the dark altimat

by xccter

a beast made from god banished to earth. his hatred of humans greater than satan himself. will his time on earth change his ways and turn him, or will it just fuel his hatred of the humans

Tartarus, the beginning of the Dark Altimat

This is the beginning of a dark plague spawned from god. Tartarus one of god's most fearsome evils originally depicted in Greek mythology and the catholic bible as a place reserved for the few angels that rebelled against god when Lucifer tried to gain the holy throne is incorrect. Tartarus is not a place, it is a being. Created by god with a fierce hatred of heaven and hell. Had he sided with Lucifer god would have lost his place in heaven. Tartarus was originally given the responsibility of tormenting and destroying the angels that god cast out of heaven. Tartarus was not like the angels or demons he was given the freedom that god gave the humans. Tartarus was given free will to do what he pleased. With that he chose to stay on earth the farthest he could that led away from heaven and hell. He came to earth around the time of 1938B.C. staying on earth he lived like a king because of the powers he had as a unique creation of god. He was able to invade people's minds and alter their rationality and their senses gaining complete obedience from them. Along with that there is a long list of other powers he was able to use. There was a price to him disobeying god. He was given a conscience and partial mortality. With that he could still out live humans by many millennia but he was vulnerable to injury. Upon coming to earth he assumed a new name the name he chose was Nicholas Tartarus trying to keep his real name.

This was a time on earth when kings and lords ruled the lands when slavery and poverty where all too common. With his powers he was able to alter the minds of many kings and lords into giving many gifts and a large estate to him. While on earth the first 50 years he did nothing but watch and learn and tried to incorporate some of what he saw into his life as to not stand out and be discovered of what he really was. While he watched his conscience developed more giving him compassion for the slavery and poverty he saw. At this time on earth slavery was not the color of your skin or what you believed in. the slavery he witnessed over the years was that of women. He watched day after day as they would be beaten and forced to work for nothing barely getting enough food to stay alive. He still watched day after day as these horrible things kept occurring in every house hold in every city. He finally decided that he would go see the kings and make them end this horrid catastrophe. On his way he was stopped by a light. A light that pierced through to his deepest darkest part of his soul. The light spoke "you may not do what you have set out to do" nick replies "these are your creations I want to help them." "YOU MAY NOT. If you alter the leaders minds the lower ranks will just replace him with someone they want and who will allow slavery to continue." Nick replies "This is not right I will go and you will NOT stop me." A great flash covered the land knocking Tartarus unconscious as he comes to he wakes up in the room he first stayed at when he came to earth. This was in the palace. He gets up to try to walk to the door and instantly collapses being caught by a lord that was assigned to watch him by the king, nick destabilizing himself starts to walk to the door telling the lord he is going to see the king. The lord whistles as guards enter the room and surround nick. "You may not see the king at this time." Nick looks into the lords eyes about to enter his mind and force him to take him to the king when he realizes he is no longer capable of controlling humans anymore. Nick realizes that the light was god and that he had taken away these powers from nick. Nick grumbles as he sits down on the bed and tells the lord he will be heading back to his estate immediately. Punching the wall in frustration knocking the entire wall down with one hit he realizes that only his manipulation was relinquished. He immediately walks out of the room and to a dark corner of the palace where no one can see and opens a portal that leads to inside of his house.

With something this horrific existing throughout time it is almost expected that the Catholic Church would become involved. Throughout history the Catholic Church has had a secret group of trained individuals that was originally formed to gather intelligence about any kind of demonic or satanic 'disturbances'. After they learned about a demon coming to earth in my general location they altered the group of intelligence gatherers to more of an assassin's band. Latter in this story they will come to be known as 'the right hand of god'. There primary focus was to locate this demon and eventually erase him and all he has contact with.

For the next few month nick tries to figure out a way to stop the slavery and abuse of the women. During the time he tries to figure a way to help he receives a messenger at the door. "Are you Nicholas Tartarus?" nick replies accordingly "Sir Nicholas Tartarus I come from king orlandu's palace with a gift from the king." Nick replies "alright what is it?" the messenger steps aside and nick sees a beautiful woman standing behind the messenger. She is wearing a beautiful dress and was also bound in handcuffs. "The king offers you a slave after he had noticed that you were living alone on this large estate. He would be grateful if you excepted his gift to you." Nick pauses for a moment staring at the girl who could have easily been royalty but was obviously a slave. She was about 5'6 slim with red silky hair down to her back and nick tries to see her eyes but she refuses to make eye contact. Nick finally thinks of a way to help "I except king orlandu's gift thank you, you may uncuff her now and leave." "Yes sir, immediately sir." Replies the messenger the messenger releases her and leaves. The slave stands in front of nick never making eye contact only saying "what is it you wish me to do master." Nick is shocked at first as to how she acted he finally says "please come in." she follows him into the large house and fallows him upstairs to his personally room and they both enter. "Sit on the bed." The slave replies "yes master." Nick stands there thinking for a moment as she sits on his bed not moving at all. "Alright well what is your name." she replies to him "my name is Jaime master." "Nick is fine" retorts nick. "Excuse me master?" "I meant that you don't have to call me master my name is nick and that will do fine." Jaime replies "but master it is not proper for a slave to call her master by name." nick replies "well you have to do what I say no matter what it is right?" "Yes master" nick replies "well ok I order you to stop calling me master and call me by my name is that ok?" Jaime replies "yes mast…I mean nick." "Thank you alright I will show you your room and where everything is so could you fallow me?" "Yes master nick" nick sighs "uuhhgg ok from now on just talk to me like you would anyone else like a friend. And this estate will be different you can do anything you please as long as you are done with what I have asked you to do." Jaime pauses "…alright" nick replies "ok good thank you." They continue walking "over here is the library and the bathroom is over there." Nick opens the library door and reveals a room that was three times bigger than any of the other rooms in the house. It had two stories and had books lining every wall in the whole room. They continue down the hall. "And this room will be where you will stay." Nick opens the door and reveals a huge bright and decorative room Jaime gasps as she sees how big the room was. Alright you can come back to this in a little bit for now I will finish the tour. The walk down the hall more passing over 20 rooms "all of these are more guest rooms." Nick states. They finally get to a stare case. They continue down the stairs to the main floor. They enter the living room, the study the kitchen, the dining room, and then nick leads her to the outside where the yard was and shows her the huge yard and beautiful landscape. The huge flower beds, tree lines "Alright I think that's it but there is one thing. You cannot go into my personal study. That room is completely off limits at all times. It is the room across from the master bedroom. "ok I will remember not to go into that room nick" "hey you remembered that's good ok well you can go back to your room and get a better look or the library if you would like to read a book. Ginner will be ready in about an hour ok?" "Yes nick what would you like me to cook?" nick laughs "oh I was going to cook tonight since it is your first time in a new place." "Ok then I will go to my room and get a better look at it and I will wait for you to call me thank you nick." As Jaime walks to her room she can't help but wonder why her new master has so nice to her and being so generous to her. She didn't feel comfortable with it. Every time in her life when it looks like something good was going to happen it always got worse really quickly and was always worse each time it happened.

Nick starts cooking dinner making a large amount of fine foods (after about 50-55 years he turned into a moderately good chef) and prepared them. Nick finishes cooking in about an hour and sets everything up in the dining room and calls for Jaime she comes down the stairs wearing one of the gorgeous dresses that was in one of the closets in her new room. "I'm sorry I found this in my closet and it fit me perfectly so I wore it is that ok." Nick stares at her for a long time "no that's fine I'm glad it fits you, you look beautiful in it." Jaime smiles as she fallows nick into the dining room and looks at all the food that nick had made "wow this looks amazing you did all this in just an hour?" nick looks at her and smiles "yeas it took a little longer because I had to cook for two instead of the usual one. Please sit down and try it." Nick pulls out a chair from the table for her "please sit." She looks at him confused. She hadn't eaten at the same table as her master since she was 16, but she didn't complain she walked over to the chair and sat down. Nick takes the seat across from her and seats himself. Nick looks at Jaime and still they haven't made eye contact yet. "I'm sorry this must be uncomfortable to you." Nick says "what do you mean nick." Jaime replies "I noticed since I asked you to talk to me formally. It looks like you're expecting something bad to happen soon." "I apologize it's just that this isn't first time something good like this has happened to me and then it flips around and things are worse than with my last master." Nick walks over to her; he lifts her chin so they finally make eye contact for the first time "wow, you have beautiful eyes." "Thank you, nick." She feels a kind of warmth coming from his eyes "well nothing bad like that is going to happen to you I promise I will protect you with my life." She finally feels a bit of relief from the words nick spoke. She finally felt like everything was going to be ok.

