Nighteye looked up as the doors to his citadel opened. Two hulking hellspawn staggered through, holding a struggling human between them. His interest piqued; he had standing orders to kill any humans they found and then bring them to him for reanimation. The fiends had better have a good reason for interrupting him, otherwise they would get to return to the Burning Hells in a most terminal and painful fashion.

They stopped several meters short of his dais and threw the human forward. It landed on the stone and skidded on the ground, coming to a stop after a second or so. Now he could see that it was a mere boy, not over thirteen or fourteen years of age. His clothing was bloody, burnt, and torn, and hung about him more like interconnected rags than any solid piece of cloth. Yet the boy himself seemed unharmed as she pushed himself to his feet, brushing himself off and sending a glare back at the fiends. Nighteye's interest rose further; this human must be quite cocky to look at hellspawn like contemptuous dirt. Then the boy turned to him, and there was something in his eyes that made him think he was seeing just the tip of the iceberg.

"Who are you that dares to enter my realm?" he asked. And who are you that managed to survive doing it?

The boy grinned a cocky grin. "You are lucky. In most other situations I would have you flayed alive for saying that to me."

Anger bubbled within him, and he fingered the Darksaber at his side. "Who do you think you are, insulting the Hero of Darkness like that?"

"Exactly who I am. Perhaps more, certainly not less."

"And you would be?" He sent a soft psychic command. Two pincerbeasts stepped away from the wall and started walking silently towards the boy's rear.

The boy merely smiled, oblivious that he was about to be vivisected. He even took a bow. "I am called many things by many nations. But you know me best by my true name." He straightened up and looked Nighteye in the eye. A jolt of involuntary fear shot down his spine at the glance. "Diablo, Lord of Terror."

It took a moment for him to assimilate this. Then he laughed. "You? You pathetic weakling of a human? Guards, kill him."

Fire burned in the boy's face. "You shall pay dearly for that, Hero." He lifted his arm forward. Nighteye had the sudden impression of something like a tidal wave crashing against a gigantic, immovable barrier, sending invisible shockwaves through the entire room.

A spark or two danced from the boy's fingers, and he stared at them in rage. "I shall tear that archangel apart myself when I find it!"

"Really? And what did it do to you?" Amusement still laced his voice, but now with a trace of wariness. Whatever that sensation had been, no normal human should have been able to produce it.

The boy stared at him in exasperation. "Do I have to spell everything out for you? I'm soulbound, you incompetent half-wit fool!"

He ignored the insult. That just might explain it. Or the boy could have learned it out of some arcane books. But there was an easy way to test. Nighteye extended his senses to the child and probed inside his soul. It felt normal enough, but then he realized: it was hard and sharp, not the softness that usually came with a human soul. And if he skirted it just right, he could feel the great pressure behind it, welling like a reservoir behind a dam. It felt as if something the size of a continent had been crammed into that small space. And it felt black, blacker than anything else he had ever before sensed. Except once.

He knelt. "Forgive me Lord, I did not know."

"Get up." He did so. His master's rage still danced in his eyes, but at least he did not intend to act on it. Or so Nighteye hoped.

"May I ask what happened to leave you in such a state?"

"Yes." The boy--no, Diablo in a boy's body--stepped around him and sat down on his throne. For a moment that galled him, but he consciously forced himself to see this pubescent human as the Lord of Terror. "Your ploy worked, Nighteye. And failed. The humans who summoned me not only botched part of the spell, thus leaving the human's soul still in his body, but then an archangel showed up and sealed the portal to the Burning Hells before I could consolidate my power. It soulbound me, using the human's soul as barrier. I have spent the last day coming to reach you, and I will not forget how you greeted your master."

Nighteye swallowed. "Yes, Lord."

"But for now, we must lift the spell. I must acquire a soulstone."

He bowed his head. "Yes, Lord, but the locations of them have been lost. Perhaps Blizzard would have access to them."

"Perhaps, yet I doubt their willingness to help, and your minions ability to retrieve the locations intact. What else exists on this plane that can hold a soul?"

Nighteye thought for a moment. "There are several members within CWAL who possess that ability. Dark Chrono, before he left, had a device specifically for that purpose. There are others, however, that could serve just as well. Perhaps one of the robots."

"Perhaps. Do they already have souls occupying them?"

"Some. Probably not all."

"I cannot take 'probably' for an answer."

"Then I...wait. I believe I might have an answer. There is at least one CWALer I know of that possesses no soul, yet should be able to hold one."

"Excellent. Dispatch a capture party at once. And give them special instructions, he must arrive here alive."

He bowed. "Yes, master. I will see to it immediately."

Cralagh smiled from his perch on the top of Nighteye's fortress. The Hero of Darkness had not bothered to replace the broken skylight yet, and undoubtedly thought him too cowed to attempt another approach. Well, he would pay for that dearly.

The boy-spider turned and skittered into the darkness among the flying buttresses. He stopped just under the desiccated remains of that gargoyle, the one that had been so foolish as to attempt to stop him. It had made a good meal, if a bit sour-tasting. But no matter; now Nighteye would pay for his insolence. He concentrated, forcing the magic to weave to his mind's eye, and then in a moment a glowing red line split the air in front of him. It rotated sideways, turning into a small red oval. Bracing himself for the trip, he jumped through.

The red energies clawed at him, writhing around in an attempt to tear him asunder. He brushed them off, doing his best to ignore the pressure building on his mind. The trip took several seconds, since the two portal ends were as far separated as they were, and then he stepped out onto the cold linoleum floor of the McDonald's. The portal sealed itself behind him.

"Where is Gaval?" he rasped out, looking around the open area. The only person in sight was Shriek, who was sharpening his claws on Ronald McDonald's leg. "He's in the back," said the dragon. Knowing he would probably not be getting anything more, Cralagh turned and skittered away. On his way he passed a glowing hole in the air, inside of which was an image of a blasted land with gray-green clouds. Home. So they had finally gotten the gateway reopened. It was about time.

He entered the gloom of the back area. Only Gaval was in there, looking over the maps he had tacked to the wall. Cralagh had no use for them, and so paid them no heed. The ex-Slayer looked up at the sound of his chitinous footsteps.

"Oh, it's you." He turned back to the maps.

"Yes, I have returned."

"I take it the meeting with Nighteye didn't go too well?"

"Not precisely. However, I have acquired information that could be of great use to us."

"Really?" Gaval turned and looked down at him, who barely came up to the human's waist.

"Yes. It appears that this world's Diablo has left the Burning Hells and taken over a human body."

Gaval slammed his fist against the wall. "Blessit! That puts a serious cramp in our plans."

"But..."

The ex-Slayer turned, while Cralagh relished having his undivided attention. "But what?"

"But he was interrupted by an archangel before it was complete. He now resides in human form, soulbound until he can transfer the human's soul into a holding vessel."

A slow grin spread over Gaval's face. "You are right, this will be of great use for us. Now if only we could...wait. Fron." He stepped over and picked up a walkie-talkie, then flipped it on and held it to his mouth. "Gaval to Fron, come in."

He waited several seconds. "Gaval to Fron, come in."

"Those have range up to Canada?"

Instead of answering, Gaval flipped it around and slid off the battery case. It was empty. Then a burst of static came out of its speaker.

"Fron to Gaval, gotcha. Be careful with that thing, will you? I'm not exactly alone up here. I was able to pass off as a CWALer, but if any of them decide to contact Irvine my cover's toast."

"Yeah, whatever. Look, do you have those nuclear launch codes?"

"Not yet. They're stored in Castle Cattle Prod and I haven't made it there yet. But I found something better."

One of Gaval's eyebrows went up. "Really? Do tell."

"Remember how the Canuck was destroyed shortly before the turning of the Sin War? Well that happened here, too, only the Sin War didn't turn, and my double likes ships as much as I do. I found the CMS Canuck II and its sister ship, and those things have more firepower than any amount of nuke silos. They'd be able to level Irvine at a shot."

"Wonderful. But we're not going for Irvine, not yet anyway. Cralagh's brought back some information from Siberia, and it's too good to pass up."

Gaval proceeded to fill him in on what Cralagh had reported. He had to admit that the timing was perfect. If Fron could vaporize Diablo's current body before the soulbinding was removed, the souls would remain entwined in death as much as life. And only one place awaited a soul as evil as Diablo's: the Well of Souls. With this world's Lord of Terror trapped there for all eternity, there would be little to stand in the way of their conquest, once Lord Diablo gave the go-ahead and started sending the actual armies through.

Finally Gaval finished explaining the plan. "You think you can handle that?"

"No problem."

"Then get to it. I-"

"What? You didn't invite me?"

Gaval and Cralagh turned. Crogoth stood in the entryway, a cocky grin on his face. "Just a sec," said Gaval to the walkie-talkie. To Crogoth, "I thought you were staying on Inferno."

"Oh I was, but it's so abysmally boring there, what with those endless wars and all. So much more interesting here, where killing someone actually means something." He shrugged. "Plus I got bored after the fifth succubus." He grinned wolfishly.

Gaval frowned and was about to turn back to the walkie-talkie, when an idea seemed to hit him. "How would you like to help take out your Father's chief competitor?"

"What? That simpering Hero of Darkness?"

Cralagh bristled. Yes, this Nighteye was not his father, but the look in Crogoth's eyes left just enough ambiguity about which Nighteye, if not both, he referred to.

"Actually, I was thinking about this world's Diablo."

Crogoth smiled. "I must say, Slayer, sometimes you do manage to impress me."

"Good." He turned back to the walkie-talkie. "Fron, you still there?"

"Yeah. Hurry up, will you? I had to excuse myself to the bathroom and they might get suspicious if I'm in here too long."

