Back up in the Mourning Star, Lucifer’s rage was insatiable. He furiously threw large pieces of machinery around, torched the entirety of the room, and tore asunder the daemons that tried to stop him. Bloody sweat flew from his forehead, and spattered on the ground. Moments later, the places where the blood had struck begin to sizzle, and began to burn through the floor like acid. He jumped up, after throwing one more daemon out of the window of the Mourning Star, and flew to my cage, slamming into the bars.
“Why, why must he persist?! He has taken everything I’ve sent his way and turned it against me! What will it take to break him?! What can I throw at him that he can’t turn against me?! First it was my daughter, then the Gwa-Hulk, then the Jabberwock, and now he’s even turned Death Itself!”
“He told you, remember?” I said calmly, “He will destroy you. You can’t stop him. Not now. No one can,”
All of a sudden, Satan’s eyes lit up. “No, I cannot stop him…but you can!” he cackled evilly.
“I’ll never do that, and you know it. You’ll never be able to turn me,”
“Oh, but I can, my little angel,” he smiled knowingly. Reaching into his cloak, he pulled out a tiny box made of pure gold. He opened the lid, and flashed the contents at me.
“Oh God…” I breathed, all the blood draining from my face.
“God isn’t going to save you, my dear. God doesn’t exist down here,”
He carefully extracted a tiny vial of golden liquid from the box, wiggling it in front of my face, just beyond my reach from the cage.
“Know what these are?” he taunted obnoxiously.
“Yes,” I responded in a whisper, “Please…don’t…”
”I have no choice, my dear. I must destroy them. You know that. And you’re going to help me,”
He snapped his fingers, and two rows of ten ogres walked in through the door.
“Hold her,” Lucifer said to the ogres, and they lumbered forward towards me. One of them grabbed ahold of the door, and ripped it from its hinges with no effort at all. Another one’s hand darted in, and encircled me as a child would a lollipop. Hopefully I would not suffer the same fate as said lollipop. He slammed me down onto the floor, and put a foot on my stomach. The rest crowded around me, putting their hands where they definitely didn’t belong, keeping me still.
“Careful Igor. I said hold her, not crush her,”
Scrotch bent down to my head, and whispered, “Good hunting,” into my ear, with a gleeful smirk. Then, he tipped the vial ever so slightly above my head, so that one minuscule drop of the horrible liquid fell from the container into my forcefully opened mouth. I tried to spit it out, but he held my mouth shut and plugged my nose. I couldn’t help it…I swallowed the blood, and everything turned to blackness. I heard a voice inside my head saying ‘Find him and kill him. Show no mercy. Do whatever it takes to destroy him,’
“And why not?” another voice in my head reasoned, “He’s probably kissing up to Christina right now. He never loved you. Kill him. Then kill Christina. Kill them all!”
The ogres backed away from me. I stood up, and shook my head to try to clear it.
“My Lord Satan,” I said, “I will bring you his head,”
I bowed, then spread my wings and flew out of a broken window of the Mourning Star. I dived down towards the Plains of Hell, just in time to see Logan and the other angel I had seen inside the Mourning Star disappear into a cave. I dropped to the ground and jogged to the mouth. I would have to think this through before I did it. Logan was not a force to be trifled with. If I rushed in, all guns blazing, I would most certainly die. Logan had the uncanny ability to resist death, so even if I managed to get a fatal shot in, he would probably just come back later. No, the best way was to act like I was on his side, and I escaped from Lucifer’s grasp. That would work, hopefully. I ran deeper into the cave, hoping to catch up with them sooner than later.
Mason and I walked down the tunnel. It had been about thirty minutes since we had begun our trek through the tunnel, and we hadn’t found anything. No monsters, no daemons, no damned, no nothing.
“Why are you in Hell?” I spoke up randomly to Mason.
“I wasn’t baptized before I died. The afterlife is a cruel place…I was stuck in purgatory for all eternity, but Satan snatched me away and brought me here. He’s been torturing me for about seven years now. What about you? Why are you here?”
“I murdered about fifty people, and a priest opened up a rift to hell and threw me down there,” I said, making it evident that I did not wish to go into it.
“Oh,” replied Mason, “I’m sorry,”
”Don’t be,” I said, “Its my fault, not yours,”
I turned back to look at him, to see that he had stopped. He held up his hand in a signal for me to stop as well, and I did.
”What’s going on?” I whispered, confidently.
“We’re being followed,” he said simply.
“Damnit…it hasn’t been long enough for the other to have come looking for us, has it?”
“No,” Mason replied, “It hasn’t,”
I opened my hand, and a flaming sword appeared. I held it above my head, and dimmed the first so it wasn’t visible to our follower. I waited for Mason’s signal. The footsteps of our stalker were drawing ever nearer.
“Now!” yelled Mason, and I ignited the sword, and swung it at the thing. Suddenly, another sword appeared, and blocked my strike. Then, it whirled around with a speed I would have thought impossible and disarmed me. My sword skidded across the floor, and was snuffed out. Then, something happened that I didn’t expect. My attacker dropped its sword, advanced towards me, and grabbed me in a crushing bear hug, finishing with a full-on open mouth kiss.
“Hey there handsome. Miss me much?”
“Jessica?!” I spluttered in amazement.
“The one and only,” she responded.
“How did you get free?” I asked, joyfully wrapping my arms around her.
“Oh, gosh what ever happened to ‘Oh, hello Jessica. How’ve you been?’”
”What are you doing?” I demanded, “How did you find us?”
