**TRIGGER WARNING - EXPLICIT SCENES OF DRUG ABUSE**

41st of Baratus, 3002

2977 days to the Cataclysm

"I-I'm the Archangel?" stammered Elric.

"Yes you are," replied Randel. "I know it's a lot to take in but it is what it is."

"Yes sir, I know. But it's just so hard to grasp that I'm possessed by some kind of god."

"We all feel that way at first. Even I was confused back in the day."

"YOU WERE ARE ARCHANGEL TOO!?" exclaimed Elric in surprise.

"Yeah I was. I had the power of Fulgora."

"That's so cool! What was your power?"

"Well, Fulgora can bend space to create portals."

"Portals!? That seems very helpful in battle. Can you help me learn my abilities?"

"I would, but I cannot completely understand your abilities yet. It's very strange."

"How come?"

"In addition to precognition, you were supposed to get a massive power boost. For some reason you don't have that power boost."

"Well, isn't it possible that I have to learn my powers?" asked Elric, trying his best to sound smart.

"No you either have all of it, or you don't. There's no in-between. There is one more thing I want to confirm though."

"What is it?"

"Why do you want to overthrow Zark?"

Elric was taken aback by Randel's question for a moment, before he said;

"Umm... because he's a tyrant? I guess?"

"Nah that doesn't add up. You don't show hate towards Don Wyatt, the person who has Alexa's mother captive. He's a much more personal target for you."

"In that case sir... I don't really know. To be very honest, I never wanted to become a soldier, but all of a sudden, I'd get these unexplained urges to fight. I have no idea where it comes from. Like when Zilevo attacked, or during the inauguration. The moment I start to develop a sort of liking to anything else other than fighting, this feeling takes me over again. And then I don't know what I want. It isn't limited to just the physical act of fighting as well. It's the way I'd act too. Before my actions I often think 'Is this what a soldier acts like?'. I try to act accordingly, but then it gets too, 'out of the way', so to speak, for me and then I return to my normal demeanor, but even that isn't normal anymore because that thought is still in the back of my head. And so the cycle repeats. My squad sometimes tells me they cannot relate to me and I, and I quote, 'Have no personality'."

"Ah I see," said Randel, rubbing his chin. "You're exhibiting typical Archangel behavior."

"What do you mean, sir?" asked Elric, his interest piqued.

"See Shirozou, Vespa, the Phoenix, currently is sided with Zark, and Vulcan is sided with you. Since these two have a eternity-long grudge, this has started to affect you. Vulcan's desire to fight Vespa, is being passed down to you, and it manifests as your desire to overthrow Zark."

"So... I'm being manipulated into fighting Zark?"

"Yes. Yes you are," proclaimed Randel definitively. "So what do you plan to do now."

"If it's really true that Vulcan is manipulating me to fight Zark, he did a damn good job at it, because even after I know this, I still want to overthrow Zark."

"Well, not the answer I expected, but sure."

"Anyway sir, I have a question."

Randel nodded, signalling Elric to continue.

"When you were the Archangel, who was the other one?"

"Sebastian Vetrov was the Phoenix."

"No no, I meant the other Archangel."

"That's a story for another day."

"Come on sir! I'm dying to know," pleaded Elric.

Randel stared at Elric blankly for a moment before he said;

"This conversation is over. Get out!"

He gave Randel a suspicious look, in response to which he got a menacing glare. Elric instantly got the message and bolted out of the room in haste.

It didn't take too long afterward for the room to go dark. Darker than any other in Eirini. Not because of the light of which there was plenty, but because of Randel himself. His thoughts were so ominous, that even the well-lit room seemed to respond, wailing along with him, taking part in the darkness of his mind. He sat down in his chair, his body as apathetic as a carcass but his thoughts as animated as a bee, almost as if his muscles had to compensate for the hyperactivity of his mind.

His conversation with Elric got him reminiscing, but all he could recall were his sins that never ceased to haunt him. He always thought he did it all for the greater good, but somewhere along the line, he started to realize all he did was clean up his mess. Nothing about his past brought him joy anymore. There wasn't anything he could do to change the pain he inflicted on his loved ones. The only thing he could do, was to make sure nothing bad happened to his daughter, Vanessa, whom he lovingly referred to as 'Ness'. But even the thought of her came with it's own set of maladies.

He never thought he would be a father, until that fateful day at least. That day he learned to love an innocent soul that didn't judge him for the person he had become and vowed to protect her to his last breath. But going against his own vow, he sent her into war. He knew that one day she would inherit the Eirinian throne and when that day comes, she must be prepared. That was the emperor in him talking though, the father in him wanted to hold her close and shield her from all harm. He often thought to himself;

"At what point can I stop thinking about my empire and start thinking about myself?"

