Silence fell upon the two for a moment, but it was broken by a question that festered in Lucius's mind.

"Hey, Noel?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you think it's possible for guys like us to become good people?"

Noel ceased speaking for a moment and carefully thought about his next words; something he has a habit of not doing.

"Look, I can tell you want to become a better person, but you and I? We're terrible, and it's not our fault. I mean, look at the world we live in. Can you honestly say that good can exist in a land plagued by demons?"

"I know we're terrible. I don't want to be. It wouldn't hurt to try being good anyway," Lucius retorted.

Noel gave his new partner a sideways stare.

"The only good thing you can do in this world is save people from demons, and you do that by killing them. You won't be able to find peace of mind until you quit trying to improve and live with the fact you're a bad person. It's much easier that way."

It was then Lucius realized Noel was a lost cause, and the concept of self-improvement fell upon deaf ears. He'd be alone in the road of bettering oneself.

"Anyway," Noel continued, "why'd you become a demon hunter?"

"It's better than hunting humans," Lucius replied, indirectly confirming Noel's belief. "What about you?"

"Ahh," Noel answered sheepishly, "I'd rather not talk about it."

The only thing Lucius could give to his answer was a "hm" of acknowledgement followed by ambient winds.

Time passed, and Noel pointed ahead, towards a run-down village where people armed to the teeth gathered around a bonfire at its center. The two had been walking for so long that they saw snow-less vegetation again, and Lucius wondered just how close the guy lived to the hideout.

"That's our hideout, where everyon-..." Noel's voice trailed off as his head swayed side-to-side, as if his eyes had difficulty locating something.

"'Where everyone', what?"

"Where is Michael?" Noel asked gravely before taking on a full sprint towards the hideout; Lucius followed.

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

"Calm down, Noel. He's probably in one of the houses."

"No, no– everyone gathers around the bonfire. Something's wrong."

Time passed, and the two entered the village, though there was no gate or any point of entry. Noel speed-walked towards the bonfire, where his fellow demon hunters greeted him with a collectively despaired look.

Something was wrong.

"What happened?" he asked, with Lucius idling behind him.

The group traded troubled looks with each other before one of them–riddled with wounds–spoke up.

"Michael was taken."

Those three words hit Noel's emotions like a sucker-punch; he felt numb at first, then the realization of what happened set in. His mouth moved to let words of disbelief fly, but nothing came. He remembered, eventually, how to articulate his thoughts, and it came packed in a question of furious bewilderment:

"How? He's the strongest."

"It was him and I," the injured demon hunter replied, "and we were heavily outnumbered. I barely got away."

Noel's confusion–now with clarity given–transformed into rage. And with his rage, he swiftly gripped the surviving hunter by his shirt's collar and lifted him as though he weighed nothing, much to the protest of the rest of the group.

"Why the hell did you let him get captured, Virgil?" was all Noel could muster in the midst of demands to put the man down with weapons pointed at him.

Silence fell upon the group for a second, and the only thing that answered Noel was the sound of the crackles of fire.

It was through this brief interaction Lucius registered that Michael wasn't just someone whose power Noel respected; this was a man he wholly idolized. He bore no familiarity with anyone present except the man he just met, so all he could do was silently observe.

"Listen to me," Virgil commanded, unperturbed by Noel's aggression, "we did some scouting and we know where he's holed up."

Upon hearing the possibility of retrieving his hero, Noel's arms lowered, unhanding the man as his eyes lost their fury; the group disengaged their weapons and returned to their seats.

"Go on," Noel responded in a soothed tone.

"He's held in the huge walled city close to here, run by unholy knights."

"The one we've been avoiding?"

"The one we've been avoiding," Virgil confirmed.

"Well, no use avoiding 'em now. Why don't we siege them?" Noel suggested with a grin.

"In every possible scenario, I'd say no, but they've got Michael. My guess is he's being used as a lure for the rest of us. They want us to fight."

Virgil's mouth opened to advise against it–he knew the odds–but he felt blood trickle down his cheek before he could. His hands glossed over the blade-inflicted wound on his face before his face scrunched up with a vengeance and a new goal.

"So we will fight."

Their spirits raised, the demon-hunting group commemorated with cheers– Noel included. Lucius didn't follow suit, not that he was excluded, but because he knew he had to kill a human being. Lucius has never killed a person before. He refused to go down that path despite how much his bloodlust screamed and yearned for it. And, yet, the path he's tried so desperately to avoid is now inexorably ahead of him.

The band of demon hunters rallied behind Virgil and began making their way out of the hideout, but Lucius lagged behind as he dwelled in his thoughts. One of the hunters noticed, and called out to him:

"Yo, new guy, you coming?"

To which he buried his melancholy and responded with a dry "yeah," engaging in a slight jog to catch up with the rest. Soon, the hideout was vacant of any demon hunters, and the bonfire put itself out.

Thus began the quest to get Michael back.