When Antony opened his eyes pain was once more rushing through his body.

Then he began to realize that he was still bound hands first to the ceiling, that one of his right teeth was missing and that his shirt had been ripped of completely while

his chest was covered in bruises.

So it hadn't been a dream after all.

Or rather, it hadn't been a nightmare.

He blinked and tried to focus his gaze, but the hit that had knocked him out before still left him groggy.

They had only sent him to get pizza, how in the world had it all ended up like this?

One of the giant billboards on the other side of the main street had advertised fresh and tasty pizza, complete with appetising pictures, a heavy discount if more

where ordered and even a bring service.

At last that was what had been promised.

Seeing how their boss had forbidden them to leave the immediate area and the sign had been put up so inviting the whole group had decided to order pizza for all and

let them be brought to one of the abandoned houses in the vicinity.

The lot had decided and they had sent him to bring the food back to the warehouse with a small van.

But when he arrived there the only thing he had received was a knockout straight out of nowhere.

He blinked again and this time he managed to focus, even if his left eye didn't open completely and the skin felt swollen.

The guy sitting on a chair a few meters away from him was eating pizza.

He took his sweet time to chew on the piece he had in his mouth while straight looking at his prisoner before he swallowed and gave him a nearly joyful wave.

"Hey Antony, my boy! I see you are back to your senses again?"

Antony winched from the volume the man spoke in as the guy took another bite from his pizza.

"You know, I thought you wouldn't mind." He exclaimed while pointing at the pizza piece in his hand.

"I mean, I know they are well packed and all, but I thought to myself, 'If this takes a bit longer the pizza might get cold...' "

The man shrugged in slightly apologizing manner, but Antony was almost certain that he didn't really mean it.

Even if one ignored the fact that they had beaten him and chained him to the ceiling, something about the man seemed like everything about him was fake.

Still he was eating his pizza piece without a care in the world, undoubtedly stolen from the ones he and his group had ordered. And while that could be simply

considered a dick move, the bigger question was why they had even got a hold of their food if they - whoever they were – had only intended to capture him in the first

place.

After the man had ate up the last piece of his food and was done loudly licking his fingers he started to hum a melody and grabbed a box from the ground beside him.

Anthony tried to get a look at his surroundings as he did, but all he could make out that he was still in one of those abandoned and baldy lit warehouses that made up

this part of the town.

Still humming the unknown man pulled out something that looked like a tool and a booklet from the box.

Without ever stopping his nerve eroding humming he set up the tool in a cheerful manner.

Antony tried to move and free himself from the chains and zip ties that bound him to the ceiling and tried the same with the ones that chained him to the floor, but to

no avail.

When the man started to whistle badly Antony considered that he might be worse off with him instead of the woman.

But when he remembered back how he had lost that teeth and why his torso was painted in deep purple and blue to begin with he came to the conclusion that he was

probably better off with the guy.

At last for now.

He might have been in few fights since he had entered into a life of crime and even left some by simply running for it.

But even if had had a few broken bones in his career, it was nothing to the pain that was still running through his body or the fact that four of the fingers on his right

hand had been broken by the furious woman.

"Aha!" the unknown man exclaimed in delight and activated the tool in his hand.

When the gas was released and a stream of fire formed at the tip of it Antony realized that he had a blowtorch in his hands and his heart sunk.

In the movies there was sometimes that scene were the protagonist was tortured but would never give up a word to the enemy.

Antony had always known that he wasn't such a man.

In his defence, when the woman went to work the first time he had at last tired to be upright and simply lie about what he knew. After all, false information should

have been just as well accepted as any other, right?

But somehow both the woman and the guy had detected any lie or half-truth even before he had spoken them.

And while the red haired woman had beat his face blue and yellow he had told them everything he knew.

Antony was no saint, he hardly knew the group he had been called to work with and had only seen the bosses face a few times.

Half the money was pretty much in his bag and the amount should last for a few months and more.

There was no need for him to try and act tough.

Besides, there were at last up to seventy guys back in that warehouse, armed to the teeth, if they weren't able to handle what was coming for them no one could.

But seeing how excited the guy seemed to become while he tried out the settings of his new toy Antony wagered that it probably didn't matter how 'cooperative' he

had been up until now.

He swallowed and tried to speak but his voice was dragging and his throat dry and in pain.

"What's... What's the torch for?" he asked slowly.

So slow and quiet that the guy didn't even seem to hear him as he continued to hum.