When it seemed like nick had started to help these slaves there was an incident that he did not realize was going to happen. One day while nick was on his way into the city he felt as if he were being followed. He would stop look behind him and see nothing, but there was always this ominous presence when he would leave his estate. A few weeks after nick started to notice a man in a hooded cape fallowing him. Not the obvious bunch of official's aids and soldiers, this one was different very skilled at what he did. It was strange; every attempt nick would make at trying to get a real look at this person it was like they would disappear. Maybe there really was no one maybe nick was just being paranoid. Aside from that one time when he thought a man was fallowing him he would never see anyone, only getting that strange feeling. After about a week he stopped getting the feeling and decided that it was all in his head. That all changed after the night when the first attempt was made on Jaime and his life. Jaime and nick were out in the garden on a beautiful summer night. The garden was lit up with fire flies and lanterns. "This is one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen, don't you think so nick?" Jaime says walking with nick holding onto his arm as they go through the garden. "Yes it is, I don't think there could be a better night than this." Just then nick noticed a faint glitter of light out of the corner of his eye. He grabs Jaime and pulls her close to him. "Im so thankful to have you with me" he says as he turns and grabs a flying arrow aimed for Jaime's heart. Thankfully nick was able to do this without startling Jaime; in fact she did not know that anything was wrong at all. "Can you do me a favor and go inside for a little while I need to be alone for a little bit." Nick says to Jaime. "Oh, alright. You will be in shortly?" she says with a bit of concern. "Don't worry about me I just need to clear my head. I will be in shortly," as he finishes his sentence Jaime walks inside and nick vanishes. He appears behind the man who had shot the arrow at Jaime. Nick grabs him by the neck and lifts him above the ground then noticing he was soaked in blood and that this man had been dead for hours. Before he could do anything else a man appears above him with a drawn sword. He landed on nicks shoulder. He raises his sword and thrusts it downward. Nick grabs the sword with his bare hand and pulls it down. With his free hand he grabs the man's wrist and pulls him off his shoulders and flips him onto the ground landing the man on his back. "Why was there an attempt on my life and on those who live in my estate!?" the man looks up at him already bleeding from his mouth from being slammed with such force "you must be punished demon. The right hand of god will end your horrid existence on this precious earth." After nick hears this he jams his sword into the man's throat. The man gargles and chokes on his own blood as nick walks away returning to Jaime and his estate.

For the next six month nick and Jaime lived in the estate more like brother and sister than master and slave. Nick was kind and loving towards Jaime every day. Every first Saturday nick would take Jaime into the city and have her pick out a dress that she liked and he would buy it for her she finally felt that someone loved her. Jaime is in the library reading a book when nick walks in with a large bag in his left hand he sits down next to her. "It has been exactly six months since you came to live with me. Now I have a question for you." "What is it Nick?" replies Jaime "how did you become a slave? Where you born into it or did something else happen?" Jaime looks at nick with eyes that just melted his soul. "I was forced into slavery by my parents. When I was 16 my parents told me that I had an arranged marriage with the lord that ruled over the land. When I get there I was thrown into a dungeon and forced to work as a slave. Later I found out that my parents needed money so they approached the lord and asked how much" Jaime breaks out into tears "how much they could sell." Jaime is unable to finish telling the story because she is crying so hard. She gets up to leave but nick goes after her stopping her and pulling her in close "it's ok everything is ok now, it's ok." After another 20 minutes Jaime finally stops crying "I'm sorry it just really upset me that they did that. I didn't mind not having money as long as we were happy." Nick replies "I know, I know, don't worry it's all ok now." Jaime looks into nick's eyes "why did you want to know that about me anyway?" "I'm going to give you a choice now. In this bag there is enough money for you to live comfortably for the rest of your life. You can take this and leave and live your own life if you would like. Or you can stay here with me as long as you like and keep living as you are now." Jaime looks into nick's eyes staring hard into his soul she saw that he didn't want her to leave but he wouldn't try to stop her or hurt her if she did. Jaime reaches for the large bag of money. As she took the bag of money she threw it to the side and ran into nick's arms. "Like I said before I don't care about money as long as I'm happy" Jaime smiles wiping tears from her eyes as she hugs nick.

Nick sighs as he walks to the slave compound." I can't believe I'm actually going here, this is a bad idea." Nick thinks to himself. "But I need to find some way to help and this is all I can do." Nick walks up to the gates as he is greeted by a well dressed man and two very large men that looked like they were the orderlies. "Hello sir and welcome to my business my name is mustadio. How may I help you?" says the merchant. Uuhhgg fuck, nick thinks to himself. "Yes I am in need of a slave." Grumbles nick. "Ah right this way sir. We have many fine slaves do you have a preference on what kind?" "If it is no problem I would like to see all of them." Replies nick "Of course right this way." Mustadio waves his hand and says 'bring them all out' as he finishes the too large men turn and walk away to bring out all of the slaves. As the two men leave, mustadio motions at nick to fallow him. Mustadio leads nick out to a court yard. After a few minutes of waiting the men return leading out all of the slaves. "Please Sir Nicholas take as long as you need to inspect them." Mustadio says. "Shit! How am I supposed to figure out which woman to help I lost the power to invade people's mind." Nick says to himself "ok fuck it I'll just find one." Nick grunts. While he looks over all of the slaves he sees a girl who could barely be 20 with beautiful brunette hair and gorgeous blue eyes standing in the back trying to avoid his sight. Mustadio notices this and waves his hand at one of the men and signals him to go get her. As the man walks over he grabs her by the neck and shoves her in front of all the other slaves directly in front of nick. As he goes to try to pick her up she struggles and smacks him to get away. The man now furious raises his hand and smacks her across the face. "That is quite enough of that!" nick snaps at the guard. "Slaves must learn their place." Mustadio replies signaling the guard to continue what he was doing. The guard raises his hand to strike the girl again at this point the guard is sent flying into the wall smashing it to pieces. Three men run over to check on the guard signaling he was dead. "I said that was enough. This girl is now my slave. If any lays a hand on her again they will be met with the same fate as that guard." Nick helps the girl to her feet whispering in her ear "everything is going to be ok now. No one else will harm you." She looks into his eyes with and empty soul nick can see that she has given up on hope. "I want her delivered to me immediately." Nick snaps at mustadio. Nick hands the money to mustadio. Nick does not wait for an answer he turns and walks away back to his estate. "shit, I didn't think I hit him that hard I have to start controlling myself out in public or it will cause people to panic." Nick thinks to himself remembering how he blew out an entire wall with one punch

About an hour after nick arrives back at his estate there is a knock on the door. Nick goes to open it and sees the other large man that followed mustadio when nick was at the slave compound. "Hello sir I have come to deliver your property to you." "Alright where is she?" nick states "first sir I require you to pay for the damages that you inflicted to my brother back at the slave compound." "I refuse he disregarded my property so I punished him accordingly." Nick retorts with a smirk. "That is not his fault he was fallowing an order I must request that you pay for his life with your own." Nick pauses for a moment before responding. "You may leave now with your life if you choose to pursue this than you will meet him shortly." The man now furious from the disrespect he heard from nick draws his sword and lunges at nick. The man smiles as he hears the sword cutting through flesh as nick stands there with a blank expression on his face. Blood falls to the ground soon followed by the man. "I told you, you could leave with your life but you disregarded me like your brother." Nick smirks and walks by him to where the girl he had just bought was standing with another man holding her chains so she would not run. Both of the man and slave staring in awe, they witnessed what just happened. Nick looks at the girl he just bought she was bathed and was wearing a very expensive and beautiful dress. Blood starts to drip from nicks hand as he looks down to see the small cut he received from grabbing the sword and spinning it around. He hands the man a few gold coins and tells him to leave. The man undoes the shackles and thanks nick and leaves hastily. "Please will you come inside?" nick says softly stepping over the corpse of the man. "Yes master." Replies the girl. Oh geez not this again Nick laughs to himself. "Ok you don't have to call me master. I request that you call me nick and speak to me formally. You may do what you want while you stay here. The only thing you may not do is go into my private study which is located across from the master bedroom. You will learn where those things are after I show you around the estate. Did you understand all of that?" "Yes nick I understand." Replies the girl. "Alright well what's your name if you don't mind me asking?" the girl pauses for a moment before answering. "I do not have a name I am your slave you may call me what you wish." "Alright well I want you to tell me what name you like and I will call you that. Is that alright?" nick replies "Of course nick. Well I have always liked the name Melissa." Says Melissa. "Alright Melissa after I show you the estate you will be able to do as you please dinner will started shortly after I show you around." Nick says. "Yes nick what would you like me to cook." Melissa replies. Nick laughs wow it's just like with Jaime. "I will be making dinner and you will be joining Jaime the other girl that lives here and myself." This time was just like with Jaime. Nick laughs to himself again as he starts cooking dinner. Just then Jaime walks into the kitchen "hey nick." She says giving him a hug. Nicks goes back to cooking "hey there is something I need to talk to you about. I brought someone else home today. Her name is Melissa she was from that slave compound in town." Jaime looks at him confused "I'm going to start doing this every six months or so. Im going to help as many of these girls as I can. Hopefully I can help them as much as I helped you." Jaime looks at him with a strange face "why would you bring those slaves here?" nick instantly stops what he is doing, Jaime blinks and nick is six inches away from her face. "Did you already forget? Did you forget how I saved from the same life that they had? What could possibly make them any better than you? Why should I only help one person? Why the fuck should you be special!" nick grabs her by her neck lifting her high in the air. She looks into his eyes and doesn't see the same person she has known all this time. "I…I ca…can't Brea…breath" she finally musters. The darkness finally leaves nick and he drops Jaime immediately. Nick quickly leaves retreating to his personal study. "Jesus Christ. What the fuck am I doing? I could have killed her." Nick sits in his study for days thinking about Jaime and if he would snap like that again. Finally after 5 days nick comes out of his study and goes to talk to Melissa. "How do you like it here so far Melissa?" nick asks her. "It's really nice. The garden is beautiful. Are you alright now? I talked to Jaime and she said that you were sick." Nick replies "yes but I don't know if Jaime can forgive me for what I did." "she really cares about you and from what she has told me you are a kind and caring very passionate person is she your mistress?" nick smiles at her as he replies to her question. "No she is not. She was like you at one point. I first met her when king Orlandu gave her to me as a gift. But I never thought slavery was a good idea so I did with her I'm going to do to you. I'm going to treat you as if you where my sister. I promise no harm will ever come to you and I will always be there for you so don't hesitate to ask me for anything at all. After about six months I will give you the option of leaving and living else were or staying here with me. Every six months I will go back to the slave complex and help another girl." Melissa smiles at nick. The first time he has seen her smile at all. Nick kisses her cheek "now I have to see if Jaime will forgive me."

