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            The last thoughts of Imperiex, and a tribute to a force of nature shown a different way.

The Omega

            I had finally realized it.  The imperfection of this Universe…

            Me.  It was me, all along.  It was us, all along.

            The time had come.  This universe was not meant to be Hollowed.  Nature would be thwarted, but would still be given its due.

            Clever insect.

            There is not honor in death, only death.  As I witness the primal explosion I caused billions of years ago, I realize that perhaps I was wrong.

            Countless have died in my mission, to correct the imperfections.  Even though they knew that I could not be destroyed, they threw themselves at me.  Foolishness, perhaps.  But an inspired foolishness.

            I have seen lives wasted upon me like water.

            I have seen galaxies made into a part of me, as I prepare the Hollowing, to cleanse the cosmos.

            I am the Eighth Day.  I am Omega.  I am the End that gives birth to the Beginning.

            I am Imperiex.  My hands remake the cosmos.  My power is absolute.  My will is unstoppable.

            But this clever insect has finally found a way to stop me, and to stop the one who's presence I have come to destroy.

            As Braniac-13 screams in horror, his vessel destroyed in the first instant of the Big Bang, I am freed.

            I become one with Creation.  I marvel in the act that I have before only brought about…never to have taken part in.

            Clever insect.

            So this is death.  My mission has come to a close.

            I am the Eighth Day.  I am Omega.  I am the End…and I am now at the beginning.  In his state, consumed by his power but still in possession of his soul, the kryptonian, the anomaly, drove Warworld itself into a rift through time itself.  So now I witness Creation.

            So this is peace.  So this is satisfaction.

            It was me.  It was me all along.

            The mass of energy floats in the expanding void, a contented sigh escaping his formless lips as the other being screams in torment.

            Imperiex smiles, if such a thing would be possible for a being of pure energy.  He marvels at the expanding Universe.  He closes his formless eyes as his essence is stretched beyond the breaking point.

            And he seeing the single being as a pale white hand takes his.

            "Hello," the woman says, black hair falling over her eyes.

            What is this?

            "The end."

            At the beginning.

            "Yes.  You have just been born, so you could go through your life and end here.  You've become one with the universe now, but it's expanded to the point where your consciousness now longer holds.  You are now dead, Imperiex."

            I understand.  It is time.  Is it over?

            She nods.

            "Your mission is over.  This universe will persevere.  There needn't be another Hollowing.  Now, come with me.  You've earned your peace."

            A doorway opens, and the energy being forms into the armored body of Imperiex Prime.  Death smiles to him, taking his gargantuan hand in her own.  And without another word between them, she leads him through.

            The 853rd Century.

            Superman Prime stands upon the surface of the Sun.

            He looks up, closing his eyes, expanding his senses through time and space, looking for the evidence of what could have been his greatest error.

            He hears the scream, the long, anguished scream of terror and horror, the last remnants of Braniac-13 as he was ripped through the birthed universe.

            And hears nothing but a sigh beyond that.

            He smiles to himself, lifting off the sun's surface.  And he flies away, back to Earth, satisfied that all is, indeed, well with the cosmos.

The End