The soldier shook his head, punching his own helmet in an attempt to finish shaking off the whiteness flooding his view. Rubbing the front of his visor, he managed to get the last of it off and blinked several times, hard.

His eyes widened as he took in the scene, namely that he wasn't covered in a wave of dead bodies anymore. That was a pleasant surprise. The rest of it was anything but pleasant.

About a thousand horned entities and humanoid monsters were staring at him with various expressions of disbelief, toothy jaws hanging open. At his feet was a very humanoid demon, wearing clothes. Its tail, the horns, the backward-facing legs - it definitely wasn't human. Right behind him was a good portion of the corpses he'd slaughtered, but in front of him were a genuine beast of a squid (on fire) and the biggest dog he'd ever seen. His eyes narrowed as he took it in.

He'd had a rabbit a long time ago. Its name had been Daisy, and he'd really liked it. Loved it, actually, but he could barely remember what it looked like anymore. It'd been slaughtered by demons. This thing wasn't a rabbit, but it was both fluffy and furry, so it was close.

The giant squid thing ignored him and hurled itself at the dog, wrapping itself around it and sinking its large beak into the dog's skin. It howled in agony and began spinning around, trying to bite the thing off.

Sprinting forward, the soldier jumped into the air, twisting over the dog's back, and grabbed the squid. He didn't do it gently. His hands sank into the thing's flesh, and he squeezed as his movement brought him to the other side of the dog. Tensing, he rotated and brought his shoulders forward, grunting from the effort. The squid was launched forward and slammed into the wall, sending cracks spiderwebbing up the wall.

Murder streak much? You've just summarily annihilated a Level 49 and acquired 4269 experience points! You've avoided leveling up again by a single digit! Your luck drops (1) point!

Behind his helmet, the soldier frowned. He was an exceptionally strong individual, he knew that. It was why he'd been picked for his mission. The Praetor suit he wore amplified that even further, but he'd just thrown a creature that weighed probably four hundred pounds a good hundred feet. That wasn't something human limits really allowed.

Turning, he saw the dog bleeding behind him. Its eye was swollen, a long gash running down its face, and it backed away from him, its tail between his legs.

He looked around, taking in the huge crowd of demons. They still hadn't done anything yet, but it was only a matter of time before they realized they outnumbered him a thousand to one. Then he looked back at the dog, bleeding and growling at him. A potential companion, the first in years. Decades, maybe.

No, he needed to keep his priorities straight.

Sprinting for the dog, he ducked under its head, a startled expression on its face, and lifted the thing off its feet. Steadying himself, he righted the creature, turned, and started running with the dog on his shoulder.

That was when the crowd finally reacted, a chorus of furious cries raining down around him. A moment later, the air was filled with fire, and he increased his pace, heading for the giant metal portcullis in front of him. His boots, heavy as they were, still felt as though he was skipping across the ground. Hefting the dog, which was yelping frantically, he lowered his other shoulder and tackled the portcullis.

He went straight through, the metal crumpling like tinfoil before him. He almost tripped for a moment on the mangled remains, but righted himself and kept running. Something landed behind him and inhaled sharply, and the air took a sudden dip. His suit was designed to avoid that sort of situation, however, and he kept going without stopping. If anything, the lack of air resistance actually helped him to speed up.

There was a wide, open area in front of him. Dim yellow lights hung from the ceiling, illuminating the startled denizens before him. He heard yelling coming from behind him, and increased his pace further.

A wall, made from some crimson material, was in front of him. To his right was a group of hulking creatures, red fleshy ones heading for him. They didn't look too far off from the monsters he was used to. On his left was an incredibly thin humanoid, standing probably twenty, twenty-five feet tall. It turned its head towards him, a perfectly smooth plate covering its face. Behind him was an onrushing wave of the crowd from the arena, shouting and screaming with hideous faces contorted in fury.

He shrugged slightly. Wall it is.

Lowering his shoulder once again, he ran straight ahead. The dog on his shoulder whimpered, tightening its huge claws on his armor as he punched through with all the grace and delicate maneuvering of a battering ram. His feet pumped for several more seconds, and he looked down, eyes widening.

They'd come out of the wall about a hundred feet of the ground.

Crud.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Geller'rekt leaned back in his chair, rubbing at the small of his back irritably. He was an archdemon, level 52 and with a class of . Everyone had laughed at him when he'd acquired the class, but then he'd become the number one person to go to for any and all complaints regarding any and everything happening in Brimstone.

They still laughed at him, though.

Putting his square glasses on, he squinted at the paper in front of him irritably. Paperwork could technically be done with magic. He even possessed the appropriate spell to do so, but the problem with filing it magically was that inconsistencies popped up a lot more often when you weren't studying it personally, and Geller'rekt was nothing if not a perfectionist.

Everything about his office showed that side of him. The neat, tidy desk with its document tray and the Torrent figurine keeping the small stack of papers down. The fireplace, in which flames were frozen in the most symmetrical possible shape. His desk lamp and pencils, organized and lined up until they were perfectly square, parallels and perpendiculars carefully measured all over his office.

