Author's Note: I do not own anything from Bayonetta.

Chapter 10: The Gates to Hell

Bayonetta landed on a rocky platform, her eyes already looking around and scouting the immediate area. Her eyes widened, then narrowed at the sight she was greeted with. She was barely aware of Loki landing with a scream behind her, or Damien flying through several other rocks before landing on a platform a fair distance away from her, or the enigmatic Lumen Sage crashing into a stone building and disappearing from view. A random assortment of rocks and buildings orbited an upside-down triangular prison, containing…

The Gates of Hell. She could even see the resemblance to Rodin's bar.

Her heartbeat quickened, and her breathe hitched. They were so close.

"This is…" She stood up, her eyes wide in wonder. "The Gates of Hell…"

"Fuck, love, you don't have to not catch me!" She heard Loki cracked his back as he stood next to her, his tone irate. "Welcome to the place that welcomes you to hell, love. It's too late to repent, so you better not be hoping that you'll be welcome elsewhere."

"And you are assuming that I want to be somewhere else?" She smirked, turning to him. Stretching his arms, the young god smirked back at her.

"I don't know, love. You are the only person who says, 'take me to hell' and actually means it." Loki walked forward, looking at the glass prison. "I don't know why you want to go there, but I can assume it's got to do with your friend that has missed her curfew?"

"Yes, little one." She glanced at the watch in her hand. "She's got herself in a rut and I want to get her out of it."

"I can help you." Loki turned, his eyes serious. "The way in was sealed by the Prophetic One a millennium ago. With any luck, I should be able to undo the seal."

"You don't sound awfully confident, little one." She frowned. "Whatever is the matter?"

"It's just I don't know how." He kicked a stray rock, and it floated off to join the rest in orbit. "Whatever my other half got up to, it wasn't for the benefit of us, I would imagine."

Damien opened his eyes, his back and head aching. Groaning, he stood up, his joints stiff. His eyes latched onto a falling white speck falling above him, and his pain was replaced with rage.

After all this time, after all these years, he was never going to be free. He was always going to haunt him. Always here to taunt him of his past.

His attention was taken by the strange glass structure in the centre of the astral-like realm he was in. The winged man ran to the edge of the platform he was onto, and stared at it with newfound purpose and hope.

The Gates of Hell.

It was sealed away, by a magic he could not place.

Do not fret; this is the work of the Prophet. Temperentia confirmed his suspicions. It seems it has prepared for this eventuality.

Knowing our luck, only him or the Sovereign One can undo the seal. I would not advise trying to undo it yourself. Khepri added. This magic is something I do not recognise as well.

Telekinetically, he grabbed a nearby rock out of the strange orbit it was in and hurled it at the glass prison. It slammed into it, then bounced off ineffectually and re-joined the orbit as if to taunt the winged man.

"Well shit." He cursed after a couple of seconds. "Where are Bayonetta and Loki? Are they even ok!?"

Not here, that's for absolute certain. The Infernal answered.

They will be around here. The Auditio added. You all fell in the same spot; it's only a matter of exploration.

"Right." He jumped from the edge, landing onto another rock, beginning to explore the strange place, the other Lumen Sage on his mind.

"You know, love?" Loki spoke up after a small gap of silence. Unbeknownst to them, they had also decided to take Damien's route of exploring the area around the Gates, but their reasoning was to search for more clues as to how to undo the seal. "I've come to a realisation."

"And what realisation would that be, little one?' Bayonetta replied, her attention not focused on the boy in front of her.

"I think it would be best for everyone if I had never split." He answered. "Well, Aesir had never split."

"According to the legend, you split to give humanity a choice." She reasoned, and he nodded.

"Right. But why do I feel such a sense of foreboding and terror from the immediate aftermath?" He asked aloud, and her attention turned to him fully. "I don't remember why I should feel this way; only that I do, and whatever happened scares the shit out of me."

"Does this have something to do with the fact that you think you are supposed to be dead?" She asked hesitantly, and he nodded again.

