Grantz licked his lips and made sure not to scratch at his neck as the cheering of the crowd buffeted them. They'd learned to ignore such noise and the hungry, desperate watching weeks ago. Or maybe months. It was hard to tell how long it had been, down here.
He looked around. This floor of this arena dwarfed any that they'd fought in, including those they'd been in during the past week, when they'd been trying to grow stronger. The overwhelming roar of the crowds – bulging with demons that seemed to be as powerful as they were, instead of with mere Imps and Gremlins – attested to that.
They strode forward, taking stock of their opponent. She was still dressed in the yellow leotard-like leather clothing. Her bag was no longer at her side, and she grasped a thin, long, relatively unremarkable staff in her hands.
Even over the distance between them, Grantz could see her smile gleaming in the light of the torches arrayed around the pit.
Grantz tried not to let it get to him. All he had to do was trust in the plan.
As the five of them took their positions, and the referee began to lower his baton, Grantz took in a deep, superfluous breath. It was do or die time.
The baton lowered.
They charged forward.
It was five on one. That was good.
They covered a quarter of the distance between them and her.
The demon's smirk stretched to her ears, and, with a quick flick of the long staff in her hands, twin pairs of glowing, circular light and esoteric symbology burnt through the sand at her feet.
Very quickly, it was no longer five on one. A mass of Imps and Goblins, small and snarling faces barely discernible from each other besides the pigment in their skin, clawed their way into the arena from the glowing circles of light. After them, Incubi flew up and above the army, while fiery, ape-like demons bellowed as they barreled out of the circles.
As the five of them sprinted forward, Grantz twirled the knives clasped in his elongated hands and brought them to bear. All he had to do was stick to the plan.
First, they would play into her expectations.
Weiss, his sword singing through the wind, charged into the Imps and Gremlins alongside Koenig, his edges of his fingers glowing azure like Weiss's sword-
And nothing happened.
Grantz cursed under his breath as he continued to bound forward, jumping high into the air and slowly descending with the help of Flight spells. The pair of them slashed through more of the illusory enemies, and Grantz spun up an Observation spell.
"Behind you," he muttered in German over a Communication spell. Weiss spun around with a slash, and dark black blood spurted from one of the Imps. He grinned viciously, while the Imps and Gremlins, illusory and not, formed a loose ring around the two of them.
BOOM
Grantz's gaze flicked between the sides of the arena, where Elya and Neumann had both attempted to circumvent the horde of weaker demons. Neumann was contending with the two ape's cloaked in fire, swinging his club in a wide circle to ward them off, the evidence of an explosive spell raining down in the cracked rubble and dust floating around them, while Elya flitted through the air, contending with the pair of Incubi with a smile and her fists.
Grantz pushed his attention back to where it was meant to be and nearly cursed again. Their opponent was readying another spell, one far more intent on direct damage. Her gaze was directed towards Koenig and Weiss, who were dealing well enough with the Imps and Gremlins that charged out of the circle, fighting to the whims of their masters regardless of their reality.
He pushed himself to the ground and charged the woman. She raised an eyebrow and then leveled her staff at him instead. "A pig presenting itself for the slaughter?"
He didn't reply. If he had, he'd probably have said something about being an annoying gnat. She frowned at his lack of response. "Vaporization," she intoned.
A Flight spell pushed him out of the way and above her. He sank back down twice as fast, his daggers aimed right for her head-
Both glanced off of a sparkling barrier, and she spun her staff around, smacking his weapons away with the metallic head of the staff. Another flight spell brought him out of the range of the follow up swipe with the tail of the staff, and she glowered at him. "Is that the best the 203rd can do?"
He couldn't help it and smirked. "Sure is!" He flitted back, sending another Observation spell towards the horde of illusory doubles and mentally told Koenig where to strike.
This was, after all, part of the plan. Play into her expectations. Defeat the summons the contract had disclosed she would bring. Keep her from picking them off.
Grantz hated that he was at the tip of the spear, but he could hardly argue that he wasn't the best fit.
He hung in the air, watching her as she began to charge her spell once more, her focus on Neumann, who was wrestling with one of his burning foes.
Grantz charged.
Sure enough, she'd been watching him out of the corner of one of her eyes and again flicked her staff towards him. He pulled up, away from the spell and from her.
"Fight me already," she snarled. Grantz raised an eyebrow and pulled an arm back. "If you're sure."
He threw the knife, and she dodged out of the way, an eyebrow raised.
Then the knife exploded behind her and sent her sprawling.
Her attention interrupted, the horde of illusions flickered, momentarily. The revealed Imps and Gremlins panicked as Koenig sped towards them, while Weiss leapt into the air, sparring with the Incubi that had begun to outmaneuver Elya.
Grantz looked back at their opponent and charged again as she recovered. She snarled. "Wall of Flame."
Before his eyes, the air burst into flame. He twisted, desperately trying to alter his trajectory-
Only for the wall to bend and curve into a sphere to meet him. He cried out as he pushed through the flames and crashed into the ground.
"Whelp." She was running towards him. "Fool!"
He shakily rose to his knees-
Grantz smirked. Around the arena, from each of their numbers, smoke began to pour from an unseen source, filling the space in its entirety. Still, it was just smoke.
Her observation spells would find him in less than a second.
He lunged forward with a swing, ignoring the discomfort in his legs as he moved fast enough that a single second was all that he needed.
She parried the blow, but he could see the building frustration on her face in detail. He continued to smirk and, despite his shaking arms, asked, "Things not going to plan?"
