39: Like Hell

  A few moments earlier.

  "This burns!" Cassandra groaned internally as she struggled with great effort to stop the enormous fireball threatening to engulf her, her hands trying to stay steady in front of her, her body flying almost untrolbly through the air until her back smmed into another building, almost knog the air out of her lungs.

  Then the damn thing exploded.

  It was only her experiend instinct that made her act fast enough to use her telekinesis properly and redirect the explosion into the sky, causing it to turn a deep, almost crimse.

  She gasped and looked at her palms with some disbelief and pain, the skin on them a shade of red far too intense for her liking, burns almost sed-degree, injuries she shouldn’t have, as no fire had ever been able to bypass her telekiic defenses before.

  ‘This isn’t fire,’ the thought came as she raised her gaze to see the one responsible for almost iing her alive.

  There, floating in the air only a few meters in front of her with no appareernal aid, was a thin, almost skeletal body, pletely naked, with skin and muscles of an unnervingly pale tone and a face with sagging skin frozen in an almost mencholic expression.

  ‘Is… is this one of them?’ Cassandra frowned as she looked at it, because although it didn’t seem as deformed as the others nor did it appear to have any meical parts, it was undoubtedly almost identical to the monsters Hydra had created and that they had been killing during their crusade in Pond.

  No… there was a differes eyes, those irises didn’t shih that characteristic ethereal blue light that the Hydra ons also had, instead what was there was a deep crimson glow in its pupils surrounded by an unnervingly dark sclera.

  It was almost like staring into an abyss.

  “It’s b-een a w-hile since I was in the mortal po think that mortals have acquired strength other than magic, how exg.”

  The speech, which had inally beeic, soon became more uniform and trolled, as if the vocal cords that produced those words were just beginning to get used to being used.

  ‘Magic?’ Cassandra blinked, fused for a moment, but quickly shook her head. She didn’t have time for nonsense. Spitting a clot of blood to the side, she clicked her tongue and ched her hands, ign the sharp pain in her skin.

  "Hydra has really stepped up their game now—even their freaks talk. What a disaster," She muttered as she extended her telekinesis in all dires, grabbing hold of everything within read brag herself to attad defend.

  She o kill this thing fast.

  "Freaks?" The creature tilted its head, then looked at itself and nodded in agreement.

  "Yes… I suppose there's er way to describe it. A vessel barely worthy of me, but overall, it’s a minor invenienpared to the bes it brings." It had been a very, very long time si had been able to el so much power into a mortal body without it crumbling. So, while the appearance left much to be desired, it wasn’t something that truly bothered it.

  "For a monster, you sure talk too much," Cassandra said, narrowing her eyes. Then a fierce smile spread across her lips as she finally reached ihe creature's body with her telekinesis a its ans.

  Without hesitation, she used all her strength to tear them apart.

  Or at least, she should have.

  The mencholic expression on the creature froze for a split sed before a mog grin spread across its face, raising his haended a finger and began to slowly wag it bad forth.

  “Sorry little one, but your power is not yet strong enough to influence me.”

  "I guess… we’ll have to do this the hard way." Though Cassandra felt a brief surge of panic, she refused to let it take hold. Instead, she acted. In an instant, hundreds of objects around her rose and unched forward like high-speed projectiles, aimed at the creature with enough force to shred steel into scrap.

  But before they could reach their target, the heat increased, and with it, the fmes came to life. Almost impossibly, all the projectiles glowed red-hot until they liquefied and ended up scattering like raindrops across the surroundings.

  Seeing this, Cassandra khis was going to suck even more than it already was.

  Still, she didn’t stop moving. Even though her projectiles had ged their state of matter, her power could still reach them, With a movement of her hand, all those small drops of burning liquid swirled together, transf into a torrent that rushed like an arrow toward the monster.

  "What marvelous trol." Before they could strike, the creature raised its hand with the palm extended, and the torrent suddenly lost all its heat, causing the burnio turn into lifeless gray. The ashes dispersed around it like mere harmless specks of dust.

