Chrono Crusade Fan Fiction ❯ Pandemonium Moment ❯ Unholy Legion ( Chapter 5 )

The Pandemonium Moment

By Prinder

 

Rated: R for violence, Religious warping, and questionable topics.

Summary: Anger is a powerful motivation, but the line between love and hate is less than a hair-width. What is the real motivation for Jehovah and Pandemonium? Meanwhile, what is Satan's true objective, and how does Lucifer and Jehovah come into his scheme?

Disclaimer: Chrono Crusade does not belong to me.

Legend: “talking”

`thinking'

reading

written

“Talk Electronically sent somehow”

 

 

Chapter Five: Unholy Legion

 

`This will be where it begins, Jehovah. Soon the Royal 11, Unholy Legion, will assemble to Satan, and the Sins will rejoin their brother, Lucifer. Then the trumpets will sound, and your gates WILL OPEN, Jehovah, and you will not deny your children any longer. You will repent for your crimes, and then I will see the last of this suffering.' Pandemonium thought, watching through the satanic, black, pool; images bubbled up from the murky sludge-bottom, wavering before crashing down into nothingness again.

 

“Do you think that you will be able to stop me, Jehovah? Using your minimal twisting of my power to stop me… You are weak, Jehovah.” She murmured, though her tone had become softer, almost pitying as she watched his disguised figure move from destination to destination, attempting to foil her plans. Behind her, a white silhouette pierced the darkness and wavered, illuminating the place where it stood, unable to overtake the shadows beyond.

 

“It is that weakness that made you once so fond of me, Pandemonium.” God spoke, his voice gentle and echoing, as though cast out from a great distance.

 

Pandemonium glanced at the glowing light before turning to look away from it again. “Will you not face me with your true face, Jehovah?”

 

“Will you not face me with your own? Pandemonium, what is your desire?” He asked.

 

“You have no right to ask me what my desires are! You, who would twist my words and make them into things they are not.” She said, crossing her arms over her chest, her long black nails resting on her upper arms. “You know what I want. I will not stop until I see that you pay for your crimes.”

 

Suddenly, she flinched, digging her nails into her pale flesh; he felt so much nearer than he was a second ago.

 

His breath whispered past her ear as he spoke, “Why did we come to this, Pandemonium? You do not want to bring Apocalypse—“

 

Pandemonium shivered and growled, her red eyes flashing with defiance, holding her position. “You have my power, you could stop me with a wave of your hand if you desired, Jehovah. So why do you insist on using those pathetic tricks of will to forgo what I have set into motion?” She paused, flinching again, expecting him to react in his usual manner; she braced for his flaring temper.

 

“…Because I will beat you with my own power, Pandemonium. I will stop Lucifer and Satan and I will stop you, and I will use Emanuel to do it.” Jehovah smiled, feeling the waves of anger flick up off of her skin like flame, as she turned her head to glare at him; her eyes glowing in a hellish shade of blood-red.

 

“You will not! I have made sure that he will not be a part of your plans again! You will not turn him and his brother against each other!” She screamed.

 

`You're so easily manipulated, Pandemonium. Is this what it means to have too much emotion?' He mused. `Sweet rapture, she who sways by the moon and is called like the tide by it, Pandemonium, essence of power.'

 

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

“I will not have you distracting me from my goal, Jehovah! I will have my revenge! LEAVE!”

 

The old man slowly opened his eyes, the cacophony from rolling trunks on small caster wheels on the brick tile walkway in front of the train station mingled with chattering people and clicking taps of shoes as they walked. Adjusting his felt hat, he stood up slowly.

 

“Shekanyah.” A hissing voice said on his right.

 

The old man froze in his place, turning to the direction the voice had come from.

 

“Adonai.” The voice said, this time, coming from his left. The old man did not move, however.

 

“Come out Satan.” Jehovah said, listening to Satan's laughing come up from behind him.

