It Came From Hell

[Doomguy]

I left Dante's Abyss through the personal transporter and found myself exactly where I was before I left for the self inflicted Hell that the blood sport provided. I looked across the tarmac that led up to the round the clock party town of Costa del Sol, the same tacky sign in the exact same spot. It had not changed at all in the few days I was gone, bar the DA sign up tent, its aura of commercialized horseshit, and the rising moon on another chilly tropic night. I could say that I missed the sandy vacation verse, but after the initial few seconds that i absorbed the sights and sense I remembered what I came back to and my shoulders slumped. Back to deal with the Empire and pirate orks and a mission that didn't seem any closer than before.

But I wasn't going to be playing around with shadows and nice words like I was some kind of second rate secret agent. Despite the fact that I was just the first place loser in the competition, the survival island had taught me something. It reminded me that I was someone who solved problems with my hands. No more need to play mind games with officers. Put my plans in motion and have some actual progress to show for all the shit I've had to put up with. Now I could do what I did best: defeat my enemies with overwhelming violence.

I first ducked into a workshop, a garage that saw to the few civilian vehicles, and walked up to the owner so I could fix my armor on their workbench. I thought that I find myself with a terrorized man that I would have to cohere into help, while the other customers would stare on with fresh memories of my rampage, and jeer and laugh to themselves about the freak of the week.

What I got could only be described as star-struct admiration, the mechanic's face lit up like a flood light and he happily ushered me into the back to the tools I needed. And while I didn't quite hear what the customers I cut in line said, a glance back through the door saw more surprise and wonder than disapproval. It seemed that I gained familiarity from my time in DA.

And when I think about it, I would have preferred the disapproval. Better that people look down on me for doing evil, even for the right reason, than to be celebrated for a massacre.

Once I had the tools on hands and I summoned an extra large stack of armor shards, I dug down into the buffle bag I carried and pulled out the ruined helmet and armor. Damaged parts fell away to the floor and new pieces fit into where they were needed. Like a life saving jigsaw puzzle. It became stronger as I layered shards over the massive hole where a spike once pieced my lung, and while there was still some damage seen it was now a battle scar that showed its hard fought battles than a structural weakness. The helmet's split was easily taken out, and the broken visor was popped out and a new one took it's place. The ironic look revived.

I held the helmet so that it was leveled to my head, and stared at the polarized screen that showed myself in it's reflective surface. Faced with their selves, most people would have though of who they were and what they have done. I didn't need that kind of philosophical bullshit anymore. I faced down the horrors of Hell and came out the otherside. I beat some of the Omniverse's toughest and came out better than all bar one. I was the greatest soldier in all of creation.

I let a wide smile grow on my face and saw it mirrored by my helmet, happy to seem me again. Welcome back, Doomguy. I turned it around and let it slide down the side of my heads until it fit snugly and my HUD flashed on.

Complete once more.

My armor came next, the day glow green stood out as always. The weapons took some time as I fit them back into the place I liked them and the their ammo. The newly acquired dagger was the last thing I put on, something that I hadn't much though off since I arrived.

There was an uncontested beauty in the piece, something nice to look at and made to probably be part of some decadent noble's collection. It certainly didn't look like a real weapon, as it's almost translucent material made it almost look like glass. And I could swear that it was hollow, as each step seemed to shift something inside of it. I could hear faint rattling, but a forced shake seemed to procure nothing. If there was something magical to it, I was left with nothing to go on. I shrugged and placed it under my belt, and thought of it as something I could use in a pinch.

I thanked the manager, who seemed happy to just take the scrap I left behind (and was probably sold on Omni Creg's List), and I set off towards a familiar street. With a click of a button a map that of the entire town of Costa del Sol zoomed onto my view screen, information that I had painstakingly acquired. I marked the security cameras and watched at a pattern finally showed itself, and pointed to a single spot. Only a block away from where I had met three other prime.

It was about time that I payed Eagleeye a visit. Time to take fate into my hands.

[Doomguy]

There weren't a lot of things I wouldn't expect in the Omniverse, its complete tendency to have the strange and completely bizarre at any corner gave it a distinct look of hodgepodge cultures that I had mentioned to earlier. Although they're restricted by the Empire's strict regulations and the material at hands, each place could each claim to be a "tropical style" and yet two buildings right next to each other looked nothing like the other. It was charming, so long as you kept to the area near to the gate.

So it was to my dull surprise that when I gotten to my objective, and rather than some military complex or other reinforced outpost in the street, it was a generic tax office building. It looked closed and abandoned, and those who saw it would have never given it a second thought. Despite how out of place it was. If anything, I should have expected it. While an oppressive force like the Empire liked to stick its totalitarian dick into the eyes of its citizens, metaphorically but probably at least once literally, something so sensitive could not be let out in the public. So they hid it in plain site. I would have missed it too, if I did not fights years clearing out these kind of hidden bases. You learn to spot the blacked out windows and the still working cameras for a supposedly abandoned building.

My perch from the down the street was in one of the few blind spots away from Eagle Eye's surveillance. His overzealous placement of security measures was also his downfall, as the high concentration made the center of the pattern easy to spot out along the many roots leading to it. A closed system might have kept hackers out, but it made his physical position obvious.

And I doubt that anything the Empire overseer had could stand up to me.

My route was a thin opening within the block of buildings that the target laid at the corner of. Although unacceptable from outside with fences, there was a small alleyway though the middle that one could access via a back door through another business. The crab shack that I picked didn't exactly put up much of a fight as I just passed by everyone, through their kitchen, and was out into the alley with no one but a stray cat to welcome me into its smelly unkempt world.

