Track 07: Master Exploder - Tenacious D
The rest of the Sinners sat on the bench. Husk was shivering, occasionally twitching his wings as he steadily drank from his flask. He passed it down to Angel Dust, who had just finished pulling webbing from his chest and took a pull, handing it down to Pentious, who was halfway curled around himself, shaking out his hat, who drank deeply before passing it to Charlie. She was holding a shuddering Vaggie, who kept running her hands through her hair and muttering about centipedes, and tried to ply her with the spirits.
"You know, they've been in there for a while," Husk spoke up, the group jumping as a distant explosion came from within the laundromat followed by a high-pitched, maniacal cackle, "I can't tell who's laughing anymore…"
Angel handed the flask back and leaned on the bench with a sigh. "…You think if Nifty has a chance, I do too?"
"What makes you think Nifty has a chance?" Charlie asked, somewhat concerned as she helped Vaggie sit up.
He waved a pair of hands at the laundromat, where flashes of light, puffs of smoke and laughter could be heard and seen. "I mean, come on, you saw that thing. I think anyone would be down for a victory fuck after killing that. Which means she has a chance…more than me, apparently. Ouch."
Vaggie took a deep breath, brushing her hands through her hair one more time. "Adam's straight, you know? Been that way for ten thousand years, I doubt one guy is gonna change that," she muttered.
"Oh?" Alastor smiled, "You sound as if you know, dear Vaggie."
The fallen scowled at the Radio demon. "He never shuts up about his 'Babes' and 'Bitches' and 'Eradicators' and they've been around for two-thousand years, it's not much of a stretch to assume that Adam. The First Man-"
"The Dickmaster!" Angel, Husk, Pentious and Charlie all cheered, some with more enthusiasm than the others, all smiling as the Princess giggled.
Vaggie grimaced. "It's a safe assumption he's been fucking angels ever since he originally died, is my point," she turned to Charlie, "Why do you do that?"
"Because it's true, and funny," she replied simply, before frowning and tilting her head. "…Is it over?" They all turned to the laundromat, where no more flashes of fire or laughter came from any longer. "Did they…did they kill-?"
"HAL-LELUJAH!"
A light flashed behind the windows before they exploded outwards with a thunderous crash, the door buckling as Adam came flying out of the laundromat with his wings wrapped protectively around himself, skidding along the sidewalk on his back.
The building collapsed into a pile of rubble, burning with holy white flames as a cross-shaped mushroom cloud rose from the destruction.
They stared at the former laundromat, their gazes falling on Adam as he rose to his feet and unwrapped his wings, revealing Nifty curled protectively around a flamethrower in his arms. "YEAH!" Adam shouted as raised his arms in victory, setting the tiny demon on his shoulder, "Cleansed by fire, Old Testament-style, bitch!"
"PURGED!" Nifty joined in with a cackle, raising her flamethrower over head.
Alastor stared at the destruction, eyes flitting between the rubble and the weapon Nifty carried, his red monocle hanging loosely from its chain as he looked on in horror. "…My god, man," he whispered, "What have you done?!"
"Consequence-free violence!" Adam laughed, stretching his arms out and sighing, offering Nifty a high-five. "Almost as good as sex!"
Charlie chuckled nervously, looking over the white flames still licking the rubble. "I mean, not 'consequence-free,' you did destroy a building," she pointed out, "With a holy weapon, even!"
"It was a piece of shit infested laundromat," the First Man replied easily, batting away Pentious as the snake Sinner started feeling his wings for bugs, "I'm clean, dammit. And if you wanna shed your skin in the hotel washer…I mean, go ahead and record that, it sounds funny. Just clean up afterwards."
"And I used the Holy Armament!" Nifty proudly declared, "I cleansed the Great Unclean One with the support of the Great Clean One! Nifty…does not know what to do now. Nifty will figure it out." And the tiny demon settled on the Lead Eradicator's shoulder with her flamethrower, calm and content for the first time.
Vaggie looked on as the tallest of the group spoke excitedly with the smallest of the group, noting the look of distaste on Charlie's face as they cheered on the violence and property destruction they had committed. Two birds, she thought with a smirk that she quickly hid as she cleared her throat. "I have an idea for the trust exercise," she announced, missing the look her girlfriend sent her.
The Sinners traded looks. "I mean, do we need another?" Husk asked with a shrug, "Look, Adam went from hanging Nifty from a coat rack to letting her sit on his shoulder inside of a day. I'd say that's pretty trusting."
"Yes, but that's them, and I have the perfect idea for everyone!" Vaggie continued, turning to Charlie, "Babe, can you teleport us to-" She whispered something into the Princess' ear, who nodded slowly.
