Scott stared in horror at the scene before him, his breath catching in his throat at the sight.

Standing on an altar, axe in hand, was Sausage. His blood-red eyes were crazed and giddy, his hands stained red- with what, Scott didn't want to know. Lying chained at his feet was a trembling green figure, clothes ripped, dark blood spilling out of deep gashes on his arms and legs. Standing on either side of Sausage, Joey and Xornoth were smiling cruelly, seemingly uncaring of how they had Jimmy chained at their feet.

Unhesitatingly, Scott shoved through the shrubbery hiding him and flared his wings wide threateningly, whipping out his daggers in preparation for a fight. "Stop!"

"Ah, brother, you came," Xornoth said casually, as if he were simply arriving to a family dinner. "Finally."

"What are you doing?" Scott demanded. He was having none of Xornoth's tricks today.

"Since I can't make you surrender, I've decided to get you to cooperate another way," Xornoth smirked. Whatever Xornoth wanted him to cooperate with, it couldn't be good.

"Of course I'm not surrendering!" Scott scoffed. "Who do you think I am?"

Xornoth cackled. "Oh, brother, I was hoping you'd say that."

Scott was a second too late to realize what Xornoth was about to do... but didn't take much to figure it out afterwards.

Sausage swung his axe downwards. Not into Jimmy's neck- no, they didn't want to kill him. Sausage dug it into an already bleeding wound and Jimmy screamed.

It was raw and pained and Scott never, never, wanted Jimmy to have to make it again.

"Stop!" Scott yelled, not threateningly this time, but slightly panicked. They couldn't hurt Jimmy. They could mess with him all they wanted, but they did not get to hurt his husband.

"Of course," Sausage said, twisting the axe harshly through Jimmy's flesh. Scott winced, unable to stomach it anymore.

"What do you want?" Scott asked, ignoring the part of him that just wanted to break down and run over to Jimmy and scream "Jimmy, Jimmy!" at the top of his lungs until by some force of sheer willpower Jimmy was okay.

"Just offer yourself in his place and we'll never touch him again," Xornoth told him, presenting it as if this was in any way reasonable.

"What assurance do I have that you won't just get someone else to do it for you?" Scott spat resentfully.

"I swear on the power of Exor that I will not lay a hand on or encourage others to lay and hand on the Codfather... if the Elvenking offers himself in the Codfather's place," Xornoth stated formally. Scott knew he was a demon, knew he couldn't be trusted, but some deep part of him could feel the power behind Xornoth's words and somehow Scott knew that the demon would keep this promise.

"S-S-Scot-t, n-no, d-don-n't, n-not-t f-for m-me," Jimmy choked out weakly. "D-d-don-n't-t-t!"

Scott gave him a sad smile. "Everything will be okay, Jimmy, I promise."

"N-NO!" Jimmy coughed, trying to scream, voice too broken. "S-SCO-T-T!"

Scott took a deep breath and looked away from Jimmy's eyes. "I, Scott Smajor, Elvenking, agree to offer myself in the place of the Codfather so that he may live free from harm."

Jimmy screamed disjointedly, then dissolved into hoarse sobs, stammered "no"s and "Scott!"s punctuating his cries.

Sausage snapped his fingers and the chains around Jimmy's wrists snapped open. Joey grabbed them and dragged him aside, still kicking and screaming. "SCOTT!"

"I'm sorry, Jimmy," Scott murmured quietly, too low for Jimmy to hear.

Twin tendrils of corruption came at Scott and he diced their groping ends with his daggers.

"You swore to this!" Xornoth called, clearly not liking the fact that Scott wouldn't just lay down and die.

"I never agreed to go down without a fight," Scott challenged, dodging beneath two more tentacles, only to stab them from below.

"GIVE IN!" Xornoth screeched angrily. "GIVE UP!"

"I will never give up," Scott told him determinedly, twirling to the side, daggers spinning along, like a deadly ballerina.

Sausage scoffed. "Do you truly believe you can escape us?"

No. "Of course."

Sausage strode down off the altar and approached Scott, the crimson sea of living, thrashing corruption parting before him. Scott paused, staring him down, wings held high and proud. "Joey!"

Scott didn't Joey notice until too late... until his blade was through Scott's chest. The Lost Emperor had snuck around his back and was now standing with his knife embedded in Scott's back. Scott's wings flapped violently, trying to protect himself, but Joey wrapped his arms around them, pressed his foot into a non-impaled part of Scott's back, and yanked.

With his foot braced, Joey had full leverage. Pain spiked through Scott's wings as Joey pulled on them and he froze.

"Good," Sausage crooned. Scott scowled disgustedly, pointedly ignoring the literal knife in his back.

"I'll never do what you want," Scott told them, voice dripping with venom.

"Oh, yes. Oh, yes you will," Sausage laughed.

