[FFML] [Original] [Dark] To Clear the Earth

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2:10 am est

Warning: This story contains dark and disturbing imagery. Reader discretion
is advised.

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To Clear the Earth

Jeremy Harper

Some days after his emergence from his most recent hibernation Asmodeus discovered a fresh, unsoiled village of mortals, nestled in a dry valley at the periphery of his territory. He wondered briefly how such a delicacy could have escaped his notice, but dismissed it as irrelevant- his fractured, fetid mind possessed but little capacity for intelligent conjecture. He concealed himself on the valley's stony slopes through the force of his will and for three days watched the village inhabitants go about their routines, tending their fields of corn and patches of vegetables, maintaining their domiciles, raising their offspring. Sometimes he would send out his thought and follow closely one mortal or another for hours at a time, an invisible voyeur delighting in the observation of the most private and intimate moments of these tiny lives. Asmodeus masturbated vigorously several times during his watch, taking immense pleasure in the anticipation of the sport to come, when he revealed his magnificent, sublime presence. How he would glut and satiate himself on them...

On the early morning of the fourth day, as the village men walked to the fields to begin their day's labor, Asmodeus exercised his will and transformed each kernel of corn into a locust. The newborn insects moved about as they pumped ichor into their wings, rustling through the stillborn corn husks, chirping lustily. The sudden, unexpected cacophony stopped the entire village stock-still. The villagers looked about with wide, fearful eyes, knowing what this impossible event portended and hoping against hope they were wrong. A woman fell to her knees, crying as she frantically clutched at her children. An old man mouthed a prayer to the Uncaring God. The locusts took flight, their wings beating out a deafening, stentorian hum, invading the village, sending all into mad flight. It pleased Asmodeus to inflict an anthropophagus craving on a select number of the insects. These actively sought out mortals instead of harassing them by circumstance. Their victims' screams sharply pierced the general clamor as they were torn into bloody rags then reduced to blood-drenched bones, stripped of all flesh with appalling speed; on the valley slope Asmodeus brayed goatish laughter, rocking back on his hairy haunches, slapping his thighs, shaking with sadistic mirth. He clapped his hands once, the sound resonating like a monstrous thunderbolt and his locusts turned into fine, gray dust, which blew away on the errant wind he summoned. The surviving villagers gasped and wept, shocked into stupor by this apocalypse. Asmodeus descended the slope, a beige blur, and pranced into the village, naked, rawboned, his face coarse and caprine, his massive erection bobbing grotesquely before him. As one the villagers screamed, recognizing him for what he was: a Mad God, a ruler of the world. Some attempted to flee, others fell on their knees, babbling out oaths of obeisance or begging for scraps of mercy. Other ran for their huts to snatch up impotent weapons, praying for the miracle they knew would not come.

Asmodeus ignored his new and sudden converts, turning his depraved attention to the fugitives. He reached out with his thought and invoked forth gnomes. Rude, inchoate forms burst from the ground before the runners and caught them in unyielding grasps. A few gnomes Asmodeus molded into earth-brown satyrs, as lusty and tumescent as their master. They threw down their captives, fell upon them and raped them. Shrieks of pain, terror and shame reverberated against the valley walls. Asmodeus brayed in pleasure, jumping up and down, stroking himself in glee- he was an ultimately infantile creature, almost monomaniacally obsessed with the most warped facets of sexuality. A depraved id, black, twisted, by unhappy chance given both divinity and flesh.

