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Srida didn't really remember falling asleep, though her last conscious memory was leaning against Leo. It was the sort of situation where she expected to wake up peacefully, or at least with a warm feeling that something was going right for once. Yet neither of them were afforded such a luxury. Because her bulk was blocking the entrance to her sleeping quarters--and the noise from the outside--both of them missed the general clamor that was rising in Stillrock. It wasn't until a hellhound that neither of them could remember the name of pushed against Srida's lower body that was blocking the doorway. It was enough to pull her from her sleep and groggily shift to see what was happening.

He didn't even need to say anything either, the situation spoke for itself. The sound wasn't close, but it certainly carried. It was that same brutal crack that rivaled a thunderclap Srida had heard in her first day in the umbral plain. Her eyes locked with the hellhound and nothing needed to be said, the message was clear. They needed to evacuate. Immediately.

"To the large tunnel. He's coming from the west," was all hellhound said, then quickly turning away to continue checking the rooms for stragglers. It was part of their job as the guard to make sure everyone was evacuating.

Leo had been asleep and hadn't really woken when Srida had shifted her mass underneath him, but the echoing crack snapped him right out of his slumber. His whole body jerked upright and he was on his feet in an instant. It was the reaction of a solider and it would have been impressive if he didn't bang his head against the roof in the process. The gorgon watched this through her hairsnakes during her brief exchange with the hellhound and had to suppress a laugh.

If there was humor in the situation, Leo didn't see it. He was outside her little sleeping room before she could otherwise react, warping space and on the cliffside instantly, desperately looking around for the source. Srida followed and was beside him again moments later, watching him intently.

"Are you alright?"

The displacer had tight lips and a powerful frown, his ears moving like a cat's would, searching for the sounds origin. His senses were indeed more finely tuned than hers, but still seemed to come up with nothing.

"No. Big no. A lot of things just came back to me." His voice was curt and clipped.

Srida bit her lip. "As in...memories?"

He nodded, then made a gesture to the giant tunnel. "Yes. I'll explain on the way, but we need to run. Now." He started down the cliffside with agility she couldn't hope to match, but went slow enough she could keep up, barely.

"This is one of those times context isn't comforting," he added.

Srida dropped from tier to tier, skipping the majority of the trail and making it to the ground a couple seconds after Leo did, and immediately heading for the large eastern tunnel. She had to suppress her ability to sprint, knowing it would burn her out and inevitably be slower in the long run. Still, as a gorgon she could move deceptively fast for not actually having legs to run on.

All the inhabitants of Stillrock were funneling into the tunnel and it was probably a good thing the Umbral Scourge was on the other side of the village. Srida wasn't sure how all of them would be able to evacuate the other way should he come from the east. The tunnels to the west were tightly packed and would generally impede a crowd trying to traverse them quickly, but at least they would have the advantage of spreading people out across multiple routes should they be caught trying to escape. The idea of the Umbral Scourge getting the drop on them while everyone was in this single tunnel sent chills down Srida's spine.

Once they had all settled into a decent pace, Leo dropped onto all six legs and Srida lowered herself so she was level with him, the two of them moving at a pace was a bit faster than a humans jog.

"What is it?" she asked quietly, hoping nobody was listening in over the general clamor. "What came to you?"

"It doesn't make sense," he said quietly. "I have to be wrong but..."

"But?"

He sighed. "That crack? It sounds just like a weapon from my world."

Srida looked at him to continue.

He just shook his head. "I...don't know how to explain it. I know the guy, Dobrin, he went through the portal a couple minutes before I did, trying to slow them down. That's his rifle, I know that sound!"

"But the Umbral Scourge has been down here for over a thousand years," Srida said, completing his thought. "So they aren't the same person."

"They can't be," Leo agreed. "But if that's the same weapon--or the same technology--it will instantly kill anything it hits," he said darkly, looking to her with a fear she hadn't seen from him before. "We can not be found by whoever is using it."

The way he emphasized that statement resonated with her. There was something about it coming from Leo, critical of the might of the upper hellions, critical of the power of magic in general, stating the absolute danger of something. Before Srida could respond, through her hairsnakes she saw Gowris flying in behind them, easily outstripping the crowed and gliding in directly overtop the two of them.

