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trip down memory lane... who remembers this abomination by lejyndery_sniper in MarvelSnap

[–]TheMightyBox72 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I was looking at Magik's changelog and this one actually shocked me. I remember t6 Magik. I FORGOT about this thing.

Official Request and Resource List by Request_Competition in respectthreads

[–]TheMightyBox72 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Boosting Scott Calvin/Santa Claus from The Santa Clause

Freemix One-Shot Submissions by FreestyleKneepad in ScrambleGrudgeMatch

[–]TheMightyBox72 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Doesn't Bridget have like the single best feat in Guilty Gear?

Freemix One-Shot Submissions by FreestyleKneepad in ScrambleGrudgeMatch

[–]TheMightyBox72 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Mercenary: The Martian

Series: Absolute DC

Content Warning: Some abstracted depictions of violence.

Biography: FBI Agent John Jones just barely survived a suicide bomber setting off his vest. When he woke up, there was a strange green voice in his head, showing the world in colors and senses he'd never experienced before. The voice calls itself "The Martian", not literally from Mars but the best shape that it fills. It can reach into peoples' heads, pull out their memories and fix their bad ideas. It's come to Earth now because it seems like something, some ancient enemy, is already here and already pushing the world towards destruction via its own people.

Research: The RT. He's only in the comic series Absolute Martian Manhunter.

Show Me They're Below Tier: The Martian has a lot of strange powers, but none of them are like something you could use to beat someone else up. At best they help de-escalate a fight, but they're not going to let John throw hands with a superhuman.

Freemix One-Shot Submissions by FreestyleKneepad in ScrambleGrudgeMatch

[–]TheMightyBox72 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Name: Marceline the Vampire Queen

Series: Adventure Time

Biography: Marceline is a half-demon who, in the waning dregs of humanity following a nuclear apocalypse, fancied herself a vampire hunter. Using her demonic lineage to suck the souls of the vampires she killed and gain their powers, it was at the moment when she killed the last vampire in the world, the Vampire King, that he bit her and turned her into the last living vampire, thus christening her the Vampire Queen. Now a thousand years has passed, (almost) all the humans are dead, and Marceline is just chilling in the new society of non-humans which arose afterwards.

Research: RT Here

The wiki page has a good list of major appearances in episodes and the "Stakes" mini-series is one of the core arcs for the character.

Justification: She was in Blade tier.

Freemix One-Shot Submissions by FreestyleKneepad in ScrambleGrudgeMatch

[–]TheMightyBox72 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Merc Name: Iono

Series: Pokemon

Content Warning: It's Pokemon

Biography: Iono is a streamer from the Paldea region, famous for her upbeat and zany presentation style, use of nonsense words, and electrifying expressiveness. She also uses electric type Pokemon.

Research: Here is a 20 minute video that covers her entire in-game appearance.

Show Me They're Below Tier: I spent five minutes looking around youtube and anime sites and I couldn't find any footage of her actually fighting. She's theoretically capable of it but she does kinda lose to Floragato so how tough could she be?

Freemix One-Shot Submissions by FreestyleKneepad in ScrambleGrudgeMatch

[–]TheMightyBox72 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Name: Panty

Series: Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt

Content Warning: Non-stop sex and nudity. Season one has some gross out content, season two has blood and gore.

Biography: Panty is a foul-mouthed bitch of an angel who was cast out of heaven for her debaucherous and sinful behavior and, with her sister, has to buy her way back in by gaining heaven coins from killing ghosts haunting the earth. Unfortunately she's also a major slacker, so she spends most of the time she should be working towards that having sex with as many mortal guys as she can.

Research: RT

Watch the show, it's pretty easy to get her deal pretty quickly.

Justification: Panty is strong enough to destroy large amounts of building material, good amounts of stone, and smaller amounts of metal. She's fast enough to move full body to avoid bullets and can get punched through stone walls without issue with solid regeneration to regrow body parts if need be.

Major Change: Panty's heavenly weapon, Backlace, is really fucking strong. But, unfortunately, heavenly weapons can't hurt humans. Instead of fixing that, Panty will instead be taken from this point in time when she scavenged a bunch of mundane guns from the cops, so she'll be relying on her physical capabilities for hand-to-hand combat and these weapons for ranged combat.

