A/N: Let's try this again. I still don't own anything. All characters of South Park belong to Matt and Trey. Comments are very much appreciated :)
The glorious metropolis of Hell was a cauldron of lust just waiting to be explored. She hadn't been there long enough to gain her surroundings before the demons were pulling on her skirts and laughing hungrily from dark alleyways. Taking a single long inhale of the sultry air, she managed to dust off the tiny black demons and stroll along the streets toward the home of the dark lord himself. Her bare feet dug into the coals in the road and hisses crept up her body to shake her to the core. If her soul had still inhabited her body, it would have been shattered into a million pieces.
It took longer than she remembered, but then again she hadn't been to Hell in a while. She hadn't really seen a need to. Life on Earth had been a boring albeit depressing situation. People died, but there wasn't so much she cared to do about that. Resurrection was a tricky thing. For most people anyway.
She never allowed herself to wander long within this realm, fearing she would become too drunk with sin to even want to go back to her simple, secluded life and her sad, silly little home. She was a goddess worshipped by millions across the ages…but she was also the only thread a little girl with devilishly dark curls had to life. A life the little girl didn't even particularly want.
Crunching along the road faster and faster, the immortal let her nostrils flare at the smell of sulfur and she glanced around just enough to ensure she was heading in the right direction. This time she'd choose to come in an off-white gown that looked more like bed sheets wrapped around her spindly body. It made her stand out like a wildflower in an otherwise barren land, but at least she had physical evidence that she didn't belong here. It was all too easy to forget with the intoxicating allure of eternal freedom and havoc. She'd reigned some kingdoms in her days…destroyed some monarchies…but this was not her land to claim. Her need was far more pressing and far less dramatic than those scarlet caves could hide.
She came upon a familiar piece of land and spotted a boy not much older than her host leaning against a wired fence. His features were cut sharp and he dared her to approach him with frantic, fiery eyes.
"I know why you're here. Father warned me."
She decided against responding. Demons were usually more useful if they talked themselves out.
"Well. Aren't you going to try and take him?" he asked, straightening up and presenting his black head to the rays of light bouncing off the lavafall to the east. He noticed her relaxing and his wild face grew furious. "Can't you talk?"
"Yes," she replied.
"Then answer me. Answer me or I'll go inside and lock him in and nothing you do will let you take him. Down here he's mine."
A small smirk played on her lips. "Grown attached to him, have we? It's been what…two months? You couldn't have broken him yet."
Rounding the fence, he approached her with a growl. "Just go away. He doesn't want to go back. None of them do. They belong to us…all of them."
"They belonged to us first."
"Bullshit," said the dark boy.
"You should really start reading up on your history, Damien," said the woman, letting her body fall backwards and into a chair that rose straight from the ground with an audible moan. "I have. That's how I know you."
When he didn't reply, she tugged on the edge of her skirts and crossed her legs lazily. "Do you know me, Damien? Do you know who I am?"
Damien nodded. His face was flushed and she quietly let her eyes fall to his fists balled up against his slacks.
"Grand. Then you'll go and get your Daddy and we'll talk this all out," she said, lifting an arm and letting her red fingernails run a track under the soft skin of her wrist. "I really don't want to do it, you know. If it was up to me, I'd let you keep him."
"Fuck off," said Damien, teleporting with a flick of his hand and a scrunch of his nose. She smiled. Demigods were such funny little creatures.
A moment later, Lucifer himself appeared in all his glory with a massive eruption of fire and brimstone with his son clinging to his arm. "Hello, Hydra. I apologize for not meeting you at the gate. I've been…busy."
Hydra let a dismissive hand float through the air. "It's all forgotten. I'm here. And I've come to take the boy back."
A frown settled in to Lucifer's face. "Damien's taken a liking to him. There are plenty of other people in Hell who would love to go back with you…why not take one of them? Fuck…take two! Just leave him this one."
