Leafe Lillith
The Legend:
Leafe began life living in a castle, though he remembers little of the palace of his birth. His parents were the rulers of Wonderland, what passed for a King and Queen. His younger siblings, Mani and Night, were born one year after the other, and at the age of four tragedy struck the family. A beast found its way into the castle, and it proceeded to rend the Lillith parents to pieces, try as they might to fight it off. Much of the castle was destroyed in the process, and it seemed that the children were spared only through some divine providence. Their Uncle came the next day, intending to meet his sister and brother-in-law for Leafe's fourth birthday celebration, and rescued the frightened younglings from the rubble. For the rest of their adolescent lives he raised them, acting as Regent until Leafe came of age to rule.
By the time the young man had reached 20, he was already regarded by his people as a genius inventor, and a fair ruler. Though in fact he and his siblings ruled in a sort of democratic way, merely presiding in matters of extreme importance, where a firm hand of monarchy was needed. Having done away with the systems of the past that their Uncle clung to so desperately, it was no surprise that one night he simply vanished, leaving Wonderland without a word. He was not heard from again by any of the townspeople, or by the Lillith siblings. There came a point in the lives of the siblings where they discovered deep below their own castle a hidden shrine. Blazing upon seven pedestals were gems that shone with the lights of a billion stars, power unknowable and unknown contained within.
They would often come, the three of them, secretly to this place to study the markings on the walls, and the gems that they couldn't get close enough to in order to touch. They did not lust for the strength the jewels promised, but rather they thirsted for the knowledge that seemed to lay just below the surface of the stones, and within the very walls of the shrine. Who had made this place, and why was it hidden here, of all locations? Their questions were soon answered, for there came a day when Power awoke within each of them. On this day, as they lay on the floor of the cavern writhing in torment and confusion, three of the gems burst to brilliant life, suffusing the orphaned royalty with their incredible strength. From them Leafe and his brother and sister would learn all there was to know about the Chosen, and their intended role in existence.
Alas, fate was thwarted in this, for they wished to show their people of their discoveries, their newfound abilities. The Wonderlander's greeted the revelations of their monarchs with cold, terrified glares. Being superstitious folk, the villagers and people of the countryside began to whisper that their beloved Kings and Queen had become demons, made a deal with Nexus herself. After a short time, a force of Wonderlanders gathered outside the Castle, and they attempted to overthrow their tainted rulers. Leafe, Night., and Mani were heartbroken by the betrayal wrought upon them, they who only wished to bring peace and lasting prosperity to their kind. With the death of their parents at such a young age, the evil of their Uncle, and all that they had faced for their people, this act of hatred and fear caused something to snap within each of them, and they surpassed the worst nightmares of their kind.
They became raging Gods of Destruction, laying waste to all before them and bringing utter ruin to the land itself. Not a living thing was left where they flew, and they bathed that day in the blood of uncountable innocents and animals. In their madness, it seemed they had rent the lifeforce of the very planet. However, one young man survived the slaughter, and he crawled with purpose and determination through the carnage and towards the siblings. He wasn't particularly special, simply the page of a talented swordsman who bore a weapon of some repute. Holding that enchanted sword clenched in his hands, he had no skill or expertise on the matter of fighting. Indeed, how he managed to live will likely never be known.
With a cry, he leapt from his hiding place and drove the spelled blade through the back and stomach of the woman Mani, middle child of the Lillith Three. As he withdrew the sword, Leafe cried out and ran to catch his sister, and Night swiftly ripped the boys head from his shoulders in a clean motion, proceeding to use his claws to rend the page's corpse and destroy the ribcage entirely. Meanwhile, his older brother tried to keep Mani holding on, he knew there must be something he could do to help. But she couldn't, the last thing she said to her brother was "I'm so sorry." And with that whispered phrase she faded. Leafe spent what was likely the next several days shaking her body, trying to awaken her again.
Night, upon realizing what he had done to the corpse of the young man, snapped back to sanity with a sudden, horrible clarity. In his grief and rage for what he had done, he slashed a hole open in space, a power granted him by the weapon he bore and the Mantle now a part of his soul. He would flee Wonderland, not looking back for even an instant, all thoughts of his still-breathing brother lost. The eldest Lillith, however, was in shock over the events, and erased the truth of it from his mind. Unable to deal with the calamity, his memories overwrote themselves, and convinced him that his own brother had betrayed him, killing his sister and the rest of the planet while he could do naught but watch.
