Chapter 143
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Note; Just a reminder that Xerxos is from "Hercules: The Legedary Journeys" while Nick and Annie are from the movie "The Invisible."
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Xerxos finished his "shift" in Hell's torture chamber. It seemed weird, that Hell actually had shifts for when demons woud torture people, but it seemed demons couldn't be expected to do this for eternity without rest. Since coming here, Xerxos spoke with nazies, how they had regular shifts in the concentration camps, then went home to their wives and children, even usually had weekends off. Now Xerxos could go to his new house, certainly he was doing better than a lot of the people here, better than those he tortured. He thought back to the other Hell he had been in, he knew he deserved to be tortured for all he had done. He hadn't given much thought to those who tortured him back then, were they even worse than him? Had they also been given the job of torturing people who were less evil than themselves? That was how this particular Hell seemed to work. Xerxos walked home, not that he had anyone to share it with. The one good thing he had ever done, was to wrn his sister abut the consequences of her sins, in the hopes she would do better and escape his fate. Xerxos thought back to her, he hadn't yet encountered her in Hell. Could she have done better, wound up in Heaven. He could only hope. As he walked home Xerxos was encountered by Nick and Annie. He recognized them as having been in John Brown's army.
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Xerxos: What do you two want?
Nick: When you tried making an alliance with captain Brown, were you serious about wanting to escape Evil?
Xerxos: Yes. Not that I neccessarily expect you to believe me.
Nick: How did D'Hoffryn get Magneto and the others out?
Xerxos: He claimed that my boss okayed it. We were all too afraid of D'Hoffryn to challenge this claim. Sadly, your side got what you wanted, and I'm still stuck here.
Annie: Maybe there's another way out of Hell.
Xerxos: You mean doing good deeds. Its a little late for me.
Annie: I thought it was too late for me too.
Xerxos: What did you do?
Annie: I killed Nick here.
Nick: Technically I was in a coma, I thought I was dead at first. I was understandably angry at Annie, tried to torment her. I don't know if she could really hear me, or just haunted by her own guilt. But she ended up saving my life, got killed for it.
Annie; I owed him. I thought he was right when he said I was broken. I'd heard that so many times I believed them. But in the end I got to do at least one good deed.
Xerxos: I'm glad you two worked it out, but I'm guessing you weren't a serial killer.
Annie; Just a thief, and almost guilty of one murder.
Xerxos: My first victims were my own parents, burned them alive when I was sixteen.
Nick: Rumor is you tried to warn your sister, you wanted her to do better than you.
Xerxos: What's your point?
Annie: I wanted the same thing for my little brother, wanted him to be better than me.
Xerxos: I've seen a fair amount of gangsters, mercenaries, terrorists who wanted their children to be better than them.
Annie: It's a start. Maybe we can help each other do better in the future.
Xerxos: Worth a shot to get out of here.