Brimstone was a mess. At this time of year, it was suffering with the usual excessive snowfall and other such winter problems, but in the wake of the incident in the Tempered Bastion compiled with everything else that had happened since the start of the academic year, it had fallen victim to another, altogether worse kind of plague.
Paparazzi.
On top of the usual news reporters and column journalists, an absolute tidal wave of freelance photographers had crashed into the down from the larger city states, each fixing to snap as many pictures as they could of the famed "Iron Hound." Apparently they were renting out every spare room in town, clogging up the already-congested roads, and hounding the local citizens for information regarding the Devil attacks, and more specifically, Cobalt Trayer. Most people weren't willing to run their mouths to out-of-towners, and with Mistress Viola firmly sticking to her guns regarding her no-outsider policy in the school, they weren't having much luck.
That being said, Cobalt was forced to duck and weave through plenty of back streets in order to avoid roaming cameramen as he made his way towards the Brimstone Nature Park, feeling a pit in his burning stomach with every step he took. He couldn't get Karazelle's words out of his head. She sounded so sincere, and yet...
The water she gave him. It was definitely spiked. What the Hell was she after...?
Veering down a small side alley, the Incubus idly dragged his claws along the wall, frowning as the bone nails easily bit through the concrete. As he scored long tracts into it, however, he heard someone hiss from a shadowy corner of the alleyway.
"Watch the paint, dammit!"
Startled by the sudden voice, Cobalt drew his hand away and looked around frantically, worried that he might have blundered right into a journalist with a waiting camera. But all he saw was a tall Nymph man dressed in heavy winter clothes, the lower half of his face concealed by a thick red scarf. Only his eyes were visible, but they were uniquely bright and incredibly mean.
"Davis...? I- I mean, Mr. Wyatt?" he stammered.
The man nodded his head. Davis Wyatt, a close friend of Brass Trayer's. Cobalt honestly wasn't expecting to run into him again.
"Show some respect," the Nymph grumbled, stuffing his hands in his pockets.
"I'm terribly sorry, I didn't see you there-"
"Not to me, dammit; to the wall!"
Raising an eyebrow, Cobalt looked up to find that he was standing in the very alley where he had first met Davis, just off Barnish Avenue. Painted onto the wall was a large picture of a pair of intertwined hellhound heads, one painted red, the other blue. The symbol of Brass Trayer's gang; The New Brimstone Hellhounds, otherwise known as the Rowdy Boys. Back when there was a ban on all mention of Brass or his deeds, this mural was one of the only remaining records of his existence.
"What are you doing out here, Mr. Wyatt?" Cobalt asked with a raised eyebrow.
"Just Davis is fine. Caen and Ace are doing some shopping a few blocks over. Doesn't matter. More importantly, what the Hell are you doing out here?" the Nymph asked, narrowing his eyes.
Cobalt swallowed hard. Though he had no reason to doubt a man who had a hand in saving the town twenty-threeish years ago, he wasn't about to tell him that there was now a human living beneath his home.
"Just... going to see an old friend."
"Is that right? It's not smart to be out with so many rag hounds out looking for the 'Iron Hound,'" Davis scoffed.
Hearing him say that damned nickname caused the fire to flare a bit, sparking frustration in the pit of Cobalt's stomach.
"Please don't call me that. I had no say in that name's creation," the Incubus murmured.
Davis raised an eyebrow.
"You think we wanted to be called the Rowdy Boys? No, that was a name the Student Council came up with to demean us."
The Nymph took a deep breath, his breath forming into vapour.
"No, you gotta run with the name you're given," he murmured, lowering the scarf.
Cobalt watched as Davis produced a cigarette from his pocket and placed it in his scarred mouth. He had only seen it once before; a pair of long, jagged wounds that ran from both corners of the Nymph's mouth like a cruel facsimile of a smile. Part of him wanted to ask about it, but the other had a feeling that it was far from a pleasant subject.
"So. How's the hero life treating you?" Davis asked with a raised eyebrow.
The Incubus looked down at his shoes.
"... I don't feel much like a hero."
"You and me both."
Taking a deep drag, he breathed a long plume of smoke out from the corners of his mouth.
"Me and the boys were treated like living gods after the Damned Defense. Even after your old man sloped off without telling anyone, the Rowdy Boys were the talk of the town. Legends in our own right. But did we feel like legends? Fuck no," he scowled.
