Hell, the Pride Ring. The same time as earlier (more or less).
A disquieting gleam appeared in the already red eyes of the humanoid canine as she jabbed a claw-tipped finger at the male adult with the idiotic grin on his face. Her voice also went from loud and angry to a hushed tone of disgust as she made her final accusation.
"And this guy definitely watches."
On the opposite side of the shabby reception area, a diminutive demon who answered to Moxxie (because that was his name) blinked in confusion. He kind of wanted to say "Watches what?" but wisely chose not to.
Not only was he taken aback at the ill will in Loona's voice, but he couldn't help but wonder at the very specific nature of her allegations, such as that the daughter figure trolled not just other girls, but those who were Australian. The simplest answer was that it was all a load of crap that their problematic receptionist had made up off the top of her head in an ass backwards attempt to help him with this exercise by giving the staged family some kind of a back story to warrant familicide. But there was the slight chance that, being a Hellhound, Loona had somehow picked up on something about each of the models thanks to some aspect of her underused senses.
Either way, it was a remarkable display of venom against what was just a run-of-the-mill, ad agency-plotted, mass-produced photo of the type slipped into picture frames for sale. This one featured a rather stock middle class family unit so pedestrian in its posing that it might as well been a drawing by his boss recreated using real live people. Its only unique feature was it being used for target practice by a small company of contract killers operating from Hell.
Thankfully, any instinct the white-haired Imp had to actually verbalize his concerns was quashed as a cheerful voice chimed in. It did so with the intent of agreeing with one of his torturous coworkers, which he usually disapproved of for many reasons, but also to help him get into the right frame of mind for the exercise, so he accepted it.
"Exactly! Humans are full of secret nasties. It's why so many of them end up here." The energetic Impette, who in her husband's opinion put the "Professional" in the company's title, noticed her mate's forefinger as it sprang up at that, but she managed to cut him off at the pass before he could speak. "Many of them," she restated, adding emphasis where appropriate.
She mentally patted herself on the back – "Pointless argument averted" – as Moxxie retracted his hand, his mouth changing into a grateful smile. Sadly, Loona had noticed their little exchange.
"Huh? Whaddya mean—?"
"Guilty and innocent aren't our business, Mox," Millie loudly added as she walked behind her husband. It took his attention away from Loona before she could start something, plus it allowed her to outline her own way of looking at things. "Killing who we're paid to is our business. Now, shoot the target." Giving him a quick peck on the cheek, she then stepped back next to the copy machine, allowing him room to again line up his shot with the photo.
Loona for her part simply lay back down on the couch, holding the photo up in the air in one hand as she returned to fiddling with her Hellphone with the other. She was supposed to wave it around a bit for some extra difficulty, but she'd quickly complained how tiring that was and stopped after just a few seconds.
A part of Moxxie still wanted to discuss how they could perhaps be more selective, but he already had won some points by Millie showing some open-mindedness in regards to his little philosophical concerns, so he decided not to press his luck. Leaning over the desk that was simulating a sniper's nest to the best of its ability, he arranged the crossbow – painted black and decorated with red decals, a little personal touch added to many items in their arsenal – and took aim at his target, which Loona continued to hold up in her hand.
The weapons technician and amateur assassin (well, "amateur" according to their boss despite how often he'd taken part in fulfilling their contracts, especially their last real job) did continue to feel a lack of some incentive to pull the trigger though. Not only were they running a drill for taking out a human in front of others, and possibly even liquidating an entire family while doing so, but there was also Loona being in his line of fire to consider. He had his problems with her, sure, but it was the principle of the matter. Not to mention the repercussions what would happen if his aim was off and he so much as scratched her. No, he still needed some impetus to make him—
"Oh, fuck," Loona suddenly said as she sat back up. She nearly laughed too as she gave the male Imp a withering look, adopting a melodramatic doomsayer's tone of voice where appropriate as she continued speaking. "You're one of those 'something's gone wrong in Heaven'/'the system's gonna break down' nut cases, aren't you?" She answered her own question with a snort. "Of course you are."
Millie face-palmed herself, angry at Loona for wasting all her effort, as her husband looked up from the bow's scope with n indignant expression on his face.
"Look, I'm open to the possibility is all, okay? It would be crazy not to be given how things are these days. You only have to look out a window to see that."
Millie frowned but still nodded as she had to concede her husband's point. It wasn't so frequent a thing this far out in Imp City, but the occasional distraction would fall screaming past their window while they trying to hold a meeting in the conference room, not to mention the shuttered store whose upstairs served as her and Moxxie's love nest. That being said, it was much preferable to the Pentagram, where an almost constant stream of freshly dead souls descended across the horizon as they arrived in Hell's Pride Ring, the portion of the infernal realm that long ago had been designated the final destination for the lesser portion of mankind.
Once, that had meant little more than the scum of the earth. Whether they'd lived their whole lives like that or only the last few days, perhaps just hours, of their allotted time in a burst of hatred, avarice, violence, or some permutation of the above, followed closely by those whose karma was tainted by cowardice, apathy, or falsehood. In either event, they'd wasted their potential by defining themselves by their selfishness, behaving as if they were the only ones who truly mattered, and now had to pay the price. Left with no one but those like themselves to visit upon – alternatively as practitioner or victim as chance allowed – the same wicked behavior as they'd subjected their fellow mortals to in life for the remainder of eternity. Or until someone "upstairs" had a better idea for what to do with them.
It had been that way for millennia, the Pride Ring slowly expanding as its population grew by the hundreds, later thousands, each year as humanity's population slowly grew, its unrepentant percentage resulting in higher numbers of Sinners as well. Then, out of the blue (or red, rather), that had changed about fifty years ago. Without any sign or warning, the daily trickle suddenly became outright rain, as it now seemed that it wasn't just the immoral and/or criminal element of mankind, but virtually everyone who died was dumped down here. Millie had never done it herself, but she'd been told that from a good lookout point in Pentagram City one could see hundreds of new Sinners falling from the sky in any direction at any time of the day or night. And considering how much the Pride Ring had expanded over the past few decades, that was saying something.
For her part, Loona just continued to sit on the couch, freeing up her phone hand to make a talking mouth gesture until Moxxie stopped speaking. "Oh, B.F.D. if it is! What difference does it make to us? We're all Hellborn in here. We were never mortals like those dim bulbs Da—Blitz is talking to now!"
As she said this last part, Loona nodded towards a nearby shut door, which held a large panel of wire mesh safety glass that had a sheet of paper taped onto it. It was the entrance to the private office of their mutual employer – and Loona's ill-accepted adoptive father – Blitzo, currently in an interview with what was hopefully their latest set of customers, as denoted by "Meeting in progress" being scribbled across the sheet of paper. Hopefully, he wasn't putting his foot in his mouth at the moment, which was something Blitzo had gotten better about with the string of people seeking the company's services in the past month. But they all knew that you should never underestimate the ex-circus Imp's ability to be a walking deal breaker.
"Would you like me to explain the math," Moxxie answered with an air of snark, as being reasonable with Loona never worked out anyway, "or should I just sit back and wait for you to see what happens when food and resources start getting hard to come by? Really hard?"
At that, Millie again thought of the ramifications caused by the deluge of Sinners. It went back to before her time, but she did know that the changes to the Pride Ring had been reflected in the other levels of Hell. Specifically, the Wrath Ring... and what little difference it had made. In addition to being the birthplace of the Imps, the lower circle's agrarian environment also allowed it to serve as Hell's major food supplier. Just like the Pride Ring, it had expanded wildly to meet growing demands, but only geographically. There was no commensurate—
("'Commensurate'? Hah! What was that about me not learnin' my three R's now, Miz Sawtooth, you ornery old bitch?!")
—rise in the Imp population, so there were never enough farmhands to operate all of it. As an example, there was her parents' farm, the Rough 'n' Tumbleweed Ranch, which had grown by about a hundred acres in just the past few years alone... and most of it was lying fallow. She suspected that Imp City in all its ramshackle glory had been designed to pressure the Pride Ring's Imp community to return to their home circle to fix that problem at least, but if so, it had limited success.
The result was that a lot of the new additional land was unused, a problem shared by most of the farms whether they dealt in crops, grain, etc. The only ones who were able to make use of these changes were those who raised cattle and other livestock, which were herded to the makeshift pastures of these unrefined areas to feed on the undergrowth. But this was leading to an entirely different set of problems as – much like the so-called "cattle barons" of the living world – they were steadily becoming annoyed with having to pay the landowners' rent for the privilege.
"You want really hard? Then go sit on a dick, Moxxie," was Loona's well-thought rebuttal, having grown tired of the exchange. At least, it seemed like that until her lips pulled back into an ugly smirk. "Of course, I can't see there being all that much of a demand for you, Fatty, if we do find ourselves having to go the extra mile to eat. Maybe I should be telling that to your wi—"
*click* *schhwaff* *whack* *funn-nnn-nng*
Millie had glanced away just for a moment, seeking to pull out a small battleaxe she concealed on her person to deal with the overgrown delinquent, and that had proven to be enough time for her to miss everything. Her first thought after she looked back up was that some odd magic trick had happened, as the photo had suddenly gone from Loona's hand, held just inches from her face, to tacked to the wall by a cross bolt, its shaft still vibrating from the impact. For her part, Loona was experiencing a rather similar feeling, tainted however by a sense of shock and fright as first her eyes then her head swiveled to find the missing item. After a beat, they both turned their attention to Moxxie, who was still holding the crossbow, one-handed, from when he'd fired it from the hip. He then shouldered it, but a very tired and unamused glare on his face remained.
"Since you've got all the answers, you can figure out for yourself whether or not I missed just now."
That was enough to return a frown to the Hellhound's face as she got up to her feet, her back arched in anger. She proceeded to stomp over to the desk then stopped, the twitch of an eyebrow all the sign of confusion she gave as she just stood there, staring daggers at the Imp. Millie was rather surprised herself as, instead of ducking behind her or trying to aim the now-empty crossbow at Loona, her normally timid husband continued to just stand there, adopting a posture that dared the all too easily angered receptionist to make the next move.
