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It's getting hard to breathe. It's his throat that starts to close first, the thick taste of blood and metal surging down his tongue like poison, and Blitzo has to take a moment to breathe in harshly as his fingers struggle to reload the gun. The magazine nearly slips from his shaking fingers. Above, the air is dark and red, like wine poured over broken tiles, and he leans against the wall that serves as the final barrier. It might as well be made of paper.
A bullet clangs against the surface, punching a hole right through the brick, and Blitzo barely manages to duck in time as the second one peppers right where his head was. Most of the warehouse looks blown to shit, anyhow, but three-and-a-half walls still stand and it's a mad rush through slants of sunlight and shadow as he ducks, dodges, lunges, blood trailing from his arms and mouth. The mortal plane's sun absolutely sucks balls, with how the light burns faintly against his skin, and he has to struggle in for air in a dark, mostly-intact corner.
Well. He'd try to, if it isn't for the fact that the sound of his breathing could give him away at any fucking second. Blitzo's long mastered the ability to breathe absolutely silently, even if the blood feels like acid into his gut, but it's better than getting brained in what's essentially the shittiest redneck zone conceivable to anything with two eyes.
Fucking cultists. Fucking cultists with their fucking sorta-efficient guns and fucking delusions and fucking--just fucking everything. He can hear them coming up the hill. He doesn't even know how the hell they got the drop on him--one moment he's tumbling out of the portal, the next thing he's smelling dirt from the end of a boot. Most cults probably dabbled in this summoning shit, but this one...
He had glimpsed detailed, dripping symbols on the walls, crooked crosses and silver shavings and the barrels of what must have been a dozen guns pointing at his head, and he's gotta admit: this one miiight actually know what they're dealing with.
Blitzo tries not to curse as he paws for his phone. His fingers are slippery with blood; the stupid device almost falls from his hands, but he grasps it on time and fumbles for the messages. Loona's got the grimoire. M&M don't know he's on Earth business, probably still fucking their asses out on their anniversary, but Loona should be on stand-by. Key word being should.
Grimoire, he texts out. Droplets dot across the surface, and he wipes them off hastily with a tattered sleeve. Come on, come on, c'mon...Loona's always on her fucking phone, surely she'd see his message. need it asahahkxjfk the last message comes out in a jumble of letters as a bullet ricochets less than a fucking metre where he stands, and Blitzo has to physically bite down on his tongue to not yelp out in alarm. Did it even send? If it doesn't get through because of some extraplanar wi-fi problem, Blitzo swears he'll shit on the phone right where he--
CRACK.
There's only a millisecond to react before the phone explodes into a shower of glass, and Blitzo flings himself back on reflex to avoid the shards penetrating right into his eyes. Jagged edges cut deep into his hands, his arms, and he knows his face is bleeding--blood drips into his mouth and eyes--and then the pain hits, and it's nowhere the worst he's ever experienced, but it doesn't make it any less painful. It feels like a dozen needles just tore across his skin. Blitzo ducks and swipes up his revolver, trying to find wherever the fuck the shot came from. The warehouse is so much darker than he expected; shadows blur at the corners, the sun low and burning in the sky, and his eyes sting from the blood. Shit, he'll have to hope that that message made through, unless--
There's a flicker of movement, and Blitzo doesn't hesitate; he unloads three shots right in the blur. Blood splatters at the far end of the wall. It's as satisfying as sucking dick to see the body slump onto the ground, but the downside is the fucking fact that he just gave away his hiding spot. Not that it was really effective in the first place, but now it's all gone to horseshit.
"Demon!" A crackle of gunfire. The chunk of stone Blitzo ducks behind doesn't really make for good cover; a fragment crumbles into powdery pieces right in the corner of his eye. "Come out! You know we can see you, right?"
Well, at least he doesn't have to keep quiet anymore. "See this, then!" he snaps back, raising a perfect middle finger that should be universally understood by all planes. "It's not like your cockguzzling shitty guns are going to last squat against this--" he aims his revolver and shoots out some moron's eye. The blood spraying over the concrete never fails to please. His amusement curdles up as he counts how many rounds he has left.
