NOTE: Never thought I'd come back to this one but here I am again with a continuation.

Pyrrha heaved.

Deimos paused to regard her, his rifle still aimed at the steel doors in front of them.

"Kid, you alright?"

She tried to hold it back but eventually, she spilled the contents of her stomach. She could barely recall the last time she ate but what came out was more dark-colored bile than the remains of her last meal. At least there was no blood. Well, not yet.

"Take it easy," he advised her.

Pyrrha kept retching air, slumping against the wall of the compound they had been shooting through until she was on her knees gasping.

Deimos backtracked to rub a hand over her back, his gun still trailed ahead. "Come on, kid, don't crap out on me now."

"I... I don't think..."

"Like it or not, this is how it is." He patted her on the shoulder. "You good? You gotta get up. We can't be idle."

As if to reinforce that, a sudden tremor rocked the building. Pyrrha staggered to her feet, holding onto Deimos's hand to steady herself until the shaking stopped. She mechanically ejected the spent magazine and loaded in the new one given to her.

So far, she had expended three clips engaging these 'Agency schmucks' as her companion called them. She dodged as best she could, getting grazed more than she liked, and returned fire in controlled shots with several of her bullets landing. It was a moving firefight and she followed Deimos's lead, pushing through this complex until the adrenaline dipped and her mind caught up with her. She did not need to look behind her to see the results of her handiwork. Most of it was from Deimos—the man was a skilled gunfighter.

Terrifying to a point. He showed no remorse, never once stopping to consider those he killed. His behavior alone showed the gap between them which Pyrrha hoped never to cross. She was not a murderer; she was only forced to defend herself. The people they fought had no Aura, no Semblance—she doubted those even existed here in the afterlife—and some of them bled a bright mustard-like substance.

There was a blast somewhere in the structure, prompting Deimos to literally drag her along with him as they pushed past the next set of doors into another room...

"This place seems endless," she groaned, cupping the pistol to stave off the trembling in her hands.

"No floor plan, yeah. Like I said, it's just how it is." Deimos pointed to pipes jutting from a ventilator and running the length of the ceiling before turning left at the intersection ahead. "I bet if we follow those pipes, we might find a way out."

Pyrrha nodded and kept close.

Deimos trudged onward, confident as ever. They rounded the corner as three more enemies rounded the corner. The mercenary gunned them down faster than she could aim.

"I got point," he told her. "Keep an eye on our six."

"Y-yes. Of course." She clamped her hand on his shoulder while twisting on her heel to walk backwards with the pistol aimed at whatever would come at them from behind.

Deimos kept moving, tracing the pipes, until they reached an empty garage. The man hurried over to the button panel next to the roller doors. Pyrrha looked about, dread gnawing at her. Then her gut screamed that something was coming.

"Sir—Mister Deimos!"

Deimos turned and was immediately struck by an unseen bolt of energy, his eyes bulging wide as he dropped his rifle and clutched at his head.

Pyrrha could barely comprehend what had just happened. For a second, the world suddenly went black—darker than if the lights in here went out—and the man she was with had dropped to his knees screaming. She rushed over to see what was wrong when another blackout happened.

And this time, she was alone.

"Mister Deimos? Mister Deimos!"

A third blackout resulted in her standing on the far side of the garage with Deimos floating in the air like a puppet impaled on an invisible spike.

Pyrrha's mouth dropped in horror as she scrambled to reach for him.

There was fourth blackout and now she was standing where she had previously been with Deimos now backed up against the other side of the garage, gasping for breath with his hands scrambling for the nearest weapon.

"Mister Deimos? What's happening!?"

"Save yourself, kid!" he hollered. "Get away from me and save yourself!"

"But I can't leave you—"

"Go, damn it! Get out of here while you can—" The mercenary barely finished speaking when a chain burst from the ceiling above her and speared into his shoulder.

She had barely gotten out a sound when more chains began bursting through the walls and spearing through the man. One went through his chest, another through his leg, a few more through his arms. All the while Deimos shrieked in pain.

Pyrrha frantically scooped up the man's discarded rifle and shot the remaining rounds at the chains to no effect. She reached for the pistol she had dropped when a final chain, much larger than the rest, burst through the roller doors behind her...

...running through her stomach...

...and lodging deep into Deimos's neck, cutting off anymore noise from him.

Pyrrha tried to scream but her diaphragm was locked in place. She desperately fought for breath as she wrapped her hands around the chain coming out of her belly. Her self-control quickly waned the more she struggled against the chain until, mere moments before she succumbed to that numbing fear, the world went dark again.

And this time, she was on her knees, her body whole.

She looked up and saw Deimos still pinned to the wall by the chains. Only this time, his eyes were hollow sockets filled with voids darker than oblivion. And that mortifying nothingness peered right into her, his jack slack and his body limp. A tar-like substance leaked from his injuries...

Deimos did not bleed blood. It was like he bled...something. Something as dark as the Grimm.

Pyrrha shakily reached out to him. "M-mister Deimos? S-sir?"

She staggered closer.

