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Eyes wide in shock, Odin's silver eye was wide as he felt the pain blossom in the small of his back...before he felt his knees buckle, falling to them unceremoniously, the pressure he'd been putting upon John finally relenting to let the revived Aesir go, Tomorrow falling onto his back with a grunt as Odin fell to his knees

The look on his face quickly changed from pained bewilderment to grim determination as he drew his runesword across his chest, trying for a desperate swing backwards towards the Godslayer behind him - but his movement was sluggish, mired by pain, and by the time he'd drawn the sword up and across his body John was already on his feet. Quickly the barbarian halted the sword's progress with a kick to the wrist, causing the old man to drop the sword - into Tomorrow's awaiting hand.

As John stood upright, coughing a little blood from his throat as he reaffirmed the grip on the sword's hilt, the old man looked at him with utter distaste, his arms hanging limp by his sides. "Hurry up boy...we don't have all night."

Rage pumped through John's veins at the defiance words, and looking up to Maximos, he used the tip of the sword to slice away the strap holding the old man's helm on and flicked it off his head, the golden helmet cracking as it hit the ruined ground, allowing his bright white hair to spill out over his shoulders. "...Odin...All-Father of the Aesir..." He commanded, his voice hoarse and final, speaking breathlessly as he pointed the sword towards Odin's throat, "...You are in violation of the 1st mandate of Judas Act, grand divine interference. How do you plead?"

Odin shook his head, a grim smile spreading over his face as he glared up to John.

"...Guilty." John muttered, lowering the sword as he finally managed to catch his breath, looking back up to Maximos. "This is our world. You are no longer welcome in our world."

"Enjoy it while it la - "

Before he could finish his sarcastic sentence, the runesword came up and across in a single swing which sliced straight through his neck like it was a fresh branch on a young sapling, separating the head from the neck immediately. The force of the blow send the head bouncing off to the crook of the tree's roots, and Tomorrow stepped aside to let the body fall forward, neck-stump spewing crimson out across the floor like a wine-stain.

He looked down at the body with wide eyes. It was as if he was waiting for it to burst into flame, or dissolve into nothing, or melt into a puddle....but no such thing happened. All that happened was the mightiest of all the Gods....died. Like a man. A perfectly normal man.

His hand was shaking as he tossed the sword onto the body...but when he brought the hand back towards his chest, curling his fingers into a fist, it was Thor who looked up to Maximos, his piercing blue eyes penetrating into the man as they both knew what had to be done.

There was no words to be traded now. Thor had no words of wisdom to give the Godslayer. Maximos did not need to reassure him in any way. They both knew what had to happen now. Thor had violated more mandates then John had said. Maximos still had a duty to perform, six years late. That said, for all of Maximos' assumptions on what Thor's ideals and life-goals were, one thing was true....he was a warrior. And as a warrior, he would not die unarmed. Even against death himself.

His hand opened. Mjolnir responded immediately, flying to its master's hand like it was made to fit from where it had been discarded on the ground. Chances were, by the time it reached his palm, Maximos would have already struck...

First, there were things about Maximos that had to be understood or known and most often were not.

Maximos was not a man. Of the many races of Aria, Maximos was a Shadowlander of the Leus breed. A monster, designed to hunt, forced into human form. For a time, the monster in him was out of control, it was a Destroyer. Until the choice was made to leash it in, and attempt the trappings of humanity. It was a symbolic effort. A child with a fireman’s hat on playing pretend. He could act of a man but did not know what it truly meant. But, by no choice of his own his world and all he had loved was stripped from him. With only the wreckage of his memories, Maximos was tossed to Gaia. He found people, friendly faces and a chance to forget and be something more. He met friends, and one of the first and closest, who shared in Maximos’ then prevalent love of combat, stood before him. And he was about to be asked to kill him. We say asked, figuratively only, as he had no real choice.

The Reaper organization exists to kill and recruits by death. As the Destroyer, Maximos was a violation of several mandates and a Reaper was sent to end him. He killed it. The act of which is the only known way to gain entrance into the Reapers. There is no real choice. Join or die. But Death knew him to be too wild, he was told that when he had gained control of himself he would be taken. When Maximos died a few years earlier, he was taken. Forced into servitude. Kill or die. His death serving to save no one, another Reaper would finish the task.

And now, he was ordered to take the life of one of his closest and dearest friends. To have to choose, and know no other avenues exist. A twist of fate, so sickeningly cruel, that should the narrative above not be enough, there are no real words to describe the pain. When a man has nothing and loses it, he feels nothing not knowing what is lost. When he has everything, love, family, and friendship, he gains depth. Ergo when all of that is taken away, he is not just left absent. He is left with a whole as deep and wide as the bonds he gained. And the knowledge all of this was stripped away by his own forced hand. Johnathan Tomorrow could rise up again renewed from the very moment he was slain, but the weight, pain, and injury of the act would never be washed away. And now, to have to perform the act twice? This was cruelty, the cruelty of fate. A turn of events so dark and vile, it was the very reason Maximos fought and hunted the divine how he did. Even Nocturne would not be this vicious. For even a shadow who lives his life in the pitch and black of the world, this was truly one of his darkest days.





