I understand how small mortals look to the heavens, as I sit here watching from above with a cup of coffee in my hand. But are their actions futile? Quite the opposite. I believe in the importance of everything, no matter how small. Isn't that right, Remi?
Mhm.
They're fighting to save a world which will continue to be in danger for all its existence, because that is the fate that was written from the beginning. I wonder if it was intentional or if that's just how it happened. I tried to ask Gabriel but all he gives me is a warm smile. Lucifer is always busy, whilst the others up here don't know much. I want to know about myself, oh well, too bad. Blook told me not to talk about myself a lot when I'm narrating. Can't believe he said that ugly Vazroth is better at narrating than I am. I'll show him how good of a narrator I am. Right, Remi?!
Mhm.
The air itself screamed as they struck. Icarus exploded forward like a comet torn from its orbit, his blade singing through the air with lethal intent. Steel met writhing flesh as tentacles - each one thick as ancient trees and covered in eyes that wept liquid shadow - whipped around the weapon with predatory hunger. This wasn't the cautious dance of before. This was war distilled to its purest, most brutal form.
The tentacles began to crush, to twist, to break his blade. Metal groaned and sparked as impossible pressure threatened to shatter it entirely. Icarus felt his arms burning, his shoulders threatening to dislocate as Akumu lifted him from the ground like a ragdoll. But just as the cosmic horror prepared to tear him in half, Nilah materialized from shadow and void.
Her flames didn't just burn - they devoured. White fire raced up the tentacles like living creatures hungry for destruction, and the ancient flesh began to bubble and melt. The tentacles shrieked with voices that sounded almost human, almost familiar, before they crumbled to ash that tasted of nightmares and forgotten sins. Akumu's roar shook the very foundations of reality, causing distant mountains to crack and the sky itself to bleed crimson. But they weren't done. They were just getting started.
Neru and Shen descended from above like twin angels of destruction, their powers weaving together in ways that defied every natural law written into the fabric of creation. Massive spears of crystallized flame, each one burning cold as winter death yet hot as the birth of stars, bore deep into Akumu's writhing mass.
Dark ichor sprayed like a geyser, painting the battlefield in colors that had no names. The liquid hissed where it touched the ground, eating through stone and metal alike. For the first time since it was born - the ancient horror staggered thought it would lose.
Around the chaos, Matta and Fenris moved like apex predators in their elements. Matta's twin daggers found every weak point, every gap in chitinous armor, every moment of vulnerability. The rabbit's movements were poetry written in violence, her lithe form dancing between claws and fangs with impossible grace, her long ears twitching to catch every sound of approaching danger. Each strike was surgical in its precision, her natural agility amplified to supernatural levels. Fenris fought beside her like a berserker from the old legends, the wolf's massive claws crushing skulls and shattering bones with each devastating swing. His fangs gleamed as he snarled at the lesser demons, his lupine instincts guiding him to tear through their ranks with primal efficiency. They were the guardians keeping the pack safe while the alpha faced the ultimate prey. The battle raged with increasing ferocity. Akumu, wounded but far from defeated, began to change. Its form shifted and writhed, growing new appendages, sprouting additional eyes, manifesting weapons from its own twisted flesh. It lashed out with renewed fury, and bodies began to fly through the air like broken dolls caught in a hurricane.
Shen took a tentacle to the chest that sent him skidding across jagged rocks, leaving a trail of blood that sparkled with unnatural light. Neru screamed his name, his ice magic faltering for just a moment - but a moment was all Akumu needed. Another tentacle wrapped around his throat, lifting him high into the air.
Nilah threw herself forward, flames roaring around her like a living inferno, but more tentacles erupted from the ground beneath her feet. Fenris roared and charged, but Akumu's newfound speed was beyond anything they had anticipated. His claws met empty air as the horror danced away with fluid grace.
But each time one of them hit the ground, they rolled, they recovered, they fought back. This wasn't just about skill or power anymore - this was about pure, stubborn refusal to yield. This was about looking into the abyss and spitting in its face. The battle was reaching its crescendo when something changed.
Akumu, overconfident in its apparent victory, made a crucial error. It pulled Icarus close, perhaps intending to devour him slowly, to savor his despair. Their eyes met - mortal blue against cosmic void - and in that moment, time seemed to freeze. The air grew thick as honey, and even the sounds of battle faded to whispers.
ICR: You think you know what I am.
Blood ran down his face, but his eyes blazed with something that made even Akumu pause.
ICR: You think I'm just another mortal to break.
He lunged forward with the last of his strength, his hands locking around what passed for Akumu's throat. The horror's flesh burned his palms, seared his fingers, but he held on with desperate fury.
And then - impossibly - wings of pure light erupted from his back.
