The Skittering Chaos (Worm/Hazbin Hotel)

The Skittering Chaos 23

Thanks a million to Scheissdrauf for editing this! He caught quite a few errors that I hadn't spotted when I was looking this through on the first time, especally some things, not to mention just making it a better read over all catching my mistakes that I'm blind to as the original writer. So give him a big thanks as well if you don't mind~!

Anywho, enjoy~!

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“Almost like the old days,” I mutter to myself as I figure out payroll, though as I try to work, my pen keeps slowing, and my mind wanders. Apprehension… all from that letter. Lisa probably won’t even call today, or even next week, if she even gets it at all in a timely manner. Who’s to say that something doesn’t happen in transit? Not to mention she probably has a million and one things to do on Gimel. Things far more important, and honestly, she should be getting her work done instead of humouring me. Even so, my antennae droop a bit before I take a breath and try to get back to work. Like Lisa is, I should get back to work. Yet…

What if something had happened to her? What if she didn’t want to speak with me again? I… kind of deserved it after how I’d abandoned them again. It was to save them but… that never stopped the vigilantes around here from trying to get a piece of me, not that I can blame them. Not having control, being mastered, it’s something everyone fears. It’s why everyone hates human masters with a passion, and why the Simurgh is the most feared of all. More than the Hero killer, and more than-

Suddenly my phone rings. Before I can pick it up though I see the number, the name. I freeze. I can feel my antennae to rising to attention. My blood goes cold.

It’s Lisa.

I pause a moment, before picking up the phone, and putting it to my ear. As I do though, I don’t hear Lisa, but someone else in the background. They’re chanting something...

“Big Titty Taylor! Big Titty Taylor!” It’s Aisha…

It’s Aisha… she’s the one calling, and…

I can’t help but giggle. That’d… not been what I’d been expecting. Slowly my giggles turn to laughter, and my head falls back. Of course. Of course Aisha of all people would be the one calling.

She probably snatched the package before Lisa even got it.

“Taylor?” I then hear a voice dripping with trepidation, and it’s Lisa’s.

She’s here as well and the first thing she heard is me giggling and laughing at Aisha’s silly chant.

“Sorry, I just… I just didn’t expect… well I expected you but… but then Aisha,” I trail off.

“Aisha?” Lisa asks, and as she does, Aisha goes quite all of a sudden. Lisa however continues: “No, doesn’t matter… Fuck Taylor… it’s, it’s really you, and… You’re really dead… fuck me, and not only are you dead, but we’re talking. Like actually talking, and you’re not like one of Valkyrie’s puppets either.”

“No I’m not; at least, I don’t think I am. I don’t think I’m under anyone’s control, or if… if I am then I can’t tell…” had I been mastered lately? It’s possible. I’ve met a lot of people… and possession apparently is well known enough. Though I… actually, I have no idea who Valkyrie is.

“Wait, who’s Valkyrie?” I ask. Lisa had said I wasn’t a puppet of her, so some kind of master, possibly some master that raised the dead since Lisa had mentioned that I was dead and yet not one of this “Valkyrie’s” puppets. Does that mean I have to worry about my body being driven around if anyone manages to find it?

“Valkyrie’s the Fairy Queen’s hero name, only she’s all grown up now and grown a pair of tits,” I hear Aisha pipe up from somewhere nearby. “Hey Taylor, nice tits by the way, though I think you should go bigger, like sure, Ds are great, but if you’re ever going to beat Squealer in a boob battle, you’ll need some dobonhonkeros to compete with her tombonheracougers.”

…

What?

“What?” I ask and an explosion of laughter bursts through the phone, the youngest Undersider letting out a cackle at how her butchering of English has left me speechless.

“Haha! Holy shit I wish I could see your face right now, hahaha!” Aisha continues to laugh as I hear a groan from Lisa.

“She’s been insufferable ever since she saw that picture of you,” Lisa says through gritted teeth as Aisha’s giggling starts to die down.

“I mean yeah!? Come on girl her tits grew three sizes since we last saw her! Don’t tell me you don’t want to tease her over them,” Aisha exclaims and I purse my lips even though she can’t see them.

It wasn’t three sizes… probably…

I let out a sigh, and can’t help the smile slipping onto my face. Despite her immaturity, I can’t even get annoyed at her, and I almost want to giggle myself.

“Ah Aisha… so how’ve you two been, what’ve you gotten up to since… well… you know?”

“Oh you know, the usual, bathing in our solid gold Jacuzzi and drinking pina coladas free of charge for helping save the world and all that, you know, like how heroes should be treated after saving the world,” Aisha says, the sarcasm heavy in her voice.

“I see…” I say.

“It’s... been alright. Busy around the clock and we’ve been cutting every corner we can before winter hits so that we can keep people from freezing out here, but otherwise it’s been alright. Hopefully we’ll have apartments ready for roughly eighty percent of people here finished by the end of November, while the rest can maybe rough it in either some tents or any railway cars and shipping containers that can be emptied out. Course… that’s optimistic,” Lisa says while I nod along.

“What’s the main hold up?” I ask, because if the reason for the housing shortage is labour, maybe MILF could help out? Though, would they even accept any kind of contract up above, and not only that, but how would they get up above?

“It’s mainly production side. The factories we have here are churning out as fast as we can but it’s just not enough. It’d have been nice if that city builder had survived but… well no use crying over who died, especially to you,” she says. “Otherwise, there’s also people being dicks, thieves stealing our supplies to sell off, the other Earths are getting ready to fuck us over, but we can’t focus on that right now because winter’s coming and we got to get this shit done. Then you’ve got some morons that want to paint the city gold for some reason and have already started trying to get gold fucking paint of all things instead of actually doing something useful, since they’ve been adding it to the train carts, taking up space and… fuck, you don’t need to know about my problems Taylor, you’ve got enough of your own.”

