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“Would you like to know what you found, Doug?”
Doug was once again seated in darkness with nothing visible but a man sitting across from him. “Crap! Did I fall asleep? I was supposed to keep watch. It’s a really bad neighborhood Bryce brought us to — well, I guess not much worse than where I’m used to living, but if we could break into this building to steal a room, then anybody could break in. Someone right now could be about to slit my throat and steal my stuff… except I don’t have anything now except for that weird cube… which I kinda wish someone would take because it creeps me out. I mean, it just really creeps me out for some reason, and then we went near the wastelands which also creep me out and then to some apartment in the slums of some city I don’t know with creepy people around — I’m just very creeped out right now.” Doug looked around as if to try and see out of his dream. “I really hope no one is about to slit my throat.”
“Don’t worry; you’re fine for now,” the Devil said, and Doug did stop worrying a bit, because the Devil always seemed to know what he was talking about and was easy to trust. “It was busy day and you need sleep, anyway. And before you get rid of that cube, I think you should try to understand what it is.”
“Is it complicated? I’m guessing it’s complicated. I was thinking if this is something important to the Trans and they’re like already powerful enough to blow up mountains with their minds, then it has to be like super-duper powerful. Then again, I was thinking how I don’t understand anything about those guys and thus something interesting to them might not mean much to me.”
“I’d say it’s somewhere in between, Doug. The demons seek it not out of power but out of fear.”
“They’re scared of it too?”
“For different reasons. It’s not something in there that fills you with dread; it’s what it lacks.”
Doug thought about that. “It’s filled with emptiness?”
“Something like that. Now, one of the damned — the Hallowed as you call them — the humans who have submitted their souls to the demons in exchange for immortality and power — they would sense nothing were they to hold it. For that awful feeling you felt when you touched it is what they feel all the time.”
Doug frowned. “That’s horrible.”
The Devil laughed. “Your sympathy is misplaced; they made their choices.”
“Well, at least I know the more powerful people are these days; the crankier they seem.” This was some interesting information, but he remembered how his friends told him to be more skeptical. “So… um… Mr. Devil…”
“You can call me ‘Stan’ for simplicity.”
“Okay. Stan… do you have any ID that proves you’re the Devil?”
“I’m not going to be able to prove it to you, Doug. You’ll just have to see whether the things I say seem true or not and decide using that whether to trust me.” The Devil chuckled slightly. “It will be matter of faith in the end.”
“Okay… I guess that’s reasonable.”
“Back to point, the cube you found was made to prevent the contents from ever falling into the hands of a human. The mechanism to open it is located a spatial dimension you can’t even perceive.”
“And they don’t want someone like me to have what’s in there?”
“No. I doubt anyone would know what to do with its contents, but nonetheless the demons fear a human possessing it in case it might empower you against them.”
“So what is in it?”
“A key.”
Doug grimaced. He was hoping for something more interesting, like a jewel that would give him superpowers to fight evil. “What’s it unlock?”
“Wrong question, Doug. You should ask what it locks.”
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Asmod was at his throne as always. He never moved from it. He never needed to. He was everywhere, and his throne room only was for the convenience of the human mind in needing to believe a being had to occupy a physical space. It was the same as when people would look upwards to pray to the god of old; Asmod simply granted his subject a place to look to.
Robert Darius was still bound to physical form but had transcended the animal existence of being human. He still held the appearance of a man, but he certainly was quite more than one now. His devotion to Asmod had paid off with no longer being attached to a mere mortal form. Thus Darius had no need to have physical proximity to Asmod’s avatar in three-dimensional space to communicate with his ruler, yet he still did so as was custom. “I assume there is no need to tell you this, but the device was stolen.”
Asmod did not limit himself to a purely human form as he felt it limited the perception of him in the human mind. His face was a dispassionate gold mask which titled ever so slightly as if to face Darius. “I am aware.” His voice echoed throughout the room while still not being overbearing. “I am also aware it was not Serpine or Loch who obtained it.”
“They were certainly after it, though. I believe the attack on Shride was merely to cover that that fact.”
“The loss of one city is of no concern. I need to know where the device is.”
It was of some curiosity what made this device so important as to concern Asmod himself, but Darius knew Asmod would tell him what he needed to know. “To know so precisely where we were keeping it points to an inside job. I’m afraid the followers of Elza have infiltrated us again, and it appears they have your device.”
“We cannot let that be.”
Elza was of a great annoyance to Asmod, as Darius assumed she was to all Transcendents. While they tried to build something from this world, it seemed Elza treated it all as a game and used her fanatics to no other end than hindering everyone else. Further complicating things, she had no country, and her followers were hidden all over the world. Her current game was using propaganda to recruit fanatical terrorists, but she was a constantly changing threat. “I’ll need some leeway to deal with her people. Most likely, those responsible are now beyond your borders.”
“Do what you can, but don’t go through Dammon. I don’t need anyone else involved in this.”
This was an even greater curiosity. They often went to Dammon for things that went beyond current treaties with the other Transcendents, so it meant something that Asmod didn’t want him to know of the device… whatever it was.
