Doom Story Update

2k words

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“Once I have you properly restrained, you won’t be anywhere but in my clutches, Andreas. And this time, you’re not getting away.”

Claws clicked against stone as several figures scaled over the highway’s railings, taking up positions around the demoness. Ten, eleven, twelve imps snarled and snickered as they prepared fireballs, and yet more were coming, a portal framing Sharrya’s curvaceous body as it bloomed open behind her, disgorging eight or nine more imps from its confines.

Andreas stood in motionless astonishment as the demon’s numbers doubled, tripled, the helltide forming a cordon of burning flames and gnashing teeth on all sides. The highway spanned maybe fifteen meters across, leaving the fifty odd demons to stand shoulder-to-shoulder as they shared space with the abandoned cars.

The Seargent whistled an impressed tune, the Baroness tilting her head at the odd sound. “Looks like you really got your act together, Pinky. I thought our deal was that I could go?”

Some of the imps looked to their leader with confusion, Sharrya shaking her head dismissively.

“I believe the words I used were head start. And besides, did you really think I would let such a fascinating little thing like you leave unchallenged? You’ve drawn my interest, Andreas. Woe betide you.”

“You must be one lonely asshole if you’re obsessed with me,” Andreas chuckled. Sharrya’s grin dropped just a fraction, her eyes like two emerald gemstones in the morning light.

“Do not delude yourself. You’ve caused a lot of problems for me, and the punishment must fit the crime, as they say. Now,” she added, placing one hoof on the hood of a nearby car, the movement exposing her massive thigh. “you’re probably wondering why I haven’t given the order to melt you into a puddle yet. And while the thought has crossed my mind, I’ve decided both your soul and your body can be of use to me. Intact and very much alive.”

“I see where this is going,” Andreas said, reaching for his rocket launcher.

“By all means, ready your weapon,” Sharrya chuckled with a wave of her hand. “I know you’re not the type to roll over and accept his fate, so I won’t bother asking for your surrender. Just know you only delay the inevitable. It would be so much easier if you just took a look around you and admitted you’ve been bested.”

“Hmm… Nope,” Andreas said, and then shot her with a rocket. The payload zipped through the air between them and shattered against her stomach, the Baroness flipping through the air and falling into a tumble. He swivelled left, sending another payload at the mutated feet of the clustered imps there, shattering limbs and sending most of them sprawling back in a collective panic.

He sent off the next two rockets in quick succession, aiming for different points in the cordon. The highway groaned as the detonations sent tens of imps to their graves, but the demonic ranks were three rows deep, those at the background coming to the forefront in a frenzy, closing the net on him from all sides.

Reloading the launcher would take too long, Andreas letting it hang in his sling as he switched to his plasma rifle, the electronics warbling to life. Blue heat collected around the muzzle as he swept the barrel over the nearest charging demon, the imp swiping at the air impotently as he hosed it down with plasma.

Andreas snapped to his next target, an imp darting around a car on his right, then to another vaulting over the vehicle. The lanes were clogged with the demonic, a sense of dread filling his chest as they swarmed him like locusts. At least the sheer volume meant that no matter where he aimed, he was always hitting something.

He kept a small bubble around him clear, trying to fire on every angle at once, but soon an imp slipped through, coming at him from behind. Andreas reached out and jabbed it in the throat, the demon’s breath leaving it in a guttural croak. He puled the imp’s body close, using it like a body shield as a pair of fireballs were slung in his direction, the demon crying out as they collided with its chest.

Bracing his rifle on its shoulder, Andreas opened up on a trio of demons rushing at him from the side, the demons showing no concern for their comrade as Andreas held it in a headlock, more flames colliding with its chest to spill ichor. He shot each imp with a precision bolt, then threw his hostage to the ground, the imp too weathered to be of further use.

Before Andreas could react, something collided with his shoulder, and his back compressed painfully against the door of a car. It was so hard to get his bearings with demons every way he looked, but the imp had come at him from his blind spot, tackling him to the ground.

Andreas snarled as the imp raised a flaming hand, and slashed from left to right across his chest, his chest blooming with surging heat. Andreas had dropped his weapon, so he retaliated by striking it with a clenched fist, grabbing the stunned imp by the shoulders and rolling atop it.

He pinned the thrashing demon beneath a knee, reaching for the car door. It was unlocked, Andreas throwing it open with all his weight, the demon’s skull cracking with a savage crunch as it was caught in its path.

He keeled over when a fireball hit him in the back of the head, his helmet blaring out a warning and indicating the direction of the attack, as if that wasn’t obvious. He rolled over, finding an imp standing on the roof of a sedan in the next lane over. Andreas reached for his sidearm, and put a bullet through its head before it could ready another fireball.

The air took on the appearance of a miniature meteor storm, tens of fireballs crossing very which way, landing on the pavement all around him. More imps were coming into view, bumping into each other in their attempt to get to him. He would be swarmed in seconds.

Andreas went the only way he could, into the car. He grabbed his discarded rifle, then threw himself into the back seat, leather cushions creaking beneath his sudden weight. He hooked his boot around the door handle, and sealed himself inside.

