The air tasted wrong.
Metallic. Thin. And laced with an unfamiliar scent.
Tempest gasped awake, her breath sharp and ragged as if her lungs had been crushed in her sleep. The world spun. Her skin burned where stone had torn it. She blinked against the stabbing light that filtered through trees too tall, too twisted to be anything she recognized.
Trees?
Where were the stone walls? The shattered stained glass? The echo of their fight with the beast?
She tried to sit up, groaning as pain lanced through her ribs. Her arms shook as she pushed herself from the moss-covered ground. Not marble—*moss.* Thick and pulsing like it was alive.
"Azazel..." Her voice cracked, barely more than a whisper.
He lay nearby, crumpled in the tangled roots, his frame half-curled like a child’s. His coat was shredded, scorched at the edges. Blood streaked his jaw.
"Azazel!" she said again, louder this time. She crawled to him, wincing at every movement. Her fingers found his shoulder and shook him gently at first—then harder. "Wake up. Please."
He stirred, a low groan escaping his throat.
Then his eyes opened—and widened.
He choked on the air like it was poison. Hands clawed at the dirt beneath him. His breath came short, panicked. "What—what is this?" His voice was raw. "I can’t—breathe."
Tempest grabbed his face, forcing him to look at her. "You’re okay. You’re *here.* But I don’t think this is—where we were."
His gaze darted around them—skyless canopy overhead, branches like skeletal arms, insects clicking somewhere too close. The ground pulsed with faint warmth. The monster was still here—its shape towering behind the trees, limbs lashing wildly in search.
"I remember stone," Azazel muttered. "A cathedral. Columns falling. Then..." He trailed off, eyes unfocused.
"I remember that too," Tempest said, her voice small. "And then—nothing. Just… *this.*"
They sat in silence, the wind in the leaves sounding too much like whispering.
Something had pulled them through.
And it hadn’t let the monster go.
Chapter One : No Place Like Home
Re: Chapter One : No Place Like Home
Azazel pushed himself upright, every joint screaming in protest. His breath still came shallow, like the air didn’t want to stay in his lungs. The tightness in his chest made him feel caged, like something unseen was pressing in from all sides.
Then came the sound—the wet snap of something massive breaking through wood.
Tempest's head whipped toward it.
Between trunks and curling fog, it moved. A hulking silhouette, taller than the trees, its limbs too long and wrong, coiled and uncoiled like whips made of sinew and shadow. Eyes—no, not eyes, but openings—flickered across its body, blinking in impossible rhythms. The same creature. Somehow.
Still here.
Still hunting.
Azazel flinched as a lash of its limb struck a nearby tree, splitting it down the center with a noise like thunder.
And then the memory hit.
White.
A column of stone shattering beside him.
The heat of his own blood in his mouth.
Tempest screaming his name across the ruined cathedral, her figure framed in falling ash.
The beast had crashed through the roof—no, it had descended, like a weight from heaven made only to kill. Its cry had shattered stained glass and bent iron.
They fought. He remembered lightning in Tempest’s palm, fire in his own hands. But the monster had moved through their attacks like it learned with each strike. Then—something had cracked in the air. Not bone. Not stone. Something deeper.
Like the world had blinked.
And now… this.
“Where's...,” Azazel said through gritted teeth, eyes locked on the thing in the fog. “ agase”
Tempest stood beside him, blood running down her arm in thin trails. Her hand glowed faintly, shaking with effort as she tried to summon magic that refused to obey.
“Youre worries about her? ,”she whispered.
“No,” Azazel said, rising to his feet. “Yes....she's my sister." Their was silence. Akward silence "Maybe...this creature brought us here?”
Behind them, the branches groaned.
The forest wasn’t just foreign.
And the monster wasn't just loose.
It was home.
It stepped into full view.
No—it oozed, dragging itself forward on too many limbs, each one shaped like a question no sane mind had ever asked. Tendrils slithered and curled, some dragging along the soil, others probing the air like antennae sniffing for fear. Its flesh was an ever-writhing tapestry of mouths and blinking eyes—some human, some insectile, some too abstract to name. Its torso split open and closed with a rhythmic hiss, as if breathing through a wound. Where legs might have been, there were instead masses of coiling muscle that flexed and recoiled, propelling it with impossible grace through the undergrowth.
