Hell of A Reckoning
By: Blaze-Lupine
*Content Warning:*
This story contains mature themes.
This work is for mature audiences only.
CHAPTER ONE
Til Death And Beyond
The bass was thumping, the lights were dancing, and somewhere overhead, a cluster of neon bats were forming a heart shape because Queen Bee-lzeebub thought it was ironic and cute. And if Queen Bee wanted it? It happened. Especially tonight.
Because this wasn't just another wild night at her club in this Circle of Hell.
This was Blaze and Loona's wedding party. The ``Finally got off their asses and made it official'' celebration. No priests. No contracts. Just a damned good time with the damned good crew.
``YOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!'' came Bee's voice from the second-floor balcony, wings glittering with soul-infused fire as she held up a double drink in each of her four hands. ``LOOK AT THEM! LOOK AT THESE HOT BITCHES FINALLY TYING THE FUCKING KNOT! ABOUT TIME!''
The crowd cheered.
Bee looked down, grinning like sin itself as the spotlight shifted and landed on the couple of the hour.
At the bar, Blaze Morvane leaned back, one arm wrapped loosely around Loona's waist, his tail lazily flicking against her thigh in rhythm with the beat. He was dressed in his usual jacket - tailored black with neon pink lining, unzipped just enough to show off a bit too much chest fur - but now paired with a slick silver ring glinting on a chain around his neck.
Loona, meanwhile, looked... dangerously stunning.
Black crop top with an edgy ``Wife Me, I Dare You'' logo scrawled in crimson across it. Tight leather shorts with a spiked belt. Her ears twitched with the bass, and her crimson eyes held just the right amount of smug satisfaction and maybe a little murder-lust.
She raised her drink to the crowd, then leaned in and kissed Blaze hard enough that even Bee fanned herself and whistled.
``About time we did this,'' Loona muttered against his lips.
Blaze smirked. ``Was either this or let Bee throw another `Guess Who Loona's Screaming At' pool party.''
Loona snorted and shoved him. ``Still mad I flipped your mom in the last one?''
``Not at all. I think Mistral's still bragging about it.''
??Blaze+Loona?'' sign that immediately melted from the heat of nearby demonic pyrotechnics.
Highwire leaned against the bar with her signature neon claw-drink, glowing blue streaks down her fur pulsing to the music. ``You know,'' she said with a chuckle, ``I was so ready to call bullshit when Blaze said he settled down.''
``Still might,'' Kimiko teased, twirling next to her. ``But still so awesome!''
``Only if she stabs him at the altar,'' Highwire replied with a wink.
From the ceiling? A jagged mechanical shape dropped upside-down and clicked violently into place above them.
The Mangle.
Dangling like a twisted disco ball.
C???E???L???E???B???R???A???T???E??? - '' she screeched, firing off a spray of confetti from her mouth. A second later, Mal0 teleported in midair with her usual glitch-pixel distortion, only to land right next to Highwire and Kimiko with a single monotone: ``[~B???? = ???????? ???????~]''
Mal0 then handed Loona a ``#1 Bride'' sash that somehow buzzed with cursed energy and smelled vaguely of brimstone and leather polish.
Loona eyed it, then grinned. ``This'll go great with my next kill count.''
Back near the bar, Blaze was in the middle of a group hug-slash-tug-of-war between Bee, Mangle, and Kimiko. Bee had clearly already had six shots too many, or maybe that was just normal.
``OKAY, BUT SERIOUSLY - '' Bee slurred, draping all four arms over Blaze's shoulders. ``When's the honeymoon? Because I have five suggestions, three of which involve gravity magic and at least one with lava lube.''
``I thought lava was off the table since the last time,'' Loona muttered, sipping her drink, tail lazily flicking behind her.
``Only because someone brought amateurs,'' Bee huffed.
Meanwhile...
Back at the I.M.P. Office, the real VIP moment was happening.
A small screen flickered to life at the party. Blitzo popped into view, looking slightly out of breath, blood splattered on his face and Laziel sitting next to him on a skull-shaped bean bag chair with a black dagger in one hand and a hollowed-out skull in the other.
``Okay, okay, smile for the holo!'' Blitz shouted. ``Say it, kiddo!''
Laziel beamed, wagging his tail. ``Congratulations, Mom and Dad!! Grandpa taught me where the spleen is!''
``You're fucking welcome!'' Blitz added, throwing up a peace sign. ``Also, don't die during the wedding night, okay?! I mean - unless you want to go out with a bang. Which I support. Blaze - you better hydrate, dumbass!''
The screen glitched off.
Loona let out a snort that cracked into a laugh, shoulders shaking. ``Of course he said that...''
Blaze's ears flicked, cheeks tinged slightly pink. ``...I mean. He's not wrong.''
Kimiko, from across the room: ``HE'S SO DEAD LATER.''
As the night rolled on, the dancing got wilder. Bee summoned an infernal mariachi band because ``romance.'' Mal0 made a glitched slideshow of the couple's worst moments. Mangle body-slammed a table that looked at Loona funny. Highwire and Kimiko slow-danced ironically and then not-ironically before kissing.
And in the middle of it all, under the glow of hellfire chandeliers and between the swirling chaos of friends, music, and madness, Loona grabbed Blaze by the collar, pulled him close, and whispered:
``I know it's a party and all...but I seriously can't wait for the after party.''
The music was filthy, the drinks stronger than truth serum, and the dance floor was a sweaty infernal pit of sin. Just the way Bee liked it.
Loona had lost her jacket three songs ago, and Blaze had a lipstick mark that wasn?t hers on his cheek. Mangle swore she saw Queen Bee doing the worm mid-air. Mal0 was halfway merged with a sound system and actively remixing the music with her code.
And Blaze? He was having the time of his afterlife.
``YEAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!'' Highwire shouted, jumping off the edge of a table into a crowd that caught her with a cheer. ``MARRIAGE! CHAOS! LET'S GOOOOOO!''
Kimiko followed after, flicking glowing tails with every beat, her laughter trailing her like fairyfire.
Loona sipped her drink, watching them with a smug but content smirk. ``Can't believe I'm marrying into this circus...''
Blaze, tipsy and flushed, leaned into her ear. ``You are the circus.''
She elbowed him.
He still grinned.
But then...
From her perch above the dance floor, Mangle stopped mid-sway.
Her glowing eye shutter flickered. Her limbs twitched erratically. A sharp mechanical whine pierced out of her chest, loud enough to make the glass behind the bar rattle.
`` - E????????????R??????????????????????????????R??????????????????????????????????????O??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????R????????????????????????????????? - **
Heads turned.
Mal0 - who had just been fusing herself into a wall subwoofer and causing several drinks to explode with bass - jerked violently upright.
Her display glitched, jittered. Her smile?
Gone.
``[~A? ??????? ???ss?s ?????s? ???????~]'' She stepped away from the speaker, ears turning, then turning again. Her head tilted unnaturally. ``...s?????? ?s ??s??????...''
Blaze was still mid-dance when Mangle dropped in front of him, crouched, all five limbs twitching.
``Something's wrong,'' she crackled, tone sharper than he'd heard in years.
``What?'' Blaze blinked, the buzz in his head suddenly a bit colder. ``What do you mean wrong?''
Mal0 appeared next to them instantly, stepping through a glitch in space like a curtain.
She didn't say anything. Just held out her phone.
On the screen? A corrupted, static-laced symbol pulsed. A sigil that neither recognized, but both felt.
Deep in their bones.
Loona stepped in, tail twitching. ``What the hell's going on? You guys are acting like we're about to be jumped by Satan himself.''
Which they weren't, because he had argued this party himself and refused to come.
Mangle turned her head slowly toward her. ``Loona... there's something in the club.''
Bee popped her head down from her skybox. ``If it's another horny dimension poltergeist, I already kicked that thing out last week.''
``It's not horny,'' Mangle snapped.
``Then it's not my problem.''
Mal0's voice came through in stereo from the speakers. ``[I?'s ??? ????. I?'s ???s???.]''
Blaze's ears flicked. ``Guys, you're - ''
And then - just for a second - the music cut.
The lights dimmed.
And everyone stopped dancing.
Not because they were scared.
But because they didn't realize they?d frozen.
As if reality blinked.
And in that blink - something watched back.
Kimiko and Highwire both glanced around, fangs bared just a touch.
Kimiko whispered, ``Did you feel that?''
Highwire nodded. ``Yeah. Like someone just exhaled on my soul.''
Mangle moved to the back wall, metallic claws scraping it like a tuning fork.
?s????????: S????? ?????? ??????? - ]'' She paused. Then blinked. Then whispered: ``[~S??????'s ??????? ?? L?????~]''
And just like that, Loona's blood ran cold. She grabbed Blaze's wrist.
Blaze's mind snapped into focus.
Everything else around them blurred, as if the party was still happening but they weren't part of it anymore. Music. Dancing. Screaming.
But the world had shifted.
The music never stopped.
The beat thumped.
Lights strobed. Laughter echoed.
But every supernatural in the room... went still.
The air shifted.
The soul-reactive fog along the dance floor evaporated. The enchanted glass fogged in reverse. Even Mal0's glitching body flickered out of view for a second, instinctively shying away from whatever had just crossed the threshold.
And then the front doors opened. Not kicked in. Not blasted apart.
Just... pushed.
Like a stranger entering a casual lounge. Like they belonged.
The lights should've reacted. Bee's wards should've screamed. But all the magic on the premises seemed to... hesitate.
As if not quite sure what it was dealing with.
In walked one body, dressed in threadbare ceremonial robes. Deep black, patterned with shifting soul-glow threads - script written in languages long erased by time. Their frame was tall, thin, off. Something about their balance was wrong, like they leaned too evenly to both sides. Like they were two people mimicking one walk.
The club's lights dimmed just around them, as if bending back. And when the crowd turned to look, it was like watching a stage illusion.
People parted.
And the intruder walked the glowing dance floor alone, hands behind their back. Calm. Controlled.
Watching.
``Who the hell invited the cosplay reject?'' Queen Bee growled from the upper railing, wings twitching with offense and heat. She stood and dove off the platform with supernatural grace, landing near Loona and Blaze with a crackle of golden energy. ``Because last I checked,'' Bee said, stalking toward the approaching figure, ``this was MY fucking club. And no one walks into my hive and sniffs my pheromones without permission.''
Blaze took a step up beside her, eyes narrowing.
Loona was already crouched, hackles raised, her hand drifting to her hip - where her blade usually sat when she wasn?t dancing. She didn't need to say it.
Something was wrong. Something was familiar. Something was dangerous.
The figure finally stopped near the edge of the dance floor, raising one hand... and slowly pulling back the loose hood covering their head.
Their fur was blackened - burnt silver at the tips as if scorched by dying stars. Their face was half-canine, half-shadowed, features blurring subtly depending on the angle you looked and always shifting.
Their left eye glowed violet, calm and calculating.
Their right eye? Wild green, twitching with amusement.
And then... they spoke.
``So this... is what the Reaper left behind.''
Their voice was a duet. Two speakers in one throat.
A chilling whisper and snarl, layered atop each other. A female's tone was smooth, sultry, measured. The male's - raw, erratic, like laughter chasing a blade.
Bee narrowed her eyes. ``I don't care who you think you are, fuck-show. You got five seconds before I feed you to your own damn teeth.''
Loona stepped forward, body tense and ready. ``What did you say?''
The figure ignored them. Their gaze... was locked on Blaze.
``You don't remember, do you? How could you? You were cleansed. Rewritten. Given a new name... and a new leash.'' Their grin widened, slow and unnatural. ``But you can't bury that deep, Blaze Morvane. You can't run from what you were. The Soul Monger's cinders still flicker inside you. A fire given flesh...'' A slow pace now, just a few steps closer. ``...and I want it.''
Blaze's eyes narrowed. ``You've got the wrong soul.''
``Name's Vira, darling. And this here is my brother Kazel,'' the figure purred, it's voice pushing forward now, soft and deadly. ``I'm not here for your soul. I'm here for your legacy.'' With a flick of their wrist, they tossed a bundle to the floor.
It hit with a wet, soft slap. Everyone went silent.
Blaze stared.
A bandanna. Red. Faded. Familiar.
Loona's breath caught.
Then -
A cracked phone. Still lit. A picture of Aleu, taken recently. The screen blinked once. Then died.
And finally...
A necklace. Gold and elegant. With a Marian rose charm.
``Jenna. Aleu. Marian,'' the figure said calmly.
One name with each item dropped.
Blaze didn't breathe.
Neither did Loona.
The crowd had gone dead silent.
And the lights dimmed around them further - just around the intruder - until they were standing in a pool of shadow.
``I must fucking say,'' the voice of Kazel cackled forth, wild and erratic now, ``TASTES LIKE REGRET! And who knew mothers screamed SO FUCKING LOUD!''
Mangle lunged forward with a screech of static - but stopped.
Not because she was stopped.
But because the air between them shimmered with soul-slicing symbols that hadn't existed a second before. The kind of magic older than Hell. The kind that predated Reapers.
Bee took a step forward, her rage almost molten. ``You just declared fucking war.''
``No,'' the figure replied, smiling with teeth not meant to be in a mortal skull. ``We declared... family reunion.'' Their eyes locked on Blaze again. ``Say hello to Veszkar, Soulkeeper.'' The body twitched as the brother took over again. ``We've come to collect.''
The silence hung like a scream swallowed mid-breath.
Jenna's bandanna. Aleu's phone. Marian's necklace.
Legacies burned.
Blaze stood still. The neon glow around his eyes dimmed. Not in fear. Not in disbelief. But in recognition.
A part of him - one long buried under years of second chances and chosen family - remembered what it meant to lose everything. What it meant to have blood on your hands that you could never scrub away. Even if he himself couldn't see or feel it.
And this... thing... this Veszkar?
It had brought him a new stain.
Loona stepped forward, fangs bared, claws twitching. ``You sick piece of - ''
``Loona.'' Blaze's voice, sharp.
She blinked. Looked at him.
His ears had gone flat. His tail wasn't moving. His hands trembled - just once - before forming into fists. ``You need to go,'' he said, never taking his eyes off the twin-souled monster. ``Find Blitz. Get Laziel. Get him out of here. Out of Hell.''
``But - Blaze - ''
He turned now.
Not angry. Not desperate.
Just serious.
``If they're here for me, he's not safe. Please.''
Loona froze. And then she saw it.
The fire behind his eyes. The calm before the storm.
She stepped in, grabbed his wrist, and hissed, ``Don't you die on me, you fucking dumbass.''
He squeezed her fingers once. ``Only if you miss me.''
And then she was gone. Shoving through the now-parted crowd, kicking open a dimensional door with a demonic snarl.
Queen Bee's face had gone from hot girl rage to blazing queen fury. ``You've pissed on the wrong hive, fucking freakshow,'' she growled, the air warping around her. Her wings stretched wide - far wider than physics allowed - each limb becoming a serrated scythe of golden flame. Her dress melted away into a gown of magma and silk, her body igniting from within as she grew, her eyes burning fiery red. ``THIS IS MY FUCKING RING!'' she sang, voice layered with reverberating draconic chimes. ``BRING IT, BITCH.''
But Blaze?
He didn't step back. He stepped forward.
Because something inside him was burning too. Something he had refused to unleash a few times already. The stolen blood of Vicar Amelia stirred. Wolf. Beast. Sacred guardian. The towering lycan nightmare that had once hunted the nightmares of hunters themselves.