He tried a second time.

"What's the torch for?" he tried to call out without slurring his speech.

Whistling the man either ignored him or didn't hear as he had increased the torches strength just moments earlier.

The whistling and the blowtorch's screaming power rang in his ears and seemed to threaten to let his ears explode.

Winching and trying to stay sane while also trying to not think about what they were going to do with the blowtorch – which only made it worse, Antony noticed – he

screamed a third time.

"What is the damn torch for!?"

Breathing heavily and sinking backwards Antony nearly didn't notice how the blowtorch was put out and that the whistling had stopped.

He blinked tiredly at the man, who looked genuinely startled at Antony's outburst.

But no matter if it was all play or the truth; his face immediately vanished into a just as honest looking smile.

"Oh? That old thing here?" He raised the blowtorch in his hand slightly.

"Oh, you know, mostly for torching things, you know." For some reason the man found his quip amusing enough to snicker a bit.

Even his snickering sounded annoying.

"It can also be used well as means to bring light to the darkness, bring truth to light and wisdom to the undeserving!" the man exclaimed joyfully.

"But actually mostly for welding and some such stuff I think." He added on thoughtfully.

Antony immediately understood the hidden threats.

"But I know nothing!" he blurted out.

"Well, they say that Sokrates said that too, even if that is not the completely right interpretation, but still he had a smart head on his shoulders." The man shrugged

unconcerned.

"But I am sure you have some cells left in your brain that might find something useful as well.

And who knows, maybe you even find something that keeps my sister from making some ... let's say, harsh decisions?"

The man said with a wink and a smile while he nonchalantly carried on setting up the blowtorch.

Antony only had a few moments to think about something that might have slipped his mind earlier on before the man distracted him by starting to read from the

booklet in his hand.

"The blowtorch two-thousand gets its name from the amount of degrees it is able to perform with. We at Valksgrad Productions entertain the thought that our tools

are at the peak..."

Antony tried to concentrate, but it seemed like the man was determined to read out the complete manual.

"What are you doing?" he asked with a hoarse voice.

The man liked a finger and turned the page.

"Me?" he asked nonchalantly. "Oh, you know, my sister always says you should start by making your client accustomed with the tools you are going to use on them

before you start.

After all, everyone likes to stay well informed right?

Oh, and she says it increases the customers chance at remembering everything, even unnecessary details."

The man smiled at Antony and continued without hesitation.

"... the price of our products is below average and still their quality is higher than most of our competitors... heh, and we all ready got it at half price... or at last that's

what he told us... Hey Antony look! They even say that it is unlikely that it will explode in our hands!

Although we might have to ignore the part where it says that it should be kept far away from the human body eh?"

Who would have imagined that someone could get nausea from an overexcited read out of a blowtorch booklet?

Antony still had to fight the feeling of sickness when another door opened and the woman came back.

He instinctively winched when the red haired woman entered the room and fixated him with her eyes that were as unforgiving as cold steel.

"I see our guest is back in the realm of the wake ones." She said coldly as she walked over to the other man who nodded slightly in response.

"He still seems a bit groggy thought." He pointed out.

"Nothing better to get someone's senses back in place than a bit of pain." The woman said.

"Like with a tad bit of fire?" the man asked curiously, not even trying to hide the grin on his face.

"Some would say that a bit of fire is the most important part in life." The woman replied sharply, grabbed the blowtorch from the man and with a hiss its fire burned anew.

"Hey! Wait! Stop!" Antony called out in despair. "I already told you guys everything I know!"

"Truly everything, you sure mate?" the man asked slightly doubtful.

"You might believe what you say." The woman said without any kind of emotion in her voice while she put her hair in a bun and put on a pair of black worker goggles.

"But you wouldn't believe how far people's memory can extend once they are under pressure."

"Under Pressure..." for some reason the man in the duo had decided that now was the best time to start singing a song and flipping his fingers to the melody he

hummed.

"Pushing down on me, pushing down on you..." he immediately stopped once he noticed the eyes of the woman were piercing him with... boredom?

Without missing a beat the guy began moon walking backwards and out of the danger zone.

"Everything all right, song had no relation anyway, leaving you two alone now." He winked and continued walking into the background.

The woman sighed and focused back at her prisoner.

"Now, where were we?" she asked no one in particular before she put the black goggles over her eyes and walked a step closer to Antony.