A sickly sound followed it, like wet silk sliding over bone.
Tempest took a step back, her breath catching in her throat again. “This creature brought us here? It doesn’t belong anywhere, Azazel. The trees aren’t familiar… alien even, but they at least appear to be the work of a reasonable god. And those birds—did you see them? So many, all so small and with monocolored feathers.”\[/i]
Azazel’s eyes narrowed, never leaving the thing. “I haven’t recognized a single living thing since I woke up. Not a tree. Not an insect. Not even the air smells like the world I knew.”
He swallowed hard.
“The only thing unalien to me... is that monster.”
Tempest turned to him, horror in her expression.
Because he was right.
Everything else felt like it had been growing completely foreign to Vescrutia’s biosphere—but that thing? That walking nightmare?
That... reminded them of home.
That was familiar.
“I’ve got just enough strength to get us out of here,” Tempest whispered.
Azazel wasn’t sure if fleeing was the right answer. Whatever manner of nightmare this creature was—it was recurring.
“What if it follows us?”
A thunderous crack split the silence—followed by a scream.
Azazel and Tempest turned just in time to see her.
A woman, dark-skinned and wild-eyed, sprinting through the trees with a small child clutched to her chest. Her clothes were woven from bark and hide, her hair knotted with leaves. She moved like prey—but with purpose.
The monster’s limbs surged toward her, dragging its mountainous frame behind.
Tempest reacted first. “We can’t let it—”
“I know,” Azazel growled, fire blooming in his palm. His body ached like something inside him had snapped and not quite healed. But the pain didn’t matter now.
“Get her out of here.”
And just like that, the two of them moved.
Azazel’s hellfire ignited with a howl, blooming from his hands in a vicious arc. The flames roared with unnatural weight, carving a molten trench across the forest floor. As they burned hotter, the fire grew heavier—piling onto the creature like molten stone, crushing its front limbs beneath a tide of blazing mass. The heat warped the air, blackened bark, and shattered branches in a radius around him.
Tempest shot forward, a blur of torn silk and fury. The wind followed her like a faithful dog—sharp, slicing gales spiraled from her fingertips, cutting into the monster’s limbs. With a twist of her hands, she summoned a cyclone that launched her upward. Midair, she flipped and dove—landing hard against one of the creature’s exposed eyes. She pierced the eye, its skin like wet iron, landing inside its cavity. She pressed her hands against its flesh.
A flash of pale pink light shimmered from the contact—Draining Kiss—and the beast screeched, its limbs flailing wildly as she tore vital energy from its nervous system. Tendrils tried to ensnare her, lashing about its socket like a man possessed. She leapt from its eye and was struck by a tendril in her escape. She hit the ground hard, stumbling. Her hands trembled violently, blood streaking from her nose. Her chest heaved—but she rose again. She noticed the mother was still running but hadn’t made it more than a few hundred feet.
“So slow...” she said softly, her voice steeped with confusion.
Behind her, Azazel knelt, one hand pressed to the ground. Flames erupted in a dome around them.
“I can barely see straight,” he muttered. “Father’s gonna be disappointed, but I’m gonna burn this forest down fighting this horror. I don’t have the strength for restraint.”
“Screw his precious forest, he should be here helping us! Probably watching us struggle from his office as we speak,” Tempest snapped back, even as she coughed up a ribbon of blood.
The monster crashed through the flames, parts of its body now glowing molten red where the hellfire clung to it like a living curse. One tendril shot toward Azazel, barbed and barreling fast.
Tempest intercepted it with a blade of air—crack!—the force rebounding through her arm with enough power to fracture bone. She didn't let it show. She moved like lightning, her pain masked by purpose.
Azazel, seizing the opening, roared as he unleashed a pillar of fire so dense it cratered the forest floor beneath it. The flames twisted unnaturally, compressing under their own weight, forming spears of superheated mass that exploded outward.
The monster reeled.
But it did not fall.
It regenerated—slowly—flesh reforming with bubbling, grotesque ease.
“This thing is regenerating!” Tempest said through gritted teeth. “We need to end it. Fast.”
Azazel’s jaw clenched. His legs felt like sandbags. His vision swam.
But then he looked at her.
Burnt. Bleeding. Still standing. Still fighting.
He felt something snap inside him—not bone. Not tendon.
Resolve.
