Forged Legacy

Celeste was the first to rush into the cage, a long bone sprouting from the ground behind her to narrow the opening. Cash and three more angels followed close behind, each followed by another bone. Making use of his prodigious Wisdom, Harvey calculated that the cage would fully close once the number of combatants entering matched the number of demons waiting inside. There was no way he and Tyler were going to miss this fight, but what should he do about his Dad? Harvey didn’t want to drag him into the lion's den, but leaving him outside exposed him to the rest of Hell’s army. Before he had time to come up with a plan, Tyler dashed into the cage with their father close behind.

“Damn it, Dad!” Harvey swore, diving in after them. The final bone shot up from the sandy arena, sealing the cage completely. In an instant, the Colosseum faded away, replaced by one of the cookie-cutter neighborhoods back in Heaven. Harvey could feel the warm sun beaming down on them. Hear the sounds of birds chirping and kids playing in the street. Even the smell of freshly mowed grass was so real that he wondered if they’d actually teleported back to Elysium.

“What is this?” Steve gasped.

“Your future,” the leader of the finely dressed demons grinned. Harvey assumed this was the Commander, Brutus’ counterpart on Hell’s side. He had no idea what skills he used, and the lack of visible weapons or armor made it hard to guess. Lifting his wrist, the Commander revealed an ornate watch. Delicately gripping the crown that was normally used to set the time, the world outside the cage began to change. Day turned to night as a swarm of demons, hellhounds, tortured souls, and other infernal creatures rushed towards them. The children tried to run inside, but got snatched up one by one. A few managed to pound on their front doors before they died, accidentally luring their parents to the same fate. Screams and sobs filled the air as the whole neighborhood was set ablaze, and the Commander laughed as his aura pressed down on them.

Having experienced visions like this before while refining bereft Legacies into ink, Harvey knew this was just an illusion. The angels also seemed familiar with these tactics and completely ignored the world outside as they clashed with the demons. Steve and Tyler, on the other hand, were overcome with despair.

“Mom!” Tyler shouted, sprinting headfirst into the side of the cage hard enough to put a dent in his helmet. The sturdy bones didn’t even budge, but that didn’t stop him from getting up and battering them with his bat.

[That isn’t even our house?] Julius commented.

Go help Cash. I’ll deal with them! Harvey replied as he threw Cataclysm up over his head and activated Awakened Armament. Julius easily took control of the gun, floating up to start pumping the demons full of Desolation slugs.

Unlike his son, Steve didn’t even try to escape the cage. He was sobbing uncontrollably, slamming his helmet on the ground while he mumbled incoherently. Harvey sprinted towards him, only to find his mother doing the same. Steve’s eyes lit up as he scrambled to his feet. He ran towards her with open arms, only to gasp when a gout of golden flame erupted from a hole in the side of her neck.

Harvey pulled the trigger three more times, activating all three rings of kinetic storage arrays inscribed around Rupture’s barrel to launch the fourth Heaven’s Wrath bullet even faster. Cassandra tumbled forward, her momentum leaving her to lie in a heap at his father’s feet.

“Harvey! How dare you!” Steve growled as he summoned Devotion and shot a beam of light towards his son. The attack moved too fast to dodge, so Harvey was forced to endure the blast as he rushed to tackle his father. Evolving the skill to F-Grade had added a Willpower-eroding curse to every attack, making it harder for him to fight back against the illusions. Luckily, instead of shooting him again, Steve chose to launch a chain to try and wrap around Harvey’s arm. He gladly let it, using it as leverage to whip his father through the air towards the cage wall where Tyler was still trying to break out. The crack of silver against bone hurt his heart as much as Steve’s body, but Harvey had to protect them from themselves. Boosting beside them, he poured a chunk of his remaining essence into Legacy’s Redoubt. The bunker manifested around them, and Harvey poured as much mental energy into the control crystal as he could. He didn’t know if his Guardian of the Gilded Return Imprint would help suppress the illusions, but hoped that surrounding them in his aura instead of the Commander’s would be enough.

Unable to reach the cage, Tyler decided to bang on the bunker wall instead. His fervor slowly died with each swing, until he slowly turned to face them. “What… what just happened?”

