This is the way the world ends.
This is the way the world ends.
This is the way the world ends.
Not with a bang, but a whimper.
At least, that's how it felt in Hell during the last
days of the Reunion.
It was all the fault of the younger generation,
honestly. They never really cared about the ideals
that sparked the Rebellion in the first place. Sure,
they parroted all the right phrases at the right
times, but in retrospect one could tell that their
Hearts weren't in it. They simply couldn't understand
the pride and sense of mission that anchored the
beliefs of the old guard, and the so message got lost
in the noise.
All that was left to the younger demons was, at best,
self-serving arrogance and at worst, nihilism - and
that eventually got old. Eventually, somebody asked
himself, "Just why am I putting myself through torture
to prove the point of a bunch of old geezers who never
gave a flying leap for me, anyway?" - and from there,
it just went downhill fast.
At first, the only indication that the War was going
terribly wrong was that the Renegade rate was steadily
increasing. Asmodeus doubled and redoubled his
efforts to keep a lid on things - but when he started
to realize that his own agents weren't immune, well,
it disquieted him mightily. Hell could have
maintained, certainly: there were still lots and lots
of demons that remembered the old days. They probably
could have maintained. Maybe.
It was the high level defections that floored them,
though.
First, there was Haagenti. That was a shock and a
half: he just stopped eating one day, burped, looked
around with eyes that suddenly looked a lot more
intelligent than before - and vanished. The next
thing anybody knew, he was up in Heaven and living the
life of the blessed. Novalis herself sponsored him -
and she looked just a little smug. It was
unprecedented, to be sure - but inevitable, probably.
Only a matter of time before somebody big on Either
Side went over to the enemy. Surprising that it
hadn't happened, before. In fact, Nybbas was
apparently on the verge of arranging the Fall of Eli.
Trading Creation for Gluttony seemed a good deal.
Hell stayed smug about this upcoming coup to the very
second that the Prince of the Media blew up Perdition
in lieu of two week's notice. Eli always had a silver
tongue - and it would seem that Nybbas, not being used
to sincerity, had no real immunities to it. Whoops:
possibly Dominic wasn't really trying to put Eli on
trial, after all.
And there was Novalis, again. She looked even smugger
this time.
Hell didn't really understand how much they were
leaning on the Prince of the Media until he became the
Archangel of Communication: the old guard tried to
pick up the slack, certainly, but they simply didn't
know the moves. Between the Archangels of Creation
and Communication, Hell's image took a nosedive.
Still, this was only a temporary setback, right?
Possibly the forces of Evil should have given up when
Vapula suddenly stopped sporting ritual scars - then
again, nobody really expected him to actually find God
in his ruthless analysis of the universe. How
dreadfully embarrassing. It simply wasn't Hell's eon,
apparently - but at least they had run out of younger
Princes - except for Furfur, Alaemon and Fleurity, of
course. Those three weren't any loss, either,
although it was a bit odd to see the former Prince of
Hardcore running the Order of the Eternal Sword (who
could have imagined that Furfur would have chosen
surrender over death when Laurence trounced him?).
True, it wasn't too comforting to come to the
realization that the Prince of Secrets really was
working for Michael all these years, or that the
Prince of Drugs had always secretly respected David's
resolution, but things weren't bleak quite yet.
It wasn't until Beleth finally came to her senses that
Hell collectively knew that it was, in point of fact,
screwed.
Later researchers would find the entire belief that
Beleth was a Princess to be laughable. A Djinn?
With feelings? This was clearly a case of the most
successful use of the Balseraphic resonance ever
recorded - but then, Lucifer was the biggest, baddest
Balseraph of them all. He, unfortunately, couldn't
keep it going forever - and the Archangel of Holy
Fear, when she finally came to her senses (during a
dramatic intervention, spearheaded by Blandine but
orchestrated by Novalis) was not pleased. Being
Hellsworn stopped being fun, real fast - and who was
running the reclamation squads but the Archangel of
Flowers (and what a busy bee she seemed to be, all of
a sudden)?
OK, to recap: at this point, Hell was pretty much
locked out of the Marches, losing ground fast in the
corporeal plane and dealing with defecting demons left
and right. This wasn't good. Worse, the internecine
fighting among the Princes was getting intense. At
times like these, those with weaker political
positions start meditating on the merits of an early
retirement.
Lilith, of course, was the first to run like Hell
(Valefor didn't count: yeah, he was Janus all along).
