15 The Demon Within: Gods and Demons

"STOP! That's enough. None of you have any idea of the danger your in." The Professor shouted as he jumped in between a group of Maliaks and demons tearing into each other.

The aliens and the unholy monsters paused for a few seconds before simply continuing to fight.

The Professor was forced to overpower one of the Maliak soldiers and grab his gun. He then shot at the ceiling causing some rubble to fall, scattering the demons and Maliaks.

"Good now I have your attention."

"Who are you?" One of the demons shouted. "You're not one of these pitiful creatures?"

"I'm just a lowly traveller who got caught up in your mess. Like I said both of you have no idea the danger you're in. The Maliaks false god is a sore loser."

"How dare you blaspheme our god you."

"Your god is a demon. A filthy, low level, evil demon like these monsters, only worse. He's also got something really nasty in store for all of you." "Ever hear of the Garisja?" The Professor said to the demons in particular who all froze in fear.

"No it can't be." One of the most fearsome looking demonic creatures gasped.

"I take it you have. He said it was a hell even for demons, and that's where the Maliaks god plans to send us."

"You're lying." One of the Maliaks screamed at the Professor.

"Am I? Why did your god never allow you to set off your weapon? A weapon that can destroy any demon and would have allowed you to win the war in a second?"

"He was afraid that it was unstable and would harm us."

"So he never thought to try and perfect it? Test it out? He just abandoned it. Besides the way I see it, this can be a test of faith. You can either take continue to believe in your god and let your world be sucked into hell, or you can come with us and see if I'm lying, which you must be completely confident I am?"

The Maliaks didn't respond to the Professor. Instead they spoke to the demons instead.

"This changes nothing in the long run you understand." The Maliaks said to the demons.

"We know. Once this is over we'll still wipe you all from the face of the universe." The demon replied.

"You as well." The demon said to the Professor. "Once this is over we're going to tear you apart."

The Professor simply smiled mockingly at the demons threats.

The Maliaks god had sealed himself away in a special chamber below the base. None of the demons or his own followers would find him down here, or so he thought.

The god had almost finishing carrying out the ritual to suck the planet into the Garisja. He had been preparing the ritual since he had first arrived on the Maliaks home planet. All he needed was to sacrifice a few more natives to begin the process. The god had captured five female Maliaks, five males and two children. Unknown to them, the god had been preparing these Maliaks for years to be part of the final ritual to send this planet into the hell he had come from.

"Such a shame." He thought to himself as he calmly slaughtered the five males first.

"I really did have such high hopes for the Maliaks. Still there is an infinite number of worlds out there for me to mould." The ritual would ensure that the god would be the only being not to be sent to the Garisja universe. His magics would then carry him to another planet where he could start over again.

In the Abyss meanwhile Lindsey fought back against the prisoners as best she could, but it was no use. They bit her, scratched her, and beat Lindsey to the floor. As one of the savages bit into her neck, Lindsey started to black out. She was jolted awake just a few seconds later however, by the sound of a laser cutting down the savage prisoners one by one.

"Kirsteen thank you another second and those things."

"No, not Kirsteen whoever that is. Have you forgotten your old friend so quickly? Of course you haven't why else would you be here."

Lindsey looked up and saw to her horror her former travelling companion, Hilioma.

Hilioma dropped her gun and ran to hug Lindsey.

"I never thought I'd see you again. I should have known that you and the Professor would never just abandon me. When I saw that familiar black bat fly through the sky, I knew that this nightmare was finally over."

"How long have you been here." Lindsey said.

"I don't know exactly. The days tend to blend into one another in this wasteland. I lost count at 40 years."

"40 years, Hilioma I'm, I'm so sorry I."

"It doesn't matter, now you've come back for me. That crazy old vampire eh. I should have known he'd dream something up. I always used to say there's nothing he couldn't do if he puts his mind to it."

Lindsey couldn't bare to tell Hilioma the truth, but she didn't want to give her false hope for another second.

"Hilioma I." Hilioma, almost as if she knew what Lindsey was going to say picked up her gun.

"Well shouldn't we be going." Hilioma said with a large, awkward smile. She looked like she could snap at any second. Clearly the years in the Abyss had driven Hilioma mad. Lindsey would have to play this very carefully not to join her.

"Right we need to reach the control panel. A quick regeneration spell should bring it back. Come on we need to move now." Lindsey said.

Up above, meanwhile the demon slammed the Maliak and Kirsteen against a wall.

"I'm telling you I just joined them, I have no idea what the hell is going on here." Kirsteen said. The demon didn't listen. It almost didn't care. The rock demons belonged to a particularly nasty breed from the planet Olexia. They were created through the very darkest magics and were almost indestructible. They had overrun Olexia and turned it into a hell world that was avoided by all of the other planets in their galaxy.

