Young Writers Society

"Sometimes it can be a bit disorienting to first-timers," he said. "I don't know how your teleportation works or if it's similar, but it can cause some nausea and disorientation until you get used to it."



Cornyx cocked his head slightly. Brother...? Someone who'd come to...oh. Dean. Who'd escaped with Mikael. He studied Lucifer II for a moment, debating whether or not to tell him the truth; to lie would likely keep him out of the way but it'd also probably make him more hostile and they'd lose any leverage they had if they recovered Dean. On the other hand, it might free him up to go back to his own reality instead of sticking around to save his family, and the sooner they went back home, the better.

"The last I saw, Boomslang was taking a chunk out of him," he answered coolly, turning back to Luci. "Now, where was I? Oh. Yes. Counting down, I believe."

He advanced as darkness coalesced around him and his form began to change. "Three."

"Neph-"

"Two." Curled, ram-like horns formed on the sides of his head and a long tail twitched at his back, tipped with a scorpion-like barb.

"Wait, plea-" Lucifer tried again, only to be interrupted.

"One." His sanguinary smile grew and his slow walk became a charge as two legs became four and the once-six-foot-tall boy became a full-fledged, fifteen-foot-high dragon covered with ebon scales and his muzzle decorated with slender fangs.

God thought over what was said for a moment, then nodded. "Sounds about the same as what I'm used to," he commented. "Most people get nausea from this type of spell, but I've used it so many times that I don't notice."


The moment he heard the response, Lucifer's eyes widened.

It didn't matter that his brother was strong, and it didn't matter that his brother could handle himself. This reality's God had died. And maybe Cornyx was just trying to trick him, but the possibility was quite real. The way that the woman with the fire at her fingertips - her soul said she was a demon - stared at him after he spoke stood as testament to that. His hands shook, and his eyes grew moist with tears.

Then Cornyx turned into a dragon, and he felt Apophis grab onto his arm and tug him down the street. "Come on, Lucifer!" he cried out. Lucifer could barely find the courage and strength to move, but the fear in his best friend's voice spurred him on.

"I know we're already using our magic, but are you sure you should be using the form of a dragon right now?" the woman shouted from behind them - it sounded like she was cupping her hands around her mouth as she spoke. "I feel like that might be just a bit risky, since we're not in Hell anymore and humans have a tendency to like pitchforks, buuuut it's your reality, not mine."

"You ready, then?"



Luci and Apo scattered as Cornyx lunged, ice coming forth from his blue maw and turning the sidewalk white and unleashing an unearthly shriek reminiscent of a Tyto's call. Serrated claws tore at the cement as the creature gave chase, Runi's words lost on him as instinct overtook conscience.

His teeth closed shut as Luci's wings spread. He seized naught but a mouthful of ashen feathers as the former angel took to the air with a burst of air and sudden acceleration: to run on the ice was suicide. Apophis herself merely spoofed in her shadows, gone from sight in an instant.

He nodded once more. "I am if you are."

A smile began to spread across his face - he couldn't wait to see his brother again, even though it was a once in a lifetime opportunity.


Runi frowned as ice erupted from Cornyx and coated the street, but followed after him regardless. She offered to help him out, and she was determined to fulfill that promise. She didn't have the ability to fly like Cornyx did; she had to get a little more creative if she wanted to deal with his ice. She let fire erupt around her shoes - making sure said shoes didn't burn in the process - and melted the ice with every step she took. The heat of her flames was so hot that the water created from the melting ice evaporated before her feet even hit the ground.

Up ahead, the distraught man and his friend were stumbling on the ice. The one in the lead kept glancing back in Cornyx and hers direction, and she felt something make her stomach grow nauseous when she saw the worry written on his face. That wasn't the face of a bad person. That was the face of someone good, so what did that make her for chasing after him and his friend, who looked like he was on the verge of tears?

She glanced up at Cornyx.

Cornyx, she wondered, what happened to you?

