"Cry aloud, spare not! Lift up thy voice like a trumpet,

And show my people their transgressions!"

-Isaiah 58:1

-Ω-

Frank was ready to give this world hell.

He and Percy galloped through fields and burst through forests like two unstoppable tornados, leaving nothing but carnage in their wake. The hooves of their steeds ate up the ground, and they traveled more in one night than they'd done in the past week.

Frank had never really been a fan of horseback riding, but as the wind whipped at his hair and Ares's muscles surged beneath him, his hooves barely touching the ground, he now understood the lure. His heart soared as they thundered down the line, and he felt like he was flying, a euphoria like nothing else leaping in his veins.

"So, do I call you Ares or…?" Frank's voice trailed off as they stopped for a water break by a secluded pond. They had a sizable stack of water bottles, from which Percy and Frank drank out of, but the horses preferred the pond water for some godforsaken reason.

"Yes, Ares," the red horse agreed, water dribbling from his lips. Frank was pretty sure there was a rule about not drinking from still water, but he knew that Ares wouldn't be affected by it. "If you called me 'Dad' that would be a little weird. I am no longer your dad, I'm your steed." There was a pause as he dipped his head to take another drink. "And just know that I…I'm proud of you."

"Proud of me?"

"Yes."

"But why?" Frank demanded. "It's not like I'm a poster boy for a healthy lifestyle. I kill people."

"And that's why it's good," Ares chuckled, his ears swiveling. "You know, there are a lot of brave soldiers out there- ones who genuinely want to serve our country, you know?" Frank nodded. "Well, I'm not one of them."

"What do you mean?" Frank asked, a divot appearing in his brow. "Before she died, my mom told me that you were a general. That you were respected."

"I didn't tell people to respect me, kid," Ares snorted, shaking his mane and pawing at the ground. "The war…it was the only thing I cared about, not including you and your mother. I got high on the bloodlust and carnage of it, even went so far as to put myself out on the front lines, and you can see where that got me."

There was a pause.

"Ares?" Frank murmured.

"Yeah?"

"Do you ever miss mom?"

"More than you know."

-Ω-

It was no less difficult to track the other Horsemen, even now that they had Ares at their disposal. No matter how far they galloped, or how much they sat and watched the news at the nasty-ass motels they crashed at, Frank and Percy had absolutely no luck in finding them.

"What if they're back out East?" Frank fretted one night as soon as they'd turned off the lights. "What if they went out East looking for us and we're just getting farther and farther away?"

"I doubt that. We're leaving a trail of killings in our wake. Like breadcrumbs," Percy assured, thumbing at the itchy floral covers absently. "They're smart. I'm pretty sure they'll be able to track us."

"Okay," was his only reply before the conversation fell to the reign of silence.

Percy could faintly make out the lumpy outline of Frank through the darkness, and for a few moments he just stared at his companion's back, wondering what he was thinking. He'd been a bit rattled all day, ever since the conversation he'd had with Ares, and Percy dearly wished that he could understand the red horse so he could somehow manage to piece together why Frank was so jumpy. Vaguely, the first Horseman wondered what his colleague was thinking.

Was he upset?

Lonely?

Guilty?

Percy felt a bit bad for the guy. Before everything, he'd just been a normal dude, and he'd really taken this whole Horseman thing a lot harder than Percy had. Percy had been approached by Zeus himself, and sincerely believed that what they were doing was the right thing; they were freeing people of this mortal world, sending the good ones to paradise and the bad ones to eternal punishment. It was a win-win situation, but he knew that Frank had doubts.

When Frank was feeling like himself, he was timid and at times rueful of all of the things they were doing, and Percy felt crushing guilt when they stopped for a break right after slaughtering a town and Frank looked like he was trying to hold back tears.

But Frank was starting to become Not Frank, and the more that Not Frank reared his ugly head, the more Real Frank began to disappear, and the notion that Real Frank would leave altogether scared the living bejeezus out of Percy.

Not Frank was so much different than the guy who'd just wanted to lend a hand back in New York City, the one who'd taken in a sick patient despite the fact that he would be a huge burden and the one who'd told jokes while huddled at the fire. No, Not Frank was far from that, and he actually scared Percy a bit, not only due to the fact that he was incredibly violent, but also because he was emotionless.

Not Frank would chop a little girl's head from her shoulders without blinking.

Not Frank would sneer at Percy and pull away sharply when the green-eyed boy tried to put a hand on his arm and try to calm him down.

