Beyond The Impossible

There’s a planet called Hell where all Demons live. Few humans have seen it, and those who have… well it’s not called Hell because it’s a catchy name. There are oceans of lava and the sky is on fire, but the most unique thing about it is that it’s permeated by an energy called the Blood.

It’s in the cells of all life on the planet, in its air, inside its rocks, if flows all the way to the core of the planet. Every part of Hell, no matter how small, is connected through the Blood: Demons feel its constant presence, a discreet hum inside their souls. Now someone is changing the tune.

Abyss is standing in front of the throne of the Pandemonium, surrounded by the stadium-sized parliament where thousands of Demons are feeling their world shaking… quite literally: the entire mountain around the Pandemonium is hit by an earthquake.

<This is even better than I expected> Abyss gloats, admiring her hand closing into a fist. Her newest form is growing quickly: she’s a tall, fully grown woman, definitely more endowed than her human body. The red armor is part of her, red and transparent like her body, leaving the black skeleton underneath still visible. Her eyes and mouth are still those of a jack o’lantern.

Every resemblance to Noriko is now gone, even though under the deep distortion their voices are exactly the same.

Of course, one doesn’t attack Hell without expecting a battle. And the Demons oblige: they charge towards her by the hundreds, brandishing all kinds of weapons. Swords, axes, maces, all made of the same red energy. Abyss laughs at them, a maniacal and ecstatic laughter.

Her new body is made of the same energy: not only the Demons can’t make a dent on its outer layer, they’re feeding her. It’s making her bigger, much bigger, at an alarming speed.

<More! Give me more! Come on, you bunch of p##sies, come on!!!>

A thousand arrows are absorbed into her skin. She towers above a sea of angry red skinned demons, and she just keeps growing.

 

Outside the Pandemonium

The Grey Lady emerges from the ground, opening her black cloak. As her shadow retracts, several people emerge from it: Torn, his wife Agony, their daughters Lesion and Laceration, Max Black a.k.a. Quantum, Kari Zel and Noriko Null. All of them are here against their will.

<What the… did you just teleport us!?> Quantum asks.

<▌₪♦†□▲╤▌║▼‡╤ > the Grey Lady answers in her incomprehensible language.

<Who the Hades is she and… you know what, I don’t want to know> Kari says.

<What happened to her?> Torn asks, kneeling to observe Noriko. Kari considers asking him the same question… his chest is covered by blood coming from very nasty scars that haven’t had the chance to heal yet… but then remembers he’s Torn: she’s given up understanding his explanations.

<I don’t know, she fainted> Kari answers. Noriko is in her arms: her body is limp and unresponsive, but her eyes are much more worrisome. She has a blank stare and her eyes only show static, like a broken television. Torn holds the palm of his hand in front of her forehead, and raises an eyebrow.

<This isn’t possible. Can you feel it resonate through the Blood?> he asks.

<Like the screams of billions of souls> Agony nods.

<Can anyone say something that make sense around here? Please!?> Quantum begs.

<The mountain is blowing up> Lesion answers, pointing at the Pandemonium.

 

She’s not kidding. Abyss is so huge now that the cavern can’t contain her much longer: she smashes through the mountain like it wasn’t even there, sending millions of tons of rocks and thousand of dead bodies flying into the air. Remarkably, hundreds of Demons are still clinging to her armor, doing their very best to fight a clearly superior opponent.

<Holeeeee s##t. Is that…> Quantum says, his jaw dropping.

<Abyss. We made a terrible mistake> Agony answers.

<YOU THINK!?> Kari shouts at her.

<She looks bigger than before> Laceration notes. Despite the fact that Abyss has just leveled the seat of their government and killed thousands of their people, all the four Demons present are still strangely calm and detached.

<She’s a being of pure intellect. If she learned Soul Resonance from Null…> Torn wonders aloud.

<She has all the power of Hell in her hands> Agony agrees.

<Uhm, other than the fact that we’re screwed, what does it mean?> Kari asks.

<She can tap into an unlimited supply of energy> Torn answers.

<What, that’s it? I can deal with energy> Max replies, transforming into a laser beam.

<Quantum, wait> Torn tries to stop him, but of course it’s no use for someone who’s literally moving at the speed of light.

 

There’s something to be said about someone who looks at a giant monster crushing a mountain and killing thousands of Demons and thinks “I can take that” without missing a beat.

The laser hits Abyss in the shoulder, completely detaching the arm from the rest of her body. It stops in mid-air, seemingly ignoring the fact that it should be impossible, and returns for a second hit that severs one of her legs. It continues to ricochet back and forth, creating dozens of holes in various parts of her body. Finally Quantum retakes human form, landing on the ground and taking a deep breath. He wipes the sweat from his forehead and looks up… and his jaw drops.

<Is that it?> Abyss mocks him. She’s still standing, glowing red and as big a mountain; her limbs may have been disconnected, but they’re simply floating now. What’s worse, it takes her only a couple of seconds to repair all the damages.

<Not really. Here’s a little something I’ve been meaning to try for a while… Gigawatt Shot!>

Quantum concentrates, and his hands shine with power. He sheds a few molecules of skin, transforming them into antimatter and trapping them into an electromagnetic field. The antimatter annihilates the atoms in the air, generating energy in the form of elementary particles and gamma rays… which Quantum is able to change into a single shot of pure destruction, aimed at Abyss.