 

“You're no fun at all.” Satan chimed, his legs crossed in front of him as he sat in the place that Jehovah had been a moment ago. “You weren't easy to find. Are you scared of me? Really, Jehovah, you made me after all, why are you so scared?”

 

“I have never been afraid of what you can do to me, Satan. Not to me personally.” Jehovah said, though his eyes narrowed at the devil, a clear indicator of his displeasure to see him. `Curse and be damned me for the day that I didn't consider the consequences of making Pandemonium; I should have realized that, when making perfection, you must also have an imperfection to balance it!' he thought, remembering the day he discovered Satan, who had birthed himself from the castoff shadows that Jehovah had made to bring life into Pandemonium.

 

“Well then, by all means, let me take us to a place where we can talk.” Satan said, raising his fingers over his head.

 

“NO NOT—“ Jehovah stopped short, blinking as he looked around, realizing that they had been moved to a coffee shop. Satan, who was sitting in the chair across from him, was laughing.

 

“Stupid old coot! They can't see me! And, as a matter of fact, right now, they can't see you either… For the moment at least.”

 

Resigning himself to having the conversation with the King of Devils himself, Jehovah sat down and regarded the monster he had helped to bring into the world. Satan, taking a polar opposite to Jehovah in everything, chose to look young, with plump cheeks and a halo of blonde hair that was slightly gelled into spikes. His attire was sloppy with a black shirt with rolled up cuffs, red suspenders, and undone tie; all was done to portray the image of the perfect ruffian, and the look suited him. “What did you want, Satan? You already know my answer will be `no,' so why bother?” Jehovah asked slowly, his temper cool and even.

 

“Jehovah, I have an appeal from my client.” Satan said, placing his folded hands on the table between them, looking every bit like a shyster lawyer, haggling a plea bargain with the accuser.

 

“If, by that, you mean Lucifer, then my answer is an even more a resounding `no' than it was if you were asking. I know what you are going to say, Satan, and I have no time for it.” Jehovah responded, looking away from him, removing his felt hat to look at the inside to show his disinterest in what the other side had to say.

 

Seeing that he was about to be dismissed, Satan leaned back further in his chair and sniggered, sending out his baited line, “No fun, stupid, old, AND stubborn. How did Pandemonium put up with you?” Satan queried with a knowing smirk; he struck one of Jehovah's nerves, a sore one at that. `Sucker.'

 

Jehovah cast his gaze onto him again, able to see past the facade that hid the King of Devil's true form, stating slowly, “You have no right to ask me that—“

 

“Why? Because I `made you do it?' HA! Just like your creations, you are -also- quick to point your faults and errors on me. You are no more perfect than your humans, Jehovah, which is why there is only one of you, and not two, like Pandemonium and me.” Satan retorted cuttingly.

 

“PANDEMONIUM IS NOT YOURS!” Jehovah said, jumping to his feet in uncharacteristic swiftness, lunging over and grabbing Satan by the neck.

 

“But she is! She IS! You gave her to me. She's in my domain, isn't she? You PUT HER THERE! FOOL! She is my reflection. I am the part of her you ripped from her; she is MINE.” Satan laughed, choking at the same time, while he was being strangled.

 

Jehovah glared at Satan's gleeful smile and let him go, sitting down once again, sighing. “What does Lucifer want, assuming that it is even something that I could give?” he asked, choosing to take a less offensive approach to the Overseer to Hell.

 

“He wants his rights as the Angel of Light to be restored.” Satan replied, waving his hand dryly, as if to say he didn't understand it either.

 

“He wants his wings back, which grant him entrance into Heaven.” Jehovah reiterated for him.

 

Satan rolled his eyes, “I know what he meant. But why? It's such a boring place. Only your followers go there. Borrrrinnnnggg~!” he said, exasperated. “Well, you old dodger, what are you going to do about it?” he asked, raising a strangely delicate eyebrow in question.

