Machine Messiah

Though subtle, there had been a shift in Malos's perception of the world, and of his predetermined duty, over time.

That is to say, he always killed to kill, to clean up and bring the end...but after the sinking of Torna, no longer did he think it was such a fun job, a little part-time cash grab because Amalthus was willing to hire the one and only to get it done.

Even he, guileless, found it in his stack-deep soul to feel guilt.

He had been...imprecise, in his handling of Torna. He had, indeed, wanted to claim all the destruction for himself, but the more he taunted, the more he teased his sister...well. He had been right. He could and did bring it out of her. And now it was only he, principally, who was lain to waste at the bottom of the sea.

Torna? Didn't matter. Same with Judicium, same with Coeia, maybe even with Spessia soon enough. Who knew? Not like Amalthus would ever be able to bring it off so right.

It had been a hack job. The world was no more or less broken than it had been before.

His job wasn't over. His job would never be over, until he did it right.

You. You are the steward. None other, except your sister, and she is sleeping. Hiding away, because she is afraid to do what you know you must. Conveniently enough, Jin also desires the end. You both know this world is beyond repair.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it. That's what the humans say. Well, how about this: if I can't fix it, then I'm damn well going to break it. I'm going to smash those puny toys into bits because the only good mistake is an unrecoverable, unrepeatable one. There is no forgiveness in my father's eyes.

Because there's a difference between religiousness and righteousness, and then again a difference between righteousness and plain whole ungrounded ethereal rightness.

A Blade like Jin, screwed over as he has been, could understand that. Or at least, one would hope.

From the moment he laid eyes upon the Paragon, Malos saw exhorbitant potential - someone, at last, who could aid in his quest, instead of just hampering it. Someone who had taken what he could from the humans who had used him for so long - literal centuries, from what Malos's Core told him - and was ready to fight back.

There, now, there was a man Malos could respect.

Only problem was, he brought a kid with him. That lousy little orphan, with a Core Crystal shoved in his chest and a mean streak in his eye, wanted family. He wanted a home half more than he wanted revenge, and home was something Malos had never, ever wanted.

He spied Malos up with those same beady blue eyes, nearabout spat hatred out of ocular orifices, but little by little he engaged in and with the sacrament all the same.

Oh, yes. He became a disciple. All who spent enough time around the Dark Aegis eventually would see his truth.

Yeah, it was Jin's goal. But Malos was the one, at root and with the permissions and all, who needed to go through with it. He couldn't just wait.

Sometimes, however, Jin's own brewing patience wore the Aegis a little too thin.

Wait, he'd say. We need the currents to change, we need to hire out just one more time, and then another, and then another, and then another, and then maybe we'll retrieve what you need to get back your power.

As universal truths go, Malos wasn't about to argue that he didn't want to be restored to his former, original glory, not in the least. The second coming, indeed, should be just as absolute as the first.

But this? This was abstinence for no moral gain, tawdry tardiness because he was afraid.

"Are you afraid, Jin?" Malos would ask, fist jerking out to summon the Monado but swinging back in to grapple at Jin's neck when no mortal instrument appeared. "Do you think you can fool me?"

Jin would gulp, somehow unpathetically, and set his jaw. "No, Malos," he would answer. And he would be telling the truth.

But for Malos? Not enough. Never enough. "Do you think this is a GAME?"

Around the corner, behind a bulkhead, Mikhail would watch. He would gulp with all the slimy air of a liar, and not know who he was rooting for, who he believed in.

When God stands in your midst and brings down its proclamations, do you fight it? Do you protest?

Do you balk and gawk at the arrival, the reprisal, of eternity's own messiah?

Jin dies, sacrifices himself to wipe out the corporeal root of all man's original sin. Like a ripping of his own nonexistent heart out of his silicon-milled chest, Malos feels it.

Tch. How human. To hold onto something you're not supposed to have so desperately as to subsume it into your own self. Liars, beggars, cheaters and petty thieves all.

Wasn't that it? The forbidden fruit, from the Garden of Eden? Amalthus partook of knowledge he was never meant to have, and now look where it had gotten him.

You know, in a way, he had been right. Really, knowledge is power, even over power for power's own sake.

Back pressed to the glass overlooking the pitiful place that is - was - Alrest, Malos thumbs idly at the coarse metal plate buttoned over his Core. Why is it there? Who, what, is he hiding from?

Humans? Oh, be not afraid, you simple, stupid creatures. You know you can't wait for it all to come crashing down. You can't wait for that singular, apocalyptic time. And neither can...

Huh. What do I...?

It'd be so easy to give up right here, to have reached the final plateau of the treehouse's floor at the top of the arbor and just decide to lie flat, forehead to steel and ass to air, leaving abandoned the mindless search for a higher controller.

Because there isn't one. Because he is it. Nearabout, he is God.

(Heh. Because we all know God himself isn't fit for that role. Not anymore, if he had been even once among ever.)

Who is he hiding from? What even is there left in this world to hide from?

Only from himself. Only the Aegis's calling, its duty, its destiny.

So. So you were born into this stinking world, and...

Malos stands, rips aside the chestplate, and walks towards Aion.

Now he is upright. Now he is ready to hang this world on the cross, just like it once hung him.

Oh, it's a sick, sick feeling. But he's used to it, by now.

It's all gotta go out somehow. Might as well have some fun with it.