CH15 – Out of the Hellfire
Grim had seen people choke to death before. He had seen animals hack up hairballs. He had seen squirrels, the most evil beings of the animal kingdom, stuff more things into their greedy faces than any creature on the face of the planet. But watching a homicidal plant monster hack up phlegm and smoke?
That was new.
The massive beast in front of him hacked and cough and began to thrash about. Thick vines emerged from where they had laid tightly against the body, smashing around as the monstrosity Virus had become tried to dislodge the fire that was, even now, spreading.
Grim grinned, however his amusement was wiped off his face as the untold number of plant creatures behind the now berserk villain went ape shit. They charged up and over the seriously hurt villain, getting smashed against the walls, floor, and ceiling and they struggled through to bum rush Grim.
Who was having absolutely none of that shit.
Conjuring Hellfire, he concentrated a solid stream of the demonic fire into the faces of the oncoming creatures. Plant heads, arms, and vines burst instantly due to the extreme heat, the extreme heat causing any liquids within the Rattles bodies to vaporize and expand. Even as the fire itself clung to limbs and bodies however, they kept coming at Grim, determined to end his existence.
The imps, having taken up position on either side of the breach, prior to Virus coming through the wall entirely, were having a hard time ripping through the Rattles fast enough.
Having been forewarned that the creatures infected their next victim, and soon to be convert, by touching them Grim knew his options were limited. Retreating rapidly, as the suicidal creatures were simply plunging through his Hellfire to get at him at this point, he stepped back. Pulling back through the laboratory around him, which was quickly becoming an example of how not to use science, he noticed Tetra come through the doors behind him.
She was holding a box.
“Boss! I got it! I have the… holy fuck!” she started, ending her proclamation with a startled shriek as one of the Rattles missed her by inches. The imp had grabbed its leg and, hauling it back towards it, began to use the discombobulated plant monster as a club to beat its fellow monsters to death with.
“Tetra! Activate the bomb, throw it in here, and get the fuck out!” Grim yelled, blasting another Rattle to ashes with a ball of Hellfire. “Now damnit!”
She nodded, twisted the center of the box, and chucked it into the center of the room. Then she began closing the metal doors. Sealing the first large door was easy enough for her to do. The second one started out just as easy… but halfway through closing it the thing jammed shut.
“Fucking…close…already!” she yelled, nervously eyeballing the box she had tossed into the room. Suddenly Rat was beside her.
“On three,” he grunted.
“One,” the door groaned.
“Two,” the pulled and it started to slide forward.
“Thr-“ with no warning, the bomb went off.
Rat and Tetra saw the thing explode in a tidal wave of white fire. With one final tug they managed to get the large door shut just as the fire slammed into it with the fury of an angry sun god. The door rapidly heated up to cherry red as the duo took off, running down the hall to find another room, with hopefully a thicker door, to hide behind.
Grim on the other hand was still front and center for the explosion. A tad concerned by just what kind of bomb could produce white fire, he had just enough time to duck in cover and cloak himself in Hellfire. The theory was that weaker flames would be consumed by his own.
He was sadly mistaken.
The fire roared over him, pushing his crimson flame covered body out through the hole and down the tunnels as the white phosphorus fire immolated everything in its path. He ping ponged off the walls, ceiling, floor, and the occasional still in one piece Rattle.
After nearly a full minute of being tossed around like a pebble in a hurricane, he finally came to rest. The white flames roared over him for a full ten seconds before the wave passed on, destined to ruin someone else’s day.
“Shut up. That was… ugh, I think I have motion sickness? Fuck,” Grim grunted back, dismissing his Hellfire suit. He grimaced as he stood, noting that he had second and first degree burns on most of his arms and legs. His pants were also gone, leaving him hanging in the wind.
“Next time I upgrade my pants first. This is… uncomfortable,” he griped.
“You’re a demon, how the hell do you know what the ladies want?” wondered Grim. The response to his question only came in the form of mental giggles from his demonic assistant.
He ignored the demon. At least his Hephaestus Cloth shirt was in good condition. Granted, it was meant to be worn while walking through literal fire. It was getting a bit dirty though. Until he could imbue it with a demon, a proper demon unlike the imps, he would have to clean it the old fashioned way.