As the All Father fell to his knees, Maximos’ hand slipped freely from the blood stained Fang of Fenrir. He looked up at Johnathan Tomorrow, or Thor, whoever was sharing his last words with the god and felt…nothing. If Tomorrow looked at Maximos he would see two eyes staring back at him, not cold, but dead. One eye an empty black void of a spot dotting milky white, the other a pale white thing glowing like a fading florescent light in a dingy and otherwise dim room. Both eyes devoid of real light, or life.





...used up and misused.

Maximos’ figure hung there like a shade. A dark version of something that was, or once was, but currently was not and may never be again. His shoulders loose and almost hunched, leaving his hands to hang like lifeless meant at the end of long black marionette strings. It would be hard to believe that face ever felt anything, or ever would again. Maximos’ right hand opened the Jormugandr’s poison fang slipped down his sleeve, dripping neon green across his black leather glove as it fell into his patiently waiting hand.



Tomorrow recited a Reaper litany, and as he did Maximos remembered everything he was, and everything he would have died rather than have to be. But he had to be it all the same. And he died, inside, all the same. Our world. That’s what John said. And he could not have been more wrong. This was not a world for failures and monsters, who failed to protect anything they loved and were forced to kill that which they cared for.

Have I failed...



Will the weight of today...





Maximos was drowning, in despair and loathing. The beast inside of him, pumping through his blood and beneath his skin screamed for blood and revenge. But he caged it, not even so much as flinching against its angry thrashing. Like any choice, like any real decision in life there was only do or not do. Be, or not be. Not for himself, but for how he had given his word to John, for all these he had killed before and the grand injustice of sparing on life just because it hurt him. When the final choice was made there was no room for hesitation or doubt or anything, but the act.



And in that decision, he was absolutely alone.



He closed his eyes, he heard the crackle of lightning and the dull roar or Moljinir’s thunder, he smelled fresh blood in the air and felt a few warm drops splash on his face from fresh neck stump, then his hand tightened on the fang now turned murderous shiv.



And then he snapped.

The wall of nothing surrounding his heart all at once gave out against the torrential weight of the something, raging, and boiling with in. By the time Thor lift his hammer, the fang would be, unless otherwise arrested, deep enough in the meat of his chest to pierce his heart delivering venom that would rot and decay the beating organ into a memory. Maximos, could say he understood the feeling.



But Maximos, could not say anything. All he could do was scream, or roar, or something lost and intermingled between. His eyes were lost, reflective and glossy, fueled by blood shot rage and tears. He threw all of his weight at Thor, digging his feet furiously into the ground and shoving forward meaning to topple the giant. And seemingly as sudden as the poison tooth was stabbed forth, it was being withdrawn.



Only to be stabbed back down again. Blood spraying freely across the Shadow’s hands, face, and clothing. It stained his white shirt red, it made his bone white skin stand out like blood on fresh snow. And he screamed. And screamed, the outcry growing wet and ragged as the flesh of his throat and larynx tore and gave under the raw force of emotion too to be expressed in any one gesture, any one moment of only rage and pain, and hate.




Another stab, another thrust down into the meat of a man he loved. A man he called brother and friend. But more than that, the weight of an entire life from its foundation being undone and left it with only its deepest and darkest core emotions.




Again, and again, stabbing, impaling, thrusting until all that remained of the act were splashes of blood in ropey arch, spewing all over him, baptism in horror and carnage.




Tomorrow knew this life, he saw it begin not but hours ago. And now he would see it end. Fall, and crumble to pieces and shards. Maximos never grew long fangs or black eyes, he never gave to the Destroyer. This was him. His act. His hands. His memory. His weight. Blood stained his hands like it always had and always would. By now, if all was to expectations, Thor was on his back, and Maximos was lifting his hands up over his head for another desperate attack. As if he could just cut free all the pain. Over and over to no beat, and no rhythm.











He dug the fang into Tomorrow’s heart with all the force his muscles could muster. Scarlet soaked gloves squeaked free of the bony protrusion as he threw his head back, and he roared, a horrible sound fill with terror, pain, regret, and a lifetime of hate. The sound echoed and boomed in the shadows, carried by their sympathy for miles on end. Blood gurgled to his lips and streamed down his chin, lost in a mess of bloody viscera.



And then, as suddenly as it had come- it was gone. Maximos stopped. It should be mentioned that if he was arrested during any point in his course of action he would immediately fall back to this. His hands fell down, resting on his legs. Like water splashed on a muddy wall, the emotion simply fell free from his face leaving only the echo that existed before this attack started. The face of Maximos, empty and dead. He pulled back, moving to his knees, then pushing off of them with his hands so he could stand. If someone had not witnessed the carnage on might imagine Maximos had just dropped his wallet and bent down to pick it up. Only he was literally painted with the proof of otherwise. Maximos stood, moving weakly, like a puppet with its strings being pulled. His hair was black with wetness, his face was a grisly languid mask of streaming and coagulating red life. A hand moved, clinically to his brow smearing a length of blood out of his mismatched eyes, which had lost all semblance of white, letting black and white pupils float inside of his eyeballs in a sea of red. Not from any sort of magic, but from the force and exertion of his tears and screams bursting the blood vessels in his eyes until only an ugly mess remained.

