A/N: Well, this has been one hectic week for me, even before the announcement of everything shutting down due to the Corona virus. Boy I'm glad I finished this chapter, as well as several others, because I'm not sure I'd be focused enough to do them weekly. One silver lining is that Doom Eternal finally releases next week, unless that gets delayed as well.
"Behold, he is coming amid the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him. All the peoples of Earth will lament him." - Revelation 1:7
Against all the evil Hell can conjure, all the wickedness mankind can produce, we will send only you. Rip and tear, until it is done.
The Doom Slayer and Charlie Magne looked out towards the nearby city, watching as it was engulfed in flames. The Slayer activated his heads up display, prompting Vega to assess the surroundings for any demons.
"I'm not picking up any signatures of Argent energy." the artificial intelligence announced. "Readings suggest this city has been burning for days. However, my built-in calendar indicates it has been two years since Samual Hayden sent the Doom Slayer to Hell."
"Days?" Charlie gasped, sinking to her knees. After everything they did, stopping the invasion of her version of Hell, it was merely to keep them busy. "What do we do?"
"I am rerouting the Tether coordinates to the location the Doom Slayer desires." Vega told them. "Rerouting in 3… 2… 1…"
The Doom Slayer reached out and grabbed Charlie's arm, before a blue flash of light blinded them, and were teleported away from the grisly scene.
Charlie opened her eyes, taking in her surroundings. She was in a facility of sorts, with the technology looking futuristic and clean. There were monitors everywhere, gigantic glass windows showing the reaches of space, and a holographic map of the Earth with thousands of red dots popping up everywhere.
"Where are we?" Charlie asked, confused.
"This is the Doom Slayer's base of operations." Vega explained. "According to him, He had the UAC design it shortly before confining himself to Hell for eons."
The Doom Slayer nodded, and walked off to another section of the facility. There, he knelt down, unlocked the mechanisms in the Praetor suit, and stepped out, before beginning to strip some parts from it.
"What are you doing?" Charlie asked.
"The Doom Slayer is taking key items from the Praetor suit to upgrade his old armor." Vega told her. "When he is done, he was planning on copying the technology and handing a suit of armor to you."
"Me?" Charlie asked, speechless.
"He wants your help with defeating the forces of Hell."
A few hours later, the Doom Slayer's armor was complete, in addition to completely upgrading his arsenal. Though not too different from the Praetor suit, it did leave the forearms exposed, as well as boasting a wrist blade on the left gauntlet, as well as a shoulder cannon. The Doom Slayer smiled, trying it on, and felt the suit lock itself in place. He looked over, seeing Charlie don the Praetor armor. With a finishing touch, the Doom Slayer pulled out a small chip from his helmet and placed it in the Praetor suit, effectively duplicating Vega's mainframe for Charlie.
"Thanks William." Charlie grinned, and the two walked back over to the monitors, hearing screaming and gunfire through garbled messages.
"Can't hold them off!"
"I can hear them-"
"Fall back! They're everywhere!"
"Casualties range in the billions"
Eventually, the garbled messages stopped, but one stood out among the rest.
"We must pray… pray that he is watching…"
"Please, anyone! If you can hear me, if you're out there…"
"Attempting to acquire the Hell Priest's signal." Vega announced.
"The Hell Priest?" Charlie inquired.
"The ones who showed the way to cross over." Vega explained. "The Doom Slayer somehow knows this is their doing."
"Nearly 60% of our planet has been consumed by the invaders."
"We have the Hell priest's signal locked in." Vega declared, as the Doom Slayer took a second combat shotgun and handed it to Charlie, before giving her extra shells. "The target is locked in, but the signal will not hold for long."
"It is only he that they fear. Not man, or his armies. They fear the mark of the beast." The Doom Slayer activated his wrist blade, and put his new and improved helmet on. A gateway was activated in the form of a blue portal, and the Doom Slayer cranked the pump on his own shotgun, determination in his eyes. Without a moment of hesitation, both he and Charlie ran into the portal, as a blue light flashed in front of their eyes once more.