"But... you guys all helped beat Diate, right?" Cobalt asked.
Baring his teeth, the Nymph made a noise of disgust and flicked the cigarette to the snowy ground.
"Oh sure, sure. We drove him outta town. All it took was Rims dying in our arms. And even before that, Grunt got his fucking head cut off when all he wanted was...!"
Fists balled and shaking, Davis took a second to catch his breath before relaxing.
"Look. Cobalt. I don't mean to be so short with you. It's just hard seeing you when you remind me so much of your dad, you know? And it's even harder watching this town do to you what it did to him," he said in a much quieter tone.
"What do you mean?"
"Remember how I said we were being treated like legends? Didn't last long. After a couple of weeks, the mayor's office clamped down on damage control and no-one was allowed to talk about Brass. People stopped discussing what happened, and they eventually forgot about us. I mean, just look at Calvin. It was his quick-thinking that gave us a fighting chance when Brass was downed, and look at him now; getting laughed at by kids in the street because he's going soft around the middle."
Arnn Srenth's father certainly had a reputation for living up to the bumbling police chief stereotype.
"But Jezzy... Oh it fucked her up something bad, Cobalt. Watching the people her loverboy fought and nearly died for just forget him like that. Your... Your mom wasn't a drinker before he left, you know that? Wasn't him leaving that turned her to merlot. No, it was the fact that nobody else wanted to remember what she had lost."
The more Davis talked, the larger the lump in the Incubus' throat grew.
"Did... Did Brass ever kill someone...?" Cobalt asked, looking up.
The Nymph shook his head.
"No. No, that was a line he never crossed."
Cobalt sighed slowly. Of course. The noble Hellhound could never possibly do such a thing. Even for the right reasons, such an act still felt-
"But I know how it feels. Eats you up, doesn't it? Even if they were scum of the fucking earth, taking a life feels like you killed a part of yourself too," Davis continued, staring up at the mural.
He shrugged his shoulders.
"Or so I'm told."
A little unnerved, Cobalt peered down at his hands. He wiggled his fingers, clashing his newfound claws against one another.
"So... what should I do?" he asked after a moment.
"Live your life. Sell your story. Drown your sorrows. Never talk about it ever again. It doesn't really matter, Cobalt. One way or another, people will forget the things you've done, and life will keep chugging along. No changing that. All you can do is decide whether that's a good thing or a bad thing."
Slowly, the Incubus gazed up at the mural as well. The two demons stood in silence, listening to the sounds of Brimstone as they gazed at the aged, faded paint.
"How often do you come here?" Cobalt asked after a while.
"Every week if I can help it. Closest thing to grave Brass has."
"Do you miss him?"
"All the damn time."
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"Is... Is it weird if I miss him too, even if I never met him?"
Davis looked at Cobalt with his bright, mean eyes. His face softened slightly and he sighed.
"No. I mean, Brass wouldn't shut the fuck up about you, even way before you were born. Of course, for a while he thought you'd be a girl and were gonna be called Copper, but he was still so excited to meet you. Even though... Even though I think he already knew he'd never get the chance."
Walking over to Cobalt, he put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed firmly.
"You and your old man... you just missed each other. But you're still a Hell of a lot like him. You're putting your neck on the line to save this ungrateful fucking town, and as foolish as I think that is, well... it's still a noble thing to do," he sighed.
Patting the Incubus' shoulder, Davis turned on his heel and made for the alley's exit, his hands jammed in his pockets as he started on the journey to meet back up with his husband and son.
"Taking a life is never supposed to be easy. It's a good thing you're not numb to it," he called over his shoulder, before he stepped out into the street and disappeared around a corner.
As the snow fell from above, collecting atop Cobalt's head and sending a dull, cold pain through his horns, he stood and stared up at the mural on the wall.
"Who was that?" he heard Lilith ask.
"Friend of my father's," he replied quietly, gazing at the twin dog heads.
"... I take it you don't know him, then."
"Never got the chance to meet him."
"Tch. Some of us can only be so lucky."
"Shut up."
With his hands in his pockets, Cobalt kept his head down and briskly walked out into the street, hoping that the snowfall would obscure him enough until he reached the relative safety of the Brimstone Nature Park.
