Fix it? Fix it!? I’m afraid your meat suit’s fragged, son. Look at it. Every synapse is fried, every connection cooked, every fragment of the substantiality layer is completely discorporeate. By the Abyss, if this thing has a single reality coupling left that isn’t a pile of molten slag, I’ll be an imp’s pustulent backside.
No, don’t give me that look. You are damned lucky to be alive, Bucko. If this had been one of the older models, we would have scooped you out of there in a bucket. What did you do, bathe in it?
What do you mean, what do I mean? Holy fire, you nitwit! What else messes up meat suits this badly on the back-end? The stuff you must have gone swimming in before you dragged this lump of previously functional garbage into my workshop! You know, literally the last thing you saw before you fucking bit it?
Yeah, that. What did you think that was? Normal fire? Ugh, I swear the kids get dumber every millennium.
What is it? It’s nasty, that’s what it is. It’s very, very nasty. A kind of divine, demon-seeking uber-fire that doesn’t so much burn as it annihilates the fundamental building blocks of what we are.
See, here’s what it does. It doesn’t just burn the physical layer of ablative meat you walk around with out there. Oh no. This stuff’s like some kind of smart munition. As soon as it’s got it’s hooks into your physical aspect, it goes digging, looking for the connection points to the real body.
And when it finds them, it follows them. All. The way. Up.
Until it finds you.
And then we let your next of kin know that we lost another dumbass who got cocky just because his opponent was a mortal meat-worlder.
Sigh. You know, back in the before times, before the Demon Wars, the suits didn’t have any of the safeties we take for granted nowadays. No intangibility cut-outs, no ethereal relay joints, no corporeal valves, nothing. We assumed we were indestructible because we were so far removed from their physicality.
Which meant that when this crap suddenly started showing up, even the slightest touch of it was a death sentence that turned your cockpit into a blazing mana-fire.
Now, we’ve come a long way since those days. The newer suits nowadays can even isolate and self-repair the damage without needing to return to the shop, if given a bit of time. Unless, of course, some absolute moron tries to face-tank the equivalent of a falling star of the stuff!
Look, next time you feel like throwing down with someone with ‘Paladin’ in his name, just… go take up knitting instead, okay?
-Infertec Arch-Engineer Hazorus, upon the return of Blazhnok the Scourge to the Abyss after his battle with Derrik, First Paladin of New Azeron
The inky, black Abyssal Gate that hung in mid-air in Triorbus Square glooped. Its smooth surface rippled.
Ixxy stumbled a bit as she stepped through the black, oily portal.
She looked bad. There were bags under her eyes. Her normally perfect, lustrous hair was unkempt and frizzy. Her fingers twitched as she moved. There was even a slight limp in her walk where her spine was still figuring out the proper order of reattaching her nerves..
But none of that mattered. Her body was functional. That was all she needed. She could fix the rest later.
At that moment, she had more important priorities. She had to get back the little green tronic that she’d gotten from Rita. If it was still out there, it was her ticket out of this mess. Her way to clear all her stupidity-induced debts and she’d gone and lost it.
Not intentionally, of course, but physical objects didn’t come with you when you died. They stayed right there on whatever remained of your body, which was why smart demons traded for immaterial things like souls and essence. Things that you didn’t lose quite so easily.
Not her, though. Oh no. Because she was an idiot.
Stopping only to throw on a new outfit from the Triorbus clothes bank — Ixxy had lost count how many sets she’d ‘borrowed’ from there by this point — she headed out as fast as her legs and awkward, stumbling gait could carry her, mentally willing her body to heal itself faster.
It would, over time. Normal injuries healed quick, but holy fire was a nasty customer. It’s damage went deep, way deeper than just the physical. It would still heal, given time, but… There was a lot of damage. Internal damage. Damage to the actual underlying systems that managed her regeneration.
Not to mention all of the cracked seals, tripped breakers and just tons of other safeties that would need time to be reset.
But that was the point of safeties, right? Eating the brunt of the blow so the more important parts, ie. you, didn’t.