“No it’s fine Lisa, really. I don’t mind at all, in fact, things are kind of quiet around here at the moment, and obviously you need someone to vent to,” I say. Lisa gives a small breathy chuckle, taking a moment before replying:

“Thanks, but… I think I’ll hold off for now. But, I’ll take you up on that later, okay? Maybe we can complain to each other about our problems, hmm?”

“That sounds alright to me.”

“Maybe you could even visit instead of just calling huh?” Aisha asks, and that’s certainly an idea. Not just yet though, not until things have stabilised around here first, but then maybe after I could see about maybe finding a way up. Maybe IMP could take me up? They do have that book, the same one that Alastor wants. Actually, why hadn’t he gone after it? Imps aren’t that tough. If he really wanted to he could have easily secured it himself.

Actually why couldn’t I just get the imps to take me to the surface? What might the issue be, other than needing to shell out more money to let them make a round trip with me? Well, other than the people on the surface likely hating, and fearing me…

“Hey, no need to rush on our account,” Lisa interjects quickly, though she sounds sombre. The slight breath she needed to take after saying “hey”; I don’t know what to say for a bit, and the three of us let the silence drag for a few moments. Collecting our thoughts, or thinking of what to say next.

“It’s… good to hear from you again Taylor,” Lisa finally says. “Really, when you… when you slipped away, I thought… I thought that was the end. You… you weren’t… you weren’t your-”

She takes a shuddering breath, and I hear a snuffle.

“Hey,” I hear the soft tone of Aisha, not at all like the prankster and sidekick of Alec I remember her as.

“Take your time Lisa, I’ve got more than enough of it nowadays,” I say smiling a bit as I listen on the phone.

“It’s just… I thought, you were gone. I didn’t want to believe it at first, but… what my power was telling me, and… I wanted to believe that my power was wrong again, since it’s not so good with people, but… but it was hard not to accept when everything was screaming at me that… that you were gone, and… I guess you are. but now Hell is real and you’re there, and, and you managed to somehow get a bunch of imps to bring me a phone so we can talk and… It’s, it’s a lot. I… thanks for picking up. It, fuck do you know how nervous I was to call? Fuck, like, I kind of convinced myself it was you, and I let myself hope, but there was this… you know, small doubt in my head, and it’s been eating at me all afternoon. Like, I don’t know what I would have done if…” her voice near the end starts to tremble, and she stops for a while. As she speaks I dig my fingernails into my palms, wanting to reach out, to touch her, to hug her and bring her close.

When IMP gets back I’m going to see if they can take me to Earth Gimel. Not for a long visit, but maybe for tea and coffee. No doubt I’d be supplying the treats. Perhaps I could even get them from that coffee shop in the Raz family’s territory.

“Well I never doubted. I knew it had to be you,” Aisha adds in, her tone superior and I can almost see in my head her gesturing to herself. “I mean come on? Who else could have literally somehow gotten word out of Hell right? I mean you killed the equivalent of God. Hell won’t be able to keep you down for long and I for one welcome our soon to be new demonic overlord.”

I chuckle a bit, “Here’s hoping it doesn’t need to come to that.”

I guess there’s a reason that demons always want to get out of Hell in fiction, outside of the obvious reasons. What about those who they left behind? Those still in the world, unsure, who were unable to properly say goodbye? At least with the phone call Lisa will be getting something.

Of course, down here, probably not too many people are concerned about their living relatives and friends considering the chaos and their impersonality.

“I wish that things could have been different… but there wasn’t another way was there?” Lisa asked.

“No… I don’t think unless everyone was working together that we could have won… that we could have got him to… well let us kill him, and even then.”

“The casualties would have been far greater,” Lisa said, finishing my thought.

“Yeah,” I say, and the two of us are silent for a while until finally Lisa speaks up.

“So uh… you probably want to know about what’s been going on up here, huh? Oh and who died?”

“That’d actually be pretty useful, especially those who died. Since pretty much everyone probably went to Hell, I can see about finding anyone who might be down here. I know about Alec, and was just about to ask to send someone to get him, but, well I know someone died, someone close... You didn’t want to say… was it my Dad?”

“No… no, it’s, it was Brian… during that one attack, well… he didn’t make it, but I guess that means he could be down there with you,” she says, though her response was less than sure.

“What do you mean? Did…” wracking my brain I try to think of a reason he might not be down here.

“Wait, did he convert to Christianity after I left?” I ask and Aisha lets out a snort.

“He better not have,” she says. “Because I doubt I’ll ever be good enough to get into Heaven unless that pray on your death bed kind of thing actually works.”

“No, no, Brian didn’t convert. I don’t know, he never thought about that kind of stuff as far as I know, and her certainly never stepped foot in a church for as long as I knew… know him? I don’t know. But uh, honestly I’m just kind of taking stabs in the dark here, and my power is likely less than useful in figuring out… well this whole “souls” thing. Let’s just say I don’t know if Brian is down there, mostly because Valkyrie, um, kind of turned him into one of her ghosts and put him in a body. That’s how they revived a bunch of capes. My power says that the version that’s walking around’s not the original. It’s a copy made by Valkyrie’s power, but I also didn’t know about souls and stuff like that… so, uh, it could be him, I guess?” she wonders aloud.

Could he really still be up there? I mean no one really knows how powers work. People used to talk about how the Fairy Queen’s ghosts proved that there was an after life. So perhaps her power let her grab souls before they continued on? But then… what about my clones? What of the Slaughterhouse clones?

