by Eric Vall
“There is so much wrong with that sentence, I don’t even know where to start.” Ariel shook her head.
“Eh, oh, well,” Todd retorted with a wave of his hand, “wrestling’s where it’s at, anyways.”
“Oh, you like wrestling?” Ariel perked up at bit. “What did you think of the Gold Medal match at last year’s Olympics?”
Todd turned his head to the side as he pondered Ariel’s question, but then he burst out laughing.
“I ain’t talking about that kinda wrestling,” he clarified, “I’m talkin’ about the real shit. Ya know, with Stone Cold and The Rock and Andre the Giant and, of course, the greatest wrestler to ever grace the ring, the Hulkster.”
“Oh.” Ariel rolled her eyes, and then said nothing more.
“Anywho, what’s the shindig here, bro?” Todd asked. “Did your little trip into the Shadow Realm work out okay? And, more importantly, did you bring me back a souvenir?”
“We’re just going over everyone’s new powers,” I explained. “We need to investigate the Shadow World, but we want to make sure we take the best team possible.”
“Well, I feel sorry for the poor sucker who gets roped into doing that,” Todd chuckled.
The group went silent as we all stared at him, but he didn’t seem to be getting the hint.
“Todd … ” I tried to lead him to the conclusion, but it took him a hot minute.
Then, finally, realization lit up his tiny red face.
“What?” he gasped. “You want me to go? I’m somehow flattered and insulted all at the same time, bro.”
“It’s a stealth mission, Todd,” I explained, “so we need your invisibility powers and your new flashbang magic. Those could both get us out of a pickle. If we find ourselves in one, of course.”
“Awwww, Jakey … ” Todd fake-sniffled, “I knew you all thought I was more than just the eye candy of this group.”
All of us tried to hold in our laughter, but a little bit of it slipped through the cracks. Todd just looked confused as we all giggled to ourselves.
“That’s right, bro,” I humored the imp, “we need you for your looks and your powers.”
“And my brains,” Todd added.
“And the brains,” I repeated, “but we still--”
“And my charm.”
“Right,” I continued, “but I was saying--”
“And my massive, maaaaassssive horse cock,” the imp interrupted. “Oh, and don’t forget my ripped bod. Those are what gets us all the ladies, bro.”
“Of course they are.” I rolled my eyes. “What I was saying is a couple of the succubi still need to show us their new abilities. Mirage, Invidia, Sia, and Eclipse, I believe.”
“My powers pretty much stayed the same,” Eclipse admitted, “the only difference is now, I can move my black holes at will instead of just launching them in the air and holding them there. It’s pretty cool, I guess.”
“Always the charmer,” Superbia joked, “but I’m afraid my power set has remained fairly static, as well. I can now manipulate things that are caught in my black Hellfire down to the millimeter, but that’s about it.”
“Those are still both really good upgrades,” I reminded the two succubi.
“Seriously,” Todd added, “Lizbeth there could totally play interdimensional pong with two of her portals. Orrrr, she could use ‘em as demonic roombas!”
“Demonic roombas?” Eclipse raised her eyebrow at the imp.
“Totally,” he mused, “say there’s a mess on the floor, and you don’t wanna bust out the Dyson. Just throw up one of those sucky portal thingies, move it around the room, and voila! Mess is gone.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Eclipse lied.
“Then that leaves two,” I said as I turned to Mirage and Invidia.
“My black magic is kind of … macabre,” Mirage sighed.
“It really is,” Invidia said with an uncharacteristic half-smile, “I really wish I had it.”
“What, does it force people to listen to the greatest hits of Paramore?” Todd giggled. “I wouldn’t wish that shit on my worst enemy.”
“Paramore is an incredible band!” Vidia growled as she wagged her finger at Todd. “You just don’t understand their message.”
“Oh, I get it alright,” the imp muttered to himself, “it just so happens to make my ears bleed.”
“I can show people their greatest fears,” Mirage spoke up to diffuse the situation. “Or, more specifically, I can manifest them in an illusion. Like so.”
