Blasphemia Ch. 07

"Real simple," Satan said, his boots making muted thuds as he strode forward out of the church. "I get in his face and keep him busy, then you three stick sharp objects in him repeatedly until he's erased from existence. Easy peasy, and then I send you on your way, Nephilim."

"And what about us?" Nico asked.

Satan looked back over his shoulder. Dimly, Filia could see orange light simmering behind the lenses of his glasses. "We'll get to that," he said, his voice tight.

"Save the demon drama for later, please," Judith said. "Where's Azagthoth?"

"Well, see, Purgatory's kind of a fun place if you know how it works," Satan said as they walked out onto the quad. "It's a dimension between dimensions for starters, but there's so many other little pocket dimensions scattered around that exist solely within its confines. And if I were a betting Infernal, and I most certainly am, I'm willing to wager he tried to slip away into one of those."

"How many are there?" Filia asked.

"Oh, at least a few hundred."

Nico made a strangled noise. "How are we supposed to search them all in time?"

Even though Nico couldn't see Satan's eyes behind the dark glasses, he knew those ashen eyes were narrowed in a flat, disappointed look. "Come on. Give me some credit. I can narrow the field down a bit, and it's not like we have to search the length and breadth of each of them."

Satan swept his hand through the air, his fingers curling as he did. There was a sound like tearing paper. Before their eyes, the Lord of Hell ripped the fabric of reality asunder, parting it as if it were a curtain. Through the rippling hole, they gazed across a barren, desolate wasteland, dotted with dunes with sand blowing across the vast and empty space.

"The moment I open up the one that Azagthoth went to, I'll smell him," Satan said. "Demons outside of Paradise, Hell, Earth and here tend to stink up a realm massively no matter how hard they try. It'll just be a second." He swept his hand back across the hole, and the tear smoothed over as if it had never existed at all. With his other hand, he made the same motion again, tearing open another hole. This one opened onto a sprawling realm where the sky was red and the grass blue. "Just gotta keep opening doors."

As Satan worked, the other three watched, bearing witness to brief glimpses of realities beyond their own. They saw foliage of all colors and shapes, places where water was air in place of the sky and where planets had cores that resided outside their boundaries. "What are all these places?" Judith asked. Her voice was genuinely curious, as if the sights had robbed her of her rage for a moment.

"Trial runs," Satan said, closing up another tear and reaching to open another. "What? You think God got things right on the first try? Creation went through quite a few revisions before He settled on what we have today. And since destroying energy is actually much harder than creating it, God simply packed the dud realities into little dimensions in Purgatory."

He yanked open another dimensional tear. They gazed out upon a twisted landscape of red and gray, with what appeared to be thin, leafless trees sticking up from the ground. The bark of the trees was twisted into what looked like human faces, along with what appeared to be breasts with knots in the wood where the nipples would be.

"Huh," Satan said. "Hadn't thought about that one for a while."

"What in His name is that place?" Filia asked.

"Prototype version of Hell," Satan answered, closing the tear. "Got rejected for being a bit too on the nose."

"As opposed to the burning hellscape that it is?" Judith snarked.

"Hey, you wanna discuss design aesthetics, take it up with God when you die," Satan said, going back to tearing open dimensions. "Side note, little Nephilim, you're the first person I've met in actual eons who's willing to backsass me." He wagged a finger at her. "I like you more and more."

Judith made a noise and looked away into the distance of Purgatory. "Just hurry it up, would you?"

"Can't rush something like this," Satan said. The next realm he tore open was a deep black void that seemed to absorb light. "Oh. Right."

A massive eye opened right in front of the void tear, easily as big as Filia was with a deep pupil that made her head hurt to look at. She felt something in her mind come loose, like a tendon snapping, as well as a deeper, unfathomable agony that grew stronger with each instant she was transfixed by the gaze of the eye.

"Nope nope nope, go back to sleep, big guy," Satan said, hurriedly closing the realm tear.

"Wait, hold on, what the fuck was that?" Nico yelled.

"What was what?" Satan said, hurriedly tearing open more realms. He stopped and sniffed audibly. "Aha! There he is!"

"Wait, hold on, you can't just-"

"I can and I will, we found Azagthoth, forget about that, focus on this now." Satan's tone left no room for argument as he ripped the tear wider with his hands. "Inside, now!"

Nico, Filia, and Judith all exchanged a long look, then did as Satan bade. The three of them stepped through the tear in the reality of Purgatory into...

"Wait, where the Hell are we?" Nico asked. The realm they had stepped into looked identical to Purgatory, except instead of a light grey monochrome, everything around them was a darker gray monochrome, as if someone had taken the world's color slider and moved it towards black while leaving nothing else unchanged. They were even in the same spot, smack in the middle of the Saint Bethany's campus.

