Critique this, no, really, do it

[Dios GX]

I dunno what reasons I have for posting this, but I've learned I think too much. Based on what I posted elsewhere, I'll put this up here too, as a bit more of an explanation to why Dios isn't intended to be what he seems at first.

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War Ex-Chronicles: Chronicle the Eleventh
That Which Is Both Deserved and Met Upon the Guilty


Unable to count how many miles he had flown through, unable to think, unable to know––unable to feel––Dios had flown beyond all worlds he had traipsed prior to henceforth arrive where he now had.
   The Third World, desecrated as all others had been, singular reason in its dismemberment, its dismal rusted discoloration, darkened skies and devoidance of nearly all traces of light, there was nay a single structure remaining in the realms. Left barren, flat planes of brown and lifeless dirt lie beneath nothing, for in this world, there was nothing.
   Vibrant silvers of the steels used to create the foundations of the perimeter realms and the Central Column's cities had been left in ruin, an omen befitting of he who was responsible for its end. Try as one might, hope as one may, all attempts to view anything spare the rust and dank brown of this world were in vain. That was of course, until Dios had reached the midpoint of the Third World, and seeing the only object of any interest, he made his way toward it with his dim and fading wings.
   A colosseum equally battered and bruised as all that lie before him had no color to its walls, no gaiety of its appearance in sight as he walked through its perimeter halls. Larch arches of damaged stone lie in broken ruin, thousands of feet tall, three layers of arches were racked atop one another. A harrowing ruin of appearance, volute rays of deep brown light somehow managed to flitter into existence in his presence, cast inward from the outside lands. How fitting, that of all darkness and disarray that existed, furthered darkness showcased that even in the most dire of straits, life always finds a way to show not the greener grass of another side; merely that there shall always be furthered depravity to come.
   "Yet is such the truth?" Dios mulled to himself, pondering whether or not he had fallen deeper within the well of archaic eternity, "nay, such ought be a method of his deviancy," Dios feigned to arouse himself out of his sorrows, clenching his fist, readying it to smash against the wall, "and nay further;" Dios thinks to himself, lowering his hand back to his side as he walked, "mayhaps as such, seeds we ought bid to sow could never grow upon this Earth at all––nary was there ever grass to begin with."
   The light of Dios' wings began to fade further, and yet no harm had come directly upon him. No, there was a pain much more deadly than that of the body.
   "If this so be the world meant." Dios drew the Ascalon from its sheath as he began to ascend the stairways of the colosseum.
   As he had so spoken long ago; to destroy a kingdom, fell a king.
   "Then I've but once to end all such things to be."
   But in such words does one find a deeper truth. A kingdom is only as great as its people.
   "And such, let it be done."
   And now, the kingdom has fallen.
   The Ascalon fell into the stadium's seating, steel against stone as it lie lifeless upon the rust-colored world.
   "I resign." said Dios, falling into a seat with his head buried in his palms.
   With nothing left of him but his thoughts that could find their way to the surface, Dios began to muddle aimlessly on where he had once lived, why he had chosen to come here, and all that had occurred since. The compassion of a brother lost to the darkness, he who sought his divine purpose in the taking of innocent life. The carefree smile of another, endless courage and bravery that stemmed from him taken by his own hands. The mother who gave her life for her child, and the child who was without either of her parents, never having once known their faces, or their love.
   Further still he delved back to his life in Heaven. For over ninety-million years he had lived in the sanctity of worlds of pastel gold, fields of rich wheats; endless continents unbound by gravity, left to wander the eternity that was the scope of Heaven's size. The Father who had given him life, created him for the purpose of coming to the Earth––but why? To see these things? To live through these things? To be stricken down like this?
   But no, he had felt these things before. He had felt them even in Heaven, never knowing what they were until he had come to the Earth.
   He had felt pain.
   He had felt sorrow.
   He had felt then, as he did now in this world, being so different than all Angels in Heaven, that he was created for combat; born for conflict; forged for war––and what he felt was perhaps the most powerful, and undeniably horrifying emotion all beings are capable of feeling.
   The light of his wings was gone. His sword lie wrested of its sheath upon the ground. His head was locked in his palms, his body hunched forward.
   "I am alone..."
   He remembered clearly what it felt like, even in Heaven. He was always content to merely lie upon his stone and watch the world unfold before him. How long, how deeply he wished he could live there––the Earth––to experience what others experienced, to live as they lived. Oft keeping to himself, and also oft, none truly held favor of him, never knowing why he was so different. Angels are meant to be donned in white apparel, to have the light of the sun behind their heads, and to have bands of gold adorning their arms and necks. Angels are meant to be peaceful, serene, compassionate, and reserved. But Dios was not like them, even his appearance was enough to garner as such. He alone was the only Angel different in all of their numbers. Even now, as he ran his fingers along a sacred name etched in gold upon his chest plate, a name that he alone knew, he never truly understood his purpose, or why he was just now being affected by it.
   There were only four that had ever spoken to him. The Lord, He who had created him. Gabriel who he had known for such a short time imparted such kindness to him that he had never truly known. His brother Michael, Archangel who held parallel to only one other, the former Archangel and most powerful of all holy seraphs; Lucifer.
   Lucifer had never been like this always. In ages forever long past, he too was peaceful; he too was not deviant, nor was he bitter. But all these things began to change when the Lord created the Earth and placed life upon it. Lucifer too wished to partake in a world's creation, and in what he considered a true testament of strength, he had created reptilian beasts to roam the planet.
   But Dios too was allowed to have a creature created for him. Of all beings of might, all creatures of power, any entity of supremacy that he could will to be, he had asked that only one be made for him––a creature of peace, a harmless fowl of the skies, created for the sole purpose to fly in the skies and know the freedom that comes from flight; the Sparrow.
   But the Lord too gave his only son one creature as well, and it, like Dios' would be a bird of peace, one that would symbolize what promise God had made to mankind that whenever may they look upon it, may they too be like it, and feel the calm brought by the Dove.
   But the Lord was dissatisfied with the Earth, and from his word did he create the one who would go to the Earth and destroy it. A beast whose size, strength, and might was unmatched by any, that he could bring the end of the Earth, and burn it unto ashen ruins, by the breath of the Dragon.
   Yet as the Dragon brought the end of the Earth on his breath, he was halted of his final action, and all that remained upon the Earth in the wake of his might was the Sparrow, and the Dove.
   Locked in irritation and hatred, Lucifer condemned the Lord for his decision to destroy his visage of life, and yet the Sparrow was allowed to live. Yet Dios knew of no such things back then, these horrible emotions of hate, scorn, bitterness, and envy. Lucifer coveted Dios that the Lord so favored him, granting his dream of the Sparrow, a fanciful avian whose purpose in life was naught but to be free and spread its song of peace alongside the voice of the Dove.
   It was then that Dios had ever felt fear when Lucifer stole his stone of Beth-El and threw it out of Heaven down to the Earth. Needing the comfort of his brother Michael, Dios had never once felt such a horror as that day he first understood, and felt the confusion and dismality of fear of his own brother.
   Following the course of his heart's beckoning, Lucifer had gone to the Earth the day after the Lord had created mankind, a creature in his image to be the dominant being upon the Earth. Alas, Lucifer's intentions were set, and as he went to the Earth in the faux veil of a serpent, he had coursed Eve into partaking of the forbidden tree's fruit, and she herself had tricked Adam into doing the same. Such was Dmitri's first action upon the Earth; he had created sin.
   Stripped of his title for his transgression, Lucifer was exiled of Heaven, and of only two realms of existence that were, his only place to flee was to the Earth. It was from this that Dios' task from God was given to him and to the Dragon, whom Dios had given the name of Dante to––the beast who would carry the new world to the Earth, the realm where those tainted with Lucifer's sin would become in the make of his worlds of fire––for inside of his body was this third plane of existence, and it was named Hell––the home where Lucifer would come to live forever.
   However, one need only take one look at where he was now to understand what had become of such plans.
   In the battle of Heaven, Earth, and Hell, it was Dmitri––Lucifer––he who belonged not to any of the three, who was winning.
   The world began to rumble. Its temperature began to increase, and from beyond the skies of obsidian murk, Dante had lowered way toward his descent, shattering pillars of dirt and hidden stone rose as unclean geysers along the scales of his legs and neck. As he walked, the dirt was still falling back down to the ground, catching into the wounds of fiery blood that seeped from his body whilst he trotted toward where he felt the presence of his brother, whose wings now began to shine with a faint luminescence.
   Dante need not ask what fortune fate had brought upon him. His appearance said all that need be said––for it said nothing.
   "Brother..." Dante murmured, yet that alone was enough to kick clouds of dust into makeshift sandstorms within the bowl of the colosseum, "where has..."
   As Dante approached more closely, he could see what his eyes might have played trickery upon, but at closer inspection, the haunting discordance was met upon him. On his hands, staining the length of his legs, tainting the beauty of his wings, and clotting the sight from his eyes; red blood that refused to be cleansed.
   "I can no remove it," Dios brought his head out of his palms to stare upon the innocent blood upon them, "the blood––it will not come off."
   "What has become of our brother Ark?"
   But Dios' eyes only glowered momentarily before succumbing to the throes of sorrow, and his head lowered between his shoulders.
   "And of brother Malys?" asked Dios.
   Dante's voice ejected a low humming growl of dissatisfaction.
   "Then it seems that of us both..."
   "We have killed our own brothers," Dios turned his head off to one side in aimless glance, "by actions of our own."
   "And as is such that you have spoken;" thin chains of lava dripped past Dante's fangs, "we shall be taken of what we care of most, and such shall be by our own action."
   "I do not feel––" Dios fought aback the surges of emotion ravaging him, a mind's influence over the body enough to feel one's insides set on fire, "I do not feel I understand this world at all."
   "For as long as we have lived, then it is either of us who is ignorant to life's purpose or its methods."
   "In Heaven, was the passing of the body not a time of rejoice?" Dios grit his teeth, struggling to attempt to speak properly. "In the end of one's body, the soul eternal rises unto infinite paradise. Such has always been and shall forever unto be of truth."
   Dante exhaled marginally deeper in compliance.
   "Then why now do I feel such pain? Why is it now that I have lived upon the Earth that death tortures me so? This world... this planet––the Earth––" Dios' head fell back into his palms again, "it does nay make any sense."
   "Is that not then what we were meant to learn?" Dante asked. "Do you remember upon which we first arrived? In witnessing what you had so decreed and named as murder."
   "I shant forget of it ever."
   "Then do you not understand? That which we felt upon that day––that which we had never felt until then. The emotion that is the curse of Dmitri."
   "Then as rejoice ought be had in the rebirth of one's life in Heaven, by the measure of the existence of pain he has created, he hath so bastardized the creation of Angels into a time of tears to be shed."
   "It ought seem then, no matter what consequences may visit the Earth..."
   "Like God, Satan––is always with us." said Dios.
   "Then let us so act upon our calling."
   "I know not any longer what that is." Dios looked again toward the stains of blood on his hands, the only memoir of his brother's passing he retained. "I have forgotten why I am even here––why––why was I even created?"
   "Have you so truly forgotten? Lost of your mind has the purpose we have been sent of this Earth become?"
   "I am broken, brother..." whimpered Dios, "have they not so spoken of me a hero? Have they not so called upon me their savior?"
   "Such is because that is what you are, brother."
   "What truly then is a hero––what measure is there bid of a savior?"
   Dante cocked his head in a slight corkscrew in confusion, and yet, grim understanding.
   "Is it selfish of me to dream, brother?" said Dios. "Is it wrong, forbidden of a hero to have desires? To want to make riddance of sin from the world––such is mine purpose––and yet do I not bleed like them? Do I not feel like them? And yet, when mine soul is wounded, nay can I cry as them. Is then such what it so means..." Dios' fingers began to tremble slightly, "to be a hero...?"
   "To bear the weight of others that they shall not need to––a Templar's creed––mayhaps of such is why no heroes exist, to have fear to stand and crucify themselves that others may live;" Dante turned his head to one side, allowing for one of his eyes to look upon Dios more clearly, "that is how you have lived your entire life, is it not?"
   "I know of no other way."
   "Then why not be selfish? Why no simply leave and make your life your own?" Dante scoffed.
   "I could never do such a thing." said Dios.
   "And yet you speak to me that you know not your purpose?"
   "Of purpose I know, but the will to act upon it is no longer upon me." Dios' head found its way to his palms again, an endless cycle of desperation upon him. "I have forgotten how to acquire it back."