Before their staring contest could give way to violence, both broke it off as the door to Blitzo's office flew open, coming to rest against the adjacent wall with a bang. The impact caused a table parked just inches outside the arc of the door's movement to wobble dangerously, threatening the sea life within the over-sized aquarium it carried, but remained standing. Moxxie took a relaxing breath at that; he'd been researching unagi recipes ever since Blitzo had bought the eels to spruce up the office, fully expecting their boss to inevitably give them to him and Millie in lieu of payment during the next lean period. That didn't mean he looked forward to cleaning up any mess made with them, though.
All of which escaped said employer's attention as the self-declared fearless leader of I.M.P. popped out of his office, followed by a pair of Sinner demons who made a far less dramatic entrance.
"Guys! I want you to meet our newest clients, the Psyche-y family... Tuh-K.O. and Kayak-oh."
"Saeki," the male half of the two visitors grunted in response, while his apparent wife all but winced at the mention of the word "family".
"Yeah, that, uh-huh," the tall, lanky Imp casually snarked back, albeit without the same venom in his tone had he been trading barbs with Moxxie. Obviously, he was wary of starting anything with the much larger male Sinner, who possessed an intimidating appearance, but not a familiar one.
The Sinner's Hellform had adopted many of the standard aspects of a male onryō. None of the Imps or Loona were familiar with Japanese culture enough to know this, although his love of the theater did cause Moxxie to silently compare his appearance to that of a demented kabuki actor. This was not inaccurate, as his skin was waxen as to be almost white with some bluish tinge to it, while his hair looked unwashed in spite of efforts to maintain it, leaving it unkempt and stringy. His clothes hadn't been exchanged for a traditional burial kimono, but were now bleached white except for random splotches of blood staining it here and there. And while his figure was not particularly heavily built in appearance, his "resting scowl face" was garrulous enough now that he had a short but thick pair of horns growing from his brow, along with a pair of tusk-like incisors that jutted out from his lower lip. In all, a photograph of him could successfully be used as a visual "Do not touch" sign.
Continuing on as if the interruption never happened, Blitzo explained the married couple's request as he nonchalantly walked over to the wall above the couch and plucked at an arrow shaft, causing it to make a twang sound as it vibrated. "Apparently, the local Sheriff of Nottingham held a surprise game of bullet-tag in their part of town a few weeks ago, and so Ozzie and Harriet here want us to go up top and return the favor."
"Ah... another one," Moxxie muttered as the announcement of Japanese names and the basic description of why they were dead and who they blamed having become rather familiar. He stopped himself from rolling his eyes, but still managed to shoot his boss a knowing look. "You could at least come up with new material, sir. Maintaining this charade would be easier if you'd stop using essentially the same dialogue over and over."
Blitzo frowned back in return but, before he could shoot off his mouth and spoil the deal, the female Sinner spoke up. "Oh, you have done this sort of thing before?" she asked Moxxie, who was surprised to be the center of attention. Not helping was that she said so with such hope in her eyes, it made him feel guilty for the con artists that I.M.P. had turned into. Nevertheless, the bowtie-sporting Imp put up his best front as he turned to the mournful-looking woman.
This described the expression that shown on her face, but only at the moment, as it did not appear her face was frozen in such an expression such as with her husband. In fact, her Hellform held no indicators of how she died, what sins she was being punished for, nor even some odd disfigurement made from some pet peeve or fear blended into her appearance, and instead almost entirely recreated the configuration of her mortal body. Such was the chief identifying quality of a Shader, or "grey demon", among what was called the second generation of Sinners ever since the upheaval in Hell's population growth.
The important word being "almost," as she was not entirely lacking in differences between her old body and her current one, just that they were limited to cosmetic changes such as the color of her eyes, skin, hair, etc. The result was something rather close to an inversion from what they had been in life (many Shaders made comparisons to how they looked in film negatives due to this), and possibly some dimorphism in height and weight. A typical example who had become rather publicly known in recent months thanks to the gossip columns was a female Sinner often seen in the company of Lucifer's daughter. She was a lithe young woman who was just a tad short with an almost floor-length mane of stark white hair and skin that was a grey hue, but otherwise indistinguishable from a living human. Even the loss of an eye, implied by an ever-present patch, while in life had somehow translated over into her Hellform.
"Yup, we've done this exact thing, and we'll probably do it a few more times," Millie sounded off as she draped her arm over her husband's shoulders with an air of confidence. Moxxie smiled a little bit at the double meaning of her words even as Blitzo's eye twitched at the unexpected rebellion.
"Indeed, madam," he said as he began to do the same, although he started with a sympathetic tone towards their current patron. "As a member of the Immediately Murder Professionals, I can honestly say that you may consider you and your husband's commission to be as good as already fulfilled." He ended that with a smile as well as low, knowing chuckle as he could practically feel his boss's blood pressure skyrocket from across the room.
Catching none of this, the woman smiled in return and gave Moxxie a low bow which he practically fell down trying to return. Millie did the same after giving them a questioning look, being unfamiliar with the gesture. Blitzo just raised an eyebrow at this and shrugged. He wanted to crack a joke about who they were presenting their asses to, but wisely decided against it, as "Gomez" had shown off how humorless he was back in his office. "Ethnic cleansing victims can be so sensitive..."
For his part, the husband merely grunted again, albeit with an affirmative-sounding one quite unlike what Moxxie had learned to expect from his father-in-law. "Some good news, finally. My country is lost, my identity has been lost, my life was lost, and even my son Toshio has been lost. That gaijin tyrant should lose something of his too, for once. A son for a son sounds fair to me."
The two married Imps looked away in embarrassment at that, and Moxxie thought he caught Blitzo looking a tad self-conscious too for a moment as whatever constituted his paternal instincts were nudged. One thing that hadn't changed was that children were evidently still considered blameless by the powers that be and given a free pass on Hell, albeit with the exception of the occasional prepubescent psychopath. Assuming there wasn't something about this Toshio that neither parent was aware of or willing to admit, then their kid had gone upstairs to Heaven, and was therefore separated from his parents forever.
Well, Heaven preferably, but there was a second option that Moxxie had been thinking of just a few minutes ago. "Probably best not to offer that up, though," he decided.
"Well, don't you worry, T.K.O.," Blitzo started up again merrily. "The next time you see us, we'll have a nice high grade photo of Prince Blondie crying for his own mommy that you can frame on the wall or get some wallet-sized copies of... for a modest additional fee, of course. Sounds good, huh? Yeah, it does to me too. See ya!"
Their boss blurted all of that out as he practically hustled the two Sinners out the entrance door, which he did not entirely refrain from slamming shut after them, before turning around with an almost hateful glower directed at them.
"What the fuck was that, you two?" he demanded.
"What was what, sir?" Moxxie responded as his wife stifled a giggle.
"Don't play dumb! I've way too much experience to not know the difference," Blitzo spat as he tried to stomp across the room, a problem considering how little he weighed. "Between the two of you, we might as well have said, 'Oh, the prince? We already killed him a month ago, so you can keep your money.'" He then stopped as his body briefly contorted, as if trying to stifle an explosion building up within him, before starting again. "We're finally getting steady cash flow in here, which the last time I checked was a good thing. But you, Moxxie – you of all people, with all your complaining about how the company just does squeak by week after week – are coming damn close to ruining it!"
In response, Millie made a dismissive *pfft* sound, clearly unmoved by their boss's argument. "It's not like we can rely on this forever, Blitz. Sooner or later, people who got caught up in that same massacre are gonna meet up and talk to each other. And when that happens, eventually there'll be someone who hired us already who will talk about having the so-and-so responsible killed, and then work from that will dry up anyway. Plus, I'm starting to feel a bit rusty without any real work to do lately."
That last bit was more of a half-truth tied to their lack of actual activity related to their contracts lately. With fewer visits to Earth, Millie had been building a lot of pent up energy that had to go somewhere. And while normally her Moxxie had no complaints about being the recipient of her undivided ardor, she was becoming rightfully concerned that she might get carried away one night and break him in half if she didn't find some other avenue of sublimation before long.
Blitzo frowned at the co-worker he was far more hesitant to crap on as she made a rather salient point. But that didn't entirely stop him from snorting at them as he thought up a rebuke.
"Would have thought you'd welcome pumping all the milk we could get out of this golden café, Mills, after you got laid up during it," he said, getting his Biblical reference screwed up. This was followed by a leer and a wink as he continued in more cheerful voice, "Plus, the last time I checked on you crazy kids, it looked like seeing Moxxie go all primeval on those assholes was still putting you in the mood to get your own stress tested."
The combination of flippant attitude, his inappropriate language at his wife, and indication that Blitzo had been spying on them at home yet again caused another frown on Moxxie's face, but only for a moment as he felt a chill go up his back. It always did as memories came back of the day when they'd executed the original contract to kill a member of the mortal royal class named Clovis...
The client at the time was another "second gen" Sinner who'd died from cancer. Prior to that, his daughter had tried desperately to get him signed up for an aggressive treatment regimen that was experimental, going so far as to prostitute herself to a certain privileged popinjay in exchange for him using his influence. Instead, she'd been cast off without another word after Clovis was through with her, leaving the young woman shamed and her father up a certain creek without a paddle, albeit a short creek in his case. With the fifth year anniversary of that tragedy looming, an appropriate enough time to fulfill the contract, I.M.P. had opened a magic portal which, as usual, brought them to the living world within spitting distance of their would-be victim's locale. Unusually, however, this meant they found themselves in the middle of a very one-sided war zone.
The screaming people, the stench of blood, gunpowder, and burning flesh in the air, debris flying from explosions, cries for mercy that went unanswered as unstoppable armored figures swarmed here and there, killing everyone in sight. Moxxie had never seen anything like that, not even in Hell, and hoped never to again. Especially after they'd gotten separated, and a lone soldier had been lucky enough to stumble across Millie. His luck ended just moments later, but not before he managed to catch her with his bayonet.
