I'm on TDY from Hell

by BeamMeUpScotty

  By the time Uriel came to a stop every home in the neighborhood was either destroyed or burning to the ground, and it was only going to get worse. Seere leapt to seize the advantage of having his opponent on their back. He landed short of Uriel’s prone form, but the impact shook nearby houses right off of their foundations.

  More people died, and Uriel was slow to shake off the powerful blast. Her chest was smoldering and black where Lucifer had breached her armor, and golden ichor was dripping from other wounds she’d sustained. Seere moved with a purpose to end the battle. He towered over her, raised his broadsword for the killing stroke, and that’s when Ava hit him. She barreled into him like a missile and hit him center of mass between his wing joint and hip.

  Pain tore through her as her body folded under the impact. One of the first things she remembered being taught when she learned to fly was to never fly through something unless you knew how tough it was. Going insubstantial was always a better option.

  She had no idea how tough Seere was until she hit him, and she instantly regretted it, but she completed her mission. Seere’s sword went wide and dug into the earth to the side of Uriel’s head and the Infernal Lord stumbled to the side. It gave Uriel enough time to come to her senses. Her long leg lashed out and caught the Infernal in the side of the knee. The crunch of bone echoed through the destroyed suburban neighborhood as his stumble turned into a fall and he involuntarily released his sword.

  With their positions reversed Uriel moved in to finish the fight. Light flashed as Lucifer did what he’d always done and prevented Uriel from capitalizing on Seere’s weakness. The archangel snarled her defiance as she brought her orb up to deflect the blasts and backed away from Seere. There wasn’t anything she could do with Lucifer keeping her at bay, but Ava was free to do as she wished. Lucifer could only target one person at a time and if her targeted Ava, Uriel would spring into action. Both angels’ eyes met in a flash of understanding and they set their plan into motion. Uriel started to circle them. She stayed within range to strike at a moment’s notice, but she kept Lucifer’s attention focused on her. Ava would have the honor of finishing it.

  That didn’t solve the problem of the weapon. Ava had lost her sword earlier in the battle, and she wouldn’t be able to pummel the Infernal lord in his combat form, so she rushed to the only weapon in view.

  Seere was struggling to get to his feet. Uriel’s kick to the leg must have done more damage than Ava thought, so he was more concerned about finding something to help himself up with than what Ava was doing. Seere’s giant broadsword was nearly twice as tall as she was, but like all weapons of Divine Steel it conformed itself to its wielder’s will. The hundred-foot blade shrunk to fifty feet – still as tall as Ava – but she needed the power to do the job.

  She held the weapon like a knight holding a lance and charged. She beat her wings like her life depended on it and she threw everything she had behind the attack. All she needed was a split second. A split second where Seere was more concerned with his pain then what was going on around him. The slight lapse in situational awareness would be the end of the Great Dissenter.

  She was almost there when blue light washed over her. It was pure power focused into a beam of energy. It wasn’t Lucifer, or Uriel would have swept in for the kill, but that didn’t matter. Pain overwhelmed Ava as her skin crackled and burned. Her armor held but the pain and kinetic force of the blast were enough to throw her off course.

  It was enough for her to miss her mark.

  Instead of piercing Seere’s heart with his own sword, the blade went high and to the left. It impacted, cut through his armor, and into his flesh just below his shoulder.

  Seere’s guttural scream of agony washed over Ava with the force of righteous retribution. This man had helped drive the dagger into her daughter’s heart. He’d helped kill her youngest child, and exacting her pound of flesh felt glorious.

  She put all of her fifty-foot self into driving that blade deeper into the Infernal Lord’s body, and she succeeded for about two seconds before a second blast of blue light – weaker than the first – but still strong enough to knock her off of Seere’s back. The sword remained in his back like a flag planted in him saying, “Ava was here”. She smiled at the sight, picked herself up off the ground, and turned to face her attacker. She wanted to finish the Infernal Lord off, but someone stood between her and that goal, so she’d just have to kill him too.

