Disclaimer: Do not own...ever. That is all.

Edit: As of May 9th, 2009, this story has been re-written from it's bare bones structure to something I am much happier with. It's funny because this story has been sitting on my computer, re-written, for the last two years and I have no idea why I never posted it up. I may re-write it again since my style has changed but, for now, I am content. I hope those who read it before will find something new and positive in this newest version and those who are reading it for the first time will like it as well.

A king must destroy all that is not utterly necessary to him. It is how his kingdom survives. It is how his legacy is remembered among the crumbling rubble of time. It was what I was taught, it is what I believe.

I was born from a mortal's womb, sentenced to the finality of a once upon a time. A part of a whole in flesh, stone, prophecy and destiny. Mortals call it a twin; demons call it a parting of power. Both meant the same, save the human romanticism. Though I was born from a woman of beating heart and soft flesh, I do not remember her face or her voice. It was forbidden to know her name, to want her warmth. It was forbidden to know she existed or that he, my image of blood and flesh was with her. In a world bathed in light, without brimstone or blood.

I grew beneath the stone wing of Mundus, my captor and my instructor. I was his pupil, trophy and slave. Nothing but an end result of an experiment, a fortune inscribed in stone. A prophecy, his, mine, ours, it mattered little so long as the end result was beneficial. He told me I was his messenger, would help spread the seeds of his kingdom throughout the world. It was my destiny, written in a virgin's blood and a demon's tear. In childhood, I clung to these words of vanity, allowed something few were given…praise from the Devil King himself. They were blank words with blank emotions behind them, and I was too naïve to understand the difference. I don't know whether to pity myself or be thankful for such blindness. Either way, the past is done.

Yes, I remember the prophecy that spoke of my destiny as the fallen angel, the one who would lead humanity to ruin…the one. Only one. But we were two. I was only a half. He was the other. I was the dark knight of the devils court. Would he be the sanctified warrior of the human's realm? The question, I'm sure, must have plagued whatever demonic sage saw me wander through the battlefields, silently observing as Mundus brought down his archaic sword on his enemy and bathing us both in the blood of hell. It was commonplace, to see and smell and exist in death. Little childlike sensibility remained by the time I executed my first victim.

Was I ever truly a child?

I knew of my father in name only, though, on rare occasions he would stand before Mundus, our kings favored knight swathed in black armor and regal legends. I sat on the Devil Kings throne, on onyx stairs that led to his seat of human bones, angel wings and wild thorns. His eyes would find me, studying me with cryptic interest. It was odd to think of him as my father. He was Sparda, to Mundus, to myself, to everyone. There was no emotion shared between us, save for when he occasionally came close to discuss something with our king, his fingers brushing my hair. Whether he saw me or him when he did this I don't know. I despised it regardless.

Yes father, I am alive. I am here, bound by chains. You sent me here. Why me, why not him?

And he would leave as if nothing had transpired. Offer a caress, a confusing show of emotion and leave me to decipher what it meant, for days or months until the next time I saw him. He hid, hid the existence of the human and her spawn from me. Because Mundus would realize his blunder should I discover the truth. And if he did, he would slay Sparda's beloved mortal. And her son? Mundus would slay him too.

The prophecy never spoke of another. Another meant a liability. And a king never allowed a liability to exist. For in an instant a kingdom can fall, swept by the winds of fate, a cruel mistress dancing to the devils lyre. She is unforgiving, unrelenting. Mundus was fighting against fate. All kingdoms do.

We were destined to fall.

My father betrayed Mundus, betrayed my people. Yes, my people. Demons. I grew within their realm. I knew their language. I understood their desires. Father, you wished to protect your youngest son by offering me, the child of prophecy. You cast me aside. But you never imagined I would learn so much, I would be so much like them.

Foolishness father.

Sparda found me within the Devils court, amid bloody screams and raised swords that mirrored my ventures through blazing battlefields. I was not afraid, only intrigued, wondering what game Mundus was playing. Perhaps seeing me so calm led him to believe I was afraid, that I still possessed enough of a human heart to lead me to salvation. What would have happened, had he realized I was silently laughing at it all, the complete idiocy, the irony, the wickedness, the crumbling of a monarch in the blink of a human eye? Would he have saved me, simply because I was his child? Perhaps, but he would have been wary of me. There would have been distrust, anger, insecurity. He may have even killed me. He would have been so clever, so much more interesting to manipulate and dissect. And maybe he would have realized that the world he was trying to save, for his children, for the humans and angels and those in between, was doomed to repeat their mistakes.

Soundlessly he severed my chains, this dark winged demon made angel, and I wanted more than anything to burn his wings, because it was too late for him to try and cloak himself in white. Could an angel be an angel without his glorious wings or a demon a demon without its hedonistic bloodlust? Could a God be a God without his followers or a King without his kingdom? If you took it away, then was there anything worth saving? I'm sure Sparda believed so, for even the damned were once nothing more than a woman's blood and warmth, cocooned in her womb.