  Cassandra wao curse, but instead, she thought quickly. Without even moving her hands, for fear of revealing her move, she made her power reach the ashes he creature's head and moved them with extreme speed toward its eyes.

  A growl of irritation was heard, followed by an explosion of fire that erupted, nearly c Cassandra's entire line of sight. She tried to slow the fmes, pushing them back with her power, but it was barely enough to buy her a few seds—seds she used to retreat from her inal position.

  "Tch!" Frustration and anger filled her as she saw the building she had crashed into beginning to burn. Using her power to stay in the air—a trick she had retly learned but hadn’t yet mastered enough to use fortably—she moved further away, increasing the distaween herself and the thing trying to kill her.

  "No matter what you try or the little tricks you pn, fighting me is useless," the monster said. But trary to Cassandra’s expectations, it didn’t rush to attack. Instead, it remained in its inal position, not far from the hole from which it had emerged.

  'Is there something there?' she thought, but the idea didn’t help her figure out a way to defeat it. If she couldn’t do anything to it, whether it moved or not, all of Warsaw would burn to the ground without it taking a siep further.

  'I’m too slow.' If attag from the inside was useless, she needed a way to reach it before it could turn her projectiles into molten sg.

  Easier said than done.

  As her brain raced to find a solution, she felt some of the objects she had started to trol resist her grip.

  'This is...' Frowning, she released her power over them, watg as they rose and attempted to reach the creature. Of course, it was only an attempt, as they quickly met the same fate as Cassandra’s previous attack.

  "Fuck" Erik, who had finally arrived, could only say that upon seeing his attaullified with barely any effort.

  Cassandra didn’t feel relieved by his arrival. Instead, she felt like things had just bee even more plicated.

  She wao tell him to get lost, but the nguage barrier between them made that difficult.

  ‘This is bad; now I ’t take anythiallic, or our powers will end up g with each other.’ Erik’s arrival had only made her already limited attack options even more restricted.

  ‘And to make things worse, I lost the gift Charles gave me.’ Thinking about that made her even more irritated.

  This birthday just kept getting worse and worse.

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  .

  .

  In the present

  ‘It’s like being there again...’ Ahought as he watched embers of fire rain around him ahe tremors of the ground striking his feet, nearly throwing off his bahere might not have been pnes flying overhead, but the feeling of being utack was annoyingly familiar.

  ‘No… maybe this is worse.’ Dodging a half-charred corpse lying on the ground, Angelo swallowed, though his mouth was pletely dry.

  For a moment, an illusory image overid his vision: the streets of Warsaw repced by a more rustic pce with smaller buildings—a vilge on the coast where he had lived with his family.

  His home.

  “We’re almost there!” Charles’s voice shattered that illusion, and Angelo shook his head, refog his senses. He didn’t have time to get lost in the past—there was a mission to plete.

  Running alongside Charles, the two boys soon approached the burning building, which bzed as if it had been pulled straight from hell.

  Angelo instinctively wao take a step back but didn’t. Instead, he adjusted the gas mask he had brought with him. It wasn’t by ce that he did so—when he saw the smoke and fire starting in the building in the distahe mask was the first thing he grabbed before rushing over.

  He had been through enough fires before; in every battle from Italy until now, ohing had bee clear—breathing with smoke all around you was absolutely awful without proper prote.

  o him, Charles did the same with his own mask. While it wasly a gas mask like Angelo’s, it served a simir purpose and could protect his lungs from gases—or in this case, the smoke created by the fire.

  The two exged a quio words were hey both uood what had to be done. With o deep breath, they hurried forward, entering the building and heading straight for the stairs.

  Some civilians still inside crossed their paths, but there wasn’t much they could do for them except let them pass as they tinued rushing upward.

  Soon, the heat around them intensified, and smoke began to obscure their vision. Every step became harder, the cracks in the walls widening with each tremor caused by the nearby battles.

