Chapter 258
<b>Chapter 258:</b>
<b>–Reed Richards–</b>
<span style="font-weight:400">Reed groggily woke up with blurry vision and an aching head. “What happened...?”
<span style="font-weight:400">“You really screwed the pooch on this one, Reed,” Johnny Storm said next to him.
<span style="font-weight:400">Reed blinked his eyes a few times to clear his vision. They were in the ruined remains of the Baxter Building after the portal he built had randomly exploded. Above them was a glowing green portal that seemed to have self-stabilized. Hundreds of smaller red demons were spilling out of the portal and into the city.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Johnny? Is everyone okay...?” Reed asked hesitantly. It was all starting toe back to him. “I don''t know what happened. The portal to the Negative Zone worked the first time we used it! Why did it blow up this time?”
<span style="font-weight:400">“We''re okay, Stretch. We''re all just a bit tied up at the moment,” Ben Grimm, The Thing, said.
<span style="font-weight:400">Reed nced down and noticed that he, and the rest of the Fantastic Four, were tied up with some kind of ck chains. Reed tried to use his powers to slip out of the chains. To his shock, his powers weren''t working! “Why are we tied up? Why won''t my powers work?” he asked in panic.
<span style="font-weight:400">“The chains somehow stop us from using our powers. We''ve all been captured,” Susan Storm said with a sigh. “We''ve only been superheroes for a few months now and this is already the fifth time I''ve been tied up!” shemented.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Kinky! I love bondage myself!” A new voice spoke up with augh. A demoness with red skin, devil wings, and tworge horns on her head strutted over towards them. She held herself with pure confidence and looked at the four of them like they were her new toys.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Who are you? Why did you capture us? And why are you invading New York? You won''t get away with this! We''ll stop you!” Reed dered to her.
<span style="font-weight:400">“That''s right, bitch!” Johnny added. “If it weren''t for these chains, I would have roasted you already!”
<span style="font-weight:400">“I''ll clobber you into next week!” The Thing added.
<span style="font-weight:400">The demoness chuckled at all of their bravado. “You may refer to me as Jezebel. I am your new mistress, and you four are now my eternal ves,” she told them with a grin. “I’m going to have so much fun breaking you all in!”
<span style="font-weight:400">“You’re hot, but I''m not interested in being anyone’s property. Can I pass?” Johnny asked with a cocky grin.
<span style="font-weight:400">Jezebel gazed at Johnny teasingly. “Nope.” She pointed her hand at him. A stream of lightning poured from her palm and mmed into Johnny’s chest.
<span style="font-weight:400">The hair on his head stood up as rampant voltage poured into him. He let out a scream of agony. “Fuck you, bitch!”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Stop it! Why are you doing this?” Reed eximed.
<span style="font-weight:400">Jezebel closed her hand and the stream of lightning cut off. Johnny slumped forward and groaned in pain.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Why am I doing this? Because I obviously feel like it,” she said with a carefree shrug, as if she didn’t just torture Johnny in front of everyone. “What did you think would happen? You opened a portal directly to Hell! Directly in front of my father’s pce, I might add! Of course we would get curious and decide toe out and y,” she exined cheerfully.
<span style="font-weight:400">“H–Hell!?” Reed sputtered in disbelief. He had always been a man of science. He never believed Hell existed. He was one of the few ‘rational people’ left in the world who still didn’t believe La was even a real Angel! “You’re lying!” he red at her. “Hell isn’t real, you''re just some red-skinned alien!”
<span style="font-weight:400">Unlike him, his three friends seemed to believe her words immediately.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Good going, Reed! You opened a portal to literal Hell!” Johnny chastised him while taking some deep breaths to recover himself. “This is so much worse than when you almost killed us all with that rushed spaceship!”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Shit, is this the apocalypse?” The Thing muttered dejectedly. “Not your best work there, boss.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“A portal to Hell? Reed, how could you be so irresponsible!” Susan berated him while wriggling against her bonds. “We have to escape, we have to help!”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Don''t worry, everyone. I''ll fix this! We''ll stop these lying aliens and I''ll close the portal! The people of New York will love us again! We''ll be real heroes!” Reed said while nodding to himself. He already had a few ideas on how to close that self-sustaining portal. All he had to do was escape the chains that bound them all first.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Good luck with that,” Jezebel told them as she turned around and started walking away. “I have an army of demons to give orders to and a report to make to my father. Once I''ve finished all that, I''ll be back for you all, my new pets. Watch them!” Jezebelmanded a few nearby imps who had been standing guard. The imps nodded at her fearfully while clutching their pitchforks.
