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Eden's Heir

Summary:

A wedding day is supposed to be the most magical day of any bride's life. But even a on a perfect day, accidents can occur. Time and space can tear themselves open, at just the right moment, to send you spinning into a world of giants and demons and angels who struggle to believe that you're a human, because humans are not like you.

Of course they're not - you're 40,000 years removed from them, sucked into a faulty Serpent-hole and spat out in the past, on another plane of existence.

The Universe, after all, was never created to be free of imperfections, and not even a Creator is without flaws.
At least you have two, hulking Horsemen to watch your back.

Chapter 1: Worm-Holes

Chapter Text

The lone, black taxi trundles lazily to a stop just outside the church gates, the purr of its engine rolling across a quiet graveyard and disturbing one, solitary crow from its perch atop a crumbling headstone.

Poised awkwardly inside the cab, stuffed in alongside an excessive amount of taffeta silk and lace, you gaze through the window, watching the crow flap into the air and soar away from the churchyard with enviable ease.

If only it were that simple for you.

“Here we are then, Miss! Ope, soon to be Missus,” the cab driver announces, twisting his mirror down to catch your eye in the rear-view, “Couldn't've asked for better weather, eh? When I married my old lady, it was piddlin' down.”

You can't deny he's right about the weather. Your fiancee, Cain, had chosen this Saturday in early September, and the cloudless sky that hangs above the pretty, sandstone church seems to bathe the whole world in warm, comforting azure.

There's no wind either - a stroke of luck that will no doubt please your soon-to-be mother-in-law if she insists on wearing that wide-brimmed, ostentatious hat atop her perm.

“I'm sure it was lovely, regardless,” you reply absently, straining to reach over layer upon layer of ruffled train to reach the little window divider and slide a fifty through the slot, “Here. Keep the change.”

The cabbie swivels about in his seat, taking the proffered note and giving it a quick once-over before he lets out a long, slow whistle. “You sure, Miss? Meter only says thirty five!”

Leaning back in your seat, you turn to face the outer window again, peering through the glass at the uneven, cobblestone path that will inevitably lead you to your groom.

Painted lips tug up into a rueful smile and you tell the driver, “Trust me, I'd rather give you a fifty than spend five hundred hiring a Fiat from some guy who slapped a white bow on the bonnet and called it a wedding car.”

At that, the cabbie throws his head back and lets out a loud bark of laughter, exclaiming “Economical! Your fella's a lucky man!”

You bite back the instinctive urge to impress upon him that you're the lucky one, really.

“Go get 'im then, love!” he exclaims, casting a final glance at you over his shoulder, “And try not to look so nervous, yeah? This is the most magical day of your life!”

Perfectly manicured fingers slide around the door handle and you pause just long enough to toss the driver a tenuous grin before pushing open the door and letting the excessive train of your wedding dress all but explode out of the confined space you've bundled it into.

You have to brace both hands on the open doorway in order to haul yourself out onto the pavement, grunting in a decidedly unladylike manner from the effort. But once you're out, the poise returns, you step away from the taxi and begin languidly rearranging your wedding dress, feeling in no particular hurry to begin your march. White silk sparkles in the bright autumn sunlight and a full length skirt cascades down to the floor in a waterfall of layers and embroidered tulle. It's quite beautiful - as well it ought to be with your own mother at the helm, dressing you up in the sort of extravagance you wouldn't have even glanced at if not for her.

But, she'd offered to pay the dress's rental fee and... well... it is a Westwood....

Cain will no doubt be impeccably dressed, as always, standing at the alter beside the best man in his tailored, black suit, sending a winning smile out at the throng of guests who have crammed themselves inside the church. You imagine there'll be an eclectic myriad of people attending, from his extensive family and friends to a handful of your own relatives, and four bridesmaids, all hand-picked, of course, by the Maid of Honour – Cain's sister.

They're all lovely girls, from what you could tell in the little time you've actually spent with them.

Your new sister-in-law is.... wilful. But she was good enough to appoint herself your Maid of Honour, ultimately saving you the trouble of having to choose one yourself, so you should really be grateful. She'd also been so kind as to pick out the flower arrangements for you, and you'll admit, during the rehearsal, the church's interior had looked absolutely stunning with black dahlias and vibrant, yellow carnations winding around the pillars and pews with loose petals scattered across the glistening, marble aisle.

Behind you, the taxi revs its engine and sputters away, leaving you to stand by yourself at the gates, twisting your engagement ring around and around on your finger, casting little flecks of light across the ground when the sun shine through the sizeable diamond sitting inside the band.

You take a moment to lament the absence of your father, but the hospital staff had made it quite clear that if he were to remove his IV lines and pumps to walk you down the aisle so soon after a stroke, he might not live long enough to see the vows. Your father had been willing to risk it. You, however, were not. Oh, certainly, it would have been lovely to have him hand you over to Cain, if only so you don't have to enter that church alone. You can live without that particular tradition, while your father might very well lose his life carrying it out, the stubborn old bastard.

Clenching your jaw, you draw in a lungful of fresh air, hoping against hope that it might be enough to clear away the heavy clouds fogging up your brain.

Your father's illness aside, everything is so, so close to perfect. Any bride would call it a win. Any bride would be lucky to have a wedding day like the one you're about to have, and any bride would be over the moon to marry a man like Cain Cox -Valedictorian, entrepreneur, home-owner and eventual heir to his father's lucrative business.

You're lucky.

You should feel lucky...

… Frankly though, you'd probably feel luckier if a pigeon flew by and dumped all over your nice, shiny wedding dress.

You're the only thing about this wedding that isn't perfect.

You're the freckle marring the day's otherwise spotless complexion.

You're the feckless idiot who can hardly stomach the idea of walking down that detestable aisle to say 'I do,' to your own fiancée.

But it's too late to back out now. So, with your heart pounding against your ribcage like a prisoner beating the bars of their cell, you begin to wobble your way up the uneven, graveyard path on your dainty heels, reaching up to flick your veil down over your face.

Perhaps you can muster a smile before you reach the alter.

Your fingers twist apprehensively around the strap of a silver bag that you plan on leaving somewhere near the entrance to retrieve later. Every step that brings you closer to the church feels like walking towards the precipice of a bottomless pit, which you're fairly sure isn't a feeling that brides are supposed to have on their Big Day.

Halfway up the path, you catch movement ahead in the large, wooden doorway.

One of the ushers has been watching for you, and he's just just dashed inside, no doubt signalling your imminent arrival.

Sure enough, seconds later, the air is suddenly filled with the melodic, easily-recognisable Wedding March, blasted from a pipe organ sitting high above the narthex inside.

Each resounding chord boxes at your eardrums and you wince as they seem to quiver in your head, leaving you digging your nails into the palms of your hands to refrain from trying to cover your ears.

The church looms over you, casting its great, unassailable shadow across your face, you hear a hush sweep over everything just as you reach the entrance, and then... without missing a step, you simply turn to the left and veer off the well-worn path, your heels sinking into the grass as you retreat past stain-glass windows and disappear underneath the darkness of the bell tower.

'Well, that was unexpected of me,' you muse blankly, tucking yourself in between two pilasters at the rear of the church and slumping down the stone wall until your backside hits the dirt, wide eyes glistening as you stare out across the graveyard beyond. One hand comes up to clamp over your mouth, stifling the rapid, uneven breaths that leave you in gushing bursts. Your other hand, in the meantime, you set on the grass at your side, fingers burrowing aimlessly into the grass and muddying up your perfectly manicured nails.

'Just need some air,' you tell yourself firmly, 'It's pre-wedding jitters... That's all.'

'Jitters...' another part of you scoffs contemptuously. There's cold feet, and then there's the icy crawl of dread that bites at your spine and leaves you feeling vulnerable and frightened and paralysed where you sit, not quite at the stage where you're bursting into tears, but there's a definite sting behind your eyelids that makes you glad you'd elected to wear false lashes over your waterproof mascara.

“God,” you sigh raspingly, peeling your hand away from your mouth and letting your skull thud backwards against the stone behind you, “What the Hell am I doing...?”

You seem to have been asking yourself that same question more and more of late.

Cain is waiting faithfully inside, probably wondering where on Earth you are by now, along with the rest of the wedding party.

Already, you can hear the awkward crunch and slide of heels on gravel.

“Where the HELL are you!?”

Ah. There's his sister, Delilah, likely furious with you for disrupting her brother's big day.

You suppose you deserve her wrath. But right now, you aren't sure you're brave enough to face it.

And isn't that the plain and simple truth?

You're a coward.

You were too cowardly to tell Cain you didn't like him as anything more than a family friend who could only boast that title because his father was an old buddy of your own. You were too cowardly to cause a fuss when he invited you to his mother's sixtieth birthday party and thought it would be a good idea to propose to you as a gift to her, in front of his entire family.

Even now, you can still remember how you told yourself, 'I'll say yes now, and avoid an upset. But later, I'll take him aside and tell him the truth.'

Of course, by the time you'd mustered up enough courage to mention your... reservations, you got a call from your mother.

She'd just heard the news from Delilah.

She sounded so... so happy on the end of your phone. She'd even cried, you seem to recall.

“I've been worried to death about who'll look after you when your father and I are gone,” she'd gushed, unwittingly plunging a white-hot blade into your stomach and giving it a vicious twist. Later, you'd realise that knife had opened you up for panic to get in like a parasite.

“I'm so happy,” she'd added, “Cain is such a good man!”

You heard it often. That seemed to be the general consensus, and the more you heard, the more you found yourself wondering what any of it had to do with him being a good man.

'He works so hard.'

'He has fantastic prospects.'

'He's got money, with a view to come into even more when his parents eventually pass away.'

'He's the perfect match for you!'

… So why couldn't you fall in love with him?

You'd given it the old college try, of course, to appease your family and your peers. And besides, 'sometimes these things take time!'

Well, you'd given it time. You sucked up your reservations, you swallowed down the bile that rose into your throat whenever he kissed you sloppily after a night of drinking whisky with his boys, and you dealt.

The situation only proceeded to get a whole lot worse.

You can't remember who the first person was to mention the pitter-patter of tiny feet, but you know you hate them. So very much because not long afterwards, Cain started talking babies. You hadn't even married the man and he would stroke your belly whilst you lay with your back to him in bed, whispering about how many you were going to give him.

That, at least, you had the guts to shoot down.

“Bit early to start talking kids when I don't even think I want to have any.”

There had been an eerie silence following your reply, hanging over the bedroom like a suffocating cloak of unease.

You couldn't see his face with your back to him, but after a while, you felt his warm breath slide over the shell of your ear and he'd chuckled boyishly, crooning, “Whatever you say, darling.

You'd hoped your refusal would be a deal-breaker for him. You kept up with it, repeating over and over to anyone who'd listen that you don't want children, always in the hopes that Cain might be the one who calls off the whole marriage and save you the trouble.

The wedding was already looming by the time it really hit you.

He wasn't backing out.

You started to get overwhelmed. You could see a dark, dizzying spiral coiling downwards right in front of your eyes and you were too anxious to do anything about it. You started thinking that while you might not have loved Cain at first, you could grow to love him through even more time and effort. He's a good man, after all, and you'd be an idiot to throw away the security and safety that marriage brings.

Looking back now, while you listen to the crunching footsteps round the side of the church in your direction, you can't be sure you ever really thought it would get this far.

Well. It did, evidently. So, more fool you.

The sight of the church, the sound of the organ drifting out through a heavy, wooden door... it's as if it's only just occurred to you that this is going to happen, and instead of nervous excitement that most brides attest to, your stomach is as cold and barren as an icy tundra.

Oh, you imagine you'll inevitably still go through with this whole debacle. Aloud, you can chalk it up to pre-wedding jitters, you'll get married, and then you'll focus on falling in love with him. There are too many people in that grand, open room to let down if you get cold feet now.

And his family really have sunk a lot of money into this thing.

All that wasted cash doesn't sit right with you at all.

The first tear finally escapes the confines of your eyelid and blazes a trail through the powder on your face.

Resignation, at last, begins to sink in.

This is happening.

Y/N!” Delilah hollers, so close now that you're certain at any moment you'll catch a strong whiff of that Dolce perfume she seems to favour.

All you need is five minutes to yourself. Just to regain your composure, to get your head back on straight.

To breathe.

But then, this is your fault anyway, isn't it. You should have said something when you had the chance.

Now, you're going to have to lay in a bed of your own making.

And cope.

With a noisy sniffle, you swipe a finger under your eye and flick away a tear before you gather your feet underneath you and heave yourself up onto unsteady legs. All around you, the dress tumbles down in intricate folds and rustles audibly as you take a faltering step forwards, ready to face Delilah's ire and subject yourself to the scrutiny of hundreds.

But in taking that first, tentative step, you suddenly encounter an unforeseen problem.

Your silver heel doesn't even hit the ground.

“Wha-!” is all you manage to blurt before your shout of alarm is cut off and your foot simply disappears through the grass, and never once makes purchase on anything solid beneath it.

It's as though you've stepped off a bridge into thin air. You suddenly find yourself in a disorienting free-fall straight down through the earth that you're certain had been perfectly corporeal only seconds ago.

Nothing about the ground itself has changed. It still looks solid, from the brief glimpse you manage to catch of it as you descend. Instant terror steals the air from your lungs and you desperately throw your arms out to try and catch yourself on an edge of some kind.

It's decidedly odd being able to see a solid object right in front of you, and yet being utterly incapable of placing your hands upon it. Nothing ceases your rapid descent into the very fabric of the Earth.

You choke on a shriek, clamping your eyes shut instinctively when the ground rises up to meet your head...

There's a loud whoosh that sucks your eardrums inside out.... and you pass right on through an invisible worm-hole, into a world of darkness and rushing wind.

------------

There are those who believe wholeheartedly that nothing happens by accident. Every choice and outcome is predetermined by some great, omniscient being or higher power. The Universe, according to some, does not make mistakes.

Those people, sadly, would be wrong.

Sometimes, accidents do happen, even on a cosmic scale, even to space-time itself. Sometimes, there are pockets of magic on Earth that have remained hidden from humanity for thousands of years, portals placed in random locations by a species so ancient that their name has long been lost to history. Sometimes those portals, much like human electricity, can experience an extreme fluctuation, or a power surge.

The Universe, after all, was never created to be free of imperfections, and not even a Creator is without flaws...

---------

The Void....?

'Damn. Why the Hell would Samael whisk us off to such a gloomy in-between?'

The great magic of the demon Prince's portal fizzles and dies out as it closes behind a pair of titanic figures, leaving them stranded and seemingly alone on a vast, floating rock that hangs over a bottomless abyss.

The slightly smaller of the figures straightens up from his hunched position, still caught a little off balance after taking an impromptu trip through the fabrics of time and space.

Strife, one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, cranes his helm back to gaze up towards the foreign 'sky,' or lack thereof.

It's all mist, as far as his sharp eyes can see... Just mist and floating rocks that stretch on endlessly into a wide, open nothingness.

“Welcome to the Void,” he drawls sardonically, turning about to check on the youngest yet ironically the largest of his four siblings, and the only one who has accompanied him to this lonely place.

War, an armoured behemoth even by Nephilim standards, is already on his feet with his favoured, blood-red hood pulled low to cast half of his pale face in shadow. Though even that extra effort isn't quite enough to hide the thin, blazing brand that stretches in an arch across his forehead, glowing with a soft light as if there's a layer of searing lava flowing just beneath the surface of his skin in lieu of blood.

If he hadn't already seen War bleed during battle, Strife would probably believe that his brother's insides consist of nothing but the liquid fires of a planet's core.

The Red Rider casts his narrow glare around the plateau they've found themselves stranded upon, and Strife has no doubt that he's scouring their immediate surroundings in search of an ambush, but when he finds nothing waiting to leap out at them from the shadows, his absurdly immense shoulders slowly drain of their tension and his hand twitches away from the grip of the broadsword strapped to his back. Chaoseater's bloodlust will have to be sated another day.

“Samael must have sent us here for a reason,” War announces, his booming voice ricocheting between the islands of stone and echoing back at them several times over.

Strife makes a mental note to yell into the Void later to test that echo, but for now, finding out why they're here takes priority.

Although to be frank, he's not exactly sure how eager he is to meet an associate of Samael's.

“C'mon,” he sighs, resigned, “Let's go find Sammy's pal and see what's what.”

Without another word, which is surprisingly rare in the older rider's case, Strife leads the way across their rocky platform. There doesn't appear to be any clear-cut path around the Void, and though the realm is bathed in a mystifying, if dim teal light, neither Horseman can determine its source when they surreptitiously throw their gazes about, both curious about their unfathomable surroundings, yet neither willing to admit to the fact.

Together, in silence, the brothers make their way along the most obvious 'path,' listening to their heavy footfalls bounce around between the suspended debris until they come upon a short, curved staircase.

Once they ascend to the top and emerge onto another flat, open plateau, Strife abruptly draws to a halt and lets out an obnoxious groan as War clomps up beside him and quirks a slender, white brow down at his fellow Nephilim.

Ahead of them, in the middle of the island, is a wide, circular dais, and at its centre sits a pool filled with some kind of viscous liquid that throws out a brilliant, cerulean glow. Carved into the stone around the pool's edge are foreign symbols, each emanating the same hue, neither Demonic nor Angelic in origin, nor are they reminiscent of the language pertaining to the Old ones.

Strife huffs beneath his silver helm. Death, the eldest of the Four Horsemen, would probably be able to read them... the brainy bastard...

Aloud, he throws his head back and gripes, “Ugh! Serpent Holes... I should've known.” He stomps closer to the humming pool and eyes its placid and shimmering surface distastefully, planting both of his gauntlets squarely on his hips.

“You are familiar with these?” War asks, stepping up next to his brother and sliding his eyes over to the trio of statues that encircle the pool, each depicting massive snakes coiled into a striking pose.

Sighing roughly, Strife drops his chin and grumbles, “Unfortunately, yeah. They belong to a... a guy I've heard of.”

“Samael's associate?” War guesses.

The other Horseman nods in reply. “If so, it sure would explain a few things...”

War's brows draw into an impervious line across his forehead and he gives his brother a serious look, lowering his voice to ask, “Can he be trusted?”

Strife's short bark of laughter leaps out of him before he can swallow it down, earning himself a withering glare from War. The older rider knows exactly why he's asking, but to question whether this guy can be trusted is like questioning if an angel can be funny.

The answer, categorically...?

“Uh no,” he chuckles, clearing his throat, “Absolutely not. In no way possible.”

Rankled from being laughed at, War nonetheless gives a resolute hum of understanding.

“But,” Strife adds as he swivels his helm around pointedly, “I don't see another way out of here. So, what're we waiting for?” With one, gauntleted hand, he gestures to the mill-pond in front of them. “Let's hop in.”

Dubious, War squints down at the puddle, his scowl somehow growing even deeper than its usual profundity as he asks, “Is it our only option?”

Shrugging one of his armoured shoulders, Strife replies, “We could just wait right here...” A pause, and then, “... forever.”

The larger Nephilim's lips purse and he seems to come to a decision rather quickly. Moving aside, War gestures down at the pool with a dismissive flick of his prosthetic wrist. “After you.”

Such a gentleman,” Strife mutters under his breath, moving closer to the Serpent Hole and sparing it a quick once-over.

These things are a means of travel he's never made use of before. There are supposedly countless portals just like this one, spread across every corner of every world, like an insect hive with millions of entrances and exits, all converging in this one, shrouded realm.

The smooth and glassy surface looks stable at least, so it seems safe enough, or as safe as any portal leading to an undisclosed location can be.

But then... when has Strife ever concerned himself with safety?

Stepping confidently onto the dais, his golden eyes slip shut as that familiar, disorienting sensation sweeps his legs out from underneath him and an ancient magic pulls him down through the rippling surface and into the conduit's 'throat,' sensing War's presence close behind him.

At an impossible speed, the Horsemen's atoms are flung through the fabrics of space, hurtling them on towards the connecting portal.

Between one breath and the next, Strife's ears suddenly catch a strange, faraway noise, a high-pitched ringing that seems to grow from ignorable to downright earsplitting in a single blink.

'What the....?'

Solid ground materialises beneath the Horseman's boots and he's just about to peel his eyes open and search for the source of the noise when all of a sudden, something small and squidgy crashes into his torso and sends him staggering backwards off the Serpent Hole, tripping over the lip of the well and sprawling onto his backside with a shout and an almighty clamour of metal striking stone.

… At least the ringing has stopped.

The first explanation that springs to mind is that he's being attacked.

There's a weight tangled up against his chest and the tickle of hair or perhaps fur brushing the underside of his chin.

With lightening speed, Strife snaps a hand down and wrenches Mercy - one of his infamous pistols - from its holster, his blazing eyes enraged, and his lips curled into a snarl, ready to tear his unexpected assailant to pieces for daring to knock him on his ass.

The Horseman cranes his neck down at an awkward angle to look this coward in the face so he can give them his own, personal farewell.... only to freeze in his tracks, his eyes growing round and wide.

The snarl is wiped off his mouth as swiftly as it had appeared.

There's a... a person in his lap, clothed from head to toe in immaculate, white garb. Their hands – and, Creator, those are some tiny hands – are splayed out across his armoured chest plate, each finger tipped by an unnaturally pink nail. There's some kind of sheer, lacy veil poised daintily on top of their head, flipped back to cascade down the length of their spine.

Stunned into rare silence, Strife can only gawk as the person weakly pushes themselves up, using his chest as a prop and groaning in apparent pain.

A face rises from his dusty, old cowl, turning upwards, and all at once, the breath catches inside his throat when two eyes - each framed by thick, ebony lashes - flutter delicately open and lock onto his like a magnet to metal.

----------

Somebody must have hit you with their car. That's the only explanation your poor, frazzled brain can come up with when all motion ceases in a flash of brilliant, white light, and a jarring thud knocks the wind right out of you and causes your teeth to clatter around inside your skull.

After peeling your eyelids apart, it takes you a few, dizzying seconds to make sense of what you're looking at.

Everything is still spinning, the whole world is little more than a blur of greys and blacks until finally, you give a hard blink and focus on two pinpricks of golden light hanging side by side within a beclouded, silver blob.

With immense effort, your brain chugs into gear and you squint, face screwed up in exasperated confusion. Beneath your hands, you gradually become aware of a warm, solid surface moving steadily up and down.

Unfortunately for you, you're given no more time to try and decipher just what it is you're laying upon.

Without warning, something hard and unforgiving grabs a fistful of your dress's neckline from behind and your ensuing yelp is strangled out of you as you're torn away from the golden lights and hurled through the air. A split second of gut-churning free-fall occurs before you hit solid ground again with a hard 'whumph!' rolling several times over across an uneven surface and getting thoroughly tangled up in your skirts until you finally skid to a somewhat painful stop on your spine, eyes screwed shut.

You dimly make a note to get the plates of the god damn semi-truck that must have just ploughed into you... as soon as you can see straight, that is.

“Brother! Are you injured!?” a voice booms out, too loud for your pounding head to cope with.

It takes considerable effort just to roll your neck over until your cheek is pressed against the wonderfully cool stone underneath you.

Heaving out a weary groan, you pry your eyelids apart and squint through the strange, dull light to see a pair of... figures, you suppose, standing several yards away from you, slowly coming into focus. Blinking, you attempt to raise your head to get a better look at them, your neck straining from the effort.

One of the figures is leaning down and hauling a slightly smaller one onto their feet, only to have their efforts rewarded by being shoo-ed away by the latter, who huffs, “M'fine, War. Relax. She just caught me off guard.”

A beat of silence follows, and then... “She?”

The pair of them turn in your direction, and as they do, you promptly feel the blood in your veins run thick with cold.

Eyes. Those golden pinpricks of light you'd been staring into mere moments ago had been eyes.

The pain in your neck dissipates as your brain catches up with the situation and a neural pathway clears to make room for alarm and mounting horror.

What... happened? Who are these people?

...

… You need to get up...

Gritting your teeth so hard that your jaw begins to ache, you roll yourself over onto your front and push against the ground, bullying your battered body up onto trembling hands and knees as the familiar weight of your shoulder bag slides down your ribs and lands on the ground with a 'clink.' Thunderous footsteps shake the tiny stones beneath you, and, still in the throes of a daze, you watch them skitter about, wondering how large the approaching figure could possibly be that he might cause the Earth itself to quiver.

Stinging pain on your arms briefly draws your focus to a crosshatch of scrapes and grazes that litter the skin from wrist to elbow, though you don't have long to inspect them before that same, rough hand is snatching you up by the collar of your dress once more, this time tearing a yelp from your lips as the ground falls away and you're hoisted into the air, your shoes dangling several, alarming feet off the ground.

It abruptly occurs to you that you might be lobbed again, so, with unparalleled haste, you throw your arms out and tear your eyes off your wedding shoes, raising your head and blurting, “Wait! Wait, don't, ple-...!”

Whatever plea you'd intended to make is forgotten in the blink of an eye.

It is immensely disconcerting to find yourself hanging clear off the ground and still having to look up into the fierce, arctic eyes of a bonafide giant.

A crimson hood cloaks half of the strange man's face in darkness, but his teeth gleam starkly in contrast as he aims a snarl at you that could rival an angry lion's. With deliberate ferocity, his almighty jaw is pried apart, causing you to instinctively brace.

It swiftly becomes apparent that you were right to do so.

What is the meaning of this ambush!?” he roars, and a blast of heat slugs you squarely in the face, forcing you to clamp your eyes shut and try to hunch into your shoulders before you're able to blink tentatively up at him again once the warmth recedes.

You can't think fast enough to formulate a response.

The man holding you aloft – though you hesitate to call him a man at all – has to be something straight out of the fantasy novels you read as a child. He's built like an ox on steroids, an almighty, armoured brute with shoulders as broad as a truck and a face like chiselled granite. He glowers down at you from beneath his crimson cloak with eyes that lack any kind of iris or pupil. Instead, you find yourself trapped by two, white-blue pits of light that burn the same colour as a roaring gas fire.

Your impromptu study is interrupted when the man peels his lips back even further to expose sharpened canines and he gives you a rough shake, as though you weigh no more to him than a dollar bill.

“Speak!” he demands, “Before I decorate this wretched abyss with your innards!”

Somehow, you don't think that's an empty threat.

Thoroughly jostled, panic bubbles up inside your chest like acid and your mouth turns as dry as a desert when you peel your tongue from the roof of it, parting your trembling lips and sucking down a lungful of stale, musty air.

If this man had been expecting a coherent response, he's about to be sorely disappointed.

AAAAAAHHHH!”

The ungodly shriek that explodes past your teeth has the stranger's head jolting back, his brows unfurling by a fraction to give away his surprise.

Like a mouse caught alive in slowly closing jaws, you begin to thrash and struggle, twisting yourself from left to right and even bringing your legs up to paddle uselessly at his armoured stomach, screeching, “LET ME GO!”

The only indication that he's even noticing your efforts is the single, snowy brow that makes a steady journey higher up his forehead.

Ha! What've I always told you, War?” another robust voice echoes across the platform and into your ears, momentarily drawing your focus away from your pitiful escape attempt.

'War? What kind of a name is that?'

The second figure emerges from behind the first - smaller and slighter than your captor, but still leagues bigger than you.

Boldly, he leans an elbow against his companion and cocks his head at you, drawling, “You sure have a way with the ladies.”

Jesus, there isn't an inch of this one that isn't strapped up in gleaming armour, gunmetal grey in the seams and dulled silver everywhere else. Even his head is obscured by an avian helm made entirely from metal, save for two, angular hollows carved into the front, from which a pair of eyes peer out at you, entirely featureless as well. These, however, spark with intrigue rather than rage, glowing gold like a freshly struck match.

The larger of the two has yet to take his own eyes off you. He ignores his friend's jab, instead jutting his square chin at you and growling, “What do you make of this, Brother?”

Brother?

Whaaat the shiiiit?” you whimper breathlessly, reaching up and feeling for the back of your dress to tug feebly at the unyielding, steel fingers as if you ever had a hope in Hell's chance of loosening the giant's grip.

This has to be some kind of prank, or a hallucination - a full, auditory and visual hallucination. Tactile as well, apparently, though you've never heard that such a thing is really possible. But what other explanation is there? Perhaps that taxi driver had somehow drugged you through the... god, the air conditioning, or something.

All you know with any certainty, is that whatever terrible dream or trip you're having right now, it's a thousand times scarier than any stupid wedding. What you wouldn't give to be walking down that aisle now instead of dangling helplessly in the clutches of a man who's much too large to be human.

The silver figment of your imagination tilts his helm down, then slowly brings it back up, and even without any recognisable detail in his eyes, you just know he's giving you a thorough once-over.

“Mm,” he grunts, cocking a hip and folding his arms across a proud chest, “Can't be sure. Maybe some kind of... fashion-forward angel?”

“Then where are her wings?” the one holding you speculates.

“Ah. Right, right, right.... Mmm, glamoured demon?”

'War' is quiet for a time, narrowing his glare at you before he blinks and offers a pensive nod. “... A fair assumption.”

On the verge of losing your breakfast, you whip your head back and forth between the two of them, bewildered by a conversation you can't possibly hope to follow.

“Although~,” the smaller one starts, and without warning, reaches down to pluck the front of your dress between his fingers, tugging the fabric up to inspect it and inadvertently revealing the wedding garter on your thigh, “This seems a little excessive for a disguise.”

For a split second, your unparalleled fear is abruptly overwhelmed by a rush of indignation, and before you can come to your senses, you aim a vicious kick at the silver gauntlet keeping your dress aloft. “Hey! Hands off!” you bark.

To your surprise, he actually lets go and raises his hands in mock surrender.

“Woah~! Feisty little filly, isn't she?” he chuckles.

The indignation doesn't last for long after that.

Receiving another sharp glare from the man holding you hostage, you gulp audibly and stop trying to kick out, turning limp in his grasp and ducking your head to escape his scrutiny.

“What business have you here, demon?” he spits the last word through his teeth like it's poisonous, “Are you Samael's associate?”

“Sam-eye-who!?” you squeak, a far cry from your earlier bite, “I-I don't know! I'm not.. I'm not a demon, for god's sake, I'm a human being!”

Anyone would think you'd just spoken the magic words.

Your enormous captor's eyes fling open wide and all at once, the pressure around your chest goes slack and you're unceremoniously dropped in a heap onto your backside, your dress fluttering down after to pool around your legs.

A jarring pain shoots up your coccyx and you wince, trying desperately to ignore the fact that that sort of pain would definitely wake you up if you were dreaming. Moments later, you're kicking and pushing yourself backwards across the stone, away from the looming titans.

An eerie change seems to have come over the pair. Now, they're both staring down at you in dangerous silence, at least until the silver one begins to stride after you, prompting a squeal of alarm to escape your lips. He catches up to you easily and plants one, immense boot down on the train of your dress, jerking you to a sudden halt and preventing you from retreating any further.

“What did you just say?” he utters slowly. Dangerously. There's none of the jocular lilt in his tone that had been there only moments ago.

Your chest heaves, your mind races... What did you say? What did you say that could have prompted such a change in their demeanour?

“Wh-what?” you splutter, “What, that I'm a human? I'm not a demon!?”

Why does that matter? You thought it was pretty, damn obvious.

The pair of them stare down at you in silence for several, uncomfortable seconds until you're sure you're going to burst if the tension grows any thicker, when all of a sudden, the smaller one throws his head back and lets out a sharp bark of laughter, successfully giving you a tiny heart attack. “Ha! Good one!” he snorts, extending a clawed thumb and flicking it between he and his companion, “Hey, you know what. Me and my brother are actually makers who got hit by a shrinking spell.”

Swallowing your heart back down your throat, you breathlessly ask, “What... the Hell is a maker?”

The pair of them share an odd look before peering down at you again. “It... was a joke,” he says slowly, regarding you as if you're being deliberately dense.

At last, he removes his boot from your dress and steps back, glancing at his brother. “Hey... You don't think...”

“No,” 'War' retorts with an air of inarguable finality, “She cannot be human. Listen to her. She speaks the Common tongue. Humanity's language is.. abstract. They still rely on visual communication.”

Incredulous, you stare up at him as if he's now the one being dense.

His brother meanwhile, gives him an impressed up and down, drawling out, “Well, look at you, brushing up on your human history.”

“They are not exactly a difficult species to understand,” the first scoffs.

If you weren't so busy trying to crawl backwards as stealthily as possible, you'd probably take offence to the slandering humanity.

As it is, however, you're more preoccupied with how they're referring to humans in the third person. You don't much like the implications of that.

There's a lot you don't really like about this whole situation, actually. Your brain feels like its firing all cylinders as it tries to make sense of where you are and how in the world you got here. Who are those two people? Is this real, or is it all happening in a dream?

