HOME | DD

Description
June 16, 2016; Tartarus

She was more falling than flying.

The Armor of Gabriel was smoking and sparking and coming apart at every juncture as she fell.

She could hear Lucifer up above laughing maniacally as he turned the fighting back towards her friends.

But she had to save him.

She had to.

Ava's thrusters sputtered and coughed. The panels on her wings cracked and fell off one by one. And all the while, she just kept her eyes fixed on Ben and the trail of smoke pluming out from the smoldering hole in his back.

She spun and dodged the passing platforms with what little control she had as she sped downwards after him. She tried to get her dying thrusters to listen to her demands, but they mostly just coughed and smoked in response.

“Come on! Come on!” she cried to her suit, or at least what was left of it. She was getting closer to Ben, but hardly as fast as she wanted to. She kept going though, even if her wingsuit was practically hanging by a thread at this point. She reached out her hands and pushed the suit as hard as she could, crying uncontrollably as she got closer and closer, shaking harder and harder from the technical malfunctions.

And then finally, her hands reached him. The second she felt her fingers touch fabric, she grabbed onto him with all her might, pulling him towards her and bracing as they both went hurdling into an upcoming platform below, with no wings left to ease the fall.

The landing was hard and the roll was even more painful. Ben got knocked out of Ava's arms and went smacking into a bump in the platform while Ava was kicked flat on her bleeding, bruised face by the laws of physics. Any other day, the amount pain she felt rushing through her body would cause her to simply give up and stay down. But she had to get to Ben, and so she used every ounce of adrenaline she had to drag herself to her feet and limp towards him, the last scrap pieces of Gabriel's Armor finally falling off of her and leaving her back in just her normal Assassin robes.

She fell to her knees when she reached Ben, and her hands immediately went to his face to shake him awake.

“Ben!” she cried. “Ben please please wake up please!”

He stirred, albeit barely given the condition of his body. His head painfully lulled in her direction and he flickered his eyes open.

“A… Ava…” he choked. He tried to lift his hand up towards her. Ava quickly grabbed it and squeezed it tight like a stress ball.

“Oh my god, Ben no no no!” she bawled.

“Are you… are you okay?”

“Am I okay?”

“Did… did Lucifer hurt you?”

“Ben I'm fine I promise I'm fine but that's not what's important right now!”

“It is to me…”

“Ben…”

He tried looking over his shoulder at his wound, but it proved too painful an action.

“Damn…” he winced. “Bastard really got me good…”

“Crap crap crap! Hold up, I think Ruby has a first-aid kit. I'll see if I can get her down here and-”

But he held her hand tight when she tried to stand.

“Ava no… please stay…”

“Ben I…”

“Please… Don't… don't leave me here alone.”

“Ben…”

Her tears intensified, rushing down her cheeks like waterfalls.

“Hey…” Ben told her, shakily reaching up to touch her cheek. “We had some good times.”

“Yeah… yeah we did. And we're gonna have a lot more, Ben.”

Ben simply smiled weakly. “Thanks for being my best friend, Ava…” he said. “Seriously. You and Ruby have been like my family. You two are what inspired me to go beyond and save the world.”

“You're our family too, Ben. Please don't…”

“Hey hey… Please don't cry Ava… Give me a smile? Please? For your buddy Ben?”

She was hesitant at first but she managed to work her mouth into a smile, or at least something close to one.

“There we go,” Ben said. “That's… that's what I like to see. That's the smile that kept me going…”

“Ben…”

His head lulled a bit. Ava gently tapped his cheek to bring him back over. “Ben please come on please no no no…”

“I… I'm here, Ava…” he choked. “I'll… I'll always be here. For you.”

“Ben come on man, please, I can't do this without you…”

“Ava, you've come so far. You've done amazing things that have made me so proud… And if there's one thing I know… ngh… it's that you will beat this bastard… and save the world…”

His head lulled again. His breath was barely audible, his heartbeat almost nonexistent. Ava cried over him, repeating, “No no no no no,” through her trembling lips. Ben slowly lifted his head up to look her in the eyes with his glassy ones. His lips slowly curled their way into a soft, caring smile. Ava felt his fingers going limp and slipping from her hand.

“Take… take care of Ruby for me…” he said, a soft whisper that gently sailed away off his last breath. His head gently rolled to the side, his eyes fluttered closed.

His hand fell from hers.

He was gone.

Ava stared, the tears pouring out of her eyes almost on their own volition. Her brain wasn't able to process it. She tried shaking him, softly at first, then harder and harder as she continued to get no response.

“Ben…” she croaked. “Ben… Ben! Ben! No!”

She broke again, falling onto his body and crying into his coat. She cried and cried until her face was almost stuck to the damp fabric.

Then she heard a sudden crackling noise behind her. Her head spun around towards the chunks of destroyed Armor, and saw that one of the pieces was trying to form a tiny hologram above it, though the image was extremely staticy and unstable. But nonetheless, Ava ran towards it, picked it up, and started shaking it and furiously tapping it until the image of Gabriel finally came to focus in her palms.

“Oh my god!” he said. “This isn't good this isn't good no no no no…!”

“You're telling me!” Ava snapped. “He's dead! He's goddamn dead Gabriel! Ben is dead and it's all your fault!”

“Ava don't start that! You think blaming me is gonna do anyone any good? Do you think that's how Ben would want you to be spending your time right now?”

