Death

by tmb1112

Death is a Quirk that can only kill. A perfect Quirk for a villain, but what if the boy who manifested that power just wanted to be a hero? Enrolling in U.A. might not be enough when all your Quirk can do is kill people. Follow Zach Sazaki from his first day in Class A on a story that spans years, as he learns to be a hero, finds out more about his Quirk, and too much to summarize!

107. Chapter 107

Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia

Chapter 107:

"Lower your weapons!"

A team of soldiers moving onto B9 turned towards the sound of that shout and aimed their rifles in its direction. "I said to lower them! I am a pro hero, Dryout."

"Dryout?" One of the soldiers who just stormed onto the floor muttered. He turned to his side, and the woman next to him in all black including a helmet turned back his way.

"Lower your weapons," a voice said behind the soldiers, and a man walked out of the elevator and turned towards Dryout too. "It really is," he said after lifting a flashlight and pointing it towards the hero who blocked his blinded eyes for a second with a large hand and then lowered it down. "What are you doing down here?" He questioned, stepping past his men and towards the hero who walked right back his way.

"I was called here," Dryout replied. He kept a cautious air around him while examining the dark figure in front of him, then he looked past the man and down towards the body of a man he had actually thought was a good guy. Yuri's corpse was riddled with so many holes that it was unrecognizable, especially his face and head that was in pieces after all those shots into it while it was unprotected. "Why did you kill that man?"

The man in front of Dryout turned and looked over towards the man the squad of ten just lit up. "He's a terrorist," the man replied. He turned back to Dryout and asked in a low voice, "Were you working with him-"

"Who are you?" Dryout asked. Fifteen feet behind Dryout, pulled into a side room were two scientists who were silently urging the other pro hero with them to move towards the door connecting to a different hallway. Sandlot was not moving with them though, stacked up just inside the door and breathing silently but fast after what he just saw happen to Yuri. Death and Gentle fucked off. Why the hell are we doing this? Sandlot took in a deep breath and he crouched his legs while keeping his ear close to the door to listen to the conversation.

"Captain Azrael," one of the men behind the figure talking to Dryout began. The leader turned and looked down to his crouched comrade pointing a rifle the opposite direction down their hallway. "Two tangos, twelve meters."

"Take them out," Azrael ordered. Then he turned back to Dryout and said to the pro hero about to argue, "You don't have jurisdiction here. Whoever called you made a mistake."

"So you knew what was happening here?" Dryout asked. The question caused a couple of the men behind Azrael to lift up their heads or turn from other hallways they were looking down. "You knew that they-"

"Hey," Azrael started, lifting his right hand off of his rifle as an open palm at Dryout. "Don't say a word." Dryout's face covered in confusion, and Azrael lowered that hand before sighing and shaking his head in frustration. "But, this is a problem. You really- damn, a pro hero wasn't supposed to be here." Azrael looked down, then he lifted his head and asked, "What about the rest of The Red Team?"

"Hold on," Dryout started. He glared at the man in front of him in such an intense way that a couple of the soldiers behind Azrael leaned back. The man Dryout leaned towards did not flinch though, and Dryout asked in a low voice, "What are you guys? A clean-up crew to deal with this mess?"

"Pretty much," Azrael replied.

Bang Bang

"Tangos down."

"Hey!" Dryout shouted past Azrael to the others in the group on the other side who just shot at a couple of figures running down the hall towards them. Those figures were snapped back in mid-sprint, blood flying out of their bodies as they dropped to the ground. Dryout snapped his head back to Azrael while the captain of the team of ten continued staring at him. "You work for the government? What is this? Some sort of secret-"

"It's above your paygrade," Azrael responded.

"Above my…" Dryout started repeating slowly. His eyes narrowed and he said in a low voice, "Human experimentation. It's what happens here," Dryout glared at the visor of the man in front of him. "Whether or not you knew beforehand, you know now. And that means! Your orders have just changed. Your superiors, are no longer your superiors."

All of the soldiers behind Azrael turned and most of them uncrouched while looking to Dryout. "What is happening here," Dryout continued, "breaks international laws, and our own. I'm taking charge of this situation, and we're-" Fft Dryout's head snapped to the right, as a figure fizzled into existence on his left side in all black.

The eleventh member of the team that just came down the elevator appeared and she lowered her silenced pistol she had extended right next to where Dryout's head had been. "Az, he was just going on and on. That was alright, right?"

"Fine Ur," Azrael replied. He looked down at Dryout's body, then he turned around and looked at the nine behind him. "We didn't hear a word he just said."

"Sir," one of the group standing behind him began.

"What?" the woman began, stepping up to Azrael's side and cocking her head to the side at the soldier speaking up. "You have something against what's going on here? Or, what I just did?"

"No Captain Uriel," the man assured with a single shake of his head. "But do you really think saying we didn't see or hear a thing down here, is going to keep them from just killing us all when we get out? I don't want the next clean-up crew to-"

Bang

The man fell forward, and the soldier behind him lowered the rifle he just shot him in the back of the head with. "I'm from Corporate," the soldier who started lowering his rifle stated. The others who all spun towards her and started lifting their rifles froze. Azrael and Uriel both stared towards the middle of their team and nodded at the woman who continued in a stern voice, "Captains."

"As I was saying," Azrael started again. "We didn't hear a word he just said. Nor are we going to see anything down here."

"Understood?" Uriel asked.

The group of soldiers nodded their heads.

"Alright then. Sweep the floor," Azrael began again. "Break off and keep in contact. Destroy everything. If the rest of The Red Team is here, take them out too. It's unavoidable." He lifted up his rifle and rose his free hand with three fingers up, then clenched it in a fist and started jogging down the hall. Three soldiers ran after him, Uriel called out for a couple of others to follow her, and another group took off down an intersecting hallway. "Stay on the lookout for Army of Death too. There's a team of them in here somewhere…"

The teams left, though a single soldier was left at the elevator to watch it from inside the doorway so as to keep it on that floor. The man standing in the doorway kept his rifle raised, his mind focused on the comms, but his helmet kept shifting down and to the right. His gaze focused on one of his comrades in the team who was killed a minute ago just for questioning whether they were safe to be seeing all this. What if they do just kill us afterwards? Was he right, and that's why she killed him? He might have been warning us. And killing heroes?! What the hell. Human experimentation, those fucking things I just shot! This place is insane. As long as I didn't see anything though, and I can go with that. I can roll with-

Thud

The man standing in the doorway looking out at the hallways started turning his head around. The thud came from inside the elevator, and his eyes started opening huge inside his visor at the sight of two figures behind him, having dropped in through the hole on the ceiling from the shaft above. "I need-" the man began, then he was grabbed and yanked backwards, slammed in both sides by fists and elbows. His helmet was grabbed and torn off, his gun ripped from his hands and tossed to the side, and then Gentle slammed a hand into the floor of the elevator and bounced the three of them back up through the hole in the top of it.

The three of them flew up to B7, then Zach and Gentle aimed their fall towards the open doors of B8. They rolled into the doorway onto the next floor, and Gentle got up quick and back to the doors he pulled close with Hue and Pastor. Richie kept aiming his rifle back and forth down the hallway, and he turned and whisper-shouted in a scared voice, "Something's coming!"

Zach turned the terrified and beaten man's head back and forth to check his ears for communications. Then he stood up and yanked the man to his feet, blocked the swing of the man's right arm and elbowed him in the face again. Zach leaned his helmet forward and snarled through his mask, "Struggle and I'll rip your throat out."

DEATH!

The fight left the soldier Zach was grabbing, and Zach threw the man forward and then jammed a knife into his back just hard enough to prick him and not break through his skin. "Move. Don't say a word."

Zach pushed him with his other hand, running the opposite direction as Richie was facing. Hue called for Richie to move, and Gentle put up an Elasticity wall to block a sprinting disfigured experiment. A naked woman with a bloated stomach, wrists, and shins sprint-wobbled towards them and then bounced backwards off of Gentle's barrier with a yell out in pain as she fell and popped a huge bloated bulb on her back.

Pastor glanced back over his shoulder as he ran, hearing that agonized scream from a woman whose eyes he had caught sight of in the red tint of the hallway. Why?

Zach grabbed the man in front of him by the back of his long brown hair, yanking his head back and then kicking the door to his right open. Zach threw the man into the room, and he stormed in and glared down at the figure on the floor in front of him who started pushing back his hands on his sides to get away. Zach slammed his right hand into his chest with his fingers through his glove, and he surrounded himself in a pitch black aura. "You fucks. Why are you dressed like Army of Death? You trying to pin this on me? Are you trying, to make us the scapegoats if you're found out?!" Zach kicked his right foot forward and into the face of the man who opened his mouth to respond. "Shut up!"

"Death, we need information," Gentle snapped as the kid seemed to just be getting his revenge out.

"I know," Zach responded in a low voice only in his helmet. "But these are trained commandos. He needs to be terrified." Zach had pulled Death away from his foot while kicking it forward, but he touched his chest again to turn off Nightmare mode while leaning down and grabbing the soldier by his black costume. He yanked him up and then slammed him against the wall in the dark room across from the cracked-open door Hue was peering around through. Pastor and Richie started panting and taking a break after all the running and quick actions they had taken after Zach and Gentle sprinted into them downstairs.

Yuri, Pastor thought, clenching his eyes shut as he thought about Death's pained yells right before he came barreling towards them. He turned towards Gentle and questioned after a moment, "What of Sandlot and Dryout? And those scientists?"

"Fuck the scientists," Zach growled. "Fuck everything here," he slammed the man he was grabbing even harder into the wall. Then he pressed his visor into the man's face so the man's eyes were darting back and forth on Death's visor trying to see eyes through them, and failing. "And fuck this guy. Fucking idiot, coming down here means they're going to kill him, and yet he'll still follow their orders until the second he's dead. Like a fucking sheep."

The man Zach was holding up to the wall opened his eyes so much wider as his fears amplified in how knowing a tone Death just used, like it was so obvious and he was an idiot for not realizing. But I did realize! I knew! He knew too, and they killed him- "I, I just work for-"

"I'm tired of hearing that today," Zach growled, though he did loosen his grip a bit. "But if you are willing to cooperate, Death may not come for you today. It's up to you…"

---

"You know who they are?" Sandlot asked the man on his side he was running down B8 with.

Pastor shook his head, then he motioned for the cracked door ahead that the two of them sprinted to and then inside of. They closed the door behind them, and Sandlot lowered the rifle he had grabbed off a half-eaten body of a guard he had ran past before with a couple of scientists. Neither of those scientists were still with him, as he had run very fast without caring about either of the researchers experimenting on humans once Dryout had been shot in the head. Sandlot dropped down onto a chair that rolled backwards from his weight, and he buried his face in his hands for a few seconds. Thomas. Damn it. Damn it!

Sandlot thought about his best friend for the past several years. Titan was his team leader and a hard loss too, but he had been able to keep going strong and acting as a hero because Dryout had been there keeping him together. "I don't understand," Sandlot whispered. He lifted his head a bit, to see Pastor lowering a desk he had picked up and carried to the door with a broken lock in order to keep it shut for them. Pastor turned to the man, and Sandlot looked through Pastor's visor while lifting a hand and taking his beanie off. Sandlot clenched his beanie in his hand and then ran it up through his wavy dirty-blond hair. "This place," Sandlot said, staring in so much pain to where he thought Pastor's eyes were.

Pastor walked over to the man, and he sat down on a medical check-up bed near the rolling chair for the doctor whose body lay dead in a corner of the room. At least they thought it was the doctor, though neither of them looked too closely at the body. Dead bodies had become so normal to them at this point, that they were losing the shock value each time they saw another disfigured corpse. Pastor said a couple of things inside his helmet, then he reached up and took it off while turning back to Sandlot. The room they were in was illuminated by a red light in the middle of the ceiling, and he asked the man whose eyes he could now look into, "This place is evil, I believe that as well."

"I, didn't say that-" Sandlot started. He cut himself off though, and then he lifted a hand and put it in front of his eyes again. "But, but it's so horrible down here. I can't- I never imagined-" Sandlot paused and he took in a deep breath while leaning back in the chair and staring to the ceiling. "In my years as a hero, I've never seen anything like this. No one's, ever seen anything like this. It's unimaginable." He lowered his head a bit and looked into Pastor's eyes, "But you, Father. You are holding strong? You are, keeping your faith?"

"I am," Pastor replied without hesitation.

"How?" Sandlot whispered. He leaned forward, "I need to know. Please. Because I- I've always been, but… But right now. At this moment, I can't see there being a God who allows something like this to exist. Why? What would be the purpose?"

"I believe, that we are not always meant to understand His plan," Pastor replied. He answered in a calm, but slow way to show he was not trying to shove it down Sandlot's throat but offer it as his own belief. After he said it, he looked down though. He stared at the floor below him, imagining B9 where the voices in his earpiece were coming from. "But there are parts of His plan, that I do believe I understand. Such as, Death's role…" Pastor closed his eyes for a moment, then he lifted his head to Sandlot. "Do not lose faith. Take a deep breath. Calm yourself. And remember that this is not Hell. Once you have caught your breath, and you are ready to move again…" Pastor rose his helmet and put it back over his head.

Sandlot still had a frustrated look on his face and did not feel any of his questions were answered. He was staring down though, and his eyes bulged as Pastor continued, "…we will go regroup with Death and Dryout." Sandlot slowly lifted his head up, and Pastor said while looking down into his eyes, "There is always a reason." He turned to the door and started walking to it, and his face scrunched up behind his visor as he whispered, "There has to be."

