The Marine followed Daisy as she hopped down the steps of the tower's spiraling stairway. They reach the entryway and the brown rabbit impatiently moves to the right-hand passage, the gaping path stood before him. He steps inside and finds a long hallway, more green flamed torches slotted into fixtures along the walls illuminates the area. A filthy, decaying purple carpet stretches down the length of the hall. Along the walls, the Marine passes stone carvings of unknown Mortick aliens, the base of the busts held inscriptions carved in their bizarre alphabet. Daisy hops to the other end of the hall, silence amplifies his footsteps and the chirping of his rabbit, echoing along the towering walls and the arched ceiling. Daisy reaches the other side, they come to a short staircase flanked by square columns, leading to a massive pair of beautifully decorated doors. Daisy hops up the steps and runs her small paws against the barrier, he follows behind and pulls them aside, they silently swing open with a smooth motion and Daisy dashes ahead and up another short set of steps.
The Marine follows behind, Daisy leads him to a massive temple of some kind. A set of glistening chandeliers hung from the finely decorated ceiling, supported by wide spiraling columns. The tall stone walls had carved faces of demons morphed upon them, tapestries hung upon them in different colours, trimmed and detailed with gold thread. A large Mortick symbol was carved into the floor, a tall square cube sat in the center, topped with angled stones resembling a crowned formation. It had small shields hanging upon it and fine vases sat on its corners. High up in the walls, the temple held colourful, decorated windows.
The Marine follows the rabbit across the temple to an altar close to the opposite wall. Daisy suddenly stops and turns toward the Marine and chirps to him. He walks over, she hops to him and runs circles around his boots. He removes a glove and his helmet for a moment and picks Daisy up from the temple floor and holds her closely. He hears the distant voices of chanting Mortick shamans, followed by a rising vibration. A portal appears close by, it slowly grows wider, chanting aliens could be seen on the other side of the gate conducting their delicate practice. The Marine's heart sinks, having a feeling about what was about to happen. He looks into Daisy's small eyes, she reaches up and caresses the Marine before hopping from his arms and moves toward the portal, transforms back into an orb of light and passes through the gate. The portal slowly shrinks and the chanting fades. The Marine found himself alone again, Daisy's departure left what felt like a gaping hole in his chest.
He regains himself and approaches the altar before him. It was a rectangular, finely carved stone flanked by tall candles. Laid upon it was a velvet tablecloth, atop that was a pair of golden chalices and a sizable effigy to a mysterious Mortick deity. The golden statue was of a woman sprouting from the stalk of a plant with fanning leaves, she had a slight smile, closed eyes and with her arms held high. Below the statue, was the last crystal, it had a yellow hue and throbbed with a slight glow.
Moving closer, the crystal glows brighter and clatters as it began to vibrate. He feels a vibration coming from his pack and hears the crystals clinking inside. He opens the bag and sees the other crystals reacting as well. Without really knowing what he was doing, he reaches into the bag and grabs the crystals. Tiny sparks manifest around the glassy shards as they vibrate and glow in his hand, he stares in awe as they float out of his grasp, rising into the air along with the crystal on the altar, sparks flash around them as they rose higher.
The long, thin shards spin through the air, moving faster and faster, drawing closer with each pass. The sparks flash brighter as the crystals collide and continue to spin until they fused together in a flash of energy, flooding the temple with dazzling light and arcs of rainbow. The fused crystal's vibration rises in intensity and the temple began to shake, streams of dust pour from the ceiling. A strong quake rumbles throughout the castle. The metal candleholders fall, one of the temple chandeliers crashes to the ground. Unable to see any other exit, the Marine runs back the way he came, arriving at the long, carpeted hall.
Over the sound of rumbling, he hears a portal opening from behind, he looks back and sees the Cyberdemon roaring furiously, portal energy was dissipating around it. He continued dashing to the other side of the hall, his heart racing, the Cyberdemon's roar was already getting closer. In the distance, a chunk of stone falls against a torch-holder and it turns to the side, triggering a hidden mechanism. A statue slides away and reveals a secret passage just as the Marine came alongside, he sees light from outside flickering along the stone surfaces within so he runs inside. He dashes past a pair of doors on each side, still sealed since before Hell's invasion of the Mortick planet. The Marine follows the path to the end of the corridor, he could hear the Cyberdemon stomping closer from behind.