With a snap of her fingers, they were in another section of Pentagram City, collectively known as 'Turf War Central,' where various minor and major Overlords constantly struggled over territory. The only time the place was quiet was during E-Day, and sometimes not even then.
True to the nickname, there was a turf war going on that seemed to have eight or nine different gangs fighting over the block. "Combat!" Vaggie announced, hands on her hips, "Nothing builds trust like relying on another to keep you alive and spilling blood for the safety of each other!"
Adam smirked behind his collar. It was paraphrased a bit, but the meaning was the same when he used those words to train the Eradicators.
Lute's gonna be pissed when I tell her about this. The angry sex is gonna be amazing.
"There, look!" She called, pointing down at the street to where a 'park' was, though that was polite phrasing, "That's the Hill!" Vaggie shoved Pentious and Angel Dust off of the roof, the screaming Sinners swiftly joined by Husk, who spread his wings to glide down, "Go be Kings!"
"…That was pretty rude, Vaggie," Charlie pointed out with a frown, "They're not gonna trust you around the edges of buildings anymore."
The fallen shrugged, turning to Adam and Nifty with a glare in her eye. "You need some encouragement, too?"
"Like I need someone to tell me to partake in a bit of the ol' ultra violence, the fuck you think you're talking to, bitch?" The First Man grinned darkly, taking Nifty off of his shoulder as the tiny demon was raring to go, "But first…" He snapped his fingers and the flamer disintegrated.
"Wha-?!" Nifty looked up at Adam with betrayed tears in her eye.
"It's too indiscriminate for this, sister," he said calmly, patting her head and getting a smile from Charlie, "As funny as it would be to burn this whole thing to the ground, pointing and laughing as they burn and scream then make s'mores over their cremating corpses, this exercise is about territory control. You need something finer."
Charlie was no longer smiling, and Vaggie was.
Adam produced a pair of vicious, talon-like knives from his sleeves and presented them to the tiny demon maid. "Take these. Now go, do a crime."
Nifty took the knives with a high-pitched cackle. "Nifty will do all the crime!" Then she leaped from the side of the building with a shrill warcry.
"Now, since they'll either run in fear, always nice, or immediately gang up on me…" Adam snapped his fingers, his form shifting and changing to become a shorter but still tall man, wearing a tacky snakeskin jacket, black gloves, no shirt, an eye patch, leather pants and silver-tipped black shoes. "It's an illusion," he preempted, looking over at the two women.
They noticed that his visible eye was still gold, and his wings were gone or at least invisible.
"Alright!" The First Man shouted, jumping onto the lip of the roof, drawing a long, one-sided knife from nowhere. He threw his head back and called, "CONSEQUENCE-FREE VIOLENCE! Nyahahaha!" Then he tipped over the edge, sprinting down the side of the building with his arms trailing behind him.
His arms whipped forward, chucking several knives down at the war below. One Sinner, who had been beating Pentious with a severed arm, looked up just as two knives sank into their shoulders.
Adam tossed his knife in the air and jumped, flipping and kicking the blade downward, piercing through the Sinners head and pinning them to the ground. He landed on their stomach, his knife popping into the air, catching it and rolling into the fray. He sliced the leg out from under another as he went. "Pentious, follow me!"
The snake demon swiftly slithered after the disguised First Man, a purloined pistol in his hands.
Back on top of the roof, Vaggie nodded as she saw Adam diving in and out of the fight, laughing like a maniac as he cut Sinners down and pulled the Hotel guests to him. She jumped as a pair of hands closed around her arms.
"Don't think I don't know what you're doing," Charlie murmured into the fallen angel's ear, and normally Vaggie would be enjoying it except that her girlfriend sounded disappointed. "You know I don't like violence, so you're trying to make Adam look like a psychopath."
Vaggie gulped. "I-I mean, you can see-"
"I know damn well how violent Adam can be," the Princess sighed, not allowing her girlfriend to turn around, "I've watched almost two-hundred E-Days from my window, Vaggie. The angels used to stake out Overlords on the property line so I could hear them screaming as they died. I used to think it was a warning to me, but he didn't know who I was when we met. I guess it was more for my parents."
"I…Charlie, Adam's-"
"-I used to think that I should go out and try to stop them, but I was too afraid," Charlie continued unabated, "I wish I had, knowing what I do now. Speaking of now…I really don't appreciate the duplicity, Vaggie. I can make my own fucking decisions, and you need to trust that I know what I'm doing."
"But you don't," Vaggie couldn't help but say even as she winced.
"I don't, I know, because no one's ever tried before," the Princess of Hell emphasized with a little shake, "I know you don't like him for a reason you won't share with me, and that's alright, babe, I trust you. So trust me, too. He's helping me, helping us. If he gives it to you, give it to him right back, he likes that, but stop trying to start shit, okay? I love you, and I don't want this to become a problem."
