Chapter 4: I Am The God Of Hellfire K watched as the Racoon materialised in the Underworld. 'Another soul come to be tortured.' She thought to herself. Then she saw Tom walking down the corridors and wondered what he was doing here, knowing that Hades would be looking for him soon. She coughed slightly and the Prince of the Underworld turned to look at her, his dreads flicking from side to side as

he did so. "What do you want?" He asked, his voice titnted with the bitterness of aggression.

"Haven't you been banned from here?" She asked, not sure why he was acting this way.

"Who cares? The old man's a fucking retard. I just wanna get away from the bastards living a life of eternal happiness. Coming down here makes me feel better when I'm pissed off is all."

As he did so ever since he was born he had been trained in order to become a guardian. The reason for this was that Tom was a Dark Echidna and the first child of his species became the new guardian of the Mobian Underworld. Currently there were two Dark Echidna, Tom and his father, Hades. The Dark Echidna could never die unless killed by another Dark Echidna. Once dead the Dark Echidna ceased to exist. There was no afterlife for one of his race.

Tom would become the guardian when his training was complete. He was trained by the Dark Pigeon Joah, an old bird who had trained his father and many other Dark Echidna before them. Once the training was complete, a ceremony would take place, during which Tom would have to rip the heart out of the current guardian, his father. Only then would he be a true guardian. After the ceremony, Tom would rise to the Floating Island, find a female echidna and return to the Underworld to be married. The female echidna had a normal life expectancy, but when they died they also had no afterlife. Tom, whilst he did want to be the Guardian one day, also wanted to live a real life. The only time he could go up to the surface was when the training

was finished in order to get a mate. There was, however, another way and that was to give a mortal his life back in exchange for taking him with them. It was surprising how many Mobians didn't want to be returned to their lives after finding out about their eternal rewards. As for those that received eternal punishments, they could only be handled by a true guardian. Of

course by the time most guardians had become accustomedto their life of torturing the damned they had a child of their own and so felt bound to the Underworld, unable to take the opportunity of going back, having to teach their own child the ways of his kind.

All of a sudden he could sense a presence. He felt that someone other than him, K and the other bat-demons was in the corridor. He turned his head to face the soul, unable to tell how long he had been there as his powers were not yet fully developed. His eyes glowed a menacing red and he smiled slightly. He was gonna show his father that he could do a damn good job at torturing and he was going to start with this one.