"Kipfel, you have legs," she remarked levelly. "I'm glad to see you've grown."

Kipfel nodded in reply and waited patiently for something to happen. If Hend pulled the trigger, he would dive at Annabel, if Mel distracted Hend, he would wait longer. No sense in rushing into the fray.

"I'm glad you're here, Mel," Hend said quietly, not turning either. "I was just going to do your job, but now that you're here, I suppose you can do it."

Mel blinked for a moment. "Sir, I respe--"

"You do more than respect me, Carmelotto. You worship me, and that means you do what I say."

"No, sir."

"I'm sorry," Hend said quietly, pulling a device from his pocket, "that you feel that way." He pressed a red button on the device and Mel's metal bits go stiff while his biological parts go limp. He glanced over his shoulder to see his handiwork and grinned again, and Annabel quickly mumbled something as her hands moved with equal speed to seal certain shapes before leaping forwards and grabbing the pistol from her father's grip.

Hend's gaze snapped to his daughter, who was clutching the weapon with her hands over top of his. A maniacal glint lent itself to her eyes as she smirked and pressed the weapon firmly to her chest. "Annabel," he whispered.

"Hello, Daddy," she replied in a tone possibly borrowed from Kipfel himself. "I was afraid you'd forgotten about me."

*Nabel!* Kipfel shouted, his legs splaying as he prepared to leap between them and knock the pistol away.

"Stand down, dragon," Hend said, glaring sternly at Annabel. "Let the humans handle this."

*You're no more human than I,* Kipfel snarled. *You're even worse than I; you're more monster.*

"Stand down, dragon. You'll get your playtime soon enough."

"Now, now, Daddy. You're forgetting your little girl again. I thought you were going to kill me."

*Annabel!* Kipfel screamed. *CUT IT OUT!*

Annabel ignored Kipfel. Her eyes and ears had only one focus, and that was forwards, towards her father. "So?" she asked. "Why don't you? Just kill me and suffer with your Mother. Alone. In control. That's all you ever wanted, isn't it, Daddy?"

Hend's face paled a little, but he did not break her gaze. "No," he whispered. Annabel looked bemused. "All I ever wanted was to destroy the invaders and return my Mother to her former beauty."

"And you're jealous. How sweet." Annabel smiled sweetly. "So why not kill me? I am just a tool to you. Your planet is nearly restored. Finish me and then finish my job."

Kipfel watched in horror. Why was she insisting her father kill her? What about him? What about her promise to never leave him? She couldn't do this to him! He wouldn't let her! His body shook with rage, and he poised himself to spring again when he noticed how badly Hend's arms were shaking with effort to break free of Annabel's grip.

She smirked. "What's the matter, Daddy?" she asked with feigned innocence. "All you have to do is pull the trigger. End what you have begun. Let it all come full circle, and then kill Kipfel, too. Destroy the 'evil' with its generator."

"Let go of my hands, Annabel," Hend instructed after a few more moments of silence.

"Pull the trigger, Daddy."

"I..."

"Do it, Daddy. Make everything right again."

"I..."

"Don't you want everything right again?"

"I..."

"DO IT!" With a violent heave, she pulled the pistol free of his strong hands and spun it so the business end of the barrel faced her father. She tapped the magazine free and emptied it of the bullets before taking them in her hand and throwing them across the room behind her. She fired the final round into the wall and threw the gun in the other corner.

Kipfel blinked. What by the Gates was going on in her mind? He couldn't tap into it to read at all, and the isolation and suspense was driving him wild with uncontrollable energy.

"Now, let's stop acting like children, Daddy, and finish this for real. There are no easy outs."

"No," Hend replied with a smirk. "There aren't, are there?"

"Corliss!" worried voices shouted as Charleton and Lucifer carried their sister before the crowd of gorgons and minotaurs and supported her shaking form.

"Lucy, light the candles. We need a council," Corliss' faint voice instructed and her body sagged to the side as Lucifer's support ended in order to shed light around the area.

