1 Prologue: The Apples of Eden

Nyx slowly picked herself up off the stony ground, her head held up high despite the debilitating injuries that racked her body.

Her onyx pupil-less eyes met the burning golden gaze of her antipode, her eternal foe, and brother.

Aether.

That was the name of the accursed spawn of her mother that had plagued her existence for thousands of years since their birth.

She pushed out the seemingly infinite well of power that she had been blessed with, as a being beyond mortal comprehension.

Aether's eyes widened as dark, malevolent energy began to pulse from Nyx's pallid porcelain skin.

"9 Lords of the Night: Mictlantecuhtli."

The voice was soft, spoken kindly and barely above the volume of a whisper, but the ominous black tendrils rising from the ground betrayed her malicious intentions as millions of skeletons began to claw their way out from the ground, surrounding the two deities in a sea of bone.

Aether widened his brilliant golden eyes, he didn't expect his sister to be that desperate to rid herself of his existence to the point she was willing to expend a significant portion of her divine power to unleash one of her strongest attacks.

He decided it was only right that he matched her intensity by also getting serious, lest he be bested by his cute little sister.

"400 gods of the northern stars: Eos."

It was Nyx's turn to widen her onyx orbs in surprise as she looked up only managing to erect a shield of darkness in time as thousands, if not millions of superheated asteroids rained down from above.

The asteroids demolished the battlefield around them, leveling the mountain range they had been fighting on and subsequently, Nyx's army of skeleton soldiers that had just barely finished clawing their way out of the barren earth.

As Nyx felt the sickeningly golden energy of her brother dissipate into the atmosphere, she lowered her barrier of darkness.

Aether watched as the dome of malevolent energy dissipated into the air around them, much like his own golden energy.

The two siblings stared at each other, gold meeting black.

Both were slightly out of breath, not noticing the ravaged landscape of what used to be a brilliant mountain range.

"Nyx, please stop this pointless violence, the cycle of hatred must end."

He pleaded with his beloved sibling, hoping with all his heart that his sister would at least find it in herself to remember the good times they shared back when they were simply concepts rather than conscious all-powerful beings.

His sister gave a sickeningly sweet smile as she voiced out the words he had been dreading.

It wasn't a response to his question, rather it was an incantation. An incantation to a forbidden technique that would obliterate both her consciousness and his, ending their supposedly immortal existences.

But it might as well have been the most degrading insult she could send towards him as he hurriedly tried to stop the process by gathering all of his divine energy to unleash his most powerful attack.

"AMATERASU!"

Aether's gold eyes flared with purple energy as he chanted the incantation, and purple flames suddenly lit the battlefield alight.

These flames burned through the ravaged terrain, converting it into goopy molten sludge.

The purple flames of Amaterasu would never extinguish, not until they consumed the entire planet.

Nyx widened her eyes and began hurrying her chants, watching as her brother fell to one knee seemingly out of energy.

Aether watched in horror as he found that his all-consuming flame was not quick enough to reach Nyx before she finished her incantation.

"... Chaos Theory: Eternal Void."

His sister gave him a small smile as if celebrating her victory as she dissolved into a fine black mist that gathered into the shape of a ball high above the landscape of the now flattened mountain range, still enveloped in brilliant purple flames.

Aether sighed in resignation as he felt himself being dissolved like his sister, he would be reduced to simple photons and assimilated into the eternal prison of Chaos, their mother.

He understood now that his existence was coming to an end, he would miss the times he had spent roaming the lush green valleys and daunting mountain ranges that littered the vast expanse of Pangaea.

He felt his time on this plane of existence coming to an end, but not before glimpsing a tiny glimmer of hope.

An untouched bough of apple trees, seemingly untouched by the chaos, even his hungry violet flames refused to go anywhere near it.

A golden opportunity to save both him and his beloved sister, ensuring that they be incarnated into a mortal body thousands, maybe millions of years in the future.

Aether gathered what was left of his once inexhaustible reserves of energy and used it to infuse the essence of both him and his sister in the seemingly countless bright red apples in the bough.

He laughed as the last of his body dissolved into dust and wondered to himself if he would ever see his sister again.

Aether inwardly smiled, his and his sister's destiny would be forever entwined.

He was confident he would see her again, the legacy he left would make sure of it.