The ship was locked in a tableau of awkward wariness, humans versus Makers, and Adam knew exactly who would win. Unfortunately for them, the odds weren't exactly in their favor.. Their one maker, Celex, was lying face first on the floor with several maker weapons leveled at his back.

Adam for his part stood patiently on the captain's platform his hands held out to either side, "I am going to skip the part where I try to get you to see reason, you refuse to listen to me, and then the big bad thing happens because I wasn't able to warn you in time cliche." Hands still raised Adam raised his voice over the crowd, over Adham's protest, "Everette has called Apollyon."

The entire room erupted like a minefield.

Adam hadn't exactly expected a name to have so much power, but he saw a wave of disgust, hatred and fear pass through the Makers. They flinched, jumped, and even hissed on one or two occasions.

"Don't say that name." Adham hissed, "Not in the light of revelation."

Adam shook his head, "You need to know what is going on. Do you think I came of my own fruition because I thought we were going to be accepted back with open arms?" he barked a laugh, "No way in hell, I know what I did, and I know how you must feel about me, but I am also not stupid, and I know when a fight is out of my league. I don't know if Everette managed to summon him, but I do know that he was trying and he seemed pretty damn convinced that it was going to work."

Adham pursed his lips, "The prince of darkness has no reason to stop himself to such trivial matters as to answer the call of a corrupted maker to deal with inconsequential constructs." Adam frowned but Adham waved a hand, "This is not an insult, simply a fact. The prince of darkness is older than time itself, ancient and spends most of his time slumbering, to call on him for such a menial thing as a few billion constructs would be a catastrophic waste of his time. He hasn't been awake in more than ten thousand years and he certainly isn't going to awaken from his hibernation to deal with the children of his enemies."

Adam tried to fight the chilling feeling beginning to rise in his blood.

"Well that is some ass backward logic."

All heads turned, including both Adam and Adham to look at the news speaker who had entered the conversation.

Krill, still in his human form, had removed himself from his suit, and was only now shrugging into his long, white coat. At his side, rested the environmentally sealed container that held his construct body.

As soon as their eyes locked, Adham's went wide with surprise and then narrowed with anger. He turned to look accusatory at Adam, "What have you done."

"Its not like there was a rulebook that came with being a construct, so you can't get mad at us for making a few modifications."

Adham was about to open his mouth when Krill stepped in, adjusting the lapels of his long, white lab coat with one hand even as he raised the other to halt any protests, "Enough of your proverbial pissing contest please. Your anger over the loss of this ship, which was not, in fact stolen, pales in comparison to even the potential return of apollyon."

Krill adjusted his large, round spectacles russet hair bouncing gently around the sharp angles of his face. Despite being outside his Vrul body, he carried himself in a very similar way even as a human, though now he posed somewhat of a threat no matter how minor.

"Not stolen?!" Adham exclaimed, and krill huffed in exasperation.

"That is what you got out of that sentence? For the love of revelation, don't you get it. The architect GAVE Adam the ship."

That news seemed to be a revelation to almost everyone in the room except, maybe for Adam, Ramirez, Sunny, and the others within his more immediate circle, who had seen the exchange Adam had made before taking the ship.

Don't Scratch the Paint

"If the architect hadn't wanted all of this to happen then he wouldn't have allowed it to happen. Maybe he can't win a million year war with darkness itself, but he can certainly predict the movements of his most annoying son." Adam was almost flattered, "Clearly he knew that the construct children were going to be important for the coming war, which is why he allowed Adam to take the ship. And if you think apollyon wouldn't stoop to being interested in the constructs than think again."

Krill was in full blown lecture mode now, pacing up and down the room with his hands behind his back adjusting his glasses every now and again as a new habit he had rapidly obtained in his new human form, "We know that apollyon hates the architect, we know he has no qualms about doing evil things to get what he wants, so why wouldn't it make sense for him to go after the architect's most helpless children, and coincidentally some of his most powerful" He jerked a thumb at Celex, "You only have one Deus who has obtained Maker form that being Incubus himself who, I gather doesn't have a great track record."

"I'm reformed." Celex muttered, "All that other stuff was just.... You know, a juvenile tantrum."

For the first time in so many minutes, someone else spoke up. One of the guards standing over Celex jabbed his spear downward into the ex emperor's back, "You blew up my planet with everyone on it." The speaker had taken the shape of a Drev but looking at him now, Adam could see the telltale chromatic shimmer that ran across his carapace indicating that this soldier had not always been a Drev.

