Hello everyone! I'm so happy that I have so many views for my first fanfic. Almost 100 (that's big for my standards). Anyway, here's chap.3, where Charon gets owned! Also, there's a big paragragh in the middle-end that's just the story of Orpheus, if you wanna skip it, go ahead, I won't hold it against you.
Chapter 3: Rocking the Boat
Just as the ground came into view, Lelouch quickly stabbed his scythe into the side of a cliff wall to slow his descent. When he was only a few feet from the ground, Lelouch took his scythe out and landed. "So this must be the first part of Hell."
"No not yet, you still have a bit more to go before you reach the first circle of Hell." Diethard said as he materialized out of thin air.
"Oh, hi Diethard, I thought you abandoned me."
"Forgive me Lelouch, but I'm just a shade and have no combat abilities."
"Very well then. You said that I'm not in the first circle of Hell yet, if so where am I?
"You are near the shores of the Acheron. It is across that river where the first circle, Limbo, is."
"How are you son knowledgeable in the structure of Hell, Diethard?"
"There are no such things as elevators in Hell, Lelouch. If you want to go from the bottom to the top, you're going to have a long walk ahead of you."
"You walked the whole way? Wait, how could you get to the gates if there's a river separating it from the rest of Hell?"
"I took the ferry, as will you if you want to pass."
"A ferry?"
"Yes, the ferryman, Charon, takes souls across the river to be judged and on few occasions, like mine, ferries them to the gates. Just be careful, Charon is an agent of Lucifer and knows very well what Lucifer commanded about your soul."
"I'll keep that in mind, but for now, could you tell me where the ferry is?" Lelouch asked as he looked around the place.
"Go to the bell tower, from there, you'll see where the boat is." Diethard said as he vanished.
"A bell tower, huh?" Lelouch said as he saw something similar to a bell off in the distance. "That must be it." Lelouch said as he sprinted towards the giant bell.
As soon as Lelouch got to the bell it started ringing, loudly. 'Ugh, my head!' Lelouch thought as he put his hands to his ears and shut his eyes. Lelouch stumbled around until he opened his eyes and saw he almost fell off. 'Guess this place really is a tower.' Lelouch thought as he saw a giant boat out a bit farther out.
The boat was massive, on the docks were hundreds of souls walking on to it, weeping at the same time. The ship seemed to be made out of wood with a red heat underneath it. The most noticeable feature though was the giant head at the bow of the ship, in place of eyes were two yellow flames. The head turned to look at the souls and it said "Though me, the way to the City of Woe. Through me, the way to everlasting pain. Woe to you, O Wicked Souls! Do not hope to ever see Paradise!" The head said before turning to face the front again.
"That's Charon." Diethard said appearing behind Lelouch as soon as the bell stopped ringing. As more and more people were sent to Hell, Charon was forced to expand his vessel for the requirement of increased room. However, it came at a price; Charon slowly started losing himself to his ferry, merging with it, you could say, until all that remains of him was his ahead. I suggest you hurry, when the bell stops ringing, it means that Charon is going to depart soon, and I don't think you would want to swim in the Acheron." Diethard said as a plume of fire shot out of the Acheron.
"Then I better hurry." Lelouch said as he jumped off the tower and onto the walkway below which led to the docks. However, with a loud stomp a tall, black creature landed in front of Lelouch's path. The creature was humanoid, albeit for the black skin, glowing red eyes, and goat like legs. It had two large horns on its forehead which curved backward and wore a loincloth, which covered part of the legs, which seemed to be made from human bones.
"Careful Lelouch." Diethard said, appearing behind him. "These are Guardian Demons, the third choir of fallen angels. They are the most common and weakest of the demons, but so far it's the strongest thing you've faced so far."