“I’ll draw it in,”he said. "You tear it down.”
Tempest nodded.
And in unison, like dancers in a war-born ballet, they launched into motion again—one born of storm, the other of hellfire.
Even broken, they moved like gods.
But every strike they landed was paid for in pain—every leap, every punch, every flame and gust, all drawn from a body that had already given too much.
Still, they fought.
Because someone had to.
Then came the sound—the wet snap of something massive breaking through wood.
Tempest's head whipped toward it.
Between trunks and curling fog, it moved. A hulking silhouette, taller than the trees, its limbs too long and wrong, coiled and uncoiled like whips made of sinew and shadow. Eyes—no, not eyes, but openings—flickered across its body, blinking in impossible rhythms. The same creature. Somehow.
Still here.
Still hunting.
Azazel flinched as a lash of its limb struck a nearby tree, splitting it down the center with a noise like thunder.
And then the memory hit.
White.
A column of stone shattering beside him.
The heat of his own blood in his mouth.
Tempest screaming his name across the ruined cathedral, her figure framed in falling ash.
The beast had crashed through the roof—no, it had descended, like a weight from heaven made only to kill. Its cry had shattered stained glass and bent iron.
They fought. He remembered lightning in Tempest’s palm, fire in his own hands. But the monster had moved through their attacks like it learned with each strike. Then—something had cracked in the air. Not bone. Not stone. Something deeper.
Like the world had blinked.
And now… this.
“Where's...,” Azazel said through gritted teeth, eyes locked on the thing in the fog. “ agase”
Tempest stood beside him, blood running down her arm in thin trails. Her hand glowed faintly, shaking with effort as she tried to summon magic that refused to obey.
“Youre worries about her? ,”she whispered.
“No,” Azazel said, rising to his feet. “Yes....she's my sister." Their was silence. Akward silence "Maybe...this creature brought us here?”
Behind them, the branches groaned.
The forest wasn’t just foreign.
And the monster wasn't just loose.
It was home.
It stepped into full view.
No—it oozed, dragging itself forward on too many limbs, each one shaped like a question no sane mind had ever asked. Tendrils slithered and curled, some dragging along the soil, others probing the air like antennae sniffing for fear. Its flesh was an ever-writhing tapestry of mouths and blinking eyes—some human, some insectile, some too abstract to name. Its torso split open and closed with a rhythmic hiss, as if breathing through a wound. Where legs might have been, there were instead masses of coiling muscle that flexed and recoiled, propelling it with impossible grace through the undergrowth.
A sickly sound followed it, like wet silk sliding over bone.
Tempest took a step back, her breath catching in her throat again. “This creature brought us here? It doesn’t belong anywhere, Azazel. The trees aren’t familiar… alien even, but they at least appear to be the work of a reasonable god. And those birds—did you see them? So many, all so small and with monocolored feathers.”\[/i]
Azazel’s eyes narrowed, never leaving the thing. “I haven’t recognized a single living thing since I woke up. Not a tree. Not an insect. Not even the air smells like the world I knew.”
He swallowed hard.
“The only thing unalien to me... is that monster.”
Tempest turned to him, horror in her expression.
Because he was right.
Everything else felt like it had been growing completely foreign to Vescrutia’s biosphere—but that thing? That walking nightmare?
That... reminded them of home.
That was familiar.
“I’ve got just enough strength to get us out of here,” Tempest whispered.
Azazel wasn’t sure if fleeing was the right answer. Whatever manner of nightmare this creature was—it was recurring.
“What if it follows us?”
A thunderous crack split the silence—followed by a scream.
Azazel and Tempest turned just in time to see her.
A woman, dark-skinned and wild-eyed, sprinting through the trees with a small child clutched to her chest. Her clothes were woven from bark and hide, her hair knotted with leaves. She moved like prey—but with purpose.
The monster’s limbs surged toward her, dragging its mountainous frame behind.
Tempest reacted first. “We can’t let it—”
“I know,” Azazel growled, fire blooming in his palm. His body ached like something inside him had snapped and not quite healed. But the pain didn’t matter now.
“Get her out of here.”
And just like that, the two of them moved.
