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As the crypt begins to cave in, warriors and slaves alike make their attempts to escape; another stranger appears, leaving more questions than ever.

Hastily moving through the torchlit tunnels, Baniti and Anipe could only speculate at what was happening in the central chamber. One moment, they were leaving their perch at the instruction of the man in white, moving equally quickly and quietly to avoid detection, and the next… Almost inhuman screaming and near-deafening booming echoed through the tunnels, vibrations of heavy impacts shaking the walls as dust and dirt began to trickle through the roof.

One thing seemed certain - whatever had caused it, the crypt was collapsing. Considering Masika’s imprisonment at the very centre, it was clear that she was facing a new danger, and time was indeed running out. 

‘Any ideas?’ Anipe called over her shoulder. Behind her, Baniti ran through a thick stream of falling sand, shielding his face with his forearm. 

‘We need to go lower! We will never reach the centre in time at this pace!’

It was true; the tunnel they were following looped all the way around, and though it moved at a downward angle, it was simply too subtle a descent.

‘Then where?!’ Anipe called back, her voice betraying an edge of frustration.

‘Find a door to the left! We will need to double around!’

A few moments later, such a doorway came into Anipe’s sight, and she darted into it. Baniti almost missed it; his sister had blocked his view until the moment she vanished into the side corridor.

Gripping the corner as he moved past, Baniti felt his shoulders jolting in their sockets as he pulled himself to a sudden stop, then threw himself down the corridor after his sister’s rapidly disappearing form.

Rushing one by one down the new corridor, both siblings considered the options ahead of them. Either they would soon find their way into the central chamber behind them in time to save Masika and, hopefully, the other prisoners… Or, of course, arrive far too late, and be forced to surrender or flee.

Mentally shrugging it off, Baniti kept his thoughts on his sister.  After being so recently reunited, his highest priority was to not lose her again. Were it not for the effect losing her friend would have on her mental state, he was unsure if he wouldn’t have already taken her far away by now. Whatever else happened, he swore he would never let anybody so much as harm a hair on her head. 

Of course, he had no idea the depths of the danger so closely looming over them, but still… He would rather throw countless strangers in the way before he would allow the slightest misfortune to befall Anipe… Whereas she, he knew, would likely rather die multiple times over than allow anybody she cared about in the slightest to meet a dark fate.

Hell, given half the chance, she might even forgive the Gods of Egypt for their crimes, as strange a thought as that was.

‘Steps! Turn here!’ 

Anipe’s soft voice woke Baniti from his thoughts as he watched Anipe disappear into an adjacent tunnel. Armed with the prior knowledge of the corner, he made this turn much more smoothly than the last; Anipe must have heard his grunt when he used the last corner to break his speed.

Ahead, Anipe was moving down the steps as quickly as she could manage without falling. Baniti mimicked her actions, and the pair were soon once again on level ground, rushing toward what could only be an entrance to the central chamber.

Now that he could move at full speed, Baniti caught up with his younger sister with relative ease; she might be more agile and able to dart around corners more easily, but he was faster in a sprint, if only because his paces were larger.

Thus, when a large, dark figure dressed in the typical armor of the Pharaoh’s guard suddenly rushed into the path ahead of the siblings, quickly followed by a further mass of figures, Baniti was able to instinctively grab his sister whilst skidding to a halt, and turn to hunch over her as they were rushed by the group.

Surprisingly, however, aside from the occasional shove and jostle, the group ran right past the pair without even making contact. Still hunched over, expecting an attack, Baniti lifted his head to look at the fast-moving group. After a few seconds, he realised what he had acted too quickly to notice before; that the potential attackers were actually nine of them ten slaves from the circle; all save for Masika, who was nowhere in sight. 

With the large guard captain taking up the rear and shouting directions ahead, the group were making a run for the exit as quickly as possible.

Stopping for a moment when he reached the siblings, the captain recognised Anipe almost immediately and began to speak.

‘This place is coming down! Get moving!’

Anipe ignored his warning, too focused on her sudden, growing concern.

‘Where is Masika? She should be with you!’

‘Masika is gone... Unless you want to die here, you need to be gone, too!’’