She made her way through the city, retracing the route she’d taken earlier. There were more than a few inquisitive stares as she limped past them.
Of course. Now she was drawing attention. Now that she looked like she’d been through a wood-chipper.
By the time she got back to the street where she’d died, there was no sign of anyone she recognized. There were plenty of people, sure, but they were all unknowns to her, picking through the rubble, half-cleaning up and half-looting anything of value they could find. It didn’t bode well for her chances of retrieving her possessions.
There were also a few individuals in dark red and blue robes standing around the various damaged buildings and pointing. Even as Ixxy watched, one rested his hands on the stone next to him and the rock began to flow, slowly, like some kind of thick, stony ooze to fill a piece of damage.
With a loud pop, the stone he was busy manipulating popped like a water balloon, spraying the group with small, sharp shards of stone. One of them cried out and Ixxy thought she saw some blood. It looked like he’d gotten hit in the arm.
Of course. Apprentices. It made sense that the local Magelord wouldn’t bother sending out anyone actually competent to fix these kinds of messes. Heck, it was a surprise they sent out anyone at all.
Most Magelords didn’t give a damn what happened in their districts until it affected the trade of important arcane resources or ruined their view or something.
These guys were probably using it as an instructional experience.
Ignoring their antics, Ixxy kept digging between the chunks of debris and burnt out wagons until she eventually found the oily, sludgy, vile-smelling goop that marked the place where she’d died. There was no sign of anything green where her hand had been.
She checked the immediate area. Then she broadened her search, checking under the burnt out wagons and flipping half a wagon wheel to check underneath.
Her heart sank. There was no sign of her tronic. That meant it had either been destroyed during whatever happened after she’d died, or, more likely, had been picked up by some lucky looter who’d spotted something green among the funky-looking, black sludge.
She cast a suspicious glare at the surrounding looter-slash-cleanup crew before sighing and shaking her head. It was unlikely any of them had it. If someone had picked up something that valuable, there was no way they would have stuck around and risked getting robbed of their haul.
If she wanted to get it back, she was going to have to find whoever had taken it. Somehow.
Ixxy looked over at the large hole on the front of what had once been Gora’s apartment. If she was lucky, it had not been some random passerby who had taken the tronic, but rather one of Gora’s bunch had found it. Then, if Ixxy could find them…
Then…
Ixxy’s shoulders slumped.
Then what? Then they’d give it back to her? Fat chance. She’d doused that bridge in gasoline and lit it on fire when she’d tried to yoink Rita’s soul. They’d tell her to fuck off, obviously. Possibly violently. Even Timothy probably never wanted to see her again.
For some reason that hurt more than it should have.
Nevertheless, it paid to be thorough. Ixxy carefully stuck her head through the hole where Gora’s front door used to be.
The place had been emptied. Most of the heavy furniture was still there, at least the ones that had survived the blast, but all of the personal effects had been removed. The place looked like an empty shell. Gora and the others were gone, Abyss knew where.
Something sharp pressed up against Ixxy’s throat and she froze. Then slowly looked over to the side.
Samual was standing there, pressed up against the wall. That was why she hadn’t noticed him at first.
“Hey…” she said with a wry smile.
“Come in. Sit down,” Samual commanded, gesturing to one of the intact chairs.
Ixxy hesitated. The sword itself didn’t particularly scare her. Dying again wouldn’t matter much. It was pretty clear there wasn’t much more she could do here.
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But he was asking so nicely, how could she refuse?
Besides, maybe, if she was very, very lucky, he had her tronic and accepted sexual gratification as a finder’s fee.
“What are you doing here?” Samual asked after Ixxy had carefully moved over and sat down.
He was still standing, keeping the tip of his blade at her throat.
“Trying to find something that I’d lost,” Ixxy replied simply and honestly. “About this big, green, you might have seen it before? Lots of gratitude in the offing for whoever finds it, by the way,” she tried to give a sly grin, despite looking just a smidge worse for wear.