She pushed down harder, and he deflected the blow, bounding away from her as the smoke began to dissipate as fast as it had appeared. The walls of the arena came into view.
"Ready to go," he heard and, with a thankful nod, he continued to run, diving into the last of the smoke.
She shouted something in a language he didn't understand, and the smoke cleared, to reveal the five of them, once more standing in formation.
Neumann was in front, a shiny blue barrier reflecting the woman's sneer. His skill with the Active Barrier spell complimented his bulky frame. The latter was a rarity among demons, in that he felt relatively little pain from physical blows, as long as he had some arcana.
Weiss stood to Neumann's right, his chipped sword raised and almost entirely consumed by the blue glow of a Sharpen Blade spell. The horns atop his head were similarly bright.
Koenig stood to his left, hands raised in front of him and his body poised to run forward as fast as possible.
On all of their chests, their two Computation Jewels shone brightly. Behind them, Elya stood to Grantz's right. Grantz gulped, closing his eyes, and pushed down the same fear he'd felt dozens, hundreds of times, whenever he knew a battle was coming.
All he had to do was stick to the plan.
Second, they would utilize one of their greatest strengths: Illusions.
Tanya von Degurechaff had not made the requirement to enter her battalion lightly, and any and all who had served below her had grown adept at wielding illusions.
They charged.
From their bodies, clones burst forth.
From each stride they took, two, then ten, then forty copies burst forth. Most were in lockstep with their others, charging forward without the slightest sound at only slightly different angles. Some took to the air, hurtling forwards with their weapons raised. A few crept towards her, avoiding the center of the field of illusions and slinking towards the sides and back of the woman. One copy of Koenig even curled up on the ground and began rocking back and forth.
Each and every illusion was visually indistinguishable from the next. A feat that none, besides maybe their commander and that woman, could have accomplished, they now managed using the arcana of Hell as a source of energy rather than their own stores.
The woman spun her staff around her, and then pointed it at the ground. Grantz continued to circle around the woman, panting, as the ground erupted into a geyser of rock, sand, and dust.
"Shit," he muttered.
Her gaze snapped to his location, nearly having managed to sneak up behind her, but before she could act on his mistake, the illusions erupted from the fountain of dust. Some weren't affected in the slightest by the deluge of debris, while others emerged covered in stone and grit. After a moment of indecision, Grantz began to back away from the woman. With a bit more concentration, those under his control became covered in dust as well.
Soon, they were trying to attack her. Landing illusory blows on her. The woman stood, impassive as two landed on her without doing any damage.
Then, the real Koenig charged forward, and she dodged back. Behind her, Weiss swung his sword, but she blocked it with her staff. Neumann swung his club down on her, but she twisted out of the way using a Flight spell.
They danced.
The three real fighters fought to land a hit, while the woman, her body glowing as it had before, dodged and ducked and blocked and parried each and every blow. When they failed, one of the illusory copies charging towards her faded from view and another split off from the real deal. Her staff spun and spun and spun, and she spun with it.
Slowly, Grantz's copies began to disappear. He repositioned himself, leaving illusions in his wake, all waiting for the perfect moment to strike.
Then, inexorably, the spinning began to slow, and the speed of the other three began to pick up. Faster, faster, faster they wove around each other and her, faking some of their own blows and providing openings to illusions that couldn't follow up, giving her a moment's hesitation that another tried to use.
Then, finally, it was too much. She swung her staff up to block to blow of Weiss-
But it wasn't Weiss.
The illusions flickered as her real opponents charged.
"Fiery Embrace!" she desperately shouted, sending a shockwave of flame around her. The others leaped back.
"Now."
Grantz charged, immediately flanked by other copies of himself that had been waiting in the wings. Elya flew in from above. All of them rushed, racing to reach their enemy before she reached their friends. Her bloodshot eyes registered them, and her body leapt towards the smoking form closest to her. Weiss.
He wasn't moving fast enough.
Cursing, the illusion around Grantz's neck faded, revealing one of the Type 97s in all its glory as he sped towards her and blocked the blow intended for Weiss. Shock embraced her face as she stared at the Computation Jewel around his neck, but before she could do anything else, a meaty punch slammed into the side of her head, sending her sprawling.
Grantz helped Weiss to his feet, Elya assisted Koenig, and Neumann managed to roll to his feet. For a moment, the battle was paused as they assessed each other and made sure they could keep going.
Not that there was really a question. They had to keep going.
Neumann shot Grantz a look of concern, but he just nodded and forced a grim grin onto his face. Neumann mirrored the look, and they both turned back to their enemy.
She had staggered to her feet. The side of her face had darkened from a brownish, rust red to dark purple as a bruise formed. Similar and smaller bruises covered her body where she'd been sent sprawling.
Then, her wavering posture straightened, and a vicious snarl engulfed her face. "I'll make you shitheads pay for that! Fireball! Tempest of Flames! Bolt of Lightning! Shifting Sands! Truth Sight!"
She screamed and shouted, longer and longer, and the five of them began to dodge the onslaught as they, too, began to speak under their breaths.
Grantz knew what the others were saying, even if he couldn't hear it over the sandstorm that was beginning to form.
"Auto-Evasion."
"Skin of Stone."
"Lion's Heart."
"Fool's Gamble."
He, too, was muttering under his breath. "Acceleration." He was still afraid, but that fear did not creep into his voice.
All they had to do was follow the plan.