"Just be prepared to receive a visitor, okay? Crogoth's going to help you 'convince' everyone that attacking the Shadowlands is a good idea."

"Wonderful." From the tone of his voice, Cralagh guessed that Fron disliked Crogoth almost as much as he did.

Gaval handed the walkie-talkie to Crogoth, who waved his hands above it in an all-too-grandiose fashion. The actual spell took merely a few words and a small gesture, but Crogoth seemed to have a love of the operatic.

Finally he activated the spell, and a red portal sprang in being in the air. Instead of being a flat oval, though, this one narrowed like a funnel, until it was hair-thin where it touched the walkie-talkie. Since Crogoth had never been to this Canada before, he had to use the enchanted technology's link as a conduit.

"Wish me luck," he said as he waved to Cralagh and Gaval. Then he stepped into the red funnel and disappeared. A moment later, so did the portal.

"Okay, he's here," said Fron. "A little upset about his first step landing him in a urinal, but otherwise fine." Cralagh grinned. Fron must have been aiming the portal so its exit was positioned just so.

"Okay, Fron. Do your thing. Gaval out."

Fron stepped back into the main control room, hoping that Crogoth would listen to him for once and actually remain out of sight until he was ready. The last thing he needed right now was to explain where the man had come from, and if he attempted to charm everyone with that voice of his any competence the people had would go right out the window.

"Sorry about that," he said. "Now, where were we?"

"We were just going over the latest batch of plans for the Hawthorne-class ships," said the commander assigned to escort him around base, who looked considerably more cheerful than the techie whose job it was to explain the schematics to his Emperor.

"Ah, yes, those. Save them for some time later, there's been a change in plans." The techie visibly relaxed. Apparently Fron's earlier questions had not been as knowledgeable as he had thought. "Is the Canuck ready for a shakedown cruise?"

Now it was the commander's turn to get edgy. "Er, sir, I don't believe so. She's scheduled for another few weeks in drydock at the least."

"I see. And what about the..." He searched his memory for the name. "The Borealis? Is she ready to go?"

"Ah, yes sir, she is. But the engineers still want to quadruple-check the flaws found in the last cruise."

"Tell them that they'll have to wait. I'm going to be taking her out myself."

"Yes sir. Might I ask what your destination is?"

"Siberia. Time we cleaned up that place."

"I see sir. Then you are breaking your policy of non-involvement, or have the so-called 'Shadowlands' impinged upon Canadian interests?"

"A bit of both. Ready the ship, we leave within the hour."

"Yes sir!" He saluted and turned, obeying like a clockwork soldier. Fron let a thin grin twitch his mouth; it was almost too easy. He turned to the techie. "Are there any other ships fit to fly?"

"The Phoenix and a handful of Trudeau-II-class ships, sir. None of the other Borealises."

He nodded. "That'll be fine. Tell them to keep an eye out in case the 'States try to pull anything, okay?"

"Yes sir."

He smiled as the techie spoke orders into his microphone. Things were working out perfectly.

Leach made one last check of the game room. Unless someone was hiding under a table or something, everyone inside checked out. He had similarly scanned the dozen or so CWALers Iolaus had sent out on a scouting mission, and then started from the roof and worked his way downward, looking for anyone else who looked normal but had no fields. So far no mismatches.

He nodded and walked to the stairway. Only two more floors to go, though he really could not see anyone being so stupid as to try to infiltrate CWAL via the Newbie Patrol. But he intended to be thorough, and it was not like he had anything else to do. Until the scouts radioed back with news on whether or not they had found any other suspicious groups in the direction of OEEP Headquarters, no one was to do anything. Of course, most people had not been told that, since Iolaus was trying to keep the news of Dragoneys' condition as secret as possible. The less people who knew, the less likely the information would leak back to its source.

He exited the stairwell and looked around the basement. No one was around, which was how it should be. Few people ever came down here on a normal day, and the HQ was basically repaired, so no one should be making supply trips. But to be sure, he made his rounds through the storage room, walking around Gaval's stockpile of instant pie crusts and dehydrated filling, the dozens of cubic meters filled with nothing but coffee grounds, and the stockpile of plywood, nails, and duct tape used to repair the headquarters on a bi-monthly basis. The stockpile was down to about a third of its capacity; they would have to send Lothos on another Home Depot raid soon.

He then checked the handful of rooms, half of which had not been used in several months. For being the rooms least likely to suffer total annihilation (including the Newbie Dungeons, which seemed to be violently destroyed every other week), few CWALers chose to stay down here. He figured it was probably due to the close proximity to the newbies, which was bad for one's health.

All the rooms were unoccupied. Only one floor left, and then he could go back to having nothing to do. As he approached the door to the Newbie Dungeons, he heard the sounds of destruction and chaos coming from below. It almost made him get all nostalgic for his days in the Newbie Patrol a year previously, when he had no cares besides killing demons and figuring out what lame plot device they would use this week. But those days were gone, and he could not say he really regretted it.

The door swung easily open at his touch, and the sound grew louder. Wary of what could be going on down there, he went ahead and drew his Tesla gun, but held it loosely at his side as he walked down the flight of stairs. He carefully ducked under the extending pipe that gave so many newbies concussions, then rounded the last corner and walked into a scene straight out of Heck.

Tables and furniture lay overturned on the ground. Several broken computer parts lay strewn about, some of them burning and putting off thick black smoke. The couch had been set up as a barricade, behind which several newbies had taken cover and were now firing at something outside of his vision. El Cazador sat on a stool in one corner, a rapt look on his face as he hurriedly sketched the scene.

Suddenly several small darts zipped across his vision and embedded themselves in the couch and, he noticed, the stone wall. He held his Tesla gun up at the ready, then peeked around the corner of the stairwell to see what it was the Newbies were fighting.

His thought about Heck had been far too correct. Two creatures of unmistakably demonic origin stood against the far wall. Their black carapaces looked similar to the xenomorphs from the Alien movies, but these had about a dozen extra limbs apiece, each tipped by a wicked-looking claw. One of them pointed all of its right arms at the defending newbies, and suddenly a volley of needle-sharp spines shot from their tips. The newbies returned fire, but it seemed to be having little effect. Whatever these things were, they were not about to go down easily.

Well, it was about time he had something challenging. Since they had not seemed to notice him yet, he took careful aim with his weapon and pointed it directly at the skeletal chest of the nearest creature. Time for some fricassee. He pressed the trigger, and a bolt of white lightning leapt from the end of the gun and into the demon. Thunder sounded in the small stone room as the charge wrapped itself around the creature, skittering over its carapace like water on a hot stove. Then the lightning faded away, and the only change he could see was that he now had both demons' attention. Wonderful.

The nearest creature crouched, and he had a sudden feeling of impending doom, or at least extreme pain. It jumped right at him, catching another lightning bolt across its shoulder and chest, again to no effect whatsoever. He ducked back in the stairwell and tried to scramble upwards, but as soon as the demon touched the floor it bounced up again. He did not even have time to aim before it was upon him, grasping him with its claws in a surprisingly effective manner. For a second there was just a whirlwind of carapace and claw, and then he found himself up against the monster, trapped by a cage formed of its own arms and unable to move at all. The creature turned and leapt back down the stairs.

Not knowing what has happening but not liking it either, Leach focused and pumped as much electricity a he could straight into the thing. Lightning crawled up and down its flesh, but it did not so much as twitch. Finally he gave up.

The demon took two great leaps to cross the room, then it and its companion jumped down a hallway, out of the newbies' fire. Helpless, Leach could only watch as they jumped down it, then turned and went into a room.

In the middle of it was a glowing red oval, a hole in the air. In the instant before the demon jumped at the portal, he knew things had just gotten a whole lot worse.

For several seconds he was in a sea of ever-changing light and energy. There was some sort of weird pressure on his mind, but what was incredible were the undulating, dancing fields he saw. Twisting ropes and lines that looked more like Klein bottles than real images swirled around him in a brilliant, brittle-soft whorl of lemon. Then there was a jerk, and the demon landed on hard stone.

He was in some sort of large chamber, with a high, vaulted ceiling and black stones underfoot. A throne stood on a small dais in front of him. Sitting in the throne was a young boy that he did not recognize, whose fields seemed oddly truncated. But it would take a blind man not to recognize the person at the boy's right.

"Nighteye," he said from within his hellspawn prison.

"Hello, Leach. Long time no see."

"Too short, if you ask me. Why I am here?"

"Not much, really. We plan on trying something. If it doesn't work, you die."

"Joy."

Suddenly he felt something brush against the back of his mind. It was barely there, hardly more than a featherweight, but he definitely felt it. If he focused hard, he could see a tenuous spidersilk thread of energy reaching out at him from the boy. Then it disappeared, and the child nodded. "He will do. But it will take time to prepare. See to it at once."

Nighteye bowed to the boy, which raised Leach's eyebrow. Since when did Nighteye bow to anybody? Except for Diablo, of course.

Oh shoot.

A cold pit formed in Leach's stomach. He knew the storyline to the Diablo games, and how Diablo had started by taking possession of a young boy. If he had done the same here, which sounded increasingly likely, he was in deep trouble. Though what the Lord of Terror would want with an artificial entity was still beyond knowing.

Nighteye stepped down from the dais and walked past the demon keeping Leach imprisoned. He gestured with his hand, and the creature turned and followed.

"What happens if I do work for whatever you want?"

"We kill you anyway."

"Lots of your plans seem to end that way."

"It's tidier. No unwanted heroes coming back. At least, not until we want them to."

"Wonderful."

"It's not so bad. You'll be helping to bring about the reign of Diablo himself upon the Earth. Few people can say to have done that."

