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"Lute! I know you're here!"
Charlie's shout echoed off the stone walls of the abandoned cathedral, desperation filling her voice.
She stood in the center of the ruin, chest heaving. Her red suit was torn at the shoulder, her body still aching from the bruises and cuts days ago. But she didn't care about the cuts, nor the burning in her lungs.
The only thing that drew her attention was the silence.
It was too quiet.
Vaggi had been missing for days. And the note Lute had left was clear. Come alone. Or she dies.
"Please!" Charlie yelled again, turning in a slow circle, her hands raised in a gesture of surrender. She would try her best to avoid combat, if it was even possible.
"Just... just give her back! We don't have to do this!"
The silence held for a heartbeat, before the air above her tore open.
Charlie threw herself to the right, hitting the dirt hard as a sword of angelic steel slammed into the floor, shattering the stone where she had just been standing.
"You never learn, do you, Princess?"
Lute's voice dripped from above, cold and sharp.
"Always begging. Always talking."
Charlie scrambled to her feet, but before she could steady herself, a blur of black and white slammed down.
Lute landed in a crouch just a few feet away, the impact cracking the stone tiles beneath her boots. But she didn't rush to attack.
Slowly, she reached down, her gloved fingers wrapping around the hilt of the sword she had just thrown.
Skreeeee.
With a nasty, grating sound that set Charlie's teeth on edge, Lute ripped the blade free from the ground. Sparks flew as the metal scraped against stone.
"It's pathetic."
She stood to her full height, rolling her neck with a sickening pop, and leveled the tip of the sword at Charlie's throat. The glowing grin on her mask was distorted, mocking the fear in Charlie's eyes.
"Go on," she hissed, "Scream for help. It's the only thing you're good at."
Lute didn't wait for her to answer. She pulled back, and swung.
Clang.
Charlie summoned a shield of magic just in time to block the vicious slash aimed at her neck. The impact shuddered through her arm, rattling her bones.
"Lute, stop!" Charlie gritted out, pushing back.
She could have blasted the exorcist across the room. She could have melted the floor beneath Lute's feet.
But she didn't.
Instead, she just shoved, trying to create distance.
If I hurt her, I might lose Vaggi, Charlie thought, panic fluttering in her chest like a trapped bird. She didn't know what to do. She couldn't risk striking back, not when Lute was the only key she had.
But hesitation in a fight against the lieutenant of the Exorcists was a mistake. Lute saw the mercy in Charlie's eyes, and she exploited it without any hesitation. She feinted high.
When Charlie raised her arm to block, Lute immediately dropped low, sweeping Charlie's legs out from under her.
Thud.
Charlie hit the ground hard, the breath knocked out of her lungs. She scrambled backward, her palms scraping against the grit, but she didn't get far.
The tip of Lute's sword dropped, hovering just an inch from her throat.
Charlie froze, her back pressed against the wall.
Lute stood over her. She hadn't even bothered to take off her mask. She tilted her head, letting that same sneer bear down on Charlie.
"Truly pathetic."
Lute's voice was muffled behind the helmet, but the disgust was still crystal clear.
"All that power... and you're still cowering on the floor."
"Where... is she?" Charlie wheezed, her eyes locking onto the Exorcist's face, burning with fury. She didn't care about the sword at her throat. "Where is Vaggi?"
"Oh, she's here," Lute chuckled darkly. Somehow, she looked... excited. "She's been waiting for you. We both have.
"I realized that if I want to break you... I don't need to lift a finger."
Her grin widened, taking a slow step back, sheathing her sword with a click.
She raised her hand and snapped her fingers. The sound was sharp like a gunshot in the empty hall.
"It's time," Lute called out into the shadows. "Come now, greet the Princess."
Clack. Clack. Clack.
Charlie pushed herself off the wall, her eyes searching the gloom. She expected to see Vaggi hurt, or in chains. But when the figure stepped into the crimson moonlight, Charlie didn't call out.
At first, she didn't even know who it was.
The woman standing before her was like a total stranger. She was dressed in the grey and black uniform of the Exorcists. The armor of a killer.
But it was the silhouette that really turned her hope into desperation.
Everything was wrong. Gone was the soft, long hair that Charlie loved to brush in the mornings. Gone was the bow Charlie carefully tied for her every single day.
In its place was a short, jagged bob cut. It was something Charlie hadn't seen in years. A painful memory she had almost forgotten existed.
