"Very well. Let us try and get this over with quickly." Chrom said.
The three warriors made their way towards the door they had entered before pushing them open and leaving.
As soon as they were outside, they looked up and saw the skies swarming with various creatures. Each of these creatures had angelic wings, red faces, talon like feet, and spears in the shape of the sun. These were a type of Angel known as the Affinity. And they were buzzing about the place like angry bees. Chrom pulled out his sword, Richter readied his whip, and Pit summoned an arrow of light.
"Something tells me this won't be over with quickly." Pit commented.
The angel then released his arrow, hitting one of the Affinity in the wing and causing the creature to fall. This act was witnessed by all the other Affinity, who instantly descended on the trio.
Pit split his bow into two short swords and slashed one of them in the stomach repeatedly. Richter struck one in the head with his whip before throwing a vial of Holy Water at another. Chrom sliced the wing of one of them off before jumping up and landing an Aether move on another Affinity's spine.
It was then that more enemies arrived: centaur-like angels with a face on their stomach and lacking a head on their shoulders. They had enormous gold-plated wings on their backs. They were slightly taller than Chrom and wielded conical spears mounted on their shoulders. They wasted no time in attempting to impale the three of them.
"I don't know about the two of you, but these things don't seem like angels to me. They're closer to what Medusa or Hades would use to try and intimidate me!" screamed Pit, dodging one of the newly arrived Acceptances' spears by jumping back and immediately shooting it with an arrow of light. "Who created these things?"
"I have to agree with Pit here. Angels are supposed to be divine messengers! The only thing I'd expect to be delivered from these things is pain and suffering!" yelled back Chrom.
Richter, on the other hand, was quiet. Not only did he have to focus to keep his whip from hitting his two allies, but he was also still in disbelief that he was fighting angels -servants of God- but that they looked the way they did. It didn't make sense.
These thoughts were forced from Richter's mind when one of the centaur like angels charged at him. He pulled out his axe and threw it right at the angel, hitting it right in the head. As he ran forward to reclaim it, one of the Affinity tripped him up with its spear. The angel then tried to impale the Belmont with that spear, but Richter kicked it in the chest, pushing it back. He then stood up and cracked his whip at the creature. But two more instantly stood in his path.
Pit shot another arrow of light into the wing of one of his opponents. This caused the Affinity to wince, but not much else. The evil angel approached the good one and raised its spear upward. But when the Affinity brought it down, Pit used his blades to block it. As the two angels pushed back against each other, one of the centaur angels approached him from behind and tried swinging its weapon at Pit's back. Pit saw this and jumped away at the last second.
"Watch it! You almost took one of my wings off!" Pit screamed.
Pit impaled the Affinity in the chest with his blades before turning to the centaur one. They clashed several times until the evil angel struck Pit in the leg with its spear, forcing him on one knee. Despite the injury, Pit continued to fight.
Chrom swung his sword at an Affinity, severing its head after a long clash with the angel, but two centaurs approached him. But just as Chrom made ready to face these two, another Affinity came up from behind and put the Exalt into a chokehold with its spear. Chrom struggled for several seconds to break the creature's hold on him. With the two centaurs getting closer, Chrom knew he had to act fast. He turned his sword around and hit the Affinity in the ribs with his blade. This finally forced the creature to back off.
The two centaur angels then raised their weapons and brought them down, but Chrom managed to hold them back with nothing but his sword and his brute strength. Just then, more angels entered his view, to his frustration.
"How many of these are out there?" he yelled.
"I have no idea!" replied Pit, feeling the dread of the situation, while using his Upperdash Arm to strike another of the Affinities and following that up with a several arrows to make sure it stayed down. He then shot one that was about to strike Chrom from behind.
"We can't keep this up!" said Richter. "Are you sure this is worth it?"
"At this point, it's beyond just getting the information!" declared Chrom. "It's about making sure that these things don't cause havoc elsewhere!"
Before anyone could say anything else, a loud and hard this shook the ground. All the angels stopped their attack to look toward the source of the thud. Chrom, Pit, and Richter's eyes all widened when they saw what was making such a noise. It was a creature.
This creature was very large, had a bulky body, large clawed feet, a small pair of wings on its back, a strange looking face, and a single tentacle in place of an arm. This was a creature known as a Belief.
The Belief let out a loud roar and charged forward toward the trio. All the other angels also resumed their attack.
At this point, even Chrom and Pit were beginning to lose hope. Is there no end to them? thought the former, but showed no signs of slowing down. He had also gotten used to the Acceptances' and Affinities' attack patterns, letting him attack them much more easily. He, however was growing tired from the non-stop attacks from all sides. This allowed one of the remaining Acceptances to injure him on the side, causing him to wince, before it was taken out by Richter's whip. The newly-arrived Belief slammed the ground with its tentacle arm with unexpected speed, causing them to jump back in an attempt to dodge it but being left wide open as a result.
Pit wasn't faring much better. Although his smaller size and quick feet made him hard to hit, he was also the weakest of the three, which meant that he had the most trouble defeating enemies. That his arrows of light didn't do enough damage, and using his swords meant exposing himself to enemy counterattacks. His only other weapon at hand -his Upperdash Arm- was too slow and left him in a bad spot even if it managed to land a hit on an opponent.
