Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Lamashtuan Poison:

Named after the two-headed mother of all plagues, Lamashtuan Poison is one of the foulest weapons in the Dark Realm’s arsenal. It is the result of ritualistic blood magic and grotesque gene splicing; The perfect bioweapon, blending alchemical toxins with arcane curses to ensure absolute lethality.

Once someone is infected with the poison, all hope is lost, for not even the god-like science and magics of the Maykrs have found a cure for this affliction. The only way to break the curse is to destroy the one who inflicted it. 

Fortunately, Lamashtuan Poison is exceedingly difficult to create and acquire, only available to a select few demon lords who have earned the favor of the Order of the Six.

6

6 6

This was supposed to be their day off.

Fizzaroli had jumped through so many loops and hoops in order to clear his and Asmodeus’ schedules for this day, it might as well have been a Mammon-worthy routine.

But now; Cradled in Asmodeus’ arms, fresh from a trip to their private workshop, sporting three brand new limbs and enough band aids to patch up a dam, Fizzaroli huffed through his nose and pressed his cheek against the Sin of Lust's chest fluff as he came to the bitter realization that they were not going to be having their date night any time soon.

“Fizzie Frog?” The imp’s eyes widened at the sound of Asmodeus’ voice, and he looked up to see the Sin’s three heads watching him, all of them concerned. “Are you alright, baby?”

Fizzaroli’s mind was cast backwards at the question.

He remembered the sting of the snake monster’s whip against his back, the way the thing laughed after his legs gave out from the pain.

He remembered the eyeless brute’s hand squeezing around his waist as it roared and ripped his legs off like they were pool noodles.

He remembered the stoney goblin clawing at his face and screeching like a banshee, ruining the arm he tried to put up to defend himself.

…And he remembered Asmodeus burning them all to ashes.

Despite it all, Fizzaroli put on a smile. “Well, I’m better now that you turned all those freaks into flambé!” He exclaimed, springing out of Asmodeus’ hands and cartwheeling across the hall to their room door, kicking it open with a spin. “Nobody’s gonna be able to call you ‘The Weakest Sin’ after today! Not after that performance!”

Asmodeus formed a lopsided smirk as he joined him inside their room. “Well, you did help me out, remember? Even though I told you to run and get to safety?” He said as he put his hands on his hips, half-hearted in his reprimand. “I had to put those monsters in the dirt after they laid their hands on you.”

“Hehehe, yeah, I guess you could say I gave you a little power boost~”

Asmodeus chuckled. “Yeah, I guess you did…” He trailed off, his brow knitting. His tone was more solemn when he picked up. “But please, Froggie… Don’t- don’t scare me like that again…”

The clown’s eyes suddenly focused on the gashes and burns that dotted the Sin’s body and tattered his suit. His gaze drooped to the ground and he rubbed his arms at that. “Y-Yeah… sorry.”

Asmodeus sighed, walking through the room to reach the great open windows of their penthouse with a slight limp he tried to hide but Fizzaroli still caught. “Well, at least the fighting seems to be dying down a little…”

Fizzaroli walked over to join him in peering out at the cityscape of Lust. The towering skyscrapers still held tall, their neon signs glowing against the midnight blue sky. But that same light let him see that things were still far from alright. He could see piles of rubble in the streets, webs of broken windows over the buildings’ faces, raging fires contesting the glow of the city lights, and mangled corpses strewn in between it all. 

Fizzaroli got some unpleasant flashbacks to his childhood at Pride, remembering the chaos left in the wake of Exterminations, gulping at the fact he found them mild compared to this. 

That was when his mind started whispering to him, restless in the perceived safety of their room, conjuring up scenarios that made him sweat. “Oz?” He called out. “You think… You think this shit is happening in the other Rings?”

Asmodeus took a moment to answer, his eyes flickering through the city, his hands fidgeting at his sides. “I don’t know… I honestly don’t know.”

The thought of Blitzo facing off against those monsters… It made Fizzaroli grimace and knead his fingers. “Should we… Should we go check? Go out to help them?”

Asmodeous shook his head as he turned to look at him. “I told you Fizz, I can’t get a hold of anybody. Phones don’t work, scrying magic doesn’t work either, and we can’t risk leaving the tower to get hounded by those things out in the open…” He explained, lowering a hand for Fizzaroli to lean against.

There, nuzzling against the warmth of the Sin’s palm, Fizzaroli realized that he had never seen Asmodeus be injured before today. Even when some thug got a bright idea or a random civilian went nuts off of Belphegor drugs, nobody had ever put so much as a scratch on the Sin of Lust… and those monsters had nearly killed him. The warm touch that was now comforting him could have left him forever.

They could not risk it. They had no idea how many monsters were out there, or if there were even worse ones they had not yet seen. Besides, if the other Sins and goetia blue-bloods were such big potatoes and better than Asmodeus like they claimed they were, then they should be able to handle their own problems.

“I’m sorry, but it’s just you and me, Froggie…” The Sin’s soft voice pulled him from his thoughts, and he saw the great demon looking at him with a sad frown.

The imp could not help but snicker. “You say that like it’s a bad thing…”

With that, Fizzaroli extended his legs to rise up to the Sin’s height and then coiled his arms around his massive lover’s body, closing his eyes and pressing himself flush against him. He heard Azmodeus’ heart flutter, and then felt his arms wrap around him in return.

They were together. They were going to play it safe. They were going to pull through this nightmare.

Even though his thoughts still went out to Blitzo, he had to trust his friend would be able to make his way through this mess. If any imp could, it was Blitzo, that much he was sure of.

But then, Fizzaroli’s brow furrowed when he felt a strange sensation building on his skin… one that quickly turned into a chill that slashed up his spine and made him shiver.

“I see you… Burnt One…”

Fizzaroli jolted out of the hug, getting a startled gasp out of Asmodeus.

That voice, echo-y and hiss-like, had been like someone dragging a fork over the inside of his skull.

Fizzaroli’s heartbeat quickened, and the imp pushed himself free of the Sin of Lust’s hold, rushing back to the window. His breath dampened the glass as he put his hands against it while his eyes were guided by dreadful instinct to the source of the voice… and he found himself staring at the top of a nearby skyscraper.

There was a shadow there, tall and nebulous against the night sky, with two yellow eyes glowed through the darkness, boring into Fizzaroli. 

“Who the fuck is that?” Asmodeus demanded, joining the imp in staring at their ominous onlooker.

But Fizzaroli barely even heard his lover’s voice, barely registering the fact he kept speaking after the question. He felt his mouth go dry and his blood run cold when a faint whispering started nipping at his ears, growing louder and clearer by the second.

Then he saw the shadow move, raising its arms above its head.

The room was filled with the crackle of energy and a searing crimson glow.

Fizzaroli winced and cussed at the sudden flashbang, hearing Asmodeus do the same. When the imp turned around, he grit his teeth and squinted, looking between the gaps of his fingers at the cause of the disturbance.

The burning light was focused in three clusters of red lightning in the shape of cracks, hovering in the air like fractures in space itself. From these cracks emerged horrible shapes; Three monsters, their bodies a mess of gruesome patchwork, their limbs twisted into metal weapons, wires woven into their flesh, unnatural lights glowing beneath their pale skins.

One of them looked like one of those fat creatures Fizzaroli had seen shooting blobs of acid at people, but this one had its face and body encased in thick plates of black armor with green etchings, tubes of verdant liquid flowing through its frame, feeding from a large tank on its back to the pair of cannons it had for arms, which it slammed together as it roared like some frenzied gorilla.

Another looked like a snake monster, but its once scaly tail was now made of metal, its gray hair had been replaced by a pony tail of black wires, and a plate of dark steel with a red inverted cross etching now covered its eyes. Its whips were different too, flowing from unseen spools inside its forearms and made of glowing red energy instead of dark chains. It cracked them both with a hiss, and Fizzaroli rubbed his eyes when he thought he saw the monster shimmer and fade from his vision for a moment, almost as if it became translucent.

Yet, his attention was drawn rather forcefully to the third beast. 

It carved itself free from the portal that summoned it with a frenzied roar, landing on the room’s floor with a thud. It looked like one of the eyeless, musclebound brutes, but with its head encased in black metal plates and sporting six beady orange eyes arranged in rows. Its arms ended in thick, sharp blades, connected by vermilion tubes to its body.

This beast drove these blades into the ground, stabbing down repeatedly as it roared and slammed its head against the floor like a rabid animal.

But then the deranged monstrosity stood up, howling at the sky before swinging a bladed arm at Asmodeus, producing a curved slash of energy that shot through the air straight at the Sin’s chest, a split second before the beast itself leaped after him.

Fizzaroli had not had the time to open his mouth before he saw Asmodeus narrowly manage to lean out of the way of the projectile, only for him to bend over when the beast stabbed both of its arms into his stomach, causing him to crack the glass behind him. The desperate cry that rose from Fizzaroli mouth fell on deaf ears, as the monster slashed and stabbed Asmodeus with a psychotic fervor, headbutting him whenever it felt like filling in the milliseconds where his blades were not carving at the Sin, screeching and roaring all the while. The imp went pale when he saw the beast stab the eyes out of one of the smaller heads inside the Sin’s mane.

But then, Asmodeous gave a furious roar as his body coursed with flame and magic, shifting from blue to red and white, swelling in size as he entered his true form.

The transformation caused a shockwave that knocked the rabid berserker staggering to the other side of the room, and the surge of power healed some of the many fresh wounds that now covered the Sin’s torso. But even now in his true form, Asmodeus breathed hard, and Fizzaroli could see blood dripping on the floor beneath him.

And then, the split second that the sword-armed beast skidded to a halt, it kipped up, gave a roar, and charged right back at Asmodeus, trailing its blades on the ground and leaving a trail of orange energy behind it.

The Sin raised his hands at it, giving a roar of his own as he conjured a stream of white hot flames at the beast, engulfing it from head to toe, raising the temperature in the room to such an extreme Fizzaroli felt something like a sunburn coming on.

But the berserker did not seem to even notice, charging through the flames without relent, leaping up at Asmodeus with an arm already reeled back and ready to plunge into his chest.

The Sin gave an awestruck gasp at this, but managed to dodge just in time, having the beast create a puddle of crackling orange energy when it hit the ground instead, only to rip its arm free and chase after Asmodeus by the second’s close.

But before he could jump in to help his lover, Fizzaroli was hit with the heat of an active furnace, the smell of burning plastic, and a painful sting in his eyes when a stream of neon green liquid fire cut him off.

The imp had a second to extend his limbs and backflip before the stream moved to track him. As the world spun from his acrobatic manoeuvres, Fizzaroli followed the trail of flaming green goo back to the armored fatass. The bulky beast fired twin streams of acid at him like deadly water hoses. Fizzaroli climbed over and slid under the furniture of the room, he bounced off the glass walls or just leaped into the air, trying to get the slightest boost or throw off his enemy’s aim as he saw the streams reduce everything behind him to sludge. The stuff was so potent that he could already see the puddles melting through the floor and dripping to the room below them.

