Adam liked humans, he really did. After all, he was one himself.

But as of late, he’d spotted liking humans. And somehow, this translated into disliking himself. When he saw the face of a man, more and more uncommon as his infamy grew, he stopped seeing a “fellow human”, and started seeing an “enemy”. When he saw himself, which he only ever seemed to do in the shiny reflection of a helmet, he seemed more monstrous by the day.

But that was all behind him now. Now, he liked humans again. After all, he was one himself, wasn’t that right?

At least, that’s what he’d thought.

And then, his new life fell apart beneath him. His monstrous form, somehow both worse and better than his last one revealed to the world like a nasty scab. Gods only knew how many humans were dead, but that didn’t matter. He wasn’t one of them anymore. No, if he wanted to survive this, if he wanted to do the one thing he’d been doing for the past 600 years, he’d have to discard that hope.

It hurt, but it was the only way.

He let the faces of the people before him, people he knew he could have befriended, one he never wanted to hurt, blur over. The faces of enemies long defeated, kings long dethroned and peasants who had no time to run replaced those of the red ant and the rest.

He let himself be possessed by the spirit of his dead, decaying rage.

Sikrat noticed it only after a moment or so. How the creature’s - Antenora’s eyes widened by just the slightest margin, the tentacles, previously limp and lifeless, tensed up, just slightly, barely any at all. Somehow, this slight, almost unnoticeable movement caused such a tremendous change in Antenora that Sikrat couldn’t help but feel their grip on the hilt of their sword tighten.

Time moved as a blur.

They noticed the harsh gust of wind before what had actually happened. A fair few officers fell over at the sudden, fierce wind, but the magical girl - hippie alliance stood somewhat fast. Sure, the hippie part tumbled over like a breakdancing tumbleweed, but the rest stood tall.

What had actually happened soon became clear. As it turns out, Antenora had decided to move. Compared to how the most he had done as of yet was to lift an arm, which had seemed to be a harsh task even for a God, this was unprecedented. He had lifted three arms. All the arms he had yet to raise, he had now pulled up into the air, his upper body and blank-faced head following suit.

Lively. No, not lively; frantic. Those three, frenzied eyes fell upon Sikrat, and Sikrat alone. Sword, armour, all of it. Three eyes, hollow and empty and devoted to a cause only Kratos understood. He’d seen enough people with those eyes to fear them whenever they fell on him. This fear translated excellently into Sikrat, whose body gained a tremor under that vast gaze of his.

The three arms raised further, his upper body only kept upright from sheer will. The final, fourth arm still laid useless at his side, pierced by a hundred swords, now transformed into black sludge. Black sludge, the remnants of Sikrats swords, mingled with Antenora’s blood, both of which spilt onto the pavement in great amounts. The blood bubbled and sizzled, the sludge stained. For a moment, Sikrat was entirely convinced that this was the end.

But the eyes turned away. The glance fluttered over to the arm, battered and bleeding. Useless, Sikrat noted. They had a feeling that’s what Antenora was thinking, too.

Another blur of movement, another gust of biting wind (sending Bro tumbling even further away), and the three arms came down like sickles on their target.

Sikrat was not dead, and neither were their friends.

A spray of assiduous blood following the bisection of Antenora’s arm may prove the prior statement false. From behind, Sikrat could hear Lily curse softly. With no hesitation whatsoever, Antenora lifted the heavy, now dead limb into the air, not caring for the flood of blood escaping it. Antenora observed the thing for a moment, and in the next, it was gone. So was the blood. And the black goop. As if it hadn’t been there at all.

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“...Ingest,” someone said, most likely Helios since Lily wouldn’t know anything about that. Sikrat hated to turn their back on the creature, but since they’d done it quite a few times this day, doing so one more time wouldn’t hurt. What met them was indeed the face of Helios, who was gazing at Antenora in a rather odd manner. Sikrat might have confused it for reverence if there wasn’t fear and… disgust somewhere in there, but even so, it was a strange combination. Mentally, Sikrat silently added yet another person to the “might know more than they’re letting on” with no little amount of aversion.

Turning their back on an Evil God turned out to not be such a good idea after all.

If Sikrat hadn’t been taken by surprise, the Tifos-Teach amalgamation might not have been able to push them aside. The world turned topsy-turvy and Sikrat fell to the pavement, hands scraping against concrete and armour clinking softly on their dress. They only barely had time to notice the newcomer, the one who had saved them, flew through the air and slammed into the brick wall of some nearby house.

“Huh-, I-,” Sikrat stuttered. Bricks crumbled around the hole the healer had caused, clacking together in that final way. Nothing moved in there. Nothing was getting up. “N-, Newbie!”

