His body is broken.
He fell like a forgotten ragdoll into oblivion, fragments of his blazing form trailing in his wake. He could feel himself burn; his spines briefly channeled tremendous heat before collapsing under the immense pressure of the rapidly approaching ionosphere, chipping away from his diminishing frame.
He screamed soundlessly in the vacuum of space.
He was moribund, terminal, crumbling as he lost himself. Remnants of the demon he had dispatched rained down around him, consumed in flame as they hurtled toward the Earth. He gazed forlornly at the receding silhouette of the steel fortress that was the ARK. His eyes had deteriorated far too much to completely focus, and he could scarcely make out the incandescent figure of his rival, his counterpart, frozen in shock at the fall of his doppelganger.
A sickening ripping of flesh. His limbs were forcefully rent from his body, leaving four ragged stumps. The unsheltered bone began to melt in the fierce heat, skin and muscle following suit. He became a twisted amalgam of gore, blood boiling and congealing in the inferno. Frayed lacerations in his torso deepened, laying bare his internal organs. The delicate tissue of his viscera instantly ruptured, vital fluid erupting from his razed chest.
He tore himself away from the agony, fixating himself on his nearly realized goal. He would be with her. The fallacies of mankind, the erroneous nature of humanity could no longer keep him from his sister, his companion. He had fulfilled his promise to her, his promise to the planet. What more was there?
Nothing.
In an instant he would cease to exist. And that was the beauty of it.
He had let himself fall - this was his own doing, his own will. He couldn't stay this way. He couldn't live alone, isolated in the desolate crypt of his mind. Solitary. Detached.
His newfound 'friends,' those of weak-minded optimism awaiting the safe return of their hero could never comprehend his loss. All of them, naïve with their cheerful dispositions and contented smiles, trapped in the shadows of their beloved idol… They'd reduced themselves to deluded cardboard cutouts without personality, abandoned their independence in favor of trailing after their false god… None of them could possibly grasp the horrors he had experienced.
Cold beads of perspiration clinging to damp fur. Teeth clenched in concentration as he clutched her clammy hand and led her quickly down the corridor. Two pairs of feet rhythmically pounding on the cold steel floor. Turn the corner. Spotted. Double back. Surrounded. Shouting. Gunshot. Her body drops to the steel floor with a resounding thud, large blue eyes glazed over with pain and astonishment. Sweaty blonde hair veils her face.
Fury.
There was no one who understood sacrifice.
No one except… Maybe…
That one wasn't mindless. Wasn't foolish, like his band of unquestioning followers. Just for a moment, the clever disguise had come undone. That one had known sorrow - he was simply unwilling to share it.
His quills had long since been stripped away, exposing the tender, virgin flesh of his back to the Earth's unforgiving atmosphere. Oh, the irony- the planet he had just delivered from fiery destruction was delivering just that onto him.
He would have laughed had he still the lungs for it. As he spiraled down to his premature demise, his mind ebbed away, his thoughts scattering until only one remained:
He was free.