[Dios GX]

   "Then I shall make you remember." Dante snarled, stomping one of his paws into the foundation of the colosseum, lunging his head forward with jaws wide apart, locking Dios within his fangs.
   It was then as Dios looked into the Sphere of Heaven embedded within his mouth that it so appeared before him as an aberration of celestial light in the world of fire and brimstone. Lava fast upon his legs, lapping waves singing at his hands, and yet he felt no pain, and no harm was becoming of him whilst it approached. An orb of white light, miniscule, and yet bright enough to shine against the Hell in his midsts. The sound of an airy breath came from the light before him, seeping into his mouth as Dante pulled away, leaving in his wake Dios standing unharmed upon the colosseum's stands. The seats were left intact, albeit their lower foundations in the dirt somewhat damaged, only two chasms of destruction lie upon two extremes of either side of him where Dante's fangs had left their mark.
   It was then that two things triggered within him in tandem. One he had forgotten, and one he had never known.
   "What is this...?" said Dios as he glanced upon his arms.
   Upon the top of his fists, a cerulean jewel engraved with an outlined depiction of a Dove rest within the center. And from out of the jewels in either fist, fissures of his armor had shifted to their new placement, crevices filled to their brims with white fires soaring up past his shoulders in brilliant flickering arcs. The roar of the flames was like that of a jaguar's purring, deep, low, and incessantly constant. Having become the holder of Malys' soul within his body, Dios now inherited the singularity Malys had refused to use once he had accepted the taint of Dmitri. It was now that Dios held such a power, and his arms, like his fallen brothers, had become the Crucible of Heaven.
   But that which he had forgotten rang clear in his mind. A similarity of epiphany like that of a single bell ringing in a cavern, where its echo was to resound throughout the hallows and wreck forth an avalanche from the mountain's peaks. For it was he who had stood within Hell itself, and naught was there harm met upon him in turn.
   "Do you yet remember?" asked Dante.
   "Of the name he has so been given," said Dios as he knelt upon the ground, gripping upon the pommel of his sword, "as I had so sworn upon this blade on that day," images of the Raven's beginning of existence flickered into his mind, the day they had stood on the outskirts of Babylon, "God's Wrath shall yet be upon him––and for that it shall so be, brother," sheathing his weapon, Dios' voice began to growl against the rapid thunder of the fires arching from his arms and fists, "as he has sent us to the Earth, by which they pictures shall be, we are the Wrath of God."
   "And yet forget not, words you too have spoken of the days former," said Dante, "a tired warrior, is it not––soon shall be a dead one."
   "Aye." said Dios.
   "I might ask of you then brother, of those all whom you have shared your shoulder to, whom of all have you yourself ever bared refuge of another?"
   "Nary a single, I have stood upon my own, even if––" Dios turned his head away, both out of shame, and self-dejection in a small way, "even though I have wished to."
   Dante growled, angry at himself for what he had allowed to continue playing out before him. Legs trampled through the colosseum as though they were sandcastles upon the shore in the wake of a tsunami. His head began to lower, his neck arcing outwards, wrapping in a half coil that his head would come to burrow through the walls of the colosseum, one eye directly beside his brother's who remained so dejected and confused, even at the behest of such spiritual enlightenment. The roots of sorrow had taken their hold, and nay as they would never leave, flowers of beauty can bloom even in the most arid of deserts.
   "Brother... these lands have become one such of great befouling––that this may become our final day upon the Earth..." Dante rubbed his head against the bleachers, hundreds of seats destroyed merely to appease the itch of a wound upon his temple, "shall you not so make it one worth seeing––worth resting within?"
   "And so I shall." said Dios.
   Arms hanging at his sides, his head lowered slightly between his shoulders, both of his wings lifted up from the ground, unfurling and fanning outwards in a lush rustle of vibrant feathers. Engines within their steel arches began to stir, a stiff hum gave way to a powerful shriek chased by an explosion of feathers soaring against Dante's body, bowling outwards across his wounds to seal them shut, and flow outward upon the colosseum and its desolate centrical.
   As his feathers had always possessed one such the enigma of life's flourishing, where they fell upon the dirt had touched upon the bastard children of fallen flora. Seeds began to grow nay but water nor by the light of the missing sun, instead, by the behest of Dios' will alone that they shall exist. Even still, the stain of blood, electrolytes within it had given way to such a degree of sodium chloride that life still was forbidden of existing even at his command. A poem of Heaven's Promise and Hell's Omen spread across in fields of weeds, lush grasses, dead vines, and vibrant flowers of violet and jade petals.
   Still, despite the filth of blood inhibiting life from flourishing, the dead vines and rotting weeds shone with a blooming halo of a pastel gold. Petals of flowers whisked away from their buds and stems wafted through the emptiness, an aerial symphony of glittering snow in tones of purple, magenta, turquoise, and emeralds. Tones of saturation oscillating petal to petal, but the peak of their light always the same. Even in the make of death was Dios' command obeyed in one way or another, that they would shine the faint color of Heaven's fields of wheat, the giver of life's nourishment.
   For there they existed together before the spectacle, Dios against his leg as Dante rest upon the ground, the colosseum on either side of his body.
   "As upon the day you had so created the word 'anger,' whence we returned of Heaven, I had asked the Lord God to graft its meaning upon mine soul. I hath so partaken in anger of mine life's entirety, I fret of truth's speaking, I have of no love within me, and yet––" Dante's right wing, containing still four of its Spheres of Heaven, came to encompass the sky in a reign of their infinite celestially, "I've still that of compassion for you, mine brother––thine only friend I have ever had."
   "And of endless gratefulness have I, that of you, I am still blessed." said Dios.
   "Thine world's skies have become naught but husks of voids––" Dante's wing began to lower slightly, enough in its size already that the arc of it appeared as a true sky in itself from where Dios stood, "I give unto you all that I can of this final night, as you have blessed these lands, then allow me to bless of our last sky."
   And it was so as he had spoken, but just the same, only for Dios to behold. One might imagine looking into the blue sky laden with clouds caught in the wrest of the wind's throes. A sky where its full spectrum could be seen, but for Dios, it was a sky where the lights of the Spheres of Heaven, whose roots had taken their way through Dante's black feathers, that they appeared as endless cities of both humble and faint pastel golds, and flickering, sparkling whites. The four Spheres that could be seen were as the great monuments of four continents, and the veins within his wings were their streets converged intermittently. Endless kingdoms, the cities of a false forever, and yet their light rang true as the stars he had only seen of once in his life's entirety.
   "Fear you, brother... knowing what you must do?" asked Dios.
   "Made of my peace with it long since, whence first mine eyes beheld the Tower, I knew that of which I would one day do." said Dante.
   "Are you truly at peace with it then?"
   "It is that which is asked of me, it is not commanded. It is by my own choice I allow it to be so." said Dante.
   "I do not wish for it to come––that this spectacle we see now should be that which lasts infinitely... I so long for it to be true."
   "I know what shall occur to me brother, and I do not fear it––it is why God has created me; it is why I have come to the Earth."
   "And yet I shall not be able to shed tears for it either." said Dios.
   "This body be only but a vessel that which cradles the soul. Whence mine body ends, mine soul returns to Heaven."
   "I do not wish for you to die..." sighed Dios, "but such is the only way we will permeate Hell upon the Earth... is it not...?"
   "I know that my death comes soon brother," Dante, for the first, and only time in his life, gave a rumbling purr of true contentment, "I am not afraid."
   "And death ought not be that which brings sorrow, but joy in their rebirth in paradise, and yet still..." Dios looked toward Dante's wings, the hovering spectacle of eternal stars, "why for to must its truth so be, that Satan has tainted what was once the joy of the body's end, and the soul's beginning. Mine brother Lucifer... how has it so come to this––" Dios shut his eyes as he sat beside Dante's paw, and rest his wings against the warmth of his body, "shall I truly be the one to bear the weight mine brothers... down upon their very last? I know not what it shall be, of how I shall end your life brother Lucifer. Will it be of anger... or will it become of mercy in its last...?"
   In point and truth of fact, it was to be made so. Dante was he who was the personification of Hell, and for he and his brother to truly bring Hell to the Earth, it was Dante whose death would be the price in the contract of judgment. His body would be destroyed, and in its wake, Hell would fall onto the Earth––into the Tower––in doing so, the refuge of the guilty would become their prison of fire. It was an inevitable outcome from the start, one both knew would come, and yet as they stood, Dios having already taken the life of the one whom he loved so dearly, he could not fathom what he would endure were he to do it again to his final brothers who remained. For whatever reason he could not discern, Dios no longer felt direct rage nor anger toward Lucifer––toward Satan. Nay, now, in light of what he had truly experienced, he only felt the utmost of pity for he who had fallen.
   And this is where they would make their final encampment in what would very well be their final night on the Earth. For both knew, that whence the true finality of battle came, something neither wished to act, but would be forced to commit would occur in the end of all ends. The fields of flowers of the Earth, the taint of Hell fast upon it, the golden glowing weeds––the color of riches; the color of greed––the contempt of sin––all of which danced in the petals of sanctity into the skies of Heaven's lights as here they stood as those that remained; Dante, he who holds Keep of Hell, and his brother; Dios, Archaic Over-Angel of Death. The Wrath of God would soon be born of the fields of all things left in the world, and they would wage the end of their war with the remnant finality of Hell's armada at the utmost of the Tower of Babylon's First World. For it was there that it would begin, and there it would end––the Stairway to Heaven.