---

"Didn't I already kill you?" A woman asked with two soldiers behind her wearing dark helmets like their co-captain. Uriel sounded like she was smirking towards the hero facing her and her soldiers, all on his own on B5. "I didn't expect the one who can bring back the Army of Death to be down here," she admitted with a lift of her left palm. "Tell me, do you know if it's really Lifebringer who-"

A pitch black form dropped down through the ceiling behind Dryout. His hands were down at his right side, and he slammed them forward into Dryout's back while the pro hero glared furiously towards the woman ahead of him. Uriel's body sizzled out of existence while the soldiers behind her stumbled backwards. "DEATH WAVE!" Zach yelled, and the end of the sphere of darkness he just pushed forward exploded out past Dryout's body and flooded down the hall into the other soldiers. And after a couple of seconds, a woman farther back than the other two soldiers appeared in mid-run, her Quirk failing her as she collapsed to the floor.

"You kill them?" Dryout asked, looking over his shoulder at the boy who he had trusted would not be able to hurt him with that attack.

Death shook his head back at the pro hero. Dryout looked down the hall towards the woman in charge of this team of the clean-up crew, and then Zach added, "And you can't either."

"I wasn't…" Dryout began. His eyes were locked on his murderess though, and his huge hands clenched into fists at his sides while he thought about that emptiness, that darkness that came when he was killed.

"We have to keep moving up," Zach said, stepping forward and turning off Nightmare form. He was panting inside his helmet but Dryout could hear it through the visor, and the man who felt fresh and not tired at all glanced next to him at the teen who shook his head around and then started jogging again. "We're almost out-"

"Death!" Gentle shouted into Zach's helmet.

"What?" Zach snapped back.

"Damn it! Get him out of-"

"Fuck! Pastor!"

"Get up to B4 already!" Gentle shouted, then Zach heard gunfire over his earpiece and he started speeding up again.

Zach called for Dryout to move faster with him, then when he looked back forward as he had turned to the side for it, he grit his teeth and shook his head around. "No no no," he muttered, slowing down and then cutting to the right in an open doorway. Dryout ran in after him and put his back up against the wall next to the door with his eyes huge. They both tried stopping their panting breaths, after looking down the hall and seeing black lines slowly moving down the wall at the end. The wall itself had started to rot as a warning sign to them, and the lights got darker in that direction as the black lines covered up the red fixtures on the ceiling.

"Don't breathe," Dryout whispered to the boy he heard gasp and start panting again.

"I'm trying," Zach hissed back. How is that thing still alive?! Bryan said they only killed one experiment when they got in the elevator. He described Miles, but he said there were other bodies in there. Must have been those other two. What is that thing? 14. Who was it? Can I save… Why am I still thinking about that?! I am not prepared for this. I am not qualified for this! Zach pursed his lips and he heard screams in his headset coming from the floor above. "We have to move," he hissed over towards Dryout, and then he slipped out of the doorway and looked down the dark hall towards where he thought experiment 14 might be. It was not there and Zach took in a sharp breath as that was as bad as if he had actually seen it, Where is it now?!

"Death!"

Zach clenched his teeth and he started running down the hall, "I'm coming!"

---

"What happened?!" Zach shouted over his shoulder at Gentle.

"Fuck!" Gentle backed up and kept a rifle he had picked up aimed down the dark hallway full of muzzle flashes. He turned his head for a second and growled, "He was dragged off by this guy wearing a robe of skin."

"'Skin?'" Zach asked, his face scrunching up more while he wrapping up the bloody wounds of the man on the ground in front of him, his head resting on Zach's knees.

"We lost Sandlot, no idea where he went. Pastor tried going back, and this fucker- he was quoting fucking- God damn-" Gentle stumbled forward towards Zach and blood splashed out of his right shoulder. He spun back around and let out a roar, lifting up the rifle in one arm and firing down the hall. Richie and Dryout pulled back behind their covers as Gentle shouted down towards the clean-up crew posted down the hall and firing towards the office they had set up inside for a minute and gotten cornered in.

"Hue!" Richie yelled, looking to his right and into what they thought was an empty room he had pulled Hue inside when the man got hit.

Hue was trying to pull a bullet out of his own right side, and he turned his head and looked over his shoulder to see something sliding out of the ceiling and reaching down long thin arms towards him. Richie spun and pointed his rifle above Hue who scrambled for his gun, and Richie started firing only for the slender form sliding out of the ceiling to reach down faster and grab the bearded guard. "No! NO! Richie don't let it take me!" Hue grabbed onto a desk near him and he pulled his body down harder, while Richie fell on his butt and then lifted his rifle and emptied out more and more of the magazine into the creature that opened up the mouth of its long head it started leaning out of the ceiling panels. Wind sucked into its mouth, lifting things off the ground and spinning them around in the air and creating what looked like a tornado in the room.

"Oh shit!" Dryout screamed, his voice cracking as he stumbled back while looking down the hall towards the clean-up crew guys. Those guys all turned and started running, though one of them was wrapped up by long thin black lines that just came out of the rotting wall. The lines started pulling him back towards it, and the soldier was screaming in horror and then agony while he was wrapping more and more, and then a figure leaned out of the dark rotting wall. A black monster coiled up around him and sucked him back into the wall that covered in red, blood pouring down not on the exterior but inside the wall.

While madness went on in the halls and rooms just outside of the office of B4 Death was kneeling in, Pastor lifted up a hand in that office and pressed it against Zach's that was squeezing down on his lower chest trying to stop bleeding. There was a thick upside-down cross carved into Pastor's chest, and he was missing patches of skin on his arms and thighs and calves and back. Pastor put a hand on Zach's and pushed it away, and Zach nudged Pastor's hand out of the way while saying, "I need to stop the bleeding."

Gentle pulled back farther into the room, leaning against the inside for a second to catch his breath and keep wrapping his shoulder. "Death, we need to keep moving or all these enemies are going to close in on us." Gentle pushed the back of his head against the wall behind him and clenched his teeth in pain as he pulled a bandage tight around his shoulder the bullet had luckily gone straight through instead of getting stuck inside.

"Stop," Pastor began softly, lifting his hand from his chest up to his head and pushing up on his helmet. He shoved it off his head and then dropped his arm down before coughing a couple times in a weak way. Gentle looked down at the man and then grit his teeth before turning and getting back in the doorway, putting up an Elastic barrier to protect them for a bit longer. Zach looked up at the face of the man with graying black hair, and the former priest shook his head while saying in a soft voice, "One of my hearts has already failed." Zach's eyes opened wide, and Pastor coughed before adding, "And the other, is failing."

Zach closed his eyes tightly and he bit down hard as he had promised not to let anyone else die. He had promised himself, his comrades, yet even as he sat there trying to help Pastor he could hear Richie screaming out in the hallway about Hue, and Dryout yelling out the missing Sandlot's name to let him know where they were. "Don't, bring me back," Pastor whispered. Gentle's eyes opened huge in the doorway, as he was not taking this too seriously and was actually hoping Pastor would kick it quicker so they could get out of there after the revival. Zach froze thought while staring down at Pastor's face, his breath hitching and his heart beat speeding up faster.

The hesitation he had had about bringing Dryout back resurfaced. He had saved Dryout so hesitantly, after hearing about what had happened to the British man he revived at the Sports Festival. He knew Dryout could just die another horrible death inside this place, but he had done it and Dryout had thanked him. Zach stared down at his comrade though and he felt his heart breaking as Pastor shook his head at him. "You're not thinking straight," Zach started. Pastor shook his head more, and Zach continued in a stronger voice, "I'm getting you out of here-"

"I don't want to be brought back," Pastor said up to him, lifting his head a bit off of Zach's knees despite how much pain it looked to put him in. Zach grabbed him and rested him back down, trying to get him to stop moving and making his wounds bleed, but his grip on the man released as Pastor continued, "Not by you." Zach's eyes opened huge and he froze there looking down at the face of the older man. His comrade who he had recruited himself, who he had fought alongside several times now, shook his head with a sad look in his eyes at the frozen helmet of the boy holding him.

"Why?" Zach whispered after a few moments of just staring at him in pained shock.

"I think you are amazing," Pastor assured, then he started coughing again. His face was pale, and he looked so weak as he lay there in Zach's arms resting on his knees. "And I never said anything when you brought people back, even though I thought it was wrong, against my beliefs. Because you are not the messiah… but I believe your power was God-given though." Zach closed his eyes for a second and started shaking his head with his teeth clenched. He was confused, and angry, and most of all sad as he sat there listening to screams in the hall and hearing his comrade tell him not to bring him back. "It was," Pastor insisted, taking the shake of Zach's head to mean that the boy did not believe it to be so. "It was all for a reason-"

"Then maybe," Zach began, turning his helmet and looking down at Pastor's eyes again. "God wants me to bring you back then. No matter what you say, it was God's plan then to-"

"I don't want you to bring me back," Pastor whispered again, his eyes widening in fear as Zach made it out like he was going to revive him. Zach clenched his eyes shut after seeing that look, because he did not know how he could go against this dying man's wishes and revive him anyway. Thinking about all the horrors they had seen down here, the way Pastor had been being skinned alive to look like this now, the crosses carved into his torso; Zach felt like he was giving up. He can't take it anymore, Zach thought, and he bit down on his bottom lip in his visor. Pastor continued to the figure who did not respond after his plea though, "Because, I lied."

Zach's frustrated and saddened expression shifted a bit in confusion. Pastor continued while staring wide-eyed up into Death's visor, "When I told Mikey, that Michael was God's most powerful archangel. That is not true." Pastor started breathing faster, and Zach's face covered in more confusion before his eyes shot open huge in full-on terror. "God created Satan, he, he-ack kah, ack, he cast out Lucifer, to become the ruler of Hell. To punish sinners. And I believe, that God did that for us."

Zach stared down at Pastor with shaky eyes, watching as the man looking up into his visor gained a terrified yet accepting expression on his face. Pastor leaned his head back, and Zach started loosening his arms around him more but could not let go and just let Pastor drop to the floor. "For mankind," Pastor whispered, continuing up to the boy looking down at him, whose face was just darkness in that visor. "As a warning," Pastor said, and Zach's breath caught in his throat. In his mind he saw himself standing on the walls of the palace of Hatto, and Pastor saw that too while he continued, "So that we would all have the fear, of what would happen if we sinned. If we were evil in life, Lucifer would punish us. God sent his favorite, most trusted angel to Hell for eternity. Cast him out of paradise, to strike fear in the hearts of man."

No. No, I'm not! I'm not the… "Pastor, I'm not-" Zach began, but his voice was too shaky to come out convincing in any way. The analogy Pastor had just created was far too unnerving. Everything I've been doing, to terrify the villains of the world into stopping, to punish villains. And Lucifer received the most horrible punishment, yet he still hands out- is it because God knew he would still only punish sinners even if, even if he made him go through the most horrible… Is that me? No! What am I thinking?! I don't even believe any of this! It's not real! Zach took in a sharp breath and he stared down at Pastor with terrified eyes, But he, believes it is.

Zach's breathing started speeding up faster and faster, and Pastor said in a soft tone to him, "I'm sorry, but I don't want you to bring me back. Because I believe in you. That only you have the judgement to hand out punishment to the sinners and villains of the world and your discretion. Just as God left Satan to deal with all sinners, because he trusted Lucifer to only deal fair punishments to those who deserved them."

"Do you think I'm the devil?" Zach whispered. Even in the man's dying moments, he needed to know the answer. He held Pastor tighter and the man below looked up into his visor without responding for a few seconds.

"I don't know," Pastor whispered. His face started to scrunch up and he whispered, "But I've become, disillusioned- ack, ack agh, with everything what I've been doing. For my life. All of… What have I been doing all this time?" Pastor's eyes filled with water, as he felt his second heart slowing down more. He clenched his eyes shut and pushed out the tears before gasping, "Because what we've been doing, is what I believe is Lucifer's job. Death. The Devil… The darkness… Is it right for man- ACK-" blood splashed out of Pastor's mouth, and then his body felt a whole lot weaker. His eyes could barely stay open, and he whispered again to the boy he heard take in a sharp breath next to him that sounded so broken and pained. "I'm sorry…"

"The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want…"

Zach could barely hear Pastor after a couple seconds. The man closed his eyes and his mouth kept moving, but sound stopped coming out and then his lips started slowing down too. Blood trickled out the corners of them, and his head turned to the side which Zach tried to catch only to realize why it was slumping like that in the first place. Zach froze as he made the realization, and the man he was holding slid off of his stiff arms and down to the floor. Zach stared down at Pastor's body, his arms covered in the blood of the man he had called comrade.

What do I do? Zach's butt slumped down on his calves and his shoulders slouched. He was on his knees staring down at the scared face of a man who had not died in a good way at all. The fear, the doubt, the belief that his life had been for nothing. Zach reached up his left hand and grabbed himself by the side of the head, hearing Pastor tell him not to revive him again. Why? Why would something like that happen? Why would you make that- No! No there isn't a plan. I'm not the fucking devil. And Pastor shouldn't have fucking died like that, there couldn't have been a reason for it! Zach grabbed his head harder and he wished his helmet was not on so he could actually feel his hand gripping into his skull.

I can't bring him back. I can't go against his religion, his beliefs. Did he really think it was wrong of me to bring people back all those times? But if God- if he thought God gave me those powers?! I- Zach looked at the man and he started leaning forward and lowering his right hand. I don't want him to die, thinking he had worked for the devil. Was he praying for forgiveness because of that? In the end?! Was he begging to be forgiven- or, but, he thought what I was doing was right. He trusted my judgement? I don't understand. Did he just not want to work for the devil anymore?! WHY?! Why, did you have to die like that?

"We can't hold it back anymore!" Richie shouted backwards in panic, and he threw his rifle forward to try and slow the beast before turning and running straight back to the office.