"Good Seeress Corliss!" one of the gorgons cried. "What trouble comes?"

"It is written," Corliss replied, hardly trying to be heard over similar shouts, "that the Seventh Gate releases the evil from the world. The Son shall awaken as the One had months before. He shall channel the evil He has created, and He shall use it to kill the One."

Worried whispers washed over the crowd. "You mean kill Good Mistress Nabel?"

"No, you idiot, I mean some other One. Yes kill Good Mistress Nabel."

"We have to stop him!" Lucy cried, racing back to his siblings. "We can't let him kill Nabel!"

"We have to," Corliss replied levelly.

"But the Eighth Gate!"

"Will open when the Son and the One destroy each other."

"And Kipfel?"

"Where the Bond goes, the dragon must follow."

"No!" Lucy cried. "We have to save her! We're immortal only until we do something great. Let us all, then, do something great!"

There was a wave of vague agreement before Corliss shushed it.

"To go against the Son is to betray our mother. We must watch. We must avoid His awakening. The evil would destroy us as it will them."

"But!"

Corliss turned her sad, milky eyes upon Lucifer. "I'm sorry, Lucy. There is nothing we can do." And for the first time in his life, Lucifer saw the stony Corliss cry.

The room was suddenly very dark, very cold, and filled with blood-red feathers as they swirled around Hend's bright wings before dissolving on the wind. Kipfel was too distracted with more pressing issues to really feel the awe, however. He scratched and kicked desperately at Mel's body from where he was held against the wall.

Any whisper of humanity that had been left in Mel's mind was now completely erased. It was a bit depressing, but Kipfel had no time to worry about that, he told himself. He had no leverage to bite the hand holding him, but his talons on his legs were very advantageous to tearing at the metal of Mel's body. Slowly he was ripping out wiring and circuitry and blood vessels and nerves. Slowly he would gain the advantage.

If he didn't suffocate first.

"So Mother has finally realized that perhaps she chose the wrong Heir," Hend remarked, stretching his crimson wings.

"Or maybe I just had an easier time tapping into your latent genetic code, Daddy," Annabel replied brightly, her own blue wings pushing out from her shoulders.

"Stop being so cocky!" Hend hissed. A stream of unrecognizeable speech flooded from his mouth and his hands formed shapes in the air. Annabel braced for the worst, and that was exactly what she got.

Quickly she placed her wrists together, facing the attack head-on. She set her shoulders and cleared her mind. All she had to do was deflect the attacks somewhere where neither she nor Kipfel would get hurt.

She said with quiet and confidence:

Twenty or so whirling discs of deep red light bounced off a thick, transparent bubble and traveled a few more inches before disapating into the air. Annabel dropped the shield quickly and dropped in moments later with her knives unsheathed and at the ready. She drove the knives in where Hend's chest had been moments prior, but upon contact, neither he nor his chest were anywhere to be seen.

"Come now, Annabel," Hend chided. He was behind her! How?! She swung her knives behind her, but he caught them both at the wrist and she felt herself compelled to drop them. As they clattered to the floor, he placed a hand on the base of her neck. "I thought we agreed there were no easy outs."

The pain went coursing through her nervous system, at once touching every extremity and searing through her brain. Her body tenses and spasms rack her limbs of their own accords. She collapses to her hands and knees, Hend's grip following her, his warm breath hissing on her ear.

"Scream," he whispered.

*ANNABEL!* Kipfel roared as he finally got free of Mel's grip. He dropped to the floor and took off as quickly as he could manage, racing towards the pair. He could feel her pain fuelling him as he leapt upon the point between Hend's shoulders from which his wings sprang forth.

The two of them went flying, freeing Annabel of his grip. Savagely, he tore at Hend's body. He managed a huge gash in Hend's stomach and snaps his jaws down where Hend's neck was, going at once for the kill, but is disappointed when he disappears.

