Arc-ventures across the multiverse

by Alvaaron

RWBY and friends gather to watch the adventures of Jaune across the multiverse. A collection of crossovers and one shot ideas for your reading pleasure. Enjoy

28. Chapter 27: Too angry to die Pt 2

Disclaimer, I do not own RWBY or any of the franchises referenced in this work

Chapter 27: Too angry to die (Part 2)

Inspiration: DOOM Eternal

"Alright, welcome back, we're continuing the previous viewing so sit back relax and I'll get this started right away." Blank said as his audience took their place. the lights dimmed and the screen came to life immediately after.

"Dr Ironwood is just across the complex. This industrial complex was once the headquarters of the resistance." Penny said as Jaune exited the portal, finding himself in yet another ruin. Jaune exhaled softly before shaking his head, so much for the demons not reaching this place.

Rubble strewn all over the place and sections of the wall had already crumbled away. The place was a mess, but the holo projectors still worked evidently. "Good news for the faithful, the deceiver James Ironwood has fallen, the ARC is no more."

Jaune was becoming really tired of the UAC spokeswoman, but if her words held any truth to them this time, it didn't exactly bode well for his mission. Ah well, he'd find out the truth of the matter for himself. The Doomslayer shrugged and jumped down an elevator shaft, busting through the roof of the elevator and kick starting it on its descent.

"That's one way to catch a ride." Blake muttered.

"So what happened to Jimmy, or was blue lady lying?" Qrow asked.

"As I said before, he tried fighting fire with fire and it didn't go as planned and he's not in the best of shapes at the moment." Blank said.

"But, he definitely had contingencies in place." Blank added as an afterthought.

As soon as the doors opened, he was immediately greeted with a wave of plasma fire when the demons rolled out the red carpet for him. Cracking his neck, the Doom Slayer got to work, blowing away the nearest demons with the super shotgun and sniping the rest with the heavy cannon.

Pushing through the abandoned complex, more and more demons surged towards him in a vain attempt to halt his rampage. Mancubi, hell knights, revenants, one by one they came, and one by one they died. The tight corridors of the complex leaving them little to no room to dodge his grenades, flamethrower and ice bombs, making them easy pickings for the Doom Slayer.

Pushing down to the lower levels, two whiplashes arrived to challenge him. Setting one on fire and freezing the other in place. Jaune drew the Paingiver and fed them both a salvo of rockets each. The closest one was blown to pieces instantly while the other managed to survive. Jaune rectified the issue by bringing it to the ground and stomping its skull in.

Upon reaching the ground floor, the fighting spilled out onto the streets and intensified. Demons clamouring for the taste of prey flocked to him. They were rapidly dissuaded of that notion when the Doom Slayer reminded them just what roles they belonged in. Mobile turret deployed and unleashed burning hailstorms upon his hapless foes, tearing down rank and file demons and their elites alike. From the most powerful dread knight to the lowliest of possessed zombies, Jaune didn't discriminate and baptised them all with pure firepower.

"That's a lot of firepower, but bullet efficiency is debatable, more so than the three-barrel version." Roman said.

"Who cares, he can make more ammo come out from demons by chainsawing them. They're like piñatas with all the goodies inside. I still wish we could do that with Grimm." Nora replied, wishing dearly that she could get more ammo by blowing apart Grimm or smashing them with her hammer.

"Eh, I suppose if you have infinite ammo than efficiency doesn't really matter." Roman conceded.

Eventually, the Doom Slayer ran out of things to kill in his immediate vicinity. His path to Ironwood's outpost however was blocked by several giant demonic tentacles. Shooting them to bits or tearing them apart with his bare hands could be done but it'd take too long, fortunately, Penny had a solution.

"Two peripheral turrets identified, calculating optimal firing path… confirmed. You can use both turrets to clear a path, I'll mark them for you." Penny helpfully set the nav point on Jaune's HUD, directing him towards the defence turrets still firing at airborne demons.

At that moment a pinky burst through the side of a building, roaring a challenge. An ice bomb froze it in place. A quick vault over via grappling hook and then a super shotgun blast to its back ended whatever dreams of victory it might have had.

Choosing to cut through the building on his way to the turrets, the Doom Slayer was met by the grotesque form of a cyber mancubus. Its obscene bulk hidden away behind a layer of cybernetic enhancements and armour, upgraded heavy cannons rumbled to life and pointed right at Jaune.

A new model from the one he fought back on Mars. This one boasted full armour protection and no longer had the exposed belly of the original. Sounded good in theory, but…

A single blood punch from Jaune destroyed the armour entirely, exposing its obese unarmoured form and stunning it in place. Clambering up the tub of lard, the Doom Slayer extended his trusty Doom Blade and stabbed it straight into the cyber mancubus's skull, killing it instantly.

"Armour doesn't do much against him, does it." Mercury commented.

"Indeed, it's more of a speedbump than any real obstacle." Blank answered.

"Why go through so much effort to improve these demons if they all end up equally unimpressive." Cinder asked.

"As with the Hunter, the upgrades make them effective killing machines against the normal opposition demons would run up against. Cyber mancubi can soak up a lot of bullets from regular humans and their weapons would shred through nearly everything. It just doesn't work against the Doom Slayer, because he's the Doom Slayer." Blank replied.

"Too bad he's the one to beat then." Qrow muttered.

Jaune took a step back as a hell knight slugged him in the jaw. As the demon roared in triumph, the Doom Slayer adjusted his helmet and rubbed it a bit before retaliating. A burst of flames ignited the demon and turned its triumphant roars into agonised bellowing. Letting the demon burn for a few seconds, Jaune put it out of its misery by attaching several sticky bombs to its face and reducing it to chunky salsa.

The entire city block had been cleared out of demons and now on to the next. A plane had crashed through the neighbouring building and somehow become stuck in the structure without taking the whole thing down. The puncture wound made for an easy entrance into the building so Jaune wasn't complaining, the poor souls lost in the crash would be avenged shortly.

Mancubi and gargoyles teleported inside the damaged plane's cargo hold as soon as Jaune climbed into it. Raining fire down upon the Doom Slayer in an effort to dislodge him with the uneven footing and send him spiralling into the infinite.

Tanking several fireballs to the face while securing his footing, Jaune readied his equipment launcher for payback. After lobbing grenades over the demons' heads, gravity did the rest of the work. The explosive ordinance fell backwards into the throng of demons cowering behind the mancubi's bulk and the rain of fire rapidly transitioned to a rain of bloody semi-charred chunks of flesh.

Pressing on into the building, more possessed soldiers and mancubi rushed him with cyborg carcasses in the back. Soldiers opened fire with their weapons, trying to push him into zones filled with napalm courtesy of the mancubi. All the while the carcasses continued putting up barriers to prevent a retaliatory strike or just to impede Jaune's movements.

Whatever pain those attacks should have caused were nothing more than a minor annoyance as Jaune simply shut out the incoming damage with his anger. Revving up the chainsaw, he blitzed the soldiers and chopped them all down to size. When only the mancubi were left, the paingiver came out to play, feeding the obese demons a healthy serving of high explosive munitions.

A fine red haze descended upon the Doom Slayer as he tore apart everything around him in a frenzy to rid the world of demon scum. Blood punches annihilated anything stupid enough to come close and when the carcasses' shields got annoying, the chain gun mobile turret ripped through them like wet cardboard.

And when the annoying, teleport spamming prowler finally came close, Jaune dashed past and shotgunned it in the back of its head. Grabbing the stunned demon, he simply ripped the head off along with half its spine before tossing the grisly trophy away.

"Messy, but effective. Ya know, his moves ain't all that flashy but damn if they don't work." Roman muttered in an impressed tone.

"Who's he supposed to be showing off to though? The demons?" Qrow asked.

"Fair point." The master thief conceded with a nod.

"It's like the only questions running through his head are how do I kill the demons, followed by how do I kill them faster." Torchwick added after a moment's thought.

"Not too inaccurate a statement." Blank said.

Jaune pressed the switch to call the elevator to take him down to the lower levels. As the lift rumbled to life, its vibrations must have pushed the already heavily abused superstructure to its limits. The floor under the Doom Slayer crumbled instantly, dropping him down through several floors and straight into a horde of demons, none of whom looked happy to see him.

"Hehehe… going down." Yang chuckled to herself and drew out a bunch of groans from her team.

Guns were nice, but there was something visceral and oh so satisfying about punching your enemies hard enough to explode them. The Doom Slayer lowered his fists as the berserker rage faded with the cyber mancubus's corpse falling away.

If it could even be called a corpse anymore with just the tattered remains of a spine attached to what was just barely recognizable as the demon's legs.

Leaving the lobby full of body parts behind, the fighting spilled out into the streets again as the Slayer exited the building. Plasma fire scorched the pavement as Jaune bounded around the place, propelled by jumpjets and his grappling hook.

Ice bombs and flame belches wreaked untold havoc on the demonic tide and Jaune deployed the mobile turret with extreme prejudice. The sound of flesh and bone being sundered by hundreds of rounds of ammunition was like a lullaby but eventually, the Doom Slayer ran out of things to kill and the turret wound down.

With the streets running red with demon blood, Jaune was free to make his way to the turret control centre and take command manually. Soft whirring filled the control room as the anti-air cannons shifted away from their initial targeting vectors to line up with the tentacle blocking his way.

Jaune squeezed the trigger and promptly blew the tentacle apart, clearing part of the blockage. He would shoot the other one as well but the turret couldn't get a good enough angle on it, he'd still need to head to the other one and clear the obstruction there.

At least the path forwards was clear cut now, no more jumping from one building to another, just clearing out the abandoned base until he got to the other side. Piece of cake.

"Just a question, have the demons ever considered invading any other world where the Doom Slayer isn't at?" Emerald asked.

"They have, multiple worlds fell to them during the Slayer's entombment. Earth just happens to be their next target, they've already invested too much to just give at this point and they're hoping they'll win before the Slayer completely shuts down their operations." Blank answered.

"Too bad for them that's not happening." Qrow muttered.

"Dr Ironwood's office laboratory is located at the top of this facility." Penny said helpfully as the elevator ascended. Unlike the overrun city and military complex beyond, this section of the base remained undefiled by demonic taint.

As blast doors unsealed, Jaune was greeted with the sight of the first living humans he'd seen in… the first living humans he'd seen in a very, very long time.

One of the scientists present took a startled step back before rushing over to him. "M…m, my god… um… D… D… Dr Ironwood was convinced… um… that you would come here for this… eventually."

Jaune ignored the man and continued walking forwards, his attention fixed solely on the object suspended in the air by a stasis field. Plucking it out with one hand, he affixed the demonic artefact to his waist without hesitation. There was no way in hell he was leaving the crucible here for anyone to misuse, human or demon.

"Uh… can I just say that it is an honour, for me, personally, to meet you? I… oop!" The scientist cut himself off when he stumbled against the railing when Jaune walked past, too caught up in the moment of meeting a living legend to watch where he was going.

"That's quite a bit of hero worship right there." Ozpin said.

"Some of them are afraid of him too, why is that?" Goodwitch asked.

"Same reason for both of them. The Doom Slayer is the single greatest killing machine on the planet at the moment, if the demons don't stand a chance against him, what hope does a normal human have." Blank answered.

"But Jaune's there to help them." Ruby protested.

"People don't always act rationally Ruby. That's just part of being human." Summer said.

"But… but…" Ruby sputtered.

"It doesn't matter to the Doom Slayer either way, he just wants the total extinction of the demon races, public opinion doesn't matter to him. At the very least, these ones aren't trying to worship him." Blank answered.

"Worship?" Cinder raised an eyebrow.

"Oh yes. He's done the impossible so many times now even scientists have given up trying to come up with a scientific explanation for his abilities and have written him off as an avenging god." Blank said.

An air of panic surrounded the laboratory as scientists hurried from place to place, all the while warnings blared that demons were about to overrun the entire place. Jaune found his target and his mouth set in a thin line as he approached a stasis chamber of sorts.

James Ironwood, or what was left of him hung limply there with several cables connected to him. Only his upper torso remained, ending in his severed mechanical spine, the rest of his body a casualty of the war against the demons.

"We, ah… don't know how to access his main cortex, it's all… alien, and we couldn't figure it out." The first scientist that greeted Jaune explained in a nervous tone, the Doom Slayer glanced at him for an instant before looking back to Ironwood's mangled frame.

"We have to, ah, prepare for his careful extraction and we were given specific orders-" The scientist said but Jaune had already tuned the man out. Alien was one way of putting it, and as to leaving specific orders pertaining to the Doom Slayer's arrival…

Grabbing Ironwood's shoulder, Jaune ripped the cyborg free from the cables and let it fall to the ground in a shower of sparks. Ironwood really shouldn't have bothered, it wasn't as though the doctor was unfamiliar with the Doom Slayer's record with following his orders.

"Okay… was not expecting that." Ren said, eyes wide at Jaune's casual removal of Ironwood from what was most likely his life support systems.

"Woah, woah, woah, wait a minute, I thought he was trying to get Jimmy to help him. Since he's ah… only half present, what happens now, and did he just kill off ol tinman?" Qrow asked.

"The James Ironwood of this universe is… complicated to say the least. Again, he's more than he appears to be." Blank answered but said no more on the subject.

"His life signal is barely readable." Penny said after scanning the broken cyborg. Jaune shrugged, barely readable was still readable, as long as he wasn't dead, they could handle the rest back on the Fortress of Doom.

The facility began to rumble as local spacetime began to distort. Alarms began blaring as a new warning played over the intercoms. "WARNING. Demonic presence threat level five entering main laboratory."

A hellish crimson portal opened up in the middle of the room as the demons finally got tired of trying to batter down the defences from outside and elected to send their own elites straight into the heart of the human defences.

