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There were what looked like people, both human and pokemon all skinless, and melted into the walls of the cave. They all had terrifying looks of pain plastered on their face, but worst of all, they were still alive. They were moving, screaming. They were all suffering. They were on the walls, on the floors, on the ceiling. Some of the figures were not moving, they had died, perhaps from shock. They were clearly the lucky ones. He could see humans, dwarves, gallades, gardevoirs, glaceons, lucarios, zangooses. Nearly anything that was made of flesh was plastered all over the cave like some sort of sick decorations, or trophies. The strange red light was not caused by bugs, it was caused by living lamps. Some of the corpses had strange bubbles for heads, and those bubbles looked to be filled with the same bioluminescent goo that the bugs were filled with. There was a thick smell in the air. It smelled like rotten meat, combined with sweat and blood. The smell was so powerful, he could almost taste it. He could not stop himself from lurching forwards, only to spew vomit all over the flesh covered floor. From behind, he heard a female voice.

"Arceus..."

Robin immediately spun around, seeing that they must've followed him. Thea looked shocked, Hilda looked pissed, and Janus was clearly terrified. "T-they're still alive..." Robin whispered to himself in disbelief.

Without a word, Hilda walked ahead of everyone else, heading straight towards the poor souls who were stuck to the stone. She approached one in particular, a woman. She looked to be human, the skin was stripped from her body. Small strands of bloody black hair remained on her head, but there wasn't much. The lower half of her body was completely missing, probably melted into the floor. All she could do was scream in absolute agony. It was a fate that no one deserved. Hilda did the one thing she could do for this woman. She drew her blade, and shoved the metal right into the mutilated human's heart. The human gave a brief gasp as she grabbed the dwarf's arm. Slowly, her grip on the dwarf began to fade. Hilda watched as the life drained from the tortured soul, until it was clear that she was dead. She pulled her blade out of the human, before looking back over her shoulder. She could see the rest of the group looking at her. "Kill them all... Put them out of their misery..."

Thea watched as Hilda proceeded to drive her blade into several more of these disfigured people. She hated this, watching people being slaughtered, but she knew that it was better than leaving them here to suffer. Blood covered her blade, her hands, her armor as she stabbed and slashed at the most vulnerable parts of these writhing victims. Their screams made her pause for a moment, but she carried on. She knew that it was better to put them through a few seconds of pain, rather than let them suffer for an eternity. This was not easy for her. She had killed a lot of people, for money, in the name of self-defence, and even out of revenge. This was different, she was not doing this out of hate, she was doing this out of mercy, and Thea knew that. The monk walked over to Hilda, and reached out for her shoulder. "Stop... I'll take care of the rest..."

Hilda immediately turned her attention to the alakazam, surprised that she would be willing to do that. "You don't have to..."

"I know, but it isn't right you should have to carry out such an awful task alone. Let me help," Thea told her.

"... Go for the head... With your hammer, should be easy enough to kill them quickly. If the first swing doesn't do it, go again. Don't stop until they stop breathing," Hilda told her. She was glad that she wasn't going to have to do this alone.

Thea nodded, before approaching one of the people that needed to be set free. It was a gardevoir, it looked as if it was crying, and drooling. "Do you understand me?" she asked the gardevoir, but she got no reply. She was unable to ask if this was what the gardevoir wanted, so she just did what she thought was right. She raised the war hammer above her head. She hesitated for a moment, knowing she was about to end a life. "...Arceus, take this soul..." she whispered, before making the killing blow. The flat head of the hammer easily cracked, and even penetrated the skull. Blood, and bits of brain flew out of the new hole in the gardevoir's head. A sickening gargle escaped the gardevoir, before all signs of life in it ceased completely. Thea could feel her stomach churning as she pulled the hammer out of the gardevoir's skull. Bits of brain clung to the cold, blood soaked metal. One down, a hundred more to go.