And yet, Fizzaroli did not need to be a genius to know there would be little point in attacking the thing. Its armor looked heavier than it, and Fizz did not even have a weapon. He could only do his best to keep the thing’s focus off of Ozzie until he managed to put down the sword-arm berserker.

However, something occurred to him.

His mind returned to the puddles of acid burning through the ground, and the weight of the armored monster… and how slow it was to move…

Fizzaroli smiled as a plan took shape in his head, and when he saw the fat beast cut the flow of its acid guns as if to reload, the clown took a moment to catch his breath and rub his hands together, chuckling to himself as he limbered up and got ready to enact his plan.

Then he heard slithering.

Fizzaroli felt every muscle in his body go taut and his mechanical limbs lock up when a million volts of electricity ripped through him like a swarm of ants.

The pain was so intense the next thing Fizz knew he was laying face down on the ground, stuck halfway through a breath.

When his nerves were no longer on fire, Fizzaroli sputtered out a gasp as he summoned all his strength and managed to peel his face off the ground, too weak to push himself upright.

That was when he saw the air shimmer like a mirage in the desert. Fizzaroli saw the snake monster slip out of the ether, reeling one of its burning whips back into its forearm as definition returned to its silhouette. The beast looked down on him with its eyeless visor as it slithered over to his side, pausing as its shadow loomed over him, tilting its head at him in an almost curious gesture.

Then it whipped him again.

He would have screamed if he had been paralyzed and his body had not fallen into a fit of stiff, tortured spasms.

The snake monster chuckled as it turned around, slapping the sharp tip of its tail across Fizzaroli’s face as it did, leaving a gash of hot pain across his cheek.

Andd then he heard Asmodeus’ voice. 

Even through the pain, even through the sound of his own screams getting stuck in his throat, Fizzaroli summoned the strength to raise his head and find his lover.

He could see the Sin stumbling through the room, flailing his arms and spinning, slamming his back and shoulders against the walls and bedposts, screaming in rage and pain as the berserker clung onto him, stabbing into his back even as it struggled to hang on with its whole body scorched black and smouldering from a fresh burn of the Sin’s fire.

But then, just as it seemed like Asmodeus was about to reach over his shoulder and actually pull the charcoaled monster off, the fat beast turned to face the Sin, and Fizzaroli saw it raise both of its cannons at him.

The dual streams of acid splashed right over Asmodeus’ chest. The Sin of Lust howled in agony as the acid melted straight through his vest, his fur, his skin, and his muscles, exposing and bleaching his ribs, all while the sword-armed berserker on his back kept stabbing him.

But then, the snake monster slithered over, and Fizzaroli saw it raise one of its glowing crimson whips over its head, making it whoosh through the air before cracking it at Asmodeus.

And the sounds of struggle came to an end.

The Sin stiffened up, his eyes went wide, and his jaw locked up so suddenly one of his teeth chipped. Then he dropped, flopping face down to the ground like a boned fish.

And then the berserker stood up to stab an arm into Asmodeus’ back again. Fizz saw the limb snap off at the elbow with a crunch… right before the beast crumpled over and died, the orange lights in its body dimming down. 

“Oz… zie…” The imp cried, reaching out a trembling hand to his fallen lover’s body, feeling his tears seep into the cut on his cheek, seeing the two remaining beasts closing in on the Sin of Lust, whose ragged breathing Fizzaroli could just barely hear over his own panicked heartbeat. 

He asked himself how any of this was possible, what either of them had done to deserve something like this… Where that shadowy onlooker that summoned these things had gone off to…

And then the room’s doors swung open…

The two monsters retreated from Asmodeus, standing still like statues.

Fizzaroli’s brow furrowed with confusion, and through his paralyzed body he was able to move his head just enough to turn to the sound of slow footsteps entering the room, their rhythm accompanied by a wooden thump, making the imp think of a walking stick.

That was when he saw a man. A human man. Caucasian skin, no horns, no tail, no extra limbs or anything.

He was wearing the weirdest red robe Fizzaroli had ever seen as well as an equally ornate headdress that covered his eyes in a plate of smooth metal with glowing red dots and that had a semicircular crest above the head. He also wielded an actual wizard staff, full with the long rune-carved shaft and intricate tip bracing a crystal. But other than that- and the fact he seemed completely hairless- the guy looked like a regular human in his late sixties.

And yet, as the old man hobbled into the room, the beasts seemed to pay him reverence, bowing their heads as he approached them.

He walked past the snake monster first, slamming his staff on the ground like a gavel. Fizzaroli saw the crystal on its tip start glowing and emit a low hum. “Specter Whiplash test results; Exceptional,” The strange human said, his formal tone clashing with his nasal, growly voice. “Cloaking and ponokinetic paralysis both fully functional. Sensorial arguments fully compensate for blindness to ensure full awareness even during cloaking.” He then walked over to the fat monster covered in armor. “Cyber-Mancubus test results; Inconclusive. Acid cannons proved extremely effective, yet armor capabilities were not properly tested. Further trails… and better guinea pigs-” He added under his breath, giving Asmodeus the stink eye. “-Required.” The old man then made his way to the Sin of Lust, stepping over one of his arms to reach the corpse of the sword-armed berserker. “Dreadknight test results; Sub-obptimal. Subject demonstrated desired levels of aggression and cognisance of its own abilities. However, some slight tweaking to survival instincts might be necessary…” He said, tapping his staff against the charred corpse, letting out a heavy sigh. “Overall results… Acceptable.” He finished, slamming his staff once again, the light of his crystal fading away. “At least this one is still alive… barely.” He said, poking the side of Asmodeus’ head with his staff like it was a jellyfish at the beach.

Fizzaroli heard his metal fists whir loudly as they clenched so right sparks started coming out of the joints. “G-Get… away… from him…” He snarled, spittle leaking through his grit teeth as he tried to push his body to respond and crawl over to the monsters.

However weak his voice had been, the strange man seemed to have heard him, since he gave a little jolt and turned to look at him. “Ah, the other one is alive too… wonderful…” He grumbled, and Fizzaroli watched as he walked over to him, his two cybernetic beasts in tow. 

Fizzaroli glared up at him. “Who… are-”

“Oh please,” The man groaned exaggeratedly. “Everyone always asks the same questions. ‘Who are you?’ ‘What are you doing here?’ ‘Why are you doing this?’… Don’t you have anything interesting to ask me? No feedback on my monsters? No notes on their performance?”

“Eat… my… ass…”

“Hmm, vulgar little thing…” The man scoffed, taking in a deep breath. “Fine. Might as well go through the motions… I am Deag Ranak, Supreme Galvanist of the Dark Realm,” He introduced himself, putting a hand over his chest as he bowed his head and smirked. “I am here to take over your little factory. As for why, the rather regrettable answer is that it is the most technologically advanced facility in your realm; Fully equipped with assembly lines, entire segments dedicated to advanced robotics, plentiful storage space, and even some rudimentary implementation of magi-tek… All that just to make-” The man reached into his robe, rummaging through it before pulling out… “-Sex toys…” He uttered with almost palpable disappointment as he turned the pink vibrator on, having it buzz in his hand for a moment before tossing it over his shoulder, hitting the Cyber-Mancubus in the head with a clang. “Ah, Prince Ahzrak is right… This realm is brimming with potential, yet you people always squander it…” Ranak sighed, shaking his head slowly. However, a smile started tugging at the old man’s lips, and Fizzaroli tried in vain to inch away when he kneeled down to him and scooped his face up in his hand. “But don’t worry… I’m here now. Here to help you little things achieve your full potential,” He promised, grinning to show his uneven teeth. “Even if I have to rip it out of you, even if I have to carve away at… what little of you remains…” He tacked on as he passed his gaze over Fizzaroli’s body, making the imp’s blood boil. “…I’m going to make you beautiful…”

—666—

As Blitzo and his party huddled behind a rock formation on the crest of a roadside hill, the imp felt a bead of sweat appear on his temple at the sight of Paimon’s Domain.

The damn place was enormous, its outer walls alone were the height of houses, and the actual keep looked ripped right out of a cheesy fantasy movie, towers and all. Even with dawn shining on it, the black stone swallowed most of the light, making it difficult to even get the proper scale and depth of the place.

“Wow… it’s huge.” The hitman heard Apple mumble, staring at the castle with awestruck eyes.

“That’s what she said,” Blitzo blurted out almost automatically… forming a surprising chorus with Josh and then sharing a fist-bump with the blond succubus, neither taking their eyes off the gargantuan castle in the distance.

“Okay, this is insane,” Verosika commented, and Blitzo saw her shaking her head with mouth agape as she stared at Paimon’s Domain. “Blitzo, how the hell are you supposed to get in there and get Stolas’ kid out?”

“I’m sure there’s a way.”

Stolas’ voice had an anxious, almost stressed edge to it that made the other demons jump. Blitzo turned around and saw the goetia peering out in the vague direction of the castle, his hands squeezed into fists, his expression tight beneath his bandages. “We’re too close to back out now… She- She’s so close I can feel her… Blitzo?” He called out, suddenly turning his head with unsettling precision in the hitman’s direction. “Please, we have to rescue her… We have to rescue my daughter.”

Blitzo gulped, grimacing at the desperation bubbling beneath his lover’s words, noticing some uneasy looks among the succubi. However, he ultimately shook his head and cleared his throat, deciding to focus on the moment, on the mission. “Yeah, we will Stols. Don’t you worry.” He assured him with a firm nod. “There’s no quit this close to the finish line. We’re seeing this shit through to the end, and then we’re all getting out of here… I promise.”

The worried wrinkles on the goetia’s face soothed at that, his feathers smoothed down, and his shoulders slumped as he let out a breath.

Blitzo smiled. “I’ll take what I can get.” He thought, letting out a breath of his own. With that, the imp stuck his tongue out as reached into his duffle bag, feeling his fingers bump into guns and grenades and stacks of money, but it was until he grazed the distinct texture of his binoculars that he hummed with satisfaction and pulled the item out.

He then laid the bag on the ground beside him and peeked over their cover to scout the castle out, adjusting his binoculars. With one final, calculated twist, Blitzo saw the lenses come into focus and clear up, allowing him to see the stony texture of the castle’s dark walls.

He zoomed out a little to get a better scan of the structure, zooming back in when he noticed a row of arching windows forming what looked like a hallway leading out of a tower.

There he saw Octavia.