“No… he’s got to be down here. You remember what I wrote about the Slaughterhouse Nine clones?” I ask and I hear the ruffling of papers on the other side.

“All of the Slaughterhouse clones ended up here in Hell. Every single one of them we killed from what I’ve seen, or at least those with enough experience to I guess get a soul. That and… well my clones are down here as well.”

“Wait, Chitter and Scurry are down in Hell?” Aisha asks.

“Yeah, and probably that last one as well, the paranoid one, but my Mom doesn’t know where she is; oh and my Mom’s down here as well.”

“Well that’s great, honestly sounds like Hell is kind of the place to be if everyone you know is going there… you think that was part of the plan? You know, to let you be with your friends?” she asked, and I stop. Was it a possibility? Maybe? Most interpretations of the end are that of a life of eternal peace and prosperity. “Thy Kingdom” and all that. I’d kind of taken for granted the possibility that Hell might not exactly be the Christian idea of it, but rather it could be something else? While I doubt it, could this end be more like a Valhalla that the Norse legends speak of?

But then why have Lucifer? That and in truth, I highly doubt I don’t deserve this fate I’ve ended up with. My choices had led up to this. I’d let myself go all in pursuit of my goals multiple times. After all, even if the ends justified the means, would that be taken into account? Robbing a bank, murder, infanticide…

“Hey Taylor? You still there?” Lisa ask.

“Yeah sorry, just thinking on it. Honestly, I don’t know, but… well, my Dad. He’s still alive huh? Could you… well, could you let us talk? Bring him in and we can talk? I can get Mom, and… the clones. We can all say hi, and talk… could you do that?”

“Sure thing Taylor, might cheer him up enough to become a nuisance to me. He’s… well I’ve been keeping track of him and… he’s not doing so hot. Kind of in a funk at the moment. He still thinks you’re alive and out there which is honestly for the best right now ‘cause it’s keeping him occupied trying to convince the heroes to go out and look for you. I’ve got some guys watching over him, making sure nobody messes with him just in case someone takes offence to him wanting to find, well, you. I mean, you’re kind of a taboo subject to even talk about,” she says and I nod at that despite her being unable to see me.

“That makes sense. No doubt people don’t exactly want the girl that mastered multiple worlds back,” I say.

“Pretty much. Despite Scion literally destroying cities, you’ve kind of gotten a boogey man status as well. Hell it’s gotten to the point that… hey you know those Harry Pot- of course you do. Book nerd before warlord, duh. So, you’ve got a Voldemort thing doing where no one likes to talk about you at all, and people kind of glare at anyone who might mention it. Nothing official has come down the pipes from the heroes who’re trying to take charge, but I wouldn’t be surprised if even without their help you end up just another big bad that Scion was trying to stop, or that you and Scion were just two villains trying to take over or something like that.”

This is not exactly ideal. Especially if the people right now end up just as pissed at me as those I’d mastered and let die during Golden Morning. The vigilantes already are proving to be a mess and a half to deal with. Initially they knew nothing about where we are, but now? I’ve already had to deal with two scouts.

The first was some sort of flying winged human. Dressed in red spandex and decided the best way to get info was to fly down and beat up one of my girls for information just because she was wearing my scarf.

Idly I double check if the ripped apart corpse of the man was still in the dumpster and he was but MILF hadn’t gotten to disposing of him yet.

The second had been more covert than the other, up until he started asking too many questions and a Raz imp got suspicious, which resulted in a gunfight. No fatalities, but two of mine were wounded who’re taking it easy for now.

“I don’t suppose there’s anything you can do about it?” I ask.

“I mean I could try. But I’m kind of already on the Warden’s shit list for not bending over backwards for them and having a bit of enlightened self interest in how I get things done. It’s all getting done, don’t worry. Industry is booming and all that. Raw materials spilling in and everything is getting built for everyone. Even helped the heroes out with their whole thing for a price, though they kind of don’t like having to pay off the loan I kind of forced them into,” Lisa said as I let out a short breathy chuckle while shaking my head.

“To be fair you jacked the interest up through the roof like you’re one of those shitty loan sharks,” Aisha pipes in.

“They can pay it. They have literal whole other worlds to exploit for resources and compared to what some of the other earths would have asked for later in return, I think I was being more than fair,” Lisa says and I can almost see her waving off Aisha’s concerns.

“No doubt, and its fine. It’s not the end of the world if you don’t get too trying to turn my image around immediately or even in the next little while. Though I’ve already run into the consequences of my actions that day… other than the dying part. But I’d appreciate anything you might be able to stop the people from Bet from hating me.”

“Alright, I’ll see what I can do,” she says.

“That’s all I can ask for.”

“Okay, so speaking of what you’ve been doing. Taylor, the Merchants… what the hell!?” she asks, her tone joking as I smile.

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“So Danny’s alive?” Mom asks through the phone. Lisa had to go unfortunately. Some kind of meeting she couldn’t put off which is fine by me. It let me call Mom.

“Yes, he’s alive. You know the letter I sent out to Tattletale?”

“Yes, she knows what happened to Danny?”

“Yes she does. She’d been keeping an eye on him, and when I sent my letter I put a phone in there for her as well. We were just talking and I found out from her that Dad’s alive… if kind of depressed.” For a few moments, silence fills the call as I wait for Mom’s response.

“Fuck…” is all she says at first. As I wait, my biters stalk the “Sorry. It’s… I shouldn’t want him dead, but… well… I kind of wanted to see him again. It’s been a long time.”

“I mean I was going to see if IMP could maybe take me to Gimel, you could tag along as well… and maybe my clones to,” I say.