"Please, I already told you what I know. There are like a bit more than sixty armed man in the warehouse, eight man on the roof, cameras on the outside and the

inside. The boss armed us pretty well and..."

"Yea, yea, I wrote it down somewhere," she said and casually stepped another bit closer to him while testing the settings of the blowtorch herself.

"But you know? I've done this job for a decent amount of time, and I know when someone just needs a little push to bring out the truth in him."

"I already told you everything I know!" the prisoner whined as he saw the hissing blowtorch coming ever closer.

"Oh, I am sure you think so." The woman said pragmatically.

"But torture is kind of like smiting a sword. First you get the Iron into roughly the shape you want by melting and forming it."

She moved the blowtorch awfully close to his exposed belly while all he could do was unsuccessfully try to turn away.

His bindings held him straight in place.

"Just like you melt away the lie from the truth the first round you try to extract information from your guest."

She walked to the side where he couldn't move his head to see her.

"But when the sword doesn't have the shape you want, and you know it could easily have it, you need to reheat it a bit so you can work on it again."

Her voice didn't seem excited or even sadistic, just like before her behaviour had been on the first round it was now, full of pragmatism.

Like somebody who had been doing this for ages.

There were no hard feelings whatsoever.

As the unknown man had said before, "At last consider yourself lucky that she isn't angry with you".

"What kind of fucked up job do you have if you know this shit so well!?" he screamed more out of terror, knowing full well that no one would hear him.

The boss had made sure that this district was mostly empty even if was still close enough to the city's heart to be able to get there fast.

"Oh, just a very fulfilling and long lasting one I think." The woman said casually.

"Yea, and it is kind'a for live and we don't even get dental or a good pension." The man chimed in from the background.

The woman simply ignored him and moved on.

"In fact I have been doing this kind of work for so long that it sometimes becomes problematic to not see people like you as nothing more than a bunch of weak points

that can be snapped to make them break like sticks."

She clicked with one of her fingers to demonstrate the ease.

Antony only gulped in response.

"I once had a guy on the table far bigger and stronger than you, he had more power in his finger tip than people like you could ever imagine. Despite that I still broke

his legs and made him a cripple."

She told him like someone might have talked about his workday once he reached home.

"Circumstances didn't allow me to kill him myself, so instead of doing so I heated up a knife and started to cut and burn out his flesh. I wrote an entire list of every

crime he had ever committed all over his body, and then I left him there to be found by his own."

She sighed and Antony even thought he could sense a faint smile.

"It took three days until word reached me that his own men had been the ones that had rubbed salt in his wounds before they had murdered him. Maybe I shouldn't

have written what he had betrayed them behind their backs, or maybe he should have found better friends."

Antony gulped again. He knew, one way or another, this was not going to end well for him.

The only thing to decide here was which route was going to save him.

If that even was still an option.

"You know, this blowtorch here is a fine tool, much more civilized than a crude knife some might think." The woman continued in a friendly tone.

"It can put out up to two thousand degrees, perfect to let even steel melt.

Did you ever wonder what that kind of heat might do to human flesh?"

He gulped as the hiss of the tool increased as it was put closer to his ear.

He didn't even put up the courage to shake his head.

"You will feel no pain..." she said in an almost shooting tone.

... at first, that is." She added on.

"The heat will burn away your nerve ends, you go into shock and for a while, all you will feel is cold."

Again, there was no emotion in her voice, no sadism, no eagerness, just cold indifference to his problem.

"At first it will be cold, and it will smell like burned meat, but then... later... there will be pain. And your back will properly look worse than a grenade victim."

She sighed and set herself up directly behind him.

Antony screamed when he felt the cold spreading out over his back the first time.

He could smell the burned flesh as the stench invaded his nose and he could hear the sound when his flesh and skin was burned off with a hiss.

He still screamed when the woman paused for a moment and the man stepped in front of him.

The man sniffed the air and looked at Antony in worry.

"You sure you don't know anything man, she certainly knows what she is doing, you might still be able to get away with a few burns right now." The stranger stated

with a hint of pity in his voice.

"I told you everything I know! Really! Please! Make her stop!"

The man only raised his hands in defence.

"I certainly won't be trying to stop her, sorry bro, not in my contract. Far more powerful dudes than me already tried, I can't remember a single one who succeeded.

What I can remember is some of their gruesome deaths. I am afraid you must find your own way out of this one."

Another streak of coldness went over his back as the blowtorch burned away flesh and Antony screamed in shock.

He blinked and tried once again to concentrate on something he might have missed before.

