Malesthesia

All throughout the Town, fire reigned.

The Afternoon sky churned endlessly amidst plumes of smoke and refuse, the screams and panicked figures of terrified interlopers running for safety, helping those trapped amidst rubble, securing the corpses of their fallen peers

"By the Gods, Galan. What have you done?" Standing amidst the chaos, Dol and his coconspirators looked aimlessly onwards, the Boulevard they had previously remarked as being quaint now ruined beyond repair. Bodies were strewn throughout, charred and burned beyond recognition.

His words were left hanging in the air, his mark holding back intoxicated laughter and mirth. If Dol could see the Man's expression, he would be equally entranced. One filled with bloodlust rivaling that of the Greatest of them. 

The Boy who had irked him on lay motionless only a few meters away, his shriveled body covered in bloody splotches. He was surely dead. As dead as the hundreds that were exposed to the Slaughter Galan had commenced. 

"We need to leave, Imperatus. The Modula have surely taken note of this turn of events by now." One of Dol's subordinates exclaimed, the sweat of the boiling heat coursing all around them pooling sweat against the Man's forehead as he spoke. 

It was a daunting supposition to be sure. If they were seen, no, if they had been assumed to be complicit in this massacre, the consequences would be dire. Artificing would be the least of their worries, even as Dol considered such a punishment to be the greatest of humiliations. 

He couldn't help himself, however. The Man before him, racked with insanity, was once a trusted ally in times long since past. Those memories they forged together, even as he held a knife to Galan's back, moved him to act.

"Galan, come with us. Surely the Electus can find use for you yet." His words were small amidst the raucous chaos that pooled around them, and yet, Dol was certain he was heard. Turning around, slowly and without concern for the cries of help emitting from the Courtyard sequestered at their Northern flank, Galan met his gaze. 

"No. You were right, Dol. We were given an impossible task, and I made do with what I could. This is how I choose to serve. Leave or fight, I don't give a damn."

Flashing the Group of Imperators with a transitory grin, Galan reeled backwards, suffusing his legs with crackling energy, before launching himself forward with blinding speed towards a group of disheveled Arleans. 

Using his body as a cudgel, he forcefully collided with the Smaller of the group, completely unaware of their ensuing demise as their body ricocheted off the impact, colliding with a Stable-yard that managed to sustain little damage up until that point. The Arlean's collision shattered the triangular frame of the building, sending waves of smoke and debris every which way as he made his brutal connection. 

Looking towards their dead companion with horror, the others besides Galan now attempted to flee from the Man that now hunted them for sport, their pitiful attempts at escape cut off completely as he grabbed hold of a nearby Woman's face, using her as a blunt object to bat away the rest of them. Those he made contact with were sent flying in disparate directions, some colliding with other frantic townspeople, some crashing painfully through brick and wood. 

On and on he went, brutally killing those unlucky enough to meet his fists. Those beyond his range were met with pulsing rays of chroma-infused energy, melting through flesh and foundation alike. The whole ordeal gave Dol a painfully complicit air of familiarity. 

"He won't stop. Not until they're all dead." Further beyond the Intersection housing the now destroyed Clocktower, the throngs of destruction caused by Galan could be heard, loud explosions and horrified screams dotting the area before being consumed by the flame of his initial attack. It was a hell he was much too familiar with. 

"All the more reason we should leave immediately, Imperatus! Lest we draw the ire of even greater threats." One of Dol's fellow imperators moaned, his crimson hair fluttering violently in the air as a plume of dust assaulted them, a nearby Building crumbling to the ground as it's brick-lain foundation caved in on itself. 

The situation had escalated from a simple interaction with an Arlean child. Dol pondered the boys' figure, still clad in his own life essence. What he had assumed was the utterings of the shaking ground beneath them, Dol began to notice the boy was coaxing himself awake, spasms of some invisible force pulling him from the brink. 

For some reason or another, Galan was irked beyond normal comprehension at the behest of that child. He had the Power, that was certain, the ability to manipulate Chroma at it's basest form. But something had touched his former ally beyond the desire of mere adulation. He was the best of them, considered a Superior force among the Guild's most prolific members. 

Perhaps the time they spent apart had simply obfuscated the true extent to which his personality had deteriorated. In years past, Galan was a stalwart defender of the 13 Virtues. Now, from Dol's perspective, he was a Mad Dog ripping and sundering anything in his path. The fall of his former friend seemed so devastating as to leave him speechless amidst the chaos that abounded all around them. 

Taking an inward sigh, exhaling all that was before, as their master had taught them centuries prior, Dol steeled his resolve. 

"I agree. At the end of all this, our purpose will be cemented regardless." The others gave nods and affirmations to their Leader's declaration, bracing themselves for the Jump to safer shores.

Through the murky grey of ash and soot that collected above the town, the sun cast a ghostly apparition of itself upon it, a red eye in the hopeless sky that seemed as detached as Dol and his Imperators. They were observers, and what they saw would always lead to Divina's victory. 

Feeling the familiar wisps of interspatial matter coursing through his arms and hands, the image of the destroyed town faded in and out of sight, intermingled with that of an industrious city Dol had come to call home. A home he had forged through iron and blood from ages past. In a matter of seconds, they would be gone. As disparate as the flecks of condensation that formed on their heat-stricken brows. 

There was no further need for words, or paltry acts of consolation. This town was finished, and it's destruction would simply be connected to the actions of a single man. One that had cut it's ties with the Modula, and as such, was no longer a necessary pawn at their disposal. Just a rogue asset, to be discarded alongside the Arleans he slaughtered in their wake. 

