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Chapter Text

"It is done.....it is finally done........it's..... it's dead."

Reynald looked on over his shoulders. He is tired. His armor is warped and bent. Shreds and pieces of it lay on the dark empty space that resembles a floor. He also sees the bodies...the corpses....his friends. Dismas, Barristan the man at arms, the Vestal Junia, all of them. All 18 of them went into the dungeon together. Not sticking to the four body comp they had always done. They needed to make sure this thing had died. And it did but at a cost.
Reynald is the only one left.
Alone.
Alive.
The old crusader doesn't have a ballad or a prayer to even say. The many months and years it took to cleanse this hamlet of filth had finally come to an end. The heir can finally set things right. The evil is finally slain. The Darkest dungeon will finally see the light. The sword is driven into the hearts...heart. His hands clasping the black, sticky, blood-covered, hilt.

But Reynald can't move anymore, he is too tired, too injured. He starts to shake in his destroyed armor and collapses on his knees. He sees his sides have been cut, bleeding. His arm is broken and that both of his legs have been dead tired from the constant running and dashing into the fray. He knows this is the end. He begins to see what the darkness around him is doing. It's still moving. But it's dying. It's pulsating, angry, mad, Terrified. It's consuming the corpses of his former comrades, but the pulsing doesn't stop. Then the darkness starts to close in onto the crusader, with a slow as sludge fury. The Crusader simply chuckles.
"Heh heh heh heh heh heh. So.....still trying to worm you way out of here eh!"
The darkness slowly surrounds. Edging slowly.
"Well go ahead, you vile pest. The dungeons surrounded by wards, and without a proper host, you'll die here. Heh heh heh."
The darkness is now growing fast. It is now a sludge. It oozes forward towards Reynald. But as it tries to engulf his leg. It screeches!
"SCREEEEEEEAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!"
Reynald is still blessed.
"Heh heh I'm the host for the light, fiend.....but not for long. I'll die and this body will be useless to you. My soul will be gone and you'll have no control. It's like I said already. You'll die in this place with us."
The darkness at this point doesn't even care anymore. It lunges at Reynald with a loud roar and slams its undulating body up against the crusader's breastplate! The dark pulsating Creature hisses and sizzles as holy blessing burns its body. The smell is of burning rubber and feces. A smell Reynald has grown accustomed to. It rives and bashes against its chest, hissing and growling like a wounded animal, trying desperately to somewhat make Reynald afraid, make him feel pain......but Reynald simply laughs.
"ha hah hah ha hah ha ha ha ha ha HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA *gasp* HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!"
Reynald is laughing, even death he is laughing. The Darkness is now afraid, why is he laughing!? He's dying! Shouldn't he be......afraid?
Reynald simply smiles and then speaks
"Unholy foulness! I will take you with me!"
And with that, the dungeon collapses, the darkness cannot sustain the structure of the dungeon, and in the end. The Darkest Dungeon is no more.

Welcome to Hell

Reynald wakes up.
"Argh......what?"
He is on gravel or sand? whatever it is, he is on pebbles. He blinks for a bit, before rising up from the ground. He doesn't feel tired anymore.
"That's Strange?" Reynald thought
"Wasn't I in the dungeon?"
He looks at himself and sees that his wounds have suddenly healed. His armor is as good as new. No holes, or scratches, or discolored pieces. It's as if his armor was spontaneously fixed itself. Reynald is confused for a moment. How could this happen? He then notices it......the moon......it has a bright glowing pentagram on it!
"WHAT THE FUCK!!!!"
Reynauld backs away for a moment. He then notices something.....the Pentagram.....it was familiar. Like the ones the occultist drew. One of the many symbols and circles that sealed demons, not release them. After recognizing that the seal as their for sealing something, Reynauld slowly relaxed a bit. That is until he notices more. Towers......glass towers.
He looks about his new landscape and discovers....a whole new world! He is on a 2 story rooftop! Their buildings were tall and large, they are made of glass, eyeballs, teeth, and flesh! Was it more eldiritch!?....no....these eyeballs and teeth looked......friendly? Calm? He didn't have the words to describe how he felt. But he sensed no danger from them like the dungeons eyeballs and hunks of flesh. The knight simply had to take it all in. Flashing neon lights, signs with hookers and strippers, a somehow moving picture on a building, cafes selling drugs like candy, and.....the demons. Tens upon hundreds of them. Flying, and running about the buildings. The whole place was flooded with Demons, Reynald looked surprised! His mouth is agape.
Demons! Here! Am i-
He turns behind him and comes face to face with a billboard. Luckily it answers his question.
"Welcome to Hell, Your dead! So shut the fuck up and suck it up"
Reynald froze for a moment, he couldn't believe it, but it did. He was in hell. But then all of a sudden he couldn't help but laugh at this.
"Heh heh...So.....this is my fate....to suffer in hell....he...Then If the gods wish for this to be so, then I will accept this fate then."
He knew full well he couldn't be saved. He had been on crusades against heathens. He had slaughtered many. But his time at the hamlet had made him reflect on his decisions. Made him doubt his choices. He had slaughtered and robbed from people. From different religions, yes. But....still people. He was plagued by these thoughts every day, praying and meditating on this subject. Did he do the right thing? Did he do God's will? Well of course not. He was hell, that means he deserved it to be here. He would not be granted access to heaven. Reynauld had to sit down. It was so much to just take in. The sights, the sound, the smell, all of it. It was so alien to him, it was both intimidating and amazing to behold.
"Huff.........this place is a lot more different than I expected."
The knight, regaining his thoughts quickly surveyed his surroundings. It was intense.

There was a brawl with two bull-like demons near one of the many taverns, hookers lined the streets waiting for pay, demons of various shapes and sizes milled about, and.....moving iron carriages with no horses?
Hell was certainly strange, what he expected, but not this different? Reynald looked over his armor again. Seeing it still in preen condition, not shiny, but a dull grey, but still works though. He notices his surcoats color had changed. From a bright white and yellow to a dark, grey and red cross. He didn't mind it, made him blend in more easily. But that's when he notices something else, his longsword is still on his belt. As he reaches for it, a small warm glow emits from it the pommel. He unsheathed the blade, as it makes a large hum in the air, it's point still as sharp as ever, but....he notices that it's a lot more....intimidating than he remembered. The glow seemed to bother him a bit. But it then faded, making him see his reflection. His helmet was new. The Armet helmet he once wore was now more.....strange. The helmet still had the chainmail to protect his neck, and they were no horns protruding from his skull. But the helmet's visor was shredded, made to look like fangs or spikes, but other than that, he noticed....a shadow. Slowly he removes his helmet, and sees.....he's a demon!
A shadow demon! His face had been replaced with nothing more than a shadow, no wrinkles, no distinctive curves, no stubble of a beard, no facial features at all. Just a smooth black as pitch...shadow. He could see his eyes were a bright white and his mouth was a bright white as well. His body was a complete flaming shadow demon, his body was like a black flaming body of darkness, embers or pieces of darkness sputtering like embers. He had no hair to speak of. If he counted his hair as shadowy wisps of darkness that moved like a campfire. At first, the crusader was stricken with surprise and fear, but he couldn't help but laugh at his irony.
"Heh heh heh eh heh he hehe. Oh, how tragic. A knight that served the light and fought the darkness. Is now a shadow of his former self."
The Knight laughed at the ridiculous fate that bestowed him. He was not human anymore. He wasn't going back home by the looks of things either.
"Huff.....oh well might as well look around if I'm here for eternity."
The Crusader quickly puts his helmet back on and quickly descends the rooftop of the pot store. Down the nearby ladder, and Into the dark pits of hell.

Chapter Text

The walk through the city was anything but smooth for Reynauld. He had gotten weird looks from some of the other demons. But it was to be expected, he was an armored knight walking through the streets of a modern city. No one could really expect that to happen, and It also wasn't anything that Reynauld expected either. They were fights in the streets and ally ways, prostitutes trying to get him to a bed, drugs were being sold by some weird looking metal cabinet, it was all very new to the Crusader. He noticed that a large amount of these shops was surprisingly, very tame. Cafes, clothing stores (selling latex clothing), book stores (selling porn), and various drug stores, all in all, it was a lot tamer than the knight intentionally thought. He noted that the color and atmosphere of hell was....that he can only describe as very Red. Everything to the walls and even the sky was either light red or very dark red. Granted he saw many demons with different colored fur and skin, but the whole place could do with a little more color than this. He actually missed the grey and brown of the hamlet, at least it was easy on the eyes. Reynauld continued to walk the streets, ignoring the jeers and insults from various other demons he passed by. Until a small silhouette appeared before him.

"Don't move."

Reynaulds attacker was a small rat-like demon, a face of a rat, but the body of a small human, and by the looks of it, the creature was an addict. Sores and scratches covered its neck and arms, he was fidgeting and nervous. The creature had a weapon similar to Dismas's flintlock. A lot sharper and edged than the smooth metal and wood that was Dismas's gun, but it was still a gun. Instead of fearing the gun the rat demon presented, Reynauld simply replied.

"......really?"

"..............jus...jus ...JUST GIVE ME YOUR MONEY UNLESS YOU WANT TO-"

SMACK! CRACK!

Reynauld grabbed the rat's arm and pointed the gun towards the ground, reared his fist back, and deliverers a punch powerful strong enough to knock out the rat demon and into the nearby trash bin. Reynauld looks around him, expecting the demons around him to pounce on him, but no. They simply ignored what just happened, as if it didn't happen at all. Reynauld simply shrugged and picked up the rat demon and placed him into the dumpster, along with his gun. Reynauld however, ever the altruistic man he was, decided to pity the poor demon and took 5 gold coins from his pouch and place them in the demon’s pockets. Even in hell, you must have standards.

Following the alleyway he was in, he came out the other side and found that he was in the middle of a busy market center. He was mildly impressed by it. Various demons and creatures selling food, drink, more drugs, and sex. Even though there was a lack of law enforcement, it was peaceful. As peaceful as you can get with, drunk demons arguing with each other, and drugged up demons having public sex. Reynauld had originally thought that place was going to be a wasteland. Fire and brimstone, but no, it was just a very.... shitty city.

CRASH!!!

Reynauld quickly turns around.

Where did that crash come from?

He looks around a bit and sees a group of goat-headed demons, a larger one welding an Ax. The weapon that the demon had glowed like his sword, but it wasn't as powerful. It was then that he noticed someone on the ground.... a blonde, pale-looking demon on her back. By the looks of it, they're harassing her. She doesn't look like a prostitute, her clothing covers her entire body, surprisingly. She also doesn't look like she's selling anything. Maybe she was a random shopper. Bullying was what Reynauld initially expected in hell, along with pain and suffering, but this.... this felt horrible. The girl looks as if she didn't even deserve this cruelty, and the goats are just tormenting her and having fun doing it! No one is helping her, instead, the nearby demons around her are laughing as well. Taking pleasure at her torment. Reynauld felt something flare up inside of him. The nearby demons around him that were once laughing, felt something sinister from behind them. They quickly began to back off as he began to stomp toward these goat demons, they could feel the heat radiating from him. A feeling that Reynauld never lost in the hamlet, even in death. A sense of Righteousness.

1 minute earlier

Charlie is near the center, standing in a booth colored in rainbows and tape with pictures of animals. She is holding brightly colored flyers with rainbows and puppies. The blonde, pale demon lady is trying desperately to get a mosquito-like demon to come to her hotel.

"Hi there! Would like to-"

But like always, the demon ignores her and tears up the flyer given to her. It had been several months since their last patients arrived, but no one still wants to go to the hotel. Charlie isn't a quitter though, she needs to do this, to redeem these sinners. It worked at attracting a few demons to her hotel, not by a lot, but enough. Vaggie is out posting flyers out, and Charlie is left to man the stand. And as always, today's business is slow. Charlie was sad by this, but never let her smile be broken. She takes a deep breath and steps up to a large group of goat-like demons.

"Hi, there! Would you like to hear about how you can be redeemed?"

The five goat demons stop in their tracks; they laugh a bit. But they seem to take interest in this supposed redemption thing. And look over the stand. The biggest one of the group speaks up

"Nice stand you got here, dolphins?"

Charlie happily replies "Thanks! I thought it might attract more people"

"Well, it certainly did...I hate dolphins."

The Goat demon suddenly summons an ax and raises it above his head and began's to hack into the nearby display.

"Wait! STOP! what are you-"

The goat demon suddenly kicks Charlie in the gut, knocking her to the ground. The nearby demons laugh as the goat demons start to destroy her stand. Charlie is on the ground clenching her stomach, but that didn’t mean she was down for the count. Charlie can handle her own in a fight if needed, her fight with Katie Killjoy was a good example. But she then notices that the weapon the demon is holding is a divine weapon. Capable of permanently killing a demon, either they born in hell or if they were a sinner. But before she could react, the leader of the group grabs Charlie by her neck and lifts her, choking her. The burly goat demon wore a wife beater shirt, and tan shorts, he is at least 7ft tall has a muscular build and a pentagram on his head.

"Aw did it hurt princess? GOOD! It's about time someone beat some sense into you, YOU FUCKIN WHORE!"

Laughter erupts from the nearby demons. Charlie was always used to people spitting on her ideas or insulting her, but to physically attack her and try to hurt her. Many demons would try to avoid that, due to her being the princess of hell. But these demons simply didn't care. Charlie knew Vaggie wasn't going to make it back in time, and she didn't wish to know why these demons brought divine weapons, so she quickly tried to conjure up a fireball. However, before she could the goat demon promptly drops her on to her destroyed stand, canceling her fireball.

CRASH!

"ARgh." Charlie grunted in pain.The impact had knocked the wind out of her.

"There we go! Right, where the trash belongs!" "HA HA HA HA HA AHA HA HA HA!"

The nearby demons just laugh. Not even regarding Charlie as royalty. They all just laugh around her, enjoying the spectacle. Charlie can't help but cry a little bit inside. The Goat demon, however, continues his rant trading his ax for a wooden bat.

"We don't need weaklings like you here! Preaching your stupid ideals of redemption! That status of royalty is wasted on a stupid brat like you. Why don't you just grow up? We're in hell!" The demon stands above her now.

"SO JUST SHUT THE FUCK UP, YOU STUPID BITCH!" The demon raises his bat and began's to swing. Charlie raises her hands towards the demon. Her face was wet with tears, but the face was twisted in anger and fear. She channeled another fireball, closing her eyes, waiting to counter-attack...

CLANG!!!

Charlie open up her eyes, she didn't feel anything. She was at first confused. Did Vaggie make it in time?! As she looks up, she sees the reason why. It's a Knight?

Reynaulds arm is grasping the Bat of the goat demon, crushing the wood into splinters. Surprised by the armored warriors’ arrival out of nowhere, the demon yelps

"What the Fuck! Who the fuck are you!?"

A stare from Reynaulds eyes quickly makes the rest of the goats step back. But Reynauld doesn't move, he simply slams the broken bat back right into the goat demon’s forehead and pushes him into the other thugs. The goat demon yelps in pain as the broken debris leaves a trickle of blood on the demon's head.

"Are you okay Miss? Do you require aid?" Reynauld extending a hand to the fallen princess.

"I'm fine" Charlie replied taking his hand and hoisting herself up, and wiping her tears away.

She is surprised by this mysterious savior. A demon? Defending her? Vaggie had always protected her when they were together, but she was surprised to see the demon before her actually protecting her. He was a shadow demon but in armor. She at first thought that he was a royal guard from her family for a second but, she doesn't recognize any family heirlooms or symbols on him. And the Knights of crusades long ago that went to hell died years ago in earlier exterminations. Was he a mercenary sent by her mother? Or by her Father? The goats regaining their thoughts, began to talk back against their transgressor.

"Well well well look who's trying to be a hero!"

"Heroes who try to do things down here end up dead for a reason."

"You trying to get in little miss Bitches pants? Ha Good luck"

"Here comes the knight in shining armor, saving the little whore."

"Why don't you and the little bitch go fuck off in your little tower!"

The crowd around them begin to laugh, but Reynauld simply replies

"Impressive Insults. Did you rehearse them in a mirror, or did you pull it out of your ass?"

The nearby spectators start to snicker but with less restraint this time. Reynauld was a little bit glad he learned a few witty comebacks from Dismas.

"Or did you hear them from someone else and decide to be some lazy leech and just claim it as you own?"

The Goat snarls in anger. "I CAME UP WITH THAT INSULT MYSELF YOU WALKING TIN CAN!!!!"

"Truly? Then I must apologize. For a goat-like yourself, I simply assumed that you wouldn't be able to come up with something that clever.

"Heh! Why thank- HEY! WHAT'S THAT SUPPOSE TO MEAN!?"

"I think you know what I mean......do you?"

"ARE YOU SAYING WHERE STUPID OR SOMETHING! ARE YOU TRYING TO MAKE US LOOK LIKE IDIOTS!?"

"You're wearing shredded clothing and speak as if you're constipated, so sorry for assuming you were dumber than.....actually, I think all that shit inside of you has a higher intellect than you five combined."

At this point, the various demons nearby start to laughing, imps are on the ground clenching their stomachs, while horned devils and succubus start to point at the goats. The five goats are now thoroughly pissed and start to clench the weapons they had.

"You trying to rill us up?! IS THAT IT!?"

"You want to start a fight!?"

"A fight......pfft. You clench those weapons like your virgins. Your postures off, your arms can't take the weight and you don't want to make the first move."

The crowd around them starts to laugh hysterically now, as the center of the square is now teaming with various demons of different colors, shapes, and forms. An imp in the crowd then blares an air horn shouting.

"OH BURNED! THEY JUST GOT FUCKIN BURNED"

The goats finally snap. They start to pull out the various weapons they had.

"OH, THAT'S IT! YOU'RE A DEAD MOTHER FUCKER!!! RAGHHHHH!!!!!"

The demon charges at Reynauld, raising his ax behind his back, and prepares to strike. Only for Reynauld to unsheathe his longsword and catches the Ax by the hilt off his blade. The Demons around them start to cheer as the fight began's! A crowd began's to form and Immediately bets are being placed, cheers and shouts ring out all around them. The two stand in a bind now. The demon pushing forward, trying to push Reynauld down, but Reyanuld simply adjusts his blade downwards, allowing all the pressure applied to the ax to curve downward away from him. Before the Goat demon could recover, Reynauld quickly twists his sword out of the bind and quickly slashes downwards into the demon’s arm.

CLANG! SHINK! Ting! SLASH! ARGGHHH!!!

The goat demon recoils and screams, the burning sting from the holy blade, hisses and burns his flesh and hair. The nearby demon all of a sudden stop their betting and cheering. The looks of amusement, now replaced with fear. The blade that Reynauld had, hummed and glowed. The nearby demons simply cringe and start to step back. The Sword....it was...strange. It was a divine weapon, but..it was more...powerful than a regular one. The goat demon is confused, the blade the crusader had stung, it was as if he felt the blade had struck his soul. The arrogance that once filled the demon, was now replaced with utter fear and dread. But before he could react.

SHINK!

Reynaulds blade was at his neck. The goat demon simply stared at the knight that was in front of him. As if he was a cornered bunny, hunted by a wolf. Reynauld stares into the goat’s eyes. His bright white, emotionless eyes.

"I won. If you want to live, just leave."

The goat demon, whether it be a moment of panic or stupidity, attempts to swing his ax towards Reynaulds arm, but the sword is quicker. The blade runs through the demon’s neck. The blood from his neck practically boils and fizzles. the sound of crackling and popping can be heard as the demon gurgles on his blood. The body seemingly trying to stay alive, violently shaking and thriving but eventually, the corpses remain still. His face frozen in fear. The crowd doesn't cheer or smile, they simply just stare at the armored demon. Who was this demon? Where did he come from? It was like he was an exterminator. Reynauld didn't seem to care, because the rest of the goat demons began to charge.

"You Bastard! RAGHHH!!!"

The Goats rush the crusader, one of the goat’s charges forward with a one-handed ax, and is prepared to strike, but before he could even swing, Reynauld simply thrusts his blade into the throat of the demon and rips it out in a slash. Killing him. Using the momentum of his last attack, Reynauld Quickly catches another ax head coming from his right, quickly catching it on the hilt. And like before directs the ax downwards, and twists his sword around to strike the demon's cheek. The demon screams in pain for a moment, until the blade is run through his chest. The burning sensation in the demon’s lungs makes him spews blood out of his mouth, covering the crusader's helmet. Reynauld pushes the dead goat off his blade and falls to the ground. A third goat demon Charges a Reynauld, trying to stab him in the neck. But with his left hand, Reynauld quickly knocks aside the spear and grabs it by its shaft. He then pulls the spear, staggering the demon, before a large blade is run through the demon’s mouth. Reynauld kicks the demon off his blade, but before he could react.

*WHAM!*

A mace from behind, the last goat demon manages to strike the back of Reynaulds head, stunning him. Reynauld is on the ground disoriented and without his sword.

"HAHA GOT TOO COCKY BITCH!"

Reynauld tries to get up, but the demon simply strikes the crusaders back over and over again and again.

" TAKE THAT! AND THAT! AND THIS! AND THAT YOU FUCKING CUNT! RAGH!!!"

A strike to head, again he is stunned but is lying on his back now. The goat demon is pressing his foot against his chest, as he gloats.

"Oh don't worry brave knight, I won't kill you or your little princess, I'll just use her for a bit. You can watch me fuck! Then I'll give her back. Heh heh no use in a broken toy"

Reynauld snaps. Hearing those words, from this filthy demon. Reynauld just didn't care anymore. In an instant. Reynauld lifted himself upward, tossing the goat demon down to the ground, and wrestles the mace out of his hand. Now the roles are reversed.

" WAIT! NO WAIT I-"

"RRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!!"

CRACK! CRACK! CRACK! CRACK! CRACK! CRACK!

Reynaulds fury is unleashed! He continues to pummel the Goat over and over and over again. Breaking the goat's jaw, dislocating in on the first strike, then shattering it at the next few punches. Blood and snot start to be spray everywhere as teeth and pieces of flesh fly off the demon’s face.

"RRAAAAAAAAAAGHHHHH!!!!!

AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!

Reynauld couldn’t help but scream in rage! The demon’s words had been rushing into his brain, cutting off all sense of logic or restraint from his system. He couldn’t, he didn’t want to stop, not until "This Mistake is removed from this world!" Now, normally demons would cheer at the sight of such violence and gore. But every demon remained silent, too afraid to act. The sound of crushing bones and a screaming knight were the only things that could be heard. Until he stops. He slowly rises from the mangled dying corpse that was the goat demon. It twitches and pulses, the blood is practically lobs of clot covering Reynaulds arms. He graps his Arment helmet and chucks it to the ground. To everyone's surprise, they now see the face of this knight. A Shadow demon. The types of demons that were not capable of holding holy weapons. But yet, here one stands before them, panting and wheezing, holding a fucking holy weapon! How was this possible.

Reynauld is now tired. He had punched the face of the goat so much, to point of being unrecognizable. Dizzy, fatigued, in combination with his dry throat and constant gasps for air. Reynauld vomits. All over the goat demon. Everybody in the crowd simply watches and cringes at the sight. But are too petrified and disgusted to even say anything. As Reynauld wipes away his vomit, he lumbers over to his sword and drags it towards the twitching body. He then lifts it and drives it into the mangled demon. Ending his suffering.

"Huff huff huff huff huff huff huff huff huff" Reynauld looks around him, then towards the ground "Shit." Reynauld said to himself.

Seeing that every single demon is now eyeing him. That was something he always struggled with. Reynald always wanted to do the right thing, but it often got him into a lot of trouble. But there was no way out of this mess, no one to pull him out this time. He would have to get himself out. So, with a plan in mind, he turns towards the crowd and yells.

"......WELL!!.......ANYONE ELSE WANT TO DIE!"

The demons quickly recoil, not wanting to be anywhere near this crazy shadow demon anymore, so many start to shake their heads no, others simply walking away, others wanting to step up and say "Me!" but thought against it.

"Good! Now.....Go about your business. If anyone asks.....you didn't see anything!"