“I can see your thoughts, Darius. The truth is, even I am not sure of what threat the device may be — if any. It needs to be obtained and studied. It was but good chance we found it first, and now that we know of its existence, we need to possess it until the truth of it known. Also, we need to make sure no other Transcendent knows about it… if possible.”
“I understand. Obtaining the device will be my only priority.”
“Beware that Serpine will most likely task Loch with obtaining it as well.”
Darius shivered. “Loch himself could not be let loose in such a way, could he?”
“Most likely not, but he is treacherous. Be wary of him.”
“I will.” Darius turned to leave.
“One more thing.”
“Yes, lord?”
“There could possibly be another being at play here.”
“What do you mean?”
“Someone powerful like us Transcendents… but not one of us. If you detect his involvement, I need to know.”
At this point, Darius hoped Asmod could see all the questions in his mind. “Is this a great danger?”
“It is a concern. There are too many coincidences as of late, and when strings are being pulled, he is always the one pulling them. We thought he had no interest in this world, but if he is back, that is something we all need to know.”
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There were screams of panic as the grenade clinked back against the floor, but Doug didn’t look back as he followed his friends in a mad dash for one of the trucks. Charlene quickly took the lead, shooting one of the Amazons and grabbing her rifle without even stopping. Just as they reached the nearest vehicle, the grenade exploded. Doug could hear it pelting the surrounding with shrapnel, but he didn’t feel any hit him as he scrambled into the truck.
The truck lurched upwards as the vehicle began to come under fire. Doug turned to see that Bryce was in the driver’s seat while Lulu was in the passenger seat ducking and covering her head. Charlene was in back among the metal crates with Doug, and she returned fire out the loading hatch as she hit the button to close it. The chorus of metallic ricochets against the vehicle’s hull died down as it rose into the air.
Lulu finally uncovered her head and looked out the windshield. “Looks like my plan worked! Yay me! I saved us all! Go Team Hellbender!”
“Throwing a grenade in the air is not a plan!” Charlene yelled.
“You’re not a plan!”
Charlene growled. “What now?”
Bryce jerked the truck around and accelerated it forward. “We take a leisurely drive through a war zone where everyone is far too busy to bother with us. Then we’re headed to Theed where we have a buyer for whatever it is we have in here.”
A voice came over the vehicle’s radio. “You do not have permission to take off.”
Lulu grabbed the receiver. “Guess what? You have permission to suck it!”
Bryce laughed. “This sure got a bit bumpy when Lulu was discovered and those crazy girls got involved, but overall the plan worked out pretty well.”
“Where was this plan you people keep referring to?” Charlene demanded.
“The plan was to get into the armory and grab a vehicle full of military weaponry,” Bryce explained. “Which we did.”
“That’s not a plan! That’s a statement of what you want a plan to do!”
“Well… it worked.”
Lulu took off her uniform jacket under which she had a pink t-shirt a couple sizes too small. “Really, who made you queen of what constitutes a plan, Charlene?”
“Right now we’re heading for a foreign country in an opposing military vehicle with three of us in uniforms of a nation their at war with,” Charlene said. “If this is a plan, it’s a crappy one.”
“Well I had the foresight to wear something under mine.” Lulu pulled off her pants under which was a skirt that if were any shorter would be a frilly belt. “Bet little miss prepared for anything didn’t think of that one.”
“I hate all of you! I really do!”
“Hey, you got to kill someone today, Charlene; you should be elated.”
Doug finally took off his helmet since they seemed to be in the clear and looked out a gun port on the side of the truck. The whole city was now in flames. He hoped everyone got out okay… except for the job-stealing monkeys. “I guess it’s just good we’re not stuck back there.” He saw something the size of a small city floating in the air. It seemed to pull in darkness around it, and Doug could not see it clear enough other than to know it was intimidating and evil looking. “That is awesome.”
Bryce looked around out the windshield. “What? What’s awesome?”
“This thing floating behind us.”
Charlene pushed Doug out of the way and took a look and turned white. “It’s Loch’s flagship.”
“That’s trouble.” Doug found another gun port and looked at the giant, flying craft. For a moment, it was like his vision zoomed in until he saw something clearly standing on the craft staring back at him. He couldn’t even see anything that he could identify as eyes, but he knew something was looking right at him. Doug stumbled back and fell against a crate. “Dude!”
“I’m sure Loch has more important things on his divine mind than one meager truck,” Bryce said, his voice cracking slightly. “Anyway, if he wanted us, he could just pull us out of the sky. Not like there’s anything we could do about it. If there’s no objections, I’m going to take us near the wasteland to limit the chance of running into anyway else.”
“I don’t like going near the wasteland.” Doug tried to shake his previous experience from his head. “It’s weird and scary.”
“As usual, your objection doesn’t count, Doug.”
Charlene continued to watch out the gun port. “The really destroyed the whole city, didn’t they.”
“Just be thankful we got you out of there, Charlene,” Lulu said. “It wasn’t a unanimous vote.”
“This whole attack was such a pointless display of power,” Bryce stated with disgust. “I’m sure Asmod will eventually respond in kind. It looks like none of the Trans ever get a real advantage over the others. That’s while we’ll always have plenty of opportunity as mercenaries.”
“We’re going to be mercenaries?” That sounded cool, but Doug really didn’t like getting shot at.
