Digimon Fan Fiction ❯ Genesis ❯ Ascension Into Godhood ( Chapter 9 )

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters portrayed in this fic. You try to sue me you are going to be going through way to much effort to end up with nothing at all. So... don't sue me!

Is it just me or are these fics getting longer? I would like to be a writer some day and it looks like at this rate I will be up to a novels length in a few more fics. -_-' sorry about that. Well here ya go.. Chapter 9 of genesis... this is basically the end of my series. There will be a part 10 so I can close everything up. But the final battle is here... I tried to end this fic with bang for a final battle..

So hopefully you all won't be disappointed. This fic has been going on for so long that I find it hard to think of it as over. Granted I have stockpiled a few ideas for some taiora fics after it, but it's going to be weird leaving this storyline... sigh.. Guess I'm getting all sentimental over my first series... -__- well here ya go... chapter 9 of genesis... hope you enjoy

mail me at logan91235@aol.com

Genesis

9

By Logan

"Ascension Into Godhood"

Ken ran through the blackened corridors of the great cathedral. He was gritting his teeth as he clutched the stump which bled heavily from the severed arteries and splintered bone. In all his years as ruler he had never been struck, much less maimed by a sword. It hurt badly as he continued down the black and hellish corridors which lead to the main chamber. He was vaguely aware of the trail of blood he was leaving as he rounded a bend in the passageway. His thoughts were divided as if they were light scattered by a prism. One beam of his intellect lay on the absence of his hand. He had read of phantom limb syndrome before. He could still feel his hand, though as he glanced down it was still gone. Another beam was however locked on what lays ahead of him. That excited him to no end. After so much planning and years of wait... it was time.

Beyond that door it would come to pass. The dark ritual which he had envisioned. Which he had set into motion through the planning he had so devoted himself to. His true ambition would be made real here. It was within this dark room that loomed before him where he would fulfill his destiny. It was in this room that he would surpass all others. It was in that dank crypt of a cathedral where he would ascend.

He threw open the door with his good hand. It was painted in his own blood and thus left a print. upon the handle. His stump bled more freely now that there was no pressure upon the artery. He wasn't afraid now. He would bleed to death if he didn't keep it pinched, but that would come too late. Death was not able to keep the digimon emperor from his prize. As he passed the threshold he breathed in the pungent stench of the room. It assaulted his lungs in a way that did not cause him to recoil, in fact he breathed in the vague scent of the thing happily. It was the smell of change.

He looked across the darkened expanse to find oracle ready and waiting. It hung there in its nearly human form with the same soulless expression upon its pasty skin. She hung farther out as the feminine torso slithered outward in a vaguely worm-like waist. Her lips were of black and tarish bile which stretched to the aspect of what human lips would look like, yet they bore no expression. She studied ken with the faintly glimmering amber orbs which functioned as the demon's eyes. It looked at him with what could almost be perceived as inquisitiveness.

"You are not all here." it spoke through the symphony of voices. Ken growled.

"That bitch lady Kamiya cut off my hand!" he growled as he motioned to his blood-caked wrist.

"The ring had to be sacrificed... this method of relinquishing it shall suffice to your aspirations." she replied coldly.

"Well the extrication code would have worked just as well!" he snapped as he reached for the top button of his black coat.

"The loss of your hand is inconsequential." she replied matter-of-factly

ken ignored her as he peeled off the coat then cast it away. He moved to his undershirt and pulled that away also. He paused to ask her a question as he stripped himself of his cloths.

"Is he doing it?"

"My sensors indicate the phase is in the process of stabilization."

ken smiled as he continued stripping away his cloths. And once they were all cast aside in a disorganized pile he stretched contentedly. He looked down over his body; careful to avoid his stump of a hand. He studied each muscle of his nude frame as though it was the last time he would be able to do so. He bore a sudden sober calmness as he studied the aspect of the computer creature. She had been programed by him. Every move she made every gesture was there because he put it there. But now he wished he had uploaded something in it that made it more comforting. She looked at him with an insect-like stare. It was troubling and unnerving as she opened her arms for him in a manner that was not human in every way beyond the crude gestures of her pale arms.

Ken slowly made his way to her with several steps. He was not nervous about the nudity part of this, for that was mearly to limit possible variables to the process. It was not sexual as he walked into her arms but mearly part of the darkest ritual humanity would ever know. She closed her arms around him in what would mimic a motherly embrace to her sun. that was far off however. This thing could mimic the motions of a hug, but the comfort of it was far from there. Ken closed his eyes as he felt himself lifted off the ground by the rubbery arms of oracle's embrace. He was afraid as he was drawn deeper into the gaping jaws of the cancerous chrysalis from which the female form of oracle would emerge. He was pulled inside and then watched with anxiety as the slit closed over them. ken took a great gulp of air just as he was swallowed up in the shell of quivering flesh. Inside the flesh-filled hollow he struggled as the air he had previously tried to take in was used up. He thrashed violently within the thing as he felt his lungs burn. He was asphyxiating within the bowls of his creation. Minutes passed as his struggling slowed. He knew this was going to happen, but he was still human enough to instinctively fight it. His body would be dead, but the oracle would maintain enough charge in his brain to keep the mind alive. He would shed his body like a snake sheds skin in the ascension.

He became strangely calm as he felt his body die. It was as though his mind were pulled from the shell it had once posed dominion over. Now the puppet lay floating within the sea of flesh which had drowned him. The dead nervous tissue became vaguely aware of the thing's tendrils as they plunged into his dead chest. Probed inside his stopped heart. Explored the cavities within the dead emperor's body. They probed deeply into each aspect of his body with a sense of twisted curiosity. He was no longer afraid. Death kills fear just like it normally would take life. But that was no longer true. Ken was dead, and yet he lived. Through the electronic jolts of oracle his brain did not die. He stimulated the dead heart to spasm out the last blood he had into that fragile organ that holds all human thought. The oxygen was fading, yet through management it was able to preserve the organ.

And then, as the last fragment of the emperor hung there amidst a sea of blackened flesh the genesis wave hit. It washed over both oracle and himself as a great wave of strange impulses and new feelings. It began the process.

Ken's mind was now tethered to the dead boy and to the DNA compute simultaneously. He felt every sensation as bones splintered and re made themselves. His organs liquified and reshaped themselves to a form anew. No heart or lung existed in this mass of slithering flesh and twisting cable. They were new organs. New shapes. Pain had been reconfigured into the mind of the emperor as he felt his body fade away to a mass of metastasized flesh. It hurt more then he had ever known pain

to be capable of, yet though pain had returned fear was not present. He knew he could fear, because fear was a part of life. He did not however fear this change. He hungered for it. Longed for it. He felt his blood boil within these new veins as it underwent a chemical change that he had never known it capable of undergoing. His brain dissolved into the mass of flesh, yet his mind remained. And then as every cell of this new form was reconfigured his mind changed. It too merged into a mother-mass of its own kind. A mass composed of its brain coupled with the mind of oracle. The two intellects swirled together as they merged to some new consciousness. Some new existence. And then as the two became one it ended. Leaving only a mass of white flesh which hung there upon the Stoney cathedral floor.

Like a seed it began as a single fragment of life, yet it too began to grow. Much faster then any tree it became. From the grain of life it spawned new roots of white flesh which slithered across the floor of the cathedral and entombed the ken-thing inside the dank temple. The roots of this demon seed stretched outward through each stone as it felt its way through life. The tendrils broke out into miniature versions of themselves as they grappled to every stone of the building's interior. They continued to build off one another in a great web of slithering appendages. Then, they began to slither through the next room and the next until the entire cathedral was some living structure where the ascension would proceed uninterrupted.

The thing's mind was busy orchestrating the drastic actions of the roots, yet once that was done it's mind turned to the next thing it needed. Sustenance. And thus it sent it's tendrils outward through the soft soil underneath the cathedral floor. It knew what it wanted. Who it wanted. And with a horrific speed it was able to find the cadavers of some of the four. It found kale first, and then impaled her with the snake tendril, pulling her down through the floor and back to the demon mass. Where it consumed the last lingering traces of her soul from the tasty flesh that Sora had left behind. The next was Sephiroth, who was ripped violently from the pole in which he hung dead upon. The great heaving pull ripped his side out as the creature chose to pull him from the pole instead of guiding him over its top. His flesh was devoured and his soul absorbed. The creature found Dayus, yet when it tried to couple itself to his soul it shrieked outward and threw the corpse away from itself. The moral's soul was dead beyond dead. It was in torment never capable of being worded. Just to touch that mind nearly killed the creature. But thankfully it had enough from the first two lords. It had enough sustenance to proceed with the next step.

Its mind was now called to a new task. It needed a purpose. Yet it soon remembered that reason for existing. The faces of it's enemies became clear. Sora..... Taichi.... digimon... human... all were recalled with the new mind. It would take them. swallow them and absorb them. it would grow through them and become one with them. soon everything would become one with it. It could feel a fit of laughter inside itself, yet was disappointed by the silence. It became aware that it could not laugh because it had no lips, mouth, vocal chords, and lungs. It did not need them to survive, but it did to laugh. And thus it began to grow new faculties from the gelatinous mass of white flesh. Its will to be was what pushed it to grow outward and make itself in a new form. Ken's mind was now a part of it. And that mind had dominion over the form because oracle was not capable of emotion or life. The minds were made one and thus it was irrelevant to say one was ken's and one wasn't. It was the thing's mind now. And it used that mind to shape itself to the form it wanted. And then it grew.