The crowd quickly disperses after hearing these words, many running off at breakneck speeds, while others simply go about their business as usual. And with that, the shadow demon collapses. He looks over to see if the pale demon is safe.

"CHARLIE!"

Reynauld looks over to see a female demon emerge from the crowd and rush towards the other demon. The female demon has white hair with a pink bow tie tied to it. Her dress is white and sleeveless, having two x's over them, and is wearing striped grey stockings. Hey skin color is a light grey, and one of her eyes is replaced with an eye patch and a big red X. He notices that she is armed with a large harpoon-like spear, and immediatly grasps his sword. But once the two started to hug each other in a warm embrace, Reynauld concluded that she was friendly. The grey demon started to cry, stuttering an apology.

"I'm so so sorry! I-i-i Should have been here! You should have gone with me-I-"

"It's okay Vaggie. I'm okay! I'm fine. It isn't your fault."

"YOU ALMOST DIED! I--i-i-ii couldn't even forgive myself if-"

"It could've been worse. But it's okay now. "

Charlie continued to hug her crying girlfriend. Letting Vaggie cry it all out of her system. She turned to see the demon that saved her was now standing next to the two of them. He was tall and intimidating, but without his helmet, he seemed a lot safer to be around.

"You seem to be alright, do you need any help?"

Vaggie looked up to see the armored demon and immediately drew her spear. Reynauld stepped back as the demon pointed her spear to his neck. Charlie flustered and tries to calm Vaggie down.

"You." a stern, cold voice came from her lips.

"Yes."

"You’re the one who saved Charlie?"

"Correct."

"......." The demon lowered her spear and presented her hand with a comforting smile.

"Thank you."

Reynauld smiles back. "Just doing what I thought was right."

The two demons shook their hands and sat down with Charlie at base of the nearby statue.

"It's nice to meet a friendly demon down here. What’s your name?" Charlie questioned.

"My name.....oh. My name is Reynauld."

"I'm Charlie, and this is my girlfriend Vaggie."

"A pleasure to meet you both. Are you going to be okay?" Reynauld points to Charlie's back, and neck.

"I'll be fine, I heal up pretty quickly."

"Heh heh let’s hope so."

"Hey. Why did you save me?"

Reynauld was stunned by such a question. Were such things not welcomed in hell? "Why shouldn't I? Is it not normal to help those in need?"

Both Charlie and Vaggie were surprised by his answer. Was he new around here? Charlie was practically smiling after hearing those words, Vaggie was a bit more suspicious, but felt happy hearing them as well "Have you noticed where we live right now?"

Reynauld then remembered that he was in hell. "Oh yeah, forgot, I'm in hell."

Charlie chuckled a bit as well. She was happy to see a genuine nice demon down in hell. they were usually scarce, and even then, they died too soon. "Hehe judging by your reaction, you're new around here aren't you?"

"Yes. Heh heh. I'm afraid so."

"Do you have a place to sleep Reynauld?" Charlie questioned realizing a potential patient.

"Unfortunately no I'm afraid. I just got here recently. Do you know a place where I can stay?"

Charlie's grin grew from ear to ear, constantly looking at Vaggie as if she was a child wanting a new toy. Vaggie looked over the Knight with cautious eyes, staring back to her lover's smile, and nodding in approval.
Charlie squealed in delight.

"Weeeeee. Okay okay okay. Whew. Mr. Reynauld. Would you like to stay at our hotel!?"

Reynauld's face gave a very puzzled looked.

"Hotel? I'm sorry but, I don't have any money on me-"

"Don't be silly. You saved me. It's the least I can do for you."

Reynauld thought it over for a bit. These women were demons after all. The stories of their trickery and deception were driven into his head whether he liked it or not. It could be a trap for all he knew. But he felt something in the back of his mind, saying that he should trust these two demons. After all, hell broke his expectations greatly. So, with a smile Reynald replied.

"Okay then. Sure. I'll come."

"YES!"

Charlie jumped in the air and gave Reynauld the biggest bear hug she could muster. Reynauld at first was both surprised and confused by this jester, looking at Vaggie for help. Vaggie simply smiled and waved her hand to do the same. With one big sigh, Reynauld hugged back.

Chapter Text

In an alleyway trash bin. The rat demon appears to waken up.

"Urgh.....what hap- huh? Oh, shit my head... Wait. It's coming back to me now!"

The rat demon recalls his earlier encounter with an armored demon.

"That fucking larper! He knocked me out! That Son of a bi-Huh?.....what the...

The rat demon feels something in his pockets, he reaches into them and retrieves the coins Reynauld left behind. At first, he is skeptical of the coins, but with a bite on the edge of the coin, the rat demons anger quickly turned to excitement!

"Holy Shit! GOLD! HA, I Can't believe it! Actual Gold coins! These must be worth a fortune! I can finally get a better weapon! HAHA! I can pay my rent now! Get more drugs! Get a house! Maybe buy me a sexy lady. Oh, things are looking up for old- Huh?"

The rat demon looks up to see something falling from the sky. It's flailing about and screaming all the way down to the dumpster.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!"

CRASH!

The Rat demon is again crushed back into the dumpster and is again knocked out. The screaming demon that was just falling a few moments ago is, now clenching his back after falling.

"Ow...urrgghhhhh...that hurt......huh?......WHOA! WHAT THE-"

The screaming demon stumbled back in surprise. Where was he? Who...What was this....thing? Why did it look like some sort of Rat human? Was it another abomination like the Swine? But as the demon looked about, he suddenly froze. In the nearby water puddle, he sees...himself. Dismas.
At first, he thought that this was some sort of trick or illusion of sorts, but as reaches for his face, he suddenly feels it. He pinches his skin to be sure it's not a dream, but as it turns out, it is real. He truly has transformed. His face, his body, his....okay his clothes are the same dark grey-blue jacket and red scarf. But his physical appearance changed dramatically. His head was now that of a large raven. His arms and body are pitch-black skin covered with dark feathers. He still had his hands and feet, but they were now razor-sharp talons, claws the size of knives. His legs were skinny and shaped like a bird, but still thick enough to maintain a human-like bulk to them. He stops for a moment to gather himself.....but quickly checks under his pants to make sure the "one thing" was still there.

He sighs in relief, fortunately, it is still there. But now for the other questions that wrapped his mind. Where was he? Why was he falling? Wasn't he fighting in a dungeon just then?
By the looks of things, he was in some sort of alleyway, and what he just landed in, was a large waste bin with a what appear to be a rat person living in the dumpster. As he lifts himself off the dumpster he notices the gun and gold coins that the rat is holding. He concluded to himself. Probably a brigand like me.
He immediately picks up the pistol. To his surprise, the gun is very different from his flintlock. The gun was very...cubical, judging by its weight and color, it is made of entirely out of metal. But to his surprise, It is very light for something made entirely of metal. And the design is very basic, no designs on the side like his guns, just ridges and a black coat of paint. It was more made to kill than intimidate. He determines that both guns work the same way by immediately shooting a nearby bottle.

"BANG! CRASH!"

Dismas is at first surprised at the guns sheer power and speed. For something this powerful from a small and light was astounding. Why the rat creature had it, he had no idea. But then he suddenly realizes something. How does he reload it?!
Dismas had never seen such a gun and had no idea how to reload it. "Should have saved the shot." He said to himself. He would have to test it later, to figure out how it would work. Looking into his jacket he takes a short inventory on the things he has. On his right side Three bags of gunpowder, his cleaning kit, and an extra bag of Flashfire Gunpowder if things went south. On his left his special Sharpening sheath that sharped his blade every time he took it out, his spare dagger, along with his lucky coin, and a bag full of pistol balls for ammunition. On his belts, 3 rolls of bandages, two flintlock pistols, and his special short sword, both weapons properly named "Thunder and Lightning!"

Dismas is well pleased that his weapons are still loaded. Now he needs to figure out the next question. Where in the world was he? And why was he a Raven?
His answers unsurprisingly were given by simply looking at the sky. The Red sky and floating pentagram gave the Highwayman a quick summary of where he was. That and also the sign that said "Welcome to Hell, God has forsaken everybody"

"Am.....am I in hell?.......What the fuck?!"

Dismas looks in the streets and then sees the various amalgamations of demons and monsters. He spots a large group of imp-like creatures walking about, large lizard-like men guarding what appears to be a brothel, succubus half-naked flying about, many humanoid creatures with large horns atop there heads, bat-like wings and.......multi-colored fur? Dismas understood the red and black, but the vibrant colors of the many demons seemed to put him off severely. If this truly was hell, why isn't there anyone being tortured or being set on fire? By the looks of things, the place looked like a normal city. If it were made by a priest that took his creative art lessons at an insane asylum. Wherever he was, he didn't have to worry about anybody noticing him, his body change had done a good job at letting him blend in.

"If I'm in hell...then I guess that means I'm here for a while."

Dismas was surprisingly quick to accept that he was in hell. After all, judging by his past, he wasn't a saint. He recalled the events clear as day, no matter how much he drank or even prayed, it didn't stop replaying in his head. He then remembered that there was something else around his neck. The Locket that reminded him of his shame. The small silver locket containing a picture of a beautiful woman and her boy. He caressed the silver lock with his scar covered callus hands and left his mind to wander. Where were they going in that carriage? Why on that road? Why did he pull the trigger? He wanted to entertain those thoughts, but that was cut short.

"YOINK"

A demon with multiple eyeballs in his head quickly snatched the locket out of Dismas's hand.

"Wha-HEY!!!"

"TOUGH LUCK BIRD BRAIN!!!"

Dismas wasn't having it. He quickly chased after the multi-eyed demon. Pushing through multiple demons, big and small. To his surprise, a large number of them were very humanoid. And his surroundings were very strange as well, Large tall buildings that seemed to touch the very skies, carriages that moved with no horses, large flashing lights, and the pictures that somehow moved on there own. All of these new sights seem to give Dismas a headache. He preferred the darker atmosphere of the hamlet. But luckily for Dismas, the thief had jumped into a nearby ally way. Following him into the alleyway, he noticed a lot of homeless demons, beggars, prostitutes, even crazy old prophets preaching the end of the world. All in all not that different from any other city he came from, hell was just life in the living world, just with demons.

The thief was now cornered, the alleyway had lead to a courtyard, the connecting apartments acting as walls leaving no alternate alleyway for the thief to escape. Although Dismas had caught the thief, he knew his actual plan. He and his friends had done this tactic before. Looking around the area, piles of trash, debris, dead foliage, and abandoned buildings, he saw them. 5 demons waiting in the courtyard. 4 Armed with more of those weird guns, 2 with hollowed-out metal rods, the other three having knives. 3 inside the buildings, 2 hiding behind the brick tree rings that were in the courtyard. He noticed what they were trying to do, what they wanted with Dismas, he could take a guess, but decided that he would play along to these thieves game. Pretending he hadn't noticed them, Dismas begun to walk over to the multi-eyed demon, he wore dark blue jeans and grey coat with what appeared to be a hood attached to the neck hole. On the back of his clothing a large red knife symbol. "Probably there gangs insignia," Dismas thought. Looking at the demon, he was small in size and was pretending to be scared, but knew that he had a knife in his pocket, and the demon struggling not to smile was noticeable. Still pretending to be fooled, Dismas yelled

"GIVE ME MY FUCKIN LOCKET YOU LITTLE RAT!"

"Pl-pl-Please! I'm sorry! Just just Just Don't hurt me! I'll-I'll give it back! Look! Here! Just take it back Okay!....heh heh!"

Noticing the demons smirk, Dismas quickly turned around spotting the three demons that were hiding in the buildings. They were now blocking the alleyway. A large bull-like demon, two humanoids with horns. The other two quickly popped up as well, a viper headed demon appearing from the behind a shrub, and a lanky pale hunched back insect-like demon, with saw-like arms and stick-like legs and red bulging eyes, both holding their guns out. They grinned at Dismas, who himself was trying desperately not to laugh. Putting on his best-surprised face, he quickly turns to see the multi-eyed demon with his knife.

"Heh heh heh heh heh stupid mother fucker. Did you think that you were really going to catch me?"

The Bull demon spoke "I wouldn't try anything funny wise guy, that their knife he has, is an exterminator weapon! One slit from that and you "Dead" dead. No coming back after that!

Dismas was confused by the bull demon's words. No coming back? Did that mean demons can come back after they had died? Whats an exterminator weapon? He would have to look for answers afterward. Pretending to be panicked, he replies.

"What's going on!? What the-

The snake demon answered he noticed her voice and body were very feminine. "What's it look like handsome!? A pretty bird like you is going to be worth a lot on the black market! You might even get lucky and get to work for Valentino maybe!"

"So if I was you, I suggest you get on the ground and accept your fate." Said the white demon in a raspy sickly voice.

So he was going to be sold off as a slave, granted, he was amused that they considered him handsome, but this was hell, he didn't want to know what types of things demons did to people like him. Pretending to angry Dismas dropped his knife and knelt down. The demons looked surprised, they weren't expecting him to actually stand down. The multi-eyed demon quickly regained his composure.

"There we go! See! Why can't we get more understanding demons like you? We have to eat as well! It's nothing personal!"

"Oh, can I play with the little birdy for a bit. You know test him?!" the snake demon questioned, licking her fingers seductively

"Sure just be quick about it. 15 minutes"

As much as Dismas was curious about the idea of having sex with a snake demon lady, he still didn't wish to be sold to some random pervert on the street. The two-horned demons came closer to Dismas, lowering their guard. But Dismas already formulated a plan. Just a bit closer, he thought to himself. The Multi eyed demon walked up to Dismas with the locket in hand.

"Ha ha ha ha ha ha All this because of this?! Ha, stupid mother fucker. Did you really want this locket so badly!? I mean *Click* Oh....this your wife and kid? Trying to find her? Maybe I might notice them and tell her the good news! Their father had become a valuable piece of treasure and that they could join you! Maybe I should play with her for a bit, you know show her the ropes! Give her the time of her life, that you couldn-

BLAM!

Dismas's revealed the flintlock that was in his coat, blasting into the multi-eyed demon's chest. Blood sprayed from his mouth like a fountain, and then his body collapsed with a thud. In a flash Dismas quickly drew his sword and slashed at the horned demons behind him, slashing the chest of the first. The second demon still in shock was quickly grabbed by his arm and stabbed in the gut, leaving two demons clenching their open wounds. The other three demons surprised at their attacker's quick movements were dumbfounded. But brought back when Dismas's second flintlock, nailed the pale demon in the face! Both the snake demon and bull demon quickly pulled out their pistols and begun to fire at Dismas. Dismas quickly ran over to a broken brick tree ring and hide behind the stone wall.

He was surprised that the demons were firing multiple shots at once, while he was busy reloading his one shot. Were they much faster at reloading? How were they shoving gunpowder in those things so fast!? Dismas peeked from his cover and saw what the demons were doing. They were just pulling their triggers, no reloading! "Did these things need ammo?" His answer came once he heard both guns click. The demons were out of ammo. He then realized that the gun he had from that rat creature was probably still loaded. Dismas quickly pulled out the pistol and the reloaded flintlock and rose from his cover and begun to fire at is attackers. Hoping that the pistol still had ammo in it.

BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BLAM! BANG! *Click*

8 shots from the pistol, one from the flintlock. The guns were empty. 3 holes were in the wall, the shots missing there target. The Bull demon, however, took 5 shots to his chest, while the snake took a pistol shot to her arm. Both the snake and bull were on the ground, clenching their wounds. But the Bull demon was a lot stronger than he appeared. He rose from the ground, dripping blood like a drenched sponge. He quickly clenched his pipe and rushed towards Dismas with a quick but powerful roar!

RAAAAAAGGGGHHHHH!!!!!!!!

Coincidentally near the alleyway. Reynauld is hauling the broken pieces of the stand on his back. Along with all the divine weapons from his previous fight. All tied up in pretty rainbow ribbons from Charlie's bag. The various demons snicker at the weird group, making remarks about how the princess is too afraid to go outside or she is going out with two people at the same time. A quick glare from both Reynauld and Vaggie quickly makes them leave. Although Charlie was quick to trust Reynaulds intentions, Vaggie wasn't ready to trust the Crusader. She was still quite suspicious of Reynauld and his reasons, although she was grateful for him saving Charlie, she was still concerned if the knight has any alternative motives. For all she knew, this man could have hired those thugs so he could get closer to charlie, maybe he was someone that was planning on using Charlie for his own gains. But all of that seemed a bit too complicated and unnecessary even for a cunning demon. Skeptical Vaggie decided to keep a keen eye on the man. However she couldn't explain it, but she felt safe around Reynauld, he presented some sort of aura that was both calming but protective. She felt "reassured" around him. Whatever that meant in hell.

"So, we are waiting for your familiars to arrive in this "Limo". Correct?"

"Yup! Razzle and Dazzle should arrive in about 3 minutes."

"Hmmmmm this world is so interesting. I've always seen pictures of hell in books, but never would I have thought it would look like this." Reynaulds eyes were glued to T.V. screen on a tall skyscraper.

Vaggie chimed in "Yup I was surprised too when I came down here. Intimidating but you grow used to it."

Reynauld quickly twisted his head towards Vaggie, "Wait? You came down here?"

Vaggie was confused for a moment "Uh yeah. Like you. Why do you ask?"

"I thought demons were born down here, aren't they?

"Yeah they are demons that are born down here, but they are also people that came from the living world and end up here, like you and me. Were called "Sinner Demons"."

"Interesting, so people who have committed sins, turn to demons when they come here. But you said they are demons that are also born here, what about them?"

It was Charlie's turn to answer "Well-

But before she could say anything the sounds of gunshots rang out through the streets. Echoing through the alleyways and out towards the streets. The Crusader and Vaggie immediately draw their weapons.

"Bye, the Gods! What was that!?"

"Gunshots. Someones probably fighting close by. We should probably stay-"

Charlie quickly bolts towards the gunshots. Passing by several demons and going towards the sounds of violence.

"Oh for the love of-Charlie!"

"Ms. Charlie! Please Wait!"

Charlie ran and ran and ran, trying to figure out where those gunshots came from. She knew demons always fought each other and most of the time she didn't know the full story or situation of what happened. But the least she could do was try to stop the fight or get innocent people to safety. Maybe even stop the fight. Prevent more needless death. That's when she heard it.

RAAAAAAGGGGHHHHH!!!!!!!!

A scream from the nearby alleyway. She dives into the nearby alleyway, and into the dark corridor, with Vaggie and Reynauld behind her.

The Bull demon rushes at Dismas with his pipe, but Dismas is quick and cuts the wrists of the demon bull. The pipe drops to the ground as the demon tries desperately to stop the bleeding. But the short sword is quickly trusted upwards into the demon's chest. The blade shredded his flesh cutting through muscles and bones, although it didn't go into his body, the large laceration was painful. The Bull demon screams in pain as he is quickly clobbered by a right hook. The multi-eyed demon clenching his chest is now contemplating what life choices that lead him up to this moment. The snake demon is on the ground, busy trying not to bleed to death. While Dismas was continuously pummeling the bull demon into pulp. Charlie makes a sharp turn at the alleyway and finds herself examining the scene before her. Two horned devils clenching their guts in pain, a white praying mantis-like demon is clenching his eyeball, a snake demon is in the corner covering her arm trying to stop her bleeding, while a multi-eyed demon is bleeding from his chest wounds. And in the middle of the courtyard, Dismas was pummeling a bull demon into a paste. After what seems like hours of pummeling and punching the bull demon stops flailing his arms and became silent. Dismas dismounts and begins to walk over to the multi-eyed demon, picking up the dropped exterminator blade, and placing it to the neck of said demon.

Charlie immediately reacts and screams "WAIT! DON'T KILL HIM!"

Dismas quickly turned around to see the new demons behind him. A pale, blond girl, with rosy cheeks, and a red suit. A grey-skinned, white hair lady, with a missing eye, and a demonic knight in tow. Dismas simply stared, drawing both blades, ready to strike, Vaggie immediately drew her spear. Reynaulds hands clenching his sword. Dismas simply eyed the new demons. Were they reinforcements, another gang, where they the buyers, or were they just random demons, he couldn't tell. So he simply stared at them with cold unflinching eyes. Charlie seeing that this bird demon is clearly on edge, attempts to calm him down.

"Look, Sir, I don't know what happened here, but please stop they are already down! They aren't going to hurt anyone anymore."

"Charlie what are you-"

"It's okay Vaggie, I know what I'm doing. Listen, I know this is a lot to ask of you, but could you perhaps....not kill them."

Dismas was now thoroughly confused, the demon lady here is asking him to spare their lives? Aren't demons usually indifferent to each other? Why does this one want to save a demon? He didn't like it one bit.

"Why? They stole my shit, tried to sell me to someone, and tried to kill me! Why should I spare them!?"

"Oh....huff. Look I know what you did here was for self-defense, but do you really need to kill them! They probably had a reason for those things, it doesn't mean I agree with those choices or encourage them, or even side with them. But could you look past what they did, just this once? I just want to help everyone here."

"Help? Me? What exactly do you want?! Why do you want to help me? You don't know me, or why I'm here! How can I trust you!" Dismas walks closer to Charlie. Vaggie and Reynauld quickly step up front, shielding Charlie with there bodies.

"Reynauld get ready." Vaggie readies her spear

"I'm right behind you. Miss Charlie get behind me!"

Dismas freezes for a moment. Could this knight really be "Re-Reynauld?"

"......yes my name is Reynauld. Why do you ask? Is it a weird name?"

Dismas sudden realizing who was in front of him quickly recited the verse "The Light Shines in the Darkness."

Reynauld takes a moment to understand what the demon just said, before quickly replying in realization "And the Darkness does not comprehend it."

The two stare at each other for the longest time. Until finally, both Dismas and Reynauld walked up to each other, clasped each other's arms, and hugged.

"DISMAS! HA HA HA Your alive! Your alive! HA HA HA HA! Good to see you old friend!"

"Nice to see you too, you armored bastard. Haha!

Vaggie and Charlie were taken aback at what just happened.

"You know him?" The two lady demon questioned.

"Haha Yes! This here is my old friend, companion, and brother in arms! Dismas! Sorry I didn't recognize you.

"Eh that's fine, I was just as surprised and confused as you were! Heh! Out of all the people in hell to be with, you were the least expected. Whatever happened to, "For the Light!"

"Heh! God had other plans supposedly, ha ha ha, but in all seriousness, what happened?"

Dismas looks back at his carnage, surprisingly the demons are back up, injured but still up. The Bull demons messed up face stopped bleeding, the two-horned devils have the guts being put back in, the pale insect demon is nursing his eye hole, and the snake demon is trying to get the multi-eyed demon back on his feet. Dismas simply stares at the group. The demons are in no condition to fight, but he wasn't willing to take a chance.

"These assholes tried to take me and turn me into a slave. Beat the everlasting shit out of them though. Now then! Where were we? Ah yes, finishing them.

The demons simply stepped back as Dismas walked closer, huddling together in fear. Dismas couldn't help but pity the poor group. Judging by the way they fought this was there first attempt at any robbery, a good plan, but not a great one. And they did say they needed to eat, maybe they were desperate like he was. They looked hungry and tired, they reminded him of the orphans he grew up with as a kid. The multi-eyed demon even looked like he was even shielding them. Dismas looked back at Reynauld and the two demon girls. The blonde one with pleading eyes not kill them and the white-haired one prepared to fight. Reynauld even looked liked he was against slaughtering them.

"Huff" Dismas, sheathed his blade and knelt down to eye level with the multi-eyed demon, "This your first time?"

The multi-eyed demon simply nodded yes.

"Heh Heh. It was a good plan, I'll give you that. It would have worked, but in my opinion, just shoot the guy and steal his stuff. Don't bother trying to catch the guy, they will always fight back, and if they look like they are surrendering, never trust it."

The demons were surprised, was he, Teaching them how to mug?

"Your plan was solid and you guys have potential, good hiding place, a good plan, brilliant execution, but you guys took to long. No monologues, no drawn-out threats or theatrics, no rape, just a quick threat, retrieval, then run. You're not fit to be slavers. You got that?"

