[b]The Puddle… The Vesuvian Storm… The Lake of Flesh… Right Hand of God… And The Fallen Tree…[/b] Everything that has, does, and will exist has potential. No matter how small, no matter how large. No matter how strong, and no matter how weak. The past holds what is arguably the most potential, for the past is an accumulation of things that have already happened--of things that once, or still exist--and with the right type of knowledge and equipment, those things can be observed, their origins traced, and their existences defined with meaning and distinction, all stored away in the past. In the past, a traitor named Satan was born; in the past, a traitor named Narcissus was born; and in the past, a group of traitors seeking to usurp power was born, and their name was the Collective. Each of them had failed in their own unique ways: Satan lost the battle to God and His angels, Narcissus lost the battle when he tried to run away and got eaten by Alutrosity for his cowardice, and the Collective lost their chance to rule the Val’gara when the Stalker nearly obliterated Colossus in his rage-fueled return with the world ship crashing into the planet, for which he too failed in being unable to control his emotions. So much treachery, so much stupidity on all sides, on every front. The former act burned him alive, and the latter methodology in which the act was conducted drowned him to death. This was why he Singar acted like such a scathing piece of shit toward people he didn’t respect, or regarded as being inferior to him, for what he saw in those inferior beings went beyond simple acts of evil, and ventured deep into the realm of self-destructiveness. Amph and its partner--through their reckless attempts at coercing an answer out of Singar, did nothing but anger Liaita’s indigenous creatures, ushering in their own failure. In the past, Singar knew that when he had Tage inject Thane with his nanomachines, that when he left him to be swallowed whole by Dreadnaught, that he had done the right thing, not for the Val’gara, but for himself. Since that very moment he had seen it all, had seen everything; every success and failure of the Cataclysm through the dormant ley-lines present in the nanomachines, viewing all of it through the Stalker, whose experiences were shared through the Val’gara psi-link. It had been no mere coincidence that Singar aided the Stalker in dealing the finishing blow to Ceasar’s precious Wood, just like there was no coincidence in him discerning the location of Colossus, and showing up in advance to save that naive Disciple from being engulfed in the Stalker’s fiery wrath. Were his motivations selfish? Only a fool would believe otherwise, but it would also require a fool to believe that selfishness and cosmic utilitarianism were mutually exclusive. Had Corruptor any intent to bring harm to the Val’gara, he would have left the Stalker where he belonged - in Gluttony. Had he the thought to bring ruin to their race, he would have aided Nudist who-so-blithely stepped onto Mire, claiming the world his own before ejecting it from its crystal shell. Certainly, he didn’t believe in things like their horseshit mantra of convert, consume control; if the Val’gara wanted to harvest the entire cosmos, Singar would not stop them. In fact, everything he did right now was to ensure that they could continue doing just that, for something deep within his angelic mind told him that he would one day need the Cataclysm to perform a certain function, and that their very nature would aid in fulfilling it. He just couldn’t stand the idea that everything they did had ultimately been for the sake of cosmic consonance and not done out of a need to spread their existence, for when had the Val’gara ever bothered to consider sparing a planet’s inhabitants, let alone the planet itself when it had been so ripe with life? The Val’garan deity was a liar. It had martyred itself in the name of an idea which it had never once invested so much as an ounce of effort toward achieving, and Singar relished that it was dead. He wanted the Val’gara to prosper. He wanted them to thrive, not on false ideologies created by stupid gods, unable to live with the carnage they wrought upon the universe, but as beasts, as mutagenic monsters destined to be what the wolf is to the lamb, and what a single bear is to an entire pack of wolves. After that, humanity would hear the pained cry of slaughtered wolves, and the terrifying roar of bear, breaking into their homes, feeding off their resources, feeding off the people. Indeed, the first contact prepared them, and the second contact would propel them forward. In the past many things had occurred, in the past many creatures, many entities were born. In the past they died, their bodies decayed, an oil pool formed from the fossilized corpses--oil which Corruptor would slather the gods with and set them ablaze… a present presented as a conflagration of flames that would chart a course for the future. Presently, Singar floated above the collapsed Rock of Cocytus, encapsulated within a shell of searing crimson text, shrouding him in a thin veil of smoke as it burned the surrounding air. He felt the