Blitzo had to put his binoculars down for a second, rubbing a hand over his eyes and blinking twice before looking through the spyglass once again. “Well, shit. Lucky me.” He chuckled, smiling as he tracked the goth bird’s movements through the windows, now certain he was not hallucinating. With eyes on the prize, Blitzo tracked Octavia a little longer until he saw her vanish into a deeper section of the castle, giving him at least an idea of where to start looking. “Alright, now all we need is a way in there…” He mumbled to himself, zooming way out to get a lay of the land.

He saw the outer walls, the heavy gates, the thorny gardens, the sewage grates, the low-hanging windows on the ground floors of the castle, the point where the outer wall connected with a guard tower and created a neat little blindspot, the patrols of imp guards that were snoring as they leaned into their halberds, the massive eyeless monster wielding a battle axe.

Blitzo froze, feeling his breath short out.

He squeezed his hands to stop them from shaking and giving himself away, quietly resuming his scouting.

The longer he did it, the bigger the pit in his stomach got.

He saw gangly, winged monsters with knives for hands perched on stone pedestals like gargoyles. He saw snake-like beasts with gray hair slithering through the gardens like they were on patrol. He saw those armored, eyeless brutes posted in front of every major gate of the castle.

And yet, Octavia had looked perfectly unharmed. Relaxed even.

“This is fucked…” He thought, finally lowering the binoculars as nightmare scenario after nightmare scenario paraded through his mind.

He looked at Stolas, seeing him finally look more like himself and less like a bundle of stress and misery, and could not find the strength to break it to him. After all, the mission had not changed, it had just gotten harder… 

Much harder.

And so, he got up and walked away from the main huddle, looking through his binoculars to give the impression he was just searching for a better angle. Then he turned to Verosika. “Ver… Psst, Ver.” He hissed at her, as quietly as he could manage.

The succubus blinked as she faced him. “Blitzo?” She called, narrowing her eyes, but thankfully keeping her voice down as she scooched over. “What’s going on?”

“Don’t freak out, okay?”

“What? You can’t just preface a conversation with ‘don’t freak out’, you-”

“There’s monsters in the castle.”

Whatever she was going to say next, she did not say it. He saw the color drain from her face.

Blitzo picked up after a breath. “Listen to me. I still need to get Stolas’ kid out of there,”

“What!? Blitzo, you just said there’s monsters in there, she’s probably-”

“I saw her, she’s still in there, I know it sounds crazy but it looks like those things are guarding the place. They’re just posted up and patrolling like they’re getting fucking paid. But it’s okay, I think I already have a route planned out.”

“Oh, you planned an escape route out of what is essentially a super-max prison guarded by bulletproof monsters that can rip you to shreds with their bare hands, in less than three minutes?”

“…Alright I’m making this shit up as I go, you know me, I’m good at improv.”

“No the fuck you’re not! Blitzo you’re gonna get yourself killed!”

“Hey, remember what I told you?” He asked, pausing for a second to look her in the eye. “I actually have a lot to live for now. I’m not going to die to some fucking mutant ulcers in some wannabe Dracula’s castle… But that said… Look, you- You’re the only one I trust for this… So if I don’t come back-”

“Don’t. Don’t fucking-”

“If I don’t come back,” He repeated, putting a hand over Verosika’s, cutting her off. “You take the money, drag Stolas by his fucking ankles if you have to and you get the hell out of dodge, alright?”

The succubus pursed her lips and looked down. Blitzo felt her hand clench into a fist beneath his, realizing she had not pulled away yet. “Alright… But you better come back.”

The imp put on his best smile. “I’m planning on it.”

—666—

Angel Dust had his legs crossed up on his seat, creating a little dip for Fat Nuggets to cuddle into his lap. As he pet the little pig, the arachnid sinner swept his eyes over the Main Hall of the hotel, spotting a few familiar faces.

He saw Husk sitting on the customer’s side of the bar, a hand over his eyes and forehead, the other balled up tightly into a fist, looking at the bottles of alcohol with a worrying mix of longing and loathing. He spotted Carmila Carmine and Zestial talking among themselves in one of the corners of the room. He could not make out what they were saying, but Carmila’s hushed whispers seemed far more irritated than Zestial’s. Beelzebub was pacing through the room, mumbling under her breath and rubbing her arms as she tracked through her circuit. As for the other Deadly Visitor, Angel could also see Satan’s massive form through the windows. The dragon had his arms crossed and eyes shut as he leaned against the hotel’s wall, resting.

However, Angel Dust then found his attention drawn to the sound of slithering and footsteps.

He saw Sir Pentious enter the room, accompanied by Cherri Bomb and his troop of Egg Bois. The snake seemed to be in a good mood, holding his little eggs by the hands as they walked, and Angel Dust smiled when he noticed Cherri trailing behind them, sporting a thin smile of her own.

But then, someone stepped in, bringing the new arrivals to a sudden stop. “My, you certainly look different than last time we met.”

Sir Pentius looked downward and gasped. When Angel followed his gaze, he spotted a vaguely familiar sinner. He was sure he had caught glimpses of the guy when the new guests had gathered in the Main Hall, lurking around the corners, and he was also pretty sure he had seen Donnie talk to him one time.

The guy was small, just half a head taller than Niffty, and just as scrawny. He wore an extremely dark blue lab coat and gloves, as well as a pair of bright yellow goggles. He had an anglerfish lure coming out of his hair, gills on the sides of his head, and bioluminescent cyan freckles on his cheeks.

He seemed to know Sir Pentious, and Pentious seemed to know him. “Baxter.” The snake named cuttingly, narrowing his eyes.

“Pentious.” The smaller sinner replied in kind, setting his jaw.

“Um, who the fuck are you?” Cherri asked in just about the same tone of confusion Angel would have used.

“Were you not listening when your companion introduced me?” The little fish snarked. “All of three seconds ago?”

Cherri was taken aback for a second, after which her expression twisted into a frown, and Angel saw her reach into her pocket. “Why you little-” 

“Cherri, don’t.” Pentious raised a pleading hand to the one-eyed arsonist. “He’ssss not worth it.” He spat, glaring at the blue fish.

However, this so-called Baxter carried on. “I see you’re a winner now,” He declared, raising his chin and pursing his lips. “Quite remarkable. I did not believe this whole ‘redemption’ process was even feasible. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that it not only was possible, but that you of all people was the first to manage it.”

“I imagine you were quite sssssurprised, sssseeing as you were never wrong before,” Pentious snapped back, sarcasm in abundance. “That might have been the very reasssson I was the one who managed to get to Heaven after you turned you back on me.”

“Really? Is that how you remember it?” Baxter asked, narrowing his eyes, putting more bite into his tone. “Because I remember you walking out on me, after calling me a rather inventive series of insults.”

“You dessssserved every one, you amoral freak”

“And you deserved to fall into obscurity and ridicule, you spineless reprobate.”

“Enough!”

The sparring match was cut short when Carmila Carmine stomped into the middle of the room. “Hell itself hangs in the balance, this is not the time for petty squabbles,” She declared, pointing at the hotel’s entrance. “There is a war to be fought out there, we should be out there fighting it, not in here wasting time!” The overlord sighed exasperatedly before turning her attention from Pentious and Baxter to someone outside of Angel’s field of view. “And you were supposed to have a plan.”

That brought the room’s attention to none other than Samur.

Angel looked over the back of his chair to see the red-robed seraphim, who was- as he had been for the last hour- sitting down across from Lute over a small table… playing chess.

The spider saw Lute move one of her knights to take one of Samur’s rooks before tapping the side of a rectangular game timer with two digital clocks. It was then- without so much as glancing over his shoulder- that Samur inhaled a deep breath and spoke. “…You know-”

“Ay, no puede ser,” Carmila groaned into the palm she brought up to her face.

“-In all the countless worlds I’ve travelled to, I have never found a game I like more than Chess,” He decreed, moving one of his pawns forward and tapping his side of the timer. “Particularly this configuration of the game: Fischer Random Speed Chess.” Lute used a rook to take that very pawn. “It evokes strategy and creativity in equal measure.” He moved one of his knights to a position Angel found quite awkward. “It is the simplest and most effective way to develop the ability to cast the mind forward in time and anticipate the opponents movements, yet still be present enough to act upon your own predictions under time constraints.” Lute responded by moving her queen forward and putting Samur in check. “Such a skill is one of the foundations needed to form a strong mind.” The seraphim blocked the queen by putting his second knight in the way. “A strong mind is essential to handling any Maykr-designed technology, transportation tethers more so than most.” Lute pushed her bishop all the way across the board to take the knight.

“You pompous, sanctimonious cretin,” Carmila growled at the seraphim. “What in the hell are you even-”

“All this to say that the one ‘wasting time’ here is you, Miss Carmine.” Samur declared, raising his voice just enough to cut her off… Before calmly picking a bishop Angel was sure he had not moved since the game had started and placing it behind Lute’s foremost pieces, in another position Angel did not find particularly threatening.

However, he saw the Grand Exorcist’s eyes suddenly go wide, darting over their game board in a hurried sprawl, her mouth and brows twitching. But after only a few seconds, Lute closed her eyes and sighed heavily, before knocking down her king.

“Hmm, you’re getting better…” Samur noted, resetting the clock. “Again?” 

Lute huffed as she started resetting her pieces. “Until I beat you.”

“I’m not sure we have that long, Grand Exorcist.” Samur replied with a coy smirk as he began resetting his own.

Both of them froze however, when the sound of wings started bouncing through the hallways leading into the room, steadily growing louder. This led Angel and every sinner he could see turn towards the source of the sound.

Emily had been the first to arrive, flying into the room and hovering down the ground with whooshing beats of her wings.

But even with that, all eyes snapped to Charlie. 

Angel Dust hugged Fat Nuggets when he nearly leaped out of his seat to get a better look at the princess walking down the stairway.

Her amber eyes, her curved horns, her satyr legs, her fangs, her tail, the snakes hovering around her messy hair…

And that was all before her new outfit. 

She was wearing a black bodysuit that covered her entire torso, her neck and part of her thighs, but left her shoulders exposed, and she had a dark red corset over the fabric. While her left arm- which had black and red snake scales instead of white fur- was exposed, her right arm was covered by a black sleeve glove that ran all the way up to her bicep, a golden snake bracelet was coiled around her forearm. Two belts held up a lengthy loincloth with red and black patterns that further covered her legs, but did not restrict her new anatomy.

Any other time, Angel Dust would have given her a flirtatious compliment, a comment about ‘slaying’ or some such… But there was something about the look in Charlie’s eyes that made him nervous, and when one of her black serpents snapped over to look at him, he decided to keep his mouth shut.

As the Princess walked to the center of the room, the sinners gathered around her, Beelzebub flew over, Satan opened his eyes and leaned into the room’s windows, and Lute and Samur stood up from their table.

“Char-Char?” Beelzebub was the first to speak. “Are you alright, baby?”

