Chapter Text
HELL AT HELL’S HOTEL
Blitzo was a very successful businessman, thank you very much. One of the most successful businessmen in all of Hell, in fact. He was one of the very few imps who had risen above the societal status of his kind. It had been a long, hard slog, and he’d had to suffer decades of humiliation and pain, but he’d done it. He had started his own business by securing a monopoly on the market, and once a few billionaire sinners came to him, he was set.
What was his business, you ask? Killing the living, of course! For a price, he’d take his team to the human realm and kill whoever he was paid to. While some would doubt the morality of that, the fact was that Blitz was a creature of Hell, where the qualifying test for existing was immorality. In a place where the likes of Dahmer, Epstein, and Hitler were considered celebrities, killing people for money was pedestrian. Going to the human realm to kill innocents was probably a bad thing, but who was going to stop him?
As for how he managed to gain a monopoly on access to the human realm…….. He simply slept with the Demon Prince that had the magic book that could do so. Of course, most members of Demon Royalty could access the human realm without a magic book, but he was the only one that would do it for money – No one was going to walk up to old Luci and ask him to open a portal to the living world just so that they could kill their teacher for giving them an F and sleeping with their ex.
It had been five years since he had started his business, and everything had gone smoothly. Sure, there were a couple of bumps along the way, namely the D.H.O.R.K.S, but they had been dealt with in a long and bloody battle that had brought all members of I.M.P closer together. There were also the occasional humans that fought back, but they were Hellborn; They could take hits and get back up fairly easily, and could quickly heal from most wounds.
Moxxie, Millie, and his own daughter Loona – his star (And only) employees. They had stuck together through thick and thin, no matter what Hell and Heaven threw their way – Millie’s pregnancies had kept her out of the action for two periods of six months, but the twin hellions and their elder brother had been worth it.
Blitz had not cried when Moxxie named him the Satanfather. He had not!
Moxxie’s father, Crimson, had been a f*cked-up pain in the ass, but they had managed to get through the mafia boss and his entire organization! No one messed with I.M.P and got away with it.
Then of course, Loona had gone to that orgy and had ended up with five pups from who knew how many fathers, but none of the team had abandoned her. Sure, he had been mad that his daughter had become a teenage mother and had been prepared to subtract every male hellhound at the orgy from the population, but taking care of Loona had taken precedence. Taking care of five kids had been tedious, but they had managed.
And now, I.M.P was better than ever. They had their own building, and they even had their own parking with its own automated defense system specifically to keep Verosika and her whor*s out! When on missions, Loona watched the kids. And by watched, everyone knew that she dumped them in the one room they had converted into a spiked ball pit. Sure, her kids were bigger and over a year older than Millie’s, but Millie’s kids were, well, Millie’s. So being younger and outnumbered was a necessary handicap to prevent Loona from becoming childless.
Either way, life in the afterlife was good. His relationship with Stolas was going great, he could sometimes get a threesome with M&M, Loona’s kids called him grandpa, and even Barbie Wire acknowledged that there was no ‘o’ in Blitzo.
Right now, I.M.P was finishing cleanup on their latest hit – A happy family of thirteen – A mom, dad, their five kids, and three of those had partners and kids of their own. And these weren’t even cannibals, these were genuine, upstanding members of society. They had all been qualified for heaven. Their client had asked for all thirteen corpses.
Why?
Well, as it turned out, the mom was actually their client’s wife, and all those five kids weren’t even his. She had cheated on him for decades, and he hadn’t figured it out until he had caught them having sex. In his own car. Worst of all, the guy she was cheating with was her own father.
Yikes.
Their client had killed himself a month ago; The crime of suicide damning him to hell. Heaven didn’t even consider his circ*mstances, much like for Mrs. Mayberry, who still came around to party sometimes.
Yeah, Heaven was f*cked up like that.
Either way, this had been one of the easier jobs – They had murdered them all in their sleep and wrote ‘Revenge for Donald Incestershire’ or something on the living room wall. Moxxie was the only one who could spell that last name, but he wanted to be the one who got to paint with blood, so whatever. Who cared about a little spelling mistake anyway?
“Aaand we are done here!” Blitz said, wiping off the blood on his hands on the expensive mink coat. “Since we’re done so far ahead of schedule, we have time for other activities! Mils, you wanna bang?”
“Sir-” Moxxie began exasperatedly, only for his own wife to cut him off.
“Sure thang, Blitz! It’s been a while since we’ve done anythang in bed!”
“Well then, let’s show these beds action like they’ve never seen! Also, your husband can watch.”
“Sir-”
Moxxie began once more, but Blitz ignored him sliding up to Millie and grabbing her ass. Those muscles could crush human skulls, and he had seen them in action. And somehow, Moxxie was man enough to survive being crushed by them.
He was about to kiss Millie, when he felt Moxxie slap his ass sharply.
“Hey, I thought we agreed that you’d sit aside and watch as I f*cked your wife! You’ll get your shot at me tomorrow!”
“Sir, we already told Loona that this was a ten-minute job. She’ll be opening the portal any second now.”
“Oh come on, since when does Loonie ever open the portal on time?”
