Turn ?? (????)

Turn ?? (????)

…

Commissioned by Citino

Word count: 2555

…

It is finished.

Victory is now in your hands.

The entirety of the Earth is nothing more than a ball of flesh, shadow, and fire. Billions have died only to become one form of monster or another, and both Heaven and Hell struggle together against the tide of shadows that seek to annihilate the Cycle of Death and Rebirth completely and utterly. In a handful of centuries, the last two of the Great Factions would have fallen, and Reality itself with it, but here you are stopping that from occurring just five years from when the End was said to come.

You have lost much.

Your father is a mere memory you desperately cling to in your darkest moments, otherwise remembering him causes you pain beyond measure. The rest of your family, his wives, your brother, and your sisters are scars that you bear upon your back. Their memory does not hurt you so, but you fervently miss them nonetheless. Then, there is your best friend, who died facing someone she could never defeat… saving your life in the process.

Billions of other died to Ouroboros’s dying flailing, the renewed Chimera Incursion, and the rise of the Ebony Emperor. The Arcologies have all fallen. What remains of mankind wanders in mobile caravans, supported only because everything that hunts them is one less that hunts you, and they will all be hunted and extinguished to the last within a decade. Civilization has been lost, with scant memories remaining of all the world’s achievements and cultures, and the halls of science and industry are silent.

Yet mankind’s dying gasp, it’s last effort to spite which has broken it, humanity has produced an Aspect.

It took five decades, as so many died and were sacrificed, but everything that has occurred can be undone.

Everything CORE and its allies have gone into this final project. The Underground Reagent Centers are now barren, endangered arcane fauna and flora now truly extinct, as every arcane reagent has been carefully extracted to hasten and ensure the project’s perfect. AI by the dozens have been shut down, recoded, and rebooted, no matter how many laws regarding their sentience were broken, so their minds could be put to use in the synthesis of the specimen before you. Your own father’s form, the power held within his blood, has been remade over and over again to be fed to a True Vampire he believed his sister, so a proper base could be sired for the project.

You’ve turned every virtue into a sin, sacrificed every ideal you’ve been given, and now you have been rewarded by the chance to undo time itself.

“I managed to convince the princess not to kill herself, but only because I told her she wouldn’t be living long, anyway.” A voice interrupts your thoughts. It is a harsh, tired voice filled with hidden pain. “Fuck off, Val.” A prosthetic eye looks upon you. The Eye of Wisdom is hidden behind a black seal. Your advisor walks about blind. Guided by a weapon that can undo continents. “Cut the bullshit. Everything’s done. The Temple’s completed, the weapon’s programmed, and we’re all ready to commit mass suicide… so, where’s Lucifer and why hasn’t he put in his failsafe, yet?”

Odin rules over magic in CORE now. Long gone are days when yourself and others studied the arcane. His Eye of Wisdom has allowed him, with the aid of all the cannibalized assets at your discretion, to gain all but the rarest forms of magic in Reality. He stands before you and you see only a man, but he is now the last god, and the mightiest of them all to ever exist. Mankind’s last crystallized faith given form is a one-eyed, one-legged, and one-armed young man with a dour countenance. You hold no illusion that his sacrifice will equal your own thrice over, even if you have two souls to give.

“Lucifer engaged the Ebony Emperor on the other side of the world, in a manner that will lead the Ebony Emperor to believe that we will be launching an intercontinental strike on her position, which we will… so, that thing will be busy ensuring those we send will accept the End, instead of pursuing him.” Another voice, this time from your right, heralds your other advisor. Aria Gremory ought to be in Hell, supporting her people in their long war against the End, but she has lost people precious to her to the Ebony Emperor. You hide from Hell now, along with the rest of Humanity, to ensure that she can give you aid without being forcibly returned to where she is supposed to be. She looks pale, sickly, and her hair is pale and short, a different woman from who you met first many years ago. “I’m ready for this. The whole of my Peerage all are too, Creighton.”

