Chapter Text
For those that cared.
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Chapter 1 - Depression Nap
MT adjusted his neon green glasses then wiped the beads of sweat off his melting face parked cleanly on the side of the dirt road, right in the sand. Turns out the engine didn't take kindly to being driven through the hottest part of hell with such lovely temps as "fuck you" and "seriously, turn back" written in crudely scrawled letters on the temp gauge when passing by one of those giant mountains topped with what he assumed to be floating balls of lava. At the very least, MT found himself relieved as his outside temp gauge read in actual numbers, those being 140 degrees Fahrenheit and dropping the longer he sat before the electronics fried themselves, cutting off the single working fan blowing air in his face. CEO mindset, no need to waste time on getting the car fixed when he could just walk and make enough to cover the bills through a little stock trading, so M.T. pulled out his red rectangle of a phone and opened his trading application, bought the MMN dip, sold a stock he had in PMC, sold the same stock again, bought a few shitcoins, bought another MMN stock since it dipped even harder, noticed his VVV hold was making profit, then sold a share in DDR once more and recuperated the cost of the broken down car in pure profits before peeling himself off the faux leather seats and clunking back the door handle.
For a brief moment he paused, running through his mind what he might have forgotten before settling on the answer, his aluminum briefcase. Tucked inside, two guns, just the right amount of ammo for the contracts and ghastly printouts of his targets using physical paper and ink, the horror. The first gun, a standard, if you could call it, helltec pistol, resembled what he would call a parasonic d2 with a much stubbier suppressor. The thing was clad in black metal, peppered with red flame decals, presumably painted on to "help the bullets shoot faster" or some bubba mall cop technology, at least it used magic to be movie quiet and put big holes in things. Underneath, two mags with the most expensive AP +P+ "ultrapenetrator kop killerz" or whatever they were marketed as. The other gun, designed off what he would call new safety m62 except, well, it glowed white. Etched into its every nook and cranny were intricate patterns and flourishes, all with a single sliver of pure white light glowing from within, all terminating in a mass of bright eye bleeding patches that vaguely resembled what the seller described as angels. The ammunition cost about as much as the gun itself, a pretty penny that would hopefully pay for itself if the contracts were paid out, so only a single full 5 chambers and no more of the white stuff. At the very least, from experience, the gun was reliable.
Two of the contracts MT took the liberty of shoving in a single manila envelope for convenience, the third he had hand delivered by some spook knocking at his apartment door and sliding it underneath. Luckily enough all three targets convened in the same town, Rothschild Point, in South Greed near the shore. The first guy, a spider, some kind of defector deal MT assumed, hiding in a nightclub down Little Tokyo, 466666, enough for the rent for the month and a nice bonus for not making the Yakuza mad. Next, some hot shot exec sinner on a vacation, rented the penthouse suite of a Jackpot Resort, easy enough, probably minimal security, looks like a ball of fire with about 20 sets of eyes wearing a muted blood red suit. 399666 souls, just enough to recoup the cost of MTs ammo. Finally the red contract. Labeled as "Existential Hazard" and guaranteed by the big cheese himself, what was listed was a coffee shop called 24/365 Coffee, a picture of some sort of chicken with snake legs that looked oddly familiar and the description "Make sure he leaves. You will be rewarded 133,200,000 souls." He had a collection of others that had already been completed piled beneath the last three of the trip, and though contracts may have been manual and analogue, but at least the payouts were automatic and digital. Briefcase in hand, MT stepped out the door, spat on the rental one last time, listening to the sizzle it made, and began his 3 mile walk down to the South Greed checkpoint.
The smell of sand and natural wind almost refreshed MT after a several hour long trip smelling the smelliest of skunk weed, burning plastic and the lame fan taped lazily to the dash with shitty half shredded neon yellow "caution" duct tape plumbed into the engines electrical circuit with frayed red and black jumper wires leading directly to the fuse box. However, it did take a mile and a half to completely lose track of the burning oil and leaking gas smell the shitbox was emitting like a freshly broken toilet. Luckily enough, the faintest glimmer of the Greed checkpoint flashed into MTs view seconds later with the orange red light of the seemingly setting whatever it was creating light in hell. Also at the same time, something much stranger glinted in the distance some 100 feet away, a strange beast with backwards legs, brown fur, and a snake arm wearing little more than a loincloth, some sneakers, some sort of shoulder guard and a necklace was rambling to himself while walking towards MT. The closer he came, the closer he could hear the beast talk while somehow also playing the strange flute-like instrument he was holding.
"Wind, heat, the psychoacoustalogical pass-overs of nature's placid denouement of wondering, are we but droplets in the cosmic force that is the desert of the real? Or, are we but shadows of the ephemorous hand me downs of consciousnesses shameful droppings in the swimming pool of life. But what happens in life, must also happen in death, such is the laws of life." The beast said in a faux surfer dude accent.
"Oh hey, a stranger. You there, where are we?" The beast asked.
"Great, I thought people were more sane here." MT thought before replying with "South wrath, few miles from the Greed checkpoint."
"That isn't any place I ever heard of, say, you weirdo, we don't cotton to lying freaks round these parts. Why don't you tell me where we really are or I'll have to use my mind blowing word punches to beat you in the face, chompsky honk."
"Hell." MT said before walking past whatever that creature was.
"Hell Michigan, quite the place. Yeah, I've rambled through these parts before, I know these stomping grounds. Saved plenty of lives here." He said, 5 steps behind MT.
"Me saying that usually means you are supposed to retort to my radical witocausting with a reply."
MT continued walking in silence.
"Whatever, chomsky honk, suit yourself. Me, I'm a renegade angel, saving lives. Name's Xavier."
MT sped up his pace.
"Now's the time you tell me your name."
"If I tell you my name will you leave me alone?" MT said, stopping in his tracks to turn and face Xavier.
"Frittata." Xavier said, placing his hand on his hip and his snake on his stomach.
"I'll take that as a yes." MT said, turning away resuming his walk. "Name's MT."
"Empty? Oh no, it's worse than I thought. Here, I will fill your emptiness with this nice chicken and some water." Xavier said, quickly running in front of MT holding a porcelain jug and a comically oversized rotisserie chicken. "Here, let me fill your emptiness" he said as he attempted to shove the chicken and the brown and white porcelain jug into MTs face. Although the chicken smelled of garlic, thyme, and rosemary, the very little that managed to slip into MTs mouth, along with the water being poured over it, tasted much more like sand. This unwanted transaction between the astonishingly ugly beast in front of him, as well as the continuous pestering the thing provided ticked MT off in a way that only a solid kick would solve.
MT stepped back momentarily, then delivered a kick so hard into Xaviers chest that the "chicken" he was holding disintegrated back into sand. Xavier then was launched into the air and flew as if he were made of nothing parabolically into the distance. With the height he had, Xavier soared clear over the checkpoint and, hopefully, landed somewhere in Greed's streets and exploded into hamburger. Unbenounced to MT, this did not happen, despite picturing in his mind every bit and piece of the beast splattering all over the denizens, misting the buildings with red, filling everyone's noses with the sharp and acrid scent of metal. He even managed to picture what it would taste like, and compared it to the sand that was just shoved into his gullet against his will, he couldn't tell which one was worse.
Richard sat, preoccupied with a Wally Wackford's™ Puzzle Cube™: Please Buy This I'm Desperate™ Edition™, in his small metal coffin of a security outpost on a burning hot stainless steel chair. The plastic clicked, slid and gritted into place one turn at a time. Most of the "multi color" paper stickers remained scrambled as the little red lowland imp with curly rams horns and thick snow white hair reaching down to his shoulders, dressed in a black police uniform with red pinstripes, roasted in the heat from the edge of Wrath. His flickering buzzing and near end of service life fluorescent lamp above him made up for the lack of usable light. Almost lunch time, the overpriced coffee he bought from the Paimonbux chain a mile down the road long since ran out, but the smell of it still permeated the space and wafted about thanks to the, almost, pathetic desk fan he brought from home to much pain from his wife. Click, rattle click, rattle. System Interrupt. "Wait, is that red or orange?" Rich mumbled under his breath, holding up the cube to the light above him before realizing how ill equipped it is for making out details. As he reached down for his flashlight, the staticky ska music quietly playing from his actually pathetically small portable radio broke free for the equally staticky mid day news.
"Greetings, greedlings, wait, greedlings? Who writes these scripts? Anyway, it's time for your lunch time news, hope you guys are getting something good, and if you're not, well I hope things get better for you soon." DJ said, in an almost singsongey way while Rich flicked the lever on his torch and aimed it directly at the puzzle cube, noticing that yes, the two colors were indeed the same, or were they? Closer look. Click, clack, grit, click. Was that right? Now they were the same color. Without doubt.
"We have some breaking news, Jimmy Mitchel's Squad and the Heart Breakers are, once again, at war with each other. If you're traveling down 66 Cocaine Boulevard, look out for stray bullets and hamburger. Also, the Private Police have been called, so the boys in black are on the case trying to shut the thing down. A storm's expected to make landfall by 8 tonight and be gone by midnight. And to all you new to the ring, welcome, and have a nice stay."
Knock Knock. System interrupt. Rich sat up and looked for the source of the knocking only to see a familiar face knocking on his window. Green glasses, aluminum briefcase, golden eagle, crazy clothes, or whatever neon red and blue suit he's wearing is called. Rich rolled down the window, letting his coffee smell disperse into the hot sea breeze, letting in the distinct smell of sinner sweat and body odor. What bothered him was seeing how different he appeared from his memory. His eyes seemed more sunken in and tired, he was about 10 pounds lighter than before, in place of his left arm, where it was visible, reflected the blue and orange light coming from the sky, and on his back, where his wings would normally protrude, rested a matte black device that looked like a backpack with no straps.
"Well, that's a face I haven't seen in a while." Rich said. "You look… different."
"Took a trip to Wally Wackford." MT said. "He's scalped some fantastic robotic engineers."
"That would explain whatever that metal thing is on your back and your left arm, don't tell me you clipped your wings."
"Just protection. Still miss my real augs, still don't buy the whole "they're too gross" excuse I was given." MT said, revealing that the shell slid and clicked open on each side, allowing his large feathered wings to stretch out, before somehow curling them back in and closing the shell.
"And the arm?"
"More reach." MT said.
"Where's your car, surely you didn't walk or fly through wrath."
"It broke down a few miles out, mind calling it in for me?
"Will do. So, you here for pleasure or business? And if it's pleasure, want to grab a bite at the Devil's Diner?"
"Business." MT said, holding up his briefcase. "I'll grab a taco on the way."
"Ah, well, worth a shot. Good luck out there, tell Sam I said hi." Rich said, pressing the gate button letting MT through.
"Stay safe, Rich."
"Will do." Rich said, waving at MT as he walked through the Gates of Greed.
Rich, having made sure his MT made it through, rolled the window back up before unplugging his fan, picking both it and his puzzle cube before climbing down the step stool and exiting his post. He slid his card into the punch box, opened his trunk, threw his belongings in, then closed his trunk. Something of his daily routine being interrupted hit him, and interrupted his system once again. He looked up at the midday sky, orange and red streaks crossing with every mountain blocking the view, stretching on to the great beyond behind him. He took a look through the chain link fence, then moved to the open gate, and just stared at the city below, at the neon lights, at the endless ocean, and at the traffic lights that milled back and forth the latticework of streets like ants or a river. He gazed over the bakeries, he gazed over the resorts, he gazed over the cocaine farms. He closed his eyes, and felt the breeze.
"Going on lunch break?" Liz, the lustborn hellhound guard, on the other side of the gate asked in her own metal box.
"Yeah, want anything?"
