Crystalla
Nightmares of Yesterday

Infernus and Tartarus stood watching as The Wild Rose came crashing down in the distance, while Rychard was laying on the floor, bruised and beaten in the background.

"She's coming for you" Rychard taunted, as he coughed up blood. Infernus turned to Rychard and frowned.

"She'll die, you will watch as I crush the life out of her in front of you" Infernus threatened.

"You make the mistake of assuming I care about her, outside the context of the power she wields" Rychard shrugged weakly. Infernus stomped over toward Rychard angrily, but was stopped by Tartarus grabbing his arm.

"You let a pathetic being such as him provoke you?" Tartarus asked.

"I..." Infernus stuttered. "No, Sir" He added.

"You may be one of his kind now, but he'll never treat you as an equal" Rychard laughed painfully, as he looked at the planet that sat on the other side of the rift. "None of them will, Apathera. You will always BE Apathera to them" He added, as he watched Infernus's brow furrow.

"Infernus" Tartarus growled.

"Sir?" Infernus asked.

"Go deal with the girl before she makes it here" Tartarus ordered, before looking down at Rychard. "I'll deal with him" He grinned.

Infernus nodded and gave Rychard one last look, before leaving the throne room of the fallen Academy. Tartarus watched him leave, before turning to Rychard.

"I won't kill you" Tartarus shrugged.

"Is that a mercy?" Rychard asked.

"No" Tartarus replied. "In just over 19 hours, your world will end, in just 7 hours, the damage to this reality will become irreversible. I want you to be here to witness your world's end, I want your final thoughts to be of abject horror" He explained.

"Why are you like this?" Rychard asked.

"Like what?" Tartarus asked.

"From what I understand, your sole purpose is in harvesting our reality. So why do you look upon this world with the hatred that you do?" Rychard asked.

"Hm" Tartarus gazed into the sky, before grabbing a data pad. In the following moments, the nanomachines surrounded Rychard and Tartarus, they shifted their form into the mimicry of an unknown world. The vista that surrounded them both was beautiful.

"This is your world?" Rychard asked.

"It was" Tartarus nodded. "It was a paradise, we named it Eden, in your tongue, everything was in perfect balance" He continued. The surroundings shifted to show a shining blue pool, surrounded by verdant green grass.

"This was the font of creation" Tartarus said, as he knelt down to cup the water in his hands. "From this, our race created our universe, our reality, we were in control..." He continued. The water slowly turned red and the grass turned brown.

"Our reality turned on us, our world died, and we did not know why" He sighed deeply. A vision of a human woman appeared in the fountain. "We soon discovered why" He added.

"Who is she?" Rychard asked, looking at the woman who stood over the pond, with long golden flowing locks and a white gown.

"We... do not know" Tartarus shook his head. "She told us that the day of judgement had come, and that we were found wanting, and with the snap of her fingers, our reality almost came to an end" He explained, as the stars in the sky above the planet of Eden vanished.

"We refused to die, and so, those of us who remained came up with a plan and over many eons we became beings of pure energy" Tartarus explained.

"But you have a humanoid form" Rychard raised his eyebrow.

"This is how I choose to appear to your kind" Tartarus shrugged. "We eventually found a crack in the wall of our reality, and from there we began the harvest, to rebuild what that woman stole from us. We even managed to rebuild the basis of our world, but..." Tartarus' face turned to anger, as the nanomachines fell away, and retreated.

"Every single damn universe, reality and world..." Tartarus growled as he knelt down and looked Rychard in the eyes. "Was filled the humans, or... something similar. It's disgusting, you repulse us because you take on the form of the woman who destroyed us... I guess in a way it is a blessing" He shrugged.

"How'd you figure that?" Rychard shrugged.

"Because, it makes killing your kind... enjoyable" Tartarus grinned. "It makes snuffing out the hope that you all hold in your hearts a sport. You deserve to die, Rychard, just as the girl deserves to die. I will enjoy watching as everything you know ends and all that remains is you, I will enjoy serving you the same fate as that damned woman visited upon us" He laughed, as he stood up and turned away.