Lulu pulled a piece of paper out of the waistband of her skirt. “I have the form to make us official, self-employed criminals.”
Satisfied they were far enough away from Loch, Charlene stopped watching outside and turned her disbelief to Lulu. “Official criminals?”
“There’s criminal and there is criminal, Charlene.” Bryce put the vehicle on autopilot and turned to face everyone. “Don’t worry, though; I’m well versed in the criminal underworld to get us started. We’ll sell whatever we have here and use it as seed money to establish our base of operations for our very own mercenary group. No longer will we be unappreciated tools of corrupt governments and gods. We will now work only to benefit ourselves.”
Doug thought it did sound a bit exciting. “We’re going to call our mercenary group Hellbender, right?” He was always proud of that name since he thought of it himself back when they were kids.
“Better to fail together than fail alone!” Lulu shouted.
Charlene sighed. “I made up that slogan to make fun of our stupid group. Just because we played together as kids, I don’t know why you think that means I still want to be a part of your idiotic plans.”
“If you’re going to be a bitch as usual, we don’t need you,” Lulu said.
“I’m the only one of you who actually has any combat skill!” Charlene shouted.
“Yeah, we’ll get killed pretty quick without Charlene,” Doug said. “Maybe she should be in charge.”
“Charlene is not going to be in charge; she’s mean.” Lulu stood up and put her hands on her hips. “I’m in charge.”
Charlene laughed. “Says who?”
“It really is best that Lulu is in charge,” Bryce said. “Asian women are very underrepresented in crime, so having her as our leader will be a big hiring advantage. In fact, we really have a great group as is for government contracts. We’re at least half-female, which is a must. We have a token white male–” He pointed to himself. “–which they’re actually starting to crack down on if you’re missing. And then Doug… well… who know what the hell he is? We can just list him as whatever minority is particularly ‘in’ at the moment. Right now, I think we’ll put him down as half-black, half-Hispanic.”
“I really think I am Hispanic,” Doug said. “I really really like nachos.”
Charlene once again looked dumbfounded “People hiring criminals really care about all that?”
“Again, just because it’s the criminal underworld doesn’t mean it lacks all civility,” Bryce explained. “And espionage jobs for the various governments are the most lucrative, and they’ll always make sure to follow quotas.”
“And you really think people are going to be dumb enough hire us?”
“We’re the Last Children — we’re unaffiliated. When two governments have a cold war going between them, we’re the sort they’ll hire for deniability.”
“It going to be a lot of fun,” Lulu said, “and it should involve violence, so even you should like it, Charlene.”
Charlene sighed and seemed to resign herself to her fate. “So do these grand plans involve a place for us to sleep tonight?”
Bryce turned back to the vehicle controls. “You worry too much.”
“How about a TV for playing videogames?” Doug asked. “I was planning on playing videogames today… before everything got blown up.”
“Soon, we’ll have whatever we want.” Bryce tossed Doug a pen and notebook. “For now, why don’t you see if you can inventory what’s in here so we can idea what kind of haul we have to sell.”
Doug wasn’t much of a weapons expert, so he hoped everything was labeled. He pried open one crate which had what looked like grenade launchers inside. “Cool.” He wrote down “3 probably grenade launchers” in the notebook and noticed something else inside with them. It was a small cloth sack with an object about the size of an apple inside. Doug reached in to grab it, but immediately pulled back his hand in shock as what was inside was colder than ice. The object fell to the ground and rolled out of the sack. It was a smooth metal cube and it scared Doug worse than anything he had ever seen. He rubbed his hand and tried to regain his composure, but he was become overwhelmed with feeling that they were doomed. “Bryce, you know that important artifact you told the Protectors you had to secure?”
“Of course. I never forget my lies; that’s an important part of lying.”
“I think I found it.”
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Lulu grabbed Bryce’s gun and put it to his head. “Grab his gun,” she ordered Charlene.
Doug happily handed over his gun to Charlene who put it to Doug’s head.
“Who are you?” one of the armed women asked.
“We don’t have time for this!” Lulu ushered Bryce inside while Charlene and Doug followed. “Somehow Asmod’s people almost found out about us. Now we have two of their officials. I’m sure they’ll be of use.”
“You think they knows what it looks like?” another woman inquired.
“Yes, I’m sure they knows what… it… looks like,” Lulu said. “That’s why they’re of use to us.”
It was a large room with high ceilings with an open hangar door through which vehicles landed. There were trucks on the ground being loaded by six more armed women, some dressed in the military uniforms of Asmod and others in more casual attire. There were also numerous dead bodies on the ground and not a small amount of blood. “Who are they?” asked a woman who appeared to be in charge and was wearing an officer’s uniform with a bit blood splattered on it.
“They’re the other inside group we had,” explained one of the women escorting Doug’s group. “I guess they got found out, but we have two government officials here who should help us find the device.”
The leader looked suspiciously at Lulu and Charlene and then turned to Bryce. “So where is it?”
He pointed to a group of identical crates. “It was one of those. I could tell you which one exactly if you hadn’t moved them around.”
She punched Bryce, sending him staggering back a bit. “We need to just grab what we can and get out of here,” the leader told everyone. “Serpine’s forces will be here soon, and they’ll be look for the device as well.”