"Forgive me for being less than comforted at that."

Nighteye shrugged. "Not like you have a choice. Though I suppose you're luckier than most. You, at least, won't be spending the rest of eternity in the Well of Souls."

"Lucky me."

The lift doors swooshed open, and Fron walked out. "Emperor on the bridge!" said Lieutenant 11001001, standing from his position in the captain's seat.

"At ease," said Fron. Everyone except the Lieutenant resumed their duties. He gave a quizzical look to the young man who followed Fron in, but then turned to his Emperor, extending a hand. "Good to see you again, Emperor."

Fron shook it. "My pleasure. How's she holding up?"

"Good, but don't think I'm going to let you keep me off the Canuck when she's ready. I wasn't meant to wear the captain's stripes."

Fron grinned. "I'll remember that."

"Who's your guest?"

"Oh, sorry." He turned and gestured. "This is Crogoth...er, Diablus. Ph. D. He's an official observer on this."

Lieutenant 11001001 nodded at the man, then leaned close to Fron. "Are you sure that's wise, sir? I know we don't expect much opposition, but still, a civilian..."

"Are you questioning my orders?"

"Er, no sir. Not at all."

"Good. Then I officially accept command of the C.M.S. Borealis until further notice."

He saluted, and the Lieutenant returned it. "Welcome aboard, Captain."

"Glad to be here." He lowered himself into the captain's seat, while Crogoth took up position near the aft of the bridge, settling into a shadow and leaning against the bulkhead with a slightly cocky grin on his face. The Lieutenant sat down in the first officer's chair.

"Ensign," said Fron, "we cleared for departure?"

"Yes sir."

"Excellent. Helm, set course for Siberia, ballistic trajectory."

"Done sir."

"Take her out."

The ship thrummed with power as the antigrav units kicked it, pushing it away from the concrete pad and up into the air. It would take a quick lift into the upper atmosphere, then dive back down almost directly on top of Nighteye's fortress. With luck, he would not know it was coming until too late.

Fron leaned back in his chair, grinning to himself. With both the Lord of Terror and Hero of Darkness removed from the equation, only the High Heavens could stand against their invasion. And if they had beaten them once, they could beat them again. He grinned wider.

"Let's get ready to rumble."

As it always did in times like this, a brass band in Arcturus' head wailed out the Mission Impossible theme song. He slunk from shadow to shadow, which would have been a lot more effective if the bright afternoon sun had not been casting enough light for anyone but a blind man to see by. He sidled along the walls as the music built to a crescendo, his mouth unconsciously subvocalizing the tune. He tiptoed through the alley as the music built to its climax, turned the corner, and with a wail of trumpets saw...

Another alley exactly like the one he had just left. He sighed. Nothing interesting ever happened when his mental orchestra hit the climax. Come to think of it, nothing interesting ever happened, period. Oh, sure, there were the raids on Blizzard, the occasional alien invasion attempt, and the odd battle with extra-dimensional demigods bents on total global annihilation, but those were normal things. They happened at least every other month. The least the universe could do was supply something challenging for the world's greatest paintball player.

He suddenly realized what he was thinking, and the uncanny ability of the universe to answer thoughts like that in a most unpleasant manner. He promptly shut up and turned his thoughts elsewhere, then continued sneaking through the alleys in broad daylight, a James Bond theme running through his head.

On the plus side, he had been able to get away from watching OEEP. Nothing was more boring that keeping watch on people whose idea of fun consisted of lemon and paperclip fights. But so far his search for other malevolent groups in the direction of OEEP Headquarters had proved futile. There were abandoned buildings--lots and lots of abandoned buildings, thanks to CWAL and its activities over the past two and a half years. There was also the occasional combined coffee shop/small arms dealer, one of the few enterprises that had thrived in the city. Aside from that, though, he had found a whole lot of nothing. Zip, zero, zilch, nada, a big goose egg, the proverbial Non-Thing, el nihlo, the big empty...

He was so preoccupied listing synonyms for "zero" that he almost missed the McDonald's. The golden arches managed to catch his eye, bringing to mind the phrase "the nutritional value of a chicken McNugget." He continued slinking through the alleyway for another five seconds before the little alarm going off in the back of his mind finally caught his attention.

Something was wrong. Something was deeply, incredibly, unbelievably wrong. Then he realized it.

He hadn't eaten yet today, and he was a good fifteen to twenty minutes away from the StarBucks. Grimacing, he dug into his military-surplus belt pouches until he found the dehydrated, reconstituted, partially-hydrogenated Nutro-Bar. The candy-bar-sized piece of pure nutritional value could theoretically keep a man alive for days on end with just one bar a day. The company involved had actually tried this once. The test subject committed suicide on day seventeen, since the Nutro-Bar had all the nutritional value of three square meals and all the taste of reconstituted mud, with a dash of garlic.

His thoughts drifted back to the McDonald's, and his stomach did little flip-flops. He looked back down at the Nutro-Bar, in its silver-and-pastel wrapper. The devil he knew, or the other devil he knew? Finally he made his decision and stuck the Nutro-Bar in his pocket, as he had done countless times over the three years of its existence. He would just get an order of fries, or something. It was hard to mess up potatoes and grease, right?

He slunk to the edge of the alleyway and poked his head out, looking both ways. Seeing no one, he sneaked out and across the street, a most difficult task to do at two in the afternoon with full sunlight. But he managed it, mostly due to the fact that no one really frequented this part of town anymore due to the crater-sized potholes (or pothole-sized craters, if one looked at it another way). He ducked down behind some bushes on the front lawn, the main theme from License to Kill running through his brain.

He quickly scurried across to the drive-through menu and ducked behind it. A quick glance confirmed that no one was in sight. He darted up to the wall of the restaurant and pressed himself flat, only then noticing that this left him completely visible to anyone passing by on the street. He quickly ducked down behind the shrubbery. He noticed that it appeared to be a little sickly looking. They probably needed to water it more.

He crept by behind the bushes. The bark mulch digging into his palms was a welcome feeling, bringing back memories of his greatest paintball victories. This was just like old times.

The hair on the back of his neck prickled, and he quickly looked around. No one was within view, but it felt like he was being watched. He froze, straining his ears. The only sound was the breeze through the bushes. After half a minute, he decided to let it go and continued onward, half an ear cocked for anything suspicious. The nagging feeling of wrongness kept at him, telling him that he should just turn around now and go back home before something unspeakably bad happened.

He had not stayed in CWAL for all this time by listening to that voice. After a while it gave up and just put a sticky-note on his subconscious. It took him most of the way to the front door to realize that something was indeed wrong.

It was quiet. Too quiet. Cliché as it sounded, it was true. An average McDonald's, even in the middle of Irvine, should have been filled with the sounds of young children eagerly shoveling McSaturatedFats and McCholesterol into their mouths while playing with their McToy for the thirty-seven minutes it remained entertaining. Instead, not a sound came from inside the building. Which meant he had probably done all that expert cover ops stuff for nothing, having chosen an abandoned McDonald's to invade. Just perfect.

Something like a leaf blowing in the wind sounded directly above him. Years of paintball training allowed him to remain exactly as he was, not even changing his breathing. Invisibly, his muscles tensed beneath their camouflage.

He whirled around, whipping Floyd out of its holster in a fluid blur. He swung the trusty paintball gun around and fired straight up. He had time to see a large hairy thing dropping towards him before the paintballs hit, detonating in impressive explosions. The heat singed his cheeks, but he was already moving sideways, using a push of his legs to spring over the row of shrubbery. He hit the ground and rolled twice before coming up in a crouch, Floyd at the ready. He had no idea what had just attacked him, but things had just gotten a whole lot more interesting. A bit of smoke drifted where the paintballs had exploded, but nothing else moved. Whatever it was had either been incinerated or had taken cover, and he had been in too many fights to expect the first.

A red, rippling oval suddenly appeared in the air behind the bushes. Taken out of context like this, it took him a second to recognize it. Then instinct took over, and he flipped sideways. Something landed on the grass behind him. He came up firing, but the little creature was fast. It managed to dodge his rounds at point-blank range, running in a tight circle to stay ahead of the strafe. The paintballs hit ground and bushes, exploding in yard-wide fireballs and setting the vegetation aflame.

Then Floyd clicked. Out of paintballs. The creature did not even pause but jumped straight at him. He had only an impression of legs, hair, and two large fangs before he brought Floyd around like a club. It hit the creature in mid-air, sending it flying and nearly dislocating his shoulder in the process. The thing landed on the grass a few yards away, unmoving. Now he saw that it was some sort of weird spider-human hybrid. That alone made it interesting enough to report. Add in the fact that it obviously was intent on harming him, and it was time to call HQ. He unclipped the walkie-talkie from his belt, taking care to listen for anything else out and about that might attack him. The only sound was the breeze.

"Arcturus to HQ, come in."

"Iolaus here. Got something?"

"I think so. I'm over on Newport Coast Drive, and I just got attacked by a nasty spider-man thing. It's down now, probably dead after-erk!" His conversation was cut terminally short as a large, scaly hand closed around his throat. Another reached over his shoulder and grabbed Floyd out of his hand tossed it away, then took the walkie-talkie.

"Arc, you there? Hel-" Crunch. The machine fell to the ground in half a dozen different pieces. Had he not been so focused on continued breathing, Arcturus would have gulped.

"We can't have any of that now, can we?" Said a hot voice by his ear. He recognized it instantly. Krath. He gurgled an accusation.

"Save your breath," came the reply. Suddenly he was lifted off the ground by his neck, a position he had already sworn to do everything he could to avoid. His hands went up and started clawing at the scaly paw. It was no use. The draconian had him in a death grip.

