Diablo's AI, the simple, innocent life that it had been given thousands of years ago, cringed under the searing pain and shrunk back into the furthest reaches of it's CPU, whimpering, trembling, unaware of the wounds inflicted upon it, unable to understand, only aware of a hurt that it had borne under another's influence. It was scared and afraid, searching the recesses of it's soul for a quiet place to curl up and go back to sleep, turning it's body into an empty shell, a discarded form. There, it would continue it's ancient rest.

The momentum of the golem's body into the walls caused machines to feel the impact and overload in a burst of screeching sparks and rattling components, cables severing violently from the body of the bandit leader above the control seat, whipping around like riled hissing snakes. Many computer screens dulled and cracked, breaking into shards of useless glass. Only the main screen seemed to survive the impact and still function, one great crack splitting the screen nearly in two while the monitor fought to keep itself clear from static and a loss of power. It was Ravendor's life support system, damaged, and slowly failing. Words were typed of their own accord across the screen, like a program in the midst of some kind of downloading process.

Serial Experiment Hyades Downloading Process

- Project Dark Angel -

-- Human : 03% [… 02% … 01% … 0%]
-- Raven : 20% [STABLE]
-- Demon : 77% [… 78% … 79% … 80%]

Incubation -- 97% [… 98% … 99% … 100%]

- 100% -

-- Incubation Complete.
-- Serial ID #001 Activate.

There was a twitch, a soft sound of breathing being resumed, and a feather fluttering to the ground.

Ravendor opened his eyes and groaned, weakly and groggily pulling on the wires in his wrist and arm, his stomach burning, hurt, his mind connected straight to Diablo's nervous system. He felt different, a little tingly all over, and that he no longer fit into the shape he was used to inhabiting. He noticed how darkened the room had become and the fragments of the terminals strewn across the floor, mixed with broken glass and thin masses of wiring. Still half aware of Diablo's almost non-operational mainframe, he gave it an order with a softer, quieter voice, as if he didn't wish to hear himself speak. "Diablo, release me." He said, pulling again on his life support system.

It hurt mildly as the cables removed themselves from his body, two or three at a time, until his weight could not be supported anymore and he fell, thrown to the ground in front of the golem's control chair. Ravendor waited for a few moments for hits wits to gather and sat up, prying the last few connected cables stuck to him out of his body. He felt much lighter than before, which could have been chalked up to mere light-headedness, except that when he raised his arm he felt none of the usual resistance at all. His blood didn't hurt anymore, his panakeia had been purified and now worked perfectly.

Ravendor ran a clawed hand lightly across his front, trailing a ghostly burn of pain where Diablo's armour had been cut through and filled with bullets, the bandit leader experiencing a mentally linked effect on his own, frailer body. His own version of the demon healing factor kicked in and the invisible wound sealed up on the subconscious level in his mind, while the small wounds scattered all over his body from the violating entry of Diablo's wires and cables slowly disappeared, leaving not a single mark behind. Traces of his panakeia were quietly dripping off the ends of the cables severed from his body, crackling a little with transferred electricity. Ravendor rubbed his neck carefully and then stared down at both his hands, his expression unwavering.

Now both his hands were long, dark and thin demon claws, the black obsidian armor plating running up his arms and then ending at the joint of his elbow, supplying him with both a hand and arm guard. His right claw still bore the dirtied bandages that he had retained from earlier, stained with Romero's blood. Ravendor clenched his claw into a fist and the bindings burst, fluttering uselessly to the ground. He touched the back of his newly formed claw to his cheek and felt no warmth within his body. He was cold, as cold as a synthetic demon ever could be.