Vaggie licked her lips. "…Alright, Char, for you. I'll try for you."
"Thanks," Charlie kissed her cheek, making the fallen relax. A devious smirk curled her lips. "I'm still mad at you, though, so…" Vaggie tensed. "Remember what you said this morning?"
Vaggie's eye darted. "…Uh, no?"
Charlie shoved her girlfriend over the edge. "Lead by example!" she shouted, watching the fallen…well, fall.
Vaggie panicked for only a few seconds before summoning her Angelic Steel sword, dragging it against the building and pulling herself in, running down the side. She turned her sword into a spear and tossed it into the air, flipping and kicking her weapons downward, piercing through a Sinner's head and pinning them to the ground. She landed on their stomach, her spear popping into the air, catching it and rolling into the fray.
"…Well that was petty," the Princess admitted to herself, "They have the same landing strategy. Neat! Alastor, care to-" she turned around and found herself as the only person occupying the rooftop. "Huh…I wonder when he left?" She shrugged and looked back down.
Adam had grouped up with the other Guests and formed a rotating pentagon of death as they made their way to the 'hill.' Vaggie was moving their way, but had many Sinners around her.
"Man, I am gonna have to work hard for this threesome," Charlie mused to herself, "Maybe if I couch it as a therapy thing? A 'therapeutic threesome,' is that even a thing?"
Angel had grabbed two knives and pistols, quad-wielding his weapons to a pretty good effect, kneecapping enemies then cutting them down. Pentious had found a ray gun at some point and was using it liberally. Husk had a deck of apparently magical playing cards, somehow cutting through imps and demons and even bouncing the cards off of one another. Nifty was hard to spot, the tiny demon darting among the ankles of larger Sinners, hamstringing them before jumping on their backs and stabbing them in the face and neck.
Adam had taken up a sword at some point, dual-wielding it with his knife and using both to cut a swathe through the surrounding Sinners. It was balletic, poetic, almost, as he used a few deft slashes to carve open the neck of one, in the same motion spinning to block a strike and take the head from another.
"Hmm, that does actually look kinda fun, knowing they'll just respawn in a few days," Charlie said, tapping her chin in thought, "Consequence free violence…well, I've never actually had any, so maybe I'll like it if I try it? That way I can at least say why if I don't."
Mind made up, Charlie summoned her pitchfork in a flash of smoke and brimstone, clutching the weapon of black steel tipped with red energy. "What's the word?" She shrugged and jumped off of the roof with a scream of, "BONSAIIIII!"
…
Immaculara, 2.16;
That Michael had finished the Gate had been a blessing, as an incursion had occurred only months later. The scope of the enemy force was lesser than previous, but still numerous. With spear in hand-no, it was a sword and a knife-he cut through demon after demon as arrows rained down from on high.
A pained scream rang from behind him, and Adam spun to find a stumbling Sinner-a razor-edged card-sticking out from their shoulder, and he cut them down without mercy.
There, on the far end of the field of battle-the block-a trio of larger demons stood before the Hellportal-the Hill-directing the flow of enemies. "Those ones, right there!" Adam shouted, winding back and hurling his sword like a spear, the length of blackened steel sprouting from the Sinner's chest, "To me!"
"Adam, wait-!"
He dove into the melee, striking out with his spear-knife-and fists, slashing low. "Loose!" He called, and a rain of arrows-bullets and cards-burned by his head, cutting down a swathe of demons. He clenched his spear between his teeth and tore a sickle-shaped claw from the arm and tore through them with it, splashing himself in their sickly blood. "Adam!" He heard-Charlie?-call, and he looked around to realize he had delved too deep, surrounded on all sides by demons.
Adam felt a tremor of fear as a young voice cried out, ignoring the demons to turn and look. There was Vagatha-Vaggie?-attacking with her bow-spear-but a Sinner was creeping up-in her blind spot, when was she missing an eye?-behind her, weapon drawn to pierce her back. "Vagatha!" He called in warning, the young angel-fallen angel, when had she fallen?-turning to him with eyes-eye-wide, and he hurled his weapon with all his might.
She flinched as the demon screamed and fell, safe…but now he was weaponless among the horde. "Adam!" A blade sliced along the back of his leg, and Adam fell to a knee. He looked up as another swung towards him-a baseball bat covered in barbed wire-a maul, striking him in the chest and sending him sprawling.
He landed hard on his back, breathless, as the demons closed in with weapons drawn to impale him. Despite this, he felt no fear.
He had died once before.
…Perhaps this time, he would see Eve again?
The thought made him smile.