A few men came out of their huts with antique hunting rifles, taking aim at their tormentor and firing. Asmodeus leered and reduced the density of his body, becoming as immaterial as air, the shots passing through him, harmless. The men reloaded desperately and fired again. Asmodeus casually, contemptuously danced through the volley unscathed. He snatched a bullet from the air and popped it into his mouth, savoring it as if it were the sweetest of candies. The men cast down their rifles, fell to their knees and wept, all save the youngest among them, who loaded another bullet and took aim and fired. Asmodeus, growing bored, waved a hand, reversing the flight of the shot. The young man fell on his back, blood poring from his forehead, his last expression a look of bovine astonishment. The Mad God chortled, and cast around for a new diversion. He spied a young, prepubescent girl, pretty and blond haired, standing in the threshold of a hut, watching him with the wide, fearful eyes of a trapped rabbit. Asmodeus licked his thick lips and capered towards her, clenching and unclenching his hands eagerly; a nearby woman - the girl's mother - screamed in horror and rushed to block his path. A new idea rose atwisting in the fevered maelstrom of Asmodeus's brain. He seized the woman by her arms and thrust his pelvis at her, once, twice, three times. He ejaculated, smoking black semen splattering on her, eating through her humble dress and burning her flesh. She shrieked in pain as he let her go, falling to the ground, writhing. Her tanned skin faded into a sickly gray pallor as her limbs began to elongate and twist, the bones popping as they grew. Horny claws formed on her fingers and toes, her mouth thrust out, becoming a canine muzzle, her hair fell out in great clumps. The woman rose to her feet, transformed, meeping and whining. Her red, rheumy eyes fell on her daughter and she leaped at the young girl, catching her up and carrying her into the huts. The girl screamed once, truncated by a gurgle. Wet tearing sounds and hideous slavering emanated. An old man moaned and attacked the Mad God with a walking stick. Asmodeus caught him by the throat, implanted a small spark of power into his body and twisted his head completely around. He threw the old man to the ground, where he flopped and howled in agony, unable to die because of the filthy energy fueling his body. Asmodeus threw back his head and closed his eyes and laughed long and hard...

Then, suddenly, without warning, silence, save for the braying laughter. Asmodeus stopped and looked around in confusion, his bulbous eyes blinking. The screams of terror, the moans of fear, the pleas for clemency, all so pleasing to his deviant sensibilities, had quieted. The villagers stood frozen in various positions and tableaus, unmoving as iron, statues of flesh. Bewildered, Asmodeus touched a nearby woman with his knobby finger. The color of her hair, her flesh, her clothes leached out of her in an instant. She crumbled apart, falling into a pile of fine soil. In chain reaction the rest of the mortals followed suit, desiccating into dust. The gnomes searched stupidly for their captives, the satyrs stood, seeking fresh flesh to ravish. With a confused snarl Asmodeus banished his minions. They became one with the dirt their prey had become.

"Where are they?" Asmodeus yelled in a shrill, whining tenor, like that of a petulant child denied his want. "Where are my toys, my diversions, my sweetmeats?" He stretched out with all his senses, seeking and prying- cutting through veils of reality with nigh omniscient perception. The crude wood walled, mud plastered huts around him wavered and dissipated, shimmering out of existence like heat-wrought mirages. A hum filled the air, resonant and crackling. A dome of translucent, prismatic power encompassed the grounds of the illusory village. Asmodeus screamed in outrage; this imprisonment was not of his will. "What IS this?" he shrieked out in demand.

"Oblivion."

Asmodeus whirled at the sound of the deep, hoarse baritone. An unfamiliar god stood before him, broad, massive, a good half foot taller than he. He wore an outfit of red and black, trimmed with gold, his flesh was tanned bronze- a striking contrast to the toad's belly pallor of Asmodeus. Strong looking arms were folded across a broad chest. His hair was a thick, wild shock of black, bound in a ponytail that fell to his lean waist, thrown over a shoulder. He stroked at it with one hand as he looked with stoic contempt at Asmodeus with piercing, icy blue eyes. A momentary apprehension fluttered in the Mad God's chest, a short-lived butterfly, killed as insanity reasserted.

"So," he whinnied, leering at the stranger, lolling his long, sinuous tongue. "I might have known another god was interfering. I've never seen your like before. You have a strange... scent about you. It is sharp and chill, alien yet familiar. I think you are an expatriate, one of those who made exodus to the stars so very long ago. Why have you returned, and what have you done with my morsels?"

"They never existed," the stranger answered, ignoring the first question. "They were simulacrums molded from the earth, like your abominations. They were bait, nothing more, existing only to excite a Mad God's lust."

"I see. You are powerful... or at least... subtle... to be able to fool me so well. But it shall avail you not." Asmodeus lunged at the stranger, transforming as he leapt. His outline wavered, stretched, arms shriveling and retracting, legs merging together. He became a gigantic serpent, his coils as thick as an ancient oak's trunk. Venom bubbled along his fangs, smoking in contact with the air. His scales were jeweled hue, shimmering, hypnotizing, lambent in the sunlight. He became the very incarnation of Damballah, and with lighting speed wound around the stranger, catching him in a crushing grasp. The stranger did not flinch, did not even make an attempt to dodge, but simply stood still, expressionless, unbowed by the great weight of the serpent entrapping him.