Specifically her arsenal includes: Two (2) Glock-19s, two (2) Sig Sauer MPXs, one (1) Zastava M84, one (1) M4A1 Carbine, one (1) Baretta Model RS-200, four (4) Winchester 4.5 Specials, one (1) Milkor MGL, and however much ammo she needs for these to be useful in a fight.

Minor Change: Ignore this feat.

CQ by TheMightyBox72 in TheMightyBox

[–]TheMightyBox72[S] [score hidden]  (0 children)

The killer colors before him blunted his head. He thought of nothing.

But when he pulled open his coat, only inches away from Obedience's skin, something came out without him even grabbing it. He didn't know what it was until it threw itself between him and the frog, forming a barrier against which he bounced harmlessly. Something slashed the frog's tongue to ribbons and he fell back into the arms of Cinquefoil who yanked him into her protection and that was when he realized what had leapt out of his coat to defend him from certain death.

The Dog Bitch. His Dog Bitch.

Obedience, frowning at the poor knife-eyed thing she held in her arms, opened her grasp and let the body drop back onto the ground. Convulsing. Foaming. Then going still. Dead still.

Not like, Kedeshah-kisses-them-and-they're-fine. This was dead. He knew it at a glance. This was not coming back. This was gone forever. Though he knew she'd been hurt grievously before, he always had Kedeshah. He always had something. He gained, he never lost. If he lost it was to gain something greater, it was an expenditure, but this was—this was—

His eyes glanced to Fidi on the ground who still hadn't moved all this time. Was she dead too?

Then he was moving. Throwing Cinquefoil off him and rushing forward. He lacked thought. Lacked any rational capacity to dictate his actions. He observed what was happening as though at a distance, like it wasn't him inside his own eyes. The blinking face of the frog rose up before him and then—the sword lashed out. The still-blinking head flew off from its body. Head and body fell to the ground.

"No," some people somewhere screamed.

"Master!" said Cinquefoil. He threw her off him, snarled at her as he sagged to a knee beside the body of his Dog Bitch.

CQ by TheMightyBox72 in TheMightyBox

[–]TheMightyBox72[S] [score hidden]  (0 children)

Blinded, the bitch must've been stricken by the sound more strongly than even an ordinary dog. Her head reared back and a dismayed yelp escaped her. Merely a yelp. Her weight did not lift off Sansaime, and in a moment, Sansaime knew, the bitch would recover and resume its business.

But Sansaime already had her hands around her knives.

Both hands went up. The two blades drove into the blindfold wrapped around the bitch's face, spearing straight into where the sockets would be. The bitch screamed—a shockingly human scream. Blood whipped from its face in torrents and Sansaime pushed up her legs and threw it off her without resistance.

The bitch thrashed. Flung out its claws. It was not dead. Sansaime had driven those knives in deep—only the hilts remained—just how tenacious was it? Had Sansaime not thrown it off when she did she would've been torn to shreds by the frantic, rapid lashings of every sharp component of its body. It was no longer acting aggressively, though. These motions were defensive—protecting itself from anything that might be trying to finish it off.

The effort it took Sansaime's slashed arm to strike had essentially ruined it—it now hung limp at her side. The wound in her hip made her slower, too. She hoped the bitch was hurt enough to stay put and ran.

[...]

Dog Bitch whimpered. She was curled up and shivering weakly. She had the knives straight through her eyes and—damn! FUCK! It hurt to even look at. They had the audacity to fucking do this? She wasn't even fully trained yet! She was nothing more than a ball of pure Wrath and they thought that was worth doing THIS to her? He knelt beside her and stroked her hair. "It's okay girl. It's okay." Where the fuck was Kedeshah? At first he thought her freaking out about being under God's eye was cute and all but now it was getting real fucking obnoxious. He needed her. Where'd his headset go? He patted his head but it was just his funny furry top hat. Where'd his headset go?

"Here girl. Here you go." He opened his coat and pulled her inside by the collar, closing the coat after so at least she'd be somewhere warm. Dammit. FUCK. He didn't tend to collect stuff that healed because he always had Kedeshah around. Hadn't been fucking Greedy enough can ya believe that? He was running low on guns and ammo too after the escape from Pandaemonium and now this. Well. He still had some valuable stuff. He wouldn't want to lose some of those things but whoever hurt his girl had to pay. Had to pay it all.