And in an instant, the chains moved at once, pulling the mercenary into the floor hard enough to cause cracks. She tripped and fell backwards and immediately felt her limbs locked in place. She glanced around in a panic and saw that she was partially encased in a chunk of earth. She looked back at the floor only to see Deimos gone along with those chains.

She was now in an empty room with that Grimm-like tar leaking from the holes in the walls and the ceiling. Pyrrha struggled against her constraints only to feel the world trembling again and then a loud crack and she was sunk deeper into the rock. She looked up again to see something that petrified her to her core.

A dark shadow manifesting above her, writhing obsidian tendrils reaching out. And on that shadow was a face twisted into a wicked sneer. Bright red eyes and blood-red teeth. Like a demon from the depths of Hell. And it was closing in on her.

Succumbing to her fear, Pyrrha screamed.

Pyrrha screamed until she realized she was outside.

She shot up, panting and reaching for the nearest weapon: her pistol. It was still loaded with a full clip. She gripped it tight as she gathered her bearings. There was a decrepit sidewalk next to her and past that was a shuttered bakery. Everything else was barren wasteland with the abyss beyond the rugged horizon. Floating chunks of rock hovered distantly above.

She slowly approached the bakery, barely making it to the threshold, when she heard gunfire. Gunfire that got louder and louder and she staggered back just as the door hissed open and Deimos, looking worser than before, stepped out and shot burst fire over her shoulder!

Pyrrha ducked only for an eviscerated enemy to collapse on top of her.

The body was heavy and she shoved it off of her, blood caking her armor. By then, Deimos had viciously dispatched a squadron of assailants. Bullet casings littered the ground alongside bits of human matter.

"Kid!"

She let out a pained screech.

The mercenary grabbed her pistol, deflecting it away from him. "Hey, it's me! It's me!"

Pyrrha took a moment to register him. Deimos's clothes were ripped in places where those chains had torn into him alongside fresher scars over his neck and hands. This was becoming increasingly difficult to bear and she struggled to form words, only responding with whimpers.

"You look fine. Have you been hit?"

She shook her head.

"Good." He glanced around, his hands shaking as he steadied his grip on his new weapon: another rifle. "Look, I don't know what just happened. I know it's kinda freaky but we gotta keep our heads in the game, got it?"

She nodded.

"You still got ammo for that?"

"Y-yes," she coughed out. "I do. I can... I can still...fight?"

"Bear with it. Just have to bear with it."

"Wh-what...are you...alright? I s-saw you..."

"Yeah. Pretty freaky. Gotta admit that that hasn't happened before. How long have you been out here anyway?"

"Huh? I just... I don't know. You were just in front of me getting ripped apart and then I was out here."

Deimos blinked. "Really? Kid, I've been running and gunning for the past couple hours now."

Pyrrha couldn't believe it. Either time was warped here in the afterlife or she was losing her mind. "That doesn't make sense."

"Try not to dwell on it. Hey, in fact, I think I got us a way out of this shit-hole." He pulled out a tablet from his back pocket and ran his fingers over the lock screen.

She tried to comprehend the lines of code that immediately followed. "How does this help?"

"It's a bit complicated to explain but—"

A chain suddenly shot down from the sky, landing right onto Pyrrha's heel. She screamed as she was now rooted to the ground. Deimos put the tablet away and tried to help her only for the ground underneath him to dissipate causing him to fall into the void. She desperately reached over to grab him but he sunk deep into the abyss, his grey eyes locking onto hers until they were shrouded in darkness.

Alas, she was trapped here with her foot lodged into the ground by this damn chain. Except, she noticed she was sinking into the ground. The next thing she knew, she was in a decrepit room similar to the building she and Deimos had carved their way through. She checked her heel; no injury but she could feel the latest scar forming there.

"This is insane," she muttered. "This is...this is madness!"

Pyrrha ran her fingers through her head, tugging at her hair with the urge to rip them off her scalp. This realm was tugging at the seams of her consciousness and it was making her lose her mind. Alas, was that what torment was? If so, then she would have to endure it. If this was her afterlife—if this was her Hell—then she was going to have to embrace it.

Deimos had given an example of that.

In front of her lay her pistol. She checked; chambered with a full clip. In front of her was a table with two fully-loaded magazines. She pocketed them. The door to her right hissed open, revealing an extended corridor lined with cracks and disturbing posters.

"What a destiny," she snorted bitterly.

Pyrrha took a deep breath and trudged on through, more determined than afraid.

ORIGINALLY DRAFTED: August 31, 2023

LAST EDITED: August 31, 2023

INITIALLY UPLOADED: August 31, 2023

NOTE: Thought I'd go back and add more to this. Again, this was done quickly albeit it was less a spur-of-the-moment and more took-a-good-minute-to-think-about-it kind of deal. I admit that this was more aimless writing than trying to hash out a plot so apologies if it's not really up to snuff. So for the moment, this is where it stands unless my muses suddenly fire up again.

This particular chapter was inspired more by the full Madness: Dedmos Adventure by Krinkels as well as his other Madness Combat short Incident: 111A.