Celex coughed awkwardly, "Still holding a grudge about that" The spear dug further into his spine, and he grimaced, "Ouch, watch where you're jamming that thing, you could hurt someone."

WIth a snarl the young soldier twisted the spear, "That's the point."

"STOP!" With a bark, the soldier stopped, and grudgingly pulled his spear away somewhat to reveal a small tear in the fabric of Celex's shirt which began to leak a golden glowing liquid. "That is enough." Adham finished, a look of exasperation spreading slowly across his timeless face, "The war criminal will receive his punishment in due time."

"The war criminal has a name." Celex grumbled, but otherwise stayed silent, and was more inclined to do so when Adam shot him a warning glance.

The first man took a very long, deep breath and closed his eyes before breathing out a gust of air through his nose, "Prolix has sound logic, and though I don't like it, I am willing to agree that destroying young Makers is something apollyon would do, though I also believe that it is unlikely he will answer to the call of one corrupted maker."

The room remained silent for a moment as the maker continued to speak, less of a lecture and more like he was slowly putting his own thoughts together, "If the priest did manage to wake him up he would be livid, it seems just as likely to me he would awake to swat the pest like a fly before returning to his slumber."

Adam frowned, "You think he would wake up long enough to Kill everette for keeping him from his beauty rest? WOuldn't that be beneath him?"

Adham tapped his chin thoughtfully, "If an ant crawled on your face in the middle of the night and woke you up, wouldn't you spend the time to squish it at the very least before going back to bed."

He had a point.

"I would squish it, and look to make sure there weren't others." Sunny added, "And if those ants just so happened to belong to my most hated enemy, I would simply destroy them out of spite."

Adham shrugged, "The metaphor is cumbersome, but it is sound. Apollyon will awaken, and he will be angry. Everett will certainly die if he manages it, but he will have achieved his goal."

"I thought makers couldn't die?" It was Ramirez who spoke this time, hovering at Adam's left shoulder

Adham grew grim, "That is not the case."A nervous shifting spread across the room, crew members glancing between each other with expressions of concern."You know the rule of the universe..... How energy can neither be created nor destroyed, how it can only be turned from one type of energy to another?"

Adam paused but then nodded, "The law of conservation of energy?"

Adham nodded, "The soul is a form of energy that can be converted into use as you have seen. The void energy that powers their legions is derived from the mangled souls of those they have captured and refined to power their ships. These pieces are then ejected when the energy is used."

"Can they be brought back?" Adam wondered. Around him, the room shifted nervous to hear the answer.

Adham sighed, "Technically yes, though it will likely take thousands of years to find all of the discarded pieces, and even longer to rehabilitate the soul within. To be torn apart like that is not something one can survive and come out unscathed, or even sane in most cases, but then.... There is apollyon."

The room shivered again at the name, but protests were becoming fewer and far between, "Apollyon is a creature that existed before the architect's creation and outside the laws of the universe the architect set in place. Things like time and space have no bearing on him. WHen the architect created this universe, he created a certain set of rules by which all things must abide, even himself. These include things like the law of gravity, time dilation, momentum, energy, the speed of light, and the rules that govern the folding of space. Apollyon, as a creature that exists outside these rules..... Can break them."

The very thought was mind breaking. In his head Adam wasn't even sure how that would work. Just thinking about it made his head hurt, "So.... like when h does something, he can do it in the past the present and the future at the same time"

Adham shook his head, "You don't understand with Apollyon there is no past, present or future."

Adam shook his head brain throbbing, "How does that even work"

"It doesn't, not in any way, that will make sense to anyone in this room. Now this has some limitations of course, while inside the Architect's universe he is partially constrained by some of its laws, hence why he is so desperate to destroy it. He hates being penned in, hates being controlled, and so one of his greatest abilities, is the ability to destroy energy."

Adam didn't like the sound of that at all.

"But you can't-" Krill began

Adham cut him off, "Apollyon CAN. It is difficult on a large scale as the laws set forth by the architect dampen his abilities, force him to take on a physical shape, and so on, but it IS possible. If consumed by apollyon, you die, cease to exist forever. The very energy that makes up your being is destroyed never to be seen again."

It was a sobering thought, and for the first time since learning about Apollyon, Adam finally understood what they were up against, and he was gripped by a wave of abject terror.

He wasn't the only one.

He could feel it as a wave throughout the room.

Adham nodded, sensing the change himself, "And now you understand what we are up against."

Adam took a deep breath, closed his eyes and tried to reign in his emotions, the fear, and the thoughts of not existing.

Not existing was better than his children not existing.... He could face that.... For them.

"Okay then, how do we kill it."