02- Satan!

by Michael-Scott Earle

  “We have all that. But you might have to help me. I’ve never set up one before, and I need an experienced hand to show me where to plug in all the parts.” The red-skinned succubus emphasized the word ‘plug’ when she talked, and I wondered if she was trying to flirt with me.

  “Oh, I can do that now. I actually ate a bunch earlier, so I'm not super hungry.” I set down my slice of pizza and stood up from my chair.

  “Awesome! I’ve got the Xbox in the other room. Will you get it with me real quick?” she asked.

  “I’ll come with,” Charlotte said as she set down her fork and knife.

  “Oh, that is okay, sweetie. I just need Philip to come with me. We’ll be back in ten, maybe fifteen minutes.”

  “His name is Sherman, and he isn’t leaving my sight,” Charlotte growled.

  “I didn’t think he was yours. You didn’t say anything earlier when I asked. Maybe there should be another Death Match?” Paige’s sexy voice had dropped an octave, and her growl matched the other winged girl’s intensity.

  “You obviously don’t know about me or you wouldn’t have said anything about a Death Match,” Charlotte stood up from her chair and slid around the table to stand between me and the red-skinned succubus.

  “Oh, I know all about you, Charlotte. That is why I’m not even a bit scared. If anything, I’d look forward to taking your play thing away from--”

  “Paige!” Barrtazzu screeched from the other side of the room.

  “Yes, my lord?” The succubus turned to her master.

  “Where is this video game? I want to eat while I watch this human beat Takatoor.”

  “Hey, I’m not going to lose to that--” The faceless devil leaned forward over his uneaten pizza and gestured toward me.

  “Shut up! Idiot! Everyone here knows you are a few minutes away from destruction. You don’t even know what a video game is. The human is about to curb stomp you.”

  “I’ve never lost in battle, Barrtazzu. I will defeat the human in video battle and then devour his flesh and soul slowly while his woman watches. Then I’ll have my way with her afterward.”

  “Leave Charlotte out of this, you no-faced skinny lizard!” I spat at the creature.

  “Ohhhhhh!” the gathered demons let out a low moan, and Takatoor leaned forward in his seat.

  “Fine, I’ll leave your woman alone. Instead, I’ll just let tell your dumb ass that your momma’s so fat, when God made the light, he just asked her to move out of the way.”

  “Owwwwwww!” the other demons shouted with glee.

  “Yeah? Well your momma’s so stupid, she taped a newspaper to the front of her TV screen and called it pay-per-view,” I snickered at the faceless devil.

  “Hooooo!” the demons put their hands over their chests and leaned back in their chairs.

  “Oh yeah? Well, your momma’s so ugly, she can’t buy mirrors without a bag over her head.” Takatoor stood from his office chair, marched in place, and did a robot dance move to place an invisible bag over his head.

  “Dammmmmmmmmnnnnn,” the demons laughed as they matched his movement.

  “Your momma’s so stupid, she got hit by a parked car!” I made a pretend movement to pull up on a parking brake of a car and then made a move like I was falling over.

  “Oh snap!” one of the other demons shouted, and the rest laughed.

  “Your momma’s so fat, her belly button has to eat three meals a day,” Takatoor smacked his featureless gray devil stomach and tried to push it out.

  “Dang!”

  “Your momma’s so ugly, that when she met Lucifer, the dude turned gay.” I crossed my arms after I spoke and shook my head.

  The room exploded with laughter, and there were suddenly half a dozen demons around me. They all patted my back with taloned hands that somehow didn’t rip me to shreds. It was obvious that I'd just won the crowd by bringing Lucifer's name into the match.

  “Your mom's a cunt!” Takatoor screamed as he pointed at me.

  The demons’ laughter screeched to a halt faster than the Bugatti had.

  “Whoa. Hey now, Takatoor, no need to use the ‘C’ word,” Barrtazzu growled, and the massive demon’s wings fluttered open to fill the side of the room where he sat.

  “Sorry. I got a little angry.”

  “I can understand anger, but we don’t use the ‘C’ word. Understand?” The other demons in the room all glared at the faceless devil.

