"We kill our way out of the city."
Two armed guards, set on one of the few tasks they expect to get enjoyment from, approach the dilapidated home of Ares and Emily. Ares has lived there with Emily since he wandered in out of the forest, catatonic from trauma, and she was the first person his husk bumped into. Which is something Emily has always marveled at-- the luck of it-- and thanked God over. Olenos, who showed up at nearly the same time and is well known for being the only half-demon anyone has ever seen, played the role of father, and while frequently absent like he is now, was a positive influence when there. Emily would argue with that though, as it taught Ares to curse with abandon.
The guards come up to the house, which is almost a landmark now because of its inhabitants' reputations, and one of them knocks aggressively on the door. After realizing the door barely holds together, he kicks it open easily and steps inside. He announces authoritatively, "You're being arrested for harboring a fugitive. Both of you." Emily responds indignantly, though not suprised that the guards would just barge in, "What? Why?" She refers to Olenos, not bothering to conceal that they know each other and assured that this is about him, "He hasn't been back here." The guard has a wicked smirk. Ares recognizes the look on the guard and, unbidden, recalls the plan Emily and Olenos had pushed on him so many times. The guard says with venom in his tone, "So you admit he has been here." Emily is annoyed, "I mean, everyone knows that. He wasn't a fugitive then." The guard finishes his charade and seals the duo's fate, "Knowing him is enough for an interrogation." Emily stiffens, "Wait. I know what that means." She growls out, "You fucking people--" She directs her voice at Ares but doesn't look at him, "It's time, kid."
Ares stiffens in shock at the completed realization of what's about to happen, and his ghost wolf companion jumps out, on its own, from within Ares's body in response to his sudden burst of fear. The wolf lands, now fully corporeal, with force in a vicious posture and ready to rip out the heart of whatever Ares is afraid of. Emily makes no attempt at obfuscating her defiance and shoots to her feet to push-kick the guard who was just speaking, who abruptly clicks from a look of arrogance into helpless surprise, and knocks him back into the other guard who is still in the doorway. Ares's wolf leaps at the guard who was just kicked with almost a roar and latches onto his throat, twirling him towards the wall on the right and causing the other guard to stumble instead of fully drawing his weapon. The wolf easily rips out the first's esophagus once he's on the ground, but the second guard is finally striking down at the wolf with his axe. Ares pulls his companion back into himself as he sees the guard's axe falling, desperate to protect his friend, and a loose chunk of throat flies a short distance along this path as the wolf struggles to remain in reality. Ares lashes out with the ghost wolf's claw from a distance as soon as he can, but the guard has backstepped out of the doorway as a follow-up to missing with his axe, so Ares only scrapes the first guard that's convulsing and gurgling on the ground. By now Emily has grabbed her spear and has had some time to aim, and launches it into the second guard's face, just below his helmet. He tries to parry with the head of his axe, being already set in defensive tactics after his backstep, but the massive half-corporeal wolf claw blinded him like a smokescreen and the projectile appears as suddenly as a lightning bolt. He is impaled through the bridge of his nose by the spear and dies immediately. Emily quickly retrieves the spear using her arm's energy tether, almost as part of the action of throwing it, and this makes the guard's death beyond certain. She finishes off the other guard as he finally enters his death throes.
(cont.)
Ares says to himself while shaking, after taking in what just happened, "Ohh... Shit." Emily is taking stock of their situation, "We're supposed to wait until he gets back, if this happens, but we're a target now." Ares is quickly losing hope, "What do we do? We can't just run down the street." Emily begins to plot coldly, "I-- someone saw this, probably, and if not then the other guards will know when these ones don't come back. But, we need to act as if the whole city already knows. We'll have an advantage if we're taking it as open conflict before others. We kill our way out of the city." The wolf is aware of Ares's worry, and his guilty fear of being caught, and has been pulling the loose body into the house. Ares is in shock, "Jesus... Jesus..." Emily admonishes him, "Didn't we prepare you for this?" Ares justifies himself confidently, "Yeah, but it's actually happening." He pleads with Emily in a tone of incredulation at how insane her plan always was, but especially is now, now that the version where they massacre half of the people he grew up with is about to happen, "Can't we TRY to sneak out? Holy fucking shit." Emily hesitates anxiously, but registers what this is like for Ares and concedes, "Fine. We'll act innocent, but we start killing as soon as a guard pays attention to us." She comments in frustration, "Goddammit... I'd rather get ahead of this." They begin to leave, with the wolf now returned to Ares's spirit and emitting into him a mixture of dull grief at having killed and a pitying love, but Ares notices a basket on the table, grabs it, and shoves it into Emily's stomach. He tells her the cover story that just occurred to him, pleading, "We're buying groceries." Emily looks at him with compassion that she can't help, then sighs.
They leave the building and someone nearby screams, "They're coming out!" Ares realizes there's no hope now and starts to cry. A small mob of people have loosely surrounded the exit of their house, with more coming. Emily drops the basket, faintly annoyed at how stupid it was to have been holding it, and, filling with hatred, commands them, "You will move aside so we can leave." A man at the front of the crowd screams spitefully to make sure no one does this, "Fuck you!!" Ares's wolf acts on its own again and lurches out of Ares to charge towards the man, completely unwilling to tolerate his tone. Emily makes the decision like flicking a switch, and follows immediately behind the enraged animal. Ares instantly overcomes his emotions out of a desire to protect his dog and chases after them. The man who yelled stumbles back in fear of the animal specifically targeting him, and the rest of the people on that side band together to block the pariahs in. The man is unable to back up further. The wolf tries to stop and threaten the man, but Ares picks him up while Emily does a leaping thrust with her spear and stabs the man through the face. She blasts away the rest of his head with her arm power and rips her spear out of the gore to the side, slashing the first person across the face and making the two nearest people jerk their heads back to avoid the blade. Some of the crowd flee to get help. Emily pulls back into a combat stance, while Ares has set his wolf back down, realizing he got in his protector's way and has to follow his lead. The crowd that remains is ready to fight.