With a fiery vengeance he pursued Night, traveling across Worlds and dimensions to find him. He learned the ways of many civilizations, discovered technologies and weapons, and in time he built himself two cities capable of flying, of travel through space and the trans-dimensional barrier. He had long ago forgotten about Wonderland, thinking only of his hatred of Night and the lament he felt for his sister. A vile beast that had taken his Mani from him, a monster to be put down while he searched for a means of reviving her. He soon lost all ethics again, destroying whole galaxies in his ravenous quest for the Chosen of Shade. After a time he came to a World called Earth, and there on the continent of Gaia he finally found what he was looking for.
Night was hiding amongst the mortals there, and Leafe threatened to kill them all of he didn't give up and come home quietly. Knowing of his brothers madness, Night refused, and they fought a battle which shook the planet. It would later come to be called the Cataclysm, an event which very nearly wiped the Earth clean of life. It was saved by a lucky chance, the clashing of the two Immortals ripping open a portal to their own world, sending them back from whence they came. In the twilight of Wonderland Leafe struck the killing blow on his younger brother, obliterating two of Wonderland's three moons in the process. The people of Earth, particularly those that remained, came to know the two as the Beast of Bloody Ages (Leafe) and the Hound of Chaos (Night). The two fought over the Maiden of the End (Mani), and in their supreme judgment found the World to be lacking. It would be debated many years later, when the tablet depicting the fight would eventually be recovered.
On Wonderland, though, none of this mattered much. Leafe had found his revenge, and he kept Night's form with Mani's, searching for a way to fix her. Unable to do so, and enraged at his own failure, he continued on his path of destruction, killing more and more until killing was all their was. By the is time, the Guardians had noticed his existence. Each dimension had a Guardian, and their purpose was to keep things like Leafe from having their way with the Multiverse. They came to know him as the Destroyer, and he slew many of their kind before finally one of their number, Frost Silvertongue, fought him to a complete standstill. Having both spent all of their energies, they fell to sleep in separate places unknown to the rest of existence. When Frost awoke, he would have continued the battle if not for a most unfortuitous circumstance. Leafe had vanished, and no sign of his power remained anywhere.
What had happened was a group of Gods, known to the Earth Norse culture as the Aesir, had accidentally sealed him away. One of their mightiest warriors, a Battlemaiden Valkyries, had recently given birth to a child of some raw power. Pronounced a Valkyrie before birth, the child turned out to be a male, and so their Lord Odin decreed him to be an abomination. He was meeant to be sealed with a human life, but unknown to the Aesir that human life no longer existed. He should have become a young man, happily married with two children, and would have been if it weren't for the fact that Leafe had killed this person, and destroyed his world mere hours before the sealing took place.
Fate has an odd, twisted sense of humor, and so it became that the Valkyrie boy-child should come to rest within his soul, and the seal placed upon his memories and his powers struck him down entirely on the day of his awakening. He awoke on Earth, in Gaia, with false memories of himself and powers that were oddly limited by something he couldn't quite place. Assuming he was one of the so-dubbed "Meta-Humans", he became a Hero who fought for justice in tandem with both the Holy Order and The Defenders. A beastly man, known as Auron Fallenstar, attacked the tower of the Defenders one day with an attack that erased the building from existence. However, due to the nature of Leafe's body and the complexities of the lock placed on his abilities, the attack served only to force the confinement of his abilities open which gave him odd bits and ends of his true strength.
A fight with the villain Enar later nullified, if temporarily, the magics which restrained and controlled him, causing him to accidentally blink himself into another plane of existence. Once there, the lock returned, though placed slightly different form before. But Freya felt his presence, and she returned to him to undo what was done, to free his memories and soul. She knew not of his true nature, and so released the Valkyrie within him, and removed the seal. For a time he had the powers of the Valkyrie, and he was still a Hero, even upon his return to Gaia. But his memories slowly returned, and he subjugated the Battlewarrior to his will while he planned his return to power. After a time, the Valkyrie within him was withdrawn, and he was able to take a form more like his true self.
But much of his power was lost, and so he still had to bide his time. At this point, he was the second in command of The Defenders, one of the highest ranking members of the Holy Order. He waited for a chance to bargain with the villainous powers of Gaia, and he seized the chance to procure for them a book that was in the custody of the Commander Gage, leader of The Defenders. With this treachery he left the side of Heroism, turning to a darker path which would be steeped in yet more blood. Leading an attack on the Holy Order he took the life of one of their great Mages, as the Leader was absent and the second in command in a place where he could do no harm. After this he recovered the bodies of his siblings, now lain dormant for untold millenia within one of his cities, and brought them to a man who could give them new life. A painful and disgusting process it was, but in the end Leafe succeeded in resurrecting is beloved brother and sister.