"What about a save-room? Does your boss have something like that? Or a secret hideout perhaps?" the man asked while lazily inspecting his fingernails, not at all

caring for the plight in front of him.

Antony raced through his mind and tried to find a hint of what the man was asking for.

Another surge of coldness hit his back and he screamed once more.

"Smells like she hit a bit of your fat." The man pointed out as he sniffed the air loudly.

"I know! I know! I might know something!" he screamed and the coldness suddenly stopped.

"You do?" the woman asked without changing her tone as she stepped out from behind him.

"Go ahead and tell, let's see if it's worth something." She said as she stopped the blowtorch and put of the black goggles.

"I overheard two of the guys the boss hired early on in the first few days when I was brought in." He explained.

"And?" the woman asked, seemingly uninterested.

"They talked about how the boss has some insiders in a hotel at the heart of the city only a few kilometres from here, apparently less than a dozen men.

Sometimes he vanishes from his room inside the warehouse and nobody knows where he went.

I am almost certain that he goes there." Antony said wheezing.

"Please! That is all I know. You must believe me!"

He screamed his last words again. And he knew, if the chains wouldn't have held him up all this time he would have toppled over a long time ago.

The pair looked at each other and he only noticed out of the corners of his swollen eyes that the man simply shrugged.

"What is the name of the hotel?" she asked.

"I don't know, they didn't mention it, but they said it was right at the heart of the town high enough to really stand out." he sobbed and tried to calm himself, but to no

avail.

Now the Woman shrugged before she stepped behind his back again.

Antony closed his eyes in fear. He was certain that it was only a matter of moments until the blowtorch would hiss and the smell of burned flesh would fill the room

again before the cold would spread once more over his back.

To his surprise the only cold he felt was in his mouth, and it tasted of strawberry.

He opened his eyes and saw how the man gave him a wink and a grin before Antony even noticed the Popsicle in his mouth.

If his mouth wouldn't have been preoccupied with the ice at the moment he would have had it wide open in surprise as the woman stepped beside the man and

wordless pushed a box with burned pig meat into his hands before she walked back to Antony and grabbed his tied up hands.

A new surge of pain ran through his body as she did something with his broken fingers, but as soon as the pain faded Antony noticed that he could finally move them

again.

He starred at the woman with wide eyes as she stepped back.

"They were only dislocated. The rest of your wounds and bruises are only superficial, expect for the tooth of course, you should be back to your old health in less than

a few weeks."

The woman turned around without another word and the man winked at him with a pleased grin on his face as he walked backwards as well.

"Keep your head up and on your shoulders Antony boy, you might need it in the future! See ya around!" without wasting another moment the man stepped through

the same door his companion had taken and was gone.

Still chained to the ceiling and floor with the Popsicle in his mouth and ice running over his back Antony could do nothing but stare.

What the hell had that been?

What the heck had happened?

And more importantly what was going to happen next?


Death put the night vision binoculars to the side when Fury and Strife walked onto the roof of the building from the staircase.

"Did he say anything of use?" the eldest of the horseman wanted to know as the youngest continued to fly the small silent drone and observed the guards on top of

the warehouse they were targeting.

"The demon seems to have a second hideout towards the centre of the city." Fury answered while Strife walked over to where he had positioned the laptop he had

gotten from Vulgrim.

"He said he overheard how his boss might have a group of men in one of the biggest hotels there." Strife added on.

"If you ask me he has probably decided to hide the artefact he stole there."

"Why there of all places?" Death asked unconvinced.

"Our little sing bird said it should be the biggest hotel in the centre of the city." Fury explained.

"If he is right that plays straight into what Strife is expecting."

The rider of the white horse nodded while he continued to search on his laptop.

"How do you get the attention of the people? Blow the biggest thing up they have and they will have no chance but to report about it all over the news. No chance of

trying to let it seem small then. We all know why executions are displayed in open view for all to see."

He explained casually.

"Is that all he said?" War asked while he tried to keep a safe distance with the drone while also not letting its monitor out of sight.

"Any more and he would have admitted to shooting the pope." Fury pointed out deadpan.

"I am happy we even got that one bit out of him, he didn't seem like the guy who would hold out much longer."

Death nodded to her.

"I trust your judgment on this." He said, knowing full well how honed Furys skills had become in the art of torture while the eons had passed.

Even in the times of the Nephilim her skill and her whip had been legendary.