Not Frank was totally fine with the cards that he'd been dealt.

Not Frank was excited about the job that they had to do.

Percy really wouldn't mind this so much had he not bore witness to the slow corruption of his companion- after all, these traits were expected of the second Horseman. But Frank Zhang- kind, compassionate, nervous, guilty Frank Zhang- wasn't built to feel this capacity of anger. Of hatred. It scared Percy to no end when he realized that eventually this Not Frank would become Real Frank. Real Frank wouldn't exist anymore.

He felt his heart grow heavy when he realized that the reason why Frank was growing so cold was because of him; the only reason Not Frank even existed was because Percy kept pressuring him into accepting his fate. Not Frank only appeared when Frank got angry, and the only reason that that happened was because Percy annoyed him to make sure that he killed everyone in the town. Not Frank stayed longer and longer after the slaughter had ended, and Percy knew that there would come a time when Not Frank would never leave.

Percy sighed, staring at his companion for a few moments more, but eventually had to look away. Knowing that he wouldn't be able to get to sleep anytime soon, he turned to stare out the window, were smeared with grime and almost opaque, but he could still see the shadowy silhouettes of the horses moving around, their ears pricked and their heads coming in and out of view as they moved to nibble at grass.

The motel smelled of cheap booze and sad sex, and Percy shifted around uncomfortably on his bed. For a few moments, he longed for the one in his room, which had been in the apartment that he and his mother had shared in the city, but that brought back an influx of bad memories and he quickly cleared his thoughts. His mind became a blank slate. He thought of nothing.

No Frank.

No mom.

No New York.

Just nothing.

-Ω-

"Jason."

"Hmm?"

"Jason, wake up."

"What?"

"I found them."

Jason was sitting bolt upright on his horse as soon as the words were uttered, his eyes wide open and any traces of sleep scattered to the wind. The night was dark and cool, with stars sparkling overhead like a glowing tapestry, and the waning light of the moon was almost completely obscured by the trees that loomed up on either side of the road.

"Whoa, dude, don't get up to fast," Tempest warned, his black coat rippling as he walked alongside Nico's horse, the one-two one-two of their hoof beats synchronized and precise. Though a bit too bony for Jason's liking, the blond-haired boy had to admit that Tempest did hold an air of regality to him, even though it was uncomfortable to be poked and jabbed during the ride. "You'll get vertigo."

Jason ignored him.

"What did you say?" he demanded, and Nico turned calmly to him, only the silhouette of his face visible in the starlight.

"I said I found them," Nico replied calmly, sitting back and rubbing his hand over his horse's flank. "In fact, Arion told me that he'd sensed the other two horses nearby for quite some time now."

Jason fumed a bit at this, rubbing his bare arms against the chill with more ferocity than necessary as he glared at his companion through the dark. It was during nights like these that Jason longed for when he'd had at least a little meat on his bones; he hadn't eaten so much as a crumb ever since he was Chosen, and his body had burned away any access fat long ago.

It was one of the things that made it a little easier for Jason to accept his fate; humans didn't live for years without food, and even if they did, they certainly wouldn't be able to walk and talk like Jason was doing. They wouldn't be able to move, really, but for some reason, Jason's body had kept his muscles intact, though barely. It was one of the reasons why Jason tried to work out so often; the bigger his muscles got, the more it compensated for his lack of fat in areas where it should be.

"And how come you didn't tell me this before?" he managed to splutter after a few moments of trying to work his throat and form words.

"You were asleep," Nico replied simply.

Jason was still trying to figure out whether Nico's temper actually existed. The black-haired boy he'd met all those months ago had told him that, before he'd been Chosen, he'd actually been quite hot-headed. Imagining Nico as hot-headed was near impossible at this point, because if there were any remnants of his temper, Jason couldn't make them out; the last Horseman was pretty cool-as-a-cucumber about everything, including things that most normal people should really get worked about.

Like riding your dead sister's horse-turned-magic, for instance.

"How did Arion know that they were close?" Jason inquired, running his fingers through his hair and staring up at the sky. The occasional shadow of a plane or a bird blotted the stars out, but they always returned, shining rust as brightly as ever.

"He can sense the death lingering on their coats."

"Can you sense it?"

"Jason, there is so much death in this world that my senses are rendered absolutely useless. There is death everywhere, don't you realize that?" Nico shook his head, a small smile touching his features. "I'm lucky that Arion's ability to detect that sort of stuff is more…acute."