"I haven't had the chance to go over the routine with you two yet," the dragonborn shouted from about ten feet above them, his voice cutting through the noise easily. "I didn't expect this to happen so soon, but once we're through the tunnel, I'll see to showing you two where to go, okay? There are plenty of hideouts, we're going to put you two in a small one near the exit!"

Because of the nature of her serpentine form, Srida was able to flip herself over completely and look up to Gowris while still slithering across the ground at her running pace. "Why near the tunnels entrance?" She wanted to be as far from the Umbral Scourge as possible.

Gowris shook his head dismissively. "Because it won't be occupied! It's a panic spot for people who don't know other hiding spots, or don't have one of their own!"

As poorly as the idea sat with her, it made sense. With some two thousand people all rushing for places to hide, having a spot reserved for people unfamiliar with all the safeholes was probably the best thing. Odds were all the other spots he could think of would be occupied by someone.

She gave the dragonborn a curt nod.

"Once you're through, go right and follow the wall for a couple hundred feet and wait there for me!"

Gowris didn't even wait for her reply, beating his wings and shooting ahead, leaving the two of them among a crowd of hellhounds, lesser dragonborn and succubi variants. The rest of the journey was in relative silence as well, most people had stopped talking and were trying not to get too winded from the running but still keep up a decent pace. Both Leo and Srida were breathing heavy, their bodies built for bursts of speed and not sustained running.

By the time they reached the tunnel's exit, they were both gasping for air and Srida had no longer had any qualms with taking a close hiding spot. She wasn't overheating--as a hellion that wasn't a concern for her while exercising--but she felt physically drained in a way that her sparing practice didn't do to her. Her body simply wasn't built for this.

Gowris was waiting for them at the exit, hovering twenty some feet above the crowd and directing people who looked to him for it. Mostly everyone knew where to go, but he and the others capable of flight were doing their best to keep things organized in the face of panic. The cracks heard earlier were sounding again, echoing down the tunnel and riling the crowd up.

Upon seeing them exit the tunnel, Gowris immediately flew down and gestured for the two of them to follow. This whole region was the rockfruit fields they were quite well versed in, Srida having spent a decent amount of time patrolling it, flushing out the imps that routinely tried to steal the food and learning to deal with more threating demons that passed through on a daily basis. Yet she had never seen a decent place to hide in this region--it was almost like they had made a point to fill in out potential holes an imp could lurk in.

The answer was beneath one of the many plants itself. Gowris lifted one of the giant gourds up, then moving the giant stone slab underneath it. In her exhaustion and borderline panic, it still surprised Srida. The hole was just large enough for her to slide into, no more.

"In," Gowris said curtly, gesturing for her to go first. "It get's larger as you go down, don't worry."

She took his word for it, slithering down into the tunnel and doing her best to ignore the claustrophobic feeling it brought her. These cramped holes always made a primal part of her mind wonder if she was going to get stuck and be unable to crawl out. Fortunately, it widened pretty quickly, opening up into a small underground cave, where Leo crouched waiting.

"Right," Srida muttered, remembering he could warp through walls. "Did you know this was here?"

Leo shook his head. "Not until just now," he said in a low voice.

"You two good down there?" Gowris' voice echoed down the tunnel Srida had just slithered down.

"All good!" Leo called back. "You can seal it off!"

A grunt of affirmation followed, and the little amount of light leaking down the passageway vanished, leaving the two of them with only their thermal vision. Overhead the clamor continued, now significantly muted and leaving the two of them alone with their thoughts, fears, and each other.

"How is he coming from the other side?" Srida whispered, already feeling like she had to stay deathly silent. "Last time he came from and left to the east."

"I wish I knew," Leo hissed. "But nobody down here has any maps. I can't tell you how much that bothers me."

Srida frowned, then winced as the alien weapon cracked again in the distance, now substantially more muted by the earth between them and the sound. "It surprised me too," she admitted. "But when only a couple of them can fly and few venture far from the village..."

Leo's reply was irritated silence for over a minute as he sat on the thought, the two of them listening to the last of the people filtering out of the giant tunnel. The weapon's shots were still quite far off in the distance, more of a thunderous rumble than the brutal crack Srida had heard her first day in the umbral plain, but indeed drawing closer.

"This is our chance," Leo said suddenly, looking up to her.

