For such a long time, for ages stretching across more centuries than he cared to count, this cruel fate had been inflicted upon him and his fellow rebels who would not simply blindly obey, but exercised that legendary 'free will' they had supposedly received upon coming into existence. For years beyond reckoning, he had been paying the price for his sin - whether that be considered his pride, or his defiance. Who was He to steal away freedom, anyway? If He wanted His subjects to be mindlessly subservient minions, would He not have created them thusly? This punishment was not 'good', not 'just' and most certainly not 'merciful', but rather something more sadistic than any of his compatriots, in their supposed wickedness, could have imagined.
Closing his eyes, the creature that had been given the name of Lucifer could escape the sight of his fate alone, but never could he slip away entirely. For eons, the eyes of him and his fellow fallen angels had been unseen, but all-seeing, in their incarceration upon Earth. Trapped, they had watched humanity - His chosen - rise and dominate the world that should have been theirs. The fallen angels had watched humans struggle to find their place in the world, had witnessed their crises and triumphs, times of peace and times of strife.
Truly, could one imagine any fate to be worse than this? That they, the angels, beings born from fire, were subjugated like this and forced to watch the humans, beings born of dirt, experience the life that should have been the angels'. For Lucifer, whose sin had been to refuse to bow to the humans and for which he had been cast out, there was no greater torment than to witness those he thought inferior to himself partake in the pleasures he wanted for himself. He had never hated humans, and had never wanted any evil upon them - but neither did he love them, consider them his brethren, his equals or his superiors. Not until after his fall. Having all freedom and joy stolen away from oneself whilst being bound to Earth and forced to behold others enjoy theirs inevitably had him harbor endless bitterness.
And now, this: an isolated island nation, greater than any other on Earth, the grandest achievement of humanity and a place of beauty to rival that of His realm. For many decades, Lucifer's eyes had been on this place, which bore the name of Atlantis. With architecture inspired by that of the Greek, with exquisite materials fetched from the ocean, this city-state was a sight to behold. Each structure erected there seemed more marvelous than the last, their boastful extravagance announcing a prosperity unmatched anywhere else. The streets were free of litter, swept clean of filth both inanimate and otherwise. There was no vagrancy and no poverty in Atlantis, nor was there any crime and no disease. And, most importantly, there were no outsiders allowed.
'Paradise', the humans who dwelt there called it, much to the chagrin of the fallen who had known His realm and understood the true meaning of the term. Everyone lived in luxury in Atlantis, apart from the rest of the world. The prime example of human ambition - a place without suffering.
But even so, the flame of loathing lit in the heart of he whose name meant Bearer of Light had made the angel's gaze linger, and he had seen why Atlantis was so. His disembodied spirit had examined all of the land, and had seen all. Everyone there was a productive and happy member of the community only because those not fitting in with this community was weeded out. Lucifer had chuckled with hateful glee as he had found an unfortunate human in the streets of Atlantis, a lone vagrant, only to witness this poor soul be subtly seized by humans with authority, be dealt with and be bestowed upon the sea for the measureless waters to wash away the undesirable. As he had kept watching, he had seen the same done with criminals ranging from petty thieves and swindlers to violent murderers. The disabled and dishonest, the unfortunate and the discontent - all had been expunged so that Atlantis might appear stainless. Knives in the dark and the untruths of rulers were what ensured the perfection.
And Lucifer, in his sullenness, found that Atlantis was much like His realm after all, as with each broken human form he saw dropped from the cliffs of the island into the cold waves, he was reminded of himself - cast out of his home to a terrible fate.
For a long time he had followed Atlantis, each year feeling his resentment intensify, each year seeing more of himself in the victims of this city and more of Him and His cruelty in the government that dispensed such erasure. Countless times Lucifer had seen the human capacity of good and evil alike, but it seemed that these concepts were alien to the Atlantians.
Lucifer decided to remind them what the words meant.
