Ever since I was little, my father has impressed upon me the importance of keeping a journal. Not only is it an effective method of reflection for the purpose of processing feelings, but it is important to keep an accurate account of history. Information has a way of getting more twisted the further from the source it gets before being written down. My family has always suffered a pretty negative reputation due to how they were portrayed in history. And while I understand this is part in due to targeted advertising campaigns we ourselves crafted, a lot of it is just distortions before information gets to the people.

However now my routine habit has taken on a new significance to me. Whether I fall in the process, or am imprisoned in some deep pit for my transgressions, I wanted a record of my efforts to live on, in hopes those of the future can learn from it. Hopefully if I succeed this will become unnecessary, and the world will never know of my struggles. For this is the story of how I, Michael Septem Dracones Morningstar defied my father to prevent the Apocalypse.

 Normally I would prefer to talk to Lucille about something like this, but she has even less  experience with defying orders than I do. Plus, I know this order isn't just coming from my father, but from Michael as well. Both Heaven and Hell has decided it is time for Earth to undergo another Apocalypse. And so I am forced to confront the choice most humans ascribe to my father that he never actually made, or even considered. Whether to defy orders and refuse the duty I was born for, because of humans. Only this case it would be in order to save them.

Since unlike the first few times the reset button had been pressed on Earth, this order wasn't coming from God, I figured maybe I could talk father and Michael out of it, but I obviously underestimated their determination, and how bad the situation was in the Outer Realm.

With population among the humans skyrocketing due to them lasting long enough this iteration to develop fairly advanced technology, the total amount of sublimated souls has increased overall. However, the percentage of sublimated souls had decreased over past centuries numbers, and shows no signs of reversing. Combined with the severe damage the process of developing current technology has placed on Earth's environment, Heaven and Hell has decided the humans of this era have reached their so called 'best-by date.' After discussing it, Lucifer and Michael decided to initiate Armageddon.

God had long left contingencies to wipe out the majority of intelligent life on the planet, and it had been used a not infrequent amount of times in the past. From the meteor that wiped out Beast-Taming Civilization, the Great Flood that removed the Atlanteans from the face of the planet, even the times the divine battlefield was opened to the physical realm allowing the constant warfare there to wipe out any upstart groups like the Babylonians, or those rogue elemental spirits that dared establish Pantheons and call themselves gods.

Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

Heaven and Hell had long learned from these experiences that the sublimation rate of human souls always spiked dramatically during the end of the world. Afterwards the population would decrease drastically as it reverts to a more primitive state, but this would also allow the energy of the planet to recover. The large influx of sublimated souls resulting from the suffering and misery of the apocalypse would bolster their forces and allow them to last through the recovery period of the population and the planet as a whole. After recovering, the percentage rate of sublimated souls would remain high for a long time afterwards, as the more dangerous living conditions produce higher levels of faith.

This was the most efficient and direct method to solve the problem of potentially decreasing recruitment numbers before it starts to negatively affect the ability to send troops to the Outer Realm. But I couldn't help feeling it was a great loss. While the current leaders of Heaven and Hell had been ruling the universe when humans were still rising from the mud the first time around, I was born during the current human civilization, and saw them as more than just a crop to be grown and harvested. It also helped that I spent a lot more time roaming the human world and learning about them than our leaders did, as they only ever receive written reports. It made me feel like maybe they were being too hasty to revert to the old ways of dealing with problems, and maybe this time we could allow the humans to keep growing and see what they are able to produce.

Of course if this had been an order from the Almighty I wouldn't have even dared to think about questioning it. No being created directly by the Lord would have, be it Angel or Devil. Any lifeform grown from the nurtured soul fragments of the Creator, or their descendants would always be eternally loyal. Blind loyalty had never been very helpful when inspiring independence or creativity however. This is part of the reason I believed God had always been relatively hands off in governing his creations, even before his time was almost exclusively focused on the war in the Outer Realm. He preferred to allow his children to solve problems on their own, even if they make mistakes.

I guess humans being able to believe that an Angel of the Creator could rebel against His Authority is at least in small part due to their own frequent failures to control their children, and their belief their failings are reflected upon Him. But even that is less ridiculous then humans believing a creation of the Almighty could wrestle away more than half of all souls.

I never did understand why so many people would be willing to believe God would be stupid enough to give his supposedly most disobedient child and strongest adversary an entire realm and continuously growing hordes of minions to continue to defy him. It would be like taking someone guilty of treason, and throwing them in a prison, only to make them the warden. That makes no sense. What does make sense is God entrusting the duty of punishing the sins of man to his most trusted child. That is one of the biggest misconceptions not a result of targeted advertising by either side. Lucifer didn't fall to become the Devil. It was a promotion.

But look at me, I've started rambling. I guess risking potential eternal damnation is rougher when you know it truly exists and you've helped dish It out firsthand. But to let whoever finds this record truly understand why Heaven and Hell wanted to initiate Armageddon, and why I want to stop it, we will have to go back to the beginning. Of Everything.