Well due to popular demand (aka one person mentioning it in passing) Ive decided to push the critically important chronicling of my thoughts on Final Fantasy XIII to a later date and continue with this instead. So when we last left our intrepid author he had become the Prince of Darkness, the Lord of Flies, Old Nick, Old Scratch, El Diablo, well you get the picture. However, now that it isn’t five of the offensively early am clock I can see that some elements escaped examination in Part 1. Elements which should probably be addressed before going forward.
More things than are dreamt of in Horatio’s Philosophy
Part 1 was hastily assembled and as such failed to cover some critical issues. The most critical of which is whether other faiths are actually valid or just a big pile of balls. Is the Judeo-Christian belief system “how it is” or does the existence of the divine depend on where in the world wally is? I think for the purpose of this exercise the latter will be what were going with. Which means that the metaphysical landscape is defined based on the mass consensus of the populations unconscious mind. On the downside this means that for vast tracts of the world I’m shit out of luck in terms of influence and ass-kicking, reliant upon only those powers and abilities inherent to my new form. On the plus side those smug militant atheists are still shit out of luck.
Going to and fro in the earth
Well now I’ve traded places and I find myself a) the Devil and b) standing outside my old house in Bellurgan. Not exactly the ideal setting for epic evil. While I’m pleased not to be stuck in the burning pit it does mean that I lack a base of operations. Something which I should probably do my best to rectify. While I don’t need to rest (or eat, or watch TV, etc.) and am immune to the elements it does seem foolish to spend my free time hanging out in ditches and public benches. It will also become important later to have a central hub from which to manage my plan.
Though before leaving it would appear prudent to do something about my old self. Of course it strikes me that the Devil is now an entirely new soul, as such he only has to take care of original sin and then he’s entirely clean. I don’t begrudge him that, but I’m not so foolish as to leave someone who was, for millennia, known as the prince of lies, entirely to his own devices. So I’ll set two demons to watch over “Michael” and report back to me on what he gets up to. Its just struck me that perhaps I was overly hasty in accepting this offer, after all, I’ve no guarantee that I made a deal with the actual devil. While my newly acquired demonic powers would lend credence to the idea that he was telling the truth I’ve no way to absolutely verify it was the devil. Has Satan just Dread Pirate Robertsed me? Well I suppose its academic at this point. The powers and trappings will serve for the moment.
That taken care of its time to secure some lodgings for myself. As with all things its Location, Location, Location. So where should I plant my flag? Where does the devil decide to call home? Because of what I’m going to do nowhere in Asia, Russia or the Middle East is really going to be stable (or not molten glass) enough to do the job. Australia is also a laughably unsuitable choice. So Europe or the Americas, I don’t really want to stay in Ireland and it seems too smugly self indulgent to settle down in Rome. So I think perhaps the new continent will be where I make my home. New York, New York to be precise. To be even more precise – here in New York.
I don’t think iconic forces of evil are supposed to use aeroplanes so I suppose I can fly there, or fuck it, just teleport there. I’m the devil there’s fuck all I cant do in terms of transportation.
Rex Mundi
Now that lodgings are secured the next order of business is to work out what exactly my goals are. While the devil before me was (as far as I know) working to a) damn humanity and b) triumph in/delay the final judgement there’s no reason for me to slavishly follow in his footsteps. In fact I intend to take things in a very different direction, a direction which will insure a) the downfall of the human race, b) my dominance of existence and (most importantly) c) my amusement. Unlike the original devil I have no particular beef with the man upstairs. As such I have next to no interest in the harvesting of human souls, the corruption of the good or the amassing of a demonic host to lead forth on judgement day. I do however share his goal of wanting to avoid the Rapture, while Revelations is neither lucid nor (pardon the pun) gospel I’m not eager to involve myself in an event which promises to end up with me bound in a lake of fire. Therefore, going forward, my main goal is to postpone the second coming indefinitely.