The now thoroughly confused demons simply stare, dumbfounded, the guy they tried to mug and sell, was giving them pointers on how to rob people. Granted they needed it, but this was a confusing day already. Then Dismas pulled out a bandage.

"You'll get hurt when you do these things, so it's best that I teach you how to stitch up your wounds. You two, come here." Pointing at the two-horned demons.

"I'm not fond of blood, but at least it's yours. You pay close attention I'm only going to do this once, you got it?"

The demons simply nod in silence and watch as Dismas began to patch up the two. Charlie was surprised at this Dismas. She thought he was some sort of serial killer, but he was actually helping people. Granted, helping people steal, but still healing them after they attacked him and tried to do worse things to him. She saw a lot of potential for redemption with Dismas. Vaggie, on the other hand, was incredibly skeptical. Dismas was capable of killing people and had shown little restraint in doing so. Also, the fact he was helping demons mug others, didn't sit well with her. Although Reynauld and Dismas were friends, it didn't mean that she would immediately trust him. After a few minutes of teaching the mugging demons how to bandage themselves, Dismas gave them all 3 of his bandage rolls, as a parting gift. The now bandaged demons, with new knowledge and skills in tow, decided to go home. Today was exciting enough, and they would put their new skills tomorrow, but not without asking one more question. As the group limped away towards there truck the multi-eyed demon turned around and asked

"Why?"

"Huh?"

"Why did you help us?"

Dismas contemplated for a few seconds, before giving out an answer. "I don't know. You just remind me of my old friends is all. Now bugger off before I decide to shoot you lot."

The demons chuckle a bit, before wandering off into the street. Never to be seen again. Dismas turned to the two demon girls, the blonde demon smiling happily, while the white-haired demon simply stared with both caution and fear. An understandable gaze. To break the awkward silence, Dismas decided to reintroduce himself.

"Now then. I don't think we've been properly introduced, the names Dismas, Highwayman, and mercenary."

"I'm Charlie, this is Vaggie."

"Nice to meet you both......so....I'm in hell."

"Yup. That's right. "

"Not what I expected."

"We get that a lot. Do you have a place to go?"

"Nope just got here."

"Great we-
"Excuse us for a moment."

Vaggie took Charlie to the side. Leaving Dismas with Reynauld, and allowing him to think about the situation he was in, and who these two were. Charlie was strange, she looked human, but at the same time, she didn't. She looks to be very kind and caring even going through numerous lengths to save people. However she appeared to look very naive, she had the aura of a sheltered noble, which Dismas found annoying, but harmless. In fact, that sort of nature felt welcoming in hell. As for Vaggie, Dismas knew women like her, paranoid and cautious of newcomers, not unreasonable by hell's standards. She was very protective over Charlie, by the looks of it either a close friend or bodyguard or both. Dismas decided to listen in to the conversation, although he was far away, he had trained his ears to listen in on topics from afar.

"Charlie, you can't be serious. Look at him! I know he's Reynaulds friend, but he just gives a very bad vibe off him."

"It's okay Vaggie, It'll be fine, look he helped out a group demons that were trying to hurt him."

"He was capable of taking out multiple demons, taught them how to rob people, and was about to kill them with an exterminator weapon! What if he tries-

Charlie puts her hands on Vaggie's shoulder. "It'll be fine Vaggie. I got a good feeling about these two. Tell you what, we'll take them in and try to help them. If they don't want help, they can leave I'm not forcing them to stay. Besides if they do end up being bad, I got you to protect me."

Vaggie simply smiled and kissed Charlie on the cheeks. "Okay, Babe. Just don't make any trouble okay."

Reynauld and Dismas were both surprised. "They're Lesbians?" Dismas whispered, "Apparently so" Replied Reynauld. Although the two adventurous didn't mind it, it was rare in the living world. Those types of relationships oftentimes ended badly. Couples would we ridiculed and spat upon by various religions, often ending in being burned at the stake or tortured till they converted. So seeing an open act of affection like this was a rare thing to behold, but both reminded themselves this was hell, so they both were simply fine with it. Charlie broke away from her girlfriend and ran up to Dismas.

"Ahem. How would you like to come to the Hazbin Hotel."

"...the what?"

"It's my hotel that I'm running. Reynauld already agreed to come, so why don't you.

"Oh. I'd love to, but I don't have any mon-

"Don't worry. Reynauld here saved me from a few thugs around here. So as thanks I decided to give you two rooms, free of charge. What do you say?"

Dismas turned to Reynauld who gave an approving smile back. Looking back at Charlie who's eyes were now the size of dinner plates, Dismas sighed

"Huff. Okay. Count me in."

Chapter Text

Reynauld and Dismas were quite surprised when the Limo had arrived. If they had to describe what it was, they would've only said it was some sort of Eldritch entity.
The "Limo" was a mixture of white and gold, a wide, long, and flat build, with red glass holes along its sides. Viewing into these crimson crystal holes showed what appeared to be its guts, still and lifeless. It had two red eyeballs on the front of the carriage, sharp needle-like fangs in a rectangular mouth laid dead center of the front. What disturbed them the most was that on the sides of this creature, were multiple giant golden blood vessels lining it, spewing a black ichor and suffocating smoke from the cut ends. Reynauld looked slightly worried. Was this the familiar Charlie as talking about? Where is the carriage? How were they supposed to ride on such a creature? While Dismas was wondering how much the thing cost, was it feed, and how the heck was it alive? The metal skin made them think it was some sort of vehicle, but the two couldn't help feel as if the thing was, alive, breathing, and grunting as if it was angry. However, the reality was that it was just a regular limo, and the two adventures were just trying to figure out what the heck it was.

As if things couldn't get any weirder, the front window began to roll down with a small whir. Inside were two goat-like demons in black suits and red bow ties. They looked childish in appearance, not anything like the demon goats Reynauld had fought earlier. They were more of a hybrid between a lizard and a goat. They had little bat-like wings and red puffy ruffs of hair. They had bodies of goats, but the bottom half looked more like a miniature dragon. They looked friendlier than the other demons they encountered as well, which was a large statement for hell. Eventual one of the goat boys, Razzle, began to speak.

"Hey, Ms. Charlie! Where here! Sorry about being a bit late."

Dazzle climbs on top of his twin brother's head and finishes his brothers’ sentence.

"We had to run over a few people to get here. New Record by the way! 3 people! That's the lowest kill count Yet!

Charlie walks up to the two and begins to pinch their cheeks, smiling in admiration "Hooray that's awesome, Good job you two."

Both Reynauld and Dismas stared at each other for a bit "I'm going to regret this but, What’s the usual kill count?" Dismas questioned.

"About 17 on Average, give or take," both demon goats and Charlie said as a matter of factually.

Dismas merely slapped his face While Reynauld spoke under his breath "*Huff* May the light protect us."

To the two newcomers were surprised, when the metallic eldritch creature had doors. They swung open, revealing the inside of this "beast", but when the two peered inside they found no organs. What they found instead were red velvet cushions lining the inside of the beast, buckets of ice containing various drinks, and juices sat in between cushions, along with pitch black pillows on each end. This creature was the carriage. They were at first cautious of this "thing", could this be a trap? Both Reynauld and Dismas carefully stepped inside of the mechanical beast, surprised to feel a rush of cold air blow in there faces. They had not noticed how warm and humid hell was outside, and the cold crisp air inside the carriage made them feel more relaxed. They sat down on the velvet cushions, although they couldn't explain it, they felt a small feeling of nostalgia when they sat down. It was like the carriage that was taking them to......the estate. It had been so long, several years in fact. Reynauld and Dismas remembered the time they meet each other, the day they were hired by the Heir, the bumpy road, and the crash that forced them to walk the entire way to the estate. Once the four demons situated themselves, the drive-through pentagram city began. The trip was......"uncomfortable" for the four. Reynauld and Dismas were still wary of the two demons. Although they were demons themselves, they have seen enough crime in the city just by walking around. That small tour of the city had already built up a sense of wariness and caution in the two. Violence and crime was the main activity for every denizen. But then all of a sudden, these two demons offering these two complete strangers a place to stay? It was suspicious in a city of sin. Although they knew the kind words and attitude from Charlie were genuine, they still kept their guard up. As for Vaggie, she didn't necessarily trust the two mercenaries either. Reynauld conveniently passing by when Charlie was in trouble, somehow coming across Dismas's, both friends that conveniently meet up with each other on the same day they fell? It was more than enough to be suspicious. However, she had to admit, both Reynaulds and Dismas's attitude, behavior, and friendship were all genuine, and they weren’t hostile when asked to come to the hotel, she'll allow them to enter. Charlie, however, couldn't help but smile, two new members at the hotel! Demons that were polite and had moral codes! Maybe she could help them. Maybe they can be redeemed. Although she was optimistic about the idea that didn't mean she wasn't completely naive. Reynaulds sword made her very uneasy, when he had fought those other demons, it had felt like the blade was slicing through her own body. Every cut and wound send shivers down her spine, and just by observing him, she could tell that he was well trained and had seen combat before. She remembered the techniques her father taught her, and Reynaulds fighting style was reminiscent of the manuals she had read during her self-defense training. Dismas looked street smart, and the scars on his face and arms were proof he had his fair share of skirmishes. But the pistol he had was a very old flintlock pistol if she had to guess, somewhere between the late 17th to 18th century. It would make sense that both of these men came from that period, both knights and gunpowder were prevalent during those times. But if they had come from those time periods, why were they here now? They both said that they recently arrived her in hell, so why do they look as if they just traveled through time? She would have liked to ask more, but it looked like the two travelers had their own set of questions they wanted answers to.

So as the demons drove through the roads of pentagram city, the group decided to answer each other’s questions.

"So we're in Hell, and there are two main types of demons, Sinners, and Hell born. Sinners are people that have sinned greatly and have been transformed into demons, like you and me." Vaggie explained to Dismas

"Okay and hell-born demons are demons that are born here?" questioned Dismas.

"Yup! Demons like me." Charlie exclaimed.

Both Dismas and Reynauld were surprised at Charlie's sudden reveal.

".......your......a hell-born demon?!"

"Well....yeah."

Reynauld was the most surprised by this. "Aren't hell-born demons supposed to be pure evil?"

"Yes but, not really. I wasn't like the other demons. Which is surprising, because my parents are also.......the....the Rulers of hell."

Both Reynaulds and Dismas's were both stared at each, confused for a moment. Staring back at Charlie in disbelief.

"I'm sorry. Could you repeat that?"

Charlie awkwardly places her head around her neck, clearly hesitant and regretted forgetting an important piece of information "Um...My parents are the rulers of hell. My full name is Charlotte Magne. Princess of Hell."

Dismas and Reynaulds were taken aback, Reynauld lost for words, while Dismas's jaw had practically dropped to the floor. Vaggie places her hand on her lover’s shoulders with an amused smile

"You know, you could have a bit more subtle."

Charlie responded by giving a cheeky smile.

"......Wait......your parents are what?!" Dismas stuttered still trying to grasp the situation

"I'm the princess of hell, and my parents are the King and Queen of hell.

Both Reynauld and Dismas immediately fell to one knee and bowed their heads. Both exclaiming

"Your majesty!"

Charlie and Vaggie were surprised at this sudden jester, no one ever bowed to Charlie. Even new arrivals would laugh at her or maybe not believe her, but for the two to bow on one knee was something else. Vaggie couldn't help but give a small chuckle, while Charlie was frantically trying to stop them.

"Wait! Wait! please stand up. You don't have to do that down here."

"Oh, our apologies." Reynauld and Dismas both sat back "It's just we did not know you were royalty down here. You didn't look or sound like a one when we meet."

"Yeah despite being a hell-born demon, I'm nothing like my parents."

"Why is that?" Reynauld questioned.

"Well, it's a bit of a long story, so I'll give you the short version......*Ahem* I was always fascinated about the living world, and heaven and what it was like up there. So I always read about the two realms in my father’s library."

Charlie's eyes started to sparkle "And it was amazing! In the living world, they are Sunshine, Blue skies, Beaches, Parties, Rainbows, Puppies, Kittens, Candy, Carnivals, Colors and CLOUDS AND AND AND-"

"OKAY OKAY! We get it! You like the living world and Heaven!"

Charlies was now out of her seat and up in front of Dismas's face, and smiling like a deranged psycho. Realizing she was invading Dismas's personal space and crushing him into his seat, she quickly sat back down, embarrassed.

"Sorry about that, Ahem. While I was studying the human world, I learned a lot of the various cultures, religions, politics, philosophies, and of course, the good and bad things that humans have done up there. A lot of bad things. But also, a lot of great things! Concepts and ideas that I never really heard about or even been taught. Kindness, happiness, Politeness, being nice to others, I learned a lot of those things from my father and mother, but when I read those books and stories, I saw a whole new world! All those people in the stories smiling and happy I wanted the demons in hell to be sort of like that one day. I know that it could never happen to everybody, but never hurt to try. So that's how I'm sort of like this now. He heh."

The two mercenaries looked at each other with surprise. Reynauld was amazed to hear Charlie's passion for the living world and heaven. Her emotions seemed genuine and a demon like her wanting to truly learn about the upper realms and spread it to other demons was something of a miracle. Why was a person like her born in the literal hell out of all places? Dismas, however, was a bit more skeptical, her story was almost too good to be believable, and he still had more questions.

"Did your father and mother approve of this?"

Charlie hesitated before answering "No... they didn't at first, but they didn't mind me looking into it either. So, I guess both yes and no."

Dismas wasn't really satisfied with the answer, but he noticed Charlie's hesitation and her smile starting to drop. Realizing it was personal, he decided not to pry any further.

"We're here Miss Charlie!"

"Oh, Thanks Razzle."

The two mercs stare out of the windows and spot the hotel. It was very intimidating. It wasn't any hotel they have seen before. It was almost the size of a mansion, maybe even more! It was a tall building that was at least 10 maybe 20 stories tall. It didn't look like any hotel either, it looked as if multiple crushed up and destroyed buildings had been smashed up and rebuilt together as a makeshift shelter. Different parts of buildings all piled on top of each other with no real sense of purpose. The building looked as if it was going to fall at any given time but it also looked like it could support its self on its own. On the top, there was a large yellow lizard-like eye that stared at the limo as it passed by. The Sign above says "Hazbin Hotel" in bright pink and white light. At the front, there were multiple balconies that didn't look like they fit anywhere, they looked as if the building was protruding them outwards like tree branches. At the front, there was some sort of black wagon contraption on the top of the front of the doors. The right side of the build had a protruding tower, with wedding ribbons fluttering outside. It reminded them of the sanitarium they always visited, to fix them both physically and mentally. At the bottom of the tower they saw the copper horses and kelpies skewered by metal poles, the two had no idea why that was even there, but this was hell, maybe it was "A popular thing" to have. But what confused the two the most was the freaking metal ship that as protruding from the side of the building. How did that even get there!?

As the limo stopped by the entrance, the two mercenaries stepped outside to see a large cobblestone walkway, "expensive for a hotel" Dismas thought to himself. The two were amazed to see the glass stained doors, the perfectly cut colorful glass was shaped into a red beautiful apple surrounded by multiple colorful glass squares surrounding it. It was interesting. As the two turned around they spotted the two goat-like familiars taking the divine weapons and the broken stand into a nearby window. Charlie soon walked up the entrance, taking the lead opening the large double doors.

"Shall we"

As the two walked through the doors, they felt a bit of nostalgia as they walked in. The interior was a wide-open space, bigger than the two would originally thought it would be. There were couches and chairs that again were cover in eldritch eyes, bones, and teeth. Vases that looked as if they were made of teeth and gums, and the eyeballs, so many eyeballs staring at them. It reminded them of the mansion the ancestor had. In The Darkest Dungeon.....the two placed their hands on their weapons, anxious, cautious, a familiar sense of danger filled them. Noticing their hesitation, Charlie placed her hands on the two mercenaries’ shoulders and gave a reassuring smile.

"Are you guys okay? Is something bothering you?"

Not wanting to trouble the two Demoness Reynauld replied: "No, we're just not used to the eyes looking at us, I think we'll be alright."

Dismas looked at Reynauld and gave a nod. The two had already begun to analyze the room, trying to see if the hotel wasn't an ambush site. Immediately, they noticed something in the distance. A small child looking silhouette at the edge of a nearby couch. As the child popped out her head, the two adventurers saw that she had a large singular eye, like a child cyclops. She had reddish-pink hair, a white top shirt, a black bandanna around her neck, and a small pink dress with what appeared to have a small dog on the side. The Cyclops child smiled at the two new visitors, revealing her sharp shark-like teeth. Dismas immediately drew his sword, while Reynauld pulled up his fist in a fighting stance. Before the two could do anything serious, the cyclops ran up to the two demons, surprising them with her speed.

"Hi, I'm Niffty! It's a pleasure to meet you! Finally, we got some more men in the hotel!"

Reynauld and Dismas were taken aback by Niffty, her sheer speed had surprised them. She was standing right on top of Reynauld's chest plate, while Reynauld was arching his back trying his best not to fall. Niffy stares directly into Reynaulds visor. Her eye still and unblinking.

"Sowhereyoufrom?! I'mguessingeuropemaybebritishorfrench! OH! Whattimeperioddidyouboyscomefrom!? I'mguessing17thor18thcenturybut-Ohmygoshyourarmoeisfilthy!Theresbloodeverwhere!"

Niffty zips over to Dismas, clenching his torn jacket!

"Yourjacketissooldanddirty! Ithinktheresevenliceinhere! Andthetearsarejusthorrible! HoldonIcanfixbothofyouinasecond!"

In a blur, both of the adventurers are surrounded in a flurry of pink and white. They at first want to shake her off, but by then the little cyclops was already finished with her work. Reynaulds tunic and blood-splattered armor were quickly wiped away from all grime and crusted blood. While Dismas's bloody and torn jacket, was immediately stitched together, and most of the more notable bloodstains, gone.

"Wooo. *Huff* *huff* *huff* *huff* Okay okay. *Huff* Wooo. I think I calmed down now!"

Reynauld and Dismas could not help but stare in disbelief at what just happened. In an instant, this little cyclops had fixed up there clothing and armor. Was this normal?

"Ahem! Reynauld and Dismas. This is Niffty. She's our little custodian/head maid at the hotel. Niffty this is Reynauld and Dismas."

"Pleasure to meet you two."

Niffy raised her hands at Dismas, who hand given her a small handshake. "Hey."

She then raised a hand to Reynauld, but to everyone’s surprise, Reynauld had knelt to Nifftys level, and removed his helmet, revealing his shadowy face. He then gave a small gentle kiss on her hand.

"It is a pleasure to meet you Ms. Niffty"

A visible puff of steam could be seen above Nifftys head, as her entree face had turned red as a cherry. Charlie couldn't help but blush as well. Dismas and Vaggie, however, couldn't help but facepalm.

"Oh. A gentleman. They're not that many left down here in hell."

"Oh, for god’s sake. The moment we enter the place, you already got the head maid swooning."

Reynauld simply gave Dismas a coy smile. Charlie then stepped up to the two adventures, presenting them with two keys.

"Niffty, gather everyone for lunch, it’s going to be Curry and rice."

Niffty shot right up and began to speed away towards the stairs.

"These keys are for your rooms. Room 301 and 302. We'll show you where they are after lunch. Come on you must be hungry by now."

The two adventures felt a small rumble in their stomachs and thought that maybe a meal wouldn't be so bad. They followed Charlie and Vaggie down the hallway, passing by various portraits. Many of them having Charlie on them. Two particular pictures caught the two's attention. One was a picture of Charlie in the middle and two figures at her side. On one side a tall beautiful woman with white hair and a light purple skin tone, and a thorn-like crown. On the other was a man with a large razor-sharp grin. He had pale white skin, blonde hair, and white suit. He had a large hat with an apple as a decoration and a small worm could be seen curling around it. They looked like Charlie's parents!

Reynauld and Dismas looked at each other for a few moments, and then to the portrait. If these truly were Charlie's parents, the rulers of hell looked a lot less intimidating than the horrors they had fought before. But that just made them more uneasy, things that looked the least dangerous were often times deadlier than they could have ever imagined. Her mother was something that they had expected, but her father? He was surprisingly.....calming to be around. They expected a man that oozed evil or horribly disfigured, but it wasn't like that at all! He almost looked silly.

The next portrait confused the two adventures. It was a picture of Charlie dancing with another man. They looked as if they were in a warm embrace, like lovers. The man was a tall bluish-green and wore a fine tailored suit and tie. Both of them were smiling in the picture but unlike Charlie's warm and soothing smile, the young man’s smile was a smug and arrogant one. The hat on top had multiple eyes embedded in the top, while teeth dangling from the sides, and his hair was pitch black darkness and from just one look at him, they both recognized something Eldritch about him. Reynauld curiosity got the better of him and asked.

"Who is this man?"

Charlie looked at the portrait Reynauld was pointing at, but then quickly looked away. She started to clench her arms and moved uncomfortably. Vaggie noticed and took her lover's hand. Comforting Charlie. Giving a quick glare to the two and then went back to comfort her. Charlie then spoke up in a weak smile.

"A person that I had a thing for. It didn't work out."

Reynauld and Dismas knew that it wasn't the full truth, but that was when they noticed that Charlie was rubbing her arms as if she was comforting a wound. Reynauld and Dismas immediately put the pieces together in their heads. They couldn't explain it but they had a sudden urge of hatred fill them. They looked back at the portrait and Dismas fired a quick shot into the man's face.

BAM!!!!

The two demonesses looked back to see what happened. They saw a hole where the head of the blueish man used to be in.

"Whoops. Misfire. My fault. Sorry about the picture."

Charlie and Vaggie couldn't help but smile at the small gesture. Dismas and Reynauld couldn't help but smile back.

Chapter Text

As the group entered the dining hall the two adventures couldn't help but stand in awe. The Dining room was as large as a tavern, at the center of the room was a large rectangular dinner table, with a white covering and multiple plates and silverware lining the table, expecting guests to use them. Round wooden tables spread across the room each with four black chairs cushioned with red velvet seats. The walls were painted a light red, imprinted with deep red flowers and white borders. At the far back of the room were metal stairs with black metal banisters covered in ivy, leading to an indoor balcony on the second floor. The floors were waxed hardwood while the second floor had a deep crimson carpet floor. At the far left of the room was a stage for performances and songs, and on the right side of the room, a bar, underneath the indoor balcony. Pots and bowls housing plants hanged from the pillars holding up the second floor. But as the two adventures got closer, they noticed the bar had two strange creatures sitting at the booth. At the bar, stood a tall pink and white skinny demon. It had four arms, it's left eye being a complete dark sclera with no pupil, and its entire body was covered in a white fur. It wore a white suit with pink stripes, a black and pink bow tie, a black choker, pink gloves, a black miniskirt, and long black thigh high heel boots. The other demon that was manning the bar was a cat-like humanoid, it's black fur and white underbelly made it looked like it was wearing a suit. It wore a black top hat and a red bowtie, but that wasn't the thing that set the two adventures off. It was the large red wings on it's back, they were a beautiful set of red wings, covered in the symbols of hearts, clubs, diamonds, and spades. The two demons finally took notice of the group behind them and the pink demon began to walk towards them.

"Hey Girls! Back so soon? Ho! New Guests? Been a while since we had more company." To the two adventures surprise the voice of this demon was male! They assumed by the looks of the body that this demon was a female, but they were quickly proven wrong.

"Angel, Husk this is Reynauld and Dismas. Dismas, Reynauld this is Angel Dust our first client, and Husk our Bartender." Charlie Answered

Husk gave a small nod and returned to cleaning the glass cups and drinking the nearby beer.

Reynauld bowed "Pleasure to be of aquatints Mr.Angel." while Dismas waved "Nice to meet you, I guess."

Angel dust smirked "Man where you pick up these guys Charlie? From the Renaissance fair or did you go into a time machine that I didn't know about."

"Nope, these guys are new around Hell."

"Huh. Really? Say. Those are some nice weapons you got there."

"Oh why thank you, they're old and not as good as they used to be, but they still get the job done."

"Well then. Could I help you clean them, I am a little bit of an expert when it comes to cleaning these Special weapons, for a price.