Just as he said that, the air behind him rippled, and a psychedelic prism tore through the fabric of reality, showing their office on the other end.
“Well,” Millie said, and Moxxie looked a bit too smug for someone who was in f*cking distance. “Look at who just got co*ckblocked by his own daughta!”
His shoulders slumped.
“Cheer up Blitz, maybe next time,” She continued, slipping out of his grip. “You’re really good in bed, after all!”
He was about to make some wisecrack remark, when he froze. All three of them did. They were top-of-the-line assassins, so they knew how to detect danger. And what they were feeling was danger incarnate. As if there was something right behind them that would come after them relentlessly, uncaring of anything else. A physical manifestation of Black Air Force Energy.
Another portal, much crisper and cleaner than theirs, opened on the other side of the living room. The clear, blue ring was ten feet in diameter, and they could see nothing on the other end.
And then, he stepped through.
The man was a mountain of muscle, his biceps looking like they had the strength to crush worlds. His armor was green, but it carried the stench of the death of innumerable beings. And those eyes behind the visor of his helmet….
Rage.
Pure, unadulterated rage. Rage which was currently directed at them.
“Run!”
Blitz didn’t even need to give the command, for the other two were already making a mad dash for their portal. Moxxie had dropped a smoke grenade as they made their retreat, but he had a feeling that it would only buy them a second. They had to make that one second count.
Millie was the fastest of the trio and made it through first.
“Loona!” She yelled, snapping the resident Hellhound to attention.
“Close it!” Blitz yelled as he dove through the portal, dragging Moxxie with him. “Close the portal now!”
Loona snapped her fingers, and the portal shrunk down to nothingness.
Or at least, that is what should have happened.
Those armored gloves made it through the portal, and the madman physically stopped the portal from shrinking.
And then he slowly began to pull harder, forcing a hole in reality to expand with brute strength.
“Moxxie, Loona, get the kids!” Blitz yelled, drawing his guns. “Millie and I’ll distract him!”
“Take care honey!” Moxxie said, quickly kissing his wife on the lips. “I’ll see you soon!”
“Go!” Blitz yelled, and the two dashed out the door. He quickly made his way to his table and hit a few buttons. The wall opened, revealing a massive stash of weaponry and other equipment. Wordlessly, he and Millie grabbed everything that they could without being burdened. He quickly opened the large windows behind them as Millie grabbed the last of her equipment, and then they waited.
It only took the man a few more seconds to force the portal apart wide enough for him to slip through. He set foot in the office as the portal shut behind him.
For a second, there was deafening silence.
Then, he cracked his knuckles.
“FIRE!” Blitz yelled, and he and Millie simultaneously unloaded their automatic weapons at him. Millie was dual-wielding a machine gun and two assault rifles taped together for twice the firepower, and Blitz was using a flamethrower in parallel with a plasma rifle.
But the intruder simply stood there, uncaring of the attack. He was unaffected by the heat and plasma, and the bullets shattered against even the exposed skin of his biceps.
“MILLIE, NOW!”
Blitz flicked another switch just as they both activated their jetpacks, rocketing backwards and out the window. A split second later, the entire office was consumed in a fiery explosion.
“Oh, thank f*cking Satan!” Blitz exclaimed as they flew away. “For a moment there-”
He did not continue, as his jetpack was hit by a sniper round, followed by Millie’s a split second later. The jetpacks exploded, and they would’ve died had it not been for the fact that they were fireproof.
What they were not was fall damage-proof, which was bad, considering that they were about a hundred stories off the ground.
“Oh f*cking shiiiiit!” Blitz yelled as they fell.
Suddenly, there was a very familiar roar of a hellforged engine, and a pickup truck jumped a barricade, catching the two midair. Then it proceeded to smash straight through a building. It smashed through anything in its way, and then rushed down the stairwell, crushing unfortunate demons beneath before bursting out the front door and onto the main road.
“Nice drivin’, sweetie!” Millie yelled as she and Blitz pulled up the armored covering of the bed of their pickup truck.
“No problem!” Moxxie yelled back.
There was suddenly a problem as they were peppered by gunfire.
“Holy f*ck, that maniac’s still after us!” Blitz yelled, clambering through the window and over the kids in the back row who were all cheering, unaware of the danger they were in. “Who the f*ck even is this guy?!”
A rocket exploded near them, but the truck took the hit and powered through.
“Thank Satan for Toyota reliability, I suppose,” Loona muttered as she paged through Stolas’ magic book. “There’s nothing about him in here!”
All of a sudden, a pair of flaming hooks pierced the armored rear covering, and something pulled back at them. The wheels screeched as they managed to pull away at the cost of the armored covering getting ripped off.
“f*ckf*ckf*ck,” Blitz muttered as he drew out his phone. “Come on, pickitup pickitup pickitup….. Stolas!”
“Yes my dear Bl-”
“No time for that!” He yelled into the phone as Moxxie shot down three rockets by firing backwards while looking in the mirror, allowing Millie to return fire. “Some armored psycho from the human realm ripped the portal back open with his bare hands and is now trying to kill us!”
