Chapter Text
Hell was dead.
There was no easy way to put it. It had bled dry, its inhabitants slaughtered for better or for worse. Prisoners of eternal torment: crushed beneath steel and anguish. Virtues and Providences in desperate search of their fallen archangel: shattered into a fine mist of blood. Filth, Mindflayers, Swordsmachines, Streetcleaners, Hideous Masses, Leviathan, Geryon, the Earthmover; everything, dead.
V1 felt no sympathy. It was a machine, programmed to kill and refuel and kill and refuel; lest something could best it in the endless, wicked dance of Hell's own jest and whims. Something stronger. Better.
Of which there was no one. No enemy had proved itself too strong, too fast, too difficult for the creature of steel, the child of man, to overcome.
So kill and refuel it would.
Except there was nothing left to kill—no more blood left to satiate its hunger. Not in Hell, at least.
...but Heaven?
***
> ANALYSING...
...
>WARNING:
>CRITICAL ERROR: BLOOD STORES LOW
>CRITICAL ERROR: BACKUP STORES DEPLETED
>CRITICAL-
V1 cast aside its system warnings with a low mechanical whine. With the kingdom in its sights, fuel would be a problem no longer. Towering gates shadowed the entrance, attempting to impose their glory upon the machine. But there were no Cerberi to guard the gates of Heaven, nor Hell itself to pull the strings.
The fight to breach Heaven was over within seconds. Not even the Will of God had been able to defeat this metallic creature, let alone the false light and protection of the so-called impregnable gates. V1 stepped into the polished marble landscape, observing with a keen lens. It was pristine: an architectural marvel—almost strikingly similar to the human descriptions and imaginings of their father's kingdom as far as the corroding data could tell. But more than that: it brimmed with fresh, warm bodies.
"Machine, halt!" came an echoing cry.
It ignored any demands made by the crowding angels. Rather, it simply flicked a coin into the air and-
+ RICOSHOT
Ah. So the terminals could still reach it here, still whisper praise into its ones and zeros and encourage it to quench their eternal boredom.
V1 bathed in the viscera of the Virtue, soaking it in with relative indifference. It needed more. No amount of bloodshed would satisfy it.
+ CRITICAL PUNCH
+ MULTIKILL x6
+ LIMB HIT
+ AIRSHOT
+ QUICKDRAW
+ ULTRARICOSHOT x4
+PROJECTILE BOOST
+PARRY
...
Now drowned in blood, the initial courtyard sprawled ahead of V1, its once glistening white tiles painted red with gore. The machine allowed itself to take in the simple beauty of it all. This place would be a breeze to defeat. Here, there were no cynical masterminds to puppeteer its actions, nor tortured souls with a hellish drive to kill. It was almost... disappointing, in a way. Of course, the divine and righteous citizens of Heaven would fight the machine to the bitter end. Of course, their bodies would contain the blood that it so desperately sought. But would they enthral V1? Would their battles prove difficult? Prove worthy? Would it get the same satisfaction of destroying Heaven, the archangels, perhaps even God himself, as it did when fighting Minos and Sisyphus Prime?
The answer was no. Heaven was not a place of wicked creatures and the even more wicked creations of mankind, like itself. Heaven had no demons, no Guttermen, no Earthmovers to shake its unshakable foundations—
V1 paused. Am I reminiscing... about Hell? A rare moment of self-reflection.
It continued onwards into Heaven, the pearly gates disappearing from view.
Angels cowered.
+ HEADSHOT
Angels shouted indignantly, as though their voices would besiege the machine.
+ ATTRAPTOR
Angels fought.
+ EXPLODED
+ CANNONBOOST
+ GROOVY
Angels died. V1 watched as the style metre, ever-present in its peripheral vision, kept ticking up.
ANARCHIC
SUPREME
SSADISTIC
SSSHITSTORM
It seemed that no one in these outer bounds of Heaven could ever hope to stop its blood lusted rampage.
"Be afraid, machine."
V1 knew that voice. Power.
"Here shall be your grave."
Their half-formed body sprang coyly from the light, the singular runic blue wing - a pathetic imitation of Gabriel's splendour—twitching and writhing behind them in a mockery of flight. The misshapen, helmed face turned towards it; calculating. "Surrender or perish," they said finally.
The machine chided in a series of broken ha-ha-ha-ha's and leapt upwards, marksman in hand.
The Power needed no more prompting. "Glaive!" they shouted, summoning a weapon of divine light.
+ FISTFUL OF DOLLAR
"An inconvenience at best," they taunted, their false golden arm twitching uselessly. "Rapier!"
Dashing away, V1 seized the opportunity to prepare a triple split-coin. But more Powers appeared in a blaze of glorious fire, throwing the steel creature off.
"Over here!" one shouted. "Great sword!"
It attacked and then fell back. The machine whiplashed on and charged a piercer shot.
"WRONG TARGET," they howled.
"Pay attention!" another demanded. "Spear!"
+ PARRY
The Power shrieked and fell to the ground, the weapon's light simmering away, singular hand clawing at the bloodied tiles.
+ KILL
The style metre ticked up again.
ULTRAKILL.