Hell has been pretty good to Cliff. For a man ready for a nothing ever after, it was pretty nice to de-stress. Let out some of that good rage. The honest kind without consequences for when you were mad at the world.
For starting off pretty gross, Cliff was well on his way to becoming a real monster. He'd been able to fight off the first wave of demons like it was the thunder dome. Mad Max taking a victory out of the apocalypse. If hell didn't smell like a bad gas leak and a torn garbage bag it would be alright.
It was lonely though. Life had been lonely too. It's hard to put all your eggs in one basket and then have the basket tell you she didn't love you anymore. Didn't want you seeing the kids. You couldn't be violent in life like that. You had to be angry. Drink. You didn't make a lot of friends trying to keep a lid on that particular lifestyle. Not like high school where they carried you out of stadiums.
It was a shame. Before falling to hell, Cliff was pretty sure there weren't a lot of good folk left. Not like he'd grown up expecting in his small town.
It took coming to hell to find something that actually had his back. Those little flying suckers took to his back too well, but Jumper was pretty good about it. That's a whole lot of teeth not to take too much skin off! Good guy.
Cliff wondered what happened to Sharp. They'd skittered up that damn cliff and down the tunnel like gravity was no big deal. That cliff drop still made him angry. These tunnels went all through this rock like expensive cheese. There was no reason the hole that giant demon tore in the wall had to be over nothing. There were three, four football field lengths of ledge.
Cliff was madder about that than anything else he'd run into here.
This system hell had set up for him was pretty good. Nice and simple. Fight to get stronger. Get stronger to fight. No mess. Every once and a while it'd throw a curve ball. A word that didn't mean a damn thing to nobody, but usually it kept trucking along.
Cliff had been so excited to run into something new. The more new things he ran into the more good ideas the system had to get stronger. Those boar's were something else, fast as they were, but Cliff had been pretty good at tracking the ball. Good reflexes went a long way in any world you wanted to be in.
That shadow looking bastard was one hell of a fight too. Three mouths beat two, but damn if that poison didn't cut right into you. It was great. And the magic tricks! He could pop in and out of the ground like some mad gopher and a rattler decided they were going to get at it. Screw the consequences.
Cliff couldn't believe his luck that it was Jumper!
Hell didn't like making people recognizable, that's for sure. Hell, Cliff had three different full sets of teeth. He'd scare a lot of the out home folks but the town dentist would die at the sight of him. It was a shame hell seemed to be missing a mirror. Cliff bet he looked strong now that his arms had filled in. It was nice not to be punching up with twigs.
That big ass pig was a bit of a worry. Cliff wasn't sure anything he'd tried to goad into a fight had walked away like that since he got here. It was always the real big guys in the barracks that walked away from stuff like that. Nothing to prove and nothing to gain. Cliff never had much to gain either but scraping up one of the boots was always a good use of your fist and spare time.
Cliff felt a little guilty about how bad he'd knocked Jumper around. He'd given him a proper beating before they sorted themselves out. Jumper didn't seem to mind but it didn't seem to do much for the wicked limp crawling home.
Cliff was getting pretty bored in the tunnel. There were things he liked about waiting of course. Nothing ever went wrong when you were waiting. Waiting for orders. Waiting for papers. Waiting for last call. It was always the after that got Cliff into so much pain and suffering.
Cliff reached out. Wasn't much effort at all to touch every side of the little halls. Cliff much preferred the great big quarry. You could get into all kinds of trouble out there but it was hard to get stuck on nothing. Well Cliff supposed you could get a foot stuck in a hole if you weren't careful but there didn't seem to be many.
He'd avoided the earthquake looking split in the center. You could get stuck in there. You could fall in there. It was pretty much everything Cliff hated.
Jumper had been under that rock a while. He'd done that magic where he got dark and the shadows got dark and then he was gone. It was a neat trick. Cliff liked his own better. The last of the acid scabs had come off and he was back to his cherry red self. It was weird, being a color. Not bad, weird. Cliff wondered if there was a way to get one of the crazy ones, like the back of those cherry bomb bugs.
Cliff was alright with how long the waiting went on in spite of a lack of entertainment. Jumper got hurt pretty bad and he had nowhere to be. If life had taught him anything, it was if you find someone who's got your back you stick around for them.
Jumper was almost a flapjack and was ready to fight that super pig!
The little guy would have died but Cliff appreciated the thought. After his marriage had broken down, it has been hard to face being alone. How many of their friends had actually been her friends, when the dust settled. It turned out if you cancel on your best buds enough times in ten years they didn't take calls like they used to.
Cliff was contemplating how unlikely it was that he made a new buddy in hell when the wall exploded.
He jumped so fast the roof of the tunnel punched him right back on his face. He reared up on principle to go after whatever had flung a tunnel's worth of rocks at him. It turned out it was Jumper, mouth gaping at him. Jumper was hard to read without eyes.
"Ac..Cident", said Jumper.
Jumper always sounded like he had that pack a day gravel voice. You'd sometimes hear it from old ladies that worked dispatch. Two leather stones rubbing together instead of a proper sound. Cliff couldn't complain much. It was nice when they had conversations like these.
The tunnel was a mess now and Cliff worked to clean it out. In his head he made backup noises as he navigated the small space. It was great to be as strong as a half ton. The same size too! Some of the corners were pretty rough. If this is where Jumper liked to stay he'd get some good exercise punching it open nice and wide.
Dusting off his hands, Cliff was pretty proud of how cleaned out the tunnel was. Job well done Cliff, he thought. Job. Well. Done.
It was hard to tell what Jumper thought about his job. Cliff wandered if he could use some of the tunnel dust to smudge eyes on him. Know where you were looking at. Their relationship wasn't there yet he didn't think. They hadn't talked much on the walk back.
For the first time, Cliff was able to see where Jumper went. If you liked the haunted church vibe it was a nice little spot. Was this his domain? Cliff had never slept in his. His stony cocoon was more of a hindrance than a help. The best its remains had done was make a good punching bag. Cliff did enjoy that part. He hadn't knocked it off the wall yet.
Cliff waited, trying to get a read on Jumpers expression. What was the plan going to be for today? Cliff was going to try and ask - how hard could talking be? When a notification popped up.
[Would you like to join a Coven? You may merge Domains with Abel, Lesser Venomous Devouring Cliff Wraith]
Join a coven? Was Jumper a witch? Did this make Cliff a witch? Cliff paused in a moment of brilliance. Was every demon a witch? That explained how Jumper used magic to jump in and out of things. Cliff couldn't wait to see what kind of witch powers he could get from being in a coven.
Accepting the request, he and Jumper started.
The domain forced them out and closed behind them.