All characters and content of this work belongs to their respective owners, I own nothing other than my Original Character and the plot of this story.
That evening, Lady Emeraldblade and Vaggie returned back to the hotel, with the members of I.M.P in toll. The newly formed team of six gathered in a private room to discuss a plan to rescue the mercenaries, defeat Verosika, and find out where Charlie was being held.
"Okay listen up," Vaggie lectured the team, "We have less than a week to arrive in Louisville, Kentucky for this helicopter race, otherwise Emerald and I forfeit the demon duel…and we become Verosika's sex slaves for life."
"Harsh," Blitzo remarked, "But that's a rather tame demon duel compared to the one I had with her a while back."
"You've been in a demon duel before?" Emeraldblade asked.
Blitzo nodded, "We got into one after she took the parking spot to our headquarters for herself, and turned our workplace into her hangout. The duel was simple, we went up to Earth where me and my team had to kill more humans than she and her posse could seduce and have sex with. We had the upper hand, until Verosika performed one of her hit songs, prompting chaos to ensue. Eventually, after she summoned a giant fish monster, she and I hit a stalemate, which I prevailed in by convincing her to give me my parking spot back in exchange for saving her reputation."
"Sheesh." Emeraldblade replied.
"Well, knowing Verosika, given I use to work for her, I doubt she'll play nice with us during this race," Vaggie stated.
Blitzo raised an eyebrow, "Wait, you worked for that bitch before?"
"Unfortunately yes," Vaggie answered, "I use to be a member of her posse."
"And why did you leave her?" Blitzo wondered, clearly doubting his trust on the fallen angel.
Vaggie sigh, before taking up the courage to speak, "I…was forced by her to rape several men against my will. I protested, but she didn't take it kindly, and broke my arm before exiling me, all the while branding me a traitor."
"Damn…" Millie commented.
"I know," Vaggie said, "But back to the issue at hand, I've proposed a plan to stop her."
"Then l-let's hear it," Moxxie remarked.
"We're going to have to split into two teams: one to confront Verosika in Louisville, and the other to free the mercenaries she is holding hostage."
"Mercenaries, what the hell are you talking about?" Blitzo asked.
"I met a few mercenaries back on Earth before I came here," Emeraldblade answered, "They helped me defeat an old enemy of theirs who turned out to be a minion of Nightmare; Verosika is another one of his minions as well."
"And who's Nightmare I might ask." Millie wondered.
"He's a powerful, demonic entity who hates all forms of life, he wishes to bring an end to the fabric of the Universe using the power of the souls he's harvested with a living sword called Soul Edge," Emeraldblade explained, "Our ultimate mission is to find him and stop his plan before he succeeds. The mercenaries maybe rather rowdy, and are pretty obnoxious to get along with, but deep down they are good people at heart."
"I see," Blitzo noted.
"How many of them are there?" Vaggie asked, "You mentioned that there are more than the four I met."
"There are eight in total," Emeraldblade answered, "The four you met are whom we need to rescue, then there's one who was captured by Merasmus."
"Then, t-that leaves three of them that are still available, am I right?" Moxxie replied.
"Exactly," Emeraldblade nodded.
"Then how about this," Blitzo spoke up, "Loona and I will go search for where these mercenaries are being held hostage, while Millie and Moxxie will go with you two and confront Verosika in Louisville."
He then turned to Loona, who put down her phone and looked at him rather annoyingly.
"We could use some father-daughter time together for once."
"Ugh…" Loona complained, "Fine, but don't coddle me the whole fucking time."
"Okay, but that still leaves one major problem," Vaggie noted, "How are we going to get to Earth?"
"Oh that's easy," Blitzo smiled, "We can use this…"
He proceeded to pull out a strange looking book, with strange astrological markings on the cover, and a big, round ruby on the binding.
"What is that?" Vaggie asked.
"This is the Grimoire," Blitzo explained, "My co-works and I use it to travel to the human world to carry out our jobs. I uh…"borrowed" it from an old friend of mine."