“Moxxie, turn NOW!” Millie yelled. They swerved dangerously, Moxxie sending the rear tires skidding as they made an impossibly sharp turn. A bolt of red impacted where they would’ve been, and a split second later, there was an explosion that put a hole in the road and collapsed the buildings nearby.
The buildings fell on the armored man as he ran at them, and then the absolute madlad ran straight through the collapsing buildings as if they were of no consequence to him. Blitz turned on video call and pointed the camera right at their hunter.
“So yeah, I’mma need you to portal us out of here pronto!”
Blitz had not expected the man in green armor to pull open the portal with his bare hands, but what he expected even less was Stolas’ shriek of fright, just before the line went dead.
“Oh no.” Millie said, and the tone of her voice meant that sh*t was beyond serious. He looked back down the road, only to see a blade of red energy moving towards them that cut down anything in its wake, even buildings. This was it: They were all going to die here.
All of a sudden, he felt a searing pain as if his body was being pulled apart atom by atom, and then there was silence.
And then there were the sounds of crying kids, as well as the relieved sobs of a Demon Prince.
“Stolas, the f*ck was tha-”
SMACK!
Blitz found his head turned 90 degrees by the slap, but then he was being hugged to death.
“Oh Blitz, thank goodness you’re alright!” Stolas sobbed. “I had hoped to never encounter him in my existence, much less for you to do so.”
“Uh, what do you mean, sir?” Moxxie asked as Loona tried to calm the crying kids. They weren’t injured, but Stolas’ forced instant teleport had hurt. “Do you know who that was?”
Blitz could feel Stolas shudder, which was very concerning. As a Demon Prince, he was ranked very high on the power scale of hell, even higher than overlords. He was a direct descendant of the original angels, which made him a very powerful being indeed.
What in the world could terrify him?
“That,” He said, his voice trembling. “That is the Doom Slayer.”
The mighty slayer of the armies of Doom stopped in the middle of the road as the old Hilux vanished into thin air, escaping the destroyer blade by inches.
He was not happy, and this place was so saturated with Hell Energy that he couldn’t track them.
“Those demons seem to have escaped,” VEGA said through his helmet. “They possessed a very low amount of energy, the true nature of which I cannot determine at the moment.”
He frowned. An unknown kind of energy? Hell energy had always been the same throughout every dimension he had traveled to.
But then again, this was unlike any place in hell he had ever been to. He was surrounded by buildings, roads, and infrastructure, including electricity. This was actual civilization. It was unlike anything he had ever seen in any part of hell.
“Hey! You the f*cker that knocked down that building?!”
The slayer slowly turned around to face the ten-foot draconic creature that was staring him down.
“You crushed my car, you bastard!”
He could smell it – Evil. This place was bathed in it. While not an exact match for hell energy, the energy in this place was corrupting.
But he was the Doom Slayer – The one who walked the hellish wastelands of the Dark Realm and laid waste to the shadow-dwellers. He had been doing this for so long that he was immune to the corrupting effects.
“Hey! I asked you a question, bitch!”
BOOM!
With a single bark of the Super Shotgun, the head of the demon was erased. A few seconds later, the body vanished as he absorbed its essence.
“He’s got holy weapons!” A cry went up from one of the nearby buildings.
And a rain of demons descended upon him.
He ejected the spent shells from the Super Shotgun and reloaded it with fresh ones.
Another day, another demon army.
Angel Dust was bored. Sure, he could have fun with Husk, but having fun constantly kind of ruined the fun.
He had no idea how Charlie had convinced him to believe that.
He kept scrolling through the T.V channels, looking for something interesting. Something like some random demon slapping Vaggie’s ass, and Charlie blowing up half a city in retaliation. Charlie might just be especially violent, given that it was date night and Charlie had used her princess privileges to book an entire hotel in the Lust ring. Sure, sinners like Vaggie and himself could only exist in Pride, but she had the advantage of having the Princess of Hell at her side; You could f*ck around with Charlie, but not many lived long enough to make use of finding out.
Only Al and Angel could smack Vaggie’s ass for fun and get away with it.
Of course, he didn’t want Vaggie to be sexually assaulted. But given what he had gone through, he was a bit desensitized to something as relatively harmless as an ass smack.
The news remained boring, and there was not one mention of the ridiculed Princess of Hell.
With an exaggerated sigh, he got up and walked to the door. Fat Nuggets waddled over to him, nosing his ankles.
“Not now, Fat Nuggets. Mommy needs to go for a long walk. You stay here and have fun with Niffty and Husk, okay?”
“Going somewhere, my fine fellow?” Alastor said from six inches behind him, but the older residents such as him had gotten used to the Radio Demon’s jumpscares.
“If I said to your bedroom with you, would you accept?”
“No.”
“Aw shucks, worth a shot. Anyway, I’m bored, so I’m going for a walk. Be back in an hour.”
“Don’t eat out, I’m making dinner!” Alastor called out, the radio noise fading with distance.
“I’ll eat you out,” Angel said with a smirk, and then immediately backpedaled once the air filled with incomprehensible hieroglyphics and radio static. “I mean, of course I won’t! Wouldn’t dream of it!”
He made a mad dash for the exit before Alastor decided to sic some tentacles on him. Sure, he enjoyed tentacles, but Alastor would just have them hold him by his wrists and ankles for hours, which bored him to double death.