“Wait!” Todd pleaded. “Don’t you dare--”
Before he could finish, the imp’s eyes lit up with black Hellfire, and he began to shriek in terror. He threw his hands up in the air and began to make a beeline for the exit, but I stopped him with a quick cast of purple fire. Instead, Todd smacked into the barrier, fell down on his ass, and then rolled around on the ground in the fetal position.
“You okay, bro?” I questioned as the flames disappeared from his eyes.
“F-fucking Mr. Socko, bro … ” he shuddered. “He was on a giant hand, coming straight for me.”
“Who the fuck is Mr. Socko?”
“Mr. Socko … ” the imp repeated, “that creepy ass sock puppet Mick ‘Mankind’ Foley always wore on his hand. It scared the shit out of me as a kid, bro, and I still see that sharpie-faced fucker in my nightmares.”
Huh. I always knew Todd had some strange fears, but I never in a million years would have guessed he was afraid of sock puppets. I guess that explained his disgusting habit of never wearing socks when he was a human.
“Totally badass, right?” Invidia smiled, but then she returned to a frown the second she saw everyone else was looking at her. “I mean, bad. And ass. Totally lame.”
“What about you, Vidia?” Lilith offered. “Show Jacob your new abilities.”
“Oh, it’s nothing,” the gothic succubus sighed, “I can just make people feel painful sensations anywhere in their body.”
“Uhhhhh, that’s kinda a big deal,” I laughed. “You could make somebody think they were having a heart attack or a stroke or something. Fuck, or you could just distract people for long enough to incapacitate them. You’re definitely on this strike team.”
The dark-haired succubus gasped and then seemed to recoil into herself.
“You--You want me to go on a mission?” she asked with wide eyes. “With, like, people and stuff?”
“That’s kinda how it works, Elvira,” Todd reminded her.
“I don’t know,” Invidia sighed and looked down, “my social battery is pretty drained at the moment.”
I walked over to the succubus, placed my hand on her shoulder tenderly, and then gave her the warmest smile I could muster.
“For me?” I asked. “It would mean the world to me if you could come along.”
Invidia looked up at me with her purple, eyeliner-covered eyes and smiled.
“Okay,” she sighed, “I guess I’ll come along. But just for you. My dark heart sings a song when you ask for my help.”
“Awww.” I smiled wider at my beautiful dark succubus.
“What about the rest of your team?” Lilith asked. “I only count five so far. Do you think that’ll be enough?”
“Not at all,” I answered. “I need at least two more … ”
I thought about it for a second. Any of these women would be useful, but I needed to tailor my team for stealth and their ability to crowd control. Finally, after a minute or two of deliberation, I had made my decision.
“Inpulsa,” I announced, “and Deja. I want both of you on the strike team, too.”
Both of the succubi could take out large groups of enemies quite effortlessly, so adding them to the team was a no-brainer.
“Sweeeeeet!” Deja fist-pumped, and then she turned to Inpulsa for a high five.
Inpulsa looked at her Sister, rolled her eyes, and then obliged.
“All the rest of you, I want you to work closely with Cupiditas,” I announced
. “Train like you’ve never trained before. Because in a few days, we’re going to be on Beelzebub’s doorstep, and I’m going to need you to give me everything you’ve got.”
“Don’t get too far ahead of yourself, my love,” Libidine warned with a concerned look. “The Shadow World still awaits. If for some reason it is unsafe, or if something were to happen while you were in there … ”
“It won’t,” I reassured her. “The Shadow People might be dangerous, but they can bleed just like me and you.”
“And if it bleeds,” Todd explained in his Governator voice, “we can kill it.”
“Exactly,” I noted, “anything we encounter in the Shadow World that wants to kill us will fall, just like all the other demon bastards who’ve tried before.”
“That’s our King!” Superbia declared with a grin.
“All hail King Ralston!” Lilith added.