The Doom Slayer and Charlie found themselves in what appeared to be a dungeon, with a couple zombies staggering in front of them. The pair made quick work of them with a blast from their shotguns, and kicked down the set of double doors in front of them, seeing a flight of stone stairs leading downward to the left. Doom Slayer raced down the stairs, Charlie following closely behind, having to smash a few walls to progress through the dungeon, and shot any zombies that tried to get close.
Upon smashing through another wall, the Slayer and the princess of Hell found themselves in an arena of sorts, with imps scurrying towards them. William smirked, and activated the sticky bomb modification, before firing three rounds at the swarm. His eyes lit up as the demons exploded, with only one of the imps beginning to crawl away. It never got the chance, as the Doom Slayer calmly walked over and impaled it with his wrist blade, before slashing upward and splitting the monster in two.
Charlie jumped over William's head, shooting at an imp and crashing her boots into a zombie's face, exploding the head. Without even a second to pause, she threw a punch at a second demon to her right, knocking the jaw clean off As Charlie turned back to face the Doom Slayer, his shoulder cannon fired a grenade right past her, apparently blowing up an imp that was sneaking up behind her.
With the foes defeated, the Doom Slayer stormed up to another set of double doors, which he kicked down to reveal an intriguing cauldron. Upon looking to her left, Charlie noticed a cowering man with withered skin and red eyes, wearing a crown of sorts.
"You-"
The Slayer ran off and grabbed him by the neck, applying more pressure by the second.
"Who is that?" Charlie wondered.
"The Hell Priest Deag Nilox." Vega's voice filled the Praetor suit, as the Doom Slayer continued squeezing his throat.
"You cannot kill me!" Deag Nilox told the marine. "My soul remains guarded-"
The Doom slayer picked up some type of stone token off the ground, and watched as it presumably disintegrated. The Slayer continued to squeeze, as he began to see visions of the remaining Hell Priests together, taking a helmet off his head. More particularly, his original marine helmet, before he donned the Praetor armor.
By the time William snapped out of it, Deag Nilox's head was completely ripped off his body. After adjusting the crown on the head, he set it aside, and he felt the room begin to shake.
"What's going on?" Charlie asked, nervously.
"I'm not sure." Vega admitted. "However, I am picking up large amounts of Argent energy. Whatever is possessing that much must be very large in size."
The Doom Slayer kicked open a final set of doors, revealing the landscape of a now doomed Earth. With little hesitation, the Slayer and Charlie jumped off the balcony and landed on a rock formation, looking up to see a massive demon with horns, which was slowly moving towards the already destroyed city.
"A Titan." Charlie realized, as Vega's voice could be heard again.
"The first Hell Priest has been terminated." Vega announced. "The demonic consumption of Earth has been reduced by 36.8 percent. However, there are two Hell Priests remaining."
"We'll stop them." Charlie reassured the AI. The two climbed into a ruined building and punched through a wall, jumping down onto a stoney platform and crushing zombies under their boots. William extended his blade and sliced an imp's head off, while Charlie fired a shell at a flammable barrel, exploding three demons at once.
The Doom Slayer jumped again, landing at the bottom of the building, and caught a few demons by surprise before he blasted them to Hell. The Slayer finished the remaining demons in the area by pulling out his chainsaw and tearing them apart.
"Aw, you hog all the fun." Charlie whined, as she jumped down as well. Doom Slayer smirked, and they exited the building. After looking around for a moment, they realized they had to grab hold of a pipe and swing up to a platform, so the Doom Slayer held onto Charlie's hand and jumped, just barely swinging the both of them across. Before either of them could react, they came face to face with a mechanical legged creature, with what appeared to be a brain with a face. Unfortunately, they knew quite well what the monster was. It was an arachnotron, an offspring of the Spider Mastermind.
The Doom Slayer rushed forward, shooting a sticky bomb at the cannon and watched it explode, while Charlie began shooting the other demons around it. As the arachnotron screamed in hatred, the Slayer ripped off its legs with his bare hands, before opening up the back compartment of the demon and pulling out a plasma canister. The arachnotron opened its mouth to scream again, but the Slayer was ready, and shoved the canister down its throat. A second later, its head exploded, showering both him and Charlie with blue blood and ooze.