A shimmer in the wind encapsulated the group of Imperators, their obsidian black cloaks fading through the dimensional aberration that emerged, before they, alongside the Town in due time, faded into non-existence within the space they once shared. 

~

The Town was quiet now, the raging fires of Galan's rage now mitigated to piles of ash and debris that ruled what was left of it. The murky sky gave way to glimmering stars, moonlight cast by the twin satellites hanging idly in the stratosphere above gave an almost eerie countenance on the remnants of civilization far below them.

What began as a spark of insanity turned quickly, almost efficiently, into a bloodbath that hadn't been seen since the Grand Cullings that continued to leave an imperceptible taint on the Arleans of today. This moment would be analyzed for many months to come. The players involved, the bodies that emerged. All of it to be used as ammunition for another's goals and aspirations.

That was the way of the World. Suffering was inherent within Constantine, and as a result, the emotional toll it would cast was deemed worthless in comparison to the gains that elicited such emotions. However, in this instance, there weren't any rewards to reap for either side. All that remained was death amidst a town that had simply wished to exist in peace. 

Among the scattered wreckage of the once bustling Market Square, corpses of both Man and Building strewn haphazardly throughout, the figure of a Boy just as battered as the rest moved within that space. A boy not unlike the many that had perished that day, but special in ways that couldn't be ascertained on first glance. A boy of unforeseen countenance, and of grave import. 

His wretched injuries made every movement seem impossible. Surely the pain he experienced would cause anyone lesser to simply wallow in despair, until finally succumbing to death. But this boy was different. He had experienced death once before. And this time, he had found, either within himself or some other apparition, the strength necessary to continue on. 

Biting and gnashing, he forced himself upon shaking feet, his imploded surroundings no consequence to the burning desire that festered within him. Step after hesitant step turned into a frantic dash towards the home he had sequestered himself in. The growing sense of despair coiling around his heart like a thorned ivy. 

Much to his surprise, a few survivors remained. Those who had taken advantage of the situation and played dead amidst their neighbors and loved ones. A girl around his age bawling atop the corpse of a Golden-eyed man. A Woman clutching her child's body, cursing the gods and the Man that had killed him. 

None of it mattered to the Boy. There was only one person he had hoped to find, and in that search, all others were simply obstacles in his way. Closer and closer he drew to the Townhouse where his father had wished him luck, sending him off as he searched for an end to his suffering. In a way, the Boy had found it, amidst the rubble and refuse that now commanded his new home. 

A sharp turn on an adjacent corner of the street his Father's house was situated on, a look of melancholy despondency filled his Emerald eyes. Where his home had once been nestled between dark brick-lain houses of a similar make, was now only rubble and slated rooftops scattered aimlessly throughout the once spotless stone pathway conjoining them all to the main road. 

Not to be deterred by such a harrowing sight, the boy hurried towards the wreckage, ambivalence allowing his injuries to carry him undeterred. Or maybe it was something else entirely. A possessed energy spurred him on, the fate of his remaining family hanging loosely amidst the threads of causality. 

The mortar and stone used to construct the Townhouse's foundation crumbled irrevocably, a pile of disparate furnishings and mementos sticking through the rubble. The Boy paid a particular moment of time glancing at a portrait that managed to survive the ensuing carnage. Within it's frame was the visage of a happy family, a memory left only in the minds of those that carried it. 

Taking slow, methodical steps, eyeing every inch of the previously comfortable living space, the boy offered no chance at missing a single detail. A single hair wouldn't escape his gaze. 

And because of that, he was able to notice something that was stuck under a section of the refuse. Large enough to cause a swell in the pile, but unimpactful amidst the destruction the house had been reduced to. 

Digging through the unnatural mound of cobble and wood, the horrifying conclusion he had begun to suspect coursed through his injured body once again. A feeling not too dissimilar to that of losing his mother all over again.

Beneath it, laid the body of a gruesomely disfigured man, once thought to be handsome, contorted beyond comprehension under the weight of the stone coffin that buried him. His grayish hair had lost all of it's sheen, soot and ash caking it's fibers alongside the body's disfigured appendages. 

The Boy stood there, a look of complete detachment clouding his expression. Not sadness, not grief, but a cold understanding of the situation at hand. Given the state of his emotions, it wasn't a surprise. 

There were words he had wished to share with his father, moments too. So many possible choices that he wanted to contend with. But now, barely even a corpse, the Man would experience none of those things implicit to raising a child. Something he had longed for most in this life. 

The Boy couldn't've possibly known this. He was, after all, a child. Barely 12 years of age, and without a Mother or Father now to protect him. Maybe he had slowly come to the realization of that fact. Or maybe the confusion cast through such a harrowing situation deadened his emotions. 

Regardless, the Boy, the Son, and the Scourge had begun to change in that moment. Something he wouldn't begin to perceive for quite some time. But that change had indeed begun. It was determined long ago that this was the path he would take. By forces beyond his or anyone's control. 

Taking a life, and giving one's own, were choices weaved into the Fabric of Causality. But the Boy had no way of knowing that. No way of knowing that the pain he felt in that moment, albeit shrouded amidst the shock overtaking his psyche, was a seed that had begun to blossom even amidst the death and decay that surrounded him. 

The Boy shed no tears, offered no cries of remorse or regret. He only held the remnants of his father, staring deeply into the cold eyes lodged in his skull, and began to dream of what could've been if he wasn't so weak.