  Charles frowned deeply. The screams—the mental screams—of dying people filled his head oer another, like an uing avanche. On their own, a single person didn’t have enough mental power to force him to listen. But when so many minds synced in a chorus of thoughts aions saturated with despair and pain, he couldn’t help but hear them.

  It was a wholly new experienething was wrong here. Even in the midst of war and battles, when people were dying around him, it had never been this bad. It was as though something lifying the suffering and torment with every passing sed, for some inexplicable reason.

  He had to force them into silence. He couldn’t save them; he wasn’t strong enough. But at the very least, in their final moments, he could ehey wouldn’t suffer anymore. His power extended across the area, reag the minds of those poor souls trapped in anguish, altering their st memories in this world—even if it was only a lie.

  At the same time, he kept climbing, his bloodshot eyes fixed ahead with cold determination.

  Soon, the fire surrouhem, nearly crimson fmes rising all around, threatening to e them at any moment. The heat, worse than anything Charles had ever felt, caused sweat to pour from every pore in their bodies.

  Any normal person would have given up at this point. But her Charles nelo stopped moving, and soon, they reached the floor where it had all begun.

  Strangely, the fmes in this area were less intense and wild. It was unnatural, but her of them had the time to dwell on it. Instead, they walked down a long hallway until they stood in front of a door.

  There were other doors, of course, but this one was the only one from which the growls of monsters emanated, making it easy to know where they o go.

  Charles stepped forward, ready to enter, but Angelo stopped him, pg his arm in front of him and shaking his head.

  “Let me go first.”

  Charles wao refuse, but Angelo didn’t give him the ce. He stepped up to the door, iing its nearly charred wood. He didn’t eveo use much force when he kicked it—one blow was enough for it to colpse, granting them a clear view of what was happening oher side.

  “What the hell?” Angelo’s words echoed Charles’s thoughts as both boys stood in the doorway, bewildered. From a wall at the back of the room, more and more monsters were rushing out of peared to be a hole in nothingness, surrounded by a glowing blue light.

  Even though Charles had seen strahings before, this was the first time he’d entered something like this. For a moment, he didn’t know what to do. Of course, it wasn’t like he had a grand pn to begin with. Even though he had known they’d find 'something', his imagination fell far short of this.

  What was he supposed to do to stop this?

  “Do you have a grenade?” His question made Angelo blink and turn to him before quickly shaking his head.

  “Are you joking?! Bringing an explosive into a burning building is suicide!” Angelo had left his explosives behind when Charles told him where they were going. Even his ons had been abandoned midway, given the risk that the gunpowder in the bullets might ignite from the intense heat.

  “Anyway, what do you want a grenade for? Even if we had a tank here, we’d barely make a dent in those things.” Angelo had seen enough battles against Hydra’s moo know that ventional ons were, at best, a temporary nuisao them.

  “I don’t know... I just thought maybe taking down the wall where that weird portal is might make it disappear.” Charles didn’t know what other options they had. Maybe it would do something, or maybe it would do nothing. But he wouldn’t know unless he tried.

  g his teeth so hard they ground together, he fixed his gaze on one of the monsters sprinting out of the portal. trating all his mental power, he prepared for what would probably be the worst headache of his life.

  Blood began to drip from his nose as his mind forcibly ected with the monster’s, causing it to vulse and colpse to the floor. Another one following closely behind tripped over it, clumsily falling through the gaping hole in the building.

  Everything around him seemed to fade away as his perspective shifted to a chaotid abstract mental ndscape. This wasn’t the first time he had tried to take trol of one of these monsters, but it was the first time he didn’t immediately pull back when the unbearable pain hit. Instead, he pushed deeper.

  These things, which were once human, barely had basic thoughts. Their behavior was entirely driven by their most primal instincts and the mental trol device impnted in their brains.

  Without that device, unpleasant as it might be, Charles could have toyed with their minds as if they were his pyground.

  ‘I o override its influence.’ With that determination, Charles didn’t care if the mental ndscape around him began to colpse. He didn’t have time to be delicate and instead forcibly seized even the beast’s most basistincts.