He was wearing his white jacket only through the sleeves, spattered a little in panakeia that had turned a thick deep black. It could no longer fit over his shoulders because of the great pair of shadowy wings that had unfurled and extended from both his shoulder blades, dampened a little with his blood and slightly twitching, unused to exposure to the air. Slowly, taking far more time that he actually needed, Ravendor removed one arm from his jacket sleeve and turned the garment over, his face neutral, yet somehow thoughtful. He dug one claw into the leather and dragged it downwards, parting the very thick fabric and creating a long slit down the shoulder, judging it's length, and then making a similar cut on the other side. There, it was done, and he stood, experiencing pain from the first movements of his newborn wings.

…I am an abomination, a monster, one who no longer can call themselves human. I have lived like this, in this shape, or hiding in another for so long, it almost makes time blur… and it's hard to recall… when I didn't have to look in the mirror and see nothing but a lie…and hate myself for it…

Blood trickled off the ends of the longer pinions by his sides, dripping into a small puddle near his feet. He slipped the jacket back on again and fit the wings through the crudely fashioned wing-slits, having just enough room and staining the leather a little with his blood. Ravendor pulled his jacket more tightly around him, feeling unclean. He knew what he looked like without needing a mirror, an utterly distorted version of himself with sin-stained black wings, horrible clawed talons, a long thin armor-plated serpentine-like tail which only got in the way, and branded runic tattoos running down his arms, across his chest, and even violating in smaller writing upon the space of his left cheek. There was no going back now. He was Ravendor Begucci, Project Dark Angel.

The pain that he had felt for days on end had finally gone. It only existed when he tried to hide himself in another form, and he was glad to pay that price for a chance to continue to be who he was, without the isolation, the loneliness, or the shame of living in the shadows as the last demon alive. The pain had comforted him sometimes, because it reminded him of all the even greater mental hurt that he had left behind. Ravendor would rather live as a human in agony, than exist as a demon without discomfort. But that choice had been robbed from him, and through the slow incubation process inside Diablo, he was himself again. Now he had the power, the strength, and the ability to make Clive suffer.

The jacket fit better now, but he felt himself back in the clutches of depression that was synonymous with his true form. Ravendor sighed and touched a hand to the small cross hanging on a chain around his neck, wondering what would come next. Diablo was dead, and he had been defeated. The charm felt a little warm, compared to himself, and Ravendor smiled, understanding the irony. He must have been the only demon in existence who could stand to wear a silver cross. What more could he do now, except, destroy Clive personally… Yes, that was the reason for his regression. He never intended to kill Clive with Diablo at all, it had only been a method of buying time, so he could go back to the way he was, and kill the green-haired man with his own two hands.

He knelt and untangled all the discarded wires that had bound his legs to the spot, cutting them away and stepping out of the mass of complicated computer components. Ravendor stretched out all the inactive tension that had built up from the time spent out of his body and in the computer system, beating his wings once to shake all the wet blood out from the damp feathers. He couldn't lie, it felt so much better to exist without feeling pain, it was a good change, and his blood didn't hurt anymore. If it were not for his altered blood and the monstrous increase of power, he felt just like he did back in the old days, when he was neither demonized nor cursed.

"I have built up towards this… I have waited for this… Yes, I will rend you limb from limb. I will make Catherine a widow and force you to leave Kaitlyn fatherless. You forced me to continue living in this godsforsaken world, you took Catherine away from me, you left me to die in this disgusting ruin, and from the cause of that… I… I became who I am now. It is all your fault. You turned me into a monster, and I don't think you even gave much of a damn about it. So you must die. It is my last desire. I was ordered to make you all die-" He paused, wondering where the fragment of his last sentence had come from. He certainly hadn't meant to say it, and he didn't know where it had come from. Ordered? He hadn't been given any orders since… Malik's voice…

"Project Dark Angel, can you hear me? Yes, it is me. Listen. Do as I say. Your soul belongs to me now, I am no less than your master. Every breath that you breathe and every heartbeat you take is for me, no other. Now, let me ask you; whom do you serve?"

