You have won! Your victory has enabled humankind to evacuate Earth and escape the nightmare. Now you are the only human left on the face of the planet. Cannibal Mutations, Carnivorous Aliens, and Evil Spirits are your only neighbors. You sit back and wait for death, content that you have saved your species. But then, Earth Control beams down a message from space: "Sensors have located the source of the Alien invasion. If you go there, you may be able to block their entry. The Alien base is in the heart of your own home city, not far from the starport." Slowly and painfully you get up from the Fray.

Chapter 2: One Horned Devil

It was a mistake to take a nap.

They say that sleeping helps your mind solve whatever problem might be bothering you, but his mind was haunted by the images of his past – images of what he faced off and endured – images of what he had lost: His decision to disobey the orders of his commanding officer for ordering him to shoot a whole bunch of miners that just protested for a little pay raise and then almost beating that filthy son of a bitch to death, His demotion and punishment, the separation with his family and barely any contact in two years, Deimos poofing out of existence and his arrival on Phobos...

Then demons.

Soo many demons.

He remembers the time he was afraid that the horrors would escape that moon base and destroy everything – destroy all he cares about, so he kept pushing and pushing into Hell to stop it all: Cyberdemon, Spider Mastermind...

And when he got sent back Earth by them, it just ended up being one sick fucking joke – Earth invaded, violated, burned, destroyed...

His hometown in ruins – just an endless road of graves.

His wife and child – dead.

His pet rabbit – Daisy - the only reminder of his wife and the life he had before them – was butchered. And her head? Put on a spike as a way to mess with him.

They sure messed with him alright – the slaughter he brought with him was unlike anything the slaves of Doom ever experienced.

Then the Icon of Sin – he remembers how much it literally hurt every fiber of his own being to even look at the damn thing, but he still kept looking at it and fighting it.

And when it was all done and Hell left Earth for some time, when he should have felt content - like when he was prepared to die after buying time for survivors to escape the planet - he felt...

Empty. There was nothing. Just an ever consuming void of having nothing to fight for. Nothing to exist for. Nothing of value left. Noone to begin with. There was only this...

Rage

Doom Marine woke up to the reality and the first his eyes see is a feminine red skinned devil with a tail and a broken right horn kneeling not far from him – was she trying to rob him, eat him or check if he was fine mattered not to him at the moment – he saw what he thought to be a Hellspawn based on the little time he spent in this crazy land...

And right about now, he was mad hungry for some devil blood.

He grabs onto its hands – excruciating pain from the heat coming off it be damned – knee kicks it with all the fury he mustered in its ribs, followed by a powerful left hook in the jaw, sending her flying backwards. Then he pulled out his shotgun to finish it off. Unfortunately for him, the one horned devil recovered faster than he expected and it instinctively rolled out of the way, sitting on both of its knees soon after, holding it's injured chest and glaring.

"Motherfucker, you hit harder than Balor… That was uncalled for!" the tailed, red skinned feminine creature yelled out of annoyance and anger. Doom marine rose up on his feet – damn all the broken bones down there – and rushed at the devil - flaming sword he collected on the ship in hand

"If that's how you want to play, fine!" in irritation, the devil drew its axe, prepared for a fight. Marine's swing proved to be quite powerful, but unfortunately, he is not particularly trained in using swords, so the feminine creature was able to block such an attack and counter it with a swift hit over his arms, disarming him and then taking a swing at him.

Unfortunately for the one horned devil, Doom marine, in spite of having plenty of broken bones, is still quite fast, dangerous and reckless.

He ducked under the axe and knocked the creature off its feet, punching it in the face then kicking away the axe with an intent to pummel the red thing into the red gory paste. In response to that, demon grabbed onto his helmet and throat, both blocking the vision and slowly burning off his throat – smart move.

Trough pain as always and with some struggle, he was able to lift himself off the devil to give a firm stomp on its head, freeing himself from a fiery grasp. A new problem is now he couldn't breathe at the moment – not with that helmet on.