  For him, the entire process felt like hours of suffering, but outwardly, only half a sed passed before the monster's body trembled and slowly began to clumsily rise to its feet.

  Charles snapped back to reality, disoriented by the simultaneous experience of seeing and feeling through two entirely different bodies. Seeing himself from the monster’s perspective felt surreal, like some bizarre dream.

  ‘My eye shouldn’t be that color,’ he thought, notig his inal fad how the sclera of one of his eyes had turned blood red.

  o him, Angelo was supp him, panic written across his face, as from his perspective, Charles's inal body had suddenly stumbled and nearly colpsed to the ground without any expnation.

  “I-it’s fine,”

  “I-it’s f-fine,”

  he said, and two voices spoke at once.

  Angelo’s eyes widened in shock as he realized the monster had echoed Charles’s words.

  But there was no time to expin. More monsters began p out of the portal. Not wanting to get caught in a pointless fight, Charles trolled his new “body,” moving it out of the others’ path. With a single-minded focus, he made the possessed monster charge quickly toward their objective.

  a fist raised, ready to wreak havoc, but before he could strike, a torrent of fmes hit his back, causing him to stagger.

  “What?!” Charles shouted, feeling the fire sear through the monster’s skin. He quickly severed his e to the creature’s pain and turned his gaze toward the rge hole where the fmes had entered.

  “Sorry to disappoint you, but I ’t let you do that.”

  The voice, of course, beloo the fire demon. Charles growled, but his expression quickly morphed into one of horror when he saw what the creature was holding in its hands.

  There, gripped tightly by their necks, were Cassandra and Erik.

  Perhaps the only thing keeping Charles from succumbing to plete despair was seeing that both were still alive, though clearly battered and bruised.

  "Three, four if I t the oill fighting below, you are truly a great treasure," the mosnter said, looking Charles up and down with i. Its presence caused the monsters emerging from the portal to tremble and instinctively retreat.

  “Without a doubt, you’ll make fine vessels for my servants.”

  This deal had truly turned out to be beneficial for him, Even if those annoying sorcerers appeared now to try to banish him, he was fident he could prevent it.

  ‘Though it’s strange... Knowing that woman, she should already be here.’

  He had been serving energy while dev souls with his infernal fire, preparing for the iable frontation with the forces that protected the world, but there seemed to be no sign that they were about to arrive.

  “Hm?” The monster's musings were interrupted when it felt aernal force trying to reach its mind. Turning its gaze to Charles, a mog smile spread across its pale face.

  “Don’t waste your strength on such a meaningless act. A mental attack of that level is far from being able to touch my true existence.”

  Charles gasped. Though he k was futile, he still tried to do something—anything—but failed all the same. He had expected this. He had felt it the moment he and Cassandra approached the building. The thing in front of him was simply beyond the reach of his powers.

  It was as if its mied on airely different pne.

  Though Angelo didn’t fully uand what was happening, he khe situation was dire. g his teeth, he stepped in front of Charles as he saw the monster begin to approach.

  He tried to avoid it, but his body still trembled as he saw the creature’s red eyes.

  “W-Wait!” Charles stammered, trying to stop Angelo, but he tripped ao the ground.

  “A mere mortal, her special nor valuable, it’s been a while since a human like you stood before me, how nostalgibsp;It had been speaking too much, but it couldn’t help itself—the physical world was entig because of small things like this.

  And the truth was, it always enjoyed seeing fear and despair in the eyes of those who khey could do nothing to stop it.

  After all, human suffering was a great delight for demons.

  “What a joy to have your attention,” Angelo mocked, at the same time using his sharp sight to look around. For what? He didn’t knht now, they were pletely screwed. If even the supers couldn’t win, then he had no either special nor valuable—he’d realized these things about himself long ago. He didn’t need some horrifying moo rub it in his face.

  Maybe he could only buy time. Maybe, somehow, Mr. James would arrive and turuation around in an instant, saving them all. Or maybe he was just pushing his luck. Whatever the ahe only thing he knew for certain was that he couldn’t let that thing capture Charles too.