The man’s voice stunned the siblings equally, but Anipe felt an aching begin to form in her heart as she considered what she heard.

Gone? Gone how? Is she dead, or did she leave? She wanted to ask these questions so badly, but time was short and there was one more person to worry about.

‘What about the other guy?’

The big man blinked for a second, then realised who she meant; it may have been for only a few moments in total, but he had seen as much of the man in white as Masika had, and had spoken to the stranger while he set the captain free.

‘He went looking for something in the other direction,’ he responded, turning and beginning to walk after the other escapees. ‘Now, I am deeply sorry, but if you are not coming with me, then I need to leave you now. Good luck!’ He called back, his walk turning into a run as he finished.

‘Anipe… We should follow him,’ Baniti started, pulling lightly on her arm as he began to move.

Shaking his hand off, Anipe stood her ground.

‘You go with him, get them all to wait somewhere outside. I need to find Masika and… Whoever that guy was.’

Before Baniti could even respond, his little sister had already run off, disappearing quickly down the way the slaves had come. 

Grumbling under his breath but hoping for her safety, Baniti turned around and began to hurry after the others. After rounding a few corners with only echoes to guide him, he breathed a mental sigh of relief to see the tunnel ahead ending, giving way to the evening sky. Several faces poked back inside, cheering the straggler on. Baniti pressed on as hard as he could until he burst out into the crisp, fresh air.

A rumbling sound reverberated behind him moments after he exited the tunnel, causing Baniti to turn. He watched on in shock as the roof began collapsing, sealing off the tunnel he had just left and triggering a sinking feeling in his heart at the thought of being cut off from his baby sister.

Much as Baniti’s heart was, Heaven was in turmoil. 

Alarms had been blaring everywhere for some time, cued by Arakiel herself after witnessing Azrael’s struggle with Isis and Osiris. This was, of course, exactly as protocol dictated; the blood of an Angel’s host runs wild with said Angel’s Aura, and the careless mismanagement of Aura was akin to treason - especially if the Aura in question were to fall into the wrong hands.

‘Secondary subject in custody. Stand by for recovery of primary subject.’

The message repeated on a delayed loop, occasionally interrupting the piercing shrieks of the alarm, each seeming to come from nowhere and everywhere at the same time.

Suspended and immobilised in a large cylindrical tank in the High Court, Arakiel could do nothing but listen - even her own thoughts were drowned out by the noise. The tank had a suppressive feature, of course, though the arresting Angels had elected to ignore such a feature for this particular arrest.

As far as they were concerned, Arakiel and Azrael had committed one of the worst crimes a servant of Heaven could never atone for; complacency. 

If the pair had deliberately delivered a source of Aura to Osiris, Arakiel would likely have been merely executed, and Azrael left to wander in the Void for eternity. However, because their choices had been simply careless and significantly ill-advised, the pair were seen as… Faulty.

Better an Angel fall of their own volition than be a smear on the name of Heaven. Worse still was the stature of the transgressors; the least significant to the ranks, Arakiel, was an experienced Watcher Angel. As for Azrael… 

Azrael was among the most revered and respected of Angels, and served as one of the Four.

Regarded as the best warriors Heaven had to offer, the idea that any of the Four could be involved in such a scandal sent tremors through every soul in the realm of light. Of course, one does not serve among the Four without developing a degree of arrogance, though such arrogance is always well-placed among such warriors, and none more so than Azrael; he may as well have been death personified. 

This, of course, is where the deepest problem lay. Azrael had more than earned his title and his arrogance; how could he allow himself to be ambushed and defeated so easily by no more than two enemies?

It didn’t matter to Heaven that the two enemies in question were highly-ranked, frighteningly powerful beings with an incredible bond. Azrael should have been in control of the situation from the moment he arrived - or, better yet, as a member of the Four, he never should have been down there in the first place. 

Even Arakiel could scarcely understand what had happened. Azrael had faced off against their kind on multiple occasions before, of various rank and number. In fact, he was respected so heavily for his combat prowess that the team sent to find him consisted of none other than the rest of the Four - for who else could hope to contain such a force?

Could his defeat be due only to the bond Isis and Osiris shared?

