The pristine porcelain fingers were an inch from Zac's face when the jagged boulder he was leaning against suddenly shifted.
It wasn't a boulder.
With the speed of a striking cobra, Leonardo's massive, rocky head shot forward. The Pygmy Aspidochelone's jaws clamped shut around the simulacrum's outstretched hand.
CRUNCH.
Porcelain shattered like cheap teacups. Leonardo effortlessly bit the construct's fingers clean off, chewing the holy digits into dust and swallowing them with a loud, grinding gulp.
REPENTANCE staggered backward, its perfect balance finally broken. It stared at its ruined, sparking stump of a hand for a microsecond before its wings flared. It raised its massive wooden gavel high into the air with its remaining hand, preparing to flatten the demonic turtle in one single, devastating blow.
Zac didn't try to run. He just turned and threw his arms around Leonardo's thick, leathery neck, hugging the giant snapping turtle as tightly as his exhausted muscles would allow.
"You're not slow," Zac whispered into the coarse scales, closing his eyes. "You're fucking awesome. I'm going to miss you, buddy. Maybe we can have some pizza when we meet again."
He held his breath, waiting for the massive shadow of the gavel to crush them into the dirt.
The blow never came.
A sickening sound of grinding porcelain and cracking glass echoed above him instead. Zac slowly opened his eyes and looked up.
Marchosias was standing directly behind the simulacrum. The Wolf Captain's arms were wrapped tight around the construct's neck in a brutal, vice-like headlock.
But it was Marchosias's face that made Zac's breath catch in his throat.
Above the wolf's head, hovering in the smoke-filled air, was a blindingly bright halo. But the holy ring was corrupted, rejecting the demonic host it belonged to. It was actively weeping, raining thick, dark demonic blood down over Marchosias's face, matting his fur and soaking his ruined armor in a gruesome, crimson shower.
Marchosias's amber eyes burned through the curtain of his own blood. With a guttural, bone-shaking roar that tore his vocal cords, the Wolf Captain flexed his massive biceps and twisted violently.
SNAP.
The sound was like a marble pillar snapping in half. Marchosias literally ripped the simulacrum's golden-visored head right off its porcelain shoulders.
Sparks and blinding light spewed from the construct's severed neck like a geyser. The headless body of REPENTANCE swayed for a moment before collapsing forward into the bloody mud, its six stained-glass wings shattering into a million pieces upon impact.
Marchosias stood there for a single heartbeat, the severed head clutched in his gauntlet, the bloody halo flickering violently above him. He looked over at Zac, his chest heaving, his mouth slightly open as if he wanted to say something.
Then, the halo shattered, and the wolf's eyes rolled back in his head.
Marchosias fell over like a felled tree, crashing motionless into the dirt beside the ruined angel.
Zac scrambled through the bloody mud, his hands and knees slipping as he crawled frantically toward the fallen Wolf Captain.
"March!" Zac gasped, his voice cracking. "March, hey, wake up!"
He reached the wolf's side and froze. The damage was catastrophic. The glowing, angelic wings were gone, but they had left a horrifying crater of charred flesh and melted armor between Marchosias's shoulder blades.
Beneath the newly burned tissue and ruined metal, Zac could see the rest of Marchosias's back. It was a roadmap of ancient, terrible suffering. Crisscrossing the wolf's powerful musculature were dozens of deep, jagged scars, long, raised welts that looked like they had been made by a cat o' nine tails. Lash marks that had worn away the wolf's ability to even grow fur. Punishments. Self-inflicted or otherwise, they painted a picture of a man who had spent an eternity tearing himself apart.
"March," Zac sobbed. He grabbed the heavy, armored shoulder and heaved with all his remaining strength, managing to roll the massive Captain onto his back.
Marchosias let out a weak, wet growl of pain. His eyes fluttered open for a half-second, unfocused and glazed. He spat a thick mouthful of black blood onto the dirt, then his head lolled to the side, and he went completely limp.
"No! No, stay with me!" Zac felt dizzy, the edges of his vision growing dark and fuzzy. He looked around the desolate ridge and screamed, "HELP! SOMEONE HELP US!"
His voice was swallowed by the vast, indifferent roar of the eternal war below.
Zac began to pound his fists weakly against Marchosias's unmoving, armored chest. "You asshole!" he wailed, his tears mixing with the blood and mud on the wolf's fur. "You should have just let them take me! I wasn't worth saving! I'm worth this!"
He slumped forward, his strength completely gone, and buried his face in the crook of the Captain's neck, breathing in the scent of blood and burnt fur.
"I was sent to Hell because I was a loser," Zac sobbed, his voice breaking into a pathetic whimper. "I'm a defective, selfish, sexual freak. I deserve to be down here. But you... you're good. You resisted temptation. You tried so hard. You shouldn't even be here."
Zac squeezed his eyes shut, his fingers tangling in the fur of Marchosias's neck. "I wish I knew someone like you when I was alive," he whispered into the silence. "You're everything I'm not. You're strong, and you're good... I fucking hate myself. So I think... I think... I love you."
The dizziness was becoming overwhelming. Zac felt like he was falling down a long, dark tunnel. His grip on the wolf's fur began to loosen.
He slowly blinked his eyes open one last time, looking up into the crimson sky.
Standing over them was a new figure. It was a beautiful, slender stag-man. His fur was a soft, autumnal brown, his antlers elegant and sweeping, and his tail... his tail was made of pure, dancing fire. He looked like a guardian spirit of the forest, ethereal and breathtakingly gorgeous.
"Oh... hey, sexy deer guy," Zac mumbled, his words slurring together as his consciousness slipped away. "Are you... another one of the demons... here to rescue us?"
The beautiful, ethereal stag glared down at him.
"Oh, shut the fuck up, you whore," Skarg's rough, gravelly, unmistakably brutish voice came out of the slim, fiery deer's mouth.
Zac's brain short-circuited completely. Wait, Skarg is a twunk?
It was the last thought he had. As the darkness finally pulled him under, Zac caught a blurry, fading glimpse of a portly pigeon, a stumbling, zombie-looking lion, and a limping owl converging on their position as the world went black.