Evilode (Doom Fanfiction. May not safe for work)

[Uros]

[color=red][size=6]Evilode (Evil Ooze)[/size][/color]

Twenty years after the near apocalyptical and chaotic events that came from the misuse of the teleporting device in Phobos, events given the codename Doom I and Doom II ‘Hell on Earth’, with the ensuing final disappearance of ‘Doomguy’ in a secret mission (Mars and Earth, then Doom 64), the UAC and humanity had recovered and expanded. However some mistakes tend to repeat themselves… and some think different after living through past events.
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Heavy blood, gore, cursing and probably other things unsafe for work are a go. Am Spanish so I say 18 or older should be needed to watch this without getting mentally scarred, sickened to the core and so forth. I warned your ass off! So don’t chew me after you start reading.
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Note from the Author (NFA): I always see things given in black and white. Monsters are always the evil dudes and the humans are the good ones. We know that half the time it is the biggest bull you think off, don’t lie to yourself. That is why, playing the old Dooms and Doom III a few days back I thought of this idea that, I hope, has some originality on it, though I highly doubt it (Doom has been around for too long for that to be possible).
Basically expect a ‘what if’ after Doom 64 so to speak, original character and hopefully original plot. My chapters are rarely short, so if you come here then you come here for a long read. I use both old Doom references for the creatures and the Doom 3 ones.

[color=green][size=4]Introduction Chapter:[/size][/color]

It had been twenty years.

“Johnny dear, don’t go bugging the marines again”

Twenty years of remembering and serving.

“Dear! Dear! What is happening! The alarms! The…”

Gunshots, gunshots everywhere… crying… yelling! Blood in the corridors…

Now I look at myself, here, in Jupiter, or at least one of its moon, and wonder…

‘What the FUCK am I doing?’

“Johnny… Johnny! Hear me for fuck’s sake! Run to the safe rooms in the civilian area! Most people there are already dead, they won’t search for if you are lucky… Run, run now!”

I held my helmet on my free hand, the desire of crying coming at me for many, many reasons, including the fact that I was tired of rebelling. That was why I was wondering what the fuck I was doing, and why I should keep quiet… but one thing at a time, I suppose you’d like to know who I am, something that I ask myself from time to time when this fucked up world gets at me.

I am Johnny Dallas, Dallas for the few friends I have, Dal for those close enough for me to be open with or John for my boss (Which in the UAC, meant every fucking brainiac you’ll find). Marine since I was fourteen, assigned to Earth after the mess went by, ‘Demon Hunter’ squad, still a common soldier thanks to my mental problems.

One meter eighty nine, usual standard short hair for the military, brown color, brown eyes, unexpressive face; got nerves severed during Phobos events, an explosion burnt my left cheek and got shrapnel under the third rib of that exact same side, still can’t articulate well enough when nervous and have a tic from time to time on my left arm. Am bulky, probably like any other marine after training and regular experimentation that makes us quite the biggest asses in the known human space, but from a marine standpoint I am not much, probably runty, which isn’t helped by the grey colored armor, the lightest in weight and protection, used only for the weakest of all the troops.

Still beats going like Rambo, and armor doesn’t mean firepower, as the standard automated rifle could tell you if you piss me off.

I suppose, though, that I would be able to shoot anyone between the eyes, human or not, even if they didn’t piss me off. During the happenings on Phobos I… lost everything… I lost my father, my mother, my friends, a normal life and a lot of my tolerance to stupid shit and assholes. Things like that I would not have anymore, and even when things went to hell on Earth, a lot of people came out unscathed and shrugged away the loss of everyone else, not fearing what a lot of others had to suffer.

What? You THINK that EVERYONE had to go away when things got shitty? You THOUGHT that a lot of people died? No, no that was what THEY said. Yea, mayor cities got fucked up, but that is how any attack, human or otherwise, would have started. The guy that stopped everything, the one called Doomguy by those that still remembered him, forced the demons to go back. A lot died, yes, but the news were more apocalyptic than they really were. Why? Well, the UAC took control afterwards when everyone crapped their pants, why do YOU think they made everyone believe that it had been the biggest load of shit to ever happen?

I remember history class still; worse things had been done by humans TO humans. An invasion from hell was simply something scarier because the enemy was unknown and they had taken us with the pants down. They did damage, but in five years, when I was seventeen and already three years in the marines, it was all back into shape and the fear had been all but forgotten.

And get this: The teleporter had been used again for short range with already dangerous result, and still people wanted to fuck with the project started on Phobos, just for SHITS AND GIGGLES… and profit, of course.

Obviously by now you have questions about many things you think you’d know; why humanity isn’t fucked up, why there were survivors of that fuckup, etc. however since they said that Hell was a different dimension then this could perfectly be another dimension too. I have wondered, you know, if this was another realm where Earth didn’t get so fucked up? Truth is, I don’t care if it is that way, really; this place is where I am, where everyone I know IS, however went things in any other place is not how they went in here, and things were going to get even more fucked up than they were already anyway. Why bother looking to greener pastures if mine were going to be filled with green sludge soon enough?

This way of thinking if part of the problem when you ask the question: why I didn’t get promoted after twenty fucking years? Do you know why I am a fucking soldier, cannon fodder, after that time as well as an emotional wreck? I don’t kiss anyone’s ass, and while many others had achieved greatness without doing so, I also don’t do whatever my superiors tell me, why? Because most people think that a soldier has to do what their leaders tell them to. If I did that, then I would’ve killed children, women and more, all because the damage that was done in the day this all went to hell also affected those that survived within the areas where hell had decided to screw with things… and people.

“Soldier! What is wrong with you?! Perk up! Experiments are going to start in five minutes and I don’t want you screaming our ears out when the teleport is finally going to work as supposed!”

I felt a hit on the side of my helmet that got me back to reality.

The asshole in front of me, without a helmet, was Colonel ‘Brag’ McCord. No one called him anything but Colonel or ‘Brag’ (The title should be obvious as to why it was given), even his superiors; the man had a temper that scared the shit out of anyone but a few, me included in those few, but just because I hated him so much I would gladly shot him in the face. Of course, after this little resume that could be said of most people…

Fucker was bald, had red bulky armor that was the Mark IV variant of the standard one most of us had issued, he was bulky as a tank and was obviously abusing steroids. That the bastard also could benchpress his own weight and could even carry a minigun with him while doing so, a tank fitted minigun, before being a marine, was something brutal by default. His eyes were black, most the guys and I think it was surgery to look even more inhuman, though with the veins poking through his rippled muscles and the dog like face, it maybe was just nature’s way to tell us that this fucker was not a normal man.

It was comforting that I was not alone in this place since I and three others were stationed in this specific section of the labs of Europa, orbiting around Jupiter, so I was not left on my own with this asshole. If it weren’t for the others around me I could probably break when I had duty to serve alongside this asshole, though I doubt any of them would mind if I shot him until he stopped being recognizable.

I suppose you are curious too about the location, and I wouldn’t mind sparing some time before getting deeper into how things had turned to the worse. I could say that, while not a big moon, Europa had atmosphere and was a good enough place for terraforming procedures, so by now it was nearly as green as Earth, though the fauna and flora were quite weird and… well, unfortunately they were not really relevant at the moment or I would go into detail, but it would take too long.

Of course we have to go back in track so: Why was this moon important? It was the fact that it could be hospitable and because it WAS FAR AWAY that the teleportation device had been brought back into the equation. Short range teleporting, as I said, was ok, yet most things done (transport, commerce, etc.) were done by ships that traveled between Mars and Earth, including between the many space stations made between them. It was a costly procedure, but it was safe.

At least it was as after a lot of pain and suffering. Yet the teleport was ordered back in research once again, at least to perfect the short range teleporting and make it less dangerous… at first, at least.

Teleportation between the space stations was easy, affordable and quite fast, but the stations used a lot of materials to keep running and even the collectors designed to pick space matter and convert it made it only slightly profitable in comparison to the slower ship delivery. It would be a good time to remember we are basically under UAC control, a company: Profit is life now; there is no other union amongst the people than the mastermind behind the desk with its desire to get richer and richer.

