They crept through the darkness, Badrick's visor brightening on its own whim, enabling him to see as clearly as if the sun was shining down on them.

Zale led the way, stopping when he reached the gap Mawr described. It was huge and did indeed look over the lower floor.

He sensed Zale smiling as the warrior jerked a gloved finger through the hole and whispered, "Gotcha."

Badrick peeked down, tense and breathing hard and being extra careful not to dislodge any stones.

What he saw was not what he expected.

The Forsaken was sitting in the water, its whole lower half completely submerged. The rim of its shirt was soaked, and the water licked at its midriff.

His head was bowed, giving the impression that he was asleep.

But apart from the odd choice of bedroom, this Forsaken looked completely normal.

Badrick had expected a monster in appearance as well as mentality, like the clones they encountered in the woods. Claws and fangs and monstrous eyes . . .

But it was just a person.

And a calm one, at that.

He backed away from the natural window and leaned against the rock, his stomach once again churning.

"Zale," Badrick whispered redundantly, as he had once again opened a private conference.

"What?"

"It's just a dude."

"It's the Forsaken, man," Zale replied. "We found him."

"No, it's . . . it's a regular guy."

His tone finally seemed to penetrate Zale's consciousness, who simply replied with, "Erm . . . "

"Are you serious?" Badrick snapped. "Is that all you have to say? Don't think I've forgotten why we're here! The mission is to kill him. We can't do that."

He heard Zale sigh tiredly, and felt a stab of rage. "Badrick, that Forsaken is dangerous."

"No, the demon inside him is dangerous. It's the demon who won't work with him, not the other way around."

"And that's our fault, how?"

"The Daemonium says they protect the world. How can they say they do that if they just kill every mentally unstable victim?"

Zale huffed irritably, and took a slight step closer. "Badrick, this isn't someone with demonic insanity. That thing down there is a destructive monster. It will kill and kill and kill until someone stops it."

Badrick clenched his fists angrily and spat back, "Reynolds said you lot can force our demons out of our bodies. Why can't we just capture him and do that?"

"And sacrifice three of our guys?" Zale almost shouted. "Listen to me, Badrick, and understand me. There isn't time for your moral compass. It's too late, the damage is done. His soul has been savaged beyond repair. Without the demon he'd be a vulnerable monster, but a monster nonetheless.

"We can't waste time with ethics or resources on extracting the demon. We kill the Forsaken, and send his demon back to Hell."

"This is wrong," Badrick sighed, shaking his head dejectedly.

"It's not right, no," Zale hissed back. "But neither is destroying a man's soul just because you can. Neither is letting that man continue to live every day in an agony that can never be healed." Zale lifted his weapon. "We have to help him, and we do that by killing him."

"This is stupid," Badrick called. "Why is this ha—"

He got no further. At his last outburst he'd readjusted to get closer to Zale.

And kicked a stone through the gap.

There was a tentative moment of silence as they both watched the stone fall. It seemed to tumble in slow motion, rolling as it fell.

Then it hit the water.

And the situation changed entirely.

With a splash, the Forsaken leapt to its feet. It turned sharply, snarling and hissing inhumanly, left and right, attempting to find the source of the disturbance, before finally gazing up at the first floor.

It saw Badrick and Zale.

It went mental.

Spreading its arms and screeching, Badrick was now able to see the Forsaken in all its glory.

It was red and bloody from what appeared to be self-inflicted scratches, and its ordinary human shirt was barely recognisable. There was a disgusting open wound in its side which was so big the bones inside were visible, and Badrick could now see, where he hadn't before, the red stains in the water.

The wound didn't seem to hinder the Forsaken in the slightest, and Badrick's eyes widened as it reached within the folds of its own flesh and rummaged inside.

He almost vomited as it pulled something out that dripped with blood and gore, but jerked back when he realised what it was.

Just in time too, as the Forsaken started firing the pistol it had stashed inside its own ribs with a speed that seemed impossible.

Now it was awake, the human façade was vanished completely. It snarled, hissed and gibbered crazily. The teeth were elongated just the same as its clones, and though it lacked the claws and the eyes of its puppets it was certainly far more terrifying.

Its screeches reverberated throughout the entire cave, they were so loud, and it glared up at their position as it fired relentlessly, the anticipation of killing consuming its consciousness.

Badrick couldn't stop screaming, and gulped in terror as a bullet ricocheted off his arm, sinking into the rock above them.

"Lucky for you that's a regular human gun!" Zale shouted. "If it was one of ours it would have penetrated your armour with ease."

