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Just moments ago, the Father of All Lies had arranged a deal. He had appeared, in the form of a shade, his true power imprisoned within the confines of a great and massive citadel planted in the remnants of a broken world. All of this, seemingly, had been undone. Had the results of his arrangement carried out? Had all things, as quickly as they'd begun, ended?
Had it really been 'a moment'? Or had it actually been billions of years? Time itself seemed to have come to a standstill.
The nothingness outside of time-space – outside of the very omniverse, the great cosmic expanse of infinitely-expanding multiverses – was host not only to Belial, Father of All Lies, but to one of those he counted among his kin.
Top-heavy, corpulent, and with a shit-eating grin stretching from one side of its hideous face to another, one known all too well to the likes of Belial floated, too, in the nothingness. Its glowing, emerald green eyes stared directly into Belial's own flaming emerald orbs. This apparent contender was covered in thick, darkened scales. Enormous, jutting, jagged spines grew upwards from shoulders, from along its spine, and several jutted from either side of its plated head. Chattering mouths babbled incoherently from its misshapen shoulders. Despite its top-heavy form, its lower torso and curved, spike-covered legs were slender and appeared almost vaguely agile. A lengthy, scale-plated tail extended from behind the being's lower limbs.
"Beeee-liiiiii-aaaaaaaa-llllllll."
"Mephistopheles, you wretched cretin, crapped from a womb of worm-filled faeces! Was this temporal anomaly your work?"
The hideous miscreation raised an elongated, gnarled finger to its salivating lower lip, as if it were a sumptuous vixen playing coy.
"Why, oh why, would I ever do such a thing? You accuse me of callously creating this issue, do you? You wound me deeply."
"I will wound you deeply, indeed! I shall tear your darkened, putrid heart from your chest, and DEVOUR IT WHOLE! I am power incarnate."
The spines running along Belial's back shuddered. Not out of fear; no, they shuddered out of sheer hatred for the creature floating before him. Belial's enormous, quadrupedal lower half shifted about beneath the weight of his enormous upper half. His tail whipped irritably. The blazing crown of emerald flame bursting forth from his forehead burned just a bit brighter.
"Oh! Oh, oh! Do stay your hand, power incarnate! Nay! I arrived, likely for the same reason as you, my advantageous ally… I wish to investigate the cause of this multiversal mishap. My greater sensing ability alerted me to the existence of a cataclysmic calamity!"
That explanation, as barebones as it was, would have to do; others were arriving, as well. They weren't all that familiar to the Father of All Lies; they were Magic Gods.
There were two, in total. A mere scouting force for an entire warband that would likely show up before long if the bottom of this anomaly wasn't reached quickly.
A green-eyed, purple-skinned creature, with short, black hair, was the first of the new arrivals. Clad in a short, almost provocative china dress with comically long sleeves, and an odd oriental charm dangling over her left eye.
"Wha-wha-what?! Everything went and stopped in this multiverse! Something's wrong, biiiiig time! Hey, you! Yeah! You freaks, did you make this multiverse go all wonky?!"
With chocolate brown skin and long, elegant silver hair, the second floated behind the first. Her eyes, blue and orange, were highlighted by the presence of an ornamental teardrop beneath the lower lids of either, blue and green in colouration respectively.
"No. This is not the end result of the Demon Lords' machinations. Something else is responsible. More probable than not, their curiousness drew them here. As did ours… do not push them."
If a battle were to break out between them, billions of multiverses would be obliterated in the time it would take for sound to achieve its speed.
"This multiverse has experienced a break in ordinary temporal functions," Belial stated plainly, emerald flames spewing from his tusk-laden maw as he spoke. "Something is amiss."
"You don't say, big guy!" the purple-skinned oddity remarked, sitting upon nothing and kicking her exposed legs back and forth. "And, hey, since when did you demon-freaks care? Aren't you all about BOOM! BOOM! CHAOS! DOOM! DEATH! All that good stuff?"
"I shall not lower myself to rule a broken plane of existence! That is reason enough!" Belial boomed.
"Think yourself an awe-inspiring academic, then?" Mephistopheles chimed in, his voice echoing numberless of times across the vast expanse of nothingness. "Would you, pray tell, have the capacity of manipulating your explanation ability to explain our disorderly discomfort?"
Belial ground his tusks.
Just as Mephistopheles was about to retort, the dark-skinned beauty raised a hand. The exceedingly limited clothing that adorned her form fluttered, despite the lack of wind. Her right eyebrow arched. Before this spiralled out of control, she needed to end it. So enraptured with their hatred for one another were they, the Demon Lords would never sense the sudden ticking of the omniversal clock. The time-ways flowed once more. Whatever blockage had come to obstruct them, had passed.
"I am sensing… a restoration to proper temporal functions. Surely you sense it, as well, Niang-Niang."
"Nephthys, I am sensing that you look spectacular right now! But, mhm, I feel it too. I feel it all up in my body. Seems like things are starting to work again in there. Did this multiverse reboot itself briefly?"
It was Belial's turn to grin.
"This does work in my favour. Begone from this place now that our dilemma has been resolved, godlings, or I shall reduce you to bloodied paste… and paint this multiverse with your remains."
"Try it, freak!" Niang-Niang snarled. Nephthys placed a hand upon her shoulder, and shook her head, 'no'.
Again, without welcome nor without concern for how he would be seen by his fellow cosmic entities, Mephistopheles chimed in.
"You're still after that insignificant little star in Sol, you esoteric egomaniac? Even by my special standards ability, you're a terrible bully! Those little primates don't stand a chance! How unfair! How monstrous!"
Apparently willing to be the bigger person (if such a word could be used to describe the beings assembled in this place beyond the omniverse), Nephthys merely shrugged her shoulders, and offered an aggravated huff. Such a motion would've been enough to reduce billions of multiverses to shredded atoms; yet the Demon Lords seemed all but unfazed.
"Niang-Niang, I do believe our time here has come to pass. Let us take our leave."
Nephthys ushered Niang-Niang out from the nothingness, attempting to calm the smaller Magic God's nerves.
"Know this, Be-li-al," Mephistopheles purred, turning away on one of his clawed heels, "if you intend to utilize this impossible chance at freedom you've attained to tread on my plans, I will oppose you with all that which I possess. In fact, I ought to use my intellectual brilliance ability to oppose you on the front you'd least expect me to oppose you from! Tata!"
With that, the Demon Lord Mephistopheles had vanished. Simply disappeared, leaving no trace of his presence behind. It was as if he'd never been present in the void of nothingness at all.
Though left to contemplate on many matters, Belial did have one matter in particular to concern himself with, one even above the matter of Mephistopheles and his schemes.
"What, then, of Baal?"