Darksiders fanfic Chapter 13: Prison Break

        Once more using the Event Horizon, Strife made his way back to the Golden Sun, and began to look for Jess. By now, the ship was hovering over the Underworld Kingdom, where the people of the Egyptian gods went after they died. The city here was a cracked reflection of the one above. Where the Golden Oasis was a thriving metropolis, the one down here was a long abandoned ruin.
After a short search, Strife found his servant in the hall, talking with a servant. He called to her and gave orders.
       “Come along Jess. We don’t have time to rest. We have to find the next clue.”
       “Why don’t we have time to rest?” she asked.
       “Heaven just found its first clue. I imagine Hell isn’t far behind.”
       “What of the other masters? Surely they found theirs as well.”
       “If they did, they have yet to tell me. We stick to our trail, they’ll stick to theirs.”
       “What would happen if Heaven or Hell found their Seals first?”
       “Then the one that didn’t get a Seal would unleash their kingdom’s full power, and break the treaty in an effort to gain the upper hand. But until then, they’ll stick to their own borders and won’t interfere with the plans of the other.”
        Just as he finished, Strife pulled out his scroll, and this time remembered to pull up his barriers. This time, he saw the Golden Oasis, but as luck would have it, the vision descended to the underworld, where they were now. The vision flew past the city into a black plain and showed a trapdoor barred by many chains. After he made his way to the main deck, Strife sprinted and leapt off, with Jess keeping pace, but not leaping off as he did. When he landed, he created a small crater, and looked up to empty skies.
        He spread his arms out and gestured with one of them to Jess. As the demon floated down, Strife activated the scroll to get a sense of direction as to where they were going.
        In the underworld city, there was no activity accept for the dead that went to priests to communicate with the living. Well, the dead that Anubis judged worthy of entering. Those that weren’t were tossed into the void between above and below, to disintegrate into nothingness. And the dead were all mummies, preserved until Man stood ready for the End of Days, which would decide the ultimate fate of Creation and everything in it.
        Strife and his companion made their way on foot, as it was too crowded for the horses. Pushing their way through the hordes of mummies, they eventually made their way to the outskirts of the city. Once there, Jess and Strife summoned their horses and began to run at break-neck speed.
After a few seconds of silence, Jess decided to break the ice.
       “Master, do you think any of your other friends will be joining us?”
       “Dracula will have no interest in joining the race. Metatron and Rose will probably be among Heaven’s armies. Abraham will be plying his trade for coin, as usual. Akari’s still at the Jade Realm, helping Guan Yu restore order, and Archibald has probably made a fortune helping the various factions out. I’d be amazed if any of them stick around when they see I have the Discord Helmet on.”
       “It has a name?” Jess asked, surprised. She may have spent a few centuries with the Horsemen, but Strife and Death were always hesitant about revealing personal information. For Death, it was for privacy, and for Strife, it was so he could stay distant from the very different man he once was.
       “Yes. Aside from Mercy and Redemption, it’s the only thing I have to… remind me of my time with the Espionage Squad.”
       “I thought you wanted to forget all about your time with them. You hate letting the past influence the present. It’s why you don’t make promises, or let feelings you once had interfere with your work.”
       “You’re correct. But when I have the Helmet on, it’s like old times. Times when I was ruthless, calculating, and knew negotiation only through threats, when I was just a man doing his job. And I’m not even proud of the person I was… but it’s just the way I was taught to be.”
       “Yes, but you could at least try to let the Strife I know and lo… like… out more often. All due respect, no one wants to be around a person who they know will feed them to the grinder just to make the mission succeed.”
       “There’s a reason the Horsemen are hated, feared, and unwelcome wherever they go. You, of all people, should know that. Besides, unless my ally is my oldest sibling, I don’t throw away the lives of my allies lightly, Jess.”
       “I know you’d appreciate the company.”
       “We’re here.”
        The giant trapdoor was sunk so deep into the ground it could easily be mistaken for a coffin, and had several giant chains linking the center of the door to the ground. Chains that looked like they were being pulled on. With a silent command, Redemption turned into a rifle, and Strife broke the chains one by one. When there were enough for the door to open up a crack, a loud hiss was heard from within.
