Fiends in Low Places, Part 2

The Louds and Eris had all fallen into a pile right on top of Grim, breaking him apart. Grim's skull bounced a few feet away from the rest of the group, "How does this keep happening to me?" he asked.

"Is everyone alright?" Rita quickly asked.

"Where...are we?" Lynn Sr. asked.

Both very good questions. Everyone was fine and in one piece aside from Grim. As for where they were, it was a bizarre field of checkered blocks with the only landmark being a castle in the far distance. Above them and on the horizon was a dome and beyond the dome was a bunch of liquid magma. There were also many holes and one of them had N. Ergal floating down from it with a red and white striped umbrella.

"Hello, hello! Did you all enjoy the ride?" N. Ergal asked.

Leni got up, "You bet! Can we go again?"

N. Ergal landed with a laugh, and outstretched his arms, "Perhaps another time! But for now, welcome to the Center of the World, Loud Family! Your new home!"

"What the what?" Lynn Sr. asked.

"Wait, the Center of the Earth? Impossible! It would've taken us at least forty-five minutes to reach the Earth's core." Lisa chimed in.

"Well, we took a shortcut I made!" N. Ergal remarked.

"How? Just who are you? I thought you were a theme park manager!" Rita asked.

"Oh, well, I lied! Here, let me slip into something more comfortable!" N. Ergal grabbed at his head and right in front of everyone, started ripping off his face like a wounded animal stuck in a trap. Most of the Louds were shocked, Lynn Sr, Leni, Lana, and Lola screamed at the sight while Rita covered Lily's eyes.

"Oh my..." was all Eris could mutter.

In place of the once human head was a head that looked...wrong. More like a sack that curled up at the end. It was black as night with piercing green eyes which had purple pupils and a grin full of alligator-like teeth. This creature snapped its fingers and the once red and white striped suit turned full black with a red collar and black tie, making it hard to distinguish if it were clothes or just part of its skin.

Grim pulled himself together and got out his scythe, "Alright, you've had your fun. Now-"

From the creature's back came a tentacle that wrapped around Grim's scythe and easily took it from him, "Ah Grim, from an Arbiter of Death to the executor, please be civil."

Grim frowned, "Oh great, looks like I'm powerless to do anything, again."

I mean, if you could do anything, there wouldn't be a plot.

"Arbiter of Death?" Lucy asked.

The creature folded his arms behind his back as he walked around the group, "That's right, Lucy! Allow me to properly introduce myself, for real this time! My name is Nergal, I used to be worshipped as a god of war, disease, and death, but most of my followers have...passed on, and now I'm only worshipped by a few weirdos all over the world."

"I'll bet, you're three of the four horsemen!" Luan mocked.

"You bet your funny bone, Luan!" Nergal replied.

"Nergal...are you related to Nurlo?" Lincoln asked.

Nergal stopped and looked at him with disgust, "Ugh, do not compare me with a Chaos god, Lincoln! They are the absolute worst!"

"I can agree." Grim remarked.

Eris put her hands on her hips, "Hey, I'm standing right here."

"Yes, we know." Nergal and Grim told her.

"How do you know so much about us?" Lincoln asked.

Nergal laughed, "Oh simple...I've been reading along this crossover the whole time!" he turned to the fourth wall with a wave, "Hello readers! Don't look so surprised, my foreshadowing was obvious! Though I'd rather the author didn't take so long to include me."

Yeah, sorry, I just had a lot of other things I wanted in the crossover before you, Nergal.

Nergal nodded, "I get it, Eris is your favorite after all."

Eris blushed, "Aw, geez, I'm flattered."

"It could also just be there aren't as many fans of your show." Lucy added.

Grim groaned, "Yeah, kids these days prefer shows about drama queens in Hell, an amoral jerk scientist with a godlike complex, and a reality tv show parody with a cast of flat stereotypes. They don't mind plagarism either."

Nothing wrong with liking any of them, I just don't. I can't stand plagarism either, with whole episodes just being ripped from the shows and shoving in the Louds.

Lynn Sr. frowned, "Okay, no! I'm done with this! How do we get out of here?"

Nergal smiled at him, "You don't!"

"Excuse me?" Rita asked.

"Oh, none of you are getting out of here! You're all going to stay here! With me! FOREVER!"