But Blaze? He could feel it. This wasn't a time for talk. So he embraced it now.
His breath grew shallow. Sharp. A claw twitched. A fang lengthened. His spine cracked. His muscles flexed under the jacket he hadn't even removed yet. And then - his eyes flared.
They pulsed red, ancient and boiling, as if something caged was finally pacing again.
His body stretched. Broke. Reformed into something larger and much more dangerous. His hair grew out like a mane, flowing as blood dripped from the wounds created along his flesh before they sealed as if burned by molten heat.
Veszkar tilted their head, amused.
Kazel's voice giggled. ``Ohhhh... There you are... I see you now. But that? Fuck, that isn't it, fleabag.'' Vira's voice followed, calm and silken. ``Excellent. This makes it so much more poetic. Was really hoping to see your true strength, however.''
Bee moved first - like a comet of flame. She leapt high, slamming down with all four blazing limbs in a burning shockwave.
Veszkar didn't move.
Instead, the air bent - reality folding around them like paper.
The blast froze mid-impact, hovering in warped time, before shattering like glass.
Blaze hit from the side, faster than anyone expected. His claws raked out, tearing through the robe and sending flaming blood flickering through the air.
Veszkar laughed. Both voices overlapping. ``YES! BITE ME, DOG!''
Bee swung wide, her arms forming burning blades as she pierced toward the figure. Each jab was parried and pushed off like it meant nothing. Each attack made by the Sin of Gluttony was treated like a boring test to be shrugged off.
Blaze's own attacks seemed to land, but each bite and slash of his claws appeared to do nothing - as if he weren't even hitting their enemy.
Vira took control now, stepping through the attack like it was choreographed. A hand pressed to the ground.
A rune ignited.
And suddenly - Blaze and Bee were surrounded.
A ring of spectral masks rose from the floor - twisted faces, each one familiar. Past victims. Old regrets.
Aleu's face.
Jenna's face.
Marian's.
And so many more he couldn't recognize.
Blaze's eyes widened - just for a moment.
Bee screamed as she attempted to break through, ``DON'T LOOK!''
Too late.
The faces opened their mouths and screamed.
Blaze stumbled, soul staggered, hearing screams painful enough to break him from within.
Veszkar stepped through the center of the ring, unbothered, hand outstretched -
CRACK!
Bee's burning talons smashed across the faces and barreled into the robed figure, sending them flying across the floor as she stormed after them. ``You wanna to play in MY fucking house?'' she snarled. ``Then you're playing MY fucking game!''
Blaze growled low, cracking his neck.
He turned toward Bee, the beast within flickering in his eyes as he growled. ``You take high.''
``I am high,'' Bee growled. ``But yeah. Fuck yeah''
``Then I'll go low.''
And with that - Blaze vanished in a blur of flame and smoke, charging Veszkar just as they rose.
Veszkar skidded back across the floor, laughing as both voices began to overlap again. The twisted soul-twin figure flickered and then split - just for a second.
Vira - calm and poised, forming a blade of folded void-script.
Kazel - hunched and cackling, tongue lolling, throwing globs of soul-rot magic into the air.
Two against two.
The true fight begins.
``Come, Monger!'' Vira laughed. ``Face thy past!''
New soul-masks rose higher, spiraling into a noose of memory. Each face flickering in and out of full detail. Their mouths moving, but the words were just out of reach -
A mother screaming.
A child sobbing.
A soldier cursing.
A god weeping.
A lover whispering his name -
``Blaze...''
``That's not who you were.''
He dropped to one knee, claws digging into the floor. His eyes flicked back and forth, breath heaving. What was this? These names... these faces...
Why did he feel like he owed them?
Why did he feel like he killed them?
He snarled - trying to shake it off. But their voices kept drilling, biting into his skull like regret reborn.
And in the center of it all, Veszkar stood, having beaten Bee back before reforming into one body. Arms wide. Grinning. ``You hear them, don't you? The ones you left behind. The ones you fed on. Forgotten now - just ghosts in your marrow.'' Kazel took over, eyes wide and manic. ``They remember you! They want to kiss you goodnight! With a fucking knife!'' Veszkar, as one, raised a hand.
The masks twisted inward, forming a spiral - a soul-harvesting maelstrom.
Blaze screamed as his body seized, caught between present and past.
Bee struggled to pull him back, her hellfire glow flickering under the weight of the illusions. Her voice broke through the fog: ``This. Is. Bullshit.''
But the masks kept closing.
Until -
POP!
A sharp, piercing pop echoed through the club like thunder.
One of the masks exploded. Then another. Then three more.
From the upper level, a glowing scope flickered, and Highwire knelt in a perfect sniper's stance, fur bristling like lightning bolts. ``Memory lane's closed, asshat.''
Down below, flipping over the bar and landing in a crouch, Kimiko loaded her twin pistols, the muzzles glowing with unstable temporal rounds. She fired three shots in rapid succession - one for each soul mask near Blaze's head. ``Don't listen to them, Blaze!''
All three shattered like porcelain.
Blaze gasped and lurched upright, the mental vice broken.
Highwire smirked from. ``Told ya I was invited to the wedding and the afterparty.''
Bee turned, her flames roaring back. ``Ohhh, hell yeah. Ladies brought guns.''
Kimiko grinned. ``They brought weird soul juju to a Fortnite fight.''
She vaulted off a table, landing in a somersault beside Blaze. ``You good, wolf-boy?''
He nodded once, breath ragged, eyes burning again. ``Remind me to never forget you.''
``You better not,'' she said. ``I'm expensive.''
Highwire dropped down, cocking her rifle. ``This is why I like guns.''
The four now stood side by side - Bee, Blaze, Kimiko, and Highwire.
But Veszkar was... still smiling. Still laughing.
Kazel's voice giggled. ``Ohhhh, you brought more friends... That's cute.'' Vira?s voice layered coldly. ``But you see... we already got what we came for. Or... we're about to fucking get it.''
Blaze stiffened.
Bee's head tilted. ``The fuck you talking about? You?re still here.''
``No,'' Vira said softly, hand rising - and pointing to her temple. ``We found him.''
Blaze's eyes widened.
They weren?t looking at him. They were looking through him.
A pulse of dark energy burst outward - knocking Blaze, Bee, Kimiko, and Highwire off their feet, their bodies sent flying backward through broken tables and sparking wards.
And before any could rise -
Veszkar turned.
And ran.
Not in fear. In purpose.
Their form blurred as both souls split and remerged - phasing through wards, bypassing Bee's flame traps as if they'd always known the way out, and dodging every bullet being shot at them.
Kimiko shouted, ``They're leaving?!''
``No,'' Blaze growled, staggering up. ``They're going after Laziel.''
And suddenly, the club wasn't a battlefield. It was a warning. A storm about to be let loose on a child who had no idea what was coming.
CHAPTER TWO
The Devil You Know
Loona burst through the portal in a flash of red light and scorched ozone, boots hitting the floor hard enough to crack tile. Her breath came fast, claws twitching.
The infernal scent of party smoke and soulfire still clung to her fur.
But the moment she saw them? Her heart nearly gave out.
Blitz was lounging sideways across the couch, a half-drunk beer in one hand, a shotgun casually disassembled on the table in front of him.
Laziel, their seven year old son, sat cross-legged on the floor, fur tousled from training, flipping through an anatomy book Blitz probably ``borrowed'' from a torture wing.
They both looked up.
``Hey, Loony,'' Blitz said around a toothpick, tail flicking. ``You look like someone stole Bee's vibrator collection. If so, loved to fucking borrow it. Won't tell. Promise.''
Loona didn't answer.
She was already at Laziel's side, grabbing him by the shoulders and pulling him in. Her eyes scanned him like a mother trying to see through his skin.
Laziel blinked. ``...uh. Hi, Mom?''
``You okay?'' she rasped.
``Yeah - wait, why - ?''
Blitz's expression shifted. All the joking fell off his face like ash off a burnt page. ``What the fuck happened?''
Loona swallowed. ``There's someone - something - came to the club. Some freak with two voices. Eyed Blaze. Mentioned a reaper. Said they wanted his legacy.''
Blitz sat forward slowly. ``...`Reaper'?''
``Blaze doesn't know what the hell it means,'' she snapped. ``Neither do I. But they had pieces of Jenna, Aleu, Marian, Blitz - they've already fucking killed them. And now they're after - '' She stopped. She didn't need to say it.
Laziel's ears had gone flat. He stared at the floor.
``Okay, okay,'' Blitz said, standing, voice now stone. ``Then we're moving. Where?''
``I don't know where it's safe,'' Loona hissed. ``They walked through Bee's club like it was nothing! Bee went full rage-mode and barely scratched them! Even Blaze - he went Beast mode, Blitz, Beast mode! I've never... he just... and it didn't stop them!''
``Okay, breathe, Loony,'' Blitz said, pulling her in close and putting a hand on her cheek. ``Hey. You hear me? We've done worse.''
``I don't know where to take him,'' she whispered. ``We need someone who knows what the fuck this thing is.''
Blitz's jaw tightened. And then he said it. ``Lucifer.''
Loona blinked. ``The fuck you just say?''
``Look, he's a dick - ''
``Massive.''
`` - but he's a well-informed dick,'' Blitz muttered, loading shells into a now-assembled shotgun. ``If it walks, talks, and soul-fucks its way through Hell, he's heard of it.''
Loona nodded, eyes narrowing. ``Whatever. Let's - ''
The shadows shifted.
The light in the room bent, not gone - but wrong. The air turned stale. Old.
Too still. Like the breath before a scream.
Loona turned sharply. Laziel stood, his claws drawn, growling. His fur bristled. His pupils were slits.
Blitz raised his shotgun without hesitation. ``Company,'' he said.
And then -
They appeared. No flare. No explosion. Just one footstep out of a shadow that wasn't there before.
Veszkar.
Their arms were behind their back. Their robes dragged across the floor like they belonged in a throne room, not this busted office.
Their mismatched eyes scanned the trio.
First Loona.
Then Blitz.
Then Laziel.
And when they saw the boy?
They smiled.
``There you are. Little spark left behind.'' Came Vira's soothing yet deadly voice. The body twitched. ``OHhhhHHH THE TEETH ON THIS ONE! Y'THINK HE BITES? I WANNA FIND OUT!''
Laziel stepped forward, teeth bared, every bit of Loona and Blaze's defiance flaring in his eyes. ``Come closer,'' he growled. ``I'll show you.''
Veszkar chuckled, hand extending slightly. ``We are not here for blood.'' Another shift back to Kazel. ``We're here for you, little mutt.'' The voice changed again. ``You don't belong to them. Not really. You were born from the remains of something far greater. Something we remember, even if your father and mother don?t.''
They took a slow step forward -
CLICK.
Blitz aimed the shotgun straight at their face.
``You threaten my family again,'' he said, voice low and venomous, ``and I'll rip whatever's left of your souls out through your teeth and pin them to my fucking fridge.''
Loona's voice was steel beside him. ``Laziel. Go. Now.''
``But - ''
``NOW!''
Laziel hesitated -
But then turned and sprinted to the portal circle, hands shaking as he tried to cast a rush jump spell.
Loona stepped closer, tail brushing his back, eyes never leaving Veszkar, but Blitz stopped her. ``The hell - ''
Blitz stepped forward, blocking the intruder with his body. ``I got this,'' he said. ``Go after the kid, Loons.''
``No fucking way - ''
``I said go!'' Blitz repeated. ``Let daddy handle this.''
Loona didn't hesitate. Couldn't. Looking at her father once more, she turned and ran.
A smirk cracked Blitz's lips as he cocked the shotgun. ``Let's see how well you two dance.''
``Go. Now.'' Loona growled again, pushing Laziel toward the emergency exit portal room down the hall. Her voice cracked - but her resolve didn't.
She turned, eyes locking on her father.
Blitz... Blitz was still standing there, between Veszkar and everything he loved.
``Alright, you creepy rave cult chucklefucks,'' Blitz said, leveling his shotgun square at the grinning twin-souled entity, ``I don't know who the hell you are, or what bony hand you crawled out of - but I'm gonna give you exactly one chance to make like a bad orgy and pull out.''
Vira tilted her head. Calm. Curious. ``You protect him. You must sense it, even if you don't understand. His blood burns different.'' Kazel snorted, licking imaginary syrup from a finger. ``We could explain it to you! Slowly. With finger puppets. And fire. While we peel the skin off your flesh.''
``I really don't give a shit.'' Blitz steadied both hands. ``Because this thing right here?'' he tapped the barrel with a grin, ``Doesn't need lore, sweetheart.''
And he fired.
BOOM.
A direct hit to the chest.
Glowing sparks, soul-pellets designed for banishing greater demons, ripped through Veszkar's robe, knocking them back a step with a hiss of black mist.
Dust settled.
Their chest smoked, cloak shredded.
Then -
The grin returned. ``Oh. That tingled.'' The voice turned cold. ``MY TURN!''
***
They were running.
Boots pounding the floor. Down the long concrete hallway of I.M.P., walls warping from panic spells, emergency glyphs glowing red.
Laziel struggled to keep up, claws slipping once. ``What's happening? What IS that thing?''
Loona yanked him up by the arm and kept running.
``I don't know!'' she barked. ``They want you. That's all that matters.''
They burst through the final gate chamber door - rows of teleport glyphs lighting up in panic at their presence.
Laziel panted. ``Is... is Grandpa okay?''
Loona hesitated. She didn't look back. ``...He'll handle it.''
Back down the hall, there was a distant, shattering boom.
Glass exploded. The lights flickered.
Laziel flinched.
Loona gritted her teeth, turned, and slammed her palm on the Lucifer-summon sigil.
``If anyone knows what the hell we're dealing with,'' she growled, ``it's the bastard who rules this place.''
The glyph ignited.
Laziel stepped close to her side. ``...Mom?''
She looked down.
He was trembling. His eyes wide.
``Are people getting hurt because of... me?''
She knelt, grabbed his face in both hands. ``No one's dying. Not you. Not Dad. Not Blitz.''
``And if they try?''
Her smile cracked into a fang-lined snarl. ``They'll wish they never woke up screaming.''
The Lucifer sigil was halfway formed when the building groaned.
The walls shuddered like flesh under heat.
The air turned wet, thick with sulfur and static, like someone had torn through reality with their bare hands and didn't bother closing the wound.
Loona froze, one hand still glowing over the summoning glyph. Laziel clutched her side, claws out, eyes darting.
Then -
BOOM.
The lights exploded. A tremor rocked through the hallway, sending glyph paper flying and the portal crystals shattering with an ear-splitting screech. From behind them...
A voice. Rumbling. Broken. Familiar.
``Loooonyyyyyyyyy...''
She turned. Her blood stopped cold.
At the end of the corridor stood a shape.
Twisted. Warped.
It scraped against the floor and ceiling - stretched wrong, like a puppet made of charred bone and regret. Torn crimson and black coat flapping like flesh, jagged bone horns curling farther than they ever had. Eyes glowing red, but not right - as if backlit by someone else's madness.
And a crooked grin - wide and torn into place.
Loona stepped back. ``Blitz...?''
It looked at her. And it laughed.
But the laugh was off.
Still his, but...
Doubled. Warped. And crying.
``T-told you... I g-got this... hah... hahaha - why won't my hands stop - '' The creature slammed its head into the wall - crack - then straightened again. ``T-they found my soul, Loona. They made it better.''
