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   Riley was annoyed. Fists ready at his side, he scurried towards the cave entrance just as Daniel and Hart punched each other. Daniel pushed Hart off the cliff. Once Daniel and the others had recharged their powers, they were able to fight back. Except fighting the son of hell wasn't like defending yourself against a horde of monsters.

"WILL YOU TWO STOP IT?" Riley yelled at the top of his lungs, pushing Daniel with all his strength. "STOP IT! I AM TIRED OF THIS!"

"I didn't do anything, it was him!" Daniel pointed at the hovering prince, who had his wings spread open like a dark angel.

"You've both been at this for weeks, WEEKS!" Riley marched down the tight path that ran down the side of the mountain. He no longer wanted to be in the same space as them. Ever since Daniel and the other rogues recharged and had the humans move to a new location, he and Hart had been up Riley's ass.

"Why do I have to fight for my already boyfriend?" Daniel snapped back, following him. "We've been together longer than he has been alive on Earth and now all of the sudden we don't matter?!"

Riley spun around and punched him square in the jaw, throwing him off balance. Daniel slipped off the very tiny trail and fell down the mountain. Daniel grabbed rocks on the way down to gain balance again and hopped the rest of the way down using his rogue strength. Riley knew he wasn't going to get hurt, but it still felt good to shut one of them up.

He reached behind and grabbed the branch out of his backpack, launching himself into the sky. They were going to be mad at him, but they also didn't control him. So he climbed the wooden stick and flew at fast speeds.

It wasn't fair, he knew it was complete bullshit that he had to be treated like some price to be won. For WEEKS, they had stood outside his cave to make sure the other wasn't alone with him. He respected Hart for not ripping Daniel's head off with his eyes. But still, when did this become high school? Riley did not go through literal hell for this to be happening to him.

Even though Hart was the prince of hell with unimaginable power, he still didn't understand the simple emotions of a human being. It didn't matter that he was now open to having them like everyone else. If Riley was being honest to himself, Hart had the emotional capability of a child. If he wanted something, he was going to get it no matter what the cost was, because he did not understand what it all really meant to be human and to feel human. Not everything was his, and just because he was who he was did not mean he could take whatever he wanted.

And Daniel was another mess who did not understand that it had been thirty years since Riley had seen Hart and sometimes he went through some of them without thinking about him once. Those years were peaceful because nothing bad had happened, but any time a demon showed up or someone died in a familiar way or someone mentioned a witch or the witch, he remembered him. But beyond that? Hart left him in hell. It had been over for a very long time.

Riley didn't get very far when all of the sudden the branch stopped working and he fell from the sky. He tried everything he could possibly think of to bring magic back into the branch but none of it worked.

"HARTHEON!" Riley screamed, his voice coming out demonic as the feeling of falling overwhelmed him.

A strong whooshing sound came. Hart's wings were wide and powerful as he swept Riley back up into the air in quick movements. They looked at each other and for the first time in a long time, Riley remembered how much his eyes had affected him back on earth. He had always felt captivated by them. The feeling of being in a trance was always there when staring into his eyes, regardless of the color.

"What's wrong?!" he asked, seeming scared at how Riley's body twitched in pain.

"I don't know, something is happening to me," Riley said nervously. A strange feeling was swimming through his veins and his skin felt cold and hard. Hart sensed this too and flew them back on ground.

"RILEY!" Daniel screamed as he ran towards them. "WHAT HAPPENED?!"

"Something is wrong with him," Hart responded when they touched down and Riley couldn't respond. "And I don't know what and neither does he."

Daniel crouched down next to Riley when Hart gently laid him down. The more that time passed, the more frozen Riley felt. The pain was unimaginable. It was as if his skin was transforming, and then the realization hit him.

"I'm turning," Riley whispered in fear.

"No . . . NO!" Daniel screamed, holding Riley in his arms. Hart stepped back and gave them space. Riley's eyes were changing and so was his skin. The transformation was beginning. The last stage: the demon. "Riley, fight it. You've fought it for thirty years, I believe in you."

"I . . . Can't. It hurts."

The sound of bones shattering made both Hart and Daniel flinch. There was nothing either of them could do for Riley. Hart couldn't take away the pain, he couldn't heal him through the change. And Daniel was only a rogue.

"RILEY!" Fiona's voice echoed in the far distance.

Hart looked back and saw his sister and Pearl running at full speed towards them. Fiona was far but judging by the look in her face she knew. Fiona had been anticipating this moment for years. They all were.