  “Listen, I don’t know what kind of horrifying thing from the abyss you are, but it doesn’t matter. You might think you’ve won, but that’s only because you haven’t yet—” Whatever nonsense Aried to spit out to stall was cut short when the monster closed the distaween them in the blink of an eye.

  “It’s valuable to you, isn’t it?” The question was directed at Charles, who watched, eyes wide, as the monster released Erik and Cassandra, letting them fall to the ground to hold Angelo’s fa its pale hands.

  “Your bond is strong. Such a sincere friendship.”

  Psychics, creatures with great mental resistance who were plicated to possess. While it didn’t know where Charles’s power inated from, it kly how to make his barriers fall apart.

  It would probably work better if it used the girl, as her bond was even stronger and closer. But her body was far too valuable to damage carelessly.

  “Let me show you what happens to those who oppose forces they ot prehend,” With those sinister words, the fire roared.

  “NO!” Charles screamed at the same time a gut-wreng sound escaped Angelo’s mouth.

  The fire that could turo ashes in an instant was slow this time—deliberately slow. Charles stood paralyzed, watg as Angelo was ed by the fmes, little by little. First, his skin burned away, then his muscles and ans, until his body disied piece by piece. All that remained was his skull, held between the monster's hands.

  “A beautiful melody, don’t you think?”

  The Demon gazed at the skull appreciatively before crushing it into dust.

  “But all beautiful songs must e to an end.” Shrugging, the monster brushed off its hands and began walking toward Charles, its joy evident as it stared into his vat eyes.

  ‘Now his defenses are low enough that there will be no signifit resistance,’ it thought. It would start with him. Os servant possessed Charles’s body and took his power, it could use him to break the others and make everything much easier.

  As Charles was taken without resistance, Cassandra, lying on the ground, ched her teeth a her heart tighten with anger.

  ‘It seems I have to act.’ Initially, she had kept her distaaking advantage of the fact that the enemy had remained in one position. But over time, she realized it was useless. So, she preteo despair, rushing forward to atta search of an opportunity.

  Getting captured wasly what she had expected wheacked, nor had she anticipated Erik following her lead aing caught as well. Even so, this presented an opportunity si didn’t seem like they wahem dead anytime soon.

  She had thought about tinuing to pretend until the right moment, but that no longer seemed possible. Although she didn’t kly what the monster nning, she could se wasn’t anything good and that she had to stop it—every instinct screamed it at her.

  Slowly and deliberately, she trated her power. She would only have one ce, and she would likely die if she failed, but it was this or letting Charles face a fate likely worse thah.

  ‘You know, I always thought you were pretty annoying, but holy, I wouldn’t trade you for anything.’ Cassandra almost scoffed as the thought surfaced. Seality wasn’t her thing, but sihis robably her st birthday, she figured it didn’t matter much.

  ‘If you make it out of this, maybe it’d be best if you erased me from our parents’ memories. I know they never cared for me much, but it’ll probably be easier for you if they don’t pretend to be sad around you.’ Cassandra sighed, notig that he still hadn’t reacted.

  Her thoughts couldn’t reach him? Even whe go of all her defenses so he could freely enter her mind? Well, that was annoying—her possible st words, and probably only she had heard them.

  ‘Just… take care of yourself.’

  With that final thought, Cassandra closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

  Then she opehem, and with all the momentum she could muster, she forced her body to move, propelling herself off the ground in one swift motion.

  “You!” the creature snarled as Cassandra nded on its back, ing her legs tightly around its neck.

  Cassandra ighe monster's struggle and held her ground. She had long realized that the closer the object she wao trol was to her, the more strength and precision she could exert over it. It was a characteristic of her ability that she hadn’t been able to use often, as she preferred to keep her distance from her enemies—after all, her body was still quite fragile.

  But now, that didn’t matter anymore.

  With both hands gripping the bald head of her enemy, Cassandra exerted all the pressure she was capable of. Every gram of force ushed to its absolute limit, focused on one single goal: crushing its brain.