The visage of an imp appeared in the window, the glass shattering as Andreas took aim, sending a single bolt between its eyes. More shards fell over his face as an imp circled to the far side, elbowing the window. Andreas reached up with his cleaver and jammed the edge into its throat.

The car came under a devastating barrage of fireballs, Andreas keeping his head low as the world around him seemed to end. Glass melted into goop, one of the front seat headrests’ ignited, the sound of a popping tire making Andreas’ ears ring. The chassis rocked on its weakened suspension as the barrage creeped into the minute mark, the imps getting the idea that coming any closer would mean death. Better to burn him out than to risk his cleaver.

“Hold your fire!” a voice cried out, one belonging to Sharrya of course. “Maykyr’s damn you, I said intact and alive! Stop shooting!”

The fiery rain continued to fall despite her orders. An especially accurate fireball hit the backseat right by his head, the backwash of heat cooking him alive inside his armour.

“I said stop!” Sharrya roared over the storm. “The next miscreant to shoot will have his arms ripped off!”

The car was buffeted by a handful more fireballs, but the attack soon relented, the totalled car creaking as Andreas shifted, peaking just his eyes over the window sill. There was Sharrya, stood in the ranks of demons like nothing had ever happened. The next time he found a rocket launcher, he’d make sure it fired actual warheads instead of micro-missiles.

“You’ve had your fun, Andreas,” Sharrya called out. “But it’s over. Come out of that… whatever that thing is.”

“Eva, options?” Andreas whispered, locking eyes with an imp before ducking away.

“I… need a moment,” Eva replied. “There’s an access ladder leading to the street, but it’s thirty meters behind us. Could you make it?”

“Could I make it?” he hissed. “I don’t think you realise what’s happening, but getting through all those imps is a bit of an ask.”

“Just stall her while I think up of something!”

Andreas cursed under his breath, taking another peak outside. The imps had left a roughly ten-meter gap around his car, and most of their hands were full of flames. If he tried to make a run for it, they’d burn him to cinders before he could make two steps.

“Don’t make me wait, Andreas~” Sharrya sang. “I’ve been so very patient with you so far, but you’ve reached my limit.”

“How do I know you won’t just boil me as soon as I come out?” Andreas called. The Baroness snorted before answering.

“Did you not hear me give the order to stop melting your cover? Why would I do that if I wanted you dead, fool?”

“Good… Good point,” he replied. “It’s just hard to give you my trust, you know?”

“It won’t be hard giving me your soul, Andreas. The question of whether your body comes with it or not is up to you. If you don’t toss out your weapons and get out here, that metal contraption will be your coffin. Trust me on that.”

“Seargent, don’t,” Eva warned. “the Commander’s reinforcements will be here any minute, they’ll get us out of this.”

“We don’t have minutes,” Andreas chided. “I think there’ sonly one way out of this.”

“You can’t be serious! We’ve been through tougher scrapes than this,” Eva said, pausing to consider. “Okay, maybe this is pretty bad, but you can’t give up now.”

“I’m not giving up,” he said, raising his slings off his shoulders. “I’m stalling.”

He threw his launcher out the window, following it with his rifle and sidearm, each one making noisy thunks as they hit the road.

“Alright goat-legs, you win,” he conceded. “I’m coming out, don’t roast me.”

“We won’t,” Sharrya replied. A mumur passed over the imps, one that was distinctly doubtful. “I said we won’t,” she reiterated, her attention on her minions. Maybe holding authority over demon’s was harder than it looked.

Andreas slid out of the seat, raising his arms over his head as he stepped away from the car. Sharrya pointed at one of the imps, gesturing to his weapons with her other hand. The demon scurried over, staying well clear of Andreas as it scooped up his weapons, vanishing into the ranks as quick as it had appeared.

“There,” Sharrya sighed, hips rolling as she walked over to stand before him. He had to crane his neck to meet her gaze, which caused the demoness smirk in amusement. “That wasn’t so hard, was it? Oh! Looks like you missed your tiny knife.”

“Woops,” Andreas said, reaching for his belt and plucking the cleaver, placing it in her open palm. “Must’ve slipped my mind.”

“Must’ve,” Sharrya agreed. Andreas glanced at all the onlooking demons in the resulting pause, shrugging his shoulders.

“So... we just going to stand here, or are we getting a move on?”

“You are something else, Andreas,” Sharrya laughed, her demeanour flipping as she turned to her legion. She growled something in a language he didn’t understand, and the imps fanned out, forming a circle around the pair and proceeding down the highway, back the way he’d come from.

One of the imps made to give him prompting shove, but Andreas flipped him off, the imp shrinking away as though expecting some hidden weapon. Andreas laughed at the imp’s expense, then got moving.

“You are feisty for one so small,” Sharrya said, sidling up uncomfortably beside him. Every hip-roll threatened to knock him over. “Feisty, determined, capable. Now you are all mine.”

She laid a hand on his shoulder, Andreas shrugging it away. “Keep dreaming, shit head, I’ll be out of whatever prison you’ve got in store for me before you can say Hell on Earth. Where are we going, by the way?”

“All the way to my home. Well, home on this mortal plane. It is not the same without the backwash of Hell’s fumes lingering in the air, but my cathedral is secure, safe. It is there you and I will have much to discuss, safe and free from otherworldly distractions.”