<span style="font-weight:400">“You’re just going to leave us here!?” Johnny asked in disbelief.
<span style="font-weight:400">“As if you pathetic lower lifeforms have any chance of escaping from chains forged in Hell.” Sheughed at them while spreading her red bat-like wings. She took off into the air and passed back through the portal.
<span style="font-weight:400">Reed scowled as he watched her temporarily return to Hell. Jezebel reminded Reed of that <i><span style="font-weight:400">‘arrogant asshole’ </i><span style="font-weight:400">Tony Stark! Tony always looked down on Reed, just like the demoness was doing to them. She didn’t even bother killing them because they were nothing in her eyes! In fact, Reed felt like the whole world treated him that way as well! He was tired of being mocked and looked down upon. He was the smartest man in the world!
<span style="font-weight:400">…
<b>–La–</b>
<span style="font-weight:400">“Die Angel!”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Kill the enemy!”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Graaah!”
<span style="font-weight:400">A group of three flying red imps holding ck pitchforks rushed me at the same time. They were the most stereotypical looking demons I''d everid eyes on.
<b>{Nameless Minion of Hell, Imp: Level 15}</b>
<span style="font-weight:400">They were remarkably out of their league. They were so weak that they probably couldn’t even sense how high I was above them. My <b>Lightspear</b><span style="font-weight:400"> shed out faster than the speed of sound. The three imps were vaporized without knowing what killed them.
<span style="font-weight:400">“These annoying imps just keeping,” I growled while reeling my arm backwards. My <b>Lightspear</b><span style="font-weight:400"> flew out of my hand and slew another five imps. “I can''t go all out either because we''re in the middle of a crowded city,” Imented with a huff. Every single building nearby was filled with people who had quickly gotten off the streets.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Begone, Hellspawn!” Gabriel cried out. A burst of pure <b>Light</b><span style="font-weight:400"> shed out from her being. It spread out for a few hundred meters and killed every single imp it touched. The buildings the <b>Light</b><span style="font-weight:400"> touched remainedpletely unharmed.
<span style="font-weight:400">That was an incredibly useful <b>AOE</b><span style="font-weight:400"> attack. I''d need to get Gabriel to teach me thatter. Every powerful attack I had in my arsenal caused far too much coteral damage.
<span style="font-weight:400">High in the sky, my big brother Michael was dealing even more devastation to the demon army. He was currently battling tens of thousands of imps at once and easily holding his own! He was purging hundreds of the foul creatures every few seconds.
<span style="font-weight:400">With the streets mostly cleared and the majority of humans safely hiding away in buildings, I decided to go take a look at the giant green portal hovering directly above the partially destroyed Baxter building.
<b>[What are the odds the Fantastic Four are the cause of this mess?]</b>
<span style="font-weight:400">I snorted. “100 percent, obviously. The Fantastic Four are kind of morons to be honest.” Most of their fights in theics are started because Reed likes to open random portals to dimensions he shouldn''t be messing with. “They''ll have to answer for this invasionter… If they are still alive that is.” This world wasn’t a movie. People were going to be pissed off once we fought off the invasion. They were going to look for someone to me, and that was obviously going to be the Fantastic Four–mainly Reed Richards.
<span style="font-weight:400">A person can’t just cause a demonic invasion and walk away scot-free afterwards…
<span style="font-weight:400">I pped my wings and took off towards the center of the city. I had to take a couple of detours to save a few strangling humans who weren''t getting safety for some reason.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Get inside, you morons! These demons will kill you and eat you… And possibly not in that order!” I yelled at a couple of dumb teenagers who were filming the invasion with their phones.
<span style="font-weight:400">They couldn''t actually be this stupid, could they!? Yes, yes they were…
<b>[There''s always a few people with no sense of self preservation.]</b>
<span style="font-weight:400">One of the teenagers smiled and waved up at me from the ground. “La! Can I get a quick interview for my channel!? This is crazy! I''m going to get so many views!” he eximed enthusiastically.
<span style="font-weight:400">“No way, man! She''s going to do an interview for my channel! I''ll finally get over 1000 subscribers!” the other one added as well.
<span style="font-weight:400">They were both so invested in filming me that they didn''t even realize they were about to die. I tossed another <b>Lightspear</b><span style="font-weight:400"> directly behind them. A snarling imp was in the process of sneaking up on the dumb kids. It let out a scream of pain before it burst into ash.
<span style="font-weight:400">“That was awesome! Thanks for the save there, La! How about that interview now!?”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Woah! That was so graphic! Way better than video games!”