Vaggie was suspicious, she had heard rumors about how some demons could travel between the planes of Hell and Earth, but she had never seen anything like this before.
"Is it safe?" she asked.
"Of course it is…" Blitzo replied somewhat annoyed, "…for the most part."
Vaggie turned to Emeraldblade and leaned in to talk to her privately.
"I don't trust them with this spellbook of theirs," Vaggie whispered, "How do we know it won't screw us over?"
"We have no other choice," Emeraldblade replied, "At least give them a chance."
"Fine…" Vaggie relented, before turning back to the rest of the team.
"Okay Blitzo, we'll give this book of yours a shot."
"Glad to see you're on board with this idea of mine," Blitzo smirked.
"Then it's settled, we'll use the Grimoire to travel to Louisville, where me, Vaggie, Millie, and Moxxie will confront Verosika and beat her in the race, while you and Loona go and find the mercenaries," Emeraldblade said.
Shortly after the meeting, Blitzo activated the Grimoire and sent his two co-workers and the two women he just met through a portal summoned by the eldritch book. Afterwards, he turned to Loona.
"Come on Loony, let's go find these mercs."
Loona rolled her eyes, clearly not wanting to hang out with her father.
Within a short amount of time, the four teammates exited out of the portal into what appeared to be a storage room. Moxxie, Millie, and Vaggie were confused, debating whether or not they had arrived in their destination. Emeraldblade however only took a moment to look at her surroundings to know where they were, and she knew they were not in Louisville, rather inside the secret bunker that the mercenaries she met earlier on her journey used as their hideout. While it had been nearly a week since she had descended into Hell, it felt like only yesterday to her.
"Emerald? Where exactly are we?" Vaggie asked.
"Bad news team, we aren't in Louisville, this is the storage room the mercenaries and I used to travel to oblivion, we're near Roswell, New Mexico," Emeraldblade replied.
"What? T-That's impossible, the Grimoire has never sent us to the wrong location before," Moxxie remarked.
"It beats me too honey," Millie commented, "My guess is because Emerald here isn't a demon, it instead brings humans to the point where they last were before they travelled to Hell."
"Great…" Vaggie complained, "We're WAY off track."
"Well, it's not all bad," Emeraldblade noted, causing the other three to raise an eyebrow, "Follow me, there's some people I want you to meet."
Emeraldblade led her team to the break room, where sure enough she found whom she was looking for: the remaining three mercenaries, gathered around the TV watching a movie with popcorn and all.
Engineer was watching the film when he suddenly noticed Emeraldblade out of the corner of his eye. At first he was elated, only to suddenly notice three individuals he didn't recognize behind her. One thing quickly came into mind: the base was compromised.
"Intruders!" he shouted, alerting Sniper immediately, followed by Heavy, who was in the middle of wolfing down his bag of popcorn.
The three of them took out their arms, causing Moxxie, Millie, and Vaggie to respond by taking out their weapons as well.
"Look at you itty-bitty baby men. Ha!" Heavy boasted, "You think you can defeat me?"
"Oh that's it!" Millie replied, as she began charging at the giant man.
Just as they were about to engage in a fight, Emeraldblade spoke up.
"Stop, all of you!" she shouted, "Engineer, these three are my friends, they're with me."
Engineer, Sniper, and Heavy lowered their weapons, meanwhile Emeraldblade turned back to her team and appeased them.
"These are the other mercenaries I was talking about."
Vaggie lowered her spear, "Well that was quite the warm welcome."
Moxxie and Millie also lowered their weapons as well.
"Emeraldblade, I'm glad to see you're back in one piece," Engineer commented.
"Guys, I would like to introduce you to my friends Vaggie, Millie, and Moxxie," Emeraldblade introduced the residents of Hell to the mercenaries.
"Emerald here has told me a lot about you." Vaggie commented.