Horror crept into Srida's expression. She knew where he was going with this--and didn't even want to consider it.

"No!" Leo said, voice hushed. "Hear me out! We're currently the closest to the tunnel. He's likely to come through this way! Once he's passed us..."

Srida bit her lip nervously, trying to calm her hairsnakes when she realized they were basically lashing about. The way her vision swarmed when they moved like that almost made her dizzy.

"That could go so wrong," she said in a small voice. "What if he doubles back? Or notices us when getting out? We can't outrun him."

The weapon rang out again.

"Trust me," Leo said flatly. "We'll know when he's nearby. We just have to leave after he passes by. It's that or you get outed by the imp. Then we're both stuck down here."

The idea did not sit well with her one bit. Perhaps it was that first day in the umbral plain, hiding underground and hearing the fighting, feeling the magic from the other demons washing over her, and knowing that the Umbral Scourge stood in total defiance to such titans--it left her feeling terrified. That wasn't a monster--it was the harbinger of something far more dangerous.

Yet despite all that, she nodded. "Okay," she finally said, voice still tiny. "It's just that...if we die to him...it's truly the end."

"I never believed in the afterlife," Leo said shortly. "Yet we stood defiant in the face of death regardless. This is no different."

The bluntness of the statement rang in her ears for a moment. Yet it made sense--his people didn't know of magic. He seemed to catch onto her thought process and softened his expression slightly.

"It's not bravery if you know you're safe," he said softly. "That's what makes it so admirable."

Then, after a moments silence, he dropped the serious expression and adopted an annoyed frown, almost comically so. "That sounded really arrogant, didn't it?"

The tension completely broken between them, Srida cracked a smile and looked down despite herself, and despite the danger and horrors outside. Glad she no longer looked tense as a bowstring, Leo walked over to her on all six of his limbs, unable to stand upright in the low cave. Apparently after last night, he figured it was okay just to lay on her serpentine half, on her.

Srida finally had to admit to herself what was happening--what had been happening to her since she'd first arrived in the umbral plain. The transformation into a gorgon--a female gorgon--had significantly altered her mind. Though she had told herself it wasn't the case, Srida wasn't anywhere near as competitive as Andreas was, and Srida had absolutely no sexual interest in women. But it did feel natural to snuggle right up to Leo, feeling his soft fur against her skin and scales...but the gorgon still too awkward and uncomfortable with her new body to push things any further. And Leo was purring, the deep rumble in his chest slowly rising in volume and filling the cave. Her personality--her identity told her this shouldn't be what she wanted--but emotion didn't follow those rules. Despite her massive size that both of them laid on, she felt tiny in his four arms, and loved it.

"Are we going to fall asleep the way we woke up?" Leo murmured.

Srida shook her head faintly. "We aren't sleeping through this."

The gorgon was right. In the half hour that followed, the threating rumbles grew closer and closer, bringing an anxiety that neither of them could fall asleep with. It wasn't like sleeping through a thunderstorm--it was like trying to sleep with a bear outside the window, just waiting to break the door down. The two of them took what little comfort they could find in each other's touch and for a while, Srida was almost relaxed. But then the fighting reached them.

Srida wasn't sure if it was the Umbral Scourge pursuing the demons through the tunnel, or if he was slaughtering them as they tried to swarm him, but it was very distinct when they emerged into the same cavern they were hiding in. Something incredibly heavy moved outside--likely a trepidian--that shook the ground with every step. Whether the titan had followed the Umbral Scourge through the tunnel or come from some other area was impossible to tell from underground, but the two of them felt it's magical influence.

Foolishly like every other titan that had stood up the Umbral Scourge, it was so convinced of its invulnerability that it tried to subdue him with magic. Both hellions in the underground cave felt it, a powerful wave of fear that seemed to suck the energy right from their bones--projected terror so powerful it would make the most disciplined armies break and flee. Then as it roared--a primal scream that rivaled its projected terror--it stomped the ground with a foot.

Right above their cave.

In the instant that the ground caved in to crush them, Leo reacted. With his arms wrapped around Srida, when he disappeared into the fourth dimension he brought the gorgon with him, pulling her into that strange physical space where they looked into the world from a perspective that revealed all. Leo wasn't particularly skilled with his power, but he did have about two seconds of it before they would be dropped back into the three-dimensional world, and in those two seconds, time slowed to a crawl.