Both hands wrapped around the handle of my pistol as I slowly advanced towards the wall on the side of the tax office, the personal weapon aimed ahead. Although no cameras swept over the narrow passageway, I did not give any errant last defenses to blow my assault before I was in position. I glanced from wall to wall and everything in-between. No laser line, no sound sensors, no movement detectors, not even a piece of a string. I smiled as I saw that I was clear, and crept up to the the base of the building.

The wall of made of large cement blocks stacked in alternate order with a layer of plaster between each row. They didn't quite jut out enough to climb, but the blocks themselves had a very gritty texture that was meant to break up the normally flat aesthetic. It wasn't much, but when I looked above me and saw a window sill just out of my reach, it would be enough to get me up.

Now, for whatever purpose this building was original built for, the architect thought that it was better to have the windows about 12 feet off the ground. I'm sure they thought it would keep some low level thug from just smashing the window in and just walk in and take stuff out. While it might have kept the budding burglar out, it might as well have been a unguarded tuna sandwich for a physically fit space marine.

With a short running start I leaped towards the wall, planted my boot on the wall and with enough traction I boosted myself up and I grabbed onto the ledge with ease. With a grunt I lifted all 300 pounds of equipment up onto the window, carefully balanced myself, and then climbed up to the second story window with a death grip on anything even remotely solid.

There was no way to look inside, whoever did the black out job took the effort to not half ass it. No sounds when I put my helmet up to the wall meant there were also some kind of sound dampener. This was a professional set up. Good, I would have been disappointed if it wasn't. But a flick of my HUD to the map function revealed what that person had spent so much time to hide: a single hostile dot hid inside at one corner of the room. It then shortly dawned on me that Eagle Eye would have the same technology to detect me, but if he did then this was doomed from the start. It was do or die, there was no other way out.

My small smile turned to a wide and toothy grin as I imagined Eagle Eye's face when I busted in and rammed my boot up his ass.

Perched on the window like an oversize green pigeon, I readied myself for breaching with a smoke grenade in one hand and the steps in a constant loop. Smoke and breach, pistol out, disarm target, extract information out of him, pull data from his rig, In and out, bash and grab. My kind of mission.

-one-

I primed the smoke with a turn of it's activator, heard the tell-tale click of the fuse as it went off, and slammed the grenade through the window. The glass shattered in a wonderful high note, screaming the incoming violent chaos, and I followed immediately after.

-two-

Glass clattered across a cheep office carpet as what might have been the first time in years that light filtered in through the previously blacked window. Smoke already blew out in great cloud and covered most of the room in a thick blanket, while I had my pistol already in one hand before my treads even touched the floor. I expected to see a skinny bureaucrat hunched over a keyboard, pasty skin and atrophied body quivering as their owner questioned their life choices, and a quick take down with only a crack across the head.

What I found was fully stood body with a build closer to my own than a string bean, covered in a tough, padded body armor, completely black save for the Empire's logo at his chest, and a full helmet ,also black and glossy that was almost sphere shape with only a thin bar for a visor. More importantly, he had a heavy blaster pistol in his hand. An intimidating piece that looked like it could put a hole through me and still scorch the wall behind me. He looked ready for me and to defend himself with full force.

That's fine. Bring it on.

-three-

I used the momentum from my Hollywood entrance to throw me into the smoke cloud, which was busy deflecting the light from the window and the computers behind the friendly spy master. Despite the fact that I could barely seem him inside of it, his bulky silhouette pokes through like a shadow projected from the inside of a tent, I could see from the turn of his head that he tracked me with no problem. I wondered how he did that, but wonder was quickly pushed aside as I brought the pistol to bare and fired

The bullet flew out in a burst of fire, whizzed across the space between it and its eventual destination, and then smashed into the man's suit as if it was the wall to a nuclear bunker. The little lead that couldn't felt to the ground at the feet of Eagle Eye, who was not even phased or recoiled when he was gut punched. I hesitated only so that I wouldn't accidentally hit the rig behind him, but I stopped completely as I saw the weapon was useless and tried to reach for anything stronger.

I barely had a finger on the stock of my shotgun when Eagle Eye threw his hand up. His free hand, mind you, and flayed his fingers out as if he was about to grab something. there was a barely audible pff when I felt a pain in my armor, and looked to see a small spike dug into my arm with a wire connected to the two of us.

In an instant I realized with horror what was about to happen and my breath stopped.

-four-

Untolds amount of electricty surged through my flesh body and I was cooked alive.

If you knew what A tazer was, this was a tazer's older truck driving brother. I've been through enough pain to normally brush off something like a stunner, but this was as if someone stabbed me with a powerline. I dropped to the floor as my legs constricted in an undignifed flail as I felt every part of my body burn. I could at best try to ball up and roll to the side, but Eagle Eye was already over me.

-five-

He sighed at he looked down on my twitchy mess of body, his still synthetic voice filled with a regret I wouldn't expect from someone who cooked me like a piece of meat.

"I had hoped you would have been smarter than this" Were his final words before he hovered the barrel of his laser pistol and pulled the trigger.

-five-

-four-

-three-

-two-

-one-

And then I was back on the window sill.

I nearly fell off and comically landed head first into concrete from the sudden shock if may had still held onto the window frame like a gambler to his tickets. I leaned dangerously over the side of the building, my weapons jingled from the sudden moment and the weight alone nearly sent me over the edge. Thankfully everything held together, and I pulled myself back to my original spot. You could imagine the bewilderment I had, I had been dead and rather than a one way ticket to whatever Omni had for a waiting room I was a few second back . Like I respawned in a very forgiving video game.