Fighting side-by-side with Charlie wasn't too bad, Vaggie found. The Princess didn't have much, or any, experience fighting but her sheer strength made up for a lot. Most strikes she couldn't avoid simply bounced off of her without even damaging her clothes, and the length of her pitchfork worked well to keep most Sinners away.
Husk had his cards, flicking them with precision and even wielding three of them between his fingers like claws…despite already having claws. Pentious had somehow gotten his hands on a ray gun, firing lasers at anyone he could see, while Angel Dust surprisingly had his back with a pair each of pistols and knives. With Nifty darting about slicing ankles, the six of them made a surprisingly good team.
And then there was Adam. The First Man was a force all on his own; a punch followed by a quick slice to open a throat became a deflect of a stab that became a slash to take off a head, that became a sweep of the leg that became an impale. "Those ones, right there!" He suddenly called, pointing towards the park where three either very minor Overlords or fairly powerful Fiends were directing the largest gang. Well, two after Adam threw his sword with such speed it made the air crack, stabbing through a Fiend's chest so hard the Sinner was hurled through the air. "To me!"
And then he was away from the group, cutting a straight line through the turf war at the two Fiends.
That didn't sound like Adam at all. "Adam, wait!" Angel Dust shouted fruitlessly, "Son of a bitch, where's he going?!"
"Don't worry about him right now!" Vaggie replied, "Stick together and slowly head towards-!"
"Loose!" Adam shouted, and the fallen reflexively turned and hurled her spear in the direction the First Man was pointing; Husk hurled a handful of cards while Pentious unleashed a laser blast as Angel unloaded a pair of magazines.
"-The fuck was that?!" The cat demon asked incredulously.
The fallen angel pulled her spear back to her hand, trying to ignore the rush of warmth that had come from following Adam's command, the satisfaction of moving and acting As One. "Ignore it!"
"We must rejoin Sir Adam!" Pentious hissed frantically, pulling a grenade from his jacket and hurling it at a quartet of Sinners behind cover, blowing them away.
"Adam!" Charlie shouted, and that seemed to get through to the First Man, who looked around and realized he was cut off from them. She cried out in surprise as a Sinner used her moment of distraction to hit her upside the head with what looked like a steel chair, the weapon deforming as it impacted. It did no damage, but the shock of it had still struck her.
Vaggie turned to unleash her ire on the bastard responsible, snarling.
"Vagatha!" She stiffened. That name…I haven't heard that name since…Vaggie turned to look at Adam, his visible eye wide, just as he whipped his arm forward…right at her head. The blade zipped by her cheek, punching into the head of Sinner who'd been about to impale her on a spear.
A Sinner sliced at Adam's leg, and he fell to a knee. "Adam!" Someone shouted distantly, and it took Vaggie a moment to realize it was her.
One of the Fiends, carrying a baseball bat wrapped in barbed wire, wound up and slammed Adam in the chest, sending him sprawling onto his back.
Just let him die, she thought, her knuckles white around her spear, just let him die and so many problems get solved, just-why am I getting closer? Her body had moved on its own, dodging, dipping, ducking and diving through the turf war as she raced towards him, heart thundering in her ears.
As the gang who'd claimed the park moved in to finish Adam, five of them leaping forward with eagerness to claim the kill, Vaggie threw her spear. It stabbed through a particularly fat Sinner, right in the stomach. As they fell to their knees, she dove into a slide, leaping as she grabbed the end of her spear and using it as a lever to heave the Sinner above her head. With a shout of effort, she turned and hurled the Demon off of the end, sending them careening into the group of five. Then, in the same motion, she planted her spear and used it as a vaulting pole, launching herself after them.
The fat Sinner crashed into the group, and her outstretched leg impacted them a second later.
There was a moment in time, where all was still. Vaggie looked down at Adam, but there was no fear or defiance on his face. His eyes were closed peacefully, and there was…a smile on his lips?
Then she kicked them away with a shout, and his eyes snapped open, meeting her own. There was a mismatched glaze of confusion, surprise and even dismay. They were swiftly replaced by wrath.
Adam planted his hands and spun himself, almost breakdancing as he kicked out in a circle and rolled back to his feet. A Sinner made to stab him with a spear (well, a Stop sign that'd been wrenched out of the ground and sharpened on one end) and Adam dodged aside, lashing out with an elbow to shatter their nose before wrenching the spear free and spinning to impale them on it.
"The fuck are you doing?!" He snarled, wrenching the spear free and hurling it at Vaggie, the weapon punching through a Sinner behind her. He pulled another from his sleeve, somehow, and they lunged at each other, spearing more Sinners. "I had them right where I wanted them!"
"You're welcome for saving your life, asshole!" She snapped back, swinging high as he swung low, knocking the baseball bat-wielding Fiend to the ground where they simultaneously stabbed them through the chest. "Like fuck you had them 'right where you wanted them!'"
