His eyes narrowed.
Then he forced her hand away from his cheek - though with a surprising gentleness and care not to damage her.

"Surprise, Minerva. This is the real me."

Then he looked down at Inferno.
"I hunger. I need to feed. I can only feed on her. Mate with her. When I was pretending, when she owned me, I called it what humans call it. Love. But then you made her throw me away, so now it's what all my kind call it. Lust. Tell me, Minerva - what do I do?"

The calming energy had worked - but as he looked back at Minerva it was clear that the anger, the primitive bestial savagery and rage was beginning to return.

"With no humanity, the cause of it all here at my feet, and my mate just over there, tell me - what do I do?"

Minerva looked Mawthough in the eyes, "I never did tell any of you my greatest strength you know........I have something that could help, but it may break you worse than Inferno did.....its a technique I've used on many demons who tried to defile me........it may work on you........or it can kill you......but, if you could live happily with Chastity, would it be worth it? My greatest, and most dangerous power, is to give humanity to those who are lacking in it......but then they'll be forced to face the grief of all their corrupt, and evil actions in life......are you prepared for this.......I once did this for Ezekiel............and that is why he is able to resist heaven's full control.......but that was when he was young.....before he'd been forced to face that many atrocities, could you survive this?"

He didn't even blink.
"Do it."

Then before she could say anything else. he walked over to Chastity, his eyes closed.
Then he knelt before her, his body starting to shake from the effort of containing his instincts to just take her there and then.

"I have nothing to say to you except this. You are the light in my darkness. No matter how this ends, I want you to know that whether I be demon, human or anything else, you will always have me."

He turned back to Minerva shaking more. "NOW DO IT BEFORE I BREAK AGAIN!"

Minerva slowly walked toward Mawthough, but turned to the lich, "For one such as you, it could destroy you, or it could make you whole......you lich's are incomplete, anyone who goes to those lengths to stay immortal are incomplete..........." She placed her hands softly upon Mawthough's head, "Be still, it will be over soon......" She suddenly gripped tightly upon his head, and as this happened, her skin became purest white, and her eyes golden, as white wings sprouted from her back. At this time, a nexus of golden and white energy began to intertwine with Mawthough's mind, as his very soul was seemingly torn from his body. At this time, the strands of white and golden energy began to weave into each other, and as this occured, the moments of cruelty and evil within Mawthough's life began to present themselves to him as he was given forced humanity. At this moment, both Mawthough and Minerva were vulnerable to all attackers.

Blood. Gore. Death. Pain.
But, perhaps the worst of all, was the one sin that he'd had to repeat over and over again.
Women spiraled into each other, their features blending, merging, becoming shapeless, vague.
They weren't her, and that was most definitely the worst part. Every time he felt one of those memories, felt the experience in his mind, it was a betrayal. A betrayal of her, a betrayal of his mate, the perfect woman...

And there weren't hundreds, there were THOUSANDS. Thousands of women, thousands of betrayals, spinning around and around in his head, shouting out his name in bliss, and the sound of their voices was unbearable. His whole body involuntarily tensed as it felt to him like he was going to explode. The sheer volume, the sheer amount of women, combined with the death, the slaughter and the pain...

In the real world, he fell to his knees, his growls deeper and deeper, more and more savage, dark energy beginning to surround them, a sharp contrast with the nexus of light Minerva was giving off.

His body was shaking, his anger and his guilt piling up higher and higher, never relenting, a seemingly eternal barrage...

Next, Minerva, while maintaining the stream, ignoring the lich for now, knelt down in front of Mawthough, and pressed her head up against his, "Now......for the repair......." She began to sew his soul and the emotion together, and while she did, she forced the happy memories of Mawthough's time with Chastity to the front of his mind, and the struggles they had to go through, in order to pacify the horror he was seeing, "Focus on your light, never look away........."

At first, it seemed like it was working.
Mawthrough's instincts subsided, his animal side ceased to rage. Visions of him and Chastity together filled his head, and he started to relax.

Then the soul Minerva was tending started to come apart.
A middle aged brunette woman seemed to appear in her head, looking esctatic... then dead...
Then more souls poured out of him, all female, his own nowhere to be seen...

Inferno had only just recovered from the bolt, and was slowly but surely realizing what Minerva was doing.
"No!" he shouted - at the exact same moment Mawthrough's mother rematerialized, looking livid.

