As soon as those words left Charlie's mouth, Alastor heard a shriek of fright and pain from Sai-Rin. Dropping the once-bitten apple and turning to face his love, he saw her kneeling on the grass, bound from the chest to the tail in ebony chains. "D-Don't worry, Dear! I'll get you out of-OW!" Alastor started to grab onto the chains, but pulled his hands back as the dark metal glowed red and singed the fabric of his gloves. "A-ALASTOR, HELP ME!!!" Sai-Rin cried, before disappearing into thin air. Alastor's eyes widened in horror.
"SAI-RIN, NO!" he yelled. Turning back to Charlie, Alastor's eyes turned to radio dials. "Where is she?! Where did she go, Charlie?!" Alastor growled. Charlie shook her head. "She's with my father now." Alastor only had a moment to let the realization sink in, before he felt his body explode into white hot pain as another coil of chains wrapped around him.
The last sensation Alastor felt before blacking out was of his knees hitting the ground.
~A FEW HOURS LATER~
Sai-Rin came back to consciousness on a cold cement floor. As her vision focused, she noticed iron bars all around her, and could hear a low growling noise not too far away. She tried to get up, but being an injured mermaid, that action sent her falling to the floor. Groaning in pain, Sai-Rin looked down at herself to see how badly she'd been injured. Some of the glimmering blue scales of her tail had become a charred black spiral down to the fins, and she had third degree burns around her arms and across her chest that would undoubtedly leave scars. Suddenly, Sai-Rin heard a muffled voice and clanking noises coming from beside her.
She looked to her right, and saw Alastor kneeling on the floor of a vertical glass tank, shackles around his ankles. The tank was open at the top, which just barely reached past his ears, and a large pipe was suspended over it. His clothes were torn up and crisscrossed with burn lines just like Sai-Rin's tail. "Alastor!" Sai-Rin shouted, clutching the bars of the cage that felt too big for her. "Ah, so you're finally awake, I see." The unfamiliar voice cut through the air like a knife, and yet, the speaker's tone was smooth as velvet.
There was the sound of snapping fingers, and the dark room was immediately flooded with light. Sai-Rin felt her heart drop as she looked into the merciless eyes of Lucifer himself. He didn't look how she imagined him, though. Instead of the pointy horned, pitchfork wielding, fire cloaked king of damned souls she feared, he wore a white suit with a matching hat that had a snake wrapped around the brim in place of a ribbon, rosy cheeks and pale face like Charlie, and carried a staff with an apple on the end. "I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that you of all demons would get the nerve to take what is rightfully mine, Alastor." Lucifer said, walking over to Alastor's glass prison and kneeling down to look him in the eyes. Alastor glared back in defiance, his charming smile all but gone.
Smirking, Lucifer stood up and paced back and forth in front of Alastor and Sai-Rin. "Anybody who's heard of me would know that I'm a very clever fellow." Lucifer said, his footsteps echoing on the floor. "It's been a good while since I've come across someone with the foolish bravery to challenge me." He suddenly stopped in front of Sai-Rin, and leaned down, tilting her chin up so she faced him. "You know, I was hoping you'd submit to temptation and bite that apple first, but I see now that you aren't so easily swayed." Sai-Rin tried to swallow any fear she had.
"What are you going to do?" she asked. Lucifer grinned. "I'm going to have you two play a little game." He snapped his fingers, and there appeared a button in Sai-Rin's cell, and a hunting rifle in Alastor's tank, the barrel coming out of a small hole in the side. "Those little things I've provided you with will give you the option of risking the other's life for your own." Lucifer explained, snapping his fingers again. Sai-Rin heard the growling noise get louder, and her eyes widened in fear as she saw herself gazing at a vicious dog that was slowly stalking towards her.
At the same time, she heard a dull rumbling sound, followed by a splash as a torrent of water gushed into Alastor's tank. "ALASTO-" Sai-Rin's scream was cut off by the dog's jaws clamping around her neck. "SAI-RIN!" Alastor cried, slamming his fists against the glass tank as the water rose to his chest. Lucifer looked on in sick amusement. "LET US GO! PLEASE!" Sai-Rin managed to yell through cries of pain, her blood pooling on the floor of the cage as the dog continued to rip into her body. "P-Please...!" Alastor begged.
The water was already past his chin, and he struggled against the shackles to keep his face out of the water. Then, the water stopped flowing right at that moment. Lucifer walked over to Alastor. "That rifle only has a single bullet." he said, gesturing to the gun. "You can't point it anywhere but at your dear little mermaid's head. Also, you'll have to swim down and put some effort into pulling the trigger, should you choose." Then, he walked over to Sai-Rin's cage, silently commanding the dog to let go of Sai-Rin.
But only slightly, so it still had a grip on her. "The button in that cage triggers two things. One, the shock collar around the dog's neck. Two, the water pipe above your sweet Radio Demon's prison. So if you make the choice to, you'll save your own life, but let your lover drown like a rat." Lucifer stepped back, eventually standing between the two cells. "Hmm, I wonder..." he said mockingly, glancing between the two demons. "Who will live, and who will die the other's death?"