She looked back at the two. She had been easily bridging the gap between them due to her updated footwear, but the gap was beginning to grow. How was that-

She glanced down at their shoes.

Rock had hardened around them, providing them with the traction they had been previously lacking - a spell was reaching its conclusion on the crying man's lips. He was a spell caster; he would be a little hard to catch up to than expected-

A wall of darkness suddenly showed up in front of her.

She skid to a halt.

"I see what you did there," she shouted, peering around the side of it. The man in the front gave her an almost smug smile, but it was gone before she got a good look at it. She cracked her fists, took several steps back, and decided to do a special little move of her own - modeled after that one thing she had seen on the TV of the family she had stayed with for a short time after leaving Grimmore.

Then she darted forward, made fire explode at her fingertips, and propelled herself over the wall with a joyous cry of adrenaline and excitement - and landed with only the smallest of stumbles when she reached the other side. And then she decided that she really did like the new strategy, so she decided to use it to propel herself closer to the two.

Mikael nodded and closed his eyes, sifting through the countless souls in search of one similar to Dean's in origin.



Luci hit the ground several yards ahead and sprinted for the corner; if he could get Cornyx could lose sight of him, even for a moment, he might be able to lose him. He would've flown but with a chunk of feathers missing from one wing he'd be horribly off-balance and undoubtedly he'd be outmaneuvered.

The dragon bounded after him with his wings half-unfurled. His serrated talons and feathered paws gave him a grip on the ice that his enemies didn't possess.

A blinding flash of light pierced their surroundings, so luminescent it was as much a struggle to see as in pitch black. In an instant, the goshawk-winged angel and the other reality's God appeared in the middle of the combat.

Cornyx skidded to a stop and pivoted on his foreleg, letting his hindquarters swing behind him before lunging for Mikael and pinning him in one fell swoop. The angel could've dodged, had he not been out of mana and already disoriented and surprised; instead, the next thing he knew was the snarling face of his former apprentice mere inches from his own.

Out of the frying pan and into the fire.

It was more than a little disorientating to go from being in that alleyway to being in the middle of an ice-covered street, but God was used to strange things like that: it was a bonus of being involved in the hunting business during his very few and far between vacations. He withdrew his bat from his bag and began to head over to Cornyx - there was nothing to say that it was him, but he recognized the eyes; Cornyx's eyes had become like that back in the ghost town during the fight between Aegeas and Kartiel.

He gave the dragon a smile that didn't reach his eyes. "I think you're forgetting about someone-"

"God!"

God spun around. "Luci!?" he exclaimed, horrified to realize that his brother was in the middle of the battlefield with Apophis in tow. Worse, they were getting attacked by a woman with fire - a quick peek at her soul showed that she was a demon. Apophis was doing a good job of fending her off with his darkness, but the battle was still surprisingly close.

He turned back to Cornyx. Now he was only a foot away. Cornyx could easily swipe at him, but he trusted his instincts more - the reflexes of a demonic dragon were nothing compared to a god who had lived for countless more years.

"Get your demon to leave Lucifer alone, Cornyx!" he shouted. "I might show you some mercy if you do!"

Mikael struggled against the massive creature's grip in a futile effort to worm his way free. Whatever Cornyx was going to do, it wasn't going to be pleasant.

Cornyx's head swiveled to the side and landed on Dean. "Darunia," he grunted, his voice low and rumbling in this gargantuan form. "Pursue the fleeing winged one."

The demon in question was, of course, Lucifer, who had almost made it to the corner but was sliding on the ice. Unlike Runi, he had no such fire magic, and with his sudden inability to fly...well, the difficult terrain did him no favors.

Cornyx turned his sharp gaze back on Mikael and without hesitation, nor even another moment to prepare, he grabbed one wing after another in his maw and jerked upwards. Mikael screamed in agony as the feathered appendages were torn from his back, rending it from his body and throwing it to the ground. The pale ice turned sanguine under the dragon's talons.

Runi hesitated.