"This sucks!" Badrick shrieked as the bullets continued to fly.

It was never ending; every time the shots stopped the Forsaken would rip out the magazine and jam a new one right in, pulling them from God only knew where.

How many did he have?

"Are you kidding?" Zale cackled in reply. "This is the most fun I've had in ages!"

Badrick instinctively shouted a warning as his partner jumped up and hopped into the middle of the wide gap. The noise from his weapon as he opened fire was deafening, but Badrick ignored it in order to witness what Zale's attack was doing.

The bullets were hammering into the Forsaken at unforgiving velocities, but Badrick felt his face go pale as he noticed that they were simply ricocheting off its skin, as if it possessed naturally armoured flesh, leaving the monster completely unharmed.

Unharmed, but not calm. The Forsaken roared in fury, a high pitched, inhuman din. Without warning it leapt from the water, impossibly high, and soared up to their vantage point.

"Oh dear." With the reflexes of a pro, Zale flipped his gun around and batted away the rocketing Forsaken. It fell back to its hole with a splash, completely dazed.

Zale stepped back into cover just as the hissing and spluttering resumed.

"For the love of . . . " he muttered darkly. "Badrick, take a shot now."

"What!?"

"Now!"

At the sound of Zale's urgency, and with his own cry of fear, Badrick felt his legs obey his partner and immediately struggled to bring his weapon to bear, all too aware that he was now out in the open.

The Forsaken saw him instantly and aimed its pistol directly at his chest. Two bullets smacked off Badrick's chestplate, tarnishing the once pristine paint. He screamed in panic and lost his balance, falling to the ground.

As he fell his fingers tightened and his weapon fired a shot. At the exact moment Badrick hit the floor, the bullet had the good fortune to hit the Forsaken directly in the forehead.

The insane creature fell to the water with a second loud splash.

For a moment there was only silence, disrupted by nothing but Badrick's gulping breath.

"Did we . . . " he started. "Did we . . . win?"

Zale didn't get a chance to answer; just as he turned to reply, the sound of a gun reverberated throughout the cave and a bullet lodged itself into the roof.

"God damn it!" Zale shouted as Badrick unceremoniously dashed for cover.

The bullets began flying again, never ending, terrifying.

Why the Forsaken didn't just jump up again and kill them with its teeth, Badrick didn't know. It would be a lot easier.

Either the thing truly was completely mad, or it remembered when Zale had smacked it.

"Use your power!" Badrick cried. "Zap it!"

"And electrify the water? Yeah, clever that. Then we'd be stuck up here.

Badrick's face whitened; it sounded as though Zale was considering going down there to face the Forsaken up close.

"OK," he heard Zale mutter, his voice amplified by Badrick's helmet speakers, "so . . . hardened skin . . . very hardened skin . . . heightened jumping . . . object replication."

At that moment Badrick understood where the magazines were coming from—the Forsaken could create them out of nowhere, and was using this power to full effect.

How could they fight something that could do that?

At that moment Badrick was glad it was mad. If it had any brains whatsoever, surely with a power like 'object replication', it would just create something that would destroy them instantly.

Like a nuke.

"God, I hope it doesn't get that idea," he muttered. Somehow he felt even more unsafe than before.

Zale wasn't listening; he continued to mutter to himself. "Singularis, definitely. I'm guessing fifth fissure. We've got a tough one here."

Badrick didn't understand all of that, but right at that moment he was far too preoccupied to care. "Why isn't he dead?" was all he could get his mouth to say.

"The hardened skin is more powerful than I've ever seen," Zale informed him. He paused to duck as bits of stone and dirt fell onto them as yet another hail of bullets soared past. "Our bullets are literally bouncing off him, but I reckon if we get close enough we can get a round in there. I wonder what my dagger will do. God, I wish I had my sword right now. Stupid laws."

He was rambling now, and Badrick felt a surge of indignation that he could be so calm as to lose focus at a time like this!

"Oi!" he shouted.

"We'll split up," Zale continued as if nothing had happened. "Badrick, you circle around. The second entrance Mawr mentioned is down there. If you can get around to it we can flank him."

"How?"

"I'll go down the ramp behind you and engage him. You find the other entrance and shoot him in the back at point blank range."

And with that he sped away, ducking the bullets and disappearing down the ramp. Badrick cursed his name loudly, knowing he would hear it.

Nevertheless he shakily got to his feet and hurried out the way they had come.

Zale reached the bottom, splashing into the water and opening fire, wasting no time. The Forsaken looked surprised at being caught at its flank, but it recovered quickly, and that meant bad news for Zale.