Lulu turned to Charlene and whispered. “I thought they were with Serpine. Any idea who they are?”
“I’m pretty sure they’re Elza’s psychos.”
Lulu looked surprised. “The Amazons? Like the man-hating killers?”
“Yeah.”
“I thought they were just made up to make fun of feminists.”
“They’re real and they are very violent,” Charlene said. “The only thing is I heard that, as much as they like fighting, they’re not actually that good at it.”
Lulu frowned. “That’s kinda sad. They look like they try so hard.”
“Let’s just get some plan quick to get out of here before we run into someone who isn’t a moron and knows to kill us.”
“What are you two chattering about?” the leader demanded.
Lulu shrugged. “The usual… how much we hate the patriarchy.”
The leader noticeably gripped her rifle tighter. “And what were your names?”
“I’m Charmin and she’s Roscoe, but you can call me Pippy.”
“I know him!” a short blond haired woman shouted as she pointed at Bryce. Doug braced himself, because he knew this wasn’t going to be good.
“So what? I’m a popular guy.”
The woman looked quite angry, and Doug took a few steps away from Bryce as she came near. “He’s not a government official. He’s one of the Last!”
Bryce scoffed. “I’m not some zealot’s son.”
“You used me! All the time you were dating me, you were sleeping with my best friend!”
Bryce looked confused. “I’m missing your point.”
“You said you loved me!”
Bryce rolled his eyes. “Well I thought it was pretty obvious from context I only said that to sleep with you.”
She placed the barrel of her gun against Bryce’s temple, but Lulu stepped in. “Calm down. Okay, obviously these two are useless, so we should just kill them… but not this way. Can I have one of your grenades?” Before the woman could answer, Lulu took a grenade off her belt. “Watch this.” She pulled the pin and then exclaimed “Weee!” as she threw it straight up in the air. “RUN!”
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“Take her gun!” Bryce ordered Doug. Doug took the pistol from Lulu’s holster and held it dubiously.
“What’s going on?” one of the Protectors demanded, the group keeping guns on them both.
“The enemy has some sort of conspiracy involving the armory,” Bryce explained, “and I was hoping this imposter would lead me to it. I guess you all screwed up that plan.”
“You’re too late!” Lulu said with as much menace as she could as she kept her hands behind her head. “You’re all going to die here!” She added an evil laugh, but Doug judged it a bit forced.
“What do we care about the armory?” a Protector asked. “We’re abandoning this whole place and the letting the stupid Children fight for it.”
“Hey!” Charlene exclaimed.
“Shut up, you,” Bryce told her sharply, and then turned back to the soldiers. “I can’t tell you much about it, but there is an artifact of great importance to Asmod in the armory that unfortunately it seems the enemy has found out about. We need to secure it before leaving. Come on, there’s no time to waste.”
Bryce started leading Lulu away at gunpoint. “Come guard,” he told Doug and then struggled to get his suit jacket off while keeping his gun on Lulu. He tossed the jacket to Charlene. “Carry that for me, Child.”
The Protectors followed as well. “So the enemy might already be in the armory?” one asked.
“Could be. Be prepared for a gunfight,” Bryce said.
“Loch will eat your blood!” Lulu shouted. She then whispered to Bryce, “You don’t think Chen mentioned you?”
“I doubt she would so readily admit she was duped by one of us Last.”
“And what exactly are we doing when we get to the armory?” Charlene asked quietly.
“We’ll figure it out when we get there. No worries.”
Doug still had the pistol in his hand and wasn’t sure what to do with it. He had a bad record with guns from the brief time the government conscripted the Last Children in the military, so he wanted to put it away but didn’t seem to have a holster. He tried shoving it in his pants pocket but it was too big, so he turned to Charlene. “You want to carry the gun and I can carry the coat?”
“Can’t you even pretend to be competent for even a couple minutes?” Charlene shot back under her breath and turned away.
Doug thought of telling her he had been pretending competence for more than ten minutes already, but then he remembered he wasn’t supposed to talk.
They soon reached the armory and stopped by the entrance. “The enemy doesn’t know we’re on to them yet,” Bryce told the six soldiers. “Let’s try to head in quietly and get a look of things. Are you prepared?”
“We can handle it. You have her?”
Bryce patted Lulu on the head. “The little floozy isn’t going to be a problem.”
“You’re going to die,” Lulu added.
The six Protectors slowly made their way in. Bryce turned to his group. “Any ideas for what to do next?”
“The loading dock is just inside.” Charlene said. “I think we should just grab a vehicle and get the hell out of here before they wise up and shoot us all.”
“I’m for that,” Lulu said, her hand still behind her head. “My arms are starting to get tired; I don’t want to be a prisoner anymore.”
“Fine,” Bryce said. “Maybe we’ll get lucky and they’ve already loaded one of the trucks up for the evacuation. Let’s just–”
Automatic gunfire erupted from inside. Two Protectors ran out returning fire, one clutching a bloody wound at his side. “They’ve taken it over!” He shouted to Bryce. “They’ve already killed everyone in there! I think they have the artifact!”