In the single moment between when the order was given - in a voice that didn't sound like Cornyx's, in a tone that wasn't his and with an authority that didn't match the shy, nervous boy she had met back in Grimmore - and when she realized she didn't know if she could follow through, Cornyx mercilessly ripped off the wings to the angel he had captured.

Bile rose up from within, and she retched into the ice as her vision swam. The man who had just threatened Cornyx stared at the sight with wide eyes. The man with the darkness gave a startled cry, and the other man sounded like he had just retched into the ice as well. The threatening man raised a bat that couldn't possibly do anything against an enormous dragon, rushing over to the angel's side as he frantically tried to pull him loose. The man who had thrown up screamed out a single word "God!" over and over again, terror clearly in his voice as the other man held him back.

But Runi didn't see any of this.

She just kept staring at Cornyx, flames burning away at her feet.

How could he possibly be the same boy from Grimmore? She knew he was scared of his powers - scared of what he could become - but it was as if all of that fear had melted away. She stumbled back and went tripping down onto the ice, eyes wide with horror as she stared at someone she thought was a friend.

It was Grimmore all over again.

Her hands shot up to cover her mouth as a single, strained cry escaped her lips. Memories of Nissam blurred together with memories of Cornyx - the laughter, the smiles, the promises to be friend forever, the first moment of doubt, and the horror as they became permanently transformed into something twisted and unfamiliar in her eyes.

"Cornyx, please," she begged - a desperate plea she knew would never amount to anything. She wasn't even sure he could hear her; she could barely get out anything out through the tears beginning to stream down her face. "S-Stop it. Pl-Please. This...This isn't right...You're not supposed to be like this...And...And you're not...not supposed to order me like she did...I'm...I'm not Darunia....I'm Runi...and Miss Runi...and your....your frien..."

She couldn't get the last word out - it was cut off by a sob.

Something in him stirred as he heard her voice break and he turned towards her, lifting his taloned paw off of the angel. Something that remembered what things were. Before this.

But it was too late to go back.

"Miss Runi," he corrected himself, dropping his head to her eye level, "get as far away from here as you can. Go back wherever you came from and don't return. You shouldn't be a part of this...and I don't want to hurt you next. Don't come near Hell, don't come near me, and don't come near Boomslang. You deserve a life without...this."

"But I can't leave you, Cornyx," the demon protested. God didn't understand their connection, but he didn't need to - this was the perfect moment to escape with Mikael. He silently crept past Cornyx's paw and hoisted the angel over one shoulder, blood dripping down his jacket as he reached down to grab the wings as well. The feathers were warm and sticky; he could easily see the blood coating them.

The woman unsteadily got to her feet. "We're fr-friends. And friends don't leave each other just because one of them is being...being stupid..." She raised a hand and frantically wiped away her tears, but more quickly fell to replace them. "I don't...I don't even know where to go. I don't have a home anymore. I couldn't stay in Grimmore...I don't know how I got here...I'm really, really scared, Cornyx. And I know I was supposed to be the brave one out of the two of us back in Grimmore, but I can't be brave. You've changed, and I'm really, really worried because it's just like with Nissam. I never thought...I never thought I'd lose you too...You seemed so nice back when we first met, and so...so kind..."

God began the careful trek over to where Lucifer and Apophis were standing. It was difficult when carrying the weight of the angel and his wings, and the ice underneath his feet certainly didn't help. Lucifer began to utter the words to a spell that would likely help him gain traction, but it came too late - God slipped. He, Mikael, and the wings all went failing to the group with a loud noise.

Cornyx spun at the thump, silver gaze falling on the trio. “I never hid my true nature, Miss Runi,” he answered. His muscles bunched under thick, ebony hide and he lunged forward with a sudden burst of speed powered by his long hind legs. In a single bound he was upon them and his forepaw closed over Mikael. His armoured, spiked tail swung around his sides to defend his flanks and precious wings as he seized the Archangel in his talons.

