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Contract from Below "I still think it's not safe enough up here," Vince said. "Hmm?" came Stephanie's reply. Vince looked out the window of the third floor common room of the Pedos Community Center, only to see the red cloud of demons flying up above, blotting out the sky. Behind him, Stephanie Chen sat in a rickety wooden chair, adjusting herself constantly, trying to make herself comfortable. "You know, one of them died," she said. Vince turned from the window. "One of the children, he got snatched by one of those bird demons, and he got eaten." Pounding his fist against the windowsill, Vince swore. Then, he turned to look toward the children, at the other end of the room, playing games with Alice and Amy. "Looking at them, the way they laugh and play, they way they're all happy, it's like nothing ever happened." "They're kids," Stephanie answered. "I don't want to expose them to anything." There was a short pause. "Yeah, it's definitely not safe up here," Vince repeated. "The walls don't do much, and the demons could attack from all sides. Staying up on the third floor helps a little, but the flying demons could still get to us no problem." "Then," Stephanie replied, "where else can we go?" "The caves," Vince answered. "Somehow I can't imagine demons breaking down the walls of the caves." "Caves?" "I remember seeing some at the beach," Vince explained. "They'll be a good hiding place." "There's just one problem," Steph interrupted. "Huh?" "How do we get there?" Steph asked. "You know how I said a kid got snatched while we were going around the building, right? Well, think about how much worse it could be if we walked all the way to the caves. We need some transport, and the hovercraft won't be able to fit all of them in one trip." Vince nodded. "Okay," he said. "I'll go out and find a bus or something." As he walked over to the stairwell, he looked one last time at the children. "Great job, Timmy!" Alice yelled joyfully. "You just won! Let's play again! Hmm? Everybody? " "Yeah!" the children shouted, returning her joy. "Lucky kids," Vince thought to himself as he took the first step down. Nothing! Vince had searched the streets for the last several hours, and he had found absolutely nothing. Okay, he did find something, but most of the cars he found were much too small to fit more than five people, let alone the entire group of twenty-seven. He had managed to find a few SUVs, buses, and even a truck, but all of them had been damaged so badly that they were pretty much unusable. The sun was setting. Vince was getting tired. "Maybe I should call it a night and try again tomorrow," he thought to himself. Suddenly, he heard a whisper behind him. Vince spun around and looked, but he found only more of the same--nothing. "Except this nothing makes noise," Vince muttered to himself. He walked back up the street, trying to follow the noise he thought he had heard. It came again, the noise. "No, it's not a whisper, more like a hiss," Vince thought. "And it came from that alley." Thus, Vince went to the alley and peered inside, except it was much too dark for him to see anything. "No, it's not worth the effort," he decided. "It's not like there's a huge truck hissing at me or anything." However, just as he turned around, the hiss came again, louder than ever. A small demon, only about two feet tall, leapt from the alley onto Vince with its long, slender body and its even longer twig-like arms and legs. As the tiny little thing scratched at Vince's face and arms, it hissed, and its cry was echoed by more hisses coming from all around. Suddenly, another one jumped out of a window from above, landing on Vince. Then came another one. In less than a second, it was as though the sky were raining these demons. As he staggered back, Vince gave a cry, which became a yell. A sphere of flame came from his body and scattered off all the demons. Magma transformed his body, turning his skin black, his hair red. The Dark Fiend of the Inferno emerged with a burst of fire, charring any demon that had been foolish enough to stay within range. Yet, they came back, the surviving ones along with new ones, still flooding down from the buildings and windows and shop doors. Quickly, Vince twirled around, his body blazing, throwing demons off his body. Fireballs flew, incinerating masses of these stick demons at once. One stray fireball hit a building, and the whole thing came crashing down, throwing up clouds of dust. Finally, Vince smashed his hand into the ground, and flames flew everywhere. Nothing was left except a crater in the street and the Dark Fiend himself. The dust settled. Vince heard the applause of a one-man audience. "Nice job," came a voice. A figure wearing crimson robes came into view. This time, his hood was down, and Vince could see his short cropped black hair and the cold, shallow eyes on his face. "Nice job. Very rarely do any outsiders get the opportunity to meet me twice, let alone in a single day. You must be very talented." "Who are you?" Vince asked simply. "I am the Demon Mage Darchon," the red-cloaked man answered. "And you?" "Vincent