Nick finds Jaime in his personal study. Nick opens the door quietly so she doesn't notice him. "Why have you disobeyed the one thing I asked you not to do" nick says standing over her as she jumps up and turns around with tears in her eyes. "Who are you really? Nick…or Tartarus?" nick pauses as he realizes that she knew what he was and he looks on the desk and sees the book she had. It was a book that had explained everything that had happened up until the point of nick coming to earth. "Please who are you, tell me!" Jaime starts to cry harder. As nick tries to hold her she pulls away from him. "Please don't touch me" nick pauses for a few minutes to try to figure a way to explain thing to her. "How many times did you invade my mind? How many times did control me or make me forget things? Is this the first time I found this out or did I do it before and you just erased my memory of it?" as she said that she slapped nick across the face. Jaime looks into his eyes and starts to see the darkness, the emptiness return to his soul. She backs away in fear as she sees the only man that had cared for her; losing himself to darkness and hatred. He walks closer to her "do not fear me child" he walks closer to her as he draws a blade from his arm. "Nick please don't hurt me" Tartarus draws the sword back he starts to swing it down ward "you promised me." Nick drops the blade dropping to his knees. Jaime watches as the darkness leaves his soul, leaving his heart. Nick stands up starts walking to the door "I'm sorry Jaime I have to leave to protect you. I'm asking you to keep helping other people while I'm gone. I'm sorry that this happened I love you and I will protect you always. Good bye." Nick opens the door and walks down the hall "nick please don't leave me alone!" Jaime screams running after him. He vanishes right in front of her. Jaime drops to the floor crying "why did you have to leave me nick I love you." Nick appears walking down the streets of the city. After a while he starts to notice people avoiding him. He over hears two men talking "that man is nick Tartarus isn't he. He's the beast that attacked the men in the slave complex." He stops walking and turns to the two men. "What of it. Why should it matter if I killed a disobeying man?" they turn and look at him in fear "you threw a man clean through a concrete wall you're a freak, a demon." Nick turns and walks away "shit that man that tried to kill me was obviously not the only one his group that and he seemed religious I should look into the Catholic Church more closely." Once nick is gone the two men start talking again. "I know where he lives. We need to get rid of him before he destroys the entire city." "Your right we need to get all the people we can and storm his estate." Says the other man. That night a mob of people stand in front of nick's estate. Jaime walks outside the door confused. "What are you people doing here?" a man steps forward "we have come to destroy the demon that lives here and all of those that worship him. Which includes any slaves and anyone that lives here with him." Jaime steps back. "Please he is not a bad man and he has not harmed any of you please leave. He is not here any way he left this morning." The mob pays no attention to her and starts to move forward lighting the yard and garden on fire as they move forward. One man grabs Jaime and holds her down as the mob runs into the house. They rush in breaking everything in sight lighting fires throughout the house and on man comes outside pulling Melissa by the arm out into the yard. "You both are sinners and you must die for the sins you have committed" yells the man holding Jaime. "Please don't do this you can't kill us we haven't done anything wrong." Jaime starts to cry as a man with a sword walks up to Melissa. The men throw Jaime and Melissa on the ground as the man raises the sword he swings it down killing Melissa instantly. He then walks over to Jaime. "Please don't do this. Please." Jaime begs them but her words fall on deaf ears. The man again raises his sword. Swinging it down again and striking Jaime through a lung. Just after he strikes down Jaime nick appears out of the darkness walking into the light the mob soon realizes that he is there. It is him, the demon. Nick, no longer caring to conceal his powers reverted back to his original demonic for. Standing at ten feet tall bulging with muscles. Wearing steel armor covering his chest and legs with a metal guard covering his face. His eyes glow a feint blood red. "You strike down the innocent to punish the wicked. What you have done will never be forgiven you shall all be damned to suffer in the deepest part of hell, my domain." Tartarus voice echoes, rattling the bones of everyone in the mob. "No! the demon is here kill him quickly!" the man leading the mob says. Five men run at nick with swords drawn. Nick raises his left hand straight up in front of him. Making a fist with his right hand he puts his right hand next to his left. He then opens his right hand while pushing the hilt of a sword out of his left palm. Gripping the sword with his right hand he pulls it from palm, like he is pulling it from out of thin air. He easily strikes down the men charging at him. When the mob sees this they start to flee but are halted by a ring of fire that suddenly surrounds them. "Its demon magic!" yells someone from the mob. Nick drops to his knees. Screaming as something started to sprout from his back. Then something rips from his back. Wings spread out from both sides tattered and torn they start to flap as they raise him into the air he raises his hands in front of him. "art of annihilation zodiac sign Scorpio, malice, vengeance, hatred, regret destroy all in your path!" then a dark sphere forms in his hands, growing bigger like it was feeding on his anger, on his hatred. He then fires it at the center of the mob. Completely destroying everyone trapped in the circle of fire. Nick starts breathing heavy as he falls to the ground. Changing back into his human form. He walks over to Jaime who had witnessed the whole thing "I'm sorry. Please forgive me. I failed to protect you. Please don't leave me alone please!" nick screams as tears fall from his eyes onto her face. She looks into his eyes "you are still a good person. I'm glad I was able to spend my last moments on earth with you. I love you nick." She slowly slips away into silence. "NO! I can save her I know I can!" nick puts his hands over her and starts to focus his energy. Slowly the cut on her chest starts to dissipate. "It's working!" nick says enthusiastically. The glowing slowly starts to fad and the wound starts to reopen. "You may not save her. God will not allow it." This voice echoes in his head. "LUCIFER!" "yes." "Stop interfering with this!" nick yells "It is not me. It is god's will to punish her. He is preventing this." Satan retorts. "Why, why won't he let me save her? She is innocent!" screams nick "be that as it may it is to punish you not her." "Fuck, why her why can't just come after me! Humans are his creations. His pride that he prizes more than angels!" nick screams wiping tears from his eyes "earth has made you weak tartarus. I can save her if you swear you allegiance to me." Satan starts to laugh "but the great Tartarus wouldn't sacrifice freedom to save a human! Ha" "save her. I swear my loyalty to you." Nick screams. "Fine but she will not remember you and you may never see her again." Satan replies. "Alright I swear." Says Tartarus. "You are now the overlord of hell. The girl will become a slave again and never know happiness again." Satan starts to laugh "but I did save her from death." Nick screams "you bastard you betrayed me? You will regret this remember I can still kill you at will." Satan starts to laugh even harder "no you are not allowed to kill me anymore you swore you allegiance to me it is prohibited. Either way this would not have happened if your god didn't stop you, and who do you think got the people to attack you? God is the only one who can change people free will now that you lost your ability to." "The hand of god did smite you. You are not that informed of them are you?" before tartarus can reply "they do not speak of god himself. They speak of an assassin group that is orchestrated through the Catholic Church. This maybe the last time that they bother you as in they believe they have succeeded in destroying you and all you know. So for now you will remain in hell as my overlord you may return to earth in about 50 to 100 rotations of the planet around the star."

From that point on Tartarus served Lucifer in hell. He was now the overlord of hell meaning he was able to come back to earth and torment and torture god's precious creations. That became his only goal after being betrayed by the same creator. From that he constructed a book, a book that had the secrets of great demonic powers hidden inside of it. The power to invade and control people's minds making them give into their greed, their passion, their lust. The book gave humans the power to enchant and curse items to change the way people thought and act. The book that gave the owner strength and speed beyond comprehension .The book gave the user the power to summon demons and beasts into the human world. The book, placed on the earth by Tartarus. The books only reason for existence was to destroy human life. To convince the holder of the book that there was no one more important than them in the world and they needed the power to further their own gain. The contents in it gave the user immense power. Whenever a human is given immense power they use it for self gain. In the pursuit of self gain much blood is shed. The book was designed for that specific purpose. The book was called the dark altimat (all-time-at). Although the book gave the user immense power they would always want more. Eventually leading to the last spell in the book calling for a human sacrifice. The sacrifice was supposed to open the gate to the ultimate power, but was actually a gate to hell that would suck in all those who opened it, and for years Tartarus would place the book into a human's possession and watch carefully as they would gather followers and eventually destroy themselves. Tartarus would repeat this process every 50 years. Until one incident where he lost track of the book and it was lost forever. Or so it seemed until it was recovered by a girl around the year of 1993

Dark Altimat

Stories…many stories have been told for different reasons and at different times. This is the story that will explain one of the most horrific magical cults that has ever existed. Existing for many years before the incident told in this story. This is the story of a book, just a single book that has lead to the destruction of lives and the corruption of the pure.

The beginning is about 14 years ago with a high school girl named Kris bouwens; she had just moved to the town and had started the school year with no friends. She was a kind and pure hearted woman who cared for anything and everything. For the first few days of school she went unnoticed by everyone not having any contact with anyone in the school. A few days after school started she was on her way home and saw a stray dog. Having kindness in her nature she stopped and feed the dog her leftover lunch and brought it food to and from her way home from school.