After a failed attempt to call Loona at the office for a quick rescue (something she still held against her), Millie had managed to get in touch with the rest of the team on her Hellphone, and led Blitzo and Moxxie to where she lay injured. Moxxie had seen red when they found her, an ironic turn of phrase considering all that followed appeared as a series of static grey images like old photographs whenever he tried to recall the details. A brief screaming and finger-pointing match with his boss. His own hands fiddling with a perfectly good rocket launcher some idiot had abandoned. A rather fancy-looking armored giant sent flying as a monstrous vehicle swerved and body-checked it. These and others were just flashes of memory that he was still trying to put in order along with the mixed bag of descriptions of what Blitzo and Millie had seen from a distance. If Imps were indeed bred once upon a time solely to torment Sinners in perpetuity, then his experience that day was proof that some racial memory still existed in his ink-like blood.
His memory only became clear again at the moment when he'd remembered to take evidence of the kill for the client, using his Hellphone's video app to catch the dying prince not so much cough out a lungful of blood but let it flow out of him with a final wheeze, pooling on the floor of the hallway he lied upon. With that done, the Imp had run to the control room of the juggernaut that had served as the prince's mobile palace, stepping over some of the dead bodies that littered it, before taking a running start as he jumped out of a shattered window and through a hole in the side of a building as the massive land-cruiser sluggishly rumbled past it. After staggering back up from his painful landing, he then made a mad dash back to where he'd left the others, and found an awaiting portal which returned him home to find Blitzo and his adopted daughter actually making a determined if still incompetent attempt to clean up Millie's wound.
The two of them had spent over a week on sick leave, or the closest that a company like theirs with a boss like Blitzo could imitate. Naturally, Millie had been waited upon hand and foot in every conceivable fashion by her adoring husband as she mended. For this and the memory of him going commando into enemy territory to singlehandedly bring down their target, Millie had proceeded to vigorously show her appreciation once she was able. After one last night of bed "rest", the two happily limped back into the office the next morning to find that Blitzo had stumbled upon a new, low-risk method for handling assignments... or one specific kind of assignment, at least.
In the time since then, they'd barely returned to Earth, only taking the odd job of settling the score that some dead idiot had with some living idiot just as before. But mostly they'd just been bilking victims of the dead prince by accepting the assignment, then calling them in after a day or two to show them screenshots taken from Moxxie's video footage with the date scrubbed out or altered. As Blitzo put it, "Hey, they're all paying us good money to go topside and kill Prince Chloe, and that's exactly what we've done, so how can it really be called a swindle, huh?"
"I doubt they would see it that way, sir," Moxxie mumbled as his thoughts returned to the present. He did concede his boss was right not do anything to clue in their customers for the here and now, though.
"Retard says what?"
"Pardon me, sir?"
For a moment, Blitzo broke into peals of laughter, pointing at the somewhat smaller Imp, before he realized that he'd messed up the joke. "Damn it, that's not how it goes, Moxxie! You're supposed to say 'what'!"
"Like you just did, Blitz?"
"Exactly! She gets it, Moxx, so it can't be that hard to—" Blitzo stopped as he gave the smiling Impette a disgusted look. His pout ended as Moxxie spoke up, if only for a moment.
"I was about to say you had a point about playing things cool, sir, but you can forget it now."
"Meh. Don't really live for your praise like you do mine, but I'll take it." Blitzo grasped his lapels and puffed out his chest as he adopted one of his typically smug looks. As if the word "adopted" had actually entered his mind, he then glanced around the office as his expression shifted to one of mild concern.
"Where's Loona?" he asked. The Saekis' brief talk about their family unit being broken up thanks to the commandment quibblers above had stirred some concerns in his fractured heart that he wanted to settle first.
"She snuck off to the break room while you were introducing your latest pair of marks, sir. Before that, we were almost having a discussion about the state of the Pentagram—"
Moxxie halted as a cry of "I can hear you jerks out there!" suddenly echoed from the other room. He then continued as if nothing had happened.
"—but evidently she's not interested in discussing C's World."
"Whoa! Number 1: points off for not just saying it, Moxxie. This is Hell, and no one gives two good shits about filthy language. And B: do not refer to Loonie using those terms!"
The two married Imps just looked at their buffoon of a boss in mutual disbelief and annoyance for a moment. Moxxie continued to do so as he just looked at him in eyebrow-raised confusion, while Millie just sucked in air before releasing it through her pair of all but imperceptible nasal slits that approximated an Imp's nose, calming herself.
"He said 'C's World', not 'c-word', Blitz, as in 'The World of C'. You know... Purgatory?" To underscore herself, she added that last part while making comically menacing gestures with her hands like a Halloween witch or a demented hypnotist.
"Also called the Asphodel Meadows by the ancient Greeks, Limbo, the Norse version of Hel with one 'L', the realm of Yomi in some sects of Japanese belief, although that's more of a metaphysical catch-all for departed souls," Moxxie said as rattled off various names applied to the "middle realm" between Heaven and Hell. A memory of a round table discussion show on TV then popped into his head, specifically that of a pundit, who was either a crow demon or just wearing an oversized "anti-plague" mask, discussing one possibility at length. "Also, psychiatrists figure it's kind of a manifestation of the collective unconscious that a mortal named Jung talked about, which you'd think is where we get the 'C' from, but some were already calling it that. I've wondered why that is but haven't actually looked for any literature that would explain—"
"Moxxie, shut up!" Blitzo blurted out as expected at Moxxie's Midoriya impersonation. "It could stand for 'closed recycling center' as far as I'm concerned, which is precisely what it is ever since the grand H.O.A. in the sky decided it wasn't worth the bother anymore of separating the paper and the tin cans when they can just dump everything in one landfill.
"Now, if you two don't mind – and even if you do, for all I care – I've got some important work. If Stolas calls asking if I'm gonna drop by for the book any time soon, just handle him the best you can." With that, he pulled a pastel-colored children's toy in the shape of a stylized horse from somewhere inside of his coat, his face instantly lighting up as he did so. Making childish trotting sounds, he then waved it in the air as he walked back into his office, the door closing behind him.
"Uh, do you think when he told us to handle Stolas in exchange for the book, do you think he meant for you and me to... you know?"
The intercom suddenly bleeped and a staticky version of the taller Imp's voice came out. "No!" it said in admonishment.
Punching the reply button, Millie responded cheerfully, "Well, we can try, Blitz!" Moxxie giggled at first, then shot his wife a questioning look as the ramifications hit him.
"That's not how the deal with him works, Mills. Plus, I'm pretty sure he'd kill Moxxie and then you'd be all grumpy. Now shut your mouth holes, both of you. This requires concentration." Sounds of more than one set of tiny plastic hooves then could be heard bouncing along his desktop as the speaker cut off.
Deciding he'd had enough excitement, Moxxie moved the crossbow from where he'd originally placed it on the desk into a drawer before plopping into the chair. He leaned back as he tried to let his mind settle, but the topic of his nonexistent discussion with Loona nevertheless played in his mind.
While not the best description, referring to the World of C as some kind of a processing center wasn't wrong, at least not as he understood it. It was – or rather had been – the arrival destination of souls departing Earth. From there, a place in Heaven or Hell was nominally the next step. For some, the choice of who belonged where was clear, resulting in some of Hell's older Sinners remembering only a brief flash of light as death claimed them before a bloodcurdling descent into the blasted and blistered landscape that was to be their home for the remainder of time. There was no one to ask, naturally, but the souls on the other end of the spectrum presumably had the same to say about what they experienced just before finding themselves outside a set of filigreed gates. That was how it went for those who squarely fell into the categories of either the honorable and the redeemed, or the wicked and the corrupt.
But what of those who were more ambivalent, the people whose lives when weighed did not so obviously fall on either side, but instead more or less balanced out? For them, C's World served as a massive waiting room as they were assessed and analyzed, eventually either going up or going down. That is, if one trusted their luck and went for that, for the World of C, as its status in the odd culture as being the basis for Purgatory and the like indicated, also carried the option of souls remaining there, forming communities not unlike what they had experienced when they were alive. And of course, you could always take that ultimate roll of the dice and choose to be reincarnated, risking a more easily defined afterlife with the rewards and punishments of another mortal existence.
But now, those mortals who'd once fallen into that grey area – hence their nickname as "Shaders" – now fell even further automatically. No recounting at all of some midway point, just the moment of death and then a manifestation in the Pride Ring for every last tinker, tailor, soldier, and sailor just as sure as any murderer, rapist, scumbag, and prick who talked on their phone during the movie. As a result, the Pride Ring's population was now growing by the millions every year, likely to meet or even surpass the total population of Earth itself within the next century.
And it really shouldn't be, at least not to Moxxie's way of thinking. Not if there was still any real intent for Hell to serve as some kind of ethereal penal colony for those too destructive or too fixated on their own crap to be allowed into Heaven or sent back to Earth. But the lion's share of this new generation of Sinners, and he'd talked to many of them over the years – people on the bus, people waiting in lines, even a few small business owners – didn't seem like they carried anything special that required such condemnation.
That wasn't to say they were without sin, of course, but their earthly "crimes" added up to little more than what would result in perhaps some fines and maybe disapproving looks from their peers if they became public knowledge while alive. Have you cheated on a test? Rolled through a stop sign? Borrowed something without stopping to ask first? Had the occasional daydream about getting even with an old school bully or having sex with a celebrity or fantasy figure? Grumbled about someone's bad driving on the highway? Lied to spare someone's feelings? And that's not counting those whose "sins" only happened because they were at the wrong place at the wrong time, and only peripherally connected to some misdeed if one analyzed the situation objectively.