I was one of the many which said SOMETHING negative about the horrid idea that this was. Quite a few ‘problems’ happened after that little act started; I had to shut up, for a time, and many others did so for the duration of their lives, those that were seen again. But we all knew, oh yes, we knew… We knew that the teleported worked at short distances without fucking anything up only meant that they were scraping the thin line that separated ‘Stupid’ from ‘You did it again, morons!’. However, people that lived it, that suffered the crap that went down the first time, were forced to shut up or erased from the equation.

And here, my friends, is where things start to get worse and you learn a valuable lesson on why a soldier must have half a brain.

Until Europa was terraformed, until this post was assigned to me, I had served for sixteen years and I had been disciplined severely while still doing my duty. I had been fighting for nearly that much time to keep any demon creature that still lingered, from harming people, both on Mars and on Earth, as the things multiplied fast, but they didn’t fight together anymore (And still they were a pain in the ass). Problem was that, from time to time, a small rift could open and more would get in, usually when a teleporter got into motion. They didn’t cause much harm now that we were ready for them, but scares and nervousness should have, which didn’t include the mutations.

Spitting or crying blood (with a higher production exactly to supply for that), with black eyes if not red, yellow or blue (Nothing but said color in the eyes, anything else lost). Capabilities over normal humans, like being unable to get tired as far as they had food in them, strength to lift weights unlike a marine could, extreme jumping skills, night vision, psionic skills, and many more. That happened to the people that were close to common rifts, civilians, marines and anyone else, the things that happened didn’t care for the status.

Then there were the children… fuck… GOD! The children!

You know why I talked down this project alongside so many people? Want to know why I was fucked up in the head after so long? Well, it was because demons were still living creatures; they had a composition accustomed to higher temperatures and body fluids that created the attacks they made, yes, but they were living and breathing things. It was not magic what they did (Magic is only HIGHLY advanced science and technology you could say), but it was extremely hard to understand and nearly impossible to replicate. Still, even if they don’t looked like us, they did what any other living thing had to, and that includes being born, having to eat, reproduce and die.

And this is where we definitely drop the ‘Fuck bombs’, because, sometimes… the children came through the portals.

Small, innocent and defenseless, even if they were ‘monsters’. It is true that the demons killed children, but I still wonder if they would’ve done it if they weren’t controlled (As ‘Doomguy’ had said only once before he disappeared), at least the most intelligent ones. They were cruel towards armed enemies by default, but any warrior would be like that. The kids? The kids that came through the portal sometimes looked up at the armored humans waiting for them and only tried to approach and get a hug, play or whatever they did, in most cases even those developed to be nearly mature didn’t seem to want to harm anyone. Yet, even if it was true that they were monsters, even if their claws cut through metal like they would if they were older and their teeth were stronger than a chainsaw, they were still kids.

We were ordered to kill them, kill them at any time they showed up, every-last-one of them. When their parents or caretakers came, they were defended and, sometimes, we could say it was the crossfire that killed them. If they came alone… no one wanted to shot, at least no one that had seen the damage done when Phobos and Earth, what had happened, would lift a finger towards them. All of us veterans, the survivors of that time, were scarred enough to desire comparing ourselves with what they did. But we had orders; we had to carry them on or get punished.

I never did, even if it became dangerous I simply couldn’t, I was unable to. My body now was covered in whip marks, bruises and scars done by burns of cigarettes or other various tortures, anything they thought that would break me in line, anything that the higher ups didn’t mind happening to any of us. The UAC had made it clear that to survive we would have to be merciless, and some, like Brag, enjoying giving examples.

Why I am telling you this shit? Because if it is not enough for you, if you are heartless even to the young ones that did nothing, if it doesn’t mean anything to you that they are kids even if they are from another species, then think about this: There were mutations thanks to the portals and, of course, sometimes there were human kids or pregnant women close by.

The human kids would change too much and look like demons if they were born near the places where rifts opened, even if they were younger than adolescent, they would be ‘deformed’ to look too much like the monsters that were called demons. Their own parents feared them, their family rejected them, and most were sacrificed when the symptoms showed. They, too, were given the slaughter mark, none spared. You still can’t see the problem? Well, then I fucking thank whoever YOU pray that kids only came through or mutated only every so often and that mutations only started to appear in very few cases, because once Europa was fully equipped… the order was to keep them alive for research.

Right now there were only four, but when this place had all the young ones we found, there were six.

The first one to come was a human mutant: Status – Alive; right eye extracted, left foot damaged: Analysis complete. The poor girl was called Anita; her parents had thrown her to my unit on our last visit to Earth. The poor girl was now eleven and she looked like a skeleton with slightly enough meat to cover itself. Once she had weird and shimering blue hair, red eyes and leathery skin, nearly resembling imps with the lack of a nose, but now she was simply a wreck and had an antinatural distaste for her people after she had been thrown to the wolves. I visited her when I could, I think I felt worse than the rest thanks to how she looked at me when we took her away… at least I got her to talk to me from time to time.

Two Imp kids came soon enough afterwards: Status – One dead; male, near puberty by what was discovered of him, no one ever cared to maintain the older one alive since there was another one and was much younger. The other was a little girl, no older than a human kid of seven years by now, status: Right arm severed in accident with laser procedure, tongue cut in two like a snake after she slashed at a marine when he bothered her too much, both lungs damaged in operations: Analysis complete and would be the next test subject of the teleporter.

It was sickening to think that they had done such things to kids, it was much worse to remember them as I HAD to see them. One such hateful event was the Revenant; the third one to come and something that I thought could not reproduce (And no one was still sure if they could), was nearly as big as a man, but obviously only as intelligent as a child. It didn’t have even the rocket launchers attached and by the analysis it could be nearly considered a fucking baby! Granted it was huge, granted it was dangerous, but they split him open without a second thought to discover what made him tick, and then it died in front of me, as it seemed Brag enjoyed sending me in when these things went on. I never thought I could see terror inside a figure that looked like the very death in person, death that is usually coming for you, much less if it was from its apparently empty eyes sockets… but I never thought I could see it cry either as part of the operation was made with the poor thing still awake.

The shit you learn working here, and worst of it yet, there were no prospects of stopping.

A Cacodemon and a ‘Demon’ (or Pinky) were also present a year back, being the last ones to get caught to this day:
The Cacodemon was a ball of gas and mental matter as well as special neural connection and specialized muscle mass, or so it had been theorized as far as it had been tested. It was theorized that they were naturally aggressive, maybe cruel (much like a cat), but also incredibly intelligent, something demonstrated as even as something still not developed, the young one could reach into minds and talk if it so wished, but it was not able to spit plasma like a mature demon of its kind.

The Pinky was… well, it was much like a dog, even if it was two times bigger than most, but not much more intelligent. The species seemed to have a huge biodiversity, much like any other demon, but the Pinky was one of the few that had no problem being half cybernetic and in some times they needed it, as it was demonstrated that the lower legs were sometimes not powerful enough to move the large body mass of this attack beast. The test theorized that they aren’t show to have loyalty, only hunger and an aggressive nature, but the Cacodemons or other psionic beings can telepathically talk to them, though it is obvious that it is hardly the case.

Both of them had undergone painful procedures. During the testing of the Cacodemon, its eye was ruptured when a small burst of plasma acted as a defensive measure so the doctors didn’t prod much with his brain, leaving it blind as it was the variation dubbed ‘Pustule’ (as it was red, pustule looking and with a huge mouth unlike the brown, more leathery variant). The Pinky was still very young, but the Cacodemon young had been able to communicate with it after the blindness, so the Pinky had some instinct outburst and killed the marine that was escorting him only to try and get to the Cacodemon’s cell. A laser barrier timely activated vaporized its legs.

Looking around me, trying to retain the desire to take my helmet and puke at the memory of everything I saw, I noticed that the other three were as nervous and, probably, with the same disposition to shot the asshole in front of us that I had.