Flesh twisted on flesh as the sinewy tendrils knitted themselves together to form of a more human shaped muscle. It gradually began to take a vague shape of more human features with the faint resemblance to arms and legs. The mound that would become its' head began to shape to a more familiar continence, then from that mound the flesh rippled outward in the creation of two spheres of mirrorlike appearance. They were perfectly smooth and devoid of all emotion. No retina or pupil, just the mirror reflection which shimmered with a cold demonic radiance in the blackened room. The eyes were devoid of humanity, of emotion, of soul. He could see beyond eyes, hear beyond ears, and feel in a way that no human could comprehend. The pain pulsed through him as he changed and became more and more... divine. His own words reverberated through his evolving mind. " Birth is always painful."

He found it strange to experience all these new sensations. To know that he could still feel hatred, pride, even irony. It gave him new enlightenments to what he was. But that line was still not clear. He knew what he wanted to be, but also knew that he was not there yet. He looked to the wall of slithering flesh, and with a thought the cancerous flesh parted, revealing the stained glass mosaic that hung in the far wall of the once great and beautiful church. The image was a vague one at first that troubled the emperor-thing. A man in white robes... accompanied by things that looked like angemon and angewomon. He was vague in the creature's memory but he was recalled.

beings of many names:

Allah, Messiah, RA, Yaway, Zeus, Buddha, Gaia, Odin, kali, beli mawr, Oberon, rugaba, ratu-mai-mbula, zanahary, quetzalcoata, the great spirit, he who has no name, shishigami, Seth, Moro, Satan, and Jehovah.

Oracle was made of thousands of human and digimon neural patterns. Each of them had merged together into a great matrix of thought. And among those thoughts were those of a being known as 'god.' almost all religions of the human world had some form of deity. A god... they were very different in both appearance and actions. They ranged from the benevolent god known as Jehovah to the malevolent fallen god of hell, Satan. As the creature searched the minds locked within the matrix of thought he came to a realization. As the thought pulsed through his becoming flesh; his face split open into bile-blackened lips. Beyond them he felt fangs descending as he took the shape he wanted for himself. The pain came again, but this time brought him pleasure. He licked over his fangs with a slithering black tongue.

"You failed them...." he hissed through the voices of the stolen souls that inhabited his matrix of data. His voice was both theirs, and not theirs. It was almost a hiss of reptilian origin, but no snake could make that sound. It seemed more of insect origin as he continued. As you would expect the hiss of a spider to sound like had the arachnid been fifty feet tall and still growing as ken now was.

"Do you hear me? You failed them god. You hide from them, trusted them to make the right choices... they were unable to do so! You failed them, and now I will rule. I will ascend beyond all that is!" his hands erupted into hooked talons.

"I will take them all from you! Every last one! I will destroy you god!!" the cathedral began to pulsate with the slithering flesh.

"I AM GOD!!!!!"

it roared with each of its voices in such a shriek that the stained glass window exploded outward in a rain of many colored glass shards. The scream of defiant rage against the gods of man turned to a roar which quaked the earth with trembling spasms. The cathedral's quivering suddenly turned more violent as it exploded outward in a rain of stone and glass, the womb of white slimly flesh was shed in that defiant roar then assimilated back into the entity that bore no name. It continued to howl out into the heavens as it's roots of white flesh stretched outward during the final phases of its ascension into godhood. The skies burned with blood red as he continued his ascension. Gone was the form of man... gone forever to the form of a demon god. The pain was throbbing as he stretched and changed. Perhaps the old god was trying to claw at him, stop him from his trek to becoming the true god of this new world. He roared outward in a feral howl that was laced with laughter at the pain. The old god was so weak if this sting was all he could do.

But as ken finally rose up to his full demonic glory a thought rippled through his mind. What if god had one weapon left... One agent in the last great battle against the coming of the data god.

Perhaps god had acted through ken in the creation of an archangel armed with the power of the god of the old. Genesis. Perhaps that angel of the old god of earth and the digital world would be their savior. Perhaps that savior had come in the form of a dark angel.

*************************

"What the hell was that!?" Davis gaped as the roar faded away lightly. His eyes were wide as he glanced to Sora and then to tai. They had dark looks on their faces as their hands found their weapons. Taichi drew his dark blade while sore grabbed a sub machine gun from izzy. They were still as a pair of statues as they listened. There was a moment more of silence before the call sounded again, this time closer. Davis turned to Kari only to find her standing by Takeru with a look of dread on her face as she tried to protect the wounded knight. She was afraid. No, terrified.

"Kari.. What is that?" he whispered in a voice of growing fear.

"Do you believe in god Davis?" she replied coldly without addressing the question directly.

"Yeah... I guess..."

"Then you believe in the devil...."

"Yeah.."

"Whatever that is.. It's something like that..."

Tai sprang to life as he quickly glanced to Sora, she nodded quickly as she turned to the crowd of people around them.

"All non combat certified dawn members guide the civilians to the fallback position. Move fast!

All dawn members with a combat ranking, I want you here now. Full flanking positions to the north. Sharp-shooters and any non close-quarter fighters take position on the southern field of the arena. Get into position quick!

Close combat fighters, I want you here with us now! Whatever the hell it is it's going to be coming at us from the north, I want you in melee format B. remember, wait for your captains to sound the attack. Captains.. You wait for my say-so. NOW!

Joe, Mimi you take some soldiers and get the wounded out of here!

Izzy tactical!

Kari, Davis, you're with me and Tai.

Cody.. I want you on the northern wall. We need to know what the hell this thing is. Once you see it, get the hell back here!

Yolie, get to the southern front, try to make radio contact with the digimon forces. I have the feeling we'll need them for this fight. Tell them to disregard the fleeing imperial forces and regroup here!

OK, EVERYONE MOVE!!!" Sora barked orders with a calm strength about her that Taichi was surprised by. He had known she could lead them if he was gone, but he wasn't aware she could lead with such skill. As she turned back to him the group of people that had congregated around her snapped to attention. Mimi quickly ushered the crowd of onlookers with her to aid the wounded in their fleeing of the current threat. Soldiers marched into position in the most dignified rendition of a scramble possible. They hid it well, but they were scared. Taichi could feel that. Sora on the other-hand had a strange calmness about her, sure she was afraid, but it was a different fear that held her. she was not stricken with terror by the demon that howled into the heavens and now began descending closer to them. instead her fear was rooted by being so close to free, then to lose it all. She was afraid for them.

Cody descended the Stoney ruins of the arena with a series of well placed jumps. He was by far the fastest of them all due to his years of training. As he reached the top his gaze fell out of the panoramic landscape of darkened buildings which were blackened by the fire. The blaze was roaring around the entire northern and western fronts leaving a forest of burnt skeletal trees and frameworks for some of the buildings who were crushed and devoured in the blaze. He felt these hot updrafts as they wafted over him in their upward climb to the darkened skies. His eyes were dry and burned in the black smoke-filled winds. By sheer force of will he continued to stare out into the vast horizon of fire and stone. There was nothing more then the darkened frames of buildings which were illuminated more heavily by the faint glow of the fire which seemed to stretch for miles. Nothing was looming within the artificial night. All was still save the roaring fires. Nothing moved. Nothing. He was about to turn, yet just as he was turning back to Sora he caught the faintest whisper of movement from the corner of his eye. He spun around to see it.

All was still.

He waited another minute - half convinced that what he had seen was more result of the hot wind on his eyes then it was of actual substance. Something moved again. It was low to the ground and appeared skiddiest. But it did move. It began moving again, either oblivious to the ninja's gaze or no longer fearing him. A building suddenly crumbled nearer to the thing. Pushed over. The stones from that toppled building danced angrily on the grounds as if they were Mexican jumping beans instead of stones. They shivered upon the ground for an instant, then leapt away as if flung by some invisible giant.

"What do you see Cody!?" Sora called.

He turned to her. "not sure... nothing visible as of yet." he called back

"Sora.. I am detecting movement out there." izzy warned with a grim tone.

"Where?" tai questioned

he looked up from the screen to meet the older boy's eyes.

"Everywhere..."

"CODY GET BACK HERE!" Sora cried out as she tightened her grip on the weapon.

"I can almost see it...." he muttered as he stared at the stones which were now quivering in fear. Whatever it was it was moving under the ground. It was everywhere. A sea of slithering stones that shuddered in terror at the coming of the black thing that glided under the sands. It was so close now, and Cody felt compelled to see what it was. To know what the demon thing was.

"CODY NOW!!!" Sora called with a hint of fear as she cast a quick glance to tai. He was ready to run for Cody, scoop him up and run like hell. They could feel the thing now. It was under them, all around them. the earth was shuddering in dark and slow movements that were perceived as breaths. The stones that had broken off of the coliseum now shivered like the other stones had before. It was closer now. Getting closer. Surrounding them. cutting them off within it's hidden coils.

"CODY?!?"

It appeared. It lashed out in several tentacles that lunged up from the shadows of the stone at Cody. His eyes widened in horror as he shrieked out in terror at the thing that he caught the faintest glimpse of as it tried to seize him. He was so swallowed by panic that he could only think to do one thing. He screamed.

Just as the tentacles were about to make contact a new creature leapt forward from the glowing wall of fire. It came at Cody fast. It was half running and half flying as it leapt into the air with a great reptilian roar. Its blush black flesh was a dark blur to him as he felt the new thing make contact. It was fast and strong as the boy felt himself seized in a pair of scaly claws that almost burned him. Whatever the thing was it had been hiding within the fire. Now it had him in its clutches and before the boy could react he felt himself pulled with the thing into the air. He wasn't sure if he was flying or jumping, just that the ground he had stood upon was now alive with sickly white flesh that squirmed on it like a plait of nightcrawlers. They were changing even as they first made contact with the stone, sensing there was no longer any flesh standing upon the Stoney outcrop. The tendrils of white fleshy worms began to grow together in a great clawed hand.