Runi could only watch in horror as he went back to attacking the angel he had mercilessly taken the wings of. Memories flashed through her mind of her time in Grimmore, and how she had stood helpless when Nissam had done so, so many horrible things. She knew she needed to fight against what she saw, but she still couldn't find the strength. Cornyx was her friend. How was she supposed to hurt someone she cared about, even if he had changed into someone that was almost unrecognizable?

The man who had been carrying the angel hurriedly tried to get the angel out of Cornyx's reach, but Cornyx was a giant dragon - he had more strength than a human ever would. "Let him go!" the man shouted over and over and over again, growing all the more desperate when he couldn't save the angel.

Save. Someone had to save a person from her friend. It was a phrase that she should have never thought - friends weren't supposed to be bad people. They were supposed to be good and just and kind. Cornyx was supposed to be good and just and kind.

"Cornyx, stop!" she cried out. "You're not-You're not like this! I know you had something bad happen before we met, and I'm guessing it had to do with you being a demon! But being a demon isn't bad, Cornyx! You-You're not bad! Something just happened - it was just an accident, whatever it was! It wasn't...it wasn't the real you."

Tears were still running down her face. She tried her best to ignore them, instead approaching her friend with the flames still burning around her shoes. Even though she was sure he was trying to protect his sides with his tail, she easily maneuvered around it. She let the flames burn a little more at her feet, propelling her off of the ground and elevating her so she could look right at Cornyx's face.

"Please, Cornyx," she begged, her voice quiet. "Don't-Don't keep hurting him. I know you have to capture some of the people here, but please don't...please don't turn into Nissam. I don't want to lose another friend..."

"Hey! Tall, dark and mysterious! I need to talk to you!"

"Yes, madame? H-how may I help you?" he inquired, frowning a little at his own stutter but being very cordial and polite.

"Well," the woman said, giving him a grin that showed off a sharp set of incisors, "I'm looking for a demon. A demon, who, if I'm right, is standing right in front of me."

His first reaction was one of surprise to her attitude of demons - he'd never met someone that believed they were real, much less sought one out - and his second was slight bafflement about what she meant by 'standing right in front of me.' "I-I'm sorry, you're looking for a demon?"

"Yeah, that's what I said. God, you're just as oblivious as she can be sometimes," she answered. Keeping her hands in the pockets of her jacket, she gave a slight shrug. "I don't know why you're feigning surprise. You're a demon. I'm a demon. Simple as that."

They said he had a heart of snow, living up to his namesake. They said that the Prince of Pride had been arrogant and foolish, and though he'd kept order in Hell for as long as any could remember, their new sovereign was going to lead them to glory.

Before that, they said he was weak. A boy who couldn't grow into himself. Stupid. Naïve. Shy. Afraid, of everything; twitchier and more nervous than one of the crows digging through the snow in the yard.

Then he was dangerous. A loose canon. A murderous, savage monster, some thing they never thought could be. Unholy. Sanguinary. Vicious. Uncontrollable. His very creation was a sin.

It might've been then when his heart started to freeze.

She quickly bridged the small gap between them and slung her arm around his shoulder, a feat that was none too easy considering their vast difference in height. "So, Mr. Demon, what exactly do you call yourself? You can call me Runi - it's short for Darunia Vain."

His eyes widened a little as he realized he'd forgotten to introduce himself. "O-oh! S-sorry, miss, m-m-my name is Cornyx. Blackthorne. Cornyx Blackthorne. It's a p-pleasure to make your acquaintance, Miss Runi."

The dragon's talons had sunk through the ice he'd created, holding Mikael there in a prison of claws and scales. Runi's words rang through his ears.

I don't want to lose another friend.

Friend.

He hadn't heard that word in too long. The King of Hell stopped all movement, his intentions unclear even as the fallen angel struggled weakly in his grasp. He knew what he sacrificed everything for now. He knew what this power was like. He understood the dangerous dance he engaged himself in. The cruelty of his crown.

Innocent snow was stained crimson under his grasp, blood running rivulets in the once-pure ice like rose petals falling across white marble. The fires of Darunia Vain burned brightly in his periphery.

