No one should have to see hell until they are there for good. No one should have to live with the devil. But we must face the sad truth that hell is real, and it is a accessible realm to the living. There are usually two ways to get there: death, or sheer misfortune. Only those that have found themselves there by the second way still have a hope to return.

-Pope Antiochus II of Selucia, compiled writings.

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Tess woke up. Darkness? Not quite. There was a ground, smooth stone. The air was foul, but not unbearably so. Things were tangible, but there was no sky. Just blackness, deeper than night.

She stood up. Where was everybody? Was she alone? Her intuition told her that many more people than her were isolated in this spiritual dimension. Was she destined for the same fate? Was she dead? Do dead people know that they are dead, at least in this case?

Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.

No hope. Nothing. If she wasn't already dead, it didn't matter, anyway. The pit was all there ever was, and all that would ever matter to her. Every road led to Sheol. It was over, all over. O, despair and darkness! O, happy, happy to have never been born! Let the Abyss take Tess Woodhall! Night, o night. We all go into night.

Something grabbed her arm.

"We're all here!"

L.S had put her Scranton Reality Anchor at maximum intensity, the whine of the generator cutting through the blackness. There was a low, red light, emanating from some unseen source, in which Tess could see Anabel and Looker being awakened by Hopper. The darkness seemed to be lifted, and Tess thought that she could see a pale light in the distance.

The oblivion of hell lessened. The dark, cold pit of Tartarus could be bared, somehow. Hell was just another world, and the five weren't dead, not quite yet. There was hope, making one of the greatest torments of hell unapplicable to the living.

In the expanse of Stygian black, things could be seen moving, soundlessly, hatefully...animals. Things that had once been human. Debris, remains of souls. Most of them wouldn't be able to even talk, and none certainly would be able to communicate.

All five had put their SRA units at the highest setting, and things became more and grounded as the hume levels settled to baseline reality. All around was a void, with only a little light toward whatever direction it could be considered. Navigation tools completely failed. Things chittered in the void. There were only a few Ways scattered about, leading to empty patches of space or planes of existence bearing little concern.

"That's it!" Anabel shrieked. "I quit! I quit! As soon as I get out of here, you are taking me back to the Library and my world! Make me forget this whole thing! Give me a pill, put a spell on me! End it! End it all!"

L.S ignored the outburst, clearly expecting such a reaction. "For me, this is the final straw. We will find a Way, and then return to the Library. Nolek said they ought to let us in, at the proper time. Even hell has its exits, if you can find them. We have nothing but a blind hope that we will find a Way that we can cross, although we ought to head in the direction of Limbo if we want to find anything of interest. Go to the light!"

And they did. Amid the half-screams and shifting oblivion of Sheol, they started to walk, step by step, toward the distant corpse-light.

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Nothing happened for quite a while. Tess certainly wouldn't make her Pokémon leave their Poke Balls to experience the oppressive spiritual darkness, and flying on Salamance's back probably wouldn't help any more than walking would.

Some souls wandered across their path, mere shades. Some were more substantial than others, although none could be considered rational or even remotely aware of the five travelers. They were locked in their misery and self-obsession, hating themselves as they loved themselves. Tess pitied them like nothing else, although she was never moved to help them, since her reason told her that there was no hope possible for these creatures.

As time passed, the light grew in the distance, and with it, her perception. There were many different hells in this one hell, for all worlds, not just a few or one. She could see a Hell on Earth, with shades endlessly obsessing over past cravings. A soul eyed a group of living woman smoking cigarettes, and attempted to grab one, to no avail. A dead woman hounded her oblivious son about how he shouldn't have married Majorie, and how that it would have been so much better if she had gotten her way...

"Where are we?"

Tess blurted out the statement in all its strangeness. She did know where she was...at least she hoped that she did. What she did not expect was a answer.

"You're in hell! Now shut up!"

The voice did not originate from anywhere in particular, but a shape appeared in front of the light.

It was the darkness, was of the darkness, and was the darkness. Vast and mighty it was, and nothing could escape its gaze nor outreach its arm. It dwelt within the Halls of the Dead, year after year in endless aggregation. It was the All-Death, for only to it the Death of All Things would be just.

Then there was another shape. It was not as mighty or terrible as the first, but its reach was great indeed. Its domain was catastrophe, and thus its face was obscured by a visage of iron and stone. Mountainlike it was, the Death of the multitudes, and in the darkness Tess could see its heralds-their names were Conquest and War and Disease and Death. The Great Death stood in its elder's shadow, but it did not begrudge its station.

But there was one more shape to appear. It was dark of robe and pale of face, hard of eye and strict of hand, adhering to the Law of Elyon without fallibility. A silver sickle it carried in its cloak, and it was by this tool that every soul born was to be collected. The Small Death was of little reach compared to its siblings, and it could hardly perceive the mind of the Great Death, and the thought of the All-Death was more terrible still.

The All-Death opened its primordial vacuum of a mouth, and proclaimed with the force of a billion billion megaphones-

"HELLO, STRANGERS! NEED DIRECTIONS?"

Anabel fainted, and L.S instantly recoiled from the synthsuit feedback. "Yes, sir. We need to get out of this place as soon as possible, which you probably already guessed. Want to give us a hand?"

Instead of replying, the darkness only increased and increased until it was...darker than dark. Darker than a Octillery squirting ink at the bottom of a undersea trench at night. Tess's pupils expanded so much that they stung, and the light in the horizon vanished into the Stygian abyss.

