Vengeance from the Sky (Completed)

Chapter 7 - God of the Sky: Part I

The Heavens were a strange and beautiful place. The floor in which they walked upon was a crystal clear blue. They were able to see the clouds below , and far beneath those, they were barely able to make out smudges of color from land and sea, but no living, moving things were discernible.

The sky of The Heavens was a deep, purplish-hue that was so dark that it appeared nearly black. The Abyss of the Beyond was interrupted by the sparkle of blue and white stars. The sight was beyond breathtaking and it left the party feeling awed.

The Heavens seemed to be an incomprehensibly vast, and depressingly lonely place. It was no wonder why Arlo had chosen to visit the world years ago, but it certainly was NOT an excuse for him to develop  his plan to attack the lands below.

"Look, there!" Talon called out, pointing into the starry abyss above.

There, gathering together by some powerful means, were hundreds, perhaps thousands of massive, smoldering boulders, the same destructive rocks that Talon had witnessed raining down in his dream less then a week ago. It seemed as if they were ready and waiting to fall upon the unsuspecting world.

'Arlo must be close by. We must find him, hurry,' Opal urged as they flew on in search of the infamous deity.

It wasn't long before they came upon him, the God called Arlo, as he held the fabric of the blue sky in his large, dusky hands, slowly and laboriously tearing a hole in it. It seemed he intended to rip the sky apart to send the fiery balls through it and down to the world.

He looked up at their cautious approach, his bright blue eyes peering at them from a face with dark, almost black skin.

"Guests," he said in a clear and booming voice as he set the sky back down and stood to his full, intimidating height. "I haven't had any visitors since Serenity first came up here to invite me to your world some years ago. Welcome. It is a stunning place, The Heavens, is it not?"

No one knew how to respond at first to this man who seemed... amiable.

His starry eyes came to rest on Wyng, "Hello, Daughter. Finally we are able to meet. Your mother was very cruel to have kept you from coming here to meet me."

"Hello, Father," Wyng said softly. However, her face hardened and her voice rose in volume with her next sentence. "Perhaps my mother prevented me from visiting you because she could sense your inner wickedness. We know what you intend to do to the world. I have seen your malicious plans, and we have come to stop it."

Arlo nodded somberly. "Then you have heeded my messages as I had hoped." He noticed her confusion and cocked his head to the side just slightly. "Did you think it was you who was tapping into my mind?" He shook his head, a hint of a smile on his dusky lips. "No, Daughter, it was I who sent you those visions in the very hope that you would come here to face me."

"You... do you not intend to destroy the world with these rocks from The Beyond?" Wyng demanded, gesturing at the gathering of fiery masses that hovered just overhead of them.

"Of course I intend to exterminate the creatures of that sad, pathetic world," Arlo announced, glancing at the thin tear he had already made in the sky. "But I did not want to kill my only child in the process. So, while you await in the safety of my domain, I will flood the world with the flames of The Abyss."

"But why?" Wyng cried.

"There are millions of good, innocent creatures on that world," Talon argued as he dismounted and came to stand by Wyng's side. "Why punish them?"

Arlo flicked his eyes to Talon, but returned his gaze to his daughter. "Because they are unworthy of life. That witless goddess, Delphine, created the creatures of your world and all they do is kill, pollute, and complain. They destroy their own Mother! I have brought to life just one being, you, Wyng and you are good and pure. After the leeches of this world have been eradicated, then you can help me in fashioning new creatures to inhabit the freshly cleansed world.