"Rip and tear until it is done." Is the last thing I hear Rob say before I step through the portal into the universe of Doom, on Mars.
The first thing I notice as I step onto the surface of Mars is a large tower surrounded by an impressive multipurpose facility.
The UAC Mars Argent facility. The United Aerospace Corporation even managed to partially terraform Mars to give it a breathable atmosphere.
I spread my aura throughout the base as thinly as I can to avoid detection.
As my aura washes over the base, housing a permanent workforce of over 50.000 people, I read the memories of a few of the more important looking people.
The year is 2149 and it's apparently been a few days since an expedition into Hell led to Dr. Samuel Hayden finding the sarcophagus containing the Doom Slayer.
I specifically search for any knowledge relating to this facility, the Doom Slayer and demons.
To my surprise, I actually find living demons in a separate part of the Advanced Research Complex called the Lazarus Labs. As I start reading the minds of people working here, it gets more disturbing by the second.
Everyone working here is a cultist, led by Dr. Olivia Pierce, fully intent on opening a portal to hell and sacrificing themselves to demons.
I soon find the two people in charge of this entire base in a heated argument. Doctors Samuel Hayden and Olivia Pierce.
Samuel Hayden is a 2,8 meter tall robot with a human brain, while Olivia Pierce is a woman in her fifties whose body is cybernetically augmented as treatment to her Scoliosis which, otherwise, would have bound her to a wheelchair for life.
For now, I decide to ignore them as I've found him. The Doom Slayer.
He's in the most secure part of the whole facility, in a lab surrounded by elite UAC guards.
I turn myself into a small swarm of energy spores, traveling through the walls, and reassemble myself standing right next to the sarcophagus containing the Slayer.
"What the hell! Who are you?!" One of the scientists says as he walks into the room.
Immediately two others who were working on computers look up and notice me as well.
Without looking at them, I put them all to sleep before they can sound an alarm.
From my aura I can sense, Vega, the sentient AI in charge of the facility has noticed my presence and has just notified Samuel Hayden the moment Olivia Pierce left his office.
I make a solid aura barrier, preventing the Elite Guards from entering the lab.
I grab the lid of the sarcophagus, which is surprisingly heavy at over five thousand kilograms. I push it off, opening the sarcophagus and revealing the Doom Slayer wearing his Praetor suit.
I let my aura wash over the suit as I'm basically scanning its inner workings. The armor is made of a metal alloy I can only partially identify. There's a small amount of gold, some platinum, titanium and a significant amount of an unknown metal.
Underneath the armored shell I find elaborate circuitry throughout the entire suit. As far as I can tell it allows the suit to absorb and displace energy.
I take out the claw on my right index finger as I fill it with aura. I then run it along the armor to test its durability.
It takes a significant amount of strength but my claw still leaves a scratch mark. 'That's pretty tough.'
I reach out, grab the helmet and take it off Doomguy's head. I then put my hand on his forehead as I close my eyes and focus on his memories.
It's all quite a hazy mess. Using my telepathic abilities, I do my best to put everything in order and make his memories more clear.
As I do this, I notice a few things. There are two main reasons as to why his memories are such a mess. One, his entire body, mind and soul have been corrupted on some level by a form of demonic energy. And two, he has hundreds of fractured souls dwelling inside him, corrupting his every thought and driving him insane.
I use my telepathic abilities to cleanse at least his mind of the demonic corruption and force the fractured souls aside as I get to work.
As I've put all his memories in order, I start watching them.
Flynn 'Fly' Taggart, born in Houston Texas in 2043. He married his high school sweetheart Monica and together they had a daughter named Daisy.
Daisy got sick and they had no way to pay for her medical treatment. Flynn decided to join the United Nations Space Marine Corps as the UAC established an outpost on Mars and the UN was responsible for security so they were recruiting people for their Marine program.
The benefits allowed his daughter to get treatment and feeling very grateful, he rose through the ranks as he became one of the best Space Marines.
The first time he was sent on an assignment to Mars however, he found out the UAC was messing with ancient rituals and artifacts and everything went to shit real quick.
The Mars base was completely infested with demons in no time and he was the only survivor as he fought through hundreds of demons by himself.
He managed to make his way back to earth, where he found Houston completely overrun by demons as well. He took up his trusty shotgun once more and fought through them, trying desperately to find Monica and Daisy.
When he got to his home however, he found his daughter zombified as she was eating the remains of his wife.
He put his shotgun barrel to his daughter's head and pulled the trigger.
He then started his one man crusade against the armies of hell as he was fuelled by rage, seeking his vengeance.
He wiped the demons off the face of the earth and then went to hell himself to ensure they would never return.
This is where the memories become especially hazy. The more time he spent in hell, the more he got corrupted by hell energy.
After spending almost a decade fighting through the bowels of hell, the demons managed to force him out, landing him in a place called Argent D'Nur.
Confused and disoriented, he revealed the existence of hell and its inhabitants to the rulers of Argent D'Nur, the Maykrs. Who were, for all intents and purposes, comparable to angels.
He joined the military of Argent D'Nur, who called themselves the Sentinels and rose through their ranks, eventually becoming their second in command.
Meanwhile, the Maykrs had investigated hell and found out that the hell energy produced there, combined with the sentinel energy produced on Argent D'Nur created an incredibly potent form of energy they called Argent energy.
The Maykrs who had their own world, called Urdak, made a deal with the rulers of hell.
They were allowed to invade Argent D'Nur to harvest it of its souls, the primary ingredient for hell energy, and in return the Maykrs would get access to their own supply of hell energy.
This caused a civil war within the ranks of the Sentinels as some of them actually sided with the Maykrs.
One of the Maykrs, Samur Maykr or also simply called Seraphim, did not agree with their aligning to hell and he put the Doom Slayer in a so-called Divinity Machine to grant him strength, durability and a form of immortality.
At this point the memories pretty much become unreadable.
But I'm pretty sure they lost the war and Flynn was trapped and put through a few rounds of torture in hell, after he and his Sentinels were betrayed by one of their own. Eventually they put him in a state of suspended animation and sealed him in the sarcophagus.
'That divinity machine pretty much just shoved hundreds of fractured souls, charged with Argent Energy inside Flynn's body.
It certainly granted him inhuman strength and made him incredibly durable, but is it worth the perpetual pain and torment?'
I take my hand off Flynn's forehead and start pondering what to do.
Rob told me I should not fight alongside Flynn, while I should force the Seraphim to work for me. But I kinda want to do both.
As I'm about to devour the fractured souls and the hell energy from his body, I suddenly hear a voice.
"Step away from the Slayer."
I ignore Samuel Hayden and sink my fangs into Flynn's neck. I immediately devour the hell energy along with the souls that don't belong here.
I immediately feel how my body starts to produce hell energy.
"What are you doing?! Don't wake him up! You'll ruin my plans!" Hayden yells over the loudspeakers.
"Your plans are of no significance to me Samur Maykr. This man is no longer a pawn in your machinations."
"Y-You know? How?" Samuel Hayden, AKA Samur Maykr or The Seraphim wonders out loud. "Wait! Before you wake him up, I want to talk to you. Please meet me in my office. The guards will let you through."
Deciding to comply with his request, I keep the aura barrier up, preventing them access to Flynn as I turn into a swarm of energy spores and reassemble less than a second later inside Samuel Hayden's office.