Helluva President
A Halloween Crossover
October 31, 1920
It was a dark and stormy night in Saint Petersburg, the one night of the year when the veil between the mortal realm and the Rings of Hell grows thinner.
A casual observer taking a stroll in the cold Russian night might have mistaken the new Winter Palace for a ghastly, titanic skeleton rising toward the coal-black sky, for it was still in construction, much like the rest of the Empire was being rebuilt after the failed Bolshevik Revolution.
Has it really been only three years? Hard to believe, frankly.
...
In the bowls of the palace, in the dim light of a fireplace, the Tyrant who had escaped Death for the last two years faced Him at long last.
For it was a Him in fact; usually a Grim Reaper loses any semblance of his former humanity in the course of grueling centuries upon centuries of his cursed existence, until only a skeletal mask-like terror remains. Some have seen the Reaper as a beautiful young woman, with hair as black as Night, others are rumored to have seen a cloaked beast of some kind, or a man who could take the shape of beasts, like the wolf or the bat...
But this Reaper had only recently taken the mantle; it was still confident, hopeful even, that his humanity would endure.
He had been no ordinary man, after all.
...
"Ha! Do you know who you are talking to, Nicky?" Theodore Roosevelt asked, with some annoyance in his voice, having heard words of defiance from several other, equally stubborn men, including one who was a confidant to the Tzar years ago. And now they were all equally dead.
"I am Death itself."
"I do not fear death..." A voice as grave and cold as the Russian winter replied, "I have G..."
Before the faithful servant could utter the name of his wicked master, a portal opened, with purple shining edges brimming with magic.
"Gah! What in the..." the still inexperienced Reaper gasped, while the Tzar was too stunned to react.
Three short, thin figures walked through the portal, that quickly closed behind them.
...
They were red, spiky creatures with glowing yellow eyes, clawed fingers, hooves for feet and pointy horns and tails. One of them appeared to be a female.
"Sure as FUCK we are SO ready for our first regicide, so I hope you are ready to be REGICIDED!"
The tallest one boomed theatrically, his curved, black-and-white horns longer than the horns of the other two combined, part of his face bleached white as if by dark fire, and a pitch-black mark on his forehead. Anyone would have guessed he was the boss.
"AH YEAH" the female started "This is also our first job outside of the US! Now that Ah think of it, isn't it weird that we have been geographically constrained thus far..."
The other employee was not quite listening, his eyes comically glimmering at the sight of...
"MisterPresidentSirit'sreallyyouIcan'tbelievethisI'msuchagreatfanIamascholarofmilitaryhistoryohcrumbs..."
"God Golly!" Woodrow Wilson, the Reaper's shoulder ghost, exclaimed "Teddy, these are demons from Hell! Usually they are incubi and succubi from Lust, but these must be from a different Ring entirely..."
"Why is that ghost varmint speaking with a Wrath accent?" The female asked, in the most adorable accent ever.
"Listen missy" Woodrow started "I don't know why there are demons with a Southern accent, but sure as hell I'm going to blame the Reconstruction for it!"
"ENOUGH!" An exasperated Tzar of All Russias cried with a voice like thunder, "What is the meaning of this? Must be another Judeo-Bolshevik plot against me and my holy Empire..."
"I don't know about the Jewish shit, your Nickyness," the boss, named Blitz (the O is silent) started "but true to Satan killing people for money is my whole business. You are not going to find a more ruthless cutthroat capitalist this side of Henry Ford!"
The one named Moxxie was concerned for a second, almost like his boss was going to break the fourth wall by naming some other notable figure. Then a realization suddenly dawned on him.
"Sir, this man is the Grim Reaper AND he's Theodore Roosevelt, we are way out of our depths Sir, we should back out and..."
"Not a CHANCE Moxxie, we are NOT chikening out of this because our bespectacled client has paid in advance and I spent all the money on THIS" he said showing his mare-iuana, "so he HAS TO GO!"
"Hold on, you are telling me that someone in Hell paid you to do MY job?" A perplexed Teddy Roosevelt said, as he was wrapping his head around this whole mess.
"Yeah, and I should be the one asking you why YOU are doing your job for free!" Blitz replied.
"Boys, could we please focus on our target?" Millie said as she stepped into the role of the voice of reason.
...