"Oh no we're not! You're weird and freaky looking!" Lola cried out, "I'm not staying here any-"

Nergal wrapped a tentacle around Lola, "Yes, you are!"

The tentacle glowed red and zapped Lola to the point everyone could see her skeleton. Lola's skin and clothes turned as black as Nergal with his same green eyes with purple pupils and sharp teeth in a twisted smile. The tentacle released her.

Lynn Sr. squealed and fainted.

"LOLA!" the rest of the Louds cried out.

"Don't worry! You all will join her soon enough!" Nergal told them.

Soon enough, tentacles were wrapped around Rita, Lily, Leni, Luna, Luan, Lana, and Lisa. All got shocked, all got turned into Nergalings, all started running around and giggling.

Well, except for Leni. She inexplicably seemed to act the same as usual, and looked over her new body, "Ooh...black is a good look for me! Don't you think so, Eris?" she asked.

"Uh...sure?" Eris half-heartedly agreed.

Suddenly, tentacles were wrapped around Eris, Lincoln, Lucy, and Grim. Nergal laughed with sadistic glee, "And now, you four will be a part of my new family!"

"Why does this stuff keep happening to us?" Lincoln cried out.

Eris especially was squeezed by Nergal's tentacles, "Oof...well, this hasn't been the first time I was wrapped in tentacles."

Grim groaned, "Please, not in front of the children."

Eris made a disgusted face, "Uh, don't make it weird? My uncle has a lot of octopi and squids in the ocean! Plus Scylla...she's really mean."

Grim thought for a moment, "...honestly between her and Charybdis it's difficult to say whose worse."

"Oh, definitely Charybdis. She hates me personally due to my daddy...long story."

Nergal shocked the four, but oddly enough none of them changed. Nergal frowned, "...huh, that's never happened before." he said.

"Looks like you ran out of power." Lucy said.

Nergal smiled, "Oh, right, it's because of Lucy! I forgot about Lucy!"

"Story of my life."

Nergal carried the four with his tentacles as he headed for the castle, "Well, I suppose you all can keep your boring Nergaless forms. Makes no difference to me."

"Aw, Lucy would've looked adorable! She already pulls off black really well!" Leni pointed out as she followed them.

The rest of the Nergaling Louds gathered around the unconscious patriarch of the Loud family and started kicking him.

What? His name is Lynn. You knew he wouldn't get a free pass.

...

Meanwhile on the surface of Earth, Lori and Bobby were partaking in two classic pastimes of every college student: garbage food and trashy television. They ate Ed's Club brand burritos as a jingle played.

"And now we're back to a special Behind the Laughter featuring the legendary toon, SpongeBob Squarepants."

The screen showed a still of a happy SpongeBob for a brief moment before cutting to the sponge himself, sitting in a chair with a frown, his head looking down, and absent-mindedly blowing bubbles.

"By-by the Fifth season, I was just done. We already peaked with the movie and all of the competent writers already abandoned ship for bigger and better thungs. Unfortunately, the penny pinching barnacle heads at Nickelodeon Studios kept renewing the show, mainly because kids all over kept buying any crap with my face on it...SpongeBob stopped being a show, it became a half-hour commercial..."

Lori then felt her stomach, "Boo-Boo-Bear, I feel a disturbance. It's as if my family was taken by something wicked and they're literally being tortured!"

Bobby nodded, "Yeah babe, these Ed's Club brand burritos will do that."

...

Back to the Center of the Earth, Nergal had taken our heroes into his castle. He had tied Lincoln, Lucy, Grim, and Eris to comfortable armchairs with chains wrapped around them.

Leni sat down alongside the others and then rubbed her now-black chin as she looked at them, "Hold on Mr. Nergal, tying them up seems uncomfortable."

"Oh, it's for their own good, Leni. Wouldn't want them falling out of their chairs!" Nergal lied.

Leni smiled, "Ah, I see!"

Lincoln thought back to an earlier conversation, "Hold on, you said you had worshippers, right? Why didn't you just invite them to come stay with you? They'd probably like it more than all of us!"

Nergal rubbed his chin, "Well, the thought did cross my mind, but capturing my worshippers would have made me weaker." he answered.

"What? How?" Lincoln asked.

"It's simple, mon. Gods only truly have power when people believe in them. Proof denies belief, ergo less power." Grim explained.