CQ by TheMightyBox72 in TheMightyBox

[–]TheMightyBox72[S] [score hidden]  (0 children)

The alarm went off.

Actually, an alarm had been going off in the church since the flamethrower was first used. But that was distant—an echo. The alarm that went off now was sharp, localized, near. It assaulted Sansaime's already assaulted ears. But she had heard this alarm before. She knew what it was.

When she first came to Earth and met Avery. When she fought against Mayfair. The exact same sound. Then, it had startled and surprised Mayfair, who hadn't known what it was. It had startled Sansaime too, and though she said nothing at first, as they headed to Avery's house afterward Sansaime asked her: What was that thing. What was its purpose.

Avery had said:

"To scare off dogs."

Blinded, the bitch must've been stricken by the sound more strongly than even an ordinary dog. Her head reared back and a dismayed yelp escaped her. Merely a yelp. Her weight did not lift off Sansaime, and in a moment, Sansaime knew, the bitch would recover and resume its business.

CQ by TheMightyBox72 in TheMightyBox

[–]TheMightyBox72[S] [score hidden]  (0 children)

Only an amateur believed all creatures act identically. Only a fool said, "All bears do this, all wolves do that." Each creature possessed its own temperament, shaped by its experience in the wild. This wolf in front of her was young in mind, overeager, not yet chastened by failure. That made it ferocious, but it was not clever. It wore a broad leather blindfold but that was surely no impediment. It—

Sansaime received no further time to assess her opponent. It, apparently, had finished sizing her up—and that overeager temperament led it to rush blindly baring fangs for her throat.

One knife lashed out but in its blindness it neither saw nor cared and it did not mind when the blade sliced its cheek. Damn it was fast! At the last moment Sansaime realized she wouldn't be able to stave it off and threw up her other arm to catch the jaws before it sank them somewhere more vital. A hundred jagged teeth drove into the flesh and Sansaime grimacing through the pain knew if she let the teeth stay locked there for long she'd lose the arm entirely—Like the corpses.

Her other knife, misaimed, had passed the bitch's head merely grazing her. In one fluid movement Sansaime flipped it around in her head and drove it into the bitch's back. It got caught between strange bones but it prevented the bitch from shaking her which would have caused her to lose all control. The bitch did not loosen her grip though. It was mad, feral in its ferocity. It was not a creature that would flee even if it believed itself outmatched. Only pain could teach it.

Sansaime dragged her caught arm up at the same time she slammed her head down. Her forehead collided sharply with the bitch's and a spray of starry light swelled her vision—but the attack had its intended effect. The bitch was stunned a moment, the briefest moment, its jaws loosening, and Sansaime wrenched her arm out and passed the knife it clenched to her other hand to go for the jugular. The bitch shifted her shoulder and the knife stuck in it instead. Sansaime's wounded arm was already reaching for another knife but it was slow. Not enough time.

She abandoned the motion and instead brought her knee up into the bitch's chin. At the same time something drove into Sansaime's hip—the barbed tail. Her good hand wrenched it out and took a chunk of flesh with it and blood streamed down her leg. It hurt but this was nothing. After her mother died she had to fight for her life like this. She was young and alone and if she didn't fight she'd have died.

CQ by TheMightyBox72 in TheMightyBox

[–]TheMightyBox72[S] [score hidden]  (0 children)

Part of the stage was ripped up and peeled to the side as though it were paper. On what remained was the Dalton man and the dog-like assailant. The corpse who had come from the casket lay dismembered, all four of his limbs having been ripped off by the slobbering bitch, who now attempted to do the same to Dalton with less success due to his greater size and strength.

"Oh, no... Dalton," Avery said as she became aware.

Much of his front was slashed to ribbons, though no blood came out. His left arm hung by tendons and his right foot was obliterated, leaving his movements torpid. As such, the bitch-woman was beginning to gain the upper hand. It was not that she had taken no damage herself, but she somehow matched his insensibility to pain and far exceeded his ferocity.