Shit. That's...not a good number. And that's assuming he hits lethally and instantly each time. Blitzo dodges another hail of gunfire, tail lashing out like a whip to climb up the half-destroyed shelves. The humans might be the same size as him, but they've got nothing on the fine art of jumping around like your ass got hot-pokered. Blitzo lunges onto the low end of a rafter, feeling the wood creak under his weight. He could just get out of here, but he doesn't have a fucking disguise and there's nothing except the countryside for miles. He glimpses the cultists below--normal humans, dressed in terrible clothing, but all of them stare up from behind cheap Party City styrofoam masks. The white one with two huge black hollow eyes and a gaping mouth. Blitzo slinks away in the shadows, trying to rub out the blood from his face. He knows he's got better night vision, but he wouldn't put past these nutters to have weirdass UV shit in their crappy masks or something.
Still, there's no way in Heaven's ass that he'll just politely sit there like a duck ready to be spatchcocked. There's--what, five of them left? He can take down five easily. Blitzo paws around his coat, looking for his favourite serrated knife. It should be somewhere; he'd rather go out naked than forget it. It's the one gift Loony ever gave to him and damn if he's gonna lose it--
The rafters crumble under his boots.
It's his only warning before agony sweeps through him like he's being plunged into a vat of acid--white-hot, coursing pain that wrecks through every fucking nerve and sinew, and he's never been burnt alive before but this might be what it feels like, and the only thing that comes out of his mouth is a strangled choke, mixed with the hot, acidic sensation of blood gurgling in the back of his throat. Out of instinct he tries to grab a beam, but it slips through his hand like water and he's plummeting, the air cold and sharp as it whistles past his body, and the impact makes him feel like his spine just cracked across stone.
He tries to get up, a red blur hazing over his vision, but then something's stomping on his wrist and he can only watch a foot kick away his revolver, the little black barrel swivelling out of reach. The pain peaks, rattles his bones and skin, and for a moment his mind blacks out to spare his body, but then consciousness returns like a noose hauling him out of a cold, dark sea. He's vaguely aware that he's lying on his back, coat in tatters and torso stained in blood, but it's what hovers above him that makes fear curl in his chest.
"Recognise this?" One of the cultists draw near, a spike of red hair visible from behind the mask. Blitzo wants to spit at him, but all he can manage is a garbled cough that makes him feel like his ribs were crushed with a mining pick. The human's holding some kind of carbine, the kind Moxxie would absolutely jizz in his pants over, but it's the glowing, silvery runes on the barrel that make dread drop in his stomach.
Angelic runes.
Not really. The gun Striker had had the actual ones, the kind you can feel buzzing at the back of your teeth. This one's more muted, depowered, but its potency is still obvious. Blitzo realises that's where the initial shock-pain must have came from--the bullet was only a graze at his sides, but it only takes a single angelic rune, half-assed as it is, to knock him out. Blitzo slowly pushes himself onto his elbows, hating how nervous he feels now that the agony has mostly ebbed into a prickling soreness.
"Let's assume I do, asswipe," he says, as the other cultists crowd him. Only pure angelic weapons can kill him fully, and whatever's on the carbine isn't up to that task, but staring at the end of five other barrels isn't a pleasant sight. "What are you going to do about it? Load me up and hope I don't bite out a gut or some shit?"
The cultist sighs.
"What do you think's gonna happen if I shoot you in the fucking head right now?"
Blitzo considers lying for a moment, but the fucker's probably going to do it anyways and if they already know about angelic runes, it's not going to help him in the long run. He shrugs. "Probably itch like a bitch, sure, but it doesn't look like your tiny limpass wrist is going to hit the goddamn wall." Maybe he could pretend to be dead and hope they throw him out into a sewer. It's not the worst place he's ever been cooped up in.
"Fascinating," the cultist replies, and it's the sudden drop in tone that makes Blitzo stiffen. He tries to ignore the deep, aching throb in his muscles, as if he had just been ran over by a truck. "So, if this would do nothing to you at all, then it can't do anything to them either, can it?"
A gun barrel bats the side of his head. Blitzo flinches back as the red-haired cultist rummages around in his pocket and pulls out a phone.
His stomach drops at what's on the screen.
It's a video clip. Questionable, grainy quality, the edges pixellated and flickering, but the figures at the centre are clearer than fucking crystal. It's from the D.H.O.R.K facility, right when they portalled back to the office. There's Millie and Moxxie, helping each other through the gateway; there's Loona almost tripping over her own tail to balance the grimoire and her phone in one hand, and there's--
"Y'know, everyone was freaking about you little red bastards." The cultist jabs the phone towards Blitzo's face, and Blitzo winces at the glass screen bumping against what must be a growing black eye for him. "You look like a goat fucked with the devil, but this--" a thick, calloused finger jabs at the image of Stolas, the one that's carrying Blitzo in his arms, and Blitzo can't stop himself from flinching. "This is the real shit, isn't it?"
