Chapter Text
The demons had begun to disappear.
He had noticed it some time ago, the hordes of imps and cacodemons were smaller and the attacks weaker, almost pitiful. And for once, he wondered if he had managed to permanently hinder the population in hell. Not that it mattered much to him, he simply sought them out through farther distances.
He was shoving his blade through a cacodemon’s eye, ripping it out with a flourish of scarlet, when there were none left.
It was a moment of peace, only occupied by the sound of distant thunder. The screams of the damned were gone. He looked around cautiously, ready for a cyberdemon or even another revenant ambush. Nothing came. Sensing no danger, he walked across the blood-soaked lands. He was a man who only knew bloodshed, violence, rage, and war.
Carnage was a moment’s solace, and mercy was only a dream. For the first time in a millennia, the Doomslayer was lost. He walked a few more miles, his heart almost hungering for the grunts of a pinky, or a fireball from a cacodemon. None was found.
Is the war over? He wondered. It was something he had never even considered, his emotions served to blind him from thinking much past the spine he was ripping out. Death was his life, and life had no meaning without it.
The weight upon his shoulders was still there, unrelenting and heavy. He set his weapons to lean upon a rock and sat down, breathing in the filtered air of his helmet, basking in the reddened sky and dark towers. He hadn’t had time or need to rest since his time as a mortal. He peered at the landscape with disgust.
As ugly as the day I first set eyes upon it.
This only served to make him angrier.
“Strange, isn’t it?” A low demonic voice asked.
In less than a second, the Doomslayer snatched up his super shotgun, and slammed a fresh pair of rounds into it, before snapping it up and spinning around, aiming down the sights.
A figure, 12 feet tall and wearing pieces of dark, emerald green armor nearly identical to his own was staring at him with grandeur, haunting red eyes visible above his face mask. The Doomslayer’s own symbol was carved into his belt, glowing with energy. His normally blindingly red axe was deactivated.
The Marauder.
He was no foe. He could only recall seeing the Marauder a few times in the last millennia, often times when he was watching him fight.
Or when I was fighting him.
The Doomslayer lowered the shotgun. “No one to kill, and no one to do the same to you,” he said, gazing off into the distance. “The first peace in this land since the dawn of time.” He muttered. The Marauder turned his gaze back to the green marine,
“Silent as always, aren’t you Slayer?” he said lightly. Betrayer. A voice reminded him. The Doomslayer grunted.
The great demon inclined his head at the lack of speech, “You believe your sins are not atoned.”
They never will be.
“Your unbroken vow of silence proves that one you kept since the fall of Argent. Since then, you let rage and hate consume you, making no room for the love that killed you. You are a man who brought down the wrath of the heavens just to keep an oath.”
They are my people to protect.
“And in the end, you kept their blessings, and you kept humanity alive. . . That is penance, is it not?”
The Marauder questioned, not expecting an answer. He nodded slowly,
“Betrayer you are no more, Oathkeeper you are now.”
He eyed the guns piled on the rock next to the Doomslayer’s feet.
“And I trust, you will continue to keep that oath,” he said cooly. “The demons did not all die, much to my dismay. They were simply called to another world, by a power far greater than anything I or you have ever possessed by ourselves. The demons of this world are not unique. There are many on others, places so far away, it is not possible to reach them on foot.” The Marauder continued.
The Marauder raised a hand that bore a forest green gauntlet on the horizon. “The city of Argent still lays there, guarding great secrets underneath it’s ruined pearl walls.” “While you were taking your anger out at another poor demon, I took the time to follow a baron towards its destination,” he said. “Imps and hell knights are too stupid to fight against another entity summoning them to another world, so when the portal opened, a telepathic link connected as well, causing most of them to disappear in an instant. The rest slowly vanished, and the ones that were killed had none to take its place. Barons are different. However, they are lured by sentient flesh all the same.”
He made no move to elaborate, but instead beckoned for the Doomslayer to follow. “Come, they are waiting for you, Slayer.”