The Demons Within

Price of Victory

The small miserable figure of Victory lay under a massive oak tree, surrounded by bright, colorful flowers. Her lithe body was covered in the silver light reflecting off of the four moons, all currently shining brightly. She was shivering lightly, and currently recovering from a bout of tears. Her friends, well, former friends had betrayed Yahweh, and their rebellion was curbed quickly. They had been to prideful, and had forced the four to fight in their War. Even now she could hear the heavy clinking of their chains and the slow shifting of the air as Pestilence weighted their numerous sins.
And the worst thing was that she knew she had just sped up their demise. She wasn't foolish enough to believe that she could beat both Pestilence and Yahweh, but perhaps she could have created a stalemate. Her once friends were precious to her, but her hopes were slim that Pestilence would be merciful. He had seen her become so... unbalanced because of their betrayal, and no one hurt his siblings without his righteous retribution.
The echoed creaks of the Scales of Justice were slowing down, signaling her need to return to their throne room. While she had hoped that she wasn't too dirty, her hair held a few stray red flowers and leaves while her eyes were bloodshot, completely destroying that hope.
She took one last look at the peaceful garden that she had built, before walking into the currently gloomy stone castle. The massive stone behemoth currently echoed her feelings, as the normally bright lights were dimmed to a fraction of their normal brilliance. The shadows, normally vanquished by the dancing flames, were slowly spreading across the expansive halls. The dark purple carpet was pushed to the side by Pestilence, claiming he did not want the filth to touch them as he dragged the unconscious traitors to the Throne Room. Every single uncertain step on Victory's behalf echoed loudly down the halls, no doubt warning the others of her imminent return.
        Yahweh was furious, and if he had been at the hearing would have no doubt have demanded the criminal's execution. He was kind, but even he had his limits. After the traitors had summoned the Endless Ones, and corrupted three of the mortal races, he had been furious. The war had ended with Yahweh's fury. He had forced Death to perform a Blood Reap, an eldritch ritual, which killed most of the traitors.   This rebellion ended in a massacre, and Yahweh's rule had once again become uncontested.                                  Pestilence, no doubt, would be even crueler in his punishments. The three in front of him had attempted to usurp his family, assassinate Death himself, purge the universe of the lesser ones and summon the Endless Ones all in 15 short years. Every single action of theirs was taken to further sow chaos into reality. He would not kill the traitors, but there are things so much worse than death.
      The massive oaken doors which led to the throne room, studded with iron and gems, lay closed. It was tall enough for a Full-grown Dragon to walk through, and wide enough for 30 men on horseback to ride through. The massive iron handle was roughly the size of Victory's head, and weighed nearly 400 pounds.
       As she effortlessly opened one of the massive door and slipped in, she saw what she had feared. The Scales of Justice were completely still. The swirling fireball that represented Evil was nearly quadruple the size of the small ball of oily light. Their Sins truly did outweigh their virtues, and they would pay dearly for it.
        All of the other Horsemen where already in their thrones, and looked towards her as she entered. The traitors only looked further down to avoid her trembling gaze. Death, his cold eyes shifting from the open hole in his arm to Abbadon, held a rare show of his anger. War, while eyeing up Mephisto, was attempting to fill in a part of his shield that had been chipped. Pestilence, surprisingly, showed absolutely no emotion in his body.
      Pestilence was what worried her the most. The others were sometimes like this, but Pestilence was silent. He was almost never silent with them. Even when he was literally a mute, he still spoke telepathically. But now he was a still as a statue, staring intently at her. He was at full power, but appeared as his sin of Gluttony. She had expected Wrath, or even Pride but this was worrying. Normally she could gage his emotions, but Gluttony always wore a dark robe that covered his entire body and was accompanied by his pure ivory mask. Now she understood the darkness in their grand halls.