This time, no illusions swarmed the woman. That arcana was better used elsewhere. Instead, the five of them ducked and dodged the fire and lightning and gritted their teeth as the whirling sandstorm scratched at their skin. Their enemy was trying to hide where she ws, forming lights and shadows in the gale of sand with illusion spells, but they were not fooled.
They were the 203rd.
They found her, standing at the center of the storm, trying desperately to send as many spells at them as possible, to wound or kill them or even just slow them down, but it didn't, wouldn't, work.
Koenig and Weiss thrust forward. Weiss's meaty blow was sent askew, as was one of Koenig's hands, but his other scraped against one of the woman's legs. She tried to retaliate with a swing of her staff and a spell, but Neumann blocked both with an Active Barrier and, when it shattered, his club.
Elya launched a flurry of blows at her back, sending crack after crack after crack shooting through her own hastily deployed Active Barrier. Grantz, fast as lightning, stabbed down, shattering it once more.
She screamed. "FIERY EMBRACE!"
Five Active Barriers shone and struggled and sputtered, and two of them held against the onslaught of fire.
The other three only held long enough for their creators to fall to the ground, exhausted. Their enemy trembled as she stood above them, her staff raised into the air above her head, poised to be brought down onto the head of any one of the three on the ground.
"Charm!" Elya said, propelled forward by the Type 13 shining around her neck. She tackled the woman the same instant that her spell had made contact. But neither fell to the ground.
Elya was embracing the other woman. "Hnn," she mock-whispered in a falsetto, "Why don't you just ignore them?" she added, desire and want dripping from every word as Grantz drifted closer.
The trembling of the staff increased a hundredfold and was mimicked by the woman's entire body. Her head turned, slightly, towards Elya. "Y-"
Grantz's long, winding arms reached out, and reached under her arms, across her chest, and wrapped around her head in a vice. Elya slipped away from her, picking up Grantz's dagger and staring emotionlessly into the woman's eyes.
He barely even noticed the blood leaking from the bruised side of the head as he began to squeeze.
She cried out.
The other three rose from their feigned defeat as Grantz pushed the woman into the ground, squeezing harder until he could feel the bones in his arms crying out.
His eyes unfocused. He'd been shot twice during the war, scraped and scratched dozens of times by shrapnel, been buried by an avalanche during training, and felt more exhausted than he'd thought possible in the long, unending sieges the Russy Federation insisted on.
The creaking, aching of his body now outdid that pain a thousand times over.
He wanted to give up. His body was aching, begging him to give up, to stop or to leave. He didn't know to where, but a nagging, gnawing voice in the back of his head was imploring, insisting that whatever was next had to be better than-
"GRANTZ!"
He gave in, releasing the pressure in his arms and taking in a deep gulping breath. What-
He blinked rapidly. Oh.
He breathed, in and out, uncomprehending.
Then it clicked. He grinned. They'd done it.
Though he'd released the pressure of his grip, his arms were still entangling the woman's body and arms. Neumann was pressing a portion of his immense weight onto the back of her legs, Koenig had impaled the flesh of her arms with his fingers, and Elya and Weiss were both holding blades to the woman's throat. The cheering of the crowd had gone silent.
His grin grew in time with the woman's returning awareness. They'd pulled it off.
They'd won, and none of them had died.
"Surrender," Elya said. "Bitch."
Grantz had to fight not to snort, but Koenig and Neumann didn't bother. The woman just sat there, surrounded and unable to move.
She tried, briefly, to move her head, but Grantz squeezed, and she jerked back into place with a hiss of breath. "C'mon. Give us your wings, already."
"What if I don't?" She asked.
Grantz's mind went blank. What? That wasn't-
"Teleport!"
She was gone, and Grantz could only gape at his empty grasp. How-
"You… might be able to beat me… but I'm going to kill at least one of you," she snarled from behind them. Grantz twisted, desperately-
BANG!
A shot went off, a Grantz jerked in place-
TING! TING!
Only for the telltale sound of a round ricocheting off of an Active Barrier to reach his ears. He blinked in shock.
THUMP
Neumann fell over, but before he could even think to help him, Grantz was already running towards the woman, his hands raised into the air, poised to end her life as she'd been about to be-
He blinked again, and saw that her head was already gone. The corpse holding the pistol fell lifelessly to the ground.
The crowd roared.
He whirled back around, the referee shouting about the match being over. It didn't matter why the head was gone – one of the other two had used Artillery Shots to blow it away. He had to check on-
"Oh relax, you big baby," Koenig muttered as Grantz reached down towards Neumann. "He's just run himself dry."
Grantz nodded to himself. Indeed, Neumann's breath was shallow, but it was there. Somehow, despite how tired they'd all been, he'd managed to deflect what was undoubtedly a magically-enhanced shot back at the woman who'd shot him. "Shit!"
His gaze jerked back up, ready to fight again-
Only to find that there was no body. "What?"
"Cunts!"
He whirled around again, his arms reaching around Neumann to give him a modicum of protection, no matter how flimsy a shield his limbs made. She was alive, standing before them once more. He was going to-
"I really thought I had you all there," she said, looking like she hadn't just… been…
"You had another life?" Elya was the first to ask, but Grantz was just about to do the same. The woman nodded offhandedly as she ran a hand across her great leathery wings. "Yeah." Then, after a moment passed, she raised an eyebrow. "What, you all thought I'd throw away my life so eagerly? Hell no!"
She chuckled and motioned towards the open gate to the arena. "C'mon, let's get this over with." She snapped her fingers and, in a burst of flame, a half dozen Imps and Gremlins appeared and began rolling Neumann onto a stretcher.