Dryout conserved his ammo a bit better, firing in short rounds into the dark mass creeping its way down the hallway. Red lights shattered one by one across the ceiling, and all they had was the single flashlight below Dryout's gun and the red light in the office behind them still illuminating the near pitch-black basement. Gentle spun from the room behind him he had been staring into back out into the hall where their creepy rotting black friend was coming for them again. The whole floor around them looked to be twisting with it, though it was all thickest straight ahead of them in the middle of where they had been fighting against. Richie pulled out a handgun and he stumbled backwards before scrambling up and spinning both ways from the office to try and find better options. He was not going to run off on his own though, and he just turned to the dark mass and started yelling out while firing into the darkest part of the floor.

Zach stood up as he heard the shouts right outside. Gentle darted his eyes into the corner of his vision as Death started walking up towards him. The other two glanced back with hope as they saw their powerful comrade moving up, and then Zach froze. The others all spun forward again, and they stared into the middle of the darkness where a bright circle of light illuminated the floor. The black lines started pulling backwards, only for a high-pitched screech to ripple through the air. EEeeesssSHHH A pillar of white light broke through the floor and through all of the dark lines that had been so condensed that the ceiling below had shown through with them.

Gentle's eyes darted to the side walls where he saw black lines now fully illuminated in that pillar turn and start racing back the other way. The walls that were starting to twist way too close to them returned to normal, and all of them focused towards the wide hole in the floor that the pillar faded from. Something got tossed up through the hole, and Dryout's eyes shot open wide in shock before a smile of relief came over his face. Sandlot tried landing but he was unsteady on his feet and fell forward after hitting down, only to lift his head as two big hands caught him before he would have collapsed. "Dryout," Sandlot said, a big smile on his face as he saw his revived comrade holding him.

"You alright?" Dryout said while getting Sandlot to stand upright steadier. Sandlot nodded but lowered his eyes down to his lower legs where there were handprints burnt into the skin of his shins and calves.

A man leapt up onto B4 with a dark shield attached to his back. The man in a black uniform no longer had a helmet on, revealing his head with a crew cut of blond hair and his bright blue eyes. The muscular man around six and a half feet tall no longer had an earpiece in at all, and he stared past Death for a moment with his blue eyes opening wide at the body he saw in the office. Exodus focused back on Death and knelt down moments after raising through the hole he blasted in the ceiling with his Quirk- Light. "My apologies, Death. That I was not able to regroup with you sooner."

"I'm glad you're alright," Zach said, though his voice was dark and had very little emotion in it. "You too, Sandlot," Zach added. "Now let's keep moving up. Exodus, save your power. We don't know what's awaiting above. Let's move to the stairs. As a group." Zach started forward, but he slowed and turned to Richie. "Hue, is he-"

"Fucking gone man," Richie replied, shaking his head and holding his pistol tightly with both hands. "You'll, get me out of here? You will right?" Richie leaned in towards the figure who he wanted reassurance from. "I don't want to die like that. I don't- that shit was-" Richie's eyes were crazed and he was shaking like mad as he thought about what he had seen happen to Hue. While Hue screamed at him to help, while he fired bullets at the monster that opened its mouth so wide like it was unhinged and sucked up the desk Hue was trying to hold himself down with. Richie clenched his eyes tightly, and Zach started walking past him which made the man waiting for reassurance spin his way with huge eyes.

"I won't tell you anymore that you won't die. Everyone watch each other's backs. Don't let each other die. That's all I can say," Zach pulled out a knife and he started jogging down the hall. I can't save you. I can't save any of you. I'm, I'm just…

---

"…I would have literally turned into a monster- the devil! Just to save you!" Zach stood near the elevator on B2 breathing heavy breaths inside his helmet that kept fogging his visor for a second before fading away. He glanced to the left and saw Sandlot down on the floor with his back up against the wall next to the elevator, a smear of blood on that wall though it was not from Sandlot's body as his only bad wounds were on his legs. Next to Sandlot stood Dryout who was crouched down and drying out the floor down that entire hallway which had the watery monster at the end backing away in a nervous way.

"I convinced a man that I was the devil, and maybe just doing that makes it true. Maybe I am the devil…" Zach turned his head forward and stared at Exodus who had his shield planted down the hall and blocking off the rest of the floor from their hallway. Gentle looked over his shoulder on Zach's right side, then he turned and told the man next to him who was barely keeping it together to keep watching the few doors ahead of them in the darkness. Exodus' shield was giving off some more light than usual, and Gentle stared at the visor of Zach's helmet for a couple seconds before walking right up next to him. "Because a crazy fucking murderer like Hunter, believes it's so! He's not afraid of you, he's not afraid of the League, he's not even afraid of Eziano fucking Mozcaccio! But he is afraid of me…"

I've thought it myself before. Zach thought, his mind full of terror as they waited for the rising elevator behind him. But, but Pastor was a religious man! He knows right? He would know if I was- more than I would at least. So if I even thought it was a possibility, but, but I just did those things to make myself seem like the devil… Yet, yet Pastor said the things I'm doing, the things I believe are right and important for the world are things the Devil would do. Satan, Lucifer, a monster!

Zach glanced over his shoulder as the elevator reached up to B6 only a few floors below them now. The light over the elevator showing what floor it was on gave Zach the most troubled feeling, and his arms started getting limp at his sides. "Are you serious?" Gentle asked, stepping up in front of Zach and then leaning his head forward in front of the boy's. "Do you really think you're the devil?" That damn Pastor, Gentle thought in a great deal of annoyance as he looked at the visor of the teen in front of him. He also recalled what he had heard Sazaki shout that night in the forest of the Lifebringer Incident, and he could tell the kid was thinking about it because he had been staring at the two of them as Pastor died in Sazaki's arms.

"What?" Zach whispered at the man in front of him who had just made his eyes open wide with that statement. "What are you-"

"You are a human being, do not get caught up in others' beliefs." Gentle turned and he rose up a pistol he had grabbed off a body on the stairwell from a guard who had almost made it back up to the surface before getting crucified on a railing. He aimed towards Exodus and called out, "Drop the shield for a second." Exodus' shield turned off the white light that spread from the edges all the way to the walls and ceiling that now had burn lines in them. Gentle fired twice, one bullet grazing the left shoulder of a zombie-looking man stagger-sprinting towards them, the next shot slamming into the zombie's right shoulder and sending him sprawling backwards.

"How do you-" Zach began, staring at Gentle through shaky eyes. He had been so focused on Pastor that he had not even noticed Gentle was close enough to hear their entire conversation earlier in Pastor's last moments. He shook his head around though, and then he whispered while glancing back at the elevator about to reach them, "But, what if-"

"Pastor was an idiot. Next, you'll be listening to Exodus and believing you're a fucking God!" Gentle called out skeptically, before spinning to the right and yelling at Richie to get back there. Richie was already scrambling away though, as a three-headed figure was crawling up through the solid floor. Their body was just emerging from the ground as if it were nothing, and six arms and six legs pressed down on the floor before crawling the deformed figure over rapidly like a monstrous spider.

Zach shook his head around while turning to the right where Gentle was about to attack. He ran forward and grabbed Richie with his left hand, throwing him backwards while slamming his right hand into his chest. Zach swung his left hand back forward and made a wind of blackness that he swept into the creature leaping towards him. Black wind pushed straight through the figure whose body started turning translucent like it was going to pass through the Death, then the eyes on all three of its faces started to close and it collapsed to the ground, skidding to a stop at Zach's feet. He took some long deep breaths that made dark fog hang in front of his face for a few moments. Then he tapped his chest again while feeling like his body was drained after fighting so much in Nightmare up through all the floors of this horrible basement.

"Good, you're," Gentle began while stepping towards Zach's back.

"Pastor just died," Zach said, turning his head and glaring at the man behind him who stopped while they looked into each others' visors. Zach ground his teeth in anger behind his mask at what Gentle just said to him. "He was a good man, and he didn't-"

"He was," Gentle agreed. He calmed himself down a bit and decided his wording of his previous statements could have been done a bit better. They were almost back at the surface though and he needed to say it, "But the priest couldn't handle this, and he broke down at the end." Zach's eyes opened wide in his helmet, and Gentle shook his head while finishing, "Do not take his dying words to heart. Twisted by this place. Pastor believed the devil existed in this world, because of the horrors we have all seen today." Gentle took in a deep breath and then turned towards the opening elevator, "We should-"

"Don't move!" The two soldiers inside the elevator shouted out. They were both in all black uniforms and held rifles in their hands that were shaking when the group outside turned in to look at them.

"Part of the clean-up crew," Dryout began, glaring into the elevator as he stepped back.

A female voice called out on the left of the two in there, "We just want to leave. We, we just want to get out of here!"

"Yeah," Zach muttered. "So did everyone down there you were called here to kill."

"We'll fire!" The man shouted from in the middle of the elevator, raising his rifle and pointing it forward harder though keeping the barrel out of the way of the doors he wanted to close already.

Exodus walked forward. He rose his shield in front of him and walked straight towards the elevator. Zach motioned his head into the elevator, and the two soldiers inside pointed their rifles out and fired while yelling at the man to stop coming closer. Exodus kept walking, his shield glowing as he held it in front of him and his entire body, leaning forward a bit to hide his head behind it while moving. Exodus stopped inside the doorway of the elevator, and he waited for the clicking sounds of two guns out of ammo. Then he pulled his shield to the right fast when he heard the footstep of the man trying to get around him to strike down. He slammed his shield into the man and smashed him into the side of the elevator, then he snapped his left hand out and grabbed the woman by the face when she tried pulling backwards. He yanked her helmet the opposite direction and threw her out of the elevator and to the floor at Zach's feet.

Zach reached down and grabbed the woman, and he pulled her back to her feet while disarming her of the other weapons still attached to her body. He tossed a pistol to the side, grabbed a knife and glared at the blood all over the weapon. There was a lot of blood splattered around her black costume, and he reached up and took her helmet off to see a woman on the inside with pink skin and a shaved head, a tattoo on the side of it in the shape of wings behind a black jungle cat. He tossed her helmet aside, and he leaned forward and said, "If you're leaving, I take that to mean that things are not going well for your team downstairs?"

"The whole team is done," the woman responded with a nervous shake of her head. "Everyone got spooked by Keith's death, thinking the Corporate chick-"

"Do you know what Corporate is?" Zach asked, though he was not too into the interrogation. He was nowhere near as intense with it as he was with the first guy, but then again he did not care as much anymore. Plus, the woman in front of him seemed very obedient and willing to answer all his questions with barely a push.

"N-No, but I could try and find out for you!" She shouted, as after saying 'no' she could have swore she felt the hands grabbing her tighten. Zach's eyes narrowed in an annoyed way as that was exactly what Bryan had told him downstairs only to not actually have the information Zach wanted.

"Hey, we've gotta get out of here," Sandlot said, looking at Death who turned to him and then followed Dryout's gaze back behind him. Dryout was helping Sandlot stand with one arm behind his back under his shoulders, and back behind them a water monster was moving across a dried out hallway that shifted below it but was not sucking up its body like the former test subject seemed to think was going to happen. Worse than that though, was the sight of the end of the hallway behind that monster starting to darken and bleed.

"Doesn't that thing ever give up?" Richie shouted.

"Oh shit, you guys have been fighting that too?" The woman Zach was grabbing asked in fear.

"Shut up," Zach touched his chest with his right hand, then he tossed the woman falling unconscious into the elevator in front of him. He stepped inside and reached down to a man who pushed back against the wall in terror only to slump as Zach knocked him out too. Zach turned off Nightmare and kept panting even with it off. I'm exhausted, but I can't just leave these guys conscious. Even if they are terrified, give them a moment and they'll wipe us all out. As scared as they were, anyone would be terrified after being stuck down here even for just ten minutes. Once they're out they'd become trained commandos again.

"Everyone inside," Zach said as he stepped up to the panel of buttons on the front right of the elevator. He glanced up through the hole in the ceiling, then he reached to his helmet and tapped a button on the side of it to call up Rebel who was not constantly locked in with him. "Rebel, how are those reinforcements coming?"

"Still twenty minutes out," Rebel replied. "Why? Are you stuck-"

"Just about to get out actually," Zach replied. His voice was dark, and exhausted, and his mind was still racing with horrible things that he was trying to preoccupy himself away from thinking too hard on. "Make sure they're not rushing. I don't want heroes following them here because they were sloppy." I can't get into a fight right now. And I won't let everyone just start wailing on heroes to get us an escape route. Could Sandlot and Dryout convince other heroes to ignore us? Maybe. We just need to-

CCHHHHH The entire B2 floor blasted with a scratchy static noise. It filled into the elevator too and came from above and below though was louder through the hole in the ceiling showing it was coming from other floors above just as loudly. EeeeeEEEEECH CH CH Eeee. "Hello Death." The group had put their hands on their ears as feedback screeched out of the speakers, and then a voice spoke that came through the scratchy speakers in a calm, eerily casual tone.

Exodus stopped where he was on the outside of the elevator, and Zach actually stepped back out of it himself while glancing around in the hallways outside. He looked to his left after stepping out, staring towards a watery monster that had suddenly stopped moving. It froze where it was, and Zach noticed that no black lines or rotting walls could be seen anywhere. He frowned deeply as they had been there when he last looked over before stepping in the elevator.

"Come on," Richie whispered out of the elevator in a nervous voice. He looked towards the panel himself as if considering the pros and cons of just leaving some of them down here to escape on his own. Then his eyes opened wide as he saw the man with purple highlights on his black costume look down at the floor before stepping out of the lift himself like he thought it might fall at any moment. Richie sprinted out of the elevator doors thinking about that, and he lifted back up his pistol. The skinny guard gulped and looked up at the closest speaker on the dark walls that started letting out the most creepy voice imaginable again.

"It seems you are trying to escape from here."

"Can you hear me?" Zach asked, looking around and speaking loud enough that he hoped whoever was speaking to him could hear.

