Sorry this is late, but I wanted to see if anyone had a suggestion of a boss for Anger and waited until the last possible second. I'm still taking choices for Heresy, just remember, it can't be Lelouch's parents. Anyone else Lelouch hasn't slaughtered yet is good. No need to give description, just make a good choice, PM me the name and I'll give you credit in tomorrow's post for the idea.
Chapter 8: Warpath
Lelouch and Diethard continued upon the inky-black road when Lelouch asks. "Besides the obvious, what does one do to end up here?" Lelouch looked around and the black path led them to a dreary and swamp-like place, nothing like he thought anger would be like.
"Two kinds of people go here. One is the kind who suppressed their anger from the eyes of the public, the sullen. In the warm bath of the sun they were hateful, down here in the black sludge of the river Styx do they wish they had never been born." Diethard said pointing to the black gunk that flowed next to Lelouch and Diethard and Lelouch saw that there were souls in the Styx, fighting each other, pulling others down to try to get out, only for someone else to pull them back down. "The second type is the ones who expressed their anger in full glory, the wrathful. They fulfill their hatred by battling each other to oblivion on the shores of the Styx."
Lelouch was about to question this since he saw no one, but then he came upon what looked like a boxing ring with souls, as black as the Styx, screaming and yelling things like 'Rip his throat out!' 'Kill him!' and so forth. When Lelouch attempted to walk past them, one of the souls saw him and said "Hey, if you want to pass, you've gotta fight, no questions asked. In fact…" The soul cracked his knuckles "…I, Filippo Argenti, shall fight you!" Filippo said.
"That is Filippo Argenti, he was a very wrathful politician who never spent a thought on anything except hatred and violence." Diethard said, stepping back to allow the two fighters to brawl.
"You can't even hold a candle to me." Lelouch said.
"Oh really?! Well then, let us see-"Before Filippo could finish his sentence, Lelouch cut him in half right at the waist. Both of his halves fell down and turned to black ashes.
"Well then, let's-"Lelouch tried to finish his statement, but then all the other souls saw what happened and started to attack Lelouch. The ambush caught him slightly off guard and started to hack and slash at all the souls before him. He could hardly control himself, the more they attacked, the more Lelouch wanted to destroy them.
When the final soul was vanquished, Lelouch looked at Diethard for an explanation. "The circles of Hell have the power to bring out the worst of people depending on what they have in their soul. Seems like you have a lot of raged in you, but try to suppress it, so you'd go off into the Styx if you were sent here." Diethard said, trying to make a joke in his last statement, but felt like he screwed up.
To Diethard's surprise, Lelouch relaxed. "Which way to the next circle?" Lelouch asked as he put away his scythe.
Happy that Lelouch seems to have calmed down he responded "To get to the sixth circle, we need to make our way to the City of Dis, which lies near the end of the Styx."
"How are we supposed to get there? I mean, I love swimming in black goo filled with souls ready to tear you apart as much as the next hell-bent soul, but there should be a much more conventional method for transportation.
"Yes, you are referring to Phlegyas, the boatman of the Styx. He can take us across, but only if we get his attention." Diethard said and pointed with his camera-staff towards a tower with statues of men and woman, as tall as the tower, with looks of suffering out in the distance. "That is the Tower of Anger. Go there and light it. Then Phlegyas will surely dock at its shores.
"Got it." Lelouch said before running towards the tower.
After a little bit of running, what was really a few miles, but to Lelouch as he is now, it was quite easy, Lelouch finally reached the base of the tower; he noticed an odd contraption that looked like a platform lifter. 'I bet if I pull this switch, it will take me to the top.' Was what Lelouch was thinking when he pulled the switch on the contraption. The platform began to shake and Lelouch jumped onto it right before it started to move up.
"Doubt any enemies will get to me here." Lelouch said, thinking out loud. He then paused and face palmed himself. "Why'd I have to say that?" Lelouch asked himself as five creatures appeared before him. They looked human, but they had completely black skin albeit blotches of what looked like lava on their bodies.
"Careful Lelouch, these souls had too much anger in them and now their frail bodies can barely hold their explosive rage." Diethard whispered to Lelouch.
'Wait…frail + explosive…oh this won't be pretty.' Lelouch thought as one walked towards him, glowed red, and then exploded. Lelouch was able to jump back and avoid the blast, but he almost fell of the edge as a result. 'If only I could get them to detonate early without me being near them when they go off… wait, duh.' Lelouch thought as he shot cross bolts at the remaining four anger minions. One of them suddenly went red and exploded, knocking one off the platform and caused another one to explode, which caused the last one to explode. 'Chain reaction, nice.' Lelouch thought as the platform came to the top of the tower and stopped.
'Okay, the lever to turn this thing on is right… there!' Lelouch thought as he pulled the switch. The whole tower began to shake as lava began to spew from the mouths of the statues. Lelouch looked down and saw a circular boat with to ferryman on it stop by the shores of the tower. 'That must be the boat, but I don't see Phlegyas, weird.' Lelouch thought as he jumped off the tower and slowed his descent by stabbing his scythe into the side of the tower. When Lelouch reached the ground, he jumped off and walked onto the boat that, with a sudden jerk, started moving towards the City of Dis.
"Hey Diethard, I have a question." Lelouch asked, knowing that while he wasn't visible most of the time, Diethard was with Lelouch at all times.
"Yes, what is it?" Diethard asked, appearing next to Lelouch.