Zeng," Vince replied. "Dark Fiend of the Inferno." "A Shadow?" "No," Vince answered. "Skias gave me this power, but I owe him no loyalties." "It doesn't matter," Darchon replied. "Unless you 'owe loyalties' to Hades, I'll have to kill you." Hellfire focused at two points in front of the Demon Mage, forming two fireballs. One of them shot toward Vince, who instinctively jumped out of the way. It sailed down the street until it hit sidewalk, sending flames and gravel into the air. The other fireball then shot up into the air, on an intercept course with the Inferno Fiend's trajectory. Quickly, Vince fired a blaze from both hands, detonating the Hell's fireball from a distance before landing safely on the street. "Of course, it would be such a waste," Darchon announced, "to kill a talented young warrior such as yourself. Join us." "No," Vince said. "Why not?" Darchon asked. "I would never ally myself with anyone so destructive," Vince answered. "What irony," Darchon said, "coming from someone like the Dark Fiend of the Inferno." Vince made no reply. "It doesn't matter. I have better ways of convincing you." As he finished his last remark, the Demon Mage sped toward the Inferno Fiend. Neither of his feet touched the ground. He simply hovered, floating on a layer of red Hellflame, flying straight at Vince. His right arm was coiled behind him, carrying a ball of Hellfire, an orb holding so much energy that every moment, two or three streaks of flame flared from it. With a roar, the Demon Mage threw his right arm forward, and with it, the fireball. In response, Vince leaned to the right and deflected Darchon's attack with his left arm, using his gauntlet to push Darchon's arm outward. However, as the Demon Mage passed, in came his left arm, the palm going straight for Vince's face. Darchon then slammed his right hand to the ground, exploding the fireball against the street. As the power crumbled the gravel beneath him, Vince lost his footing. The force of Darchon's left-handed attack threw Vince to the ground, and in that position, the Demon Mage pinned the Inferno Fiend, with his palm pressed to his face. A strange energy came from the Demon Mage's hand. It wasn't Hellflame, but it was just as demonic, and Vince could feel this demonic influence spreading through his body. It paralyzed him, such power. Vince's armor became living flesh--his flesh. His hands became claws. His lungs filled with a fiery breath. "What--what are you doing to me?" Vince gasped. "You feel it, don't you?" Darchon asked. "Corruption. If you won't join me by your own free will, I'll corrupt you until you will." Vince could feel the corruption changing his body. His skin and hide became scales. His teeth became fangs. The dragon roared. Vince roared. His body burst into flame with such explosive power that the Demon Mage staggered back. A powerful kick sent Darchon into the air. The Demon Mage slammed into the top of a lamppost, flipped over, then landed on a red car, smashing its roof and shattering its windows at the same time. The Inferno Fiend then sprinted to the car and flipped it over, dropping it upside down on a black car, sandwiching the Demon Mage in between. Panting, Vince felt at his armor, his gauntlets, and his face. "Back to normal," he sighed with relief. "Not for long." The Demon Mage burst forth from the underside of the overturned car, scattering shrapnel in all directions. The left hand connected, grabbing again at the Inferno Fiend's face. Vince could see energy flowing down that arm. Quickly, Vince used his own left hand and punched the Demon Mage, who shouted in frustration as he staggered back. Vince could see that his fighting had not been in vain. Darchon's robes were somewhat torn, there was a gash down his right arm, and now, thanks to that last punch, there was bruise on his forehead. "You insolent--" Darchon began. Before even finishing, three pillars of Hellfire appeared around Vince, which then blurred together to become a circle, a barrier of Hellflame between Vince and the rest of the world. "Die!" the Demon Mage shouted. The circle of Hellflame closed in on Vince, crushing him. The Dark Fiend of the Inferno crouched down as the flames consumed him. He focused his flames for a counterattack. The Hellfire's circle exploded, and Vince leapt from it. However, before the Dark Fiend could even reach the top of his jump, the overturned red car exploded, sending tiny pieces of debris in all directions. At the wave of the Demon Mage's hand, all the debris--there must have been at least a million pieces--floated into the air and burned with Hellfire, emitting a bright orange light. As Vince fell, the first few pieces came shooting at him. They were like meteors, streaking across the sky, leaving red blurs. The Inferno Fiend put up a shield of flame, which blocked the first couple, but a third shattered the fireshield. A fourth piece tore right through his torso. Vince coughed blood and crash-landed on the ground, but he quickly rolled over as more pieces of flaming debris tore up the street beneath him. Vince then rolled under a white car, which was hit by a few more pieces of wreckage. The