Some time in the 1930s, some group of entrepreneurial fishermen built a massive boardwalk from the ledge of wrath to the heart of Rothschilds Point biggest city in the ring at the time, well, it was more if a massive on ramp designed for machines that barely had more power than horse drawn carriages. Every step MT took, he could feel the rotting wooden beams shimmy and shake. Each twist and turn, at the very least, became more and more stable, each creak became quieter and quieter as the sound of traffic grew in intensity, each warble in the supports slowly became a minor agitation before stopping entirely when the wood met the ground, then sand met concrete as MT stepped off into the historic district. He took a breath and filled his lungs with the smells of sandwich shops, sea breeze and gunpowder. The heat of wrath found itself replaced with chilly gusts and cool ground. All around him were art deco styled mottled and muted pale pastel colored buildings and yellow filtered xenon flickering street lamps illuminating the street around the corner. In the buildings were mostly imps of various sizes and shapes, dotted between were large doglike demons with red eyes and various shades of grey fur. Sinners and Goetians never found themselves in the historic district unless they were there to marvel at how poorly maintained some of the buildings were. Inside, most buildings were lit with fluorescent lamps, aside from restaurants illuminated with either some form of neon or some form of incandescent bulbs that were prone to exploding in a violent shower of sparks and ozone. These buildings extended out for three blocks before finally coming to the nearest active intersection, and three more blocks before the coast could be reached.
Just as MT took in his surroundings, his phone rang. While he fumbled to get his phone out of his pocket, he wondered why it wasn't vibrating. When he finally pulled out his phone, he still heard the ringing, but a sudden realization washed over him like a lead blanket. The wind, once welcoming, suddenly became acrid and bitter as he unlatched his briefcase, and saw a phone that he knew should not exist anymore and a call from a company that should definitely not exist anymore.
MT answered the call.
"Hey there, freak shit, thought you could get away just because you got your soul removed. Guess what, you're never escaping the grid, glad to see you're still keeping up the good work through. Shame about your face, you look like shit now. Anyway, take care of your current job, then I'll give you a call, I have something special for you that I think you're really going to like." The ugly fuck said before hanging up.
"Guess the grid's back. I could really use a depression nap right about now." MT rambled to himself, rapidly attempting to turn the phone off and shove it back in his briefcase while also simultaneously taking both his guns and concealing them in his jumpsuits pockets. After a few seconds of shoving the two mags in his pants pocket, next to his leather wallet and his real phone, he noticed the two red crosshairs appear in his vision on either sides of the city. "Wait, only two?" MT thought, seeing one was in the direction of little Tokyo, and the other seemed to be atop a sky rise of some sorts.
"Oh, yoo-hoo, hey, Empty, did my chicken fill your existentialized hunger?" Xavier shouted from just down the street, seemingly soaked in water, holding an ice cream cone.
MT froze in place, before lying down on the street, using his briefcase as a crude pillow. He stared at the stars peeking through the dark shadow of the sky.
"I'll take that, as a no." Xavier said, before mimicking MT, lying down next to him.
"So, what are we doing down here, filling our eyes with stars? I can do that, reminds me of a spirit quest my Navajo yogi sent me on." Xavier said.
Ext. Flashback to Mojave Desert in front of a teepee and fire.
YOUNG XAVIER in front of the fire, GURU on the other side of the fire, MT 5 feet behind Xavier with his eyes closed.
Guru
(in a spiritual and condescending tone)
In order to fill your soul, you must first fill your eyes with the image of the stars, young one.
Y. Xavier
(pondering tone)
Yes, I can see it, I can feel the stars filling my soul.
Stars
(animate and stab Xaviers eyes)
Y. Xavier
(screaming in pain)
I didn't realize that it would hurt this much to have my soul filled!
Guru
(in a spiritual and condescending tone)
Now you see, young one, the pain that is involved with trying to fill your soul.
[goes into teepee and falls asleep]
end scene
"Yep, eyes still got star holes in them, wanna see? Wait, your eyes are closed, you aren't filling your soul at all, are you?" Xavier said.
MT opened his eyes to find Xavier standing over him, dripping fluid from holes in his eyes that smeared his glasses, ice cream cone nowhere to be seen. "Yeah, I'm filling my soul, with a nice depression nap."
"I am a master of getting filled, and taking life by the Checkov and sucking it dry. I've never heard of getting stuffed by a depression nap."
"Are you going to shove sand in my face again if I-" MT said, before seeing Xavier pulling out another chicken from behind his back. "Fine. will you stop if we get something to eat?"
"Oh boy, yummy, I could go for a bite to eat." Xavier said, eye liquid still leaking out of his eyes as he jumped around in excitement.
MT sighed, the xenon street lamps nearly searing his retinas as he looked directly at them, then wiped off his glasses on his shirt. "2 blocks down and one to the right." He said, stretching out and resuming his pace.
"So, where are we going?"
"Tacos."
"I know exactly what I'm going to order there." Xavier said, rubbing his snake hand on his stomach.
"Not many cars driving by around here, why's that?"
"How long have you been down here?"
"I'll say I've been down here for not more than, three shakes of a lamb's tail and two shakes of salt and pepper on a fresh meat dish." Xavier said.
"Tunnels."
"My God! More holes that need to be filled." Xavier said, breaking out into a sprint.
"Wait, no, they're good holes and I'm sure they get filled daily. It's a trade network between rings." MT screamed.
"Ah, crisis averted. See, I told you I help people. Yeah, I'm a problocider, clearing away the sub-solutions of life."
The rest of the journey across the block was spent in silence. "Finally." Thought MT. "I wonder if he knows I'm thinking about my ultimate creation." Thought Xavier while picturing a giant burrito.
The two arrived, outside of a slightly more well kept than its surroundings pastel pink art deco styled building bathed in neon purple lights that simply read "Movies" with an arrow pointing at it. Some time ago, it was some office, but now all the windows were barred with red velvet lined planks of wood. The street, having not seen a car in over a decade outside of various food trucks from time to time, this being no exception, had been littered with collapsible plastic tables and lawn chairs, and that's nothing to say of the mildly disconcerting amounts of litter around them. Parked in front, of the once office space now movie theater that shows only the most obscure of hells finest and most insane "art house" films, was a food truck plastered with red flame decals and big comic sans text that read "Taco Hell." Smells of fry oil and spiced meats filled the air. In line were two customers, both idly standing by, one thinking about what he wanted to eat, he was first in line and an unusually large imp with red and black striped skin and a long rattle tail dressed as a cowboy, and the other, waiting to order, was a small grey male hellhound dressed in a sweat stained set of matching sweatpants and shirt. A gentle whir and rumble from the engine, and the sounds of two customers eating, quite hastily and sloppily, filled the narrow street.
"I'll get food" MT said before getting interrupted by an impatient "we'll get food here. This food truck looks truly delicious."
"Yeah, sure, we'll get food." MT said as the snake imp placed an order and walked off to the side and leaned on the truck. The two then made their way in line.
The man ahead said "Alright, so first I will have two chalupas, make them carne asada. Leave out the tomatoes. I do not like tomatoes. Next, I will have two pollo assado tacos, one with beans, the other with sour cream, but make sure that the sour cream doesn't touch the meat. For my next part, I will have a plate of nachos, but make sure there's ten jalapenos, but don't let them touch the sour cream, and remove the tomatoes I do not like tomatoes. Then for desert, I would like a churro, no make it two churros and I want one with dipping sauce and the other without dipping sauce." Then walked off to sit at a table.
"2599, ay, a simple 'the usual' woulda done just fine, jackass!" The barely visible store owner shouted at the customer.
"I do believe that it's our turn empty. Time to fill that void in your soul with delicious Mexican meats." Xavier said, pushing MT forward.
"Fucking fencers, it's always fencers with insane orders." Sampson said to himself, back turned to the outside while he worked on cooking up that crazy person's meal. Sampson being a rather large and muscular hellhound with all white fur and the brightest glowing red eyes. He wore a uniform, made of a red flannel a black cooking apron and a red flame decal visor. MT knocked on the side of the truck to a despondent "what now."
"Sam." MT said.
"Oh hell naw, today is not the day to be seeing someone like you, Tom."
"When is it ever a good day? And what happened to 'Major?'"
"You know what kinda shit you brought down the last time you paid a visit, I can't be dealing with that mess today, I can't be dealing with you or your freaky little friend back there."
"Hey, that was uncalled for, mister meat man." Said Xavier.
"Just ignore him. It's not like I'm asking for assistance."
"Yeah, but that kinda shit bit me in the ass the last time, you know I retired. Now order something or fuck off to do whatever crazy shit you're about to."
"One taco, one shot of tequila, bottom shelf."
"400, Consider it done, what about your friend? Ordering for him too?"
"I'll let him order." MT said, handing Sam the cash, then seemingly lightning quickly being handed his order.
"Xavier, your turn." MT said, shoving his taco in his mouth in one bite before quickly swallowing the tequila. It tasted marginally better than the sand but the tequila burned just as much.
"Good afternoon mister meat man, I will have one of your finest theritos."
"A what now?" Sam said as MT walked off. "AY, MAJOR FUCKING TOM, DON'T LEAVE ME WITH THIS CRAZY FUCK!"
"You don't know? Yeah, I'm pretty proud of it myself. It's a burrito, inside the shell of another burrito all wrapped in another burrito." Xavier said as MT walked off giving Sampson one last wave.
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Chapter 2 - Homesick
Phenex was having a bad day. Phenex decided it was a really good idea to drink his heart out. Get really drunk. The kind of drunk where you jump off a bridge because you bet you could land that swan dive. In full clothing. Phenex was having a bad day. He was tired, the kind that sleep don't fix, tired of not being able to go back home, tired of his bastard retarded hellhound fucker of a "son" Cyrus waking him up at fuck you o-clock in the night with whatever he calls singing and tired of those fucking drama whore owls, thank Satan for booze. Without it, the fried neurons would be on fire too instead of just smoldering and letting out the magic smoke. Phenex was having a bad day. He finished off his last bottle of holy water the other day, cheap shit but does the trick, and his Beelzejuice was almost empty, as well as the hundreds of other bottles he kept forgetting to take to the recyclers. "Fuck, that means a trip out among fucking sinners." He thought. Only half drunk, buzzed really, on the last swig of the remaining booze. He cracked a plan, make a day trip to Rothschild Point. They had some special drink exclusive to there made with coca leaves and kola nuts, some kind of rum. Dangerous stuff, it tasted saccharine sweet like cola but had enough coca to put cocaine to shame and enough alcohol content to make your heart stop, that is if you were a disgusting living breathing human being, and the smell, oh the smell put anything heavenly to shame. Only problem, getting there. Flying was out the window ever since the third bird war failed, an entire fleet of trade zeppelins had to be grounded, some were even sold to filthy commoners. Driving would take way too long and passing through wrath in a car really puts the word hell into perspective. That left the metro. Phenex was having a really bad day.
"Cancoon, clan chan, fuck, what was that drink called, it was something stupid" Phenex murmured in the limo on his way to hells most hellish contraption, designed by himself, of course. The limo smelled of roses and expensive cigars, so much of them had been smoked in there it was almost impossible to tell the details between each scent, at least the fresh roses, blue as the night sky that lined the sides of the blacked out fixed in place bullet proof windows and shag red carpet were strong enough to focus all attention on instead of the aforementioned cigar smoke and, filthy, disgusting carpet. "Focus, what's the name of the drink." He said to himself, loud enough for the driver to hear this time.
"Excuse me, sire, do you need anything?" the driver said.
"No, sorry for bothering you, just can't remember the name of a drink."
"I might be of a little bit of assistance, I'm quite familiar with your favorite drinks, as I am the one you send out to restock most of the time."
"Yeah, I know, this one's more special, I don't want anyone else knowing about it, including you I'm afraid. Sorry."
"No need, I'm sure you have a good reason, sire."
"As you requested, we are here at the southern metro."
"Thanks, if I'm not back in a few hours just drive home, I'll find a way back." The bird demon said, stepping out the car before immediately being smacked in the face with the smell of unloading fish and cigarettes.
"Understood."