Asmodeus giggled, an obscenity begot by an obscenity. His bowed his blunt nosed, arrow shaped head to his captive's ear and whispered, "I have you. You are trapped, encompassed by both my form and my will. You can neither escape nor defeat me. But I am merciful, and will offer you salvation. Swear fealty to me, sacrifice a tithe of your power, and I will use you but gently and briefly, then let you go. What do you say?" Asmodeus was lying, of course. He was no more capable of forthrightness as he was of chastity. The stranger did not answer. He looked out at the far horizon, emotionless and unwavering.

"Then suffer for your stoicism," declared Asmodeus. "You will beg me for mercy, before all is over." He began to constrict, exerting a strength that could break the bones of the earth in time. The stranger exhaled sharply, closing his eyes. Asmodeus giggled sibilantly, and applied greater pressure. He suddenly felt the flux of an energy pulse. The stranger transformed himself into a statue of solid, burnished adamant, blazing in the sun, inviolate and indestructible. Asmodeus goggled. This was impossible. The stranger was entrapped both physically and spiritually. There was no way he could be able to perform such a feat of power.

Then the stranger exuded razor-sharp spikes from his metallic body, impaling Asmodeus in two-dozen places. The Mad God hissed loudly, more from shock than from pain. The spikes grew barbs. Asmodeus writhed, agony coursing a lighting trail, from nose to tail and back again, all thoughts of impossibilities banished from his mind.

The spikes began to rotate, twisting in their wounds. Asmodeus screamed. The sound of the Mad God's pain split the open the valley slopes, shattered stones to powder. In desperation he transformed, converting from solid to gas, becoming a cloud of mist that wafted free of the ripping spikes. Pain receded quickly from his consciousness, until all that remained was a bitter memory of humiliation and a burning anger. He hovered above the stranger, cursing him with silent thoughts that nevertheless charged the air. The stranger retracted his spike, transparent reddish blood sloughing from them, and looked up almost casually at the cloud of vile black vapors hanging above. Asmodeus transformed again, gas transmutating into liquid; an acid, one hundred times stronger than any natural to this world. He rained down on the Earth, but not on the stranger- he vanished into thin air.

Asmodeus howled in outrage- a strange, burbling hiss like a thousand cauldrons of molten steel boiling over. He scourged the Earth in his anger, burning through the loose topsoil, the packed dirt beneath, finally scorching bedrock fifteen feet deep. He returned to his original form, his goatish countenance flush with wrath, nostrils flared and white-rimmed. He leapt out of the pit he created and glared around wildly for his tormentor. There was no sign of him; save for the energy dome he had risen, still encompassing the area. Screaming, striking at his thighs with clenched fists, pulling shocks of coarse hair from his skull, Asmodeus ran hither and you, searching for the slightest trace of the stranger, determined to destroy him utterly, down to the last atom, even if the act consumed all of his might. He heard a whistle and he pivoted, clenching his will in preparation for unleashing his, distilled as a bolt of pure energy.

A hail of stones struck him full in the chest with the force of a flurry of hammer strikes, throwing him down on his back. He leapt to his feet in an instant, somewhat stunned but unhurt. His daze evaporated when he saw his foe, standing some yards away, arms still folded across his chest, expression indifferent. Snarling and spitting, Asmodeus threw back a hand, clenching his will, swearing to strike the stranger down with main brute force. Raw energy surged in his palm and he threw. The bolt crackled and hissed instantly out of existence.

Asmodeus looked at his hand incredulously and attempted to summon another bolt of force. Energy crackled and sputtered in his hand and then extinguished with a pop. The stranger was walking towards him and the first time since his apotheosis Asmodeus felt fear's touch- a cold and slender hand slipping through his ribcage, grasping his racing heart with merciless, chill fingers. In a queer way his jaundiced sensibilities enjoyed the novelty of the experience. He gathered his power and willed a transformation upon himself. He felt his energies pulse and drain out of him to the four winds. He dropped to one knobby knee, weakened and uncomprehending. That is when he noticed the stones that had hit him.

