A tall, well-built man with a black duffle bag over his shoulder stood stock-still inside an ornate elevator, his light-blue polo shirt presenting a gentle contrast to the elegant grimness of the lift's glass walls. While his stoic demeanor didn't show it, behind his cobalt aviator lens, beneath the shadow of his short, jutting black bangs he was quietly observing a sequence of scenes carved into the glass, each depicting a gambler and their winnings. The first one began at the ceiling, showing a man pulling a slot machine lever, activating a massive spout of coins to come spraying out of it in a glorious arc, followed by another of the man raising his hands to excitedly catch as many coins as he could, only to be buried up to his neck, and crushed to death beneath the weight of his greed, blood pooling out over the newly formed depression in the floor. A second scene depicted a horned swine with batlike ears sitting on a wobbly stool at a rickety table, the ceiling above him bulging and drooping with cracks running all throughout it, tiny streams of crimson liquid filling his rusty bowl. Another work of art displayed a losing poker player slashing the throat of his opponent, only for a pressurized jet of liquid gold to shoot out of his victim's gash, and pierce a hole through his own, bronze and silver gushing from his wound.
At his feet, a different piece of art caught his attention, striking him as unsettlingly specific, but still in fitting with the agendas of the demons who ran the place he was descending into. The image was that of a golden eagle skewered by its own dismembered wings, eyes gouged out with its own viciously bent talons, and severed beak shoved violently through its chest. It was enough to make the man step back, the cuffs of his charcoal slacks briefly lifting and revealing the metal buckles of his fine leather shoes clacking against the floor. Raising his left hand to push his sunglasses up, the cold sensation of his silver rolex shifting its weight on his wrist produced a momentary discomfort, accompanied by a subtle, nagging urge to adjust some inconsequential aspect of his clothes. Before he could complete a single motion–
DING
Scoffing softy, the man stepped halfway out of the elevator, only for the shaft to jerk forwards, forcing him into a tight roll upon a dirt path that was flanked by knee-high grass. As he came upright, he turned on his knuckles, spinning himself to stare at the motionless lift, its bottom nestled firmly against the ground. At the far wall of the compartment, he could see a new piece of art forming: embers sparked from unseen claws dragged across the glass, carving out the crude shape of a rat sniffing around as a lion, leopard, and a black wolf lunged at it with crazed, foam drooling grins. Sparing not a second of contemplation for its dumped passenger, the elevator doors closed, and immediately began a rapidly accelerating ascent back into the dark clouds above, lightning crackling as it passed through the dimensional barrier on its way to another guest.
Standing up and dusting himself off, he finally had a moment to process something other than vague threats, namely the light illuminating the woods. The source of the dim luminance keeping this forest lit was coming from several firefly lamps dangling from the balconies of elvish cabins built on what appeared to be a hybrid of high top and sugar pines. Through the insect-glass windows he could see many fragmented figures, some bright and cheery, others a melancholic mix of lustful nervousness. He could hear loud moans of pleasure, followed by abhorrent screeching, the twitching of antennae, and beating of wings, and stripping of flesh, and crunching of bone amidst wails of agony, all coming from inside the mystic brothel houses. Minutes later, the grass started rustling all around him, and a swarm of brownies carrying cleaning tools rushed up the wooden ladders, followed by goblins with large sacks.
Surmising that not all demonic transactions were based on long-term deals, the man in the blue polo opted to ready himself for any future variables. Distancing himself from the clean-up crew by moving a few feet into the grass, the man threw off his duffle bag, unzipped it, and began to procure several items. A silver handgun modeled after a deagle went onto his right hip, a short, sawed off double barrel shotgun featuring a wooden grip, sliding it into a holster on his left outer thigh. Rubbing his chin between his thumb and index for a moment, he grabbed four of the shotgun shells, along with a same number of metal egg containers, and opened them up like Easter trinkets. After that he sliced open the shells, deposited the gunpowder along with the pellets into the eggs, closed them up and carved a very small fire kanji into their surfaces. Grabbing a multi pocketed velcro sash, he deposited all four eggs into the pressure sealed spaces, and wrapped from left shoulder to right pelvis, clipping it together.