* * *

[Dios GX]

Golden tubes of light decorate a sparse darkness where the color white, one that merely hints a message of the Angels is forbidden. Here, there is only blackness, and the light of the Chaos Trigger is all that is allowed to illuminate the dark works of those whose sights had been set upon a singular goal; destroying the Pillar of Lascention, and using its debris to forge a shelf world over the Earth to entrap Heaven itself when it would come to the world––and kill God himself.
   One may think instantly that such things are impossible––how can the death of an omnipotent God ever occur?
   As one as so stated in times past, a king is only as great as His kingdom. What then happens when the kingdom's population is brought under control of deviancy, where Angels are extinct, and Heaven becomes barren of its holy citizens? For it is not the direct death of God that would so come to pass, but instead, it would be the end of his purpose of existence, and sin would reign eternally in the infinity devil machine that is the archaic device Dmitri calls his kingdom.
   For he has created sin to trap humanity in its throes. Hate to destroy happiness, despair to replace hope, pain to overthrow glee, lust to rape love; the taking of lives, those who suffered losses would feel helpless in its cast of blackened blood; pain to surge in the bodies of the innocent, the guilty to reave them for the sake of a game of power; lust to take pleasures in the flesh, copulation of the body alone, and nary of the soul. For all these things were in the name of he who was immortal, and it was he who was gaining control of the Earth through the lies of his false promise, the existence of sin that mankind had fallen prey to, and willfully, knowingly committed them day into the next forever's today.
   In all these things, there was a single truth, one that none could refute in that Dmitri had only guided man down such a path. It was man who committed these acts; it was man who executed them and took their joy in doing so––though it was Dmitri who propagated such things––it was man who allowed them to flourish, to deny their own kind, access into the kingdom of Heaven. For when no more Angels would exist, forever trapped in the bondage of their mortal sins, then only would Hell be the one to gain its population's uprising––it was man who allowed these things by their own choice. Free choice, as it was; the one thing they had never had stolen from them. A king is only as great as his kingdom, and Heaven, at such a rate, would become a kingdom of dirt.
   It was man himself, and mankind alone, who would kill God.
   "Give them more." said Dmitri.
   Kain grinned, a syringe of the Chaos Trigger formula in his hand. Its needle penetrated the neck of a man upon his knees, only not falling flat upon the ground due to the knights holding on to his arms. The fluid was pushed inside of his vein, the needle driven further spread its viscous vile light into his flesh. Clusters of scabs amongst a rash of red skin beneath his ear lobe began to seep with puss, the entirety of his body filled past the point it could withstand such pressure. Any opening, orifice, or pore of his body slowly began to seep with his bodily fluids, congregating with the perspiration trickling along his skin. A thin layer of malodorous secretions mixed with the pastel curtain of bioluminescence spreading into his body.
   "Why don't you go back to Hell again...?" the man grunted, only able to keep one eye open halfway to gaze toward the one he stayed in defiance against.
   "Kill his wife." Dmitri said.
   "Go ahead." the woman by his side moaned. "I ought choose of death, than servitude of you."
   "It doesn't matter what you do––" his body jolted, Kain's sword impaling him through his right lung, "you'll never have me..."
   His wife was soon to follow, both landing hard and flat upon the ground with their eyes open, heads facing toward one another. Even now as blood was clotting their throats, seeping past their lips to bead upon the dirt, the husband and wife who had yet remained reached their arms toward one another as their last act. As the reaper would come for them and rigor mortis began to set in, their hands became locked together in the final seal upon their certificate of death.
   Dmitri stared down in disgust, but were one to look into the depths of the worlds of ice in his eyes, they would see a glint of that which was not hatred, nor of malice. Nay, that which he saw in their copulation of their hands was the singularity that could spark such an emotion in him. The man and woman, neither whom yielded to his temptations, injected time and time again with his deceptive promises, they had never been influenced nor affected by it. And Dmitri knew why as he gazed upon their hands, for it was both the last thing they would ever commit, and the one thing for Dmitri that could bring absolute terror into his eyes.
   Love.
   "Do away with their bodies." said Dmitri, wanting the visage of love gone of his sight.
   Those who were once men gathered around their corpses, knives to carve off strips of their skin and flesh to be joyously mauled. Limbs broken from torsos, ribs torn out of their chests to be feasted upon. The carnivorous muffled growls of his soldiers was a melody of bliss to his ears as he left the scene, and moved toward Kain and Enmity.
   A computer's terminal had all of its coloration stripped from it, the monitor only allowed to glow in gold and amber hues. Its framework, casing and keyboard were akin to the walls, floor, and ceiling; devoid of light––existential visages of all that was dark and light-devouring. What would appear to be the industrial version of a living organism was cast upon the walls, the depths of all directions in their makeshift base of operations, here, in the First World at the peak of the Tower. Veins that flowed with golden light, miniscule bubbles sifting through the pipes and tubes flickered like half-dead stars. Under the hue of such lights, all was either gold, or black. Greens blues and reds appeared as obsidian, whites were tinted with orange discoloration, everything was gold, or black. Nothing else could exist. Nothing else was allowed to exist.
   "Why do you toy with them so?" asked Kain.
   "Does what has occurred not anger you?" asked Dmitri.
   "Why so should it?"
   "To have taken their lives and not of them cow to me––" Dmitri growled, thick clots of mucus in his throat, "we have birthed Angels in Heaven by our actions. Does such not sicken you?"
   "Leave it be in the past Dmitri––what of our now? What of our current situation are we do act upon?"
   Dmitri's shoulders sank, his chin rose as he took a deepened breath.
   "The shelf world." said Dmitri, pressing a series of controls the keyboard to show the blueprint for their next course of action.
   A three-dimensional hallowed outline of the Lascention Pillar was atop the Tower, showcasing the end of its life, and how the gravity wells of the Tower could be used to redirect them outward across the planet's orbit. By utilizing the Earth's own gravitational pull, by detonating the Third World's Central Column, they would be thrust out across the planet, locked in the confines of its orbit that the satellites launched from it would spread across the world, ejecting the gaseous substances that would harden into a solidified base foundation for its furthered building, by using the debris of the Pillar. God had so spoken to both Dmitri, or Lucifer, as he once was, and to Dios in millenniums long past; Heaven would come to the Earth above a city as of yet unnamed, and it would be there eternally that Heaven would exist above the Earth.
   In current times however, Heaven would be made empty, and whence it came, the shelf world Dmitri would forge would grant literal, direct access into the Gates of Heaven. Only time of such actions would, in idiosyncrasy of he who was omnipotent and omniscient; would God, faced with the entirety of his own creations turned against him, simply destroy them as he had destroyed Dmitri's reptilian beasts sixty-five million years prior? In doing so, Dmitri would make good on the very sole promise of his existence, the one and the same that he had forced upon all.
   As he had forced Malys to kill the children he so loved.
   As he had forced Ark to be the one to finalize the end of his wife's life.
   As he had too, forced Dios to take Ark's life, the one and same would be true were he to succeed; that whatsoever one holds most dear, he shall make them destroy it by their own hands––and in this, would the Lord God Almighty be forced to make extinct that which he loves most, the sons by which he was the father to all; the end of man.
   "So you have turned of that drawing," Kain smirked, recalling the picture Dmitri had scribed upon a parchment when Dios had first come to the Tower, "it is times like this that I so recall why I have chosen to follow you in the first place."
   "And of what times have you not remembered?" Dmitri flicked the monitor off.
   "Your tact of word irritates me to no end at times––I oft wonder why I have not killed you myself given the chance." Kain scoffed.
   "There is yet more to do," said Dmitri, "the Earth is ours already, and yet Heaven shall not come for endless eons yet to pass."
   "Of what contingency do we then follow?"
   "What you seek, it is right beneath your arm."
   Kain's eyes tweaked slightly, looking down to where he had been leaning against, he lifted a cloth veil from a stack of four metallic tablets.
   Upon the singular face of the metallic panel, white beveled etchings drew across it. A large circle near the middle center was offset partially, as a multitude of lines fanned outwards from it. From each of the lines, even more continued to protrude off from them, appearing as a rapidly growing array of tree branches. Where many of them began to end, smaller circles topped off the ends as strange flowers of varying sizes, and like that of a circuit board. The lines continued outward, bending at specific pre-assigned locations until the mass of it had become engulfed.
   After it had finished, an otherworldly language of words and text appeared across the lines, the language of original Babylon; the Language of God. To Kain, they were incomprehensible characters of alien origin written around the boxy perimeter of the steel tablet, forming a complex border of multiple layers. A massive singular character appeared in the center of the primary sphere, smaller characters written beneath the single large one. Finally, each of the smaller flower buds upon the prosthetic branches filled in, each with another singular character.
   "By what is this?" asked Kain, lifting one to his hand.
   "It is a book––our book," Dmitri smiled, "it is our plan. In its words, we shall make them the truth upon the Earth, and by following them, our plan shall succeed without fail."
   "Who is this?" asked Kain, pointing his finger toward the chapter around the six-o-clock mark.
   "A fail safe. You see there shall be those who worship of God, but they shall not fall victim to this." Dmitri pointed his finger around the one-o-clock mark.
   "You truly plan to murder the Son of God––the Holy Christ?" asked Kain.
   "But of course. You see, when Michael came to the Earth as God commanded him," Dmitri reached against the wall where a towering black veil was wrapped around the object he began to unfurl, "Michael foolishly left this upon the Earth."
   In his grip, Dmitri held upon a mundane spear. Its shaft was made of splintered wood, and its blade was merely that of a steel point.
   "What is this?" asked Kain.
   "The Lance of Longinus––the weapon used to banish Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden," Dmitri's eyes poked toward Kain, "it is what I shall use to murder the Christ whence he has been born into the world."
   "And of this again," Kain tapped his finger at the six-o-clock mark, "what is his purpose?"
   "There will be those unaffected by the death of Christ, followers of God alone; the Jewish Faith." Dmitri held his forehead in his hands, laughing quietly to himself. "He is the one who shall destroy them for me.
   "Hitler, Adolf."
   Kain gave a feign of a smirk, "very well then. Is that all?"
   "Nay, there is another." said Dmitri.
   Enmity, the darkening beast of shining black armor spoke with the voice of a ghost, a faint whisper with the sound of death rasping in his throat.
   "Name..." he spoke.
   Both Kain and Dmitri's armor gave off a metallic shuffle as they turned toward him.
   "So you know already." Dmitri said.
   "Know of what?" asked Kain.
   "There is another who may pose threat to us in the future." said Dmitri.
   "What of his birth's origins? We ought track the mother and kill her before it is time." said Kain.
   "Nay, we have already planned such as it is. The mother would be terrified already, and the child's safety guaranteed––he will be born."
   "What fear ought you spread into the Earth that would cause as such?" asked Kain.
   "A devilment by Lilith. She has so designed for us the method by which to thin humanity's numbers."
   "Much greater of ease it would be to control of them, is that your reasoning?"
   "That is one of them––" an airy laugh escaped Dmitri's sinuses, "the other... is because I enjoy it."
   "Tell me of it."
   "I've already insurgency planned of the Earth, in one way of which, Lilith has devised that we shall create temporal shelters for the production of Chaos Trigger resources." Dmitri began pacing softly, his arms hanging limp at his sides. "We shall destroy love of the world, but not by outlawing it as we have attempted. We shall instead, eradicate it from the hearts of man. Our knights will enter in the cities, seek women whose hearts beg for companionship. To copulate falsely with them, and in their wombs shall they bear children. Our knights, whom will be funded by the nation's own governments––those I shall reign control of––shall force the ultimatum of the death of their unborn infants, or to be left on their own. The women will be too far attached to our knights, everything they will ever want will be theirs, and they shall so choose to have their children slain in the womb––their unborn lives dissevered whilst still in the womb, and drained from the women's bodies. We shall destroy their love, I assure you."
   "Such is sick and twisted, to make individuals choose to murder their own children? How do you plan on poisoning the minds of man, how do you intend force them to believe that this would be acceptable?"
   "That is just it Kain," Dmitri's hand pulled down past his face, one of his silver eyes gleaming in the golden radiance as he stared at him, "we won't have to."
   "You mean to say that it shall become acceptable of their own accord? That murdering children shall become normalized in society?"
   Dmitri's pure white teeth began to shine in the wake of his parting lip's smile.
   "Name..." Enmity's whispering voice was raised.
   "Oh, yes," Dmitri nodded, "there shall be one, as I said, whose birth is normal. His strength is not one of the body, but of the soul––I fear him to become one who shall oppose us. We shall make him fall before he is ever to stand. Enmity," Dmitri glanced toward him, "you shall kill his sister, murder the one he loves before his eyes, forge him into a man of hatred when he is but a child. It shall however, be of near twenty-thousand years hence when shall he be born."
   "Merely give his name, Enmity shall know of where to find him." said Kain.
   "The boy whose sister you are to kill; the one who may oppose us, merely because he shall not be swayed by our influences... only because he is unmovable by the society we control;" Dmitri's eyes narrowed into a glower, "Valesti Reinhart."