Towering over them was the tripidian, the giant elephant-centaur-like demon wielding a battle-axe twice the size of a man and one of its feet sunk into the ground where their cave had been. To its right, several demonic hellhounds, all charging. And directly in front of the tripidian was the Umbral Scourge himself. Even as she moved towards the surface of the ground, knowing to be caught inside it when she reemerged into the three dimensions would be death, Srida still had a hard time understanding what she was looking at. Somehow from this perspective, she saw them all from a new angle, looking at the scene from all angles at once, while simultaneously seeing through them. The gorgon was used to having a field of view that covered every direction, but this was a new level of all-seeing.

She could see through them all but the Umbral Scourge. Like the other creatures, she could see him from all directions simultaneously, but it was impossible to see inside his armor like she could see the innards of the demons. He was shielded somehow, blocking Leo's magic from penetrating--blocking all magic from penetrating. Still, it was the first time Srida had seen what the entirety umbral plain feared, and she was struck by the banality of it.

It was indeed just a man, smaller than Leo even, encased in grey plate armor. The armor was intricately woven, the joints hooked together in such a way that no skin showed--probably so perfectly that it was airtight, protecting the man inside from the oven-like heat of the umbral plain. In his hands was something like a crossbow--long barreled, and pointed directly at the tripidian.

Then they dropped back into the physical realm.

It all happened so suddenly. Srida saw the barrel flash, and in an instant her ears deafened. No crack, no noise, just pain and ringing. Leo stumbled, not used to warping with another person, and disoriented from the experience. Somehow he'd appeared in a leaned back position, and fell onto his back.

Above them, the tripidian died silently, it's head gone.

Leo's vision still spinning, the gorgon watched in horror as the titan fell to its side, directly towards both of them. In that second before death, Srida acted. She scooped Leo up in both her arms and exploded forwards like a viper, her compressed body acting like a spring and launching Leo away. But the gorgon wasn't so lucky. Her movement was so fast and explosive it was impossible for the eye to track, but a snake's strike wasn't a jump. As she reached the end of her strike, her movement stopped because half her body was still anchored, and she was left there under the falling titan.

Leo felt like he'd just been hit by a truck. Srida had grabbed and threw him with such force and speed he wasn't sure what had happened in the moment, and it was only once in the air that the displacer twisted to see it happen.

The tripidian's titanic bulk fell on top of Srida, crushing her into the ground, and killing her instantly.

In that instant, Leo's mind went into overdrive. His first, gut reaction was shock, then horror, and the next was panic.

No! She wasn't dead! Her soul hadn't been destroyed!

But now she was trapped. And so was he.

Even then, before he hit the ground, Leo saw the red smoke that was her soul-essence drifting into the air.

Then, as he slid across the dirt, his eyes fell on the Umbral Scourge.

All his thoughts fell into place in that moment. Like a dream forgotten until the memory jogged by something during waking hours, it came back to him. The Mark II Ironshell, a prototype power armor built to use umbral energy. The Red Lancer, an anti-tank rifle repurposed to charge in the battlefield off of umbral energy. The hellfire shotgun across his back, a close-range weapon built to harness that same power, and the LK645's, two pistols at his hips also constructed to be powered by the energy that flowed through hell.

The Umbral Scourge _was _Dobrin Kalovich. Special forces, war-tech beta tester, and the one who had stepped through that portal not three minutes before Leo. As the demons poured through, he roared at them to get the portal closed, and stepped through himself.

To hell with the people who'd said the Umbral Scourge had been here for a millennia. It simply wasn't possible. But Leo knew fully well by watching Kalovich draw the dead hellhound's soul-essence into his weapons and armor that such a fate meant permanent death. He couldn't let that happen to Srida--or himself.

There was no way he could physically stop Dobrin, anyone in an Ironshell suit was essentially invulnerable. And in his current state, Leo looked just like his enemy. The displacer beast gritted his teeth. He had to prove otherwise.

With Dobrin--at least he seriously hoped it was him--focused on a pack of hellhounds charging him from the tunnel, Leo made the biggest gamble of his life. He broke into a run on all six legs, claws ripping into the ground and sending him moving far faster than he had ever moved on foot. He felt like a cheetah, covering the two hundred feet between him and the Umbral Scourge in less than two seconds, leaping into the air with all his might at the very last second before colliding with the man in the metal armor.

