1 – Morning After Chaos
The four of them sat in a booth at an old-school greasy spoon diner, the kind that smelled like burnt coffee and bacon grease, the kind that had probably been open since the seventies and hadn’t updated a damn thing since.
Atlas had insisted on coming here.
“It’s tradition,” he had said, flashing that easy grin. “Nothing like a post-ritual breakfast.”
Jason had groaned. Heath had barely been able to stand upright on the walk over. Tank just went along with it because, frankly, after the night they’d had, he was starving.
Now, sitting in the booth, Tank felt the weight of everything settle over him.
He was different now.
Not just stronger. Not just more in control.
Something had shifted.
Atlas could feel it, too.
Tank caught him watching from across the table, a knowing smirk just barely tugging at his lips.
“You’re feeling it, aren’t you?” Atlas asked.
Tank stabbed a piece of sausage with his fork. “Feeling what?”
Atlas chuckled. “The change. The awareness. You’re not just some guy who got handed a gift. You’re something more now.”
Tank swallowed his bite, setting the fork down. “And what exactly am I?”
Atlas leaned forward, resting his forearms on the table. “A Scion of Asmodeus.”
Jason, who had been quietly nursing a cup of coffee, sighed. “Here we go.”
Tank narrowed his eyes. “Scion?”
Atlas nodded. “A chosen vessel. A living embodiment of his will. And now?” His grin widened. “You’re one, too.”
Tank exhaled slowly.
The words settled into him, like something that had always been there but was only now making itself known.
He had felt it last night. The control, the ability to direct the flow of lust, the way his presence alone could shape the room.
But he hadn’t thought about what it meant.
Not really.
Now, he couldn’t ignore it.
He was no longer just Tank.
He was something more.
Something ancient and new all at once.
---
2 – The Fall of the Church of Asmodeus
Heath, still looking half-dead but far more lucid than before, finally spoke. “So how long have you been a Scion?”
Atlas hummed, tapping his fingers on the table. “A while.”
Jason scoffed. “That’s vague as hell.”
Atlas grinned. “Yeah. It is.”
Tank tilted his head. “How did it happen?”
Atlas studied him for a moment, then exhaled, stretching like a man about to unravel something long buried.
“Alright,” he said. “Story time.”
The group fell silent, leaning in slightly as Atlas began.
---
3 – Atlas’s Beginning
“I wasn’t always this.” Atlas gestured at himself. “Wasn’t always a Scion. Wasn’t always… aware of what I was meant for.”
Tank listened carefully.
Because he could hear it in Atlas’s voice—this wasn’t just a story.
This was a revelation.
“I was a nobody once,” Atlas continued. “Just some kid who grew up in a shitty town with a shitty family, never quite fitting anywhere. I knew I liked guys, knew I wanted something more than the life I saw laid out for me. But I didn’t know what that more was.”
His fingers tapped against the table in a slow rhythm.
“And then I met him.”
Tank felt the energy shift.
“The man who changed everything,” Atlas murmured.
Heath swallowed. “Asmodeus?”
Atlas’s lips curled. “No. The priest of Asmodeus.”
Tank frowned. “Priest?”
Atlas nodded. “Before the world turned against him, before his name was buried under centuries of Christian fearmongering, Asmodeus had worshippers. A whole order of men who dedicated themselves to his ways.”
Jason rubbed his temples. “So you’re telling me there was an actual church of Asmodeus?”
Atlas smiled. “Once.”
Tank narrowed his eyes. “And what happened to it?”
Atlas’s grin faded slightly.
“It burned.”
---
4 – The Fall of the Church
“The Church of Asmodeus wasn’t like other religions,” Atlas said, voice lower now. “It wasn’t about blind faith. It was about embodiment. About living through desire, mastering it, not letting it master you.”
Tank could almost see it—a temple of men who understood the true nature of power, who embraced lust, dominance, and pleasure as sacred.
Atlas’s gaze darkened.
“But power is always feared by those who don’t have it. And in the end, the world turned against them.”
Jason frowned. “So what? Some ancient crusade wiped them out?”
Atlas exhaled through his nose. “Something like that.”
He leaned back in his seat. “The temples were raided. The priests were executed, their names stricken from record. Their knowledge—what little survived—was stolen, twisted, repurposed by those who wanted to use it for their own ends.”
Heath swallowed. “So they were erased.”
Atlas nodded. “Almost.”
Tank’s chest tightened. “Almost?”
Atlas smirked. “A few of them survived. They went into hiding. Passed their knowledge down through the centuries in secret. Most of them failed. Most of them faded into nothing.”
He spread his arms.
“But not all of them.”
Tank stared at him. “So you’re saying one of them found you?”
Atlas nodded. “Not just found me. Made me.”
---
5 – Becoming a Scion
“He was old,” Atlas said. “Not physically, but in his soul. You could see it in his eyes—he had lived through things no human should have survived. And he knew what I was before I ever did.”
Tank listened carefully.
Because he was beginning to see the pattern.
Beginning to understand why Atlas had chosen him.
“He took me in,” Atlas continued. “Taught me. Showed me what had been lost, what had been buried.”
Jason leaned forward. “And then what? He just handed his power over to you?”
Atlas smirked. “No. I had to earn it.”
Tank exhaled.
Because he understood that now.
Understood what it meant to prove yourself worthy.
“I became a Scion through blood, through will, through breaking myself down and building myself back up in the image of something greater.” Atlas’s eyes gleamed. “And now, I’m passing that knowledge down again.”
Tank’s throat was dry.
Because he understood what Atlas was saying without saying it.
He was the next step.
The next link in the chain.
Atlas had chosen him, the same way the priest before had chosen Atlas.
He wasn’t just being gifted power.
He was being trusted with it.
He was being made into something more.
And suddenly—
Everything made sense.
---
6 – The Future of Worship
“But here’s the thing,” Atlas said, finishing the last of his coffee. “The world may have tried to erase Asmodeus, but they failed.”
Jason raised an eyebrow. “Because of you?”
Atlas grinned. “Because of us.”
He gestured around the table.
“At one point, Asmodeus’s name was spoken freely. His rites were performed in temples. But that doesn’t mean we can’t bring him back.”
Heath, still visibly shaken, frowned. “You want to rebuild his church?”
Atlas’s smirk deepened. “Not a church. A movement.”
Tank’s pulse thudded.
Because he knew exactly where Atlas was going with this.
“A movement among gay men,” Tank murmured.
Atlas nodded.
“He’s always been our god,” Atlas said. “Whether we knew it or not. The world has tried to shame us for our desires, tried to tell us that lust is sin.”
He leaned forward, voice low and electric.
“But we know better.”
Tank exhaled.
Because he did.
They all did.
Atlas grinned. “This is just the beginning.”
And as Tank looked around the table, at Jason’s guarded curiosity, Heath’s shaken resolve, and Atlas’s undeniable certainty—
He knew.
This was only the start of something far bigger than any of them could have imagined.
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