By the time Jonathan Drago reached the age of thirty, both Heaven and Hell were expecting, indeed demanding, that he accept his duty as the Antichrist. He had put it off long enough. Telling them he had a few trips in mind for his own amusement before everything was in ruins. He assured them that once he'd traveled, he'd get to work, but it never came to that. They insisted that he would cause Armageddon. They wouldn't accept anything less, and his excuses would no longer be accepted. Heaven and Hell's ultimate battle would take place on Earth. What they had never taken into account, however, was the stubbornness of the son of the Devil. Since he was twenty-one and had thus grown into his full powers, they had been nagging at him.
He sat annoyed in a small meeting room waiting on the neutral Earth. He was so not in the mood for that eternal whining from both sides. He expected to get nothing but a massive headache from this meeting. The first to enter was his grandfather Robert, better known as the almighty God. Well, his real name was actually El, but somehow in the last couple of centuries he replaced that with a simple Robert. Not the God as depicted in images on Earth. The old man with a white beard, a white robe, and sandals. His grandfather was a charming man, who preferred the appearance of a man in his mid-fifties, in a neatly tailored suit, with a short gray beard and a warm smile around his mouth, and there was usually something playful in his eyes.
"Jonathan, my boy."
Jon had to smile, and the two embraced.
"Hello, Grandpa. This is going to be another shitstorm, I think."
God sighed, and his eyebrows went up; he didn't say more and took a seat at the other head of the table opposite Jon. Both sat in silence waiting for the rest to show up. The first group to arrive was his father along with his two generals, Belios and Bearus. He was particularly fond of his father and the two generals, but not during this kind of meeting. The greeting between father and son was tense. Their relationship had been strained for years. Not hostile but certainly no longer the warm-hearted one it had been when Jonathan was a child. The greeting with the generals was much warmer. Lucifer looked absolutely nothing like most people pictured him. No horns, no tail, no cloven hooves, and certainly no trident. When he was a child and his mother was still alive, Jon found it particularly amusing to tease his father a little from time to time by leaving pictures or figurines of goats here and there in the Devil's private quarters. Lucifer hated that mankind portrayed the Devil as a kind of cross with a goat, so the little Antichrist had his fun with it. Lucifer had the appearance of an elegant man in his early forties or so. Brown eyes that seem to have only two settings, either warm or icy, and a very short ring beard. Jonathan had definitely inherited his taste in clothing from his father. Both usually preferred an expensive and perfectly tailored three-piece suit and, for some time now, shoes from Louboutin. His generals, on the other hand, looked like professional linebackers at their peak and preferred leather. The last to enter was Michael and his two weasels, Uriel and Sandalphon. He was anything but fond of those three. He would prefer to wring their necks, very, very slowly. Just for the fun of it. After an hour, he began to get quite a massive headache from their bickering back and forth. What he did notice again was that his father and grandfather remained suspiciously quiet for the last few meetings, leaving the jabbering to their subordinates. He had enough of the bickering and hit the table hard with the flat of his hand, and his signet ring seemed to sing in space:
"Shut the fuck up!"
Immediately there was silence, and Jonathan spoke:
"I want to ask one last time, and please answer with very small words as if I would be very stupid so I can understand properly!"
All eyes were on him. They knew they had pissed him off, and with the powers that had been poured into him through his Divine lineage, it was never a good idea to test him. Especially since they knew his temperament could be quite explosive:
"You expect me to eradicate ninety percent of the people on Earth and destroy the planet to the point where it can no longer be saved. Then your armies can come to Earth and pretty much wipe each other out. The victor can then call himself ruler of the Earth, Heaven, and Hell and what remains of humanity before they go completely extinct. Which in turn is going to take at most a few months because I have completely killed the environment. Is that about right?"
Around the table, people nodded silently, and the Antichrist continued:
"I don't know if Grandpa created you this way on purpose, but you are all idiots! If you haven't noticed, humanity is well on its way to destroying itself. Climate change, you know! We have long since left the point of no return in the rearview mirror. Give it a few more decades, and you will get the same result without me having to unleash the apocalypse. You have been waiting for thousands of years now; those few decades don't matter anymore either."
He saw that his father wanted to say something, but he looked at him spitefully:
"Shut the fuck up, Dad! I'm not finished yet! If you guys consider humanity to be a nasty termite mound, anyway, well get out your flamethrower and set everything on fire. But don't put this on me! For I am very fond of those termites and that mound."
"You are destined to unleash the apocalypse!"
Objected Michael pissed off.
"And who says that, Uncle Mikey?"
He asked, knowing full well that Michael hated that abbreviation of his name and even more so when he addressed him as uncle.
"Father, God says so!"
"Is that so, Grandpa?"
Asked Jon, as he held God's gaze. God nodded and said:
"It is indeed so, my child."
The Antichrist was clearly seething now, and one could see the fire of Hell burning in his eyes:
"I am going to say this once, and so all of you keep your damn ears open. If you think I want to be responsible for the death of billions of people, the extermination of ninety percent of all life on Earth. And then the destruction of thousands of my uncles and aunts? Then you're all out of your minds and simply despicable!"
He pointed his finger at God:
"And you? I simply do not understand what it looks like in that skull of yours and what is in your heart. You want your grandson to kill billions of people so that thousands of your own children can die next! Sorry, but I don't know you, and I don't want to know you!"
He got up from his chair.
"And the rest of you are just unlucky because there will be no apocalypse, and do you know why? Because your all-powerful and all-knowing father made a stupid-ass mistake in this shitty little plan. His precept that the Antichrist must be the child of Lucifer and a human woman, is the mistake! Man has full free will to make choices, and so I have that free choice through my human side as well. And it is my fucking free choice to simply not do it. My free choice, my free will to say you can all go fuck yourselves! I will stay here on Earth and if any of you try the slightest thing on Earth, I will burn down Hell with Heavenfire until everything is destroyed there, and I will burn down Heaven with Hellfire until nothing is left but ashes. Stay the fuck away from me! So, it is critically important that you work together and remind each other of my words. If a Demon does something stupid, Heaven will pay the price. If an Angel does something stupid, Hell also pays the price. And you can look at your father all you want because even he cannot force or kill me. So far, an almighty God, for he can't even kill his own grandson even though he would absolutely need to or want to!"
With that, he turned and stormed out.