Next, he grabbed a punch knife, strapping it horizontally onto his left forearm with the handle facing his torso, and likewise for the opposite. Twin knuckle-handled karambits at the waist, and an unusually large pole staff possessing an uncanny level of elasticity as it autonomously stretched and flattened itself around the man's waist, pressing against his belt as an armored layer. Thinking this was enough for now, he zipped up the bag, separated the straps and compressed the insides as best he could. Gaining a satisfying amount of shrinkage, he strapped the bag against his back in an x formation, making sure that they did not overlap the egg pouches, and pulled it tight to ensure it conformed properly around his body.
Scanning his surroundings, he noticed several brownies staring at him warily, before immediately running back inside the cabins. Several screeches, gaelic curses, and thrashing of furniture was heard by the rising, armed man, who dismissed their panic insofar as it concerned his safety, and saw several fairies go shooting out of the cabin, soaring through the city on red alert. Now he had to be concerned, and with lightning speed, he grabbed hia watch between thumb and index finger, pressed two buttons and fired a thin red laser, dashing and adjusting his aim with a speed that was disturbingly inhuman.
Tiny smoke plumes drifted upwards as wings were severed, heads decapitated, and torsos bisected in a shower of not just stomach acid, but the partially digested remains of their consumed victims. Unfortunately, and to the man's jaw-clenched annoyance, one got away with a full belly, and was likely on its way to inform its master.
Deactivating the laser and pressing his index and middle finger to his temple, the man finally spoke in a deep, velvety voice that always seemed to bear a slightly dry growl.
“Rough entry.” Scott said in as neutral a manner as he could.
“Rougha than normal?” The voice asked curiously, his calm tone belying his seriousness.
“They knew I was coming.” He stated flatly. “No one but you knows about my true nature.”
“So what’cha gonna do?”
“Keep exploring. Find out how tight a hold this place has on Earth, and make sure they don't mess with our business.”
Sighing, Scott continued. “The elevator tried to taunt me. Really knew how to put the fart in artsy artsy turd paintings.”
“Ohoh boah…” Ron laughed amusedly. “Don't let em get’cha goin’. ‘Sides, I heard from one’a them Goldman boahs that one of Hell’s hungriest piggies escaped the Allure mess, and before that, he escaped Hell no problem. Ontop’a that, he ain't been seen nowhere here on Earth.”
“You think he’s here?”
“Probably.”
“And… you want me to recruit him?”
“All the other demons workin’ for us had to be summoned. If this one was able to escape the Lake Of Fire on its own, it oughta be stronger than the others.”
A deep breath was taken on the other side. “Things are changing up there in the stars again. Nightmare asteroids crashing into Argentina, alien cities droppin’ on our foreheads, big ass Jellyfish appearin’ in the sky. We need to fortify ourselves, and for that we need stronger muscle.”
“Hmm…”
“Little by little we'll build it up. If the other Syndicates are smart, they'll do the same.”
“Okay.” Scott nodded, having just found the exit to the forest. “I'll find him. I'll locate Arthur Steinbrook, and if those rats try comin’ for us, we'll have the Cannibal Connoisseur cut and chew a path out of this place.
Hanging up the blood call, Scott proceeded down a steep stairwell leading to the city, smoke and fire on the rise as a–
–
–beam of elemental lightning souls burned the pagoda's structure, slicing through support beams with its devastating heat. Seconds later, the different stories of the building fell straight down, each floor crashing down on top of the one beneath it, dust and detritus rushing out as the building collapsed all the way to street level. Unflinching at the debris plume, the white dragon stood with arms outstretched, claws at the ready, eagerly awaiting the next demon that was bold enough to attack him. As he was enveloped, his eyelids closed, letting his ears takeover the task of detecting assailants.
Thirty more seconds passed and nothing showed up.
A minute.
Two minutes.
Five.
Still nothing.
Atop his smokestack perch, Tage silently monitored the city, taking notice through his ley-lines of someone else noticing him through supernatural means. His cybernetic stoicness enforced his statuesque lack of response, watching her for as long as she deemed fit to observe him. Then, in mere moments, she was paying attention to something else, and the cyborg resumed his sentinel surveillance.
After another five minutes of waiting on a threat that never arrived, Tage determined that it was time to take a different approach to their mission.
A vast network of anomalies manifested as thin strands of maroon light cutting the skein of space like a knife through plastic in random spots throughout Aeternus. Many were directly inside the hotel, widening into seams, cracks, and fractal spirals, each piece its own portal to some far away world. The existential ley-lines had been thoroughly connected to this realm, entering and interweaving themselves with Aeternus’ spatial fabric via a plume of nanoscopic dracomachines that allowed themselves to be sucked into the vortex that was Taluge’s perception of the realm from astral space. Now, as a divided entity, Tage used the ley-lines to spy, to procure information, and even ask questions.