Mel was on him almost immediately afterwards, and their struggle began again. Kipfel, however, was ready, and he leapt upon his adversary, pinning him to the ground, tearing away at the cybernetic implants while growling heavily.

He worried about Annabel. All his anger at Hend for hurting her was channeled into the fight against Mel. He locked his jaws into wires and begins tearing them out. But even Mel's screams were not enough.

He wanted Hend's life.

"We can't just sit here while they kill each other!" Lucifer persisted. "We have to help! Anything we can do might be able to help us all!"

"Lucy..."

"No, Charlie! We have to do this! We have to go in there and help! I don't care if that's not written in the C?

"It's not that... I want to help as much as you do, but --"

"But what?"

"We can't go in there. He's sealed the area against those he has not chosen to allow. Even if we wanted to -- which we do -- we couldn't get in," Corliss explained.

"There has to be another way!"

"There might be..." one of the Elders from the crowd announced. "Listen..."

The colors were spectacular as Annabel and Hend exchanged spells blow for blow. Hend had more power, but he had been wounded by Kipfel. Annabel had the determination, but she was waning quickly. Things were not going well for anyone except Kipfel, who was happily tearing deep grooves into Mel's metal form.

Annabel was winded at the very least. She could not keep this up much longer. She panted out the last of a spell and finished the motion, sending a flurry of feathers at her father's form, only to see them deflected easily. There was no winning. She was beginning to give up all hope of survival.

Thus, when what looked distinctly like the bloody, mangled head of Carmelotto rolled to a stop by Hend's feet, she was a bit surprised, but had little energy nor cause to feel anything more than that. Kipfel strode confidently, calmly to her side, hanging back only a little to let her know that, while this was her fight, he would more than gladly step in any moment she wanted.

She managed a slight smile towards him, but he did not look her way. His dark eyes bored into Hend's as he waited patiently for his reaction.

He was disappointed.

Hend began his attacks all over again. Did he have no end to his power? Annabel despaired as she blocked and countered. What could she do?

*End it,* Kipfel told her, his rage touching strongly on her mind. *Kill him. Do not hold back.*

Kipfel, I can't, she thought desperately. I still love him!

*You have to do it, Nabel! I can't do this one for you!*

Annabel nodded and raised her left hand, extending her fore- and middle-fingers. She managed to shield herself from another flurry of attacks before she began to speak.

The area directly under Hend's feet turned black and grew out in a circle, holding him in place. Suddenly, bright spheres shot through the ceiling from above and began decimating the roof, dropping huge rocks towards him, following through by striking the area around him. The stars were followed directly after by a red afterglow for each one. The red snuffed out Hend's wings, and seemed to syphon off some of his power, significantly aging him as it did so.

As the spell finished, Annabel panted, waiting.

*Don't hesitate! Finish him!* Kipfel urged.

Annabel's body wavered a little before she placed her hands behind her back and managed to walk a few paces towards her father. "Daddy?" she asked sweetly.

Hend groaned, his face gaunt and wrinkled, as she had never before seen it. He turned to her, his gaze milky with cateracts of age.

"I just wanted to let you know that I'll always love you."

*Even after he--*

"Yes, even after he tried to kill me." She backed up and rocked on her heels. "But he taught me something?"

*Yes?*

"Yes."

*And what's that?*

*Good story,* Kipfel replied dryly as two clocks appeared, one above and one below Hend. He watched as the two sprouted hands, the one above only two, the one below hundreds upon thousands for each sphere in the heavens. Each mark on the clock faces connected with glittering thread, which solidified quickly. The hands began to spin, slowly at first, then faster, faster, faster.

Kipfel watched in grim calm as the hands turned into blades, mincing Hend's body into hundreds of thousands of tiny pieces. The blood and gore was replaced, however, by a shower of golden dust, and as the dust drifted away, puffs of sulfur heralded the arrival of the Gehenians.