Fuck this.
It feels like his very vertebrae are wrenched from his body, but Blitzo lashes a claw out onto the redhead cultist's wrist, snapping the bone clean in half. He leaps up, tail curling around the cultist's ankles as he rams his knife straight into the eyehole of the mask, the blade plunging into darkness and coming out soaked with blood. Before the body even hits the ground, he's already pouncing onto the next one, the snap of gunfire restrained in such close quarters. He ducks two wild swings and punches into the human's stomach, hard enough that he hears a hollow wumph. The air's a blur of blood and nausea and copper, but he only has to kill a few more. Easy fucking peasy. The third one he pretty much lands on their head, tearing at the reinforced mask to the soft, helpless mortal flesh beneath--
He doesn't see the bat until it crashes against his back, and this time the direct contact of runes against skin results in a pain so intense that he can't even begin to describe it. For a moment he hangs there, still clutching on the corpse, and then agony surges down like a tsunami. Being shot is one thing, but having pure, holy power splitting across his skin--this must be what dying feels like--and he knows he's slumping back on the ground, body twitching in an attempt to minimise contact, and he can smell charred skin and blood and it burns hot in his mouth and throat. His tail weakly twitches on the ground, a faint thump-thump sound that sounds oddly like a spasming, struggling heart.
"Hold him down!" a voice shouts, and then it's just a blur of movement. More footsteps pound into the ruins of the warehouse. The sun is barely visible over the horizon, a burning bead of gold, and Blitzo feels hands manoeuvring him on the cracked concrete, rope looping around his neck and wrists. Being hanged, he can handle--the broken neck isn't too much of a hassle--but his skin stings at the contact and he knows they have some of the faux-runes ingrained on the ropes as well. Everything--hurts. He tries swearing, tries speaking, but the only thing that comes out is a garble of saliva and blood. He needs to get out. He's been tied up before--hell, he's tied up people before--and this can't be the worst, but his fingers don't seem to obey or move at all and they're dragging him somewhere, the glowing, burning sun glancing across his face like a flaming brand, and sweat drips from his brow and into his eyes--
I'm going to die.
He's been in so many life-and-death situations that the realisation doesn't initially faze him; his body tightens, relaxes, like he's waiting for Millie or Moxxie or even Loona to bail him out, but then it hits him that they're not there. Even in his solo missions he knew Loona had his back, but Loona doesn't know he's here either and he didn't know these stupid fucking cultists would be waiting for him on what was supposed to be a quick, surfaceside trip; he didn't know, he didn't tell her, and the sheer, reckless stupidity of his actions feels like a cold fist to the gut. Someone hauls him upright by the noose-like rope, tying it to a stake in the ground, and Blitzo feels a ripple of fear thrum through the haze.
"Are you--" he manages out, before his body is seized with violent, hacking coughs. He can hear his blood splattering over the ground. The eyeless masks surround him, a ring of terrible faces that makes him want to spit. "Are you--what, you're gonna reverse summon me or something?" He doesn't even know how he speaks, and a fist smashes across his jaw. Blitzo half-collapses, twisting at the last moment for his side to take the impact instead of his arms, but it still knocks the breath from his lungs. He's lying on his side, legs awkwardly half-sprawled under his torso, the ceiling and wall at a weird angle that makes his neck ache. Or maybe it's just the ropes.
There's a scraping sound. Blitzo bites his tongue in irritation--these fuckers really don't talk much, and it's unnerving him badly--and he cranes his head desperately to see what the shit is going on. The sight makes his blood freeze.
They're drawing a summoning circle, but it's the all-too-familiar sigil he's at the centre of that makes him abruptly snap his mouth shut. They're drawing it in his blood. Hellborn blood, a darker red than any human could ever possess, bleeding and sizzling slightly as they etch the symbol onto concrete.
"You can't be serious," he spits out, and the panic in his voice must be audible enough that one of the cultists actually glances up, fingertip still stained deep red. "You're actually gonna try to summon--"
"A demon prince, yes." The voice is flat and unimpressed. Blitzo doesn't even want to wrap his head around whatever kind of crazy he's dealing with here. The human agent that had housed Stolas' form had technically been alive the last he saw her, but he knew her mind wouldn't last long for what it had temporarily witnessed. She had days, at most; a week if she was lucky. Blitzo wants to laugh.