While he was removing the thing, one horned creature was able to recover, grab the axe and rush at him with a battle cry. In turn, Doom Marine pulled out his chainsaw.

Needless to say, the creature was puzzled by what sort of a weapon it was, but did not stop its attack. Doomguy dodged the swing and responded in kind with his own weapon - chainsaw - it's teeth roaring like a beast, starved for flesh and blood.

Devil blocked the attack, but couldn't do the same thing it did with the sword before – unlike with swords, Marine is more than proficient enough in using chainsaw in close quarter gory encounters. He started to overpower the creature, forcing it to kneel from the sheer force this one man too stubborn to die demonstrated, so it had only two options now: keep standing like a buffoon and die or let go of the weapon and try its luck attacking the madman some other way.

It choose the second option.

One horned devil let go off its axe and dodged back, but not fast enough – Doom Marine was able to cut its chest. The wound he gave wasn't quite fatal...

Yet.

But before Marine could deliver his finishing blow upon what he thought is a Hellspawn, the damn worm reminded him of its presence in his head. This time, he ended up being in the head of… a tiefling?

He saw things with its – no, her eyes – serving under an Archduchess of the first circle of Hell – Zariel, cutting trough the fields of blood and fire in her name. Then it changes to her cutting trough servants of Zariel – her rage in desperation felt almost like his own - looking for an escape from Hell, to go back home – to Baldur's Gate.

And she was able to find a way out by taking a ride on a mindflayer's ship. She is no devil, but a slave - held against her will – Hell's victim. What did the one horned woman saw in his mind tho?

It was not pretty. Aside from seeing breef moments of escaping nautiloid, she saw destruction, death, despair, hate...

Then Rage – so much rage that if the man before her had the same infernal engine for a heart, it would make her look like a dim candle in the dark. Then followed the images of various places she had never seen – looks just like Hell, yet so different at the same time.

Then the images of creatures – or better yet, their last moments – followed: Torn to shreds, ripped apart, set on fire, blown up, pummeled into the ground, blasted to bits, disintegrated, gutted to pieces with the very weapon he tried on her moments ago. And the entire time the images popped in her head, she heard on repeat the same thing this man seemed to tell himself – like a mantra:

'Kill them all! Rip and Tear! Don't stop! No surrender!'

Then the connection faded. Marine was lost, confused, shocked and dumbfounded – he just tried to kill an innocent person – another victim of Hell. As of the one horned woman...

"Fuck me, you are from nautiloid too?! Could have said it sooner, you hard-punching son a bitch!" she grabbed her chin and massaged it – still hurt. "Fucking Hell... Good thing I didn't kill you... if from that look in your head I saw what I think I saw, I believe we'd get along just fi..."

~BOOM~

She stopped talking when she realized that the Marine just shot with his strange boom stick into the ground not far from her, noticing that he seems to be conflicted about something.

"What…are you?!" Doom Marine asked with anger and venom in his voice – perhaps looking for some justification or explanation, or both.

The one horned tiefling, after that one little look in his head thanks to a tadpole, realized that the man before her was going through something somewhat similar to her situation and that he may have mistaken her for a devil, hence a sudden... need for violence came to be. The woman raised her arms forward as a sign of peace.

"I understand that you may be confused right now after all the shit that happened recently, but let me make it clear – I am no devil. I served for ten years in Hells against my will – was forced to fight and fight I did. When I saw an opportunity to escape, I got the fuck out and I am telling you – I am not going back there!" He was still hesitant to let go off his weapon. Woman sighed.

"Look, I am not your enemy, alright? As the matter of fact, I think we need to team up! Gods, we both got the same parasites that need to be removed and from that little 'misunderstanding of two grown ups' we just had you know I'm not bad at fighting... and I know you are an exceptionally tough and hard punching, magnificent-looking fucking bastard!" She stated in a light hearted manner - his hands were shaky, but he still aimed his weapon at her.