  Of course, there was resistance.

  “Grrrhh,” the monster gritted its teeth in anger as it felt the strange power trying to pee its body. Fmes threateo e alive around it but were ultimately kept under trol—it still needed Cassandra’s body mostly intact, so it couldn’t simply turo ashes.

  “You’re testing my patience!” Stretg both hands upward, it took Cassandra's palms and began to squeeze, smiling with satisfa as it felt the bones crack.

  The sensation of her fingers breaking was a dull pain that barely registered in Cassandra’s mind. No, now all her attention was focused ohing: reag the brain, no matter the cost.

  ‘e on!’ she roared inwardly as blood began to seep from her nose and ears, her head spinning and her vision darkening.

  That roar finally reached Charles, who staggered for a moment as he snapped out of his shock. Then his eyes lit up with absolute fury as he locked onto the monster in front of him.

  Without hesitation, the boy focused all the power he could muster, f the demon to recoil in surprise as it felt its true self almost reached, despite not being physically present in this pne.

  "Impossible! No psychic should be able to surpass the barriers that separate dimensions!"

  It was only a momentary distra, but that moment was all Cassandra needed.

  The demon tried to igs fire, but it was too te. Cassandra smiled as she felt her power pierg the invisible barrier that had been keepi bay, reag the brain, ready to turn it into a pulp.

  But that didn’t happen.

  Instead, her vision swirled, and everything around her ged.

  ‘This is…’ Cassandra looked, fused, at the strange and dark space to which she had been suddenly transported.

  "How!? How did you get here?" The incredulous voice made her turn to face peared to be an infinite, indest sea of fire.

  "So this is your true form," though disoriented, Cassandra instinctively khis information.

  "You know what? It doesn’t matter. Now that you’re here, things are much easier for me. I’ll crush your mind and leave your body ready for use," the fire moved, attempting to engulf her pletely.

  But in the instant, an invisible force collided with the fmes, easily pushing them back.

  "What?!"

  "I don’t kly how we ended up in this situation, but what is clear to me is that you are only a fragment of your true self. Maybe if you were truly here, it would be impossible for me to keep you away , but as things stand, it seems this is my victory."

  Cassandra didn’t speak just for the sake of it; she could feel it with extreme crity—the e that tied the fiery being’s mind to the physical body it inhabited. Though strong, it was not unbreakable.

  Now that she was inside, she could see everything with incredible crity and finally uand all the strange ramblings she had been hearing until now.

  She had never been very religious, but knowing that, somehow, demons were real somewhere was certainly a revetion.

  "I really want to make you pay for everything you’ve done—especially for making Charles suffer so much, but I ’t. Not yet. Still, I’ll promise you this: one day, at some point iure, I’ll find you, and I’ll make you beg for mercy before me in such a way that you’ll wish you had never set foot oh in your entire life."

  "Absurd! Do you think such threats scare me? You Fug Bitch! Do you even know who I am?! I’ve lived lohan you even imagine! My name resohrough the Nine—" Before the words could tihey were forcibly cut off.

  "Bh, bh, bh. You really like to talk too much," Cassandra scoffed, then snapped her fingers, and the sea of fire that had been before her extinguished as if it were nothing more than a puff of air.

  Then, a tired sigh filled the dark void, and Cassandra felt all her energy begin to drain away.

  She just hoped it wouldn’t hurt too much when she woke up… Who was she kidding? It was going to hurt like hell.

  ‘Worst birthday ever, without a doubt.’

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  Note:

  A somewhat long chapter—I didn’t want to stretch it too much, but I felt that cutting things short wouldn’t be entirely right. In the end, I added what I thought was necessary, although I missed including a bit about James. I suppose we’ll see more about his situation iure.

  The chapter will likely also be a long one since we still o explore the situation at Sword’s base. For those w when John will get to flex his new muscles, don’t worry—that will happen soon as well.

  That said, I look forward to your opinions and ents. You know I’ll read and respond as much as possible.

  If you want to support me you do it through my Patreon ( patreon.maCruzader )