Vira's voice, calm through Blitz's torn mouth. ``This imp was the first piece of the puzzle. So close to Blaze. So tied to you all. It made sense to use him to send a message.'' Kazel cackled through the meat of Blitz's warped throat. ``HE SHOT ME. I SHOT BACK!''
Loona grabbed Laziel and ran. Down the ruined corridor, up broken stairs, across splintered glass and collapsed filing cabinets.
Behind them, Blitz - Blitz twisted - howled. A horrible, grieving sound.
Not all of it his.
Then - blazing light flooded the stairwell. And from above -
Blaze landed hard, cracking the concrete, Amelia's blood pulsing along his arms, his aura flickering with barely-contained wrath.
Queen Bee hovered just behind, wings fully aflame, tail glowing with infernal magic.
They saw what had become of Blitz. And both stopped cold.
``...Oh, fuck me sideways,'' Bee muttered, her voice lower now, tighter. ``Blitzy.''
Blaze's lips curled back, his fangs fully out. ``No. They broke him.''
The twisted form of Blitz stood at the end of the hallway, panting - convulsing.
Still himself. And not.
Loona skidded past them, pushing Laziel behind a shattered desk and shielding him with her body.
``I - I couldn't stop it,'' she gasped. ``He's still in there - he called my name - he's fighting it.''
Blaze nodded once. ``We have to save him.''
``Speak for yourself,'' Bee hissed, arms flaring open. ``That thing has my sweat-buddy's face, but it ain't him. Not until we burn out whatever's inside the poor fuck.''
Then, the massive Blitz charged.
No more words. Just a scream. And fire. Soul-twisting fire.
The fight exploded in a shockwave of cursed flesh and colliding magic.
Blaze met the charge head-on, clashing claw-to-claw with the monstrous hybrid. Bee flanked, raining molten flame and golden honey energy that dripped from her four clawed hands.
But Blitz was fast. Twisted limbs moved like shadows given muscle. A tail that wasn't his slashed through the floor. Wings that had never existed tore through the air.
Behind them, Loona kept Laziel pinned and low.
The building was falling apart around them. The walls buckled with each clash. The floor cracked under claw and flame. And the air itself was soaked in the smell of burned reality.
Blaze, transformed - snarling, hunched, glowing with the haunting energy of divine lycanthropy - clashed violently against the mutated Blitzo. His claws scraped bone. His fangs drew corrupted ichor.
But Blitz wouldn't stop.
Couldn't.
Every hit just seemed to make the thing inside him laugh louder. Every blow only uncoiled more nightmare.
Blaze roared as Blitz slammed him through a wall and sent him from the room.
To the side, Bee burned, massive and snarling. No longer charming, no longer cheeky.
Just a wrathful inferno, wings beating molten wind as she circled and struck - one limb after another, twin lances of flame slicing open twisted sinew.
``Hold him still, mutt!'' she shouted. ``I'm gonna pop this pustule like a fucking party favor!''
And while the gods of vengeance battled in the ruins -
Loona?s world fell apart.
She'd turned for one second.
To scream. To call out. To look for her father as the fight escalated.
And in that second -
Veszkar emerged.
No sound. No flash.
Just a flicker of shadow where none should be. And then?
``Mom!!!''
Laziel was gone in and instant. The moment she looked away, her son was snatched.
Her heart snapped in two. ``NO!!'' Loona roared, spinning just in time to see a hand vanish into a portal, her son's wide eyes frozen in terror as he was yanked backward by invisible chains - her baby boy.
Gone.
She threw herself at the spot, portal still fizzing, clawing at the air like she could rip time open and pull him back.
But it was too late.
From the very air...Veszkar's voice, distant, but everywhere:
``We told you. The Monger's fire burns brightest... in his heir. And now he's ours.''
``The mongrel left a trail of breadcrumbs in his fucking wake. Now? That power will be ours! We'll tear the timelines to little fucking pieces!''
Loona screamed until her throat cracked. Her hands bled.
And then -
A thud behind her. She turned.
Blaze was on his knees, chest heaving, claws soaked in ichor.
Bee stood beside him, smoke rising from her body, hair singed, jaw tight.
And in front of them...
Blitz.
She bolted forward, right before her father could strike. ``Blitz, no! Don't - ''
His sclaws raked her, yet only halfway. As if the mutated creation that was once her father had stopped himself. The air around them stilled.
Blitz, heaving, wounded, looked at his twisted claws and heard the wheezing in his own breath. ``... Loony...'' He clutched his hands into fists. ``...I'm... monster...'' He staggered back, clutching his chest where a wound bled. In that moment, as if to stop himself from continuing, he roared out, plunging his own arm through the wound to his heart.
What remained of him started to weaken.
His mutated body was collapsing - slowly, painfully reverting. Horns shrinking. Flesh cooling. Twisted bones crumpling.
His eyes... just his eyes now.
Tired. Bloodshot. But his.
Loona, injured from the strike, hurried and dropped beside him, catching him before he hit the floor the best she could.
``Loona!'' Bee warned.
``No,'' she whispered. ``No no no no - ''
Blitz chuckled. It hurt.
He was choking on every breath. Yet his form? It was slowly returning to normal. The damager, however, was not healing.
``L-loony... did I... do okay?'' Each word was a struggle. ``Didn't... m-mean for that. Fuckers... is the kid...?''
She nodded through the tears. ``You were perfect, Dad. You were perfect. They... they...''
He smiled. Cracked, lopsided. Blood on his teeth.
``Called me dad... like you meant it. Hah... `atta girl.'' He clenched his teeth and hissed through them. ``Then... you gotta do one more thing for your old man...''
She leaned in.
He reached up. Gripped her hand. Eyes blazing with a last breath of pure, beautiful rage.
``Kill that son of a bitch.''
And with those words -
Blitz's hand went limp.
The world around her broke apart.
``Shit.'' Bee looked away.
Blaze closed his eyes, jaw clenched.
Loona...
She just stared. The warmth slipping from his skin. The last anchor to her childhood fading into her arms. Her body trembled. Her head tilted back. And the wailing scream that tore from her throat was harsh enough to shatter the glass of every window in the building.
CHAPTER THREE
Lucifer
The world was quieter now.
Not peaceful. Never peaceful. Just... quieter.
Like the sound had all been taken. Sucked into the void where her heart used to be.
Loona sat beside what remained of her father.
The dust hadn't settled, but he had.
His hand still in hers.
His blood - still warm.
She didn't cry. She couldn't. Her face was frozen, eyes wide, staring at the wall like she could rewind time just by not blinking.
Laziel was gone.
Blitz was dead.
And Blaze...
She turned.
He sat against the broken wall, shoulders slumped, fur scorched and matted. The strange ethereal glow that had engulfed him during the fight had long since flickered out. His body had returned to normal - no longer the beast that she had never seen.
Now? He just looked... small. Like he hadn't come down from a transformation. But fallen.
She stared at him. ``I...'' she began, voice hoarse, not knowing what she was trying to say.
Then her words tumbled out in a whisper-shout -
``What the fuck was that, Blaze?!''
He flinched.
She wasn't mad. She wasn't accusing.
She was terrified.
Because what she saw in that fight...
That thing wasn't just Blaze.
It was something deeper.
Older.
Something that had remembered killing.
Blaze didn't look up. His voice came low. Distant. ``Never used that around you. Sorry I never told you.''
``Is that why that fucking thing showed up?! Is it?!''
He gripped his arm - still singed with divine-spectral burn marks that slowly faded.
``Loona, honey. Bigger fucking problems right now than your boy going beast mode.'' Bee had also dropped her sinful powers and stood next to Blaze. Her eyes? Full of sorrow as she eyed Blitz's body.
Loona shook her head, chest tightening. ``No,'' she whispered, ``I know. You were just trying to help.'' Then, quieter, almost begging: ``...I was trying too.'' Her voice broke. ``Blitz... dad... our son...''
Bee approached - tight-lipped and serious, wings flicking once in agitation. She stepped forward and crouched next to Loona. Her usual sultry humor was gone. This was a woman who had just seen someone she actually cared about torn apart in her arms. Her voice came soft. ``Loona... hate to say it, but this? This ain't the end.''
Loona glanced up.
Bee nodded toward the remains of the Lucifer summoning circle, now cracked and fizzing with incomplete energy.
``You were right to try him. If anyone knows what this fucking freak's endgame is, it's Daddy Sin himself.''
Loona blinked. ``You know how to get to him?''
Bee grinned - barely. ``You kidding? I party with his council twice a year and we've had intimate brunch. If I show up with this shitshow in my wingspan?'' she gestured around at the scorched wreckage, ``He'll see us.'' Then she tilted her head. ``But I don't go for free. We're gonna want a favor. Maybe five.''
Loona wiped her face with the back of her arm. Her eyes were hollow. But her spine?
Steel.
``You get me in that room,'' she said, ``and I'll owe you anything.''
Bee smirked. ``...we'll put that threesome to shame.''
Loona didn't blink.
Bee's grin dropped into a flat, impressed nod. ``Alright then. Shit just got real.''
Blaze finally stood, shaking, still holding onto a remnant of Blitz's tattered coat. He knelt; covering the man he called a father-in-law. He looked to Loona. ``You sure you want to do this?''
Her voice was dry.
``I have to. They took my kid. They killed my father.'' Then, for just a moment, the faintest flicker of fear crossed her eyes again. ``...And they know something about you too. Blaze. That thing... Veszkar... they didn't just want Laziel.''
Blaze nodded slowly. ``I know.''
Loona gently laid Blitz down and finally stood.
A long silence.
Then Bee cracked her knuckles, rolled her neck, and turned toward the ruined corridor. ``Let's go pay a visit to Daddy Dearest. Time to raise a little hell... properly.''
***
The elevator didn't hum.
It hissed.
Like it resented carrying mortals, half-breeds, or uninvited royals.
Bee was the only one tapping her foot like she belonged. Loona stood tense, arms crossed, tail twitching with nervous energy. Blaze leaned against the back of the car, quietly deciding whether to speak or let the room explode first.
Spoiler: it was going to explode.
Ding.
The doors opened.
And the throne room of Lucifer Morningstar unveiled itself like a slow-bleeding wound.
A massive hall of red velvet and obsidian. Ceilings vanished into cosmic smoke. Mirrors along the walls didn't reflect what was, but what had been. And in the center, atop a staircase of floating marble steps -
He stood.
Lucifer Morningstar.
Cloaked in wine-white silk and golden embroidery. Legs crossed. One hand holding a goblet that shimmered with blood and starlight. His eyes glowed with a calm, amused menace - as if every moment he allowed you to exist was an indulgence. Even if he appeared to not care at the same time.
``Well,'' he said, voice like warm poison, ``I wondered how long it would take before you three came crawling in.''
Bee grinned, bowing low with only one of her arms. Blaze and Loona casually flipped him off. Blaze doing so mostly because Loona told him to.
``Why do people enjoy doing that?'' Lucifer deadpanned.
``My Lord. Always a pleasure. Love what you've done with the existential dread this season.''
Loona muttered under her breath, ``Fucking hate this place already.''
Blaze just blinked. ``...Are those mirrors showing me dying?''
Lucifer sipped his drink. ``Only the good versions, darling.''
They approached the base of the throne. The weight of the space itself was suffocating.
Lucifer finally looked at Blaze properly.
``Oh, you,'' he said. ``The pink-haired mutt who skipped Hell, skated life, and stuck it in one of my citizens. Literally.'' He leaned back, sneering. ``Tell me, Blaze Morvane - were you trying to collapse the barrier between realms? Or was that just a happy accident between thrusts into that hellhound?''
Blaze blinked slowly. ``I mean, we both said `oops' after, so...''
Lucifer snorted. Bee cackled.
Loona groaned. ``Can we please focus on the part where my son got stolen by a reality-shifting nightmare with two souls and too much eyeliner?!''
Lucifer rose slowly, his goblet floating beside him mid-air. His aura pressed outward - like truth made manifest. ``And you...'' His eyes glanced at Loona. Curiously. Cautiously. They then shifted to Bee, who cleared her throat and looked away. ``Hmm, perhaps now isn't the right time to address that problem.''
Loona scoffed. ``Excuse me?''
``Veszkar,'' Lucifer said. And for the first time, the room got cold. ``I know of them,'' he continued. ``Not by choice. They are a bastard scar across timelines. Not born of this Hell. Not of any Hell, really. But one that should have never existed. Stillborn. Yet they kept existing somehow.''
Blaze frowned. ``They said something about my legacy - about me being a Soulmonger. I don't know what that is, but - ''
Lucifer raised a hand, silencing him. ``You were never supposed to remember.''
Bee's eyes widened slightly. ``Oh shit. He really is something?''
Loona snapped. ``WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON?''
Lucifer turned to her. ``You want to know?'' he said, voice suddenly low, deadly serious. ``You want the truth?'' He pointed to Blaze. ``This one used to be a death engine. The Soulmonger. A being that fed on souls to sustain itself - a creature crafted by the wrong hands in the wrong era. It was judged. Shattered. Forgotten. Whimpered and begged not to be forgotten and fucked everything up.'' He circled them slowly.
``Until someone - decided to bring his soul back into the living world. In defiance of judgment. In defiance of me. Not on purpose of course. Accidents happen. Regretfully. Thought the problem was taken care of.'' Lucifer narrowed his gaze at Blaze. ``Do you understand what you are?''
Blaze swallowed. ``Not really.''
Lucifer sighed, rubbing his temples. ``Well, fantastic. Not only do I have a temporal parasite like Veszkar trying to collapse the divine structure of reality - but now I've got a repressed death deity with a hellhound lovechild running around like a spark in a powder keg!'' He threw up his arms. ``Bravo. Well done. Who isn't trying to cause an apocalypse this year?''
Loona stepped forward, snarling. ``I don't give a shit about timelines, your throne, or whatever ex-death god Blaze used to be.'' Her fists clenched. ``That thing? Killed my father! I want my son back.''
Lucifer looked down at her. Eyes burning. ``You're one to talk. But again, that problem I thought was already resolved. Another thorn in the side of balance. The show just keeps getting better.''
She didn't flinch. ``Then give me something. A place. A name. Anything. I'm not asking you. I'm telling you.''
Lucifer stared. And then?
He smiled.
God help them.
He smiled. ``...cheeky. No doubt from both their sides. Very well.'' He raised a hand, and a spiral of glass and shadow appeared beside the throne, showing a glimpse of twisted geometry - a place between time, riddled with fractured reality and shifting forms. ``Veszkar is pulling energy from a refraction point. A pocket outside linear time. It's known as the Sepulcher of Strings. Threads created by this one,'' he pointed his cane at Blaze. ``while he was skipping around offering his dick to whatever wanted it in whatever realm he fancied that month. Places and things that should not have been touched nor disturbed. Excellent work, harem hound.'' His sarcasm dripped like acid as he offered Blaze an emotionless clap.
Blaze stared. ``That's where they're taking him?''
Lucifer nodded, unphased.
Bee clicked her tongue. ``Whew. Fancy name. Sounds like a bitch.''
Lucifer returned to his seat. ``You'll only get one shot at this. The moment you step through, you're off the grid. No backup. No rules. And if your son has already begun to awaken his inheritance...'' He sipped his drink again. ``...then the Soulmonger may not stay forgotten much longer. It will awaken in your child... and fuck me, Hell won't even surivive.''
Loona turned.
Her voice was steady now.
Low.
Final.
``Then we go now. We awaken it first.'' She glanced at Blaze, at Bee. ``We end this.''
