Over the centuries, Michael learned a simple truth: balance could not be maintained alone. The world was simply too vast. Too loud and all too eager to break itself.
And so, another structure followed with purpose. First came the Death Dealers werewolves forged into discipline, into resolve, into blades aimed at the throat of chaos. Then came the Order, witches who traded reckless power for him. Two forces, different in nature, bound by a single will… his own.
' Now what more can an immortal reincarnated soul ask for.'
Together, they watched the cracks in the world. Together, they responded when those cracks widened. Possession outbreaks. Infernal activity, the Order traced it and when it snapped, the Death Dealers ended it.
And of course that was when Arcadius changed the tempo with his latest agents.
Hell stopped being subtle after its lord hungered for that which he can never possess. It became loud and arrogant.
And that arrogance had brought his new servants topside. Michael slowed his steps inside the warehouse, the distant echo of gunfire punctuating the air like thunder. Harry's laughter rang out between shots, unrestrained and almost gleeful as silver casings clattered across concrete and infernal bodies turned to ash.
Michael exhaled softly.
"Who would've thought," he muttered, "that the serious Alpha of the Death Dealers would turn into a child the moment you put guns in his hands."
Another burst of automatic fire answered him, followed by an ecstatic shout.
Michael tilted his head slightly. "Don't you think that's a bit childish too?"
The air shifted as a low growl rolled out from the shadows to his right. Michael's gaze drifted downward just enough to catch the faint glow of yellow eyes burning in the dark. The figure stepped forward slowly, each movement accompanied by the scrape of metal on concrete.
Eight feet tall with a body like a corpse sculpted into a weapon, muscle wrapped in ancient bindings, skin tight and gray beneath cloth that looked more funerary than practical. Thick chains clung to its wrists and ankles.
It breathed like something that had forgotten how and at the edge of his vision, he saw another movement.
It was silent and graceful. A woman looking deathly pale. Black robes that didn't sway with motion so much as glide through space. Her presence was not as heavy as that of the brute, but more empty.
He reached out with his death sense and paused, "…So it is as I thought," he murmured.
They weren't completely mindless. Well at least not fully. There was structure here. Tethering and Intent. Enough awareness to position themselves one to distract, one to strike.
'Interesting.'
Michael spread his hands as he regarded them, "I don't suppose either of you are interested in telling me why you're topside," he said, "or why your boss thought it was a good idea to send you two out without supervision. Babysitting isn't really my thing."
The hulking infernal answered by moving first. It dropped from its perch with a thunderous crash, the pavement fractured beneath its weight as it landed a few feet from Michael. The chains around its limbs rattled, then stilled.
Behind him, the woman shifted, placing herself perfectly at his back. Michael smiled faintly.
"Well," he thought, "at least you understand positioning." His eyes flicked sideways, calculating something. 'Now what…' Then another thought struck him.
'Wait.' He angled his head slightly toward the woman, 'Can she even speak?'
Michael sighed, then straightened up and adopting a posture that was far too relaxed for the situation. He raised a finger slightly, like a man remembering an important rule mid-negotiation.
"Now hold on," he said with a light voice,"Before we do anything irreversible, I believe there's a long-standing tradition in situations like this."
The brute growled and the woman's presence tensed up.
Michael turned his head just enough to see both of them from the corner of his eye and grinned.
"Parley?"
The answer came as a scream. A sound so raw and violent it tore through the space where Michael had been standing a heartbeat earlier.
Then, the scream cut off mid-echo. He was already airborne, coat snapping behind him as the world reoriented itself around the sudden motion. Concrete below him cratered where he'd been a breath earlier, but his attention wasn't on the damage. It was on what was in front of him now.
The hulking infernal had moved and fast. Too fast for something that massive. It closed the distance in a blink, chains screaming as its arm came around in a brutal, piston-driven punch.
Michael in that moment decided to name the bulky figure and only a single name registered to him
Ankhar
An appropriate designation, 'Very agile for something your size,' he thought.
He crossed his arms just as the punch landed. The force was obscene and Michael was hurled across the warehouse, his body tearing through air before slamming into the far wall hard enough to spiderweb concrete and snap steel supports. The impact dropped him to one knee, dust billowing outward as the structure groaned in protest.
A lesser being would've stayed down but Michael immediately rose calmly.
"Alright," he muttered, rolling his shoulders. "That one had some enthusiasm behind it."
They didn't give him time to settle as the woman screamed again. The sound came out as pressure, a violent sonic wave that ripped through space, peeling paint from walls and shattering what remained of the windows. Michael surged forward into it and the world blurred as his body entered partial transformation.
His hands elongated.
Claws slid free with a metallic hiss, heat bleeding from the pores of his skin without any cracks just yet
He vanished. Ankhar turned too late as Michael reappeared behind it and drove a punch into where a kidney should have been.
Only for nothing happened. The impact didn't even stagger the creature. Michael's brow arched. "Huh."
Then, the scream came again and Michael blurred upward, reappearing high along the rafters as the sonic blast carved through the space he'd occupied. He crouched there, flames pulsing faintly beneath his skin, eyes glowing as he regarded them both.
"So," he said casually, voice carrying despite the chaos, "let me guess."
His gaze flicked to the woman.
"You scream, things die, and souls conveniently vanish afterward. Banshee."
Then to Ankhar.