At least his driver knew to keep his breath clean, something the sinners and Goetians clearly didn't understand the point of. "Hurr durr, we're in hell, why should we try to keep up good hygiene, it's not like it can kill us or anything durr" he imagined them talking, the pathetic loathsome creatures. "They were sent to hell because they fucked up in life, the very least they could make things less nightmarish for those who SHOULDN'T FUCKING BE HERE." He thought. Some were more understandable than others, like the sinners constantly on fire or sinners made of fabric that washing up was made a billion times more difficult and next to impossible to remove all foul odors, then there's the sulfur sinners. The most universally reviled of all, smelling of nothing but pure rotten egg with no way to wash it off. At the very least the council's foresight accounted for these rotten eggs to have their own seats in the back of transport vehicles separated by a baffle. Only a select handful of nice smelling rich sinners and Goetians ever decided to take good care of themselves, all the better, they were the more pleasant to work with and much more useful.
Phenex waded through the disgusting writhing mass of unwashed flesh, holding his breath as much as possible, to the South Greed bullet train station. "Wait, no, fuck that," he thought as he remembered and shifted into his bird form and tried to fly over the lines before smacking his face straight into a concrete pillar. "Fuck, now I'm going to get a migraine as well." Maybe Phenex was a little more than buzzed. He wondered, as his beak filled with the blood, how he forgot about the pillar. He helped to design the fucking metro, he designed the fucking tunnels he engineered the entire system. Hell's greatest scientist, hell's greatest engineer reduced to a bird that smacked his head on the wall surrounded by filthy imps and disgusting sinners. Phenex was having a really fucking bad day. One particularly ugly example of a sinner, having shown his passport and walking through the turnstile, remarked "Ow, that's gonna leave a mark." The beast reeked of piss and burning gasoline, well, and on further examination, it was clearly apparent why he smelled of burned petroleum, dude was on fire. The thing had red skin and legs that would put the most roided up hell beasts to shame, something absolutely clearly visible through his thick jeans. Somehow, his thick leather trench coat and alien t-shirt didn't seem to mind the constant fire burning, and the hole in his head next to his red horns like some cliche idea of what a demon might be seemed to do no harm. He then turned the corner and headed to the South wrath platform and waited for the train to arrive. Eventually, after lying in a pool of sorrow, two conductor imps, dressed in muted crimson clothes smelling of generic apple soap approached Phenex.
"Sir, are you ok? Do you need medical assistance?" Said the one on the right, he had curved horns and a monocle.
"Ok? No, I'm not ok. But I don't need your help." Phenex said through gurgles of coughed up blood.
"Where were you going sir? South Lust, Wrath or Greed?" Asked the one on the left, he had jagged horns and a gold striped bow tie.
"I just want to go home. I just want to go back to heaven, I want to see my wife again. You can't take me there, can you?"
"Sorry to say, but you're in the wrong place for that." Said curved monocle.
"We can help you onto the train if you wish." Said jagged bow tie. "First class, on the house."
"Fine, so be it, South Greed, bring me to that train." Phenex said, as the two picked up the heavy for his size bird under each wing and carried him into the first class section. Well, whatever they called first class, it was just a single section with a bit bigger and softer seats with more isle room and more gold trim around the bright neon red everything with piano black accents that were more fingerprint black than anything. They usually cost about three times the price of a normal ticket. And of course the train was packed with sinners, not a single goetian in sight. Most of them smelled like they showered within the last three days at least but a couple in the back of the train smelled of thick and cheap cologne and semen so strong it burned. Then there was the fuck smelling like cigar and apple wood smoke directly behind Phenex with a brick of audio equipment and open back headphones blasting post-ironic meta hyper postrap, a genera that he only knows from interacting with the drama whores so much and overhearing Octavias mp3 player, at the loudest he could take it without any distortion. An hour. !t took an hour to get to the next metro through pitch black lenticular tunnels, only briefly opening to see the returning trains and occasional maintenance doorways. Long enough to sober up and long enough to finally notice the pounding in his head. At the very least, staying a bird meant the chairs felt even bigger and more comfortable. "That drink better still be there" he thought, covering his ears with his wings as best he could.
Ding ding ding, rang the announcement bells "South Greed station, 5 minutes." Phenex took that as an opportunity to return to his more humanoid form and pull out his phone. He texted the local limo service and specifically asked for a non-smoking ride, half way because they generally were more well up-kept, but also because if he had to deal with another disgusting smell of cigarette he would go postal on someone.
Holding his head, and pocketing his phone, Phenex struggled his way through the second unwashed mass of undulating flesh, now with more imps. "Fuck, what was that drinks name, it was something fucking stupid." He thought as he finally spotted his limo with an imp standing in front holding up a sign that read "Phenis." Phenex was so frustrated and yearning for that drink that he put aside the obvious typo, or shitty joke, and didn't even notice the fat blunt sticking out of the imps mouth. When he entered the limo, there were cigarette burns everywhere, and the cabin smelled like skunks. Phenex was having a really bad day.
"Whatever." He thought. "Take me to Factory 839 on 66 Cocaine Boulevard." Phenex said to the driver.
"Got it boss, wait, slight problem."
"Fuck, what now?" Phenex said, dropping his arms to the shag seat.
"I can take you there, but the street's closed for traffic."
"Fuck, let me guess. Gang wars again."
"Bingo, right on the money."
"FUCK!" Phenex screamed. "Take me there anyway."
"You got it boss." The driver said, punching the accelerator so hard Phenex fell out of his seat.
Just as the imp said, the street was closed off, private police had the whole street locked down. The entire place stank to high heaven of blood and viscera, nondescript in origin. There was also a distinct smell of ozone. Phenex opened the door, said to the driver "wait here" before walking up to the nearest officer.
"Street closed to pedestrian traffic too?" Phenex asked.
"Yeah, especially to Goetians, can't you smell the ozone? Holy weapons were pulled, it's gonna be a real shitshow to clean up."
"Fuck me, what about Factory 839? They have a drink I forgot the name of, some kind of rum with kola nuts and coca leaves."
"Ah, CanCan, they stopped selling it in their factory store, but yeah, it's closed too. Think everyone evac'd before this started."
"Anywhere it's sold nearby?" Phenex said, dreading the possible response of no or worse, it's in another city.
"Yeah, there's a shop down in the historic district that sells it. Should still be open for hours."
SCORE, first win of the day. Little victories. Phenex thanked the officer, and ran back to his ride at the speed of sound.
"Take it the dickhead didn't give you too much trouble then?"
"Shut the fuck up. To the historic district right fucking now."
"Rude." He said, once again punching the accelerator pedal with the force of a thousand lead weights, however, this time Phenex was braced for the sudden lurch forward and rapid acceleration.
"CanCan, that's what I'm looking for." Phenex said, looking out the window at the art deco buildings and the neon signs. Something caught his eye though. Just as he was passing the Yakuza district, he saw a monster.
"Stop, I need to check something." He said as his driver pulled over to the side and slammed the breaks, nearly smashing a fire hydrant.
"What about right fucking now?"
"This is important." He said, opening the door and walking around the corner, peeking over at the Torri gate that separated the two streets. His eyes did not fool him. There it was, that beast. The nigger bird as he called it. The same nigger bird that he witnessed the fall of, the one that immediately acclimatized to being in hell. The one with the soul of an emperor, the one that he had just sent on a suicide mission for intel for a laughable amount of cash. The nigger bird Phenex assumed dead, having the intel hand delivered on his severed arm, and he's standing right there, across the street. With his stupid fucking green glasses, and his stupid fucking dyed head feathers. And his stupid smell of death and destruction, and his stupid sense of instant foreboding. NOPE! Phenex ran as fast as he could for a second time today back to the limo.
"TAKE ME TO BILDERBERG CITY, ANYWHERE BUT HERE!"
"Hey, boss, that's West Greed, it's gonna take hours and hours to get there, what about the hist-" the driver said, before being cut of by Phenex saying "FUCK THE HISTORIC DISTRICT, GET ME THE FUCK OUT OF HERE OR I'LL FUCKING KILL YOU, THROW YOU TO THE SHARKS AND DO IT MYSELF!" The driver obliged, punched the accelerator once more and drove off into the coastline. They both sat in complete silence for about half an hour before the driver asked if he could turn the radio on. "Of course" was Phenexs response. "Of course" were his thoughts when it was shitty ska music.
Phenex was having a really fucking bad day.
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Chapter 3 - Neuron Deactivator
Either way, MT found himself in front of the giant lacquered blood red and night sky black Torii gate that served as an entrance to Little Tokyo proper. Ignoring the feeling of being watched, he stepped forward into the thin orange haze of street lamps and fog. The narrow streets between the wooden storefronts and eateries weren't too conducive to traffic other than the occasional cyclist. The occupants and owners were far and few between, though there were hardly through lines connecting their appearances. Bald turtles were serving balls of cooked dough covered in dry fish and some brown sauce to melon people and what looked like orange raccoons with just the largest and fattest of nuts. There were walls covered in eyes and ears sitting at a table talking to cyclops with incredibly long tongues. Then, when MT reached the end of the labyrinthine maze of streets and vendors selling sweet and savory smelling dishes and various liquors, the street opened up to the hub street where traffic could flow to and from and allowed fishmongers and food delivery trucks to make their rounds. It was there where the megalithic concrete and blacked out glass rectangular structure of Neo-Tokyo Night Club could be seen. A massive 5 story tall concrete block that stretched nearly half a city block by a half a city block stood in the middle of Little Tokyo, covered in purple neon signs spelling its name out in a language that MT couldn't understand. The crosshair lined up with one of the many private rooms on the top floor that Yakuza used to discuss business dealings, this lined up perfectly with the description of the contract.
Dodging traffic, and being screamed at in moon runes, MT made his way to the NTNC, to get a closer look. As he did, the fog grew heavier around him, and the bright neon lights that illuminated the sides of the building drowned out the orange of the street lamps. The concrete and the glass attached seemed to pulsate and rattle to the beat of whatever the club was playing. In front stood two massive skeleton sinners wielding nearly ten foot long ōdachis and a line of assorted cat people, fox people dressed in expensive suits and strange blobs of flesh on two legs covered in a hundred eyes. Each one was checked by another fox person standing between the two giants before the door swung open, letting out a roar of sound and fury interrupting from inside. Near the top of the building there were extra windows and a few balconies. There appeared to be a guarded entrance on the back side near the dumpsters and a ventilation access panel just to the left of the dumpster. As he drew his helltec gun, he felt a tapping on his shoulder.
"So, full, what are we doing here?" Said Xavier.
"This guy again." He thought, before replying "We're here to help some people."
"Oh boy, I sure am good with that, who's the target?"
"See those two skeletons? Yeah, they can use some help. They sure look empty."
"Consider it done, muchacho." Xavier said, walking up to the massive skeletons while MT walked up to one of the top floor balconies. MT threw his briefcase up to the balcony listening as it clanged on landing, then he positioned his augmented arm just above the railings, then launched it outward, gripping onto that precipice and pulling himself up with the arm. "May not have a grapendix but this certainly does help." He thought as his talons touched the cold concrete of the balcony, making sure to not forget his briefcase as he walked up to the red door with a golden handle.
Being cautious, MT cracked the door open to get a good look of the dimly lit room inside. From the floor to the ceiling, the small cubic space was covered in red furs covered in intricate black stripes, on one end was a table and a leather sofa with a glowing snow white cat person with two tails smoking a cigar while blindfolded as a foxman serviced him. On the other was a bed with an equally zonked out ball gagged and chained cat person and a red skinned woman with a really long pointed nose riding atop him. Directly in front of him was yet another door, this time black with a silver handle. CEO Mindset, he simply walked through the room and opened the door to the main floor of the complex before closing it behind him.