Lucifer laughed. ``That might be an even worse idea.''
Loona didn't move.
Not yet.
Her fists stayed clenched at her sides, and though her heart still screamed for her son, her eyes burned now for something else.
Answers.
She stepped closer to Lucifer's throne - closer than most would dare - and her voice came out low, cracking through her clenched jaw like a blade. ``Alright, king of dickheads, before I go risking my life... again... tell me one thing.''
Lucifer blinked lazily, swirling his drink.
Loona's tail flicked violently behind her. ``What. The actual. Fuck. Do you know about Blaze and the bullshit going on with him?''
Lucifer sipped from his golden goblet as if she'd asked what brand of soap he used. Then he sighed. ``More than he does.''
Loona growled, stepping even closer, barely an arm's length away now. ``Try me.''
Lucifer?s eyes flicked up to hers - glowing like dying stars. ``Very well.'' He stood again, smooth as oil, his aura pressing out in heatless flame. ``You want truth, mongrel?'' he said with no venom, just weariness. ``I watched the Soulmonger fall. I watched him tear across timelines, devouring echoes of fate to preserve his own dying flame. I watched him claw through realities, trying to undo a fate he chose.'' He looked to Blaze now, who stood frozen, eyes wide and lips parted. ``I watched him die. Alone. Unloved. Screaming into the dark as nothing.'' He stepped closer to Loona again, their eyes nearly level. ``So I sent my best - a brilliant white wolf with far too many degrees - cheated fate. She carved his soul apart... split him into two in the hopes of removing the Monger's essence from existence,'' Lucifer scoffed. ``And then you had the bright idea to rut with him and pop out something that shouldn't exist.''
Loona flinched, like the words slapped her. ``You think I knew?''
Lucifer gave a single shrug. ``You didn't ask. He didn't remember. That's the way fate wanted it.'' He stepped back to his throne. ``Until Veszkar started poking around, dragging up old threads, playing puppet master with things that were better left in the dustbin of the multiverse.'' He sat. Looked bored. ``Honestly, it's all quite poetic. Should've been a tragedy. But nope. You two just had to make it a family drama. That one had to fuck around in other realms and then you had to fuck him.''
Loona stared at Blaze. ``...You really didn't know.''
Blaze's voice was barely a whisper. ``No. I don't... remember anything. I thought I was normal. Mistral raised me. Yeah, I thought it was weird the first time I broke into another world, but I thought it was her inventions. I didn't know I was the one making them work.'' He ran a hand through his hair. ``I thought it was trauma. Not... goddamn timeline shredding.''
Lucifer raised his cane. ``Well. You fucked up fate. Better go unfuck it.'' He smirked over his hands. ``Assuming you survive.''
Loona turned her back on him, done with the drama, the smugness, the entire palace of red velvet and judgment. She walked toward the exit without another word.
Blaze hesitated, looking back. ``One last question...''
Lucifer raised a brow. ``Mmm?''
``...Do you know where the Sepulcher of Strings is?''
Lucifer grinned like a knife. ``No.'' Then he waved them off. ``But maybe mommy dearest does. Heard she marched into my court without even blinking. Mammon is still scared of that woman.''
Bee smirked. ``Mistral.''
``You know the name. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to make sure Hell doesn't unravel because you couldn't keep your dick in your damn pants. Go.''
They were dismissed, and Loona had already left.
At the doorway of the portal room in Lucifer's court, Bee paused. She wasn't going with them.
Not this time.
``I hate this part,'' she muttered, tail curling. ``Watching the ones I actually like walk off toward death while I stay here doing politics.''
``Of course you're not coming.'' Loona crossed her arms, her eyebrow raised.
``Would love to. But if that thing was able to march into Hell and walk out unscathed? We have bigger problems.'' She tossed her swirling mane. ``Last thing we need is for Hell's very structure to collapse. Lucy needs all of us on our top game.''
Blaze gave her a faint smirk. ``You'll keep Hell in one piece.''
``Not if I burn it first,'' Bee muttered.
She walked up, slapped Loona on the ass - hard - and winked.
``Bring him home, Loon. I wanna throw that little firecracker his real welcome party.'' Then she turned to Blaze, gave him a firm swat too. ``Don't get all Monger again, whatever that means. She needs you. You need each other. So does that sweet boy of yours.''
Then she was gone. Leaving them alone.
The last two standing in a game older than memory.
***
The city lights below flickered like dying stars.
Even Hell could be quiet sometimes.
Not peaceful. Not forgiving. Just... tired.
Blaze sat on the edge of the rooftop, elbows on his knees, eyes staring down at the street like maybe answers were waiting in the gutter. His pink hair hung over one eye, blood dried on his arm, under his claws. He hadn?t cleaned it.
He didn?t want to.
It still smelled like Blitz.
The door creaked behind him.
Loona stepped out.
She didn't say anything at first. Just walked over and slumped beside him. Close, but not quite touching. Her tail curled near his. Not around.
Not yet.
They sat in silence.
For once, no sarcasm. No swearing. No banter to hide behind.
Just grief.
``I don't know what to do,'' Loona finally whispered, voice hoarse. ``Everything happened so fast and I - I didn't even get to say goodbye.''
Blaze didn't answer right away. Because he didn't know either.
``I keep hearing him,'' she said, her voice beginning to tremble. ``My dad. The way he laughed. The way he used to mess everything up but still act like he planned it.'' She wiped her nose with her arm. ``And Laziel...'' she choked, ``I can't - he was right there, Blaze. I was holding him. And now...'' Her voice broke. ``I wasn't enough.''
Blaze turned. Slowly, he reached out and took her hand. His fingers wrapped around hers, firm, steady. ``You were more than enough,'' he said quietly. ``You were his whole damn world.''
Loona didn't pull away. Didn't hide the tear that slipped down her cheek. ``I'm scared,'' she admitted, so soft he barely heard it.
He nodded. ``Me too.''
She looked at him.
Eyes red.
Tired.
Raw.
``I don't know what the fuck you are,'' she said with a faint, breathless laugh. ``Lucifer talks like you're some monster that got rewritten. Like maybe I should be afraid of you.'' Her thumb brushed over his knuckles. ``But I'm not.'' She leaned her forehead against his shoulder. ``Because no matter what you used to be... you're Blaze. The dumbass that reminded me what it feels like to be loved. To be wanted.''
Blaze stared ahead, his throat tight. ``I'm not that anymore,'' he said. ``I don't want to be. But... if I have to become something else to get our son back...'' He turned, his voice solid now. ``I will.'' He met her eyes. ``And I'll bring him home. I promise.''
They sat there, the two of them tangled in pain, in fear, in something far stronger than either knew how to say.
And above them...
The stars of Hell burned a little brighter.
As if listening.
Waiting.
CHAPTER FOUR
Mother Knows Best
If Hell had a matching twin in science and spite, it was Dr. Mistral Morvane's Lab.
Cold white floors. Holographic charts fluttering. Server racks softly humming like a choir of ghosts. It smelled like ozone, freshly scorched circuits, and coffee so strong it could resurrect the dead, and probably had once or twice.
And in the center of it all stood Dr. Morvane herself, surgical gloves half-pulled off, pink readers pushed to her nose, and an expression that screamed: ``I told you so, but let's be civilized about it.''
``Time displacement?'' she asked, typing rapid commands into a terminal as it began projecting multi-dimensional rupture data in real time. ``You broke time, Blaze. Again. At least this time you did it with your pants on.''
Loona groaned.
Blaze blushed.
Behind Mistral, Goumang stood at another console, feather fingers twitching, the glowing glyphs on her robes accenting her dark fur as they pulsed faintly while she reviewed the data without blinking.
``I know the feeling,'' Goumang said dryly, her voice flat and annoyed. ``He saved me from my own doomed future. Nearly broke the fabric of Sol again in the process. Typical of a stubborn weed.''
Loona blinked. ``You died?''
Goumang didn't look up. ``I got better. Because of him.''
Blaze stepped forward, trying to be helpful while still looking like a kicked puppy. ``We need a path to the Sepulcher of Strings,'' he said. ``Lucifer didn't know how to find it. Or said he didn't. But I felt something in his throne room. Like... divine interference. Not demonic.''
Mistral tilted her head, one ear flicking. ``Divine?'' she repeated, running a diagnostic across the shard of residual portal energy Bee had managed to siphon before they left. ``That narrows it down.'' She smirked. ``There aren't many beings that play nice with Lucifer's kind and leave divine residue behind. Mostly because cosmic law demands it.'' She tapped her keyboard once more.
The screen flashed.
A signature glyph exploded outward. A mark not seen in aeons.
Blaze stared. ``That's not demonic.''
Goumang narrowed her eyes. ``That's celestial script. Old as the stars.''
Loona squinted. ``The hell does it say?''
Mistral leaned back, arms folded. ``It says...'' She looked at Blaze, expression amused - then at Loona. Then back at the projection. ``...Amaterasu.''
The room went still.
Loona blinked. ``Wait... like... the sun goddess? Blaze's `one-time divine hookup with the glowy hair and heavenly hips' Amaterasu? The one that put Satan in his place and told me how to be a mother?''
Goumang's eyes narrowed in disdain. ``Of course she left a trace. Gods and goddesses can't just not meddle.''
Blaze scratched behind his ear awkwardly. ``She uh... shows up sometimes.''
``Shows up,'' Loona stared. ``You're telling me we might need a literal goddess to open this portal and you're just gonna sit there and hope she gets nosy enough to intervene again?!''
Mistral tapped her stylus thoughtfully against her chin. ``Well... it does track. If divine light cracked through Lucifer's throne room undetected, Amaterasu's touch would be gentle, purposeful. She can move through timelines when others can't. Her magic is layered with sun-bound quantum threads. Like... if spiritual energy got drunk and decided physics was optional.''
Goumang grunted. ``In other words - useless to track. She appears where she wants. When she wants.''
Loona turned back to Blaze. ``You have any idea how to contact her?''
Blaze scratched the back of his neck. ``I mean... she usually just... shows up. Usually after I've done something really stupid or nearly died. You know... like before.''
A beat.
They all stared at him.
Mistral blinked. ``...So. Any minute now, then.''
Loona groaned and turned away, pinching the bridge of her nose. ``This is the stupidest rescue mission ever.''
Goumang muttered, ``And somehow still not the worst one he's been on.''
Then - Mistral stepped to the center of the room.
``Divine energy or not, we can prepare. We've got coordinates. Threads of temporal strain. We set the stage - Amaterasu will see it. She always does.''
Loona rubbed her eyes. ``You're prepared for everything somehow.''
Mistral grinned. ``I'm a scientist, dear. My kink is defying everything sacred.''
Blaze took Loona's hand. ``We'll figure it out. We always do.''
***
Laziel's claws skidded across ancient stone as Veszkar dragged him - willingly defiant but magically tethered - through the veil between realms. He was snarling the whole way, teeth bared, fangs small but promising, his red eyes burning with that same wild fire that made both his parents dangerous.
``I'm not scared of you!'' he barked again, jerking against the spectral chain that linked his soul to Veszkar's palm. ``My mom's gonna tear your face off, and my dad? He's gonna punch your soul out your ears.''
Veszkar didn?t even glance back.
The twin voices spoke in an eerie harmony:
``Let him rage. The fire will fade eventually.''
``Or grow. That's the gamble, isn't it?''
The realm they now crossed shimmered in half-memories - stone bridges suspended in the sky, rain falling from nothing, banners of Burmecia flapping gently in spectral wind. They were in a memory... no, a ghost of Freya's world. Not the world itself, but a layered echo, left behind by Blaze's journey long ago.
Tall towers leaned in reverence and ruin, carved with draconic art. The scent of wet stone and valor hung in the air. The castle, once repaired, once again lay in ruin as it once had.
Laziel looked around in awe and confusion. ``...Where are we?''
``A place your father once bled,'' Vira murmured.
``And that fucking blood led us here.'' Kazel giggled. ``Your dad screwed a lot of things up while screwing a lot of things. Kinky shit.''
``Freya Crescent. Dragoon. Mourner. One of his many mistakes.''
Laziel blinked. ``...Eww.''
The female voice chuckled. ``We agree. Wonderful.''
They stopped atop a great, crumbled bridge leading to a broken chapel - one that shimmered with runic light.
Veszkar turned toward a jagged hole in the air. It pulsed faintly, like a portal that didn't want to be opened. Something was sealed beyond it. Ancient. Dormant. Wrong.
Laziel's ears flicked. ``...What the hell is that?''
Veszkar smiled - both mouths inside one body. ``Your father left threads behind. The realms he touched remember him. But there are... other things... that remember too.'' Kazel took over and leaned forward, speaking like a child sharing a wicked secret: ``Wanna see a god that was never meant to wake up?''
The runes ignited. The ground cracked.
And from the shimmering wound in the fabric of Freya's realm, something stirred.
A sphere.
Black as night. Flickering like a shattered aurora.
Color-shifting. Humming.
Watching silently with unseen eyes as it emerged and took shape.
Ozma.
Not summoned.
Released.
A cosmic mind with no understanding of morality - only reaction. Rage. Displacement. Something that wasn't meant to be anywhere - nowhere - and now?
It would be everywhere.
Laziel stumbled back, yanking against the magical chain. ``W-What the fuck is that?!''
Veszkar just stood tall, arms wide.
``This is what happens when timelines bleed.''
``This is what happens when gods forget their place.''
``This is... destruction.''
The sky trembled.
Clouds cracked open.
Reality blinked.
And on the other side of the dimensional tear -
The world flinched.
Laziel looked up, swallowing hard - but still burning defiant. ``You're just trying to scare them. But my parents? They don't scare easy.'' He gritted his fangs. ``They're coming for me.''
Vira took control and leaned close to him now, whispering calmly. ``I hope they do. We want the whole family... together... when the strings snap.''
CHAPTER FIVE
The Shattered Echo
The lab shuddered.
Not violently. Not with noise. But with presence.
A subtle, unnatural vibration began pulsing through the equipment - like the heartbeat of a dying universe, faint and terrified.
Monitors flickered. Readouts scrambled. Arcane holograms warped into spirals of nonsense.
Mistral stood abruptly. ``That's not from the Sepulcher. Or from our world.''
Goumang's feathers flared. ``No. This is coming from outside the timestream. Something's pushing through.''
Blaze stepped forward, already knowing. ``Because I did this...''
The portal gate they'd prepared began screaming with dimensional interference. Symbols not part of any spell script bled through its edge like oil in water. A pulse echoed across the lab floor - like a sonar from another world.
Loona spun toward the vibration, claws ready. ``What the hell is happening?!''
Goumang slammed a console with her clawed hand. ``Something from his past is crossing over. One of Blaze's scars. He left something open, and now it's coming through.''
Mistral was already moving, typing furiously on her screen as the portal shifted colors. ``You three - go now. If this thing finishes phasing into our plane, it could make the Sepulcher look like a family picnic.''
Without hesitation, Blaze, Loona, and Goumang stepped through the newly stabilized gate -
And found hell waiting.
The battlefield was wrong.
Stone bridges spiraled in the sky, half-formed ruins of Freya's world stitched into realspace. Rains that shouldn't fall... fell. Lightning cracked without sound.
And at the center -
Ozma.
Floating. Pulsing.
Impossible.
A sphere of color-shifting void, twitching like it was deciding which way to exist.
The moment they stepped in, Ozma struck.
It was fast. Not teleport-fast. Thought-fast.