As a matter of fact, Moxxie knew the Shader who operated a deli at the Hellevated train station that connected Imp City with the Pentagram. As far as he could tell, he was sent down here for "murder" after a drunk driver had crashed into him, flipping his car over a guard rail and sent it tumbling down a hill, squashing some poor bastard who'd been passing by along the way. Ironically, the guy had later bumped into his "victim", whose final thought had been to worry if the guy in the car was going to be all right or not.
Now, technically speaking all of these were violations of the "Top 10 List" as most Sinners derisively called them, along with the other, more esoteric rules handed down from above. And if viewed solely by themselves without any consideration for context, than one would quickly surmise that humanity was a failed species, any one of whom was on the same level as a serial killer with a hidden collection of his victims' eyeballs kept in a jar of formaldehyde.
And Moxxie just couldn't see it that way, not unless all of the people he talked to had been lying to him and downplaying how they'd lived. But no, they had just been people... everyday, normal people. They hadn't all strode out into the world to set it on fire with saintly acts of charity and self-sacrifice, but had just lived their lives as best as they could. They'd been part of their respective society, trying to look out for themselves and their own without ill intent towards others, and actually been helpful or at least considerate when they could as the opportunity presented itself. They may not have been good people in some classical sense of the word, but they'd been all right.
But apparently that wasn't good enough, not anymore. The fact that maintaining moral purity is fundamentally impossible wasn't good enough anymore. That in a vastly interconnected world, where everyone in some way at some time benefited from some level of exploitation of another, often not even aware of it, wasn't good enough anymore. And for this, virtually the entire human race was now fated for damnation, all for the crime of not being able to coexist in peace and equality with all life on their planet at all times. Of not always living up their ideals, and having complex and often paradoxical traits. Of not being perfect. Of being, at the end of the day, only human.
Hardly what one would consider the level-headed reaction by the all-knowing forces of light, order, truth, and justice in the universe. So what was the fucking deal?
Well, you of course had those who banged their fists on the table and howled that the Almighty – or whatever deities or vague elemental force that one chose to believe ran the show – was showing His true colors now. There were a lot like that.
A lot.
But once you got past them, you found that for most the general opinion was that it was all a case of, while the doctor was away, the orderlies had been left in charge of the hospital... or asylum, as it was. That the Angels were doing what they assumed was best after being left to manage, and one could imagine they each had their own ideas about right and wrong and how to address it. The presence of His Infernal Majesty in the Pride Ring as well as the other Seven Deadly Sins was proof enough of how that could go awry... not that many would say such out loud.
That of course opened up the question of how this could have happened, which was a more daunting question. The artsy philosophy class types claimed that perhaps God literally was dead, although that utterance was more a part of their uniform than something they had come up with after much discussion and deliberation, so no one paid attention to them other than to call them know-it-all douchebags. Everyone else who bothered to actually think about it had their own theory.
Moxxie had a theory, albeit an irreverent one. He'd somehow gotten into his mind that the Triumvirate – the divine three-in-one responsible for Earth and its connected metaphysical realms – was stuck at some convention for cosmic entities and manifestations of abstract concepts that was taking forever, literally. An ironic scenario of ultimate tedium being subjected upon the most powerful and influential in all of reality.
Of course, that was the "funny" theory Moxxie liked to tell himself, as speculation about where this was all headed was no laughing matter. How much longer could the Pride Ring handle an unending surfeit of fallen souls? Was it all a prelude to Hell itself being closed down? If so, what did that mean for those already here? A massive second chance somewhere, or something just as dismissive as what had become the new normal?
Moxxie shivered as one terrifying option occurred. While it had been centuries since they'd last been seen in use, he did know that Heaven's armies were equipped with weapons forged from some "divine" metal that were supposed to erase a being entirely from existence. Such weapons built in great amounts would result in a scenario not that different from what he'd experienced on the remains of the earthly kingdom known as Japan. Only now with the streets and buildings jam-packed with millions of defenseless beings rather than the scarcely inhabited ruins, the foolishly brave wiped out first leaving the rest to scream and beg for their lives as unfeeling hordes of—
The Imp closed his eyes and crossed his arms over his face as he took deep breaths, letting them out as he tried to get his emotions under control. To stave off the panic attack that had been lying in wait in the dark corners of his mind ever since he'd received that phone call from his wife.
He didn't realize that said wife had slipped onto his lap until he felt one of her hands combing through his hair, the calming gesture causing him to open his eyes and find her sitting practically nose to nose with him, a concerned look on her face.
"What's going on in there, sugar?" she asked, patting his head. "You look a million miles away."
He wrapped his arms around her as she snuggled in closer, her presence lifting away some of the weight he'd been feeling. Taking another breath, he decided not to vent all his worries onto her – not now, as it wasn't the time and place – but perhaps some thoughts and concerns that were more palpable.
"Millie, I think that maybe... we should call it a day where I.M.P. is concerned. Maybe this revenge-for-hire gig has played itself out, and now's a good a time as any to move on to what's next. Quit while we're ahead, you know?"
"You don't mean going independent again, do you, hon?" Millie asked with a doubtful frown. "Things were getting kind of rough before we met Blitz and..."
"Oh, no. No, no, no," he said reassuringly, remembering those lean days too. "There are other options. I read where the royal princess is building some kind of big housing project; it could be in need of a security detail." At least he assumed that's what it was, as the article just repeated some scant comments that Princess Charlotte was working on revolutionary ideas to alleviate the Pentagram's ever-burgeoning population, before going into coarse speculation about her private life.
Millie rubbed the underside of her chin in thought as she considered the idea. "Steady work and a government paycheck? Sounds nice... and we could build up a nest egg for later." She returned her attention to her husband with a questioning look. "Didn't you want to open up a fix-it shop some day? Satan knows nobody starves who knows how to put shit back together again."
The last part she said with a roll of the eyes, as they both knew all too well how often Pentagram City's more temperamental residents needed some appliance of theirs fixed after a heated moment. And with Millie by his side as his personal "collection agency", there was little worry of someone welching on payment. Not anyone smart, at any rate.
However, the repair shop was just something he'd idly speculated once during his and Millie's independent days, and he was surprised she remembered it. But was that really how he wanted to exercise his talents, by fixing other people's mistakes, likely multiple times? It didn't take more than a second or two for him to conclude that no, he did not.
Moxxie was in many ways a peculiarity among his fellow Imps, a prime example being that he would prefer to create rather than destroy. He loved to make beautiful things, with his brain, his hands, even his voice. And while this rarely lined his pockets, his failed yet fondly remembered stab at the theater being an example, it still remained there. He had just as many similarities as differences with other Imps, hence his ability to direct this creative instinct into weapons maintenance, along with a not absent panache for killing, but there it was.
As he considered the idea of having the power to build as well as to break, a glimmer of an idea took root in the Imp's mind. Within moments, inspiration struck him, and he sat up a little straighter, a twinkle appearing in his eye as he did so. It was a look that didn't escape his wife's notice.
"What?" she whispered, her tone underlined with anticipation...
"Millie, what would you think of going back home?"
...only to slump in her husband's lap. This "brainstorm" was a surprise, as it was the last thing she would have expected from him, but at the same time was ironically not worth writing home about. The doubt on her face was plain to see as Moxxie's next words were to ask her to hear him out.
"What I said earlier about food production falling behind... it's because of a lack of manpower, right? Plus, most in the Wrath Ring would rather work with their own two hands instead of using farming machinery."
Millie nodded at that. It was true enough, though her parents and siblings still on the ranch at least used simple ploughs, wheelbarrows, and hand tools. It wasn't like they dug furrows with just their hands, not even using a hoe. But things like seed drills, terragators, and even tractors? They wouldn't even discuss it. And it wasn't a matter of money (not entirely, anyway), but rather their pride as traditionally a warrior culture despite their agrarian practices. And she reiterated as much to Moxxie.
"True, but what if they can be eased into the idea of mechanized farming? Start with something that, like themselves, was born for battle but can also till the soil just as easily. They can't really object to something that can get an entire acre ready for planting in under an hour, then turn around and make, I don't know, some rustlers wish their grandparents had never met, hmmm?"
The gears in Millie's head started turning with that, and after a minute her eyes lit up like a pinball machine as her imagination skipped ahead to where her husband's train of thought was going.
"Moxxie, you're talking about those—" She pointed upwards for a moment, then mimicked the stilted arm movements that even in Hell were recognized as the fighting moves of a Rock 'Em-Sock 'Em Robots game. "—with the fucking roller skates?"
"I've talked to 2nd generation Sinners and they're called Knightframes, apparently," he said, by way of answering her.
Millie sat back on her husband's lap, leaning against the armrest as she gave his proposition some thought. "It could work," she decided. "Just one could pull a plough or a tiller further and longer than any oxen could, and just as easily wield a sword the size of a barn door or a shooting iron with ammo the size of beer bottles. That alone could win Daddy over. Shit, the biggest risk would be him insisting I dump Moxxie and run off with it."
"Okay, I'm listening," she said cautiously. "But first things first: how do we get them to the Wrath Ring from up there?"
Moxxie frowned a bit and propped his head up on his hand as a list of all the "buts" formed in his head, trying to think of a solution for them. "The best case scenario would be to just steal blueprints and then build them here... except for the fact that even these days Pentagram City's industrial manufacturing sector is kind of deplorable. It might be able to build the heavy duty parts along with the pins and gears and so forth, while we steal the more delicate components from Earth."
"Uh, yeah, but even then, consider the amount of money that it would take to get it started. If we had that much, we'd be able to just retire now and either move into our own private dungeon in the Lust Ring or buy a yacht and sail the ocean in Envy for the rest of our lives. Seems to me that the easiest thing would be to just go steal a couple what already been built and ready to go."
It didn't take much thought to see that Millie's worries about financing were accurate. "That's true. Besides, we need to know if there's a market before we dedicate too much time and effort. A single working model with all its bells and whistles to show off should be enough to see if the idea will sink or swim."