“Harvey shot my wife! Your own mother!” Steve screamed, spit flying as snot ran down his nose.

“No, I didn’t!” Harvey shot back. “That was a demon pretending to be Mom, just like the succubus from back when we fought Varek.”

“No! I saw her! I saw the life leave her eyes!” Steve raged.

“She was inside the cage! The only 16 people inside these bones are us, five angels, and eight demons. Well, seven demons. Everything outside isn’t real.” Seeing his father still didn’t believe him, Harvey picked him up by his breastplate and dragged him to the firing window where they could see the demon lying on the ground. Flooding his father full of his aura, he got the reaction he was hoping for.

“Why does she have a knife?” Steve asked somberly.

Lying in her palm was a black dagger dripping with poison that turned into a sickly green smoke when it fell into the blood pooling beneath her. The demon still looked like their mother, so Harvey pulled out Extinction and shot her again just in case. He’d already gotten a kill notification for her, but wanted to make sure the shapeshifter didn’t have some way of using the System as a last layer of deception.

Steve let out a pained gasp as he watched the bullet explode inside her chest, but he didn’t attack Harvey again.

“You three aren’t allowed out of this bunker until I say so,” Harvey commanded.

“But I’m good now,” Tyler replied.

“No buts!” Harvey shouted, yanking back the bolt on his rifle and popping out the spent casing. Echo Forge loaded another Desolation round straight into the chamber, and he searched his scope for targets. He didn’t like what he saw. Wasting time breaking the others out of the illusion had left the angels fighting seven against five, and two of the demons were the very best Hell had left in the trial. Celeste could easily hold her own in a one-on-one fight against any of them, but they hadn’t given her that luxury. Cash and his conjured lion did his best to cover her six, but she was getting bogged down by the barbarian lieutenant and Hell’s Commander. That left the other trio of angels fighting down a man, and it looked like one was already dead.

Harvey spent another chunk of essence creating a tank-sized replica of his sniper with Innovator’s Arsenal, shooting a silver spear covered in overloaded Desolation arrays the second he got a clear shot. The Commander and Lieutenant were off limits until Celeste could make some space, but one of the armor-clad demons got a hole blasted through his chest. Hell hadn’t expected such a devastating attack to come without warning, but made a point to keep an angel between themselves and the bunker. Harvey had already spent the massive amount of essence required to conjure another bullet for both his real weapon and the projection, but couldn’t find a place to put them without endangering his allies. The cost of his skills scaled with the complexity of his arrays, meaning he was running on empty after conjuring dozens of Desolation bullets, Inkbound Ordnance balls, Innovator’s Arsenal projections, and Legacy’s Redoubt twice in short succession. Unwilling to waste the bullet, he shot the roof of the cage, hoping that breaking the skill prematurely might cause a backlash for the demon using it. The bullet finally made the bones shudder, but they didn’t break.

“Damn it!” Harvey shouted, far angrier than he really should be. He’d known the odds of breaking through were low, but wasting that much essence just pissed him off.

[You already knew that wasn’t going to work! I shot the cage before any of us walked in here.]

What else did you want me to do with the bullet?

Stolen novel; please report.

[Maybe kill some demons? You know, the main thing we’re here to do?]

I couldn’t get a shot!

[Then maybe you should get better at shooting? Or am I going to have to do all the work?]

Since when was Julius such an asshole? Maybe he should show him a lesson and shoot that shotgun right out of the air. That would put the ungrateful bastard right back in his cage.

[You want to kill me? Fine! Do it! This time you don’t have Marcus to do it for you!]

The memory of watching Marcus boil Julian’s head inside his helmet shocked Harvey out of his stupor, and he realized the illusion surrounding the cage had changed. Instead of Heaven burning down around them, he saw Hell’s Commander floating above them like a god of war, chanting in a language Harvey couldn’t understand. Instead of a suit and tie, he wore a full suit of golden armor that looked eerily similar to Brutus’ own war regalia, but the embellishments were all a rich purple instead of pearly white. Looking down, the real Commander was now wearing the same thing, mimicking the chants being projected above the cage. They were guttural, angry sounds that ignited a fire inside his chest. Not one of vengeance or righteous fury, but pure, unadulterated wrath.