Hilda tried to make it as quick as possible for these people, but some lasted quite a while after receiving wounds that would usually kill in seconds. Maybe their organs had shifted around, inside their bodies since being attached to the wall, or perhaps they were just naturally harder to kill. Whatever the reason, it didn't make it any easier on her. The scent of blood filled her nostrils, it was all over her. She was used to that smell, but it was heavier than ever now. She tried wiping away the blood from her face, but she accidentally smeared more on instead. She would just have to deal with it. Stabbing, slitting, cutting, getting more blood on her clothes and on her skin was totally unavoidable if she was going to end their misery.

Robin stepped in, letting out a sigh before joining in on the mass mercy killing. He figured he might as well do something good while he was down here. He still held the javelin he picked up before, but he did not use that. He decided to use his own natural blades. He aimed for the heart every time, throwing his elbow blade into the torso of these tortured souls. The sound the flesh made once it was pierced was horrifying, revolting. His heart almost jumped out of his chest when he heard the screams they made up close. It didn't sound natural at all, as if their very soul had been corrupted by this place. "I'm sorry," he whispered before pulling his blade out of the flesh. He wondered how they ended up like this, what did this to them, and for what reason.

Janus just watched them all, killing, spilling their blood. The bodies that were once writhing and screaming were falling deathly silent, one by one. He wasn't sure what was more disturbing. Watching them slaughter these helpless creatures, or knowing that these things exist in the first place, knowing what they used to be before they were fused to the cave. If it looked like there was no way of fighting his way out of here, he was going to make sure that they don't stick him to the walls. He would rather take his own life than let himself be played with like that. Just imagining the sheer pain these people must have felt over the years only scared him all the more. These things that did this, they clearly did not have any sympathy, no compassion at all. Even his worst enemy, he would not wish such a fate upon them. He watched the blood flow, the flesh tear, and the life drain from each one of those poor creatures. More and more, suicide became the more reasonable option in his mind. Soon enough, there was only one left. He didn't sign up for this. He thought they were going to be killing bandits at the most, maybe a few rabid animals, not innocent people that had been cruelly transformed.

Hilda stood in front of the last one. She looked right into the disfigured human's eyes, and the human stared right back into her's. It let out a ghastly panting noise, as if struggling to breathe. She felt so sick, but she forced herself to carry on. Just one left to kill. She pushed her blade right through its heart, and out of its back. She pulled her blade out, only to shove it right back in. She watched the human's lips move, only to let out its death rattle. Taking their lives just felt so wrong, yet she felt like it was the right thing to do. She couldn't bring herself to look at these bodies anymore, so she turned her back on them.

"Hilda... You did the right thing," Thea whispered to her. She walked up behind the dwarf, resting her hand on her shoulder.

"I know... Seems like killing is the only thing I'm good at," she replied. She was getting tired of this, constantly ending lives. The guilt of having ended so many was getting to her.

"You're here for a reason. Don't feel bad about ending their lives, be glad that you ended their suffering. You weren't just killing them, you were setting them free from a life of torture." More and more, Thea was beginning to believe that Hilda being here was the will of her god. She also wondered if Hilda was right, would her god be happy if she found happiness with another woman? She was always taught that wasn't right, but she also knew that some people liked to bend religion to suit their own agendas. She was not blind to that, but she does still have faith in her religion. She just wondered what her god really wanted. Sometimes she just wished she could speak with him to know what was right, and what was wrong. "Don't start doubting your decision, because it was definitely the right one."

Hilda was glad Thea was here, she needed to hear those words right now. She turned around to face Thea, but as she did, she noticed something behind Thea. Her eyes widened as she pushed the monk straight onto the flesh covered floor. "Get down!" she screamed out to everyone as she threw herself onto the ground. A bright red ball of pure heat passed just a few inches above her head, and collided against the wall of the cave.

Robin quickly looked towards the women, seeing them on the floor. He then immediately spotted a figure about forty feet away. It was a gardevoir, but like everything else down here, she had been altered. There was something sprouting from her back. It was an ugly, pink cancerous hump with strange wet tentacle-like appendages growing out of it. They flailed around wildly as the gardevoir let out a loud scream, and suddenly vanished. She reappeared, right next to Robin. She raised her hand, and in her hand was a bloody meat cleaver. She brought it down towards Robin's neck, but he raised his own arm, and blocked her cleaver with his long elbow blade. Wasting no time, he used his other hand to ram his javelin right into the gardevoir's gut, shortly before headbutting her. He watched as the gardevoir stumbled back, only to let out another deafening scream before vanishing once more, leaving Robin with no weapon once again. "Keep your eyes open!" Robin yelled out to everyone else.

