The|MULTIVERSE

EPILOGUE: Or Is It?

Ricven's Secret Weed Garden (Yeah...)

~Cruxhaven

Tucked in profound slumber beneath a splashy, prismatic mantle of cluttered trees and a magnificent plethora of razzle-dazzled bushes designed to give one's eyes a diabetic shock, Ricven and his twin bush elves, Tanga and Manga, snoozed in the nude inside of a thick leafy hammock—surrounded by the hero's precious herb garden. Silky soft limbs bound the Sepian love machine in place. Tanga locked the right of his frame and Manga latched onto his left. The stud himself had his arms locked around them. Two curvaceous, wild-haired bush-beauties snugged fit into his strong, heroic arms. That amazing smile of his felt tempered on the lips, a faint grin rich with dormant content...

But when darkness stirred in the thick of the shrubs, where light itself fell stranger to its dense gloom, nor Sepian, elf, gnome, or critter was perturbed by the soundless advent of Azaezel. He emerged from the shadows as if darkness itself had ushered him. An entity of smoldering obsidian and a mug so grim that Hanakin's beautiful bitchface was nothing more than a pissed-off baby compared to his.

Azaezel. The Wanderer. The Lost Aeon. Watcher of the Black. Seething eyes naturally burned like live sun coals at Ricven and his elven booty calls catching some zzz's. But it wasn't the elves that had him so bleak—or Ricven's magnificent nakedness. Azaezel was always fierce in the face. His sooty stature breathed the most cantankerous of somber energies and it was that kind of cold force, a tenebrous kind of celestial vim, that aethra itself could not ignore.

Ricven calmly freed his eyes to it. The roaming energies of a nebulous aeon slipped through the night air like stygian threads brushed by an ominous whisper and he looked right at the source—unfazed. "Wow... I'd never think to see you rearing your black-ass head out of the shadows again."

Azaezel's voice was as dark as he looked sinister. And cold. Although he resembled a bald, sophisticated man forged out of molten rock dressed in one HELL of a murky black trench coat that put The Matrix's Neo's outfit into utter shame. "Recede your witticisms for the moment. The time of solace has reached its brink."

Ricven gave him a sluggish smirk. Azaezel—before we even get into it—is one of several aeons leagues above the others you've encountered on these pages and doesn't like to mingle with the blues. He's blacker than black and operates on his own volition. He's sort of like the big brother with a lone wolf complex. Dark. Totally strict. Hardly one for nonsense. And is the result of what happens when an aeon defies the will of corruption. This one could've been what Arghos is—but Az' is one tough fucker, and uses what he has become for the greater good...although he watches from the...well...shadows. Anyways... "Spoken like a true dark aeon... Okay." He briefly eyed the undisturbed elves clutched to him. "I'm up. Sup'?"

"I've come to inform you of an awakening. You and your bevy of assets have vanquished every obscenity whose aim was to thwart the celestial balance. Your duty as champion is paramount. So is the corruption that rises again..."

Ricven's left brow deliberately twitched. "Rises again?"

"Search the recesses of your mind. You know who I speak of."

Just what in the postscripting-hell is he lecturing on about? Ricven thought as he...searched the recesses of his mind. Does he have any idea how many arc villains I've dealt with? It's like a damn infinite smorgasbord of antagonists. Alphabetical, even. I can't remember them all. Or can I? There's the Tetracon. That'll solve everything. Tempting. Nah... Too conveniently easy. "Give me a hint."

"Atrossa."

The Sepian frowned. The name fully plucked his comfort even though he was swaddled between two full pieces of sweet booty meat. "Ah, come on... Charliez?! For the last time, that eight-legged cunt is dead. Like... Riven to a pulp dead."