Inferno Fiend then regained his footing. Setting his body aflame, he tore up through the car's chassis as the burning debris tore down. The white car exploded, adding more ammunition to the Demon Mage's shrapnel stock. Vince, still in the air, sailed over the sidewalk and through the window of a nearby shop. The burning debris followed suit, raining hundreds of thousands of pieces upon the shop. Windows shattered. Holes appeared in solid brick walls. Everything within the shop exploded, sending random jars, bottles, and pieces of fruit and vegetables onto the street. The street, now full of holes, had taken too much damage to support itself. An entire section, maybe twenty yards in length, maybe more, collapsed completely. A fire hydrant snapped open, and it sprayed water onto the now crumbled street. Several cars fell into the pit. For some of them, the alarm went off, and there was a cacophony of random honking and beeping noises. Darchon simply hovered over the chaos. Taking his time, he floated over to the shop. Finding the door locked, he set it ablaze and threw it into the pit, letting the Hellfire consume it. It was a small grocery store, now collateral damage from the battle. Food stains and broken glass covered the floor. Many containers of food had fallen off their shelves. Some shelves had collapsed altogether. Vince was nowhere to be seen. "What? Is that all?" Darchon asked. "Did I kill you already? And here I was thinking that you were a talented warrior when you really were just a pathetic weakling." He walked down one of the less cluttered aisle. "Dark Fiend! Show yourself!" "Right here!" Vince yelled. The Demon Mage turned around. Vince had popped out from behind a shelf with a jar of mayonnaise in hand. He threw it at Darchon, but it simply exploded into Hellflame right in front of the Demon Mage. However, this didn't stop the inertia of the throw, and the mayonnaise splattered over Darchon's face and his eyes. As he roared in frustration and rubbed at his face, Vince charged down the aisle and tackled him. The two of them slammed into a pyramidal tower of stacked Super Soup (tm) cans, and everything came crashing to the ground. Soup cans smashed open, splattering various soups--chicken noodle soup, clam chowder, vegetable broth--all over the place. A fireball hit Vince in the torso, knocking him up in the air. Then, just as suddenly, another fireball hit him, slamming him into the ceiling. The Demon Mage roared in frustration. "Curse you!" he cried. Then, from his body came a sphere of Hellfire. It expanded, whipped out like a shockwave. Everything in its path was consumed and incinerated. Vince, as he fell, hit the shockwave and was pushed into the far wall. It tore at his armor, bit at his skin, but he survived--he was a Dark Fiend, after all. The wall behind him crumbled away--incinerated--and Vince collapsed to the floor. The whole shop was gone, all four walls, all the shelves and the counters, all the food. Everything had burned. Nothing was left but a lot of charred ashes, upon which Vince lay and over which the Demon Mage floated. "I didn't think it would come to this," Darchon said, "but you're much stronger than I originally thought. It's been a while since I've had to use this technique." "Huh?" Vince slowly brought himself to his feet. "The Claw of Hell," Darchon answered. "Consider yourself honored to even see it, let alone die by it." A massive circle of translucent Hellfire swirled around the Demon Mage. A second shape of Hellfire rose up from the ground, this one in the shape of a demon. Even though the demon only appeared from its waist up, this much alone was already about twenty feet tall. It had a body that looked similar to the torso of a giant praying mantis, except it only had a single talon at the front of its torso instead of at its sides. Darchon held his right arm in front of him, as if mimicking the creature's talon--no, as if his arm were the talon itself. The Demon Mage then threw his arm forward, and, at the same time, the demon's talon shot forward, right at Vince. The Inferno Fiend put up his arms and formed a shield of flame to protect himself. Yet, somehow, the talon passed right through the shield and impaled itself through Vince's torso. He groaned in pain. And yet, there was no wound. The talon had passed right through him, too. It intersected with his Dark Fiend body, but it was as though it were on a completely different plane of existence. "What the heck?" Vince groaned. "You have heard of the Lifeforce, have you not?" Darchon asked. Vince groaned, an affirmative. "Well, the Claw of Hell, it's not truly Hellfire," Darchon explained. "It is the Deathforce, the anti-Lifeforce. Just one touch, and it destroys Lifeforce, and since you know the Lifeforce and Deathforce are both spiritual, you can't just block it or remove it with anything physical." The Dark Fiend of the Inferno struggled, but something held him in place, something held him against that demonic blade. He screamed as the pain became unbearable. "How long can you last, Dark Fiend?" the Demon Mage taunted. "How long before the Claw wipes your Lifeforce away?" |