Reynauld was delighted by the demon's proposal. "That would be great! Thank you."

"Oh, my pleasure, your friend's gun down there looks a bit clogged, maybe I can help him release a bit of that stress." Angel was now pointing towards Dismas's belt, looking at the bird demon with intense flirty eyes.

At first, Dismas was confused by Angel's words, but he quickly figured out what Angel was implying and immediately scowled. "Ugh...I'm sorry but I think I'm going to have to pass. I prefer not to trust my gun to people I just meet. I'll clean it myself thank you."

Angel simply shrugged "Heh your loss then. What about you sweetheart want me to fix that sword of yours."

Reynauld not noticing the inuendos replies "Not really, I would just prefer to clean it, it's covered in blood from my last confrontations. Do you have any oil perhaps?"

"Oh. I do. But do you want a private room for this?"

"No. Outside is fine. We can do it on the table."

"Oh that's a bit dirty don't you think."

"I don't mind I can clean up after if there is a mess."

Charlie couldn't help but blush as the exchange between the two was continuing. While Vaggie was pinching her nose "Huff...Fricken Pendejo. How dense is your friend?"

Dismas was rubbing his neck "To be honest this happens all the time. No matter what tavern I bring him to, he will never understand innuendos unless it's explained to him."

"So how long do you think this exchange will last?"

"Um........2 maybe 3 minutes. Maybe-....."

Charlie noticed that Dismas was now looking back at the door they came from. Reynauld paused his conversation with Angel dust and began to stare at the door as well

"Dismas? Are you feeling okay?" Charlie asked

Dismas replied "No. I'm not. Somethings coming. Something...Evil.....Reynauld?

"I'll take point, you get behind the tables and get ready to harry whatever it is with grapeshots"

"Got it"

"Wait! Wait! What's going on?!"

To Charlie's surprise, she noticed something happen to the two adventurers. Strange symbols appear on top of the two newcomers' heads. They were a black crescent shape, with 5 sharp jagged spikes protruding downward towards their heads. The stress symbols of the darkest dungeon. The symbols only appeared for a few moments, but it was enough to notice them. Reynauld hands were on the hilt of his blade, while Dismas was gripping his flintlock and raised his shortsword. Both looking at the doors as if something was about to break in. The room suddenly became still, quiet, as the door slowly opened, and the static entered the room.

A tall skinny grey demon stepped forth, with a long sharp sinister yellow smile. It wore a crimson suit and had a heavy cane. Its eyes were all different shades of red, its pupils, retinas all parts different shades of red. A monocle rested on one of its eyes. They were small antler-like protrusions coming out of the demon's scalp in between his hair that was shaped like ears of a deer or were they his actual ears? In any case, the demon stood in front of the door eyeing the new guest, Reynauld had already drawn his blade, and Dismas had flipped over a nearby table and taken cover. The same strange symbols appeared above their heads again. They did not move one inch. No one did, for the longest while. Charlie was stuttering trying her best to calm down the two from fighting. Vaggie was trying her best to not pull out her weapon and join the two. While Husk and Angel were placing bets.

Husk was finishing his whiskey bottle "Money is on Alastor, he would probably kill them in seconds."

"I don't know the Knight has a holy weapon and man is it strong! It feels powerful from over here."

But before a fight could break lose Niffty popped up in front of Alastor.

"Hi, Charlie! I finally got the rest to come.......what did I miss?"

Niffty looked at Alastor and then at the two armed newcomers, then back at Alastor, and then back at the newcomers.

"OH! No, wait! Reynauld! Dismas! It's Okay! This is one of the guests. You don't have to fight this gentleman!"

Reynauld and Dismas heard Nifty's plea and lowered their weapons. They both looked at each other for a moment and nodded. Was this demon really, a resident of the hotel? The two looked at each other and gave a nod, Reynauld quickly moved Niffty behind him while Dismas was putting the table back up. Although both sheathed their weapons, both also decided to keep their hands on their weapons, just in case. Reynauld approached Alastor, cautious and determined.

In a deep and intimidating voice, Reynauld asked: "Who are you?"

The Radio Demon merely shifted his head to the right, as static began to fill the room, eyeballs teeth, and tendrils of dark origins began to appear. All the images were static and unclear, the sight of such images unsettled them greatly. The Red Demon began to slowly walk towards the knight. The air suddenly turned heavy and humid. Reynaulds hands started to become clammy and cold. His skin shivering and sweating, chills throughout his entire body. As the radio demon's head stood upright, he simply stared at the knight with his eyes. They weren't cold or uncaring eyes, they were like the eyes of a predator, not wild but yet not sane either. A mix of both fear and assurance came from those eerily eyes of his. Reynauld didn't know what to feel in this situation, the demon was threatening, but at the same time it didn't appear to be all that hostile, he didn't know how to describe what he was feeling. But then the demonic presence dropped, they were no more images of demons or teeth, just the smiling demon. Then the demon spoke.

"Oh ho ho ho ho! Where are my manners? Alastor! It is a pleasure to meet you. I see that you are getting acquainted with the rest of the guests, getting familiar with your surroundings. Haha! Sorry about the scare. I thought you might have been a few vagabonds looking for a place to loiter."

The demon's voice was far from normal, it was both a blend of deep and high pitched at the same time. As if he had two voices that were speaking at the same time in synchronization, but just barely. There was some type of disturbance in a voice every time he spoke as if his body wasn't speaking at all it was just the receiving end of a message from something else. Whatever it was, it disturbed the two adventurers even more.

"Oh. Sorry. Did I offend you in a way, sir knight? I'm terribly sorry, but your armor made it seem as if you were a mercenary of a sort. You can never too careful down here you know."

His tone was the very essence of a demon, charming, but a hint of arrogance. Charismatic and calm, with a slight hint of aggression from behind the words he used. Clever and honest, but at the same time, a small bit of deceit lingered from its tongue.

"None taken." Replied Dismas "It's kinda normal reaction for us, well there was no demonic energy during those times, but you get what we mean."

Reynauld glared daggers at the demon, although this demon showed no obvious signs of hostility towards them anymore, it felt like the demon was trying to make a point. "This is my home, you better not try anything here while I'm around" sort of feeling.

"Anyhow, sorry for the rough start, my new compatriots. I hope we can become friends, in do time."

The demon offered up his hand. Reynauld simply stared at it. The room was awkwardly silent again.

"Oh, dear. I forgot. The Handshake is a bit of a taboo for demons, isn't it? Don't you worry, if the handshake was made to solidify a deal, then it would have looked like this!"

Alastor's hands began to glow a nefarious bright green, spirits and symbols of unknown origin began to swirl around them. A vortex of wind blew about the room, Charlie and Vaggie were holding on to the table as Husk and Angel held onto the bar. Niffty was flung from the ground, only to be caught by Dismas as they both flew into a nearby support beam. Reynauld, however, stood his ground. The green vortex began to die down significantly, and all that was left was the smiling demon.

"Hmmm. Quite impressive. Your a very interesting fellow aren't you. Heh heh. This will be entertaining indeed. What was your name"

Reynauld cringed when those words were spoken. But the demon still offered up his hands. So with a lot of hesitation, Reynauld shook the demon's hand.

"Reynauld. My name is Reynauld."

"Reynauld? Heh heh. The Crusader?"

".....Yes. What, the armor gave it away?"

"No. It's just your name seems familiar, I just can't put my finger on it."

With that Alastor began to walk towards the bar, Reynauld, and Dismas giving him the death glare. Charlie went towards the two to calm them down.

"Oh boy." Charlie huffed "Okay that was a bit of a rough start but, that was Alastor. He is one of our supporters and staff of the Hazbin hotel. He has helped so much in renovating the place, and he's one of our great chefs."

Dismas walked towards Reynauld and Charlie" Where did you find him?"

"Well actually, he found us. He came here after seeing our.....last advertisement campaign and wanted to help."

"Let me guess out of the goodness of his heart."

"No. More of he found our struggling hotel to be entertaining and wanted to "stay and watch the show unfold." as he put it"

"Ah.....well then."

As the conversation ended the rest of the Hotels residence started to file in. 5 people.....demons entered the dining room. The first was a blue humanoid demon with fins on the sides of his head, with blue hair covered in bright lights and a single strand or antenna with a glowing orb on the end. It wore a large trench cloak and gloves made for a doctor or researcher and had large yellow goggles covering his eyes. The demon reminded them of a pelagic, but less intimidating and less likely wanting to kill them. The way he avoided eye contact and constantly looked around the room gave him a very anxious personality.

"Hi, Baxter! Did you blow up anything while we were out?"

The bluefish demon quickly locked eyes with Charlie, insulted by the mention of explosion "I'll have you know, that I didn't blow anything up thank you. Everything was contained and properly done today....acid might have melted the floor and a fire or two were started, but no explosions today."

Baxter then noticed the two new demons by Charlie's side.

"Ummmm. New bodyguards? Or are they security for the hotel?..... Or are we getting robbed?"

"Huh? OH! Right! *Ahem* Baxter, This is Reynauld and Dismas. Reynauld, Dismas meet Baxter"

Reynauld bows while Dismas waves, "Hello, Professor Baxter." "Hey, Doc."

"Oh! Hello There. I-i Just Baxter is fine. I'm no professor or doctor. But thank you for calling that, it's been a while since-.....wait how did you-

"We always had a friend that dressed up just like you. She was a field doctor, dressed wounds, help those with diseases,......always tried giving us these experimental drugs that might've killed us."

"Huh. She sounds....charming."

"Baxter, these two are going to be living in the hotel, is there anything you want to say? Make a good impression?"

Baxter thought over it for a moment before coming to a quick answer.

"3 rules, 1, no touching anything in my lab, 2nd don't come into my room unless I say so, and rule number 3 don't disturb me while I work unless it is an emergency."

Charlie slapped her face in embarrassment. But as she looked back at the two adventures she saw not anger but understanding.

"Okay, call us if you need help, we can do some heavy lifting if you need it. Just don't subject us to any weird experiments and we should be fine."

"Oh. Okay. I'll gladly take you up on that offer some time, and don't worry, I believe my current experiments won't be needing any live test subjects until phase 9, I'm still at 2 at the moment. Need to recalibrate *Mumble* *Mumble* Oh! Right. *Ahem* It's was a pleasure to meet you two. Hope to be seeing you again sometime."

And with that Baxter sat down at the large rectangular table at the center of the room and began writing and reviewing his notes.

"Huh. Seems like a nice fellow."

"Wait until he creates some weird abomination and lets it run loose," Dismas said cynically.

"Oh don't worry about that, they usually last about 5 minutes before destabilizing into puddles." Charlie grinned

The next 2 demon that appeared was a short and chubby grey humanoid demon. It was a female demon that wore a bright purple dress, violet gloves, a beaded necklace, and had a headband with a large purple feather. She was a blonde demon with pitch-black eyes and hot pink pupils. The way she walked was confident and poised, and her smile made her very welcoming. Then a small dog-like demon came, she was also female. She wore torn a leather vest and a pink undershirt with a skull in the middle, and she wore no pants. She wore a spiked collar and fingerless gloves. Her Fur was white with black spots all over, the fur of a dalmatian. She had a large white and pink ponytail with a curled bang that hungover one side of her face. She looked disinterested in the new group members and gave off a very delinquent or troublemaking vibe from her. The smaller demon spotted the two newcomers and began to walk towards them, dragging the dog demon with her.

"Hey, Charlie! Looks like you got us some new friends. Nice to meet you two, the names Mimzy, and this pretty lady here's Crymini.

The dog demon took one look at the demon's two and huff, clearly disinterested in the new guests. Reynauld approached.

"Hello, Ms. Mimzy. My name Reynauld and this is my friend Dismas."

"Pleasure to meet you, ma'am."

"Oh. Polite demons. Where did you get these two sugar? It's as if it's their first day down here."

"It is their first day actually. We found them while we were out spreading advertisements."

"Wow. So you two haven't even gone through the whole city yet?"

"Not really" Replied Dismas. "But we've seen enough to tell that this place is a lot better than out there."

"Well, I hope you have a pleasant stay you two. Crymini baby, want to say something."

"Huff. Hey."

".......Hey, I guess" Replied Dismas in the same tone.

"Huff I keep telling you, young lady, we need to work on your social skills."

"Why. They'll just leave like everyone else, take the free food and rent and then leave, nothing ever changes."

"Crymini! Young lady, you don't know who these people even are-"

"Exactly. We don't know who these bastards are! They might be just some random assholes that well just use us and then leave, cackling about how dumb we were. Well, I'm not that naive, and I'm as sure as all hell not falling for any of these guys' tricks."

The Dalmation began to walk off in a huff, clearly not accepting the two very well. And sat down at the far end of the long table.

"Hoo. That girl. I'm so sorry hon, she gets that way every once in a while."

"It's okay, we understand," Reassured Reynauld "Don't worry about it. We know she means well."

"Wait. So people just come to the hotel, sleep, get feed, and just leave!?" Questioned Dismas.

"Huff, unfortunately, yes," Charlie Answered. "They sneak off in the night or out the window and before we know it. They're gone."

"Ugh. Damn Bastards." Reynauld replied, "Don't worry, if any of those types try and do something like that, I'll be there to stop them."

"Heh. I'll keep an eye out as well." Said Dismas "Used to be a bouncer, know when to spot people that try shit like that, I'll be your eyes and ears."

Charlie and Mimzy couldn't help but smile at the two's kind gestures and both Procedided to hug the two adventurers. At first, they were surprised at the small gesture, but they were happy that they were helping out.

"Thank you." Whispered Charlie.

"Heh. No trouble at all ma'am."

Mimzy left the group and began to walk towards Vaggie, which lead to the both of them going to Crymini and chewing her out for her rudeness.

The last two demons came in looking as if they got caught up in some sort of fight. A black and yellow snake demon and another Cyclops. The Snake demon was similar to a cobra, but unlike a Cobra it had multiple eyes across his belly and hood. He wore a grey and yellow suit and a large grey hat with a singular red eyeball and mouth. Although he had arms, he had no legs and slithered along the floor with a snake-like body. The cyclops wore nothing but a torn red off-shoulder crop top, a black bra, a reddish torn-up miniskirt, and black ripped leggings underneath. She had a pink boot on foot and only a pink sock on the other, along with one large fingerless glove on one of her arms. She had blonde hair, with pink and white accents, a ponytail, and her eyeball has a hot pink with a large white X instead of a pupil. She gave off a very destructive vibe from her. Both demons were covered in bandages.

"Cherry!? What happened!?" Charlie asked afraid of what might have happened and why Sir Pentious was in the hotel.

"Hey, Charlie! Sorry about the mess! Edgelord here wanted another fight, so I whooped his ass. But I kinda sent his ship into his secret base and now he's crashing here."

The snake demon grumbled. "Grrrr. I almost WON! But your firebombssss blew up most of my sssship! along with 90% of my Egg Boisssss! Do you know how long it takessss to remake all that you harlot!"

"Make your shit less-flammable then."

"IT'S MADE OF ssssSSSTEEL AND IRON!!!"

"Not the ballon part, dumbass."

"Argh...When my sssship isss rebuilt and my Egg Boisss respawn. You. Are. Dead."

"Bring it on, pretentious."

"IT'S SIR PENTIOUS! YOU VILE THUG!!!"

Reynauld and Dismas looked at each other for a moment before walking towards the new demons. Cherry and Sir Pentious noticed the two new demons, and Charlie gladly introduced them.

"Cherry, Sir Pentious, this is Reynauld and Dismas. Reynauld, Dismas, meet Cherry Bomb and Sir Pentious, a few of the most infamous over bosses in hell."

"Hello." "Hey"

Cherry eyeballed the two with a curious look. "Whoa. We got two more edgelords for you to meet Pretentious."

"Oh. My-IT'SSS SSSSSIR PENTIOUSSSSSssss!.....Huff. It'sss a pleasssure to meet you two I guesss."

"Now now, Sir Pentious, you know the rules when in my hotel."

"Mumble mumble" Sir Pentious Extends his hands towards the two newcomers.

Reynauld and Dismas Shook the two demon's hands and begun to question. "Over bosses? As in lords of the lands of a sort?"

Sir Pentious smiled, he was happy to hear people call him a lord. "*Ahem* Why Yes. I'm ssSir Pentiousss! The future ruler of hell! The sssmartest sssnake demon that is known to all demonkind asss the mossst Nobel and Glorious of all the overlordsss. The Conqueror and Invertor extraordinary. With my machinesss and my minionssss, I shall rule ALL OF HELL!!! MUW HA HA HA HA HA HA HAHAHA!

The two demons looked over to Cherry bomb and Charlie and saw no concern on their faces. By the looks of things, the demon in front of them appeared to be all talk and a very little bite.

Cherry simply scoffed. "Were not really the "Rulers" of the place, we just, you know. Run the place. We have our own turfs in the city, where we do our own shit and that's pretty much it."

"So your crime lords," Dismas said with no hesitation.

"Pretty much."

"Why am I not surprised...Oh, wait. We're in hell."

"Pfft. Pleassse. I'm not sssome wretched crime lord." Sir Pentious spoke up "I'm far sssuperior than your average drugged up, alcoholic. I have sssome ssstandardsss, mind you. Even in hell, one must learn to keep a good head on to sssurvive and thrive here, and thankfully that isss what I have."

"And yet you're stuck with us," Cherry said joyfully

"Shut it. You."

And with that, the two began to walk towards the dining table. Arguing and poking fun at each other. After the introductions everyone was seated at the large rectangular table, waiting for lunch. The two adventures sat as far away from Alastor as possible, who was at the very edge of the table. On his right was Husk and on the Left Niffty. Baxter was seated next to Niffty and the two adventurers noticed as the two were having a conversation he began to be blush when speaking to her. Then they saw Sir Pentious who was sitting next to Baxter glaring at him with a very intense evil glare that was probably enough to make a hole through the floor. By the look on his face, it appeared Sir Pentious was, jealous almost. Next to him were Cherry bomb and Mimzy, who were busy talking to Crymini who was across from them. Angle dust sat next to Husk, attempting to flirt with him, to Husk's annoyance. Vaggie and Charlie with each other currently going over some of the important information about the hotel. From what the two have noticed, the demons of the hotel weren't completely evil. Alastor was definitely evil incarnate, but the rest of the group seem like they are nice people, for demons. The two sat across from each other, Reynauld sat next to the Crymini while Dismas sat next to Mimzy.

As they all sat down, the two mercenaries began asking questions. "So. What's Curry?" Dismas asked.

"It's sort of like a stew-well not, really a stew more of a gravy thing, maybe masala is that the right word for it, masala? Anyway, it's like a thick stew with potatoes, carrots, onion, beef, and a whole lot of spices mixed to make a great thick curry." Niffty answered

"Oh, you'll love it, honey. It's one of the many dishes I recommend, along with the cooked Salmon and Jambalaya." Mimzy added

"Hmm, I'll take your word for it. Thank you."

As the whole group sat down to eat, the two Goat-Bois Razzle and Dazzle appeared, along with a legion of small Egg looking demons appeared. They were carrying bowls of curry and rice along with several drinks the two had never seen before. As the egg demons placed the food onto the table, everyone began to eat. Until they noticed Reynauld...was praying.

After he was finished Reynauld looked around him realizing what he had done. "Oh.....did I doom us all?"

Angel answered. "Yeah, the ceiling will collapse on us as multiple angles from heaven will come flying down and stab us in the balls and began to fuck our dead bodies.:

"Interesting," Dismas replied.

"Angel! I'm sorry Reynauld. There's nothing wrong with praying, you can do that down here and nothing bad will happen.

Crymini then asked in a harsh and mocking tone "Why did you even pray, think that god will come to pick you up and save you?"

Before Charlie and Vaggie could reprimand her, Reynauld replied.

"No." It was a loud, cold, and stern voice that Reynauld rarely used.

It surprised Crymini, she didn't really know how to respond. There was an awkward silence before Dismas broke it with a small bite of the meal in front of him.

"Huh. This Curry stuff is amazing! Reynauld eat your helping before I steal your bowl."

Reynauld looked back at the thick curry stew that was in front of him and took a bite of the Curry plate. It was delicious. A mix of all sorts of expensive spices and herbs, mixed greatly with the starchy root plants and savory beef. Before long Reynauld and Dismas began to shovel the food down there in one sitting. Alastor was pleased that two enjoyed his cooking, but they didn't need to know that he was the one who cooked the meal

As lunch began to wrap up, and the dishes were carried off by the egg demons, Angle dust then decided to ask "So....how did you guys end up here? I mean in hell, I can understand Mr. Dark and silent, he probably has some sort of edgy back story. But what about you Sir Knight? Shouldn't you be in heaven for your, courageous deeds?"

"Yeah like purge the heretics and Deus Vult shit. For the holy land! HAHA Ha!" Cherry piped in.

Reyanuld and Dismas both stared at each other for a few minutes unsure of what to say.

"It's Okay," Charlie spoke up "If it's something personal you don't have to say it.

Looking at each other again they both nodded and Dismas began to speak. "I rather not say, I just meet you lot after all. What about you Reynauld?"

All the demons stopped their conversations and eyed the Crusader. Reynauld answered "I will share, It will be a long story, so I will try my best not to trouble you all with the details. *Ahem*"

The demons began to listen to the knight's story. Charlie bringing up a note pad and ready to write down the crusader's tale. Reynauld then began to tell his story "I was conscripted to join the fight against the barbarians of the south. So when the letter came to me, I answered the call.....I had to answer the call. So I brought my sword and went off to battle. For a while...I thought it was my purpose to fight, for god....for our country...for a righteous cause.....now..... I don't even know if I made the right decision...The barbarians...the savages......they didn't look like barbarians. Many of those people were savages......but many weren't. they were Different, still human, civilized." Reynauld pauses for a moment. "They had children...Elderly.....sick....injured...young men....and pregnant women......and I admit this now......my blade had killed several....."

There is a long pause. All the demons just stared at Reynauld. Dumbfound and surprised at his honesty.

"You were ordered to do it right?" To everyone's surprise, it was Husk that spoke up.

"Yes." Replied Reynauld.

"Then it wasn't completely your fault. You still killed them, but you had no choice right?"

Reynauld thought about it for a few moments before answering. "30...."

Everyone stared in confusion for a moment "30 times during my campaigns it was ordered that we kill the inhabitants of towns and villages.....I did not refuse, neither did I hesitate to do so."

Everyone didn't know what to really say, what could they have said? "I enjoyed killing them. Many had alters worship demons and dark gods of unspoken evils. Tombs and writings dedicated to these demonic gods. I thought I was doing a world a favor." Reynauld admitted " But many didn't have those alters.....very few had them. A lot of times, it was filled with.......families......"

The Crusader paused for a moment, noticing that he was scraping the table. "I remember....I remember it so clearly......I.......I could've spared people....but... If I could go back and prevent the slaughter of many innocent I would have......but...... I made my choice."

The mood had changed dramatically over the table, what was once cheerful and happy, was now replaced with awkward silence, and disturbed glances. "I...I can't atone enough for my sins in the living world. I had killed many......so many people...... I had believed what I did was right. But when I look back at my past. I can't help but regret so much of my life. The poor choices and decisions I made... I even had a chance to go back, to leave it all behind."

Everyone began to lean in closer, Reynauld couldn't help but feel as if he was carrying boulders on his shoulders. Everyone seemed to give him a death glare as if to make him feel more ashamed of what he had done.

"I had a chance to leave the crusade early. I was injured, and they allowed me to leave early if wanted to, It was understandable. We were in friendly territory. My home town for god's sake.....I could've gone home.....To my wife.....to my son..."

Everyone's eyes went wide. Everyone couldn't believe what he had just said. Alastor's however, smile permanently skewed across his face grew wider and wider as the story progressed.

"You...had a family?" Charlie asked Reynauld couldn't help but stare at Charlie. Tears had willed up in his eyes and began to leak out. The demons began to notice the streams of clear liquid drip from his shadowy face, they glistened.

"Yes," he replied. "Yes."