Fiona crouched down next to her brother and held him, rubbing gentle circles on his chest and rocking them back and forth. The siblings stared into each other's supernatural eyes and smiled. The happy moment didn't last too long. A slow and black aura began to form under Riley. It was freezing him, turning him to stone. Immediately everyone panicked. This wasn't a demonic transformation. This was something else. The strange phenomenon left everyone in awe. But somehow it burned Fiona and she had to drop her brother back on the ground and crawl away from the dangerous black smoke.

Riley's body completely turned into white stone, his face frozen in horror. Now they all wondered if he was dead, if he was gone, if something had gone wrong in all the years he hadn't turned when he should have.

Hart walked forward and kneeled next to Riley, hovering his hand over the stone body and feeling the intense magic that was radiating. It didn't hurt him like it had Fiona, and somehow he had known it wouldn't hurt him. The aura swayed under his skin and slowly rose as if his skin was a magnet.

"Hart? What's happening?" Fiona asked.

The aura was calling out to Hart in ways he couldn't explain. He closed his eyes and laid his hand on top of Riley's stone body. The shadow apparition dragged itself back into Riley and that was when everyone realized it was his soul.

The stone body began to crack.

A laugh echoed through the air, one that did not belong to anyone there. The voice was masked by an eerie technological filter. Something that you would have only heard back on Earth with science fiction movies.

"Hart . . . Step back, NOW!" Pearl yelled but it was too late. A light with black, purple and white colors shot through the cracks and exploded. The air became covered in dust and ashes from the stone that had evaporated. Like standing in the midst of a war, no one could see anything.

The laugh was heard again and this time the group saw a light in the middle of the explosion. Everyone was thinking the same thing but no one wanted to say it first and Hart was still recovering from the explosion.

"This power feels incredible," said the voice.

As the dust cleared, the new Riley emerged. His skin glistened like black diamonds. His eyes were pitch black with visions of stars inside. He wasn't a demon, he was something else none of them had ever seen.

"Oh, God," Fiona said.

Riley took a step forward, his smile wide and sinister. He was naked, but there was nothing to see. His skin had crystallized. Even his hair was solid. His soul was still visible outside of his new skin but barely, only enough to give his new appearance a ghostly image. He kept walking forward like he was learning how to for the first time.

"Riley, how do you feel?" Daniel asked, but even the fake tone in his voice wasn't going to hide the fact that all of them were terrified . . . except Hart. And even though Daniel's question was unnecessary, it did something to Riley.

"What is happening to me?" he asked, his new voice cracking mid sentence, like static.

"You've turned, but . . . I don't know into what," responded Fiona.

"No, my thoughts . . . they're different." He looked down at his hands as his fingers grew longer and sharper, into claws. "I'm struggling."

Something about this was familiar to Hart. The way Riley spoke for the first time was different to how he was speaking now. The one speaking now was their Riley, the first one was . . . someone else. It was familiar because it happened to him. The war in his mind. The battle for dominance. The fight for control.

Hart finally spoke but when he did, none of them understood, because he was speaking to Riley in another language, one that was secret; the language of darkness; the words of magic and evil and the bloodline of his family.

Riley replied in the language. They spoke back and forth and during that time Hart could sense that the person they all knew was still there, but this new Riley wasn't a different being, it was just an elevated version of who he already was.

"The Obsidian Witch," Hart said out loud.

The Obsidian Witch had been a myth to everyone until now. The myth was that one witch would have the power of both light and dark, making them the most powerful magic user in the whole universe. It explained why Riley went through everything he did on Earth, why moments of pain and torture and special abilities seemed to only happen to him. The curse of hell did not happen because he died, or because of Hartheon and Seraphina, it happened because he was finally transforming into The Obsidian Witch, but some many things were in his way that when he finally died and went to hell, the power went missing until at last it fell back into place and what needed to be fixed was broken no more.

His skin was not diamonds, it was obsidian. The power was unimaginable, which was why Riley was having a difficult time grasping reality. But there was so much more to The Obsidian Witch than meets the eye. Riley was and would forever be the most powerful being on this planet. It was no coincidence that Seraphina had found him. It happened because it was time. Because the one thing people were most afraid of when it came to the myth was that it meant the end was near.

Riley was, with all intents and purposes, the physical image of the apocalypse. And worst of all it meant the rebirth of the one and only . . . Lucifer.

◊

Riley was no longer demonic in any shape or form, but his posture was still the same. His shoulders were slightly slouched and his facial expressions were threatening. The rogues didn't understand like Hart did and they would never because it wasn't for them to understand. Hart guessed correctly both times when he felt he needed to touch Riley's stone body and when he needed to speak to him in his blood language. The language was the most surprising because only a few could speak it. It meant there was a bigger connection between the two that they realized.

"Are you going to hurt us?" Fiona asked, intimidated by her brother's stand.