barrier ripple and distort as it was hit by the dragon’s magic-depleting beam, its decadent energy eating away at it just as quickly as it was broken down, eventually ending in mutual destruction. An angry shout, . Born inside a metal chamber, . Projected from within wrathful maw, . Screamed at him as it scaled along Cocytus’ rubble, its steel claws skewering the pile before it, only to smash and pulverize them against the others as it acquired another grip, leaping bring itself farther to its destination. A green, otherworldly glow projected from a pair of, jagged scars running the length of beast’s triceps to the undersides of its forelimbs, casting its light over the rubble as well as the Lake of Flesh. The foul aura caused Singar’s lids to go from narrowed and relaxed to wide and on full alert, the translucency of his dark-indigo eyes fading to reveal pupil and sclera. He knew what was coming for him, and immediately formed a white-knuckle grip on the handle of his sword. Its malice visibly distorted the air, churning it into a vortex that sucked everything down to the source of rage, fueled endlessly by the metal mayhem clawing its way toward him. Eerily, Singar felt a tinge of inexplicable emotion as well, images of Heaven, Hell, God; brothers and sisters brutalized beyond any chance of recovery, scornful sneering, glares of resentment, and hate-fueled meteorites shooting from the sky all around them, smashing against a primordial marble with an impact a hundred times greater than the first extinction event that would one day follow. He remembered this. He remembered how he had gone from being Kalaziel - Angel of Creation, to Singar the Corruptor. [i]"That was… unexpected,"[/i] Singar thought, his grip loosened on the sword, mouth agape as he felt the hungering force pull him closer to the mad monster. With no time left to think, Singar braced himself, unsheathing the blade in a swift motion meant to coincide with the beast’s final ascent. The vortex of rage swirled with chilling, spectral manifestations of every person, being, beast, monster, deity -- everything Corruptor ever hated, ever loathed, despised, disdained, was disgusted by rose together with Taluge-X and attacked. Yellow plasma thrusters engaged on the soles of Taluge’s feet, his jaws parted wide enough to swallow Singar whole, and propelled himself at the fiend with a speed that left a vacuum in its wake, prompting him to summon a second sword and bind the blades at the hilts. Strafing to Taluge’s left, Singar flung the double-ended sword at Taluge’s open mouth, catching vertically between his teeth. It was enough to hold the beast’s mouth open for a few seconds, but in that time, Singar not only made efforts to steel his mind against the onslaught of provocative emotions made manifest, but began to channel his inner-voice at Taluge, more specifically the cyborg aspect of his tri-formed mind - the Offspring to the Arcane Project, Tage. [i]"LISTEN TO ME YOU IMBECILIC FOOL!"[/i] For once in his life Singar actually meant not to sound insulting, but just because he had steeled his mind against the raging manifestations, did not mean he hadn’t been affected by them. This was the best he could manage, but by time he finished that single projection, Taluge snapped the swords keeping his jaws pried open and swung his head around to meet Singar’s retreating form. Concurrently, Taluge, frustrated by the momentary restraints placed on his mouth, and the stress induced by having to deal with it, slammed them shut with so much clanging force that a shock-wave erupted from the impact, pushing Corruptor some several yards back. Stumbling through the air, Singar righted his path, chest pounding from the sudden impact, [i]"I AM ON YOUR SIDE!"[/i] Failing to heed the Angel’s words, the shadowy platinum plating covering Taluge’s ulna and radial bones slid back, exposing an extendable rail-blade on the former, and rail-gun on the latter, each surging with electromagnetic current. Bringing the rest of his body around, abandoned restricted by nothing but the guidance systems controlling his flight-path, Taluge unleashed a storm of negatively charged crimson plasma, which in-turn reduced the bullets he fired off to molten globules of metal at Singar. Good thing the Collector already had his two swords unsheathed, for in that instance, he activated the supernatural vacuum force that it possessed, causing the globules to condense and be squeezed into a pressurized stream flowing into the pocket void, disappearing until such a time came where he chose to release the contents. By now Singar was beginning to grow immensely vexed by the beast’s continuous assaults, and absolute refusal to listen to any form of reason he had to throw at him. His head tilted ever-so-slightly to the right, the left corner of his lip started to twitch, exposing his teeth as his the entirety of his mouth gradually furled back into a silent scowl, eyes shifting to a bloodshot viridian as his pale fists began to glow with holy fire. Corruptor had certainly not forgotten who he once was back in Heaven, nor had he forgotten how to use the powers he bestowed upon him since birth, and neither did he feel fear when Taluge rocketed toward with him with his tail reared back in that familiar throwing posture. [i]:IF YOU CARE ABOUT YOUR NEW FAMILY,"[/i] Singar projected with extreme agitation, swiftly avoiding the swing while landing a devastating right cross to its neck, [i]"THEN STOP RAGING FOR A MOMENT AND LISTEN!"