* * *

[Dios GX]

* * *

A war's soon to be global reign had to begin somewhere, and in this war, it was many places at once. One of which was to be had here, in the Second World, the one and the same where the orbital elevators boarded months prior would bring the refugees. For however long they had managed to evade being targets, living in constant fear, countless starving to death by intentionally refusing to eat, that children could have their portions instead, their presence would no longer go unnoticed.
   Their numbers having began in the thousands, they had dropped now to all that remained of the Babylonian Tower's civilization. Fifty men, forty women, forty children, twelve Spirit Dancers, followed the guidance of Luminous and Armas, as they were all that remained. Here in this world, the convergence of that which was above and below it combined into its visage. A mutualized combination of utmost darkness, where the buildings were made of obsidian, and the lights were only that of gold were what lie in the skies above. At the midway point where they hid in the shadows of the perimeter realms, having taken two months to simply traverse one eighth of the circumference of but one of the thousands of perimeters, one truly realized the grand spectacle and size of the Tower once they had to walk it on their feet alone.
   How many doorways Luminous had passed by, ones tattered and worn, wood splintered and glass shattered in fragmented piles of glistening carnage, did he look upon the doors and remember the Gateway System. The System used to traverse one point to the next, merely from the utilization of the Emotion Drive capabilities the Tower had installed within it. An Emotion Drive, the singular device that transposes the metaphysical aspects of the soul and forges them into reality. Where there was hope, the Emotion Drive systems functioned, creating oxygen into the Tower, powering its sun gyroscopes, and promoting its clean air.
   The fact that flittering remnants of light, and befouled oxygen existed this far up was a signal of a dying promise. At these heights far beyond the end of the Earth's atmosphere, the mere fact that the air was breathable in any way, and that eternal darkness had not yet come was the visualized song of their lives. Hope still existed, and yet what demonstrative evils lie in wait refused to relent, tainting their once flourishing land of endless prosperity.
   But as true as their song may sing in their hearts, as they were now, a mere one half mile from the escape vessels they had sought so long to reach, the final stanza of their soprano was soon upon them.
   A young woman fell to the ground. A fleeting blanket of dust kicked off from the ground where she collapsed, her white dress already left in tattered ruins was only further ruined by the stains of filth ground into it.
   "My lady," said Luminous, kneeling beside her as he pulled one of her arms around his shoulders, "are you able to stand?"
   Her eyes, though shut, showed the pain and fatigue her body was facing. Specks of dirt clung to her lips, whatever traces of moisture left in her mouth were trickling past the corner of her mouth. How dreary and ruptured one must feel to forget how to even swallow the contents of their own mouth, just as this young woman now was.
   Streaks of Luminous' silver hair fell from his back past his shoulder as he leaned forward to look up toward her. Breathing still heavy, and yet not erratic––she may just as well be fine given proper time to rest, but time of rest was not upon them. Straggling along, her body felt slightly paralyzed, numb, cold and hot at the same time. A strain of the stomach was fast reaching her now, the surge of not eating for days sprawled into her neck and shoulders, making its way slowly into the back of her skull. A powerful headache, one that would never relent, and always sting as acid inside the mind itself. She felt as though she may keel at any moment, and yet she pressed on, unwilling to give up. But at times, the mind is the most powerful muscle in the body, and for her, the body was soon to give way.
   Her mouth began to swelter, watery saliva filling her mouth with each step, ad nauseam bursting from her stomach until the sour taste brimmed in her cheeks.
   "Stop, stop..." she tried her hardest not to breathe too deeply, for fear of agitating her already fragile body's condition, "I need to rest..." she almost cried, knowing she would slow them down.
   "Then we shall rest until it passes." said Luminous.
   "Take heart child," said Armas from atop his steed, "we shall move again whence your body is able. Calm yourself for now."
   "Okay." she barely spoke, her lips' movement betraying her voice's height.
   "We're almost there, do not worry." said Luminous.
   "Aye, five minutes more and we shall arrive our destination," Armas pulled upon his mount's reigns, slowing its pace into a crawl, "and yet the same, it shall be together we travel."
   It wouldn't be possible to even place the girl on the back of the horse and have her ride with Armas. A body as weak as hers had become, the act of vomiting may well strain her muscles too greatly. The forced bodily pain she may undertake would be enough to send an anxiety attack to her brain, and, coupled with what she was already experiencing, she may just as soon die from the pain and stress. Neither Armas nor Luminous could stand to lose another of their numbers, and would wait until the churning of her stomach would pass.
   Where they had stopped contained the visage of a suburbia's arcanum. Some lights of oranges, some of very faint pastel violets, whence they converged upon the blackened asphalt streets and bland grey sidewalks would illuminate as though a sun were shining upon them. Yet despite the lands containing a fresh natural light, above, all was black, stained in rust and turmoil at a point where two realms of existence seemed to converge. Yonder before them was the end wall of the Tower, and the set of doors upon it was like those that were used to enter the Tower, the same Luminous had used when he first created the Esperion and returned upon it.
   A five minute walk were they to hustle it, but it would be much longer than that having to walk slowly for this poor soul in their numbers. The pain she felt was much greater than that of the body, in fact, it was merely an amplification of how great an agony she suffered. In the numbers they had lost, families retained their integrity, either all of their members passing away, or staying entirely intact. That was of course, save for this woman herself. The stress and horror of beholding one's family die before you, with each passing of first her husband, her daughter, and of last, her three year old son, it was now a trial for her to find a reason to live any longer. A trial that was now put before the jury of evils, and from out of the darkness, it so marched.
   A growl like that of a broken engine, eyes like that of fire, and a breath that stank of sulfur, upon its four legs it strode into the street, quaking the land beneath its feet with each befouled step.
   The clamor of gasps, the whispers of voices and the muffled shrieks of children having their mouths covered by their parents. To let it know your fear is to give it authority to gain victory, and already it could smell their terror. Knowing its life only as one who can pick and choose those it wishes to kill, the lives it so desires to end for the sake of a game of extenuating its power––a self-satisfactory lust of supremacy, and nary one of self-preservation––such was that, and all that was the Cerberus.
   Hearts began to pound like drums. Repeating thunder of their chests throbbing until their heads grew light, falling to their knees beside their families as cold sweat began to perspire across their legs, feet, backs, along their necks, arms, and inside of their palms. Nervous bodily shaking was soon to follow, erratic muscular spasms that knew no end, and knew no logistics in their movements.
   Armas cursed his lack of a weapon, lost in battles long past with only men women and children in his presence, and no knights left remaining to defend them. He didn't care that he had no weapon, he thought if he could buy so much as a few moments of time, they may find their escape. Leaning forward as he pulled fiercely upon the reigns, kicking his heels into his steed, he charged headlong on the hoofs of tourmaline fires into the mouths of the beast.
   Its eyes began to narrow, fangs bared with the ruff of its mouth peeling back. All three of its mouths began to inhale stiffly as all sounds in the world seemed to fade. All that any could hear any longer was the stiff ring of deafening silence in their ears, and the pounding of their hearts in their chest seemed to count the last seconds they would be allowed to live. But there were none who would stand, none who would make an attempt at retreat. Merely in the presence of he who would end their lives, they had already given up. There simply was no hope left any longer.
   The ringing of ears passed, true silence fell upon them in the instant the beast's inhalation halted, and it prepared to unleash the cry that would stiffen their blood into viscous clots, clog their arteries, and bring death upon them merely at the sound of its voice.
   Its heads reared aback, and its mouths began to open. And yet, there was no sound.
   Its eyes began to widen, jaws began to tremble, rattling in place as Armas turned his steed off to one side, staring up toward its heads that began to turn around toward its backside.
   "Ye who seeks the end of mercy," Dios said, the hound's tail being crushed in his fist of white fire, "shall receive none of me!"