His loathing for Night forgotten now that the truth of the matter once more lay before him, he welcomed both with open arms. Night cast aside his remorse, and together with Mani they ransacked the Ilse De Gambino to retrieve the evidence of the original struggle on this planet, and the weapon which Leafe had lost. With it, even more of his power was restored to him, and Leafe knew it would be only a short space of time before he could claim his right as an independent force of Chaos, and leave behind the V-League and all the others. All the while, he grew closer with a Lycan woman, named Luna, whom he for some reason trusted even with his greatest weapon. Through the sharing of the scythe Hel, their souls grew closer together, and Leafe found that due to a miraculous and difficult to explain twist of Wonderland physiology he was with child. Twins would be born of him, their mother-spirit of their little forms being Luna. Around this time, he left the V-League and began to formulate a plan that those not of the Lillith family could only begin to guess at.
During the war that was taking place between the V-League and the G-Rouges, the old second in command of the Holy Order (And Leafe's rival in all things) had fallen. It was a noble death, a sacrifice made to save the world, but Leafe was grieved by it. For who else had thus far proven their worthiness to him, that he might contemplate death by their hands? Still recovering from childbirth, he could not yet visit the Order to pay his respects, and he slept for a time. Meanwhile his elder son Gabriel (who had been brought up in the city in solitude) brought many Heroes to the city, thinking them to be his father's associates and that Leafe was a great Hero. Upon learning of this, his world seemed to be turned inside out and he didn't know how to feel anymore. Leafe awoke during the middle of the banquet, and he removed the Heroes back to their own places of residence. Disappointed and spiteful towards his son, Leafe threw the boy over the edge of the flying city to fend for himself form then on.
He had Leucian and Carmilla, the twins, to take care of now, and to carry on the Lillith name. Leafe was gifted with enough of the Sight from his Mantle of Sol to tell him that they would be great villains one days, Destroyers in their own right. The warrior then went to visit the Order, finding Arcanjelo's body being freshly brought back. He had a small spat with Arc's daughter Felicia, and he injured her gravely in his rage. The sorrow he felt released even more of his power, restoring to him his wings of shining gold, where once they had been burnished and blackened. Ever more he regained mastery of the Mantle of Sol, the powers of Light growing to immense heights within his soul. The burst of power that escaped him then could be felt, by those sensitive to such changes, even into the deep reaches of space. Those who did not have the Magesight for the gift of empathy still felt that shaking of the world, as a sinking feeling in their gut. This power would cause Frost Silvertongue to once again recognize Leafe, his ancient foe. Now died and reincarnated many times, Frost sought to end it once and for all, before the Destroyer could implement whatever scheme had had brewing. He foolhardily attacked Leafe on his own, and met his end when the Chosen of Sol corrupted his spirit, shattering his soul-crystal and draining the life from his veins. He had destroyed the last of the great Guardians.
Going to the place where Arcanjelo's body was kept preserved, Leafe now apologized for being unable to die at the Paladin's hands. But a part of his soul, resonating with Arcanjelo's own spirit and the holy crystal he was encased in, etched a skeleton of his plan within the afterlife of the man, and the Powers That Be saw ft to bring him back. Thinking the resurrected saint to be a mere fake Leafe attacked him and the Holy Order with great ferocity, though in the end he realized that truth of Arcanjelo's soul and fled the battle quickly. He did not want the fight to end there, too much was at stake. He had spent a long time pretending to be human, and had convinced Veidt Corporation and A-Tech to fund his human selfs project of raising an ancient city from the ocean. Once it was finished, he sprung into action.
With his siblings, he lured several Heroes and Villains to the newly-refurbished city and dragged them through a dimensional hole into Wonderland. In this place, the people of Gaia had no powers, and they were forced to look upon the true horror of all the Leafe had wrought. A world frozen forever in time, never-decaying bodies sitting in windless fields and forests. The water of Wonderland was as blood, and the sky was like a negative. The Heroes made their way to the Castle where Leafe and his siblings had ruled from, unaware of the history behind it. Past all of the tricks and traps they scurried, coming to the Shrine of the Stars where the Lillith siblings had met their destiny originally. Without their powers they were unable to stop Leafe from receiving the Blessing of Astro, thereby restoring his full power and making him as powerful as a true God.
Leafe realized during this time that he had fallen in love with Luna, and he had brought her along to witness his Ascension. He gave her all he could, knowing through his limited Sight that he would not get another chance to show his love for her. He would leave the children to their fate with her, and he prepared to unleash his master plan. The city that had been brought up from the ocean, Solgaea, was actually one half of a powerful weapon he had designed many millions of years ago. He intended to use the two cities, Solgaea and Pangaea, to rip the space-time field around the planet and completely eradicate all traces of it from the face of the Universe. There was a reason for it, one that only he and his siblings knew, and he was determined to succeed.
The time has come for the final battle to take place...
