“Alright, let’s kill some demons!” were the first words to burst out of Mike’s mouth the second he took his first steps onto the seventh floor of Tartarus. With his lengthy blade pointed toward the dangling chandeliers as he bolstered it on his shoulder, Mike scanned his surroundings, finding himself surrounded by nothing more than an empty, icy, branching hallway. “Where’s the enemies?”
Charlie stepped beside him, looking left and right with their scepter close to their chest. “Usually there’s at least one skeleton or something running around, right? Maybe there are no enemies on this floor. That’d be good.”
Mike scoffed. "Don't be a pussy." His revolted expression transformed into a sly grin as he came to quite an interesting conclusion. "Maybe they’re hiding from me. Let's go find 'em!"
Charlie rolled their eyes and followed Mike closely as they journeyed through the icy maze, guided by the frozen-over crimson carpet. After checking what seemed like every nook and cranny of the floor, it was evident that there weren’t any sort of enemies in the area, which they both found strange. Additionally, they couldn't find the exit to the next floor. Mike was growing frustrated; the itch to give his new sword a spin wasn't being scratched in the slightest.
“C’mon… No skeletons? No demons? No nothin’?” Mike said to himself. At this point, he'd be willing to try his weapon out on anything that moved.
“Well, maybe it’s one of those gimmick floors.” Charlie whispered. “Like the hallway puzzle or the library.”
"Or the one with that blind, multilegged freak!" Mike shuddered just thinking about the grafted monster he and Michael had scarcely fled from. Charlie glanced over at him with an eyebrow raised, trying their best to remember such a thing. "Multilegged freak?" they repeated.
Mike stumbled over his words for a second. "Wh- Yes!? Don't tell me you forgot about that THING that attached human limbs and skin to itself. It had the voice of a passed child and like thirty limbs!" Though Mike's description was accurate, Charlie still hadn't a clue what he was referring to.
"Uh...Well, we met on floor three, right? The floor before that was where I met Marut. There wasn't any sort of monster there." Charlie admitted.
Mike's jaw had nearly fallen off of his face. "So...You didn't have to come across that thing?"
"Nope. Sorry."
So we just got unlucky RNG...
"Anyway, that's right, we did meet on floor three." Mike stated. "In a way, it feels like the three of us have been working together since the beginning. Which reminds me, there's something I've been meaning to ask."
Oh no. Michael knew exactly what Mike was going to ask.
Charlie glanced over at Mike, meeting his studious glaze with theirs. “What is it?”
Mike hesitated momentarily, growling to himself before finally asking the question that'd been on his and Michael’s minds since they’d met Charlie.
“Are you a boy or a girl or a…them?” Mike's straightforwardness took Charlie by surprise. Prior to his death, Mike was nearing his fifties and wasn’t the type to beat around the bush. “I don’t care either way, but I just need to know. It’s killin’ me. At first, I was sure you were a guy but...The way you speak and act confuses me. Michael's in love with you practically so, I know he really wants to know.”
Why would you say that!?
Charlie chuckled awkwardly, clenching their staff as their smile turned solemn. “I’m not sure…” Charlie answered. “Sorry if that answer is unsatisfactory. I recently started asking myself the same thing, but I died before I could find my answer. With all the demons and monsters running around trying to kill us, I haven’t really had the time to figure it out after my death either. Some days I feel more feminine, which is most days, but I’d say thirty percent of the time, I feel more masculine.” This was the first time Charlie had ever told anyone about this; these feelings of struggling to figure out exactly who they were. For Charlie, their identity felt as interchangeable as the clothes on their back, but they were never sure why or what exactly that meant for them.
Mike studied Charlie, looking them up and down with his hand on his chin. “So…You’re telling me it's like you’re a girl during the week and a boy on weekends?” His question almost sounded sarcastic, but that was far from the case. Mike was being as genuine as can be.
God, you're an idiot.
Oddly enough, Charlie found humor in Mike's words, laughing off his oblivion. “That’s one way of putting it, sure. But it's not always changing day by day. Sometimes it's months at a time. I don't know. Once we make it to Heaven I'll have infinite time to figure that out, right?”
