Octavia could make out the faint orange glow of the sunset through the cracks of the back door. It filled the dark trunk with faint traces of warm colors, dancing around the inside of the baggage hold. The occasional bump in the road obscured the light, only for it to return a few moments later.

She was comfortably able to stretch her legs out in front of her. It was a relief, able to move somewhat freely in the confines of the trunk. Throwing out the luggage had been one of their smarter moves, and they had secured useful weapons in the process.

"How long have we been in here?" Moxxie asked, "Ugh…"

"Looks like the sun's already going down again," Octavia replied, "So…almost a day."

If her time-telling was correct, it meant that they had five days left until Alastor executed the others. She had to hope that the journey to the prison would end in success. If they made so much as a single wrong move, they would end up as new convicts who would end up being executed.

They had developed a plan. Once they arrived at the prison, they would set off one of the grenades in the back of the bus to provide a distraction while they ran away. Octavia would lead them to the radio tower, and they would do as much damage to it as they could.

She had no idea what awaited them in the tower. Octavia had only seen the outside of it during their one visit to the prison. She had never actually been inside of it.

Her hope was to cause enough of a distraction to draw the Guard towards them, and that was when they would set off the second grenade. If that didn't work, they would take out their weapons and fire away until they were dead.

They would also have to keep their eyes peeled for the rumored power orb that Alastor kept within the tower. Octavia had no idea if the rumors of its existence were true, but it would be worth a shot to look for it. If it truly did exist, it held the powers of Princess Morningstar, Lilith, and even Stolas. If she could find a way to access it, then they would be golden.

She wondered if perhaps they would encounter the princess during their journey. It would be helpful if they did. Princess Morningstar knew how to deal with Alastor better than anyone else. Any demon who could survive two years in his prison had to know a thing or two about taking advantage of him and getting what they wanted.

The plan was shaky, yes, but so was everything else that they had done. It was the only chance the two of them had for getting their friends and family out of Alastor's clutches, if not only for a bit. The hope was that their bombing of the tower would distract the Guard long enough to allow the others to make an escape. They had enough ammo to take out a good portion of their security, and they were going to have to hope for the best.

The bus suddenly came to a stop, throwing Octavia forward and nearly hitting Moxxie in the face with the butt of her gun. Fitting their armor and weapons that they had acquired had been difficult, but with the free room from ditching the luggage, they had managed to make room.

"Sorry," Octavia said, pulling herself up, "You got your stuff?"

Moxxie nodded, holding the grenades in his hands, "Yep."

The two of them crawled forward towards the door.

Her heart was pounding out of her chest. They were outside of the Pit of Fire, a land of eternal torment and torture. They had led themselves to the area in the riskiest endeavor of her life. If a single thing went wrong, they were going to end up in that prison with everyone else, set to be killed by the end of the week.

She would rather die at her own hands than have that happen.

Her hand rested on the handle, ready to kick it open when the moment was right. They planned to kick the door once they heard soldiers approaching to open the trunk. If they played their cards right, they would be able to catch them by surprise.

Muffled voices came from outside, and Moxxie held his hand close to the pin of the grenade.

"Almost…" he whispered, "Get ready…"

The voices came closer, until they were right outside of the trunk. She had her hands clasped so tightly around the handle that she feared it would fall off if she held it any tighter.

She felt a hand on the other side of the door, and Moxxie gave the order.

"Go!" Moxxie shouted.

Octavia obliged, opening the door with her hand and then kicking it up with force with her good leg. A breeze followed right afterwards.

A few seconds after that came a loud thump followed by a scream.

"DAMMIT!" a soldier shouted, "What the hell-?"

Moxxie pulled the pin on the grenade and threw it into the trunk while the soldiers recovered from their newest blow.

Octavia ran out after him, only for a sharp pain to overtake her leg.

She turned around and saw that her ankle was pinned between two bars towards the side of the trunk. She struggled against them and tried to push herself forward, but to no avail.

And there was a grenade to her right.

"MOXXIE!" Octavia shouted, "Help!"

Moxxie was mid-stride when he turned around and grabbed one of her free wrists, trying to pull her out while the soldiers began to recover. The race against time had just grown more dire with her newfound predicament, caught in one of the worst spots possible. If that grenade went off before she could safely get away, she was dead. They wouldn't be able to identify her body. She would be nothing more than a collection of red mist on the sidewalk.

Shit.

SHIT.

The two of them worked desperately to free her in time. She hadn't used a grenade before, but she had seen enough movies to know that those things went off fast. And her armor wasn't going to do much to keep her from being impaled and blown apart.