Sniffling, you swipe the back of a hand underneath your nose and begin the arduous task of shambling backwards on your rear, keeping your eyes fixed upon the two strangers before at last swallowing a gulp of bravery and tearing your eyes away, flinging yourself over and scrabbling up onto your heeled feet.

Your plan, unperfected though it may be, is simple.

Run like Hell and hope you can out-pace the pair of heavy-weight brutes behind you.

Your own folly is that you'd been so busy watching them, that you have yet to catch a glimpse of your surroundings, a decision you instantly regret when you face forwards and have to slam on the brakes at once. “SHIT!” you yelp, your arms pinwheeling desperately as you slide to a sharp and clumsy halt right at the edge of an enormous, flat-topped rock.

Chest heaving, you let out a shaky breath and tentatively inch your neck out to peer down over the ledge.

Nothing waits below you.

Literally nothing.

There's only a thick, gaping abyss that plunges down, so far down until the ambient light fades and turns into pitch-black darkness.

You can even see the bottom of the rock you're standing on.

This, you think, must be what astronauts feel like, floating in the great expanse of space with no idea of what's out there, nothing above you, nothing below you... You could drift forever if you take a single step forwards.

It's a harrowing thought.

Sweat beads on the nape of your neck and you take a very slow, very careful step backwards, away from the ledge. Your head swings like a periscope from left to right in search of a way off this stupid boulder. There's nothing about this place you recognise, not from any book, or documentary or map. You have to look away when you spot a veritable mountain levitating in the distance, nothing to support it but the open air.

“This is a dream...” you mutter to yourself, “Surely to god, please let this be a dream...”

“You should watch your step.”

Your shoulders jump and you whip around, reeling your bag back threateningly, only to find the silver-clad man standing a little too close to you, regarding you curiously from several, meagre feet away.

God... even stood at your full height, you doubt you'd even reach the bottom of his sternum.

“Y-you stay away from me!” you stammer, trembling like a leaf in a hurricane, “I mean it! If you come any closer, I'll... I'll-!”

Cocking his helm to one side, the stranger helpfully suggests, “You'll... make us regret it?”

Borderline hysterical, you latch onto his proposal at once, jabbing your bag at him. “Yes, yes! Exactly. Oh-ho! You would not believe what I've got inside this thing!”

Lipstick, tissues, tweezers and tampons. Truly, you're a formidable opponent for two hulking brutes with guns and a sword that's taller than you are.

“Okay,” you admit, deflating like a popped balloon, “Okay, I.. I don't know what you want from me, but, you should know, my family... we aren't very rich, so if you're going to ask for a ransom-”

You start to feel your lip wobble, but before the waterworks really hit, the stranger squints down at you incredulously and asks, “Lady, what the Hell are you talking about? You're the one who crashed into us!” He pauses to share a brief glance with his brother. “Well, specifically me. I think the real question is, what do you want with us?”

Your hands fly up and you splay them out in front of you, waving them frantically from side to side. “Nothing! It was an accident, I – I didn't mean to, I just... I...” Trailing off, your arms slowly draw close up against your chest and you drag your eyes down to the stranger's boots, aimless in their venturing. “I'm supposed to be getting married right now! I just want to get out of here.” Wherever on Earth here is.

Good god, your mother... She'll be so disappointed that you didn't turn up, after all the work she put into your own wedding. And your father! Watching you from a screen in his hospital bed, expecting to see his daughter walking down the aisle, only to see... nothing.

The thought hits you like a punch to your roiling guts.

Pressing a hand over your mouth, you thoughtlessly turn your back on the two men, ignorant of the way the largest bristles in offence.

Perhaps it isn't especially intelligent to expose your fragile spine to these... people. But nothing stabs or shoots you in the back for several minutes, so you turn your focus to a more pressing matter – retracing your steps and figuring out how you ended up in this otherworldly place.

 

Strife eyes the 'human' uncertainly.

It's odd, he thinks. You don't act like a human, you don't sound like a human. Heck, you barely even look human. There are hardly any hair follicles embedded in your skin and your jaw isn't nearly robust enough. And humans, so far as he knows, don't wear those clothes. They wear leathers and furs - sturdy things meant to protect them from the world they've recently made their home. Not stark, white silk that looks like angel-made fabric.

And yet... Well, you're either a demon who also happens to be the Universe's most convincing actress, or you really believe you're a member of the human race.

… Huh...

“Brother?”

He perks up at the sound of War's voice, casting a glance over a shoulder to see his brother has moved away and is standing at the foot of another stone staircase, watching the woman through narrowed eyes. “It is clear this... creature is not of sound mind.”

“But, she-”

“We have our orders from the Council,” he continues pointedly, cutting his brother off, “We've tarried for too long.”

“...Right...” Strife exhales softly through his nose. Their 'orders...'

With a pensive furrow to his brow, he spares a final look back at you.

One of your arms is wrapped securely around your middle, the other bent up at the elbow to press bone-white knuckles firmly against quivering lips, and those intricate, pretty eyes glisten in the dim light of the Void as they dart around at the ever-changing landscape.

Of its own accord, Strife's mouth stretches into a lopsided grin.

You sure are a weird little creature. Or misshapen angel, or glamoured demon, or... whatever in Creation you are.

And where had you even come from, if not from here?

He muses on it for a moment longer before War none-too subtly clears his throat, reminding Strife to get a move on.

Typical War... always more interested in upholding his honour than succumbing to even the barest sniff of curiosity.

'Still,' Strife supposes, heaving a one-shouldered shrug, 'shepherding wayward souls is Death's area of expertise. Not mine.'

… This soul does have a particularly wayward look about it though...

Strife wrenches his focus away and turns his back on the little 'human,' giving his helm a brusque shake to clear it of any lingering intrigue.

You are not his problem.

He reaches the steps and looks up at War, who gives him a steadfast nod before turning on his heel and lumbering on towards the apex of the staircase.

Tempering his curiosity by focusing on the grim duty they've been set by the Charred Council, Strife follows along at a lackadaisical pace, but just as his boot hits the fourth step, a timid sound drifts across the rocky landscape and twitches at his ears, just loud enough to slow him to a standstill once more.

It's a sound he seldom hears, but for all its rarity, it's recognisable nonetheless.

To begin with, he starts to think he must have imagined it, perhaps it was nothing more than an ambient sound cast by the Void itself.

But then, he hears it again, and there's no pretending for a second time.

It's the conveying of despair and worry and fear all wrapped up inside one, little vocalisation.

A wet, hitching, 'sob!'

'Oh no...' The rider squeezes his eyes shut and wills himself to take another step forwards, jaw clenched in defiance of his own, wretched heart.

Damn him, he's a Horseman now. A Horseman of the Apocalypse, no less. Hell, he's a killer, a genocidal maniac, a dashing if not puckish scoundrel. The Horsemen weren't created by the Charred Council to solve trivial matters such as escorting strays back home, after all. That would be laughable.

What was it they had decreed him? Endless Spirit of timeless unrest. All that is unsettled in the hearts of that which lives and breathes...

Yeah. Something along those lines.

… He's a good-for-nothing...

Strife's head twists around ever so slightly and he catches a glimpse of you over his shoulder.

That flouncy, white garment trails through the dust behind you as you pace back and forth across the platform, head tipped to the sky and your chest heaving in and out with long, overcompensating breaths, none of which seem enough to fill your lungs.

In a word, you look... terrified.

When you turn to the side, his sharp eyes immediately zero in on the glistening shine on your cheeks.

They're wet? But... how could they be? There isn't any...

Oh...

Gently, the Horseman's gaze slides down to rest on the holster strapped to his left hip. Mercy rests inside, patient and pliant, always standing ready in the event that its master needs it. Gah, he must've been feeling particularly sentimental when he named the damn pistols...

Slumping on his haunches, Strife blows out an exaggerated sigh, defeated by his most tenacious opponent – himself.

“War?” he utters, resigned.

The younger Nephilim pauses his ascent and twists his torso around, cocking a brow down at his brother and finding his helm fixed unwaveringly in your direction.

“... I don't think she's a glamoured demon...”

War's shoulder pauldrons clank softly as he raises his head and glowers down at you, his eyes narrowing to thin slits. “What makes you so sure?” he asks after a beat.

This time, when Strife speaks, he starts to venture back down the staircase, never once looking away from you. “Demons don't cry,” he explains quietly, more to himself than to War, “They can't. Their frontal lobes are the smallest of any species. They literally don't know how to cry...”

“Your familiarity with demon biology is noted, but what are you getting at, brother?”

Reaching the bottom of the steps, Strife doesn't respond, prompting War to call out to him, slightly louder, “Brother?!”

But the older rider's attention is now solely fixed upon the small, unassuming stranger who'd quite literally barrelled straight into his life.

He approaches slowly, much like he'd approached his flighty steed, Mayhem, not so many weeks ago.

You turn towards him just as he draws within a few feet of you and when you spot him looming above you, you jump back, choking out a cry of alarm.

His fearsome stare trails from your head all the way down to your shoes that sit hidden beneath the hem of the wedding dress. “What is it?” you try to snap, grimacing when it leaves you as a pitiable squeak instead, “What are you staring at?”

If Strife were a more mannerly Nephilim, he might have recognised that it's rude to not only ignore people when they address you, but to stare at them so openly and unabashedly that they feel the need to cover their chests to preserve some modicum of dignity, or privacy.

But as it is, he isn't mannerly.

His name is Strife, for Creation's sake. Not Harmony.

The Horseman snorts at his own little joke, electing to save that one for later when he feels the time is right. War is sure to hate it, if nothing else.

Good.

But as for the matter at hand...

Strife has met some wolves trussed up in sheep's clothing before, but here he sees a wolf with no teeth, no claws, no weapons or magic.

In fact, aside from that unusual satchel you keep slung around your waist, you haven't raised a single weapon against them, and unless you have something hidden away beneath those frills and skirts – which he highly doubts – you've come here, to the Void, completely and utterly...

“Unarmed,” he muses aloud, appraising you in a new light.

Hardly even a wolf at all, then. Perhaps more of a sheep in lambswool.

You're defensive. Not aggressive.

What a jarring change of pace from their usual company...

And... you're still crying.

Unleashing a deep sigh that seems to emanate right from the darkest depths of his soul, Strife lifts an arm and cards his fingers through thick, black hair that sticks in an unruly mess from the back of his skull, more akin to a demon's spines than the soft, lustrous locks of angel hair.

“Look,” he pushes out, dropping his gaze from your face at last, “I, uh.. I'm not sure what you are. Or where you came from. But, I can't help noticing that you don't have a way to defend yourself...”

His eyes are on you again as soon as you shuffle away from him a little further, freezing you solid. After several seconds pass and you realise he isn't about to attack, you swipe at your damp cheeks and lower your stare to his pistols.

'Well, duh,' you want to scoff, 'Of course I'm not armed. I'm not a psychopath who brings guns to her own wedding.' Calling the gun-toting juggernaut a psychopath might not go down so well. Then, belatedly, you think, 'It isn't a shotgun wedding, after all.' But something tells you the humour wouldn't be well-received either by anyone except yourself.

...Cain would have hated that joke.

'Good,' a tiny, vindictive part of you whispers, deep within the most secretive corners of your mind.

At your prolonged silence, Strife mirrors your stance, bringing his much beefier arms up to fold them pointedly across his own chest. “Well, if that's the case,” he huffs, “Then you're either really brave, or really, really stupid.”

Pursing your lips, you slide your gaze to one side, apparently unwilling to divulge which of the two you believe yourself to be.

“You're in the Void, kid,” he presses, sweeping a hand out to the world around you, “This is no place for a vulnerable little speck like you.”

He's admittedly proud that he manages to put an affronted scowl on your otherwise fear-stricken face.

“And if who I think is here, is here...” Falling silent for the sole purpose of building suspense, he lowers his arms to his sides and drops his pitch, uttering, “Then you're in more trouble than you realise. We're here via invite. Can't say the same for you...”

At long last, you find your tongue. “Uh, what're you... getting at?” you say falteringly, retreating another step only to suck down a whimper when he simply closes the distance again in a single stride.

The stomping approach of heavy footfalls alerts you to the larger man returning grumpily to his brother's side with a face the very picture of exasperated irritation.

You shrink in on yourself when his shadow falls across you.

“Well,” the silver man pipes up, “You keep telling us you're human... And now, y'see... I'm kinda curious about that... Cause me and my brother can't exactly leave you here when you're supposed to be back on Earth.”

His words cause your brain to sputter for a moment before it kicks into gear again. Very carefully, you ask, “What do you mean, 'back on Earth?”

Disregarding your query entirely, he simply states, “You're comin' with us."

Your response to that is about as abrupt as they come.

You balk, stumbling away from them again on shaky heels. “I most certainly am not!” you blurt out, feeling your panic spike to its apex, “Frankly, I'm still not convinced that you two, or any of this-!” You throw your arms away from your chest. “- aren't just some kind of fucked up hallucination brought on by the stress of this stupid wedding!”

Strife's eyes crinkle with amusement, a stark contradiction to War's, who's own glare is so cold, it would give Death a run for his money. Nothing you say makes any sense. It's actually quite enchanting.

“...What... is a wedding?” War murmurs to him from the side of his mouth.

Shrugging, his brother replies, “Beats me. But, we should probably get this show on the road.”

“Agreed.”

“You thinking what I'm thinking?”

War scoffs. “The day I think like you, brother, is the day I shall finally ask Fury to cleave my brain out with her whip.”

Strife's grin turns sharp and pointed. “Ha,” he says flatly, “Funny. I was actually gonna ask if you wanted to do the honours.”

At once, your whole body goes rigid and you dart a suspicious look between them, bumbling, “Honours? What honours? What do you mean honours?”

The glare War is subjecting his brother to is nothing short of murderous, but after a moment of stillness, his cinched jaw works itself loose and some of the stiffness dissipates from his shoulders. Stoic, utterly impenetrable, he turns his hooded face to you and holds you still with a mere look of warning, eyebrows locked at the centre of his forehead.

Then, without a word, he marches forwards, and in one smooth motion, bends down and snakes a monstrous arms around your hips, sweeping you effortlessly into the air and slinging you across his shoulder like a sack of especially mortified potatoes. You slot neatly into the space between his hood and the solid, metal shoulder pauldron to your right.

At once, your palms slap down on the gigantic expanse of his back and you let out a bleat of terror when his metal palm lands on the seat of your dress.

Even through layers and layers of fabric, you can still feel the heat his appendage exudes.

What do you think you're doing!?” you shout, kicking your legs and clawing at his armour to try and pull yourself free, “Put me down, right now!”

The silver man steps up to War's back and tilts his head at you, meeting your flabbergasted gaze with a coy wink.

“What? Not comfortable enough for you, Princess?”

Sparing him a distressed frown, you sag against the shoulder you're laying across and bleakly croak, “Why're you doing this?”

“I have to concur with the female, Strife-"

You yelp again and hurry to wind your fingers into the crimson cloak beneath you as War abruptly swings around to face his brother, adding, “-Why are we doing this?”

For a few seconds, the smaller Nephilim simply watches on in amusement as your comically diminutive shoes flick and flail helplessly through the air, poking out from under all those layers of white fabric until one wayward heel almost grazes War's cheek, prompting the Horseman to rumble out a low growl and raise his other hand to capture both of your ankles in one palm, keeping them secured.

“Don't suppose you'd accept, 'because it's funny' as an answer, would you?” Strife poses.

The Red rider's lip curves up and this time, he growls at his brother, and the strength of it causes your teeth to clatter around inside your jaw.

At the display of aggression, Strife simply snorts and spins on his heel, making for the staircase again as he beckons over his shoulder for War to keep up.

With an aggravated grunt, the youngest Horseman trudges unhurriedly along behind him.

“Fine," Strife sighs in mock exasperation, "We're doing it because if she really is human, then I wanna know how we missed an evolutionary jump this big, and if she isn't...”

A shadow falls across his visor and he drops back until he's stalking along just behind War's heel, a sudden ice to his tone as he watches you struggle about on his brother's shoulder.

“If she isn't human,” he murmurs dangerously, sending fingers of ice brushing up your spine, “Then I plan on finding out just why she thinks she can lie to the Horsemen, and live to tell the tale...”

Chapter 2: Innocent Blood

Summary:

Trapped over the shoulder of a giant, you're taken on a trip across the Void, all the while having your privacy invaded, your humanity called into question, and your nerves completely and utterly frayed.
You meet another stranger, but you aren't too sure that this one isn't even more terrifying than your captors.

WARNING!
This chapter contains blood, injury, descriptions of a cut, and generally threatening Horsemen behaviour. Also some mention of soul eating.
War is kind of a dick at first, but it's all part of his character arc :) The slow burn will be so real.

Chapter Text

It is with an... admittedly puerile reluctance that War has to admit his brother may have been right about the little creature currently draped across his broad, left shoulder.

While it's possible you could belong to any number of species, it's becoming abundantly clear to him that you might not be a glamoured demon after all. No demon War has ever encountered has been this... helpless. Though a few have admittedly come close.

That isn't to say you haven't been putting up an admirable fight – thrashing wildly beneath his heavy gauntlet and striking at his back with your tiny fists. It's just that the strength behind your fight is pitifully ineffective.

When it becomes clear that pounding your fists against his shoulder won't convince him to put you down, you resort to using your little, rounded fingernails to scrabble uselessly and frantically at the thin layer of black leather he wears beneath his armour, accomplishing little else but to satisfy an itch that's been steadily working its way up his shoulder blade.

It would seem, to War, that it's in your nature to choose flight over fight.

Even now, you're far more preoccupied with the desperation to be free than you are with finding a solution to earn your freedom. You haven't caused a lick of damage to the Horseman. It's as if you aren't even trying to.

Nothing about your makes sense to War. He doesn't believe you're a human, not for a second, though he'll begrudgingly admit that you bear many similar features to one.

But if not a human... then what in the nine realms are you?

The only explanation he can fathom is that you must be hiding behind the magic of a glamour. If that's the case however, then you should have revealed your true form by now. He and his brother might have dealt any number of blows against you by now.

Why continue to hide?

It's a conundrum the hulking Nephilim continues to silently ponder over as he trundles along the path ahead of Strife.

Ever vigilant, War keeps his senses honed on the void around him, a tricky feat given that his ears can't quite tune out the very one-sided conversation taking place at his back.

His brother, it seems, has taken it upon himself to antagonise their unwilling tagalong by absconding with the strange, white satchel you'd been carrying over your shoulder.

The younger Horseman's lips curl into a frown, disgruntled by his brother's tendency to pilfer.

With unashamed nosiness, Strife plunges his curious fingers inside, rifling through your belongings whilst you slump defeatedly over War's shoulder, one of your elbows dug firmly into his back with your chin propped up on a palm.

At least you seem distracted into silence by Strife's thievery, sparing the younger Nephilim's ears from your piercing cries and pleas to be released. With every step War takes, he instead catches the gentle rustle of your dress next to his ear.

“So, you got a name, kid?” the gunslinger asks, pulling an unfamiliar coin from your satchel and holding it up in front of his helm for inspection, “You can call me Strife.”

The tangible blanket of quiet he's met with is enough of an answer in itself. Perhaps sensibly, it seems you don't trust either of them with your name.

War almost snorts aloud at your stubborn uncommunicativeness.

If there's one thing he's learned from travelling alongside his brother, it's that trying to ignore Strife is like trying to ignore a grenade exploding near your feet.

Inadvisable, and simply impossible.

“No name, huh?” Strife shrugs his armoured shoulders, entirely nonchalant as he drops the coin into the depths of your satchel once more and begins rooting around for other treasures, “All right. Suit yourself. I'm pretty good at namin' stuff. How'd you feel about... uhh... Princess?”

War registers a minuscule fist bunching itself into the fabric of his cloak.

“No?” his brother pries when it becomes clear the only response he'll receive is your tearful, exasperated glare, “Tiny, then? Half-pint? Little Lady-”

The younger Horseman can hardly blame you when, after only a few seconds of being subjected to Strife's incessant suggestions, you finally cut him off with a nervous bark. “- God, fine! It's Y/n. Happy?”

“Y/n Happy?” Strife snorts, lazily pulling a piece of lint from your bag and flicking it off his fingers, “That's a weird name.”

Bristling, you grit your teeth and shoot back, “It's just Y/n...”

War can already hear his brother's terrible joke before it even leaves his mouth.

“... Oh, well then. Pleased to meet you, Just Y/n.”

You really should have seen that one coming. Closing your eyes, you unclench your fists and press each palm smoothly against War's back, forcing out through tight lips, “Y/n...”

All at once, Strife's eyes light up and he thunks a gauntlet to his helm, disturbing the peace of the Void with a volatile 'clang' of metal on metal. “Oh! Y/n!” he exclaims, “... Why didn't you say so?”

Rolling his eyes, War steps easily over a yawning gap between two, floating boulders, at which point you make the mistake of glancing down, spotting the continuous drop into the mists far below you - a sight that pulls a murmur of alarm from your lips.

“So, Y/n,” Strife adds as he hops over the gap after War, apparently unwilling to let the very unbalanced conversation peter out, “You got a lot of weird stuff in here. No weapons though. Sorry, War!”

Up ahead, his brother merely grunts in reply, though he's privately assuaged by Strife's forethought to at least check.

“Say, what's this doohickey?”

Heaving a weary sigh, you tear your eyes off the ground below you and raise your head to see what the Horseman has plucked from your bag, giving the little, cotton tube a brief glance before you deadpan, “That's a tampon.”

Unable to resist the lure of curiosity, War turns his head to spare a look over his shoulder at the unassuming object, slanting one, silver brow as Strife holds it up and dangles it in front of his mask, pinching a tiny, blue string between his thumb and forefinger.

“Oh... What's it do?” he asks, cocking his head to one side.

 

A part of you is half convinced that you've somehow died and this is Hell. And Hell is apparently a place where you have to explain sanitary products to a couple of armoured giants.

Your mouth drops open and you blink dumbly at the silver-clad Horseman. “Are you serious?”

You've met some clueless men in your life, of course, but with these two, you suppose you shouldn't be surprised as to their ignorance.

You're still not entirely sure if they're human.

 

Lifting his shoulders, Strife gives you a noncommittal shrug. “I'm never serious,” he tells you seriously, then adds, “But yeah, I have no idea what this thing is.”

Eying him dubiously, you turn your face to the side and narrow your gaze, cautiously venturing, “They, um... absorb blood.”

Over your shoulder, War lets out a grunt. “Hemostatic dressing,” he says, nodding in apparent comprehension, “You carry one around with you everywhere you go?”

“You must get yourself hurt a lot, huh,” Strife adds as he drops the tampon back into your pilfered bag and instantly starts digging around inside for your other personal effects.

Pursing your lips, you raise your brows and mutter, “Oh yeah, at least once a month.”

The Horseman carrying you shifts his grip and clamps his hand more firmly against the back of your thighs, taking a far larger stride from one floating platform onto the next, unsurprised to feel you twist your fingers securely into his cowl when the ground drops away below you once more.

Perhaps you really are as weak as you look.

It's to your utmost dismay that the next object to be pulled free from your bag is a golden tube of lipstick. “Woah,” Strife remarks, fiddling around with it until he works out how to pop the lid off, tilting the tube towards his mask to squint down at the colourful stick of wax, “What's this do?”

“What, have you been living under a rock?" you respond, voice taut, "That's lipstick.”

“Lip stick? The hell's that?”

Vexed at his brother's ignorance, War gives his tongue a sharp, impatient click and spouts, “Clearly it is intended to fasten the lips of her enemies together, to prevent them from running their mouths.” After a brief pause, he turn his head to address you over his shoulder. “Perhaps you would care to demonstrate its use on Strife.”

“Haa,” his brother chuckles wryly, “You'd like that, wouldn't you, tough guy? But which one of us is wearing a visor?”

As if in threat, spends a couple of seconds playing with the tube until he gives the bottom of it an experimental twist, successfully swivelling the lipstick up and halfway out of its casing before he aims the tube at the back of War's head, all of which you watch with rapidly dawning horror.

In spite of your sense of self-preservation, you fail to keep yourself from acting on an impulse.

“No!”

At once, to both of their surprise, your body jolts and you try to lunge forwards towards Strife, swiping an arm out as if to grab the stolen lipstick, but with a colossal gauntlet laying heavily across your thighs, you miss by a mile and end up collapsing back over War's shoulder, crying out, “Don't! Don't you dare waste that! That's Chanel! Delilah let me borrow it for today, she'll tear me to pieces if it gets ruined!”

Relax, kid, I'm not gonna use it on you,” Strife says assuringly as he advances on his brother, “Just on War.”

“If you put your hands anywhere near my mouth, you'll lose your trigger finger,” War retorts flatly.

“Oh yeah?” Strife's golden eyes flare brightly with impish glee. “How're you gonna bite me if your lips are stuck together?”

“Th-that's not what it does!” you try to explain, struggling to get the words out fast enough, “It doesn't... I use it to turn my lips a different colour! That's it!”

To your relief, the lipstick's slow crawl towards the back of War's hood abruptly halts.

“Oooh...” Strife perks up, withdrawing his arm and snapping the fingers of his free hand. “Oh! Sounds like that stuff Fury uses to stain her lips. What's it called again?”

“Carmine,” War returns without hesitation.

Mouth agape, you stare apprehensively as the silver giant drops Delilah's precious lipstick back into your bag. Only once it's no longer in danger of being used as a weapon do you exhale the breath you'd unwittingly trapped inside your chest.

At least if you do manage to escape this, you won't have to worry about Cain's sister finishing what these two have started.

With a disgruntled shake of your head, you ask, “What are you two talking about? Who's Fury? A-and what the hell is carmine?”

Strife's eyes flash towards you just a little too eagerly, pleasantly surprised that you've asked.

“Fury's our sister!” he starts to tell you, only for War to cut him off with the answer to your latter question.

“-Carmine is extracted from the shells of bomb bugs and scarabs,” he mutters stonily, “She crushes them to extract the acid and and smears her lips with the remains.”

A palpable beat of silence stretches between the three of you. Slowly, you let your jaw creak open, brows twisting together. Then, when your expression adequately matches your revulsion, you let out a long, squeamish, “.. Eeeewww!!!”

The noise startles a laugh out of Strife, whilst War merely grunts his agreement. “Mm, I never did see the appeal in it myself.”

“How'd you know so much about Fury's lip staining habits anyway?” Strife asks.

The look he receives from the other Nephilim is cold enough to turn his blood to ice. “I do not wish to revisit the bleaker days of my youth...” War says slowly.

“... Oh yeah. I think I remember.” Throwing his head back, the older Horseman barks out another short laugh, resting his hands over his hips. “Death thought you two were tryin' to kill each other.”

“She was attempting to put insect viscera on my face. We were trying to kill each other.”

 

You're beginning to think you should have jumped off that rocky plateau while you had the chance.

 

“Hey,” Strife adds, his tone mockingly sympathetic, “At least you looked good in red, right?”

“One more word out of you, brother, and I shall stain my lips with your blood.”

 

Maybe if you could convince him to put you down for a second, you could still take that leap, on the off chance that this really is all a dream, and the sensation of falling will be enough to finally wake you up.

Apparently satisfied that he's managed to make the man carrying you nice and riled, Strife settles back into a lazy gait and hums pleasantly, raising his eyes to meet yours and tipping his head to the side like a curious bird. At least he stops pulling out your belongings, seemingly content for the time being to observe you instead, your bag dangling over one of his elbows. It'd be a comical sight if the straits weren't so dire.

Swallowing thickly, you lock your jaw tight and angle a watery stare at the uneven ground passing swiftly beneath the larger brother's boots. All the while, you can feel Strife's eyes sear the top of your head like a pair of burning suns.

He's studying you, and if you weren't so exhausted from your failed escape attempts, you'd probably have the sense to study him right back, perhaps search for any kind of weakness or a chink in his armour.

If it wasn't clear by size alone, the fact that War hasn't even vaguely struggled to keep you situated across his shoulder with a single hand is enough to convince you that you won't be forcing your way out of this mess. Apparently, you'll have to resort to using your brain... Which frankly doesn't infuse you with a lot of hope.

You couldn't even wrangle your way out of an unwanted wedding, how the Hell are you supposed to come up with a way to escape two, armoured titans?

Hopelessness is a heavy feeling. You bitterly hope it makes you heavier to carry, though War hasn't shown any signs that he's struggling to bear your weight as of yet.

 

It isn't long before your oddball kidnappers bring you to a curving stone staircase that sweeps and stretches in a spiral up towards yet another platform of rock floating high over your heads.

Sickly, green light spills over the lip of the steps, cast by some unseen source that originates from somewhere on the rock above you.

Ascending takes time, but even then, your stoic mode of transport doesn't even shift to adjust you in his grip.

Cain had once made a remark about putting his back out if he had to carry you over the threshold of your new home, but the man holding you now is as unimpeded as you would be carrying a feather. The strength in those muscles that ripple below your torso is terrifying.

You're jostled suddenly from your thoughts as War makes a wide step over a missing section of the stairs.

Your first clue that something isn't quite right is when hard, metallic fingertips gradually start to dig into your thighs through the dress until you wince, shifting around as if you could escape the pressure. Worried for the silk and tulle, you're just about to tell him to ease up when, out of the corner of your eye, you catch a subtle change in Strife.

You don't like the way one of his hands has moved to rest languidly over the barrel of his pistol's holster, and for a gut-wrenching second, you wonder if you've done something to set them off, but the silver giant is no longer looking at you at all. His eyes are instead fixed on the platform you're steadily climbing towards.

Their sudden edginess only serves to whittle away at your flimsy backbone.

What could these titans possibly be worried about?

“Um... Where exactly are you taking me?” you gulp, subconsciously curling yourself a little more tightly around War's shoulder.

Strife's gaze doesn't shift from its unseen mark, even as he responds to you. “We're as much strangers in this place as you are, kid.”

At his admission, the darkness of the void seems to press in around you and you shrink even further into yourself, limbs too stiff with unease to reach up and tug your veil down over your face.

All too soon, War's stride leads you all over the top of the steps. He doesn't make it a metre from them before you're suddenly jerked in place as he stops dead in his tracks, body turning rigid as stone underneath your belly.

Strife however, stalks right past his brother and continues further out onto the rock until you lose sight of him altogether, unwilling to twist around to see past your captor's immeasurable bulk.

Facing back down the staircase, you're blind to whatever they have locked in their sights.

Well, I was expecting Samael, but Horsemen..?”

Oh...

A new voice slithers into your ears, slow and shuddersomely cold, and you're instantly struck by the image of a snake flicking its forked tongue to taste the air around it.

“Things are getting interesting.”

It's the kind of voice that deters you from crying out to it for help.

You expect hostility from the two brothers. You even expect a fight to break out - They seem the type to be inclined. 

You certainly don't expect Strife to promptly greet the stranger in a manner that could be construed as borderline friendly.

“Hey! Vulgrim, right?” he asks, “The Soul-Eater? Dig the nickname.”

You beg to differ with his last statement. “The what?” you hiss, whipping your head left and right, as though you might catch a glimpse of the being who could earn such a horrifying nickname.

Strife,” the voice greets in a slimy, rasping lilt that slides up your spine like chilly fingers, grating on your ear drums, “Like me, your reputation precedes you.”

You're suddenly overwhelmed by the urgent need to see the owner of the voice, if only because you don't think you can stand to have your back to it a moment longer.

Planting your palms against War's sturdy shoulder blade, you push your torso upright, straining your neck over a shoulder to try and catch even a glimpse of the newcomer.

The Horseman's unreasonably large pauldron obscures most of your vision, but what little you do manage to catch in the corner of your eye is enough to still the rattling breath in your lungs.

The crown of a head looms high above the Horsemen, adorned by a pair of black, crooked horns that jut forwards like prongs from its hooded headdress, though that's all you're able to see before War promptly gives his shoulder a rough shrug, dislodging your hands and sending you crashing chin-first into his back once again.

Ow! What the Hell was that for!?” you complain, only to receive a gruff, “Quiet,” in response.

You realise too late that he may have been trying to keep you quiet for a reason.

“Oh? What's this?” the voice crawls over the airwaves towards you again, “Have you brought me a delicious morsel on which to feast?”

The muscles below you somehow grow even more rigid as War bristles, and the sensation of cold, unpleasant air whooshes against the exposed skin of your ankles. Whatever it is has just swooped closer.

“Mmm, how enticing,” it gushes, “And... Oh! How daring! I assumed they weren't to be touched.”

All of a sudden, War's body quakes below you under the force of his own, booming shout. “Keep your distance, wretch!”

You doubt his hostility is out of concern for your wellbeing.

The resounding chuckle is by far your least favourite noise to have left this newcomer's mouth.