He was carried like that into the McDonald's, his vision starting to go fuzzy by the time they were inside. Then he was tossed on the ground, where he lay gasping. Gradually the spots cleared from his eyes, and he looked up. Krath stood looking down at him, with Shriek at his feet. Neither one of them looked the least bit friendly. He wanted to say something about traitors and fakes, but his body demanded air first and foremost. He could wait a few seconds for the witty retort.

"You guys can't just leave well enough alone, can you?" Or not. He turned his head. Gaval stood behind him, leaning up against the wall. The look in his eye was far colder than anything he had ever seen in the Slayer's face. "Gaval?" he managed to rasp out between breaths. "But..." Evil clone? Mind-controlled traitor? Robot? All these possibilities and a dozen more flew through his mind at the sight of the supposed Slayer. It looked like he had found where Rachel was taken. Now if only he could have managed that without getting captured himself.

Gaval rubbed his chin. "Well, I suppose Rachel could use a companion. Evilness knows if we keep you here you'll only get out again." He nodded at Krath. "Go ahead and take him. Come back ASAP, okay? And inform Lord Diablo of what we're doing. In less than a day this world will be ripe for the plucking."

Lord Diablo? This world? He had a sudden sinking sensation in his stomach. Whenever the enemy started talking like that it could not be good. He tried to push himself to his feet, but Krath's arm encircled him first, lifting him up and pinning his arms against his side in one fluid move. Gaval moved over to something covered by a tarp.

Krath's voice sounded in his ear. "You ever heard of the Vulcan nerve pinch?" He did not answer. Gaval was lifting away the tarp, revealing an oval hole in the air between some metal braces. The land through it looked blasted and barren, with sickly green clouds overhead.

Krath spoke again. "This is my version." He had just a moment to wonder what was happening before a scaly fist slammed into his jaw, and the world went black.

The figure stood in front of the portal, his eyeless sockets staring into it. It was a hole in the air, the only barrier preventing passage being that of the weaves of the worlds. Insubstantial as a soap bubble, and more solid than a mountain. At least for him.

He had spent many of the past hours here, staring into the mirrored world, listening to the echoes that leaked across. He had no fear of discovery; not even Diablo himself would notice his presence unless he specifically looked for it. He reached out a hand, passing it through the space no wider than an atom and big enough for his wrist, once again forcing his arm through the oval gap. At first it yielded easily, but the more he pressed, the harder his arm was forced backward, until he could push it no further that the elbow. He let it remain that way for several seconds, listening for the glimmers and echoes of the mismatched planes. Then he relaxed, and his arm jumped backward, pushed out by the other world. Just like it had all the other times. Oh, to be able to witness the other world firsthand, to Comprehend it as only he and his kind could.

But that was wishful thinking, a product of too much time spent observing the humans and tweaking their lives with touches softer than a feather's fall.

Did Diablo know? The Prime Evil shared more with him than either angel or fiend would like to admit, and if he was bound to his plane, then the Lord of Terror was also. Perhaps, on some subconscious level, he did. It gave merit to reasoning why the Lord of Evil would send an "invasion" force numbering less than two dozen competent beings. Even as a scouting force, they were inadequate to an entire planet. Or perhaps Diablo had merely succumbed to his coarser nature, and not planned things out.

In either case, he would never know the answer. Best to focus on what he did know, and could discover. The tinklings from the portal were sharp as shattered glass, though merest echoes on the wind. He assembled them together like a four-dimensional puzzle, fitting the pieces together in his mind until he could Comprehend exactly what was happening, at least in general terms.

A glimmer of amusement rose within him, a human feeling, as the picture grew. He knew enough now to hazard a guess as to what had happened, and from that, what was happening and would soon happen. The Burning Hells were as blind as the High Heavens, for in their total victory, they had ensured total defeat. The time was soon coming when this world would face the same trial, and Earth have mercy if either side won.

Mercy. A concept that should have been as alien to him as snow to a rain forest, yet somehow it dwelt within him. A fluke. An error. A statistical deviation. A miracle, for one who did not believe in miracles. Perhaps he would be able to work another one before it was too late.

He was not surprised in the least when the tarp shielding the portal from outside eyes was drawn away. He did not look behind him; he did not need to. It was a simple matter to predict who would be doing what, and at this point they would be incarcerating the human CWALer. He could have remained there, standing directly in front of the portal, and they would never notice. The draconian would flow around his pocket of space without even a twinge; for all intents and purposes aside from his own it did not exist. But he had gleaned as much as he could expect to from the portal, and with the fulcrum time drawing so near, he could not afford to waste more. So he stepped back, taking his pocket of reality with him to observe the proceedings.

The draconian held the human to his chest, then wrapped his wings tightly around them both so he could fit through the entrance. Then, with the turned Slayer watching, he stepped through the hole in the air. Not even a twinge of resistance hampered his progress, as could be expected. Once through, he unfurled his wings and set off, probably searching out a nearby portal. The Slayer quickly replaced the tarp over it, since it would be more than enough to draw attention to their hideout. The dragon hatchling exited to resume its patrols.

When the tarp was secure, the Slayer turned to leave. Then he doubled over, his hand flying to his chest. The figure knew what pain must be filling his body, for he saw the twisting nexuses of energy crackle like lightning within it. Another glimmer of amusement came to him. At times it appeared that the Evils could not predict the consequences of their actions at all.

The Slayer's jaw clenched in pain, undoubtedly the worst he had experienced yet. The veins along his neck bulged as he strained to keep from crying out. Crimson light speared from his eyes while it lasted, and then it passed. He collapsed onto the floor, gasping like a beached fish.

He would recover in a matter of minutes. No further information could be gleaned from watching him. The eyeless figure turned and wrapped his pocket around him. The air twisted, and he was gone.

Underneath the tarp, the portal remained open, quietly bridging the gap between the worlds. Inside, one could see the roiling gray-green clouds above that arced with lightning every few seconds. Below lay the blasted land, scoured clean of any life not hardy enough to survive a world ruled by Evil

Had anyone been looking, they would have no doubt been surprised by the sudden rising up from under the ground. A giant black whirlwind, formed by a trillion swirling flecks of blackness, arched out of the rock. Its gaping maw lay open, hungrily searching for anything it could find.

It moved towards the portal, looking like a gigantic worm coming over the ground. Its body was ten meters in diameter at least.

And then, just short of the portal entrance, it stopped. The swirling black interior filled most of the vision, then it slowly shook its front end back and forth, as if irritated. It attempted to move forward again, then stopped and seemed to writhe in frustration. Finally it turned and passed out of sight, leaving behind a trail of magma and ice.

"Arc, can you hear me? Arcturus?" Iolaus waited impatiently for the answer, but all that came was the soft hiss of static. "Iolaus to Arcturus, respond." Nothing. He sighed and lowered his head. Something bad had happened, he was sure of it. Something bad always happened in these situations. The question was: did Arc survive, and if so, what happened to him?

Too little information; they would have to get more. He pressed the trigger on the walkie-talkie. "Iolaus to all units, Arcturus has gone missing somewhere on Newport Coast Drive. Get over there ASAP and look for anything suspicious. Do not, I repeat, do not investigate anything unusual before checking back in with HQ. Try to team up into pairs or triplets. We don't need any more disappearances. Everyone copy?"

For the next thirty seconds the dozen or so CWALers checked in, saying that they had received their orders loud and clear and were converging on Newport Coast Drive as they spoke. Satisfied, Iolaus laid the walkie-talkie down on his desk and leaned back in his chair. He began to rhythmically rub his temples. The HQ nearly destroyed, Rachel kidnapped, Dragoneyes some sort of undead...what else could go wrong?

He had just enough time to regret the thought before his door slammed open and Adrien and undertow rushed in.

"IolaussomehugedemonscameandattackedthedungeonsandwewereallholedupandthenLeachshowedupanditwasallamessand-" The elfling paused to take a breath, and Iolaus held up his hands.

"Whoah! Hold it!" he said. "Slow down and put some spaces in there. Now what happened?" I bet I won't like it, he thought.

Adrien nodded and started over. "Two demons appeared in the newbie dungeons and attacked us. We were pinned behind the couch for a while, then Leach showed up for some reason and joined the fight. Next thing I know, one of them jumped at him and grabbed him, then carried him off down where they came from."

undertow nodded from the floor. "We followed them as soon as we could, but by the time we got there we just caught the collapsing gap of a red portal. It closed before we could do anything"

Prime rule of CWAL: never ask what else can go wrong. But at least if Leach had made it down to the Dungeons without reporting back, it meant he had not spotted any more fake CWALers. But now they had three missing persons. "Any idea where they took him?"

"I have a hunch," said undertow. "I don't think it's coincidence that the portal was in a room, instead of out in the open. Back in the first days of the Newbie Patrol, that room belonged to Nighteye. That red portal looked like it could have come straight out of Diablo. It doesn't take much to guess what happened."

"Right," said Iolaus, "but why would Nighteye kidnap Leach?"

"Maybe he's still sore about the Great Holy War. It was Leach's help that got that darkseed or whatever away from him and to Namrok, after all. Evil doesn't exactly forgive quickly."

"Maybe, but that doesn't sit right. He's usually more chaotic than this. It isn't his way to kidnap, just kill."

undertow shrugged, as much as a rabbit could shrug, anyway. Iolaus sat in thought for several seconds. "Thanks for the information. Keep an eye out for anything suspicious, okay?"

"Gotcha."

"Will do."