The opening leads to the top of an outer circular tower, he moved to the boundary as a rocket narrowly zooms past him and the castle shook again. The Marine reaches the edge and the floor beneath him shifts forward as that side of the castle yields to structural instability. He slips over the side unsteadily, the Cyberdemon roars as it plunges into the falling rubble. The Marine's momentum sends him over the castle's lava moat and makes a hard landing, the armor's pressure dampeners softens the impact. He looks back at the castle, the central tower was crumbling. The fused crystal drifts out of the rubble and fills the hellish environment with brilliant light as it rises into the sky, looking up at the sight, the Marine notices Deimos drifting in the sky.
The castle rubble before him shifts, the Cyberdemon charged out of the stone bricks and swiftly jumps the moat of lava. Plasma streams toward the demon, it dashes to the side and returns fire, the rockets blast against the ground and sail into a mountain in the distance, scattering boulders down the cliff. The Marine returns fire, plasma collides against the demon's chest, fury rises in its eyes and it charges toward the Marine, he moves out of the way and the world began to shake. Long cracks split the ground, the Marine struggled to keep his footing, the demon flailed its weaponized arm to stay balanced, growling in frustration. The land between the Marine and the Cyberdemon breaks apart and rises into the crimson sky.
The Marine found himself on a massive rock drifting just below the Cyberdemon, he sees the surface of Hell breaking apart all around him. He moves to the closest side as a rocket from below strikes against the edge of the floating island, the blasted rubble flies away from the craterous recession and also began rising into the air, still spinning from excess momentum. A pair of rocks floating close to each other split in different directions, revealing to the Marine Deimos floating in the distance ahead, the view was suddenly obscured by the Cyberdemon sailing through the air, a pair of integrated jump thrusters burned behind. It leaps up to the same floating island, lands in front of the Marine and resumes firing rockets. The Marine barely managed to maneuver around the projectiles, more were closing in. The Marine moves out of the path of rockets and jumps to a floating mass drifting nearby.
After landing, he reaches for the RPG and swings it toward the other island and fired, the Cyberdemon rages as the projectiles explode around it. The Marine moves and jumps to another floating island, he hears the demon land on the one behind him, it then bounds meters away from the Marine. He quickly fires the BFG just as it lands, his hopes are dashed after the demon easily dashes out of the path. The bio force round explodes against the floating island he had just jumped from and shatters the rocky surface, sending spinning debris sailing. They exchanged ordinance for some time along the confined floating body, rockets crater the surface or slip past them, sailing aimlessly into the red sky. The Marine sees a path to Deimos converging along three rising islands just about to line up between himself and the former moon. Knowing it could be his only chance, he runs to the edge, weaving around the rockets undoubtedly tracing him.
He bounds from one floating mass to the next, he lands evenly and runs to the next drifting body. He sees an island disappear in a flash of light as he jumps to the next mass along the path, he could hear the roars of the demon close behind. He jumps to the next floating rising island as rockets sailed past him, Deimos was directly ahead. It was a long gap, he had no idea he could run this fast when he made the jump. He lands on the surface of Deimos, his boots sinking into a dusty surface. He turns around and sees the Cyberdemon firing its jump thrusters and bounding onto the closest floating body, then taking charge toward the Marine. All around, the rising masses began to rapidly disappear in flashes of light. The Marine moved to the edge of a crater and levels the RPG.
The Cyberdemon jumps from the surface just before it vanished, its hooves disturbs the dust on the surface as it lands on the former Martian moon, the demon's roar dripped with anger. The Marine fires a rocket barrage, but the demon's thrusters burst, it moves out of the path and returns fire. The Marine bounds along the edge of an ancient impact crater and lands on the far side as the rockets explode along the ridge. The Cyberdemon's rear thrusters send it dashing toward the Marine. He moved from the crater firing rapidly, landing a couple direct hits, the demon pivots and continues firing. The rockets sail into the psychedelic sky or blast against the surface, sending rocks and dust flying. The Marine came into the ideal range and fires a flood of carefully aimed plasma, the stream dissipates against an energy shield that quickly materialized from a recent upgrade.