The princess took a moment to answer. Angel noticed her snakes glancing between themselves. “I’m fine. Don’t worry about me, auntie…” She ultimately said, not looking the Sin of Gluttony in the eye, instead turning to Samur, calling to him with a firm tone.

The seraphim floated forward at that. “I’ll get straight to the point,” He opened, putting his hands in his sleeves and raising his voice to address the room. “The main objective of our campaign is to locate and then eliminate Prince Ahzrak. He leads the invading force, and his death would mean the dissolution of the enemy’s chain of command and tactical structure… However, since our last encounter with him, the prince has gone into hiding.” The seraphim explained sourly. “Considering the sheer size of your realm, finding him would be quite difficult without a proper plan.”

“That is why you have a proper plan, yes?” Carmila spoke up suddenly, arms crossed and an expectant brow raised.

Rather than answer, Samur turned to the window Satan was peeking in through and gestured to him with a roll of his hand.

The Sin of Wrath puffed steam from his nostrils. “Belphegor.” He uttered simply.

“The Sin of Sloth?” Zestial asked, an oddly knowing ring in his voice.

“Whoa there, Red,” Beelzebub stepped up next. “You want to call Belphegor in for this? You do remember she's, y’know, a pacifist and all that junk, right?”

“She’s a clairvoyant,” Satan corrected. “That means that wherever it is that this, Ahzrak-” The dragon hissed the name like it was the foulest curse he knew. “-Has slithered off to, she’ll be able to find him.”

That made Angel Dust chuckle. He was not expecting good news. “Well, alright then! So the plan is we have Sammy here-” He pointed at Samur, ignoring the half-lidded frown on his face. “-Teleport us to the Sloth Ring to find this Belphegor chick, have her tell us which rock Prince Ass-Crack is hiding under and then we all dogpile that piece of shit into oblivion!” He finished, slamming a fist into his palm for emphasis.

“I’m afraid it's not quite that simple,” The red-robed seraphim interjected with a slow shake of his head. “In the interval of time when Princess Morningstar was unconscious, I went into the city to scout the wreckage of Ahzrak’s ship, to see if I could find some trace of the prince. I found something else during this exploration, something far more troubling.”

“Well, don’t keep us in suspense,” Husk grumbled, getting up from the bar and walking over. “What did you find?”

“We will need to add two secondary objectives to our campaign,” Samur decreed. “The first of which is stopping the creation of Gore Nests across your city.”

“Gore Nests?” Emily parroted, audibly concerned, putting her hands together. Angel Dust could not really blame her. With a name like that, the spider sinner was sure those things would be bad news.

“They are what you might call dimensional lynchpins. Artificial pressure points,” Samur told the younger seraphim. “They are assembled from the corpses of those slain by the Dark Realm’s soldiers, transformed through blood magic and dark communion into beacons…”

“Beacons of what, exactly?”

“Demonic Corruption… Think of it as a kind of radiation; invisible, yet unavoidable, corroding body, mind and spirit until nothing is left. The Gore Nests channel this miasma directly from the bowels of Jekkad, polluting your very realm itself.”

Angel Dust gulped at that, hugging Fat Nuggets to his chest, hearing his pet give a frightened whine. Bad news was an understatement.  “Okay… okay, so if this stuff is like radiation, then shouldn’t there be some kind of ‘radiation suit’ we can put on?”

“Only an adamantine will can protect you against the Corruption, if your mind and soul are strong enough, the Corruption’s effects can be warded off… for a time… For those of a weaker constitution…” Samur trailed off with a huff, tucking his hands behind his back, lowering his gaze. “I’ve seen it seep past every warding barrier of the Night Sentinels and turn even their disciplined soldiers against their people… It is the Dark Realm’s most insidious weapon, and unless the Gore Nests are destroyed, chances are this realm will fall long before we find Prince Ahzrak.”

The air seemed heavier after the seraphim finished speaking, and an uncomfortable beat of silence passed through the room.

It was Beelzebub who broke it. “Alright, so yeah, we definitely need to deal with those Gore thingies… Any volunteers?”

“I would like to go.”

Angel Dusk looked so far down his chin nearly hit his collar bone. “You!?” He exclaimed in genuine surprise when he found Baxter there, hand raised and smiling.

“You’re still here?” Cherri Bomb growled, putting her hands on her hips and she glared down at the blue fish. “Get lost, ya midget!”

“I will not!” Baxter declared, crossing his arms and turning his chin at her. “I am fascinated by the prospect of these so-called ‘Gore Nests’. They sound like miniaturized, fully controlled wormholes, and their characteristics sound almost physically anomalous. Besides, the alchemical processes these beasts must need to turn something so mundane as a corpse into something so incredible, hohoho… I simply must learn more.” He finished, rubbing his hands and grinning widely.

Angel looked at the fish-like sinner with a squint and his mouth slightly agape, as did the rest of the room… save Samur.

“I like this one.” The seraphim noted with a thin smile.

“Well, whatever,” Cherri shook her head and picked back up. “If the smurf is taking point on the Gore Nest situation, then the rest of us can crack on with the other stuff, right?”

“Not quite,” Samur interjected. “Gore Nests have something of a… defense mechanism. When they are attacked, demons are summoned to protect it. Anyone who embarks on this particular quest should be prepared for heavy resistance.”

“…Alright, so we’ll need a slightly bigger party,” Cherri huffed and grumbled. “And also know where the hell to start…” 

“After meditating to sense concentrations of Corruption, I noticed a strange pattern to the Gore Nests’ placement,” Samur continued. “A vast majority are located not just on the Pride Ring, but here in Pentagram City. This tells me that whoever is leading the rituals needed to create the Nests is… restricted.”

Charlie stepped forward at that, her hands turned to fists, her snakes hissing. “You think a Sinner is helping those monsters build these things?” She asked, deathly serious, unblinking. Angel could not tell if she was angry at Samur for suggesting such a thing or feeling betrayed from it actually being a realistic explanation.

“It is possible. Jekkadians do, on exceedingly rare occasions, take disciples from conquered realms. Souls so rotten they are more kindred to the demons than their own people… Regardless, sinner or not, the culprit clearly has established something of a ‘hunting ground’ here in Pentagram City, so the search for them should start there.”

“Or we could follow some leads,” Emily suggested with a shrug. “Did you notice anything peculiar about the nests? Anything that might tell us who or what is building them, or where they might be likely to go next?”

Samur hummed, bringing a hand to his chin. “I did notice something odd about them… Each one was built as any other Gore Nest I had seen before, save for one detail; Special, almost ceremonial attention given to five corpses above the rest. These corpses were all female, and they had their throats slit down to the vertebrae.”

Angel’s face twisted in contempt. Of course it was some resentful incel who joined the side of the literal world-destroying monsters from another dimension.

“I-I’ll go asssss well!”

Angel Dust looked to his side and was surprised to see Sir Pentious having slithered forward, his face looking pale, his breath audible.

“What?” Cherri exclaimed, tilting her head at the snake. “You wanna go on the corpse altar scavenger hunt?”

“I… I…” Pentious stammered. “I agree with Baxter! Yesss! These Gore Nessssts ssssound quite exciting! Assss an inventor, if I analyze them clossssely enough, I might figure out a way to defend ussss againsssst them!” He rushed out, so half-baked and fishy that Angel almost waved a hand in front of his nose to dispel the smell of horseshit.

However, the conversation carried on before he could call it out. “Hmmm, it will be interesting working with you once again, old friend,” Baxter uttered as he steepled his fingers and looked up at Sir Pentious with a smirk. “I hope for both our sakes that your stomach has grown a little stronger.”

“Piss off,” Cherri snapped, kicking him in the arm, making the little fish yelp and stagger off to the side before then turning to Pentious. “Well, if you’re going then I’m going with ya. And you better not fucking say anything about wanting me to stay back to keep me safe or something-” She nudged him in the shoulder, making him flinch. “-You’re not going off and dying on me again, ya hear!?”

Pentious opened his mouth to speak, looking distressed. But Cherri crossed her arms and froze him with a look; Not really a glare, so much as a silent, yet resolute declaration.

And despite him fidgeting with uncertainty for a second longer, that was all the fight he put up, staying quiet and looking away as he rubbed his arm.

“Yeah, and we’re coming with you too, Boss!” One of the Egg Bois exclaimed, hugging onto the side of Pentious’ tail while his companions cheered in agreement, jumping joyfully around their leader.

It was then Carmila who spoke up next. “If this quest will be taking place here in Pentagram City, then I will go as well… It will keep me closer to my daughters.”

“And so, if this be the quest thou shalt embark upon, I too shall join thee,” Zestial followed up, placing a gentle hand on Carmila’s shoulder, one the arms dealer covered with her own.

“I wanna go too!” Niffty’s sudden announcement made Angel Dust jolt, surprised at the maid’s materialization into the conversation. “This sounds exciting!”

“Hmmm, yes, six should be enough…” Samur muttered, scratching his chin once more, taking in a deep breath before returning his hands to his sleeves. “But now, onto the second objective… Ahzrak has an Archvile in his army…”

The way the seraphim uttered those words, the gravity in his tone, the edge in his voice that sounded almost like fear… It made the Sins and sinners knit their brows with concern.

Angel Dust, however, shrugged and raised his hand. “What the fuck is an Archvile?”

—666—

Loona walked through the streets of Ragesburg at a slow, steady pace, with no destination in mind. She could see civilians walking around at the edges of her vision, few in number and sometimes accompanied by soldiers, all of them seemingly going in the same direction as Loona. Even so, the hellhound doubted she would actually stay at whatever event or congregation the people of Ragesburg were heading to, she just wanted to feel the ground beneath her paws, the tiny bump of each step going up her legs. She just wanted to feel something other than the guilt gnawing at her chest.

She could still see them. Joe, Lin, Moxie… they flashed into her mind every time she blinked.

“For the record,” Vortex’s voice came from behind her, reminding her he was still there, watchful as ever. “I still think you should go back to sleep.”

Loona let out a bitter scoff at that, not even looking over her shoulder. “I can’t go back to sleep, Tex… that would imply I slept to begin with.”

“That’s my point, Loona, you need to rest. Torturing yourself like this is not going to do anybody any good.”

“Right, because me dozing off like nothing happened is.”

“Girl, come on, I-I don’t want to see you like this!” Tex urged her, and she felt his hand on her shoulder. “You don’t deserve to-”

“Her whole family is dead because of me, Tex!” She snapped as she ripped herself away from his touch, turning around to face the dark hound, gritting her teeth and clenching her fists to keep the tears stinging her eyes from spilling. “I was the one who thought of going to her home in the first place, I led that monster there… She lost everything because of me… How can I ever set that right?”

