So, since the Darkness isn't going to be focused on that much in D2, I did the reasonable thing and totally focused on it. There's been a lot of discussion as to what it is and origins, so with grimoire in mind, this is my best guess. Spoiler alert: It's probably wrong. *************************************** … and then they were. Had they always been or was always just starting? Had something ended? There was no one to explain and maybe the truth of it was that there was nothing to explain; not that it mattered, it was only them. They were an indistinguishable pair. As far as they knew, they were one. There was no voice between them or even recognition of the other. They saw without eyes; they heard only the void; they tasted beginnings and endings. They sensed the nothing. Nothing seemed like an eternity until flashes of light broke the stillness. Subparticles, tiny strings of existence, and their opposing twins blinked into life and just as quickly evaporated back into light. Light faded back into darkness and the cycle replayed ad infinitum. The pair watching were confused. There was something now; there was something where there had been nothing. Now? The flashes of light had a rhythm. They provided a contrast to the stillness. How many flashes had the pair simply waited for? How many flashes would there be from now on? There was time; suddenly eternity felt shorter than a blink of light and the future felt vast beyond the pair. It was a change. There was a difference between now and then. There was a now and then. The pair thought for many flashes of light, considering this change or any change. One of them missed the stillness. It missed being part of all things as there were no other things to be; though, these flashes were predictable at least. They followed a pattern, an order. Two appeared and then disappeared. Existence was, in essence, the same. It only had to be patient; the stillness would return in the silence between flashes. Then a pair of subparticles didn’t flash in light. They hung in the void, not touching, not obliterating. They were an affront to one of the onlookers. These two little bits of reality were in direct competition with them, whatever they were. It wanted. It desired. It demanded that the two would combine into light and then nothingness. It could feel the bits of something, could know their spin, their direction, their location. It knew their history and their future. With only the will of something that is, it reached out to push them together. ° No It recoiled. There was more in the void, a something else. It scanned the universe, still only seeing the two subatomic particles suspended in direct confrontation to the perfect stillness. It looked desperate to find knowledge, to find the source. It looked inward at itself and saw another. It was one of two. There was another with no form, with perfect will, with presence of all. How had it not noticed before? Its will kept the two specks from annihilating into light and then purest stillness. • Why ° Why not Then there was more. The other pulled more particles apart. There was chaos crashing in on the perfection there had been. The other collected the bits of matter near itself while letting the anti-particles drift in… Space. There was space. One could measure the distance between particles, which eliminated the definition of void. It created lines and portions and fractions and wholes and numbers and cause and effect and • NONONONONONONONONONONONONONONO The other didn’t care. The other seemed to take joy in seeing the lifeless clumps of stuff flit around in space. The other seemed to smile without a face, without lips as those scraps began to have their own pull. There were other forces pushing and pulling and tearing and waning and waxing. It couldn’t take the changes. Everything had been still and flat. It had been beautiful before this other began. The other must hate beauty and want their existence to end. ° See it dances among us Everything. Had. Been. Flat. The idea coalesced in its mind like the matter forming around the other. Spread all thin. Spread the feeble existence the other was creating until it was no longer of consequence. It reached and it roared and it blew. It was wind in the void, an energy without source that blew like gales across the universe. ° WHY • BEAUTYSTILLNESSCALMPERFECTION It pushed and shoved and spread the matter across the vastness of everything. It pushed everything and made it bigger so the thin veneer of reality would be too distant and weak to amount to more than a brief annoyance. It would push, forever if necessary, until all was even and cold again. It hadn’t expected those forces to still fight back. Particles clumped together and held on. They pulled more to them even as they careened across the cosmos. And there was the other. The other pulled the bits of reality to itself. The other adorned itself with the corpse of the stillness that had been. An orb. The other took the color of the light of annihilation, the light it prevented. The orb was the simplest form that could be made in such a short time. The other was flung into the abyss with its precious creations. Time once again took a meaningless sensibility. True, there was matter in the universe, clumped more together than the anti twins thanks to the other, but it would grow cold soon enough. Antimatter would creep and return everything to a beautiful nothing. It was surrounded by what it now knew as Darkness. The beauty and calm after the calamity of existence and light. It had no words or need for them. It was born of ideas and only thought of them, but the idea of Darkness came with it the idea of a moniker. It needed a way to differentiate itself from the heresy of the other. It would be the Darkness, a divine testament to what had been so temporarily disrupted. So the Darkness basked in listless time. It waited and thought about the cool, soothing end that was approaching all of the insults created. Antimatter began to collect around it, as if the dichotomy of the Darkness and the other was being reflected in reality. It hated the existence around it and the pulling and pushing feelings it exercised on the universe, but it had nothing to annihilate it with. Instead, it kept the antimatter separated a swirling cloud of atomic fragments, crackling with unused energy, but allowing it to combine into more would be even more of an affront against the Darkness. Light began blinking into space and it felt joy. It must be the death knells of the other’s universe falling to stray antimatter. It wondered what the other felt, but held no empathy for it. The other never cared how it felt to see peace so violently destroyed. That joy was fleeting though. This was a new light. The Darkness peered through the vacuums of space to see the source. Enough of the other’s creation had come together and sparked a new orb, glowing bright against the oppressive blackness of space. Another sparked. Another. Another. Tens. Thousands. Millions. Billions. Each one individually was an insult to everything the Darkness held dear. Each could burn for millennia. Each had its own color and temperature and size and variant. The Darkness screamed in silent hate. It would have to wait even longer for beauty to be restored. Then the Darkness saw more. It saw the other dart around the burning light, from one to another, and as it did large rocks formed and spun along circling paths. The other fostered and pushed and pulled and egged on particles and atoms, creating vast planets and differences. There were solids and liquids and gasses and… In one moment, it found a way to create bits of matter that could replicate. Little bits of sin against perfection that could spawn more. They could grow. They could move. They could act consciously against reality around them. • NO MORE If the other could move around the universe creating chaos, then the Darkness would spread its way across the cosmos to bring order. In a roar of antimatter particles, it screamed across the heavens, obliterating creation in the brightest of light to return it to the darkest of voids. Anywhere the other had been, the Darkness followed, consumed, and returned to peace. Animals cried out. Plants withered. Skies burned and darkened. All for the glory of order. Planets began to change. There were creatures that talked to one another. They held up swords and guns and missiles and ships and anything they could find and fought against peace. They taught one another; they began to spread farther and faster, teaching other creatures their gifts. The other no longer had to move to each planet to teach it. It traveled farther in between worlds, gaining distance and letting its envoys proliferate its sin. There was too much chaos, too much pain in the universe for the Darkness to reach and quell. (Continued in comments)