  ***

  Gerry slumped to the ground. His arms felt heavy and his vision swam as dizziness washed over him. He’d emptied his well of power into those final two blasts. All that remained was the power he’d siphoned from Emmanuel and Lucian’s deaths. His demesne responded to his need and began to refill the void inside himself.

  He was visibly exhausted. The bright blue fire the normally coursed through the crevices in his armor was a subdued glow now. He’d shrunk to twenty feet – barely better than a guardian – as he expended his power to save his Lord. It was worth it though. If his Lord had died, Gerry would have died as well. At least that’s what he’d been told.

  It had been almost three millennia since an Infernal Lord had died. It had been during the never ending wars of Hell. Gerry heard the tale from General Icilius who heard it from his commander, who’d heard it from his commander, and so on and so forth back through the oral tradition of the Legion. The legend changed depending on who told the tale, but it never ended well for that Lord’s servants. From what Icilius said, Gerry got the impression that anyone with a direct link would die when their Lord died. In his current state, that fit Gerry to a T. Other servants like Legion members, administrators, and whores in that Lord’s kingdom wouldn’t perish, but they would probably prefer death.

  It would be a free-for-all for every other Lord of Hell to conquer that dead Lord’s lands, and that included all of his people. Gerry could imagine the pain and suffering the servants of Prince Seere would have to endure if the beasts of Beelzebub or patchwork soldiers of Cain invaded through the mountain passes or sortied across the Styx. It would be mayhem, death, and destruction for everything Gerry had defended for over two hundred years.

  Some losses would have been acceptable if Gerry would live through the event, but since he wouldn’t, allowing Seere to die was not an option. Seere needed to live at all costs.

  Gerry had fallen to his knees after the second blast zapped the strength from him, so he hauled himself back to his feet. He was a little unsteady, but he was ready to face his opponent.

  Ava picked herself up off the ground. She was hurt. Gerry could see the etches of pain on her face. She was favoring her side, so he guessed at least a few broken bones and maybe a dislocated shoulder. His energy blast had done some damage to her right wing as well. It hung at a weird angle and shuddered every time she tried to straighten it. For once they were on a level playing field…for now.

  Ava was shrinking to speed along her recovery. She was still twice the size of Gerry, but this was as good as it was going to get. Gerry summoned what power he had collected and felt it reinforce his weary combat form. It felt like a hit of crack as it spread through him, his senses became clear, his sense of his surroundings expanded, and he felt the comforting grip of his Divine Steel blade beneath his fingers. Ava had no blade, but she didn’t shy away from him. Her eyes were locked with his as he cautiously approached.

  They circled each other less than three hundred feet from the body of Prince Seere. He was doing his best to remove the blade from his shoulder, but the angle was wrong. He couldn’t reach it.

  “Do you think I’m extraordinary now?” Ava closed the distance between them by tightening the circle.

  Gerry didn’t answer. He needed to concentrate. He tracked her body with the æther. He felt her every movement, every twitch of her muscles, and every breath of air she took. They both stopped circling as the tension ratcheted up. She was on the tips of her toes and her whole body was loose and ready to react. Gerry’s was tense and ready to strike.
It felt like the whole universe froze for just a heartbeat before he lashed out.

  An overhead chop would have cleaved the Dominion in two from the navel down, but she nimbly sidestepped the blow. Gerry expected it and followed up with a horizontal slash that would have spilled her intestines at his Lord’s feet. She backpedaled and Gerry pressed the attack. A downward diagonal cut forced her to take a step back with one foot while he thrust at her other leg. She jumped back to avoid the stab and countered with her good wing.

  The blow caught him right on the jaw and his world exploded. He felt unconsciousness creeping up on him as he spun from the force of the stronger Dominion’s hit, but he fought it back. He rotated his core and slashed behind himself to avoid her taking advantage of his momentarily stunned state.

