Leveling Up Ch. 57-62

Through heavy breaths, I plead, "C'mon man. Asmolt and Nemara did this to me. Did it to my wife. Look, maybe the idea originated with me being a bit of perv. But you're a mother fucking Incubus. Don't tell me you've not had a sleazy fantasy before. Do you think I want my wife cheating on me with this insane rogues' gallery of sleazy men? BDSM corporate executives, an NFL player, a Hollywood movie star, a shot calling gangster, a literal demon, look I didn't ask for any of this shit! You want revenge and so do I!"

Thalsyn hesitates, stares at me before avoiding eye contact, shakes his head, bears his teeth, growls, narrows his eyes, and yells, "Boo fucking hoo, faggot! You think I'd ever feel sorry for some pampered mortal living a life of comfort. While I was hustling all the time in Hell. The number of selfish, cruel, and incompetent leaders we had while I grew up. The way the other clans and families treated us and constantly tried to take advantage. Rampant persecution by devils in the Perditus Special Forces units. Lohrnihr was the greatest thing to happen to my family and to see him taken away through cruel betrayal and the toxic politics of the outer realms. Your parade of humiliations inflicted on you by your disloyal wife is highly amusing but garners zero sympathy from me."

"What, you think life on Earth is some walk in the park? I ask, wince, as blood drips from my neck and shoulder. "Growing up with my dad in prison. Watching FBI agents LARP likeSopranos characters. Manufacturing in slow motion a made up Italian mafia that hasn't existed in this country for decades. All so they could become famous destroying my family. I didn't know how to stand up for myself; not while separated from my father. It was never easy. Being a poor white kid in Southeast Central City. I hate to talk about it..." Tears begin to stream out my moist eyes. Fuck, I can't remember the last time I cried for a reason other than physical pain. "When I was fifteen, I was shot twice in the back. I still have the scars. You're not the only one to grow up someplace shitty. To be treated like trash based on your race and ethnic background."

Thalsyn lowers his shield in the machete, tilts his head, stares at me, and waits.

"I don't know what its like in Hell," I point out, tremble, and clutch my hand tightly on my bleeding neck and shoulder. "On Earth, we attend mandatory school until age 18. Girls wanted nothing to do with my poor ass and without advice from my dad, I didn't know what to do. I had trouble making friends and was always getting into fights. Teachers were annoyed I'd disrupt class and assumed I was stupid andtoxically masculine. No, they just sucked at their jobs. They're teaching skills were abysmal and they made everything boring and shitty. Just like Lohrnihr, I studied my environment, learned from its dysfunctions, and built myself up. He positioned himself to be a new Demon Lord. I got my masters in education and became the greatest teacher to ever instruct in Central City. You saw those viral news clips of me. Also the interviews of my former students. Greatness lives in me, like in Lohrnihr. Your anger is blinding you! I understand it's uncomfortable, but things may be more complicated than they seem."

The crowd boos. "Talk is cheap!" someone screams from the gallery. "Fucking fight already!"

Thalsyn stands restlessly, opens and shuts his mouth, hesitates, slightly grimaces, and rubs the top of his brass shield against the bottom of his lower lip. He closes his eyes, violently shakes his body, loudly roars, raises his wings and flaps into a hover above me, dives, swings the machete, it dodges me as I roll to the side, my shoulder hits the ground and there is even more blood, and the blade slams down against the ground inches away from me clanging loudly with an audible vibration.

I stand again clutching my shoulder but its obvious that in the war to stem my blood loss, I'm losing in the final stretch. Whimpering, eyes glassy and wet, I attempt to bargain with him one last time, "T-thalsyn. Hear me out here." I breath heavy and slow. "I don't like it. You don't like it. But we're kin. Lohrnihr is part of me. He is part of Wendy. My hope is to get him out of my wife and I. But in the meantime, I'll do it. It's as much my burden now as yours. You just got to get my wife and I out of here alive. You know I'm a tough son of a bitch. I'll go with you back to Hell. We can kill them together. Asmolt and that cunt Nemara. C'mon, man. Why are we fighting for these devils who hate us?" My brass shield falls to the ground with a loud clang and I reach my trembling right arm out to Thalsyn. My knees buckle, brain goes hazy, and my body nearly tumbles over as my feet stumble. "Go ahead, deprive my son of his father. Like the FBI did to me. Or how Asmolt, Nemara, and that roided up bastard did to you and your kin. Kill me and also slay Lohrnihr all over again!" Tears pour out from their ducts as my bleeding, trembling body struggles to remain standing under the weight of the heavy brass armor I wear.