A flash -
Goumang was already on the defensive, wings up, glowing blade out, blocking a burst of energy that sent her crashing through two hovering stone pillars.
Blaze and Loona dodged away at opposite sides as a second dark and fiery blast burst from the stone ground on which they stood. Yet when they had regained their footing -
Ozma had already moved. It was never close, always hovering above them as its body began to spin rapidly.
``How the fuck are we supposed to even reach that damn thing?'' She turned to Blaze, seeking answers. With a growl, she fumbled with the belt at her waist, pulling a pistol Blitz had gifted to her. Silver and shimmering. She fired multiple rounds. Even though they struck her intended target, it did nothing to stop it.
Blaze gritted his teeth. He had none to give.
``Now what, asshole?!'' Loona snapped, dodging a warped gravity pulse that bent the air like a black hole.
Blaze tried to hurry to her side, but Ozma's core flared.
A spiral of Meteor fragments launched out - magic bound in paradox, striking in erratic bursts that scorched the land like molten rain.
They had entered the fight without a plan, but then again, he knew that was their enemy's plan. They had been caught in the dark and cornered.
Goumang reappeared with a shout, casting a solar seal barrier - but even she was straining to protect them with her Solarian technology and magic. ``I can't hold this long!'' She grit her teeth, her mechanical legs bracing against the ground. ``Plans? Anyone?!''
Blaze looked around, panting.
They were losing ground.
Ozma wasn't just attacking -
It was unmaking.
And then -
The air shifted.
A wind blew through the broken world.
A voice.
``This is no place for monsters... not today.''
She landed in a flash of steel and grace.
Lance first. Cloak billowing.
Rain trailing off her armor like tears.
Freya Crescent.
Her eyes locked on the abomination ahead. ``...You again.'' She turned her head slightly. ``Blaze. You brought this thing back?''
He raised his hands weakly. ``Technically, it brought itself - !''
Loona muttered, ``Faced this shit before?''
Freya didn't blink. ``Once. Thought we had killed it.'' She crouched low. Her spear shimmered with stormlight. Then she leapt.
Straight up into the clouds.
And came down like a divine execution to deliver a Dragoon Strike.
Her spear pierced Ozma's outer shell as it erupted in a violent light. For the first time -
It screamed.
Reality flickered.
Loona grinned like a devil unleashed. ``Okay! I knew I liked her! Least Freya isn't trying to suck your neck the moment she sees you like the others.''
Blaze sighed. ``Now? Really?''
Goumang cracked her neck, her expression stern. ``It can be hurt. Then let's hit it while it's distracted!''
Together - Blaze, Loona, Goumang, and Freya tore into the godsphere.
Magic raged. Steel sang. Claws swiped with burning hellfire.
The past had come to haunt them. But not all ghosts were enemies.
Yet Ozma learned quickly.
That was the problem.
It wasn't just fighting - it was reacting. Shifting between dimensions faster than they could land a hit, absorbing spells mid-cast, reversing gravity mid-leap. Its body started to spin faster.
Every time it was struck, it adapted. Worse, it remembered. And when it remembered, it erupted. A dark pulse of energy tore from its body like arced blades, slicing the air and cutting into the group, forcing them to flee back.
Blaze was panting, bleeding from one arm, a crack splitting his forearm from an earlier pulse.
Loona wiped blood from her mouth, growling as she pulled herself back up. ``Tell me it's getting tired.''
``Nope,'' Blaze coughed. ``Just angrier.''
Goumang landed hard beside them, one wing dragging, one leg sparking. ``This is a mistake. It shouldn't be here. We shouldn't be here. It doesn't even belong to this timeline. None of us do.''
Freya spun her spear in a wide flourish as she skidded to a stop beside Goumang, eyes locked on Ozma. ``It's not just here,'' she murmured. ``It's feeding on the bleed between worlds. Something is shattering everything. My world included. This place...'' she glanced up at the bent sky above them, ``...is becoming too real.''
Then came the silence again.
Ozma hovered above them, distorting everything like a hole in the rules of reality.
Lightning flickered around it. Rain stopped. Even time seemed hesitant.
Freya took a breath. ``It's charging. I've seen this before. If we don't stop it...''
And then -
She turned to Goumang. ``Can you launch me?''
Goumang blinked. ``Where? Into that?''
Freya tightened her grip on her spear. ``I only need one shot if Blaze and his lady can keep it from building it's energy.''
``Lady?'' Loona scoffed.
Goumang grinned. ``Then let's make it count.''
The duo moved in perfect rhythm.
Goumang flared her wings, summoning a spiral of heat and thrusting herself beneath Ozma's form, spinning like a burning disk, her talons ready.
``Do what you can!'' Freya leapt onto her outstretched arm as Goumang latched onto her.
Blaze looked up, mouth slightly open. ``Holy shit.''
``You heard the bird-cat and rat, dumbass. Move your feet!'' Loona tore forward, her eyes glowing, claws burning as she leapt into the air and slashed, sending a blade of dark hellfire toward the spiraling orb.
While the attack didn't harm it, it drew its focus, forcing Ozma to launch a deadly flare of fire towards them.
Blaze gasped, crossing his arms just in time to tank the hit that landed against him, forcing him to skid back. The hellhound blood inside of him lessened the pain, but didn't stop it.
Loona had rolled to the side and resumed her attacks. ``Over here, fucker!''
Blaze?
He looked at his hands. Claws. Teeth. Nothing that could reach their enemy. He tried tapping into the beastly blood of Amelia, yet it didn't respond. He snarled, feeling worthless. ``Too soon...'' If there was something else inside of him, something darker, more powerful, he wasn't sure if it was a good idea to awaken it. Yet the thought of their world and his son still made him question it.
Above?
Goumang flew in an upward spiral of kinetic force and solar wind. ``Good luck, rat!'' She taunted before blasting the dragoon toward the god-sphere.
Freya disappeared into the clouds.
Time paused.
And then -
SHE FELL.
Like divine judgment.
Her body spiraled in dragoon spin, spear aimed like a blade of will against entropy. And when she hit Ozma -
The explosion wasn't fire. Wasn't thunder.
It was reality snapping.
CRACK!
Ozma let out an otherworldly shriek as a fracture split its surface. Prism-like veins burst across its shell as light and void spilled out like lifeblood as the light from Freya's impact coursed through it.
It collapsed inward, pulling in fragmented pieces of false realms, echo bridges, cloud-towers, fading as quickly as it had come.
The battlefield went still. The bridge fragment shuddered... but held.
Loona gasped, hands on her knees. ``Please tell me that was the kill shot. Fucking tell me it was.''
Freya landed softly beside them, spear steaming, armor scorched. ``It was. Learned last time to make each move count. The more you act, the more it would act.''
Goumang dropped beside her, wings twitching. ``You jump like a warhead.''
Freya faced her. ``You throw like one.''
Both of them smirked.
Blaze finally found his voice. ``Freya?''
She looked at him, nodding. ``It's been a long time, Blaze. Are you and Loona fairing well despite all... this?''
He stepped forward, eyes scanning her gear, the heavy wear, the lines of sorrow behind her eyes. ``What happened to Burmecia? To your world?''
Her voice dropped low. ``It was sudden. Things began to collapse. Not all at once. Slowly. Like everything it stood for... forgot how to exist.'' She looked around at the fractal realm. ``This isn't a memory. It's what's left. My friends are... somewhere out there.''
A shimmer sparked behind them.
And in a clean pulse of silver light, Mistral Morvane stepped through, coat whipping in invisible wind, tablet in one hand, hair half tied up like she meant business.
She didn't look impressed. She looked... concerned.
Her eyes scanned the shattered realm. The distorted sky. The broken echo of Burmecia crumbling in slow suspension. And her voice was almost a whisper. ``So it's already happening.''
Loona turned sharply. ``What's happening?''
Mistral's eyes locked on hers. ``Reality. It's bleeding. The Sepulcher's not just being accessed... It's beginning to rewrite.'' She turned to Blaze. ``You have to get to Laziel before that rewriting reaches him. Because if it finishes...'' She lowered the tablet. ``...he won't be your son anymore. He will awaken as something else...''
CHAPTER SIX
Between Realities
The fractured sky had stopped weeping.
All around the ruined ghost of Burmecia, the world felt... less tense. Ozma's influence was gone - banished back into the howling between-realms. But the cracks? The fading architecture? The lingering shimmer of half-remembered places?
They remained.
Time didn't heal here. It simply waited to be rewritten.
Back at the labs, Blaze sat at the edge of the roof of his mother's home, legs dangling over the side, watching the sky as if waiting for it to open once more.
Beside him, Loona lay with her head against his shoulder. Not asleep, but quiet. Her tail twitched every so often, betraying the restlessness behind her silence.
Across from them, Freya Crescent leaned against the doorway, spear resting across her lap, helmet off. Her eyes looked older than the wars she'd survived. Not tired. Just... aware.
``It didn't happen all at once,'' she said, voice soft, almost drowned by the wind. ``Not like a siege. Not even like a sickness.''
Blaze looked up.
Freya's eyes didn't move. ``First, the dreams changed. History stopped lining up. Children began forgetting their parents. Old heroes - gone from stone, gone from song. Then... places. Streets that didn't connect anymore. Temples half-built, half-decayed.'' She paused. ``And then the sky cracked. Just a little.''
Loona sat up slowly. ``How'd you get out?''
Freya shrugged faintly. ``I didn't. Not really. Whatever's left of my world must've been caught in a temporal overlap. A shard of what once was. When that thing - Ozma - started reaching again, I knew something was wrong. We'd already killed it.'' She looked to Blaze, finally. ``Then I remembered you.''
Blaze rubbed the back of his neck, pink hair messily clinging to sweat. ``I... wish I remembered you better.''
Freya gave a faint smirk. ``You remember the important part. That I punch well and kiss better.''
Loona raised a brow. ``...You're okay.''
Freya grinned wider. ``So are you.''
A comfortable pause fell between them.
But it was Loona who broke it again, gently. ``So... what now?''
Freya leaned forward, serious. ``You're chasing something that's unraveling all of us. One thread at a time. I won't sit idly while more worlds fall.'' She looked to Blaze. ``Let me come with you.''
Blaze blinked. Then smiled softly. ``...Yeah. Yeah, we could use another voice of reason who stabs things.''
Freya rose to her feet and gave a short bow. ``I'll stab with dignity.''
Nearby, Goumang walked over to the group, arms crossed. ``Just don't stab him. His body's doing that fine on its own.''
Blaze raised a brow. ``Gee, thanks.''
Goumang turned to Loona. ``Stay close to him. You saw what those jumps are doing. If what we know is true, then every world this weed touched will be affected.''
Loona's ears flicked. ``I know.''
Blaze looked between them. ``...Okay, what're you all on about?''
Mistral's voice called from behind, appearing from a shimmer of static light.
``Your soul's thread is already stitched weird, Blaze. And hopping between timelines again? It's fraying. It's as if you've left pieces of yourself behind wherever you went.''
Goumang nodded toward the portal as she typed on the screen. ``Amaterasu's world won't be easy to reach. We don't know when she is. Only where she might have been. You'll need to leap from fragment to fragment. Trail her echoes.''
Blaze stood up, rolling his shoulders. ``Nothing I haven't done before.''
Mistral raised a brow. ``Back when you had less to lose.''
Loona moved beside him, gripping his wrist tightly. ``You sure you can handle this?''
Blaze met her gaze, the joking gone for once. ``Yeah. If all that's true, then I have to. For us. For our son.'' He stepped toward the platform.
``Yeah, well you're not alone, dumbass.'' Loona stepped with him, remaining close. ``If those assholes think they can use our son to rip apart worlds, then they've got one hell of a surprise coming.''
Mistral tapped a rune.
Goumang crossed her arms and muttered under her breath. ``Of all the places to start...''
The portal shimmered, swirling like blood in water.
Loona leaned in, ears folding back.
``...Where to?''
Blaze looked back at her. His eyes glowed faintly. ``...Yharnam.''
The lights in the lab flickered.
Loona stared.
Mistral's brow furrowed.
Freya instinctively checked her spear grip.
Even Goumang blinked.
Yharnam.
Where nightmares grow roots. Where blood becomes prayer. Where eldritch gods whisper from the bottom of the sky.
And where, just maybe -
A sun goddess had once walked to cleanse the dark.
Blaze stood on the platform but the portal, eyes shut tight, the threads of fractured reality wrapping around him like razor-wire silk.
The portal wasn't just spatial this time. It was temporal. Emotional. Personal.
Mistral's voice called from where her and Goumang stood at the control panel. ``Focus on the connection. Anchor to what remains. Find the echo left behind. And Blaze?''
He clenched his fists.
``I love you. Be careful.''
He nodded and focused. Not on a name.
But on a memory.
Rain on stone.
The stench of blood and incense.
A towering white beast with sorrow in her eyes.
Not tamed by him...
No.
She tamed him.
Loona pressed a hand to his shoulder, bracing him. ``Hey. Stay with me.'' Her voice was real. Sharp. Anchoring.
Freya stood behind him, her hand on his back, steady and unshaking. ``We fall together, not alone.''
And then -
The world cracked.
The portal screamed like a soul being unwound. The lab vanished. Color bled from the edges of reality as buildings shifted, broke, and rebuilt sideways. Cobblestone stretched like melting wax. Iron lampposts warped like they were alive.
Yharnam.
Or what was left of it.
They slammed into the ground - wet stone, slick with ancient blood.
The sky was a wound, swirling with madness. Moons twisted in spirals above them. The air smelled like rot. Rage. Religion.
And fire.
Blaze hit his knees. Nose bleeding. Eyes flickering. ``F-fuck...''
Loona dropped beside him, already wiping the blood from under his nose with her hand. ``Too much. You're burning from the inside - ''
``I'm fine,'' he rasped, clearly not.
``Blaze - ''
``I said I'm fine!''
Yet she didn't flinch. She knew the pain. She'd lived it.
Freya crouched low, scanning the warped skyline, spear ready.
Ghoulish shrieks echoed in the distance as the smell of iron rang hot in their nostrils. The buildings watched them back. Or at least, something did from beyond the foggy windows.
Loona helped Blaze to his feet, slinging one of his arms over her shoulder.
He looked worse than usual. Hair matted. Breathing ragged.
But then -
They all heard it.
A distant, haunting cry.
Not a roar.
A wail.
Familiar. Painful.
Sacred.
Blaze's eyes snapped toward the sound. ``...Amelia.''
Loona blinked. ``That Amelia?''
Freya glanced toward the sound's direction. ``Your divine wolf of beastly size I met at the holiday festival?''
``Yeah...'' Blaze nodded head. ``Just... be careful. She's something else here.'' He wiped his nose and grit his teeth. ``But she remembers me. And if we can find her...'' He didn't finish.
He didn't have to.
Loona nodded. ``I'll clear the path.''
Freya spun her spear and smiled grimly. ``Then I'll keep the rear.''
Blaze exhaled slowly.
They had a direction. They had a chance.
But Yharnam was awake now.
And the beasts were already swarming.
Yharnam pulsed like a wounded heart. The buildings shifted when they weren't looking. The fog whispered in languages never meant for mouths or mortals. And every corner dripped with the promise of madness.
Blaze, Loona, and Freya moved through the cracked streets like ghosts - half-seen, all danger.
They were stalkers now. And they were not alone.
