhea and distinct odor of rancid sewage it was nearly unbearable for one to handle. At the epicenter of the cesspool known as Gluttony an incubus of evil reached forth, culling through a gateway of a realm touched by recent culture. The reverberations of its agony radiated like the heat of the sun, and palpable spasms of agony rippled through its pale flesh. Its bellows of anguish were so potent it tore a rift in the continuum, and in a small area there was little in the ways of grime, but only a vacuum of dire violence. Hail became bullets, peppering errant souls that somehow remained within the circle, bogged down under their own punishment, but nevertheless punctured by the projectiles.

Ichor spilt into the semi-liquescent sea of corruption, entirely alien to the realm, dripping from the wound like coagulated black blood from a bullet hole. As Body grew and wracked it matured, and became ever more emaciated, strands of hair sprouted atop its once-bald head, wiry and matted like a corpse coif. Deep wrinkles veined the creatures face, the loop of life and death was passing all too briefly for the creature, it was establishing a connection beyond its boundaries. Magnus found a sort of masochistic pleasure in the prolonged passing of his own rotten anatomy, even so, this too would pass. Everything had a date of expiry. Some came more sudden than others.

Soul manifested itself upon the circle of Gluttony, and was immediately marred by the environment. Magnus paid no attention to it, he was here for a very particular cause, something that would entwine the fate of two into one. He could hear the screaming of the souls that were damned to this circle, a manifestation that had transposed itself from the actual circle of Hell through his own circle of power, much to his pleasure. Ignoring their pleas, he focused out one’s anguish in particular, not damned to the circle because of its own sins, but for sins of its progenitor. Magnus slowly descended from his hover, and his weight settled upon the surface with a sickly squealch. Kneeling, Soul placed his hand upon the ground, digging his fingers deep into the excrement. There was no warmth held within the sludge. Only the tactual sensation of a slimy cold akin to that of a long dead cadaver greeted his senses. He searched through the multitude of wallowing, drowning souls within the depths of Gluttony and found one.

He ripped it from its subterranean latency, rendering it from the scab-like soil, and mirthlessly grinned as he heard it scream from the pain he caused. Upon viewing the soul it did not appear to belong here at all, it was muddied and polluted, but that was only a reflection of Hell cast down upon it. This particular soul was a victim of circumstance, which pleased Magnus all the more. Its subservient ways had damned it to one of the foulest circles north of Dis. The Soul was a silvery ether chord, long and serpentine, but wispy and insubstantial, not at all akin to its lifetime appearance. Waves of corruption pulsed through its existence as Magnus befouled it by his veryCONTACT. He pulled it close to his face and underneath all the grime a soft silverLIGHT from the soul lightly illuminated his maniacal grin.

"I have a proposition for you... a once in an afterlifetime opportunity."

Mind rumbled an ominous chuckle somewhere far above as the spirit timidly chimed and glistened a weak metallic hue. Magnus empathically took that forADMISSION of his offer, and mused at the damned's desperation, little that it knew it would end up doing far more harm to itself and others over time than it would ever cause by simply suffering here.

“A chance for new life: to start over again--an escape from suffering.”

His grip tightened over the writhing soul, causing it discomfort. Magnus could sense the emotions coming from it, confusion and fear amidst undeniable curiosity. It was what Matanbuchus was counting on.

“In the past... you served the wrong master. You see where that has gotten you. Now...” Magnus dug his nails into the creature, piercing its ectoplasm, and with that poured his dark power into it, causing it to screech and groan like a whale in distress. The count roared above the anguished high pitched scream of the soul: “You... serve... ME!”

The sky would accept his offering, a foul sacrifice that would wreak terrible fruit. It twisted down in the shape of a dark funnelCLOUD, delving down towards the squirming ophidian. When the tornado met Soul’s palm, all stood still. The rain and hail for seconds stopped, frozen in mid-fall, like suspended crystals. For mere seconds the wretched disgusting circle of Gluttony radiated no smells, nor made no sounds, but instead resembled a pictured painted by an artists brush. Soul could feel the cold grasp of the aspect of mind as it spirited away its quarry, knowing full well that doing so would inevitably limit some of Mind’s dominance it had previously established over one particular individual.

A shock wave burst from the contact, shattering every bit of hail in its wake causing splinters of blade like shrapnel into souls still writhing in the mud, and affairs of Gluttony returned to their horrid normalcy.

***


A strange fluctuation in the threads of the universe had been created, one that was meant for Alucroas and Alutrosity, but that would inevitably affect them all. An alternate timeline was being created that would negate the effects of everything the Dark Count had worked so hard to accomplish--he would not allow it. This deceit would never come to pass. The demon allowed the Sounder to slink back into whatever hole it crawled from, but he had prepared himself against temporal meddling.

Layered in his defenses he had placed temporal magicks used mainly to defend himself, but in this case could be utilized as he see fit. It would best be used to quarantine and negate the alternate timeline, before it were forced upon any of them. Absorbing it, intercepting it, and containing it Magnus’ magic worked as it was supposed to, disposing of the threat promptly. Everyone except for SMD’P would never be the wiser that anything had ever occurred, but the Herald of the Val’gara might certainly realize that something had gone amiss. Not that it cared, for it had mysteriously disappeared at this point, anyways.

Narcissus was devoured by his own machinations or his pseudo-ally--Magnus cared not which, Sounder had retreated to the depths of Brobdingnag, Magnus assumed, and Ran cowered within the protection of his own mind, leaving little to opposing Matanbuchus other than the meddling serpent who still stood, and even he was a trifling inconvenience, at best. He had sought to damn everyone to Hell--an action which Magnus would have inevitably done to each and every one of them one day, but all that did for the Count was simply put them out of his way and allowed his plans to proceed uninhibited.