After defeating an Affinity by shooting it down with several arrows and stabbing it in the chest with his bow, he saw Chrom and Richter being put in a bad situation by the Belief. He knew he had to help, but the Belief turned around quicker than he would've expected and hit him with its right arm.
Pit was thrown back several feet by this blow. This left Chrom and Richter in shock. They didn't know a creature of this size could move at that speed. This was further proven when the Belief closed the distance between itself and Pit in a fraction of a second.
Pit tried to defend himself by putting up his Guardian Orbitars, but the Belief destroyed them with one smack of its mighty tentacle. Before Pit could even register this, another smack of the tentacle sent Pit into the ground, forming a crater.
The Belief raised its tentacle again, ready to finish its opponent off. But before it could, Chrom came in and swung Falchion at the creature.
"That's enough! I will not let one of my allies fall while I still draw breath! Richter, come! We will make a stand here and fight to the bitter end! Pull no punches! Give it your all!" Chrom shouted.
"Agreed!" said Richter, reinvigorated by Chrom's optimism. "Let's give it our all!"
He scanned his surroundings. There were four Acceptances and three Affinities left.
The Belief swung at Chrom, but he saw it coming and barely managed to dodge the attack by rolling out of the way. He slashed at its leg, causing it to stop and lose balance. Richter kept up the pressure by using his whip to injure it over and over.
Pit, shaking, got back up, clutching his bow. "Yeah! We can do this!" he began cheering. "We can-"
In his mixture of exhaustion, reinvigorated optimism and complete focus on the Belief, he failed to keep an eye on the other enemies. One of the Affinities saw this opportunity and stabbed him in the back with its spear.
"Pit!" Chrom yelled.
Distracted by seeing his companion get injured, Chrom failed to see one of the Acceptances approach him from the side. The creature smacked Chrom with its weapon, sending the Exalt tumbling across the ground and dropping his sword.
No sooner did his fingers wrap around Falchion did the Belief wrap its tentacle around his neck. He futilely tried to pry the appendage off his neck before he choked to death. As he did, he saw Richter run toward Pit to try and defend him. One of the Acceptances and two of the Affinities went after Richter, while the rest decided to watch Chrom get strangled.
Knowing he had to help somehow, Chrom used Falchion to stab the Belief's tentacle, causing the creature to drop him. As soon as he was free, he charged past the other angels and to Richter and Pit's side. By this point, he was just as worn out and drained of energy as the others. He didn't like their odds, but was determined to go down fighting.
"Looks like this is... the end" said Richter. "Heh. It's funny. I expected to see angels after my death."
"We'll get through this. I know we will!"
Feeling the sweat from the exhaustion, Chrom and Richter put up their weapons once more. When one of the Affinities charged at them, Richter pulled out one of his axes and threw it at it, cleaving it in the chest and causing it to fall over. Chrom barely managed to parry the attack of the other one, quickly slicing through in the process.
Richter at this point was seeing double due to exhaustion. The Acceptance was trotting around them, trying to find a good opening. In his impatience, he used his whip to try and take it down, but his poor vision caused him to miss the mark. The angel closed in and, before him or Chrom could do anything about it, slammed against him with the strength of a fully-armored knight.
Richter was knocked unconscious from the blow, causing Pit and Chrom to look on in shock. Despite his back injury, Pit moved forward, ready to protect his allies. In response, one of the Affinity swung its staff at him, knocking his dual blades out of his hands. Another swing knocked Pit out, leaving a nasty gash on his head. The Affinity raised its spear and prepared to finish Pit off.
"No!" Chrom yelled.
Using the last of his strength, Chrom used his sword to block the spear from skewering Pit. After that, Chrom swung Falchion at the creature's chest, killing it. This sense of satisfaction didn't last, though, as the remaining angels surrounded Chrom. One of them swiped its weapon at Chrom's leg, forcing him down on one knee. The others raised their weapons and prepared to finish the job.
'So this is where it ends. Falling in battle against these horrid creatures. Sumia, Lucina, Cynthia, I'm so sorry to leave you like this. May you find peace even without me and keep Ylisse safe. I'm sorry I couldn't do more. Farewell.'
Chrom closed his eyes and prepared for the worst. A moment later, he felt a sharp pain enter his chest.
The next moment, his eyes slowly opened. He slowly lifted his head up, seeing that he was slouched over a counter of some sort. To his left, he saw Richter in a similar position to him. The Belmont slowly raised himself up as well.
"What happened?" Richter slurred.
Before Chrom could answer, a groan came from their right. The two men looked over and saw Pit beginning to stir as well.
"Oh, my aching everything." Pit moaned.
Chrom looked around at his surroundings. It looked like he was in a bar of some sort. He never would have imagined the afterlife would look like this. As his mind cleared some more, he noticed it wasn't just any bar, it was the Gates of Hell bar he had been in earlier. He saw Rodin on the other side of the bar cleaning a glass and looking at him.
"Too much to drink, your highness?" Rodin smirked.