Getting to Hell wasn't actually that difficult. Getting out of Hell was the hard part… or at least that's what all the books warned.
Andi had returned to the underground library and had spent two weeks looking up the information that she'd need. She was going to go to Hell, find Jack's soul, and make him hurt. She finally had everything she needed. Twenty-eight tries to draw the perfect pentagram on the ground. Candles arranged around the room, the head of a goat as an anchor to help her get back, and blood. Lots of blood. She still felt a little dizzy, but shook the thought from her mind.
"Alright, Andi. Get in, find Jack, a little torture and then we're out. Should be easy. The demons will listen to me, the fire can't hurt me…"
"I've never been to Hell before." She sat down in the middle of the circle, one of the books she'd taken resting on her lap as she reread the incantation again. It was long and written in Latin, but she'd had a little help from KSU's Latin professor over the past week. She was ready. She just had to take the first step.
She stumbled over the first few words before starting over. This time her voice was stronger, Hell-Mark carving itself onto her chest and eyes glowing blood red. Demons crawled up through the ground and danced along the edge of the pentagram, laughing and cheering as she read the incantation. The candles around her sporadically flickered and reignited, creating puffs of smoke that grew darker the longer she spoke. Fire spread from her seat in the middle of the pentagram, and followed the patterns along the ground, pouring down the angles and concentric circles she'd spent hours replicating until the entire design was glowing a dull red with the cinders.
"Portae Inferni, aperi pro regina!" She shouted the last line, and all of the candles and fire blew out, plunging the room into darkness. Her heart stopped for a moment, worried that she might've done something wrong before the symbols on the floor began to glow again, and the outer edge of the pentagram sunk into the floor, creating a spiral staircase that stretched deep down into the ground. A blast of hot air rushed upwards as it finished, filling the room with the smell of smoke and the screams of agonized souls. Andi smirked, her eyes burning with Hellfire as she stood up and looked down the stairwell she'd created. Dusting herself off, she made sure she hadn't forgotten anything before taking her first step down into Hell.
The descent seemed to take forever. She'd rounded the spiral for what must've been the hundredth time, always expecting to see Hell right around the corner. A throbbing in her chest warned her to turn back the whole way down. To run and cancel the spell before it was too late- before she was stuck here forever. But then she remembered the look on her father's face as he bled to death. Jack had to pay.
She felt it before she saw it. The rise in temperature, the blinding light of the brimstone fires that had burned for eternity and will burn for an eternity afterwards. It was a force pushing against her, the last warning to turn back, to leave and never return. She pushed through anyway, the heat feeling like the warmth of the sun on an early summer's day and the fire tickling her ankles like wet grass for as long as she wore the Hell-Mark.
Hell wasn't exactly organized. There was no help desk or directory to help her find a specific soul. Any normal person who stumbled here would get lost in seconds- if they hadn't already been driven mad by the horrors around them. Luckily, Andi wasn't a normal person. She was branded- mind, body and soul- as a potential successor to Mephisto. As little as she knew about this place, it belonged to her. A path made of blood painted itself along slick the ground, any demons that it touched screamed as they burned, writhing in pain as they were engulfed in flames. The path meandered a few hundred feet before making a right turn and disappearing behind a large blob of living flesh.
"Sure. I'll bite." Andi sighed and followed the trail, making sure to only step on the bloodied path and not touch the squirming ground on either side. Demons laughed and jeered as she passed, following her for a while before moving on. Tormented souls screamed and begged for mercy as they were ripped apart by larger demons, reaching out to her for help as the agony of their eternal damnation took its toll. She ignored them all and pushed on. The entire time, she felt like something sinister was watching her. Far more sinister than the other demons in Hell. No, this was something far worse, but whenever she turned to check, nothing was there. It made her skin crawl, but she pushed onwards.
The path seemed to go on forever, just like the stairs, but Andi had lost all sense of time. It seemed to pool and race at different instances, like a river. An hour might pass before she'd taken a single step, only for time to slip away again as she walked a mile in under a second. She focused her mind on the goal, and ignored the journey. She was here for Jack and nothing more.
Miles passed before the path wandered into a dark alley between two large, abandoned buildings. Andi quickened her pace, knowing she must be nearing the end of her journey. She followed to the end of the alley, a large brick wall cutting short her bloody trail. She looked around, confusedly, expecting to see him at any moment.
"He has to be here," she hissed angrily.
"Are you here for me? I didn't even have a visitor on the Raft, haha!" Andi turned, fists clenched as she locked eyes with the man. A bullet hole ran straight through his head, but other than that he seemed…
"Normal," she whispered confusedly. Shaggy brown hair, and slight stubble growing along his jaw. He wasn't the terrifying, disfigured man coach Thompson had warned her about.