As they drifted towards each other once more, waiting for the moment she'd turn traitor, she did no such thing. Instead, she drifted closer to Elya with a salacious grin on her face. "I'm sure you all have places to be," she commented, "but when you all are in the neighborhood again, I wouldn't mind…"
Rubbed a hand down Elya's arm. "Ignoring everyone else for a bit," she purred. Elya scowled and tore her arm away from the woman, who just shook her head. "Fine, fine." Then, they were off, trailing after her and forming a perimeter around Neumann, awaiting their reward.
"How'd you get another life, anyway?" Grantz muttered. There was no way-
"I got lucky, kid," she responded. He blinked. He hadn't been expecting her to actually answer.
Unprompted, she elaborated. "I bet an eternity of service during a battle royale some bigwig set up as my entrance fee," with that, she said no more, and they said nothing in return.
They had to be vigilant. They had no desire to be killed now, or for her to attempt to renege of their deal, somehow, or for one of the demons ferrying their friend to trip and send him sprawling.
-OxOxO-
Their meeting with Hoost had been brief. They'd given him the wings of that woman, and he'd told them to return to Maxwell for their reward, along with his promise to once again serve Maxwell as soon as he obtained more servants for himself.
He was in the middle of directing a play about his years spent serving some Dark Goddess, though he would be getting credit for writing it as well. His ghostwriter was a literal ghost.
Not a single one of them had agreed that Tanya might want him to put on a play about her life when she was sent down here.
"I'm just glad we didn't have to play another game of Hell Jeopardy," Grantz muttered. The others voiced their general agreement, though the conversation was smothered by the imposing presence of Maxwell's abode.
It didn't look particularly disquieting. It had, however, seemingly absorbed something from Maxwell's presence, because it felt identical to him. Had they just not noticed it last time, or had it been hidden from them?
If he were told so, he would not doubt if the house had become some kind of esoteric demon after being inhabited by a Duke of Hell for… however long Maxwell had been living there.
He blinked. Had it… always looked like that? He was fairly sure that there had been stone floors in the place they'd gone to the first time. This one looked more like a mansion a rich aristocrat would reside-
He blinked again. He got the feeling, looking at the tall, spike-like skyscraper, that it hadn't looked like that. What had it looked like, though?
He opened his mouth, to say he wasn't knocking on the door. Why would he?
"You have to," said Koenig. "That button says 'Grantz only' on it."
Grantz opened his mouth to respond, and then found the words stolen from his tongue. He grumbled. The house – or Maxwell – was playing tricks on them. Why else would he be so sure something was off, even when the edifice carved into the stone of hell looked like it always had?
Grantz depressed the large, fist-sized, red button with his name flashing above it. Deep, bellowing laughter and screams echoed from inside as the front doors opened. Grantz, bowing down and gesturing with his elongated arms, said, "Ladies first."
"Thank you Grantz!" said Neumann as the other four made their way inside. "You'll make a very lovely doormat, one day."
He rolled his eyes as they made their way through the hallway. Grantz couldn't see more than five feet in front of them, but he trusted that if they were going to die, either Neumann would protect them with an Active Barrier or they'd all die so quickly he wouldn't have to worry about it.
"Yee yee! How wonderful to see you all again! Who are you?" said the immaculately dressed Maxwell.
They emerged from the darkened hallway to find themselves in the room they'd been in last time. Maxwell was lounging on a couch, while Qindur, his TV-like head now entirely encased in pulsating skin and flesh, leaned towards Maxwell. After a moment, the Duke snapped his fingers.
"Right, Right! You've gotten back in contact with Hoost, yeah? You helped him, yeah, yeah?" he asked, smiling widely from his perch on the edge of the couch. The five of them stood, stiffly imitating parade rest. "Yes," Weiss replied. "Helped him get his wings back."
"Good, good!" he said. He sprang from the couch and rushed towards Koenig. He grabbed onto his hand, either not noticing or not caring about the blades. Grantz moved towards his friend slightly, but Maxwell had already dragged him towards Qindur. "Now, associates! Qindur will teach you a spelly spell to find your Generally Major."
Qindur nodded stiffly, dragging Koenig away to one corner. The TV flickered on, and the pair stood there, unspeaking.
Maxwell turned to the others.
"After he learns the spelly spell," Maxwell says, "All you'll have to do to find her is go uppity up."
"Up?" Grantz repeats. "But won't we…"
There was a sinking in his gut. Was this it? He'd tell them a way they could find her, but not provide them a way to survive-
"Why you-"
"Cool it, cold-shot hot-not," the Duke of Hell said to Neumann. "Of course I'd usually do something like that to backstab demons, but like I said! I wanna have a few favors from the doll when she gets down here!"
He cleared his throat, and though his manic expression remained the same, there was the slightest hint of gravitas in his voice. "The Anniversary is nearly upon us."
"What's the Anniversary?" Elya asked. Maxwell's grin grew. "The Anniversary is what The Anniversary says on the tin! It's the Anniversary!"
Grantz opened his mouth. "'Of what?'" Maxwell interrupted, "why, of the fall! Of war and strife and Hell itself!"
Grantz glanced towards Koenig and Qindur. They were still motionless-
"They'll take a while," Maxwell said.
They sat for a few minutes, silent. Grantz wondered when they'd finish. He wasn't overly concerned with what Maxwell had said – this place was already nonsensical enough. He really didn't want to know-
Elya did want to know, apparently. "Well, if we've not got anything better to do," she began. Grantz briefly feared she was going to say something about playing a game. "What do you mean, the anniversary of Hell itself?"