Outside the hotel, things were relatively peaceful, given that the setting was in hell. There was the honking of horns and random sinners getting run over, but they’d regenerate. Eventually. He walked down the street, taking in the sights and noises. He had to work a little to dodge attackers, but Charlie’s workout routine had worked miracles for him.
He allowed himself a small smile, looking up at the red sky. Immersing himself in peace like Charlie taught him to, he could almost believe that everything was fine.
Had he watched the news for just thirty seconds longer, he would’ve stayed inside.
He was bleeding. He had lost three arms-
BANG!
Correction – Four arms. He had lost four arms to the armored psycho with divine weapons.
As a former mafia member and a current resident in the hotel run by the literal Princess of Hell, Angel Dust knew a thing or two about how demons worked.
Ordinary weapons could injure them. They could rend apart the bodies of demons, leaving them as puddles of gore. They could be dissolved by acid, drowned in cement, and vaporized by plasma. They could be eaten alive, digested, and sh*t out. But they would still live. Their damned souls were condemned to this place, and it was determined to keep them there. Sinners were not meant to escape punishment so easily; No matter what they suffered, they would eventually reform, no matter how weak the demon.
Even Alastor was incapable of destroying a human soul by himself. Capturing, enslaving, breaking, sure, but he could not truly erase a soul from existence.
The only thing that could kill a demon was divine energy or a blessed weapon. Blessed weapons were rare; Forged from the remnants of the Exterminators’ spears into new forms. And even then, you needed to finish the job – Leaving a demon to bleed out from a cut from a divine weapon did not work, you needed to go for the brain or the heart. Blessed weapons needed to deal the finishing blow in order to expose a sinner’s soul to divine energies and eradicate it.
Divine energy was even rarer, accessible to only the upper echelons of Demon Royalty, namely those who were Angels that had Fallen from Grace. Their children could also access Holy energies, but Charlie had told him that some of the latest generation could barely access any. The number of beings in Hell who could use Divine energy was very limited.
So when he saw a walking tank in green killing sinners left and right without hesitation using a combination of blessed weapons and divine energy, his first thought had been ‘Lone Exterminator’. But that had been shut down upon observing the man’s brutality. Say what you want, but the exterminators were impersonal and devoid of hatred. However, this man was the physical manifestation of violence and anger, something which was not holy at all.
He tore through sinners and demons alike, not stopping for even an instant. He kept switching between guns, using at least five different ones from what he could see, to wreak havoc upon Hell. More and more powerful demons kept challenging him, but they all fell beneath the armored beast’s feet.
For once, Angel wished that Valentino would show up.
He had tried to make a run for it, of course, firing back to keep Mr. Angry distracted. But despite his size, he had evaded all of Angel’s fire and had begun picking off limbs with his sniper rifle. And he didn’t stop killing other demons in the meantime. Three rockets shot forth in rapid succession, obliterating three demons and the ones around them in a gory spectacle. Then he landed in the middle of the street, drew out that energy crossbow, and after charging up for a couple of seconds, launched a blade of energy that cut down hundreds of sinners and the building behind them.
The car Angel was hiding behind was kicked with tremendous force, sending him flying into a pile of gore. He’d be upset about his ruined fur had he not been so damn terrified.
He was going to die. He could buy himself a few seconds, but he was going to die. Die as in die die. The end. Finito. Curtain call.
In that moment, he realized that he did not want to die – He wanted to play cards with Fiona Mayberry. He wanted to run across the roofs of buildings with Cherri. He wanted to do his hair in new styles with Niffty. He wanted to invent new spray can colors with Baxter. He wanted to tease the hell out of Alastor. He wanted to have karaoke competitions with Verosika. He wanted to dance and party with Vaggie. He wanted to love Husk with everything he had. He wanted to be next to Charlie and bathe in the light of her pure soul, the purest soul in hell. Just being in her presence made even the worst days with Valentino better.
He returned fire, only to have his remaining two arms shot off, and the exploding rocket hurled him down the street and into a building.
Damn. Had he been turned to paste against the building, he could’ve reformed his body at a different location entirely. But now the green psycho had the chance to kill him personally. He trembled where he sat; Shrapnel rendering his legs useless. Tears formed in his eyes as he peered past the visor into the merciless eyes of his soon-to-be-killer.
For the first time in nearly a century, Angel prayed.
“Please, God. I know I’ve done a lot of f*cked up things and that I’m f*cked up myself. I made a lot of bad choices and I’m nowhere close to being redeemed. But please, I beg of you… Just one…… Last…… Chance……”
A single tear fell from his eyes as he closed them and accepted his demise.
CRASH!
BOOM!
But his prayers had been heard, and God’s own granddaughter came to his rescue.
Charlie burst through the wall with all the ferocity expected from the daughter of the King of Hell, dropkicking the man in green so hard that he was launched through several dozen buildings. She was in her first demonic form, with her teeth extra sharp, footlong horns extending from her head, fire flickering in her hair, and her eyes now red and gold.
“Angel!” She screamed, the fury in her eyes quickly changing to panic as she dropped out of the first stage of her demon form. “Are you hurt?”