The Tyrant, standing fearlessly, the white scar on his face brimming with hate in the dim light, unsheated his silver blade.
"Oh crumbs!" Moxxie couldn't believe his eyes "That's a holy sword, I told you it was a bad idea Sir..."
"Shut your hole already." Blitz said as he grinned in delight and drew his twin blades, which looked minuscule next to the Reaper's Scythe and Millie's gigantic battle-axe.
"Wait, aren't we supposed to have GUNS!?" Moxxie said in shock, "That would give us a decisive advantage against a sword-wielding huma..."
Everyone flatly ignored this plot hole as they rushed into the fight. It's not like the were only using weapons from Japan's Edo period after all...
"Sir, if we die I swear to Satan..."
...
The room was torn asunder in a struggle of life and death. Three monsters and one man against the Monster, the one empowered by the pit of Evil within his black heart, Evil great enough to challenge Death and Hell.
Theodore's Scythe was shattered, and as Millie's axe was cut in half with one titanic blow a red blur flashed in the darkness for an instant, before Blitz jumped from behind Nicholas, a blade aimed at his neck.
Too late.
Nicholas turned and caught Blitz's throat with his left hand. The imp's sharp claws and tail slashed and tore frantically, but it was no use. Now the Tzar raised the Imperial sword, as he wanted to make sure its holy brilliance was the last thing Blitz saw as he died.
"It is fitting," the Emperor mused, "you are not unlike the monsters that slaughtered my family; hellspawn, a scourge upon my Empire, this Third Rome. But God in His mercy made ME the instrument of His..."
SHUT THE FUCK UP!
The Tzar's right arm was cut off, the sword fell to the floor with a clang. Nicholas roared in pain as teeth like sharpened steel sank into his flesh.
The next instant, he was thrown across the room like a ragdoll and landed with a sickening noise.
A wolf stood in the middle of the room; white and black, standing on its hind legs taller than most humans, its hair a cascade of light grey, and its eyes red as blood.
She stood, regal and terrible like the Moon.
"HA! My plan B-LIKE-BITCH YOU SUCKER!" Blitz screamed as soon as he had breath in him again.
Loona walked over to her prey, that was now trembling in sheer, absolute terror.
"NO ONE MESSES WITH MY DA- I mean Blitz!"
All of a sudden Blitz was crying profusely for some reason. Not that anyone noticed, having their eyes on the hellhound.
Her claws sank into the Tzar's chest, and she raised him in the air leering straight into his eyes before tearing him apart.
An explosion of blood covered everything and everyone, and the flames of the fireplace were like burning blood.
...
"What do you say, Woodrow" the Reaper said as Blitz was hugging his whole team "Do you think the higher-ups will let this slide?"
"Well, they did kill a man who was two years past his appointed time, so I would say it's fine. Besides, the Grim Reaper must be neutral in the affairs between Heaven and Hell."
Teddy smiled, grateful for the advice of an old enemy. Sure, he may be wise now, but he's the same son of a bitch as ever.
"Thank you Mister President Sir- can I call you Sir?" Moxxie asked.
"It's mighty fine, little one." he replied "You are not a bad fighter yourself. I sure hope many an old friend of mine has good company like you in Hell."
...
An overjoyed Moxxie joined his wife, his boss and his favourite (...) hellhound for the trip back home. To Teddy's surprise, it was Loona the one with the grimoire and the knowledge of the magic spells within. Sure as hell she didn't look like the bookish type...
A Solomonic incantation later, they said their goodbyes and went trough the thin veil between worlds.
Roosevelt sighed as a long parchment, the Reaper's list, materialized in front of him.
"So, let's see... who's next on the list?"
Helluva President
The Fox and the Painter
Antarctic Summer, 1921
Adolf stepped into the most sacred room of the temple; as the sanctum itself beckoned to him, called him to descend but a little further into the depths of the crystal city, he knew that the answers he sought were within reach at last.
He could not have understood the room's purpose before he walked in, but he did. It was a tomb- the foreboding presence of a man, or of something that might have been like a man, had become one with the very feeling of the place, its soul. It was a city of the dead now, and at its heart was someone who, for reasons unfathomable, had entombed himself.
