Hex woke up to the sound of the purple phone that Zlyena gave him ringing, he rolled over in his bed, and thought that if it was an emergency, they would call again. Sure enough, after the ring was silenced, it started up again. He groaned angrily and slid out of bed, and picked up the phone.

“What is it?” he asked.

“We have an emergency, somehow a crayon got into the door, keeping it from shutting, and they escaped!” Dr. Gage’s voice came from the other end.

“Who escaped?” he questioned further, his brain still asleep.

“Pestilence Machine and Xhe, they’re gone! I need you to help me find them, you’re the only one who can!” Dr. Gage said.

“How am I the only one who can?” he said.

“You and Pestilence have the same spiritual signature, if I can get that from you, I’ll be able to find them,” Dr. Gage said.

“Then you won’t need me, right?” he asked.

“Not true, he likes you, you’re the only one who can corral him, Xhe is an enabler, he lets Pestilence do whatever he wants,” he said.

“Fine, where do we meet up.” He sighed.

“At my hospital, please hurry, goodbye.” Dr. Gage hung up.

Hex sighed again and put his long black coat on, how was he supposed to take on Xhe if he had no god powers? Xhe was older than the bible, he thought that would mean an immense amount of damage if he ever got out. He met up with Dr. Gage, who took a stick with a screen out of his lab coat, and held it out to him.

“As soon as you touch the metal parts of this, it will gather your spiritual signature, and display it on the screen. The screen will show two dots, we will have to follow the directions on the screen to get to the other dot,” Dr. Gage said.

“Just letting you know, I don’t have my god powers anymore, traded them for immortality.” He grabbed the device and looked at the screen. Two green dots appeared on the screen, followed by arrows leading to the other dot.

“Good, now we just need to find them. Xhe likes me, he treats me like I’m his father, so I can easily get him to come back, but Pestilence doesn’t like me like he does you, you have to convince him to come home,” Dr. Gage said

“Maybe we could follow giant smoldering craters as his trail,” he said.
“Don’t be silly, his new body has lots of locks on his previous power, he can barely do anything,” Dr. Gage said.

“Oh, well, I guess you thought ahead then.” He shrugged,

They followed the arrows until they could hear distant screaming.

“Uh oh, that doesn’t sound good.” Hex broke into a sprint, hoping to get there before more people died.

“Wait for me!” Dr. Gage ran behind.

He arrived at the scene, and what he saw made his stomach churn. The bottom half of an old lady lay on the ground, her top half on the other side of the street, a gorey trail behind her. Another two bodies were next to her, one lady was sliced vertically down the middle, and a man had a jagged hole cut into his chest. Xhe was standing there, covered in blood, a long pole-arm in his hand, the end of it was mace-like with many sharp spikes poking out of it in an upwards direction.

“Hey!” Hex shouted.

Xhe turned to face Hex, Xhe’s face was different, his eyes were a solid silver, and his mouth stretched unnaturally to each side. Xhe was smiling, but his teeth were also unnatural, they were silver, with no singular teeth, they seemed to be fused together. Xhe’s top and bottom canines were fangs.

“Hello, original me!” Xhe waved, the claws on his hands also covered in blood.

“What did you do?” Hex asked quietly.

“Old lady asked me to help her across the street, so I helped her! Then the lady next to her started screaming for help, so I did! And then the guy next to her started screaming for help as well, so I did! I helped all of them!” Xhe smiled with both his mouth and his eyes.

“Uh, they’re dead.” He pointed to the bodies.

“I know, it must be different up here, usually they heal it back, but I have orders that I must help when asked,” Xhe said.

Hex suddenly realized that to Xhe, help meant torture, and torture in hell would normally kill a person above. He opened his mouth to start to explain to Xhe that helping doesn’t mean that, but realized that it would destroy Xhe, and he didn’t want to do that. He thought of something else to say.

“Where’s Pestilence? I need to find him,” he said.

“Pesty is inside there.” Xhe pointed to a coffee shop behind Hex.

“Alright, thanks, and don't go helping anyone while I'm gone, no matter how much they scream for it.” He looked at the device, but it said he was on top of the dot.

He walked into the coffee shop, and again his stomach churned, there was blood and guts and body parts everywhere. Pestilence Machine was there, drinking a cup of coffee next to a pile of dead bodies, he was also covered in blood and gore.

“Holy shit Pestilence, what did you do?” he asked.

“What I was created to do.” Pestilence turned his head towards Hex.

“I don’t believe that, even demons can choose their destiny.” Hex shook his head.

“I was in hell for a long time, I learned a lot of things, humans are better off dead than living,” Pestilence chuffed and took another swig of coffee.

“What about Dr. Gage?” he asked.

“That man isn’t human, he behaves like one, but there’s something about him that’s different. You aren’t human either, you know,” Pestilence said.

“That's not true, I'm definitely human,” he retorted

“Immortals aren't humans, idiot,” Pestilence chuffed.

“Oh, right, I'm immortal now, I forgot,” he said

“So, what do you want?” Pestilence asked

“You need to come back home, follow me.” He gestured towards the door.

“What makes you so sure I want to go back?” Pestilence questioned further.