“Not much, just disarmed,” Angel quipped back, wiggling the stumps of his arms. “But they’ll grow back.”
“I’m so glad you’re okay,” She sobbed, hugging him in a death grip. “I was so worried when I heard your prayer…..”
Angel Dust was kind of impressed that Charlie had made it through three rings in the span of five seconds.
Without even looking, she raised her arm to block and absorb balls of blue plasma that were shot her way.
“I’m sorry, Angel, but I can’t risk you getting caught in the crossfire, so I’m going to destroy your body and send your soul to the hotel, okay?”
He nodded. She raised a hand full of glowing demonic energy to his chest.
“Hey, Chuck?” He said, his eyes shining with unshed tears. “Thank you. Thank you so much. For everything.”
This time, it was her turn to nod stiffly as she incinerated his body.
The last thing he saw as his physical senses faded away was Charlie’s eyes hardening in a way that terrified him far more than the green man.
The Doom Slayer jumped over the rubble on his approach towards the demon that had landed a surprise hit on him. Its form was distinctly feminine, and it was capable of complex thought and human speech. Which made it dangerous.
He could also tell that this was going to be one of the most powerful enemies he had faced in quite a while. It hit like a Tyrant, but was also clearly much faster and more agile, combined with martial arts knowledge.
“This demon is unique,” VEGA supplied. “She seems to be a spring of Argent Energy. Energy levels……. Unquantifiable.”
The demon lit up bright red on his HUD. He frowned. Until today, nothing had possessed energy levels that VEGA could not identify. Even the ARC facility sensors could categorize Marauders. But unquantifiable? What even was this thing?
But then again, did it really matter? It was a demon. He was the Doom Slayer. That was all that mattered. He fired off an arbalest shot, dashing forward simultaneously and unloading micro missiles at it. The demon caught the arbalest in its bare hand, the explosion not even fazing it, the micro missiles less so.
Well.
This hadn’t happened in a while.
Normally, his weapons would damage demons on their own. For the exceptions, which notably included the Icon of Sin and a Marauder that was being particularly clever with its shield, he needed to imbue his weapons with the argent energy naturally produced by his body. This made it a contest between his power and the demon’s power, and that was a fight that had been decided eons ago.
He swapped the HAR for the plasma rifle and equipped the microwave beam mod. If it was to be a contest of argent energy versus argent energy, then so it would be.
The beam of blue locked on and shot forth at the speed of light. The demon managed to block it with its palm, but as he funneled more and more of his strength into the plasma rifle, he could see the demon being pushed back.
All of a sudden, the demon sprouted horns and it gripped the microwave beam, somehow infecting it and turning it red. The redness spread rapidly to the gun, causing it to explode in his hands.
“Her argent signature is rising rapidly. Her energy signatures are more prominent than those of the Icon of Sin.”
This just went from ‘minor inconvenience’ to ‘major threat if left alone’. Time to kick things up a notch.
He pulled out the combat shotgun equipped with the full auto modification and sprinted towards the demon. It matched his charge barehanded, and the fight was on.
Meanwhile, at the royal palace, Lucifer and Lilith were waltzing around the ballroom.
“Dear,” Lilith said, her voice heavy with passion, looking down at her much shorter husband. “While all this foreplay is very, very pleasurable, it seems slightly more concerning that our daughter is fighting the Doom Slayer.”
“Aww, don’t worry, my darling,” Lucifer said, spinning his wife into a dip. “She’s a big girl; She’ll be fine for a few minutes at the very least.”
“Judging by where your hands are, this is going to take a lot longer than a few minutes.”
“Oh well, we can at least finish this song.”
“Mmhmm. Dear, your hands are still on my posterior.”
“And I want them to be there, my darling wife.”
“How very eager of you, dearest husband.”
Lucifer stood on the tips of his toes and Lilith bent down to kiss, their lips meeting with heated passion, so much so that it would make Asmodeus blush.
The Doom Slayer was feeling a slight sense of impatience, which was something that didn’t happen. He was a timeless creature who was generally in no rush to do things. He never lazed around, but that didn’t mean that he rushed all his tasks.
But this demon was starting to get on his nerves. He had unloaded several tons of ammunition at it, only for it to move far, far faster than the bullets and dodge them all. It could teleport and use advanced spellcraft, summoning tentacles and the like, raining fireballs down on him, and launching energy beams that cut through buildings like butter and put the destroyer blade to shame. Even when he hit it, his ammunition simply bounced off its skin, even when imbued with argent energy.
He was running enough argent energy through his ammunition for a single precision bolt to end the Cyberdemon three times over. And this one was batting them out of the air like they were flies.
On top of that, it had reality manipulation, allowing it to bend the fundamental forces of the universe to its will. At one point, it had tried to snatch the Super Shotgun by twisting gravity towards itself. Obviously, that didn’t work. What did work was manipulating nuclear forces to phase through solid objects (Which included bullets) and ripping holes in reality to hit him with the full force of a supernova.
So yeah, he was slightly annoyed.
He stashed the HAR and drew the Unmaykr, unleashing waves of argent energy upon his surroundings. This time he used enough power to finish the Icon of Sin in a single blast.