Grim made his way back up the sewer line, his burns stinging and tearing open in places the whole way. He was tough, but far from immortal. These would heal up rather quickly however, as they were mostly surface level thermal burns. Nothing he couldn’t handle with a bit of time and energy.
He stepped gingerly over the cooked remains of Virus, stepping into the main room. The doors on the far side had been sealed shut, essentially locking him in here. He supposed that he could just walk up the sewer to the main doors that they used to get in initially. But that would require walking through a sewer.
As Grim debated his options, he was startled when Bag yelled a mental warning. Turning to the look back at the gaping hole in the rooms wall he caught a plant vine in the chest, hurling him across the room and through several desks. He crashed onto the concrete floor, having the wind knocked out of him.
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“You… foul… die!” whispered the cracked voice of what remined of Viruses head. The creature staggered to its badly burned feet, vine like tentacles sprouting from its back. “We will devour… your corpse!”
One of the desks that Grim had smashed through went hurling across the room, breaking apart as it slammed into the monster Virus had become and shattered into kindling.
“I’m sick and tired of you trying to eat and or convert me into a plant thing,” Grim grumbled as he shambled out of the piled of ruined furniture. His left hand, which the desk had just left his palm was empty. In his right sat a broiling crimson ball of Hellfire. Slapping his palms together, he pulled outwards, forming a lance of pure hate.
Virus was having one of it. The badly charred plant monster rushed him, moving far faster than Grim would have thought the creature was capable of. Gripping his Hellfire spear, he flung himself sideways, narrowly dodging the enraged plant creature as it slammed through the pile of debris like it wasn’t even there.
“Come to us… little morsel. We wish to… feed,” it hissed.
Spring back towards him, its long tail smashing more desks and equipment, it charged again. The delay from turning, however, gave Grim a chance to wind up. Pulling the spear all the way back past his head, he lifted one foot off the floor… and hurled the makeshift Hellfire weapon directly at Virus.
The creature, now recognizing the threat for what it was, scrambled to stop and get out of the way. But in the confines of such a small room, that was nearly impossible. The spear slammed into the center of the beats chest, melting a hole into its body. Virus screamed in pain as it ate away at its literal flesh.
“Fuck you plant fuck. Shoulda stay in your fucking pot,” Grim grunted, holding out and open palm. Then he closed his fist violently.
The spear, having sunk nearly a third of its two meter length into Virus’s body, exploded in a torrent of Hellfire. Chunks of plant like meat splattered the walls as what was left of the once villain swayed in place for a moment, not quite realizing it was dead. Then, with no additional attempts at killing him, the remains slammed into the floor with a meaty thud.
“Seriously, fuck that guy. That’s what you get for playing with genetics. Heartbreak and an empty stomach. If you’re lucky,” he grunted. Then he gasped.
A simply staggering amount of energy was absorbed off of Viruses mutated corpse. It flowed through him, lighting up every nerve ending in his body as if he had been stuck by lighting. It flowed into his Hephaestus shirt and Helmet, taking him dangerously close to full reserves.
Grim grinned. That was way more than he was expecting, and he could do a lot with that. Setting aside that thought for now, he examined the room. The once pristine walls were black and covered in soot. There were Rattle corpses everywhere. The place was an utter wreck.
“Oi, imps, you two still alive?” Grim called out, curious as to if the two mischievous demons were still alive.
True to his suspicions, they were. The two imps peeled themselves off the charred walls, leaving behind two imp-prints of their bodies that revealed perfectly clean body prints where the explosion had pasted them to the walls. The two shambled over to him and took a knee.
“Knock that shit off, you should both know I hate that who bowing and scraping shit. Get the damn door open, we need to figure out how to fix the wall on top of everything else,” he grumbled.
The imps walked towards the door side by side, in perfect lock step. Until the slightly darker red one shoved the lighter one over into a pile of Rattles. Squawking its displeasure, it extricated itself and rapidly went after the first imp, who had made it to the safety of the door. Or so it thought.
The lighter, smaller imp slammed into its larger cousin and in turn into the doors taking them both off the hinges. The two continued their fight even as the light from the hallway flooded the dark, dank room filled with a single living soul.
“Ugh. Time to do some clean up,” Grim lamented, looking around the utterly trashed room. “Hey Bag, didn’t Jeeves say something about cleaning robots?”
