Our Legacy - Episode 30

"What the fucking shit," exclaimed Maha while surveying the area. Suddenly it felt like her heart was in her throat. Far below, her late beloved was sprinting in a straight line, leaving large clouds of dust behind her. Maha descended immediately and landed straight in front of her, grasping her by the shoulders to stop her in her tracks. They briefly stared at each other but there was something wrong. There was rage and sadness in her expression. She had never seen Keyla so conflicted. "Please..." she forced through gritted teeth. "End it." "What do you mean?" The sadness vanished as the blind rage took over. The demonized Keyla pushed Maha back with both hands. The power she used was enough to send Maha rolling on her back several times before she received a well-timed kick to the face that took her off the ground and into the branches of a nearby tree. Keyla jumped right after her but Maha came back at her unexpectedly with a flurry of punches and took the fight back to ground level. She held her girlfriend tightly against the grass and spawned thick roots to bind her arms and legs, immobilizing Keyla with the earth.

Maha placed the palm of her hands on the side of Keyla's temple. "I don't know if I have the power to bring you back but..." "You don't." Keyla interrupted. "You either end me now, for good... Or I have to kill you." Maha looked at her terrified. "How much of yourself can you control?" "I can talk." "So he only controls your body?" Maha continued to investigate. "Maha... He could shut me up if he wanted to." A chill spread through her body as she realised how much Lucifer controlled. "So he wants us to talk?" "He wants you to know how helpless you are. How fragile you will be once I'm truly gone." "I won't let that happen." "Maha, god damn it. Listen to me. You have to kill me." "I can keep you somewhere while I get more power. I can save you!" Maha argued but Keyla wouldn't budge, apart from the fact that her demon body was trying to escape the grasp of the roots holding her still. "This isn't some kind of influence from another Demigod, my love. This is Lucifer we're talking about." "I can't just leave you." "You don't have a choice." a new voice said from behind them.

Maha turned to look around but felt a sharp pain as a sword punched through her chest. Cain had appeared from nowhere and was now lifting Maha with his sword before slamming her into Keyla, stabbing her in the process too. "Allow me to give you both peace." Cain pushed on to the hilt as he dug the sword deeper through Maha. Both of them were screaming as the sword cracked through flesh and bone. "This is the best way to go!" He shouted over their echoing pain. "This way, you both go at the same time. This way, you don't have to watch one of you die as the other lives on." Maha's control over the roots began to fail, allowing Keyla to break free. She pushed Maha's body upwards and saw the blade leaving her own torso. Keyla rolled to the side as Cain pushed Maha back into the ground. He saw her fixing her gaze upon him and tactically moved away from her charging body as he kept penetrating Maha. She expected Keyla to turn around and try again but she stumbled to her knees. "Well, now it's just going to end sadly," Cain stated. "I didn't want you two to watch each other die because frankly... I'm willing to cause you both a lot of hurt." Cain pointed his bloody sword against the demon. Maha thought this to be a flaw in his ego and tried to sit up. "Don't worry, I haven't forgotten about you." Cain smiled as he stabbed her once again. "Strange, don't you think?" he asked Maha while keeping his gaze on Keyla. "Her head should have rolled off by now. I did slice her neck as she went by. Maybe if I... Hold on." He picked up Maha once more and threw her towards Keyla. "Seems I have to sharpen my blade tonight." Maha, whilst bleeding and out of breath, checked on Keyla's vitals but she was somehow already cold to the touch.