  “I fucked up, okay? Shit, man. It’s not a big deal.”

  “I think you owe the human an apology,” the demon lord said.

  “What? Nooooooo. Come on. It was just in the heat of the moment. Besides, I’m going to kill him in a few minutes when we do our Death Match.”

  “I don’t care. We don’t call each other’s moms the ‘C’ word. Apologize. Now.” Barrtazzu’s wings were quivering and the red-spotted bear-bull demon stood up from his box of Domino’s pizza.

  “Fine. Human, I’m sorry for saying that about your mom,” Takatoor’s shoulders slumped.

  “That’s okay,” I said as I tried to make sense of a group of demons that wanted to kill each other through a blood sport and loved momma jokes, but drew the insult line at anyone calling a woman the ‘C’ word.

  “Now apologize to the two succubi in the room,” Barrtazzu commanded.

  “Awww, come on, boss. Do I have to? They are just slaves. They don’t even have feelings.”

  “Excuse me?” both Charlotte and Paige said at the same time. Their spat seemed to have been forgotten, and their eyes burned across the table with a fearsome anger.

  “Hey, I’m sorry. My bad, okay?” Takatoor raised his gray hands up in surrender.

  “I’ll fucking make you sorry,” the red succubus growled, and her hands became claws.

  “Paige, take it up with him after the result of the Death Match. Speaking of that, where is this video game the human wants?”

  “I’ll set it up now,” she dashed out the door. Half a second after it swung closed, the red-skinned succubus walked back through carrying an unopened Xbox One box.

  “Jonathan, can you help me set this up? Here are the connections to the projector,” she said as she set the game on the table and lifted a wooden panel that concealed various connection ports.

  “His name is Sherman,” Charlotte hissed at the red-skinned woman.

  “Oh, sorry,” she apologized to me. “Can you open my box please?” she pointed with a smirk.

  “Yep.”

  Of course, Paige had obtained the red-colored console, but before I could move to help her, the other succubus stepped in front of me.

  “I’ll do it.” Charlotte pushed me gently away from the Xbox and the red-skinned succubus. Then she sliced open the taped sides with the razor-sharp nail of her pointer finger.

  “Awww, Charlotte is no fun,” Paige pouted.

  “We need to get back to Satan. This is taking too long.” Charlotte pulled the Xbox free of the cardboard. Then the brown-haired succubus yanked out all the cords, controllers, and various paperwork. She looked at them with obvious confusion once they had been laid out on the conference table, and then she turned to me with a sheepish grin.

  “I’ll set it up.” I was a wizard at video games, and the console system was plugged into the projector, internet port, and power within fifteen seconds. Then the game was on, and Paige handed me an American Express Black Card to enter for the account info.

  “Everyone but the human and Paige, look away! You can’t see my card info! Idiots!” Barrtazzu shouted at his generals as soon as I started typing in the credit card number. The other demons groaned, and they turned to face the far door as I finished entering the card number.

  “Okay. Here is the store,” I said as I navigated the XBox database. I searched for the Darkstalkers 3 game and found it quickly. I pressed the button to purchase it with Barrtazzu’s account, and the game began to download.

  “Wow. Fast internet you’ve got here,” I said as I watched the Microsof
t progress wheel.

  “How will I punch you through this game?” Takatoor asked from his spot across the table from me.

  “You use this controller,” I said as I slid the red controller across the table.

  “I punch you with this piece of plastic?” the faceless devil asked, and his voice was filled with confusion.

  “No, you hit the buttons on the controller. They do a light, medium, or heavy punch or kick. Each level is a little slower, but does more damage. First, we have to pick our characters.”

  I started the game and picked the game mode. The character-select screen appeared, and I picked Lilith. She was one of the two succubus girls that a player could pick in the game.

  “What character do I pick?” Takatoor asked.

  “Pick the demon!” one of the fiends yelled.

  “Pick that Frankenstein character!” yelled another.

  “Ooh! The handsome muscular vampire man!” another demon yelled, and the others turned to look at him.

  “I’m picking this one.” Takatoor selected the Sasquatch character. He was covered with white fur and had big feet.