“Easy,” she began, “Lucifer threw a temper tantrum when Wingless here escaped, and when Thanatos didn’t come back, he blew up my cage in a fit of anger and I flew out the window,"
I shrugged. It sounded good, and Jessica would never betray me.
“Come on. We’re exploring this cave,” I said.
“Whoa, hold on. Aren’t you going to introduce me to your friend?” piped up Mason.
“What? I thought…Oh! Jessica, this is Mason. He’s my brother,”
“Wow..” Jessica breathed, “That’s great. Lets move on now?”
“Sure…” I said. Something was wrong, but I had no idea what it was. We started walking again. After a few minutes, I noticed that there was gold scattered all over the floor.
“Look!” I shouted, pointing at the floor. Their heads turned, and I stooped down to gather up the gold that was in my area.
“Stop!” shouted Mason. His foot came out of nowhere, kicking my hand and scattering my gold all over the floor.
“That gold is cursed,” said Mason.
“How do you know?” I snapped. He was beginning to annoy me. My fists tightened. I wanted the gold.
”I can see its aura. Its solid black. Don’t you see? Look at yourself...when I kicked your hand, you looked like you would have ripped me apart,”
“Oh…” I realized that what he had said was true, “Damnit. I’m sorry Mason...you’re right,” I said, kicking the gold away. We pushed on. The gold was growing much more prominent, and there were other things appearing too. There were several chests, burned and blackened. There were scrolls that were all rolled up, a few paintings, many suits of armor, rings, and some books.
“Wow…” I breathed, “Have we walked into a dragons cave or something?”
“Not possible,” corrected Mason, “The only dragons in existence sleep under the hills and mountains back on earth, awaiting Armageddon to awaken them. Satan could not have possibly lured one into Hell,”
“Well, we’re found something, that’s for sure,” I replied, stooping to pick up a peculiar looking helmet. When I grabbed it and turned it around, I dropped it to the ground in surprise.
“Holy shit!” I yelled, backing away from it.
“What? What is it? What do you see?” demanded Jessica. I pointed to the helmet. “There’s a freaking head in that thing!”
Jessica walked over to it, and kicked it right side up.
”Wow. We must be getting closer. This guy is only partially decomposed. Don’t be such a girlie-girl, Logan,” she said, tossing me the skull.
“It just surprised me, Jess. Is it that time of the month or something? You seem really bitchy,”
She ignored me, and kept walking. Either it was that time, or something was wrong. Knowing my luck, it wasn’t going to be the former. If you could call that luck. Some days, I would rather deal with every daemon in Hell then face a bitchy chick on her period. Ah well…not that it mattered. Jessica was always moody. All of a sudden, the tunnel came to an abrupt halt. At the end of it was a large, sparkly, solid platinum door.
“Whoa,” I said in awe, “That’s one really nice door,”
“Yeah,” agreed Mason,”
Suddenly, the door opened. It swung weightless on the hinges, and let out an ominous creaking sound. Mason and I stepped back, surprised, but Jessica stood her ground. An icy chill entered my body. Standing before us was…well, to be honest, I wasn’t quite sure what it was. It was humanoid, that was for sure. However, past the two legs, two arms, head, shoulders, torso thing, there wasn’t that much about it that was human. It was around six and a half feet tall, with talon-like fingernails, and a gaunt, sunken face. Its eye sockets were black and empty, except for two dark red pinpoints of light, which were apparently eyes. The creature’s limbs were small and shriveled up, like that of a zombie’s, but this was no zombie. Its clothes were that of royalty, and it had several rings on each skeletal hand. What was most noteworthy of it, however, was its hair. Unlike the rest of its body, which was a gaunt and colorless gray, its hair was bright silver.
“Oh God,” breathed Mason.
“What?” I hissed back.
“It’s a lich,” he replied.
The things eyes, which had been surveying us disinterestedly now widened to from the size of small specs of dust to the size of a fingernail. They were focused on Jessica. I could feel the temperature in the room going down notably. The ‘lich’ as Mason had called it, was still just standing there, doing nothing. Then, it opened its mouth, and spoke.
“It…can't…be…”
Its voice was a low, deep hiss that sent further chills through my blood.
“Who are you?” I spoke up, “what do you want?”
Its eyes didn’t leave Jessica, but its mouth opened and addressed me.
”Still your tongue, angel, for the only reason I have not killed you yet is because of her. Let me have peace in my misery,”
I turned to look at Jessica, to see that she had fallen unconscious. I lapsed into silence as he had ordered, and he continued to scrutinize Jessica.
“Awaken…” the lich intoned, and Jessica’s eyes opened.
“Be free…of…Satan…” the lich’s voice resonated. Jessica went rigid for a moment, and then relaxed. Dark matter began falling away from her, and consolidated right above the lich’s outstretched hand. It had turned into a golden droplet
“He was controlling her,” said Mason.
“She was probably PMSing too…” I grumbled.
“SILENCE!” screamed the lich, then waved its hand at us. Without warning, our mouths disappeared! I tried to curse him, but nothing came out.
“You were…under…the control of…Satan…” the lich told Jessica, “I…have freed…you…from…his…control…”
“Wrong,” Jessica cackled. Before I had time to demand what the hell was going on, Jessica exploded, sending flames flying everywhere. The ‘lich’ and Mason and I were all hurled back at an alarming speed. The fire pushed us out of the cave, and slammed us on the ground outside, just before an enormous fireball was emitted from the cave mouth.