Joey yanked the knife out of Scott's back and the agony flamed in his torso. He bit back a whimper of pain, refusing to seem weak in front of them. The world seemed to tilt. He heard Sausage through a muffled layer of static.

"You'll be a perfect tool."

|--o--o--| End of Sacrifice |--o--o--|

Rescue

Jimmy was not okay.

It had been three weeks, three long weeks since Scott had given himself up for Jimmy, and Jimmy hated it.

He had been living in constant dread, terrified of what they would do to Scott. They'd stopped attacking Jimmy, but what if they were just directing their anger at Scott instead? What awful things were they doing in the dark of night, hidden away where no one could find them?

Jimmy couldn't take it anymore.

He found himself at Katherine's, at a meeting of several rulers, standing up and demanding that they save Scott.

Katherine agreed, and so Jimmy found himself standing outside the church of Mythland with Gem, fWhip, and Katherine behind him.

Sausage stepped out, lifing his head arrogantly. "Hello, what brings you to Mythland?"

"What have you done to Scott!?" Jimmy demanded unhesitatingly.

Sausage snickered. "Just put it in its place."

Jimmy saw red. "Don't you ever dare talk about another living, breathing person like that!"

"Oh, but it's not," Sausage giggled hysterically. "Not! None of those!"

"Not- what?" Jimmy paused. If Sausage wasn't just delirious of bluffing... no, he had to be!

"Living! Breathing! A person!" Sausage echoed. "Come see for yourself."

He pulled a chain and a trapdoor on the floor slid open.

"Jimmy, wait-" Gem called frantically. Jimmy knew exactly what she was going to say, but he didn't care. It's a trap!

It didn't matter.

He dove down through the trapdoor and found a dungeon, cobblestone walls splattered with blood and mold. Jimmy wrinkled his nose at the smell... and then he saw him.

"Scott?" he gasped.

The elf hung limply from the ceiling by his wrists like a shot deer. Jimmy could see blood around the shackles, like they'd rubbed his wrists until they bled. More chains trailed off starting from his wings. His skin was pale and it didn't look like he was breathing.

"Your precious Champion is dead." Xornoth hissed from the shadows.

Everything around Jimmy seemed to vanish and his world narrowed to just the three of them. It was like someone had pulled the wrong Jenga brick and everything was tumbling down, rushing over Jimmy like water bursting from a dam. "NO!"

A female voice worriedly tried to call his name, but Jimmy didn't care. He didn't care that there was a demon, didn't care that they'd never been husbands in this life, didn't care that everyone else was watching. All he could think was that Scott was gone, forever. Beautiful, sarcastic Scott, who Jimmy had never confessed his love for.

All he could think was how he'd never hear Scott's smug laugh when he taunted Jimmy, never feel another rush of emotion at seeing a flower lovingly labeled with elegant Elven handwriting, never feel his heart flutter as he snuck through the undergrowth to hear Scott singing in the dawn, illuminated by the golden light of the early morning.

The last words Scott had said to him, a promise. A hopeful, broken promise.

Everything will be okay, Jimmy, I promise."

Everything wasn't okay.

Nothing would ever be okay ever again.

"-MONSTER!" Jimmy finally listened to what was going on around him just in time to hear Gem spit the word at Sausage in a seething rage.

Jimmy couldn't help but agree. "HOW COULD YOU!?" he demanded of them.

"There's no one left to oppose me now," Xornoth cackled.

"Oh, really?" Gem asked, her twin daggers gleaming where they stuck out from Sausage and Joey's chests.

Xornoth instantly sobered, then laughed. "Two more of your friends gone."

Katherine gasped. "No-"

"Oh, yes!" Xornoth crooned.

Everything was wrong. And Jimmy simply screamed until his lungs were hoarse, until he was left gasping for breath, until his voice died and he couldn't even speak.

A shadow overtook Xornoth's, an ancient power entering the room. "I sense death."

"Yes," Xornoth agreed happily.

"These deaths weren't meant to happen, servant of Exor," the voice replied.

"Is this like a multiverse or something?" Xornoth snickered at his own joke.

"I am the keeper of the Vigil, the observer of the World, the scribe of Death, but these names do not belong in my book."

Xornoth laughed. "You can't revive the dead."

"Actually, I can," Pix's happy voice became apparent and Jimmy just watched the scene unfolding before him with the ability to either burst out into hysterical laughter or dissolve into a sobbing mess at any moment.

A burst of power radiated from Pix's form, now in the room with them, and Sausage and Joey gasped and sat up, Gem's daggers returned to her belt. Scott didn't awaken and Jimmy's heart sank.

Pix clearly noticed, but didn't comment. "You've messed with the wrong god today, demon. Now stay away from my domain or else."

Xornoth vanished, dispersing, nothing more than an angry cloud. Pix walked over and snapped his fingers. Every chain attached to Scott vanished and he slumped to the floor limply. Jimmy's world seemed to brighten with new color when he saw that the elf was breathing (even if it was shallowly).

Everything would be okay.