“That’s not going to work Taylor,” she says, and I pause a moment.

“It’s not?”

“I mean, you can, it’s just. Well. Sinners can’t exactly leave hell,” Mom says with finality in her voice. ”Despite all of our power here, we’re not exactly… physical, or even fully there when we’re not here. You know ghost stories and stuff like that? Tales of poltergeists and haunting visions of ghosts? Or even the more modern stuff where ghost hunters are going around with EMF readers and stuff like that? Those are probably sinners or maybe even human angels who’ve ended up in the world of the living. Most lose themselves, since while we seem to have bodies, we don’t really; we’re just souls taking on a form that fits us as we were when we died. I mean if you can find a few bodies to inhabit and master then we could, but… well… honestly it’d probably be easier to bring them here, but I’ve only seen it done in a “You’re here forever!” kind of way, where Lucifer will pull in humans that can’t complete their end of adeal. Other than that though, I can’t think of anything off the top of my head.”

I can’t help the frown as my hope of possibly going up to Gimel, of getting to see Lisa again, and proper apologise to her, to Aisha and all the others I hurt, of being able to hug Dad again is dashed. Fuck. “Oh… Yeah, uh, I can get Tattletale to bring Dad in and we can all talk, maybe figure something out for just… reconnect. Be a family again.”

“Alright then, do it, I don’t care how you do it, just… Fuck, Taylor, I…” I hear Mom on the other side, her voice slightly chocking up, then I hear a deep breath before Mom speaks again. “Just, do whatever it is you need to do to get this all set up. I… I want to hear Danny’s voice again, and not in shitty biased interviews on the TV about you, but… well I guess the phone isn’t going to be the same, but… at least we’ll be able to talk. God… just hearing him… I wonder if he’ll be okay with… never mind. Fuck I’ve got so much to tell him, I need to tell him about Rose and Scurry, my new job.”

Slowly Mom starts listing off some of the things she wants to tell him, ranging from the major to the minor, all accompanied by her voice catching or joyous giggles interrupting her musings…

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“Listen bub, this here is our turf now, so you better start paying up,” I listen in on the trio of scantily-clad, pastel-skinned, elf-looking sinners that had moved in on a shop. The place, a small butcher shop, was being run by what looked like one of Lovecraft’s Deep Ones. Though I’m not actually there, my biters converge on the shop while my imp waits outside the shop. While my biter and bug numbers continue to grow, my knowledge on the surrounding area is still rather lacking, especially about some of the now neighbouring gangs. Even though I have their names and a few general characteristics from searching online, most of the info isn’t too useful or it’s so general that just looking at their territory could reveal the same results. It almost reminded me of when I tried to look up the Undersiders. Though, unlike then, the Raz family is intimately familiar with the various gangs in this city, and their information is invaluable.

After all, I’d originally mistaken the gang of elf girls as some whores moving in a group for their own protection. Though yesterday they’d raided a shop on the edge of the former Crimson territory so now I have to set them straight. Not even a day had gone by after we’d kicked the Crimson gang out and people are already reaching out to take what they can. As usual it seems; solve one problem, two more take it’s place.

“That’s them alright. Never had a problem with these girls before, but then we never had territory near them either… so how you wanna do this? Shock and awe, or see if I can’t talk them down?” my imp asks and I have the biter tap its paw down twice for the second option.

“Alright then, let’s see how this goes,” the imp starts but before he leaves, I place a paw on him first, just in time for another of my biters to show up. I nod my biter’s head towards the other.

“You wanna wait for more then? ‘Aight. Sounds good to me,” he says before pulling out a cigarette and got back to waiting by the shop. Meanwhile inside, I can hear the shop owner.

“Pay up? If I paid every gangster that took over the territory my shop is on before things had settled down, I’d be paying twelve sets of protection fee and get nothing in return, not to mention, I’d be broke after the second set of hoodlums like you showed up.”

“Is that a no? Sushi?” one of the elves, a bright pink one asked the fish man. The girl placing a hand on the gun she had on a thigh holster. The butcher however just shook his head.

“No it’s not. It’s a “hold onto this territory for more than a day and then I’ll pay you” kind of answer. You’ll get your money, and don’t think of robbing this place either. I barely keep enough in the drawer here to get by every day in change unless someone comes in and pays cash for a big order of meat.”

“And has there been?” a blue elf asks, to which the fish man gives her a look.

“There’s a gang war about to start. No, no one has come into this place for the last few days ever since that new Merchant gang took down Crimson. We’re all waiting for this to start. I was just about to board up the windows up myself before you three came in,” as the man kept talking, another four of my biters showed up, and the first patted my imp on the leg, to which he nodded.

“Right then, show time,” spitting out his cigarette and racketing back the bolt on his Tommy gun, he opened the door to the butcher’s shop and my biters walked in after him.

“Evening ladies, now I heard from my boss that you three are causing trouble at this fine establishment, and I’m going to have to ask you to leave or this could get ugly,” my imp said, his Tommy up and ready to fire as my biters stalk up to the girls, surrounding them, growling and baring their teeth.

“The fuck are you, a vigilante?”

“No toots, I’m with the Merchants, and this here is Merchant territory. So if you enjoy staying alive, I suggest you step off the plate here and let the real batters play ball.”

For long moments the room is tense, the only sound there is the low menacing growls of my biters. The slutty elves keep looking between the biters, my imp, and between each other. No one speaks; it’s a test of will. To see if any one of those girls has enough confidence to cause a problem, though unless my imp forced it, it seems unlikely.

“Fine,” the pink elf girl says and my imp steps aside before nodding to the door.