"So if you--" Blitzo spits out a gob of blood. "If you actually watched that footage, then your first fucking thought of hauling in some feathery sicko ass just ranks up on a world-fucking-record of stupid. What kind of shit are you on?"
They're still drawing the sigil. Blitzo struggles against his bonds; the ropes should be easy to slip out, but each prolonged contact with his bare fingertips makes tears of pain swell up behind his eyes. Goddamn fucking shit on a platter, the runes actually hurt. Still not enough to kill, or even incapacitate, but it's the sort of deep, burrowing pain that builds up like ash in his organs. The cultist tilts their head, a dark mane of hair fluttering over one shoulder.
"Oh, we're well aware of the power."
"Yeah? It doesn't fucking look like it."
"We're well aware," the cultist repeats. Blitzo tugs at the ropes, hissing slightly at the bite of pain. "We know its limitations."
Blitzo frowns at that. Anyone with a brain cell who had seen Stolas' summoning would never say the power was limited--it was the kind of power that hung long after in the air, making your teeth buzz and your horns ache, the image of the owl demon forever stamped in your eyes. That shit bent so many fucking mortal laws that they should be kissing the ground right now, and yet...Blitzo's mind races, trying to recall what had happened. Open portals, reanimating corpses, possessing bodies--
He left them alive.
This time he jolts, his body freezing in its bonds, and his epiphany must have showed on his face because the cultist lets out a single, sharp bark of laughter before retracing the circle. Oh shit--thoughts clash messily in a jumble, heightened by panic, and he feels moronic for not asking at the time, but he didn't and he wouldn't and now it's biting him back in the ass like a fucking steel trap. Stolas didn't kill the agents. Blitzo hadn't paid attention at the moment, but in hindsight it was clearer than glass.
He couldn't.
Maybe some stupid higher-up-demon law tied his hands; maybe it's a specific subset of rules for summoning. They're almost done tracing the circle. Blitzo lashes out a foot, trying to kick at them, but the attempt is foiled by his leg losing almost all feeling under his weight. The presence of the runes, both on the ropes and on the weapons, makes his head swim with dizzying nausea. Frustration and fear bubble up in him like a volcano. One of the cultists holds a weathered tome, veined hands flipping patiently through the pages.
"In virtute siderum, vi celi et inferni, invoco abyssum..."
It dawns on Blitzo that he's the fucking bait. He's never heard of demons being used to summon other demons, and it's an idea so ludicrous he wants to laugh--it's not like Stolas is going to answer the summon just to save him or something. Sure, that whole government facility thing had happened, but the prince probably didn't want his stupid grimoire harmed even if he had touched Blitzo right afterwards, caressing his face gently, and--and--Blitzo's hands shake in his bonds, and he doesn't know which one he wants: for Stolas to come, or for nothing to happen.
"Per septem maria et septem circulos..."
What happens if he doesn't answer? Blitzo squeezes his eyes shut at a sudden burst of pain, and the ground heats up beneath him. He cracks open an eye. The blood circle--his blood--is glowing, drops levitating in the air. The sun is practically only a sliver. His eyes try to adjust to the shadows; the only light comes from the sigil, glowing under his body, and the faint light of faux runes flickering over the concrete. The air grows colder.
"Daemones septuaginta duo, abominabiles, libidinosi, dolosi..."
A sudden iciness knots in Blitzo's stomach. It's the feeling of getting dragged--like someone had tied a chain around his guts and was trying to pull them out through his bones--and it makes think of limping, crawling prey, right before they were yanked away into a devouring maw. Voices have joined in the chant, echoing off the walls. With the wane light sources, only the masks are visible, and Blitzo's throat closes over as they surround him like a set of statues.
"Enatis caro et os..."
His heart rattles and thumps in his chest. Something--something's entering into his body, not a physical thing, but like air melding into life. Cold, icy talons grip in his chest, his mind, and the freezing pain makes him writhe helplessly in his ropes. It's not a quantifiable pain; it's one that surges, recedes, the swell of a tide, and he feels like he's drowning somewhere, a deep black ocean with no light, no escape, just sinking and sinking and sinking--
and something waits at the bottom of the abyss, a force so powerful and bone-shaking that he can only curl in, he can only close his eyes to spare himself from the sight. Blood leaks from his eyes and mouth as the force wraps around him, something ancient and eldritch, older than the moon and stars. He--he can't, he can't see this--only the pain, which feels like a spear edging deeper and deeper as the creature opens its mouth, utterly remorseless in its hunger--
Blitzy?!