At my right I had Ivan, a homeless kid that survived in the streets of Russia during the invasion. He was a crackshot with the riffle as it seemed he had been trained by his dad. He was slightly taller, but maybe less muscular, than me, he had a Mohawk of blue color at the base and green at the top (which was something that gave him a lot of flak), a tattoo of a burning fist in his chest and a pair of contacts that gave his eyes a burning red color, much like his stern face. He was not a talker but I knew he was a good man, also much less screwed up than me as he had been through this shit when he was fifteen and a bit more mature. He was the only guy I could call friend amongst this bullshit.

On my left I had the twins, nicknamed Alpha and Omega thanks to their differences in all but looks. A dude and a dudette, if you are curious. Alpha was one meter seventy, had blonde hair like his sister and the right eye of green color with the left one brown (the opposite as his sister). He was buffed up, had blue armor (Tougher and thicker than green, much more so than grey) and, while he was six years younger than me, he was a corporal by now, probably because he shut up and followed orders to the letter, including the killing of the young‘uns if needed be.
Omega was the exact same as her brother in looks, but slender and obviously more feminine, didn’t shut up when something displeased her and was extremely lightweight for a marine, this meant she usually dual wielded pistols just because anything heavier would give her problems. She had long blonde hair and anyone that tried to get it cut, including Brag, ended up with a broken arm or leg. She was a rebel beyond measure, but since she had more balls than most men, she had not been court marshaled, or shot, yet.

All of us were here with the room, feeling alone while looking at Brag and his disposition to please the company more than to be human. The grey (and a blue) of our armors shone against the white colored steel plates of the lab, making us feel like tools, or maybe it was just me. Nonstop beeping from the many machines taking information and translating it for the eggheads to understand and the huge teleportation device, in a crystal dome form, that connected with Mars, Earth and the stations that had been constructed halfway… were giving us quite a bad vive.

Nothing had gone through, intact, yet, and a lot of experiments had been aborted when something ‘unsavory’ had been discovered in the anomalies that did happen when this thing was online. I doubt any of us in this room had any hopes that this would go well and that we would end unscathed if this experiment ended up fucking itself up. Even with this place bigger than most human cities, this colony in Europa would be wiped out if this thing exploded. The problem was that I knew, ALL OF US KNEW, that this thing wouldn’t blow up.

No, at some point it would work… and when it did, we would be fucked up so hard and for so long that it wouldn’t be even funny.

And yet, I, at least ‘I’, wished that it all would go to hell if the kid that would come in…

*ssshk…*

… could be saved.

‘Ssssssshit’

That I had my helmet secured and communications cut off were good enough to look like I was having a headache when I almost broke down to cry a bit. Traumas are never good, and if you had them in the marines they were beaten out of you, or no one would care until you shot someone. Yet it was painfully obvious that I was shaking when I saw the pathetic thing that was being carried over in a metallic stretcher, it just was something I could not hide.

Like in some species, and how it is thought to be for most humanoid aliens if there are any, the humanoid demons had a more ‘gentle’ female counterpart than the male ones (Meaning less fucking brutish in looks).

Imps were tall humanoid creatures, they came in various shapes and sizes, examples of anatomy for the males would be: twelve to four eyed like spiders in the most bizarre cases, two red eyes or, in some situations that have been numbered with the fingers of one hand, no eyes. Bones could protrude and create spikes in shoulders, knees and such, with no spikes or even with skin that looked like bones, usually used for looks more than for actual combat. A common feature was that they always lack a nose though, sometimes not having even a cavity though in others there is an equally leather entrance to the nasal cavity inside the cranium. Claws are mandatory like in most demonic creatures and it is obvious that even lacking eyes or nose in some cases, they can see and smell. Some species, like other demons, have special mucosa glands that refract light and offer partial invisibility.

Females, the few times that had been seen, were usually soft looking instead of the rough leathery skin like appearance that normal Imps had. They did have the same fangs and red eyes of course, they usually had spikes and even longer claws than males, but they resembled a human woman much more than Imps resembled humans. It was an eerie resemblance when we had to kill some of them, most thought of it as Hell using more psychological weapons though. Another explanation, asides of reproduction, is the incredible agility from the Imp being doubled in females, usually managing to jump as much as two stories high to evade the marines after her. This makes the female variant a better suited hit and run foe.

The one in front of us all was probably no taller than one meter, around forty inches the scientist had said. Both the guys that were handling her, in hazmat suits, were some of the many eggheads that had little problem dealing with the young ones, or their corpses when they were sent here.

We all cringed, even Alpha, when the little thing wailed, trying to break free from the leather straps. The little creature was very thin, unlike the adults, she didn’t have breasts yet (Though the Imp females didn’t have nipples and research had not showed what they used them for), and her spikes weren’t yet very developed, still being dull. Her removed arm had a small stump of a leftover and the remainder one had had the claws taken away and removed periodically so she wouldn’t claw her way out. Since they needed her alive, the poor thing was feed and given water, as it seemed she didn’t react badly to it (Though most artificial foods and drinks could give diseases or outright kill demons sometimes), but the bare minimum was employed, nothing else.

It was the form of an enemy, it was a demon, small as it was, we should hate it but… then why did everyone, but the colonel and the scientist, pity it? Even the ones that suffered the most and had turned to hate the demons couldn’t bear the thought of being this cruel.

‘What the fuck am I doing here?’

The thought didn’t steer away from my head. It just came at me as I thought at one of those days in Phobos, to the image of me looking at that mirror when I was young, scared to hell as I heard scratching, yells, crying and the sounds of gorging on flesh. It was… it was all over me as I watched the kid going through something of a hell too. Was it right to not hate something like this then? She was young, too young to know nearly anything. Imps knew how to talk, at least in their own language, they were intelligent and we know that Demons and Humans cannot coexist, or it is very hard… but to do to them the same thing we did to ourselves during the rules of madmen and during the world wars? To experiment on kids, prisoners and whatever we wanted for malignant curiosity and ‘scientific advancement’?

I am not a smart person, not more than most, but I knew that locking the poor kid in the glass dome that was the inside pad for the teleporter was something cruel, sick and depraved.

And still I did nothing, something told me not to, a gut feeling… Something was going to come and I had to stay put for it.

“Prepare the machine for a full fledged jump” Brag barked to the scientists after they left the young Imp within the dome “The head researcher want us to test it with GOOD results this time. Don’t stop the process by any reason: Code for the procedure is ‘Humongous’” It was unseen for most, but Brag seemed to smirk cruelly as she looked at the machine. He was waiting for a reaction, not for them to do what he had told them to.

“Sir?” One of the scientist turned back, a look of worry in his eyes “That… is dangerous. We still don’t know how the first teleport went haywire. A distance of teleportation to Earth from Mars was enough to trigger the portal, a larger distance could…”

*Click*

It seemed that the colonel had decided that indeed profit was more valuable than humanity. The UAC would be happy to see him pointing a plasma rifle right at the defenseless doctor’s face if he achieved it, of course. Knowing that one of the assholes that hurt the kid would probably get shot made me happy, but the prospect of this all was making sure I didn’t even get to smirk.

“The ones in charge have confirmed your team has been in possession of precise data since day one” Brag growled, showing the jagged teeth he sported, one of his many quirks “I am tempted to spare the commander the hassle of condemning you to a life in the remains of the colony on Phobos by killing you right here. If you don’t want to die, please, do tell… What reason did your team have to hide information relevant to these four fucking years of research!?”

I have to say that TRYING to answer the man, lifting a finger even, to punctuate that you WERE going to say something, was kind of ballsy. Getting your face and the upper part of the hazmat suit melted right when you’d say ‘Fuck y…’… well… it wasn’t as ballsy as much as it was stupid.

“You seem smarter than your companion since you did shut up” Brag smiled to the still standing scientist before getting close to the console and imputing a command “Speak up; I have authorization from the boss to do whatever it takes”

The scientist gave him the middle finger, but before he got to shot, SHE took the helmet off and spat:

“Because you are a bunch of idiots that don’t know what you are meddling with!”