Vortex stared at her in silence, his eyes flickering over her face as he seemed to search for the right words. He seemed to have found… something adequate, for the dark hound closed his eyes and released a heavy sigh, his ears drooping to the sides of his head. “Sometimes you can’t set things right,” He uttered, and Loona saw him look down for a moment, an absentminded hand tracing the scar over his bad eye. “Sometimes you make a choice you can’t take back, and you have to live with the consequences, even if you don’t want to, even if you didn’t mean for things to go the way they did… But that doesn’t mean your world has to be over.” He stated, meeting her gaze once more, a strength that had not been there before. “Loona, you saved me, you saved Bee too… Don’t you think that counts for something?”

She shuddered at the earnestness of his tone, and her heart twinged with something distinct from the guilt that seemed to strangle her. She opened her mouth, but nothing came out, and the hellhound found herself just standing there, paralyzed.

That was when Vortex pulled her slowly into a hug, leaning down and slotting his head into her shoulder. Loona gasped, but after a moment of tension, she let herself lean into the warm touch, even feeling her tail start wagging. She closed her eyes and sighed, suddenly aware of how tired she actually felt. Vortex’ suggestion of returning to the apartment those reapers had herded them off to and sleeping through the day no longer sounded so bad.

“Y’know, there’s more people in the streets than I would have expected for a post-siege day…” Vortex commented in a soft tone before lifting his head off her shoulder to look at her. “We should go check out whatever these guys are doing, take our minds off things for a while. What do you say?” He tried on a smile… that infectious little smile of his.

Loona sniffled as she rubbed her thumb over her misty eyes. “…Yeah, okay…” She conceded. “But if it’s boring… I think I’ll take you up on that ‘back to bed’ thing…”

“Oh, totally.” Vortex assured her, raising three fingers. “But hey, from what I’ve heard of wrathians, I don’t think they do boring.”

“Damn right we don’t!”

Both hounds jumped at the sound of the sudden interjection. They then looked down to see a stocky imp holding a torch and grinning mischievously at them.  “We’re burnin’ the sons of bitches who attacked our city! A great victory pyre to show ‘em that nobody can take Ragesburg! Yee-haw!” The little guy yelled, rushing down the street and waving his torch around like a maniac.

“A victory pyre?” Vortex repeated with a curious tilt of his head, his ears perking up. “That sounds like fireworks.” He said, raising his brows at Loona.

The girl managed a smile for the first time in what felt like days. A memory of her, Blitzo, Octavia and Stolas looking up at purple-tinted fireworks back in the mortal world found its way to her mind. “Yeah… I like fireworks…”

With that, the pair resumed their walk, following the flow of imps through a couple of junctions until they reached a wide square near the edge of the city, where the shadow of the outer wall protected them from the dawn’s glare. The place was rectangular in shape, and there were large statues of imps dressed in gladiator gear spread across the length.

The place was packed, with Loona taken aback by the sheer volume of imps gathered there. Most of them were holding torches, roman candles, flares and other assorted fireworks, big smiles on their faces as they yipped and cheered.

However, this was not a purely social gathering, and the hellhound saw several reapers floating overhead, bearing executioner axes and keeping watch. There was a guard tower looming over one of the corners of the square, where she could see a rather burly imp woman wielding what looked like an anti-tank rifle.

But even so, as she and Vortex made their way through the crowd, Loona’s attention was drawn to the centerpiece of the gathering, located on the far side of the square; a massive pile of corpses, taller than even some of the nearby houses.

She could see the bodies of all types of monsters peeking out from the central mass; gangly orange beasts and black-armored soldiers mangled, strange beasts with ribs poking out of their brain-like bodies, obese monsters with their putrid guts spilling out, the shriveled up legs of a massive green arachnid, the horned head of a great beast that had both its eyes gouged out, among several other creatures.

The sight was somewhat cathartic for the hellhound, a sort of assurance that these beasts could be killed, that they could be beaten… That maybe there was a chance for them to make it through this nightmare after all.

However, her eyes wandered from the corpse pile to a little stage set up in front of it. She saw an imp dressed in soldier's uniform, wearing a captain's hat and sporting three medals on his chest, climb onto this stage while holding a megaphone.

Loona saw this imp flick his megaphone on and clear his throat before addressing the crowd. “Hello Ragesburg! How are we feelin’ today!?”

Loona winced and plugged her ears at the cacophony the captain got in response. “Yeah! That’s about what I thought, hahaha!” The elder imp responded, pacing through his stage. “Mourn! Get mad! Arm yourselves and plan for vengeance! That is the wrathian way!”

Loona swore the air got a little hotter, likely from the crowd waving their torches and flares around at the captain’s words.

“But let the first step of that vengeance be this! Lets burn away the sons of bitches who got a little too big for their breeches! These motherfuckers thought they could come to our city and kill us all!”

Loona started waving a hand to cool herself. Something was off, even if the imps seemed not to notice.

“But we showed them, didn’t we!? We showed them that nobody can break us! We wrathians are as tough as they come! So now, as we turn these bastards into ash and wipe their memory off the face of Hell, let’s get to-”

The captain’s speech was interrupted by the sounds of startled gasps and murmuring spreading through the crowd.

Loona’s ears flicked over to the source, leading her to look at the right side of the square, where a part of the crowd had started backing away from the great wall. There, she saw a segment of the surface had started to glow a bright orange, forming a luminescent circle of melting stone that dripped down and formed a puddle at the edge of the square. As the burning liquid spilled out, it touched the hoof of an imp, and Loona gasped when the fire-proof creature howled in pain and jumped away, clutching his burnt leg and sending another wave of confused mutterings through the crowd. 

Only this time there was a distinct edge to the voices, and Loona saw several imps draw guns and blades as they looked to the melting circle.

But then the stone melted all the way through, revealing a smoking tunnel to the other side of the wall.

The smell of sulphur clogged Loona's nose like it was trying to choke her.

She fell into a coughing fit so violent Vortex swooped in to keep her from falling to the ground, calling her name in worry… before choking on the smell and starting to cough himself.

Despite the burning feeling in her nose and eyes, Loona reeled herself in, plugging her nose and toughing through the awful sensation. She then looked up at the melted tunnel… just in time to see a single creature emerge from it.

The thing wore a ragged dark red tunic to cover its legs, and had spiky chains hanging from its sides. Its humanoid body was covered in white and gray chitinous plates, with red flesh peeking underneath. Its long arms ended in three clawed fingers, its yellow eyes were sunken deep into its skeletal head. It was slightly shorter than the hunter Beelzebub had fought and much less burly, but instinct screamed at Loona that it was somehow more dangerous.

The hellhound was breathing hard, retreating from the pale beast on shaky legs, her ears pinned to her skull.

She saw the crowd of imps become divided, with some of them following her example and backing away from the yellow-eyed creature, while others held their weapons up at it and braced themselves with grit teeth and sweaty brows.

It was then that the monster raised its arms over its head, and Loona saw pillars of black and yellow fire erupt from the ground to block every exit to the square.

Chaos bloomed out from there, and Loona heard panicked screams and gunfire fill the air.

She felt Tex grab her by the arm, and as the dark hound dragged her away she saw the great monster raise a brow as the bullets and buckshot from the imps attacking it bounced harmlessly off its body… and then it raised an arm.

The ground beneath the imps hissed as it flashed yellow, and dark flames erupted beneath their feet, giving them a second to scream before their charred bones cracked into dust when they hit the ground.

The beast then started walking forward, swinging its arms in rising arcs, and Loona watched in horror as tornados of yellow-black fire spiraled out of its hands and passed through the square, sweeping up scores of screaming imps into their blazing gales, ripping them apart and blowing their ashes up into the wind.

She and Vortex gasped and cried out as they sidestepped the blazing pillars, and the girl squeezed her eyes shut to stop them from evaporating in their sockets.

But survival instincts pushed her to open her eyes again, leading her to follow the grizzly incineration process. She was left looking up at the reapers weaving their way around the flaming tornados with hurried bursts of speed. She then saw the hooded warriors dive down at the monster, roaring out warcries with their axes held back and aimed at its neck.

But all the pale beast did was wave an arm, and Loona saw a wall of flame be erected between itself and the diving reapers.

The ones who did not break their advance in time hit the wall face first- their screams cut off early as they turned to ashes- the ones who did were cloven into bloody halves when the beast brought down its barrier and swiped its clawed hands at them.

Loona then saw the beast cast forth another flurry of flaming tornados, and once again choruses of screams and cries echoed through the square, only to be silenced a second later.

By the time Vortex had dragged them both across the square to hide behind one of the gladiator statues, the frenzy of the monster’s entrance had died down.

The smell of ash, burnt hair, and sulphur hung in the air like a thick fog. The sounds of roaring flames and smouldering corpses were all that accompanied the slow, cracking footsteps of the pale beast.

They could not fight that thing. 

There was no way either she or Vortex would end up anything other than a pile of charcoal on the ground if they tried, and the thing had blocked all the exits with its flames. So Loona put a hand over her mouth and nose, pressing her back against the stone pedestal of the statue and hoping- damn near praying- that the creature had just not seen them.

Then came the sound of a gunshot.

It was so loud it made Loona’s ears ring, but through grit teeth and a sharp wince- seeing Vortex similarly flinch at her side- morbid curiosity drove her to peek over the edge of the pedestal at the cause of the noise, even though she could hear Vortex hissing at her to take cover.

She then felt her eyes go wide at the sight of the pale beast taking a staggering step off to the side, its head bent to the point of nearly touching its shoulder.

With mouth hanging open, Loona used the creature's unbalanced posture to track the direction of the attack, ending up at the top of the nearby guard tower, where she could see the imp woman wielding her anti-tank rifle, pulling back the bolt of the massive weapon as she readied another shot.

However, the pale beast straightened out its posture and looked up at the imp woman, turning its head towards her slowly, making a strange gurgling sound at her, otherwise standing still.

It then flicked its head sideways.

The sound of agonized screaming followed right after, and Loona saw the imp woman drop her rifle and flail her limbs in a panic as yellow-black fire erupted from her mouth and eyes, burning her like paper.

The pale beast carried on before the woman’s body even hit the ground, and Loona saw it position itself in front of the pile of dead monsters, giving its back to her and Vortex.

It was then that Loona saw it raise both arms above its head and lean back, looking up at the sky.

The hellhound almost screamed when crimson lightning started pouring out of the creature’s hands, crackling with a deafening buzz as the energy seemed to focus into five different points before the pale beast.

From these points Loona saw a group of eyeless, musclebound monsters rip their way roaring into the world, as if they had stepped through too-tight portals. They staggered to find their footing and they howled at the sky once they did… only for them all to fall silent when the pale beast let out its own roar.

Ravenous as they had seemed, the eyeless creatures shrank away from their apparent master, bowing their heads and wincing when it pointed an arm at the corpse pile.