<b>[They will really do anything for clout these days…]</b><span style="font-weight:400">
<span style="font-weight:400">I scoffed at them both and held up my hand. <b>“Universal Pull!”</b>
<span style="font-weight:400">“No! My phone!” one of them whined.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Hey, not cool!” the other eximed.
<span style="font-weight:400">Both of their phones were ripped from their hands by my ability. I caught them both and crushed them in my grip. “Get inside a building, you idiots. I have a portal to close and can''t waste anymore time saving your dumb-asses!” I chastised them both onest time.
<span style="font-weight:400">“B–but!”
<span style="font-weight:400">“M–my phone…”
<span style="font-weight:400">I was done with this conversation. I snapped my fingers and a portal opened up directly underneath both of them. Both of the teens fell through andnded in the next state over, New Jersey. They should be safe there for now.
<span style="font-weight:400">I should have just done that to start with…
<span style="font-weight:400">With that short dy taken care of, I flew towards the Baxter building. Any other straggling humans I came across were directly teleported away. It wasn''t just idiots chasing clout still on the streets. There were also a few criminals taking the opportunity to do some looting. Either way, they were all New Jersey''s problem now…
<span style="font-weight:400">“Angel! Kill her and eat her flesh!”
<b>“Almighty Push!”</b>
<b>BOOM!</b>
<span style="font-weight:400">Another group of imps were turned to pulp from the gravitational wave.
<span style="font-weight:400">The amount of demons pouring out of the portal had not slowed down even a little bit. Tens of thousands had now crossed over and we''re flying throughout the city, viciously searching for targets. I could sense Michael and Gabriel killing hundreds of demons every few seconds, but the number of enemies wasn’t decreasing. It seemed like two more imps were popping up for everyone one that was killed!
<b>[Whoever is leading them clearly doesn''t care about imp lives. Imp lives obviously don’t matter.]</b>
<span style="font-weight:400">The System was right unfortunately.
<span style="font-weight:400">“For all we know, this particr Hell could have billions of demons to throw at us,” I replied with a grimace.
<b>[You need to stop that portal and cut off their reinforcements.]</b>
<span style="font-weight:400">As I flew by Central Park, I had to pause again. I could sense the lingering magical energies of Asia and Heather in the park. They had been through here recently!
<span style="font-weight:400">The corpses of hundreds of imps stained the ground. They all looked like they had been violently ripped apart. Blood and guts were everywhere! Neither Heather or Asia would have been capable of such violence. <b>Lightspears</b><span style="font-weight:400"> didn''t even leave demon bodies behind after all.
<b>[That’s an impressive amount of violence.]</b>
<span style="font-weight:400">“Who the hell did all this? …Are the girls with them?” The trail of bodies led directly towards the Baxter building. “I guess I''m about to find out.”
<span style="font-weight:400">…
<b>–The Doom yer–</b>
<i><span style="font-weight:400">Rip and Tear…</i>
<b>Boom! Crack!</b>
<span style="font-weight:400">“Graagh! He’s unstoppable!”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Someone warn the mistress!”
<span style="font-weight:400">“He’s a monster! Run away!”
<span style="font-weight:400">There would be no mercy. A few imps tried to flee from him–he did not allow them to escape. He mercilessly struck down every hellspawn he came across.
<span style="font-weight:400">Blood and brains painted the wall red as the Doom yer reloaded his shotgun. The building was crawling with demons and he was pushing his way up one floor at a time. It wasn''t just imps either. Hellhounds and other abominations had started filling the building as well. The Doom yer was d that he had stocked up on plenty of ammo for his new shotgun. It wasn’t nearly as powerful as his old one, but hunting shotguns at least had plenty of range and uracy.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Holy crap! Aren’t you tired!? You just ran up over 30 flights of stairs, while fighting the entire time!” Heather eximed with a huff. She and Asia had been following behind him as he cleared the building.
<span style="font-weight:400">“D–Do you need more healing?” Asia asked him worriedly.
<span style="font-weight:400">“I''m fine,” He told them both. The demons he had in so far had been pretty weak. None of them had managed to injure him. They didn''t even carry guns. The only thing they had on their side was sheer numbers. The Doom yer nced out a nearby window and frowned at the amount of imps flying outside the building.
<span style="font-weight:400">He had never seen numbers quite like this. It was gonna take him a long time to kill them all…
<span style="font-weight:400">“We are close to the top. You two should wait here,” The Doom yer told the two Angels. His gut was telling him that the <i><span style="font-weight:400">REAL</i><span style="font-weight:400"> fight wasing. He didn’t want to have to protect them and fight the demon boss at the same time.
