Hills rise out of the swamp before descending back into it in a winding sequence. The protruding mounds make the landscape look as if a great serpent is winding its way across it. Roads appear as veins or wrinkles as the writhing reptile resists the urge to move. Two figures fly over the serpent and towards the setting sun. Rooftops freckle the landscape around them and the serpent’s back is adorned with various residential communities.

“We should be getting close,” one warrior yells back to the other. The wind roars as they fly and it makes it hard to hear one another. He squints into the wind. His brown wings are a blur behind him. He looks over and notices the “H” shape of a building that EV had mentioned. He circles to the nearby neighborhoods atop the adjoining hills.

A Boom! rushes past him. The warrior corkscrews and turns, facing his travel companion. He had drawn his sword from the scabbard on his back as he rolled. He bobs slightly as his wings beat subconsciously, allowing him to hover in place. He scowls at his companion, the keen point of his sword pointed low and in the direction of the one hovering opposite of him.

His companion’s arm is outstretched, wisps of smoke violently twist away from the muzzle of the large caliber handgun as his beating wings disturb the air. He is pointing it off to one side of their flight path. The sword wielder spares a glance in the indicated direction to see the house in the nearby neighborhood.

“Dammit Lust,” he exclaims. “I just saw that.”

Lust just gazes back with a blank expression, not indicating a response. The sword wielder, Pride looks at him for a time. Lust may not speak but those eyes seem to have something to say. They seem to betray hunger. His hair is slicked back and it’s the same color as his wings. They are a black that is deep enough to have a blue sheen when the light hits it just right. The outstretched, gun wielding arm, is adorned with a bracer, like the other sins. The only difference being the black-inked, crown tattoo that wraps around his forearm. The base of the crown is under the bracer and the points of the crown are angled back up his forearm.

Pride chalks up the gun shot up as Lust declaring that he notices the house. “Just stop helping and come on.”

He turns back to the house and bursts forward. He descends and slows as they draw close. He circles the house to get a better look at the collapsed wall at the corner of the garage. At some point, a tree had grown through the roof but had died and took out the corner as it fell. He starts a descent towards the driveway. His wings flare and his legs swing forward like a falcon about to pluck a mouse from a field. He steps down onto the pavement and his wings quickly tuck in close to his shoulders. He hears Lust land behind him, and he continues to walk towards the fallen tree. He peers into the house’s empty garage and then climbs over the stump that had grown through the floor there. He turns to see Lust follow him in. Lust’s gun is in his hand like always. When Lust climbs past the debris, he begins taping the muzzle of the gun against his thigh and looks at back at Pride, waiting.

“This shouldn’t require your style of help so don’t get involved unless I say so.” He looks back at the opening behind Lust, the light coming in at a steep angle. “It doesn’t look like we’ll be getting out of here before morning. Finish checking the place out after we find this guy.” He turns away from Lust and approaches a door that leads out of the garage. He pulls it open and peers into the darkened interior. His sword and bracers start to glow and a sphere of light extends away from him as he steps through the doorway.

Tile clad flooring stretches out from him like breadcrumbs, signaling to follow along. He sees the front door to his right with a dining room beyond it. The ceiling is vaulted and the stairs across from him switchback before leading to a balcony overhead. He peers around into the dining room and up towards the balcony before heading down a long hallway to the left. Debris is scattered across the floor ahead of him and the hall leads to a back door. He stops at the debris and looks around the left corner to see a toppled table and a shattered lamp. Beyond the debris is a sitting room and to the right of him is a kitchen. “What a shit hole,” he says as he looks around. He looks back to see Lust following close behind. “Sloth,” he calls out.

Thump! Crash! A clamor sounds above them and he continues to look at the ceiling as someone moves around upstairs. He looks over to Lust who has readied his gun. Pride extends his palm and gives a lowering gesture. “What did I say? Stop helping. We’re talking, not shooting.” Lust continues lowering the gun and Pride looks back up. He continues to watch the ceiling as he walks back down the hall, following the noise above him. A door swings open and another thump ensues as someone comes in contact with the balcony railing overhead. A shadow plummets and stakes into the ground on the outside of Pride’s sphere of light. Pride just looks at the surfboard sized object.

“Ah man,” says a voice from above. That’s my bad Boomy. Hang on, I’ll be right there.” The figure makes its way to the stairs and collapses to the railing, apparently finding the first step by mistake. It continues down and finally turns a bend on the staircase before seeing Pride. “Oh, hey guy. Was that you that yelled earlier?” The stranger looks down and sees the glowing sword and bracers as if noticing them for the first time. “oh ho ho, duuuude…how are you doing that? That’s so cool.”

Pride casually looks down at his blade and then looks back up to meet his gaze. “I’m Pride,” he says. “Are you sloth?” The stranger nods repeatedly as he leans forward and parts his open trench coat, placing his hands on his hips and then standing tall once again. His bare chest becomes bathed in the light as his jacket flaps are pulled back by his hand placement. The exposing of his exceptionally toned torso might have come across as threatening if not for his carelessly wide stance, haphazardly loose boot laces and array of buckles that hang loose from his pants and jacket. Pride thumbs over his shoulder. “That’s Lust.”

Sloth looks back and forth between the two of them for a moment. “Wait, is this one of those census things,” Sloth asks.

“What? No, we just want to see what you know about the Yoi.”