“Pardon my curiosity,” it drawls as a shadow slowly creeps around War's shoulder, “It isn't every day I'm offered meat as rare as this...”

Stiffly, you twist your head sideways, your pulse hammering fit to bust when the familiar sight of those jagged, charcoal horns poke into view.

Stale air fills your lungs, drawn in by a quiet gasp as an awful, impossible countenance finally reveals itself.

What had Strife called it?

Vulgrim?

Well.... It's grim, all right.

Half cloaked in the shadows of its purple headdress, a ghastly, hellish face peers down at you from around War's bulging arm, gaunt and skeletal with sunken eye sockets, inside of which sit a pair of shrewd, devilish eyes that gleam the colour of envy.

Your throat is too tight to scream, but you manage to eke out a croak of abject terror as you sweep a glance over its face, taking in the dark cavity where a nose should be, and – far more alarmingly – the wide jaw that's stuffed so full of large and jagged fangs that they seem to spill out of its mouth, unhidden by any semblance of lips.

Its eyes lock with yours and that same mouth stretches into a lecherous grin, pulling at sallow, grey cheeks until the skin creaks in protest.

The... creature – for what else are you to call it? - parts its jaws to speak.

But you beat it swiftly to the punch.

FUCK!” you promptly shriek, scrabbling sideways along War's back as best you can and keeping yourself at bay by digging the heels of your palms behind his spine, “What in the mother of FUCK!?”

That's not possible... It can't be possible.. That's... beyond the scope of your imagination, of your comprehension. You can only stare in dread at the monster leering down at you, your eyes burning with the absence of a blink.

'Vulgrim's' smile only grows wider.

“Vocal little thing,” he remarks, drifting backwards on a pair of leathery, vestigial wings when War shifts his weight around to face him again. Evidently, the Horseman is reluctant to let him get too close to his blind spot.

You however, find yourself facing the opposite direction once more, a fact that you vehemently loathe now that the creature is behind you again. What in God's name was that?

“How in the Nine Hells did you get your hands on a human?” Vulgrim continues as if you aren't currently flailing your legs to ward him away, “I thought the Council burned every path to the Third Kingdom. Not that I'm complaining, of course... I hear they're a delicacy.”

Your valiant efforts to yank yourself out from under War's colossal gauntlet is as fruitless as ever, yet still you try, your grunts and whimpers through gritted teeth the only sound that permeates the silent void.

You don't even notice how the air around you has grown charged with electric animosity.

Eventually, it's Strife who speaks up, and the dangerous growl in his tone is enough to stop your escape attempts.

“What'd you just say, demon?”

You fall deathly still as metal boots stomp across the stone, growing more ferocious with every step, like he's trying to cause the ground itself to crack through his weight alone. “Vulgrim, what the Hell did you just say!?”

To his credit, Vulgrim actually seems perplexed when he responds. “The... Council? They... destroyed-”

“- every path,” Strife brusquely interrupts, “Yeah, we know. Before that – you asked how we got our hands on a human.”

Tentatively, you boost yourself up on War's shoulder again to try and see what's happening past the ruffles of your dress.

“Yes, I did...?” Vulgrim draws out the answer, green eyes devoid of pupils darting between you and Strife, as if he's trying to connect a pair of crucial clues. “I fear I'm missing a point of some kind.”

You flinch again when War booms out, “Why claim she's a human?”

To this, the stranger almost sounds offended. “Well, I may not have the nose of a hound or a goreclaw, but I can assure you, I'd recognise the stench of a human anywhere...” He scowls at you disdainfully for a moment, sending you ducking your head to hide a bit further behind War's pauldron, “Even if it is disguised beneath that rancid, floral odour.”

Belatedly, you realise he must be talking about your perfume.

The metal fingers sitting heavily on the back of your thighs suddenly clamp down like a bear trap, hard enough to pull a squeak of pain from your lips as sharpened tips poke at you through the layers of your dress.

To his credit, War's hand goes slack almost as soon as you cry out, though you hardly take that into consideration when Strife pipes up again. “Okay, but how do you know she's human? How'd you know she isn't a glamoured demon?”

You almost want to interject with a scream. Not this again. How can they know what a human is yet not recognise one when they see it?

Vulgrim seems only too pleased to elaborate. With a wave of his grey, spindly hand, he replies, “While your little morsel here only bears a vague resemblance to a human being-”

You can't help but scowl, realising that you should probably be offended.

“- and though it certainly smells a great deal cleaner, there's no hiding that underlying stench. Every species has a unique aroma. It's... not unlike a fingerprint, I suppose. And besides, glamour cannot fool a demon,” he finishes smugly, “Or did you forget that we're the ones who came up with that magic?”

Neither Horseman speaks for some time, long enough that your arms start to ache and you reluctantly ease yourself down, losing sight of Vulgrim again, much to your chagrin.

“Yeaaah... I call bullshit,” Strife scoffs suddenly, sounding far more casual now than he had been moments ago.

You hear the distinct sound of a tongue being clicked before Vulgrim spreads a pair of long arms out wide, drawing your gaze to the three-inch talons that sit at the end of each finger. Only four fingers, you note absently, including the thumb... Hardly information you'll retain, but in the moment, it strikes you as something utterly and horribly inhuman.

Tch! If you don't believe me, Horseman,” he gripes, “You can always just kill it to be certain. Glamour magic wasn't made to withstand damage.”

Oh. You're really starting to hate this Vulgrim character.

Raising your palm to smother a choked sob, you try to think of something – anything you could say that might turn the Horsemen away from such an unfavourable idea, but before the words spring to mind, War speaks, grasping your attention.

“Perhaps we needn't kill her,” he rumbles slowly, shifting his hooded head, presumably to address Strife, “Do you recall Death's story? Of how he dispelled the disguise of the demon, Asmodeus?”

There's a beat of silence before Strife replies with a baffled huff, “You actually listen to his stories?”

“All it took was one slice of Harvester's blade,” War forges ahead, heedless of his brother's inane query, “Even the most powerful glamour will fail if blood is spilled. The demon speaks the truth.”

Without warning, thick, metallic fingers curl into the back of your dress and you're hoisted rudely off the Horseman's shoulder, and before you can even utter a word of protest, you're dropped in a rumpled heap on the ground.

“Oof!” Your chin smacks painfully against hard, unforgiving stone, yet you aren't given a second to recover. Once again, War's gauntlet snatches your forearm and with a single and effortless tug, he hauls you onto your feet.

The moment your shoes touch the ground, you try to make a run for it, though your escape attempt is cut woefully short with War's grip fastened around your wrist.

Snarling, he yanks you back towards him, looming over you as you twist in his grip and start to beat frenetically against the metal fingers of his gauntlet, crying out, “Please don't hurt me!” You're entirely nonplussed by the way your voice catches pitiably in your throat. “I'm a human! I – I swear! Why are you doing this!?”

A hot breath hits you in the face, followed by War's deep, resonant growl. “To expose a liar.”

Behind you, Strife chimes in, “To find out if you really are who you say you are.”

Then, in an soft tone that doesn't sit in keeping with his stature at all, he adds, “Nothin' personal, kid.”

“Wait, w-wait! Wait! Please!” you cry.

“Face your fate with some dignity,” War rebukes, glowering down at you until you seal your lips together and sniffle wetly, terrified that if you make too much noise, he'll do far worse to you than whatever it is he already has planned.

Only after you fall silent does he emit a dismissive grunt, flicking his gaze over to Strife. “Would you care to do the honours?”

Tears glisten persistently on your eyelashes and no matter how much you try to blink them away, they're only replaced by a fresh coat moments later, their predecessors rolling like rivulets down your cheeks and dripping off your chin.

Following War's gaze, you fix your bleary eyes on his brother, unable to see whether or not he's peering back at you.

He is, of course, though you can't tell through the tears warping your vision. That sharp, unreadable glare studies your face for a long moment until at last, Strife twists his helm sideways with a huff and folds his arms over a wide chest.

“Nah,” he sniffs, “I don't wanna get blood on my boots.”

 

Charming.

 

You nearly miss the moment War pulls his immense sword off his back and yanks on your wrist, drawing you roughly towards him with a single tug.

But you don't miss the cold, deadly-sharp blade pressing against your open palm.

“Wh-!” Your heart's frantic beats reach their deafening crescendo. “What are you doing!?”

War doesn't bother to respond, he only tightens his already crushing hold on your wrist until your knees start to buckle and you let your mouth fly open soundlessly, fingers curved into rigid claws as the pain of bone grinding on bone momentarily overrides your panic.

All the while, Strife's eyes remain hard as stone, but beneath his mask, hidden by the metal, his teeth close firmly over his lower lip.

His brother's gauntlet flexes around Chaoseater's grip, blue eyes narrowing on the palm of your hand.

One cut to find out the truth.

Sure it'll hurt, but the ends justify the means...

… Don't they?

Strife's hand twitches once, and he has to bite down on an exasperated groan. “Oh for the love of... Hey, War?”

Just like that, everything stops.

His brother's eyes burn under his hood whilst yours spill liquid like a broken fountain, whipping your head around to stare blearily up at Strife. He can see the desperate pinch of hope on your face at his interference... All at once, he finds it surprisingly difficult to meet your gaze.

Tearing his eyes away from yours, he glances down to where Chaoseater's blade is still pressed to your palm.

“Cut her forearm instead, yeah?”

From the corner of his eye, he watches your face crumple as the last of your dwindling hope falls out through the bottom of your shoes.

War's expression, however, has turned notably sardonic, brows raised and eyelids lowered to half obscure the flat stare he aims at his brother.

There's only one way to perceive Strife's sudden request.

Regardless of species, a common rule of biology is that there are far more nerve endings in the palm of a hand than there are in the back of an arm.

It doesn't really matter where the Horseman draws blood – he'll get it from you one way or another, but it'll hurt you a hell of a lot less if he takes it from your forearm.

Strife is offering you mercy.

War might have taken the moment to accuse his brother of going soft if he didn't think it'd earn him a black eye, and besides, he doesn't necessarily have to follow Strife's suggestion...

The younger Horseman spares your face a fleeting glance.

Glistening cheeks, intricate eyes that dance with tears, a quivering bottom lip... He hasn't even hurt you yet, and this is the state you're in?

Grumbling something in a language you don't understand, War heaves a begrudging sigh, but after a brief hesitation, he finally pulls Chaoseater from your palm and moves the blade to rest against your outer forearm instead, in the space between his gauntlet and the juncture of your elbow. Pausing, he quirks a sleek, white brow over at his brother as if to say, 'Happy?'

Strife's only response is to offer a nonchalant shrug.

Ignoring your blubbered pleas for him to wait and 'think about what he's doing,' War returns his attention to the task at hand, testing the weight of his sword and eyeballing the width of your arm.

Time to expose you for what you really are.

At last, in one, fluid motion, he draws Chaoseater's cragged blade easily across your skin.

 

You think you scream.

The agony that wraps itself around your limb is quite unlike anything you've ever had the displeasure of experiencing before in your life. In an instant, you realise that up until this moment, you've lived a relatively pain-free existence.

Right in front of your eyes, your forearm opens up for the hungry blade. Paper-thin skin falls apart in the wake of the sword's path, exposing the muscle below and unleashing a torrent of crimson, glistening blood that begins to gush abundantly from the wound, streaming down the curve of your arm like water.

You suddenly become aware of a hideous ringing in your ears, loud and unbearable as an ambulance siren, and it's only when you run out of breath that you realise your mouth is hanging ajar and the bloodcurdling scream is pouring out of you.

Without warning, the metallic hand releases your wrist and you go tumbling backwards, landing painfully on your coccyx, though your eyes remain transfixed on the inch-deep cut that's been gouged out of your flesh. It burns like someone has lit a fire under your skin, a fire you can't get away from.

Pulled down by gravity, the blood begins to gather beneath your arm. Your eyes flash to the widening droplet that threatens to fall at any moment, and in a burst of sheer thoughtlessness, you hurl yourself forwards onto your knees and stretch your bleeding limb out in front of you, keeping it well clear of your wedding dress.

Your head feels woozy, a pounding pulse beating against your eardrums, muffling Strife's voice as he hisses through his teeth. “Dammit, War! Did you have to go so deep?”

Slowly, shakily, sounds begins to filter through the haze of your agony and panic. Everything turns sharp again in a flash – a little too sharp, likely an effect of the adrenaline currently sweeping through your veins.

 

Staring down at you, War resists taking a step back, his brows slowly drawing together until they form a solid, ivory line across his forehead.

“She hasn't changed,” he hedges.

Up until now, he'd been convinced that you were lying. He just.. hadn't figured out to what extent. He never dreamed you'd actually been telling the truth, when the truth was just so unbelievably farfetched.

But as he eyes you bleeding on the ground, he doesn't catch even the tiniest ripple of failing magic, nor a whisper of another form hiding underneath your skin.

You... weren't lying... And if you weren't lying, then that means... he's just put his blade to someone who never had a fair chance to fight back.

Perhaps if he were a different Horseman like his older siblings, he'd brush that fact aside with ease, but War's principles have always been abnormally high, especially for a Nephilim.

You hadn't attacked him. Hell, you hadn't posed a threat at all to either of them. It had never been a fair fight. You aren't even armed, for Creator's sake.

A sense of wrongfulness settles like a rock in the Horseman's expansive chest.

Drifting up beside him, Vulgrim reminds everyone of his presence by smacking his lips and announcing in a smug drawl, “I tried to tell you.”

Slowly, War's hardened stare drops down to Chaoseater. The blade is thrumming hungrily, unsatisfied with such a meagre taste of blood and wholly unconcerned by the realisation that's swiftly dawning on its wielder.

“She's an innocent....” War stresses, predominantly to himself.

The heavy thunk of metal boots signals Strife's arrival at his side.

“She's a human,” his brother breathes incredulously, his eyes growing round with wonder.

Together, they stare down at you with equal degrees of astonishment, neither Horseman quite sure what to make of this development but both certain that they've just stumbled upon the impossible.

Sudden movement to War's right snaps the two brothers from their state of shock as effectively as a slap to the face.

Vulgrim has made the ill-fated decision to drift a few feet closer to you.

A 'shing' of metal accompanies the click of a gun's fallen hammer, and the demon stops short, suddenly finding the tip of Chaoseater pointing directly at his exposed throat.

In a jarring shift of priorities, the Horsemen round on him as one, War's shoulders squared and his expression set in that infamously thunderous scowl that would send a lesser demon running. Strife too has shaken off any lingering vestiges of shock to glower up at the merchant, growling, “That's close enough, pal.”

Vulgrim may be many things, not all of which are particularly pleasant, but he's no fool.

Flitting backwards at once, he holds up a pair of long, bejewelled hands in a placating gesture, yet he can't resist casting a hopeful glance over Strife's head, his green eyes drinking in the sight of freshly-spilled blood.

“Oh, come now, Horsemen,” he gripes, “You'll spill a human's blood all over my floor, but you won't even let me have a taste?”

In the corner of one eye, Strife notices his brother's finger twitch around Chaoseater's grip, the closest thing to a flinch War will ever permit himself.

The silver-clad Horseman's brows furrow beneath his helm as he absently tries to recall whether War had flinched even once during the battle against his own kind.

“Not another step, demon,” War growls.

Gradually, so as not to spook you, Strife turns himself about, trusting that his brother will keep Vulgrim at bay if necessary.

Amber eyes fall upon you and instantly sweep down to the arm that you're cradling out in front of you, your features pinched by a glazed, faraway expression.

Shock... he imagines.

“Ah... shit.” Exhaling softly, Strife risks a step closer and lowers himself down onto one knee within arms reach of you, lifting a hand to rub awkwardly at the base of his neck.

You don't react to his sudden proximity, never once tearing your eyes from the cut in your arm.

A Nephilim – Hell, even a demon or an angel wouldn't even balk at such a shallow wound... But then... you're not a Nephilim, are you? Nor are you a demon, or an angel...

 

'... Human...'

 

The name of your species still sounds so foreign to his ears.

A thousand questions fly at him from every direction his mind tries to spin him in, but it's the most pressing that rises above the others and falls off his lips in a quiet murmur.

“You okay, kid?”

Even before he says it, he knows it's the daftest question he could have asked. You're clearly not okay. But what the Hell does one say to a creature who isn't even supposed to speak the same language? Who's barely supposed to have even developed a language at all?

They may have solved the mystery of what you are, but all they've really accomplished is to open up yet another puzzle for them to solve.

If nothing else, at least his voice seems to be the catalyst that eases you from your shock.

Everything inside you is screaming for you to run – flee. Danger is still very much present. You can't stay here, you're going to bleed out.

It's a challenge to string a complex thought together, yet at the sound of a low, husky voice calling out to you, you grow entirely still, suddenly becoming aware of the presence that looms in the space just ahead.

Wrenching your head upright is the only way to drag your stare off the blood cascading from your arm, but finding the Horseman's silver helm so close to you startles a shriek right out of your lungs.

In a burst of desperation, you scrabble up onto your feet, still clutching the underside of your injured limb. “Don't!” you exclaim.

To your dismay, Strife follows you up, towering high over your head as he stretches out a cautious gauntlet.

Bridling at its approach, you snap, “I said don't!”

Quick as a flash, he retrieves his arms, holding them up as if he's trying to soothe a spooked horse. “All right, I gotcha,” he assuages, “No touching. Read you loud and clear.”

Quivering with adrenaline, you retreat a step, horrified that he maintains the distance by taking a single stride forwards.

You recoil again when the silver titan splays his arms out wide, offering you his palms with a little shrug. “Hey, at least now we know you were tellin' the truth, right?” he chuckles breathlessly, like he's as thrown by this entire situation as you are. 

The sharp retort that builds on your tongue is swallowed back an instant later when the red-cloaked giant turns to face you at last, his square jaw set like a thick, steel trap.

The demon behind him remains floating in place, apparently knowing better than to push his luck.

Suddenly, War begins to approach, sending your nerves flaring in palpable alarm.

On clumsy feet, you stumble backwards, eyes bursting open wide, though you soon find that War's lengthier gait vastly outpaces your shuffling retreat, and in terrifying seconds, he's upon you, his immense gauntlet reaching out for your arm once again.

The open wound gives a searing throb, as if it remembers the man who carved it in the first place.

With startling swiftness for such a large brute, he shoots out his hand and clamps it around your fist before you can pick a direction to flee in, swallowing the entirety of your appendage in his palm.

“No, no, no! Not again! Please!” you babble, wrenching on your trapped limb, only to let out an aborted cry as his grip turns crushing.

This time however, at your choked exclamation of pain, War hesitates.

For a second, he cocks his head, studying your twisted expression. And then, like a light has finally switched on in his skull, he blinks, and to your immense relief, his hold loosens considerably, as if he's only just realising his own strength.

Regardless, the iron grip on your hand still doesn't allow you to wrench yourself free. Tugging at all only earns you a rumbling growl that seems to emanate from somewhere deep within War's almighty chest.

With his other hand, he begins to reach for a small, brown pouch hanging from the scarlet cumberbund that's wrapped around his waist. In your fear-addled mind, the only thing you can imagine he's reaching for is that sword strapped to his back.

Knowing full well that fighting back is futile, you let out a quiet sob and screw your face up tight, ducking your head down low between your shoulders and feeling that telltale creep of anticipation along your spine.

With your eyes clamped shut, you don't see the strange vial filled with swirling, green liquid as he pulls it from his pouch, held delicately between two of his massive fingers. You don't even register the sound of a cork being unplugged from the bottle by a set of teeth.

But oh, you sure as Hell feel it when a hot, viscous substance is poured unceremoniously into the gash across your arm.

In an instant, your eyes flash open again and you have to stuff your teeth into your lip to hold back a scream when that caustic burn spreads out inside your limb.

Your first, perfectly rational assumption, is that he's just poured acid over the wound, but as you watch, squinting through streaming eyes, you quickly come to learn that isn't the case at all. Wisps of shimmering, emerald smoke rise out of your wound with an ear-scraping hiss.

Perhaps more distressingly though, you can see the blood inside the wound drying up, crusting over and turning brown at the edges, like you're watching a scab heal over in fast-forward. But the pain? The pain has already begun to subside.

“What... have you done to me!?” you croak, only to gag when the smoke disperses and you're left with an uninterrupted view of a shallow, pink cut, its margins significantly contracted, pulling towards the wound's centre. It almost resembles a particularly nasty scar, but you don't give any thought to whether it'll be a permanent feature on your arm, not when you have far more pressing concerns to address.

Against all odds, the excessive bleeding has stopped, and if it weren't for the trails of sticky blood coating you from wrist to elbow, you'd almost think it could have been an injury you sustained weeks ago.

Exhaling a raw, uneven breath, you blink dumbly at your own arm as War releases you and drops the half empty vial back into the pouch at his side, letting out a surly grunt. "There. Now, cease your incessant whining."

His brother sidles up beside him, staring up underneath his hood with such scrutiny that War begins to wonder if he's grown an extra head.

Amber eyes bulge comically behind a silver helm as Strife points an accusing finger up at his fellow Horseman and exclaims, “Was that a poultice?! Since when did you start carrying poultices!?”

War understands his brother's bafflement. It's a reputation he's rather proud of – to be known as the Horseman so sturdy and unassailable that he rarely, if ever, needs to rely on magic to heal his wounds.

Outwardly, one of his immense shoulders lifts into a shrug. “When Death caught wind of this mission, he came to find me and insisted I stock up,” he offers.

Underneath his helm, Strife's mouth tilts into a sly grin. “Aw, the miserable bastard cares about you after all, huh?”

“He did not give them to me for my own use,” War replies evenly, his own lips quivering against the temptation of a smirk, “He thought you'd be offended if he tried to hand them straight to you. He asked me to hold onto them in the inevitable event you'd need to see their use.”

Predictably, Strife's indignation becomes all too clear with the swell of his chest and the bristling of his black, spiked hair. Blowing a hot exhale through his nose, he snaps, “The Hell's he tryin' to imply? I don't need that asshole watchin' out for me!”

War only lifts his lips into a flat, placid line. “That remains to be seen, doesn't it.”

Their ensuing argument is abruptly cut off by a thin and rasping voice croaking out, “What... what was that stuff?”

As one, the Horsemen return their gazes to you, finding your wide, watery eyes blinking back up at them, still with your bad arm cradled out in front of you.

Strife has to admit, he's impressed you've managed to keep that strange, white garment blood-free. He's seen enough ivory feathers stained red to know that anything white is nearly impossible to keep clean.

Cocking a hidden grin at you, he replies, “That's a healing poultice – My brother's recipe.”

“Your...” Bloodshot eyes dart over to War and a little, pink tongue shoots out to nervously moisten dry lips. “Your brother?”

“Oh. No, not this one,” he amends, jabbing a thumb at War, “Our eldest. Death.”

What little colour had remained in your face drains away, leaving you with a complexion that's ashen and haunted. “Death?” you quake, “What the Hell kind of-... Why can't any of you have normal, innocuous names like... like Tim, or Greg!?”

At the back of the group, the demon pipes up, “What's wrong with Vulgrim?”

Barking out a derisive laugh, Strife shoots back, “Man, what isn't wrong with you?”

“She's trying to run,” War pipes up conversationally.

It takes a second, but soon enough, Strife's helm spins forwards again so quickly, he almost gives himself whiplash.

True to his brother's word, you've turned towards the staircase and made a rather pitiful escape attempt, your white dress bobbing up and down with a noisy rustle of fabric as you half stagger, half jog away from the Horsemen.

“Woah! Woah, hey! Hold up-”

You let out a strangled gasp when a pair of thick, armoured limbs curl around your waist and hoist you effortlessly into the air, legs kicking out to try and unbalance the behemoth at your spine.

Without warning, you're spun about with a shriek and plopped back onto the ground in front of War, who rises like a living mountain over your head, scowling at you down the length of his nose, though you're beginning to wonder if that's just the one expression he's actually capable of making. Strife, meanwhile, remains at your back, and it's with a terrible, sinking dread that you realise they've boxed you between them. A Horseman ahead of you and a Horseman behind you.

… Talk about being stuck between a rock and a hard place....

“Okay, human,” Strife announces, his hands alighting on his hips, “Think there may be a few trust issues here.”

A resentful scoff escapes your lips before you can seal them together. “A few?! You nearly cut my goddamn arm off!”

“Ah, c'mon,” he brushes your concern aside with a flippant wave of his hand, “It wasn't nearly that bad. Right, War?”

The larger Horseman flexes his oversized gauntlet that obscures his left hand, grunting in apparent concurrence.

“Besides!” Strife continues, “It was necessary.”

Shaking your head in disbelief, you retort, “It was barbaric!”

“Hey, he healed you up afterwards,” he argues with a petulant huff, “You ought'a be grateful.”

Gratefu-!” You have to cut yourself off, squeezing your eyes shut and inhaling loudly though your flared nostrils. Only when you trust your voice not to squeak do you peel your eyes open again and aim them at the ground near your shoes, shakily uttering, “I would be grateful if you'd just... let me go home...”

At that, Strife falls deathly silent, prompting you to force your gaze up the length of his armoured body until you can bear to meet his eye.

You can't even begin to fathom what's going on behind that helm, and even his voice is devoid of emotion when he finally responds, only to say, “We can't.”

Those two, damning words scare you almost as much as his brother does.

Your stomach rolls anxiously. “But... why not?” you beg, voice thick with desperation, “I don't want any trouble! I-I just want to go home!”

To your surprise, the Horseman abruptly shifts his weight back onto one leg and offers you an apologetic shrug. “Hey, look – If I could take you to Earth right now, I would-”

“-This is no place for a human,” War adds, nodding sagely.

“-Right,” his brother continues, “But when I say we can't, I mean we literally can't. Earth has been cut off.”

“...What?” you press, stomach sinking down to your shoes, “Cut off?”

You really don't care much for that phrase at all.

Strife's shoulder lifts in yet another shrug. “Council's orders. Access to Earth has been pretty much revoked.”

You can't believe what you're hearing. Literally. How can he expect you to believe what he's telling you? Shaking your head, you close your eyes and raise your hands, pressing manicured fingertips delicately to the inner corners of your lids. “And who the Hell is this... this Council!?”

Hesitating, the Horsemen exchange a furtive glance before Strife returns his gaze down to you and answers, “Well, they're... kind of in charge.”

When he doesn't elaborate further, you fling your eyes open and urge, “Of what?”

“Uh, everything? I guess?” Raising a hand, Strife scratches at the hair that juts from the back of his helm like ebony spines. “I'unno, I dont' really pay attention in the meetings.”

Furrowing your brow, you drop your eyes to the ground once more and stare pensively at the stone underfoot, your brain chugging along as it attempts to unscramble the vast influx of information you're being fed. It isn't long before a dull throb starts up in your temples.

Fine. You'll have to deal with your apparent descent into madness later. Right now, you have to solve this problem and try not to dwell on it too closely.

“You keep saying 'Earth,' like it's a third party...” you hedge carefully, lifting your head to Strife, “Why?”

You're startled – and somewhat agitated - by the Horseman's brusque snort of laughter. “Ha, for such an advanced human, you sure are-”

“-Ignorant?” War offers.

If you weren't so terrified of getting that sword drawn on you again, you'd shoot him a rancid glare.

Appeasingly, Strife replies, “I was gonna say uninformed."

You don't know how much longer you can stand this. It's as if neither of them can grasp the gravity of your situation. Or perhaps they don't want to. Pressure builds inside you like steam in a valve, piling on your wrecked nerves until at last, you let it out in a cry of frustration, stomping your pearly-white heel on the ground. Immediately, the pair of titans fall silent, turning to stare at you.

“Just.. tell me-!” you plead, “- if I'm on Earth right now, please? I-I just want a straight answer. Something that makes sense!”

Strife doesn't even hesitate.

“No, you're not on Earth,” he says.

And nothing more.

Chapter 3: A Way Out

Summary:

You're not on Earth, and that truth is as devastating as it is implausible. You have to get out of this Void. But there's only one demon who can offer an exit. Unfortunately for you, there's also a certain Horseman who deems it necessary to keep you close, for curiosity's sake.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

There is very little dignity in fear.

When allowed to fester, even the tiniest pinch of it will start to bulge and swell inside you until it’s too large to be contained by the churning walls of your stomach. So, instead, it spreads through your bloodstream, eating up the space inside you like an infection as it strips away reason, humanity, and even hope.

Especially hope.

You’re not proud that the unexpected knowledge of your true whereabouts sends you into an immediate downward spiral of terror, but in the absence of any better ideas, you think it’s at least a little justified that you promptly stagger away from the otherworldly beings, drop to your backside on the cold, hard ground, gather your knees to your chest and proceed to come apart right there in front of an honest-to-goodness demon, and two Horsemen of the Apocalypse…

You’d always heard that wedding days are enormously stressful, but this is just ridiculous.

You’ve retreated to the precarious edge of Vulgrim’s plateau, not close enough that you’re worried about accidentally toppling over into the misty void, but at least far enough from War, Strife and the leery merchant that at least a diminutive fraction of your unease is lifted.

The blood on your arm has already dried to dark, crackling flakes, and it’s through unseeing, bulging eyes that you stare at the raised line of flesh wrapped in an arc over your forearm.

There’s one startling realisation plaguing your mind more emphatically than any other.

This isn’t Earth. This isn’t Earth.

A whirling onslaught of fresh, new terrors start to haunt you, terrors you’ve never even had to think about until now. You can’t find a voice for all the questions that clutter your mind. And you don’t pay much attention to the set of watchful, amber eyes that have remained glued to you ever since you stumbled dazedly over to the fringe of the floating platform.

Strife is abuzz with questions of his own, questions he’d readily bombard you with were it not for the vacant stare you’re currently aiming at the wound his brother left across your delicate flesh.

Grimacing, the older Nephilim twists himself sideways, keeping one eye on you and the other on War and the demon, both of whom seem more eager than Strife to turn the conversation back to other matters. Namely, business.

“Now then,” Vulgrim announces, clicking the tips of his long, curved claws together in eager anticipation, “I think it’s safe to assume you boys haven’t come here just to have me confirm the identity of this lost, little human…”

War’s lip curls unpleasantly, as if the mere act of even speaking to the merchant turns his stomach. Vehement, he growls, “Our work doesn’t concern you, demon.”

But Vulgrim, ever discerning, simply draws his mouth upwards to reveal the gleaming maw of fangs that sit crookedly behind his lips – a mocking reflection of War’s sneer.

“Oh, but it must,” the demon drawls knowingly, “Why else would you be here?”

War’s expression further twists as if he’s tasting poison on his tongue, and Strife has to stifle a smirk.

Drawing himself up a little closer to the demon’s height, War bites out, “Samael sent us here…” Trailing off to look Vulgrim up and down, he narrows his eyes and adds, “Maybe it was to collect your head.”

Far from threatened however, the conniving demon merely raises a single, slender finger and wags it back and forth in a manner that sets War’s teeth on edge.

“Ah ah ah~” he admonishes, “Careful, Horseman… Show the right temperament and I can be of… service to you. But first, you must be of service to me.”

Strife has to resist the urge to throw his head back and groan. He probably ought to have seen this coming a mile off.

Can’t spend five minutes in the presence of a demon without them angling for a favour…

War, it seems, has also cottoned on to the merchant’s less than subtle hint.

The Horseman’s armoured shoulders almost double in size as he bristles angrily, spitting, “The Council does not negotiate with demons. If you try to take advantage of them-“

“-And by extension, us-!” Strife chimes in.

“-Then there will be consequences.”

His latest threat complete, War narrows his ice-blue glare up at the hovering demon, who, to his dismay, only barks out a dark, mocking laugh and spreads his gangling arms out wide, as if to invite the Horseman to carry out the Council’s apparent ‘consequences.’

“Your Council has no power here,” Vulgrim drones, eyes as sharp as a whetted blade, “This realm is mine, and therefore subject to my rules. If anything were to happen to me, it would certainly prove tragic for you. You’d be trapped here in the void. For all of eternity.”

Strife’s trigger finger twitches of its own accord. He loathes that the demon has a point.

Just then, from the corner of his gaze, the eagle-eyed Horseman catches the rapid movement of your head snapping upright.

Curious as to what’s drawn you from your catatonic state, Strife swivels his helm in your direction, perking up when he sees you clambering awkwardly to your feet, struggling to move your puffy skirts aside.

He’d welcome you back to the present, but your stare is fixed with disconcerting precision on the demon floating behind him.

“Wait, wait a second,” you fumble out in a rush, taking a single, daring step closer, your cheeks still glistening with tears, “What did you say? Y-You’re the only one who can get me out of here?”

The mention of an exit… The hint of an escape…

A tiny flutter of hope drifts free of your soul and you latch onto it with greedy hands, like a child snatching at a butterfly, desperate.