With that, Loona saw the eyeless monsters jump onto the great pile and start digging through the bodies, tossing the smaller beasts over their shoulders and pushing past the larger ones, rummaging through their fallen comrades' corpses like they were digging through trash.

The bizarre display confused Loona and set her nerves on edge, an anxious tremor spreading through her body despite her best attempts to control herself. However, it also revealed something that ignited a tiny spark of hope in her chest.

This monster was not here for them. So maybe, if they stayed hidden and did not make a sound, they would be able to-

“I know you’re there… Dog…”

Loona’s mouth went dry. 

That voice, it had come from inside her head, warped and piercing, like a sentient headache. “I could taste… your pain the moment I set foot upon this place…” It told her. “Come out… I want to see you…”

She winced and whined at the words, covering her ears on instinct. 

She gasped when she felt Vortex’s hand on her shoulder, turning to see her companion looking at her with a tight, worried expression, his brow caked with sweat, his eyes screaming a silent plea.

“Come out now… or I kill him…”

An image of Vortex screaming and burning alive burst violently into her mind, a waking nightmare. Loona had gotten up before she even finished letting out a horrified gasp.

“No, Loona!” She heard the dark hound scream, ash and dirt shifting beneath him as he tried and failed to reach out for her.

She could not afford to look back at him. She just marched forward, doing her best to abate her tremors, taking each step slowly, clenching her hands into fists, biting her lip.

The pale beast was still facing away from her, and its minions were still digging through the pile, and yet, Loona felt small, like she was a child walking up to their parents… about to get punished.

She shuddered when the monster turned around and fixed its unblinking yellow eyes on her. Its lipless, fanged mouth seemed curved upwards in a smile. “Hello there…” It paused, narrowing its eyes at her, just as a sharp ringing appeared in her ears. “Loona…"

She gulped, feeling even more exposed, her tremors getting worse upon realizing the thing was reading her mind. “W-What… What do you want?” She asked, if anything, just to manage expectations.

The beast did not answer, breaking into a march straight towards her. She was like a deer in headlights, frozen solid until she could see the almost marble-like texture on the creature’s skin. With the monster standing so close to her, Loona could not stop the tears spilling from her eyes, feeling like she was asphyxiating from the overpowering stench of sulphur that emanated from its body.

It then tilted its head at her, and Loona whined as she brought her hands to the sides of her head when her headache suddenly got worse. “Choices… Is that what he told you?” The creature asked. Its mouth did not move an inch. It then smirked as he turned to look at Vortex and made a sound like distorted laughter. “Nice speech… I like that… I like that a lot… Hehehe… How’s this for a choice?” It said as it got down to one knee and leaned in close. “I want you to pick between the one-eyed mutt and this…” The thing paused, narrowing its eyes for a second. Loona nearly fell to her knees screaming when she felt something like a hot poker pushing into her skull. “…Millie…” The pale beast named, a hint of satisfaction in its voice, the pain in Loona’s skull receding, leaving her gasping for air. “Yes… Choose one…” It told her, flashing her a fanged grin. “If you choose the mutt, I’ll burn him to ashes right now… If you choose the imp girl, I’ll hunt her down and, hehehe, send her to join her family…”

Loona felt her blood turn to ice in her veins. 

“Wh-What?” She gasped out, finding it difficult to breathe. “N-No… Nonono, please! Please don’t-”

“Choose. Now.” The beast demanded, its voice like a hammer to her brain. “Or I’ll kill them both and make you watch before I kill you too.”

This was not happening. 

This could not possibly be happening.

“CHOOSE.” Her head felt like it was going to explode. 

Loona cried out, her vision becoming blurry with tears and her splitting headache. Her heart felt like it was trying to beat through molasses; a heavy, strained thing squeezing in her chest.

She could see and hear Vortex calling out her name, only to get paralyzed just a few feet away, when the beast turned to face him with a snarl, leaving the dark hound staring up at it with wide eyes and pinprick pupils.

She could not let him die… Could not watch him die… Could not face Beelzebub after letting him die…

Still, she hated herself even before she spoke the words aloud.

“…M-Millie… I choose Millie…”

Her headache cleared.

Loona nearly choked on the gasping breath she tried to take.

As she clutched her throat and fell to her knees, she saw the pale beast rise up, turn around, and slowly walk away… 

Confused, the hellhound looked ahead, at the pile of corpses to which the creature seemed to return to.

It seemed the eyeless monsters had found their prize.

Loona saw them all tugging on the goat-like legs of a massive, red-skinned beast, ripping it free from the pile with a fleshy squelch. It looked nearly unharmed save for a nasty burn over its face, to the point Loona wondered how it died in the first place.

But as the lesser monsters dragged the red creature’s corpse, Loona heard the pale beast’s voice return to her. “I’ll be sure to give Millie… and her unborn child… your regards…” It said, a distinct ring of mirth in its voice. The beast then turned around to face her, standing amidst its minions, giving her a fanged smile. “Don’t kill yourself… I’ll just bring you back…”

With that, it raised its arms once more, and Loona saw a massive vortex of yellow and black flames rise up from beneath the beasts, consuming them in a booming surge of heat and noise that unleashed a tidal wave of sulphuric stench…

And then they were gone.

And Loona was left there; Unharmed, untouched, numb… with terrible consequences left in her wake once more.

For a moment, she considered testing the pale beast’s claim…

—666—

Samur’s explanation put a pit in Charlie’s stomach.

She had faced all manner of nightmarish beast yesterday, each one crueler and more dangerous than the last. The thought of a thing so far beyond even the worst of what she had seen made her blood run cold.

She was not alone in this despair, but among the room of worried faces she saw Angel Dust raise his hand once more. “Alright, so what you’re saying is; Ahzrak has a mind-reading, hellfire-bending, minion-summoning, million-year-old demigod on his team?”

“In essence, yes…” Samur confirmed with a nod and a sour sigh. “It is no exaggeration to say that even if we manage to kill Prince Ahzrak, the Archvile would be more than capable of carrying out this invasion in his stead.”

“Well shit,” Beelzebub gulped, her plasma fluctuating in color, her ears drooping slightly. “I guess we found the Himmler to Ahzrak’s Hitler… How do we take this bastard out?”

“With a great deal of effort. Archviles have no easily exploitable weaknesses, and what’s more, there is first the challenge of finding it… Archviles can teleport massive distances. However, they leave a trace-” Samur paused to hold out one of his hands, manifesting a beam of light that quickly dispelled to reveal something in his open palm; a small mound of yellowish powder. “Sulphur… Archviles reek of it, and they leave remnants of the substance wherever they teleport. I believe a skilled enough tracker could follow this sulphur trial and pinpoint the Archvile’s location.”

Charlie heard her aunt chuckle. “Well, if it's a tracker you’re looking for, you ain’t gonna find anyone better than me, baby,” Beelzebub stared, pointing two thumbs at herself. “The Queen of the Hellhounds is on it.”

“The ‘Queen of the Hellhounds’ will hardly be enough,” Samur deadpanned at her. “You struggled to defeat an Agaddon Hunter even when aided, which means an Archvile is entirely out of your league.”

Charlie clenched her jaw at the seraph’s rudeness, hearing her snakes rattle and seeing them glare at him from the corners of her eyes.

Beelzebub seemed equally unamused, glaring and scrunching her nose at the red-robed angel. “Fuck me, do you practice being this much of an asshat or is it just natural talent?” She growled out, her plasma shimmering briefly into hot yellow.

Samur was not even looking at her. “Beelzebub will need assistance on her mission, so we will need some more volunteers.” He said, passing a hand through the room.

As much of a threat as this Archivile seemed to be, however much a part of her wanted to go and make sure her aunt would be safe, Charlie could not afford distractions… She had her own mission.

Thankfully someone else stepped up. 

She followed the sound of footsteps and found Husk winding up to speak. “When Alastor set me free… he made me stronger than before, leased me some of his soul contracts or something,” He said, looking down at his golden claws, flexing and relaxing them. “I feel my old tricks coming back to me, heh, like riding a bike.” He chuckled, fully clenching his hands, producing a surge of red magic that rose through his arms before looking up at Samur. “I think I can help Miss Bub take on this Archvile freak… And I might have an ace in the hole…” He added, his tone shifting slightly. Charlie noticed one of her snakes narrow its eyes at him.

“Love the energy, honey,” Beelzebub declared, giving Husk three thumbs up. “Just, one thing; Don’t ever fucking call me ‘Miss Bub’ again, ‘kay?” She asked, putting on a big smile.

Husk cleared his throat roughly. “Yeah, sorry…”

“And well, if Husk is goin’, I might as well invite myself along too,” Angel Dust declared, closing his eyes and putting his two free hands up. “And hey, I ain’t no overlord or Deadly Sin, but I don’t think this Archvile fella’s gonna much appreciate being pumped full of holly lead by six blessed machine guns.” He grinned as he produced his extra arms, both wielding white-tipped tommy guns.

“Angel-”

Whatever Husk was about to say was silenced by a finger to the lips and a rapid shushing from the spider sinner. “Nope, nuh-uh. Don’t even try. If you go and get yourself killed, who’s supposed to make me my martinis in that special way I love, huh?”

Husk slumped his shoulders and rolled his eyes, ultimately crossing his arms and taking a step back, making his way over to Beelzebub’s side, Angel following suit. This seemed to prompt Pentious, Cherri Bomb and the Egg Bois to gather, being joined by Baxter, Carmila, and Zestial.

“Three…” Samur uttered, humming once again as he passed his eye over the forming teams before turning to the remnants, to Charlie herself. “Very well. I assume this means the rest of you-”

“Are going to mount Ahzrak’s head on a pike.” Satan interjected loudly. 

Samur did not seem to have even heard him, keeping an unblinking crystal eye on Charlie.

“What he said.” The princess decreed, matching the seraphim’s gaze.

She saw Emily’s brow knit at that, and the angel’s mouth shifted halfway open as she seemed to want to reach a hand out to Charlie… before pulling it back and pursing her lips.

Samur’s eye glinted at this.

However, his attention shifted when Lute spoke up. “Now that everyone has their objectives… What will you be doing then?” The Grand Exorcist asked, crossing her arms at him.

“I will remain here at the Hotel, managing its defense,” Samur answered, returning his hands to his sleeves. “After redistributing some of the tethers from the Exorcits, I will be able to coordinate all three of your teams and keep tabs on you all. I will even be able to teleport supplies directly to you.”

“Supplies?” Angel Dust repeated. “What supplies?”

“The ones we will be acquiring from Miss Carmine’s warehouses,” Samur replied, glancing over his shoulder at the overlord. “We will be incorporating her plan to reclaim her territory and her weapon’s factories. This mission will take place before the rest, so that you may better equip yourselves for the challenges that lay ahead of you… So unless there are any further questions, I believe it would be best to begin preparations… We are- very much- on the clock here.”

