Why Lucifer Rebelled Against God

You've Destroyed the Best Things in Your Life

Lucifer, Jibril, and Michael led a formidable force out of heaven. The three of them were sitting on a couch, within a large ship, among hundreds of other ships, saving the manifestation of their Buraqs for later. Navigation-automatons around them busily steered around the currents of the apeiron, following the signal that Yahweh's recent ritual had established. The signal would take them straight to Azathoth, or so everything seemed to indicate. Their ship, as well as the other ships, was filled with almost all of what remained of Heaven's army.

Placed on different ships, so as not to put all their eggs in one basket, were 700 arks of Daqua. The Daquas were key to their mission; they would ensure that the Śūnyatā they took from Azathoth remained intact, also preventing him from regrowing from the Śūnyatās. Usually, one could destroy every part of an Eldritch body, leaving only the Śūnyatā, and it would reform. They needed to do what no one had managed to do so far: destroy an Eldritch without destroying its core, or at least not all of its cores.

Azathoth was estimated to have around a thousand of them. Yet this was partially to their benefit; it made him less stable. If they destroyed a few of these red orbs, a chain reaction of destructive energy could be released, causing many others to be undone. The sultan hadn't given other Eldritch more of them because it was similar to installing more motors and fuel tanks in a car; the power came at a higher risk of explosion.

At the same time, this weak spot worked against them. They needed to return with three of the Śūnyatās. It was like causing a monster-car with several engines and fuel tanks to begin exploding, bit by bit, then trying to salvage three engines from the blazing wreck before it was entirely consumed by fire and chaos.

Lost in thought, Lucifer's eyes drifted to Jibril and Michael. Memories of missed opportunities with Jibril flooded his mind — all those days when he could have held her close, made her smile, or simply shared a quiet moment. All the days she asked for a kiss, and he didn't even respond. Each memory of letting her down weighed like iron manacles on a man drowning in tar.

He leaned over to her. "Would you believe me if I told you that I have something vital to say in regards to the mission?"

"No."

"Would you believe me more if I said it entailed you holding up your arms and exposing your stomach?"

"No, no, and super no." She placed her right hand in her left armpit and vice versa, then pressed her chin down to her neck, to protect as much of her neck as possible.

"Let's not jeopardize the mission," Michael said, and lifted her arms. The look of betrayal on Jibril's face was priceless. It quickly transformed into panicked laughter as Lucifer began tickling her. Between laughs, she managed to say,

"You're so lucky that I love you, or you'd be dead." He stopped tickling her, savoring her smile. This moment wasn't wasted.

Michael promptly exited the room after releasing Jibril's hands, claiming he needed to "look for that thing I can't remember losing, nor what it was," and took the automatons with him. Jibril lay down in Lucifer's lap, and he tenderly caressed her face, looking into her eyes with appreciative silence for an extended moment.

"If we don't make it through this, I want you to know I'm sorry. Sorry for all the horrible things I did to you. And even more ashamed of all the good things I didn't do for you," he said.

"If we make it out of here, I want you to know I don't regret a single moment with you. There's nothing you could do that would make you not worth being with." He leaned down and kissed her. They made love, for what might be their last time.

An hour or so later, they arrived at their enemy's resting place. Eons later, humans who learned of Azathoth through visions—mistakenly seen as fictional inspiration by authors like H.P. Lovecraft—would claim that this being had dreamt up the entire universe. They believed everything and everyone were merely figments of its imagination. While this wasn't the truth, witnessing Azathoth made such a belief understandable. Its sheer size made the mighty Buraqs appear no more threatning than pups beside the living avatar of a wolf-god.