Chapter 258
Chapter 258:
–Reed Richards–
Reed groggily woke up with blurry vision and an aching head. “What happened...?”
“You really screwed the pooch on this one, Reed,” Johnny Storm said next to him.
Reed blinked his eyes a few times to clear his vision. They were in the ruined remains of the Baxter Building after the portal he built had randomly exploded. Above them was a glowing green portal that seemed to have self-stabilized. Hundreds of smaller red demons were spilling out of the portal and into the city.
“Johnny? Is everyone okay...?” Reed asked hesitantly. It was all starting to come back to him. “I don't know what happened. The portal to the Negative Zone worked the first time we used it! Why did it blow up this time?”
“We're okay, Stretch. We're all just a bit tied up at the moment,” Ben Grimm, The Thing, said.
Reed glanced down and noticed that he, and the rest of the Fantastic Four, were tied up with some kind of black chains. Reed tried to use his powers to slip out of the chains. To his shock, his powers weren't working! “Why are we tied up? Why won't my powers work?” he asked in panic.
“The chains somehow stop us from using our powers. We've all been captured,” Susan Storm said with a sigh. “We've only been superheroes for a few months now and this is already the fifth time I've been tied up!” she lamented.
“Kinky! I love bondage myself!” A new voice spoke up with a laugh. A demoness with red skin, devil wings, and two large horns on her head strutted over towards them. She held herself with pure confidence and looked at the four of them like they were her new toys.
“Who are you? Why did you capture us? And why are you invading New York? You won't get away with this! We'll stop you!” Reed declared to her.
“That's right, bitch!” Johnny added. “If it weren't for these chains, I would have roasted you already!”
“I'll clobber you into next week!” The Thing added.
The demoness chuckled at all of their bravado. “You may refer to me as Jezebel. I am your new mistress, and you four are now my eternal slaves,” she told them with a grin. “I’m going to have so much fun breaking you all in!”
“You’re hot, but I'm not interested in being anyone’s property. Can I pass?” Johnny asked with a cocky grin.
Jezebel gazed at Johnny teasingly. “Nope.” She pointed her hand at him. A stream of lightning poured from her palm and slammed into Johnny’s chest.
The hair on his head stood up as rampant voltage poured into him. He let out a scream of agony. “Fuck you, bitch!”
“Stop it! Why are you doing this?” Reed exclaimed.
Jezebel closed her hand and the stream of lightning cut off. Johnny slumped forward and groaned in pain.
“Why am I doing this? Because I obviously feel like it,” she said with a carefree shrug, as if she didn’t just torture Johnny in front of everyone. “What did you think would happen? You opened a portal directly to Hell! Directly in front of my father’s palace, I might add! Of course we would get curious and decide to come out and play,” she explained cheerfully.
“H–Hell!?” Reed sputtered in disbelief. He had always been a man of science. He never believed Hell existed. He was one of the few ‘rational people’ left in the world who still didn’t believe Layla was even a real Angel! “You’re lying!” he glared at her. “Hell isn’t real, you're just some red-skinned alien!”
Unlike him, his three friends seemed to believe her words immediately.
“Good going, Reed! You opened a portal to literal Hell!” Johnny chastised him while taking some deep breaths to recover himself. “This is so much worse than when you almost killed us all with that rushed spaceship!”
“Shit, is this the apocalypse?” The Thing muttered dejectedly. “Not your best work there, boss.”
“A portal to Hell? Reed, how could you be so irresponsible!” Susan berated him while wriggling against her bonds. “We have to escape, we have to help!”
“Don't worry, everyone. I'll fix this! We'll stop these lying aliens and I'll close the portal! The people of New York will love us again! We'll be real heroes!” Reed said while nodding to himself. He already had a few ideas on how to close that self-sustaining portal. All he had to do was escape the chains that bound them all first.