Ava lowered her head and continued to cry. “Sorry… just… Lucifer killed him… He's gone Gabriel, he's gone…”

“I know… I know… and I'm sorry, Ava… I really am… This isn't the outcome I was hoping for…”

“We're screwed, aren't we? Ben is gone and the Armor is totalled…”

The hologram started glitching out again. “I don- *kzzt* -ow… I don't know, A- *kzzt* If you a- *kzzt* -an’t *kzzt* the- *kzzt*”

“Gabriel?”

He tried to speak but the image wouldn't stay stable. It glitched and warped and faded until eventually Gabriel vanished completely. Ava lowered her head in defeat.

She suddenly heard the sounds of the raging battle above. She could hear the sounds of her friends getting pummeled, and she could hear the maniacal, infuriating sound of Lucifer’s cackling. She suddenly found herself gritting her teeth hard and curling her hands into tight, shaking fists. She then thrust herself to her feet again, looking up at the chaos far above, and with an almost animalistic rage, she roared, “Lucifer!”

She then sprinted to the nearest platform, using her newfound adrenaline to jump onto it and start pulling herself upwards. She leapt from platform to platform, pushing herself up and up and up using the freerunning skills she had acquired from all of her ancestors over the months, until finally she arrived back topside, her face a whole new shade of red. Her eyes locked on Lucifer as he fired his lasers at her friends and pummeled them into the ground in repetitive succession.

“Lucifer!” she called again, rushing forward. Lucifer turned away from the others, most of whom were either struggling on the floor or ducking for cover. He grinned at her.

“What happened to your wingman, Ava?” he mocked. “He ditch you while you went chasing boys?”

“I'm going to kill you!”

She ejected her father's hidden blade and sprinted across a platform towards him. He simply continued to smile though, and he swatted her away with only his wrist the second she was in range. She went flying across the void, smacking straight into Ruby and sending the both of them hurdling into a wall.

“Ow…” Ruby moaned.

Lucifer hovered in the air, and started cackling in victory.

“You all don't seem to get it!” he declared. “I am Lucifer! The Devil himself! I get what I want, one way or another! And nothing, especially little punks like you, can stop me!”

He outstretched his arms, and malicious bolts of energy streamed out from the centerpiece on his Armor, and they each went soaring into the void. Ava and the gang could hear the world itself echoing and shaking as Lucifer began to finally carry out his plans.

“Hope you enjoy the show, kiddos!” he said. “Because you're gonna watch it all!”

The group all looked in horror as the walls of the void started chipping and collapsing in, with some flickering in and out of existence as Lucifer stood as the centerpiece of destruction. Ava lowered her head. She started softly crying.

“I'm sorry, Ben…” was all she could think to mumble.

Ruby looked over at her, the sight of her girlfriend crying more heartbreaking than the sight of Lucifer winning. She furrowed her brow, and put her hand on Ava's shoulder.

“Hey,” she said. “This isn't over.”

“Yes it is…” Ava sobbed. “The Armor is gone, Gabriel is gone, Ben is… is…”

She started tearing up again, and buried her face in her hands. Ruby's expression softened, and she lowered her head for a moment of silence.

“No it's not!” Ruby declared. “Hey, chin up, Champ. Look at me, honey.” Ava lulled her head up to meet Ruby's eyes. Ruby clamped her hands onto Ava's head. “Listen to me, okay Champ? This is not over. We don't need that hunk of junk wingsuit to kick his ass.”

“But-”

“Worse things than him have been taken down by less than us, honey. At the end of the day, he's just another egotistical asshole with a big gun. Just like Andrew Jackson, just like Boumeester, and all the assholes of history in between. And just like all of those assholes, we're gonna bring Lucifer down too and save the world just like Ben would want us to! Because no matter what he takes from us, we will always have each other. And as long as we have that, we'll never lose!”

She turned her to look towards the hovering Lucifer. “Look at him. His Armor’s all banged up from the ass-kicking you gave him in the suit. He can't even hover right! And that means we can break him even more!”

Ava looked up through her tear-filled eyes. Ruby was right. He was glitching out, his suit shaking like an old car that was beginning to break down. He was still grinning, still ripping off chunks of reality, but he was still not all in one piece.

“But how are we gonna do that without the Armor?” Ava asked.

Ruby smiled. “We smash him into more things. He thinks we're smallfry now. He thinks he's won. He'll underestimate us. So we scatter and fight him as a team, while you circle around in the chaos and lunge on him. Make him lose control, smash him into the platforms, lead him towards us to give us a few punches, fight fight fight, we win. Okay?”

Ava stared at her, and blinked away her tears before nodding. “Okay,” she said. “Let's do it. Let's kick the Devil's ass! For Ben!”

Ruby grinned ear to ear and helped Ava back to her feet, clutching her hand tight and shaking it. “For Ben!” she agreed.

Ava smiled, and stepped forward to address Lucifer.

“Hey! Loser-fer!” she shouted up to him.

“What, you're still talking?” he laughed.

“I just couldn't let you finish us off without hearing a little bit more of my sharp wit!”

She suddenly reached behind her back and thrust out a throwing knife in the blink of an eye, landing it straight through a crack in his armor and piercing his side. The destruction came to a halt as Lucifer bent over and winced. “Agh!” he shouted. “You little rat!”