One steps forward tentatively and is immediately slashed to ribbons by three quick strikes from Emily's spear. At the same time, another approaches Ares with more confidence, somewhat aware of what he's capable of as a healer and how he should be the primary target, and is ravaged to the bone by a claw as Ares steps back, weaving the wolf into himself, and gestures to the side like a dancer, hurling the claw out. His extensive combat training mixes with some of Emily's contagious hatred, as well as with the wolf's ferocious influence, and the violence comes naturally which scares him a little. After this quick opener from the crowd, Emily is nearly pounced on by two more, and three, who are more familiar with his ability, rush at Ares to make sure the first two on Emily aren't fighting for nothing. Emily stiff arms the more imminent threat in the solar plexus and leans away from the other's lunging punch to deliver a side kick to his throat, then blasts her arm through the first, stunned, attacker. She vaporizes most of him and obliterates one person who was directly in the path behind him, singeing the two next to them, who writhe in ecstasy on the ground afterwards-- which is the effect Emily's arm has on things even when it's killing them. Ares dives away from his three attackers, fearing the intensity of their malevolence, and the wolf delivers a fade-away strike from within him to disrupt their offensive, striking the air just in front of them. Ares rolls when he hits the ground then raises up his hands as he returns upright. The wolf's mouth, magnified in size, comes up from below the three of them and crashes inward, holding them in a vice-grip. Emily, done with her set now, pirouettes over to land in front of them and delivers an aimed strike after a delay, decapitating two with her spear and lodging it halfway into the jaw of the shorter third, who screams out in despair and frustration. The rest of the crowd, who didn't have the courage to attack at the outset, certainly don't have enough of it to attack now, but a small detachment of guards show up with an angel-mask who seems disinterested.
(cont.)
As the crowd begins to disperse, Emily expels a hard breath and Ares feels an overwhelming joy that the conflict is ending, tearing up again. He feels the wolf lick its lips within him, then abruptly snarl. As the guards enter the field, weapons drawn, the crowd reforms to block the path again. The angel-mask is annoyed that she can't see anything, and so tentatively, gracefully flows through the crowd to get somewhat near the front.
Emily is hesitant to kill a guard in the open, as that would be crossing a major line in this society, but Ares is primed to lash out in hatred that this goddamn conflict is starting up again. A guard steps forward to mediate, weapon raised in the air, and is torn into thirds by two of the wolf's claws hitting him at once. Ares screams and roars at the same time at the rest of the guards, who are taken aback by both events. The angel-mask peers through a gap between two civilians and catches an eyefull of gore and carnage. Her interest piques, since no one she's heard of before is capable of this.
Emily casts away any hope of peace and accepts that she's an outlaw, in an instant, and sets into a fighting stance. The angel-mask can see that Emily is an angel-mask as well and gasps. "One of us defying Light?! Defying all of this that we've built?? We are gods!" She is trembling but is still observing herself, and sets into standby like an alligator in the water. Emily smashes aside the sword of a guard, who didn't even want to attack her and was only approaching, and stabs him through the stomach with both hands on her spear. She releases her grip with her right hand and grabs onto the guards neck, pulling out the spear with her left before plunging it back in. She does this once more then pushes him over, and kicks him the rest of the way to the ground. "I might as well make a show of it," she thinks, of her break with society. Two guards charge, enraged beyond reason. One is swallowed up by a wolf's mouth from below, sent to God knows where but presumably somehow within Ares's soul, and the other engages Emily.
The angel-mask launches her attack at the moment the two clash. She fires a blue beam from her finger and pierces Emily through the groin. Emily is consumed by pleasure and the truth of God's holiness as the guard slices away the arm that she had been firing off during the earlier stages of the fight at the shoulder. The searing, blinding pain of the strike against her still extremely sensitive arm clashes with the pleasure and totally overwhelms her. She screams in agony, voice cracking, and Ares lunges into a heal to save her. As he does so the guard that was devoured erupts into reality, along with the wolf, and grapples with the animal before posturing up and cutting its head off. Ares is rocked by the death of his partner, blindsided by it when he had his attention on healing Emily, and rips the wolf's blood spraying corpse out of reality and back into himself. The guard is missing much of the skin of his face and falls over onto his back, utterly exhausted.
Emily's spear, completely forgotten in the moment, is easily pulled from her by a civilian. As her angel arm reforms on her body thanks to Ares, she is too mentally wounded to fight again– the dueling sensations consuming her still, with an overwhelming guilt that being torn from God by such agony must've been deserved. Ares is now unarmed, and Emily is incapable of further violence. The civilians are consumed by wickedness, the guards are consumed by righteousness, and the angel-mask is licking her finger as she leaves the scene of her betrayal, very happy with herself. The mass of people start to close in on their martyrs.
Cont.
Olenos sees a rather large pack of "Them" on his approach to home, and gets a flash of a dancing eunuch surrounded by a nearly infinite amount of percussion instruments. The Sin braces to strike a gong.
Already pretty sure of what the humans are doing, and now certain it's about to collapse into rape and torture, he charges his demon arm and points it at half the crowd. "Let the rest behold the carnage," he thinks.
The reality-coming-apart sound is only noticed by the angel-mask, and she recalls Emily creating the same sound with her arm, and refusing to teach anyone. "Seemed like she was protecting us though…" the angel-mask thinks.
(Cont.)