Fun fact: It's amazing how wrong I can be sometimes.

When Lionel and I destroyed the golems we were laughing it up; certain that we couldn't be stopped and that we were invincible, young lads again that just came back from a successful bar fight.

"You know Jack, I think I'm getting the hang of Avalon now. After all, I did just kill five golems to your measly nine. That has to merit me a medal or trophy of some kind right," Lionel said boastfully.

"Yeah, you're Hercules born again," I said mock reverently as I shook my head.

"Oh, woe are the great for they are plagued by jealous lesser men," Lionel said to me just as sarcastically as I was to him.

I snorted and said "Says the guy that probably has to stand on a stool to reach the top shelf in his kitchen. I hope you know that I could throw your ass into next week,"

"Oh, really? Me, golem-killer extraordinaire?" He said in a faux-British accent designed to make fun of the countless strutting bravos that pounded the streets like they were Mike Tyson after their first win against an imp.

Shaking my head with a scoundrel-esque smile that made me look like a young strapping adventurer that I was in my more naïve days, I said "Then you won't be scared of the even more disturbing things that await us below?"

"Oh, hush. I'm not the least bit frightened!" Lionel said in a loud voice.

"Then let's go rescue your sister!" I said in a voice that was more genuinely cheery than any time in the past twenty years and walked down with Lionel on my right-hand side.

We were not prepared. We walked down the rickety stairs, pushed open the scarlet curtains, and saw a visage of power; Johnny Hellboy-the boy born in Hell after an unlucky rift opened up and swallowed his family home, The Circe Coven-a group of witches more advanced in hexes than any other, a groupie of hired thugs armed with golden long-staffs, and facing them with her back to us was Sister Josephine. 

She stood alone in the old, musty room with her straight razor drawn out and standing in the center of a mess of destruction: an overturned desk that had papers, ink wells, and red handkerchiefs strewn around it, a tattered drape that had managed to get stuck in the ceiling with its ragged black cloth dangling sadly, a series of deep gouges in the wall that looked like a beast had clawed it, and puddles of blood everywhere.

We walked into a most precarious situation; I expected all the Major Players to have had bugged out before we arrived and that all that would greet us would be a small gathering of frightened wannabes, not a collection of individuals that were very powerful, very dangerous, and most definitely psychotic. 

I heard Lionel gulp and with that their tense standoff was broken as they all turned to look at us. Whether it was that they didn't somehow hear our fight against the golems upstairs or that they were shocked that we didn't run away yet, they didn't attack us yet but I knew that wouldn't last.

So I chose to open my big, fat mouth and do what I do best: get us in more trouble by antagonizing all the wrong people in the worst kind of ways.

"Sister Josephine! It is I, Jack Millory! I will aid you in your battle against the sinister forces arrayed before you if you would only help us with our own quest!" I somehow managed to say that without stuttering on my fear or choking on my embarrassment at my overly old-fashioned prose.

"I will accept your terms, Jack, if you tell me what exactly is your quest that you speak of!" She said back to me in that theatrical way with no hint pretense of humor at her words. All the while, she was dancing through the men that seemed far too clumsy as they rushed at her; a flick of her blade and a man clutching his suddenly red throat, a man yelping out in pain as the tendons in his leg were cut and he fell to his feet, a man raising his staff high above him and slamming it down like a falling tree suddenly gurgling as he coughed up blood after he looked down to see his lungs were punctured.

"It is a cause most Right and Just! I have come here not for my own cause but at the request of my good friend Ser Lionel Jospehs to rescue his beloved sister who is trapped here against her own will!" I shouted back hoping she didn't decide to fight us as well and that she didn't hear the timber of fear in my voice . I did not want to be another notch in her belt of kills.

"If it is for family then I will gladly assist!" She said magnanimously with a flourish. And with another flick of her razor that sent another dead body with blood gushing out like a geyser falling to the rug already stained with the blood of countless fools. I couldn't keep my eyes off the unmoving bodies that seemed like they were merely sleeping around her.

Dropping my voice, I said to Lionel "Jospehine always had a few screws loose, but when she went religion she got even more crazy. So as of now you are a Christian Knight on a Quest to save your sister and make sure you don't slip or she might decide that your sister is not worthy of rescue. She only believes her own version of Good and Evil which makes her both unpredictable and easy to manipulate,"

"So basically, -don't be stupid," He replied in a mouse's voice. He was shaking like a leaf.

"Yeah. And make sure to follow my cues," I replied with the gravest sincerity.

And with that, I moved one foot forward and shouted with great emotion and desperation "By the Powers That Hold, I Adjure you and Sentence you to the Punishment of Unbinding!" A great rush of invisible power rushed out from me as the epicenter and targeted my enemies in front of me. The blast was like a pebble sending out waves throughout the pond-it ripped through everything in its path and broke the bonds that held their atoms together.

Stone blocks that had stood here for centuries and seen plenty of dead fools spontaneously burst into gray dust, a bookshelf that lied between me and them crumbled into a pile of dry chips, a frightened man melting into his component parts of hydrogen, oxygen, water, and etc., but with a single word by the Coven the burst was dispelled and the threat gone.

I was still staring at how my blast was dispelled so easily, Johnny Hellboy stepped forward and spread his chaotic black wings that were eight feet wide with red veins pulsing through them like wryms of death that had black thorns adorning them at the ends. His eyes turned from a simple homely, brown to an obsidian black that had burning red slits for pupils.  Suddenly, as if Satan sent a sign claiming that Johnny was his son, a circlet made entirely out of flame appeared upon his head that had screaming faces trapped in agony in the place of jewels and a giant spinning wheel of fire complete with a black and red eye in the center. His skin turned scaly and ashen which made them as hard as Hellion steel.  He grew a tri-pronged forked tail that lash out uncontrollably that left deep marks in the stone that it smacked against.