"Come now, let's end this." Cain grabbed his sword with both hands and held it high above his shoulders, the tip pointing at his target. Maha, with every emotion fuelling her rage, swallowed the earth below Cain. The ancient vampire only fell a few meters at first but once he heard Maha roaring at the top of her voice, the ground began to sink further and faster. He tried to hold on to the sides of the massive sinkhole but it began to widen. Maha threw a fist forward as if punching a phantom Cain but the motion conjured a sharp root within the sinkhole to puncture his abdomen and dive into the other end of the hole. She could hear his cries as she continued to punch and summon more roots. "This won't kill me!" Cain yelled in anger as he began to hack and slash at the roots. Maha walked up to the edge of the hole. "I know. You'll wish it did." As if to grab the sides of the sinkhole, she opened her arms wide and clenched her fists. Maha grunted as she tried to force the earth to close up. She could hear the vampire struggling to escape. Cain could see the walls closing up. He tried to hold it back with his hands but the earth began to grow past him. It crept closer and closer, the light was dimming and before he could think another thought, he was cemented several hundred meters below ground level with minimum air and was bleeding. Cain closed his eyes. He didn't scream anymore because he had been here before, dying but without the capability of actually dying until some poor bastard accidentally finds him after years to come.

"Ingenious way to rid yourself of an immortal. Sad to see all that effort go to waste." A chill crept up Maha's spine. She turned around to see who had spoken but she knew who it was before she saw him. Lucifer had taken off his robes to reveal a slick black suit. His long black hair had been braided from the sides all the way to the back. He was a stunningly handsome man with devilishly ruby eyes. It was almost like looking into a vortex. His presence alone weakened Maha. Her insides started to feel like a matchstick was lit and was setting her aflame. "I'm strong enough to take you down, Lucifer." She tried to believe in each word she uttered as if she told a blatant lie, trying to hold her ground as her life force seemed to try and escape. Lucifer took a step forward while keeping their eye-contact steady. It was enough to diminish the strength that kept her standing. "No..." she said under her breath. The earth began to rumble and soon after Cain's body shot out of the ground and landed unconscious only a few meters away. Lucifer started towards Maha. A screeching sound echoed within her mind. It made her cold, disorientated and weak as she tumbled, her mouth drooled uncontrollably. She tried to hold her ears shut but the sound was coming from within. Lucifer knelt down enough to brush her hair off her face. With his thumb, he began to toy with the side of her mouth in a circular motion. He then hovered over her left eye, almost showing the desire to poke it out. "Maha... Azim... Quite the show you've put on. I wonder if anyone will even remember your name. Do you know what you've achieved in the past few days? Delays. That's all. You haven't stopped anything. You haven't achieved anything. Only delays." Maha focused on conjuring vines behind his back. As she tried to turn it into a noose to hang around Lucifer's neck, they suddenly fell and ceased to exist. "Maha, every second you take a breath is your allowance of my generosity. This isn't your perseverance. I am keeping you alive. Because I want to. Because I can. Because what you need to understand before I end your miserable life is that I am a patient and powerful being. NOTE that I state patience before power because it is with my patience that I have become powerful. I am older than anything you can ever imagine. I hold more power than you can ever fathom, even with the amount that you have hoarded. You know nothing of what it means to be truly strong. You cannot grasp what you are up against but I commend you. I applaud. But I also pity you because no one warned you about what you were truly up against. Had you been told, I'm sure that you would cower in the darkest corner of the earth. I would still find you... but you'd be cowering. It would have been more sensible than to rather fight me head-on."

He grabbed Maha by the neck and studied what she was wearing. "Is this military-grade combat gear? This is what you thought was sensible when going to war with the Devil?" Lucifer began to laugh as he ripped off her top and proceeded to slam her through a nearby tree. Maha coughed blood as she rolled in the dirt. Lucifer launched himself on top of her and grabbed her face before lifting her up and punched her immediately after in the gut. Trying to catch her breath, she felt Lucifer ripping off her pants and boots until she was completely naked. He began to laugh as she crawled away.