It took a moment for Bryce to get over the shock. “Well… that’s… not good.”
More gunfire tore down the two soldiers, and then four angry looking women emerged from the entrance pointing rifles at Doug, Bryce, Lulu, and Charlene. Doug decided to break the no talking rule. “Dude.”
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“So I had a weird dream last night–”
“I’m going to stop you right there, Doug.” Bryce was busying flying the vehicle and making sure they took a path near the least explosions. “That doesn’t sound like the beginning of a statement either of us are going to care about.”
“But it wasn’t like a dream. It was just the Devil talking to me and he said–”
“The Devil?” Lulu asked. “Like with horns and a pitchfork?”
“No, he looked like a regular person.”
“So how did you know he was the Devil?” Bryce said.
“Did you ask for ID?” Lulu added.
Bryce scoffed. “Doug wouldn’t know what proper ID would look like.”
“Yeah,” Lulu admitted, “and I bet IDs are very easy to forge in dreams.”
“Lucky for us, they’re also easy to forge in real life.”
“You guys are making fun of me, aren’t you?” Doug said. “You know, I was perfectly happy not committing treason today.”
“Calm down. We’re just about there.” Bryce slowed the vehicle and began a descent. “It going to mainly be on you, Tri-Lu, since you have the real ID.”
She held up Chen’s badge with photo. “I really don’t think I look too much like her; I’m much cuter. Hopefully they’ll just be looking at my chest.”
“I never look at anything else.”
A bit panicked, Doug raised and waived his hand. “What am I supposed to do again?”
“Follow us. Not talk.” The vehicle came to a rest, and Protectors — presumably real ones with guns — converged on it.
Lulu got out and flashed her ID. “As you can see by my close resemblance to this photo, I’m Major Chen. We have business here and we need to be quick about it.”
“The base is being evacuated soon,” one of the Protectors warned.
“We know,” Bryce said. He got out of the vehicle as well, and Doug decide to follow and stay behind him. “That’s why we need to a quick inventory of the armory.”
“And who are you?”
“I’m with the government.” Bryce flashed some ID quickly. “As you can tell from the gunfire, we don’t have a lot of time for stupid questions. We’re heading to the armory; you can follow if you want.”
“But…” one of the Protectors started to say, but Bryce and Lulu were already walking away with Doug quickly following. The Protectors stood back watching for a moment, but soon went back to more pressing matters as gunshot and explosions grew near.
“So far so good,” Bryce remarked.
Lulu giggled. “I like ordering people around. I’m going to do that more to the next people we encounter. How do I tell if I outrank them?”
“We can ask Charlene when we find her.” They were outside in the main part of the base, and most people were running around quite purposely. Bryce kept scanning the people around them. “I forget where the armory is anyway, so we probably need her. Think she has her phone on her?”
Doug spotted a petite young woman walking nearby in fatigues and carrying a tray of coffee. He was about to shout out, but then he remembered his no talking directives. Instead, he tapped Bryce on the shoulder and pointed towards her.
“Good work, my mute manservant.” They headed towards her, Lulu reaching her first.
“Give me my half-caf, puke!” Lulu shouted.
Charlene turned around to do a quick salute, but her face changed to shock when she saw Bryce and Lulu. “What the hell are you doing here? Where did you get that uniform, Lulu?” Doug stumbled a bit as he caught up to them. “Is that Doug?”
Bryce laughed. “They have you doing coffee runs while the city is about to be burned to the ground? I guess sucking up to the Hollow ones really got you the respect you wanted.”
Lulu looked over Charlene’s uniform. “They make you wear that baggy thing? And do you even have a gun?”
“They’ve trained me with one and I will be issuing me one today so I can be a part of this defense.”
“They are already evacuating, you nitwit,” Bryce said. “Asmod’s forces are going to arm some of the Last who are dumb enough to stay fighting to give them more time to escape.”
“Won’t it be fun being one of them?” Lulu exclaimed. “Yay dying for people who hate and despise you!”
Charlene’s expression was a mix of anger and hesitancy. “You don’t know that.”
“Come on, Charlene, you’ve been training to be the tiniest soldier for how long now?” Bryce asked. “And what do they have you doing?” He knocked the coffee from her hands. “Stop working so hard to be a pawn, okay? This place is going down, and it’s best we find our own way out.”
“So I’m better off with you losers? Is that my choice?”
“You don’t have a choice; that’s the point.” Bryce said. “We don’t like each other–”
“I like all of you,” Doug interrupted.
“…and we all especially hate Doug,” Bryce continued, “but there’s no use pretending we have anyone else to turn to. We’re earth’s Last Children; the world hates us.”
“They say we can all be no more than liars and thieves, so we respond by being liars and thieves?” Charlene asked.
Bryce smiled. “Yeah, it’s a vicious cycle; what are you going to do?”
“Anyway, we just brutally murdered Major Chen and left your DNA all over the crime scene,” Lulu told Charlene. “So you don’t have any choice but to go with us.”
Bryce gave Lulu a look.
“I’m just trying to speed things up. This uniform is itchy.”
“You really a part of this, Doug?” Charlene inquired.