"Here, I have it." Strife said. "A four Stars hotel, very well visited at this time of the year. Only five kilometres from here, you can properly see it if you take a look

around."

"Yea, I think I can make it out." Fury said as she squinted into the dark night behind them.

"Really shouldn't be that far away."

Strife clapped his hands together and looked at the billboard on the far side of the street that led to the warehouse they were observing and was in direct view of it.

"However Vulgrim managed to set up the pizza advertisement, the place we got them from doesn't seem to mind. Apparently forty pizzas for one order nearly broke

their record. They even posted about it on their social site. Not very good for the cover of this little hideout, someone should go tell that Joseph guy."

"At last someone who can profit of off this." Death said coldly.

"The rest of this food is still in the van down in one of the garages?" he asked.

"Yep, still all packed up, shouldn't get cold. And the delivery guy did as thought when I gave him the money plus his generous extra tip and told him it was a prank. He

called whoever inside that warehouse ordered the pizza and told him he wouldn't make it on time.

Now they shouldn't expect our boy Antony back for tad bit longer, this means all, is going according to plan."

"Antony?" War asked with a look at Fury.

"Our prisoner." His sister explained deadpan.

Strife didn't let the low material stop him from making a quick quip.

"You were the one who told me that one should always try to be professional when torturing people."

"Professional. Understand them. Not trying to make them your friends." Fury said coldly.

"I was only trying the good old 'good angel bad angel' thing." Strife tried to defend himself lazily. "Besides, I am sure I could have had the same information all by

having a few beers and a quick chat with him."

"Should I remind you that it was your Idea to set him up for torture?" she asked with a dangerous hiss.

"Specifically so that you could get me to pull that last trick with the ice."

Strife shrugged and tried to distance himself from his sister.

"Hey, I saw it in a human movie once, and you got to admit it was a funny idea."

He pointed finger guns at her from a safe distance.

Fury snorted in disapproval.

"You mean it wasn't even your own idea? You disappoint me brother. I've done stuff like this for eons long before humanity even existed. Misleading and deceit are as

much tools of torture as anything else."

Strife nodded carefully.

"Yea, sure, but the thing is... you probably learned it from someo..."

"That is enough." Death cut his brother short.

"We are here to storm this warehouse, kill or capture the demon and secure the artefact he stole."

He shot a strict look at both of them, which Fury answered with an acknowledging nod while Strife rubbed his hands together and counted the stars with a slight

whistle on his lips.

"Strife!" the rider of the white horse faked a wince at Deaths voice and blinked like he had been ripped out of a dream.

"Huh! What? Sorry, I wasn't listening." He acted all innocent.

"You said you had a plan before we simply storm the place. I want to hear it from you."

The oldest rider pointed out.

"Ah! Yes, the plan." Strife exclaimed while he clasped his hands together.

"Which one was it again, does someone remember, I forgot."

Neither of his siblings moved as much as a muscle at his antics and the silence that followed was only broken by a car horn from the far of main street.

Strife coughed awkwardly and sat himself up straight.

"Well, as I was trying to say before... I would kindly and most humbly suggest that you let me go in first. We have all we need, I can take the place of dear Antony - I

mean our prisoner - and deliver the pizza in his place, just as planned.

But instead of only taking it as an option to get myself closer before we strike, I suggest that you let me get inside so that I can do what I do best."

He didn't need to tell anyone that he was nearly perfect at sowing chaos and distrust.

"We know the places where they properly hoard their weapons by talking with Antony and looking at the plans, I might be able to have some fun with those or their

other weapons they have laying around.

Put most importantly I am fairly certain that I should be able to expose their boss Joseph and put the tracker I got from Vulgrim on him.

As Antony said, not only does he have his own safe room inside the warehouse, he has also something going on in that hotel and he might flee to that there once

things here start to heat up and he actually realizes who exactly is coming for him.

Even if we know where he might be running to, that hotel is pretty big and he could have hid that artefact all over, a simple tracker might come in handy."

Death nodded calmly.

"Sounds good enough to me. Take what you need and get ready."

Strife clapped his hands together and stood up to do just that but War held a hand up and stopped him.

"You should take care of those guards on the roof first, they swapped shifts only a few minutes ago. The next change should be in a bit more than an hour according

to their patterns."

Strife made an annoyed face.

"Can't you just go and shoot them yourself? You know where the sniper rifle is as well."

War only gave him a steadfast look as he landed the small drone close beside them.