Outside, he was met with a precarious glass walkway with no railing and some cover of some song from a human band he never heard of before playing at the volume of a necromech running at full speed. There were some lyrics about being bathed in healing waters or something while the whole building and all the structures rattled from the resonant frequencies being pumped out by the massive speakers pointing in every direction. The ground floor looked like a nightmare, blood and bits from people getting stabbed in the mosh pit, people having orgies along the walls, and the DJ snorting a line of coke off a record he wasn't spinning. The whole hall reeked of high heaven of sweat and semen, even more so than that chunko pops guy back in paradise. Along the catwalk, several doors, all black with silver handles reflecting the laser light show and purple neon lights all hooked up to the recreation of some famous tower MT read about once but never remembered the name of. That stretched from the floor to the ceiling.
MT made his way to the room with the crosshair behind it, the door was cracked, seemingly nobody guarding it. In fact, MT didn't notice any guards anywhere. He peeked inside and saw what, once again, matched the description of his target in his contract. Black spider with silver chain marks all over his body, deep red eyes that glowed in the dark. He was lying down on a black leather couch holding an empty pill bottle and an empty bottle of absinthe, not moving. Then MT felt a tap on his shoulder.
"Nigger pig, what you thinking doing here?" Said the fox man dressed in black shoving a katana in his face, right before MT dodged and placed three bullets between his lobes. A crimson mist splattered out from behind, and coated the white dresses of the five katana wielding foxes. "There goes my bonus" He thought as black suit dropped into one white suit number 1s arms.
White suit 2 then trusted his sword forward over white suit 1, to which MT dodged to the right and planted two bullets in his head too. The splatter then covered the eyes of white suit 4 causing him to stumble and drop the both of them off the edge and into the mosh pit. Having his attention diverted away from the mass of fox guards for a moment to watch the fall, MT didn't notice the blade coming from white suit 3 as it slammed right into his left leg.
"死ね!" the white suit screamed in moonrune.
MT gasped as he kicked white suit 1 and black suit with his now only good leg causing 1s chest cavity to explode from the force and the rest of the would be samurai hurtling down to the floor below, crushing several ravers and impaling a few more with the raining katanas.
Putting away the non-lethal gun, which would have burned him if his jumpsuit wasn't heat resistant, MT took out the holy gun and opened the door before slamming it shut.
"So, they didn't get you. Took ya long enough." Said the spider, still not moving.
MT did not respond, rather, he frantically searched the 10 by 10 foot room for any semblance of a door or a window or anything to escape with.
"Don't you ignore me Missile Tow!" He said, sitting up on the couch, reaching into his suit.
MT caught a glimmer of reflected light from the fluorescent light on the ground, a vent, just big enough for him to fit in. Focusing on that, he almost didn't even notice the clink that came from his back. Turning around he saw the spider holding a small white glowing blade and the smell of ozone.
"Oh no." He whispered as MT leveled the angel gun to his center of mass and pulled the trigger. The gun let out a sound like turning on an old tube television before a loud crack like thunder.
Target eliminated.
Limping to the vent again, after swapping the holy pistol for his helltec one, with his good leg he kicked in, smashing the frame to pieces and attempted to jump down only to be met with a single leg fitting in. If he were still human, or at least as human as he could be, the vent wouldn't be a problem, nor would it have been a problem for an imp, which meant exfiltration would be more difficult than he originally planned. He thought back for a second, how Rich and Milton would have made use of the vent, and how Sig would have shotgunned his way out to the rear exit while Sam threw flash nades making sure to hide their movements.
Instead, now, he was forced to go back out through the eardrum splittingly loud mob and hope he doesn't get shot. There wasn't any use in waiting, so he stood back up, then left the room being met with the same scene as before, however near the front of the building there appeared to be someone wielding a firearm walking through the door and the wall next to him chipped. After a brief duck back into the room he was just waiting for the bullets to stop filling the wall with holes, MT threw his briefcase down then grabbed hold of the glass ledge with his robot arm, and jumped off the edge, slowing his decent as he reeled himself down, quickly located an emergency exit and his briefcase then kicked the door open, only to be met with another guard right behind. Thankfully, instead of getting lit up, the metal fragments from the exploded door distracted the guard long enough for MT to place a bullet in the guard's head. With that, he quickly hobbled out unseen after that, walking towards the blessed district with the last bullet chambered in his pistol.
Ext. Outside the Neo Tokyo Night Club (NTNC) - 2:00 PM
XAVIER walks up to the two GASHADOKURO bouncers and engages in conversation while the KITSUNE DOOR MAN chatters over his radio. A SNIPER sits on a roof of the building directly in front of the NTNC wielding a holy rifle.
Xavier
(In a slightly worried tone to the bouncers, taking out his notepad)
Hey, freaks, looks like you're all bones and no meat. Luckily for you, I'm here. Tell me, where was it last you saw your flesh?
Door Man
(into his radio in Japanese)
We have a man matching the description of Missile Tow, should I engage or wait for assistance?
Gashadokuro guard 1
(Angrily waving his sword at Xavier, spoken in Japanese)
You wanna die, black pig?
Xavier
(narrowly dodging shots from the sniper, shifting left and right between sentences)
My god, it's worse than I thought, these men can't even speak right without their flesh.
But how do I find their meat without a clue where it is?
I just have to find where meat is usually stored.
But where is meat normally stored?
In a refrigerator.
But where can I find that?
Computer, tell me where I can find the meat.
Computer
(chopped up)
You can find meat where meat is sold Xavier. My sensors indicate you already found that place. Go back to that place.
Xavier
(thankful to the computer, cheerful to the skeletons before running off)
Thanks computer. I swear, I'll get you filled with your own meat in no time flat. Be right back.
End scene.
Ext. In front of the Taco Hell food truck.
SAMPSON is closing shop and picking up litter from his customers. XAVIER runs up to him.
Xavier
(winded)
Meat man, where do you beat your meat? Where do you store your flesh? Where do you suckle the knuckles?
Sampson
(in shock)
What the fuck?
Oh no, oh hell no.
I do not get paid enough to do this shit.
Look man, I don't know what kind of philosophical meat debate you're trying to engage in, but I don't want anything to do with it.
Xavier
(winded)
I don't have time for debates, I need your meat and pronto.
Sampson
(Enraged)
You going to pay this time?
Xavier
(Silence)
Sampson
(angry)
Thought not. Check out 66 Cocaine Boulevard. Plenty of meat there today. Go on, take a look.
Xavier
(screaming while running away)
Frittata.
Sampson
(angry)
Punk ass.
End scene.
Ext. 66 Cocaine Boulevard.
PRIVATE POLICE OFFICER stands guard while XAVIER runs past him.
Xavier
(running past the PPO)
Excuse me, coming through.
PPO
(in shock and awe, he falls over and crawls back to the nearest wall shaking)
Hells bells, what in the seven rings is that thing?
End Scene.
Int. Room of Factory 839 filled to the brim with dead bodies and a single SINNER with a glowing holy spear sitting in the corner, covered in multi-colored blood. XAVIER runs in.
Xavier
(pondering)
Peepshow, so that's where the meat was hiding.
Sinner
(worried, lifting up his spear)
Woah, woah, woah. Hey, freak face, you some sort of cop?
Xavier
(condescendingly)
Cha, I'm a cop, of blowing minds, with my soul powers.
Sinner
(deflated, resting his spear again)
Well, you're clearly not a cop, the fuck are you doing in here then?
Xavier
(confidently)
I need this meat! It's important.
Sinner
(solemnly)
Take what you want, it's not mine.
Xavier
(picks up all the mangled corpses at once in a comically large pyramid of corpses, then runs out)
Frittata.
End scene.
Ext. 66 Cocaine Boulevard.
PPO sits in a corner and cowers while XAVIER runs out with the mountain of meat. The PPO screams in horror as he witnesses the being that he knows should not exist, or at least, not exist here.
End scene.
Ext. NTNC.
XAVIER runs up to the two GASHADOKURO bouncers and starts rapidly fusing the corpses to the bodies. Nobody is left on the scene.
Xavier
(confidently as he dodges swings from the Gashadokuros blades)
I have found your meat. Let me fill your holes with your lost meat.
G 2
(screaming while swinging at Xavier and missing)
G 1
(now covered in corpses of sinners imps and hell hounds, worriedly says)
Brother, help. Please.
One of the mouths of the corpses
(screams in English)
Oh god, please help me!
G 2
(swings at the flesh)
Four hours later card.
Xavier
(within seconds of it, finishes the both of them off in stolen flesh, then walks off)
There we go, all set. Now just to get back to finding where my city guide Full is. Later, chomsky honk.
Mass of flesh now conjoined at the hip.
(Writhing in pain, screaming from every mouth)
Where am I?
Please help, somebody please help.
Why am I still alive?
You know guys, this isn't actually half bad. I could get used to this.
Shut the fuck up Jimmy!
End scene.
The walk to the blessed district took 10 blocks of hobbling and limping from a bleeding wound that refused to close, probably because he kept walking on it. MT slowly made his way through the traffic and the pedestrians that could not give more of a shit that a man was bleeding all over the sidewalk and cars that drove a little too fast for comfort. The traffic slowed down exponentially the closer he got, both foot and vehicular, leaving behind the smells of burning rubber and car exhaust and the noise of the crowds for the smells of a fish market and the sounds of distant thunder.
All around were sinners of varying shapes and sizes, though their forms distorted and twisted to the sea. The cool concrete traded for freezing sandy roads. Gone and distant were the maintained buildings that lined the coast, replaced by wooden dilapidated unpainted buildings with tarps over half of the roofs. Every sluggish step he took, the slower he trod down the road, all the way down to the one building he knew was safe, an apothecary.
MT. crawled and gnashed his way through the burning pain, now intensifying more and more as his body grew colder and colder. The sea breeze and the cold frigid air from the shadows rattled his bones, shook him to his core, even as he pushed open that creaky door letting the bell chime.
"Health." MT said, before passing out in the middle of the apothecary, subsumed by his leaking leg and the pool of blood around him.
MT dreamed himself in a warm cabin, the sky was blue and he was surrounded with friends. When he woke up, he smelled the sea and felt the cold air and the colder metal table he was placed, strapped to a blood bag half filled with violently red liquid.
He looked down and saw that his pant leg was pulled up and stitches closed the wound opened up in the NTNC. The room he was in was a small space, maybe ten square feet, the walls were painted in mint green and along the walls were medical equipment. Above him was a large mirrored light used for surgery and in the white speckled black ceiling tiles, two incandescent bulbs that dimly lit the room. The place smelled of cleaning products.
He heard tapping of hooves on the black linoleum across the hall, then a knock on the big mint green painted metal door. Still delirious, he mumbled out something that he thought resembled "come in" but more closely resembled squawking and chirps. Taking that for a yes, he heard the door handle latch open followed by the thing swinging open and the highland imp Milton stepped in. His hair was black as charcoal and his horns, well, horn and jagged edge of what used to be a horn on his left side, gently curved back. He was clad in a doctor's uniform, white lab coat and scrubs, his awkward looking goat legs tapping across the floor as he used one to push a step stool around. In his hand, a glass bottle full of a mystery brown liquid, and in the other two glasses.
Milton gave MT a mean glare, pushed the step stool over to the table next to the sink on MTs right, then proceeded to sit the glass down on the counter top. He placed one of the glasses down gently to the left of it, then turned around and hurled the other at MTs face as hard as he could. Despite being close enough to feel his breath, MT caught the glass inches from his beak, also somehow not breaking the glass in the process. The glass was as cold as the stare that Milton gave MT, right before he sat down on the stools edge and grasped at his hair.
"Bloody hell's wrong with you mate?" Milton said in his Scottish accent.
"Don't have time, got a job to do." MT said, attempting to stand up, before swiftly feeling dizzy and falling back down on the cold metal table. "I guess I have time before I can go." He added, closing his eyes.
"And what do you think you're doing?" Milton asked while he poured himself a drink.
"Taking a depression nap."
"Oh no you don't."
"Oh yes I do." MT said, hearing Milton place his glass down on the table before getting up, slapping a glove on and walking up to the table. Just then, MT felt as if someone jabbed their fingers right in between the stitches in his leg, only to open his eyes to see Milton doing exactly that. Letting out a squack of pain, MT bolted upward to which Milton stared deeply into his eyes, fingers still hovering over the wound.