You cast your gaze upon those who became Devils to only gain power for the ritual that they will fuel. Each one has fought continuously for years and years, beneath the wings of their King, and they have grown strong… strong enough to be worth half as much as you in terms of power. It would be your doom to fight against three of them at once. Some might say that if Aria Gremory chose to return to her people now, with these souls and warriors at her back, Hell might survive the coming onslaught and maintain Reality. However, what Reality will they save? One with an Earth a blasted ruin composed of country-sized expanses of unnavigable space-time, burning with weapons that’ll never go out for hundreds of years, and writhing with flesh that spawns plagues composed of millions of human corpses?

You bury the respect and admiration you have for the last Beastkin, Valkyries, and other monsters at Gremory’s back.

You offer them only a nod of respect.

They understand that even if Heaven and Hell somehow win against Hell, their people and planet are gone, and that they are the last of their kind.

Just as you are.

…

The Temple is a vast, durable, and incredible construction. It is meant to withstand the destruction and remaking of time itself, through the usage of the first lever capable of manipulating time on a massive scale. Both time and space bowed to it, and pathways in and out of it can lead to anywhere, providing response time measured in mere seconds. However, in exchange for that durability and mobility, was offensive abilities and internal security.

“The Ebony Emperor will come. She’ll feel all of our deaths and she’ll attack this place. And, all that’ll stand between her and this giant, fucking target is a bunch of stupid homunculi and drones.” Odin scoffs as he considers the vast complex he’d created with all the knowledge of divine edifices and construction. Despite his words, he fixes his senses on more than a few weapons he’d constructed for the “fools.” No matter what, Odin has always chosen the highest of paths than anyone else in these dark times. You envy his ability to continue to suffer, to fight, regardless of the bleakness of circumstance. He has only provided you with his aid, and his life, because he holds the lives of billions above that of his own ideals. “If we’re unlucky, the defenses won’t hold, and Endkin will use this oversized boulder as a life raft through space and time. But, there’s no chance of the Ebony Emperor getting through, so we that going for us, at the very least.”

“Lucifer’s Phantoms can fight even past his own death. They will focus on the Ebony Emperor, even while he grants his own body and will onto this temple.” The veneration in Aria Gremory’s voice is telling. However, she sees Lucifer as a mere conduit of what she truly worships. The Devil lives a half-life. Her family is dead, and she is the last of her house, but she suffered far more than what a cursory glance might admit. For you, the loss of your Father had been the hardest blow, but she’d held two others in the same regard. Her twin and another whose name she would not even share. If her will was to grant everything to Lucifer, you’d have not accepted her aid, but her veneration and worship is for the past. Her abounding respect for Lucifer allows her to converse with him with the respect he demands… and for her heart to be unaffected by his silver tongue. Even the finest lever cannot move an endless expanse of ash and dust. “He will die gloriously, as we commit ourselves to the revival of the past, and allow what is done to be undone.”

Her words stir her Peerage, her followers. Amongst them is conviction, happiness, and relief at the words that they hear. If you do not gaze upon them, and see that they wear clothes meant to use their minds, bodies, and spirits as fuel for an engine, you can almost think that there is some joy left to be had in the world. That there is more use for what is left of humanity besides providing a screen and camouflage for your work. That there is a future to be had in the time you now inhabit. That, if you join together Heaven and Hell, and hold the line against the Ebony Emperor until Lucifer’s power matches her own… no. Those thoughts are foolish. This plan you have now, from the very start, was intended to save the billions who died in that very first year… and the millions who sacrificed their lives after each passing year.

The only thing that matters now is the girl before you now.

The base template of a True Vampire fed to full from birth has been machined, enhanced, enchanted, and empowered to be a god amongst gods. AI designed to create and prototype for whole nations invested themselves wholly and entirely to creating all that they are able with all your resources to make this Aspect whole. Every bone she in her body has been meticulously engraved with all the necessary enchantments. The limitations of physical assets have been overcome through direct replacements tied wholly through arcane strength. The utterly immense furnace that is her soul, stoked through what is left of infinity and utterly massive amounts of your father’s bodies, is at her discretion to use for physical ability. Her mind is engraved not only with instruction, but with all of CORE’s gathered magics, stratagems, and knowledge. Then, finally, her soul is bound to a singular, irrevocable purpose forged from the what little remained of both Dream and Destruction.