"Opening the portal now." Penny's voice came through as she managed to get a hook onto his coordinates despite the rising demonic corruption. The Doom Slayer didn't move, simply pursing his lips into a thin line as a familiar figure stepped out of the red portal.

A horned humanoid, wearing armour not to dissimilar to Jaune's own and bearing the emblem of the Night Sentinels. A deactivated energy axe in hand and a shotgun holstered to its back. Oh, Jaune recognised the 'demon' before him alright, tossing Ironwood's immobile torso through the portal leading back to the Fortress of Doom, he began walking towards the advancing demon as well.

"You were never one of us. You were nothing but a usurper." The demon accused in a gravely tone as its energy axe activated, the red blade scraping along the ground and effortlessly carving a line in it. Jaune said nothing, he no longer had anything to prove to anyone, least of all a demon, even if there was a time when he would have called that demon brother.

"A false idol. My eyes have been opened. Let me help you to see Slayer." The Marauder finished as the remaining humans swiftly evacuated the area, leaving the two of them to square off in peace.

"Eyes opened? Does it even have eyelids anymore?" Emerald muttered as the Marauder's glowing red orbs burned in the dim lighting. She wasn't even sure if those crimson lights were eyeballs at all.

"It can speak!? What kind of demon is that!? A-and why is it wearing the Doom Slayer's symbol?" Weiss fired off a series of questions rapidly.

"That's a Marauder, a former Night Sentinel." Blank said.

"Former?" Yang asked.

"As I said before, when the truth of the Khan Maykr was revealed, there was a division in the Sentinel ranks. Some chose to stand with the Doom Slayer, others remained loyal to the Khan Maykr. Marauders are Sentinels who sided against the Doom Slayer and fell in battle against his faction, instead of being allowed to rest in peace however, they were reanimated, 'upgraded' into the demons you see today." Blank answered.

"Oh, so he's spoiling for a rematch." Mercury muttered.

"In essence. The Marauders have a major grudge against the Doom Slayer for being directly or indirectly responsible for their first deaths. Jaune Arc on the other hand really couldn't care less about the Sentinels who refused to stand with him, but those who actively fought to uphold the Khan Maykr's will and became corrupted into this mockery of the Sentinels… he will not suffer their insult to stand." Blank replied.

The battle between the Marauder and the Doom Slayer was almost symmetrical, both dashing around the place dodging shots and retaliating with their own attacks. Shotguns blasting at one another while each combatant tried to find an opening.

The Marauder didn't come without surprises of its own however. A scarlet energy shield spawned into existence, blocking the Doom Slayer's shots and a golden spectral hound emerged to harass Jaune. Taking the unexpected shift in stride, the Doom Slayer weathered the counter attack before switching up his tactics.

Stowing the super shotgun, he switched to the regular combat shotgun and began dropping sticky bombs everywhere around the Marauders feet as well as throwing several grenades into the mix. If the Marauder wanted to turtle behind its shield that was fine, he'd just hit it with indirect fire and fill the area with enough explosions that there was no safe place to dodge to.

When the Marauder was staggered by the explosions, Jaune proceeded to shoot him in the face with the super shotgun repeatedly, blowing chunks of its armour off. The pale imitation of the praetor suit stood no chance against the Doom Slayer's weapons.

"Grarhagh!" The Marauder roared and struggled back to its feet, pushing past the pain of having its organs shredded by buckshot. It swung its energy axe and launched several energy waves towards the Doom Slayer before dashing forwards to try and land a clean blow to the neck.

Jaune dashed away again, leaving the axe to cleave nothing but air. Flame belch ignited the Marauder and as it flailed its limbs, he dropped another grenade at its feet. Several imps were still throwing fireballs at him but Jaune simply ignored their pitiful attacks.

Those demons would get chainsawed if they got too close, but his sole priority at the moment was dealing with the treacherous swine unfit to even look upon the mark of the Night Sentinels, let alone wear it.

Finally, the Marauder couldn't take anymore punishment. It staggered backwards with most of its armour gone and the entire front of its chest ripped away by gunfire, exposing its ribs and leaking crimson.

Dashing forwards, Jaune rammed his boot into the Marauders knee, snapping it and forcing the leg to bend backwards. Reaching out and grabbing its infernal axe, the Doom Slayer ripped it free from its grip and raised the weapon overhead. The Marauder had a split second to look up into the face of its executioner before the crimson edge came down and decapitated it.

Jaune tossed away the axe as the Marauder's corpse slumped over in death. Once again, he had to kill something he already killed in the past. As Penny opened up a new portal with the demonic corruption diminishing, Jaune strode towards it without a backwards glance.

Demons weren't very bright, but sooner or later even they had to learn the lesson that resurrecting things he already murderised for round two wouldn't change the outcome. Oh well, at least the universe was free of another corrupt Sentinel.

"So much for killing the Slayer. That Marauder… he looked he still had his mind intact, did he truly believe he could win?" Cinder asked.

"Yes. Old prejudices are hard to put down. All the Marauder recalls is that Jaune Arc wasn't always a Sentinel and was once just a man, the rest of his deeds just can't register." Blank said.

"Foolish." Cinder muttered and rolled her eyes.

Roman glared at Cinder momentarily before shaking his head, there was time to insult Cinder over her inability to see her own demise coming later. "Once just a man? Him? How?"

"The Doom Slayer was completely human once, oh not your average Joe for sure, but human to the core. Suffice to say, that changed along the way and he became the nigh unstoppable juggernaut he is today." Blank answered.

Jaune tossed Ironwood's battered form into a stasis field on the Fortress of Doom. Energy flared and lightning sparked off the mechanical frame as the Fortress's systems interfaced with the cyborg's remains.

Jaune watched as the electrical pulses travelled through the walls, spreading through the fortress. Penny spoke up again to inform him of what the good doctor was doing. "Dr Ironwood is transferring himself into your ship's mainframe. The architecture is similar to his own. this will-"

A small whine came from the now empty robot as Jaune looked back to it. Instead of it speaking however, Ironwood's voice reverberated through the entire Fortress of Doom, coming from everywhere at once and echoing right into Jaune's mind.

"The final priest is hiding in Sentinel Prime."

"Whoa… how'd he do that? He's speaking from everything… I wanna know how to do that." Nora whispered loudly.

"James can… transfer himself into the ship? But… I thought he was a cyborg who still had a human brain and not an AI. And what does it mean the Fortress's architecture is similar to his own?" Ozpin frowned in confusion.

"As I said, James Ironwood is not what he appears to be." Blank said but didn't elaborate more on the subject.

"Yeah… and he already knows they're searching for the final priest too." Qrow muttered.

"The Khan Maykr does not want him to be easily found. The only functional slip-gate to Sentinel Prime is in the core of Mars. In the lost city of Hebeth." Ironwood said as Jaune returned to the main controls, a hologram of the red planet already being displayed.

"I have marked its location for you but getting there will take time. There is no easy way to access the core of Mars."

"There are no known ways that lead there, Dr Ironwood." Penny said. Throughout their time spent colonising Mars, Hebeth had always been out of their reach, only detectable by scanners but with it situated at the centre of the planet, getting there was easier said than done.

Jaune paid the two of them no mind as he accessed a console, bringing up data on human defence installations in the area. Scrolling through multiple files until he came across the one he sought, a simple display of a massive gun emplacement.

"Oooh… big… gun." Nora and Ruby said together in awe.

"Okay? How does that big ass gun help them get to that Hebet or whatever?" Mercury asked.

"Heheheheh." Blank chuckled.

"Fine, keep your secrets." Came Mercury's annoyed follow up.

"The BFG-10,0000 designed by Dr James Ironwood as part of the anti-demonic defence grid." The computer read out before showing its location on Phobos.

"I understand. Searching the coordinates to the BFG 10,000 now." Penny instantly saw where he was going with it and began setting the teleporters next destination.

Ironwood was speechless for a moment before he found his voice. Making sure to speak slowly and enunciate every word clearly to try to get the point across. "You can't just shoot a hole into the surface of Mars…"

Unfortunately for him, Penny's next words instantly undercut him. "The portal is ready."

The Doom Slayer simply grinned and hit the activation switch before walking towards the Portal. How long would it take before the good doctor realised that telling him not to do something only served as greater encouragement to do exactly that.

Current objective: Shoot a hole in Mars

"He's… not seriously going to shoot a hole into an entire planet… is he?" Summer asked.

"If shooting a hole into the planet gets him to that last Priest faster… he probably will." Taiyang answered.

"Also, Jimmy told him not to do it. Hmm, actually, has there been a single time when he actually followed tinman's instructions to not do something?" Qrow wondered aloud.

"There was the… no wait Jaune destroyed the filters. He um… saved Penny? No… Dr Ironwood didn't ask him to do anything about that. Uh… I got nothing." Ruby shrugged her shoulders as she drew a complete blank on recalling any event where Jaune actually followed instructions to not do something.

"Hostiles! Approaching the BFG 10,000!" A panicked voice reached Jaune's ears as the Slayer emerged from the portal and stepped through a blast door. The tension was running high in the command centre as the demons had renewed their assault on the base.

Through the windows, the Slayer could see the BFG 10,000 in the distance, multiple cacodemons were swarming towards it, making ready to take down one of the lynchpins of the anti-demon defence grid.

"Oh my god it's him." A lone scientist gasped out as he took several steps away from the Doom Slayer upon noticing Jaune. Several of the scientists who heard his exclamation turned to look as well and fell back in, awe, reverence and a hint of fear on their faces.

"They've overrun the lower levels!" One of the scientists who hadn't noticed the Doom Slayer's arrival shouted out.

"Corporate says we should let them through!" Another replied, the panic and sheer hopelessness in his voice was palpable although he too fell silent when he noticed Jaune's approach.

"What!? WHY!?" The first scientist asked and spun around on his swivel chair, freezing in place when he saw Jaune approaching him in particular. The man backed away slowly, not daring to rise from his seat lest he give offense somehow.

The scientist sucked in a deep breath as his limbs locked up when Jaune reached out for the key card around his neck. A small strangled gasp left the man as Jaune grabbed the card and dragged it towards the console, without bothering to lift it from the man's neck first.

A small beep and the blast doors leading outside the command centre unlocked. The Doom Slayer released the card and left the beleaguered scientist to his own devices, no longer needing anything from him.

"…That's one way to get what you want." Roman gave a small round of applause at the Doom Slayer's sheer nonchalance.

"Would it have killed him to ask nicely?" Goodwitch huffed in exasperation.

"Asking really isn't his strong suit." Qrow replied.

"But compared to how he normally handles things, this is pretty gentle." Taiyang said.

Two guards were guarding the command centre's exit and one immediately moved to challenge the Doom Slayer upon noticing him. "Hey! Who are you!? You can't be… here…"

The guard trailed off into silence as Jaune's identity dawned on him. His buddy lowered his plasma rifle and stepped back instantly, leaving the first guard to look around for help that wasn't coming. Fortunately for him, the Slayer cared only for the plasma rifle in his hands.

Grabbing it and pulling it away to add to his arsenal, the guard let the gun go without any resistance and just watched as Jaune continued forwards, not a word spoken. The Doom Slayer ignored the audible sigh of relief and stepped into the elevator beyond, letting it carry him down to the lower levels where all the demons were currently swarming.

"The entrance to the BFG 10,000 is just across this facility." Penny said as the massive cannon in the distance fired off a beam of emerald light at an unseen target.

"…The power source of the BFG 10,000 should be of interest to you as well." Ironwood said, a note of resignation in his voice. If the Slayer was set on his path to commit vandalism on a planetary scale, the only thing he could do now was at least make sure it led to more effective demon killing.

As expected, demons rushed to greet him as soon as the doors of the elevator opened. A quick vent of the plasma rifle's heat sinks melted their flesh and locked them down, allowing for easy chainsaw clean up.

Fighting through the base itself was a grim affair though. Slotting more shells home into the super shotgun and blowing away several possessed zombies, Jaune launched two more grenades into their ranks, putting the remaining transformed humans out of their misery. Unlike the upper levels where human defenders were still putting up a good fight, most of the lower levels had been overrun completely, with the humans there either butchered or turned into more demons.

Nothing left to do but kill them all.

"Is there a reason they don't just transform everyone? If everyone's a demon, hell wins by default doesn't it?" Emerald asked.

"There is actually. Directly turning a human into a demon is good for conquest, but ultimately goes against the main reason for that conquest." Blank answered.

"Ahg, this is about the demons using their victims as farms or something isn't it." Yang said.

"Indeed. You'll see what that's all about soon. It's dirty business." Blank said.

The fireborne baron howled as it keeled over, burning blood leaking from the multiple wounds in its frame. Nearly all of its obsidian carapace had been shot off its body by a mix of the mobile turret and the paingiver.

Jaune grabbed the stronger cousin to the baron of hells by its horns and forced it down to the ground. Tugging its head forwards, Jaune extended the Doom Blade and slashed downwards, beheading the giant demon and ending its reign of terror.

Dropping the demon's head, the super shotgun snapped up and proceeded to put the hurt on the few remaining imps in the room with him.

Beyond the cramped corridors of the lower levels, Jaune found his exit to the base exterior. Again, there weren't any human defenders left to be seen, but automated turrets continued pouring fire into the skies to keep the airborne demons at bay. And every now and then, the almighty BFG 10,000 would fire, lighting everything up in an emerald flash.

Pain elementals, cyber mancubi and a full battalion worth of converted soldiers. There was even another one of Merlot's upgraded Agaddon Hunters in the mix. The Doom Slayer huffed in annoyance before doing his part to return the resurrected demon race to its extinct status and push the others along to the same.

"The entrance is locked, they know you're trying to get in." Ironwood said once the last demon had been reduced to a red mass of unidentifiable meat. A quick tap of the base systems had shown the demons had already breached several defence lines and had taken efforts to lock the place down behind them, keeping the Doom Slayer out.