  “When do I announce the start of the Death Match?” Barrtazzu asked me from his chair.

  “It is starting right now,” I said as the loading screen showed our two character pictures.

  “Two warriors fight for death and the glory of Satan. Begin,” the red-spotted panda demon said nonchalantly as he waved a massive finger.

  The game announcer shouted “READY FIGHT,” and I felt hands brush against the back of my neck.

  “Win this battle, and I’ll fulfill all of your wildest sexual desires,” Paige whispered in my ear urgently. Then she licked my earlobe before she bit it lightly.

  My pants were painfully tight over my lap, my breath caught, and the sound of the roaring demons around me faded into the background. There was nothing in life besides the controller in my hand, the video feed projected on the wall, and the sound of the combat effects.

  It.

  Was.

  Game.

  Time.

  I pressed the button to make my Lilith character jump toward Takatoor’s Sasquatch avatar. The faceless devil had no idea what he was doing, and his character made small twitching movements as I descended on him from above. I hit him with a drill kick as I landed, and comboed into a few short jabs, a medium kick, a wing-spiral punch, and then a throw. The fluffy white Sasquatch got up off the ground, and I was waiting with a landing punch, that I comboed into a ‘Soul Flash’ fireball, followed by two light kicks that I bounced into a ‘Shining Blade’ uppercut. His character got up stunned, and I hit him again with a jump kick, tapped him twice with the light punch, kicked him with a light kick, and then triggered the ‘Luminous Illusion’ EX power attack. Lilith turned into two images on the screen, and both characters beat the remaining life out of the devil’s Sasquatch. I got a thirty-one-hit combo out of the effort, and the game announcer said ‘MONSTER’ as I finished.

  The first round was over in a handful of seconds, but I wasn’t quite happy with my performance. I was distracted by what Paige had said, and I would have to focus more during the next round.

  “What was that?” Takatoor asked from across the table as the ‘YOU WIN. PERFECT’ words appeared on the screen.

  He was holding his controller upside down, and I almost told him to correct his technique, but then I recalled that he wanted to murder me, he’d said mean things about Charlotte, and Paige had just licked my ear, so I decided to keep quiet.

  “That was round one. First player to two wins,” I said with a shrug.

  “Wait, no. This isn’t fair.”

  “ROUND TWO. FIGHT.” the game said.

  The demons in the room screamed and pointed at the projection on the wall with joy. I got the feeling that they loved any sort of battle, even a virtual one, and they were happy that I’d beaten one of their own.

  This round was even faster. My combo meter was halfway filled already, and I double tapped the controller to dash toward the Sasquatch character. I’d made these movements a million times, against a thousand opponents, and the first combo chained into a second, and then a third. My punches, kicks, and special moves were smooth and flawless. It had been a long time since I lost a fighting match, on any video game, and I was really dang good at Darkstalkers.

  Then the fight was over, and the game announcer commented “MONSTER” to my seventy-eight-hit combo. It wasn’t the highest that I’d ever gotten, but it was close.

  “That’s it. You lose,” I said to the faceless devil as the words appeared on the screen.

  “No!” the monster screamed as he jumped at me.

  A dozen movements happened simultaneously, and even though I had a hardcore gamer’s level of perception, I couldn’t really observe everything that happened as he dove. Both Charlotte and Paige were standing behind me, and the red-skinned succubus dashed in front of me, while the brown-haired one pulled me backwards out of my office chair.

  Takatoor’s body stretched across the conference table, but the large demons to the sides of him had grabbed his ankles. Another pair of demons held onto the monster’s featureless arms, and Paige cradled the faceless head in her claws. The room was filled with growls, and the other demons had sprung onto the polished surface of the table to surround the loser.

  “Let me kill him, Jeremy!” the red-skinned succubus moaned urgently at me.

  “Ummm, can’t we just let him--”

  “You have to kill him, or tell Paige to kill him. His form will be revealed once he dies,” Charlotte whispered urgently into the same ear that Paige had earlier.

  “Please let me do it!” Paige gasped again. The look on her face and the tone of her voice made me think about all the movies that I shouldn’t have been watching on the internet.

