[MV] The Super Wizard From Space #4

[Wil Alambre]

Cocytus the demon-glacier had the Super Wizard From Space engulfed
in its icy grasp, forever to be a frozen prisoner of the ninth
circle of Hell. Meanwhile the victorious Devil stood atop the
massive field of ice, grateful to be back home.

The Devil tilted his head back, closed his eyes, and just basked
in the warmth of the burning red hell-skies. It had been so long
since he had stood and just appreciated his realm, let the
hell-sun's light fall on him and let the hell-breeze flow over
him. The last time he had stood on hell-ground, he had been
unappreciative and spiteful, running away from his
hell-responsibilities to experience the thrills of crime-fighting
in the mortal world. { Diabolical Devilman #1 }

Now he would fight tooth and claw before anyone forced him out.

His peaceful moment was interrupted by a sense of discomfort from
the frozen mass beneath his feet. The demon-glacier was shifting
slightly. It was in pain. Deep in the dirty, opaque ice, the Devil
could see a pinprick of light, a faint glow within the frozen
darkness.

Then the pinprick grew. And grew. And became a ball of starlight,
beams of yellow heat refracting and radiating through the ice
floe's structure. Cracks appeared across the surface.

With an eruption of solar power, the glacier burst, building-sized
chunks of ice and stone hurtled across the plain. The
demon-glacier's cry was drowned out by the ferocious booms and
smashes of landscape crashing down on landscape.

Climbing out of the newly formed ice-canyon, the Super Wizard From
Space still glowed with the burning star-power within him.

"You've killed Cocytus!" cried the Devil.

"Dropping us both into Hell may have restored your full power, but
it has not reduced mine in the slightest." The Super Wizard From
Space wiped mud and gravel from his sight, his eyes meeting the
Devil's straight on. "Your frozen lake could not hold me."

"Perhaps not, but there are others who are willing to try."
Pointing his pitchfork upwards, the hell-sky darkened, red
lightning crackling across the new blackness. The Devil shouted
against the roar, "from it's perch on the violence-cliffs
overlooking the hell-ditches of the malebolge, I call upon the
giant-beast... Geryon!"

The black hell-clouds parted and crawling down from the vast pit
above them came a monstrous dragon-shaped creature. It clung to
the sky with it's lion paws, it's talons dug into the top of the
world. With a twisted, hate filled face of a bearded man, it
hissed, poisonous spittle raining down on the broken field.

"Get him!" commanded the Devil, pointing his pitchfork at the
Super Wizard From Space.

Geryon bellowed out a terrible growl and pounced from the sky
down, great leathery wings beating the air with deafening
drumfire. The Super Wizard From Space bent his knees a moment,
clenched his fists, and then leap into the air, flying at the
dragon-beast in a streak of pale light.

The bearded face of the monster took in a great breath and then
expelled a torrent of vile green poison at the figure racing at
it. Bringing both hands up in front of him, palms upwards, the
Super Wizard From Space pushed up hard and faster, the pale light
spiralling up in front of him like the tip of a rifle bullet. The
green liquid poison split on the point, the lit wizard cutting
through the substance like an arrow through a sheet of paper.

As the wizard cleared the poisonous assault, the huge wings pumped
stopping the giant-beast in mid plunge and it swatted the blue
insect with one of it's massive paws. The pale light cocoon
shattered like glass but the wizard grasped the taloned paw. The
monster howled, shaking it's leg trying to dislodge him, but the
wizard held his grip, crawling up the appendage using the lion fur
as his handholds.

When he reached the joint where the scales started, he hugged the
leg as much as he could, bracing his feet on the shin, and with a
heave of his star-powered strength, twisted until he heard a
crunch of broken hell-bone.

The creature howled in pain, flailing chaotically. The Super
Wizard From Space glided away, above the giant dragon-body. He
pointed at it's wings, one straight index finger at each of them,
and a blue beam raced from the tips. The leathery appendages
suddenly shrunk in size. Half, then half again, and then half
again.

The anger-filled eyes of the bearded face widened in confusion as
it suddenly could not keep itself in the air. Slowly at first, but
then gaining speed, it's weight caused it to plummet out of the
hell-sky.

The Devil had to scamper out of the way as his giant-beast crashed
onto the ice plain with a shaking hell-quake. It kicked with it's
hind legs, turning onto it's remaining good paws and glared up at
the blue-clad speck, roaring out an animal hell-challenge.

The Super Wizard From Space dived straight down at the
giant-beast, arms outstretched in front of him, using his own
powered flight to increase his super-speed.

