Chapter 4: Union

Dying hurt. It hurt a lot to have a set of blades stabbed through the ribs and into the lungs, scratching the heart as well. The pain was sharp and constant. Imagine having the worst pain ever for eternity. It felt like an eternity for Jason to die. He watched as Anthony was dragged away, kicking screaming and then there was no one but himself. Time went by slow and the pain began to ebb. That was when Jason had time to reflect.

Mistakes had been made. People don’t die so young without mistakes in their life, but Jason figured that it wasn’t his own mistakes. Not slowing down to carry Anthony wasn’t a mistake. That was a choice. A mistake is if he had tripped on a rock. People regret mistakes. There was no regret.

Maybe mistakes weren’t made. Maybe it’s just fate. That’s always a possibility. He was just meant to die. Anthony was meant to be taken. Janice meant to be sold in fighting pits and Kieth meant to go somewhere. It was hard to tell for Jason if it was because of mistakes or because of fate that he laid there in the grass, dirt and leaves, dying. He figured that it didn’t matter right now, death was inevitable.

Jason grew tired. A kind of tired that he saw coming a mile away. He could feel its presence lurching towards him now. It was just a matter of time, but until then, Jason thought about Anthony.

He thought of Anthony’s smile. The way he like to comb his hair with his fingers or pretend that he didn’t chew up every pencil he ever got his hands on. He thought of the times they would lay in bed, just to be in each other’s arms well into the day. The times when they would go and get food. When they would just sit and look at each other. All the time they spent together. He then thought of the ring he had saved up for. It was not fancy or even diamond or anything link like that. It was a white gold plated steel band with emerald embedded into it. Simple, but from the heart. It was back home, wherever home was now, sitting in the cliched sock drawer. Anthony never looked through the sock drawer, feet fetishes confused him.

Jason smiled, but the act of moving any muscle except for his heavy eyelids, hurt. He coughed and that made it hurt even more and more and more. The pain was unbearable, but he had to bear it because it was there and he had nothing to do to stop it except die and that was coming soon enough. 

Miraculously, Jason stopped coughing up blood long enough to get a tiny bit of air into his lungs through the blood and the coughing stopped, the pain subsided. He kept thinking of Anthony as he felt the thrums of his heart begin to fade. He thought of him as the world went back. His last though was of their first meeting.

Blackness turned to white. It was the void again. White everywhere with a bit of shadowing to differentiate the floor from the sky.

Jason looked down. He was naked like in the dream, but human this time. He wondered why.

“That’s what you are,” a voice said, reading his thoughts, except they weren’t thoughts. Jason had actually said them aloud without opening his mouth.

Jason turned around and saw Antes. He still had his halo of knives and impressive metal eagle wings.

“You are human, but magic has a funny way of making the truth less believable,” Antes said. He reached up and pulled back his hood. He was a man, on old man, but a man nonetheless. 

“I wasn’t human before,” Jason said and touched his arm to make sure that it was skin, not fur.

“You’re dead now,” Antes slowly walked closer. The man looked Jason up and down, walking around him as if inspecting a car or a prize stallion. “Not much matters when you are dead.”

“Is this purgatory?” Jason asked. “Are you supposed to judge me if I’m worthy to go to heaven or if I need to go to hell.”

“I would never send anyone to hell,” Antes stopped behind Jason.

Jason turned around again. He wished that Antes, for once, would just stay in front of him. 

“Well...” Antes rubbed his chin. “That’s a lie. I’d happily send its own residents back to hell. It’s where they belong after all.”

“Doesn’t answer the question of where I am,” Jason said and placed his hands on his hips and frowned.

“No,” Antes said, his wings moved a little, perhaps a shiver of some sort. They metal feathers sounded like falling coins. “This isn’t purgatory. I’ve stopped your soul from leaving your body.”

“My soul, hmm,” Jason breathed out. Normally he’d be skeptical about all of this, but today had been a day to prove skeptics all wrong. So much belief had been turned on its head already that believing a little more lunacy was alright. “Why is that?”

“If you die fully in body and mind, I perish as well,” Antes said. “I’m not ready for that and neither are you.”

“Need to save Anthony,” Jason said and looked behind him as if that’s where Anthony had been dragged off to. He remembered it and the white void faded slightly, showing the memory. The faces were blurry, the clothes undefined, but Anthony. Anthony was clear as day. He felt as if he could reach out and grab Anthony’s outstretched hand, but the image faded away before he could try.

“I can offer another chance, but at a price,” Antes said. “We become bonded, two beings in one. We will be together forever, but I will do everything I can to help you save Anthony.”

“What do you want in return?” Jason asked. He had watched enough movies, read enough books to know that there was always a catch to every proposition. 

“You help me find someone,” Antes answered and held out a hand. “An archdemon lord by the name of Malus. I was charged with finding and bringing him to justice for his crimes against all. To do this, I require a body for mine has been destroyed.”

“Destroyed?” Jason quirked his head. “How? I get the feeling that if you looked like how your are now, that’s no easy feat.”

Antes bowed his head slightly, acknowledging it as fact. “No, it is not easy. I will show you my final moments and show you who I hunt as well.”

The white void shifted again, colors slowly coming in around Jason, but Jason was also fading away as well. His conscience shifted, his vision blurred until he found himself standing atop a plateau, overlooking a massive array of tents and thousands of individuals.

“Antes,” a gruff voice called out from the left.

Jason tried to move, but he couldn’t move how he wanted.