Unlike My White Brother, I Come In Peace
The cyborg's voice reverberated through lobbies, spas, pools, flickered on televisions, and shined off the surfaces of coins, roulette, spotlights beaming off the dots of dice. It had the voice of a beast, the coldness of steel, and the depth of a lion, despite its draconic origin. Most importantly, its tone carried pacifism, such that even the most suspicious demon would find it enticing bait. Often, it was those of the more noble philosophical disposition that made for the tastiest prey.
Love was far more delectable than war. Order easier to manage than chaos. The Casino Demons and their heavily systematized economy of souls was proof of this. If it wasn't for their tendency to brazenly break their own rules, and launch the bent and warped chunks of their agreements at one another like cannonballs, then perhaps the Arcane Project’s offspring would have chosen a less intimate means of announcing his presence. He trusted them just as much as they trusted him, which was to say not at all, but he would still give himself and them the benefit of discussion by embodying the ways of Gennosuke. If peace was not an option, then the Aeternus would learn of Tage’s demonic origins the hard way.
Has This Being Been Seen Traversing Your Realm?
A simple hologram of a colossal bipedal drake of enormous black scales, tendrils the size of street poles woven between their mass and ending in hypodermic bones. His chest bulged outward like a trapezoid, his spiny tail long enough to wrap around a skyscraper, and v-shaped horns long enough to part the sea and split clouds. He had a long, rigid snout, a crimson left, and sapphire right eye resembling inlaid gemstones, their outlines accentuating an appearance of being bloodshot.
As he awaited his answer, Tage decided to check on the least dangerous, but ironically most danger prone member of the bestial trio.
Aludon stood still, stupid, not even attempting to study the surge of aggressively sturdy unlife, itself a quasi-contradiction. Life could not be death, and death could not be life, but with gloom, doom, and strife driving the corpse woman, and creature as blind to threats as this Aptosite, concerning to the notion that both were rife with insanity seemed the only answer that was right.
The Scars Of The Dead
Jagged, dark-green scars lit up along Aludon’s arms, from triceps to interior forearms, portals to the astral plane, gateways to chaos opened wide. A gush of gelatinous protoplasm flooded from the rifts, gluttonously consuming not the roots, fingers, and veins, but the aura of decay the material brought with it. If this were any other creature, if he were smart, the imbecilic monster would have left well enough alone, and let the gel dissolve the deathly energy and expel it back down the drain, but Aludon was a moron. His intelligence was animalistic, subhuman, and because he didn't feel pain quite the same as others due to his body being intentionally designed to rip itself apart, and merge with other body's, this meant that instead of standing there and remaining safe like a good dog, Aludon decided to sniff the turdly energy, and try to take a bite out of it.
Truly, he was not one of the cats roaming around Aeternus. Aludon was an Aludog.
His black flesh crumpled, crumbled, and reformed, muscles of protein took on a bizarre chloroplastic pine needle color. Roots sprouted in the place of claws, the brainlet beast violently ripping them out of the ground and flinging his acidic blood absolutely everywhere, shrieking not from pain, but from the shock of his claws coming off. In a matter of seconds, he could see the wood and carpet fall apart, walls start to tumble down, and even some support beams growing in increasingly unstable as mushroom fiber took over his chest, his red eyes liquefied and solidified back into black-dotted red berries, and his tail turned into a long segment of white death blossoms, ending in a sharply curved mix of bone and thorns.
Falling through the floor, and crashing through several glass containers, spilling wine, beer, and liquor everywhere, Aludon started screeching in confusion as he began to drown in booze. Spinning around madly to gain his bearings, he flung more acid from his fingers, corroding a powerbox, and sending sparks flying everywhere. Ignition occurred instantly, a fiery explosion blossoming straight up and spreading back through the bar, the shockwave hurling the Aptosite through several more cupboards. Panicking at the overstimulation, flesh regenerating all throughout, he coiled his legs, and launched himself up through into a gambling room adjacent to the bar, smashing through a poker table, and spreading his new plant-plant aura to every part of the room, every human gambler, and horned, tentacled, hooved demon dealer he frantically bolted across. Soon, this part of the hotel would become a botanical hellscape of rotting decadence, and Zucroas could only trudge annoyedly toward the commotion his brother was making, whereas Tage remained perched, keeping his weapons on standby mode for the inevitable backlash their jackass of a baby sibling wrought.