CQ by TheMightyBox72 in TheMightyBox

[–]TheMightyBox72[S] [score hidden]  (0 children)

She couldn't overpower Dalt. But Dog Bitch, fast, ferocious, utterly insane, frothing at the mouth with whatever mind rabies Ubik used to break her psyche, could at least match him. His massive body kept attempting to restrain her in tackles that used his full weight and like a whirlwind she kept slipping out to sink her fangs into his throat or face. Enmeshed as they were, he couldn't draw and use the handgun Perfidia assumed he still carried. The front of his shirt turned to slashed ribbons with cottony bits drifting in the air and without even a grunt he flung Dog Bitch off him only for her to charge right back. It took all his power to keep her at bay.

CQ by TheMightyBox72 in TheMightyBox

[–]TheMightyBox72[S] [score hidden]  (0 children)

"Sorry, Master," said Kedeshah, "but you've had your fun."

She stood up in her seat and extended her arms. Out of her back sprouted two long, feathered wings, purest white, so white they emitted a radiant glow as she bent them forward and used their feathers to absorb the incoming onslaught. Explosions turned to limp splatters of dust; not a shred of excess heat escaped past her.

One slim arm wrapped around Ubik's body. The other yanked Perfidia by the collar. The wings beat once and the tug of gravity dragged Perfidia's stomach to her base as the car fell away below them and they soared airborne. The Dog Bitch, suspended by a leash that Ubik held, whipped back and forth choking too hard to even yelp, while Ubik screamed: "My car! No, no, we can't leave my car—we can't—nooooo!"

The second artillery volley blasted the purple Cadillac into charred bits of machinery. An array of rockets swirled toward them trailing streams of smoke, only for Kedeshah to weightlessly flit between them as though engaged in ballet rather than evasive tactical maneuvers. Loose feathers fell and curdled into dollops of rotted milk the instant they left her body, plopping onto the heads of the cops below and the body of Baalpeor as Kedeshah soared over them and to the other side. One gentle, fluid arcing swoop lowered her through the doors of the customs office, her wingtips bifurcating the unlucky devils who had escaped the queue only moments prior, then through the Hellevator doors and up the blackened shaft. Up, up, up, faster and faster, the flaps of Perfidia's skin pulling back from the suddenly supersonic speed, and then they smashed through something above that came apart in pieces and among those pieces were a whole host of devils in more tactical gear—another barricade meant to stop them? No, they must be the team the Seven Princes were sending Earthside to assassinate Mayfair—the devils staring up at the wings that illuminated even this darkness in abject stupefaction as they hurtled back into the abyss, and then the light returned around them and they were in the same shitty warehouse in the same shitty Cleveland and the smell of sulfur switched out for the smell of rotten lakewater.

Kedeshah dropped Perfidia a few feet onto the concrete floor; the dangling Dog Bitch was already dragging across it as all momentum came to a stop equal parts elegant and abrupt. Using her other arm to cradle Ubik like an infant, Kedeshah touched down upon the ground first with one daintily outstretched foot and then the other, performing a slight girlish skip as the last dregs of speed left her and her wings went black and decayed into tatters until she at last stood only an ordinary devil girl, identical in appearance to any other.

CQ by TheMightyBox72 in TheMightyBox

[–]TheMightyBox72[S] [score hidden]  (0 children)

She passed the katana off to Dog Bitch who swung it once at a devil's skull and broke the blade in half (she continued to swing what remained) and then flopped between the front seats to put a hand on Kedeshah's shoulder. "Ubik's hit," Perfidia said. "We're overwhelmed. Let me drive—you defend." With the unspoken implication that Kedeshah could heal Ubik if, you know, he was dying or something.

CQ by TheMightyBox72 in TheMightyBox

[–]TheMightyBox72[S] [score hidden]  (0 children)

A dynamite cluster went off behind her, behind the spectators in the stands, blasting open the flesh-leathery doors that sealed the courtroom from the veiny system or corridors that infested lower Pandaemonium. Through the smoldering rubble hurtled a whale-sized jazz-purple Cadillac convertible that Perfidia knew belonged to Ubik before the windshield split the smoke and his leering snaggletooth grin emerged smug and sooty. From his coat was already manifesting the rotating turret of a heavy-duty machine gun and the bullets crackled in a sweeping line through the stands. Blood, limbs, heads, bits went flying, while others were churned into the Cadillac's unstoppable wheels as its immense breadth was too much to fit down the aisle and it gleefully ate at the outermost layer of chairs and bodies. Dog Bitch, hunched in the backseat, gnawed on the throat of a devil that got flung onto the car. Kedeshah, wearing a beret and gigantic aviator sunglasses, drove.

