Demons, part one.
The tale of the day begins… hmmm… now that would be a toughie to explain, for the 'when' is rooted in both the fourth dimension called time as well as the fifth dimension called hypertime. Pardon that minor digression. Lemme try that again.
Once upon a time, everything began. At the very moment creation was born it was done so with five dimensions. These were known by some as height and width and depth, time and hypertime.
From that singular point creation grew even greater with every instant, always moving further outwards in every conceivable way. Space expanded. Time flowed. The one infant universe turned into many. Every possibility became its own reality.
As the ages passed the processes only grew exponentially faster. After the first thousand years (as humanity and other races defined that span of time), every passing second spawned thousands of new and ever-expanding universes. Occasionally over the eons, from some region of itself, creation brought new creators forth; certain beings who had attained a level of power and/or knowledge so vast that they could create universes of their own and begin their own great works.
This was what some races and individuals, within its boundless five-dimensional confines, knew as the Omniverse. Naturally, such a grand thing merited capitalization. There could be no question about it.
By every definition one could have for the word, creation was infinite. Because it was such a vast thing, it should come as little surprise that some corners of infinite creation spawned the strangest of things; things such as eldritch titans or demigods that would defy all understanding, and the worst of travesties too. It was impossible otherwise, given the sheer scale involved here.
It was, in the truest fact, within one of these myriad planes of existence, a demon realm – or Hell Dimension as some realities knew such worlds – known as Makai, that this story found a beginning; albeit, this beginning was closer to the middle of things than the start or the finish.
The throne room for which the beginning took place was one of considerable size, reaching over a hundred metres from wall to wall and almost a dozen metres from floor to ceiling. Though the decor of the hall was on the minimalistic side, it was not absent in its entirety; the room was illuminated by sunlight, shining in through a round skylight. Only three people were present in the hall.
The throne's occupant was a lime-haired woman of a slender and shapely build; a demon of the humanoid shape. A pair of wings colored coal-black poked out from her back, and a smaller pair of them from the woman's head. Her sole garment was a marine-blue backless dress that displayed a moderate amount of cleavage. The succubus queen regarded her two visitors with vague disinterest.
They stood side-by-side, facing the archfiend, and looked like 21st century homo sapien preteens.
The first of the pair was brown-haired, and stood with his arms folded. His only garments were a white shirt whose main feature was the black stripe that ran down its middle, and a pair of green jeans. Around his left wrist was the Omnitrix; a bulky, black-and-grey object with a faceplate that emitted a dim emerald light. Two white tubes, appearing similar to veins, stuck out of the strap parallel to each other and ran from one side of the display, around the back of the device and connected to the other side of the display. Onto the back of his hand and forearm, the device extended, in a manner resembling the growth of organic things, a three-layered grey plating of its metal.
The other visitor had ginger hair, and was garbed in a shirt colored two shades of blue as well as white-hued pants. Like the other preteen, she was barefoot; her eyes were the same shade of green as his were, one that was of such hue and vividity that the adjective 'emerald orbs' seemed only fitting for them both. Around her right wrist was a bracelet colored blue and yellow, which was decorated with a round and red amulet; the mystic object called the Keystone of Bezel.
"Have you had your fun yet?" questioned Morrigan. Her voice showed no trace of her accent.
Gwen grinned. "Yep. Well, if you don't need us for anything, I'm thinking we'll hit the road again, right, Ben?"
Ben pondered that for almost a split-second, then gave a shrug.
"You needn't worry about that," the greenish-haired monarch's tone was somewhere between teasing and stern, her lips set in a smirk. "I've got Makai well under control, but if you're so eager to lend a hand, there's only an endless amount of state affairs to attend to."
Ben's bare hand flew, a long-acquired instinct, for the Omnitrix and pressed the green button on the side of the techno-organic device. The center section, a black ring upon which was attached four smaller green-colored buttons, raised itself up, and began to emit a clicky beeping.
Above the hourglass, there was a three-dimensional projection of a formidably-built and well-muscled dinosaur creature, a hologram colored bright green and barely the size of his hand.
The bare hand rotated the dial right-ward. The hologram changed; the projection of his Humungousaur form was replaced with another, a humanoid figure with a large head. Observing this, he turned the dial left-ward, going through the holograms of the forms he'd dubbed Echo Echo, Humungousaur, and XLR8, stopping at the third alien form.
The brunet pressed the dial down, ending the noise and bathing the room in emerald light.
Omni-energy coursed from the device and through every cell in Ben's body, shaping his genome and physiology anew. When the light died out, the informally-attired preteen was gone, and where he had been, there was now a black-and-blue colored creature of lithe and bipedal build, with a moderately long tail.
