December 21st, 2016
6 months later.
It was a cold winter's night.
Snow coated the lawn around the house.
The backyard moonflowers bloomed gloriously under the full moon.
Matt got up from bed after lying motionless for hours, unable to sleep.
He walked the long hallways before sliding the backdoor open and entering the garden.
It looked almost magical in the winter landscape, the flowers glowing faintly in the white, white snow.
"Ahh, Matt... Can't sleep?" Grandma's frail voice came from the center of the backyard.
She sat upon a frigid stone bench, her paper thin skin glowed in the moonlight.
Lifting her shaky hand, she beckoned Matt to sit beside her.
As he approached, her sunken face and malnourished body became clearer.
She looked unwell.
Her sickly eyes hollowed into her skull, and her bones were almost visible through her translucent skin.
Although a warm feeling of home permeated from her, physically she was a wreck.
"I'm tired... but my body won't let me rest," Matt said frustratedly.
"Is that so..? Sitting out here always helps me when I can't sleep."
Watching the snow fall silently, time seemed to pass at a snail's rate.
"Grandma... are you okay?"
Her eyes were glossed over as she stared into nothingness.
"Ha... I'm okay, Matt. My vision's... just a little blurry," she responded.
Looking down at her open palms, her eyes refused to focus.
She lost balance in her sightlessness and nearly toppled over, but Matt caught her fall.
"Grandma..!"
"Ahh... sorry... I'm so clumsy."
She was shivering hard and breathing heavily.
"What's wrong, grandma!?" He panicked while supporting her weight.
"Nothing is... Matt... Let's just... talk..." She heaved herself upright back onto the bench and sat motionless, her breath creating fog in the air.
"About... what?"
"Your dreams...What do you want to do the most?" Grandma asked, envisioning a place far away from here.
There was a long pause before either of them spoke.
"...I want to defeat evil," Matt said.
"Defeat evil?"
"Yes... I want to bring justice to this world and be a hero... but I know that's just a fantasy.
Grandma smiled comfortingly, "It's not something to be ashamed of... It's courageous.
So what if it's a fantasy?
The more unobtainable something is, the more satisfying it is when you reach it.
So go, chase your dreams as hard as you can... I know if anyone can do it, it's you, Matt."
"You really think so, grandma?" He asked excitedly.
"Yes!" She exclaimed weakly.
The snowfall grew more intense around them as the night grew darker.
"Do you... have any dreams, grandma?"
"Ahh... I used to. They were very different to yours though."
"Used to? What happened?" Matt asked.
"When you get older... your mind stops dreaming.
You want to make people happy, experience new things, create something amazing...
But over time, it all becomes impossible."
The dragging time of the night seemed to stop completely in its tracks.
"Grandma?"
She looked over to him.
A tear rolled down her cheek from her unseeing eyes.
"Matt...
My dream...
Can I ask you to do something for me?"
"G-Grandma?"
She reached out her hand blindly, grasping at Matt's shoulder.
"I want you to protect your siblings, okay?
I want you to protect Iris and Gabriel when I'm not here.
They're always so joyful... I want them to stay like that forever.
Can you do that for me, Matt?
I know it's selfish, but..."
She took her arm away from Matt and wiped her tear-stained face.
Her eyes closed ever so slightly.
"I promise grandma! I'll protect them!"
"Ahh... that's a relief. I don't have any grand aspirations anymore... so all I really want now... is for you three... to be happy."
She closed her eyelids, and a warm smile spread across her face.
It was almost like salvation.
Her entire life was dedicated to her dream, and now Matt would take the torch from her and run further than she ever could.
"Still... I wish that I could be there for you. I want to see you all grow and become adults... Learn your place in the world... Start your own family... Experience all the joys this world has to offer...
Ahh... It's too bad...
I'll never see it.
God is so cruel."
Sitting motionless in the mystical garden, Matt talked for hours, and grandma shared the moment with him, speaking of her past.
But as time dragged on...
Matt would be the only one talking.
On that fateful night, Grandma would pass away silently and peacefully in the company of her grandson.
Matt would not disturb her rest and stayed tearfully by her side until morning came.
...
Morning.