“Get out of here then girlies,” he says before the elves file out and take off down the street towards the edge of my new territory. I place a few bugs on them as they go just in case I need to teach them a lesson.

“I hope you don’t plan on trying to make me pay immediately, because I’ll tell you the same thing that I told those girls there,” the shop owner starts but the imp waves him off.

“Nah, not yet, but soon probably. Can’t exactly keep you safe from the coming gang war if you don’t pay up you hear?” he says, the butcher nodding along with that.

“Yeah yeah, I know how it works,” and with that my imp tips his hat before walking out of the shop, my biters following him out the door. As we get outside, he looks to my biter and keels down, rubbing at the creature’s fur and behind its ears. From how the biter’s instincts leave it panting and wanting to push into the imp’s petting, no doubt it’s enjoying it.

“So then Moth Boss, we gonna keep this place? Or bug out once those other boys finish looting the other places of those armour things you’re grabbing?” He asks, but my biter can’t exactly reply. Slowly, I start to form a ball of bugs above the biter, though it takes a minute for there to be enough bugs to answer.

“If we can, though the more we try to hold, the more spread out my swarm, and it takes a while to gather enough bugs when they’re dispersed like this right now. Biters are currently the best thing I have, but there are only so many in these alleyways. They’ve started migrating away from our territory since I’ve started to capture more.”

“Damn shame we don’t have any big hives of bug biters in the city like they have out in the wastes. Bet you could turn a whole hive and cause some serious damage,” the imp says before pulling out a cigarette from his coat. From my office I nod along with him while pulling out my phone and glance at the open pocket book on my desk. The spoils from the Crimson gang had significantly increased our money and resources. Searching up various hive making bugs, I start to browse some of the selection while I have some bugs near me start to scout out a neighbouring and abandoned building.

Could work… While not exactly what the imp had meant, starting up some new hives like I had as a Chicago Ward could certainly bolster my swarm, especially with how vicious the bugs around here are already.

<><><><><><><><><>

“So what did Dad get up to while we were, well, away?” I hear Scurry ask from her end of the conference call. Lisa had gotten Dad to come in today and take a break for from his eternal crusade at petitioning the heroes or “Wardens” as they are called now to go and find me.

“Yeah, it’d be nice to know,” Rose says.

“He mostly was just being a supportive parent. Or at least as supportive as he could be when I was in jail. You remember how it was before,” I say and hear affirmative sounds from my clones. Mom’s silent, just listening in on us. She likely knew all about how I kind of had pushed Dad out of my life from the clones.

“We did what we could to stay in touch. He’d visit me whenever he could get out of Brockton, and if I wasn’t out and about traveling with Dragon and Defiant to whatever disaster was going on at the time,” I say only for Scurry to speak up:

“Wait, you travelled around with Dragon. I thought you just got captured and pushed into being a hero.”

“Yes, Dragon was rather… sympathetic to my plight after I killed Alexandria. No doubt you two saw the trial that was held about me?”

“No but I told them the gist of it,” Mom pipes in.

“Okay. Well after that I worked with Dragon and Defiant for a while before eventually I got put with the Chicago Wards as their combat leader. While Tecton was the official Wards leader, I handled the teams training and field operations. It worked out for me since I didn’t want any sort of official title. I wasn’t going to stay longer than I had to,” I say, and then I start to hear the sound of people moving around on one of the phone lines. For a second we’re silent before I heard the distant voice of Lisa.

“She’s right on the phone there Mr. Hebert,” she says while someone picks up the Hellphone. We all wait for a few moments, before suddenly Dad’s voice comes through.

“Taylor?” he asks, his voice laced with worry. The same way he’d spoken when he’d first called me in prison.

“Dad,” all three of us spoke, the other two injecting a bit of jubilance into their voices. Obviously he’d only meant me… but I don’t begrudge the others. They’d not spoken to Dad for a lot longer, and unlike me, their last memories of him weren’t exactly as pleasant as mine were. Our fight before I ran off to play warlord would not have been a good thing to end off on.

“Tayl- Taylor- Taylors, what?” Dad asks and I heard Mom let out a giddy giggle.

“Wait… Anne?” Dad asks, his voice going distant, disbelieving.

“It’s me Danny, and your daughters too.”

“Anne… wait, daughters? What?” He asks as I smile. No doubt the others are as well at Dad’s confusion.

“It’s complicated,” I tell him and I hear a little chuckled sigh.

“No doubt. Heh. You know, I thought when I’d finally see you again, or hear, that that’d be the end of all of this cape weirdness. Or at least for a while. Guess that’s not the case. Though, Anne. How is, how are you…?”

“Here? Talking with you?” Mom says, pre-empting Dad’s question.

“Yeah. I mean… how are you alive?” Mom takes a few moments to answer, silence reigning for a little bit before she speaks.

“I’m not, Danny. I… we’re dead.”

“Dead? But I’m talking with you. You’re talking through the phone. I don’t care if you’re some kind of undead or whatever philosophical college level mumbo jumbo you’re about to tell me, but you’re alive, you can talk to me. You’re not dead. How?” he asks.

“No Dad… we are dead. It’s just… well the Christians kind of got it right,” I tell him. Like Mom he’s silent for a bit.

“Wait so you’re… o-oh… I uh… I see.” He says, doing his best to keep the emotions from his voice as he speaks, but he “oh” is enough. “But how, are you speaking to me then? If you’re… you know… up above?”

Though as he asks that Mom gives a little snort before replying: “Ah yes, we were definitely in heaven honey, especially me who’d been an avowed atheist up until I got here.”

“Oh… uh… how’s that, no, what’s. Okay, what’s hell like?”