The other part of this story is about a girl Mimi froitzheim who had discovered a book this book was actually the book mentioned previously. This book was filled with incantations and spells. Written in an unknown undocumented language that could not be translated through any easy means. She spent all of her waking hours deciphering this book. Finally after months of studying the scriptures she had finally deciphered the book. She read through it finding how to summon the power to cast charms to the summoning of a dark overlord of hell. The more she read the more she felt disgusted as to what this ancient book had written in the pages, but she felt compelled to look over the entire book as she read further I described a certain spell that would bestow knowledge unto the caster. Being of the curious type she decided to test the books power. After 3 hours of preparation she finally finished drawing the summoning circle on her bedroom wall. She chanted the words in the book "tartarus, overlord, keeper of knowledge in deepest bowels of hell I seek the knowledge of destruction and power" she sits back "ha as I thought nothing happened." suddenly the circle ignites in a pitch black flame and coming forth from the flames came a beast with eyes like pools of blood a dark green scaly skin and long black hair. Suited in black armor. "What…is…it…you…seeeek" came a horrible growl as he stepped forward into her room. Mimi sat speechless staring at the enormous beast that stood in front of her. Again it said "what…is…it…you…seeeek!" the demon yelled already angry he was summoned to earth. Mimi finally answered him "I seek knowledge and power". The demon opens his mouth leaving a disturbing smile on his face and holds out a palm to her. She started to reach for it when something that looked like black clouds started to cycle around his hand forming a black sphere in his palm. She looks into it and in an instant she is walking through hells depths with the demon as a guide showing her the knowledge he had to offer her. For what seemed like years she was down in the pits of hell learning new things about the book she translated. Learning the powers to create and the power to enchant and control. During this time her soul became warped with malice and hatred. She was then taken quite far back in time to when the book was first written. She saw that the demon who wrote the book was Tartarus. Using skin, from the most horrific and evil humans in hell as the pages and bones of the damned to cover of the book. Writing the words in the blood spilled from the innocent. She saw how much dark magic was put into the pages of the book. She then heard the words "my…dark altimat" (pronounced all-time-at"). She was then taken back to the time that she had first summoned Tartarus and he left her there with all the knowledge of book but he would not tell her what the more powerful and dark spells would or could do. Mimi was confused as to what happened exactly but she understood the general idea Tartarus warping time with demon magic.

Kris was having a rough time meeting new people in the school she was at because she was very shy when it came to talking to people. One day on her way home she noticed that bailey (the dog she would feed) was not following her in fact she did not see him in the morning either. She started to get a little upset thinking that he might have been hit by a car. Then she heard a bark from behind her and she saw bailey walking next to a young man who was holding a leash attached to bailey's collar. She ran over to the dog to pet him. While she was petting bailey the young man asked her if she owned bailey. Kris replied "no, he's a stray that I would give some of my left over food to" the young man said that the pound was going to put him to sleep so he offered to try to find a home for it. "if you want you can take him home with you" Kris replied "I can't do that I live in an apartment so I can't have pets there" the young man says "oh, well first off my name is nick, if you can't take care of him I'll keep him at my house and you can come over and see him any time you want" she replies "hi nick I'm Kris thank you for helping bailey it means a lot to me" nick replies "it's no trouble he's a lot of fun and maybe when you stop by we could get something to eat afterwards." Kris pauses for a moments looking up at nick "I would like that, but right now I need to get home it was nice to meet you nick" nick looks up from petting bailey "yeah it was…. (Oh she's already gone)

The next few weeks Mimi was overjoyed about her new understanding of the book and the powers that she was able to use so she would show off her newly honed powers by doing favors for the girls that would come and ask her. She would only use low grade magic for the sake of preventing everyone from asking her to do them favors and because it would cause a panic. Two girls that seemed to always hang around Mimi and were always are astonished when the charms worked. Mimi would try to avoid people confronting her about her enchantments by calling them coincidences. Included in the enchantments she did was the 'love spell'. One day a girl named Jessie asked Mimi to help her get a boy to like her the problem was he already had a girlfriend. Needing the blood of Jessie that wanted the spell cast Mimi would enchant a small doll of the man Jessie liked (in this case Kirk.) and place a drop of the girl blood on it. When she was done Jessie was to hold onto the doll and keep it in her possession. Jessie did as Mimi instructed. The next day at school during lunch Mimi sees a crowd of people in the middle of the hallway. She sees a girl crying on the floor and sees the boy Kirk on his knees in front of Jessie. Mimi asks the classmate in front of her what happened "I really don't know, the girl crying on the floor is Kirk's girlfriend. Jessie passed Kirk in the hall way with his girlfriend. The moment that they made eye contact Kirk immediately dropped to his knees confessing his love for Jessie." Mimi smirks and walks away "wow it really does work" she laughs to herself. Nikki and Amelia became infatuated with curiosity when they found out that Mimi put some kind of enchantment on Kirk. They confronted Mimi after school one day to talk to her about what she was doing. They talked for well over 2 hours more bargaining than conversation trying to get Mimi to tell them how she did it. After the 2 hours finally Mimi said "this is enough come over to my house in an hour and I will show the depth of these powers". So in an hour Nikki and Amelia showed up at Mimi's house expecting to find some amazing secret but all that Mimi did was take them upstairs and showed them a circle with various zodiac and demonic signs written in it. Mimi directed them to stand in a triangle around the circle Mimi then began to chant what seemed like gibberish and when the two were about to leave the circle started to glow a bright white and a great flash shot out of the circle like the gates of hell themselves opened and the fire of hell spilled out. Stunning the three women momentarily. When they got their focus back they saw a small red imp standing in the middle of the circle when it finally knew what happened it screeched and flew around the room bumping into everything screeching and thrashing and then "DISPEL!" Mimi yelled and the imp popped vanishing in a puff of red smoke sent back through the gates of hell. From that day on the three women studied the book learning more and more secrets about the demon magic arts.

Months went by as the three studied the book and drew in new members of their cult; the only problem was there were too many people to fit into the one room anymore. So they put in for a magic club in school which was denied by the principal many times for the reason of "magic is not real, you kids should get your minds back into the real world". This problem was easily fixed with the new abilities acquired by Mimi during her studying of the dark altimat. She walked into the principal's office and raised one finger pointing it in the principal's direction. Instantly the hex took effect, the principal was engulfed in flames his skin melting off, his internal organs beginning to boil Mimi releases the hex and snaps the principal out of the torment. Yuroichi finally coming to grips with what he had just gone through looks up into the eyes of the sick twisted woman standing in front of him. "You'll give us a club room right principal yuroichi?" The principal snaps back instantly "of course I will just don't ever do that to me again please" tears started to well in his eyes from his recent torment. "Im sorry but the only room I have left is the one in the top of the school that used to be an old book storage I'm begging you please make do with this it's the only available room" Mimi replies "that's great! Thanks Mr. Yuroichi"

Months had gone by since nick and Kris meet and their relationship had progressed into a dating relationship. "hey Kris don't worry about bailey he runs away a lot and comes back in a few hours so I'm sure he's just pissing off some squirrels" "I know nick but he's never been out this late and he has always come back before it got dark" nick replies "he runs away all the time he'll be fine I promise" "do you swear nick?" "Of course, on my life, it'll be ok." Nick holds Kris close comforting her. Right after they finished that conversation Mimi walked up and asked them "hey nick and Kris right?" both of them reply "yeah" "I found this dog in my back yard chasing some squirrels and I saw you guys with him before." nick butts in "HA what did I tell you baby" "yeah yeah" Kris punches nick in the side. Both nick and Kris thank Mimi for returning bailey. Kris sighs with relief "I'm really glad that she brought him back. I was getting a little worried." Nick says jokingly "a little? What was that before, come on I'm always right." Nick kisses Kris and walks her back inside. "Hey I thought it was supposed to be the girl is always right." Kris says back to nick.