They had been kept out of the alliance against the Maliaks until recently as a result, but when the demons found out just how dangerous the Maliaks god was, the alliance was forced to turn to them out of desperation. These demons more than any other had given the alliance the final push it needed to overcome the Maliaks army.

As the monster slowly squeezed the life out of its two prisoners, Kirsteen noticed a tiny tear in the demons armour near its chest. It was a scratch created by the Mystellan in their brief scrap in the hall.

Kirsteen dug her nails into the hole. To her surprise the monster doubled back in pain. It had virtually no resistance to pain under that armour as to be fair virtually nothing could break through it.

Kirsteen and the Maliak soldier ran past the demon and out into the hall, with the Maliak picking up his gun in the process. To their surprise there were dozens of humanoid creatures in the halls. Like the prisoners who had attacked Lindsey they were feral and vicious, and the Maliak leader didn't hesitate to shoot them when they got near despite Kirsteen's protests. Unfortunately the magic only stopped him from harming Kirsteen and Lindsey and the Professor, the crew of the vessel, not other intruders.

Lindsey and Hilioma meanwhile had managed to make their way to the back engine. Hilioma had been utterly ruthless in dispatching all of the prisoners she came into contact with, though to be fair that was only because they had killed her many times before anyway.

When they reached the room Lindsey started to chant the spell, whilst Hilioma held off the prisoners. One of the prisoners however was a large pinkish, slimy demon that was immune to the effects of Hilioma's gun. The rays did cut through the beast but the wounds healed instantly. Hilioma knew the monster well. It was one of the most feared creatures in the entire Abyss. It had even personally killed Hilioma several times before now.

Hilioma aimed for the creatures eyes and whilst it stood around blinded for a few seconds, several of the other prisoners seized their chance and jumped on the monster and started to tear chunks out of the demon, but its wounds healed again however. Fortunately it was too distracted by the hordes of prisoners to bother Lindsey and Hilioma again.

Suddenly the ship started to move.

"Finally after so long its over, its really" Hilioma's joy was cut short when her gun fell out of her hands and she started to notice that she and the other prisoners were beginning to fade into nothing.

"What's going on? Lindsey?" She asked.

"I'm so sorry Hilioma. I'm afraid there's nothing I can do. The ship can't take you or any of the other prisoners out of here. The Abyss holds onto you literally."

"No, no, please, you can't come this far and just abandon me."

Lindsey was silent.

"Oh I see. You never came here for me. You had just abandoned me."

"Hilioma if there was anything I could."

"You coward, both of you are cowards. After all we went through, you're just going to leave me here at the mercy of those things, to die over and over and over!"

Lindsey burst into tears and looked away. In a matter of seconds the ship was back in the vortex again with all of the prisoners being left behind in the Abyss.

Hilioma looked around at the same black pit that had been her home for the past half a century. She had waited so long for her two friends, people she had once loved as a family to come and save her. Now she knew for sure they would never come. She didn't give up on escaping the Abyss however. If anything Hilioma felt more determined than ever to crawl out of this black hole and get revenge on the people who in her mind had betrayed her.

The Maliaks god had almost finished its ritual. Only the two children remained who huddled together in fear as the god, who had morphed into his true, monstrous demonic form, and was dripping in the blood of his previous victims, stood over them.

"Don't cry. Compared to the rest of this planet. You're getting off easy." The false god taunted its final few victims.

Before the demon could carry out the final part of its gruesome sacrifice however, the Professor came smashing through the roof using his vampire strength, followed by four more demons and three Maliak foot soldiers.

"How did you find me."

"I'm a vampire. My sense of smell is advanced. I can trace you for miles. Mind you I could probably track you for miles without it. Just because you're a god doesn't mean you don't have to bathe." The Professor said.

The demon flew into a rage and attacked the Professor. The vampire couldn't possibly hope to actually harm the demon, but he was faster and was able to dodge its attacks and keep the monster preoccupied whilst the Demon and the Maliak foot soldiers rescued the children.

The demon/god soon realised he was being tricked and started to follow the demon and Maliak soldiers. The Professor tried to distract him again, but this time the false god simply batted him away.

Outside the entire planet had become a warzone. The demons the Professor had worked with contacted the command centre to tell them of the danger they were in. Whilst that had been enough to convince the demons to form a temporary truce with the Maliaks, most of the Maliaks sadly still refused to believe their God was really a monster.

