The Reaper had always possessed power, trapped it in his veins, felt it surge within his minatory sinew, within his forbidding flesh, conjured and unwound it upon his enemies, his victims. A curse derived and founded for the declaration of animosity, of vengeance, of vehemence and vile, wicked treachery, spelling calamity, beguiling adversity, alluring misfortune, afflictions, disasters. Lucifer’s gift, Mephistopheles’ endowment, Satan’s crowning opus and oeuvre, a masterpiece of disdain, derision, and daunting, dominating endeavors. Now, however, a different aspect of supremacy unfolded before him, far beyond the reaches of his soldier strategies, his Machiavellian machinations, his General upheavals and coercing contempt into soldiers. Chaos imbrued, embroiled, coiling, rapacious snakes from a serpentine plunge, an asp’s mouth, layering the length of entropy and violence into unholy shades, wreckage and ruin prospered, divided, stole away the cobra’s sinuous measures. Suddenly, there was a crown for the taking, and the beast, forever assured and confident in his own abilities, in his own prowess, deleterious, inimical iniquities, didn’t chase after the thorny coronet, listened, witnessed, captured the essence of extended, scathing ardor. Psyche consigned her rank to oblivion, her monarchy to damnation, leaving scarred pinnacles and savage defenses, and instead of pandemonium, the two males remaining were reserved, staring down the length of the distinction, the accolade, the diadem. An empty throne, a hollowed sovereignty, deserted, abandoned rule reminded him of prowess, of distinction, of whispering, sliding decadence, of a world he’d promised to assist, of a plague searing, blighting, infesting, invading. He’d bled for them, killed for them, massacred and murdered for them, maimed, ripped, torn, clawed and crawled, slithered and slipped. Was this the moment his puissance, his tyranny, his control, his necromancy, his unholy annihilation finally intertwined, exalted and held, the cold, chilling grasp poignantly consumed, devoured, by the rapacious, ravenous reel of his immorality? Was this the moment where all his convictions combined, merged, crooned the sinister pulse of his predacious havoc, of his formidable, chilling oeuvre? Was this the moment where all his acrimony descended, whispered, undulated and arched over his cranium, handed him the burden of conquering, of destroying, upon him? Would he be able to assemble their wreckage, or would he too, become subsumed and swallowed by the carnivore ambitions, by the scythes and rapiers of their cloaked aspirations?

His piercing gaze fixated upon the engineer, his features remaining their unattainable, statuary ferocity; nonchalant, indifferent, while his heart burned, while his mind craved, while desires carved indiscernible longing. Authority, control, dominance, superiority, slinking a fine web in his demanding, ravenous augurs, imminent and imperial, fiendish and malignant. The finest disturbance, the deplorable, deadly desecration, despicable, meticulous, smoldering and smothering the scrupulous ministrations, the barbed armaments, the devil-crafted munitions, embarked, screamed, distorted and incised, fueled and provoked. He was not a politician either, but a commander, master of war, of bloodshed and campaigns, crusades and victories; what more would it take for him to grasp and understand the notions of deceptions and fabrications (and so willingly, crossing into the ruthless, unrelenting halls of specious, duplicitous rimes). The mechanic and the scythe wanted the same things, they hungered for the same legacies, they spoke the same creeds, and combined, if only for a day, would unravel the sentience of fragile, feeble existences, impart brutal malice, dragooning, damning, condemning. The Reaper’s mouth parted, and conveyed the dark insurgency of his monstrous bane, singular, heinous, followed by the smallest smirk curling his bestial lips. “Deal.” Only one word, and suddenly a crown fell upon his head, a silent coronation, and he was a deadly, demonic King, infernal Emperor, diabolical ruler raised from the ruins.

Death, you bring death, and destruction to all that you touch.