The truck pulled into the decrepit and decaying parking lot in front of the non-functioning waste disposal plant. Getting out, the group could clearly smell the powerful odors that still came off of the facility. When you were meant to clean shit, you often began to smell of it. And sometimes that smell never went away.
That was proven true today as the group rankled their noses at the odor that assaulted them, attempting to barge its way into their olfactory senses and become on with their being.
Joe pulled the truck up next to one of the buildings between a large vacuum truck and a pile of rubble. It was as hidden as it was going to get, and certainly not visible from the road or parking lot they had passed through.
“This place smells like utter fucking shit,” Rat complained. “Kind of smells like home.” The group turned to stare at the Anubis demon who simply shrugged in response. “What? I’ve lived in sewers before.”
“Now that we have that tid-bit of information that no one ever needed to know,” Joe drawled, “Lets get going. We still have a way to go, and I’m not sure how easy its going to be to get those crates into the doors Trevor described. We may be making multiple trips.”
Tetra shivered, “The minute we get inside and clear that place I’m going to strip down every piece of machinery I can find and make a hyper powered shower,” she proclaimed. “My fur already smells like crap.”
“Literally,” chimed in the mostly silent succubus. You didn’t need to say a lot when you literally had the ability to melt brains with lust.
Grim grunted. “Move people, we have things to do and not much daylight to do it by. Not that light will be an issue for us shortly. Being underground and all,” he said, taking off the tarp and directing the imps to follow Joe.
The group headed inside of the large building. The front doors had been torn off, and the lobby inside was an utter wreck. But it was still traversable. Thankfully the structure seemed sound enough that no one had any issues moving deeper inside. Even with it being somewhat safe, however, Grim couldn’t shake the feeling they were being watched.
Observed.
What little noise there was from the outside world faded rapidly. This place was a dead, lifeless shithole. Literally. There weren’t even any bugs present, something that Bag was more than happy to confirm. Joe clicked on a high-powered handheld light, passing another one to Grim who did the same. Between the two beams the area around them was illuminated for several dozen feet around them.
Bag may joke a lot about Grim dying and him being free, but the nature of their contract neither made Bag a slave to Grims whims, not Grims death a necessity for the demon to escape. In fact, Bag was able to leave at any time should he so wish. He mostly stuck around because Grim was fun to hang out with. While not the best of friends, the two were certainly allies.
“Yeah, getting weird vibes here too for sure. Not completely sure what… shit,” Grim started to respond, only to halt in his tracks as something vaguely humanoid stepped out into the hallway twenty or so feet in front of them from a side room.
The figure was short, squat, and kind of human looking. But the moment Joe shined a light onto it, they realized it was about as far from human as it could have been.
Standing in front of them was an amalgamated plant. Grim could clearly see bones making up its limbs and body with vines intertwining between them acting the part of ligaments. The head was simply a large red and white flower.
“Oh. Oh my. The creatures have certainly escaped containment,” Trevor said in abstract terror from behind them. “They are immune to poison and blunt force, but highly susceptible to fire. Do not let them touch you,” the scientist warned.
“Reserves?” Grim asked, stepping in front of the group as the thing began to shamble forward slowly.
It would have to be enough. He hoped it would be enough. If Trevor was warning them not to even touch these things, then he would have to burn every single one of them.
He conjured fire in his palm as the others looked on in amazement. ‘Magic’ existed here, but in no form that Grim used. Not that anyone there had ever heard of anyway. While they didn’t understand how his magic was used, Grim did. Thoroughly and completely. His abilities were nothing but extensions of the armor that he created and imbued with demons. While his armor didn’t currently have one outside of Bag, the chest plate was designed to be able to utilize his energy stores and convert them into various forms.
In this particular case, Hephaestus Cloth allowed him to generate Hellfire and throw it at unlucky fuckers who got in his way.
He demonstrated this by throwing a palm sized blast at the plant creature. Almost as if it could sense it coming, it began to scramble to get out of the way. But it was far, far too late for any maneuvering to avoid the attack. The dark crimson fireball struck the creature in the left should and exploded.
The group watched in silence as the thing began to shriek, falling to the ground and rolling around in the flames in an attempt to extinguish them. However Grim knew something that the others were only just beginning to realize; Hellfire didn’t just go out. It was fed continually by his reserves, so putting it out was only possible by submerging it entirely in large quantities of saltwater.
As the thing uttered a final shriek and died, Grim cut off the link and extinguished the flames all at once. He was surprised to have Bag report his energy went up by two full percentage points, leaving him at twenty one percent total. Killing these things was going to turn a net gain if it continued like this.
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Turning to Trevor he said, “There. Done. How many of these things can we expect? I have… enough strength left for a couple dozen I think.”
“We had six total, people who had… survived the experiments done to them,” the scientist said nervously. Every stared at him. “I don’t pretend to be a good man, and even under duress I should have done something. But that’s beside the point. If they… if those things propagated in any way there could be dozens. Maybe hundreds, I don’t know for sure. We just need to be ready.”
Grim rolled his eyes at the non-answer.
“Do you think these plant things could act like a beast could Bag? Could we be walking into one of those domain things?” he asked mentally.
Grim was inclined to agree with that advice. While he only had three of the highly versatile, extremely powerful, demons left he would not hesitate to use them if he had to. But these domains were too much of a question mark for him and his advisor. Walking into the unknown was a good way to die.
“What happens if we touch one of those things?” he asked Trevor as the group carefully went around the roasted vegetable monster.
