She ran.

She ran just as Ban had told her to, and her steps echoed with an eerie sound whenever her boots hit the empty cobblestone road. Her lungs ached for more oxygen or for a pause, but she didn't stop and willed her body forward instead. She fought to tighten her grip around the hilt of the weapon, her fingers slippery from blood.

Blood that wasn't hers.

Every turn she took revealed another street of Liones' capital, deserted or destroyed down to the foundation stones themselves. There was no one around to see her stumble and lose her footing, no one to help her climb back to her feet with quivering muscles; the surviving civilians had long been evacuated, and the Knights of the Round Table didn't show themselves either.

But she knew they were here, in the city, eager to carry out Mordred's every command.

The open square in front of the southern gate was empty when she reached it; Meliodas was nowhere to be seen. With brute force of determination, she sealed the rising panic away. It would all come to haunt her soon enough.

A sound from her right snatched her attention towards it, and her eyes went wide at the sight of the Colossai closing the short distance between itself and the southern gate, directed by an inaudible instruction. Every step the massive stone creature made was accompanied by a quake of the earth that made her teeth smack against one another. Its featureless head didn't bother to turn towards her. As it was, she was barely a threat to it or to its master's plan. She had already played her part.

Short on time to waste, she slipped through the tiny door next to the gate, while ignoring the fact of Meliodas' absence once more, and turned towards the well-hidden trap door that marked the entrance to the passageway out of the city. A passageway she knew all too well, and that had been the first thing her mind had clung onto after Ban had sent her away.

After dropping down into the narrow tunnel, she picked up speed to hurry past the path to her right that would lead her back to Liones' castle. The last place on earth she wanted to be.

She pushed the surging thoughts and memories aside, but not quickly enough before the definitive sound of a spear dropping down to the cobblestone flashed in her ears. Her chest was cramped. And all she could do was to keep heading forward, through the dark tunnel she had used to play in, in what seemed like ages ago.

And so, she reached the end of the tunnel right when she thought she should, where a tiny beam of light seeped through the ceiling. Her breath still going unsteady, she lifted the trap door equivalent on this end of the passageway and was endlessly relieved to feel grass beneath her hands, as she lifted herself out of the hole in the ground. The chirping of birds nearly sent her into paralysis with its uplifting tune, that stood in such stark contrast to what was happening in Liones at the same time.

Once she regained control over her muscles and stumbled to her feet, she followed the way through the sparse grove of chestnut trees that had clenched itself into her memory. The round shape of the house came into view quickly thereafter, unmistakable by its pointy rooftop rising above the canopy. It looked too peaceful to be true.

She hadn't even reached the steps to the porch when the door swung open, and Lance rushed over to her with a yell, only to trap her in an embrace.

"Ivy! Heaven, Ivy are you okay?" he asked, his voice too supportive for her liking.

But she was glad for his stabilizing arms that prevented her from falling victim to her trembling legs. With sheer force of will, Ivy choked down some of her tenseness and let herself be guided into the Boar Hat's main room.

Inside, she only got assaulted by more questions as Elaine floated closer. Worry clouded her expression. "What happened? Where is Ban?"

Ivy managed to shake her head at the second question. She didn't know, hadn't seen him since he had headed to the castle, his steps controlled by worry and anger.

"Mom, stop it for now," Lance tried to intervene, but his mother ignored him to lock Ivy's gaze with a commanding stare that failed to suppress her fear.

Elaine proceeded with a single word question.

"Harlequin?"

Ivy was frozen in place. The answer to that, she did know. With crushing certainty.

Ivy, go now! Get to Ban and don't stop! You hear me?

Elaine had to have seen something in Ivy's gaze, something horrific enough for her to float a few feet back. Maybe the truth.

Lance's grip around her shoulders tightened as he witnessed his mother's reaction. "It's okay, Ivy. Everything's okay," he said in a low voice, to calm her or himself, Ivy couldn't tell for sure.

And that was when she finally broke, and the grip around her weapon went loose, before she flung her arms around Lance and cried into the shoulder of her cousin without any restraint.

Helplessly, he patted her back in an effort to calm her, but the images in her head repeated themselves with no remorse, tortured her until numbness gradually covered her mind. Ivy hadn't seen everything Mordred had done to her family, but it was more than enough to get a grasp on the extent of his betrayal.

While her tears dried out, Ivy regained enough composure to bring a bit of space between herself and her cousin. Embarrassment formed inside of her at the sight of his green tunic covered with her tears and the blood from her hands. Wasn't she usually the collected one of the two? Didn't she have the responsibility to spare him the sight of her weakness?

Lance's eyes darted sideways as Ivy tried in vain to get her hair back in order, only for him to glance back at her with this terribly compassionate look that almost sent her over the edge again. Ivy surrendered to the mess of her hair; all determination and strength was used up.

But she had to concentrate on something, anything else, or she would break down. So she avoided the scrutiny of Lance's scarlet eyes as much as possible and looked around the room, feeling betrayed by how usual everything looked. The coarse-constructed wooden tables and chairs, the glass windows, tainted from a lack of recent cleaning, the richly stocked booze shelves behind the counter – all of it bared the illusion of normalcy. As if her parents and siblings had just gone to town and would be back any minute.

Her aunt, Elaine, had settled herself at a corner near the window with the best view at the capital of Liones to wait for some sign from her loved one or any of the other Sins. The afternoon sun painted vivid patterns onto the floor as it filtered through her Fairy wings. And at the feet of the staircase leading to the upper rooms stood Katrina, her eyes wide in shock as she took in the scene in front of her.