"I would prefer it if you stayed. You see, I would very much like to meet you."

He can't hear me? Or is he just ignoring me? Is this-

"I am God."

"Jesus Christ," Sandlot whispered, slouching down the inside of the elevator doors and letting out a gasp at the sound of that confidently spoken sentence. He lowered his head and clenched his eyes shut, trying to force the voice out of his head and lifting his hands to his ears to drown it out.

Dryout stepped forward on Sandlot's side and he glared towards the water monster, but the figure without a real humanoid form was sliding back down the hallway away from them. It turned a corner and disappeared from sight, leaving the group alone yet as scared as ever.

"He's not God," Zach said in a low voice. He ground his teeth and looked back into the elevator. And he probably doesn't have control over the elevator. He does control the speakers though, so could he? Why did he let it come up here though? Did he do it just to let us on? How did he even know we're up here? Practically all the cameras were broken or disconnected back when we were in the security room. "We're getting out of here," Zach continued, turning and looking at the five behind him. "As long as he's down there and we're-"

"You see, Dr. Jones knew a lot about Death. He was one of those who experimented on 66. And he always had a theory, as to who you really are. I was just able to confirm his theory."

"Let me go! Get your hands off me!"

"Oh shit," Richie muttered, sweat covering his face at the sound of that voice. All of them recognized the voice except for Exodus who had been separated from the team all the time they were with her.

"Ms. Isabel!" Another voice shouted in the background of the speakers.

Zach heard the woman's voice, and he clenched his eyes shut for a moment in anger. His rage was all directed towards himself for taking his helmet off when he attacked the woman. As much as he still wanted to be angry at her, and to hate her for what she admitted about the one he now knew was designated as 'experiment 66,' he could not find it in him to despise her as much anymore. He did not mourn her either though, as she started screaming in the most horrific way with her voice piercing through the speakers.

Scraping sounds, slurping and crunching noises, the peeling of skin, and Isabel's screams almost drowning all of that out. There were other screams in the background too that Zach focused more on though. He listened in to horrified yells, screams of the doctor's name, and screams at the monsters to stop. Yet over their voices he heard others, chanting together, "Sacrifice. Sacrifice. Sacrifice! Sacrifice!"

"Down here in the depths…" Crack A loud cracking noise cut off Isabel's gurgled screams. They did not cut off the crunching noises though. The one calling himself God continued, "…are many potential sacrifices. So many, soon to meet Isabel's fate…"

Screams started in the background. "NO!"

"Please, someone!"

"Get away from me!"

They were terrified, and they were screaming for help. God continued in a calm and knowing voice, "They will all die down here. Death, will come for them… B16."

CHHHHHhhhhh… The speakers got much louder and crackly again, then the static sound faded off.

Zach lowered his gaze from the speaker he had been staring at, down to the floor below his feet. He stared at the white floor, and his eyes narrowed behind his visor in the darkest way. "Gentle, Exodus," Zach began. "Go on up."

"Are you crazy?!" Richie shouted at the boy who just said that.

Dryout and Sandlot both stared towards Death with their eyes the size of saucers. Dryout started lifting his right hand, but it was shaking too much when he tried opening his mouth to counter with something about how they should get reinforcements first.

Gentle stepped towards Zach, and Exodus walked over towards him as well. Zach turned and looked straight into Gentle's purple visor, "Get those two in the elevator to the surface. Make them talk about whatever they know about the 'Corporate' and… and Gentle, you're the second in command. If anything were to happen to me, then you're in charge."

"No," Gentle said.

Zach ground his teeth behind his helmet. "We don't have time for this," he growled in an angry voice. Every second I'm up here. There's no time to wait. He'll- "I have to go. This isn't time for you to be snarky-"

"I'm fine being second in command, but I won't take your place," Gentle said. It was the first time Zach had ever specified his position in the Army of Death, and Gentle was actually a bit surprised hearing Zach about to hand him over the army just like that. He shook his head though and then continued while looking into the dark visor of the shorter boy in front of him, "Without you, there is no Army of Death. I can't be it." Zach's eyes started getting wider and shaking as the older man said this to him. "All of them are following you, your will," Gentle continued. "So if you die, everything is lost."

Zach's fists clenched at his sides, and his head bowed for a moment. His arms strained at his sides, as he struggled to accept what Gentle just said. With his head bowed, he was staring straight at the floor. He could imagine through it to the place he had heard all those horrified screams. It would be easy to imagine all of those people were monsters who deserved whatever was coming to them, but he could not even listen to Isabel's tortured screams without feeling pity for her. And to feel like that for someone who had admitted in such a gleeful way about torturing and experimenting on innocent people, it had him clenching his fists so hard he could almost feel himself breaking his skin through the strong fabric of his gloves. He started raising his head, and he looked up to the two in front of him to say in a strained voice, "But if I don't go back down there, then everything's already lost."

Gentle's eyes opened huge behind his visor. His own expression was shook, and he leaned backwards with shock covering his face. "If I don't go, then everything we stand for is all for nothing. It's, just words." Zach said it in a pained way at Gentle, and the older man could hear how much frustration, and fear, and reluctance was in that voice. Yet over each of those different emotions, Gentle heard a determination rising to the surface. Zach's shaking arms steadied even though his fists stayed clenched as hard as they had been.

"Then," Exodus began, narrowing his light blue eyes at the boy who turned to him now. "We will make sure nothing is lost." Gentle kept staring at Zach though his eyes shifted to the corner of his visor as the man next to him took another step forward. "Death, you cannot die," Exodus said. "Yet you also cannot give up on your convictions." Exodus lifted up his shield and slammed the thin bottom part of it down on the ground in front of him. "In that case, I will be your shield, to protect you and ensure that you are able to both go down there and return alive."

Gentle closed his eyes for a second and he cursed, "Damn it." It was under his breath, but his microphone was on and put his voice into Zach's helmet though Exodus did not have an earpiece to hear him anymore. Exodus did turn though as Death did, and the man at his side said after seeing Zach look to him, "It's the only thing that makes sense. We'll go together."

Zach spun his head from Gentle back to Exodus and back again. "You, can't," Zach began. "It's too dangerous, your shoulder, and you have people waiting for-"

"Don't try to change my mind," Gentle snapped at the teenager. Dryout and Sandlot stared towards those dark soldiers' backs with amazement and growing admiration in their eyes, while Richie was staring at them like they were fucking insane. Gentle glared at the boy since it had already taken a lot for him to say this once. "We're in this together now. Until the end. We're going to see this through."

Zach took a few seconds to accept it, but the thought of the people downstairs made him have to stop hesitating. He took a deep breath and then nodded his head at his comrades. Then he looked past them and started, "Take the lift up. Get those two out of here…" Zach spoke to the other three in the group who were not in his army, and then he tapped a button on his helmet reconnecting himself solely to a link Rebel had with him and only him. "Rebel," he began to the man who had been listening the whole time but staying quiet as he stared at his computer screens in shock. "Don't let anyone come down here after they arrive. If they do show up while we're still inside, have them guard the exits. If we fail, they don't let what's awaiting us down there escape."

---

"Azrael," Dr. Jones began, staring into the eyes of the clean-up crew captain fighting to escape his binds in the deepest basement of the test facility. Researchers, staff, and former experiments who were just trying to escape backed away from the man who had left his servants behind to keep tearing apart at Isabel's body. Azrael tugged at his thick green binds that tightened more when he did, and he gasped out for air as he found himself short of breath. Azrael bared his teeth up at the doctor, no fear on his face while purple sparks started coming out of his cheeks and dark hair.

"Careful," Jones warned. He rose up his right hand, and Azrael glared furiously up at it. In the corners of the captain's vision, he saw two men dressed in the same dark uniforms as him being dragged off of the metal floor in the wide basement. They left blood trails behind, and then one of the monsters dragging his soldiers away reached down and twisted the man's head off. He grabbed the decapitated corpse by the ankles and threw forward, making a splash in the underground stream of blood. "All of your soldiers are dead, Azrael. Surely you do not want her to be next."

Azrael's eyes darted straight back forward, and his eyes opened huge as a woman with closed eyes appeared in Jones' hand grabbed by the back of the neck. "Ur," he whispered, his face shocked as he had not heard from the woman in a while. "I thought-"

"What is she to you?"

Azrael looked past the woman and his co-captain, to the man behind her whose facial expression had a deep pit of dread swirling in his chest. "What did you do to her?!" Azrael shouted. Uriel was not moving, and he could not tell if she was alive or not with her eyes closed and her face looking so calm as it slept. "Ur! Ur wake up!"

"So you do care about something. That is good. Now, stop using your Quirk. Stay calm. And listen."

Azrael shifted his gaze from the woman he was yelling at back to the man speaking to him. "What?" He spat out at the researcher.

On Azrael's right, down the line of captives and crawling into a corner, an older man with white hair and bloody eyes reached down into his pants. He curled up against the wall, a man who had been dragged down there with Isabel while they were hiding from the clean-up crew. His head was pounding from when Death beat him back upstairs, but he was pretty sure what was happening around him was not a nightmare. And if it was not a nightmare, if B16 which he had never been to before had actually consisted in part of a discovered cave system, if there were bodies hanging upside-down from stalactites on the ceiling, blood dripping off of them down into a flowing river of blood…

"Would you like me to spare her?" The researcher in a blood-splotched white coat lifted his right hand and rested it on Azrael's left cheek. He lowered Uriel down to the floor between them and then said in a softer voice, "Death did this to her. But I can save her. Only God, can save this woman now."

"You're not…" Azrael started, his voice steady but trailing off at the end. His eyes shifted down to Uriel's still body-

"BBLAAARRGGH!" Dr. Jones' mouth opened and a jet of dark liquid spewed out and straight into Azrael's eyes, nose, and opened mouth. Azrael coughed and opened his mouth to try and get air only to breathe some of the dark liquid into his lungs. He surrounded his body in purple electricity and a huge blast blew away from him making everyone nearby scream. Much louder screams came from inside the river of blood and two creatures reared their heads out of it while the surface sparked electricity.

Dr. Jones dropped to the floor and his burnt head face-planted into the steel ground of B16. There was blood splashed across the floor and now dark ooze pooling around his body. Azrael eased backwards, and he froze like that for a few seconds. Then he lowered his head down and stared at the green binds around him. "Release these," he commanded.

The other prisoners around Azrael started looking at him in hope. Most of them did, however one man with glass shards still sticking in his skin around his eye sockets and a broken nose just stared over in terror. Franklin Hughes stared down at the needle in his right hand. He trembled while staring at it, and he clenched his eyes shut thinking about what Isabel had described God to be to the Army of Death they had been with earlier. Franklin could hear the other prisoners around him shouting at Azrael to free them all now that he had killed God, yet they were getting confused too as the green binds around Azrael loosened and then dropped to the floor below the man covered in black ooze.

"'Killed God?'" Azrael questioned the shouting prisoners. He turned his head to the right, and his eyes flooded with a pitch black color that shut every one of the future sacrifices up. They all froze and stared at the man in a black costume with blood and darkness spewed on him, who lifted his right hand and stared at it as he turned it over a couple times. Then he rose up his hand and created a huge purple bolt of lightning that flashed through the floor that he slammed straight down into Uriel's body to completely fry her. Azrael stared down at his work and commented, "To have killed 23, is not small feat. Miles was, a devout and blessed follower. One with little need for his own desires." Azrael turned and looked towards the others down there who were acting mad, splashing around in blood, dragging about prisoners and spiking the dead to walls or stringing them up to the ceiling. "This power, this position… And this knowledge. It seems he knew the true origins. Those that Jones did not have the clearance for."

Azrael's right hand clenched into a fist in front of him. He kept staring at it, and then he said in a calm voice, "Dr. Hughes. I would not suggest doing that."

Franklin did not waste a second. He knows! Franklin stabbed the needle into his inner right elbow and he injected himself. If it can make all of them this strong… then I too-

"AHhh, AHHH!" Franklin brought his hands up to the sides of his face and he started screaming as his entire body filled with agony.

Azrael turned towards the man who other nearby prisoners started scrambling away from or crawling to the best of their tied-up capabilities. "All of the drugs that made your experiments so powerful, have already been laced. The finished formula is now mixed with the foundation of the failed gas I released on my followers." Azrael smacked his lips a couple of times and then rubbed them with his right hand, getting some blood and more black ooze over his lips.

"However," Azrael said while lifting his right hand in front of him. He aimed at the scientist who was going mad, his eyes flashing red and his body bulging and bulking. "Although you could now be a powerful subject, I feel I made myself clear that I wanted you to wait. Disobeying me… You will not be forgiven." Purple light flared at the end of his hand, and he said in a calm voice that sent chills through every person around him, "And so I shall strike you down. Call out for me, your Lord, as I smite thee." Azrael's lips twisted up at the corners, and then a beam of purple shot out of his charging hand and engulfed the scientist who screamed and tried charging at the man before him.

The lightning pushed him back, and it slammed Franklin into the ground where he kept screaming in agony, lightning ripping apart at his entire body. He yelled and screamed, and then he clenched his teeth while his lips were shredding apart, and he opened his mouth to yell, "GOD!" A brighter flash of purple erupted around Franklin Hughes, crisping his body and silencing him.

"Oh fuck no," a prisoner just dragged downstairs who had not been resisting until now, slammed his head backwards into the distracted face of his captor too captivated by God's amazing powers to focus on his former cellmate. That gas made everyone mad, Reynal reached down to his right while spinning to the man leaning his head back in pain, and he ripped the pistol out of the guy's waistband, and he pulled the trigger while flipping the gun up into his hands. Fuck off! Reynal screamed in his head at his former fellow test subject, who he barely even recognized anymore.

"Stop him!"

"SACRIFICE!"