"Please to meet you ma'am," Engineer greeted back, "I'm the Engineer, and these fellows here are Sniper and Heavy."
"Wait a minute, where the bloody hell are the others?" Sniper asked, realizing that the other mercenaries weren't with Emeraldblade.
Emeraldblade made a guilty face, "They were captured by the succubus we were trying to search for."
"OOH NOOO!" Heavy shouted in agony.
"I know, that's why I came back here," Emeraldblade continued, "I was challenged to a race between me and my friends here against her in Louisville this upcoming Saturday."
"Louisville? That's like over a thousand miles away," Sniper replied, "It'll take several days to get up there."
"Unfortunately we don't have any other choice," Millie remarked, "It seems that spellbook Blitzo used ended up teleporting us here instead of Louisville, so now we're stuck here, days away from where we need to be."
"Do you think you can get us there in time for the race?" Vaggie asked reluctantly.
"Well…the van we used to take on Merasmus up in Denver started to have some mechanical problems after it managed to return here safely in the teleporter we used to get back here following a trip to stock up on some food a few days ago; I have yet to figure out what the problem is," Engineer explained.
"Aw shit…" Moxxie replied.
"Wait a minute, there's my old camper van I used back during the Gravel War, I took it out for a joyride just the other day after Engie here restored it extensively," Sniper mentioned, "I could take you guys to Louisville in that old beauty of mine."
"Great thinking Sniper," Emeraldblade replied.
"Well at least it's better than nothing," Vaggie sighed in relief.
"Unfortunately, like I said it will still take a few days to get up there," Sniper noted, "And even then only three of us can sit in the front cabin, the other two of you will need to bunk down in the sleeping quarters in the back."
"That's fine," Millie replied, "Moxxie and I can stay back there while we're on the road."
"Oh boy…" Moxxie complained, "I tend to get car sick when riding in RVs."
"The question is do you guys have any money in case we need to rest at a motel overnight?" Vaggie asked.
"Heck yes," Engineer answered happily, "We've stashed a truckload of money from our days in the Gravel War, it should be more than enough to cover everything for the road trip."
"Good," Emeraldblade finished, " Because tomorrow, we'll head out on our trip to Louisville."
Meanwhile inside an unknown location, the four mercenaries turned hostages were languishing inside a makeshift prison that was a locked, storage room. During the past 24 hours, they had been struggling to survive with no food and only tap water from a disused sink.
The four of them had fallen asleep at the moment, seeing as they had nothing to do but hope for a miracle. Suddenly, several footsteps were heard coming from outside the door to the room, followed by the sound of chatter. Spy, who was a light sleeper, heard the sound and decided to investigate by pressing his ear against the door. Eventually, these were replaced by a voice. At first the conversation was incomprehensible, but as it continued, the words became much clearer.
"So you know the deal right?" a female voice spoke up, it was Verosika, "You take care of that traitorous slut and her girl friend of hers so that they don't get to Louisville in time for the demon duel, and in exchange, you'll get a share of my profits from my concert in Louisville, got it?"
"Look sweettums, I don't normally take requests from A-List celebrities like you," an unidentified male voice with a western accent replied, "However, given that I am a fan of your songs, I'll make an exception and deal with these pests you have a grudge on…provided you pay me."
"Only if you stop the competition first." Verosika answered back coldly, "And just remember, you're sabotaging them so that they don't make it, do not kill them…although you could harm them instead."
"Ugh…" the male voice groaned, "Fine, whatever it takes to get paid…"
"Good, now fuck off and get the job done," Verosika finished, before dismissing the mysterious man.
With that, the two individuals ended their conversation as a pair of footsteps passed by the room the mercenaries were locked up in. Spy could hear Verosika talking to herself afterwards.
"Heh, that portal-sabotaging augment worked just as planned…" she chuckled.
Spy meanwhile stood back and made a large gulp, clearly concerned about Vaggie and Emeraldblade's safety.
"Oh no…"