BEYOND 3A: BloodRed and ScaleBlack

Function Cube_84 (): The_Horsemen && The_Desperate_Effort;

[Begin]

"Nigel?"

"What?"

"Do you reckon we'll be meeting the anti-messiah soon?"

"It sounds like you're excited."

"Of course I am! Because it's thanks to my efforts that he'll be finally incarnated."

"Oh, right, you're the one who won the Father's horse race between your brother and your sisters."

"We're not related, dummy, that's like calling two army generals brothers for having the same rank."

"I was saying that in a 'brotherhood of arms' sort of way"

"Well, your tone of voice certainly didn't clue me in. We've known each other for the better part of two and a half billion years and yet I can rarely get a read on you."

"That has always been the way for the likes of us. Regardless, I get the impression that we're supposed to be pursuing them faster."

"True, but even if they escape, it's not like they'll live long enough to regret coming here."

"If there's anything I know about you for a fact, it's that you are unbelievably lazy. If we speak realistically, it was the first, second, and third maidens of fate's influence that allowed the catalyst to incarnate. All you did was give her dog treats to keep her going."

"And that's still more than the other three, who were doing jackshit. Two were working their high-end jobs and the other has been dying for who knows how long now. Point is, since you're so eager to water your knives with blood, go ahead and overtake me. Do you want me to set up a barrier?"

"Do so if the situation calls for it."

"Big 'if', there."

What you just read was a conversation shared between Nigel and Dece during their leisurely stroll on their way to brutally murder our weakened protagonists.

Speaking of whom, Demogorgon was fleeing, as we've established, with an armless L'étranger in her arms. She muttered between panicked breaths: "Damn it... This did not go as we had hoped... We need to retreat..."

However, when she tried to use her door ring, it refused to work.

She desperately slapped her ring with her other hand, but soon came to realise that her other arms retracted back into her body.

At the end of the hallway she was dashing through, she saw the secretary standing in the middle, lighting a cigarette and telling her from afar: "Feeling a little... starved of something?"

Demogorgon narrowed her eyes and yelled: "...What?!"

Dece groaned and repeated: "I SAID! FEELING A LITTLE STARVED FROM SOMETHING, BITCH?!"

Demogorgon took the hint and realised that Dece did something to mess with her energy, which was what allowed her to transform and manifest weaponry. She immediately turned around to run the way she came from, but Nigel appeared from outside her peripheral vision and tripped her with his foot in an act of sheer, unneeded pettiness.

"What are you? A child?" Commented Dece.

Nigel turned his head, while pinning Demogorgon down with his knives, and answered: "Not everyday do we run into fools foolish enough to raid the building while being such weaklings. Is it a crime to enjoy myself once in a while?"

Dece: "Wow, I am speechless. I never thought you believed in 'entertainment' and 'simple joys'. I thought you were always about 'revenge' and 'restoring the natural order' and all that evil shit."