[/i] Another roar, another hailstorm of bullets, followed up by a barrage of missiles, and another purifying return blow to its angry metal face a long exchange, indeed… Meanwhile, far blow, on the ground level, the foul green light had begun to inflict the same violent emotions upon the Stalker, feeding off his most painful memories just as it had done to Singar in an effort to produce the most virulent, vicious, bloodstained, mayhem-inducing rage. It dredged up the fall of Brobdingnag and his untimely demise, his frightening descent and brutal crash against the slush-soaked, fat entrenched, endlessly wafting putrefying stench of Gluttony in all its cruel loneliness. The light illuminated his sin of wrath when it shoved the memory of him bolting through the strange cosmic tunnel where different worlds intersected one another, grabbing onto that worldship and smashing it into Colossus all in an attempt at annihilating the Collective. Twin waves of blood, gore, and fleshy fibers swelled within the lake of flesh and slammed back down with a destructive weight that sent shock-waves rippling throughout the tributaries pouring into the ocean. The follow-up wave spawned two more behind it, spreading wide and sweeping together in a great clapping motion which sprayed the surrounding grass and bergs with a fresh carpentry of intertwined intestine viscera, stomachs swelled with an abundance of acid splattering across the surface, resulting in a fetid mix of digestive fluids and smoking feces. A single split opened up like a zipper, and an extremely long spine whipped straight up and lashed the rubble before it, nerve cords glowing with potent electrical impulses tinged the color of forest pine needles. The cycle repeated itself endlessly, each repetition creating a figure more distinct: shoulders, humerus, radius, ulna, carpals, meta-carpals phalanges; the waves solidified and produced intricately woven muscle fiber. Deltoids formed on the shoulder, and next to those the pectoral major, and lower still the biceps, medial epicondyle, brachialis, brachioradalis, flexor capri radialis, flexor carpi ulnaris, flexor digitorum sublimis, hypothenar, thenar, and across the rib-cage, his fibia, tibia, tarsals, meta-tarsals, neck, eyes filling, ears rising, nose pointing. The whole of his anatomy and musculature grew up, over, inside, and around, climaxing at the bloodcurdling cry that emitted so much more than violence, but pain, guilt, trauma, and fury... [i][b]Healed[/b][/i] by rage. Thane craned his head to witness the commotion that had brought him back to life, pitch-black eyes staring up at the battle being waged between Taluge and Singar, Disciple watching with complete indifference to the conflict, clearly too consumed by his own thoughts of what to do with the Val’gara. Guilt or no guilt, pain or no pain, the Stalker would not remain an idle fool for like Disciple for any longer than the few seconds of observation given granted to assess the situation. Presently, Singar was his benefactor, the Val’garan benefactor, and he would not allow anything to interfere with something that benefitted his family. Flesh solidified on his wings, and with a mighty flap, the Herald lifted himself off the ground and went shooting toward the beast who sought to impede the Cataclysm’s resurrection. Growth built up in the Stalker’s neck as he made his ascent, eyes appearing to move in independent directions while curved horns sprouted from his skull, a snort emitting from his nostrils. Arriving halfway to his destination, Thane opened his mouth and shot a massive chameleon tongue at Taluge, at the end of which was an abnormally large ram’s skull covered in a sticky mucus. The impact was absolutely sick for it was a combination of bones crunching, metal denting, and mucus squishing together as its adhesive properties took effect, and the Stalker rapidly reeled himself forward. Surprised, but not taken aback by the action, Singar swiftly moved out of the way of the Herald’s soaring tackle, which despite being smaller carried enough force to throw the pair into a mad descent, nevertheless incurring more of the Angel’s vexation. He didn’t need all this chaos. Landing initially on their heads, the two monsters toppled over on their sides, commencing a deadly tumble and a lengthy struggle for control to acquire a dominant position over each other. Taluge shot its double-jaws at Thane’s eye, only to be met with an explosion of flesh-growth impeding its path to his brain, while simultaneously seeking to ram up the dragon’s nose and clog his sensory circuits. A swarm of crimson nanites spewed from Taluge’s horns and swiftly picked apart the growth, liquefying it into a snotty ooze that caused him to sneeze in the Stalker’s face, the nanites pouring all over him in the process. In response more growth swelled