"Ready?" the alien speedster asked the ginger quickly, receiving an affirmative nod. He wrapped his arms around her, then raced off. In barely a moment, they had departed the throne room.
Morrigan gazed pensively into the air, where they had been. "Twelve years," she said, for none to hear. Twelve years had gone by since last they had come to Makai, to aid her against the pretender to Belial's name. Their visit this time had been a brief one, but from the looks of it, they hadn't changed a bit - they were still smart-mouthed kids, still unstoppable together, still enabling, still heroes true.
The succubus wasn't surprised how static they were, but she was unsure of whether it disappointed her. She hmmed audibly, taking note of the reflective mood that had come over her. Deciding to shelve the thought for the moment, she stepped up from the throne. With a quick walk, she made her way to the south end of the room and out on the balcony.
The sight there was familiar, yet one unceasingly appealing. Before her gaze were the houses of her subjects, numbering in the millions, extending further than the horizon.
Each house differed from the neighbouring ones in some manner - they could be large or small, the colors of the roof-tops could stand out differently or the house could be constructed in a particular fashion to accomodate a resident. It could be any one detail, or several of them.
Every house was surrounded by open street, to all four directions of the compass, and there Morrigan saw countless demons flock and wander about. They barely appeared larger than dust motes, or specks of splattered blood, or something else quite small.
She leaned forward, folding her arms and laying her head in the middle. Her eyes wandered leisurely over the colorful nation that unfolded before her.
Suddenly, soft footsteps poked a hole in the throne-room's silence. The succubus spun. A black-furred hellpuppy was racing across the floor, observably unsteady in its footing. It came to a halt once it had run past her throne.
"Mistress Morrigan, Mistress Morrigan," yelped the pup infernal, an eager shine in his blood-colored eyes.
"Yes, Mephistopheles?" asked the queen, regarding the black dog curiously. "What's brought you here?"
She received not an answer; at least, not a verbal one. It was the second hellhound charging into the room from the same door, a walking mountain of a beast, which gave Morrigan an idea of the situation.
"Where is the mutt?!" growled the adult hellhound, its four blood-hued eyes aglow. He glanced around the room, quickly spotting the puppy hiding behind the queen's left leg. His march towards the wayward youth was, to the hellhound's annoyance, halted by Morrigan extending a hand.
"Enlighten me," requested Morrigan, amusedly. "Why're you pursuing him, Leo?"
His initial answer was a momentary glare, down at the pup. Then, he raised his head to Morrigan. "The boy has been up to his usual antics, and has made quite a ruckus in the kitchen. If you do not mind, I will take Mephistopheles away for scolding."
… momentary glare down at the pup.
"It's not my fault," complained the puppy. "The kitchen just looked so boring, I thought it would be fun. Instead, you're being jerks who can't take a joke..."
Morrigan gave a momentary chuckle. It was merely youthful pursuit of fun, and she could understand that. Though, she didn't entirely approve. "Mephistopheles," she said sternly to the hellpuppy, taking a step sidewards. "You need to go with Leo, to whatever punishment he intends," she looked to the grown hound, "Leo, I trust that you will be lenient about his admonishment."
The four-eyed demon looked at the puppy. "That is hardly in question, milady," came his gruff reply. "Come along, now."
Though initially apprehensive, the puppy trudged to the older hellhound and moved to depart the room with him. Morrigan followed their exit absently, pleased by how the matter had been resolved.
Renewed silence settled in the hall. After another pensive pause, she began a brief jaunt towards a doorway and staircase in the left wall of the room. Her walk down the staircase was brief as well, lasting only minutes.
She had now emerged into a corridor. The corridor itself was built from a polished material that appeared metal as much as it did stone, and was remarkably wide in proportions so as to accomodate certain demons. Scattered sporadically were a handful of doors to other rooms. At the end of the corridor's left side was an exit, out into Makai, and at the right end, a visitor would observe the entrance to the castle library. A stone's throw down the corridor was a different corridor on the right side.
Unhesitantly, Morrigan resumed her jaunt and went outside to meet something of a park. Her gaze wandered over the lush expanse before her, taking note of its solitude.
Faintly, she heard the flapping of wings, and took a glance leftwards too see that a six-winged snake was approaching her. "Lady Morrigan," the serpentine fiend addressed her solemnly, "Lord Shuma-Gorath has requested your company, by the north bridge."
Morrigan pursed her lips. Silently, she extended her wings into a four-metre wingspan, and began flapping them forcefully. Barely a moment afterwards, the hell-queen took off. It took her a short flight, barely a minute even, to reach an altitude from where she could survey the area.