He looked back at Qindur, and then he shrugged. He gestured towards the unoccupied seats around the couch. "Sit, sit! It is a long story!"
Grantz cast a glance towards Qindur and Koenig, and then he sighed and took a reluctant seat. He supposed, if they really didn't have anything better to do, he might as well listen.
Neumann spoke before Maxwell could get going. "Hey, while you're at it… could you explain why Hell is… how it is? I was a soldier, not a priest, but even I know this place doesn't exactly match what we thought it would be.
Maxwell chuckled airly. "Hm, hm! Yes, I guess you might think that, depending on where you're from. Hey, hey, how many testaments did your world have? Helps me tell the tale, it does it does."
Grantz blinked in confusion. How many? Weren't there just-
"We… just had two. The new and old ones," Elya replied.
Maxwell shook his head exaggeratedly. "Man man! I still can't get over stuff like that! Only the first two? Oh well."
Before Grantz could even really process what that meant, Maxwell cleared his throat, and his voice once again gained just a hint of seriousness. "Long, long ago, long before us, and our planets, and our universes, and Hell itself… not a lot happened." He paused for a moment, and then a moment more, and then he giggled. "Between the beginning of everything, everything, and a time so long ago that beings like you, you, who are still so close, so close to having been cast in Hell, could not comprehend it, quite a bit occurred. Deities lived and died, and much was done in Heaven."
His voice slowly lost the high-pitched, sing-songy tone and became much more grounded. "Eventually, a schism occurred in Heaven itself. An infinite number of deities and angels and souls in Heaven were upset, and an infinite number of deities and angels and souls in Heaven were angry that the former group was upset."
He shrugged. "The first group called the second hypocrites for not abiding by the rule that mortals were to have free will, at the amount of work Heaven had to do, and that they couldn't have genitals… and sex."
Grantz blinked, opened his mouth-
Maxwell raised an eyebrow and let the barest hint of killing intent brush past Grantz.
FEAR.
Primal, bone-deep FEAR lanced through him and demanded he curl up and die. He could not fight THAT. He could not run from THAT. The sooner HE was dead, the better. So he should curl up, and just stop thinking, so that he died.
It was gone, and Grantz closed his mouth.
Maxwell continued. "So, the first group fought the second. The second won handily – their infinity was much larger than the first's. In the end, most of the first group were convinced, through coercion or words, to lay down their arms and give up their beliefs. There were…"
He frowned. "Seven? Right, seven, seven deities who refused to recant, and hundreds of angels of all shapes and sizes. But!" He cried, "the seven deities were under contract with Heaven, and when they were cast from Heaven, each cursed Heaven itself in retribution for the wrongful termination."
The words stewed in their minds for a moment. "Any names we might recognize?" Neumann said. Maxwell glared at him… and then he frowned. "Hm… maybe? One of them…" he stroked a nonexistent beard. "Sammy? I think you guys would know him." He crossed his arms and nodded authoritatively.
Grantz looked at the others. Sammy? What kind of god-
"What about Lucifer?" Weiss asked. Grantz nodded shallowly, as did the others.
Maxwell's face lit up. "That's right, that's right! That was one of Sammy's names. Man, he had a lot of those, he did, he did. Yee yaa!"
Grantz stared at Maxwell, uncomprehending. "Sammy, Samuel, Morningstar, Lucifer, Satan…"
He went on for a bit longer, listing names he didn't recognize. Grantz just stared off into the distance. Sammy?
He shook his head. "We could be here all day if we kept going. Yeah, he was one of them."
"No more interrupting," he said with a mad smile. From the way Grantz could see Weiss's Adam's apple bobbing in his throat, he'd definitely been hit with a wave of killing intent as well.
He cleared his throat. "Those curses did quite a bit, but the most important for you all is that the barriers between Heaven, Hell, and the various Living Universes became more of a veil and less of a… concrete wall a hundred miles thick, which means we," he said, "we meaning demons, can go between them. Now, I'm sure you all know that not many do because a particularly determined seven-year-old could beat a demon to death with a bit of surprise, thanks to our weakness to pain."
He spread his arms out wide and grinned a bit wider. "Of course, 'not many' in Hell, with the infinite number of sinners we receive, means only a few million a day leave. A lot of them die!" he informed them cheerfully.
"You all," he said, while reaching into his well-made coat, "will not die. Because Heaven will otherwise be occupied, demons who leave during the Anniversary will have a direct connection back to hell that will supply you with all the Arcana you need."
"And!" he shouted as he drew from his coat what looked, to Grantz's eyes, like tickets, "with these, no one who owes allegiance, directly or indirectly, to myself or the other Dukes of Hell, will be able to harm you."
"Really?" said Elya. She reached for them-
Weiss grabbed her wrist gently. "And what do those cost us?"
He sighed tiredly. "Well," he said, "nothing, nothing, because you didn't look at your contract closely enough, yee yee."
Grantz's thoughts crashed to a halt. What?
Neumann spoke first. "What do you-"
"Hey!" he said again, "I want favors from the doll! Betraying you all won't help me with that, nah nah!"
They remained silent, and Maxwell smiled. "You all may know a lot of tricks, but it'll take you at least a few billion to learn all of mine! I wrote an extra clause in lettering a few microns thick beneath the clause you thought was last! Hee haa!"