I would have scratched my head in confusion were it not for the fact that I spotted a orange glow on the reflective surface of the window at waist level. I looked down to barely see the source before the glow faded way. The dagger. It has some kind of inner light, but it was gone before I could examin it. Better off, anyway. Leave the questions to when I wasn't precariously dangled from a second story window.

Was the agent even still there? Map said he was. Same spot. But he knew I was here. Or still here. Or- stop it. Traditional breach and clear didn't work, or won't work, or- I would have slammed my head against the wall to stop if it wouldn't have revealed my position. While I didn't want to risk unneeded damage, a rare form for me, It looked like I needed to.

I carefully juggled me equipment until I had my plasmagun in hand and broke in.

[Doomguy]

There's something to be desired when you've fallen through a window, barely enough force to even get pass the glass barrier, and your entrance announced when your body thuds into the ground on your side as you desperately clutch your plamsa gun to avoid dropping it. That's a very specific example, true, but this would not be the first time that's happened to me. Compared to my much more badass dive and roll in on the first try, this was far more pathetic and seemed more like something more from a comedy that a cinematic action film. It didn't help that the shards of glass that fell under me crinkled under my armored weight when I landed, and my boots didn't even clear the threshold.

Everything was as it was before. The same unlit room with computer screens, Eagle Eye still stood up right with his pistol in his hand. The only difference was that I was on the floor and he had to look down to see me.

I thanked all gods, real or fictional, that he wore a helmet, because I didn't want to see whatever his idea of barely controlled laughter looked like.

But the far more important thing, which made up for everything else, was the warm feeling of plasma death in my hands aimed at the spy's torso. I had previously wanted to avoid the risk of collateral damage, but damage was very much what I wanted right now.

I squeezed the trigger to the back of the guard, and the weapon roared to life. Blue plasma spewed on of the barrel of the weapon, the whole room lit up as the miniature suns flew. The heavy ordinance seared through the man's armor and into their body underneath and flayed everything that the plasma touched. A few seconds too late did Eagle Eye try to move out of the way of the withering firepower, but a massive hole had been burned through his chest and revealed what was inside.

Rather than the smell of burnt flesh and screams of pain from one's cooked insides, there was instead melted metal and inside was a intricate rats nest of mechanical components and wires. A good deal of which I just fried, but my 'friend' didn't seem as crippled as a flesh and blood body would have. But without any cover between the two of us, he could only dodge away until he managed to hit the wall.

"Well that explains a bit" I rolled into a crouch and then exploded towards my opponent, the plasma gun dropped in favor for the chainsaw in front of me. I bull rushed right at the robot as the blade of my tool demanded a ear splinting whine to sink into a warm body. I couldn't give what it wanted, but Eagle Eye would have to do.

"Here, let me communicate how much I hate you" I told Eagle Eye as I sprinted right him and closed the gap in a moment. He tried to use the terrain against me and threw over a table to block my path. Monitors and controls tumbled in a scattered pattern in front of me, awkwardly sat in my way like forgotten stones on a old duty trail. He raised his free hand again to pull the same trick that he tried last time, but I saw it this time and zagged away to let the cable sore over my head. I heard the spike embed into the nearby wall, and I took it as my time to strike.

I bound over everything else in a single jump, legs and chainsaw forward as I cleared the table and was now in Eagle Eye's personal space. He tried to bring the blaster to my head, but I was faster as I brought my talkative weapon down. He tried to pull back, but he was stopped dead when he was tugged towards me by his own cable. A small click inside his arm released him from his predicament as the connection severed, but he couldn't get away from be before I brought the chainsaw down.

The lumber destroying tool dug into his right shoulder, sparks and bits of armor sprayed across both of us as the teeth chewed into the Empire agent. With his back to the wall, he had no way to escape other than through me. And there's no way through me. He tried to bring up his pistol to my head, but I turned the chainsaw to to the side and let it flay across his arm until it hit his hand. Armor plates under his uniform saved the arm itself, but the whirling death caught an edge of his weapon and ripped it straight from his fingers. The pistol was flung far to the other side of the room, out of reach of Eagle Eye's hopes and dreams, and a wicked smile drew under my helmet as I brought up my chainsaw to renew my assault.

Of course, when you're a mechanical man under the employ of a military heavy government as a one of it's many secret agents, you don't skimp out on the upgrades. While I wrestled with the two handed power tool, the agent wind up his fist and, with a sound I normally associated with a jet taking off, threw a punch that slammed right into my stomach and I was knocked off my feet into a low arc. I tripped over the overturned table and went head over end to the ground. With a chainsaw in my hands. That could have ended terribly for me, but I managed to release the triggers and when I inevitably landed on the chain I only put a few debits into the armor rather than being the first human to suicide via chainsaw.

And my gut hurt like hell. Obviously. I felt like someone dropped an anvil onto my midsection, just the slight taste of copper on my tongue told me I might have some internal bleeding, and I was lucky that my armor still took the blunt of it. Said armor had half of it's lower section about three feet from me in about a million smaller pieces. Fuck me, I can barely keep this in once piece for longer than five minutes. I slowly got up to my knees and elbows, got up just high enough that I could reach my weapons, and waited until Eagle Eye got closer.

The soft drums of footstep got closer, the agent carefully shuffled towards his blaster and kept his eye on the table. Such caution would normally be commended, but he should not have just assumed that his punch would put me down. I jumped out from behind the cover, ripped my super shotty from it holster, and leveled both barrels at the spy's head. If Eagle Eye felt fear he should have dropped a deuce when he found himself at the end of the double barreled death dealer, but he chose to try to throw himself out of the firing range.