It’s the only force in the world that could lure you closer to the titanic Horseman and their implausible acquaintance. That first, tentative step turns into several more, though you’re quick to freeze in place when three pairs of eyes flick in your direction, sending a rush of adrenaline racing up your spine.

You’ve never felt more like prey in your life.

The demon’s stare especially unnerves you. It seems to eat right into you like acid, hungry and all-consuming. His mouthful of teeth holds your focus as he lifts blackened lips into what you can only assume is a terrible grin.

Now do I have your attention?” he asks smugly, tossing his gaze back over to the Horsemen, neither of whom give you the impression that they’re as hopeful about the latest revelation as you are.

After a moment, War bunches his hands into fists and tears his eyes from you, turning to glare down the merchant instead. Strife’s attention, however, remains locked on you for a further second before he too throws a dark look up at the grinning Vulgrim.

A shaky breath gushes past your lips once you’re no longer in their sights. It feels as though you’ve just been released from a cast of stone. For just a moment, you spare an absent thought to those Greeks of ancient myth who stared down the legendary gorgon, Medusa. You think you might finally understand, at least a little, what such a fate must have been like. The power of a predator’s gaze is not to be underestimated; it seems.

Vulgrim is still leering right back at the Horsemen with an awfully superior smirk plastered across his cragged jaws, a look that has Strife’s jaw clenching.

“Patience ain’t my brother’s thing,” he growls, “Or mine, now that I think about it… So, whatever point you’re trying to make, make it.”

The demon’s smirk shrinks at the curt tone, but nonetheless, he inclines his head and begins to explain. “Fine. The Lords of Hell are forever in conflict,” he says, “They seek power. Control… Lucifer and Samael most of all…”

You can’t help yourself from jumping in with an embarrassing squeak of alarm. “Lucifer!?” you parrot, once again earning their attention, “A-As in, like, the Devil? Satan!?”

In the span of a second, Strife’s irritation at Vulgrim lifts to make way for amusement at your interruption. “You know another Lucifer?” he quips, grinning down at you from behind his visor, “Big guy won’t be happy someone’s tryin’ to steal his thunder.”

A wave of anxious heat surges up the back of your neck and you throw a hand up to curl trembling fingers around a fistful of hair. “Oh my god!” you blurt, chest heaving, “Is this Hell!? Am I in Hell right now!?”

In response, Strife lets out a rough snort whilst Vulgrim merely offers you a shake of his great, ghastly head. “I’m afraid not,” the demon laments, casting a morose glance at the void surrounding his lonely plateau, “Sadly, Hell is several planes south of this one.”

For several, arduous seconds, you can do nothing but stare up at him in incredulous silence as your brain chugs along slowly, attempting to wrestle with the bombshell that not only does the Devil purportedly exist, but so too does Hell itself. You’re looking right at a demon, after all. It would stand to reason that a place of perdition exists too.

In contrast to the magnitude of the knowledge you’ve just been made privy to, a thin, rasping, “What?” is all that creaks out of your throat.

The question is answered by a low huff from War, who fixes you in his stern glower and rumbles, “This does not concern you, human.”

Gulping, you retreat a step back, almost tripping over your dress in the process as your eyes flit up to the broadsword strapped across the behemoth’s back. Your mouth dries at the very fresh memory of what he’d done to you the last time he paid you any attention.

Unbeknownst to you, Strife’s ears twitch at the click of your heeled shoes on the stone, and the catch in your breath.

Folding a pair of heavily armoured arms across his sizeable chest, he too takes a step away from War before ambling sideways, parking himself stubbornly between you and his brother like a living, breathing blockade.  “Hey, come on. Lay off,” he retorts, jutting the chin of his helm out at War, “She’s just as lost here as we are.”

Just like that, the younger Nephilim’s expression shifts, his hardened expression lifting to a quizzical look that he aims at his brother, as if even he hadn’t expected Strife to come to your defence.

Still, despite his surprise, he’s quick to recover his wits.

You, in the meantime, can only stare agape at the armoured expanse of a back suddenly standing in your way.

“We are not lost,” War insists, furrowing his brow, “We’ve just been waylaid.”

“On the contrary, Horseman…” Vulgrim’s slimy tone encourages War’s expression to darken even further. Raising a slender finger into the air, the demon continues, “You are both precisely where you need to be.”

With a quiet scoff, Strife shifts his weight onto the opposite leg, throwing Vulgrim a nasty glare. “Figures you’d know more than you’ve been letting on…”

You almost jump a mile when War gnashes his teeth at the merchant and booms, “Out with it! You know why we were sent here. I demand that you tell us!”

Demand…” Vulgrim clicks his tongue derisively, but after a moment, he concedes to heave his shoulders into a shrug and rolls his green eyes towards the foggy void above him. “Oh, very well,” he sighs, “Samael sent you here because he has learned that Lucifer is attempting something… unexpected.”

The mention of the latter’s name nearly sends you scampering back to whimper at the edge of the abyss.

Plainly oblivious to the nausea churning in your guts, Vulgrim continues, “He is extending a hand to his enemies, Horsemen. Offering something very desirable in exchange for their…. cooperation.”

“And Moloch is one of those enemies,” Strife hedges, though his tone indicates that it’s far from a question.

Suddenly, Vuglrim drifts backwards, a move that has you ducking into the shadow of the metal titan standing with his back to you, but the demon pays your flinch no mind, simply folding his lanky arms across his chest and cocking a sly grin down at Strife.

“Ah, nothing in the world is without cost,” he tells the Horseman, voice dripping with pompous bile, “If you wish to know more, we must enter into an agreement. You recall that I asked you for a favour?”

Now, up until today, you’d been of the entirely sane opinion that demons only existed in the pages of story books, or behind the screens of televisions and computers. But if there’s one thing you’ve learned from pop culture that could apply here, it’s that striking a deal with a demon would be about as sensible as sticking your head into the jaws of a starving bear.

The Horsemen, it appears, share the very same sentiment.

Strife tilts his helm to send a hostile glare up at Vulgrim, and you could swear you hear something that sounds so much like thunder rumbling away inside his chest.

Even still, War’s objection is far louder than his brother’s.

Peeking around Strife’s side, you observe as the larger Horseman’s entire body goes taut and rigid with sudden animosity, and he begins peeling his lips apart to bare a set of gleaming, white teeth. The animosity, though it isn’t directed at you, still draws the blood away from the surface of your skin, leaving you several shades paler than your typical complexion.

Vulgrim, in contrast, either doesn’t notice the dramatic shift in their demeanour, or he simply doesn’t care.

Bold as brass, he presses on. “A precious artifact has been stolen from me,” he laments with a roll of his wrist, “I sought Samael’s assistance in the matter, but…” Trailing off, he regards the pair of bristling behemoths with a glint in his sharp, green eyes. “Perhaps,” he adds thoughtfully, “You could recover it.”

Dead silence pervades the void for a long, awfully uncomfortable length of time whilst you send fleeting glances between each of the Horsemen, up to the horned demon, and back again.

“Know what?” Strife pipes up without warning, dropping a hand to rest casually on the barrel of a pistol, “At this point, I’m more interested in killing you than helping you…”

Such a nonplussed hint at murder throws your heart up into your throat, and you blanch, gaping incredulously at the spiked, black hair jutting from the Horseman’s helm.

You’re starting to deduce that Vulgrim must be used to such threats. How else could he stare down a man with a gun that size without flinching?

“That would profit neither of us,” he deadpans. Then, raising his voice to an enticing lilt, he adds, “It’ll be worth your while~!”

Strife’s shoulders jump with a sceptical grunt.

“It’s true!” Vulgrim retorts, “I give you my word.”

“Oh! Your word?” Strife echoes sarcastically, “Well, why didn’t you say so! We’ll do it!”

Blinking, the demon quirks a brow ridge. “Really?”

“Sure!”

Everyone, yourself included, stares at Strife in silence for a time, each of you expecting him to throw his head back with a laugh and tell Vulgrim that he’s joking. But as the seconds tick by in which Strife merely peers up at the demon without a word, you start to get the impression that he is not, in fact, joking.

After it becomes clear that his brother isn’t about to rescind his offer to actually help the merchant, War bodily whirls about to face him and scoffs, “You can’t be serious?”

Strife’s metal shoulders rise and fall in a shrug. “Look at where we are, War,” he mutters, swinging his mask in an arc to take in the void around you, “If you have a better idea, I’m all ears.”

Cowering behind him, you nervously cast a glance around his elbow again to see War’s face screw up beneath his crimson hood, ice-blue gaze flitting sideways to throw a look out at the darkness beyond the platform. With each passing second, you see his eyebrows knit closer and closer together, forming a solid line of white hair upon his strong forehead.

Though he’s loathe to admit it, War can see the sense in his brother’s words.

If they are to leave this place and continue their mission for the Charred Council, they’ll need the help of a demon to do it.

Spitting a Nephilim curse that would have Death reprimanding him with a smack around the head, War snatches his glare to the opposite side of the plateau, steadfastly refusing to meet Strife’s eye.

Sensing the Horseman’s acquiescence, Vulgrim’s toothy maw stretches into a too-wide smile, showing off fangs that glint like knives when they catch the murky light.

“Hah,” he declares triumphantly, “I will provide a serpent hold for travel.”

“A serpent hole?” you whisper under your breath.

You’ve heard of worm holes before, but serpent holes?

Frankly, you find it hard to conjure up the effort to actually care what kind of holes he’ll be providing.

If this ‘serpent hole’ means a way out of this place and back to that drab, terrifying church, you’ll take it.

“Well, all right.” Strife declares suddenly, and before you can move, the massive, metal man steps to one side, revealing you in full to the eyes of his brother and the demon. “Vague mission. Unknown dangers. Undetermined reward… What’s not to love?”

In response, War grunts, and then, to your dismay, his gaze lands on you, and you’re once again rendered stuck, pinned beneath the heavy weight of his preternatural glare.

Even with a demon hovering close by, it’s War’s attention that leaves you feeling the most exposed. The fresh, pink scar on your arm begins to itch.

“What are we to do with this human?” he mutters to Strife, who plants his hands on his hips and tilts his helm at you, not unlike how an inquisitive bird peers at something shiny.

“Just a suggestion,” Vulgrim cuts in eagerly, “You could leave her here.”

Letting out a fierce gasp at his words, you recoil from the salivating demon as if you expect him to pounce at any moment.

“Yeah, no,” Strife retorts for you, “Nice try. But that ain’t happening.”

Somehow, War’s perpetual frown manages to grow even more severe as he snaps, “You’re not suggesting we take her with us?”

You have to admit, you concur with the hooded giant. You’re not a fan of Strife’s idea either, even if it does mean getting out of this god-forsaken ‘void.’

Exhaling roughly through his nose, Strife hunches his massive shoulders and replies, “Why not?”

Because this human is none of our concern!”

“So… what? You’d rather just leave her to be eaten by tall, dark and gruesome over here?”

Vulgrim hums a note of disdain as Strife jerks his chin in his direction.

Staring at his brother, War’s expression turns calculating, reminiscent of the way he looks over battleplans and strategies before a fight. “You’re being awfully insistent about this.”

“Oh, come on, War!“ Strife groans, slumping his shoulders and throwing his head back dramatically, "You’re not even a little curious? Don’t you wanna know what we were fighting for? This human is one of the reasons the Charred Council ordered us to murder our-!”

“-Do not dwell on the past, brother,” the enormous Horseman suddenly cuts him off, his nostrils flaring wide as he scowls down at his sibling, a warning hidden just beyond bared teeth, “The Charred Council gave us new orders. They are all you should be concerned about.” Throwing you a suspicious glare, he adds, “This… human is a distraction we cannot afford.”

“Hmph.” Eyes narrowed to razor-thin slits, Strife folds his arms petulantly across his silver chest and mutters, “Sounds like a distraction is exactly what you’re lookin’ for.”

Leather bracers strain with an ominous creak as War’s fists clench slowly at his sides. “What was that?” he challenges.

Giving his shoulders a nonchalant shrug, Strife just flaps a hand at his brother, as if to casually waft away the larger Horseman’s aggression, “Nothin’. Nothin’…”

Growling, War snaps his head towards Vulgrim, who has done little else but hover nearby with his eyes trained eagerly on the brothers and their quarrel, looking thoroughly entertained by the whole situation.

“Are you waiting for an invitation, demon!?” he snaps, “Summon a portal.”

Blowing out a hefty sigh, Vulgrim throws his hands up compliantly and swivels around in midair until he’s facing the centre of his raised dais, grumbling incomprehensibly under his breath as his wings give an agitated little flutter.

Impatient, War simply huffs, growing still when the back of his neck begins to prickle. There are eyes upon him that aren’t his brother’s.

With a sudden shift, the Horseman twists his head sideways and anchors it in your direction, subjecting you to an undeserved glare from beneath the lip of his hood.

Choking on a gasp, you drop your eyes to the floor near your feet quick as a flash. You’re so focused on not meeting the gaze of the crimson-clad giant that you fail to notice his brother boring a hole into the side of your head, regarding you with a pensive expression.

Obviously, leaving you here isn’t an option. Not least because frankly, he has way too many questions.

But he needs War on his side.

So, breathing a sigh, he raises his head to meet his brother’s eye and tries a different approach. “What about the Balance?”

And just like that, War’s body goes tense at his brother’s soft question. The haunting, blue stare you’ve found yourself caught up in starts to falter, drifting away from the pink scar running over your arm and moving towards the older Horseman. “Strife…” he begins tiredly.

There are very few beings in the Universe who could claim to know War as well as his brother. But one doesn’t have to know War deeper than surface level to see that honour and duty are among the youngest Horseman’s chief principals.

“The Council said Lucifer’s plotting humanity’s downfall as we speak…” Strife continues, unhurried.

Blinking rapidly, you forget your terror of War for a second and throw your head up again to blurt, “I- He- He’s what?”

“And these little guys-“ Strife jerks the chin of his helm at you, staring hard at the younger Nephilim. “-Are integral to the Balance.”

He doesn’t miss how War’s lips tighten into a thin, displeased line.

Gotcha.’

Though he knows his brother would have no way of seeing it behind his helm, Strife holds back the triumphant little smirk that tries to angle across his mouth. Just to be safe.

“You’d protect humanity,” he presses, knowing full-well that something is about to go ‘clunk’ in his brother’s mind, “But not a human?”

Lo and behold, no sooner has he asked the question than War’s steely countenance drops by a fraction – A fraction so negligible that only the sharpest eyes would be able to spot it.

It just so happens that Strife has the sharpest eyes in the Universe.

By his own claim, sure. But still.

“I don’t know what’s more concerning,” War grunts, shaking his hooded head, “The fact that you listened to what the Council said. Or the fact that you actually have a point.”

Strife stares hard at his brother for a long moment whilst you give them both a look of abject horror, pulse jumping in your temple.

“Woah,” the older Nephilim utters at last, “Did you just admit that I have a point…? Can I get that in writing?”

Slipping his eyes shut, the largest Horseman inhales deeply through his nose and exhales a breath in a noisy rush through his gritted teeth. “We’ll take her,” he concedes at last.

Straightening his back, Strife innocently asks, “What?”

“We’ll take her.”

You’d probably throw up at the declaration if you weren’t so irrationally concerned about staining the wedding dress.

Eyes as cold as tundra frost turn their attention onto you.

Fittingly, you feel the blood in your veins turn to ice.

“Human,” he growls, “You’re coming with us.”

“I-I don’t… want to…?” you croak weakly.

Slinging his chin sideways, Strife asks, “You’d rather stay here with this guy?”

With an audible gulp, you throw a glance at Vulgrim, only to find his gleaming, green eyes peering down at you hungrily.

 Recoiling, you pull a face and send a beseeching, watery plea to the Horseman. “I-I just want to get out of here.”

“There, see?” Strife exclaims, jabbing a thumb down at you and grinning up at his brother, “She wants to come with us.”

Aghast, you immediately start to sputter, “That is absolutely not what I meant!” The courage it takes for you to return your gaze to the looming demon is astronomical. Raising a trembling hand, you gesture floppily at him and add, “He said he can make a -a snake hole for you guys! Can’t he make one for me as well?”

“It’s serpent hole,” Vulgrim corrects with a tut, still turned towards the centre of his platform, yet he spares you a glance over his sinewy shoulder, ebony horns shimmering in the sickly light.

 “Whatever!” you screech, panicked at the mere fact that he’s addressing you, “Just pick a hole, open it, and let me go home! Please!”

“Ha!” Strife barks.

Struck by the sudden urge to scold his brother - though not quite understanding why - War shoots a scathing glare at Strife before returning his attention to you again. “The only ones with the power to send you to Earth are the Charred Council,” he explains.

“Then take me to them!” you try to demand, but the squeak of your voice is frustratingly prevalent. You imagine you’re no more intimidating to these beings than a mouse is to a lion.

“Listen.”

You leap out of your skin, literally clutching your pearl necklace as Strife speaks and shifts about on his feet to face you.

“Let me tell you something right now,” he says, “There are exactly two ways to get a summoning from the Charred Council.”

Taking a heavy step towards you, he raises the first two fingers of his right hand, counting them off as he starts to explain, “The first, is if they have a new mission for us.” He drops his middle finger, wagging his remaining digit at you. “And the second, is if we finish a current mission. And seeing as we’ve just started this one…” Trailing off, he tips his chin down, peering at you expectantly, observing in silence as your expression slowly begins to crumple.

Shit… Can all humans pull that face?’ he grimaces to himself, ‘Might be more powerful than they look.

In the end, War puts words to what you’ve just realised.

“We will not be summoned to the Council until our mission here is complete,” he grunts.

The weight of his words drops into your stomach, sending the whole organ plummeting down into your shoes. Wringing your hands, your thumb brushes over an abnormal band of metal resting at the base of your third finger.

Wetting your lips, you lower your eyes to the sizeable diamond engagement ring sitting prettily on your left hand. Ever so briefly, you’re struck by a memory, of the first time you showed your father the ring that Cain had given you. You almost had to call the nurse into his hospital room because he laughed so damn hard and nearly tore out his drip.

He trying to marry you or buy you?’ he’d wheezed after a raucous guffaw, clutching your hand with skeletal fingers, his knuckles so swollen and arthritic, the only thing you could bear to do was look away. The guilt of averting your eyes haunted you until you fell asleep that same night.

You have to clench your eyes shut with vicious force to banish the memory. You can’t think of him right now, laying there, all alone with a tube in his arm and the grimmest of prospects waiting just a few weeks down the line.

“H-how long will it take to finish your mission?” you bleat, feeling the suffocating fist of helplessness closing around your heart.

You have to get back…

“Dunno,” Strife shrugs, “Depends how much more demon bullshit we gotta take care of… Though considering recent events… I’m not hopeful for a quick resolution.”

“But I need to go home!” you bleat, twisting your fingers around a handful of your dress’s tulle, “You don’t understand – Dad’s last chemo appointment is tomorrow, a-and I’m supposed to be getting married, like… like right now!”

“I have no idea what you just said, but it all sounds very important. Which is all the more reason to get this show on the road.” Turning to face the demon behind him, Strife claps his palms together twice and barks, “Hey, Vulgrim. Serpent hole. C’mon, look lively!”

The merchant sneers, grumbling as faces the centre of his platform once more, spreading out his palms.

You give a start when a pulse of… something sours the taste of the air around you, turning dry, musty breaths into thick and acrid gulps that seem to slide across your tongue with each inhale. Instinctively, you cover your mouth.

Wind whips your veil up into a flurry of white fabric. With a graceful whirl, it blows forwards and you have to throw a hand up to catch it, sweeping it back away from your face as you stare agog at the spectacle forming in front of you.

In a word… it’s… beautiful.

In a lot of words, it’s also incredibly bright and shit-inducingly scary. It isn’t natural to see magic, not outside of a children’s birthday party or a heavily edited video online. Your eyes take it all in – the circle of azure light that swirls to life in the ground before you. Where there was once a patch of dull, grey stone, now there’s a pool – not of water, but of something that moves and flows just like it.

Your mouth hangs open as Vulgrim lowers his arms and drifts back with a beat of his vestigial wings, away from the serpent hole.

“It’s all yours, Horsemen,” he declares, bowing with a grandiose sweep of his hand, “Oh, but before you go – Do be careful. The keeper of my artefact will be, ah… less than pleased to see you.”

“No one is ever pleased to see us,” Strife grumbles, wincing at the bitter undertone that shines through just a little too brightly for his liking. Clearing his throat, he gruffly adds, “That’s kind of the idea.”

They’re Horsemen now. Dreaded enforcers of the Charred Council… Hated. Despised.

“War?” Strife brusquely addresses the larger Horseman, gesturing towards you with a jerk of his head.

Throwing his brother a heated glare, War takes a begrudging, booming step in your direction, quaking the ground beneath your feet.

You’re nearly sent toppling ass over teakettle in your haste to back-peddle away from the armoured behemoth, launching your hands out in front of you and blurting, “Woah, woah, woah! Hang on a moment!”

You very nearly faint on the spot when, against all odds, the Horseman actually pauses midstride, a single, ivory brow quirking to peer at you expectantly. You’d have thought that nothing short of a tank could make someone his size hesitate.

Sliding his gaze smoothly between the two of you, Strife has the gall to tip his helm to one side and ask, “What’s the matter, Princess?”

‘Princess’ indeed. If he wasn’t the size of a skyscraper, you’d have half a mind to smack him with your bag. As it is, you doubt the satisfaction of striking him would be worth the painful death that’d surely follow such an insult.

“I’m… I’m not going anywhere with him.” You point accusingly at War instead, though you swiftly drop your finger after he gives it a look that suggests he’d like to cut it off.

“Oh, come on, he’s not as bad as he looks,” Strife prods encouragingly, “Is this about your arm?”

Incredulous, you gape up at the Horseman for a moment before pursing your lips with a shrug, as if to compose yourself. “No, actually, I just don’t particularly like his attitude- YES OF COURSE IT’S ABOUT MY FUCKING ARM!”

 “He healed it up afterwards!” Strife replies brightly, as though you’re both having a friendly debate about the weather. If anything, judging by the upward curve of his luminous eyes and his jocular tone of voice, you’d almost wager that he’s actually enjoying your little back and forth.

One of your eyelids twitches, and you have to take a moment to think of something coherent to say, but when you open your mouth, the only word that leaps out is an incredulous, “What!?”

“And besides,” Strife breezes over you as if you’d never spoken, “I’m sure he’s very sorry. Right, big man?”

Pressing your lips together dubiously, you follow Strife’s pointed gaze up to his brother, who leers back at you with his stony face set like a dark thundercloud, his chest quaking around a resonant rumble.

You can’t imagine this beast has ever apologised for anything in his life - if he’s even had the inclination to.

Trying to swallow past a lump of nerves, you glower mistrustfully at the handle of the broadsword jutting over War’s shoulder, and declare, “He can be as sorry as he likes, but he is not putting me on his shoulder!”

Pursing his lips, Strife blows out a whistle, lifting a hand to scratch idly at his jagged, ebony hair. “Well,” he shrugs, “You’re comin’ with us either way. So… You wanna step through the portal yourself, or what?”

“… Hard. Pass.”

“Oh…” His gaze darts to the ground before he flicks it up to you again, one eye squinted halfway shut. “You sure?”

“Am I sure I don’t want to be carried through a mystical worm hole by the same brute who nearly cut my arm off not five minutes ago?” you clarify, subconsciously cradling the aforementioned appendage in your opposite palm, “Yes. I’m sure.”

Something of a standoff ensues between you and Strife, the latter of whom squints down at you for several, perturbing seconds, his hand still clasping the back of his neck. Another few beats pass, measured by the steady ‘thump,’ ‘thump,’ ‘thump,’ of your heart pounding in your ears.

Sadly, the relative peace only lasts another second when Strife allows his hand flop back to his side, raising one, silver shoulder into a shrug and announcing, “All right, suit yourself!”

“Suit my-wah!?”

Without warning, the Horseman takes a sudden, lurching step towards you, and before you can back-peddle clumsily out of range, two enormous, metal hands launch out to catch you around the waist, fingers spread widely enough to envelop your heaving ribs.

Struck by a sense of déjà vu, you waste no time in bunching your hands into fists and slamming them furiously down on top of Strife’s gauntlets, succeeding at nothing beyond hurting the heels of your palms. All the same, you dig right down into the bottom of your own, personal well and manage to scoop out enough drops of courage to holler, “Don’t you dare!”  

With the same effort you’d use to lift a porcelain doll, Strife simply hoists you up into the air – still kicking and flailing – and slings you over his armoured shoulder. You land with a hard jolt of pain, followed by a yelp when something sharp jabs into your stomach.

“Should’a gone with War if you wanted a comfier ride.” The Horseman curls a cumbersome arm across the seat of your dress, pressing down the layered tulle and securing you in place much like his brother had not too long ago.

“You can’t do this!” you shout, “This is-! I mean, i-it’s kidnapping!”

Strife barks out a sharp laugh as he steps up beside his brother, and together, they peer down into the blue, swirling vortex that roars with dark and ancient energies, beckoning them in.

“Kidnapping?” he parrots, deliberately jostling you on his shoulder to get a squeak out of you, “Nah, nah, nah. If anything, this is a rescue. You don’t wanna know what Vulgrim’d do to your soul if we left you here.”

Half draped over the titan’s spine, you twist your neck to the side and meet the eerie merchant’s emerald gaze. Perturbingly, you can’t quite tell if he’s grinning at you, or if he’s displaying his thrawn fangs in threat.

You shudder, and that terrible, insincere smile stretches wider.

“Ironically, she may be in less danger here than she will be in whatever demon-infested pit he’s sending us to…” War points out.

“Eh, probably.” Raising a boot into the air, Strife takes one, long stride forwards into the portal, feeling the ground fall away below his feet as his matter begins slipping towards another plane of existence. Before he disappears entirely however, he twists his helm over a shoulder to catch your wild-eyed stare, throwing you a lopsided wink once he meets it.

“But comin’ with us is gonna be way more fun.”

Notes:

I'm actually so excited to get the ball rolling on this. I have so many plans for these characters! It's a slow burn! My favourite!!!

Chapter 4: The Jump

Summary:

As you grapple with the horrifying, new reality you've found yourself in, Strife continues to torment you in the misguided hope that somehow, you'll spontaneously start to like him. His jokes are terrible. It's just a shame you have a weakness for terrible jokes.

War, meanwhile, can't stop his eyes from wandering to your fresh, undeserved scar...

Notes:

I can't believe it's been almost a year. A lot has happened recently, not all of it good, but I'm still here and will continue to be by hook or by crook!
I've had to cut it into two chapters because the final fight between the Slag Demon and the Horsemen is taking way too long to write. Good news though, there'll be two chapters in [hopefully] quick succession. Hooray!
Hope you like this one, guys, thank you all so much for standing by me and waiting so patiently.. I don't know where I'd be without your support. <3 <3 <3

Chapter Text

You suppose that when Strife said this would be ‘fun,’ he was only factoring himself into the equation. Because for you, there’s nothing very fun about having your particles ripped apart and rocketed through a portal which, according to modern science, should not and does not exist.

Well, modern science owes you a formal apology.

As it turns out, portals very much do exist, and they’re a lot less fun than the media has led you to believe.

The experience - though you hesitate to give it such a mundane moniker - isn’t… painful, per se, mostly because the whole process is over and done with so quickly that your brain and body aren’t given the time to notice that they’ve been squished through one end of a worm hole, reassembled atom by atom, and then spat out on the other side.

Perhaps more disconcertingly than the feeling itself is the fact that when you’re hanging for that split-second moment in a space outside of existence itself, you notice that the temperature around you inexplicably skyrockets.

And frankly, you’re not sure which is worse… The stale, unwelcoming chill of the Void, or the absolute blistering inferno that greets you within less than a second of leaving it.

Before you can even open your mouth to scream at the unnatural process your very human body is being subjected to, the space around you solidifies and stabilises again, and an unexpected jolt shoots straight through you when Strife’s metal boots collide with a hard, stone surface, jarring your stomach painfully against his shoulder pauldron.

At the same time, a wave of hot, dry air sweeps over you from head to toe, cloaking you in uncomfortable and immediate warmth that’s downright oppressive, thick and inescapable, as if you’ve just been tossed onto the fiery surface of the sun and left to sizzle.

Actually, now that you’ve experienced both extremes, perhaps you are sure which is worse. At least that sinister demon’s Void didn’t make you want to peel yourself out of your own skin.

Groaning miserably, you pick your hazy head up and suck in a breath that goes down about as well as spoiled meat, and then nearly retch at the unpleasant texture of heat sliding down the walls of your oesophagus like something squirming and alive.

Even the metal chain on your bag begins to grow warm against the skin of your neck, dangling down below your head near the Horseman’s holsters.

“Hot damn,” Strife announces, concisely putting a voice to your thoughts.

Your lashes are sticky from leftover tears, clumping together when you squeeze your eyes shut and attempt to pry them apart again. It takes a few arduous blinks before your blurry surroundings bleed into focus.

You rather wish you’d just kept your head down and your eyes firmly shut.

If there were any doubts left in your mind that teleportation really is possible, they swiftly fly out of the proverbial window when you catch your first, proper glimpse of the surroundings.

Wherever you are, it definitely isn’t the same place you were in barely ten seconds ago.

Bracing a palm against Strife’s solidly armoured back, you lever your torso up slightly to give yourself a better view of the world around you.

It seems that the portal – your brain starts to ache as it tries to accept the existence of those – has spat you out underneath the roof of an absolutely gargantuan cavern.

Roving your gaze back and forth, mouth ajar, you notice the walls, floor and ceiling are made entirely of dark, igneous rock, and yet all around you, you start to spot signs of… Well, perhaps not civilisation exactly, but definitely an external presence that gives you the impression that this is a keep of some kind, dug by hand rather than time or nature.

Two, immense pillars stand proudly at the far corners of the enormous chamber, large enough to prop up the roof of a veritable mountain.

Craning your neck back until it twinges, you squint through a haze of simmering air at the ceiling far above you, feeling a trickle of dread creep down into the pit of your stomach.

Bolted into the rock between the stalactites, there are numerous, gigantic chains hanging like eerie sentinel over your heads, so large and heavy that it doesn’t look as though anything short of gale-force winds could cause them to sway. You don’t dare to imagine what purpose they might serve.

Pale, unreachable light trickles lazily down from above, dappling little patches of the grey stone underneath Strife’s boots.

With your heart wedged in your throat, you swallow another curl of heat and let your gaze wander over to the side of the keep to where the ground falls away in a sheer drop several feet from the walls. It’s from the resulting pit that a vivid, orange glow rises, carrying with it the distinct sound of cracking, like glass windows slowly splintering apart, or a lake of ice breaking under a heavily placed boot. And below that sound, a deep, subterranean rumble serves as the background noise to this stifling place, constant and oozing.

Coupled with the acrid stench permeating your nostrils and the sweltering heat, you’re suddenly struck by the very disconcerting but plausible notion that you might have found yourself in the heart a volcano.

As if your day wasn’t horrendous enough.

All of a sudden, your ears are pricked by a low grunt from somewhere just a little too close to you, reminding you of your larger tormentor’s presence with a nauseating pang to the stomach. Consequentially, the unsightly welt on your forearm gives an insistent twinge.

Twisting your head to the left, you nearly jump out of your skin to find War has appeared out of thin air beside you, straightening to his full domineering height that easily clears his brother, and subsequently, you. The hooded behemoth only spares you a disinterested glance before his pale, blue eyes dart away again just as quickly and he stomps around to Strife’s front, out of view.

A breath you didn’t know you were keeping behind your teeth shakes itself loose.

You have to peel your tongue from the roof of your bone-dry mouth like a strip of velcro before you’re able to form a small, hesitant question in a voice baked hoarse and thin. “What is this place?”

No sooner has your meek question faded below the rumble of the cavern’s ambiance than an entirely new and harrowing sound punctures the otherwise quiet air.

Howling along the cavern walls comes a piercing, anguished scream, stemming from a place much deeper than you’ve already seen. It’s a raw sound, broken and terrified and primal, like a man with his humanity stripped and skewed just enough that he can’t quite be called human any longer. It prompts a sharp gasp out of you as the sound ricochets off the rocks, curdling your blood and raising the finer hairs on the back of your neck.

As if he’s entirely unconcerned with such a horrifying occurrence, Strife plants his free hand squarely on a hip and draws in a deep, obnoxious breath through his nose before he sighs it all out again, casting a casual glance around with all the air of a man surveying a pleasant sunrise.

“Ahh~ Screams of suffering, chains hanging from the ceiling, no sign of an exit…” he sighs wistfully, clapping the back of your thigh with his palm and announcing, “Yep! We’re definitely in a dungeon.”