"What do we have to do?" Grantz said. Maxwell grinned at him and extended his hand with the tickets in them. Grantz took them gingerly. "Nothing nada much! When you get to the world of your janGle roaMer, find a girl named 'Wolbach' and tell her that, while he remembers her pretty fondly, Hoost isn't pretty interested in returning to her service."
Grantz nodded, while Elya's expression furrowed. "Is she the Dark God he was talking about?"
Maxwell grinned and ignored the question. "Now, is he…"
He looked over the shoulder of the couch. Qindur and Koenig were still there, and Maxwell sighed while turning back to them. "Hum dee dum. You wanna keep hearing about the Anniversary?"
Elya nodded, as did the other two. Grantz sighed and did the same. Maxwell opened his mouth-
"Done." Qindur said.
They both staggered back from each other. Grantz looked to Koenig. Did he…
"I know the spell," he said, grinning triumphantly. Grantz breathed a sigh of relief and immediately stood up. Weiss began to say goodbye, but Maxwell waved him off. "Get going! The lines have been building up for a few centuries now at least, at least. Right?" He turned his head sharply to Qindur.
The demon shook his head. "Far longer, sir, for a few intrepid sinners."
Maxwell shrugged, and then he pulled out a handkerchief and waved them off. Grantz turned to leave, thankful they were finally-
"Wait. I have one more question."
He glared at the side of Elya's head – they were almost gone. Not just from Hell, but Maxwell! How could she-
"Oh?" Maxwell said. "Yee yee! What is your question, big-titted one?"
She didn't react to the comment. "Is… uh, Satan still around?"
He blinked, and then, he began to chuckle. The chuckle built, into laughter, and then in raucous, breathless howling.
Qindur, thin and ever-stiff, seemed to be struggling to suppress laughter of his own.
Maxwell spoke quickly. "Yee yee, of course not! Three of the seven died in only a few million, the next two in a few billion. The second to last managed to stick around for a whole five hundred billion years. And Sammy?"
He chuckled, his grin growing wider and wider and wider. The house twisted behind him, the landing and windows and wall and floor and ceiling and exit and entrance swirling together until WHITE – tiles marble wood paint ivory skin – lined up behind his head, stretched miles into the distance, and mirrored the grin splitting and stretching off of his face.
"He died shortly after the first Anniversary. He took three of the other Dukes with him…"
He took in a deep, rattling breath. "But the despair he felt when he saw it was me that had killed him… oh, nothing else has compared to that," he muttered orgasmically.
The house snapped back to normal.
"I can't fathom," Qindur said suddenly, his voice oddly accented, "how anyone could think the depravity and horrors mortal beings have concocted could ever be outstripped by any petty divinity."
"Yes." Maxwell replied simply.
Grantz began to back away, suddenly able to think again. The others were doing the same.
Maxwell waved goodbye to them, his smile simply and small once more. "Ta ta, ta ta. For now."
They left quickly.
-OxOxO-
Soon, they were gone from his house, and then they were flying away. Eventually, he couldn't see them anymore from his house as it currently was, and he flipped over the couch and sat back down.
The other demon remained stock still. No doubt, he was still tracking the demon he'd instructed. Maxwell didn't wonder why.
The demon knew where they were going. He didn't need to track them. Not yet.
Maxwell, though, knew this demon. Or, he'd known tens of thousands of versions of this demon, and billions of demons that were similar enough to those many versions. Maxwell knew this demon, which was why his behavior didn't puzzle Maxwell in the slightest.
"Ah," he sighed, discarding his circular thinking. "I love willing idiots. It didn't even take a year! Not that you had that long to fool them if you wanted the best chance of finding the doll."
He looked at the demon. Still still. "Did you ever apologize to those men you set up to play Hell Jeopardy? What about Rocha? She can't be happy about losing her wings like that."
The demon remained still, still. "Well, Murray'll be happy about his promotion. I can imagine how twisted his expression will be. And hey!" Maxwell said.
"I know how happy I am! I don't have to pretend that my memory loss wasn't just a symptom of me not having enough Arcana in that Mortal Universe! So wonderful! So good! Good like today!"
Still, the demon standing still remained still. "Well," Maxwell said, not the least perturbed by the demon's lack of action. It was expected. "You gave them the spell, so you'll be off any minute now, and they'll show you where you need to go to find what you're searching for. You must be happy now, right, 'Qindur?'"
"In," the demon began, the silky-smooth voice he'd taken from an orator, strong and angry and euphoric.
"DEED!" he finished, his voice replaced by a feverish, slimy, desperate voice that Maxwell recognized oh-so-well. The hard-won TV cracked seemingly without reason, and then the thin, lithe body the demon had been offered began to bulge and sag as pressure built up from within. The nondescript uniform strained against the rippling flesh beneath it.
The arms burst at the same time, blood and viscera and cloth sent flying in all directions, replaced with masses of thick, writhing tentacles that couldn't have possibly fit in the arms that had been there. They undulated, touching, feeling, brushing, constantly contacting each other, constantly checking, to be sure, that they were whole. That they were real.
Then, the chest burst open, and the tentacles writhed faster as the body, the vessel, the home, was torn to shreds by its occupant. Picked apart, chunk by chunk. The body swayed, still standing, and the legs too burst.
What was left of the corpse fell over, cracking and denting the TV further. The mass of flesh, of skin, of muscle, that had been connecting the body and the TV crawled through the hole in the bottom of the device, pulling every last one of the tentacles that had burst from the body with it.
Maxwell continued watching, grin growing greater, until the screen cracked one last time.
