//------------------------------// // 7: Hell's Gates // Story: Finding a place // by orioncorey //------------------------------// Manus’ POV, day after incident in Abyss, Time’s home “How many times have I told you to NEVER, EVER go dark! They didn’t deserve to die, and she didn’t deserve to see it!” Time was yelling at me, and if she was pissed before, she was indignant now. She was going purple in the face, and was screaming so loudly, she put the Canterlot Royal Voice to shame. We were in her home, a massive palace, twice the size of the Royal Castle, floating in a pocket between the Abyss and the mortal plane with all the other homes. This pocket is where most of the gods live, and it’s pretty much a city. Her house is, no doubt, the largest in Civitate, the name for the area that the city took up. It has 20 bathrooms, 25 guest bedrooms, 2 master bedrooms, and over a hundred other sections, with 4 different wings to it. It has crystal, gold, silver, stainless steel, aluminum, and a dozen other precious metals and gems making up the composition of the outside and inside, so it sparkled and shined. She always had a taste for the elegant and expensive things in life. As expensive as the outside was, though, her furniture and toiletries cost about a million bits apiece for what they were made of. I shrugged nonchalantly. “I wanted to send a message, and they attacked first! Plus, he sounded stupid!” She facepalmed and slouched away, muttering, to her favorite plush armchair. She sank down in it and filled a shot glass with some hard cider, then drained it in one gulp. She then sighed and set the glass down. “Just… tell me it won’t happen again.” I said, “Okay… Maybe. No guarantees.” She just shook her head and filled the glass again, also draining it again. “Whatever. Just go, already. I’ll be here, trying to forget this ever happened with my pal here, cider. Scratch that, I’ll probably break out the vodka.” I chuckled in spite of the situation. “You do that. I need to do something.” I turned and walked out of her home, then teleported away when I was out of the door. The survivor was huddled in her home, shaking and refusing to be comforted by her friends who were nearby. She’d seen me earlier when I was heading to Time’s palace, and had freaked out. I’d felt so bad, and I decided to show everyone another message: that I can be as nice and peaceful as I can be ruthless and sadistic. Her house was one of the less fancy ones, almost on the poor side for gods. I’d figured out that her name was Raritas, meaning curiosity. I put on my magical cloak that concealed me from any others in all ways possible, and I walked up to her. I put my hand on her forehead, and sent a bit of my spirit energy through, into her mind. I cleaned up her mind, repairing mental strands and synapses, deleting all memory of the massacre. But, I still left behind a message that they were dead. She visibly shuddered a bit, then relaxed and went into a deep sleep, courtesy of me. I sighed, and felt all the weight of what I’d done slam into me. I haven’t been a mortal in over 6 billion years, so I could need reminding of mortal feelings every once in awhile. I actually felt the regret and pain, so I decided to do something that I’d done only once, in a very serious situation. I’m going to bring back her friends. It’s pretty easy. I just need to battle some creatures that, together, are nearly as powerful as me. Malphas and Abbadon. Two demons that are, in order, second-in-command of Hell, behind Satan, and the demon of destruction. Great. They’re terrifying, too. Abaddon Malphas This better be goddamn worth it. I showed up at the Epicenter of the Abyss. Malphas and Abaddon together guard the underworld, Hell. I sent out pulses of energy as a call for them, waiting for one or both to show up. I only don’t like fighting them since I tire myself out a lot during it. The last time, I had to put out a quarter of my strength to beat them. That’s about the magical total of 1,000 alicorns. I had to use some spells that would destroy galaxies. The kame-hame-ha from DBZ would be nothing compared to those spells. Ah, they’re approaching. They seem a bit apprehensive of me. Reasonable, seeming as how I beat them to the ground last time. I started the conversation, ending the rather awkward silence. “Hi. Would you like to battle for some souls, or could you just let me by?” Abaddon grunted. “No. You will not gain access to our souls if