Thunder clashed as I fired off both shell, fire sprayed from the barrels and a storm of buck shot filled the air in front of me. Despite the jackass' desperate move, the spread caught him under the hail and everything above his shoulders was obliterated. The armor around his neck was turned to particles, a splatter of thick liquid told me I hit either coolant or hydrolic fluid, and either one would hamper his abilities. His helmet shattered and caved inwards in a spider web pattern, the glossy material fell to pieces, and the visor became useless at the glass that held it together crunched and it folded over itself. The force of the blow itself knocked the whatever he was onto his has, one hand clutched at the ruined helmet.

The man who watched over the empire's beach resort was now blind.

The super shotgun broke in half with a push of a button, two hot spent shells popped out as I reached for two more. My knuckles wrapped around the copper caps and I pulled them from my belt. With a practiced motion I plunked both of them in the barrel in one and when I whipped the barrels up and I gave a warm smile when I heard the click as the loaded weapon locked back into place. I stared down at Eagle Eye, who desperately tried to rip his helmet off while it was still impacted around his dome. HIs hand scrapped at the ground where he last saw his blaster. I walked over and kicked it away, and left him to struggle uselessly. Not one to leave someone perfectly capable to come back and sucker punch me, I unleashed another double barreled into his legs and more fluid leaked out onto the floor. His legs were left unable to move, and I could go on back to the mission without any more shit.

Or so I had hoped, and my hopes so rarely turned to reality. The destruction caused to the room was less than a typical space marine breach, but it was still an obvious warzone to anyone who saw it. Servers, towers, monitors, electronics of all kinds sat silents as the constant moment of the fight caused them to be flung from their spot and land to function no longer. only a single monitor still lit after everything, and with a flick of the mouse it went off the screen saver to the last thing it was on.

The log in screen.

Despite the infatuation that I was about to be road blocked by a damn middle school level security system, I couldn't help by smirk at the bare minimal effort he took to keep me out past a direct confrontation. It seemed he really banked on winning. Which he would have, if I didn't have a new trick up my sleeve that very day that I didn't even know of. I left that sobering thought to wrestle with later as I turned to the largely crippled agent. I couldn't afford to guess with account names, as the whole set up was probably rigged to destroy itself (if not flat out explode) if someone got it wrong. I couldn't afford to fuck up this early.

"What's the password?" I asked, and he simply stopped what he was going. Silence was only broken when he eventually managed to turn his body toward me, since his neck was still a useless pole.

"You come in here, try to kill me, then expect me to help you? You primes really are all the same. Get bent" He was pissed, which he did a good job to express despite the slight static in his voice worsened. Understandably so. But I just laughed at his held back vulgarity

"Get bent? Where are you from, a pg 13 movie? 'Go fuck yourself' is how it's said. Now I asked to a question so I better get an answer, or your life is going to take a drastic turn for the worse"

"Is that a threat?" It was his turn to laugh, a poison-laced spiteful laugh from whatever had for a mouth "And what if I don't? Are you going to torture me?" He glared at me as he said this. Tried to, rather, because he glared at the space to my left. I suspected he wanted to hit me in the feelings, or just put himself up on a higher moral shelf.

"Over here, toaster brains" I mocked him, which he answered with more pointed stares "I'm not that type of person. I'm actually a soldier, not a psychopath in a uniform" Not that the thought didn't cross my mind. How does one torture an AI? "Beside, I don't need to. You're going to tell me willingly"

"And why should I do that?"

"Because, while ya may not be afraid of me, you are afraid of the Empire. They know that something's up. Because you and good ol' Jones sent a profile of a secondary merc named Doomguy, but Doomguy competed in Danta's Abyss, and everyone in the Omniverse saw that man die. Yet here I am, alive and well. Only a prime can do that" I explained, kicked on feet up on the table and leaned back in the chair. I absentmindedly looked for a pen to play with, but there was none to be found "Course, he could've just lied to the Empire to keep my status secret, but said Doomguy also raided their center of surveillance in Costa del Sol, your little nest here. That's something very specific, something that would raise the eyebrows of your COs. Standard procedure would be to investigate and comb your , and they'll find you've kept tabs on me. That's normal, I'm sure, but then they'll piece together than you knew I was a prime. You and Jones' little cock sucking club is revealed, the Empire throws you in a pit to never see the light of day if they don't just flat out kill you, and I'll be two verses away from the fall out. I'll still get what I want, it'll just take longer to do so."

Eagle Eye laid on the floor in stunned silence as I revealed how I had this figured out. I think. It was impossible to tell, since he wasn't exactly the most emotive robot I've met.

"Then you had this planned from the start?"

"Nah," I admitted "just making it up as I go along. Alternatively, I get what I want, I walk out of here and we keep the whole thing secret. You and your friend probably won't trust me, but I can live with that" I could barely hear the small component in Eagle Eye hum as he shifts his body. I presumed this meant he thought it over, since he didn't dismiss me outright.

"What is it you're looking for? It would be the least you could do for putting holes through me" he asked. He seemed to be genuinely curious, as far as I could guess.

"Fair enough." I did shoot him several times. And cut him to ribbons "I want plans and rosters for Impel Down, and-"

"Alright, I'll tell you" There was absolutely no hesitation when I dropped the name of my query, so fast that I wondered if there was another reason for his eagerness to help. By previously confident grin that I had all the cards fell back to my usual grumpy grimace. Always some hidden flub out of my control. I would take what I can get away with, and just hope that whatever Eagle Eye's motive was wouldn't get me thrown under the bus.