God turned his head and looked across the floor to a man who turned his gun and fired on others around him, freeing more of the group who had just been dragged down to this floor. Seeing that new batch of sacrifices trying to escape, got the ones who already knew what was coming for them scrambling forward. All the escape plans they had been crafting in their minds or together in whispers occurred at once. People started running, grabbing rocks or pipes or construction equipment.

A woman leapt up at Azrael's back, her hands bursting into flames on all her fingers. She reached for the back of his head, and Azrael's body erupted in a flash of purple lightning that electrocuted the now-screaming woman behind him. "A riot?" He questioned, looking around in amusement while the woman behind him fell twitching to the floor. "How interesting," he said. God turned towards the elevator and saw the number 1 above it on the cracked digital counter. His smile lowered a bit, and he hummed in disappointment before turning forward and announcing, "Begin the rapture. All shall become sacrifices in this, the passageway between this life and the next. Look around you and rejoice. Rejoice! As this is all that remains of this world."

A smirk crossed Azrael's face, as the people trying to escape went mad at his announcement. The people on the verge of madness felt like they truly were insane and that all of this was pure insanity. All they cared about was surviving, and everyone around them could be an enemy. Not all of them could tell the difference between those affected by God's words and those who weren't, many of them were test subjects and others were researchers so they were not working together either, and everything started killing each other. Blood splashed on the walls, and people tackled each other and strangled each other over weapons or keys or just in the desire to create more sacrifices for God.

An explosion went off to Azrael's left over near the elevator, and flames rose across the small cave near a blocked-off tunnel. The entire B16 basement shook, and screams rang out through it as the walls trembled. Azrael's eyes snapped to the middle of the floor though. While all this happened around him, his smile vanished for a brief moment as a wide circle of the ceiling started disintegrating. More precisely, the ceiling lost its solid form and started raining tiny particles of roof down. Inside that rain of ceiling sand, dropped a man with his huge hands pointed straight down below him with a hazy gray wind pushing out of them. And above that pro hero using his Super Move, dropped three figures in black costumes.

Ten Seconds Earlier…

"Can you make it all the way down?" Gentle asked in surprise to the hero who started yelling out while pushing a thicker wind of Desert Maker into the floor below him, his palms curled in at the sides to condense it all into one spot and dry it faster than ever.

"I can! Save your strength," Dryout urged the man next to him on his left who started dropping down with him again to the next floor down. Exodus nodded at the hero and his right hand glowing white lowered down a bit, then Exodus snapped his head to the left and looked down the hallway of the bloody floor they just dropped onto.

"Death," Exodus started warning.

Zach turned and spotted a red claw down the hall and then the face of a monster pulling past the corner. The beast turned towards him, and Zach felt his heart tear as he faced the experiment. 66, Richard Hawkins. They fell through the floor, and Zach's pained expression filled with panic as in the hallway on the next floor down, the red-furred monster stepped fully into it and turned towards him with its head splitting apart in two followed by the rest of its glitchy body. The beast that lagged around on the floor started running towards their group, and they fell through the floor again only to see two red monsters sprinting towards them on the next floor down.

"It's teleporting through the floors!" Gentle exclaimed in panic.

"No," Zach said, his eyes wide as he realized how big each of the beasts were in comparison to the first one or even when it had first split in half. "Faster Dryout!" Zach shouted, while lifting his head and looking back up through the circular holes going ten floors above them. Dryout yelled out and he pushed his hands down harder while curling them closer together, and the fabric of his big gray gloves started to shred apart as his skin dried out too on his palms.

Exodus lifted his shield in the direction of the hall the beast was on even as they dropped another floor, then the blue-eyed man spun around and his eyes flashed white as he looked past Gentle in the other direction where the red monster somewhat bigger than the ones they had just been seeing was almost upon them. "They can all see through the same eyes," Exodus began.

"Or at least they're communicating," Zach said, really hoping Exodus was wrong there as the monster would be way too strong if that were the case. A single consciousness. All of those powerful bodies at the same time. "GO DRYOUT!" He yelled, while snapping his head up at the sound of a dozen roars overlapping with each other. Huge red beasts looking like mixes of boars and bears dove into the holes above them and started dive-bombing towards the heroes. They extended their claws out, right as Dryout broke through the floor of B15 that was soaked in blood. The group had barely had a moment to see the absolute horror that was B15, before they dropped into the long fall down in B16 that was exponentially worse.

As horrifying as this floor full of crucified and hanging corpses, rivers of blood, and people rioting and murdering each other was though, the four falling through the roof had to ignore it all for a second as their main focus was on avoiding the fifteen ravenous red creatures diving after them. All of God's servants, the researchers, staff, and experiments just trying to escape stared up and their eyes bulged at the sight of the party that just dropped through their roof. The walls shook, the ceiling cracked around the hole, and all those monsters falling towards them roared at almost the same time, "RRAAARARARAARARAARAAAA!"

"We came to save these people," Gentle began, "not get them slaughtered." He flipped himself over in midair and swung a Gently Rebound below him. He pulled Dryout up while swinging down, and then he slammed his legs into the Elastic air to get the two of them out of the way. Exodus rose his arms and he fired five beams of white light up in the air at the red monsters, only for four of them to split apart and dodge after the first was hit and annihilated.

"Death!" God shouted across the floor, though he did not sound much like the voice Zach had heard back upstairs. He spun while descending farther past Gentle's barrier, purposely dodging it and letting the monsters falling after him bounce away in confusion. Zach turned and glared towards a figure in a costume that looked too much like one of his own. "You came! I was worried you had other plans…"

As Zach continued dropping to the floor only five meters below him now, he slammed his right hand into his chest. As he was doing that though, his thoughts were already speeding up and everything around him was slowing down. His mind raced, That's not him, yet what did Isabel say? His soul. It transferred from one of the experiments into Jones, and now into this man.

"His name is Azrael," Gentle began into the headset Zach was wearing, only the two of them connected down there inside their helmets. Gentle just heard this from Dryout he was dropping with, and he continued, "But it seems our holy enemy is…"

"Up through the hole!"

"We can get out of here…"

Exodus shouted at the people closest to him, "Go through and I will protect you! Escape this place all of you…"

"Kill them!"

"Sacrifices!"

The first of the red monsters slammed down, and two others fell straight into its back and enlarged it to seven feet tall and even larger as it reared up on its hind legs and let out a roar. It slammed down and then smashed its front right paw to the right and hit one of God's followers chasing a researcher, spinning the man's head around so fast with a snap of his neck. The researcher smiled wide, then she let out a scream as the beast slashed the other way and tore three lines through her torso.

Zach hit the ground and let out a deep breath of black air in front of him. He took in everything around him at the same time. All the different people screaming. All the different sides people were on, and how crazy each person looked which would mean an unpredictability even among those groups. Zach spotted in the darkness to one side that looked less developed, more like a cave that had been discovered and not yet built over very much, a deeper darkness start stretching out from through the cracks into a blocked up tunnel. Black lines shot out of that hole and along the cave walls, and in and out of cracks that were getting deeper. He saw something moving around inside a river of blood, and a long tentacle snapped out and grabbed a woman trying to crawl away as it would make her look smaller, and she screamed as she was dragged towards that river.

Zach shot towards the river and left black footprints on the ground where he was just standing. A wind of darkness flew after him as he moved so fast he almost left his aura behind, instead moving like a black blur towards the water's edge and grabbing the tentacle with both hands. He gripped it tightly for a second, then he let go of the thing and had to shake his right hand as a suction cup started attaching to his skin through his dark veil. The researcher started screaming harder as that black form just charged at her, but she did have enough sense to rip the tentacle off her leg with her bloody hands. She turned and started scrambling away, then sprinted towards the center of the room where someone just flew up through the hole in the ceiling. "Help me!"

The boy who just saved her turned to his right, looking towards a man he just heard Gentle shout at. He could see Gentle past their enemy, but the man he looked towards was staring right at him with eyes that were pitch black throughout. Zach started towards Azrael, then he started sprinting while purple electricity sparked on the monster's hands and surrounded him in a glow. Zach sped up with the floor cracking beneath his feet, then he heard Exodus shout at him from the right. He snapped his head that way and then jumped to his left and crossed both arms. Zach got slammed into by a red creature that had leapt up in the air before reaching him, making both of them fly through the air and slam down into a shallow river of blood that Zach splashed out of and spat to the side as fast as he could.

Zach slammed his right fist forward into the face of the monster as it pulled out of the red stream itself. Zach punched the beast backwards and it hit the bank of the river, then Zach had to raise both hands and catch the wrists of another red beast slightly smaller. He spun it around before its claws could dig into him, and he threw it back into the air the direction it came and into another beast about to dive at him. Zach sprinted forward through the blood that splashed away from him with black wisps all over it, then he grabbed the face of the first one he punched by either of its temples. Zach slammed his right knee up into the already bloodied face, and then he ducked down and dodged a red monster diving at his side.

After ducking, he had to let go of the monster he was still gripping by the temples that snapped its head to the side trying to grab him. Zach's red eyes darted side to side inside his dark helmet's visor that was invisible to all through his aura. He dove into a roll and shot to the right, dodging a beast bigger than all the others about to land where he was. He dodged and then spun to that big one, and he yelled, "Richard!" Experiment 66 froze. All the different parts of it charging at the same person stopped moving, and Zach stared with panting black breaths coming out of his head at the creature that had pitch black eyes and a look of pain on its faces. Why are they all coming after me? In this whole room, it targeted me. In the hallway upstairs too, it came for me. It ran right past Yuri, and Wreck'd was even… you killed Wreck'd just trying to- "Do you know me? You know, who I am don't you?!"

Gentle's eyes bulged as he stared past God towards the confrontation he was seeing. Then he shook his head and his eyes narrowed at God's back. "Go, help Exodus get them out of here," Gentle said to his left and a man exhausted from using his Super Move to get them all the way down there. Dryout's hands were bloody and he nodded at Gentle while panting. He turned and clenched his teeth before running off, hating that he was leaving the fight but knowing before he had even agreed to come down that he was not going to be much use down there. It was why he did not want Exodus wasting his strength on just getting them downstairs. Sandlot may have been right. I may not be able to do much down here. Dryout's eyes focused on a couple people injured and limping towards the middle of the room, reaching up towards the hole in the ceiling with desperate looks in their eyes. Dryout's bloody fists clenched and he thought with an intense determination spread over his face, But I can do something!

"So you think yourself a God?" Gentle asked, while stepping forward towards the man closest to him. As the man turned around, Gentle could see in the corners of his eyes people skinned, crucified, impaled, and heads just laying around near dismembered corpses. Gentle's eyes narrowed behind his dark purple visor, and he said in a taunting yet angry voice, "Quite pretentious of you. I didn't know God was such a sadist."

"Then you do not know much of God," Azrael said back to the man facing him. They were of equal height, both wearing dark uniforms of the Army of Death. Azrael's even had 'DEATH' written down his back, just as Gentle had the Kanji symbol for it on his own purple cape. "He has done many horrible things. Wiped out the entire planet on several occasions. Human sacrifices even, are not an uncommon thing for Him."

"Well you're quick to admit you aren't Him, aren't you?" Gentle asked, his eyebrows narrowing in at the way the man before him was phrasing those last sentences. "Who are you?" Gentle asked, while keeping an eye behind him towards the fight between Death and the powerful monster invulnerable to his Death.

"I am God," Azrael replied simply. "Or, a God," he said, and the man chuckled for a second before pondering a question aloud, "What would you call me?"

"Insane," Gentle replied. "A crazed lunatic, with a very fragile grasp on reality. This place drove you mad-"

"This place is what created me," Azrael countered. "My very first thoughts, were in the midst of an experiment in a lab only a few floors above us right now." Gentle's face covered in a bit of sweat but he tried keeping his expression steady. Azrael continued though, "And once I realized where I was, I fled from Experiment 29's body into that of the good doctor…" Gentle gulped and clenched his fists at his sides as he was getting a much, much worse feeling about this figure all of a sudden.

"29 was once a religious man in life, and when I first started to understand where I was, I understood that I was God. From what Jones understood on the matter as well, there was no other explanation-"

"Or you're a parasite," Gentle offered. "A parasite destroys its host and gives no benefit to the one it possesses. In fact, I think you are the definition of a parasite." Gentle continued louder and louder as from the first mention of 'parasite' he saw the figure's face twitch.

God's mouth twisted down and his eyes that were already pitch black grew darker. "A parasite does not think. A parasite does not command others." God chuckled and then continued while lifting his head and glaring down his nose towards Gentle, lightning sparking off his hands as he rose them at his sides, "Jones knew the K6 Gas was not a complete failure, but his ideas were too radical even for a place like this. Those experimented on with K6 did not react as desired; they did not answer all questions honestly nor followed the orders of those who gave them, but their minds were altered. They were altered to a point that extreme suggestion could make them believe, or do anything. I obtained all this knowledge just by inhabiting Jones' body, as well as the ideas of his that were purely hypothetical." God smirked more and he took a step towards Gentle whose eyes were huge inside his helmet, "Like how he could make the K6 work, if say he were to infect all these subjects, and then after telling these poor people who had been subject to such atrocities over months or years that God was about to free them. These people who never believed they would ever escape from this hell, suddenly released by a man who claimed to be God and bestowed upon them even more power, and wisdom. The strength to fight back against their oppressors… It was marvelous."

"You are no God," Gentle growled, and he stepped towards Azrael himself while lifting both hands. He opened his hands into palms and crouched his legs while focusing some Elasticity down below the soles of his feet. He took in a deep breath and his entire body started tensing up, "You're a monster created in this lab. Not even human."