"The bet was your idea, and I can't shoot three guys that stand behind a wall. The Rifle Vulgrim gave us is not powerful enough. You are the one with the bow."

Strife sighed and walked over to where he had left his equipment, pulling out a simple bow and a few arrows he had brought with him from Vulgrims arsenal.

He took his iron mask from his belt and put it on to check on his targets.

War didn't even bother to give him the night vision binoculars as Strife could clearly see the eight guards that patrolled the roof and kept their eyes on all possible

access points to the warehouse.

"You should take care of the cameras first. There are quite a few."

Death chimed in.

Strife rolled his eyes safely under his mask.

"Already thought about that one." He said and opened one of his hands.

In it a small lifelike Christmas tree appeared out of nowhere and began to turn while small lights illuminated the hand.

Death scoffed and looked straight through the trick.

"Illusions, you truly think they will work?"

Strife clenched his hand and the illusion disappeared.

"The guys checking the monitors of those cameras are more than likely all humans. None of them will be able to look trough even the simplest of illusions.

I am just going to use roughly the same method the useless hacker would have used Vulgrim tried to sell to us for half a kingdom.

I simply put a loop of the scenes they saw before in front of their cameras so that is only visible to the machines and none of the guys checking them should smell

something."

Strife counted the cameras out and inside the warehouse and drew green runes into the air in front of him as he wordlessly began his work.

After only a few minutes he clapped his hands together in satisfaction.

"Masterpiece." He said to himself as he could feel the illusion magic doing its work and turning the human technology blind.

Once again he checked on the guards and let his with magic spells infused mask show him their heat signatures and heartbeat.

War had been right, three of the guards were for large parts of their patrol behind a small structure on the roof, and one of them didn't even bother to move while he

smoked.

Strife tested the wind with two fingers.

"Perfect." He noticed, put the first arrow on his bow and held seven in reserve.

With a quick glance he made sure that he had picked the right arrows.

Their heads were covered in simple and fast working poison.

As long as the arrow would draw flesh the human's fate would be sealed.

With a grin on his lips Strife started to aim and quickly calculated his firing arch before he simply sent one after another arrow into the night sky seemingly directly into

nothing above himself.

He clicked his tongue in satisfaction while the arrows still travelled the distance.

"Sometimes I regret that guns overtook bow and arrow for the most part."

He said almost mournful.

"Less skill needed, more people can pick it up easily, easier to build up an army, perfect to build up power." War stated.

"Yea, but at least cannons still had a bit of a firing arch. Trying to do the same with a gun would be a tad bit more difficult." Strife pointed out.

Shortly after the perfectly timed arrows struck their targets almost all at the same time, even the three guards behind the wall were not save when the arrows came

down in an almost impossible arch nearly directly from above.

"One can see how they overtook most other means of battle in a realm where almost only humans life, and where the inhabitants have such a low basic lifeforce. For

them one single small calibre bullet can mean death." the red rider added on.

"Whatever." Strife shrugged and checked his mask. "Job is done."

Now the body's of the guards had sunken to the floor, but their heartbeats were becoming slow and steady. First the paralysation poison in the mix had taken effect

to keep them from screaming or striking alarm some other way, and sleeping poison right after to put them into the land of dreams for the next few hours if everything

went right.

"If my mask didn't miscount there are roughly sixty three heartbeats left down there in the building. I did my part so far, if anyone is going to need anything from me, I

am going to be on a mission to spread some havoc."

He put the bow aside and took a bag he had prepared before.

"Also, if anyone cares, the app I installed on your mobile phones should show where I am since I have the tracker for good ol' Joseph with me.

I inform you when I managed to put it on him, alright?"

"What if you get captured?" Fury asked deadpan as Strife walked to the stairway.

"Me? Get captured? When did that ever happen?" he asked sceptically.

Fury only began to murmur as she recalled examples while she counted on her right hand.

Strife sighed when she started to use her left hand as well and resigned.

"Okay, you got me, but at last half of those times where on purpose to get inside. The others were because I had nothing else to do anyway."

Furys look didn't change.

"Oh, I only counted those were I had to break you out by force." She stated.

"Oh come on! Half of those were because I wanted to visit a friend or two.

Not my fault that they were incarcerated at the time now, was it?"

He was about to say more but stating that he had known that she had his back would probably seem like he took her for granted.

But even thought Strife took great pride in the fact that many considered him foolish, enough of the right people knew well that he wasn't stupid either.