Grim walked out of the room into the hallway where the two imps had ended their fighting. The large one was holding the smaller imp up by a leg as it tried to strike him.
“Hey, you two dipshits,” Grim yelled as the two spun towards him immediately. “Clean up that room. Make sure you put all the corpses in a place that they wont infect anything. I wouldn’t put it past that moronic villain to have contagious blood. Also, fix the wall and make sure it isn’t distinguishable from the sewer side either,” he ordered, laying out a list of tasks.
The imp grumbled but moved to comply. The big one, realizing he still had the smaller one at his mercy, wound up and threw it through the doors. The smaller red imp went screaming through the air, literally as it screeched while it flew, and slammed into the concrete floor. Sliding to a stop a dozen feet into the room it twitched before tipping over.
“Knock it off and get to work,” Grim grunted, moving down the hallway to the CIC where everyone was probably waiting for him.
As Grim walked he wiped off as much of the nasty grime that he had been coated with as possible. He would require more comprehensive cleaning to look like a person again, but for now this was the best he could do.
Stepping into the CIC, he looked up and immediately took in the situation. Tetra was on the ground, unmoving as Rat and Stella stood in front of them. Joe faced them, having gotten a short sword of some kind from somewhere. Trevor was on the floor behind him… or what remained of Trevor that is.
“What the fuck is going on here?” Grim asked, striding forward.
The trio that remained standing turned to Grim, only for Stella to turn away, beet red. Rat whistled, while Joe looked both confused and impressed. While no one immediately answered him, Grim had an idea of what had happened. But he needed to hear it out from them to make sure.
“Explain,” he said curtly.
“Boss you have a gigantic d-“ Rat started but was slapped in the back of the head by Stella.
The succubus looked at the Anubis demon, “Shut up. No one wants to hear about it. Just… shut up,” she said, still refusing to look at Grim.
Joe brough his eyes up from the monstrosity hanging between Grims legs to look at the demonic visage carved into the helmet’s faceplate. “Tetra finished her thing and went running out of here. Rat followed her shortly after, but the moment the two returned Trevor went crazy. Frothing at the mouth, screaming, and raving, bleeding out of his eyes and ears. Then your crazy inventor gets near him saying she wants to help and he melted,” the spy exclaimed in fury, gesturing at the goopy mess that was once a scientist.
“Now what the hell am I supposed to do? The whole reason I’m here is to make sure he,” Raved Joe as he gestured at Trevor’s remains, “gets back home so we can do something about this insane country and the people running it!”
“Yeah, but he left out the part where he hit girlie in the head and knocked her out cold,” fumed Rat, suddenly going from joking prankster to murderous demon. Joe swallowed but didn’t refute what the Anubis demon accused him of.
Grim sighed, “All of you knock this shit off,” he said, turning to the spy. “I told you I put a brand on Trevor to ensure his loyalty. Whatever he was going to do, the brand took that as the highest level of betray possible and killed him. There. It was me. Are we done here?”
“I… but… no! No, this was not part of our deal! Trevor was supposed to be alive,” raged Joe. “Now what am I going to do?”
Grim stared at him like he was a fucking idiot. Because he was.
“You’re a spy, right?” he asked calmly, getting a hesitant nod from the man. “How about you put all the shit from the mainframe here on a fucking flash drive and take it back to your superiors?” Confusion was rampant on Joes face as Grim sighed, getting more annoyed by the second. “Copy the fucking data from here jackass and take it back to your bosses.”
Joe went doe eyed. “Yeah. You got locked into thinking there was a single path forward but now,” Grim said, gesturing to the entire base, “you have all this fucking evidence. And if what Trevor said earlier was anything resembling accurate, there are more than a few other facilities like this spread around Elysium. So take a deep breath, calm the fuck down, or I’m going to rip off your head and give it to Rat as a chew toy,” he threatened.
Swallowing Joe nodded rapidly. Sneaking a peek at the Anubis demon, he saw him smile, showing rows of razor-sharp teeth housed within the confines of his doglike head. Being a chew toy would be painful.
“Now, lets talk next steps. But first I have to wake Tetra up. A punch from even a super powered person wouldn’t hurt her too badly,” Grim said leaning over the super. It was time to get back to work.
And find some pants.