After awhile, Ares managed to ease his eyes open and stare at the ground, squinting to see through the bright. He noticed, though his feet were bare, he was clothed in Overland attire. Dark, tight pants clung to his legs rather uncomfortably, a small belt that appeared to be trimmed with small metal pyramids at the top. He wore a white shirt decorated with some red picture, which he had mistaken for blood upon first glance. Writing bearing the word in all capitals "Underoath" was stamped into it. What this might have meant was beyond the once-flier, though he didn't really care at the moment.

Ares took a moment to study his body in human form. It was so bizarre to look down and see his arms, which were not pale, though were nowhere near the charcoal-colored fur he was used to seeing. That was another thing, too: seeing. In the Underland, when he was alive (assuming that he was dead now), he had never really relied on his eyes. But with the intensity of the light, he could use them. Besides, it also seemed as though his hearing had been sharply decreased; it felt as though he had something stuck in his ears. As he had no way to see what his face now looked like, Ares clumsily brought both hands-- how stubby they were!-- up to his face and gracelessly felt around.

There were two small sockets for his eyes, which were following his hands around his face, a rather minuscule nose, and a stubbly beard on his chin and cheekbones. His hair was rather long, and pulled back in some kind of stretchy cord. He plucked one out, determining that at least his hair was still the dark color he was used to. Continuing his examination, he noticed that his ears were on the side of his head in a manner the once-bat found most peculiar, though they still tapered to a slight point. Ares opened his mouth to find two straight rows of flat teeth, as opposed to the incisors that had dutifully served him for hunting, eating, and defending himself in the past.

Drawing out of his observant trance, something from his left gave a moan. Ares turned instantly to find that he was not alone. Next to him lay another human, pale as the normal Underlander, though his-- and it was a he-- features were much more murine. His ears, which protruded from his straight blond hair, were angled backwards slightly. He appeared to be around eighteen in human years, though very tall and slender; he had his hands in front of his eyes, shielding them from the bright. His fingernails were chipped and jagged, and his nose was twitching madly, seeming as if it was trying to scent things way beyond the human capacity. As though the light seared his flesh, the

figure was writhing on the ground, sobbing and moaning to himself. The flier-- human-- could make a good guess as to who was rolling on the ground in front of him.

"Calm yourself!" Ares's voice, at least, sounded normal, if a bit hoarse from not being used. He had grown irritated after watching awhile. The figure stopped instantly, and tilted his head towards Ares, though his hands stayed over his eyes.

"I know that voice," mused the other human aloud, sounding very confused; Ares couldn't blame him, and even sympathized a bit, though it was expected. After all, in life the Bane was not renowned for his thinking ability.

"Pearlpelt." The pale teenager's face softened when he heard his old identity. The claw-like hands slid away from his face, revealing two red eyes that were filling with tears. His lip trembled as he met the gaze of his most recent victim, though the ex-flier doubted if the Bane knew that he had been responsible for his death. The now-human that had spent his short life as a monster, a scourge, a bane looked ready to break down. And Ares could hardly blame him: the had-been rat did not exactly have cakewalk life.

Deep down, Ares figured that he should probably loathe the Bane for killing him. He should probably despise the monster for all the death and destruction he had caused. For gassing the nibblers. For laying Regalia to waste. But the bat knew he couldn't. Gazing at this broken teen, Ares realized that this young man-- barely more than a boy-- did not deserve to be hated.

"W-wha-what...?" That was all the trembling human could manage, and who could blame him? A traumatized rat being put under confusing circumstances was liable to freak out. Ares was surprised the Bane was so calm.

"Pearlpelt? Pearlpelt, it's me. It's Ares." He wasn't sure if the Bane knew the ex-bat's name, though his own seemed to have an effect.

"Where am I? Where are we? Why...?" The Bane sat up and was taking in his-- their-- surroundings, something Ares had failed to do. "Hey..." Pearlpelt must have noticed something peculiar-- though this was all peculiar-- for he had one stubby finger with one chipped and jagged nail extended.

Ares followed the indicator finger to an unconscious form lying on the ground. A small woman who appeared to be in her mid twenties was stirring. Her frame appeared to be much smaller and more fragile than either Ares's or the Bane's, with little muscle supporting her skeletal. Her skin was taut, free of wrinkles and scars, with an almost indiscernible grayish cast. Short silver hair hung loosely over the edge of her forehead, eyes and ears obscured. Though it was difficult to tell, Ares was almost certain that he was staring at--

"Twirltongue." The Bane's voice was a barely audible whisper, laced with astonishment and awe. Though Ares would not have expected to see her a moment before, it did make sense. Both the two rats' and the flier's corpses no doubt lay rotting in the same wretched cave off the Plain of Tartarus, where they would be eternally locked in their obscure dance of death.

In time they would be forgotten, all of them. The Bane would be the last to fade-- after all, who would remember the shunned flier, however heroic he might be seen as in death, over a one-in-a-million brutal rat? But it time, they would be nothing. Nothing to anybody. Perhaps they would be ink on a page, lores of long ago, though who would care enough to commit the tales to memory? No one. Not in the warring society that they had been a part of, been

shunned of. Not even would they mean anything to anybody in a scholastic world. Ares supposed that this bore no relevancy to him, for who was he among his people in his present time? He had no reason to care if his name was forgotten to men in a thousand years. That sort of thing should not bother him. So he didn't let it.