Providence

Zeke was greeted by the view of a wooden plank ceiling with beams across it. The occult markings on the wood let him know he was in a safe zone—the Infirmary.

Flashes of a Black Magic energy fight attacked his mind—a stop motion movie of blood, sweat, and tears that didn't have a happy ending. The first attempt to move his neck had him stop immediately to groan. It wasn't just the pure, unfiltered pain that hindered him, but an intense weakness that kept him from moving how he would've liked.

Zeke stuck to just using his eyes, he was tucked in a feather stuffed bed, his head resting on a pillow that was just as soft as the linen sheets covering half his body. Next he realized he was wearing the gray cotton patient gown found in the inventory room of the hospital, and then he found the most distressing source of pain: his crushed left arm, it was wrapped in bandages.

"The girls are really mad at you," he heard an exhausted voice say.

Slowly turning his head to the left, Zeke got a better smell of the lemon balm their trusty custodian scented the pillow with. Ugo and Aida, who, like himself, were no longer demonified and sitting on wooden chairs right next to his bed, both wearing sullen expressions with bloodshot eyes that were half closed.

"What did you do, Zeke?" AJ said.

Zeke turned to AJ, who was sitting on a chair on the other side with Naomi. They were both back in their regular forms as well and wore haunted expressions found on the faces of war veterans.

"You almost turned into a demon," AJ added.

They were in the ward. A big room that housed a great number of beds with sigils on its plastered walls and a lime-washed floor. The Infirmary members on each side of Zeke were back in the same clothing they entered the Netherworld with.

Then Zeke noticed the IV tube plugged into his right arm and looked up at the IV pole near him. The equipment was stolen from Winterberry's most prolific hospital. At the time, the Infirmary team justified the larceny to themselves, claiming it to be for the greater good.

"Liquified unicorn horn?" Zeke asked weakly as he looked at the drip bag filled with sparkling, multi-colored liquid.

"You've been through multiple rounds of purity-raising solution," Aida said.

"How did you save me?"

His traumatized friends explained the lengthy procedure they had to execute in detail.

If it were anyone else, they probably would've said anything than what Zeke blurted next.

"Just like an ex-vivo surgery!" Zeke's eyes were glimmering, and a big smile stretched across his lips. There were times where the passion for medicine surpassed the need to worry. The fact that he was alive was a good argument for his anxiety to take a back seat.

However, the glares from his fellow Infirmary team members sobered him up in time before he said anything more stupid.

"Sorry," Zeke said, genuinely, and returned to looking at the ceiling.

"Zeke." Aida called sharply. It awakened flashbacks in Zeke's mind of his childhood when his mother discovered he did something bad—of the expensive kind that either involved breaking (she placed way too many vases in the house anyway) or spending (for years, he swore that the collector's edition of Black Souls 2 was worth attempting to use her credit card… And it was Ugo's idea).

"Yeah?" Zeke said without moving his head, relieved that he had a reasonable excuse to not look back into her vexed, reddened eyes.

"Did you use Tainted Mana?"

Zeke clenched his face shut. "Yes," he said. After the scuffle with Violet, he knew he had to look into that bizarre sensation he experienced near the end of it… but he never did. The reason was because of a wonderful ability Zeke possessed even before his Mana Pores opened. If something troubled him, that was too terrifying to face head-on, all he had to do was push it deep within him, and never actually deal with it. Sure, it would always be there, in the confines of his mind, itching just as bad and pestering as the IV needle in his vein, but at some moments it would be gone. Like it was no longer a problem he had to solve. It was like magic.

Aida growled. It was the loudest Zeke had the pleasure of hearing from her. It sounded like the last thing prey would hear right before they'd meet their gruesome end. "Tainted Mana, seriously?" she said, tapping her shoe against the floor. "It diminishes your life expectancy, Zeke! The tradeoff for more powerful spells is not worth it. When you're out of Mana, you don't force yourself to find more within yourself. Why didn't you listen to your Garb when it told you to stop?"

"It didn't…"

Aida went silent.

"Look, I'm going to have to apologize twice," Zeke said. "This wasn't the first time."

"When was it?" Ugo asked.