He seems oblivious to your apprehension as you dart your eyes to every darkened corner of the cavern as if you might find the source of the tormented scream, curling your legs up under your dress until your knees bump against the Horseman’s chest. “A-a dungeon!?” you gulp, kneading your fingers between the gaps of Strife’s armoured spine, “A dungeon for what?”

Distracted for a fleeting moment by the foreign sensation of fingertips pressing against his leather under-armour, the Horseman almost forgets to respond.

It isn’t until he notices War’s expectant glare burning a hole into the side of his visor that he gives his head a shake and promptly shrugs his massive shoulders, swinging himself around to face away from his brother, and in doing do, bringing you almost nose to chest with the surly giant.

“Beats me,” he hums, utterly heedless of the fearsome stare-down currently happening just behind his head, “Probably for the poor bastard we just heard screaming... And a few others, to boot.”

Angling your head up, you have to gulp past a rather thick lump in your throat as you peer meekly up at War, who in turn, glares right back down at you, his eyes glinting ominously from within the shadow of his hood.

Reluctant to drop your gaze or even breathe for fear of provoking him by committing some unknowable slight, you shrink against Strife and duck your head, peeping up at him through your lashes as you tap your forefinger against one of the silver armour pieces interlocking across your captor’s back.

“Um,” you start, hearing Strife’s helm brush against your dress when he turns to listen, “C-can you, uh, put me down now…” Then, following a notable stretch of deafening silence, you squeakily tack on a hurried, “Please?”

There’s no guarantee that being on the ground will be any better for you than dangling over an uncomfortable, metal shoulder, but you’re at least willing to entertain the illusion that you’ll be safer on your feet without Strife dictating your every move. A modicum of control is better than none at all.

And truthfully, you’d just like to end the humiliation of being carried around like a sack of distraught potatoes.

Yet for some, inane reason, the armour-clad Horseman doesn’t seem as eager to relinquish you as you are to be relinquished.

“Aw, what’s the matter?” he drawls, bumping his shoulder up and down playfully, no doubt to pull a rise out of you which you frustratingly give him in the form of a gasp before he continues, “You’re not afraid of heights, are you?”

Still glaring down at you, unimpressed, War gives an exasperated huff, blasting a jet of warm air onto the crown of your head.

“Put her down,” he states firmly, lifting his gaze from you at last, “You will need both hands free if we run into trouble.”

Knocking his head back over a shoulder to address you, Strife grins beneath his helm and murmurs, “Ha. You’d be amazed what I can pull off one-handed.”

Trying your best to ignore his boast, you roll your eyes and start to squirm, wriggling around under the weight of his arm. “Ugh,” you complain, “Will you please just put me down?”

“Mmm…” Humming obnoxiously, Strife sucks his teeth and replies, “Depends. You gonna try and run away again?”

That, at least, gives you something to consider. Are you going to try and run again? They certainly haven’t given you much of a reason not to.

The scar War gave you still burns when you bend your arm a certain way and the flesh pulls and stretches beyond the limits of the tissue.

More to the point, how do you really know any of what they’ve told you is true?

How do you know you’re not on Earth right now, somewhere remote, yes, but escapable. Because they told you you’re not?

You don’t know these giants from Adam.

You can’t trust anything they say. You don’t trust anything they say. And while you’ve undeniably found yourself smack-dab in the middle of some seriously unnatural goings on, that doesn’t mean you have to accept everything at face value.

Reality might be breaking apart around you, but you don’t have to join it, tempting though it may be to curl up into a ball and sob until the problem sorts itself out.

Desperate, your brain falls into a tailspin as it tries to rationalise such irrational circumstances.

Outwardly however, you’re aware he’s waiting for a response, so, sweeping your tongue nervously over your bottom lip, you finally croak out a hesitant, “No?”

The silence that follows is damn near chilling.

Twisting your neck up and back over your shoulder, you catch the shine in one of Strife’s luminous eyes peering at you, narrow and thin with obvious scepticism.

 “Huh,” he says, clicking his tongue, “That didn’t sound very convincing. I’m not very convinced.” Casting a look over at his brother, he adds, “War, are you very convinced?”

Predictably, War’s only response is to glower down at the shorter Horseman and grumble impatiently at the back of his throat.

Nonplussed, Strife returns his attention to you. “I don’t think he’s very convinced.”

You have to press your lips into a firm, immoveable line and swallow back the vulgar words you’d just love to spew all over his shoulder…. Instead, you heave in a hot, arduous breath and slowly reiterate, “No. I won’t try to run away.” Then for added measure… “Again.”

You loathe that you can feel the scrutiny of not one, but two apocalyptic beings boring into the side of your head with suspicious, calculating glares.

Just as you’re beginning to consider whether pulling his hair will get him to drop you or kill you, Strife suddenly perks up, his sinister doubt disappearing as he raises his chin to pipe, “A’right. Good enough for me.”

Taken wildly aback, you let your mouth hang open whilst Strife simply raises his arms and lays two oversized hands on your hips, causing your jaw to snap shut before you can emit an embarrassing squeak of fright.

With far too much ease, the Horseman lifts you up and off his shoulder.

The moment you lose the stability of his armour under your stomach, you begin to tilt forwards. Choking on a gasp, you throw your hands up and brace them on each of his forearms.

“Don’t worry, I gotcha,” he chuckles brightly, to your immense dismay.

It’s a disconcerting sight. From the tips of your fingers to the heels of your palms, your hands don’t even wrap halfway around his armoured wrists.

Gawking down at your appendages, they seem so lost against the enormity of the arms that lower you gently to the ground.

As soon as the soles of your shoes touch a solid surface again, you waste no time in ripping your hands away from him and staggering backwards, trying but failing to extract yourself from his sturdy grasp.

Before you can get very far at all, fingers of solid steel bury themselves into your dress at the hip and you jerk to an immediate halt for fear of tearing the fabric by struggling. Arms held aloft to avoid touching his own again, you throw a wary look up at Strife’s visor, reluctantly meeting those sharp, alien eyes and finding they’ve narrowed to thin lines of gold, gleaming brightly against the shadows cast by his helm.

“You’re gonna have to get used to sticking close to one of us, kid,” he warns, his tone brooking no argument and devoid of any previous jocularity, “Cause as nasty as you think we are, I guarantee there’re things in here that are a thousand times worse.”

The well you typically draw your courage from ran dry long ago, long before you came here, long before you quietly agreed to marry Cain. So, you aren’t sure where you find the nerve to jut out your chin and bitterly remark, “Worse than trying to slice off my limbs?”

Sudden movement freezes you in your shoes as War emerges from behind his brother, moving to stand at his side and swallowing you up in the egregious shadow he casts across the ground.

Ignoring his approach, the gunslinger continues to hold you still.

“Yeah,” he replies simply, “A lot worse.”

Squeezing your lips into a tight, anxious pout, you swallow, unnerved by the way his gaze instantly dips to watch your throat bob around the undulating motion.

Gradually, you lower your head, losing the defiance of a jutting chin to instead tuck it timidly away against your chest, consumed by the sudden and unwarranted ideas that start to flash in your mind’s eye, showing you gruesome fates that could await you just around the corner.

If two gigantic maniacs wielding guns and a sword aren’t the worst you could face…

Just what the Hell have you walked into?

Regarding you closely for a few more moments, Strife eventually gives his head a satisfied bob, deeming that you’ve read him loud and clear.

Gingerly, he starts to peel his fingers from your dress, wincing when the gaps in his gauntlets pinch the delicate fabric as he returns his hands to his sides. Regardless, all of his muscles remain bunched, ready to spring into action at the first sign that you might go back on your word and attempt to flee after all.

He’s almost more caught off guard when you don’t move.

Instead, you murmur a soft, “Thank you,” which just about smacks the jaw clean off his face. Staring down at you, his lips parted by a fraction, he watches you fiddle with a jewelled band of gold sitting at the base of one of your fingers for several seconds before he remembers to blink.

Indifferent, and admittedly ignorant of his sudden bout of silence, you try to distract yourself by absently brushing the palms of your hands over your dress, tutting softly at the creases and rumples in the tulle.

It’s all you can think to do now that you’ve got a little freedom back.

Nearby, War shifts his immense weight to stand even closer to Strife’s flank, and together, the brothers share a sidelong glance before returning their attention to the fussy, little human in front of them.

Even with the helm obscuring most of Strife’s angular features, War only needs to take one glance at his profile to catch the distinct and unmistakable gleam of fascination bleeding through the cracks in his armour.

Typical Strife, he scoffs to himself. The minute something new and shiny comes along, it’s all he seems to be able to think about. And there are very few things newer and shinier than a lost human dressed from head to toe in sparkling, white garb.

Hauling his eyes up towards the cavernous ceiling, War lets out an exasperated sigh and brusquely elbows Strife aside, sweeping him backwards with the palm of his prosthetic gauntlet, much to his brother’s belligerence.

“Hey!” he barks, though he goes entirely ignored.

Stepping sideways into the spot Strife had once occupied, War places his back to the smaller Nephilim and clears his throat, curious at the way you quickly stiffen like a prey animal and gradually lift your head.

He stands so close that you have to tip it all the way back before you’re even able to meet his eye, reminding him of how much smaller humans are. Smaller, and weaker…

The colossal Horseman almost can’t quite believe that for a member of a species so vulnerable, you don’t seem to possess any weapons. Natural or otherwise.

His eyes drift down to the long, pink line he’d marked you with. You hadn’t tried to claw or bite or do much of anything to stop him, not that it would have made an iota of difference. You were helpless… And he…

A pair of snowy white brows twitch microscopically inwards.

“Do you know how to fight?” he utters at last, lifting his gaze to meet your otherworldly stare. He doesn’t miss how you seem to be fixated on something behind his crimson hood, and if he has to hazard a guess, you’re staring directly at Chaoseater’s hilt.

Pulling a face, you look back at him and croak, “I… I-I’m sorry?”

Briefly wondering why in the nine Hells you’re apologising, he presses, “Have you any weapons training?” When all he receives it a blank stare, he casts his mind about for something primitive you’ll have heard of and adds, “Swords? Axes…? Bows?”

“Guns?” Strife eagerly pipes up from somewhere behind him.

Heaving an irritated sigh, War half turns his head over a shoulder and snaps, “She is a human. She doesn’t know what guns are.”

“I… What?” you peep, wrenched from your stupor by the absurdity of his declaration, “Uh… Yes, I do.”

Bemused, War raises his brow at you and retorts, “No, you do not.”

For a moment, you’re so dumbstruck by his apparent ignorance that you forget how much larger and more dangerous he is, enough that you pluck up the gall to scoff at him and insist, “Uh. I’m pretty sure I do? Humans have been using guns for centuries.”

Raising your hands, you start to knock a list off your fingers, unaware of the behemoth’s eyes growing wide.

“Shotguns, rifles, pistols-“ you state, pausing to throw a hand out and gesture at the guns in Strife’s leather holsters.  “Revolvers-!”

You’re unprepared for War to suddenly move forwards, instantly cutting off your rambling list and sending your glimmer of nerve scurrying back down your throat as he leans towards you, filling your field of view with his indomitable, ferocious scowl.

On a reflex, you tilt backwards with a hand on your chest, blinking owlishly up into the depths of his hood.

“How could you possibly know about firearms?” he demands, the sigil on his forehead burning with fiery heat as his temper flares.

Shaking your head rapidly, you stammer out, “I.. I don’t, I’m not-“

“-Hey,” Strife tries to interject, “C’mon, War. You’re scarin’ her.”

Disregarding his brother, the Horseman raises his voice and growls, “Who has been supplying you?! Speak!”

Your hands wring together as you try to form an answer, struggling in the face of someone who has proven they have no qualms about hurting you. But all you can produce is another pitiable whimper. “Nobody! We just-“

Before you can utter another sound, a large, silver hand suddenly appears over War’s shoulder, grabbing the metal pauldron that’s been forged in the likeness of a snarling face and tugging him away from you.

“War!” Strife barks, trying to wrench his brother around to face him, “I said back off.”

Savagely tearing his arm out of his grasp, War rounds on him, nostrils flaring like a raging bull. Flinging his arm out towards you indicatively, he bellows, “If humans are being supplied with weapons-!”

“-Then why’re you takin’ it out on her, and not the asshole trying to arm her species?”

War’s teeth click shut, his shoulders heaving with every breath he pulls into his train carriage chest.

Letting out a sigh, Strife sends a sideways glance at you, lowering his voice to add, “Come on. Look at who you’re trying to intimidate.”

Begrudgingly, War follows his brother’s line of sight.

You’re well aware you aren’t exactly giving humanity a good name right now, shivering like a wet leaf and holding your injured arm guardedly against your chest, all the while stifling a sob and eyeing War as if he’ll draw his sword and run you through at any moment.

For several, terrible seconds, the Horseman’s sneer remains locked in place, rigid and threatening, but as he watches you cower away from him, something in War’s almighty resolve shudders…

And yields.

Slowly, at a pace that would make a glacier yawn, his hard snarl recedes.

“See,” Strife points out, “You just look like a dick.”

The furious expression is back on War’s face in the blink of an eye, but at least this time, he aims it at his brother, opening his mouth to suck down a sharp breath, ready to berate him…

Rocks skitter across the ground somewhere too close for comfort, snatching the attention of your unlikely troop.

As one unit, Strife and War spin towards the far end of the chamber where the noise had come from, reaching for their weapons and placing their broad, armoured backs to you.

It would be the perfect opportunity to make a break for it, if you weren’t frozen solid by the prospect of running into whatever made these juggernauts so jumpy.

The former Horseman draws both of his guns from their holsters so quickly, your eyes can barely keep track of the movement. War, in the meantime, takes a gigantic step backwards as he swings his accursed sword over his shoulder, crowding you into a clumsy retreat to avoid having your toes stepped on.

Frantic, you try to peer through the gap between the titans, scanning the chamber walls for any sign of life.

What the hell was that?” you can’t help but whisper-shout, hardly daring to breathe.

Neither of them replies for a time, not even Strife, who has his revolvers aimed out at the room, his arms still as statues as if he isn’t even vaguely affected by the weight of his guns.

Seconds tick by at an agonising pace, and the three of you wait, and wait, straining your ears to try and pick up another sound. But aside from the crackle of lava cooling as it hits the air, everything remains perfectly still and silent once more.  

After another minute, War grunts, lowering his sword and casting a dark look up at the ceiling. “We’ve lingered here for too long,” he remarks, half turning to peer down at you again, his eyes skimming over you from head to toe.

“So,” he starts, “You’ve handled guns?”

Shaking your head, you hold your hands out helplessly and say, “No, I mean, I know about them, but I-I’ve never actually shot one.”

I could teach you,” Strife pipes up, thrusting the revolvers back into their holsters with casual ease.

“Now is hardly the time, brother,” War snaps, still eyeing you pensively.

Something very strange has been hovering about you like a miasma ever since you crashed into his brother in the Void. Something unplaceable that he can’t quite put his finger on. You are human, that much is confirmed, but you’re not like any human he’s ever heard of. It’s a troubling notion, that some unseen force might be trying to arm your species. If that’s the case, they’ll need to figure out who. Then why.

But in the meantime, he and Strife have a job to do, here and now.

First thing’s first…

“… Never handled a weapon,” he murmurs aloud.

It makes sense, he concedes. Humans aren’t a war-faring species, so it’s little wonder that you don’t know how to use weapons… For War, however, a Nephilim who has been holding a blade since the day he was risen from dust, the concept seems so alien, not to mention disconcerting.

Inclining his head, he gives you another once-over before turning away, stating matter-of-factly, “You will be a liability.”

It’s such a blasé statement, accusing, as if you’re culpable of something you’ve had no control over thus far. It actually makes you recoil as you draw your head back to fix him with an incredulous frown, lips parted, and your brows furrowed heavily above your eyes.

Despite every fibre of your being telling you that there’s a terrible idea forming at the back of your mind, you take a step away, lean your weight on your heel, and start to size him up.

Now, you’ve picked some battles before, tried to stand up to people you had no business standing up to. Cain and Delilah nipped that streak in the bud back when you thought asserting your opinion on matters of marriage should make a difference. Those battles were wildly different from this one, and you lost, every time, worn down and beaten back from the woman you used to be by wills stronger and more tempered than yours. You used to think you could face the world bravely, and all it took were a few people to show you that you weren’t as strong as you liked to think you were. It humbled you, and over time, you learned an easier life was synonymous with a passive life.

But you’ve been passive a lot lately.

Maybe you’ve been running on cold feet for too long. Maybe this whole, nightmarish interruption to your routine is finally catching up to you and numbing you to sense and logic, but truth be told?

You really don’t like hearing that this is somehow your fault.

Balling your hands into fists, you swallow thickly, and steady yourself with a noisy breath, wondering if this will be the moment you get to learn if there’s a Heaven as well as a Hell.

“Hey! I didn’t ask you to bring me with you, okay?” you say in a wobbly voice, staring at a spot just past his left arm to avoid his glare lest your words fail you completely, “Maybe, if I’m such a liability, you should just leave me to find my own way home!”

His head snaps properly in your direction with such velocity, you let out a gasp, flinching backwards and shrinking in on yourself again, your eyes darting to his lips that curl just the slightest in one corner, and the little bit of gall sitting on your tongue shrivels up and dies at the back of your throat.

Oh well. It was nice to have your guts back while it lasted. Just a pity they’re probably about to get ripped out of you for raising your voice.

For a number of unpleasant seconds, War merely regards you like you’ve just completely thrown him for a loop, neither raising his sword nor his fist to send you spinning off your mortal coil into the aether.

Finally, just as you’re beginning to fidget under his inspection, he quirks his brow at you and slowly states, “If you leave… you will die.”

You were expecting him to lose his temper again, to shout you down or put you down, not remark on your chances of survival.

“Oh, as if you give a shit about that,” you huff guardedly, curling a palm over your marred forearm and eyeing the Horseman like he’ll tear you in half for daring to call attention to the injury he caused.

War’s stance and expression don’t change in the slightest. He only continues to observe you coolly from inside his hood, ignoring the frequent looks Strife keeps flicking between the pair of you.

After a further spell of silence in which you seem to grow impossibly smaller, he at last gives an appraising hum and straightens his shoulders, jerking his head towards his brother and declaring, “You will stay close to Strife.”

Wait… You will?

“I will?” you say aloud, sending the other Horseman a distrustful glance. Strife, for his part, looks conversely pleased with the verdict, his head tipping coltishly to one side as he gives you a little wave.

… Well, you suppose if you have to choose between the two, the less time you spend near War the better. You assume he feels the same about having to be close to you, at least until he adds, “If we run into trouble, his guns allow him range. He will not let anything to get close to you.”

“They’re welcome to try,” his brother says cheerfully, thumbing the stock of a revolver.

Wilting like a helpless flower plucked from its patch of earth, you weakly ask, “Do I have a choice?”

Giving a hearty chuckle, Strife takes an exaggerated step closer to your side and pivots on his heel to face the same direction, cheerfully replying, “Ah, c’mon. Don’t be like that. I thought you humans were social. Safety in numbers, and all that?”

Disconcerted by his proximity, you lean away from him, cupping your elbows. “That’s not true for all of us,” you mumble.

You hear his intake of breath and prepare yourself for yet more inane chatter, but at that moment, you jump as another howl – distant but hair-raising – comes drifting into the chamber from some unknown offshoot deeper in the keep’s depths.

Fucking hell,” you quake, your voice shaking like glass on the verge of shattering.

At your side, Strife mutters, “My sentiments exactly.”

Raising his head to catch War’s eye, he swings his chin towards the only visible exit; the apex of a wide, stone staircase that winds down away from the chamber, disappearing into a tunnel below. “You wanna take point?”

War’s response is a rich, throaty hum, accompanied by a decisive nod. “Indeed, we have wasted more than enough time here. Let us find Vulgrim’s troubling demon and pry the artifact from its cold, dead hands.”

“Ohho-okay!” Strife grins, suddenly gleeful as he claps his hands together, “Now you’re getting me excited.”

Rolling his eyes, War turns away and makes for the stairs, swinging his arm up to clip Chaoseater into its usual place on his back. Blankly watching him leave, you give a start when something metal and solid nudges at the small of your back, prodding you to stumble forwards awkwardly until Strife’s knuckles drop and he falls into step beside you, one stride for every two and a half of yours.

 “I love it when he gets like this,” he remarks.

 Begrudgingly, you resign yourself to trail after his brother and ask, “What? Murderous?”

“Oh yeah. Even he can be fun.” Tilting his head to the side in thought, he adds, “On occasion.”

Sweat has been steadily gathering on your forehead, and as you finally begin to move, a tiny droplet breaks free of your brow and trickles slowly down the side of your face. Of all the days to get swept up in a Universe-spanning caper, it would be the day you elected to wear one of the most awkward and cumbersome dresses known to man.

“So far none of this has been fun,” you huff, reaching up to flick the sweat drop away with a finger.

Strife’s boots hit the top step and he twists his helm sideways to shoot you a mock-offended smirk, “Not even me?”

You don’t bother to respond to that, instead throwing nervous glances around the room as you lift the front of your skirts and start to descend the staircase, your heels clacking noisily against the hard stone underfoot and echoing off the high walls. Somewhere nearby, you can hear liquid lava squeaking and splintering as it hits the marginally cooler air, though the heat only seems to grow more stifling the further you venture.

Absently, you wonder if you remembered to put your setting spray in the bag.

The staircase spirals down into the depths of a tunnel, twisting out of view and giving you no concept of what might lay ahead. To your left, you note the presence of tall, metal spikes jutting from a pit that runs alongside the stairs, like a wrought-iron fence whose purpose has been retrofitted into an inefficient and hostile railing. From the corner of an eye, you spot something round and ivory impaled halfway down one of those spikes. A single glimpse is all you need before you immediately avert your gaze to the stairs ahead, heart thumping in your chest. Behind you, a pair of dark, unseeing eye sockets seem to sear into your back as you continue your descent.

As you move lower, more signs start to appear that you aren’t the only visitors to this keep. Sconces line the wall, roaring with open flames that cast the path ahead in an orange glow. Two, iron firepits stand on either side of the staircase at its base, and it’s here that War has paused. It strikes you that in spite of his size, he’s slightly more camouflaged in this place than he was in the void, his scarlet cloak and dark grey armour blending well with the rock and heat around him.

As you and Strife come to a stop behind War, you lean sideways and find yourself peering tentatively into the space beyond his bulk.

The tunnel has opened up into another spacious chamber, and the path beyond the stairs has opened up too, into a vast, circular area with no walls or boundaries, nothing but another deep pit that sweeps around it, carrying a river of flowing, basaltic lava to somewhere further into the - as Strife had called it -‘dungeon.’

Maybe you really are in some kind of volcano. The urge to find a way out of here increases dramatically, but with Strife watching your back a little too closely and War cutting off an escape from the front, your options, at the moment, are quite limited.

At last, War takes a step out onto the level ground, then another and another, stalking forwards with his head on a constant swivel, vigilant. Strife, in the meantime, walks out with a confident swagger, ensuring to walk slightly behind you to keep you moving up in front.

Tearing your eyes off the pit, you focus instead on the behemoth stomping ahead of you. He’s already on the other side by the time you and Strife make it halfway across. For a split second, you almost let yourself feel a pinch of guilt for wearing such inappropriate shoes and slowing the Horsemen down, but you’re just as quick to take the feeling and grind it up under said heels, curling your lip distastefully. You weren’t exactly given a chance to pack for this ‘excursion.’

“Y’know,” Strife says abruptly, breaking you from your thoughts, and just in time too. You glance down and see the lip of the platform’s edge rise up to meet you. It likely would have tripped you if you’d remained lost in your head. “I’ve been thinking…”

“Death will be pleased to hear it,” War remarks from up ahead.

The back of his hood receives a simmering glare, but Strife is quick to brush the dig aside and continue, “If Lucifer is as dangerous as the Council says he is, why’d they send just the two of us?”

If the uneven ground didn’t manage to trip you up, his comment definitely does. Stumbling on the heel of your foot, you hurriedly try to right yourself, swatting irritably at Strife’s hand that reaches out to steady you. There’s that name again. Lucifer. Would it be naïve of you to hope that their ‘mission’ doesn’t somehow involve the Biblical Devil? You’ve managed to survive for the better part of an hour, but you don’t like how the odds are quickly stacking up against you with every step you take.

“Death and Fury attend to other matters,” War responds simply, “It is not our place to question the will of the Council.”

Apparently unable to let his brother’s earlier tease slide after all, Strife rolls his eyes and quips, “It’s not my place to question your wardrobe, but I still think your armour could use some more creepy faces on it.”

You’re not sure how much you like trailing in between the sizeable men, especially when the more sizeable of the two slows his gait to aim a vicious snarl over his shoulder. “Must everything be a joke to you?” War snaps, “The Council-!”

“-Ugh!” Cutting his brother off with a pompous groan, Strife throws his helm back. “You really need to lighten up.” Then, lowering his voice to a deeper pitch, apparently for the sole purpose of mocking the far scarier Horseman, he taunts, “The Council this, and The Council that! You wanna hear an actual joke?”

Facing forwards again, War responds with a firm, flat, “No.”

Strife, of course, doesn’t seem to have the same reservations as you do about antagonising someone with the name ‘War.’

In fact, you carry yourself so rigidly in fear of being caught in the middle of a scrap that you almost have the wind knocked out of you quite literally when Strife chimes in with a phrase so familiar to you, you just about choke on your own spit.

“Knock knock…”

The classic setup, so universally understood that you almost wonder if humans are born with an inbuilt recognition system designed to identify two simple, unassuming words.

The three of you pass beneath an open portcullis, but you barely notice the jagged bars of iron looming above you because you’re so busy trying to pick your jaw up off the ground.

You can’t see Strife’s face, and you don’t dare turn around to gape at him in case you end up taking a painful tumble. Instead, numbly, you continue to stare ahead with unblinking eyes, vaguely taking in the narrow path ahead of you, and the apparent end of it fast approaching.

War makes a dismissive sound, an irked mutter of something too low for you to make out.

Clearing his throat when he doesn’t receive a response, Strife prompts, “You’re supposed to say, ‘who’s there?”

You can’t quite believe you’re hearing this. Perhaps the idea that you’ve been drugged isn’t so unlikely after all because this isn’t something you could ever come up with sober.

Ahead of you, the stone pathway falls away in an abrupt drop, and the ceiling of the tunnel disappears, both opening out into yet another cavern, this one more spacious than the first two.

Or, you continue to muse to yourself, maybe you really did die in that church graveyard, and the chemicals released in your brain have conjured a hallucination of this pair of giants to serve as some unconvincing reapers who will guide you into the afterlife.

War comes to a stop at the edge of the escarpment, and unseen by you or Strife, his expression scrunches up in confusion and he asks, “Why would I give away my location? I would simply smash through the door and face my assailant.”

Oh. Wow. That’s…

“Ugh, you’re hopeless,” Strife complains as he draws to a halt just behind you and his brother on the rocky ledge. For a second, he’s distracted with casting his keen eye over the chamber, so he doesn’t notice you lower your face to the floor, your lips pursed like you’re trying to keep a cough in.

He does, however, notice straight away when, instead of escaping through your mouth, the sound you’re desperately trying to hold in finds its escape through your nose instead, and out jumps a sharp, unbecoming ‘snort!

It’s unexpected. So much so that you’re just as surprised to hear it as the Horsemen. At once, you slap a palm over the lower half of your face in horror, a cold rush of dread trickling down into your stomach.

Eyes blown wide open, you stare at the ground, only too aware of the heavy silence that settles over you like a blanket, thicker than the heat pressing in all around you. You’re not even willing to raise your head because you can feel two sets of eyes watching you from above.

For too long, all you can hear is the ringing in your ears and your own pulse throbbing just beneath the skin of your temples. The silence swells, tuning up like an orchestra, deafening you to every sound save for that accursed, high-pitched ringing caused by the crushing grit of your teeth.

“Did…?” Strife’s voice cuts through the atmosphere like a headsman’s axe, “Did you just… laugh?”

Your jaw eases apart, and the ringing fades.

The telltale ‘clunk’ of War’s boots alert you to him turning from the ledge, pointing himself in your direction instead.

Suddenly and appropriately alarmed that you just snorted at someone nearly three times your size, you instantly shift from freeze to flight and throw your head up, only to find yourself blinking apprehensively into War’s face, etched with his signature frown.

“I-I wasn’t laughing at you,” you rush out, backing away from the scowling Horseman a little too far and ending up colliding right into Strife’s torso.

With a tiny yelp, you leap forwards again, tossing glances back and forth between them whilst they continue to stare you down. “It’s just-! I haven’t heard a knock-knock joke in so long, it… It just surprised me.”

A pause ensues, and then quietly – eagerly – Strife asks, “You know what knock-knock jokes are?”

Wondering why that’s his first question, you offer him a timid nod. And then you’re immediately flinching away from him when he barks out an abrupt, disbelieving laugh and straightens up, his chest swelling proudly.

“No kidding. Y’know, not to brag,” he brags, jabbing a thumb into his sternum, “But I practically invented knock-knock jokes.”

Well, who are you to argue with the man carrying two guns? “O-oh?”

“Brother,” War complains, “We do not have time for your-“

“-Here! Here, try this one,” Strife rushes out, leaning towards you a little too fast for your liking, “Knock knock.”

You start to get the impression he’s been waiting for an opportunity like this to come along for quite some time. Sparing his brother a nervous glance, you wet your lips and tentatively indulge him, “Uh, okay, who’s there?”

Taking a breath as if he means to brace himself, Strife says, “The interrupting War.”

Oh… Oh, for God’s sake...

You try to steady the muscles in your cheeks, sending another wary look over at the juggernaut clenching his fists by the ledge.

Still, with Strife waiting for an answer, you slowly and dutifully sigh, “The interrupting War wh-“

You knew it was coming. You knew the gist of the punchline if not the punchline itself, but you’re still wholly unprepared when Strife cuts you off by crossing his arms over his chest and letting out a loud, resounding growl.

 “Grr! The Council~!”

Squeezing your eyes shut, you immediately purse your lips, your cheeks aching with the effort of keeping a straight face. You wonder if this is the start of another emotional breakdown because the joke isn’t even particularly funny, but there’s just a familiarity to the formula that almost comes as a welcome relief, like Earth isn’t so far away after all.

A brother teasing his sibling… There’s something almost human about it, abating just the tiniest modicum of terror bubbling away inside your stomach.

Clearing your throat, you keep your lips puckered and inhale deeply through your nostrils in an attempt to compose yourself. Perhaps its Strife’s enthusiasm that lends itself to the humour of the situation, or perhaps it’s simply the absurdity of such a large and formidable brute doing something as innocuous as telling you a knock-knock joke at the expense of his brother, but whatever the case may be, when you open your mouth to tell him it wasn’t that funny, your lips spring up at their corners, contradicting you immediately.

“Think it needs some work,” you say, your voice wobbling.

Needs work?” he parrots, his own mouth quirking into a grin as he clocks your expression, “Then why are you smiling?”

It takes no small amount of effort to wrestle your face back under control. “I’m not smiling,” you insist, “That isn’t how humans smile.”

Strife, naturally, isn’t fooled at all.

“Ah ha! It is! She’s smiling!” he gloats, jabbing his thumbs at his own mask, “I’m funny! And you-!” Swivelling his head up to War, he pokes a finger at his brother’s face and declares, “You were wrong.”

You make the mistake of glimpsing underneath the stoic Horseman’s hood, wincing when you find him sporting an expression of absolute thunder. He glowers down at you as if to say, ‘Now look at what you’ve started.

Outwardly, he flattens his brows and exhales slowly through his nose, “Yes, you must be very proud that you’ve found the one, sole creature in the Universe who finds you almost as funny as you find yourself.”

Flapping a hand dismissively at his brother’s words, Strife blows a snort through his lips and tuts, “Ah, you’re just jealous she likes me better.”

You decide not to chime in with the fact that you don’t, in fact, particularly like either of them.

Besides, if War is at all concerned with his new ranking, he certainly doesn’t bother to let you know.

“If you are quite finished cheapening our reputation…” he growls, whirling away from Strife and stepping up to the very edge of the platform.

“Oh, I haven’t even gotten started.”

Before you can protest, the masked Horseman lays a hand on your back and nudges you forwards until you’re standing next to his brother, then takes up his own lookout on the escarpment to your left.

Snugly sandwiched between them, you squash your arms into your sides, grimacing at the sharp angles of their armour that threaten to snag your dress as you try to shuffle backwards, but you don’t manage to retreat further than a few inches before you happen to cast a cursory look out at the view ahead and promptly freeze in your tracks.