"What...?" Charlie started, her voice trembling.
Then, her eyes landed on the face.
The expression was dead, devoid of anything human. But there, stark against the grey skin, was a red 'X' over the person's left eye.
The breath died in Charlie's throat.
"Vaggi...?" Charlie whispered, the name feeling heavy with horror on her tongue.
Charlie was looking at a ghost. No, worse. She was looking at a version of Vaggi where Charlie had never existed.
Every meal they shared, every night they held each other, every smile—just, gone.
Vaggi remained perfectly still, she was looking at Charlie, but she wasn't seeing her. That pink and golden eye, which once knew every inch of Charlie's face, now simply swept over her. There was no any spark of recognition in there.
Sick fury boiled up in Charlie's chest, burning away the fear. She tore her gaze away from Vaggi and looked up at Lute, her voice cracking into a scream.
"What did you do to her?!" Charlie shouted, tears stinging her eyes.
"I didn't do anything to her," Lute replied smoothly, her voice calm against Charlie's panic.
She walked slowly around Vaggi, circling her like a sculptor admiring a finished statue.
"I simply... cleaned up your mess."
Lute stopped behind Vaggi, resting a hand on her shoulder. Vaggi didn't flinch. She didn't lean into the touch, nor did she pull away. She just stood there.
"You broke her, Princess. She was never strong, sure. But you filled her head with illusory dreams and weakness. You made her soft."
Lute's fingers tapped Vaggi's shoulder. "I had to peel all that rot away. I scraped you out of her, layer by layer, until only the best remained."
Lute leaned in close to Vaggi's ear, the grin on her mask glowing brighter in the dark.
"And look at her now. Pure. Lethal. Perfect."
"She's not a thing for you to fix!" Charlie screamed, her hands balling into fists, raw hellfire flaring dangerously around her. "She's a person! She's—"
"She is a weapon," Lute cut her off cold. She leaned in, her voice low and dangerous near Vaggi's ear. "We don't tolerate mistakes, do we, soldier?"
Vaggi didn't even blink. Her voice was flat, dead.
"No, Ma'am."
"And what do we do with filth?"
"We purge it."
Lute grinned, satisfied. "Prove it, soldier."
"Kill the demon."
Before Charlie could react, Vaggi moved, the angelic spear glowing with holy light in her hand. She launched herself forward, closing the distance in a heartbeat.
"Vaggi, no!"
Charlie gasped, throwing her hands up. She held up shield barely just in time.
CLANG.
The impact was heavy enough to crack the stone floor beneath Charlie's heels. Vaggi's spear slammed into the barrier, the tip inches from Charlie's face.
The impact brought them face-to-face. Through the crimson light of the shield, Charlie found herself staring directly into that single, unblinking eye with fear, searching desperately for a soul that wasn't there.
It was terrifyingly blank.
No gritting her teeth, no anger. She was trying to kill Charlie with the same casual, empty expression one might have while opening a door.
"Vaggi, please! Look at me!" Charlie pleaded, her voice shaking as she struggled to hold the shield. "It's me! Stop! Please—"
Vaggi pulled the spear back and struck again.
Clang.
And again.
Every blow was precisely aimed at a vital point. Throat, heart, eyes. These weren't the moves Charlie knew. She had seen Vaggi practice them a thousand times, but never this brutal, merciless.
"Don't hold back, soldier!" Lute called out from the sidelines, laughing. "Aim for the neck! Prove your worth!"
Vaggi obeyed.
She feinted low, forcing Charlie to drop her shield, then spun with terrifying grace, swinging the shaft of the spear toward Charlie's head.
Charlie ducked, barely missing the blow. She scrambled back, tripping over rubble, refusing to attack.
"I won't fight you!" Charlie yelled, backing away until she hit a pillar. "Vaggi, I am not going to hurt you!"
Even if Vaggi heard her, she didn't care.
She twirled the spear, entering a combat stance that was perfect and utterly heartless. Vaggi advanced, stepping over the debris, ready to finish the job.
Charlie swallowed hard, planting her feet. She watched Vaggi's shoulders, waiting for the familiar shift in weight, the slightest hesitation before a strike that Vaggi always had when sparring with friends.
And it never came.
She just lunged.
There was no angelic grace that Charlie knew by heart in that motion. She moved like an executioner, her eye looking right through her, as if the woman she loved had been hollowed out, leaving only this cold, obedient vessel behind.