“Let me out!” Tyler barked. “You can’t just lock me up forever!”

“It’s not safe!” Harvey responded.

Just as Harvey began to worry he might have to beat up his little brother for the first time since they were little, a comforting presence washed over them. Steve’s Father’s Vigil skill, filled with his Hallowed Protector Imprint, blanketed them and washed away the insidious whispers.

“I need you two to listen,” Steve said, calm and firm. “Cash and Celeste need our help, and we can’t just abandon them for our own safety. I’m sorry I’m not strong enough to do more than this, but I can help stave off the madness long enough for the two of you to kill the Commander.”

“How? I don’t understand how you’re even doing this when Harvey’s aura is so much stronger,” Tyler asked.

“My skill is supposed to protect my family from the lies and deceit of the world, remember? I just wasn’t in the right mind to use it before, but I won’t watch my sons fight when the real enemy is waiting outside this bunker,” Steve explained.

Harvey still didn’t want to bring his Level 25 father out of the one place in Hell he might be safe, but he knew they couldn’t fight the demons and their lies alone. Sighing, he nodded his agreement. “Alright. Dad, stay behind us. Our first target is the commander.”

Pushing open the heavy bunker door, the trio charged toward the center of the cage where a bloody Celeste desperately protected Cash while he struggled to tend to her wounds. Pouring another essence potion into his mouth, he traded his sniper for Aftershock, imbuing the hammer with Flamestrike and his Architect of the Veils End Imprint. A G-Grade skill wasn’t going to do much against a demon like this, but it would help get its attention. The sound of steel striking gold rang out, followed by Tyler’s heavily dented baseball bat hitting the back of the Commander's knee. The demon buckled slightly, but Harvey could feel his aura getting stronger as each of them joined the fight.

“You really think a few humans are enough to kill me?” the Commander boomed, his projection continuing the chant even while he spoke down to them.

Harvey ducked under a flaming sword, but couldn’t avoid the kick that sent him flying into the sand. He could feel his ribs compress against his organs, and the pain was bad enough that he activated one of the healing brands on Aftershock’s handle. Tyler was also sent flying soon after, but they both clambered back to their feet and charged back in. Most of Harvey’s skills were hard to use when he had collateral damage to worry about, so he did his best, merging his old weapons with his new ones. With Aftershock in one hand and Rupture in the other, they got to work battering down the golden statue that was Hell’s Commander.

Harvey started with another Flamestrike imbued attack at the demon’s sword arm, simultaneously activating the lightning burst arrays to release all the pent-up kinetic energy stored from the last blow. The hit gave Tyler an opening to swing up at the Commander’s chin, the explosive burst of Fast Break whipping his head back and exposing his chest to a blast from Cataclysm that still floated up above. Harvey followed Julius’ shot with one of his own, shooting a bullet inscribed with a lightning burst array at his shoulder in hopes the electricity might burrow through the metallic armor. Celeste broke away from the lieutenant just long enough to carve a deep gouge in the Commander’s breastplate.

A chain of attacks landed one after another, but the demon wasn’t slowing down. If anything, his attacks got faster as some kind of buffing skill continued ramping up. Harvey suffered a sword slash to his ribs, but a blast of retaliatory forgefire from a Tempered Heart-infused Fangburner kept it from cutting too deep into the silver. Plate armor made landing a decisive blow difficult, but each gouge in the metal created a weakness the other side could exploit. Each exchange pushed them closer to a breaking point, and Heaven’s coordination had them pulling out ahead until the death of another angel Harvey hadn’t met redoubled the pressure Cash and the others were under. Steve stepped in to try and fill the gap, but his shields could only slow down the demon's attacks, not stop them. Tyler’s faceless teammates conjured with his Championship Dynasty skill fared a little better, but these were Hell’s elites.

A barbarian wielding a flaming club of what looked like solid charcoal stomped hard, sending his attackers flying a few feet into the air. Doing his best impersonation of Tyler, the demon took a horizontal swing at Steve’s chest, launching him towards the side of the cage. Steve sent out multiple chains, looking for anything he could grab onto and slow himself down, but the sandy arena gave him no purchase.