"Surrounded from the inside!" Adam replied, and laughed at her incredulous expression.
Adam and Vaggie danced. Back-to-back they were a whirlwind of death. Where one attacked, the other would defend; Vaggie caught an overhead strike on the shaft of her spear, striking the Sinner with butt and twirling aside as Adam spun under her arm, stabbing the Sinner through the skull while she used her spear like a glaive and carved the throat out of another.
"You guys!" Charlie shouted joyfully, lightly jabbing a Sinner with her pitchfork and sending them flying down the street, "I knew you could get along! And you work so well together, too!"
"Yeah…" Vaggie muttered under her breath, sweeping the legs out from a Sinner before she and Adam impaled it.
"And also, this whole 'consequence-free violence' thing is pretty cool!" The Princess of Hell added with a bright smile as she cautiously stepped around a Sinner wildly swinging at her, then stabbed them in the stomach. The Sinner tried to run away, but the barbed tips of her pitchfork ripped open their belly and they collapsed in a screaming pile of their blood and intestines, "…Okay, not that part! But I can see why you enjoy it so much! My adrenaline is pumping! Wooo!"
"The battlefield is home to many truths!" Adam called, choking up his grip on his spear to stab a Sinner in the side, then grabbing them around the neck and spinning as another unloaded what looked like a tommy gun at him. "Where lies are winnowed from your being under the knife of death!" The body shuddered as he rushed forward, slamming the two together and throwing them to the ground, where Nifty jumped on their heads and began to stab them both. "To spill blood is to write the truth, penned in crimson ink! That they have died, so you might live!"
"That's nice and all," Angel shouted, ducking under an axe-swing aimed at his head, hamstringing the Sinner before coming back up to jam his knives into their neck, point his pistols under their chin and pull the triggers, "But does anyone have a fucking plan for getting us out of here?!"
"Ask him!" Vaggie yelled, impaling a Sinner through the stomach with her spear, changing its form to a sword and then splitting them in half.
"Adam!" Husk called, slashing another with a card in his hand, "Do you have a plan?!"
"Charlie!" Adam replied, looking at the Princess aghast as she jabbed another Sinner, "Who the fuck taught you how to fight?!"
Her expression was sheepish as she gingerly poked a Sinner and sent them flying. "Er, no one? I mean, it seems pretty simple, just-ah!" An octopus-like demon had grabbed onto her arm and she reflexively swung her fist at them, making them explode into chunks of gore, "-hit them?"
The First Man shot Vaggie an incredulous look. "The fuck is wrong with you?!" Shaking his head, he turned back to Charlie, "Let me see that fork of yours, Charlie, I'll show you how it can be used!"
"Charlie, wai-"
"Okay!" She said cheerfully, tossing the pitchfork to him and catching the spear in return.
"Every weapon is an entire system unto itself!" Adam lectured, swinging the trident to parry a stab and thrusting the triple-tined head through their chest, "It isn't just the pointy bits! The head!" He ducked and spun, bringing the head of the trident around onto the neck of Sinner, audibly breaking it, "The shaft!" He drove the shaft into the chest of a Sinner then twisted it around their neck and upper torso, turning on his heel and twisting to hurl them through the air, "The butt!" He locked a sword in-between the tines of the pitchfork and torqued both the weapon and the arm holding, making the Sinner bend over before he swept the feet out from under them, stabbing them through the chest with the butt of the spear.
"You are so doing that on purpose!" Angel Dust complained.
"You must know every instrument when you perform a symphony of death!" Adam continued, three Sinners attacking him at once. He ducked, blocked and parried almost as if to a beat, cracking one across the temple with the butt, deflecting a stab with a turn before stabbing another in the knee, twisting and carving open the chest of another with the barbed tips, then spinning on his heel and hitting all three at the same time, sending their bodies tumbling. "Personally, I prefer the outside tines are sharpened, it adds an almost axe-like functionality…well, a wide-bladed glaive, but my point remains!"
"Thanks, Adam!" Charlie giggled cheerfully, "I think I've got the point now!" She hurled the spear, the weapon punching through a line of six Sinners before nailing a seventh to a wall. "Oh, whoops! I think they got the point!"
"I can give you some more pointers later!" The First Man offered, laughing at her puns.
"Sir Adam, I'd rather not respawn! Perhaps we should retreat?!" Pentious called, firing a beam of energy at a Sinner until they were reduced to a pile of glowing green goo.
"Seriously, do you have a plan or not?!" Vaggie shouted, standing in front of a weaponless Charlie.