"And you're the muscle."
His eyes narrowed slightly.
'Which means… You're the collector, he thought, looking back at the banshee. Cade's little harvester.'
Ankhar roared and snapped its arm outward.The chains shot toward him like living whips and then it jumped. Michael's eyes flared.
He moved and the world slowed down around him and for everything else.
His right arm cracked with the fracture lines glowing molten orange as hellfire surged beneath it. Flames licked outward, incinerating his sleeve as he appeared midair directly in Ankhar's path.
He looked it in the face, "Let's try this again," he murmured. He punched and this time the blow folded Ankhar inward like wet stone.
Michael followed with a relentless blur of motion. His fists driving into its spine, vertebra by vertebra, each impact injecting raw hellfire directly into its body. He felt the structure collapse under his hands, the interior turning to molten ruin.
He kicked off the infernal's body, using it like a springboard as the banshee screamed again
And Ankhar detonated.
The explosion was violent, a roaring bloom of fire and force as the hellfire ignited from within, tearing the creature apart in a blazing inferno that rattled the warehouse to its foundations.
Michael didn't stop as he reappeared in front of the banshee mid-scream and drove his fist straight into her throat. There was a sickening crunch as her head twisted right around.
The sound died instantly in her throat. Her hands flew up, claws scraping uselessly as he spun with a grin in his face, caught her wrist, twisted hard and hurled her backward into the collapsing firestorm.
The flames swallowed her.
Michael landed lightly, straightening up as the explosion died down in front of him. His body still glowed faintly, heat shimmering in the air around him as he rested one arm on his waist and watched the inferno settle into embers.
"That," he thought, satisfied, "should do it."
Then he heard a low groan and his expression tightened.
"…Or not!?"
Michael hadn't expected them to rise again.
That alone would have been tolerable, annoying, even but survivable things were hardly new to him. What caught him off guard was how they rose.
The banshee clawed herself out of the settling embers first. Her robe, blackened and torn moments ago, stitched itself together as if time itself were being rewound. Burnt fabric smoothed, threads reweaving in silent defiance. Beneath it, her flesh reformed, the charred skin paling back to normal and finally she set her head back to the correct position.
Michael was already moving without wasting a single second, he appeared in front of her and seized her head with one hand.
Twisted it again with sharp crack as her neck reset violently and then It healed again. Her spine realigned, skin sealing over without so much as a scar including where he burnt with his fire.
Michael froze for half a second and moved away.
"…That's new." Behind her, the sound of grinding stone drew his attention. The remains of the hulking infernal were pulling themselves together.
Torn wrappings slithered across the floor like living things, crawling back toward the broken mass at the center. Pulverized fragments rose, fusing together as if magnetized. Cracks sealed not with flesh, but with something granular.
Michael narrowed his eyes, 'Sand?'
The thing stood again, crooked at first, then straightening as its form stabilized, his expression hardened.
"How," he muttered, "did you get your hands on you two?" His mind raced. 'These weren't supposed to exist topside or anywhere at all. Creatures like this should've been devoured long ago, consumed by Malivore, buried in oblivion along with everything else too unnatural to persist.
'Except the three,' he thought grimly. 'The ones who made that gluttonous clay bastard.' He exhaled slowly.
"I continue to be impressed by that man's reach," Michael said aloud, heat rolling off his body as fine fractures began forming along his arms and torso, fire glowing beneath his skin. "But this ends now."
Before he could fully unleash his strength however, a voice cut through the chaos, "Hey! What the hell is going on in here?!"
Michael's head snapped toward the warehouse entrance and saw man stood there, phone in hand, panic written across his face. "You people need to leave now. I've called the cops!"
True to his words, sirens wailed in the distance. Michael swore under his breath. 'Shit.'
The banshee reacted instantly, she blurred toward the man, face warping into a horror as her mouth split too wide, eyes glowing as she seized him. A pale, translucent shape began tearing free from his body, his soul dragged screaming from the flesh.
"No—!" Michael blurred forward to stop her.
The hulking infernal lunged to intercept and Michael reappeared in front of it and drove a flaming fist straight into its chest. "Out of my way."
The impact launched the creature backward, sand and wrappings exploding outward as it smashed through a support pillar.
A gunshot cracked through the air, The bullet screamed toward the banshee, glowing faintly gold as it spun. But, She twisted yanking the man fully into the line of fire.
The bullet tore through him instead.
His body went limp as his soul was ripped free and devoured in a single, horrific instant.
Harry cursed and fired again and Micheal swung his flaming claw at her mere inches from her face. Then, banshee dissolved into a translucent specter, the bullet passing harmlessly through her as she reappeared beside the hulking infernal. Her hand pressed against its chest.
And they vanished with the very air snapping shut where they'd been. Harry lowered his gun, breathing hard. "Damn it."
Sirens sounded again and they were closer now.
"We need to leave. Now."
Michael stood still, staring at his hand and at the faint, transparent thing that lay against his palm a severed hand.
Harry swallowed. "Is that…?" Michael's eyes flared and the flames surged to consume the hand. The spectral hand shrieked as it burned away, reduced to nothing.
Michael looked at the corpse on the floor, jaw tightening as he had failed to kill the one who stole his soul.
"Tch."
He turned away. "Let's go."
They were gone before the authorities ever set foot inside the warehouse.
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