Hunger.

Hunger was the sole reason why the Vikings geared their hatred against the other factions. They were hungry. The raging fires and little food stashes set by Apollyon sent the Vikings vying against each other in a blind fury. Soon, the warriors of Valkenheim ran out of accessible food in their homeland. They turned against the other factions as ways to live.

It made sense. People will do anything to survive, and it was this fact of life that brought Apollyon into her infamous mindset. Even her mindset and reason for fighting, which was to separate the wolves from the sheep, was loosely centered around this basic survival instinct of the necessity of food.

Wolves. They ate the sheep to survive. The sheep couldn't fight back, they could only run. It was this fact of life that kept the human race evolving. In order to change, you had to force it to. People weren't going to change out of free will. You had to force it upon people. If the petty men and women from any of these factions could choose for themselves, the human race as a whole would be stuck in an endless era of stagnation. Apollyon knew this all too well.

Apollyon, though, wasn't a wolf, nor was she a sheep. In her mind, she was a god. She was the one pulling the strings. She was the one in full control, not the petty emperor of the Myre, nor the jarls of Valkenheim, nor the warlords of Ashfeld. Apollyon was.

It all returned back to the prospect of food. Instead of fighting for religion, for land, or for wealth, it was now the fight for survival. The fight for food. And what caused this willingness to survive? Apollyon. She had forced the Vikings' hands down, causing them to evolve from complacent men and women comfortable with the way things were into reared warriors ready for anything.

Forced Evolution is what Apollyon called this mindset. Force them a reason to, and they will evolve into something new, something better. So far, this way of life worked on everyone she encountered. Why should it fail now?

In her twisted mind, Apollyon believed that she was doing this out of compassion. A compassion that showed the factions their idiotic complacency, causing them to change; some for the better, some for the worse. It was true though, she was getting results from Forced Evolution. Results that satisfied her. Results that made her want to get the same from others who weren't quite as eager to change.

Forced Evolution wasn't the only thing that Apollyon hoped to force upon the rest of the factions. She wanted to thin the numbers. She wanted to destroy those resistant to change so that she could change those that were left more easily and with more control. If she could remove those inimical to her ideals, then the next stage of evolution should come much more easily.

Regardless of her mindset of Forced Evolution, Apollyon was a force to be reckoned with. Those who crossed her path were, through torture, given a chance to accept this Forced Evolution. Those who did were allowed to live. Those who didn't, however, weren't allowed the gift of a quick, painless death. Instead, they were starved, beaten, dismembered, raped, dismembered, cut, and then killed. Those who saw the horrors that the twisted Apollyon would commit against the people who refused were quickly accepted Forced Evolution. Not all who did accept were still allowed to live though. They still had to confess for their crimes against the law. Lucky for them, they were allowed a quick, painless beheading.

And Apollyon would laugh as those who opposed her were killed mercilessly. And Apollyon would laugh from the throne as she watched as her Forced Evolution reverberated throughout the three factions. And Apollyon would laugh as she watched the Vikings war against themselves in a hungry rage. And Apollyon would laugh as her doctrine was forcefully accepted by people of all cultures and backgrounds. And Apollyon would laugh as she was on the path to take control.

A/N: This was just a short one-shot / character study that I had wanted to do. It is a look at, or at least what I think, goes on in Apollyon, focusing on her mindset.

I may make this a series. A series consisting of one-shots about the different characters and heroes of For Honor. If you want me to, let me know so I can see if there's time in the schedule.

Anyway, onto information about other stories. I'm about a sixth done with the next chapter of Wishful Few. I'm still debating about whether or not I should go where I wanted to with the story.

The progress on Dirty Deeds chapter two is going well. Here's a little snippet for all those who care:

"...this specific droid had created his own kind of memories, personality, and experience. He valued those things higher than any other things he had. In complete honesty, he probably valued those things more than any other "sentient" being valued their own. To him, it was something personal, as he programmed personality, memory, and experience into his "mind." Others took it for granted. This was one thing he hated about every evolved creature: they took everything for granted, expecting everything was theirs..."

Anyway, happy reading!