"Satan…truly…I would if I could. You know these people. It's him they want back. And he's a very specific sort of fellow…isn't he? He's not just one I can pass off as Joe Schmoe down the street. You got to think about it…I haven't taken anyone back in over a year. It was going to come to this sooner or later."
"Then make it later, you fucking bitch!" cried Damien. "It isn't fair, papa! It just isn't fair!"
"Now, now, Damien…he'll be back."
"When he's old and gray? When his ass is nothing but a head of lettuce and his dick flings about like a pendulum? I want my Pip, papa. My virginal, scared little Pip who still believes he can be saved and that he'll wake up soon…that all the things I do to him are nothing but a dream. If she takes him now, who knows what he'll become!"
Lucifer looked up with pleading eyes at Hydra only to found her face had assumed that mournful, faraway look that she took when her mind was made up. Anger rose in his belly and, had she been any type of material being, he would have cast her then and there to the deepest, darkest depths of Hell. But nothing could shake her, that being of utter selfishness. Nothing could change her mind.
But something could damn well make sure it didn't happen again.
"Go and get the boy, Damien."
"Papa!"
"Do as I command!"
The boy teleported with an angry snap. Satan squeezed his eyes tightly together in an attempt to calm his boiling emotions.
"You will take two mortals back to South Park. Another has entered my realm too soon."
Hydra merely nodded, having become disinterested with the absence of Damien's pitiful pleas for his plaything. She didn't have to wait very long for the son of Satan to return. He approached her with a blank face and forcibly pushed his lover away from his body as if he was ridding himself of an limb.
"Go away and don't come back."
Pip clamored up from the ground and stared wide-eyed all around him. His blonde hair was sticking up in all sorts of directions and the only stitch of clothing he wore was a bowtie limp against his neck. "Damien? What's going on?"
"You're going back to Earth. Con-fucking-grats, Pirrup."
A wide grin spread over Pip's face and the tears began to flow. "Oh happy day! I knew I was a good boy! I knew I wouldn't be stuck in this God-forsaken abyss forever! Oh, Damien! This is the best of news!"
She had half expected Damien to start crying himself. But then she noticed his eyes were too busy being locked on her in an icy glare ghastly enough to freeze a mortal woman. Damien turned to leave before a large red hand settled on his shoulder. "Damien…Pip will not be ascending alone. Go to the northwest wing. Ask for Tammy Warner."
Her heart, which up to that moment had beat with a furious hunger to harm and destroy, suddenly ran cold. She had walked in a source of infinite beauty and grace. Everything collapsed inside of her into a small and dim place quite beyond her ability to find.
Pleased at the change in Hydra's demeanor, Damien left once again, all too eager to return with the immortal's burden.
"It was going to come to this sooner or later," said Satan, watching the shaking Hydra rise from her makeshift seat.
"No…it was going to keep going on the way it's always gone on. He wasn't going to know…he wasn't going to remember."
Damien returned with a pop and wickedly guided Tammy over to Hydra.
"We should never forget the ones we love…I've learned that. Move on, maybe, but never forget them," said Satan, glancing up toward the heavens with a quiet sigh.
Hydra stared into the faces of the mortals before her. She pictured her human body in a bed far above her just sleeping away…unaware of the turmoil she was about to endure or of the lies that would end this quiet, unassuming night.
"That was beautiful. Now if you can give me a line that says 'Remember me? Nope? Oh…I'm just your wife in another dimension' then I'll be set to face the world tomorrow."
Katie Journigan awoke that morning in tears. The clock on her bedside table was buzzing angrily in her ear. She didn't have to move to know her older sister was standing in the doorway.
"He's back."
Emery let out a pleased squeal and went to the bed to give Katie a large hug. "Oh, thank you, sissy. You have no idea how much it will mean to Sydney. And you'll have a little ring bearer to walk down the aisle with...won't that be darling?"
The younger sister lifted her dark head from the pillow and choked back a sob. "You don't know...you just don't know..."