Thalsyn swallows, wrinkles his nose, opens and then closes his mouth. He rubs at his chest with his left claw, grimaces, and his eyebrows gather in. Shivering, he closes his eyes and when they open I see tears running down his cheeks. He steps forward, drops the machete, and his own muscular right arm reaches out so that his clawed hand grips hardly against my own hand, with a shake. "Fight for family, yes!" Thalsyn agrees. "Your eyes. They're glowing. Like Lohrnihr's would when he was riled up." A knowing grin spreads over his face.

The crowd boos loudly and riots. Glass beer bottles fly towards the spherical caged ring, smash, and shatter. The loud echoing buzz sounds before reverberating several times. "It's time for s-s-sudden death!" a disembodied voice shouts through the mounted loudspeakers. Flashing red lights rotate across the arena and the bottom of the cubed shape video display roars before opening up and allowing a large phallic shaped metal structure to descend mechanically towards the combat ring. The shaft of the structure whirs before vibrating and there is a sound like thunder before electrical currents surge all around and zap around the fighting ring. It's a large Tesla coil.

Thalsyn and I stand as we had. My rough hand still firmly griping his warm claw. As electricity streams around us, we both widely grin at each other. His eyebrows raise and my eyes twinkle.

Eyelids close. The echoing buzz sounds again, "Our combatants must fight or..." the disembodied voice begins before the loudspeaker shrieks with a high pitched repeated echo. Those in the crowd grab at their ears and scream loud objections. "DIEEEE SLOOOWLYY OF SHOOOOOCK," the mounted speaker continues in a weirdly distorted, booming, and otherworldly tone before seeming to suddenly die along with all other electronics aside from the Tesla coil. The subterranean arena is suddenly left dark and quiet except for the bright flashing electrical streams surrounding Thalsyn and I.

Electrical currents envelope me and I wince in pain as my various wounds are cauterized with sudden shocks. I can feel it in my heart. Lohrnihr. The power over lightning and thunder were not ones he originally possessed. It was something he grabbed on to during that moment. When he died by electrocution. Something he could use to get sweet revenge against Nemara, her steroid addled lover, and the traitor Asmolt.

My glowing eyes open again and electrical currents zap and thunder all around me. I feel a clawed hand grab my right shoulder and squeeze it affectionately.

"What'd you say to me, before?" Thalsyn asks, smiles warmly, and continues before I can answer, "You wanted to smite me back to Hell? It's revenge time. Smite as many of these fucking bastards back to the pit as you can. No mercy for devil scum."

The din of the crowd becomes frenzied and panicked. Crashes, angry yelling and arguing, feet shuffling, objects shattering, as the crowd tries to escape the dark arena.

My nostrils flare, chest puffs out, throat cackles, and I gather up a huge bright ball of electricity in my hands. "Fuck!" I scream.

"Not yet, hold on for longer!" Thalsyn commands, smirks, and rubs at the blue toned flesh of his risen chin with two of his clawed fingers.

Sweat drenches my blood covered body as I concentrate. The larger the ball grows, the more intense the heat is that surrounds me. Inside an oven is how it feels.

"Do it!" Thalsyn yells, wets his lips, and laughs giddily.