Not the gentle glow of divine blessing that priests spoke of in hushed whispers. Not the soft radiance of heavenly grace. These were wings of war, of vengeance, of righteous fury given form. They spread wide, each feather blazing with power that made the stars themselves seem dim by comparison, and suddenly the battlefield was illuminated by light that had never touched this world before. From the heavens above, we watched in stunned silence.
The wings spread wider, each feather blazing with power that reached across dimensions, making the very concept of light seem inadequate. They weren't just bright - they were truth given form, justice made manifest, hope weaponized into something that could cut through the darkest void. Below, Akumu began to scream.
Not roar. Not shriek. Scream - with a voice that had never known fear until this moment. The ancient horror that had devoured civilizations, that had watched trives die, was experiencing something entirely foreign to its existence: genuine terror.
AKU: Get off me! You can't kill me!
But Icarus's grip only tightened, and the light from his wings began to burn away Akumu's flesh like acid. The transformation wasn't just physical - reality itself was bending around him. The air tasted of lightning and ozone, of births and deaths and the spaces between heartbeats. His friends watched in awe and terror as their companion became something that defied every law they thought they understood.
Nilah's flames guttered and died, not extinguished but simply made irrelevant by the greater fire that burned within Icarus. Nerus' ice melted without heat, sublimated by proximity to something beyond temperature. Even Fenris's claws felt light as a feather in the wolf's massive paws, hands that suddenly remembered the weight of mountains they had never lifted. Matta's rabbit ears flattened against her skull as she sensed something beyond her natural instincts, something that made every prey-sense in her body scream warnings about power that transcended the natural order.
Up in the heavens, I fumbled for words that didn't exist. This is quite the sight, pure unchained beauty!
But even as I spoke, the evidence blazed before us. Icarus's transformation was reaching its climax. The wings had grown to span the entire battlefield, each feather now the size of ancient trees, each one burning with the accumulated weight of every prayer ever whispered, every hope ever held, every moment when someone had chosen light over darkness. Akumu was dissolving.
The cosmic horror that had existed since before the first star drew breath was being unmade by pure will given form. Its tentacles withered, its eyes closed one by one, and its screams grew weaker with each passing second.
ICR: This is what you never understood. I was never fighting you alone. Every person I've saved, every life I've protected, every moment of hope I've kindled - they're all here with me now.
The wings flared one final time, and something in Icarus's expression changed. The light in his eyes wasn't triumph - it was acceptance. A terrible, beautiful acceptance.
His grip tightened around Akumu's dissolving form, pulling the writhing mass closer instead of pushing it away. The cosmic horror began to solidify again, as if sensing some new danger, but it was too late.
ICR: And they're willing to make the same sacrifice I am.
The wings beat once, twice, and suddenly Icarus was airborne, carrying Akumu with him. Not away from the battlefield - upward. Toward the burning sphere that hung in the afternoon sky like a distant eye of fire.
NLH: No... Icarus! There has to be another way!
But he was already beyond hearing, beyond reach. The wings carried him higher and higher, a blazing comet ascending toward the sun. Akumu struggled in his grasp, its tentacles lashing wildly, but the grip of those burning hands was unbreakable. From the heavens above, we watched in silence that stretched across eternity.
There it is.
I nodded slowly, my coffee long since forgotten, the mug floating in the void beside me. Below, his friends were screaming his name. Matta's ears were flat against her skull, her daggers forgotten as she reached toward the sky with desperate paws. Fenris howled a not in triumph, but in anguish that echoed across dimensions. Shen and Neru stood frozen, ice and explosion swirling around them in chaotic spirals of grief. Nilah's flames roared higher than they ever had before, as if trying to reach him, to pull him back. But Icarus flew on, unwavering in his purpose.
As he approached the sun, his form began to change again. The wings grew brighter, more translucent, until he looked less like a man with wings and more like a living star. Akumu's screams reached a crescendo that shattered windows in distant cities, but they were growing weaker now, the cosmic horror finally understanding its fate.
I believe your description of him isn't right.
I watched as Icarus disappeared into the sun's corona, taking Akumu with him. The solar flares that erupted were visible even in daylight, painting the sky in colors that had no names. For a moment - just a moment - the sun burned twice as bright. Then silence. Absolute, crushing silence.
Many before him symbolized primal truths with their souls: Gabriel is purity incarnate, Lucifer is malevolence incarnate, Vazroth is despair incarnate, and Akumu is fear incarnate. Icarus is not fury incarnate, or vengeance.
Then what is he, Remi?
He's the first and only apostle of Freedom.
The battlefield below was empty now, save for five figures standing in the ash of what had been the greatest battle of their age. They stood in silence, looking up at a sun that would never look quite the same again.