Worse than that however, as the god's ritual was nearing completion, several demons from the Garisja universe began to bleed into the Maliak's home planet. They were giant, hideous creatures, who made even the fearsome demons from Olexia cower and tremble. The sky of the Maliaks home planet itself began to tear open. There was virtually nowhere for the Demons and the Maliak soldiers to get the children to safety.

"Lindsey, Lindsey" Kirsteen shouted as she and the Maliak Leader raced down the corridors. They had managed to lose the Olexian demon, but they had no idea where he had got to. The beast could have been round any corner. Eventually they found Lindsey still in the back up control room, sobbing.

"Lindsey, what's wrong, what happened."

"Who were those creatures." The Maliak leader said more forcefully.

"Time travellers" Lindsey said through the tears.

"People like us. Like I told you before Kirsteen. Time cannot be changed. That place we visited it's where time travellers who have changed history go. The Abyss."

"Oh god. I'd hoped, however small that the Professor was just exaggerating what he told me earlier."

"He wasn't. I can assure you. I just got a little reminder of the reality of the Abyss, which I hope I never do again."

"Come on." Lindsey said as she stood up and wiped the tears from her face. "We have a planet to save."

"One of the demons is still loose on the ship" The Maliak leader said.

"Well don't worry about him. Once we set the bomb off he'll fry along with the rest of those monsters. "

"But how will we get the ship past the fleet."Kirsteen asked.

"We're not going to." Lindsey said.

"The ship is going to take us back to the Maliaks home planet."

"You can't do that. You'll risk us all. The god said that weapon wasn't safe."

"He's a liar. According to the Professor, your planet's already being sucked into hell. We might be too late."

"I will not risk my people!"

A whirling noise interrupted them.

"We've arrived." Lindsey said as she walked down the hall, ignoring the Maliak's pleas.

Suddenly the rock demon appeared from around a corner and held the Maliak leader from behind.

It slowly squeezed his neck. Kirsteen just as before reached for its wound, but this time it batted her away.

Lindsey went for the Maliak leaders weapon and started to fire at the rock demon. She managed to get a lucky shot in and hit the tiny hole in its armour. The heat ray cooked the Demon from the inside and killed it instantly.

Kirsteen went to help the Maliak leader up who looked at her in shock, whilst Lindsey didn't even notice.

Back on the planet meanwhile the demon and Maliak soldiers carrying the two children were cornered by a gigantic demonic creature from the Garisja.

It was a snake demon with a hideous, frog like head at either end and was over forty feet long. The demons held the monster off whilst the Maliaks ran for cover with the two children retreating to behind the remains of a nearby wall. Unfortunately their attention was so focused on the Snake, that the Maliaks "God" was able to sneak up on them. In a matter of seconds it killed all of the Maliak soldiers before turning its attention to the two children.

Once again however the Professor was able to intervene in time. He jumped the demon/god from behind, but again it instantly batted him off and chased the Professor, but the vampire spoke a quick enchantment that was nothing more than a light show. It temporarily disoriented the demon, but that was all he needed to do, to catch the false god and flip him over his head straight into the larger snake demon. Before the demon/god could even react the larger snake creature swallowed him whole in a single bite.

The demons and the Professor burst out laughing at the sight, but their joy was short lived as the god not only burst out of the larger demon, he ripped it in two in the process.

The demons and the Professor all descended on the god, but he effortlessly batted them all away.Whilst he may have been a low level nobody back home. Centuries of travelling the universe, and improving his powers through both advanced alien science and magic had made him practically a god in terms of power compared to the majority of demons in our reality.

As all seemed lost, the Professor's ship suddenly appeared in the sky. Lindsey had programmed it to take her to where the Professor would be.

Lindsey prepared to teleport the Professor onboard. Whilst the Professor and Lindsey could only teleport from the one space on the ground, the ship itself could teleport them from anywhere. As soon as the ship had arrived however several giant winged demons from the Garisja dimension started to attack it. Many of them were almost as large as the vessel itself and they were more than powerful enough to destroy it.

Lindsey tried to activate the teleportation device in the commotion, but she couldn't get a fix on the Professor.

"We can't wait any longer", Kirsteen shouted as the ship was rocked back and forth.

Lindsey knew she was right. She couldn't put the Professor before an entire world and with extreme regret, she went to activate the bomb. The Maliaks leader went to try and stop her, but the magics again held him back. In a matter of minutes a purple light swept across the entire planet. All of the demons who were engulfed in it began to collapse in pain. The demon/god, having easily overpowered the Professor had been seconds away from killing the children and sending this world into hell.

With the winged horrors incapacitated, Lindsey was able to teleport the Professor onboard along with the two children (who he grabbed onto before he was teleported.) He had only been in the rays light for under a minute, but the Professors flesh was badly burned. Even in the ship he still wasn't safe as the bomb continued to eat away at him.

