Lucien
"Mary Vale is just going to have to live in the shadow of another man who abandoned her." That's what most thought, but that wasn't true. Ronan never chose to abandon her. None of us decided to leave anyone. Ronan was going to be a father, but now, he might not ever get the chance to be.
His fingers tightened around the handle of his staff. In his mind, he thought, "Mary… if I don't get back, I'm sorry."
I knelt beside him, his breath a cloud of frost. We'd searched for our comrades, no bodies, no echoes, no nothing. Only the shifting afterimages of Hels's laughter.
The soul crucible reeked of slow dying. The walls, if they could be called that, were sheets of ice that breathed in and out like someone's lungs. Sometimes they shimmered with faces — hollow-eyed things gasping for release. We just stepped past them. Ronan and I, alone.
We had done our part. Now it's time to leave.
"Ready?" I asked.
"Now or never." He responded.
Ronan raised his staff. Flames ignited like a friend too loyal for its good, spiraling, and furious. My Overdrive flared. The black longsword gleamed white at the edges.
CRRR—ACK!!!!
The ice ruptured, and reality bled. The crucible shattered like spun glass, and we two great angels broke back into hell, in the throne hall of Satan.
The throne room was hell made manifest. Pillars hung like broken bones, Chunks of ruby ceiling drifted like falling snow. At the far end, the black throne stood untouched. Satan lounged like a god bored with worship.
In the middle of the room, Verne Alaric crouched, Aegis shields overlapping in a shell around Kariya and Marielle. Greed, also known as Mammon's incarnate, circled like a jackal; greed toyed with Kariya, who was only fast enough to dodge. His wrist blades scraping sparks against Kariya's claws.
Kariya sparked Lavender lightning. Marielle, eyes, ablaze with spirit-well overflow, funneled power to everyone in shimmering threads.
Ronan and I sprinted in.
"Thought we'd lost you," Marielle said with relief.
"Later!" I barked. "Our targets are apart. Mammon, Hels, and Satan."
Across the hall, a tall, elegant figure rapped the floor with a rapier, silver, which matched his hair. Hels, the First betrayer, His red-eyed gaze was razor sharp.
"You are one for grand entrances," I told Hels.
"And you are one for humanity," Hels says as he flicks dust off his sleeve. "But I admit, seeing the five of you walk in here alone… I'm surprised. Where's your little team of martyrs?"
"Scattered. Some dead. Some worse." I responded, eyeing him carefully. "You've been laid back."
"You've been busy. All that strategizing, all those plans. You thought you could outpace inevitability." Hels shrugged
"Yet here you are waiting for me."
"You know, retaliation always echoes louder than regret, doesn't it?' He steps forward, slow and deliberate."
"You're stalling." I started.
"Maybe. Or maybe I just want to see what you guys brought for your graves. Another gamble?" Hels replied.
"I brought clarity and promises."
"Let me guess, 'You'll end me here'?"
"No. That you'd remember exactly why we were the ones who made it this far." I said.
"A hen should thank the farmer for every day she lives, Lucian. You should have savored your cage."
My jaws clenched. "Come pluck me then."
On the left side of the room, Ronan and Kariya were fighting Mammon. Greed flicked a wrist, and A dagger with black inscriptions flew straight into Ronan's shoulder.
"Dammit!" Ronan yelled. He reached for the blade and tore it out of himself.
"Dumb move," Mammon said.
A spiritual siphon.
Greed raised his hand, and Ronan's Spirit poured out of him like liquid gold. His vision blurred, sanity fraying. Ronan fell to his knees.
"Ronan!" Kariya shrieked, sprang towards greed
"KARIYA! LEAVE HIM—" Verne shouted, but Kariya was already far out of his range.
Kariya clawed greed's his arm with her violent TarnishClaws, and his hand went flying. The siphon severed; Ronan collapsed, coughing blood. Marielle sent a torrent of spirit into him. But coherence wavered
Greed laughed, Palms glowing black. "Have you ever seen the absolute currency? Destruction itself!"
He forged a beam of void-energy, pure inexistence, right at Kariya. And it was going to hit.
BOOM!
Just then, Ronan shoved Kariya clear; The beam hit him point-blank.
Silence. When the glare faded, only Ronan's legs and one arm remained.
Kariya's feet skidded to a halt, claws digging into the ground.
"RONAN!!"