He shrugged. “I just found out about this like an hour ago and I’m still not quite sure what’s happening. I really think you should come with us, though, because it is looking pretty bad. I don’t want to die here if that’s what’s happening. I especially don’t want to get tortured by Loch… I don’t want that happening to you either.”
Charlene looked in pain pushing down so much anger. “If things go wrong, I’ll kill you before they can. So what are we doing?”
“Just take us to the armory and act like everything is fine,” Bryce said. There was an explosion nearby. “Well… not fine, but no worse or no better than everyone else thinks it is.”
Charlene motioned them to follow. “Go team Hellbender!” Lulu yelled, getting an audible sigh from Charlene.
“Stop right there!”
They spun around to see five Protectors running towards them. One of them pointed at Lulu. “You’re not Major Chen.”
“But I have an ID an everything,” she whined.
“Which Chen just reported was stolen.”
Bryce rolled his eyes. “There goes that plan.” The Protectors were quick with their guns, but Bryce was quicker, pulling out his revolver and putting it to Lulu’s head. “Hands up!”
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“We’re going to steal arms from the military.”
Bryce Worthington said it as if it was some genius idea, but Doug didn’t quite see the appeal. He looked to Lulu Lui, but she seemed okay with the concept. Then again, she was wearing a military officer’s uniform for some reason. He turned back to Bryce. “Isn’t that treason?”
Bryce scoffed. “Come on; everyone does it. It’s like the jaywalking of treason. You ever jaywalked, Doug?”
“Yeah, but I got yelled at.”
“Well… if that’s the worse that happens, then I think we’ll have come out pretty well.”
“Would an officer wear this much eye shadow?” Lulu checked out her face and uniform in a mirror. She wore it quite well, but pigtails wasn’t the most authoritative of hair styles. “Eh, what do I care what other officers do; I’m my own person.”
“Where did you get that uniform?” Doug asked. Bryce was in a new suit, but Doug knew there was no point in asking him about it.
“I decided to join the military, and they thought I was so cute they went ahead and made me a Major.”
“So why does your nametag say ‘Chen’?”
“When they made me a Major, they decided to give me a name more officiery.”
Doug looked around the room. It had a very nice view of the city. “And whose apartment is this?”
“Doug, what’s with all the questions?” Bryce took on an angry tone. “You’re unemployed, so it’s not like you have anything better to do than help us rob this military base. Didn’t you just get replaced at your factory job by a monkey again?”
“Isn’t that like the fourth time you’ve been replaced by a highly trained monkey?” Lulu asked Doug.
“Third,” Bryce corrected. “The monkey that replaced him in his packing job was only marginally trained.”
“I hate monkeys!” Doug shouted. “I’m always getting replaced by monkeys or robots! They keep taking the jobs of honest humans like me and it’s not right!”
“I wonder what would happen if they made a robot monkey.” Lulu said.
“Then he’d totally be screwed,” Bryce said.
The thought horrified Doug. “That would be the worst thing ever!”
“Well, Doug my boy, it’s time to show the world you can do what monkeys and robots can’t.” Bryce tossed Doug some clothes. “Namely commit treason.”
Doug looked at the black uniform. “Isn’t this like the uniform for one of Asmod’s Protectors?” They were the government’s elite soldiers and very scary.
“Just put it on,” Bryce said. “No more time for questions.”
Doug really didn’t want to become an enemy of the state, but peer pressure was hard to resist. He headed off to the bedroom for a bit of privacy, but then he noticed something odd. “Why is there a half-naked woman tied up in here?”
“I don’t know,” Lulu answered, “but one thing is for sure: Her name isn’t Chen.”
She wasn’t moving. “Is she alive?”
Bryce looked slightly worried. “None of us have the medical experience to make a pronouncement on that matter.”
“Bryce was supposed to drug her drink,” Lulu explained, “but he screwed that up so I had to bash her over the head with a chair. It was a very sturdy chair.”
Bryce shrugged. “We’re kinda new to this espionage thing, so it’s well chalk this up as a learning experience.”
Doug figured they were already in pretty deep, so he might as well go along and put on the uniform. “Was this the woman you were dating, Bryce?”
“One of them.”
Doug shook his head. “You’re really horrible to women. You gotta work on that.”
“At least I get some,” Bryce answered. “The point is we needed her credentials for this mission and I’m not really going to weep much over the fate of one of Asmod’s stooges. You ready?”
Doug’s new uniform smelled funny. “I guess.”
Bryce handed him the helmet with skull-like facemask that went with the Protector uniform. “Put this on, and as long as you don’t say anything you might actually look slightly intimidating.”
He put the helmet and almost scared himself when he looked in the mirror. “We’re going to get like executed for this, aren’t we?”
“No, the government’s hasn’t been in much of an execution kick lately,” Bryce said. “More like reeducation… or for you, I guess just a plain education.”
“They’ll make us admit two plus two equals five,” Lulu said, “which won’t be too bad except for how it will screw up the multiplication tables.”
“I don’t want to learn math.” A thought struck Doug and he became quite concerned beyond just potentially being hunted by a government armed with arithmetic. “Will Charlene be a part of this?”
“Of course,” Lulu said. “It wouldn’t be team Hellbender without stick in the mud Charlene.”