Samual’s eyes narrowed. “You lost Rita’s tronic?”
Ixxy’s face fell. Guess he didn’t have it, after all. Oh well. It had been a long shot.
“My tronic. I earned it, fair and square,” she pouted. “And yes, I lost it. I died. Because I tried to help you bunch of ungrateful assholes instead of walking away like I should have done. Guess that will teach me to be altruistic.”
Because she’d been trying to save the cambion, specifically, but just thinking about that made her feel ill.
“You reneged on your deal.”
Ixxy frowned. “Sir, I will have you know, I find that very offensive. I did everything that was required of me. It’s not my fault you failed to properly protect yourselves.”
“You broke trust,” Samual insisted. “And if you cannot be trusted, keeping you alive is a risk. I don’t like risks.”
Ixxy raised an eyebrow and glanced down dismissively at the sharp metal blade pressed against her neck. Sure, it wouldn’t take much for him to cut her throat, but even if she bled out faster than her demonic regeneration could patch the hole, that just saved her a walk back to Triorbus Square.
“Didn’t you already consider that option?” Ixxy smirked.
“Yes. But since then I figured out how.”
Ixxy’s eyes widened as the entirety of his blade lit up with a soft, silver glow and faint wisps of smoke started to waft off of it.
There was no fire, like there had been on the blade of the fucker that had stabbed her, but that didn’t mean it was any less dangerous. The actual physical form of holy fire didn’t matter. It burned all the same.
Instinctively, she jerked her head and neck backwards. Just being near it made her skin crawl.
“Ow, ow! Okay, okay, you made your point, stop, stop, stop!” Ixxy babbled, doing her best to stay as far as possible from the smouldering sword.
“So I was correct. That is holy fire,” Samual said drawing the sword away and inspecting it.
“You didn’t know?” Ixxy scowled, rubbing her neck where she could still feel the heat from where the sword had been. It stung.
“Being a Chamption of Krutus doesn’t come with an instruction manual,” he replied. “And I’ve never had reason to fight a demon before.”
“Lucky us,” Ixxy said. “So, what now? Are you going to try to kill me? Holy fire hurts, but even that won’t take me out permanently.”
“It might,” Samual said, the sword swinging back to point at Ixxy, “if I leave it burning inside you. Would be good to know if that works.”
“Woah!” Ixxy yelped. “Chill out! I can’t hurt your spider girlfriend anymore, okay? Contract’s finished!”
“Have you seen Rita?” Samual asked, ignoring her.
“No. Where is she?”
“That’s what I am asking you for.”
“Wait, you lost your spider?” Ixxy gasped, mimicking Samual’s tone from earlier.
“We were attacked and Rita and I got separated. I think she is somewhere in the city, on her own.”
“Her? In this city? Probably already dead then. Or, if she’s lucky, picked up by some rich fucker with a bestiality fetish. If its any consolation, I hope its the second.”
The sword lazily tracked back up to Ixxy’s throat, and Ixxy nearly embedded herself in backrest of her chair in an attempt to avoid the softly smoking edge.
“If you don’t know anything, then you are of no further use to me,” he stated.
Ixxy tensed and shut her eyes. Her sense of pain was already shut off, but from experience she knew that didn’t particularly help when it came to holy fire. If he was going to stab her again, it was going to be an incredibly unpleasant experience.
She was pretty sure his trick wouldn’t actually work. Mostly. Probably.
The sound of crunching footsteps heading out of the building made Ixxy open her eyes, just in time to see Samual stepping through the hole where the front door used to be, back onto the street.
“Hey! Wait! What are you doing?” she called after him.
“Sitting here isn’t helping. Neither is wasting time with you,” he called back over his shoulder.
“So I can just go?” Ixxy called after him.
“I don’t care what you do,” he replied, stepping out onto the street. “Just don’t follow me.”
So… that was it? Last she’d seen him he’d been all too keen to kill her and now, after he’d figured out a way to really hurt her, he was just… leaving? Why?