Squelch.
A shock of cold pain flared in Charlie's forearm as she failed to block in time. She gasped, stumbling back, clutching her arm as blood began to soak her sleeve.
The pain in her arm was sharp, but the ache in her chest was even more unbearable.
For a split second, Charlie was still waiting for hope that she didn't even believe. She had waited for the flicker of regret, for the widening of the eye, for the Vaggi who would drop her weapon and rush to apologize.
Tears blurred Charlie's vision, she looked for a trace—any trace—of the person who had held her hand a countless time. The one who would always kiss her awake with a gentle smile. The one who would always choose to stand between her and the world every time, who had been her pillar, her everything.
But there was nothing. Vaggi looked at Charlie's bleeding arm with the same indifference she would show a broken table leg.
Realization finally hit her. This wasn't her Vaggi.
Years of love, of healing, of building a life together... erased in a heartbeat. Charlie stared at the stranger wearing her lover's face, and for the first time, a true, paralyzing fear took hold of her.
She's gone.
"Aw, look at that face," Lute laughed, clearly enjoying the view. "You look so confused, Princess. You're waiting for her to apologize? To run over and kiss it better?"
She stepped closer, her vicious grin grew even wider.
"See, that's your problem. You took a wolf and tried to turn her into a house cat. You made her weak."
Lute flicked a speck of dust from Vaggi's shoulder.
"You know, she put up one hell of a fight. For quite some time.
"But when I showed herself in the mirror... God, it was fucking pathetic. If only you could see her like that... I actually had to sedate her to make her behave."
Lute leaned in, her voice dripping with disgust.
"It was disgusting to watch, and it's all your fault. You broke her long before I ever got my hands on her.
"I just did her a favor, Princess."
A wave of nausea rolled through Charlie's stomach. She didn't want to know. But she couldn't stop the nightmare from playing out. Against her will, the details Lute spat out began to take shape.
Charlie's mind tried to paint the picture. She imagined Vaggi alone in a cold cell, curling up on the floor, clawing at a mirror with bloody fingers, screaming with no one to hear.
No.
Charlie shut her eyes tight, shoving the image out of her head. She couldn't think about it. Not now.
So instead, she let the heartbreak boil. The trembling in her hands stopped, replaced by a tension so tight her knuckles turned white.
Lute was still smiling, treating Vaggi's torture like a casual anecdote, like a favor. She was laughing at her. She was laughing at her pain.
Something inside Charlie snapped.
"A favor?"
A demonic distortion laced her words, somehow made the very air in the cathedral feel heavy.
Slowly, she stood up.
The shadows in the room seemed to lengthen, drawn toward her. Her horns spiraled out, and her eyes, which usually were so full of light, now a burning red. She looked straight at Lute, and for the first time since their encounter, there was no mercy in her gaze.
"You listened to her scream... and you felt pride?"
Lute didn't answer, she just widened her grin, savoring the question.
Her indifference burned in Charlie's chest. She took a step forward, her hands shaking as she gestured wildly to the silent soldier.
"She's not weak!" Charlie shouted, her voice trembling with fury. "She had a home. She had a life. And you ripped it away from her like it was nothing! How could you put someone through things like that and call it 'pathetic'?"
Charlie turned her head, her eyes locking back onto Vaggi. She was desperate for a sign—a flinch, a tear, a furrow of the brow. Anything to show that Vaggi heard Charlie defensing her, that Vaggi remembered the life Charlie was fighting for.
Please, just look at me.
But Vaggi stood still as a statue. Her face remained a blank mask. She hadn't reacted to the story of her own torture, nor to Charlie's voice.
The silence from the woman she loved hurt her more than any mockery from Lute.
Charlie turned back to Lute, grief was still heavy in her chest, but as she looked at the grinning exorcist, something shifted. The sadness in her eyes deepened, settling into an aching pity.
"How empty are you...?"
"How broken do you have to be inside to look at someone in that much pain and call it a 'favor'?"
Lute's smile faltered. She had expected fear, or rage. But this—this condescending, soft-hearted pity from a demon only made her skin crawl.
"Don't look at me like that," Lute snapped, her voice losing its playful edge. She sounded insulted. "I don't need your sympathy, Princess. I need you to pay for what you've done.
"I'm going to make her tear you apart. And if I'm feeling generous... I'll give her back to you, just before your last breath.