“Okay. Good.” He was trying to get himself mentally prepared for this step into the abyss, but then another thought struck him. “Does she know she is going to be a part of this?”
Bryce laughed. “Of course not.”
There was an explosion nearby and then sirens started going off throughout the city. “That’s our cue.” Bryce ushered them to exit the apartment.
Doug could hear gunfire. “What’s going on?”
“Got inside info that Serpine’s forces are attacking today,” Bryce explained while they headed to the stairway. “That’s what we had to schedule around.”
“Who?”
Bryce led them towards the roof. “Transcendent who rules the areas north of us. Vowed to destroy this city recently and has been amassing forces to do just that.”
Doug shrugged. “I really don’t follow politics. So we’re being invading?”
“Since they’re going to leave after they raze this place,” Lulu said, “I don’t think it’s technically an invasion.”
Bryce stopped and turned towards Lulu. “Actually, I think as long as they just come in mass, it’s an invasion. I don’t think the term requires them to stay.”
“So are we being invaded?” Doug asked again.
Lulu shrugged her shoulders. “Maybe.”
Bryce led them to the roof, and Doug could see fighting in the air between jet planes and flying creatures. “They got dragons!”
Bryce sighed. “Superstitious talk like that is what give us Last a bad name. There are no such things as dragons, Doug. Are they breathing fire?”
“No… they’re firing missiles I think.”
“Not a dragon, then. Probably something much more ordinary like some sort of giant, flying, cyborg reptile.”
There was a crack of thunder and the sky turned purple. The clouds swirled until they formed the face of a woman that looked down upon them all with scorn. “Followers of Asmod, this city is doomed. Asmod has been an obstacle to our progress for too long, and now this city shall burn until nothing is left. You can see your defense is already falling to my superior forces, and soon my ally Loch will be here… and I think you know that means you should be gone. If any of you survive, you should rethink your loyalties.” The face faded away, and the sky was clear again.
“I’d so hit that.” Bryce turned away from the sky and walked towards a nearby military VTOL transport parked on the roof.
“Is Loch really coming?” Doug was more than a little frightened having heard all the stories of Loch, a being of immense power who used his infinite knowledge to inflict pain. If even a fraction of the stories about Loch were true, Doug was ready to flee immediately.
“Yes, and he’s going to eat our souls! Woooo!” Lulu laughed and got in the passenger seat.
Bryce got in the driver’s side. “The Trans have their silly rules of engagement which means Loch can’t do anything until Asmod’s forces are bested through traditional methods… something that should leave us enough time to steal from the military base in the midst of the chaos. We can’t start a new life without some capital.”
Doug didn’t share Bryce confidence, but he was now quite convinced they needed to get Charlene before they fled so she didn’t get left to the mercies of Loch. He got in the back of the vehicle and sat down while doing his best not to freak out at the continued sound of fighting nearby.
Bryce took the vehicle into the air. “Now, we have to fool them that Tri-Lu is an officer, I’m a government official, and you’re an elite soldier… but we only have to fool them for a couple of minutes if we’re quick.”
Lulu smiled and giggled. “I think is going to be neat. I’m glad we’re finally doing this criminal thing because my secretary job was really getting on my nerves.”
“I thought you were a stripper,” Doug said.
“I am… but it’s not my job.”
“One more thing,” Bryce said. “If I do this…” he made a motion with his arm. “Our cover is blown and we shoot our way out. Anyway just keep calm, and this should go off without a hitch.”
“And most of all, have fun,” Lulu added.
Doug didn’t quite see the shoot everyone signal and though of asking Bryce to repeat it, but then he realized he didn’t have a gun anyway.
NEXT

“Hello, Doug. I’m the Devil.”
It was a wholly unremarkable man who sat across from Doug. What was remarkable is that they were seated in the midst of darkness. There was nothing at all visible to Doug except for himself and the Devil. “Where am I?”
“You’re in your bed. This is a dream.”
Doug processed that a moment. “Usually my dreams don’t tell me they’re dreams… even though it’s like really obvious they were dreams when I wake up because I was like flying and stuff.”
The Devil smiled. He seemed like a nice enough guy, though the meeting was certainly odd. “God is defeated — or so they say — which would make me the most powerful being in existence. Still, I’m used to treading lightly, and while I wanted to talk to you directly, I thought appearing to you in a dream was a more subtle way of doing it.”
Doug did not understand this at all, but he caught on to one part he knew was trouble. “Isn’t God just made up or something?”
“Perhaps.” He laughed. “It is the ‘Age of Enlightenment,’ so I can put it all in scientific terms if you prefer. It makes no difference to me.”
“Yeah… I’m not really good at science either.” When Doug was younger, people seemed to think that Doug learned concepts best through puppets, but the Devil didn’t seem to have any.
“Suffice to say, there was a powerful force that held your world in balance and now it’s gone. You’ve seen the consequences, haven’t you? Place where reality itself has begun to rip apart.”
Doug had seen the wastelands, areas of darkness where indescribable things moved in the shadows. No one ever entered those areas, and Doug knew no stories of anyone even trying to. When he was ten, his friend Bryce once dared him to walk up to the edge of one of the wastelands and throw a rock at it, but he chickened out.
