Operations Center, Pentagon, Arlington County, Virginia, Monday, October 7th, 2019. 14:30e.

The government machine worked ridiculously fast but, to Sara, it still took an eternity. The looks the military and other personnel gave her and Chloe were also disturbing. It was like they were a freak show exhibit. At least nobody dared try to take the Pale Horse away. Chloe survived on magic and didn't poop like mundane horses did.

But finally, the two agents arrived with the POTUS.

"So, gentleman, I would ask you to volunteer for this test," the President told the two agents and then pointed at her. "Miss Sara here said it will hurt like hell but won't leave lingering effects."

"I'll try to be gentle," she grimaced, regretting her openness.

"Permission to speak, sir?" One of the agents asked.

"Granted."

"Miss Sara, are you really a half-Celestial?" He asked her.

Sara nodded and pointed up. "My father is up there with the Heavenly host. He had a summer fling with my late mother while on vacation down here on Earth."

"The wings are biological and seamlessly attached to her back," the President said. "Also, she endured two volleys of M151 Hydra 70 rockets with only minor damage. Which has already healed as you see. She's the real deal, gentleman. I have no doubts."

The confidence in his voice made Sara feel like he was asking her to vote on him and the election was tomorrow. It rose her suspicions instead of inspiring her but she was naturally suspicious of everything.

"Sorry to ask," the agent dipped his head down.

"No harm done, and you should do your due diligence," Ted Cruz slapped the agent on the back. "You will be doing a great service for this nation."

"But what we are asking you to undergo will be very painful. Basically torture. Think well." Sara warned.

"What should I do?" The other agent approached. He seemed to have no doubts and would jump in front of the smoking gun if the President asked.

Sara felt the Secret Service agents were very professional and were attached to the position, not the person. She thought they would act the same if Jim Carrey was the President instead of Ted Cruz.

An army colonel approached with two plastic bags with clothes, "Change into these shorts and disposable underwear. Your clothes will be ruined otherwise."

The agents were led behind a screen. There, they swapped their man in black suits for the cotton shorts in the side room then came back. Sara tried not to ogle too much. But damn, they didn't skip leg day, arm day, or any gym day.

The first agent approached.

"Sit on this chair, bite on the mouth guards, give me your hands, and brace," Sara said.

The chair had straps and resembled a certain execution device. Sara didn't want to know if it was the real one. A military physician checked his vitals, confirmed the straps, asked if he was okay to proceed one last time.

The agent grinned, "The things I'll do for my country," he quoted a certain movie.

She started slow, circulating only a trickle of Mana. The agent squirmed and grunted and sweated. Black impurities poured slowly from his hands, then arms, then torso. He shook violently and steam started to rise from his body as his sweat boiled on his skin. Sara thought about slowing down or cutting the Mana flow but that would waste all the effort. She doubted he would try it again. Acting on an idea, she converted her raw Mana into Ice Mana, noticing that she got more than she paid for because her Mana Conductivity went above 100% for Ice-aspected Mana. She felt his arms become numb and cold. It helped to dull the pain the agent felt and reduced the overheating.

"I think I've improved the process. Endure a bit longer."

She pushed the Mana down his body and up into his head, focusing on the skin only. The agent became covered in the black mud from head to toe and it started pooling down on the floor. Admiring the man's willpower, Sara noticed he was still conscious and kept going. She finished purifying his skin and moved onto the muscles. More impurities poured down. She lost track of how long it took, focused on the circulation and trying to keep the man from burning up. At one point, the military put sandbags on the floor to contain the flood. Sara had impurities up to her ankles.

"It is already more black tar by volume than his own body," she heard one of the military eggheads watching the process comment.

With the muscles purified, she gently pushed a small amount of Mana through his bones, drawing gasps of surprise as white fragments seeped out of his skin. Bones finished, she just pushed a small trickle through his internal organs, just to make sure they could receive the infusion of Mana from Armageddon. She stopped halfway through his circulatory system.

One last check told her he would probably stay awake during Armageddon. She had improved the technique by leaps and bounds after using ice Mana to counteract the overheating from the Mana burning impurities. The man was unconscious now.