"To get to Limbo we crossed the Acheron, and now to get to the sixth circle, we're crossing the Styx, correct?"
"Yes, why do you ask this?"
"I just want to know, to appease my thirst for knowledge, how many rivers are there in Hell."
"Three rivers. Two we've already seen and the third is in the seventh circle that, like the Styx, is used as a method of punishment against the souls condemned there."
"Mind giving me some more information?"
Diethard chuckled. "I'll tell you more when we reach the end of the third river. Look, the city is drawing near."
Lelouch saw the boat come close to the edge of the other side of the Styx, which is not too far from the City, but a giant hand, that looked like it was made from cooled lava with still some lava in it and small spikes covering it, came out of the Styx and put itself on the shore and pushed the rest of its body up, a body that Lelouch just happened o on the top of, well on top of the head to be exact. Lelouch found the whole boat go into the air as a humanoid creature, whose physical features, besides the head having horns growing out sideways, were the same for the hand except for everything the waist down, which just looked like cooled lava, come out of the Styx. All the shaking caused Lelouch to fall off the boat/ top of the monster's head and into the Styx.
Lelouch braced for impact, but while he felt he hit something that wasn't anything liquid. Lelouch looked and saw he landed on top of a Pest, those flying creatures he had to deal with at the gates of Hell. "You… you're that Pest that flew me down to Hell." Lelouch recalled that the Pest flew off before Lelouch could thank it or, if it turned hostile, kill it. The Pest seemed to shake in excitement as Lelouch got his footing on top of the Pest. "Well, since you were once my enemy, but have now proven to be helpful, much like my false brother Rolo, I think I'll name you Rolo. How's that?" The Pest seemed to flap in agreement. "Alright then, Rolo, move onward!" Rolo started flying forward, but had to take evasive maneuvers as the lava beast's hand almost knocked them out of the sky.
'Phlegyas wasn't the ferryman of the boat; he was the ferryman and the boat!' Lelouch realized as Phlegyas roared at them. "Rolo, evasive action! Avoid Phlegyas at all costs and proceed to the City!" Lelouch commanded and Rolo obeyed. 'As easy to control as the other Rolo.' Lelouch thought as Rolo dodged the swats Phlegyas did with his hands.
However, no matter how fast Rolo flew, Phlegyas needed to take only one step to catch up with them. This time though, instead of swatting with his hands, Phlegyas breathed fire at them.
"Rolo, nose dive for ten seconds and then go back to this height!" Lelouch said and Rolo did just that and narrowly avoided being burnt to a crisp by the fire attack. After ten seconds, Phlegyas stopped breathing fire, just as Lelouch predicted, and Rolo went back to his original height, only for Rolo and Phlegyas to stop moving forward as Lelouch saw Lucifer holding C.C. by a chain.
"Ladies, gentleman, hell spawn! I welcome you to what will be known as the greatest day in Hell's history since my arrival here!" Lucifer said to hoards of his minions and demonic servants. "Soon I shall wed this…glorious prized." Lucifer said as he cupped his hand under C.C.'s chin right before he and C.C. vanished with Lucifer's laughter filling the air.
Rolo, then started feeling worried for Lelouch, well as worried as a creature of Hell could get, as Lelouch jumped from Rolo onto Phlegyas' head and then stabbed his scythe into him, taking control of Phlegyas like an Asterian Beast. "Rolo, you can leave now, I can do the rest from here." Lelouch said and Rolo knew better than to refuse as Rolo flew away, planning to meet Lelouch later.
Lelouch then had Phlegyas march up to the gates and smash them down. As the gates fell, Lelouch saw all the enemies he has fought before, minions, demons, Asterian Beasts, etc. all run away from him. Lelouch had Phlegyas continue into the city, having him destroy everything he comes across. Lelouch didn't care; he was pissed off at what he just saw. He was going to kill Lucifer even if it meant turning all of Hell inside-out in the process and Lelouch was already doing a good job at that.
Just as Lelouch got Phlegyas to the exit of the City of Dis so he could enter the sixth circle, Lucifer appeared before him. "Sorry Lelouch, but to let you have something as powerful as Phlegyas on your side just hardly seems fair to the readers of this fanfic who want to see you fight and struggle against tough opponents." Lucifer said, breaking the fourth wall in the process. A ball of blue flame then appeared in Lucifer's hand and shot it at Lelouch who was able to block with his scythe in time, but the knockback effect knocked him over the edge and into the abyss below the City of Dis.
Lelouch managed to recover in midair and stab his scythe into the cliff face as he fell and fell and fell until Lelouch finally reached solid ground. Diethard showed up in front of Lelouch. "Sorry you had to see that." Diethard said, referring to Lucifer's announcement.
"Doesn't matter, let's move on. What is the name of the sixth circle?" Lelouch asked, trying to take his mind off the recent events.
Diethard sighed and said "This here is the circle of Heresy, after this, you only need to go through two more circles before you make it to the circle where Lucifer's true body is."
"Excellent, let's get a move on then." Lelouch said as they entered the circle of pagans.
Like what I did with the whole Rolo thing? I liked it and if you noticed, Phlegyas didn't fall of the edge like he did in the game. I really didn't like Phlegyas falling and everything so I had just Lelouch fall off and while unsaid, or untyped to be specific, Phlegyas just went back to the Styx and continued his job as the ferryman. Also, could someone please vote in my pole for a sequel to this story? If you don't want one, just vote no, please, I have no one as have now.