Zeke heaved a sigh. "A little after I, Aida, and Akachi left the Fairy Realm with the shrinking factor—"

"The fight that you had with Violet in the sewers," Ugo said and shook his head. "And you just chose to leave out the part about you using Tainted Mana."

"I didn't even understand what it was!"

"So, you fought Violet again?" AJ said. "Why is this the first time I am hearing this?

"Why is this the first time I am hearing about it, too?" Naomi asked.

The feather-stuffed bed Zeke rested on began to feel like it was stuffed with hot rocks scorching every spot on his backside, while the IV needle itched more and more.

"I'm sorry," he apologized for the third time. "It felt so good… it feels so good."

AJ removed her glasses to pinching the space between her brows and then said, "Some people feel the same about eating corn dogs, but even they know they can't eat them every day,"

"But man, it would be great if you could," Ugo said thoughtfully.

Zeke mustered the courage to turn his head back to Aida, and it was even more contorted while Ugo just looked increasingly enervated. "I'm sorry," he said. Maybe four times the charm was a thing? A guy could try. "Can you explain to me what exactly Tainted Mana is?"

"No being's Mana Gauge actually reaches 0 percent," a hearty voice said.

To the detriment of his aching body, Zeke turned in the same direction everybody else did and saw an undemonified Yuri, keeping his eyes closed, turning on a hospital bed to sit up. He, too, was sporting the standard gray patient gown and had an IV tube needled into his arm, pumping his body with the unicorn remedy.

Zeke read the others' looks as they eyed Yuri, and it seemed that he had just woken up… and neither of them expected him to. Ever.

"No being's Mana gauge actually reaches 0 percent," Yuri continued. "There is a limiter that every creature's Mana system comes 'installed' with, but these limiters can be broken with external spells, rituals, or if certain conditions are met—"

"Like your Garb feeling it being absolutely necessary," Ugo interrupted.

AJ put her glasses back on. "Fighting Gill on his own…"

"It's not an excuse!" Aida stood up. "Do I need to say it again? Life expectancy diminishes when the Tainted Mana seeps into the soul, and it dampens the Garb's automatic healing magic, and it makes soul purity levels plummet to dangerously low levels."

"Speeding up the demonification process," Naomi finished for her.

Yuri picked at the IV tube in his arm as he said, "Using Tainted Mana also opens doors to many diseases."

Zeke raised his right arm as a stand-in for his lack of a white flag, declaring defeat and wanting it to just be over. "It was stupid. I'm stupid. Won't happen again."

The silence that followed made the air heavy, a sudden addition of weight that was hard to breathe in and even harder to let out.

"I'm sorry," Aida sat down. "It's just… I found Akachi."

"What?" Exclaimed Ugo.

"He's working with Gill," she said, looking down at her hands.

"But they hate each other."

"I know… I don't understand anything anymore…"

Zeke studied Aida as she shook and bit her lip.

So, not only are they facing Gill, but a trio of Tainted Generation members?

Zeke thought to himself if they were capable of winning.

"How is Kimberly?" Yuri asked.

All eyes went to AJ. "I hooked her up to some monitors when I brought her in," she said. "She's asleep. Stable."

"Good. Very good."

Naomi asked Yuri, "You really care about her, don't you? Is she really just a friend?"

"Her safety means more than anything in the world."

"Sure," Ugo said, "but how about we talk about ensuring the world's safety, too?" He looked around and then leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. "What's the plan now?"

Without missing a beat, Zeke said, "Destroying Bergulsaab."

Zeke shared a look with Ugo. For all the times the brothers joked about how if they could travel back in time they would kill baby Hitler without remorse. Karma was collecting what was due, and that playful resolve was now being put to the test.

"She's too far into the gestation process, Zeke," Aida explained and pulled her legs and feet up to sit in a squat while on the chair. "The link between their bodies and souls is too strong. If we kill Bergulsaab, she'll die, too. When women die while pregnant with a Rebirth Seed or during delivery, their souls automatically go to the Netherworld without proper trial.

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Naomi blinked thrice with her doe blue eyes as she fixed on Yuri. "So the soul doesn't even make it to the Heavenly Tribunal in Aether Giove. How awful and unfair…"

"But it isn't their fault," AJ said. "Wouldn't angels go save the soul that was wrongfully convicted?"

The question had Naomi shake her head. "Angels lose their purity the moment they go into the Netherworld."