Hellion was unresponsive, at best, in fact, his interaction with the Dark Realm seemed to leave him comatose. Hellion could be aCONDUIT for his plan, but he was an unnecessary one. The gears were set into motion long, long ago for this fated day, and it was one that would continue with or without the rest of them.

***


Satisfied, Magnus turned his attention from the recedingCLOUD to Body, who had returned to shrieking after the temporal stasis wore off. His plan was almost complete.


Body’s form wracked with spasms of pain, entirely conscious for the duration of distressing transmogrification forced upon its body. Bones shattered and re-knit, ligaments snapped like rubber bands and regrew, stronger than before. Muscles began to gain mass, and then the more drastic transformations took place.. The skin on Body’s forearms hardened, like an exoskeletal carapace, then inflated. Small spines formed on the outside of Body’s arms as its fingers melded together giving way to large, powerful pincers lined with teeth on the inside meant not to slice, but to rake andrip flesh.

The flesh of his biceps and thighs burned away and sinew of the muscle underneath unraveled like yarn from a ball, each individual strand hissed as bloody serpents formed from the individual cords, each dripping a potent venom from their razor-sharp fangs. Only the bone remained which hardened and darkened to a callous, obsidian hue, as if it had deadened, almost.

The creature’s taut flesh split along the along its back as its vertebra enlarged and lengthened from its abdomen. A long, bony tail was formed at the end, curving over top of the aspect’s head with a pointy almost hook-like end to it. Bone clattered together as the tail flexed, stretching for the first time. The pain radiating through Body’s form caused it to fall to its knees, still screaming, its anguish still fueling the portal.

The creatures patchy scalp now grew long strands of stringy, greasy hair that stood entirely on end. Its eyes glowed a bright crimson which shone softly against its pale, dead skin. Its jaw seemingly unhinged to compensate for longer, strong canines that ended in acute points. Finally the flesh of its shoulders folded as it gave way to new limbs, hollow bone burst from the creatures back unfurling large wings, complete with tattered flesh, bat-like in appearance.

The Count could see his familiars taking hold of the other aspect, and new it was the right time. He pulled a phial from his vest and tossed it into the open shock wave. The container flung through the shock wave like it were thrown out an airlock and the portal flashed silver momentarily. Now all there was to do was to wait for his power to fully manifest.

***


Hephaestus couldn't believe it, not even when his sight returned and his eyes surveyed it. It was a miracle that he had slaughtered all those hideous creatures, but then again his studies paid off. Mangled bodies of soldiers lay strewn about the squalid castle grounds, their intestines splayed about cement bricks like tinsel about a Christmas tree. Charred corpses smoldered in the sordid hail like long-extinguished pyres. The corpses piled high and the ground was wet and spongy with the blood and innards of the two forces. Hephaestus stood, had he seen himself merely moments before entering the castle he would have turned his head in disgust. He appeared no better than the poor beggars outside of Markus’ castle grounds.

The battle felt over, but the world felt still as surreal as it had ever. At this point Hephaestus almost expected Markus to pontificate to his troops that their services were as he expected them. Markus either expected you to win or die, but the sermon never came. In fact, he had lost sight of the count in all the confusion, fending for ones life tended to do that. At this point he didn't entirely care, either.

“To the Nine Hell’s with that bastard and his crusade of greed!” He shouted. “May he suffer in lust! May he wallow in gluttony! May he toil in greed! May he...”

Hephaestus stopped, as he found himself walking towards the threshold of the castle gates. If he had not already felt like he were literally going to freeze from the utter frigidity of whatever possessed this realm, but now his soul felt as if it were literally gripped with the cold icy fingers of Death, himself. The pieces finally came together in his mind as he looked behind him. Then, breathlessly, he whispered:

“...Drown in Styx.”

GUTS: Every footstep of the last mortal man whom treaded upon the defiled grounds of Hell reek of his trepidation, for no being could possibly find their niche in the depths of the abyss. Fear and loathing saturated and permeated the realm, as palpable as the ever present tension that curtained its existence. And yet one had found comfort in his voyage, and the words were spoken unto him:

”Do not be afraid; our fate
Cannot be taken from us; it is a gift.”


Fate and destiny as opposed to obliteration and nonexistence was a gift; Dante Aligheri’s a gift from God, and Alucroas and Alutrosity’s from a devil. Could something so wretchedly poisonous ever be considered a gift? Could something so caustic and forceful ever be considered a privaledge?

***


The very grounds shifted in tumultuous change under the feet of the abomination. The fettered souls damned to the realm, drowning underneath its murky waters gnashed and gurgled violently as the realm began to churn. A seismic quake powerful enough to make the gargantuan creature lose its footing and stumble to its knees passed. The twisted souls fashioned to cypress trees and corpses who hung by willows, weeping in their anguish rocked. Their flesh tore from their age old frame, ripping in twain to only reform again. Their vocal anguish suddenly coalesced in the circle to meld into one massive over-cry. A black dawn had culled the waters, had called upon it’s power. A power that had never before been seen, nor never been resorted to. An ancient magic of the Soul so powerful that within it resided the strife and wrath of all the souls of Anger.

All the glory of war waged was cast aside in this realm, and only its unfathomable horrors would be unleashed.