"Dunno if the Big Man Upstairs ever named this one," Satan said as he stepped through behind them. "I think this was supposed to be the original Purgatory, but it was decided that it was too drab and gray and got canned. I guess you could call it proto-Purgatory?" Satan stroked his chin. "Prototory? Yeah, let's go with Prototory."

"So, where are they here in... " Judith groaned. "Prototory?"

Satan snickered. "GIve me a minute." He tilted his head back, his long black hair spilling down over his shoulders as he sniffed the air.

The motion actually made FIlia flush a little. She'd heard from the older Harpies that Satan, even in his monstrous true visage that nobody had glimpsed since the Fall, was rather handsome no matter what face he wore, and that statement was proven true by the quickening between her thighs as she just watched him smell the air. "Lord Satan, sir," she said, her wings giving a little flutter in time with her heart. "Might I ask why you look like that?"

"Just because I'm Lord of the Pit doesn't mean I can't look good," Satan said. "And this form is based off one of my most flattering depictions."

"Which one is that?" Nico asked.

Judith stared at him for a moment, then grinned. "Ohoho, I get it now. I'm gonna call you Randall from now on."

"More points for the demon hunter!" Satan said. He turned and fixed her with a glare that managed to be imperious from behind his sunglasses. "Though I promise you I will do unspeakable things to your soul if you call me that." Judith's response was to flip him off.

"Are you following any of this?" Nico whispered to Filia.

Satan clicked his teeth. "Maybe instead of movie night you should have book night from now..." He trailed off, sniffing deep. Then he raised a hand and pointed. "Azagthoth is in there."

He was pointing right at the dorm room where Nico and Filia had holed up while they were corrupting the campus. Or, rather, the Prototory reflection of it.

"Seems fitting," Nico commented as they walked towards it. He rolled his shoulders, then summoned what little power he had left to create a simple sword. It was the most he could do anymore, owing to his power being stripped away. "You know, I already miss having the ability to light this thing on fire."

Satan snapped his fingers, and the sword became wreathed in black fire. "Donezo."

Filia had a little bit more freedom, forming her shadows into a spear. "So, what's the plan? Do we sneak up on him, or...?"

"Impossible," Satan said. "He likely already knows we're here."

Judith immediately dropped into a fighting crouch. "You could've warned us!"

The air around them started to spike in temperature, and Satan raised his left arm. "Oh, relax. You're with me, you'll be fine." A vortex of bright red hellfire coalesced in the center of his palm.

"As the Serpent whispered to Eve," Judith muttered. Then she blinked. "Wait a minute."

Satan cackled. "I'm a man of varied tastes. Sometimes I prefer subtlety, sowing the seeds of things for them to pay off hundreds, maybe thousands of years later. Other times..." He lifted his arm into the air, and the small vortex of hellfire immediately ballooned to a thousand times its size, as big as a hot air balloon. Nico, Filia, and Judith were all flattened by the force of the heat. "Subtlety can suck a fat one!"

He hurled the massive fireball at the dorm building like a pitcher on the mound. For a moment, there was silence as the projectile crossed the distance. Then it slammed into the side of the building and obliterated it in a blaze of heat and light.

"Are you crazy?" Nico yelled. "You'll hurt Lily!"

"Please," Satan said. "That was, like, five percent power, max."

"What does a hundred percent power look like?" Judith asked tentatively.

Satan only grinned. "Dunno. Saving finding the answer to that one for Armageddon."

The explosion hurled wood and masonry all around the quad like confetti, including a large chunk that came down right on Satan's head only to split like an egg and fall to his sides. He strode forward. "Come on, my lovelies." His eyes glowed cherry red behind his glasses. "Let's go kill a Fallen Angel, shall we?"

He strode forward with an almost jaunty spring in his step, leaving the others to only shake their heads in bewilderment and follow along. As they drew close, the smoke cleared and they saw the destruction that Satan's attack had wrought. The fireball had completely blown up the top two floors of the dorm building, leaving only the first floor as a burnt-out husk of what it once was. Curiously, the rooms were empty, with no evidence of destroyed furniture of any kind, as if the realm only copied buildings and not what was inside them.

The door was still on it's hinges, somehow. Satan planted his booted foot against it and shoved hard. The door fell over with a heavy creak. "Lucy, I'm home!" Satan yelled.

A massive length of shadow a thick as a truck smashed into Satan, knocking him back as if he'd been fired by a cannon. He rolled over and over, cratering the ground where he hit until he stopped about halfway down the quad.

"Lord Satan!" Filia cried.

"Filia!" Nico yelled. She turned.

