<div align="center">(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v296/rcburner/DemonWorld.jpg)</div><br/><div class="floatright">(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v296/rcburner/HIM-1.jpg)</div><br/>Living in the City of Townsville, it can often be difficult for the average yokel to imagine the darker places in the world.  For nearly two decades it has been a place of unparalleled prosperity and relative safety, thanks to three<em>perfect</em>little girls.  Monsters may wander from their island homes to terrorize and topple buildings to the ground, evil geniuses barrel through the streets firing lasers from giant robots, and enraged furry rednecks turn law abiding citizens into meat from time to time, but death rates remain at an all time low due to the efforts of the Powerpuff Girls and the aura of luck they seem to project over the city they've grown to love.  Jobs are plentiful, progressive reforms of healthcare and insurance (put forth by a certain intelligent Mayor's aid) ensure the health and general well-being of the city and its people, and depression is nearly nonexistent.  It is a place that the sun always seems to favor with its cheery smile, and despite the years that have passed and the changes the girls have gone through, it looks as though it may just stay that way forever.<br/><br/>But unbeknownst to the innocent people of Townsville and the bright sun overhead a darker place does indeed exist.  Behind the pleasant veneer of reality is another land.  The air is ridden with heinous smog that seems both gaseous and liquid at once, a churning mass of tainted oil and soot alight with the glow of unseen fires.  Within this putrid sea float grotesque forms, pulsing organs fused with rusted metal constructs and malformed caricatures of humans carved from bone.  From moment to moment they are insubstantial and dangerously real, there for an instant and gone the next.  Occasionally one crashes bodily into another, erupting with torrents of bubbling brown ichor or grasping desperately to each other in some bizarre mockery of a lustful embrace.  All around them is a terrible noise that is just beyond hearing, yet deafening to the ears.  A baleful static where agonized shrieking clashes with monotonous news reports from networks in every language imaginable, and even some that could never be concocted by any sane and rational mind.  The agony of a planet laid bare by its hidden thoughts and media alike.<br/><br/>At the very center of this hellish abyss is a throne carved from slate and coated in melting pitch.  The back of it towers high above until it disappears into the burning clouds above, graven with blasphemous images of carnal pleasures.  It is both a seat of power and a monolithic structure, a tower without end or beginning.  A figure arrogantly drapes itself over the beastly arms of the throne, the lord of its personal, maddening domain.  It is an individual whose mere appearance embodies Sin itself, with pure crimson flesh laid bare by the provocative cut of its dress, a red coat tied oh-so-sensually about its waist by a coal-black belt and wreathed with millions of downy pink feathers about the neck and hips, plucked from the wings of jealous harpies and stained with their blood.  Rubbery high-heeled boots conform to slender, disturbingly feminine legs, creaking at the slightest movement.  Arms skeletal and formless, ending in cruel bulbous pincers.  The figure's face is painted like a Harlequin's, pleasant black lips and rosy cheeks broken by a wide gash of a mouth brimming with teeth as perfect as any angel's.  Black hair combed back painfully, and a finely maintained goatee curled back towards its face.  A face that is all sharp angles and devilish points.  Eyes yellowed with hate and bordered by curled, womanly lashes.<br/><br/>A being whose name goes unspoken out of fear, whose presence is known but denied by those who seek to lead a life free of worry.  But ignorance is not enough to keep such a force at bay, for the mind, no matter how happy on the outside, always contains a kernel of selfishness and uncouth desires.  Just the tiniest seed is enough, and he is there.  Even in the city of Townsville, there is no perfection.  The girls have done an excellent job at maintaining appearances, but heroics cannot wipe the darkness from the hearts of men.  Though he has not been seen in the City of Smiles for nearly a  decade, every citizen knows that they could be being watched by a malignant gaze.  The gaze of the Nameless One.<br/><br/>The gaze of<strong>HIM</strong>.<br/><br/>HE smiles lackadaisically, at the space just before his seat, where thousands of panels depicting events both past, present, and future flit past in seemingly random sequences.  