"The schematics show a maintenance hatch on the bridge." Penny helpfully marked the position on Jaune's HUD and hacked into the base systems to raise it, granting Jaune an alternate path in.

"They know he's trying to get in?" Weiss raised an eyebrow.

"It's a big gun, given Jaune's track record with guns and sudden appearance, they must have drawn the obvious conclusion." Blake replied.

"Fair enough." Weiss said.

"I'm telling you! He's on his way! I need you to-aaahh!" the UAC operator was roughly shoved to the side as Jaune took his place at the console. Nice that the man was smart enough to know the BFG needed guarding, dumb of him to get in his way. The guards should be fighting the demons as opposed to trying to slow him down, it wasn't as though Jaune was going to misuse the BFG 10,000 or anything.

Taking the place of the previous gun operator, Penny set the control platform to rise, sending Jaune upwards and into the cannon itself. Jaune tilted the joystick, turning the gun emplacement away from its previous target and aligned the barrel with the red planet in the distance.

Behind his visor, Jaune grinned broadly and pressed the trigger. To his surprise, the BFG refused to fire. Red warning lights flashed along the barrel as the gun jammed. "WARNING! Mars surface targeted. Safety mechanism activated."

The computerised warning sounded off as Jaune squeezed the trigger several more times to no effect.

"Would you like me to disable the safety protocols?" Penny asked. Jaune's only reply was to squeeze the trigger rapidly several more times with increasing force, a low growl building up inside him. He had the biggest gun in the entire solar system! Now was the time for it to do the shooty thing…

And it was not doing the shooty thing!

Penny noticed his rising impatience and silently disabled the safeties on the BFG 10,000. As soon as the words 'system lock engaged' switched to 'system lock disengaged', Jaune squeezed the trigger again.

Emerald lightning flared along the barrel as the mighty superweapon roared to life. The beam of pure destructive power lanced towards the planet's surface in a blinding flash. It's impact was no less spectacular, the detonation was visible even from the Phobos base as an entire section of Mars simply ceased to be.

"The pod is set to self-destruct, we should move ahead." Penny informed Jaune. Despite her hacking ability, the safeguards built into the weapon specifically to prevent what Jaune just did from happening couldn't be stymied any further. Dr Ironwood had installed the self-destruct system long ago to ensure no one could use his super weapon against Mars or Earth.

It was just a shame of all the things he accurately predicted Jaune would do, this wasn't one of them.

Jaune nodded at Penny's words. Leaving was a good idea, the path to the centre of Mars was clear and he no longer had any business on this station. But before that…

Jaune ripped the trigger control off the BFG 10,000's power source. Tearing off the rest of the couplings and restraints, his already broad grin grew wider as he ripped the entire thing free, welcoming an old friend back to his hands.

The BFG 9000 was his once more.

"He… he did it. He actually did it." Cinder stared at the screen flabbergasted. To blow up part of a planet not out of hate, rage or some grand master plan but just to cut a highway to hell for convenience… it was mind boggling and she couldn't even begin trying to wrap her head around it.

"Okay, so he has a path forwards, but he also disabled their biggest weapon against the demons? And he's going to leave now right? What happens to the humans left behind now?" Blake asked.

"The BFG 10,000 is no longer available to them but the station's other defences are still up. They will hold long enough for the base to finish evacuation efforts. There really wasn't an option to hold against the assault much longer anyways, the BFG is great against single large targets, not so much a horde of smaller demons that can scatter." Blank answered.

"It's still reckless as all hell. I love it!" Roman cheered, joining Nora in celebrating the sheer ballsiness of the Doom Slayer.

"It's the BFG… I want it, iwantitiwantitiwantit…" Ruby whispered over and over again as her favourite weapon from the Doom Slayer's first Martian escapade returned in all its glory.

The path to Hebeth was open but since there was no access to it before, the Phobos base was a little short on methods of travel there. The best there was at the moment was a teleporter leading to another one of the UAC Mars's surface bases… the ones that hadn't been overrun or blown up by the BFG at any rate.

After that it was still a long way to the planet core. Too slow for the Doom Slayer, time for improvisation, and Jaune had always been good at that. Aside from taking the teleporter to the surface and then walking the rest of the way, there was still the fastest and most direct path.

He just needed to get across to another section of the base that had been cast adrift by the damage.

"Access to surface gun bridge granted. Manual loading initiated." The computer called out as Jaune took control of one of the anti-demon cannons, repurposing it for his own use.

Ironwood naturally took offense to this. "That is a weapon. Not a teleporter."

The Doom Slayer rolled his eyes and headed for the exit. How hadn't the doctor learned yet? Telling him not to do something only served as encouragement.

As Jaune made the final adjustments to the cannon's systems at the gun itself, it was Penny's turn to caution against his choice. "The Ion Catapult is designed to use only approved UAC ammunition."

Jaune stared at the cannon ball that rose up from the auto loader. He kicked it off the perch without a moment's hesitation before taking its place.

"Bullshit. There's no way he's going to do what I think he's going to do." Qrow said in disbelief.

"Again Qrow, you suck at making bets." Taiyang replied but the disbelief on his face mirrored Qrow's own.

Jaune grabbed hold of makeshift handholds and braced himself. Seeing his resolution, Penny didn't bother arguing any further and simply hacked in to force the gun to load its 'bullet'. "Override loading sequence fire…"

The Ion Catapult shifted and aimed directly at Jaune's destination and Penny began the countdown. "In 3… 2… 1…"

The cannon fired and there was a brief moment of incredible acceleration as Jaune was shot across the void. Liberated from gravity, he was a glowing green blur as his flight came to an end and he slammed straight into a wall and bust through it.

Smashing through multiple walls helped bleed off the excess momentum and the Doom Slayer landed on his feet. As expected, there were some transformed humans inside, shrugging his shoulders and drawing his weapons, gunfire rang through the air shortly after.

Roman, Nora and Yang raised '10' score cards into the air.

"I've heard of the human cannon ball trick being done in circuses. But I don't think this is what they had in mind." Goodwitch murmured.

"He isn't even hurt by it." Ren said.

"Something like that really sells the image of him being invincible." Pyrrha added.

"Not to mention unstoppable. With something like this, you can see how it took the demons dropping an entire mountain on him to even slow him down." Blake chimed in.

After an extended island hopping campaign navigating the floating debris, the Slayer arrived at his destination. A hangar filled with escape pods he could use to fly all the way into Mars' core.

"I'm charting a flight path to Mars. Calculating thrust vectors. Launching in 3… 2… 1…" Penny said as the escape pod launched into space. Jaune settled in and got comfortable while Penny drove the craft. Countless asteroids and other floating debris passed by harmlessly and the gaping hole in the surface of Mars was visible, as was the swirling energies released by the BFG 10,000 impact.

"Prepare for turbulence." Penny warned as the craft began to rock. Jaune didn't mind it though, something like turbulence barely registered as a discomfort compared to what he normally dealt with.

The rest of the journey to core was shorter than expected and while Penny wasn't able to drop him right on top of the portal, she did a remarkable job getting him close. Exiting the escape pod, the Doom Slayer was greeted with the sight of ruins clearly bearing Sentinel influence.

"The lost city of Hebeth, this was before your time with the Sentinels. The slipgate will take you to Sentinel Prime where the priest is hiding." Ironwood informed him, once again bringing up information no human should have known, no amount of research would have given him that insight. Jaune wondered exactly how much longer would he continue to play dumb, it wasn't like he was fooling either of them with his charade.

But, that was Ironwood's business. For now, there was a slipgate to reach and a priest to execute. Gravel crunched underfoot as Jaune made his way deeper into the city that was now seeing the light of day for the first time in eternity.

"Again with being all mysterious. Exactly what is up with Jimmy?" Qrow asked.

"Quite a lot. His past is murky, but he isn't 100% human, even discounting his robotic parts." Blank said.

Upon putting the Agaddon Hunter race another step closer to re-extinction, there was no longer any opposition waiting for him. The Khan Maykr had nothing left to throw at him for the moment and he was free to enter the portal.

As soon as Jaune stepped through, he found himself in a hallway he'd traversed countless times before. Multiple Night Sentinels lined the path and snapped to attention as soon as he drew close. Despite his conflict against the Khan Maykr, on Sentinel Prime, he still held sovereignty, and whatever the thoughts of the Night Sentinels who refused to stand with him, his authority was to be respected as per the code.

A single member of the Maykr race was waiting for him at the end, greeting him in a faux cheerful tone. For the time being, there would be no violence in this place. "Welcome home, great Slayer."

"That's his home?" Pyrrha asked.

"For a time it was, then came the split." Blank answered.

"I thought the Night Sentinels were hostile, like that Marauder guy. They don't look very hostile right now." Mercury said.

"The Doom Slayer is still king of the Night Sentinels. Because of their culture, they owe him respect even if he cannot command them to fight the Khan Maykr." Blank said.

"Some king." Cinder sneered in derision. If you couldn't command obedience from your subjects, what sort of king did that make you?

"Ah, look at it this way. If Salem ordered you to go fight against an actual god one day, would you obey that order?" Blank's questioned silenced Cinder instantly.

By the side, Ozpin gave a small cough, considering how Remnant's history had been shaped by that very choice, he really couldn't fault the Night Sentinels for choosing to stay out of the conflict.

"He's… king of them… but he's been sealed away for a long time right? And before that he was already sort of their enemy? Why didn't they just get a new king?" Emerald changed the subject upon noticing the frown on Cinder's face.

"They can't. Sentinel culture is deeply rooted in tradition and ritual, chief among them being the age old 'might makes right'. The Doom Slayer won the crown by simply being the single greatest warrior they had ever seen, and even in his absence, there existed no Sentinel who could take the crown from him. None of their feats even came close. As such, the Night Sentinel throne has remained empty for a long time." Blank explained.

"Yeah! Ass kicking equals authority! Go fearless leader!" Nora cheered.

As the elevator descended, taking the Doom Slayer towards the arena. Jaune allowed his mind to drift back to the distant past, the place hadn't changed in eons and it took him back.

A younger Jaune Arc hung limply, only held up by the firm grip of the Night Sentinels who discovered him. His vision blurred and fading in and out, a yellow haze coated everything and he felt sick to the core. Covered in wounds and wearing armour that could scarcely be called armour anymore, he was dead on his feet, kept alive only by a sheer refusal to give in.

"We found him in the valley just outside the castle walls. He was badly wounded and wearing this." One of the accompanying Night Sentinels reported to the priests, handing them a battered old helmet that had clearly been through a lot. Merlot grabbed it and inspected the helmet, not at all impressed with the low-tech relic.

"Guts… huge guts! Kill them… must kill them ALL!" Jaune spoke slowly, unsurely, as his tongue worked to form words he hadn't spoken in a long time. His twitching fingers curled up before he formed them into fists, the berserker rage that had powered him for so long slipping back in again, pulling him in with its siren song.

"He has fight in him yet." Merlot said to Watts.

"In spite of his injuries." Watts concurred.

"Send him to the arena. Let him be judged like the others." Merlot decided at last, returning the helmet to the Night Sentinel who presented it to him. Dismissing them with a wave, the two Night Sentinels carrying Jaune began dragging him out of the chamber as well.

As the memory faded away, Jaune shook his head to clear his mind and continued forwards. Tyrian was waiting, best not keep the priest from his destiny any longer.

"He speaks!?" Weiss exclaimed.

"He's injured? But… but I thought he's invincible." Pyrrha added.

"That was from the very distant past. From a time when the Doom Slayer was still completely human. No incredible armour, no super strength, speed or durability, no aura or semblance. Just a human at peak physical conditioning." Blank said.

"He was fighting the demons even then?" Ren asked.

"Yes. He'd already fought and crushed the forces of hell multiple times by then, going above and beyond what should be humanly possible. At the end of one demon incident, he chose to stay behind in hell, seal the portal from the other side and continue his campaign, preventing another demonic invasion." Blank answered.

"Damn, he beat the demons as a normal human… but I guess he couldn't keep winning." Roman muttered.

"Indeed. The endless battles took their toll and eventually he was worn down. No human can fight forever without cracking. Instead of dying in a last stand though, he wandered through a portal and ended up at Sentinel Prime where the Night Sentinels picked him up." Blank said.

"So what did they do to him?" Ruby followed up.

"They sent him to the arena to fight… as a gladiator."

"WHAT!?" Came the simultaneous yells from the Beacon students.

"Argenta culture isn't very welcoming. Strength is the only thing they respect, outsiders that cannot prove their right to exist on the battlefield have no worth to them and will be left to rot." Blank said.

"Tch, I can think of one person who'd fit in right at home then." Qrow muttered darkly as he recalled his absent sister.

"If you let the priest live then I will return to you what the demons took from you so long ago. You need only turn back and it will be yours again. All the pain you carry will be gone." The Khan Maykr's projection pleaded with Jaune to abandon his quest and leave his crusade.

The Doom Slayer glared at the projection as it faded away. A sign of the Khan Maykr's desperation, no doubt she wasn't expecting he'd find a way to return to Sentinel Prime.

But it was too damned late for empty promises now. The wages of treachery were suffering, he'd seen what became of Hazel, knew of what foul fate befell Gretchen. Hazel… paid his due, now it was Tyrian's turn and then Salem's.

To offer him what he lost so long ago? The Khan Maykr was blinder than she realised, a single rabbit's foot weighed heavily on Jaune, its presence behind the layers of his armour always felt. What was lost, was lost for good, his crusade would only end when all of hell was empty of life.

"A rabbit's foot? For luck? Didn't think he'd be the superstitious kind." Roman commented.

"Not for luck, it certainly wasn't lucky for its original owner. It belonged to his pet Daisy before she was killed by the demons. Now he keeps it with him as a reminder of everything the demons have destroyed, of what they will continue to do if they aren't stopped." Blank said.

"Oh." Roman said quietly.