Like this, he turned to look at fate. His eyes, full of blood were empty of life, his posture was proper out of practice, and without personality. Glossy black and white marbles focused on her surrounded by blood stained skin mottled with white lines and flecks where some measure of cleanliness poured through. In the cold of the cavern, he steamed with the heat of the life blood. But his chest barely rose and fell, he said absolutely nothing, and yet everything about this man screamed bloody accusation. There he was, Maximos Lucillien Dark, she had seen him before no doubt. He laughed. He joked. He had such hard times, and few and precious good times. He did the best he could with what he was and what he had -- but now he was nothing. Devoid of life, devoid of happiness or even the slightest hint of emotion that might bring home to him the weight of what had just transpired. Or maybe, it had, and the weight had just crushed his heart and left this, thing. It existed but did not live. This was his lot in life, this was what fate had decreed. His broken eyes and empty face screamed out the injustice of it all without moving or speaking a word. She said Fate sometimes played games to keep the world interesting. If this was a game, then Maximos had lost, as likely man mere mortals before him had. But this was her fun, wasn’t it? He stared for a long moment, too long and too silent. So long and empty infact, that when his arm moved it seemed as loud as a blaring neon sign. But the motion was slow, and simple, his hand raised. By all rights, his appearance alone said that he would and could kill her. Maybe with his bare hands. Maybe his touch alone was fatal. And then his arm flicked out sent a coin flipping through the air toward her.



The coin, with red smeared across its words and symbols, she would see held a crack right down its center. It was broken, be it from its time in his pocket or simply just because.



And then slow, even steps, took Maximos toward the large pair of double doors sealing the chamber, and then through them and back down the spiraling corridor. It was cold, colder still with wet scarlet staining his white dress shirt pink, and making lengths and splashes of his black jacket shimmer moistly in the torchlight - but Maximos' didnt even seem to feel it.

He stopped at the large double doors and looked back once. His last favor to John, employing his best talents. What was it John said to Nocturne? That the Shadowfather would drag him to Aria, to commit atrocity, Maximos would be torn to pieces for it. But he would do it. And yet the Shadowfather, for all his evil, requested no such heartless cruelty. But John had. And Maximos, who despite being a monster, had followed through with his word, and the cost. Who was a monster? Who was evil?

No greater love has any man than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. And now, there was nothing of him left to give. There was nothing left at all. Not even the echo of the Shadow, who through the stone doors went, never to return.

Mjolnir reached Thor's hand just as Jormungander's tooth pierced his flesh, his eyes going wide as he felt that first fertile spurt of venom pulse directly into his heart muscle. With a single, powerful beat, the heart split itself upon the razor-sharp tip and directed the poison through his vessels, burning like acid on its way through his veins and throughout his body.







There was no contest to Maximos' impassioned shove. Tomorrow toppled over to the bloody ground and hit the floor hard, Mjolnir falling from its loose grip to bounce once upon the fruit-filled floor as Maximos tore the fang from his chest, blood spraying upon him like a geyser. Mjolnir had never been intended to be used - indeed, there was to be no defense at all. The man upon John drove his weapon deep into Tomorrow's heart again and again and again, shredding the muscle into wet, floppy cabbage as the Midgard Serpent's poison infected his chest, his heart still trying to weakly, feebly, perform its function.

Like a floodgate, Maximos released all his frustration upon its source....and like a sponge, John absorbed it all. The lightening had faded from his eyes well before the Lumen was finished, well before he finally drove the fang so deep into the pulpy chest cavity that it exploded out his back, spewing its vile poison across the ground along with John's life blood.

And when Maximos stood, John would be left there, his blood draining from his body, his heart long since stopped beating. His arm was flung out wide, his mouth slightly open, blood flecked over his cheeks and golden hair. His blood was splattered around his body, where Maximos had wrenched the fang clear to deliver another strike, flicking crimson drops across the floor.









Thor was no more. The legend of Jormundanger's poison leaving him nine steps to take after being bit would never be proven true.

And along with Thor went Tomorrow. The vessel could not survive such an impassioned attack. The cavern would become John's crypt, his unseeing eyes affixed upon a cold grey stone sky, surrounded by the rotten life giving fruit of the Aesir...

What had gone through his mind in those last seconds of life? Was it utter confusion as Thor was winked out of existence within his head to find his brother screaming and roaring blood in his face as he stabbed him over and over? Was it regret that he could not see his loved one's faces again? Was it joy that, for once, Maximos had let the mask slip and was now showing him true, unadulterated emotion?

In truth...there was only one thing that had gone through John's mind as he stared up at the ceiling, feeling the life drain out of him, Maximos screaming on the edges of his slowly blackening sight, the knife flicking blood over his eyes and staining them red...