Far ahead of Alutrosity the coveted gates of Hell stood, sturdy and impassable. A flagstone and testament of God’s enduring separation of all those who dwelled within the realm and His eternal glory. Again the circle shuddered, and then began to shift. Gravity reversed and with it the waters became a raging maelstrom. A perilousWHIRLPOOL of torment formed and the bog cycled upwards towards the doors. Trees and their bound souls together uprooted, tumbling and twisting among the mangled bodies that surfaced for very likely their first and only breath of air in a thousand years. The angry cries of those damned roared in outrage and indignation, and Alutrosity was soon to join them. For in coming to this realm, he who was already dead found his eternal home. He would forever be bound to this circle, Death God or not. Alutrosity would find new purpose in his life: to become an eternal guardian, sharingDOMAIN with Phlegyas, he who ferried the river of Styx. He would know no mindset the otherwise, Magnus would see to that through mental domination. It was a futile effort, almost counter productive to Magnus’ plans in general, but it was a necessary self-handicap.

Alutrosity needed to be dealt with in a swift manner, and doing so he had to believe that this was right for him. That the god Idea’s true purpose was the guard the circle in which he had entered. A mortal man’s passage into this realm was an insult, not to God, but to those who reigned supreme over their punishment. Never had humiliation been shared before in such magnitude. Alutrosity needed to feel the same way, and thus Magnus would influence him as such.


There was only one thing that could have possibly anchored him to the outer realm--his brother. Alucroas was the key to his salvation, a flickering flame of light that would also soon be smote out by Magnus’ dark furor. But this connection of kinship was a powerful one, one Magnus could not simply erase, but merely placate. Alutrosity lived within Alucroas. They were almost as one, in many senses. There would have to be recompense paid for the meddling of Alucroas’ soul. His heritage would remain, but Alutrosity would not, and something else would be left in his stead... The next evolutive stage of Zucroas and the Aptosite’s life cycle.

A Soul Magnus had recovered from the depths of Gluttony.

***


Magnus peered into the gates of Hell and felt the abyss staring back into him. For too long he had felt the void accusingly glare into him, and for too long had he suffered and toiled within. He was tired. He had spent much time, Mind, Body and Soul outside of his eternal punishment, and would have to return until he spent the very last of his energy waking a new age of creation. With that, his aspect of Soul disappeared, fading down into the gates. It was a fall he had not taken since his exile from heaven, a day that burned and flared within his mind with utter repulsiveness and immense hatred. Magnus fell through the circles, bypassing the husk of Limbo, Lust, Gluttony, and Greed. He admired his work as Anger rose towards the gate like a fleshly serpent slithering towards its prey, but it was short lived admiration at best.

He plummeted through the black, twisted iron of Dis, the obsidian towers occasionally glowing magma orange with heat and malevolence. As the demon twisted himself to avoid the network of spires he exhaled in a sharp, and long hiss. He knew where he was going, he had been reassigned to a new circle of Hell, and he had reserved the last of his power to avoid repeating the cycle he had endured for a thousand years. Streaking past the sanguine river of Phlegethon and the eerie hollows in violence Magnus felt his body reaching its pinnacle speed in his fall.

The malebolge, Pitts realm, passed none too quickly, and he could hear his savage brother laughing as he rent the liars and fraudulent to ribbons. He always thought of his brothers barbarism in frank terms, it was too simple a torment, but then again Pitt was a simple fiend. Magnus was better than all the rest; he had never had a second of doubt, not even as he fell into the icy floes of Cocytus, where he would now be damned to.

God had seen the treachery of Magnus’ workings, the backstabbing of his machinations, and had assigned him from Heresy of Dis, to the pits alongside Apollyon. Twisting and turning Magnus collided with the plain in a magnitude that would caused untold devastation upon a mortal realm. It was a fall that would have shattered demigods to pulp, that would have incapacitated deities of their own right. The ice hardly scratched from the impact.

The lake of Cocytus was a frozen wasteland, much quieter than all the other circles. It was a place of absolution. The tears of the damned had long since frozen over, their eyes crusted shut with rime and ice. Their moans were covered under the thick sheets of glassy ice that entombed them within the realm. A mammoth cave so dark it rivaled Lust sprawled before Magnus; the expanses of its cavern never fully discovered or realized. A mammoth gale intermittently swept over the land, freezing the saliva in the Counts mouth, frosting over the tears in Magnus’ tear ducts he had never cried, and inundating the ligaments of his body in its absolute zero. He only moved because he willed himself to move, not because it was scientifically possible. Human rationale failed Hell in the most spectacular of manners--there was no means to explain it. It simply was.

His fingers felt brittle, as if they might break if he tried to move them, his hair covered instantly in a layer of frost that caused it to stiffen and freeze. He could barely move, but he did, across the thick slippery surface into an antechamber enclosed with stalactites and stalagmites melded together. Moving through its opening Magnus could see the Dark Lord, Apollyon ahead. No one, Angel or Demon had ever dared treading down to the level of Cocytus for fear of being condemned to there for their sins. Those punished here longed for the punishment of other circles, for there was simply a stasis, an absence, and a waiting for something that would never come.

Another mighty tempest caught Magnus’ flaming cape--likely putting it out if it were actually made of the substance. The place sapped at the Counts strength with every step he took into it. The abyss pulled at him harder than he had ever felt, before. For the first time Magnus felt an emotion he had not felt in eons. Fear. A fear that he would be too late, and that his scheming would come to an end. The absolution of Cocytus was all too final for him. It was not yet time for him to meet the void, and yet he was here.