"Finally, we're working together. Wasn't that hard, was it" I kept up the confident voice as the man who brought down fire and brimstone on my enemy, while my heart clinched in silent horror as I wondered if I had once again thrown myself into the Empire's hand yet again.

----

I scrolled through the list of employees and prisoners with a flick of my finger on the screen of my PDA. A skim through to see if my objective was in there. I walked away from the block towards the seedier part of town a step ahead and possibly a few to the side. Now I needed to get to Choprot and wring a ship out of his stupid green maw.

[Doomguy]

You know you've gone up in the world when your appearance causes a sudden and panicked reaction in those who had previously written you off. The pet store / pirate haven had been in the same place as I remembered it, poorly kept storefront and bar guarded windows in all. The same bell chimed when I pushed open the door into the storeroom floor, where the portly owner stayed at his counter with no joy or ambitions in his eyes. A couple seemed occupied with a display with puppies before I entered the building, and when I stepped further in I was the only thing they noticed. Where previously I had merely been a strange man with a lot of guns among so many strange people, I could see that look of bewilderment yet familiarity in their eyes, that to them I wasn't just some random prime but the Doomguy. Which is an ego boost, I will say.

The reaction from the , on the other hand, was far more expressive and a thousand times more amusing. He lazily rolled his neck on the stump he called a neck to glance over at who the newly arrived customer was, then his entire body cracked like a whip from his slouched to straight back at my sight. He practically bounded from his post, knocked over a container of pet collar onto the floor in his hurry, and fiddled with the Employees Only door until he had it wide open and welcomed me with a very toothy if soulless smile. All of this was done with the pudgy manager gripped in fear, which he poorly hid as he watched me like a deer in the headlights of a 18 wheeler. I sure my helmet made my look far more intimidating that what normal, as I was in the middle of not laughing my ass off with my lips pressed together to help hold it. I passed by him with a short chuckle, and descended into the hive of villainy hidden underneath.

It was only by now that I started to realize how often my time in the Omniverse was spent in seedy dive bars such as the pirate's hideaway, and I wondered if most other people did as well. The place was as typical as you would expect, a barely lit room with cig smoke in a thick fog and unruly patrons. Less so that when I was here before, and a quick scan across the tables told me why: The green monstrosity named Choprot was absent and so was his crew. A temporary set back, as I headed straight to the barkeep to get the answers out of him.

A short man with a stocky build and perhaps the longest beard I have ever seen which had golden bands woven in it. His only feature that confirmed that he wasn't just a very dwarf-like human was his extremely grey skin and red eye, although the giant hammer he kept in arm's reach would probably also dispel that notion. Or at least make people less likely to ask whether or not he was. I wasn't fazed, just mentally shrugged his appearance off and walked up to him, but he certainly had a reaction when he spotted me. His eyebrows scrunched up and his red eyes glared at me with a sting comparable to a laser beam. He was fucking pissed off, enough that he raised his hammer up and pointed the tool's massive head at me.

"Aw, no ye don't, yea walkin' trouble maker," his gravel mixer of a voice told me "Get out of me bar before I throw ye out meself!" I was rooted at the spot, enraged at the bartender's action but far more confused as to why I was blackballed by the dwarf. He couldn't see it on my face, but was probably clued in when I held my arms help up in front of me with hand open,as if I expected an explanation. Or possibly to be thrown a long object.

"What?!" I yelled back, and thought what could has set this off. He had nothing against me the last time I was here. What happened between now and then to sour is opinion.

"I 'eard what happened at the Wet Sea Cat. I don't want whatever bad new ye drag around in me bar" I cursed, mentally and out loud. The PLF attack screwed me once again, and I found another reason to hunt them down and slaughter them. "The guild's put you on the list"

"Hey, fuck you, I had noth- wait, what list? You guys have a guild!?" curiosity wormed it's way in, but I immediately snapped back to the point "Doesn't matter. I just want to know where Choprot is and I'll get out"

"He ain't here" The dwarf dwarf answered bluntly. He put his hammer down, but he kept his steely gaze on me.

"I can fucking see that!" I pointed out, my rage bubbled up but I still kept a lid on "Where!?"

"I'm not 'is babysitter" The barkeep answered, still as blunt as before and now even less interest. He put his hammer down and went to clean one of his glasses.He wanted nothing more to do with me, although the smirk under his heard told me he got his kicks out already "Now leave, or I'll have mongo throw you out"

"Oh, no, I'm not going anywhere until I get my answers" I demanded, my hand grabbed around my shotgun hilt and I advanced on the short man. Despite his rugged shape and complete fearlessness, I figured that I could take him. He had a hammer, and I was a walking armory with more than enough power behind them that he had no chance to fight back. Perhaps I could have found a way to get what I wanted without violence, but my inflated anger and the day's previous victory made pushed the idea that intimidation was the way to go.

But by the time I realized that a large shadow and ungodly smell had sneaked up behind me, what felt like a telephone pole was plowed through my head and I blacked out.

---

I woke up hours later with a splitting headache. I had been tossed into a back alley among a pile of trash bags, and my first senses was light that stung my eyes and the smell of rotten food, used diapers, and probably at least one dead animal. I pulled myself with the help of a nearby dumpster, only slight weak at the knees, and walked off back into Casta del Sol proper.

A set back, but whenever has things gone completely alright?

