Disclaimer: Apocalyptically not mine.

A/N: This was originally part of As Deep As the Sky, but I went far beyond the time limit. As such, it's inspired by the piece of music after which it is named, which was composed by Robert J. Kral for the soundtrack to Angel: The Series.

Start the Apocalypse

© Scribbler, December 2008.

Dartz regarded his four remaining soldiers critically.

There used to be five in the Inner Circle, but Gurimo had fallen when he tried to take the God Cards from the Pharaoh's vassal, and his soul now occupied a new tile on the Leviathan's wall of power. However, though he'd failed in the task set to him, the cards themselves had been taken anyway. Now Dartz looked at the remainder of his forces and tapped his chin in thought.

He was a learned man. Thousands of years living amongst human small-mindedness had not made him immune to his own intrinsic thirst for knowledge. However, where once he had wanted to know more about irrigation, farming methods, politics and the spirituality that motivated his people, now he saw everything in terms of strata – the layers of weakness and pettiness humans dedicated themselves to without a thought of what they were ignoring in the meantime. He'd seen the changes in cultures over the centuries – watched as taboos altered, though the basic concept of them remained. He'd seen the rise and fall of various darknesses and what they caused.

Wars interested him, if only because each one wiped out huge portions of mankind in a single swipe. For this reason he cultivated his own political connections and used them to steer the world towards a cull whenever he could. It was he who had found the fanatical heart of Gavrilo Princip amongst the Young Bosnians in the early 20th Century, and by subtle exposure to Oricalchos stones had turned Princip's mind towards the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. It was Dartz who had secretly aided in the destruction during the Mongol Conquests of the 13th Century. It was he who had consulted the infallible wisdom of the Oricalchos and fanned the flames of Toyotomi Hideyoshi's greed until the man led the newly unified country of Japan into its first invasion of Korea. Throughout every era Dartz had worn many guises and dripped poison into the ears of many significant people. He had controlled armies, and sometimes whole countries from the shadows.

And now the Day of Judgment finally approached.

There was some irony that as the inevitable destruction of mankind marched towards them, he was left with four principle warriors to help him achieve a goal that had been millennia in the making. Christianity was an old religion now, but Dartz remembered when it had begun its spread across the globe, and the fabled 'four horsemen of the apocalypse' sprang to his mind now.

Amelda, whose lean body was only fed because he needed to keep it going long enough to exact his revenge on Seto Kaiba. If there had been a way of surviving on just pure hatred, this was the boy who would have done it. He lived for only two purposes – to defeat the Kaiba family and to serve the Oricalchos.

Valon revelled in fighting. He was happiest when using his fists, and though Dartz had cultivated his sharp mind in the way of duelling, he knew that Valon preferred a much baser means of settling matters. Warmongering ran through him, clinging to his blood cells and setting his nerve endings alight with each fresh prospect of battle.

Sickness wound through Mai's mind, heart and soul like tendrils of a fast-growing plant. Every way she turned she found only more loathing – for herself, for her former allies, and for the world that had reduced her to so much less than what she was. She was wasting away from the inside out, leaving only a core of hatred that burned with green light.

And finally Raphael, the most loyal of Dartz's followers. His mind had been shorn of all distractions by death. Everything about him was honed to a point that barred him from thinking of anything except what he had lost. He'd seen more than just Gurimo fall since he joined Doma. There had been many principle warriors before this selection, but not one lost comrade had sidetracked Raphael from the bubbling grief that always lay just beneath his cool exterior. He would make the rest of the world suffer just as he had suffered, and he would do it in the name of cleansing.

Dartz smiled down at the four of them. "Come now, my Horsemen," he said with a small, humourless laugh. "You have much work to do if you are to live up to your namesakes."

Fin.