"I cannot stand by and watch as you put our futures at risk. Earth will be consumed and the energy will continue to flow. It is your people's survival… against mine." Salem's hologram faded away as Jaune continued to move through the city streets.

On that point the Doom Slayer agreed with her one hundred percent. However the Khan Maykr tried to spin it, however 'necessary' she thought the destruction of Earth was, at its core it was simply one race acting in its own self-interest.

Jaune was many things, blind to faults of his own race wasn't one of them. He knew just as well as Salem that if things were reversed, humans would have absolutely no qualms about sacrificing the Maykrs for their own prosperity. As the UAC high command proved, they were already willing to sell out their own, species loyalty be damned.

But, things were the way they were. He wouldn't begrudge the Maykrs for trying to find a way to keep their kind from extinction. All he asked was they not get too pissy when he returned the favour and erased them so humanity and countless other species could go on.

Passing by cell blocks holding captured demons for the arena matches, Jaune's face scrunched up in distaste. So the gladiator games were now pitting demons against captives for slaughter. There was no honourable test of strength here, just a slaughter… and a crowd that ate it all up.

One of the most sacred Argenta traditions had been reduced to blood sport. Jaune hazarded a guess that anyone who objected got to make their case in the ring themselves.

Well, that ended today. Two Night Sentinels on duty snapped to attention as Jaune strode past, heavy iron portcullis rising to admit him. In his absence, they sought to push a demon as the new pinnacle of strength in the arena? No more.

The king had returned. And he would permit no jester to sit his throne.

"Good… just a bit more and that scorpion gets what's coming to him." Cinder folded her arms in impatience, eager to watch Tyrian die.

"What's the difference between the current system and the old one? It's still blood sport either way isn't it?" Pyrrha asked, still unhappy about the Hell Priests throwing Jaune into gladiator matches on a whim.

"In the beginning, the arena was a proving ground of sorts. It allowed criminals, outsiders, anyone at all really, to prove their worth in a way that cannot be denied. Success in the arena can lead to membership among the Sentinels, a highly coveted position in a culture that values strength. Defeat didn't mean death either. But that changed after Hell's corruption set in, matches were to the death, and against the demons, there was no chance of victory. A complete mockery of the old system where anyone could prove themselves." Blank said.

"I… see…" Pyrrha nodded and fell silent, still not entirely satisfied with the answer.

A younger Jaune Arc gripped the arm flying towards his face, locking his exhausted opponent in place. With his other hand, he slammed a closed fist into the man's jaw, breaking it and causing blood to spray.

His opponent went down immediately and didn't rise again. Jaune glared at everything, the fine yellow haze still clouding his vision as the rage burned hot. All around him, vanquished foes lay scattered, some unconscious, some trying and failing to rise to their feet again.

"Rip! And… TEAR!" Jaune growled out and staggered in place, waiting for someone, anyone to challenge him, so he had an outlet to bleed off the anger.

"Hehehe… you'll make a fine addition to the front lines, stranger." Tyrian said, greeting Jaune's overwhelming victory with a smile.

"The demons! They are… everywhere! Must… kill them all!" Jaune barely even registered Tyrian's words. His mind was still clouded, pain, anger, hate, and a deep-seated exhaustion in his soul, it made for one messed up mental state.

"Dress his wounds and bring him to us. I want to know more about the others he speaks of." Salem had arrived while Jaune wasn't paying attention and relayed her instructions to her loyal priest.

"Yes, your grace." Tyrian bowed low in reverence as he obeyed her will.

The memory faded away and Jaune was left staring at the present-day Tyrian Callows. Argenta didn't age the same way humans did, they could go eons without any visible change. But Tyrian? The man looked old, withered. Servitude to the Khan Maykr and hell had done him no favours.

"Hmm, that sort of speech pattern… how long has he been fighting the demons exactly?" Ozpin asked. That sort of halting speech he'd heard before… gone through the same himself in a number of lives too.

It reminded him of huntsmen who'd spent too long fighting the Grimm alone without any friendly human contact. The solitude and the nigh endless battles, it did things to the mind, unhealthy things. It was one of the reasons why he'd pushed for huntsmen teams when the academies were founded and huntsmen became and official thing. No one should have to go through hell alone.

"Too long." Was Blank's only answer. Ozpin sighed and closed his eyes.

"If Sentinel holy blood is spilled on these grounds, you will lose all sovereignty here." Tyrian's mocking call grated on Jaune's nerves. Sentinel holy blood? They had been everything but holy for a very long time now, and after the slaughter of who knows how many innocents in the arena, he dared chastise him?

Jaune's fist clenched tight in fury before they relaxed. Now was not the time to explode in uncontrollable rage, Tyrian was cocky, clearly believing in the strength of his guardian like Watts and Merlot before him. No doubt he'd send out whatever beast it was to face him in the arena, then his fate would be sealed.

"Calommus V Turna!" Tyrian slammed his staff into the floor, releasing a blue energy wave that shook the entire colosseum. He offered Jaune one last mad smile before he was teleported away in a flash of gold light.

Behind another portcullis, the red glow of infernal flames flared to life. As the heavy iron barricade lifted and the demon stepped forwards, Jaune could make out the skull shape on the shield. The demonic gladiator roared a defiant challenge and raised its flail in the other hand, slamming it down on the ground several times with terrifying force.

Several more imps and fodder demons began entering the arena too, seeking to overwhelm the Slayer with their numbers, or at the very least have their deaths serve as a useful distraction for the gladiator.

The super shotgun snapped up to answer their challenge, blowing away several imps when they got close. Those tenacious enough to survive the first shot got a Doom Blade to the face for their efforts, their deaths feeding Jaune the power to continue fighting. Nothing but annoying fodder in the end.

The gladiator on the other hand, proved to be slightly more troublesome. It may have been employed primarily to kill hopelessly outmatched prisoners on the regular, but it did actually have skills of its own. Probably honed against other Night Sentinels who showed signs of dissension.

The gladiator's roar of triumph rose above the cacophony as its flail slammed into the Doom Slayer and sent him stumbling back. Stamping its feet and kicking up a cloud of dust, it went back to turtling behind its shield as soon as Jaune returned fire.

Jaune brushed off the heavy blow to his chest and frowned in contemplation. Whatever that shield was made of, it was highly resistant to his weapons. Then again, if it had been built to withstand Night Sentinel weaponry, he supposed it was to be expected that human equipment wouldn't work so well on it.

That was fine, he'd just adapt. Swapping out heavy cannon for ballista, Jaune waited until the gladiator lowered its shield for another swing before shooting the beast in the head.

Its triumphant bellowing was cut off as the concentrated Argent energy seared its ugly mug. Staggering backwards in pain, the gladiator failed to react in time and left itself open to a one-two punch combo to the jaw.

Dashing away to avoid several fireballs, Jaune went back to cleaning out the fodder demons scurrying everywhere, giving the gladiator a chance to get back on its feet.

Did it go against his usual MO? Yes, it did. But for once, this wasn't about killing the demon fast, it was about sending a message. This once hallowed arena may have had its purpose corrupted beyond belief, but not anymore. With this, the slate would be wiped clean, and it would up to the Argenta people to decide just where they would go from then on.

And so on it went. Shooting the gladiator in the face every time it dropped its guard, lobbing grenades and explosives behind its shield, Jaune was schooling the large demon on just what it meant to face a true champion in combat.

A dark reflection of his very first battle in the arena, one man alone against a legion of foes. It would end the same way.

Sidestepping a blast of crimson energy from the gladiator's shield, Jaune dashed in close and fired a rocket into the demon's face at point blank range. Grabbing its lower jaw and dragging it down, an armoured fist rocketed into the demon's bloody face, beating it to the ground.

While it struggled to regain its bearings, Jaune clenched his fist and extended the Doom Blade. Leaping onto the shield, he stabbed the sword into one of the shield's 'eyes', critically damaging it before leaping off.

The shield rumbled as it's 'mouth' opened and close, a low bellow emanating from it as the infernal brilliance spilling from them intensified. Red light flickered across the shield rapidly before it exploded in a shower of shrapnel.

"Oh come on! It's a shield! Why is it still the eye!" Emerald complained, throwing her arms up in frustration.

"Eh, the thing was asking to be stabbed really. It's a giant glowing weak point." Mercury pointed out.

"Then stab the mouth or something! Why is it always the eye!?" Emerald shot back.

Any further bickering was cut off when the two of them felt Cinder's glare burning holes into their backs, their arguing was distracting her from enjoying Tyrian's comeuppance. "Silence."

The gladiator growled in anger before reaching behind and retrieving a second flail. Slamming them into the ground hard enough to cause shockwaves, it growled once more before resuming the battle. And as though aiming to prove to the Slayer that the loss of its shield meant nothing, it began spinning one of its flails in a circle, the new 'shield' deflecting all incoming projectiles to Jaune's annoyance.

Jaune tilted his head to the side, allowing the deflected ballista round to sail past harmlessly and blow a hell knight's head off instead. Mouth set in a thin line, the Doom Slayer stowed the Sentinel weapon away before drawing his super shotgun and waiting for an opening.

Despite the gladiator continuing to hide behind its flail shield from time to time, the pace of the battle had ramped up. The shield Jaune busted must have meant something to the demon because it had ramped up the aggression greatly, dashing around the place and lobbing rapid fire strikes whenever it thought there was a chance.

Greater aggression was fine, that just meant more chances to shoot the bastard full of lead. Jaune popped more shells into the super shotgun and glanced to the side when the gladiator missed with its attack. The twin flails shot by and missed by a huge margin and became lodged in place where they landed.

Jaune's unspoken question was answered when the demon began waving the chains up and down in a wave motion, summoning twin walls of energy to box the Slayer in with several demons. A split second later, waves of energy fired from the demon, arcing towards Jaune and bisecting a helpless imp in the process.

It took Jaune a moment to process the demon's tactic before bobbing and weaving through the incoming waves. An unimpressed huff left him as another barrier sprung up between them, keeping him from shooting the stationary target full of holes.

As far as impressive shows of force went, his old buddy the Cyberdemon back on Mars was still superior. Strangeness of comparing the impressiveness of one demon to another aside, Jaune grinned when the gladiator was forced to drop the walls, unable to keep up with the energy costs.

The demon's eyes flashed green as soon as the barrier dropped, heralding a sudden charge forward. Jaune saw it coming and dashed to the side, shooting a trio of rockets into the gladiator's back as it passed.

And on the battle went. The gladiator doing everything in its power to bring down the Slayer while Jaune effortlessly made him look like a chump. Dodging attacks, returning fire, dodging again, the many demons swarming the arena could do nothing to impede the two champions duking it out, more often then not, they simply ended up collateral damage when they got in the way.

But, credit where credit was due, the gladiator was nothing if not persistent. It did its level best to push past the pain the same way the Slayer did and continued to spam its barrier wave attack in the hopes that Jaune would slip up somehow.

Those hopes were dashed every single time when the Slayer simply sidestepped or played skip rope with the waves in further mockery of its efforts. When the gladiator had to drop the barrier, it was always rewarded with more gunfire to the face and the inevitable one-two punch that knocked it back.

Finally, its bloodied form could take no more punishment and it sank to its knees in defeat. The reigning undefeated champion of the arena strode forwards, ready to put an end to the farce.

Jaune grabbed the gladiator by its horns, pulling the beast's skull down to greet his knee. The demon's head snapped backwards with a loud crack as both horns broke. Jaune raised a fist and waited for the beaten gladiator to swing back before delivering the mother of all haymakers.

The gladiator's jaw shattered like glass as that one punch lifted its entire body off its feet for a second before it toppled over and struggled to get back up.

But Jaune wasn't done, grabbing one of the fallen flails and swinging it into the gladiator's face, Jaune knocked the beast down onto its back. Then one final blow to end it, an overhead smash that reduced the entire top half of the gladiator's head to mush.

Tossing the now useless mace away, a glowing token rose from the demon's corpse. At last, Tyrian's soul was unbound and he was mortal again.

"Yeah! Jaune-Jaune rules! Demons drool!" Nora cheered and waved a foam finger in the air. Pyrrha politely clapped along while Ren simply sighed and picked spilled popcorn out of his hair.

"That's certainly one way to send a message." Goodwitch commented.

"A very messy message." Ozpin agreed.

"Ah, and now Tyrian gets it. Good." Cinder's smirk grew wider as the time of judgement approached.

"This stops nothing!" Tyrian snarled as he watched his guardian disintegrate into nothingness. Hateful glare burning a hole into Jaune, the final Hell Priest stood his ground, partly because he had no choice, partly because he remained convinced Jaune didn't have the guts to kill him.

"Earth will be consumed. Regardless of what ha-" Tyrian's head exploded in a shower of blood and gore as Jaune grew tired of his prattling and fired his super shotgun once at point blank range. What a moron, he was already willing to fight endlessly against the forces of hell and made no secret of his intention to kill the Khan Maykr, given that, Tyrian was truly a fool to think Jaune would hesitate if killing him meant the loss of kinghood.

The Doom Slayer already wanted nothing more to do with those willing to stand by and watch evil triumph. Throwing away the Night Sentinel crown was mere formality at this point.

Cinder's snickering grew into full blown laughter as she watched Tyrian's body flop to the ground. "Not what I was expecting, but still very cathartic."

"Uh oh, why is everything turning red?" Blake asked.

"Salem isn't happy about losing her last priest." Blank answered.

"So, now that all three are dead, humanity is saved?" Summer asked.

"Not yet. The Khan Maykr has one last card to play." Blank replied

"Fool!" Salem's voice rang out over the arena as her loyal Night Sentinels poured in, weapons at the ready and aimed squarely at the Doom Slayer. With Tyrian's execution stripping away Jaune's crown, there was no longer a conflict in their loyalties between the Khan Maykr and the king.

"The portal is ready. We should leave immediately" Penny said after she was able to get a lock on Jaune's location and use it to anchor a portal. Jaune watched the Sentinels advance on him impassively as the azure rift in spacetime opened behind him.