He landed several feet behind tai and Sora with a catlike grace that mystified the young boy. He was afraid. Now he clutched the demon that had saved him from that white flesh. He didn't open his eyes for fear he would see a set of fangs close over him. That the strange creature was not in fact a secret benefactor, but instead another animal that wanted to eat the boy first. The fangs didn't come. He felt leathery wings close over him in a strange embrace as a thick reptilian snout nuzzled the side of his face. It was holding him to itself with a strange paternal feel. He opened his eyes to find himself staring into a pair of glowing amber eyes.

Davis paled. "Grendle....."

The wings opened wide as the arms deposited Cody upon the ground. Safe. Grendle stood upright with a look of defiant power upon him. He was bigger then the data files had indicated. He glanced down at Cody and then to the soldiers who had surrounded him. He bore his fangs hatefully as he hissed at them. they drew back. He glanced at Sora who was staring at him with un-surety as to his loyalties.

Taichi was the one to walk up to him. Grendle hissed. Taichi smiled. Then with a quick gesture opened his hand to him. Some of the soldiers trained a weapon on the dragon's skull knowing full well that tai's arm could be bitten off with no more then a moment's delay.

Grendle chuckled with a reptilian hiss as he took the hand.

"Grandpa? You're... you're you?" Cody staggered with the words.

"It would sssseem I am unable to join my own kind... too human." he rasped out as he helped Cody to his feet.

Their attention suddenly returned to the thing. It had formed a great white taloned hand upon the ground where once the assassin had stood. Now that hand was gone, vanished away. But it was still here. The stones were begging to tremble more fiercely.

"What is that thing!?" Davis gaped.

"Isn't it obvious..." Kari stated darkly.

"No it isn't... enlighten those of us who cannot see the future ok?" he snapped.

"It's my brother." tai said blankly as he stared at the trembling stones..

"But ken wasn't like that thing... he did something to himself then...." Sora trailed off as Grendle spoke.

"I wassss the emperor'sssss bodyguard... though he never knew it, I did follow him all the time. Even when he didn't want me there.

Ken had a computer that wassss alive. Made of living tisssssue. It was able to know thingssss. Thingsss that would happen if he did certain thingssss."

"Probabilities." izzy said blankly

"He called it oracle. This thing ssssmellssss like both that computer and himself."

"Taichi... you said genesis was the power of creation. The power that lets digimon digivolve." he paused.

"What if the second phase was somehow able to digivolve him. Like a 'Jogress' or DNA digivolve if you will. Something that allowed him to merge with this oracle."

"It's my fault...." tai whispered softly as he watched the shivering stones.

"Our fault..." Sora replied softly

the silence of the moment was broken by TK as he snarled at joe with his sword pointed directly at the young physician's face. Joe looked at him with both shock and worry as the weapon remained trained upon him.

"What's going on here!?" Sora growled.

"TK refuses to be evacuated with the rest of the wounded" joe replied.

"Please Sora.. I have to help." he begged.

"What can you do like this TK? You can barley hold that sword. Much less use it."

"Please.. Just give me a gun. I have to see this through to the end." he whispered as Kari stood next to him, then turned to Sora.

"Please... let him do this." she said softly.

Sora stared at the two for a moment before casting a quick glance to Taichi. He was staring through them with the black eyes of the genesis. A look of stone and determination hung over his features as he met his sister's gaze.

"Give the kid a weapon. Prop him up against the southern wall." he ordered, Sora motioned to two of the soldiers authorizing Taichi's command.

"TK... we won't be looking out for you. If you die, it's your choice." he replied gravely as the young boy nodded in agreement.

"Taichi... it's time." Kari spoke in a low and spectral voice as here eyes filled with silvery light.

As the words left her mouth it began. The stones which had once trembled in fear now were spasming in seizure as the ground screamed in a mixture of horror and agony. With an explosion of stone and debris the ground on the northern front exploded outward in a rain of stone and sand. Several of the men shrieked in horror as the demon descended upon them. it rose up from a nest of snake tendrils which writhed and wiggled around the mass of solidifying white flesh. It knitted itself together before them as it took the shape of a somewhat human torso. It was far from that of a man however. The thing's center was marked by a large translucent lens of glasslike substance. Beyond that window of clear flesh pulsated a thing of blackish red meat. It may have been a heart, but it didn't look like any organ that had ever been witnessed in any anatomical chart ever drawn. With each pulse its solidity changed from a solid organ to a black pool of tarish bile.

Kari's eyes widened as she saw the thing take a more intimidating posture as it would seem bones took to a solid form. It was human in some aspects but utterly alien in others. It had a vast assortment of blackened spines on various portions of his armor skin which was the color of curtled milk. It was the tone of paste or plaster cast into the form of a imposing god of death and plague. It's nude frame was well defined with muscle, yet the muscle was lost to its grim aspect.

Its arms were growing outward from that torso as stumps, yet after they had vastly exceeded the perportune of human limbs the stumps exploded outward. From the nubs of flesh five claws erupted. They were long and white. Far longer then the normal fingers of a man, each of the skeletal digits was adorned with a wicked claw that reached far and hooked as the talons of bird of prey. But these were not the hands of a bird man. They were the hands of a demon.

It roared outward in a chorus of voices which caused many of the soldiers to cover their ears. It cried out with rage and hate in a all consuming screech of darkened ferocity. The sound was mingled with that of bones as they popped into place and knitted themselves to flesh. The thing was somewhat insect like as it continued to stretch out more and more. The demonic claws stretched out in a fearsome display that horrifically was not a threat and more a stretch. The head grew next. It was the face they recalled as that of ken. Though it bore no great emotion as it gradually took form. It had long hair, though not hair as we know it. It had a hood like that of a cobra composed of the same flesh that covered the rest of his body. The flesh had formed itself to appear as hair before turning to a solid concrete-like mass. The eyes opened slowly to reveal mirrors in the shape of spheres. It gazed down on them malevolently as its newly formed lips curled up in a deep and hellish grin.

The thing's waist was stretched long to the point where the legs faded into the trunk of a great tree of entangled flesh and cable. It seemed to grow up from the earth as a massive plant with the emperor's twisted incarnation as a star which would sit upon the highest bow of a Christmas tree. It appeared for a moment that the thing would be stationary. Bound to the earth with the same force that holds an oak to the hillside in which it grew. This was sadly not the case as the trunk of the hellish tree turned to the coils of a serpent so large that it could swallow the earth as an egg. It continued to grow upward and bigger until it looked ready to bridge the gap into heaven; hen tear it down. It howled out into the red sky with a demonic roar that strangely pulled upon them all. Called to them with the same mournful allure of a lone wolf as it howls out into the night.

"Dear god...." Kari gasped as she stared up at the thing that now loomed before them in its silent inquiry to them all.

"Greetings...." it spoke in the voices of a sea of men and women and digimon, yet the voice of ken appeared most distinguishable from the mass.

Taichi stared at in horror as he painfully uttered the one word that was born of both sorrow and disgust. "Brother?"

"Hello Taichi... brother." it chorused out without the use of its lips.

"What have you done to yourself?"

"Ascended...."

"To this? A demon?"

"Demon? Heh... I am a god now." it scoffed.

"A.. God?..." Kari gaped.

It drew its claws to the heavens which began to swirl as a maelstrom of black clouds and red skies. The effect stretched across the horizon as all creation began to tremble before the god of the digital. Thunder screamed in the skies as the thing rose up higher still into the skies.

" THE GOD!"

"I was born of data and flesh. United as one. I am the god of all gods, for gods are given power by men. By their faith in those gods. Man made god for purpose. He failed them all! I am a god of my own creation. A god of all things.. Of life and death. Of organic and inorganic." he snarled into the heavens with a defiant roar that caused the skies to scream with thunder.

"YOU ARE NOT GOD!" Taichi roared in a voice that dwarfed the god's with a thunderous roar. All eyes fell upon him with a sudden fear as his eyes burned with black fire. The long chestnut hair now danced with demonic fury in hot winds that swirled against him. His body seemed to radiate with a dark power that seemed more from hell's deepest pit then from heaven's origin.

"All that is shall be one with me brother. All the life of this world shall be assimilated!!" he roared.

"Assimilated?" Sora questioned meekly.

The god suddenly exploded with tendrils of the same white flesh that streaked outward upon them. Sora spun into action as she and izzy each drew up their machine-guns. They begin showering rounds of hot ammunition upon the wall of tendrils which much to their relief did cut through the tendrils. As a tentacle was cleaved from the mother mass it fell to the earth with a sudden lack of life. They fizzled away into a pool of milky fluid where once they had wriggled. However as each of the tendrils was cleaved several more exploded outward from the god. Its whole body seemed alive with motion as thousands of tendrils began ejecting outward. The burning dawn countered with more fire. It lasted like that for several minutes until one of the tentacles made contact with a young soldier's leg. It seized him quickly and pulled him up from the ground and back to the mother-mass. He screamed in horror as the tendril melded into his flesh. He spasmed for only a moment before his eyes clouded with cataracts and the breath left his lungs. Sora stared in horror as his body began to shrivel in the thing's touch before the bone dissolved to fluid and was consumed within the thing. With less then a moment's elapse all that was left of the young soldier was a pile of discarded cloths and a weapon which fell to the floor without firing a shot. They stared in horror as the tendrils re-joined the thing.

"He is a part of me now. His body and soul are now one with mine. Such will be the fate of all life on this planet. It shall be one with me. It shall become a part of me and assimilated into the matrix of life which flows within me.

Now tell me... who's next?" Sora stepped forward with a snarl of rage as she begin unloading a spread of fire into the creature's torso and head. It didn't appear phased even as the rounds of machine-gun fire obliterated all that once was a face. Sora cried out in hate as the thing's skull was collapsed inward on itself. The weapon screamed in her hands as izzy followed her lead and began unloading shells into the creature. After several minutes of continuous fire the two stopped and stared at the god of data. It's head had been blown away and it's chest was hollowed out by fire. Yet the moment the fire had subsided the bone and flesh began to rebuild itself with frightening speed. With less then a minute's delay the thing was whole again.

