A lone figure, wizened with age, walks across the near-lifeless surface of a desert world, his combat boots leaving impressions in the ground behind him, his wrinkled yet muscular chest coated in sweat and a small dusting of sand.

He strides, quite powerfully for a man of his years, towards four figures upon horseback.

As he approaches, a sudden gust of wind blows a familiar blue beret off the man's head, to where it falls at the fiery hooves of one of the horses.

"If yeh would kindly give me back mah hat, we kin start this." An ancient Sam extends his firm, yet aged hand toward War, whose mount simply places one flaming hoof upon the blue beret in front of him, burning it to a crisp.

“Hmm.” The old farmer rescinded his hand.

A distressed Sam thinks back to the day that led to this fateful encounter.

A small wrapped parcel arrives on the doorstep of the house that Sam built for himself on this barren world. The mere presence of a package upon his doorstep was not surprising considering the town that had very quickly sprung up around his little house. He was always receiving a gift of some sort for his assistance with various tasks and labors. This one seemed a little different. Something about it was... Off.

Upon unwrapping it, he found inside a small leaf with a suspiciously familiar perfumed scent...
“No... It can't be...”

He dropped the package and held the leaf, turning it over to see the words written in a scrawl, etched into the leaf as if they had been burned there.

March to the west.
We will find you.

The ancient Samuel stands across from the specters, showing little sign of fatigue, his face a portrait of fierce determination.

"Ah got one question fer yeh." Sam gives the morbid horsemen a steely glare. "Why take Ilushia? What can yeh POSS'BLY want with meh?"

Death himself dismounted from his horse, the sparse vegetation beneath his feet writing and dying, turning brown, then black as he strode near Sam.

He lowered the hood from his head to reveal the face, not of a skeleton as might be expected, but of our hero, Samuel himself.

"We had plans for you Samuel. Important plans." Death gazed with his familiar face and piercing black eyes into Sam's wizened old eyes.

"Wha' d'yeh mean 'plans'?" Sam's face never changed as he spoke, but one could almost feel the tension in the air, as if the entire area had been bathed in a fog.

The horseman spoke again, "Oh come now... Do you really think that the artillery fire raining down upon you was merely an ACCIDENT? Oh Sam... We thought you were smarter than that..."

War chuckled from atop his fiery steed. "I must admit, that wasn't my best work, but it got the job done, eh?" Death turned his head and looked upon War with a face that only death himself can make. One that pierces your soul and leaves mortal men screaming in agonizing madness.

His chuckle quickly subsided as the flames from his horse seemed to fade ever so slightly. "I'm... Sorry... For speaking, sir..."

His gaze returned to Sam with a small smile curling the corners of his mouth. "Now Samuel, you may be wondering what I mean by plans? Yes? You are, but that isn't why you're still here, is it? You could really care less, couldn't you? Yes... That's it. You are here for her aren't you? Ah! I seem to have struck a chord!"

Sam's wrinkled old eyebrows furrowed as death mentioned her, the love of his previous life. The woman he left behind such a long time ago.

"Ilushia..."

"Yes... If I were a betting man, which I am, from time to time, I'd wager that you're wondering where she is, aren't yo-HRK!" Death's words were cut short as Sam's hand, still firm and strong from many years of backbreaking labor, closed tightly around his neck, surprising the both of them for a few fractions of a second.

"Where...”
“Is...”
“She?"

The horseman wearing Sam's youth upon his face grinned widely. "Ah... There we are! There is the Samuel that would become the end!" He reached his hand to grasp Sam's wrist and Sam found that he could no longer keep his grip on Death's throat.

Recoiling his hand, Sam wrung it a few times to regain feeling in it as he continued to stare with the same fierce face into Death's deep dark pools of black.

"Wha' d'yeh mean 'Tha End'?", he questioned.

Death chuckled at the question, a deep dark chuckle that left no question to the lack of mirth or humor behind it.

"I meant exactly what I said, dear Samuel. The End. To this world, to this galaxy, to this entire plane of existence! No more! You were to break us from our eternal bonds by bringing about the end of all." He began grinning evilly, as if he were the only one who was in on he surprise.

"Without anything left, there would be no more Death, no more War, no more Pestilence or Famine. And we could rest in eternity." Death's eye's grew wide as he began to laugh a hearty maddened chortle

"But NO! YOu deCIded thaT yOu had BETteR thiNGS to DO!" Death's laughter grew in intensity as he began to twitch and his face began to distort. Sam took a step back, feeling in his hand now returned, and prepared to defend himself.


