An Account of the Ten Minutes That Remained of August and Edith Barisol Before They Went To Hell

"Hell" isn't the right word to describe it, actually.

But whatever.

There isn't time.

I don't have time.

Enough of this; the only place to start is the beginning, but we don't have time for that.

So ten minutes, 0 seconds, and 0 milliseconds before August Barisol, Edith Barisol, Simon Parker, Michael Wallrose and hundreds of thousands of millions of billions of uncountable souls were all sent to what they would only ever be able to describe as Hell. That's where we begin.

10:00:00

"Pass, Mike!" The disc embedded in Edith's sword barrelled towards her girlfriend, only just catching it with her own. Without hesitation, she span and flung it at August, who passed it onto Simon, who shot it into the many robots menacing them.

"Give me more of a warning next time!" Michael frowned at Edith, who was preparing another energy attack regardless. The composition of the swords were strange, really. Large, mechanical monsters of weapons, taller than each of them and made of sunset-tinged steel. The 'sword' section itself split, the space between the two blades making it seems somewhat like scissors, and acting as a conduit for the energy she was gifted with channelling. Or, not really, since most people could, but she had a cool-ass sword to do it with.

Another disc shot at Michael, who did the same dance as before and let Simon hit it into the next robot, interrupting it in the middle of its weird catchphrase-thing; 'DESTROY ALL FLESH AND THE WORKS OF FLESH.' They sounded like Daleks, if she was honest.

9:00:00

"We can't just keep shooting them with the four-combo. That's supposed to be for finishers." August pointed out, jumping forward and slashing a few of the robots with his own sword. Simon followed suit, driving his own weapon deep into the closest Computron bot. August was honestly really, really handsome with that thing he did with the zanbatou or whatever their weapons were called. Not because Simon was dating him, or anything (he was), but out of the four of them, August had definitely taken out the most bots. Plus, they were sort of matching.

Today, August had gone out with a pastel pink skirt and pink-white striped tights to match it, as well as a shirt which said "I'm he's" which was partially concealed by a leather jacket. Simon hadn't actually matched any of that well, since his own clothing was just a black mismatch of whatever he found in his wardrobe that morning, but he did had the "He'm I's" shirt and the same (different brand but they looked the same from a distance shush) jacket. So, that basically counted as a match.

"Finishers are cool, and also powerful." Edith charged another disc, this time propelling it directly into the crowd of annoying robots, who were still chanting something to do with flesh that sounded ripped-off from the Martian Manhunter. "What's the problem with them?"

"Here!" Michael fired her own disc into Edith's sword, "If you two aren't doing it, we'll just do it ourselves." She stuck out her tongue playfully, and Simon tried his best to ignore her.

"Finishers are at the finish. That's why they're called finishers." August clarified, an iron tentacle wrapping around his waist and swiftly being severed from the robot it belonged to, following with said robot being bisected.

"But if they're so powerful, why not just use them for everything?" Michael shrugged.

"Because they take more effort, and time, than normal attacks."

"And they do more damage." Edith rebutted, "Michael agrees with me."

"She's your girlfriend." August pointed out, "Plus, Simon agrees with me."

"He's your boyfriend."

"And a cute one at that." August added, and Simon didn't blush, or anything. Shush.

8:00:00

"No PDA while we're fighting a robot army from another dimension, unless it's me." Edith ordered, giving a side-glance to Michael in a way that made her blush despite the fact that nothing had happened yet.

"You're not the one in charge here." August grabbed a robot and slicing its head off. It was unnecessary, and he was definitely just showing off. Edith fired a disc, and it sliced through the robots in a more methodical way. Yep, she never showed off, at all, ever.

"Yeah, I am."

"Says who?"

"Me." Michael put her hand up, switching her grip of the handle to her left, "I vote Edith in charge of this group."

"And why is that?" August spun his weapon twice before finally lunging into a robot. Show-off.

"Cos, she's cuter." Michael shrugged.

"You're literally biased."

"Am not."

"We're twins. We look identical."

Michael rolled her eyes, "Yeah, and she dresses better than you."

"Huh?" Edith's outfit was all over the place. She had tried to choose blue to match her eyes, but she ended up not having enough that matched, so her jumper was sea-blue while her leggings were burnt-red. Plus, her hair fell backwards onto her shoulders in unorganised brown strands, even though August managed to get it over his eyes in that emo-ish look despite them both very technically having the same exact hair.