Before Sikrat had time to get up, they noticed the gaze upon them. Those frantic eyes. Cold not like a silent lake of ice, but like a ravenous snowstorm, ready to rip you apart insides-first. Studying them, body bereft of one arm staring down like a tiger ready to pounce. For a moment, Sikrat forgets who they are. Not a magical girl. Not a warrior, not a fighter. A man, and a girl. Mere humans before a God.

The gaze turned away. Left the two, and turned somewhere else.

The pile of rubble. The Newbie, as Sikrat had called him.

“N-, no-, wait!” Sikrat commanded, scrambling to their feet to take a stand for what was right, but was only met with the cold shoulder and the silence of a monarch. The creature, Antenora, an immortal, dragged his body towards the pile of rubble, the almost collapsed building. A police officer scurried out of the way, unsure of whether to shoot or run. “Evil God! Cease this!!”

A dry, cracked arm reached out and plucked the Newbie’s near lifeless body from the rubble and stood up fully. His white eyes dragged across the body in his hand. The Newbie was only barely large enough to lie in his hand without slipping off.

Oh God. Gods? Was he going to die like this? In the hand of this… Antenora thing? A God?? Those weren’t supposed to exist, damn it! If there was one thing Teach didn’t want to talk to Tiftos about, it was the existence of Gods. Or God, for that matter. And yet, here they were, face to face with a real-life God. At least now it made sense why Tiftos had claimed he’d met one of the Gods. Maybe they were actually pretty nice wherever Tiftos came from, and this guy was just acting up… because?

Then again, if you let loose a giant creature in a city with no place to go, this is probably how it’d act. But, as that other part of him reminded him, Antenora was no mindless beast. As far as he could recall, this thing was supposed to be one of the more intelligent among the Evil Gods! As intelligent as a bunch of inhuman beasts can be, that is.

Anyhoo, that wasn’t important now, because he was going to die anyway. He was lucky he’d left Sophie with Paulie, so she was safe. That is, unless this damn creature decided to wipe out all of Humbugg, which is a thing Tiftos said he could totally do. Stupid strong, stupid big, stupid eyes. Why three? The third one wasn’t even placed somewhere where he’d see more, it was just on his forehead!

Nice to know his last thoughts would be about how stupid the so-called God killing him was.

“Adam, is that you?” the words rolled off his tongue before he could even think about it. Adam? Adam who? Adam Strickland in class B4? The God before him didn’t seem to react. Then again, it had been awful slow in dishing out this whole death thing, so maybe his lack of reaction was the reaction? “I know you can hear me. That is you, isn’t it? Look, Adam, I-,”

The creature swayed once more. Another hand, one of three, stretched out to grab onto a building, which cracked and groaned under his immense weight. From the inside of it, screams resounded. Not many, but enough.

“Adam! Listen to me, you have to stop this! This is not-, this is not how this has to happen!” he called out in a voice that didn’t feel like his own. Those eyes that gazed back at him, swimming and cold and lifeless, seemed human. In that blasted body, that green and black and purple body that truly lived up to his namesake, there were a pair of human eyes. White and beady and tired, the windows to a human soul. A soul called Adam. Whoever that was.

Unless it was… no. Teach dismissed the very thought.

Antenora did not respond. Nobody on the ground responded either. They were too far down to see anything. They were ants, and this was a God. He grit his teeth. Whose frustration it was, neither knew.

“Fine, you can’t speak, I should Tsar-be-damned know that, so… we’ll do this your way. If it is your way,” he growled, an arm that wasn’t his rising to form a circle in the air, words spilling out of his mouth that he himself couldn’t understand. “There, now I can-,”

A scream that belonged to both of them and yet somebody else entirely escaped their lips. He heard the screams before he realized why he was screaming. Whatever this spell was, it seemed to be making them into a speaker of sorts through which the God could speak. Either that or Tiftos had flipped the scream switch. In their head, there was a third presence. One that had no issue with just screaming.

His throat was on fire just after ten seconds. Past that, it was his lungs that burned, charred by effort and a lack of oxygen. Maybe he’d die, if he didn’t end the spell? Maybe he’d die anyway, and this was just the God’s way of making it a little bit more entertaining. A quick glance at the God in question debunked that theory.

If Teach had to describe the pair of eyes belonging to the man whose head was filled with only screams, this would not be it. This was not a lake where only the surface was frozen, the depths marred by swirling, unhindered currents. No, this lake, the one he saw in those white eyes of his, was frozen to the core. Whatever turbulence that could at some point have been found within those eyes was frozen in place, left as is.

Sad. That’s it.

What rage? What anger? What frenzied blizzard, what bitter avalanche?

Nothing of the sort.