Taking into consideration all the steps necessary to pull off such a heist, Millie tapped her chin in thought again before saying, "We've never made a portal big enough to drive one through before, but that doesn't mean that we can't. We just need to look through the book's options." Her eyes lit up as another possibility occurred. "Or we open up a portal underneath one that's just big enough for it to drop through. That wouldn't have to be much bigger than the portals we use now." She said that last bit with a shrug of her shoulders.
"And it's not the end if we can't do that. With enough time, we can pass all the parts from, say, a motor pool or an assembly line through a normal-sized one, then reassemble it here."
"Do you think you can do that, Moxx?"
"Get me those blueprints, and I should after awhile. If this gets off the ground, we would need to know how they're put together for maintenance anyway. So we might as well snatch that, too, if we can find a copy."
Moxxie said that with a rare air of self-assurance born of past experience. He knew his engineering skills weren't enough that he could call himself an inventor like that cobra demon that kept trying to break into the ranks of the Overlord class. And he certainly wasn't a scientist like that crazed fish demon he'd fled from a job interview with once. But he was a skilled enough tinkerer that, with time and a good set of schematics, he'd proven able to not only maintain but at times build just about anything from scratch. And while the walking tanks that occasionally still thundered through his dreams posed a daunting task, in the long run he felt sure he could master them as well.
"Look at you," Millie suddenly said, her eyes giving him a sly look as she rearranged herself on the seat, taking a kneeling stance with her legs on either side of Moxxie's own. "Making plans, going over all the steps, thinking of our future. You're earning high marks in the field of husbandry today, Mox-Mox."
Choosing to ignore that that wasn't what "husbandry" meant, Moxxie just smiled back, all the stress he'd accumulated in the past few minutes now dissipating. It was a pleasant, calming feeling that caused him to overlook that his wife now slowly sliding down off of him down towards the floor right in front of his chair.
"Oooh, high marks, huh? And what grade am I getting, professor?"
"Well, I do believe you earned yourself..." Millie stopped for a moment as she drummed her fingers along an armrest and looked upwards as if in thought. She then cracked a wide grin as she answered:
"A."
Moxxie had crossed his arms behind his head and was resting against them with his eyes closed, totally missing that his wife was again sliding off of him. "Well, it pays to study..." he began, feeling rather pleased with himself.
"B."
His eyes suddenly sprang open in surprise along with an audible "Huh?" What could he have done in the last second to have cost him points? He looked towards Millie to ask her just that, only to see her now crouched on the floor, smiling up at him from in-between his knees.
"J."
"Millie?" he began with a raised eyebrow. He was about to start into how he was confused about suddenly losing points, followed by pointing out that letter grades didn't go down that far. Luckily, before he could get another word in edgewise, Millie exposed the pull tab on his pants zipper with a flick of her tongue. She then hooked it with the clawed tip of a finger before she began to tantalizingly pull it down, spearing him with a lascivious look in the process.
"Oh," was all he said, realization dawning on him as he went over the last three things his wife had said. "I've heard about this kind of thing, but usually this part happens before being graded."
The two of them giggled at this, but a moment later both of them were flinching. Moxxie did so upon remembering that they were at work of all places, and what the ramifications might be if either Blitzo or Loona caught them. Millie, on the other hand, did so as she'd finished opening the front of her mate's trousers and barely moved her head back in time to avoid getting poked in the eye.
The (obviously) male Imp wanted to remind his wife of the likely consequences of PDA in the workplace, especially this workplace, but quickly found himself having difficulty forming proper sentences as Millie's mouth enveloped him. So he just sat there, holding the armrests in a death grip and quietly stuttering out semi-coherent sounds while thoughts of their coworkers walking in on them continued to interfere with his pleasure.
Said thoughts were proving to be of benefit to him, he was forced to admit, as they were proving better than doing mental quadratic equations for holding off an orgasm. An exercise he needed especially as Millie's ministrations briefly turned into a deep, lingering kiss that would have been the envy of any Succubus. Biting his lower lip, Moxxie doubled down on trying to keep his reflexive physical impulses in check, even as the voices of paranoia in his mind found themselves at war with a welcoming party for the prospect that his beloved angel of death was going to suck out his life force via his urethra.
Millie, for her part, had returned to, er, what she'd been doing before as her husband's stifled gasps rang musically in her ears. She moaned quietly herself as she reached up and clawed at/massaged his chest with one hand while she used the other to keep herself steady, grasping his thigh. She wasn't in the right position to easily reach behind and fondle his buttocks, but this did just as well as she could feel his pulse quicken, her hand resting atop his femoral artery.
"Oh, Satan... nearly... there..." he thought with equal parts dread and relief just as—
"Eeeee!"
*BLAM BLAM* *rata-tat-a-tat-a-tatat* *thump* *ka-thump*
Millie jumped up from the floor, too shocked to notice she'd nicked the underside of Moxxie's glans with her teeth a little as she did so. Moxxie did notice, of course, but that elicited no more than a stifled "Gah!" as the echo from gunfire erupting outside in the hallway took priority.
But not so much priority that he didn't know he had barely seconds before their coworkers would come running. Indeed, at that very moment he clearly heard a scream from his boss's office. "Oh, god-fucking-dammit!"
Moxxie twirled the chair around and away from either room's entrance as he got up gingerly, only to see that despite his wife's unintentional help, a certain body part stubbornly remained perpendicular to the rest of him.
"Quick, Moxxie! Think of something!" he told himself as he tried to do calming breaths. "Uh... those shoggoth-looking triplets the producer insisted I hire as chorus girls. The way that creepy kid's body kept twitching, even after we cut it up and dumped it back on Earth. Those little homemade figurines of us that I found while emptying Blitz's wastebasket, along with the used tissues. That time I was about to leave the grocery store when I heard the butcher tell someone that I'd just gotten the last of the fresh pork cutlets, so I turned around and it was the goddamn RADIO DE—!"
Moxxie grit his teeth and managed to reduce the high-pitched squeal hissing out of him to an extended grunt. The change from rock hard to wilted and retracting was so sudden that it actually kind of hurt. Not the worst pain he'd ever felt, but it was certainly unpleasant all the same. Carefully stuffing himself the rest of the way back inside and zipping his pants up, he then almost hopped on one leg around the desk and back to Millie. By then, she'd realized what she'd accidentally done to him and assumed her husband's pained movements were connected.
"I'll make it up to you tonight," she whispered as she helped him stand up straight. "'Kiss it and make it better', y'know?"
Even though that's kind of what got him hurt to begin with, Moxxie nevertheless gave her a tired smile and a thumb's up. Why mess up a good thing?
"Hey, Thing 1 and Thing 2," Loona barked as she chose then to emerge from the break room, plucking out her earbuds along the way. "Did you hear that too or was I imagin—?" She stopped, sniffed the air, and gave them a disgusted look. "Eeewwwww! I eat, drink, and occasionally sleep in here, okay?"
Moxxie's response, asking her if she ever worked here too, was cut off by Blitzo's door being kicked open with a bang, causing the surprised Imp to jump into his wife's arms as a result. Once again, the door threatened the stability of the eel tank, but Loona grabbed and steadied it with an annoyed huff. All of this escaped the taller Imp's attention as he stormed into the reception room. Tossing over his shoulder a stethoscope he'd been using, he snapped his fingers against both ears, muttering "Testing, testing" to himself until he was satisfied that his hearing was okay.
"Just as shit was getting good, am I right?" he grumbled as if he was the one who'd been blocked, although that didn't stop his face from then splitting into an undeserved grin as he poked Moxxie with an elbow. Getting serious, he then demanded to know from his assembled employees whether they'd been engaging in gunplay just now. The result was simultaneous responses of outrage and denial:
"You still tell me I'm too young to use a gun, Blitz! I gotta use my claws and teeth like I'm some kind of animal!"
"I was doing something that I never mix guns with. Well, not since that accident, anyway."
"At the time, sir, if I was going to be using my hands, it would have been to applaud, as I'm sure you know already!"
"All right, all right!' he exclaimed in return, holding his hands up in an insincere placating gesture. "Baphomet's ball sack, people, it was a – what's the word? – rhetoriculous question!"
"I would hope so, Blitz. All of what we heard came from outside in the hallway, probably by the elevator. There was a scream, then a pair of single shots, followed by a burst of automatic fire, then two bodies hitting the floor."
Millie stopped counting off the sequence of events on her fingers as realization of who those two bodies likely belonged to hit her. Someone had just shot their clients, the Saekis. Also, even for Hell, random gunfire in their building was a rarity. Well, outside of their office, it was.
And she wasn't alone. Apprehensively, each of them took a second to think of reasons for a shooting inside the building, and Moxxie was first to voice his suspicion.
"Oh, Satan, how overdue are we on the rent now?"
After a moment's thought, Blitzo waved a hand dismissively at the idea. "Nah, it can't be that."
"You sure?" Millie asked with a raised eyebrow.
"Always," he answered proudly before giving an actual reason for his confidence. "When the money started rolling in, second or third thing I did was get ahead on our lease. We're paid up through..." – he stopped to do some quick mental math, counting on his fingers as he did so – "...oh, the next five months. Give or take."
Blitzo said that all rather matter-of-factly, as if it was something he did regularly, like breathe or pester Moxxie. He didn't understand why the room was suddenly dead silent. Nor the three sets of eyes all staring at him in confusion with looks that asked the same thing. While there was some worry over what he'd spent the company's profits on first, the foremost question on their minds was "Who are you and where's the real Blitz?"
"What?!" he exclaimed at them, throwing his hands up in the air in exasperation.
Ignoring his employer's for once reasonable tantrum, Moxxie thought back to last week's round of paperwork, finally turning to his wife about something he'd noticed. "So that's why the latest bill for office space hasn't come in."
"Since when do you handle that? Aren't you just the... wait, what do you do around here, again?"