It was a strange idea, but not at all impossible.

Fortunately for Arakiel, such questions would bother her for only a short while longer. Her sentence had already been passed, and she was awaiting the process of her punishment. A mix of feelings swirled within her, fear naturally included, though for the most part, she was at peace with the outcome.

So this is the Void.

Laying on his back staring at the endless nothing, Azrael was busy assessing his situation.

He had wondered about this place many times, but never expected he would actually wind up trapped there. Unsurprisingly though, he found most of his prior estimations to be correct.

The one thought shared by any who wonder about the Void was that it must be an unending nothingness, just monotonous infinity. Usually, they picture it as a sheet of extreme darkness, though some imagine it to be endless, bright white. Either way, the general idea was that it had to be a place of nothing, with no ground, no gravity, and no sense.

The reality, as it often turned out, was actually quite different.

The Void was awash in the most lifeless shade of gray imaginable, and it was far from empty, though it certainly bore such an appearance; in the Void, large columns of the exact same gray seemed to stretch anywhere and everywhere, in every angle and from every direction. It took even Azrael some time to notice, though, as the entire expanse seemed to be lit perfectly from everywhere all at once, somehow casting not even a single shadow, nor betraying a glimpse of the light itself. Even on the equally gray ground, no shadows stretched from his feet.

In fact, the only reason Azrael was able to discern this much was because he occasionally found himself walking into said columns, unable tonotice their presence in his face until he made contact - and then it was off to the next. Truthfully, he had initially thought the oddities of the Void were due solely to his newfound fogginess, but he soon dismissed this idea when he recognised that the feeling had passed. Whatever had been affecting him before was gone, seeming to have only lasted for the duration of his possession of the guard. 

This led Azrael to understand two things. 

First, that whatever the fogginess was, it seemed to be connected to the guard himself.

Second, that his current situation was owed to the nature of the Void, however it worked.

Fortunately, it seemed the Void contained gravity of a similar or identical strength to Earth itself, and he had no need to readjust. This was the one thing he counted as a blessing in his first impressions of the dimension.

As the time passed, excruciatingly slowly as it appeared to in the Void, Azrael slowly began to adjust, training his eyes to notice the very edges of each column as he approached. He had to be near them to be able to see, but at least it meant he could at least attempt to avoid walking into them.

So this is my life now.

Seething with anger, Azrael’s mind replayed the moments of his defeat over and over again, attempting to make sense out of the mess. Strangely, even though his mind seemed clear after having been defeated in the host’s body, the same fogginess returned with a vengeance any time he tried to think about his time possessing the guard. Each time, his mind seemed to grow more and more clouded, eventually blocking him from the memory altogether, which only served to confuse and enrage him further, as only a wound to pride can do.

By the time the rest of the Four found him, Azrael was nothing like the composed warrior he had always prided himself a little too much on being. Instead, he was more like a caged animal.

The moment he felt a hand closing gently around his arm, Azrael flew into a frenzied rampage, fuelled by his foggy regression. He punched, kicked and clawed all around, reacting more to the feeling of being touched than any visual sign of danger.

The three warriors leapt away almost immediately when Azrael began to lose his mind. In a way, they were exceptionally lucky; if Azrael had enough presence of mind during his initial outburst, he would have been charging his attacks with his distinctive red Aura, and his attacks would have been rendered lethal.

On the other hand, it seemed their luck may have run out; Azrael finally began to regain some presence of mind, having now spent enough time distracted from his thoughts of the possession for the affliction to clear once more - but, clouded mind or not, he was unlikely to allow himself to be detained without a fight.

Three divine beings faced off against their now-controlled partner, each readying themselves with weapon and stance.

One, the oldest of the three, younger only than Azrael himself, wielded a beautiful silver bow, imbued with the excess Aura of Heaven - best suited for creating new conflicts from afar, the Angel of War was an incredibly skilled marksman.

The youngest carried a pair of crude, jagged daggers, perfectly crafted with the purpose of spreading illness through the inevitability of diseased flesh trapped in various pockets along the blade. Ever the berserker, the Angel of Pestilence was known among his peers as Pest, both as an abbreviation and a fitting nickname. 

