First Demonic Dragon

Currently, the wives were on their way back from a very short, but successful mission.

Once again, Gulban had played the role of their 'taxi' and given them a ride to and from the land of Svarga where they had no foothold.

The girls and the old man were traveling at six times the speed of light on a platform made from mythical oricalcum.

True to their personalities, they were all celebrating rather colorfully as they made plans for what to do with their quarry when they arrived at home.

"WHOOP THAT TRICK! WHOOP THAT TRICK!"

…They were having a lot of fun.

-5 Minutes Later…

"KNUCK IF YOU BUCK BOY, KNUCK IF YOU B-"

In the midst of the girls' celebration, Gulban suddenly stopped the platform around half-way down to the abyss.

He slowly turned around to face the girls with a look of pure incredulity.

"By all that illuminates… What kind of magical steroids are you feeding that man every day??"

Eris: "Who?"

"Your husband!"

"Lisa and I put our breast milk in his cereal. Does that count?" Tatiana looked down at her chest.

Gulban just stared at the lot of them with a slack jaw.

"Why are you asking about our husband?" Lailah chimed.

"He just-"

"Killed a couple hundred billion souls, no biggie." A new voice said. "Been there, done that." (Not really)

Nyx seemed to materialize out of the darkness around them the same way that Abaddon previously blended into space.

"Great bleedin' fuck…" Gulban muttered.

"It was an accident you old codger!" Nyx scolded.

Though the girls were glad to see her, they couldn't just overlook what'd just been said.

"I'm sorry… did you just say that he killed a couple hundred billion people…?" Lisa blinked.

"A couple is more like 600, and the people weren't exactly people, but that is the gist of it, yes." Again, Nyx seemed totally cavalier about this whole thing.

"What?? Why would he do that?"

"I'll tell you on the way, but he needs you now. Are you going to keep dawdling about here, or are we going to go and save him from himself?"

The girls hardly needed to think about it.

Audrina attached her shadow containing the Euphrates to Gulban's.

She could feel Kanami struggling to get out to go to her brother, but she held her within and asked her to leave this to them.

"Please take our men home and ensure that they get adequate rest. Tell everyone we'll be home as quickly as we can."

"Alright then." Gulban nodded. "Be careful, kids."

The girls reformed into Ayaana and took Nyx's hand.

As she pulled the girls away to somewhere unknown, Gulban could not help but feel a massive migraine coming on.

'Oh my old friend… I do wonder how you are going to react to this little mishap.'

-

Nyx asked Abaddon not to do anything until she returned for him.

And to his credit, he listened.

But just because he didn't move stars or asteroids around didn't mean he didn't see things.

Abaddon is not just the cosmos.

He is also Sex & Sexuality, the Supernatural, and Conquest.

When his mind is fully open and attuned within his place of power, he sees every instance of his being in the universe all at the same time.

It was… upsetting?

Eye opening?

He could not say for sure.

But he knew that it did something to him.

He saw and felt firsthand how mortals misused and exploited sex and conquest.

Their images were perverted into something horrendously craven, and violent.

And while he already knew that mortals, especially humans, had a tendency to do that, he didn't know just how big the scale of the problem was.

Sex was supposed to be healing.

There is little comparable in life than pouring into someone as they pour into you.

Whether wedded or not, whether the union is of the same sex or not, it is a foundation that facilitates a sharing of energy vital for attunement with oneself and the world around them.

But what he saw now was nothing so beautiful or intimate.

Just lust, pain, and selfishness.

Ironic that the being who had once embodied the first trait had come to despise it so.

Conquest made him feel no better. Possibly even worse.

He saw so much war, and so much death.

He saw powerful men trampling upon powers smaller than themselves and calling themselves conquerors.

Their only interest was in filling their pockets with currency, wetting their blades with the blood of the innocent, and filling their beds with women who were just desperate not to starve at night.

They built systems to keep their power consolidated, killed women and children to keep the fear of the masses flowing, and crushed rebellions in the most vile manners possible.

It was revolting.

The supernaturals he watched were a mixed bag.

Some creatures were more innocent than a newborn doe.

Others were worse than humans because they were older.

They had time to craft and perfect their brutality, and they were smarter about keeping it hidden when it wasn't yet socially acceptable.

But quite a few were so powerful that they had no need to hide their natures at all.

With his memories as Carter, Abaddon was far from a stranger to mortal cruelty and their propensity for harm.

But the problem was so much bigger and went so much further than he realized.

For every decent soul there were twenty more vile ones. And they seemed to work hard to corrupt whatever good they could find.

He felt as if he were seeing mortal existence in it's ugly entirety for the first time.

And in doing so, he had to confront an even uglier thought.

Was this what he embodied? Is it all that he was?

Sif had been lying on the sofa for around twenty minutes when she noticed the Omega Nebula began to change.

It's bright blues, pinks, and greens were becoming a much darker red.

