~~Young~~

Chapter Twenty Two

   And it was red.

   Gage was stunned by that. How had he survived down here if he wasn’t truly evil? Why would he want to be here if he wasn’t evil? His mind began to buzz and his vision blurred again as he considered that. He tried to shake it off, assuming it was a side effect of the flame’s trip inside his head but…it wasn’t. It was something breaking free…he shut his eyes and shook his head again. There was a picture in his mind, Gage’s was fighting with someone, he couldn’t see who, it was too bright.

   “Fuck you!” he shouted at them, “I don’t need you!”

   “Then prove it!” the voice shouted back.

   “Fine! But I’ll show them they don’t need you either!”

   He sucked in a deep breath as he was brought back to the present, his wide eyes falling back on Greed. He was here for the same reason Gage was, because it was better than being under God’s thumb.

   Gage spread his wings, determined now. Considering Lucifer had already condemned him to the eternal hellfire he figured he had nothing to lose. He grabbed one of the sconces off the wall with his free hand and hurtled it at Lucifer’s red form, hoping to knock him out, as he took off at a run. They might not have noticed him yet, but between Lucifer’s roar of pain and Gage taking flight in the chamber he now had their undivided attention.

   “Impossible!” Lucifer shouted and leapt off his throne for Gage. A clawed hand ripped through the air for him but Gage reared back and watched as Lucifer flew past him.

   He recovered quickly and instead of hitting the wall head first he twisted and pushed off it to come at Gage again. It was a fight Gage knew he wouldn’t win if he took him to the ground. Lucifer was far stronger on the ground then Gage was so he flapped his wings and took the offense, diving through the air as if for Lucifer. But at the last moment he twisted away from his expectant arms and plunged towards the Twins. He reached out and took off the right twin’s head as he passed, landing between the left twin and Greed. With that one shot he had sufficiently eliminated the threat from both of them. The other twin was useless without his brother, catatonic over his death.

   “And what do you think you’re doing?” Greed said through clenched teeth.

   This close Gage could see the bruises on the demon’s face and body. They had already worked him over good. If he was mortal you surely wouldn’t have been able to recognize him from the blows, they would have swelled shutting his eyes and leaving him unable to speak. Instead his immortal body healed his injuries almost as quickly as they were inflicted, but so many still left him slow to finish.

   “I owe you one remember?” Gage put Greed behind him as the dead twin’s head came flying at the two of them.

   He deflected it, batting it aside with his sword which only pissed Lucifer off more and he roared in frustration.

   “Time to go,” he spun and grabbed Greed around his waist.

   “Go,” the demon asked, “go where-”

   In the next moment they were traveling though the currents. It was bright and dark at the same time in this in between. There was a deep orange glow that surrounded them hardly bright enough to cast a shadow, but it was the flickers of bright yellows, green and blues that lit the endless…nothingness. There was no physical anything here other than their own bodies. Nothing that could be touched or felt, just, experienced. It was energy pure and simple.

   It could very beautiful if you could ignore how dangerous it was.

   “Think of somewhere to be,” Gage gritted out as he clung to Greed, “or you’ll be stuck here forever.”