Kipfel, however, was uninterested in the tiny creatures. He walked quietly over to Annabel's side and butted his head gently into her thigh as she trembled. *Shh...* he projected on a tight beam only to her. *It's okay.*

"It's not okay," she mouthed, her voice totally failing her. "I've killed my father..." She sank slowly to the ground, her wings folding into her back again, Heaven's Mark burning bright red on her exposed back.

*Death is followed directly by reincarnation. Don't worry. He's happy now. Can't you feel it?*

"How can you be so sure?" Annabel sobbed. Tears streaked her eyes. All the stress, the exhaustion, the anger, the hate, the rage... All the negative feelings she had felt in the past months had overwhelmed her. She had finally felt her defenses crack and crumble, and she lay exposed to the world.

*Take a look at your little friends,* Kip replied softly, lying down beside her and resting his head on her thigh. *They're not nearly so ugly as before.*

Annabel looked up. The Gehenians were just starting to notice, also. No longer were they the horribly deformed minotaurs and gorgons. Instead, they are Satyrs and Seraphs, beautiful and happy.

*We need only open the Eighth Gate. Come on, Nabel. It's just one more.*

Annabel nodded and sniffled, wiping tears from her eyes with the back of her hand. She rose and walked over to the cluster of Seraphs and Satyrs. She sat on her calves before them.

"Good mistress Nabel!" one of the Satyrs exclaimed as he teleported to sit happily on her shoulder, his long tail draping along behind them both before tapering to a reddish heart. "On behalf of all of us, I want to thank you."

"You're welcome, Lucy," she replied, gently patting his blonde hair.

Lucifer blushed before nodding. "'Liss and Charlie are coming soon. You know those old folks; they always take too long." He punched Nabel's jaw lightly in a kidding fashion. "I'm going to go see the flowers, now, though. I wish you the best." He presented his hand, which Nabel filled with a fingertip. They shook. "Best of luck, Good Mistress Nabel."

"You, too, Luce."

"Ciao, dragon-man. Glad you're grown at last!" He grinned and waved before teleporting away in a puff of sulfur.

*Ciao yourself, Luce,* Kipfel said quietly, shaking his head at the Satyr. He sat patiently beside Annabel, watching the chaos of the beings admiring each other with vanity.

"So... which ones do you think are Charlton and Corliss?" Annabel asked, turning to Kipfel as the Seraphs and Satyrs began following Lucifer's lead and teleporting out into the sunlight for the first time in centuries.

Kipfel waited for a moment before nodding to one Satyr with dark brown hair and a Seraph with a short blonde bob and bright white wings. *Those,* he replied with certainty.

Soon, the two Kipfel had pointed out were the only two remaining. The Satyr bowed and the Seraph nodded graciously, her eyes a bright and crystaline blue. "Good Mistress Nabel," they chorused.

"Charleton, Corliss," Annabel replied, nodding to each of them.

Corliss grinned. "We are very glad you have begun to set things right again for us, and we apologize for your sacrifice. Had there been another way..."

"...We would have taken it," Charleton finished.

Annabel nodded. "I understand."

"Good. Then there is only one Gate left to open," Corliss announced as Lucifer teleported in, presenting two roses -- one dusky gold and the other purple-black -- to Annabel.

"Thank you, Lucy," she said, holding them close. "Where is the Eighth Gate?"

"We are it."

*Care to go for slightly-less-than-cryptic, Wing-girl?* Kipfel asked.

"Of course, dragon," Corliss replied with equal venom. "Annabel, we humbly request that you destroy the planet through us."

Both Kipfel and Annabel started. "What?!" they demanded simultaneously.

"It is the only way to ensure World retains her beauty. We have the spell here, don't worry. You'll just cast it once upon each of us, and we will teleport to various areas of World. It will end the prophecy, and you will be free. When World begins to shake with reawakening, simply enter the light. Everything will be fine. Trust us."

Charleton poofed out and in, handing a scroll of paper to Annabel. "From the original C? he said, nodding.

Annabel took the paper and read it over. "I can't kill you guys!" she said, stunned.