“I see.” Mike said quietly, his eyes leaving Charlie and focusing on the road ahead.
“Is that a problem?” Charlie asked, not out of defense, but curiosity.
“Eh. I don’t give a damn regardless. I was just curious.” Mike admitted. "I can't say I relate, but if that's how you feel then that's how you feel."
"Hm." Charlie hummed, still looking at Mike with the most minuscule of grins. “I’m shocked.”
His eyes once again found Charlie's as he raised a single brow. “And why’s that?”
“You give off the vibes of a bigot." they said.
Facts. Michael added.
Charlie continued. "But really, you’re a pretty good guy. You remind me a lot of my Dad."
Mike shrugged as they walked. “I wouldn’t go that far. Unlike you, I fully deserve to be in Hell."
"What, did you kill someone?" Charlie asked in jest.
"Eleven people actually," Mike answered matter of factually.
"Oh...Right." Charlie mumbled, which led to a long and drawn-out silence.
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Mike, without looking toward them, spoke to Charlie once more. "Hey, you ever tell your dad about that stuff?"
"You mean about my gender? No. He's the typical conservative immigrant. He wouldn't get it, trust me."
"You know, I had a daughter. If she were like you, I'd love her all the same. You said your dad and I were similar, right? I'm sure his love for you wouldn't have disappeared."
Air burst from Charlie's nostrils humorously as they thought about their past. "Maybe. It's not like it matters. I took it to the grave, literally."
It was then that Mike and Charlie found themselves approaching two other individuals. One wearing leather armor with a hood over their head, sporting a bow and arrow with a dagger attached to their hip. Beside them was a brown-haired man wearing silver-plated armor; his weapons of choice were a short sword and shield. The two of them were standing before a twenty-foot-tall stone door. Out of everything they'd seen on this floor thus far, this door was the only thing that wasn't completely frozen over.
“Heads up. There’s no telling what these guys are up to.” Mike whispered, gripping his elongated blade tightly, prepared to fight if it were to come down to it.
Upon hearing Mike and Charlie approach, the two men turned around, sighing relief upon seeing them. “Boy am I glad to see you two.” said the armored man. He had an English accent, reminding Mike, Michael, and Charlie that Hell wasn't just for Americans like themselves. "My name is Jake and that over there is Adam." Jake pointed at his hooded companion, inducing him to wave slightly.
"Sup." said Adam. It seemed he was a man of few words and his face was mostly concealed by his costume's hood. Like Mike and Charlie, he too was American.
Jake continued. “This door requires four people to open. Care to help us out? I'll bet there are goodies inside. We've been here waiting for hours.”
Mike clicked his tongue. “And what makes you believe this door needs us to open it?” He found the two of them untrustworthy. He'd trusted Charlie only because they'd proven themself to be dependable. These two men before him, however, not so much.
“Watch." Jake said, looking toward his partner as he gestured toward the door. "Adam.” He and his companion placed their hands atop these circular indentations on the door, causing them to form illuminated circles around their hands. “You see that? When we put our hands here, they glow. If there are four more circles, it's safe to say we need two more pairs of hands. Simple maths.”
“I bet there's a boss in here," Adam said quietly. "After we kill it, we can split the profits evenly. You look like the type of guy that wants to get stronger, right? Whether it be for your sake or your girlfriend's.”
Mike's face cringed. “First of all this person is not my girlfriend. Way too young for me. Second of all, you said there's an enemy in there. That means I can get a shit ton of that EXP stuff, right?”
"Sure." said Adam.
"Well, that's all you had to say. Move it." Mike stepped toward the two strangers as his weapon dematerialized before placing both of his hands inside a circle, which then illuminated around where he placed them.
“Seriously?” Charlie mumbled, lowering their staff.
“What? I want to test out my new shit. Come on, help us open the door. You can sit back and leave the fighting to me if you're scared.”