<span style="font-weight:400">Heather pouted at him. “No way! Mom would be disappointed in me if I ran away from something like this.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Actually, I think Aunty La is going to be disappointed that we didn’t run away…” Asia said nervously. “I hope we don’t get grounded for putting ourselves in danger,” she added.
<span style="font-weight:400">Heather also paled at Asia’s words. “G–Grounded!? She’s never grounded me before… Would she actually do that!? I don’t want to be locked inside for months! It''s almost summertime!” she whined.
<span style="font-weight:400">While the two girls were distractedmenting their futures, the Doom yer took the opportunity to push forward up the stairs. To his surprise, the next few floors werepletely cleared of any demonic presences. He managed to climb all the way to the roof unimpeded. It was an obvious trap of some kind. He made it to the top floor and kicked open the door.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Not so fast, human!” An imp screeched at him. Its voice was scratchy and inhuman. It grated on the ears.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Surrender or well gut these four!” Another few imps had taken a small group of human hostages.
<span style="font-weight:400">Well… <i><span style="font-weight:400">three</i><span style="font-weight:400"> humans and some kind of <i><span style="font-weight:400">‘strange orange rock man.’</i><span style="font-weight:400"> The imps were holding ck pitchforks up to the hostages throats.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Cool armor, man! Where did you get it?” One of the hostages asked him as if his life wasn’t in danger.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Shut up, Johny! Now is not the time for your dumb questions. We don’t even know if this guy is here to save us!” A striking blonde woman hissed at the guy who had spoken up first.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Mars…” The Doom yer didn’t mind answering the question. That’s where he had first dawned the <b>Praetor Suit</b><span style="font-weight:400">. It wasn’t exactly a secret.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Woah, Mars!? That’s awesome!” Johnny said with a grin before turning to his sister. “You need to chill out, Susan. That time we got captured by Annihilus was way scarier than this!”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Mars, huh? I always wanted to go to mars myself. I was an astronaut before I became this...” The orange rock man sighed.
<span style="font-weight:400">“I don’t know who you are, but we don’t need your help! I assure you that I have everything in hand! All of this was an experiment that went <i><span style="font-weight:400">slightly</i><span style="font-weight:400"> wrong, I assure you that I’ll have everything fixed soon enough,” thest hostage said in a condescending tone. His tone reminded the Doom yer of the arrogant scientists who had caused the destruction of Mars by experimenting with portals they didn’t understand–the exact same thing that had obviously happened here.
<span style="font-weight:400">“SILENCE, HUMANS! No more talking or I''ll slit your throats!” The imp spat out as it pushed the tip of its pitchfork up against Johnsy’s throat. A small trail of blood started leaking down his neck and he shut up. “Drop your weapon, armored human!” it yelled at the Doom yer once again.
<span style="font-weight:400">The helmet he was wearing hid the frown on the Doom yer''s face.
<span style="font-weight:400">A hostage situation… He was not exactly used to dealing with these. Usually it was just him against hordes of demons. The reason he ran ahead of the two young Angel’s was to avoid this kind of situation in the first ce.
<span style="font-weight:400">Still, the lives of three humans, and whatever the rock guy was, were not equal to the millions that would die if the portal wasn’t closed soon. With his decision made, he cocked his shotgun and pointed it at the demons.
<span style="font-weight:400">“W-What are you doing, human!?” the first imp asked fearfully.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Don''t you see we h-have hostages!?” another trembled.
<span style="font-weight:400">“No deal,” the Doom yer said while pulling the trigger. He aimed at the imp holding the beautiful woman hostage first. As a soldier, he was trained to save women or children before everyone else. The top of the imp’s head popped like a balloon as the 12 gauge slug hit with perfect uracy. Susan let out a shriek as she was covered in demonic blood and brain matter.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Fuck! This h-human is crazy!”
<span style="font-weight:400">“R–Run for it!”
<span style="font-weight:400">Apparently, he had called their bluff. Instead of killing the hostages, the imps dropped their weapons and fled as quickly as they could. He fired a couple more slugs and picked a few of them out of the air before they could get away.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Shit… That was a close one.” Johnny said with augh. “Are you okay, sis?”
<span style="font-weight:400">“E, I''m covered in disgusting demon blood!” she said with a scowl. She red at the Doom yer. “How could you just open fire like that!? What if you had shot me by ident!?” she demanded to know.
<span style="font-weight:400">“I didn’t,” he said coolly while walking over to her. She huffed at him onest time before thanking him for saving her. He grabbed the chains around her body and easily ripped them apart. Once she was free, he moved over to her younger brother and the rock guy.
