Demons, part three
In its current age and state, the Demon World didn't have a day-night cycle, for it was no longer a planet orbiting a star. Instead, it was land almost without end, ocean almost without end, and sky almost without end.
The realm's only current sun hovered above the continent and the sea that surrounded it, suspended there by the realm's magical laws. Daytime was thus virtually eternal in the Hell that Morrigan Aensland ruled. Interludes, periods of shadow, occurred only on the occasions that clouds (or something of demonic nature) obscured the solar rays. Even during that those times, it was common for it to be only small regions of the continent that experienced such.
Even so, even if only metaphorically, it might be said that another day was drawing near for the queen of the realm - in the bed-chamber of her castle, Morrigan was soundly asleep, like a log.
The succubus was not alone in the bed; the Many-Angled One was there too, in a three-dimensional manifestation. One of his tentacles was wrapped firmly around her left leg, from the foot and upwards towards her nether entrance. Her right arm was extended over him, positioned to be between the thorns on his backside. Her larger wing-pair were extended, in a state of relaxed disuse, behind her.
On her face were a look of quiet contentment and two closed eyes. It was a look mirrored by her bedmate; insofar as a lump of green flesh with only an oversized eyeball in it could form facial expressions.
Well, that was about the only thing that there was to check out in the room; save for a few doors, of varying coloration, the bedroom seemed completely unremarkable and empty.
The seconds and minutes passed leisurely, observed by neither of the bedroom's residents. Nothing transpired, nor broke the quietude that had taken root in the air. Eventually, Morrigan stirred from her sleep, a process that was both gradual and less than pleasant.
The royal released a low and throaty grunt of displeasure, a moment after her awakening. Despite her mild efforts, her eyelids - which ached, and felt as heavy as rocks - refused to budge. Mentally, she cursed the very concept of sleep.
The succubus decided then to make a second at opening her eyes, which was more successful. Emerald orbs beheld now the eldritch arch-mage in her bed. It took a moment for Morrigan's voice to begin to cooperate after her slumber.
"I hope," spoke she to her king-consort, voice relatively unsteady, "that this particular rest has served its purpose, Shuma. We can always go for a repeat-performance if not."
The whimsical part of her thought that a 'repeat-performance' sounded like an interesting way to begin the morning - that, or yet again besting him in some Marvel Versus Capcom game. Either was an endlessly gratifying activity, the former particularly so with limbs as flexible as his.
Moments like these, thought the succubus while the eyelid of the tentacled creature opened up to bare an off-white eyeball, were something that few realized how precious truly were.
"It was very satisfactory," informed the pleased-tone voice of Shuma-Gorath, hastily adding, "not to suggest that I had expected otherwise, of course. Perhaps the phrasing of this sentence is less than ideal, my apologies."
The succubus gave him a bit of a smirk. "Perhaps, perhaps not. What might your plans for the immediate future be?"
A few of the Chaos Lord's tentacles began to move, almost lethargetically, in different patterns - one of them trailed a ring in the empty air. "I believe that I will locate another Hell for assimilation, unless you wish it otherwise?"
Her smirk dimmed somewhat, yet not altogether, nor did she seem inclined to leave the bed and her lying position in it. "Not especially; enjoy that venture to the fullest, Shuma."
After another moment of lying there, Morrigan shifted her position to lie on her front side to avoid any discomfort in her wings. Supporting her torso with her arms, she quickly shifted into a sitting stance, and then moved off the bed.
"What of you?" inquired the floating tentacle-monster while Morrigan strolled towards the north-facing wall of the sleeping chamber and its blandly-orange door. "What particular plans have you in mind?"
The unclothed succubus turned around, flashing him a vaguely-pleased look. "Nothing immediately comes to mind, so work shall suffice for the moment," so saying, she turned back to the door. The door opened, on the room that was Morrigan's wardrobe.
From the left wall to the right, the chamber measured almost twenty metres; from ceiling to roof, it was about as spacious. From the entrance to the back of the room, it looked more like it was a hundred metres large, at the very least. The room was illuminated by five large and round lamps - one upon each of the four walls, and the very last one in the ceiling above the room's contents.