Moxxie frowned in response, Loona's ignorance of the company's distribution of tasks almost as annoying as if she'd just been sarcastic about his place in the pecking order as usual. "I'm the weapons technician and, yes, my sole task is weapons maintenance, officially. However" – and he stopped to shoot dubious looks at both her and her adoptive father – "I have had to shoulder most of the administrative work around here. Which has not been reflected in my paycheck, I might add."
"And don't you doubt for a second that your charitable contribution to the workplace isn't appreciated, Moxx," Blitzo responded smoothly with a shit-eating grin.
For his part, Moxxie held his temper, adopting only a half-squint glare, but not his sarcasm as he spat out in return, "Oh, there's no doubt whatsoever, sir."
As this exchange was going on, Millie thought about her own experiences dealing with the building's management. Fortunately, she reached a conclusion just in time to cut off the brewing argument between her husband and their boss. Of the two of them, her assumption caused a greater response from the latter.
"Well, that about explains it. I just thought the landlord was avoiding us because of what I did the last time he threatened to toss us all out if I didn't give him a handsie in the janitor's closet."
"What the fuck?! Mills, are you saying there's supposed to be a janitor somewhere around this dump?"
A more subdued reaction came off of Loona, who'd returned to her Hellphone, and was halfway through texting about Blitzo's odd behavior when she heard that.
"He tried that shit with you too, huh?" she asked before shaking her head with a tsk.
Unlike his dear Loonie's unwilling chew toy, who was disturbed but knew his Millie well enough to know the responsible parties would have been severely punished for their audacity, Blitzo's jaw swung open upon learning of his daughter's solicitation. It snapped back shut as he returned to form, the murderous scowl on his face more than enough to stop anyone from pointing out his own history of offering patrons the option to forego cash in exchange for, ahem, "favors" as payment.
"M'n'M, get 'Archduke Pud-in-hand' on the phone!" he snarled as he made a beeline towards the door. "Tell him I'm going to do to the dickhead in charge of this crap shack what not even he's willing to try out, and I will definitely need a 'get out of jail free' card from him when I'm done!"
Loona stopped fiddling on her phone again and actually whimpered at that declaration. She'd made the mistake of listening in on Prince Stolas's phone calls enough to know that had to be a very short list of some very sick shit. Reminding herself of how "subtle" the little puke who ran this place had been to her not so long ago, however, she decided to let things run their course before returning to her messages.
"Sir!" Moxxie yelled as he stuck an imploring hand out, hoping for once that being the voice of reason would work. "We haven't confirmed that it was the building supervisor we heard. All we do know is that it's someone armed!"
His face switching from enraged to cautious instantly, Blitzo looked down at the doorknob he was about to twist and pull, now looking at it like a hand grenade with the pin half-pulled out, and backed away. As he did so, the resulting quiet allowed them to notice a series of heavy footsteps coming down the hallway, approaching their door rather quickly. Most certainly not the Imp who occasionally swept the hallways before raising the rent, the assembled assassins concluded.
In moments, the armed party in the hallway reached I.M.P.'s office, the footsteps coming to an abrupt halt just outside the door, and then... gave a businesslike knock on the door. Blitzo was taken aback by how anticlimactic this was, but only for a moment as he jumped back to the center of the room, where he began straightening out his clothes. All while not-quite whispering at the others, "Places, you assholes, places!"
As their boss did his best to look professional, Moxxie returned to standing behind the desk, placing his hand in what he thought looked best like a nonchalant manner by the intercom buttons, while Millie took up a position beside a potted plant that had seen better days. Either forgetting her instructions for this kind of scenario (but more likely just not caring), Loona simply flopped back onto the couch, yanked one of the photos off of the wall, and returned to casually holding it up while keeping an eye on her phone's screen like before. Sparing them each a brief glance, although without giving any of them a sign of either approval or criticism, Blitzo then put on his best car dealership smile before clearly responding in his most welcoming tone of voice, "Entrée!"
Forcing down the urge to give his employer a disbelieving sideways glance, as he chose to view it as a simple pronunciation error that anyone could make, Moxxie did nothing but straighten up and adopt an inviting smile of his own as the door swung open. The smile then immediately dropped from his face…
"Oh, crumbs."
...as in marched a pair of Sinners, both dressed in a familiar military uniform, although the color of the one pulling up the rear was slightly faded in comparison to the still-rich maroon of the leader. As if to match his second-class uniform, he was one of your typical misshapen-but-in-a-standard-way Sinners that demons from the past couple of years might describe as looking like a deranged Muppet or a "cantina scene alien", whatever that meant. The only thing about him that caught the eye was the short-barreled automatic rifle he held in a manner that was not threatening but communicated that that could easily change. Instead, it was the one in the lead who drew attention. This wasn't just because of the haughty manner he carried himself with, nor his uniform which looked fairly-well maintained down to its buttons which still shone and the black capelet worn to the side. No, it was his Hellform... it was distinctive, telling a short story on how he died.
As mentioned before, traditionally Sinners were cursed with post-earthly bodies that mainly reflected in some way how their lives had been misspent, or held some indication of how they ended, resulting in what would have been considered misshapen freaks in the living world. This one was little different, for while he more or less maintained his living form's appearance, it was now in a dilapidated shape that his uniform did little to hide. Indeed, the state of his exposed hands and the way his uniform hung on him in places indicated that he was very gaunt even as he continued to stand straight and tall, moving with forceful purpose.
But what really made the difference was the status of his head, which was not unlike the recipient of a gunshot or a small explosion in an old cartoon. His hair was shocked straight into thin spikes and tilted at a diagonal angle away from the apparent entry point, and his face was now entirely black. This didn't mean he was featureless, though. His eyes were bloodshot but still visible, and when seen in profile, his nose was plainly still there, as was a short goatee on his chin. Otherwise his face looked like a blank black slate without visible pores, contours, or lips.
That is except for a large hole in his right cheek, plainly representative of the shot that had ended his life, through which the rows of his teeth and gum line were visible. He would unconsciously scratch and rub at the blast hole with a finger, causing char in what remained of a sideburn on that side to fall loose like soot. All of this gave him the appearance of a burnt zombie, and whatever the circumstances of his death, there was clearly more to it than a mouthful of hot lead following a despondent "Well, now I've seen everything" directed at the fourth wall.
The indicators weren't just visual as Moxxie picked up a whiff of cordite in the air, like tobacco fumes off a habitual smoker but worse. And he wasn't the only one as, looking over her shoulder in apparent curiosity of the smell, Loona ran her eyes over their guests, resting a little longer on the one in an officer's uniform. Her face remained neutral as ever as she returned to her texting, but a muttered "Yikes" from her said it all.
"Yes, it's always exciting to meet brand new, soon-to-be-more-than-satisfied clients, eh, Loonie?" Blitzo quickly spat out, covering for the Hellhound even as he for once gave her a warning look. Sliding up the gunpowder-encrusted ghoul, he then offered a hand as he launched into his spiel. "Welcome to the home office of I.M.P., where I 'm P-resident Blitz." After softly chuckling at his own "joke", he finished by asking, "And just who is it that we can 'reach out and crush somebody' for you today, hmmm?"
During all of this, the man evidently in charge had given their reception area the once over and, as inscrutable as his face was, it was plain from his stance and look in his eyes that he was frowning. He frowned even more (probably) as he looked down at Blitzo's outstretched hand. Pointedly ignoring it, he removed the cap from his head, the hair beneath springing up as he did so, and tucked it under his arm before speaking.
"I am Major Alexander G. Pechorin of His Highness Prince Clovis's royal guard," he announced officiously, his tongue, teeth, and inside of his mouth seemingly appearing out of nowhere on his face as he spoke. As he did so, he wiped at some imaginary dust or something on his uniform, as if Blitzo's proximity alone dirtied him.
Warning bells that already went off in Moxxie's mind when the two Sinners had entered were now joined by mental images of voltage dials slamming into the red zone. He remembered that uniform from the Clovis job, as well as the symbol – a golden spearhead with curved lugs on the sides – etched on his capelet, but had hoped that it was a standardized uniform and therefore the two intruders were unconnected to that fiasco. But now? He didn't take the risk of tipping them off by looking directly at Millie, but he was positioned so that he could see her out of the corner of his eye. Thankfully, other than to narrow her eyes, she hadn't reacted at all to the members of the same military unit that had nearly killed her, and remained by the plant in plain view.
Whether or not Blitzo also remembered seeing that uniform was harded to tell as he delved into his regular antics. "Sounds like it was a sweet gig, admiral. How long did you last?"
Moxxie pinched the bridge of his nose as their unwanted guests visibly started at this.
"We laid down our lives in the service of our liege and our empire, in the pursuit of bringing civilization and order to the world, and you would dare make light of our deaths?!"
Finishing the yawn he'd begun to mime three syllables into the major's rant, Blitzo then looked up at him impatiently. "Well, that is why you're here, isn't it? You got snuffed with your boots on and now you need some lowly civilian pukes like us to settle unfinished business for you. Or are you just moving into one of the offices and wanted to say 'hi' to the neighbors?"
Moxxie's frown counted for about ten percent of the heated looks Blitzo was receiving, but it was more over his failure to keep to their plan for when "surprises at the door" happened than how the two Sinners were being treated. Under different circumstances, he would have sat back and for once enjoyed his boss's antics toward people who were being pushy. And there were few pushier than the dead souls who, in life, had been highflyers in the ranks of the military and social circles of a kingdom known as Britannia.
While most Sinners – either traditional or "grey" – would more or less give up on their old cultural differences and grievances in exchange for finding some may to make a living in Hell, whether they were just looking out themselves or forming functional communities, there were still quite a few who would hold on to their old cultural or ideological pride, and the related prejudices, even after decades. They often drew together or formed alliances with the like-minded to form communities that seemed more like military camps, with seized buildings that were made into improvised fortresses while armed guards or spit-and-bailing wire barricades blocked out the rest of the Pride Ring.