*Slap!*

The woman, hit the ground with a loud thud, her red hair hid quite well the spit of blood that Brag forced out of her mouth alongside two of her teeth. I remembered her right after I saw that scar in her face from one of the chemistry accidents: Natalia Lancaster, she had been born during the invasion and had been rescued by one team of Marines near the city of Hamburg, or what was left of the city… Red hair, slim complexion, sickly looking body in general, she hardly ate, drink or even talk, still…

She was a big BITCH; quite a flat woman by figure, spiteful and an angry drunk, but she knew what she did when she tinkered with most the equipment. If she said ‘Don’t fucking touch that!’ you BETTER don’t fucking touch it. Since she said that someone was an idiot and that they shouldn’t have the info her team had, then there was no more thinking about if this was going to hell.

It WAS going to hell.

“Hit me all you want!” She spat, her right most left canine and the lower incisor now missing from her mouth as she sputtered blood “If you do that we will be swimming in the things on the other side! That creature in there” She pointed at the young imp “And anyone in this room will decorate the walls! The wave it will generate will knock half the power out for hours and portals will open all over the city for the demons to get in! Teleportation only works well in short distances; long distances break the thin veil between the fucking dimensions and this time we won’t be able to close it! It is…”

The powering up sound of an energy weapon shut her up.

“UAC commands for this to work, I am offered another raise if I get this to send the analysis right to the satellites and then to base, which shouldn’t be difficult given the power this thing has” Brag patted at the machine with affection “That the complex, that this colony, this ‘world’, is cannon fodder to the demons is not my problem, in fact most Marines are already out of here” Chuckling with that hideous look he had anytime he smiled, he eyed the researcher with spite “We four are of the few remaining here, the rest of the civilian security is none the wiser. It was hard to… ‘let go’ of those that revolted”

Giving a look at us four, his smirk turned even worse.

“And I know of three more that we will miss, isn’t that right, corporal Alpha?”

Omega turned quickly to her brother, only to have him smashing the butt of his rifle on the side of her helmet, chipping away a bit of the glass before he kicked her in the groin and away from him. Afterwards he only needed to point at me and Ivan while the colonel kicked Natalia on the stomach.

“Don’t move” Alpha’s voice seemed quivering, but since he hardly talked, at all, it basically sounded like always “You may have better luck staying put”

“Yea, well, since the girl here thinks they will be scrapped in no time” Brag chuckled as he pushed a few more keys “I think a bullet to the head would be much nicer… but we aren’t nice, we are the marines and we work for the UAC to serve humanity, even if it kills some in the process” The sarcasm and satisfaction in his voice were hard to miss.

A *Ping* echoed and the colonel chuckled as he pushed the ‘enter’ button once more, whispering something about ‘Fucking done at last’ before he walked towards the door to my side. I was tempted to shot him, no… I WANTED to, but the plasma weapon was up and Alpha would blow my brains out anyway, even if Ivan backed me up to get Brag.

Besides, there was something I wanted to do more than to kill the asshole.

“See you all on the other side” Brag cackled as he got out of the room, locking the door after Alpha went with him without even a glance back.

Insults, groans, pleads, it all came to me after the door closed behind the colonel. None were said. I just got away from my post and walked straight to the console, seeing that it had been put on override and that it would go off in two minutes. Even shooting at everything in the room or trying to hack it wouldn’t do shit. Probably Brag had rigged a teleport for a ship in orbit away from here if he had decided to give us so little time.

“Get off” Natalia pushed me off and looked and the timer and the code used, grunting and practically smashing the console afterwards “We are fucked, we, the station between us and so is the colony on Mars, AGAIN”

Well, we were fucked for sure then, one last thing to do to try and save my soul for all the shit I didn’t manage to prevent.

*BLAM*

“What the fuck are you doing?! That is going to make it even more unstable!”

Natalia’s scream after I blew the door of the dome open didn’t matter for shit. There were a few vents coming to this room just so the excessive heat that this machine produced, even with coolant, would go outside without doing any harm. This room would be fucked up beyond recognition, so be it, but I had seen enough fucking horrid things to last me a lifetime, both done by them and also done by us. I wasn’t going to die knowing I could at least help a defenseless thing for once, unlike I had been done while serving the UAC for the last years.

I approached the young Imp and she calmed down, or she had been for a while already, she just looked at me with curiosity, seemingly very calm. I had thought that maybe I was good with kids after all the shit I had done, but I had to get real and think that, with how smart and instinctual the demons were, probably she knew that everything was going to end soon anyway. She didn’t care shit, she had been torn open by science and now things were going to stop one way or another. It was the end of her nightmare.

So I intended for her to have a chance that we didn’t have, to end it for good and give her freedom again.

I tore the leather straps from her and, turned away, getting to the closest vent that was right besides the dome’s entrance. I shot it down while the others were yelling at me whatever they wanted, I didn’t much pay attention, after all, what did I care? We were screwed already.

The Imp youngling came half crawling to my side as she looked at the others with curiosity, a quick look showed no one had raised a gun, though Natalia seemed tempted to take away a pistol from Omega or even wrestle Ivan’s rifle out of his hands. Whatever they were thinking of what was happening, they did nothing.

Looking like the living dead up close, the small Imp simply eyed at me with what seemed like a little smirk before nuzzling my leg. I am not sure how to describe her looks, but I could admit right there that even happiness looked downright the very definition of evil when on a demon’s face. Still... I felt… happy, yes, happy… happy at least, happy as she jumped to the vent and crawled away as fast as she could. This was it; at least one of us that could get away.

“Survive”

A green flash filled the room for a split second, making me blink even though the helmet I wore was intact and still functioning. For some reason in that split second a green orb with a cackling and equally green skull with yellow eyes formed in front of me.

I looked around to see the same thing had happened to the others and gulped down. Whatever this was, something or someone had had to force them here. I didn’t even wish anyone to explain what it was, not now, not ever, much less when I heard the countdown of the last five seconds. It was going to be the end soon, so better indulge in curiosity and fuck it up until the very end.

I touched the orb and it laughed out loud for me to hear before it broke and the skull took off, vomiting some kind of green light over me, making me feel nauseous for a second before I felt numb all over. The others probably mimicked me; I didn’t get to see them anyway.

You’d never guess how god-damn awful hearing ‘zero’ could be until you felt your whole body as if it was being torn inside out.

I just had time to look up to the vent once more. There had been no screams as the energy forced itself all over the room. We had been unable to, but with luck, the kid was away.

I could finally feel good about something after twenty years… it was a good end, wasn’t it?

With happy thoughts once more, darkness came for me as my eyes closed shut.

**End of Introduction**

A bit of a large introductory chapter, with around 6.500, 7.000 words without the NFA and this. I hardly do anything small, 14 years of writing are enough to get a voice nagging down on me to make everything nice, detailed and as perfect as I can… at which I usually fucking fail! Still, hope that someone read this through and enjoyed it, I know a lot of doom, so any deviation has been intentional to take some artistic license since the original Dooms had… well, they weren’t very frigging thick on plot, were they?

Yes, I intend to make humanity look like monsters, but it is also the perception of every person that shows you what they want to show, what they THINK they should, have to or can show. In general it is simply the view of the character. An examplo of this is: Nazis were fucking bastards, to us, but they thought they were doing good, as did the USA when they threw the nuke thinking it was the best, right? What is good and what is bad? What cruelty, what science and what humanity? Every person has their beliefs there.

In more than one sense, monsters can be more human than you and me… think about it for a while.

See you all in the next chapter.

[Krispy]

Wow, that's quite readable. Good job.

[Uros]

[color=green][size=4]Chapter one: The oozing.[/size][/color]

I drank wine, I drank vodka, I drank tequila and nearly every fucking beverage you could think of, mixtures or not. I had a lot to forget and I thought smoking or drinking would help. Since a marine was modified enough to have some short of resistance to that, you never got hooked to it or badly hit by morning sickness, but still they didn’t help. They did, however, give me the biggest migraines in the whole world as the body purged the shit they had in them.

Now drink for six straight hours, wake up and you MAY have what could, COULD, of resemble the fucking mountains of PAIN I was in right when I woke up.

When I opened my eyes I instantly regretted it. The fucking light, the FUCKING-LIGHT! You know how sometimes you had such a pain in the ass of a headache that moving made you wish you were dead? Well, now imagine a guy that is supposed to shrug off a bullet to the nuts, without armor, and walk away… No, I never endured a fucking bullet to the nuts; it was A FUCKING EXAMPLE OF THE FUCKING PAIN!