"So what do you say tough guy... Truce?" there was a moment of unnerving silence – the area around seemed to quiet down in anticipation of what will come next - and then…

"God-fucking… damn it!" he quickly lowered his shotgun and started to walk around the place a bit. Then he stopped and took a deep breath.

"I still don't know what are you supposed to be – damn, I don't even know where I am exactly" this confused the tiefling.

"What, you never seen a tiefling before? And what do you mean with the last bit of what you said?"

"I don't even know what in the ever holy fuck is a fucking tiefling!" he snapped then calmed down a bit

"...I am literally not from around here – not this… reality" Now the woman started to understand that his situation is a little bit more complicated than what she originally thought.

"Alright... Then how about this: we tag along, I'll answer on your questions at best of my abilities and you try to answer on some of the questions I might have myself. And while we are at it, we get to deal with our mutual problem – tadpoles in our heads. What do you say, solder?" He contemplated the offer for a moment.

"Fine. Let's tag along."

The answer made her jump a bit "Yes! Gods, I'd hug you if it wasn't for my ribs and the fact I'd scorch you… Well, scorch you more. ~Sorry for that." He remembered that he grabbed some red liquid from the mindflayer's ship a while back... "Oh, almost forgot! I'm Karlach – pleasure to meet you. And you are?" then he pulled out two bottles of the red liquid, showing it to her

"Is this of any use?" that made her forget about the question she just asked.

"Bet your ass it is: a health potion is always of use – especially after the beating you gave me!" He offered her one bottle and watched as Karlach chugged in the entire thing, witnessing as some of her injuries healed in almost an instant. He contemplated about drinking it himself…

he chugged in the remaining bottle in hand and felt as most of his bones mended back together. He did a little stretching and weight testing on his legs to see the results.

This amused one horned tiefling: "What are you doing?"

"Some bones were broken before - checking what's fixed." He answered. She was flabbergasted by this revelation.

'so you mean to tell me this good-looking son of a bitch nearly killed me while having broken bones?!'

Once he finished checking his conditioning, he put his helmet back on and picked off the gear that was thrown all over the place. "Guess it's time for a talk, then..." he said, while motioning her to follow. As they started to walk towards the small hill up ahead, she started:

"So... Where are you from?"

"Earth." He gave her a laconic response.

"Earth as if in 'Elemental Plain of Earth'?"

"No" again with a short response.

"Oh boy, you're tons of fun, aren't you?... Can you at least tell me what it looks like?" Marine thought about it just a moment...

"It looked kind of like this world, but… no elves, tieflings, dragons, the green folk you call 'gith', magic, mindflayers... and no demons until few or so years ago."

Karlach whistled "Damn... Must be a very peculiar world to live in, eh?"

"I guess..." he started to wonder about his world: Did his stay in Hell gave the remaining people on Earth a chance to live – chance to rebuild? Or was it all for naught? Was his decision a sacrifice for the greater good or just some fucked up way go down with a bang in the pile of demonic blood and snot?

"Wait, you said 'it looked like'... Did something happen to your..." before she could finish her question, he interjected with his own.

"What is a tiefling?"

"What?" she didn't hear him clearly, so he repeated the question in detail

"You haven't explained to me what your species are supposed to be exactly and how do you differentiate someone of your species with the ones I encountered in... What do you call it... Avernus?" The look of understanding spread across the face of his now tag-along companion.

"I believe you are talking about Cambions – they are the direct result of mating between fiends or devils and a humanoid creature – usually humans. As of tieflings – like yours truly... well, to put it short: most of us are pretty much like ordinary humans with some very distant relation to the devils of Hell present within our bloodline and it visually shows, but we are not devils." She explained and made the final part of her statement loud and clear.

"Being quite flammable and hard-to-touch included?" Karlach shook her head.