They were crystalline in composition, and varied in form: spindles, decahedrons, rectangles, multi-faceted spheres and more. They glowed with a subtle light, silvery and chill, akin to starlight. Satellites in miniature, they swiftly orbited around him, caught by the gravity of his power. Asmodeus snatched one from the air and it burned him with a coldness that made the pain inflicted by the stranger's spikes the lightest of discomforts. He released it and shot a force bolt to obliterate it. The bolt split into shards, each flying to a stone, which absorbed the energy unharmed. Each stone glowed briefly, emitting an almost inaudible hum of contentment.

Asmodeus knew now he was trapped, immured by a crystalline prison more secure then any subterranean dungeon. He was rendered impotent, another situation novel to his existence. Asmodeus could not help himself; he began to laugh. Low chuckles first, graduating to loud laughs, then to ear splitting peals more hysteria than mirth. He was screaming now as he dashed his head against a stone embedded in the ground, splitting open his head, spilling out his blood and brains out on the dry earth, his skull knitting back together and his brain regenerating as fast as he could crack and spend them.

The stranger stood but a stride away, watching the Mad God in his self-destructive frenzy. Suddenly his face twisted in a sudden violent expression of emotion: abject disgust. He spat on the ground and gestured, balling his hand into a tight fist, and a sphere gray opaque energy enveloped Asmodeus. The stranger gestured again, opening his hand and waving it upward in a slicing motion. The sphere and its inhabitant shot upwards into the sky, leaving a crack of thunder in its wake. It burned through clouds and tore free of the atmosphere, rushing through the cold, uncaring void between worlds, until it settled in the belt of stellar detritus between Mars and Jupiter, once the remains of a planet, now a prison for gods.

The stranger stared up momentarily after the wake of Asmodeus's flight then made a strange twisting motion with his hand, thus accessing a dimensional pocket he commanded; his hand disappeared, thrust through a small spiral of swirling, dark energy. He took quick inventory and grimaced at the results. His stores were diminished- few ioun stones remained. He would have to mine more, and did not look forward to the tedious, wearying task; diving into the hellish heat of a star, tearing chunks of heavy matter out of its core, carefully splitting the chunks into small, gray fragments, polishing and refining them, and most importantly of all, imprinting his will upon them so that they could not be turned against him... But it could not be helped. The stranger shook his head in resignation, withdrawing his hand and closing the pocket. He gestured in the air before him and a narrow pane of translucent force materialized, red burning hatchmarks emblazoned upon its face. He cut a new mark with his forefinger and counted them: they totaled fifty. He banished the plane and walked to the valley slope. He moved with a deliberate slowness, as if weary and in great pain. He sat down heavily on the slope and buried his face in his hands.

Fifty gods. He had captured fifty gods so far, condemned them to eventual oblivion in the coldness of space, imprisoned by the insatiable capacity for absorbing energy of ioun stones. They would drift in the void until their minds and wills withered from deprivation, or they destroyed themselves by attempting to overwhelm their guardians, draining away their power until they were exhausted, snuffed out like a guttering candle flame. Fifty gods, steeped in madness and cruelty, trapped; a grueling task difficult beyond all previous measures he had ever known. He felt as if he could hibernate until Entropy fulfilled its maximum and the current universe dispersed into shreds of nebulous matter. Fifty gods, banished from earth for eternity...

Yet how many more remained to be defeated and exiled? Hundreds? Thousands? He could sense them - their exact number uncertain, but vast - as they tread upon the world- raving, ravening, murdering, ruling, terrible and awesome in the eyes of the mortals that were their chattel. He was as mad as they if he thought he could vanquish them all and claim dominion over the earth. His suppressed the rationality screamed at him to leave, to plunge into the up and out of space and wander amongst the infinite wonders of the universe and its adjacent dimensions. Yet in his mind's eye he could see himself rising from his seat, lifting off into the sky, shedding off the gravity of earth like a man sheds a cloak, attaining such speeds that time and space twisted and bent in his wake. He wanted to, but he could not. Deep inside of him, in the most secret part of his well-hidden soul, a ragged wound gaped, clawing at his consciousness so that he could find no ease, howling for surcease. He could not leave until he sealed that wound once and for all.

The stranger cast his mind back through the time that had past since his apotheosis, streaming through centuries, through millennia, through eons... or perhaps just through scant years; divinity and his travels through the universe had all but destroyed his sense of mortal time. He had once been but a man, plain and ordinary, with the plain and ordinary name of John, one mortal amongst a teaming mass of six billion. He remembered how in his early adulthood the normality of life had been obliterated when the inexplicable holocaust wracked the Earth. Millions perished - Death's hand sparing neither prince nor proletariat - while scant hundreds somehow ascended, Fate granting godhead to saint and sinner evenhandedly. John had been one of the few; Jessica was one of the many.