So he didn't say a word, otherwise he could already see Fury taking her sweet time if he was in a bit of trouble some other time.

Besides, most of those times he could have escaped himself, it was just that his methods usually took a while longer than hers.

Beating guards to death with the dungeon door just wasn't his style.

Not that there had been one or a few times were he had truly sat locked up behind some very sturdy bars with deaf guards...

Fury was about to speak up again and Strife got ready to do so before her when Death stepped forward.

"That is enough." He simply said as cold as before, in a voice that didn't allow any objection.

"What are you going to do if you are going to be captured?" he asked Strife who shrugged in response.

"Vulgrim did sell us that useless bug, did he not?"


Strife stopped the van directly before the fence that led to the backdoor of the warehouse and jumped out with a grin on his face.

He jumped slightly when he was greeted by the barking of at last three guard dogs and whipped his forehead with one hand.

"Damn it boys! I nearly forgot about you lot." He said with a laugh that was just as fake as his surprise as he took two giant isolated black boxes out of the trunk.

The dogs growled at him as he stepped through the fence gate and carefully put down the boxes while the dogs where stalking closer.

He looked at the camera that was facing him and made sure that it hadn't yet been affected by his illusions so that the trick would not be given away too easily.

With a quick whistle he pulled out a few small sausages he had prepared beforehand.

"Now boys? Who is a good boy?" he asked and baited the dogs slightly by swinging the treat in front of them.

It took them all less than a minute to go form wary of the stranger to very welcoming to the man that was brining gifts.

What a bunch of guard dogs they were.

Strife had trained better ones himself.

The horseman shrugged, they probably could smell and feel that something was different about him and that he was not Antony, but then again they were not the

ones he needed to convince that he was somebody else.

He threw the sausages to the dogs and picked up the boxes again before he stepped to the small backdoor of the warehouse and loudly knocked on it.

"Antony is that you?" a heavy voice asked from inside.

"No, it's me! Dmitry, the interchange gangster form Greece! Who do you think it is? Of course it's me!"

A short moment of loud silence occurred and let Strife notice that the damn boxes weren't as light as he had hoped.

He could hear murmuring behind the door before the voice sounded again.

"What's the codeword?" it asked.

"Open the door before I eat all of the god damn pizza by myself." He said without raising his voice.

After a short moment keys rattled and the lock was turned.

Of course they had interrogated Antony on the possibility of a codeword or something similar.

The poor guy had been so afraid of Fury that he was unable to lie.

As he stepped through the sturdy security door he immediately noticed the biggest man in the room with black skin and a wide smile.

"Tomas you dickhead, those pizzas aren't exactly light you know."

"Sorry, but I just had to ask you that, wanted to know how you react. Seems like waiting for that delivery guy pissed you of a bit eh?"

The black man laughed and put the assault weapon in his hands aside to take one of the boxes of Strife.

"He certainly sounds like it." One of the other handful of man in the room pointed out as he helped as well.

"You sure can believe so Paul." Strife agreed.

None of the humans were able to notice that the horseman was still wearing his iron mask, which just meant that the illusion the mask was projecting was as perfect

as always.

It wasn't even an exact copy of Antonys face, it had some wanted mistakes and had been adjusted to better fit Strife's figure just in case there was a unlikely occasion

were he might have to ditch it.

If any human accidently found out it might have been difficult to simply explain away as makeup otherwise and hide their facade.

Sadly for him this also meant that Strife wasn't able to wear a fake moustache.

Who cared that Antony didn't even have one to begin with anyway? Every good disguise should have a fake moustache, creator be damned!

Now, the voice on the other hand wasn't as perfect as it could have been but that was part of the hoax as well.

Besides, if Antony was too believed he had only known a few of those hired mercenaries by name to begin with.

Paul and Tomas at the backdoor were two of them.

"So guys, the pizza boy gave me a few packs of beer for being the best order of the night and for making me wait so long. Anyone care to help me get them from the

van?"

A few happy cheers erupted and everyone was immediately by his side as they heard about free beer.

Strife grinned to himself, there were some things that would never change.

He put his hands together and stretched them forwards.

Now, the night was still young and he would have a bit less than an hour but he was certainly going to amuse himself.

Only a few hundred meters afar War watched his brother trough the binoculars.

"I hope he won't overdo it, the prisoner didn't really seem like a person which Strife is portraying him as." He noted to his siblings.

Fury only looked quickly up from the Laptop Strife had left behind.