This got him a reaction, as the demon was blown clean off its feet, carving a trench through the city. He dashed after it, meeting it halfway.
It had transformed once more: Its once straight horns were curved backwards, the long, blonde hair acted independent of gravity, its muscles tore through its clothes, and its hands and feet abandoned human similarity, turning into wicked claws meant for ripping and tearing, and yet those fingers retained human dexterity. Its muscles bulged dramatically before shrinking into a more compact form, ripping off all its clothes, and new armor formed magically over its body.
Boots, shinguards, forearm guards, brass knuckles, and a circlet around the head, all made from infernal metals with fire surrounding them. An old Greek-style battle skirt that fell to its knees, and Roman chest armor leaving its shoulders and upper arms exposed. Runes were meticulously carved across every piece. The final piece was a trident, which it twirled expertly as it charged him.
Oh, so it wanted melee? He could do melee.
The Crucible came out, the red argent blade ionizing the atoms in the air with its very presence. They swung, and he was surprised when he didn’t immediately cut the trident in half. It swung the trident in reverse, smacking his abdomen with tremendous force, the shockwave disintegrating the entire city. He landed on his feet and batted away the trident that had been thrown at him. It magically returned to the demon’s hands, and the fight began anew with heightened ferocity.
“Her signal is amplifying without limit. The longer you engage her in combat, the stronger she becomes. It would be wise to end this quickly, lest your colliding energies create a rift between worlds. The damage caused by the two of you fighting on an inhabited world would be devastating.”
Right then, no more f*cking around. He caught the trident with his blade, but the demon twisted, ripping the Crucible from his hand. He unleashed a blood punch to its chest, forcing it to release the trident. The Unmaykr came out, blasting the demon with argent energy. In the time it took to recover, he drew the BFG 9000.
‘Boom, bitch.’
The giant ball of argent energy shot forth with the potential to destroy a neutron star. There were no extra tendrils, for there were no demons left in the area. The one tendril hit his target, and then the ball of destruction closed in.
But then, the demon caught it. The demon caught the BFG shot. It roared, unhinging its jaw.
And then it ate the BFG shot.
Even the Slayer needed a quick moment to reboot after witnessing that.
The demon hissed, the flames on its armor growing even more intense than before.
The Doom Slayer growled, stashing away the BFG. Old school combat it was.
Both of them charged; their fists meeting each other with identical punches, the force cratering the ground and the shockwave reducing the rubble around them to dust. It tried to dropkick him in the stomach, but he was prepared, moving much faster and punching it in the stomach as well. It spat out a concentrated beam of energy from its mouth, and much to his shock, for the first time ever, the Praetor Suit’s warning systems went off.
“Her signature has spiked once more. I am unable to determine the ceiling of her powers, so you will need to eliminate her the old-fashioned way.”
Right on.
He unleashed a wild haymaker with enough force to make the Khan Maykr piss her pants. But the demon headbutted his fist, causing an explosion. It then came at him from below, landing a flurry of punches on his midsection, each as powerful as an exploding star, with gravity magic on its fists to make them heavier than entire planets.
There was no longer a city around them. The side effects of their combat had erased it from existence. He got it in the head with a hammer hit, but then it punched the ground, which resulted in an explosion that blew both of them apart.
He could no longer rely on the Praetor Suit’s slow reaction time, using his own supernatural senses to detect his foe before the suit’s sensors could detect it. After all, they were now approaching moving at the speed of light – The suit could not keep up with that.
“I recommend discarding this helmet, given that damaging it would lead to a loss of communication. Given your spiking energy signatures, the Praetor Suit will soon be compromised.”
Drat. He liked this suit.
He knocked the demon away with a kick and removed the helmet, tossing it over the horizon. The demon charged immediately, going straight for his face.
This one was smart.
Unfortunately, that wouldn’t save it.
The Doom Slayer took the fist to the face and remained unmoved. He stared at the demon. Its previous human-like features were distorted beyond recognition, but he could still detect the monstrous eyes widening in shock.
‘Yeah. Be shocked.’
His counter punch folded the demon in half, sending it skipping across the landscape. Black, feathery wings burst from its back, allowing it to regain control midair. It flew into the sky and then began accelerating towards him. He double jumped, not that the Delta-V jump boots did much at beyond the speed of light, but hey, it couldn’t hurt.
Their fists clashed with unprecedented force. The gauntlet on his right arm was blown to bits along with the demon’s brass knuckles. The force from their colliding fists was so great that everything in the pride ring was reduced to nothing. The Hazbin Hotel? Gone. The Royal Palace? Gone. Hellborn? All dead. Sinners? All without bodies. Even overlords had their physical aspects destroyed. The only ones to remain unscathed were Lilith and Lucifer.
Charlie and the Doom Slayer were both knocked into the ground, and he was forced to dodge numerous waves of argent fire. Those things would cut through the Praetor Suit like butter, and he really did not want to lose the doomblade on his left gauntlet. The demon let loose a feral scream, energy exploding from its body in a spherical shell, annihilating everything in its path. He punched the incoming shell, shattering the entire structure. The doomblade extended, and he put a not insignificant amount of argent energy into it to prevent it from losing structural integrity. He stabbed at the demon’s stomach, which shattered part of its armor, but didn’t break the skin. He retracted the doomblade and went for a right hook, smashing it into the ground.