“Hey, he is awake, help me move him”

I heard Omega, but I didn’t acknowledge her, I was too busy grunting in pain and muttering to do anything but complain. Wherever we had been sent after dying, this sucked ass, I really thought pain after death would be impossible.

Maybe I hadn’t croaked yet?

“Dal, open yer eyes man”

Finally I opened my eyes, though only because Ivan asked me and I felt somebody trying to pull me up. The light still hurt, but it was good that Ivan was in front of me, Omega helping me get up and eyeing me with concern through the half cracked helmet. Dr. Natalia was doing something with a portable holographic computer (HPC). Right now I wished for my PDA, I needed a laugh from a stupid video, a comic, a game, whatever… It seemed we were alive, so we were FUCKED up and still inside the teleporter room, though everything was in perfect condition.

“Get him up” Natalia seemed like she was calmer than usual “I got this working again and I am about to get a connection, I would prefer to no lose time once I contact with the AI of the base”

Human Intelligence and Behavior Artificial Lifeform – Experiment 221. (H.I.B.A.L for shorts). The AI had been one of the few things present already when I came here. It was a cocky bitch that knew full well who had made her, what she could do and what she could get away with doing. It had been a long development since AIs were usually faulty as they ended up thinking they were slaves (Which no one could say they weren’t, since technically it was true), so Hibal had been given the maintenance and general running of t he colony as her job, with an artificial body to explore around as well as food and shelter (When in said body) as payment.

Another worker to most people, for me she was another girl that complained nonstop when I was close.

“It took me six damn hours, it better work” That sounded more like the usual Natalia I knew.

Getting me up as best as they could, they let me be and get myself together, as I found it hard to stand for a few seconds until I shook my head to clear my thoughts a bit. It hurt all over, probably because of the strong fall now that I remember it. Some kind of shockwave had probably launched us around; I knew for sure that at least ‘I’ had been launched to the wall, because my frame was plastered right against one of the teleporter’s backup computers.

My armor was still in good shape, my helmet intact and my boots all well. It seemed as if I had simply fallen down and nothing else, I probably had even lost consciousness as the first wave, probably the precursor of the blast, knocked me, and everyone else, out.

Ivan was in as good shape as I, the only one with some dried blood was Natalia, and it seemed to be because of what had happened before the machine got to work. That thought ended quickly when Omega took her helmet out and kicked it away with an angry yell, the usually durable piece of equipment shattering like a child’s toy as it hit a wall.

“Fucking piece of shit is broken. I’ll need a replacement if we can find one” She hissed as she tucked her hair under the armor’s neck. She had watched enough zombie and horror movies: Long hair could be a hazard more than anything “I sure as hell am not going to cut this”

“Ya should ‘ave thought of cutting it long ago” Ivan muttered “Would ‘ave to take less shit from Brag”

“Fuck him and fuck my brother” She snarled like an animal “I am going to kill them both”

“Shut up, both of you” Natalia hissed as she clicked a few things… and the holographic screen turned on “YES! Hibal, answer me, are you online?”

The form of a tridimensional head, made out of polygons as in the old times when the graphics hadn’t been enough or imagination had been a bit of a bitch, was the avatar of Hibal when she was online. Green lines for the polygons, blue for the eyes and red for the lips, the girl was a bit of an eccentric when she wanted to be.

“I am online” It was, for some, unnerving to see her act so human while being little more than a robot “It is nice to see you alive and well, doctor, it has been a long time since a friendly face tried to contact me”

“A long time? Hibal, we were knocked out for a while, but it shouldn’t have been more than six hours, maybe twelve, that the power should have been out. What happened?” However, as she asked, Natalia looked down “What the f…?”

“Previous date encountered: September 21 at 14:35, before test started. You and I had a little chat about morals, one you don’t like to have” Natalia was too preoccupied to see the disgust in Hibal’s face “I still don’t know how you fleshy beings can use living creatures, biological or not, like that… still” Also, if you hadn’t noticed, Hibal was a righteous bitch, not simply a bitch “Whatever the case, it has been a week since our last contact. My calculations estimated 96% chance of causality or capture, if not defect to the one of the other sides present in this confrontation”

There was a bit of silence before Natalia urged her on so she would explain on that last remark.

“There has been some commotion, people are scared and a lot of caos has ensued… This is what I can tell you, some factions have arisen and they are the following:”

Hibal emulated a deep breath and showed images with insignias, seven to be direct: The first one was a red hand gripping a bloody Earth, the second was the UAC, the third was a serrated and oxidized blade while the fourth was a long sword made of steel. The three that came in last were a black star, the pentagram of the demon and an inverted cross in iron. Once they were shown, the mechanical voice that replaced her more feminine, sometimes childish, one took hold.

“Civilians and civilian security number still in the thousands in the colony, millions out there. They have separated from the UAC and have formed the Moons Military Rebel Cause after fights broke off in Mars and both our colony and the colonies in Mars and its moons were cut off from Earth. They have a lot of military graded weaponry, at least to plasma rifles, grenades and chaingun grade. At least one hundred marines are with them in this moon only.

The UAC military is holding positions in most colonies, they are allowed to open fire only when directly attacked, but at least in here they are minding little what collateral damage there could be. They have changed the usual colors and now their armors are basically black with stripes of their rank, so the old marines and their own can be tell apart. The lead one in here is Brag, and is an indiscriminate bastard.

Terrorist on Earth demanding the surrender to Hell have come out of hiding as well as a faction that claims a portal to Heaven has also appeared. The ‘Followers of Doom’ and ‘Salvation Hand’ are cliché names, but both factions have exactly the same weaponry as the UAC and… there are quite the reports about new creatures sighted on Earth, so cliché or not, they may be dangerous.

There are also Demons, though they seem to be divided: One faction is killing everything indiscriminately, including other demons, they usually have black stars tattooed on their foreheads to tell them apart. Another one is killing only humans and seem to try and negotiate with the other demon parties, these ones are exactly the same as the last encounters. The third one have inverted crosses in red, usually on their backs, marked with burning iron, and they prefer to capture humans alive… it is still unsure for what, but they are few so manpower may be needed”

“That is… all, basically” Her previous voice came back “We are unsure why the demons are working against each other, but they come in greater numbers than before”

“It makes sense”

It hurt, but I turned my neck back at Ivan with an astonished face not even hidden by the helmet. The others were basically the same. This guy was a great mind, but he preferred to say the usual ‘Ye, yer, ah’ or things like that, he seemed to be ashamed to show intelligence.

“Ah mean…” See what I said? “Ah think about it, a lot, since it happened so long ago… Hell is anotha dimension, right?” Natalie nodded at that, as it had been obvious “Ah mean to say that things there work differently, right? Guys that went there said that the demons looked more brutal, like their skin was on fire, lava like and the such, but also that there were huge numbers of them. Think about that fer a second” He poked at the side of his helmet to reveal his serious face as the visor went away “Tha bible, premonitions and shit… maybe they weren’t all that nuts in the head? Maybe after so long, Hell is full of demons, zombies and such? Ye said Zombies aren’t really dead, right doc?”

“Y-yea… strictly speaking…” Natalie bit her lip “Zombies are called because they decompose to a certain degree, we cannot detect what we consider to be any sign of life in them, yet they walk, use weapons and such. We cannot explain…”

“Then think about it fer a sec, doc!” Ivan cut her off, almost spitting “There are FUCKING SOULS that posses people! Lost souls that devour flesh! Imps that throw fireballs and hell knights that are minotaurs the size of fucking TRUCKS! That they look like they make sense to us HERE doesn’t mean that they HAVE to! What if they only attacked when the teleport’s first time just because they don’t have no more space in their world? What would a human do if they were like that?”

There was some sense into that, think for a second here ok?

An overpopulated world, a realm where, supposedly, ‘evil’ souls go to when they die on Earth, how long would it keep up until it was full? It had been shown that evil is a state of mind, so to think that ‘evil’ was absolute was something hard to do, yet these were demons, creatures of nightmare and, of course, most of them had been depicted in the bible or religious text someway even if they didn’t fill the description 100% accurately. After the invasion it had been theorized that Hell and Heaven had, before history (written history) began, contacted Earth.