"What? Did you expect me to be in full costume down here? Hahaha, if only I could bring some toys with me, the fun I'd have down here! Flying overhead and torturing lost souls. I'd be a king," he laughed excitedly, a wide smile on his face as he walked closer to her, like a predator waiting for a chance to pounce. "But… I don't remember you. Not at all, not at all, little demon girl. You someone I killed? Someone who's come looking for a little revenge on a poor, damned soul?" His every movement was unsettling, his crooked smile never leaving his lips as he spoke.
"You tried and failed," she hissed, clenching her fists. His brainwashed puppet tried to poison her, to hit her with some kind of gas to prove to coach Thompson that he couldn't be a hero. Instead, the Venom symbiote had transferred its clone to her, and made her a hero in her own right. She'd become Mania, all thanks to Jack O'Lantern.
"Then it looks like this is my redo!" He lunged at her, grabbing her by the throat and slamming her into the ground. His grip cut off her breath, her Hellfire caught in her throat.
"Oh, can't you see how delicious this is! As long as I'm down here I can do whatever I want," he was monologuing. Giddy with joy as he clawed at Andi's face, desperate to hurt someone that hadn't already been suffering a lifetime of pain. She kicked him off, sending him flying into the alley wall. Clenching her fists, Hellfire poured from her palms as she dropped into stance, ready to pummel him into the ground.
"So can I," she yelled angrily, feeling her Hell-Mark swell as she called on its power. A group of small, child-like demons swarmed from the building like a plague, piling on Jack and slamming him to the ground as they ripped his flesh from his bones. Instead of the painful agony she'd wanted to hear, he laughed. Tears streaming down his face as he kicked his feet, the demons' attack was barely more than a tickle to him.
"Oh, if this is my eternal torment I'm gonna have a blast," he exclaimed, the demons melting into the ground as his flesh regrew from his body.
"I'm just getting started," she shouted, racing over to him and picking him up by the collar of his shirt. She slammed her fist into his face again and again, tears pouring down her cheeks under her mask as she released all of the anger that had been building up all this time. Her Hell-Mark burned even brighter and she used her power to ignite her fists in Hellfire, slamming them down onto his skull. She left him a gurgling husk on the ground, waiting for him to regenerate before she started again.
"Y- *cough* ya know, you should really check curfew before you start running around Hell. The warden's not gonna be too happy about this." Jack spat a few teeth out of his mouth as he spoke, popping his eye back into its socket as he sat up, grin wide on his broken face.
"Wha-"
"Child. It seems I've arrived too late to welcome you." Mephisto was larger than life, sitting on the roof of the abandoned building behind her, watching the scene unfold below. His presence made her blood freeze and the hair at the back of her neck stand on end. The ultimate evil was staring at her, grin on his face as he spoke. "But I hope you've enjoyed your time in Hell. You'll be spending the rest of eternity here."
He waved his hand nonchalantly in Andi's direction, and this time the burning sting of her Hell-Mark, it was an absolutely unbearable pain she'd never felt before. It sizzled against her skin, branding itself into her flesh as she fought to suck down a breath. Then came the rage, blinding and pure. Lesser demons tore themselves apart as she commanded them to feel the pain she felt. Larger demons howled in agony as her mark throbbed against her heart. But she wanted more. Straddling Jack, she clawed at him, tearing open his chest and clawing out his heart as he screamed in pain. She sealed the wound with a breath of Hellfire and did it all over again, pinning the man to the ground as he floundered in torment.
"Yes, child. Revenge is sweet, isn't it? Let it fill you up. Let it overtake you." Mephisto's voice was a whisper, but she could hear it in her soul. She was rabid, feral. Jack reached up pitifully, begging for a reprieve.
"Five seconds… please," blood pooled from his mouth and nose, caking his face and obscuring his vision. Andi didn't even notice, taking the hand and snapping it at the wrist, causing him to howl in pain.
"My mark seems to sit well with you, girl. Such rage in your heart. Wrath is one of my favorite sins to watch unfold. Yours tastes sweet. Righteous. Just. You've been dealt an awful hand and this man is going to pay for it. Beautiful." His devilish grin widened into a smile as he watched her work. Andi ripped Jack's arm off at the shoulder before disemboweling the man, panting as she overexerted herself in her rabid state. She could do this for an eternity. Watch the life ebb and flow from Jack's eyes as he regenerated only to be torn to shreds however she saw fit next. It was pure bliss. No revenge could be sweeter for the loss of her father.
Her father.
She watched as the life drained from Jack's eyes, horror washing over her.