There was something about what Davis had said that was oddly relieving. If his words rang true, then eventually this entire media frenzy regarding the Devils would die down, and he would finally be able to return to a relatively normal teaching career.
It would be one worry off his mind at the very least.
Feeling his phone suddenly vibrate, he frowned and pulled it out, scowling as he watched the number of unread messages sent from Alison gradually grow larger and larger.
Of course, even without all this kerfuffle, his life was about as far from normal as he could imagine.
-----
Thankfully, Cobalt managed to make his way to the waterfall in front of Alison's lab relatively unharried, though actually reaching the door was a bit of a chore, considering the entire thing had frozen, forcing him to squeeze between a coarse wall of stone and a cold wall of ice in order to get there. After plugging in the access code and making his way down the entrance tunnel, he was dimly surprised to find the main chamber of her lab deserted. It was messier than usual, with the skeleton of a huge machine taking up most of the floor space. Unlike most of Alison's slapdash inventions, she seemed to be putting a lot of time and effort into this one, using thick steel frames and aluminum sheets to build the base as opposed to bits of random home appliances welded together. As Cobalt slowly circumnavigated the mystery device, he heard shouting echoing from a side tunnel, one that looked as though it had been recently dug.
"Ah ain't parleyin' with a fuckin' human, alright?! End of fuckin' discussion! Yer gonna open this fuckin' door right now or ah will bring the entire wrath of Damnation down upon yer pig-skinned ass, ya hear me?!" the coarse voice of Delta hollered, sounding somewhat muffled.
Frowning, Cobalt ducked down the tunnel, nearly smashing his head off a jutting spur of rock as he navigated the recently-excavated passageway. At the very end, sitting before a thick door made from welded steel plates, was Alison. She was sitting on the floor, nursing a bottle of brandy with one hand as she idly fiddled with a remote with the other.
"Keep yelling at me like that and I'm gonna have to use the collar again. Do you really want that?" she yelled at the door, sounding more than a little tipsy.
A moment of silence passed as the Incubus watched on.
"... Ah would like to apologise for mah crass words," the Devil said quickly.
Reaching up, Alison drunkenly patted the door, which resembled a bulkhead the more Cobalt looked at it.
"Good boy."
Snorting, she looked up to see her sole demonic correspondent standing there. The human clambered to her feet, drinking deep from the bottle as she braced herself against the wall.
"Alright, you're here bluebell. Did what I could to keep this place secure. That being said, I'm not huge on playing the jailer, especially when my inmate won't shut the fuck up!" Alison yelled, spraying saliva from her mouth as she directed her ire towards the door.
"Sorry to push this on you, Alison. I just had no-one else to turn to," Cobalt sighed, tugging at his scarf.
He heard a surprised grunt from inside Delta's cell.
"Is- Is that Trayer?! Well fuck common courtesy, then! Ya open this door right now an' let me at him! Maybe then ah might show ya a lil' mercy!" the incarcerated Devil howled, slamming against the inside of the door.
Rolling her eyes, Alison pressed a button on the remote, turning his roars into pained screams punctuated by the high-pitched whine of electricity. A little perturbed by the human's cruelty, Cobalt followed from a safe distance as she led him back into the main chamber.
"Alright look. I'll put your boy up down here for as long as you need, on the condition that you help me with something. A personal project," Alison said, setting the bottle down as she stepped over to the soldering bench in a corner, where a half-disassembled Cloaking Charm lay.
"Isn't everything I help you with a personal project?" the Incubus responded, squinting at some of the notes scattered all over the human's desk.
Translations of various formulas from Cordelia Fesser's journal. Alison was still hard at work with trying to synthesise the cure, and judging by the frustrated scribbling on some of the pages, she wasn't making much progress.
"I mean yeah. Well, no. Kind of. Look, forget about all that."
"It's kind of hard to forget getting my entire bone structure reorganised."
"Okay, look-"
"Or getting spinal implants without prior knowledge."
"Hey, I-"
"Or getting turned into a child for an entire day."
"Bluebell!" Alison suddenly yelled, slamming her hands down on the workbench.
She looked tired. Tense. A far cry from the usual Alison. Feeling a little bad for making so many jabs at her, Cobalt quietly apologised and motioned for her to continue. Once she was finished inspecting the soldering bench, she walked over to the huge machine that she was building. Taking a deep breath, she nodded to the metal framework.