John closed his eyes tight and bowed his head down to his knees. It still hurt, despite the passing of time, despite his apotheosis, despite all the wonders and terrors he had seen and experienced. Jessica's passing had left him spiritually crippled, for as much as he consciously loved her he had been unaware of how thoroughly she fulfilled and completed his soul. And her loss was all the more cruel, for it had seemed that she had joined him in godhood. He remembered the day vividly: they flew through the sky, playing tag like children, reveling innocently in their power, laughing and loving, ignoring the horror stalking on the Earth below. Perhaps that is why he lost her, a punishment for their callousness... He could see her slowing to a stop, suspended between clouds like an angel, a look of distress shadowing her exquisite face. He approached her questioningly and she screamed. He could still hear it, echoing in the dark corners of his memory. She screamed and fell apart, disintegrating, rendered by the forces that scourged the earth down to trace molecules, which scattered to the four winds as he watched helpless. Moments later he fled Earth screaming in near madness, becoming unwittingly the first of Earth's expatriate deities, a Star God. He lost himself in the currents and corners of the Universe, trying to heal, to forget, but the wound in his soul refused to mend, tainting all experiences with ineffable grief.

Then he discovered a way to resolve his situation. At the feet of an ancient, alien deity he learned that the souls of gods and mortals did not perish with their material forms, instead traveled beyond the influence of the Universe to dwell in a shadowy plane inaccessible to even the mightiest of powers. There they awaited reincarnation, waiting for the proper time and place to take shape again. If John had patience, he could reunite with Jessica. However other conditions had to be fulfilled before this occurred. Earth had become a hell, ruled by gods who did not take part in the great exodus. Mad, sadistic and deviant almost to the one, the surviving mortals suffered underneath their reign, mere playthings, less than slaves. The souls native to Earth sensed this and refused to return. In order to have her back John would have to clear his home world of all other gods and powers, freeing men to rule themselves once more. In his naivety John vowed to do so, uncomprehending of the enormity of his quest. He understood now, understood with a vengeance as he sat bent in the valley of Asmodeus, weary and near-broken.

John slowly raised his head, his eyes half-closed, and gathered his will, projecting it at the ground. A figure slowly arose up out of the Earth, bulky and featureless at first. He sculpted it with his mind, smoothing its texture, sliming it into a woman's lithe figure, delicately shaping its face. He blew a puff of breath on it and its dull brown hue became vibrant tones of living flesh. The simulacrum of Jessica gazed upon John with golden eyes that flashed brightly in the sunlight. Her hair poured in waves from her head down to her waist, a cascade of red-gold silk. Full lips quirked in a playful, loving smile. Small, firm breasts rose and fell slightly in a simulation of respiration. John gazed yearningly at the simulacrum, fortifying his flagging determination with this more than memory. He closed his eyes and inhaled sharply, trembling a little. He rose and gently touched the faux-Jessica's cheek.

"I love you," he whispered, hoping that somehow she could hear him, despite the insurmountable distance. "I love you. One way or the other we will be together again." He removed his hand and Jessica returned to the earth.

John looked at the light blue sky, towards the pale Moon but faintly visible in the daylight. He would first rest there, burying himself beneath the pale land before plunging into the Sun to mine ioun stones. "One way or the other," he vowed quietly. He negated the gravity binding him to the Earth and hurled himself up and out. From a distance he seemed a fallen star returning to heaven.

Author's Notes: This is the first original story I've written (and even completed) in a long, long time. I doubt that I'll be writing much fan fiction in the near future, though it's not outside the realm of possibility that I could fall back into a Ranma 1/2 mood and change my mind. I tend to be a creature of cycles. For right now, at least, I'd rather concentrate my energies on original work that I can perhaps profit from (this story will probably go through one or two more revisions then its off to Weird Tales, along with the haiku I posted a week or two back). If I write any other stories that I feel are appropriate for the FFML I'll give thought to posting them. I somehow doubt I'll be missed much, though.

Any comments, criticism or questions can be directed to DorianVal@aol.com or sent directly to the list.

Thanks for your time and tolerance,

Jeremy Harper