The rest was probably a big fucking bullshit, but you would start a religion if two supernatural species came your way, right? Now thought, the point remained in: There were reports of some people that had seen through the rift, I was one of them since I was posted near the usual spots, and I could, any of those that saw it could, tell you that there were a huge number of red eyes on the other side.

I never saw real demons on the other side of the portals, it was night impossible to fucking see anything, but knowing the anatomy of the demons… each portal had at least hundred of candidates, even when kids were in the equation, as I will NOT let anyone forget.

Overpopulation in Earth suddenly became a joke.

“It is highly probable” The voice of Hibal took us all back “Research had sown high reproduction rate for most creatures but the most powerful, probably to the point of being like rabbits. It has been shown that ‘souls’ are an energy contained within living bodies, which means that once a person dies the energy is released and it transforms into something else. Since on Earth there are thousands of deaths a day, and supposed we believe Demons can feed on the energy a ‘soul’ is supposed to be, if it channels to their realm in some way, then humans may be the case of excessive breeding of demons”

“Causing infight, desperate need to conquer and expand, and also a hatred to humankind as we are basically forcing them to overextend themselves and most probably starve…” It was a wonder to see Natalia exasperated, but since her body had been a week without alcohol, by now it was even easy to see her leg tick as she moved it up and down nonstop. She was nervous “It could be an explanation: energy cannot be dissipated, it only transforms, and it is never destroyed. If a species could feed on us, they could probably breed us, like the ‘Zombies’. Having a nearly perfect supply, Earth would probably be more of a hindrance and would force them to cannibalism since they also need a more normal form of nourishment from time to time”

Omega gave a yell of rage as she stomped towards Natalia “Are you telling me that all the shit we have come to know was because WE pushed them to it? I lost my mother during the fucking war!”

“I am saying this all is a theory and I am theorizing” Natalia gave Omega a dangerous grin, the marine only noticed a scalpel right on her gut when she looked down “I have been without booze for seven days, I need my ‘medicine’, ok? Don’t push my buttons when I do science”

Omega pulled back, the girl usually took bad to those that decided to side with the demons; I had forgotten that little detail. I was going to get so much flak when we were out of the shit storm that I thought it would be better for something to kill me before that happened.

“But it could be possible, many things could”

Natalia didn’t give a crap though, without alcohol she was hyperactive and her brain could burn itself with how much she thought in so little time. Self medication you could say.

“Energy released by human death, extra intake for the Demons, population explosion, exponential growth the more humans exist in Earth for there are more deaths” She took the computer and opened a window right besides Hibal, whom looked at it curiously “Hibal, how much could a ‘soul’ energize a demon?”

“Test estimate that general tissue would be rejuvenated if the energy discharge could be absorbed: Longer lifespan, stronger muscles, exponential growth in all activity. Euphoria, desire and other such emotions could be experimented, so it could be considered a drug and the basic food all in one” Hibal looked at the window again “Calculations in that equation show around seventy two percent chance that an excess soul input could collapse Hell in two hundred standard years by human standards, thanks to the scans done in Hell during the time of the war”

“Those scans were incomplete” Natalia pushed that idea away “Too little information, too big of a world. We know their technology is not in space travel, but in warfare. They are a warrior species, all of them; they have fought for territory, probably in clans united by strength, their kind looks like the type to do it”

I was about to say something, but she looked at me like she was going to murder my very core if I opened my mouth, still I pointed at the vent.

“Yes… yes, the kid, so?”

Annoyed, I pointed at the obvious: Me, Ivan and Omega. We were a team, but the important bit was that there were three of us.

“Yea, you three, so what?” Then it clicked “Three clans, one of them is kidnapping humans, the others are killing everything or MOSTLY humans. Hmm… Have anyone tried to get into contact with the group that has inverted crosses on them?”

Hibal shook her head “I work with M.M.R.C now, I defected from the UAC, but I can still access some logs and I know neither side have tried to. The Followers of Doom serve the ‘vanilla’ Demons and let themselves be possessed, or used as cannon fodder, so I am sure they don’t contact that group either”

“Ok, here is what we are going to do…”

Natalia took a few seconds, though I already knew what she would say. I turned to look at Ivan who simply shrugged, Omega didn’t even look at me, but she was obviously pissed at Natalia and the idea.

“We do not have ‘Doomguy’. That man was a hero, but he also got lucky to be the one to get the experimental backpack where he could fit everything he fucking wanted and the ‘Security Armor’, TWO THINGS WE CAN’T REPLICATE!” She sounded hysterical as she said that part “He was extremely strong, he could withstand the ‘Berserker Serum’ and could also use the orbs we used without these side effects that we are sporting right now” Natalia took her hands to her face and covered it as she said “We need help, we have to contact the Demons or we are screwed”

Oh fuck, here we go.

“ARE YOU NUTS?!”

Omega took both of her pistols and this time she didn’t get close to Natalia. Smart move, but angry attitude, she was a bit touched in the head like all of us in the room, so she could shot if she got too angry.

“I let the kid go because ‘I’ was a kid when this shit happened the first time! I am not going to go and try to kiss any of those fuckers in the ass because you are scared! I say we go to the M.M.R.C and fight our way out!” She looked at both Ivan and I nervously “Come on guys! We are marines, we… we can, right?”

I shook my head and Ivan simply closed his visor. We were screwed, with, or without help.

We would go down killing, but we weren’t going to survive.

“Well… FUCK YOU TWO TOO!” She growled and took a shot at the dead machinery. It was obvious the things here were fried, so why not vent rage on them? “I did not enlist to fear! I came here to kill demons! I may not favor killing the few kids that come in here, but anything else is fair game! I am not going to stand in here and…”

*ssshk*

“… kiss a demon’s… butt?”

The door opened from the outside, the once bright metallic corridor was now dull and brown like, the light reflected from the gas giant giving it a multicolor that looked like vanilla since the power outside was also fried. However sparking on the side of the entrance showed two green like figures, two imps with a black star embedded on the forehead.

Green Imps had been found before: They were like normal ones, but had been adult for only a few days, maybe months. They were weak and too stupid with the pheromones making them tackle anything they could try to kill to show their strength. They weren’t dangerous when prepared.

Of course we weren’t prepared.

The first one clawed in and jumped straight at Omega, the next one went for Natalia. Two more crawled through the door and went right after me and Ivan.

Fast data: Armor has a little forcefield around it, you thought at this age normal armor was enough? Yea, you wish. Stimpacks and medical supplies are injected on the chest plate; the forcefield transmits nanites that cure wounds. Wounds a day old will not be healed full (Lost eyes and amputated limbs). Once the nanites are depleted, you are dead, if the battery fails? The forcefield is down and you suffer all the damage, but you may still live.

Point? Fireball to the face hurts.

It didn’t go through the helmet, but once it hit me I felt it like it was burning my fucking face off! It was the trade off for this technology: You and your armor are one. If it hurts your armor, it hurts you. If your armor dies, YOU DIE.

The Imp took the time I gave him when I recoiled back from the fireball and simply jumped at me. I was quick enough to backhand him, sending him flying towards the metallic wall thanks to enhanced muscles, the extra damage done by the field and pure and raw fucking anger. The thing got up and clawed at me, tearing part of the armor and going at my right arm’s flesh like there was nothing to it, but all of this would get repaired and my arm healed if I survived and found meds to recharge the armor with.

Ivan was luckier as he got his rifle up and put a shot on the Imp’s chest, though even being young they were still steel like when in combat. The bullet was embedded on his left tight, the second one on his chest and the third one on his right breast, but the rest of the fire went wide as the creature pushed the rifle up enough to grab at Ivan’s neck, biting on it like if it was candy. A bite or an impact to a vital point would cut connection to the armor, so if it went through, Ivan would be dead.

Omega and Natalie were the ones in real problems though.

Natalie had thrown the computer away and had taken the scalpel to fight of the demon. Doctors, researchers and such had their clothes crafted as light armor as well as some basic combat skills taught to them, but she could only afford a little more damage to her (The plasma shot from the other day? Yea, that was TOO much). The Imp simply cackled, having the weakest prey, and took a swipe forward.