She glanced around, briefly trying to recall where this castle's north bridge was. With a look to the left side of the local castle exit and a thought that was over as quickly as it had begun, she spotted a distinctive figure - a demon with a green hide and tentacles jutting from its spherical center - near the mentioned bridge.
A pleased expression took shape on her countenance. She immediately flew towards the spot. The wind raced through her hair, a sensation that felt only mildly pleasant to her, but it sated her for the duration of that flight. It took a bit more than a minute to reach the area.
As she descended, she observed the presence of four demons - each one a different variation on the two-armed-and-two-legged form - as his entourage for the moment. The meaning of it was evident to her. She landed, giving a greeting smirk to the tentacled monstrosity.
"Hello again, Shuma," she greeted him. "What have you brought this time?"
The eldritch monstrosity floated, heedless of gravity, deathly still. After a moment's pause, the tentacled thing answered, "A fairly unremarkable metaphysical crime cartel. They called themselves the Ruinous Powers, or," he uttered the next part with undisguised disdain, "the Chaos Gods."
Morrigan nodded, her lips curled in the ghost of a smirk. It surprised her little that the 'Lord of Chaos' would take offense to such a title, if only due to his sense of vanity. "Care to introduce us?"
The multiversal conqueror raised one of his lower tentacles. "Yes, yes. Morrigan, meet Slaanesh," he pointed out the first of the four figures, who appeared man and woman both, and possessed violet-tinged skin, coal-black scales, and eyes that glowed fuchsia.
"This is Khorne," he moved the appendage to a larger figure, a mountain of muscle and bulk concealed beneath considerable amounts of jet-black armor, whose eyes glowed orange.
"This is Tzeentch," said Shuma-Gorath as he pointed out the third figure. His most noteworthy features were the mouth below his mid-section and the tentacles growing out of his head. Morrigan looked him over, finding him distinctly ugly.
"And the last one is Nurgle," he pointed his tentacle to the fourth, a mountain of fat and flesh laid bare for all to see, whose eyes glowed faint green.
The succubus nodded. By Makai's standards for demons and devils and Darkstalkers, they didn't stand out much, noted the queen of the realm. They weren't even the strangest things Shuma had brought home this year.
"They were the only creatures worth salvaging from their universe," related Shuma-Gorath. "Their plane of existence was... consumed by never-ending wars, I believe an apt way to put it, and the mortals in it were insane, regardless of their species. Hence, I deemed bringing it to an end to be an act of kindness. Quite the unusual experience for me."
The humor, such as there was, drained from Morrigan's face. Shuma-Gorath's eye tinged with unease, or something akin to that.
He knew she had never approved, not in the past near-thousand years anyway. Few would, and he didn't disagree with her on it; he just wanted to complete this omniversal model in a million years or so, and the most practical way to do that was to pillage one galaxy while letting the rest of its reality be consumed. As painful as the aftermath of the mortal-named 'Cancerverse' experiment in existential engineering had been, it had given some valuable insights.
He would not deny that these acts of omnicide meant nothing to him; nor would he deny that her regarding him with shame and disgust because of them did pain him. There was nothing to say - they had both fought and argued over the matter, and reached no agreement or compromise.
He was certain, or liked to think, that the passage of time would alleviate this issue, even if only because they forgot about it - eternity was theirs, as it was for all immortals.
"Anyway," continued the Lord of Chaos, "concerning the ones formerly the Ruinous Powers - they were emotion-creatures, without substance, before I bested them and encapsulated them into these baryonic-matter forms. I trust that finding housing for them will be a simple thing."
She regarded him pensively. "So, they are themselves only in mind," she mused and gave an off-hand, "certainly," which was followed by the question, "are you staying for a while?"
"I believe that I will," answered the tentacled titan. He was not yet taxed to the extremes that his arcane prowess permitted, but a chance to relax and the company of a loved one was hardly something he would scoff at.
Pleased, Morrigan began to leave. She paused after a few steps, turning around to face Shuma-Gorath. "By the way, I notice that they aren't speaking or moving; I infer that they're under some spell to hold them trapped?"
Shuma shook his body a bit, his best attempt at a nod in the absence of a jaw and a head. "The incantation ought to lose its potency sometime in the next few hours. I do not expect that they will be troublesome for anyone with some power."
She nodded before turned around again, and he followed leisurely. Over the course of that afternoon, they enjoyed a brief stroll through the forest, before going back inside the local castle. The former Ruinous Powers were soon forgotten about completely.