Eyes bulging, your jaw falls open and you let out a soft, incredulous breath, your brain racing to take stock of what it’s seeing.

“Oh god.”

The path ends abruptly, falling away just a few paces from the toes of your shoes. And waiting beyond the precipice is a rock-walled cavern of absolutely phenomenal scale, far larger than those you’ve already come through. At its centre, rising from a chasm down below, there’s a rocky platform large enough to fit your house within its dimensions several times over. From what you can see, there isn’t any conceivable way to cross over to it, save for sprouting wings and flying. You’re not even confident you could pitch a tennis ball across the gap and have it land on the other side.

Scalding heat prickles your brow, and when you glance down to see where it stems from, you give an audible gasp as you look past the toes of your shoes and over the pathway’s crumbling edge.

Far, far below you, a stomach-churning drop lays in wait.

Thirty… forty-something feet of shimmering air is all that stands between you and a vast lake of red-hot lava.

“Hey, look down there,” Strife’s voice twitches your ear.

At your side, he raises an arm to point at the platform and says, “See that grate?”

With no small effort, you wrench your eyes off the pit of death and lift it to the level of raised stone, blinking your eyes hard to moisten them again after staring at the lava.

At once, you spot what he’s indicating.

Right at the centre of the platform, set into the stone floor itself, is a large, circular grate, vaguely reminiscent of the bars of a prison cell.

From the darkness below it, you can just make out a faint, pink glow seeping through the metal gridiron.

War answers his brother with a hum that vibrates in your chest.

“What’d you think?” Strife prods, “Reckon that’s where they’ve stashed Vulgrim’s artefact?”

Studying it for a few seconds, War eventually nods. “Something is definitely down there…” he murmurs, “No doubt that grate is heavily fortified.”

Shooting him a sly look, the smaller Horseman adds, “Shouldn’t be too much of a problem for you to pick the lock though, right?”

It’s disconcerting to see War with any expression other than a scowl, so to witness him return a smirk over the top of your head sends a veritable shiver right up your spine.

Lifting his arms, he slams his fist into the palm of his gauntlet with a resounding ‘thwack.’

Amused, Strife turns to thrust his chin at the gut-wrenching gap between the path you’re standing on and the edge of the central platform.

“What about that? Think you can make that jump?”

“J-jump!?” you blurt out, whipping your head up to stare at him like he’s lost his mind.

Hell, maybe he has.

Briefly, War’s eyes flit down to you before he returns his gaze to his fellow Horseman, scoffing, “Is that a serious question?”

And without another word, he begins taking several steps backwards, away from the ledge.

“Wait,” you sputter, shooting him an incredulous look as he continues to back up along the path, “You’re not really going to-“

You don’t even get to finish your sentence.

Before you can blink, War pushes off on his back foot and lurches forwards, his boots pounding against the stone hard enough to send powerful quakes all along the path as he charges straight for the edge.

You think you let out an alarmed yelp, but there’s not much else you can do except helplessly gawk as the Horseman, laden down by his heavy, clanking armour, plants his boot centimetres from the crumbling edge of the path and unceremoniously launches himself, his sword, and all of his bulk off solid ground, soaring out over the lava-drowned chasm below.

With a comically loud gasp, you slap your palms over your eyes, yet you can’t resist peeking through splayed fingers to watch.

Why the Hell would he do that!? There’s no way he’ll make it, you tell yourself, not with all that weight dragging him down.

You wanted to get away from him, yes but… shit. You didn’t want him to get himself killed doing it!

It’s as if you’re staring at a runaway train, waiting in morbid fascination for it to derail. Something in the nature of a disaster unfolding keeps you rooted to the spot, unable to tear your attention away from it.  

There’s power and grace in the way War sails over the gap, an impossible feat, further than any Olympic gold medallist would ever hope to achieve. And then, to your utmost astonishment, he makes it.

Metal boots hit the stone platform with an almighty ‘clang’ on the other side, and he dips his knees as he lands to absorb the impact.

You’re almost certain you can see the whole structure quiver from the force.

For several moments, you merely stand there with your mouth hanging ajar whilst War rises to his full height again and turns around, tipping his face up to see you staring back at him, your eyes wide with unconcealed awe.

“How. The fuck…?” you say emphatically, blowing out a disbelieving little whistle. You might not trust the man, but even you can appreciate a good stunt when you see one. Giving your head a shake, you briefly forget you’re supposed to be their kidnappee and gush, “That was incredible!”

Your voice carries easily across the sizeable gap and reaches the Horseman’s ears, erasing the hard line between his brows. Taken aback, War blinks, pressing his lips together bashfully in lieu of a response. ‘Perhaps it was rather impressive,’ he privately concedes, ‘from a human’s perspective…

Back on the escarpment, Strife’s keen gaze makes out the befuddled expression warping his brother’s typically impassive face, and he sends several glances between you and War, pursing his lips at the glimmer lighting up your eyes.

“Oh yeah?” he huffs, “You think that was impressive?”

A loud clap rings out across the cavern, causing you to jump as Strife smacks his palms together. “Okay, little miss,” he announces behind you, “Your turn.”

Just like that, the colour promptly drains from your face. “My what?”

You don’t have time to spin around and face him, for not a second later, a powerful arm scoops your legs out from underneath you whilst the other snakes around the back of your shoulders, hauling you clean off the floor and pressing you to a hard, armoured chest.

“Oh for-! Stop grabbing me!” you complain, planting your hands on his clavicle and shoving yourself away as best you can, “Are you insane!? I am not jumping over that!”

Cocking his helm at you, he spares you an innocent blink. “You’re not?”

You don’t like how much levity is lacing his tone.

“NO!” you squawk, aghast, “Absolutely not! Let me go!”

One of the Horseman’s eyes narrows to squint at you before he angles his helm very pointedly towards the platform. “You sure?”

Something about his question gives you pause.

Hesitating, you snap your head in the same direction and follow his line of sight. It doesn’t take you more than a second to glean the bastard’s intent.

Now you really don’t like the way he’s looking at you, his upturned eyelids the clearest indication that he’s smiling quite broadly underneath his visor.

Your stomach gives an unpleasant lurch.

“Oh, if you dare…” you hiss.

Daringly, he raises his sizeable shoulders in a shrug and chirps, “Lesson one; Don’t ever dare a Horseman, kid. You’re always bound to lose.”

He wouldn’t…

Flashing you a golden wink, Strife turns his body sideways and swings you to the right, like a rugby player readying a forward pass.

It finally occurs to you that, oh, good god, he would.

“Wait-! WA-WAIT! STRIFE!” Issuing a high-pitched, wordless scream, you start to flail, but his ironclad grip on your legs and shoulders keeps you from launching yourself out of his arms.

Somewhere across the chasm, War’s voice drifts up to you, though you hardly hear it above your undignified shrieks. “Brother?”

The muscles around you bunch up, solidifying as hard as the stone underfoot.

“See you on the other side!” is all the cheery warning you get.

Don’t you DA---AAAAARRRGGHHH!”

He’s moving before you can think to adhere yourself to his arm.

Sidestepping into a purposeful bound, the Horseman flings his arms to the left, with you in tow, and when they get to the zenith of his reach, they disappear out from under you, letting you go hurtling spine first out over the chasm like a screaming, thrashing blimp, dress and all.

You have several phobias that you were aware of before you fell into this godforsaken place. Phobias that, for the most part, have been quite avoidable in your day-to-day life.

Finding yourself suspended in the air over a pit without a safety net underneath you… add some lava to break your fall, and you suddenly realise as you’re flying through empty space that you’ve just discovered an entirely new phobia to add to the list.

Sailing in a none-too graceful arch, you stare in disbelief back at the silver Horseman on the ledge, your dress billows out behind you and the scorching air whips your veil over your face, tugging at your hair where the grips are heroically keeping it situated. Likewise, some subconscious part of you instructs your toes to grip like vices on the insoles of your heels, valiantly trying to stop them from plummeting off your feet.

Inevitably, as is the case with the laws of physics, you reach the height of your curve, and that’s when gravity seizes you by the heart and starts to drag you back down, sending your stomach crashing up into your diaphragm.

Time seems to slow as you descend, reaching back for Strife as if he could somehow stretch across the gap and catch you. You can’t see behind yourself, and it’s all you can do to hope that you pass out on the way down, so you don’t have to feel your body melt into a puddle in the hungry maw of the lava below.

It hurts your chest something fierce to think that the last anyone will see of you is your terror-stricken face and your raised hand closing into a fist, bar one choicely extended finger.

The hot wind screams past your ears and you screw your eyes shut tight, squeezing out the last tears you’re ever going to cry. Your father’s face flashes in your mind’s eye, and you wonder what you did to set off this chain of events.

Strife said he wouldn’t hurt you…

What a joke.

‘WHAM!’

Your mouth jerks open, wheezing out a gasp as something suddenly slams into you from behind, knocking the air violently from your lungs. Or rather, you crash into something with the force of a white, ruffled meteorite and nearly lose your heart through your open mouth.

At first, you assume you must have smacked into the hard side of the platform, but then the Something you’ve collided with grunts, and you hurriedly wrench your eyes open, coming to focus on a monstrous, metal gauntlet that’s secured itself under your knees, crushing your dress between prodigious fingers whilst something equally large presses across your shoulder blades.

With a kick in the guts, you realise you’re being held aloft in much the same way Strife had been holding you mere moments ago.

He caught you… War caught you.

Finally, you remember to gulp in a noisy breath to refill your desperate lungs.

You’re not dead.

But you are, in fact, shaking.

And as the revelation that you’re still alive sets in, your limbs start to wobble in earnest.

“STRIFE!” You visibly flinch when War’s terrible, wonderful, abrasive, beautiful voice booms like a claxon right above your head. “You fool!”

Even through layers of solid metal and leather padding, the Horseman can feel you trembling under his palms. Propping your neck in the crook of his elbow, he lifts his head to level a snarl up at where Strife still stands on the escarpment whilst you unclench your fists from your lap, heaving air in and out of your lungs in hysterical little bursts.

“What were you thinking!?” he bellows.

Leaning over the side to look down at you and your unwitting saviour, Strife throws his arms out wide and argues, “She said to let her go!”

“You knew what she meant!” A deep thrum rolls around in his chest, spreading up his throat and spilling out in another growl so deep it rattles the teeth in your skull. “You could have damaged her!”

“Oh relax, I wouldn’t have tossed her if I didn’t think you’d catch her.”

War slides his lips back to reveal his inhumanly sharp canines, but at that moment, something tugs very lightly at the fabric of his cowl.

Faltering, he angles his chin down and nearly gives a start.

Tiny hands have wandered towards him, found the scarlet material hanging from around his neck and latched onto it with possessive intent, fingers twisting themselves into his cowl and getting lost amongst the folds, as if you fully expect him to toss you over the side as well. The strange, white veneer lays draped across your face, so he can’t see your expression when you unexpectedly twist about in his arms and pull yourself a little closer to his chest.

Caught off guard, War remains stock-still, seriously contemplating whether or not he should drop you right then and there to spare himself from Strife’s potential teasing.

His bulging arms give a twitch, which in turn causes you to cringe, letting out a quiet bleat and further entangling your fingers around his cowl.

This, War decides, was not in the job description when the Charred Council made him a Horseman. Still, whatever he might think of you, he can’t bring himself to drop you in a heap on the ground.

For once, he might be out of his depth.

As soon as the notion occurs to him, he brusquely flicks it away with a toss of his head.

Taking a large step back, he slowly ambles himself about until he’s facing away from Strife and the platform’s edge, then stomps several paces towards the central grate, only stopping once he hears the loud clang of metallic boots hitting the stone behind him as his fellow Horseman leaps to the lower level.

Gingerly, almost as though he expects you to shatter if he moves too quickly, War bends down until he’s almost on a knee and starts to withdraw the arm that’s wrapped around your legs, a stoic frown tugging his brows towards the centre of his forehead when you refuse to let go of his hood.

Grumbling, he lowers you until your shoes click on the stone floor, and then he slips his hand out from under your knees, moving it up and taking both of your wrists between his gauntlet’s fingertips and thumb, mindful of the delicate limbs he’s handling.

He can still recall how you’d nearly crumpled to your knees when he got a little heavy handed trying to apply the poultice to your arm. He truly thought he had been correct in gauging the pressure he needed to apply to your flesh to draw blood. He’d only meant to take a little. Just enough to prove the validity of your claim. What an idea that had turned out to be. If War were being honest with himself, he’d been outright startled when your skin peeled open so readily to admit Chaoseater’s blade.

So, if he’s a little more careful in prying your hands off his cowl than he ought to be, well, that’s his own business.

It doesn’t take much coaxing before you seem to come back into yourself.

With a sudden jolt, you wrench your hands away from his hood and start to struggle valiantly with the veil on your face, flipping it back over your head and choking on a sob as your knees start to buckle.

Planting both of his palms on your shoulders, War hauls you upright again.

“Steady,” he murmurs as if he’s addressing a wounded soldier, not a frightened human, “On your feet.”

The sound of clanking boots drifts closer, approaching from his rear.

War bristles, but he’s not the only one who heard Strife’s footsteps.

“You okay, kid?” the gunslinger’s voice drifts over to you, and War watches your jaw cinch shut, the hands at your sides curling into fists as you attempt to stop them from shaking.

Whirling around, you tear yourself from the Horseman’s gauntlets, your dress twirling gracefully around your ankles to find Strife standing a few paces behind you, paused halfway between one step and the next.

Blurting out a delirious laugh, you shoot him a bloodshot stare, half tempted to rip your bag off and lob it at his head.

“Am I okay?!” you echo, “Have you completely lost your mind!?”

Peering down at you appraisingly, War makes a sound that might be affirming, and even his brother lifts a hand to tilt it back and forth in a ‘so-so’ motion.

Breathing hard, you resist the urge to scream and instead lower your head, massaging at your throbbing temples.

Slowly, through gritted teeth, you seethe, “I am trapped… inside a volcano… with two of the scariest people I’ve ever met…”

Strife shares a look with War, the former’s frame wilting as if he’s put out, while the latter, by contrast, almost seems proud of the achievement.

I,” you continue, a humourless grin straining at your lips, “Just found out that demons exist! I also found out that Lucifer is apparently real…! It is my fucking wedding day!” Vitriol drips from your teeth like venom, and with each passing word, your voice grows louder and louder. “And! I just got chucked! Like a…  like a fucking pigskin over a river! Of LAVA!”

All around you, the cavern echoes with the throes of your furious shout, bouncing off the rock walls and coming back to you ten times over before it fades into an uneasy silence.

Lungs heaving with the effort of raising your voice, you stop to breathe, finding, to your dismay, that tears are spilling onto your cheeks, only to start evaporating on your skin in the smouldering heat.

Clearing your throat, you sweep a few fingertips delicately beneath your eyes and wipe away the lingering evidence of moisture cutting tracks through your blusher. “So, no,” you sniffle, “For your information, I am not o-fucking-kay… I think I’m about as far from okay as it gets.”

It’s almost satisfying that the gung-ho Horseman can in fact be made to shut up.

Fidgeting idly with the gauntlet on his left hand, Strife shoots several glances at War, but finds no source of assistance in his fellow Nephilim’s cold, critical glare.

“Uh,” he starts, clenching his hands into fists and opening them again, “I mean… it was kind of funny, right?” He lets out a chuckle that falls painfully flat. “You should’ve seen your face.”

Your jaw begins to ache from grinding your teeth together like you’re trying to crush coal into diamonds.

Knock-knock jokes are funny,” you say stiffly, turning away from him to scowl at the ground, “People don’t get hurt.”

Draping a hand over his hip, Strife lowers his voice and asks, “Come on, you really thought I’d let you get hurt?”

“OF COURSE I DID!” you suddenly bellow so loudly your voice cracks, “You threw me over a lava pit!”

“War caught you, didn’t he?”

“What if he hadn’t!?”

Strife doesn’t even hesitate before he offers his palms to the ceiling and says, “Then I wouldn’t’ve done it.”

“Why the hell would you-!? Why even take the risk!?”

“There never was any risk,” he shrugs far too nonchalantly, sending his brother a knowing look, “Besides, this is a good thing, right? Now you know you can trust War to keep you alive.”

Pulling a face, you allow a spiteful scoff to burst out of your mouth, arms folding sternly across your chest. “Oh, so that was all so you could prove some point to me, was it? Jesus, what is wrong with you?!”

“Now there’s a door best left unopened,” War chimes in.

At last recognising that there’s some, invisible line he’s crossed, Strife holds his hands up placatingly. “Look,” he concedes, scratching at the back of his head and disturbing the thick spines of ebony hair growing behind his helm, “After what happened back in the Void, I just thought, if we proved we could keep you safe, you’d… maybe start to trust us a little more, y’know?”

You have to take a moment to stare at him, waiting for his words to sink in for you, and hopefully for him as well. “So… you thought you’d show me you can keep me safe by… launching me over a lava pit, and expecting me to know your brother would catch me?”

The Horseman doesn’t speak for several seconds. When he eventually does, he crosses his arms over his chest and huffs, “I mean, if you’re only gonna focus on the first part, sure the plan had holes.”

“Well,” you say haughtily, “No offence, but I trust you two about as far as I could throw you. Which, you’ll be shocked to hear, isn’t very far at all. And unlike you-“ Here, you jab a finger up at his silver visor. “- I’m not strong enough to go around throwing people off the edge of cliffs!”

Once again, Strife remains silent, rapping his fingertips on a metal bicep. Soon enough however, he lowers his head and peers up at you from beneath the lip of his helm’s sockets, prodding, “It was a pretty good throw though, huh?”

“It was a very good throw!” you agree sharply, blowing out a rough exhale as your heartbeat finally begins to ease off the throttle, “Neither of you even had a run up. You two are like something straight out of a comic book… Except without the charisma… and altruism...”

“Comic…?” War asks, frowning, “Then… you are amused?”

“No, not comic like-…” You inhale. You exhale. “Never mind. Weren’t you guys supposed to be looking for something?”

Just like that, the pair of titans straighten up with a start, and you wonder if their ‘mission’ really had slipped their minds for a while.

Rolling his shoulders back, War just grumbles something inaudible and begins moving purposefully towards the grate.

You stand back to let him pass, chewing thoughtfully on your bottom lip as you mull over what you’re about to say.

“Hey, big guy?”

At once, War stops and swivels his head sideways, silver hair spilling out from underneath his hood.

Shuffling awkwardly on your feet, you avoid the pale, unblinking eye that’s trained on your face and mumble, “Thanks…. For catching me.”

You won’t thank him for healing your arm when he was the one who cut it in the first place. But this? You can swallow your grudge for this. At least for a little while.

Several seconds tick by without a response, and the only sound you can hear is the heavy clanking of boots on stone as Strife ventures up behind you.

And then at last, War’s head falls and rises in an almost imperceptible nod.

When he turns away, you suddenly feel like you can breathe again.

How can one man be so intimidating just by standing still and saying nothing?

You’ve already deduced that the two Horsemen are like chalk and cheese, with one half of the duo serving as the strong, silent type, and the other, a smart-mouthed chatterbox.

… Speaking of whom.

Just as you start to trail after War towards the centre of the platform, an enormous shape sidles up next to you, easily keeping pace with your diminutive gait.

“Hey…” Strife tries, actually sounding hesitant for a change, “Knock-knock.”

Ah. There it is.

“Strife…” His name still sounds foreign on your tongue. “I’m… look, I’m not in the mood, okay?”

“…”

Scoffing quietly, you give your head a defeated shake and sigh, “Fine… Who’s there?”

“Eyes wear.”

Okay?

“…Eyes wear who?” you venture, hesitant.

Swivelling his helm towards you, Strife bends his neck down, chasing after your face even as you try to ignore him by staring straight ahead.

“Eyes wear to… never throw you across any more chasms,” he offers, tipping his helm upright again, “Lava filled or otherwise. How’s that sound?”

Your lips quiver. “Wow,” you drawl, “I think that was even worse than the last one.”

“Oh yeah?” he replies coyly, “Then why’re you smiling?”

You jerk to a halt mid stride, taking stock of your expression.

Damnit. You are smiling.

You’re a little too slow to force the corners of your lips back down into a straight line, and of course, Strife sees it, tipping his chin back to peer at you triumphantly. You may not be able to see his mouth beneath the visor but judging by the upturned curve of his golden eyes, you just know the smug son of a bitch is grinning from ear to ear.

“I was not smiling,” you insist.

Quick as a whip, he retorts, “Well now you’re lying.”

Stuffing your teeth into your bottom lip, you kick yourself into gear and speed up, marching up to where War has stopped by the grate. “I am not lying, I’m leaving.”

The Horseman’s chuckle haunts you all the way across the platform.

Chapter 5: First Blood

Chapter Text

“What is this place anyway?”

Standing at the edge of the iron bars that stretch like rot-black teeth across the platform's surface, War raises his head at your question, letting his eyes roam sideways to cast a surreptitious once-over of the human hovering anxiously just a few paces to his left.

Skin that he now knows is thin as a sheet of parchment glistens with sweat, and your strange, expressive eyes flit about the cavern on a constant search for danger. You certainly are a jumpy little thing, the Horseman decides, regarding the soft, pink tongue that darts out to wet your lips for the umpteenth time. Not that his brother's reckless stunt helped much.

“If…” Your voice trails off and your body turns stiff as Strife brushes past you to circle the grate, his helm tipped down at the light glowing under the bars.

Once he’s moved beyond your immediate vicinity however, your limbs slacken by a notable margin, something that doesn’t go unseen by War, who doubts it slips his brother’s attention either.

“If it’s a dungeon… then, where are the guards?” you finish, eyeing the emptiness with new sense of unease. Then again, perhaps guards weren't deemed necessary here, what with the open space, the towering ceiling of rock bearing down on your head and the inescapable moat of lava surrounding the platform with no conceivable way off. Those factors alone might be adequate to deter any unwanted trespassers. They sure as hell would have deterred you if you weren't bullied here by two Horsemen who wouldn't take no for an answer.

With a gentle clinking of his bandolier, Strife comes to a halt on the opposite side of the iron bars and returns his full attention to you, studying you briefly before he starts to swivel his head about, copying your inspection of the chamber.

“Mm… That was starting to cross my mind as well,” he admits, shooting a blink-and-you-miss-it glance at his brother. He knows his fellow Horseman’s frosty glare well enough to recognise that War had been thinking along the very same lines.

Good. So they’re both on edge.

Truthfully though, neither of them were expecting you to notice. You’re more observant than War was prepared to give you credit for, at least.

“Plenty of space for a fight,” Strife points out. And with that thought now at the forefront of his mind, he starts to sidle back around the edge of the grate as inconspicuously as he can, none-too subtly drawing closer to you whilst pretending – poorly – that he isn’t moving in your general direction.

Somehow, War’s brows knit together even more firmly across his forehead.

For a Horseman who was, only minutes ago, very blasé about your safety, Strife certainly seems concerned about the distance between you now.

Unimpressed by his brother’s odd behaviour and borderline boyish curiosity regarding a human, War simply brushes it from his mind and instead lowers his chin to gauge the sturdiness of the grate. It looks, in a word, durable. Probably even unbreakable… For anyone other than the Red Rider.

The softly glowing light that emanates from within comes from nothing more than a small, pink crystal, floating in the gloom of its subterranean cell just near enough to the top of the grate that he could simply reach in and slide it through the bars. He could… if his gauntlets weren’t twice the width of the gaps.

A quick glance confirms that even Strife’s hands wouldn’t fit.

Fine. Brute force was always more their style anyway.

Flexing his metal fists, War starts to bend down, reaching out and wrapping his metal fingers around two of the bars, muscles clenched, ready to test their strength.

But no sooner has he secured a grip against the solid iron than a distant, but very unbidden sound floats over the gurgle of lava and drifts into his well-attuned ears, faint, but audible enough to serve as the forewarning he’s been expecting ever since he, his brother and their unwilling tagalong arrived.

Flinching, you jerk back a step as War suddenly and without preamble wrenches himself upright and twists towards you until he’s sending a rock-ribbed glare right over the top of your head, his steely eyes trained on the far side of the platform.

In an instant, Strife has followed his brother’s lead, turning his armoured back to you and straining his own ears to hear anything above the lava murmuring its course through the mountain.

“What’s the problem?” he asks, stepping backwards until his heels nearly tread on the hem of your dress, prompting an indignant noise from you that goes ignored, “Heard somethin’?”

His question remains unanswered for several, terrible beats, during which your pulse makes a steady rise from thumping to jackhammering.

At last, War narrows his eyes and grumbles, “Perhaps…”

He doesn’t mention that he’s been hearing things ever since you all set foot in this accursed keep, nor how suspicious it is that in travelling through the halls and chambers, there hasn’t been a single glimpse of another life.

Nostrils flaring, he grunts to catch his brother’s attention and adds, “Keep your guard up. Demons have eyes and ears everywhere.”

Strife wasn’t wrong when he noted that there’s plenty of space in here for a fight…

There’s plenty of space for an ambush too.

Demons!?” you squeak, kneading the chain strap of your bag between white-knuckled fists, “You mean there’s more?”

“Yeah kid. A lot more. Whole Hell of a lot.” Strife spares a chuckle at his own joke, doing little to assuage your trepidation.

For a second, as War watches you toss his brother an exasperated look, you nearly manage to appear half as unimpressed as he does, something the giant admittedly takes a bit of vindication in.

“Stick to knock-knock jokes,” you suggest, swallowing thickly and eyeing the ledges, “They’re funnier.”

You know something is wrong – very, very wrong – when Strife suddenly has nothing witty or inflammatory to say in response.

With a gulp, you try leaning sideways to see past the armour-clad Horseman, more than a little perturbed that they’re both aiming a narrow glare in the same direction, both of their shoulders locked back like rearing vipers.

Just as you start to get the sinking feeling that you’re missing something extremely vital, a resounding growl suddenly spills out of War’s boxcar of a chest right behind your ear, forcing his lips up over his teeth and just about scaring the living daylights out of you. Whipping your head over a shoulder, you find him standing barely a foot from your back, near enough that his armoured chest takes up the entirety of your view.

How the Hell had he moved so close without you hearing it?

You wrench your mouth open to ask why the Hell he thinks making loud, unexpected noises is necessary when you’re already wound up tighter than a miser’s purse, but before you can utter a single syllable, War’s unconventional noises become the least of your worries.

From out of absolutely nowhere, the entire cavern explodes into a dreadful cacophony of chitters, high-pitched snarls and yips that send you ducking your head instinctively, tossing it back and forth with wild abandon to try and pinpoint the source of the sounds.

“What the Hell!?” you bleat, alarmed that you struggle to hear your own voice. Somewhere below the awful orchestration, the platform shudders, and a new noise emerges, the scrabbling of numerous claws frenetically fighting for purchase on a sheer rock-face.

“Ah, there it is,” Strife’s muffled voice cuts through to you over the ruckus, “Bout time the welcoming committee arrived.”

“What!?” you blurt, feeling for all the world like a record stuck on repeat, “What is that!? What’s going on!?”

Neither Horseman responds, which, you suppose, doesn’t much matter, given the answer helpfully reveals itself to you just moments later.

Louder and louder, closer and closer, the jaw-clenching clamour closes in on you from all sides of the platform until finally, just as you raise your hands to press them over your ears… the cavern is plunged into a shocking and unexpected silence. And your heart just about drops out of the bottom of your shoes.

Everything remains in a state of inertia. Nothing moves. The Horsemen don’t seem to waver an inch, even with their hands poised statuesquely on the hilts of their respective weapons. And you don’t move a muscle either. Even the breath stays trapped in your lungs, turning hot and stagnant as the seconds crawl by.

War and Strife stand on either side of you, each facing the far end of the platform.

Squinting around latter of the two, you train your eyes at the distant drop off, both trying and dreading to see what they’ve seen.

And then, slightly to the left, something hauls itself up and over the ledge.

You can’t help yourself. You wish you could stay as stoic and unaffected as the bristling giants, but you’re just too human, too fraught and unprepared, and your nerves are too shot to clench down on the muscles of your throat and stop the startled exclamation from bursting out of you.

WHAT THE FUCK!?”

Strife and War visibly jump at your outburst.

Standing before you on the edge of the platform, supported by two stumpy legs, is a creature plucked straight from the pages of a horror novella. Eyes of the same liquid fire that churns far below you leer out of their sunken sockets, luminous against dark, charcoal scales. You stare back at it agog, reminded first and foremost of some fanged, hairless ape with arms too long to suit its rotund little body, and a torso that feeds directly into an oversized chin, completely forgoing any semblance of a neck.

Despite its diminutive stature putting it at least a foot shorter than you, the beast sports a jaw large and wide enough to fit your entire head between fangs that jut from blackened gums like crooked stalagmites.

You think you might just pass out. Hopefully you’ll wake up when this is all over.

Through the gaps of its scaly underbelly, a burning light spews forth, orange and red and scalding like the glow in its bulging eyes. It’s mouth cranks open, and at the back of its throat, that same light seems to emanate from somewhere deep down inside its guts, as if the thing has just swallowed a bellyful of lava.

“Holy shit,” you croak, ungluing your tongue from the roof of your mouth.

Despite your hushed tone, the thing’s ragged ears twitch towards you and it lowers its head – and half its body – to jeer across the platform at you, arms splayed wide, and claws extended in threat. And then, as if you weren’t already on the verge of losing your mind, the damn thing laughs.

At least you think it laughs.

The sound that gurgles from the back of its glowing throat reminds you more of tyres on a gravel driveway.

“What in the name of god is that thing?” you whisper, secretly glad that there’s a wall of living armour standing between you and it.

“An imp,” Strife replies darkly, “And if there’s one thing you gotta know about imps-“

“-There’s never just one,” War finishes in a snarl.

As if that’s just the cue they’ve been waiting for, the cavern comes alive once more as the caterwauling starts up again, and all around you, to your left, right and even to your rear, a surging horde of those same, stocky beasts come scrambling over the lip of the platform.

Using meaty fists tipped with claws, they heave their robust bodies up, growling and chirping in excitement, their too-large fangs protruding from exposed, glistening gums.

In a perfectly rational manner, you let out a spineless shriek and whirl yourself around to face those hovering behind you, your heels clacking noisily on the stone underfoot. “Holy shit, they’re everywhere!” you gasp, so fixated on the ‘imps’ that you’ve all but backed up into the front of War’s bulwark of a leg without even realising it.

In the span of a few seconds, you find yourself utterly surrounded on all sides by a dozen… no, two dozen of the little beasts. Maybe more.

Unseen by you, War and Strife share a quick but meaningful look over the top of your head.

In a moment of clarity that often precedes their numerous battles, an understanding passes between the apocalyptic beings, a unified acknowledgement conveyed in the shadows lining War’s stone-like features and Strife’s hard, determined stare.

Your small, helpless shape huddling against a leg nearly as tall as yourself, is enough to spark a blaze in both their chests.

Together, without a word passing from one to the other, the Horsemen suddenly spring into action.

You nearly topple over backwards when the leg you’d been pressed against abruptly disappears as War spins on his heel and places his spine to you, mirroring his brother’s stance. Chaoseater’s dark blade glints in the firelight as it swings in a wide arch from the Horseman’s back, over his shoulder and finally out in front of him, held at the ready in one, powerful gauntlet.

At the same time, Strife’s revolvers are out of their holsters faster than you can blink.

Hauling them up, he levels his sights at the imps and takes a slow, measured step backwards, then another, glowering menacingly as he all but corrals you into the meagre space between their armoured legs.

You’d probably be more concerned about having a pair of Horsemen bearing down on you like this if your attention hadn’t been snagged by another figure looming out of the darkness of the pathway you’d just been thrown down from.

In swiftly mounting horror, you lift your eyes to track the newcomer as it draws closer to the precipice.

You might not have even noticed it amongst the rabble of demons clamouring at the edges of the platform. After all, you’re currently surrounded on all sides by two dozen snarling, chittering beasts, what’s one more card on the table?

But the newcomer has one, unignorable facet that distinguishes it immediately from the imps…

… It has to stand over ten feet tall.

All the moisture dries up on your tongue, and you realise with a punch to the gut that neither of the Horsemen have yet noticed the figure looking down on you from above.

The shadowed escarpment grants you no clues as to its immediate features. But the sheer size… the implied weight that sends loose pieces of stone tumbling from the bottom of the overhang and out of sight as the creature clomps heavily up to the edge…

It cuts a broad silhouette. Wider than a car. Wider than a bus. And taller than Strife and War combined.

Uh, guys?” you whisper hoarsely, your lungs as dry and empty as a dead lakebed.

The colossal shape crouches, and whatever hope you might have had at getting out of this in one piece is shattered like glass on a marble floor.