“Wait!” she called out, jumping up and running after him, only to almost impale herself on his sword as she rounded the corner onto the street. “Woah!”
“I said not to follow me,” Samual said grimly, pointing his sword in her direction. It had stopped smoking, though she was under no illusions how quickly that could change.
“It’s not Rita, but I might be able to help you. I know who attacked you. Who did this,” she said, gesturing to the hole in the front of Gora’s apartment.
Samual made a ‘get on with it’ motion with his sword, but she could see the sudden interest in his eyes.
“They are known as the Morix Stana. I recognized the magic they used. They’re one of the cults. They think they can command demons,” Ixxy spoke quickly.
“Old Mining District?” he asked.
Ixxy just shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know. I assume so. That’s where all the cults usually hole up, isn’t it?”
Samual nodded slowly, but his sword didn’t waver. The next moment, Ixxy found herself pinned against the wall, Samual’s hand around her throat and the tip of his sword pressed against the stomach.
“What the hell!?” she protested. “I helped you… urk!”
The sword pressed harder against her stomach, shutting her up. Right now, it was just a piece of sharp steel, but she knew from experience that that could change in a heartbeat. She’d already been cooked from the inside once, she had no desire to repeat the experience.
“Why?” he demanded.
“Why what?” Ixxy asked, confused.
“Why tell me this?”
“You and the cambion are trying to figure out who attacked you, aren’t you?” she said. “The muscled oaf didn’t seem like the kind to take this sort of thing lying down. Or did I read you both wrong?”
“Perhaps,” Samual replied non-committally. “But why tell me this? Without even asking for anything in return?”
“Would you have given me something in exchange for the information?” Ixxy asked waspishly.
“No.”
“Exactly.”
Ixxy gasped as the steel blade slid a few centimetres into her gut, piercing the skin. There was no pain, but she could feel a trickle of blood starting to flow.
“You haven’t answered my question,” Samual said in response to her surprised, questioning look. “You are manipulating me, and I want to know what your game is. Why are you telling me this?”
“No game…” Ixxy gasped, clawing at the sword in her stomach. “I want… you to hurt them. All this… their fault…”
Samual stared her dead in the eyes for a few seconds longer as she pawed at the sword to no effect. Then he nodded and stepped back, releasing her and withdrawing his sword. Ixxy immediately collapsed to the ground.
“Revenge. Understandable. Very well, I will pass this on to Gora,” he said as he stood over where Ixxy was curled up on the ground, hugging her stomach wound while her demonic regeneration did its job.
Then he squatted down next to her. “If this is some form of scheme on your side, be aware, I do not like being manipulated. I will find you.”
“Like you don’t manipulate everyone around you,” Ixxy hissed back up at him.
He straightened up. “Perhaps. But I’m the one with the sword.”
Ixxy was still clutching her stomach as she limped up to the gate to Triorbus square.
Normally, her body’s built-in demonic regeneration would have taken care of the wound, knitting all of her flesh back together and fixing up whatever damage her innards had taken in a couple of minutes at worst. But it was a little preoccupied, still dealing with the aftermath of her holy fire encounter.
In hindsight, it was probably for the best she hadn’t gotten a repeat experience of that so soon after the first time. Even if she’d survived, her body would probably have been done for at that point. She would have had no choice but to head back to the Abyss and check in with Infertec.
Probably would have had to pay them back for the loss of the body, too.
Still, she couldn’t believe he’d just stabbed her. When she’d just been trying to be helpful, too! What an asshole. She couldn’t believe she’d once tried to kiss him.
She shivered at the memory.
Normally, people hesitated to hurt demons. It gave them a claim for restitution, and Samual was no different. She could feel a claim on a tiny portion of his soul in the back of her mind. But at the same time, she could feel… something else there, watching that same debt. Something just… mildly curious.
Something big. Something she wanted no part of.
Yep, that was one bit of debt she would not be collecting on.
Just as Ixxy limped through the gate to Triorbus Square, dejected and with her entire body feeling distinctly unpleasant, a familiar figure stepped in front of her. She looked up with weary eyes to see Vrazhka smiling down at her.