[Doomguy]

I was left with a choice and a horrible ringing in my ears, going forward I only had one more group to gut before I could swear off the Empire entirely. Blow up their precious prison, finish the mission, and leave them with their ass hanging out and in panic. If I played this right, if I could split the rotten log to keep the good part, I would be far better off in my search for the silhouetted asshat that brought me here. If I didn't, then I would at least be happy to walk away from the bonfire of my creation and watch the destruction in face splitting glee. One Lieutenant Jones was the last person I wanted to see before I flipped the bird to this shit show, but at the same time I could just leave him with the problems my revealed status as Prime would throw him in, and I could just abandon him to his fate. And make his life all the more miserable after I've turned Impel Down into a fish sanctuary.

But I couldn't just leave that chance to kick the officer in the ribs while he was down. Given the crap I had to put up with, it would be worth to make his situation worse just by being there. See what the bearded bastard's spine was made off as he found himself under the gaze of his superiors, with only me as his lifeline. An angry, vindictive lifeline who's already beaten down his other ally and could reduce his patchwork headquarters into smoldering ruins if he tried to drag me under with him. I felt a dreamy sense of joy as I imagined it, and I let out a long sigh that creeped out the civilians nearby.

Besides, I was stuck here until Choprot dragged his mechanical ass back from wherever he's derpped off to. Might as well entertain myself.

A quick stop to a local burger shop net me with a small mountain of various goodies in a brown bag, which I carried under my arm as I munched on a few and headed towards the building I had grown mixed feelings over. It had a certain charm to it, but I hated everyone inside it. At least this would be last time I had to be here, short of a chance to come back and kick it over. Despite my attempt to look casual as I approached the Empire outpost, my ever present search for danger had caught my attention when a quick glance spotted something, that sent my paranoia into high drive.

A conga line of vehicles, far better maintained and heavily armed than the junk on wheel Jones had under his command, several squads of stormtroopers in their shiny plastic armor in ranks faced the roads around the building. Spindly chicken legged walkers patrols the nearby streets, and a look upward saw much more lightly armored troopers on the roof tops with long barreled rifles. Inside the ring of troops was a short limousine, the luxury civilian vehicle was out of place with the troops and yet even form a distance you could see the armor plate layered across it's hull that would be used to protect an important officer in the showy decedent safety a high ranking Imperial general would want. I doubted that it was Jones', which meant that someone else had decided to come to him

They had the place surrounded. And this wasn't just some random get together. There was a purpose in the way they overlooked the surrounding streets and the building itself. Something was about to go down, and there was a good chance that I was to be the catalyst for the incoming firebomb.

Ducked away into an alley down the street, I still had the chance to get away without any risk on my part. Jones and his men were clearly seven kinds of completely fucked, and I could skip off with my lunch and let the Empire's tendency for inter-political warfare work for me for once. What would I gain? Waltz into the middle of a well supported platoon you are probably ordered to take me down, up to the offending officer who just as likely might welcome my offer as throw me under the bus, and whoever else is inside ready to metaphorically (or possibly literally) eviscerate his political rival would have no problem if I was in the collateral damage.

But I think you and I both know that I'm not the type of person to turn away from danger. I walked to the base with my lunch and the biggest balls in the Omniverse.

Despite the small army they had to guard every every inch of the compound, the front door was left remarkably absent. Only a pair of grunts barred my way, and really I only stopped to be nice. The most casual standoff ensured, the two troopers stared me down as I did the same to them. They had their toy blasters at the ready as they tried to decided if I was suppose to be here or not, while I just had my bag of food in hand. Which was offset by the apocalyptic firepower secured to the rest of my body. Eventually a slight turn in one of their heads indicated that they got radio message, and moments later I was waved in. He tried to be intimidating with the lifeless stare from his skull helmet, but we both knew I would bend him into a pretzel .

The inside was in what could only be described as a very organised panic. A clutch of troops in full, blatant outsiders to the rabble that normally lived here, watched over everyone else from a central location in the room. Everyone else either powered to and fro with stacks of forms and dataslate or keep themselves out of scrutiny by not making any sudden movement. Which gave those who did the look of a deer in the headlights. Of a tank.

Connor was in his usual place at the front desk, except now he made no effort to hide the whiskey bottle. He glanced up at me and proceeded to roll his eyes and took another slug from his glass. The little prick.

"Any calls for me?" I shot back, although admittedly I was more amused that angry, and that got him to actually look at me for longer than a second. His frown bisected his chin from the the rest of his face, and his eyes this glossy look of someone who could not begin to care about my problems.

"You know that we're in this mess because of you, right?" He asked, just the slightest hint of judgement in his tired voice, and I just shrugged.

"Yeah, I do. Burger?" I offered the paper wrapped diner food to the secretary, and after a long, silent pause he grabbed it from my hand.

"Fuck it, why not" He answers. as he took his first bite, a light on his console lights up "Jones want to see you."

"Good" I walked past the front desk up to the second floor, where more of the Empires cronies set political siege to their own kind. Jones' office door was cracked open slight, enough that I could hear the sneer of the other man inside, and when I walked in I found myself between two officers, the ever stoic Lieutenant shiny with sweet depsite his best effort to look stubborn, a man in outrageous uniform and with an intimidating aura as he stood ready to strike any who opposed him, and troopers in a black version of their armor that seemed to have be in wait for me.

I smiled behind my helmet, that sadistic smile I love to give when I had power of my opponent, and held the bag up.

"Lunch?"

[Doomguy]

The scene that unfolded before me was like an oncoming wrecking ball about to turn a loaded china shop into a hole in the wall, each fragile element ready to explode into a cloud of powder and shrapnel. The Lieutenant, a man whom I had since that point associated as a stoic and restrained person who kept himself very busy to be one step ahead of everyone, was now barely held together as he saw everything he has work for about to end in a fiery explosion. And the person who had been the catalyst of it all just walked in with a bag of food and devil-may-care attitude. He managed to keep the farce together well enough, but one could see the glimpse of the fear and anger in his movement. Such as the dirty look he gave me when I walked in. It was gone as quickly as it came, as his full attention was drawn back to the other guest in the room.