The middle Angel was perhaps the most enigmatic of the Four. Through an impossibly rare birth defect previously unseen among Angels, he was barely more than skin and bone, despite having the most ravenous appetite among the Four. Nicknamed Saviour, this Angel’s biggest personality trait was being purely egotistical. Despite the large sword and shield slung over his back, this Angel used no weapons, relying solely on his incredible skill at manipulating Aura. 

The sword and shield in question belonged to Azrael, and had simply been left behind when he travelled to Earth in his ethereal form. 

Together, the Four were a near unstoppable force, riding into the heat of battle atop their mystical steeds.

They were the Horsemen of the Apocalypse, the Veiled Riders of Heaven. 

Complacency such as that demonstrated by Azrael was unheard of, and would be regarded as the worst sin a soldier of Heaven could commit - if there was ever a precedent for even the possibility. 

The fact that the three had been tasked with the capture of one of their own, of course, did not sit well… But what else were they to do? 

A rogue Horseman had the potential to tear Heaven apart piece by piece.

Of course they had to stop him, one way or another.

But how?

Pest moved first.

As the youngest, it was only natural that he, more than anyone, looked up to his teammates and held them in the highest regard. He had especially felt respect for Azrael, arguably the most dangerous of the Four… But now, he felt cheated. Deceived, even.

Hurt, definitely.

It was his feelings about the situation, combined with his youthful recklessness, that resulted in him breaking formation first.

The other two, however, knew they needed to be smart if they were to take on the Angel of Death. So, naturally, when Pest surged forward and began slashing wildly with his daggers, they were more than a little thrown.

Still, they were an elite force, and their reflexes were tuned as such. After a brief instant of surprise, Saviour jumped forward as well, aiding Pest in flanking Azrael. Bright blue Aura coated his right hand and formed a blade of pure energy, an extension of his arm. He swung up on Azrael’s right while Pest slashed down on the left, but Azrael spun in place just in time, narrowly avoided both attacks and lashing out with a kick as he spun back around, catching Pest in the stomach.

As the young warrior doubled over, severely winded, Azrael turned his attention to the older of his attackers, realising almost too late that he had planned a follow-up attack. Having thrown so much of his weight into his upward slash, Saviour had looped around in much the same manner as Azrael, though he had dropped to his knee on return, and his Aura blade was currently slashing down from up high, aiming toward the inner flesh of Azrael’s right thigh.

If he connected, Azrael would be taken down and piled upon, and the fight would be over. 

Reacting instinctively as the blad moved to pass his chest in its approaching arc, Azrael coated his palms in his unique red Aura, slamming them together and trapping Saviour’s blade between them. 

The moment he did so, the blue Aura dissipated like smoke, neutralised by Azrael’s own. Saviour’s face barely registered his surprise before he was thrown off balance by his own swing, and Azrael kneed him in the ribs on his right side, causing the warrior to scream in pain as three of his ribs shattered. The assault was not over, however, as long as Azrael was in control. He followed through with a quick left hook to his friend’s jaw, dislocating it and sending Saviour sprawling. Azrael then turned to Pest, who was just now able to regain his breath and straighten up, raising his eyes just in time to see Azrael’s hand reaching toward his face with his left hand, palm coated in red Aura once more. 

If that Aura made contact, Pest was dead - there was no getting around that.

Azrael grinned as he thrust his arm forward, knowing that victory was his.

A sudden stabbing pain registered in Azrael’s wrist before he even noticed a change, and his hand was yanked violently to the left, narrowly missing Pest’s face. Stunned, Azrael looked at his aching wrist, just now noticing the bright blue arrow protruding from both sides. 

Head snapping to the right, he glared at the Angel of War, standing calmly off to the side, glowing bow still clutched in his hands. As Azrael met his gaze, War loosed another arrow, sending it directly into the centre of Azrael’s chest with a distinctive sizzling sound. From the moment the arrow punctured his skin, it began draining his strength, causing him to wobble on his feet.

‘You may be fast, but my arrows have always been faster. Turn yourself in and come with us… Maybe you can make things a little easier for yourself.’