“Good luck with that,” Jezebel told them as she turned around and started walking away. “I have an army of demons to give orders to and a report to make to my father. Once I've finished all that, I'll be back for you all, my new pets. Watch them!” Jezebel commanded a few nearby imps who had been standing guard. The imps nodded at her fearfully while clutching their pitchforks.
“You’re just going to leave us here!?” Johnny asked in disbelief.
“As if you pathetic lower lifeforms have any chance of escaping from chains forged in Hell.” She laughed at them while spreading her red bat-like wings. She took off into the air and passed back through the portal.
Reed scowled as he watched her temporarily return to Hell. Jezebel reminded Reed of that ‘arrogant asshole’ Tony Stark! Tony always looked down on Reed, just like the demoness was doing to them. She didn’t even bother killing them because they were nothing in her eyes! In fact, Reed felt like the whole world treated him that way as well! He was tired of being mocked and looked down upon. He was the smartest man in the world!
…
–Layla–
“Die Angel!”
“Kill the enemy!”
“Graaah!”
A group of three flying red imps holding black pitchforks rushed me at the same time. They were the most stereotypical looking demons I'd ever laid eyes on.
{Nameless Minion of Hell, Imp: Level 15}
They were remarkably out of their league. They were so weak that they probably couldn’t even sense how high I was above them. My Lightspear flashed out faster than the speed of sound. The three imps were vaporized without knowing what killed them.
“These annoying imps just keep coming,” I growled while reeling my arm backwards. My Lightspear flew out of my hand and slew another five imps. “I can't go all out either because we're in the middle of a crowded city,” I lamented with a huff. Every single building nearby was filled with people who had quickly gotten off the streets.
“Begone, Hellspawn!” Gabriel cried out. A burst of pure Light flashed out from her being. It spread out for a few hundred meters and killed every single imp it touched. The buildings the Light touched remained completely unharmed.
That was an incredibly useful AOE attack. I'd need to get Gabriel to teach me that later. Every powerful attack I had in my arsenal caused far too much collateral damage.
High in the sky, my big brother Michael was dealing even more devastation to the demon army. He was currently battling tens of thousands of imps at once and easily holding his own! He was purging hundreds of the foul creatures every few seconds.
With the streets mostly cleared and the majority of humans safely hiding away in buildings, I decided to go take a look at the giant green portal hovering directly above the partially destroyed Baxter building.
[What are the odds the Fantastic Four are the cause of this mess?]
I snorted. “100 percent, obviously. The Fantastic Four are kind of morons to be honest.” Most of their fights in the comics are started because Reed likes to open random portals to dimensions he shouldn't be messing with. “They'll have to answer for this invasion later… If they are still alive that is.” This world wasn’t a movie. People were going to be pissed off once we fought off the invasion. They were going to look for someone to blame, and that was obviously going to be the Fantastic Four–mainly Reed Richards.
A person can’t just cause a demonic invasion and walk away scot-free afterwards…
I flapped my wings and took off towards the center of the city. I had to take a couple of detours to save a few strangling humans who weren't getting safety for some reason.
“Get inside, you morons! These demons will kill you and eat you… And possibly not in that order!” I yelled at a couple of dumb teenagers who were filming the invasion with their phones.
They couldn't actually be this stupid, could they!? Yes, yes they were…
[There's always a few people with no sense of self preservation.]
One of the teenagers smiled and waved up at me from the ground. “Layla! Can I get a quick interview for my channel!? This is crazy! I'm going to get so many views!” he exclaimed enthusiastically.
“No way, man! She's going to do an interview for my channel! I'll finally get over 1000 subscribers!” the other one added as well.
They were both so invested in filming me that they didn't even realize they were about to die. I tossed another Lightspear directly behind them. A snarling imp was in the process of sneaking up on the dumb kids. It let out a scream of pain before it burst into ash.
“That was awesome! Thanks for the save there, Layla! How about that interview now!?”
“Woah! That was so graphic! Way better than video games!”
[They will really do anything for clout these days…]
I scoffed at them both and held up my hand. “Universal Pull!”