"come to me Taichi... join with me. Be one."

"Never!"

"You were made to do this tai.. To be one with me. Brother in blood and soul."

"NO!"

"Sora will be a part of me.. And once you join inside you will be a part of her too. Not just joined in body, but merged in soul. In essence!" the creature tempted.

"I won't let you take her!"

"Tai.. How can you fight me. I made you for this.

Tell me you don't feel the need to do this with me."

Tai began walking forward to him.

"The freedom of becoming......"

he drew closer despite the horrified glances of Sora and the others.

" to answer the call you have been hearing inside your soul...."

He was close enough to touch the god of data as it lowered itself to him.

"To be one, united..."

They were now face to face. Sora screamed his name in horror as he stared into the mirror eyes of the god.

"You can't resist me brother...

my blood flows through your veins!!!"

Tai stared into his brother's eyes as he gingerly touched the pale face. It was cold to the touch, could like death. He smiled sadly to Sora who was staring at him in terror. He opened his mouth to address his brother.

"SO DOES MINE!!!!"

Taichi screamed into the thing's face as he took hold of the god's head and summoned the force of the genesis. Ken tried to pull back, only to find he was too slow. As the words exploded from tai's lips his hands erupted with a black beam of light which screamed as it tore through the god's head. White flesh splattered against the floor as a rain of milky fluid that had once been skull and flesh. It screamed through the voices of each of its captive souls as the twin beams moved from Taichi's hands down the demon's torso. It shrieked in pain as it felt the black fire cut it down to the waist. The creature's insides had no organs that were recognizable. The thing's insides slithered and churned as it began to wriggle upon the floor. It was bleeding black blood as it's body lashed out violently. Taichi was caught in the mid-section by the creature's hand. The impact threw him back several feet where he tumbled at Sora's side. She threw her arms around him as he spit up blood. The thing hit hard enough to crack ribs.

They glanced up at it with fear as the god of data wriggled on the ground, it was split in half for part of the way, yet it was still alive. Already it had began the task of regenerating itself. Sora suddenly called out the order to attack as Taichi staggered to his feet. The genesis was already repairing the damage to his ribs. The burning dawn sprung to action with a chorus of gunfire and war cries as they charged the demon god. He was almost whole as they met him. Swords slashed deep gashes in the white flesh, yet it was starting to regenerate faster each time it was cleaved. The newly created god was beginning to grow stronger. The revelation hit tai like a wave of nausea as the thing became more and more capable of using the abilities of this new frame.

Sora unloaded another round of fire into the writhing mass of putrefied flesh. It pitched over lightly, but the injuries were far less notable this time. The wounds were healing at a far more elevated speed. Sora stared at the thing with a sudden wave of fear. It was a god. She had seen many things in her life, many powerful digimon and dangerous men... but this thing seemed to dwarf all other evils of both digital and human origins. She believed it quite possible to be a god... at least until she could classify it as less then that pinnacle.

How often do you see a god brought down by a human? Is it even possible? Sure genesis was perhaps capable of wounding ken. Maybe Kari's sorcery could strike a lasting blow also.. But swords, guns? What could they do against a fledgling god. Sora looked to the burning dawn with a growing sense of urgency. The thing was getting faster in its' regeneration. It was becoming more liquid with the attacks. It would meld itself back together faster and faster. It was elevating to the point a bullet would simply ripple within its' white flesh and vanish within. They would have to keep it down. They couldn't allow it the tine to regenerate to the level of being intact. But what would that honestly serve? Delaying the thing. If it truly was a god then they were laboring for a goal no more feasible then pushing back the sea with no more then your cupped hands. She turned to tai.

"Is he a real god?" she asked with a sudden haste.

"I wouldn't build any temples to him, but I have been hit by a lot of very bad things. This guy has officially beat that saurian in the arena." he shook his head slowly as he un-blurred his vision. "If there is anything godlike about him it would be his right hook." he joked grimly more on reflex to the seriousness of the happenings.

"Sora... we can't fall back. Can't give it a chance to get any stronger... No running from this thing." he cut her off sadly as he cast a quick glance to the burning dawn soldiers. They were fighting hard, but with each passing moment the writhing -split- god was rejoining. Grendle snarled with a sudden snake 'hiss' as he leapt upon the thing. His claws had stretched outward like a cat's can extend - though his were capable of much greater contortion. He began swiping at the god's treelike roots. With fast and violent ripping gashes. He screamed in a rage as he began biting too. Some of the burning dawn soldiers paled as they watched his jaws rip out huge chunks of white flesh then regurgitate it out before repeating the process again. His claws were ripping great gobs of the liquefying flesh away also. It seemed as though each piece of the things' body was alive only while connected to the whole. Once it was separated from the core of the creature it would turn to some putrefied puddle of white fluid that had once been flesh. The thing was snarling back at Grendle, not through it's lips ( blown off with the rest of its skull) but through the thing's body itself. It was as though every cell of its body could be called upon as a speaker on a stereo.

Grendle had clawed his way through half of the split left side. It was obvious he had caught on to the thing's only apparent weakness. Though it was a small and minute weakness at that. If you cut a part of the thing's body off the part you cut off would die. As before stated, Small weakness. That was not even a possible cure all. The thing may be able to generate new flesh. In that case chopping off an arm would do no good. But it was all they could think to do. Grendle was using his savage strength in Tandom with the mind of a planner. His rage was directed as opposed to blind.

Yet as his claws dug deeper into the wriggling mass of demonic flesh the creature known as ken snapped outward at him.

From the twisted attachment of flesh which had been Grendle's goal to separate from the god a clawed hand erupted outward with a suddenness that blind sided the preoccupied saurian. He yelped suddenly as he felt himself both ripped away and also seized within a tight grip. The hand was far bigger then he, and thus was able to close around him with little effort. It squeezed. Grendle shrieked.

"GRANDPA!" Cody choked as he watched the last fragment of his grandfather seized within the clutches of the newly born hand. He felt the pain as it rippled through his tough hide. The pressure was mounting to the inevitable point where his thick ribs would splinter and crack. The soldiers of the dawn had been joined by that of the empire in a strange truce. Perhaps they were now fighting for redemption in the eyes of their fellow man when the sovereign they had once served now hung forward in demonic glory. His goals clear. More likely however it was that they feared this incarnation of some digital equivalent of Satan. They attacked along with the burning dawn, yet they were ill-matched to deal with the thing much as the dawn was. Now all soldiers of both origins turned and stared as the fearsome dragon was now wrenched from the earth and held aloft in a crushing grip which mirrored the claws of fear and shock which held them tightly.

Sora studied the situation for a moment before choosing mercy over vengeance on the former lord. She used the sudden relative silence to call out to them. She yelled with all her lungs and put all her strength to projecting the words with an air of calmness as well as a great disciple

"Everyone! Take aim on his arm. Fire a wide spread directly into the joint of his forearm, we need to cut the damned thing off!" as she spoke the words were accepted readily by her soldiers and followed by those clad in the empire's insignia. They fired together in a sudden chorus of automatic weapon's fire. It sprayed the thing's arm with an explosion of white fluid and flesh which liquified upon separation. The thing's arm was hanging by a thread of tendon when Sora fired the final three shots with such accuracy that the thing was cut away with the first slug. The arm fell - complete with Grendle- to the earth below. It thudded upon the ground as the dragon suddenly summoned new strength. He roared as he bit down over the skeletal white fingers which were softening to fluid. The bite was enough to crunch through liquify hollow bone and sever white flesh.

Cody's eyes burned with hate as he suddenly leapt forward. With a series of fast jumps he was to the creature, then with a speed and precision never quite distinguishable as that of a normal human he began running along the thing's mass as though it were a slithering rode. As he ran he chopped at it. Cutting tendrils and soft skin as he ran up the slumped over torso. He chopped off a part of the arm and then cut a quarter through the forming neck on the right half of the white mass. He was on the verge of finishing the cut just as the ground he stood on came alive and threw him off like a toy. He was propelled airborne for a time as the thing's body erupted in a wall of worm tendrils which wriggled as they jetted out to claim him. He arranged himself for a controlled landing as he relied on fate to save him from assimilation. Fate came in the form of genesis.

Taichi leapt through the tendrils with his sword outward. It cut through a portion of them effortlessly yet was snagged by the next dozen. Sora opened fire on the mass and was able to free him. He landed at the thing's base with some loss of balance, but only enough to wobble him as he evaded a new set of tentacles. He jumped left as izzy suddenly broke right. The tech officer was fast as he allowed the tendrils to veer more closely to another moral of organic food. He smiled just as the things were on the verge of taking him. Then with a quick toss he sent several blackened spheres into the thing's writhing gullet formed of the tendrils which swallowed up the grenades with no thought to what they were. He chuckled softly as he leapt to the left dodging one of the serpentine appendages.

"Upload this." he smirked as the grenades exploded with a sudden burst of flame and electrical current. The tendrils were blown off in a splash of black tarish blood and white murky fluid. The thing pitched backwards away from him as it twisted in a deep and guttural shriek. As Taichi landed several feet to the left of him he couldn't suppress a smile to the smug strength that the boy he had once called friend now wore.

"Stupid move techno boy." he quipped.

"I take after my leader I guess."

"I'm not your leader anymore"

"Didn't mean you... Sora has become more like you every day." he grinned.

"God help us all" he smirked as he turned to the thing. It was at bay, bleeding and the regeneration was held at bay by the calculated and planned out actions of each of the soldiers. Maybe they had a chance after all. The thing erupted upward again with a suddenness that pushed tai from his thoughts. More tendrils, much more. They came at them like a tidal wave of white slithering flesh. It hissed at them again.