Tossing the now useless token towards them dismissively, he turned his back on them all and walked into the portal, letting it close behind him.

"They're not following him through?" Qrow asked.

"They have no reason to, The Khan Maykr has already made her move. Although its effectiveness is… debatable." Blank answered.

Stepping back onto the Fortress of Doom, the first thing Jaune noticed was how dark everything was. All the lights were out, most of the instruments flickering dimly or offline entirely and several damaged systems were sparking with electricity.

"The Khan Maykr has overloaded your systems! Penny has no control over-" Ironwood's warning was instantly cut off with a high-pitched whine and the line went dead. To Jaune's frustration, Ironwood's annoying voice was replaced with Salem's even more annoying one.

"If you had let the culling continue, the human race you fight to protect would have survived." Salem chided while Jaune ignored her and tried getting the Fortress's systems to reboot. The red 'system failure' message that refused to go away stymied his efforts, the lockout was total.

"Now I will resurrect the Icon of Sin. He will devour Earth and leave your home world in ruins." Jaune paused in his efforts at the console and directed his gaze towards Earth.

"Life on your planet shall never return and this will be yet another world you brought to extinction." Salem's mocking words stirred something dark in Jaune's heart. A low blow, digging at his inability to save Argent D'Nur and all the other worlds that had been ravaged by demons during his absence.

"This stronghold will now serve as your prison. With no power, you can do no more harm to our mission and we may continue the work that must be done." As Salem's speech came to a close, multiple demons started dropping in, snarling at the Doom Slayer.

Jaune was unamused at the attempt to turn his fortress against him. Raising the BFG, the many demons arrayed in front of him didn't even have the time to roar before green lightning fried them all. Less than an annoyance and barely a speedbump.

Heading to another section of the Fortress, Jaune pulled out the crucible and used it as a makeshift battery. Argent energy spilled forth and began feeding back into the ship, undoing Salem's work.

"She didn't know you had the demonic crucible. Heheheheh…" Ironwood's dry laughter signalled power returning to the ship and with it, his access to the fortress's systems.

"In the end, the very power source you sought to eradicate from Earth is now what will help you save it."

"The mission on Sentinel Prime was a success, the demonic consumption of Earth has been stopped." Penny said once the sensors were back online. Her words led to Jaune breathing slightly easier, but only just, there was still Salem's next move to worry about.

"Only a Slayer's crucible blade can stop a titan." You must get to the Sentinel city of Taras Nabad to retrieve your crucible before it is too late. Without it, the titan cannot be stopped." Ironwood said, directing Jaune to another one of his old stomping grounds to retrieve his personal weapon.

"Setting the portal to Taras Nabad." Penny said once the teleportation grid was back online too.

"So much for locking Jaune up. It slowed him down for what? A minute? Two?" Yang chuckled to herself at how quickly Salem's plan fell apart.

"Considering how much he hates all things demonic, I don't think she can be faulted for not thinking the Doom Slayer might have the crucible or be willing to use it." Ozpin replied.

"So he's going after this… Icon of Sin now… cheery name." Weiss muttered.

"The Icon of Sin is a titan, and among the strongest of them all even if it is technically the second to hold that name. It's another demon the Doom Slayer has personal history with, given that it personally battered down the defences of Argent D'Nur." Blank said.

"Second? What happened to the first?" Pyrrha asked.

"Killed in battle against the Doom Slayer when he was still fully human. The original Icon was locked in place spawning more demons and Jaune Arc killed it by shooting multiple rockets into its brain before it could get free." Blank answered.

"Ah so it's new and improved demon vs new and improved Slayer. This ought to be good." Roman rubbed his hands together in glee at the upcoming showdown.

Taras Nabad, this long abandoned city was where Jaune's legend among the Argenta began. The first recorded demonic incursion by their people, a massive demonic outbreak with the city's heart at ground zero. The entire city would have fallen to the sword had it not been for Jaune's arrival to turn the tide.

Jaune remembered this place, like Argent D'Nur, like Exultia, once this was a place full of life, of happiness and revelry. Now it had fallen to the wayside, home to ghosts and forgotten memories as well as whatever demons prowled these lands.

A relic of a better past.

Loathe as he was to admit it, Ironwood had the right of it. Jaune could save the people from the demons, but he couldn't save them from themselves. His rage against the demonic horde brought hope to the Argenta once, then when his crusade threatened their prosperity, how quick they were to throw in with the Khan Maykr.

Exhaling a small sigh at his past failures, he let his mind wander again, drifting back to old memories. This was the place where he left his humanity behind after all.

"We must move quickly." A hooded figure said as he led the way forwards into a section of the city the younger version of Jaune had never seen before.

"There are those who would seek to stop this." The figure said while the building continued to rumble under the demonic assault outside.

"I offer you a gift. Take it, it will give you strength. Help you on your journey."

A coffin like machine rose up and Jaune stepped into it. This Maykr had promised him power to fight the demons massing for a final push to bring down the city, he didn't fully trust him but right now, he needed power.

Mechanical whirring filled the air as the lid closed overhead, and the hooded Maykr kept his hand on the activation switch. "And now, they will fear you."

Blinding light seared his eyes as energy suffused his body and power beyond anything Jaune had ever experienced flowed in his veins. A man had stepped into that machine and the Doom Slayer had emerged from it.

"So that's how he became so powerful. But that voice…" Ozpin trailed off as he stared at Blank.

"As I said, more than he appears to be." Came the reply.

"If the crucible blade is removed, the titan will rise again." Ironwood warned the moment Jaune emerged back aboveground. The 'corpse' of the titan still lay where it fell, a permanent fixture to the architecture now. The wound that felled it was still visible from far, a large crater in its chest, carved out by a heavy blow, and the crucible blade buried at the very centre.

Jaune clambered up the behemoth until he reached his sword. Grabbing the steel grey hilt, Jaune forced the blade up and bent it until the energy blade 'snapped' off, leaving him with only the handle.

A burst of blue energy rippled outwards from where the crucible blade had been stabbed, coating the entire titan with it. The behemoth rumbled back to life for a split second before the energy set in, and froze it in place for eternity.

Jaune stared at the now depleted crucible in hand before stowing it away, if he wanted to use it in battle, he'd need to forge a new blade for it.

"Your vault should have what you need." Ironwood spoke up, pushing the Doom Slayer onwards. Jaune didn't need telling twice, that energy burst had alerted every demon in the vicinity and they were on their way. Mobile turret revved up as he greeted the welcoming committee.

Cyber mancubi, whiplashes, dread knights and even another Marauder rushed towards Jaune with murder in their eyes. Just another day at the office.

"Oh, so that's going to be his energy sword then, his lightsaber I think the term was?" Qrow muttered.

"Indeed, the crucible is one of the most powerful weapons in his arsenal aside from its short range." Blank answered.

"Why was the city abandoned? Aside from that giant, looks pretty intact to me." Yang asked.

"A tool of propaganda. As this was where the Doom Slayer's legend was born, it was easier to discredit him after his sealing by removing as many visible traces of him as possible. If that means abandoning an entire city so people wouldn't be able to see the titan he felled in single combat, it was a worthwhile sacrifice." Blank said.

"Out of sight, out of mind huh? They gave it the Mount Glenn treatment." Roman sneered.

"That is one way of looking at it."

After killing his way past a small army of demons, Jaune finally reached the forge. Retrieving his crucible hilt, Jaune split open the prongs and dipped it into a vat of molten fluid. Red lightning flared momentarily before diminishing to sparks as Jaune pulled a newly forged blade from the liquid. One final burst of lightning and the reborn crucible was ready to go.

Jaune grinned and thrust the weapon into the air, shooting out lightning bolts from the it before letting it calm down. Bringing it back down and clutching it with both hands, Jaune stared into the ancient runes on the energy blade for a moment before deactivating it and putting it away.

"I'm sure you'll want to try out your weapon first before we leave." Ironwood intoned and Jaune simply rolled his eyes. Yes, of course he would want to make sure his crucible still worked against the demons. Of course, he would want to test it out on the local demon populace so he didn't need to make a round trip back to fix something.

In other news, water was wet.

Leaping off the forge platform and falling through the mists, Jaune's boots hit dirt and the sound of demons warping in greeted his ears immediately. The Doom Slayer's grin widened as the crimson glow of his crucible illuminated half his face.

Shooting demons to bits was fun. Punching them hard enough to explode them or just pulling them apart like wet carboard was even more fun. But there was just something about hacking and slashing at every thing that moved that just made Jaune feel so alive.

It was with a childish sense of glee that the Doom Slayer moved among the demonic ranks, blazing a trail of scarlet with energy blade and blood spilt.

Invisible spectres rushed towards him, Jaune met their charge head on with sword swinging. Their invisibility mattered not when his crucible simply split them down the middle.

A dread knight landed with a thunderous crash and swung its own man-made energy blades at Jaune. The Doom Slayer obliged it with a duel, bringing his own sword up to parry. Energy blades met and crimson cut through orange effortlessly, the crucible blade carried on through and removed the demon's upper torso entirely.

Another fireborne baron dropped in and roared in defiance. Jaune didn't even spare it a glance, just swinging the crucible blade once and chopping down the demon. Its obsidian carapace that could shrug off even rockets provided no resistance to the Slayer's holy sword.

And when an Archvile appeared in a blaze of hellfire. The creature didn't even have the time to summon more of its brethren before Jaune cut it down. The demon overlord so feared by others for its powers proved nothing more than fodder for Jaune's blade.

All good things must come to an end, and so it was that the Doom Slayer finally ran out of targets. Every single demon in the city of Taras Nabad was probably dead now and his job here was done. Jaune tempered his glee and replaced it with the familiar burning hate that fuelled him, it was better for keeping him focused.

Salem was still out there with the Icon of Sin. Shutting her down was the main priority now. And of course, there would be oh so many demons in his way to slice and dice with the crucible. Putting away the crucible, Jaune gave the abandoned city one last glance before stepping through the portal Penny set up.

"Now that is one powerful sword." Taiyang said.

"Hmm, if the Icon is a titan and titans can only be stopped by sacrificing a crucible blade, does that mean Jaune will lose it?" Ren asked.

"What? No, not the laser sword!" Nora protested.

"I suppose he can just forge a new one if that happens? There's nothing stopping Jaune from doing so is there?" Pyrrha replied.

Nekravol, the city of the damned. Jaune exhaled slowly as the foul stench of sulphur and brimstone stung his nose. He was here, he was finally here after so long. It had taken him far longer than he expected, but he had arrived.

Making an effort to suppress his boiling blood, Jaune sucked in a deep breath and exhaled slowly again. This place was quite possible the single largest insult to life in existence, and not even the joy of hacking apart a battalion of demons and their tyrant commander with the crucible could dull his anger.

"Here the humans arrive from Earth, waiting to be selected for the process." Ironwood said and Jaune simply snarled in anger. Leaping down to a lower level, the Doom Slayer passed countless damned souls on the way down, all of them trapped in their corpses and packed into cages like sardines.

It was sickening, and all of hell as his witness, he would find a way to level this place once and for all.

"My god, what is that!?" Goodwitch exclaimed.

"That is what the demons are harvesting people for. Anyone killed by the demons don't get to go to the afterlife, their souls are trapped in their fallen bodies and eventually they end up here for processing." Blank said.

"And where is here exactly? This one's personal for the Slayer isn't it?" Qrow asked.

"This is Nekravol, the birth place of Argent energy. Built by Argenta slaves under the direction of the Khan Maykr in concert with hell. This was supposed to be the place the Slayer and his Sentinels would attack to bring an end to the Argenta civil war. Then the Deags betrayal happened and the rest is history. For all of hell that the Slayer ravaged in his endless crusade, this was the one section he never managed to make it to before his sealing." Blank answered.

"Then this one's not just for all the innocents suffering, it's for his comrades too." Summer said.

"The Khan Maykr needs Earth and its souls, her world is dying. The culling allows her people to replenish their resources and survive. As you save your world, you put hers in peril." Ironwood's words were water off a duck's back to Jaune.

He'd already resolved himself, if the Maykrs could only live by inflicting such suffering onto billions if not trillions of other innocent souls, then they would be exterminated wherever he found them just like the demons.

The Doom Slayer simply gripped his weapons tighter as he stared at the lava seas down below. Hitching a ride inside a cage meant for the damned wasn't the best idea he'd ever had but if it got him where he needed to so be it.

"Up ahead is Kalibas, the sightless judge. It determines who is fit to begin the soul extraction process. The rest will be discarded to the blood swamps." Ironwood continued, if he was aware of Jaune's thoughts, he made no mention of it, simply choosing to keep the Slayer informed of what was lying in wait.

The Doom Slayer didn't need further prompting. After ditching his ride, Jaune pulled out the ballista and began firing on Kalibas's 'eyes', destroying them one at a time. Once all four had been popped, the demon's shields flickered and went down, exposing its fleshy parts.

Bounding across the lava field to his target, Jaune landed right in front of the defenceless demon and smashed it to bits with a single blood punch. Damn thing wouldn't be condemning any more souls.

Pushing past the slain demon, Jaune ran into heavy opposition every step of the way. Unfortunately for the demons, Nekravol was designed to inflict torment, not as a defensible fortress. The many implements of pain lying around served very much the same purpose as the 'traps' back in the Melot's base, an easy way to thin the demonic herd.

After the last spectre was smashed to pieces by a giant crusher, Jaune kicked away a skull at his feet before continuing, there were more demons to feed to their own contraptions and no time to be wasting. Salem awaited, and the portal to Urdak lay somewhere around here.

"This… this is industrialised evil. They've made suffering into a business." Blake murmured softly. The whole place was a slaughterhouse built for processing entire worlds, all for the benefit of two.