A Scourge Beast skittered out of a shattered chapel, spine arching unnaturally as it sniffed the air. Its sinewy, twitching limbs scraped along the cobblestones. A streetlamp flickered behind it, casting its shadow three times its size as its fur floated with blood, claws and eyes glinting in the faint light.
Freya froze in the shadow of a balcony, poised.
Loona flattened herself against the wall of a bakery - now hollow and choked with blood-stained bread racks.
Blaze crouched low behind a wrecked carriage, his breath shallow, hand gripping the hilt of a jagged blade he?d grabbed from the ground mid-leap.
The beast sniffed the air...
Growled...
And turned -
CRACK.
Freya's spear launched from above.
A single strike through the skull. It twitched once, then crumpled in on itself.
Freya dropped beside it, cloak catching the breeze, spear ripping free with a wet sound as she slashed it to clear the blood from the blade.
``You've still got it,'' Blaze whispered.
Freya gave a grim smirk. ``Let's keep it that way.''
They moved on. The next alley was crawling.
Carrion Crows - giant, bloated things with beaks like splitting scythes - fed on a dismembered Yharnamite, their wings twitching with oily jerks.
Blaze held Loona back.
He raised a hand, taking in a heavy breath -
But Loona tapped his chest. ``No. I got this.''
She darted around the edge of the alley, silently slipping behind an old iron gate, sliding into a rusted storage room filled with chains, tools, and crates.
She crouched low, yanked free a heavy, steel chain from the wall - her muscles flexing - and gave it a quick twirl. A blade at the end of it swished with dangerous intent, dried in old blood. ``...This'll work.''
She surged out the other side of the alley like a whipcrack. The chain sang through the air - wrapping around two of the birds and yanking them into a broken post.
The third crow shrieked and lunged.
Loona dodged its lunge, rolling with little effort as she cracked the chain again. It wretched free of her former kills, and the edge of the weapon sliced through the air.
SHNK.
Silence came as Loona brought her foot down, cracking its neck with a smirk.
Freya raised a brow. ``You've both improved.''
Loona wiped blood from her cheek and shrugged. ``We have a kid now.''
They pushed onward, deeper into Yharnam.
Labyrinthine corridors. Collapsed bridges. Danger around every corner.
Bodies littered the streets - both citizen and monster alike torn to pieces by some raging force.
Even Blaze, for all his realm-leaping, looked sick. ``This place isn't even the same layout anymore,'' he muttered. ``It's... wrong.''
``It's dying,'' Freya said. ``Or trying to remember how to exist.''
They turned a corner -
- and froze.
The skyline opened.
Across a great chasm of jagged ruin, a twisted version of the Healing Church towered into the clouds.
Warped.
Broken.
Alive.
Its spires pulsed with black veins, and the great archway at its base lay twisted and broken.
But more than that -
A bell was ringing. Slow. Deep. Echoing through the air like a heartbeat made of stone. And in front of the church gates...
A massive white shape.
Twisting. Clawing. Glorious and monstrous.
Vicar Amelia.
She was still draped in her torn robes, now less and bloodied. Her fur shimmered with sacred light - but it was splashed with gore. Her antlered skull snarled silently, backlit by the fractured moon.
And she was fighting.
Tearing into something they couldn't yet see. Limbs moved in the chaos - strange. Sharp. Familiar but wrong.
Blaze staggered slightly, one hand bracing the wall. ``Amelia...''
His voice was barely a breath.
``We need to move,'' Freya said, stepping onto the lip of a broken window.
She vaulted upward - leaping from building to building, clearing the way with precision strikes and high vantage scouting as the twisted remains of the citizens were cut down by her spear.
Loona looked to Blaze.
He was already moving, eyes fixed, steps fueled by some deep, relentless instinct.
They ran together.
Loona with chain.
Blaze with instinct and hope... laced with fear.
Freya from above.
Toward the bell. Toward the battle. Toward Amelia.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Breaking Through
The bell tolled again.
Louder.
Deeper.
Every peal was a spike through the spine of the world - each ring echoing through twisted bone and faithless stone. The sky above cracked further. The cobblestone streets beneath their feet bled.
Blaze, Loona, and Freya sprinted through the warped cathedral district.
Every alley they crossed was alive with shrieking beasts - Mad Ones, Wandering Nightmares, even twisted Huntsmen who clawed at themselves as much as the world around them.
But nothing slowed the trio now.
Loona swung her heavy chain like a whip, lashing down a collapsing rooftop full of men that tried to shift in front of them.
Blaze threw a bottle of oil and then smashed a lantern, searing a path through shrieking crows that dove from bloodstained steeples.
Freya moved above, soaring from broken cross to ledge to parapet, knocking snipers and plague-wretches into the abyss below.
The steps to the Healing Church loomed before them.
Wide. Tall. And breathing. Stone cracked with every bell toll. Ivory gargoyles wept blood from their mouths.
At the top -
The doors were open.
They climbed. Up, up, up.
Blaze's breath hitched.
Loona's heart pounded.
And Freya's grip tightened around her spear.
They entered the grand chamber where Amelia had chased her target. They didn't know whose blood painted the wet stone beneath their feet.
It was not a sanctuary. It was a mausoleum of faith betrayed. Stained glass windows bled black ichor down to the pews. The altar writhed. And at the center -
A battle.
Amelia.
Colossal. White-furred. Robed in bloodstained rags.
She was fighting with raw, primal strength - massive claws raking across the flagstone, snarling with every swipe. But she wasn't winning. Because her opponent -
Was a monster too. Twisted. It nearly matched her size, but was dripping with corruption. A figure in a rotting green rabbit suit, half-melded into its own metal prison. Wires burst like vines from split seams. Flesh fused to rusted plating. Yellow, flickering eyes burned from a shattered mask.
Springtrap.
But not as Blaze remembered him from loose files or Mistral's salvaged archives. This wasn't just a haunted relic. This was a corrupted echo, mutated by the poison trail of Veszkar.
His movements were wrong - too fast. Too jerky. Like stop-motion running at the wrong frame rate.
It laughed. A distorted, wet laugh that echoed like a nursery rhyme left too long in a grave.
Loona skidded to a stop. ``The fuck is that?!''
Blaze was already drawing his weapon. ``Doesn't matter - it's hurting her.''
Freya nodded sharply. ``Then it dies.''
The beast snapped toward them the moment they stepped into view.
Its voice rasped through broken speakers and shredded throat: "NeW fRiEnDs... MoRe To TeAr ApArT... mOre... sooooooooouls...''
It lunged.
Amelia snarled - her massive paw slamming down, barely catching Springtrap's mid-air swipe - but it was clear: she was weakening.
Her body trembled. Blood soaked her side. One eye burned dim.
Blaze stepped forward, body trembling. ``Loona - take left. Freya, you go high. I'll draw him.''
Loona cracked her chain like a whip. ``Let's wreck this discount motherfucker.''
Freya vaulted up to a broken chandelier, crouching, ready.
The corrupted Springtrap laughed again. ``YoU cAn'T sAvE hEr... YoU'Re AlReAdY tOo LaTe...''
And then the chamber exploded into chaos.
Loona charged from the side, chain sweeping across the floor and coiling around Springtrap's leg - yanking hard.
He stumbled - just long enough for Blaze to have enough time to tap into the familiar blood. Being in Yharnam and so close to Amelia allowed him to transform once more. His body broke, grew, strengthened. Yet within him? He felt something else. A voice. A memory.
``Been too long.''
He growled and shook his head. He ignored it and charged, fangs dripping with saliva and rage.
Springtrap shrieked, the sound glitching as if it fought to exist in more than one world. He lashed back, claws dragging across Blaze's arm, tearing through fur and flesh.
Blaze hissed, staggered - but didn't fall.
Above, Freya leapt from the chandelier -
Spear-first.
She landed clean, pinning Springtrap's arm to the cracked altar stone.
``NOW!'' she roared.
Amelia moved. Slowly. Painfully. But with rage. A single swing of her massive arm sent Springtrap flying across the chamber.
Blaze stood again, holding his injured arm, body hunched.
Loona moved to his side, chain ready. She looked at him, eyes bright with worry.
Freya circled.
Springtrap crawled from the rubble, wires writhing, one eye glowing brighter. The corruption hissed around him as the very shadows seemed to pulse in its presence.
This wasn't over.
But now?
Amelia wasn't alone.
The corrupted Springtrap let out a glitched snarl, dragging himself from shattered stone and divine blood, his green rot-soaked fur sloughing off in chunks. Metal scraped across the ground, sparks flying as his clawed hand twitched - torn wires sparking from sockets that no longer belonged to anything living.
And yet, the laughter...
It didn't stop.
Blaze clenched his injured arm, blood dripping down the beastly appendage. ``I'm starting to hate that noise...''
Freya pulled her spear free, circling behind the twitching beast like a hunter closing a trap. ``Let's finish this.''
Loona cracked her heavy chain, eyes darting toward the colossal white form just behind her.
Amelia loomed over them - silent, breathing heavy. Blood soaked her fur, and one antler was snapped, hanging limp. And yet...
There was focus in her eye.
Recognition.
Resolve.
Springtrap lunged again - wild, erratic, wires dragging like limbs of their own.
Loona surged forward.
``YOU WANT A MONSTER?!''
She spun the chain with vicious force, wrapping it around Springtrap's arm mid-swing - yanking it taut as she leapt backward. However, her assault was stopped when the monstrous abomination dug into the ground and pulled back.
Loona gasped as she was yanked off her feet and spun like a toy through the air. The resulting counter threw her into Freya, knocking both of them into a nearby column that cracked from the impact.
Before he could counter, Amelia moved -
The massive beast lunged from behind, slamming her paw down with a force that shattered the stone beneath the rabbit-shaped corruption.
It screeched - glitched static twisting into broken lullabies - as Amelia's claws dug deep, pinning him in place. Yet it had enough strength to meet her assault as dancing wires zapped the air with electrical currents that made the great beast shudder and snarl.
Blaze surged forward. His blood ignited into a red-hot arc that slashed its face, allowing Amelia to gain traction.
Springtrap's head turned just enough to meet his eyes. ``wORthlESs sOuLS!''
Blaze attempted to join the beastly Amelia, only to be knocked back by their enemy's arm. The force was enough to send stars in front of his eyes.
``yOu?Re tOo - ''
SHHHNK.
A spear tied to a chain suddenly burst from Springtrap's chest.
``Over here, fucker!'' Loona snarled.
Freya tightened her grip on Loona's chain as the hellhound spun her around, sending infernal flames down the metal.
Using the momentum, Freya dove in, kicking her spear through the rest of the way as it torn through the rabbit's metallic frame and then ignited with fiery sparks.
He stopped.
Mid-glitch.
Mid-smile.
Wires spasmed.
Amelia moved next, and with a mighty roar, her maw opened, and she chomped down over the animatronic's head and tore it free with a snapping crunch.
The green suit cracked, leaking both smoke and a viscous black fluid that sizzled as it touched the ground.
Then - like all the echoes before him -
Springtrap began to unravel. Not violently. Not in fire.
But like paper left in the rain.
Fading. Peeling. Vanishing...
Until nothing was left but the echo of static, and the smell of blood and rot.
The room went silent.
Loona collapsed to her knees, panting, arms shaking. Her chain slipped from her grasp and clattered beside her.
Amelia stood above, massive frame swaying. Then - slowly - she dropped down on all fours, lowering her head toward Loona. The beast-wolf's white mane fell like a curtain, her breath heavy... but not threatening.
Loona looked up into that singular glowing eye. ``I'm guessing this is where Blaze got the whole `beast blood' trick from, huh?''
Amelia blinked once. Her long snout dipped in what might have been a nod.
Loona gave a tired snort. ``Figures.'' But she didn't hide her smile as she stroked Amelia's muzzle.
Freya approached from the side, cautious but respectful, her spear lowered.
``She fought well. Without her, we wouldn't have won.''
Amelia's ears flicked. She didn't speak. She never did. But there was emotion in her stillness.
Blaze stepped forward, his form snapping back to normal, wiping the sweat and blood from his face, his breathing shaky. ``I don't know how much longer this world will hold...''
He turned - and froze.
So did Loona.
So did Freya.
So did Amelia.
Behind the altar - flickering - was the sight of something that absolutely should not be there.
A twisted red sky, filled with floating islands, black towers, and endless pits. A land both infernal and regal.
Hell.
But it wasn't just an image.
The wall behind the altar was bleeding into it. Reality buckled. A floating imp skeleton flickered into the room, only to vanish again in sparks. A corrupted cherub twitched through the air, torn in half mid-appearance.
And then it was gone.
Loona whispered, ``That was... my world. Bee...''
Blaze grimaced. ``Veszkar?s ripping them all together. Collapsing timelines, dimensions, memories...''
Freya's voice was low. ``Your son is somewhere... being used to do... that.''
Amelia moved forward, placing a massive paw against the flickering wall.
It hummed.
Responded. It did not open.
But her golden eye locked on Blaze - and something passed between them. Ancient. Forgotten. Forgiven.
Blaze touched her fur gently. ``I'll fix this. I promise.''
She lowered her head again. Then turned. Walked toward the side altar, and, in a final shimmer of fading moonlight, disappeared into the night.
The portal faded.
Freya nodded. ``We need to move.''
Blaze clenched his fists. ``Yeah.''
Loona stood slowly, grabbing her chain, her eyes burning. ``Let's go get our fucking son back.''
CHAPTER EIGHT
Starlight Fractures
The climb through Yharnam's upper tiers was like walking through a corpse's last breath. The fog here was thin, almost brittle - cracking apart with every step, revealing glimpses of dying light and shifting stars beyond the veil. Every structure twisted skyward like it was reaching for salvation and choking on it at the same time.
The buildings leaned. The cobblestones pulsed. The blood didn't even steam anymore. It was a world... unwinding.
Blaze stumbled as he reached the highest archway, gripping the edge with one hand. His breathing was harsh. His body shook.
``Shit - hey!'' Loona caught his shoulder, worry flashing in her eyes. ``Blaze. Talk to me.''
``I'm - I'm fine,'' he muttered, blood already seeping from his nose again. ``It's just... it's getting harder.''
``Bullshit. You're hurting yourself.''
Freya stood at the overlook, watching the sky tear and stitch itself. ``You're forcing yourself through unstable cracks. Whatever Veszkar's doing... it's thinning the veil, but not for us. Just for them.''
Blaze wiped the blood from under his muzzle and exhaled, grounding himself. Focus. Focus on where you've been. Where you're needed. Where the soul of the worlds fray the hardest.
He closed his eyes. Images flickered.
Metal halls. Starfields. A gentle voice. ``You never were a waste, Blaze.''
A vulpine smile behind a visor. A memory... or a dream.
His claws tensed. Light began to form in his palm - a tear in time bending between his fingers like glass and fire.
Loona clutched him tight.
Freya pressed close, grounding them.
FLASH.
The sound of a warp drive screaming in reverse.
It was the Lylat System.
But not like before.
They emerged standing on metal, but it was slanted.
The hallway lights of the Great Fox flickered in and out, some replaced by static, others warped into jagged streaks across the walls.
Panels sparked. Wires hung like vines. And outside the nearby viewing window -
Space was wrong.
Stars hung still. One half of the window showed deep space.
The other?
Yharnam's skyline.
And in the corner, bleeding through like black mold on glass -
A glimpse of Hell.
Loona blinked. ``Okay, I really don't like that shit.''
Freya unslung her spear. ``Neither do I.''
Blaze rubbed his temples, the world wobbling around him. ``Something's clawing through the seams. I can hear... screaming.''
