Doom Story Update

2k words

***

“Seargent,” Eva said. “you better not do what I think you’re about to do…”

He reached up, hitting one of the buttons built into the back of his helmet, his visor flipping up with a click. He cringed as hot air flooded his face, the stench of oil, blood and death mixing into a permeable miasma of horror. 

Without warning, he brought the organ to his lips, and took a wet, pointed bite. Slick, unknown juices splashed against his gums, with a consistency not unlike that of humus, Andreas sinking his teeth until they clacked together. With a turn of his neck, he ripped off a chunk of the meat, a stretch of sinew connecting the two pieces before it broke away.

Like gnawing through an overdone steak, he chewed through the meat with pointed stretches of his jaw, shooting the nearest imp an intentionally wild grin, showing off his bloodied molars. The demon paused in its tracks, a flicker of uncertainty passing through it to the rest of its ilk, the pack coming to a halt.

He didn’t think that was fear in their glowing eyes, but witnessing a bit of cannibalism had given them pause, even the other group of imps had stopped their advance to gawk in bewilderment. His show was working, all he needed now was a little flare.

“This one got lucky!” he shouted, holding up the imp’s organ. “The next one’s going to be alive when it happens. Who’s next?”

He wasn’t sure if they understood him, but the way he spat bits of flesh with every word, and how crazed he must seem to them, conveyed all the meaning for him. One of the imps scampered off, then another, and before long his little charade had cut the demon’s numbers in half, the ones who stayed looking much more wary of him now.

“You’re clinically insane,” Eva muttered into his ear.

Grinning, he turned to the Baron, still stood in the middle of the street. For the first time, she displayed a reaction that was other than vague disinterest, raising one brow ever so slightly above the other. It was subtle, but an expression of confusion crossed her demonic features.

“A morsel eating a morsel. I have not seen that before,” she mused, her green pupils fixing on him. Despite her infernal appearance, her voice was like honey, every syllable enunciated with deep inflections. “Tell me – festering pile of mortal stool that you resemble – who are you~?”

She hummed that last word in sing-song, cocking her head at him. Those green eyes blinked when he spat the imp-flesh in her direction, throwing the organ aside.

“I am Andreas,” he said. “And you are dead.”

She narrowed her eyes, but not at him. The screech of a spooling engine had gently rose in volume during their brief exchange, the electric whine becoming a roaring whistle.

The demon turned her gaze up and behind her, watching as a the profile of a jet soared through the swirling clouds. Its grey hull glinted in the light as it barrelled towards the street, stubby nose aligning with the length of the street.

Andreas through himself behind the bus, flipping his visor down as the jet swooped in for a low pass. There were two canons mounted to hardpoints on either side of the cockpit, and the pilot spooled them up, a tracer stream of shells chewing into the road right before the Baroness.

The buzz was smoothed out by his helmet, but it was no less frightening in its volume, the tracers churning up a pair of cars happening to be in its way, kicking up blankets of dust and rock in its wake. Andreas watched with no small sense of satisfaction as the Baroness was caught in the strafe, raising her massive arms as she darted away, the shrapnel consuming her from his view.

At the tail-end of the burst, what few imps remained were torn asunder, severed torso arcing through the air as the ranks were eviscerated.

The pilot came dangerously close to the ground, pulling out of the dive at the last moment, its wings just skimming the tops of the buildings. Andreas ducked instinctively as it screamed overhead, close enough he could see the tips of the chain guns were glowing with heat, the craft rising back into the sky, departing as quickly as it had arrived.

“Confirmed hit on target big bitch,” the pilot’s soothing voice radioed in. “I’m RTB for fuel. Safe travels down there.”

“Thank you,” Eva said over the channel. “from both of us, right Seargent?”

“Nope.”

“What do you mean, ‘nope’? Are you rude as well as dense?”

Andreas had peeked round the cabin, and gestured with a hand. As the dust settled, the telltale silhouette of the Baron emerged, coughing and sputtering a string of curse words as she wiped the dust from her face. Fist-sized holes pockmarked down the length of her arm, but the Baroness seemed more angry than wounded.

“Stupid, impudent little runt,” the demon snarled, blinking her eyes clear. The shells had dazed her if nothing else. “I’ll burn you just as I’ve burned your world! Show yourself!”

Andreas retrieved his rifle, stepping forward to meet the challenge, but Eva chimed in before he could act.

“Seargent, don’t,” she protested. “You can’t fight a Baron and its whole entourage without support. We need to get out of here!”

As much as he wanted to sock it to this Baron, she was right. He couldn’t fight forever, and dealing with the imps had taken a toll out of him already. He needed to take advantage of the carnage left by the strafe while it lasted. 

Turning on a heel, he dashed up the road, slipping between two cars as he moved for a side street, the brickwork lining promising safety and shelter. He expected to come under fire from the Baron’s infernal attacks, but all she sent his way was verbal abuse, her words echoing out as he slipped into the shadows.

“Run all you want, morsel. You’re in my domain now, you cannot escape!”