 

Jehovah knew better than to be intrigued by the devil's behavior; he likely only wanted to know so that he could use both sides to his advantage. Snorting, because he wasn't about to let himself be fooled so easily, he countered with a question of his own, “I want to know, Satan, what's in it for you, if he is given his title again?”

 

“Umm… Good question. From there, he planed to defeat you and then bring the Apocalypse…” Satan drawled, as though reciting something he had heard several times before.

 

“But…?” God supplied, encouraging the King of Devils to speak further.

 

“But—you know me so well, Jehovah—I have something else in mind.”

 

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Seventh Bell Orphanage,

 

“Thank you again for all of this, Sister Azmaria. With so many children for us to look after now, we're grateful for all of the help that you sisters provide us.” Mrs. Gene said, sterilizing another pot full of bottles for the younger children. They all varied in ages, but so many of the children still needed to be bottle fed, or at least given baby food; the result, no matter how the food was administered, or how much man power or money was thrown at the task, all of the people who worked at the orphanage were overworked, and Mrs. Gene found it a struggle to keep them from being malnourished. There just never seemed to be enough to go around these days.

 

“We're just as glad to be able to help, Mrs. Gene.” Anna replied, Azmaria nodding in agreement next to her.

 

Mrs. Gene smiled; it was true that, without the help from the New York Magdalene branch sisters, it would be next to impossible for them to survive. Is things were now, the brothers in the militia saw that everything was in good repair, and there were always nuns being sent to take “vacations” there, to take time off from their usual duties, and to assist in looking after the astonishing 24 children residing at Seventh Bell Orphanage.

 

“You don't know what this means to us… God bless you.”

 

Later, after the children had been put to bed, Azmaria sat up in the room set aside for her and Anna, brushing her hair. She glanced at her reflection and sighed, putting her brush down.

 

“What's wrong?” Anna asked, laying on her bed on her back, her feet propped up on the wall.

 

“Should I cut my hair?” Azmaria asked, “It's just that, it's a sign of vanity, and all of the other sisters have short hair—“

 

“No way…” Anna replied, laughing, “Az, if you did that, we'd be in big trouble, because then the rest of us wouldn't know what to do with ourselves! If keeping long hair makes you vain, then that's the only crime you have. If you cut that hair, what are the rest of us going to do? Mary would have to give up eating junk food! She'd never make it!”

 

Azmaria couldn't help but laugh with her. “Thank you, Anna.”

 

“But really, what's wrong?” Anna asked again, rolling over to look at her more seriously, despite having her own flaming red hair pulled up into pigtails on either side of her head, making her look more like a large puppy tangled in the sheets than a person.

 

Azmaria looked past her out the window at the tree branches outside. “I can't explain it, I just feel… old?”

 

“AMEN! You feel old? I can't get over the fact that I'm older than Sister Kate was when she took over as—“ Anna exclaimed, reminiscing. She was so young when she joined the church, she wasn't really thinking; as a nun, she was married to her work and to god, for the most part, and they all lived celibate lives. When she first hit puberty, she considered leaving the order, but, not knowing what she would do with herself if she did, she stayed. She loved kids and, for a time, when she was little, she wanted to have some of her own, but in her lifestyle, that just wasn't possible. All the same, she loved her work, being a tough cookie herself, she could never see her self as someone who would stay away from it forever. Kids or not.

“I don't mean like that, Anna.” Azmaria said, waking her out of her thoughts, “It's like we've become weighed down and everything is moving faster, and we're moving slower…” She stopped, looking at her partner. Anna listened and nodded, urging her to continue. Azmaria sighed again, “My powers are coming back, Anna.”

“What?” Anna blinked, “But you said that they were gone! When did they start?”

 

“A few days, a week, a month… I don't know, but it's a sign that something is coming, Anna.” Azmaria said, balling her hands up into fists on her lap, closing her eyes tightly, “And I'm scared, because I don't want any more people close to me to die again. I want to fight it, I want to stop it, but I'm afraid of what happens if I can't!”