Yuri laughed, but it was a quiet one, quiet and spiteful—a kind of laugh a murderer would make at their victim's funeral. "And even if they didn't. I doubt they would save the soul anyway," he said. "But that's not even the biggest risk Kimberly faces. Like us, she doesn't have a Container left behind. So if she dies during birth…"

"There's no coming back for her…" Ugo finished.

Yuri folded his hands and rested them on his lap. "I had a feeling it would come to this. I suggest delivering the Seed and destroying it then."

"Okay, we'll do the delivery and destroy Bergulsaab," Zeke said.

"It can't be in here, though," Aida said.

There's always something, Zeke thought. "What's the problem now?" he asked.

Aida clapped, rubbed her hands together, and when she pulled them away. Orange energy dispelled from her palms and shaped into double helixes. The projection floated and twisted between her hands. "Each soul is unique from another, like our DNA." She waved her hands around and then held out an open palm under the projection as it compressed itself into a ball. "Soul essence is like the genetic coding that makes up our physical Containers and can be extracted in a physical form. Jealousy, courage, sadness, anger, happiness, compassion, pride—these essences come in different measures, different combinations for everybody which ‌determine how much Mana a soul can hold, how susceptible they are to demonification, the level of affinity towards different spells and so on." The orange energy ball dissipated as she made a fist. "The combination of soul essences aren't fixed, though, its change can be forced or happen naturally. During Demon Seed pregnancies, the expectant's combination of essences are changed. Not only does the Container need to be in perfect condition, but the environment as well."

Zeke stared at Aida with a dead look and said, "So, you're saying that each Realm has its own special composition… of particles?"

"Like how air in the Human Realm is made up of different gasses," Aida said.

The Blind Weirdo continued the explanation in Aida's place. "It's one of the reasons why Containers are a thing in the first place. Some Realms can't sustain outrageously powerful beings. High-ranking angels and demons take time to learn how to regulate their power so they can travel to places in their natural form without wrecking everything. Bergulsaab will be born in his natural form, no Container. So it needs to be in an area with a suitable composition."

"That's why Gill kept her at a deeper level of the Netherworld," AJ said.

"Yeah, if she gives birth in a Realm that isn't suited to contain Bergulsaab. It will kill her, the Seed, cause irreparable damage to the Realm itself, possibly killing everyone in it."

Then, Zeke asked, "Can't we make it so this place has the same composition of hell?"

Aida gave Zeke a look that made him feel as if he damaged more brain cells than bones after his fight. "How do you suppose we do that?"

The Diagnostician was lost for words.

"I know a place," Yuri said, standing up. No one bothered to try to get him back to his bed. "It's in Clattigana, the—"

"The region where most of the Archdemons reside!" Naomi interrupted excitedly. Everybody looked at her. "We should definitely go there."

"Is there a reason you want to?" Yuri said, arching a brow.

"Um," Naomi flashed a nervous smile. "That's not important now… I apologize for interrupting, Yuri. Go on."

As everybody went back to focusing on Yuri, Zeke noticed Ugo was the last to do so, staring at Naomi with a look that was a slight contortion away from being a scowl.

"Clattigana is not deep enough," Yuri said, "but, I know of a shortcut from there that can take us to the Fifth Circle."

Absolute panic had Zeke spring up straight in his bed. "You told me there were Five Circles. Are you telling me you want to take us to the deepest level of the Netherworld?"

"It's not as bad as it sounds—"

"Alright then," said Zeke, sardonically. "Carry on. Attempt to convince us why it isn't as bad as it sounds."

Yuri looked at the others. "Is he always like this?"

Ugo scratched the back of his neck and said, "Nah, I think Zeke has good reason to worry this time."

"I've planned this, oh my good doctors," Yuri said, "If you would just calm down and—"

"Yu?" a weak, honey-like voice traveled across the ward.

The group's focus was now on the ashen Kimberly, who was in her yellow hospital gown, plodding toward them. Her face screwed up slightly with every step she took while barefoot. After an eye-blink, she broke into a run that was stupid for someone in her state and with that bump extending from her stomach.

Yuri said, "Kimmie," and she enveloped him in a tight embrace before he fully turned. Their lips touched and things quickly escalated from there. It was a long and quiet kiss. They moved in perfect rhythm, enjoying their eternity as they got lost in each other.