"This is what you are Maha Azim! A hairless ape! You do not fool me with your powers and your gear. You do not instil fear into my heart! Do you think Cain fears you? The man has his victories and defeats but he has never feared anyone but I and I don't fear anyone or anything." His vision of her broke as she scurried behind a tree. Her muscles were aching as she began to have a panic attack and was tightly holding her mouth as tears flowed endlessly down her cheeks. "Do you still feel like you can beat me?" Lucifer was suddenly next to her, leaning against the tree with his arms crossed and looking down at her. Maha screamed as she tried to punch him but Lucifer acted quickly with a knee to her face. The power behind it pulled her off the ground where Lucifer had to react fast and grab her before putting her back down again. Maha was sprawling in the dirt with a bloody and broken nose. Mud was helping to keep some decency as Lucifer toyed with her.

On her knees, Maha began to focus on conjuring all sorts of elements; earth and ice to slow him down, fire to cement him in place and wind to push him back, but Lucifer was unfazed as everything seemed to pass right by him. "That's enough." With his hands rested in his pockets, Lucifer studied the defeated Demigod. "You clearly aren't strong enough to break out of my mind control on your own..." He grabbed her hair and pulled it back, forcing her to look up at him. "So I can only imagine my brother had a hand in this. Hmm?" He rested his lips to her ears. "Did you see my brother?" He whispered. "Was he distraught? Hurt? Was he still grieving? Hmm?" Maha suddenly felt his cold touch on her chest. "Did he free your heart and mind, believing you were the one to defeat me?" Lucifer proceeded to torture Maha, stopping her from making a sound with his palm as he used his index finger on the other to push a hole through her ribcage. The earth began to grow around her legs to keep her still, the tree she was resting on had engulfed her back and shoulders.

"Maha Azim, due to the unfortunate manner in which you have procured information of most holy matters, with the addition of the most paramount piece of information that could quite substantially and literally end the world, this piece of information being the simple knowledge of knowing of my existence... I must end you. Time is running out for this world... As are its heroes."

Time. A human construct to measure the passing of a moment, as it were. Uncontrolled by anyone except the one who made it... and the first son. But neither exist in the power or form they used to. A single God particle is what it is now. Lost among the vast population of Earth. Fortunately, it was lost in France and decided to bond with Maha Azim. Her human tendencies caused her to forget about it until just this moment, where time was the ultimate power.

She suddenly knew exactly what to do and it almost happened in an instant. With only the one God Particle, she could only go back mere seconds, but with the power she had accrued these pasts few days, she was able to go back to when it all started. All it took was a second of thought.

Upon arrival in the past, Maha immediately shot straight up into the sky. The world was still normal, no demigods existed yet, but they were about to. Once she cautiously exited the atmosphere she began to look for white flashes of any sort. The black space of the universe around her flashed in white like a photograph being taken. Something had happened but she missed it. Then it happened again but this time it stayed for longer as white orbs shot in every direction near Mars. Maha darted straight towards it. Seeing the second Big Bang was like nothing she could have imagined. Feeling unbelievably emotional over such a thing, tears began to form but being in space and travelling at high speeds, they never came to fruition. Several hundreds of particles crashed into Mars and its moons, Deimos and Phobos. The rest began to make u-turns and began to rain towards Maha's direction who stopped dead in her tracks. "Oh shit. This is it." she thought. The particles were almost as bright as the sun, flickering with their holy aura.

Trying to maintain the same speed as the particles, Maha came to realise that she didn't quite know what she was looking for, other than finding Lucifer as fast as possible. Upon further investigation, as she caught up to the particles she began to see that there were other things flying down to earth as well. These were also in pure white light which made it hard to detail but it was almost as if she could see wings the size of her. Maha reached out her hand to slow whatever it was to her speed. The thing was hotter than anything she had ever touched as she grabbed what felt like cloth. She decided to wrap her arms to fully commit to slowing it down and was suddenly staring at an unconscious pale white face. Studying the rest of the body and realising she had indeed seen wings, Maha was speechless as she was staring at what seemed to be an Angel.