Janus stayed extremely cautious, ready to burn anything even remotely hostile that comes towards him. "That thing she threw, have you ever seen a gardevoir do that before?"

Robin shook his head. He hadn't seen a gardevoir ever throw a ball of bright red energy like that before. It didn't even look like a fire ball, it looked like something else. "No, but she was clearly different... Maybe that growth on her back gave her a few abilities."

Hilda quickly helped Thea up. "Did she hurt you?" she immediately asked.

The alakazam shook her head. "No, but if you didn't push me, she would've. Thank you, that's twice you've saved me. I owe you."

"You can thank me when we get out of here." Hilda knew that their chances still weren't looking good, but she hoped they could pull through this.

Robin walked over to one of the bodies fused to the wall. Its head wasn't even a head anymore, it was more like a fleshy lightbulb. It looked like bright red goo, barely contained by the skin that used to surround someone's skull. It gave Robin an idea. He walked back to the area with all the tents, and found a bottle with a cork in it. He took this bottle, and opened it up. Using his elbow blade, he made a small hole in the skin of the head, and began to fill the bottle up with the glowing fluid.

"What the fuck are you doing?" Janus asked.

"What does it look like I'm doing? I'm making a lantern. Hilda's makeshift lantern works well enough, so this should work too."

"That shit could be acid," Janus replied.

"Then I will be careful not to get any on my skin." Robin watched as the bright red goo flowed into the bottle until it was completely full. He pushed the cork back into the bottle, and made sure none of the glowing fluid could escape.

"... Why are you acting so calm? I know you are fucking terrified of this place!" Janus just didn't understand how he could act so relaxed, considering the situation they were in.

"Oh, I am terrified," Robin replied as he glared at Janus. "I am very aware that we don't stand much of a chance, I just don't see the point in giving up right away. A small chance is still a chance! You need to pull yourself together, Janus. Make bad jokes if you have to, just stop putting everyone down with this hopeless shit you're spewing from your mouth."

Janus fell silent, knowing that no one wanted to hear his words. Although he was silent, he couldn't stop thinking how pointless this all was. Already, he was planning how to take his own life when the others fall. He would do anything to prevent himself from becoming a mess of flesh, melded to the walls and ceilings.

Robin decided to lead the way down another dark passage. The walls, ceiling, and floor were all covered in that strange pink flesh. It was utterly disgusting. Robin stopped in his tracks for a moment, hearing someone breathing heavily up ahead. Silently, he walked on and only stopped when he found the source of the heavy breathing. It was the mutated gardevoir. She was sat down with her back against the wall, pressing her hands against the deep wound. "That wound isn't going to heal..." he told the gardevoir as he walked towards her. He didn't know if she could understand him, or if she was just as mindless as the other monsters in this place.

The gardevoir turned her head, looking to the man that had given her the fatal wound. She didn't say anything in response because she knew no matter what happens in these next few seconds, she was going to die.

Hilda and Thea caught up with Robin before noticing the injured gardevoir on the ground. He knew that it was most likely too late for her, so Hilda decided to do the only thing she could do. "Thea...give me your hammer."

Thea did as she asked and handed over her weapon to the dwarf. She stood back, watching the dwarf walk towards the changed gardevoir. She felt horrible knowing what was going to happen, but she also knew it had to be done. She watched Hilda wrap both of her hands around the wooden shaft as she brought the weapon over her head. Thea turned to look the other way, narrowly avoiding watching the war hammer making contact with the gardevoir's head. She shut her eyes, but she still heard the metal head of the weapon crack open the gardevoir's skull, an action she herself had performed just moments ago. She heard the wet sound of flesh being mashed. Even though she didn't see it, she could so easily visualize the weapon making such a mess of the gardevoir's head. The images of all those poor souls she couldn't save would be forever burned into her mind. When she opened her eyes, she saw Hilda standing over the gardevoir's body, panting. She had a strange expression on her face, one she hadn't seen on the dwarf's face before. It wasn't one of anger or fear, instead, it looked like she was lost. She made her way towards the dwarf. "Hilda?"