"I'm done. That's as much as I can do before I get too low on Mana to work on the other agent," she told the military officers overseeing the process. "I'm not regaining any."

The impurities had flooded over the sandbags. Despite that, the physician entered the pool of black gunk to check on the Agent's vitals.

"He's with hypothermia but alive. Get him to an infirmary and start hypothermia recovery procedures."

Sara met the doctor's gaze, "Sorry, I shouldn't have done this much. But he's fine, I infused him with some vital force too. He should wake up soon. Make sure he has food and hydration available when he wakes up."

The doctor didn't answer and got busy releasing the straps on the metal chair where people might have been executed before or not. Sara shuddered. Nurses entered the gunk and carried the agent away.

"That's fine," the President approached from the side. Sara noticed he was wearing rubber boots. He clapped the shoulder of the second agent. "Having cold feet?"

"No, sir!" The Agent barked. "Miss Sara, can you do that to me too?"

"Yes. You are doing your country a great favor, sir," she said softly. "I only hoped I could awaken more people than just two. Or save those who don't have the proper Mana Channels."

The regret and pain in her voice made everyone in the room pause. Some even made the sign of the cross over their hearts. Sara knew these people weren't stupid. They were quite aware by now that not many of them would survive the next few hours. She knew she had disclosed too much.

She did the same on the second agent but this time the military had tripled the area of the sandbag barrier and doubled the height. When she was finished cleaning the second man's Mana Channels on the chair, he was up to her waist on impurities. She had less than three hundred Mana left.

"Sara, can you do this to me too?" The President asked. She had also made the mistake of telling him he was one of the survivors.

The colonel overseeing the operation frowned and shook his head as he stared at her. Sara met his stern gaze and nodded.

"Sorry, sir. Look at the faces of your advisors."

"I would never put my men through anything I wouldn't subject myself with, Sara." He said with a steel voice. "I always regretted not joining the military."

"I'm running low on Mana," she insisted. "I can't do that."

"You don't need to give me the full treatment. Just enough to make sure I stay awake."

"It might be worse, sir. The infusion of Mana during Armageddon is no joke. I saw people burnt into charcoal out there. Look, if you can get a panel of nine advisors from the top agencies and the military to agree in ten minutes, I'll do it."

"Sara..."

"And be glad I won't ask for the Congress to pass a vote too!" She pouted and entered a stare down contest with him. The Colonel approached.

"Mr. President, with all due respect this is an experimental procedure. It is against regulation exposing you against unnecessary risks. If what Ms. Sara said is true, you will already have two agents guarding you during Armageddon."

Despite being polite, the military's tone harbored no room for argument. The President conceded.

"You got me."

*

*

Operations Center, Pentagon, Arlington County, Virginia, Monday, October 7th, 2019. 16:40e.

The two agents woke up a few minutes ago and reported they were more than fine. They were at the gym right now, measuring their physical performance but Sara knew they would break every Olympic record out there even if they did a half-ass attempt.

Instead of insisting she purified his channels, the President instead went with a different approach. He asked if Sara could tell if someone had developed Mana Channels or not.

"I won't do it," Sara replied. "Do you have any idea what you are asking me? If I tell them they have the channels, okay. They'll live. But what about the vast majority, nine hundred and ninety-nine out of a thousand that don't? It is the same as me giving them a death sentence or a physician telling them they have terminal cancer and only... an hour to live."

While she stared at the clock in the room, people's eyes drifted the scythe on a nearby table.

"Regardless, I rebelled against the Apocalypse and my job as Death. Just like that bastard wanted. Never mind, talking to myself, sorry. No, sir. I won't do it. Even if we don't disclose the results, it is a waste of Mana and I would be giving them false hope. How's the evacuation plans?"

A few of the military aides looked away.

He gave her a wistful stare. "Sara, there's no evacuation. If we alerted the population, it would cause a panic and more people would die. These deaths would be in our hands. We decided to evacuate only key personnel both civil and military to the bomb shelters across the nation only. We know the vast majority of them will die but we need to at least save what knowledge we can to rebuild. We are also making backups of the internet and all the data we can on secure storage. As we speak, the Library of Congress and national archives is being emptied and taken underground. Keeping that under wraps is already close to impossible."