His name left us like something already broken.
Kariya's purple lightning surged violently. Her green eyes widened in disbelief. disbelief that only turned to fury.
Then she heard it. The voice. That mocking, smooth-as-oil voice.
"Ahhh..." Greed sighed, lifting his hand, black veins twisting under his skin. "Such Symmetry. Such bone structure. A strong, bold brow. A commanding presence. I always thought he had the kind of face worth stealing."
Kariya turned sharply, breath caught halfway between shock and rage.
Greed's smile curled as he brought his hand to his own face, fingers splaying over his features. and then the flesh shifted like clay in the grip of an unholy sculptor.
The skin smoothed. The jaw squared. Void black eyes faded into grey. The hair brightened, coarsened into Ronan's wild warrior's cut.
And there he stood, greed, wearing Ronan Vale's face. smiling with his smile. Twisted. Wrong. Mocking.
Kariya's expression contorted in horror.
"Y—You can't do that!" She said, voice shaking with rage. "You can't just take his face! You sick—you disgusting bastard!"
Her fists trembled at her sides, lightning sparking from her fingertips like she was desperate to tear flesh from bone.
Greed didn't respond
His smug grin only grew.
Wider.
And wider.
On the right, it was me versus Hels.
My black sword met Hels's rapier in showering arcs. My Overdrive hummed; sparks froze mid-air from sheer speed. Hels parried without using any visible power; that wasn't right. Each lunge is precise and correct.
Marrielle funneled me power. That's when Hels pivot-stepped and flowed toward her instead. He moved like a whisper. Hels was too fast for me.
Verne's shields flickered with rage, panic, and guilt swirling. As Greed was slowly and mysteriously growing stronger, he back-handed Kariya through a marble column, shattering the Aegis shield with a single damn dagger uppercut, then eviscerated her with a crossing slash.
Kariya fell. Blood sprayed everywhere. Lightning guttered out. And Verne froze, trembling.
Across the hall, Hels reached Marielle. Their swords hissed; her arc scored a single line on Hel's cheek. First blood the betrayer had shed in centuries.
But something snapped in Hels.
Hels grew faster and countered. Headlong, six stabs, and beheaded Marielle.
But Marielle wouldn't just hand her life over to a demon.
Her body detonated in a compressed soul nova. Blinding white light. Her cracked grey crystal sword clattered across the floor, spinning to a stop at my boots before fading away.
My soul sight flared. There was no sign of Marielle's soul anywhere. In slow motion, I saw Satan raise a hand; Kariya's soul, still newly released, bright, drifted upwards towards Satan's palm. He wrapped his palms around the soul.
But I rocketed forward. I severed Satan's wrist, freed the soul. The remains of it fluttered through a gash in the ceiling and vanished.
Satan, expressionless, caught my blade with his remaining hand, crushing it. I overdrove free, lunged for his heart. But Blackward repelled me like gravity.
Satan spoke for the first time since we entered the throne room. His voice felt like tectonic plates. "Child. You disgrace a battlefield of gods."
He struck me once, but three diagonal gashes crossed my face. I staggered and fell to the ground.
Greed and Hels closed on Verne's kneeling form.
I yelled. "VERNE MOVE!"
Verne whispered, "Idiots… we never stood a chance."
Hels skewered Verne from behind, then Greed being extra, impaled and propped up his wrist so he would sit in a specific pose.
But Verne, Pinned, chose to prolong the outcome, pumping his remaining Spirit Energy into his arteries, hanging on.
Lucian charged, but Satan slammed him aside.
Greed withdrew. Hels wiped the blood from his blade.
Satan approached Verne. Placed a palm on the Aegis's throat, and pumped black into the Great Angel's throat. Two obsidian horns burst from Verne's skull, veins charred, Eyes faded into the void. A demon-bastion was born.
I screamed, the sheer force of all my Overdrive fracturing my arm as I threw myself at satan. That's when Verne, or what used to be Verne, slammed me across the hall.
I slid to a stop before Kariya's corpse. I saw greed licking his daggers, Hels adjusting his sleeves, Satan unraveling vast wings of darkness. Their auras spiked with euphoria. They were getting stronger by the heartbeat.
My hope collapsed. And I turned to the only thing I could do. I clasped the iron cross around my throat, the one that Marielle had given to me long before today.
I jammed the point through my heart.