Demons, part six
A fair bit north-ward of Morrigan's castle, there was a six-sided tower - quite a fair bit bigger, in every regard, than the majority of the buildings and the demons around it. Almost one-hundred metres wide, as a matter of fact. From its roof to its base, vines were growing out of the building, from windows and also from cracks in the walls.
In some region of the colorful forest that was visible through the absent roof, about one-hundred-and-thirty demons had decided to hang out at the moment. The queen, though, wasn't one of them. Rather, she was over at the tower to the west of her castle. This one was similarly connected to the castle by a great bridge, but this tower didn't have a forest as its scenery of choice.
Five onyx walls enclosed a wide and sandy area. Nearly at the center of the place, stood the primary combatant - the succubus queen herself, garbed in form-fitting red pants and a backless white shirt, her arms folded.
Her last-standing adversary stood before her - an anthropomorphic and eight-feet-tall demon, and a very burly one of her ilk at that. Her skin was violet and scaly, and in a few places, spikes broke out through her skin. Two hairless heads stood upon her shoulders, each one adorned with gleaming crimson eyes and a wide mouth full of fangs and a small pair of horns on the forehead.
Around the arena were a handful of other demons - a four-headed hellhound a distance on the left side behind Morrigan, something perhaps best described as a fleshy lump that walked on eight legs and whose mouth formed a ring around its body lying unconscious next to a vampiric werewolf a stone's throw behind the purple demon. Closer to the walls, two demons watched the stand-off - the one was Shuma-Gorath; the other was named Astaroth, a succubus of a different species than Lady Aensland.
"If it is all the same to you," voiced Morrigan, puncturing the tension in the air, "I would like for this little session to conclude," a light shone around her as Morrigan activated that of her abilities which her union with her sister had most strengthened.
What manifested behind her was not merely a doppelganger of the succubus, such as she had been restricted to in ancient times, but a twelve-feet-tall violet-hided snake with eight muscular arms and four pairs of long wings.
Beelzebub looked aghast. This, she hadn't expected. "Either this particular ability of hers requires less mana than I had estimated, or her supply is greater than I thou-" the snake lunging for her interrupted her amid the thought. Almost reflexively, the woman did the only thing she could think of. With a forward push of her left paw, she fell over backwards, and hurried to roll aside.
The serpent smirked dismissively, quickly pulling her left-second arm back to deliver a punch. Beelzebub released a pained groan, rolling a short distance, ending faces-last in the sand.
"That was," she took a moment to consider how to end that sentence, her vision steadily clearing, "not fun," before sitting up. A frown appeared on both faces. By her paws, a part of the serpent's body laid. "This bodes poorly."
The voice she heard next - "I advise," ran the calm voice of the queen, "your surrender, before this little contest suffers any casualties." - only punctuated that fact for her.
"I surrender," the two-headed demon sighed. The apparition of the snake became ghostly, and drew back into its conjurer. Morrigan strode forward a bit, and held her hand out to her. Beelzebub watched the extended appendage, uncertainly. "Thank you," she responded, standing up, "but I am well enough to stand on my own legs."
The succubus folded her arms, a mild smirk on her face. "Decide that as you will. I would, regardless, like to know why precisely you and your bunch decided to seek me out for combat?"
The violet demon scoffed indifferently. "Does it really matter? You won our scrap."
Morrigan's expression took a turn for the severe. "It very much does. As the queen of the Demon World, I have a responsibility to its citizenry, and if there exists some grievance about the way I govern, then I owe it to my subjects to rectify that if I can. I ask you again, why did you come?"
Beelzebub scrutinized Morrigan sternly, for a moment's time.
"Well, I don't suppose there would be any harm in telling you," she spoke, eventually. "Marquis Leraje and Duke Barbatos of the Ars Goetia's Court hired us to try and kill you."
Morrigan's countenance remained stony. "Not unexpected," she noted. "Thank you for the concise and direct answer. I assume that there will be no further attempts on my life from your side, correct?" the question was accompanied by a coy smile growing on her face.
Seeing the look on Morrigan's face, Beelzebub felt an urge to run. "That's... a reasonable assumption."
"I hope for your sake that it is also correct," she said, then turned away from the two-headed fiend. Her gaze went straight over the vamp-werewolf. "Werewolf, I believe that your name was Felix?"