"It has to be the Hell-Mark," she reasoned, losing the fight to stop herself from snapping the man's neck just like she'd wanted to before she'd arrived.
"Not at all. My mark is only giving you the strength to do what you desire. This carnage is all your own heart, girl," Mephisto laughed, shrinking down to human size to lay a hand on her shoulder.
"You're doing great. Far better than who I'd intended that Mark to be for," he lamented, the contact making her want to jump out of her skin.
"Yo, dollar store Satan. Your dry-cleaners called, they said you can stop wearing your underwear to work!" Gwenpool raced into the alleyway unloading a barrage of bullets that peppered Mephisto. The devil hissed at the sting of holy water and, lifting his cloak, he vanished in a puff of smoke, only to reappear giant-sized, looming over the alleyway looking absolutely murderous.
"Andi, come on. Clifford the big red demon wants to eat my soul, and I don't have Doreen here to help me out like last time," she begged, dragging her friend off Jack's body and finally breaking the trance she was in. Andi shook herself sluggishly, only to be pulled frantically by Gwenpool, practically dragging her out of the alleyway. "Andi, let's go," she shouted, finally snapping her friend back to her senses. Gwenpool ran ahead, trying to find the hole in the Gutter she'd made to get here only to find it sealed off. With a quick tear, she opened another hole into her dimension, stepping one foot in before looking back. Andi was still dozens of feet behind her, time all but standing still as she desperately rushed to meet her friend. "Andi come on!"
Andi kept running, a horde of demons rising from the ground and clawing at her ankles in an attempt to drag her back towards their master. She grabbed her friend's hand just as one of the fiends finally succeeded, cackling as it dragged her down to her knees. "Gwen, get out of here! This is my fault, I-"
"Andi, shut up!" Gwenpool held on to her friend's wrist and pulled, dragging her out of the grasp of the demons that were desperately trying to deliver her to Mephisto.
"Gwen, I can't believe-"
"Shut up and close your eyes," she hissed, pulling Andi to her feet.
"Run along children. Remember, as long as you bear my mark, you'll always have a place here," Mephisto laughed, Hellfire whipping up a storm around the entire area. Demons were battered and sucked into the flames, igniting like kindling in the wind. As quickly as he'd appeared, he was gone. All the demons in Hell however, screamed in agony all at once, moving along the path that Andi had taken to get here.
"You aren't going anywhere," Jack screamed, tackling Andi and pinning her to the ground. "It's gonna be you and me. Enemies in Hell! We can do anything we want- we can kill each other as many times as we want," Jack laughed, clawing at Andi's chest in an attempt to pay her back for ripping his heart out.
"Andi, we need to get out of here now! We're running out of pages in this issue," Gwenpool yelled, blasting holes into demons that'd gotten too close to her rip in the universe. They screamed and turned to dust as the holy water soaked, silver plated bullets pierced through them.
"I'm only going to have to kill you once," Andi smirked, her Hell-Mark burning through her costume as she dug deep and summoned every ounce of energy she had left. She directed it all in one blast out at Jack O'Lantern, the Hellfire slamming him into the nearest building. The flames obscured the screaming, writhing man inside them, ruining his skin as it used his body fat to burn even hotter. Andi would've stayed to watch the carnage, but Gwenpool grabbed her by her jacket and yanked her into The Gutter. They fell through the no-man's-land of space and time, panels and pages of thousands of different comic books flying past them as Gwenpool shifted their weight in their descent, doing her best to direct them towards the panel she'd prepared. Looking back, she could see Andi had her eyes wide open, but instead of taking in the world around them, she was focused on the panel they'd just barely left behind. Jack was clawing at the ground, desperate to be rejoined with them before getting up and quickly running away.
They crashed in through the top of the page into the panel, falling on their butts right outside their dorm room. Gwenpool looked around, making sure no one had seen them before raising her arms in victory.
"And we stick the landing," she laughed excitedly.
"Gwen! The stairs," Andi hissed, already having clamored to her feet before taking off down the hallway.
"Oh, yeah." They raced across campus, desperate to close the portal before anything made its way onto the campus grounds while also trying not to be seen in costume. They made it to the underground library in less than a minute, panting breathlessly as they ran inside and shut the doors behind them. "I can't think of a fancy way to close that, Andi. I hope you know how to-"
"RRRRREEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLUUUUUUUGGGGGHHHHH!"
"Just buy me some time," Andi shouted, jumping over the narrow staircase onto the small, circular platform that she'd been sitting on in the middle of the pentagram. The pages of the book had been blown around by the hot winds of hell and she'd lost her spot. She hadn't even committed the page to memory. Gwenpool took up a position at the top of the stairwell, looking down into the pit and taking aim at the horde of demons as the first of them started rounding the final corner of the staircase to the surface. The ground shook as they worked- something gigantic was making its way up the steps, and it was close. Andi severely doubted it would be deterred by holy bullets or Hellfire.