[Dios GX]

   Whiplash snapped its spinal cords into multiple fragments, Dios tearing the hound off of its feet to hurl through the air, crash into the ground, rolling and skidding over the lush grass as it struggled to regain its footing. Walking with a solemn pace in his steps, Dios unsheathed the Ascalon, marching toward the hound that began to recover of the recoil its muscles choked to gain reprise from.
   "You dare so speak of virtue in our presence?" the hound's heads growled. "You who have slain the innocent by your own hand––" its breathing was deep, heavy, and swift as it forced itself back upon its feet, "you whose hands are filled with blood!"
   "It is not I alone, but all who walk this Earth that shall sin," Dios' wings shone with cyan light, and yet they, like his body, had been stained in streaks of blood, "we shall so seek of justice, to encourage they who are oppressed by your malice; defense be of the fatherless," children in the ranks of those on the streets began to stand to hear his words, "to plead the case of thine Lord's widowed wives;" women began to stand, pulled from the ground by the hands of their own sons and daughters, "you who refuse to seek of reason's light––"
   All three of its heads lunged at him, striking only the dirt and the grass. Its eyes widened, fire drained from its irises at the pain surging into its chest. Dios had shot forth on his blood-stained wings, plunging his sword into the cavity of its bewildered heart.
   "Though mine sins are like scarlet," viscosity of its blood began to seep in miniscule rivulets, their girth widened as Dios twisted his sword into its chest, and poured upon him like a waterfall, "they shall be white as snow, yea' as they are red as crimson;" blood ejected out of its mouths, Dios driving his weapon deeper into its body as he spoke within the downfall of a deviant's gore, "clean shall they be made as wool."
   It could no longer speak, the endless torrents of blood filling its lungs and throats barely managed to make their way past its fangs. Dios' wings shed of their distraught counterparts, leaving behind a purity of white feathers in the light of cyan. Departing the beast's visage he so walked, no longer stained in the blood of innocence that tainted his mind and his body.
   "For so, to act the deeds of sin shall stain one's hand in darkness," said Dios, "and yet it is the end result of one's actions, including the good they shall perform that defines who one truly is."
   His armor was made new again by the blood of the guilty, washing the sin of innocence he had unwillingly taken by his own sword. The final retribution that was so his, he had taken and made his own.
   "Ye whom are willing and obedient shall eat the best of the land." Dios looked toward the dark skies as husbands were taken up from the ground with help of their wives' hands, families stood together as one as they beheld the holy knight of Heaven's fury gaze upon the spectacle of one and the same––and his feathers began to fall from the sky, landing upon the withered trees and restoring life to their branches with fruit growing swiftly upon them.
   "But if you resist and rebel," Dios placed the tip of the Ascalon, the Sword of the Spirit, Tongue of God and Truth of The Word into its sheath, gazing past his shoulder, he beheld the hound struggling to crawl upon the lawns in a swampy marsh of its own blood and entrails, "you will be devoured by the sword––" shrill metallic slithering was met with a stern clash of steel against itself, the sword made pure again now rest in its holster as he walked back toward those that remained, "for the mouth of the Lord has spoken––and ye who forsake of the Lord God Almighty––" the ground began to tremble slowly, swiftly rising into a horrific quake of apocalyptic proportion, "shall––ye––die."
   The horizon grew into a world of fire, skies of platinum fangs to scourge the lands––the jaws of Dante rushed forth; hurricanes of dust storms and tsunamis of earthen fields rose into his clouds of fire as he devoured the lands whole. And as such as his fangs began to shut, luminary rays of a crimson aura shining between them, and the Cerberus was gone.
   "Dios..." Luminous smiled, a tear forming in the corner of his eye. "You... you..."
   "Thine faith has been rewarded, life shall belong to those whose faith is ne'er stirred nor fallen." said Dios.
   "But––we..." Luminous sighed, a smile still upon him, "we gave up though, at the very end."
   "Nay, such are falsities," said Dios, "which all upon you has so not been cast in the die of Satan's befoulment? Whom amongst you has not been tainted with his lies?"
   "We all were." said Armas. "We all had it, except––for me."
   "Then I say to you, when hast its infectious diabolosism been had upon you? When hath any of you fallen to his darkness? Lo, I say to you as you all stand before me––we all shall fall at times, but to those whose faith truly cannot be stirred, it is not a matter of whenst you fall;" Dios placed his hand upon the ill woman's shoulders, brushing his wings across her stomach, and guiding her back to her feet, "it is only a matter of when you shall stand again."
   Luminous hummed slightly to himself, "you always did have a way with words."
   "Words so be the power that man has over beast now. But lo, there is another," said Dios as he looked toward the golden flecks in the sky––toward the First World where Dmitri lie in preparation, "ye who have not fallen have done so, of the one gift the Lord has made for you, and for you alone. The singularity that defines what deeds your kind is capable, as I have so beheld its creation on the day whenst man was born the first." His armor shifted as his sights lowered back to ground level, looking over his shoulder toward those standing behind him. "He has given you the power to love––the strength that of such, Satan can never take, nor destroy from you. For if you are loving and kind, and your heart has already been so given to another," he began to walk back toward them, faint flickers of Ark's passing still fresh in his mind, "Satan shall nay touch you."
   "Dios..." Luminous glanced in their midsts, "where... where's Ark...?"
   Dante growled softly, turning his head away from those upon the ground as he remained fastened upon the land bridges branching off from the Central Column.
   "He and Mary of both..." Dios' shoulders heaved once, lowering slightly, "they have so gone to a place better than this."
   Luminous brought one hand over his mouth, inhaling deeply, and exhaling through his sinuses in sporadic stagnation while clenching his teeth.
   "Come, this world is no longer befitting of you. A better one soon awaits you." said Dios.
   "That of which is what we share worry toward." said Armas.
   "Elaborate."
   "The––the Pillar," Luminous sighed, wiping a stray tear from his cheek, "it won't move. We got a message," Luminous held up the computer terminal strapped to his wrist, "it can't leave––it would have already, but it can't. For whatever reason though, they haven't advanced on it. But... it can't take off."
   "There be a locking device in the First World," said Armas, "the chains that bind it to the Tower are controlled by the palace of Lady Babylon––the Pillar can nay leave this Tower without her approval."
   "Oh, Dios... there's one more thing." said Luminous. "I thought... that Ark and Mary were still alive. There was a report that––her name was Rosa, right?"
   "Aye." said Dios.
   "They said Rosa has the application to be a Key for the Pillar."
   "She is but an infant... they do not plan to use her for such!?"
   "No, that's just it," said Luminous, "the Key... the one fail safe left to the Tower, created by Lantis and Atlantis––the one thing that can restart all of its Emotion Drives, cleanse all of its inner workings, and restore it to its original state––all of this, only brought about by the Key, only one of them ever lives in the world at any given time. They felt her too valuable to lose, so... they sent her to the Earth."
   "To where?"
   "I don't know... I don't think we'll ever know," said Luminous, "the lightspeed paradox makes it impossible to determine where she'll end up... or when. Traveling at those speeds around the Earth, she could end up anywhere in the world––ten years, a hundred years... thousands of years from now. The truth is it's not possible to know. But... she'll be safe. Anywhere but here––is safe."
   "I shall travel ahead of our numbers." said Dante.
   "Alone, you would travel?" said Dios.
   "Think mine brother, what state of mind ought Dmitri believe you to be in, but that one of sorrow and displacement? Would you not have him believe you have fallen?"
   "You mean to play trick to his expectation."
   "Aye."
   "Shall you live on your own until mine arrival?" asked Dios.
   "I seek only of our victory, and of that, I've no doubt you shall triumph."
   "Go then––for you shall bring of them death, and in mine coming, I shall bring them Hell."
   "I shall see you soon then." said Dante.
   "Indeed––you shall."
   Dante growled a fiery breath, tearing the cities in half as he vaulted into the skies, and made his way into the disparity of what would soon to come.
   "Dios... wait." Luminous said, standing beside him as others made their way toward the escape vessels within the Tower's walls. "They... said they want to go with you."
   Twelve Spirit Dancers, they who were all that remained of Mary's original troupe, still adorned with the white wings they had been gifted on the night that Dios left the Tower with Malys.
   "Your protection is not assured. T'would be best if you ought stay behind." said Dios.
   "No... we want to come with you. We want––" the lady in the front, whose appearance was like Mary's own, but her hair was blue as the clearest ocean's cerulean waters, "let us sing for you––one last time."
   Dios stood silently for a moment before giving his answer. A pale wind brushed over them, and from that, he found an answer.
   "I've nay felt such for some time." said Dios.
   "Hm?"
   "The wind... it has been ages. In Heaven, whence the wind blows, it is from the becoming of an Angel's wings birthed upon them. For so I believe I know of what you wish... it shall be upon you if you accept it."
   "We know."
   "Very well." said Dios.
   "There's... two more things, Dios." said Luminous. "There's something I want you to do, when we leave."
   "Tell of me." said Dios.
   "When we're clear... when it's just you left, there's something I want you to do. Enter this into your Operating System's kernel." Luminous handed him a strip of paper, a short string of code written upon it in black ink. "You'll understand."
   "And the second?" asked Dios.
   "You'll see... it's––my last gift to you. She'll come for you."
   "Very well." said Dios. "This may well be the final moment we see one another."
   "Yeah..." Luminous sighed, "but you know... no matter––uh––how things may end up, if people change... if times change; I promise, I'll stay the same. I'll always believe in you––I have no reason not to."
   "As all people so change, mine brother Lucifer now the one I am to kill... believe it hard of mineself it ought so be that I know the change that comes with time to the hearts of all," Dios stepped toward him, "and yet of you... I know there is only truth in your words."
   Luminous clenched his teeth, uncontrollably stepping forward to wrap his arms around Dios. Tears began to strain through his eyes, burying his head against his chest.
   "I'm sorry..." he cried.
   "You have no need to apologize." said Dios.
   "Yes––I do." Luminous gave a hard exhale of moist breath. "I'm the one who created you... all you've done is suffer for us––all I created you for was to suffer like this, and I didn't mean to."
   "It has been mine choice to endure these things, trouble yourself not––and do not worry any longer."
   "I never got to know you as much as I wanted to... even so––" Luminous sniffled as he pulled his head up, "I don't want to lose you."
   "Childish as mine words may so sound, worry not, forever as long as one keeps their heart pure, whensoever as evils don upon them––" Dios placed his hand upon Luminous' heart, "I shall always be with you."
   The words were too great for him to bear, knowing the truth that his greatest creation, he who was like a son to him, was a weapon of war––a God of Death––and that to see him again would mean chaos would have to reign. In the prospect of peace, it meant that Dios would be gone of the world forever. For he who was a hero, a savior––the world need not his existence so long as evil was not to be found, and in the end of what was soon to come, evil would be exterminated, and sin would be abolished forever.
   "Uh––just, uh..." Luminous fought hard to breathe properly, flicking the strip of paper in Dios' hand, "use that when you need it. You'll understand..."
   "Fare thee well, my friend." said Dios, as he stood and bore witness to what pain he had so brought to his brothers in Heaven; Michael and Gabriel, those who shared love for him, and had to see his departure toward the Earth so many days long past.
   "Truly, are you ready for what is to come?" asked Dios.
   "Yes," the dancer nodded, glancing toward her troupe mates, "whenever you are."
   "Then step forth," Dios fanned his wings out, hearing the rumble of escape vessels beginning their take off, "relinquish all of thou's pain, thou's misery, and thou's anger––upon me."
   As they stepped forth into him, their bodies vanished within his armor, leaving only their dresses upon the ground. The world had grown quiet, and in this land of strife, these realms of horror, and this world of chaos, Dios would no longer have a need to hold himself back as he had since he had first come to the Tower. For the true strength that lie within him was none that mortals would ever see, and with only the guilty left, he had no need to restrain himself. For there was no more innocence left to spill.
   There were no more innocents left to kill.

