The Demons Within

Family Blood

During the beginning of the first war of the Horsemen, only a few planets had the grave misfortune of being invaded by two Horsemen and their armies at the same time. Roxin B11 was one of these rare cases, a world first claimed by the robotic legions of Pestilence only to be plagued by the foul hordes of Death. However, even with these already rare condition, it would become even more to one Horseman in particular.

Embroiled in a rather sudden attack of nearly mindless zombies, Pestilence fought savagely. The metal chassis' of his soldiers were being corroded heavily from the corpses' bile, and important siege weaponry had already been burnt to the ground. Despite the fact that he knew that the zombies were just trying to fight their way to the few mortal soldiers trapped on the planet, Pestilence was furious.

This world was to fly his banner, supply his armies, glorify him above all others. He had not claimed any of his siblings conquests, but now the hunger of Death drove him to foolishness. Pestilence swiftly began carving a bloody path through his brother's soldiers, his magic zapping out of him angrily. Even those he didn't touch fell to the ground, strangled by their own shadows or their flesh frozen and shattered.

Finding Death was the easy part, all one had to do was look for the largest, ugliest abomination on the battlefield and make your way towards that. Death was fiercely protected of those hulking brutes, and had rarely strayed to far from them recently.

Unsurprisingly, the few mortals left took full advantage of the chaos that Death had caused. The new, unexpected foe had confused Pestilence's legions, multiple programs conflicting each other creating a crippling inactivity. Eventually their loyalty programs to Pestilence overrode their supposed lack of  friendly fire, and the harsh green laser fire began mowing down the zombies in uniform burst of energy.

Upon finding Death riding one of the elephant sized corpse monsters, Pestilence drove his blade into its skull sending acidic green blood spraying onto the once pristine grass. Monster and Master went down as one, the second time corpse tumbling face first.

Growling menacingly, Death lunged at this new target not knowing it was his brother. The two horsemen tumbled to the ground in a ripple of dark cloth, Death's fists swinging madly before a gaping hole appeared in his shoulder. Taking advantage of the sudden attack, pestilence pushed his younger brother up and stood above him.

Mockingly transforming his sword into a black umbrella, Pestilence jabbed at Death inches away from the bleeding wound.

"The only reason you are not being reformed right now is because we are family. Slink away now brother, this world is mine." 

Angrily Death stood up, eyeing the mortal bastion as if trying to tell who the foolish sniper was. Without a word he turned around and began moodily walking away like a teenager who had been caught stealing. Slowly the vast horde followed, unused to any form of retreat.
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Less than an hour later Pestilence sat across an elaborate wooden table from a human women dressed in military fatigues with his feet crossed on the table. Two clockwork stood menacingly behind his chair while he began playing with a rogue Apple.

"Morrigan," Pestilence began patronizingly "I was completely fine. You didn't need to shoot your uncle, now come along and let's apologize before he gets too pissy."

After a few seconds of horrified silence, Pestilence bite deeply into the apple before spitting it out immediately.

"You fed your soldiers this?! I raised you better than that!"

The woman's features finally somewhat composed themself, her brows drawing together angrily yet her green eyes still remained open with shock. She began speaking in a lower tone, as if trying to hold back great emotion.

"Father, the rumors are true? You have betrayed Yahweh? Why?"

Instantly a cloud of darkness swept through the room, darkening the lights eerily. Pestilence slowly put down the bitten Apple and sat straight in his chair.

"Our precious creator has betrayed us. He was trying to kill our family in the only way possible. I did this for you!"

Silence once again reigned through the room. Father and daughter stared angrily at each other, before Morrigan reacted angrily.

"Do you think this is what mother would have wanted? For you to burn everything you helped make!"

Pestilence rose out of his seat angrily, and walked swiftly around the table with the clockwork following silently behind him.

"Do not bring her into this. She too was betrayed, even if you don't want to believe me."

Grabbing his daughter's wrist, he closed his eyes as he began wondering where to phase back to. His homeworld would be the most safe for her for the duration of the war, he decided less than a second later

Right before he opened his mouth to echo that thought to Morrigan, he felt a sharp pain in his ribs and feminine scream a second later. Then two disgusting noises of metal sliding out of flesh.

Pestilence knelt down, and pulled his hands away from his side, watching in disbelief as blood ran through his open fingers. He opened his mouth, before shutting it again. Looking over to his daughter he saw an identical wound in her upper chest and a blade in her hand coated in his blood. Suddenly feeling ill Pestilence turned away, trying to burn that image out of his brain.

Rage swiftly kicked in as he saw one of his clockwork with a bloody blade. Immediately sensing his emotions, both bowed and left the room.

Still bleeding like a stuck pig, Pestilence crawled his way over to his daughter, and cradled her head with his bloody hands. He could feel her still breathing, relief flowing through him. He tried to flow his energy into her, healing her like he had so many times in the past, only to recoil in agony as a holy symbol glowed on her neck.

Slowly her watery green eyes opened once more to gaze into her father's ruby. She failed with her arms trying to stand up before emitting a lowly growl of pain and giving up. Pestilence however would not give up, and tried to heal her again despite the agony that began to course through his veins. Lowly he began speaking.

"'Morrigan, stay away. Don't stop, I'm not going to let you go too."

She tried to move again for a moment, before settling once more into her father's arms. Then she spoke for the first time since being stabbed.

"Y-You've lost so much dad. Lived so long, but all it br-brought was more..." She was stopped by a rough cough, before trying to begin again. "More Pain. I don't want to experience t-t-that."

Pestilence momentarily stopped trying to heal her, shocked by his daughters declaration. Shaky hands traced her cheek and he whispered "M-Morrigan, I..." he cut himself off as she began to close her eyes. She mumbled once more sentence, trying to bury herself in Pestilence's chest "Dad, why is everything so cold?"

"MORRIGAN"

His words echoed throughout the building, the haunting cry causing more agony to pierce through his side. The dark god sat cradling her as she stopped breathing, and just started at his eldest child.

After what felt like a day, he finally stood shakily still cradling her in his arms. He began madly rambling to himself, trying to make sense of it all.

"I- I refuse to judge her. I can't. I won't. I can't see my baby again. Please."
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