Trevor pushed his glasses up and responded, “They infect carbon-based life with a kind of viral seed on contact. We had designed them to be extremely prolific when dropped into enemy territory.”
“You designed a biological weapon based on people that could wipe out an entire country if needed is what you mean,” piped in Tetra. “You must have put in some kind of kill switch.”
“Yes. There is one, but its inside the laboratory. Who knows if it even works anymore?” the scientist replied, nervously licking his lips.
They continued on without another encounter, working their way deeper into the large facility. Then Joe led them off into a side hallway and to a large stairwell. When they got to the door, he paused.
“This stairwell leads down, or should at any rate, about sixty feet to the main sewer line walkway that will take us to the doors Trevor knows about. Once there, we are going to have to figure out how to get inside.”
Trevor nodded. “I am fairly certain there is, at the very least, still power going to the lab. If that is the case there is almost a one hundred percent probability I can open the first three doors. The bulkhead, however, was sealed mechanically. We will either need to cut or blast our way through. That is, if everything hasn’t been opened by Red Rattles.”
“First off, you named those things after a fucking parasitic plant? You basically guaranteed something was going to go wrong,” pointed out Tetra. “Secondly, setting off a bomb or cutting through metal is noisy. Every single one of those fucks is going to come down on us like a bunch of poor fat kids on a free buffet,” she snarled, poking Trevor in the chest.
Joe stepped between the two. “Easy there girly,” he said while separating them. “This was never the best plan, just the best one we could think of on short notice. If we draw those things in I have zero doubt your Boss can fry them in masse.”
Everyone there agreed with that statement, although Grim himself held doubts on just how much energy he had to really play with. Deploying a Shedim was looking more and more likely. Although, now that he was thinking about it he may not be deploying one as an actual item. Joe led the way through the door, followed by Grim, Tetra, Trevor, and Stella taking the rear with the imps.
Stella was still a bit of an enigma to Grim. She was, supposedly, completely loyal to him. Anyone who went through the conversion process was. But something about her… significant change in demeanor left him suspecting that she was not entirely what she seemed. Someone cant just go through an event such as demonic conversion and completely change who they are. The process changed your body and, at least in this universe, your abilities.
Not your soul or who you were.
The group headed down a half dozen flights of stairs, built in a style that you would find in any high rise, modern apartment building, or government building. Joe had hit the nail nearly on the head, with each flight being nearly twelve feet in height, that made the depth of the stairwell just under seventy feet.
And every fucking step annoyed the living hell out of Grim.
“Stairs are always the enemy. Always Bag. Nothing ever good happened in a stairwell. They are a secondary evil, just below squirrels. I would rather blow a hole through the floor with Hellfire than walk down a flight of fucking gods cursed stairs,” Grim snarled back mentally.
Joe stopped on the bottom landing, gesturing for the group to halt. “Ok everyone, on the other side of this door,” he gestured at the metal access way in front of him, “leads into the primary sewer system. There should be a metal causeway there we can walk on. The door to the laboratory, if Trevor isn’t wrong that is, should be roughly five hundred yards or so down the tunnel.”
“Hopefully we don’t have any more of those Red Rattle things. Hopefully,” Trevor said.
Grim stared at the man with cold, dead eyes making him shiver. “Did you really just say that? Seriously? That’s a stunningly great way to hoist a death flag,” he said, very annoyed at the man. Everyone looked at him in confusion, but he just gestured at the door. “Open it up and step back. I am now one hundred and ten percent convinced I’m going to have to burn our way there.”
Swallowing, Joe lifted up on the latch… only for the latch to catch on something. Grunting as he continued to lift up he was interrupted by Grim. The man placed his hand on the spies shoulder and gently moved him away from the door.
“Think about this for half a fucking second,” Grim groaned. “Nothing should be on the other side. The latch isn’t rusted. The door isn’t damaged. But you can’t open it fully. That leaves two possibilities. The tunnel is collapsed, or…” he trailed off, looking expectantly at the now sheepish spy.
“…Or there is something on the other side holding it shut,” Joe finished lamely.
Grim nodded. “Bingo.” He gestured at the nearby imp. “Hey, come over here. Open this door as fast and hard as you can. Then duck.”
The imp looked at his compatriot, who sniggered at it for being the chump their Boss had picked first. Shrugging, it walked over and muscled Joe out of the way.
Imps were not the strongest, toughest, or most magically inclined demons. They were, however, one of the sneakiest. But ever their strength, on demonic scales that is, was more than a match for a low level super. The imp spat on both hands, reached out, and gripped the lever.
Then it pulled.
With a grinding of metal on metal, the lever was sheered away, and the door opened inward towards the group. It slammed into the wall, even as Joe dove out of the way with a yelp. The imp stood there, confused at just what had happened. It looked up and made eye contact with Grim, a bit stunned on having broken what appeared to have been a solidly built door.
It stood still… just long enough for a vine to whip through the entrance and wrap itself around the imp. With a shriek, it was yanked through the open portal and into the darkness beyond.
“Well fuck, that didn’t go as planned,” Joe said, sitting up from where he had thrown himself to the ground.
Grim agreed. That certainly had not gone according to plan. But he knew one thing for sure… he now had a valid target.
He conjured a large, crimson ball of Hellfire in his hands. “This is going to be fun,” he smiled savagely.
Mere seconds after the imp had been pulled through the door way, multiple balls of Hellfire roared through after it.
Then the screaming started.