As if things couldn't get any worse, she heard a soldier rushing over to them while shouting at them.

"Hey! You! Get over here!" the soldier yelled, "You're dead-!"

Octavia fell from the trunk with a thud, just as a soldier charged at them headfirst into the back of the vehicle.

She immediately leapt to her feet and broke out into a full on sprint with Moxxie towards the tower. There wasn't even enough time for her to process what was going on.

"Seize them!" the soldier hollered.

The two of them had barely been on their feet for ten seconds before there was a large blast from behind them. It shook the ground and sent a blast of heat and shrapnel into the air, Octavia barely avoiding a chunk of metal that whizzed by her head and crashed into a nearby wall.

They didn't let it stop them. Octavia shot a single glance behind her shoulder to see a flaming bus, a splatter of red, and a gun laying on the ground with part of a hand attached to it.

If Octavia had been there for an extra few seconds, she would have died.

But there wasn't enough time for either of them to worry about that.

In front of them, the prison and the Central Communications Headquarters loomed before them. Even though she was beginning to run out of breath and struggle under the weight of her armor, Octavia was in awe at the scale of the prison.

When Alastor had boasted about a large prison built on suffering, he hadn't been kidding. The prison itself looked like it was larger than Imp City. Large metal walls glowing with dark magic rose above them, seeming to reach into the sky itself and brushing the gates of heaven. Smoke rose from behind, along with the screams of the damned. She could hear the cries of suffering coming from the souls that Alastor had condemned to their torment. It made her sick to her stomach just to think about it.

On each wall was a set of bars, indicating a single cell. She remembered seeing the background of her mother's cell during Alastor's broadcasts leading up to her execution, the iron appearing just as oxidized and dilapidated as it was before.

She had to force herself to keep running. Fear was trying to paralyze her, swearing that she could hear her mother's screams among the damned. One Goetia had already died within those walls, and if they did something wrong, that number would rise to three. Alastor would do anything in his power to wipe them out. Keeping their presence hidden was already off to a rough start, and she feared that it was only going to get worse.

Dark clouds circled around the sky, lightning striking the ground from above. Dead trees and skulls dotted the surrounding hills and gardens. Octavia could feel the cloud of suffering and woe weighing down on her. Like a physical force bringing her deeper and deeper into despair.

To the left of the prison, was none other than the Central Communications Headquarters.

The tower was higher than anything Octavia had seen before. A dark green glow came from the top of the building. She could see the light illuminating the clouds above, as the top of the tower was repeatedly struck by green lightning.

A large fence encircled the exterior of the industrialized suffering machine. Barbed wire and electrical currents coated their sides, meaning certain death if either of them wanted to make an attempt at climbing over. If they wanted to get inside of the building, they were going to have to take more aggressive action. Pools of lava and deep craters dotted the outside. Remains of demons who had attempted escape were strung over the sides of the fences in various stages of decay. Alastor had most likely left them there as a warning, trying to use them as an example to scare away anyone who dared to try and defy his orders.

An example that was intended for the two of them.

Octavia turned her head and noticed various watchtowers positioned at various corners around the fence. To her relief, they appeared to be focused primarily on the bus that had just gone up in flames.

That was, until the searchlights came on.

"Moxxie! Get the fuck down!" Octavia hissed as the search beams moved closer to them.

He obliged, and the two of them dove to the ground just outside of the electric fence, taking over beneath a rock as soldiers began to shout around them. The sun had slipped beneath the horizon, and now their only source of light came from the search beams.

"Shit…" Moxxie grumbled, staring at the security forces that were already beginning to mobilize themselves.

Getting on the other side of the fence was the only way they would be able to reach the tower, and having the Guard after them wasn't helping. Every second they remained still was another second closer to being captured by the Guard.

Octavia turned around and tried to search for an avenue of escape. The fence was clearly beginning to fall apart, with various holes and burrows having appeared in the surrounding ground. She had no idea how they had gotten there, nor did she know whether they were safe to enter or not.

But, as the sound of footsteps grew closer, she realized that they were going to have to take a risk.

There was a shallow hole underneath the fence to their right. The two of them were small enough to fit through it. On the other side lay perils unknown. Perils that she wasn't sure they could defeat.

And yet, she began crawling through.

"Follow me," she whispered, "Hurry."

The searchlights grew closer to them, and Moxxie ducked underneath the fence just as one crossed over their former hiding spot.

Sirens sounded overhead. Gunshots rang through the air. Octavia ignored the dirt on her face as they crawled forward. She wasn't one who enjoyed getting dirty, but the alternative was far worse.