       “Know this, ye who enters here. This is the prison of the Grand Traitor Set, who almost destroyed a kingdom in his jealousy and wrath. Wrath that burns ever stronger to this day. Should you enter here, you will be hunted to no end by creatures blessed by the gods themselves. You have been warned, trespasser.”
        Just as the voice finished, Strife finished the last of the chains, and the trapdoor swung down, and a stream of black air vomited from the new hole, and the voice returned.
       “Then so be it.”
       “Well, let’s not keep this unlucky creature waiting. Down we go!” Strife ordered as he jumped down the hole.
        Jess followed, hovering down once Strife reached the bottom. Around them was a standard Egyptian room, pillars and all. Strife unrolled the scroll and looked again at it.
This time, his vision took him through several dimly lit halls and stopped abruptly in front of a torch placed on a grandstand. The torch burned with a blue flame and the grandstand it was on had several lines glowing with the same blue as the torch. A single ray of sunlight descended from the roof onto the grandstand, and a giant King Cobra could be seen slithering around the room.
Strife snapped back to reality when Jess started shaking him violently.
       “Lord Strife! We have a problem here!”
        In front of them was the Egyptian version of a centaur. Except for the lower body of a horse, they instead had a lower body of a scorpion, with the torso of a man. Behind him were several mummies and Anubites, half man, half jackal servants of Anubis. Normally, Strife wouldn’t be concerned, but from another hallway emerged a new threat.
        A massive man with the body of a dark-skinned man and the face jackal appeared, riding on top of the King Cobra Strife saw in his vision. He wore only a rather simple skirt and had a duel-bladed spear on his back. And he didn’t look happy.
       “Shouldn’t you be judging the dead, Anubis?” Strife asked, turning to the god.
       “That’s what I’m doing Horseman. You have much to answer for.”
       “You do know it was my brother War, not me, that slaughtered your legions, right?”
       “Then it’s very unfortunate you’ll be judged for his crimes.”
       “I’m not dead yet. Help me get to the blue torch, and I’ll make sure you don’t join your subjects.”
       “That blue torch is the only thing keeping Set in his prison. We cannot risk his freedom. Not now, not ever.”
       “Unless Horus has been sitting around getting fat, which I highly doubt, he should be able to defeat Set again.”
       “Not without destroying the kingdoms above and below this world.”
       “Not my fault that you guys have a blue torch as the only lock on Set.”
       “Enough! Horseman, we warned you to stay away, yet still you entered.”
       “Oh really? I never noticed.”
       “Sir Anubis, if I may make a proposal?”
        Anubis looked at Jess, fangs barred, and the guards had weapons ready. But Jess maintained her calm demeanor.
       “Should you let us pass, I’m sure lord Strife would be grateful enough to kill Set. Does that sound reasonable?”
       “I’d be foolish to trust the word of a demon. Guards! Destroy the trespassers!”
        At the command, the scorpion-man brought out two sickles from his back and charged the duo, the mummies unleashed all the flies and parasites inside their dead bodies, and the Anubites leapt as high as if they had a pair of wings. Anubis himself however, retreated down the hallway that led to the blue torch. Jess recreated her obsidian blades from the back of her hands. Strife pulled out Mercy and Redemption and started firing at the now descending Anubites.
        The half jackal, half human hybrids drew their weapons, the ones that were alive anyway. It was then Strife received another vision. This time, he was on a train full of rotting and living corpses, with moan of pleasure coming from everywhere. In the conductor’s booth was a glowing gem. A greasy, scaly hand reached out and grabbed the gem. The next vision showed several floating towers linked together by bridges foraged from all kinds of bodies. Bodies still bleeding. The Dark Towers.
        Now Heaven and Hell had caught up with the Horseman, and he needed to get ahead once more, and that meant battling Anubis, not his lackeys.
       “Jess! Kill these guards! I’m going to get the clue!”
       “Good luck master!”
       “Hit first, hit fast, hit hard, and come out alive!”
        With that said, Strife made quick work of those foolish enough to try to stop him as he made his way down the halls. Finally, he came into the room with the blue torch, and Anubis was waiting.
       “Say your prayers, Horseman. Judgement approaches.”