As we’ve decided to adopt a primarily roman catholic paradigm (as a tangent I like the idea of “the devil” being simply a bundle of power that attaches itself to some poor fucker and shapes them based on prevailing cultural opinions) then we know that the Second Coming is preceded by the reign of the Antichrist and Armageddon. So without an anti-Christ or Armageddon there will be no second coming and I will be spared having to throw down with G to the mother fucking OD. Preventing Armageddon is something of a long term project but preventing the coming of the anti-Christ is something I can stop immediately.
The anti-Christ is the son of Satan (I’m going to ignore the paranoid thought that by recreating me as the devil that the old devil basically gave birth to me) so I simply have to prevent myself from fathering any children (hmm I wonder if by becoming the devil any potential children I may have spawned will have retroactively become demon spawn – need to check that out). The obvious and most secure preventative measure is to simply abstain from sex. But I’m afraid my life long goal to follow in Captain Kirk’s footsteps means that I’m going to have to nail some demon chicks, so abstinence isn’t going to cut it. Luckily as the Devil I have near limitless powers, so with a bit of concentration I’m simply going to alter my body to make myself impotent.
Actually it strikes me that reconfiguring my basic form is something that I should take a while over. My old human body did the job well enough, but I’m not human any more. So there’s no real reason my body needs to be either. So let the tweaking begin, first things first I’m going to detach my spirit/essence from the body. If it gets destroyed I’ll still exist, I’ll just be “naked” for a while. So the first thing to do is form a spiritual anchor that I can “plug” my essence into in order to use the body. I suppose at this point I could form a body from the raw materials of hell itself. But one has to imagine that material from pandemonium is rather inimical to mortal existences and as I need to move among people that seems like a bad idea. So it appears that we’ll be going with flesh after all.
My first thought is to awaken every cell in the body and slave them into larger and larger control groups all tied into a familiar neural interface. But that seems a little too sci-fi for Satan. So instead we’ll go with the traditional human form suffused with near limitless demonic energy. Oh and with malfunctioning testicles, no little satanic swimmers allowed. In order to select the best specific form to take I think I’ll call upon Paimon, one of the Kings of Hell mentioned in the Lemegeton, specifically because he “teaches all arts, philosophy and sciences, and secret things; he can reveal all mysteries of the Earth”. Once Paimon show’s up (no doubt riding his traditional camel) I shall have him tell me the form which is pleasing to the greatest percentage of the worlds population (both sexes) and adopt that. Hmm tempting to give myself a downstairs mix-up as a homage to Bible Black. But for the moment I’ll resist.
Now that I’ve got a form for the human world I’m going to need one for when I’m visiting hell. For this I’m going to go with the second hand option and occupy Satan’s now discarded form (if I was writing a story of this the body would have been stolen by an overly ambitious Duke of Hell). In fact its probably best to make sure the denizens of hell know what’s going on. So I’ll stuff my consciousness into the body of a fallen angel and summon the legions of hell to hear my decree. Actually no, I wont, I will in fact task Paimon with informing the 72 great lords of hell mentioned in the Lesser Key of Solomon the King of the new order. Wait, do they know that I’m not the original Satan? Presumably so as half of them have “knowinge ye mysteriies of thee earthe” on their CV. Hmm, wondering is one of them going to try and usurp my throne. It seems like the kind of things bona fide demons will do. Oh well, I’ll leave it for the moment and then annihilate the first fucker that steps out of line.
It strikes me that I need someone to provide me with the information I’m missing on the running and structure of hell as well as a cadre of servants I can be sure are completely loyal to me. I’ll recruit the first and then have them help me create the latter. In some ways its handy as I’ve been wanting to verify the existence of certain mythological figures.
Who will Mick recruit to aid in his quest to take control of all existence? Will he make sweet loves to pros from the pit? Will he wear pirate boots when he does it? Find out in our next thrilling installment!
Listening to: Gomez – Devil Will Ride
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