Thrown into hell, part 4

With the sound of the last flash of lightning distantly rumbling in the background, Mark could only shake his head in disbelief as the boat pulled up to the shore, his mind still numb with what he had just seen. “… Wow, I never would have expected anything like that to even exist, let alone in hell. Seriously, why was the riverside covered completely by flowe-”

“Shush! You promised not to tell!” Homer scolded as he whacked him over the head with his oar as punishment. He then proceeded to let out a small whimper when it broke in half, reminding the others of a disappointed mouse. “Ah, come on, that’s just cruel; now how are we supposed to steer the boat?”

Mark stared at him as the two seraphs got off the boat and climbed onto the grassy plane before he let out a sigh and waved his hand; repairing the broken oar and making Homer let out a happy squeak. He then proceeded to turn a very red colour as he realised what he had just done. “Fine, just don’t do that again, okay?”

“Sure, I’ll make a note never to whack any seraphim over the head with an oar again. I’ll put it right next to never make fun of Satan’s horns again, my ass was sore for a week after he had his way with me…” A broad grin spread across his face as he saw the horrified look on Mark’s face. “Relax, I’m kidding; there’s no way in hell that I would be stupid enough to do something like that and Satan isn’t allowed to do that to any of us on this level… I think.”

“Right… Well, I suppose we’d better continue on then?” Shaking his head, Mark looked at Echidna, who gave a nod and looked back for a second at the two poets, who were currently arguing over who would get to steer. Letting out a small chuckle at the sight of two of the most well known poets in the history of Rome arguing like children, they then proceeded to walk towards a huge crowd of people milling about; all the while Mark was taking in the landscape.

As he would have expected it was a huge grassy plane that put the Savannah to shame and was far bigger than the last one they had walked through; it seemed almost endless to him. Inside this huge plane their was an endless sea of people mixed together; all with a sombre and bored expression’s written across their faces as the appeared amongst the crowd for a second before they disappearing again. In the distance Mark could just make out the distant snowy peaks of mountain tops that littering the landscape and finally, the massive stone turrets of a huge castle looming over them, directly in the centre of the crowd.

As they approached the crowd in silence Mark began to look around carefully to see if he could recognise any familiar faces. However, that was right before he stopped dead in his tracks as he caught sight of the cape wearing, long toothed count that was passing by him. “… Dracula? What are you doing here? You don’t even exist.

Pausing mid stride, the evil count gave off a weary sigh as if he had said this many times before. “No, I am not Dracula but Vlad III the Impaler, the person who he is based off. And before you ask, no, these are not real; they are plastic.” He spoke before Mark could interupt, before then pulling out the plastic fangs to show him. “Can you believe this, though? Me, the savior of my country and one of most well known and respected figures in the Christian religion being forced to wear these ridiculous plastic fangs; it’s insulting, I’ll tell you what.

Starring at him in complete bafflement, it took him a moment before he could gather his thoughts properly, let alone say something in response. “But… didn’t you viciously torture and kill over ten thousand people? Shouldn’t you be on one of the highest levels of hell and not the lowest?”

He just gave him a long hard stare. “My dear boy, you do realize that what I did was necessary for my country’s survival, right?” taking one look at the open and aghast on Mark’s face he couldn’t help but sigh in annoyance. “Look, to put it simply, by impaling those soldiers alive I was able to scare off an army over ten times the size of mine and I was able to stop my country from being enslaved by the Turks. Besides, by doing that I spared far more soldiers lives that day than if the assault had still continued, not that it really mattered now that I think about it.”

“… I suppose you have a point there, but what about all those poor people that you tortured?”

Vlad snorted. “Poor? Ha! You do realize that basically all of them possessed the same knowledge of torture that I did; where do you think I got the information from? The Turks taught me everything I know in that subject and sent me back to give them control of my country; but they never expected that I would betray them. If I hadn’t stopped them then, then the same fate would have awaited a far greater number of my people as well.”

“… Alright, maybe you’ve got a point their, but what about all the other people you impaled? Like that village with the mayor on top as the cherry?”

Once again he snorted in mirth, all the while examining his nails in a bored manner. “Most of them are unfounded and vicious lies made up by my enemies to portray me in a bad light; it’s the same as Elizabeth, or the so called ‘blood countess’. She’s actually quite a nice person to get along with and has never got involved with any of the crimes that she was accused of, let alone massacre hundreds of women through torture; why do you think there never was any court case?”

“I’ll admit though, I did use my knowledge on criminals a little bit to much, that’s the reason why I’m here instead of heaven… but I never went to the extent that was said by my enemies, nowhere near it in fact. Anyway, that’s all in the past and I really must be going young man, I…” Pausing for a moment, he eyed the hunched over figure that had stopped by him in mirth. “Oh, I see you managed to escape them again Virgil; how on earth do you do it?”

Mark couldn’t help but blink in disbelief at who had interrupted them; clad in a long blue coat, slicked back silver hair with cold frosty blue eyes it could only be the half demon Virgil Sparda, panting heavily as if he had run a couple of miles. “Oh, hey Vlad, I see you’re still your disgruntled self as always. And what has allowed you to grace us with your presence in such non-revealing clothes for once, lady Echidna?”

Chuckling loudly, Echidna could only shake her head in mirth at the blue clad figure. “Your as punctual as always I see my good poet; I take it your still having trouble with your ‘fanclub’?”