He yanked the knife out and turned toward her as best he could with his shaking armor. He held up his hand and sent a palm blast hurdling in her direction. Ava and Ruby lunged out of the way, and started parkouring across the platforms. Ruby had her pistol out again, shooting him as she ran, while Ava sprinted over to the rest of her friends, helping them to their feet.

“Come on guys!” she cheered them on. “Fight’s not over yet! We've got a plan. Just keep the bastard distracted.”

“What?” Chelsea asked as she painfully stood up.

“What are you planning to do?” Carter asked.

“Gonna go for a little ride. Just need you guys to piss him off while I run topside. Think you can handle that?”

Jacob looked to Ava, turned to Carter, and just grinned. “Piss someone off? Shouldn’t really be a problem for us, should it?”

Carter simply grinned back. “Sounds right up our alley,” he agreed.

Jacob hoisted himself up with his staff, pushing his tongue into his cheek. “If only we had some bagels…” He looked around, grabbing a rock. “Guess we’ll just have to start with pepper.” He grabbed a few and started running from the group, hopping from platform to platform, throwing bits and pieces at Lucifer as he did. “Hey Luuuucyyyyy! I’m Back!!!”

“Agh!” Lucifer growled as he was hit. “I have had it up to here with you!” He spun and started firing at the others as they scrambled around pelting him with whatever they had. Carter and Jess fired their pistols while Chelsea loaded up a taser gun and used that to piss Lucy off even further.

Ava ran across the platforms, dipping and dodging whenever a stray laser came hurdling her way. She climbed and climbed while her friends fought below, giving all their might in this last ditch effort to set things right.

“Awww come on,” Jacob teased. “What about the good times we had? Remember when I blew up your animus and punched you in the dick? I know I keep bringing that up, but it really showed how much of a joke you are!” Jacob kept throwing jabs and rocks at Lucifer, probably enjoying himself a little too much.

“Damn Lucy, you gonna take that from him?” Carter jabbed, fleeing from a laser bolt that fired immediately after.

“I mean he is a bit of a clown,” Jess quipped. “I mean seriously? The snake helmet? Could you make it any less subtle?”

“He’s a walking talking cliche!” Jacob laughed. “Telling his plan before killing us? It’s like a bad video game!”

“Or a dumb fanfiction,” Chelsea laughed.

“That’s not a bad idea!” Carter laughed. “I could probably make a better plot, too!”

“Make sure you give me a badass voice like James Bond or something!” Ruby petitioned as she made her own assaults on Lucifer.

“It'd be a written story,” Chelsea said. “How would they know what your voice sounds like?”

“Man I dunno I'm not a writer! They don't have to hear my dumb fading New York accent!”

“I will rip your voice boxes out, each and every one of you!” Lucifer snarled, unleashing another fury of unstable bolts as the Assassins skittered about.

Ava meanwhile made it to what she assumed would make for a good jumping point, a bit above Lucifer, who thankfully was too caught up in her friends to notice her make the jump. And by the time he did, she was already latched onto his back.

“What the-?!” he growled.

“That fiddle of gold bet still on the table?” Ava quipped. She flicked out her hidden blade and jabbed it into one of the cracks in his armor, causing it to spark and smoke furiously. Lucifer screamed as he lost more control over his suit, and Ava started forcibly rocking them. They wobbled and darted in random directions before Ava sent him hurtling into one of the platforms with enough force to shatter it. She jumped off just in time, landing next to Ruby and high-fiving her.

Lucifer regained his bearings as best he could, face red from both blood and fury. He shakily hovered in the middle of the arena, trying and failing to hit any of them as they scattered.

Chelsea managed to land one of her taser pellets right into another crack in his wingsuit, causing another burst in his thrusters that sent him spiraling towards Jacob and Carter.

“Batter up!” Carter called to his friend.

“Here’s the pitch!” Jacob spun his staff once, held it back in both hands, and slammed it into Lucy’s face as hard as he could, letting out a whoop as Lucy flew away. “And it’s good!”

“Home run!” Jess cheered, jumping and waving her arms like a cheerleader.

“Personally I was always a bigger fan of boxing,” Ruby said, landing a hard punch on Lucy's jaw when he came spiraling towards her. He ricocheted back towards Ava, who lunged on top of him again. She stabbed another crack, eliciting another electrical bang that was forceful enough to start breaking off chunks of his armor.

“You little rodents!” he snapped “You can't-!” But he went spiraling uncontrollably through the void once again before he could finish, slamming face-first into another platform that broke off half of one of his wings.

“He’s right, guys,” Jacob said, “the puns might be getting a little much. Chelsea, how about a knock knock joke?”

“Knock knock,” Chelsea said as Lucy started spiraling back towards her and she cracked her knuckles.

“Who’s there?” Jacob asked.

“The door!” Chelsea shouted, planting her fist directly into Lucy’s nose, sending him downwards towards the void.

Jacob frowned, watching Lucifer spiral into another rock. “Did you just… meme him?” he asked. “I’m not sure how to feel about that.”

“Yeah puns are definitely more our strong suit,” Jess said.

“Agreed,” Ruby said.

Lucifer went flying once again, any of the control he had now completely gone. He bounced from platform to platform, fist to fist, like some sort of pinball machine, losing more and more important parts of his armor until his suit was almost as much of a skeleton as Ava's was. He shouted and raged as he desperately tried and failed to activate his blasters and get his thrusters to obey him, but it was futile. His suit gave one final cough, and then it finally gave out entirely, and Lucifer was sent plummeting face-first into a large platform, shattering part of the floor and collapsing inside of the crater.