His mummified remains laid on the icy stone, the gigantic wreck of a warrior from ages long forgotten; Adolf could not tell if this man was astoundingly tall among his own kind, or if he was from some fabled race of giants. Either way, he wore ornate armor, what might have looked like a crown adorned his forehead, and in his hands he held a golden bow.
"The Bow! Why would it led me to it?" Adolf thought, as he realized that he knew not why the Bow held such importance to the fragmented thoughts... no, memories that had been filling his mind since the moment he read the inscription on the portal that led down to the hidden city. He had to know! He would not leave without answers, not after he travelled all the way to the ends of the Earth, to the Gott-forsaken frozen continent!
An inscription! Which Adolf could inexplicably read now, as easily as the Baron could...
"Samyaza..." he read. The warrior's name! But who and... what was he?
"Impressive..." a female voice interrupted Adolf's thoughts, "not many humans can read Enochian these days..."
"Gott im Himmel!..."
...
Now, at this point an explorer with less experience (or maybe just a reasonable one) would have run for dear life, no matter how non-threatening the voice from nowhere was! And, to her credit, she did sound like she meant no harm...
But then, Adolf saw her.
She towered over him, even taller that Samyaza must have been in life. Her skin was of a pale golden colour- like some flavour of honey- her eyes were bright pink, and her long hair a mismatch of vibrant colours, a light azure cascade behind with a reddish streak in the front. She had a light pink V-shaped mark on her forehead, and on top of her head she sported a three-pointed black crown. And apart from said crown, Adolf could not even begin to describe what on God's earth she was wearing; something out of... (Gott, how do the Americans call those...) ah yes, one of those science-fiction pulp magazines or whatnot. Or maybe it was too weird even for that!
Adolf was utterly and throroughly dumbfounded, and might just have made a run for it had the woman not reassured him.
"Fear not, and forgive me; I am not used to talk to humans anymore- then again, last time I conversed with a human like this, he was nailed to a cross..."
Correction; had the woman not TRIED to reassure him.
"Who are you? And how do you know this place... wait, did you say Enochian?" Adolf started.
"Right, I didn't introduced myself, did I? Silly me! I am Queen Beelzebub, Princess of Gluttony, but I mostly go by Beelzebub, anyway."
"Well, I have met royalty before..." Adolf thought.
...
"As for this city..." she said, her voice shifting slowly, as if waves of memories were sweeping away her carefree, joyful exterior, "it was my home once. Well, it felt like home, which is the same, I guess..."
Adolf would not have believed that someone so clearly not human could feel something so... human. But there she was, and he had just met her! And she had the answers, she had to!
"How was this place called? I could not figure out the name from the inscriptions..." Or from the fragments of memories, he might have added.
"Oh, it had many names, still has..." she answered, "Asgard, the Mount of Assembly, Lomar in the land of Zobna, Mount Sumeru, Flower-Fruit Mountain..." She smiled; must have been particularly fond of that name, Adolf guessed.
"It was a mountain fortress, and the earthly palace of the Authority; not his main abode of course, that was, as it is now, the Sublime Citadel in Heaven."
"The Authority?" Adolf didn't quite follow.
"Yes," a shadow fell on her face "he has many names too... The Lord, IHVH, El, Al-Ilah, Adonai, Urizen, Eru the All-Father..." She seemed to curse at just how false that last name was, and continued.
"From this city he looked over this planet, and the Gan Eden, in the land you now call Africa, on the mountains near the shores of the long-vanished Sea of Opar. It was there that he created Adam and Lilith." She brightened, as she remembered a happier, beautiful Aeon. "It was the first day of the Golden Age of mankind, when life was sweet as apple pie, and the young world had cotton candy skies."
"The Authority," she continued, was the founder and leader of our civilization. He guided us, he was our bulwark against the Great Old Ones beyond the stars, as recorded in the Pnakotic manuscripts. He was our..."
"Fuhrer". Adolf shuddered in saying that.
"Yes," she wispered, "and, as it happens, sometimes your heroes let you down."
"What happened?" Adolf asked, looking at the desolation all around them.
"The children of Lilith, the lilim, their genius unparalleled in later generations, build a mighty civilization called Numenor or Atlantis. Their technological prowess knew no bounds, and the Authority saw clearly where that path would have led; to a humanity advanced and powerful enough to question us, to question HIM..." Her eyes shimmered red with hatred for an instant, then she continued. "He made his decree known, he saw the rebellion of the lilim as inevitable, and thus... he planned their extermination."