“It’s kind of like how Brockton Bay was before, only far bigger. There are other places though apparently outside of Pentagram city, like the wastelands, or Canada, but I’ve only been in Pentagram city so far,” I add.

“We’ve been to Imp city,” Scurry adds in after me. “It’s basically a smaller and more orderly version of Pentagram city, but there are still groups of crazy sinners that end up there sometimes.”

Rose meanwhile just hums along with her fellow clone. Mom then pipes in: “Think of it less as Hell and more of a hell themed wonderland or fantasy land. It’s not as bad as say Dante’s Inferno makes it out to be but you know how Brockton Bay was. It’s not exactly a paradise unless you can get something of a stable job. No unions unfortunately except the kind that are just covers for whatever mob or mafia there is around that’s backing them. Which reminds me Taylor, since you’re in that gang, you might want to start looking into that. Unionising the workers in your territory could get you a good pool of recruits.”

“Another gang? Taylor?” Dad asks, disappointment seeping into his tone, and I cringe a bit at hearing it.

“Not just that, but she ended up joining the Merchants as well,” Scurry pipes in, and my frown deepens. Did she really have to include that part as well?

“The merchants!? Why in God’s name would you join the Merchants?” Dad exclaims and I really want to sigh.

“I know right? I was surprised as you to find that out,” Lisa says from the background as I rub my nose and actually sigh this time.

“They’re not the same as they were before,” I say. “In spite of everything down here, they’ve kind of turned themselves around for the better.”

Even with my explanation, I can still feel Dad’s disappointment radiating through the phone. Eventually though he does speak:

“While… I’d prefer if you didn’t deal with them… I can’t really do much about what you decide. You’re a grown woman, hell, have been for two years, or maybe three. Just like before. I won’t get in your way Taylor, hell, I literally can’t, and even if I could I wouldn’t. Taylor, you’re a force of nature, just like you Anne. I hope you haven’t been trying to control her or anything. While you might have better luck than I, not even you could possibly stop Taylor when she’s put her mind to it.”

All that does is elicit a laugh from Mom though. “Believe me Danny when I say I know.
We’ve got three more daughters now, all because of that bitch Echidna up there ate my poor baby.”

“Echidna… wasn’t that thing that S-class threat that showed up here but got destroyed? I remember there being a few broadcasts going around about it spawning clones and watching out for “wrong” versions of your family members. They told us to be vigilant of relatives and friends that suddenly have deformities, or have started acting irregularly. Uh… wait, did you…? So they’re, clones?”

“Yeah…” Scurry said, Rose humming in the affirmative again before Scurry continued. “Our memories were intact; they kind of needed to be for us to be clones. We don’t know much about what was going on. We just remember Echidna bearing us, and we loved her like we loved Mom, at least until we died. After that…”

“After that we came too, no longer were being mastered, and suddenly found ourselves in Hell,” Rose spoke up.

“Shit…” is all Dad says for the moment. Silence returns once more, until Mom speaks up:

“So Danny, what’ve you been doing since I’ve been gone?”

“Oh you know me, for a while I was trying to get the Ferry all fixed up…”

<><><><><><><><><>

“So why’d you kill that guy?” Mimi asks as she watches my biter try it’s best to rip out a chunk of flesh from the now deceased sinner. While the ox-like demon had been able to go invisible, his sheer bulk had made it easy for my biters to catch him as some could sense the vibrations he made when he stepped. I look to Mimi and hold up my phone, showing her the group chat of the vigilantes.

“The vigilantes have been looking our way since we finished off the Crimson Gang. Le Porc at least is trying to steer them in our direction,” I let Mimi read the chat for a bit, especially the part where Le Porc suggested that they should focus more on our area. He was likely the mole, but since all I have is a silhouette to go off of and the suggestion by Alastor that there is someone among them, I’ll have to wait and see.

“So you think that taking down some of the guys heading our way will keep them from coming?” Mimi asks, her brow rising a bit but I shake my head.

“No, not really. But hopefully we can delay them for a while. Plus… I’ve got a bit of a project I’m working on at the moment that these sinners can help me out with,” I look back to one of my biters, the thing rapidly growing larger and larger as it drinks more from the being. Lucky for the sinner in question, my improvement on Crimson’ technique only could really work if the biter had a similar mouth to the one I’d used when supping from the Beast.

“You’re making werewolves?” Mimi asks as she looks over, cocking her head a bit. Admittedly the biter I’d used was rather wolf like, but as it grew bigger it started sprouting spikes from its back, and even standing on its hind legs and its chest grew more humanoid.

“Not quite, I’m still working on that magic I learned from Crimson. With his power I could easily empower the entirety of my swarm, or even theoretically make a swarm of myself, if with very little magic and almost no other special body parts unless they drained a few sinners.”

“Kind of like your clones. Just you’d actually be in control of them right?”

“Exactly.”

“So what do you need clones for? Better decoys?” Mimi asks.

“More than just decoys, there are so many different tasks that need to be completed and many of them need a very hands-on approach. My proxies will allow me to get multiple things done at once, as well as leave our territory without actually leaving.”

“Feeling a bit stir crazy sticking around our turf?” Mimi asks, though not in a serious way. Even so I shake my head.

“No, I just want to finally get to Canada and pick up my old teammate, Regent, but with how many enemies are around us now and with the vigilantes poking around again I’d rather send out a clone than actually split up.”

“Regent, that’s Cherie’s brother right?” Mimi asks and I nod. “He’s not like her right? Kind of a bitch and likes messing with people’s emotion?”

“No. He’s annoying, and tries to get a rise out of you like a younger sibling but that’s about it from my actual experience. He’s done terrible things in his past what with being one of Heartbreaker’s children, but then we all have.” I say, old memories threatening to surface again, though I quash them by focusing on my bugs and biters. Seeing what they are doing and taking a bit of extra care patrolling our new territory.