“And the end of the human race has to be of concern for you,” the Devil continued. “No new births for over twenty years — not since the War that left you an orphan.”
It was a concern for Doug, though he knew it wasn’t supposed to be. The explanation was that the change in the world after the War no longer allowed new connection to a multi-dimensional existence — the “soul” as known to primitive people — that was solely an evolutionary advantage of the human animal. No more souls meant no more humans making Doug among the youngest alive, but their superiors constantly reminded them that this was of no worry anymore. “They can make us immortal, so there isn’t really any more need for… humans.”
“They say that, do they?” The Devil’s disposition turned slightly less friendly. “Perhaps the biggest obstacle you face now is that the former prisoners of Hell now run your world. These bickering demons act as your gods, and surely you must see how wrong that is?”
Doug knew he was going down a dangerous path even if this was just a dream. The Transcendent were all-powerful and could see his thoughts if they wanted — though it was unlikely they would be concerned with the thoughts of one of the Last Children… especially one who spent so much time thinking about videogames. “I thought they were like inter-dimensional aliens or something?”
“They don’t really know what they are anymore, and some actually believe their own tripe about enlightenment. Of all the faults of the fallen angels, you would at least think they wouldn’t end up being atheists.”
“Well, we’re all supposed to be atheists since God is just mythology or something.”
“Then at least they’re not hypocritical on that issue.” He was silent for a moment. “It’s hard to explain just how foolish the Fallen are. We fought a long war against the greatest power there is, and we finally had a huge victory and they’ve forgotten their purpose. I am a better leader than a teacher, but now they ignore me and use you people as pawns in a fight against each other for power over this world. You may think this world is vast, but it is infinitesimal compared to all of existence. To have escaped our previous confines only to try and rule your world it like freeing yourself from a jail cell only to willfully be imprisoned within a grain of sand.”
Even though Doug’s usual dreams made much less sense, he still followed them better. “So you’re like the leader of the Trans?”
“Not the way I’d put it… and I am no longer their leader. As I said, I’m the most powerful being in existence other than God Himself — or itself, considering your view — but I have limitations. So do the Fallen — the Transcendent, Trans, or whatever you want to call them. You can see that in how they can’t do away with each other despite how obviously they wish they could. I want you to think about that, because understanding they are not all-powerful is the first step to believing they can be defeated.”
Doug was stunned. It never had even occurred to him that the Transcendent could be fought anymore than one could fight a hurricane. They were just powerful forces with nothing physical to lash out against. Some of them often took physical forms, and he had been curious if you shot one in the face (he couldn’t imagine a being so powerful it wouldn’t mind being shot in the face), but he was careful not to muse too much on such a thing. “How could anyone defeat them? They’re not just super-duper powerful — all their followers are like invincible too.”
“Yes, the ‘Hallowed’ — the disciples of the Fallen. They may seem to wield great power, but they are damned. I assure you that there is quite a difference between what you perceive as power and what there really is. You have the potential for far more power than you’ll ever know. Despite the Fallen’s belief in a victory in the power known as God, I know He has not abandoned those who never chose to abandon Him. You may never have been taught about Him, but He has watched over you always. In the glimpses of light in the darkness that is this world, you must have sensed Him… someone who cares for you and assures you and made sure that no matter how hopeless things are that you keep soldiering on.”
It was a nice thought, and Doug wanted to believe. Of course, he knew he wasn’t too bright and thus susceptible to believing foolish things, and even he saw the flaws in this concept. “Are you referring to the being from the beliefs of those from before the War? If He was so powerful, then how come he didn’t save them?”
“Good question. All I can say is that their last prayers were for their children, and here today you still are. They’re appeal to God will only be shown to be in vain if you choose not to continue their fight.”
It seemed a lot of responsibility to be put on Doug’s shoulders, which was now making this dream seem as absurd as his usual ones. He took another good look at the Devil who appeared just as a normal man. He thought back to what little he knew about the Devil whom he usually saw portrayed with horns and red skin. “Aren’t you supposed to be evil?”
He smiled. “I have my own purposes. If you think this world needs fixing, then for now our goals overlap. That may change in the future… but we’ll cross that bridge when we reach it.”
“And what do you expect me to do?”
“Just consider my words and keep your eyes open to see what the world really is and not how they want you to see it. You will soon have an opportunity to fight back, and I will help lead you there. This may seem daunting, but know you are not alone. You have a friend even more powerful than me watching over you.”
Doug wanted to believe, but this just seemed so much like the foolishness he had been warned about since he was a small child in the orphanage. “Do you know my friends?”
“Yes, of course.” The Devil chuckled. “‘Hellbender.'”
“Maybe you could tell them to so they can help… if this really isn’t just a dream.”
The Devil’s expression turned serious. “They can help you some, but at some point you will fight this battle alone.”
That was a fearful thought for Doug. His friends were all he had. “But why me? I’m not smart or good at… anything.”
“I know; in a world of gods and demigods, you’re… well… Doug. What you must overcome seems impossible, but God deals with the impossible. Know that in the most important battles of this world, neither wits nor strength are of any use.”
“Then what is of use?”
The Devil grinned one last time. “You’ll have to find that out on your own.”
NEXT