by Shade
Disclaimer: AMG isn't mine.
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Prologue: First Hand
-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x- "Walk with me, Mara."
Demoness First Class Mara swallowed hard where she sat in her standard office cubicle as she suddenly heard
that deceptively gentle sounding voice next to her ear. Ever since being forced to report back to Hell for
a pending reassignment for her continued failure to increase demonic marketshare among the humans she
had been dreading this moment.
The Daimakaicho, Hild, was here. Not the childish Avatar that had taken such great delight
in tormenting Mara in the mortal world, but the fully powered ruler of Hell in all of her glory.
"Yes, Hild-sama!"
Having no other choice, the shaking demoness followed after her boss as the latter began to stride away.
She could feel the stares and whispers of her fellow demons at her back, no doubt speculating over her
future...or lack of one. Mara had once been one of the rising stars in Hell, with the full favor of the
CEO herself, but now everyone knew of her long string of humiliating failures against the Goddesses of
the 'Other Side'.
To say she was now well and truly fucked was an understatement.
Her apprehension growing with each step she took, Mara kept her eyes fixed at the level of Hild's black
high heels, bracing for a verbal explosion that never came.
'Any moment now. Here it comes. Any second now...'
As this silent mental torture dragged on without any respite, Mara began to notice that the surroundings
around the two of them were changing. They were no longer in the neat organized offices and walkways of
Hell proper, but now treading over a rough stone path through an environment that would have been more
recognizable to scholars of Old Testament. Sulfur and brimstone gave the atmosphere a foul stench as
random jets of flame shot out of the cracked black rocks on either side of the ever winding path they
were on.
The First Class Demoness's pupils shrank until they were barely visible against the whites of her eyes
as she realized just which direction Hild was taking her.
The Hell of No Return. Where the worst of the worst were imprisoned for all eternity, until even their
names were forgotten by all others and it was as if they had never existed at all. Surely she had never
done anything to warrant being sent here?!
If the tall tanned Ruler of Hell noticed the pathetic animal whimpering coming from behind and slightly
to her left, she gave no sign of it. Her steps were confident and sure as she made her way further into
the bowels of what was becoming a twisting dark labyrinth of cold black rock that seemed to vibrate
without pause from the sheer volume of magical energies radiating from within its depths.
Deeper and deeper they descended, until the only light was the weak flickering of orange flames in
stone outcroppings in the walls on either side. The path underneath had forms yet again into a smooth
glassy white surface that seemed to effortlessly swallow the sounds of their steps.
When at last they arrived at what seemed to be the final destination, Mara was almost grateful that at
least the agony of waiting for the axe to fall was over. Before them stood a sheer metal vault door
on the scale of a titan of old, seemingly designed to stand until the End of Creation itself.
The platinum haired Daimakaicho held up one hand as the red star symbol on her forehead began to glow
brightly. Hidden gears long unused squawked in protest as they slowly began to turn, and a crack appeared
in the center of the formerly featureless grey metal surface. The crack turned into a spiral line
that circled outward at an incredible rate as individual metal plates fell away from the door and into
place as the roof and side of an entrance leading inside.
"Do keep up, Little Mara. We don't want you left behind in a place like this, now do we?"
Seeing no other alternative, the quivering demoness stepped quickly after her mistress as the metal plates
rose up behind them and began to seal the opening once more.
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Inside the vault it smelled of great age, as if it had not been disturbed for a very long time even by the
reckoning of immortals. Only a pale blue shimmer from the unmarred walls and ceiling provided any illumination
in this enclosed space. A second much smaller armored door creaked as it opened inwards, leaving a gap just
big enough for Hild to step through without difficulty, forcing Mara to wait until the CEO had passed through
before she could enter herself. Again there was a muted rumble as the seals closed up behind them both.
To her surprise, the Demoness First Class found that it was much brighter in here, the innermost area of the vault.
But when she saw exactly where the light was coming from, she realized why this was so. The most powerful and complex
ward she had ever seen in her entire existance spun in a constant rotation before her. The brightly white glowing sigils
that whirled through the air in a steady flow were actually painful to look at directly. Mara couldn't even begin to
identify half of the symbols that pulsed and throbbed like a living creature. And the little she could make out made her
hackles crawl. Whatever was being kept in here, the creators of this ward had been dead serious about making sure that
it couldn't ever get out.
So caught up was she by the dazzling spectacle before her that Mara barely noticed at first the unremarkable figure
sitting inside the center of the area covered by the ward's perimeter. But when the Daimakaicho addressed it, she
quickly focused her full attention towards them as she tried hard to pretend she was just part of the landscape.