The two newbies turned and left, leaving Iolaus alone with the walkie-talkie and his thoughts. He steepled his fingers and leaned back, trying to fit this new information together. If they were right about Nighteye being the culprit, then Leach was probably in either OEEP HQ or the Shadowlands. Rachel was who-knows-where, and Arcturus had disappeared after seeing a man-spider thing. That last sounded like demonic origin, which meant it was probably connected to the first. And two-to-one odds said that Rachel was somehow linked into it all too. If only he had some idea how.

These things were not coincidence. Something big was going on, he could feel it in his bones. He just hoped they figured out what before it was too late.

Duriel stepped out of the massive portal and into the Burning Hells. Once he had called this twisted labyrinth of passageways home, but the conquest of Inferno had given him the former continent of Europe, a splendid prize if he did say so himself. There had been talk among the Evils about letting each move in their own sphere without interference from the others, but all knew that it would not last. Without the High Heavens as a foe, all they had to fight were themselves. Not that they minded, of course. Each knew that he (or she) would be the victor in the end.

Diablo, predictably, had been the first to break the knife-edge truce. For some reason Duriel could not understand, the Lord of Terror always seemed to be the most impetuous of the three Primes. And if his expedition to another world had not been enough to provoke the other six into breaking alliances, he then turned upon Belial, surging across the isthmus of Panama and into the Lesser Evil's southern domain.

It was all the excuse the others needed. Within a week, almost every alliance had been broken, and warfare erupted along the African border. Theoretically, he and Azmodan were allies against Mephisto, but they both knew that would last exactly as long as the other was more valuable alive than conquered. Baal seemed intent on creating new fiends of incredible power before setting out conquering, which meant he would be easy prey as soon as the others finished with their current projects. Now if only he knew what Andariel was up to, he could have rested easy. But his spies seemed to disappear remarkably fast on her frozen ice cap, and his plants in the other Evils' domains sent back reports that it was the same with them.

Perhaps he would find the answer down here. The Burning Hells had been effectively abandoned by the Seven after Inferno's conquest. The only use it had now was as a troop source. And yet, perhaps not all of them had done so. Perhaps Andariel had found something down here the rest were unaware of. He himself had knowledge of less than forty percent of the ever-shifting corridors here, and he guessed that the other Evils were the same. Perhaps some powerful artifact had lain hidden for millennia, or a new breed of superpowerful fiends had appeared. Whatever the case, he had been getting reports back from his few minions still here. They were disturbing, to say the least. He actually hoped that Andariel, or one of the other Evils, was behind them.

He sent out a psychic pulse, and within a few seconds another, smaller portal had formed in front of him. His chief commander, an arumoor, stepped out of it. The fiend looked like nothing so much as a humanoid pile of shifting scale male. He towered above his minion, and indeed either of his massive scythe-claws was as tall as it. With his equally-large chest sitting on the front of his beetle-like abdomen and its accompanying claw-feet, he was easily ten times the arumoor's size. It bowed to him, the plates sliding over each other with a soft rasping sound until its torso was parallel with the floor.

"Lord Duriel, we are honored by your descent into the Burning Hells." Its voice sounded like oiled stone.

"As you should be. What have you to report?"

"My Lord, the fiendscouts, those that return, have brought reports of a killing mist deep within the Hells. I have sent groups to investigate. Most do not come back. Those that do speak only of the mist, which they have named 'shekerem.'"

Shekerem. Death. The fiendscouts were not known for subtlety.

"And you have not investigated yourself?"

The plates slid over each other, making the arumoor appear smaller, a gesture of subservience. "My Lord, were I to not return, your legions within the Hells would be without a commander." He did not elaborate, but Duriel knew what that would mean. Within a month he would have no legions, all of his minions having reverted to the feral lifestyle of most fiends. He was more annoyed than anything else about the amuroor's lack of action. He would let it live today. And its argument did have merit.

"You acted wisely."

"You do me honor, my Lord."

"Have you any more information?"

"Perhaps, my Lord. I cannot be certain, but I think that all of the fiendscouts that disappear have done so in the direction of the Well of Souls."

Duriel nodded, and his claw-feet clacked against the floor. It was a start. "Return to your duties. I will investigate this myself."

"Yes, my Lord. Do you wish a contingent of fiends to accompany you?"

He gave it a moment's thought. All more fiends could do was provide fodder for anything he met. If a true emergency arose, he could always portal back to Inferno. "No, I will go alone."

"As you wish, my Lord." The arumoor straightened itself with another rasp of its plates, then backed into the portal, which blinked out a moment later. His matched pairs of claw-feet skittered his massive bulk forward far faster than his shape belied, until he faced one red and black-veined wall, interlaced with bits of bone and ebony. He focused his mind outward, forcing the Hells to momentarily conform to his will.

Take me to the Well of Souls, he commanded. Nothing happened for a second, but then a low, sluggish sound like tearing flesh came from beyond the wall. It ripped down the center and irised outward, revealing a passageway that had not existed a minute before, and would probably not exist a minute hence. It was just big enough for him to enter. He did so.

From the entrance, the corridor had looked like it corkscrewed crazily in every direction, sometimes even turning sideways or upside-down. Yet as he skittered quickly along it, not a hint of disorientation hit him. Undoubtedly, the tunnel actually did change directions irregularly, but to him and his commanding will it remained straight, at least as long as he concentrated.

Occasionally a cross-tunnel would intersect this one, coming from either side and occasionally the floor or ceiling. Each warren appeared to have its own idea of which direction was down, and more than once he spotted lesser fiends bounding along what he saw as walls.

The journey was long, probably far longer than it should have been, but he could not hope for truly straight corridors. Not in this place. He might as well hope for Diablo to send Christmas cards.

It took him a while to notice the emptiness. The further he traveled, the less often he saw fiends. Even in all their hundreds of millions, the hellspawn had never managed to make any place in the Burning Hells truly crowded. Yet now its former state looked like standing-room-only compared to what he passed through now. Occasionally he would hear the sound of a fiend running or screaming in pain or rage, but as he continued even those grew less common, until he could hear none at all. The only sound left was the constant background pulse of the Burning Hells itself as it continuously rearranged itself into its nightmarish patterns. But even that seemed to mute as he traveled.

He had gone ten minutes without the slightest evidence of anything fiendish when he heard the first sound from up ahead. It was low, barely audible, yet sounded like it would be a roar up close. He continued onward, wary of anything that might cross his way. Yet nothing did, and the sound grew louder. It sounded like cracking stones, great slabs of granite being split in two. He slowed, becoming cautious. It would not do to rush in unprepared.

He continued on for another five minutes when he noticed that the tunnel was changing. Instead of veined red and black, it now looked more like soft pink and gray. He paused and ran a massive sickle-claw over the wall. Where it passed, the wall became red and black again, but his claw picked up a fine white substance. He brought it to his face to look at it close. A shock of surprise went through him.

Frost. It was frost. Now that he thought about it, the temperature had been dropping for a good while now, but his natural cold resistance and preoccupation with listening to the sounds had prevented him from noticing it. And it looked like the corridor ahead twisted less than it had before. What was going on?

He knocked the frost off his claw, then continued on, unease growing within him. The temperature was definitely dropping the further he went. He was unaffected for now, but many hellspawn would be greatly weakened by such conditions. No wonder they had avoided this area.

Then he saw it. Ahead, completely filling the corridor, was a white mist. It did not look like it was confined to the tunnel, but instead like it extended through the walls and there just happened to be a pathway here where he could see it. It roiled slightly, and it took him several seconds to realize that it was moving forward. Not very fast, but it was definitely moving. He skittered rapidly up to it and tentatively put a sickle-claw into the cloud. When he withdrew it, a small coating of ice crystals covered its surface, but other than that it remained unharmed. The loud cracking sounds continued to come from within the mist.

He considered going back, but if Andariel was behind this then the fog was certainly a way to hide whatever she was doing. He would not let her get away with it that easily. Trusting his cold resistance, he skittered into the mist.

It was not terribly dark inside, and he made his way easily through the tunnel for another two minutes. Not just frost, but a thin coating of ice covered the walls here. Then he realized that it was not cracking rocks he heard. That was ice, freezing and splitting in a roar that got ever-louder and he continued in. What was that arachnid woman doing?

Suddenly his tunnel dead-ended. He almost ran into the far wall before realizing it, stopping just in time to prevent him ramming full force into an inch-thick coating of ice. It covered the floor, too, but he spiked his claws through it to give him traction. Irritated, he spread his mind again to force a way open.

Take me to the Well of Souls, he demanded. The Burning Hells were never quick or willing to follow orders, but this time they seemed downright stubborn. His mind felt them as a hard, sharp-edged form instead of its usual pliable construction. Anger surged in him.

Take me! he commanded. He put enough force of will behind it that the Hells had no choice but to obey. The wall in front of him creaked and groaned, a sound like a small forest splintering coming from behind it. Then it exploded outward in a shower of ice shards and shattered wall, pelting him with a thousand sharp spikes. He ignored them, unease rising into his mind. The walls, usually as pliable as flesh, had actually shattered. The corridor he had opened lay carpeted in a fine layer of glittering shards. And now he could see a bright, blue-white light coming from the far end of it. He knew with certainty that whatever he sought, it awaited him there.

He flexed his joints to dislodge the thin layer of ice that had tried to cover him as he stood still, then walked carefully into the new corridor. There were side-tunnels here, too, but they were so choked with ice that only the smallest fiend could fit through. Some were filled completely, and he could see some unfortunate hellspawn that had gotten trapped in it, frozen solid. As he watched, his passageway began to do the same. Millimeter by millimeter, ice built up on the walls, on the floor, on the ceiling...even on himself. With every move a gossamer layer of fresh ice broke off his body and fell to the ground. And above all else was the almost deafening roar of cracking ice, coming from the end of the tunnel.