With a physics defying kick of tree-trunk legs, it jumps.

War and Strife turn their heads just in time to witness the sinister figure leap from the edge of the overhang, hurtle across the space the Horsemen – and you – had just cleared, and land with a resounding ‘boom!’ on the platform with enough force to send shockwaves rippling outwards through the solid stone underfoot.

You’re almost shaken right out of your heels by the impact, barely sparing yourself a tumble by grabbing the edge of War’s steel faulds and hauling yourself upright again, not even budging the Horsemen an inch. If he cares at all, he doesn’t react, and you could almost believe your strength is so insignificant to him that he didn’t even feel you use him as leverage at all.

Straining your neck back, you take your first proper look at the beast that just threw itself down here with you…. And then you nearly collapse all over again.

You thought it looked big up on the escarpment, but seeing it now a mere dozen feet or so in front of you, you couldn’t have underestimated its size more dreadfully if you’d tried.

“This isn’t happening,” you ramble to yourself, eyes bulging in their sockets as you tip your head back to take in the gruesome sight towering over you, “Please God, tell me this isn’t happening.”

Not that you really believe a god had any hand in making this scary son of a bitch.

The monstrous creature walks like a man, upright and bipedal, with swollen, musclebound arms and a small head perched upon its neck. But there, the differences diverge. Dull, leathery scales the colour of rust shine under the firelight, entirely hairless like the imps. Its immense bulk is supported by strong, digitigrade legs that bend inhumanly at the knees and ankle, carrying it forwards as it tromps noisily across the stone towards you.

Roving your stare up the length of its body, you audibly gulp at the sight of two, inverse wings protruding from somewhere between its robust shoulder blades, a layer of bulging fat stretched between the bones like a membrane to evoke the twisted image of a gargantuan, oversized bat.

From the top of its skull, a pair of horns sweep forwards in threat, black as charcoal and pointed at their tips.

Perfect for impaling or goring, you note with a swirl of dread.

But perhaps worst of all, more-so than the bear-trap jaws and the honest-to-god Morningstar fused to the end of a powerful tail, is the weapon it carries in one of its meaty fists that makes War’s sword seem comically small in comparison.

It looks like some sort of club. Albeit one made entirely of metal, with spikes protruding from rotating cylinders that churn mechanically as the beast spins them idly with its free hand, showing off a nauseating array of skulls engraved in the surface.

Well, if you weren’t dead before, you soon will be.

As if the demon weren’t already unconquerable enough, everything above its rotund waist is protected by a layer of medieval, grey armour, which begs the question; What could possibly be out here that would prompt a beast like this to wear armour?

You’d wondered the same about War and Strife when you took a moment to consider them properly.

There’s always a bigger fish…

And if there is a merciful god in this ever-expanding universe, you can only pray to it that the fish don’t come any bigger than this.

You can’t tear your eyes off the demon – for a demon it must be - not even as War takes a deliberate and unexpected step in front of you, obscuring you from its sight, but leaving your flank exposed. The doesn’t stop you from peeking around his side of course, quaking with each of its footfalls as you gape up at those crushing teeth.

Imps scatter left and right as their apparent champion tromps a path through their ranks, defying any to get caught underfoot.

Then, with its armour clanking and its bulbous tail swinging lazily from side to side, the beast lumbers to a halt, nostrils flared with interest.

Suddenly, that massive, terrible jaw falls open and –

“Horsemen.”

A voice as deep as Earth’s molten core booms out of the demon’s throat, buzzing through your chest and spreading from the tips of your fingers to the soles of your feet.

Honestly, you hadn’t expected it to be able to talk…

At your side, Strife shifts his weight, muttering a foreign, gruff word under his breath, his eyes narrowed so thinly, they only permit a crack of golden light to shine through. His guns remain poised at some of the imps, but you’ve no doubt they could easily be redirected at the slightest provocation.

“I’m glad you decided to drop by,” the monster continues, its booming voice rivalling War’s for volume, low and rough as if it’s spent a lifetime gargling rocks, “My pets were starting to get hungry.”

On cue, the imps perk up with gleeful snaps of their teeth, eyeing you greedily between the bridling Horsemen.

Breathing out a quiet whimper, you’re so entrenched in staring at the larger creature that you don’t even register War squaring his stance, sliding one of his legs back to cover your exposed flank.

“Oh yeah, they look real famished,” Strife drawls, his eyes sweeping the room continuously, “Bet I can guess what’s on the menu…”

Gnashing his teeth impatiently, War brandishes his sword and raises his voice to issue a thunderous command. “Give us the artifact, demon! Or I shall be the one feeding you and your pets to my blade!”

In his hand, Chaoseater thrums eagerly in anticipation.

Meanwhile, still trying to swallow your heart, you don’t dare speak, petrified that you might draw attention to yourself, but even so, there still exists the smallest part of you that vies to apply some sort of order to this circumstance, an explanation or – Hell – just a plain old escape plan. You’re not in the know here, you’re completely out of your depth. You realise, with some ironic twist of fate, that you have little choice now but to trust these two, unpredictable Horsemen, because in a situation that spans entire universes beyond your understanding, you have to look to them to know what comes next.

Peeling your tongue off the roof of your mouth, you manage to squeak out a thin, reedy, “What… what do we do?”

At the sound of your voice, Strife’s helm twists ever so slightly over his shoulder to send you a fleeting glance, only to immediately do a double take, his scowl lifting as he catches a glimpse of your haggard face and glistening lashes.

Creator... Did you always look that small?

“…Hey,” he utters, his voice a note gentler in addressing you, “Just sit tight, Sweetheart. We’ll take care of this.”

Startled by the unexpected softness, your eyes snap sideways, blinking desperately up into his.

You want to believe him, so, so badly. Because if they can’t fend off these demons, then you haven’t got an ice-cube’s chance in Hell of getting back to your father, or Earth at all, for that matter.

But even you can see how awfully the odds are stacked against you.

Not only are the Horsemen outnumbered, but they’re also outsized, outgunned, and outmatched in every conceivable way. All of this, you convey in your pinched brows and clenched teeth, practically broadcasting your doubt to Strife, who meets it with his own gaze, steady and fearless, everything you’re not.

You still don’t understand why he and his brother dragged you here, nor why they’d bother to keep you alive.

Who are you to them?

Who are humans to them?

“Oh…?” That dreadful, rumbling cadence utters, drawing Strife’s furious glare back into place once more as the demon inhales deeply through its nostrils, exhaling sparks of fire. “That smell…”

You see the Horsemen physically tense around you. War’s shoulders nearly double in size as if he’s making a concerted effort to appear larger than he is, and a reverberating growl vibrates the heart thrashing behind your ribcage.

Whipping forwards again, you dare to poke your head a little further out past War’s faulds, only to immediately lose the colour in your face, regretting your decision the moment it’s too late to withdraw it.

Your eyes have locked with the cold, jaundiced stare of the demon.

Trapped by the hypnotic allure of something that had, until now, been completely unknowable to you, you watch as it peels its black lips aside to unsheathe the extent of its jagged, gleaming fangs, spilling orange light from the back of its throat. “Ah,” it breathes, exhaling insidious satisfaction, “I see you’ve brought me an appetiser.”

Where your heart had been lodged in your throat, suddenly it plummets into your stomach again, sinking with a heavy stone of dread. You let out a gasp, only to have your choked exclamation drowned out by Strife’s sharp retort.

“Hey!” he yells, pulling the demon’s gaze away from you.

Snarling, it twitches its head in his direction, fangs bared in threat.

Undeterred, the Horseman lets out a throaty noise of his own and growls, “How about you pick on someone your own size?”

While you’re somewhat taken aback by his interference, you don’t really think you need to point out that neither he, nor his brother are anywhere near the size this demon boasts.

Apparently, it agrees with you.

Throwing its head back, it lets out a raucous, bone-chilling laugh, its fleshy chin wobbling with the force. “I will pick you from my teeth, Horsemen!” it chortles, lowering its head to flash a bestial grin, “And when I’m done with you, I’ll wash the taste of your flesh down with this tender morsel’s blood!”

The crimson and grey bulwark in front of you draws himself up, proverbial hackles rising with his boiling temper. The reverberation that spills from his chest is as inhuman as he is. 

Legs like jelly beneath your hips, you unconsciously reach out and grasp for the back of War’s faulds again, steadying yourself on the cumbersome armour.

Sucking a breath in through his teeth, Strife pretends to be pensive for all of a second as he bounces one of his revolvers and responds, “Ah. No. Sorry, big guy, but that’s not really gonna work for us. Y’see my brother and I-“ He notches his head sideways at War. “-Just agreed to keep an eye on the human, so it’s gonna make us look real bad if you go and kill her now.”

If War wasn’t so busy taking stock of the battle ground, he’d spare just a few seconds to slap a palm to his forehead.

All around you, the excitable chatter falls silent and still as each and every pair of demonic eyes swivel around to look directly at you.

The juggernaut’s crooked jaw twitches. “Did you say… human?”

A heavy weight seems to drape itself over the platform, bearing down on your head until the blood screams through your ears.

“Uhm…” Strife falters, his eyes darting from left to right until he at last lets out an eloquent, “Shit.”

Just as you start to wonder – again – why your humanity is such a point of interest, without warning, the demon hoists its weapon into one hand and aims the end of its bludgeon at you.

“KILL THE HORSEMEN!” it bellows at the top of its lungs, shaking the stalactites that dangle from the ceiling, “But leave the human to me.”

In response, the imps start to howl and bay like dogs on the hunt, slamming their fleshy fists against their chests whilst the demon turns its fetid gaze down to you once more, and you can’t do anything but watch on in horror as a thick, fat tongue slides out from behind its lips and sweeps across crooked fangs, leaving a trail of drool trickling down its chin. “I want to have the first taste.”

A pitiful noise falls out of your mouth, but once again, it’s swallowed by the sharp ‘click’ of Strife cocking the hammers back on his guns.

“Over my dead body,” he spits, then raises his voice and calls out to War, “You wanna take the big one!?”

Grunting in affirmation, the larger Horseman gives a roll of his almighty shoulders and huffs, “Gladly. It seems more fitting.”

“Why?” Strife quips, sending a sly grin at his brother, “Cause he’s mean and ugly?”

Curling his lip, War snarls at the smaller demons as they begin to rush forwards as one shrieking horde, ushered by the trumpeting of their master. “Yes, and you can take the imps,” he retorts, ramping up his volume as he breaks into a slow, forward charge that rips your hand from his faulds, building momentum with each, pounding footstep, “They’re loud and bothersome!”

Unleashing its most primal roar yet, the demon lurches into motion seconds later, following the weight of its head and horns as it lumbers towards a frontal collision with War, who meets its challenge with a battle cry so fierce, you wonder how it doesn’t rip the flesh from his throat.

“He can’t fight that thing!” you exclaim, incredulous. As much as you don’t like the surly giant, you’re not exactly vying to see him flattened by one swing of the demon’s fist. He might be your ticket out of here, after all. And if he goes down, there’s no way Strife could take on every demon in here and keep you alive.

You’re suddenly broken from your fretting when a towering, silver silhouette steps in front of you, filling War’s vacated spot with another wall of gleaming battle armour.

“Don’t worry about War,” Strife calls down to you over his shoulder, taking aim at two imps who have broken away from the ranks in the vain hopes of getting to you first, “He’s a professional, he does this all the time.”

You find it hard to imagine any profession where charging headfirst at a colossal demon is considered the norm, but then there are a lot of things about this world that fly straight over your head.

Around the edge of Strife’s armour, you can see the imps scurrying closer, and every synapse of your brain suddenly jolts, sending a shot of adrenaline down through your blood vessels, waking up your overwrought muscles and telling you to take flight.

That, of course, is when the first bullet is fired.

Instinctively, you yelp and duck your head as a veritable explosion sounds out across the chamber, amplified by the high ceiling and hard surroundings. Somewhere up ahead, an imp’s beady little eyes roll back into its skull, and it crumples to the floor, sporting a clean hole straight through the centre of its forehead.

“Holy shit,” you breathe aloud, privately impressed. But you hope he has more than one round in the chamber because there are a lot of –

BANG!’

Again, you flinch, while Strife’s arm barely jerks as another round erupts from one of the guns, this time finding its mark through an imp’s eyeball. Blood explodes out the back of its head, and your stomach lurches, forcing you to retreat behind Strife’s back again lest you start dry heaving all over the floor.

Swinging your gaze around, you blurt out a sudden shriek, thoughtlessly plastering your spine to the Horseman’s backside and slapping frantically at his leg, screeching, “Behind you!”

With a grunt of surprise, Strife flicks a look over his shoulder and sees the other half of the impish army swiftly closing in from the rear.

A second passes, the briefest interval in which he’s struck by the humbling realisation that you’re sticking close to a Nephilim for safety.

And then suddenly, Strife comes alive.

Deft fingers flex rapidly against the triggers of Mercy and Redemption as he sweeps them in a wide, graceful arc, squeezing round after round out through their chambers and into the heads of the oncoming horde. Vibrating with glee, Strife lets his muscles do the work. They remember the motions. He revels in the familiar buzz of tingling nerves and the roar of gunfire thrumming in his ears.

There isn’t even a second between one shot and the next. His torso twists lithely despite all of his armour to shoot over your head, taking out a line of imps in the span of a few seconds. It’s like shooting fish in a barrel. The demons don’t even pause to take stock of their dead, too confident that their sheer numbers will be enough to overwhelm the Horsemen. They simply clamber over the one that falls in front and continue, salivating, mad with blood lust.

It’s almost too easy.

Strife tips his head back, yawning obnoxiously as he whips Mercy towards an imp that’s made it just a bit too close to the human for his liking. A blast to its gut is powerful enough to send it flying back into some of its brethren, knocking them off their stubby feet.

Yes, he’s big enough to admit that he might be showing off, just a little, but with the eyes of a fabled human on him, Strife can hardly help himself.

He has to resist the urge to glance down and check that you’re watching.

Unbeknownst to the Horseman however, you’re not so much impressed by the display as you are downright horrified. Mouth hanging ajar, you forget to breathe as you watch Strife move. Precise twitches of his arms and wrists bring another target into the firing line, minute adjustments that happen too quickly and too numerously for you to keep track of.

You remember watching some old Westerns with your father when you were very small, gathered in his favourite armchair to witness the skill of Hollywood actors who posed as gunslingers and desperados, each claiming to be the ‘quickest draw in the West.’ You used to believe you were seeing the best of the best, back before you grew older and learned that magic can easily be faked by special camera angles and cuts and fine editing.

But even if it was real, even if all those actors and stuntmen were authentic and really could shoot a man’s dime out of the air blindfolded with one hand tied behind their back, they wouldn’t have held a candle to the skill you’re witnessing first hand.

Calm as an old oak tree and with the grace and power of a machine, Strife stands fast against the braying swarm, never missing his mark, never stopping to reload, never even flinching from the recoil.

In what has to be under ten seconds, Strife has thinned two dozen imps down to the last four, leaving scores of small, rotund bodies dotted around the chamber. The survivors don’t even slow as they reach him. You brace yourself, still cowering in the Horseman’s shadow as the imps launch themselves at you, their claws outstretched and unsheathed ready to slash, to fight.

… Only to end up having their skulls caved in by a bullet before they can even come close to scratching you or the Horseman’s armour, too stupid to break ranks and try to come at him from different angles. But even if they’d tried flanking him, you doubt they’d have had much more luck.

It’s over before it ever truly began.

The last of the imps drops dead to the floor, its forward momentum sending it skidding to a halt on the stony ground, inches from the toes of your heels.

 You almost fall over yourself stumbling away from it, cringing at the rivulet of blood that dribbles out between its teeth.

“See?” Strife boasts as he turns himself around to face you, flashing a cocksure grin down at you before he remembers it’s hidden behind his visor. Huh. Disappointing… Heaving a mental shrug, he carries on, “Nothing to it.”

Nothing to it, he says, as if you hadn’t just watched him massacre a small army without so much as a ‘by your leave.’

Strife seems to notice that your face is drawn back in trepidation instead of awe, and his grin falters slightly beneath his helm.

Breathing hard, you gulp past a stone in your throat and peer around the Horseman, jutting your chin at the demon currently trying to crush his brother into pulp.

“Uh, okay, sure - but what about him!?” you sputter.

Turning to look, Strife silently observes War’s attempt at getting in close enough to land a hit on the leathery behemoth. To its credit, the demon is far quicker on its feet that either of them seem to have anticipated.

To your astonishment, Strife lets out an honest-to-goodness chuckle and cups a hand around where you assume his mouth is, calling, “Having trouble, War?! Come on, I just killed like, fifty demons and you’re still on your first!?”

There were nowhere near fifty, and you wonder if he thinks humans don’t know how to count.

Your head cranks around to stare at him, aghast. “Strife!” you exclaim, his name sounding awkward and unnatural on your tongue.

“What?” comes his breezy reply.

Setting aside the fact that he’s probably distracting War, you’re more astounded that he’s just… standing here, cracking jokes whilst his own brother tries to fend off an adversary nearly three times his size.

If it were your father there, fighting on his own… you’d….

“That-!” you splutter, throwing an arm out and gesturing wildly across the platform, “That’s your brother!” Christ alive, how often have they been in these situations that such casual indifference is warranted?

Strife must see the abhorrence etched across your features because he’s quick to change tactics, realising that he isn’t impressing you by acting aloof.

Holding up his hands, still with a revolver clutched in each, he bobs them back and forth at you mollifyingly. “Okay, okay, take it easy,” he acquiesces, “I’m on it.”

Bemused that you’ve taken such a sudden, unexpected turn towards his brother’s safety, Strife spins neatly on his heel, pauses, then twists around once more to level a contrastingly stern glare down at you. You blink at the abrupt change, recoiling slightly as he extends one of his forefingers and points it between your eyes.

“Stay. Here,” he tells you firmly, no trace of a joke in this order.

“But-!”

“Ah!” he interrupts, “No buts! Just stay there and don’t move!”

In response, you lift your hands indicatively and give him a look that screams, ‘where the hell would I move to?’

Satisfied, the Horseman nods once, and then he’s off, jogging briskly across platform towards the pair of titans battling it out.

Another of the demon’s blows misses War, striking the ground where he'd been standing seconds before, and shaking the platform under your feet.

Hovering here, helpless and useless, you bring your hands up to your chest, wringing them over one another, suddenly feeling a lot more vulnerable out in the open sans a Horseman to act as a buffer.

It’s a selfish thing to think, that your first instinct is to see them as a pair of shields against the horrors of this place, but you’re well past pretending to be a selfless person. It’s easy to act heroic when situations that require a hero aren’t foisted upon you. Survival should be paramount for you now.

You won’t leave your father alone on his death bed.

You won’t leave him without saying goodbye.

Stumbling backwards away from the grate at the centre of the platform, you allow your tired feet to carry you as far from the battle as possible, keeping your gaze locked on the Horsemen as you pick your way blindly around the decimated corpses of the imps until at last, you stop, casting a brief glance over your shoulder to find you’re as close to the ledge as you dare to get. On the corner, furthest from the fight, you watch the Horsemen with your stomach twisting itself into anxious knots.

“Need a hand!?” Strife shouts as he skids to a stop near the demon’s flank, raising Mercy and firing off a shot that ricochets off its metal helmet.

The beast’s head jerks forwards before whirling around to roar at its new opponent.

Quick as a whipcrack, Strife fires another two rounds, the twin retorts echoing around the chamber.

Wrenching its head to the side just in time, the demon manages to catch each bullet on its horns instead of its face. They bounce harmlessly off the solid bone, their casings falling to the ground with smoke trailing from the hollow ends.

Letting out a rumbling growl, War uses the momentary distraction to charge for its legs, aiming a lunge at the beast’s exposed belly.

It’s size, however, is deceptive. With just milliseconds to spare, the demon heaves itself backwards, retreating just out of range of the arching blade. In retaliation, it lifts its bludgeon high overhead and glares down at War, sparks flying from its maw when it bellows, bringing the long weapon down on a direct collision course with the Horseman’s skull.

Unseen across the platform, you slap your hands over your eyes, teeth bared in terrified anticipation.

War’s head snaps up to see the weapon rapidly bearing down on him, and merely curls his lip in response, more vexed than alarmed.

Muscles bunching, he suddenly kicks off on his boots and throws his body to the side, rolling over his shoulder and using the momentum to spring to his feet once more, further away from the beast, and not a moment too soon.

WHAM!’

With the force of an asteroid impact, the bludgeon crashes into the hard floor, exerting enough force to crack the rock and send splinters spiderwebbing out from the point of contact.

“Nice move!” Strife praises his brother, only to let out a short bark of shock when the demon swings its tail around towards him as it recovers from the missed blow.

Ducking his head, the huge appendage skims over him, so close that the softer under-scales ruffle the tips of his spiked hair.

“Shit!” he exclaims, eyes tracking the tail when it starts sweeping back towards him, leaving the Horseman with little else to do except throw himself to the ground, stomach first, flattening his body into the hard stone.

Son of a…” Not his most dignified position…

Hopefully you didn’t see that…

Baring his teeth, he braces himself, waiting to feel the air rush past above him, and then, with a grunt, he rolls onto his side and raises the arm that isn’t pressed into the grit, firing several rounds at the underside of its tail.

A deafening howl erupts from the demon’s lungs as his bullets embed themselves into the spongey flesh, drawing forth thick, oily blood that spatters from the wounds and joins the imp blood on the stone slabs.

The demon snorts furiously through its nostrils, slamming the bulbous end of its tail against the ground in a way that promises retribution as it stumbles backwards, putting a little more distance between it and the Horsemen.

Unbeknownst to you and your unorthodox kidnappers, something has finally occurred to the brute.

Maybe it really is on the backfoot here.

It knows these Horsemen. Word travelled fast after the massacre at Eden, of how four Nephilim were able and willing to eradicate the rest of their species…

The demon had, perhaps foolishly, assumed that with only one half of a quartet, it would stand a chance. But one Horseman alone has already proven more of a challenge than it anticipated. The second, the one with the loud mouth, was supposed to be overwhelmed by the imps… Now that the pair of them have entered the fray though…

The demon’s twisted mind chugs into gear, cobbling together a desperate strategy. Its yellow eyes flit from the red-cloaked Horseman to the one toting guns who’s hauling himself to his feet, its nostrils opening wide in agitation.

It draws in a deep, ragged breath…

... And freezes.

Only for a second, mind. Plenty of time to process the scent whilst the Nephilim regroup.

Below the stench of brimstone, below the freshly spilled imp blood seeping into the stone underfoot, it catches that smell once again.

It’s mouth-watering.

Meat made tender by fear.

Forbidden meat. Exotic… Something no demon has ever had the chance to taste.

Its crooked jaws split open in a wide, cruel grin, and all at once, it whips its head around, beady eyes locking fast onto the tiny morsel wrapped in white, standing near the ledge.

There,’ it concludes, zeroing in on its unsuspecting little boon, ‘is how to gain the upper hand.

Strife’s brows snap together when the demon’s entire demeanour shifts.

Picking himself up, he shares a glance with his brother on the beast’s opposite flank.

The Hell is it looking-‘

He connects the dots a few moments too late.

“Strife!” War bellows as the demon heaves its bulk around, away from the Horsemen, and there’s an unbidden hint of urgency in his tone, “The human!”

No,’ Strife mouths silently, looking beyond the demon to find you frozen near the platform’s edge, paralysed with fear.

Then, aloud, in a voice that grows stronger with each word, he growls, “No… No! NO!”

He’s moving before he’s even finished the last word.

Two sets of metal boots slam against the ground as two Horsemen hurl themselves into a breakneck gallop, tearing after their adversary as if a fire has been lit under their heels.

War’s hood topples back off his head, leaving his long, white-blonde hair to whip madly through the air behind him as he sprints, only slightly slower than his brother, whose guns are aimed at the demon’s retreating back.

“LEAVE HER ALONE!” Strife roars, unleashing a maelstrom of bullets that strike the tougher scales on its exposed legs, doing nothing to slow its forward charge.

Neither of them understands why there rises such a ferocious surge of rage at the prospect of the demon threatening their human charge, but regardless of why, War’s sigil scar still blazes hotly in the open air, streaking orange across his forehead, and Strife’s golden eyes burn like sparks off a blacksmith’s forge.

The unspoken agreement that had passed between them earlier, connects them again now.

You haven’t moved from your spot in the corner, hunkered down in a half crouch, half cower with your legs locked in place and a swirling, empty abyss carving a hole straight out of your stomach. Your entire body jumps with each of the demon’s footsteps.

It passes the grate, in long, loping strides, hurtling towards you at a breakneck pace, leaving you no time to gather your wits.

Strife’s little stunt lies forgotten in the past where it happened.

This is how you really die.

‘So much for getting back to dad,’ a small, sardonic voice whispers in the back of your mind.

Behind the demon, War puts on a burst of speed, rocketing past the grate and keeping his eyes locked on you like you've lost your mind.

Why are you just standing there?

For a split second, his priorities shift, and in an unprecedented turn of events, it’s his mission that takes a backseat.

Later, he’ll berate himself for allowing his composure to slip enough that he opens his mouth and aims a harrowing order in your direction.

“HUMAN!”

Your bulging eyes meet his across the platform.

“RUN!”

Run?’ you grimace, effectively shaken from your stupor by the sheer absurdity of his demand, ‘In heels?

But it’s as if that one, deafening order had adequately unglued your legs from solid cement.

War hadn’t told you what will happen if you don’t run but you’re smart enough to parse the consequences for yourself.

Run, or die.

Not fantastic options, but you know for a fact which of the two you like less.

Giving your head a rough shake, you suck down a breath and clumsily gather up the front of your skirts as the demon extends one of its hands towards you.

Like a bullet, you turn to the side and start to run, haring off across the platform and cursing with each step you take in your tottering heels. The tender soles of your feet burn with the pressure of running in them, and you’re half tempted to kick them off in favour of fleeing barefoot, but that would take time. Time you’ve stupidly allowed yourself to run low on.

You can hear the demon bearing down on you like a runaway train, feel its sulphurous breath raging against the back of your neck. Bullets twang off the metal armour, and behind you, Strife hollers something which gets lost under the cruel laugh that erupts from the monster chasing you and reverberates through your chest.

The platform’s opposite corner is rapidly approaching.

Blinking through the sweat clinging to your brow, you pump your legs even harder, thighs already burning as you haul your ungainly dress along after you and will the demon not to tread on the back of it as it trails through the dust in your wake.

Suddenly, just as you come to the corner and start to push off on your right foot to dart left, a rush of air whooshes by, bringing with it thick, meaty fingers and claws that appear in your peripheral vision and reach past you, curling into your path.

You know as soon as they appear that the jig is up.

You’re too late to slam on the brakes.

Regardless, you try to stop yourself anyway, pushing your weight down into the toes of your shoes to come to an awkward, staggering halt. But, thwarted by your own momentum, your weight comes unbalanced, and you totter forwards, throwing your hands up to catch yourself as you topple right into the demon’s waiting palm.

Clammy, rugged fingers snap shut around your waist and legs, and you barely have time to gasp in shock before you’re unceremoniously wrenched off the ground.

Triumphant, the demon digs its heels in and brings itself to a clumsy stop at the edge of the platform, a writhing, whimpering human squeezed viciously beneath its crushing fist.

“Ha!” it barks, whirling to face the Horsemen and bringing its struggling prize up in front of its face.

Collectively, Strife and War come careening to a stop several yards from the demon, the former’s guns shaking with rage as he aims them at the brute’s skull, his fingers stiff on the triggers. He’d been microseconds away from firing when it turned. He hadn’t expected it to raise you up to cover its head, leaving Mercy’s sights trained with terrifying precision right at the sweat-streaked furrow between your brows instead.

There are tears pouring down your cheeks, your blunt nails scrabble uselessly at the closest, scaly knuckle, and something hidden deep down inside Strife’s soul starts to raise its sleepy head.

Grinding his teeth together, he eases his fingers off the triggers and spits a venomous curse, though he doesn’t lower his weapons.

Coward!” War seethes at the demon, Chaoseater humming against his palm, “You would use a human as your shield!?”

With a chortle that raises the hackles of both Horsemen, it bares its fangs into a malicious grin and utters a single, chilling demand. “Lower. Your. Weapons.”

You give up on scraping your nails against its toughened hide and take to thrashing madly in its hold instead, a swathe of distressed grunts and bleats tumbling from your constricting throat. It’s like trying to fight your way out of a concrete coffin. The flesh on its palm is spongey, softer than the rest of the brute, but still inescapable. No matter how hard you try to kick your legs or twist your torso around, the colossal fingers don’t budge an inch.

Not like this!’ a frightened voice screams inside your head, ‘Not like this!

The demon seems content to ignore you. The struggles of its prey are hardly a thing of concern now that it has you in its grasp. Of far greater concern are the two Nephilim bristling like hell hounds with their meal stolen out from under their noses.

Their weapons remain raised, and when neither of them makes a move to do as asked, the demon simply shrugs one massive shoulder and gives its hand a demonstrative flex.

The cry that’s punched out of you breaks apart halfway through, turning into a wet, choked gurgle as your ribs squeeze against your lungs. Head thrown back, your jaw stretches open around a silent plea for mercy.

Strife is the first to react.

It wounds him greatly to do so, but with an effort that physically aches, he lowers his guns until they’re pointed at the ground.

The pressure around your chest loosens by a fraction.

War’s face is set like stone as he glowers up at the demon from underneath his creased eyebrows, white hair cascading around shoulders that heave up and down with unmitigated outrage.

The demon merely raises one of its cragged brow ridges, peering at him, expectant.

“War,” Strife breathes.

His brother’s canines glint wickedly in the light.

Slowly, as if Strife had just asked him to pluck out his own eyes, War begrudgingly allows Chaoseater to drift down, its tip thudding against the stone in front of him.

Another inch of space opens up around you, enough for you to noisily suck down a greedy lungful of air, coughing and spluttering as you try to get your precious breath back.

Above you, the demon’s throaty voice growls over your head like a roll of thunder. “Now… Place your weapons on the ground.”

Collapsed over the demon’s forefinger, you half hear Strife bark, “You put her down first!”

Something shiny glints in the corner of your eye.

Shuddering around each breath you take, you roll your head to the side, mouth ajar, and spot a familiar, silver chain falling over your shoulder. It takes you a second to recognise the significance of it, yet when the realisation hits, it hits hard.

You still have your bag…

“You are in no position to bargain, Horseman,” the demon snarls, lashing its tail aggressively, ignorant of your eyes snapping open and your shivering heart giving a hopeful jump.

You still have your bag!

The tiny, silver lifeline dangles over the side of the demon’s index finger, the chain still hot against your bare neck. It isn’t much. Hell, it’s barely anything.

But right now, it’s the only thing you have to work with.

Suddenly frantic, you stretch your arms out and scrabble for it, grabbing the chain and yanking the whole thing towards you.

Please, please, please!’ repeats in your head like a mantra as you fumble with the clasp and throw open the lid, plunging your hand inside, digging for something – anything – you can use.

You’re just lucky the demon is so focused on the Horsemen that it only equates your sudden liveliness with renewed attempts to free yourself.

“How about a deal?” Strife pipes up, he and his brother equally oblivious to your discovery, “Demons like deals, right?”

In response, its scowl deepens, and it bares its teeth at him, unconvinced.

Undeterred, the Horseman forges ahead. “So how about this. You-“ He points a finger up at the overgrown demon. “-Let the human go… And we-“ Here, he gestures between himself and his brother.
“- promise to kill you nice and quickly. Sound good?”

You don’t even hear the beast’s response, you’re so fixated on the contents of your bag.

Blinking hard to try and clear away the tears on your lashes, you peer down into your bag, shoving aside notes, lipstick, your phone-

Your phone!?

You nearly drop the whole bag in shock.

Of all the…

How!? How could you have forgotten you put your phone in the bag before you left for church!?

It’s less than useless in this situation, of course, but if you make it out of here alive…

A surge of adrenaline smacks you square in the chest, filling you with a much-needed boost of determination to get out of this bastard’s clutches.

Pushing the phone aside, you can finally see all the way to the bottom of the bag.

There!

Your gorge rises with terrified excitement.

A slim, tiny object sits in your bag’s depths, almost lost amongst all the other bric-a-brac, stainless steel, tapered to a point at its tip…

It’s not a knife, nor truly a weapon of any kind. But right now, it’s the best you’ve got.

Nearing the very end of your frazzled tether, you slip your trembling fingers around the metal nail file and pull it from the confines of your bag, clutching it inside your fist with the sharp point sticking out beneath your curled pinkie.

Wriggling around to face the soft, unarmoured flesh in the juncture where the demon’s thumb and forefinger connect, you fill your lungs with a hot, steadying breath, and raise your fist high above your head.