In the center of the common area, smoke rising from his charred but rapidly healing wings, was Azagthoth. He lifted his head, and fixed them in his gaze. "Cursed interlopers, interrupting me at my moment of triumph!"

Judith wasted no time. "Deus vult!" she roared, springing off the ground far higher than any mortal could. She led with her dagger as she dropped down.

"Ingrate!" Azagthoth rose and batted Judith out of the air with a sweep of his wing, sending Judith careening through the remains of a nearby wall. As he did, Nico and Filia realized that Azagthoth had shielded Lily from the blast with his body, her prone body lying naked underneath his.

Before Nico or Filia could react, Satan streaked by them in a blaze of fire and punched Azagthoth right in the face. Azagthoth flew backwards, hitting a low wall with a sickening crunch.

"You broke my glasses," Satan growled. His bare eye sockets were full of flames, and unless FIlia and Nico were seeing things, his body seemed to be warped and twisted in places, becoming more demonic. "Those were Luis Vittons. Actual Luis Vittons!"

"I'm okay, thanks for asking," Judith groaned, picking herself up from where she'd been hurled.

"Remember the plan!" Satan yelled. He blurred through the air and hurled himself upon Azagthoth, punching and kicking wildly. Judith was on his heels in moments, yelling another Latin war cry.

Nico and FIlia hurried over to Lily's prone form. Nico cupped her cheek and cocked an ear to listen to her heartbeat. "Still breathing," he said.

"Look out!"

Both Infernals moved as Judith flipped end over end through the space they'd occupied. The Nephilim landed hard, but picked herself up quick and spat out a mouthful of blood. She made an incoherent noise of rage and charged past them.

"Talk about stubborn," Filia said. She slapped Lily lightly. "Oy! Lily, wake up! We need your help!"

"She will stay right where she is!" Azagthoth yelled. His wings flapped and a rain of razor-sharp feathers hailed down on the Infernals, slicing them open like thrown knives.

Satan jumped in front of them, the feathers bouncing off his body with loud pinging noises. "What did I say about the plan?" he grunted.

"We're changing the plan!" Nico said defiantly. "If we can wake Lily up, she can fight with us! If she's really the soul of Lilith, she'll give us the power to kill him!"

"We don't know who's going to answer if you wake her up!" Satan said. He thrust out his palm, and a wave of hellfire erupted from his body and flowed forward, engulfing Azagthoth. "Could be your sweet, sexy friend Lily, or it could be the Queen of the fucking Damned. Do you really want to take that risk on the battlefield?'

"Do we have a choice?" Filia said, pointing.

Azagthoth stalked through the tsunami of fire, pure hatred stamped on his face.

"You know what?" Satan said, sounding genuinely shocked that Azagthoth was still standing. "Good point. Let's wake her up!"

"How?" Nico yelled.

"Well, first we have to-"

"No, I mean how is he still standing?" Nico asked. "Shouldn't you be annihilating him from the fires?"

Azagthoth grinned wide. "Because, little demon, I remember. I remember who I am, what I am!" Before their eyes, his form began to warp and twist, his demon muscles bulging outward and splitting, blood running in rivers down his body. "And this... pathetic creature that the humans fear so cannot do anything to me now that I remember." Within one of the gaps in his muscle, a massive, unblinking eye opened and stared out at them. Nico felt a chill run up his spine, like he was looking at something wrong on all basic levels.

"Ah, fuckbaskets," Satan muttered. "This ain't good."

Nico looked at Filia. The succubus stared wide-eyed at Azagthoth's body, which continued to writhe and mutate. His wings fell off, fluttering to the ground like discarded feathers, and tentacles burst from his back where they'd been. WIth every step, a part of Azagthoth broke loose, leaving a trail of bits behind him. His leering grin became rictus, then was no more as his mouth split wide and a tentacle lined with eyes burst forth. "I am the crawling chaos!" he roared. "And I will be constrained by this form no longer!"

Judith stared, her eyes wide. "What is that?"

The two Infernals stared at one another, then down at Lily. She looked peaceful, serene despite the mayhem swirling around her. Then, for a moment, they saw her lips purse.

As one, they bent down and kissed her.

The world shook.

All of them were blasted backwards like paper in a gale, scattered across the phantom quad of this dimension's Saint Bethany's. Nico hit the ground hard, the impact jaring his shoulder. He groaned, but clamped down on the pain and rolled over.

Lily floated in mid-air, her naked body surrounded by a halo of light and shadow. Her wings flapped steadily, holding her aloft as her tail whipped and coiled like a live power line. Light suffused her gaze, heterochromic in hue. Slowly, she looked down at herself, twisting and turning to look at her front and backsides.

"Huh," she said, her voice thrumming with power. "Was my ass always this big?"