upon his body, literally shedding his skin, muscle, even bone and organs, only to regrow them just as quickly as they fell upon Taluge in a weighty pile, whose reaction was to revv up the blades of the harmonic chainsaw running the full length of his tail and start sawing through it all. Finally reaching the bottom and practically entangled in a weave of nanomachines and flesh-growth, Taluge began pumping as many bullets and plasmic shocks into the Stalker as he could to stun him, whilst the Herald attacked back with pulsing waves of positive bio-force, smashing into the dragons armor. This battle could seemingly go on forever with how much of a pain it was proving to eradicate the Herald, and how difficult it was to breach the Raging Singularity’s armor, each dismantling the other’s assault before it ever had a chance to take effect. Fortunately, they had Corruptor, whose telekinetic death-grip formed a wedge between the two mad monsters, and pried them apart, tearing flesh and metal in the process. Angrily, Taluge shrieked in rebellion, while the Stalker clawed viciously at the invisible wall holding him back from slaughtering his quarry. In his adamant refusal to suppress his rage, Taluge activated his ley-lines and started siphoning power from every potential source, and for a moment detected the psi-link of the Collective and their malicious intentions for the planet, a sensation so intense he nearly broke Singar’s grip. [i]"This is what I’ve been trying to get through to you,"[/i] Singar relayed back through the ley-lines, a message which the Stalker heard as well as Disciple. [i]You’re protecting this world for this creature!?[/i] Thane questioned, shocked. We are to harvest this-- [i]"YOUR loyalties,"[/i] Singar scowled with irritation and genuine rage, [i]"are not the my ONLY loyalties."[/i] [i]"So you mean to betray us?"[/i] The Herald’s muscles swelled, the combined fury of his and Taluge’s working in unison was starting to produce cracks in the wedge separating them. [i]"YOU BETRAYED YOUR PEOPLE,"[/i] Singar lashed out, [i]"when you obliterated your own mother." [/i] Finally, Disciple began to speak in defense of the Herald. [i]He has expanded what was built upon in the Passages, has he not? [/i] Raising an eye-brow at the ignorant Disciple, Singar threw his weighty retort, [i]"He is still alive, because I activated what I gave him long before he ever became a member of your incompetent race."[/i] [i]"Then why do you choose to stand in our way now if you’ve done nothing but help?"[/i] Disciple queried with confusion. [i]"Because I’ve done nothing [/i]but[i]help"[/i], sweeping his hand across Liaita, I am done handing you things. [i]"If you wish to find Colossus, you know where she is. I am many things, but a liar is not one of them, and I’ll stab you right in the face, TO your face if you truly wish to test that resolve."[/i] Throughout of all this, throughout the entirety of the conversation, as Taluge gathered the energy required to break free and unleash his metal mayhem upon the Collective, he felt something worse. Something far worse than a group of wayward Heralds whose names neither knew, nor motives he understood. This tinge of premonition, droplet of acidic memory in a corrosive sea of pain drowned the destruction of the Dark Realm, his forced existence at the hands of Magnus, his condemnation to Phlegethon, and the petty scrap with the Stalker. He could feel their presence, he could feel the Aptosites. The organization that had murdered Zucroas’ clan and led to the creation of the Abomination called Alucroas. The pull was irresistible, but he could not simply allow the one home he had left to be destroyed either. A decision had to be reached and quickly, the crimson nanites pouring from his horns were a testament to his stubborn will, spreading and infecting the terrain, in addition to using the rivers of flesh as a fast-moving carrier. Since the finale of the Stalker’s fight with Ceasar Kong they were active, having previously remained dormant in the Herald’s bloodstream since long before he had even became a herald. Singar, feeling Taluge’s distress, and knowing that the Collective had every intention of coming after him for all the harm had apparently caused the Val’gara, he decided to take matters into his own hands and strike two birds with one stone. [i]"Go take care of your nemesis,"[/i] Corruptor projected in a restrained tone, suppressing the rage still lingering in the back of his mind from his exposure to the foul green light, [i]"we will exterminate this plague."[/i] [i]"WE!?"[/i] Thane asked flabbergasted, eyes wide as his wings spread out, tail swishing back and forth across the rocks. [i]"No, no, no…"[/i] Singar corrected him with a vague grin. [i]Disciple and I will handle the miscreants. It is as I said: I am done handing things to you, and if you try to take this world by force, I will kill both of you. Go harvest another world, and prove to me that you are capable of getting things done yourself.