"No way." August and Simon agreed in unison, before Simon added, "Even Edith disagrees."

"I'd probably do better if we weren't called about, y'know, the whole robot invasion of downtown." Edith hit a robot with a mis-timed strike, only slicing off its shoulder and allowing it to grab her.

'DESTROY ALL FLESH AND THE WORKS OF FL-' It began, before its head exploded, August firing another disc to destroy the body, and loosening the grip on Edith.

August reminded her, "Yeah, the robot invasion that we're currently fighting."

"As if you haven't been chatting non-stop since this started too."

"I've no idea what you mean." He grinned, going for another bot.

7:00:00

"To be honest, if all of us actually focused on the task, this would've been done a lot sooner." Simon began, "But where's the fun in that?"

"Challenge, then. Nobody talk for a minute. Just, y'know, kill the evil robots." Michael suggested.

August gave her a skeptic look, "How are we supposed to know when a minute's up?"

"Trust me, I'm a great judge of time. Go!" Michael ran forward, driving at least three robots into her sword in a very cool manner before rapid-firing discs, wiping out those in front of her. She fired a few more - for good measure - and watched as one hit it squarely in the eye.

More approached from the side, and this time she let the energy run through her veins - felt it - and then shot it out as a singular beam, piercing the bodies of the Computrons (or, whatever they were called) easily. her arm slumped, slightly, but she ignored it. Out of the group, energy overuse was only really a problem for August, who wasn't as used to using it.

Michael recalled the story well, given how many times it was told between the two. While August and Edith were, technically, twins, it would be more accurate to say they were each other. August Barisol was a child born in another world, but as he grew older, that world was erased. The device that he had used to escape was destroyed on arrival, but he was quickly taken in by Edith's own family. The same family. He acted skittish at first - apparently the other world's family hadn't treated him well - but in the end he adjusted fine. Michael had heard that he wasn't able to use energy in his initial world, which was a strange thing to think about - it was so common that there weren't that many applications that you couldn't use it for - but had developed the ability shortly after. August didn't use it as much as the others, of course, and Michael assumed that overusing it would have worse effects on him.

6:00:00

Simon knocked away a robot, only for it to wheel back at him, impaling it with his edge. A beam shot past him, and he span towards its origin; Michael doing weird stuff with her energy again. Simon didn't want to tire himself out, but, simply for the effect, he shot a disc into his hand, then channelled more into it to make it expand into a ball shape. As he kicked it at the bot, he simultaneously realised that that was a terrible idea and aughghhhh kicking a ball of energy was an awful move it hurts it hurts it hurts heck frick ow.

Hadn't it been a minute? Simon wanted to warn Michael against over-using energy, and wanted to tell everyone not to make an energy football in case the idea struck them at any point, but on account of being seventeen he could not disobey any dare, no matter how stupid or counter-intuitive.

Instead, he focused on taking out the minions around him. There were surely over a hundred, and while they had eliminated a large chunk, there were always more and more. Their leader - Computron, or something - had been taken out at the beginning of the fight, and yet they weren't the kind of enemy that appeared in science fiction finales where if you took out the leader they all went. At least - since this wasn't a science fiction finale - nobody would sacrifice themselves because their actor quit to star in something with better pay.

It was fairly basic, their job. Take out crime, go back to their base, mess around, rinse and repeat. Sure, it wasn't as suspenseful or glamourous as the superheroes in the comics, nor would it be particularly interesting if anyone tried to record their adventures (bank robbers, muggers, bank robbers again, occasionally robots) but he wouldn't trade it for anything. Another minion lunged, and this time he swiped the sword upwards, bisecting it from the bottom. Its remains were swifly disintegrated by a stray beam, once again from Michael. She was slumped by now, and Simon could tell that she wouldn't be able to keep up if she kept firing like that.

"Watch out!" August warned, "You could hit a building!"

"Not in that direction." Michael responded, gesturing down the street where she had fired.

"What do you mean, not in that..." August trailed off as soon as he looked in the direction Michael had pointed in. Simon turned, too, and saw... nothing.

There was nothing where the horizon should have been.