Blitzo blinks at the nickname, and the pain recedes, just a bit. Just enough for him to be conscious, at least. He's still mired deep in his head, but it's like everything hit pause on a video.
What--what are you doing here?
And he'll never admit it, not even if it gets a spike shoved up his ass, but Blitzo--nearly collapses from relief. He's distantly aware that his body has slumped over, unreacting to the world, but in his mind the ocean seems to be getting clearer. Lighter. He feels himself floating, no semblance of clothes or chains dragging him down, even as something stirs at the bottom.
I'm...it takes him a moment to gather his words. I'm--on a fucking mission, okay? And it kind of went dick-up and now I'm kinda like a fucking circuit battery for you or something, I dunno, I'm not a damn demonology nerd.
You've been captured?!
Blitzo mentally grimaces. Yeah, laugh it up, shitstick. Some loony cultists got me wrapped up in some angel runes shit--not actual ones, but...he trails off. Similar enough. They've got me in a summoning circle and everything.
Where is your crew? Why are they not there?
Well, they don't have to be! I don't need a fucking babysitter--Blitzo grits his teeth. This is getting nowhere. They don't know I'm here. I got--it was a trap, okay? It was just supposed to be a kill-and-run thing, not this whole...he flails around with a gesture. This whole shitstorm. He hates being vulnerable, but there's not much he can do right now. Just--he bites back his pride. Just get me out of here, okay?
I...I can't.
Desperation rises in him. What? Why the fuck not?
Blitzo...Ice curls around in his chest. He can count the number of times Stolas calls him by his actual name on one hand, and none of the situations had ever been good. It is--a bit difficult to explain. Perhaps if I had some diagrams--
No, I don't give a fuck on diagrams! Blitzo thinks he's going to hyperventilate. Are you actually, physically unable to or what?
I can. Stolas' voice is calm; flat, almost. But I would have to dispatch all the summoners, and I would have to do so through your body. Do you think you could handle it?
Blitzo remembers the expression on the agent's face as Stolas had emerged from her mouth; the way the eyes shone dead, hollow, the blood struggling to flow from muscles that would atrophy in seconds. The trembling, almost manic giggle she had given after. He thinks of Stolas touching his face; the apartment he and Loona shares, the feeling of wrapping Millie and Moxxie in his arms. Would they even know where to find him? Would they try to? What if they ended up in the trap as well? What if, what if, what if--
Do it, he tells Stolas. He feels a slight touch of concern, and it's so subtle that for a moment he's sure he imagined it.
Then--
then
He doesn't black out. There's no mercy in that; something deep seizes within his stomach, and he's shot back to consciousness like a U-Haul slamming into a brick wall. His limbs jolt like he's been electrified, bone and sinew locking in as a thrumming, agonising sensation surges through every fucking nerve, and his hearing swells and recedes in bursts of staticky punctures, like needles being plugged directly into his skull. The ground is so hot underneath; the concrete shakes, cracks, the air solidifying into something heavy, and he feels it. He feels Stolas taking control of his body, bit by bit, and each place the prince touches makes torturous pain rack up through his spine. He can tell Stolas is doing his best to ease in, and he can't even imagine whatever the human had experienced. It's a miracle his organs are still intact.
The body is easier. This must only be a fraction of Stolas' power, and Blitzo gasps as pain arcs in a tight loop through his throat, the ropes loosening on his wrists even as the summoning circle glows brighter, struggling to hold in the newly combined energy. It's when the power creeps into the edge of his mind that Blitzo curls into himself in fear, claws digging scratches into the concrete. It's not--it's not cold or burning hot at all, but there's a void where Stolas touches his consciousness, like an ink blot spreading over unmarred paper. Blitzo squirms, hating how trapped he feels, where not even the physical world outside can distract him from the growing, rising nothingness; he tries to remember, to cling onto the minute details of his life, and he knows that Stolas isn't going to hurt him but it doesn't stop his heart from pounding wildly in his chest, struggling to nourish each bit of skin and organ with blood rapidly decreasing in pressure.
