Chapter the third


A note on gateways. Gateways are how normal people get to
hell. Angels get thrown to hell from heaven. Demons/devils
are born in hell. But how do the humans and other entities
get there? They get there by the gateways. 

When you die you are judged. If you go to heaven then you
must cross an extremely hard path to get there because
heaven will only accept the most determined and only people
of faith could keep their sanity for long enough to traverse
the path. However the road to hell is easy because it is
easy to be chosen to go to hell rather heaven. At the end of
the road there is an elevator. Once in you are carried by a
beam of light (the light shines the colour of your
intentions, whit for good and black for bad) to a gateway. 

The gateways are usually large buildings with large rooms to
shelter the newbys. In the gateways the newbys are informed
properly of where they are and what they will need to know
to survive they are also trained, until someone picks them.


They are nicknamed the markets because they are much like
the slave trade. All the newbys are locked in an enclosed
environment; except for their tutors they don’t see
anyone. Until someone picks them. People, demons, devils and
other things come to these markets and pick newbys that they
want. They will pay a nominal fee and the newby will be
theirs. 

If the newby is not picked in a year they are cast out of
the gateway to face the real hell. The ones that are picked
can be forced to do anything their owner wants. Whether
that’s to fight with them as they roam hell or to be
killed for some infernal contraption. It doesn’t matter to
the things that run these places, they get paid and they are
immune. If it weren’t for such places then it would be
chaos and there would be precious soles wandering around
unguided.


As Lucifer flew he knew that he was late, maybe too late. As
he arrived he felt someone else teleport within the walls.
There was a powerful being and a meagre peasant. He might
have a chance after all. He’d let them find her, buy her
and he’d kill them and steal her.

That’d be that, or maybe not, he didn’t like travelling
in a pair. In a pair you could have your only friend turn
against you. In a group you can have people to defend you. 
Lucifer landed outside and strode through the glass double
doors of a remarkably modern building by our standards. 

The corridors were wide enough for three cars to drive down,
and tall as a house. They had to be this big to compensate
for the things that came here. Lucifer flew down the halls;
he needed to make up time. He had to not only find them
before they left but he had to find some companions. He
sailed up to the main desk stopped and asked for a list of
newbys, all of a specific race, ability and age. 

Soon after he flew on, looking down his list he stopped at
various rooms. 

“Are you Ally?” he asked the resident of one room she
was a small dwarf with a long flowing beard and a rather
disturbed look. She just screamed and ran into a wall. 
Confused Lucifer just muttered “bloody weird one that”

he flew on into another room “are you Dani?” he asked a
rather tall, slender elf in another room. This one looked
taken aback but didn’t run into a wall. It was a start.

“Err…yes. What and who are you? And what do you want?”
she had a high-pitched yet dainty voice, she spoke with
dignity and respect her accent pure with now corruptions.
Lucifer was rather taken shocked by her. 

“Err…I am Lucifer the third. I’m a half bread demon
and human. I’ m about to say a very powerful witch from
falling into the evil clutches of a demon war lord that
plans to used her to rule all of hell. Now I need you
because not only are you an excellent fighter, ranger and
bloody stunning but you are also the most highly trained
person here.”

This took a wile to sink in, but she finally accepted. She
strode out of her room and expected to be running along side
him. Instead he simply picked her up and carried on flying.
She looked surprised and a little annoyed. 

“eerm…Is this necessary?”

“Yes we need to get there quickly” 

“Ooh” and that was that.

He decided to make another few stops along the way. The
first was to another room. He opened the door and asked,
“would this be” he looks down at the piece of paper
“Alizhas room?”

“That’s pronounced Aleeza. Yes that’s me. What do you
want?” as she said this she got up of her bed and turned
around, seeing them for the first time she stopped still.
This was becoming a regular occurrence. 

“OK I’m Lucifer, she’s Dani and we’re on a mission
to save a witch from the evil clutches of an evil demon! I
need your help because you’re a healer and a master
blacksmith.“  for the second time that day a dwarf stared
back in disbelief. 

“What in the great Neff are you raving on about?”
“Are you coming or not?” shouted the elf, this seemed to
bring things into perspective. 

“Fine I’ll just get my stuff and” but she was cut
short, Lucifer picked her up by the ankle and threw her on
his back. And again they were away.

At the end of the corridor were two double doors. Lucifer
landed and put the others down to some protest from the
dwarf; she seemed to like the idea of being tall! After
finally pulling the dwarf from his hair Lucifer pushed open
the double doors. He wasn’t expecting what he saw. 

There in front of him was a massive gym. But being in hell
this gym wasn’t primarily for getting and keeping fit, it
was for the training of the denizens of the Gateway.
Everywhere he looked he saw racks of weapons and fight pits
with people battling it out. There were giant sets of
weights and instructors giving lessons on various martial
arts. There were countless forms of body building devices of
all sizes, shapes some were rather disturbing. There was
music being blasted out of massive speakers dotted around
the gargantuan hall, they were all playing Marilin
Manson’s disposable teens.

Lucifer shouted the first thing that came to mind “their
all woman!” although the music didn’t stop everything
else did. Everyone had turned to see who had said that. 