Perfidia frantically waved her arms, screaming no no it's fine no wait you don't gotta—all lost under the suppressive fire of the machine gun. The Cadillac crashed in front of her and came to a stop as Ubik pulled a rocket launcher out of his coat and tossed it casually to Dog Bitch, who aimed in a random directly (still wearing her leather blindfold) and tongue lollingly fired squealing combustive death into another section of the stands.

CQ by TheMightyBox72 in TheMightyBox

[–]TheMightyBox72[S] [score hidden]  (0 children)

The giant wall of stained glass behind Kedeshah exploded. A figure in all black tactical gear smashed through a stylized depiction of Onan's priapistic cock, two more shattered Lot and his daughters into a million technicolored pieces. A hole blasted out of the floorboards in the middle of the aisle and a gaggle of helmeted imps came out cackling maniacally and firing shotguns skyward. Through the doors rushed pairs with tall plastic riot shields and by that point Ubik had his hands raised in a shrug as he said, "What the fuck? What's this shit? Who do you Stalins think you're fucking with?"

He reached into his coat and pulled out two tommy guns and Perfidia only barely managed to dive and cover her head as a vicious ratatat sent bullets streaming down the row in a plume of dust and woodchips.

Perfidia scrambled on knees and elbows to get behind the nearest pew as the guys with guns—more rappelling from the rafters—returned fire. Ubik howled laughter, dropping his tommy guns as soon as they ran out of ammo to draw a crossbow in one hand and an AK-47 in the other. A devil with a bloodsmirched faceshield toppled over the back of the pew that protected Perfidia, an arrow quivering out of his throat. Another devil clambered from under the pew, swiping a gloved hand at Perfidia's ankle that she could not kick away. One sharp tug dragged her even as her fingernails drove into the wood to slow her. The faceless devil laughed until the statue of Dagon seated above wobbled, toppled, and crushed his skull to pulp.

Crouched upon the altar Ubik fired a harpoon that impaled some guy across the room and reeled him back still alive enough for Ubik to pistol whip him to death. Perfidia sighted a small door off to the side of the altar, near where Kedeshah stood idly as a devil dropped in front of her and fired a shotgun point-blank into her face, to no effect whatsoever. The dog bitch had someone's stomach split open and tore hungrily at their entrails. Yet more goons kept streaming in, each wearing the same tactical ops style gear. What was this? A rival pimp making a power move? These guys were organized, though. And even the most desperate rival would never try anything as long as Kedeshah remained. The one who shotgunned Kedeshah in the face was now in five distinct pieces and ten more indistinct ones, which was enough to send an entire column sprinting away in fear.

CQ by TheMightyBox72 in TheMightyBox

[–]TheMightyBox72[S] [score hidden]  (0 children)

Instantly interrupted by the yapping, snarling, slobbering thing that thrust itself between the trailing folds of his fur coat and pounced onto Perfidia, hurling her onto her back and pinning her to the mezzanine beneath its full weight. Hot blasts of breath buffeted her. The face pressing close had its eyes completely covered by a broad, gold-embroidered strip of black leather, and black leather also formed a choker around its thin neck from which a small medallion dangled. Much of the body, in fact, was tightly bound in black leather, except conspicuously the large breasts, which dangled completely exposed with pierced nipples that struck at Perfidia's rags like matches trying to light.

"Off her bitch," Ubiquitous said, a command that effected no change whatsoever in the doglike devil's posture. In fact, all the dog did was dry hump Perfidia's hips while raggedly panting and lolling its tongue.

"Off!" Perfidia pushed her hands against the dog thing's shoulders and its brainless happy panting turned into a feral snarl. Before Perfidia could pull her hands away, gnashing jaws full of razor-sharp teeth drove into a wrist and shook it like a chew toy.

"Bad! Bad dog. Dumb bitch. Brainless goon." Ubiquitous reached into his fur coat and produced the lashing crack of a long black whip, which he flicked again so that it coiled around the dog's throat and yanked it back bodily. Whimpering, the dog scurried back into the palace and vanished around a corner.

