The setting sun couldn't shine its glow by the think clad of smoke that enveloped the city of remnants and ashes. Flames were still burning at a great height, spreading by the minute. Blood spilt amongst the dirt and the corpses.

Corpses...

Corpses that were caused by me.

Corpses that I promised to save, to avoid.

And yet here I was, staring at the destruction caused by my own best friend. I crouched down next to a person. Even if his blond hair had dyed to the coarsest shade of grey, and his face heavily bruised and cut, I slipped two fingers to the side of his neck.

"Dale," I whispered, tears clouding my eyesight before rolling down my damp and sooty face.

"C'mon Dale," I begged. "Wake up. Please."

Nothing. No pulse.

I wrapped my arms around his lifeless body, hugging him tightly to my chest as I wailed dishearteningly in a moment of grave defeat.

I was too late.

"I told you he'd break your heart eventually." I looked over my shoulder. A shaggy man hovers above the ground, black veins visible in his face. The darkest shade of black surrounded him as his black scarred wings flapped in a rhythm. I laid Dale down carefully.

"You should have stayed with me." I whipped my head.

"You?!" I stood up exasperatedly. "A killer?! A murder?!"

I marched forward. Fury blinding my vision and seeping through my veins.

"You killed this whole city! You killed everyone around me. My parents, my friends, Dale–and you think I'm going to even consider being with you?! That's preposterous, Evans. That's never going to happen."

Glaring at him with my pent up anger, I stood a foot away from him. Wrong move. His arm shot up and his hand grasp my neck in a tight grip, bringing me upwards. I gasped audibly, thrashing around with all my might.

He threw me a malicious smile. "Ah, my little bird–,"

"Don't...c-call me...t–that," I croaked out.

"Fine." He dropped me to the ground, then crouched down staring directly at me. I looked away, loathing the way he smiled sweetly. Unfortunately, he held my chin firmly, forcing me to stare at him.

"Do you really think it's worth it? Sacrificing this," he gestured to everything around us, "for your life?"

"You can do so much yet you choose to oppose me? To defend this city? From me?" He laughed. "How in the world to you think you're going to do that?"

I kept my mouth shut. Unconsciously, my hand went to the smoothly moulded festoon of my bracelet, tugging it. Suddenly, I felt his hand on my bracelet.

"Na-ah-ah," He singsonged. "If you're not going to come with me willingly, I'm forcing you."

I spat at his face. "You're mean, you know that?"

He brought out a handkerchief and wiped his face. He didn't show a trace of annoyance even after what I did. "We're wasting time, don't you think my Rhea?"

With no heads up, he dragged me down to the portal below us as we teleported to a different place. I grimaced, knowing exactly where we were. Looking around, I noticed stained blood on the walls of the uneven surface of the cave as Cronus stared at the meeting, sitting comfortably in his own rock. I shuffled on my seat, a tall rock in the middle of the water, as a bright light shined upon me from above.

In a second, he appeared right in front of me with a puff of smoke. Again, a hand was on her throat. Quickly, he muttered a spell.

My breath was becoming shallow as he drained my essence. I hollered out in pain.

Inch by inch, I felt like my blood was being drained, pressuring the life I had in me. Faintly, a white glow appeared from my cheat being vacuumed to his hand.

I could feel the agony catching up as my eyelids slowly shut. Memories started flooding my mind like a flashback.

Memories I spent with my family, friends, Cronus, his family, Dale...

Dale...

Then I snapped. The thought that we could spend a much better life than the present infuriated me. I could have saved him. I could have stopped him from dying along with the hundreds of citizens that laid lifeless on the streets. All because I was blinded by the years of friendship we have built. Cronus and I built.

I felt a surge in my veins. Crying out loud, I snapped my eyes open as a pure shone of white blinded my vision.

Then a wave of power flushed all around me, pushing Cronus back a few feet away from me. In an instant, I held him up against the wall.

"Converte hoc potentiam, et potentia in tenuit. Tuo viribus et non revelare verum recedere. Supergreditur, et non supplantabuntur gressus ejus. Me forum!"

As I spoke, my own voice faltered, overpowered by another void tone but after I finished, I sucked a great black orb out of him, gaining his own essence.

Another surge crept through my blood. A stronger one than before. Unconsciously, I was lifted in the air by the wind. Accepting the power that sat upon my palm, I screamed as a black element blasted around me.

I tugged the festoon of my bracelet from its chain. The festoon resting at my hand. Clenching my fist, I pictured a sharpened end of a thin pole. I glanced at the object in my hand, seeing it to transform to what I had envisioned.

Shooting him a diabolically grin, I tossed the weapon In the air before aiming it straight to his heart. A roar erupted from his throat as he dissolved into small particles that mixed with the wind.

As he disintegrated, whatever essence of life that he had transferred to me, feeding my soul.

I hummed in satisfaction and pleasure. Another wasp of power appeared on my palm. I shot it in the sky, embracing the dark matters that swirled around me.

Concentrating, I centralized my essence to my palm, smiling triumphantly.

I raised my arm high ready to fire when I felt an object stabbed my back. I glanced down. A pointed dagger protruding the upper right of my stomach.

Before I could knock my head to the rock below me, someone caught me, wrapping his arms around me.

"I am sorry Rhea." A voice whispered near my ear.

"Dale," I croaked out, coughing a spit of blood.

"This will help you remember." He placed his hand over my head.

A flood of memories washed through me. The reason I was the only one I could kill Cronus.

We were created, experiments. Test subjects that went wrong when the gods had created us.

I was his equal in every sense. Though we didn't die together, we both had the power to overthrow the other by taking the other's essence to sustain your life. Either that or we both live to maintain the balance.

That wasn't all, as his equal, I was an epitome of him. An epitome of what he can do, his powers. An epitome of destruction. An epitome of agony.

"I'm sorry Rhea but you are him and he is you and in every way possible, you both must be killed. That is the prophecy."

I felt a drop on my face before I faded into the darkness.