"You've got until that thing makes it to the top step before it becomes a Doctor Strange problem," Gwenpool called, holstering her pistols and grabbing a pair of matching SMGs before taking aim at the waves of lesser demons that tried to crawl their way up out of the staircase. Andi tore her eyes away from the scene below and desperately searched for the reversal spell.
Gwen hummed a playful tune as she slaughtered dozens of demons in seconds. Larger ones with sharp claws were riddled with bullets and sent tumbling back down the spiral staircase, knocking their compatriots down with them to crush their smaller friends. Some demons flew over the heads of the pack and attempted to escape into the night, only to have their wings clipped by the blade of a katana or blown out of the sky outright. And the earthquakes grew louder as whatever monster Mephisto had called after them climbed nearer.
"Andi, I think we're too late," Gwen watched as the monster hauled itself up several steps at a time with its long, gangly arms, open maw salivating at the scent of fresh air. It looked as hungry as it did excited, its flesh oozing a disgusting orange pus that made the floor beneath it sizzle.
"Portae Inferni, Opstruo!" The stairs shifted, forming a ramp down into the underworld. Hundreds of demons that'd been climbing the steps quickly slid down, swallowed even faster by a current of hot air that threatened to suck books off their shelves across the library. Gwen squeaked as she slipped, her front foot having been resting on the top step of the staircase. She threw her arms back as she tried to regain her balance, but the reversal was too strong. It threw her off her feet and she slipped, gloved fingers desperately clawing at the ground beneath her as she tried to stop her slide back into hell.
Andi jumped from her position in the center of the stairwell and grabbed Gwen's wrist, fire glowing in her eyes as she used the power of her Hell-Mark to fight against the impossibly strong pull of the underworld.
"Andi, if you let me go, I'm gonna be so mad," Gwenpool warned, dangling helplessly as she watched the monster pull itself forward another few feet, fighting the pull of Hell with every ounce of its disgusting will. It snapped its jaws at her ankles and she yelped, bringing her knees to her chest. "Correction, if that thing touches me, I'm gonna be so mad," she screamed, unloading her entire magazine into the beast's face, bullets bouncing off its grotesque rotting flesh like grains of sand.
Andi pulled with all her might, fighting for every inch she could afford as she dragged her partner back up the ramp. The monster bellowed again, the stench of decay pouring off of it in waves. It made her dizzy, made her want to puke or pass out or both. Andi tugged even harder, finally dragging her friend out of the portal. The change in force was so strong it knocked her off her feet and the both fell to the ground, Gwen on top of her and clinging tight as the vacuum pull of Hell snatched at her ankles, seemingly desperate to get a hold of her again. With a mechanical click, the portal began to seal itself, slamming shut just as the beast reached forward to climb the last few feet out of the stairwell. It banged loudly against the closed trap door before its screams were cut short. The bloody symbols on the ground stopped glowing, the candles went out.
Hell was sealed.
"Andi," Gwen asked, taking her mask off to look her friend in the eye.
"Yeah," Andi asked, doing the same. She was beyond tired, and her chest hurt like the worst heartburn she'd ever experienced. But she was alive. They both were.
"If you wanted to spice things up, we could've just fought each other, you know? You didn't have to open the gates of hell just to make this run interesting." She wiped the sweat off her face with the back of her hand as she spoke, having spent most of the past week trying to come up with a plan to beat her friend in a fight should the need arise.
"I don't think I'm ever going to understand you, Gwendolyn Poole," Andi decided, arms crossed over her chest as she listened to her ramble.
"That's fine… as long as you're not mad at me anymore," Gwen asked worriedly. She'd hated the past couple weeks of being ignored and avoided. Even Himawari had realized something was wrong.
"Not anymore… I'm sorry I treated you like that… I was… I was really angry, I… was taking it out on you I guess. You didn't deserve it." Andi's voice was soft and shaky, still wavering from her journey to Hell. It was impossible to not be changed by what she'd seen.
"Yeah I didn't… but it's alright. Spider-Man tried to throw me in front of a train when I told him. This actually wasn't too bad." Gwen laughed, reaching out to hold Andi's hand. Andi recoiled from the touch before reaching out and seeking it herself. She took Gwen's hand in hers as they rested on their backs, looking up at the dusty ceiling as the sunrise began to fill the room with light.
"Thanks, Gwen. I don't think Princess of Hell would've looked good on a resume anyway," Andi laughed softly.
"Depends on the job application."