[/i] Releasing his hold on Taluge, who took several long seconds to contemplate his options, bellowed one final scream at the Stalker, before his plasma thrusters engaged and he set off to locate the source of his newfound strife. Soon, he disappeared into the clouds, and before long he had breached the atmosphere of Soran and was flying through outer-space as little more than a platinum glint amidst the stars. [i]"It is time you Val’gara learn the perks of cooperation. All of your in-fighting and applications of force to achieve your goals is exactly why you are here, and is why I am here righting your stupendous mistakes."[/i] Singar chastised Thane for his ignorance, each barb, each jab, every poke, and prod at his ego, and scathing judgment thrown against his abilities pushing the Herald in the direction he wanted him to go in. [i]"Go Harvest Another World, Peon." [/i] By now, Thane’s face had begun to twitch. Never in a million years would he admit openly to it, but some primitive aspect of his mind, some old tribal obligation of Niraan past woke up inside his brain. Frankly, he was sick of dealing with constant interference, constant interlopers, endless attempts at impeding his path to victory for the Cataclysm when all he really wanted to was go out, hunt something, kill something, and be satisfied with the feeling of the victims dismembered pieces digesting warmly in his stomach. He wanted to be an animal again, free from worrisome complications, free from political bullshit, the likes of which Disciple, the Collective, and Singar were all entangled within. This, he rationalized would be his way of proving his capabilities as a Herald, but more importantly, achieving the redemption he sought to gain for his own peace of mind, and being able to indulge in an act that was, for all intents and purposes, simple, plain, and natural. Just thinking about such a prospect gave him a strong feeling of emotional sobriety, and with that, without bothering to look at either Singar or Disciple, flapped his wings and ascended into space in search of a suitable world to one day call Val’garan. [i]"You certainly have a way of manipulating people,"[/i] Disciple commented. [i]"You should know the feeling."[/i] Singar replied back curtly. [i]"It is what you were made to do." [/i] Discontinuing the brief exchange of words, Singar began to telekinetically dredge the Lake of Flesh, dragging up the broken, shattered pieces of the Spirit Tree that Ceasar had used against the Stalker. Though dead, it had its uses, and presently, Corruptor stood in possession of a holy artifact, something that could give life and just as easily take it away in an instant. The Right Hand of God. Breaching the Lake of Flesh with his runic strings, Singar dove deep beneath the currents and retrieved the sinking artifact, reeling it back up to the surface via telekinesis whilst inflicting a deep cut via the strings themselves. It took minutes to achieve, but within that short time-frame, had collected nearly all the broken pieces of Wood and gathered them together to form a pile of obsidian bark and branches, all resting within the palm of God’s right hand, which by now floated back to the surface. “Bear Fruit, Great Tree of Eden. Bear Fruit And Allow All of Creation To Feed Upon Your Knowledge.” Slowly, the bark began to fuse back together and form the smallest of stems. It had all the nutrients it would need to grow into an enormously splendid tree, one from which all Val’gara would be free to nest within its canopy, one that would soon come to enshroud all of creation beneath its leafs. Follow me, Disciple. Singar ordered, blinking to the ground and commencing a swift series of footsteps, each one carrying him several hundred miles closer to where the Collective awaited. From their high-ground position, the Collective could see the massive form of Disciple hovering toward them, tentacles spread far and wide for thousands of miles given his mountainous size, and Singar blinking through the trees with his typical fearless gait, and blatant disregard -- and more importantly, disrespect for the enemies in front of him, the disdain for these wretches dwelling visibly in the malicious viridian glow of his eyes. In the great distance beyond, Agron and Sarach awoke from their time of recovery alongside an endless swarm of fairies, dragons, elves, the Insect Nobles of the mountain range whose homes had been destroyed. The desert nomads who had tamed countless sand worms, had learned to commune with the Agronians and Sarachians. The past held so much potential, and the trauma of past events, the cries of victims was beginning to reach its first terrifying crescendo. The present brought a confrontation the likes of which had not been seen since the Val’gara’s failed conquest of Earth-F67X. The future, always a blink away, a lightning bolt away, a hundred thousand droplets a thousand feet away from hitting the Earth. This was not a manifestation of the Midnight Fog condensing into water and coming down. This was real rain which passed through the Fog untouched and unhindered, unlike the false blood rain which came pouring out of the Vesuvian Storm, onto the lake of flesh, where it provided the kick that Eden would need to accelerate her growth. “Welcome to the past, welcome to the present, welcome to the future.”