Now, you only await your greatest concession to be placed at the base of her spine.

The doors to the center of the Temple open and reveal a face you hate completely and utterly. It is a picturesque face, a composition of male perfection with leanings towards Eastern heritage, that has a smile that can be seen as kind… by a fool. Beauty incarnate and given a male form he might be, but only a fool would see the newcomer amongst your ranks to be anything besides a charlatan, a tyrant, and a worthless piece of scum. However, even with that cruel approximation of a kind smile bearing down upon you, you must say nothing, do nothing, and feel nothing.

Because, the Aspect of Conflict, Lucifer is someone who is required for this plan to work.

For your Father, let alone all others who have perished, you’d gladly suborn yourself to the Devil of Devils.

“Ah, my friends, what a glorious day this is! Today is the day we save reality itself from the end of all things!” Some amongst Aria’s Peerage falters against the cheer and charm, but most present simply stare upon Lucifer in deference and defeat. He strides through the hall, covered in his own blood and clad only in rags, but his smile is wide. It is a predator’s smile. All teeth. Teeth that is aligned alongside humanity’s neck. He approaches humanity’s last hope without reverence as we can all only watch. “But, I suppose I am late! However, you all need not fret, I will do my part!”

In a smooth motion, he called forth his blade. It was an ugly, malignant scar upon the world that he wielded with impunity against all that opposed him. In his hand it looked to be anathema made reality, the greatest evil made manifest. Looking upon it, though you’d stared upon the Ebony Emperor’s writhing mass of blood and darkness, you still found it the most disgusting thing you’ve ever seen.

However, he allows the conglomeration of antithesis to pass away, and holds out a fragment of God’s power… perhaps the very last fragment… in his hand.

Someway, somehow, while all of your friend’s other creations faltered and failed… the most vile being to ever exist still holds a fragment that is empowered by her will.

Very nearly, you stand to stop him, but you bite your tongue and the pain clears your mind.

No.

She is dead.

Forever.

Along with everyone else.

Unless you allow this to happen.

There is no hope to be had now.

“Well, my father, it seems that I will be your victory over the End.” Lucifer’s voice is filled with nothing besides pride and joy. Though the wounds he has upon his body aren’t healing, and won’t until he dies once more, he can only smile at the shard he has of divinity in his hand. Divinity that he made his own, but divinity nonetheless. Without hesitation, he reared turned it upward… and turned it so that it was aimed at his heart. “Let it be known that the only one worthy of Creation is I, as it crumbled in the hands of all others!”

“Fuck! Start the ritual, now!”

Odin’s word heralds the new beginning, and without warning, it begins. The pain of becoming undone, of sacrificing all of yourself, is beyond any other pain you’ve felt. You burn, freeze, drown, and feel every agony that can be felt. However, that is not the cause of your pain. You feel every joy you’ve ever felt. Every memory you’ve had, good or ill, becomes your past, present, and future. And, you can only feel pain at how those fleeting, dead dreams still outweighs the nightmares you’ve felt.

This.

All of this.

Odin, Aria, and yourself.

Lucifer.

Everything you’ve done.

All of those you’ve sacrificed is for this entity.

For the being at the center of the ritual, partaking in Lucifer’s blood and with shards of divinity sinking into her flesh, you have committed every atrocity and sin to grant yourself the slightest of advantages.

As you begin to fade away, you hear the world breaking, and the screaming of Endkin. The chatter of firearms reaches your ears, only to be silenced, but the doors hold as you all fade away one by one to the Fae ritual Odin had chosen.

Nothing of you and the others shall remain, save for a field a flowers for Reality’s savior to rest upon.

It is not a fitting end for you.

But, you know better than to take anything good in the world for granted, anymore.