He knew fire. He was ice. He knew pain and wretched sadism; he'd seen brutality at it's very worst and the darkness of human nature. He, himself, was a very incarnation of the carnal, feral animality of what humans could be. Of what lay beyond their minds and past their hearts. The deepest, most inescapable chasm of all: instinct.

The avians were dressed all in black, stepping with a solemn dignity over the frost like so many dapper men at a funeral. The ice itself still had sanguine spots and a few dark feathers drifted across the ground, carried by the winter wind. It was all that was left of their former comrade.

One day, he'd be like them. He'd be free. He'd finally spread his wings and fly so far from here that there was no hope of ever coming back. He'd go so high they could never find him and find a place beyond the reach of any man. Where the winter was so cold and so furious that not even the strongest could hope to forge their way through it. He could stand alone in the silence, just him and the birds, and there'd be no judgement nor human complexities. Merely the black-and-white barbaric law they lived by and the distant, rumbling calls of ravens.

"CAIN!" a voice bellowed from behind him and his heartbeat froze. It was more silent and more still than the torn corvid body that lay outside in the snow.

One day...

Jet claws tore forth from the ice and the creature that Cornyx had become stepped back to release his former mentor. Talons became fingers, paws to hands, forelegs to arms. The pale-skinned man dressed all in black as though he'd walked straight from a funeral stood before them. Once-silver eyes were the same hue as the wing of the creature he'd taken his name from. Not a word escaped the lips of the Prince of Wrath as he turned on his heel and strode away from Dean, from his brethren, from Mikael.

He'd have to face the music when he saw Boomslang next, but for now...

Maybe he still had Runi.

The flaming demon slowly descended to the ground, wiping tears from a still wet face as she hurried on after Cornyx. God was incredulous as he watched the entire scene unfold. Had she really been able to do what he hadn't been able to? How? Cornyx hadn't listened to a word that he said, even though the message in his conversation and the demon's were nearly identical. He felt a pang of guilt. If he had been more gentle with Cornyx when they first met - which the demon had undoubtedly done - then Cornyx would have stopped back in his throne room. Mikael wouldn't have gotten hurt: Mikael, the angel he had wanted to protect and help.

Now he was bleeding out on the ground, and God didn't know what he was supposed to do. The only angels that lost their wings from his reality were fallen ones, and those wings were burned immediately after being torn out from the backs of their owners. He glanced back at Cornyx one last time to make sure this wasn't some kind of trick, then crouched down at Mikael.

Or, at least, that was what he had intended to do. His plan was interrupted by Lucifer suddenly hurrying over with Apophis close behind, and the former throwing his arms around him. He wasn't crying - though he looked like he had been - but he could feel his brother trembling as Lucifer rested his head on him.

"I thought-I thought you might have d-died," Lucifer whispered. His grip tightened. "Cornyx said you were fighting someone, and that-that she was winning."

"Well, Cornyx is a little liar," God quickly replied, trying to quell his brother's worries. "I was totally winning that battle, since I managed to rescue the angel Cornyx had locked up. His name's Mikael, by the way. I'm pretty sure the other Lucifer and Apophis mentioned him before."

Apophis joined them. "We should do something about those wings," he said, the darkness at his feet dying down as he went to retrieve said wings. When he had brought them beside Mikael, he awkwardly looked to God for guidance.

But it was Lucifer who broke free from the embrace and hesitantly crouched down beside Mikael. "Hi," he quietly said. "I'm Lucifer. I can...I can try healing your wings, if you think that would work...And, if you don't...I know a lot of first aid..."

Cornyx glanced back at Runi as she caught up to him, then looked back towards the road. "You should stay here, Miss Runi. Boomslang won't be pleased."



Mikael's arms trembled as he pushed himself to a sitting position. Blood still leaked sluggishly from his back and fresh bloodstains made their mark over old ones.

"Raphael," he rasped under his breath. "Raphael..."