"It's been such a long time. I see that you're still doing well in here."
To her great astonishment, Mara saw that the person sitting in a lotus position with their eyes closed looked like
a rather ordinary plain faced office demon. Save for his garb which looked centuries out of fashion and lack of
the exotic demonic beauty that both Mara and Hild possessed, he could have been any of a billion nameless minions
on the streets of Hell. In fact, with his long dark hair trimmed back and the single sigil on his head
concealed he could probably have passed as a mortal easily enough.
'Why is someone like that in there,' she wondered in confusion.
"Hild."
It was barely a whisper, but the word rang throughout the chamber like an alarm claxon.
Mara gulped. She was beginning to get an inkling that appearances could be deceptive here.
"Now, now. Can't an old friend say hello?"
"Cut the oxshit. What do you want?"
Hild's enchantingly perfect features remained unperturbed by the speaker's rudeness while Mara could
only gape at the prisoner, for she finally understood that was what this person was. Why had she never
heard of him? Even with this kind of security the word should have leaked out eventually, for if there was
one thing that Heaven and Hell had in common it was that the speed of gossip was a constant that outpaced
all others, even light itself.
"To the point then. I have a problem and I believe that you can help me solve it."
The Daimakaicho's voice dropped its facade of pleasantness and cut straight into a controlled tone suitable for serious business.
The prisoner let out a dry chuckle of open amusement.
"Help you? And what makes you think I have any interest in what you want?"
"Because I can offer something that you want very badly."
"My cock shoved up your ass? Tempting, but after so long who knows who's already been in there."
"How dare you speak to Hild-sama in that fashion!!"
Complete outrage at the stranger's insult to her mistress finally broke Mara out of her paralysis.
"What's this? Taking one of your trained little pet bitches out for a walk to do her business?"
Her face red with rage, the demoness tensed as she prepared to spring at the bastard.
"Mara." The warning in Hild's voice was absolute and her subordinate subsided instantly.
"Well trained isn't she. Does she do any fancy tricks for a bone?"
The undercurrent in the man's voice left no confusion as to exactly what kind of 'bone' he meant.
With an effort, Mara swallowed her overwhelming fury as she was aware that Hild's stern eye was still fixed on her.
"Your tongue has lost none of its edge despite the lack of practice, I see."
The tanned ruler of Hell contemplated the figure sitting before her with calculated interest.
"I suppose it is just as well we didn't remove it from you back then since I have a use for it now."
"And I hate having to repeat myself. Why should I care about what you want?"
"Because in exchange for carrying out this trifling little favor for me, I will release you from this prison..."
This time the prisoner laughed out long and loud.
"Hahahaha!! If you're going to fabricate, at least put some effort into thinking it through first!"
"I'm quite serious."
The man snorted rudely in reply.
"It took the combined efforts of Gods and Demons to seal me into this prison in the first place. You couldn't free from here even if you wanted to."
"Oh, couldn't I? Not even with a God's Crest?"
From the sudden stillness in the air Hild knew that she'd finally gotten his full attention.
"You can't steal one of those. And no God would ever give theirs to a Demon."
Despite the cold matter of factness in his tone there was for the first time a trace of uncertainty in the speaker's voice.
"Oh, one might. Say for instance if they fancied themselves wooing a half-demon without paying too much
attention to exactly who they were attempting to befuddle."
"..."
"And all that I want in return is for you to complete a single task for me. One that you should not
find so distasteful once you hear it."
Despite the bait she so temptingly waved in front of him, he did not bite. She had expected as much,
but it would have been worthwhile to see a sign of eagerness on his face. It was those little things
that kept her job so interesting no matter how long she was at it.
"There is a goddess currently in a relationship with a mortal of some interest to me. I wish for him to be
brought into our sphere of influence. I believe that I can leave the method up to your discretion."
"That's it? You're bothering me for a trifle like that?"
The disbelief in his voice perfectly reflected the look on Mara's own face.
She couldn't possibly be serious about this...could she?
"Well if you don't want to seperate Belldandy from the one she loves above all others-"
Eyes as brown as the wet earth after a summer storm had passed, snapped open with a suddenness that made Mara gasp without thinking.
"BELLDANDY."
A listener unable to see the speaker's face would have easily mistaken the emotional intensity in his voice for affection.
And Hild knew at that moment that she had him.
"Do we have a deal?"
-End Prologue