[Dios GX]

>> LOGIN: DIOS%20GX
>> VERIFYING OPERATOR HANDLE
>> Divine.Intervention.Overlord.Seraph;Global.Xenocide: CONFIRMED
>> ENGAGE GX.SYS
>> ENGAGING SYSTEM; "Global Xenocide"
>> ERROR
>> THIS COMMAND IS FORBIDDEN
>> EDIT GX.SYS; <addFunction="Ye who judges all, seek of mine heart and judge what I am soon to commit in your name, if so be it just, then let it so be written, for you shall make it done, and make this mine judgment."

   "Behold now, all that I have left," Dios looked toward the skies, "behold now––all that remains––and all, that I, am."

>> ENGAGE GX.SYS; <fLockBreak=NOT_GUILTY>


   Upon his right arm, a screaming violet wing that roared with seven thunders and shone with seven lightnings spread beyond his shoulder, and rose one mile in height into the shattered skies. Their wrath danced in volute chains of dancing arcs, latching themselves across the desolation of a broken world––they were as sentient entities that knew only destruction, and tore at the foundations of the Tower's walls and dead cities.
   His body was knocked forward, his right arm leading him to to the ground from the force of the wing, birthing itself out of his arm, began to grow in size and length.
   Upon his right shoulder, a wing of crimson fires unfurled at a mach velocity. Appearing first as the bony remnants of a fossil, it contained no flesh nor blood as it dug into the walls of the Tower, and began to tear its fangs of bone into its oxygen tanks, pipe systems and Emotion Drive engines. By one-thousand feet per second, steeled flesh as black as a raven's wings began to wrap itself across the fossilized protrusion, and from molten crevices and fissures breaking through itself, the fires of vengeance began to explode in volcanic eruptions that would both rise and fall into all reaches of existence.
   The fleeted greaves of the word of the gospel began to break from right leg. A wing angelic radiance, its color unable to be comprehended by mortals who could look upon it. And upon his left leg, a wing of darkness nights that would devour all luminosity and light appeared as the wing of a demon. They produced a veil of darkness upon one third of the world that remained, and the fleshy webbing between its onyx talons was there etched a crucifix in blood.
   Another fossilized wing began to shatter out from his armor. From upon his left shoulder, a wing of blistering glacial frosts began to encase the wing of bone that came to rise alongside the pilgrimage of fires and fossils given life by the true wrath exploding out of his body. By their combined ambiance and seething insanity, the glaciers began to melt against the fires, and would coagulate into an impossible hail of flaming ice.
   Upon his left arm, an ethereal wing that possessed no corporeal nor earthly embodiment fanned across both sides of his shield. The souls of repentance and the spirits of sorrow who had stayed with him began to engulf his arm. They shone as stars, and cast light upon the sins of the defilers of The Christ that plagued the remnants of the all worlds. The scripture etched by his own blade that once rest upon the edge of his shield became filled with gold, and the entirety of the Psalms became written upon the Aegis––the Shield of God's Defense.
   His single wing of normalcy that remained was upon his left shoulder blade. Their feathers of cyan and pearls multiplied seven-thousand times over themselves. Two elongated panels upon his wing, one on either side, began to shift and rise for a length of over nine-hundred miles. His body again flew forward, smashing his fists of fire and lightning into the ground as a single spark of electromagnetic voltage gave rise to two furiously blossoming protrusions that far exceeded the length of the wing by which they were made––and their light was that of a golden radiance at their ends, but one of sparkling arcs of uncontrollable light where they had been born into the world.
   For there stood he who was the bane of Satan, and he who would be the one to kill him on the Earth. Seven was the number of wings upon him now; that of lightning on his right arm, that of the spirits on his left; the cathedrals of fire and ice upon his left and right shoulders; the twin oppositions of life that were light and darkness upon his legs; and the golden wing of purity beyond all that was on his left shoulder blade.
   In his ascension alone, the wings of volcanos and glaciers that had burrowed their way within the walls tore the very Tower asunder. All flora was met with a vehemence in their upheaval, lands began to rise into the sky, no longer bound by gravity, and the reaches of Heaven's stars were visible beyond the torn walls of the Tower's final moments. Into the skies he rose, and soon into the First World would he be, where all had begun, and so too now would it end.
   "Think of ye," Dante's face was covered in blood, fire drained from his eyes and melted the flesh of his skull across his jaws, "that this be mine end!?"
   Turning his head toward his backside and his wings, Dante's wrath was expunged from his throat, the River of Styx to be the waters of his Hell washed over his body, drowning any of ten-thousand Cerberus hounds that had latched their fangs into his scales, vying to tear at the flesh beneath them. Platinum Fafnir dragons sunk their umbilical cords into the crevices of his scales, fastening them in place as the one hundred of their numbers began to pull aback, tearing his body into fragments to leave his flesh exposed to the fangs of those who would devour him.
   Lo and behold the end of existence he would so come. The ground did not rattle nor did it quake––it began to detonate in fear of he whose wrath was soon to be upon it. The lands' upheaval was that of one hundred feet into the sky and toward the Earth at a rate of seventy oscillations per second. Bones were shattered, legs became bloody sacks to hold the fragmented remains of skeletal structures within the guilty who so sought to escape their judgment.
   "You who have forsaken virtue of thine hearts––" Dios' voice knocked fifteen miles of the Tower's walls into broken fragmentations of black steel to fall as rain upon the world, "ye who live with sin festering within your broken souls shall be as an oak whose leaves so fade, a garden without water––"
   Dmitri, Kain and Lilith who stood upon the field of battle beside their dark brethren halted their advancement toward the dragon, gazing with wide fearful eyes at the untraceable source of the voice they had thought to be stolen.
   "Ye who believe yourselves to be mighty shall become as tinder, your work shall be the spark of thine flames––and both shall burn together in the Hell God has so created for you that none shall quench its fires––"
   And the song of the Spirit Dancers echoed in his wings by the voice of they who had become Angels.
   "How can we let this happen and;
   "Just keep our eyes closed 'til the end."
   "Thine time of freedom so ends, and sentence of God bids its wrath upon you!"Dios' voice broke through fourteen furthered miles of the Tower's walls, only a sliver of armor in its hull left to remain in the downpour of judicial wrath that now exploded from beneath them, the pillar of light surging from the Ascalon cut into the darkness before the head of the dragon.
   And there before the sights of the sinful, the damned, the murderers and rapists, the blasphemers and the impure beheld the Wings of Armageddon before them, as he who wielded God's Word in the form of the twenty-mile sword of vengeance, and thus the sentence was passed, and the end of all worlds came.
   "As ye who have taken life, so shall your lives be taken!" Dios' voice shattered two-thousand furthered feet of the Tower's walls. "Ye who have stolen hope, so shall I steal yours!" His wings began to lengthen, fires and ice coagulating into oceans of flaming tsunamis to flood over Dante's body, washing him clean of the blood spilling of his wounds––and his wings as they were now, were entirely as large as Dante's own, all seven of them. "And ye who hath shown no mercy to the weak––" twenty-five-hundred more feet of the Tower's walls shattered across its entirety, a sliver no larger than that of a sheet of paper remained between life and oblivion.
   Dios' jaws could no longer stay closed and began to break open. The canine fang of his right side broke apart, and from within, the ivory fang of a wolf reached beyond his lower jaw. It was then, the canine fang of his left side broke apart, and from within, a fang of onyx in the shape of a dragon's broke through his chest plate, forcing his head to rise up and gaze upon the encroaching army of a world's sins. Blood seeped from his helmet, and it began to draw itself through the crevices of the dragon's fang. And within, words began to scribe themselves from the blood of the innocent still staining the inside of his armor.
   Upon the fang of the wolf, words of gold began to scrawl themselves upon its shortened length, whose size was not comparable to that of the dragon's. Drawing themselves down from his mouth, their words would end upon the final point of the razor apex of the fang. Dios' lower jaw began to close, and it became torn apart by the two fangs of the dragon and the wolf. His eyes shone with a radiance that would blind the sun even as they narrowed into slivers of blistering light where dust only flickered faintly in the rays of light exploding from his eyes, for they were burnt into ashes, and ashes eviscerated from existence immediately after. Any who so much as looked upon the Angel of Death, Servant, Keeper and Bringer of God's Wrath would be met with instantaneous death from mortal fear tearing at the strings of their minds. A growl of insanity began to gurgle in his throat. Dios' mouth opened to its fullest, and the first great disaster upon the Earth was thrust into the hearts of the sinners of man and condemners of love's purpose.
   "Nay shall mercy be had upon you!" Dios' voice ripped metallic fissures into the Tower's walls, no longer a solid barricade, a broken and irreparable visage of the Tower, were it sentient as it so seemed it would choose, began to have it skin peel and crack away. "For ye, judgement be had, one and all, and all shall burn as one!"
   And then, the Tower's walls were completely disintegrated. Galactic vortexes of oxygen-devouring fury tore at the lands by winds of infinte miles per hour for one half a second, enough to rend all life that had been created out of existence, replaced now by Dios' golden feathers restoring them to life of Heavenly prospect. Through its destructed walls, two worlds down, the Third World had been detonated, its gravity wells used against the Earth to evict their satellites to orbit the Earth. But nay, they had become caught in the wake of Dios' destruction of the First World, pulled back into where they had been launched from, they began to spiral uncontrollably as the creation of a miniature dwarven galaxy whose stars were white, and whose arms were silver––the visage of its cosmic elucidation knew no end of its boundaries, and still it began to spread over the Earth, and beneath the feet of Angels and Demons, Gods, and Devils.