The particles and Maha finally entered the atmosphere of Earth. Flames began to erupt as well as the screeching of thousands, including the angelic figure she was holding. "Hold on! I've got you!" Unable to stop their momentum, Maha braced for impact with the Angel in her arms. Holding what seemed to be the body of a woman, she rotated their fall so that she could cushion her with her back. With one last glance towards the ground, she held her one arm out to conjure tons of leaves and hay before the hit. "I don't know if you're awake, but this is still going to hurt!" With no answer from the Angel, Maha closed her eyes.

"Run! RUN!" There were people screaming all around her. The sky was shrouded with black smoke. The blue horizon had turned into a fiery peach colour. They had landed by a rocky beach. The Angel she had landed with was awake and looked scared as she hid in the hay. Maha tried to stand up and brushed off feathers from her chest before looking at the Angel. "Can you understand me?" she asked. The Angel nodded. "Where is Lucifer?" "How do you know of him!?" The Angel, frightened by the name, beckoned, almost scrawling away from Maha as if she were his apprentice. "I need to find him so that I can stop him." "You? You? You?" she repeated. "Who do you think you are? How could you? Who are you?" She questioned frantically. "My name is Maha Azim. I'm a Demigod." "What's a Demigod?" "Oh, right. I don't have time to explain. I need to find Lucifer now." The Angel turned red and shrieked in horror, almost like a mother hearing the news of her child passing away. Another Angel came running towards them and immediately hugged the grief-struck Angel. "Turiel, I'm here. Please, look at me." The man held the Angels' face in both his hands and kissed her temple. "Arkon. He's gone!" She muffled her mouth with her hands as she kept sobbing. "He's gone!" "We cannot stay here. The others are fleeing into the cities." "We failed, Arkon, we failed. Michael... he failed. Why did he fail?" "Turiel, we cannot stay here. He's here with us!" "Michael?" The Angel asked, almost angry with her expression. "Lucifer." Turiel's red face almost immediately became pale. "Then we are doomed?" she asked. "We have to go!" Arkon yelled as he forced Turiel to her feet. "Where is he?" Maha held the Angel by his arm. To her surprise, he panicked and fell to the ground cowering, almost bringing Turiel down with him. "What is going on? What are you all afraid of?" "You wish to speak with Lucifer?" Turiel asked. "No, I come from the future where I cannot stop a more powerful Lucifer from coming to power. But here in the past, I have a chance." Maha quickly explained. "What makes you believe you have a chance when all of Heaven failed to keep him at bay?" "What?" "Look around you, DEMIGOD! Angels are falling from the sky! ANGELS! You call yourself half God, but do you even know what it is to be a complete God? How dare you! How? How? How..." Turiel fell to her knees once more with the inability to stop crying and constantly gasping for breath. Maha looked around to witness thousands of Angels experiencing the same thing. In an instant, her vision turned and she began to vomit on the hay. "This is not your place." Arkon crawled over to her. "You say you are from the future. Time will always find you. It will correct what is missing. It will try to take you back." he almost whispered. Maha wiped her mouth with the back of her sleeve. "I need to find Lucifer," she repeated herself. Arkon shuddered as he pointed down the beach. "Death follows the Devil, should you try to find him." "Fight him with me?" Maha extended a helping hand towards the Angels. They quickly turned their heads down in shame and helped each other escape the beach.

Making her way down the beach, a sudden shriek, from where Arkon and Turiel were, erupted. Maha flew to their location and found them ablaze and bloodied. Their wings were falling off in flames, their bodies deforming the bones that once existed to support them and their holy glow faded to finally reveal a more humanly visage to them. The Angels had fallen from grace. They were no longer Angels. That's why they couldn't help her.