She pressed her lips together and lowered her head. Her shoulders shook. Sara couldn't contain the tears. Nothing had changed. She wouldn't have time to go back to Atlanta and keep people safe. She failed once more.

The President put his hand on her shoulder. "Right now, it is not the time to worry about individuals. We need to save civilization itself, Sara. Our knowledge. Blueprints for computers, vehicles, programs, our scientific knowledge. Key infrastructure and machinery."

She grabbed his hand and removed it from her shoulder. "I feel like hurting you a bit, sir. I'd rather have some time alone."

"if you excuse me, I'll spend what time I have left with my family," he said and left.

She remembered what she told him and felt guilty.

*

*

Rooftop, Pentagon, Arlington County, Virginia, Monday, October 7th, 2019. 17:40e.

Sara stood next to Chloe as she watched the drama unfold another time. She saw Heaven and Hell, the Celestial Host, and the Infernal Hordes ready for battle. The demons rushed forward while the Celestials stood in formation. What?

Something wasn't right.

The Horde crossed Hell and was almost at the pearly gates. Yet none of the Celestials advanced or even set their weapons. They stood in formation, steady as rocks. The reason why became evident next. They did something, cast a combined spell in perfect harmony that created a wall of golden light right at the divide. The faster demons in the chaotic Horde struck this wall and were instantly vaporized. Then the wall pushed forward, breaking rock, splattering lava, pushing the Horde of demons back along with the corpses of those it killed. Hell cracked and shattered, the very landscape ground to dust. It all fell on Earth while the Heavens remained in place.

Sara, Verachiel, and Abby weren't the only ones who could improvise and change the script. Many Celestials faltered; their Mana spent. The wall of golden light reached the ends of hell and vanished. Of the two higher dimensions, only one fell down. Along with thousands upon thousands of demons who didn't die during the Final Battle. Armageddon was one-sided this time.

Waving her fist at the Heavens, she shouted, “MOTHERFUCKERS!”

She fell down on her knees as she understood, clear as day, what happened. Because of her interference, the Heavens had forsaken this dimension. They didn't do that to save themselves, though. Those Honest-to-God Celestials would selflessly sacrifice themselves to make sure the fewest Demons ever reached Earth. Their battle at Armageddon wasn't to end the demons but to keep them from this world. Wipe out both sides. It was a valid tactic when the Boss on one side had the power to bring anyone back to life on a whim. If that was even His plan.

She hadn't saved this dimension. She had doomed it. Sara despaired as Demons rained down on Earth.

*

*

Campus, Clayton State University, Clayton County, Georgia. Thursday, October 31st, 2019. 15:00e.

Sara returned from a scouting mission. Atlanta's metropolitan region was officially free of Demons. The last month was pure suffering. The Demons wasted no time in hunting and killing survivors. The people who survived the infusion spent anything from twelve hours to a week unconscious and were easy prey for the infernal Horde.

This time around, she had saved only two dozen people. By the time she reached Atlanta, fighting Demons all along the six hundred miles as the Nephilim flew, most people she knew were dead. Kelly, Mary, Major Hainsworth, Keynes, Trevor, Patricia, Princess Cupcake, and many others. Even Pete the Necropolis King was brutally murdered by the demons. All gone. Of the college crew, only Amanda and Brett were alive but heinously maimed.

She had no doubt it was even worse elsewhere. Sara fought day and night for a whole month. She killed Demons until her hands became numb, then she killed the other half of her quota for the day. The Infernals had no regard for their lives, only for the slaughter.

And now she was going to abandon even those two dozen souls. The Mark of Time was ready, fully charged. She needed to jump. To get away, to try again. This nightmare needed to have a solution, a way out. She would jump and jump, from hellish nightmare to hellish nightmare until she found a way to save everyone.

She gave each survivor a feather. She taught all of them how to infuse them. A Celestial feather, even one from a half-breed like her, was a deadly weapon against Demons when infused. Anathema to them. It was better than any sword could ever be.

Sara triggered the Mark of Time, wishing to fix everything. As the spell whisked her away, she left shards of her heart behind.