Azrael’s mouth opened as he tried to respond, but found that the arrow in his chest was draining him of energy too fast. He slumped over backward into a sitting position, then fell back further until he was holding himself up with just his right hand. He gestured angrily at the arrow in his chest, glaring into the eyes of War.

‘Agree to surrender first,’ the Angel of War ordered. ‘Then I’ll lose the arrows.’

Azrael managed an exasperated groan and allowed himself to fall onto his back, gesturing for a safe approach with a palm-down wave.

The bow in War’s hands disappeared instantly, as did the arrows protruding from Azrael’s chest and wrist, and the Angel rushed forward, binding Azrael’s wrists with Aura-infused shackles before sending a surge of Aura into his captive and rushing to check on Saviour.

The Angel had collapsed after Azrael’s attack, and his accelerated healing had gone to work on his ribs. Kneeling over him, War grabbed the emaciated figure’s jaw and snapped it back into place, where it, too, could begin to heal. He then offered his hand and pulled Saviour to his feet, before moving on to quickly check on Pest. 

After affirming that Pest was unarmed beside the winding kick to his torso, he then walked back to Azrael and pulled him to his feet, noting that the arrow-wound in the Angel’s chest had finished healing. 

‘Right, then. Now that that unpleasantness is over, we can take you back home, yes?’ He suggested, guiding Azrael as the Four began to walk.

‘I suppose I have little choice,’ Azrael chuckled bitterly, rubbing absently at his chest, still feeling the phantom pain of an arrow embedded in his body as he cast a sore glance at War.

‘Who would be to blame for that? You, or the Watcher?’ War asked solemnly.

Suddenly reminded of Arakiel’s part in the events of the last day, Azrael was filled with a sense of regret. She had surely been captured already, and if she hadn’t yet faced trial, she soon would, and the High Court had rarely been known to be kind in its punishments. 

‘Do you know what fate awaits her?’ Azrael asked, ignoring the question.

War shook his head.

‘She was still yet to be tried when we were dispatched,’ he answered.

A question occurred to him then, and he turned to face his elder once more.

‘How did you end up here, anyway? I mean we know what happened, but...How did you lose to just those twot?’

The moment he asked his question, War saw something change in Azrael’s face. A flicker of emotion, then a settled stupor. Azrael began walking more and more awkwardly, and seemed to be trying to speak.

‘I c-can… Not… Think…’ He mumbled nonsensically, causing the others to share a worried glance among themselves. Something was clearly very wrong with Azrael’s mind.

Thankfully, the Four didn’t have far to go. As they moved around the various gray pillars in their way, four more figures soon popped into view - four divine steeds, majestic even in their stillness as they waited for their masters.

‘That… My… You…’ Azrael tried to speak again, surprised, but became annoyed with his inability. ‘Thanks,’ he managed, and hoped that was enough.

War clapped his hand over Azrael’s shoulder cheerily, knowing the older Angel was just happy to see his horse.

‘Think nothing of it, brother. Our steeds are part of who we are, none of us should be separated for so long.’

Azrael smiled loosely, fighting back the cloudiness as best he could, but he was still stumbling. Fortunately, his horse recognised that he was having trouble and rushed to him, allowing Azrael to hold himself steady with the exquisitely-crafted saddle atop its back. 

‘We should wait a moment before we mount,’ came Pest’s voice from the rear.

The other two clear-headed Angels looked back at him, waiting for him to continue.

Pest gestured at Azrael’s back before he resumed speaking.

‘Our brother needs a moment to regain his thoughts. We do not want him to fall from the saddle because of whatever happened to him, right?’

Saviour cleared his throat, looking between the other Angels.

‘What good will that do?’ Clearly, in his arrogance, he had failed to notice what Pest and War had both already seen.

‘This seems to be a temporary state, fuelled by whatever went wrong on Earth. It cleared up before, and there is no reason it should fail to do so now. Refrain from saying anything that will remind our brother of what happened, and he should recover any minute.’

Ducking his head, Saviour felt the familiar annoyance of embarrassment. He was the only clear-minded member of the Four who hadn’t picked up on the issue, and that wounded him; he did, after all, like to picture himself as the best and brightest.

He said nothing more, resigning himself to silence in case he embarrassed himself further, and the rest of the group fell quiet as well.