So it was a bit annoying when an imp launched itself through his door, bouncing off the floor and crashing into the wall behind him, knocking his circular clock off of it. Geller'rekt caught the clock with a spell, standing abruptly as he did. He allowed the clock to gently fall into his hands as the imp fell to the floor with a groan. Ignoring it, he examined the clock closely, ensuring it wasn't damaged, then floated it back up hang on its nail.

Seizing the imp by the back of the neck one-handed, he lifted it into the air. Ignoring its face screwed up in pain, he deposited it in front of his desk, sitting down as he did. "Now then," he said levelly, "What can I help you with?"

Imps generally topped out at four feet or so, featuring a pair of bumps on the top of their angular heads. With wrinkled red skin and squinty yellow eyes, the creatures often had their faces permanently stuck in a perpetual grimace. This one was no different, but he recognized it regardless. "Kalofick, correct? Aren't you Qagth'rak's messenger?"

It gagged, massaging the area around its neck and nodding frantically. "Agh! Gess. Yes. That was mean! You didn't hafta do that!"

Geller'rekt sighed deeply. "Please get on with it. I have better things to do."

Kalofick hissed, its forked tongue slipping through its triangular teeth. "Like what? Giving candy away to HRKK!" It stopped talking with an abrupt choking sound as Geller leaned across the desk and grabbed it by the throat. As its face flushed an increasingly deep shade of red, he fixed his eyes on its wide yellow ones and said evenly, "I said I have better things to do." He dropped it pointedly, and it collapsed on the floor, dragging breath into its empty lungs. He sat back down and folded his hands in his lap, crossing his legs.

Finally, Kalofick gasped, "New... new ."

Geller'rekt rolled his eyes. "Teracot gets a new every other month. Why would Qagth'rak send you over something as trivial as this?"

The imp shook its head, gargling. "No. New in Hell."

Raising an immaculately trimmed black eyebrow, Geller'rekt leaned forward, steepling his fingers and placing his elbows on the desk. "Really? Details, please."

It was Kalofick's turn to give an eye roll. Now the terrifying archdemon wanted to be polite, sure. "Rip in the Arena of Joy. fell out. Covered in armor and sliding down a hill of corpses, none of them alive. Didn't react at first, so Zau went to check on him. snapped his neck in one move, killed him instantly. Killed a spitter, kidnapped a hellhound, vanished into the city. We don't know where he is now."

Geller'rekt's eyes widened noticeably. "The 's spawn point is in the middle of one of the Arenas? Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't only spawn in a place they feel safe and secure in?"

It was a rhetorical question. Every demon with half an INT point knew as much information about the terrifying people from another world, in case they were summoned to Teracot's Overworld and had to fight one.

Kalofick scratched his head. "Ehhh. Mebbe?"

Geller'rekt rubbed the bridge of his nose, closing his eyes. Apparently imps lacked that critical half-point of INT. With an irritated groan, he asked, "So, to summarize, a new showed up in the middle of Hell, killed a high-level archdemon in one move, abducted a six-hundred-pound monster, then just... disappeared?"

He didn't need to look in Kalofick's direction to know the imp was nodding with an almost religious fervor. Needless to say, it didn't want to get strangled again.

Leaning back in his comfy high-backed chair, Geller'rekt rubbed his face with his hands, dragging the bags under his eyes tiredly. "By all the Nine, how does that happen?" Kalofick shrugged, fidgeting nervously and hopping from one foot to the other.

With a sigh, he opened one eye to stare at the imp. "Have we at least figured out what to call it? Scrying won't work half as well if we don't know what its name is."

Kalofick nodded again. "We imps call him Doom Guy. If you'd seen him throw that spitter across the arena, you'd know why. He even busted the gate with holes in it."

"Portcullis. It's called a portcullis, Kalofick. At least get your terms right." Geller'rekt told him absently, staring out the window at the sprawling city of Brimstone before him. He fingered his chin thoughtfully. "Doom Guy, hmm? I must say, it does seem to fit quite well."

Turning to his desk, he opened a drawer and removed a clean sheet of paper from it, casting a quick on it and turning it to face Kalofick. "Picture his face, please." The imp was well aware of what Geller'rekt was doing and focused as hard as it could, closing its eyes and growling intensely. A helmet began to form on the paper, a green-gray one with a black visor. Geller'rekt shivered in spite of himself, chiding himself as he did. It was a picture. It couldn't hurt him.

Selecting one of his pencils, he began expertly making quick marks, scratching with precise, calculated movements. A few seconds later, he handed the wanted poster to the imp. "Give this to the printers and tell them to put a reward on him. Something sizable."

The imp nodded repeatedly and seized the paper in its grubby little hands, wings sprouting from its shoulder blades as it ran out the door. It fired off one last retort as it did. "You should put on a pretty little skirt, !" It flew off, wavering and rolling in the air ungracefully, cackling maniacally.

Geller'rekt shook his head, returning to his desk. "Doom Guy. This could be quite interesting." He organized his pencil, sharpening it with a quick spell, and then carefully lined up the rest of the objects on his desk. Leaning back in his chair, he mused, "This could be very interesting indeed."