No complaints were given, not by Sin, sinner or angel. Charlie could feel a sense of drive pulse through the room, and the ghost of a smile seemed to pass over her mouth. Any other day she would have felt like singing…

“Well, I guess that’s that.” Angel Dust clapped his hands together. “Sounds like we’ve got a plan ladies and gentlemen. So let’s get crackin’!”

However, Husk’s ears flickered and Charlie saw the barman glance around the room. “Hey wait a minute… Where is Alastor? Shouldn’t he be part of the big ‘Mission Debrief’ thing?” He asked suddenly, making Charlie blink when she realized the red overlord had been absent all along.

“Oh, he went on a walk!” Niffty answered simply, raising her hand over her head and doing a little hop. “Said he needed to clear his head but that he’d be back soon.”

“He went on a walk? Mid-Apocalypse?” Cherri Bomb questioned.

“Eh, whatever. Who knows how that psycho thinks,” Angel waved a dismissive hand. “As long as Charlie can yank his chain and pull him into the game, he can waltz off wherever he wants for all I care.”

“Hm, fair enough,” Husk acknowledged with a shrug. “In that case, I suppose we should have Miss Carmine here tell us how to access her warehouses."

“No need.” Samur interjected, turning to face the woman, raising a sharp finger at her. “After I take a look at her memories, I will be able to teleport you all directly to the location.”

“You what?” Carmila exclaimed, leaning away from the strange seraphim, Zestial taking a step forward in front of her. “I will not have you poking ar-”

A howl echoed in the distance, shrill and gurgling, muffled by the outer walls of the hotel. 

Charlie felt a cold chill run up her spine, but she steeled herself and turned to the great entrance doors, where she had heard the sound come from.

“…What the fuck was that?” Beelzebub asked, an uneasy edge in her voice.

Charlie felt herself growing tense, battle ready. “Samur?” She called, never taking her eyes off the door.

“A Cursed Prowler…” She heard the seraphim utter, sounding breathless, speaking through grit teeth. “An assassin of the Dark Realm…”

“Assassin!?” Satan exclaimed through the window, the ground rumbling as he rose to his full height. “That shitstain Ahzrak sent a fucking assassin after my girl!?” 

There was another howl, much closer than the last, and Charlie summoned her trident when she saw a flash of green light leak through the windows beside the hotel’s entrance. She could see her companions all draw their weapons and call forth their magics, all of them grouping up and fixing their eyes on the entrance. Then came a sound like a lathe scraping at wood, dragged out and crunchy, as though the beast was raking its claws over the door.

“Everyone…” Samur called, audibly tense. “Whatever you do, do not let it scratch you. If it lands so much as a shallow cut, you’re dead…”

“W-What!?” Angel Dust exclaimed. “What do you mean don’t let-”

The sinner was interrupted when another inhuman howl bounced off the walls of the hotel, accompanied by a flash of green that came from behind one of the pillars holding the ceiling up.

Charlie sucked in breath and snapped her trident’s tip at the pillar, her eyes going wide when she managed to catch a glimpse of a gangly arm covered in tattered bandages scrape three neon-green claws over the smooth red stone, leaving behind drops of an oily verdant liquid.

But then, another flash came from behind the pillar, and another howl echoed through the hall.

Charlie heard her companions scream and yelp when they heard a chair be splintered to bits behind them. But when they all turned around, all they saw was a green flash and a broken chair with traces of glowing ooze among its splinters.

Then another howl came, and when Charlie turned to a dark corner of the hall, she saw three green eyes staring back at her, only to disappear into a neon green burst.

And then came another howl, and another, and another, and another, each one blending into the next, distorting the last, creating an echo chamber that made Charlie’s ears ring. All around her she could see her companions glancing every which way, yelling warnings and contradicting callouts to each other as they tried to track the beast.

The princess could feel her head start to spin.

But then, as if by pulling a switch, silence fell upon the hall.

No more howls, no more green flashes. Nothing. For what felt like a whole minute, there was nothing.

“Well!?” Angel Dust suddenly shouted between panting breaths. “Where the fuck is it!?”

There was no answer to the sinner’s question, and no sign of the beast.  Charlie could still see her companions scanning the hall with eyes wide open, all of them still holding their weapons high.

But then, just as the princess felt like lowering her trident, she whipped her head around when a new sound reached her ears; A scream, a bloodcurdling scream.

It was horrific, with a distinct wetness to it, like the sound was traveling up a throat filled with blood, but it also sounded muffled, distant. 

“What the-”

Another scream rang out, this one intercut with desperate, agonized sobs.

When the third scream came, Charlie had started feeling herself hyperventilate, for she realized that this Prowler was not here for her. “It’s here for the guests…” She shuddered out, her heart constricting in her chest.

“How do we stop it!?” Emily cried out, her voice shrill with panic.

“We can’t,” Samur growled, hands balled into fists at his sides, floating high into the air and glancing at the ceiling like he was looking for something. “Prowlers can teleport freely through space, and Cursed Prowlers in particular can slip through wards…”

“Not if I have anythin’ to say about that!” Satan’s voice declared, accompanied by a mighty stomp and a deep inhale. “DO NOT TELEPORT!” The Sin of Wrath bellowed at the top of his lungs, so loud Charlie swore she saw the glass of the windows wobble and every person in the room winced as they rushed to cover their ears. Even her snakes hissed and writhed as Charlie felt the veil of her uncle’s magic pass over her. “DEATH PENALTY!”

When the last words echoed out and the group stopped groaning and wincing, another howl was heard… Yet this one was different. It lasted much longer, and its pitch was higher, laden with something Charlie was certain was absolute, infuriated frustration.

“That should slow it down…” Satan breathed out, and Charlie saw him look at her through the window. “Go get that son of a bitch.” 

Charlie felt her breathing slow down, just a little bit. She clenched her hands around her trident to steady herself and gave her uncle a firm nod before breaking into a sprint towards the stairs. “Everyone split up! We need to find this thing as fast as possible!”

“Everyone who can fly-” She heard Emily shout out, looking over her shoulder to see the seraphim beat her wings and take to the sky. “-Follow me! We can search the building faster from the outside!” With that, she dashed to the hotel’s gates and swung them open before flying up to the upper floors, and Charlie saw Lute, Husk and Beelzebub all glance between themselves before unfurling their wings and scrambling to go after her.

Niffty giggled manically as she drew her knife and zipped over to a metal grate in one of the walls. “I’m gonna get yooooou! I’m gonna may you pay for trashing the room I just cleaned! Haahahah!” The maid cackled as she crawled into the ventilation duct and disappeared.

As for the rest of her companions, Charlie could hear them trailing and panting behind her as they tried to keep up with her mad sprawl towards the stairs and elevator… All save for Baxter, who stayed behind to sit crosslegged and pull out a suitcase, humming calmly as he opened it.

Charlie shook her head and removed the fish sinner from her throughs, looking ahead at the splitting paths before her.

When they reached the junction at the end of the hall, Charlie saw Carmila and Zestial take the path on the right, mortified looks on their faces as they went. Angel Dust- still using two arms to clutch Fat Nuggets tight to his chest- and Cherri both hurried off to the left. She saw Sir Pentious knock the control panel of the elevator loose and immediately begin messing with the wiring, his Eggbois passing him an assortment of tools as his calling.

Samur for his part, floated up the stairway with weightless speed.

Charlie followed his example and headed up the stairs. However, she could not float or fly, so the princess of Hell grit her teeth as she bent her knees and tensed up her legs like coiled springs, before releasing that tension in an explosive burst that made her hair and tail whip behind her.

She growled as she leaped over whole flights of stairs, feeling the varnished wood floor crack beneath her hooves and her snakes press themselves to her head. She leaped so fast and turned so sharply- bouncing off the walls to round the corners of the stair case- that the princess had actually overtaken Samur, whizzing past his blurry red outline and landing on what must have been the fifth floor of the hotel.

That was when she heard another scream.

Charlie felt her snakes point to her left, like the needle of a compass, and the next thing she knew she was sprinting down the hall.

“No! Get away from him!” 

That had been Emily, her voice muffled by walls, but close enough that Charlie could hear the despair between her words.

She ran faster still.

The princess heard the sounds of struggle and the blare of magic come from behind a door to her right, seeing the blue and golden glow of Emily’s magic bleeding through the thin gaps on the door frame at the very end of the hall.

She leaped over with a grunt of effort and used her blackened arm to backhand the door, shattering it and stepping into the room.

She was greeted by the sight of broken windows, upturned furniture and blinding lights as Emily fired off a radiant smite against a putrid creature across the room.

It was gangly and hunchebacked, with three eyes peeking from its head, much like the purple beast that had teleported her to Ahzrak’s ship. Only this one’s sickly green and brown skin was covered by bandages and pustules of glowing pus, its claws, jaws and eyes leaking the substance.

But even as the smite of a seraphim crashed against it, it appeared unbothered, a translucent membrane of pale blue smoke wobbled around it, diluting the heavenly attack as it gathered a mass of undulating green energy between its claws.

Charlie’s cry of warning seemed to reach her friend just in time, for Emily’s smite cut off and the young seraphim beat her wings to dodge the beast’s projectile, which splattered against the wall behind her.

However, the creature turned its attention to Charlie, stomping a foot and letting out a roar, the blue miasma around it pulsing and snaking around it as if it was a peacock's feathers.

And then it disappeared in a green flash.

Charlie felt like she had been rug-pulled. Emily’s bewildered expression felt like a mirror. “What!?”

“It’s Possessed.”

The sound of Samur’s voice behind her made her jump, but after she turned around to see the seraphim storm past the doorway, she gasped when her mind was drawn to the loudest sound in the room: The sinner- a thin man with a bird-like head- laying writhing on the ground, kicking and screaming his lungs out, a glowing green wound carved into his bleeding chest, rashes and pustules spreading through his skin like wildfire.

“Oh god!” Emily exclaimed, horror in her eyes as she dashed to the sinner’s side, healing magic coursing through her hands.

But Charlie felt her brow furrow, for Emily had might as well not even been there. The man continued to scream, the green rashes continued to spread, blood and verdant pus started leaking through every pore in his body in spite of the young seraphim's healing light.

That was when Samur picked up, joining Emily at the sinner’s side. “The Prowler is likely just a corpse being puppeted by a Spirit, which means it will be resistant to any attack we throw against it… including your uncle’s magic.” He rushed to explain, suddenly grabbing the thrashing, screaming sinner by the head. “Quickly, you do not have long. Where is the thing that did this to you?”

“Samur!? What are you doing!?” Emily shrieked. “We have to save this man!”

“Lamashtuan Poison is beyond any of us to heal!” The elder seraph snapped back. “But those cursed by it can track the one who cursed them! So answer, man! Where is it!?” He demanded, despair in his voice as he shook the dying man’s head.