[Dios GX]

   Against the pitch black sky where the stars of Heaven's Eyes so shone, the fields of grass arose again alongside the trees of the Garden of Eden, pearlescent white was their bark, shimmering ivory was the bioluminescent grass to be destroyed in the fires, lightning and glacial dismemberment of Dios' wings, to be born again in the Fires of Heaven, and the Waters of Hell upon the Chaos of the Earth.
   The Ascalon's forty wings of purest whites fanned over the lands, the sword no longer corporeal, but now fused with his right arm's fires of Heaven, and the Storms of Valhalla's encroaching Ragnarok rained down alongside Dante's storm of comets and meteors shredding through all nine worlds that remained of the Tower's structure.
   It was then that Luminous' gift descended from on high, emerging out of the Pillar of Lascention as it remained chained and bound to the utmost peak of the Golden City at the Tower's zenith. From there it came on wings of white fires, and its body was the color of blood. The steeled phoenix born of love, created from the cleft of our mother Earth's breast––the crimson Dove of the Christ––the Esperion.
   Storms of winds like that of the birthing of Angel's wings in Heaven thrust down upon the luminary grasslands, blades of flora and bark of trees soared to all directions outside the orbit of the planet into unknown distances as it came to hover above Dante, and beneath him with his feet nay touching the ground was Dios. There thy three images be, the Angel of Heaven whose Wrath was God's Judgment; the Dragon of Hell, keeper of its flames, and bringer of its condemnation; and the Love of the Holy Spirit that resides within the hearts of those upon the Earth. Here they stood before the visage of chaos without proprietary ownership of anything in life, for their evils did not belong before the Holy Trinity of their Judicators.
   "Fool you are Dios!" Dmitri's voice rang as deep as a drums, loud as a thunder's call. "We have already won! There is no man left upon the Earth who believes in God's Lies!"
   "You who would attempt as such, as I have now come before you, whence you vie to shatter the Gates of Heaven I shall stand before you as I am now––"
   And the words of Angels began to sing following the ultra-sonic wake of Dios' arrival; "How can we let this happen––just keep our eyes closed 'til the end;"
   "It's already over!" Dmitri's screamed, his hatred flowing out of his wings of black fire now beginning to birth swarms of ravens cawing their song of death into the reaches of infinite space.
   "No matter of what actions you attempt!" Dios' fangs tore into his own armor as he clenched his jaws in preparation for what was to come.
   "When we will stand in front of Heaven's Gates––" the Angel's choir so sang.
   "It will be too––late!" Both Dios and Dmitri roared in the tandem of their opposition, that which was one of anger, and one that was of hatred.
   "Thine judgment is now passed––" growled Dios, rattling the chains of the Pillar's captivity. "Guilty!"
   And so began the day of the Earth's Judgment, and it began with the beckoning cries of Angels and Demons.
   Hounds of the Cerberus brood leapt upon Dante's body, their fangs burrowing into his flesh until they had torn clear to his internal organs––the stomachs that encased the Nine Levels of Hell. Blood exploded from his abdomen, falling alongside the fires encased within his veins as he reared his head toward them, his vomit seeping back into his own body, forcing them to fall into the worlds of his fire and have their bodies drown within it.
   Dios charged forth in wings of infinite storms, Dante's own flesh ripped from his body in the backlash of Dios' wings howling shrieks. But there was no parallel between him and any who existed any longer, and merely from the presence of his wings, the oscillations of volcanic fires and scathing frosts, those who were within so much as one-hundred miles of him became plagued with sickness, rashes of festering boils swelled upon their skin. Sweat unable to be contained in the flesh burst apart, exposing their inner flesh to the sulfuric acid of the Cerberus' tears and breath.
   Dmitri's true strength was made known to himself and all those who followed him, for in a single instant he, Kain, and Lilith were impaled upon the Ascalon together. Dios' mouth began to open, the fangs of the wolf and the dragon sunk into Dmitri's neck––Dios sinking his jaws into his flesh as the dragon's fang penetrated his heart, and the wolf's through the arteries of his neck. So much as touching him burned the flesh of his hands off, leaving only the ashen fragments of his skeletal hand remaining. Horrified screams of torment and chaos ruptured his body, and more than anything, knowing he was being destroyed by he who he felt was inferior to his darkness.
   "As I have so cast you once––" Dios' voice deafened any of ten thousand anywhere near his presence, and the radiant onslaught of his eyes burned the flesh of any he so much as looked upon, "so shall you return once again––" thrusting his hand through all three of their bodies at once, Dios tore all of their hearts from their ribcages, launching his fist forward again through their heads, leaving the wake of their heart's flesh in their mouths and throats, "become one unto, and burn forever in Hell!"
   Dios pulled their bodies from the bloodstained fields of white grasses, the war zone growing smaller in his ascension carrying the three whose sins were greater than any. Disorientation fell upon them, but was soon to come over their minds again at the spectacle of the only thing they remembered; the only thing they feared.
   "Welcome aback," Dante snarled, widening his platinum fangs as Dios flew into his throat, "unto mine wrath!"
   His voice was one that knocked flesh from their bones, Dios flew straight into the abyss of fire, knowingly following in the footsteps of the damned to cast them where they ought so permanently remain.
   In all of this, Dante had leapt from the lands and latched his talons upon the Central Column. Bloodied forests of his legs were locked in the flourish of fires pouring over his body, gaping wounds torn into his body began to widen, and two stomachs, one on either side, fell out of his body still attached to his internals. Nightmarish stairwells of bone bound by pulsating flesh encased and entwined along the tunnels of his internal organs dangling out of his body. Pillars upon arches of Hell's architecture was being broken apart, eaten by the jaws of beasts who sought to free their captive unholy brethren of the Dragon's Wrath. His wings began to molt their black feathers, and the light of the Spheres of Heaven's extenuating radiance flooded through his pinions, now the visage of a thousand impossible piano's keys, broken and unable to decide whether they ought shine in radiance, or burn in fires of darkness. Castles of his body began to fall in a shattering rain across his body, locked in the sludge of his magmatic blood, and yet still he continued to climb the column.
   In Dios' left hand he held fast onto the broken bodies of Kain and Lilith, and in his right hand was impaled upon its sword the body of Dmitri, all three of which screamed in bloody horrific murder as the fires of Dante's internals ravaged their bodies, leaving a wake of their flesh in tail of Dios' archaic wings.
   "Of fitting end so shall be––" Dios growled, hurling all of their bodies into the lowest stomach of Dante's body, the Ninth Level of Hell where Satan would be left to die forever, "that the deepest of all Hells shall be yours!"
   Bones of Dante's body fell into them, impaling through the wounds the Ascalon had already torn into them that never again would they rise from their captivity of group bondage.
   Dios knew that which was left of him to be tasked, and as Dante's stomach began to tremble, the onslaught of the River of Styx flooded into the dominion of flames to drown the three who had been left to death. Riding on the fury of the waters of Hell, Dios began to soar through Dante's body that he would eject out of his mouth, carried by his vomit to his goal. But nay was he alone, as already behind him, Dmitri had risen from his captivity, dissevering the bodies of those he had been left to die with, and tearing his own bowels and entrails out from between his legs.
   Nay again however, were the two of them on their own, for at the end of Dante's mouth was the Esperion, and the vessel's mouth began to open. The chromatic smokey lens of its throat exposed, by which its namesake was of the city it was born; The Jericho Cannon.
   "Begone of mine presence!" Dios pivoted in the air, smashing his shield into Dmitri's face, shattering his jaws apart yet again, leaving him to land flatly upon a solidified mass of hardened magma in Dante's mouth.
   From out of Dante's mouth, Dios soared within a globular mass of Dante's mucus and vomit into the Golden City. The Esperion flew into Dante's fangs, the ship whose overall size was twice that of the dragon's own, but the apex of such a vessel was on par with the girth of his mouth. The combining forces that was the upheaval of Dante's stomachs, and the unearthly destruction reigning from the Jericho Cannon––the weapon whose light broke off in celestial arcs was shot squarely into his throat, overpowering all of the fires, magma and chaos in his body, taking Dmitri back into Hell with it. Still he climbed, all the flesh of his throat ravaged into ribbons and fleshy tendrils dangling along his spinal cord, six of his nine stomachs now falling from his body beyond the length of his bladed tail were the castles of bone, and the palaces of bloody flesh.
   The Golden City, the land of faux paradise still shone in faithless purity. It was within that city that there was a woman who sought to rule the Tower, and so too she would have were she not tainted by the devil himself. Upon her throne of corpses she sat in a haphazard lethargy, a chalice of glass and pewter in her hand filled with blood. Drunk and dazed on the death of the innocent she so drank incessantly, spilling it past her lips between the cleft of her breasts, murderous pleasure she took in the consumption of what gave life to them to nourish the seed of evil growing within her. Her hand pressed against her stomach, for it was within that which she was feeding that it could only gain sustenance from the blood of the dead while it lived within her womb––the child of Satan.
   The ceiling of her palace was broken into by a meteor of blackness, brimming through its crevices with a thousand lights of prismatic radiance. Standing from within the amorphous mass of Dante's bodily fluids, Dios' eyes penetrate through the viscosity enshrouding his body and his wings as he began to step forth, tendrils and chains of gore clinging to his feet as he stepped upon the golden tiles.
   "Temptress of the Weak..." Dios growled as her guards began to advance, their bodies cast in fires, burned into ashes from merely coming into proximity of him. "Wife of the Deceiver of Fools," Dios' fangs began to shine, the black ooze draining slowly from his body, "Keeper of Lust––Lady of Babylon––" Dios pointed the Ascalon toward her head as she slothfully reared her head back, "Queen of the Harlots! Release of your hold on the Pillar of Lascention; let my people go."
   Her lips curled, her blood-stained teeth exposed as she leapt from her throne, rushing toward him in drunken rage.
   "Then so be it," Dios snarled, throwing his fist into her chest, grappling her lower jaw, "ye who seek of blood to drink, take now all that you have taken from others!" Breaking her jaw off from her head, Dios choked her own heart down her throat, furthering the madness as he tore her stomach out of her body, smashing his fist repeatedly into her head until her entrails were locked in her throat, falling out of a fractured esophagus across her womb and legs.
   "What––" she began to moan, vomit pouring from her mouth, "what––are... you...?"
   "I am he who is God's Wrath––" Dios threw her body to the ground, grabbing her by the hair as he dragged her bleeding body out of her palace, "I am he who has come to destroy the sin of the Earth, he who hath no mercy for the damned––"
   Through the foundation of the Golden City, Dante's head broke out through the streets, his extenuating neck torn of its flesh began to bleed the floodgates of his body into the false Heaven that all its streets were washed in the blood of their taint, exposing the truth of that which lie in a life of sin.
   "And I am he––" Dios growled, pulling her body off of the ground by her hair, "who has had enough."
   Into the dragon's fangs she flew over the city of her falsity to behold what had become of it.
   Yet it was again in all these things that here, at the peak of the Tower and of the Earth did Dmitri vie to escape Hell again, and this time, he would take its Gates with him. The blackening scythe of fires in his hands was swung into Dante's mouth, each and every one and all of his fangs was shattered into a storm of stars, one by one, one side unto the next, all of Dante's teeth were broken out of his head, leaving only the distended wounds to flow with blood.
   "And you," Dmitri reared his scythe over head, standing upon Dante's tongue, "born of the Earth, should you have so stayed!"
   His scythe cascaded into the Esperion, slashing its wings from its hull and knocking it out of orbit that it would fall to the Earth.
   "And you," Dante growled, vomit and blood surging out of his throat, "ought have stayed in mine Hell."
   Of all that Dante had slain, all that he had killed, his entire life he had also devoured not only the guilty, but he had mauled the innocent whose deaths had already come. However many hundreds of millions Dmitri's reign had so murdered in his despotic dictation, they had been stored within Dante's body awaiting this final moment.
   The blood that flowed from the empty sockets of his mouth was not his own, nor that of the damned, but it was the blood of the innocent returned to exact their revenge upon he who had taken their lives. Against the heat of his breath, the blood began to flow with his scourge, hardening into new protrusions that fanned outwards of his jaws––fangs of blood, hardened by the fires of Hell to hold captive the sins of the world raged from his mouth, uncountable thousands of layers of his new Gates of Hell plunged through the flesh of his lower jaw, and out through his own skull. Furiously ejecting from the force of his horrendous roar, his fangs shot straight ahead of himself, bending in arcs that his teeth were now three times the size of his own head, and far too thick were they to ever be broken or escaped by those they locked forever into the infinite death of Satan's carnal nightmare.
   "Brother!" Dante squelched, all eight of his stomachs now dangling out of his body, the eight Spheres of Heaven in his wings shattering that they ought become the new stars of the universe were shattered by his tail, and one third of them fell from the Heavens onto the Earth, all the while in his fangs was the wife of Dmitri to give birth to the child who would be born into the jaws of the Dragon. "End of this! Once and forever, never allow the Tower to exist again!"
   "Dmitri!" his wife screeched, her body impaled by the fangs of the blood of innocence as she was giving birth to his child, "help me! Save me!"
   "My lady Babylon," Dmitri growled as she smiled whilst he came near, "you are in my way."
   Her eyes widened, and by his own hand that knew no love, Dmitri murdered his own wife and child merely to burrow through the eternal Gates of Infinite Hell that held his confinement.
   There upon the utmost peak of all worlds Dios beheld the end of everything he had ever loved, everything he had fought to protect, and the end of his last friend of he who remained. Shattering the chains that bound the Lascention Pillar to the Tower, Dios did not so much as look aback to see its departure as he stared down into the Tower where a galaxy was being forged, where demons and Satan were being devoured by the fangs of Hell––a Hell whose stomachs had burst open to drain their infinite contents into the Tower to become the new Hell, to become the Nine Levels of Dante's Inferno would the bastardized lands of a forbidden paradise so fall.
   "I will return Dios!" Dmitri clawed his way out of Dante's fangs, his mouth spilling black gore and flesh, his teeth flourishing with serpents whose own fangs dripped with murderous venom, and his wings were the malformed visage of a thousand ravens burning together as two individual entities of black hatred. "I will always return––brother!"
   "And I shall always be there to end you––" Dios rose the Ascalon over head, "and the mighty Babylon––!"   Dante's squelching multiplied by Dmitri's screams of hatred were met their infinite finality at the end of the universe at the behest of Dios' voice, he who spoke in the language of God now cast the final sentence upon he who was exiled from Heaven, and he who was to spend his eternal existence in the Hell God had given him to take to the Earth.
   "Was no more!"
   And in that, there was but a single flash of light by the Sword of the Spirit upon mighty Babylon, swung by he who was sent to kill Satan on the Earth, and his sword was one that dealt the final blow to the dragon whose body had been emptied, and Hell was now all that was within the Tower to be forever sealed within the center of the planet.
   And after that one such single strike of his sword, it was that which was before he eyes that he did not feel his victory, but his defeat. For it was the Tower he longed to live within; the singular place he so desired to guide man, and teach them prosperity––that which was the one thing he loved the most––and he had destroyed it by his own hands.
   Within the emptiness of where he now was, his two wings shining only in cyan, and his sword sheathed upon his side again, the reality began to set in of what he had done, and what he feared the most had now come to pass that he had killed his friend to finalize his holy mission, and in doing so, that which he was afraid of was now upon him.
   He was alone.