A naked Lucifer, bloodied with the entrails of his foes, stood in the middle of hundreds of fallen Angels. His eyes, matching the blood that covered him, were wide open, like a wolf eager to hunt for his prey. Absolute chaos surrounded him. His enemies were weakened and retreating. His own army was nowhere to be seen. But he didn't need anyone, nor fight anyone anymore. He was victorious and all he had to do now was to seal the deal. A quick glance at his surroundings, he saw a figure in the distance walking towards him rather than away from him. "You are not one of mine." He said to Maha in a peculiar way, instantly appearing behind her. Maha tried to quickly conjure up an icicle to puncture his naked body but Lucifer instantly smacked it away, grabbed her wrist and rotated her arm away from her body before dislocating and immediately breaking her elbow. He began to sniff heavily and chuckled. "You reek of power! You are definitely not one of mine, nor my father's, although I must admit, you smell of him." He took one more sniff, closer to her body and a smile crept upon his face. "You also smell a bit like me."

The Devil dragged the hopeless Demigod into the shallow waters of the beach and began to toy with her air supply, drowning her until her lungs ached with pain and waiting for longer than her threshold before letting her catch a breath of air. "Time is a construct which two of the most powerful beings in all of creation can play with. One of them had the power to do whatever it wished with time whereas the other... he could only jump forwards and back in time and you... smell of the latter." Lucifer, with a crazed look on him, grabbed the sides of her mouth and slowly began to tear her face apart. "And you look like someone who doesn't really know what I'm talking about so I'll give you a quick history lesson." With her mouth wide open, Lucifer forced her back into the water and up again, causing her to choke on seawater. "The being that can control time and do whatever with it... Well, it ceased to exist as of half an hour ago... ish. The being that can visit time had lost that power before, when it first fell from Heaven, then refound it and then lost it again, as it fell from Heaven a second time. And if anyone is counting... I'm the only one who fell from Heaven twice." He pulled Maha close and bit a large chunk of her neck off and then pushed her back into the salty water. "Act fast and you shall receive! Do you carry my powers because you are my enemy seeking to defeat me? Or do you carry them to hand them over like the little dog you are should?" Maha struggled to get to her feet as Lucifer splashed water against her neck wound like an irritating infant. "So weak. So fragile. I'm tormenting you and I haven't even used my powers." He slapped the surface of the water and pointed at her. "Did you know, that humans over-exaggerate the torments of Hell? Do they really think we have to come up with a million ways to torture someone for their sins when in reality, torturing a human is the easiest act ever? Their body is their own worst enemy!" He began to laugh maniacally." The hair, the nails, the eyes, you can just pull them all out. You can skin them! You can break their fingers in different directions in every joint. Their sensitive sexual organs! Don't even get me started on those." Maha tried to fly away but Lucifer brought her down immediately with an invisible force. "Seems like I've hurt you too much for you to talk. Allow me to heal you." His hand glowed a warm offwhite colour, similar to Demigods who could heal, but instead of gently laying his healing touch, Lucifer decided to punch her with it. Maha landed back on the beach. Most of the living Angels had fled by now and it was only her and Lucifer on the beach. "Interesting thing about time. Powerful beings, such as myself, can connect with our past and future selves, trading vital information should the need arise... Maha Azim." Maha stood up to her feet and summoned balls of fire that raged towards the Devil. The balls quickly evaporated in a puff of smoke as they made contact without harming him. "You came to the past thinking I'd be weaker here? Valiant effort, that, in which I commend you for your efforts. Your end has come, Demigod." With the wave of his hand, Maha shot forwards into his open hand where he began to choke her upon arrival. With his free hand, he punched through her ribcage and began to consume every God Particle she had bonded with. "And now, we travel forwards in time."

The atmosphere changed as did the setting. They were no longer at the beach but at the forest where Cain still lay unconscious on the ground and Keyla dead. Lucifer was in his present form and looking pleased with himself. "There's no hiding from the Devil. There's no beating the Devil. Sooner or later you will all kneel before me."