"We'll never be able to make it away from the blast in time." The Maliak leader said.

"No which is why we're going forward in time." Lindsey replied as she sent the ship forward two weeks until after the radiation from the bomb had died down.

The last sight the god saw was his body being eaten away by a weapon created by the very race he had built up.

It would take the Professor several days to recover from the effects of the bomb. His vampire healing powers were great, but the bomb was capable of destroying even the most powerful demons.

After the Professor had recovered, he, Lindsey, and Kirsteen took the Maliak leader and the two children back to the surface of his planet. They arrived right in front of the former god's corpse, now only distinguished from the other monsters by its cloak.

The Maliak leader sunk to his knees at the sight. It really had all been for nothing. His entire life had been a lie. So many of his friends, even his family had happily given their lives for a monster. The leader picked the charred skeleton of his former god up and started to tear it apart. He ripped its skull off and crushed it under his boot. He tore several ribs and both its legs off and threw them against a wall. He shattered its entire spine off of his knees and ripped the entire demon in half.

"ALL LIES" he shouted in despair.

"Yes it was." The Professor said. "You're race isn't the first to be duped by a charlatan. At least you've been given a second chance now. It's your job to show your people a new way. Reject everything that monster taught you. It won't be easy. Even without his influence, no species likes to imagine it's not special. You've got a long road ahead of you."

"You can't leave us now. You need to help us rebuild. You need to help me convince the others." The Leader pleaded.

"I'm afraid not we're constantly on the move." The Professor replied.

"But what about the alliance? Surely they'll come after us again?"

"I don't think so. The bomb took care of their demon army. If they want to attack again they'll have to do it themselves. I'm not saying it will be easy but there's a better chance of peace with the alliance rather than their demon thugs. If you tell them the truth and make it clear you're of no threat to them. There will be peace."

The Professor got Lindsey and Kirsteen into position as he prepared to teleport up.

"Thank you." The Maliak Leader said. "I'm, I'm sorry for the way I treated you. All for that monster" He said as he kicked what was left of the former god's skeleton.

"You can thank us by tearing down what's left of his legacy." Lindsey replied.

"Before we go you could also tell us your name?" She continued.

"Individual names weren't important when he was around. We were just tools to him. I am Grassilous."

"Well Grassilous. Good luck. Make sure everything we did today wasn't for nothing" Lindsey said as she, Kirsteen and the Professor teleported back up into their ship which then sped off through the vortex to another time and place.

On the ship Lindsey was quiet, which troubled the Professor and Kirsteen.

"Do you think there is a chance for the Maliaks?" Kirsteen said, trying to break the silence.

"Oh yes, I think so" The Professor said as he adjusted the controls. "As I told, what's his name down there, they're not the only race to be taken in by a charlatan and made to feel special. It's sadly an all too familiar pattern among sentient creatures."

The Professor approached Lindsey.

"I'm sorry you had to visit the Abyss Lindsey, I don't."

"I saw her." Lindsey said.

The Professor never liked to even think about Hilioma. He felt more responsible than anyone else as he had invited her to join him.

"I had to leave her Professor. I saw her fade away as I left her in that godforsaken." Lindsey burst into tears as she collapsed into the Professor's arms.

Kirsteen didn't know anything about Hilioma, but she couldn't help but be disturbed at what she was hearing. She fully understood now that she couldn't go back to her old life, but what would become of her now. Would it always be this dangerous? Would she eventually make a mistake like their former companion and end up in that hell hole. She felt like breaking down herself at the thought of it all.

Back on the planet they had left Grassilious had gathered before a crowd of Maliaks who were shouting and screaming and fighting. Grassilious held up the former fake god's cloak to the crowd who suddenly stopped in their tracks.

"Our God was a fake. He was a demon, just like the ones who ravaged our planet. Except he did more harm to us than those monsters ever did. He turned us into the monsters. He's gone now. Burned with all the other demons, but his stain infects all of us. We have to wipe all traces of him from our culture, our history."

The Maliaks below started jeering and screaming and so Grassilous threw their former gods cloak into the crowd. They all scattered at first, but eventually one of the Maliaks, a young woman went near the cloak and picked it up. She started to wear it and even danced around, mockingly which caused the crowd to burst out into laughter.

Little did any of the Maliak's know their god was not completely dead. His body may have been destroyed, but his soul lived on. He watched the crowd, seething with rage. Fortunately there was nothing he could do yet. Even his spirit had been weakened by the bomb, but he would bide his time. Sadly his influence over the Maliaks and other races in the universe was far from over.