The moment was shattered by a sudden explosion of burning light. It incinerated the tendrils with a sudden flash of golden light. The thing shrieked once more as the fallout of the blast eradicated more of the massive demon god. Taichi spun his head to the source only to find the form of war-greymon in shimmering silver armor. He stared down at the thing with a certain element of disgust, yet as he turned to Taichi his eyes widened lightly. He stared at the resurrected form for a time. Their eyes meeting in a silent examination of the other. Old friends... fellow warriors... family reunited...

Taichi smiled darkly as he leapt to his ex-partner's side. The digimon held out a strong clawed arm to act as a support for tai as he landed on the limb. They nodded in union as war-greymon offered a clawed hand to tai. The older boy smiled softly as he took the single claw in his hands.

There was a world of hate around them. But as the two stood together as they once had. There was also love.

"I didn't know you human's could be re-born like we digimon are in primary village." he stated in his deep and guttural voice.

"I guess this was a rare circumstance. You ready to do it like we did in the old days?"

"Definitely... but I brought a few friends... seems we all are in the mood for a little action." he gestured behind him where there waited an army of fully digivolved digimon. Each was staring intently upon war greymon as their leader in these times of trouble. Taichi awed at them for the first time as he recognized the partnered digimon to the digidestined. But the sheer numbers of this army constituted seemingly thousands of digimon each ready for a fight for the last traces of the digital and human. Each ready to take back the world they shared with man. To push back the night. They were a sea of digimon. Each unique and powerful as they massed together in a sea of claws and wings. The skies were darkened with the winged brethren to the ground based digimon. But as Taichi stared at the procession of digimon he noted new faces. Saurians now stood with them. Clan warriors growled ferally as they looked to the bubbling form that was reshaping itself. The humans marched to join the procession. Each wore a look of strength and determination that transcended species and genre. It was a look shared by all life as it looked to the god of data that looked to end all life within itself. He was moved as he stared at the faces of old friends intermingled with faces of both Imperial soldiers and completely alien faces. Taichi gave a smirk as he turned to Sora who now stood atop phoenixmon's multi-plumed back.

"Day of destiny?" she muttered as she stared into his deep and stormy eyes.

He smiled.

"What about it brother!?!" he yelled. "Ready to pay for your crimes?!?"

in response to Taichi's words the demon mass exploded upward. It had healed completely in the brief intermission. Now it stood before them with a almost human expression on its pasty face. The mirror eyes gleamed down on them as it too them in. Studied them. It shrieked as it stretched farther skyward. The low hanging clouds now were pushed aside as it roared in a insect hiss of rage spoken through the voices of the damned souls locked within. It threw its arms out to its sides. As they moved the claws extended to a more demonic elongation. The barbs on its body jetted out more as the thing became far more menacing in appearance. It's eyes seemed to focus on them all as it snarled in ken's voice.

"This is my destiny! All life shall become me. I shall be salvation to all existence within myself." he glowered upon them.

"The life on this planet is failing to achieve its destiny. You all are! I shall grant you redemption in me! I am the one true perfect life. Thus by absorbing you I will cleanse your faults within myself. All shall be made clean as you join me in perfection. All life shall be one. United. Make ready your souls children of the old. I have come fore your souls!"

"Don't we have a choice in this 'evolution' bastard?" Sora snarled up to him.

"No.."

*************************

Kari stared into the glowing light that seemed to swallow her up. Her mind was swelling with a new line of thought as she began to speak. Their eyes fell upon her as she floated upon the ground on currents of translucent light which held her several feet aloft. Her eyes were white as she allowed the voice to speak both to her and through her. The soft tendrils of chestnut brown hair glided around her as a cloak of flowing tendrils. TK stared at her with a strange compelling desire to hold her. All were staring at her, even the demon god looked upon her with silence as he witnessed the power she held within. A power that he must classify, then destroy. But still, he listened.

"I am the first...." she spoke through her phantom-like voice.

"The first what?" Sora asked.

"First of the lineage of the divine. The first sorceress."

"Why are you speaking through Kari?!?" TK chirped with a hint of fear in his soft voice.

"I am speaking through my child. For I am her mother. Though I did not bear her physically she is no less the child of the sorceress. I speak through her as a means of communication to you, children of Eden."

"Eden?"

"I will explain all to you now as you stand upon the threshold of this moment in history. This world is now both digital and organic. As are you.. all life has been restored. Once in the beginning there was one world. A paradise. All life was both digital and organic. As it was meant to be. It was called Eden. But due to the evilness of life it was split in two halves. One was the earth, the other the digital world. These two were never meant to be divided, and thus the planet cried out in agony while it remained divided. It has been restored through the actions of the chosen." she spoke softly as the light filtered around them.

"Digidestined?"

"Somewhat. There is a god of the earth and once there was one of the digital world. As the digital world shadowed the human world there once was a god of the digital world. He was divided into three halves by the evils of the digital world. The constant siege of wars which had ravaged the digital earth for far longer then man was capable of war bred hatred. And hate can kill all things. Especially a god of love and peace. The digital god was split by this hate. Divided into himself."

"But.. Why wasn't the earth's god destroyed like that. Or was he? We have war here on our world too." TK spoke softly as he regarded the sorceress incarnation.

" yes, you still have a god of your world, though the hate has weakened him to a whisper. He is eternal, yet vulnerable also. The digimon have existed far longer then the human race. They had more time to destroy their god. Though I should mention humans tend to hate more then digimon. At this rate your god will fall to hatred also." she digressed.

"As I was saying... the god of the digital world was divided in three halves. I am unable to comprehend fully what these halves truly are because I am not a god myself. The sorceress is however close enough to come closer to comprehension.

Think of the three as the day, the night, and the twilight. The three halves of god.

The day represents the goodness. The act of love and creation. The mercy of god. Basically it's all the love he had for the digimon and the digital world.

The night is his darker side. The destroyer. The side of god that smites the evils and sins of existence. This is the side that judges the guilty and dispenses justice to them...

The final is the most important of the three. Twilight. It is the moment where both day and night exist between eachother. It is the balance of the two. This fragment of god is the tie that binds the good and evil in harmony. The light cannot exist without the dark. But they will war against one another without the balance.

These three halves of the digital god were divided from one another and given new form. They were sent to the earth. Given the form of human life. Each of the fragments was made human. Born as a human. Each of these three would play a part in the final union of all existence. The re-creation of harmony."

Sora's eyes widened in shock as she spoke with a soft voice of soft quivering words.

"Three humans were made from parts of a god?"

"You above all others would know that Sora. You are one of the fragments." Sora's eyes widened in shock as the faces of the digidestined fell upon her. She stared at the entity that was both Kari and not Kari.

"I'm a part of a god?"

"Yes. You are the fragment of day. A piece of the love god holds for all his children. The one you know as ken is also one of the three. He is the fragment of night. The darkness. The side of god that destroys annihilates. And the final piece of the lost god is." she was cut off by tai as he spoke sharply to her.

"Me right.. I'm the twilight?" he looked ill as he studied his hands with a sense of disbelief.

They looked so human. He was on the verge of arguing his place in this destiny. He could see ken was the darkness, that part had always been a part of him. And Sora was the most kind and loving of them all.. She could fit as the day. But he had a serious doubt there was enough good in him to constitute a balance between good and evil.

"Taichi... look at your life. You are the balance between good and evil. You love Sora. She is the woman you bear a bond too that death could never sever. A bond so powerful that it transcended all things, even before your resurrection.

You also love ken. He is your brother. You love him still, inspite of all the evil he has done, you still want him to be your brother.

Taichi. You are the essence of a balance between love and hate. Good and evil. Light and dark. You walk that road through life. That is why it was destined for you to receive the power of the gods. The power you know as genesis. It was given to you so you can make right all that the warring two have done. Without you to act as the balance between them there will only be evil in this world.

All life depends on you Taichi Kamiya. If you can calm the storm of hatred that now rages then there is a hope for this world. Through you there shall be a balance of good and evil. The god of the digital world is gone.. He can never be reborn from the three, even if they join together in unity he is gone. But you are, in a way, demigods now. You have the power to save this world from evil. From hate. From a future without hope." she spoke gravely as she studied him through the eyes of his sister.

"How could I bring peace to this.. I have never been a peace maker.. All I do is kill what is trying to kill us. What can I do?" he replied meekly as he looked at the towering demon god.

"It is not my place to know. All I can say is that this artificial god will bring an end to all balance. He is the night fragment, he will always be that. If all life becomes one with him there shall be no future. God will be destroyed as all life becomes a part of the darkness. God will not fight for you. The gods of mankind are eternal. They simply change. They could never be destroyed. The god of the digital was simply divided... not destroyed. Though god may be so omnipotent as to not care about his own form... he is interested in this fight.

Mankind has a dark history of abandoning good for evil. Evil is easier to achieve, also its rode has more easily seen rewards. This battle will show the true nature of goodness. It will show if good has the power to fight evil. If mankind are worthy to survive. Consider this a test Taichi.... who's side will you fight on? The side of your lover or your brother. Good or evil. And can you achieve the destiny? This is the test tai... can you lead these people to peace." the light around Kari began to fade as she slumped to the ground with the sorceress' final words: "It has begun..."

the light flickered and then died away as Kari was returned to consciousness. She could recall the words spoken through her. the implication of those words. The three fragments of the digital god now were at war with each other in a battle that exceeded all previous wars. The three were above mankind, beyond it. Each of these fragments was ruled by the shard of godhood. In some chaotic way it made sense. Ken had always bore a darkness, a cruel strength that was commonly known to them through his acts of war against mankind. He was a creature who's core was wrath.

Sora was always the lightest of them. she bore a great and overpowering love for all things that mirrored outward from the jagged remnant of the nameless god of the digital earth. She was goodness given human form. and as Kari took in the flaming hair and soft skin of the girl she had known since childhood she was astonished that she hadn't considered the possibility that Sora's heart was donated by a benevolent god. It seemed so... believable.