"I've still got questions for you, so, will it be the rod or the carrot?" He said, unwavering.
"Fine, I'll take a drink then." MT said, watching Milton take off his gloves then stand back up on his step stool and grab the bottle of liquid.
"Just don't go off your fucking trolley with it, this stuff's strong." He said, pouring a half a glass of the cold liquid.
"Cheers" They both said, in unison, pushing the cold glasses up to their lips and getting a taste of pure fire and rubbing alcohol.
Wasting no time, Milton started off the question and answer session with "So, why didn't you show up to the funeral mate? Even Sampson managed to show up."
"I was a little tied up. Besides, it was only ceremonial."
Milton paused for a second, before saying "But he was your friend, he was my husband. Did any of our time mean anything to you? Did Sampson or Richard even?"
"Did he once ask to see me on his deathbed?"
"That's cold."
"How many times did he ask for a gun?" MT said, just before seeing Milton stand up, walk over to his leg and pour the fire water into the wound, sending an even bigger wave of pain than his fingers.
"Fuck. You." He said, pausing for a moment before MTs screams of pain slowly transitioned into chuckles and outright laughter. Followed by Milton joining in the laughter.
"Oh, man, I miss that." MT said through squacks and chuckles.
"Aye, those were the days." Milton said, walking back over to the step stool, then poured himself another glass. "So, what's up with the metal on your back and your new arm?"
"Well, the back was some experimental armor from Wally Wackford, burned like hell going on and I can't take it off now." MT said, taking another sip of the fire liquid that now that he was used to the flavor noticed it had a vague sweetness and smokiness to it. "As for the arm," he said, shooting it out across the room, snaking it all around before stopping it just in front of Milton's face "I needed a new arm, and Wally Wackford has new robotic engineers."
"Mate, don't tell me you chopped your own arm off for that, you're not made of flesh anymore, remember?" He said.
"No, I lost it sometime beforehand." MT said, retracting the arm. "Seems like soul is just as replaceable to me."
"If you say so." Milton said, taking a more heavy drink. "So, how long have you been outside of pride? I took a look through that briefcase of yours, that's quite the collection of contracts. I hope you don't mind."
"About four months or so, hit the ground running after the last extermination and just haven't stopped yet." MT said, finishing the rest of his drink in one gulp, searing his esophagus in the process.
"Four months? You're suicidal mate, you know how dangerous it is to be out more than one month, that's all it took for Sig." He said, finishing off his drink in one go just as MT did.
"It's all probabilities anyway, just so long as I avoid those god rays and other general extermination storm residue." MT said, lying back down, this time not closing his eyes but staring at the dots in the ceiling tiles. "Speaking of, are there any expected in today's storm?"
"Not that I know of, but then again, anything is possible this far down in hell." He said, pouring himself another drink. "You better be careful out there mate." He said, pointing his finger at MT.
"So, where did you end up planting him?" MT asked.
"Just out of the port in Rockefeller Valley, you know he always thought that that was the prettiest place in hell." He said, drinking the entirety of the drink once more. "It's a shame they're so greedy up there, everything costs more on principle they can charge more, long nosed buggers."
A length of time passed in complete silence listening to the sounds outside gently bleeding through the walls.
"Anything else?"
"Not that I can think of."
"Neither can I, I think I want to take another depression nap." MT said, putting the pillow behind him, then closing his eyes once again. "You wouldn't mind waking me up when the bag's empty, right?" MT asked.
"Anything else?" Milton said, apparently moving the step stool closer to the table.
"Yeah, would you mind keeping my briefcase here while I take care of the other two contracts?" MT said, feeling the imp sit right next to him. "What are you doing?" MT asked, feeling him curl up in a ball next to him.
"Taking a depression nap too."
"You always were a strange person."
"It's why Sig loved me."
"Don't you have a business to run?" MT asked, slowly drifting off to sleep.
"Closed for the day."
"Don't you have a bed to sleep in?"
"I do, but I don't, I just can't make myself, I usually just curl up on this table at night." He said, yawning. "I hope you don't mind me being here."
"Do what you want, I can't stop you." He whispered out as the two of them fell asleep.
"Can I ask you for one more favor?"
"What?"
"Get your head back in the game, I don't want to go to another funeral."
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Chapter 4 - Looped Trauma
Elsa Holmes and Elias Kurtz were on their way on vacation to the Jackpot Resort after a wonderful dinner at L'Atelier de Marie-Antoine Carême, owned and operated by the eponymous chef himself. The taste of the lust ring amontillado, vintage 1982, and the royal garden apple charlotte royale served in the 20th course still played and danced around their tongues. They could hardly make out more detail than the amaranthine haze outside through the tinted golden windows of their limo, and the smells of hazel and firewood flooded the air. The warm seats made of soft egg white velour and black stitches held them aloft with cloud like softness, cool streams of air danced around the two and the refreshing drinks tasting of kola nut filled the two with vigor for the night to come. El and Holmes locked eyes in that moment of supreme bliss, and in that locking of two eyes into forty.
"What worlds above hold nearly as much joy as this moment," let slip El, "for I have yet to find a place more grand, a place more inspired than here with you. Your presence, might I compare, to the golden and radiant sun."
"And to your fires might I compare them to the birth of an atomic bomb?" Holmes added. "For your touch warms my cold brass body and gives these leaden wings flight."
"And your eyes radiate brighter than the fires of destruction." El said.
Holmes looked away for a moment.
"What's the matter?" El asked.
"I just remembered a dream I had the other night, it's probably nothing." She said, looking down at the sheepskin floor mats.
"It's not just nothing if you're this worked up over it, this isn't like you. Then again, getting worked up at all isn't like you."
"Let’s just get back to the room." She said, leaning her head into his shoulder.
The rest of the drive was spent in silence.
"We're here, you may exit now sir, madame." The driver said, gently parking in front of the resort, at which point the two evacuated the vehicle.
The yellow neon lights illuminated the sky, glazing the atmosphere in golden sevens and lettering that read "Jackpot Resort" with the subtext "Welcome to the cactus land." Despite the seemingly kitsch theming, a monolithic slot machine in a desert, everything from the sandalwood floor to the comfort of the bed, tested thoroughly the other night, spoke the opposite. The glass reflected every vista standing outside just in front of the veranda, every bit and piece of the Rothschild Point skyline danced and shimmered in the pale sunlight. Standing outside, they could even smell the petrichor of the coming storm.
The resorts lobby opened up to several rows of office spaces and conference rooms down corridors to the left and right, and behind the reception desk opened up to a several story tall open space lined with clear walled elevator entrances where sinners and goetians could be found resting and relaxing on puffy pillowy couches positioned in front of teak coffee tables flanked on each side by cactus styled reading lamps. At the reception sat a surprisingly placid blessed rather far into the disease filling out the crossword in the back of an equally surprisingly decent porno mag featuring the famous actor Angel Dust in various pinup positions. He held his cheap injection molded plastic ballpoint pen in one of his multitude of spiny cactus like appendages, writing away without a care in the world, antelope styled ears perked up for the occasional press of the golden brass bell.
Milling about were several varieties of hellhound bellhops, carrying luggage to and fro, bringing drinks to the attendees and carrying clothes to the elevators. Word around the street, or at least, word around the office spaces where execs tend to hang out was that hellhounds being cheaper than imps was a secondary reason for the judicious use of them as staff interacting with patrons in any serious capacity outside of check in, a task mostly automated with an app outside of the rare instance of a guest doing things the old fashioned way which resulted in a fist full of cactus needles, was due to the owners strange obsession with how soft they were. Having been more than familiar with the owner, the two of them had, under no doubt, been able to confirm at least the partial validity of said rumors as, the prince himself, Mammon was seen with no less than four hellhound assistants on several corporate retreats.
As the pair walked through the rows of seating to the center-most elevator, arm in arm, they were gently lulled into a sense of security by the gentle desert sounds coming from the hidden speaker system and the bellhop playing quiet melodies on the grand piano off to one corner but still in the middle of the space.
"So, what was it about?" El spoke, as they approached closer to the elevator while he pulled out his phone and opened up the Jackpot app to load the advertisement that plays every time it's booted.
"What? The dream?"
"Yes, the dream, the one you're so worked up about." He said, approaching the elevator door, pressing the call button, waiting for the capsule to slowly make a crawl from whatever top floor it was at to ground.
"Something terrifying. It was less of a dream and more a memory?" She said, looking up, unable to even see the ride vehicle.
"It's ok, it was just a dream. We're safe here."
"But it's about the embezzling. It was about a hitman."
"Come on, none of the shareholders knows about that."
"But Jeremy." She said, looking back at him.
"Our fall guy? Benson didn't know what hit him, and the shareholders believed it."
"I don't know, something just feels wrong. Like that hellhound over there, I remember in my dream we were standing right here, and he sneezed after I finished explaining to you." She said, pointing to a bellhop across the room, a black and white striped hellhound with silver eyes who proceeded to sneeze into his shoulder.
"That's certainly a prediction." El said with a chuckle.
"No, no, no, that's. No, this, how many times has this happened before?" She said.
"First time I remember, but that's not exactly a rare occurrence." El said, looking up for the elevator, being greeted by a bing and the door opening and a couple of Goetians stepping out.
"Ah, ride's here." El said, starting to walk back only to get stopped by Holmes refusing to move. "Come on, let's get up to the suite."
"Do we have to?" She asked.
"Yes, we have to." He said, as she stepped into the elevator and El held out his phone to the select a floor display.
The machine lurched upward at a snail's pace as he locked his phone screen again and shoved it back in his pocket. The golden and white floor was illuminated by a single xenon lamp behind an orange diffusion film that just illuminated the pinholes in the gold metal plate where the speaker sat and spoke "floor 1, estimated time to 33rd floor, 15 minutes'' before returning to playing generic muzak through its tinny loudspeaker. Above it was an emergency stop button, a pair of open and close door buttons. Outside, they saw the slowly receding guests in the atrium.
"You worry too much about things." El said, as Holmes looked up at him.
"If I didn't we wouldn't have made it. Business is all about worry, blood and guts. It's a visceral thing, you know."
"We're safe here, together. Don't you trust that?"
"I do, but I don't. Not much in the universe you can trust." She said, looking at the door before sitting down on the floor.
"Babe, it's going to be ok." El said, shifting his gaze from the outside to Holmes.
Bing, rang the door as it opened to a grand total of zero patrons waiting, interrupting her thoughts. For a moment, Elsa Holmes pondered how hell could have been designed around a massive elevator system, not much unlike this one, where it stops at every stop and lets sinners on and off instead of the bullet trains. Of course, if they wanted any capacity, they would need to have designed the elevator in order to have multiple floors, the bottom being for cargo, the top ones being passenger floors, but then again the throughput would still be abysmal since there's no way to get the speed of a bullet train in an elevator without causing serious harm to cargo or patrons. She then pondered why anyone would even think to design such an elevator system, how stupid a designer would have to be to design such an infernal mode of transport between the rings, how stupid the design would be, and how there would probably not even be any floors for cargo and passengers since most of the designers in hell are crack junkies and meth heads and think that's a good way to design mass transport. She then realized how much of a nightmare it would be to maintain the machinery, and how nightmarish it would be to get stuck between rings in a box for possibly months. Then there was the problem of monetization, there's no way to monetize it and provide a quality enough service to warrant the cost. She thought long and hard about this before cursing herself for thinking of such an idea and even a name for it, that being "hellevator," before the door decided to close itself and bing once more to go to the next floor. Then again, what does it matter, none of this matters, this is hell, why should hell have anything other than jokes as a part of the world's transport network. Why stop there, why not just erase any sense of purpose for things existing and say that Lucifer was having a laugh with that rule, or Lucifer was having a laugh creating that part. Why not just have the rings be sideways ring worlds because halos funny haha funny joke. Three to four floors of silence later and she thought about it twice in the time before being interrupted by El.