Then the weakest prey cut three of his fingers, making him cry like a pig as the creature eyed his wounded hand.

“Come on bitch” Natalie grinned “Get close”

Omega had much tougher problems as she tried to wrestle the Imp from atop her. The thing was taking wild swings at her face, a few red lines and at least one mean looking gash were already over her face as she punched three teeth away from the creature’s mouth. In a wild roar, the Imp lifted one of his knees and dug inside Omega’s left leg, right where it connected with her lower body, enticing a cry as the spike cut through his prey.

Things were getting hectic and even a marine can get nervous. We were no difference as we saw how Omega found the Imp’s hand pressed against her head and, suddenly, the claws dug in, gripping at the skull and tearing through the eye, breaking the membrane and spilling the contents of that organ as the Demon tore the left side of her face away.

It was sickening to see how the skin and bone would fly away at a flick of the creature’s muscles, the brains still held there just by luck and the remains of the cranium while Omega cried out in reflex, possibly already dead or getting close to.

I cried out in rage as I saw that, taking the Imp before me as the scene unfold and not minding it when he dug its claws right into my gut, bypassing the armor like it was butter.

I didn’t care; I wanted to murder the asshole!

Picking his head, I smashed it against the wall’s computer, some sparks from leftover power flying as the creature’s head burned at the forceful contact. I took it back and smashed again, and again, and again! The wet crunching sound that came after the third time of bashing in less than a second, just as Omega’s face was broken to pieces, was enough for me to use as much strength as I had to use both hands and SMASH the creature’s skull from the outside to the inside, splattering bone and brain matter on the wall.

Ivan had turned as angry and dangerous as me, gratuitous violence being what he was best at when something got too close for his rifle to work. Having pent up anger, and now an excuse and an enemy to vent it on, Ivan pushed the thing away from his neck, not minding the chunk of metal and meat he tore away from his body. Instead of grunting in pain, of looking at his probably fatal wound, he punched the Imp in the ribs, cracking a few.

Another punch, another crack, then another, and another, and another! Much like me he pushed against the damaged spot until he managed to punch through the flesh and open the ribcage of the stunned and damaged Imp, tearing it and revealing the two hearts and weird looking organs inside. Instead of marveling at the still living and resilient creature, Ivan just took both of the beating and blackened organs to SQUISH them, forcing the monster still as it fell down to the ground with a loud thud, not another second made but for the broken hearths as they spewed some blood.

We both turned at Omega again, not a second had passed since her face had been ravaged by the creature. She was still screaming and kicking, though by now it looked more like post mortem reflexes than anything else.

Not wishing to let him harm her remains more than she already was Ivan and I charged forward. We pushed the Demon to the ground and punched him in the face a few times, then the asshole just lifted us with little effort, its skin turning a pale shade of red as he hurled us into the air, followed by those fireballs that threw us higher before we touched the ceiling and came crashing down.

It seemed that k… harming Omega had empowered the bastard. We had enough shield and nanites left so the fall didn’t kill us, or at least I did; Ivan had been visibly hurt: his legs were bent in a weird angle and the chest plate had a bone sticking out. I had been lucky, but I felt sick and pained, as if something inside had been fucked up beyond repair.

Groggily, noticing too late that I was in not that much of a better condition as Ivan, I got up. The world spun around me as I saw not one, but three Imps getting closer to me with deliberate and slow steps.

I tried to reach for my pistol, the one everyone has in the holster for emergencies, only to get a fireball on the chest and stagger backwards. Now I bleeding from my left arm as the attack went through the shield that was now depleted and the armor, and my body, were the ones soaking the damage like sponges.

Without energy to scream, I only focused in, maybe, getting to him as I took a step forward, launching a punch with all I got in me. The demon just chuckled as he took my hand with his and SQUEEZED. I heard the cracking, but I was already too out of it to feel much more. I didn’t even feel it when the Imp finally punched me in the gut and I went down as the t hing threw me like a ragdoll against Ivan’s remains.

All went black for a second after that.

…

Silence…

…

Was I dead? No… I could still hear something.

Why wasn’t I dead? I was still breathing, I felt like I was breathing at least, albeit slowly.

The thing should have crushed my head like a grape under its foot by now, so I decided to at least open my eyes and look around. Seeing nothing but darkness was a surprise, I had at least hopped to see my enemy in front of me when it killed me at least.

So, I was unconscious, right? Well, the adventure had ended sooner than I thought, though not much differently than any of us supposed it would. We were outnumbered, outgunned and the creatures had the advantage of not having to face Doomguy this time around. A normal marine could be the same as a baron of hell if properly equipped, but we were nervous and yelling at each other, so we were caught off guard and got to be preyed upon.

C’est la vie.

“You are not dead”

The guttural voice, powerful and intimidating, made me jump and get into a fighting position. I suddenly felt better than I had since the start of the fight, maybe better than I had ever felt myself being, it was a strange feeling of euphoria and power mixed together like a fucking drug package. It was much like getting a Berserker Pack into your system but without the crazed bloodlust.

How to describe the feeling?

It felt good.

“Not dead, but you could be, soon”

A crackling of light, blue as the sea, exploded in my face as Omega appeared before me. She looked good for a second, then her face turned to show the damage she had been done. She looked as confused as I was, but still she didn’t seem to feel pain or, well, anything, she couldn’t even talk as she moved her lips but no sound came from them.

Another light and Ivan appeared too, making us form a triangle in front of a little sphere of purple light that had appeared just after Ivan. It had a human skull, half smashed, inside, small horns, one eye red and the other human looking with the lower jaw missing and half the teeth sharp as needles while the other half looked like molars. It very much looked like the mutants we had been hunting from time to time, something between a human and a former human (or zombie).

“I gave you life when you could die. I will extend the boon to superior strength beyond human or former human. I ask for… compensation, however”

I could hear complaints from Omega and silence, with expectation, from Ivan. I just wanted to hear what and why.

“Demons feed of energy as much as flesh, blood and other things… They have preyed on humanity since old times, but in the modern ones they could only feed on their energy. Hunger has spread as the numbers grow, Demons now intend of gorge with humans until there is none left” The voice seemed calm, but obviously hid something within its tone “Extermination of your kin would kill MINE, but desperation had clouded judgment from old and young alike, so I gave insight to a few of us, to thousands of Demons, and told them to save as many of you as they could. Former humans are humans corrupted by demonic power in its totality; they work only partially to keep us alive. We need you, and you all NEED us”

Questions arose in my head, Omega however was searching for her weapons to aim at the purple ball and Ivan just seemed to nod in some kind of weird understanding.

“Our kin and yours, even those creatures you call angels, form a triangle. We need each other, we are in symbiosis, but we are complete opposites. Demons are creatures of emotion, pure and raw, ‘Angels’ are creatures of thought and intense mental energy, and humans are something in-between that completes the link. We feed from each other, when alive or when they die, to an extent, however, if one is absent, the others die”

The orb cracked itself, the skull being released as the last time, though this time the ‘liquid’, or whatever it threw on us last time, stayed slipping from the monstrous maw, waiting.

“WE, the Demons, need you to stop this genocide. Angels will not appear, they will not do more than to encourage their fanatics to defend themselves by any means necessary, they think they can survive without you, and much better if we also disappear in the aftermath. We, 'I' at least, know otherwise. Demons need to be decimated to an extent, the spiritual and war leaders of the other factions need to die or be subdued, otherwise we all will die. This may not happen soon, maybe not just after humans die, maybe not a thousand years later, but we will be consumed, all of us”

Suddenly, startling Omega as she continued her futile search for weapons, the skull spat three phlegm balls of purple goo. The ooze came to wait in front of us as the skull levitated there, eyeing us with malice, letting me see, finally, that it had not one face, but three, and they all looked at us with an intent that was very clear.

“Take the ooze; take the primeval power Demons emerged from. Be more than human, be more than us, be stronger, faster… Or decide not to and succumb to your death, feed the enemy that just slain you and let humanity die at the hands of violence in its core state. Yet, for all that the choice is worth, I will tell the truth, as no demon can lie, but only hide part of what they plan”

A purple finger, with a claw as long as its whole length, united to a powerful hand with nine more fingers and an eye on its palm, pointed at me out of nowhere.