The giant-beast coiled it's dragon body, folded its small useless
wings against its back. The bearded face narrowed its eyes like a
cat; it whipped its tail a few times then, with a surprising burst
of agility, it leapt up at the dropping wizard. Fanged mouth open.
And salivating.

The wizard uncurled his fists and opened his palms downward flat.
The pale light coiled around him, reforming the pointed cone.

With a sharp blast, the light-projectile entered the mouth,
shredding the dragon-throat, bursting through the gigantic
dragon-heart, drilling a fiery hole through the dragon-stomach,
and exploding out the back end of the giant-beast. Geryon was dead
before it realized it's meal had killed it.

It tumbled back down to the hard surface of the glacier again,
it's weight causing the already weak ground to turn to a jagged
shaking mess. The Devil cried out, falling over, losing his grip
on his weapon, tossed about by hailing meat and bile and blood.

Two! Two hell-demons killed! He pushed a particularly large piece
of dead dragon off him just as a blue boot kicked him across the
jaw. The Devil went sprawling onto his back in a blast of pain.

When he opened his eyes, he only had a moment to recognize the
pale star-glow of the super-champion crown. The Super Wizard From
Space had the Devil's pitchfork, and he plunged it through the the
Devil's abdomen.

"ARGH!"

"You were foolish to waste your resurrection trying to trap me,"
the Super Wizard From Hell said, pushing the prongs of the weapon
through the Devil's hell-gut to the frozen ground under him.

Despite the hell-pain, the Devil lurched forward on the pitchfork,
grabbing at the wizard's arms with his own clawed hands. "Not a
trap," he spit out, "I was only the bait."

The prongs of the pitchfork flickered with hell-power and glacier
crumbled underneath them, both falling through a second red mist.
Caught off guard a second time, the Super Wizard From Space fell
through an infinity while also not falling at all, the fresh new
mist seeming to grab and yank at him, dragging him down past
fourteen, sixteen, and eighteen sphere-like dimensions at a faster
and faster speed. Sound was nonexistent, light was nonexistent,
but he could feel the corpse of the demon-glacier, the red clay
plains and black crags that trapped it in its pit, all of Hell
that contained it whisked up, out and, away from him.

This time, when the world around him solidified and the ground
came rushing up, the Super Wizard From Space was prepared. He
caught himself, landing roughly on the balls of his feet, one hand
flat in front of him for balance. The mist wavered away, revealing
a gritty cobblestone road that lead to a fantastically massive
fortress wall, infinite in length and height. Made of black iron
and reinforced with ugly scratchy stone, he could make out where
towers and ramparts jutted out illogically.

Directly in front of him, a huge wooden double-gate was creaking
open with the screeching wrenching sound of two hundred screaming
souls. It took long, drawn out moments for the impossibly heavy
doors to scrape open enough to allow a single massive figure to
march out.

The creature was monstrous in size, at least twice the wizard's
own height. It had leathery red skin, two massive curled goat
horns protruding from it's forehead, and burning yellow eyes that
seems to spit out hell-sparks wherever they gazed. A twisted black
circlet of thorns and razor wire hovered over it's cracked skull,
glowing with a hateful darkness. The massive grin dribbled thick
lava and the great cloven feet left smashed cracked magma as it
walked toward him. It dragged a giant three-pronged pitchfork of
gold, almost comically too large for even it's size though it
managed it easily with a single clawed hand.

The hell-fire filled yellow eyes stared down at the impaled Devil,
looking sickly and small on the ground, then at the crouched
wizard. It's malicious grin widened sickeningly, two rows of
yellowed fangs showing.

"Hey there, jerks! Welcome to Double-Hell! I'm the Super-Devil!"
he belched out a harrowing laugh.

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AUTHOR'S NOTES

Originally when I wrote this Wizard-vs-Devil arc, it was only
going to be two issues. When I was finishing up writing the second
part, however, I realized it was twice as long as any of the
previous issues. I was really enjoying the 1000-1500 word length
and preferred to keep at that. So I split the issue, the
two-parter now becoming a three-parter. I'm not certain that was
the best decision. I'm afraid this middle part of the story now
comes across as a bit repetitive without the pay-off of the last
part. In retrospect, I could have cut out the entire fight with
Geryon and been okay with an issue at around 2000 words, but I'm
trying to get these out weekly on Tuesdays and didn't think of it
in time. Oh well, hope you still find fun in them. :)

NEXT ISSUE: REVENGE OF THE DIABOLICAL DEVILMAN

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Wil Alambre, follow me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/wilalambre