The vampire looked confusedly over at the succubus. "About right, but why do you ask?"
"Because," Morrigan began walking forward, speaking as she went, "I would like to offer you to join my employ. A hybrid of vampire and werewolf is a rare thing, even in the Demon World, and I would most assuredly like one like you as a member of my personal squadron," she paused in her movement, in front of the beast.
"In return for accepting this offer, you will be given housing and regular meals at my castle, the autonomy to pursue your own interests between the tasks you will be assigned, and the same empowerment that the others have received. You will not receive any negative repercussions for rejecting my offer, that I want to make clear."
The werewolf stood, mouth set in a smirk, fangs bared.. "Well, that sounds pretty damn good, and I've half a mind to take you up on it. What gets me suspicious, though," the good humor in his voice died down, "is that you're being all vague about this 'empowerment' detail. What is that, exactly?"
She allowed a small smirk. "A ritual called Demonic Ascension. It confers immortality, as well as an eternal maturation process. With every passing year, your form will mutate because of the spell, and you will become a little bit more of what you already are, in every regard. In time, the title of Old One will be yours."
Pure and unmitigated shock flashed over his face, and his mouth went agape at that. He'd heard the legends of the Great Old Ones, of the demons - ancient and powerful beyond anything known on the surface or in the Deeper Pits - that transcended even Queen Morrigan and the greatest of Hell's other powers when he was but a whelp set loose in a library.
Felix almost couldn't wrap his mind around the idea that the head of the Aensland family was offering him to become one such creature. "Hell, I'm kinda surprised the oldest thing in Hell isn't one of them herself..." "That's a very salubrious offer," spoke the demon, "and I would sure as all Hell be honored to accept."
There was a pause, almost so brief it wasn't really noticeable, before Morrigan spoke, "Shuma, would you care to do the honors?"
The floating ball of green flesh began to chant, in a language that nobody present understood, eye aglow. Almost without warning, the vampiric werewolf began to burn with emerald-hued energies.
Though it was only somewhat visible, beneath the emerald fire-light that had erupted from the creature, the amalgam's body was shifting.
The demon's claws began to grow longer and rounder, on the surface and beneath, on both his hands and feet, and the flesh receded from them, until they were talons a quarter-metre long.
The hybrid demon's teeth grew in the much the same fashion as his claws had. All the while, his body-proportions grew more burly. A pair of leathery, maroon-brown in hue beneath the deep-green light that they were suffused with, wings began to sprout from the back of the fiend.
Then, the light around him died down, and left the light-blue glow from his eyes visible to the witnesses of that little spectacle.
Felix studied his claws, lightly flexing his fingers a few times. It amazed him how... refreshed, he decided, this felt. It was honestly like he'd slept forever, and woken up with every bit of injury and fatigue expelled from him. If there was such a thing as perfection in hell, this was how it would be.
"This," breathed the were-vampire, "is awesome!"
Before her, an empty whiteness unfolded.
A distance ahead, she observed a number of everythings adrift in the nothingness, all on somewhat of a straight line. A smidge of curiosity showed at her eyes, as there were one more than she remembered of them.
"What new surprises might this have?" queried the succubus to the green thing. His eye slid left.
"Not a great deal," replied Shuma-Gorath, raising a tentacle to the left side's dark-and-starry sphere. "Realm of the Eight Gods, I beseech thee, show us what lies within."
Silently, the orb began to radiate umbral light. Before the cluster, a shadow began to take form. As it solidified, a vast vortex of reds and blues and purples and whites became visible upon it. Around it, a number of stars burned brightly, many in their own hues.
Morrigan's gaze studied the spacescape with a measure of interest and fascination.
"A pleasing sight, is it not?" inquired the green lump of flesh.
"An apt description, I suppose," replied the succubus, after a bit of thought. "Perhaps you can enlighten me as to whom these 'eight gods' are?"
"The ruling pantheon of this particular plane," related Shuma-Gorath. "They have divided themselves into two quartets of creators and destroyers, and work in concert to reverse the degeneration of the cosmos."
The lime-haired succubus shrugged, disinterested in what 'the degeneration of the cosmos' as he phrased it entailed. Her eyes resumed their wandering across that bit of that cosmos. She allowed herself a moment to marvel in the vastness of it.
A thought soon occurred to her.