The succubi cheered at my words, but I wasn’t as confident as I let on. Yeah, we could kill these things and yes, we were stronger now than we’d ever been in the past, but I honestly wasn’t sure what we were going to encounter in the Shadow World. Maybe there were just those creatures I’d seen before, or maybe there were lots more beings that were ten times worse.
There was only one way to find out, though.
“So,” I looked to my strike team, “are we ready to go?”
“Fuck no, bro,” Todd retorted with a snort, “but has that ever stopped us before?”
I looked around at the rest of my friends as I motioned for the strike team to get into position. Then I thought about what could possibly go wrong once we were in the Shadow World.
With those thoughts on my mind, it didn’t take much effort to conjure up my fear magic. Black Hellfire arose from my palms and then slowly crawled up my arms.
“Everybody take my hand,” I commanded as I stuck out my arms.
Every member of the strike team grabbed on, and then my magic spread onto their bodies like wildfire.
The next thing I knew, we were floating weightlessly through space and time until finally, we landed unceremoniously onto the sandy ground of the coliseum.
But it wasn’t the coliseum. Or at least, it wasn’t our coliseum.
“Holy shit,” Deja gasped as she looked around the desolate landscape.
“I second that,” Todd shivered, “this is some David Lynch shit, bro.”
The air around us was silent, save for the staticky white noise. We could still see the rest of our friends, still lined up in the broken circle that we had left them in, but they most certainly couldn’t see us. Their bodies were frozen in time and distorted nearly beyond recognition. Meanwhile, the columns of the coliseum stood lopsided, with half of them the height of my own body, and the others as large as a skyscraper.
I turned back to my friends and gave them a somber nod.
“Welcome to the Shadow World, guys.”
Chapter 5
“Not gonna lie,” Invidia mused as she looked at the horrific environment around us, “I kinda dig this place. I appreciate the aesthetic.”
“Of course you do,” Todd snickered. “A place of unspeakable horrors, populated by no other human beings? Throw in some Hot Topics and screamo, and it’d be every goth girl’s wet dream.”
“It’s a bit too ‘Dali’ for me,” Ira sighed, “where’s the whips and chains? The screams of never-ending torture? The rivers of blood? I’d take Hell over this place any day … ”
“Can they see us?” Deja asked as she waved her hand in front of Cupi’s frozen face.
“Nope,” I sighed, “at least, I don’t think so.”
“Not gonna lie,” Eclipse spoke up, “I’m trying my best not to laugh.”
“You think this is funny?” Deja gasped.
“Sure it is.” Eclipse grinned. “All of our friends look like they’ve been stretched out like a cartoon character. It’s kinda ridiculous.”
“Trust me,” I warned, “there’s nothing ridiculous about this place.”
“Hold on, bro,” Todd questioned as he rubbed his goatee, “do you think time stands still in this place? Like, if we’re in here for, say, two weeks, do you think we’ll come back, and it’ll have been two years or some shit like that? I really don’t wanna get Interstellar-ed, bro.”
“I honestly don’t know,” I noted as I looked around nervously, “both times I’ve been here, we didn’t really check the time or anything.”
“Or maybe it’s like Inception … ” Todd mumbled. “Shit, what’s your totem, bro? Wait! Don’t tell me. If we start showing each other our totems, it’ll get us all fucked up in the head.”
“Man, if this place slows down time, I may totally want to stay,” Tris joked, “I could put off my duties for days, and it wouldn’t hurt anybody!”
“That’s the spirit, Slothy!” Todd exclaimed.
“I feel like you guys aren’t as afraid of this place as you should be,” I sighed.
“‘Fear’ isn’t in my vocabulary,” Inpulsa mused as a bit of electricity crackled in her hands, “especially when we’re dealing with a bunch of creatures who thrive in the darkness.”
Todd just shrugged. “Eh, it looks like any other place in Hell to me. Are you forgetting we saw human beings strung up like Christmas lights with their own bowels?”
“That was fucked up,” I admitted, “but this place is … a different kind of fucked up. Like you said, it’s a whole ‘Cronenberg vs. Lynch’ situation.”
“Both of those directors are fan-fucking-tastic, bro,” Todd giggled. “I don’t see what the problem is.”