Gluttony consumed Light itself. The Light drew near him, but never returned. His endless hunger consumed everything that came to close. And despite this, he did fulfill the look of a dark judge, stoic to all pleas of mercy. The foolish jester and the incessant instigator, who teased War for his resemblance to a tomato and Victory for her height, was long gone. Those personas were banished to some corner of his vast mind, with no resemblance bubbling to the surface.
Even the beautiful room could not cheer her. The tower that the room inhabited spiraled up nearly a mile, and was decorated by the Four during a time of peace. Little balls of light, now even smaller, flitted across the room rapidly. Small vines bearing fantastical flowers crawled around the walls, trimmed every once in a while. The four moons shown, now dimly, through each window. The four golden thrones sat in a circle, each identical to show their equality.
But the peaceful scene was shattered once as Pestilence motioned for her to sit with a heavy hand. Her hopes fell with that simple motion, as she saw that a tissue box had been placed on her chair. It was undoubtably War's doing, as the other two would not currently be so brazen. The punishments had obviously already been discussed, or Pestilence was the only one allowed to preside over the 'trial'.
With heavy footsteps that dragged on the stone, she walked over to the looming chair. A small sigh escaped her lips as she began to curl up on her chair, with her knees pressed to her chest.
Then the dark judge began to speak, his voice not heard with their ears, but with their mind. They felt his will become impressed upon their mind as words slithered forth, like a snake that wished to poison the world. The traitors began shifting quickly in their chains, terrified of his vengeance. Only Mephisto, The former Archangel of Humanity, seemed to be willing to repent for their sins.
"You have betrayed Yahweh, The God Almighty. You have betrayed Order and Justice. You have even betrayed your people, slaughtering them and attempting to drive them out of their holy city. You summoned the Endless ones, aberrations of chaos incarnate, and allied with the cruel Demon Kings." Throughout the mini-speech Pestilence's voice was steady. There was no change in Tone, Pitch or even volume. No emotion at all.
"For your crimes of the highest degree, you shall be punished." At this point Victory began to tear up, this was a battle even she could not win. Her friends were doomed. Turning his head to the closest traitor, the one who wished to usurp his place, he began to 'speak' again. "Ah, Lucifer, this not what you imagined when you started your little war, is it? You wished to take my place, yet you knew nothing of true power. After Satan's ....fracturing, there is a empty place in hell for someone." The only hint of emotion was the sarcasm he allowed to drip from his words. "Unfortunately, it only needs a part of your soul to combine with his."
       He slowly stood, his right arm coming out from beneath the robe. It was covered in a black metal, that extended over his entire arm. His gauntlet ended in sharp claws, that could easily tear flesh from bones.
     He looked over to the the trembling figure of Lucifer, and everyone could tell even with the mask that he was smiling. He walked closer to Lucifer, until he was standing less than a foot away. He positioned his body in a way that blocked everyone from seeing his mask, and than slowly snaked his arm towards his face. The ivory mask suddenly hit the ground, bouncing twice, it's echoes deafening everyone but him and Lucifer.
"Look upon me, and tremble" he said, his voice actually coming out in short rasps of what was assumed to be his mouth, as darkness spilled out from his face and surrounded the chained man. The reaction was a scream, not one of terror or hate or even simple pain. It was the scream of a tortured man, of unadulterated agony. It was the scream of a man whose soul was being torn into fragments, as the one who he had betrayed watched horrified.
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On that note, I think it would be best to end here. I keep writing scenes that get progressively more and more gory as I write, then realizing I still don't have this story in Mature mode. Should I push it into mature? It would certainly let me update more, as I think I wrote that last scene about three different ways.
It was, at one point, going to literally be Pestilence ripping out Lucifer's heart with his gauntlets and tearing into pieces. That is where the description of the claws came from. The Nordic fight, that I eventually cut, was even more brutal than that. Let's just say that wings were cut through people. Hmmm, eclipse_0 ,maybe I would be the most likely of us to go insane. My playtime in Happy Room certainly suggests that.