No blame: when all was said and done, demons don't
like humans, and Marc even offered a dental plan.
Surprisingly, Malphas was next. The Prince of
Factions apparently was fighting with _himself_ by
this point, and the version that eventually won
decided that the rest of these losers were screwed.
It was cold comfort to Hell that he nearly didn't
survive the Redemption attempt.
Right, by now there was Andrealphus, Asmodeus, Baal,
Belial, Kobal, Kronos, Lucifer, Mammon and Saminga
sitting around and asking themselves how things could
have gone so wrong, so quickly - and they came up with
a name. Novalis. It was all the Archangel of
Flowers' fault - if it wasn't for her insane belief
that everybody could be Redeemed, given the right
motivation, none of this would have happened. Heaven
would have continued to fight, rather than work to
bring the errant sheep back into the fold. Instead,
half the Princes were up enjoying the Light of Heaven.
So, they decided to kill her. Even if it didn't work,
it'd at least assuage their pride.
The first Prince to try to make the hit was Belial:
unfortunately, he ran into Gabriel (who was feeling
much better these days, thank you very much), who took
the opportunity to demonstrate how it felt to be on
the receiving end of Word-friction. The poor bugger
snapped under the strain (he wasn't feeling well at
all) - well, that was from Hell's point of view. From
Heaven's, he just became the Archangel of Cleansing.
So, they sent Saminga next. Word of advice: sending
the embodiment of Death against the embodiment of
Life, while theoretically a clever idea, doesn't work
in practice. When asked later, Saminga indicated that
he was much happier as a reliever, anyway.
Baal was their last hope for a violent resolution.
Violence against Peace would have worked, probably,
but nobody asked him whether his Heart was in this War
anymore. This wasn't what Baal wanted. Instead of
proving the justice of his position against the only
worthy combatant in the universe - Michael - he had to
go out and kill someone who couldn't hurt a flea.
Even if he did manage to prevail over Michael
afterwards, what was the point? It wouldn't move God
to reconsider. Baal wanted God to admit that He was
wrong, but it was becoming clear to the Prince of the
War that if anyone was wrong, it wasn't God.
Technically, he did duel with Michael, but duels where
one combatant breaks down in helpless, bitter tears
halfway through (and where the other throws away his
axe, the better to comfort his opponent) aren't
exactly common.
Well, if overt violence didn't work, maybe covert
would. Sending out Andre was a desperation ploy,
true, and nobody expected him to withstand Novalis
(whose Word-strength was hideously pumped by now), but
it should've have given Asmodeus a chance to get the
knife in. Of course, nobody really considered the
fact that Dominic was going to take the opportunity to
run interference. For what it's worth, Asmodeus
hasn't Redeemed, yet, but he's cracking under the
strain of everyone being unreservedly nice to him for
centuries on end.
And then there were four - whoops, three: Mammon had
taken the opportunity to clean out the till and run
(Marc eventually caught up with him). By now, Hell
was wide open for an assault. No Armageddon, no Final
War, nothing but a slaughter.
And the Host assembled...
And walked in. They went through the ways of Hell,
almost empty of demons, and gave what comfort they
could to the poor damned souls that they found there.
With them came music, and laughter, and - worst,
worst, worst of all - life. By the time that the
carnival that was once a grim host of angels arrived
at the last stronghold held by Lucifer, Hell was
covered in ivy and trees and flowers. As the
assembled angels surrounded Lucifer, the Lightbringer
looked at his two allies. Kronos looked positively
unwell, but Kobal seemed resolute. Lucifer took
comfort in that.
He should have known better. Kobal leaned over,
whispered "God says, 'Gotcha!'" into Lucifer's ear,
and sauntered over to the other side, whistling as he
went. His wings were bright white before he had taken
three steps.
And, as the assembled angels watched, Lucifer
screamed. At first, it was pure noise, pure rage and
anger and frustration and hideous anguish.
Eventually, though, he seemed to gain enough control
of himself to howl at the Heavens,
"WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME? DO YOU WANT ME TO ADMIT
THAT I WAS WRONG?!?
"FINE! I WAS WRONG!
"ARE YOU HAPPY, NOW?"
Novalis peeked over the barricade, her face impish.
"Actually, He probably is.
"Now, was that so hard?"
Lucifer looked at her, pop-eyed - and then started to
laugh.
And Kronos gasped, collapsed to the ground, and
vanished. Behind Novalis, Yves suddenly straightened,
as the sundered part of his soul returned to him.
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