There were two things that stuck out about the other man, aside from the toupee that rested on his head. The first was the look of complete glum expression on his pasty, make-up covered face that revealed his contempt for everyone here. He refused to look directly at anyone directly, and it looked as if it was to his great sorrow to even have to acknowledge other people's presence. I'm sure he thought it was pained to be here, but as I continued to stare at him the more I wanted to show him the true meaning of pain. He was everything I hated about officers, and I expected from the Empire.

The other thing was his uniform. Which was a term that only described it loosely. Unlike the boring olive green set and cap that every other officer wore, he was suited with light grey coat left unbuttoned and hang from his shoulders. Inside was a ridiculous shirt, made largely of seemingly random patches of whole cloth and fishnet, all in leopard print.Two red four point stars adorned the shirt, one on each side of his chest, and two smaller ones on the collar of his coat. The stars seemed extremely out of place compared to the usual rank like Jones head, so whatever meaning they had (if any) was beyond me.

Despite the dopey face and clothing that looked more like something from a teenage fashion magazine, there was something frightening about him. Perhaps it was the thousand year stare that hinted at a mind that wasn't all in one piece, the dull from use and serrated sword at his hip. Perhaps it was that said sword was caked in dried blood. I'd go with that.

The cadre of black armored stormtroopers took up the rest of the space of the small office. At a glance they look the same as every other stormtrooper in existence aside from the paint job, but up close I could see the slight armor changes that revealed that there were not bog standard. The optics held a slight glow of a powered HUD, slightly thicker armor in deliberate places hid built in equipment, and around their belt was gear that was definitely not bog standard. Their weapons, in particular, seemed more designed for firing powerful blasts at shorter range in urban combat. I would guess they were the stormtrooper's commando or marines equivalent, although with how little I knew of the Empire's resources and technology they could have been demi-gods in plastic armor. They had their weapons out and ready, but they had no need to fire their weapons and just kept to just be intimidating. For now.

And then there was me. I kicked this hornet's nest, and now I wanted to see how it went. The flop watched me out of the corner of his vision and seemed far more interested to intently stare at the wall. His troopers made up for it by their own vigilant watch, although since I was in arm's length of them I would come out better in everything went down in a brawl. And Jones was just a public hair away from flying off the deep end.

"What?" the bearded officer asked, although I'm sure he heard me. He just wanted to stall as he figure out what to do.

"Lunch" I answered / repeated my "Ya bought some for me last time I was here, so I thought I'd pay in kind. Ya like onion rings?' I leaned over to his desk and started to place foodstuff on the wooden top of his desk.

"You don't hav-"

"Too bad, you're gettin' onions rings" I placed the cardboard container down in front of him, filled with deep fried vegetable . And something else I've placed in there ahead of time. "Now why did ya ask for me?"

"Captain-"

"Admiral now, Jones" The petty officer was interrupted again, this time by the higher ranking asshole. "Don't forget it" I got the impression that the man only said anything if he could somehow make the subject about himself.

"...Admiral Wolvesblade is here on investigation about the falsified profile you sent" Jones' anger only continued to swell under his tight bundle of emotional turmoil, his patience would run out if he got interrupted. I, on the other hand, forced back a snort when I heard the seaman's stupid name.

"Indeed" The admiral turned to me, although he still didn't quite look at me so much as through me "To lie about your status as a prime is both a crime and puts you as a threat to the public. It is in my authority to take you in for processing and proper assignment. As well as to punish those who assisted in your transgression" There was the slightest hint of the slightest smile for half a second, and a just-as-quick glance to Jones. No points if you guess what that line of thought was.

"What, him?" I thumbed over to the lieutenant "He's just some slack-jaw idiot. I lied on my own initiative, and he was just what was convenient to it" I said to the walking disaster, and while he probably didn't believe me fully it was at least to stall the hammer of Imperial "justice" for a bit. I would say it upset the man, but it was hard to tell. He had the emotive capabilities of a bulkhead. "But now that you have me trapped, what are you going to do about it?"

"I don't have to do anything. That's what my men are for" 'Wolvesblade' answered, just as dully as everything else before, then snapped his fingers. The four already ramrod straight troopers in dark armor seemed to come to and start to advance towards me. They didn't have their weapons up, secure in the idea that their reputation and intimidation would cow me into complacency.

They were about to be very, very wrong. Four guys in plastic armor with GI-Joe armor vs a man with an arsenal who's been through hell? I would bet on me too.

I placed my arms on the two weapons strapped to each shoulder: my plasma gun and my chain gun. They stopped in place and their weapons immediately zoomed up at me. Although I found myself at the end of the barrel, I felt like I had the upper hand.

"Well boys, how do you want this to end?" The standoff was tense, with the trooper's orders to take me alive while I didn't give them a reason to think that I might have moral reasons to do the same. We stared at each other across the room, each one waited for the other to twitch the wrong way and turn this sweating powder keg into an inferno. And the building into an inferno, given the chance. The Admiral seemed unconcerned and unthreatened by the situation, despite the fact that barely ten feet away from him was a plasma packin' gunman with an itchy trigger finger. Seconds felt slower than summer days as we both thought about who would shoot first, and I began to wondered if I would be the one to turn this all sideways.