He let out a loud sigh of annoyance. “Nope, their still as persistent as always; I don’t think I’ve managed to get a wink of sleep ever since that blasted ‘devil may cry’ series came out. I don’t know how many times I’ve told them that I’m not interested, they just won’t listen to reason. It’s really frustatin…” a deep rumbling sound filled the air. “… God damnit, why can’t I just lose them? Sorry about having to leave so soon, but I’ve got to run!” As soon as he said this he began to weave in and out of the crowd, quickly disappearing amongst it. It was a good thing he had done that, since as no sooner that he said that then a massive group of teenage girls charged past them and barged through the crowd, in a desperate search for the poet, tusked up as a half demon. All the while they were shouting desperate pleas for him to stop.

“Please don’t run away Virgil! We’ll treat you nicely, we swear it!”

“It doesn’t matter if you’re gay! We still love you!”

“We’ll treat you so nicely that you’ll love it! We swear it!”

It seemed that as quickly as they had appeared they were lost amongst the swelling crowd, leaving a baffled Mark, a bored Vlad and amused Echidna. “What the hell? Does this happen often?”

“Pretty much all the time; I myself have a number of fans considering who I am fictionally. I’ll admit that it can get pretty tiring dealing with them all time, but it is only Virgil who has to resort to running from them; the rest of us know how to… indulge ourselves.”

For a moment Mark just stared at him, right before he burst out into laughter at the ridiculousness of the situation he was in. “You know, when I first came here I thought it would be a dull and placid plain; I didn’t expect it to be as crazy as this!”

For the first time since he had bumped into the two of them, a broad grin broke out on the counts’ face. “I know what you mean; it’s great isn’t it? I actually prefer being dead than alive nowadays; what with all the stress and guilt I had to deal with while alive. Not to mention all the fringe benefits…”

“Oh my god! You’re the count!”

“Speak of the devil…” With a broad, somewhat lust filled grin, he stared hungrily at the buxom blonde who was starring at him in excitement in tight fitting clothing. He paused to give a slight bow to the two of them before he left. “It was nice to see you again Echidna, do give my regards to Satan for the good work, I’ve got some work to do…”

Chuckling as the sight of the count with his arms locked around the babbling blonde, a predatoral grin on his face as he slowly disappeared amongst the crowd, echidna just shook her head with amusement. “Well, it seems that Virgil problem is still as amusing as ever; he should just give up, hell will freeze over before they give up. Anyway, I think it’s time we headed to the castle.”

Nodding in amusement, the grin soon slid off his face as he saw that the castle was on the over side of the crowd; he winced. “Geez, do we have to do go through the crowd to get to it though? Last time I went through a crowd even remotely big I ended up with covered in bruises from being shoved down to the ground.”

Chuckling again, this time even louder than the last time, Echidna began to head into the crowd, a crackle of blue lightning spreading over her body. “While I usually don’t agree with this method, it’s a technique that most other demons enjoy using here and I’ve been ordered to shorten the time spent on this plane; that, and this is the quickest way through here, so…. Anyway, just follow my lead and imagine that that your body is surrounded by lightning and listen to the number of screams; or so I’ve been told.”

Wincing again as the sound of surprised and somewhat painful yelps filled the air, Mark could only shake his head as he did the same and headed into the crowd.

About an hour and countless swearwords later…

“Damn you Echidna! Not you too! I thought you were one of the better ones!”

“Sorry; I’ve been ordered to do this by Master Satan.”

“Ow! That stings, you dammed, de… hey, I haven’t seen you before; what’s your name?”

“It’s Mark.”

“… What kind of a name for demon is that? From now your new name is Bob!”

“… That’s an even worse name for a demon than Mark.”

Grunting slightly in annoyance, Echidna grabbed hold of Mark and pulled him out of the crowd and into the castle entrance hall before he could get into an another argument with a bored disbeliever. “Oh no, were not wasting any more time arguing with people; we would already be on the second level if you hadn’t wasted the last half an hour arguing with that atheist over what kind of machine gun is better.”

“Hey, it’s not my fault that he didn’t know that M4’s are superior than gattling guns; the weight difference alone should a could indication for that.” He protested weakly as she let go of him and they proceeded through the main entrance hall and into another, smaller crowd of spirits. “Even though why an Atheist knew so much about guns is kind of disturbing…”

“Quite a few reformed gun nuts choose to follow atheism and you know that; your old war buddy Ben turned into an Atheist after the war, don’t you remember?”

A thoughtful look spread across his face as they stepped into the crowd; seconds later squawks of pain and surprise began to fill the air. “Oh yeah; hey since he died a little while ago do you think why might bump into him?”

“No, considering that he’s similar to you he’s probably up in heaven.”

“True…” He muttered in agreement as they stepped out of the now somewhat more fined crowd, the few last squawks of pain transforming into annoyed grumbling. Their eyes set upon the stone-stairway spiraling downwards near the fireplace. “Ah, that must the entrance to the second level right?”

“Yep, the first proper level of hell as well.” Echidna ushered to him as the two of them proceeded down the staircase, Echidna in front while Mark bringing up the rear. “Now, while we’re heading down I think this will be an excellent time for me to give you a basic rundown of the regulations down here…

________

Disclaimer: I don't own any products relating to the Simpsons or the Devil May Cry series, they belong to Matt Groening and Capcom.

... That was just to make sure that I don't breach any copy right issues or could possibly breach them; I would have write them out of the story but I felt that would effect the story to much and I didn't really want to. But from this point onwards I will make sure not to use any more copyrighted people.

Part One

Part Two

Part Three