Maha crawled towards Keyla's body but her life was dwindling. Old trails of tears marked her dusty face as she made it through the forest grounds. Lucifer and Cain had left her to her demise, knowing her end was near and no longer a threat. She was no longer a Demigod. The air was cold, or so she thought, as she began to shiver. She brushed the hair off of Keyla's face and kissed her cheek. "I tried... my love. I did what you said." She cried. "I failed. I wasn't strong enough." Maha pushed her body closer to her lovers' and hugged her tight. "I love you, Keyla... I'm scared... I hope I see you on the other side... I hope I see you. I hope..."

Maha Azim and Keyla Verbeke were among the hundreds that fell by Devil's hand. Their names were not forgotten but their tales never saw the light. No one else knew about the Devil and therefore he didn't exist. The Mara children were safe and the resistance against the humans grew stronger. More Demigods joined forces by the day. Many died and many went into hiding. Maha and Keyla's efforts to fight the Devil had not gone unnoticed among others who knew of the danger that Lucifer posed but for now, those forces kept silent and waited as the Devil did for the right moment to come. For the right person to change the tide of war.

"What do you think they said?"

"What makes you think they said anything?"

"Because she didn't... die... did she... Not that fast?"

"Why are you asking this?"

The sun was setting and the two women watched it turn the horizon a beautiful orange with waves of red. France was being decimated by war but even in destruction, it didn't cease to amaze. They were on the third floor of a broken apartment, leaning on the metal railings of the balcony.

"Because I want to know what those kinds of people say in their last moments."

"What does it matter?"

"The world... They are making history. When one dies, in their last moment together, do they say 'I love you'? Or would she tell him to do something for her?"

"They would say 'I love you'."

"You'd think that but something tells me they wouldn't."

"They're lovers. What else would they say?"

"What if she told him to carry on fighting for peace... and he refused."

"I don't think so. He's always been known to be fair."

"But he's been furious since the start. You saw the video, how they ambushed them. I don't think they would be talking about love during that."

Her friend took out a cigarette, lit it and inhaled. She toyed with the smoke as she exhaled, glowing faintly with the colours of the sun as it flew in front of it. She passed the cigarette over as they continued watching the sun.

"What would you say, Keyla?"

"If I was her?"

"Yeah... and he just looked at you one last time and you could only say a few words."

"I don't know, Maha, I'm not the imaginative type..." Maha held Keyla's hand and pulled her close.

"What would you say? You're Tasia Mara, the most powerful woman on this earth, fighting for peace and the humans lead you to think they'll accept your offer but instead send an army to greet you. What do you say? Your dying words..." They stared into each other's eyes. She was being serious. She wanted an answer. Keyla took the cigarette from her and took a puff without breaking contact. She exhaled slowly, letting the smoke spread around them.

"I'd tell him to burn them all." Maha smiled at the response. She pulled Keyla close one more time, their bodies touching.

"If I die in this war..."

"Don't say that," Keyla interrupted.

"No. I want you to know this." Keyla suddenly looked depressed. "I don't want to hear that you love me."

"Maha..."

"Shut up." Tears were forming in her beautiful brown eyes. Keyla's heart beat faster as her eyes started to glisten. "I don't want to hear that you love me because I know that already. I want to know what you'll do when I die... for me..."

"We're not dying..."

"But I do... Say I do... What would you say to me? Do I matter enough in this world to deserve anything other than 'I love you'? Is that all I'm here for? To be loved? Or am I here to make a change?"

"We're not Tasia Mara, my love."

"So we don't matter?"

"No. We matter because it's us she was fighting for. She fought because we matter." Keyla firmly held round Maha and kissed her neck. "But I'd tell you that I'll keep fighting. That I'll make sure we win this war and create a better future... That your death won't be in vain... because you matter."

Maha kissed her lips and looked into her eyes.

"Then starting tomorrow, we sign up for Arcadeus's army. I don't want to be a foot-soldier anymore."

"I'm liking this part of you."

"We're Demigods, Keyla, and every Demigod in the past has carved their names into the history books and have had tales written about them. So... what's to stop us from doing the same?"