You’re about to pit a few inches of metal meant for filing nails against a demon of biblical proportions.

This will either be the stupidest thing you’ve ever done, or…

No. No, it’s only stupid.

Bravery is for other people, smarter people who would have figured a way out of this by now.

You’re just a desperate human who wants to go home.

Far below you on the ground, War’s eyes track movement near the demon’s head, and his sharp, blue gaze flies up to see your shaking arm poised high in the air above you.

Something small and silver flashes in the light, held in a vice-like grip between your tiny fingers.

Strife sees it just after his brother, and his jaw immediately goes slack.

The demon only sees your arm fall…

… And then all it sees is white.

A blinding pain sears up the length of its bulging forearm, forcing its head back to send a roar up at the stalactites quivering overhead.

Staggering backwards, the demon all but flings its hand open and allows its prey to tumble towards the hard ground with a yelp.

For a moment, all you know is the gut-wrenching sensation of gravity pulling you back down to the ground once again, and then, without warning, there’s a distant clatter of steel, and all of the air is knocked out of you for the second time in less than an hour by something brawny and powerful.

You’ve felt this before. Arms as thick and steady as tree trunks catch you before your back can hit the ground, stopping your descent in a manner that’s only slightly less jarring as it would be to crash into solid stone.

Your eyes fling open, and you once again find yourself blinking owlishly up into War’s rugged face, now completely exposed by the noticeable lack of his usual, scarlet hood.

Behind him, his sword lays patiently on the ground, dropped in favour of freeing up his hands to spare you from a bruised or broken spine.

He’s staring down at you with the same, open-mouthed shock you’re giving back to him. In a small, seldom visited corner of your mind, you realise that he’s a lot less terrifying without his hood.

“Nice… catch,” you wheeze breathlessly, and after a pause, you add, “Again.”

The sigil on his forehead flares brightly for a second as he inspects you from top to bottom, drawing in a breath like he’s about to speak.

Before he can utter a sound however, the platform around you judders under the power of the demon’s uproarious screech.

Wrenching his eyes up and away from you, the Horseman’s teeth snap together into a wordless snarl, and in another shocking turn, he promptly yanks you right underneath his chest, squashing you against armour that’s less forgiving than marble.

Wincing in discomfort, you nonetheless follow his line of sight until you find yourself staring up into the warped visage what might have been your murderer.

The demon’s eyes are rolling in their sockets, and although it might be small, you and the Horsemen can still make out a little splinter of metal jutting from the sensitive flesh at the base of its thumb.

Outraged, it uses the tips of its fingers to pluck your nail file from its wounded hand. A spurt of blood bursts from the wound once the metal is free of its confines, giving you a good indication of just how hard you’d shoved the implement into its skin.

Sparing the file a filthy growl, the demon cocks its arm back and hurls it spitefully to the ground, sending it skittering right over to the grate where it comes to a rest, the once silver blade dripping with unholy blood.

Rounding on you and War, the beast lets out a ferocious growl.

“You… You dare!?” it demands, raising its bludgeon, a fresh and frenzied hatred bursting into existence within its heartless chest. Blood spilled by a human - a creature so much lesser than itself - is a shameful humiliation that it doesn’t intend to let go unpunished. The only way to stymie the flow of its haemorrhaging pride is to kill you, ruthlessly, something that will bring it far more pleasure now than it would have before.

It will instil a fear in you so great, your human kin will know the terror of demon kind without having the privilege of meeting them.

Spine curved back, its arm reaches the apex of its swing, the bludgeon poised behind its head ready to come crashing down on top of you and a seething War.

It’s easy to forget about the long, pink scar trailing down the length of your arm in spite of the person who gave it to you clutching you against his broad, armoured chest. It’s easy to forget that War is supposedly a Horseman of the Apocalypse when there’s a creature here who has already shown so much more inclination to kill you than he has. For a moment, you’re not ashamed when you turn your head into his chest and twist your fingers tightly around the fabric of his cowl, tugging yourself as close to his silent safety as you can get. 

The Horseman jolts around you, somehow growing impossibly more solid, though whether that’s because of you or the giant club casting a shadow over his head, you couldn’t say.

You just don’t want to see your own death coming when it-

A single, deafening shot rips the air asunder, reverberating off the cavern walls.

The sound startles a sharp gasp from your mouth, and you can’t help but peek over your own shoulder to see that the demon’s body has gone stiff as a board.

It blinks once, the maniacal grin wiped clean off its face.

As you watch on in confusion and terror, slowly, from the centre of its forehead in the space between its rigid brows, a tiny bead of blood appears, blooming outwards like a rose unfurling crimson petals.

Still crushed against War’s chest, you stare up at the demon in disbelief, mouth flapping open and shut around words that refuse to come. From the corner of an eye, you see the light glint off silver armour as Strife lowers his smoking gun.

“Deal’s a deal,” he says gruffly, rolling a kink out of his shoulder, “Nice and quick.”

There’s something almost graceful in the way the demon starts to tip over backwards, its colossal weapon sliding from loosened fingers to plummet over the ledge and out of sight.

Its wielder doesn’t take long to follow suit.

Crumbling in on itself, its fleshy wings slump abruptly, as does its tail, and its beady, yellow eyes roll up into its skull as the brain gives out, severing any connection to its muscles. Gravity takes hold of the brute’s mass, and with an encouraging tug, it coaxes its prize down over the precipice.

Thousands of pounds of flesh are claimed in an instant. The demon’s feet slip out from under it, sending it toppling backwards into the pit, vanishing in the blink of an eye over the edge it had once held you upon so precariously.

In tentative silence, you and the Horsemen remain utterly motionless, your ears straining to hear over the high-pitched ringing that slowly fades with each passing second.

Then, at last, you hear a distant, muted ‘kersploosh,’ followed by the rather gruesome sounds of sizzling flesh and the near-satisfied gurgles of lava swallowing its latest victim.

Then, and only then, do the three of you at last breathe varying sighs of relief.

That,” Strife remarks, turning towards you and his brother, hands planted squarely on his hips, “was awesome.”

If looks could kill, the one you shoot at him around War’s swollen bicep would bring the Horseman to his knees.

You don’t think you’ve ever disagreed with anyone so fervently in your entire life.

Chapter 6: Prison Break

Summary:

You manage to get your hands on Vulgrim's precious artifact. War is nice to you in his own, strange way, and Strife is his usual self.

Chapter Text

War has never been one to hide his true motivations behind crooked smiles and sly glances. Their eldest, Death, used to say that of all the Nephilim to be born from the dust of angels and demons, War was always the most forthright. Abnormally so.

Even among his ilk, he was the odd-one-out. Too fair, too just, 'getting to be a little too much like those damned birds.'

Why? Because he doesn't care for lies? As if Angels can't be just as underhanded and amoral as demons. Still, those who threw critique his way usually ended up leaving sadder but wiser, and often sporting broken bones and a new gap between their teeth courtesy of either himself or Fury. Death was more the sort for dolling out verbal degradation, and Strife... Well, Strife wasn't around a lot when War was still a whelp.

Regardless, perhaps it's that very forthrightness that means it doesn’t concern War in the slightest to be staring at you as he is, nor that you’ve been casting several, perturbed glances up at the underside of his chin before snatching your eyes away again every few seconds, evidently rattled by his unwavering attention.

Conversely unashamed and indiscreet, War has absolutely no qualms about frowning down at the small human in his arms, regarding you as one would a piece of mildly interesting trivia he’s never encountered before but is determined to decipher.

Truly, you’re nothing at all like the humans he’s heard about.

Humans aren’t fighters. Eden was a historically peaceful place, the name itself synonymous with Paradise. And yet only moments ago, War had borne witness as one of its prior denizens pulled a tiny blade from out of nowhere, and with a feverous desperation carving lines into your face, you’d plunged that blade into the hand of the gumptious demon who snatched you up.

… Belatedly, War realises he’ll have to tell Strife to be more thorough the next time he goes snooping for hidden weapons.

Humans adapted well to their new home on Earth, faster than anybody thought they would. They’re sturdy and solidly built, well-defined in body, and often ungainly in how they carry and present themselves; perfectly suited to learn the pursuits of agriculture, crafting and gathering.

You, however, stand as a stark contradiction to your entire species.

You’re soft. Graceful in your extravagant raiment, but inarguably fragile, far more-so than your fellow human, which is saying something.

War has felt the jarring give of your skin under his blade.

Strife has not.

War has tested the pressure of his grasp on your limbs and found them astoundingly delicate.

… Strife has not.

It’s why his brother’s actions riled War so fiercely after throwing you across a Creator-forsaken pit of lava onto this stone platform. He’s not certain Strife quite grasps the magnitude of the situation, nor the implications of a human being here in the first place. For you to turn up in the Void, speaking Common, dressed like a pampered Seraphim… it raises a series of rather urgent questions.

But to even have a hope of getting them answered, he and Strife ideally need to keep you alive...

… If only he could figure out how to get that notion through his brother’s thick skull…

Blinking out of his musings, War sees you raise your eyes to peer up at him again, although in this instance, much to his unspoken surprise, you don’t look away. Whilst certainly anxious, there’s a spark of something else tangled within the labyrinthine strands of your unusual irises, something that nearly has an invisible thread tugging at one corner of his mouth.

At last, it seems you’ve rediscovered the same nerve that called you to defend yourself from the demon.

“Put me down,” you utter quietly in a voice that quavers with the effort of keeping it level. You even maintain bold eye contact as you say it.

Again, War almost has to admire your gumption to demand something of one of the Four...

Almost.

If he were a curious Nephilim like his brother, he would probably concede that, yes, there is something about you that invites fascination. Like a mystery that hasn’t yet revealed its secrets.

He doesn’t move, doesn’t blink, merely holds your watery gaze expectantly until you either remember yourself and lower your eyes or-

Please, put me down?”

And just like that, War’s unspoken admonition is knocked off its tracks.

He hadn’t been expecting… He thought you’d just…

Oh.

In hindsight, he supposes it was rather foolish of him to expect a human to adhere to the same social rules as another species, and he has to remind himself that just because you’re still meeting his stare, you aren’t being deliberately provocative.

Just… naive.

But why would you know of his reputation? Or of the tall tales whispered by nervous, fledgeling angels who like to try and frighten each other with stories… Stories about what happens to those who are unlucky or unwise enough to look the Horseman, War, in his eye.

Your ‘please’ is foreign to him. He knows of its usage, of course, but to hear it spoken so liberally… It’s as though you assumed ‘please’ was what he was waiting for. Is offering it a human’s way of showing deference?

Curious…

Ahem…”

The sound of a throat being cleared snaps through War’s thoughts like the crack of a whip.

Quick as a flash, the scowl that had been gradually lifting from his expression slams back into place, and he turns his heated glare onto Strife, who stands in front of him with his arms folded neatly across a silver chest and his helm cocked to one side, eyes narrowed accusingly.

“You done being greedy, or are you gonna share?”

War’s scoff, and your huff occur at the same time, leading the two of you to share a brief glance before the former gives his eyes an exaggerated roll and finally, finally obliges, lowering you to the ground as swiftly as he can while maintaining a strange air of caution that betrays how breakable he thinks you are.

Large, metal gauntlets slide out from underneath your legs, depositing you on a flat piece of stone that’s relatively clean of demon blood.

The very instant you’re free, you only hesitate long enough to squeak out a hurried ‘thanks!’ before tearing yourself away from the gauntlet that hovers behind you and stumble several paces off to the side, putting some much-needed distance between you and the Horsemen. You almost trip over the train of your dress in the process.

Clinging to your elbows, you have to stuff your teeth into your lower lip to stop the sound of despair bursting out through pursed lips.

Your legs may as well be replaced with toothpicks for all the support they’re giving you. Terrible possibilities have begun to swirl across the mire of your brain.

What if you hadn’t found your nail file in time…?

What if Strife had never returned your bag?

You shudder, overwhelmed by the feeling that you’ve landed on the right side of a coin-flip, by no other will than dumb-fucking-luck.

You’ve never come that close to certain death before. You never want to come that close again.

At your back, unseen, Strife gives you a fleeting once-over, only returning his eyes to your veil when he doesn’t spot any immediate damage.

With his typical flair for bad timing and inability to read a room, he stretches his mouth into a hidden, cocksure grin, gives an approving nod and declares, “You did good, kid.”

Giving a harsh sniff, you tip your head towards the ceiling and let out a sharp, brassy laugh, utterly devoid of humour.

Good?” you echo, rounding on the Horseman, your lungs still feeling two sizes too small when you draw breath, “GOOD!? I could have died! I almost did!”

Almost!” Strife parrots eagerly, venturing a few steps towards you and spreading his arms out wide, apparently unbothered by your brazen reproach, “You almost died. But you didn’t.”

“That isn’t reassuring, Strife!” you wail.

Shaking fingers lift to try and thread through your hair, only to meet the barrier of your veil. Thwarted, you let your arms flop bonelessly back down against your sides and curl your hands into fists. “I’m not…-!”

But the words won’t come. Instead, you fall silent, realising how redundant it would be to say, ‘I’m not like you,’ out loud.

Christ, what an understatement.

You’re not the type to look at an ‘almost death’ and consider it a triumph. It’s a nightmare. You want to avoid death! That’s the most human instinct of all.

You shouldn’t even be here. You’re not like these two larger-than-life beings from another world. You can’t shoot guns like a master marksman, you can’t swing a sword that’s longer than you are tall, and you certainly can’t make impossible jumps that seem to defy gravity itself.

Hell, you can’t even stand up to your own fiancé and his family…

Sullen, despondent, you allow the adrenaline to seep out of you like water from a leaky pail, leaving you with limbs that feel far too heavy, and a head that’s tired as death.

“I’ve got to get out of here,” you eventually murmur to yourself, resisting the urge to scrub at your eyes lest you spread mascara all over your face. Your heart thunders inside your chest, palms slick with the heat, but more so with the creep of dread that rises in your belly as you picture the demon’s rancid maw in your mind’s eye and grit your teeth, unable to quell the waves of anxiety crashing against you like breakers that pummel a rocky cliff.

All the while, Strife is busy trying to pluck a response from midair, racking his brain for reasons as to why you can’t just ‘get out of here.’

Then, to his surprise and your own, the silence is broken, and it’s War’s stoic voice that brings a pause to the hopelessness dragging your soul down into the pit of your stomach.

“That was a Slag Demon.”

Blinking, you knit your brows into a frown and lift your eyes to the Horseman’s hoodless face. “Excuse me?”

And War, evidently sincere in every aspect, assumes you didn’t hear him, and repeats himself. “That was a Slag Demon.”

Once again, your eyelids flutter in a series of rapid blinks. “Yeah, I… I heard you,” you reply falteringly, “I just-“

“That demon,” he cuts you off, sending you a pointed look, “was forged in the deepest blast furnaces of Hell. They’re deceptively fast, almost invulnerable, and notoriously hard to kill.”

When he falls silent and doesn’t continue for several moments, you shift your weight and awkwardly drawl out, “… Oh-kay~?”

What the Hell is he getting at?

The way he’s peering down at you is… odd, you decide. He still has that perpetual scowl on his face, but the eyes under his furrowed brow seem… brighter, somehow, not quite as piercing and disparaging as they were before.

You’re not sure you like it any better.

Appraising you for a few more seconds, War gives a solemn nod, and states, “You found a weakness. You used what you had at your disposal to gain the upper hand.” Then, after taking a brief moment to consider his next words, he must eventually deem you worthy of them because he averts his gaze and scowls off at the distant stalactites, grunting, “It was a good kill.”

… Your jaw nearly hits the ground.

And judging by the way Strife’s helmeted head snaps around to send a wide-eyed stare at his larger brother, you suppose War must not say this sort of thing very often.

Looking down at yourself, you take in the meringue wedding dress, the ruffled tulle and overall extravagance of your attire.

“But…” Your tongue darts out apprehensively to wet your lips, “But I didn’t even kill it.”

Turning away from you, War begins to march back over to the grate, stopping only long enough to retrieve his enormous sword from the ground.

He barely takes a second to mull over his next answer as he slings the blade into its proper place along his spine. “You created the opening that gave Strife a clear shot,” he tells you, coming to a halt above the iron bars set into the floor and twitching his head towards you, his profile obscured by long, ice-white hair, “It counts.”

And with that, he reaches up to thread large, metal fingers into his hood and flips the crimson fabric up and over his head, once again hiding his face in dark, familiar shadow.

For… quite some time, you’re left speechless, gawping at the back of War’s head, and reeling now from the near-death experience and the unexpected approval of one of the scariest men you’ve ever met. A glance down at your hands confirms they’re still shaking, fingers tight and rigid like the bones under your skin have locked up.

“…Well,” Strife chimes in, heaving his massive shoulders in a shrug, “Good thing I don’t mind sharing.”

Sauntering over to you, he lifts an arm as if he’s about to drape it across your back, but the moment you see him coming, you lurch into motion and start after his brother, following the path War had picked through the dead imps, all the while trying to avoid glancing down at their cold, dead eyes.

Only thrown for a moment, Strife is quick to recover, waltzing after you and continuing, “So! Big day. You killed your first demon, kind of. How d’you feel?”

Your mouth twists up into a grimace. “Like I’m going to pass out, throw up, have a heart attack then die. In that order.”

Which is eerily similar to how you felt walking up the steps to the church.

The panic is… well, it’s definitely still there. The threat of a downward spiral haunts the edge of your mind, always keeping itself in the periphery. But for now, War’s stoic assessment has apparently shocked you so much, it broke the nosedive you were about to take into a total fit of hopelessness.

The Horseman beside you barks out a laugh and takes a few loping steps until he’s swaggering along beside you, the heavy ‘clunk’ of his boots drowning out the ‘clicks’ of your heels. “Don’t worry, we’ll keep a closer eye on you, next time.”

Next time?” you sputter, brows shooting up towards the top of your veil, “I-I am not planning on doing this again.”

“Eh.” With a dismissive waft of his hand, he replies, “We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it. Now c’mon! Sooner we get the artifact, the sooner we can be outta this heat.”

Well. You suppose you have to agree with him on that front.

The sudden clatter of metal skittering across the ground nearly has you jumping out of your shoes.

At your side, Strife jerks to a halt, his boot lifted halfway off the ground and his helm tipped down to search for the thing he’d inadvertently kicked with the toe of his sabatons. His keen eye latches onto it at once, and he utters a sound of intrigue at the back of his throat.

Following his gaze, you hone in on the little object that’s still skidding several paces away from you before it slides to a stop, laying small and shiny on the dark stone.

Stooping down, Strife reaches out a hand to gather the little object into his palm.

“Huh, guess it was knocked when I shot that big bastard...” he mutters, rising to his full height and unfurling each finger one by one, peering down at his prize, “I thought you didn’t have any weapons in there.”

Turning towards you, he holds up your bloodied nail-file as he jerks his chin at your bag.

Admittedly, you’re surprised to see it again, and even more surprised at the surge of gratitude that courses through you at the prospect of being reunited with something from the real world.

Technically speaking,” you sniff, tucking a loose strand of hair behind your ear, “A nail file isn’t a weapon.”

Bringing it close to his visor, Strife tilts his head and squints at it, humming dubiously as he runs the pad of his finger over the coarse metal, giving the end a testing tap.

“… It looks like a dagger,” he points out, “… A very small dagger.”

“Or a toothpick,” his brother grumbles up ahead.

“Well, it isn’t either of those things… It’s just something I use to keep my nails tidy…” At the incredulous glances you receive – one from Strife and one from War who deigns to cast you a bemused look over his shoulder – you breathe a weary sigh and thrust your hand out towards the former of the pair expectantly. “Look, can I just… have it back?”

In truth, you half expect him to refuse, whether to simply get a rise out of you or to mitigate your temptation to attack them with the nail file – not that you’d be so foolish.

So, when Strife extends an arm and holds your ‘weapon’ out towards you, you can’t help but let your jaw drop open in undisguised shock.

“Sure,” he says breezily, “I ain’t gonna keep it. More of a gun man, myself. And War’d be embarrassed to be seen with a blade this small.”

You don’t know whether you’re supposed to take offence to that or not.

“Here,” Strife offers again, lowering his upturned palm in the private hopes of coaxing you closer when you just continue to gape at his appendage, “Take it.”

Warily, you start inching your hand up towards his, keeping your eye on the silver helm and those piercing, golden eyes that drill right into you with attentive wonder.

Swallowing thickly, you dare to flick your gaze down to the nail-file, still sitting pretty at the centre of his palm… Up this close, you spot something that threatens to turn your stomach inside out.

Ew! There’s blood all over it!” you exclaim, retracting your outstretched hand like he’s trying to give you a live snake.

Indeed, it isn’t the silvery metal that’s glinting in the firelight, but a coating of thick, shiny blood that’s already begun to dry on the file’s roughly-hewn surface.

Strife – who had given a start at your exclamation – pauses, then blinks and cocks his brow down at the offending blood sticking to your weapon.

“Oh, so-rry, Princess,” he chuckles, lifting the file to his cowl and wiping it several times against the fabric, smearing dark flakes of blood into the wool before he holds it out towards you again, “That better?”

Tipping your nose into the air, you give the file a thorough once over. Deeming it adequately clean, you at last reach up to pluck it from his grip, holding it gingerly between your thumb and forefinger. “Much. Thanks.”

You’ve turned away before you can see his eyes glow brighter, considerably pleased with himself.

By the time he stops sticking out his chest, you’ve already reached his brother, stopping a respectable distance away near the opposite side of the grate.

War doesn’t even spare you a cursory glance. Instead, he stands still and strong as a statue, his frost-blue eyes scrutinising the bars with rigid focus.

You don’t dare ask him why he hasn’t retrieved his ‘artifact’ yet.

“Hey, War. What’s the holdup?”

Apparently, you and Strife are on the same wavelength. How disconcerting.

A metal elbow suddenly brushes against your side as a titanic body disregards your own personal space and sidles up next to you, pulling a gasp from your lips that goes entirely ignored while Strife addresses his brother over the top of your head. “You gonna grab the artifact or what?”

Grumbling under his breath, War raises his eyes to fix his fellow Horseman with a stony scowl.

“The grate,” he retorts darkly, tossing a hand at the ground as if the answer should have already been obvious, “It’s locked.”

“Oh,” Strife answers flatly, though it isn’t long before he plants a decisive fist on his hip and declares, “Well, then we’ll just have to find the key…” Swivelling around in place, he casts an eye around the chamber and adds, “Maybe the demon had it?”

… You hate to point out the obvious, especially when you haven’t been invited to do so, but…

“Um… You mean the demon that just fell over the side?” you venture.

A thick, uncomfortable silence ensues, during which you’re sure you must have offended him somehow, because Strife’s body goes utterly motionless, and War huffs a breath through his nose.

“… I see your point,” the former concedes at last, and you realise he isn’t angry, just... bashful.

Another derisive sound escapes from the larger Horseman’s mouth, prompting Strife’s helm to snap towards his brother. “Well, you’re the strong one,” he gripes, “Just tear out the bars.”

Now it’s War’s turn to stop and ponder. He casts a sideways glance down at you, regarding you briefly from the shadow of his hood. By the time you’ve lifted your eyes to his face, he’s already turned away, cracking his neck with an audible ‘Pop!’

“Very well,” he rumbles.

It’s a little prideful of him – and Creator knows Death would expect better - yet War can’t help but wonder if you’ll be awed by a show of might. Maybe you’ll be afraid... Moreso than at present.

Pounding a fist into his gauntlet, he lowers his immense bulk down onto one knee and slides his fingers around the bars, rolling his shoulders as he prepares to demonstrate the raw, physical strength of the Red Ri-

“-Can’t you just… reach in and grab it?” you ask, cleanly derailing War’s train of thought and knocking the wind from his sails, “I mean, it looks small enough to fit through the bars, right?”

… Well, War supposes that’s a fair suggestion, but for one not-so-small problem.

Without turning to look at you, War simply holds up his gauntlet and flexes the metallic fingers into a fist.  “I would not get my knuckles through,” he states simply, bobbing his head sideways at his brother, “Nor would Strife.”

“Oh,” you falter, shrinking backwards and stuffing a canine into your bottom lip whilst the Horseman curls his hands around the bars once more.

“Um, why don’t I take a crack at it then?”

As soon as the words leave your mouth, you find yourself wishing you could snatch them out of the air and stuff them back behind your teeth.

Of all the fool things you could have said, why on Earth would you offer to put your hands anywhere near a stone that’s glowing like raw Uranium?

But it’s too late.

Strife has turned a thoughtful, wide-eyed gaze onto War, who returns it with the slightest parting of his brows.

“… Why didn’t we think of that?” Strife posits.

Before you can verbally – and physically – backtrack, War has already twisted his torso about and wrapped his colossal fist around your forearm, notably aiming for the one he hadn’t sliced open with his sword.

Warm metal engulfs your appendage all the way up to your elbow, and though you try to resist, he hardly seems to notice your efforts as he tugs you towards his side, then lowers his hand, leaving you with no choice but to follow its weight and drop to your knees in front of the grate, wincing as they bump against the hard stone beneath your dress.

“Here,” he says firmly, allowing you to snatch your arm back in favour of pointing his finger down at the glowing crystal, “Reach down and take it.”

Curling your hand into your chest, you give your head a shake and protest, “I can’t!”

“You just said you could!” Strife rebuffs.

That you did… “But-!” Wracking your brain, you add, “But what if it’s like… radioactive or something!?”

Visibly, the Horseman balks. “Ray-dee-oh… what?”

War’s eyes start to roll towards the ceiling as he listens to your back and forth with his brother, and he considers whether it would have been faster to rip the grate out of the stone after all.

You proposed a solution however, and in his frank opinion, you ought to stick by it.

The massive gauntlet enters your peripheral just as you open your mouth to shoot another argument up at Strife, but no sooner have the metal tips of War’s fingers ghosted across your arm than you wrench it away, whipping around to face him with startled eyes.

Hastily, you hold up your hands in surrender.

“Okay! Alright!” you acquiesce, “Jesus, just… give me a second…”

Flicking part of the veil over your shoulder, you lean forwards and brace yourself with one hand on a bar, lowering your torso down to stretch your other hand down and into the pit below, fingers blindly fishing around for the Vulgrim’s precious artifact.

When they brush against a warm, smooth surface, you can’t refrain from yelping and snatching your hand back as if it had moved.

The leathery smack of a gun being drawn from its holster reaches your ears.

“You okay?” Strife demands, shifting his weight restlessly.

Swallowing back your embarrassment, you nod and reply, “Uh, yeah, yeah. It’s just hot!”

“Hot enough to burn you?” War cuts in with a rough growl.

Biting the inside of your cheek, you brave another go, reaching down and brushing your fingertips hesitantly over the surface of the crystal. Though it is disconcertingly warm to the touch – no doubt from the ambient heat in the atmosphere – you realise with a third stroke that it isn’t anywhere near as hot as you feared it would be.

“No,” you sigh, only partially relieved.

The massive presences surrounding you relax slightly.

“Good,” Strife murmurs, raising his voice to add, “Can you get it loose?”

You can, as it turns out. Quite easily in fact. The crystal isn’t being held in any kind of clamp. To your mounting astonishment, it seems to simply float in midair.

“This is so freaky~,” you sing to yourself as you slide your palm down the long side of it, feeling for the pointed base and cupping your fingers around it with an audible gulp.

The whole crystal seems to buzz and hum under your touch, sending an eerie tingle racing up the length of your arm and raising the hairs all the way up to the back of your neck.

According to all sense and reason, this thing is nothing more than a pretty, pink crystal. But here, where sense and reason have been turned on their heads, pulled inside out and shaken up like a vodka martini, the thing in your hand is no more a mere crystal than the Horsemen are mere men.

Trying very hard to ignore how much the fluctuating thrum beneath your fingertips reminds you of a pulse, you clench your jaw tight, close your eyes, and pull… with a little too much force.

It’s lighter than you expected it to be. Nearly weightless. And it slips straight through the bars of its prison without even dinging against the sides.

Letting out an undignified bleat, you teeter backwards and land painfully on your backside, the crystal smacking against your bosom before falling from your trembling fingers and sliding safely into the soft, white fabric of your skirts.

Cracking your eyelids apart, you blink down at your lap, chest stuttering on a breath. “I… I got it?”

That was…decidedly easy

Well, aside from almost getting eaten by a demon in your quest to find the damn thing.

The soft, pink glow of the crystal lights up your face as you peer down at it, glittering off your wedding dress and bathing the fabric folds in warmth.

“Wow,” you hear yourself whisper.

With cautious awe, your fingers wander towards it and slip gently around your rescued prize.

You’re so busy admiring the smooth, faultless lines that you don’t notice the shadow of a hand falling across your shoulders until War’s gauntlet has slid beneath your arm.

Aside from blurting out a squawk, you helplessly have to let yourself be lifted with unnerving ease onto your feet, still clutching the crystal close to your breast.

“Good job, kid,” Strife declares, slapping a palm on your back.

If War’s fingers hadn’t tightened around your arm at the moment, you’re sure you’d go tumbling over onto your face.

The force of the larger Horseman’s warning growl sends tremors through his gauntlet and down into the toes of your shoes, rattling the teeth in your skull.

Strife, pleasantly unfussed by his brother’s idle threat, leans over your shoulder as War releases you, and together, you all stare down at the crystal in your arms.

“Wonder what this thing’s worth to that soul-sucking ghoul,” Strife remarks after nobody breaks the quiet hush that’s fallen over you, as though he can’t bear to sit in silence for too long. Bringing his gauntlet up to rub at the chin of his helm, he thoughtfully adds, “We could always convince Vulgrim to throw in a little extra…”

At his suggestion, a tiny frown-line blooms to life between your brows. It is a very pretty gem… but while you know next to nothing about demons, you aren’t sure you like the idea of trying to bargain with one, not when your run-in with one of Vulgrim’s ilk had almost ended so disastrously.

You don’t know if it should come as a shock or not when War’s shoulders bristle moments later, and he bares his canines at Strife, his cavernous chest puffing up until you have to lean sideways to avoid getting jostled by it.

“The artifact, in exchange for information,” he snarls dangerously, “We will honour our agreement.”

Honour among Horsemen of the Apocalypse?’ you muse privately, ‘Wonders will never cease.

Though only in War’s case, evidently. Strife just heaves an obnoxious sigh and tosses his helm back, “Ugh, you have no ambition… Why’ve you gotta be such a killjoy?”

War’s lips start to curl even further apart.

“So!” you quickly interrupt the broiling fracas, “We’ve got the… this thing-“ You shrug the crystal in your palms. “-H-how exactly do we get back?”

That, at least, gets the pair of bickering brothers to fall silent and pivot their attention from one another onto you. War’s expression is still as stony as ever, but you consider it a win that he looks marginally less murderous.

“Huh,” Strife says, “That’s a good question.”

Rumbling at the base of his throat, War grunts, "It would be prudent to find a way out of this realm as quickly as possible."

"Oh?" A mischievous glint sparks in his brother's keen gaze. "And here I thought you were.... warming up to the place."

Unbidden, a short puff of laughter is scoffed right off your tongue, more amused by how bad the joke was than the joke itself.

Either way, Strife's chest fills out proudly as his helm quirks towards you, one eyelid flashing closed behind the visor in a wink.

Oblivious, War just grumbles, "You know your humour escapes me."

And quick as a whip, Strife returns, "All humour escapes you."

Giving a brusque shake of his head, the larger Horseman decides it isn't worth getting into this argument for the umpteenth time. Turning his attention down to you and the crystal in your hands, he beckons with a gauntlet for you to step closer.

"Come. If we retrace our steps, we may be able to-"

You never get to hear the end of his sentence.

It isn’t that you’re particularly unlucky, you think… God, you hope. You’ve never thought yourself significant enough that the Universe would have it out for you personally, after all.

But when the ground suddenly disappears from under your feet in a blinding flash of vivid, blue light, and the deafening rush of air buffets your dress and boxes your eardrums, you can’t help wondering if you’ve somehow - in some unwitting way - slighted the powers that be, and now they’re playing their revenge card.

Which is a hassle for you, because you’ve had just about enough of portals and getting whisked off to places unknown for one day.

The last thing you see as you throw your head up and open your mouth to release a scream that’ll be sucked away with you as your atoms once again rearrange themselves to fit through a spatial rip, is Strife’s luminous, golden eyes flaring hotly like bursting stars – a direct contrast to the cool, ethereal blue of his brother’s, who’s own gaze opens up in surprise and, you think, alarm, one gauntlet outstretched in your direction.

And that’s all you manage to glimpse before the light overtakes you, and your body is yanked like a fish on a hook into the luminiferous aether.