With This Ring (Young Justice SI) (Thread Fourteen)

Day 3
14th March 2013
11:12 GMT

Someone thinks highly of themselves.

Apparently, this is Purgatory. The realm where souls who committed no significant sins but didn't have faith in any gods and failed to make other arrangements for their soul come. A privilege for the dominant afterlife services provider: becoming the default option.

To be honest, it doesn't look so bad.

I mean, that's part of the basic idea. If the afterlife is what you make of it, people bad enough to go to Hell aren't going to be the sort of people you'd want to hang around with. Here on the other hand you might well be surrounded by morally righteous secular humanists. That has more options. People could build things without slave-drivers forcing them to.

And what they've built appears to be… Heaven. Of the Greco-Roman architecture with added fluffy clouds variety. Peasants work the fields with primitive tools while… Cyborg? Angels? Stand guard. I don't recognise the guns they carry, but they look a bit more sophisticated than the simple slug-throwers that the more technically inclined demons in other parts of Hell carry.

Speaking of which… I'm not… Seeing any demons. I mean, okay, Purgatory. In the uncharitable reading of the nature of Heaven, the punishment for people here is just being excluded from the light of God, which implies that the Source is so arrogant that it can't imagine a punishment worse than being away from its company. To my mind that says more about the writer of that little gem than the Source, but if this place runs on those rules... Demons would have almost no role here. Certainly, the people here wouldn't be due any extra punishment. And they'd only mill around in mists as Dante appeared to think they would if they wanted… To.

Though that would explain the cloud aesthetic. Just bundle the mists up into specific places to clear room for a pre-industrial idyll.

Five mecha-angels approach me, two hanging back with guns ready to be put at the ready. The leader appears to be an Asian woman, though her eyes appear to have been replaced with arcane cybernetics.

"Hello, stranger. Have you just arrived?"

"No, I've been here a few days, now."

She nods. "We don’t get a lot of aliens around here. Where are you from?"

"Apokolips. But I.. don't want to give you the wrong idea. I'm alive."

She nods in the patient manner of a woman who has had to break the bad news to people who've said that to her before.

"No, seriously." I pull out the scroll containing the First's Writ of Passage. "The First has commissioned me to study his domains, and I wanted to meet the ruler of.. this place first." She looks nervously at the scroll, some sort of spell effect emanating from her artificial eyes. "Seems to be doing a pretty good job, as a God of the Dead. Not sure it's what the First had in mind, but it's nice to see someone making something of the place."

She blinks as the spell ends. "I've confirmed.. your authority. Lord Satanus will see you immediately."

"Good show." The squad shifts orientation as they move from border guards to escort detail. I fall in behind the squad leader. "So how long have you been here?"

"I'm not exactly sure. We don't have days here, but I think it's been about eighty years. I was born in eighteen eighty three, if that's any help."

"The current year is twenty thirteen, so happy one hundred and thirtieth birthday."

"My birthday is in April."

"Belated one hundred and twenty ninth, then. Whereabouts are you from?"

"America. San Francisco."

"Not my kind of place, but it's still in one piece. Mostly. Anyone you want me to take a message to when I go back?"

"No. I doubt that my children are still alive and I never knew my grandchildren."

"Ah. I'm sorry to hear that."

"Not everyone lives a long and happy life. I have to say that my afterlife has been more fulfilling."

"How did you end up here, anyway?"

"I'm from a Chinese-American family. Too cut off from the land of my parents to believe in their gods, not American enough to go to church."

"I.. understand what you mean, but there's no actual requirement to be American to be Christian. There are plenty of Christians who are ethnically Chinese, though the ones in China tend to keep quiet about it if they've got any sense."

"I never even visited China."

No, I suppose… Travel would have been a bit expensive while she was alive. Not impossible, but not something she would have been able to do for a quick visit.

"So what's with the cybernetics?"

She raises her right hand-. Ah, yes, I see that she probably wouldn't be able to fit a normal human limb inside that. "This? This is to give us the strength to fight demons."

"Is that something you need to do a lot?"

"I've had to do it a few times. It's not a constant battle, but everyone is on watch for the next time they find a way in here. Demons are a lot stronger than the souls of humans."

"I don't know about that. I spent a few hours talking to Slime Demons this week and they die if you hit them with a lit match. It's probably just that coming here takes more strength, so you only get raided by the stronger ones."

"I suppose. We can go into Hell from here, but as far as we know there's no way back. Not a lot of people are interested."

"If you're interested, I could probably work-. Mother Box?"

"Ping."

"Okay, not quite yet, but Mother Box is very good at making portals and as long as I'm doing it to better understand the functioning of Hell the First's Writ lets me do a lot that's normally politically unwise."

"So I could choose to go somewhere terrible and full of suffering and monsters?"

"Ah. Well, that doesn't-. Yes?"

"Thank you, but no."

One of Sir Terrence Pratchett's earliest works was an essay where he advised the devil that while no one actually wanted to go to Hell permanently, it was possible that people would choose to visit for a little while for much the same reason that they choose to go on roller coasters without actually wanting to be in a train crash. But… This…

Yeah, this wouldn't be a bad place to spend eternity. Or however long they get.

"What do you know about Satanus?"

"Nothing that he doesn't choose to share, which is little to nothing."

"Has he mentioned his father or sister at all?"

"I didn't know demons had those."

"He's a little unusual. Honestly, this setup he has here clashes with everything I've heard about him. I guess he's intelligent enough to embrace the dual moral standard."

"What does that mean?"

"That he treats his own people well, but is ruthless and cruel to other peoples."

"I haven't seen how he treats other people. He sometimes leaves to visit other places, but he doesn't take anyone with him and he doesn't talk about it. I think he finds being here relaxing."