"You're killing him! He hasn't got a soul to fix up, this trigger happy idiot saw to that! All you're doing right now is draining away his life force! You can't give humanity like it's a present, you silly witch, it's something that the soulless have to LEARN!"
Although she sounded angry her words were also tinged with fear for her son...

At the same time, Inferno advanced on Mawthrough, almost tentatively.
"Minerva... on some demons, humanity is a good thing. But this forced injection on him is only going to end badly, and the moment he recovers he's going to be as angry as ever..."

Mawthrough for his part was still at peace until those words sank in. He desperately tried to cling to the memories, the fragments of himself he still held dear, as his motives slowly descended again into animal thoughts as his instincts shone through in their true colors. He started to growl, and his arms slowly moved up to Minerva's head, pushing it away, slowly but surely starting to rise...
-

Minerva slowly backed away from Mawthough, extremely tired and weary, "Well.....I tried.....I tried to help.....but I haven't the materials for a proxy soul......which means that forced humanity was applied to his life force instead.........."

Grey had managed to get away from his family, and from Serenity, and made his way toward Genesis, whom was at the epicenter of thousands, upon thousands of damnable hybrids. He had a stern look in his eyes. "The world is going to hell......I guess I'll be first to walk along the path to it............" He held Midnight in his right hand, his hand slightly shaking.

Back in Grey's realm, Draklin ran past Serenity, rapidly putting one of his larger guns together.

There was a strange silence as everyone took Minerva's words on board.

Then Inferno and Mawthrough's mother both blinked.
"I don't know what that means. How do you apply forced humanity to someone's life-force?"

"What have you done to my son?" Mawthrough's mother hissed as Mawthrough staggered back, unsure of what had just happened...

Minerva was too tired to stand, and fell to the floor, a weary look on her face. "I've made the soulless feel humanity before........one's life force.......while he lives, he shall have humanity..........if he dies again.......it will vanish if he doesn't have a soul......that was the best I could do for him for now...........it took far more energy than I would have thought..........."

Mawthrough shook his head as if to clear it, and seemed to shudder where he stood.
"Ow. That really hurt."

Then, a pause.

Before either Minerva, Chastity or Mawthrough's mother could react, Mawthrough and Inferno were going at it full throttle in the center of the room, slashing and tearing at each other.

"YOU BARBARIC IDIOT!! YOU KILLED MY SOUL!"
"YOU'RE ALRIGHT FOR NOW, BOY, SO STOP THIS NOW OR I'LL KILL YOU!"
"YOU CAUSED ALL THIS MISERY, ALL THIS PAIN, ALL THIS FIGHTING BETWEEN US! I WANTED NOTHING BUT YOUR BLESSING, AND YOU DID THE UNFORGIVABLE!!"

Inferno laughed, driving Mawthrough back.
"KILLING YOU? HOW VERY EGOTISTICAL!"

Then Mawthrough came back snarling and met Inferno's attacks with equal force, regaining ground.
"NOT THAT! I CAN FORGIVE YOU FOR KILLING ME, FORGIVE YOU FOR RIPPING OUT MY SOUL, FORGIVE YOU FOR ALL THIS TORTURE YOU PUT ME THROUGH, I CAN FORGIVE YOU FOR ALL OF THAT!"

Inferno parried a particularly frenzied slash and brought his spare hand up to punch Mawthrough in the face.
"THEN WHAT WAS MY GREAT MISTAKE THEN!? WHAT TERRIBLE SIN DID I COMMIT!?"

Mawthrough came right back, and his own fist was bursting with power as it slammed into Inferno.
"YOU TOOK ME AWAY FROM HER!!!!"

Inferno hit the ground, and before he could rise Mawthrough leapt on top and just started hurling punch after punch into the archangel's face - although he seemed almost half-hearted in each punch now. Before long, his fists stopped flying, and Mawthrough got up and off Inferno, breathing hard, not looking at Chastity.
"You took me away from her. And that is unforgivable."

Inferno sat up, looking in fascination at Mawthrough as his injuries healed in flashes of flame.
"You really would have killed me then. Had you been trying, you could have ripped me in half."

Mawthrough returned his gaze.
"And if you were anyone else, I would have done. But you're her father. So I can't."

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