"I confirmed it with Azrael's mind as well now," God countered. He rose his hands and sparked more purple lightning on them until there were two bowling ball-sized spheres of bright purple light in his palms. "When I possessed Jones, I believed Azrael could be a perfect vessel. Power, not just in his Quirk. Knowledge beyond what Jones knew, information on his employers in the Fergus Conglomerate." Gentle narrowed his eyes more while trying to think of that name and if he had ever heard of it before. "A prepared man Azrael was. He and Uriel always knew their time to be wiped from the records could come, and they made sure they knew far more about their employers than those who employed them desired. With Azrael's body, I could have risen and transferred up into the highest point in power… but there is one Azrael and Jones were more afraid of than their employers. One who Azrael had been hesitant to impersonate, in fear of what the retribution could be."

"You won't be taking Death's body," Gentle said, and he bounced off the floor towards God. A thin beam of white light pierced through the two purple spheres of electricity and blew them up in Azrael's palms at the moment Gentle lifted off. Exodus started sprinting towards the fake God himself, and he lifted his hands at his right side to create a glowing hilt that a huge sword of white light extended out from.

"SACRIFICE! SACRIFICE! SACRIFICE! SACR-"

Zach swept by a man in the middle of chanting along with anyone else still following God's orders. Zach knocked the man out with a swing of his arm in his direction, but before the guy had even half-fallen, he was stomped into the floor by the red beast charging at Zach from the other side of him. Zach shouted at the beast running at him, just a bit taller than him and barreling his way in front of three others at different distances away. "I don't want to hurt you! I can get you back to your family!" He had heard most of what Azrael said to Gentle through their helmet connection, and from what he could tell the beast in front of him was not affected by Azrael's gas that had most of the experiments going mad to serve him. The fact that 66 had stopped too when Zach shouted at it, the fact that it was going after him alone in this room full of people fighting and killing each other, Zach knew Richard Hawkins was in there somewhere. Or at least, he had hoped…

"RRAAAA!" The beast charging at him started half-splitting apart. Its head started pulling away yet two of the bodies behind it were sucking into each other at the same time. The faces made different expressions, all of agony, and they ripped apart and pulled together like the creature could not stay in one place in space. Zach saw the one in front of him trip as its foot did not come down in front where it should have but a few feet to the right and behind a half of a torso. Its face slammed into the floor, and another of its copies tried leaping up on its back and over into Zach, but as it landed on the one in front's back, it sucked straight down into its body.

He's in pain. Zach's left hand grabbed the hilt of the katana on his back of his belt, and he whipped it out while spinning to his right and jumping forward at the beast closest to him now. In his dark aura, he closed the distance between them faster than the beast in mid-sprint was expecting. Zach ground his teeth visible through his black veil that faltered around his entire body, and then that aura flared and Zach roared, "HAAAAHHH!" He slashed his katana up and black flames ripped out of it, and blood splashed up from the torso and face of the beast that started rearing to slash at him with his claws.

Zach spun and he slashed his katana still brought up down, straight through the swinging arm of another beast. The beast let out a scream, and Zach slashed his blade to the right while ducking his head. He cut across the front of another monster, then he rolled to the left and stabbed his sword out straight through the forehead of another. His blade got jammed through the monster's skull, and he felt footsteps behind him, on his back left, and his back right. Zach reached both black hands up to his shoulders, his entire vision tinted red from the color of his eyes. He spun around while drawing two curved blades out of sheaths on his back, and he slashed them across the front of his body and then back out while sprinting three steps forward.

Zach dropped down onto his right knee, and then the three monsters who landed past him let out agonized screams as blood splashed out of cuts on their bodies. They hit the ground, then they dragged together along with the one with a katana in its head. Zach turned his dark head sideways and watched as the beasts merged, and then it spat a katana and a huge mouthful of red spit forward. It staggered ahead, cuts still on its body that were not just healed because it merged into one beast that was almost the size of one of the halves from when it first split. Four left. That's the biggest, and second most damaged. Everyone's killing each other. I can't save him. I can't save any of them! But I, I can put him out of his misery. His pain. Zach shot to his left, and he threw the sword in his right hand forward before reaching the beast he was running at that prepared for him by stopping early.

A black blade shoved into the red creature's chest which made it stumble back and then drop on all fours again. Zach brought up his left arm and started slashing down the sword for the beast's face, but he reached his right forward first and grabbed it by the top of its head. He rolled his dark body up onto the monster, allowing the other one behind him to charge right past and miss with its slash that it put all its momentum in. The smaller beast with too much momentum hit the ground and rolled right into the one Zach was flipping over, and Zach's right hand got stuck in five inches of flesh as the beast enlarged. He ripped his hand up while slashing his blade down, and then another red monster tackled him through the air off of the other. Zach hit the ground rolling, and then a claw dug into the darkness when he was on his stomach. It dragged through the thinner darkness over Zach's back after he had been fighting for so long.

He crawled forward and onto his hands and knees that he scrambled away from the beast behind him on. He snapped his head back and watched as the smaller one just bigger than him that tackled him ran at him again, while the two biggest beasts merged together almost back to its original size upstairs when it had killed Wreck'd. Seeing it back at that size, and remembering Wreck'd, Zach's fists clenched down into the ground that broke in his black hands' grips. Blood came down his back, and he heard Gentle scream out in pain behind him and in his helmet, adding to all the other screams he could hear in that basement.

Blood splashed on the walls, rivers of it from all the corpses that had blood draining out and pouring to the lowest elevation which were the cracks creating those streams. Bodies hanging from the ceiling dropped down as a couple of cave stalactites cracked and broke off, and an explosion erupted out of the elevator shaft and engulfed a man running by it with a bloody metal pipe in his hand. A chunk of ceiling dropped down in front of Zach, slamming on top of the smaller of the beasts that had not had enough situational awareness to realize what was coming. The larger monster behind it kept charging, and Zach kept sprinting straight at Richard as he had seen the ceiling chunk coming down before it even broke off.

Everything tinted darker red in Zach's vision, even as the black wisps coming off his body became fewer and farther between. He reached down into a pouch on his belt, to find broken glass shards and a wet pocket. He brought his hand up and stuck two fingers in his mouth after wiping them on the inside of the pouch, then he snapped his hand back down as some of his dark aura revved back and he sped up. Zach whipped a knife off his side, and he threw it forward while pulling his grappling gun with his other hand. The charging experiment swung a claw and hit Zach's knife aside, and then a dark hook wrapped around its lifted arm. Zach jumped up, rising over the head of the tall monster that reached up its other claw to scratch at him. Zach tugged his grappling gun though and pulled the beast's other hand in front of it, turning its body and making it miss its other swing at him.

Zach landed behind the monster and he picked up a discarded curved blade he saw hit the ground when one of the red beasts had disappeared. He swung it backwards into the turning legs of the monster, and though those legs started vibrating and splitting apart, Zach's blade slashed across them in all their positions. His blade actually got so much deeper into its right leg as the leg lagged forward right over the weapon. Zach let go of his blade as it felt jammed into the monster's leg bone, and the fact that the beast started falling forward made Zach lean back and try jumping away. It was too big though, and it flattened him down into the ground with its huge body. I got some Trigger! I CAN DO THIS! Zach forced his body to flatten out more into the floor, and he pushed his Death to the sides at the same time and down between Richard's bloody legs. All the Death below Richard swirled up around his sides and below him, reforming above the monster that finally touched its stomach to the floor with no mass below it.

After reforming above the monster's body, Zach's humanoid form actually reappeared a lot more. His costume showed through a thin black aura, and Zach started coughing up black breaths as he put his hands and knees down on the beast's furry back. The creature started vibrating, and Zach lifted his head to look down at the top of its head. The monster, the human experiment, someone Zach had brought back to life for a better death, a second chance… they roared in complete agony into the floor below them. Zach crawled on his hands and knees up Richard Hawkins' back, and he pulled out two more knives from his costume. He clenched his hands into the fur of the beast below him, and he bent down over the top of the head of the man right as he started lifting up again on his hands, pushing his back into the air. "I'm sorry," Zach said, his voice barely scratchy and letting out his normal tone instead.

Zach stabbed both knives in on the sides of the monster's head. Experiment 66's black eyes opened huge and it reared up, but the knives stabbed into its temples were jammed so far in that Zach thought he might be able to feel the tip of one blade with the other. He buried the knives in Richard's skull all the way up to the hilts, and then he clenched his eyes as he ripped backwards with both of them using all of his strength, even forcing all of his remaining Death down onto his arms to do it. He tore through Richard's brain, and then he collapsed down on the opened skull while the beast below him collapsed to the floor.

"Holy shit!"

"FUCK! No- oh HELP-"

Zach turned his head to the left and stared through his visor while panting with his eyes half-closed. His body was slumped to the right on Richard's furry back and top of his opened skull. Zach leaned up a bit and looked towards where that scream just cut off, to see a huge chunk of ceiling down on the floor with blood pooling out away from it and a leg sticking out from beneath. Zach lifted his head a bit, looking towards the ceiling and through it. Smoke filled the floor above, and a wall on Zach's right got a long crack through it which had him lowering his gaze back down. This place, is coming down? Oh, oh fuck! Zach's half-closed eyes snapped open and he dragged himself off of Richard Hawkins' body.

He hit the floor next to the body and winced, and Zach looked down at his hands that had small black wisps coming off of them but were fully visible through his aura. His vision was barely tinted red anymore, though he had been unable to tell for a while there since there was so much red covering the basement. For the first time in a while, Zach was actually able to take in everything around him. He wished he had not taken that moment, and he clenched his eyes shut and shook his head around. Then he turned his head, and he looked towards a man stepping towards one of his injured comrades. "GOD!" Zach roared, his voice at its normal tone but scratchy and with a deep tone laced over it.

Azrael stopped walking. He turned from the man in black and purple in front of him, whose helmet was off and whose mustache was singed and blackened. Gentle coughed in pain and he was down on his hands and knees, struggling to lift his right hand to try and block the monster ahead of him. Azrael turned around, looking completely fine to the boy who stared over at him still wearing his black helmet. "You want me? Come and get me." Zach started running forward, his eyes darting back towards Gentle and then straight at Azrael again.

"Alright then," Azrael replied, and he pointed both hands at Death and fired.

Purple blasts of lightning flew at Zach, and he dove to his left into a roll he bounced out of and then kept running to his left. Another burst of purple electricity fired at him, then Azrael pulled his other hand back before throwing a more powerful bolt. Zach turned right as Azrael threw that one, and he sprinted much faster straight at the man whose arm was still in the follow-through after his attack. God's smirk rose up at the right corner of his lips, and then his lightning slammed into a falling rock from the ceiling. His attack was so powerful that the rock exploded in a blast of purple light, and then Azrael snapped his head up as a dark form rose over the explosion and swung its right hand forward.

God pulled his body to the left, but a gash still ripped in the right side of his face and blood splashed out as a knife hit the ground behind him. "Very good," God said, not reacting to that pain at all. He started forward towards where Zach was coming down. "Your knowledge," he continued, and he sped up while pointing his hands backwards and firing purple light from them. He rose off the ground and spun his body with a kick for the boy who crossed his arms and tried to focus some Death there but could not find the strength to do so. Zach's arms bent in towards his body, and he was slammed faster towards the ground he crashed into and bounced twice before flipping and dragging his left hand in the ground. Zach's glove ripped up and his fingernails did too as he tore them through the floor to slow himself without any Death surrounding them. His eyes darted to the right and left, and everything seemed to be moving so much faster for him now that his eyes did not have any red tint in them anymore.

"Your body," God continued with a grin, and he started running to where the boy stood up with little difficulty and then drew two more knives. "And your army! They will all be mine! Death!" Azrael's possessed body swung both hands in at Zach, and the boy saw the whips of lightning spreading far to either side of him. Zach's eyes narrowed and he took a deep breath. He crossed his arms again, the lightning hit him, and Zach roared out in pain as he was electrocuted.

Gentle had run towards the middle of the room after Zach got God's attention off of him. He had gotten to his feet with some difficulty, and he ran towards the middle of the room because Exodus was no longer there yet people were gathered and fighting each other to try and get to the hole on the ceiling. Someone had a Quirk to let them get up there and they were trying to help at first, but some of God's followers made it into the mix and started attacking after tricking the others. Former experiments and researchers had even come to an agreement for a moment to just escape together from this madness, only for it to be broken up in the worst way.

Gentle looked around for Exodus, and he spotted him running towards two people charging his way. Those people tripped, and their bodies started getting torn apart with blood splattering out of them as black lines shredded through their corpses. Exodus leapt high into the air with white light shining out of his shoes, and then he rose up his right fist and around it formed a massive fist of white light. Exodus came down towards the black lines that all started pulling away from where he was dropping. Exodus opened up his huge white fist, and he slammed a palm into the floor of B16 instead. Light flashed in the basement that had been so dark for so long, and people clenched their eyes shut or reeled away at the flash.

Black lines shriveled up and shrieking noises came out of the floor as they pulled away from the explosion. "Experiment 14," Exodus said in a deep voice, stepping out of the light on the side where the remaining black lines were all trying to pool together. There were damaged ones and ones still shriveling pulling towards the same spot, and Exodus pointed both his hands out towards that spot. All of the dark lines pulled away as it leaned back, and they screeched somehow as Exodus fired a beam of white light down into them. His light slammed into the floor behind them and tore a hole straight through it that widened as Exodus put in more power, his arms shaking and his palms glowing a brighter white as did his eyes.