“This is but a memory,” Ante’s voice said inside his head. “Watch.”

Jason stopped trying to control the situation and instead, let the memory go its course.

“You sly, dirty, old man,” a heavily armored figure, a wolf by the looks of it, strode swiftly up to Antes.

Antes smiled and reached out a gloved hand which was taken by the chain mailed paw of the wolf. “Thedius, you look well.”

The wolf rolled his shoulders and scratched his neck. “The armor takes a few years away. There’s nothing but back aches and joint problems under all of this.”

“Yet,” Antes said and waved a hand at the camp. “You could take down any of these people here swiftly.”

“Not all at once,” Thedius held up a finger and laughed boisterously. “Those young lads are more sprightly than you know. You’ve been off in that cloud kingdom of yours for far too long.”

Antes face darkened slightly, though Thedius couldn’t see it past the cloak that Antes kept up. “There is a lot going on in Heaven.”

“Always is,” Thedius nodded. “Now those troubles are here in Medius. That is why you have come and pulled the army here all the way to the Alevu Flats?”

“Malus is conjuring some in his fortress. Everyone in both Heaven and Hell feel it.”

Thedius groomed his chin fur with his claws. “I see. That would explain the demon army my scouts have spotted moving on the other side of the flats. They’ve surely seen us as well.”

“They won’t bother us until we meet at Malus’ fortress.” Antes pointed out across the flats towards the center where a single mountain stood. “It will be a hard fight. Many will die, but it must be done. I fear that Malus is creating a portal to leave this world.”

“And go where?”

“I do not know,” Antes lied. It was well known what Malus intended to do. He was going back to the previous world known as Medius. 

Medius was no singular world, but the current plane that existed between Heaven and Hell. Worlds rotated between Heaven and Hell, falling in and falling out of influence. Malus intended to escape both his brothers and the angels by going somewhere they couldn’t follow. He couldn’t be allowed to escape and have free reign over an entire plane of existence alone and the other demons couldn’t be allowed to capture the portal either.

“Storm clouds approaching,” Thedius said and looked to the east where a dark swirl was heading right for them. 

“He’s begun the ritual,” Antes said gravely. “Prepare your army. We march at once.”

The memory swirled a bit before refocusing. Jason found himself standing in what looked like a library with thousands of books, except half were on fire and on the ground.

All around were the bodies of strange, disgusting creatures. Demons. There were also humans, dogs, cats, all sorts of animals in their strange two legged variety as well. They all bore armor similar to what Thedius had been wearing and even more still fought.

Antes didn’t concern himself with the martial warfare all around him. He focused on a single hunched figure across from him. It was no bigger than a man, but had red skin and a pair of horns sprouting from its head. It’s mouth was filled with two rows of teeth, each one filed to a point. Green goats eyes stared with hate.

“Can I have nothing?” Malus asked. His voice was raspy and hard to hear. “I toil and slave away for centuries to have it all whisked away by those envious of me.”

Antes, who was dressed for battle, a metal chain mail suit with a robe woven into it, tightened his grip on his staff. “Maybe the other denizens of hell, but Heaven wants nothing from you, but to die. You’re attempts to leave this world cannot succeed.”

Malus’ eyes narrowed, coming to small slits where a faint green glow could be seen. “What’s the old realm to you? Huh? You all abandoned it. It was a failure after Logos. How sad it was to see your beloved humans turn so readily against you.”

“Enough!” Antes shouted and flicked his staff. A heavy orb of crystal that shimmered with every movement, shot out an ice shard at Malus.

Malus cackled and turned into a vapor of smoke as the ice shard harmlessly went through and embedded itself into a stone wall.

Antes raised up his staff, the air freezing around himself and swirling, slammed the staff into the ground. A strong gust of wind came from the staff, icy and filled with snow. The smoke vapor was caught up in it and from it, Malus fell from it.

“You cretin!” Malus shouted. “You angels, high and mighty. Chosen and pure. We demons, damned and full of despair. We are all disgusting.”

Malus got up and began to run to the center of the room where he had a cauldron of bubbling purple liquid. The catalyst for his portal.

“Stop right there,” Antes shouted and shot more ice shards at Malus, but each step he took, he turned into a cloud of smoke, making him extremely difficult to hit. 

“Stop you’re attack!” Malus shouted as he reached the cauldron and threw up a smoke shield that was just barely opaque. “The spell is unstable.”

Antes heard, but did not stop. He brought the orb of the staff to his face where he channeled his mana into it. The orb grew in brightness quickly. He then reached near the orb and began to pull from it, a wispy cloud of ice that collected into a single, pin sized point above his palm.

Malus channeled his own energy, a black aura surrounded himself. 

Once the energy was done being collected, Antes slowly released it and drew from the point of ice, a bastard sword that he held in his off hand. It glimmered in the candlelight as it was made of ice. With metal wings extended, Antes pulled himself off the ground and launched himself at the shield. 

As soon as Antes hit the shield, Malus released all his collected energy at once.

The last thing Jason saw was a flash and a thunderous roar.

“I didn’t believe that the spell would be so volatile,” Antes said as they were returned to the void. “The resulting explosion destroyed me and Antes. I found myself here, in you. Don’t know why, but why not I suppose.”

“And I’m guessing that Malus is hiding out in someone as well?”

“More than likely,” Antes said as their bodies finally reappeared. “So, what do you say? Live a little longer for both our sakes.”