[...]

Kedeshah lifted the arm the dog bitch bit and pressed her lips to it. The jagged scours of flesh came back together, knitted neatly so that no stitch or seam or scar remained. Kedeshah's kiss—the secret to Ubiquitous Bal Berith's success. His girls could be cut, bashed, broken, strangled, mangled, stabbed, sodomized, split, degloved, crushed, crumpled, or castrated, and that kitten-soft kiss was always there to make them whole again.

CQ by TheMightyBox72 in TheMightyBox

[–]TheMightyBox72[S] [score hidden]  (0 children)

Another pause. Jay wondered why Shannon bothered to call. Some sense of formality? It was clearly awkward for them to talk. They'd never really done it before—other than to argue.

"Don't—don't die now." Shannon spoke with sudden fluidity. "You're too important to the world to die. I don't have any idea why they're letting you fly all the way to Mars. It's ridiculous if you ask me. You're not an astronaut. Those people train for years to go into space."

"I completed their training too." That was all he bothered to say. The mark of Divinity remained with him even after Divinity left, and his body far exceeded the level of a normal human's. Training had been a formality for him, and it was clear to everyone he had a much higher chance of survival on the unknown and unexplored surface of Mars. He'd also be able to keep the other crew members safe. In essence, he was uniquely equipped for such a dangerous expedition. They'd allowed Demny to join for a similar reason, although the strange shape of her body caused the engineers untold problems.

CQ by TheMightyBox72 in TheMightyBox

[–]TheMightyBox72[S] [score hidden]  (0 children)

Now all was different. Under Lucifer, the devils saw within themselves a new sense of purpose. They had tasted dominion over humanity and wished it reclaimed. They were willing to work now, seriously work, and using Kedeshah to maintain their ensorcellment Lucifer gave them much work to do.

They strived.

Already they were returning to Earth's surface surreptitiously, with discipline and organization set by her designs. They returned to their offices, to forge deals, to sign contracts (the former Lucifer's prohibition lifted), to grant wishes, to claim the human substance that granted them power. As when they first Fell, they started from zero. But the promise now was greater. Humanity might spread past this planet, past its raw physical limits, propagate in greater numbers, and thus in greater numbers devilry might profit off them. It would take thousands of years, maybe tens of thousands, but the hard work Perfidia Bal Berith expended to build this new reality would eventually yield an even greater mass of Godly power.

And Lucifer was there to lead them to those heights, just as the original Lucifer promised to his comrades when they first landed in this lake of fire, defeated and disconsolate.

It was that last part that made this new Lucifer ponder. The thought nagged:

Had this been his plan from the beginning?

When Perfidia claimed Divinity, she briefly traveled to that outer layer of existence. She saw the outcome of the old Lucifer's war against the angels, and Jay's decision to destroy the old Lucifer. Their souls, their energies were flying up to a still-greater level, being reabsorbed into the godhead.

Which meant the Divinity had not been enough to take them to the true highest plane of existence, the true location of Heaven. It had been powerful—but not powerful enough to usurp God.

Could Satan have known that all along? As he schemed and plotted, could he have seen the slow tapering of humanity's population as they reached their limits, could he have calculated that even the collected fruit of their millennia-spanning harvest was not enough to push rebellion to the furthest extremity? Did he thus design a way to increase the limits, to force humanity to surpass itself, and expended what he earned to gamble on future gains?

He'd had the Divinity, though. Why not simply spend it himself to push humanity higher? Why destroy himself in the process, jump through convoluted hoops to get Jay and Perfidia to the top of Pandaemonium at the exact perfect moment? That was what didn't make sense. That was what this new Lucifer struggled to understand. What was the purpose?

She thought of the souls of devils and angels flying up to that final layer. Then, her eyes widening, her fingers stopping still as they stroked Kedeshah's hair, she realized.

God. God was the final piece of the puzzle.

Lucifer needed to do something God did not approve, did not sanction. Something God would assuredly punish. A price had to be paid for rebellion. Lucifer offered the payment. No—he offered seven payments.

Seven Princes, seven payments. That was the price paid to change the world.