Adolf could see it now, the fragments of memories were almost overwhelming; hordes of winged monsters descending from the sky, colossal moving blades of light destroying all in their path, bombs made to shatter continents raining from fleets of space-vessels...
"Adam, always the most faithful of all who served the Authority, approved, for ha always saw his own children as... unworthy." To Adolf, that part sounded all too familiar. "But Lilith joined us, Lucifer and the others, in the war against the Authority, the War in Heaven..."
"We lost the war, and Atlantis quickly fell. But in those final days of the Old World, the lilim used three powerful Numenorean weapons, that even the Authority feared: the Sword of Empires, the Scales of Power and..." she turned to Samyaza, "the Bow of Destruction."
"The Bow? But... how did it end up down here?" Adolf asked.
"Each of the three weapons was lost in the final battle, and each had a different fate afterwards; the Scales of Power were never found, the Sword of Empires was found many times across history, as you know very well. But the Bow of Desctruction was found once by survivors of the lilim, which were called Nephilim out of spite."
"Nephilim? Of course!" The name Samyaza from ancient scriptures, a warrior of gigantic stature, and the script called Enochian! "All the pieces of the ancient puzzle are now in place! Samyaza must have decided to hide the Bow here, in a forgotten city that sank deep beneath the earth, because he knew this place would survive Noah's Flood! Moreover..." he paused, "the Nephilim must have intermarried with a different clan of humans that was created after the war..."
"Indeed..." she nodded, "the children of the lesser Adam and his wife Eve; one of them learned the angelic script, hence the reason why you call it Enochian after him. The lineages of the two Adams are now intertwined. The first Adam's hatred of his own descendants has not diminished; he has become the leader of the Exorcists, the Authority's most ruthless angels."
Adolf was now feeling all the weight of the history that was taken from mankind, of the answers that soon would change the world! Only one thing remained to be unravelled...
"Why did I have the find the Bow? Why have you told me all this?", he asked.
She sighed, "The Bow must return to the wider world; you and the Baron are meant to protect it and the Sword. If the old Tzar were still alive, I would forbid it, because we could not risk either, but especially the Bow, falling into his hands. Luckily for us, he's gone..." She smirked, as she remembered how generously she had rewarded the bitch who did it.
"But why? Why bringing it back at all if it is so dangerous!?" Adolf felt a mounting rage within him, not unlike the one time he held the Sword of Empires, "Europe have suffered enough in the Great War because of all the new weapons, we don't need ancient ones too!"
"YOU THINK I DON'T KNOW THAT!? ALL OF A SUDDEN YOU GOT A PROBLEM OR SOMETHING, BITCH!?
In that moment, Adolf would have sworn that she had grown in size many times over in the blink of an eye, taking the shape of a monstrous, colossal, four-armed... fox!?
But quickly as it happened, whatever the fuck had just happened, it was gone, and Beelzebub looked like she had just had a headache or something...
"I'm sorry, I got a little spicy there..." She looked genuinely sorry, too, "But this is greater than either of us; you see, the Bow is destined for someone, a chosen one. In the hands of evil, the Bow can only bring destruction, just as you fear it would; but in the hands of the one it is destined for, it will be a Bow of burning gold, and it will shoot my Arrows of desire once more."
If Adolf had not met the Baron, he would have dismissed it all as madness. A chosen one? A destined hero?
A savior, even?
"And I don't suppose you can assure me" he started, looking almost defeated, "that this hero of yours is coming, and that I have to protect the Bow only for a while, until they come for it?"
"Indeed, she is coming." She smiled, "She's like a niece to me, but she must be unaware of her destiny, or it won't come to pass..."
Adolf sighed "There are forces in this world beyond our comprehension, then?"
"I am afraid so..." She answered, "But then again, I am just a party princess with phenomenal cosmic powers and immortality. What do I know?"
...
Weeks later, Adolf found himself on a northbound ship. In his heart he felt a strange mixture of fear, worry, but also hope for what the future might bring.
As the watched the last glimmer of sunset descend beneath the waves of the southern Atlantic, he could hear something, like a young woman's distant voice, singing, as if heard through the thin veil between worlds...
I can already tell,
Today is gonna be a fucking happy day in Hell!