"Spot on; whatever killed me, it is directly connected to Aesir splitting and the immediate aftermath." They had arrived at a dead end; a building capped off with a platform directly overlooking the imprisoned Gates was their surroundings. What had caught her attention, and seemed to be what he was looking for, was the strange floating stone diamond framing the view.

"Is this our goal, little one?" She looked over it, eyes trying to find anything. "It doesn't seem to be working."

She was answered with a small groan of agony. Turning to him in fear, she saw Loki holding his head in apparent pain. "Little one!?"

As soon as he had started, he broke out, the pain fading. Grinning at her, he turned to face the walkway and building they had arrived from. "Right! This way, Bayonetta."

"What now?" She asked, somewhat amused.

"You got to power it with something. Come, I've remembered where I've stored the stuff that makes these work." He replied, then frowned. "Well, where Aesir did at any rate."

A barrier slammed into her face, and she was momentarily stunned by the impact. Loki turned, his eyes wide.

"Bayonetta! Oh shit, sorry! I forgot about the guardians of this place!" He sprinted off. "I'll see what I can do about them!"

Turning, she saw a ball of pure light rising out of the ground, pieces of metal flying into it from the surroundings, forming an armoured shell around it. Her eyes narrowed as she recognised the threat.

A golem. One of the few mortal creations that could harm witches, and had been deployed during the witch hunts themselves to find the stray witches that had survived the massacres at the various sanctuaries. It would just be her luck that they guarded this place.

Her brain whirred at the revelation. What did that say about Aesir?

Either way, the time to ponder about what ifs and the history of the world was not now; now she needed to fight.

The golem began to float menacingly towards her, and she smirked at it. Firing a couple of warning shots at its centre, she hit it twice and it screeched in fury. Bayonetta winced at the sound, clamping her hands on her ears. Watching it with apprehension now, it transformed, the metal flowing to form a giant arm and a sword to go with it. Baring her teeth, she felt the rush of the upcoming battle creep up on her.

They couldn't have made it simple by any means, right?

Damien was puzzled at the existence of the place he was in.

He was also puzzled by the floating squirrel coming towards him, but the was the least strange thing currently in his view.

"Oh, there you are!" The flying squirrel transformed into Loki, much to his surprise. "Am I glad to see you!"

"Where is Bayonetta?" He asked, checking over the boy's state with a quick look. As far as he could tell, he was just bruised and battered from the fall. "Where is my sister?"

"She's fighting a golem right now; but we need to lower that." The young god gestured to the barrier around the Gates. "Because if we don't, mate, all of this will be for naught."

"Alrighty then. How do we do that?" He began to walk beside the boy, not bothering to worry about her. She would be fine.

"I think we need to get a lot of velocity and break through it." Loki stopped in front of a wall and shook his head. "Not here. I think the strange rings should be able to do the trick; I just need to find a way to turn them on."

"So what are we looking for?" He asked, his senses ready. Loki laughed, and then stopped in front of a waterfall.

"Here it is! You'll see, it's quite obvious." Clapping his hands and spreading them, blue magic dripping from his fingers, a portal to Paradiso opened at the same time. "Back when we made this portal, we decidde to hide the way to power it on inside the other half; with any luck at all, we should find a Cerebellum Cube in here."

"A cerebellum cube?" Damien frowned as they stepped into the realm of Angels, the welcoming front immediately discarded by him. "What are…"

He stopped mid-sentence as Loki froze at the sight that greeted them.

Paradiso was dead.

The once glowing sky was darkened into a deep blue. The land itself felt rotten, and the air was stagnant. Bodies of dozens of angels littered the floor, and their fleshy interiors was spilled all over the once gleaming marble surface.

"No…" Damien whispered, his voice a small sliver. He recognised these bodies; he had just talked to them not two days ago. "Hope? Hope!?"

"Damien?" A weak voice replied. Sprinting towards it, he was barely aware of Loki looking at him in sorrow, and then the boy turning his attention to the blue cube floating in the centre of the room.

"Hope!" He found it and pulled them out from the corpses surrounding them. The Joy was battered, wounded, but most importantly, alive. "I…"

"Save your breathe; there was nothing you could do here." It shook its head. "They're all gone. The last of the angels."