"Ei-yi-yi-yi-yi-yi-yi-yi-yi-yi-yi-yi-yi-yi-yi-yi-yi-yi-yi-yi-yi-yi!" The Great Death screamed. "Aid you? We, who know all that was and all that will be, we, who were present when the vaults of Heaven and Earth were forged, we, who saw the Library being built, aid you? Let the Everlasting Darkness consume you for your insolence! Let your souls burn in the gaze of our Lidless Eyes, until you are naked in the dark, withered and broken evermore!"

"Halt!" The Small Death squeaked. "The living are not permitted to enter the realms of those who are dead. Thus, being the Keepers of the Dead, we must have them leave this place, and our helping them would greatly decrease the total duration of their stay."

"Yes." The All-Death judged. "This is sufficient. As there is a disparity from our power and theirs, no expenditure of our consciousness is necessary in order to aid them. We must bring them out of Sheol and into the Sunlit Lands. I humble myself before you, and ask thee to tell us where you wish to venture."

"Wait," Looker said. "If you know pretty much everything, them why do you have to ask us where we want to go?"

"We find it amusing."

"Of course." L.S said. "If you may, take us to 32232#121-"

The Great Death stirred, parting the darkness and letting the light through. "There is a Way to that land. We will take you there, at the All-Death's bidding. Elyon does not seem to disapprove, either. Continue heading for the light, the Way will be made known to you."

The group started to march again, in the Small Death's stead. The chalk-white face of the Reaper reflected in the sheen of its scythe, as it looked in disapproval at the Poke Balls that the three wanderer's carried.

"You have Pokémon? I do not like them. They may die, but my blade is never whetted for long, as the houseless spirits return to a new body far too soon. Curse the Gift of Pokémon, for they do not die and go to the Timeless Halls, as mortals do, but are reincarnated, as their fates are tied to their world and not outside of it. Your world's own ancients new this, for Arceus Elyon has said that it is so."

Anabel had woken up by now, and got off of Looker's back. "Wait, are you saying that my Mismagius has experienced past lives, and that all Pokémon do? Why, do they not have souls or something?"

"Of course not." The Small Death said. "In all worlds, Pokémon are stronger then Men, and were intended to live forever. However, death and old age has come upon them in ways that Arceus Elyon has not intended. It was decreased that the bodiless would be given new bodies, in order to maintain the bond of Pokémon and Earth. They are tied to the existence of their world, its fate is there. Lady Celebi keeps the Houses of the Houseless, which we cannot enter. Also, you have a habit of saying 'wait' before a question. Are you unable to process such a constant stream of information?"

Before Anabel could answer, a soul appeared before the company, cursing and spitting. "Ye bleedin' barnacle-headed o' mother's rotten canyon scum! I'll gut you like the foul piece of seaweed landlubber that you are! I'll scrape ye on th' corals-"

The Small Death's scythe swung down, and the soul was absorbed, gooey strands of pseudo-organs spraying everywhere as the shade's consciousness was merged with the Small Death. The blade cleaned itself, and the Small Death resumed its attentive posture. "Were you about to say something?"

Anabel dropped the conversation, and walked at a noticeably faster pace. The darkness lessened, and Tess felt a gust of wind. Things are changing.

...

The All-Death, if the All-Death being present in a personal way could actually be described, moved some of the darkness in a procedure that would have certainly turned Tess's blood to fire and her bones to sand if her synthsuit had not filtered it out. Points of sheer, concentrated oblivion arranged themselves in impossible fractals as the All-Death did what nearly no other being could do: moving a Way.

The Way appeared, angry and festering at having been awoken. It had likely never been opened since the beginning of time, and first-time Ways were always difficult to temper. The All-Death used its nigh-omnipotency to make safe the path, and ushered a titanic hand toward the portal.

Anabel and Tess ran for the Way, vanishing within. L.S and Hopper had Looker take the path with more caution, giving one last glance at the three gods before entering.

"Do you think that they will succeed?" The Great Death said. "That is the most direct Way to their quarry. But..."

"All roads from Gehenna lead to Hell-in-universe." The Small Death said, concerned. "They would be likely to survive in nearly any other scenario...but you know what they will face. Mountain of iron, halls of horror, towers of tears."

The All-Death begun to disperse, wishing to attend to other duties in the Underworld. "It will take a miracle."

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A vast and echoing gloom, nearly as dreadful as the Pit of Tophet. Labyrinthian halls with everlasting death twisted into their mortar, devoured, tormented, ground to sheer darkness by multitudes of seething vermin. Thunderous forges rang in the deeps, with a burning wind rising from holes innumerable, foul vapors from yawning gates. It was more akin to most of the descriptions of Hell that Tess had heard on Earth than the real thing.

Laughter rose from a unlit passage. It was self-loathing and crude, but without repentance or remorse. There was a terrible, red-hot singing, from the darkness unguessed. Waving steams revealed a brazen gate, carved with tormented souls, reared by horror, where a terrible court was being held.

Between the serpentine pillars, under the statues like carven monsters, monsters from unholy dreams moved and fought upon the blood-soaked floor. A vaulted dome of black steel guarded the throne of some dark lord, surrounded by his armored hordes and the dead and dying, like a hideous footstool. Demons with manes of fire mouthed with fangs of steel crouched by wolves the size of buildings, by the heel of their dark master.

And above all the host of hell were the glowing red eyes of Jake's captor, shining over the halls of death, thin and baneful, imprisoned in the face beneath a crown of hate. A nameless menace, the Shadow incarnate, the inspiration of Qlippoth, none could stand before it and live. Tess and her companions had reached the world where Jake was, but they had fallen alive into the hands of the devil.