She tried to ignore the tightness of the crawlspace, praying that she would reach the other side in one piece. Dark, dirty, and tight spaces were her worst nightmare. It seemed fitting for the hellish week she had endured. By that point it was just one trial after another.

The armor and weapons didn't make moving through the tight space any easier. She still had no idea where the tunnel led, only knowing that it led to the other side of the fence somewhere away from the Guard. It must have been some sort of tunnel dug by an escaping prisoner, one who had most likely ended up as one of the many bodies hung over the electric fence over her head.

Her arm breached the other side, and she scrambled out as quickly she could. She could hear fast footsteps approaching the fence from behind. The Guard had to have known where they were by now.

She turned around and pulled Moxxie out of the makeshift trench, and they turned around to see what trials awaited them next.

The base of the tower was laid out before them. It was a large, industrial structure. It had large spires on its side, while there was a large building at the bottom that served as an entrance. A green glow emanated from the tower's support beams, bathing the charred dirt in a green glow.

She could see the outline of soldiers in the building. If they didn't get under cover quickly, they would almost certainly end up as a casualty. The gleam of the weapons could be seen through the glass.. She spun her head around looking for a spot to use as a hiding spot.

Her eyes landed on a broken fragment of a wall to her right. It wasn't going to be anything that could protect them from gunfire, but they were going to have to settle. It was either that, or they would have to remain in the open, exposed to the Guard as nothing more than a shooting target.

"Over here," Octavia said, throwing the two of them behind the wall right as the door to the tower opened up, "Come on!"

Thunder clapped from above while Octavia held her gun close. They were in a wide open field with little ground advantage. If the Guard tracked them down and it came down to fighting, the two of them would almost certainly lose.

"This…this isn't going according to plan…" Moxxie heaved, "This isn't good…"

A gunshot rang out to their right and poked a hole in the concrete wall that was serving as their only protection. She couldn't tell if the shot had been aimed at her, or if it was some sort of misfire.

"Shit…" she muttered, raising her gun, "We might have to fight…"

Her hands began to tremble the longer they stood by. Fighting the Guard the first time had almost resulted in their deaths. Confidence in going in for a second round wasn't very high on her part.

"Battle stations. Initiate lockdown procedures," a voice said over an intercom, "Secure the perimeter. Keep an eye out for any suspicious activity."

A door opened to their right, where more soldiers poured out into the dirt.

The clanging of shields and boots grew louder. They circled the perimeter, and Octavia glanced at her partner in crime for an idea on what to do. Even if they made it out, they would have to focus on getting inside of the tower. The odds were stacked against them. Just like everything else in the world, the stars had aligned and formed a massive middle finger in the sky for her. She almost felt as if she was cursed.

Moxxie took out his gun and swung it over his shoulder. He had a look of determination in his eyes, one that she had only seen a couple of times.

He held up his gun and loaded it.

"They're not going away," Moxxie replied, "Stay close."

The two of them knew what they were going to have to do.

A few seconds later, a soldier's voice startled her into lucidity.

"By the wall! I see them!" the voice shouted, "Apprehend them!"

A flash of green lightning illuminated the silhouette of their attackers. She could see the sickening gleam of their helmets. They had their weapons drawn and had murder in their eyes. There wasn't a doubt in her mind that they were going to put bullets in their skulls if something wasn't done quickly.

And so, Octavia rolled back and checked the chamber of the gun.'

Loaded.

She hated the idea of having to use her gun again. It had already caused so much pain, specifically to Moxxie. Who was to say she wasn't going to accidentally shoot him again? With an aim like hers, she would be lucky if all it did was hurt him like the last bullet had. One misfire on her behalf would be enough to kill him.

And if Moxxie died, she was screwed.

Even as Moxxie took aim, she felt the apprehension take place. She saw her own death staring her in the face, and yet she was paralyzed with fear at the thought of pulling the trigger. Images from the first time she had handled a weapon flashed through her mind. Images of the blood, Moxxie's screaming, and the sounds of detonating mines. A suffocating layer of guilt that threatened to swallow her whole.

"M-Moxxie…" she said, struggling to pull the gun to aiming-level, "I-"

She reflexively ducked to the ground as a gunshot pierced the air. The Guard had spotted them, and they were about to be hunted.

Octavia was seconds away from engaging in the fight of a lifetime. And she didn't know whether or not the two of them were going to come out alive this time.

"Fire!" Moxxie shouted, as the first gunshots from his rifle rang out into the air.