"Everyone calm down!" Dryout shouted at the people in the middle, as he held a man down into the floor by the back of his head. Dryout gripped the man tighter while pressing him into the floor, and the man released the bloody piece of steel rubble he had picked up that was digging through his own hand, though his was not the only blood on it. Dryout glared down at the man below him he had taken down to protect the others, and he yelled at the woman on his right, "Get them up there-" Sllrch-

Gentle was staring towards Exodus, but Exodus became blurry in his vision as his focus shifted much closer to him. He looked towards the middle of the room, where one of the people Dryout had just saved from a rampaging monster had stabbed a discarded half-katana through Dryout's back. "W-We need to go!" The man shouted after stabbing him, and he pulled the katana out of Dryout's back before pointing it at the woman with the Quirk propelling people towards the ceiling. "Send me up next-"

Everyone around the man backed up, and he spun his head to see a dark figure with a burnt face glaring at him from only a foot away. The man started swinging his katana around, but the weapon bounced away in midair and flew out of his hand as he spun out in confusion. Gentle grabbed the man by the side of the face as he started spinning and twisted his head back towards him though, "Why?!" Gentle shouted, while Dryout collapsed down to his knees on the man's other side, unable to stand anymore after struggling to do so when that sword was shoved through his chest. "He was trying to save you!"

"I don't know you!" The man screamed, and he slammed his fists forward into the figure's dark clothes. Gentle actually felt those punches in his chest and gut, and he loosened his grip on the man and stumbled backwards. "Get away from me! Don't touch ME!" He screamed, and he reached down for his katana again, only for the woman he had been pointing it at to sprint forward and grab it herself. He screamed, "GIVE ME-" as he started diving at her, she slashed in front of her and cut across his stomach. The man hit the ground and rolled, and he yelled out, "AHhh! Ah! NOO!" He grabbed at his stomach while intestines started sliding out, and the woman who slashed at him on instinct at his crazed scream stared down with her eyes wide with horror, the katana slipping out of her hands.

"Please! Please get us out of here!" Another woman yelled towards her, and the woman with the Propeller Quirk turned her head only for her eyes to open huge at the disfigured face of the other experiment she had never actually looked at closely before. They're all- she realized, her eyes opening huge in sheer horror, and then she shot up towards the ceiling while screaming out in terror.

"Don't leave us here!" A voice screamed below, followed by a couple of others. She just kept flying though, straight into the floor above- Her head turned to the right as she rose through the hole into the floor already full of smoke, and a monstrous black demon opened its mouth huge while diving out of the flames and at her. She swung her right arm at it, and its head turned so her arm went straight down its throat before it clamped down. Her arm ripped off, and she started falling back into B16 now with a flaming black demon on top of her that continued ripping apart at the screaming woman as they fell. The others down below started scattering away from the middle of the room, only for the remaining servants of God to chase and tackle and start ripping them apart.

Exodus and Gentle looked around. Gentle stared at the man with an opened stomach, screaming out quieter and quieter as he faded from consciousness. He turned his head to Dryout who was down on his knees, his head pressed into the floor in front of them, and blood pooling around his hunched-over body. Exodus looked towards a man he thought he may be able to help, and then that man turned on the woman behind him. "Maybe God will spare me, if I give him a sacrifice-" the man dove before finishing his thought, and he tackled the woman with a bumpy disfigured face to the floor. Exodus did not know who to help there, because the woman chasing him was not doing so because she thought he knew a way out, but because she was trying to get a sacrifice for God herself.

Neither Exodus nor Gentle knew what to do. As the walls broke around them and the ceiling started caving in, and all the people they had come to save were dying or killing each other. And then both Gentle and Exodus snapped their heads the same direction, as they heard a shout of pain and rejection. "NO!" A black helmet hit the ground and bounced away from the boy lifted up by his neck, his body burned and electrocuted, his eyes barely open and twitching in pain. He was pulling his head away, but Azrael grabbed him by the chin and brought his head straight forward in front of his own.

"Now, I claim my perfect vessel."

"Death!" Exodus shouted.

"Sazaki!" Gentle exclaimed.

They sped as fast as they could in Zach's direction. Azrael's mouth was already opened though. Zach's eyes opened wide, and his mouth did too as he tried to scream, and then a jet of black liquid shot out of Azrael's mouth and into all of Zach's orifices. Zach's arms that were twitching at his sides immediately stopped as the black liquid flew out of Azrael's mouth, and all his fingers slid out of the glove on his right hand. Zach's right hand snapped up, and he slammed it into his own mouth.

"WHAT?! AH! AHHHH! NO! What, what is this… "

Zach slipped out of Azrael's hand, and Azrael stumbled backwards and fell to the floor. Zach hit the ground and fell to his knees. He hunched his body forward, "UUAagghaaa-" black ooze spewed out of his mouth, and Zach reached his hands up and started wiping his tongue and trying to push out all the darkness as fast as he could. He blew his nose and blinked his eyes that he could not see through, everything looking pitch black to him. "Stupid fucking God," Zach spat at the floor, spitting some of "God" onto the floor with his curses.

Zach started coughing, black liquid splashing out of his mouth more as it happened. He blinked his eyes more to get it out, and he turned his head as he heard voices shouting from right next to him. He lifted his head and struggled to bring his left hand up, and he rubbed his eyes to see Exodus and Gentle in front of him tinted black and yelling at him to get up. Flaming debris fell from the ceiling behind them, and Zach started shaking his head around before turning his head and looking at the huge pool of black ooze on the ground behind him. That ooze was sliding down the floor in the direction of lowest elevation, and Zach glared at it all the way down into the river of blood that was shaking and splashing up with every rock and chunk of debris to fall into it.

"WE HAVE TO GO!"

"Death! We must leave!"

Zach spun his head back, and he nodded at the men next to him who started lifting him up. Gentle pushed Exodus away for a second though after they helped Zach to his feet, and he slammed his forehead forward into the boy's. "What are you doing?" Zach asked, and he turned his head to the left and spat some more black ooze on the floor as it was a disgusting feeling in his mouth.

"You better not be that fucking…" Gentle began, and Zach turned back with his eyes wide as he realized what Gentle was doing.

Did it work? I really, killed it right? Zach turned back again, and then his eyes opened wide as he saw Azrael moving on the floor. "God?" Zach asked, then he shook his head and he thought about those agonized dying screams he had heard in his head after grabbing at the black ooze with his unclothed right hand. It was alive. Whatever it was, it was alive. And Death killed it. "No," Zach said, and he narrowed his eyes at the figure before him. "Azrael," he said, and he took a step towards the man with information he needed.

Azrael lifted up his head- SPLAT A huge chunk of ceiling fell on top of him and splattered blood all over Zach, Exodus, and Gentle.

"Now! Can we go?!" Gentle yelled at the shell-shocked teen who shook his head around and then spun and nodded at him.

Zach, Gentle, and Exodus sprinted back towards the middle of the room that still had the clearest hole on the ceiling. They dodged falling debris, and they leapt over corpses and heads. Zach slammed his right hand into his body again while panting and coughing, and his body started to surround in a dark aura. Killing God. It rejuvenated me. Not by much, but- Zach turned his head to Gentle and Exodus, and he slammed his right hand into his chest again while running up to them. "Gentle! Make the floor bounce, then Exodus grab us and blast us straight through to the surface. Anything that comes for us as we rise, Gentle block!"

Screams filled the basement and Zach clenched his eyes shut. He snapped his eyes open after a second though, and he and the other two looked around one more time in B16. They all looked around them, at something that would never leave their minds for as long as they lived. Then the walls cracked, and the ceiling started collapsing a lot faster. Gentle bent down and he pressed both hands into the ground, and he took in a deep breath to force it as Elastic as possible. It was a long shot to the surface, as they were as deep into the planet as they had ever been before. Gentle jumped up in the air, and Zach leapt towards him, Exodus jumped up too, and they all slammed down on the trampoline near each other. Zach and Gentle reached in, and Exodus extended his long muscular arms to grab them and pull them into his body as they rose.

The three of them shot straight up through the roof, and through the smoke of the floor above, and then Exodus' legs started to glow before white beams flew out the bottoms of them. A dark form chasing them up after jumping of the elastic floor opened its huge mouth and let out a half-roar before it was incinerated by the white light blasting the three in the Army of Death towards the surface. They heard screams echoing out from the ninth basement as they flew past it, and Gentle started lifting a hand to block anyone who might try to change their trajectory, only for his arm and face to freeze as he watched two men rip a woman in half between them. Then the ceiling started collapsing down on top of their heads, but Gentle never saw it end as they were already on B8, and then B7.

"The ceiling's collapsing!" Zach yelled while looking up through the remaining holes. Cracks were forming on the edges of the holes, and all the way up on B1 that they were soaring towards after having broken through the floors down from B2. "I'm holding on Exodus!" Zach yelled, putting his right arm farther around Exodus' back while pointing his hand away, and gripping the man tighter by his belt with his left. "Use the hand holding me!"

Exodus snapped his hand up without arguing with Death that it would not be as safe for him. He pointed his hand up as were his orders, and he fired a beam out of his hand so powerful that it slowed their rocketing ascent. Gentle yelled out, "Hold me tighter!" He let go of Exodus and swung both hands below them, and Exodus stopped firing beams out of his feet for a moment as he knew why Gentle shouted that at him. Walls and floors cracked around them, and Gentle formed another bouncing point in the air below, and they shot up with a beam blasting over them and through all the rubble. Gentle smashed his hands down again, and Exodus fired an even stronger light out above him as it seemed like the building on the surface was collapsing down too.

"AhhhhHHHHH!"

"RRaaaaAAAAAA!"

"HAAAAAAAAAAA!"

On a grassy field in Scotland, fifty-seven people stared towards a collapsing building while backing away from the land that was decreasing in elevation. The entire hill and field around the building was dipping down, cracks forming in the grass and huge sections of the earth collapsing in on itself. Everyone around the building stared towards it in shock though, as three soft voices got louder and louder, and then an explosion of white light blew through the falling building. The pillar of light faded, and three figures clad in all black shot up into the air where it was disappearing from.

Gentle's arms fell limp below him, and Exodus' right arm fell to his side while he let out a gasp at the end of his shout. Zach's eyes opened huge, as he stared up into a cloudy gray sky that he did not know he would ever see again. And then his eyes started to shift down, and as they hit the top of their arc from Gentle's final Gently Trampoline, Zach's eyes shifted over the field around the collapsing facility. Helicopters were landed down on the dirt road, with one up in the air not too far from him and pulling away as if the pilot was nervous it would accidentally hit them. There were black SUVs at the edges of the forests, and there were dozens of people staring up towards him and his two comrades. Everyone, Zach thought, and then he started arcing back down.

"Shit, someone catch them!" Cee shouted to her right down a line of dark soldiers.

Two figures with wings flew up in the air one after the other. They shot towards the descending three, and the man and woman in all black with helmets on their heads caught the three. They oofed as they caught them, then the two opened their eyes huge as they realized just how much blood was covering their comrades as they started getting soaked in it themselves.

"Death!"

"Death are you alright?!"

"Gentle!" La Brava sprinted to the edge of the collapsing area and then started back to where the two flying soldiers were lowering down. The three and a half foot tall woman ran to Gentle's side as soon as they touched down, and Exodus lay the man out on the floor next to him. Gentle's eyes were closed and his face looked somewhat peaceful, despite the blackened mustache and burns on it. "What happened?!" La Brava shouted up, glaring at Zach through her dark visor.

"Death!" Darling ran up to Zach, and she stopped a few feet in front of him as he turned to her.

Exodus turned to his side and glanced down at Death. "We made it," Exodus said.

"H-Hey! Where's…" Zach and Exodus turned to their lefts, and Zach's eyes got darker at the sight of a man in all tan clothes looking at him with wide eyes. "No," Sandlot whispered, shaking his head at the teen.

Zach nodded his head once at Sandlot, and the pro hero brought his hands up to his head and then dropped down to his butt. "No," he whispered, and he lowered his hands from his eyes and glared down at his legs. "You take Richie and the prisoners up. You'd only slow us down…" Thomas… why? Again. Why did you have to- Titan, Dryout- We're unstoppable. The Red Team. Sandlot brought his hands up to his eyes and he yelled out in frustration, his voice full of pain.

Zach glanced around after giving Sandlot the news. He looked around at all the dark figures moving towards him, then up at a helicopter lowering down towards the field behind them. He lowered his gaze back down and said to Darling right in front of him, "Did you find Access?"

"Y-Yeah," Darling replied quickly. She spun and shouted while running back a few steps, "Get Access over here!"

Zach started jogging forward the direction Darling shouted, and he ran right past the girl his age who spun to him in surprise and then ran forward with him saying she would bring him to their dead comrade. Zach found their support team member being carried over by the nine foot tall Barboon. "Put him down," Zach ordered, and the man in front of him nodded at his leader. Barboon was glad his face was hidden behind his mask, because the scar-covered blood-soaked face of his leader that was coated with black ooze that seemed to streak down from the corners of his mouth, his nose, and his eyes, was way too much for him. Zach looked at Access' body, and he stared at the cracked visor with a bullet hole in it as well as his body armor that had blood all over as well from a few bullet holes. He pressed his right hand down on Access' body, and he nodded his head as he felt pain shoot through his body and his head.

La Brava turned her head around as she heard a loud cut-off shout of pain behind her. She grit her teeth and then snapped her head up from Gentle's wounded body to look at Exodus, "What happened? Gentle said this was turning out to be nothing! He said you would join us any-" La Brava stopped shouting as Exodus turned towards her. His blue eyes were unfocused, and he lowered them down to the floor for a moment.

Exodus opened his mouth to respond, then he turned his head and looked back at the field and broken building behind him that started dipping down more. "Pastor, Yuri, and Wreck'd are dead," Exodus replied. He turned fully to the collapsing earth behind him, and he glared at it with his fists clenching at his sides. Nothing can escape from there. I will not allow it. I, I cannot.