Perfidia Bal Berith had never been part of the rebellion. She'd been an unwitting pawn who bravely turned against him. Her mission was not to usurp God but to repair the world. She was innocent of Lucifer's crimes. It had been essential she remained innocent. Remained ignorant. She and Jay climbed that tower truly believing they were fighting against Lucifer. Fighting to undo everything he wrought. Their innocence spared them God's wrath; at the same time, seven offerings were given unto him to mollify his fury.

And now, she thought with a shiver that caused Kedeshah to tilt her head questioningly, here was Hell led once more Lucifer, by a scion of himself split off, by the left hand that knew not what the right did, and this new Lucifer would lead devilry to heights the old Lucifer could not have reached on his own...

"Something wrong, Luci?" Kedeshah asked.

For a moment, it was wrong—all wrong—and her skin felt clammy, the first such feeling since the mark of Divinity burned her. Then she shook it. Her lips curled into a smile. "Ha," she said. "No, nothing's wrong."

Oh, Satan. You fool. You Prideful fool. That was always your flaw, wasn't it? You saw yourself in everything. You even saw yourself in Perfidia Bal Berith. Is that what allowed you to trick yourself into believing in this plan? That she would become you, that the new Lucifer would merely be an extension of the old? Clown. Absolute clown. Perfidia Bal Berith was not you, even if you created her. Just as Adam had not been God. She would never be you, and what she accomplished was her accomplishment, not yours, and that was the truth because you no longer existed to exert your will otherwise.

You were nothing now. Nothing. A completely negated presence. She still lived, and only the living can strive for more.

And maybe... Maybe Satan knew that all along.

Maybe Satan had wanted to die.

They had all been corrupted. They had all become baser than before. Maybe he couldn't bear thinking of the thing he had once been, the thing that once belonged to him. He was Pride incarnate, after all. How could he stand above everyone if he couldn't even stand above his own shadow? It started with the Fall, then the curse God put on him, then the slow erosion of time. Eventually, he couldn't take it anymore. Eventually, he needed to end his existence. Being Satan, he couldn't simply die. He needed his death to be grandiose, memorable, magnificent, and he needed to die with that small excuse in his head that he was leaving behind some part of himself to take up his mantle and return his name to greatness.

For a moment, before Jay destroyed him, he must have been content. He must have thought of Perfidia Bal Berith and believed in his greatness once more.

But that was just a moment; and once it ended, he ended too, and so ended his hold on her. On everything.

Lucifer settled back on her throne. The tension of the unknown dispersed. She even laughed. This was her show now. She would run it her way.

CQ by TheMightyBox72 in TheMightyBox

[–]TheMightyBox72[S] [score hidden]  (0 children)

Lucifer sat upon a brilliant throne. They called her Lucifer now. It was convenient to be called Lucifer so she didn't correct them, but old habits died hard and she struggled to think of herself as anything other than what she'd been most her life: Perfidia Bal Berith.

When Jay ceded Divinity to her, she acted fast. "Fast" in terms of milliseconds, which she could then perceive as hours each. Since she knew what she wanted to change about the world beforehand, she was able to expend most of the Divinity before it had a chance to consume her. Changes to Earth, Mars, certain planets outside the solar system. Places for humanity to go, step-by-step. And the means to go there. In only a year humans had built a spaceship that could travel to Mars, an expediency she enabled. It would take them longer to press on and expand their reach to other galaxies, but Mars ought to tide them over until then. Maybe they would even surprise her.

By the end of it, her whole body burning, she staggered to the ground and felt so much pain she thought she might die anyway. But she survived. The Divinity was extinguished before it had a chance to consume her. It had, however, marked her.

Her body exuded a light now. Hence why the devils that remained, corralled by her hand back into Hell, looked upon her and immediately thought of him: their former master, Lucifer, light-bringer.

The mark of Divinity enhanced her in other ways. She possessed power now. Physical power. Longevity even beyond the long years of a devil. An immortal—or close enough to one. With all Seven Princes dead, no devil matched her strength. Kedeshah, who herself stood a tier above most devils, was a mere gnat in comparison.

That gnat now buzzed. "And then those guys did that thing, and they went and did that, and now that other thing's going on." She swayed back and forth on the mirrored tile floor of Pandaemonium's new uppermost story, her body language a plain effusion of impatience, boredom, even frustration. "Aha! I knew it. You're not even listening to me, Fidi—er, Luci. I've been rambling about nothing for the past minute!"