“Do you never want to see me again? Because the Demon Hunters will come and kill you and Xhe. You two aren't well equipped to fight them.” He was more afraid of them killing everyone in a mile radius than them being killed by Demon Hunters, but the statement still hung true.

“Why are you suddenly so concerned about my feelings for you now? Besides, I have Xhe, I don't need you anymore,” Pestilence said.

“You mean to say you got over me that fast?” he said

“Oh fuck you, you know what I meant,” Pestilence snapped at him.

“This world isn't safe right now, and it won't be until Turbuk is defeated, he's allied with the Demon Hunters you know.” He got all his know-how from Zlyena, after he asked her more about Turbuk.

“I know who my master allies with, you pissant, and I'd rather you would keep his name from your tongue,” Pestilence raised his voice.

“You're the one who tried to kill Din, and that's what got you into this situation, you only have yourself to blame,” he said.

“Can't I enjoy just a bit of freedom every once and a while?” Pestilence asked.

“If freedom means killing people, I'd rather you not.” He didn't even like killing Demon Hunters, let alone people who weren't made of yellow goo.

“You kill people too, you know,” Pestilence predictably said.

“Yeah, yeah, I know. But if you read into my memories, you'd know we didn't kill that boy,” He shook his head.

“Even if they are made up of something different, they are still people, right? Who are you to say who is a person and who isn't?” Pestilence asked.

“You've got me there,” He felt a little less bad that they were made of yellow goo instead of being naturally human, but what is naturally human, he asked himself?

“See? You're just about as bad as I am in terms of killing, only I don't hide it like you do,” Pestilence said.

“Are you saying I enjoy it?” he asked.

“Deep down, yes. I went into your memories. You enjoyed killing those Demon Hunters,” Pestilence said.

“I enjoy killing people who are directly endangering my girlfriend, yes. How does that make me a bad guy?” he questioned further.

“You think that doesn't make you a monster still?” Pestilence asked.

“Would you prefer I turn into a Dean Wicker? A guy who has lost everything and turns into a crazed killing machine?” he asked.

“Preferable to lying to yourself, but you don't seem to be doing that, I would have thought you would, since you seem to want to keep being high-and-mighty about being better than people,” Pestilence said.

“I'm not better than anyone else, I just want to be the best version of me, but that's going to take some time, rome wasn't built in a day, you know,” he said.

“I'd work on the smoking habit first,” Pestilence said.

“Hey, I've been doing really good on that aspect, I barely smoke at all now, it's just... Stress, you know?” he said.

“Stress can keep you from kicking a bad habit, you just need to find another outlet to get your stress out, may I suggest yoga or meditation?” Pestilence asked.

“You're a lot nicer than you let on.” He smiled.

“Yes, ignore the pile of dead bodies, that's what I was aiming for.” Pestilence looked nervous and took another sip of coffee.

“Well, the cops are going to be here soon, we'd better get back. I'm guessing Dr. Gage will punish you two for leaving, but I can try to get you two a lighter sentence,” he said as he gestured for Pestilence to follow him.

“To be fair, he wasn't providing much, I definitely will try to break out again if there isn't a television and a laptop with internet access. By the way, Xhe wants scented markers. His possible favorite is the black one,” Pestilence said as he got up and tossed the coffee in the garbage.

“I'll talk to him about it.” He grabbed Pestilence's wrist and led him out.

“Pesty! Are you okay? Is that your blood?” Xhe grimaced.

“None of it is mine, Xhe, I'm alright, just a little messy with the help juice, you know how it is.” Pestilence smiled.

“Ah, I see. Is fun time over? Do we have to go back to that place now?” Xhe asked.

“Yes, but I'm determined to make it a home and not just a living place,” Pestilence said, then pet Xhe on the head.

“I don't know if I wanna go back, you didn't look happy there, so I got us out. I was happy, but you weren't, and if you aren't happy, I'm not happy,” Xhe said.

“That's sweet of you, Xhe. I didn't know you did it for me, I thought you were just causing trouble for Dr. Gage for no reason.” Pestilence put a bloody hand over his heart.

“My reason was you.” Xhe looked up at him.

“You're a sweetheart, you know that? Let's go back, and make it a home.” Pestilence smiled and walked with Xhe back to Dr. Gage.

“How did you get both of them to comply?” Dr. Gage asked breathlessly as the two demons covered in blood walked up to him. He was panting.

“Pestilence convinced him. Also, they want a television set and a laptop with internet access, and uh... Scented markers, I guess?” Hex said.

“Or what?” Dr. Gage asked.

“Or they will break out again.” He pointed to the two bloody demons.

“Alright, but they won't get any more if they break out again, quite the opposite,” Dr. Gage said.

Dr. Gage and Hex took the two demons back to the hospital. Dr. Gage made them take off their outer layer of clothes and take off their shoes, due to them being covered in blood. They went down to the underground lab, and past that was the living area. Hex said goodbye to the two, and walked out of the first blast doors. He stepped over the orange crayon stain, which he knew was the remains of the crayon Xhe used to keep the door from closing. He bid farewell to Dr. Gage and went home for the day.