``You hear screaming because I'm here. Oh, the sweet sound of release...''
Blaze gasped, turning in circles, his fur on end as his eyes darted from one side to the other in a blind panic.
``Hey, hey - relax!'' Loona grabbed him, holding him tight against herself. ``You're here, Blaze. Here with me. With us.''
He breathed deep. He looked at her. A thought of fear crossed his mind, just for a moment. But Loona's eyes?
The reflected concern. Love. Certainty.
He swallowed hard, nodding as the sweat cooled on his fur. ``Y-yeah... I know. I know. Come on. We need to keep moving.''
They moved deeper into the Great Fox. The usual hum of technology... was gone. The ship was silent.
Too silent.
Even the air didn't feel right - it had that wrong flavor of recycled too many times. No signs of Peppy, Falco, or Fox. No Krystal either.
Just long hallways warped by reality struggling to remember what they were.
A faint transmission crackled over the hallway speakers -
`` - Is anyone - szzkt - receiving - hold... hold the line - ''
Blaze froze.
Loona's ears perked.
That voice.
``Krystal?'' Blaze called out, stepping toward a flickering console.
The static grew louder. Then...
Screaming.
And then silence.
Blaze's claws dug into the panel. Something was here. And something else had already come for them.
Freya pointed ahead. ``Hangar bay. That's where the echo is strongest.''
Loona's grip on her chain tightened. ``If anyone hurt her...''
Blaze's eyes were dimly glowing now, heart hammering. ``Then we bury them in orbit.''
They made their way forward - toward whatever twisted shape waited among the stars. And Blaze... just hoped it wasn't too late again.
The hangar bay doors groaned open - revealing not safety...
...but open space. And war.
The Great Fox hung in orbit, its hull sparking and split along one side. Below, the entire sector looked like a shattered mirror - parts of Yharnam, Hell, and Freya's Gaia all bleeding into one another in broken, floating chunks. Time and space weren't just folding -
They were collapsing. And in the chaos, two monstrous shapes circled overhead, dancing between laser fire and broken satellites like twin gods of destruction:
Lechku - gilded, mechanical, and smooth - trailing fractured time with every movement.
Nechku - rusted silver, bulkier - leaking cryo-plasma from its talons.
Their wings were massive gears spinning faster than the eye could follow, each flap distorting the battlefield around them. Every cry they made was layered with metallic static and dissonant chimes - like clocks screaming in reverse.
``WHAT THE HELL ARE THOSE?!'' Loona barked, shielding her eyes from the glow of a spinning time pulse.
Blaze, already sprinting toward a docked Arwing, slid across the polished floor and leapt into the cockpit. ``No idea - but we're not gonna let `em tear this world apart!''
Freya stared, wide-eyed. ``What in the gods' names are those flying chariots?!''
``Get in.'' Blaze popped the hatch. ``You're riding shotgun.''
She narrowed her eyes as Blaze tossed her a digital flight suit that conformed to the wearer's body. ``...You mean that literally, don't you?''
He grinned. ``Hold on tight.''
ROAR.
THOOM.
The Arwing shot forward like a comet, flames licking the tail. Beside it, Falco, Fox, and Slippy were already engaged.
Loona stared at the ship and rolled her eyes. ``Fuck, Blaze.''
She hopped in.
Laser fire streaked across the battlefield like neon rain.
Falco's voice crackled in. ``'Bout damn time backup arrived! Who brings a sword to a space fight?''
Blaze pushed the receiver. ``She does.''
Freya, standing on the Arwing's hood, eyes glowing as she dug into her stance. ``Try me.''
Loona wasn't far behind, revving up another Arwing with instinctual ease. Her cockpit glowed blood red as her chain coiled along the controls. ``This is gonna be fun.''
Above them, Lechku raised one gilded wing -
The space around it froze, warping into fragments.
Fox's ship jerked, caught in a stutter-loop.
Nechku dove past him, trailing a spiral of frost that exploded against the Great Fox's side, knocking out several turrets.
``Dammit!'' Fox growled. ``We can't pin `em down!''
``Try to separate `em!'' Blaze barked, weaving through a slingshot barrel roll as Freya crouched on his nose.
Loona screamed past him in a blur, unloading fire from twin cannons. ``Watching you play those damn games paid off after all.''
Nechku shrieked - and met her head-on.
Her Arwing rattled, alarms flaring as ice crusted over the wings.
But Loona snarled, hit the auxiliary engines, and flipped vertically - launching a pulse mine right into Nechku's eye.
BOOM!
The beast reeled.
Back above -
Freya leapt from Blaze's Arwing to Falco's mid-flight, using her spear to deflect a time bolt meant for his engine. She spun off again, flipping in zero gravity to land on the spinning hull of Slippy's craft with unnatural grace.
``WHAT IS HAPPENING?!'' Slippy screamed.
``Just fly, frog boy!'' Freya barked, and then vaulted back toward Blaze.
Lechku suddenly split into afterimages, surrounding Freya mid-leap - each clone blinking in and out of existence.
Blaze shouted, ``Freya!''
She roared back, ``Don't you dare - ''
FWOOOOOSH!
Blaze caught her mid-air in a controlled spin.
`` - drop me again!''
They leveled out, Freya panting on his wing. But it wasn't enough.
The owls circled again - faster, angrier. Reality shivered with their screeches.
``Blaze,'' Loona's voice came through the channel, distorted by crackling interference. ``They're not just tearing space...'' She looked out her side window.
The stars were falling. As if pulled down into a singularity far beyond what any world should know.
Loona swallowed. `` - They're unmaking it.''
Blaze?s grip tightened. He looked to the burning fragments of the Lylat system. Then to the impossible beasts above. Then to Freya. Then to the flickering horizon where he swore - just swore - he saw a rift opening toward the Celestial Realm.
They weren't done yet. But if they didn't end this fight fast...
No realm would be left to reach.
The sky was no longer a sky.
Above the cracking veil of space, the celestial void shimmered like shattered glass submerged in oil. Time lagged. Then skipped. Then repeated.
The twin horrors of Lechku and Nechku wove an apocalyptic ballet across the stars. Their metallic wings shimmered with runic script, trailing divine rot and cosmic frost in spirals that threatened to consume every reality they touched.
They weren't just fighting. They were rewriting.
``Eyes up!'' Falco barked over comms. ``They're charging something big!''
Freya, still balanced atop Blaze's Arwing, braced herself. ``Time for the killing blow?''
``Try not to get yeeted into the sun first,'' Blaze muttered, claws racing over controls. ``We only get one Freya Crescent.''
Freya grinned, wind whipping her cloak. ``Then aim true, phoenix wolf.''
Lechku spread its golden wings - the stars stopped.
Literally.
Out across the Lylat sector, ships froze mid-motion. Weapons jammed in eternal fire. Time crawled like molasses, rippling outward in geometric waves.
Then came Nechku, trailing frozen ruin in a spiraling descent.
It screeched - a sound like glaciers cracking beneath divine thunder - and launched itself toward Blaze.
``LOONA - NOW!''
From below, Loona let loose a howl that would've made any hellhound proud. Her Arwing roared up from behind, wreathed in hell-red energy. She slammed into Nechku's flank at full speed - her ship disintegrating on impact - but she launched herself from the wreckage mid-spin, chain whipping around one of its metallic wings to yank herself up onto its back. ``Try freezing me now, bitch!''
She drove a pulse grenade into its spine and jumped off -
BOOM!
A devastating shockwave tore through the owl's left wing, spiraling it off course.
Meanwhile -
Freya was already in motion. ``Send me!''
``Gladly!'' Blaze banked hard, twisting through time-displaced debris as his power surged around the engine core.
Freya crouched low, and then Blaze pulled up, full throttle.
FWOOM!
Freya shot off like a spear, spinning mid-air with her weapon ignited.
She landed on Lechku's back, driving her lance down between its gears.
The owl screeched, time around it shattering in reverse as its form spasmed.
But it wasn't over.
The twins twitched.
Turned.
And fused.
With a sound like a thousand clocks screaming, Lechku and Nechku melded into one massive abomination. A hulking celestial owl-demon wrapped in golden and silver ruin, each eye glowing with a different energy - one spiraling backward, the other forward.
The Fusion Owl let loose a pulse of light that blew all ships away like paper.
Blaze tumbled through the void - his ship spiraling.
Loona caught his shoulder, reorienting her movement with her chain and falling onto his right wing. ``Why are you like this?!''
``You love me!''
Freya floated beside them, panting, bleeding - but alive. She stuck to his left wing.
The fused owl spread its wings, and behind it, they saw it.
A portal. Flickering.
The Celestial Realm.
Freya breathed, ``That's it. The path...''
Blaze clenched his fists. ``No more delays.'' He aimed his ship towards the portal.
Loona growled beside him, cracked digital suit steaming.
Freya, bracing herself, held her spear high.
All three launched toward the owl -
Together.
Yet they wouldn't make the hit.
Time froze. Space bent, and the owl raised a sharp cane of defiance that struck the Arwing. At first, nothing happened - until the cracks of light broke through the metal. When the spell ended, and time resumed, their craft erupted in a volley of light that sent all three spiraling into space.
``Loona! Freya!''
``Shit!
The realm was there. It was right there! Yet so was the enemy - and it was coming.
``Blaze! You need to focus - now!'' Krystal's voice pierced through the roaring chaos as her sleek white-and-blue arwing dove beneath the battling abomination.
Searing bolts of energy from the fused owl ripped past them, spirals of time and ice carving space apart like it was cloth. The entire Lylat system bent beneath its weight.
Krystal's ship veered hard to port, airlock open, her eyes wide with urgency.
``Get in! I'll cover the skies!''
Blaze, still floating in the void with Loona and Freya, teeth gritted and blood seeping from his nose and ears, barely nodded. He was fading -
Too many jumps.
Too many timelines.
And now... too much power.
Loona grabbed him under the arm. ``Come on, hotshot - don't you dare go out on me!''
Freya threw his other arm over her shoulder, kicking through the void. ``You're not dying until we fix this.''
They made it aboard.
Krystal slammed the ship into gear, looping under the fusion owl, keeping its attention.
``They're drawn to realm-binders - this is why you have to go! I'll hold this sky!''
``Krystal - '' Blaze croaked, grabbing the side of the console. ``Late as always.''
``Really?'' She turned and smiled faintly. ``You're not alone this time.'' She turned the ship, barreling to the side to avoid the barrage of energy being fired their way. ``Care to explain?''
``Assholes trying to crunch timelines,'' Loona snarled. ``Unleashing hell as they do. Took our soon. Killed... others.'' Her ears folded back.
``I see,'' Krystal hit the boost on her craft, glancing back just as she watched Slippy's ship get struck by the attack. ``There's no time to mourn. Not for anyone. Solution?''
Blaze grunted as he forced himself to sit upright. ``Amaterasu. There's something inside me. I don't know what or why... but the one's causing this?'' He gasped when Krystal jerked, her flight path barely missing the next strike from the fusion owl. ``They know something. We need to find out what that is before they do.''
``Hmm, always knew there was something about you, Blaze.'' Krystal smirked, but it didn't last. ``Guess you'll have to tell me once this is over. Should we see each other again.''
``Don't talk like that,'' Blaze muttered. Yet in his mind - he knew.
``Right. Passage first. Don't worry about Lylat. Whatever happens here - '' Her words died as the owl returned, it's clocks whirring with power. ``No time! Where do you need me?''
Blaze lifted his hand. ``There! Get us close!''
``Got it. Hold on!''
The shot off, barrel-rolling as Krystal used to maneuver to rebound the next set of attacks. She dipped down, then spiraled back up just before the owl's deadly cane could spear them through the middle.
``Blaze, don't look back once you get there,'' Krystal said coldly, as if him doing so would be too painful. ``The worlds... our world... don't think about them. Don't think about us. Any of us. You three need to find Amaterasu. Solve this.'' She swerved away from the next attack, but the wing was clipped. ``Understood?''
``Krystal...?''
``Blaze, focus!'' Loona grabbed him, pointing to the crack in reality.
Blaze stared at Krystal a moment longer, her Arwing's alarms blaring around them. It was as if time slowed, but not because of the demonic owl chasing them.
It was realization that he might not see her or the others again.
But he had to focus.
With a nod, he thought of the realm. He thought of the golden light and the hot springs that had healed him too many times. He pictured the radiant white-furred goddess that came to him on the darkness.
The Realm of Sunlight.
The portal burst open, bathing the cockpit in soft divine fire. Wind chimes rang from nowhere.
Krystal threw open the hatch. ``Go!''
The ship lurched -
The world flipped -
And the three of them were gone.
And so was the world behind them.
Light.
Pure, endless light.
The trio landed hard in a field of glowing reeds, a soft sun hanging overhead, forever locked in a gentle, amber dusk.
Cicadas hummed. A warm breeze drifted by. And petals - white and red - floated lazily across the still air.
Blaze didn't move.
He lay there, twitching, as if barely holding onto his shape. His fur flickered like a flame in wind, his eyes half-glazed.
``Blaze?'' Loona dropped to her knees beside him. ``Hey - hey! Don't you do this. We just got here!''
Blaze coughed. Blood.
``Shit! Shit - fuck! Come on!''
Freya checked his pulse, lips pressed tight. ``I think he's... splintering. His soul's starting to fracture.''
And then the wind stilled.
A warm scent - like cherry blossoms and incense - drifted through the grove.
White paws touched down from the treetops above. A divine form glided down in a glowing arc - her tail trailing sunlight and ink with every movement.
Amaterasu - the goddess herself. Her eyes calm, glowing. And beside her, emerging from a nearby pillar of black flame came The Demonlord Ninetails, smirking, tails dancing with wicked power, yet her expression oddly somber.
``My, my,'' Ninetails purred. ``Look what the hound dragged in.''
Loona stood, chain in hand. ``Help him. Please. Fucking help him!''
Amaterasu knelt, wordless. She placed her paw against Blaze's forehead - and a pulse of divine warmth rippled out, stabilizing him... for now.
Freya let out a sigh, backing up as Amaterasu gently cradled Blaze's limp form.
Ninetails tilted her head at Loona. ``You look tired, mutt. Want me to take over while you nap?''
``Touch him and I'll shove each of those tails up your ass one at a time!'' Loona snapped.
``...Love her,'' Ninetails whispered to Amaterasu, who gave her a stern sideways glance.
The sun glowed overhead. For now... they were safe.
But the goddess looked at Loona and Freya - and her voice, silent yet echoing in their minds, carried deep concern: ``Blaze Morvane. How many time?'' She sighed, shaking her head. ``You dance too close to the edge of death for others.'' She then turned to Loona. ``He has little time left. What Veszkar has begun must be undone.''
Loona looked down at Blaze. Then up at Amaterasu. ``Then tell us how. We're not losing him... or our son.''
CHAPTER EIGHT
Crack The World
The space between realms was a shifting blur of shadows and colors, constantly changing, constantly trembling. Like reality was trying to remember what shape it was supposed to be.
Laziel, still defiant, was yanked through the madness by Veszkar - that two-souled horror, walking on twisting, root-like feet that bled across dimensions as if always fighting with themselves for control.
``Y'know,'' Laziel grunted, tugging against the corrupted soul-thread that bound him, ``for a god-wannabe you sure stink like roadkill.''
Veszkar did not laugh. But the brother's voice snapped from the mouth first: ``We should gut him now. Break the his damn soul and be done with it!''
