The stars had disappeared. Same for the moon. Same for the sun. It was like the entire sky had been engulfed, or perhaps it was Monde that had been swallowed up.

Pulled into the maw of some unfathomable monster and isolated from the rest of cosmos.

*****

In a certain place within the hinterland, where nothing lived and the earth had been scoured clear by the battles of mighty practitioners, three people were gathered.

The first was Matthew, the Tangent Lord. The Second was Jermaine Abbotts, Thespian Gray, leader of the Thousand Ghosts Group. One of the biggest paramilitary operators and practitioner guilds within the continent. Finally there was the blue haired, blue coated, fallen Angel. Angelo and his living sword.

The three men gathered, acknowledging each other as they teleported into the area. Their attentions  being pulled in multiple directions, by the feeling of extreme danger that the area was inflicting on them.

*****

“Hey...anyone here have any clue why Maddoc called us here?” asked Matthew.  

His hands in his pockets as he drifted through mid-air. Shaking a few flakes of snow out of his hair. In this place in the middle of nowhere a blizzard was carrying on. Silent raging all around them. Silently trying to bury them alive.

Jermaine shrugged.

“Dunno...Boss Man says to show up...so we show up...It’s fine really. That’s generally just how it goes when he’s personally involved. Worrying about it unnecessarily will just make you go gray”

Matthew nodded, he actually did know what it was like. In the past years he’d gradually become Jermaine’s number two. Which meant that he was one of the senior executives of the company as well.

His position and history with the Ghosts requiring him to oversee their overseas interests and large scale operations.

Which in turn meant he knew what it was like to suddenly have ‘that guy’s’ laconic voice just pop into his head with strange and often cryptic instructions.

Matthew turned to the other man in their number.

“How about you feather boy? D’you know why the boss had us come all the way here?”

Matthew’s words were answered by silence and a brief flare of bloodlust. He chuckled nervously and drifted closer to his boss, Jermaine.

“Sheesh...Shit. I guess, it’s another blind job after all.” said Matthew.

Jermaine chuckled.

“Are you saying you ‘don’t’ like the work?”

Matthew shook his head.

“What? Hell no, I’m just saying I’d like a little more detail on what we’re doing out here,is all. I don’t really care ‘that’ much.” said Matthew.

He actually meant it too. Just as soon as the words came out of his mouth he instantly stopped being curious.

Idly staring up at the grayish, pinkish sky. He briefly wondered what his girl Cindi was doing at the moment. Then he wondered what he’d do for lunch after he was done here.

Whether it was that he was generally airy headed, or whether he was just excessively carefree, Matthew could be called a simple man. He wasn’t stupid by any means but he was the sort who found excessive thinking unnecessary.

When he’d first joined the Thousand Ghosts his only reason for doing so was a need for cash and a slightly romanticized view of life as a gangster.

Even now that the romance had worn off, he still largely enjoyed his work and the money that came from it.

“What we’re doing is-...”

“Agh!?”

Matthew’s heart nearly jumped out of his chest, he turned around and saw his boss, floating behind him.

“Geeze...Don’t just pop up like that!” said a wide-eyed Matthew. With his hand dramatically placed on his chest.

“.....Sorry.” said Billy. Apologizing, looking slightly sheepish in his own blank faced way, because the girls had told him the same thing, dozens of times.

The atmosphere got a little weird then, Billy had a knack of doing that and Matthew wasn’t exactly a social butterfly either. He was generally standoffish and when he wasn’t  keeping to himself, he tended to get on peoples nerves. Jermaine smoothly got things back on track.

“So you were saying…?”

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“Nh?” said Billy. Looking plainly distracted, as if he’d already forgotten about the conversation that was taking place.

“You were explaining the job right?”

“Oh...right...That.” said Billy.

“I just need you to kill me.”

Everyone stilled, and no one said a word. Three pairs of eyes fell on the stone faced, pretty boy, and three faces all wore difficult expressions.

It was Angelo who broke the silence first.

“Um...you’re kidding right?”

“Kidding?” said Billy.

“Not to be difficult but  I’m pretty sure you just asked us all to die.” said Jermaine. His tone nonchalant and easygoing as usual, though his forehead was covered in icy sweat.

“I could probably fight you off long enough to find a window for escape, but these two are definitely dead if this is how that’s going.” said Angelo.

His comment made Matthew frown, while Jermaine just smiled and nodded as if he was fine with the assessment.

Billy looked at three men, switching his gaze between the three face. Feeling a little lost. Then it struck him.

“Oh...oh...right...no. ‘We’ aren’t fighting. I’m not asking to fight you. I’m asking you to kill me. And not even me ‘me’, or I guess...all of me. Depending on your perspective.”

Billy snapped his fingers and with a crack, the space around them shattered revealing a warped area of brutal wind and crackling gray light. A world made of storm clouds and a sky made of broken glass.

At the center of the warped space was an open roofed palace made of out countless divine flower petals. At the center of the palace was a beast. An inversed Jorgumander. Bright instead of dark.  Beautiful instead of hoary.

A gold tendriled, creature of nothingness and eternity, made up of an infinite number of serpents, with an infinite number of eyes.

An entity so large in scale that it made no sense for it to be able to occupy the same space as Monde, not to mention having it lie chained to the surface of the planet itself.

It thrashed about, tightly bound and plainly hating every second of it, surrounded by a circle of Billies. An army, of tall, thin, dark eyed, dark haired, dark skinned, dark souled clones.  All of them chanting as they used a spell of authority and control to keep the thrashing beast from breaking free.

The aether around them growing thin. The light it created rising and falling. The energies dancing as if enchanted. Wailing as if tortured.

*****

Jermaine and Matthew just stared, gazing down at the spectacle with vacant looks in their eyes. Not sure what they were seeing but certain that was almost absolutely terrible and almost certainly dangerous.

Angelo on the other hand knew exactly what he was staring at. He visibly paled and felt himself growing nauseous. He turned to his employer with a look of fair and awe. Weakly laughing, at the unfunny scene in front of him.

“Hey, boss...are you sure we can’t just go back to the first plan, where you kill us. Somehow that seems safer and less of a bad idea…”

Billy understood the Angel’s trepidation, patting his shoulder as he slowly glided by. Slowly floating towards the cloned collective that kept the grand beast bound in place.

“I know what you’re concerned about Angelo. Don’t worry. Everything that’s happening here is above board. At least as far as the highest authorities in the land are concerned. The gods have gods that they answer to and even ‘those’ gods have rules to follow. Trust when I say, while we might end up pissing quite a few folks off, if push comes to shove this won’t be the reason why they come after us.”

Angelo considered fleeing as he held his beloved in a white knuckled grip. He gazed at the back of his sinister and enigmatic employer feeling like his heart was  slowly climbing its way up his throat. Then he sighed and made up his mind and strange wicked resolve entering his eye.

“Well...fuck...We just have to cut it’s...your...head off right?” said Angelo.

Billy nodded.

“And maybe hack me to pieces too, just to be safe. Let’s try to cover all our bases here. It was expensive to figure out away to even try to hide all this.”