“No! My phone!” one of them whined.
“Hey, not cool!” the other exclaimed.
Both of their phones were ripped from their hands by my ability. I caught them both and crushed them in my grip. “Get inside a building, you idiots. I have a portal to close and can't waste anymore time saving your dumb-asses!” I chastised them both one last time.
“B–but!”
“M–my phone…”
I was done with this conversation. I snapped my fingers and a portal opened up directly underneath both of them. Both of the teens fell through and landed in the next state over, New Jersey. They should be safe there for now.
I should have just done that to start with…
With that short delay taken care of, I flew towards the Baxter building. Any other straggling humans I came across were directly teleported away. It wasn't just idiots chasing clout still on the streets. There were also a few criminals taking the opportunity to do some looting. Either way, they were all New Jersey's problem now…
“Angel! Kill her and eat her flesh!”
“Almighty Push!”
BOOM!
Another group of imps were turned to pulp from the gravitational wave.
The amount of demons pouring out of the portal had not slowed down even a little bit. Tens of thousands had now crossed over and we're flying throughout the city, viciously searching for targets. I could sense Michael and Gabriel killing hundreds of demons every few seconds, but the number of enemies wasn’t decreasing. It seemed like two more imps were popping up for everyone one that was killed!
[Whoever is leading them clearly doesn't care about imp lives. Imp lives obviously don’t matter.]
The System was right unfortunately.
“For all we know, this particular Hell could have billions of demons to throw at us,” I replied with a grimace.
[You need to stop that portal and cut off their reinforcements.]
As I flew by Central Park, I had to pause again. I could sense the lingering magical energies of Asia and Heather in the park. They had been through here recently!
The corpses of hundreds of imps stained the ground. They all looked like they had been violently ripped apart. Blood and guts were everywhere! Neither Heather or Asia would have been capable of such violence. Lightspears didn't even leave demon bodies behind after all.
[That’s an impressive amount of violence.]
“Who the hell did all this? …Are the girls with them?” The trail of bodies led directly towards the Baxter building. “I guess I'm about to find out.”
…
–The Doom Slayer–
Rip and Tear…
Boom! Crack!
“Graagh! He’s unstoppable!”
“Someone warn the mistress!”
“He’s a monster! Run away!”
There would be no mercy. A few imps tried to flee from him–he did not allow them to escape. He mercilessly struck down every hellspawn he came across.
Blood and brains painted the wall red as the Doom Slayer reloaded his shotgun. The building was crawling with demons and he was pushing his way up one floor at a time. It wasn't just imps either. Hellhounds and other abominations had started filling the building as well. The Doom Slayer was glad that he had stocked up on plenty of ammo for his new shotgun. It wasn’t nearly as powerful as his old one, but hunting shotguns at least had plenty of range and accuracy.
“Holy crap! Aren’t you tired!? You just ran up over 30 flights of stairs, while fighting the entire time!” Heather exclaimed with a huff. She and Asia had been following behind him as he cleared the building.
“D–Do you need more healing?” Asia asked him worriedly.
“I'm fine,” He told them both. The demons he had slain so far had been pretty weak. None of them had managed to injure him. They didn't even carry guns. The only thing they had on their side was sheer numbers. The Doom Slayer glanced out a nearby window and frowned at the amount of imps flying outside the building.
He had never seen numbers quite like this. It was gonna take him a long time to kill them all…
“We are close to the top. You two should wait here,” The Doom Slayer told the two Angels. His gut was telling him that the REAL fight was coming. He didn’t want to have to protect them and fight the demon boss at the same time.
Heather pouted at him. “No way! Mom would be disappointed in me if I ran away from something like this.”
“Actually, I think Aunty Layla is going to be disappointed that we didn’t run away…” Asia said nervously. “I hope we don’t get grounded for putting ourselves in danger,” she added.