"That they have. Tortured souls who meet the criteria are processed into Argent energy, their pain and misery turned into a renewable power source. Hell uses the Argent energy for further conquest of other worlds and Urdak uses their share to stave of destruction for another day. Nekravol was the first of many collaborations and the beginning of their symbiotic relationship." Blank said.

"Evil is what it is. How long have they been doing this?" Roman asked.

"Long enough that the process is streamlined to the point of peak efficiency. Humanity would have fallen long ago if it wasn't for Ironwood's intervention stalling the demons until the Doom Slayer arrived." Blank replied.

"Well, Jaune-Jaune's gonna kick all their asses for this." Nora said in a determined tone.

"I think he'll do a lot more than that." Ren followed up.

After killing his way past another Agaddon Hunter, several barons and another accursed Marauder, Jaune was finally through to the inner chambers of the soul factory. According to Ironwood, he was near the place where the corpses of hell's victims were brought after processing was complete.

The souls would be extracted and then the pure Argent energy would be exported to Urdak through a portal. This was the one portal Salem had no control over and couldn't shut down even if she wanted to, all that was left to do was use it to transport himself across and interrupt the ritual to revive the Icon of Sin.

As more of the citadel's guards rushed to stop him, Jaune hefted the BFG and wiped them all out with one shot. The bridge was out but something like that wasn't anywhere near enough to stop the Doom Slayer.

Abandoning the plan to simply waltz in, Jaune leapt off the bridge and started scaling a giant pillar off to the side. Leaping from one pillar to the next and popping any cacodemons that tried to interrupt him, he made the final jump across the void and was in.

Several possessed soldiers and a lone revenant greeted him. The soldiers Jaune wiped out with a plasma rifle heat discharge, melting their flesh off instantly. The revenant, he whacked with the chainsaw, sawing right through its neck and letting the corpse flop over.

"Your people are made to suffer. Processed souls for the Khan Maykr's world. I assure you, this could have been avoided with different leadership." Ironwood said as Jaune walked into a chamber where a soul spire stood.

Jaune huffed but didn't say anything. Salem had made the choice to build her kingdom on the suffering of others. The Maykrs had the technology, they had the knowledge and they had endless worlds they could have colonised peacefully to ensure their own survival. Instead, she chose to have the Maykrs reside on their dying world just to set themselves up as gods.

Ah, he'd shove the fact of their false divinity in their faces later, for now more demons were warping in to protect their precious Argent energy. The lead mancubus roared at Jaune before spraying napalm towards the Slayer as an opening move.

Jaune dashed backwards and drew the crucible. The crimson blade sprung into existence as Jaune held it in a ready stance. As the demonic tide advanced behind the mancubus spray of flames, Jaune charged forwards to meet them. The burning napalm barely even warming his pants as he bisecting demons with every swing of his blade, the crucible sang with the cries of its victims and that only fuelled Jaune's rampage further.

"If the souls are extracted to become… fuel." An expression of utmost distaste crossed Goodwitch's face as she used that term.

"What happens to the bodies?"

"They're left to rot, over time, those corpses will be changed by hell's ambient energy, turning them into more demons." Blank answered.

"What? S-so you're telling me all those demons Jaune's been killing… they were people!?" Weiss sputtered out.

"Not all of them, but yes, a large portion of demons are all that remains of hell's victims. Their souls are long gone, and all that's left is a twisted and mishappen mockery of what they used to be, driven only to inflict the same suffering they went through on others. Death, is mercy." Blank replied.

"Wait, James wanted to use Argent energy to solve humanity's energy crisis. Isn't that the same as what Salem was trying to do?" Ozpin asked, visibly pushing the words out with great effort while Cinder chuckled in the background.

"Yes, and no. The end result is the same, Argent energy used to power a depleted world. Where they differ is in execution. Nekravol is Salem's answer to the problem, prosperity built on the suffering of others. Ironwood's solution was the Argent energy tower on Mars, synthetic Argent energy created by science and the purifying of hell energy without the need for great suffering, you recall the filtration system the Slayer destroyed? That was his version of Nekravol, his answer." Blank replied and Ozpin's group breathed easier knowing that that version of Ironwood wasn't a monster after all.

"Then where did things go wrong for the general?" Cinder asked out of curiosity.

"The problem was Ironwood's solution still involved usage of hell energy, giving hell's corruption an entry vector. The end result was the destruction of the Martian base and eventually, near total corruption of the UAC on Earth." Blank answered.

The Marauder caught Jaune's fist before the Slayer could punch its face in. The reanimated Night Sentinel struggled to keep Jaune's fist from closing in, slowly losing ground. Jaune simply rolled his eyes and triggered the Doom Blade, impaling the demon's head and rendering its efforts moot.

Letting the body fall, the Slayer gave it a kick before moving on. All around him drained corpses were piled haphazardly, waiting to be carted out and dumped to begin the demonization process. How far the Sentinels had fallen to be willing participants in this travesty.

"The demons only utilise a portion of the resources that come from the human soul. It was the Maykrs and the Sentinel Priests who discovered and unlocked the true power of the Essence." Ironwood explained as Jaune rode the lift upwards.

"They combined Sentinel and hell energies together, refined it and created… Argent. With it they did wondrous things, saved worlds from extinction, healed the sick… and gave infinite power to those worthy of it."

Jaune listened without interruption as he continued his climb to the top. Much of what the doctor was saying didn't really change much, the plan remained the same, get to Urdak, kill the Khan Maykr and stop the Icon. But, he wouldn't lie and say he wasn't interested in finding out exactly when the fall of the Sentinels truly began.

"This facility was built in secret, the Night Sentinels never knew of its existence. Built by Sentinel slaves for a Maykr can never set foot in hell, nor demon in Urdak. Argent D'Nur served a great purpose for the Maykrs." There was hint of self-mockery in Ironwood's voice as he spoke of the deal brokered between Salem and the dark lords of hell.

Jaune simply gnashed his teeth in anger, in the past, they had been too focused on fighting the demon threat that they failed to see the corruption spreading within. As he ascended, he wondered just how much blame for all this could be placed on his shoulders, if it wasn't for his arrival at Sentinel Prime, Salem and the priests might never even have encountered the demons and all this would have been avoided.

"This machinery was not made without hell's knowledge. A deal was struck with the dark lord, in return for access to more worlds for hell to devour, the Maykrs siphoned energy from the damned. It is an unholy union and cannot stand any longer." Ironwood finished and for once, Jaune found himself in full agreement with him.

"Jaune… led the Maykrs to the demons?" Pyrrha said hesitantly.

"Sort of, he sped up their contact by his arrival. Both the Maykrs and the demons are capable of traversing other dimensions, but you could say their worlds exist on opposite sides of the spectrum. Normally there should never be contact between the two, in fact neither side was aware of the other's existence. But Jaune Arc's arrival on Sentinel Prime after fighting through hell brought the demons to the Khan Maykr's attention and kicked off the long line of disaster dominos that led to the present day." Blank answered.

"Oh… the irony is rich, he tried so hard to stop the demons and all he succeeded in was making things worse. Points for effort I guess." Cinder chuckled.

"The tower is held aloft by two enslaved titans. Break the chains, drop it into the well below!" Ironwood instructed and Jaune was already moving. The welcoming committee had been anticipating his arrival, the tyrant in charge greeting the Slayer with a rocket barrage.

Sidestepping the falling missiles, Jaune used the super shotgun's grappling hook to rapidly traverse the level. Whatever demon unfortunate enough to have its flesh taste the bite of the grappling hook would get a face full of buckshot shortly afterwards.

Landing next to one of the chains holding up the tower, Jaune whipped out the BFG and fired a single shot. The emerald Argent plasma zapping the hapless demons out of cover and boiling them alive, the hell energy in them ensuring no escape.

Not even the mighty tyrant could escape the shot unscathed. Despite avoiding a direct hit when the ball of death sailed past and exploded against a wall, its flesh was still seared black and some of its mechanical parts melted to slag.

As it staggered backwards in agony, Jaune closed the distance between them with crucible sword in hand. The first swing cut it down at the knees, the second swing disembowelled the cyberdemon wannabe and the third swing decapitated it.

More demons continued to pour in, trying to protect their investment at all costs. Jaune didn't mind, Nekravol and all it stood for would be going down in flames before the day was done. If hell wanted to make the loss even more expensive for them, that was just peachy.

Forcing a gargoyle's blade arm upwards, Jaune gave it a last push, forcing the blade into its own skull and continuing through until it was embedded in its throat. Dodging away from several plasma bolts, the Doom Slayer retaliated with ice bombs, frag grenades and flame belches, drawing strength from the torment he inflicted on the demons and fuelling himself with their life force once they too bit the dust.

When their numbers swelled again, Jaune thinned the herd with another BFG shot. And again, the crucible blade swung as it delivered the coup de grace to one surviving demon after another. Until finally, all that remained on the demon army was a lone Hunter Jaune put down with several volleys of rockets.

"Now, move quickly, you must break the chains and destroy the Argent transmitter, then ride the flow to Urdak." Ironwood nudged the Doom Slayer onwards, while there was a lull in demonic reinforcements, this was the best time to destroy Nekravol and invade Urdak. The longer they delayed, the more demons would arrive to impede them and there was no telling how much time they had left before Salem completed her ritual.

After breaking the chains, the Argent transmitter fell out of alignment and simply dropped, crashing down through the lower levels. The entire tower rumbled as the energy destabilised, and a large burst of unrefined energy shot upwards in a geyser leading straight to Urdak.

"The Khan Maykr is awakening the Icon of Sin, we must hurry." Ironwood urged Jaune to hurry as the destruction of the Argent transmitter signalled Nekravol's death toll. Jaune didn't need any further prompting as he sprinted towards the geyser of light and threw himself into it, feeling the rush of power beam him upwards.

After a disorienting ride up through the portal, the world returned to normalcy as Jaune emerged on the other side. Boots thudding onto a raised platform, there was no incoming fire to greet him. An unexpected but welcome surprise.

Exiting the chamber, he was greeted with the alien architecture of Urdak immediately, red trees lined the streets while robotic looking buildings loomed in the background. Jaune wasn't quite sure what to make of it but Ironwood started speaking anyways. "Magnificent, isn't it?"

Jaune rolled his eyes in exasperation as he started walking again, of course Ironwood would think that. At times, he really wondered why Ironwood insisted on hiding behind the façade of a human turned cyborg, it really didn't work with him spouting knowledge no human should have.

"Okay, where are all the bad guys?" Ruby asked in confusion as they watched the Doom Slayer traverse Urdak without encountering a single hostile. In fact, there wasn't a single soul to be seen, even Sentinel Prime had the Night Sentinels to greet him, here it was just an empty city.

"For starters, as part of the deal between Urdak and hell, no demon of any kind can set foot here. The Maykrs themselves aren't all that populous with their dying world, and Salem herself is busy with the ritual and is running on the assumption she can finish before the Doom Slayer intervenes." Blank answers.

"A gross miscalculation." Ozpin said and sipped from his mug.

"Indeed." Blank agreed.

"Welcome Seraphim." A computerised voice called out as the door unsealed to admit Jaune. The Doom Slayer shook his head in mild exasperation over Ironwood's shenanigans as he walked around the gathering of Maykrs.

The Icon of Sin's motionless form stood behind them as the ritual entered its final phases. The beast was markedly different from the last time Jaune saw it during his sojourn to the Necropolis to retrieve the demonic crucible. The entire demon was covered in machinery of Maykr origin now, to further ramp up its destructive capabilities, yet another unholy union to be destroyed.

Salem noticed his arrival and turned to face him, standing proudly over an exposed beating heart encased in a force field. "You cannot stop the procession."

Jaune paused and looked away from Salem and glared at the heart. That was it, the twisted object that bound Gretchen's soul and allowed the Khan Maykr to control the Icon of Sin. The golden field around it was made of sterner stuff, by the time he broke it down to destroy the heart, it would already be too late, the Icon would have awoken and ravaged Earth by then.

Except…

Jaune pulled out the device Hazel had handed him when they met and activated it. A glowing blue blade popped out and Salem gasped upon recognising the dagger. It was the one thing, the only thing that could cut through the barrier.

"We will not be able to control it! NOOOOOOO!" Salem roared as her last-ditch attempt to convince the Doom Slayer to avoid mutually assured destruction failed. Before she could act, Jaune had already pushed past the Maykr in his path and stabbed the heart, destroying it and freeing Gretchen's soul from her torment.

The effects were immediate. As the heart burst in a shower of gold light, the room rumbled as the Icon of Sin began to stir. Steam exited its nostrils as it breathed freely for the first time since it was sealed. Pipes burst and the shaking intensified as the Icon shook off the last vestiges of sleep, clawing its way back to consciousness and finishing the ritual on its own.

The massive titan released an ear-splitting roar as the machinery augmenting it activated, becoming corrupted by the demon's power and glowing a hellish red. The effect spread to the lesser Maykrs in the area as well, turning them, warping them.

Jaune braced himself as the floor shuddered, the entire building becoming destabilised by the titan's awakening. A giant blue portal leading to Earth appeared behind the Icon, drawing its attention towards it, the last bit of the Maykr ritual that still worked driving him towards it to begin the end of the world.

The behemoth's massive hand passed overhead and the platform Jaune was standing on began to crumble when the Icon nudged against it and broke it instantly. Jaune lost his footing and slid down the now slanted floor as the Icon exited through the portal and Salem teleported away.

His hands scrabbled along the floor but failed to find purchase and Jaune slipped over the edge, crashing to the level below with a thud. Scrambling back to his feet, Jaune pulled out the heavy cannon and began sniping with the precision bolt as demons started spawning in, attacking alongside the Maykr drones.

The deal Salem struck with hell was off with the unchained awakening of the Icon of Sin, and now demons were warping to Urdak en masse to exact vengeance on the Doom Slayer for his little jaunt through Nekravol. This was going to be a problem.