"But I didn't go back. I couldn't.....I didn't know why....but I just couldn't go back...my life was different...I was a warrior...I was a man of god.....I was a crusader.......I was a killer. I had made my choice....and I stayed until the crusade had ended. Then...I didn't know what to do with my life, no more wars, no more crusades, I had nowhere else to go. So I went back....back home.....to my family....to my home.......but they were gone......there was no note, no sign of them anywhere. They had left.....I abandoned them.....they left......"

Tears began to fall onto the table. The crusader didn't know it, but he was crying.

"I searched for them. Asking everybody, Anybody where they went....the whole village.......until I found them.....my wife, my child.....and another man. They had moved on....I...I...I was angry.....I couldn't believe what I was seeing, but my wife and child had moved on.......I was .....wanted to walk up to them........I wanted to yell, scream, shout in anger......even......hurt.......but when I saw there smiling faces.......I left my home......they deserved to be happy. They deserved that life."

"With nowhere else to go, I became a mercenary....I got hired to fight at an estate and that is where I died. Heh. So if you need to know why I'm down here..... I'm here, because of Genocide, and being a horrible spouse. If that's the reason why God had sent me here...I would not blame him...I had been a horrible man, a killer of thousands....and a horrible father...who left for his own selfish intentions and used his name to justify them.....this is what I deserve. Hell."

Reynauld wiped the tears forming in his eyes, and waited to be bombarded by ridicule and insults. But as he looked around the table, he noticed that Charlie started to tear up as well. Vaggie had eyes of both disgust but also sadness in her eyes. Angel, Crymini, Baxter, Cherri Bomb, and Sir Pentious stood there confused about how they should respond. While Mimzy and Niffty got out of their seats and began to hug Reynauld, comforting him.

"It's okay Reynauld," Mimzy said in a calming tone "You knew what you did wrong and tried to fix it. That's admirable on its own."

"Yeah, and you didn't go crazy and tried to murder everybody.....wait, no that sounded wrong."

Reynauld couldn't help but smile and chuckle at Nifftys little hiccup. "It is fine, you're not in the wrong like me."

"Hey. At least you tried to be a good father. I mean you did go looking for them and try to reconnect with them, that's better than my dad." Cherry said trying to comfort Reynauld. "My dad never came back, but at least you tried."

"And," Sir Pentious chimed in "What about before you left to fight, I'm pretty sure you were a good father figure for your child while you were still with him, correct?"

"Yeah!" Angle followed up. " I'm sure he'll remember you as a good guy. As a protector of the country. Slayer of Evil! Heh Heh! That's a good thing to be remembered for."

Before he knew it Reynauld had all the Hazbin crew around him comforting and trying their best to help him. He was surprised. "Why don't you hate me?"
Everyone was surprised by Reynaulds reaction. Reynauld was now full-on crying, tears dripped from his dark wispy face. "I've done some of the most horrible things in my life and yet you still try to comfort me....why?"

Dismas got up from his seat and walked towards the crying crusader, and then proceeded to knock Reynauld over the head. "Wack! OW!"

*Huff.* Dismas knelt to his long-time friend a gave a simple answer "It's because you're my friend, my battle brother."

Reynauld was confused, Dismas sighed, and turned his head and smiled "What happened in the past happened. You can't take that back. What we can do now is learn and move on. I know what you did was horrible. Hell, I probably did a lot of horrible shit that could be arguably worse. But, what I know is that what you just described yourself as was not who you are right now. Right now, You're the best friend I meet on my journey. Without you, I could've died because of so many things...I'm your friend Reynauld, let me.... help you.

Reynauld couldn't help but give a small smile at his old companion. Before long all the Hazbin crew was smiling and laughing. Crymini, Husk, Angel, Vaggie, and Baxter weren't really laughing per se but gave a small smile as Charlie and Niffty were hugging the Knight. Alastor was at the corner of the room seeing the group comforting the knight, smiling as the scene played out. That was when he noticed something. There as a bright flash of light from the windows, as the radio demon walked over to check what was going on, he saw three pillars of light shining from outside, and into the city. Before long, the flash of light began to radiate even brighter, with more pillars of light beaming from the sky and into the city. The Hazbin crew and the two adventures finally began to notice and ran towards the windows. The light then started to slowly fade away, leaving only a trail of smoke from where they came from.

"Well now! This will be very entertaining." Alastor said to himself.

Chapter Text

"What was that!" Cried Vaggie as she saw the flashing lights appear from the sky.

The Hazbin crew stared from the windows, the multiple lights in the sky they slowly fade away, only showing the same black spiked crescents from before, but they are also white glowing crescent above other areas as well. "Man. Did Reynauld really doom us all?" Angel jokes
*Wack!* Vaggie jabs Angels arm
"Ow! I'm just asking."

Reynauld and Dismas looked at each other as they spotted the swirling lights outside. The same Black crescents and white halos appearing above them. They soon realized something

"Wait...if we're here.....does that mean that..."

"The others are here as well?" Dismas finished

"Wait. Others? What do you mean others?" Vaggie asked

"Our friends, our allies, the people we worked with. If we all died and ended up here, maybe they came along with us."

"How do you know it's them?" Asked Charlie

Both Reynauld and Dismas stared back at the symbols in the sky and quickly answered. "We know."

The Hazbin crew all stared at each other in disbelief. More friends of theirs? They Know what the lights are? Convenient plot device? This all sounded pretty suspicious, was this some sort of elaborate plot by some random assholes? And even if they were telling the truth about their friends, Why in hell? What awful things did these people do to get into hell in the first place?

Reynauld sensing their disbelief began to speak "Look I know you don't know us well, and we just meet for god's sake, but if our friends are out there in that city, we should at least try to find them."

"Wait...how do we know it's really your friends and not Exterminators or something!? What if it was just some random jackass failing to summon an eldritch creature." Reasoned Baxter

"How can we be sure You're telling the truth? All we know, this is some elaborate way of leaving the hotel and some other group comes and burns it down." Crymini suggested.

"And even if they are your friends and this is your first time here. Why the fuck does this seem all too convenient that you all came down to hell on the same day? Did you all die at once or something?" Husk questioned

"It's a long story. But trust us....please.... we need to go and find them. We don't know how they will react when they realize that they're in hell!" Reynauld plead.

The Hazbin crew all looked at each other, cautious and unconvinced. Reynauld stopped trying to convince them. Dismas however, began to grow impatient. He never really cared for a lot of people, but 15 years in that godforsaken place of an estate, with a cast of misfits and outcasts. They were probably the only people he could really call family.

"Look! You guys don't have to come. We'll go find them ourselves. You guys stay here. For all you know, we just some random homeless bastards you brought off the streets. But were going out to find our friends, whether with or without your help. Look we'll explain our story to you guys when we get back, but right now, we need to get our friends before something bad happens. Come on Reynauld we need to go."

"....Right." Reynauld quickly clenched his sword and began to sprint out the doors with Dismas on his tail.

Before they could reach the lobby doors, "Wait!"

Charlie, Vaggie, Angel, Cherri, and Pentious were running after them, "Let us help."

Reynauld and Dismas looked at each other for a moment "Why?" Asked Dismas.

"Because...Why not?" Charlie spoke with a cheeky smile.

"Eh, bored, I hadn't had a chance to blow something up in days." Angel grinned hold two pistols and a wooden club

Sir Pentious slithered forward "Ahem. It would be unwise to not help out new possible allies to my soon to be territory. So I will help guide you through my soon to be conquered territory."

"He wants to help." Cherri interrupted "Hey, Next time you want to do something nice, don't be afraid to just say it Penty."

"Shut up you!"

Reynauld and Dismas smiled back "Heh. Tell Niffty and Baxter to prepare for injured just in case, and tell the rest to be on guard if we happen to bring back any trouble."

"Noted." Vaggie nodded, Although she didn't fully trust Reynauld and Dismas, She could tell that they were genuinely worried.

Charlie quickly grabbed a nearby first aid kit "One of those pillars looked close by, let's see if we can drive there. RAZZLE! DAZZLE!"

In an Ally way

"Ugh. What happened."

Barristan had woken up in a daze, his armor still intact, and his shield in one hand, and his mace in the other. He was in a dumpster by the looks of things, thank god it wasn't filled with garbage. He felt strange. Although he felt hot and very disgusting, he felt....stronger. More intact. Younger..... he could breathe! He immediately sprang up from the dumpster he was in, spooking the nearby demons. Getting out of the dumpster, he began to take in his surroundings, and immediately saw the sign above in a bright neon red, "Hell..... you're in Hell, I don't know what else to say." At first, Barristan was surprised by his sudden descent to a garbage bin, let alone a bright red sign saying that he was in hell. He decided to stay near the garbage bin and regain his composure. Thinking back on what happened. He remembered that he was fighting the heart of darkness then all of a sudden, he was struck by a large group of tentacles and ripped to threads. But why is he here? Shouldn't he be dead? Was this hell or some different part of the world? He took a look out the garbage bin and saw a metal carriage with no horses move on its own, with a bull and snake creature driving it with 4 other bandaged up demons. So by the looks of it, this was really hell.

".......Huh...I'm in Hell.....they could've been a bit more...subtle?.....Delicate?"

Barristan looked around him, surveying his new surroundings. He wasn't at all surprised that he was in hell, he was more baffled at how hell looked like. He imagined brimstone, fire, torture, or even worse back in the stomach of that godforsaken Eldritch "God". But to his surprise, it looked like a rundown city. Boarded up windows, and broken glass bottles. Graffiti, and thugs loitering nearby. Homeless people near fires. Yep. Just like any average city, if the place was run by demons. He was actually quite surprised by the variety of demons present. Some were very humanoid or had the appearance of animals or beasts. Other demons looked so bizarre, that he couldn't even tell if they were someone's pet or if they were an actual person. Whatever the case, he knew he couldn't stand in one place forever, if he as in hell he might as well explore the place a bit. As Barristan walked the sidewalk, he couldn't help but notice how vastly different hell was from what he originally thought it was. The bright neon lights, the large number of demon prostitutes and drug addicts, the fact that there were groups of them fighting one another in front of a market square, or even the fact that hell was a semi-functioning society that had a fully-fledged economy. But he had fought pig and fish people, at this point in his life he wasn't that surprised. But unlike the fish and pig men, the demons around him weren't very aggressive. In fact, he noticed that they tended to stay away from him, tiny imps and blobs of goo, to large horned humanoids and tall lengthy demons that towered over him. A large man in armor wielding a mace would frighten anyone he imagined, so he deiced to sheath it. It did little to calm down the demons, what it did do though was draw attention. As Barritan stopped in front of a tree on the sidewalk, a large group of 7 demons had already surrounded him. All armed with glowing white weapons. 2 horned humanoid demons each with different colors skin and hair, a grey wolf-like demon, another humanoid with an upside-down face, A cat-like demon with a hook for a tail, a cyclops demon with his large bulging eye in his mouth instead of an eye socket, and a pale lizard-like demon with a human face but a large nose, a scorpion-like tail, and large sharp claws.

"Can I help you, gentlemen?" Questioned Barristan

The horned demon with an upside-down face and grey suit replied "Yeah. You can die for us."

The cat demon then spoke up, spear pointing at Barristan "You look like you came to the wrong end of town. The weebs and tentacle fuckers are off roleplaying on the other side of town."

The rest seemed to laugh along with him, he appeared to be the leader of these groups of thugs. Judging by the way the men carried their weapons Barristan could already confirm that these men had little to no combat experience. More likely low ranking brigands or thieves wishing to make a name for themselves. So with a deep annoyed breath, Barristan replied in a deep intimidating growl.

"Well, what are you waiting for then. It's clear to me you fools wish to fight me. But for what rhyme or reason do you wish to fight me?"

A demon with a large eyeball within its own mouth, to Barristan's surprise, begun to speak. "Boss likes your gear. It could fetch a good price on the black market and your corpse could be a good payday if we sell it to the cannibals and cultists."

Barristan heard enough. "Well now....seems you boys think that you're going to earn the biggest payday of your life huh?" He then noticed a demon trying to sneak around him, a Lizard demon with claws.

"Couldn't we settle this over a nice mug ale? Maybe a drinking contest? No?"

The demons look at each other for a minute, before giving out there answer, "Heh heh look, grandpa, I don't think you understand the situation you're in-"

"Oh, I know the situation I'm in boy. But All I'm giving you is an option to back out of this situation before it turns more ugly than it needs to."

"Ha! You're shitting me right. It's seven to one and you're saying we should just fuck off? Hah ha, are you that stupid?"

In one quick movement, Barristan rams his shield into the Lizard demon's knee cap.

*Crack* "AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!"

Crushing the poor demon's leg. He then grabs the crippled demon by the throat and proceeds to lift him in the air turning him on his back. In just a few seconds

*CRACK* "MMMMMMMMMMMHHHHHHH"

Barristan breaks the demon's spine with his knee. The demon is now on the ground no longer screaming but is instead grunting, arching his back trying to realign his spine but to no avail. The other demons stared at Barristan, surprised as if attempting to fight a demon 2 feet taller than them was starting to become a bad idea. Barristan tries to end the fight as peacefully as he can.

"If I were you. I'd start running."

Barristan notices that the cyclops demon was smarter than he looked and begins to step back. While the other demons began to come closer, anger and frustration visible on their face. "FUCK YOU! YOU SON OF A-"

But before the cat demon could finish, Barristan grabs the lizard demon on the ground and launches him into the cat demon, pinning him. Noticing the Upside down face demon charging with an Ax, he then twirls around to catch the incoming ax with his shield. He then unsheathes his mace and then rams his weapon into the demon's legs and smashes them. Keeping up with his moment he then swings upward with his mace deflecting a sword and crushing the hands of the wolf demon rushing him, before shoving the mace into the wolf's snout, dislocating his jaw and misplacing a few teeth. Shoving both demons off of him and into the last remaining demons. Still hoping to end this as peacefully as he could, he then decided on one option. He dropped his mace and begins to inhale. He takes a deep breath, allowing his new fresh lungs to fill him, his back and chest no longer aching like before. He could finally scream without it being painful.

"RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! *GASP* RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!"

The roar had broken windows and ripped apart the sidewalk revealing corpses and gravel from underneath. The shout pushed the 4 demons to the wall, crashing into nearby stores and knocking both the wind and the will to fight out of them. With that, the 4 demons began to run, injured and limping away into the alleys. The ones left were the cat demon and cyclops demon, who was already carrying the lizard demon.

"Come on man, this ain't worth it! The guy isn't just all show! Let's just get out of here!

"SCREW THAT! THIS FUCKER NEEDS TO DIE!"

"No! We need to fuck off! Were going to die if we keep on agitating him! He's letting us go for Satan's sake!"

"GRRRRRRRR!!!! AAAAAAHAHHHHHHH!!!!!!" The Cat demon leaps towards Barristan. Spear raised above his head and pointed towards Barristan. But the spear breaks upon impact the moment it hits Barristan's chest plate. The demons stand there baffled. The Cat demon merely stares at his broken holy weapon surprised and confused as to why his spear broke when it hit. While the cyclops demon slaps his face at his friend's stupidity. Barristan merely sighs.

"What did you think was going to happen? That my Chest plate was going to explode? Be cut like butter? Set on fire? Heh heh."

WHAM! A shield bash knocks the poor cat demon unconscious.

"You can take care of this right?" Asks Barristan.

"Yeah. I'll come back for him." Replies the Cyclops demon carrying his broken comrade away.

It was now clear to Barristan that he was no longer the same person he was when he was alive. He was stronger and more agile, he could breathe more easily and his sense was much clearer than before. In all honesty, hell had rejuvenated him, but that just gave him more questions. Why wasn't he being tortured by these demons? Were was the torture? Why was this body better than his original? He had more questions but unfortunately, they would have to wait, as he heard screaming from behind him. As he turned around all sorts of demons of all shapes and sizes began to stampede over each other. They ran from the streets in droves, fear visible on their faces, crushing anything in front of them. He spotted a demon with three eyes and bug-like limbs yelling

"RUN! RUN! IT'S AN EXTERMINATOR!!! RUN!!!"

Barristan had no idea what an Exterminator was, but whatever it was, if it made all the other demons panic it was probably far more dangerous. But curiosity got the better of him and he began to run in the opposite direction of the crowd. Passing several screaming demons, striking some looters here and there taking advantage of the panic. As Barristan closed in, he spotted a bright flash of light in the sky, and then several flaming swords made of pure light crashing into various buildings and vehicles. In Barristans mind, he had no idea why he was rushing towards danger, but something from the back of his mind was edging him towards the scene.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!! STAY AWAY!!!!"

As Barristan finally reached his destination he couldn't believe what he saw. It wasn't an angel as he had thought, it was a demon, a succubus. She had bat-like wings and had pale blue skin. But the clothing she wore was very odd, she was not dressed in the skimpy outfits the prostitutes wore, she instead had armor and a brown robe covering her head to toe. So familiar...So familiar....as if he had seen someone wear clothing like this before. That was when he realized who it was.

"JUNIA!?"

10 minutes earlier.

Junia was terrified. She shuddered in the cold dark alleyways and corridors, a maze-like structure of high walls and paths blocked with metal gates and waste. She was already horrified at the fact that she had died by the heart of darkness, she assumed that she was going to end up as a living pile of flesh or something, but where was she? She had woken up on the ground and was surrounded by a collection of corridors and back alleys. This place was alien to her, the air was humid and dirty as if smoke and steam had mixed together. And as if the atmosphere wasn't already constricting enough, she was being followed. She had noticed that something or someone was following her through the alleyway, she did not dare look back. All she knew was that whoever was following her wasn't friendly, and she needed to run. As she ran through each corridor she could hear the clapping of her boots echoing through the damp alleys. She saw sewer grates and metal pipes spewing noxious steam and smoke in the air, dilapidated buildings boarded up and condemned. The only thing that had kept her calm was the holy book that she was holding.

"Where am I?"

Junia couldn't understand why she was here, she wasn't in that beast anymore but the place emitted a very similar feeling. That was when she saw it. A bright light at the edge of a route, she began to run as fast as her legs could carry her towards that light. Maybe someone that could help her, or maybe even a way out of the maze. As she reached the light she saw something that shocked her to her core. The light was some sort of glowing sign, a bright neon-colored sign shaped like a succubus. Junia quickly began to survey her surroundings, as she did, she saw the tall red and black buildings that reached towards the crimson sky, the large pentagram that swirled above, the pitch-black roads carrying horseless wagons, and even more surprising, hoards of demonic creatures. She couldn't believe what she was seeing, demons everywhere. All different. What was this place? Was this hell? Or is this the Heart of Darkness doing? Did they lose? What are demons doing milling about the place?

"Hey, beautiful." Junia turned around to spot one of the demons was talking to her. He was a small blue cyclops demon with horns.

"You look lost? Did you just drop in?"

"Wah...I..i I...Dropped in?"

"What's it look like lady? You're in hell!"

She was what!? "I'm.....in hell?"

"Man you must be new around here. Look you're in hell baby. You know, fire and brimstone, eternal damnation! This is it."

Junia couldn't believe what she was hearing. But at the same time how else would she explain what was going on. Red Sky, a large pentagram, demonic abominations everywhere. She truly was in hell.

"Oh...Oh god...." Junia was taken aback for a moment, everything was happening so fast. New information was rushing in her head as she tried to comprehend and make sense of the whole situation. Most of the things surrounding her didn't make any sense at all. She was in hell? Was this the heart of darkness's doing? No there would've been more flesh and eyeballs. Was this actually hell? She couldn't help but start to hyperventilate for a second.

"Hey, babe. It's okay." Junia turned to see that the blue cyclops demon was still nearby "Everyone freaks out when they know they just reached hell. My advice, accept it. You ain't got anywhere else to go. Hey! I have an idea, how about you and I get to "Now each other a bit better" if you know what I mean. You got nowhere else to go, might as well."

Junia didn't like how the cyclops were approaching, neither did it feel better as several other demons started to take notice. "I'm....I'm fine. Thank you, but I must get going...." Junia stammered as she began to walk away.

"Oh come on gorgeous you don't need to be so scared. It'll be fun."

Junia ignored the blue cyclops, but as she continued walking she felt more afraid and more naked with each step. Demon all around her begun to take notice of her, eyeing her with lustful gazes and heavy breathing audible from afar. Ignoring the many catcalls and advances from many passing demons and After what seemed like several hours, she glanced back behind her. She had a whole hoard of demons following her, each of them having a wide sharp smile on each of them. Some panting and drooling as they all started to whisper to each other, giggling and laughing behind her. She did not want to figure out what they were planning on doing to her, she could just imagine it as if it was actually happening right at that moment.

Her legs then began to run, she pushed through several other demons, knocking over imps, food carts, and many other things to slow her pursuers down. She glanced behind her to see if the demons were pursuing her only to see that they were nowhere to be found or too far away to see her. Making use of this she decided to blend into a nearby crowd, wading her way into a large group of multi-colored demons. As she walked along with a group of bustling demons, she finally got to see them more up close, many of them were animal-like while others were more human. What was up with hell, where was the eternal torment? Why does this place look so much like the living world? Was this truly hell? Or was it someplace else? As she was lost in thought she had let her guard down, someone grabbed her from behind. She hadn't shaken them off. The demon that held her was a tall skinny demon, with pale grey skin and red eyes.

"Heh heh. Thought that you could just run away like that. I've been watching you all this time, waiting, just waiting for you to be alone." The demon spoke in a deep tone

"Wh-What are you!? LET ME GO!!!!

"Oh! No no no you little slut. I'm not gonna let you go now! I'm just going to have my bit of fun with you and then I'll let you go. Heh heh. If you survive that is."

Junia was frozen in fear. Her eyes widened as she heard those words and began to squirm, trying her best to run away! " No! NO! STOP!! GET OFF ME!!!"

"Ha ha ha, I've been watching you ever since you came down here. What's with all this armor around you? Heh heh. Must have some really good things hidden under all that protection. Let's have a look." The demon began to pull up Junias skit.

"STOP! STOP! PLEASE!! STOP!!! AHHHHH!!!!

"Oh. A Chasity belt? Looks like I got myself a virgin!"

HELP! PLEASE! ANYONE HELP MEEE!!!

No one came to help, they all ignored her and those that did come simply came to watch as she struggled. The crowd of demons began to laugh, they took out these strange small tablets and spoke about recording the entire event. Others simply asking to have a turn with her after they were done. She felt powerless, scared, she had no idea what to do. The crowd around her wasn't going to help, and she was going to be violated by this thing. The thought of such a thing not only frightened her but made her furious. This was hell. This is where these disgusting demons lived. Wretched vile demons. She had no one to help her, no one to rely on, but herself.

"NO! STOP! GET OFF OF ME YOU BRUTE" She replied anger and hatred practically spewing from her mouth.

"Don't worry bitch! This won't take long. Lets me get the honors of removing your little v card."

"NO! NO NO NO! LET ME GOOOO!" She tossed and turned, kicked and punched, biting the demon's hand.

"AGHH!! YOU LITTLE WHORE!" The demons sudden dropped her to the floor and began to pin her arms above her head! Setting himself on top of her.

"I wasn't going to go easy on you. But now! YOU'RE GOING TO BE REAL SORRY WHEN I'M THROUGH WITH YOU-"

That just made Junia even angrier, she did not let up, she kicked and tried to wrestle her arms apart just so she could fight back. But the demon was just too strong for her to break free, she was growing more violent, her eyes suddenly turned a bright purple, surprising the rapist demon. Just then something miraculous happened. Her hand started to glow a bright light, it grew brighter and brighter until it engulfed her hands. The blinding ray of light shock the perverted demon off of her, and made the crowd of demons back off greatly. When the light died down, she saw that in her hands was her mace. She had no idea how she got her mace back but whatever, Wasting no time she quickly got off the ground, turned towards her aggressor and reeled her arms back for a swing.

RAAAAGGGGHHHH!!!!! *CRUNCH*

Junia drove her mace into the demon's mouth, ripping out teeth, blood, and gum from his bottom jaw. The nearby crowd stood silent. The perverted demon clenched his bottom jaw in pain, he couldn't scream. His tongue had been ripped out of his mouth and was on the sidewalk. Blood was quickly dripping from his gaping maw, grunting as he tried to stanch his wound. But before he could even react.