"Nope! Plans are for-!" He grunted as a large Sinner, somewhere between a bull and bear and extremely muscular with a mouthful of fangs, tried to split him in half with an ax, catching the strike on the shaft of the pitchfork. His eyes looked at the weapon, then went wide. "OH YOU BEAUTIFUL BEAST!" He cried ecstatically, "WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN ALL MY LIFE?!"
"Dude!" The bear-otaur said in an embarrassed, surprisingly feminine voice, "I'm trying to kill you, don't make this weird!"
"Why aren't you saying that to MEEEEE?!" Angel Dust wailed.
"I mean, maybe afterwards-"
"Not you!" Adam shouted at Angel, throwing the bear-otaur back with a shove, then tossing the trident back to Charlie before catching the axe by the shaft as the Sinner tried to bisect him, "And not you!" He punched the Sinner in the throat, chopped their wrists and yanked the axe away, spinning and driving one head into their knee, then spinning back and flattening them with blunt side, sending one of their fangs flying into the air. Adam held the axe to his face, eyeing the six strings strung along its length of blackened metal and rock, like a weapon carved from pure obsidian. "Hello, beautiful…" He practically purred.
"Hey, that's mine!" The bear-otaur tried to call through a mouthful of broken teeth.
"Oh yes, I'm going to take very good care of you," Adam murmured to the guitar-axe, gently plucking the strings and listening to the notes. With a soft hand, he adjusted the pegs and smiled, "You and I are going to make such beautiful music together, darling, oh yes…"
And then he began to laugh. Loudly.
He reached up and caught the broken fang between his fingers and held it like a pick. "I don't have a plan!" He cackled, a wide, toothy grin on his face, "It's more like a state of being!" He cracked his knuckles and held the axe with the pick to the strings, "The state…of being Metal As FUCK!"
And then he started to play. The sudden sound of a guitar made the turf war pause, if only for a moment. Then came the solo of an electric guitar. As Adam's fingers danced on the frets, lighting sparked along the length before firing off in crackling purple bolts in time to his playing.
"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa-" As he began to vocalize, the Sinners reeled back, clutching their ears as his voice began to rise in pitch and volume, the Hotel residents quickly circling the First Man.
"-wait a minute, I'm not tired anymore," Angel Dust said to himself, flexing his arm, "…Is the music giving me energy?"
"Not just you," Husk added, reshuffling his cards with renewed vigor. Pentious checked his laser gun incredulously, noting the power gauge literally rising as he watched.
"-aaaaaaaaAAAAAAYEAH!" The turf war had shifted. No longer were the gangs focusing on each other…but the loud motherfuckers in the park. Adam simply grinned. "I do not need-!"
"He does not need-" Vaggie sang reflexively, her eye going wide with surprise.
"A microphone!"
"-A microphone!" Charlie echoed with a sunny smile.
"My voice is fuckin'-!"
"-fuckin'-!" Angel added with a grin, spinning his knives and pistol with glee.
"POWERFUUUuuuUUUL!" The Sinners reeled and The Happy Few struck, cutting down several of them even as Adam began to vocalize again, the wind picking up with his voice and swirling around them.
And near the ceiling of Pride, storm clouds gathered and boiled black.
A sick solo burst forth once again, but this time lightning rained down from the sky, each bolt so powerful it reduced every Sinner it struck to a skeleton, their bleached bones collapsing in a pile.
Adam looked around, seeing the various gangs gathering their strength around the largest figure, the bear-otaur, and he grinned. There's my bitch. Their eyes locked and he sang.
The Fiend could only stare into his eyes as his voice resonated, literally shaking the air, the ground cracking underneath them in their direction. There was only one thought that went through their mind at the last second.
Where are the drums coming from?!
"-yeah!"
And then the ground exploded underneath the Fiend, erupting into a miniature volcano. Small cinder bombs rained down around them, Husk having to jump away before one landed at his feet, giving Adam an incredulous, slightly terrified look.
"Sorry!" He sang in reply, before pointing at the hill/volcano and moving towards it. "I did not mean-!"
"-He did not mean!" The cat demon echoed as The Happy Few raced towards the volcano, cutting down Sinners who had been hit by the cinder bombs or shocked by lightning even as more both rained from the sky.
"To blow your mind!"
"-To blow your mind!" Nifty shouted, a wild grin on her face as she dragged her knives through the magma, lighting them on fire.
"But that shit happens to me-" Vaggie speared a Sinner, looking down and realizing that her sleeves were now black, torn lace with skull patterns and a spiked wristband. "The fuck?!"
"-All the tiiiiiiiiiiiime!"
She quickly examined herself and found that her dress was now made of black leather, almost like an animal pelt, with windows for her cleavage and the sides of her stomach, and high-heeled black leather boots with many, many belts and silver skulls on each one.