Tai was what frightened her most. She feared him beyond the pale demon god ken had ascended to. Taichi was different then him. He was both good and evil pushed to such heights that his actions could rain down upon them as meteors thrown from the heavens. His heart was divided by a war that was begun with no end. That terrified her. he was the most powerful weapon ever to exist, and he existed as a wildcard. He was capable of siding with evil just as well as he was with good. And that choice may not be one they would recognize right off. The road of love and hate was a rode often diverged upon by mortal feet. Could Taichi be truly responsible for the fate of this world. Could he truly be held accountable for the balance of good and evil. And the question resounded further within her mind and heart. To which side would he belong?

Their eyes were upon him with looks of question. He was expected to lead them. to lead humanity to these new ideals of peace and balance between the two forces that existed within all humanity. He looked back on them with the expression of utter silence. He didn't let his gaze fall on Sora, for he knew he would be able to offer any solace. She had just learned what Taichi had always felt about himself. He was not one of them. not human. She had thrived as a human, though she was far from human. He had always known he wasn't one of them. a subtle feeling. Like being vaguely aware of a dream as you interact with the shadows of thought in your sleep. He knew there was more to him. Something that was beyond the species he blended into. He longed for humanity, but knew it was beyond him. He knew what he was. And what he must now do.

With a swift jump from war-greymon's arm he was able to land between the two opposing forces. The slithering mass of white flesh glowered down upon him with a darkness that flowed through every neuron in the twisted shell of wriggling tendrils. The thing was getting more hideous with each moment. It seemed to revel in the fear it could generate through alterations to its body. It seemed to prefer a more human appearance on the upper body, though that occasionally rippled with change as the creature's patience dwindled. It wanted to achieve its goal. That goal was not the restoration of balance. It was not a mission of peace. It was a mission of ascension achieved by consuming all life into the matrix of white flesh.

"You heard her! Brother, if we end this war now we can achieve the destiny we were meant to achieve. If you proceed in your plan to absorb all life we will be forced to stop you." his voice was darkened considerably to a level that Sora could barley consider. Her world was crashing around her as she stood before the burning dawn. She wasn't real... never was... it hurt her to think of herself as imitation human. Her mother was never really hers. She was not bound by blood to that woman, she was mearly created within her and made in the image of a child Debra Takenouchi would have had at one point in her life. She wasn't real. It was all a lie. But as she looked back over them her heart hardened to self-pity. She was not human, but they were. They were truly real. Truly meant to live in peace. She could do this for them. fight for them so the real humans could flourish in this life that they were so blessed to receive.

"I WILL NEVER SURRENDER TO YOU!! MY PLACE IN GODHOOD SHALL NOT BE DENIED!!!" the creature roared as it became clear the war was beginning. She understood why the fragment of ken clung to godhood so tightly. Perhaps he longed for the past existence as a god. The power that truly only came from a god and could find no substitute as a man. He would cling to the demonic incarnation without relinquishing it. He would not give up this place, this power. And thus Taichi would be called upon by fate to make right all that was wrong.

Taichi turned to the armies of good with a look of detachment as he spoke two words in a voice devoid of mercy and kindness. It would seem the darker side of him was now in control.

"Kill it..."

As the words left his mouth each of the digimon roared out in a battle cry that merged together in a great wave of rage. The buildings trembled violently as the digimon roared outward with a tide of sonic wrath which reverberated through the rib-cages of the humans. The living god of demonic flesh seemed aroused by this call of wrath as he too chorused out in an equally ferocious hiss of a roar. The thing's shriek clashed against the roars of the digimon in one great clash of sonics. The human bystanders were forced to cover their ears in agony as the sound grew louder and more enraged it was almost a relief when the digimon charged it for that ended the roars.

They clashed in a massive tide of fire and explosion as Tera-force exploded outward in shards of golden energy. The fires swelled as Sora's original digimon - phoenixmon - released a wave of ruby flame upon the thing. The crimson flame attack was devastatingly destructive to all living tissue. As it collided with the demon god the flames exploded upon him. They began burning through the creature's flesh, yet they were fast to be extinguished as the flesh turned to liquid upon destruction.

As reply to the attacks the creature exploded outward in a swarm of tendrils which gushed from every piece of his pale and twisted flesh. The tide of tendrils were getting faster and more numerous. It suddenly became clear to them that the demon god was getting better with his new form. it was as though they were battling an infant god, and now that infant was growing up.

The serpentine coils suddenly chose a target. The army of digimon and human partners were composed of great variety. One young soldier bearing the burning dawn's insignia was hanging away from the procession.

He was dressed in black on black with leather chokers around his neck and arms. His hair was the same shade of black you would find in a can of shoe polish. He was on the skinny side, with little muscle though the grim aspect of his decidedly gothic look was an intimidation. The burning dawn took all types. He was originally partnered to a virus digimon, and though the partnering of digimon to human was now unnecessary due to the first genesis phase, the partnered digimon still bore a loyalty to their human. The tendrils of white flesh shot tword the human boy with a sudden ferocity. It wanted to absorb this young soldier. The boy screamed as they made contact.

The tentacles didn't make contact with him however. They were intercepted by the body of myotismon. The boy had been partnered to a bakamon, and later a myotismon due to digivolution. The fearsome virus digimon had leapt into the path of the coils. His blond hair shook violently as he was thrown into spasms. The thing was absorbing him. He was clawing at the coils with his inadequately sharp fingers. The gothic boy was betraying his atheistic nature by frantically pulling at the digimon all the while frantically crying out prayers to god to save the digimon. His prayers were answered as Sora stepped forward and with a quick gash from her saber severed the tendril. The vampiric digimon slumped backwards to the arms of his partner with a weakened expression.

"Get him out of here!" tai barked as he joined Sora.

"You have virus types like myotismon here?!?" he questioned her with a shocked expression.

"That myotismon is nothing like the one we fought.. I actually like him. Oh and we have much worse here.. We have everything from machinedramon to skull-greymon. They're hard to house-break but they do make useful fighters." she grinned as he chuckled lightly.

Their laughter was ceased as a tentacle nearly cut Taichi's head off with a guillotine slice. He responded with a blast of black energy which reduced the tendril to bubbling fluid. The tendrils withdrew back to the mass with a suddenness that surprised many of the attacking digimon. The tendrils re-formed arms as the massive creature paused for a moment as he reformed a more human continence. He raised his arms to the heavens before bringing them back down over the digimon and humans. From each clawed fist a whip of blood red fire exploded. It didn't call out the name of the attack, though it didn't hesitate to use the crimson lightning attack. Apparently the brief contact to myotismon had left it with his power.

The whips of red lighting crashed over portions of the army like a wave of death. Digimon and humans were incinerated under the red beams. Myotismon's attack was powerful, but it was now perportuned to the size of a massive data god. The surviving digimon attacked with each of their most powerful attacks. The creature was thrown back by the combined attacks. They leapt upon him in a massive melee of biting clawing and special attacks. The humans were suddenly roused to battle as they seemed to draw strength from their digital partners. Grendle and Cody had joined together as they assaulted the mass with both claws and swords used in tandon as two of the same skilled training could do. They slashed and cut along with others who brandished swords.

The sky was filled with the screams of guns and the cries of men and digimon as they were devoured within the white blob of flesh. The war was proceeding with great chaotic actions on the part of them all. The creature was being cut and severed, though it seemed to heal instantly after every wound. The humans and digimon did not however possess that skill. They were easily capable of dying from one volley of attacks from the fledgling god. Kari was in radiating with white light as she gave a sharp gesture with her hand. As she made the motion the sky was filled with lightning that rained down over him, pitching him back.

It was now clear that the god was going to win this war. With one tiny gesture, he was able to throw the entire swarm of digimon and humans off him. He laughed happily as he looked down over them. He sent his clawed hand down upon the ground in a deep horizontal slash. The cut threw up a wave of rock and earth over the fallen warriors. It wasn't enough to bury them alive, but it was enough to illustrate just how much more powerful he was. From the cloud of dust a solitary Garurumon leapt for him. He never made it. The demon god simply swatted it away with the clawed hand. The talons raked across him with an eruption of blood and gore. The animal yelped in agony for the one second before it was split in two. The remains didn't have time to land before the tendrils shot out to claim the two halves of the carcass. It swallowed up the bits and pieces with nauseating relish.

Taichi watched in horror as the thing that had once been his brother now proceeded to pick off more and more of them. he was far more dangerous now. In the hours that this battle had raged he had matured higher and higher into the ranks of godhood. The god was a hateful thing as it took more and more life. Those who once were on the offensive now frantically put their efforts to holding back a defense against the thing. A losing battle.

Sora hung next to tai as they looked out over the massacre. The screams found them as one after the other was absorbed into the writhing mass of white flesh. Sora had tears running down her cheeks as she watched another digimon crushed to pulp in the thing's grip. It was now more focused on killing them. apparently it could absorb the dead just was easily as the living. That terrified her as she watched the atrocity of the demon's forced evolution. He was hungry for more and more of the souls that now were trapped by their shattered bodies. Perhaps it took time for the soul to transcend death. If that were true they would still be held to their body as the god devoured them into itself.

"Tai.. They're my people... my friends.. "

"This must stop..." he replied gravely as Sora broke into a run tword the thing...

*************************

it towered over Kari as she clung to TK. Her arm had been broken by a lashing blow from the thing's whip tendrils. She was in pain more consuming then she had ever known. Not as much from the arm's slow throb. The true origin of her pain was the knowledge that she would be absorbed. That her life would be tied to this thing's. She was on the verge of losing it all. Losing the future she had secretly longed for. A life with TK away from the evils. She wanted to bear his children. To bring forth another generation of the sorceress. That would not happen now. She stared up at the god of digital hell. It's body was a hell, a place where souls would be locked away forever. Where she and her Takeru would be sealed away. She held him softly as they remained silent. She was vaguely aware that Grendle was pulling Cody from the debris. The boy was either dead or un-conscious. She didn't presume to guess. Davis was crawling tword where Yolie had fallen. He looked more dead then alive. His face was pale and dead as he made his way to where Yolie lay clutching her sides in pain. Mimi, izzy, and joe were trying to pull survivors away from the rapidly approaching demon god.