While nick spent more time with Kris he also kept tabs on the book and those who tried to unlock its power. While watching over the cult nick starts to get a familiar feeling like something was watching him. The last time nick had this feeling was back when the Catholic Church interfered and had his estate and every one that he knew murdered. After that nick killed all of the humans involved with that incident and eventually killed his way through the Pope, Pope Gregory the III around 741 A.D. completely eradicating the 'God's right hand" project. After that he believed that the church would either halt their pursuit of him or that he had killed everyone that knew about it. A day or two later while nick was out picking up some groceries with Kris he saw two hooded men about the age of 20 to 25. He shrugged this off thinking they were waiting for someone, but he still didn't want to take the risk. So nick only buys half of what he needs from this market "hey nick this is only half of what we need why don't you get everything?" "I forgot that the other market had something specific that I wanted that this place doesn't have." So nick and Kris walk to the other market on the other side of town. On their way in nick noticed that the two men were nowhere to be seen. "Ha I guess I was just getting paranoid," nick says to himself on his way out of the store carrying the bags for Kris. While walking back nick stops puts down the groceries he was carrying and pulls a cigarette out from his pack "hey I thought you quit smoking?" Kris says when she sees what was in nicks hand. Nick turns his back to the wall of the building he was next to saying nothing to Kris and lights his cigarette while doing so he see the two hooded men out of the corner of his eye again "God Dammit those mother fuckers." He thinks to himself "they come after me when I'm with Kris, fuck it let's get this over with. I just hope I don't lose it like last time." he says to himself as he blows the smoke from his cigarette out. He picks up the groceries making sure not to look at them he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a cell phone Kris had given him for emergencies and texts himself a blank message. He keeps walking with Kris until the message he sent to himself made his phone ring. He stops and opens the phone paying no attention to the phone but instead checking to see where the two men were. He sees them about 20 meters behind him he turns to Kris and asks her to hold the groceries while he makes a phone call. So he walks into an ally with no rear exit. The two hooded men follow around the same ally Kris sees this and starts to worry. When they turn the corner all they see is the bag of groceries. "Are you guys looking for someone?" nick says as he stands behind them leaning on each of them with a shoulder. As they realize nick is behind them one of the hooded men draws a gun trying to conceal it with the inside of his cloak, he pulls the trigger, but nothing happens. Nick holds the slider in his hand, holding it over his shoulder to one side of the hooded man's face "Here I think you might need this." As nick says this he shoves a knife into the back of the mans chest piercing his heart, killing him instantly. "Leave now and I will spare you don't come after me again you saw what just happened." Nick walks past him and starts to walk back to the streets. Right as nick passes the second hooded man; the man pulls the knife out of his partners back and runs at nick. Nick grabs the man's hand the knife running completely through his hand. Nick holds onto the man's fist and twists his arm. All of the bones in the hooded man's arm shatter into small fragments from the sheer power and torque of nick's strength. The man cries out in pain as nick pulls the man and shoves him into a wall pushing on his neck with his free arm. As he does this Kris was watching from the entrance of the ally. She runs over and tries to pull nick off of the man "Nick! What are you doing your going to kill him!" she screams pulling on the arm pressed against the man's throat. "Get…off…of…me" nick says as Tartarus' voice starts to come from his lips. He turns his head as he does Kris looks into his eyes and sees nothing but emptiness and hatred as she looks into his eyes he pulls his arm off of the man's throat and flings Kris across the alley like she was weightless. She lands next to the corpse of the first man. When she notices that he is dead she screams "Nick what did you!" as she says this nick draws a blade from what seemed like a void in the air and impales the man to the wall. Nick pulls knife out of his left hand and turns to Kris "I'm sorry you had to see that but I was only trying to protect you." Nick says trying to comfort her he helps Kris up as she is still shaking from the emotional shock of seeing Nick slaughter two men, and what she saw and heard from nick while he was in the process of killing them. "What…what the hell was that?" Kris says trying to calm herself down. Nick throws down the knife he just pulled out of his hand. "I will never hurt you Kris, I promise; and I think I should explain what you saw." Nick says as he tries to get Kris to stop shaking. "Oh, ya think!?" she darts back. Nick explained to her that he was actually Tartarus, who came to earth originally because he disagreed with God and Lucifer, than to spread suffering to humans through the dark altimat. Only able to try to prevent its power from destroying more lives unable to remove the circulation of the book because he was still bound to the devil's contract. He explained what happened about his estate and Jaime, and Melissa on his estate and the church destroying everything he came to care for which led to him writing the book. Telling her about the flaws and fail-safes he wrote into the book to limit how much power could be acquired from the book. He explained that the two hooded men were of the church in a discrete program originally formed by Pope Gregory the 3rd to kill him called 'God's right hand' basically an assassination squad now with unknown numbers since nick thought they were all destroyed. "I'm sorry but I have to get rid of everyone involved with this program last time they killed everyone that I knew before even paying attention to me. This is all to protect you Kris, no one else is more important to me than you are." Nick turns and starts to walk away. Kris starts after him but when she gets within reach of him; he vanishes into a puff of dark smoke. "I don't care about that nick. Just come back to me." Kris says, now speaking to no one.

"Son of a bitch, it's getting close to the night of Walpurgis. If I don't hurry up I won't be back in time to stop the cult from killing someone. That someone would most likely be Kris too." Shit I'm going to have to stay away from Kris for a while and try to take them out too. Damn this is going to be an interesting couple of weeks." After a month of tracking down multiple religious officials and extracting information from them nick final gets a tip from an arch bishop about the main training grounds for the 'god's right hand' program.

"God Dammit, I guess they must have figured it out…again and started up that damn 'god's right hand' program again. Nick thinks to himself as he stands on a roof top adjacent from a catholic monastery which nick believed to be the source of his troubles. For this to work nick would have to get into the church eliminate everyone who knew about it and leave without anyone seeing him or knowing that it was him. If that happened than it would just keep happening over and over. Nick takes the bag he has strapped to his back off and lays it down on the roof. He pulls out a black robe and a red demon mask, rather ironic but he didn't see the humor. Along with that he pulls out a sword with amazing design and craftsmanship made by sanjo munechika the oldest and greatest sword smith from the Japanese feudal era. Tartarus' insignia engraved into the blade of the sword it let off a dark aura like it absorbed the light around it and left nothing but emptiness and hatred. This sword was originally forged for the feudal lord of Japan but was given to tartarus instead as an offering of peace and servitude, it was altered by sanjo to have tartarus' insignia engraved on it as well as strengthened folded steal folded well over 1,000,000 times and forged from the fires of hell's deepest depths. The sword was sharpened over the years down the last molecule. It was able to cut through diamond like butter. Nick knew that he couldn't use his magic to kill them, that would just set off wide spread panic. He also couldn't use his bare hands because of his strength it would be obvious to them that it was not a mortal that did this. The last thing nick had with him was the unconscious body of a Japanese fanatic that despised the Catholic Church. Nick had drug him and propped him up on the roof. Nick changes into the robes and puts on the mask. "Ok time to do this. Ha I hope I didn't get rusty." Nick thinks while he smiles to himself. Nick jumps from the roof top he is on to the courtyard of the church. He draws his sword and vanishes. The five 'priests' that where standing outside were guards not priests. But who would guess a priest? Almost at the exact same time they all drop to their knees blood spraying from their neck or chest. "Wow I am rusty, but I don't think it's going to matter! Well at least I got the right place." nick says walking to the main doors. He opens them and vanishes once again. He runs past several patrols of guards. All of them were cut down, not even realizing this for several seconds because the blade cut so swift and clean. After taking out the guards he starts clearing out the rooms individually. He takes a sick pleasure out of killing all of these people because of what there group did to him and the ones he cared for. Until he got to one of the final rooms. He opens the door to see children all in white robes. All looking identical, he looks around to find one adult. "What I…what is this place!" nicks yells at the man in the back. The man responds "this is the training ground for the ones we train to kill you." Nick stands in the doorway. "Then you understand what I must do? What I must do to protect the ones I care about?" nick says back to the man. Before the man can respond nick vanishes before his eyes and in an instant nick appears behind him running his sword through the man's back impaling him onto the poll he stood in front of. Nick then turns to the children pulling his sword out of the man. Swinging at nothing to get most of the blood off it. He holds out his hand. Towards the children all huddled in the corner. "Do not fear me. Fear your god." A white flash erupts from nicks hand and all the children fall down, not dead only unconscious, nick had altered their memories to forget what they learned about killing and training. "I'm not like them. I've changed I'm not going to indulge your desires." Nick says to it seems like no one. He looks into a mirror and sees Satan staring back at him. "You know you want to. You know that the church will just brain wash them again and they'll be after you in 10 to 15 years from now. Nick throws broken piece or rubble breaking the mirror and starts to leave, on his way out he notices that the children have zodiac tattoos on the back of their neck easier than names and easy to identify the body. He notices one with the sign of Scorpio who also had another sign it was the sign for the zodiacs. An extremely holy symbol to some religions, but none of the others had anything else on them. Nick leaves abruptly and goes to finish what he came to do. He walks into the final door and sees only a single cardinal. "Where is the pope?" nick's voice starts to change to Tartarus'. The cardinal replies "I am the highest who knows of this none of the other cardinals or the pope knows of this." "I don't see deception in your eyes very well." Nick sheaths his sword. "Did you have people go after anyone I had contact with?" nick says his voice still rumbling as Tartarus' voice booms over. The cardinal replies "no our only goal was you not innocents." "alright" nick's voice changing back to normal. "Please spare me I am a man of God." The cardinal pleads "No, God would not use children as you have. "Nick steps closer to the cardinal. As nick draws his sword the cardinal flips a switch and his chair drops releasing him into a tunnel that took him to the court yard through a secret tunnel. "Uuhhgg, fuck this." Nick says slightly irritated about the pursuit. As the cardinal runs for the main gates thinking that if he could go into a public place he would be safe. A sword slices through the top of his shoulder deep into his chest, nick lands standing on the cardinal's shoulders he pulls the sword to the right, then back to right as he pulls the blade from the cardinals chest. "Finally this was a pain in the ass." Nick vanishes and reappears with the body of the Japanese fanatic. Unsheathing the fanatic's sword using his hand nick makes the fanatic impale himself with his own sword. Nick did this so that detectives would believe that this fanatic killed all these people and then himself in some kind of religious dispute. After doing this nick picks up his own sword and starts his way back to see Kris and watch over the users of his book.