A short distance directly ahead of the succubus stood a tall and doorless closet, constructed of tan-brown wood. Hanging in that were two of her many attires - a pair whose designs were almost identical yet whose colors differed radically; for the outfit on the right, the leggings were a pleasant shade of blue, whereas the left-side leggings were violet in their hue. A commonality between both garments were the darkened markings of bats on them. The leotards of the two attires were distinct as well - a red one with the blue leggings and a black one with the violet ones, and feathery shoulder-straps on each.
Behind the closet, there stood several other rows of similarly doorless closets - seventeen in total, if one might be arsed to count. In the upper half of each, different upper-body garments that the ruler of Makai had acquired in her centuries-long reign; below them, garments designed for the lower body of those with Morrigan's body-type. Almost universally, every article of clothing differed from the others, in whatever fashion.
Most of her clothes were neatly filed away for future use in the closets, but for a handful of the garments, less attentive treatment was given - some laid disheveled on the floor, others in their storage closets, a grey-hued kimono flung atop the ninth closet.
There was not much going on in the throne-room at the moment. In fact, silence was reigning there right now. On the throne of the hall sat Lady Aensland, garbed in a silk-produced kimono that was predominantly grey and decorated with yellow squares which was worn to proudly and openly display the cavernous expanse of her well-proportioned chest.
Around their queen were three demonic animals. One was a large dog with four red and black-grey four. Another was a horned and wide-mawed cat of similar proportions to the dog, whose fur was wild and fire-colored. The third was a snake with a hide of black scales and a multitude of heads.
Then, without any warning provided the people in the throneroom, a gust of chilly wind washed over the hall from a place far away, and the world flashed with the light of spirit energy. A deadpan look remained on Morrigan's face, even as her surroundings congealed back into a new form.
In all three-hundred-sixty-degrees, blue sky and grainy-white clouds surrounded all the demons that had occupied Morrigan's throne-room and the waiting room. For some, undisguised panic and terror flashed on their faces (or their closest equivalent) at the sight at their warped surroundings, and for others, the mood was one of great surprise. A good number of the demons, about twelve, felt both emotions rise up in them.
The queen of the land gazed idly about, taking in their altered surroundings and the absence of her throne, recognizing the spell for what it was. "Remarkable. I hadn't thought that anyone else would be so capable."
"Mistress!" came the frantic outcry from the serpentine guards-demon. Like the other demons in Morrigan's employ who had occupied the former throne room and the demons in the nearby waiting room, Monto quickly noticed that they weren't falling. "Is everybody alright?" shouted the snake out to the others, quickly receiving affirmative answers from the assemblage.
"You need not trouble yourselves over this occurrence," announced Morrigan to that region of the sky. "What we are currently experiencing is a magical construct known as a Reality Marble. In lay-demon's terms, the spell overwrites the world with a mental landscape drawn from the caster's soul. It won't last very long, be assured of that."
Every demon nearby looked at Morrigan, or turned to regard the succubus as best they were able to. An uneasy moment passed before any of the ones gathered spoke.
"Preposterous," called out a demon of the red-skinned and bipedal variety, from what had been the waiting room, about thirty metres away from her. "There is no magic, succubus," growled the fiend loudly, "no incantation or ritual that is capable of something such as this. If there was, we would already possess it."
Morrigan scoffed openly, taking a moment to try and recall who it was that addressed her, looking her over.
The woman was bipedal, noted Morrigan, with deep-red skin on her and ash-white hair down to her shoulders. Garbed only in a loin-cloth as she was, her body was bared to the world. Her yellow eyes, all four of them, were smouldering; unmissably, even across this gap.
"Let's see... red skin, white hair, four yellow eyes that burn almost like the fires of the underground. Which demon lord could this one be aligned with or descended from?" her pondering was interrupting by the world flaring up again, and restoring the throne room.
From floor to ceiling, the restored hall measured about a dozen metres; from each side to the other, the room stretched about a hundred metres. Returned along with the room was the multitude of doors in three of the walls, the balcony that laid a bit away behind the throne, the sparse decor that had been placed in the chamber as of late, and the immense oval sky-light that illuminated one and all.
The hellhound's face lit up with relief at being back, and he began to kiss the ground. Morrigan, Monto and Astaroth regarded the gesture with mild amusement; their attention was quickly drawn to something else, over to the eight-metres-tall-and-wide door that opened in the right-side wall to let the red-bodied Darkstalker into the hall.