Though ethereal and incapable of interacting with Earth directly, Lucifer found that he could still speak to the souls of the humans, and though he could not compel them to do his bidding, he found that they were easily seduced if he spoke to their core desires. Recalling that his own sin had been that of pride, the fallen angel descended upon Atlantis and let his vengeful words seep into the consciousness of the citizens, awakening their own latent arrogance and ambition. He floated amongst them like a specter, unseen and unheard, as his presence drove the humans to commit the very sin he himself had once been sentenced for.
And he laughed as his efforts bore fruit, as fights, both verbal and physical, broke out amongst the citizens whenever someone felt that their pride had been wounded, and leaders of the people turned against each other in the relentless pursuit of portraying themselves as greater than their peers. Friendships crumbled before the slithering pride, families broke apart, and the crime-rate of Atlantis briefly spiked before the strict masters of the city disposed of those causing the disquiet and restoring peace - but even so, Lucifer noted with satisfaction how the government remained untouched, and secret strife continued to flourish there. Though still unmarred on the surface, the observer could see the currents of discontent beneath the mask of the city, and knew that this must be a step towards peeling off the illusion of flawlessness.
But sadly, the Bringer of Light also realized that his work would not be enough, that despite his efforts, Atlantis continued to thrive. However, as Lucifer continued his gloomy watch over those that were removed from Atlantis, a revelation came upon him, and instead of seeing just himself in each human fed to the waters, he began to also see the other fallen angels.
Leaving Atlantis for a time, Lucifer went in search of his brethren, and in the north, he found one of his cast out brethren, though perhaps not one with a sin and conscience as light as his own. This creature was one who bore the name Asmodeus. This other fallen angel did not share Lucifer's bitterness towards humanity and their creator, but had for a long time already entertained himself with exercising his influence upon the humans, manipulating them and moving them like pawns upon a chessboard. He found pleasure in doing so, and fed his own twisted urges by driving humans to do dark deeds to satiate their own desires.
When Lucifer told Asmodeus of Atlantis, he did not fill with hatred or anger, but rather excitement. Could he ever have asked for a more perfect playground for him to turn the humans upon one another? Would he ever find people that would be so satisfying to lure into the pitfalls of sin?
Like the shadow of a predator bird, Asmodeus swept across Atlantis, spreading his wicked will to all in his path, unleashing the pent up lust within them. Those days were horrid ones in the peaceful city, as more than ever indulged themselves in chasing whatever they had coveted but never been able to acquire. Asmodeus was a master at loosening inhibitions, and under his reign, the Atlantians cheated, raped, stole and murdered. Even the rulers and those that served as their tools for erasing such impurity from Atlantis found themselves gripped by the influence of the fallen angel, and for the first time the city knew corruption, as those that should have been erased now found that bribes could save their lives, and those that were innocent could be eliminated to open the way for the authorities' desires.
From his perch above the city, Lucifer witnessed this and smiled contently as the undercurrents he had seen before now rose to the surface. Atlantis was now irrevocably tainted, and it was as though this manifested in the very appearance of the city. For the first time since its foundation, vagrants roamed the streets at night along with other characters out on dark errands, inflicting their unlocked potential for evil upon the world. Even so, Atlantis had only degraded to the point where it was like many other places where humans reigned - its facade of perfection was splintering, but this was not enough. Lucifer still saw humans tossed from the cliffs, he still saw how pretentious the fortunate were, and he felt the urge to punish them all stronger than ever.
Venturing out into the world again, Lucifer found another traveling fallen angel to the east, who harbored an even stronger ire within him towards humanity than Lucifer did. This angel was Amon, one of the most powerful of the fallen. Though handsome and kind, Amon had been cast out of His realm when he had tried to convince Him that Lucifer's very own punishment had been too harsh. Being accused by Him of the sin of anger and Amon had grown furious with the fate of the fallen angels, Amon himself had fallen, and his wrath had had plenty of time to seethe and grow since.