Charlie sighed as their staff dematerialized. Reluctantly, they placed two hands on the door, illuminating two more circles. The moment the last circle was filled, the door began to tremble, as did the ground beneath their feet. Anxiously, all four of them watched the door rise until they could see what was on the other side of it. There was an entrance of fog, yet this one was thinner than usual. Mike poked it with his finger, feeling that cold, moist feeling of any other fog door they'd encountered.
Behind the thin layer of fog was a circular room similar in size to a sports arena. At its center, there was a snake made completely of ice. “Get a load of that. It’s gotta be hundreds of feet long if it uncoiled itself.” Mike whispered as he stepped through the fog and Charlie followed close behind him. The serpent was asleep, none the wiser that four fighters were entering its domain.
“Yeah…” Charlie whispered, stepping over the broken weapons and corpses of the other residents of Hell who attempted to slay this beast. Mike paid the corpses no mind, confident that he would do what they could not and escape with his life and his prize.
"Uhm... Mike." Charlie said quietly.
"What?"
"Isn't it odd that we've never encountered a corpse of someone randomly? But now, there's dozens of them."
Now that they've said... There is a shit ton of bodies in here. Some of them even look fresh... But that doesn't really make any sense; those guys said they'd waited for hours, right?
"Huh...You're right." Mike, sending something fishy in the air, turned around, seeing the other two on the other side of a thin wall of fog. “So are you two coming or what?"
Jake chuckled, punching his partner playfully who had a slight grin on his face. “Yeah. After you kill it maybe!”
Those bastards!
“What did you say, you little shit?" Mike said through his teeth, stomping toward the two of them. Charlie had a panicked look on their face, looking between the serpent and Mike as he'd nearly made enough noise to wake it up.
Jake blew a raspberry as he pointed to the slumbering snake behind the two fools he managed to deceive. “Dude, have you seen the size of that thing? We can’t kill it. You got it! Here, let’s wake it up for you!”
Adam drew his bow before firing a single arrow through the wall of fog and at the snake. The arrow bounced off its icy skin before landing on the ground. The snake’s eyes shot open, looking directly at Mike and Charlie without moving a muscle. “Kid…” Mike mumbled. “Get moving.”
Mike and Charlie made a run for it as the ground trembled beneath their feet. They weren’t too far from the exit, so they’d make it before the snake could even come close. However, there was one problem…
Mike and Charlie placed their hands on the fog door, unable to push themselves through it as they once did.
“Hey dumb and dumber. The fog wall’s one-sided. Don’t worry, once you die, your loot will be of good use to us, along with all the others who’ve died.” Jake laughed to himself, watching with a devilish grin. He and Adam had been doing this for hours, waiting for anyone witless enough to walk inside of the room first. At first, they did it out of fear. However, over time, the two of them were enjoying watching as their contemporaries ran for their lives, screaming in anguish as the snake tore them apart. It was then that they had an idea.
"All we have to do is wait for fools like you to come along and tire out the snake. Once it's vulnerable enough to handle, we'll cross through and loot all the bodies. Marut and Harut will probably try to rip us off, but the sheer amount of loot would earn us a shit ton of Hell Bucks regardless!"
“You fucking little shits!" Mike said as he slammed his fist on the translucent wall. "When I get out of here I swear I’ll-”
“Worry about the big snake!” Jake said, gesturing behind the two snake baits.
Mike and Charlie turned around to see the viper lunging at them! The two of them dodged in opposite directions, causing the snake to slam its face into the fog wall, compelling the two traitors to jolt backward and laugh.
“Get ‘em boy!” Jake said through his laughter as Mike and Charlie ran around like chickens with their heads cut off toward the center stage. Charlie began hurling smaller spells at the snake, though it was unclear if they were doing any sort of damage. Meanwhile, Mike rolled up his sleeves and fixed his face, smearing over his fear with resolve.
“I bet if I hit this bastard hard enough, it’ll shatter! Stay behind me, Charlie. Keep doing what you’re doing, and I’ll get in close!" Mike, as if he'd lost all sense, stepped toward the snake with his greatsword trailing behind him.
A fight was what he wanted after all, so a fight was what he was going to get. 'And once I kill this bastard, those two little shit are gonna wish they were never born!"