"You mind explaining the dream, at least?"
"Would you believe me if I did?"
"I'll listen." He said, sitting down next to her.
"Fine, I remember the dream starting out with the sneeze." she said, moving her gaze back to El. "Then when we got back to the room, you remember how our bed was made and there was a single chocolate on each pillow, right?"
"Right. I can't say I do remember, but go on."
"Well, when we got back to our room, there were two chocolates on your pillow and none on mine. Not just that." She said, looking at the floor.
Bing went to the door, opening to the fifth floor, to a grand total of, yet again, nobody.
"Well?"
"The automatic record player in the room started playing Take Five but it started skipping at the first six notes of the piano melody."
"Then?"
"Then it goes fuzzy, but I remember seeing some sort of chicken nosed beast with a snake arm walking past me, then I'm back at our room and he's cooking and eating you."
"That's odd for sure." He said, looking back out of the elevator at the now ants of guests. "But well within the purview of dreams. Plus, didn't that record skip when we first arrived?"
"Yeah, but it didn't even make it to the piano notes."
"It's fine, please, don't get worked up about it."
"But El, I'm really worried."
"If you're still worried, you can visit the desk when we get to our room, but we wouldn't be here if it weren't a safe place. It's owned by our CEO, after all."
"Do you really trust Mammon?" She said, looking out at the crowd too, now appearing even more like ants.
"I trust the bellhops, the ones you don't see." He said.
"If you say so."
They sat on the floor of the elevator as each floor passed by, stopping at each one because why would the elevator only stop at one place? Nobody got on or off, and every floor progressively got quieter and quieter the further up it went until the atrium disappeared behind a wall of concrete. The gold tinted windows opposite the elevator on every floor let through a view of the resorts and general skyline of South Greed.
They eventually made it to the top floor where the penthouse suite was located. When the elevator binged open and chimed out "you have arrived at your destination" the couple were met with the recently familiar to them hallway that led to the right and what claimed to be an employees exit and the locked door that led to their room, labeled "room 777" on a thick ebony door with gold trim.
"If it's like I say, we need to leave, or tell someone." Holmes said, as they walked forward towards the door.
El pulled out his phone once again, opened up the resort app, waited for the ad to stop playing, then tapped the door, to which the lock let out a beep and an unlatching sound. "Calm down, It's going to be fine even. Trust me." He said, twisting the golden door knob.
The lights in the room flickered on one by one, illuminating the California king memory foam bed coated in silk sheets as black as the sands of the beaches. Directly to their right was another door that led to the massive bathroom with a built in hot tub style bathtub and a separate shower, both of which were also thoroughly broken in the night before by the two. In front of the bed, an electronic fireplace recessed in the black granite wall and a HellG television just above. Past the bed were massive glass doors lining the wall, leading out to a long rectangular swimming pool with a wet bar on the shallow end. Then the automatic record player next to the tv, connected to the two JBHell Olympus speakers through strange gold foil cables, started up. First six piano notes of take 5, skip, skip, skip. Then she noticed the bed. Two chocolates on one pillow, his pillow. Her heart went skip, skip, skip.
"Huh, right again, what do you know. Sure it's just nothing."
"We need to get out of here." Holmes said through her increasingly more frantic breaths.
"You do that, I'm going to hit the pool before the storm comes." El said, unbuttoning his shirt.
"No, you don't understand, you need to come with me." She said, running back towards the door.
"No I don't. Relax." He said, not even noticing Holmes swinging the door open and a brief pause where Holmes turned back before running out the room, slamming it shut on the way out on her way to the elevator.
Holmes reached into her purse, and violently pulled out her phone, tapping in the security code and unlocking the thing before navigating to the hotel app, skipping the ad for 333 souls, and punched in the ground floor option, expediting the process even further with an additional 7,777 souls to go skip all other floors. The doors shut and the elevator lurched down at the same pace it lurched up at, the tinny speaker spoke through a hiss of noise and said "Charges accepted, you will arrive at your destination in five minutes." Those five minutes would prove to be the longest she's experienced since the day she took a trip to Pure Optics. When she finally made it, the door opened and she was greeted by a resounding lack of guests in the general use area. Not a single soul was walking around or lounging in the plush couches that lined the atrium. Running to the front desk, she found the cactus blessed heading reception who was busy on the phone, trying to calm down what appeared to be angry guests.
"There's something bad about to happen." Holmes shouted in a panic at the sinner.
"We know, there's an active shooter in the building, we're working on taking care of it, I'm going to have to ask you to either go back to your room and lock the door or evacuate." The sinner said, putting the phone down for a second to relay the information before picking the phone back up again.
Then she felt a brush against her shoulder, and a brown blur running past. As she turned to take a closer look, she saw the beast from her dream, exactly as she remembered it running for the penthouse elevator. It had backwards legs and was wearing nothing more than a loincloth. She dropped to the ground, leaving a dent in the wooden floor and grasped at her head for a moment, as she saw him enter the elevator, and the elevator moved at five times the speed it did for everyone else.
"Is there another way to the penthouse suite without the elevator?" Holmes asked.
"Not officially," the sinner said, pausing before adding "but if you're dead set, take the series of stairwells to floor 30, then go through the employees only stairwell you should get there, but I don't recommend that with a" The sinner said, before getting cut off with a "Thanks."
Holmes ran to the gold plated steel door that led to the stairwell and pulled the handle without thinking that it might be locked before a speaker shouted at her "payment required" between a series of three pulsed buzzes. She, once again, violently opened the app, closed the ad, another 333 souls, selected the unlock all stairwell option for a grand total of 77,777 souls that was marked as 20% off, pulled open the door and climbed the first stairwell. Hiding behind the stairs was a couple of baphomet like goetians and their son, but otherwise the entire stairwell, and subsequent floor were completely empty, and all room doors were closed. The pattern of someone hiding in the stairwell, and empty floor as she crossed each hallway to the next stairs, continued until she reached floor 30, where she pushed the door open and was met with the stench of gunpowder and blood.
Right in front of the door, and blocking the path between her and the remains of what she assumed was a door that was pulverized like a wheezing puppet demon with squid tentacles where his mouth should be gasping for air and bleeding blue blood through holes and polyfill. It was still clutching at a machete as it tried and struggled to move towards the stairwell to no avail. Stepping over it, carefully, she was met with arms and legs strewn about next to various nondescript organs and what seemed to be corpses of blessed sinners of various types though she didn't smell any ozone so it was likely they would pull through and regenerate. Still, she climbed up the stairwell, passing the 31st floor, then the 32nd floor before finally reaching the 33rd floor, or at least the splintered oak frame of the door that used to rest in it. It was the same story as she approached the lucky number 777 suite, and outside in the rain, as she caught her breath stood that beast, illuminated by some unseen light source next to the pool, fur being blown in the wind.
The closer she got, the more she was able to smell a painful mixture of ozone and grilling meats. Also, the closer she got the more details she could make out. He appeared as a brown furred beast with a snake arm wearing that single flap of a loincloth, his legs were backwards and he was wearing a pair of sneakers, whistling away over a comically large grill, while he grilled a body.
"Who are you?" Holmes screamed.
"Who am I? The question of the philosophers, can we ever truly be sure about who we are? Or are we but life's playthings in this ouroboros of time. Me, I'm a renegade angel." He said, turning around.
"What are you doing?" She screamed at him, running closer to look at the grill.
"Helping people, helping mother nature right now, cha, cooking up some fresh pool meat." He said, pointing at the charred remains of Elias being grilled.
"I am going to fucking kill you!" She screamed, throwing a punch at him, following up each punch with a "Taste that, taste the pain."
The universe split before her. Her rage bubbled to the point where she felt as if she could cleave the seven rings in half and drag that beast below out of it's depths and burn the whole universe down. All of creation, all of everything outside of creation, but a fire, and with the extinguishing of Elias, that burning fire extinguished with it.
"How are you doing that?" She said, noticing that none of her punches did any damage to him, but cracking and shearing the concrete around the pool, cracking the tiles that lined it.
"You're doing that, you Maltese falcon, why don't you have a taste of this delicious pool meat." He said, pulling a plate with a knife and fork from his back and carving off a piece of the face, scooping out an eye with a fork.
"No? Suit yourself." He said, digging in. "Needs more salt."
"You monster. You're eating my husband." She said, crumpling into a pile on the floor, head in hand, tears streaming stronger than the rain and wind.
"Whatever, dweeb, waste perfectly good pool meat. Besides, mistah kurtz, he dead, and wasting perfectly good pool meat is a bad business decision." He said, swallowing the rest whole "Ah, that hit the spot, you're welcome for the help. Off to go help someone else." He said, waltzing back out to the elevator.
She later received two texts, both of which she didn't read having ended up in a hospital. The first read "insufficient funds for rental payment" from the bank, the second from her boss read "consider your continued existence a kindness."
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Chapter 5 - Resort Retribution
Ground floor.
MT ran through the plan in his head as he walked to the resort, sounds of the storm slowly creeping in from distant rumblings to more defined cracks of thunder. The Lucky Jackpot resort had really loyal staff. The kind of staff that keeps the airspace around the resort clear with mounted guns on roof tops nearby that always had someone manning them. The guns themselves didn't fire anything that could damage the building or crack the glass, but what they did fire were nets made of razor wire going so fast the only way to dodge was to jump off the top and use the momentum to do aerial maneuvers. They also had no qualms with dispatching guests who didn't have reservations with mounted guns hidden in statues and architecture, and since the prices were extortionate at best MT couldn't just barge into the front gate. That left the employees only route, take the stairs up and hope it's understaffed.
As the giant tower shaped like a massive slot machine came into view with its yellow signs all over, MT noticed that the parking lot in front seemed to be unusually filled for the season. Unlucky, for sure, but due to the resort's position, it was right next to several other skyscrapers, which created another series of alleyways, which he navigated to the side of the building with a puke green employees door. Putting a side of his head to the door, he could hear male and female sinners all screaming about food, followed by strings of "yes chef" and "no chef." MT took out his hell gun, then kicked the door in, slicing it into splinters. Seconds later, the saucier looked up from a pan he was stirring and noticed the six foot tall golden eagle walking through the hallway with a suppressed gun drawn.
"Chef, we have an intruder!" The half burning skeleton, half squid blessed screamed, with an immediate response of "On it." From the female sounding golden goose blessed with a single crab leg instead of a bird's leg before she rushed out of MTs’ periphery.
In total, there were about 9 blessed in the kitchen, the burning skeleton squid that called first, the goose in the back, to her left and right were two near human looking but gaunt to the point of bones showing through their skin women both with matching oak wood branches growing from their back, the one on the left was carving meat off a vertical rotisserie with a stonewashed grey machete while the other was hacking away on some vegetables with a meat cleaver. There was a headless skeleton stirring a pot with one hand and holding his skull with his other in the far right corner that had a green stalk growing up from where his spine ended. In the middle of the room were three black blobs with many eyes plating dishes, they all had squid tentacles growing from various parts of their body. Also in the middle of the room was another gaunt looking semi human flipping something in a pan.
Then the room erupted in violence, the woman with the meat cleaver threw it back at MT, just barely missing, and the sauce guy grabbed his pan and bolted towards MT. Taking careful aim, MT shot the guy with the pan in the head, taking him down in one shot, then dodged another meat cleaver that was thrown at him and took down the meat cleaver lady with another shot. MT then tried to walk forward and noticed his feet were caught by the three black blobs holding him in place, so he fired three shots into the masses holding his legs in place and they went limp. He walked further into the room only to have a chef's knife thrown at him and miss from the gaunt thing in the center of the room, so he fired at her and took her down. And before the headless skeleton and the machete thing could get close they got two bullets in the head as well. Before MT could reload, the golden goose walked back into the room holding what looked like a submachine gun, the chef didn't see MT, and so MT grabbed the machete, then charged at the goose with its back turned and took the head off. He reloaded his gun, stowed it away back in his pocket and picked up the silenced SMG, detaching the mag to check the count, it appeared to be a 30 round mag loaded to 28.