With another step he found himself before the Prince of Lies, a great beast with six bat-like wings and three faces, chewing upon the chiefest of sinners, Judas Iscariot and Brutus. He had been damned here since the beginning of creation and had known this torment for longer than any other.He was the one they sought to free. Magnus imagined he had long since been desiccated of any fluids, for only frozen blood streamed from his eyes, though he wore different expressions on each face.

The fallen angel let forth another flap of his mighty wings, perhaps more out of habit rather than an attempt to escape. The chill that came from the Devil rattled Magnus’ Soul, ever fiber of his being felt the hopeless frigidity this realm brought with it. He could hardly stand the onslaught.


For a few moments Lucifer examined him, somewhat unimpressed, but at the same time interested in him, before bellowing:

“You are not like your brethren.”

Magnus had not yet lost his sense of pride. Of course he was not like them. He was better than them. Feldegeist, Pitt, Singar, not even Lucifer himself could amount to his genius, they would soon see. Satan sensed his pride and nodded gravely.

“I have long since known of your plans... Deceiver. You do not seek my freedom.” Satan spoke objectively, with little tone of judgment in his voice, an idea that befuddled the Count.

“Then you know...” Magnus started, speaking with confidence, “that it means your demise.”

Lucifer was about to flap his wings, allowing another mighty gust to cover the landscape, encasing it in another sheet of solid ice, but he didn’t. He paused, as if taken aback by the words of the Deceiver, and then... he laughed. He inhaled, his chest puffing in and bellowed a great laughter that shook loose many stalactites from the ceiling, causing the massive spires to pierce the ice below like mortars hitting the realm, eliciting muffled screams from those who were frozen beneath.

“Had you followed Dis’ original goals you would be more the wiser. Yet... here you are, damned, now to the same circle as I.”

Magnus smirked, “For now.” He thought.

Satan sensed the overconfidence from the deceiver and then stated, “Knowing of your treachery, I have allowed it. You will not listen to reason, so I will allow you to see the futility of your ways. Your fate, Matanbuchus, is here. With me.” Lucifer bent down his eyes glowing the color of magma, “Forever.”

“I have seen it.” He added, assuredly.

Matanbuchus felt his contingencies activating, working against the magicks in place in Cocytus, he would soon be pulled to the climax of his plans. “You are a fool,” Magnus hissed between gritted teeth, “no cage will ever hold me.”

“I... am... FREE!” He proclaimed as shadows whipped and swirled around his body, tearing him from Cocytus with renewed vigor. He disappeared leaving behind the archdevil and onto the final stages of his plan.

***


The river phlegethon boiled around the mangled corpse of Brobdingnag, surprisingly large enough to encompass his form. It was a massive loss to the Val’gara, losing the Son of Idea in combat, and strangely out of character for him to enter into what would have normally been such a small scale encounter to begin with. The Heralds were usually left to their own measures, but they had relied on Brobdingnag to save them like some sort of child bringing their parent into the matter. The massive jellyfish had paid the ultimate price in service to their god, Idea, but the Val’gara had not yet finished paying.

Neither had Alucroas.

As he sat atop the corpse of Brobdingnag in phlegethon he could hear the violence around him, even as large as the jellyfish were. Under normal circumstances, once Brobdingnag died its psychic power would cease, leaving anything upon it to be crushed by its massive gravitational field. That was strangely not the case, which led several theories to be believed. Either Hell had no hold in the realm of physics and Brobdingnag was subjected to its laws, or Brobdingnag, somehow, in someway, shape, or form, still existed. It was impossible to know which, since the massive Son of Idea’s power had never fully been witnessed. The ability to transcend death was not beyond the realm of possibility, however.

Its carcass floated, reflecting the eerie sanguine hue that inundated the river. Alucroas, seemingly, was alone, aside from the souls of Violence who offered no comfort.

Above himCLOUDS began to churn swirling and whorling among themselves, and a smooth, velvety, but dark chuckle filled Alucroas’ skull. The laughter did not originate fromTHE CLOUD, not physically, but from the creature’s own head, a dominant mental link that had been established. A single light briefly pierced the eye of the storm, and black and green veins of power pulsed through the entirety of the cyclone’s field.

The soul stolen from Gluttony slowly descended upon a single ray of light, before its ophidian body touched down upon the carcass of Brobdingnag. As it neared the massive body it became much larger, far bigger than when Magnus had ripped it from its eternal damnation. Measuring up to a size of twenty four feet arms and legs sprouted from its draconic body, and sharp talons dug into the flesh below. At first anatomically resembling a chinese dragon, the creature compressed upon itself, scaled beginning to ripple with muscle semi-humanoid arms forming at either of its sides along broad, muscular shoulders. It’s draconic visage peered over towards Alucroas before the mighty beast let out a triumphant roar.

The iron and minerals pulled from the carcass of Brobdingnag, fashioning metallic plates fit for the drake’s skull, arms, and body. Armor that was much higher tech than it originally let on. The molecules of the minerals altered until they resembled diamonds giving the creature a glossy plate mail of defense.

It has been far too long, the offspring thought to himself.

He felt different, somehow. His armor, while newly pristine, shined an under-gloss of obsidian, and if he concentrated hard enough on it he could make out ethereal faces, scowling and laughing like Thalia and Melpomene, sharing secrets under his very flesh. He banished the thought from his mind; there were much more important things at task. Such asSECURING his existence. A voice whispered in the back of his head, speaking a name he had long since heard. It was a name of great significance to him, a name that sparked a fire in his soul. A name that was distinguished from the mass of souls he had been damned with. It was a name that through thick or thin, war or peace remained true. It was his name.

“Tage.”