Images of war beside gloating politicians with 10,000 dollar suits.  Starving children with swollen bellies linking arms with gluttonous hogs of people as they sit down to excessive Thanksgiving dinners.  Men and women with broken and battered bodies, victims of those intolerant to so-called "choices" they have made, beside negligent, abusive fathers or mothers in "healthy, normal" relationships.  Adorable, useless pandas preserved forever in sterile boxes while the other animals not blessed with cute exteriors wither and die as forests burn and molder into dust.  The entirety of human history, suffering, and sin laid out in an endlessly shifting tapestry hanging in the void.<br/><br/>"Such loooooooovely creatures," HIS voice rang out, a melodious voice that echoed eerily from all directions.  "So simple-minded, so open to suggestion!  Why, I need baaaaarely do anything at all, with all the woooonderful tools they provide me.  Predictable puppets, so eager to please me!<br/><br/>With a twirl of his claw the images melted into a single screen, an aerial view of Townsville itself that moved as though it were taken from the gaze of a bird flying overhead.  The sight of it seemed to sour his mood somewhat, the wide Cheshire grin fading by a centimeter.  "Yet oh so resistant to change.  Such a picturesque view, even now, after all the years since I left it.  The poor fools don't know how<em>good<em> they have it.  Paradise through ignorance, and their own personal little</em></em><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 14pt;"><strong>GUARDIANS!"</strong></span><br/><br/>In an instant HIS sing-song voice shattered into a terrifying roar, too-perfect teeth shaping into fangs and eyes flashing a toxic green.  But as soon as the moment happened, it was gone, and the devious smile returned.  Another flick of HIS claw and the screen split into three, each focusing on the very guardians that had aroused such seething rage.  HIM stared at each in turn, HIS grin widening unnaturally until it nearly bisected his skull.  The curve of their hips, the tight perkiness of their rumps, the slopes of their chests, and the maturity of their faces were all too perfect.  The bodies of Goddesses finally coming into their prime.<br/><br/>"Oh but<em>giiiiiirls</em>, how<em>you</em>have changed!" HIM remarked with a bubbling little chuckle.  "Such fiiiiine women you have grown into!  Why, I could just eat.  You.  Up."  A forked tongue slid hungrily over HIS black lips.<br/><br/>After a moment HIM straightened himself up and hopped out of his throne, walking through the open air as if it were made of solid stone.  His boots even clacked against some unseen surface, keeping in beat with the practiced sway of his curvaceous hips.  HE leaned in close to each screen in turn, inspecting Blossom, Buttercup, and particularly Bubbles.  A plan was percolating within HIS mind.  A horrible plan indeed.<br/><br/>"I feel simply dreaaaadful for missing those oh-so-awkward early teenage years!" HIM cried with faux-regret, holding a claw to his forehead dramatically, the other against a jutting hipbone.  "What<em>fun</em>we could have had!  Oh well!  I make do with what I have, and I have<em>quiiiite</em>a bit to work with, my darlings.  For the awkward times don't end as soon as you think, hmmmmm?  Why, you three seem to have led such a peeeeeerfect little life, despite everything I've thrown at you!  It would be such a<em>pity</em>if you were denied all the painful experiences of High School!  You'll all see, soon enough..."<br/><br/>After a moment of silent, evil gloating, HIM seemed to grow bored and chased the images away with a claw.  In their place another one flickered to life, this time of a certain exchange between one peculiar green Simian and a fiery young redhead.  HIS face twisted up in a particularly cruel way, as though HE were staring at ants, rather than the strange respect HE'd showed towards HIS "pet projects".<br/><br/>"And what have we<em>here?</em>My dear Mojo attempting teamwork again?  My my, one wonders how much of that engorged gray matter of his is actually functioning!" HE exclaimed, the air rent by piercing, hateful laughter.  "So much thought and so<em>little</em>action.  But perhaps there is more to this little scheme than meets the eye, hmmm?  A phone call to a certain delicious morsel, and now a deal with the embodiment of Avarice herself!  Oooooh, what a<em>delightful</em>ploy my puppets weave when my attention drifts elsewhere!  Now, just how will they dance for me this time?"<br/><br/>HIM leaped back into HIS throne like a child getting eager to watch his Saturday Morning Cartoons, dragging the screen closer and watching it with keen  interest and a clever smirk.<br/>