Just as Charlie finished snapping a zombie's neck, she watched as William jumped up a rocky platform to reach an iron gate, one that had just opened. She followed closely, where they found themselves in a ruined courtyard. Before venturing further, the Doom Slayer equipped his heavy cannon, and kicked the doors down, shooting the first two zombies unfortunate enough to come in his path. As they moved forward, Charlie noticed a collapsed bell, and realized this place used to be a church. She had heard of these houses of worship, and the thought that demons ravaged even this holy house of God sickened her.
Doom Slayer and Charlie continued their mission, stopping to kill a couple demons in front of a plaza with the neon label "Scott" on it. Charlie bashed a zombie's head into its shoulders, while Stan impaled a possessed soldier through the mouth with his wrist blade, then cut an imp in half with his chainsaw.
"William, duck!"
The Doom Slayer did so, and Charlie shot a cacodemon in the mouth with her shotgun, watching as it swallowed the shell. The princess of Hell smirked, and jumped up, catching ahold of the cacodemon's horns and firing another blast right into its eye, where blood and guts shot out the back of its body.
The demon killing pair traversed through several more destroyed buildings, slaughtering as many demons as they could, until they looked up, seeing a gigantic tower emitting crimson Argent energy.
"My sensors are picking up the life signals of the other two Hell Priests." Vega noted. "They are most likely at the top of the tower."
The Doom Slayer nodded, and pulled out a rocket launcher, prompting Charlie to do the same, and blew a hole through one of the upper levels of the Hell tower. Using their Delta Jump Boots, the two scaled the ruined building to until they reached the roof, double jumping and dashing in midair to reach the entrance they created. There, they were met by a swarm of imps and zombies.
Charlie looked around, smirked, and cranked the pump of her shotgun, before blasting the nearest zombie. The other imps screamed in terror and began to throw fireballs, but the Doom Slayer paid them no mind, and pulled out his chaingun, decimating every demon there.
"There's no time to lose." Vega declared. "We must destroy the Hell Priests and end the invasion of Earth."
Charlie nodded in understanding, and they ran like lightning up to the top of the tower, killing any demon that was in their way.
The demon killers finally reached a set of giant double doors, and simultaneously kicked them open, revealing the other two Hell Priests cowering in a corner.
"You…" the Doom Slayer, not Vega, snarled, pointing to one of the priests.
"No, you can't kill us!" the priest that angered the Slayer yelled, and he raised his arms. Just as the Slayer went to grab them by the throats, the Hell Priests teleported away in Argent energy. The Doom Slayer narrowed his eyes in primal fury, and he slammed his fist into the floor.
Just as he was about to punch the floor again, a golden light penetrated the room, causing the Slayer and Charlie to look up at it. The golden light took the form of a tall, metallic being, humanoid in nature, but only had three fingers. It had glowing gold eyes, was easily at least twenty feet taller than the Doom Slayer, and had a single, yellow orb in the middle of its chest.
"Cease your unnecessary slaughter!" the being commanded. "This is humanity's chance to repent. For millennia, we have survived. Made others sacrifice, in the name of our prosperity. Who are you, a human and a demon, to defy our traditions?"
The Doom Slayer responded by shoving two shotgun shells into the super shotgun, and snapping the barrel closed loudly. Before he could fire though, the metallic being vanished in a golden light, as quickly as it came.
"Who was that?"
"I believe that was the Khan Maykr, leader of the Maykrs on Urdak." Vega revealed. "It seems she has allied with Hell."
Charlie groaned in frustration, as the Doom Slayer quickly ran over to what appeared to be a technological console, and pressed several buttons.
"William, what are you doing?" Charlie asked curiously.
"The Doom Slayer is overloading the tower with Argent energy, in the hopes that it will explode." Vega explained. Not even a few seconds later, the tower began shaking and rumbling, signalling it was slowly being destroyed.
"How do we get out of here?" Charlie inquired.
"I am rerouting the Tether coordinates as we speak." Vega informed, and the Doom Slayer tapped the side of his helmet. "Rerouting and activation complete. Hold on."
Charlie held onto the Doom Slayer, and they were both teleported back to the Fortress of Doom, just as the Hell tower exploded and destroyed one conduit of the demonic invasion.
A/N: Like I said, most likely this chapter, and the next two will deviate slightly from Eternal's campaign. Or I might retool the next two chapters. I dunno. Stay tuned.