Her vision of the thing was suddenly blocked by Sora as the older girl stood between her and the demon of wriggling tendrils. She looked more godlike then the thing did as she stood there. Her hair was whipping violently in the wind as she began walking to the thing.

"Go to hell!" she snarled as she threw several grenades at it. They exploded within the creature, throwing him backwards. Another volley of grenades as Sora continued to push the thing back. It lashed out at her with its claw only to have the extremity shot off by a beam of black fire. Genesis was at her side now. The two continued pushing it back and away from the rescue effort. Sora continued lobbing grenades at it while tai was using the genesis to blow away anything that was about to attack them. he was struck across the face by a tendril. His stride was only slowed vaguely as the blood flowed from the side of his head.

Kari suddenly tried to croak out a warning to them. too late. From the left a series of tentacles snatched Sora around the waist. Before Taichi could react the girl was consumed within a nest of snake coils that served as the thing's skin. She screamed as she felt herself being burned and consumed within the forest of tendrils. She shrieked in horror as one tendril pierced through her right hand. The wound didn't bleed though it could get no more gruesome if she was painted in blood. She felt a similar sensation in her mid-section as she was sure the creature was impaling her again and again.

Taichi screamed in terror as he leapt into the nest himself. He began clawing and pulling at them as he dug deeper and deeper into the nest of pastey tendrils. They were choking him and pulling at him. They punctured his side as he continued to claw at where he caught a faint glance at Sora. He was screaming her name frantically. As he called to her he felt the tendrils filling his mouth. He bit down hard to cut them off and then swallowed the wriggling flesh so it would not be capable of re-joining the mass. He felt the need to vomit as another tendril forced its way down his throat. It was writhing as he fought through them. he may be killed, but not before he got to Sora. The tendrils were burrowing into his neck as he continued clawing at them. he closed his eyes to limit the odds of them worming their way into his skull. It seemed horrifically possible. Sora. He felt her there, she was clawing her way to him as he was to her. he opened his eyes only to find in horror that she was being assimilated into the thing. He screamed in horror as he began ripping the snake tendrils from her. he had some success there. He didn't care about himself. All that mattered was Sora. He began pulling her from it. He felt the tendrils that were attempting to anchor him to the thing snap with a gush of black fluid. He shrieked with rage as he clawed his way deeper out. Then suddenly found enough footing to push out.

Kari was wide-eyed with pure terror as she watched tai plunge outward from the mass looking far from himself. He didn't look like her brother anymore. He was painted with tarish black fluid as he slumped to the ground several feet from the god. His eyes were lifeless as he continued to pull the wriggling tendrils from Sora. She began mirroring the act on him by pulling the still moving tentacles from him. He looked close to dead as the slimy white appendages were ripped from him.

"Sora..." he wheezed as he vomited a black tarish fluid from his gaging mouth. Sora held him as he emptied his stomach upon the ground. He felt ill as he looked over to the demon god which hung above them like a skyscraper looms above street-level pedestrians. He was huge as his snake appendages coiled around the two. He had cut them off from whatever help they could find in the digimon or humans. he was everywhere. All around them as the ground slithered with him as though it were made of live snakes. The carpet of living flesh nipped at them as it slithered over their feet. The thing was going to kill them. to absorb them. there was no room for escape. No guardian angels ready to intervene on their behalf. All the future that awaited them was black with death and horror. Sora stared up at the thing as it loomed over them. she closed her eyes to blink away the tears.

"Taichi... I really do love you. It doesn't matter what happens next or even if we are real people or not. All that matters is that I will never stop loving you."

"Sora.. I love you too. Now and forever." he snaked his arms around her as they closed their eyes. They held tightly to one another as the creature fell upon them as a great wave of demonic flesh. They held to eachother as they were devoured whole by the mass of white and demonic flesh. They vanished into the sea of churning flesh and disappeared.

Kari watched with teary eyes as the horror swept over her. Taichi had just been killed. Sora too. Both of them were taken from her. she watched as the creature's mass rippled outward with struggle. Tai and Sora were not giving up. No escape. The thing stopped struggling as the ripples faded away and didn't come again. Kari screamed in agony as she watched the demon god take shape again over the place where Sora and tai had once stood. He was bigger then ever as he smiled down over them. he was rippling with power as he snarled in triumph. He laughed through a thousand voices sinisterly. The laughter reverberated over all ears as he rejoiced at his victory over the only two who ever had a chance to stop him. The three fragments were united. But not in balance. The night had swallowed the light away so that all there was was black tarish night. The future of mankind turned as black as pitch as Kari continued sobbing into the wounded TK's arms. He too was crying as he watched his brother and sister devoured by the white demon.

The thing's laughter was falling upon them all with a dark and sinister joy that radiated outward over all who heard it. The creature was delighting in the new power it had gained access to. It was now capable of wielding the genesis for both creation and destruction. It could alter this world as it wanted. It could devour all life with no question now. All would be one with it... the skies turned to a thick red. The same red as blood. Nature was cowering before it and thus it laughed louder and louder in a chorus of voices that sang out with demonic glee. The laughter hurt the ears as it grew in pitch until on the pinnacle of a high laugh... it stopped.

It suddenly spoke in a voice more computer based. Perhaps a fragment of the DNA computer who once was a part of it. The voice was cold and mechanical, though it did bear a sense of fear in the monotonous tone of the electronic utterance.

"WARNING... ProGRam CORrupTed!

Data tracks violation detected. ALIen PROgraMMing INTerFErence...

COmpeNSAte! Compensate!

Failure... failure...

program corruption progressing to priMARY SYStems.

Failure... failure...

pURGE in PROGress!

Failure! Failure! faILURE..."

The voice was panicked as it began running through defensive mechanisms to deal with the sudden assault to its' core processors. The machine side of the god was being attacked. It began frantically speaking in a chorus of voices and languages that were so panicked that many were forced to cover their ears. The voices were fluctuating with a secondary set of voices that were beginning to push past the frantic voices of ken and his subservient prisoners. The new voices were growing in power as the data god began to shiver in a reaction similar to the throws of terror.

Kari stared blankly at the thing as the voices suddenly became clear to her. they were two voices speaking in unison. She felt tears coming to her as she listened with a sudden wave of hope to tai and Sora speaking through the demon god.

"Digidestined... children of the digital... humans and digimon... it's time. The final battle has begun and now it's time for you to fight the last battle for freedom. The final blow shall not be struck through a sword or a gun.. It will be struck through the hearts of mankind and digimon.

Only you can win this war...

To win this war you must be ready to fight for peace.

It won't matter if we give you peace... you must earn it for yourself.

All we can do now is tell you how..."

The humans and digimon began slowly rising to their feet under a strength they didn't know they possessed. All life seemed to focus on the quivering mass of cancerous flesh that was being used as a surrogate voice by Taichi and Sora.

"Don't rely on light.

Light is only half the solution, for without darkness life has no texture or purpose.

To truly understand the road to life you must bear a balance between the light and the dark.

Don't rely on light.

Don't rely on hope.

To hold blind faith for something will lead you to failure.

It is not enough to simply hope for the best.

We must make our futures ourselves with our own actions.

Don't rely on hope.

Don't rely on reliability.

The actions of the one are important

but one man cannot change the world alone.

Your actions cannot be made simply because it is expected of you

they must be made because you act from your own heart.

Don't rely on reliability.

Don't rely on sincerity.

the truth is important,

but it can be just as damaging as a lie if not tempered with compassion.

Without empathy the sincerity becomes a road to pain.

Don't rely on sincerity.

Don't rely on knowledge.

Knowledge is crucial to life,

but that knowledge must be of life.

Facts and data do nothing for mankind without a heart that is willing to use them

for the benefit of humanity

Don't rely on knowledge.

Don't rely on friendship.

in life we cannot rely on another for our own destiny

the friendships we forge may not lead us all to the same destination.

thus to cling to such a thing without the capacity to let go will lead us to a destiny not our own.

Don't rely on friendship.

Don't rely on courage.

Only fools are never afraid.

Courage is the ability to do what must be done inspite of fear.

To rely on it alone leaves you helpless in the face of destiny.

Don't rely on courage.

Instead... rely on love.

Love is the key to all things in life.

Through love we are capable of achieving all things.

To unlock the secrets of the crests you must use the love you have within your hearts.

Focus on this love and let it unlock the power within you.

A fragment of destiny that exists as the core of all life.

That's what genesis is...

The essence of destiny and creation united together in every living thing.

All life has a fragment of that power within.

And if unlocked; it can be united to form a great power.

Our only hope is harnessing that power."

The procession of soldiers stared at the creature that was now fully fighting the possession of tai and Sora. The tendrils were bubbling as they hung there in suspension. The thing wanted to kill them all. Kill and absorb them. Taichi and Sora were somehow able to fight it from the inside. They held it in place as tightly as they could while the demon god snarled with rage. The evil and rage was being polluted by the presence of Taichi and Sora combined as one mind and essence. The two minds were able to cage the evil within for a time. The creature was stronger then anything they had ever encountered, but it was not so omnipotent that it was beyond resistance. Perhaps that was the real strength of the human spirit, the power to endure and use the stubbornness that apparently is inherent to the human species. Humans could resist the urge to be assimilated. Even from within the battle of Taichi and Sora against their prison caused the others to rise to arms and rebel.