–
Eye of lamb dipped in boiling wolf’s blood, thickened by flesh of sloth, and caked in ground fraud liver. An innocent deceived, a predator conceived a plot to compensate for their own laziness, yet packed ever so densely with the spoils of that which he managed to siphon from all those innocent buyers. Hearty, but decadent. Not nearly enough to enrich his taste buds, for how could the nourishing minerals of one so easily fooled have lived a life of health, of worth, of substance.
“Schwache Männer und noch schwächere Opfer!” Arthur shouted, quite displeased.
The German, the Cannibal Connoisseur, Swine Of Gluttony, and Knight Of The Kitchen sat, clothed in white, silver-eyed wolf's fur, fork and knife grasped between lean, muscular fingers, palms fastened to claws via leather straps. His hairy blonde chest was exposed, icy blue eyes sharp like a canine’s and nowhere near as deceitful as the chefs who thought they could shovel this crap down his throat. He had learned already in Hell, that feeding on your fellow damned was akin to eating the contents of one’s colon, and that was Hell enough for him.
He did not come to this hole in existence to be fed even lower quality trash.
The follow up meal was equally atrocious. Shish kabob, brain of tortured immigrant, heart of smuggler, marinated in reproductive juices of sex trafficked wives and daughters. Juicy, wet, spongy, a bit salty, but lacking the texture of anything beyond rubbery and nauseating. Fools without merit, no elders to inherit the wealth of; desperate to flee, woe is thee, and taken advantage of by a slang speaking leech.
Grunting with irritation, Arthur vexed. “Alles, was du mir fütterst, sind die Leichen wertloser Narren!”
Rubbing his temples, Arthur lifted his eyes, spotting a fat tycoon, clearly down on his luck, but with a wife that was brown, bodacious, and several different kinds of beauty packed into one busty package. Miraculously, she appeared all natural, and was genuinely concerned for what her husband was about to do to save his failing business. She cared about him. He could smell it. She would be there to back him up no matter how foolishness his decisions were. He could taste her devotion, hear her heart beat nervously, selflessly.
“AUS DEM WEG!” Arthur roared, his brutish masculine form grabbing the woman's attention in a shocked blush, only for her to scream in horror as he threw the half eaten shish kabob needle like a spear, straight through her husband's idiot skull. The skewer went through his eye, broke through his lobe, and sent bone fragments scattering everywhere.
“Es tut mir leid, meine Liebe, Blumen wie du sind einfach zu schwer zu bekommen.” The German stated matter of fact lying, pressing hands on her trembling shoulders, tongue dragging across her ample, helpless cleavage, sharp arousal surging through her as he yanked her in closer. He wouldn't allow someone so precious to move, to get away, and the other residents and chefs seemed to know intuitively that letting the Cannibal have his way was the best path to avoiding a meat cleaver in their skull.
“Jetzt werde ich dein Herz öffnen, deinen Nektar trinken und mich wieder lebendig fühlen!” He shouted ecstatically, jaw stretching to monstrous proportions, and not giving the woman even a moment to process or register the disturbed feeling of lust that was half a second of way from turning to full-blown terror before driving his teeth straight through her breast. Moments later, he was crunching through her rib cage, then her heart, eyes watering with delight as he crushed and swallowed the whole thing with one bite.
“Warum müssen Frauen wie du für diese Welt so klein sein!?” He lamented, blood dripping from his mouth, fingers rubbing his eyes as he let out a sigh.
“They don't have to be.” A man with a duffle bag said, standing in the doorway. Immediately reaching into one of his velcro pouches and chucking the gunpowder filled egg at the dead man, and his wife. The powder belonged to the shell casings of Cash The Dead Rebel, a double-barreled sawed off shotgun, enchanted with an inversion spell. As the kanji activated, and gunpowder ignited across the couple's flesh, muscle knitted back together, bones mended, and in a manner of seconds the two were back on their feet.
“Who are you?” Arthur asked astonishedly, shocking everyone in the bar at the fact that he could speak English.
“A member of a powerful Syndicate of Earth, and unlike this hellhole, in my organization, quality food... HIGH quality food is always available.
Removing his sunglasses, and revealing almond black eyes, Scott looked at Arthur with deadly seriousness. “My type isn't welcome here. I suspect they'll be coming for me any minute now, as I already took out a few of their own.
“Now are you in, or are you out?”
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