<span style="font-weight:400">“How’d you do that!? Even I can break out of these chains!” the rock guy eximed. “Thanks for the save by the way. People call me The Thing, but the name’s Ben.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“I''m stronger than you…” He smirked at Ben under his helmet.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Hah! I like your moxie! How about we get some payback and clobber these demons!?” Ben suggested. He smashed his fists together and smirked.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Hell yeah! I''m going to roast these assholes! The only reason they even caught us was because the explosion knocked us all out!” Johnny said with a grin. The Doom yer noticed that some small mes and sparks appeared around Johnny’s body. That was a strange ability.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Excuse me, aren’t you forgetting someone?” the scientist whined at them all. He was still tied up on the floor. The Doom yer had not forgotten him.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Hang on, Reed. I''ll get you out–” Ben started walking over but stopped when the Doom yer ced his hand on the orange man’s shoulder.
<span style="font-weight:400">The Doom yer shook his head. “No. He stays tied up. He caused this mess. He will answer for it.” he said,pletely serious.
<span style="font-weight:400">“W–What!? No! You can’t pin this on me! This wasn’t my fault! I was just trying to advance science. Sometimes thates with risks that can’t be avoided.” Reed tried to defend himself.
<span style="font-weight:400">“You''re just the same as them…” the Doom yer said. There were other people who worked in this building besides these four. On the way up to the roof, he hade across dozens of human corpses that had been torn apart and partially eaten…
<span style="font-weight:400">“I''m not the same as anyone! I''m Reed Richards! The smartest man in the world–”
<b>WOOSH!</b>
<span style="font-weight:400">Reed was cut off when a new woman crashed down onto the roof! The Doom yer pointed his shotgun at her quickly before lowering it. It wasn’t a demon. It was an incredibly beautiful woman with 14 ck wings. Another Angel, one clearly older and more powerful than the two he had left a few floors down.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Fuck…” Reed muttered out loud when he noticed who had just arrived.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Hello, everyone,” the ck winged woman said while ncing around the rooftop. “I expected there to be a lot more demons up here. Maybe even the leader or something? Where are they?”
<span style="font-weight:400">“H–Hi, La. N–Nice to meet you finally,” Susan replied nervously as if she was meeting a celebrity.
<span style="font-weight:400">“The demon bitch went back through the portal to report to her father or something!” Johnny exined. “She said she would be back soon though,” he added.
<span style="font-weight:400">La nodded at Johnny before turning to the Doom yer. “You look vaguely familiar to me, but I don''t believe we’ve met. I am La of the Fallen. Who might you be?” she asked him while holding out her hand to shake.
<span style="font-weight:400">“John,” he shook her hand and actually winced at her grip. She was MUCH stronger than he was expecting. He mentally upped her threat rating from dangerous to incredibly dangerous in his head. She didn’t seem particrly hostile to him though.
<span style="font-weight:400">“You haven''t seen my daughter Heather and my niece Asia anywhere nearby have you, John?” she asked him while letting go of his hand. He figured she was rted to the two other Angel’s in some way.
<span style="font-weight:400">“They’re a few floors down,” he told her and she let out a sigh of relief.
<span style="font-weight:400">“There''s so much demonic taint around this building that it''s difficult to sense them,” she exined. La tilted her head upwards towards the portal above them. “Of course it''s <i><span style="font-weight:400">him</i><span style="font-weight:400">!” La spat out hatefully.
<span style="font-weight:400">The Doom yer noticed that the hordes of imps had temporarily stopped pouring out of it. In fact, almost all of the imps around the building were starting to flee in every direction as quickly as possible! Two beings exited the portal. Both of them were bright red, but much taller than any of the imps he’d fought so far. It was a man and a woman.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Jezebel is back. Is that her old man with her?” Johnny asked out loud. “He looks kind of scary…” he trailed off fearfully.
<span style="font-weight:400">The demonic man smiled at the Angel menacingly. “...La! What a pleasant surprise! I never would have suspected it would be so easy to ess your Earth! This portal is so convenient! The Ancient One’s barriers usually kept me out of this world for hundreds of years after all…” he trailed off with a chuckle before noticing everyone else. “Oh, where are my manors? The rest of you ants don’t know who I am, do you?” he said with a dark chuckle.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Bow down, worms! This is my father, Mephisto! The ruler of Hell, lord of all demons, and the conqueror of this world. Kneel down and pledge your eternal souls to him. ept your status as eternal ves!” Jezebel said to them all domineeringly.
<span style="font-weight:400">“No,” the Doom yer said before taking aim and shooting her directly in the face.
<b>XXX</b>