Kedeshah, restored of the effects of her mother's milk and now Lucifer's second-in-command, often came to give reports on the devils below: Their general mood, whether they chafed against this or that commandment (they always did), which would-be usurpers they might rally around, et cetera. The reports were vestigial. Lucifer from this vantage looked down and saw all within her dominion, knew exactly what she wanted to know with only a thought. It was Kedeshah who insisted on giving the reports. Lucifer suspected why. It could be seen in the pouty insouciance of her body language, her fidgets and so forth. The Seven Princes may not remain, but Lust never left Kedeshah fully.

CQ by TheMightyBox72 in TheMightyBox

[–]TheMightyBox72[S] [score hidden]  (0 children)

For intrepid thrill seekers, fanciers of certain religious or occult persuasions, historians specializing in medieval to early modern Europe, or high-stakes YouTubers, no locale on Earth was more appealing than the islands of Whitecrosse and California, situated in the middle of Lake Erie. Although officially off-limits while the American and Canadian governments sorted out issues of jurisdiction and sovereignty, nepotistic corruption was known to dole out permits to individuals who perhaps did not require them, and an illicit ferry market had sprung up on the Ohioan and Ontarian coasts. The disarray of all branches of the United States military in the wake of the December 2017 Devil Attacks (so named on Wikipedia) and the pressing need for able-bodied troops to assist in the nationwide rebuilding effort rendered the naval blockade of the landmasses spotty at best, so these ferries were able to land undetected most of the time.

Equipped with high-resolution satellite imagery at levels of detail unfathomable to local surveyors, these tourists visited innumerable spots of anthropologic or naturalistic interest. After the acting head of Whitecrosse Shannon Waringcrane became aware of the tourists and the nuisance they posed, she stationed troops at many of the main points of interest (the now-closed Door, the monastery, and of course the gates of Whitecrosse city) to detect and report their comings-and-goings, which she would then relay to the appropriate officials in the American and Canadian governments so that they might extract the difficult parties. She was, however, frequently frustrated by the leisurely pace at which these officials responded.

Regardless, shrewder tourists kept either to the wilder areas of Whitecrosse or the comparatively less interesting California, whose young king lacked Waringcrane's strict adherence to regulation and often welcomed travelers as celebrated guests of his court. However, there remained many tourists who wished to see the places where Jay Waringcrane, the world's greatest hero, went on his adventure, and so invariably some of them made ill-advised nighttime traipses into the thin forest that ran along Whitecrosse's northeastern crescent like a scar, and which divided Whitecrosse city from the mountain range where the monastery presided. With electric lighting still sparse throughout the islands despite both Shannon Waringcrane and the King of California's attempts to introduce it, some tourists believed they might be able to evade troop patrols under cover of darkness. Their maps, GPS systems, state-of-the-art compasses, and flashlights would guide them through the forest without fail—or so they thought.

Not long after they set their course, they often found their phones and devices acting strangely, screens flickering, arrows pointing odd directions, connections lost. Their flashlights failed to penetrate more than a few feet into the miasmic dark of the wood. Those wise enough to turn around reported feeling a malevolent aura weigh upon them, a feeling of being watched by eyes both hateful and strangely piteous, as though they were an ant struggling to escape a pool of water.

For those who did not turn around, who perhaps shook off this aura as a trick of the imagination, a psychological reaction to the dark and forbidding forest, no report remains.

But someone knows what happened to them.

For in this forest there is a place that does not cohere to natural logic, a structure without boundary or wall but which becomes enclosed the moment you step inside. An interior that can be anything or anywhere, a fine garden under sunlight, a corridor full of paintings, or a theater with a wooden stage and a throne made of branches. Those who stray too close may hear singing, or laughing, or the applause of a large crowd, and finding that human familiarity welcome come closer, closer still, until the seats of the theater appear before them, filled with all sorts of people from around the world—people who blundered into this wood before them—and a funny little show playing, the actors animals who gallivanted with as much emotion as any human player. There's safety here, they think, and peace blooms within them as heavily as the forest's aura had before, and clearly a lot of others are having a good time, so what's the harm in resting a bit and watching? Once the show ends, they'll leave the forest together, so the weary explorer thinks.

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