Azazel’s hellfire ignited with a howl, blooming from his hands in a vicious arc. The flames roared with unnatural weight, carving a molten trench across the forest floor. As they burned hotter, the fire grew heavier—piling onto the creature like molten stone, crushing its front limbs beneath a tide of blazing mass. The heat warped the air, blackened bark, and shattered branches in a radius around him.
Tempest shot forward, a blur of torn silk and fury. The wind followed her like a faithful dog—sharp, slicing gales spiraled from her fingertips, cutting into the monster’s limbs. With a twist of her hands, she summoned a cyclone that launched her upward. Midair, she flipped and dove—landing hard against one of the creature’s exposed eyes. She pierced the eye, its skin like wet iron, landing inside its cavity. She pressed her hands against its flesh.
A flash of pale pink light shimmered from the contact—Draining Kiss—and the beast screeched, its limbs flailing wildly as she tore vital energy from its nervous system. Tendrils tried to ensnare her, lashing about its socket like a man possessed. She leapt from its eye and was struck by a tendril in her escape. She hit the ground hard, stumbling. Her hands trembled violently, blood streaking from her nose. Her chest heaved—but she rose again. She noticed the mother was still running but hadn’t made it more than a few hundred feet.
“So slow...” she said softly, her voice steeped with confusion.
Behind her, Azazel knelt, one hand pressed to the ground. Flames erupted in a dome around them.
“I can barely see straight,” he muttered. “Father’s gonna be disappointed, but I’m gonna burn this forest down fighting this horror. I don’t have the strength for restraint.”
“Screw his precious forest, he should be here helping us! Probably watching us struggle from his office as we speak,” Tempest snapped back, even as she coughed up a ribbon of blood.
The monster crashed through the flames, parts of its body now glowing molten red where the hellfire clung to it like a living curse. One tendril shot toward Azazel, barbed and barreling fast.
Tempest intercepted it with a blade of air—crack!—the force rebounding through her arm with enough power to fracture bone. She didn't let it show. She moved like lightning, her pain masked by purpose.
Azazel, seizing the opening, roared as he unleashed a pillar of fire so dense it cratered the forest floor beneath it. The flames twisted unnaturally, compressing under their own weight, forming spears of superheated mass that exploded outward.
The monster reeled.
But it did not fall.
It regenerated—slowly—flesh reforming with bubbling, grotesque ease.
“This thing is regenerating!” Tempest said through gritted teeth. “We need to end it. Fast.”
Azazel’s jaw clenched. His legs felt like sandbags. His vision swam.
But then he looked at her.
Burnt. Bleeding. Still standing. Still fighting.
He felt something snap inside him—not bone. Not tendon.
Resolve.
“I’ll draw it in,”he said. "You tear it down.”
Tempest nodded.
And in unison, like dancers in a war-born ballet, they launched into motion again—one born of storm, the other of hellfire.
Even broken, they moved like gods.
But every strike they landed was paid for in pain—every leap, every punch, every flame and gust, all drawn from a body that had already given too much.
Still, they fought.
Because someone had to.
Re: Chapter One : No Place Like Home
The beast writhed, its many limbs thrashing as fire and wind tore chunks from its body. It shrieked—a guttural, wet sound that echoed across the alien forest like a siren from a dream you couldn’t wake from.
But it wasn’t dead.
And it knew how close they were to breaking.
One blow was all it needed.
Azazel never saw it coming.
A whip-thick tendril smashed through the inferno, wrapped around his torso, and *hurled* him. His body snapped through trees like a stone through glass, each impact stripping away something vital—breath, blood, will.
He crashed through a trunk, then another, until he hit the ground and didn’t move.
The fire around them sputtered.
For a moment, the monster turned toward the mother and child.
But they were gone—disappeared into the forest, Tempest’s wind having carved a path for them in the chaos.
They were safe.
Azazel lay sprawled in the ruins of a splintered grove, vision dimming. Every breath rattled. His ribs were broken. Something in his back didn’t feel attached anymore. Blood pooled beneath him, warm and steady.
They’re safe, he thought.
He could let go now.
Let the darkness pull him under.
No more pain. No more screaming inside his bones. Just—
"Azazel!"
The scream cracked the air like lightning.
Tempest stood alone.
Her legs shook, her body cut and bruised and steaming with effort—but she stood. She faced the creature, arms open, defiant. Her hair whipped in the wind she summoned around her, eyes shining with rage and purpose.
“Get up!” she shouted.