The six friends all cheered to each other and then promptly made their way over to that platform where Lucifer sat in a puddle of his own blood and struggled to get back on his feet. They stood around him in a broad circle, bruised and bleeding, but tall and proud. Ava stood directly in front of him, staring down at the Devil himself as he cast a look of pure hatred right back at her.

“No!” he snarled through his blood-stained teeth. “This is not how things were supposed to go! I planned my victory for 75 millennia, only to be brought down at the last minute by a bunch of teenagers!”

“What can I say, Lucy?” Ava said. “You kinda had it coming after everything you did. To us, to the world.”

“Don't you talk down to me you little brat! You think I don't know what I did over the centuries was diabolical? That's exactly why I did it all! Because it was fun!”

Ava looked down at him, scowling almost like a disappointed parent would to a bratty kid.

“You killed my dad,” she said, her voice calm. “You killed Ben. You killed countless people and ruined god knows how many lives. Just because you thought it was fun.”

“And I'd do it all again in a heartbeat!”

“You're pathetic.”

“Excuse me?”

“You spend your entire existence defining yourself by making things worse for people. What kind of life is that? Really? No friends, no family, no one to miss you when you're gone. Just pain.”

“Pain is the root of existence, Ms. Arlie. The only difference is that I revel in it! I embrace it.”

“No. And you know why I know you're wrong?” She paused, looking up at her friends, remembering every minute of the adventures and turmoils they had gone through as a team. She thought of meeting them all, of falling in love with Ruby, of reconciling with Jacob, of waking up to their loving faces, of everything that had brought them this far. She smiled, a few warm tears streaming down her cheeks. “I know you're wrong because they proved you wrong,” she continued. “Because no matter what pain we all went through, or any of the pain my ancestors went through, we overcame it all as friends, as family, through love and cooperation. When Kahente saw the pain that plagued Roanoke, she stayed and stood to end it piece by piece. When Aveza was faced with genocide, she went straight up to the people responsible and burnt their monuments to the ground. And when you came along and threatened to destroy everything, just for the sake of being the worst thing ever to exist, we all came together and took your ass down. Because even if we're all different, even if we share different ideals and methods and backgrounds, we all stand for the best of the universe, and we'll all fight to the death to make sure it prevails over even the greatest evils.”

Lucifer scowled, gritting his teeth as his veins bulged in helpless anger. “Are you seriously giving me the Power of Friendship speech?” he snapped. “I am the Devil! I am the Lord of darkness and deception himself! I am the original destroyer from legends of old! The living embodiment of evil and sin itself! I. Am. Lucifer!”

Ava rolled her eyes, unimpressed. “Well you know what, Lucifer?” she said, looking at her friends and prompting them to follow suit as she flicked out her father's hidden blade. “Go to Hell.”

Then they all charged forward at once, barely even giving Lucifer the chance to scream “No!”, before they all ran him through at once. Ava looked straight into his eyes as he choked his last breath and those bloodshot orbs rolled back into his skull.

They all retracted their blades, and he fell to the ground, limp and still, caked in blood.

Dead. Once and for all.

Ava took deep breaths and silently looked up at all her friends, who looked back at her and smiled gently. She smiled back as much as she could. The fatigue from the fight finally started catching back up with her as she looked down at his mangled suit and limp body and it slowly started setting in that it was finally, finally over.

Her father was avenged.

Ben was avenged.

Ava reached down towards Lucifer’s chest piece and from it she plucked the Pick of Eden, which thankfully was still in one piece. She looked at her friends again, and motioned for them to leave Lucifer’s body behind and follow her. The six made their way down the platforms, towards the platform that was littered with the shattered chunks of Gabriel's Armor. They all looked solemnly at the body of Ben, who still laid where he died in Ava's arms. Ava lowered her head, fighting back another wave of tears. She stepped forward, reaching down and carefully picking him up before turning back to the others. She held the Pick of Eden aloft and opened up a gateway back to the real world. They stepped out through the portal, leaving Tartarus behind for good. As soon as they were all out and the portal was fully closed, Ava dropped the Pick of Eden onto the floor below.

And swiftly shattered it with a stomp of her boot.

The pieces sparked and crackled until they quietly died, nothing more than hunks of metal scattered on the floor.

The six of them had re-entered towards the entrance of the cave, and they quietly made their way back out to the forests of Roanoke Island. Ava was relieved to see her mother there, calmly polishing her shotgun as she sat amongst a pile of dead demon slaves.

“You have to have some kind of injury, right?” Jacob said, breaking the silence. “Did you really take them all with nothing but a shotgun?”

“My husband was an Assassin,” Kiki chuckled. “I picked up a lot of tri…”

She trailed off when Ava walked out of the cave behind the others, Ben's body in her arms. Ava looked up at her mom, trying her best not to break despite Jacob's attempts to lighten the mood.

“Oh sweetheart…” Kiki said, putting down her shotgun and rushing up to her daughter. They all stopped walking. Ava felt her knees getting shaky. Kiki and Ruby caught her before she could collapse and slowly helped her to the ground. They all hugged her tight, comforting her as best they could, and reassuring her of the one thing that kept her from breaking entirely, the one thing that let her know that her friend hadn't died in vain.