Fuck, Zach thought, as he clenched his eyes shut and hunched his body over Access's more. When he had looked around after giving Sandlot the news, the only other figure he had seen not wearing a black uniform was Richie who was curled in fetal position after escaping that place and finally allowing himself to look back on what he had been inside. There were also the two unconscious soldiers in all black who were in the elevator they sent up before, but… No one else, Zach thought, clenching his eyes harder in pain as he heard another of Sandlot's roars of frustration. It was for nothing. It was, all for nothing. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck! Zach lifted his left arm and he wiped it across his face, smearing blood and ash and dark liquid around. I need a shower. I need, a break-

Zach lifted his right hand from Access. He no longer felt pain from that man at all, and he heard a voice whisper from inside the helmet, "Death?"

Zach started standing up, but Access did not stir below him after speaking. Zach could not really see through the cracked visor, but it seemed to him like Access passed back out after waking. No. Zach looked down at Access and his clenched teeth loosened up, though his fists started clenching tightly at his sides as he stared at the man he just revived below him. That, that was not a mistake. I- The results… the results were bad. I failed. But the choice to go down- The battle wasn't just the fighting. I couldn't have left that place alone. We had to destroy it, before "God" could have escaped up here. And I had to stop Richard Hawkins, kill that man who wasn't able to, stay in one place. Stay in one body. Constant pain. And all those people I tried to save, some of them were worth saving, but I just failed! If only there was more time. If only, something hadn't caused that place to start collapsing. What was it? Did someone from the, Fergus Conglomerate? Did they do it? Someone from "Corporate" was with the group, higher up than either of the captains. I, I don't know what happened to them. I don't know what happened down there. It was all so, fucked up. Everything. God damn it. God, damn… God? No, don't think about- Pastor… Yuri… Wreck'd.

In Zach's head he saw Wreck'd pushing him out of the way, and his fists clenched so much harder at his sides. It had to have been worth it. He saw Yuri getting ripped apart by a hail of bullets, and he felt Pastor go limp in his arms. He saw Dryout's hunched-over body with blood all around him, and the spray of blood that came from the ceiling when Titan was sucked through it. Zach's fists clenched harder and he turned his head to the left. His eyes were dark, and he shifted his dark glare across twenty soldiers in all black who had come to surround him without him even noticing. He turned his head the other way and looked at another twenty on his right. They're all here. Everyone came, because Gentle was right. I am the Army of Death. Without me, there's nothing. Yet if I hadn't gone down there, there was already nothing.

"I didn't have to go down there," Zach said while looking to his right at the soldiers on that side of him. He turned his dirty head more and looked behind him, towards Darling, Exodus, La Brava, Cee, and Mark. He stared back at them, and then to their right, then to the left again. He glared around covered in blood and dirt and black, and his fists clenched even harder at his sides. "I lost, Pastor. Yuri, and Wreck'd too. All three of them." Zach grit his teeth, and then he narrowed his eyes and turned to his left to look in the visor of someone. He did not know who it was he just turned to, yet he said to them, "In that place were monsters that… that never should have existed. A research facility, testing on humans! And, and it was… horrible. And I didn't have to go down there!"

Zach ground his teeth, then he turned to his right and shouted at someone on his right, "But if I hadn't, then this doesn't mean anything! If we give up. If we are afraid!" Zach's hands started shaking at his sides, and he clenched them harder while shaking his head and gritting his teeth more to stop them from chattering. "If there are things, even I won't do, none of it would matter. Because that's the whole point of the Army of Death," he said, and he calmed himself as much as he could while looking around the visors of everyone staring at him. "To go places no one will and stop villains who heroes can't, or won't." I don't know, how this place came to be. If there are heroes on the payroll of that corporation, conglomerate, villain organization! I will find out though. And I will destroy it. Destroy them.

"What happened down there?" La Brava asked, standing up next to Gentle after Hank knelt next to them and told her that Gentle was fine. She stepped away from Gentle's resting body while Hank checked on his wounds, and she said in a shakier voice at the teen who was spooking her with all this, "What happened to you guys?"

Zach's eyes narrowed and he lowered them for a second to the floor. In his head he saw Wreck'd pulling off his helmet he had puked into. He saw Yuri firing rapidly and almost hitting Pastor. In his head he could hear Pastor asking him not to bring him back, and he did not know if it was truly because of Pastor's beliefs or if the man truly had cracked while they were down there. "We were unprepared," Zach said. Around me, are more than fifty people who Rebel called here. Just because they heard we were in trouble, they came. They really are lost without… Nothing holds them together if I'm gone. All these people from different countries, backgrounds, they're all following me. That's not enough though. Not enough to bind us, and protect us! Yuri was untrained, unprepared like Access- "A will to join me, isn't enough."

Zach shook his head and then continued in a low voice, "Yuri, Wreck'd, Pastor, they were brave. They were my comrades, and they fought for what they thought was right down there. But they weren't the best." Zach lifted his eyes towards a tall man on his left side, "They weren't ready. We aren't going to be caught unprepared again. We aren't going to, rush into things. We're going to start training. Preparing tactics, and strategies beforehand! That we can use once we're inside. Not just for individual fights, but to use whenever we go somewhere." I won't lose them anymore. I don't want to lose anyone else. And, I'm the one who needs to take charge and make sure that happens. It was on me for not training them enough before. Now, I'm not going to let that happen again.

"Anyway," Zach said. He turned his head towards La Brava who was just staring at him with wide eyes behind her visor, no clue how she was supposed to react to the serious teen in front of her. "Where are we on the Syndicate? Did you find anything before we called you here?"

"Death," Michael began, stepping forward out of the line on Zach's right. Zach glanced towards him and saw a man next to him with big pincers sticking out of his helmet step forward too. "Take a break," Michael said with a shake of his head. "You look like, well, shit."

"You should rest-" Grabble started too.

"I'm fresh," Zach replied. I can use Nightmare again, and I'm not tired. I won't need to sleep for a while. I won't be able to. There's no time to just sit around. "It's a waste of time to just wait for me to be ready, when I can still move. The Syndicate's plans won't wait, so neither can we." Michael and Grabble leaned back, and then Grabble started nodding at his leader in understanding after a second.

Over near where Gentle lay, Exodus stepped forward past Shang and Xia who had come over to talk to him. The bloody and ash-covered man called out in a loud voice over to Zach, "Death, I too am ready to continue."

Damn, and you didn't get any boosts or anything. You're just still… this strong. Zach nodded towards Exodus with a straight expression on his face. His eyes lowered a bit to Gentle, and his bloody face got even more intense as he stared at his new second-in-command. Structure. Order. There's a reason those things exist, and it's to protect those who follow. I need more of it. But right now, I'll stick with what I have. Gentle, you stop me when I go to far. You try at least, and you aren't afraid to speak your mind against whatever I choose. And La Brava, she'll make sure I never take the lives of my soldiers for granted, because I know how much she cares about you. She would shout at me for doing anything that might put you in danger, and I need that. I need Darling too, because before putting anyone else in danger, I'd throw myself into the line of fire. And I can't do that with this many people following me, and I can't do it knowing I'd leave her behind probably to kill herself without me!

…Fuck.

But it is important. Having someone who cares more about my life than I do. I have those three, to advise me and help me make decisions. And then Exodus, Zach's eyes shifted past Cee, past Mark and others who had been with him for longer. He stared towards Exodus who he had nodded to, accepting to bring him along because Exodus wanted to follow him. Even after all of that, Exodus had not hesitated to tell Zach he would be right behind him, despite his own exhaustion. The one who ties it all together. The strongest, and the most loyal. Maybe even more so than Darling, because he has no self-interests, that I know of. He, is a good man. And yet he, would follow me to the darkest path imaginable. I believe that, and though that may be terrifying, I will never go down that path. So Exodus will follow me. He will obey, and when one person follows, it is always quicker for others to do so.

This is my army. The Army of Death. And I… "Death, your back," Zach heard behind him. He could feel pain on his back, and he knew his armor had been clawed through as well as his skin. He could feel some blood on it, but his back did not hurt any more than the rest of his aching body did.

"Hank will patch me up on the helicopter," Zach said. "Now let's go. I'll explain what happened in more detail on the way. Rebel," Zach began, before realizing his earpiece had shorted out in his fight against God-Azrael. "Someone ask Rebel where he's at on decrypting the files we got from inside. And has anyone ever heard anything about the Fergus Conglomerate…" I am Death. I need to focus. Stopping villains. Stopping things like that. Things like, those horrible things, those fucking, terrible, terrible, God-awful- FUCKING! Zach spun his head as someone shouted to him, and he looked back towards Sandlot and Richie who his soldiers reminded him about. His eyes darkened and he glared over at them, Two people, won't mean a damn thing. They could always try though, and any files we get, I could send his way…

Sandlot stood up on shaky legs, and he looked towards Death with an intense look spreading across his furious face. "The Fergus Conglomerate," he said in a low voice, memorizing the name and clenching his fists at his sides. "Death, I won't let the bastards responsible for this get away with it." Zach stared Sandlot in the eyes, and he nodded his head at the man. The pro hero balled his fists tighter and then nodded right back, and Sandlot finished to the terrorist, "Good luck."

Zach turned from Sandlot and his fists clenched just like the hero's, "You too."

---

A/N Out from the darkness... Well, this was a fun? arc, it was certainly darker than most- not that Death isn't pretty dark on its own. This one was fucked though. Zach, Gentle, and Exodus make it out from the depths of the research facility after traveling to really just the most horrible place. Zach's trying to keep things going, keep focusing on what comes next, and making sure that what comes next does not end up the same way. That was a lot that just came at them though, we'll see how it affects them as well as if anything comes from what they learned below. Zach faces off against a powerful enemy in the 16th basement as it fell apart around him, a couple powerful enemies actually. Unable to damage 66 with his Death, and barely able to use Death by the time he had to face God. Don't know if anyone noticed but Zach winds up deciding not to dodge God's big lightning attack the last time we see him before God's got him lifted by the throat, he took the blast on purpose there when he took that deep breath, knowing God was keeping him alive and... Don't really want to explain it, kinda hope it was clear but I left out Zach's thoughts there to have him reaching up and hitting God as he tried taking over try and catch everybody in the moment. Well, other than that... I really hope you guys enjoyed the chapter. It was a long one. Dryout died (a couple times), as did practically all the characters in the arc other than Zach, Richie, Gentle, Sandlot, and Exodus. Zach brings back Access at the end though, so Whoreslayer42 lives to fight another day! XD Thanks for reading, and leave a review below telling me what you think, predictions, comments, or questions!

rex559 chapter 106 . Oct 31

I'm getting bored of reading these OCs, where is class 1-A or some character from my hero academy?

Well sad to hear that. Still going to be seeing Class 1-A, as we have been (though not for the past 3-4 chapters). Won't say when, in what method, how they'll show up... really, no spoilers. So either enjoy the story and wait and see, or you know, don't? Anyway, thanks for the feedback.

Lief 17 chapter 106 . 5h ago

I really had to reach chapter 106 at 3 am in the morning... this chapter was even scarier than before and I just can't wait for this arc to be over. Nevertheless, good work on this story! I started reading 3 days ago and I caught up to the recent one just now. I know it's a bit daunting to read a fic with 1m words but it's all worth it. All the twists, plans, and events will keep you interested the entire time. Hoping for more updates soon!

Hahaha, that was a good one to give yourself nightmares with lol. The arc comes to an end as I shove as much as I can into this single, very long chapter. I'm stunned you caught up in 3 days with this story about to hit 1.2 million words, and I'm glad you think it's been interesting so far! Another update coming at you! XD Thanks for the review!

Super Power Sensei chapter 65 . 23h ago

My brain is going into overdrive again. Here are some possible ideas for the future.
Gentle is the only one to escape alive while Zach is captured and experimented on(becomes more like Venom because he's awesome)
The remaining heroes, or at least Sandlot, are forced to go with the Army of Death due to their own government betraying them by "cutting loose ends".
Everything in those basements escapes and all hell brakes loose in France(early stage of monster apocalypse)
Exodus gets "turned to god" and escapes with Zach only to "turn" other Death members
Turns out souls are not only real but tangible and "GOD" has a quirk that can manipulate souls
Zach is the only one to leave alive and the world blames Death for killing heroes.

I forgot about them but will we see the A.N.T.S. again?

Those are some awesome ideas. Loved all the predictions, could have been awesome any of those ways too (I was practically finished with the chapter by the time I read this though). Anyway just watched Venom, while I was editing this chapter actually, NOT that those two things are related. I just figured it was about time I got to watching before my commenters spoil anything about it for me XD. Only other thing to mention, this was going on in Scotland (UK). France was where the arc started when Zach was interrogating that villain who claimed to have escaped from the test facility, but the location they gave was back in Scotland the villain fled from to avoid being caught by what he thought was the government (and maybe does have ties, we're still unclear...). As for the question from farther back... we will, possibly, see the ANTs again, sometime soo- sorry, no spoilers. ;)

lolmyster42 chapter 106 . Nov 1

Ah, my good old and long-lost brother W-slayer42. Quiet guy. Never comes over for dinner anymore.
Joking aside I very much like like the story and the insane upload speeds that make me feel insecure about myself. Been reading since around it was around in the forties-ish. Never reviewed because I'm always too nervous for that life.
(Insert obligatory, hackneyed comment that says for you to keep up the good work because I genuinely like the story here)

W-slayer42 makes it back at the end of this chapter, a small consolation in a sea of terror... I'm glad you've been liking the story so far! I type really fast, and I admittedly don't like writing stuff that I've already thought about too deeply because it's like writing it for a second time. That's a main reason I'm so in love with this story right now, because although I have plans and chapter summaries for upcoming parts I'm going to write, most of it is going to be in the moment as I write it so I'll be going every day with this to prevent myself from getting bored- Anyway! Glad you reviewed! (Insert an emotional thing as motivational as Zach here telling you never to be nervous to send a comment my way, because speech speech rabble rabble blah XD). Really though, thanks for reviewing!