The monster lunged.
She moved—graceful and battered, slipping beneath its strike like a whisper. Her palm kissed the tendril again—Draining Kiss—and the beast convulsed, reeling. But she staggered too. It was taking too much out of her to use her Anthem.
Azazel’s breath caught in his throat.
Not because of pain.
Because of her.
The way she stood. Her commitment to everyones survival. Even though she was a mostly a dancer, she had the truest will of a warrior.
She’s still fighting for me... he said under a soft cry. Both his spirit and body bruised beyond comparison.
He remembered the mother clutching her child. The terror. The desperation.
He remembered why he fought.
Not for victory. Not for glory.
But to make sure no one fought alone.
A spark kindled in his chest.
Then the flames surged.
He rose, broken but burning—his body haloed in a fire so dense it bent the air around him.
"Tempest!"
She turned, eyes wide with relief.
He limped toward her, flames crawling along his arms, pooling in his hands like magma.
She didn’t speak.
She didn’t need to.
Their hands met—his fire, her wind.
They turned to the monster in unison.
And then they unleashed.
The explosion wasn’t sound—it was absence of it. A column of storm-wreathed fire erupted from the forest floor, consuming the creature completely. Trees were vaporized. The ground split open. Everything within fifty meters ceased to exist.
A crater remained.
Charred. Silent. As if a meteor had kissed the earth and left only shadow.
The monster was gone.
Ash on the wind.
Azazel collapsed to his knees, breathing hard. Tempest fell beside him, shoulders heaving. They didn’t speak for a long time.
Just sat there, bruised and burned.
Alive.
Together.
But it wasn’t dead.
And it knew how close they were to breaking.
One blow was all it needed.
Azazel never saw it coming.
A whip-thick tendril smashed through the inferno, wrapped around his torso, and *hurled* him. His body snapped through trees like a stone through glass, each impact stripping away something vital—breath, blood, will.
He crashed through a trunk, then another, until he hit the ground and didn’t move.
The fire around them sputtered.
For a moment, the monster turned toward the mother and child.
But they were gone—disappeared into the forest, Tempest’s wind having carved a path for them in the chaos.
They were safe.
Azazel lay sprawled in the ruins of a splintered grove, vision dimming. Every breath rattled. His ribs were broken. Something in his back didn’t feel attached anymore. Blood pooled beneath him, warm and steady.
They’re safe, he thought.
He could let go now.
Let the darkness pull him under.
No more pain. No more screaming inside his bones. Just—
"Azazel!"
The scream cracked the air like lightning.
Tempest stood alone.
Her legs shook, her body cut and bruised and steaming with effort—but she stood. She faced the creature, arms open, defiant. Her hair whipped in the wind she summoned around her, eyes shining with rage and purpose.
“Get up!” she shouted.
The monster lunged.
She moved—graceful and battered, slipping beneath its strike like a whisper. Her palm kissed the tendril again—Draining Kiss—and the beast convulsed, reeling. But she staggered too. It was taking too much out of her to use her Anthem.
Azazel’s breath caught in his throat.
Not because of pain.
Because of her.
The way she stood. Her commitment to everyones survival. Even though she was a mostly a dancer, she had the truest will of a warrior.
She’s still fighting for me... he said under a soft cry. Both his spirit and body bruised beyond comparison.
He remembered the mother clutching her child. The terror. The desperation.
He remembered why he fought.
Not for victory. Not for glory.
But to make sure no one fought alone.
A spark kindled in his chest.
Then the flames surged.
He rose, broken but burning—his body haloed in a fire so dense it bent the air around him.
"Tempest!"
She turned, eyes wide with relief.
He limped toward her, flames crawling along his arms, pooling in his hands like magma.
She didn’t speak.
She didn’t need to.
Their hands met—his fire, her wind.
They turned to the monster in unison.
And then they unleashed.
The explosion wasn’t sound—it was absence of it. A column of storm-wreathed fire erupted from the forest floor, consuming the creature completely. Trees were vaporized. The ground split open. Everything within fifty meters ceased to exist.
A crater remained.
Charred. Silent. As if a meteor had kissed the earth and left only shadow.
The monster was gone.
Ash on the wind.
Azazel collapsed to his knees, breathing hard. Tempest fell beside him, shoulders heaving. They didn’t speak for a long time.
