(Merry Christmas.)

-O-

Oliver's new world was one of pain, heat and mind-numbing terror. He was vaguely aware that he was running. The dull, jolted impacts of his feet hitting hard rock was now an ever-present factor of this second-life, like the scorching hot air that burned his throat with every breath. The landscape was like that of Mars; flat, hard and rust-red, stretching on until it reached the horizon. In the distance he could see other souls being punished, separated from his own personal hell by a long chain of barbed wire fencing, high as two men stacked on top of each other and thick as a hedge.

There was no sun, no stars, nothing in the sky but an endless expanse of inky blackness that Oliver swore was getting closer to him every time he looked up at it. If time even worked the same way in the Underworld as it does on Earth, that is. For all he knew, this was just one day of torment being replayed for all eternity. As though they could hear his thoughts, his pursuers let out their terrible, pitched screech far behind him. Even though the distance must have been at least half a mile, the sound still made Oliver's ears hurt and he tripped on some of the uneven terrain.

Instinctively moving to throw out his hands to catch himself, Oliver remembered too late that he was missing his left arm below the elbow. Though he managed to slow his fall somewhat with his right hand, his face still exploded in pain against the hellish red ground, and he heard a snap which he assumed was his nose bone shattering against the rock. For a moment he lay there, face down in the dirt and stone, dazed as blood and snot poured out of his nostrils. And for a moment, as strange as it was, he felt peaceful, accepting his fate. Then, the distant screeching of his tormentors stabbed an icy spike of fear into his soul and suddenly he was running again. He didn't even remember standing up.

Oliver risked a glance behind him to see how close they had gotten and his heart almost stopped. He could see them, flying low to the landscape, seven silver hunting falcons bigger than cars. And they were growing larger by the second. Oliver turned and poured on the speed, gasping, legs burning, arm pumping, his eyes fixed on the horizon as blood poured down his face in thick, hot rivers. He had no idea what was there, but it had to be better than this. And even though he knew he'll never find out, he clung to that hope like a drowning man to a piece of driftwood, even as the tidal wave approached to devour him. The falcons screeched again, and they were so close this time that the sound hit him like a truck, throwing him to the ground once again and busting open his nose even worse, the pain growing exponentially from the second impact.

And then they were on him.

Talons dug into his back and tore flesh like tissue paper. Beaks dove and ripped chunks of meat out of his neck and arm and legs. The pain should've made him black out or go into shock or something, anything. But no. For some reason, and he knew the reason, Oliver felt himself being torn apart. Every nerve was being pulled and stretched and burned as he thrashed on the ground, his throat burning, his lungs feeling as though they were filled with broken glass. Oliver realized only then that he was screaming, but the sound was drowned out by the feeding of the birds that were sicced on him. His right leg suddenly went numb as two of the falcons ripped it off and started fighting each other, making the weirdest damned growling noise Oliver had ever heard and screeching even louder than before. It was about that time when his ears started bleeding and his hearing began to leave him.

And as before, the world began to fade, his screams dying down, the pain numbing into blissful oblivion. As before, the falcons who had ripped off his leg had finally settled their grievance joined the rest of them in finishing off the mortal who had become their prey.

And, as before, he remembered the 'trial', a thousand lifetimes ago.

He didn't remember the trip into the Underworld itself very clearly, but he remembered wondering one thing; Where's Marvin? Even though Oliver was dead, that was at the back of his mind during the trip across the Styx. Whenever he looked up there was a lot of black fog, a black river and a black ferryman with a grin that gleamed like a thousand diamonds.

"You're a right special one, ain't ya?" He had asked Oliver when they were almost to the other side. Up until then the ferryman had been silent.

"What?" Oliver asked him in return.

He must have looked pretty funny, because he laughed at him then, rowing the empty boat they were in across the black waters of the Styx. "Normally, see, there'd be a right arseload of the damned all crammed into this here ferry with us," he nodded at all of the empty seats that Oliver had only just noticed, "but mi'lord Hades told me, 'Charon, this ones to be taken directly and personally to the Pavilion for Judgment.' Now, why'd you suppose that is, eh?"

There was no point in lying. "I was loyal to the wrong Immortals, it seems," Oliver answered.

The ferryman just laughed again, "You sell yourself short, Oliver Irons."

Oliver looked at him with a frown, "How do you know my name?"

The ferryman just looked into his eyes, and for a second he morphed into a black-clad skeleton with bottomless sockets, that grin staying exactly the same, "You're the Godkiller, mate. There ain't nothing alive, dead or anywhere in-between that doesn't know who you are."

The ferry landed on the black shores of the Styx with the grinding of gravel against wood. Immediately upon their landing, three bat-winged demons descended on them, with flaming whips in their hands. The Furies. The one in the middle hissed out to the ferryman, and her voice grated against Oliver's ears like nails on a chalkboard, "We'll take it from here, Charon."

As Oliver stepped off the boat, Charon, back in his human form, gave him a wink and said to him, "Good luck, Godkiller."

As soon as the ferry was back in the waters of the Styx, Oliver heard a snapping noise from somewhere above him, very close. Before he could react, a band of searing hot pain encircled his throat, making him gasp and fall to his knees. The whip just tightened and an odd, staggered hissing noise filled the air. Laughter.

The fury with the whip around his throat just yanked him forward, like tugging on a leash, and said, "Come, mortal. You don't want to keep Lord Hades waiting, do you?"

