|| -------- -- -----  A E R I E   O B L I V I A N A . singular book of text wandertainment by Frank Edward Nora ------------------- ----------- HONEYSUCKLE ROVER--CUP 6--"VOC-4-IOPA-9DEN" <-------  ||  Severe Repair  ||  Honeysuckle Rover  ||  -------> (Cup SRhr006, Created v2 (6/7/99), Copyright 1999) = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = Forty-eight devils surrounded Sleap Drassy, forming the dread Unknowable Curse, a force beyond all reckoning. Sleap was bored. There was work to be done. "Don't feel bad." she said. "I've done a lot of Hells, and your powers are pretty impressive. You should be proud of yourselves." Suddenly, 18 satans hovered in a chaos-drive above Sleap, attempting to cut away her identity from 804 levels of existence deep. She felt it, but barely. This got her mad. "You fellows are quite talented, but this isn't a contest, it's a slaughter. Now be good little farm animals and LEARN!" With this, Sleap swung her left arm upward. Immediately, the beyond-grotesque wails of the suffering Infernals filled the stale air. The devils were writhing in unbelievable pain on the ground, soon followed by a rain of falling satans. "Just come here!" Sleap said, annoyed. After a few moments, a Lord appeared a few yards in front of Sleap--a huge, stately, antlered beast--the number one guy--Lord Ac. He just looked calmly at Sleap, smoke and little black balls pouring from his several sets of nostrils, a dull gray flame pulsating around his form. "Hi guy." Sleap said. Ac raised his huge arms, then folded them across his chest. "I assume you want my cooperation." the Lord said, sounding like distant thunder. "It would be nice. Taking your Hell apart and packing it up would be a lot quicker with the help of your sad little minions." Ac stared at Sleap, then blew a huge blast of smoke and balls. "You're so sure of yourself. So vastly more powerful than I. Proud Looter. Already planning to take our Heaven too, I assume." "I don't do Heavens. Too much whining." Ac stood still and silent. Sleap rolled her eyes. "Okay look!" she said, impatiently. "If you help, you're free. If not, you'll be sold into slavery like the rest. And I hope a Lord of your stature knows enough about us Looters to realize we keep our promises." "Oh yes." Ac said, a smile starting to form on his massive, crooked mouth. "I know about you. So cool--to prey on the predators. Put us in our place." Sleap frowned. "If the next two words out of your mouth aren't 'I accept', you're history. Though you'd fetch a high price, I'll obliterate you right here and now." "I..." Ac said, his smile widening. "Come on big boy. You can do it. And think, once you're free you can start building again--who knows--you could have a few good millennia before another Looter comes this way." "...will fuck you into ground meat and keep you alive like that for a hundred years--after that, I'LL JUST BE GETTING STARTED." "Like, wrong answer." Sleap said, making a fist, and fully expecting Ac to be a smoldering smear of protoplasm. It didn't happen. "Hahaha--prey on the predator--so cool." the Lord rumbled. "I know how it feels to be so much bigger, and now so much smaller, compared to the glory of you. Maybe you might feel small sometime. Maybe that sometime is..." Sleap's expression turned worried, as the hot Hell all around her and Ac silently shattered away, replaced by a featureless white void. "You are now the prey, Looter. When you chose my Hell to ravage, you chose the wrong Hell. For I am in contact with the Infernal Voc-4-Iopa-9den." "Huh?" "You, my friend, will be a fine addition to the Infernal Voc-4-Iopa-9den's Looter Zoo. And here the one is." Sleap got a sinking feeling. She had long had suspicions of entities more powerful than her kind, but she never expected to encounter one. Now... Voc-4-Iopa-9den came into view, all around Sleap as she floated in the white void, coming from at least 14 dimensions at once. At first Sleap was absolutely dizzied and zonked by the sight, but soon, a familiar feeling came to her. She was unimpressed. She yawned. And yet again, she became aware of more and more of herself. She had plans for this Voc-4-Iopa-9den, and the ultimate prize was at hand. But she had to act normal--act like a Looter facing the impossibility of a massively more powerful thing. So she expressed her force, emanating energies which could easily have annihilated the grandest of gods, rising ever more, beyond the point any of her kind would ever have dared, for fear of erasing all of everything. But still she was getting nowhere. Voc-4-Iopa-9den was coagulating into something vaguely understandable, but to Sleap, the hyper-ultra-inconceivable thing before her was laughable. Ac spoke. "Perceive the impossible, Looter." -------> ------------------- ----------- -------- -- -----