"I'm going to wake her up with your blood on her hands. I'll make her see what she did. That's when I'll put that spear through her chest."
She snapped her sword up, the tip leveled straight at Charlie's eyes, giving one last command.
"End it, soldier. Cut her throat."
Vaggi, who had shown no emotion during their whole conversation, moved instantly at Lute's words.
She launched herself off the back foot, the spear almost blurring into a streak of light aimed directly at Charlie's neck. She stared up at Charlie, her eye, which would always soften the moment Charlie walked into a room, was now hard as flint. It stripped Charlie of every memory they shared, telling her without words that the Vaggi she knew was no longer in there.
But this time, Charlie didn't scramble back or try to dodge, or raise her hands to shield herself. She just closed her eyes.
I'm so, so sorry, Vaggi, Charlie thought, the apology echoing in the hollow silence of her mind. I didn't want it to be this way.
Clang.
A dull, heavy thud of metal hitting something immovable shuddered through the ruins.
Vaggi froze. Her spear had stopped inches from Charlie's throat.
A hand was wrapped around the glowing blade, Charlie's skin sizzling and smoking against the angelic steel, but her grip didn't waver.
"I tried," Charlie whispered, the deep, demonic voice didn't even feel like hers.
Slowly, Charlie opened her eyes, the usually warm gaze had turned a glowing, menacing crimson that burned with focused rage. The red horns pierced even longer through her blonde hair that was whipping around her wildly.
Charlie looked down at Vaggi. Through all that rage and anger deep inside, there was still a crushing sorrow in her eyes when she looked at the one person she loved more than anything.
"I tried to be better," Charlie said, her voice cracking under the weight of her transformation.
"But you just won't let me."
She tightened her grip on the spear. With a sickening crunch of metal, the angelic weapon snapped in half in Charlie's bare hand.
She clutched the broken pieces of the spear, holding them close to her chest as if they were fragile.
Images flashed through her mind.
Vaggi laughing at her terrible jokes. Vaggi teaching her how to dance. The first time Charlie tied that ribbon in her hair, and the way Vaggi had leaned into her touch with a rare genuien smile on her face. The moment she knew she wanted to spend the rest of her immortality with Vaggi.
Every memory was a knife cutting through her heart.
Single line of tear rolled down Charlie's cheek.
A concussive blast of black and crimson erupted from her body. The force was absolute. It caught Lute mid-step as she tried to flee, hurling the exorcist backward through the air with enough force to shatter the stone banister she crashed into.
At the same time, Vaggi tried to brace herself, digging her heels in, but even she couldn't stand against the tide. She was swept away, tumbling uncontrollably across the ruins until she hit the debris pile.
Silence fell over the room again, heavier than before.
Charlie remained standing, breathing hard, the crimson magic glow around her pulsing in time with her racing heart.
Somehow through her power, she felt something else was broken from the blast
From the pile of debris where Vaggi was, came a low, pained groan that made Charlie's heart stop, snapping her back to reality.
"Vaggi!"
The name tore from Charlie's throat as she scrambled toward her, skidding to her knees beside the rubble. The terrifying majesty of the Princess of Hell was gone in a second.
Vaggi was lying on her side, hands clutching her head, her body trembling violently.
"I've got you, I've got you," Her voice was shaking, she pulled Vaggi up from the sharp stones and into her arms, claws retracting just enough to stroke Vaggi's cheek with trembling fingers. "It's me, Vaggi, please—"
Vaggi's eye was still squeezed shut, a whimper escaping her lips, like someone waking up from a deep anesthesia.
But slowly, her eye fluttered open. She looked up, her vision swimming like a storm of confusion and pain, until finally, she found the tear-streaked face above her.
"Ch... Charlie?"
Charlie let out a sob of relief, pressing her forehead against Vaggi's. "I'm here, Vaggi. I'm right here."
But before more of the comforting words could come out, the moment of peace was shattered suddenly.
Vaggi's pupil dilated. A sudden jolt of terror seized her, as if a wire had been pulled tight inside her brain. She grabbed the lapels of Charlie's suit, her grip weak but frantic.
"No... no, don't..." Vaggi started to hyperventilate, her eye darting wildly around the gloom. "Don't let her... please... don't let me go back..."
Her grip tightened with a bone-deep fear, shaking uncontrollably.
"Charlie, please, don't let me go... Please..."