-xXx-

The Baroness cradled one arm against her breast while she shook a fist with the other, berating the fleeing mortal as he distanced himself from the street. It had been some time since she’d laid eyes on a mortal warrior, but she didn’t remember them looking so equipped. The human was laden by all manners of weapons, every pouch and pocket stuffed with some sort of handgun or knife, the noises his pack made when it jostled hinting at other unseen apparatus. Beneath was his bulky armour, the ceramic plating as thick as her claws, but despite its obvious weight the mortal moved with a surprising ease.

These humans must have finally stepped up their game. One just needed to look at her destroyed gore nest for proof.

She glared holes at the human as he fled down a side passage, but right before he disappeared behind the wall, he did something strange. He turned her way, raised his arm, then extended his middle finger toward her. Was he casting some sort of spell or ritual? Did the deranged mortal not know the energies of Hell made her immune to tempering?

She made to go after him, but after two steps, she felt a tingling up her curled arm, looking down to see her bicep and shoulder was full of holes oozing her rich, demonic blood, the gaps plugged with silver shells. This sensation, was it… pain?

She gawked in pleasant surprise, clawing into her wounds to remove the bullets left by that aircraft, that tingly feeling morphing into a hot thrum that spiked through her nerves. Not since her failed assault on the Rallypoint had she been hit with slugs capable of dealing her harm. She should leave the citadel more often.

Taking a few minutes to clean herself up, she gored the shells out of her wounds, flicking the crumpled bullets away as she took stock of her situation. Her imps lay dead all around her, but that was a shadow of her problems at the moment. The ravine to her rear was still trailing smoke, what had once been a gore nest reduced to a pitiful crater, scores of the possessed obliterated too, their tortured souls no longer fuelling the moral decay.

A few hours ago, her grip on this place was ironclad, and now she was faced with a serious threat of losing control. What if this mortal, this Commando, was one of many? Was a coordinated attack on her operation in the works?

No. This was her territory. If even an errant bug crossed her thresholds, she’d know about it. But that only raised the question of how this mortal threatened her nest in the first place. Who was he? Where was his kin?

She’d only get her answers from the little insect himself. She’d beat it out of him, then use his own soul to replant a fresh nest. Punishment could only be befitting of the crime after all.

Claws clicked against the pavement as one of the imps emerged from his hiding place behind her, and she recognised him as one of the imps cowed by the human’s little show, more of his kin appearing now that they were sure the mortal had departed. She would have laughed at their cowardice, if she herself hadn’t been caught off-guard by it. Very few outside of Hell’s own populace could instil fear in the demonic. Not that she was afraid of the little whelp.

“What are you standing around for?” she growled, the demonic pack flinching at her words. “You have kin to avenge. Track down that mortal and flay him alive.”

“A-As you command,” one of their number replied, curling his limbs around himself. Their fear was thick in her nose, the consequences of losing a nest already rippling through her forces. She had to do something lest they run at the slightest noise.

“Do not fear the mortal’s bite, but my grip upon your throats,” she added. “Flee from battle again, and being a human’s cuisine will be paradise to what I’ll do with you.”

They nodded as a collective, and while she still detected uncertainty, there was little else to be done from such a fickle race.

“Follow me,” she muttered, setting off in the mortal’s direction.

-xXx-

Andreas leant against the flank of a car, his breath coming in short, harsh rasps as he paused, lifting a hand to his chest. The fire bolts hadn’t hurt during his skirmish with the imps, but now that the adrenaline was gone, his chest was beginning to sting. It might be no less than a bruise, but he couldn’t risk taking off his armour to check, out here in the street.

He'd been running for what felt like miles, but could only have been a handful of blocks, his path made twisted by the rubble blocking the way. A few groups of zombies and demons had tried to stop him, but they weren’t as numerous as those in the ravine, and he made quick work of them. He hadn’t seen any sign of the Baron, but he doubted he’d lost her so easily.

“You need to seek shelter,” Eva pleaded. “I’m detecting lacerations in your chest and arms, you need food and rest.”

“I’ll rest when I’m dead,” Andreas replied, lifting his helmet and hacking a wad of phlegm.

“That’s exactly your problem,” Eva continued. “You keep pushing and pushing yourself, one day life’s going to push back. You need time to replenish your batteries.”

“Says the robot,” he muttered, pushing off the car and falling into a jog. “You literally run on batteries.”

“Technically I’m hooked up to a reactor, whereas you are running on your stomach. At least eat something.”

“I did just before, remember? Had some demonic sirloin for lunch.”

“I still can’t believe you did that,” she grumbled. “You realise nobody knows what’s in a demon’s genetic makeup. You could have ingested Hell’s version of herpes for all we know…”

“Relax, it was only a nibble.”

She sighed like the weight of the world was on her proverbial shoulders, asking after a pause: “Well what did it taste like?”

“Stringy, hot, like overdone chicken.”

“As is everything according to you humans. I don’t imagine the nutrient content was sufficient. You should stop and fix that.”