It was over.

Description
June 16, 2016; Tartarus

She was more falling than flying.

The Armor of Gabriel was smoking and sparking and coming apart at every juncture as she fell.

She could hear Lucifer up above laughing maniacally as he turned the fighting back towards her friends.

But she had to save him.

She had to.

Ava's thrusters sputtered and coughed. The panels on her wings cracked and fell off one by one. And all the while, she just kept her eyes fixed on Ben and the trail of smoke pluming out from the smoldering hole in his back.

She spun and dodged the passing platforms with what little control she had as she sped downwards after him. She tried to get her dying thrusters to listen to her demands, but they mostly just coughed and smoked in response.

“Come on! Come on!” she cried to her suit, or at least what was left of it. She was getting closer to Ben, but hardly as fast as she wanted to. She kept going though, even if her wingsuit was practically hanging by a thread at this point. She reached out her hands and pushed the suit as hard as she could, crying uncontrollably as she got closer and closer, shaking harder and harder from the technical malfunctions.

And then finally, her hands reached him. The second she felt her fingers touch fabric, she grabbed onto him with all her might, pulling him towards her and bracing as they both went hurdling into an upcoming platform below, with no wings left to ease the fall.

The landing was hard and the roll was even more painful. Ben got knocked out of Ava's arms and went smacking into a bump in the platform while Ava was kicked flat on her bleeding, bruised face by the laws of physics. Any other day, the amount pain she felt rushing through her body would cause her to simply give up and stay down. But she had to get to Ben, and so she used every ounce of adrenaline she had to drag herself to her feet and limp towards him, the last scrap pieces of Gabriel's Armor finally falling off of her and leaving her back in just her normal Assassin robes.

She fell to her knees when she reached Ben, and her hands immediately went to his face to shake him awake.

“Ben!” she cried. “Ben please please wake up please!”

He stirred, albeit barely given the condition of his body. His head painfully lulled in her direction and he flickered his eyes open.

“A… Ava…” he choked. He tried to lift his hand up towards her. Ava quickly grabbed it and squeezed it tight like a stress ball.

“Oh my god, Ben no no no!” she bawled.

“Are you… are you okay?”

“Am I okay?”

“Did… did Lucifer hurt you?”

“Ben I'm fine I promise I'm fine but that's not what's important right now!”

“It is to me…”

“Ben…”

He tried looking over his shoulder at his wound, but it proved too painful an action.

“Damn…” he winced. “Bastard really got me good…”

“Crap crap crap! Hold up, I think Ruby has a first-aid kit. I'll see if I can get her down here and-”

But he held her hand tight when she tried to stand.

“Ava no… please stay…”

“Ben I…”

“Please… Don't… don't leave me here alone.”

“Ben…”

Her tears intensified, rushing down her cheeks like waterfalls.

“Hey…” Ben told her, shakily reaching up to touch her cheek. “We had some good times.”

“Yeah… yeah we did. And we're gonna have a lot more, Ben.”

Ben simply smiled weakly. “Thanks for being my best friend, Ava…” he said. “Seriously. You and Ruby have been like my family. You two are what inspired me to go beyond and save the world.”

“You're our family too, Ben. Please don't…”

“Hey hey… Please don't cry Ava… Give me a smile? Please? For your buddy Ben?”

She was hesitant at first but she managed to work her mouth into a smile, or at least something close to one.

“There we go,” Ben said. “That's… that's what I like to see. That's the smile that kept me going…”

“Ben…”

His head lulled a bit. Ava gently tapped his cheek to bring him back over. “Ben please come on please no no no…”

“I… I'm here, Ava…” he choked. “I'll… I'll always be here. For you.”

“Ben come on man, please, I can't do this without you…”

“Ava, you've come so far. You've done amazing things that have made me so proud… And if there's one thing I know… ngh… it's that you will beat this bastard… and save the world…”

His head lulled again. His breath was barely audible, his heartbeat almost nonexistent. Ava cried over him, repeating, “No no no no no,” through her trembling lips. Ben slowly lifted his head up to look her in the eyes with his glassy ones. His lips slowly curled their way into a soft, caring smile. Ava felt his fingers going limp and slipping from her hand.

“Take… take care of Ruby for me…” he said, a soft whisper that gently sailed away off his last breath. His head gently rolled to the side, his eyes fluttered closed.

His hand fell from hers.

He was gone.

Ava stared, the tears pouring out of her eyes almost on their own volition. Her brain wasn't able to process it. She tried shaking him, softly at first, then harder and harder as she continued to get no response.

“Ben…” she croaked. “Ben… Ben! Ben! No!”

She broke again, falling onto his body and crying into his coat. She cried and cried until her face was almost stuck to the damp fabric.

Then she heard a sudden crackling noise behind her. Her head spun around towards the chunks of destroyed Armor, and saw that one of the pieces was trying to form a tiny hologram above it, though the image was extremely staticy and unstable. But nonetheless, Ava ran towards it, picked it up, and started shaking it and furiously tapping it until the image of Gabriel finally came to focus in her palms.

“Oh my god!” he said. “This isn't good this isn't good no no no no…!”

“You're telling me!” Ava snapped. “He's dead! He's goddamn dead Gabriel! Ben is dead and it's all your fault!”

“Ava don't start that! You think blaming me is gonna do anyone any good? Do you think that's how Ben would want you to be spending your time right now?”