"Oh, that didn't go as planned. I thought that was supposed to stop it from waking." Roman muttered.

"Uh… shit, the giant got through, what happens to humanity now?" Taiyang asked.

"Humanity still has some breathing room, the Icon dropped in an area already overrun by the demons and it will be awhile before it consumes the planet." Blank answered.

"Consume… the planet? Did… did I hear that right?" Weiss stared at Blank for an explanation.

"Unlike other titans, the Icon of Sin is special. It's a world eater, a demon whose presence is so powerful it starts warping time and space itself, if left unchecked, it'll end up dragging not only Earth but that entire dimension straight into Hell. An instant win condition." Blank replied.

"Dragging the entire… bloody hell." Qrow summed up.

"I'm sure Jaune will find a way to beat that demon." Ruby said, still optimistic about the Slayer's chances.

Jaune punched a baron of hell in the face, extending the Doom Blade, he slashed backwards again and opened the demons throat, leaving it to die grasping the mortal wound. The once pristine and futuristic looking hallways of the Maykr city was now covered in blood, plasma scoring and bullet holes.

Maykr drones were fighting against the demons wherever they popped up but rapidly being overrun by the endless numbers pouring in from the Nekravol portal. The dark lords of hell were now throwing everything they had at the Doom Slayer, to punish him for his interference and to stop him from making it back to Earth.

"There is a gate that we can use here on Urdak to get back to Earth, but you will need to reconfigure the teleporter rings to activate it. We must move quickly, for the Icon of Sin grows more powerful the longer it is on Earth." Ironwood said once Jaune fought his way back outside and could see the three glowing rings in the distance, one purple, one orange and one blue.

Jaune nodded and began using the boost gates to traverse the city, heading towards the control centre. The once peaceful and silent city now rang with the sound of battle as Salem began pulling her own forces in to combat the demons overrunning the place.

After killing the Marauder Salem warped in to protect the controls, Jaune made his way into the control room and stared at the alien machinery in frustration, unable to make sense of the instruments.

"Now, insert Penny to activate the portal." Fortunately, Ironwood was there to advise him. Jaune retrieved Penny's data core and held it over the control panel, lightning sparked as an invisible force ripped the core from Jaune's hands and inserted it perfectly into the console, causing it to light up blue.

"System acquired. Setting a course for the Earth dimension now." Penny said as she finished interfacing with the Maykr systems. Jaune's expression morphed into one of concern when Penny's voice started to distort, reminding him of how her initial AI core meltdown affected her.

"I can… see now… am I the Mother, Dr Ironwood?"

Jaune blinked in confusion at the strange words before pushing his doubts aside, neither Ironwood nor Penny herself was making any fuss about the issue so it was probably less pressing than the Icon of Sin. Pressing the lit-up button, he was rewarded with the first ring moving into place, just two more to go.

"You must get the other teleporter rings aligned before it's too late. The gate must be reactivated. The longer the Icon of Sin is on Earth, the stronger it will become." Ironwood prompted Jaune to get a move on.

The Doom Slayer grit his teeth and turned away, as much as he didn't want to, he had to leave Penny's core behind. This was where she could work her magic and they just didn't have time to deal with whatever was afflicting her now, he'd be back for her later.

"What's wrong with Penny?" Ruby asked, worried for her friend's other universe counterpart.

"It's complicated." Blank answered after a moment of silence.

"That doesn't explain a lot." Yang snarked.

"It's the best way I can put it, the Penny and Ironwood of this universe are both excessively complicated individuals and there is no way to easily explain them." Blank replied.

"But she's going to be fine?" Ruby asked again, this time, Blank simply remained silent.

"By awakening the Icon of Sin inside Urdak, the seal has been broken. Now the demons may pass through the void as never before. You have brought her people, and this holy place, eternal… damnation." The bitterness and anger in Ironwood's voice were palpable as Jaune made his way to the final ring.

The Doom Slayer simply shrugged, failing to see how any of this was his problem. What goes around comes around after all. And even though Jaune didn't want to give the doctor the satisfaction of admitting he was correct, Ironwood had been able to develop synthetic Argent energy without the need for endless suffering of others, meaning everything Salem had wrought was completely pointless. He may have triggered the end of this world, but the Maykrs brought it on themselves, and he wouldn't shed a tear for them.

And much as Ironwood might have cursed Jaune for all this, he too couldn't deny Salem's hand in the mess, and he finished with sadness in his voice. "But, it was arrogant to bring the dormant Icon here. Her hubris has shattered paradise."

The doctor said no more as Jaune entered the final control room and activated the last ring. As the three circles lined up, runic circles appeared in each of them and a beam fired from a projector, passing through all three. A hole between worlds formed and grew larger and larger until Earth could be seen beyond it.

"With the rings fully aligned, the dimensional gate to Earth is now open. Get to the landing platform and pass through the portal, Earth does not have much time left!"

After Jaune fought his way through the now demon infested halls, eliminated the few Maykr defenders in his path and swam past the corpse of some strange creature, he was almost to the portal when Ironwood spoke again. "The Khan Maykr is near."

The urgency in Ironwood's voice was unmissable as he detected Salem's presence through the Praetor suit's sensors. "She cannot let you leave this place alive. She is invulnerable when she has the orb within her chest, once removed her defences will be down."

Jaune cracked his neck and levelled the super shotgun, if Salem was here, that saved him the effort of hunting her down later. So she had an orb that made her invulnerable to harm, that was fine, nothing a bit of ripping and tearing couldn't handle.

Time to settle the score once and for all.

"Oh… I sense incoming boss fight." Nora mumbled through a mouthful of popcorn as she shovelled even more in.

"Nora, please finish chewing your food before talking." Ren chided with a small sigh.

"So it's time for the queen bitch herself. Money's on the boy." Roman said and Neo conjured up an illusion of a blackboard displaying odds of victory for both sides, standing at 100% for the Doom Slayer and a goose egg for the Khan Maykr

"Can you even bet on something that's a given?" Qrow asked.

"Sure we can, there's always going to be someone willing to be a sucker." Roman replied and Neo helpfully pointed to Cinder, the fall maiden lost in thought as though seriously weighing the odds of victory for either side.

When she noticed them staring at her, she simply huffed and returned her eyes to the screen. "It doesn't matter, this Salem isn't our world's, as far as I'm concerned, my counterpart was damned by both of them, so it really doesn't matter which of them kills the other."

"For millennia we have survived. Made others sacrifice in the name of our prosperity, so that they may in turn find redemption. Who are you, a human, once a mortal, to defy our traditions?" Salem pointed an accusatory at the Doom Slayer once he stepped off the lift.

The accusation actually did get Jaune to stop in his tracks. The sheer audacity of her words, it defied belief. The holier than thou attitude of the Khan Maykr was staggering. To so proudly boast about it being tradition to sacrifice others to unspeakable horrors just for self-interest.

Jaune's eyes narrowed as he realised that Salem believed it, she truly believed she was a god. That all other life throughout the universe were nothing more than lesser lifeforms who should be honoured at being used, discarded and forever damned.

No more needed to be said, he highly doubted any of his words would even make a dent in an ego larger than the Icon of Sin. There was only one common language left to the both of them. Jaune's super shotgun snapped up and Salem flared her golden wings. It was on.

Jaune began dashing from cover to cover, shooting any Maykr drone that tried to approach in the head. Avoiding the energy waves Salem fired at him with every flap of her wings by ducking behind cover Jaune popped out and fired a ballista round into her face when she had to pause to catch her breath.

Salem's answering roar shook the entire battlefield and she called down a laser from the sky to smite the Doom Slayer. Staying ahead of the crimson beam that tracked his path while avoiding all the pesky incoming fire was an annoyance to say the least.

When he found another opening, Jaune leapt out of cover and fired a volley of three rockets from the paingiver into the Khan Maykr. All three struck home and Salem's shield failed with a bright flash, her protection overloading temporarily, electrocuting her and freezing her in place.

Not wasting the opportunity, Jaune switched to the super shotgun and fired the meat hook, latching on to the Khan Maykr and pulling himself into the air. Detaching the hook at the last moment, Jaune delivered a blood punch right to Salem's face, causing her to scream in anger and pain.

Several wing blasts came flying down onto the Doom Slayer the moment he landed. Dodging the first two, Jaune accidentally dashed into the third, his vision flared red as a stinging sensation shot through him.

Shaking his head to clear it, he was on the move again, walking off the damage and avoiding further hits. The Khan Maykr roared in frustration when all of her follow up attacks missed, throwing in additional balls of purple lightning to try and throw the Slayer off his game.

It didn't work. Jaune continued bouncing around, using his greater mobility to avoid damage entirely until he got an opening. Then ballista rounds or rockets would go surging towards Salem, and unlike her, the Doom Slayer didn't miss.

"Aarrghh!" Salem screamed as she took another blood punch to the face. Despite the protection granted to her by her powers, the Slayer's hits were starting to hurt and she bitterly cursed the Maykr responsible for empowering a mortal who just didn't know when to die.

Salem snarled and electrified parts of the floor, trying to pin the Slayer in place. Yet again, it failed to take, the Doom Slayer simply used double jumps, air dashes and the meat hook to rapidly traverse the field, avoiding her attack by simply flying over it.

The one time she thought he was pinned down, he simply whipped out the chaingun. Rapidly swapping out the mobile turret mod for the energy shield, Jaune stood in place and blocked her attacks while returning a blistering hail of bullets at the same time.

As the battle dragged on, things only got worse for the Khan Maykr. The Doom Slayer was unrelenting, unstoppable, inexhaustible, no matter what she did, he was always sure to return the pain tenfold. And against all odds, Salem could feel herself weakening from all the damage she'd taken, her once proud golden wings now looked tattered and frayed, their golden hue a dull orange, her pristine armour now battered and broken in places.

There was only one way this would end, continuing to fight was suicide. But simply backing down and cutting her losses was not an option. Her pride wouldn't allow a lesser creature to get the better of her, not after all his transgressions.

And that, was a fatal mistake.

As her shield broke for the final time, Salem barely had the time to blink before Jaune was already in her face, blood punch raring to go. Her world went white as the heavy blow connected and she felt something break inside.

Unable to remain aloft, her wings made one final effort to stay airborne before giving up the ghost. Spiralling out of control, she hit the ground hard, a shockwave of yellow energy bursting forth on impact.

Jaune stowed away his weapon as he ascended the stairs to where Salem's fallen form lay. The fatally wounded Maykr crawled along the ground, most of her armour gone and the ugly demonic looking truth beneath was exposed for all to see.

"You have destroyed all that I was meant to rule, and all just to protect them, mere servants to our belief!" Salem accused, lacking the strength to do anything more than speak and crawl.

"You have broken the holy seal of Urdak! Your transgressions here will jeopardise all of creation…" Salem trailed off as she flopped over onto her back and breathed her last. The last thing her near sightless eyes saw was the Doom Slayer's impassive face and hate filled eyes.

If Jaune wasn't wearing a helmet, he would have spit on her corpse. Even at the end she refused to step down from her imaginary pedestal, clinging on to the false image of godhood. Well, Jaune was human… once… and therefore a 'lesser being', since he won, what exactly did that make her?

If Salem was hoping for some sort of apology at the end, she would die sorely disappointed. Contempt was the only thing the Doom Slayer had for her.

"There's one thing I don't get, why are the demons suddenly invading Urdak just because the Icon got loose? Didn't they have a deal?" Blake asked.

"There are two core tenets to the deal that the Icon's awakening broke. Number one, demons are not allowed on Urdak and vice versa. In defiance of that, the Khan Maykr not only brought one of the most powerful demons to ever exist into her realm, she improved it and then lost control." Blank answered.

"That leads to point two, the Icon's botched awakening means it cannot be controlled by anyone, not the Maykrs, not the dark lords themselves. It is now a force of nature unleashed upon the Earth dimension that will eventually lead to the extinction of all life throughout it, giving that dimension no chance of recovering. This is again against the deal that the Maykrs would provide additional worlds for repeated harvests. These plus the loss of Nekravol means Urdak has lost all use to the dark lords and they might as well claim Urdak for themselves to recoup some of their losses."

"Heheheh, sucks to be them. But that's what they get for making deals with the devil." Qrow said.

The golden orb in Salem's chest shook for a bit before suddenly shooting skywards and exploding. Red spread across the sky as thunder rumbled, the entire realm itself rumbling as though raging at the death of its master.

"NOOOOOOO!" A distorted voice roared at the top of its lungs. The Doom Slayer simply huffed and turned away, the dark lord could scream all he wanted. After the Icon was dealt with, he was next.

"We must leave now." Ironwood ordered and Jaune heeded his orders for once. Sprinting towards the edge, Jaune threw himself off and into the energy beam keeping the portal open for the express route back to Earth.

After another disorienting ride between worlds, Jaune landed in the middle of an abandoned building. His initial fears that the portal had thrown him off course and on the other side of the planet from the Icon was unfounded, the air itself was charged with energy and Jaune could feel the Icon's proximity. Penny had done good work as always, but now it was up to him to finish this fight.

Unfortunately, the Icon hadn't noticed his arrival yet as was moving away from him. A bit of building hopping was needed before the Doom Slayer could cut the Icon of Sin off and fight it.

The wall between realities was thinning faster and faster, more and more demons were spawning in despite the loss of the hell priests and the super gore nest. Their ease of arrival, the first sign of Earth's imminent consumption by the hell dimension.

Cutting down a foolish baron with the crucible, Jaune hacked apart another whiplash before using the grappling hook to dash away. Plasma bolts and napalm sailed past, decimating the area he just vacated while a hapless prowler had the bulk of its hide shredded by buckshot. Jaune's Doom Blade sliced through its flesh in a vertical cut but didn't immediately kill it, that changed when he reached down grabbed the split flesh and simply ripped it all the way open.