Just sat there, bruised and burned.
Alive.
Together.
Re: Chapter One : No Place Like Home
They sat back-to-back at the edge of the crater, steam still curling off their skin. The silence wasn’t peace—it was the hush after a scream.
Azazel’s breathing was ragged, fire long extinguished from his limbs. Tempest leaned into him, both of them too exhausted to move, yet unwilling to fall.
“Remember when we used to race down the crystal ravines in prismara?” Tempest murmured.
Azazel chuckled, a sound more breath than voice. “You cheated. Always used wind to carry you when I wasn’t looking.”
“Not my fault you were slow.”
“You were flying, Tempest.”
She smiled, and for a heartbeat, there was warmth. Something that felt like the world hadn’t been torn in two.
Then the smoke thinned.
And the sky came into view.
Blue.
A soft, gentle blue. Wisps of white clouds drifted lazily overhead, catching the sunlight.
Azazel went still.
“Such a serene sky, So empty and…Why is the sky blue?”
Tempest didn’t answer at first. Her gaze was fixed upward, pupils shrinking.
“Why is the sun… yellow?”
They both stared, breaths caught. A world they'd fought for, bled for—Vescrutia—did not have a sky like this. Did not have a sun like this.
Azazel’s fingers dug into the ash.
“The trees. The birds. The insects. The air…”
Tempest clutched her chest. The tightness. The foreignness.
“None of this is ours...”
They turned to each other, eyes wide.
Then, in unison:
“Why… is there only one sun?”
Silence again.
But this time, it wasn’t empty.
It was truth.
And it broke them.
Azazel closed his eyes as it sank in. “We’re not on Vescrutia, are we?”
Tempest didn’t speak.
She couldn’t.
The tears came quiet and fast, like rain after thunder. Azazel’s hand found hers, and for a moment, they simply held on to each other.
Then—voices.
Human language.
Sharp. Loud. Foreign.
And the thumping sound of metal wings in the air.
Machines, roaring above the trees.
“What the hell is that?” Tempest asked, eyes wide, scrambling to her feet.
Azazel didn’t answer. He just pulled her up.
The tears were still falling. Their bodies were breaking.
But they ran.
Stumbling.
Dragging one another.
Into the forest of a world that wasn’t theirs.
Azazel’s breathing was ragged, fire long extinguished from his limbs. Tempest leaned into him, both of them too exhausted to move, yet unwilling to fall.
“Remember when we used to race down the crystal ravines in prismara?” Tempest murmured.
Azazel chuckled, a sound more breath than voice. “You cheated. Always used wind to carry you when I wasn’t looking.”
“Not my fault you were slow.”
“You were flying, Tempest.”
She smiled, and for a heartbeat, there was warmth. Something that felt like the world hadn’t been torn in two.
Then the smoke thinned.
And the sky came into view.
Blue.
A soft, gentle blue. Wisps of white clouds drifted lazily overhead, catching the sunlight.
Azazel went still.
“Such a serene sky, So empty and…Why is the sky blue?”
Tempest didn’t answer at first. Her gaze was fixed upward, pupils shrinking.
“Why is the sun… yellow?”
They both stared, breaths caught. A world they'd fought for, bled for—Vescrutia—did not have a sky like this. Did not have a sun like this.
Azazel’s fingers dug into the ash.
“The trees. The birds. The insects. The air…”
Tempest clutched her chest. The tightness. The foreignness.
“None of this is ours...”
They turned to each other, eyes wide.
Then, in unison:
“Why… is there only one sun?”
Silence again.
But this time, it wasn’t empty.
It was truth.
And it broke them.
Azazel closed his eyes as it sank in. “We’re not on Vescrutia, are we?”
Tempest didn’t speak.
She couldn’t.
The tears came quiet and fast, like rain after thunder. Azazel’s hand found hers, and for a moment, they simply held on to each other.
Then—voices.
Human language.
Sharp. Loud. Foreign.
And the thumping sound of metal wings in the air.
Machines, roaring above the trees.
“What the hell is that?” Tempest asked, eyes wide, scrambling to her feet.
Azazel didn’t answer. He just pulled her up.
The tears were still falling. Their bodies were breaking.
But they ran.
Stumbling.
Dragging one another.
Into the forest of a world that wasn’t theirs.
The team