“The problem is we could be swarmed by Shadow People at any second,” Inpulsa retorted. “I don’t know about you, but I’d very much like to come out of this mission alive.”
“Speaking of the mission,” Tris interjected, “what exactly is our goal here? Because I totally don’t want to make it any longer or any more difficult than possible.”
“It’s mostly just an exploration mission,” I explained, “we need to figure out what kind of obstacles we’ll be dealing with, especially if we want to try and bring an entire army through here.”
“I can’t wait to meet the Shadow People,” Invidia said through a stifled giggle, “I’m sure they’re just as twisted and charming as the rest of this place.”
“I really shoulda stuck with ‘Winona’ as her nickname, bro,” Todd observed as he watched Vidia look around in awe, “she’d totally be at home in a Tim Burton movie.”
“Can we interact with them?” Deja questioned, but she was still focused on our frozen friends. “Like, if I were to touch Libidine’s nose, would she get an itch in our world?”
“Or if I kicked one of them as hard as I could between the legs, would they get a shot of intense pleasure?” Ira suggested.
“I’m honestly not sure how that works,” I shook my head, “I’d imagine there has to be some crossover, considering those Shadow People get out into Earth Realm every now and again. And please don’t kick anybody between the legs, Ira. It’s not as pleasurable as you make it sound.”
“You must be doing it wrong, then,” the Sister of Wrath said as she stuck out her tongue.
“Ohhhhh,” Todd snickered as he ran over to the area in front of all of our frozen friends, “I’m totally gonna make a dick print in the sand and then sign my name, bro. They would totally notice that on the other side.”
“Maybe don’t use your dick?” I said with a raised finger, but it was too late.
All of us turned away as the imp reached down toward his crotch. I heard a sandy ‘plop’ against the ground, followed by the sound of his claws scritching away at the dirt.
“There,” the imp clapped his hands together as he walked back over to us, “message sent. I just hope it’s not like the rest of my dick pics, where the text is all fucky.”
“What do you mean, the text is all fucky?” Deja questioned.
“It’s weird, Clockblocker,” the imp began, “every time I send a dick pic
to a babe, all I get back is the little ‘seen’ notification. What’s even weirder, though? Sometimes, I’ll get a message back saying ‘this user has blocked your number.’ Must be a glitch in the cell service or something like that.”
“Uh, sure,” Deja rolled her eyes, “that’s definitely what’s happening.”
“It totally is,” the imp didn’t take the hint, “but every time I call my provider about it, they threaten to kick me off my plan. Maybe the size of my schlong is just too large to put in an attachment, and it’s fucking with their speeds … ”
“Enough about the dick pics,” I sighed. “As much as I hate to say it, we need to go exploring. Just remember to keep moving. I’m shocked we haven’t already been swarmed by Shadow People.”
I gave my team the signal to follow, and I unsheathed the Unhallowed Sword. Then I took a deep breath, tightened my grip around the weapon, and headed toward the exit of the building. We passed the distorted columns and then had to scrunch down to fit through the doorway, which now stood at an intense diagonal angle.
“Bro, forget Lynch,” Todd observed as we stepped out into the landscape of the mirror Fourth Circle, “I feel like this whole place was designed by Tim Burton.”
He wasn’t wrong.
The normally flat land between the coliseum and my castle was jagged, with miniature hills that stretched up to pointed tips and were aimed in all directions.
All the way off in the distance stood my brimstone castle, but the giant tower Todd had converted to make a “T” shape was nearly unrecognizable. Each side of the letter’s wings were pulled in a different direction, both up and down, and the tower itself looked like it was a glitch in a video game.
Meanwhile, the outer perimeter of the castle walls stood with giant gaps. It was hard to tell from this distance, but the space between the walls looked like they were wide enough to fit a cargo ship through.
Yet, there were still no Shadow People.
“You sure you weren’t just imagining all those Shadow People, Jakey?” Todd questioned. “All I’m seeing in this place is twisty turny architecture, bro.”