She chuckles. A dagger the size of a building appears in her hand, and she uses it to deflect the blast with a single swift motion. When the energy hits a mountain range barely above the horizon, it explodes with the power of a hundred nuclear warheads.

<There are so many reasons why that shouldn’t have worked> Quantum says.

<This Blood energy is amazing, isn’t it? And I control ALL of it>– Abyss gloats, twisting the energy in her hands to reconfigure the dagger in a new form… a scythe, as big as she is.

<Now let’s see what I can really do with it!>  she says, lifting the scythe above her head and rotating it. She’s so big that this raises an unbearably strong wind, which gets even worse when the scythe increases its size even more. Quantum tries to stop her by shooting an array of laser beams, but at this point she doesn’t even seem to care. She’s laughing.

<This would be the moment for a brilliant idea!> Quantum shouts.

<I have one> Torn declares, creating a sword and holding it with both hands… right above Noriko’s chest, as she’s laying unconscious on the ground.

<Torn, don’t!> both Kari and Quantum protest, jumping at him to stop him. It’s no use: Torn thrusts his sword in Noriko’s heart, shouting:

<SOUL LINK!!!>

The Scythe of Abyss hits, and the world becomes even more red than Hell itself.

 

Nowhere

Max Black a.k.a. Quantum wakes up with a splitting headache. The sound of a nearby explosion doesn’t help. He doesn’t know how he wound up here: he’s not standing in front of the Pandemonium anymore, he’s inside some sort of temple. The statue of a bearded god holding a trident is right behind him. The same force that’s making the ground shake is also creating more and more cracks in the statue’s bright white marble.

<Okay. I guess I’m not in Hell anymore.>

He carefully walks outside, still trying to clear his head and failing miserably: it’s almost too much to take all at once. He examines each strange thing he sees, trying to make sense of them one at a time. He’s in a city under siege, with explosions coming from every direction. There are two suns in the sky. And there are dead bodies everywhere, men and women whose body from the waist down is a just a snake tail.

<Where the f#ck am I?> Quantum wonders, transforming into light to move to the top of the nearest intact building… there aren’t many of them. The place looks much older than Earth or Myridia… judging from the houses, he feels like he stepped into the Middle Ages.

But of course it’s much weirder than that: there’s a metallic pyramid floating in front of the city, blasting buildings with laser beams coming from its base. An army of robotic scorpions as big as tanks is marching towards the city, crushing under their legs the bodies of more snake people.

Max has never felt this lost.

<Calm down, it’s just snake people fighting a pyramid, there’s got to be something rational about this, right? At least it can’t get any weirder.>

<What are you doing here?> Torn asks.

Max turns towards his voice, happy to see someone he knows. But Torn is much younger than usual, looking barely twenty years old, and instead of his duster he has leather straps on his torso.

<Okay, I’m only gonna ask this once, and if you don’t give me a straight I swear to God I will shoot you. What-the-Hell-is-going-on-here!?!?>

<This is the Anubis invasion of Tyre. We were sent to stop him: we can’t allow an Egyptian foothold in the Aegean Galaxy. This is happening sixty-five years ago.>

<You’re saying this is the past!?>

<No. I’m saying this is my mind> Torn answers, jumping down the building to land on a scorpion robot and cut it in half with his sword.

Another Demon joins him, a girl with much longer and brighter red hair. They are brutally efficient, especially the woman: the robots don’t stand the slightest chance. While the two Demons attack the pyramid with a unified attack, Quantum’s attention focuses on an unexpected sound: a child crying.

He returns to the city, finding a horrifying scene: a half-snake baby girl, five years at best, is crying in front of the dead bodies of her parents. When she sees Quantum, she slithers away in fear.

<It’s okay, it’s okay! I’m not going to hurt you!> he says, approaching slowly.

<She can’t understand you> Torn says. All of a sudden, he’s right next to Quantum.

<What is she? An alien?>

<A Lamian; they’re quite common in the Aegean Galaxy. I didn’t speak Olympian at the time, so I had no way to tell her that we were here to help her god Poseidon.>

<Oh there you are> the female Demon says, landing next to Torn after sliding down a red energy pole she created. Quantum takes a good look at her: like Torn, from the waist up she’s only wearing a few leather straps that barely contain her ample chest. Torn notices the lust in his eyes:

<Don’t even think about it: she’s my sister. And she’s insane.>

<Oh, it seems I missed one. My bad> she says, created a jagged knife and licking its blade. Only then Quantum connects the dots: the snake people are covered in cuts and laying in pools of blood.

<We killed enough today, Pain. We don’t need this one> Torn chastises her.

<Why do you care? They’re just animals, Torn. We have orders to keep the mission a secret.>

<Torn, please don’t tell me you killed all these people> Quantum pleads.

<They would’ve told Poseidon. Hell must remain neutral. The balance must be…>

Torn doesn’t finish. He’s holding a sword in his hand, but he can’t bring himself to kill the snake girl: her cries are clearly affecting him.

<No. There must be another way> he decides, making the sword disappear… only to see the girl’s throat sliced by a scalpel created by his sister Pain.

<What? She was really annoying> the Demon woman justifies herself. Torn reacts creating another sword and jumping at her; when they start fighting, the sky turns red.

<That’s never a good sign> Quantum says to himself.