“Ugh,” Sloth exclaims as he leans his head back, groaning at the ceiling before slouching forward and shoving his hands in his pockets. “Great!—salesmen. Well since this is going to take a while, I’m going over there.” He points back down the hall, behind Pride and Lust. He walks past Pride and stops to check on the fallen object. The elongated object has a deliberate bend at its center, making it a surfboard sized boomerang. He pushes and pulls at it. “Dang Boomerina, you’re really in there huh?” He finally bumps it with his shoulder and it breaks free. He hoists it up and cradles it under his arm as he walks past Lust. He kicks the lamp fragments and turns, smacking the back end of the boomerang into the wall before looking down at the lamp. “Oh, forgot about you.” He continues into the sitting room, lays the weapon across the arms of a recliner, before turning and falling back on a sofa. His coat falls open and he swings a leg up onto the sofa. Pride walks after him and notices the new gouge in the sheet-rock. He looks around and notices that similar gouges are all over the place. He walks around the corner and kicks the lamp over closer to the wall. He rounds the sofa to see Sloth with his eyes closed. Sloth opens them, squinting into the light as Pride looks down at him. Sloth sits up. “Wait, you wanted to talk about that now?”

“Well, we’re obviously not here for the dazzling conversation, are we?”

“So, you think you can show me how to do that light thing,” he asks, gesturing to Pride’s sword. “Ah never mind, I’ll figure it out.” The boomerang and his bracers start to glow intensely. Pride looks back to see the weapon blurring.

“That’s too much. You need to back off. Keep going and you’ll dissolve it.”

The light dims back down, its intensity oscillating before stabilizing. “Wait, I gotta keep this up” Sloth complains. “Nope, hard pass.” The lights winks out and Sloth plops back against the arm rest.

Pride looks back at Sloth and gestures around the room. “What do you have going on here exactly?”

“Well, I can’t say I’m enjoying the quiet now can I?”

“Do you know what’s going on out there?” Pride gestures to a nearby window and Sloth follows the gesture.

Sloth shrugs. “Doesn’t matter. It’s not my concern.”

Pride smiles and shakes his head. “Well it’s going to be your concern whether you want it to be or not. What do you know about the Yoi?”

“Nothing. Never met ‘em.”

“It’s not a them, it’s a what, and it just so happens to be destroying the world.” Pride walks over to the window, opens the blinds, and crosses his arms.

Sloth seems to retreat a bit, sinking further into the couch as he pulls back from the large bay window. “What? Are you crazy? It’s dark out. There could be a dark phase out there.”

Pride looks out the window and shakes his head. The deck and yard are untouched by the surrounding wetlands but some of the darkened swamp trees have sprouted across the rising landscape. “What’s left of the world is decaying out from under you and you’re worried about a single dark phase. Where do you think these dark phases are even coming from? Or is that not your concern either?”

“Look, I know you’re new here and all considering you’ve literally never been in my house before.” He gestures at the window with both hands. “But I have a safety policy of leaving all the blinds closed so if you wouldn’t mind…”

Pride turns and lowers the shade halfway but still allows some of the moonlight to filter into the darkened room. “Burying your head in the sand doesn’t stop the outside world from existing or continuing to move forward. If you don’t take care, that forward movement may just be over the top of you. How are you going to know to get out of the way if you refuse to even look? If you’re not willing to be part of the solution, then you’re just another part of the problem.

“And that’s got something to do with these Yuffies?”

“Yoi,” Pride corrects. “And yes. The world is already in a perilous state and the Yoi are siphoning what little life remains.”

“Sloth nods. “Dick move, for sure. Yep. Textbook, dick move.,” he says, nodding to himself.

“Well we’re going to stop them. We’re going to end it.” He looks at Sloth intently as Sloth nods a long for a few seconds before realizing that Pride is insinuating him in that “we.”

“Wait, you mean we, we? Like me too?” Look, I don’t know how to tell you this but I’m a lover, not a fighter.”

Pride nods along. “Well, I don’t know how to tell you this but what is there going to be to love when the world dies? Have you thought about that? Because we’re not talking about -if-, we’re talking -when-. You’ll be neither if you don’t do something about it now.”

Sloth leans his head back on the armrest and stares up at the ceiling. “How long is this supposed to take,” he asks, exhaling.

“However long it takes to set things right.

Sloth sits up then and leans forward. “So what? We just get rid of the hummies and that’s it? Everything’s fine?”

Pride’s nose scrunches at Sloth’s pronunciation and he shakes his head before correcting. “It’s Yoi. And yes. When we destroy the rest of the Yoi, night and day will return to normal and we wont have to worry about the threat of the dark phases as much.

“But there will still be dark phases?”

Pride nods. “Whether we like it or not, they’re here now so I doubt there’s a way to remove them for good. Eliminating the Yoi will at least make them more stable and predictable. You can crawl back into your man cave here,” Pride gestures around the room, “pull the covers over your head and continue to let the world move on, without the threat of it dying before you do.”

Sloth leans back and lays an arm over the back of the sofa. “Man cave—yeah, I like that.”

“Is that really all you got from what I just said?”

“No, no, I got it. Let’s just go smash your Youweez and be done with it then.”

Pride shakes his head and sighs. “Just get some rest and be ready to head out in the morning. Can you fly?”

Sloth scoffs. “Well yeah, can’t everyone?”

Pride shakes his head. “Just get some rest while you can. Lust and I are going to look around. We’ll leave in the morning.”