Great. The last thing she needed right now.
“Ixxy, I was calling you, but you did not lizten,” the tall Pleasure Devil said, feigning concern. “Are you okay? You zeem a bit… eh… “
“Fucked?” Ixxy replied tiredly. “Yes. Thank you for noticing. I got shanked by a god-botherer. Twice. Now, please, I don’t have the energy for this today.”
She tried to slip around Vrazhka only to be caught by the upper arm and gently but firmly dragged back.
“No, no, no, pleaze, Ixzy, you must tell my friend here about ze absolute imbezile of a mortal you zwindled earlier. She doez not believe me!“
It was only now that Ixxy noticed the second pleasure devil behind Vruzhka, staring at her with a wide grin on her face. She was one Ixxy hadn’t seen before, though that was hardly surprising. Not needing to sleep, many demons had no real reason to stop by the Square on a regular basis.
“Yeah, Vrazhka lies, like, all the time, you have like, no idea. You gotta tell me all about that scam you pulled,” the new girl chirped, her voice annoyingly high and nasal.
“Yes! She refuzes to come wiz me to see for herself! She says zat I am trying to trick her, can you believe it?” Vrazhka added innocently.
Ixxy’s first instinct was that Vrazhka had gotten another sap lined up, but something made her pause. She’d been about to try to warn the new girl against the willowy Pleasure Devil’s tricks, when she noticed the way both of them were staring at her with near identical smug smiles and predatory eyes.
Then it dawned on her: neither of them were under any illusions about the nature of Ixxy’s dealings with Mulder & Heath. This was just some good, old-fashioned bullying.
Either they prod her into defending her own scam, then laugh behind her back at the absolute idiocy of the stupid little newbie, or, if she’d figured it out already, they get her to recite the story of how she’d gotten scammed by a mortal. Either way, they laugh themselves silly at her stupidity the moment her back is turned.
These were the kind of social games bored demons played, apparently.
“Vrazhka, fuck off,” Ixxy responded instead, jerking her arm out of her grasp. “I’m tired and sore.”
“Come on, didn’t you zay you still owe me for zat tip?” Vrazhka purred, stepping in front of her again and blocking her way once more. “Tell us ze story and we will call it even.”
Ixxy fumed. She clenched her fists, trying to morph them into claws to rip Vrazhka’s face off. It only sort-of worked; her shapeshifting wasn’t quite functional and the results were more butter knife than straight razor.
That was probably the third prong of their little ambush, however, and the reason Vrazhka had brought a friend. If Ixxy went straight to violence, it would be two on one, even if Ixxy’s body wasn’t currently a bit fucky. They’d send her for another trip through the Obsidian Gate in short order. Heck, maybe they were even hoping she escalated things.
Ixxy was considering escalating anyway just to get this over with when a sharp voice called out: “Hey! Ixxy! Sazka’s back! And she wants to talk to you!”
A Pleasure Devil she’d seen hanging around before was marching towards them from the direction of Sazka’s office, her eyes locked on Ixxy. She didn’t quite manage to hide the look of distaste on her face as she glanced over to Vrazhka and her friend.
“Of course, Rizhulk,” Vrazhka called back. “I will zend her over as soon as we are done here.”
“The exact phrase she used,” the Pleasure Devil, Rizhulk, said as she reached them and stared at the little group sternly with hands on her hips, “was ‘immediately.’ And she did not seem happy. I suggest you go. Right now.”
Wonderful. The other last thing she needed right now.
At least it got her away from Vrazhka. Hooray for small mercies.
“Sorry, Vrazhka, looks like I need to go get my ass skinned,” Ixxy stated bitterly as she stepped away. “So you’re going to have to find new entertainment for the moment.”
“Oh! I do hope zat everything is okay!” Vrazhka called after her, a note of glee in her voice that was at odds with her words.
Ixxy flipped her the finger as she trudged towards Sazka’s office and her almost certain doom.