AAAAGGHHHHH *SPLAT*

She began to strike the rapist demon over and over and over again. The demon's brains were being scattered over the pavement, fragments of his skull littered the ground, as blood dripped from Junia's mace. Each swing could be heard from afar as metal collided with meat, the audible swings of air would ring throughout every demon's ear as she pummeled the little shit into a pile of flesh. After what seemed like hours of swinging she suddenly feel to the ground in exhaustion, her hands gripping the bloody sticky mace. It was dead....she could tell. The filthy demon was dead, they will all die, ALL OF THEM! Her head snapped right up in a flash, her eyes gave off a bright purple mist as she began panting in exhaustion. Shards and orbs of light began to circle around her, forming what appeared to be swords and fists. The other demons quickly fleed, running as far as they could, others froze in place, unable to comprehend what was happening. Junia's eyes went wild, her teeth grew sharper, and her body started to glow a bright white as several flaming swords appeared above her, twirling and spinning in synchronization with her fingers. She then stood up and began to walk towards the large unmoving mass of demons in front of her, her voice echoing with every word.

Stay....away......STAY!!!! AWAY!!!

Chapter Text

"What on earth was going on?" Thought Barristan.

The nearby Demons were fleeing for there lives, as swords of light and divine magic struck the nearby cars and stores. Stones and concrete scorched by the impacts of heavenly fists of pure energy. The bright flashes of light were being sent throughout the area, many demons abandoned their cars to run on foot or fly away. It looked like whatever happened to Junia, it turned her into some sort of demon. By the looks on her face, she looked terrified but also furious. Barristan could understand her reaction, if this was hell, she must've met some unsavory characters down here.

"AAAAAAAHHHH!!!!" *CRASH*

Barristan looked around and spotted two imps near a broken car that had rammed into a wall. The driver had already fled, but one of the imps legs was pinned under some debris. The other imp appeared to try and free his trapped comrade. Barristan was surprised to see that the little demons were helping each other. But Junia also took notice of the two imps and proceeded to their direction. She began to raise her mace to the sky, Barristan knew what she was about to do next. Small orbs of light began to gather around her mace and sparks of electricity began to surge through her arm, a dark grey cloud formed above her as the energy grew bigger. The two imps looked at each other, fear in their eyes, but instead of the free imp fleeing for his life, he instead covered the other imp with his own body hoping to shield his friend. Barristan had seen enough, in a quick moment, he rushed in between Junia and the two imps, placing his shield upwards, blocking the two imps and absorbing the lightning strike. The surge of power coursed through Barristan's body, the electricity tingled and numb the bear demons muscles, his bones felt like it was about to shatter, he could feel the rush of blood throughout his body, it felt like his head was going to explode. But after the strike had dissipated it didn't appear to have harmed him all that much. Turning around, he spotted the two imps unharmed, and by the looks of it, the trapped imp appeared to be a female, and both imps were hugging each other. Crying. Barristan then saw that the two demons had rings around the fingers and immediately found out why the imps stayed together. They were married. Realizing that they hadn't died yet, they both stared at the large bear demon, confused on what just happened to the two of them just now. Junia, however, was still approaching, her mace was gathering energy again and she looked as if she wasn't intending to miss the next shot.

"Wait, Junia, please!? It's me Barristan. Remember?" Barristan tried to calm down Junia, get her to a much more stable mentality, or at the very least, buy the imp couple enough time to escape.

Junia froze for a moment "Barristan?!"

"Yes! Yes! It's me Junia, Barri-"

"No.......Do you think you can trick me demon? I see what you truly are! DIE!"

Junia wasn't listening, Barristan took one look in her eyes and he saw a bright fire, fueled by hatred and fear. Barristan knew then, that there was no point in trying to talk her down, she wasn't going to leave anyone alive. But he could at least try to reason with her, if not incapacitate her. Barristan turned to see that the imp couple was now free from the rubble.

"Go. GO NOW!!! I'll try and buy you some time."

Barristan Charged into Junia, using his shield to bash her as far away as she could, and with that, the two imps had fled, all the demons nearby were gone, leaving only Barristan and Junia in the empty city square.

The white Hazbin Limo screeches through the streets of west pentagram city. Swerving through the empty road and plowing through any unfortunate bystander. The Hazbin crew left in a hurry and had traveled light. Cherri only had a bat and her cherry bombs, Angel only had his two Tommy guns, Vaggie had here spear and two throwing knives, Charlie brought a first aid box, and Sir Pentous had only brought his cane with him. Reynauld still had his Sword, while Dismas had left both of his guns at the hotel, only bring his short sword and the new pistol he got from those thugs.

"Thossse pillarsss of light appear to be around my territory, I've already gathered up mossst of my eggboisss to sssurround the area and sssearch for any abnormal behavior."

"Abnormal behavior......in hell?" Cherri remarked with a small grin

"How much longer do you think it's going to take before we get there?" Asked Reynauld

"Probably a few more minutes, we just need to get past traffic, and try not to hit any pedestrians on accident." Answered Charlie

Razzle pop up from a window "No promise's Ms. Charlie-Whoa!"

The Limo had screeched to a halt.

"Huh? Hey why did we stop?" asked Dismas

Charlie poked her head out to see what was wrong. To her surprise, demons of all shapes and sizes were running away in droves. They clogged up the roads with destroyed or abandoned cars and dead demons that failed at running for there lives. The Crew quickly began to file out of the limo.

"Heh, sounds like your friends really know how to make an entrance." Cherri complemented

"Great! Just Great! Malditas idiotas! How are we going to get there now?"

"We could run there! We do have feet." Cherri suggested

"The Crowd is too big, we'll get lost in the chaos." Charlie pointed out

Reynauld thinking quickly then began to take off his surcoat and belt.

"Ummm not really the time for a striptease Ray." Angel joked

Ignoring Angel, Reynauld quickly grabbed a nearby broken pipe.

"Ms. Vaggie your spear please."

Vaggie quickly gave Reynalud her spear, and Reynauld quickly began to work. The Spear and pipe were quickly tied together with the belt, and the surcoat was placed in the intersecting pipe and spear. The finished product was large dark grey and red standard.

"Follow this standard! If you get lost in the crowd look up and you will spot where I am! Razzle! Dazzle! Find a different route and meet up with us later"

Wasting no time at all, Reynauld quickly rushed past the hoard of fleeing demons, with the Hazbin crew following close behind. The Standard proved effective not only for navigating through the hoard, but it managed to get the nearby demon's attention, they stopped panicking and began to recollect themselves. Reynauld quickly took advantage of this and got on top of an abandoned car.

"All those that don't want to die, get out of the way! Keep to the sidepaths! The main roads are all congested! Walk towards the nearest safe havens and hold up there until we handle the situation"

With that, the crowd quickly began to disperse more efficiently, and the hoard was much more manageable to weave through. As the group got closer to the site of the battle, the hoard of fleeing demons was now a few stragglers. There were sounds of fighting a few blocks over, bright flashes of light could be seen over the top. The Hazbin crew quickly drew their weapons and prepared for whatever might be on the other side. As they got closer, they could hear talking...well yelling from far away.

"Junia! Junia! It's really me Barristan!"

"LIER! I SEE THROUGH YOUR DISGUISE YOU FILTHY DEMON! BURN!!!"

What the crew saw was interesting, to say the least, an armored succubus nun demon with a mace was in the air, raining flaming swords of light against an armored bear demon with a shield and mace.

"Junia! Listen to me! I'm Barristan! Please! Just- ARGH!" A Sword deflected off of Barriestan's chest plate but it had caught him off guard and he stumbles on to his back.

"Foul demon of degeneracy, burn to nothing!" Junia reels back her mace and starts to collect more holy energy. A large glowing fist starts to appear around the cylindrical mace and begins to glow brighter.

"DIE!"

The glowing fist then flew from Juinas mace and towards Barristan, but before the strike could make contact, Dismas quickly rushes towards Barristan and pushes the armored bear out of the way. The fist collides with the sidewalk, leaving a singed mark in its place. Barrestan quickly stands up and helps the Raven demon up.

"Argh! What the devils are you doing fool!? Trying to get yourself killed!?"

"Guh! Nah! Already did that you old bastard! Is that how you thank an old friend that just saved your hide?"

"Old Friend? What in God's name are you talking about-...... DISMAS!?!"

"In the flesh, well somewhat in the flesh-DUCK!!!"

Two swords fly over the two demons heads and imbed themselves in a nearby wall.

"Let's get to some cover. We'll get reacquainted later. Reynauld!"

"ON IT!" Reynauld quickly rushes in front of Junia.

"Junia! STOP! It's me Rey-WOAH!" A Sword collides with Reynaulds chest plate, it protects him but doesn't stop the impact from knocking him off his feet. "Okay. Look Junia I now that you're scared but please calm do-" Another sword collides with Reynaulds helmet.

"JUNIA! LISTEN TO ME! IT'S ME REYNAULD!"

"SHUT UP YOU WRETCH! I SEE WHAT YOU ARE!!! DON'T THINK YOU CAN TRICK ME YOU PEST!!!"

A large fist appears above the Reynaulds head, but before Junia could finish casting her spell.

"HEY! VIRGIN MARY! BATTA SWING!"

bink BOOM!!

Cherri bomb quickly bats one of her cherry bombs into Junias wings. It explodes on impact, putting Junias wings out of commission, knocking her to the ground, and disorienting her. Charlie, Angel, Vaggie, and Pentous quickly file out the nearby alleyway.

"HEY!" Charlie exclaimed "Don't Hurt Her! She is just confused!"

"Sorry Charlie. I don't think you noticed but this girls kinda, I don't know, trying to kill us here!"

"I know!? But be more careful. Don't kill her, don't break her bones, just don't hurt her, please!"

"Heh don't worry! I think she....uhh."

To Cherri's surprise, Junia stumbles onto her feet, her wings are torn and full of holes, her hand looks bent out of place, and she is bleeding from her forehead. She gazes at the new mass of demons that surround her. The Hazbin crew stare at Junia for the longest time, they knew she was dangerous, they could feel it. But at the same time, they saw the fear that as in Junias eyes, desperation, and paranoia. They couldn't help but pity her, a new sinner in an unfamiliar and strange world was something that the crew could relate to. Charlie, however, recognized that there was something wrong, the same black crescent shape symbol from before, only this time, it glowed with a sinister red, it did not dissipate like Reynaulds or Dismas. Charlie noticed that the sharp thorns appeared to be going through her head, It seemed whatever was causing Junia to go crazy was affiliated with the black symbol.

"No...NO! DON'T TOUCH ME!" Junia stuttered "DISGUSTING PERVERTS! RAPISTS!!! I KNOW YOUR GOAL!!! STAY AWAY FROM ME!!!"

A bright flash of light starts to swirl and gather around her book, but just before she could even summon anything at all, Vaggie had thrown her knives and knocked Junia's book right out of her hand. The power quickly started to dissipate and before Junia could fire another sword or fist of light, Charlie had summoned her pitchfork and struck Junia's mace out of her hand. Sir Pentious taking advantage of the moment quickly pointed his cane towards Junia and pressed a strange golden button at the end, releasing a bola chain and quickly restaining Junias wings and legs. Junia was on the ground, although her arms were free, her hands were anywhere but fine. She tried desperately to crawl away, but Angel had already caught up to her and pinned her down before she could get away.

"NO! NO! NO! STOP!! LET ME GO! NO!!!" Junia was on the verge of crying. She was again surrounded by demons, a few that claimed to be her friends, what were they going to do to her?

Reynauld was the first to speak. "Please Junia calm down. Listen to us! It's us. Reynauld, Dismas, Barristan, all of us. We're all here!"

"GET AWAY FROM ME!!! I KNOW WHAT YOU TRULY ARE!!! I SEE WHAT YOUR TRUE FORMS ARE!!!"

"I know you're scared, I know you're terrified, but please we need you to stop panicking and listen."

Junia didn't want to hear it, she began to struggle even more in Angel's four arms. He was beginning to have a hard time keeping her still, that had to bring out his 3rd pair of arms to control her.

"Hey Hey Hey! Woah! Easy! Calm down! OW! Jeez! For a nun, I expected ya to be a bit less violent."

While Reynauld tried to calm down Junia, Charlie was busy with the first aid kit, she wanted to treat Junia's hand and wings quickly. As she opened the first aid kit, she had taken a small syringe and vial filled with a mixture of healing potion and morphine. She then nodded to Vaggie, who knew what to do next. Vaggie quickly began to help Angel dust, grabbing Junia's injured hand, trying her best not to worsen the injury.

"NO STOP KEEP AWAY STAY AWAY! Please!"

Junia didn't know what was in the syringe Charlie was holding, she began to struggle even more kicking and shouting, biting and scratching, trying anything to get her self free, but as Charlie got closer with the needle, Junia began to cry. She was surrounded by demons, injured, and unable to escape. She could no longer conjure up any other spells. Her body was tired and she no longer struggled or even attempted to escape. She couldn't fight anymore, she just slumped into Angel's arms and began to sob.

"P-pl-lease don't *sniff*, don't *sniff* Ju-just, just make it quick. If you're going to *sniff* do this to me, please be gentle. Don't...don't make suffer...please...*Sniff*" She pleads

The Hazbin crew froze, realizing what it looked like they were doing. Junia wasn't resisting anymore, but the situation made it feel as if they were going to do something horrible to her, and Charlie holding a syringe filled with a mystery liquid wasn't making it any better.

"...okay, I've been on the same side of these situations before in the studio, but I'm not really sure I'm comfortable with being the one that holds her down, while someone else does the deed."

"Are you fucking serious right now?" Vaggie gave Angel a murderous glare, already disturbed at the fact that she looked like she was about to kidnap someone.

Charlie wishing to not make it any more awkward as it already was decided to just make it quick and began to inject Junias arm with the serum. Junia closed her eyes and bit her lips, waiting for whatever was in the strange needle to take effect quickly. But In just moments, Junia's hands began to twist back into place, muscles, tendons, and bones started to reconnect, skin that was once missing now slowly grew back into place and before long the hand and her wings were as good as new. Junia was surprised, she felt no pain, no drowsiness, and she didn't feel dizzy at all, did the demon just heal her?

"Woah. What was in that needle?" Dismas asked

"Medicine, it should help her natural healing abilities," Charlie answered.

Junia couldn't believe it, what was happening? These demons were attacking her and now they were healing her? "Wah.....what....i.....i....I'm......what did you-"

Before Junia could say anything, Charlie had already placed her hands on Junia's. She gave a small smile to Junia, but to her surprise, the stress symbol above Junia's head began to flare up and grew bigger. It was clear that Junia wasn't comfortable with any of this, waking up in a stage new world, and in Hell out of all places. Getting chased around by demons, getting attacked, and now this. She couldn't even imagine the types of things she had been through, she almost looked like Vaggie when they had both meet, scared and alone, confused about what was going on. Charlie just wanted to hug Junia, comfort her, make her feel safe, without even thinking she began to wrap her arms around her. Junia was hesitant and flinched but as soon as Charlie embraced her, a sort of warmth came over them, almost a soothing energy. Junia couldn't explain it but it felt very comforting, was this some sort of charm spell? A sedation technique? What was this demon trying to do? Charlie still hugging Junia began to console her, pated shoulders, and began speaking in a quiet calming voice.

"I know you're scared.....I know you're confused and don't know where you are........I know that you don't trust us and you might never truly do......just know that your safe now......it's okay to rest now......we are not going to hurt you any more......you don't have to trust anybody right now......but for now just trust me and relax."

As Charlie looked up she spotted Junia's stress symbol beginning to shrink, it grew dimmer and dimmer, and slowly but surely it started to fade away. In its place, a small white crescent appeared above her head. It wasn't there for long, it was a weak glow and the crescent had looked faded and worn. But it felt like Junia had regained control of herself.

".....what.....what are you going to do to me?" Junia muttered

"Well.......nothing really. We just wanted to stop you and then talk to you." Charlie answered honestly

"Why?"

"Um.....You were attacking everybody in the nearby area and we came to stop you and we did just that."

"...why? Why did you heal me?"

"Well, your Reynald and Dismas's friend. I couldn't just leave you injured." Charlie gave a small smile.

Junia sat there dazed, Reynauld and Dismas's friend? What was she talking about? Where they here in hell as well? Why are these demons claiming to be them? She couldn't tell if the demon was trying to be kind, or if she had other motives. Her mind kept telling her to run, but something in her gut told her to stay.

"Why are you demons helping me? Why are you so focused on me?"

Dismas sat next to Charlie "Because were your friends Junia. Look this may be a little strange but this is really us. Me, Reynauld, Barristan. Whatever happened to us transformed us into demons. But we're still us! We have our thoughts, our personalities, and our memories it's all still here."

Junia wasn't completely convinced "If you transformed into demons, how come I'm not a demon?"

Dismas and Charlie both looked at each other for a while, a bit startled "Um.....Ms. Junia......you....are a demon."

"What?"

"Yeah. You didn't notice you changed or that you even flew for a few minutes?"

Angel Dust pulls out a mirror from his pocket dimension puff and gives it Junia. As Junia stares at the mirror, her eyes shrunk to peas as she stares at her reflection. She had sky blue skin and purple eyes. She had black and grey wings on her back and a long thin tail on her bottom. Her hair was bright white and she had little horns at the side of her head. For what seemed like hours, Junia stared at her reflection.

"I'm.......a demon?"

"Um.....yeah. You didn't notice?" Cherri Bomb piped in

"No.......no I didn't.......okay..... I'm just gonna-" *SLUMP* Junia had fainted into Vaggies lap. The entire Hazbin crew just stood there, unsure of what to really do any more. Junia was unconscious but no longer a danger, so it was a successful mission at the very least. It didn't appear that she had really killed anyone except for that one guy that no longer had a head, there was a lot of property damage, some injured, but all in all, in comparison to some other crazy things that happen in hell, it was a tame Sunday afternoon for hell.

"Well.....That could've gone better." Reynauld noted.

Farther away, to the outskirts of pentagram city

The outskirts were surprisingly the more peaceful parts of the city. Less crime and violence, but there was little housing and most of the residents there didn't have a sustainable income. In the middle of it, all was cesspool Park, a place where druggies meet up, deals are made, gangsters brawl, animals are walked, perverts practice exhibitionism, creepy stalkers mill about and just about every single serial killer went to get a good breather. But on Sundays, it's mostly druggies, homeless, and alcoholics. And on a bench by the black tar lake was a tall, giant, bandaged figure sitting alone and with his thoughts. He doesn't move from his spot, it's as if he was a statue of some sort. He wears a worn and old golden bronze mask, and his chest is covered in the same sort of material. There appears to be some sort of attachment near his heart, a sort of furnace door the size of a mason jar lid. A small orange glow could be seen from within the chest opening, the masks eye slits, and around the man's arms. The bandaged behemoth looks at his new form with curiosity, he was no longer human, but something else. He checked underneath his bandages to discover they are still covered in open wounds and sores. Although the feeling of pain from them had long abated, he could feel, heat. For the first time ever in his life, he could feel something. How long had it been since he could feel anything? Hot, cold, soft, hard, pain? The sense of actual feeling had come back to him.

As he looked closer he could see the flames through the wounds as if they were openings for a vent. Having seen enough the Leper had placed his bandages back on and stared at the environment he was in. A large pentagram in the sky, thorny trees with little to no leaves, eyeballs, bones, and hunks of flesh littering the ground. Was this the heart Darkness doing. No, he was somewhere else. Although Eldritch's power was present, it was calm. It wasn't a malignant growth like the heart of darkness. There was balance. It was.....strange but welcomed. Was this....hell? If so, then the priest and bishops were way off on what hell was supposed to look like. As the giant stood from the bench, he began to inhale. The air was dirty, dusty, smoky, rusty, humid, and smelt like rotten meat. Although the wind was a welcome thing when he was alive, the air around him burned him. The air suddenly then turned cold and brisk, the leper soon decided It was best that he kept walking.

The Leper walk through the park was very surprising, everything was all so familiar yet so different. As he passed through the park, he spotted various homeless and drug-addicted demons around the trees and brushes. Makeshift tents and lean-to's littered the park grounds, a dying campfire in the center of the small camp, the smell of fecal matter was enough to make a normal person vomit. The sight was saddening to Baldwin. Although these people looked like demons, he pitted them, they were those that weren't as fortunate as he was. Wide-eyed and terrified, jittery, and constantly paranoid. Probably avoiding debt or just down on their luck. But time as a vagabond had taught him many things about how to survive harsh conditions and teaching those lessons were just as important. Walking towards the camp, the various demons stared at the golden behemoth. Was he a serial killer? A Mercenary? Or was he thug? As the half-drunken demons took a closer look, it looked as if the man was a mummy. Was he an ancient demon from Egypt? The face mask and chest plate didn't look very Egyptian, they looked very medieval fantasy, was this man a larper or a weeb? The man was large, muscular, the thought of him being some otaku demon was very unlikely, but then what was this man doing here? The demons began to give the hulking giant his space as he approached a nearby dead tree. Baldwin drew his broken blade, it was an old and rusty piece of metal, but it was effective at doing what it did best. Chopping. The nearby demons jumped as the sword swung through the tree and slammed to the ground. A bird's nest fell on top of the giant's head, empty, but still useful. Using the broken sword he began to chop the trees into small logs and kindling and started to bundle them together. The homeless demons started to surround the leper at arm's length, unsure of what he was doing. Once there curiosity was satisfied many of the homeless demons went back to what they were doing, however, five decided to stay around Baldwin.

"You." Baldwin points at a small imp with one horn and a torn-up messy shirt and jeans. Baldwin's voice was deep and intimidating, the nearby demon flinched as the voice reached their ears.

"Uh...uh...um yes?!" The imp replies shaking.

"I'm cold, help me start a fire." Baldwin heaved the chopped up logs onto his back and tosses a bundle of kindling to the imp.

"Drop it in a puddle and we won't be able to start one, so make sure you don't drop it."

"Yes sir!"

Baldwin wanted to be a bit nicer, but he could already tell by just looking at the environment around him that the only thing people around here respected was strength. He didn't like it, but it was probably an unspoken rule. It was something that he had to learn the hard way many times in homeless camps and leper colonies. If he showed kindness or generosity here, it would look suspicious and draw unwanted attention. Looking and acting tough was a way of defending yourself and others.

"You. Lady in grey." Baldwin tosses a bundle of birds nest and dried leaves to another demon. She has a simple grey dress, stained with blood. She had hollow eyes and a large worn down hat. Her mouth is full of fangs and her claws were as sharp as knives.

"Keep these dry as well."

"Uh...uh...yes sir." She stuttered the demon was quite shy despite her appearance.

Baldwin noticed that there was a small ditch at the side of the road, at the end of the ditch was a sewage grate, but it was all bricked up at the other end.

"Good. You five follow me. We need a better spot than here. If you need to grab your things, get them. This place is too crowded." Baldwin pointed towards the nearby sewer grate and slid down the slope.

With that, the five demons set off to their different spots, to his surprise none of them went into the tents or lean-tos. They picked up a few small sacks and bags filled with essentials and came back. A fly demon in a bowler cap only came back with a large plastic sheet and bag, while a mummified lizard demon had a rucksack and wooden pallet, the grey lady only had a small bag, while the imp came back with a small child-sized bag, lastly, the lamp vase demoness came with a small grocery bag with a small bottle of alcohol.

"This will do. Let's get started." Baldwin tore up a piece of his bandaged arm and gathered the bird's nest and feathers into a small spot. He placed his large blade towards the little bundle of kindling and retrieved a whetstone. With few sparks of the blade, the nest soon began to glow into a warm orange.

"You, lizard, Blow into the embers slowly. Long slow breaths. No short repetitive sputters that will just kill it. Understood."

"Uh. Yes sir!"

"You, Flyman, as the flames get bigger, start piling the kindling together. Don't place the logs first or your smother the fire, got it.

"Yeah. I got it."