They often vied for supplies, territory, and influence from surrounding districts, whether it was just neighborhoods trying to defend themselves from being overrun or rival communes of like-minded Sinners holding onto their earthly ways of life. As a result, they were the main source for the periodic bursts of regional violence and urban warfare that still continued in Pentagram City other than some Overlords (or Overlord wannabes). And while there were plenty of extreme groups from here and there all around the world, and from across time to boot, that were dependably troublesome, the resolute Britannians had been just about the worst in recent memory.
This Pechorin fellow was showing all the signs of being an ideal representative of this behavior. Which made it confusing when the man, who looked to be on the cusp of punching Blitzo out, took a deep inhale of breath, apparently counted to ten, and swallowed his pride as he let it back out. "You are... not wrong about that," he half-mumbled, crossing his arms over his chest defensively.
Blitzo raised an eyebrow himself at that, but just as quickly mentally hand-waved it. "All right then. Let's go talk privately" – he nodded towards the still open door to his office, then jerked a thumb at the major's subordinate – "while my staff keeps Sgt. Lou John over there occupied."
Moxxie opened his mouth to correct his boss's pronunciation, but then stopped himself, surprised that his boss was evidently aware of that cultural reference to begin with.
The half-burnt looking Sinner gave his underling a nod, then strode away with Blitzo right at his heels. Giving a look of his own to Millie and Moxxie, who for some reason was giving him a feint look of newfound respect, as he passed them by, he shut the door behind him.
And with that, the reception area was again silent.
The soldier with the rifle – none of them could tell if he was a sergeant as Blitzo presumed and wasn't exactly lining up to ask him – remained standing by the main entrance. If he felt half as self-conscious as Moxxie did, he showed no signs of it as he basically stood guard there.
More silence.
Moxxie cast a look towards Loona, and soon Millie joined him. She, however, made her annoyance more apparent as she crossed her arms and her eyes narrowed at her. One of the Imps politely coughed without a reaction. For a minute, it seemed like the Hellhound was just going to ignore them, until—
"Hey, if you want something to do, Fatty over there was practicing his aim with a crossbow." Loona then knocked against the wall with its assortment of arrowhead puncture holes and improvised targets with a knuckle as she said so. "Feel free to blow off some steam while you wait."
The soldier just looked at her, clearly unimpressed, but then froze. Looking down at the whorishly-dressed wolf-like woman had caused him to just barely notice something about the potted plant. The hilt of a gun was sticking up from the dry mulch packed into it, easily within reach of the not-much-better-dressed she-devil who, he now considered, was projecting a bit too of a laid back air in her stance.
"No, thank you," he responded at last, patting his carbine in indication that he had something better than a crossbow for stress relief. "But I always enjoy a good aquarium."
Walking across the room, his presence forced the horned dwarf to move away from the potted plant, distress clearly written on her face. Edging around him, she moved what she must have assumed was a safe distance from him. For his part, he stood almost sideways by the fish tank, which he now saw was filled with eels of all things, making a show of looking at them while he actually kept his eye on I.M.P.'s so-called employees.
He did find himself now lingering on the humanoid dog lounging on the beaten up old sofa, though. Her tattered clothes, attitude, and selection of hair style and adornments said two words: "gutter trash". But it was shapely gutter trash with toned limbs, a trim waist (where her grey fur turned white over her flat belly), and a full breasts that, if the contours where her shirt was pulled taut indicated anything, were pierced. All in all, a tough cookie that could take some rough treatment if and when—
"Hey."
His eyes shot up to her face, expecting to find her glaring daggers at him. But she wasn't even looking at him, so he quickly assumed she'd dialed her cellphone without him noticing and had started talking to someone.
"Take a picture," she said, proving him wrong as a slight growl entered her voice. "It'll last longer... and then so will you."
Across the room, Moxxie frowned slightly as he moved his hand just a bit closer to the intercom buttons. He then hazarded a look at Millie, who gave him a sly wink from where she was "nervously" standing, which just happened to be right beneath some ceiling tiles that had seen better days. In fact, despite some spray paint used to touch them up and make them look better, the dried out fiberboard would crumble like a stale cracker under very little weight.
Which was precisely what would happen if Moxxie double-pressed two of the buttons. A signal would then pass through wires spliced into the intercom up to a crane game-style mechanism hidden inside the crawlspace between floors, causing the claw to release its cargo onto the brittle ceiling. This would drop into his wife's waiting hands what she lovingly (albeit inelegantly) called "The Blender Set to Purée", with the power switched on and its ammo belt still firmly attached. Probably the most hard-to-come-by item in their arsenal, the "BSP" was a 5.56mm XM556 microgun, although in the hands of an Imp it looked more like the 20mm M134 minigun that it was based on. Able to fire 2,000 rounds per minute at least, it was easily able to cut most targets in half, the volley of bullets all but liquefying the area of impact in the process, hence Millie's mouthful of a nickname.
Blitzo had objected to taking it out of active duty, his main argument that it looked too cool not to use, even after they explained that the microgun was too unwieldy to take on most assignments. Plus, it was loud and would attract attention, which Prince Stolas had stipulated against in exchange for use of his spellbook. Their boss had only changed his tune after an ugly situation one day when a bill collector (i.e., a leg breaker) working for the Overlord Valentino had barged into the office. While at first it seemed this was over money their boss owed a prostitute from a few nights before—
("Now look here, tons of fun, I pay based on performance and hers was lacking!" Blitzo yelled while standing on his tippy-toes to poke the rhino demon in his stomach. "First off, I had to keep reminding that bitch to keep it down as my daughter was in the next room. Worse, even though I specifically requested a raspberry-scented [something Moxxie had blocked out] and she said that was fine, she brought lavender-scented instead! Lavender, dammit!")
—it turned out the goon was looking for a "party chat" telephone service that was late on its monthly dues. He proved completely deaf to any argument that he was at the wrong address and he should try the office complex at the other end of the street, dead set on leaving either with money that they didn't have or with both Loona and Millie. Everything turned out alright in the end, or at least it did for the staff of I.M.P. anyway, but to avoid such situations in the future, Blitzo conceded defeat and permitted Moxxie and Millie to set up an insurance policy against unwanted guests.
"And these Britannians do love to make themselves unwanted," he observed, judging from their general attitudes around the Pentagram towards "Negative Numbers" as they called most, as well as his own personal experience in the living world. It made him wonder how things were going with Blitzo, causing Moxxie to chance a look at the door to the office where his boss and their overly insistent new customer were talking.
As Moxxie did this, Millie similarly shot a worried glance at Loona, vaguely worried she may trigger a fight unnecessarily. Not that she'd object too harshly if events unfolded so they would have to take another quick spin over to the Cannibal Colony to drop off a couple hundred pounds worth of chunky-style "chili" to be disposed of.
Loona, for her part, kept her eyes locked on her Hellphone's screen as she either texted or satisfied her hourly social media fix.
As such, they paid him little mind as the soldier bent down and helpfully checked how stable the aquarium's position was, giving the legs and underside of the table a little shake. And they completely missed it when he affixed to it a small electronic bug he'd slipped into the palm of his hand.
Returning to his desk, which was partially illuminated by light coming in where possible from the venetian blinds covering the windows, Blitzo kicked up his legs and planted his feet on the desktop, crossed at the ankles in a display of how unimpressed he was with his guest's swagger. He frowned slightly as the militaristic burn victim in question failed to notice, and just looked around his office, taking it all in with a disapproving gleam in his eyes. With this, it wasn't much of a chore for him to decide to try to provoke a situation, as he had his own hidden weaponry to call upon.
Plus, he was feeling a vestigial sense of obligation to the married couple from earlier who likely had just relived their final moments on Earth thanks to this same Sinner and his muscle right outside. Oh, surely they were already in the process of regenerating, but it was the – "What's that thing Moxxie rambles about on occasion? Oh, yeah... 'Principle'." – of the matter.
But sadly he'd waited just a minute too long as the GSW Sinner (as the Imp chose to think of him) began to speak.
"Were you deliberately going for a 'film noir private eye' aesthetic, or did this just come about naturally from disorganization and lack of cleanliness?" The major said so with an unseen smirk as he hit a light switch, brightening the darkened office with its whirlwind arrangement of old circus posters, mail that consisted of unpaid bills and threatening letters, and just general clutter, before he strode over to the available seat for visitors.
"I have it on very good authority it makes for a grittily romantic ambiance," Blitzo shot back proudly even as he suppressed memories of what else Prince Stolas did the first time he popped in on him – literally – at work.
"Well, someone in the world has to, I suppose," Pechorin responded, his tone showing his indifference to exchanging quips. Indeed, his next words were "Now, to business..."
"To business!" Blitzo exclaimed, producing a whiskey tumbler from somewhere which he raised in celebration. He then proceeded to pour himself a few fingers of the suspicious-looking contents of an unlabeled bottle that had similarly materialized as if from nowhere in his other hand.
Feeling it was just as well that the fishhook-horned creature hadn't offered him a drink, the major explained through clenched teeth that he was not proposing a toast, but rather just wanted to get on with explaining the job he was there to offer Blitzo's company.
"Oh," was his response, although with a slight embarrassed look on his face. He then shrugged as he eyed the contents of his glass and the bottle. "Probably for the best, I suppose... I think this is my cologne, actually." He then took a sip from the tumbler, smacked his lips as he judged the taste of the liquid, and announced that, yes, it was indeed aftershave as he tossed the two glass containers in a random drawer.
"Now, what's the tea, Major League? You said you were the captain of the guard for some prince..." Blitzo smiled knowingly, as the possibility occurred to him that this could be yet another hit put out on Blondie the Bloodthirsty, just from an underling who'd bought it for a change. "You want some payback for him sending you and your cub scout troop into the meat grinder without backup or something?"
"WHAT?! No, you filthy little goblin! I am a loyal subject of the imperial crown, even in this wretched rat's nest of scum!" The major had jumped out of his chair and was looming over him, the offense plain on his face despite the blackened void it had become. It was enough that Blitzo forgot about his own "safety kit" and started feeling around for his emergency buttons on the underside of his desk instead.