 

Anna got out of her bed and walked over to Azmaria, giving her a hug. “God… I'm sorry, Azmaria. But I'm promising you right now, no matter what, we're partners, and we're going to stick together, no matter what. Hell or high-water.”

 

“Thank you, Anna… Thank you so much!”

 

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

 

“The other Archangels are going to be looking for you.” Remington commented from his cage, watching as Satan paced the room. Satan, his eyes like molten silver, looked at him.

 

Satan wasn't what Ewen Rumington was expecting him to be; he had always been told that Lucifer and Satan were one and the same, but now it seemed to not be the case, because they often could be found trying to figure out each others motives and plans, and then forging counter measures to make sure that their own agenda is covered.

 

“Archangels have no power against me. I don't care about them.” Satan said, waving his hand over his shoulder at Ewen to silence him. “They are only a threat to the 11 Legion.”

 

Ewen looked at Satan carefully. In truth, Satan was surprisingly easy to get along with, and could be considered easy-going; which would make sense because, if he were difficult, not nearly as many people would follow him. Ewen shifted positions in his cage and rested his back against the bars, looking over his shoulder at the King of Devils, “who are the 11 Legion?” he asked.

 

“The 11 Legion are the perversion of the 11 Disciples. The same way the Apostles are a perversion of the Sins, and as I am a perversion to Pandemonium. They are the balance.”

 

“So, the devils are the perversion of angels. Who is the perversion of God?” Ewen asked.

 

“No one! Adonai is his own perversion! Just how humans have no perversion except for themselves. Emanuel was supposed to bring the end, and Lucifer was supposed to be the light that lead the people out of darkness and into Rapture while Emanuel carried himself and all sin into Apocalypse; that was Adonai's original plan, at least. But when he realized the power that Pandemonium had given Lucifer, he stripped him of his rank and cast him out and decided to use Lucifer to bring the end.”

 

“So he was planning Emanuel for a long time. He knew that his people would become corrupt and impure with knowledge, and he conceived a plan to bring them back to faith.” Ewen said, thinking aloud.

 

“Not quite, because it wasn't until man saw Pandemonium's perfection that he decided to change the fate of Emanuel.” Satan explained, sitting down in a wooden fold-up chair next to a tray table with a plate of fruit sitting on it.

 

Ewen looked away from him, contemplating the information that Satan had given him. “That doesn't make much sense, Satan.” He commented.

 

Satan smirked, sampling one of the red grapes before answering, “I don't expect it to make sense, it was done by Adonai. But let me see if I can't fill in the gaps, starting from the day that Pandemonium and I were made…”

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Satan, as that is who I am, oddly enough, is not prone to falsehoods, as, when I speak, the truth is the most effective in motivating my audience. The story I will tell Ewen is, in fact, this same one here, and it all starts from the shadows of Pandemonium's grace.

 

It was never God's intent to make me when he made the perfect Pandemonium. Had he realized that, by making her flawless, he would conceive me as well; I doubt he would have given her perfect power for him to abuse. We will make things clear from the start: There is no good, and there is no evil. Do not make the mistake of some of his followers and think that all is black and white.

 

Faith is good. Man feels lost without faith in something, be it God or the stock market; he must have faith in something. Without faith, man dies slowly from the inside out and loses direction.

 

Knowledge is good. Without knowledge, man would have died out long before; lacking in tools to sustain themselves, man is frail and feeble. It is only with knowledge that they have power; power that God considers evil, because it leads those to question his laws, and find faith in things other than him.

 

God's intent to make Pandemonium dark and intimidating failed when he gave her a pure mind and soul with unlimited power. Even now, enshrouded in darkness, shadows will not touch her.

 

From the beginning, Pandemonium made Lillim; the original task of Lillim was to give man the same power as God, this was something that he could not stand for, so when making the soul for Lillim, God corrupted it, and she was tainted. In her place, he made the flawed woman for man and ordained that they would be his progeny. Pandemonium, in revenge, gave man knowledge, to make sure that they would learn and continue to learn and forget their creator.