He had encountered fireborne Hell Knights and fireborne Barons, but now he was introduced to fireborne tentacles. Hundreds of them, each big enough to wrap around the whole Earth. And they were fast. The doomblade came out, and he decided to live up to Elena Richardson’s wording – He cut through them like a sickle through a field. The ballista also made an appearance, the destroyer blade slicing through the tentacles with ease.
It was at this point that the demon descended from the sky, slamming into him and in turn, slamming both of them into the ground once more. He elbowed it off him and jumped to his feet. Meanwhile, the demon had used a breakdance flare to get on its feet. It continued the motion, sending waves of fire at him, but he powered through with little effort. The demon jumped and kicked him in the head with titanic force, but he headbutted the kick, shattering the shinguard.
What followed was a series of blows that broke both their armors. Its dropkick blew off most of his torso section, his dropkick shattered its entire backplate. He fragmented its circlet with a headbutt, and it broke the armor on his right leg with some sort of explosive magic.
And then he finally found the demon’s limit, twelve hours later. Its energy levels began dropping. Fast.
He grabbed it by the horns and began to rip it in half, but it reverted to its original, near-human form, causing the horns to vanish into thin air, and then transformed back.
And it got cleverer as it was backed into a corner. Wonderful.
It increased its teleporting frequency, and only went for areas where his armor had already broken off. Which would be effective, if not for the fact that the Slayer was tougher than his armor.
Well, now that it was playing this conservatively, it was time for the doomblade to make a reappearance. This time, his blade actually pierced the skin and drew blood. It sometimes managed to avoid death by using its armor, but it was a losing battle.
He tripped it up with his foot and brought the doomblade down in an overhead strike. It caught the blade in its palms, which was very bad. Very bad for the demon, that is. In a contest of pure strength, he’d crush any foe.
However, unlike what most people would assume, the Doom Slayer was smart and observant. He noticed things and wasn’t a simple berserker without the assistance of VEGA.
He noticed that the demon was absorbing argent energy. More specifically, it was absorbing his argent energy through the doomblade.
‘Some sort of succubus derivative? It did absorb the BFG shot.’
The doomblade retracted and he punched down with his right, but it teleported out of range. Hellfire surrounded it as he drew the Unmaykr. It did not regenerate its armor, but instead wrapped its feathered wings in hellforged metals, and then launched those feathers like throwing knives. Each one intercepted Unmaykr blasts and transferred the energy over to the demon, further cementing his suspicions.
He dismissed the Unmaykr and the chaingun with the mobile turret came out, the quadruple barrels raining hell down on the demon that could only absorb a minimal amount of energy from the bullets.
But then threads emerged from its palms, whipping around and picking up the bullets. The bullets which he had created using his own energy. And now, the demon was using those threads to convert everything they touched back into energy to fuel itself.
This one was quite the persistent bastard that really did not want to die.
‘If you didn’t want to die, you wouldn’t have fought me.’
Alright, so guns were out. Back to square one it was.
His next punch launched the demon away, forcing it to use up all the absorbed energy to stay alive. It spread its wings and flew, but he was not allowing this one to get away. As soon as he rendered this one immobile, he was stabbing it in the brain with the Crucible and leaving the blade there. And then he was taking the body with him to the Fortress of Doom.
He leapt into the air and used his energy to solidify the air under his feet, creating platforms literally from thin air. He ran through the air, catching up in seconds and then tackled it, sending them both crashing to the ground. He forced its head down, forcing it to bear the brunt of the damage as their momentum dug a trench a mile deep and several dozen miles long.
He grabbed it by the neck and jumped out of the trench and began dragging it over to where he could sense the Crucible. The demon’s trident flew at his head, but he grabbed it out of the air and stabbed the demon in the stomach with it. It gasped in pain, and he enjoyed the sight of it bleeding. He pushed the trident far enough to pin it to the ground and walked a few feet away, where the Crucible blade was still lit. He picked it up, and his senses were immediately assaulted with a new type of energy.
But this energy was different, lacking the corruption of hell energy. In fact, it radiated purity and peace.
It was purer than the energy of the uncorrupted wraiths. It was purer than Sentinel energy.
It was purer than Maykr energy. Purer than the energy of literal angelic beings.
He turned around and saw that the demon he had been fighting had transformed one more time.
Gone was the war armor. Gone was the royal circlet. Gone was the trident and the red of blood. Gone were the horns and the fire.
Its wings were pure white, radiating a holy aura so pure that he could not recall seeing something purer. It made the Maykrs look like demons in comparison. The war armor was replaced by white and golden robes. The royal circlet had turned into a crown of flowers. The trident had turned into a simple wooden staff, and its blood was now gold instead of red. The horns and fire had been replaced by an actual honest to goodness halo. In place of its eyes, there were two young stars, radiating light everywhere it looked.
For the first time in a long, long time, he was…… Unsure of how to proceed. He was unsure of what he was seeing.
Was this a demon…… Receiving the grace of God?
He discarded that thought, but at the same time, he made no move other than deactivating the Crucible, but still holding on to it.