"Well, then what are we waiting around for?" Jason prompted. "Let him take us to them."

Before Jason could even blink, Arion was off like a shot. Tempest let out a shocked splutter before racing to catch up.

Now, Arion was one of the fastest creatures that Jason had ever seen, his pale buckskin coat rippling as the horse moved like fluid, and needless to say, Jason's emaciated black stallion had a difficult time keeping up. Tempest was completely fine running- it didn't hurt him or anything, since he was in the same boat as Jason was- and if he went up in a race against a normal horse, he would probably win against even the most talented of thoroughbreds. But when up against Arion, there was really no contest.

The trees blurred on either side of them as they thundered down the line, and they occasionally had to slip into the cover of trees as a car zipped by, but after riding for about a minute or so, Arion began to slow.

They were close to civilization, Jason realized; there were street lights that, though most were broken, cast weak pools of light along the cracked and faded asphalt of the road.

The biggest giveaway, though, was the shabby motel that loomed up before him. There was a garish neon sign depicting a scantily clad woman whose leg went up and down, the words "The Lucky Lady" emblazoned in pink beneath her.

The Y in "Lady" had gone out, so it now the sign read "The Lucky Lad", though it made sense either way.

"It's not much better than the places we've stayed at," Jason admitted, wrinkling his nose and frowning at the scanty sign and the near-crumbling motel rooms that curved around the building where the lobby was. "But still, they stayed here? Of all places?"

"Apparently," Nico pointed out, shrugging and gesturing with his chin over to the parking lot. Jason followed his gaze, and even though it was to be expected, he was still a bit startled when he saw two horses grazing by the motel room at the end. They weren't grazing so much as watching Nico and Jason warily.

One of them- a grungy, disgusting looking white gelding- wasn't even looking in the right direction, his head turned in the direction just to their right. At first, Jason wondered whether the horse simply wasn't interested, but then the light of the stars glinted off of his milky white eyes, and the blond realized with a jolt that the horse was blind.

"That's Pestilence's horse, right?" Jason asked Tempest, and the black horse shook his stringy mane.

"He is white," the stallion pointed out.

"Yeah, but why?"

"Oh my god, Jason, you can't just ask a horse why it's white."

"I didn't mean it like that," Jason snapped. "I mean, why this particular horse. I mean, he's blind and looks like he has all sorts of diseases."

"That makes it a perfect fit for Pestilence, now does it?"

Jason couldn't argue with that as he and Nico trotted over to the white horse and its companion.

Now, Jason would never admit aloud that this other horse was one of the scariest creatures he had ever seen.

Its coat was the color of deoxygenated blood, dark enough that it almost blended in with the shadows, and its eyes were like chips of obsidians. As soon as Jason and Nico approached, its lips peeled back, revealing wickedly sharp incisors that certainly didn't belong in a horse's mouth.

"I'm assuming that's War's horse," Jason deadpanned as he slid off of Tempest's back, and the horse let out a soft whimper. "What's wrong?"

"The dude- Ares- is threatening me," Tempest warned. "He says that if we make any wrong moves he'll rip our throats out."

"Tell him we come in peace," Jason replied simply, thumbing at the knife that was safely tucked in his waistband. Though his words were cool and measured, he was secretly freaking out on the inside; Ares scared the living daylights out of him, and so did its companion (even though the white horse seemed quite friendly).

"He can understand you just fine," Tempest scoffed. "And so can Blackjack."

"But he's white."

"Excuse me?"

"Why is his name Blackjack if he's white?"

"Do I really have to have this conversation with you again?"

"Where are their riders?" Nico asked Arion, and the horse let out a low rumble, tossing his head and pawing at the ground. Blackjack let out an amiable nickering reply, tossing his head in the direction of one of the rooms.

"This way," Nico told Jason, gesturing for him to follow, and Jason felt his heart relocate into his throat as the two trekked across the worn blacktop. Their horses stayed behind, becoming acquainted with the others, and Jason felt exposed without his steed by his side.

This was happening.

He was finally going to meet Pestilence and War.

-Ω-

PLEASE REVIEW, IT MAKES MY DAY!

Oh, and by the way, this is the second-to-last chapter!

(A/N) So people have been reviewing and saying that this chapter was never posted. I don't know what happened but my computer must've glitched during the upload process or something, but that was partially a good thing because originally this chapter was super short, and the delay gave me more time to edit this.

The chapter title is from the song "Dream" by Imagine Dragons