Zale was strong, quick, practically a superhuman these days, but even he wasn't fast enough as the Forsaken pushed through the barrage of bullets and smacked the gun out of his hand.

It tried to raise its pistol to his head, but Zale was able to utilise his enemy's loss of balance after its strike and managed to whip out his dagger and confiscate the firearm.

"Suck it!" he shouted, twisting the gun around and emptying the clip into the Forsaken's chest.

But it still wasn't enough and he quickly had to throw it away in favour of his dagger. He ducked his enemy's swiping blow, darting behind him, and thrust his weapon towards the undamaged rib, aiming to cut open the flesh as much as he could.

But the Forsaken proved faster still, and it caught his arm in its grip moments before the blade pierced the skin.

With a violent shake the dagger fell from Zale's fingers.

And the Forsaken's fist found his visor.

The blow was so powerful that the acrylic glass cracked and Zale's head bounced painfully around inside the helmet. His mind went fuzzy and he was only dimly aware of falling into the water.

His head ached like a bitch, and he could barely focus. But Zale was a trained professional. Not only that, he had been one of the best in his class.

And so he was able to shake off his dizziness within seconds.

Unfortunately he was only able to focus just in time for the Forsaken to jump on him, pinning him to the ground, its pistol back in its jerking hands.

A fresh clip was summoned from thin air and loaded into the gun.

The Forsaken pressed its weapon into Zale's neck.

There was nothing he could do; the weight of this monster was too much for him, he couldn't wriggle free.

He couldn't quite believe he'd allowed this to happen, but had no problem figuring out why it did.

He'd allowed himself to get too cocky.

Zale reached up and tried to push the beast off him, but the Forsaken only roared in his face as a reply, and pushed the barrel harder into his throat.

They were interrupted by a loud shout of panic.

"No!" Badrick's vocal chords ripped as the shout pierced the nauseating silence. The moment he'd heard it go quiet he feared the worst, and had rushed in through the entrance despite his terror of their enemy.

Cascading into the water, his eyes met the scene before him, and the Forsaken quickly turned its attention his way. The pistol was now aimed in his direction.

His faith in his ability to use his own weapon tarnished from the memory of how he'd handled it only minutes ago, Badrick did the only other thing he could think of.

He tried to use a power.

But he didn't throw his hand forward, and he didn't attempt to summon fire.

Instead he felt a pressure in his mind, as though someone was prodding at the correct synapses in order to influence him to do as they wanted.

Without knowing at all what he was doing, Badrick made a fist and brought it crashing to the ground. He crouched and plunged his hand into the water. As the material of his under-suit met the rocky bottom and ripped, revealing his knuckles and cutting them, a surge of agonising energy flashed through his body, electrifying his bones, his veins, the muscles under the skin.

His hair stood on end and ruffled beneath his helmet, whipping so violently the strands stung his forehead.

And he could see a blue light—demonic energy—surrounding him, rippling, fizzling like ten thousand volts, pulsing, blinding. Badrick roared in pain as the sensation of power—a cruel, unholy power—built up in his soul.

He could feel it. Actually feel his soul, as if it was there and he had always been aware of it, like an organ or a bone.

His head was pounding, his heart racing.

And then, without warning, just when he thought he couldn't handle it anymore, he let it all go. Everything went white and silent, all sound ceased, and he was completely blinded.

In his head, against the white that filled his mind as well as his vision, Badrick saw something appear; a symbol flashed, clear and bold, black and orange in colour, forcing its way into his consciousness as if someone had aggressively placed it there.

Eventually his vision cleared. As the white dissipated and the world swam back into focus, Badrick realised he was back on his feet, with no knowledge of how he'd gotten there.

And the Forsaken was dead in the water.

He stared at the corpse for a moment, watching it bob gently in the still storming water. As the waves began to calm, no longer being thrashed by power, Badrick tried to lift his head, quickly learning that it was extremely painful. His eyes found the sitting Zale, who was staring straight at him, helmet off, his eyes wide and unmoving.

"Ow," Badrick whispered.

Then his legs turned to jelly and he crashed to the floor, his armour clanging loudly as it impacted against the rock.

"Badrick!" He heard Zale splash to his feet and saw his electric blue eyes appear in his field of view. "Badrick?" Zale shook him. "Jesus. Mawr! Mawr, get in here! Something's wrong with Badrick!"

There was a second splash, and Badrick strained his neck to look at the newcomer. The blue helmet of Mawr gazed down at his limp body.

And that was the last thingBadrick saw before he gave in to his exhaustion, and darkness consumed him.