[Dios GX]

Down into the Earth he descended at no speed of greatness, but rather one a feather would carry were it to glide back to the world's surface. The Earth that he had only stood upon once that he so yearned to belong to, the one he would go toward now that he had eviscerated sin from its people's lands. Down through the clouds he came, knowing what he would see whence he was through them, for the clouds themselves were of a different color than he had ever seen them. Brown as mud, and in them were flecks of red mists.
   It was then once he was upon the Earth that he stood in the beige sands, and from there, he beheld all that was allowed to exist that he had cleansed evil of it. Before him was a dune of sand, a faint shadow was hidden at the top of its brim where the winds that no longer wafted had grafted it. Further than that, there was the earthen spectacle of a dune of sand, and from that, there was a faint shadow in the same direction as the former. A marvel before him, beyond what he had seen of the mound of the Earth, was the majesty of the that which the Earth truly had left to bestow; a dune of sand. Looking behind himself, he beheld the wonderment that was a furthered array of sandy dunes, the planet's message of all it had left to give now that evil was gone, and all he saw before him was all that was left, everything that he had destroyed his life over, killed all of his brothers over, and taken the life of his last friend; all of that was now before him to take in, for all there was left in the world was visible from this single vantage.
   Nothing.
   Dios stood unmoving, there were not even any winds to blow past him as he stood motionless, not a single of his feathers so much as moving one of their follicles upon his wings. Having left Heaven of his own volition, he knowingly came to the Earth with the knowledge he would never be able to return to Heaven in the aftermath, as he had chosen to be created by the hands of man, and revoked of him was his citizenship of being a true Angel. He would live with what was given to him, and all that life now bestowed was an emptiness in a place more than just his surroundings. The skies were covered in filth, and the lands bestowed upon him what remained, the archaic destitute where the rest of his existence would take place.
   A sound broke through the silence. A droplet of rain upon the Earth from the bleak clouds. Yet nay, as Dios looked toward them, it was not water that should give life that fell through the clouds.
   It was blood.
   One droplet unto the next, more began to fall, beading together upon the sand until the dam's gates had burst, and upon the Earth did the shower of blood, the melted fangs of the dragon cascade into the world. Invisible hands began to move him as he took strides through the ground, already forming into a slush of viscous mud. A howl of wind began to whisper in the air above, fully knowing its origins, Dios turned to where he had been standing, the exact point where the Tower had fallen and been sealed, and awaiting his coming.
   From out of the skies of blood fell Dante, and all that remained of him was the bleached coloration of his tattered bones. The finite body that encased Hell had fallen from his flesh to encompass the Tower, for now all that existed was the skeletal remains that housed the heart that had given his life to fulfill his purpose, and attempt in vain to help Dios find the meaning to his own life.
   The Earth of these lands of Babylon had been stained with blood, eternally would the sodium chloride of their blood seep into the deepest reaches of the world, and never would grow anything of beauty or life anywhere near it. A horrifying event began to unfold, and the clouds no longer rained blood, but began to break apart and unveil titanic pillars, miles in their girth, of solid blood to drench and flood the lands to no end.
   Dante's bones crashed into the red deserts, waves of the dirtied lands flew in a grim halo around his remains.
   Walking toward him without speaking, Dios found sight of yet one more of life's cruel charades wafting down to the Earth. The cloth bandana his brother had once worn had fallen squarely between his feet as he stared at the lifeless white bones of the death of his last friend.
   Infinitely into the horizon, the clouds had grown so low that everything in sight had become stained red, the pillars of blood seemed as a flurry storm of crimson tornados terrorizing everything that could ever be seen. The sun that Dios so wished he could feel shine upon him was denied, blotted out of existence that he was forced to walk this wasteland called the Earth.
   Taking hold of the end of Dante's tail, Dios pulled it over his shoulder as he began to wade through the downpour of the scarlet-clad desert, whose waters of death had already risen past his ankles.
   His brother's bandana in his hand, Dios trotted sluggishly through the deserts, even dragging the megalith multi-million ton bones of the dragon behind him, his steps were as any other whilst his ribcage carved the message of the end of his life into the world.
   To the west he traveled, days into weeks without stopping, and never once did the blood ever cease in falling from the sky at a rate of five-hundred-billion gallons a second for the entirety of the five months he traveled to the west. An eternity of death, an endless infinitum of blood washed throughout the world to drain into the once pure oceans, yet now it was by the blood of the innocent would its taste be fouled and made undrinkable.
   Thereupon the end of the world, at the cliffs overlooking the world's red waters did Dios stand, having carried Dante's body out to sea, and tying Ark's bandana around the end of his tail did he allow him to rest at the bottom of the world to finally find peace. Dios so wished that perhaps in the death of his body, one that was created to only know anger, that with his brother's bandana sewn from love would he too, in death, find love in his ascension to Heaven.
   This was the fate of a true hero, the savior who would cleanse the Earth; the Templar Knight who would take the world's pain upon himself––that so many lives of sorrow would they bear, whence their own was realized, the burdens of never having another to share it with would become too great.
   Living his entire life on the Earth thus far in the Tower, it was all he knew, it was all he lived for, all he fought for, the place that fulfilled him and gave his life meaning––and now it was gone.
   The sun poked through the clouds for but a single instance, its light refracting upon the hundreds of miniscule waves over the ocean of the dead, showcasing where Dante's bones still continued to sink into the heart of the world.
   This is the end of all things he had lived for, all the battles he had fought, all the souls he wished to save and be a protectorate to, this was so how it would end in the finality of the mightiest construct humankind had ever created, and would ever have built, here, in Babylon; The Tower of Sorrow.
   Dios fell to his knees as he stood upon the edge of a world, where a new one of blood and ruin had already begun. His palms fast upon his head, his fingers began to clench, tearing at the armor of his helmet until his arms were bent at his sides. As his head looked toward the Heavens that had forsaken and left him on this world, his heart broke into a thousand pieces, and his voice was no longer that of anger, nor a growl of valor––all that remained of he who was the savior of mankind was a sorrowful scream of a psychotic insanity as the bloody tears of a broken angel trailed out of his eyes.

[Hidoshi]

I'll get on this next week. I currently am swamped with a skit project.

[Parn]