The team disentangled themselves, reassembling near the elevators.
“That was fucking wild,” Rat said, panting happily. “Anytime you want to do that, give me a holler. That was fun.”
The Anubian demon seemed to gain more and more canine like attributes as time went by. Grim wouldn’t be surprised if, at some point, the man learned how to shape shift into an actual dog. Or a rat. Or something at any rate.
Shaking his helmeted head, he replied, “Yeah no. That was a one time deal. But now I have to activate the portals, and I don’t want anyone down here for that. Except a dozen or so imps. Once the portal to Inferno is up I am going through,” he held up a hand for silence. “Without anyone. I need you here to hold down the lair. Not to mention if I go through with a bunch of strangers then there will be casualties. They may not even recognize me at this point.”
Frowning with questions in her eyes Tetra asked, “Why wouldn’t they recognize you? You grew up there right? They should be able to recognize you from a mile away. Especially if you are their Boss’s kid.”
“Demons and demonic entities identify others by their ethereal signature. Signatures change over time, becoming weaker, stronger, or changing in flavor and hue. This is dependent on where you go and what you do,” Grim explained. “I have traveled through nine different realities, including this one, and that is seven more than anyone else I know. If they did recognize me… I would be fucking shocked.”
“Fair,” said Tetra quietly. “Well, what do you want us to do while you’re gone?”
He pointed at Rat, “You and Stella bring the local gangs under heel. Don’t kill them off this time. If the portal works I won’t need any bodies for a good long while. Bring Joe to the leaders or vice versa, fucking murder anyone you need to. But the goal is to control the gangs and use them as sources of man power, income, and intelligence.”
He turned to Tetra next, “Weapons, armor, dangerous things that go boom. In quantities that make the military here look like bitches.”
The group nodded at that. The instructions were, if anything, clear and simple.
“If heroes show up, or villains, fuck up as many as you can. Go for the kill. The less enemies the better. If they over run you then retreat to the sewer system, and I will find you when I get back. Worst case scenario… fucking wake up those monsters,” he said, gesturing at the completed fortifications between the cavern and the rest of the cave system that contained the beasts.
Everyone stared at Grim in shock.
“That would doom the city and the entire country you crazy bastard!” said Joe loudly, shoving his way up front. “You would kill millions! And for what?”
Grim stared him down calmly, his faceplate devoid of any flowing emotions. “To eliminate an enemy that is hellbent on seeing us dead. Between the so called Heroes and the Villains, I am convinced that the only reason unpowered individuals even exist at this point is to populate the cities and keep the machine turning.”
Stella bit her lip, then said, “During my time as… as Solaria I learned something a bit scary,” she admitted. The group looked at her in expectation. “The population of most, if not all, of the cities of each nation are indoctrinated into living their day to day lives. I have even seen some of them walk through an active combat zone and… perish. All in their drive to simply continue their day.”
“Fucking zombies,” Grim grunted.
Joe blinked. “Say what again now?”
“They made the civilians fucking zombies,” Grim reiterated. “I’ve seen this before on other worlds. Entire populations enslaved within the confines of their own minds, bodies, or routines to ensure that the wheel keeps turning. Only the elite, special castes, or designated group is kept aware of what is actually going on outside of their bubbles. The rest of the populace? Cattle. They work, they breed, and they raise the next generation of drones.”
The group shivered collectively. “That’s fucked Boss,” Rat said, unusually dour. “What about us? Where do we place in that dystopian hell?”
“First of all, you’ve never seen Hell. Second, you don’t. You are not worthy, and you never will be. Not to the fuckers running the show,” Grim stated, eliciting a grow from the Anubis demon. “There always needs to be a fringe group. A set of people who know just enough about what’s going on to form criminal, resistance, and savior groups. But never having enough information or power to actually change what is happening.”
Tetra snarled, infuriated with what Grim was insinuating. “So what, we are just expendable distractions to them? They just use all the people in the slums and run down areas as a focus point for sociaties woes then exterminate us?”
“Usually, yes. But here it’s a bit different,” Grim said, taking some of the incredibly intelligent cat demons thunder. “Here it is much, much, worse. You’re all just entertainment.”
“Game time people. Get the hell out,” Grim said, abruptly turning back to the Hell Spike and leaving the group confused behind him. They quickly got onto the elevator, and Grim could hear their debate raging even as the doors closed.
“How is everything with Jeeves? I haven’t heard anything from the Ai in a while,” Grim asked, suddenly think about the estranged AI.
his demonic assistant replied.
Shrugging to himself, Grim supposed it was a moot point. Either the AI did something, or it didn’t. AI were weird, and truly sapient and coherent AI were immensely rare. Jeeves was smart, and reactive, but was not in any way sapient. Grim had only met two sapient AI in his lifetime, and both had tried to kill him with extreme prejudice.
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He fell to one knee, almost reverently, and placed a hand on the intricate circle carved at the base of the largest portal depression. He hadn’t been home in… what seemed like forever. Certainly, several decades. He didn’t age quite like other people, he had never found out why, but his Dad had told him it was his birth parents that had given him many of the gifts he had. Long life was only one of them. His utterly free manipulation of the elements was another.
Focusing, he connected with the Shard of Reality he had planted within the Hell Spike. He nudged it with his mind, expecting resistance. To his total shock it opened to him with what seemed to be a level of fervor and intelligence that seemed impossible.
Energy engulfed him, locking out a startled Bag from his mind in a tidal wave of light and power. He found himself standing on a white plane, emptiness all around him.