"Noted." Lelouch said as he unsheathed his scythe while the demon took out a large, curved sword. Lelouch turned the scythe into its sword form and rushed at the demon that did the same. The blades collided and sparks flew. Even though after becoming a soul, Lelouch's physical abilities shot up to inhuman levels, he still couldn't compete against the demon's raw strength. Eventually, the demon knocked Lelouch back, but before the demon could get a successful blow at him. Lelouch quickly shot a cross attack at the demon, stopping its current movements. 'Damn, these guys are tough and they're the weakest? Seems like my only advantage will be my long range attacks and my speed, but my cross attacks seem to only stun it, which means I'm going to need to be fast if I want to end this fast.' Lelouch thought as he saw that there were only a few more souls needing to board before Charon would leave. Lelouch bolted straight at the demon who lifted its sword to strike down on Lelouch, only for Lelouch to jump to the right, to behind the demon, and then jumped onto the demon's back, with one foot on its back and one on its head. Lelouch changed the sword back into a scythe and put the blade right beneath the demon's neck and pulled, but the demon's skin was very tough, making Lelouch have to pull very hard. The demon, trying to prevent its decapitation, grabbed the scythe blade and tried to pull it away from its head. However, in the end, Lelouch gave a good stomp to the demon's head, forcing it into the blade, decapitating it. "Good, that takes care of that." Lelouch said as he watched the body and the rolling head dissolve to ash as he turned around to see the final soul board and the boat start moving. "Crap! I need to hurry!" Lelouch said as he sprinted to the docks as fast as he could.
By the time Lelouch got to the docks though, the boat was wells away from the dock and an idea popped into the head of the frantic Lelouch. "This better work or I'm swimming the rest of the way!" Lelouch said as he took a few steps, ran, and jumped towards the direction of the boat, with Lelouch now over the Acheron River. Lelouch wasted no time and took out his scythe, which quickly became a spear, and shot it at the boat, praying it would hit. Luckily for Lelouch, though, the spear, while stretched to its upmost limits, pierced the boat and quickly turned back into a scythe, locking it in. 'Yes!' Lelouch thought as the scythe pulled him into the boat at an alarmingly fast speed. Lelouch pulled his legs up so his feet would be his impact point with the boat and when he crashed through, he saw a cylindrical prison with all the souls that boarded the boat locked up inside.
"Gods from above, I seek Eurydice!" a voice said. Lelouch looked next to him and saw a soul that was outside of the prison cells, squatting down with his hands over his head. "I only wanted to make sure she was following me!" The soul said.
"His name is Orpheus, a master of the lyre and son of Apollo." Diethard said, appearing next to Lelouch.
"Why is he here?" Lelouch asked.
"I don't know, but there have been souls that temporarily escape punishment. During this window of time, a being, who is neither an angel nor a demon, like you, can punish or absolve their sins if they have the right equipment, which you do. You can punish them by stabbing them with your scythe or absolve them by shining your cross on them.
"What did he do to be sent down to Hell?" Lelouch asked, wondering if he had it in him to decide the fate of Orpheus.
"He was a poet and a master of the lyre who played it beautifully. However, his wife, Eurydice, was killed by a snake bite after a satyr raped her. Orpheus journeyed to the Underworld, hoping to convince Hades to return her to Earth. He was able to get Cerberus, the watch dog of the Underworld to fall asleep with his lyre and then played a song for Hades to convince him to free his wife. While not moved, Hades' wife, Persephone, was and begged Hades to free her which he did on one condition: Orpheus must not looking back at Eurydice until he brings her out of the Underworld, to which Orpheus agreed to. However, just before they left the Underworld, Orpheus was worried Eurydice wasn't following him and turned back to check, and in a flash she vanished, gone in the Underworld forever. Orpheus was so depressed that he forgot his duty to worship the gods and was torn apart by maidens of Dionysus for not participating in their ritual of him. He's here because of his attempt to bring back those who are supposed to be dead." Diethard finished with a sigh as he looked at Orpheus in pity.
"Well then, guess I know what to do." Lelouch said as he took out his cross and shone it on Orpheus. A light shown from above and watched as Orpheus rose into it.
"Elysian, so beautiful." Those were the last things Orpheus said before vanishing into the light.
"Ready to continue?" Diethard asked with a smile.
"Yes." Lelouch said as he started climbing the prison to the opening he sees up above.
When Lelouch climbs out of the prison, he finds himself on the deck of the ship being greeted by ten Hell Minions, three Guardian Demons, and an Asterian Beast. The opening that Lelouch climbed out of then gets closed by a hatch. "Welcome, oh condemned soul!" Charon shouted as he turned his head slightly so one of his eyes sees Lelouch. "While I would like to give you a ride to your much deserved fate, Lucifer has told me to destroy you." Charon said as the minions began to run at Lelouch. Lelouch easily cut through the minions, but when the demons came, things got tricky. Unlike the minions, the demons had more intelligence, and showed somewhat teamwork. It also didn't help with the fact that the Asterian Beast was pounding at Lelouch when it got the chance.