But as quickly as it started, the tantrum was over. With a heavy sigh, Pechorin stepped back and fell into his chair wearily. He tapped his fingers on the armrests for a moment before starting again, Blitzo wisely keeping his mouth shut as he gathered his thoughts.
"Before I tell you, I need to know how honest your commercial is. You are willing to kill children, correct?"
Blitzo rolled his eyes in response, remembering the set of lyrics he attached to the jingle he'd gotten Moxxie to write after spiking his afternoon latte. It was less a sore topic for him because of the subject of pedicide, seeing as it meant a guaranteed golden ticket out of Hell for the victim unless they were messed up in the head, than it was due to the legal and professional demands it put on I.M.P. The bit about "Kids die for free" was really something he just added to tie the whole thing together, but occasionally a potential client would come in that expected them to honor it. Luckily, he'd gotten used to the unrealistic expectations this entailed and knew how to deal with it.
"Yes, and in the manner of your choosing if you have the dough. But..." He held up an index finger to cut off the nonexistence follow-up question that the major hadn't been about to ask. "...that offer is the stainless steel bottle opener you get free of charge when you order two more turnip twaddlers within five minutes of seeing the commercial. Meaning, you've got to pay us for killing someone, then we'll toss whichever jungle gym monkey it is you know of that's involved as a bonus. So don't expect us to hotwire a bulldozer and aim it at a daycare center for nothing but a 'job well done', got it?"
Maybe it was just because he wasn't looking at the right portion of his face that could still emote, but if the Sinner objected to such a scenario, then Blitzo wasn't picking up on it. But, contrary to what Moxxie thought, he remembered full well the shit storm they'd been dropped into and who looked to be the cause of it all. From that alone he could tell that this Sinner had definitely wound up where he belonged, and his underwhelming reaction only confirmed it.
"Nothing so base," he said, as if they were discussing what wine to order with a meal. "You see, I and my men were camped in Area 11, and—"
"'Scuse me... where again?"
"Area 11," he repeated, only to grow worried as Blitzo started looking at him like he was crazy.
"The crashed flying saucer place? You saying you got toe-tagged by a Martian?" This was said not in a mocking tone, as one would expect, but rather worried disbelief as the lanky Imp continued to eye him suspiciously.
"No, you stu—! Ugh, that's just some weird urban legend. Area 11 is..." He stopped to look around, as if expecting one of his superiors to magically pop into the room at that moment, before continuing in a hushed tone. "...the island-nation that used to be Japan. You know... sushi, geisha girls, big fat men in thongs as wrestlers." He then hummed a rather stereotypical tune that usually was the leitmotif for anything Chinese, but that was close enough in his opinion.
"Oh, yeah, I remember that now," Blitzo said after a moment of thought, then continued as if nothing had happened. "You were saying?"
Pechorin stopped for a moment to reconsider that his survey team may not have been exaggerating this creature's behavior after all before he spoke. "On the day my men and I died, we were supervising some... urban renewal, if you will..."
Sadly, this caused the Imp to interrupt yet again. "Uh, yeah, we're in Hell, Cap'n Bull's-eye. Nine out of ten, no one will care that you've carpet-bombed a refugee camp or whatever, so just say so. Fuck, you might even go up in their estimation."
"Fine," was the cross retort before Pechorin began again. "We'd been sent into one of the ghettoes surrounding the Tokyo Settlement. We were chasing terrorists with orders to execute any that we found, along with anyone who saw the sensitive material they had run off with. DON'T!"
This last word was blurted out as he noticed Blitzo's mouth break into a leering smile at his use of the phrase "sensitive material," cutting him off before the Imp could voice whatever rude remark he had in mind. Now pouting, he just waved a hand as a signal for the major to continue.
"Long story short, my men and I came across a witness, a Britannian schoolboy, who managed to give us the slip the first time we encountered him. And the second time that we ran into him... well..."
"Was also the last time, and that's how this..." – Blitzo gestured at the major's Hellform – "...happened, right?" Getting up from his desk, Blitzo did his best to sound conciliatory as he walked over to the entrance door, the Sinner turning in his seat to keep an eye on him as the Imp moved. "Well, I'm sorry to have to disappoint you, Peach-orange, but we had a guy come to us with this sort of thing before, and he was shit out of luck, too."
"How do you mean? Has someone come to you with this same mission?"
For just a moment, Blitzo's blood went cold as he thought the Sinner was speaking about their Prince Clovis con, and that he may have figured it out already. It then hit him what the major had actually meant, and so he turned around to better explain himself.
"This whole 'I was in Area One-One, and a school student got the better of me' thing? Yeah, almost a year ago, some guy who was supposed to have been a real life Monopoly mascot came here, asking us to hunt down some kid who'd chewed him up and spat him out in a chess game they'd wagered on, if you can believe it. Not only was he really humiliated by this, but apparently he needed every spare dime he had for, fuck, I don't know, some fat investment opportunity maybe? Anyway, he hit the bottle pretty hard after that, which did nothing for a bleeding ulcer he didn't know he had, and *boom* down he came."
Major Pechorin didn't see any connection to his own situation, but did find the story mildly compelling. Plus, apparently it had some effect on whether or not I.M.P. would accept his kill contract. Adopting a poise that suggested more interest than he actually felt, he asked the obvious question. "That is the service you offer, so what was the problem? Was he unable to pay your fee?"
"Oh, he could meet my fee... somehow." Blitzo wondered about that for just a moment but then waved his curiosity away. He'd never cared to know the source of his clients' cash before, so why start now? "Not that it should have mattered, according to him, because 'Kids die for free-ee-ee', remember? Anyway, the real problem was that he didn't have anything for us to go on that would help to find little Johnny Checkmate. Not only had he gotten hammered right after losing his shirt, but during the game he hadn't really paid attention to the kid, as he expected to win it as easy as pinching off a log, then make him do Satan knows what to pay him back. He's sure the kid introduced himself and he had a clear view of him at the time, but..." Blitzo then made a tossing motion away from his head, signifying the lack of memory.
He then snickered as he remembered one final piece of the story about the rolled bankroller's visit. "Crazy part is, on top of everything else, he honestly expected us to just go around wherever chess games were played, shooting anyone younger than twenty that happened to be there until we caught the right guy. Loona had fun tossing his ass out." He said the last part with a wistful look in his eye.
"You won't have trouble from me on that score, Mr. Blitz," the major responded, using the Imp's name for once, as he stood up again. "It... took awhile, I admit. Appearing here can be disorienting, not to mention the, er, particulars of how we died. But over time, our memories became clearer and, after comparing notes, we have a solid grasp of who did this to us, at least. Being in the military teaches you to pay attention to detail, of course, and I am always of sound mind while attending to my duties."
"Yeah, I use the time to think a lot too when I'm on the—oh, wait, you were talking about something else..." Trying to cover for himself with a cough, Blitzo then asked what he remembered of his supposed killer.
"Male Britannian, just a few years short of his majority, I'd say. Approximately five feet and ten inches tall. Thin but not scrawny... that makes him sound as if he were sickly."
"So... 'slim' I suppose would be the best word to describe him," Blitzo said, gesturing at himself.
The major gave a shrug in response, signifying that was good a term as any. He also frowned a bit, not that Blitzo could see it, as he took in the Imp's noodly frame, particularly the Popeye-like formation of his arms, hands, and forearms.
Continuing, he said, "Violet eyes, and blackish hair that was clearly not up to military regulations. I remember he even had to comb his bangs back from where they were nearly hanging over his eyes with his hand just before..." He went silent and Blitzo could guess what happened next. Well, the end results anyway, not the specific methods involved, of course.
"That helps things a bit, I suppose," Blitzo said, although he was actually thinking that narrowed the suspect list only so much. Fortunately, there was more.
"I recognized the boy's uniform, as did a few of my men, either from sight or from descriptions afterward. A military tunic-style jacket, all black with a closed collar, and decorated with golden trimming, particularly a stylized fleur-de-lis emblem. It belongs to a private boarding school run within the settlement and owned by a washed-up noble named Ashford, which we can assume he's attending under an assumed name."
By this time, Blitzo had pulled out a notepad and pencil from somewhere and was (badly) jotting all of this down, hoping it wouldn't set his new client off too much when he asked to go over some of the earlier details. "That's all right. Everything else will definitely help track the little bedsheet stain down," he said with a smirk. That changed to a questioning look that he directed at Pechorin again. "Now, you do remember what I said about the arrangements needed for getting the freebie, right? Is this Ashtray guy going to be the official target or something?"
"Or something," the major stated flatly. "I don't care how you rationalize it, just make it happen." After a beat, he then added, "You can, however, take your time..."
"Really?" The prospect of extending his fee with several visits to the living world, even if it was just one small area, provoked a greedy smile that Blitzo didn't even try to keep off his face.
"Oh, yes," the dead soldier said, clearly aware of what gears were turning in the Negative Number's head, but not caring. A tone of menace then entered his voice that would have made any Sin proud while his teeth appeared on his face in the form of a gnarled, vicious grin. "I want him to suffer before you kill him, understand? So, do your worst. Threaten him, vandalize his home, main and kill his friends, his loved ones, his... random acquaintances even. The girl running the checkout lane of his grocery store, a stranger that he stops to hold the door open for, whatever. I want him to wish for death before you make it so, and then regret that he'd made such a wish. He is a traitor you see, of the worst kind, and while he can pay for his crimes just once up there, down here... my men and I can spend the remainder of our time seeing he suffers a traitor's justice over and over again."
While neither would ever know it, both Pechorin and Blitzo silently thought that sounded just a tad theatrical. But that was intended, for as much as the major would honestly like to see that bastard dead and stuck down here, what really mattered was gathering intel. And for that, he needed I.M.P. to spend as much time going back and forth between worlds until they knew all of their secrets. Until they were ready to strike.
"And so, when the time is right, I command that Lelouch vi Britannia... die!"
END OF CHAPTER 1