He was almost to there. Less than a quarter-mile ahead of him he could see that the tunnel opened up, and the bright light came from beyond. He hurried, as already the added ice had made him have to stoop to continue walking forward. In less than half a minute he reached the end, an abrupt opening into the Well of Souls. He stood aghast, looking out over it. At least ten miles across, the gigantic cavern formed the very heart of the Burning Hells. But it was not as he remembered it.

Tunnel entrances still dotted all sides of the spherical cave, but now he saw them through a thick layer of ice, with huge glacial spikes protruding towards the center. The sound that came from it as the ice expanded formed the roar he had heard, as hundreds of square miles of ice broke and reformed. Yet most amazing of all was the Well of Souls itself, the giant, seething mass that filled most of the cavern. He remembered it as a grayish vortex, moving madly as each of the human souls within cried out in agony, never knowing that others could hear them.

Now it shone with a blinding blue-white light that was painful to look at, as if a star had been transplanted into this place. Only instead of heat, it radiated cold. A chilling, bone-numbing cold that even he felt. He forced himself to look at it, and as his aching eyes watched, he saw the mist, shekerem, coming out from the Well in streamers that must have been over a mile across. They flowed slowly to the edge of the cavern, then spread outward and, he was certain, inward, penetrating the frozen walls and forcing their way through the Burning Hells.

It could still be Andariel, though he had now idea how. Ice was her domain, down at the southern pole. Perhaps she had decided to extend it. He took comfort in the idea; it was far better than admitting that he was up against something he did not understand.

He observed the frightening, ice-lined cavern for another minute, then determined that it was time to leave. He tried to turn, but found his claw-appendages frozen to the ground, a two-foot-thick layer of ice cementing them there. Already a solid inch of it covered most of his body, and he had a sudden rise of panic. If he did not get out of here soon, he would be as frozen as those fiends he had passed, and no amount of cold resistance would help him then. The ice shattered around his scythe-claws as he flexed them, then called a fireball to mind. The glowing red energies formed between their tips, then suddenly turned purple and then cyan. He gasped in shock, losing control of the spell. But instead of dissipating or exploding, the energy solidified into a ball of pure blue ice. It fell to the ground and shattered.

The Hells had gone insane! He tried again to pull his claws out of their imprisonment, and nearly ripped two of them off. Screaming in rage he swung his scythe-claws downward. The ice cracked at their impact. He did it again and again, all the time fighting panic as the ice solidified right on top of the new cracks. It had to work, it had to!

Finally a huge swing shattered the ice into man-sized chunks. He lifted his claws out, hacking away at the pieces still clinging to them. But when he saw the ice already re-cementing him to the ground, he decided to wait not longer..

A quick look told him that the tunnel behind was already too small to squeeze through. It would be death for him to try. So instead he faced outward, towards the blinding Well of Souls. Fighting anger and panic and ice, he focused his mind and cast a portal spell.

Several yards out from the end of the corridor, a vertical red slit formed in the air, then rotated sideways into a burning oval. He would have to jump to reach it. Suddenly the portal's color began to fade to purple, and icicles started climbed down from its edges.

He jumped. The layer of ice that formed over the portal's front shattered into hundreds of glimmering shards as he went through. One claw-appendage dropped too low and caught the portal's edge. It was sliced off, cleaner than any surgeon's scalpel. The claw fell downward, ice growing over it as it went until, by the time it hit ground, it was nothing more than a huge chunk of frozen water with a dark smudge locked inside. A moment later, a large piece of oval-shaped ice fell beside it, shattering to pieces.

"The frogs are tap-dancing with what?" Dei' sighed and said another string of Naz'Chre gibberish. Adrien thought he caught it this time, something about sloppy driving. Then she pointed down, and suddenly the pieces fit into place. "Oh, it only has a floppy drive? But why's that a problem?"

She sighed again, then demonstrated that a zip disk did not fit into a drive meant for a floppy disk. It tapped against the entrance, and it appeared almost as if Adrien became hypnotized by it. Then he suddenly shook it off. "Wait, you're saying it won't fit? Nonsense! Let me try."

Dei' said most of the half-dozen Nez'Chre words for "no" before he managed to take it from her and start trying to work it into the drive. She shook her head and turned away, content to let him do whatever damage he wanted to. She had never really liked the HP AI to begin with, and his (its?) attitude had done nothing to endear him to her in the intervening time. If she never heard him again it would be too soon.

There was a crack, then a shoomph. "See," said Adrien, "It fits just fine. Just need to work at it a little bit." She looked and saw that the zip disk had actually gone into the floppy drive. She considered pointing out all the little pieces of plastic that had broken off of it, but thought better of it. He would not understand anyway.

That done, she stood back up and got to fiddling with the computer, and old 1995-model Packard Bell that the Russian government looked to have gotten secondhand. The bulky monitor was set on top of the counter, running Windows 95 like molasses. She keyed up Windows Explorer and waited for it to load. She turned to Adrien and was about to tell him to go get the State Duma, when an idea struck her. She quickly loaded up notepad, which thankfully took only five seconds to pop up.

Go get the State Duma, she typed in. Then she tapped Adrien on the shoulder.

"What?" he asked, turning around. She pointed at the screen.

"Yes, it's a computer monitor. That's where we're sticking the HP, right?"

She pointed at the screen again.

"Yeah, it's slow. It'll have to do, though."

She sighed and pointed her finger right at the line of text she had written.

"Yes, it's a computer. It types things. I thought your species had them? And we've got a ton of them back in Irvine."

Enough is enough. She grabbed him by the scruff of his neck and forced his nose against the glass of the monitor, so his eyes were looking straight at her text.

"Now what? Did I...hey, what's this? 'Go get the State Duma.' Okay. But, um, you have to let me go first."

She sighed and released him. "Back in a minute," he said as he turned. He walked up the short stairway and left the room of the Federal Assembly, squeezing past two bickering members. So far the CE/UF had gone undetected, probably because the Assembly was too caught up in a hundred small arguments to even notice the intruders. If all went according to plan, Adrien would announce that the Assembly wanted the Duma to stay exactly where it was and under no conditions whatsoever was it to try to join the Assembly. They were betting on the Duma doing exactly what they were not supposed to, and then the HP would (hopefully) be able to seal everyone in.

She glanced at the monitor and was relieved to see that Windows Explorer had finally opened up. She went up to the 'A' drive and selected it. She was, quite frankly, shocked when it came up with a reading. But she shrugged and set it to copying the files from the disk to the hard drive, which had barely enough room to accommodate the HP.

That done, she turned to Crystal. Or at least, where she thought Crystal was. All that remained there now as a blank area of floor. She quickly scanned the crowd inside the large meeting area, but did not see the girl. A sinking feeling quickly formed in her stomach. Crystal, alone among several hundred people who had probably been directly touched by Evil. She hoped she nothing happened to the girl.

Then she remembered who she was looking for, and changed the thought. She hoped nothing happened to everyone else. A bright pink spray of smoke and glitter from among the members told her that it was already too late for that. But at least now she knew where Crystal was. She stepped off the raised dais and threaded her way through half a dozen arguments, one of them physical, before she finally reached the dissipating cloud of smoke.

Crystal stood in the middle of a dusting of purple, while several things that looked like neon-green tribbles purred lazily around her.

"Hi Miss Cat Lady!" said the girl in obvious delight. "Lookit what I made! I meant to make something really big and happy and nice for the angry man, but look how fuzzy they are!"

Dei' nodded absently and reached out to pick up one of the green things. It jumped up at her, lunging at her hand and revealing teeth that she swore were too large to fit in that body. She carefully stepped back, then asked if Crystal would please try to send them back where they would be happier.

"Okay, Miss Cat Lady!" Through some means Dei' had never found out, Crystal understood Nez'Chre as if it were plain English. In fact, many CWALers did. Maybe it had something to do with the spatial distortions there. Crystal waved her hands, and a whitish-yellow smoke poured forth, wrapping itself around each of the green creatures. When it faded, they had been replaced by a half-dozen tap-dancing candy canes apiece.

"Oops. I'll fix it!"

The first three forms of "no" managed to convince her to stop. Before any more damage could be done, she scooped up the girl and carried her back down to the dais. After she agreed to stay put, she let her down and went back to the computer, keeping an eye on Crystal the whole way. The girl looked fine, though, and had sat down and started doing some finger game with her hands.

The transfer bar hit 100% and disappeared.

"YEEEAAAAAARRRRRGGGGHHHH!!" came from the speakers around the room. All of the Assembly looked up, then immediately began arguing as to whether the voice came from ghosts, a receptionist, communist revolutionaries, or capitalist infiltrators. Had they known what a fully-sentient artificial intelligence was, they would have been arguing over that, too.

"What did you do to me? Run me through a meat grinder? I've got bits and bytes scattered all over the place and you put me in a floppy drive?" She tried to ignore him. It was not easy with her sensitive hearing and every single speaker in the room connected to him.

"Look at this thing! Look at it! Only sixteen megs of RAM, less than a gig of hard drive! A Pentium 133? No wonder I feel like tar. This thing's even worse than that hunk of junk back in that slightly larger hunk of junk you call a headquarters!"

She sighed. If she had to put up with him much longer, the HP would get to know magnets very, very well. And very briefly.

Just then the side doors opened, and dozens of irate Russians stormed into the room, demanding to know why they were being denied access to the Assembly. Never mind that they had stayed in the Duma's room for the past five days straight. The Federal Assembly immediately joined together and protested, saying how they had no idea what the idiots were talking about and it was not their fault anyway, whatever it was. This lasted for about three minutes as all of the State Duma filed in. Then Adrien walked in, shut the door behind him, and gave her a thumbs up.

