I decided to stop at the beginning of the fifth pocket for some reason or another and threw in the Damned for Fraud in this chapter also. You;ll also get to hear more of Marianne's commentaries like Beatrice gives in the game, except the ones Lelouch's mother gives are a bit on a lighter note.
Chapter 13: Trick Play
Lelouch waited a few seconds before the elevator came to a stop, bringing him to the second pocket, or Malebolge as Diethard calls them. Lelouch stepped off and saw Diethard waiting for him next to a door with the Roman numeral II above it.
"The second Malebolge is that of the Flatterers. Here, the condemned souls are forced to stew in sewage and human waste, the same stuff that they said from their mouth while alive." Diethard said before he opened the door, letting Lelouch walk through. The place looked the same as the first Malebolge: an arena-sized platform with a bottomless abyss below that's filled with the screams of tortured souls.
"Welcome to the second Malebolge, son. To fuel, expand, and improve your army, the Black Knights, I wouldn't be surprised if you flattered your way through negotiations if you didn't geass them." Marianne's voice echoed as Lelouch walked onto the middle of the platform. Once he did, the door closed behind him and the path from the door to the platform vanished.
"Whatever you have for me, mother, I'm ready." Lelouch said as he pulled out his scythe.
"Oh, but it would be shocking if the son of Marianne the Flash wasn't prepared for anything." Marianne said as Lelouch was immediately surrounded by ten Unbaptized Babies.
Lelouch sighed but then steeled himself as he quickly cut the Baby in front of him in half. Another one tried to attack him from behind, but Lelouch turned around too fast of or the Baby to pull off a successful attack and got decapitated. Two Babies tried to do a pincer attack, but Lelouch turned his scythe into a spear and launched it at one of the Babies, skewering it. As Lelouch pulled the blade back, he used the recoil as an increase to his pivot speed and quickly turned around to see the Baby about to attack, but Lelouch pulled out his cross and stabbed it into the damned child before firing a cross blast, vaporizing the infant. Lelouch looked up and saw three Babies trying to get an aerial drop on him, but Lelouch, still looking at the three Unbaptized Babies, charged a cross attack, and when the Babies were almost at Lelouch's head, he fired, destroying two and severely weakening the third which Lelouch quickly slayed with his scythe. Lelouch turned to face the remaining three Babies, but found an amusing sight instead. One of the Babies was standing on top of another one, who was being stood on by another. Apparently they thought they'd win if they had more height, but one, they only went to Lelouch's neck in terms of maximum height, and two, they were moving incredibly slower than their potential speed going solo. Lelouch found the whole thing funny, but that didn't stop him from doing what he needed to do, no matter how badly he didn't want to. Lelouch, before the last three Unbaptized Babies could react, extended his scythe's staff's length and swung it down with incredible speed, cutting all three of them in half. As Lelouch mentally kicked himself in the head for doing it, the drawbridge came down, showing the next elevator.
'Another pocket awaits me and so does another battle.' Lelouch thought as he walked to the platform and pulled the lever. For two seconds, the elevator was descending smoothly, but Lelouch heard something snap and the elevator started to descend faster, or more like fall faster. Lelouch grabbed onto the lever to support himself, but the moment he saw the next floor he jumped for it and grabbed onto the ledge and pulled himself up as he heard a loud crash. 'This place really is a safety inspector's paradise, so many hazards, so little time.' Lelouch smiled at this thought and saw Diethard sitting on the ground next to the door.
"How is it that you always get here before me, I mean, you don't even follow me to the arena!" Lelouch exclaimed at Diethard.
"Being a shade can be quite useful for when one must travel across Hell or any of the three kingdoms for that matter." Diethard said with a victorious smile. "Anyway, now that you're here, let me explain this circle. This is the third Malebolge: Simony." Diethard said pointing with his thumb at the door with the Roman numeral III above it. "Here, the priests, bishops, cardinals, and popes that have committed the crime of simony suffer by being forever dunked in baptismal bathes while having their feet lit on fire."
"Ouch, burned." Lelouch joked as he opened the door to the next arena.
"Welcome to Simony, Lelouch. If memory serves me correctly, there are some emperors of the Not-so-Holy Brittanian Empire here. Not surprising really, but then again neither is this." Marianne said as three Hoarder/Wasters and five Hell Minions surrounded him.
'Well, since there aren't any kids here, I don't see any reason to feel remorse.' Lelouch thought as he rushed at one of the Minions and stabbed him in the head with his cross. Lelouch then turned around and shot his scythe-turned-spear at another Minion and fired five cross bolts at another one, destroying it, while his scythe was still recoiling his scythe. While the Minions were shocked at this sudden triple kill, the Hoarder/Wasters instantly took action, with one doing a spin attack while another two leapt at Lelouch. Lelouch jumped into the air with them and stabbed one of them with his scythe. Lelouch then through the hooked Hoarder/Waster into the other one as Lelouch spun his scythe around him in midair. When Lelouch stopped, he launched both Hoarder/Wasters at the third one that was still in the middle of its spin attack. The resulting collision caused the first Hoarder/Waster to get swatted away and over the edge by the spinning Hoarder/Waster and the second one crashed into the Hoarder/Waster's body instead of the mace and caused both of them to crash into the ground. Lelouch smirked at the aftermath of his actions and was nearly caught off guard by the two Minions that tried a sneak attack from behind, but Lelouch was able to block their attacks and pushed them off as he then proceeded to make quick work of them as that sneak attack was their first and only chance to damage and perhaps kill Lelouch.