  “Okay.” I winced as I said the word, but I couldn’t turn my eyes away.

  The red-skinned woman tore into the faceless devil’s throat with her sharp talons. It seemed like three gallons of black oil poured out of his neck, and the greasy liquid got all over some of the pizza boxes that had been accidently tossed on the floor of the conference room.

  Takatoor’s body spasmed for a few moments as he died, but the other demons held his limbs, and he couldn’t do anything to move. Finally, his head leaned forward, and his skin glowed with a white light before it darkened.

  “Hey, will you look at that? Takatoor was a devildop!” one of the big demons said.

  “No. You idiot!” Barrtazzu yelled at other demon. “The devildop had been impersonating Takatoor. He must have killed the balor a while ago. Hmmm,” the demon growled.

  The room was silent for a few moments, and Paige wiped the black oil off her claws with one of the pizza napkins.

  “Human mortal,” the red-spotted, horned demon looked at me with burning eyes. “You’ve done as Satan told me you would. I didn’t believe you, but it appears that I did have a traitor.”

  “If you didn’t believe me, then why did you encourage this Death Match?” I asked. I was suddenly conscious of Charlotte’s arms around me. Her breasts pressed up against my back, and I felt my head start to spin a bit.

  “I wanted to see someone with Satan’s mark die,” the demon lord said with a shrug. Then he laughed, and the rest of the demons in the room joined him.

  “We’ve got to get back to Lord Satan,” Charlotte said after the mirth in the room died down a bit.

  “No,” Barrtazzu growled angrily. The big demon stood from his chair, and his wings unfurled to their full length again. “The human mortal must do something for me before he leaves.” His eyes burned like lasers.

  “Ummm, what can I do for you?” I squeaked as terror filled my body.

  “That game,” he said as he pointed a massive taloned finger at the Xbox One. “Look’s fun. Teach us how to play for a few hours, and then you can leave.”

  “Oh,” I gasped, and felt my shoulders relax. “Sure thing.”

  “Me firs
t! Idiots!” the red-spotted Hell lord screamed as the other demons tried to grab the controller that the devildop had held a few moments before.

  “That is your first step of training. In video-game speak, you don’t call someone an idiot,” I said.

  “You don’t?” he asked with a furry raised eyebrow.

  “No, you call them ‘newbs.’”

  “Me first. Newbs.” Barrtazzu declared to his generals before he snatched the controller and turned to the screen.

  Chapter 9

  “Hmmmm,” Paige moaned as she wrapped her arms around me and pulled me to her bikini-clad body. “You sure you can’t stay for the night, Dennis? I have a big bed, and lots of toys.” I’d never had a woman hug me like the red-skinned succubus now was, and I had to pull my ass away so that the front of my pants wasn’t poking into her.

  “His name is Sherman!” Charlotte yelled. She was at the car some thirty feet away, and I was still standing at the doorstep of Barrtazzu’s castle saying goodbye to the tatted woman.

  I'd played video games with Barrtazzu and his generals for almost five hours, eaten the pizza that wasn’t soaked with the devil’s blood, and taught them as much as I could in the brief period. The demons now knew the basics of Capcom fighting games, and I told them that I’d love to return and teach them other games.

  “Tell Charlotte to come back for you later. Or tell her to join us. It will be so much fun,” Paige moaned a husky growl into my ear.

  “I can hear you, Paige. We have to leave. Satan is expecting us back,” Charlotte sounded more than a little frustrated.

  “Oh, drats,” the red-skinned succubus’ tail had somehow coiled around my left leg, and it was giving me a surprisingly pleasant squeeze around my thigh.

  “Paige.” Charlotte’s voice was a growl.

  “By Satan. She’s a jealous one, eh?” Paige sighed and then released me from her hug. Her tail slid away from my leg, but it ran most of its length over my crotch as it left, and I gasped with equal parts surprise, arousal, and terror.

  “Boop,” the red-skinned succubus said as she tapped my nose with her finger. “Come back and see me when you lose the leg iron. If you recall, I owe you a night of bliss, and I’m more than willing to make it a few weeks, or months, or years.”