Then the sister's voice, smoother, cruelly calm: ``No. He is the key. The blood of soul and beast. The child of the deathless monger born not only of Hell... but Heaven.''
They stepped forward.
The realms around them split - Yharnam bleeding into Lylat, into Kamui, into Hell - and Laziel felt it.
Something inside him tugged. Pulled. Like there was a map he didn't know was drawn inside his heart.
``He opens doors,'' the sister said, eyes flickering, ``even if he does not mean to. Tell me, little one - do you know of your full legacy? Of not only a father who controlled death, but of a mother born of hellfire and holy light?''
They raised a blackened claw, and with a wrenching sound like a violin string snapping, a jagged crack formed in the air. Glowing red and purple, humming like a dying world. They then spun and stabbed a shard of soul-magic into Laziel's chest.
He screamed - but didn't fall. Instead...the Crack widened. And from behind them -
A soft, playful hum echoed in the dark.
``Hmhmhm. Bit rude to use a kid like that, don't you think?''
Veszkar turned fast.
A pair of glowing green eyes hovered in midair, upside-down, followed by the slow materialization of a slender, mischievous figure.
Muru. The trickster fox flipped forward lazily, tail flicking as if she weren't standing in a warping hellscape of broken timelines. Her orange and white fur shimmered softly, accented by the purple coat she wore over her robes.
``You.'' Veszkar's tone dipped, disgusted. ``You're supposed to be dead. Claimed by fate long ago.'' The brother took control. ``We already fucked your world, fox!''
``Yeah, I get that a lot,'' Muru said, landing lightly beside Laziel, offering a wink. ``Turns out... fate and I have an agreement. I cheat it, and it hates me.'' She placed a paw on the threads binding Laziel.
They sizzled.
Veszkar's brother-voice snarled. ``What trickery is this?!''
Muru's spiritual energy flickered like moonlight on oil - eerie and strangely divine, like it never belonged to one realm. Her presence wasn?t power like Amaterasu. It wasn't fury like Bee.
It was wrong. And that?s what made it dangerous.
``You're not the only one who can skip rope through realities,'' she smirked, spinning her tail. ``Blaze left a big mess, yeah, but I've had my pawprints in a few places too. Tricksters always find the back doors. And leaving doorways open? Oh, it's one of my favorite tricks.''
She plucked the strings binding Laziel like an instrument. ``Funny how that works, isn't it? It's almost like you followed Blaze's trail, and now I'm allowing him to follow yours through his kid.''
``You - ''
Muru cackled. ``Aww, don't like being played with your own game? Is that anger? Admiration? Or would you rather - ''
Veszkar's claws flashed. With a blink, they stabbed her through the chest - black magic boiling from their hand.
Laziel gasped, ``Muru!''
But Muru just blinked. Then chuckled, blood leaking from her lip. ``Whew... okay, okay, ow. Rude.'' Her legs buckled.
Veszkar leaned in. ``Fools always smile before they break.''
Muru looked up at them - bloodied, cracking, soul beginning to fade.
And still...
Still...
She grinned.
``Wanna know a secret?''
Veszkar's body tensed.
``You're going to lose,'' she whispered. ``You think you can tame the Soulmonger? Leash a child born with divine and infernal blood? Haha... hahahah! Oh, how sweet!''
Veszkar screamed - the sister?s voice shaking.
``You don't even know what you should really fear. But... fate...'' But Muru just closed her eyes, peaceful now, her body turning to faint, glowing butterflies. ``... has... its ways...''
Gone.
Claimed.
But not wasted.
Laziel was breathing hard, chest burning.
Veszkar's form wavered - twitching - and then, with another violent wrench, they stabbed their hand toward the space above them.
A crack tore open - Straight into Yharnam.
From within the broken horizon, a pulse echoed out -
Low. Heavy. Like something enormous had just awakened beneath a dying sky.
A voice, guttural and ragged, whispered in a tone that hadn't been heard in eons -
``...I... hunger...''
Veszkar smiled, twitching. ``The fox bought you time. Now let's see what you do with it when something older than Death itself walks free.''
CHAPTER NINE
What Was Once Broken
The gentle golden haze of the sun-soaked grove did little to mask the dread that hung in the air.
Blaze sat slumped against a smooth stone altar, his fur soaked in sweat, twitching with surges of light and shadow. What remained of his inner fire was flickering - blood leaking from his eyes, his mouth, his chest - as though something inside him was fracturing.
Loona was on her knees beside him, her arms around him as tightly as she could hold. ``You stupid, stubborn, self-sacrificing bastard - what the hell were you thinking?'' she growled, tail lashing behind her. ``Dragging us through timelines like it's a weekend hike? You think you can just keep smiling and bleeding like it's nothing?!''
Blaze tried to lift a hand, gave her a weak smirk. ``I mean... I got us here, didn't I?''
``Not the point!'' she barked, voice cracking. ``Gods - Blaze... you're breaking. I can feel it. If you weren't, I'd fucking hit you!''
Freya stood just behind, silent, holding vigil, her hands still stained from the battle in space. Her eyes were locked on Amaterasu.
The sun goddess had not spoken since returning to the grove. Now, slowly, she stepped forward.
Even Ninetails had quieted, watching her divine counterpart with a flick of concern in her eyes within her mask.
Amaterasu knelt beside Blaze, laying a paw upon his chest - not healing, not soothing. Sensing.
And what she felt made even the divine shudder.
``The cracks run deeper than even I feared...'' she said softly.
``Cracks?'' Loona asked. ``You mean his soul?''
``No,'' Amaterasu whispered. ``His existence. His tether to the stream of time and fate. It's unraveling.'' She looked down at Blaze now, eyes warm but... pained. ``And I believe I know why.''
Blaze coughed, blood flecking his fur. ``So... not just a side effect of being a dumbass...''
``No,'' she said. ``This isn?t just realm travel. You were never meant to come back this way. You were...'' Her voice trailed off, lips tightening. ``...You were meant to be gone, Blaze. What's inside of you... was meant to be forgotten and never disturbed. What you have been doing... is breaking a seal I have never seen before.''
Everyone froze.
Even the wind held its breath.
``What are you saying?'' Loona asked quietly, her grip tightening.
Blaze lifted his head slightly, sweat in his eyes. ``She's saying I was dead. Really dead.''
Amaterasu nodded. ``Worse than dead. You were unmade. Unwoven. Your soul was once a weapon - something terrible, something feared. And when it was finally cast down... the world tried to forget.''
Loona blinked, ears folding back. ``But... he's Blaze. He's always been - ''
``No,'' Amaterasu whispered. ``He was the SoulMonger. Reborn. Unaware. Given a second chance by the world itself.''
Freya's eyes narrowed, but she didn't speak.
Blaze slowly shifted, forcing himself upright with a pained grunt. ``Then show me.'' He coughed, catching the blood in his palm.
Amaterasu tilted her head. ``You understand what you're asking?''
``I want to know what I was,'' Blaze said. ``What I could be again. What that thing is trying to use and why they took our damn son.''
Loona hissed, grabbing his arm. ``Blaze - what if it breaks you? You're already - !''
He looked at her then. For once... serious. No jokes. No smirks. Just quiet, burning resolve behind tired eyes.
``I have to. For Laziel. For all of you. If I don't know what I was... I can't fight what's coming. Not... not like this. If Veszkar wants to awaken what's in Laziel... then I need to awaken this to save him.''
Ninetails sighed. ``If you don't... he'll die. He can't fight off the damage, Amaterasu. You know that. Even your divine waters can't fix this.''
Amaterasu looked down... and nodded. ``Very well.''
She rose and stepped back, the grove shifting around her. Light swirled upward in slow, curling wisps as if the sun itself bowed to her command. The trees leaned inward. The breeze stopped.
Only the sound of distant chimes remained.
``I can show you,'' she said, her voice now layered with power. ``But it will hurt. You will see the screams of a thousand souls bound to your breath. The worlds you shattered. The mortals you harvested. The gods you fell.'' She stepped closer again. ``And the truth of why you were remade. Why you were allowed to live again... as this.''
Her paw hovered just above his brow. ``The choice is yours, Blaze Morvane. Do you want to remember who you were?''
Loona looked at him, eyes wide, trembling.
Freya didn't speak - just laid a hand on her shoulder.
Ninetails... smiled faintly, watching curiously.
And Blaze?
He exhaled. ``...Yeah. Let's open that door.''
Amaterasu touched his head.
The grove went white.
And the world... began to burn.
Light shattered. Time unraveled.
And then -
Darkness.
The kind that weighed on the soul. The kind that hummed with guilt and regret.
Blaze stood in a world of muted gray ash, a flickering echo of who he once was standing ahead of him - taller, thinner, warped and robed in threads made of mourning itself. No smile. No warmth in the eyes.
Just a mask made from stolen souls. The mark of a collector.
He stumbled forward, clutching his head. ``Wh-What the hell...?''
And the world answered.
He saw a boy - A cowardly soldier, too weak to fight in his first war, trembling beneath a broken shield, watching comrades fall and carrying a stolen sword.
A low, ominous voice echoed around him. ``You were... weak. Scared of being forgotten. No song to be sung in your honor. A coward who feared death.''
The fear crept in. The screams didn't stop. His cries went unheard.
And when death came for him... he ran.
Down into the between. The Afterworld, where no mortal should tread. And there, in the cracks of time and forgotten lands, he took what wasn't his. Killed. Stole. Reaped.
``You had nothing... until I crept in. Saw what you truly desired and allowed you to have it. Mmmm - the sweet scent of soulfire. The wonderful song of screams calling your name.''
His compassion? Sold.
His name? Abandoned.
What he asked for was simple: "I never want to be weak again."
``And I listened...''
He became something less than a man and more than a shadow.
He became the Soulmonger. Or in reality... the Soulmonger became him.
Across timelines, he wandered - devouring dying worlds, consuming the echoes of forgotten gods. He felt nothing. Cared for nothing. The universe was flawed. Souls were just strings. And he collected them - wove them into time itself so that he may always have a path forward.
But one day, something unexpected.
A figure in silver and violet stood in his way -
A reaper of Lucifer.
One not forged by bargain but born to balance.
She didn't raise her blade in hate. She didn't curse him for what he was.
She simply looked at him and whispered: ``You weren't meant to become this. You were meant to feel.''
``Feel? What a worthless concept. To feel... is to be weak...''
They fought. She bled. So did he. But at the end -
She won.
And as he lay broken in a crater of unraveling realms, she reached down, touched his core -
She offered him mercy and unraveled him. But instead of erasing him...she scattered him.
Two timelines. Two chances.
The first was a quiet life. In a normal realm, yet ghosts and grief still found him. The world where Aislinn once lived. Where the onry? attached themselves. Where he was followed by sorrow, but led a simple life - no grand adventures. A quiet kindness blooming in friendship with others.
The second had become this one. Here.
Where something inside him fought against the limits.
Where he crossed realms. Found her.
Loved.
Laughed.
And tried - so hard - to fix broken things.
``Because you were one,'' whispered the echo of Aislinn's voice. ``Something broken. Now you - ''
``You waste yourself on love.'' The cruel voice that echoed around him showed no mercy.
The memories began to claw through his mind.
Blaze fell to his knees, gasping, his claws digging into his skull as if trying to tear the thoughts out -
The screams. The faces. The sound of chains dragging lives away.
``I - I didn't know - '' he sobbed.
Then in front of him, a figure formed from the shadows. It was Blaze, but at the same time, it wasn't. His hair? A burning mane of pink flame that roared down his back and danced in flickering embers along his arms.
``You were that monster,'' it whispered. ``But you became this pathetic soul.''
The Grove - Present Time
Blaze collapsed with a scream, and Loona was instantly there, catching him as his body shuddered in her arms. His eyes were glowing, blood dripping from the corners. His aura pulsed wildly, tearing the grass around him apart.
``Blaze! Blaze, breathe! Look at me!'' she yelled, holding his face. ``I'm here, dammit! I'm here!''
He clutched at her arms like a drowning man, gasping through his sobs.
``I remember... I remember it all - I was a monster - I - !''
Loona wrapped her arms around his head, cradling him to her chest. ``You?re not him. You're not that thing. You're my dumbass mate who leaves his socks in the sink and keeps helping every stray ghost, goddess, and glitch that crosses his path!''
He didn't respond with words - instead - he reached out - and his hand gripped tightly around Loona's throat.
She gasped, choking. ``B-Blaze?!''
``And I waste every god damn second I spend with you and those worthless creatures!'' He tightened his hold, slowly sitting upright. ``When I could be feasting... growing stronger to break free of this miserable prison!''
Freya knelt nearby and quickly stood upright, her spear ready.
Amaterasu stepped back, breath slow. Even she looked shaken. ``...I didn't expect him to endure that. Did he... is that...''
Ninetails folded her arms, smirking with none of her usual joy. ``That's not him.''
``Blaze... let... go,'' Loona struggled to speak, her body writhing in a desperate struggle to break free, her claws raking down his arms.
Blaze snarled as he stood, taking Loona with him. ``Finally - I am finally awake. After that damn reaper. After all this fucking time, I can breathe again.'' His eyes scanned the room. ``The Sun Goddess and her shadow. Looks like I hit the - ''
SMACK!
Freya spun her spear into the back of his head.
Blaze jerked forward, his grip loosening enough for Loona to break free as he stumbled forward.
Before he could react, Ninetails bound him with the shadows of her tails, and Amaterasu moved in once more to grab his head in both hands.
``You think you can bind me? Pitiful bitch!'' He spit in her face.
Amaterasu remained stern as light began to pour from her body into his. ``No. But I intend to give him the chance to do so himself.''
Blaze let out a scream as a searing white light erupted from his eyes. He slumped forward once the goddess released him, coughing as he fell to all fours.
Loona rubbed her throat, but hurried back to his side and continued to hold Blaze, rocking him gently, eyes hard but shimmering. ``Blaze? Listen to me. You want to know why you do this?'' she whispered into his ear. ``Why you fix broken shit like it's your job?'' She leaned back, pressing her forehead to his. ``It's because deep down, you remember. You were broken. And now you're trying to fix everyone else... so no one ends up like you. You can fight this!''
He looked up at her through tears.
And she kissed him.
``Now breathe, pink boy,'' she said softly, ``because we've got a kid to save. And a reality to keep from imploding.''
He let out a ragged exhale. His hands finally unclenched. ``...n-no... I... I can't. The things I did...'' He glanced down at his shaking hands, his eyes wide with fear. ``The things I saw... the things I heard...''
``Hey, hey! Listen to me.'' Loona gripped his shoulders, forcing him to look at her. ``That isn't you! You're not - ''
``But it is!'' He shoved her off and bolted to his feet. ``I saw it! I saw everything! And I can still hear him - whispering.'' Blaze gripped his own head and swatted at Loona's hand as she reached for him. ``Don't! I might hurt you. I can't... uurgh!'' He clenched his eyes shut and turned away from everyone.
``Blaze, listen to me!''
But he didn't.
Blaze ran.
He ran faster than Loona could keep up.
Fire trailed his path and cast flickering embers of magenta light in the fading daylight of Amaterasu's realm.
Ninetails chuckled. ``Oh that went wonderfully.''
Loona stood and stared as the love of her left tore away from her and soon vanished in a burst of heated flames as if he couldn't control it.
Everyone else had gone silent.
She stood, gazing at where she'd last seen him, her eyes wide with worry and fear. ``Blaze...''
~TO BE CONTINUED...~