The mummy lizard began to slowly blow more air into the fire as the fly demon began to layer pieces of kindling. Baldwin then started to pull up the wooden pallet the Lizard Demon brought onto the edge of the ditch, using branches to make a makeshift shelter. Moving the Fly demons plastic sheet on top to make cover the gaps. As the fire began to grow, the demons all sat in a semi-circle around the fire, for Baldwin it was a little bit nostalgic to be surrounded by strangers. The since of tenseness and paranoia was mellowed out and felt easier to see these demons as people instead of monsters. The demons felt calmed by the fire as well, it was nice. The ditch had shielded them from the winds and the fire felt welcoming to there tired bodies. They were even surprised the man didn't kill them or kick them away from the fire. The demons sat in complete silence around the crackling fire, nothing else could be heard but burning flame. That was until Baldwin broke said silence.

"I'm going to change my bandages, I do not feel well."

The mummy lizard looks at him for a small second. "What? Your skin itch? Or is it because- Satan Almighty!!! WHAT THE FUCK!!!"

The Leper begins to remove his mask, it drips with strands of blood, pus, and mucus coating the inside. The disfigured face of the lepers is a missing nose and scar ridden, boil filled mess. Sores, bumps, and semi-open wounds are visible to see. The liquids shimmer in the firelight. The lamp demon gags for a bit, while the grey demon vomits. The fly demon cringes as the sanguine fluids drip into the fire, the imp scoots back trying his best to distance himself from the diseased man.

"Keep away and don't touch my blood. Although this disease isn't air born, if you touch my blood you could possibly catch it."

"Are...are we in danger if were near you?" questioned the imp.

"My disease isn't that contagious, you can touch me and you'll be fine. It can only spread by my fluids, if you ingest or inhale my bodily fluids you'll still have a low chance of contracting it. But to be safe, keep a good distance as I change my bandages."

The demons quickly decided to give the bronze statue a good bit of space to work with. The giant began to unravel his bandages and to the group's relief, the golden brass chest plate had bandages underneath them and was not covered in slimy, coagulated blood and mucus. The bandages were coated in a mixture of red blood and yellow pus, the smell of rusty copper and burning flesh filled the air as the bandages were slowly dropped into the burning fire. They averted their eyes as the man began to unravel his legs, fearing what was between them. As Baldwin finished re-applying his bandages and placed his mask back on, the large group of demons began to ask questions, The lamp demon was the first one to speak.

"So.....how long did you have this.....uh.....affliction sir?"

"Baldwin. You."

"Samatha" the lamp demon anserwed

"Lily" the grey demon followed up

"Carlos" fly demon

"Philip" Lizard mummy demon

"Kain" imp demon.

"Hmmm. Nice to meet you then. If you're wondering about my disease, then my answer would be several years. Maybe 20 years."

"Jesus! That long! Does it hurt?!" Kain asked fiddling his nails

"Not really no. There was pain, but after several more months, it became numb to me."

"Numb!? You look and smell as if you're rotting away, alive! How are you not in agony!?" Asked Carlos

"My nerves were the first things to rot away. The feeling of pain, heat, cold was gone after the first years. Eventually, injuries that I sustained began to fester, and I wouldn't even notice."

"Man. That sounds like Hell! And this is when you were alive!?" Philp question

"I wouldn't call it being alive.....more of barely existing." The cynical tone was easy to pick up on.

"That's horrible. What did you do to deserve that?!" Asked Lily, slowly edging towards Baldwin

Baldwin took a few moments to find the answer "Murder."

The demons looked at each other for a moment confused. Murder? God punished this man for Murder? Was he a serial killer? A mercenary? The man was suffering this type of disease both when he was alive and now! How was this man still sane enough to produce sentences!? What did he deserve to get this type of punishment?

Samatha was the first to ask "Murder......How many? And why?"

Baldwin simply stared at the lamp lady and replied "Thousands.......I had to do it."

"Were you forced to do it?" Asked Kain terrified but curious at this mysterious man past.

"I was a leader.....I made the decisions.....I sent men to their deaths. Guilty. Innocent. It was a war. It couldn't be avoided."

Carlos scowled for a bit "So. Your superiors told you to do it!? Or was it just to win?" his bitterness flowing from every letter.

Baldwin simply gazed at Carlos, his eyes weren't filled with cowardice or pity, instead, they were filled with regret and acceptance. The gaze gave Carlos shiver, most demons would yell back or attack when accused, but the man before him betrayed no emotion.

"To win.....we had to win.....we had to......we were starving....we needed that land for food and money, for trade, for EVERYTHING! OUR COUNTRY WAS DYING.....my county was dying."

Philip stuttered for a moment before asking ".......wait. What?"

"I....I was the leader of a small country......but not anymore."

"Wait! You were a leader of a country?!"

"Used to. Not anymore. Not after my Leprosy."

Carlos stood up anger in his eyes "You....sent people to die...FOR WHAT!? Just so you can get richer?!! A NEW BOAT!!! A NEW FANCY MANSION IN THE BAHAMAS!!!??"

Baldwin merely stares into his sword this time, anger and sadness visible even behind his mask. As he turned to face Carlos, his body erupted to flames. A pantheon of colors burst out of Baldwin's body as he slowly approached the fly demon. The remaining homeless demons quickly bolted a good distance, keeping far enough to avoid the flame, but close enough to hear a rough raspy painfilled voice come out of the flaming giant "Boy. We were a failing country.....my people were starving...our economy was non-exsitent......what would you have done in my place? Answer me that boy? Negotiate!? Ask for Help!? Beg!? REFORM LAWS!!!??? We received no help. We got no charity. Our neighbors abandoned us. Left us to die or claimed debts we never made to them! Siphoning our money and resources! WE WENT THROUGH FAMINE AND A PLAGUE!!! AND STILL, NO ONE HELPED US!!! WHAT WOULD'VE REFORMS DONE IF WE HAD NO MONEY OR RESOURCES TO DO ANY OF THEM!"

Baldwin's flame soon turned red with anger, the fire fumed from the man's mouth and eyes. The Leper looked truly monstrous. "WE STARVED!!! WE SUFFERED!!! I DID WHAT WAS NECESSARY! I KILLED FOR MY COUNTRY!! I KILLED FOR MY PEOPLE SO THEY WOULD NOT HAVE TO FIGHT AND STEAL FOR A SIMPLE BITE OF BREAD!!!" Carlos was on the ground, shivering at the energy that radiated from the burning leper.

The flames soon turned blue, calmer, but it still flickered with wrath and regret. "I killed.....I butchered.....I massacred thousands....so my thousand can live.....I conquered my neighbors to keep them alive. I know what I did wasn't right and accept my fate here. I have no intention of justifying my actions, I did evil.....I committed evil to keep thousands of people feed, to keep them safe........give them a better future. What you interpret is what you interpret, and I cannot change that. So believe in what you want to believe in."

Soon the fiery giant became silent, his flame gone, and his eyes filled with sorrow, and the only thing that could be heard again was the crackling fire. The demons soon began to sit back down in a semi-circle, silent. Baldwin sat back down, smoke rising from his eyelids.

"So if you wish to rant. Do it now."

Carlos didn't want to rant. Not after what Baldwin had told him. He even felt sympathy for the giant. What would've he done in his position? He didn't know politics or any of that crap. He didn't know the economy or how to manage a fucking country. He probably should have just shut up earlier, so he decided to stay quiet. They all decided to stay quiet. Baldwin soon began to regret his outburst, now the group's presence around him was awkward. Hours past and the silence that was now around them was suffocating. Baldwin decided that he should leave, he was done here. He started a fire and built a small shelter. He should probably help someone else.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!! NO!!! STOP!!!"

A Scream. Baldwin quickly turned towards the screams and peered over the ditch to see the cause of the commotion. It appeared to be a group ten of demons harassing two other homeless demons. The five homeless demons all stared as the events unfolded. Baldwin noticed fear and anger in their eyes, their bodies trembling with repressed emotions. As Baldwin looked closer he saw that six demons were betting up one of the homeless demons with metal clubs, while the other demon was being stripped naked. The sight of it all disturbed Baldwin.

"Aw shit not these assholes again," Kain exclaimed, reaching for a makeshift knife.

"What?"

"Ugh. Falon and his cronies. They always come here to start shit. They usually target us homeless demons and do whatever they want here?"

"What!?" Baldwin's flames appeared again but this time, a pure white. The nearby homeless demons flinched and started to slowly back off. But at that moment Kain didn't even notice he was too busy venting.

"Yeah...these guys are terrible bastards, they always steal our shit, even though we don't have that much and even after we give them shit, they just beat us up and leave us naked! These guys are the worse! Cocksucking pieces of garbage! I even heard they gang-raped a lady over by 5th st- "

BOOM!!! CRACK!!!! AAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!

An audible boom rang through the air, the sound could be overheard throughout the park grounds. All the homeless demons ran towards the noise wondering what caused such a loud explosion to happen, as they got closer, all they saw was Falon's cronies, a large hooded figure with a broken sword, a screaming demon without his dick.....and a good portion of his lower body gone. His legs were still attached but a good portion of his lower body was missing. Baldwin stood from the ditch, sword raised high and shining in the light. In front of him, a perfect line of dug up dirt leading to the suffering castrated demon. Kain and the others stared at Baldwin, wide-eyed, and mouths open wide, baffled, trying to understand what just happened. From a single swipe in the air, Baldwin had just castrated a man from a distance, with just air. Falon's crew looked up in horror as the behemoth slowly moved towards them. The menacing goliath dragging the rusty executioner blade closer and closer to the 9 remaining demons. A white flame flickering from within him.

"YOU!"

"YOU!!!"

"ALL OF YOU WILL DIE!!!!"

Chapter Text

It was in a matter of seconds, Loyd couldn't understand what was going on. One moment he was beating this homeless bum and then next there was an explosion from behind him. Once he turned around he saw one of his guys, "Flame" on the floor, clenching the missing bottom part of his body. Screaming, howling in pain. The dust that was kicked up had clouded whoever mutilated Flame. Loyd stood up and peered into the cloud of dust, But before he could even get a closer look at the attacker, it sprinted forward, revealing itself to be....a Giant! The man was a large golden statue, it wielded a large sword that resembled some sort of anime sword the weeb demons always read, was this man trying to be one of those stupid anime protagonists? "YOU!" "YOU!!!" "ALL OF YOU SHALL FALL!!!!" But before they even had time to react, the giant sprinted forward and quickly Bisected the two demons in front of him, his sword embedding itself into the ground. Blood and gore dripped from his blade. Anger and rage seeped from his white glowing eyes. Seeing an opportunity a Bee Demon quickly pulled out his pistol and began firing at the giant at point-blank. But the bullets harmlessly bounced off the giant's armor. The Bee demon couldn't understand why the bullets pinked off the giant's armor, but before he could even retaliate, the golden giant's fist had crushed his skull inward, leaving a bloody hole in his head. Teeth and parts of his jaw protrude outwards from the hole as if it were a newly constructed mouth. A buffalo demon quickly rushes Baldwin with his Handax, hoping to catch him off guard. Baldwin quickly reels back his arms and in a quick flash crushes the buffalo demon's head inwards, using his fists to crush the sides of the bull's head. Leaving a bloody pile of flesh and crushed skull fragments atop a bloody lower jaw on the floor. Seeing his sword was stuck in the ground, Baldwin picks up the buffalo demons Ax and approaches the other 5 demons. Loyd stared in horror as he witnessed the mangled heads of his former friends getting crushed as the golden man trundled forward. In an instant four gang members charged at their aggressor, either out of fear or panic, it didn't matter. Baldwin deftly catches a rat demon's spear with his left hand, still clenching the Ax with it. Using his free right hand to grab the rodent's neck. A humanoid demon with three eyes and purple skin attempts to strike Baldwin with an exterminator sword, but the sword instead impales the sorry vermin demon as he is used as a shield. Baldwin quickly chucks his Ax at one of the charging demons and buries the ax into a charging horned demon's shoulder. A Hammerhead shark demon raises his arms to strike Baldwin with an exterminator halberd. But Baldwin pushes the rat demon's corpse and the stuck tri clops demon at the shark demon, knocking them both to the ground. Using the Rat demon's exterminator spear, Baldwin presses his advantage and skewers the Hammerhead's throat, severing his spine. The tri-clops demon tries to limp away, clawing and scraping the dirt and dead grass, but unfortunately, Baldwin notices and quickly impales him in the back with the spear. All that's left are two humanoid demons, Loyd and the horned demon.

"Argh! AHHHH!! You Son of a BITCH!!!"

The horned demon quickly pulls out his pistol, in a vain attempt to kill Baldwin, but the bullets simply bounce off the thick chest plate. Baldwin glances at the demon and pulls out the spear from the tri-clops back. He launches the spear into the demon's chest, blood sprays from the demon's mouth, and a black ichor-like substance pours from his mouth and dribbles onto his knees and legs. Loyd just stares in disbelief, as his comrade is gurgling on his own blood, desperately trying to pry out the spear from his eviscerated lung. The pain-filled eyes of fear and desperation, fighting to try and stay alive. But soon the movements of his arms slowed........and then they stopped......the demon no longer moved... the look of horror and pain forever frozen on his face. In a quick flash of movements, this man had just butchered his whole patrol. Loyd was on the ground, frantically trying to tell his body to run or move away, but they didn't move. He was frozen. The sight of blood and power this man exuded was beyond what he was expecting. Baldwin walked back to his large sword and hefted it onto his back, grabbing the nearby weapons from the fallen thugs. Loyd was on his ass, slowly scooting away, trying his best to at least get away from this monster. He starts to panic, trying desperately to run off. But unfortunately.

*SHINK*

He didn't get very far. Baldwin was quicker and quickly impales Loyd's legs with a Halberd, crushing the femur and shredding the flesh off his leg.

"AGRHHHH!!! AHHHH!!!"

The pain was unbearable, Loyd kept scratching and clawing at the dirt hoping to at least get away from this thing. But Baldwin merely twisted the shaft of the halberd, breaking the femur into splitters. The bones shredding and embedding themselves deeper into the mangled leg. He couldn't get away, even if he tried. He started to cry, he wasn't just going to just die, he was going to be "Exterminated", as in permanently dead. He couldn't die here, not now, not with all these weaklings and trash, he was finally happy, free from his deadbeat dad and bitch of a mother. Away from his horrible miserable fucking horrible life, he was on top! He had to claw his way to the top, kissing the asses of arrogant assholes, betraying those stupid bastards, just to get where he was. He couldn't die here. He won't let some overgrown mummy take it away from him, he wouldn't let this man ruin everything he accomplished. Fear was soon replaced with anger and desperation, as Loyd drew his pistol and unloaded his entire clip at Baldwin. 8 shots were fired. 3 missed, two bounced off his chest plate, two grazed his neck, and one into Baldwin's eye. Loyd smiled as the blood began to pour from Baldwin's eye socket, as the crimson liquid began to slowly drip like a leaky faucet and onto the floor. He stared in anticipation to watch this man fall dead on the ground.....but he didn't fall.

"......wha-wha...What?!"

Baldwin was still standing, his eyes gleaming a white flame, flickering like a bright bonfire in the night. Baldwin went to touch his eye socket, finally recognizing he was bleeding. He was surprised he didn't feel anything, in fact, he was surprised that he wasn't even dead yet. Acknowledging his injuries, and the lack of pain and death, he decided to go along with his heightened resilience and use it to his advantage. He reached inside his eye socket and pulled out his popped eyeball and the bullet. Flicking the messy pulp onto the ground. He gazed at the bullet and then stared at Loyd.

"Hmm. I do not know whether to call you brave or incredibly foolish. It does not matter."

Baldwin clenched loyds throat and lifted him into the air. In a moment of desperation, Loyd could only let out a pathetic plea, hoping that maybe somehow he could live through this.

"Wait wait! Don't you know who I am!? Who I'm with? I'm with Falon and his crew! Kill me and you'll have t-!"

Before Loyd could finish, Baldwin chucks Loyd up against a tree. Knocking the wind out of Loyds lungs. Before Loyd can regain his senses, a rush of pain and feelings flooded his mind as with a quick swing of his blade, Baldwin slashes sideways, obliterating Loyds cheeks and ripping out teeth and flesh. Silencing Loyd. Blood pools out of Loyd's gaping mouth, unable to control the bleeding as chunks of his maw slowly drop to the grass. The movement was so quick, he didn't even feel it, the pain however soon came after, the stinging agonizing pain of exposed flesh and nerve endings exposed to the air soon came flooding back into his mind. Loyd wanted to scream, but he couldn't, he wasn't able, he was missing his tongue. Baldwin slowly lowers his face in front of Loyd.

"Hmmm. Then I guess I must meet this Falon. After all...I wouldn't want to waste his time now."

Baldwin raises his blade over his head and with a quick cut. "THUNK" Loyd's head was cut into two halves. A visible cross-section of his brain, dripping with blood. Baldwin pulled his blade out of the demon's skull and with a clean movement, flicked the blood off his blade and hoisted the chunk of sharpened metal onto his shoulder.

The homeless demons all stared at the scene before them. They could not believe what had just happened. Falons crew was dead, albeit, they deserved it, but they didn't expect a large mummy with a mask to come and get rid of them like bugs. Especially not a demon with the strength to crush a man with his bare hands. While all the demons stood in awe of the mysterious demon, Kain couldn't help but scurry up to Baldwin and ask.

"What the fuck was that!?"

"Hmmm?" Baldwin turned his body to face Kain.

Kain stepped back for a bit before stuttering "Y-you j-j-just butchered a patrol of one of the few powerful d-d-demon gangs on the outskirts! Easily! W-who are you!? Where did you even get an exterminator weapon like that?"

Baldwin gazed curiously at the corpses of the demonic gangsters. Baldwin understood that he was dead, he knew he was dead, and he was ripped asunder by that damnable thing under the manor. But now he is here, in this world, in this strange new place where demons roam freely. He did not much about this place, how he got here, or even why he was here, he was confused by the events that transpired the moment he arrived. But he would dwell on those emotions later, he had to focus on what was in front of him first. This was "Hell". It was a city, a large one that extended towards the deep crimson sky of this dark world. He already concluded that he himself was a demon, his new appearance and surprising strength had already confirmed that much. The people that surrounded him are demons, yet they don't appear to be evil. If these demons he had killed were some of the more dangerous demons in the area, then the task ahead would not be simple. It was quite clear that he had stirred up a ruckus and interfered with a specific order, caste, or whatever ruling system this place had used. He was now a target most likely. Snapping himself out of a trance, he turned back towards Kain, still waiting for an answer. The other homeless demons watched from afar, observing and waiting as well. Baldwin thought for a moment, organizing his thoughts and responses, weighing his words carefully. Predicting options and possible outcomes before coming to a conclusion. He decided that he might as well explain himself. But keep some information a secret, he couldn't really trust a bunch of random people with his personal information.

"My name is Baldwin. Once a poet, a warrior, a king, a leper, and now.....a demon I suppose. Not the first thing I thought I would be, waking up here." Baldwin gazed at his broken blade then gazed at the other weapons in his hands. He turned to Kain and asked, "These weapons.....are different....you said something about exterminator weapons?"

"Uh....yes."

"Fascinating, do you mind telling me, what these things are?"

"Umm....oh yeah, you must be new here, aren't you. Well then. These here weapons that you and those guys had, were exterminator weapons. Capable of permanently killing demons."

Baldwin looked at the imp with a puzzled look. "Permenatntlly kill them?"

"Oh right, well-Ahem! Every year, hell has a.....purge, cleanse, a genocide controlled by the angles of heaven. To deal with the overpopulation problems here in hell."

Baldwin paused for a moment. "Overpopulation? Genocide? Could you clarify that?"

"Well....Hell is overpopulated, with new sinners coming down here and more hell-born demons being born. We are currently dealing with a massive....problem housing every single demon in hell. All 7 circles. Every year, we have an annual....culling of our population, courtesy of heaven and their exterminator angels."

Baldwin took a moment to process all this new information.

"Overpopulation? This is hell. A realm of pain and suffering.....and it's overpopulated....."

"I know, bullshit really, but we're being honest here, we don't have the space to accommodate everybody in hell. So heaven's solution to the problem was to send angels called "Exterminators" or "Excorists" to hell and have them kill off anyone who isn't indoors in 12 hours on one day of the year."

Baldwin stood in silence, he was still processing the information he was just told. He stared at the weapons in his hands.

"And these Exterminator weapons are the weapons that these angels use I presume."

"Well the Halberd, Spear, and sword are exterminator weapons. The guns, knives, and that hatchet aren't."

Baldwin again stares at his weapons "If these weapons can "Peremantly kill" a demon, this leads me to believe that if killed by a regular weapon a demon will....come back, correct?"

"Yeah. If a sinner demon dies, they just come right back up in a few days. Usually takes a day at the least and a week at the most. The average is usually two days."

Baldwin was disturbed by this information. "These weapons came from....dead angels?"

"What? No. Angels leave their weapons behind on purpose. Yeah, some Angels die, but mostly the angel weapons hell has are mostly from the ones left behind. They do it so that we can kill ourselves, and possibly lower the population ourselves. Not like that helps anyway. Even with all the killing with these exterminator weapons, the population is still going up."

Baldwin again took a minute to process all this new information, but he could contemplate all of this later. Right now he had to focus on what was happening now. Currently, he had gotten himself involved with an infamous criminal gang of demons. These particular demons ruled this area of this demonic city. Also, he is in trouble, because apparently, these demons were very powerful and possibly influential. Baldwin gazed at the large group of homeless demons that surrounded him and his carnage. They stared at him in amazement, awe, curiosity, and fear. Baldwin sighed, word will travel far, he didn't exactly make this event discrete. He knew full well that he had just gotten himself involved in politics with demons. He could leave, but that wouldn't solve anything. Both he and the homeless demons would suffer if he simply ran, they would possibly torture or kill these demons in order to maintain dominance or even revenge. He could talk to this Falon, it was possible, but then again, judging by how they were treating the homeless demons he couldn't really see an agreement working. Why was he even concerned about these demons in the first place, they were demons. Entities of evil and chaos. Yet when Baldwin gazed at the crowd of demons before him...he did not see monsters. He saw people. Starving. Cold. Afraid. Alone. He gazed back at their now-dead oppressors for the third time. They had done horrible things to them. Beatings, theft, rape, even if they were demons, it didn't feel right to leave them. Damn his generosity. Damn his own kindness. Damn his stupidity. He had made his decision. Baldwin turned back to Kain and asked

"So did these demons even kill an angel?"

"What? No, they just scavenged them off of demon corpses." Kain answered, "Why do you ask, and why are you picking up his corpse?"

Baldwin gazed back at the menagerie of demons around him, giving them his answer. "I'm going to have a little talk with this Sir Falon."

The Bloodbath bar, a small little establishment in the outskirts. It wasn't that great of a place, the alcohol was either piss or poison, the food was questionable at best, and everything was tied together with either glue or duct tape. The walls were a solid concrete color, the floor was sticky with soda and beer and the whole place reeked of cigarettes and weed. Falon sits on the far end of his cushioned seat, surrounded by hookers and copious amounts of drugs. The man was a humanoid gargoyle demon, with grey skin, white hair tied into a ponytail, and a set of large grey wings. He had red eyes with no pupils, he wore a leather jacket and white undershirt, ripped-up tan shorts, and a silver chain as a belt. The bar was his main base of operations, parties, orgies, and live streams, this was his domain, and he was the king of the outskirts. At least that's what he referred to himself as. The outskirts were the safest place in hell by comparison, and him being one of the most dangerous things in the outskirts, was laughable by overlords standards. Although he did control a large portion of the drug and alcohol trade, it was a mere drop in the bucket in hell. The man sipped his cup of cheap whiskey and licked his sharp razor-like teeth, as he watched the dancing girls in front of him. His men cheered from the balconies and couches as the strippers slowly appeared from the curtained side rooms. Desperate perverted eyes gazed at the spinning dancing women in front of them. However, in the corner of the sidebar sits a thug, eying Falon with hatred. That thug, however, was actually a woman. A woman with blue hair, with long bangs covering one of her green eyes, pale white skin, and a beautiful set of butterfly wings. She wore a leather jacket with a white crop top, and a torn-up jean short with a small chain hanging from the side. She sits at the barstool, beer in one hand, knife in the other, contemplating what to do next. Her name was Vitriol. She had joined Falon in hopes of getting some cash and leaving the outskirts, but to be one of Falons crew members was a nightmare all on its own. Creepy flirting, catcalls, having to "Satisfy" Falon and his friends, and having to complete almost impossible tasks that were set up to fail, she had just about had enough of the damn place. Her stupid comrades made every single simple mission an impossible task to complete, an egotistical leader that everyone sucked up to, and an arrogant 2nd in command that would pin everything that went wrong onto her when he failed something. She hated them, hated every single one of them, she wanted to kill Falon, she could kill Falon, but that wouldn't really be a smart decision, with him having an exterminator weapon and everyone else being armed to the teeth. So all that Vitriol could do was watch in disgust as Falon continued to drink and gawk at the sight of naked women.