But it didn’t feel empty.
“Hello?” he asked, only then realizing that he was missing his helmet. This was definitely some kind of mental or astral project. Then he felt it. A growing presence. Something so deep and wide, Grim couldn’t fathom it.
“Grim. An alias. Concealed identity confirmed. Access granted,” A hard, right voice said.
With a violent shove, Grim found himself back in his body. He was standing… but he didn’t remember getting up. He had moved a dozen feet away… but he didn’t remember moving. In front of him, humming with energy, was a massive black portal tinged with the iconic color of the Inferno. Crimson red.
Bag using Grims name was only done when in the most dire or serious of situations. Bags power was also many orders of magnitude above his own. Even at full strength and armed with his actual armor and gear. To be described as a plaything sent shivers down his spine.
“I saw things. But I apparently I moved? Why did I move? What happened?” he asked, overly curious.
reported the demon.
“Fascinating,” he muttered as he stared at the portal. Then, without any hesitation, he stepped through, and immediately the pure and somewhat malicious energy of Inferno infused his body, filling his stores to the brim. It caressed him, as if a lost lover had found their way back into its presence. He breathed in the energy of his home realm, suffusing his very soul with its power.
It was good to be home.
Unlike his first, highly disastrous and nearly fatal, trip to this reality stepping through the portal into Inferno was practically a cake walk. A cake walk as in he didn’t immediately die. The moment he stepped through he was buried in powerful, burly warrior caste Daemons who quickly subdued him. At least, he allowed them to.
Then they reached for his helmet.
“You touch that,” Grim said silently, pulling on the energy that infused Inferno around him to unleash a killing aura that frozen the nearly forty demonic warriors that had accosted him, “and you will all be sent back to the pits.”
Demons didn’t usually sweat, but if they did those present in that level of aura would have been drenched. Thankfully for them, however, calmer heads prevailed. A pair of manacles was clamped over his hands, the chain between them weighing down his arms.
“Take him to the Tetrarch! He can decide how to deal with this interloper,” roared a massive Daemon. Grim got a good look at him and noted the captain’s insignia on the creature’s armor. It was good to know that some things didn’t change in Hell. On the other hand, he had no fucking idea what a Tetrarch was.
The Daemons marched Grim along, having decided that if he wasn’t fighting after unleashing an aura like that, then he had other reasons for being there. Luckily for those warriors his reasons were, for the most part, completely and totally centered in figuring out what the hell was going on in his home realm.
He took note that the area the Hell Spike breached into was one of the wonders of Inferno, the Hall of Connections. Such an… iniquitous name for something so amazing. The Hall was used to connect to hundreds, if not thousands of worlds. Grim had never gone to even a fraction of the places that it connected out to. No one that he had ever met had. The Hall was meant to facilitate travel, trade, and exploration.
Which is why he was overly worried when it seemed the only working portal was the one he came through. The others lay dead, void of the masterwork inscriptions that gave them their ability to transport others to worlds they could only imagine. It was a sad, depressing state for the Hall of Connections.
The Daemons marched him through the Hall and exited out into a large, cavernous administrative area. Or it would have been, had the desks and offices not been replaced by spawning vats and barracks. Grim could see hundreds of Daemons and lesser imps wandering from place to place, completing their various tasks. He was getting more and more concerned by the moment.
He was marched across the room and into another hallway. This is where their journey ended, as a massive pair of double doors slowly opened in front of them. Leading to a place that Grim knew all too well.
His Dad’s throne room.
Walking through slowly, Grim slowed to take in the changes. His Daemon guards slowed with him, unwilling to test his earlier statement of violence. The walls, which had once been adorned with works of art from a thousand worlds and a dozen realities, were bare rock. Melted and damaged in places, the throne room itself seemed to have been the clash of titanic forces. Not much that he knew of could scratch, much les outright melt, Sulfur Stone. Turning, he froze outright as he saw the throne itself.
Multiple Daemons crashed into him from behind, sending the large demonic warriors staggering as they simply bounced off him where he stood.
All he saw was red.
There, on the throne that his Dad, the demon that had raised him, had built with his own hands after unifying the realm was a body. A desiccated husk of the being he had once been. A single, dark blade pierced its chest and the Sulfur Stone behind it, every inch and fiber of his being told him it had been a single attack.
Grim recognized the blade as his fathers own. Used against him by someone who got close enough to pull it from his side. Someone who had, more likely than not, been a trusted confident or friend. In front of him were the remains of Samael, Sam to his friends and children, Lord of Inferno, Ruler of the Nine Hells. Overlord of Demon kind.
And Grims Dad.
Grims vision was turning red. He recognized that the Daemons were speaking to him. He recognized that someone under the throne was speaking to him. He recognized that Bag was screaming at him mentally. But nothing got through the rage that enveloped him. The burning, savage nature that Grim had long suppressed and channeled into more productive means shattered his self-control.
He would find his fathers killed. He would find those who supported such action he would find them… and they would die. In horrible, savage ways until his thirst for vengeance and blood were sated. Until he was convinced that none remained who had perpetrated this act against his own blood.
With the last fleeting, coherent thought he could muster Grim recognized what a problem he could be should he become unhinged in a place that offered him a near limitless amount energy. In a massive exertion of his own will, he released every and all restrictions on Bagdana before his rage full engulfed him. That was his last action before his consciousness fled, and all he knew was rage.
And the world burned.