"Reincarnation directly follows death, Nabel. All Gehenians strive for death. It's a blessing of ours, and it would be an honor for the three of us to die together so our children and our people can have what our mother remembers," Charleton explained.

*Even you, Luce?* Kipfel asked, ducking his head to look Lucifer in the eye.

"Hey, I saw the flowers." He grinned. "Don't get all sappy on me now, Dragon O' Great Evil."

Kipfel snorted and looked away. Stupid little creatures. Black isn't always a color of evil.

After a few more minutes of disagreement and convincing, Annabel agreed to cast the spell. She stood before them, Kipfel at her side, diligently holding the roses in his mouth. Corliss and Charleton had already left, and Lucifer was the last standing, waiting for the spell.

"I'd love to go on your adventures, but alas. The C?as told me to stay and die." He winked at them. "But it also told us you were going to stay and die, too. Guess that's what we get for prophecy, eh?"

"Lucy..." Annabel whimpered.

*It's okay, Nabel. Whistling in the dark is all. He's ready.*

Annabel nodded and closed her eyes, splaying her fingertips before her.

Tiny red threads shot out of Annabel's fingertips and into Lucifer's body. He winced and whispered, "You're more life than death, sweet Nabel," before teleporting away.

*And then there were two,* Kipfel said to the silence, pacing around the room. On the one wall, he finally noticed, was a huge seal of gears and levers. *Annabel,* he whispered. *Look at this!*

Annabel turned. "At what?" she asked, looking up from her hands.

*I think it's a door,* Kipfel replied, leaping up to push his forepaws against a gear. *Let's try to open it!*

"Kip..." Annabel sighed. "We're supposed to enter the light when the ground starts shaking. Let's not get too involved with anything here, okay?"

*But-* Kipfel dropped to the floor again. *Well at least take a look at it,* he asked.

She walked slowly over to the massive panel of gears and levers. It stretched far above her head, and was definitely wider than her arm span. "A door, is it?"

*I'd like to think so. Can we open it? Please?*

"What is with you? You hate the quest we're given and then the moment you get to kill people and see others die, you're as happy and frolicky as a kitten."

Kipfel has the decency to look downtrodden and to stay silent.

Annabel pats him gently on the head. "You did really well, though, Kipfel," she tells him. "I'm glad I was stuck with you."

*Was? You still are stuck with me, Nabel.*

"Oh, I know that! I was just --" Suddenly, the ground began shaking violently, and she yelped as she was flung towards an empty spot between gears and levers. Each piece began to move around her hand, churning others to begin moving as well. The panel slowly began sliding away.

*What the hell?* Kipfel shouted, scrambling for purchase on the linoleum as the floor began to buckle and rock.

"Kip! Look underneath the panel!" Annabel shouted. "It's the light!"

*By the Gates! It's so bright!*

Annabel turned, and Kipfel's eyes were clenched tight shut against the brilliance reflecting everywhere across the room. He began slipping. "Kipfel!" She ran to grab Kipfel as he began fighting for purchase and the floor began slipping to a vertical position.

*Nabel! Where are you?*

"Open your eyes!" It was hard being heard above the rumbling and grinding of the shaking. "I'm right here!" She wrapped her arms around his chest and picked him up before running up the sloping surface.

She looked back, and the room was splitting in two, cracking deep down the middle. The two halves were rubbing violently against each other, and the ceiling was beginning to cave in. Mel's body fell and head rolled from opposite ends of the room to meet each other and fall in together. The door slowly continued sliding upwards.

*What's going on?* Kipfel demanded.

"I have no idea," was all Annabel could offer. "Come on. Into the light."

*But-*

"No time! In you go!" She loosened her grip on Kipfel, and his only choice was to start running the moment he landed. He felt Annabel follow in behind him, and he was overwhelmed by a contradiction just a few moments later.

When the motion stopped and his heartbeat slowed, he wondered where the light went. There was nothing else but darkness.