"No, that one's a result of having high pain tolerance, two incredibly shitty bosses and getting my heart swapped with an infernal engine" she hit herself in a chest as to emphasize what she is talking about – a hollow metallic sound followed by the release of pressure from within came out as a response "Makes me burn as hot as the Hells. Granted, since I got the fuck out of Hells, it's been acting really hot as of late." Behind the helmet, Doom marine had a weird mixture of pity and curiosity spread across his face.

'that's one messed up way to torment someone'

"But enough about that – we can talk about our tragic backstories some time later. What we can do now is deal with tadpoles, kill some evil bastards along the way and get our hands one some good potations!" They could see a building not far from them up ahead.

"Speaking of that... Maybe we can get some drinks in there while we're at it?" His throat does feel dry – especially after that one time she almost melted it off during their misunderstanding. They went up the hill to the building towards the nearby door. The moment they opened it...

"PALADINS, TO ARMS! The Devil has found us." All the plans to get some drinks were thrown out of the window – dozens of people all over the room, armed and armored.

'Oooh, the humanity...'

"Whoa now - I think you are confusing me with someone else." Karlach tried to defuse the situation, causing the short haired man – leader, from the looks of it – to scoff at the statement.

"You lie so easily, but I suppose it is easy for your kind. Tyr warned us not to believe a word out of your mouth, a servant of Zariel."

'a fuckin' who now?' Marine thought to himself

"Tyr's a God of justice, isn't that right? If you really serve him, you'd know I never served Zariel willingly" She emphasized the last part – Karlach really seems to hate that part of her life.

"if your right hand commits injustice, remove it with your left hand' – if you were truly just, you would not have let yourself be used in such a fashion." The way this fool said it, the thing he said...

Knowing what Marine knows after looking into Karlach's head and realizing, given the quote at hand, that most of the time it's both of your hands doing the things you don't want to...

Doom Marine could not help, but laugh – to everyone present, it sounded like a cackling of some sadistic, blood thirsty maniac...

They wouldn't be too far from the truth.

"Oooh, what a load of bullshit." Marine voiced his opinion: loud and clear. Then, spoke in a calm, yet unnerving manner "You have two options: run, while you can..." He pulls out his chainsaw, teeth roaring, actually scaring the so called 'Paladins of Tyr'

"or... I turn up the heat" The man looked our Demon Slayer over, assessing the possible threat at hand, and then turned his attention to Karlach.

"Heh... You were always more resourceful that the Ladyship gave you credit for – to befriend such a peculiar fiend in spirit, but mortal in flesh" Tiefling's facial expression got the look of realization, which was quickly replaced by anger.

"'My Karlach is a cudgel' she'd say 'no finesse to speak of, but useful for cracking skulls'" the masks were off – they serve an actual devil of this reality.

"She made you what you are, Karlach. She wants you to come home. Alive, if possible. Dead, if not." The bastard looked smug when he said it, but when the one horned woman decided to speak up her mind, all the bravado suddenly vanished off his face – her becoming engulfed in flames like an Archvile certainly added up to the horror factor these morons experienced.

"Avernus was never my home. It was my prison. I'm free now. AND I'M NEVER GOING BACK!" The moment she made this fury filled declaration with fires of Hell blazing around her, it became clear that there will be bloodshed and Doom Marine was more than prepared for it.

He rushed towards the smug looking leader who did all the talking and started to cut him moments before he was able to pull his sword out – first went off his right hand and then everything bellow his right shoulder, blood and gore gushing all over the room while the treacherous bastard screamed on top of his lungs, terrifying the remaining servants of Zariel.

Karlach, now blazing with the fires of Hell, charges at a short lady to her right and slashed her axe with all the might, cutting her down in the middle, then proceeds to kick open the door behind her to destroy anyone, who gets on her way.

Doomguy, pulling off of a freshly made corpse his chainsaw, kicked a nearby fool in his knee, breaking it and causing a hard fall before stomping his skull on the ground, ending him instantly. Then someone came through the door behind him – crossbow in hand – and shot at the Marine.