The team stared with widened eyes and then Naomi turned to the group. "Oh wow, so even humans who are just friends greet in such a way?" She averted her gaze back to the two with a smile on her face. "How progressive."

Clattigana was known as the capital city of the Netherworld, located in the Third Circle: Nessus.

It was a region accursed to infinite night. A domain where its gray cloudy sky had a fissure across that increased in size from north to south, unveiling a soul-killing darkness with a pale, misty moon shining in its center.

Throngs of demons moved along the black ice pavement of the capital. Some spots had more cracks spread on its icy surface than others and some spots were cleaved open where more dwellers of deeper levels of the Netherworld clambered up from. These creatures took many forms—beastly, humanoid, and spirit-like.

Most of the legions of demons were crowding the Netherworld Market—a place of both wonder and horror. A place for treasure hunters to satisfy their curious and greedy desires. A place where the hungry could get rid of their starvation and reward their palates with tastes from several kinds of worlds. The Netherworld was subject to many conversations across the Realms of the universe and most often than not; they were not positive, yet the Netherworld Market received travelers from those very places that bad-mouthed them. Even angels had arranged for other beings to visit the Market to collect some items, although getting an angel to admit it was harder than getting a unicorn to not behave like the worst scum fathomable.

The city had cloisters surrounded by arcades of sigil-carved stone and shrines in dead gardens where souls prayed to their new gods as gratitude for the privilege to live in the great city or where those who were visiting begged to be given an opportunity to live in Clattigana.

An aqueduct that was a demonstration of the feat of demonic engineering stood on the southwest end, watching over the city as the waters of river Styx streamed through its massive arches. Styx, the river of hatred, was black and shudderingly cold and perpetually populated by souls of narcissists who, a long time ago, possessed great powers and used them to be venerated as gods by normal humans, which ‌elevated their power. However, when they met their end after abusing their devotees for hundreds of years, they rejected their deaths and tried to fight.

Their punishment was to drown in a body of blood-freezing liquid for eternity.

Each and every one of the numerous counts of structures that filled the city space was unique in size and design; emanating Black Magic that snaked into the air like smoke. From tall and slim contorted shapes of stone covered in webbing to strange stout buildings with meaty growths on its sides where eyeballs stared out and mouths murmured curses.

Clattigana was home to notable buildings, but out of all of its wicked structures, what proudly and ostentatiously towered over every other, even Hell's Palace, was the Netherworld Ministry of Infernal Planes. The colossal goldstone building covered lots of ground with its width, but the middle part of it was the most impressive—a skyscraper with a single spire on top that made it appear it was continuously thrusting upward, growing to no end. The building's façade showcased a coat of arms: an unholy design of four demonic wings and beastly heads between them, swirling a shield that showed a mature demoness's face on it. Wavy hair of a light rose color the demoness on the coat of arms had and ghostly pale skin, black eyes and an eerie expression on her face that was somewhere between glee and scorn.

From the window wall of his office on the top floor, Gageriel, the Netherworld's Royal Diplomat, could see all of Clattigana and its twisted beauty. Of which none of it would be possible without the work his Ministry has done for the capital and rest of Netherworld. Yes, he got credit for it, but it wasn't nearly as enough as Gageriel wanted.

One of his servants, a demonified elf, was on a stepladder before him, tipped the glass of wine to his lips and pulled back after he had a refreshing sip of the highly demanded Dionysus' nectar.

Gageriel was in his human form, which was identical to the Container he used when traveling outside the Netherworld. It had its flaws, but the anatomy made moving and interacting with the world around him considerably easier than if he was in his natural form. His dark-skinned Container had short brushed-down hair, high and defined cheekbones, and a long chin. He was—what a number of humans called him whenever he crossed over to their Realm—devilishly handsome. The way they came to associate the word 'devil' with something positive was beyond him, but it wasn't something to complain about.

He wore a white shirt and black tie with a gold triangle pendant necklace over it, and black formal trousers while the demonic servants surrounding him were taking measurements. Gageriel mandated for it to be done the old-fashioned way and besides, demon magic wasn't curated for such tasks. The Royal Diplomat's collection of underlings consisted more of Delta Demons—creatures other than humans who have become demons—than anything else. Most of the souls who worked for him were procured from prisons in the Fourth Circle: Dis. It took protracted negotiations with the Chief Warden to make it happen (and some souls he just stole).