  The sword made contact with something hard and pushed against it for a second before cutting through. Ava’s scream indicated he’d struck home, and as he turned to bring her back into his wavering vision a fountain of golden angelic ichor splashed across his face. His haphazard blow had lopped off the Dominion’s arm below the elbow and it was fountaining the angel’s essence.

  The angel’s ichor wasn’t the only think leaking from the woman. His situational awareness sensed the æther flooding out of her, and he jumped on it with desperation. He sucked up anything he could like a drowning man gasping for air. It only lasted for a few seconds before she staunched the physical and metaphysical bleeding, but it was enough for Gerry to feel Divine æther enter his body and nestle into a part of his being where he’d stored Emmanuel’s æther after his death. The two æthers melded together and created something totally new. Like before, it was a foreign but comforting sensation, and it gave him hope.

  Hope was a dangerous thing to have, and Ava proved that by lashing out. The kick was so fast and powerful he didn’t see it coming. It struck the side of his head, picked him off his feet, and threw him into the burning wreckage of one of the houses. He landed head first, felt the Infernal Iron of his weakened body crumble, and lost all sensation in his extremities. He didn’t need to feel it to know he’d lost his sword.

  Aether flooded into his injuries. It repaired the sizeable dent in his skull and straightened his neck from its awkward angle, and returned feeling to parts of his body that had gone numb from the strike. It all happened in a matter of seconds, but when he struggled to his feet Ava had his sword in her hand. The blade grew and ignited with Divine fire.

  “You are still extraordinary,” he finally answered the question as he saw death advancing against him.

  He’d been in enough battles to know when he was facing a superior foe, and he’d died enough times to know the feeling that was creeping through him. He just hoped he’d bought his Lord enough time.

  Heavy footsteps brought his defeatist thoughts to a screeching halt.

  Light flashed overhead and Lucifer pushed forward into the fray. Uriel fired back with her orb, but he dodged with such quickness it seemed like he disappeared and reappeared in a second location in the blink of an eye. Before either Ava or Gerry could react, Lucifer was standing in their midst.

  ***

  Lucifer fired blast after blast and drove Uriel back. The injured archangel was barely keeping up with his relentless assault. Blasts were getting past her guard, bashing in her armor and scorching her flesh. Despite her valiant effort, Uriel was going to lose this fight.

  One blast made her stagger and she nearly dropped her spear. Lucifer pressed the offensive and poured a continuous beam into her helmet. He heard her screams as the Divine Steel melted and fused with her flesh. Out of sheer will she kept ahold of her weapon and brought the orb in front of his beam, but it was too late. The damage was already done. Lucifer advanced to finish the job, but she launched herself into the air. He fired again, aiming for her wings, but she spun in the air and his shot went wide. Her instincts saved her. One minute she was two hundred and fifty feet tall, the next she was less than six, and on the third she vanished.

  The war had just begun, and he had no doubt they would cross paths on future battlefields.

  He walked forward, crushing a human who had survived Uriel’s destruction of the neighborhood like a bug beneath his foot. He scanned the area for more threats. Seere was down with a sword protruding from his back. His Dux was engaging and failing to defeat Charlotte’s Dominion, and there were a handful of guardians still skirmishing with other lesser Infernals on the periphery.

  “Brother,” Lucifer walked over to Seere, but still kept an eye on the Dominion.

  “Brother.” Seere wheezed. “Help get the blade out.” He pointed with his thumb over his shoulder at the sword.

  “Stabbed in the back with your own blade,” Lucifer shook his head. “Look at you.”

  “What?” Seer had managed to get up onto his hands and knees.

  Lucifer placed his armored foot in the center of Seere’s back and shoved him back to the ground.

  “We had a deal, Lucifer,” Seere coughed as he pulled his back out of the ground.

  “We did,” Lucifer replied, “and it has been honored. We broke the seal and each of us took from that what we agreed upon.” Light began to build behind his visor.