"That makes…" The clouds part and I get a good look at his palace. It's the flipping Parthenon at the front with statues of the master of the place dressed like a hoplite instead of those of the Olympians. "Sense. Please, take me to him."

 

Day 3
14th March 2013
11:20 GMT

The reality of the man matches the statues, though as I'm led towards the surprisingly simple seat where Colin 'Satanus' Thornton sits I can't help but think there's something a little off about them. And wasn't that a surprise, learning that a Lord of Hell has an amazing double life as a media mogul. Lex had been keeping an eye on him for some time and while he deduced that he was a magic user he apparently found out that he was literally a demon by chance when someone spilled some salt on the ground and he couldn't cross the spill. Satanus has artistically bulging but not binding muscles, polished black metal and leather apparel with gold-. No, orichalcum decoration, and…

No. Compared to the statues-.

He's made himself larger. He enlarged the seat too, but not the dais. I can see the marks on the floor where it usually sits. Did he do that so that I don’t loom over him quite so much? I suppose that an emissary being sent who looks more powerful than your current overlord is a strategy that the First could use to undermine him, but unlike most people down here he's certain to know who I am. How I work. So he grew himself for the benefit of his people?

"Lord Satanus, I present Grayven, God of Conquest and emissary of the First of the Fallen."

"Be welcome, Grayven. Would you care for refreshment?"

"Thank you, Lord Satanus. It would be the civil thing to do. Alas, I am bound for a month and since I do not need to eat, civility is barred to me. I do appreciate the offer, however."

"Bound? You are no demon."

"No, but my word is my bond regardless. The First has tasked me with discovering ways to improve his realm and its people."

Satanus leans forwards slightly, the glowing ovals of his eyes widening.

"Yes, that was my first thought, too. And I imagine that my second was much the same as yours."

"That it's obviously a scheme."

I shrug. "Everything always is. But he has something I need, and I'm pretty sure that my soul goes to the Source when I die whatever I do, so I can stand using my talents for him for a little while."

He nods, relaxing back into his seat. "And what is my part in this?"

"I'd like to hear -in your own words- how you run things here and why. I will then most likely have a few questions, perhaps a few observations…" I shrug. "I can't offhand think of a way to say this isn't supposed to be a threat without making the assurance sound like a threat, but my pact with the First doesn't include fighting for him either personally or with my wider resource base."

"You're here as a conquest consultant."

"More or less."

"I'm surprised that the First's pride allowed it. That it allowed the suggestion that anyone else could have useful input."

"I'm half expecting him to read through my report and then tear it up in front of me." I shrug. "But whatever. I'll have fulfilled my part of our bargain."

"Would you like to tour my realm?"

"Depending on what I learn… Perhaps later. Since you clearly take pride in what you've achieved here, I'm happy to take your word for it."

"My study, then." I nod, and he rises to his feet. "Sergeant Wu, thank you, you and your detail are dismissed."

Wu bows and then she and her fellow soldiers about-face and march out of the audience chamber. Satanus then rises from his seat and steps down from the dais.

"This way."

The doors open at our approach as he leads me through his palace. It's well-lit, though I can't see where the light is actually coming from. The same was true outside: light filtering down from above but without an observable source. Of course this is a less physical place than the material world, but I suppose that it might be significant. But this palace…

"Do you like it?"

Devil May Cry! That's what this place reminds me of! You go through various parts of Hell -or whatever that game called it- and then your final fight with Mundus starts in a Greek temple against a three-eyes Greek statue.

"Is this real stone?"

"That would depend on what you mean by 'real'. It's not quarried from Earth and then brought here."

"I suppose that would be a bit expensive. Was it quarried locally?"

"In a manner of speaking. Purgatory was more or less formless; you're familiar with Dante's description?" I nod. "It wasn't too hard to impose form on it, taking examples from the Earth and altering the nature of this place to reflect them. I take it that you recognised the Parthenon?"

"And I thought you were simply being vainglorious."

He smirks. "Well… I could have picked something more modest, but it set the tone I was going for."

"And you made the fields in the same way."

"It was a considerable investment, but one which has paid off nicely. Purgatory's undefined neutral state means that it takes such impressions well, and the population appreciates having actual work to do."

"Sergeant Wu was a relatively recent addition to the population. I take it that you have older residents?"

"Unlike in the other circles of Hell, there was nothing here for them to interact with. As such, they stayed remarkably preserved. There's still a limit: I haven't met any soul here older than five thousand years old."

"Where does the power from their breakdown go?"

"The mists. It happens slowly, so there's no build-up in specific places."

I raise my eyebrows. "And none to you?"

"A little." He glances my way and smiles, nodding. "Most of the power I gain is from having this realm as an anchor. Ah, here we are."

He leads me inside a… Hm. A planning room. Maps of fields and mines are pinned to the walls, while reference books on farming and mining sit on a bookshelf next to books containing records of his holdings' yields.

It nice to see someone taking this seriously-.

The door closes and Satanus speaks a word that echoes oddly in my ears. A shimmering, burning rune appears on the inside of the door, sealing it shut.

Satanus shimmers, the demon lord being rapidly replaced by… A short man in a grey business suit.

"Not a surprise, then." I tilt my head to the side. "Luthor isn't as subtle as he thinks he is. I was prepared to ignore it because it makes his eventual descent here more enjoyable."

"It makes no difference to me what form you take. I haven't been retained to assess your fashion sense."

"You were serious about that then? I assumed that this was part of some scheme to kill the First, if not everyone."

"It might come to that. But that sounds like an awful lot of work, even if I was entirely successful, which is far from guaranteed. And it would just cause chaos, and the First has recovered from such injuries before."

"You're a little harder to hurt than a human magician."

"Don't underestimate Mister Constantine. But I fear we're getting off-topic. What's going on with the cybernetics?"