'Damn, how am I supposed to fight three demons and a beast that can easily take out a platoon of Sutherlands?' Lelouch thought as he reminisced about his first bout with an Asterian Beast, when an idea pops into his head. 'Maybe I don't need to kill all of them, or at least, not directly.' Lelouch thought as he looked at the Beast Tamer. Lelouch sprinted towards the demon in front of the beast and jumped over him and onto the beast's head, surprising the Tamer. "What, surprised one of the world's greatest strategists caught you off guard? You must be dumber than I thought." Lelouch said before killing the Tamer by impaling him. Lelouch then stabbed his scythe into the beast, taking control of it. "Now then…" Lelouch began, looking at the three Guardian Demons. "Who wants to die first?" Lelouch said as the beast stomped on one of them, crushing them completely. "Hey, why are you running? The fun has just begun!" Lelouch said as a sadistic smile crept onto his face and the beast grabbed one of the two. "Maybe Hell isn't so bad, if I get to do stuff like this all day!" Lelouch exclaimed as the beast took a bite out of the demon, destroying it. "And then there was one…" Lelouch said as he had the beast walk slowly to the corner the demon got itself into. However, Lelouch had the beast a little bit away from the demon and at this moment the demon relaxed a bit…only to have the Asterian Beast breathe fire on the demon to the point of incineration while Lelouch just laughed his usual, crazy laugh.
Off on the other side of the boat, Diethard stood there with his camera staff recording everything. 'Maybe I should edit this part out.' Diethard thought as he cringed at Lelouch's maniacal laugh.
After Lelouch stopped laughing, he had the beast turn to face Charon's head. "Now… with those obstacles out of the way, I hope you understand the predicament you're in." Lelouch said as he realized the boat began to slow down.
"Fool! Soon reinforcements will be here and you will be destroyed. Lucifer will be pleased." Charon said confidently.
"If you say so, but it's such a shame you won't be here to greet them." Lelouch said as he directed the beast to Charon's head to which the beast grabbed it and began to pull on it, with the sounds of Charon roars of pain fill the air until the beast finally tore Charon's head off the ship. The beast then grabbed Charon by one of his eye sockets and hurled him into the abyss. "Hopefully, he crashed into those 'reinforcements' of his Lelouch said as he looked forward and saw that he would have to deal with more pressing matters at the moment for the boat was about to crash into a giant wall. "This isn't good." Lelouch said as he directed the beast to jump onto the wall and started climbing it right before the boat crashed into it, causing the wall to start collapsing. "Come on! Climb faster!" Lelouch said towards the beast as Lelouch saw that they were near the top. However, just as the beast was about to get onto solid ground, the piece of the wall the beast was on broke off. 'Oh, this is just great!' Lelouch thought as he took his scythe out of the beast and jumped off it. After jumping off the beast and other pieces of falling debris, Lelouch finally made it to the top. Just as Lelouch was about to relax, the whole platform began shaking. "Give me a break!" Lelouch exclaimed as he ran off the platform and onto the connected bridge only for the connected bridge to start falling apart. 'I don't think this is what Diethard meant when he said all of Hell was trying to kill me!' Lelouch thought as he saw the platform in front of him collapse, causing him to stop. Lelouch realized that the part of the bridge he was standing on was the only part that didn't collapse, but that quickly became false as the bridge piece began to fall down. Lelouch quickly shot out his scythe as it hooked onto a lantern. Lelouch, using his scythe like a rope, swung forward and onto a walkway. Lelouch looked up and saw a massive citadel. "Where am I?"
"You have come to the first circle of Hell, Limbo." Diethard said, giving Lelouch a face that made him understand that what just happened was only a taste of what's to come.
I'm sorry if some people thought I should punish Orpheus, but come on! He went all the way to the Underworld for his wife! I think he deserves to be absolved for that. Also, I won't include all of the Damned, and I'm going to primarily seperate the chapters by the circles, just for heads up.