Oliver was too focused on trying to breath to answer her with a verbal reply, so he just shook his head and tried to keep up with the bat-winged hags. They led him onto what looked like a road of some kind, with a massive black tent dominating the immediate area in front of them. Snaking out behind the structure were three lines, all connecting to one of the three sections of the underworld. Elysium was the farthest away and the smallest, a gated community not unlike something you'd see in middle-high-class America, with a sparkling lake in the center of it with three tiny islands inside. The Fields of Asphodel was the largest of the three sections, an almost endless expanse of black grass and bowing trees. Even here Oliver could see the uncountable souls milling around, shuffling in the darkness. And then, reluctantly, he looked at the last section of the Underworld. The Fields of Punishment. He looked at the barren red rock, at the barbed wire, heard the screams even from such a great distance away.

The Fury with the whips grinned down at him with a mouthful of jagged yellow teeth, "Already looking forward to your new home, aren't you?"

Oliver couldn't answer. The full weight of what was happening hit him like a ton of bricks. He was dead and was going to Hell. Actual Hell. Eternal torment.

He wanted to cry, to break down and refuse to move another inch. 'This isn't fair', he wanted to scream at the Furies, at the sky, at the whole damn world, 'I deserve better than this!' He wanted to fight it, to try and run for salvation. He wanted to avoid the consequences of what he had done.

That was what he wanted to do.

Instead, he shoved the tears down, grit his teeth and shuffled towards the judgement that awaited him.

The Judgement Pavilion was huge, bigger than any structure Oliver had ever seen, and inside was just as massive. There were three empty thrones on a raised dias at the far end of the room, with a bronze brazier the size of a house in the center, belching red-hot fire into the tent. The rest of it was sparse, with only a layer of canvas separating the ground from the occupant's feet. Oliver guessed that didn't matter much when you were dead. As the procession approached the dias, the Fury uncoiled the whip around Oliver's throat, letting him take in a fresh breath. As he rubbed the skin across his throat he raised his gaze to the throne in the center of the three. In it, where there wasn't before, was Hades, in a flowing black robe with screaming faces sewn into the fabric. His long, inky black hair was shoulder length, his skin albino, his eyes like two shards of obsidian, shining with the gleam of madness or genius. He lounged on the throne, one arm propping up his head, and when he spoke Oliver could almost feel his words pour over him like oil, "So, you're the Godkiller, hm?" He looked at Oliver up and down, "You don't look like much to me."

Oliver just licked his lips and looked at the two other empty thrones, "Aren't there supposed to be three judges?"

Hades just smiled at him, the expression looking almost grotesque on the Death God's face, "Oh, that? My Lord Brother decided that this was a special case. Gave me permission to judge you personally. How nice of him, eh?"

"I didn't even kill Artemis!" Oliver shouted, and immediately regretted it. Even though it was true, he felt shitty for throwing the blame onto Marvin, but he was grasping at straws. He knew Hades wasn't going to give him mercy, not now, but some irrational part of his brain was getting desperate.

Hades just shrugged, brushing something off of the front of his robes, "No, but someone needs to take the blame. We can't put Fire into Tartarus because he's the one giving mortals the ability to see through the Mist," he grimaced, "including Demigods. If we put him in the Pit, that's gone. Hard to fight monsters if you can't see them coming."

He leveled a bony finger at Oliver, "So that leaves you, Oliver Irons, as the scapegoat. I'd apologize, but I'm not sorry."

A black beam of energy surged from his fingertip, and the next thing Oliver knew he was flat on his back, looking up at an endless black sky, the distant sound of screeching rapidly approaching...

When Oliver opened his eyes, the falcons were gone. He was flat on his back, looking up at the ceiling of the Underworld, back in one piece. He took a breath and held it as he climbed to his feet. Despite everything, despite all the evidence to the contrary, he hoped that maybe, just maybe, this time was going to be different. Almost immediately his hope was swept aside when he heard the first screech. He let out his breath in a long sigh and prepared to start running when something on the ground caught his eye.

A gun. Not just any gun, either, his gun, his USP Match. It was on the ground, just sitting there, next to a bandolier weighed down with magazines, frag grenades and a knife. Beside the weapons was a set of cargo pants, a plain white shirt, what looked like steel toed boots and a folded piece of paper. After a moment of confused staring he scrambled over and snatched the paper off of the ground and unfolded it with a bit of difficultly. On it were two words and a signature in gold ink;

It's Time.

-your Patron.

Oliver looked at those words for a long time, until a screech kicked him into survival mode. The pants and shirt went on first, then the badnolier around his shoulder and waist and finally the boots. It took him more time than normal due to his missing arm, but he managed the last knot just as the falcons came over the horizon.

Oliver took up his gun and took a breath, his jaw set. This time was going to be different after all, he thought to himself with a wiry grin.

He leveled the handgun at the falcons that had been tormenting him for what felt like a thousand lifetimes, aimed for a moment, and opened fire.

The first bullet caught the first falcon in the neck, and it exploded into a cloud of monster dust and feathers. Oliver couldn't keep a smile from his face as the rest of the birds, confused at the sudden attack, failed to get out of the way of the rest of the bullets. The screeches of terror were met by the barks of Oliver's handgun and, one by one, went down until all that was left was a pile of dust, feathers and assorted talons. Oliver ejected the magazine, tucked his handgun under his other arm, slid a fresh one into the port and racked back the bolt by sticking the gun between his knees and pushing forward.

He looked at the pile of monster debris with a great deal of satisfaction and then shifted his gaze to the horizon, at the other shore of the Styx, almost on the other side of the Underworld. Somewhere on that opposite shore, he knew, was his way out of hell. His way back to Marvin. Hades said that they couldn't put him in Tartarus, so that left Olympus as the most likely location for Marvin's cell.

"I'm on my way, man," He muttered to himself as he started his jog across hell, gun in his hand, "I'm on my way."