Hilda shifted her attention back towards the people behind her, snapping back to reality when she heard a man's scream from back the way they came. "Janus!" Hilda yelled out as she handed back the war hammer to Thea and ran back in the direction they came from. She ran into the place she last saw him, but he wasn't there. Thea and Robin closely followed Hilda as they tried to figure out where he went to. They all heard his screams coming from another dark tunnel, which they then ran down.

"Janus!" Robin yelled out. "Where are you?!"

Unfortunately for all of them, Janus was unable to reply.

Janus opened his eyes. He had no idea where he was or how much time had passed, but he knew that he must've been knocked out by his attacker. His head was pounding, having been struck so hard he was pretty much powerless to stop his attacker. The darkness began to fade as he was brought into a well lit chamber. It was lit by four nearby braziers, filled with the bright red bioluminecent goo extracted from dead bodies. Janus felt himself being picked up, and placed on a heavy stone altar. He groaned as he tried to sit up, only to be struck in the face again by a strange creature.

The horrific creature had the black beak, and eyes of a raven. It was at least six and a half feet tall with black feathers covering its boney body. It had long, slender fingers with sharp yellow hook-like talons at the finger tips. Its face was mostly pink, and red in color, resembling that of a human with its skin stretched, and pulled tight over the creature's skull. On closer inspection, its face actually appeared to be a mask made of human flesh. It had strange crooked wings on its back, covered in black feathers from which maggots occasionally dropped from. They appeared to be eating dead flesh stuck in the creature's feathers. The creature was not alone, there were mutilated and mangled humans and pokemon on their knees, watching their avian leader as if they were some sort of disciples. There were two humans, a scyther, and a zangoose.

"He-" Janus tried to scream for help, but the words became very hard to yell when the raven-like creature gripped the blaziken's neck. Much to Janus' surprise, he heard the raven speak, but it did not use its beak. It spoke without words, a single monstrous voice rumbled in his skull.

"The architect of flesh will bend your body to its will one way or another," it said to him. The raven's followers stood up and shambled towards Janus.

He tried to fight back by digging his talons into the raven's arm. Even as blood began to flow from the new wounds, the raven didn't loosen his grip on Janus' neck. He could feel the life being choked right out of him as he thrashed around on the altar, desperately fighting for survival. Fire erupted from Janus' wrists, setting the raven's feathers alight. However, even that was enough pain to dissuade the raven from choking the blaziken. His vision was getting blurry and his lungs were screaming for air, but the raven just was not letting go, not even when he could smell and hear the flesh of the raven's arm burning away. Just as he was about to fade away into unconsciousness, the raven pulled his arm away, allowing the blazing to gasp for air.

The raven wildly waved its arm, trying to put out the fire as the flames travelled up his arm, over his shoulder, and towards its face. It turned its back to Janus and ran towards a nearby brazier to tip it over. The bright red goo spilled out of it and onto his arm, putting out most of the blaze.

Janus pushed himself off the alter, but he found himself face to face with a rotting scyther. Black gunk and saliva flowed out of its wide open broken jaw as it made a quick stabbing motion right towards the blaziken's gut. Janus tried to reach out and grab the blade before it could reach his gut, but instead, he accidentally put one hand right in the path of the syther's blade. The blade split his left hand in half right down to the wrist, causing rivulets of blood to run down his fingers. His right hand narrowly avoided the same fate, instead grabbing onto the sharpened backside of the scyther's blade. With a wild scream, Janus kicked the scyther right in the chest, causing it to stumble back. As the scyther fell, two rotting humans lunged at him at once. With adrenaline pumping through him, he gave one of them an uppercut so powerful, it broke its brittle jaw with a gruesome crunch. Unfortunately for Janus, the other rotting human swung a dagger right for his ribs. It happened so fast, and before he even realised it, he heard the blade splitting a rib in half. He screamed as he pressed his mutilated hand against the undead human's face, trying to push him away. He could feel the human trying to pull the blade out of his rib, but it was stuck. Each little movement of the blade only caused more fractures and cracks in the bone, sending overwhelming pain shooting through his side.