 

That was her plan to equalize the gap between God and man. It was here, that the war between her and God began. In the time when these things take place, I am only a casual observer on how my other part, Pandemonium, reacted to the illogical and emotional Adonai.

 

This was when God discovered Mary, the most perfect virgin, and he became obsessed with her. He saw only Mary, and Pandemonium began to feel wrath and jealousy; to return his love to her, she devised a plot, one where he would love her, and he would fall out of power, and the end of his creation would be at hand—Mary and all.

 

That plan started with the birth of Lucifer, who was going to be her final act of defiance to God, the one who would be the light in the shadow of God's taint. But Lucifer was tainted as well, because he was power hungry and defiant to God; when God saw Pandemonium's plans taking form, he acted swiftly, removing Lucifer from a position of power to one where he was nothing more than a Peon. A peon that I took up at once and cultivated to bring Pandemonium's vision into reality.

 

Being nothing but a shadow to Pandemonium, I was both with her, and away from her. Like the darkness that surrounded my other half, I could not touch her purity either, though she, too, had become tainted by Jehovah's wrath. I watched over Lucifer from this place, this thin alternate dimension next to Limbo. You could say that I guided Lucifer's hand, in everything he did, and lent him my support; in exchange, the end result was supposed to be that Jehovah would be forced into a checkmate where he would have no choice but to respond to my demands.

 

There was one time when I asked Lucifer what he thought of his little brother. I asked, “Do you feel sorry for the used child with only two fates for him? Either be born to die, never to live a life of his own… or be a crusader and go on a rampage, to destroy millions of innocent lives, only to lose his mind to bloodlust and again suffer to die. Do you feel that this is unfair?”

 

“Jehovah does not know the word `fairness.'”

 

That was when I became equally interested in Emanuel as I was in Lucifer and Lillim. I had met him as Jesus once, and told him that, if he truly believed in God, he would jump from the cliff I had taken us to, and pray for his father on high to save him.

 

“One does not test God.” was his response; a clear refusal, it was marvelous. One should, of course, never challenge or test God's will, he is a mysterious worker, and when he acts, usually it will not be in your favor, and it will be done in such a round-about way that you cannot tell that it was HE who caused the trigger.

 

In the end of Jesus' life, he both won and lost, because now the ones that followed him, now followed God, and the ones that followed God, were even more convinced of his omnipotence, and the ones that followed neither were slowly being converted by Jesus' own Disciples. It was beautiful.

 

But let's not forget dear Magdalene; Magdalene, his “most loved disciple,” had a secret that she never told the others, the same one that told her to go to his tomb the day he was risen from that grave, the reason why she was being supported there by two Apostle sisters. On the day she had washed and bandaged his feet, the same act he had done for his other followers, he had given her the power to know his pains. If he only realized what that would mean later, and in future incarnations.

 

For the rules of that contract was that she would feel and know all pain of his as intimately as if it were her own. In short, when he was beaten, she was beaten, when he carried the cross, her back was bowed by the burden, when his wrists were pierced by the iron nails, she was the one who screamed and bled. She was rendered barely able to walk when the spikes struck into his feet, and she sweat red blood when they placed the thorn crown on his head. She was taken to lay in bed when the spear was lodged into his side, and her wounds never closed, nor did the pain lessen. He would rise again, but at the cost of her life; which was God's intent from the start. When he had risen again, she had urged the two women at her side to take her there, because she had felt his breathing. Contracts are very interesting; I find it interesting, still, that God chose to allow something that -I- made to be used by his son.

 

As the King of Devils, I made their laws, gave them their tools to use their power; in short, I gave them the Contracts. Astounding that Adonai wanted Emanuel to use it on the woman.

 

One lifetime should have been enough, but God was not finished. He then took Emanuel back from Pandemonium, retrieved Lillim and Lucifer from me, and devised a new plot. With all of his Disciples in heaven, guarding the gates, this made room for God to send out their leader and Mary Magdalene and have them wage a war against Pandemonium with Lucifer. This was how, for a short time, Lucifer stopped listening to even me, because this was when he removed his horns.