"Wait, hold up; the last of the angels?" Loki stepped to them, his eyes narrowed. "Then what the fuck has been attacking us then?"

"False Laguna, Sovereign One." Hope answered, her head turning to the god. "They were made by Balder in order to facilitate a perfect army for Jubelius to call for."

"A perfect army?" The young god turned back to the floating cube, a hand moving up to his chin. "But… Jubelius always thought of her army as perfect?"

"Damien… He sent everyone…" The Joy looked up to him. "They were merciless… Temperentia is out there somewhere, on the run… It is the last of us…"

"Bullshit. You don't get to die, Hope!" His hands glowed as he began to heal her. "You are not dying as well!"

"Where will I go?" She whispered. "I have nothing left here. I have nothing left ever."

"I have friends that will need you." His eyes looked at her with hope. "A friend that will need someone to watch his back."

"Luka…" Hope smiled. Damien stood up, and gingerly helped up the angel. Loki stared at the pair with a sly grin, the cube floating above his head in half a dozen broken pieces. The Joy blushed, then felt the ripple of a portal behind her. Turning around to see the glimpse of a mortal hotel, she glanced back shyly at the winged man and then stepped through, disappearing from the pair.

"She likes you mate." The young god laughed. "Got yourself the eye of an angel?"

"I don't want to disappoint her." He whispered as the portal faded and his eyes stopped glowing. "I've already let her down this once; I don't want to let her down this way as well."

"Well, it's either she already knows." The winged man felt a small hand on his shoulder. "Or she already knows."

"What makes you so sure?" Damien turned to the smirking boy.

"I've heard what this Jeanne thinks of you. I've heard what Bayonetta says, hell I've heard it from you." He gestured to the wall, and a portal back to the area surrounding the Gates of Hell appeared. "I think you'll be fine with your girl problems, mate."

The Lumen Sage groaned as he finally returned to a state of relative consciousness, his vision blurry and movements groggy. Pulling himself out of the rubble of the building he had fallen through, he found himself in a place he could only describe as peculiar, until he saw the glass prison in the centre of the area.

The Gates of Hell. His lip curled into a snarl. So they were trying to save their 'friend' after all.

Hearing voices, he froze and then utilised lightspeed to gain a better vantage point. Glancing down from the tower he was no on top of, he watched with derision as the boy and the imposter walked underneath him, finally discovering his landing crater.

"Yeah, he was here." The boy glanced around, but not up. "He probably slunk off again, because that's all he does, I guess."

"Do you know why he is after you?" The imposters voice was deadly quiet. The Sage's eyes drew themselves to him, narrowing in confusion. Why did this person hold his in such contempt?

Better yet, who in the trinities was this person?

"The fuck if I know!" Loki answered, and the Sage was broken out of his reverie. "I don't recall making many deals with the Lumen Sage's; I don't think I mingled with them that much, to be completely honest."

"But why would a Sage want to kill a little boy? Or a god, for that matter?" The pair continued to walk, the Lumen Sage crawling on the rooftop above them.

"There's probably plenty of reasons, mate. You didn't gleam anything important from his mind, did you?" The boy asked.

"Only his name." The sheer amount of rage the voice contained intrigued him. "And it is not worth repeating!"

"Fine, fine." The had arrived at their destination, seemingly, and he finally became aware of the sounds of battle ahead of him. Glancing up, he saw a golem with surprise, then anger at the witch that was fighting it.

"Thank you for bloody taking your time?" Her voice carried traces of amusement, and he figured she didn't mean that. She slipped under a sweep and sent a weave into its core, momentarily stunning the autonomous entity. "Please tell me you got whatever you needed to be able to open up the Gates."

That confirmed it. The Sage watched with interest as the boy clicked his fingers, and several pieces of a severed cube appeared above his head, then floated over to one of the various diamond-shaped structures and morphed and melded to fit it. An intense blue light shined from it, and a strange portal opened up in the centre.

"What have you done now?" He whispered to himself as the witch finally broke apart the golem, its metallic skin flying everywhere.