“How long have you been working on it?” Mimi asks.

“Not too long, about almost a week,” I say. “The transformation from feeding is kind of hard to control, but luckily, I only have to get it in a vaguely humanoid form. The rest can be fixed up by using transformation magic to solve any aesthetic problems or strangeness, like so.”

To demonstrate, using the leftover magic from the boost I alter the hairy upright being’s face. The thing’s hair begins to fall out on it’s head and it’s head shifts around as as I try to make it somewhat close to my own. Luckily since the thing, unlike most canines, is missing a snout, I don’t have to change so much of the general shape. I frown a bit however since it still doesn’t quite look right. I’ll have to work on that; it shouldn’t take too many biters though to get this right.

<><><><><><><><><>

“Heya Boss, Skitty’s got a new body!” Mimi calls out as we walk into the Merchant’s work place. All around imps and sinners are tending to the various drug plants. Some are at the APC, looking to be upgrading it and tuning it up or adding a few modifications. The old turret from our van is being shifted over, assisted by a shop crane while they keep it stable as it slowly gets shifted overtop the main body.

“The fuck!?” Adam calls as he walks over before looking my furry clone body up and down. “Shit, never took you for a furry. Thought you liked that Moth bod and shit.”

I shake my head before I explain: “This is just a clone I’m piloting right now. I plan on sending her out to retrieve Regent while I stick around to help with any problems that might be coming our way.”

“Well shit, that body as powerful as your other one or are you just straight up better?” I shake the furry head of my clone.

“No, this body of mine is barely more magical than the average imp. Though if need be I can increase her power though through sucking up someone’s magic like I did the Beast’s.”

“Well don’t go sucking any of my guys off then because I need them so still be alive after having their fun and you got whores for that shit,” Adam jokes, but all I do is raise an eyebrow. He gives a bit of a nervous chuckle while scratching the back of his head. “Uh, just a joke ‘bout how you said that and shit. Anyways, what you need?”

“I mainly just came over here to both tell you about my new body, as well as to see how things are going around here. I also wanted to see for myself how your van is coming along,” I say, looking over to the husk of the vehicle now in the other slot of the garage. Adam grinned as he nodded along.

“Van’s all good Shere decided that she wanted to put the tank turret on her new APC. She can’t stop gushing about that shit.” Adam says as he turns to look at the APC again. “Hell, only reason she ain’t down here telling these guys what to do and shit is because she’s feeding and getting Mark to take his nap right now. Tyke’ll start messing shit up upstairs if he ain’t sleeping or having someone watch him, and well,”

Adam pauses a moment to shift his focus over to Mimi: “Ever since you started tailing Skitty like a god damn puppy dog, we lost our best babysitter, not that Sherrel minds spending more time with Mark and all that since we got employees now and all that loot to pay them. Could actually think about expanding and all that extra space to set up drug mills and shit like that, sell more to those weirdo vending machine guys, or maybe some other kind of stuff. Enough loot probably left around the Crimson Gang’s turf that we could sell it off like we used to back when in Brockton we’d run in and fuck up some minor gang of dumbasses, jack their shit, and then sell it. Maybe we could set up some chop shops as well or just regular mechanics and shit. Sell to the other gangs and shit huh?”

I nod along as Adam talks before I add my own thoughts: “It would be a good idea to get something set up for long term profits. You and Sherrel would know more about that kind of thing than myself.”

“Fine by me. Skitty, say, how’s your guys doing grabbing that armour and shit? I know you got your guys running around the Crimson Gang’s place grabbing some of the more expensive shit they had there.”

“Well enough. Several of them were already gone by the time Anthony got his boys to crack the vaults they’re supposed to be in. Other gangs are already scouting out some of the turf as well while the vigilantes are looking towards our territory here though I’ve been having my biters and boys push both groups back. There are also a few small groups of Crimson gangsters still there hanging around, but already most of them are moving out and fleeing the city all together.”

“Shit~ yeah, that sounds about right from what my guys been saying too. Sounds like a gang wars about to get rolling around here. So how much we want to keep it?” I frown a bit as I consider. If we could hold over all of it, I’d be closer to getting something set up to start setting up the paradise I wanted to make for my friends. Arrayed against me however are numerous smaller gangs, the vigilantes, and even Valentino now neighbouring my territory. If we try to hold everything with just the guys that Anthony was able to scrape together, a few Raz imps, and my biters, we'd be overwhelmed if more than a few gangs attacked at once. It'd be better to consolidate into a smaller area for a bit and maybe let the others fight over a few of the streets near the edge of our new territory. Though, unlike this place that got completely ravaged, where Crimson’s territory had been hadn't been hit as badly, and a few areas around the edges could be useful to us.

“If there is going to be a gang war, it might be a good idea to let the other gangs fight it out for a bit before we commit to any hard borders. While my swarm could be useful in keeping territory, it’s not invincible. Anyways you’ve seen the map, anywhere specific near the edges you think we should try to keep?”

Adam frowns as he thinks a moment. “Honestly, probably nothing worth holding at the moment. Maybe if we can hold onto some of it long term and shit it’d be good, but right now we got what we need right here, and if anyone’s stupid enough to put shit down in no man’s land that can be stolen, just means probably more loot for us. Take it from me, when I was alive, we moved territory like twelve times, once three times in a month since I’d taken over as the Merchants. First couple of times it was really shit because I put a lot of shit into holding that stuff, but afterwards I was able to figure shit out. Lot of small businesses and distributed production and shit like that. You and your pals never really lost territory did you? Well for now I think we’re set until we can get more muscle to hold onto it, muscle that can regenerate and shit, maybe have some crazy ass powers or something. Imps are great and all, love the little fuckers to death but unlike sinners they just die easily, and I doubt you want to keep using them for too much longer going by how you acted after Felix and his cousins and shit got hurt.”