Iris and Gabriel discovered Grandma's motionless body sitting next to Matt in the backyard filled with melted snow.
An argument broke out.
"You kept Grandma's sickness a secret from us!"
"You're not worthy of this family, you're not worthy of calling her that!"
"You could never understand her!"
"You only cause problems for her!"
Hours and hours passed as the cacophony of yelling filled the garden, echoing into the air.
It all culminated to a point where Iris couldn't bear to listen and covered her ears.
It all culminated to a point where...
...
Gabriel turned his back on Matt and Iris...
And he would never return to them.
He ran far away.
And never looked back.
...
April 28th, 2030
Present day.
An eruption of black seeped from Gabriel's bloody skin as the darkness enveloped the empty cathedral.
"Let's finish what we started on that day... Matt."
"Gabriel, you have become the very thing I dreamed to destroy so many years ago.
Attacking from the shaded-in walls, dusky hands grabbed Matt and pulled him closer before a shadowy dismembered leg emerged from the ceiling.
It slammed down, crushing him against the stone floor.
But Matt rebounded quickly, his mutant arm pushing the massive foot off of him.
He drew his gun and fired.
Gabriel was filled with lead, but they still continued their assault.
Raising their ring finger to their forehead, the darkness in the room gathered into a single point before the god and was shot forward at an unbelievable speed.
"Sterben."
It ravaged the front of the church and destroyed everything behind it.
Everything.
In an unbelievable upheaval, buildings were uprooted from their foundations, and a large chunk of the city was annihilated by the attack.
Matt was blasted backwards by the black void and became one with the lightless night.
Rushing forward, Gabriel chased the outline of Matt falling from the sky.
A trail of blood followed the god as they ran through the wrecked streets.
Children and women cried into the night as Gabriel passed them indifferently.
"Consume."
A jaw with its bones exposed and blood dripping from its lips clamped the ground where the god stood.
They narrowly dodged by thrusting the mouth away with skewers of darkness, but Matt quickly dropped from the black heavens.
Punching Gabriel into the road, Matt pushed his giant mutant arm downward.
The concrete cracked, and the ground itself collapsed as a giant sinkhole was formed from the strike.
Gabriel heaved as all of the bones in their upper body were shattered.
Crimson blood pooled, and intestines shot outward under the black fist.
"Ha... ha... Is it over..?" Matt panted heavily.
"No."
He was blasted backwards as the god rose, red cascading from their mutilated body.
If it could even be called a "body."
It was more like a corpse.
A gaping hole replaced the spot of Gabriel's torso and a new darkness emanated from them.
Something like a black hole was inside the god.
If they could even be called a "god."
They were more like a demon.
"Mein... Schatz."
An ability that culminated from everything that Gabriel left behind.
The zenith of the sorrow that ate at him.
The black hole in their chest expanded, and the debris from the battle drifted towards Gabriel.
Matt was pulled in by the invisible force, powerless to fight back against it.
"Consume!"
In a desperate attempt to not be devoured by the dark power, Matt summoned his massive jaw.
It appeared above Gabriel, the bloodied mouth closing its lips around their torso, but before Matt's power could swallow them...
Gabriel split the massive jaw in half, forcing it open by its teeth and ripping the upper portion from the bottom before tossing it into the air.
The all-consuming jaw was consumed by the black hole, and a burning pain struck Matt's chest.
"Did he just- Absorb a portion of my Akashic power?" He muttered panickedly, struggling against the gravitational pull.
"Consume!" He called out.
But to no avail.
That part of his Akashic power no longer resided within him.
Ominous clouds rolled in as the battle progressed.
"Scared, Matt? Now you know how I felt on the day you abandoned me," Gabriel said while the darkness in his torso absorbed everything in its path.
Blood ran down his face and body as he took a step forward.
"You ran off on your own accord. You inflicted that despair upon yourself," Matt responded.
"That's a lie. You never wanted me to be a part of that family in the first place."
"You prioritized your anger towards me over her death. If you hadn't, your fate would've turned out differently. I pity you," Matt reached in his trenchcoat pocket as he was dragged across the event horizon of the cosmic irregularity.
Gabriel chuckled, "Ha... You're still as stubborn as you were before. It's almost a shame that..."