I channel the ball into a massive beam that brightly illuminates the entire arena, creates the sound of booming thunder, obliterates the section of cage it passes through leaving only corrugated twisted metal on the surrounding edges of the large hole it creates, and when the bolt hits the crowd, I see a huge numbers of people and devils die violently at once of electrocution before their smoldering, singed corpses collapse against the hard concrete floor and bleachers. The gruesome scene is fleeting as the light dissipates with the electrical currents that begin to streak in all directions. One arching bolt rapidly zaps around before detonating a loud and illuminating explosion. Flames rage and part of the arena's ceiling collapses. Debris rains followed by audible screams as members of the arena crowd are crushed alive in a loud crash. Mounted sprinklers activate, click rapidly and repeatedly, and soon douse the flames restoring the still crowded arena to darkness.

The cool water droplets are a welcome respite from the intense heat of the lighting ball I just summoned. At least the devils running this place care more about safety than Hollywood. My chest tightens and the back of my neck aches. So many people I killed just now. Last time I saved lives. This time I extinguished them. But they're... devils right? Well, there were people too but you'd have to be a huge scumbag to end up at a place like this. Right?

"It's still going!" Thalsyn yells, smiles wide, raises his eyebrows, and rubs the palms of his clawed hands together before pointing up at the zapping, pulsing Tesla coil. "Everyone's wet in here, Theodore. Use Lohrnihr's power over lightening! Execute everyone in the arena. Make them pay for what they did to us. Every devil in here needs to die a humiliating death. Throw those fucking high and mighty bastards in Perditus into a fucking frenzy. Kill all the lawyers!"

"Kill... e-everyone?" I question, swallow hard, tense up my arms, and stare around uneasily. The Tesla coil hums, sheds sparks, zaps and there is enough illumination for me to see clearly Thalsyn's unwavering stare, rapid nodding, and even breaths. "I d-don't know..."

"Everyone!" Thalsyn yells before roaring. "You promised to take on Lohrnihr's burden! Lohrnihr was a ruthless, brutal, and unrelenting bastard! Whenever it came to increasing his own and his kin's power and status, vanquishing his enemies, and dominating the outer realms of Hell. If given the glorious opportunity to slay so many devils at once, he wouldn't have hesitated for even one second! To them, we are Gh'ulzor, degenerate racial inferiors. As to your fellow mortals, they are traitors. Elites who obtained their status and privilege not through their own efforts but striking corrupt bargains with these devils for power, wealth, and influence. All that in exchange for allowing themselves to be corruptly influenced by Perditus. Are you truly my kin or are you about to humiliate me again after I spared your life? Prove it to me. Kill them all!"

My mouth frowns, upper teeth bite down my lip, feet shuffle, and throat swallows. I begin drawing in more electricity from the Tesla current.

A series of extremely loud bangs sound accompanied by bright flashing light. Tinnitus drowns out every other sound and I stumble blind. When my vision slowly begins to return I see only smoke everywhere illuminated by vivid intertwined blue and white electrical clouds. It smells and tastes like burnt power wires and acrid smoldering. I hear vaguely the sound of marching boots against concrete. Something thin and sharp pricks into my left shoulder, my knees collapse to the ground, and I pass out.

I regain consciousness but endure extreme drowsiness and an intense desire for sleep, My eyes feel glued shut. Wherever I am, it is cold, but not frigid. With much struggle, my eyes force themselves open. I'm outside the Ruby Red Lounge and as I try to move my arms, I see I am handcuffed once again. This time there are no devils. Or if there are. They're disguised. Amid the flashing blue and red lights, there are riot cops all around including two holding each of my arms respectively. In the distance I briefly see my wife, wrapped in a blanket, handcuffed as well inside the back of an armored van before two riot officers slam the door shut.

"Mr. T, Mr. T, stop there's been some misunderstanding!" Nathan's voice yells out from my left. "He's not done anything wrong. He's my teacher!"

The two officers lift me up and into an armored vehicle. My body collapses in exhaustion on one of the metal benches. There is no way I can keep them open anymore and therefore my eyes shut.

"Hey kid!," Thalsyn's voice yells from outside. "If you want to help your teacher, get a hold of my lawyer. Elizabeth Finklestein! Tell her what happened here!"

I lose consciousness.