"Like fairies?" Lincoln asked.

Grim shook his skull, "No, their kind was wiped out centuries ago."

Leni gasped, "Oh no! Poor fairies!"

Nergal smiled at her, "Don't worry, they deserved it. Fairies were disgusting creatures of pure Chaos who caused too many problems for Earth."

"Can we please change the subject?" Eris asked.

"Are you really planning on keeping us here forever?" Lucy then asked.

Nergal nodded, "Of course! You see Lucy, being at the Center of Earth gets very lonely. Then one day I found that you managed to get old Grim to join your family through force! I didn't think it would last too long, but it did! And you and your brother got more and more interesting as the days went on!"

"Aw, you're lonely? Why didn't you just go out and make friends?" Leni asked.

"Oh, I don't go out much. You have no idea how hard it would be for a man like myself to just go out into the world and just make friends." Nergal rebuked.

"Uh, wait, how old are you again?" Lincoln asked.

Nergal rubbed his neck, "I lost count, but I'd say a bit north of three-hundred-seventy-five-million."

"...and during that entire time you just didn't go out and meet people? It sounds like your loneliness is your own fault!"

"SHUT UP! IT ISN'T!" Nergal suddenly shouted.

"Ooh, touched a sore spot, didn't he?" Grim asked.

Nergal slapped Grim and Lincoln with more tentacles, "You two be quiet!"

Leni frowned, "Wow, that's not nice, Mr. Nergal!"

Nergal sighed, "Apologies, Leni, but they were saying some really mean things to me!"

Leni pointed at Grim and Lincoln, "Stop saying mean things, you two!"

Grim sighed, "I won't get mad Leni, I know you're being brainwashed...well, as much as you can be."

"Three-hundred-seventy-five-million...so you're the Calamity that caused the Late Denovian Extinction?" Lucy asked.

"Hey! Finally, I got some recognition for that!" Nergal announced with joy, "Yes, that was some of my earlier work. A bit sloppy but showed promise, didn't it?"

"All you did was kill a bunch of fish and gave me a bunch of work to do." Grim remarked.

Leni gasped, "You killed a bunch of innocent fish?" she stood up facing Nergal.

Nergal backed up a bit, "Uh...well, like I said, I was young and inexperienced..."

"Still, that's just wrong! Do you have any idea how many charities and organizations have been made to stop the blah, blah, yap, yap, drivel, drivel-"

Grim leaned over to the kids, "Okay, he seems distracted enough. How are we getting out of this, Lincoln?"

"You're asking me?" Lincoln asked.

"You're the one who comes up with plans, I'd get us out of this but me scythe is gone and I can't do much without it."

"I've been meaning to ask, why can't you just summon your scythe?" Lucy asked.

"Well, as it turns out, this Nergal guy is a god of Death. He has dominion over it, technically he's one of my bosses and he can just take it away from me."

"And you had no idea who he was until today?" Eris asked.

Grim groaned, "I just do the work! I don't have time to go through the labyrinth of red tape that is the bureaucracy of Death!"

"Wait, Eris, can't you do anything?" Lincoln asked.

Eris nodded, "Of course I could." A bronze Apple of Discord appeared and transformed into a tea set, "Would anyone care for a spot of tea?"

"Wait, you still have your powers?" Lucy asked.

"Of course, dear! This Nergal fellow has no power over me."

A bit of smoke came from Grim's skull, "Eris, I swear, if you could have gotten us out of this the entire time..."

"Well, that wouldn't have been nice to our host, now would it?"

A fire erupted on top of Grim's skull, and suddenly the tea set turned into a cloth gag over Grim's jaw, muffling his shouting.

"Uh, Eris, you do know Nergal abducted us, and is holding us against our will, right?" Lincoln asked.

"Technically, he invited us to meet him and we all accepted. Even if deception was involved - my daddy does that all the time - we should abide to sacred hospitality." Eris told him.

"Um, and then what? Did you think if we played nice enough he'd have a change of heart and let us all go?" Lucy asked.

Eris shrugged, "Well, it worked in Princess Pony."

"Yeah, and that issue was badly written."

"Okay, let me get this straight, you won't get us out of here because that wouldn't be nice towards our captor, right?" Lincoln asked.