"Alright! We just need to send an object through the accelerator, and the barrier around the prison should shatter!" The boy shouted, then pointed at the glowing core of the golem. "Two birds in one stone?"

"I was thinking the same, little one." She swung one leg around, and began to move her body to an invisible beat as she began to summon. "AFAA TADAAG NEPTA!"

A pair of giant hands grabbed onto the core and tossed it up into the air slightly, then hit it up with a kip up. A second pair of hands laid it up, and a third pair attempted to spike it through the accelerator.

Except it missed and it fell to the ground, hitting the stone with a visible sound of deflation. The three arms froze in embarrassment, the boy and imposter giggled like children and the witch stamped her foot in annoyance.

"This is why I never use you…" She chided light-heartedly. Clicking her fingers, she pointed at the reforming golem and the arms of Hekatoncheir answered by laying in dozens of rapid punches. The golem's armour was flung off around the nude witch, and then each pair of hands stuck as one, launching the ball into the sky. A pair flew up to spike the core, and this time they did not miss.

The core flew into the accelerator with great speed, and then was flung at nearly lightspeed at the prison itself. Smashing through, the barrier shattered and the Gates flipped upright, revealing itself finally to the trio, and the masked Lumen.

"We did it!" The imposter ran and embraced the witch as the barrier separating them broke apart. "We did it!"

"Correction darling; I did it." The witch smirked, but returned the embrace. "We are so close…"

He snarled at them. How could he stand to be with her? And him? Looking back up at the Gates, he noticed a small blue flicker in front of them. Rising slowly and activating lightspeed, he gave a final look at the trio below before jumping to the Gates and to his ally.

He might have been the strongest Sage; he might have been able to beat one of them. But he wasn't stupid enough to fight all three of them without help.

The two people guarding the Gates dragged their happiness to a halt.

"Welcome, my friends, to the Gates of Hell." The floating blue spirit smirked at them. "A place once sealed off due to it's potential for… unruly activity."

"Listen mate, get out of our way." Loki stepped forward, his eyes ablaze. "And two, the mask is shit."

"Your sins must be punished!" The Sage growled, and Bayonetta pointed a gun at his face in response.

"Who are you?" The young god looked at the spirit, ignoring the enraged Sage for the time being.

"You pretend to forget me." The spirit shook its head mockingly. "Yet, even if your memory of me may now be lost, the Remembrances of Time exist… forever."

"Big words." Damien stepped forward, pushing the boy behind him. "Prophet."

"Ah, so you know my name." The Prophetic One gave him a peculiar look. "Interesting. This is a most interesting arrangement indeed…"

"Your rule over Paradiso ends here!" The Shuraba snapped out, and he pointed the blade at him. "No more shall the Laguna suffer at your hands!"

"But they don't." The words sent a chill down her spine. Bayonetta glanced at Loki, and he confirmed with a nod. "They don't suffer anymore."

"You are insane!" Damien jumped forward, slashing down at the spirit. The Prophet merely flickered and teleported up, laughing as he dodged.

"Me? Insane? You'll find that I am the most level person here, experiment." The spirit taunted. "Now, my dear friend, face me and prove your worth."

His lower wings snapped out as he took flight, chasing after the spirit. Back on the ground, the Sage was seemingly glaring at the child next to her, and his glaive appeared in his grip in a flash of light.

"Child or not, you will see no mercy!" The Sage roared. "Sovereign one!"

"You know, your little obsession with little boys has got me a little worried for what you dream of at night." She began to circle around him, her guns still trained on him. The Sage turned to her in a flash, his posture tense.

"I do not dream of children!" He screamed. "Your fallacies will end here and now, witch!"

Behind him, Loki pulled out a pair of cards and split them into three, taking a stance; his arms crossed over in an x over his chest, the six cards held at his fingertips, ready to be thrown and unleashed. The Sage heard him and realised he was about to fight on two fronts. Turning back to the boy, he pointed his glaive at him.

"The sins you have forgotten are timeless!" He reached up and pulled his mask down, and she heard his voice for the first time, unhindered by the mask. "Now remember them as you stare upon my face!"