Since the dark altimat cult acquired the new place to make their base of operations they began getting deeper and deeper into the evil book. They began with simple charms and hexes then gradually moved onto manipulation and finally summoning and sacrifices. The whole operations of the cult was controlled by Mimi with her two subordinates Nikki and Amelia who where the only ones allowed to use magic to prevent any unfortunate accidents from happening from the other members who could not read or comprehend the dark altimat, but that does not mean that they did not know how, simply they were not permitted. From that point on they began ritual summons summoning back Tartarus to help them better understand the book. Tartarus was more than happy to indulge their desires since he knew it would ultimately destroy them all. Finally they had learned the proper way to perform a sacrificial summoning. The leader of the ritual was of course Mimi who was curious as to see if it could really be done at this point in time. So they began the ritual with any animal larger than a mouse as specified in the dark altimat. So they used a rat. They all gather in a circle around the altar with the zodiac and demonic signs covering the wall and altar. They begin to chant in an ancient language which cannot be transcribed into the English alphabet. as they chant Mimi stands over the rat with a knife saying the ritual summoning rights "nefarious souls take this blood sacrifice to embody the beast we call forth" as she finishes those words the sound of a blade slice and screech echo through the rooms nearby. Once again the circle glows and a white flash erupts from the center summoning a lesser demon legion who is visible for less than a second before it disappears and possess one of the girls chanting. There is a loud scream of pain as the girl tries to fight of the horrible images and things that the legion demon is putting in her head. "DISPEL" once again Mimi sends the demon legion out of the girl's body and it disappears with a colored puff of smoke. "That was strange, why can we not control it?" said Amelia "it was the first time we tried that so it will be easy the next time we do it". Mimi replied. Two there members helped the recently possessed girl up to her feet as she took one step she passed out from the exhaustion.

"what we need to do now is summon the dark lord himself" nikki said to Mimi "NO WE HAVE TO STOP USING THESE POWERS RIGHT NOW!" she yells remembering what happened to her five days ago when they tried to sacrificial summon a stronger demon.

(FLASHBACK)

"We have had over 28 successful sacrificial summoning and only one failure…the first time we tried" Amelia stated "that is good to hear I have found something in the dark altimat that will be useful to us." Replied Mimi "well what is it?" said Amelia "alright I found out how to summon apollyon the destroyer Lucifer's fabled overlord of hell." Replied Mimi "really!?! How long will it take to prepare the ritual and what needs to be sacrificed?" Amelia said enthusiastically "all we need is a loved object of a pure soul" Mimi stated "well shit where do we find that?" Amelia replied "well you remember that new girl Kris? She has been caring for that mutt near her house for over 7 months she has to be in love with that thing. So go pick it up and bring it here tomorrow at 11:27pm." Ordered Mimi "alright I'll get nikki to help me with it" later the next day

"You have the dog?" Mimi said "yes mistress" nikki replied "than set it up on the altar and gather everyone to start the ritual" Mimi snapped back. Nikki follows her orders obediently and gathers everyone for a similar ritual as the legions ritual. They start chanting again while Mimi says the ritual summoning rights "apollyon I summon you here to give me power so that fulfill my desires and to fulfill my will" as Mimi finishes speaking she feels something is wrong already. She hears in her head "you are not worthy to serve the dark lord you shall suffer immensely for your incompetence!" Mimi starts to panic because of the images of horrible torture and pain imprinted into her eyes as she is drawn back into hell like with tartarus except this time she was not protected she suffered in hell for what seemed like a year until she heard the word "DISPEL" come from the distance. As she came to she saw as Nikki and Amelia had dispelled the demon from her mind and closed the circle he was drawn out of.

(END FLASHBACK)

"Why should we stop now when we are so close to summoning the dark lord to earth!" yelled Nikki "LISTEN TO ME!! For the summoning of the dark lord it will also require a HUMAN sacrifice HUMAN! And when I saw apollyon it became clear to me that this book will only bring bad things to the ones who use it!" retorted Mimi. "yes I know it requires a human to sacrifice they have to be pure blah blah already got her" Nikki raises her left hand and two cult members walk out of the shadows and drag of Mimi while she is still pleading with nikki to stop the summoning ritual of the dark lord himself, they drag her to a separate room where they tie her up and leave her in the front of the school so she can't get back in to interrupt the greatest ritual of all. As the two cult members get back from removing Mimi they go into the ritual circle and start chanting "jajuz jajuz nestro jajuz" again and again they repeat this chant Nick walks by the school looking for Kris who has been missing for almost 2 days and finds Mimi tied up in the bushes. "What the fuck!? What happened!" Mimi fills nick in on everything that happened and is about to happen. Nikki walks over to the altar with the sacrificial sword and leans into Kris on the table and says "don't worry this will all be over soon." Kris shudders and starts to cry knowing what is about to happen. Nikki positions herself behind the sacrifice in line with the zodiac markings on the wall. She begins to say the words to the ritual "Agies otesk eshirhus atenaton Eiehay eiheyaja eiehay ado night" silence…there was never a more quite moment. Then the only thing that was heard was the sound of a sword stabbing through the stomach of the sacrifice. After a few moments with nothing happening the signs on the wall start to glow. The signs only glow faintly not fully released "No NO! This isn't right the gate isn't all the way open what went wrong!!!" after pausing for a little while she looks up smiling "THAT'S IT! There isn't enough blood to sacrifice" Nikki swings the sword frantically cutting down all the members of the cult in a desperate last attempt to open the gate for Lucifer. Nick and Mimi rush through the school trying to get to the top of the building before it's too late. Nikki finally cut down the members of the dark altimat cult, and finally she comes to Amelia "please nikki think about what you're doing! Please don't kill me" Amelia says this while frantically going through the pages of the dark altimat trying to find a spell to protect herself "that's it I found." The sword cuts through her chest piercing her heart. As Nikki turns to face the circular gate on the wall, that was slowly opening, she smiles as she walks towards the gate. She is impaled by the ritual sword that Kris had picked up with the last of her strength. Kris kneels down from the sword wound in her stomach "NICK! Where are you…it hurts" she says as she starts to cry. "Promise…me…"

"Who are you?" says Kris "promise…me…your…soul…and…you…may…live"

"I don't want to die" "you have struck this contract with me on the night of Walpurgis…"

Nick stands in the doorway dropping to his knees "Kris!"

This was last time I have ever seen Kris…

The relinquishment

The story you have heard so far was the first incident of the dark altimat cult which happened 14 years ago. That incident completely eradicated the cult which also erased the knowledge of the dark altimat and any knowledge of its whereabouts, but, this was not the first time this incident has happened. In fact it has happened many times over the span of my life. To prevent this incident from happening again I will confess a horrible secret in the process. I am well over 1000 years old and to accomplish that I would need to be not human and have a high level of magic to do it, kind of like the magic in the dark altimat. To be more precise, exactly like the magic in the dark book. I was the original owner of the dark altimat my name is Tartarus; I have adopted the name nick for the purpose of living on earth. If used properly the magic in this book will be enough to destroy any obstacle not only of earth but of heaven and hell as well.

In being the original owner and the one who wrote it I am able to understand the hidden message within the pages of the book that hold the key to successfully perform all of the powerful spells that have flaws in them, like most of the summoning spells and a few powerful magic spells they lack the portion of the spell that will let you have complete control over magic being used. This part of the spells being left out was the main reason for all of the failures over the many years. Mainly being that you can bring it into this world but the demons will have their own objectives and their own free will, as for the powerful magic, once cast it will consume the soul of the caster completely destroying them.

This was my will, my pleasure. To make sure that the book was always in the position of a human. This all was because I had no problem with destroying the lives of humans. In the beginning I was overjoyed when someone would decipher the book. They would slowly gain power and a following as I watched they would become bolder and bolder until they attempted the final summoning of Lucifer. Every time I would watch in anticipation as they panic from the failure and destroy their followers in vain to fully open the gate. Finally done watching I would erase the rest of the cult and remove any knowledge of the book from that decade killing anyone affected or altered by the power of my book and I would repeat this every 12 years. This was my passion, my pleasure in this world.

All of this changed about 300 years ago when I started to feel compassion for the humans because I was on earth for so long it slowly ate away at me giving me a conscience. Being in this world made me sick in the beginning, but as time went on I lost a portion of my powers because of the arc angel Michael sent by god to halt my evil deeds. I was able to defeat him but at the cost of no longer being immortal. The magic I used was so severe that it took a toll on my physical being. Now my body still does not know age but I am no longer invincible. Along with the forcing of human emotions into my soul. From that I started to feel remorse for the humans I let destroy each other. Along with that I began to try and save the innocent sacrifice. I saw no need for the cult to take an innocent life. So I would try to prevent this from happening but I was always too late or I would be prevented from Satan sending one of his more powerful demons to stall me, but up until I met Kris I never experienced personal feeling with any of those involved with the book and when Satan found this out he sent Abaddon Satan's 'right hand man' and Apollyon Satan's own spawn who are the two most powerful beings in hell, aside from Satan himself.

When I first met Kris I used the dog that she cared for to get close to her and try to prevent her from being involved with the cult in any way because of all the people in the town she seemed the most likely to either get involved with the cult or have the cult use her in some way because she was new and no one would know she was missing. As I spent more time with her I realized that she cared deeply for me so I was determined to stop any harm from coming to her. I was worried about her because that's what I would do if I needed a sacrifice, I would find someone who just recently moved here or someone nobody knew. Over the months I spent more time with her and I began to feel happy every time she came close to me, it was like all of my malice and all of the horrible things I had done were gone and it was only us. Since I wasn't human I didn't have to worry about anything that affects humans except physical injury. So I planned to watch over her and keep her safe while being by her side. That is until she began to notice that she was aging and I wasn't. If that time ever came I don't know what I would do. I had planned on disappearing and still follow and protect her but I knew that time would never come when I found out that the cult had killed her dog in a sacrifice. I knew at that point the cult was going to target Kris before they actually made a move.