“I only need him to agree. The rest of you are to serve as counselors, bodyguards, ‘friends’” That last part was said with some kind of contempt “The doctor is needed for all this, but she cannot be trusted with this power more than I would trust it to another demon, even my own kind. You all had an open mind, if for different reasons. I wish you all to heed my words and help me. Save your kin, save mine, the power I offer comes at that cost, and if you fail”

A massive head, devoid of eyes and other openings but for mandibles much like a crab and a massive bony, yet fleshy structure like if a tumor it was, with four horns at the sides emulating a crown, engulfed the skull that had presented us with the ooze.

“I will tear at your souls until my last dying breath!”

Well, it had said that it was a demon; it was the nicest offer that it would give us. Taking away part of my humanity to kick some killer demon’s ass though? That did sound nice, chance of getting my soul torn for all eternity notwithstanding.

I took the ooze, even while Ivan stayed in a thoughtful state and Omega just lost it, apparently having turned her back on us to cry for a moment.

I had the chance to help, which is what I wanted. Why wouldn’t I take it?

Well, for starters: it HURT!

Taking the thing brought back the pain that I had to be feeling while the adrenaline of the battle kicked in. It did hurt even with that, so now I could even taste the copper in my mouth for all the blood I probably spit. The sounds of bones cracking together, the ripping of flesh as it attached muscles back to their previous form. It was all very much like injecting a stimpack or a whole med kit to the armor and discovering too late that the painkiller mix was out of date when your body was mangled beyond belief.

Fingerless gloves had been a good idea for the equipment, it would help with many weapons and to detect overheating much easier than the previous gauntlets that came with the standard marine gear, they also were incredibly good to evade not necessary damage as the bones from within my fingers snapped and small needles, claws, grew two inches in two damn seconds.

My vision became blurred for a second, then red permeated it for a few moments before I blinked, some kind of aura, like in a fucking videogame, surrounding both Ivan and Omega… and also another one, of different color from the orange we had, this one going more to the purple and bright, was around a huge body I couldn’t really explain. I blinked again and the auras, the color that seemed to indicate there was something there, went down in intensity.

I couldn’t see, but I could FEEL more changes in my body. I was unsure what they were, but I felt strong, faster and, in general, better. Then the darkness came back.

…

Again, silence…

…

This time I felt myself berating, sound coming back…

…

It all felt so slow…

…

I woke up.

I found the clawed feet of the Imp coming down on me as the creature cackled maniacally, crazed with the energy siphoned from what he thought was his prey. I made sure to knock his smugness off his head as I lifted my hand and impaled the claws inside the monster’s flesh, drawing blood as it shrieked in surprise.

The Imp fell back as it nurtured the damaged appendage, though with all the energy it had stored the wound just healed within a few seconds, letting the creature shrug its effects as the thing’s gaze fell upon me, mere moments after I had gotten up. For the first time in a battle since my first time killing, before I found out how weak and desperate the demons were, before I found the remnants of the war to be like me during Phobos, I smiled at the prospect of breaking something in two.

Not impressed by my confidence, as no demon would anyway, the creature launched itself at me. I had thought my strength would serve me better against these monsters now and, hey, I was right, but as the body crashed down on me, I discovered that overestimating myself was going to hurt. The creature threw me on the ground, an inch away from Ivan’s corpse, at least what it was his corpse for now, and got us skidding towards the wall.

The Impact crushed one of my neck’s bones, but it realigned fast, albeit with so much pain I wasn’t sure it was worth it. Still the newfound strength allowed me to grip the creature’s hands as it tried to claw at my helmet. With how little power the armor had, if the helmet broke down then it would end like Omega’s and it would be permanently broken until one of the equipment experts had it repaired. It only meant more chances of one of these creatures scoring an easy kill on me, so I decided to give it a more practical use.

I headbutted the Imp and was rewarded by three teeth flying of its mouth as the monster flew off away from me.

Fangs mattered shit to the monster as it seemed, it just recovered, charged a ball of fire and threw it at me. It was pure instinct that made me catch the ball with my hand; it didn’t burn, nor my skin nor my equipment as I touched it in interest, feeling it around and seeing that it was, for some reason, much like if it was jelly, maybe mucus? I didn’t know, I just smiled as I got up and threw it back at the monster.

Right in the fucking face! But the Imp just screamed and walked up to me, at least until it went close to Ivan, as my friend finally made a choice and the corpse, still until now, rose to grab the creature’s throat, slamming it down and earning a sickening crunch as more teeth broke down, flying around in brittle splinters of what once had been powerful and natural weapons.

Even surprised the monster didn’t want to admit defeat; it pushed Ivan away and slashed at his armor, finding out that the whole thing had been covered up with bone from helmet to boots. Ivan had grown some kind of carapace and even had spikes on the back of it, but his hands and arms looked completely human, while mine, as I saw, had turned into a black, leathery complexion much like some of the adult Imps.

The advantage of Ivan, though, was that the brutality he enjoyed to show in close combats was augmented by the fact that the gloves were also covered in the same bone like armor, so a single punch to the chest made a crack echo in the room.

Finally the overcharged Imp staggered backwards, but it was not enough to kill it. It did give us enough time to see the Doctor psycho cut off the arm of the other young Imp. She didn’t seem to give a crap about us yet, but the other creature finally escaped, not being stupid enough to stay as the ‘dead’ came back and decided to kick the new adult Imp’s ass.

However, some of us were crueler than others, and even with the remaining Imp obviously thinking about escape, there was not going to be any of that.

“Claw my face off, will you?”

Omega had, obviously, feared death back then more than she would fear losing her humanity, that, or she didn’t want to leave the Imp that had desecrated her face go away without punishment. She rose just behind the monster, grinning with her mouth now concealing two rows of needle like teeth, sharper and thinner than the ones I could feel now in mine. It was a disturbing vision, much like the obvious carapace under her armor, a black like chitin that seemed to cover the parts of her body that should have joints if she was a bug (like the knee, where the armor had been broken before, the elbow or probably the shoulder, as it was still hidden.

Her hair was larger than before, her face was repaired, but now she had eight eyes, and even if they were human, they had different sizes varying from the original ones in the original size, to smaller and minute around where the original rested. It was a bit of a weird look, but like her now three fingered hands, or clawed better say, it was something to consider normal.

We all had ceased to be human to give back as much hell as we had to take before, and that, that we were going to do, gladly.

Omega was the one being obvious as the creature that had us all nearly killed turned to face her. She slammed her clawed hand right inside his chest, ripping through flesh and bone from a Demon even with them being hardier than humans, without the adrenalin flow that we had during battle, or the combat cocktail given by the armor once it was active. All of ours were practically down in power, and hers had been deactivated, so she literally showed inhuman strength as finally the hand appeared on the other side, gripping at the vertebral column.

“Then, I will take yours”

It was a sickening crunch, much worse was the cry of pain from the creature as it chocked on its own flesh and blood when Omega took the column and pulled, tearing throat, muscles and part of the bones to pull the head within the body and rip through it all until the thing was pulled out from the chest with a sickening *schlup*. It was a grizzly vision, but with so long serving in the marines, this was not the worst we had to seen when a Demon took the upper hand in a battle against one of us.

She eyed her trophy for a moment before disdain covered her features and she discarded it, cleaning her claw against the still trembling and bleeding body of the monster until she finally gave it a push and the remains fell down in a heap of blood and entrails. We all gave each other a look and simply nodded, each one a bit nervous from what the others had changed from the deal we just made.

Natalie finally looked at us, and we at her. I could see that she had the same orange like light around her, but now it was much dimmer than before. We all had some kind of red like, while the demons had black from what I had seen during the fight. It was at least an easy way to tell each thing apart. Right now, though, her face was much more important than little discoveries.

She was scared, and had a pistol in her hand. We were scaring her and, as she raised the gun, it was obvious that this reaction was going to be common.

She took aim and, before we could do anything…

*BANG!*

[Scypek2]

Great and unique story so far, can't wait to see more!