Loki's eyes narrowed, then he smirked. "Sorry mate, nothing comes to mind. But now that I know that mouth of yours works, and that you have a working head, maybe you could jog my memory a bit?"

"With pleasure!" The Sage darted forward, and the battle began.

"Very well, experiment, it's time you learned of humility." The Prophetic one raised his hands, and a blue ball of fire appeared between them. A blue laser shot out, and the winged man shot to the side. The Prophet smirked and clicked his fingers as six massive arms appeared into existence around him. Damien's eyes widened, and then he was flying back from a punch. Recovering before he could slam into a building, he gracefully turned and landed on his feet, launching himself back at the spirit. The six arms reached out in a shove, and he dropped underneath it, rising up to try and catch the spirit with a flick of the katana.

The Prophet merely moved out of the way, his eyes already displaying boredom. "So predictable."

Trying to ignore the obvious barb, he regrouped and tried to focus on the spirit. The Prophet did not let him, as he advanced with the six arms trying to each land a punch on the winged man.

Twisting around the attack, he summoned a small fireball and threw it at him, watching it impact with a small amount of satisfaction.

"Really?" The Prophet dusted himself off. "A fireball from an experiment of your talents? No wonder why I didn't choose you."

"I would rather die a slave than live as one!" He snarled back, then was interrupted by a scream below him. Glancing down, he saw Loki fall to his knees, and then pure memory assaulted his senses.

"Ah, and it was about time too." The spirit nodded his head. "Now the truth has been revealed, and the time to begin anew shall start."

Damien returned his attention back to the spirit as its fist drew back again and three launched at him in a massive swing. He summoned a small barrier, then watched with shock as it shattered, and he was launched yet again. This time he did not land gracefully as broke through a wall and slammed into a flying rock. Groaning, he opened his eyes to see the arms waving, and a giant tower reforming above the spirit. Then it was flying towards him, at an unnatural velocity.

Pathetically, he raised his hand and summoned a barrier, and the next thing he knew was it slamming into his face as he lost consciousness.

The Sage seemed to be ignoring her for the most part, but he simply couldn't land a hit on her companion with her there. Loki threw cards and taunted him, and Bayonetta merely deflected his strikes.

Finally, the Sage drew himself back and stared at the mostly smirking pair. "Why must you resist judgement!"

"Because, where is the fun in just going along?" She answered, fluttering her eyes, then grew serious. "You know, you have been a right pain in the side, for far too long."

Loki then collapsed to his knees, screaming and his hands holding his head. Both witch and Sage stared at him in utter confusion, then to each other.

"You didn't do this!" Bayonetta eyed the Sage warily.

"If I had the ability to do that witch, I would have done it earlier." The Sage growled and shrugged. "The boy is now being punished for what he has done!"

"What is he even being punished for!?" She pointed her guns at him, then they were interrupted by the sounds of stone smashing against stone, and a limp body fell to the ground beside them.

"Damien!" She screamed, and she hesitated as the Lumen Sage pointed his glaive at the shaking god.

"Your false quest ends here." He said, triumph lacing his words. "You will pay for your sins, and he will suffer for his!"

"Little one?" She kneeled, putting herself between him and the Sage and spirit.

"I remember now…" His eyes opened, and they were glowing blue. "I remember everything…"

"What do you remember?!" She glanced back, and the sight unnerved her. "Quickly!"

He ignored her and threw a card at the doors in the back. The Sage turned in surprise, and the Prophet's eyes narrowed. The card hit the doors, and then they began to open.

The four mortals immediately felt the effects of the rush of air and pull of Inferno. Bayonetta grabbed onto a rock, Loki grabbing the same piece of the terrain beside her. The Sage slammed his glaive into the ground, pinning himself in the spot. Damien merely flew into the portal and disappeared from sight.

"Bayonetta!" Loki whispered to her. "We need to jump! It's the only way!"

"Hold onto me, little one." She reached out and wrapped an arm around him. She felt his arms wrap around her torso, and she let go.

She didn't notice the Sage pulling his glaive out of the ground, and then him slipping out of Purgatorio to fly after them.