The demon brought down its mechanized hoof on the Marine, he quickly gets out of the way as a trail of rockets followed. A rocket explodes just behind, the blast throws him into the dust. He quickly gets to his feet and moves just before the demon's metal hoof came down again, he turns to fire and intercepts more projectiles closing in. The Marine targets an important looking module on the demon's back and reloads. He charges toward the demon while snuffing rockets, runs alongside and concentrates fire on the module, it overloads with a flare of electrical discharge. The demon's angry eyes shot toward the Marine as it turned to swipe its claws, the flood of plasma against its bare flesh burns through a few digits on its clawed hand.
Hastily fired rockets explode around the Marine as the demon roars in pain. They continue to fight along the surface of Deimos for some time, the Marine gradually veered rockets around its defenses and targeting other exposed modules as the conditions of combat allowed. The demon was delirious with rage, rockets narrowly zipped by the Marine, a couple strikes against the surface charred patches of blast residue on his armor. After more direct hits against the demon, several critical modules were failing. The movement of the mechanized leg had slowed, the thrusters sputtered with little effect, its weapon was malfunctioning and it was glowing from the electrical discharge of the overloaded modules.
The Marine reaches for the BFG 9000 and charges the round, he releases a blob of green bio force energy and it collides against the demon's center mass. Its defiant roar is cut-short by the detonation of the green plasma, the explosion from fuel cells and ammunition immediately followed. The Cyberdemon is torn apart, the cloud of blast fumes mushrooms high above the surface, bones, flesh, metal and circuitry flies in all directions. Specks of demon flesh splat upon the Marine's armor. The sound of the blast soon dissipates through the open area, only the hooves of the mighty demon remained at the base of a fresh crater.
The last remaining chunks of Hell's surface rapidly disappear all around in flashes of light. The area fell silent. The Marine steps to the edge and looks down, much of the world had been stripped away, exposing the interior of Hell. The landscape was glowing from rivers of lava, narrow beams spanned above the paths of molten rock, the blackened surface was swarming with demonic activity. A group of Mortick warriors were still fighting against the forces of Hell, their righteous voices reached the Marine from below. Their shouts and grunts turned to surprise and then laughter as the Mortick warriors began to float up into the sky. They rise higher and above the Marine's head, smiling in victory as they look in his direction. They shout to him in their alien tongue before disappearing in a flash of brilliant light.
The fused crystal high in the air continued to pulse with light for a time before drifting down and growing dimmer, the Marine watches it change direction and move toward him. The crystal drifts to the surface and glides toward the Marine and comes to a stop, spinning slowly in the empty space before him. Feeling very confused, he takes the crystal and looks at it closely. Just before the glowing within faded away, he hears a quiet voice.
"Thank you"
In the home dimension of the Mortick world, the planet suddenly reappeared to its place in the alien solar system, falling back into its gravitational orbit around the star as if the untold decades of its absence had never happened. The once beautiful surface of planet Mortick was now charred and barren, sizable cracks stretch along its continents, parts of the world were raging with volcanic activity. In the parallel dimension of that Mortick planet, the alien warriors return from their many years of war, their task complete, the dozens of Mortick shamanic practitioners were finally able to bring their practice to a close, they then collapsed from exhaustion. The glistening portal system made with many large crystals was powered down.
Elsewhere, in the divine dimension of Urdak, inside a massive palace high up in the sky among the clouds, a scientific network picks up distortions in the fabric between dimensions. The Khan Maykr hovered in a large decorated hall among other important Maykr, studying a stream of data on a holographic screen hovering in the air. The aliens had a highly advanced intelligence, they had a white exoskeleton around them trimmed with elaborate design, tentacles dangled close under their frame at the base. The Khan Maykr narrows the network's sensors on the source of distortions and finds that planet Mortick had returned to its system. Not even the advanced Maykrs could say what happened or where it went after it disappeared, the Khan Maykr instantly recognized the lost alien world.