Karlach smashed a woman into the wall, slicing her head clean off and then threw an axe into a fool to her right, making him fall on his back dead.

Once Marine faced the newcomer, a crossbow bolt pierced unprotected area of his left shoulder and then, while he was running at the attacker, pulled it off with an intent to 'kindly return it' to the firing fool, who managed to pull out a dagger just in time and stab the marine in the gut, but it was not deep enough thanks to the fact the guy in question already had a bolt trough his eye socket by the time he tried to stab the man too angry to die.

As the crossbow guy was hitting the ground, the remaining attacker slammed a mace over Doomguy's head – concussion and another dent on a helmet, but he did not budge from it, causing a man to fumble back a bit in shock.

"Your mama slaps harder than that."

Seeing red, he grabbed that man's head and twisted it by one hundred and eighty degrees, causing his to kneel and vomit out some blood on the floor before falling down like a sack of shit he was. Every 'Paladin of Tyr' in the area was terminated with extreme prejudice.

Karlach came back, blazing. Angry and willing to speak up whatever was on her mind.

"Fuck them. Fuck Zariel. I won't go back! I'm never going back!" she declared with determination and fury. Then Marine started to realize something...

"And if any of mommy's little friends want to pick up where the others left off... they'll find nothing, but a pile of ash." So much energy and anger – If he was her, he'd spend it on killing every single demon that gets on his way, but since there's a shortage of that or anyone else, who needs killing, he offered her only one option at hand to channel all fury into.

"Rip this fucking place to shreds" he decided to encourage her for a little property damage.

"Zariel's gotta stop fucking with me, you know? I'm done with it! I'm done with her! I'm free! I'm FREE! AHAHAHAHAHA!" Laughing like lunatic, she sprinted off, axe in hand.

Then, as she was blazing, destroying every piece of furniture in the building they were in, he fully realized that she is, indeed, no demon, but a woman who endured Hells for a decade and was able to break free and sooner or later, about to march her way home – to the so called Baldur's Gates...

Lucky her.

After breaking everything she could and cooling off a bit, Karlach returned to his side

"Phew. Had to let off a little steam after facing off with those ignots... Granted, the fire's lasting longer than it should... How do I look?" she asked, demonstrating herself for a second opinion.

Doom Marine, after looking her up and down, thought that she was like a madman – probably what they got in common – but, the one thing that definitely popped into his mind was the word…

"…Hot" and he meant that quite literally – she is steaming and he could see flames come off her. But the woman seemed to take it the other way.

"Careful there, solder... If I burn any hotter, I might explode." She then shook her head, not willing to picture this happening anytime soon.

"As I said before, this thing over here…" she slammed her chest to remind about the infernal engine for a heart "was acting really hot since I left Avernus. Won't be able to see my mechanic soon, so I'll just make the most of the extra heat… Just don't get too close 'till I've found the way to calm it down"

Now for the first time in a long while, Doom Marine felt like he was actually concerned about someone on a, if not personal level, then pretty damn close to it level.

"So this... thing is more than capable of cooking you alive if you don't find the way to turn down the heat?" Karlach scoffed, somewhat nervious

"That's an understatement, but yes." Marine seemed to think about something for a moment.

"I'll help you cool that thing off. What will you need?" This response seemed to spark more lights in the eyes of a one horned tiefling – back in high spirits.

"thanking you... We'll need to find someone, who could be able to stabilize it and we may or may not need the infernal metal." She listed off.

"Don't know what the hell it's supposed to look like, but if we do stumble upon it – let me know." She nod her head, smiling all the way.

"I will... Now come on – we got Faerun to take by its short hairs and parasites to remove!" She enthusiastically marched towards the exit, Marine following right behind her, thinking to himself:

'A beaming ball of joy in spite of all the madness that happened in her life… and a goal to return to a home, that is still around?... Lucky her.'