It'll be over soon, Stolas reassures him, the nervousness in the prince's voice audible in the deepest recesses of his mind. There's another emotion underlying the words, one that unnerves Blitzo in whatever consciousness he retains, and then--and then--
And then he opens his eyes.
But it's not his eyes, is it? It's eyes that don't exist at the same time, intertwined with the very molecules of air; a hand that reaches out, batting away the ropes like they were made of paper. A red hand that uncurls, but the tips are jagged, long talons, the points disappearing into nothing. He doesn't smell the air anymore; the sensitivities of light, the spatial arrangement of the world. All that matters is inside him, a star dying near the horizon, its innards peeled away and torn into the abyss. Action requires no thought--thought requires no action. He lifts his hand, and watches rivulets of blood dissipate into mist.
Sharper. Stronger. The pulse of heart; the taste of fear. The walls crowding in; the tiny mental fortresses of the mind, all tucked away behind masks and false courage. The agent's mind was strong, hard to dissemble; this one is much easier. It is like paring open a fruit. Effortless to peel away the physical components of brain and skull while not lifting a finger at all. Within is the glowing, writhing mass of light--but it's so easy to snuff it, to crush it in his palm.
The human has no time to react. To process. They only claw at their throat weakly, mask staining red from underneath--not dead, heart still beating, blood still flowing--but judging by the pure expression of agony and fright on their faces, they might as well wish there are.
He knows this emotion. It's one that guides him as he toys with the mortals' mind, the red, imp vessel at ease with his intentions. When he raises a hand, the mortal follows, lifted into the air. Feet kick and swing in a wild grab to latch onto something. Someone else is trying to chant, perhaps finally realising the weight of their mistakes, but he's not done with them. Far from it.
Hey, Stolas, are you--
If it was just him they summoned, he would've made it quick. Not painless, certainly, but quick. He has other things to do. But they hurt his lover, his partner, and the emotion spreads down his arm, his wrist, to his very fucking fingertips. The human still struggling in the air starts to squirm harder as he wraps a hand around the throat. For a moment he only feels the blood pulsing in the jugular. Soft. Weak.
The neck snaps effortlessly.
He drops the mortal on the floor. They're still alive--he hadn't used that much pressure--but they won't walk for the rest of their lives. Or speak. Or have any higher cognitive functions, really. Weapons are aimed at him,
Yikes, that guy looks royally fucked--
but his voice continues at a low, distant sound as he moves on to the next human. The next. There are ways to stop the heart without death; to crack every bone in the body and still breathe. A gurgling, pitiful rattle in the throat as he slowly crushes their windpipe, as casually as if he's watering his plants back at the manor. All their bravado, all their arrogance--useless, worthless, lesser than the filthiest worms to crawl from the soil. The whole warehouse shudders, like an earthquake is ripping through the dirt, the pieces of concrete and stone rattling and shaking as the intensity increases, as the very walls creak and bow under its weight, and the moon burns above like an all-seeing, red eye.
Stolas?
They tried to kill him.
He doesn't know which one. He doesn't care. But a strangled, muffled snarl escapes from his throat, thick with blood, and he feels the body struggling to hold in himself; feathers drip from his mouth, threatening to erupt from the horns. The bones in his body shift and rearrange, jostled in their own fluids. Three humans left. Three cultists, with their laughable, paper masks, one still holding the tome. Three that tried to take away his lover, that tried to hurt him--
He breaks out of the sea for a moment, because it's all he can do. It's supposed to be fresh air, the sky limitless and inviting, but when his head emerges from the wave there's only the same haunting, crushing void all around, like a prison cell suspended high in the air. Blitzo struggles to breathe, but Stolas surrounds him on all sides, and his head pounds from the prince's proximity. A brief moment of clarity trickles in, like he's seeing everything from afar. He watches Stolas peer over to the cultists through his own body, how the head tilts so slightly like he's curious. But he's not curious. Even in the depth of his mind, Blitzo can feel the fury that emanates like heat, and its intensity almost makes his heart stop.
The three flinch away, one of them muttering some kind of chant under her breath, and the circle flares up in a glow. The words can't hold much weight, not with the silhouettes of the other bodies crumpled on the floor
"You can't kill us," one of the cultists snarls--the one holding the tome in shaking hands, voice high-pitched in fear. A bloodied bat lays near their feet. "I know about your stupid demon laws--you can't kill any fucking humans, can you? And you can't hold onto that form forever."