At the sound of his sister's voice, his head snapped in her direction. "No, I am not going to hurt you."

"He's not Riley anymore," Daniel said.

"What are you talking about? He was still going to be my brother if he turned into a demon. We've all talked about this and we have been preparing. So what if he turns out to be something else?" She looked back at him and tried to smile, but she was still fearful of her brother's newfound powers. "It doesn't change anything."

"Look at the way he's looking at us. Look at the way he looks. There's nothing good about him anymore and it's obvious that he's gone."

"Daniel," Fiona gritted through her teeth. "That's my brother and your boyfriend."

"Not anymore."

"Why are y-"

"FIONA!" Daniel shouted. "We are ROGUES. We made a vow to serve the leaders and protect humankind. I loved Riley more than anything but if you think for a second this . . . Obsidian Witch is anything but evil, you're wrong. He is not our Riley anymore and not our problem."

Riley raised a hand and pointed it at Daniel. His claw-like fingers came closer together and Daniel's eyes turned the same as his; black with a universe of stars inside of them. Daniel began to see visions of a future Earth where darkness ruled and humankind suffered. It showed that not only would he fail to save humans, but his demise was to come and all in the hands of Riley.

Riley dropped his hand and Daniel's eyes went back to normal. Daniel was confused at what he saw, because to him it felt real as if he was there to witness it all. He looked back at Riley with a pained expression. On one hand he still loved Riley, Riley, not the monster he had become. For thirty years he watched Riley fight his dark side because beneath it all, he was a good person. But in the end, that darkness won, not because it was ever a fight, but because it finally came out of hiding.

"He showed me what he's going to do, Fiona. I have to stop him."

Fiona was about to question what that meant, but Daniel used his rogue powers to run at Riley before she could open her mouth. But something about The Obsidian Witch being the most powerful being in the universe did not click with him. Riley raised his hand again and his soul rushed through his arm and pushed back Daniel with incredible force that he was not able to withstand it and was knocked back in the air. His soul was acting like a shield. Riley was indefinitely invincible from now on.

"There's something nobody knows about except me," said Riley, walking towards the fallen Daniel who was getting on his knees. "There's another world beneath this. It's not another hell, it's a prison inside a prison. I can see it and feel it. If you think hell is scary, you haven't seen anything yet."

"So what? You're going to send me there? Is that it?" Daniel spat out.

"No, I'll just show you a sneak peek. Enjoy The Nightmare." Riley did the same move he had done to push away Daniel, but this time his soul did not attack him with force instead it just washed over him and cloud him in darkness. When Riley pulled back the dark smoke, Daniel was paralyzed with his eyes once again black as the night sky. Then he began to scream in agony and Riley smiled.

The two girls jumped back when Riley's eyes set on them. They were scared and even though they were the true warriors of hell, neither of them could ever stand a chance against Riley. They cowered back in fear as Daniel's screams got louder.

"I will see you soon, sis."

Riley turned around and grabbed Hart's hand. He smiled happily at The Dark Prince as an electrifying portal opened in front of them. There was only darkness inside this portal and the sounds coming out of it worried Hart but he wasn't scared. He gripped Riley's hand tightly and let the witch guide them through it as tentacles began to slither out.

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[Author's Message]: Omg. I can't say I'm sorry enough for how little updates this book receives. Honestly, it's a tough book to write lol. There is so much information that it gives me constant writer's block. But nonetheless, I UPDATED! I've been waiting for this chapter since literally the first chapter of this series. There is so much more to Riley than just a "random kidnapped victim". It's all meant to happen since the beginning. I wish I could have written like 100 pages for this chapter because there really is way more than meets the eye to The Obsidian Witch. But I guess over time you will learn more and I am so excited. I've said before that I'm not going to write the fourth book (Which is the last) because I want to re-write the series, but honestly I might lol. No promises though! And if I do I might write it first before I start uploading that way I don't delay chapters by once every year. I really hope you guys enjoyed this chapter and if there's anything you're confused about or if I made any mistakes please let me know.

ALSO, I got a lot of . . . hate? For the photo I posted of what Hart looks like in the last chapter. Many of you found him unattractive and maybe I just posted a bad picture of him, but really lol. You can imagine Hart however you want, you are allowed to, I have my own inspiration and that inspiration is Theo Hutchcraft. But I don't mean him in every single sense. No, there's only one moment that made him inspire Hart, and that was in his album's "Exile" era, where he was dark. Look up performances by the band Hurts during their EXILE tour. That is what inspired me (specifically look for "The Road") If you are still not on board with him, that's okay, Hart in theory is his own person. If he was real, he'd look completely different, not like an artist who just inspired me or whatever. :)