"Tell me," called the lime-haired demon with open displeasure to the Trigon-spawn, who merely frowned silently as she approached, "who of Trigon's sick blood seeks an audience with me, and for what reason?"
The foot-steps of the red-skinned woman sounded, brief-lived but loud, in the hall, and she halted less than five metres before Morrigan's guards.
"I am Lady Lucith, mistress of Wrath in the empire of Trigon, daughter and sister to Mistress Raven of Pride, sired by Trigon himself," proclaimed the woman bombastically. "I am here for the right to reign over Hell, succubus, so prepare to die."
The demonic snake, demonic cat, demonic dog and their succubus leader all gazed unimpressedly at the demon. A scowl formed on Lucith's face.
"Yeahhhh," deadpanned the snake with all her faces, "I don't think so."
The Trigon-spawn glared at the serpent. "I shall slaughter all in my way and stop at nothing to take the throne as my own, creature. Would you like to be the first to fall?"
"Monto," interjected Morrigan, unmissably displeased despite the slight smirk on her face, "is quite correct. I will say that your bravado is admirable, Lady Lucith," smirked the royal. "The very idea of a Rank C demon such as yourself challenging the ruler of the Demon World and the forces of the Aensland family is as preposterous as you deem the existence of Reality Marbles, yet here you are. Whether this matter is settled peacefully or violently, I would be inclined to reward you for that."
Lucith glared daggers at the succubus, lips still set in their thin line. "Believe not that flattery shall avail you anything, thou who sits on my throne. Today, you die."
The hell-cat lunged at her, tackling the woman to the floor. Quickly adjusting his stance, he pressed his right front-paw against the demon's stomach, then lowered his head. "You better," growled the demonic feline, at the grimacing woman, "think twice about how you talk to my mistress."
A couple of Monto's heads studied the scuffle curiously, as did Morrigan. The hell-hound looked bored with it. None of the three seemed about to move and halt it.
"Get off me, you disgusting creature," hollered the red-skinned fiend. "Glacius-" she began to chant, but halted when she felt the cat's paw deliver a forceful shove into her stomach.
"You had better," whispered the hellcat lowly, digging the claws into her flesh and drawing blood, "be as quiet as demonically possible, mage, or we'll just see if you can recite any spells with a slit throat and seventeen open wounds."
Lucith grimaced, wincing audibly.
A distance past the scuffling demons, Morrigan and the two hell-beasts saw the empty air become less empty as Shuma-Gorath appeared from nowhere. He was not alone, they observed. All of his travel companions was of the same bipedal shape as the Trigon-spawn, yet with a number of distinctive traits between each one.
One of them appeared a statue in the body shape of the average succubus, slender and curvaceous in shape, well-endowed in the chest region, fire-haired; the rock it was made of was charred a deep coal-black. In a multitude of spots over the bared body, the fires beneath the surface had burned through. Another was a creature, unclothed like the burning statue was. Its skin was a gray-blue shade, and covered from top to bottom in jagged spikes. A somewhat lengthy tail extended from its buttocks, and the thing's face was featureless beyond the red pair of eyes.
The other three were alike to a great extent - each one had red skin like the Trigon-spawn. What made them distinct was the minor variations in their shape, and the exact shade of red, and their garments.
"I trust," called the multidimensional tentacle-beast out to the room, eyeing the hellcat, audibly a bit amused, "that this particular matter is handled?"
"I expect so," affirmed the succubus, a small smirk gracing her features. "Astaroth tends to be reliable about these things. Perhaps you can introduce your newest accquirings while he handles this little affair?"
"Certainly," answered Shuma-Gorath. "Meet Mephisto," he pointed a tentacle at the red-skinned demon in the loincloth, then moved the appendage to the fiery stone creature, "Magma," then indicated tall, dark and spiky, "Blackheart," then the one with dark hair and raven-feathered wings, "Mephista," and then the red-haired red-skinned demon in red clothes, "Malevolence," the appendage dropped. "Magma and Mephisto used to govern another Hell, and the other three are their children. Their Ranks are nigh-universally C, though Magma is a B, and they have already received the necessary adjustments."
Morrigan released an amused scoff. "As always, you find such fascinating things. I shall see to it that these five receive proper housing somewhere. Have you any other demons to dump in my lap?"
"None at present," answered Shuma-Gorath, who silently began to move towards the succubus.