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My eyes grew wide as he lunged at me with incredible speed like the Devil himself coming up from the pit and his clawed hands sunk deep into my shoulders. They burned like freshly poured iron as his claws dug deeper and twisted. His huge leering face came close to mine to show me his horrible yellow teeth the size of a great whites' and bit into my right shoulder. My vision grew hazy white with pain as I gasped in wordless pain. 

Suddenly, instead of growing mad with terror or falling into tears from the pain, I grew impossibly, wildly, inexplicably mad. I roared a roar that managed to give pause to even Johnny and I reached up to grab his face, ignoring the soaring pain in my shoulder, and gave a primitive push of force to his head. His ears bloomed ruby as his ear drums collapsed and tissues imploded from the sudden force. I stood there, towering over him like an overlord judging the failure of his subordinate, and a voice that was not mine came up from inside me that boomed out "Johnny," I paused for a brief second before continuing with "Die," like it was not a question or even a pronouncement but as if it was a command that spoke to his very soul black with oily tar and that would not be denied.

I stomped over to him and pulled out my gun, I infused it with my wrath, and pulled the trigger. It sounds all too simple but it was so much more than that, it was a manifestation of my mindless rage born from the years of stalking around the Greats like a mutt, the times when loved ones died at the end and when all I could do was turn my head to pretend that it never happened, that I never knew the.

The bullet erupted out with a deep, bass growl and instead of the casual, wimpy gray smoke, it was a fog of airy magma. It didn't kill him outright nor would it be permanent since he would regenerate near instantaneously but By God did it hurt him! He looked down dumbly at the dull, throb of pain that stemmed from the hole large enough to put my fist in and tried to stand up to finish me and said "You don't know what you're messing with, you damn bitch! I will-"

I didn't let him finish as I leaped on top of him and pinned him down with both of my legs. I deftly took out my blade in an aggressive manner that also spilled out countless bric-a-brac. I raised, at least I thought I lifted it up but it felt like I was being forced to, my left arm high above me like it was the hand of a hanged man reaching for the stars one last time and slit my left wrist once amore in a fashion that started from my shoulder down to my palm. I put all my strength in my cut like I was stabbing Johnny and not myself. The odd thing was, I didn't even feel the pain over the animalistic rage. I stared at him all the while as a river of blood tumbled out and instead of falling to the floor, the dark red globules hung suspended in the air in defiance of gravity that seemed to scream "Fuck you Isaac Newton! I don't have time for your shit!"  All was quiet as the world seemed to stare at me and wonder what would happen next. The red droplets all moved suddenly and collected around my blade in angry, little milliseconds. They started to spin wildly like they were in a centrifuge around my blade.

I grew scared at what was happening since I had no control over this and for this had never happened before in all of my rituals. They buzzed louder and louder like a mad swarm of wasps that would began targeting myself if I pussyfooted around any longer. Embracing my darkness. I stabbed downward with both hands, even though my left wasn't supporting it all and was actually just hanging onto my blade sadly. My face was a contortion of emotions that I didn't know existed and if I could see myself right now or if there was a nearby mirror I would have seen an image that would trouble even Gods, a feat I didn't know I could perform. My athame screamed like a banshee heralding Johnny's impending doom as it descended upon him. 

I aimed for the slowly closing wound from my earlier gunshot and it connected deeply. Johnny screamed out in pain but the blade was not finished with him yet. I smiled in sadistic joy as I saw him squirm beneath me like a pinned cockroach, "You could feel like this forever if you would just simply take my power that I offered to you, my darling boy," a voice as warm as a fireplace on a winter night and as comforting as the embrace of an angel, it made me want to throw up.

It was the voice of a monster trying to be gentle. An unnatural voice.

I knew what was going to happen next and I feverishly tried to pull out my blade out but it did not want to be denied its sacrifice. My arms that were never very strong was weakened by my own sacrifice and could do nothing to affect what came next. The blood exploded from the blade like a bomb and carved deep tracts in his torso. It mangled his body like a starving ghoul and his ribcage sprouted forth like a bone-white lily. Dark blood splashed onto my face and the Infernal blood ate away at my cheeks like a parasite but I didn't pull away because I knew that since I came this far I might as well see it to its end. 

The ritual was not finished yet as a black vortex appeared beneath him and scarred, white tentacles leapt out and strapped him down. Johnny started screaming again as he was pulled slowly into it, he struggled harder than I would have thought possible for a man with his wounds but struggle he did. 

He begged me to save him, to spare him but if even I did not know what was happening how could I save him. As he saw I was still motionless, he began gibbering unintelligibly as his mind slipped away from him. He began raging at me and kicking at me, which rain down upon me like giant rain drops and like rain drops; meant nothing. He tried cajoling me with pledges of power and words of wealth but I couldn't accept even if I wanted to as I was mesmerized by the tornadoes of nothingness beneath Johnny. He weeped large, yellow tears as he felt himself falling deeper and I saw that he was halfway in the vortex already. Suddenly, he stopped fighting and relaxed. He smile the smile of a condemned man that has accepted his fate and said to me "Well played, Jack. Well played," 

He closed his eyes one last time and was sacrificed to the power I didn't how I summoned onto this world. Did I just cause the beginning of the end?