"AH would NEVAH do tha'! What could poss'bly make yeh think Ah'd agree tah tha'?"

Death seemed to glide with an unearthly grace and speed, right up to Sam's person, his fetid breath hissing past Sam's ear, leaving it cold and numb.

"OH! YoU wouLD HavE, MY... DeAR.. SamUEl... IF It wERen'T foR tHE meDDLinG Of a cERtaIn LEgIOn quEEn! I'M suRE yoU cAN gueSS WhO? YeS?"

Something inside Sam snapped and he couldn't restrain himself any longer. Drawing upon the strength of his mind and body, he put his entire being into his right fist as he drove it into the distorted replica of his own youthful face, sending Death sprawling the twenty feet back to his mount.

He was seething with rage as he stepped forward, the air around him becoming as thick as water with the intensity.

"WHA' 'AVE YEH DONE WITH HER?!"

It may have been the fighting instinct, long since forgotten from his years at MSF High, or maybe some supernatural force had decided the horsemen must be stopped at all costs, but Sam seemed to grow more youthful with each step. His bleached white hair regained some of it's color, and his skin seemed to sag less. His arms grew corded and his chest chiseled as if from solid marble stone.

"YEH'VE TAKEN MAH LOVE, THREAT'ND MAH WELL BEIN', AND TOLD MEH THA' AH'M S'PPOSED TAH BRING ABOUT THA END OF EVERTHIN'?" His eyes burned with such intensity that the fearsome mounts of all four horsemen began to move in place, as if they wanted nothing more than to leave this place and get away from this fearsome being, but  feared their dark masters more.

"AH'LL TELL YEH SOMETH'N. YOU PROBABLY DIN'T KNOW THA' AT MSF HIGH, YEH GET TAH CHOOSE YER DESTINY AT GRADUAT'N? DID YEH? WELL AH'LL TELL YEH THIS MUCH. THA' WAS ONE OF MAH CHOICES. TAH END ALL, TO BE THA BRINGER OF THA END SOMEDAY. KNOW WHAT? AH DECIDED I WASN'T GONNA TAKE THA PATH. SO AH SETTLED OUT HERE, IN THA MIDDLE A' NOWHERE." Sam's youth was flowing back at top speed as he approached the horsemen. Their mounts were now visibly retreating, against the fierce wishes of their riders, from the terrible being before them.

"BUT AH KNEW AH STILL 'AD THA POTENTIAL FER IT! SO AH STAYED OUT HERE 'NSTEAD A' GOIN' OUT TO FIND 'LUSHIA, MAH SHININ' STARH. MAH LIFE. MAH LOVE. MAH OTHA' HALF."Sam was feet from the horsemen at this point, an only a few years from the height of his strength, the day he passed through the portal upon graduation from MSF High.

The horses froze solid, unable to move from the absolute terror. As Sam approached, his eyes softened and he petted the muzzle of Famine's withered steed and it nickered softly.

"Ah let 'er go. Ah nevah stopped lovin' 'er, but ah 'ad tah let 'er go." He turned his head and fixed his gaze upon Death, still sprawled out upon the ground, trying to scramble up onto his horse, and his face returned to the exact moment in time that he accepted his destiny.

"And yeh wen' an' brought 'er back intah all a' this 'eh?"Death managed to get his contorted body upright as he stood beside his mount, his distorted face too twisted to show emotion.
"YeS. WE diD." He sneered defiantly.

"Ah see.", was Sam's reply.

It was quick and merciless as he assailed the final harbinger. His left fist coming down on Death's shoulder as if he were swinging hammer, driving him to his twisted, mangled knees. His right fist flew at mach speed, shearing through the air as his claymore used to shear through those who would hurt him or Ilushia.

The impact was heard as far away as the tiny settlements on the other side of the small world and the cloud of dust and sand could be seen for miles.

As the dust cleared and the debris settled, a crater, the size of a small lake, could be seen in the landscape, and at the bottom, two small figures.

The horsemen were thrown by the shockwave of the impact, but quickly reassembled their formation at the edge of the crater, death's horse riderless.

At the bottom of the crater, Sam was on one knee, his fist bleeding and his bones shattered. Every finger broken and the skin on his knuckles torn completely off.

He leaned in close and spoke but three words to the pile of black shreds beneath him.

"Where is she?"