“Hopefully, but for now we don’t have a choice,” I say as I look over to the sinners and imps working. In a perfect world, I’d be able to just use the almost immortal sinners that Anthony was recruiting to do all the dirty work, but no doubt something would happen that would bring that hope crashing down.

“Yeah, shit happens,” Adam says as he looks over to the APC. The turret had been lowered on top of it by now, and from atop the vehicle, Felix is waving over at Adam and I, the little scamp having made a full recovery by now.

“It’s all set up boss, just need Sherrel to get the welding and inner stuff all connected and then she’ll be all set for a fight!” Felix calls out from the turret as Adam nods.

“A’ight. Hey wait, can’t you do the fucking weld!?” Adam shouts back but Felix shakes his head.

“Nah, I don’t know how to weld! Sherrel was going to show me!” he calls back, Adam shaking his head before he addresses the other workers there.

“Any of you other shit stains know how to do a fucking weld?” he asks as one sinner raises their hand. Adam points to the sinner there.

“Then fucking weld that bitch up,” he says as he shakes his head again before turning back to us. “Hey you doing anything right now? These guys are going to need Sherrel to help them figure out how to properly set up the tank and I don’t want there to be no one to watch Mark while we’re working.”

“We can watch him,” Mimi says, piping in as I nod along.

“Good shit, thanks for this, yeah?” he says as we nod before walking off to the spiral stairs. As we enter, I can hear happy giggles coming from the living room. A quick peak in reveals the giggling demon playing with his Mom, the woman smiling as she and Mark playfully poke at each other, Mark with his tail, Sherrel with her two index fingers that Mark bats away with his little arms.

As we approach, Mark looks up to us before Sherrel pokes him again and immediately the tots, attention returns to his Mom. He lets out a happy laugh before grabbing onto her finger with both hands and keeps it at his chest. Sherrel giggles along with him before pulling away and then looking to us.

“Oh hey Mimi… uh?”

“It’s Skitter,” I say. “This is a proxy body I’m using at the moment. My main body is still over at my place.”

“Oh really? That’s a pretty neat trick, so what’re you two doing here?”

“They need you downstairs,” Mimi explains. “Something to do with fixing up the connections after they finish welding your van turret to the top of your APC.”

As Mimi mentions the turret though Sherrel’s eyes light up. “You mean my tank’s nearly done, heck yeah!”

Mark meanwhile had enough being ignored and launches his tail tip at Sherrel, poking and drawing a surprised “gah!” from her.

“Why you little,” she says as she turns back to Mark and rears up on him, causing the tyke to let out a joyous yet fearful cry as Sherrel comes down on him, smothering him as she pulls him close. The two laughing like loons in each others embrace while we watch. Mimi giggles along and I can’t help but smile a bit with my proxy. Eventually though Sherrel calms down enough to turn back to us.

“So I’m guessing that you two are here to babysit for me” Sherrel asks as we nod.

“Sweet, alright, just a sec while I get my stuff. I already fed Mark so he should be good. Just keep him occupied while I get the turret up and running, shouldn’t take more that twenty odd minutes once they’ve finished welding,” Sherrel says as she puts Mark down and heads downstairs. Before Sherrel even leaves, Mimi has already knelt down to Mark’s level, a big smile on her mousy face.

“Hey little guy,” she says before picking the gurgling tot up. I myself reach over to him and in response he bats at my hand. The smacking sound seems to amuse the little guy and he keeps it up, giggling after every good smack he gets with his chubby little hands.

“Cute as always,” I comment as I let Mark play a bit longer while continuing my work at home. It isn’t much, only trying to figure out the various benefits of what kind of hive of deadly demonic bugs to get. From razor bladed mantises to some bug called a fire fairy.

Though speaking of details, entertaining Mark with my clone is drawing a lot more focus than I’d expected. I’m not getting distracted, my work continues at the same pace as before, but I have to do a lot more in order to command this proxy.

Natural things that don’t require as much thought now are things that require more attention while in this body. While I might be able to react instantaneously in my regular body or even when directing my bugs and biters, this body requires more orders and doesn’t move on instinct. It doesn’t know exactly how to walk on it’s own, how to do more than bark without me actively participating with every action to ensure it was correct. What exactly was causing it though? Possession was already a different enough power compared to my original. Perhaps more powerful or complex creatures required more attention? While my time with my old power has certainly increased my multitasking, perhaps I’m not quite ready to possess too many humanoid creatures?

Or could it be some other kind of issue? Who could I ask?

Mom… while she might not know, she might know of someone who could help me out with this. She has connections that would make finding out about these things far easier. Either some kind of library that she could access as Lilith’s servant or perhaps someone magically inclined that could help me. Though, considering that this is Hell, it would probably come at a price. I wonder what they might want from me to answer my questions?

While I ponder though, I notice a trio of vehicles turn off the road and head in our direction. One quite obviously a tank with tesla coils mounted on its turret that crackle and spark, catching bugs as it goes by. Another is a van, armoured and with some kind of dish on top of it spinning around, and the final one looks like some kind of army truck only with the back wheels replaced by tank treads. The word “Justicier” is painted on the sides of all the vehicles, with a cartoon pig wearing an old fashioned French police hat beside it. The last truck has various sinners in some kind of tactical garb and backpacks with tesla-coils sticking out.

Seems like the vigilantes are making their move.


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