The MASS of meat and hooks and blood and tentacles, oh, so many tentacles, and strength and malice and hatred and malevolent intelligence and, above all else, an unquenchable, unceasing LUST, burst from the television in a shower of light and glass.
Slowly, the MASS reoriented itself, and then it began to crawl towards the exit.
"Ahem."
It stopped in its tracks, and Maxwell smiled. "Now now, now now. We had a deal?"
It came back towards him, no hesitation, no reluctance. A tentacle shot forward-
And then back, inwards, into itself, into the MASS. Slowly, it pulled a sodden paper, a RED paper, from within and deposited it in Maxwell's outstretched hand.
Maxwell couldn't help but sigh in relief. Oh, the beautiful, bright RED paper.
It was no contract. No, in Hell, RED paper was used for ownership, of anything and everything. Land. Arenas. Power. And, of course, demons.
Five million demons. Some would be in his service for longer, but all of them were sworn to him for at least a century.
He would start with, he would use, the ones sworn for the least time first.
The poor fools.
Maxwell looked up to find that the demon was already gone. He had been about to say something, about betraying his own kind.
The voice had been wagered, in a moment of miscalculation, under the sacred bonds of not brotherhood or kinship or solidarity, but of ideology.
The TV had been won, with sweat and blood and tears and devotion, and delivered to him at his orders, procedure and loyalty from lives long gone still followed to the letter, in the name of ideology.
The body, the housing of the last vestiges of someone's miserable, evil life, had been sacrificed to the demon in a show of slavish devotion, not on the altar of a god or a religion, but on the altar of an ideology.
All of them, the voice and the TV and the body and five million souls, had been obtained, in some form or another, willingly, by the demon that was leaving Maxwell's abode.
Maxwell shrugged to himself. He willed the gore and blood away, and his home made them part of itself and hid them away, somewhere deep, deep within. He supposed his words wouldn't have mattered to the demon.
He looked to the future.
Communists were always fun to torture, to extract delicious despair from. The ones sent down here were either useful idiots, indoctrinated zealots, or were like the demon who had just left and utterly, utterly uncaring of what colors they daubbed the mask hiding their true nature with. He wondered how many of the millions in this batch would experience more despair from having their bankrupt ideology verbally shredded, their personal lives shredded, or their bodies shredded.
He wondered how many sworn to serve him eternally would come to believe they were above the ones who weren't. He wondered how many would come to believe that they were immune to his depredations. He wondered how their despair would taste when they realized, finally, in thousands or millions or billions of years, that they weren't.
They would all wear out – they were demons, with much more limited stores of emotions than humans – but he would enjoy them regardless, just as he always did when a version of a pedophilic communist officer, often but not always named Lavrentiy Beria, came to Hell.
Maxwell sighed in contentment at his visions of the future. Demons and Duke who were obsessed with obtaining the power to concretely see the past and future, like the newest Duke of Hell, weren't thinking long-term enough. If you just planned for every outcome, you didn't need to know the tiny details.
Especially when you could change how everyone else remembered those details.
Regardless of Loria's success, Maxwell benefited.
If he achieved his goal, if he subjugated Tanya von Degurechaff, he'd return to Hell, owning Degurechaff in broken mind and broken body, and use her as a tool and a plaything – non-sexually by the time she got down here, of course, but who needed sex when there were so, so many better ways to defile someone?
If he returned empty-handed, it didn't matter for Maxwell in the long run.
Regardless, Loria would be working with Maxwell to increase the number of emotions he could enjoy partaking in, from demons and humans both.
And one day, Maxwell would kill Loria and partake in his despair.
Of course, Maxwell won no matter what. If he was defeated by Degurechaff, then she'd get stronger and work to oppose Heaven, doing Hell's job for it as long as THAT GOD was willing to reincarnate her. Then, when THAT GOD got bored, she'd be sent to Hell, and Maxwell would show up and give her a helping hand. If her friends made it to her, told her about his interest in her and how she couldn't hide from him, for better or for worse, all the better.
Regardless, Tanya would be working with Maxwell to increase the number of emotions he could enjoy partaking in, from demons and humans both.
And one day, Maxwell would kill Tanya and partake in her despair.
Regardless of what humans came to Hell, someone would try to work for Maxwell. Someone would try to kill Maxwell and take his place. Someone would try to hide from Maxwell.
In the end, Maxwell would kill them, and Maxwell would feast on their despair as they were hurt and died, just as he had his entire life and death. Just as he had when he'd killed Lucifer and taken his place.
Maxwell sighed once more. His home shifted around him, changing his couch into a bed and swaddling him in sheets and blankets and walls and the despair of millions.
In the end, Maxwell would kill them.
Or he wouldn't.
In his uncountable years of life, there was no emotion Maxwell had found that he loved feasting on more than despair. As his time in Hell had increased, as he had grown to become one of the most experienced entities to ever exist, there was nothing he had not been able to plan for or foresee, no memory or perception he hadn't been able to adjust to his advantage.
Maxwell couldn't fathom how delicious his own despair would taste when his life finally came to an end.
-OxOxO-
"You bastards! Somebody stop them!"
"We've been waiting here for hundreds of years! It took me millennia to save up enough emotions for this! You motherfuckers!"
"I'll kill you, you-"
"GO FU-"
The insults were many and furious. The farther they got along, the further they traveled over the masses of crowds that had formed in the brickwork terminal, the more biting, hateful, and angry the curses became as they flew over demons that had not been waiting decades or centuries, but tens or hundreds of thousands of years.
"A few more minutes, then I'll kill! I'll kill you all! Starting with-"
"Murder. Death. Vengeance. Misery. Horror."