"-minesweeper. Minesweeper, for crying out loud! Do you know it's considered cruel and unusual punishment to imprison an artificial intelligence with nothing but solitaire and -"

She kicked the computer. Though it did not do any real damage, it got the point across. "All right, all right. What do you organics want now that you've trapped me in this horrid contraption?"

She alt-tabbed into notepad and typed, Lock all the doors..

"Oh, whatever you say, your organic worshipfullness. Should I wash the windows while I'm at it?" Her leg went back for another kick. "Okay, okay, I get the point! Sheesh, slave drivers."

At the exact same time, every door in the room suddenly bolted shut. Then inch-thick steel barriers slammed down and locked into place, followed by two halves whooshing together from the sides, and finally a portcullis falling down from the top. She stared at them in surprise. Apparently all the Cold War parts of the building had not been removed, yet. She tried to decide whether the locks were initially meant to keep armies out or assemblies in, then decided it did not matter. Time for that later.

"Okay," said Adrien as he stepped up beside her. "Now what?"

She sighed and told him the plan they had formulated on the way over here.

"But where are we going to get an infinite supply of monkeys? Oh, I know! We'll just..."

She was sorely tempted to strangle him then and there. Instead, she merely clasped her hands into fists and repeated it again.

"Oh, that plan! Yeah, I remember that. Let's see...I know I have that CD here somewhere..." He rifled through his clothing until he came up with a CD, which he handed to her. She gratefully accepted it and slid it into the computer's 2x CD-ROM drive. When the autorun finally came up a minute later, she hit the play button.

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God..." said a strong masculine voice over the loudspeakers. The Nez'Chre had limited experience with demons on their homeworld, but from what little Dei' knew of them came the idea of reading holy passages to people in the hopes that the demons would be driven out. And since she could not read Earth script and Adrien would probably mess it all up, they had opted for this route.

It seemed to be working. The Russian legislators were definitely getting agitated, and did not seem to like the words at all. It looked like their plan would succeed, when one of the men pulled a shotgun out from his clothing and blew a speaker into shreds of plastic and metal. He quickly reloaded and did the same to a second. Her hopes fell, but she knew she had to act quickly before they ran out of speakers. A third one blew up, and she pressed the eject button on the CD-ROM. The Biblical reading stopped, and after a second the legislators went back to arguing among themselves. She noted with dismay that several of them shot glances in their direction, the looks in their faces noticeably less than pleasant.

She turned to Adrien to try to brainstorm another plan. Behind him, she saw Crystal still sitting contentedly on the ground, still doing her finger games. Something about them made her feel uneasy. Suddenly she realized that finger games for a mage were probably not to be encouraged.

She had taken two steps when the air around Crystal exploded into a searing bubble of fuchsia flames. A few of the legislators clapped in appreciation, then started arguing about whether it was really fuchsia or some other, similar color. Dei's heart went cold; she expected to see nothing more than a blackened crater when the flames cleared.

She should have known better. The flames faded, and Crystal sat among hundreds of glowing fireflies, each a different color. She giggled as they spun around and around, then flew out and straight at Dei'. She ducked, but the little insects swerved and hit her, splattering her fur and clothing with hundreds of tiny drops of color. It would take hours to get it all off, she just knew it.

Suddenly the air above Crystal shimmered, and an orange storm cloud appeared. Purple lightning arced down from it, hitting the ground inches from the girl's hand. Dei' jumped forward and scooped her up just moments before another one hit exactly where she had been sitting.

Crystal laughed. "You're silly, Miss Cat Lady." Though the girl held none of the charm of Nez'Chre children, she still managed to get Dei's heart to melt. More and more she suspected it was a magical effect, but she could not be certain.

The cloud behind her rumbled like a bass drum, and then one fell out of it. It was shortly followed by a tuba, a trombone, three clarinets, half a dozen stringed instruments, and then a concert grand piano which played "chopsticks" when it hit. The cloud rumbled once more, spat out a piccolo, and disappeared.

"Er...I don't suppose you could keep that brat away from my hard drive, could you?"

Dei' sighed rested her head against Crystal's. The girl was a disaster waiting to happen, with several hundred having already done so.

"Hey, look at this!" Adrien stood by the pile of musical instruments, pointing at one of the stringed ones. It looked like a cross between a harp and a violin. "They had these things back home, or something close enough. I wonder if I can still..." he picked it up and plucked a few strings. They sounded like putting a viola through a meat grinder. "Perfect!" he said. "Hmm...I wonder..."

"Uh-oh. Duck and cover!"

For once, Dei' agreed with the HP. The only thing worse than Adrien not thinking was when he did. She looked back and forth between Crystal and him, trying to decide which was the more dangerous. She decided on the former, and prayed to whatever gods cared to listen for the elf to not get them all killed.

"You know," he said, "they say music can charm people. I bet I could work something out. Now what's that human song...ah yes." He plucked at the strings and twisted some knobs. Dei' assumed he was trying to tune it, but it sounded progressively worse, if that was possible. Finally he strummed a chord that sounded like nails across her spine.

"Perfect." He cleared his throat, then started playing something that might be distantly related to the third cousin of a melody. "Kumbaya, my lord, kumbaya!"

Though she was sure it violated some laws of music, Adrien's singing actually made the song worse. He could not have been more dissonant if he tried.

"Make the hurting stop!" yelled the HP. Dei' agreed again. Though, when she looked out at the legislators, she had to admit that Adrien had worked a small miracle. All of them seemed to be in agreement now. They all agreed that the music was horrible. And from the looks on their faces, they all agreed that they should end it. Terminally.

Dei's suddenly had a horrible, insane thought. And before she could give herself a chance think otherwise, she carried through with it.

"Crystal, I want you to fix the music, okay?"

"Okay Miss Cat Lady!" Crystal stood and started waving her hands around.

What have I done? asked part of her mind. The rest of it replied with a simple Goodbye, cruel world.

Then there was a bright, rainbow-hued flash. And everything went chartreuse.

The first thing Arcturus noticed upon swimming to consciousness was that he was lying on something flat and cold. The second, third, fourth, and sixth things consisted of various pains all clamoring to make themselves known to him. The fifth thing he noticed was that he was not alone, as evidenced by the slight pressure of a warm hand on his forehead, which caused item number six.

"Ow..." he said. The hand stroked his hair back. "Ow!" he said for emphasis. The hand drew away, and gradually the buffalo stampede in his forehead quieted down. When he thought he had prepared himself for the inevitable pain, he slowly opened his eyes.

The light was dim and had a reddish cast. It took him a moment to resolve the image above him into that of a face. A young woman, by the looks of her, with brownish hair and a concerned look on her quite pretty face. He said the first thing that came to mind.

"Do you have an aspirin?"

She smiled slightly and shook her head. "I'm afraid not."

"Ah. I guess there's not chance of this being Heaven, then?" As he felt right now, any place with painkillers deserved the name "heaven."

"Er, no. Not by a long shot."

"Drat." He took several breaths, braced himself, then tried to sit up. He noticed a dozen new things right away, none of them pleasant. The woman put a hand to his back and helped him up. He grimaced at the pressure, but at least he was upright now. He hoped it was an improvement, though he still wanted to just close his eyes and let it all go away.

"How are you feeling? The demons that threw you in here didn't exactly look like the gentle type."

His eyes shot open. Demons? Up until now he had not given a thought to how he got to waking up in a strange cell. It happened every now and then, and he had almost grown used to it. But demons were a new twist, he was pretty sure.

"Demons? As is things from the depths of Hell?"

She nodded. She looked remarkably clean for someone in a cell. In fact, he suddenly realized, he knew her.

"Rachel, isn't it?"

"Yes. I recognized you as one of Gaval's friends, but I'm afraid I don't remember your name."

"Arcturus." He held out a hand. "Pleased to meet you, though I wish it were under better circumstances."

She shook it, harder than he would have liked. She quickly let go upon seeing his grimace. He tried rotating his neck, then stopped immediately as item thirty-something made itself known. "Geez, what'd they do? All I remember is a knock across the jaw." It felt as if he had been knocked across everywhere else, pretty much. That sounded like demon behavior, at least.

"I don't know. Some of it might be from when they tossed you in. I'm surprised you didn't crack your head open."

That would explain the pounding pain (number two) in the back of his cranium. Thankfully, it and the others were beginning to fade. They would be down to a dull throb in a few minutes. Still painful, but he could function with it. He pushed himself to his feet, not willing to wait that long. A dozen new places clamored for his attention, but he ignored both them and even the wash of black that threatened to overpower his vision. A few seconds of standing still and it passed, and he could look around their cell.

It was about fifteen feet square and eight tall, black stone all the way. In one wall lay a floor-to-ceiling cylinder that glowed dull red. Aside from that there was nothing. Just bare rock.

"Homey place," he said, massaging one arm. Whatever the demons had done to him, it had not been too bad. Nothing felt broken or cracked, at least. "Where are we?"

"I don't think you'll believe it."

He turned and looked at her in the eyes, putting on his best I've-seen-it-all face. "Try me."

"Well, I think we're in an alternate dimension, in a giant floating city ruled by some thing that calls itself Diablo."

"Diablo? As in the game?"

"I...think so."

"And that's it?" He tried to make his voice sound nonchalant, even though he felt none of it. Imprisoned by the Lord of Terror. This day was just not going well at all. "Well, at least you're not dead. You had Gaval in a blue funk all morning."

Something flickered across her face, something that he could not place, and then it was gone. She looked up at him. "So how did you end up here?" she asked. "Did Dragoneyes knock you out, too?"