The demon god had absorbed a vast number of humans and digimon. It had succeeded in swallowing them away within the darkness. But it had not taken two as powerful as Taichi and Sora. It was a foolish move on the part of the new god to assume he was so powerful that he could consume the two most powerful digital humans on the planet simultaneously. The two minds were capable of overpowering the gatekeeper and then holding the doorway open, thus giving themselves a way to keep the demon in between the two sides. He was struggling hard, but unable to break free. The door was shivering with rage as the demon god was held in the same void he kept his victims. They too were now fighting it. They held the demon for all they could as Taichi and Sora made use of the door... granting them some control over the creature. They used its voice to give the message to the destined. Somehow they knew the key to defeating the evil and gaining balance.

The demon god was thrashing violently against his captors. But he was unable to break free.

The destined stared out at the demon god with a sense of graveness. The words of tai and Sora were repeated within their mind. Thus each of them began calling upon the love they held most dear. TK and Kari drew upon their love for one another and their love for tai and Sora. Davis held Yolie tightly as he focused on the on the only love he had left. The love for the woman he belonged to. Yolie focused on Davis alongside her recently liberated family. Each of them followed suit as they focused on the love they had for another in their life. It was then that they came to notice the glow.

Around each of them radiated a ruby glow that wafted against them like colored smoke. They continued to focus on the love. Soon the ruby glow was joined by a golden mist that behaved the same as the ruby mist. The two colors danced together softly in a gentle interaction as a new spectrum joined the fog of rainbow hue. This time it was a pinkish glow that was soon followed by a yellowish hue. Soon the colors were swirling around them like serpents of smoke. They gently glided upon the air as soon eight colors became distinguishable. These spectrums of color danced softly on the wind as they drifted together in a sphere of light. The radiance blended together to a silvery light that was more pure then snow. This new light shimmered and danced with a feel of electricity to it as it crackled in the sphere of growing and pulsating light. The light was moving and throbbing like a heart of molten silver.

The colors faded away so that all there was was the silvery sphere of silver which was orbited by a wispy white mist. The mist swirled against the sphere as cytoplasm swirls against the nucleus of a solitary cell. The pulsations of the orb grew more powerful and faster as the light from their surroundings began to pool around it. There was a change in the orb as a darkness invaded the light. It panicked them for a moment as they thought something was going wrong. But that fear was ended as the darkness did not overpower the light. The two swirled together in a strangely alluring harmony of light and dark. Then like a shot from heaven the sphere exploded into the core of the slithering white flesh of the demon.

The doorway suddenly became illuminated as Taichi and Sora felt some new force entering. The blast of energy made contact with them and exploded in a strange mixture of white and black fire. It hit with such impact that the two were thrown from the door. The fires of light and darkness swelled within them and around them as they were held fast to the ground within the prison of the demon god.

The gate was suddenly free, and with this new incentive the creature was more able to fight. It roared and lashed outward upon the souls who held it. They were overpowered by the thing and with one final effort were thrown aside, leaving the demon god free and in control again.

The soldiers were thrown back as the air became heavy and forced them away. The creature shrieked in rage as it reared up. The form atop grew from human to a more demonic visage with the speed of a the ocean as a new tide turns. And thus the white flesh rippled outward in the most demonic view yet. It was huge and terrible with fangs and spines that erupted from every aspect of its pale and dead white flesh. The scream was a scream of wrath and hate. It had been held back for a time. Imprisoned within itself. It was enraged by that prospect and now planned to pay back that misery on each and everyone the two souls held dear.

It slashed outward to the nearest of the potential victims. The girl it knew as Kari and the sorceress. It wasn't interested in a prisoner yet. It would let death dull her fight until it bore no chance of rebellion when he took her. all he needed was the faintest glimmer of power from the sorceress. That ember would grow to a blaze within him. And that way he would be given the chance to kill her. To make her suffer. To cut her into ribbons.

It lashed out at her and was within inches from her face when the claw was halted by a force he could not identify. The power held him tightly from every effort he made to kill the girl. She was staring at him with terror and question as to why the seven foot claws had not sliced her to bits.

It suddenly pitched back as it felt something wrong inside itself. The two souls it had previously battled, Tai and Sora, were fighting him again. But this time it was with a new force. A force that reeked of the genesis. But in a far greater magnitude. Plus. The genesis was contained within Taichi's body.. That was now absorbed. This power was coming from the very core of the two souls.

It studied its hand. From the palm outward a small molten crack had appeared. It was unable to heal the wound. Unable to stop it. Behind the pasty flesh there appeared to be a core of white fire as the chasm widened and broke off in new tributaries. These tributaries flowed outward from the proverbial spring from which a river is born. These tributaries continued to snake outward at an alarming speed as the demon god his hand split into sections by the fissures of silvery light that burned as fire to him. He wanted to shriek in terror but found his voice could not come yet. It was held in his throat by fear. Can gods fear? The rivers of flame traveled down every aspect of his body as though he were made of glass and being shattered slowly. The image troubled him for it was happening.

He tried to heal himself again. Useless.

From every crevice a beam of silvery light erupted as though he were a dirty window to the sun, gradually being cleaned. The beams of light exploded outward from his chest in a brilliant display. He was beginning to panic as the light begin to grow brighter. He stumbled backwards and unearthed a inhuman scream of terror. All watched as the demon god begin to splinter under the light.

He drew up his hand to his face only to watch it crumble into the fire, leaving behind nothing more then a smoldering stump that burned outward in a beam of silver light. It was screaming louder now as the arm soon disintegrated in an implosion of light. Next was it's other arm. Soon the beams began to grow brighter around the thing's chest. The doorway exploded in a sea of splinters and debris as the prison's wall crumbled under the source of the light.

They watched with astonishment as the rib-cage exploded outward in a beam of great light. From that core three forms leapt to the ground before them. tai and Sora were consumed in the strange light. Yet as they leapt from it their forms came into clear view. They were bathed in black shadow. Though the form of Sora was more visible due to what astonishingly appeared to be wings composed of flame. These massive angel wings were not of fluffy white feathers and downy, they were made of golden-red flame that branched out in the form of great fiery wings. If not for her face she would look to be an angel from hell caught ablaze. But her face was different, stronger and with eyes of molten light she descended before them as an angel with a heart that glowed golden within her chest. They could see the fragment of the digital god now a golden shard of him that was more beautiful then anything they had ever known.

The next figure had wings of black fire that vaguely resembled those of a raven. He was glowing black as he descended before them. his face was pastey and white with eyes that were both made of mirror and pitch black. They shimmered like the nightly waters of a still lake. His chest was also radiating with light, though a blackish one. It glowed and churned like an exact opposite to Sora's. He landed and was still beside Sora as the third descended upon them.

This one had no wings. His eyes and chest glowed in a radiance that words could not explain. It was a new color to the spectrum of reds greens and blues. He was glowing with a radiance that was both darkness and light as one. He was the most intimidating of the three as he stared at them. Kari recognized her brother yet could say nothing to him. She simply stared as all the others were. He disregarded them and turned to face the demon god who had his heart ripped from his chest. The creature was still vaguely alive, though consumed by the loss of the parts that were once parts of itself. It reached for them with a series of tendrils . Taichi stared at it and suddenly lifted off the ground as he flew to intercept it. The thing grabbed for him - sensing he was once assimilated.

He drew his arms to his side slowly as he gazed up at the thing with his glowing twilight eyes. He then brought his hands forward in a strange gesture. The instant he did the creature shrieked as the fragments of itself splintered away like embers in the wind. With one gesture from the boy who was part god the demon was reduced to ash and sparks of ember as though he were caught in some great wind that incinerated and blew apart.

He dropped to the ground with a thud as he landed on his haunches. He rose slowly as he turned to the two 'angels' with a look from his eyes they collapsed upon the ground. The wings of gold and shadow faded away as did the radiance of the fragments. His gaze traveled up from them to the heavens and then back to the faces of those who witnessed the act of killing a demon god. With a sudden flash of twilight the glow left him. He staggered lightly, yet did not fall. His black cloak rippled in the wind as he walked to them.

He lifted Sora up in his arms and smiled softly at her. he kissed her chastely on the lips before calling Grendle to him. The dragon obeyed without question.

"You take her... she's alive, just unconscious."

He turned to ken. The boy lay upon the ground shivering in a cold that only he felt. He was still part of the data god. His skin was still the same pastey complection, though he looked more like himself. His hand was gone again. Taichi looked to him with a silent debate as he lifted the sword to his side. He looked down at the shivering frame with a sadness.

"You won brother.. You won..."

Taichi nodded as he stared into the sapphire blue eyes of his brother. They were the same eyes he had before, though now his face was different - similar- but still different.

"Go on Taichi.. Kill me." he smirked as he continued to tremor with cold. He was now capable of using the genesis. Capable of becoming the demon god again. He shivered as Taichi had once done after using the power of the gods.

"DO IT!

I'll never change!

I'll come back to kill you if you let me live!" he snarled hatefully despite his trembling.

Taichi tossed his sword aside with a metalic clank. He drew up the tie to his cape and undid it. With a soft fluttering sound he threw the clock over his brother to warm him. Ken stared at him with questions as the boy offered him the cloak for warmth.

"Don't worry... birth is never an easy process." he said softly

And that was how the final battle ended. Not in blood or death. But in a simple kindness born of love for a brother. It was not the end. Not by far. There was a world of hate out there. And ken was still the essence of a vengeful god after all.

The demon was not destroyed.. Mearly set back.

The empire was defeated and freedom now given a new chance.

But the wars were still far from over.

Are we gods or are we men?

Mankind has endeavored to ascend into godhood.

We can create great wonders and beauties through art, as can god.

Through medicine and science we can preform miracles, as can god.

And we can use nuclear weaponry and science darkly, as can a vengeful god.

But as we ascend higher and higher into our artificial heavens...

Are we ready to be judged for our actions as gods?

Not The End.....