Over the next few days I would go do recon in the night while she slept and try to gather information to help prevent the cult from coming after her. This was all in vain since both heaven and hell disapproved of what I did and what I was trying to doing now. Three days before the sacrifice would take place, the night of Walpurgis, I was attacked by Abaddon the destroyer and Apollyon the devil's spawn. For three days I battled with both of them as they grew more powerful and I grew weaker as time drug on. I was running out of time to save Kris so I had no other choice but to rely on the altimat, not the book, well not all of it, the book was named after a spell I created I encoded the secret to using this spell correctly into the dark altimat book. Using the secret of the book which held the altimat magic I was finally able to destroy them both, I sent them back to hell preventing them from coming to earth again without the dark altimat summoning them. It had a horrible affect on me. Close to the magic I used against the angels this was part of the secret magic that would end any battle instantly the only difference was the magic against the angel was of a lower grade and less refined so the side effects were not as severe. There were two problems the magic was too unstable to use more than once roughly every 10,000 years and the effects of the spell drew me closer to being mortal thus losing the ability to use the altimat magic regardless because of now being mortal losing eternal life and most of my power but that was all calculations because I had never used it before so I could only guess to its effects from the grade of the spell and how much power it would drain from the user. Because this was such a long struggle I was not in time to save Kris, and I believed I was too late.

Leaving off in my story was after I located the cult and where they took Kris. I ran as fast as I could to the old library but I was only able to hear her call my name and fall over dead. With the twelve years I had to find the dark altimat and destroy it I was able to refine my powers enough to prevent my aging again. As I refined my powers more and more I would go in the night to try to find clues of where the book was.

While I had 12 years to refine my powers I did not just waste time and gain more power. I would go out at night while the city slept and try to find clues as to where to look for the book. Though there was always that fucking hand of god assassin group after me. There were no incidents involving them for a while I was hoping they would just forget about me, but there was no way they would let a beast like roam the earth. Ha what a bothersome group.

The only human contact I had left was Mimi. She had helped me when I tried to save Kris in the beginning so now I was helping her with anything I could. She was now a teacher at the school where the cult incident happened so I asked her to tell me if she heard anything about the dark altimat since its last known location was in the old library.

During the 12 years between I started to think that I was the only contact Mimi had. I guess that she didn't get close to anyone after what had happened to her during the first incident with Kris and that cult. So I decided that I would try to do something nice for her, as a thank you for helping me with Kris and the twelve years she helped me with searching for the book as well, that and it might help her start to have more human interaction. So one night I asked her if she would like to get some food at a restaurant I had seen when I did some of my recon during the 12 years. She was a little skeptical about me taking her out to eat since I didn't need to eat or sleep so I didn't have a job or my own place since my estate was destroyed, but it's amazing how much money you can find in 12 years that and not spending it. So I told her what I told you just now it made her wallet fell better. So she starts to get ready as I wait on her balcony smoking a cigarette. After a bit she comes out of her room wearing an amazing black dress, wearing make-up and had her hair put up. "Wow I haven't seen a dress of this quality since back at my estate with Jaime and Melissa." She looks at me with a strange face. "You still haven't told me about what happened or how long ago that was." She says as she starts to walk to the door "well then why don't we walk and I'll tell you about that time about 1500 years ago." "Fuck I should have worn sneakers. Oh sorry about the language." She smiles as she walks down the stairs. So we start to walk to the restaurant I start telling her about that time so long ago. The whole time we were walking to the restaurant I had an uneasy feeling. As we turn a corner I become certain of it. "Hold on." I stop and light a cigarette, as I do I pull Mimi back around the corner "Wait here."

A cross hair falls over my head as one of the hand of god assassin's focuses an HK PSG-1 the peak of German precision firearms. I walk to the center of the street and stop, finishing my cigarette I look down and step on the cigarette butt as I start to look up again I keep going until I'm looking directly into the scope of the sniper. "Nice night isn't it!" I yell as I wave at him. In a panic of being found out he fires. The shot was lined perfectly into the center of my head. The bullet flies and all that he sees is me vanishing into a puff of dark smoke. "Ha! I got him! He says with confidence. As he finishes his sentence a hand moves forward on his right side holding a bullet. "Hey I think you dropped this." I say as I grab him by the neck and lift him into the air. As I lift him I notice that he had a set of tattoos on his neck one of the zodiac sign Scorpio and the other of the zodiac itself. "It's you? From the church last time? I spared your life thinking I was helping you I will not do so again" I say as I continue what I was doing. As I walk over to the edge of the roof he was on I start to interrogate him. "How many of you guys are there now? Who do I have to kill to make this go away?" I say dangling him over the roof. ""I will never tell yo..." I drop him mid sentence figuring it would be too much of a waste of time to interrogate him when I was supposed to be taking Mimi out to dinner. I walk back around the corner and get Mimi's attention and we start off again to the restaurant and I continue my story. As we walk into the restaurant we get stopped by the waiter seating people. "I'm sorry sir but you need a collar to eat at this restaurant the lady is fine but you may not be seated, I lean over to Mimi "does he mean like what people put on dogs?" Mimi laughs "No he means like that." Pointing at a man with a collared shirt on. "Oh, I got it." I look at the guy's shirt and switch it with mine very quickly. I was a little different than the shorts and t-shirt I would wear, but it didn't matter "oh yeah I forget, I…took mine off so it wouldn't get dirty on the walk over here" walking to our table putting on the shirt "when did he get that, I don't think he had that before." The waiter says to Mimi. Mimi just shrugs mouthing the words' I don't know' the waiter replies "well here are the menus I will be back in 5 minutes to take your orders what would you like to drink sir, ma'am?" I start to say something then Mimi buts in "maybe I should." She whispers to me "yeah two beers, thanks." The waiter walks away "I don't think that this is the best time to drink." I say a little worried about what I had to do later and what happened earlier. "Don't worry one won't hurt." She tells me the waiter comes back and Mimi orders her food. The waiter seemed a little distraught that I didn't order anything "are you going to order sir?" he asks me "oh, no I don't eat fo…" Mimi interrupts me mid sentence "he already ate he forgot we had dinner plans." She says "oh, yeah I already forgot ha I get distracted easily." the waiter acknowledges and walks away. After dinner the waiter brings the check to the table I pay, tip and we leave. After I walk her back to her apartment I walk her up to her door and I give her a hug "thank you so much for taking me out tonight. I know I probably just wasted your time tonight." She says still holding on to me. "Hey don't worry about I wanted to do this to thank you for all the help you gave me these last 4 years. I owe most of the power I got back, to you. I don't know what I would have done if I didn't have you" I say as she looks up into my eyes. I pull her closer and I hold her. I pause for a moment "I'm sorry I have to go." I say as I pull away and vanish into the darkness. Mimi stands there look into nothing "I love you." She whispers to no one.

Finally 3 months before the next night of Walpurgis Mimi heard students talking about a dark priestess and a book written in blood. After hearing that from Mimi I had followed the students for 3 weeks waiting for them to lead me to the book so I could finally remove its curse from the world and erase its existence. After the last two days the cult members finally lead me not only to the book but to the dark priestess that had recovered the book before I was able to. I followed them to the old library of all places to do what I needed to and finally end my horrid life in peace and finally be able to see Kris again while I ascend to heaven regardless of my sins I would see her there. I could not face her again without preventing this tragedy from ever happening again, without preventing that cult from killing another innocent girl. There was only one problem I had to wait until late night to do anything and then if there are a lot of cult members there I would just wait killing time until more left.

When most of the lower cult members left I made the move to enter the library. "Time stands still for he who masters its flow." I chant the spell to prevent any resistance from the cult members. The members stand frozen in time as I walk by them. I walk to the altar where the dark priestess stands with the dark altimat. I decide to end this whole thing now so I summon a sword from the sign I had imbedded in palm into my hand (the sign would give me the ability to summon low grade none living summons) as I draw it back I swing with my full force. The blade is stopped with one hand from the dark priestess who has dispelled my time incantation. She says "you promised you would protect me…why would you try to strike me down?" she looks into my eyes and removes her hood. I drop to my knees with a horrid look. In front of me stood Kris who had taken the book from the hiding place of the altar. I stand up after several minutes of silence finally able to comprehend what happened. She looks into my eyes deep into my soul and wraps her arms around me holding me tightly she says "I never wanted to leave your side" as she finished telling me this I feel a sharp pain in my back. She distracted me with emotions she had long abandoned and drew a knife from her sleeve. I fall to one knee coughing blood. I wanted to hold her one last time before I die but I couldn't summon up enough strength to stand. I grab her hand and kiss it "I'm sorry I could not protect you I…" I collapse and everything goes black.

I wake up four days later lying in a bed bandaged. Everything is blurry. I hear someone walk into the room "your finally awake, that's good I didn't think you would make it with all those deep wounds" "who is that you sound familiar" I reply. Its Mimi she had found me the night I tried to destroy the book. "I found you impaled on a sword at the top of the wall at the school. "…I found who the dark priestess was. It's Kris…" I state still dizzy from the loss of blood "That can't be she died twelve years ago" Mimi replied. "No…that is incorrect. I saw the power she had, she made a deal with apollyon, he does this a lot he grants life to dying people but they have to sign a contract giving their soul to him after twelve years or the next night of Walpurgis. What happens is part of their soul will die resulting in the body losing life for about a month after that they will regain life with part of apollyon's soul to keep them alive also allowing them to use a small amount of apollyon's power. The part of his soul he gives the mortal is still controlled by him but it will follow the commands of the human until the night of Walpurgis when apollyon calls it back also dragging the rest of the human's soul with it. Now her time is running out. He is going to take her soul on the night of Walpurgis in 2 months. She must know this so she is going to try to find a woman that she will be able to switch bodies with and go against apollyon. Because apollyon's soul is not conscious of what the human part does and even who it belongs to. So she will be able to trick him into taking someone else's soul." Mimi looks at me with a strange face "can she do that?" Mimi says confused and a little shocked "yes since she was able to dispel my magic she must have a high understanding of the book plus the power she gained from apollyon and there was no sacrifices on the altar so she must be trying to refine her powers using the other members as a type of magic siphon to steal all their powers" I sit up and try to stand but I feel immense pain in my chest. "You need to rest you almost died. If I didn't remember some of the spells from the book you would have died." Mimi said frantically trying to get me to lie back down. I being the stubborn ass I am I resisted her and tried to stand up anyway. At that point I felt a knee go into my gut as she physically put me down back into the bed. She looked at me with the eyes that I used to see in Kris and everything slowly went black again. I woke up once more with everything blurry. My head rests on something soft not a pillow this was warm and smooth. I feel a gentle fingers running through my hair as my vision starts to improve I see that Mimi was holding me close to her crying "please you can't die. I didn't mean to hit you this hard you needed to rest. Please come back to me. Don't leave me alone." I try to move again and this time she realizes I'm awake and pulls me in closer smiling with all the tears in her eyes. "Please don't ever leave me nick. I love you."