“Downstairs! Downstaiiiiiiirs!” The avian sinner squealed, tears leaking from his now rotten green eyes. “Two floors doooown! Left siiiiide!” He wailed, breaking down crying. “Please kill meeeeeeeee!” His screaming trailed off into a coughing fit, and Charlie saw a gush of red blood and green ooze rise out of his mouth like a water balloon popping… The man held still after that.

Emily clamped her hands over her mouth, tears welling up in her eyes. Samur let out a deep, growling sigh, his hands clenching into fists at his sides.

Charlie however, could hear the rattling and hissing of her snakes rise to a crescendo.

Two floors down.

Charlie ran toward the broken windows of the room and jumped right out, pushing Emily and Samur’s calls out of her mind.

The princess then turned mid-air and drove her trident’s prongs into the side of the hotel, controlling her fall as she scraped over the outer walls of the building until she had descended two floors.

She then ripped her trident free and used her black arm to swing herself through a nearby window, bursting into the room with a barrel roll, kicking the door down and making a turn before speeding down the hall.

She slammed her shoulder against the wall to keep her momentum as she made a turn, pushing herself to speed up when she saw what awaited at the far side; Millie, along with a Paladin and a Templar were trying to surround the Cursed Prowler, pushing it into a corner.

“What in Sam Hill is this thing!?” Millie yelled, swinging her red and black battle axe to keep the monster at bay.

“What it is matters little!” The paladin replied, raising her shield just in time to block a swipe of the beast’s claws. “The much more pressing question is how do we kill it!?” A question that became rather valid when the Templar grunted as she swung her greatsword at the beast, only to have it sink a single inch into its shoulder, impeded by the blue miasma that seemed to protect it. The beast then shrieked, pushed the blade up with one hand, and swiped at the larger exorcist with the other, who gasped and beat her wings to dodge the attack in the nick of time.

But then, Charlie saw a metal grate fall on the Prowler’s head, causing it to hiss and shake its head while the women attacking it paused and stepped back.

When the putrid beast looked at the ceiling, Niffty’s angelic steel knife popped one of its eyes like a grape.

The Cursed Prowler shrieked as the cycloptic maid fell on top of it and caused it to trip and fall to the ground. Niffty laughed as she stabbed the beast with frenzied speed. “Dirty, filthy, disgusting thing! I told you you’d pay! Hahahaha!” 

The Prowler then teleported.

Niffty let out a breathless gasp when the green beast’s weight fell on top of her, and Charlie felt her stomach turn. 

The Prowler then puked a stream of polluted blood over Niffty, completely soaking the poor maid’s entire body and making her let out a horrified scream.

The creature then retreated from her with unsteady, unbalanced steps, shaking its head as if to refocus. One of its split-jawed mandibles was knocked off its head when Millie swung her axe against it, but the Prowler just let out another shrieking howl before disappearing in a neon green burst.

“Damn it!” The imp woman screamed. “Where the hell did it go!?”

Charlie kept her eyes on Niffty, breathing hard as she dashed to the puddle of oily black and green blood the little maid was now thrashing in.

“Dirty! Dirtydirtydirtydirtyyyyy!” Niffty cried, scratching at her arms and chest… peeling away her skin. “It feels bad! Make it stop! Make it stooooop!” She wailed, her eye leaking bloody tears.

Charlie’s mind started to race, her heart hammering against her ribs, her breathing rushing to catch up. 

She could not let her friend die. She was not going to let her friend die.

“Those cursed by it can track the one who cursed them!”

Samur’s words went through her mind like a bullet, shocking her into stillness. 

Her eyes shifted from Niffty to the puddle of blood around her, focusing on the shimmering green blots.

She clenched her jaw and gulped as a terrible idea took shape in her mind.

She could have sworn seeing one of her snakes hurriedly shaking its head at her.

Charlie put her trident down to free up her hands and scooped up part of the vile liquid, and then -before her self-preservation could catch up with her- she brought it to her lips and swallowed.

The effect was instantaneous.

Charlie felt like she was being put in a meat grinder. 

She lost her breath and stiffened up, collapsing to the ground screaming as she began to feel the poison rip her body apart cell by cell.

But as she twitched in agony beside Niffty and heard her snakes hissing in her ears, Charlie grit her teeth and raked her nails over the floor, feeling something churn in her stomach; A surge of power that passed through her like a lightning bolt, washing the pain away for just a moment, replacing it with something else…

She felt her body shift, heard her joints crack and snap, felt her bones push against her flesh, her tail and horns grow longer, and her skull turn to liquid as it reshaped and reorganized her features, transforming her into her new, monstrous form.

The princess slammed her blackened fist against the ground to push herself up to her feet, roaring at the ceiling as a rush of adrenaline coursed through her veins.

Her eyes were messed up; Black veins wriggled at the edges of her vision, the world around her had taken a sickly dark green tint, nothing but monochrome shapes in a transparent approximation of reality. She could see vague outlines she imagined were her friends running through the hotel and flying outside as if in search, and could see people inside their rooms, cowering in the corners. 

But through the warped darkness she spotted a bright light, flickering like a candle flame, glowing green like a chemical spill. It was small with distance, at what Charlie knew to be the tenth floor. 

The princess narrowed her eyes and snarled, having found her prey.

She held her snake-scale covered hand open and channeled her magic; pooling a great scarlet fire in her palm, clenching her fingers around it to compress it, creating a sharp whistle of pressure and making her hand start to shake.

She then threw her hand up at the ceiling, and saw Millie and the exorcists nearby duck for cover when the flare of hellfire she cast forth incinerated a hole through it. Up and up her fire went, burning through the floors of the hotel like a welder’s torch burning through styrofoam.

Then she bent her knees, tensed up her calves  and lowered her body, coiling up like a snake… and then she jumped.

Charlie could hear the wind whistle in her ears and pass over her eyes.

When she reached the tenth floor and felt her own impulse start to wane, she saw the glowing green shape of the Cursed Prowler down the hall, a puddle of puke and blood at its feet, looking back at her with wide eyes.

That was when she summoned her trident.

In a flare of hellfire, her weapon appeared in her hand, and Charlie roared as she threw it with such force that it pierced straight through the Cursed Prowler’s body, sweeping it off its feet and nailing it screeching to the wall.

But the second that Charlie touched down on the ground, she dug the claws of her smaller arm into the floor and catapulted herself across the hall, fangs bared and her monstrous black fist reeled back behind her head.

She then shot her punch forward and felt the Prowler’s head crack open against her knuckles like a wet piñata, splattering green and black blood all over the wall, creating a web of cracks where the blow connected.

The sickly beast gurgled and its spindly limbs twitched, but less than a second passed before it went limp, the neon green glow of its claws and poisoned blood dulled down to a near gray tone, and Charlie’s vision returned to normal.

But when she pulled her trident and bloody hand back, Charlie was knocked away by a pulse of energy erupting from the Cursed Prowler’s body.

She shut her eyes and braced, and when she regained her balance and shook her head to orient herself, she took a step back at the sight that greeted her.

A monster with thin limbs and an eyeless head crowned by a semi-circular crest of bone floated before her. The beast was blue in color, transparent, and almost gaseous in its outline, and Charlie knew then it was the Spirit Samur had been talking about.  She swung her trident at it on instinct, only for the attack to pass right through, distorting the creature’s shape like passing a hand through fog.

The thing then let out a high-pitched shriek, its ethereal body glowing with pale cyan light and dark blue smoke.

Charlie then felt a cold wind pass over her fur as the vapors bore down on her. She started coughing, batting her arms and flailing her head from side to side to push the fumes away when she felt them start to snake up her nose, slide between her clenched teeth, push through her ear canals, and sting her eyes.

She started feeling her body ache, sensation fading from her limbs as though frostbite was spreading through her like she was in the middle of a blizzard.

But then it stopped.

Charlie gasped and widened her eyes when she felt the cold ebb away and saw the blue vapors retreat from her, solidifying into the shape of the Spirit, its gaseous, ghostly body compressed within a cage of golden light.

Charlie felt one of her snakes turn around to look behind her. When she followed it, the princess saw Samur, hand raised at the Spirit, a tendril of golden light connecting his hand to the cage the spectral monster was contained within.

She then saw Samur clench his hand and wrinkle his nose as a potent hum filled the air, and the light that surrounded the Spirit intensified to a blinding extreme.

The Spirit then exploded, a flare of blue smoke and an echoing scream that hung in the air like a grim firework.

And then… silence, the battle finished.

Charlie breathed out and slumped her shoulders, feeling her body shrink down morph out of her monstrous form. She cast away her trident and got down to her knees, exhaustion pulling down on her like a weighted vest. “Why…” She remembered that poor man writhing on the ground, begging for death. She remembered Niffty crying. “Why do this? Why do something so cruel? So pointless?”

Samur cycled through a breath. The princess heard his robes shift behind her. “To send a message.”

“A message!?” She yelled, her hair flaring up with rage, her snakes rattling loudly, one of them crying bitter tears. “What kind of message is this!?”

“A Cursed Prowler possessed by a Spirit, ordered to go on a killing spree while explicitly told not to kill you or any other target of significance… I believe that roughly translates to; ‘You can’t stop me’...”

Charlie felt her claws digging into her palms, drawing blood, scraping bone.

“Ahzrak is trying to goad you, trying to get you to come after him with a clouded mind,” Samur said as he leaned down to her level. “He is doing this because he is on the backfoot, because we have an opportunity to go on the offensive and crush him… But only if you are focused.”

Charlie looked up at him, feeling her snakes fix their slitted eyes on him as well.

“Rage… Properly harnessed…” He emphasised, giving her a stern look as he stood up… holding a hand out for her. 

The princess narrowed her eyes as she looked at the seraphim, at his sharp-fingered hand… and took it.

6

6 6

AUTHOR’S NOTES

And we’re back, coming in swinging!

Hope you liked this intro, bringing in some new villains, setting up the stakes and a closing fight scene with some enemies from The Ancient Gods. This story is a very direct continuation to Hazbin Hotel: Damnation, so I very much recommend you read that story first before reading this one.

• I will be incorporating some elements of Hazbin Season 2. A detail or two might be missing, deliberately changed, or outright absent because those plotlines aren’t viable in the context of this story.
• Much like the last one, this story will bounce through multiple POVs.
• There’s gonna be some shake-ups of certain relationships.
• There’s gonna be way more Doom stuff this time around, like a lot more, but Charlie and her gang are still going to be the main protagonists… mostly.
• As this is still a Doom and Hellaverse Crossover, you can expect all the usual flavors of nasty to pop up here as well; Gore, torture, some sexual content… All the bells and whistles.

So, with all that; Welcome back or welcome aboard! Feel free to review or visit my Twitter/X to see some art I made for the story!