As Adam's guitar rang out with the sickest of licks, lightning struck in time to the chords as cinder bombs exploded on the beat of the drums, and tornadoes had begun to form, sweeping over the spewing lava and becoming fire tornadoes. Which began to pick up the bodies of the Sinners and burn away the flesh as it carried them.
Everyone was fighting, the Sinners trying to climb the hill as bones piled up and lava streamed down it, but Vaggie turned to look around at the Hotel residents. Each of them had their outfit changed somehow, including black leather, silver spikes and skulls, even Pentious' hat. Except Charlie, who was wearing KISS makeup, her suit jacket and slacks unchanged.
"Now take a look!" Adam sang, still playing ferociously but at some point he had started wearing the skull of the bear-otaur as a hat while also wearing KISS makeup.
"Take a look!" The Happy Few chanted together.
"Tell me what do you see?" A bolt of lightning ripped from his guitar, striking a Sinner about to stab Pentious in the back.
"What do you see?" Husk whipped a trio of playing cards through the air, the first slicing through a Sinner's wrist right as they were about to toss a grenade, the other two stabbing into the explosive right before it went off, being flung into the heads of two other Sinners on each side of the first.
"We got the Pick!" Nifty threw her knives, the flaming blades curving through the air to take out the knees of a Sinner as they raced up the Hill before landing in her hands as she jumped and planted her feet on their face, kicking them back down. As they rolled down the hill of lava and bones, they took out two more Sinners on the way down, and all three were exploded by a cinder bomb landing on top of them.
"Of Destiny!" Angel Dust grappled a pair of Sinners, spinning them around so they slammed into each other, riddled them both with bullets and kicked them into the lava.
A large Sinner leapt at Vaggie, who ducked as Charlie impaled them on her trident, using their momentum to fling them up into the mouth of the volcano.
"AAaaaaaahyeah!" With one last flourish, lightning flashed from the storm clouds, cinder bombs exploded and there, standing on a volcano covered in the bones of fallen Sinners, lava running in burning streams underneath, was the residents of the Happy Hotel.
Angel Dust, with his pair of knives and guns, a torn black tank top, a studded choker around his neck. Husk with his playing cards floating between his hands, wings spread, with black leather pants and spiked knee-pads, a belt around his waist with a screaming skull for a buckle, and a hat that wouldn't look out of place on Slash. Pentious, steam-punk laser rifle held aloft, the eye in his hat seemingly made of molten metal, jacket artfully ripped and studded. Nifty in a dress made of torn black lace, the skull of a wolf with glowing yellow eyes on her apron, grinning as she held her flaming knives in the air.
At the top of the volcano, near the lip, Charlie held her trident in the air victoriously, a bright, happy smile on her face. To her left, Vaggie, her spear planted on the hill, looking imperiously over the battlefield. And between them, on the lip itself, Adam. Guitar-axe in hand, skull on head, snakeskin jacket fluttering as lava lit him from below and lightning shone at his back.
And then…there was silence.
They looked around, and realized that, for the first time…Turf War Central was completely silent. There were no more Sinners fighting for territory, no screams of pain and death, gunfire or explosions…
Just the subtle crackle of cooling lava.
"Powerslide!" Adam cheered with a laugh, sliding down the hill on his knees next to Charlie and Vaggie. "See? Plans are for people who aren't metal as fuck!"
"Adam!" Charlie enthused, giddily bouncing towards him as if for a hug. When she reached him, though, she instead shoved him, hard.
They laughed as he went rolling down the hill in a cascade of bleached bones, grunting as he finally landed at the bottom, holding his guitar up to keep himself from landing on it. "The fuck was that for?!" He shouted.
"That was for running off, getting surrounded and nearly killed!" She called back, frowning at him, "You prick!" Then she slid down the hill herself with a cheery, "Wheeee!"
As the rest of the hotel residents (minus Alastor) arrived at the bottom, Adam was squinting at Charlie incredulously. "…The fuck you mean, 'nearly killed'? I haven't been in danger at all today." He looked at Angel Dust. "Pistol."
The pornstar silently handed a gun to him.
Adam pointed it at his head and pulled the trigger, the bullet bouncing off his skull like a wad of paper. "It's gonna take a lot more than a bunch of Sinners and Imps to take me down." He tossed the gun back to Angel.
"What the fuck happened to my clothes?" Husk asked, looking down at himself and then at the others. "What happened to our clothes?"
"The power of Metal," the First Man replied simply, looking over the Hill of Bones and nodding approvingly, "Goddamn, this would make a sick album cover."
Charlie frowned, hands on her hips. "So wait, you weren't hurt at all? What about the whole, 'falling on your back while a bunch of people tried to stab you' thing?" She smiled and gave her girlfriend a quick kiss, "Thank you jumping in, by the way, that was really sweet."
