Lowly Ascent

Echoing through the concrete and steel, through the halls that killed countless; gunshots zipped and flew.

"More ammo!" Jakov roared. He was acting as a barrier for prisoners to hide behind, his flesh impervious to the gunfire raining down on him. "I am Pride, I am what I think I am, and I am indestructible!"

Lesly ran up from behind the massive armor of a man and threw countless knives into the fray.

Clink! Clink! Clink!

Bullets were redirected and the streams of gunfire were countered. Screams echoed in the hall and the Priestess of Wrath licked her lips.

'Wrath should be used properly, casualty governs all things and wrath holds the secret to understanding it.' She remembered the words in her book while looking down at her hands. They were clean and pristine, but with a flicker, she saw blood, so much blood.

"Casualty....consequences...." She quickly left the trance and took out more knives, joining Jakov in the charge.

'A weakness? Hmm...she paused, but why?' Isaac stood a ways off, helping the Disciple of Greed finish off some of the remaining pesky guards. After that, the group split into two.

"Charge! Kill them all!" Busting down a steel door, the giant filled with pride entered the next room where a massive harpoon zoomed across the air and lodged itself in his flesh. Jakov grunted in pain, his voice shaking those around him. 

"Even Pride can do nothing against sheer power, you big buffoon'!" A man in an officer uniform laughed on a reinforced catwalk with two large mounted harpoon guns.

Lance gritted his teeth, "James! You fucking prick!"

The officer named James laughed, "Ah yes, Lance Collins, you came here with your wife yes? I much enjoyed her body before hauling her off to that experiment, how was I supposed to know it was for sacrificing human lives? Yet it matters not, you're all livestock!"

Lance got lost in his rage and hatred, "James!! I'll fucking kill you with my own hands!"

The protectors around the Disciple of Lust all charged forth and made a path to the officer leading the defense.

All the while, Lesly tried to raise morale, she was the best at controlling herself. Out of everyone besides Isaac, she was the calmest. 

"This is it, James is the guard commander! If we kill him here it's only the Warden left in the control room!"

As she finished her sentence, the firing of another harpoon resounded and Lance screamed in agony. He flew through the room, slamming into the adjacent wall. His eyes were gushing blood, forcing his body to move.

He was clenching the harpoon, coughing blood, and slowly forcing the harpoon out of him. "James! I'll kill you! YOU. WILL. DI-"

BANG!

Lance's body went limp. 

"Fucking idiot, he was defenseless. Did he think he was some hero?" James mocked the dead man and wiped his gun. He then gazed back at the other prisoners. They were all shaken.

"Damn it, Dravo and Ley split off with our remaining force to capture the rest of the prison. Fuck..." Lesly was anxious. "If only we didn't allow all these damn experiments, we would still have some strong leaders....why did we wait so long..."

She was one of the oldest Council Members, even though she was in her thirties. To survive, she had to do all types of favors for the Warden. Every time she swallowed her rage because she needed to live on. She needed to right the wrongs she caused.

But it was too late for that.

James laughed in their faces, "Did you think we didn't know what was going on? This is our territory, we have insiders everywhere! Do you think we would let you all grow so strong, even if only a few of you did?"

"T-This...but why would we betray our people? Lesly was rationalizing everything as Jakov defended her. "Who am I kidding, there are always gaps."

'She's confused!' Isaac took his chance. He was one of the only three council members left in the push, and he was a spy!

Although the Council knew Isaac's background, they didn't think he would join back with an organization that betrayed him once before. If they didn't give him the book of Envy, perhaps he would've sided with them.

Isaac's metallic arm glowed and sprung to life as he stood behind Lesly.

He whispered, "Ghostly Grasp."

A thin veil wrapped around the arm, erasing the light and sound from it.

There was no warning as the Council Member of Envy's arm ripped through the Priestess of Wrath's chest like it was paper. The veil around the metal arm screeched and disoriented everyone in the vicinity, covering Lesly's entire body and capturing her soul.

"With this, I can use a soul sacrifice spell!" Isaac was thrilled, soul sacrifice spells required a life to use, and sometimes multiple. They went beyond simple magic from the School of Moon and went into the laws of life and death, using casualty to influence the world.

Such spells were how such a unique path could create a cult leader powerful enough to gain the Bureau's attention.

Not a peep was ushered by Lesly, her life swiftly extinguished as Jakov's eyes bulged. Everyone was glaring at Isaac.

"Traitor!" The Disciple of Pride raged.

"Oh no you don't! Fire the harpoon!" James gave his orders and another harpoon shot into Javok's arm, restricting his movements.

Isaac took this time to hit the giant where it hurt, his pride. He already had an idea of how to break the giant's defenses.

"Do you think of yourself as a powerhouse? You're just a dumb oaf who can only watch his allies die and get betrayed by one of the very same. You are a nuisance that's only good as a punching bag, and you've proven just how useless you are at that." He motioned to the two corpses in the room.

"Y-You Y-You!" Jakov choked on his own words.

The harpoons dug deeper into his skin, and blood began to drip from the so-called invincible giant. All Isaac needed to do was speak a simple spell.

"Soul Shard."

Materializing just as fast as it fired, what looked to be a shard of glass penetrated deep into Jakov's neck before exploding; leaving a large hole in his throat.

The indomitable giant gurgled on his blood before he fell over. Victory was set in stone.

James laughed madly, "Well done agent!"

Isaac stood still, he was apathetic to the roundup of the prisoners who had lost all hope and the slaughter that befell the ones who continued to fight back.

'This was the right choice, this is the fastest way to my goal, to stop that thief and take what's mine.' He reaffirmed himself, but in the deepest reaches of his heart, something quaked.

Isaac may have lost his compassion, but that didn't mean Cain did not. Still, growth trumped everything, and that went for both of them.