Jaune was knocked off balance when a tyrant arrived and immediately blasted him with its arm cannon. Gritting his teeth and righting himself with a mid-air dash, he made a beeline for the demon commander. After disrupting the lesser demons in his path with grenades and rockets, he ducked under another beam cannon strike and came up swinging with the crucible, slicing the tyrant to bits.

The death of the tyrant only spurred the remaining demons to fight on with greater fervour, throwing themselves against the meatgrinder that was the Slayer. Their orders were simple, stall the Slayer and do not let him kill the Icon of Sin, Earth had to be consumed.

However, their plans had a single fatal flaw. The Doom Slayer was simply capable of killing them faster than they could warp in, the dimensional wall not yet weak enough for the full demonic host to pour through. And with weapons like the BFG and the crucible blade, not even the mightiest tyrant or the most determined Agaddon Hunter could stall him for very long.

Jaune didn't care for their antics and he had plenty of ammo to go around. Despite Ironwood's urgent prodding, time was on his side for once. The Icon's mindless rampage across the wastelands worked to his favour, without any directing intelligence behind its movements, it was just walking aimlessly instead of trying to outrun the Slayer long enough for Earth to be consumed. The going was slow, but Jaune was getting closer and closer to the titan by the minute.

"They're seriously throwing everything at him, including the kitchen sink." Goodwitch muttered.

"They're getting desperate. With the deaths of the three priests, Salem and the destruction of that… super gore nest, this is hell's last chance to consume humanity isn't it?" Ozpin asked.

"Indeed, aside from several lesser gore nests and a few hell portals in select locations, the Icon of Sin is hell's last chance to send in reinforcements. None of the other entry points have the capacity to field an army before they are found and destroyed. If they lose the Icon, then their invasion ends in failure." Blank replied.

"They've lost their energy factory, lost Salem and her goons and now they're about to lose Earth too. Where does that leave them?" Taiyang asked.

"Hell retains a sizeable fighting force despite the setbacks. But their ability to rapidly increase their power and ranks has been severely compromised by the loss of the Wraiths, Nekravol and Maykr support." Blank answered.

"And Jaune's going to make sure the bad days don't stop coming isn't he?" Yang said.

"Indeed." Blank confirmed.

"Now is the time. Two titans meet, as it was written." Ironwood's voice echoed in Jaune's ears as the Icon of Sin's giant hand reached up on the roof of the skyscraper Jaune was standing on. The Doom Slayer cracked his neck and drew his weapons, after killing his way past every single heavy demon Hell and Urdak had to send against him, he had finally caught up with the Icon.

Tyrants, Marauders, Hunters, Archviles, barons and countless other demons had arrived to impede his progress. All were dust in the wind now and it was the Icon's turn to follow their lead.

The rest of the Icon's body appeared shortly after, the massive demon finally noticing Jaune's presence. Roaring and slamming a fist down on the building, the entire structure rumbled but held for the time being.

Pain elementals and cacodemons were drawn in from across the area to harass the Slayer while other demons simply warped in to fight. Jaune hacked them apart with the crucible before finding a good spot to deploy the mobile turret.

It's four barrels spun up before sending a deluge of sapphire bullets towards the titan. Keeping the firepower focused on a single spot, the Maykr armour coating the titan turned red as it did its best to dissipate the damage.

Jaune folded up the turret when a roar came from behind, dashing away, a pinky charged past and rammed headfirst into a wall. Pulling out the super shotgun, he dashed back in and shot the demon in its unarmoured back, blasting it to chunks.

Launching into the air with the grappling hook attached to a cacodemon, he fed the living balloon a grenade, watched it expand comically before tearing out its eye and popping it. Dropping back to the ground, super shotgun swapped out for heavy cannon and micro missiles.

Golden streaks of light soared towards the Icon of sin, striking its chest piece and exploding with tiny but surprisingly powerful blasts. Overwhelmed by the damage, that section of Maykr armour failed explosively, exposing the demon's true flesh beneath.

The Icon roared and a magic circle appeared over its head, demons in the area screamed in agony before they were destroyed, their essences forcibly absorbed to fuel the Icon's attack. A nigh endless barrage of fireballs shot forth and Jaune once more found himself ducking behind cover to avoid getting hit.

When the barrage of fireballs stopped, Jaune dashed out from behind cover again and fired of several rockets from the paingiver, damaging the Maykr machinery. Until the armour had been completely destroyed, the Icon's flesh was almost completely immune to damage.

A shadow fell overhead as a massive fist came hurtling towards Jaune. Unfazed by the imminent blow, Jaune fired one last rocket into the demon's chest before whipping out the crucible again. Swinging the Sentinel weapon upwards, Jaune deflected the strike with brute force alone, tearing off the arm armour at the same time.

A defiant roar shook the building and the Icon lashed out with a lightning fast punch. A ruthless grin spread across Jaune's face as he evaded the blow and then slashed with the crucible, destroying another piece of the armour protecting the Icon.

The remaining pieces of armour fell away piece by piece when Jaune opened fire with the BFG. The emerald orbs of destroying simultaneously clearing the field of demons and inflicting heavy damage to the Icon.

A dread knight's wrathful howl alerted Jaune to the falling demon and the Slayer sidestepped the landing shockwave. Putting away the BFG, Jaune set the demon on fire and then whittled it down with the mobile turret.

When the Icon raised its hands to start spewing fire all over the place, Jaune used the meat hook to launch himself into the air after tethering an Arachnotron. Detaching the hook mid-flight, Jaune spun around and shot the Icon one last time with the ballista, destroying its sole remaining armour section on the shoulder.

Finally realising the situation wasn't in its favour, the Icon turned and began lumbering away, instinct alone driving it to try and escape the Slayer. Jaune narrowed his eyes as he watched the Icon flee the battle, this was unacceptable, the Icon would die would die here and now.

"Quickly, with its armour fully destroyed, the body is now exposed. Take the portal and finish this fight." Ironwood was one step ahead this time and managed to open a giant green portal from his position on the Fortress of Doom, its coordinates already set for another building in the Icon's path.

Jaune nodded and allowed the last pinky charging towards him to impale itself on the crucible blade before rushing into the portal.

"It's… it's running away? I didn't even know demons knew how to run away." Mercury commented.

"Yeah, usually they just swarm and get squashed like ants." Emerald added.

"Oh demons can run, it might not be visible, but most demons are actually utterly terrified of the Doom Slayer. The only reason they attack endlessly instead of fleeing back to hell is because they cannot go against the will of the current dark lord, and his will is basically kill the Slayer or die trying. But since the Icon isn't bound to anyone's will, it can and will choose to run, at least until it figures out that the Doom Slayer won't let him escape." Blank answered.

"Out of curiosity, what happens if the demons actually try to run away from him?" Ozpin asked.

"If there are other demons in the area and the escapee isn't a priority target, he'll let them go for now before hunting them down later. Running only delays the inevitable, not even hiding in the depths of hell is safe since he will eventually return for housecleaning." Blank said.

"So… they're dead no matter what they do?" Weiss asked.

"Yes."

The Icon of Sin roared in anger and fear as it saw Jaune appear out of thin air in front of it. The Slayer grinned when he noticed the Icon not moving to run again, the beast must have figured out he wasn't going to let it escape.

Raising the BFG, Jaune started the fight with two rounds of super-heated Argent plasma to the Icon's chest. The demon's thick hide proved useless against the superweapon and its flesh was blasted off, leaving a bloody mess behind as its internal organs and ribs were exposed.

It must have been agonising for the Icon and the demon's anguish only fuelled Jaune's desire to inflict more pain upon it. This was retribution for Argent D'Nur and everyone lost there when the Icon last walked.

Multiple flaming meteors began raining from the heavens as the Icon of Sin retaliated. Ducking under cover, Jaune waited out the storm while taking pot shots at the Icon's exposed head with the ballista.

Another frenzied roar assaulted Jaune's eardrums when the Icon's head was battered to a bloody pulp. Three red orbs emerged from the centre of its skull followed by red lightning bolts coalescing inwards as it charged up its attack.

A laser beam fired once the Icon was at full charge, searing everything it touched and bathing Jaune in its cursed radiance. The Doom Slayer was pushed back as his skin felt sunburned from the burning beam.

Dashing away to avoid further damage, Jaune froze a hell knight in place with an ice bomb and smashed it to pieces with a blood punch. As the frozen body parts rained down, Jaune absorbed the demon's remaining life force, regenerating back to peak condition and erasing all the damage the Icon managed to inflict.

When the Icon of sin moved to a different position to get a better angle on Jaune, the Slayer drew the BFG again, this time shooting its right shoulder and shredding the flesh there too. When its arms raised into the air to call down another meteor shower, Jaune unloaded volley after volley after volley of homing rockets into its other shoulder, wrecking it as well.

The longer the battle dragged on, the less and less threatening the Icon of Sin looked. The once fearsome mechanical demon was starting to resemble a walking corpse with so much of its body destroyed. And the damned thing would lose the 'walking' bit of the description soon if Jaune had anything to say about it.

Jaune's crucible left a red trail as he cut down a hell knight and an Arachnotron in his path. Dashing forwards past their corpses, he landed right where the Icon was about to slam its one good arm down. Slicing down with all his strength, Jaune cut through flesh, muscle and sinew, rendering the limb a mangled mess.

The demon reared back in pain and exposed its midsection, Jaune grinned and levelled the BFG 9000, one last round in it prepped and ready. The last orb of emerald death struck the Icon's stomach and blew it open.

And Jaune found that yes, the Icon was huge and did in fact have huge guts as much of it spilled into the streets below with nothing keeping them inside anymore.

No longer able to stand with all the damage the Slayer had dished out. The Icon of Sin stumbled and fell forwards, collapsing on the building that just barely managed to hold up its weight. Parts of its skull fell away exposing its brain, and that was just the perfect target for Jaune, a nice little call back to how he murdered the first Icon of Sin in the distant past.

This time, no rockets to the brain, just a cool laser sword.

Jaune brandished the crucible, the crimson edge blazing to life as he clambered onto the beaten demon for the coup de grace.

Leaping off the Icon's arm, Jaune landed on the brain itself and stabbed his sword into the grey matter. With a violent twist, he snapped off the crucible blade and left it embedded in the titan.

Jaune jumped off as the titan shook from the surge of blue energy coating it. The Icon rose up and roared one last time before the crucible's energy completely immobilised it, bringing it down for the last time and halting the absorption of Earth.

The Icon of Sin's skull thudded back to the ground in front of the triumphant Doom Slayer before gravity did its work and dragged the demon off the building, sending it crashing all the way down.

Jaune looked over the edge to make absolutely sure the titan wasn't stirring anymore before turning away. Stowing his weapons, he began walking off, waiting for Ironwood to ready the portal to bring him back to the Fortress of Doom.

The Priests were dead. The super gore nest was destroyed. Salem was KIA. And now, the Icon of Sin was no more. Earth was saved. Hell would not win this day, or any other day as long as Jaune was around.

But his work here wasn't done.

The portals to hell were closed, but countless demons still ran amok. Penny still needed to be retrieved from Urdak. And then, once Earth had been cleaned out completely, he had a crusade in hell to return to.

Many more fights awaited him. His eternal war against the forces of hell was only just beginning.

And that suited the Doom Slayer just fine.

"WHOO! THAT WAS AWESOME!" Nora cheered as the viewing came to a close.

"Yes, yes it was." Ren agreed.

"Aww… he lost the sword." Yang complained.

"He'll just make a new one. He did it once, he can do it again." Blake replied.

"So, humanity is safe now?" Goodwitch asked cautiously.

"For the time being." Blank replied.

"That's… not a very comforting answer." Qrow said.

"It is what it is. There are still a lot of demons to kill before Earth is demon free. Then you still have the corrupt elements in the UAC. The situation isn't perfect, but it's only going to get better from here." Blank said.

"The demons will try to invade again, won't they?" Cinder's question was more a statement than anything else as she folded her arms.

"Eventually. The hatred of the dark lords is a powerful thing, but for now, hell has failed. Humanity has a chance to recover from their losses, rebuild their broken world and prepare for the day demons invade again." Blanks said.

"When they do come back, Jaune will be back to stop them again." Pyrrha stated with supreme confidence.

"Yes, he will. The Doom Slayer's arrival wherever the demons are is a universal constant, he is inevitable. Well, in any case, that's it for the viewing. Go refresh yourselves while I get the next one ready."

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Author's notes: Arc-ventures has crossed a million views… damn, didn't think this day would ever come. Thanks to all of you for sticking around this long and I hope you've enjoyed this fic so far. If you don't enjoy my writing, then, I'm actually not sure why you're still here. You're 400,000 words deep at this moment, go read something else.

As to this chapter itself… hoo boy, where do I begin. I started writing this shortly after the end of the last chapter and it should have come out sooner. But waking up one day and finding out you can't play a game you spent almost a hundred bucks on really kills the mood to continue writing for it. Managed to get through it in the end though, and this brings an end to the Doom storyline, unless they bring something big with DLC or announce the inevitable sequel.

Some fun facts I found while doing research for the Doom Eternal chapters. Dr Elena Richardson, the scientist that goes from not believing in the Slayer to thinking he's god and the ARC scientist super fan are voiced by Nika Futterman and Edward Bosco… who also voice the Khan Maykr, the Marauder and the Icon of Sin itself. Another possible unintentional Easter egg is about the gladiator's death scene when the Slayer splattered its head. Historically, there were Roman gladiators executed after defeat by getting their skulls bashed in with a mallet by an official dressed as Dis, god of the underworld. Just something interesting I found.

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Cast list:

Jaune Arc as Doomguy/Doom Slayer

Penny Polendina as Vega

Salem as Khan Maykr

Arthur Watts as Deag Nilox

Merlot as Deag Ranak

Tyrian Callows as Deag Grav

Hazel Rainart as the Betrayer/Valen

James Ironwood as Dr Samuel Hayden