5:00:00

"I win, by the way. That was less than a minute." Michael grinned.

"That really isn't the focus here." August stared. Where previously, far-off buildings and road had been, there was, literally, nothing.

It was hard - maybe impossible - to describe. There wasn't black, there wasn't some sort of vacuum, there was just an absence of anything. To call it nothing would be somewhat incorrect as well, because it was an absence of 'nothing' as well. There was just an abyss.

"When did that get here?" Edith was staring too, now, "I'm fairly sure the robots didn't have any method of doing... that."

"Hidden ability?" Simon half-joked, half-guessed.

"Are the buildings... still there?" Michael stared into the abyss, trying to see anything.

"It's like a flat void. If it was just an absence of light, wouldn't we still be able to see shapes?" August pointed out. The abyss seemed like a wall, where even the horizon and the sun were devoured.

"So what happens if we touch it?"

"I'll find out." Edith extended her sword, and a longer, thinner blade of energy extended from it. She stabbed a robot, and kept it on the blade, lengthening it and moving it over to where the wall stood. Its arm flailed, and entered the sheet of absence. The rest of it did not change. Edith moved it slowly out, and to August's lack of surprise, its arm had been cleanly erased at the point it entered.

"Great. So-" Michael was interrupted by the arm slicing at her, knocking her into Edith and causing the energy structure to collapse, while the robot clattered to the ground just in front of the void. Its head came off with a swift slash, and Edith began to pick herself up, stopping partway through.

"I dropped the bot in front of the void-thing, right?" She asked, and Simon nodded. "So... why is it gone, and why does it look like that thing's closer?"

4:00:00

"Because it's moving. Which isn't good." August frowned, "I don't want to die."

"Where did that come from?" Michael frowned, too, "It's only coming from one side, right?" Michael turned, and the end of her sword was consumed. "Crap." She stepped backwards immediately, while Edith began to hit robots into the void. There were barely any left, but the decreased space made it harder to fight other than just erasing them. Which, admittedly, worked.

"I don't want to die, either. Edith admitted, "We aren't going to, are we?"

"It can't be coming from all sides. Otherwise we would've been erased from the bottom, right?" Simon observed.

"Not the sky either. At least, not most of it." Michael added, "So if someone goes up, we can check how far it goes."

"It erased the horizon. There's no chance."

"Then... then... panicking won't help. Let's just think." August suggested, "We have to come up with something."

3:00:00

So far, nothing had come up. The wall was closing in from all sides but top and bottom, and it seemed to go infinitely down and infinitely up. They would be erased, soon.

"I remember."

"Huh?"

"I remember." August repeated, "This happened before. When my own world was erased."

"How did you escape?" Edith prompted.

"A device, but it broke when I did that." August replied, and then cursed, looking around still for an exit.

"So? Is there one here?"

"If there is, I don't have it."

"Then..." Edith trailed off, unable to find any words.

"This is unfair! We didn't do anything" Simon threw his sword into the abyss, tears forcing their way down his face, "We didn't... this was just the same as always. There wasn't even a threat!"

"But if we're going to die, we should at least..."

2:00:00

"At least what?" Simon prompted Michael.

"Shut up! I'm trying to find the words! It's hard when you're going to be erased!" Michael was crying too, now. Everyone was. As if there was any other response. She paused for a moment, and then continued. "Confess. We should... confess."

"Confess what?" August threw his sword into the abyss. Nobody noticed that no more robots remained.

"I don't know! Just... anything we wanted to say. I don't know."

"Like what? Like that I love you guys? That I thought I'd spend my life doing stuff with you, and now I'm not?" Edith burst.

"Me too. And... I don't know. I'm trying to..." August stopped. Then continued, "It's so hard now, that there's things I've always wanted to say and now that I can it feels like I can't because it's hard to think and..."

1:00:00

"... everything's going so fast, isn't it? Now that this is happening?" Edith finished for him.

"Then speak fast!"

"There isn't time! We don't have time!"

"Just say something, we're about to die, you have to say something!"

0:30:00

"It's getting closer. We won't, we can't-."

"Then I'll say it for you!"

0:15:00

August and Simon locked hands. Edith and Michael locked hands.

0:10:00

"I love you."

0:05:00

"I love you too."

0:00:00