"I won't! I promise!" Charlie cried, hugging her tighter, trying to use her own body as a shield. "She's never touching you again—"
Scrape.
The sound of a boot sliding on stone cut through the tenderness like a knife.
Vaggi screamed with agony and arched her back in Charlie's arms, as if an invisible drill was boring into her skull.
Across the room, Lute had pulled herself out of the crater in the wall. She was glaring as she raised a hand, fingers twitching in a complex gesture, trying to re-knit the psychic command that Charlie had feared.
"Get up, soldier," Lute spat, wiping blood from her mouth. "Playtime's over."
Vaggi let out a wet, ragged cry, her body seizing like she was struck by lightning. She grabbed at her hair, head thrashing from side to side, desperate to escape the noise screaming inside her skull. "Make it stop... please..."
"No, no, no!" Charlie cried out, panic spiking in her chest, her own eyes welling up. She grabbed Vaggi's wrists, forcing them away from her head before she could hurt herself.
"Don't listen to it! Vaggi, please, stay—!"
But her voice was lost in the agony. Vaggi writhed in her arms, a prisoner in her own mind, her body curling tighter as if trying to hide from the voice inside her head. She was slipping away again, dragged back into the dark where Charlie couldn't follow.
It shattered the last thread of Charlie's restraint.
Charlie turned her gaze to Lute, as the air in the room seemed to get even hotter. The ground around them began to hiss, molten cracks spreading out from where Charlie knelt, forming a circle of absolute power.
The suffocating, heavy aura of pure demonic energy flooded the room, crushing down on Lute like the weight of an entire ocean.
"Leave."
The word was vibrated into the very atoms of the air.
Charlie's eyes were a flame burning with a furious, promised violence that was infinitely more terrifying than her rage.
"Leave. While I am still letting you."
Lute froze, her hand hovering in the air, the spell half-woven. She looked at Charlie, really looked at her, and for the first time that day, the Exorcist commander did the math.
Looking at the monster guarding the traitor, instead the naive, soft-hearted princess, she realized she was staring down a cataclysm.
Lute slowly lowered her hand.
The pressure on Vaggi's mind instantly lifted, leaving her limp and panting in Charlie's arms.
Lute straightened her posture, trying to salvage her dignity, as she took a cautious step back toward the exit.
"Keep her then, my job's done anyway." Lute sneered, her voice regaining that twisted, arrogant edge. She looked at the trembling figure in Charlie's arms with the satisfaction of a vandal admiring a ruined painting.
"She's all yours, Princess. Have fun trying to put the pieces back together."
With a sharp crack of her wings, Lute launched herself into the air, shooting out of the shattered roof and into the crimson sky, away from the monster she had awakened.
Charlie let out a breath she didn't know she was holding. The red haze of rage lifted, leaving her cold and shivering. Her horns smoothed back in and disappeared, the oppressive weight of her power vanishing.
Charlie slumped, the monster finally replaced by the worried-sick lover.
"It's over now... she's gone, she can't hurt you anymore." Charlie whispered hoarse and trembling. "I'm here, Vaggi... please stay with me... please, don't leave..."
Vaggi didn't answer. She had stopped screaming, but the shaking hadn't stopped. She lay curled against Charlie's chest, her breathing jagged and shallow, her hands still clutching Charlie's coat so tightly that her knuckles were white. She looked small. So incredibly small.
Charlie carefully shifted her weight, ignoring the pain in her own arm, and pulled Vaggi closer, wrapping her fully in an embrace that tried to block out the rest of the world.
She reached up, her hand hovering for a second before gently touching the back of Vaggi's head.
There was no long, soft hair to brush through anymore. Just the sharp, jagged ends that felt foreign against her palm.
A fresh wave of tears blurred Charlie's vision.
A thousand apologies and "I love yous" rushed to her lips, choking her. She wanted to scream, she wanted to apologize for failing her, she wanted to promise that everything would be okay.
Charlie opened her mouth to say something—anything, but what could she possibly say?
Eventually, she leaned down and kissed the side of Vaggi's temple, lingering there for a moment.
"I'm not going anywhere, and I'm never letting you go, never."
"I've got you," Charlie whispered, holding her tighter. "I've got you. You're going home."
Slowly, carefully, she scooped Vaggi up into her arms, standing up amidst the wreckage. She didn't look back at the ruin, nor up at the sky. She just held her world tight against her chest and began to walk, carrying her away from the nightmare.
One step at a time.