  “This is madness!” Seere sneered up at his older brother. “We’re on the eve of something momentous. The border between Hell and Eden is crumbling. Soon our armies will pour into this realm and take it by force. We will rewrite the rule of the æther, consolidate our forces, gather our strength, and then march against Father.”

  “I will march against Father,” Lucifer corrected as he grabbed the hilt of the sword and twisted the blade.

  Seere screamed as flesh ripped and Divine Steel cut into more vital organs.

  “You will be remembered, Brother. As the Great Dissenter you stood up to Father with me and highlighted the disparity between us and them. You showed how he treated his creations better than his own children. I will always be grateful that you stood with me on that day, but that’s what your best at…standing. You’ve never been a great warrior. You are a thinker and an administrator. You were a Throne for a reason. What is coming next is best left to minds like my own.”

  “I can work for you,” desperation crept into Seere’s voice.

  “No,” Lucifer shook his head sadly. “I don’t need you brains, I need your power. Satan will drag us all down the wrong path if there is not someone there as a counterweight, and to be that counterweight I need to be stronger.”

  With a sweeping gesture runes on Lucifer’s armor glowed to life.

  “Brother, please,” Seere pleaded.

  “I really am sorry, Brother.” Lucifer pushed on the blade until it went all the way through Seere and exploded out his breastplate.

  The Great Dissenter’s screams shook the earth and flattened trees and homes like a nuclear shockwave. In one fluid movement Lucifer pulled the blade from Seere’s back. As he raised it above his head it enlarged to over a hundred feet long while the blade itself grew thicker and sharper.

  “I will miss you.” With a THUNK Lucifer beheaded Seere and soaked up the former Infernal Lord’s power.

  His body swelled even more and he grew larger as more æther than Lucifer had ever held in his life poured into him. The light in his helmet grew brighter, and the Morning Star laughed as he spread his wings and took to the air with a blast that flattened what was left of the several square miles around the high school.

  ***

  Gerry felt like the rug had been pulled out from under him. On top of that, it also felt like a yellow school bus filled with rambunctious, overweight Sumo wrestlers backed over his head, put the bus in drive, and then drove back over him for good measure. It felt like someone had reached inside his chest and ripped out his heart, and then kicked him in the balls repeatedly.

  His whole world came crashing down when Seere’s head was removed from his body. He felt Lucifer’s laughter in his bones as the Infernal Lord leapt into the air a
nd vanished in the opposite direction of Michael and Satan. Gerry didn’t know where he was going, and he didn’t care. It was over, done, kaputz.

  Gerry had felt something snap when Seere died and Lucifer consumed his æther. It was like gravity had ceased to exist. Everything Gerry had done, his afterlife purpose in this universe, was to fulfill the will of his Lord. It was an incredibly freeing feeling for a moment, but the weightlessness was crippling. He was a dinghy in the middle of a hurricane, and he could see the sea rising up to swallow him whole.

  Seere’s body was already beginning to disintegrate. He was deflating like a balloon while his form flaked away like ash in the wind. It was for the best. Gerry didn’t want anyone to see the once mighty Lord like this. Not that it really mattered. No one was going to see Gerry again.

  That was what hurt most about it all. Gerry knew he was going to die. He knew Ava was going to defeat him, but when Lucifer arrived he let hope in. The emotion, one of the most powerful and terrible in this universe, seeped into his mind. He thought, just for a moment, that everything was going to be ok. Images flashed through his mind of him leading a great force to battle against the humans and the Divine. He imagined himself scaling the Pearly Gates and throwing angels from the ramparts of Heaven. He imagined himself in God’s throne room standing at Seere’s right hand as he distributed true justice to the realms.

  Now, all of that was gone, and he was left with Ava. The Dominion looked just as surprised as him, but it wasn’t any consolation.

  “Infernals.” She shook her head and moved. Suddenly,she was standing within striking distance.