Ava lowered her head and continued to cry. “Sorry… just… Lucifer killed him… He's gone Gabriel, he's gone…”

“I know… I know… and I'm sorry, Ava… I really am… This isn't the outcome I was hoping for…”

“We're screwed, aren't we? Ben is gone and the Armor is totalled…”

The hologram started glitching out again. “I don- *kzzt* -ow… I don't know, A- *kzzt* If you a- *kzzt* -an’t *kzzt* the- *kzzt*”

“Gabriel?”

He tried to speak but the image wouldn't stay stable. It glitched and warped and faded until eventually Gabriel vanished completely. Ava lowered her head in defeat.

She suddenly heard the sounds of the raging battle above. She could hear the sounds of her friends getting pummeled, and she could hear the maniacal, infuriating sound of Lucifer’s cackling. She suddenly found herself gritting her teeth hard and curling her hands into tight, shaking fists. She then thrust herself to her feet again, looking up at the chaos far above, and with an almost animalistic rage, she roared, “Lucifer!”

She then sprinted to the nearest platform, using her newfound adrenaline to jump onto it and start pulling herself upwards. She leapt from platform to platform, pushing herself up and up and up using the freerunning skills she had acquired from all of her ancestors over the months, until finally she arrived back topside, her face a whole new shade of red. Her eyes locked on Lucifer as he fired his lasers at her friends and pummeled them into the ground in repetitive succession.

“Lucifer!” she called again, rushing forward. Lucifer turned away from the others, most of whom were either struggling on the floor or ducking for cover. He grinned at her.

“What happened to your wingman, Ava?” he mocked. “He ditch you while you went chasing boys?”

“I'm going to kill you!”

She ejected her father's hidden blade and sprinted across a platform towards him. He simply continued to smile though, and he swatted her away with only his wrist the second she was in range. She went flying across the void, smacking straight into Ruby and sending the both of them hurdling into a wall.

“Ow…” Ruby moaned.

Lucifer hovered in the air, and started cackling in victory.

“You all don't seem to get it!” he declared. “I am Lucifer! The Devil himself! I get what I want, one way or another! And nothing, especially little punks like you, can stop me!”

He outstretched his arms, and malicious bolts of energy streamed out from the centerpiece on his Armor, and they each went soaring into the void. Ava and the gang could hear the world itself echoing and shaking as Lucifer began to finally carry out his plans.

“Hope you enjoy the show, kiddos!” he said. “Because you're gonna watch it all!”

The group all looked in horror as the walls of the void started chipping and collapsing in, with some flickering in and out of existence as Lucifer stood as the centerpiece of destruction. Ava lowered her head. She started softly crying.

“I'm sorry, Ben…” was all she could think to mumble.

Ruby looked over at her, the sight of her girlfriend crying more heartbreaking than the sight of Lucifer winning. She furrowed her brow, and put her hand on Ava's shoulder.

“Hey,” she said. “This isn't over.”

“Yes it is…” Ava sobbed. “The Armor is gone, Gabriel is gone, Ben is… is…”

She started tearing up again, and buried her face in her hands. Ruby's expression softened, and she lowered her head for a moment of silence.

“No it's not!” Ruby declared. “Hey, chin up, Champ. Look at me, honey.” Ava lulled her head up to meet Ruby's eyes. Ruby clamped her hands onto Ava's head. “Listen to me, okay Champ? This is not over. We don't need that hunk of junk wingsuit to kick his ass.”

“But-”

“Worse things than him have been taken down by less than us, honey. At the end of the day, he's just another egotistical asshole with a big gun. Just like Andrew Jackson, just like Boumeester, and all the assholes of history in between. And just like all of those assholes, we're gonna bring Lucifer down too and save the world just like Ben would want us to! Because no matter what he takes from us, we will always have each other. And as long as we have that, we'll never lose!”

She turned her to look towards the hovering Lucifer. “Look at him. His Armor’s all banged up from the ass-kicking you gave him in the suit. He can't even hover right! And that means we can break him even more!”

Ava looked up through her tear-filled eyes. Ruby was right. He was glitching out, his suit shaking like an old car that was beginning to break down. He was still grinning, still ripping off chunks of reality, but he was still not all in one piece.

“But how are we gonna do that without the Armor?” Ava asked.

Ruby smiled. “We smash him into more things. He thinks we're smallfry now. He thinks he's won. He'll underestimate us. So we scatter and fight him as a team, while you circle around in the chaos and lunge on him. Make him lose control, smash him into the platforms, lead him towards us to give us a few punches, fight fight fight, we win. Okay?”

Ava stared at her, and blinked away her tears before nodding. “Okay,” she said. “Let's do it. Let's kick the Devil's ass! For Ben!”

Ruby grinned ear to ear and helped Ava back to her feet, clutching her hand tight and shaking it. “For Ben!” she agreed.

Ava smiled, and stepped forward to address Lucifer.

“Hey! Loser-fer!” she shouted up to him.

“What, you're still talking?” he laughed.

“I just couldn't let you finish us off without hearing a little bit more of my sharp wit!”

She suddenly reached behind her back and thrust out a throwing knife in the blink of an eye, landing it straight through a crack in his armor and piercing his side. The destruction came to a halt as Lucifer bent over and winced. “Agh!” he shouted. “You little rat!”