As the last Minion fell to ashes as his severed head did the same, Lelouch turned around to see that one Hoarder/Waster still knocked out, but the other finally got up and, from the looks of it, is the one Lelouch threw the other two Hoarder/Wasters at. It then ran at Lelouch in a furious sprint, but Lelouch easily dodged and stabbed it in the backs and cut it in half or into threes really, since both torsos got separated from its one set of hips and legs. Lelouch then looked at the third Hoarder/Waster that was still knocked out and decided to have some fun. Lelouch sheathed his scythe and picked up the golden mace. Lelouch then held it like a golf club and shouted "Fore!" Before hitting the Hoarder/Waster with all his might, sending it far out and into the abyss to which Lelouch did the same with the mace.
Lelouch looked to see the drawbridge fall down as a single thought came to mind. 'Maybe I should take up golf after all this.' Lelouch shrugged off the idea as he pulled the elevator lever, prepared for if what happened .last time will happen this time. Thankfully, nothing bad happened when Lelouch reached the fourth Malebolge. However, the moment Lelouch stepped off the elevator-platform; he heard something snap and turned to see the elevator fall down with an annoying crash. 'Little too late for that one, mother.' Lelouch thought as he sweat dropped and turned to see another door with the Roman IV above it and Diethard standing next to the door.
"This Malebolge is for the Diviners, those who perceived into the future without God's consent. They must now walk with their heads turned backwards, never to see forward again." Diethard explained as Lelouch opened the doors to see a soul lying down on their stomach, but with its head facing up, seemingly unconscious.
"Who's this?" Lelouch asked, feeling like he was looking at road kill.
Diethard looked over Lelouch's shoulder before speaking "That is Tiresias. A man cursed by Hera and became a woman, but later Hera forgave her after a couple years and changed her back into a man. Later, he enraged Hera again who blinded him, but Zeus gave him the power to see into the future that, while encrypted most of the time, were always accurate."
"So he's in Hell for accurate visions?"
"Well, yeah, but diviners always go to Hell since it's a rule of thumb that diviners are deceivers as well."
"They really should pay more attention to which ones are real and which ones are fakes then." Lelouch said as he shined his cross on Tiresias and watched the rest of the body turned so it was normal as Tiresias rose up into the Heavens with a smile on his face before vanishing into light.
After all of that was over, Lelouch walked to the center of the arena and heard his mother's voice again. "Oh how I wish I could have seen the look on the faces of these fortune tellers if they looked into your future, would've been comedy gold." Lelouch then heard his mother chuckle as two Gluttons and a Pagan appeared in front of Lelouch.
'She's probably right.' Lelouch admitted in his thoughts as he pulled out his scythe to block a fireball attack from the Pagan. Lelouch then tried to get in close to take out the Pagan, but the both Gluttons did a vomit attack against Lelouch, forcing him to stop and jump back. 'Damn, with the Gluttons acting as the Pagan's bodyguards, it will be hard to kill him and with him out of the way, I could weaken the Gluttons with a cross bombardment and then go for the kill, but I guess I could always go the easy way, saves time too.' Lelouch thought as his conclusion led him to throwing his second Suicide Fruit at the group, but…a Glutton ate it. While Lelouch was surprised at how the Glutton actually ate a Fruit of Suicide, said Glutton began to shake uncontrollably. Lelouch, seeing this, moved as far back as he could and shielded his face right before the Glutton exploded in suicidal energy, compelling the Pagan and remaining Glutton to jump off the edge. Lelouch looked at where the Glutton was before it self-destructed and thought 'Hopefully I won't make a mistake that will turn me into a Suicide Bomb, hey that sounds like a technique, better take note of it then.' Lelouch thought as he walked across the just dropped drawbridge and pulled the lever. To Lelouch's surprise, nothing happened. He pulled again…nothing. Frustrated, Lelouch kept pulling the lever back and forth until it broke off.
"Oops, forgot to activate the elevator, sorry Lelouch." Marianne said as suddenly the elevator plummeted down at a rate that caused Lelouch to nearly hurl as he hit the floor as the platform came to a sudden stop. Lelouch got up and stumbled out of the elevator only to collapse and for Diethard to grab him.
"Is your mother always like that?" Diethard was compelled to ask.
"This is a new side to me." Lelouch responded, looking at the V that was engraved above the door to the fifth pit.
I felt the need to have a Glutton eat a Suicide Fruit because I always wondered what would happen so I gave myself the answer. Also, I'll try to put the other six pockets into the next chapter. If not, the tenth will start the chapter after the next. Another note, make sure you vote on my poll, I need responses to know to make a sequel or not.