"…"

Some words had been spoken, and he had been under intense pain, agonizing, brutal, a hurt that could not be described by mere words alone. It his memory, he could never remember hearing himself scream so loud, so full of mindless confusion and fear. He had no idea where he was, who he was, only that torture, which lasted long enough for him to cry out and shout anything that Malik desired to be said. Yes, long ago, he had feared. It was so long ago, but apart from his childhood, he could never remember ever being so afraid. "Gias hurts, doesn't it? Remember that at any time, I can give you another treatment of that, if you desire. Now tell me, Project Dark Angel. Whom do you serve?"

"…I…serve…you…my…lord…Malik…Only…you…nobody…else…Only…you…" He had hated Malik so badly for warping him into the mismatched demon that he had become today, for all the torture, the horrors he had lived in when he was so much younger and naïve, just a fledgling drifter who had been in the wrong place at the wrong time. But he had hated Clive the worst, for setting him in that wrong place at the very beginning.

"No, I will not be controlled anymore…" He said to himself convincingly, "No longer." Ravendor stepped over to the faintly glowing terminals and switched each of them off one by one, shutting Diablo down indefinitely. Now the golem could at last get the unbroken sleep that it had desired. The bandit leader caught the slight reflection of his face on the flickering cracked screen and narrowed his eyes, his emotional reaction causing the runes on his face to glimmer for a few quick moments before calming down. His eyes, which had once been a deep emerald green, now seemed to bear an eerie inner glow, mysterious, yet poisonous. Growling, Ravendor put his fist through the computer screen and felt the electricity die around him as he removed it, bearing longer, lengthened, but still vestigial demon fangs.

"I am not a puppet. I am not a doll. I am me, not one of your playthings, Malik! Not anymore! I won't let you touch me anymore!" He started to laugh, at first, it was out of sheer relief and a little shaky, but he then unhinged himself in a strange kind of mentality and it became louder and less sane, laughing about something that hurt deeply, which made the sound only scarier and creepy. "Malik, Father and Clive, I will not let any of you hurt me anymore… I'll kill everything… It will all go away if I just kill everything… And then… then maybe… the nightmares will finally stop… and I can rest." He smiled at his words and nodded, agreeing with himself. "The purpose of my life is to destroy. I will destroy. I will kill them all. Everybody… who will hurt me… and it will go away. My name is-"

"…Melody, why am I called Project Dark Angel? …No, do not look at me like that, I am referring to the significance of the name. Apart from the obvious reasons, why does the council dub me an angel? Is it because I have died once before? I am sorry to say that I do not think I can live up to that status, at least not in the way that I believe you wish me to."

"This organization wishes to spread the words of God. Those words are evolution through a selective factor, as the gods have meant to impart upon mankind. Angels are the messengers of God, and spread His word and will. Similarly, you were engineered to be the representative of this council, and like an angel of God, you shall impart to others our will."

"I see. I have no choice in this…do I? Nor can you reverse what you have already done to me. …Not surprising, though. My body does not belong to myself anymore. I exist only to serve this council. Hahahaha… I have no free will at all. I shall do as you command. What is this 'Word' that you wish for me to spread to others?"

"When the time is right, you, your design type, will replace mankind. Yes, we intend to substitute the human body itself with a demon body. You are our prototype. Perhaps someday, even the council ourselves will bear a shape such as yours. Evolution is the purpose of a life, to set forward the willing, and annihilate the weak. Should the need arise, it will be you, Ravendor, who will purge humanity from this planet. The dark angel is also the death angel, the reaper of souls, the destroyer."

"My name is Ravendor Begucci, and I am the dark angel that shall send you straight to Hell, Clive Winslett!" He flared his wings and roared, but instead of a regular human yell, it came out all wrong, a mix between a demon's growl and the cry of a deadly bird of prey. The darkness of shadow crept up his body and covered him in a coating of pure night, whereupon his physical shape shifted into wisps of black smoke and faded. Feathers floated to the ground from where he stood, and lying in the debris, discarded, was a slight reflective twinkle of his small silver cross. Kaitlyn's cross. Seraph's cross.

In his insanity, Ravendor didn't even notice it's absence.