"Get...away!" he screamed as he slammed his forehead right into the human's. He followed it up with several strong punches to the side of his head with his good hand. Each punch stripped a little bit of flesh from its skull, but it didn't seem to be enough to stop it from trying to kill him. The blade did eventually slip from his rib, but the blade was plunged back inside him within a split second. This time, the blade entered entered his gut. He could feel the metal touching places he had never even felt before. He glanced down to see how deep the blade was inside him, only to see that the entire blade was buried inside the newly opened wound. The undead disciple let go of the dagger, backing away as Janus dropped down to his knees. His hands shook as he looked around himself, seeing them all just staring at him with their black eyes. Slowly, it sunk in that he was never going to see the sky again. He was going to die here, and instead of finishing him off, they were just going to watch him slowly die. In his mind, he heard two words spoken to him by the raven.

"Everything dies..."

Janus looked at the raven, seeing that its badly burnt arm was covered in that bright red bioluminescent liquid. He didn't want to die, not yet. He glanced back down at the knife sticking out of his gut, unsure if he should just take a chance and remove it. Blood trickled from his horrific injuries, pooling around his knees as he tried to work up the courage to remove the sharp weapon from his body. His shaky hand reached for the handle, gently grasping it. Every slight movement of the blade sent a wave of agony through his body as it slid against severed nerves. Every inch of cold sharp metal he withdrew from his body brought him closer to passing out from the pain. He felt so light headed, but he kept pulling the knife out of himself until it was completely removed from his body. He dropped the knife and pressed his working hand against his gut, trying to staunch the flow of blood. There was no escaping the fact that he was going to die, but he continued to fight for every last second of life he could get. He had no idea what was waiting for him after death, but he didn't want to find out just yet. He closed his eyes and tried to remember the last time he saw his family, remembering all his mistakes and favourite memories all at once. It hurt him to think that the promise of gold was what ended him in the end, but he had to come to terms with it, and make his peace.

The raven walked towards the blaziken reaching out with its burnt, glowing arm. It grabbed the top of his head and began to speak. "You'll beg for death...but it won't come for a very long time..."

Janus slowly opened his eyes shortly before his head was yanked back, forced to look up at the raven's flesh-masked face. The avian creature raised it's other hand, showing the blaziken red sparks of insidious energy travelling between his fingers like small bolts of lightning. He quickly realized that this creature must be planning to plaster his body over the walls like those poor bastards before them. Suddenly, slipping into oblivion didn't seem so bad. In one last act of desperation, Janus made a grab for the knife on the ground, the same one that had been shoved into his own gut moments ago. Just as his fingers touched the handle of the blade, he felt the raven's knee connecting sharply with his right eye. His head flung back from the force shortly before he dropped onto his right side in a puddle of his own blood.

As he lay there, Thea, Robin, and Hilda came charging in. Thea ran right up to a rotting human with a war hammer in one hand. She put all of her weight and momentum into one big swing. The metal head of the weapon easily pulverized the side of his skull before she swiftly moved onto the next human. Robin narrowly avoided a scyther's blade to the neck when he quickly ducked underneath it. Hilda let out a mighty scream as she hastily slashed at a monstrous zangoose's head with her short sword. The blade cracked the zangoose's skull with the first strike, but it wasn't enough to put it down. The changed zangoose retaliated by wildly flailing its claws at her like some sort of rabid animal. Hilda backed up a little before she saw an opening, and took it. She slashed at the zangoose's right paw, cutting the claws right off. The zangoose made a swipe with the left paw, forcing Hilda to quickly lean back, causing the claws to leave a long but shallow scratch on her neck. She then struck again, this time thrusting the blade into the zangoose's neck. She could feel the blade parting the vertebrae before she quickly pulled the blade to one side, partially decapitating the zangoose. She could hear the black blood splattering to the ground before the body even hit it.

"Kill the rest! I'll get Janus!" Hilda yelled back to them as she quickly ran towards the big raven. She didn't care if it was bigger than her, she was still determined to kill it.