"Before you all shoot up my office" the forgotten Jones piped in, as he put his hand on his computer's monitor and swung it around for everyone else to see. Several pages of official looking documents scrolled across the screen "I've contacted the Peace Division weeks ago. They were fully aware of Doomguy's prime status and had assigned him to our division to avoid raising suspicion that we knew. Now that the cat's out of the bag, seems kind of pointless"

"What!?" Admiral Sparklypants yelled as he held the monitor up so he could read it. A rare show of real emotion from the living plank of wood, completely prissy that he was about to not get what he wanted. I figured that the 'official' papers he read were drummed up by a certain agent for such an occasion, but I kept myself silent.

"You would, of course, not know that, since the division would not want other officer to start fighting over a prime, not would they send someone to claim him. So did you come in here on your own initiative WITHOUT authorization, sir?" Jones keep an amazing straight face as he said that to the bewildered dumbass ahead of him, but it was obvious to me that he enjoyed to see his political rival trip over themselves like that.

Eventually the Admiral gave a huff, turned around, and left. His stormtrooper lagged behind a second as they were confused at what the fuck just happened, before they finally got the hint and left a well. Me and Jones stood there in silence for a few minutes, a long wait for the other shoe to drop, before the sound of engines told us he left and his small army would go with him.

Jones finally let out the breath he had been holding for the last ten minutes and collapsed his head into his upturned hands, as massive sigh to tell the world that he genuinely was fearful and completely done for the day. I sank into a seat and removed my helmet so I could actually eat from the bag in my hand.

"Another day at the office, huh?" I asked as I bit into a double patty cheese burger. How long was it since I ate some real food?

"Are you trying to get me killed?' he asked, and I gave a smile in returned.

"Trust me: if I wanted to kill you, you'd be dead" I answered after I swallowed my bite "Did our mutual friend also send you something about what I was going to do?"

There was a pause as he looked dead on at me, either to wonder if I was insane or perhaps just stupid.

"Yes. What makes you think you'd get away with that that?"

"Well, after that, I don't plan on coming back. Heading straight for the big man at the top and going home" There was a bit of surprise in Jones' face, but there was also something else. I wasn't a hundred percent sure what, but it almost seemed like he was pleased "and since I already put you on the spot, you might as well come with"

"Unfortunately, I think you're right" He agreed as he pulled what I hidden in his food: a slip of paper with my comm number on it and a tracking device "And what exactly are there for?"

"I hate to say it, but I'm going to need your help..."

[Doomguy]

The silence from my less than willing ally ended up louder than his actual word, critical eyes stared me down as the officer tried to decipher my motives. Despite the fact that I've probably saved his life from his probably psychopathic commander, and that I've already told him my end game plan, he had to calculate his chances of the barest threat to him. I couldn't blame him, really, if what I saw moments ago was really what he had to deal with on a weekly basis. I could have felt sorry for him, but my sympathy was in short supply and he's given me plenty of reasons to not like him.

"And why should I help you?" Was what he finally decided on, never took his eyes off of me. I was half way through the bag and in of middle of chewing a fist full of french fries. "You haven't exactly been the most trustworthy person I've met, and you've already said you're leaving. Assuming that's even possible"

"But I'm not the least either" I pointed out, and he just shrugged at that with a dismissive grunt "More importantly, we both know I only bought us a little time. Even if I don't go after, well, that, the Empire goin' to come down on both of us sooner or later. If you help me out, I have a better chance of pullin' the job and you'll have a good distraction to get away with" It wasn't a very good offer, I'll admit, and Jones thought so too as he shook his head.

"You're not exactly convincing me, marine" He answers, not quite disappointed but not in the best of moods either. Although at least he was finally picking at the fast food.

"How about the fact that you'll be getting one over the Empire?" And at that the officer grew a very wide grin

"You know me better than I thought, Doomguy. So what is it you want from me? what are these things?" With the two of us now in the meat and potatos of the plan, I explained what had to be done before I struck Impel Down like a thunderclap. I out my PDA on the table and showed him the map I had taken from Eagle Eye.

"The number is my communicator code, for obvious reasons. The second is a a tracking device, that I want you to find a way into here proper. I might have the map, but the outside is not going to have any indicators, and the last things I need is to to pop into an area that's crawling with troops. The vital thing I need access to is the generators and control rooms, which are closer to the bottom. If you can get it down there, then that's less work for me" Jones nodded as I explained this, absorbing the information as if this just any other operation " Once you have it set up, call me. I'll do the rest"

"Is that all you need?" He asked, brow scrunched up as he put everything together. He was still on board, which was a good sign. I wasn't putting much trust in him, but I think I got to the point where I didn't think he'd sell me up the river.

"No. Before you fuck off to wherever you plan to hide, there's someone I need you to make sure gets out of Costa del Sol. A lizard person named Shea'lak, at-"

"At the Goldwater Pier. Yes, we know of the place. You know it's actually sea worthy, right? How else would have it avoided getting caught already?" Although I grimaced at being interrupted, if he was right then made the end game of this plan much easier "I'll forward a 'tip' of an impending raid, and they'll float out to Blue Flame Island. You can meet them out there, for whatever reason you need them for"

Not since the very beginning that I had been trapped in this Hell hole did escape seem so clear. The green fields of Earth were so close, the smell of home and the company of friends in reach. Whatever state it was in, whatever the demons had done to it, I would overcome the obstacles and make it what it once was. I felt my face split as my smile reached both ears. Although some part of me felt bad that I would leave the Omniverse in the sorry state it was in, home had become the first most priority. Sad to see it go, but the month I had been here seemed worth it.

Sayōnara, Omniverse.

Continued in the next mission: Into Dante's Inferno