"You mean, loudmouthed and full of himself?" she added on before she concentrated back at the screen and put on the earmuffs.

"Is the bug working?" Death asked and leaned over to her.

"Yes, wherever this is a good thing or bad remains to be seen thought."

The female horseman pushed a button and for a short moment they could hear Strifes voice surrounded by a few others as the as the human device let them hear

what he did.

"Well, I told the pizza boy we had a secret satanic midnight party here, he didn't seem to be too concerned about it." For some reason only the creator could know the

other voices began a heartfelt laugh.

"So far he seems to be doing his job well thought." Fury pointed out as a grin began to appear on her face.

"But no matter if he succeeds or totally fails, this should be entertaining either way."

Neither War nor Death bothered to disagree with her as they watched the mercenaries bring their supplies inside.

"Sure would be great if we had Popcorn read for this." Fury added on in disappointment as they waited for the mercenaries to get inside.

Death turned around and raised an eyebrow in her direction.

"This should be going to be one of the more entertaining audio books we are ever going to get." She pointed out.

Moments later War sat down the binoculars and grabbed his own pair of earmuffs.

Death shrugged and followed his example.

Strife showing chaos was one thing, Strife showing Chaos and knowing that he had an audience was something completely different.


"So, those four people were here in your shop?" Sören asked the old fragile man again as he slowly made his way out of the small room that was on both sides filled

with tables full of books and papers that looked ancient.

"As I told you before officer, yes, they were here." The merchant answered, his old voice shaking a bit as he supported himself on the cane by his side.

"But you said that they left soon after when we asked you the first time, my men asked the boy in the shop, and he said they didn't leave for a while."

The old man blinked and slowly turned around to lock the door behind himself, Sören could have sworn he took forever on purpose.

"Do you know how it is to be as old as I am?" the merchant answered after what felt like a small eternity.

"No mister Fritz I don't know, all I know is that they entered this building and I would like to know..."

"Time flies when you are old." The man interrupted and pierced the police officer with a decisive look.

"From a child's eyes a week or a month are long, but the older you get the faster time seems to fly past." Sören wasn't sure but he thought that he was able to see a

hint of sadness in the old man's eyes.

"I might just have thought it wasn't that long when it was actually not so." Mister Fritz admitted.

Sören sighed. "Okay, I can see that, but could you finally tell me what they wanted here?" the longer he was talking with the man the more grew his impatience.

Which was actually a somewhat strange feeling for the otherwise collected police officer, but the old merchant seemed to drag out all of what he did so long that Sören

was nearly suspecting that he was doing it on purpose.

A thought like that was ridiculous of course, since the man looked like he was just about to fall over dead at any moment anyway.

If there had been a contest for 'oldest looking senior' he might have made it into the first one hundred ranking.

And something about his eyes and the fact that he always seemed to sport a slight grin when he wasn't looking irritated the hell out of the officer.

"They knew I had a friend in the city administration and asked for plans." Mister Fritz said.

"Plans? What plans? About what?" Sören dug deeper, certain to not let go this time around.

He was almost sure the old man was trying to be suspenseful on purpose.

"They wanted the plans of an abandoned warehouse. Apparently they thought someone dangerous was hiding there. They had sent some of their luggage here to my

address and left with it, many of which were guns and weapons. One even had a horse with him, I think."

"How dangerous?" Sören asked.


Author Note:

Yes, this is not dead yet.

Sorry for the somewhat strange start, but that was one of the scenes I just had to work in there.

And Fury being a skilful torture master of old would make for a interesting character if done correctly form my pov.

Sadly, as I wrote I noticed that I would either have to make it one giant chapter or do the more engaging part in the next one, and since I thought I had already taken

enough time I decided to make this one its own part. So sadly no action yet.

Also, I should really revise the old chapters a bit more, some of those writing mistakes are as obvious as a bus crash.

(I am not saying that this one is perfect either)

And thanks to Guest from Jun 5, it's always nice to get some words of encouragement in general, to which I am very thankful, but a short review once in a while might

help me (and others) increase the quality of my writing.

Especially since I would like to revise my other darksiders themed fics one day to improve upon them. It just gets a bit difficult if you have nothing of substance to work

with to find out what fitted the story and what not from only your perspective.

Either way, I am back to concentrating on Human Realm. I won't make any promises to when it is going to be finished, but if I haven't managed to bring it to an end

when Darksiders 3 releases I will certainly reconsider my effectives at writing.