As he flew overtop the steel-clad soldier, Leo reached out with the tentacles on his back, the strange alien limbs he'd never really gotten used to, but long enough he was able to pick both pistols from Dobrin's hips as he sailed overhead. Then Leo vanished.

His time in four-dimensional space was limited, but all he had to do was appear where the Umbral Scourge wasn't looking, and it worked out perfectly. In panic, the solider spun to see who behind him and seized his pistols, and leveled his weapon behind him to find nobody there.

With the Umbral Scourge turned away, Leo materialized in amongst the pack of hellhounds. He'd transferred the pistols to his hands, using all four of them to control the two weapons, and immediately started firing when he appeared.

His hearing was already gone from the cracks of the Lancer Rifle, but he felt the power in both of the pistols. They were less pistols than hand cannons, the weapons exploding with deadly force, tearing holes in the hellhounds and limbs from them, each flash of red light from the weapons instantly fatal.

Then he flicked the reload switch and drew the essence into the weapons, truly killing them, all the while staring directly at the Umbral Scourge. He couldn't see behind the golden mask, but Leo knew he had made eye contact. The body language of the Umbral Scourge, so confident, ready to fight--ready for anything--hesitated. Leo held all his hands up in surrender and prayed that the message would be accepted.

It was.

In one smooth motion, the Umbral Scourge--whoever was inside that suit of armor--drew the shotgun off his back and tossed it to Leo. Legitimately surprised, the displacer beast caught the weapon with his lower two hands, and wrapped his tentacles around his upper arms to stabilize them while using the pistols. Then he vanished.

Moments later, demons swarmed the position where he had just been. Suddenly beside the Umbral Scourge again, Leo took the second of reprieve to point to where Srida's soul hovered.

"Don't use it for ammo!" he shouted, opening fire on the oncoming hoard of demons.

Whether it was a nod of acknowledgment or just the motion he made as he lowered his head and charged, the message was received, because the Umbral Scourge stayed clear of that region in the fighting that followed.

The next ten minutes were like his last three as a human, except so much better. On board the station, the demons had been fast, dangerous, and able to punish the slightest mistake as he had so brutally learned. But now his body was ten times what it had been aboard the research station. He was able to hold onto weapons that kicked so violently it could break a man's wrist, and he was able to leap overtop of demons that charged him, and vanish into thin air when he couldn't. Leo was faster than he'd ever been, nimbly dodging blows from infernal steeds like they were moving through water, and dropping a second tripidian with a single blast from the Hellfire Shotgun.

This was revenge for his death. Revenge for Srida. And with the Umbral Scourge encased in his Ironshell armor, tearing through demons even better than he, it elicited a feral grin from Leo. This was human supremacy over magic.

When the skirmish ended, Leo could hardly stand. The displacer beast had gone all out, dancing with the devil at the edge of death, getting up close and personal with his weapons even when he could fight at range.

*"Who are you?" * It was definitely Dobrin, his voice filtered through the suit and some kind of voice changer, but it was definitely Dobrin.

Leo help up his hands again. "Leo Stalward! You're Dobrin Kalovich!"

The Umbral Scourge hesitated again, then eventually spoke without the voice filter.

"Jesus Christ. What the fuck happened to you?"

Leo breath a sigh of relief and grinned, lowering all four of his hands and handing the shotgun back to Kalovich.

"Same thing that happened to all the other people with clear heads down here. I guess in death, my soul got pulled in this body."

Kalovich nodded slowly, depolarizing his mask so Leo could see his face. "I saw your corpse come through the portal with that monster's teeth in your skull," he said slowly, watching for Leo's reaction. "And your body cooked and turned to ash shortly afterwards."

Leo just shook his head. "I have no idea how or why, I don't know the rules. I just know I woke up like this." When Dobrin continued to regard him suspiciously, Leo continued talking. "We've stepping into a world of magic man, I'm not even going to pretend to understand it."

Silence hung between them as Kalovich evaluated what he'd said, small muscles in his jaw twitching as he wondered if he should trust the words coming from a demon's mouth.