And the air was suddenly a bit colder too…

She sat up with worry in her eyes.

"Hey big guy… Are you feeling alright?"

"Alright…?" Abaddon would have laughed at the question if he weren't almost completely out of it.

"I am… learning." He finally said.

"Learning what exactly?"

"About what mortals think I am… Or about what I may be. I'm not even sure anymore…"

Sif was beginning to get a really bad feeling.

"I don't really speak primordial existential crisis, hon… You'll have to dumb it down for this minor goddess." Her rare attempt to crack a joke fell flat.

Images that were practically holographic appeared all around her.

Within them, Sif could see a myriad of different scenes and events- all of them equally ugly.

Now, she could understand more of why her ex seemed to be losing his mind. "Oh Abaddon…"

"Is this what I and my family are trying to aid..? These mortals who are more craven than the animals they corral…?"

"Mortality is a complex thing, you know that. Their paths are filled with twists and pitfalls. Some are of their own devising, yes. But it is their journey nonetheless. They will grow."

"And then take several steps backwards."

"And then take even more steps forward. That's how things have always been."

Abaddon fell silent again and Sif couldn't tell if she was really getting through to him.

She knew that it had to be difficult for him. He wasn't just watching all of this strife, but he was feeling the echoes of it's effects.

Sif was afraid that it would take him to a place where her voice could not reach. your m,vle mpyr source

"…They disgust me." He finally realized.

"Y-You don't mean that.."

"Are you so certain?"

"Yes..." Sif said quietly, hoping that her belief in Abaddon would be enough to inspire some sort of change in demeanor.

She was wrong.

He just seemed to fall even further.

"…I could fix them. Fix all of this."

"Fix?? T-There's nothing to fix, hon, they aren't broken. They are just developing at their own pace."

"They should be molded properly. Or erased… I'm finding it hard to care either way anymore…"

Sif could feel her own heart start beating out of control.

Because she knew that Abaddon could do something catastrophic if he wanted.

He could pull every hateful soul into oblivion at the exact same time whenever he wanted.

Or he could just strip every mortal of their free will entirely. It wasn't like they were doing anything productive with it.

And she wasn't sure anyone could get him to reverse it if he decided to go through with it.

"What about Courtney...? Do you think so little of her too?" Sif asked quietly.

"I would do this because of Courtney! She too wants to journey to live among the humans soon, but how can I let her step out into a world so bogged down with filth?!"

Abaddon's voice temporarily became distorted as the nebula around him shook.

"You can do it, and you will do it because you care about her and you're a good father! You don't need to clean up the universe for her, just teach her how to keep her own hands clean."

Sif didn't realize it, but at some point she had started crying.

Now that she was like this, she finally admitted to herself the truth that she had been trying to avoid.

"You're starting to scare me… Can you come back to me, please..?"

The air seemed to become less heavy as if Abaddon was softening.

"…I technically haven't gone-"

"You know what I mean!" Sif devolved into a state of icy blubbering.

A 'body' was created out of the surrounding nebula.

It was both physical and not at the same time, resembling Abaddon's physique but with red flesh, horns, and three eyes that seemed to be constantly glowing.

Stars and darkness traveled along his body from the waist down and moved as if they had a mind of their own.

A literal black hole sat directly in the center of his broad chest, and his entire mouth was missing from his face.

Abaddon's hair usually strikes a perfect balance between black and white.

But for the first time, Sif saw more darkness floating above his head than she did light.

Abaddon reached out to wipe away her tears and was instantly relieved when she did not shy away from his touch.

Instead, she threw herself into him fully; holding onto him as if she were afraid he was going to fly away.

"…I didn't mean to scare you." He apologized.

In that moment, Sif felt just a tiny bit relieved.

Abaddon was still himself; he was still kind.

For a moment it seemed as if he was slipping back into being the monster the gods still thought he was.

And Sif was afraid that she was just not enough to help him through whatever he was going through.

But she'd forgotten that he had never made her feel like she wasn't enough before.

Not even after they got divorced.

She had underestimated her ability to reach him no matter the circumstance.

Sif reached up and took Abaddon's face in her hands.

She pulled him down to her level and kissed him where his lips normally were.

"I know you didn't…" she whispered. "You just have a lot going on upstairs right now, huh..?"

A lot was an understatement.

"It is… disorienting." He admitted. "I feel nothing but their negativity and the harm spurred by their decisions. Erasing them feels the only way to subvert their disease."

"But you know that's not the right way, don't you..?"

"You know of a better one…?" He asked painfully.

"She may not…"

Nyx finally returned, carrying Ayaana over her shoulder like a sack of sexy potatoes.

Unwillingly I might add.

"But I certainly do." She smiled. "Aren't you glad that you have a friend like m-"

Ayaana: "Put us down you bi-polar geriatric pedophile!"

"Okay fine, damn…"