The raven turned to face the angry dwarf as a ball of bright red energy formed in its hand. It quickly threw that ball right towards the dwarf, who immediately jumped to one side. The ball continued towards one of the raven's own followers, and struck the undead scyther in the back. The scyther's body blew open, exposing barely functional organs, drenched in oil-like blood.

Hilda looked back, seeing the absolute devastation a single one of this creature's attacks could do. It only put more pressure on her, she knew that she had to end this creature right now. She got back onto her feet and rushed the raven as it was preparing another orb of energy. The raven tried to back up as it tried to summon enough power to perform another attack. There was only a couple of feet between them now, one or both of them was going to die, they were fully committed to their next attack now. Hilda jumped and thrusted her blade forwards whilst the raven casted his ball of energy, but instead of throwing it, he held it, and slammed it into the blade just as it sunk into his chest. A look of sheer shock spread across the raven's face as the blade seemed to absorb the power for a moment. At first, Hilda thought that the blade had saved her life, or perhaps her plunging the blade into the raven had stopped the spell. Then, a split second later, the blade glowed, and exploded with immense force. It shredded open the raven's body and sent Hilda back fifteen feet across the room. Her leather coat that she wore to protect her was completely burnt away at right arm, and parts of it were still aflame.

"Argh! Fucking gods!" she screamed at the top of her lungs as she tried to put the flames out as quickly as she could. This hurt far more than anything she had experienced in her entire life, it felt as if every vein in her arm was being squeezed and set on fire at the same time. Soot from the burnt coat and blood from the raven covered her entire arm. The pain only got worse, it felt like it was traveling up her shoulder, and over her right breast. She kept screaming and cursing, feeling as if the fire was continuing underneath her breastplate. She hurried to take it off, letting it clatter to the ground, but she could see no flames. The pain was incomprehensible, like someone was sticking venom into every vein, every nerve with a big fat needle. She squeezed at her own arm, trying to stop it, whatever it was, and that's when she noticed something that wasn't there before. There were pink scars, starting at the fingertips, and running all the way up her arm. The scars almost looked as if they were in the shape of some weird plant, with the roots being at the fingertips before joining at the wrist to form a long stem. The stem appeared to wrap around her arm and multiple branches to sprout from it, scarring up more of her pale skin. The scars looked like they continued up to her shoulder and underneath her coat, but now was no time to start stripping and checking out the damage.

"Hilda!" Thea screamed after the last foe had fallen. She rushed towards her, and knelt at her side. She immediately noticed that the entire right arm of her coat was gone, completely burnt away. She also noticed the scars. Having seen her naked before, she knew that those certainly weren't there before. She wanted to help the dwarf as she writhed around in agony, but she wasn't sure how to. She had never seen this kind of injury before.

Robin hurried over to Janus, seeing that he was still breathing. As he approached the blaziken, be quickly realized that his wounds were not going to heal. "Shit...Janus..."

"I know...I'm...going to die..." Janus weakly replied. He could only see out of one eye, his entire body was beginning to feel cold, and his feathers were wet with his own blood. He was still so afraid, so scared of what was to come. He wanted all the comfort he could get. "Don't leave...not yet... It feels so cold..."

Robin knew that this was partially his fault. Sure Janus could've refused to come, but if it wasn't for him, he would still be out hunting. "I'm not leaving you..."

"I-I...I don't want to die..." Janus cried, his tears flowing freely from his eyes. He could feel it coming, he just didn't want to pass just yet. It hurt so bad, but the pain was slightly comforting, it let him know that he was still alive. However, even the pain began to fade, and that scared him even more. "Not...yet..." he weakly whispered. For a moment, he thought about his mother, how she would hold him, how safe he used to feel around her. It was his last thought.

Robin watched him breathe his last breath, and as Janus died, he felt a piece of himself dying too. He realized that soon, he could share the same fate as Janus. He didn't presume to know anything about what happens after death, but he hoped for all their sakes that there was one.

Author's note: Janus is dead, how many more will fall? Thank you all for reading this far! And thank you to BigBossSonic for editing for me again! You're all awesome!