you do not earn it.” Malphas stayed quiet. He usually stays that way, unless he needs to speak. I sighed. “Well, I guess I’ll need to beat both of you, again, and, ” I said, starting to grin, “I trained. Those old spells were about the half power of these new ones, as well as at half the mana cost. Let’s fight… if you’re ready.” They looked at each other. They muttered to each other a bit, then Abaddon said, “Fine. Give it your all, we’ve trained a bit, too.” “Great. You get the starting move, here.” They struck at the same time, faster than the naked eye can see. They both tried physically hitting me, their swings faster than a NASCAR racecar. Too slow for me, though. I dodged, being sure to stay close to them by dodging underneath their arms. When they stopped, I turned and said, “Good try. Now, I’ll obliterate you!” I charged my spell for a fraction of a second, then fired it at them, while I teleported a few hundred miles away. I’d toned down the area of effect, so that it concentrated the power on the center. It was a blast of every type of energy: magical, chemical, kinetic, nuclear, etc, into a sphere about 100 miles in radius. Needless to say, it was intense. It lit up everything within a thousand miles of the ground zero, and imploded after about 5 seconds, sending waves of pure energy about 100 miles more and a mushroom cloud about 500 miles up. This was my first field test, and it had worked perfectly. I narrowed my eyes after a few triumphant seconds, though. The two had somehow survived, and were still at half life force. Huh. Apparently they had trained, a lot. I teleported back, and whistled. “Dang, you guys are much better than I thought. That should have pretty much killed you both.” Abaddon winced a bit and stretched. Malphas was getting up from a kneeling stance he’d taken to protect himself from the blast, so he was the least damaged. “Same to you. You barely dodged our punches last time, but you’re dodging with ease now.” I opened my mouth to respond, but I was interrupted by a rumbling. It started small, but quickly grew. All 3 of us looked around for the source, until it suddenly stopped. We stood in silence for a minute, then I said, “Well, that was weird.” As if waiting for a cue, the fabric of what reality there was left in the Abyss split, opening a huge portal. 4 strange figures flew out of it and lined up in front of it. The portal closed, and I had already recovered from the minor shock and was observing them. They looked familiar, but I didn’t… know… why... Oh shit. They… they weren’t real. They couldn’t be. They weren’t real. They were from Dark Souls, though. I was here, with the spells and equipment, why couldn’t they be here? Oh, no… Malphas and Abaddon. They’ll get messed up if they fight them. They might be demons, but they are still important. I turned to them, and said, “Run. You have no chance against them.” They shook their heads, and Abaddon said, “Why? We can take them. Who… are they, anyway?” I sighed and turned back. “They’re the 4 kings. And you CAN. NOT. FIGHT. THEM. They outmatch me, right now.” One of the 4 kings “But not for long.” I initiated something I hadn’t had to do in a long time. I was leveling up, something I’d found out I could do about 2 billion years ago, and it’s reserved for fights between primordials. There are 7 levels, and they’re ridiculously, extremely OP. The final level is at over 5000 times my normal power level, at about 20,000,000 alicorns’ magic. But for now, I was only doing level 2, with a power of 8,000. I recited the ritual in my head, feeling the power aura around me strengthen. Malphas and Abaddon seemed shocked and stared at me. “You didn’t even need to fight us. You just needed to do that, and we would have been destroyed easily.” I ignored them and stared at the 4 kings for a moment, then grinned and motioned for them to attack me. They obliged, and flew at me much faster than Malphas or Abaddon. I barely dodged, already charging a spell much, much more deadly than the spell I used before. It was like comparing a hand-thrown baseball to a ballistic missile, and it was going in their faces. I wanted to end this quickly, then get the souls. I screamed at the demons behind me, “Run! NOW!” Then, just as they turned to go, everything went to shit. Well, even more than it already was. A second rift opened, and Gravelord Nito stepped out. GODDAMN GRAVELORD NITO. Gravelord Nito Gravelord Nito pic 2 Well, this is great.