Atreia has been in a number of awful situations throughout her very long life. Times where she was unable to think for the pain, times where she watched friends get cut down, times where she thought is this how I die? She'd always managed to pull through, by skill or luck or assistance.

None of those were quite as bad as this. All allies are either dead or scattered, all hope of help has long fled, and she thinks her luck is about to run out. She'll be beaten, mutilated, and dragged down to the deepest parts of Hell to die slowly at the hands of beings who have devoted their entire immortal lives to breaking unfortunate celestials, until all light in her soul is extinguished and she finally gives up and dies. Not a fate she's looking forward to, to say the least.

Maybe she can get out of this. She's supposed to be the clever one. The demons' wizards have shut down all teleportation and conventional planar transportation, but maybe she can come up with something unconventional. Trying to weave herself an unprecedented escape while fighting for her life is tricky - she misses a parry and fails to get out of the way of hellfire fast enough - but she'd been working on this problem anyway. She'd felt like she was near a breakthrough, one that would let them slip past the wizards' enchantments for a surprise attack. Maybe she was close enough to come up with the last few fragments of it under pressure, pull all of the theories together -

She's clipped by an unholy greatsword and lands in more hellfire, and she's not fast enough to get out of it. A clawed foot lands squarely on her back, pushing her further into the magical fire. Something grabs one of her wings with burning hands and begins sawing it off, and she can't quite manage to bite back her cry of pain.

- and the last piece clicks into place, and she might be fooling herself, but she's got nothing to lose if she's wrong. She hisses a word around the sob that's forming in her throat, and the demons and the battlefield disappear.

The celestial appears mid-air, and has long enough to be grateful that she didn't land in solid stone before her broken body lands unceremoniously with a crunch.