And then two more presences made themselves known. Far, far older, and far, far more powerful than the one he had just fought. Sure, a drop in the ocean compared to him, but an aggravating endeavor, nonetheless.
“Hold, Slayer.”
He gazed upon the beings that had appeared before him. White suit, white hat, white wings, and apple symbol on his cane that matched the one on the trident, a face very similar to that of the demon he had fought. The other was taller, clearly female, and clearly demonic.
He was unaware that demons had families. Oh sure, those camouflaging pinkies had managed to breed upon escaping the UAC facility on Mars and being reverse-summoned to hell, but he had no idea that there were types that had a solid family structure.
“These are not your demons to fight.”
‘Bullsh*t. Unless you’ve got an alternate version of me somewhere around here, I’m not stopping. ALL demons are mine to fight.’
“I suppose I should introduce myself. This is my lovely wife, Lilith, that is our daughter Charlie, and I am Lucifer, the first creation of my father, the one you now know as VEGA.”
‘Lilith, Lucifer? Are you serious?’
“What you see here are the souls of the damned, condemned to their eternal punishment. This is not your hell, nor will your hell invade this one. I will send you to where you want to go.”
‘Buddy, no one is sending me anywhere.’
“You will also let our daughter live,” The demoness said. “Her soul is purer than that of my creator, her only crime being born to me and my husband. I will not allow you to kill her, and if you do so, my vengeance will be terrible.” She reached into the shadows of her robe and drew out his helmet, tossing it over.
“I may have fallen for the sin of pride,” Lucifer said. “But I am not foolish enough to believe that a battle between us will end in anything other than your absolute victory. But I can put up a fight. I believe I could hold you off for a week, double that time with my wife by my side. That’s enough time for your demons to launch invasions on a thousand worlds. Are you sure you want to waste all that time on us when you could be hunting down the Dark Lord?
“Oh yes, I know of your mission. Only a fool like Samur, or does he still go by Samuel Hayden, wouldn’t see it. I bet he did not even tell you the truth about himself. Go, fight your own battles before picking fights that serve no one.”
With a wave of his hand, Lucifer opened a portal a few feet away, and from it, he could feel the familiar hell energy. There, he could see familiar imps, tyrants, and was that a f*cking archvile? Ignoring Lucifer himself in favor of that one specific kind of demon was tempting. He hated all kinds of demons, but he reserved a special brand of hatred for archviles.
He clenched his fists as he glared at Lucifer and Lilith. He made the ‘I’m watching you’ sign with his hand at them and looked upon Charlie one last time. Her wounds were healed, but it was clear that she wasn’t all there. He didn’t know what that involved, but he could sense the purity of that soul. And it was condemned to hell.
It was…… A tragedy. One which he could do nothing about.
He drew the Super Shotgun and leapt through. The portal closed a few seconds later.
“Well, well, well, Charlie!” Lucifer exclaimed. “Look at who just destroyed the whole of the pride ring! You’ve come so far from setting your curtains on fire! Why, we may not need exterminations for another decade! Although you do need to work on your stamina; You only managed to last for half a day.”
“Ughhh,” Charlie groaned as the angelic transformation fell away, leaving her in her broken demonic armor. “I haven’t felt like this since that one time I tried to fight all the exterminators at once.”
“Doing so when you were 12 wasn’t your best idea,” Lilith said, rubbing her back soothingly. “But you fought the Doom Slayer and survived. Although I have to say, engaging such a foe was your stupidest idea yet, and you’ve had a few doozies.”
“I had to, mom! He was about to kill Angel Dust!”
“The p*rnstar?!” Both Lucifer and Lilith exclaimed at once.
“Uh, mom, dad, why do you know that?”
“Why wouldn’t we?” Lucifer asked, almost offended. “He’s the best that money can buy! He adds such spice to the bedroom! Mmmm, I’m getting horny just thinking about it.”
“Dear, you’re always horny.” Lilith chided.
“Well, how can I not be when my wife is the pinnacle of sex appeal?”
“This is why I moved out!” Charlie yelled. “Can’t you two ever keep it in your pants?! I can’t even look at the palace ever since I unlocked the ability to see ultraviolet light!”
“Mm, did you hear something, dear?” Lilith moaned sensually as Lucifer’s hand slipped under her dress and crawled up her thighs as he sucked at her neck with enough force to crumple hellforged metals.
“Ugh! You guys can go f*ck yourselves!”
“Now that, Charlie,” Lucifer said, taking a break from kissing his wife as she got on her knees. “Is the best idea you’ve ever had!”
“Augh!”
Charlie stormed away, not wanting to see something which she had already seen far too many times to be healthy.
As she walked away, one of her feathers returned, carrying something with it.
The Unmaykr.
She had used a feather to knock it away in the timeframe between when he let it go to unsummon it and the actual unsummoning.
It would make for a nice trophy on her wall. At the very least, it was payback for what the Slayer did. Maybe Angel Dust would enjoy it as a significant upgrade to his arsenal.
Charlie let our one final sigh and trudged back to where the Hazbin Hotel once was. Maybe Alastor could make her some of that Jambalaya while playing her some more lost classics once he regenerated.