The voice hissed with an insidious seductiveness. It pried at the back of his mind with long fingers adept at poring through the minds of many, protected or not. Tage was no match for its influence and, honestly, didn’t care. He had seen the depths of utter despair. He had seen a hopelessness that he had never earned, and could never of imagined. Tage went to Hell. Not even for his own doings. Tage went to Hell simply for what he was, or so he had rationalized through his torment. He had built a burning anger that was necessary to release. Alucroas would be the recipient of his wrath.

Standing across him was the black dragon upon the bloated corpse of Brobdingnag, chiefest of the Sons under Idea. It was one of his greatest trophies to date, but upon this carcass Tage resolved it would be the dragon’s tomb. Alucroas would drown in the Phlegethon with Brobdingnag. There was no rationality for his rage; that he could remember, Alucroas had done nothing to him, yet the dragon was the only thing standing between him and freedom.

Tage surreptitiously lowered his arm as not to threaten the beast, but Alucroas was smarter than he anticipated. It was as if the animosity was palpable, and leaked off Tage like oil from a machine. A quick death would not be an option. A battle would occur. He felt a twisted sense of amusement in the back of his head that he knew he could not claim as his own. Grimacing as best as his anthropomorphic featured allowed, Tage quick-drew the railgun attached to his forearm. The rail slid out of his arm in the blink of an eye and fired a magnetically prepared round towards the beast.

The results didn’t occur as Tage had planned. With a static screech a field of phosphorescent electrical discharge shielded Alucroas and a loud “pop” sound was heard as magnetic poles of a hastily constructed magnetic shield snapped under tension. The slit of Tage’s draconic eye narrowed and with a hasty sidestep he felt his own round tear into the outer epidermis of his shoulder. It was just a knick, but the projectiles velocity caused him to bleed profusely.

Falling to his side Tage attempted to gather his bearings, but before he could even recollect himself, Alucroas was on top of him, shrieking. It lunged forward, its inner-jaw snapping outwards to puncture Tage’s skull, but with a quick turn of his hips and swipe of his elbow Tage struck Alucroas in the side of the head, deflecting the blow.

The dragon wouldn’t relent. As Tage tried to scamper to his feet, Alucroas pounded its foot into his chest, digging its talons into his scales. Swiping another claw forward Tage flicked out the tip of his railgun, catching Alucroas at the joint of its arm in between it’s exoskeletal plates. Then he thrusted himself to his feet, body checking the creature in the chest. He could feel the blow dampen as the plates of half-aptosite shifted underneath his weight, and Alucroas instantly responded with another clawed swipe.

Tage had gathered his bearings, and a sudden calm washed over him. With a practiced each he blocked the creature’s strike with the outside of his forearms and extended an open palm into the face of the creature, stunning it as he felt it connect. He didn’t have time to pause--Tage pressed his advantage. He gathered momentum in a quick spin that allowed him to thrust the pointed end of the rail gun through Alucroas’ exoskeleton and into the vulnerable flesh beneath. He heard the satisfying shriek of agony and felt the battle was over, but Tage was once again horribly wrong.

He might of had a martial advantage over Alucroas, inherited to him by Gennosuke, when he was formed, but the dragon had a natural advantage over him. Something he soon discovered with its acidic blood spilled onto the rail, melting it in the process. The dragon’s multi-joined arms clasped Tage’s shoulders as it bled its corrosive blood onto him, and with a quick flick of its tail jammed the large bone into the hybrid’s back.

He roared in agony as he felt the natural weapon pierce through his protective scales in between armor platelets and puncture one of his lungs from behind. Tage’s breath left him, but he would not lose. He COULD NOT lose! Gritting and grinding his razor sharp teeth together he gripped one hand to Alucroas’ throat, the other to his tail and activated his harmonic chainsaw. He sensed the beasts panic as it started revving and could feel a powerful electromagnetic field erect around him, a field that was promptly absorbed via his leylines.

There would be no escaping.

Two massive wings unfurled from Alucroas’ back and beat, lifting the two off the ground and torpedoing through the sky. A futile effort. Tage let go of Alucroas’ tail and reared his arm back as the dragon’s tail jammed into his back, shoulders and neck over and over again. Blood sprayed from his clenched teeth and one of his arms had almost melted off, but Alucroas would be far less fortunate. Tage roared as he jammed the harmonic chainsaw straight into the dragon’s chest, pushing with all his strength and he felt the resistance of Alucroas’ exoskeleton shred away.

Acidic blood sprayed onto his arms, legs, and chest. It melted away some of his armor and dissolved his exposed flesh, but he pressed on. Alucroas beat his wings again and a sonic boom passed behind them as they broke the sound barrier. At breakneck speeds Tage focused on one thing--his only advantage. The chainsaw which was still somehow intact. Pieces of Alucroas exoskeleton mingled with muscle and Tage’s own blood. Tage poured blood into Alucroas as if he were a wine chalice, and the combination of the two fluids caused a noxious fume that poured from the dragon’s chest cavity like steam from a sauna.

Then, something happened.

As the acid caused Tage’s eyes to slide from their sockets and dissolve in the mix he regurgitated a viscous black liquid into the open ribcage of Alucroas--an action which intensified the fear and shrieking of Alucroas, and a voice spoke to the beast.

“Calm yourself, son of Soran... this is as it was meant to be.”