It's an odd sensation to feel his mouth move of his own accord, the lips and tongue twisting into a cadence he's wholly unfamiliar with.
"Can't I?"
What happens next is something, Blitzo thinks, that will haunt his dreams forever. It's something in hindsight that he can never rip from his mind, no matter how much he wants to; that even if his sympathy towards humans is zero, the scream they make feels permanently stamped in his memories. It's only a moment of raw, visceral terror before the sea drags him down, the waters smooth and glassy and gaping like a mirror, and in the sanctuary of his head he can see his own physical body standing in the circle crookedly, limbs bent and body shaking, but there are things far, far beyond the realm of the tangible. There are places in Hell that even Overlords avoid; there are depths in the abyss that even Heaven's light wouldn't dare to touch.
"Humans..."
This isn't Stolas' voice. Stolas is high-pitched and classy and easily excitable; his voice sharpens in irritation, softens in relaxation, the predictable swell of a tide. His voice isn't supposed to be so cold and deep and soft, like a horror dredged up from the bottom of a well. The cold, icy anger that burns through every word, hotter than any fire underneath--
"Always so limited--" Blitzo's body surges forward, swaying and twitching like a marionette, and his skin ripples as feathers tear through the red-white hide like razors in the wind. "Always so small..."
And in the dying glow of the spell circle, Blitzo sees him.
The apparition at the facility is nothing compared to this. That one had a form, at least--some kind of physical limitation--but this one--it rises into the open air, swallowing the moon; it twists and writhes violently as feathers spread wide, and there's voices screaming, laughing, an insane, sobbing cacophony that screeches madly. This fucking isn't Stolas anymore--it's Stolas and everyone in his claim, souls screaming and pleading as they pound against incorporeality, eyes glassy with terror; scarred hands clawing desperately against the void, tearing at their own skin for any semblance of reality. Blitzo can't even see his body from the writhing mass anymore--limbs twist together in knots, bones broken and shattered like glass, and when Stolas speaks again he's almost grateful that it covers the restless, rattling breaths of the damned.
"You're right," he hears himself say with Stolas' voice, and his throat aches from the effort. "But you little things don't understand, do you? There are fates ṃ̸̡̢̢̦̩̳̺͙͙͕͖͚͔̀͊̂͊͆͜u̸̖̭̍̀͂̄̎̅̃̄̓̈́č̶̨̢͖̖̥̺̱̥̪̻̟̲̯̣̞̹̲̯̽́͜h̷͉̞̫̣̬͇͚͖̼̹̽̀̃́̈́̈́̈͋͑̑̚̕͘̚͜,̴̨̨̼̮͕̠͓̺͉̳̳͎͉̩̊̏̋͂̌̓́̿̆̃̈͐̈̆̈́̓͐̋̄́̎̾͜͜͝ͅ ̶̡̧̡̨̺̭̯̯̰̣̩̰̣̏͜ṁ̸̧̫̣̤̺̳̟̳̗͚̤̪̲̝͎̙͖̊̀́̐̽̽uc̷̗̤̼̱̥̲̹̈͗h̶̖͕̗̠̼̠͚̪͚̩̥̲̥̩͕̤̼̟̳̟͍̐̍̎͋̀͋̕ͅ ̴̨̧̝̰̰̭̮͕̦̼̩̺̈́̇̄͒w̵̡̢̢̛̙̗͉͖͉̤̲͚̣͚̣̭̣̦̗̩̾͂͆͒͆̌͒̔͑͑̒̀͌̽́̎̕̚̕͝͝ò̵̢̢̢̦͖̩̲̫̘͇̖̰̼̙͖̜̥͒̏̐̆̃́͛̽́̒͗̈̆̎̾̓̔̆̚͠r̸̢̛̛̩̲̦̲̥͙͍͈̹̘̞̝̀̌̏͂̎̉͒̈́͒ͅs̴̢̨̻͚̺͓̗̺͈͕̣͕͇͖͎̜̹͚̊͑̈́̿̾́̇͒̈̔̕̚̚̚e̴̡̳͔͇̬̞̹̹̫̪̰̾̌͐̍͗̈́͌̍́͌͑͝ͅ ̷̩̣͚̮͍̯̮͙̏̓͑̐̓̎̾̋̓̌̉̒͘͝͠͠Ţ̷̝͍̤̩̺̞͍̟͈̜͗̃̒̐̒͌̅̓́̋͛́̀̑͘̕͜͠H̵̢̢̡̨̬̯̲̬͕͉͙̩̓̍̋̐̉̂́͛͋͜Ä̸̡̨̢̡͙̝̜̙͚̤͈́̀͗͆͆̍̓̎̿̾͌̽̎̑̐̒̐̕͜͜͠ͅͅN̸̬͚̗̯͉̰̉̏͛̈́̈̊̄̓̐̓̓̇͐̊̽͒̾̾̎͊̂͋͝ ̵̨̞̣̖̩̱͎͕̳̬͇͛̿̐̋̅̽̈́̃̾͐̈́̆̈́̔̐͊͊̾̕̕̕̚͝D̸̛͓̥̦̰̥͉̥̝́̄͆̾̓̍͑͠E̶͕̫͔̤͛Ȁ̴̯̜̠̟̪̲̤͔̻̍̑̈͋̐̔̿͐̒͒̒͐̇̊̔̒ͅŢ̵̢̛͇̞͈̭͇͈̯̻͍̈́̽̔̎̈́̅̉̉̉̃́͐̇͌̓̑̃̔̉H̴̥̖̲̖͖̠͐.