"Oy! Vitriol join in! How about showing us what you can do with those arms of yours? Heh heh!"

Ugh. Disgusting scumbags. It was hell, after all, those types of people are bound to be everywhere in hell. Vitriol wanted to just end it, and kill everyone, but she wasn't strong enough. She knew she wasn't strong enough, one or two she can win no problem, but against a group of five or more she wouldn't last a minute and she didn't want to know what would happen if she lost. So she ignored their jeers and calls and began to chug down her drink.

"Hey! Vitriol Baby!" From the corner of her eye vitriol spies a tall red lizard demon with black hair with the tips dyed a deep crimson, he wore torn-up jean pants and a black sleeveless shirt that had a purple pentagram in the center. Spiked collars around his neck, wrists, and tail, and a stupid gold nose ring.

"Oh fuck, not him. Anyone but him." Vitriol thought to herself.

It was Brant or as everyone else called him, "The eliminator." for some stupid reason. Brant was a kiss-up, a person that got into his position because he would kiss just about anyone's ass to get anything he needed. Not a bad survival strategy in hell, if you didn't mind being called a parasite. Vitriol hated him just as much as Falon, if not even more than him. She could beat him up but at the price of giving him "treatment" afterward.

"What the fuck do you want from me, Brant? Another broken bone or a concussion?"

"Actually. I was coming to ask you about injuries because my arm which you just broke 5 days ago is still hurting a little bit. And you know I was just wondering if you could "Relive some of the pain?"

"Didn't I just "relieve" that pain for you this week?"

Brant began to grin widely "Come on Vitriol, I know you love to just help people when they're hurt. Just a little kiss on the head is all I'm asking"

Brant wasn't even trying to hide his smug-ass smile, Vitriol just wanted to shoot the little turd into a bloody mess. She couldn't stand people who always thought of themselves to be better than everyone when in truth they were shit. Brant was stronger than her but not as skilled, she could easily hurt and even kill him, but his position in the gang was the problem. Brant got Falon to like him as a 2nd in command, and if he died by her hands she wouldn't last a second. She sighed to herself, might as well make this little "treatment" quick before the others got involved. She hated that even more, but as she began to drink the rest of her booze, one of the guards spotted something.

"Oy Boss! We got company!"

The group of partying demons stop for a moment, Vitirol was relieved that something happened from outside, but she was still clenching her weapon expecting a fight. The group of partying demons simply gawks at Falon, expecting a reply or command but Falon just sighs in annoyance.

"Ugh. Who is it?"

"Some guy is outside. It seems like he wants to see you. And he's got a large group of those homeless guys by the park. I think they want to fight."

Falon sighs again chugging the remaining liquid and began to walk towards the door. The prostitutes soon begin to quickly get out of sight, while the rest of the group simply pull out their guns and various weapons. Falon was annoyed by this distraction, why did these hoboes come right now? What were these homeless guys after? Who was leading them? Some other fucking stupid upstart? A revolutionary? He would just take care of this guy the same as he did with everyone else. He pulled out his trusty exterminator spear and clicked a button on his Hellphone. All of a sudden a speaker from behind him began to play, two demons began to wheel a large speaker out the door as Falon made his grand exit. Vitriol slapped her head in frustration, the stupid walking out of the door like some badass wannabe routine. It was embarrassing to look at, although the whole gang cheered at the spectacle, they mostly did it to see Falon make a fool out of himself or they wanted to kiss his ass to get a better standing with him. The metal doors soon swung open and the music began to blare at top volume. Falon started his routine walk from the door, swinging and spinning his spear around him. Throwing it up into the air and almost barely catching it. Vitriol cringed as the man practically danced like a coked-up ballerina dancing on hot coals. While the crowd nearby him cheered him on, those in the far back just laugh quietly to themselves. Vitriol, however, began to load her Revolver, whoever these guys were if they were here they probably wanted to pick a fight. No one was that stupid to step up to Falon, and anyone that did must've been either an idealistic idiot, an arrogant bastard like him, or someone far worse. As for which of the three they were, Vitriol got her answer when she heard a small whistling sound and then a crash.

WEEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeoooooooo *CRASH!*

A large crash and the sudden silence from the speaker made Vitriol quickly spin around to see what crashed into the building. As Vitriol went to take a closer look she saw that the speaker that the two demons were holding was now skidding across the floor and into a nearby table. The demons quickly paused their laughter and cheering and began to try and comprehend what had just happened. As the demons got closer they saw the massive speaker had been crushed inwards, the screws and tape that held it together were now popped out of place, and in the center of the machine was a large bloody head. The head was far from pristine, it was mangled and ripped up and barely recognizable. The bottom jaw had bone fragments and red chunks of meat hanging from strands of flesh and sinew, Teeth and chunks of gum were falling out of the man's maw. Both eyeballs were bleeding out of his skull, his left eye slowly falling out of the socket and dropping to the floor. The upper scalp was split into two halves, revealing his brain and skull fragments. The deep crimson liquid began to drip from the man's neck and trickle down to the wooden floors below.

Vitriol froze in place, the head belonged to one of their guys going on patrol. Loyd was his name, he was a regular douchebag like the rest of the gang, but more creepy than the others. To be honest she was actually glad that the bastard was dead. The real thing that scared Vitriol was the fact that his head was ripped off his body and flung so hard that it warped and bent the metal stereo. The rest of the gang stood still, frozen in fear, those in the back tried to figure out what was going on. While everyone that was unfortunately close, either vomited, started screaming in surprise, or murmured his name. When she lifted her head, she spotted that Falon was just as surprised at what just happened. As she got closer and peered through the door, she saw the person that threw the head at Mach 5 speed. It was an imposing figure, by hell's standards, he wasn't a glorified horrified monstrosity or a boisterous warlord. If Vitriol had to really explain the figure in front of her, it was that this guy was muscular, yet not beastly, intimidating yet not outright terrifying. He was smaller than she would have expected, she imagined him to be some sort of disgusting bodybuilder or something powerful. To be honest the guy in front of her didn't really have any flare about him. While Falon and the others would try some sort of show or edgy entrance, dressing up as some sort of angsty teenage music album cover. The tall figure seemed to only be dressed in a mask and cloak. He was simple, tall, muscular, and had the strength to boot, probably some muscle head wrestler thinking that he can take over by simply waltzing his way in. The crowd around him appeared to be those homeless demons from the park they always harassed. Vitriol never did really harass them, always stood to the side, and tried to get her crew to finish up quickly. But they didn't look like they came to beg, they were all armed with pipes, wood planks, bottles, and makeshift shivs. But they didn't look like they came to fight either, in fact, they looked just as surprised when the big golden giant just hucked a disembodied head at the stereo. They all looked horrified and completely caught off guard by the giants' action, she had also just noticed that the head was recently ripped off because the masked giant was holding on to Loyds mangled headless body. They simply stared at him in awe, disgust, and surprise.

"Hmmm. Darn it, I was aiming for the man's head." Spoke Baldwin

He turned to see that all of the homeless demons that were at the park were staring at him, Dumbfounded at his actions. He found it strange, shouldn't demons usually find this a brilliant tactic or even an entertaining use of a corpse?

"Did I do something wrong?" he questioned

They looked at him again, surprised that he even questioned their reaction.

"Did Something wrong? Did you even realize what you just did?" Cried Samantha

"YOU JUST BUTCHERED A GUY! DRAGGED HIS CORPSES TO HIS BASE! RIPPED HIS HEAD OFF AND THREW IT AT THEM!!!" Carlos Exclaimed.

"It was necessary to instill fear and to provide a warning, with the addition of provoking the arrogant ones in the group to a fight. I see nothing wrong with this. I even told you beforehand that I was bringing the corpse."

"Yeah, you did! But we didn't expect you to chop the guy's head off and hurl it like a cannonball at the Fucking door! We assumed you were just going to leave the corpse out front! Not...you know...THIS!!!" Kain explained.

"I see."

Falon stood there utterly confused at what just happened. But he was mostly just annoyed that the homeless demons from the park were even here. He made it a point to go over there multiple times to make sure they knew who was in charge. He would just have to put these guys back in their place.

"Marcus! Flint! Titan! Ronny! Take care of these guys will yah."

Soon a tall skinny Monkey demon, a hunchback cockroach demon, a large muscular Lizard demon, and a Shark demon start to walk out of the bar, all of them holding what appears to be exterminator weapons and are wearing leather jackets. The homeless demons all stand back, clearly ill-equipped to take on these demons. Baldwin simply walks forward, dropping his extinction blade on the floor, and approaches the demons.

"Heh heh! Well then, yous the one that lobbed Loyd's head?" the shark demon taunts.

"Correct."

"Well look who trying to be some badass! The Weeb is trying to be a hero!" The Monkey demon exclaims

The Demons laugh horrendously, it's ugly and repulsive and makes Baldwin cringe.

"Ugh, your laughs are truly disgusting." Baldwin replies his ire and hatred dripping with every word.

The crowd of demons stopped laughing and Smiling. They soon scowled and the Shark demon lowers his exterminator spear and asks.

"Something wrong with our voices Weeb?"

"Yes actually." Baldwin Replies "Your voices are obnoxious. They sound horrible! Are your throats filled with phlem? Do you need a tissue?"

Insulted by this, The demons raise their weapons and approach Baldwin. The monkey demon Marcus quickly charges in screaming, "Then maybe I should kill you so you won't have to hear us! Bitch!"

With his exterminator spear in his hands, he leaps up into the air to strike Baldwin, both arms overhead, his hands overlapping each other as if he was trying to plant a flag. The Spear makes contact with the Leper's chest plate, but the blow bounced off of Baldwin's chest. Not even fazing the Leper in the slightest. Marcus was stunned, why didn't the spear go through? Before he could touch the ground Baldwin grabs the Monkey by his throat and stops him mid-air, the spear clanking to the ground. The three other demons stop in their tracks as Baldwin holds Marcus's throat. Marcus struggles desperately to try and get out of Baldwin's vice grip. However, Baldwin looks at the monkey demon in his hand and sighs in disappointment. In a deep condescending voice, Baldwin announces to the monkey and the demons around him

"Hmmm. Sad. Being a Monkey, I would assume you would know how to wield a stick properly. I couldn't even trust you to go through a door, even if I gave you directions and opened it for you."

The homeless demons behind Baldwin couldn't help but laugh as they heard the insult. Marcus, now infuriated with the giant's words and the laughing homeless demons behind him, quickly grabs his spear with his tail and tries to stab Baldwin in his face. But the spear clinks off of Baldwin's face mask, not even making the man flinch him. Baldwin simply sighs and wrenches the spear out of the monkey demon's tail and quickly stabs him through the chest. Marcus coughs up blood from his lungs, arms shivering and quaking, his eyes wide open in fear.

"COUGH!" Marcus coughs up blood. Baldwin brings the monkey demon closer, till their faces almost touch.

"You went for the head...Even though it was covered in metal? Truly the pinnacle of man. Your ingenuity knows no bounds." Baldwin uttered mockigly

In the corner of his eye, Baldwin spots the cockroach demon rushing to his left in an attempt to flank him. Baldwin quickly lets go of the monkey's throat and uses the monkey demon impaled corpse as a shield. Using the spear as a handle to hoist Marcus up. The cockroach demon's exterminator spear goes through Marcus's chest but gets trapped between his ribs. Tossing the corpse aside, the weight of the corpse makes the cockroach demon falter and fall. Baldwin turns to face the Lizard and Shark demon that are rushing him. The Lizard demon slashes with his sword, but Baldwin simply backs and steps out of the way. The Shark rushes forward, lifting his double-handed exterminator ax over his head to strike Baldwin. But before he could gain the momentum needed to bring down the ax, Baldwin pushes his advantage and brings both of his fists into the Shark demon's elbows. Shattering them on contact!

CRACK!!!

"AHHHHHHHH!!!!" The Shark Demon Ronny screams and buckles back, unable to wield his ax, he drops to the ground in a vain attempt to nurse his wounds. But he is unable to, he can only watch as his arms flail helplessly around. The sharp pain of broken bones cutting the flesh underneath his skin. His arms were unable to support their own weight or even their shape.

The Lizard demon, Titan, seeing Ronny crumple to the ground, attempts to strike Baldwin's neck with a quick thrust of his sword. But Baldwins simply swats the sword to his left, using the back of his left forearm to slap the flat of the blade and redirect the strike. Baldwin winds up his right arm for a counter-attack, and with the palm of his hand, strikes the Lizard demon's jaw. Crushing the jaw and embedding the bottom teeth and fangs into the roof of the unfortunate lizard's mouth. Titan could scream if he could, but with a broken jaw and a crushed lacerated tongue, he can only mumble and sputter blood. The Lizard keels over and falls onto his back, clenching his mouth as pain seared through his head. The cockroach demon, finally able to remove his spear from Marcus's corpse quickly thrusts his spear behind Baldwins. But the blow bounces off of Baldwin's back chest plate. The spear's trajectory passes underneath Baldwin's armpit. Clamping his arm, Baldwin catches the spear under his armpit. Grabbing it by the head, and twists the spear out of Flint's hands. Smashing the back end of the spear into Flint's face. Once disoriented Baldwin turns around and guts the cockroach. The Harpoon-like spear eviscerates the intestine on contact. Once the spear is dug deep, Baldwin rips the bug demon's bowels open. The mess of organs falls to the floor. Flint tries desperately to keep his organs inside of himself. But it's all in vain. The cockroach's vision begins to fade, and soon it collapses onto the hard ground, with only his intestines cushioning him. The Lizard demon tries to ignore the enormous amount of pain in his mouth, Titan knows that he still has to fight, he's going to die if he doesn't fight. He tries desperately to stand up, but he can only stumble and fall on all fours. He watches as Ronny tries desperately to at least kick the Bronze Gold giant, but it doesn't do anything. The giant simply lifts his right leg and brings it down hard on Ronny's legs, breaking the kneecaps. The sickening crunch could be heard from a mile away. But before Ronny could even scream, he is speared through the head. Baldwin now eyed the Lizard demon, the sword in his hand, arms trembling, he felt pity for this demon. But he knew what this demon had done, he couldn't let it go. Baldwin picks up Ronny's ax and walks towards the crippled lizard. Titan couldn't even lift his arms, his mouth hurt too much. The pain was distracting. Pain. That's all he felt. Pain.

"Huff. I'm going to die." Titan admitted to himself

Titan could hear the scraping of the ax. The long purposefully scraping of the ax. He knew he was dead. No point in fighting. His jaw was fucked, three of his teeth were in his fucking top mouth, and his tongue was practically gore at this point. Why even bother fighting, he was going to die anyway. Titan fell to his knees and threw away his sword, waiting for the Giant to end his misery. Baldwin stepped closer to Titan until he was right in front of the mangled lizard.

"So. You give up then? Very well then. I'll make this quick then"

Baldwin soon raises his blade above the lizard's neck, heaving it with both hands, he prepared his swing. Titan simply knelt on the floor, ready to accept death, even with his jaw all fucked up, you could see that he was smiling. As much as he didn't want to die, he liked knowing that this hell will all be over. No more of Falons stupid schemes and nonsensical showboating, and stupid tactics. No more having to deal with serial killers, mobsters, or assholes. No more drugs and alcohol. No more violence. Just......an end.

As Baldwin prepared to chop the Titans head off. Baldwin heard a small sharp whistle sound.

*Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeoooooooooo*

Thinking it was a rock or an arrow, or a crossbow bolt, Baldwin immediately extended his right arm, hoping to catch whatever was flying toward his face.

*Pink!*

He had caught the thing fly towards his face, but to his surprise, it felt as if it was a lot bigger than anticipated. Looking at what was in his hand, he saw....a metal bottle? He didn't know what he was looking at. It was a metal green bottle with metal wings at the tail end of it. He turned to see that some demon from the bar had fired it from the second-story window. It looked as if it was on fire, but it was soon dying out, and the fire was soon dissipating. The smoke from the tail end of the bottle seemed to indicate that the weapon was a gunpowder-based weapon. Possibly, the projectile was meant to be fired like a ballista or a cannon. He turned towards the crowd of homeless demons behind them. He saw that every single one of them had their mouths wide open, eyes jutting out of their heads, and staring as if Baldwin was the Light himself. They just stuttered, gasped, or fell to the ground, trying to grasp what Baldwin had just done.

"D-d....did....did he j-just.....caught a...Did he just catch a fucking RPG?!" Kain exclaimed in both shock and horror.

"He did...he actually fucking did," Samantha answered in total disbelief at what just happened.

Balwin soon realized he did something remarkable and near impossible to do by the demons' standards. From what he could recognize, the bottle appeared to have been the projectile fired from some sort of small cannon. Wouldn't a cannonball have been more effective? Why was it so small? Wouldn't it be more effective to simply use a much bigger firing mechanism? could something so small have enough force to fire an object that could hurt someone? He did catch it with ease. It was on fire at some point, was it supposed to be on fire? Could this thing have been a bomb? If it was a bomb, why didn't it explode when the fuze died?

"Huh.....why didn't this explode?" Baldwin said aloud.

"Uhhhh." Philp the mummy lizard demon spoke up. "I think the explosive was old, the tip of the rocket is supposed to hit something and set off the explosive, since you caught it, it couldn't explode."

"I see."

Confirming his original thought, Baldwin gazed back at the demons that fired the explosive. He gazed back at the explosive in his hand and suddenly had an idea, he dropped his blade and quickly wound up his arm, backing up with his right foot, and pulling back his right arm like a pitcher. Taking aim with his left arm, he then flung the rocket back at the demons residing in the bar. Seeing the approaching rocket, Falon quickly ducked, while all the demons inside the bar quickly began to panic and tried their best to back up from the incoming rocket.

"OH, SHIT!!!"

"GET BACK! GET BACK!!!"

"FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FU-"

"BOOM"

The rocket had flown to the far left of the building. Smashing through the window and striking the wall. The rocket had caught 2 demons that were close by. They were blasted to bits of gore and limbs as the rocket exploded. Demons that were close enough to the explosion, were engulfed in smoke and intense heat from the blast. The concussive force from the explosive broke bones and destroyed organs. Caused internal hemorrhaging, brain damage, collapsed lungs, and many more injuries to five demons that were unfortunate enough to be within that distance. They were not lucky like the other two demons. Their deaths although brutal were quick. Those 5 close by tried desperately to breathe through their collapsed lungs. They were missing teeth through their mouths, their windpipes crushed, their jaws dislocated, and bleeding from the shockwave. Even if their lungs weren’t collapsed in on themselves the shrapnel from the rocket would have shredded the nearby demons with hot burning shards of metal and debris. Those that were far enough to escape the blast, were knocked backward from the explosion. Bones broke as the blast slammed them into the walls, over the guard railings, and furniture. Shrapnel from the explosive jutting from their flesh as it burnt and embedded itself into their limbs, torso, and face. The shards of glass and dust blinded those nearby. The sound practically deafened those nearby, some bleeding from their ears.

Vitriol was lucky enough to be at the far right of the bar and had both her hearing and sight intact. Albeit she still had to deal with the ringing in her ear and having to feel the shockwave knock her off her feet. As she rises from the ground she spotted most of the demons on her side of the bar were fine or doing fairly well, while demons that were closer to the left side of the bar were either dead, injured, dying, or hiding behind cover.

7 dead or soon to be dead, 10 injured, concussed, and or deafened by the blast. 4 hiding behind tables and chairs, cowering.

“So much for the strongest and most badass sons of bitches in hell.” Vitriol thought smugly, seeing her asshole of “companions” hiding like children.

Many of Falons gang were either too drunk or drugged up to even fight back, their guns wouldn't really be much help if no one could even aim. Luckily, she was probably one of the very few that had any. If she was to count how many were alive or at least half alive it would be 20 including herself. Those capable of fighting?......5 including Falon. She had her pistol, but that only had a few shots in it. Everyone else seems to just grab whatever was at hand, that RPG destroyed most of the group that had actual guns. They'll probably respawn by tomorrow, but the guns would most likely be beyond repair. The group of homeless demons didn't look like they had any guns on them, but they did have numbers. It would be an even match. The Falons gang had exterminator weapons and a special surprise that gave them an edge in the outskirts.

Falon gazed at Baldwin with annoyance. Whether it be pride, stupidity, most likely both, he stood before Baldwin with his spear in hand and spoke.

Falon undeterred by the fact that a rocket was just flung back at him, only gave a very puzzled look before regaining his composure."HAHA! you missed! Is your eyesight that dogshit?"

Baldwin, unimpressed by the man before, walked forward and responded.

"Call out your leader. I wish to speak with them."

"Haha! Guess your eyesight really is dogshit. You looking at him bitch! "

Baldwin simply stared at Falon, before sighing in both disbelief and disdain.

"You?"

"Yeah? Were you expecting some sexy bitch to jack off to? Some sort of ugly bastard like yourself to compare cocks with? If you're into that sort of thing, sorry but I'm not gay."

Falon laughed, along with several other men, trying their best to shake off the trauma of a rocket being flung back at them. Baldwin sighed, tired of hearing the constant crass, rude, swearing that made up half of the hell's denizen's vocabulary.

"Huff...........You....are Falon. You?"

"Yeah! You deaf and dumb too?"

"....you can't be Falon....this must be some sort of joke."

Falon paused for a moment. Falons eye began to glow red, before snarling back
"What?! You really expecting an ugly bastard like yourself?!"

Baldwin simply replied.
"I was looking for a leader. I was expecting.... actually I wasn't sure what I was expecting. I was expecting someone powerful, wise, intelligent, competent, shrewd, and intimidating at the very least.....I guess....you don't really strike me as a leader."

Falon narrowed his eyes. His grip tightened around his spear.
"Oh! Like you're capable of being the leader of the entire gang that rules over all of the outskirts. Do you even know who we are?!"

"No," Baldwin stated flatly. Dropping his blade to the floor and approached Falon. "Neither do I really care. I just know that if you're the leader of this group of brigands, you must be a terrible leader."

Falon skin began to harden. The red eyes soon became bright red with fury. Falons abilities began to activate. Being a Gargoyle demon, Falon was capable of hardening his skin till it was bulletproof and his wings were capable of flight. Falon quickly extended his wings and spread them far and wide in a desperate way to show a sense of power and dominance. "I'm Falon! Leader of the Skullcrushers! Since you cocksuckers need another reminder of who's in charge here! I'm the leader of the outskirts! Me and my crew own this place! So this is a final warning. You homeless fucks crawl back to your fucking sewers or me and my crew is going to exterminate you like I did with Jessica!"

The homeless demons all froze for a moment, some cringed, while others tightened their grip around their makeshift weapons. Baldwin didn't need to ask to understand, he knew full well what Falon meant with his threat and the looks from the other homeless demons. Falon flinched for a bit as he saw the golden hulk of metal flesh erupt in a blue flame.

"Oh, looks like the big guys finally-" Before Falon could even finish his sentence, Baldwin had dug his hand into the ground, and with an upward swing, a piece of concrete was launched into the air and flew past Falons face. The stone found its target in a bird demon's face. Crushing his head and upper beak inward. The bottom part of his beak, funnily enough, looked like it was carrying the stone. The demon dropped to the ground and for a moment, there was silence. Falon was now starting to sweat a little bit as the giant approached with anger in each step.