"If you want to put it like that, yes." Eris answered.

"Okay, so I got a plan. We need to get the Naughty Eris, she probably won't have an issue dealing with this guy and saving us."

The fire on Grim's head burned brighter.

"That...doesn't seem like the best idea, dear." Nice Eris told him.

"Do you have a better one?" Lincoln asked.

"Lincoln, your idea is to convince my selfish, destructive, and mean side to help you. I don't want to sound rude but I don't believe you've thought this out."

"She has a point, Lincoln." said Lucy.

Lincoln sighed, "Okay, yeah, but maybe she'll listen to me? Especially since she's got some creepy thing for me? If not her, maybe someone else? Also, I don't think we'll be able to save the rest of our family if we can't get ourselves out first at least!"

"That sounds incredibly selfish, Lincoln." Eris told him.

The cloth gag over Grim's jaw burned away and Grim took in a big breath, "I think we should give it a shot." he said.

"You do?" Lucy asked.

"Grim, are you just disagreeing with me?" Eris asked.

"It ain't always about you, Eris, the boy is speaking sense. If we can't save ourselves, we won't be savin' the Loud family."

He's also totally just disagreeing with her.

Lincoln smiled, "Well, now we just need to figure out how to get out of here."

Lucy looked out the window, "There's a lot of holes in the dome...I'm guessing the one we came in is the same one the rest of our transformed family is just uh...dancing under?"

"Dancing?" Grim asked.

"It looks like they built something and are dancing around it." Lucy elaborated.

"I wonder how they built it?" Eris asked.

Lincoln shook his head, "That's not important, now we need to figure how to...say Eris, can you please make us a hot air balloon or something?"

Eris sighed, "Well, since you asked nicely, I could give you something better."

The Apple of Discord appeared again, and it turned into a bag tied up with bronze rope.

"A bag?" Lucy asked.

"How is this better than a hot air balloon?" Lincoln asked.

"It's a bag of winds, dear. You can ride it up a hole." Eris explained.

"Did you forget that those things never worked?" Grim asked.

"Only because the men who get them never follow the instructions." Eris remarked.

Lincoln smiled, "Okay, we got the plan, now we just need to get out of these chains and do it!"

"Leaving so soon?" Nergal asked, grabbing the bag.

Lincoln frowned, "Of course, we took too long."

"Whoops." Grim added.

"Where's Leni?" Eris asked.

"Ah, I told her to go see the rest of our family, they may need refreshments." Nergal answered.

"Our family?" Lucy asked.

Nergal smiled, "Yes! Of course, we're one big family now, aren't we? You can think of me as your new big brother!"

"Yeah, no way, 'bro'. One brother is more than enough." Lincoln told him.

Nergal clicked his tongue as he crushed the bag, "You are quite the difficult boy, Lincoln, I really hoped we could be friends. I thought we could have so much fun...we were even going to go magma surfing, weather permitting."

"You were probably going to turn me into one of those creatures, like the rest of my family!" Lincoln told him.

Nergal shrugged with a smile, "Yeah, so what?"

"Your idea of friendship is disgusting." Lucy told him.

"Don't act like you're better than me, Lucy. You forced Grim to be your friend, how am I any different?" Nergal asked.

"She didn't turn me into a copy of her for one thing." Grim answered.

Lincoln quickly tried getting out of his chains. He had gotten out of being tied up in chains before for an escape artist performance, but these chains were less for a magic trick and more to keep him bound.

Nergal raised a tentacle and sent it slowly towards Lincoln, "Well now, we can agree to disagree. But I'm going to make Lincoln my closest, most bestest friend of all!"

"No!" Lucy had managed to fling herself up off the comfortable chair and into the way of the tentacle.

The tentacle ended up pushing her into Lincoln and his chains suddenly fell off of him.

"Huh?" Lincoln asked.

"Oh, now you've done it!" Nergal yelled, his eyes glowing red instead of purple.

"Run for it!" Lucy yelled.

"But-" before Lincoln could protest, another bag of winds appeared in front of him.

"Take it, Lincoln! You're our only hope!" Eris told him.

"Just go mon, go!" Grim yelled.

"YOU'RE NOT GETTING AWAY FROM ME!" Nergal roared.