"I was luring them in," Adam answered with a wry arch of his eyebrow, "You think I've never been surrounded by a horde of demons before? Bitch, please." He hefted his new axe with a grin, lovingly running his fingers down the neck, "Though, I did find this beauty…hello, lovely."
Angel rolled his eyes. "Never thought I'd be jealous of a guitar, but here we are," he muttered, before straightening, "But seriously…what the fuck happened? How did this-" He waved an arm at the now-dormant volcano and the bones piled around it, "-and these-" he waved another at himself, "-happen?"
"I'm starving, so let's head back to the hotel, but I'll fuckin' explain it…" Adam replied, already walking in the direction of the Happy Hotel, "In song form!" He started strumming, and the group followed after him. "You can't kill The Metal…"
As they walked, Charlie watched as Nifty climbed onto Adam's shoulder and sat there, comfortable as can be, while Angel Dust, Pentious and Husk followed behind with interest plain in their features, easily sharing the bartender's flask. At her side, her girlfriend slung an arm around her hips as they walked. Charlie smiled, feeling lighter than ever before.
Ministar: I'm making a note here: huge success! \o/ :D
Dickmaster: oh yeah?
MS: Yep! I'm really glad you participated today, Adam. It means a lot to me. 3
DM: Well I would've been bored otherwise.
MS: Uh-huh ;)
Charlie let her hand slide down Vaggie's hip and lightly squeezed the fallen's rear, making her blush. She watched Adam strut with his guitar, her eyes on the tight black leather pants he still wore. That threesome is gonna come. It is…inevitable. She grinned deviously. And it will be awesome!
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(message from the future: chapters up to 10 are available on AO3 and up to 13 on my Pa-treon)
A/N: And here you go, technically part 2 of what would've been the whole first day, but it stretched on a bit which is why it's pretty much all fight scene. And what a fight scene it is!
I haven't had a lot of chances to stretch my fight scene muscles in this story so far, beyond the epic-tone of Immaculara, and boy does it feel good. I'll tell you now, I like pumping up the power of both sides so the fight's are a bit more even, but having characters scythe through goons and mooks is also really fun. You could say I try to write fighting as like an anime or something, but I prefer more Jackie Chan or even John Wick. Choreographed (obviously, it's written) but almost to a beat.
Plus, I mean, my version of Adam's been fighting for ten thousand years and would Lute really let him get sloppy?
Also I guess I've adjusted how power works in HH, to the point that lower-leveled demons and Sinners literally can't scratch a higher-level being's clothes from the sheer badassness of their aura, with the exception of certain weapons. Plus I really like the idea of Charlie being super strong and shit but super unskilled because she's sheltered, plus giving her a taste of some consequence-free violence! She's basically most gamers, enjoying the catharsis of killing and whatnot but not the actual violence.
Plus, I mean, what the fuck? Why would you have an axe that's a guitar and not use it for magic? The fuck? Brutal Legend had it right, which obviously was a big inspiration for that whole sequence.
And you know, why would a random Fiend be carrying a guitar-axe? I have no doubt someone was watching E-Day and saw Adam using it and was like, 'yo, that's pretty fuckin' cool!'
And it is.
Speaking of, I hope the Immaculara in this chapter wasn't too hard to read, it was supposed to be Adam flashing back in the middle of the fight, memories overlapping with current events and whatnot. I tried to keep it consistent, but it's supposed to be a little off-kilter by design.
Also, the story's tagged as 'Slow Burn' for a reason.
So, here we are, chapter 7. Chapter 8's already done and I already started working on chapter 9, but I'll prolly take a little break at some point and work on some of my other stories.
Big thanks as always to NSG for being THE MAN, why not seek out yonder tomes and peruse at your leisure, eh?
Another big thanks to the peeps in the discord, as well as the other peeps in the other discord, First Man Collective. All of you are fuckin' weirdoes and I enjoy it greatly.
And most of all, thank you for taking the time to read the chapter. If you enjoyed it, maybe leave a comment or a review and do all that fun stuff, but whatever you do, I hope you have a good day.
Stay Awesome.
~Soleneus
P.S.: Goddammit man, now all I want is a Brutal Legend sequel that had Hi-Fi Rush's combat. And seriously, I know there's Bards and shit, but there aren't near enough magic systems that use instruments to cast spells. It's Free Real Estate!
How's your summer going? Mine's alright, been writing alot but man, work has not been easy. Had to work some long back-to-back shifts and shit sucks. Still looking for a new job, hopefully one closer to home. Wish me luck.
Anyways, remember to drink plenty of water, get some exercise and enjoy yourself.
Stay Awesome Some More.
~still Soleneus