"I guess I should have stayed in bed" I say with a smirk after I finish my joke she leans down and kisses me "please hold me for a little while nick." I stand up, this time without a knee in the gut and walk out saying nothing to Mimi, as I leave her with tears still coming out of her eyes I walk to the balcony of her apartment. I drop to my knees "Kris what you have become is my fault. I should have protected you but I wasn't able to please forgive me but I must stop you. You are no longer the person that I cared for." I stand up and I walk back inside and get back into the bed where Mimi was still crying. "I have to stop Kris and I need your help." I wipe the tears from her eyes and hold her. I hold her until the next morning. I wake up and she isn't in my arms anymore. I stand up and walk to the kitchen where she is busy making food. I walk over and kiss her on the cheek. She turns around and puts her arms around me and starts to cry. "Nick, I'm so happy that your with me I don't want you to ever leave me. Since the last Walpurgis the only person I would really talk to is you I loved you but I couldn't tell you because of what happened with Kris. You're the only person that I want to be with I love you nick please don't leave me alone." She says crying in my arms "Mimi I swear that I will protect you. On my life no harm will ever come to you as long as I still breathe." I say comforting her

"I need to find someone who has already gained power from the dark altimat. I need someone who has had a while to let the knowledge and power seep into them. The women in my cult now aren't even close to that. The only one that is remotely close is the last cult leader, Mimi." Kris says frustrated "yes dark priestess. When would you like use to get her?" Kris' subordinates say "I need you to do it two nights before Walpurgis. She is under the protection of Tartarus the only reason we were able to beat him before is because we caught him off guard. This time he will be a lot more of a problem." "Yes mistress" replies one of Kris' subordinates. "We need to find a way to distract nick long enough to be able to overpower and detain Mimi. How the fuck do we do that!" snapped Kris "I have an idea mistress, what if we pretend not to have interest in Mimi and only go to attack nick only sending 3 or 4 people to attack him. He will want to protect Mimi so he will move the fight somewhere else giving us the time we need to abduct Mimi." Kris smiles with an evil laugh "that's a perfect plan but nick might already know our intentions and he would know that we would try to hurt him through her anyway. Plus nick is still technically a demon so his powers will multiply around the time of Walpurgis." "Mistress you could always us "that" spell." Replies a cult member "OUT OF THE QUESTION! Tartarus had safeties in that book so I won't be able to control it at all and if he so chooses it will completely engulf my soul, but there is the possibility that he still has feelings for me and he would hold back. I will lead the attack on nick and have a few of you kidnap Mimi." Says Kris. "Now all we need to do is prepare for that night" Kris smiles, content with her newly formed plot.

Over the next month Mimi helps nick to gain back more of his strength and more of his lost demonic powers lost from the altimat spell. The plot formed by Kris was correct. Nick still did not know that Kris was after Mimi because she had some of the powers from the dark altimat the general plot was to transfer bodies before apollyon closed her contract. In fact nick did not even know that Kris would come after anyone until the last few hours before Walpurgis as to not risk nick being able to stop her For the remaining time nick grew closer to Mimi finally able to say the words "I love you" to Mimi. Something he could not even say to Kris. Finally two nights before Walpurgis the dark altimat cult made their move to distract Tartarus and kidnap Mimi. Nick and Mimi were lying in bed when Kris blows down the door and her cult members rush in focusing the majority of their focus on nick. Nick easily deflected their spells with one finger. Kris walks in to see the two lying in the same bed. Kris furious about what she saw she knew now that nick would not move the fight because his power had increased dramatically so he could both protect Mimi and destroy the entire cult. Nick furious that they would come to attack him while Mimi was nearby lost his mind out of anger he starts to change like before he turned into his true form of hell's overlord "ANGER, HATRED, MALICE BE MY BLADE!!!" he draws a sword of pure demonic energy from his left hand drawing it into his right hand and swings once disintegrating all of the cult members in the room Kris is barely able to avoid it. "How is that possible?! There were no spells in the book like this!" Kris screams hysterically "Ha! Did you think I would put all of my knowledge into that book? I left out most of what I knew because I knew that humans with that much power would destroy not only themselves but the entire world." Kris stares in disbelief as to what she just witnessed. She realizes that she has no choice. "Bringing the destruction of worlds! Lend me your power APOLLYON!" "SHIT, apollyon gave Kris THAT much power?!" nick jumps between Kris and Mimi "art of sealing zodiac cancer level 99 SEAL!" nick summons the newly refined skill that Mimi helped him obtain to prevent Kris from using the magic Satan's spawn gave her. "What did you do?" Kris screams at nick "It won't work will it? I sealed the gate inside of you that lets you absorb power from demons. You should be glad though if you live through this I had to use the highest seal to stop you so be glad apollyon gave you so much power he must like you" nick laughs as he drops to one knee "the only thing is now I'm tired as hell" "Do it now" snaps Kris as the other cult members hiding in the other room grab Mimi and flee. As nick tries to pursue them Kris stops him using a sword she drew also from her left hand and runs it through his left shoulder missing his heart by centimeters. Nick collapses and Kris leaves.

Nick comes to about an hour before the night of Walpurgis "shit the ritual is in thirty minutes." He tries to move but the pain in his shoulder did not dissipate. "No I can fail Mimi too. Ha shit's pretty FUBAR right now. The only thing left is what I hoped to avoid. Oh well at least it will end quickly." As the ritual starts you can hear Mimi pleading with Kris to let her go but her cries for help go unheeded. The cult members start to chant as the sealing circle on the wall starts to glow. "For this to work you have to be a good girl and lie still while I kill your soul with this sword and replace it with mine." Says Kris while smirking. "Please, nick, please don't leave me alone." Cries Mimi. Nick is still on the floor of Mimi apartment trying to move. "No other choice. Seal one power release, seal two healing release seal three zodiac power release!" as he finishes the incantation he is instantly healed and filled with energy. The last seal was a failsafe for if anything like this happened. It would leech small amounts of demonic magic from nick at all times storing it into a seal basically keeping him at 65 strength since he came to earth. When it is released it would give nick a horrible power. The only set back is that if he uses it he will become mortal forever. Kris uses the sword to cut her wrist and pours her blood over sword. Kris raises the sword above her head and finishes the final incantations she thrusts the sword down towards Mimi's throat. Silence and then slicing flesh. Kris opens her eyes and sees nick above Mimi. He was able to protect the one he cared about he had failed protecting Jaime he had failed to protect Kris but he was finally able to protect Mimi at the cost of becoming human when the power wore off. Nick raises one finger to Kris' left shoulder "I'll repay the favor. Art of destruction zodiac Scorpio level four white sword" instantly a beam of light shoots through Kris and leaves a hole the size of a quarter in her shoulder. She staggers back in pain trying to figure a way to kill Tartarus. Nick starts another incantation "art of destruction zodiac Scorpio level 90 black coffin funeral" instantly Kris and all of the other cult members are covered in a thick dark energy. Than the shadow shifts and scatters everywhere, cutting and slicing every inch of the cult members' bodies spewing blood everywhere. The only one left alive is Kris who was mortally wounded from the powerful magic. "You left me no choice I had to stop you." Nick said holding her in his arms. "This wouldn't have happened if you did for me what you did for her." Kris looks at nick for the last time and slowly slips into darkness. "We had a contract." A voice echoes in Kris head. "It is time you fulfill your contract. I get your soul." "No. you shall not complete this contract." Tartarus' voice booms over hells depths. "That is not for you to decide Tartarus." "Yes Apollyon but if I end you I will end you contracts. ENDSCAPE FINAL EXTICTION zodiac Scorpio, cancer, Taurus, level 99 end the pain, end the suffering, end the darkness with a shining blade" instantly Apollyon is ripped into thousands of pieces. "Kris you are freed from the contract. I did my best to save you then. Now I relinquished my powers for you. You will not remember this you will only know me in your dreams."

The dark altimat was destroyed by Tartarus after he relinquished his powers to save the one who tried to kill him and his new wife Mimi. Now they both live in the same town that was plagued by the evil book. Now nick is the sheriff of the town and Mimi is now the principal of the school. Mimi was finally able to spend her life with the man she loved Kris lived far away on the other side of the country. Every night she dreamt about an amazing man, a man that she would never see, a man that she would never meet again.

Original story by: Nick Hughes

Written and edited by: Nick Hughes

10/04/07