He couldn't decide whether protecting her now was the right thing to do, or preparing her to stand on her own feet was. He wasn't going to live forever, there will come a time where he won't be there to watch over her, but would any of that matter if she died in war anyway? The father in him didn't know what the right thing to do was, so the emperor called the shots.

Even then, it wasn't as if the father had disappeared, and for every fleeting second he second guessed sending his daughter into war, the deeper he dove into affliction. He couldn't take it anymore. He needed to clear his head, but nothing could drag him out of this endless spiral of incertitude. All of a sudden, an idea struck him, and a bad one at that. He shot up from his seat and thought;

"Should I do it? What if I relapse? I can't afford to let that happen. I'm an emperor. Cornelia is after my job already. If she gets wind of this, she's going to use this as leverage, then Ness won't inherit Eirini after me."

He paced around the room, biting his nails and pulling at his hair in confusion. The concern he had for his daughter began to be overshadowed by the memories of his past. The memories of the cold needle piercing through his arm and wilting away all his worries.

"I'll just do it once, for now, then I'll never do it again. But then again, what if I relapse?" he thought.

As he was contemplating his next move, he started to feel a thousand ants writhe under his skin. He clawed at himself till his nails ripped into naked flesh, but the warm blood that oozed onto his fingers somehow felt cold. The innards of his mouth withered like ice, but saliva dribbled out nonetheless. His heart hammered against his chest so hard that he thought it could crack open. A headache akin to being crushed under a boulder plagued him, and his vision was reduced to a concoction of nonsensical flashes. After all these years, the demons he left behind in the catacombs of his past began to dig their way out, slowly consuming him whole.

Desperate to keep them buried, he hastily rushed to his frosted glass cupboard and started rummaging through its contents. He tossed clothes, files, and books all over the floor in search of the cure. The cupboard was almost empty now, but his search yielded no fruit. In frustration, he shattered the cupboard against the wall and fell to his knees. The shards of glass dug into his bone, but the frenetic state of his mind masked all the pain.

"Where is it? Where is it? Where is it? Where is it? Where is it?" he anguished.

He scoured through the debris as if his life depended on it, and just before he spiraled into total madness, he found what he was looking for. A syringe filled with a clear fluid with the only visible letters on the label being 'YL.'

An involuntary breath of pleasence left his lungs as he grabbed the syringe and rolled up his sleeve. When his arm came into view, the numerous track marks of a troubled past resulted in a surge of memories, but choosing to ignore them, he swiftly pierced the needle into his vein. Little did he know, that in his promptitude, he had grossly mistaken the contents of the syringe as the cure. And as he pushed down, the very demons he tried to suppress had now resurfaced, free to consume his soul whenever they saw fit.

Randel closed his eyes and fell back onto the cold floor in a state of absolute euphoria, snickering uncontrollably. The shattered glass painlessly dug into his flesh till he lay in a pool of his own blood that traced his movements as he merrily rolled over the room. His mind was finally free from worry and he felt nothing but contentment. But when his euphoria had reached its peak, the cost of attaining such unnatural peace started settling in.

His heartbeat slowed and breathing shallowed. His grip on the world of the conscious began to loosen, and the headache that plagued him not too long ago subsided to the point where he couldn't feel anything anymore. It was as if his body had dwindled away and he now existed only in soul. As soon as he realized what was happening, he knew he had to stop it before it was too late. He let out short bursts of lightning in an attempt to restart his heart, but his efforts proved to be futile.

"I can't fucking die here! I can't fucking die here!" he screamed internally. Desperate to hold on, he resorted to extreme measures to feel even the slightest bit of life.

He screamed at the top of his voice to hear something, but heard nothing.

He stabbed himself multiple times with a shard of glass to feel something, but felt nothing.

He bit his own tongue and filled his mouth with blood to taste something, but tasted nothing.

Whatever he did, he couldn't regain his sense of life, and that's when the reality of the situation became excruciatingly apparent. This was it. The so-called 'cure' wasn't what he hoped it was, and it had consumed him whole. He laid on the floor, motionless and filled with regret. Warm tears rolled down his cheeks and mixed with his sweat. His muscles relaxed till he felt like he was melting into the bloody floor. His eyelids felt like they weighed a ton.

"NO! NO! NO! NO! WHAT HAVE I DONE!" he thought with whatever mental prowess remained.

In this very state, several minutes passed, each one bringing him closer to death. But just before the light left his eyes, a portion of the empty space near him started to distort and spiral until it turned dark. .rame of a man materialized, and Randel found himself looking right into his eyes as he towered over him.

He recognized those eyes, they belonged to... Johann Kenton Zark

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A/N** So yeah! This chapter is intense. Mainly because there are people who have experienced such a thing. It took me pretty long to write this because I wanted to make this as accurate as possible.

On a side note, How'd you like Zark's appearance? What do you think he's going to do?