He yanked the knife out and turned toward her as best he could with his shaking armor. He held up his hand and sent a palm blast hurdling in her direction. Ava and Ruby lunged out of the way, and started parkouring across the platforms. Ruby had her pistol out again, shooting him as she ran, while Ava sprinted over to the rest of her friends, helping them to their feet.

“Come on guys!” she cheered them on. “Fight’s not over yet! We've got a plan. Just keep the bastard distracted.”

“What?” Chelsea asked as she painfully stood up.

“What are you planning to do?” Carter asked.

“Gonna go for a little ride. Just need you guys to piss him off while I run topside. Think you can handle that?”

Jacob looked to Ava, turned to Carter, and just grinned. “Piss someone off? Shouldn’t really be a problem for us, should it?”

Carter simply grinned back. “Sounds right up our alley,” he agreed.

Jacob hoisted himself up with his staff, pushing his tongue into his cheek. “If only we had some bagels…” He looked around, grabbing a rock. “Guess we’ll just have to start with pepper.” He grabbed a few and started running from the group, hopping from platform to platform, throwing bits and pieces at Lucifer as he did. “Hey Luuuucyyyyy! I’m Back!!!”

“Agh!” Lucifer growled as he was hit. “I have had it up to here with you!” He spun and started firing at the others as they scrambled around pelting him with whatever they had. Carter and Jess fired their pistols while Chelsea loaded up a taser gun and used that to piss Lucy off even further.

Ava ran across the platforms, dipping and dodging whenever a stray laser came hurdling her way. She climbed and climbed while her friends fought below, giving all their might in this last ditch effort to set things right.

“Awww come on,” Jacob teased. “What about the good times we had? Remember when I blew up your animus and punched you in the dick? I know I keep bringing that up, but it really showed how much of a joke you are!” Jacob kept throwing jabs and rocks at Lucifer, probably enjoying himself a little too much.

“Damn Lucy, you gonna take that from him?” Carter jabbed, fleeing from a laser bolt that fired immediately after.

“I mean he is a bit of a clown,” Jess quipped. “I mean seriously? The snake helmet? Could you make it any less subtle?”

“He’s a walking talking cliche!” Jacob laughed. “Telling his plan before killing us? It’s like a bad video game!”

“Or a dumb fanfiction,” Chelsea laughed.

“That’s not a bad idea!” Carter laughed. “I could probably make a better plot, too!”

“Make sure you give me a badass voice like James Bond or something!” Ruby petitioned as she made her own assaults on Lucifer.

“It'd be a written story,” Chelsea said. “How would they know what your voice sounds like?”

“Man I dunno I'm not a writer! They don't have to hear my dumb fading New York accent!”

“I will rip your voice boxes out, each and every one of you!” Lucifer snarled, unleashing another fury of unstable bolts as the Assassins skittered about.

Ava meanwhile made it to what she assumed would make for a good jumping point, a bit above Lucifer, who thankfully was too caught up in her friends to notice her make the jump. And by the time he did, she was already latched onto his back.

“What the-?!” he growled.

“That fiddle of gold bet still on the table?” Ava quipped. She flicked out her hidden blade and jabbed it into one of the cracks in his armor, causing it to spark and smoke furiously. Lucifer screamed as he lost more control over his suit, and Ava started forcibly rocking them. They wobbled and darted in random directions before Ava sent him hurtling into one of the platforms with enough force to shatter it. She jumped off just in time, landing next to Ruby and high-fiving her.

Lucifer regained his bearings as best he could, face red from both blood and fury. He shakily hovered in the middle of the arena, trying and failing to hit any of them as they scattered.

Chelsea managed to land one of her taser pellets right into another crack in his wingsuit, causing another burst in his thrusters that sent him spiraling towards Jacob and Carter.

“Batter up!” Carter called to his friend.

“Here’s the pitch!” Jacob spun his staff once, held it back in both hands, and slammed it into Lucy’s face as hard as he could, letting out a whoop as Lucy flew away. “And it’s good!”

“Home run!” Jess cheered, jumping and waving her arms like a cheerleader.

“Personally I was always a bigger fan of boxing,” Ruby said, landing a hard punch on Lucy's jaw when he came spiraling towards her. He ricocheted back towards Ava, who lunged on top of him again. She stabbed another crack, eliciting another electrical bang that was forceful enough to start breaking off chunks of his armor.

“You little rodents!” he snapped “You can't-!” But he went spiraling uncontrollably through the void once again before he could finish, slamming face-first into another platform that broke off half of one of his wings.

“He’s right, guys,” Jacob said, “the puns might be getting a little much. Chelsea, how about a knock knock joke?”

“Knock knock,” Chelsea said as Lucy started spiraling back towards her and she cracked her knuckles.

“Who’s there?” Jacob asked.

“The door!” Chelsea shouted, planting her fist directly into Lucy’s nose, sending him downwards towards the void.

Jacob frowned, watching Lucifer spiral into another rock. “Did you just… meme him?” he asked. “I’m not sure how to feel about that.”

“Yeah puns are definitely more our strong suit,” Jess said.

“Agreed,” Ruby said.

Lucifer went flying once again, any of the control he had now completely gone. He bounced from platform to platform, fist to fist, like some sort of pinball machine, losing more and more important parts of his armor until his suit was almost as much of a skeleton as Ava's was. He shouted and raged as he desperately tried and failed to activate his blasters and get his thrusters to obey him, but it was futile. His suit gave one final cough, and then it finally gave out entirely, and Lucifer was sent plummeting face-first into a large platform, shattering part of the floor and collapsing inside of the crater.