In the pandemonium, Lincoln hopped onto the bag and opened it in front of Nergal's face. Curiously enough, the wind escaping the bag made a farting sound. The wind blew at the fiend with a massive force, knocking him back and propelling the bag out of the castle.

Lincoln rode the bag of winds towards what was once his family at high speed, the structure they built now being clearer. It was some sort of wooden post, and what's more, his father was tied to it. Apparently Nergal forgot to transform him.

Lynn Sr. looked around to see most of his family now a bunch of wild black creatures dancing around the post and throwing snacks at him, "What the darn heck is going on? What are these things? Why am I tied to a post? Where did they find this wood?"

Lincoln could barely hear the screams and was more focused on trying to figure out how to steer a bag. He would have to learn fast as well as the bag of winds wasn't going to last long.

Down on the ground, Nergaling Leni was handing out snacks to her family which Nergalings Rita, Lily, Lana, and Lola threw at Lynn Sr. While that was going on, Nergaling Luna was hitting a giant drum with a giant mallet and Nergaling Luan was simply pointing and laughing at the flying farting bag above them.

Nergaling Lisa was writing a bunch of nonsense on some paper she had found, she looked up towards you, the readers, "This is indeed a disturbing universe." she says.

Through what could possibly be sheer luck, Lincoln had finally figured out how to turn the bag without falling off, and shot up through one of the holes in the dome.

...

Back in Royal Woods, a worker from the road commision was being interviewed by Katherine Mulligan over the bizarre sinkhole that was nowhere near close to being fixing.

"How deep is this sinkhole, you think?" Katherine asked.

The worker shrugged, "Dunno. Maybe it goes to China." he answered.

"Is that even possible?"

"Eh, why not? Weirder stuff has happened like that alien that attacked Hazeltucky or those people who went missing a couple of months back. Why don't you go do a story on them? I don't get paid enough to be harassed by the news."

Suddenly, out of the sinkhole flew Lincoln on the bag of winds, Katherine Mulligan watched him fly up, do a roll in the air, and take off for the suburbs.

"Uh...did uh, did you see that too?" Katherine asked the worker.

"Nope." answered the worker, "I don't get paid enough to deal with flying kids either."

...

Lincoln had landed in the Loud's front yard. No wait, no, he crashed. He crash-landed. Well, at least he was still in one piece and managed to get home, so two for two.

Lincoln picked himself up and unlocked the front door, getting inside the house. He was happy to be home and away from that crazy place but he couldn't rest. The others were counting on him. Lincoln checked his pockets for his smartphone, but couldn't find it. He either left it in Vanzilla or lost it at some point during this crazy day.

Giving up on that, Lincoln went upstairs to his room and found his laptop. He opened it up and went to MyBook Chat to contact the Naughty Eris.

Against all odds, the Naughty Eris answred while decent, holding a glass full of olives, "Well hello, Linky! Fancy to hear from you, how goes it?"

Lincoln took a deep breath and swallowed his pride, "Yeah, hey you, listen I need you help, long story, can you just come back?"

The Naughty Eris laughted, "Oh, NOW you want me around? This is just too good! No. I'm quite happy here in Canada! It is insanely chaotic!"

Lincoln groaned, "I know, I've been there, it is terrible."

"Also I ran into your sister Lynn up here! She annoyed me, so I moved her to the Nth dimension, there's no need to worry about her anymore."

"You...you did what?"

"Oh, don't worry, you will forget she existed soon enough."

For all intents and purposes, Lynn has been removed. She will not be coming back. We apologize for the inconvenience.

"Eris, I really need your help! Your other self needs you too! Even Grim needs you!"

"Oh, I bet you all do. Good luck handling it alone, Linky. Byeee!"

Then she hung up, leaving Lincoln alone.

Alone.

Alone...

"You need to wait until you're alone to open this...it's a surprise!"

Those words hissed in Lincoln's ears, it had been more than ten chapters since he heard them.

He was alone.

He quickly shut the laptop and started going through his dresser, throwing out all the clothes he had shoved in there.

The obsidian box sat at the very bottom.

Still there.

Still closed.

The golden latch shined an odd glow and Lincoln quickly grabbed it.

Something in the back of his mind screamed at him to stop and he hesitated for a moment.

But only a moment. The rest of his mind was made up.

He opened the box.

TO BE CONTINUED...