Convulsions rippled through Tage’s body as a second wave of vomited ichor spilt from his split maw. The flesh of his torso and abdomen slid off in a stew of melted muscle tissue, boiling blood, and chunks of bones and cartilage which dripped like mysterious meat stew from a rusty ladle. There wasn’t even time for him to scream from the excruciating pain. Alucroas’ arteries and capillaries glowed like backlit black lights underneath his exoskeletal shell. Veins burrowed through his carapace like hundreds of tiny wriggling worms that chewed on a decaying cadaver.

The worms struck out at Tage, like serpents or leeches seeking to drain the fluids of his body, and instinctively his leylines reacted to halt the damage they might do. The result, with Magnus’ manipulation was the forced consumption of the leyline. Arcane magick pumped into Alucroas’ bloodstream, and all the fluid highways of his body glowed like Tage’s ley lines. Without the ley lines draining Alucroas’ energy a magnetic field began to form around the beast--which was quickly losing consciousness.

At first one would have thought it might have been a magnetic field used to repel Tage away, so the beast could fly away, but that wasn’t the case. There was a much darker presence behind the act, one who manipulated Alucroas’ powers via mental stimuli to create a field of attraction which forcibly pulled the metal off Tage and towards the dragon. Tage, not under the shackles of mental domination, resisted, realizing that this could be the end of him, and engaged his plasma boosters to pull away, but resistance was all but effective.

The metal peeled away from the arcane offspring’s flesh revealing tender layers of untouched muscle fibers underneath, which squirmed as if they were living maggots pulsing with blight. Between heaves Tage roared a curse at the Deceiver before he hurled more sludge onto Alucroas. The metal pulled from his very dermis, magnetically fusing to pieces of Alucroas’ exoskeleton, and an intense heat branded the beast momentarily.

More of Tage’s technology pulled from him into Alucroas, and the abominations bones shifted, cracked, broke, and seamed back together to accommodate Tage’s physical structure. Tage swore for a second he saw the count, a massive image of himself, grinning as he held the two in his palms, and pressed them together moments before their bodies fused.

Then everything went black.

For the both of them.

***


As Magnus severed the connection between Alutrosity and Alucroas, he made sure to leave Aludon’s presence intact. This was not necessarily the end of the aptosite’s influence, but it was the beginning of the next phase of Alucroas’ evolutive cycle. Even then, when he viewed this amalgam of flesh, technology, and magic he knew the process was not yet complete. There was still one last aspect to perform.

He reached down into the conglomeration of physicality and touched their very souls. Passing through their skin, shell, and armor as if it weren’t even there. He grasped their souls with his dark, corrupt touch. Then he pushed them together, into the same metaphysical space. They would be one, as Alutrosity and Alucroas had once been It might seem as if this aspect was a waste of time for the dark count, to merge two as one, especially since he burned out the connection of Alucroas and the Val’gara, and even his own mental domination over the beast. However, in their souls, at the very paste that melded them together he could see something. Matanbuchus saw something no one else had.

He saw himself.

His dark artistry.

His influence.

There was one last thing for him to do. Every piece of art deserved a name, every research project deserved a title. He whispered the words that would echo through the galaxy. Maybe not a name that the hybrid beast would recognize itself as, but certainly one Magnus would know it by.

“Taluge.”

***


There was a beginning, but there was also an end to all things. Magnus had carefully upheld the balance in his meddling. Fear and loathing were certain in change. Even in the end of things there was a certain beauty, and something would surely be retained; if even it was the memory of what had been. This was a gift. A gift given not by God, but a gift from the devil, the new devil. Not the shackled creature that his brethren sought to save. Not the antiquated being locked under layers of ice, long since forgotten by the rest of the universe. No, this evil was different. It was a progressive force that could not, would not be stopped. Til’ the last trumpet of Revelations he would see the universe brought to ruin, and this was his first step in the plan.

Everything had built to this, and all of Magnus power over Hell flowed through the summoned “Gates of Hell”. It culminated in his final circle, the River Styx.

A great tempest burst through the Gates, not as a shock wave as all the other circles had been, but as a construct of flesh. The river styx poured and rampaged through the open gates like a massive wyrm of flesh. Composed of an infinite amount of souls given physicality that were damned to the circle of anger, they tore at each other, ripping one another to pieces in a never ending war waged upon themselves. There was no number, no words, no expressions in human rationale that could express the size of the creature. The dream ruptured, unable to accommodate the size of the beast, and the space around the dream quailed as its defenses failed. Whatever its massive girth didn’t fill of the space around them its malevolence did. The obscenities of all the composite parts of this create shouted in a maddening cacophony, unable to be understood in its entirety, but they all conveyed one thing: undying rage.

Anger slithered along, penetrating the rift formed by body, ripping and raping the fabric of space, itself. Although Body was large, itself, it was not an atoms worth in size compared to Styx. Violating the space around it, the mammoth creature forced its way through the portal and entered into what lie beyond:

The Dark Realm.

Instant chaos ensued as the wrathful entity entered the dark realm. It was clearly a hostile invader. Not only did Anger enter into the dark realm, but every circle that had been carefully prepared and powered to their maximum potential pushed into the dark realm waging a metaphysical war of space and time. The denizens of the dark realm, those creatures simulated by its own fluids, instantly reacted and attacked, but for every creature created by the dark realm, for every force it decided to simulate, there was a force to combat it with in Lust, Gluttony, and Anger.

Nature turned against itself. The water of the dark realm had been used in this ever-present black hole that sought to search after Magnus. The plot that he had countered with his own ingenuity. So the Dark Realm turned to wind. Typhoons of simulated natural, solar, and magical winds powerful enough to ravage entire solar systems wiped through the Dark Realm, and they were met with the enhanced winds of Lust, pushing further into the Dark Realm’s domain. Lust was ever-present, always pushing at the realm, always searching to drain any sense of life that had been given to the denizens of the Dark Realm. Lust sought to corrupt the Dark Realm on a spiritual level.