The six friends all cheered to each other and then promptly made their way over to that platform where Lucifer sat in a puddle of his own blood and struggled to get back on his feet. They stood around him in a broad circle, bruised and bleeding, but tall and proud. Ava stood directly in front of him, staring down at the Devil himself as he cast a look of pure hatred right back at her.

“No!” he snarled through his blood-stained teeth. “This is not how things were supposed to go! I planned my victory for 75 millennia, only to be brought down at the last minute by a bunch of teenagers!”

“What can I say, Lucy?” Ava said. “You kinda had it coming after everything you did. To us, to the world.”

“Don't you talk down to me you little brat! You think I don't know what I did over the centuries was diabolical? That's exactly why I did it all! Because it was fun!”

Ava looked down at him, scowling almost like a disappointed parent would to a bratty kid.

“You killed my dad,” she said, her voice calm. “You killed Ben. You killed countless people and ruined god knows how many lives. Just because you thought it was fun.”

“And I'd do it all again in a heartbeat!”

“You're pathetic.”

“Excuse me?”

“You spend your entire existence defining yourself by making things worse for people. What kind of life is that? Really? No friends, no family, no one to miss you when you're gone. Just pain.”

“Pain is the root of existence, Ms. Arlie. The only difference is that I revel in it! I embrace it.”

“No. And you know why I know you're wrong?” She paused, looking up at her friends, remembering every minute of the adventures and turmoils they had gone through as a team. She thought of meeting them all, of falling in love with Ruby, of reconciling with Jacob, of waking up to their loving faces, of everything that had brought them this far. She smiled, a few warm tears streaming down her cheeks. “I know you're wrong because they proved you wrong,” she continued. “Because no matter what pain we all went through, or any of the pain my ancestors went through, we overcame it all as friends, as family, through love and cooperation. When Kahente saw the pain that plagued Roanoke, she stayed and stood to end it piece by piece. When Aveza was faced with genocide, she went straight up to the people responsible and burnt their monuments to the ground. And when you came along and threatened to destroy everything, just for the sake of being the worst thing ever to exist, we all came together and took your ass down. Because even if we're all different, even if we share different ideals and methods and backgrounds, we all stand for the best of the universe, and we'll all fight to the death to make sure it prevails over even the greatest evils.”

Lucifer scowled, gritting his teeth as his veins bulged in helpless anger. “Are you seriously giving me the Power of Friendship speech?” he snapped. “I am the Devil! I am the Lord of darkness and deception himself! I am the original destroyer from legends of old! The living embodiment of evil and sin itself! I. Am. Lucifer!”

Ava rolled her eyes, unimpressed. “Well you know what, Lucifer?” she said, looking at her friends and prompting them to follow suit as she flicked out her father's hidden blade. “Go to Hell.”

Then they all charged forward at once, barely even giving Lucifer the chance to scream “No!”, before they all ran him through at once. Ava looked straight into his eyes as he choked his last breath and those bloodshot orbs rolled back into his skull.

They all retracted their blades, and he fell to the ground, limp and still, caked in blood.

Dead. Once and for all.

Ava took deep breaths and silently looked up at all her friends, who looked back at her and smiled gently. She smiled back as much as she could. The fatigue from the fight finally started catching back up with her as she looked down at his mangled suit and limp body and it slowly started setting in that it was finally, finally over.

Her father was avenged.

Ben was avenged.

Ava reached down towards Lucifer’s chest piece and from it she plucked the Pick of Eden, which thankfully was still in one piece. She looked at her friends again, and motioned for them to leave Lucifer’s body behind and follow her. The six made their way down the platforms, towards the platform that was littered with the shattered chunks of Gabriel's Armor. They all looked solemnly at the body of Ben, who still laid where he died in Ava's arms. Ava lowered her head, fighting back another wave of tears. She stepped forward, reaching down and carefully picking him up before turning back to the others. She held the Pick of Eden aloft and opened up a gateway back to the real world. They stepped out through the portal, leaving Tartarus behind for good. As soon as they were all out and the portal was fully closed, Ava dropped the Pick of Eden onto the floor below.

And swiftly shattered it with a stomp of her boot.

The pieces sparked and crackled until they quietly died, nothing more than hunks of metal scattered on the floor.

The six of them had re-entered towards the entrance of the cave, and they quietly made their way back out to the forests of Roanoke Island. Ava was relieved to see her mother there, calmly polishing her shotgun as she sat amongst a pile of dead demon slaves.

“You have to have some kind of injury, right?” Jacob said, breaking the silence. “Did you really take them all with nothing but a shotgun?”

“My husband was an Assassin,” Kiki chuckled. “I picked up a lot of tri…”

She trailed off when Ava walked out of the cave behind the others, Ben's body in her arms. Ava looked up at her mom, trying her best not to break despite Jacob's attempts to lighten the mood.

“Oh sweetheart…” Kiki said, putting down her shotgun and rushing up to her daughter. They all stopped walking. Ava felt her knees getting shaky. Kiki and Ruby caught her before she could collapse and slowly helped her to the ground. They all hugged her tight, comforting her as best they could, and reassuring her of the one thing that kept her from breaking entirely, the one thing that let her know that her friend hadn't died in vain.

It was over.