Ivy couldn't look at her for more than a few seconds. She had no idea how long Katrina had been standing there, but the thought of breaking down in front of her, for her to witness, was even worse than doing it in front of Lance.

Following Ivy's line of sight, Lance turned around to give Katrina a hardly convincing smile. "Hey, Katrina. Ivy just came back from the capital and –," he started his comfort talk, undoubtedly pecked with soothing lies, but was immediately interrupted by the subject of his words.

"Something happened." It didn't sound like a question.

"We don't exactly know what happened, but our parents will surely tell us when they get back here," Lance tried again, but his words convinced no one, not even himself.

Katrina shook her head and focused on Ivy once more with a look that seemed absentminded and all too concentrated at the same time, as if she intended to read right through her thoughts. Ivy at least had the willpower to hide her blood-soaked hand behind her back.

An earthshattering sound suddenly filled the room, a hundred drums to signal the end of the world simultaneously. All heads snapped towards the window next to Elaine, through which they watched a cocoon of dark, demonic magic rise over the walls of Liones' capital, its sheer presence able to consume everything in close proximity. But as quickly as it emerged, the darkness disappeared, wiped from the face of this earth.

If Katrina had displayed shock before, it was nothing compared to the fear submerging her face now. Her green eyes threatened to drown in a pool of darkness, and Ivy reacted just in time to prevent her from storming out the door.

"DAD!" Katrina cried into Ivy's ears while she hopelessly struggled against the fierceness of Ivy's grip. Lance tried once more to calm her with words, but received no reaction from Katrina other than more forceful cries for her father.

After a while, Ivy felt Katrina go limp in her arms and let go of her just enough to seat her at one of the unoccupied tables. The younger girl looked like she had walked through Purgatory and back, and Ivy realized she probably had the same hollowness plastered on her face.

In need of help, Ivy turned to Elaine, the only adult in the room, but her aunt held the look of the broken, her frail form still curled up next to the window. Lance continued to stand at the center of the room emptyhanded, unsure of what to do with himself.

"I suppose that means Escanor and the backup from Camelot didn't make it in time," he said, his voice hollow. "We can wait a few more hours, but then we should leave. We have to assume that Mordred will get here next."

"It's pointless," Ivy said. She needed any ounce of strength left to get her words out.

"What?"

"The waiting part. It's pointless."

Lance looked at her in sincere confusion. "Ivy, we have to give Aura and the others a chance to get here. You can't give them up like this."

"It's pointless, you hear! Aura, Cynthia –" Ivy heard her own voice break, but she couldn't find the courage to continue. Lance had no idea what had happened, what Mordred had done, what he was willing to do with the rest of them.

At a loss for words, Lance stumbled a few feet backwards, in an effort to bring physical distance between himself and her words. Denial made him shake his head, only for his voice of reason to regain the upper hand. Defeated, he sank down into a chair next to Katrina.

"We have to fix this." Ivy raised her head to look at the owner of the voice and was surprised to find Katrina on her feet. Determination spread from her small form. "It doesn't matter what it will cost, but we have to fix this. We can get to Camelot for help."

Ivy couldn't help but cough at this. "And what plan exactly do you have in mind?" she asked and realized a bit too late how unfairly poisonous her tone was. Katrina flinched but remained steadfast.

"I don't have a plan. But that's not the point. We have to do something. Right, Elaine?" Katrina turned towards Elaine, but the latter gave no response other than a continued stare into the middle distance.

Lance, desperate to reach for any lifeline they would throw at him, supported Katrina with a little too much élan. "Camelot is as good a place as any to look for help against Mordred." He turned towards Elaine. "Mom, we can go to Camelot, while you get back home to the Forest and –"

"I'm not letting you go!" Elaine shouted, as Lance's words had reignited a spark of life she had previously hidden away. "Do you realize what will happen if Mordred gets a hold of you? HE MURDERED THEM! Ban, my brother, Diane, my nephew, my nieces… Helbram and Aura… they were just children. I… I can't read their hearts anymore."

Ivy clenched her hands, eyes fixated on the floor. She had known all this or had at least felt it with almost absolute certainty.

Blood on the marble tiles. Blood on the ridge of Mordred's sword. Blood on her father's clothes as he stood up one last time.

Almost reluctantly Elaine continued to speak, at first only fixated on her son, but then she included Katrina and Ivy with a stern look. "I'm not letting you go, Lance. None of you. Otherwise your parents would end me."

It wasn't enough to ban the images out of her head, and it wasn't enough to make her forget. But Ivy still made the necessary steps to close the gap between herself and Elaine and let herself be hugged right after Katrina.

The Seven Deadly Sins were dead.

But they wouldn't give up hope just yet.

(A/N) Thank you for deciding to read this Next Generation fic. This may seem obvious, but this story heavily relies on characters not part of the manga or anime and will include some AU elements. The changes I made are most likely intentional, so please be aware of that when you stumble over aspects in the story that might not 100% fit into canon.

This work was inspired by "Four Riders of the Apocalypse" by Kamije Celeek. Because updates used to be so sporadic on that fic, my mind had too much time filling in the blanks. Basically what happened was, I took the premise, cherry-picked what I liked about the character constellation, filled the holes with my own ideas, spun it around a few times, and build thirty years of in-universe history from there. The characters will be different, but I couldn't bring myself to change Ivy's name - none of the ones I considered fit her character as much.

Because I recently fell into the hole that is Arthurian Legend, there might be some cross-reference to those stories as well.

Please feel free to let me know what you think. So long!