"This ends here," both sides spoke simultaneously.
In a split second, Matt drew his pistol while Gabriel's black hole pulled him devastatingly close.
A foot away from being swallowed by the darkness, Matt pressed his gun to Gabriel's skull.
It began generating a ferocious blue lightning as the barrel glowed a molten red.
The symbol of a bloody pentagram with an eagle, an hourglass, and a mask was burned alongside the sights.
"An ancient treasure?!" The god uttered in shock.
"Both our graves have been dug... Gabriel."
At this range, both would die.
A weapon granted by ARCHAIA with the ability to rewrite the structure of anything that it hits...
"The Thunderer: Activate."
A blast of ionizing energy evaporated the area around them as a bullet was birthed from the nuclear event.
A boom rang across the sky as the sound of thunder filled the air.
But it didn't come from the heavens.
Dancing across the light-filled darkness, an explosion of razing lightning slammed into Gabriel from the barrel of the pistol.
Followed by a nuclear fireball so hot it burned white, their body passed into the colorless oblivion, slowly being incinerated.
"A-AGHHHHHH!"
"Gabriel..."
"Matt... I will never forgive you. You abandoned me and ruined what Grandma truly wished for," the God muttered as he dissipated into the whiteness.
The black hole that previously resided in their torso, now relieved of its host, began taking in as much matter as it could.
The ground, the air, the white fire, the blue lightning... Even Matt himself was stripped from their place and pulled in by the cosmic distortion.
Desperately contorting his body to not be destroyed, his skin and hair pulled itself closer and closer to the abyss.
Inching closer, his right arm passed the point of no return and entered the lightless sphere.
"GAAAGGGHHHH!"
He drew nearer.
Matt raised his other mutant arm quickly to slash his other from its socket.
It flew away into the abyss as he backed away slightly from the loss of weight.
"Ha... ha... This is it for me..." Matt panted heavily while blood spewed violently from his open wound.
Every second that passed, the closer he became to death.
He accepted that.
Matt shut his eyes, and his mind went blank.
As the chaotic world around him dissipated from his senses, it felt like that for a moment that the voice of Grandma echoed in his head.
"Ahh... I'm sorry, Grandma. I broke my promise.
I couldn't protect them..."
A ruinous hallucination that trapped his mind in an alternate reality.
An illusion crafted by his severe loss of life force.
Grandma reached out her arms from oblivion, and Matt did the same.
Covered in blood and heavily battered, he took a step forward onto the porch of his old childhood home.
He stepped forward into the radius of the black void.
Another step led him into the house of reminiscence.
Another step led him directly into the black abyss.
Grandma warmly welcomed him in with a smile.
The cosmos welcomed him in, pulling his body near.
"I'm back, Grandma."
A peace so still that the destroyed scene of the city seemed beautiful.
The world would stop in a natural sense.
Ahh, Matt thought.
I didn't know...
Death was so peaceful.
...
"...Matt..."
"Matt!"
"MATT!"
A deathly jolt from the silent tranquility.
The sound of an ear-bursting roar was generated by the black hole as it collapsed onto itself.
A disruption in the cosmos.
"Queen of the Night."
A flower that blooms only once a year, but when the time comes... its radiance is unmatched.
Standing at the edge of the event horizon, Iris blossomed.
A translucent shield of petals that mimicked castle walls materialized in the midst of the chaos.
Michael dropped into the frey and skidded directly behind Matt, who was barely conscious.
Painstakingly heaving against the unrelenting force, Michael took Matt in his arms and attempted to drag him to the edge of the black hole's radius.
"AGGGHHH," his voice escaped through his gritted teeth.
"It's not enough?" Iris muttered.
Her shield couldn't absorb the entirety of the hole's pull.
And for every step Michael took, he was dragged a step backward.
They weren't making progress.
...
And the fissure was already at its limit.
Blinking out of existence, the black hole concentrated into a single point and shone like a supernova.
Releasing the pent-up energy, it razed the city into non-existence and burned bright enough to turn night into day.
Buildings were flung into the air, streets were uprooted from the ground, people were crushed and blown away.
A near-cataclysmic event.
...
Godfried watched from afar.
He spoke...
"People unable to change... truly get caught in the tide of death."