 

As Aion, his plan was deceptive, he wanted the humans to live without doubt that, no matter what he did, they would still believe in God. Only that he would kill God and take his place using Magdalene and Chrono, but he knew, he knew, that Chrono would be hard to keep under his control, so when it became clear when he would no longer follow commands, Aion simply stole his horns and cast him off to die with Mary. He knew very well what Magdalene would do, and that, too, was a part of his brilliant plan.

 

It was a game of time, and time is something that Aion had nearly complete and total control over. So long as Chrono remained powerless, he would never be a problem. The task was to wait for Magdalene to be reborn with the seven Apostles, which Aion could then use to release Pandemonium, destroy the gates of heaven and God himself.

 

We must not allow ourselves to be fooled by God's illusions. God had a plan of his own, after all, and Aion would play right into it; God would use Aion to return the people back to faith and, when the time would be right, he would again use Emanuel, only this time, besides killing Magdalene and himself, he would remove Aion, Lucifer, from power.

 

I must applaud Adonai, he is a master of forming perfect plans; he threw enough of a fuss, sending the Holy Virgin Mary to protect both Magdalene and the Apostle Azmaria, using the Stigmata as a sign of warning to make Aion think twice… Lucifer never suspected that he was playing in God's favor all along. It was beautiful.

 

Which is why you are a sinner, Ewen; you realized God's plan much too late, and, had you been a good archangel, you would have -helped- Aion, instead of getting in his path, but then again, as an angel, you serve humanity as well as God, so who do you protect? The plan was in God's interests, not in the interests of man. Now, as you sit and slowly waste away, Aion has your wings, and what would he do with such things?

 

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

 

“Why, Ewen, he's going to use them to walk through the gates of heaven and destroy them from within. But first, be must reassemble the Seven Sins and the 11 Legion. He must make his unholy army before my part in this can be played.” Satan finished, chuckling pleasantly, as though he was being tickled by invisible hands.

 

Ewen discarded the Devil's glee and turned to face him, his hands gripping the bars of the cage. “What is your part then, Satan?”

 

“Well—“

 

Satan was interrupted by Aion, who walked in through the door casually, his eyes glaring at the King of Devils, though his voice tried to indicate that he did not actually mind. “Now we can't have that! That gives the ending away, we wouldn't want to spoil the show for our audience.” He said.

 

“Lucifer, Lucifer, he will guess eventually. Have you found them yet?”

 

“I found them. Every last one of them was easy to spot, so the matter is now getting them to remember their mission.” Aion said, strolling over to the cage, leaning down to look at Ewen in the eyes. “The proper trigger is needed, or they could simply regain their power, but their memories will be lost.” Ewen didn't flinch. Aion sighed, giving up, he pulled away from the cage and looked at Satan, “Did you have fun?” He asked.

 

“So you found the Seven, that's good. The Apostles, then? Yes, we had a good time…” Satan chattered, drinking grape juice from a wine glass to keep himself occupied, “I even planted a seed for you.”

 

“So the garden is in order. Wonderful.”

 

 

Chapter Five End

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~

 

 

If that wasn't confusing to the rest of you, I am amazed, because it took me forever to get all of it to not make my brain hurt. >_<

 

I hope that all of you noticed the double meaning to Aion and Satan's conversation. Sit tight, it all makes sense the further and deeper we go…

 

I hope. ^_^;;

 

Oh, for grits and shiggles, if at all possible, I would like everyone who has read this fic up to this point to leave a small review so that I can get a head count to see how many of you actually seem to like it/think it is worth reading. I'd hate to think that I'm the only one getting enjoyment out of this, you know? Anyway, just put in a small review, wave, say hello, whatever, and I'll just call it good. No muss, no fuss.

 

In peace, not pieces,

 

~Prinder