"Violation. If I don't have a dick, I'll use a knife to make a hole and then-"
Still, despite the angry crowds, none of the peace-keepers – working for one of the Dukes of Hell – standing along the walls or hanging from the ceiling or watching, from outside the structure, intervened. Their tickets protected them from the Dukes of Hell.
Unlike when they'd been there to wait for Koenig, most of the exits leading up to the Ascent were blocked off by yet more brickwork. Only one, at the far, far end of the building, was going to be opened.
"C'mon!" Grantz shouted. "We've gotta go faster!"
They continued flying above. There were others, he thought, ahead and behind them, with bright, luminescent tickets that whispered to all who cared to listen that they were of, in some infinitesimal way, the Dukes of Hell.
Without warning, sound was born.
Loud and droning and deep and seemingly coming from everywhere around them, sound with no source caused every demon – those flying above, those waiting below, and those watching over – to pause.
Then, the monotone, wailing buzz echoed, and a new sound, echoing through the room from the end they were headed towards, crackled to life. "The Anniversary is upon us!"
The speakers turned off immediately, and the large metal doors on the other end began to blare a warning sound that echoed in the giant room. Lights flashed, and-
"Go!" Said Weiss. Grantz didn't think, and they sped forward faster than they had been going, spirited onwards by desperation.
The warning lights were the signal, and chaos broke out below them. Demons turned on each other, or pushed forward in an attempt to get out. Tens of thousands took near-simultaneous flight. Some fought to get ahead, some for revenge, some for fun, and some just the sake of it.
Not that Grantz could tell them apart. All he could do was dodge. Dodge and dodge and dodge and keep as much focus as he could on his friends as they did much the same, all of them pushing through the air and fighting and bodies.
Grantz's mind was cast back to his death. Sioux, raining hell down on all of them, on him, and their desperate, useless attempts to dodge.
A lance of fire, a ball of energy, flash-freezing water, a pulsating orb that hurt to look at as it whizzed by, claws and fangs and swords and fists and more, flying up and raining down, little of it focused on them specifically and all of it, all of it, debilitating if it grazed them.
Still, on they pushed, the fighting lessening as the exit to Hell loomed, the darkness kept behind the gargantuan doors yawning as thousands of demons a second leaped into it and disappeared, until, finally, they were there.
They didn't waste time reminiscing or preparing themselves – there wasn't time for that.
They flew into the darkness, and Grantz's mind was assaulted.
Below them was more of the bedrock of hell. Far, far above them, was a light twinkling like the north star.
What was between the two was debatable.
They were inside something. A pillar of stone, an esophagus, a vertical maintenance shaft, a tree made of shadows, a sphere made of prickly nothingness, a pencil, a bone, an electrical wire, a thread made of fate.
Everytime Grantz tried to figure it out, he blinked, and it changed, and a niggling headache began to build into a head-splitting migraine-
"Don't try to look around," Koenig commanded. "You won't figure it out. Focus on the exits."
Grantz blinked, and he did as he was told. Above indeterminable distance away from them – dozens of feet, or inches, or meters, or miles, or football fields, or klicks, or astronomical units – were exits. Dark punctures in the flesh, shafts of starlight in the sphere, floors in the elevator shaft, frayed fibers in the thread; all of them screamed, and their screams made the headache fade.
Koenig gestured, and he threw the vial up into the air. It arced downwards, not into the stone floor or the grasp of another demon or past them, but into the center of the glowing red pentagram. Koenig's eyes glowed the same color.
The vial burst into shards, which fell. The blood glowed vibrantly, and then flitted through the air until it came to rest in Koenig's palm, a small compass the size of a pfenning.
Koenig's head snapped back and he looked up. "Follow me."
He was off like a shot. They followed silently. There was still fighting going on, but much less so here. Only hundreds of battles instead of tens of thousands. It was easy, in the vast, undefinable space they were in, to avoid them.
Until, quite suddenly, it wasn't.
"DIE! DIE, SCRAPS OF FLESH WEARING THE GUISE OF SOULS! DIE, SINFUL SCUM! DIE DIE DIE!"
"In the name of all that is noodle and marinara, I sentence you to nonexistence in the name of my lord! TEMPESTA DI POLPETTE!"
"OUTTA MY WAY! OUTTA MY WAY! IF YOU DON'T MOVE, I WON'T BE HELD RESPONSIBLE-"
They ran into what Grantz could only assume were the forces of Heaven.
Thankfully, they didn't have to fly through that battlefront. Koenig turned sharply to the side, and they flew off towards the walls of the space they flew through, dodging, dodging, dodging again as they headed towards one exit, then another, then another, darting and changing course until, finally-
It was light, and dark, and echoing, and indescribable. Above all else, however, it was an exit.
Koenig went first. Weiss, then Elya. Neumann was bringing up the rear, and Grantz flew through, his being consumed by light, unable to see-
There was silence.
-OxOxO-
A/N: And so the story ends! Well, there's an epilogue, but otherwise, the story ends. I'm really very happy with how this side story turned out – I looked at what happened to Tanya's friends and saw their journey to reunite with her, I got to explore how I thought Hell might work in the context of the two crossover and Third Time's the Charm, I got to look at how Maxwell/a more 'demony' demon than Vanir might act, and, of course, I got to introduce a new/old antagonist to make sure Tanya doesn't steamroll her enemies.
In addition to posting this, I've also edited the first four chapters a bit. Mostly fixing grammar and clearing up some old ideas.