Concerning his tailors, they had no skills whatsoever in that area when first assigned the duty, but after excruciatingly long sessions of cruel and unusual punishment that forced them to become knowledgeable and proficient in the occupation, Gageriel then, possibly, had the best tailors in the Netherworld just for himself. Perhaps he could've found natural talents if he looked around hard enough, but there was no fun in that. It satisfied him much more knowing that he forced rapists, murderers, and all kinds of depraved souls to be molded into acute garment-makers.

Silas, a soul from the Human Realm who was sentenced to damnation for lust-related sins, now had the privilege of wearing the title of the personal assistant to the Netherworld's Royal Diplomat. His demonification left him with a large, black lizard-like head, two sets of horns on each side on the top, and a great onyx mane that reached his lower back. He was clad in a sumptuous black and red suit-vest combo with pointy shoulders.

For his outstanding performance (which meant being a darn good boot-licker) he was allowed to sit behind the Royal Diplomat's mahogany desk to answer phone calls directed to the Archdemon himself.

The brass-plated telephone on the desk was a device humans nowadays would call an 'antique' and most wouldn't know how to use its rotary dial. It pulled every demon's attention to it when it rang angrily. Silas picked up the handset and spoke into it quietly. "Please hold," he said with his courteous voice, pressed a button on the telephone, and looked at Gageriel. "Sir, it's a representative of the Court of Vampires. It seems they wish to go forward with the negotiation."

"Good," Gageriel responded with his frighteningly deep voice and dismissed all those surrounding him by waving his hand. As they skirted out of the room via the demonic stained glass door, Gageriel walked up to the desk and held out a hand. Silas gave him the handset.

"You've made the right decision to—"

"Gotcha, Gageyyyy!" A female, animated voice boomed from the receiver and laughed. "Alright, so we're doing poker in a couple of hours. Snacks include basilisk tongue balls, mermaid blood liquor—"

Gageriel slammed down the handset, almost obliterating the telephone with his Black Magic energy. "What a waste…" he said under his breath.

"Sir… wasn't that the Attorney General?" Silas asked.

Gageriel snorted. "Unfortunately." He walked across the polished black granite floor and over to his coat hanger. The office's walls and columns were made with gray marble decorated with flags of different Netherworld regions. As for the furniture (bookshelves, small conference table, chairs, and sofa), they were crafted using the treefolk of the Elven Realm—cut down by the Royal Diplomat's incredible swordsmanship.

"Those good-for-nothing blood-suckers are taking too long to respond," Gageriel said as he took his regal dark-coloured suit from the hanger. "We are going to leave for the Realm of the Lost and talk to the Court directly."

The ever-prepared and shrewd Silas pulled out a notepad and quill from the inner pockets of his suit. "What will be the methods of transportation, Sir?"

"No transportation sigils," Gageriel answered as he put his coat on; it was patterned with Netherworld symbols. "Gives the wrong impression. They haven't communicated with us, which may lead to an unnecessary battle. We will use the vessel and travel on land with the mares."

Silas wrote on the notepad and then said, "What should I tell the ones here to do if the Attorney General passes by?"

"Inform them to tell the General to—" Gageriel told him a long, compound obscenity that was even too much for a demon's ears.

Silas gaped back at Gageriel with his red eyes blinking dumbly.

"Write it down," Gageriel ordered.

"Of course, Sir," Silas said, nodding shakily and then jotting it all down on paper. "Very well, I'll have the boat and steads ready for—"

"The Army is still being uncooperative with the Tainted's grand plans, correct?"

"From what I understand, it is not all of them, but a good number are not interested to fight for the cause. And we haven't been able to get in contact with the Major Sergeant."

"It wouldn't make a difference," Gageriel said and flicked something off his shoulder. "We'll have to execute the scheme after all. No problem. Contact the Demonologist's workplace for me."

"Understood, Sir," Silas said and spun the telephone's dial.

Gageriel approached Silas and accepted the handset given to him. "Gilliam," he said as his wolfish smile emerged and his obsidian eyes glimmered.