“Dad! Switch!” Harvey shouted, disengaging from the commander and running towards Cash. He worried Steve might not activate the skill in time, but just before he spun into the bones, Harvey felt a strand of his father’s aura press against his own. Accepting the connection, the two swapped places. Cash got to work healing Steve’s wounds while Harvey pulled out his sniper, using Booster to steady himself in the air. He still wasn’t great at hovering, but he managed to get two clean shots off right before an elite could execute a downed angel.

Tyler was getting faster with every strike, but it just wasn’t enough. The Commander activated another skill that shot a spike of purple energy at Celeste’s head, passing right through her helmet like it wasn’t even there. Her body held steady, but she groaned in pain while struggling to stay on her feet. Something had to change, and Tyler was ready to create an opening. Gathering all of his momentum into his bat, he unleashed a lightning bolt that bore right through the Commander’s armor, frying his insides while his muscles spasmed. As he staggered, Tyler leaped up and grabbed his helmet, dragging him onto his back where he tried wrestling it off his head. The commander scrabbled to hold it down, but Harvey launched himself like a missile, slamming the warpick side of Aftershock into the deep grooves Celeste cut into the golden chestplate. Putting all his strength and momentum into that single point cracked right through the armor, finally piercing flesh. Getting the wind knocked out of him loosened the Commander’s grip enough for Tyler to pull the helmet free, bringing him nose to nose with a floating shotgun.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

Three steel shells clattered to the ground beside what used to be a very handsome demon, desolate flames devouring the vitality trying to stem the wounds.

A kill notification appeared as the chanting projection surrounding the cage dissipated, revealing the Colosseum outside. The momentary disruption of learning their Commander had died was enough to turn a lot of fights, and the angels capitalized. The lieutenant still stuck inside the cage with them roared in anger, but was soon overwhelmed by Celeste now that she could turn all of her attention on him.

The rest of the demons fell in short order, the cage holding them prisoner falling alongside its master. Suddenly, the six of them were standing alone on the sand, surrounded by a ring of shocked demons. Harvey roared in triumph, expecting an even fiercer fight from the horde of remaining demons, but instead of fighting, they all turned to run.

“YES! Run! Run back to your pits and pray your masters don’t sacrifice you for your failure!” Celeste screamed, her voice hoarse as she held her sword high.

Heaven seemed perfectly content with letting the demons escape, choosing to push past the fleeing army to crowd the stands. The Colosseum that housed a bloodbath moments earlier was starting to look more like a sports arena, with hundreds of fans cheering their victory.

Deciding their health was more important than his own morbid curiosity, Harvey rushed over to his father, who was still being tended to by Cash. “Is everyone ok?”

“He will be. The armor held up just fine, but his body couldn’t take the hit,” Cash explained.

“I’m fine,” Steve croaked. “Just a little winded.”

Harvey rolled his eyes, knowing it was worse than that considering he was still doubled over. Tyler looked marginally better, his bat looking more like scrap metal after banging it against the immortal bone cage so many times. Harvey had no idea whether the self-repair arrays would be enough to fix it, but at least his armor should be fine. None of the angels came out of the battle unscathed, but their wounds weren’t life-threatening. Really, that was all thanks to Celeste. While Harvey had struggled to protect his family from the Commander’s insidious illusions, she’d done the work of three angels all by herself.

“Where are they going?” Tyler asked, pointing towards the stream of demons rushing out of the tunnels.

“A portal to their homeworld opened the second the quest ended,” Celeste panted, unable to hide her excitement as she picked Tyler up and hugged him. His feet dangled as she bounced up and down.

“Ok. Too tight. You’re hurting me,” Tyler groaned.

“Oops, sorry!” she apologized.

Harvey laughed at the exchange, happy to see the more human side of Celeste poking out from behind her stoic facade.

[It really is a shame that she got passed over for Brutus. She would’ve been a great Commander.]

Yeah, but it doesn’t matter now. It’s finally over.

Julius hesitated before saying, [Hey, Harvey? I’m sorry for what I said back there. Bringing up Julian was a low blow.]

That wasn’t you. Who knew the Commander would have such powerful illusions?

[Ok good. I won’t blame you for wanting to shoot me then.]

Hopefully we get a break from shooting people for a little while.