Gluttony, however, sought to physically corrupt the Dark Realm. As monsoon of filth entered the dark realm, as its defiling touch sought to dampen and decay to the very substance that the Dark Realm was composed of, the two forces would battle for control. The layers of the circles of Hell were no longer distinguishable from one another, they overlapped so much at this point, and had grown so potent that they were as one mega-circle thrusted into the Dark Realm via the portal caused by Magnus’ aspect of Body. They waged a war unlike the universe had ever seen. Even Matanbuchus’ creation of a universe paled in comparison to the endless blood that was shed within this realm. It was a gorey contest between creatures that could be fabricated on a whim, and endless in supply, to creatures that could not die, and were also essentially in endless of supply.

No matter how often a skeletal drake that had once swam through the Dark Realm’s waters snatched up a straying soul in the carnage that lay below, the soul simply would writhe in its jowls for an expected eternity. It was their punishment to endure forever, and so they would. No matter how often a piece of the composite serpent would rip apart a monster formed of the substances of the dark realm, the life was fabricated, and the Dark Realm could simply make ten to replace the one, or a hundred, or a thousand, or a million. It was a battle of attrition to the very end, of which there would likely never be.

But would Magnus really wage a war that he had not already assured the outcome of? Would he really take an unnecessary risk that might involve his entire plan falling to pieces around him? No, his victory was all but assured.

The Dark Realm for far too long had been an entity untouchable by the rest of the omniverse. There was no predefinitions to its existence, and thus it became an extremely powerful roadblock in Magnus’ path. It especially showed this now sending a black hole that, would forever of tracked the Dark Count about creation. It had done all this without breaking sweat with little in the ways of distress. Surely, Magnus’ evil doings had disturbed it... agitated it, but these were trifling stresses that common men and animals shared. This was not Magnus’ intention, to annoy the universe. He was to bring the Dark Realm, this day, to its metaphorical knees. He would show it the meaning of despair. Magnus would affect this multifaceted realm on every level it existed, which, essentially, was every level.

To do this, Magnus had to call upon a deal he had long since forged with a race whose dominance had long since eroded away. A civilization whom even the annals of time had forgotten. An existence, who, maybe had even forgotten even what it was.

Idea.

Latching on to Hellions essence and the scraps of Sounder left within the Dark Realm he used them as a focus to call the great sentience forth. There was no physical manifestation of the great god of the Val’gara’s entrance, but there was magnificent mental repercussions. Magnus had to dull his telepathic senses as to not receive the brunt of Idea’s psychic power. Idea washed over the realm like a great tide of knowledge and wisdom, but with those gifts there was great power that accompanied them to protect these secrets. They had certainly grown much stronger. Idea was ripe for the harvesting, an ironic occurrence considering this modus operandi.

Magnus could feel his skull tingle, and the lesser, unprotected souls and creatures of the Dark Realm squalled below him as they faced the full brunt of Idea’s latent psychic radiation.

“Magnus,” Idea telepathically projected in a billion different, lost voices. When he spoke, his words carried such weight that most of the gestalt creature’s composite part below, along with other dark realm formed serpents, warrior souls, and the like, crumbled as their heads literally burst like overfilled water balloons.

The count smirked at their agony, knowing the souls would continue existing and acting even so. When he replied to Idea, he spoke in a language none could understand, but Idea, and likely the Dark Realm, itself. He called Idea by the name the civilization had identified themselves with while still alive, and in their own tongue.

Taken aback, Idea paused, “So... the Council has ordained our reunion.”

It still didn’t know, Magnus mused. To trust an archfiend was a folly in and of itself, but Idea had little other choice. “No.” He said frankly, “I have come to complete the circle.”

A deal which was sealed long ago. The pact that had been formed, which Magnus had waited so long to cash in. Idea hadn’t forgotten their deal, the dark count could sense the hesitation rooted in his being but with that trepidation he found something else: acceptance. Idea was not an existence of deception, what it did it felt it did for the good of all life. Those who were prone to holding back the universe were consumed to fuel the strong, those who could benefit the universe through sharing their talents were converted, and thus the forces inherent in the multiverse were controlled. Hence, their motto: Convert, Consume, Control.

Standing atop of the great beast, Styx, Magnus could feel Idea all around him. He did not say what he would demand of Idea, that much was unnecessary. He simply allowed the god to know his intentions, at least his intentions for it. There was a sobering moment of finality... and then action.

The full force of Idea’s collective conscious leapt upon the mind of the dark realm, and glorious mental combat ensued. The two sentiences would clash together in not only psychic warfare, but in terms far more abstract than mortal linguistics could describe. The battle was felt in the minds of every Val’gara. All the triumphs, all the defeats, every inch of ground would be remembered, not so that they would die or lose focus in the future, but so that they would fight with that much more resolve. That their cause would be every bit as just as it had been. The universe needed consonance, now more than ever. It needed a mediator, and that arbitrator was the Val’gara.

When Idea attacked the Dark Realm, he attacked its wealth. The battle was held in the Dark Realms very quintessence, the being that had sought to gather all the information it had since the beginning of time had found itself under duress in its home field. Idea brought forth pressure from every plane, every rift, and every facet of the Dark Realm (as well as it’s own) existence.