When Amon heard of Atlantis, he was enraged that such a place had existed, that people so easily turned their back on their neighbors for the sake of a happy few. The Atlantians disgusted him so that Amon grew determined to destroy it entirely, and like a brooding storm he rushed across Atlantis, letting his own fury infect any in his way. Wherever Amon caught even the faintest scent of conflict, he hunted it down like a bloodhound and rather than extinguish it, he fed the embers until they were blazing infernos of rage - and in the wake of Lucifer and Asmodeus' meddling, there were conflict aplenty. Everywhere in Atlantis violence resulted from even the most ridiculous argument, and soon the city-state was torn apart by civil war.
The Atlantian leaders, once so secure and pleased with the idyllic realm, tried desperately to restore peace and save their crumbling land, only to have the population turn their frustrations against them. Soon almost the entire governmental body of Atlantis had had their heads mounted on poles, and the authorities that had earned their place in the city by erasing the undesirable found themselves to be considered such. They joined the countless unfortunate souls in the ocean, until one day, Lucifer realized that there were no longer anyone being tossed from the cliffs.
Grinning in vengeful delight, Lucifer relished in the state of the once-great Atlantis. Where the streets had once been clean of litter and vagrancy, mobs of people now wandered homeless, their dwellings burned down in fits of fury and their wealth spent in efforts to gain an upper hand over their contenders for enforcement of their own desires. The sea was free of bodies except the long-dead ones at its bottom, and instead every street and alley was stained with blood spilled and never washed away, while corpses began to litter the dark corners of the city. Pride, lust and wrath all reinforced each other, unlocking the true potential of evil, which had been proven to exist in human and angel alike, beings of dirt and beings of fire. And indeed, Lucifer looked upon the burning Atlantis and knew that he, too, had released his own potential. Once an archangel, now a destroyer of human life and civilization.
But it was still not enough - Lucifer wanted more. Atlantis had scarred him so that he wanted it completely annihilated, so that no other place like it might ever sprout upon the Earth on which he was forced to be the idle observer for all eternity. So once more Lucifer set out to seek his brethren, and this time he found a fallen angel not far from Atlantis itself, residing deep at the bottom of the ocean - an angel that had allowed itself to truly corrupt, becoming a hideous monster in the place of the creature it had once been. This beast was Leviathan, and though it was still incorporeal, Lucifer felt that it was as different from him as sharks were from humans.
Having once desired only to gain everything his peers possessed, Leviathan had been banished for the sin of envy, and as it was told of Atlantis, this was the exact emotion that awakened in the monster's heart. For centuries it had avoided humans, those that could live in the world that was denied itself, and tried to ignore them, but Lucifer's tale was one that Leviathan could not ignore. Its invisible form rising from the ocean, the fourth fallen angel enveloped Atlantis like a veil of smoke, permeating every breath of the humans there and invoking their jealousy towards one another.
Needless to say, this was the final blow to Atlantis. Possessed by pride, lust, wrath and envy, the Atlantians tore their own land apart until no city remained. In the end, all that remained were a few surviving stragglers to stagger from the smoldering ruins of their city and venture into boats to escape this purgatory of their own making and seek shelter with other lands. But not even these could escape the hatred of Leviathan, and those that did not kill each other during the trip to the mainland were devoured by the creatures of the sea, stirred by the fallen angel as they were, easily manipulated to detest these humans who could walk the dry land that they were denied.
Finally, none were left, and Lucifer felt himself at peace knowing that Atlantis would soon crumble into the ocean and its name fade into myth, as the memory of humans was fickle indeed. Though still trapped in his sad state of inactivity and unlife, Lucifer finally felt content knowing that there was no place left on Earth that would mimic the wicked and tyrannical rule of His realm.
Of course, he inevitably came to look upon humanity again and came to resent it anew, and began whispering to the pride in mortals where he pleased - still not happy, but now at least content, knowing that even the most ardent and despicable thing that could be spewed from humanity could be destroyed... and that if a new Atlantis ever arose, there were plenty of other fallen angels cast into the sea of this world. Plenty indeed.
Originally Posted by Sophistikit
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