Heather also paled at Asia’s words. “G–Grounded!? She’s never grounded me before… Would she actually do that!? I don’t want to be locked inside for months! It's almost summertime!” she whined.
While the two girls were distracted lamenting their futures, the Doom Slayer took the opportunity to push forward up the stairs. To his surprise, the next few floors were completely cleared of any demonic presences. He managed to climb all the way to the roof unimpeded. It was an obvious trap of some kind. He made it to the top floor and kicked open the door.
“Not so fast, human!” An imp screeched at him. Its voice was scratchy and inhuman. It grated on the ears.
“Surrender or well gut these four!” Another few imps had taken a small group of human hostages.
Well… three humans and some kind of ‘strange orange rock man.’ The imps were holding black pitchforks up to the hostages throats.
“Cool armor, man! Where did you get it?” One of the hostages asked him as if his life wasn’t in danger.
“Shut up, Johny! Now is not the time for your dumb questions. We don’t even know if this guy is here to save us!” A striking blonde woman hissed at the guy who had spoken up first.
“Mars…” The Doom Slayer didn’t mind answering the question. That’s where he had first dawned the Praetor Suit. It wasn’t exactly a secret.
“Woah, Mars!? That’s awesome!” Johnny said with a grin before turning to his sister. “You need to chill out, Susan. That time we got captured by Annihilus was way scarier than this!”
“Mars, huh? I always wanted to go to mars myself. I was an astronaut before I became this...” The orange rock man sighed.
“I don’t know who you are, but we don’t need your help! I assure you that I have everything in hand! All of this was an experiment that went slightly wrong, I assure you that I’ll have everything fixed soon enough,” the last hostage said in a condescending tone. His tone reminded the Doom Slayer of the arrogant scientists who had caused the destruction of Mars by experimenting with portals they didn’t understand–the exact same thing that had obviously happened here.
“SILENCE, HUMANS! No more talking or I'll slit your throats!” The imp spat out as it pushed the tip of its pitchfork up against Johnsy’s throat. A small trail of blood started leaking down his neck and he shut up. “Drop your weapon, armored human!” it yelled at the Doom Slayer once again.
The helmet he was wearing hid the frown on the Doom Slayer's face.
A hostage situation… He was not exactly used to dealing with these. Usually it was just him against hordes of demons. The reason he ran ahead of the two young Angel’s was to avoid this kind of situation in the first place.
Still, the lives of three humans, and whatever the rock guy was, were not equal to the millions that would die if the portal wasn’t closed soon. With his decision made, he cocked his shotgun and pointed it at the demons.
“W-What are you doing, human!?” the first imp asked fearfully.
“Don't you see we h-have hostages!?” another trembled.
“No deal,” the Doom Slayer said while pulling the trigger. He aimed at the imp holding the beautiful woman hostage first. As a soldier, he was trained to save women or children before everyone else. The top of the imp’s head popped like a balloon as the 12 gauge slug hit with perfect accuracy. Susan let out a shriek as she was covered in demonic blood and brain matter.
“Fuck! This h-human is crazy!”
“R–Run for it!”
Apparently, he had called their bluff. Instead of killing the hostages, the imps dropped their weapons and fled as quickly as they could. He fired a couple more slugs and picked a few of them out of the air before they could get away.
“Shit… That was a close one.” Johnny said with a laugh. “Are you okay, sis?”
“Ewww, I'm covered in disgusting demon blood!” she said with a scowl. She glared at the Doom Slayer. “How could you just open fire like that!? What if you had shot me by accident!?” she demanded to know.
“I didn’t,” he said coolly while walking over to her. She huffed at him one last time before thanking him for saving her. He grabbed the chains around her body and easily ripped them apart. Once she was free, he moved over to her younger brother and the rock guy.
“How’d you do that!? Even I can break out of these chains!” the rock guy exclaimed. “Thanks for the save by the way. People call me The Thing, but the name’s Ben.”
“I'm stronger than you…” He smirked at Ben under his helmet.