Gun in hand, machete in the other, MT walked through the kitchen to the door he assumed was a stairwell so he could make it to the top of the building. On the door was a plaque that read "Remember, Shoot First, Ask Questions Later" with a picture of some clown smiling at the bottom. MT kicked the door in and found himself in front of a set of grey concrete stairs that led up, not to the top of the building but to the next floor.
Second floor.
Looking through the port window of the swinging wooden doors that led to the second floor, MT saw rows of ovens and four blessed working on pastries. One cat looking one with a mouth on its stomach and a single mantis leg growing from his abdomen was rolling out dough. Behind him was a horned beast with three eyes and two sharp pointed horns watching the oven. To their right was a purple blessed with red eyes and thin horns and kelp growing from his legs cutting dough and sculpting it. To the far corner was a fairly human looking blessed with a blank white mask that appeared to be fused to his face and a single pig's leg instead of his more human legs. He was piping frosting onto what looked to be cupcakes.
Wasting no time, MT kicked the door in, and aimed his gun at the three eyed blessed and pulled the trigger, sending out a four round burst, splattering orange blood all over the ovens. MT noticed the masked man pull out what looked to be a knife, so he moved forward while sending out another three round burst at him, painting the wall behind him red. The one watching the oven turned around and picked up a pan to throw at MT, however, he was too late to do anything, he received a three round burst and crumpled to the ground. Then MT smelled a strong scent of cinnamon, and noticed the fourth blessed disappeared. Thinking fast, he ducked and narrowly avoided a slash from a knife aimed right at his neck. He turned around and the blessed was gone once again. MT then waited for three seconds, and turned around at the moment the blessed reappeared to take another swing giving him and sliced right through him with the machete, staining the metal a bright crimson.
Wasting no time, he walked to the other end of the room and noticed another sign on the door that read "Insubordination Will Result In Termination Without Severance Pay" with another smiling clown face, same as before. MT kicked the door down, then walked up the single flight of stairs yet again to the next floor.
Third floor.
The third floor seemed to be less populated than even the second, nobody was around save a bunch of running washing and drying machines, however, there was a small nook at the end of the hallway that MT saw with a sign jutting out from the dividing wall that read "break room." Preparing for the worst, he pushed the door open, then slowly walked across the room, leaving a multi-color trail of blood dripping from his feet along the way.
By the time he made it to the break room, he could hear two blessed talking about an intruder, and when he rounded the corner he was met with one sitting in a chair and one standing by a button. The one sitting down had more octopus than sinner in him, but the parts that still appeared normal were distinctly crow like. The other standing by a button, had cactus branches growing from the side of him, and his arms skin was peeling back to show more cactus flesh. Otherwise, he looked to be a slightly more humanoid imp type sinner when he was still a sinner, but purple. The room smelled of stale coffee and there was a small cd player blasting out a crackly rock solo with lyrics that read something like "won't you fly high freebird" or something.
The blessed sitting swung out something from underneath the table, but before he could fire on MT the blessed received a dosage of four bullets straight through his head, and shortly after the other one did as well. That was, not before he could hit the button, causing a pulsing red light in the ceiling to start flashing and an intercom message to be played that said "Intruder alert, active shooter on premises." Ignoring that, MT walked over to the gun lying on the floor and removed the magazine, noting that it fit in the SMG he picked up loaded to 28 rounds. He put it in the same pocket he kept his other mags in, then walked to the door that led to the stairwell.
"Mammon Says: Remember, Don't Overuse Your Water Rations" Said the plaque on the door.
Fourth floor.
MT peered through the window in the door again and saw a long hallway with twenty doors lined on the side opposite where the resort's lobby would have been, and once again, he kicked the door open but this time waited to see if anyone would exit one of the doors. Surely enough, he saw one door open wide and the silhouette of a silenced SMG poked out. Before the blessed could make it all the way out, MT fired a 3 round volley into where he thought the things head would be and hit every shot, painting the door with bright orange blood. Then a second door closer to him opened up and he saw a cloud of red cinnamon scented smoke violently erupt from it.
Instinctively, MT rotated his arm to swing behind him, then followed through when the blessed would have appeared. He felt the blade tear through flesh like butter, and heard the clang of a knife and the thud of a body fall down the stairwell, then he heard the sound of ten doors opening all at once and a flood of cinnamon filled the air. Walking forward, and swinging behind him, MT fired at every location he thought someone would be, exhausting the magazine, leaving a pile of bodies behind him and in front of every door that opened. The rainbow of blood pooling around the floor as he walked. By the time he reached the door on the other end, his magazine was empty, so he dropped the spent mag and shoved in the fresh mag before sending the bolt forward, cambering the next round.
"In case of fire or emergency, jump out nearest window."
Fifth floor.
Another washing room, MT noticed two blessed putting sheets in washing machines and taking them out of the driers. One was a stuffed dragon with cactus legs, and the other was a stuffed dog with pine legs. They both were absorbed in their job and didn't notice the bright flashing red light in the corner. Without thinking, MT smashed open the door and opened fire on the dragon, giving it a four round burst, and before the dog could react he gave it a three round burst. Both collapsed and stained the sheets they just cleaned.
"A Dirty Room Is An Unhappy Customer."
Sixth floor.
Another employee housing section, this time, only nineteen doors. Also this time, MT was met with a volley of gunfire through the door before he could even peer through the window. Thankfully for MT, none of the bullets hit, and he was able to retreat back down the stairs and aim his gun at the door, waiting for someone to try and make their way in. Instead, MT saw the door start to glow red hot and melt as a burning skeleton with the lower torso of a crab throwing fire at the door. MT dumped five rounds into the skull and the fire went out, however, he was met with seven more of the same kind of blessed trying to make their way through the same entry that used to be a door.
One mag dump into each of their skulls later, they all collapsed and littered the hallway. MT checked for another magazine, but was unable to find one, so he dropped the gun and took out his pistol once more and headed to the next floor.
"Customer Satisfaction Guarantees Higher Severance Pay"
Seventh floor.
The seventh floor appeared to be a storage room, but it was completely empty save for some cleaning supplies thrown here and there. There wasn't even a plaque on the door up to the next floor.
Eighth floor.
When MT looked through the window, he saw two of the knife wielding kind of blessed both with vines growing out of their arms, and a single blessed with a round head and a single eye smoking a cigarette and holding another silenced SMG. His skin was peeling off revealing shark skin underneath. The room was another housing section but with eighteen doors this time. MT kicked the door open, then fired one bullet in each of the three blessed heads before they could turn around fully, then put his pistol back away and picked up the SMG again, and placed his back to the wall waiting for someone to exit one of the doors.
"Be quiet, I'm trying to sleep." Said someone through one of the doors.
Nobody else exited, so MT headed to the next floor.
"We Are Watching You"
Ninth Floor.
The door between the ninth floor and the stairwell was separated by a second glass door, and the space between was full of vents along either side of the wall. Inside were five egg blessed with what looked like onion bulbs where their feet should be, all in various states of plant growth on them. MT switched the kicked the door into a million pieces, then kicked both doors in half. Upon doing this, he was met with a blast of what smelled like rotten eggs and his eyes started to water. Without even paying attention to them, he shot all five of those eggs before charging at the other door, smashing it open and running up the next flight of stairs without stopping to read the plaque that probably read something along the lines of "If You Live Here, Don't Leave."
Tenth floor.
After waiting for his eyes to stop melting and his lungs to stop burning, MT peeked through the tenth floor doors and saw yet another kitchen with the same layout as the first one, however, this kitchen had a substantial amount of chairs and desk space with little to no cooking equipment and a sign on the wall saying "break room." Seven blessed, all were armed with SMGs. There were three more of the black goo sinners, one of them had a rose growing out of one of its eyes, another had bird feathers sticking out of its chest, and the third had a grape vine coming out of its back. The rest were the gaunt knife blessed. One had roots for an arm, another had a cactus leg, the thirds’ arms were covered in leaves and the fourth had fish scales over her stomach.
MT kicked the door open and started shooting, moving quickly to cover. He took out the three goo creatures first, taking them out with a single bullet to each of their heads on his way to cover, then he rolled quickly out of cover and fired one in each of the knife types before they could react to everything. Then he grabbed the seven mags that didn't even have a single bullet missing, apparently none of them even tried to fight back. After shoving all the mags in his pockets, he saw why the sign on the door read "Hospital Leave Is Paid Leave."
Eleventh floor.
MT kicked open the door and was met by another oven floor, however this one was modified to have cubicles everywhere and computer screens were in various states of being on and off. Two blessed on fire sitting in beach chairs with guns pointed at MT. One had more flesh than the other but they were both skeletal, with the exception of the one on the right had a shark's fin growing out of his back and the one on the left had a goat's leg. The one in the right held up his hand, then signaled one with his index finger before pointing at his head. The one on the left nodded to the order, so MT obliged, putting a single bullet in each of their heads, then took the two magazines for himself.
"Get Back To Work"
Twelfth Floor.
Washing and drying. Two stuffed animal type blessed sat in front of the machines holding claymores staring at the door, waiting for the intruder to show his face. One was a stuffed patchwork bear with weeping willow branches growing from each of his shoulders, the other was a stuffed elephant with a pig's stomach. When the door exploded into a thousand shards and MT stepped through the gate, they stood up and drew their swords. The stuffed bear was the first to go down with a single shot to the head, then the elephant went down before he even got close to MT with another shot.
"Turn The Heat Down On Dryer 4, It Can Burn The Sheets."
Thirteenth floor.
The Thirteenth floor was just a hallway that led to the next staircase.
"Don't look at me, I didn't have a problem with it, blame the board of directors."
Fourteenth floor.
Another storage room, this time filled with crates and bags of various foodstuffs. A giant refrigerator hummed in the corner, right next to the several chest freezers that flanked it on either side. Presumably for overflow since there was a similar setup in the kitchen floors. A blessed with more cactus than sinner sat in a chair with his feet in a bucket of wet sand with a suppressed pistol. He took aim at MT and pulled the trigger, but it just clicked and nothing fired. Moments later, all movement ceased, and MT watched as the cactus consumed the rest of him, swallowing up the gun in the process. MT, out of respect, removed his mag, popped out a cartridge and placed it in front of his bucket, then put the mag back in.
"Work"
Fifteenth floor.
The fifteenth floor was another employee housing floor, this time fifteen doors lined the hallway. Smashing his way through, the sounds of snoring nearly caused his ear drums to pop, he ran and crashed into the next door, bending the plaque on it and cracking the frame off the building.
"For transfer schedules, check your employee handbook."
Sixteenth floor.
Another residential floor, only nine rooms this time. Two blessed were sitting in the hallway with their guns pointed in the general direction of the door. When MT kicked the door in, they lifted their guns but didn't fire, instead they received a dose of lead straight through their heads. As MT moved further towards the door, he heard a couple of windows opening and screaming.
"In case of fire or emergency, jump out nearest window."
Seventeenth floor.
The first floor that was noticeably different from the rest, it was a standard looking office space with white walls and an array of cubicles. In the back left corner was one office with a wooden door and no windows to peer in. In the room were seven blessed with computers for heads, each of varying model. One looked old and heavy, like the one on Sigs desk topside, he had a rabbit leg but otherwise looked normal. Then there was one in the back with a cellphone for a head, not unlike his, also from topside. She had a wing for her left arm. The third one had a slick monitor like the one Vox had, his right leg was a crocodile leg. These employees, unlike the rest of the floor, charged at MT, and had sharp electric claws. The clunky guy took three of his bullets before falling head first on the floor, inches away from MTs leg. He spent two more taking the phone one down who jumped on top of the cubicles and was running along the wall of one. Then the slick one took four to put him out of commission just as his claws scraped just inches away from MTs head, collapsing in his arms and knocking down MT in the process. After a few moments of panting to catch breath, he tossed the blessed to the side, stood up, and walked to the next floor.