He set me free, taking me with him beyond the realm of demons, toward the human world, his world of light, where I was born and inexorably cast out. A light I did not know. I light I despised.

I met my mother among the debris of a battlefield; swords protruding from earthen graves alight with fire and screams. She embraced me with an ardor that frightened me. Her warmth taught me how cold the blood ran through my veins; her smile was a cryptic language the scribes had not taught me. She was beautiful, sharing my blue eyes and prominent features. Yet her scent was too warm, too encompassing, too mortal. She was beneath me. She disgusted me. Her humanity…his humanity…him, my image in name only who acted like them, dressed like them, was one of them. So human, so weak.

I despised him…because it could have been me.

Months were spent in hiding. I grew to know my mother, I grew to know my brother and I grew to see the lifetime between us, how they were too young and I was too old and whatever bridge they were trying to build to reach me I would inevitably burn. Demons, I knew, were good at destroying what isn't theirs and those people weren't mine. Had never been mine.

. What were mortals to me but piles of dust, so easily destroyed that their existence was worthless?

She constantly tried to open me up, to show me love. She gave me gifts, even a worthless necklace. She gave him its mirror image, a binding tie between us. It beat against my breast, warm and hypnotic, pulsing when either one of them stood beyond it, yearning, reaching out for them beyond its casing. I would hold it in my palm, this bleeding heart my human heart and squeezed it until it stilled, until the pain was gone. Such was the burden of a heart, to want of things beyond it, to draw bonds and ropes and strings between dreams and truth until it wove so thick it hung like a noose, choking the lifeblood from you. She would have tied the noose well, she has tied it before, so small her fingers they would find the holes quickly and hung her firstborn in martyrs clothing, while his brother lives.

And it was fear that kept us apart. I was afraid she would turn her back to me, as she had done before. And I would be left the fool in a jesters court, painted faces jeering while mine wore a demon mask and a human heart, all for their enjoyment.

I was raised without her ministrations or her emotions. I grew without her voice, or her scent. She allowed them to take me away from her. She sacrificed me…all for him.

Their savior. Did they know, even then that he would be the one to slay me? To save their beloved humans?

And then one day, they were gone. Sealed the demonic portal and left their two sons to survive in the world thereafter. Left a heavy chain around my neck whose weight dragged me into the abyss they left behind, wanting to follow them to their graves. And I wondered then why they rescued me, if only to leave me alone. But then, I wasn't truly alone, not really. He stood beside me, covered in their blood and ashes, crying for things lost, promises broken, lives destroyed. Clung to me even, our necklaces embracing, a guillotine split between us, able to tear the world asunder or cleave a path forward. A road was placed before us and he could see it with her eyes, its path leading straight into the horizon where the sun rose and set, alive and moving, greater things than heaven and hell.

You knew them. They loved you. They saved you. But they used my blood and soul to do it.

But I…I had his eyes. They were nothing to me. Nothing but an illusion that was never there. It was within that battlefield that I truly understood Mundus's words.

A king must destroy all that is not utterly necessary to him. It is how his kingdom survives. Yes, you should have killed Sparda when you had the chance. He was not utterly necessary. He was our downfall, our betrayer.

I left him sitting before their graves, mourning the loss of his idyllic world and the cornerstones that held it upwards. I felt disgust and hatred burn in my heart as I watched him pick up fathers sword and slowly enfold it in his arms, as if it were flesh and blood. He raised it high above his head, above fire and brimstone and hell, toward a point beyond it, something only he could see. And once again I stood alone on a crumbling pillar, seeing all that he was, all that he could have become. And realized that what he would become was salvation, repentance, and acceptance. He could destroy the world…and save it too. He could be a human and a demon, a God and a Devil, a brother and an enemy. And I? I had no home that Sparta had not already destroyed. I had no feeling that my mother hadn't burned into obsession. I had no place that I rightfully belonged, so long as my brother walked the path of salvation.

Because it spoke of one and we were two, meant to be one, meant to be greater than what was given to us. But we weren't, I'm not, not yet, not ever. You will, one day realize it too, when you stand upon the ashes of our kingdom and realize above all else…

I learned of Sparda's power afterward, the day I met Arkham. The power that lay hidden within his sword, a power I deserved as first born, as only born. For power, Mundus taught me, meant everything. It meant creating a kingdom; it meant being remembered. It meant re-writing fate.

…that day mother and I met, the day she smiled at me and gave me a human name, the day Sparta lifted me onto his shoulders and promised new beginnings…the day you held out your hand in this new world you were creating, fathers sword and mothers eyes and I left you there to die I wanted you…

And I would re-write it, if only I was the fallen angel. I was the son of Sparda, the one of which tablets transcended time to speak of. I was sacrificed to Mundus so that my brother could live. But Sparda took me away the day he rebelled. He wanted to save me.

I wanted him…

But he had forsaken my humanity.

I wanted her…

My kingdom was destined to fall.

…to save me.