“Your going to regret that, a lot of ‘em get rather
touchy about the subject”

as one the every last person in the hall rushed them. Most
had weapons the ones that didn’t, didn’t find it hard to
get one. Lucifer got out his tainted sword and told the
other to get back to find that they were already a good
twenty meters down the hall.

“Ooh well, so much for recruiting” he muttered as he
slashed through the first wave of woman, with one fell swoop
he cut seven of them in half. And continued to plough
through them but he was outnumbered even if he was a demon
half-breed he was buggerd and he knew it. 

He had to act fast. He had no option he had to change. He
killed the last of the wave and put a barrier around him. He
placed his weapon on the floor and looked down in
concentration mumbling strange words. Again something seemed
to be pushing at his skin from within like giant worms or
tentacles. The woman stopped some because of the barrier,
some because of what was happening to him. But all would see
soon enough. The writhing had become much more violent, much
more so than last time, Lucifer was on his knees with effort
and pain. 

It paid off. His skin stretched and split his body bulged
and grew. He screamed a blood curling roar of pain during
the transformation. This demon was not like the other. It
rose much higher. It’s arm muscles alone were bigger than
most of the woman below! It had huge wings of the pure light
stealing darkness, but this darkness was much more powerful,
it’s aura stretched over a meter from it’s body. The
hair had grown was down to it’s breast and was a shining
golden blond. But the most notable difference was its
horns.

It had grown horns. A deep red that looked almost intangible
with the same black smoky aurora. The demon roared causing
much fear and panic amongst the woman. But some stalwart
warriors stood and fought none the less. They were swept
aside and crushed mirthlessly.  The rest were trapped in the
gym with this blood-lusting beast. The death was
instantaneous and always with a smile on the face of the
murderer. But enough of them had realised that they were
helpless they had decided to turn and fight.  

Most were trampled but some managed to stab the beast, all
were swept aside. But one knew she going to be trampled. She
stood and waited; she had a very long spear by her. Finally
the monster moved to crush her she took her chance and
raised the spear; she held it there with all he might. The
monster stepped on the spear, at first it seemed it
wouldn’t even penetrate the skin of the beast. But
eventually it’s thick hide snapped.  The spear went deep,
it seemed that the beast would carry on with its stamp
crushing the woman and consuming the spear within its leg.
It stopped just an inch above her head.

With a scream of rage the beast conjured a massive wall of
flame all around him and flattened the room, searing all the
naked flesh. The smell of burning corpses consumed the room.
The beast began to shrink with its head in its hands. 

The boy stood there almost naked in a shower of cold sweat
and matted blood. Only a little rag remained under his belt
conveniently protecting his modesty. The woman that had held
the spear had been saved from the fire and was now edging
closer to him. She seemed cautious but curious.

A succubus and a fallen angel pushed past her. The angel and
the succubus assessed the situation. “He’s powerful no
doubt, but he’s just a boy. He needs our help”

“I don’t care! He just wiped out nearly all of us! We
need to kill him now before he can get up!”

“Ooh shut up, your just jealous of his power!”

“I am not!”

“You so are shimmer!”
“Eerm….Can I take a look?”

“YOU?” they both gasped “Why? What can you do?”

“Well I Stopped him and I’m a druid, I can tend to his
wounds”

“So because of you he burned everyone to a crisp? And that
makes you worthy of seeing him does it?”

“You sure are bitter for angel shimmer. Just let her have
a look”

“Fine have it your way Debbeh” the angel stormed out of
the way, a whole two meters making her look a little
pathetic.

Ditzy came forward to take a look, although he had a spear
through he foot a minuet ago he had nothing to prove it. All
he needed was a cheering up. 
“Hey little guy, what’s up? Come on you’ll be alright,
just think of all those people that need you” he seemed to
snap out and grow back to the man he was.

“You three I need you, are you coming?” he didn’t give
them time to answer. He started to walk away. As he walked
the chain mail he was wearing seemed to pull itself back
onto him hiding his huge muscles again. They all decided to
go with him. 

He climbed back to the door and found the other two looking
rather afraid in a corner. “Come one we have to get there
quick, they’ve almost found her. But now they know I’m
coming, no doubt they’ll have felt my power.”

HE was right they had felt his presence, then felt a blaze
of power emanating from him. They were almost there though.
Finally they arrived at her door. 

“You go in, she’ll freak if she sees me right now”
said the guard in a gruff voice.

The slave walked into the room to find her asleep on her
bed, he had no choice. He walked over to her bed and tried
to lift her. But he was way to weak, even though was a
petit, dainty little woman he had had all the strength he
once possessed beaten from him long ago. He called the guard
in. the guard picked her up with ease and flung her over his
shoulder miraculously she didn’t even stir.

They ran from the room as quick as they could. They saw the
giant double doors in front of them and thought they had
escaped without a fight, they were deadly wrong.

As soon as they left the doors they hear the twang of a bow
and the man was shot down with an arrow. The guard looked
down at him in surprise as someone took the woman from his
shoulder.

The last thing he ever saw was the form of a screaming man
jumping at him with the biggest axe he’d ever seen.