Anipe had made her way around to the complete opposite side of the crypt by the time she made any progress in her search.

The first sign she found was the voice of the man in white, speaking suddenly as if startled.

‘What are you doing here?’

For a moment, she thought he was addressing her. That was, of course, before she poked her head out in front of a doorway into a side chamber, and saw him staring at somebody with a confused expression.

Leaning further into the doorway so as to see who he was speaking with, Anipe was just as surprised to see what appeared to be a Roman soldier, hunched over the chest that had held the urns from the ritual. He held up a hand, showing an urn held within, as he turned and stood to face the man.

‘Stay where you are,’ he warned in a deep and weary voice.

Freezing in place, the man in white slowly lifted his hands, palms facing the newcomer. 

‘Relax, Agazzi… You know I mean no harm.’

The Roman’s eyes narrowed as he looked the man up and down.

‘You will have to forgive me if I find it difficult to trust you right now,’ he responded.

The man in white moved to step forward slowly, causing the Roman to tense up. The ground itself seemed to tremble as his caution grew, and Anipe felt a chill run through her.

What the hell is going on?

‘I will not warn you again. I do not wish to kill you, but if you take one step toward me, I will have no choice.’

‘Alright, alright, calm down,’ the pale man muttered, lowering his hands slowly. ‘Will you tell me what you came for?’

‘I find myself in a situation that I cannot understand, so I came to find answers. Is that enough?’ The Roman man admitted, turning back to the chest and resuming his inspection of the urns.

‘The same could be said for all of us,’ the pale man said under his breath, watching the man known as Agazzi as he dug through the chest. ‘Would you trust me more if I told you we are not alone?’

Agazzi straightened suddenly, head swivelling as he looked around the room, eventually locking eyes on the young girl peering inside.

‘Who are you and what is your business here?’

Anipe moved to stand, but a sudden look at Agazzi’s face warned her she should stay still.

‘This is Anipe, otherwise known as Panya,’ the pale man offered.

Surprised recognition flashed across Agazzi’s face for a moment, before it returned to its regular stoic blankness. 

‘So you say,’ he muttered, before addressing the girl.

‘My warning goes for you, too… If you move toward me, even a step, I will kill you where you stand. Nothing personal, I have simply learned to survive by means of caution.’

‘If you try to kill her, I will have to kill you first,’ the pale man threatened, hand nearing the hilt of his weapon. ‘Nothing personal, I just have my own plans for the girl.’

‘If nobody moves, we will have no such problems,’ Agazzi said quietly, before returning to his task.

Anipe, for her part, found herself growing even more confused.

‘Will somebody please tell me what is happening? Who are you two? How do you know me?’

Agazzi opened his mouth to speak, then seemed to change his mind after a warning glance from the pale man.

‘Sorry, kid. You neither need nor want to know.’

‘Oh, come on! If I am involved in whatever is happening between the pair of you, I think I deserve the truth… If neither of you will give it to me, I will have to find it somewhere else.’

She stood and turned to leave, but found a stone wall blocking her path the moment she did. Facing back to the chamber, she was startled to find Agazzi standing right before her, a thunderous look upon his face and a dagger clenched in his fist. Not only that, but pale man stood right behind him, pressing his blade against the bigger man’s throat. 

‘Put it down,’ the pale man warned softly.

Agazzi’s eyes bugged in rage for a moment, then he allowed the dagger to fall from his grasp. As it clattered to the floor, the pale man removed his weapon carefully, looping it back into his belt. 

‘You may not trust me right now, but there are bigger problems in play than even you have been made aware. The girl and the urns are leaving with me, but you can finish whatever you came to do first. Do we have an agreement?’

Agazzi sighed and nodded, then sauntered back to the chest.

Still frozen in stunned silence, Anipe felt a bead of sweat rolling down the side of her face. She had no doubt that she came within an instant of dying, and she owed her life to the pale man… So why did this Agazzi, someone who clearly knew him well, refuse to trust him?

Things just kept getting weirder and weirder.

The only thing that was clear to Anipe was that she wanted out, but apparently she was not going to be leaving without the permission of the two strangers.