Where the plaque would have been for this floor was a picture of a cat hanging from a with the text "hang in there" underneath.
Eighteenth floor.
Another residential floor, another loud snorer that flooded the room with sound. Only ten this time. MT quickly made his way through and up the next stairwell.
"Good Luck"
Nineteenth floor.
Another airlock waited for MT when he reached it, this time, he observed more closely. This time, he saw four egg people, well, somewhat egg people, mostly onions sitting in various positions on chairs generating chemicals and dropping them in funnels that were connected to blue metal barrels. There were 5 beds in the room and a small communal toilet and shower in the far right corner. MT looked around this time for a gas mask, which he found and subsequently couldn't use because it was designed for a hellhound not a golden eagle. He took a moment to reload his SMG, but remembered he still had four rounds left in his pistol, and deciding to save the faster firing SMG rounds for the top ten floors, switched it back to full auto, and took out the pistol. Wasting no more time, he smashed both doors in with two consecutive kicks. Quickly aimed at the eggs and sent a single round in each of their general direction, miraculously hitting each and every one of them before his eyes burned out again, then smashed the next two doors in and ascended the staircase.
"Good luck."
Twentieth floor.
Two silhouettes walked around in the room, one was covered in white lumps all over his body, the other had black lumps. What wasn't covered in lumps looked like the black goo kind of blessed. He replaced the pistol with the SMG. When MT smashed through the door, he was met with the strongest scent of mushroom he'd ever smelled, and so assumed the lumps were some form of truffle. White truffle took nearly half a mag before it collapsed, the other took all but 4 of his rounds. He stowed the mag away and loaded another in. He was expecting a plaque at the end on the door, but he found nothing, so he climbed the stairs without putting too much more attention to it.
Twenty first floor.
There was a hellhog that had full run of the floor as MT observed, but on closer observation, there was still some boom box from when the blessed was still a sinner where the head would have been. MT busted the door down, then opened fire on the beast. Of course, the bullets splashed off and ricocheted around the room, one whizzing by his ear. The hellhog didn't appreciate this however, and used the remaining speaker to send out a sonic blast at MT that caused his hearing to go out for a moment as he rolled out of the path of a charge. Thankfully, the hog rammed himself into a wall, allowing MT to dump the rest of the mag into the one part that was still sinner, the hog did not get back up afterward. He reloaded, dropping the spent mag and getting the next one out.
Twenty second floor.
Two smaller imp like ones, made of shrubbery. MT kicked the door down and instantly smelled cinnamon again, and so, he took the machete he just remembered he was carrying and slashed behind him several times, not making contact with anything, instead, he saw the two of them emerge from behind some loose cover with guns, so he quickly moved sideways and opened fire on them, knocking one out, but wounding the other. More cinnamon, this time, the imp like sinner ended up in front of him, and so he received the rest of the mag and a kick for the effort, breaking nearly all of the branches save a few on his head. Reload. Off to the next floor.
Twenty third floor.
He heard an explosion go off the second he kicked the door in to the next stairwell, and was met with a shower of debris from what used to be the door above him, not wanting to miss an opportunity to strike before a reload, he vaulted over everything and ascended the stairs just in time to see some old television headed blessed reaching for a second rpg next to him. From his torso down was an oak tree, and where his rabbit ear antennas were now branches. He was the only one in the room, and received another mag.
Twenty fourth floor.
For what MT saw when he looked above, twenty four through at least twenty six had wooden beams for floors, and cracks could be seen going all the way up, as well as obvious bullet holes. Aside from that, what met him on floor twenty four was a really angry knifer who was more hell hawk than knifer, she had a katana. She was pacified with half a mag, then as MT stepped in the room, bullets rained down from the wooden planks that acted as the roof. Running as fast as he could to the next stairwell he dumped the rest of the mag upwards and reloaded in the stairwell.
Twenty fifth floor.
Cinnamon, lots of it, before he could even think or make a single step up the stairwell, he had the SMG aimed in front of him and the machete at his back, three seconds, he started swinging, slicing things in half it felt like, then one appeared in front of him, looked more like a fish than a sinner, took half a mag. Then, when the bodies stopped piling up behind him, he walked up the stairs and kicked the door in to find yet another knifer, this time looking more like a shark and wielding a throwing blade in her mouth, something that she didn't make use of, instead flopping over to try and stab or bite MT, she took the rest of the mag and MT ran through to the next stairwell, dropping the spent mag in the process and slamming in a new one.
Twenty sixth floor.
Not the last floor with a wooden ceiling, but there were a couple of stationary trees and cacti pointing a gun down and a gun to either exit. MT instinctively jumped out of the way as a volley of SMG rounds splintered the door into a million pieces before the distinct sound of an empty chamber clicked as they pulled the trigger hoping for just a little more bullet. In kind, they collectively received a full mag.
Twenty seventh floor.
The actual last floor with a wooden ceiling. Filled with five knifers, all with different weapons, all with different states of being, all equally dead after another mag of whatever they load their SMGs with.
Twenty eighth floor.
The heat from inside radiated through the walls of the stairwell. A large portion of fire skeletons, and they were all throwing their fire at every wall up there. MT carefully walked up and saw the door was burned out, both doors were burned out and the room was glowing red hot from the four that just kept throwing fire at everything. MT made quick work of them before they even noticed him, but after that, he was left with a room that could actually hurt to cross. Doing a bit of quick thinking, MT threw the machete across the floor, and seeing it land safely in the next stairwell, he grabbed hold of the railing on the other end by extending his arm, then reeled himself across what felt like a million degree sauna.
Twenty ninth floor. More computer heads. One less mag.
Thirtieth floor.
MT was met with, yet again, the smell of cinnamon, but having grown tired of it, simply kicked the door in, swung the machete behind him and used the last four rounds of the mag he saved from earlier to put holes in a stuffed blessed that had squid tentacles where his mouth would be and was carrying a machete sewn to his hand. He went down, and so did the several teleporters that met his kick and splattered into a million pieces. MT then dropped the SMG, having seen no ammo for it on that floor, and took out his holy gun, then made his way up the now spiral staircase that looked to go up to his target's floor.
Thirty third floor.
MT kicked open the maintenance door, then walked down the short hallway to the penthouse suites room and kicked it in.
"Woah, what's this-" and before the target could finish his sentence, MT took aim at center mass and fired one with laser precision, taking him out and sending his corpse into the pool he was about to jump in.
Target eliminated.
MT found himself sitting in one of the pool chairs, letting the gold plastic straps support him as he regained his senses. He threw the looted machete across the blue tiled floor of the poolside and felt the gentle pitter patter of rain start to pour on his head. The smell of blood slowly being drowned out by the smell of that very rain and the ozone from his holy round. MT looked up, and he saw the sky light up with lightning, followed by a cracking boom. The ringing in his ears finally dissipated, and he was left with crystal clear hearing. He leaned forward and unlatched his wing shield and stretched those limbs in anticipation for the next leg of the journey, dodging the razor wire. Then he saw something in the distance, a twisting cloud, and a thin white light expanding from the center of it outward before slowly contracting again. God rays, great.
The elevator dinged behind him as he stepped up to the railing, feeling its smooth metal readying himself to jump.
"No, don't do it!" Xavier screamed.
"What is it this time?" MT said, turning around, still holding on to the railing.
"Suicide is not the way to fill your emptiness, just walk away!" He said walking closer.
"Dude, I have wings." MT said stretching out his wings.
"Ooh, I know what could cheer you up, this delicious pool meat you dropped in the pool." He said turning away from MT for a moment to pull it out of the water.
MT took the opportunity provided and reeled himself over the edge. A shot came at him, but he pulled left, then another, so he raced it down. He just barely missed, feeling the wake it made against the glass of the building behind him, then another roared passed as he dove left and pulled up just as he reached near the street line. Behind him, he heard a loud crack and boom as the tower itself was struck with lightning. The next obstacle was a thin beam of light in his way dead ahead, so MT turned left down a street just in time to miss the ray by a matter of inches, then another, then another until he arrived at 24/365 coffee. He landed, quickly opened the door, and saw outside a bright flash of light that would have brought death mere moments ago had he not been in the shelter of a building.
"Hello MT, I've been expecting you." The man behind the counter said.
Before answering, MT took a moment to look around. The storefront was lined with glass windows, allowing views of the street and a very slight view of the ocean if you stood in just the right place. The wooden countertop, lined with matte black metal bar stools and red seats. Only the barista making noise behind the counter and the smell of coffee filled the space.
"You might want to answer that." The barista said, pulling a lever on some machine as another flash of white light passed by outside.
Just then MT heard a ringing phone in one of his pockets, so he pulled it out and answered, not even noticing that it was the same phone from topside.
"Hey, freakshit, got something for you, I was scouring the remains of Cruelty Squad HQ and found it. I gave it to the barista, good luck out there." The ugly fuck said then hung up.
Just as MT put down the phone, the barista turned around, head of a chicken, two human arms, and a couple of snake heads jutted out from the counter top. This was the third target, and he placed a cup of coffee down and a strange green ball device with a red center.
"The usual, sir." He said, "Oh, and the device is yours, on the house."
MT pulled out his holy gun and aimed it at the target.
"Who are you and what are you doing here?"
"Well, I'm here to pick up a lost child, you've already met, place sit down."
MT obliged, and carefully took a seat on the stool in front of the gear and coffee.
"For your first question, you killed me, but you didn't kill me." He said.
"What if I loaded you with 3 holy rounds? Would you leave then?"
"Trust me, I don't want anything more to do with this world. You won't have to worry about me leaving."
"What's with the coffee?" MT said, lowering the gun a bit before taking a sip, recognizing it as his favorite. "Hey, this is good."
"Beans from North Lust Peak, roasted medium, just as you prefer."
"And the ball?" MT said, putting the gun away, drinking the rest of the coffee.
"That's for you to figure out, not me." The barista said, picking up a glass to clean that was already spotless.
Just then the door chimed a two note ringtone, one high one low. In stepped a familiar face, bird nose, snake arm, backwards legs.
"Oh, there you are, I've been-" he said, disappearing mid sentence.
"Ah, there's my cue, see you around." The barista said, waving his hand in Xaviers general direction "Oh, and if you get any job offers, take it." He said, slithering out on his two legs, disappearing into a flash of white light.
MT sat in the chair for a while afterward, then picked up the ball with his robotic hand, to which it seemingly moved through the palm of his hand and up through to the joint that connected the arm to his shoulder. Without even a single after thought, he immediately knew how to operate the device, so he checked that off his list of things to do. Next, he pulled out his phone and waited for the storm to subside. Full reception, two messages and one alert from his bank. As for the alert, he noted that all of the cash from the days hits was put into his account as promised. As for the first message, an email, it read "Congrats on taking out the little problem we had in upper management, and we only had to liquidate one additional asset today. Consider all damages comped, the value you've provided our company is more than enough for a few small repairs and hospital bills. -Mammon" Having read that, MT immediately dumped half his daily earnings into MMN and quadrupled it within the hour, then quintupled that quadrupled profits the next few days. The other half he spent on the house he was eyeballing in pride, in one of the nicer neighborhoods. The second message, a text, was from an unknown number, it read "You've passed the test, you've been accepted into our ETCD. Report to the manor tomorrow for further instruction." Never missing an opportunity for a profit, and the words of that snake legged thing ringing through his ears still, MT decided on the spot to show up where he knew he had to go, the Magne manor. CEO mindset.
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Acknowledgments:
Thanks to Viceroy for helping me throughout the entire creative process and for proof reading it before I posted to the thread. Thanks to all those who gave words of encouragement and looked forward to this release with patience. Thanks to Hermann for crafting Phenex and letting me use him in the story. Thanks to Vivsie and her crew for providing an interesting enough take on hell for me to make this, even if I did have to modify the shit out of it. If you're confused about my estimated conversion rate between souls, one USD is worth 66.6 souls.