Rise Of The Darkness' Prince

'There is no hate, only joy. For you are beloved by the goddess. Hero of the dawn, Healer of worlds.'

The chains had been broken.

Pale, shimmering eyes snapped open, their striking emerald depths pulsing with Michael-infused light. Elliptical pupils contracted and expanded with each haunting surge of power, yet were unable to penetrate the utter blackness which spread out before them. He could not see, but he didn't need to see to know the truth. He could feel the stirring, the awakening somewhere deep within the bowels of Tegral, and his heart rejoiced in that which would herald his own resurrection.

Raphael.

Long repressed emotions rushed to the fore, staggering in their intensity, purifying in their power. Pride, honor, horror, loneliness, passion-and strangest of all-hope, swept through him, nearly eclipsed by a love so strong that it had all but destroyed The Planet. The force of his feelings was maddening, overwhelming, much like the man who had inspired them, yet they remained true, untouched by his mother's madness.

She screeched a protest, that magnificently malevolent being he called 'Mother', but her voice was had been dimmed by time and defeat. There was virtually nothing left of The Bozorgh, of the beast named Irene, and he found himself glad for it. Never again would she darken his thoughts and twist his emotions, or compel him to destroy what little he held dear. Much like his newly awakening lover, he found himself liberated from the bonds of godhood, and the downward spiral that inevitably accompanied such greatness.

He had been called many things in his too-short life: General, friend, monster, hero, demon, weapon, villain, lover, nightmare. . .Now there was only him. A warrior born and bred, educated in the art of war, a swordsman unmatched who fumbled like a child when confronted with simple human emotion. A man with amazing preternatural abilities, one whose name evoked both terror and veneration, but a man nonetheless.

Xander closed his eyes as he searched for the source of Tegral's power, using his Michael-enhanced senses to reach into the MAMA itself, to find the other half of his tattered soul. He smiled unconsciously as he touched the passion, the fire-that was Raphael Redwood. It flowed unabated through his mercurial lover, singeing everything around him with its white-hot heat, including the silver-haired man who had once matched him betrayal for betrayal.

Never again. Xander sent the mental message to his lover, wondering if it would-could-reach him as he was reborn. It was a vow, a promise not to repeat the mistakes of the past, an oath meant to reassure his heart that he would not be betrayed a second time, and that he would never again be forsaken.

Xander frowned as the aura of power suddenly disappeared, his cat-like eyes opening in narrowed slits. As though a wall had slammed down between them, the power was gone, leaving nothing but silence, and an uneasy fear, in its wake. Had Tegral disrupted the bond between them? he asked himself apprehensively. Surely, Raphael wouldn't do such a thing?

Of course not, he assured himself quickly. No matter what had passed between them, Raphael knew-had always known-that he was loved. Xander had shown it in small but significant ways, although he had always regretted that he lacked the ability to vocalize his feelings. Nevertheless, he refused to believe that the other man-friend, lover, and rival that he had been-would turn his back on the passion that even now bound them together so tightly.

Xander fought the urge to curse The Planet for her actions. After all he had done to her in the name of revenge, he understood why she would try to deny him now. Finally, after eight long years, she had chosen a new champion, a new Weapon. Raphael would have been purged of the madness that had accompanied his degradation, his mind and body made whole once more. It made perfect sense that Tegral would attempt to separate her champion from the source of his past downfall.

Not that he would allow it. He had spent eight years-a lifetime, it seemed-trapped in this nothingness, in the void created to keep him segregated from the whole of the MAMA, forced to watch in maddened agony as Irene used his form again and again. For a time, he had managed to overpower her will with his own, intent on using his godlike power over his clones to search for the one who meant so much to him. Irene had proven herself surprisingly resilient, her alien will forceful enough to overpower him whenever he came too close finding that which he so desperately sought.

In the end, his own frustration with his inability to bend the world to his will had portended his own defeat. His fall from grace, which had begun that fateful afternoon in the Galdheim reactor, had been made stunningly complete. In one endless moment of infuriated agony, he had-to put it simply-given up. His lapse of willpower, while only momentary, had given Irene all the time she needed to erode what little had been left of his shattered mind. She had forced him to manipulate the boy she saw as his puppet, the young, damaged Calvin Steel, into giving him-them-the Black Rock. Meteor had been cast, his own destruction assured from within, as The Planet's had been from without.