“Hah! I like your moxie! How about we get some payback and clobber these demons!?” Ben suggested. He smashed his fists together and smirked.
“Hell yeah! I'm going to roast these assholes! The only reason they even caught us was because the explosion knocked us all out!” Johnny said with a grin. The Doom Slayer noticed that some small flames and sparks appeared around Johnny’s body. That was a strange ability.
“Excuse me, aren’t you forgetting someone?” the scientist whined at them all. He was still tied up on the floor. The Doom Slayer had not forgotten him.
“Hang on, Reed. I'll get you out–” Ben started walking over but stopped when the Doom Slayer placed his hand on the orange man’s shoulder.
The Doom Slayer shook his head. “No. He stays tied up. He caused this mess. He will answer for it.” he said, completely serious.
“W–What!? No! You can’t pin this on me! This wasn’t my fault! I was just trying to advance science. Sometimes that comes with risks that can’t be avoided.” Reed tried to defend himself.
“You're just the same as them…” the Doom Slayer said. There were other people who worked in this building besides these four. On the way up to the roof, he had come across dozens of human corpses that had been torn apart and partially eaten…
“I'm not the same as anyone! I'm Reed Richards! The smartest man in the world–”
WOOSH!
Reed was cut off when a new woman crashed down onto the roof! The Doom Slayer pointed his shotgun at her quickly before lowering it. It wasn’t a demon. It was an incredibly beautiful woman with 14 black wings. Another Angel, one clearly older and more powerful than the two he had left a few floors down.
“Fuck…” Reed muttered out loud when he noticed who had just arrived.
“Hello, everyone,” the black winged woman said while glancing around the rooftop. “I expected there to be a lot more demons up here. Maybe even the leader or something? Where are they?”
“H–Hi, Layla. N–Nice to meet you finally,” Susan replied nervously as if she was meeting a celebrity.
“The demon bitch went back through the portal to report to her father or something!” Johnny explained. “She said she would be back soon though,” he added.
Layla nodded at Johnny before turning to the Doom Slayer. “You look vaguely familiar to me, but I don't believe we’ve met. I am Layla of the Fallen. Who might you be?” she asked him while holding out her hand to shake.
“John,” he shook her hand and actually winced at her grip. She was MUCH stronger than he was expecting. He mentally upped her threat rating from dangerous to incredibly dangerous in his head. She didn’t seem particularly hostile to him though.
“You haven't seen my daughter Heather and my niece Asia anywhere nearby have you, John?” she asked him while letting go of his hand. He figured she was related to the two other Angel’s in some way.
“They’re a few floors down,” he told her and she let out a sigh of relief.
“There's so much demonic taint around this building that it's difficult to sense them,” she explained. Layla tilted her head upwards towards the portal above them. “Of course it's him!” Layla spat out hatefully.
The Doom Slayer noticed that the hordes of imps had temporarily stopped pouring out of it. In fact, almost all of the imps around the building were starting to flee in every direction as quickly as possible! Two beings exited the portal. Both of them were bright red, but much taller than any of the imps he’d fought so far. It was a man and a woman.
“Jezebel is back. Is that her old man with her?” Johnny asked out loud. “He looks kind of scary…” he trailed off fearfully.
The demonic man smiled at the Angel menacingly. “...Layla! What a pleasant surprise! I never would have suspected it would be so easy to access your Earth! This portal is so convenient! The Ancient One’s barriers usually kept me out of this world for hundreds of years after all…” he trailed off with a chuckle before noticing everyone else. “Oh, where are my manors? The rest of you ants don’t know who I am, do you?” he said with a dark chuckle.
“Bow down, worms! This is my father, Mephisto! The ruler of Hell, lord of all demons, and the conqueror of this world. Kneel down and pledge your eternal souls to him. Accept your status as eternal slaves!” Jezebel said to them all domineeringly.
“No,” the Doom Slayer said before taking aim and shooting her directly in the face.
XXX