"Nope," he said, rubbing his jaw tenderly. "Krath. We found them out, but not soon enough, I guess. Holed up in a McDonald's, of all places. Got me when I just meant to go in and get some fries." He suddenly thought of something. "Have you eaten anything?" Evildoers were not particularly good about caring for their captives. She shook her head, and he dug into his pocket. They had taken his belt, but apparently not frisked him. Maybe they figured that what he had could not be a threat. Or they were just too stupid to think of it. Either one had merit.

Finally he found the Nutro-Bar and tossed it to her. "Here. I don't vouch for flavor, but it'll keep you going."

"Thanks," she said as she hurriedly tore off the wrapper with her teeth. She took a bite and rapidly chewed, and then a puzzled expression came on her face. She swallowed. "Garlic?"

"Don't ask me." He started emptying his pockets, looking for anything they might be able to use. His old Boy Scout knife could be useful, but probably not the handful of loose change and bits of pocket lint. His wallet was not much better. Time for the other pocket. It held a torn-out ad for a new paintball scope, and nothing else. No, wait. There was something in the bottom. Three somethings, like marbles. He brought his hand out and opened it. Sitting in his palm were three of his paintballs and a few tufts of lint. He smiled. Without Floyd, this would be the best he could ask for.

Not wanting them to go off early, he stuck them in his wallet, the best padding he had with him. Then he turned back to Rachel, who was just finishing the Nutro-Bar. "Can you tell me everything you know about this place?"

She swallowed. "Yes. Why?"

"Just in case we have a chance to escape. There's not a cell made that can keep a CWALer for long."

"If you say so." She told him what she knew, which was not much in his opinion. A giant floating city populated by demons on a nightmarish world, and an unknown distance from their portal home. And ruled by the Lord of Terror himself, to boot. Even if they could get out, they would have to leave the city and make it back to the portal somehow. Right now that was too many unknowns, even for him. Lothos might have taken a devil-may-care attitude (far too appropriate, in this case) and simply fought until he made it back. Arcturus, however, was a paintball player, and that required strategy.

"Hmm...I don't suppose you've thought of a way to escape?"

"None, sorry."

"It's okay. I just need to think about this for a while. If you come up with any brilliant escape plans in the meantime, please tell me."

She gave him a wan smile. "Will do." The smiled faded. "Just please hurry."

"Why?"

"Crogoth--the man who brought me here--might come back. He...I..." She seemed unable--or unwilling--to articulate it.

"What, you're not falling in love with him, are you?" The girls always ended up falling in love with the bad guy. He could not afford that now.

"No! I...that is...he did something to me. Hypnosis or something. Gaval interrupted before it went too far, but if he hadn't..." She shuddered and rubbed her arms.

"Ah. Don't worry, I'll get us out of here, no sweat."

"And if he comes back before that?"

"Then we'll just deal with him then."

Four figures rode over the frozen plain, their horses making quick clop-clop sounds as they sped eastward. Suddenly the lead rider pulled back on the reins and drew his horse to a stop. The other three followed suit, then trotted up beside him.

"Did that seem too easy to you?" he asked.

"What?" said Redhead, sitting on his rust-colored horse. "The raise?"

"Comb to thing ob it," said the woman, whose allergies had gotten worse, "it did seeb too easy."

"Wait a second, wait a second!" said Redhead. "We didn't just fall for the 'You work for nothing, I'll double your salary' bit, did we?"

"No, we definitely did not," said Dark-hair. "We are most certainly getting paid, it stipulates so in out contracts. But still..."

"He kept smiling the whole time. That worries me."

"Oh, come off it," said Redhead. "He always smiles."

"Exactly my point."

"Eh?"

"Maybe he things there's a jokge we're not gettinb."

"Perhaps."

"Look, we're wasting time. How much we got left?"

The lead rider pulled out a pocketwatch from within his cloak. It ticked loudly on the open plain, the kind of tick that told one that each passing second was gone forever, every second irretrievable and brining one that much closer to the grave. He glanced at it, then closed the cover.

"A few hours. Plenty of time."

"I still say we should invest in more modern equipment. How's 'The Four Motorcylcists' sound to you guys? Or better yet, 'The Four Jet Pilots.'"

"I do not think that would go over well with the boss. You know how attached he is to olden times."

"Yeag. He just lobes all that ancient stubb."

"Regardless, we are riding horses right for now, and we have little time to waste."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever." Redhead turned his horse. "Heigh-ho Iron (III) Oxide, away!" He spurred it into a gallop, resuming his eastward trek. The leader stared after him.

"You know, I worry about him sometimes."

"You ag me both."

"You did what?" Gaval forced himself to control his rage while glaring at the Pez-Land-Ian.

"I scavenged it for parts for the portal generator. Deep-fat fryers and griddles just don't have everything you need to make a transdimensional gateway."

His fist clenched and unclenched. Harming or re-killing the impudent inventor would do nothing now except stir up dissent. Control, he had to keep control. "And why didn't you consult me first? The holo-generator was our only backup plan for maintaining a normal front!"

From the look on his face, it was obvious Pez was trying just as hard to keep his own temper under control. "When you had it turned off, I assumed it was no longer needed. Like I told you before, generating a hologram that size requires more power than a McDonald's should ever have. Anyone with a halfway decent sensor kit could have detected use for miles around. Since you agreed with me, I thought the device expendable. And if you want it back now, you'll have to sacrifice our only way of forming a new bridge home. It was hard enough to get it right the first time. I won't guaranteed a second."

Gaval glared at him. He hated to admit it, but Pez was right. Why bother looking normal if you practically screamed "look at me" in other ways. And contact with home claimed tantamount precedence. Unfortunately, that left them without any secondary means of concealment, and he guessed that in less than an hour another CWALer would stumble across their hiding place. They had done their best to remove all evidence of the battle, but for anyone looking hard enough, the signs were there. Freshly turned dirt where the scorched bushes had been removed, a few burn marks, and whatever had drawn Arcturus to it in the first place, for example.

He sighed. With Krath still on Inferno, their only aerial surveillance was Shriek. The hatching was high enough to appear as simply a bird, but he could only cover so much area at once, especially with the height making details so hard to see. Two pairs of eyes would double their chances for catching approaching CWALers, giving them that much more time to plan and prepare.

But back to the present predicament. "Very well. Keep the portal generator; we may need it again." If they had to evacuate the base, they would have to close the current portal. He intended to be without a line of retreat for as little time as possible. If only Lord Diablo had actually committed some real troops to this campaign, he could have done so much more. But he had not, and Gaval's only explanation was that the Lord of Terror was already worried about what the other Evils would be doing. After all, it did not take a genius to see that the only people sent through the portal were loyal to Diablo and only Diablo.

"Are you all right, sir?" The sneer in Pez's voice was obvious, and it snapped him back to the present. He could not afford to let his mind wander, not around these people at least.

"No, I'm fine."

"Then can I continue trying to work out how to open another portal without the resonance tearing both to pieces?"

Gaval waved him away. The look in Pez's eyes worried him. It was a feral, opportunistic look. If he let his attention slip too often he would soon find himself terminally removed from the chain of command. Not even baptism by the blood of the three Prime Evils could confer immortality. He shook his head and turned away, heading for the back room. He paused to lift the tarp from over the portal on his way, on the off chance that he could spy Krath coming in. No such luck. What was keeping that infernal draconian?

Krath swooped and dived under an onrushing maw. What in all the Hells were these things? He had been flying the short distance from portal to portal when three of the giant creatures suddenly burst out of the ground, lunging upward at him with gaping mouths. Only quick acrobatics had saved him, and now, minutes later, he was still dodging their incessant lunges. It seemed that every time he tried to fly higher, one of them would rear over him, forcing him to plunge down and sideways to avoid being crushed or eaten.

He dodged another one, coming so close that he could feel the odd fire-and-ice sensation the things seemed to radiate. He had little doubt that running into the side of one would be as deadly as entering its mouth. The things looked to be formed from trillions of black specks whirling around like a cyclone.

One of the black mouths rose in front of him, easily thirty feet across. He looked behind, where another faced him the same. Too easy. He had pulled this same trick dozens of times before. He waited for a second, then plunged downward just as the two lunged forward. He swooped out of the dive and looked back, pleased to see that they had run into each other full force. The black specks billowed outward, disrupted by the impact. Then, as he watched, they spiraled in, separating until the two things were as whole as before. They showed not the least hint of damage, and he swore. What did it take to get rid of these things?

A sixth sense had him flap hard just before the third creature lunged at him from behind. It was not soon enough, though, and his foot was caught in the swirling blackness.

Pain and agony lanced through his entire leg, rivers of lava and ice rushing upward to clutch at his body. Instinct alone forced him higher, and the pain began to fade. He looked down.

His foot was gone. The leg terminated just above the ankle in a blackened, smoldering lump of frozen flesh.

He looked up, then dodged downward as the massive maw surged towards him. He flew just below the creature, trying to ignore the searing pain as the air whipped by the newly exposed flesh. He rolled sideways, then forced himself upward. He turned and caught sight of the other thing lunging towards him, mouth open. He flew down and sideways, drawing to a stop a few yards above the ground laced with ice and lava. He could only spot two of the creatures. What had happened to the third? A quick glance showed that it was not behind him.

Then he understood, but by that time it was too late. The gaping black mouth surged up from the ground, engulfing him before he had a chance to scream. The raging inferno and freezing blast tore at his body, the conflicting forces spreading through every inch of his being in unimaginable agony. He screamed as his flesh boiled and froze, ripping him apart. Then the forces grew too much for him. His body exploded outward in a concussion of flesh and bone.

In the fraction of an instant between release from his twisted body and being sucked out of the mortal plane, Krath's soul Understood.

And he laughed.