"I'm building a way back," she finally said after a deep breath.
The Incubus raised an eyebrow.
"A way back where?"
"To Earth."
Her words caused an unexpected jolt of shock to run through his body.
"What? Why?" Cobalt asked.
"Don't get me wrong, I've got no intention of returning to Sorbonne anytime soon. Hell, if I wanted to leave I would just do the same thing I did to get here in the first place."
The Incubus dimly remembered her mentioning that she had done something irresponsible to a hadron collider in order to get to Hell, so he kept his mouth shut.
"But no, this time I need a stable gateway. I'm building a Jump Gate," Alison told him, resting a hand on a length of steel piping.
The Incubus' eyes widened. Jump Gates were notorious for being finicky devices, to the degree where regular delays at the Jump Terminal were expected due to them constantly breaking down. Melding science and sorcery was always dangerous, and a lot of people supposedly died in their development. But despite all that, they were still the safest way to travel from one plane of existence to the other.
"But... why, Alison? Why take the risk?" Cobalt asked quietly, staring at the construction.
She shrugged.
"I got someone I want to bring home, bluebell. And I want to make sure their safety is guaranteed the whole way."
He...
He never really thought about the fact that Alison had left her entire life behind to live in Hell. It was easy to see the scientist as a bizarre, misanthropic hermit with a wanton disdain for basic ethics, precautions and decency. But one look at her face was enough to tell him that Alison Titch had people she loved too, people she had left behind in order to push boundaries and brave unknowns.
"What do you need?" Cobalt asked, suddenly feeling bad for her.
"Nothing major, just a part I'm missing."
"Well, what is it?"
"A bloodstone."
"A blood-?!"
Before the invention of the Jump Gate, there was another way to cross the interdimensional boundary, one that was a lot more dangerous. A method that involved the murder of seven people, the extraction of seven hearts, and the fermentation of the blended organs in a process that lasted seven days. It was a gory, horrific ritual, one that would result in a greasy red crystal known as a bloodstone. Supposedly, humans used to use them whenever they wish to make a contract - or force a contract upon - a demon. When the bloodstone was broken, it ripped a hole in reality, allowing anything to pass through for a limited time.
These days, bloodstones were in limited supply, and were used to fuel the Jump Gates. Apparently one stone could last years, powering thousands of jumps before it finally ran dry of power, but their horrific means of manufacture still remained the same. Cobalt didn't like to think much about how the world's Jump Terminals secured them.
"Alison, there's only one place in town that has them, and they have incredibly tight security," the Incubus told her, feeling sweat form upon his brow.
"C'mon, bluebell, you know I'd do it myself if I could. But I already got a lot of stuff going on here, and with your little friend locked up in my lounge I can't exactly divide my attention any further. Couldn't you ask any of your sidepiec-"
She cleared her throat.
"- your friends to help?"
What? No, that was an impossibility! His students had been exposed to enough turmoil and tribulation in the past year; he wasn't about to expose them to something like this! What kind of man would rope his friends into a dangerous heist on a heavily-guarded transportation hub?! What kind of tertiary-level student would be willing to risk their academic career for something so reckless?!
Quinn.
Quinn would.
"Dammit..." Cobalt sighed, rubbing his forehead as he fished out his phone.
"So...?" Alison asked, giving him moony eyes.
"Okay, okay, I'll do it. Just give me a second," the Incubus replied, dialing Quinn's number.
He stepped away and held the phone to his ear.
"Hello?" responded the cockney voice of Quinn Redtile.
Odd, the reception wasn't great. She must be in a basement or something.
"Hey Quinn, it's Cobalt. I need your help for something," he told her hastily.
"Bit sudden, innit?"
"I know, I'm sorry, and I completely understand if you're busy-"
"What? No, no. I'll be down in a minute."
As reliable as she was tricksy. She had some redeeming features, he had to admit.
"Thank you. Could you meet me by the Jump Terminal in a little bit?"
"The Terminal, yeah? See you then."
The call ended, allowing Cobalt to breath a sigh of relief. Stealing something as high-value as a bloodstone would be much easier with an Imp on his side. Turning to Alison, he gave her a weak thumbs up.
"Alright, Alison, I'll get you your bloodstone."
She grinned back at him.
"This is why I love you, bluebell! You always deliver!"
"Yeah, sure..."