The scream that follows afterwards--it's the kind of scream that puts all nightmares to shame. And Blitzo's no stranger to violence, even less of one to gore, but he has to turn his head away at the scene. All he sees are the humans' shadows, the way their limbs bend and twist into impossible positions, and their chests heaving and cracking and caving--and he can't see it from here, but the coppery scent of blood saturates the air, hot and thick on his tongue, and for a single moment he thinks he can taste it.
"Help..."
Welcome to Hell, Blitzo thinks numbly.
Everything falls silent.
Slowly, so slowly, the world ebbs into its normal appearance again, the moon dwindling down to its typicaly size as a soft wash of light flutters over the ruins of the warehouse. If he didn't know any better, Blitzo might've thought that nothing had happened at all. The summoning circle peels into ashes, and he can feel that terrible, cold void slowly receding from his body, bit by bit, like the tide pulling away from the shore. Every bit of retreat returns a semblance of warmth into his body, like a trickle of water warming up over a pit.
When he breathes, it's with the acute awareness of his own lungs again, fresh air swirling down all the way to the bottom as Stolas carefully, delicately, dislodges himself from his mind. Blood trickles from his eye, but he wipes it away. That's...a lot of blood over him, and some torn viscera and tissue as well, but honestly he's gone home covered in worse. He's fallen into literal vats of human shit, for Satan's sake. Still, he stands there for a second, trying to process the autonomy of his body again.
There's a soft, rustling sound behind him, and Blitzo doesn't have to turn around to know who it is. The shadows ripple and swirl to form a familiar tall silhouette that crouches down, and Blitzo doesn't think twice--he collapses into the embrace, not caring the amount of blood that has to be smeared over the prince's down. Stolas can just magick away that shit anyhow. It's the paralysing coldness in Blitzo's head that makes him bury his face deeper, claws clenching on soft, grey feathers.
"My dear?" Talons gently stroke over his head--the same talons that could snap bone like toothpicks. Blitzo isn't complaining. "Are you alright?"
"...what do you fucking think, Stolas?"
"It was the only way. I couldn't let them hurt you."
"I know, okay? Just..." Blitzo inhales and sinks deeper into the hug, detecting the faint scent of flowers from Stolas' feathers. It's a constant scent back at the Goetia manor as well; it was layered over the walls, the tiles, in the blissfully soft sheets of the bed. He doesn't know what he's so afraid of saying. He's not scared of unexistence. He's not scared of being tortured or hurt, to some degree. But this--this ground-shaking terror, vulnerability, of leaving behind so many things unsaid, of someone cupping his face as tenderly as if he's made of glass--he doesn't know if he prefers it over the cold numbness or not.
"Just give me a moment," he finally mutters, words garbled and muffled, but Stolas only strokes his horns with infinite tenderness. They stay there for a while as the moonlight shifts over hollow, mortal bodies, minds twisted and shattered into shards, and all the while he can only think of his breathing. Of Stolas' breathing. Slow, deep, rhythmic, but inevitably tinged with worry. He doesn't know what this is, and he doesn't want to either. Only that it's there, gentler than light and stronger than steel. It's terrifying. It's terrifying and raw like an exposed nerve, but it's warm, and maybe that's all that matters.