There was not a physical or tangible fight to be seen, only its effects would be felt, rippling throughout the universe. A butterfly effect that caused the tides of reality to shudder. When their battle ebbed and flowed it was as if the two beings were one... and it was a concept that was not necessarily too far from the truth, now. For the battle was all the more personal for Idea, now. When the civilization that Idea was had first met its demise, it had done so under a foolish expedition to scour the depths of the Dark Realm. The mad prophet, Magnus, had saved them but only temporarily. A pact was struck, and now grateful for the time he had allowed them to make a difference upon the world (to create the Val’gara which would bring cosmic harmony) Idea would make well on his own end of the bargain:

To fight, and to die.

For a being such as Idea, death wasn’t simply the act of never being, but instead to spread itself so thin that recomposition was impossible. Which was entirely what it was doing. Idea took every ounce of information within the Dark Realm... all the volumes upon volumes of knowledge, and spread it, (along with itself) across every inch of the omniverse. The omniverse was infinite, there were an infinite amount of universes that composed it, and thus it was Idea’s duty to disperse the information throughout every realm that existed. This was how Idea attacked the consciousness of the Dark Realm, by starving it of its utter intelligence, and sacrificing itself in the process.

The Dark Realm would end up knowing nothing, but that still wasn’t enough for Matanbuchus.

Some time in its existence, the Dark Realm had started. A sentience had formed which had allowed it to begin the quest of collaboration; the gathering of all the materials necessary to form not only the vast library of information, but the power therein that omniscience and omnipotence provided. This was something that Magnus had to deal with. He had one last precaution, and his ace in the hole.

Slowly Magnus strode forth, stepping off of the head of Styx, who continued holding theFRONT LINES, fighting the battle of physicality. There was one last string to tie off. Upon Magnus’ first step it was as if he were scaling stairs of thin air. Every step brought him closer to his focus: The Moon. He knew it was foolishness for him to think that the Dark Realm would lay its heart and soul out in the open, but his solution was something far more abstract... far more metaphysical.

The sounds of carnage and swathes of havoc fought bitterly below drowned out to the Count. He could only hear many things, none of which in the present, the chanting of new life, the crying of an infant, the beginning of an end. Not this end, but one which were to come not long from now. Magnus scaled the stairs of his victory with a grin of blades. His eyes bled streams of sanguine liquid upon porcelain skin, and his hands, resembled cragged talons of a crone. He neared the top of the case, standing in front of the moon, and it bore not only his corruption, but something he had gathered along his way. A simple, silver phial he had tossed into the Dark Realm, an action which was metaphorically equivalent to acceptance in lack of defense.

Xelas had entered the equation, now.

He shattered the vial upon the moon, and the “sample” he had sent and reacquired from Dis so long ago spread out with a voracious appetite. The Dark Realm, even devoid of all of its information, was far too large of a consciousness over the years for Xelas, in this state, to consume, but that was not the point. Xelas would shatter its consciousness. Utterly destroy the very rationality behind the dark realm, the essence and quintessence which had formed the Dark Realm in the first place would be dealt with on a level that would ensure it could never return again. Xelas synchronized,fused even, with the Dark Realm’s now vulnerable consciousness, cell per cell, atom per atom, quark per quark. Every particle magic or scientific that created the Dark Realm would have a dissolved particle of the Xelas sample attached to it.

Magnus watched as the moon bled red. A sanguine moon had formed, and wept tears of blood upon those below. And from the Dark Realm Magnus finally sensed one final, quiescent emotion.

Despair.

The count twisted his spine backwards in a manner so gruesome, so grotesque it was impossible for human anatomy to mimic and he laughed. Magnusscreamed with a shrill, insane, maniacal laughter that reverberated throughout the entirety of the realm. His palms stretched out to either side of his possessed stature, bearing curved claws that were at least a foot long, and his cape boiled like a stagnant pot of spoiled gruel. Saliva streamed from the sides of the count’s mouth as vile, mirthful cacchinations spread. It was a sound that would drive mortal men mad.

Veins of black and runes of orange manifested upon the dark realm’s emotional hub-center (or manifestation thereof, symbolic of actuality in this case) and it pulsed like a beating heart three times before stopping, shriveling, and exploding. Chunks of the moon rained down upon all the creatures within, his own or not, smashing and destroying them. The fabric of reality began to waver, insubstantial, as all the information vacated, and the sight of utter genocide was all that was to behold. Magnus had doled his final punishment out upon a realm which had sinned in no other way than existing. Unjust and unfitting of a punishment as it were, it was never in character of the demon to deliver fairly upon those who did or didn’t deserve it. Deception was the status quo, and was an art he had utterly perfected.

All the landscape of the dark realm melted in concurrence, boiling the souls of the damned, killing the rest of the Dark Realm’s defenders, and burning Magnus’ manifestations of the circles to dysfunctionality. Coalescing into each other with perfect synchronicity. The waters drained and passed like an aborted fetus, flooding down to no other place than Hell, itself. Magnus would drown his own comrades with the bloated corpse of the Dark Realm, with Satan being at the bottom of the sea. As Magnus vanished only his laughter remained, echoing through the haunted void as a horrid reminder of what had occurred.

With the absence of the Dark Realm and all its information what was left in the Catastrophe’s wake? The ‘gift’ Magnus had left the omniverse with was nothing. There was nothing left. There was no space, nor time, there was not knowledge nor ignorance; there was no existence of any shape, way or form. Magic was nonexistent, bioforce wasn’t present. What was the Dark Realm was now a plain of total oblivion, if that would even do it justice. There was nothing that existed here, and nothing that could exist here, to be here was to not be at all.

Not even ghosts remained in the center of the universe.

Not even memories.