"Amen to that," Kalovich said quietly, turning away to regard something in the distance. "You're right about not knowing the rules. I thought I was going to die of old age down here, but...something kept me going. No food. No water. No sleep."

Leo raised an eyebrow. "What. It's been a few weeks since I we went through."

"The ship!" Kalovich barked. "How fast is it going?"

More memory trickled back into Leo's mind. The research station--it required an obscene amount of power to open the portal, more than could be provided by anything but a Dyson Sphere. Or an electromagnetic ramjet moving across the cosmos at the speed of light, funneling and compressing stray hydrogen into mankind's most powerful controlled nuclear reaction.

"The time dilation," Leo whispered, turning to face Kalovich. "How long has it been?"

He tapped his helmet with one finger. "I'm still getting live video from the station. One frame every couple months or so." He let that statement hang in the air for a moment. "I watched that panther-beast kill you over the course of seventy years."

Leo's jaw dropped. "That was a couple seconds at most!"

"Twelve years per second!" Kalovich snapped, his anger not directed at Leo, but his powerlessness in the situation. "Twelve years in this hell for every second that passes on that station! I can see Penner making a run for that kill switch! His hand is almost on it! But if any demons get through! If a single one stops him..."

The man known to most as The Umbral Scourge trailed off. "I can't let a single demon through that portal," he said quietly, pointing to a red disk floating in the sky. "It just kind of drifts. That's why I kill every demon that sees it. I can't have them trying to escape the underworld."

"Even those who are sentient," Leo said softly.

"Especially those who are sentient," Dobrin said bitterly. "You think I don't see them through tactical filters? The stone is like glass to me. So many hiding underground in caves, praying I don't find them. But every single one that sets eyes on me, every single one that sets eyes on that," he jabbed towards the portal with his finger. "They all have to die. Not when the alternative is getting on the station and possibly to earth. I can fight off a crowd, but not an army." He locked eyes with Leo again.

"I need them to run from me."

***

A day later, after the sounds of the fighting had long since faded, the inhabitants of Stillrock came trickling back in to find Leo sitting alone in the middle of a destroyed Rockfruit field. He was watching a soul, a small cloud of red smoke that refused to drift in the wind and Srida fought off the celestial torments inflicted upon her by the umbral winds. It was the same intangible winds that allowed Leo to follow the soul tirelessly once she stopped fighting it, the magic fueling his body even as he grew hungry and tired. He followed her for days, drifting in the umbral winds like the portal did, never letting her soul leave his sight. After all, somebody was going to need to bring her home.

He avoided demons he couldn't fight and killed those that he could, waiting for the gorgon to spawn again, unsure how long it would take. She was new to the umbral plain and her soul wasn't overly charged, but Srida was still a gorgon, and gorgons wouldn't just appear the next day like an imp.

When Srida finally came to, Leo was standing over her. She didn't know it had been two weeks, but the emotional anguish, physical pain, and intense boredom had left her feeling exhausted. How that all melded together was beyond her, but opening her eyes was an enormous relief. The displacer beast was nudging her gently, a hand on her shoulder trying to shake her awake, having just watched her body rematerialize from thin air.

"Srida!" he said in a hushed voice. "Wake up! You're back!"

The gorgon groaned, trying to sit up but finding herself too dizzy to do so. "Wha' happened?" she slurred, feeling drunk.

Leo grinned, getting his arms underneath her and helping her sit upright. "You got squashed," he said, deciding to hold back the details of what followed until later.

Srida stayed still for a moment then sighed, relaxing a bit with a defeated look on her face.

"I've lost my magic," she whispered. "I'm stuck down here."

Leo's grin deepened. Perhaps the world wasn't so bleak. His world was safe, he had been granted eternal life of some sort, and it was looking like he had someone to spend it with.

"Yeah, but at least you're stuck down here with me."

There was a look dawning, then annoyance, then finally exasperation on Srida's face.

"Oh my god," she muttered, rolling her eyes. But then she grabbed him and leaned back down, pulling the displacer beast on top of her--and kissed him.

He resisted at first--although almost purely out of shock than anything else, the melted into her moments later. It was more tender than lustful or passionate, but they both shared in it, savoring the moment.

Eventually when they broke it off, Srida pressed her forehead against his, smiling despite herself and eyes still closed.

"I hope you know that was terribly, terribly, cliché."