Digital Diatribe: Lunch Plans

A day in the life of Aphos, deposed reaper, and all around bastard.


"Where did you put the fridge?" Aphos yelled at the screen before him.

"Somewhere exciting." Maxwell replied, his voice a bit fuzzy over the long range connection. "Trust me, you'll love it."

Aphos's eyes narrowed as he calculated just how much bullshit was contained in that statement. "I don't and I really doubt it." He growled. "Now, I swear to all that is unholy, if you do not tell me whe-"

"It's useless trying to talk to him, especially when he's killing things, just go buy one." Calamities voice suddenly interjected, causing Aphos to nearly fall out of his chair.

"Gah.... fuck... Stop doing that!"

"Sorry I guess?" Calamity replied, an image of someone shrugging appearing on the screen. "But seriously, there are restaurants everywhere since Maxwell held that screwed up food festival thing. Just go buy something."

Aphos sighed. "You make it sound so simple." He murmured, his voice bespeaking great mental fatigue. "But mark my words, any time I leave this goddamned tower, I end up having to shoot at least ten people and or things."

"Shooting things! It is a noble curse that we share." Maxwell piped in, the muffled screams of something being shot underlining his point. "See? that was like three people bein-"

Aphos hung up on him.

"Good choice." Calamity intoned.

"Thanks." Aphos grumbled.

He glanced out of the window beside him, down at the endless sprawl of hell. Even after all this time, it didn't feel any closer to being his home. "Oh well." he muttered to himself. "Guess there's no helping it."

He stood up, grabbing his coat from the desk before him, and switching off the console he had been yelling at Maxwell through. As he slipped into a layer of comfortingly heavy fabric, he noticed idly that Maxwell was still shooting things on a nearby monitor. He shut that off too. A chain snaked over to the perpetually broken hat-rack and tossed Aphos's hat onto his head in a move he was rather disappointed no one had seen.

"Nice." Calamity said appreciatively.

Check that, a move that only one person had seen. The former reaper grinned and tipped his newly situated hat at the nearest camera before heading out the door. As he stepped through the doorway he hoped idly that Maxwell hadn't made it come out somewhere stupid again. There was a feeling like being sucked through a very small straw very fast before Aphos found himself standing on top of what appeared to be a mountain of neatly stacked milk bottles, each lovingly hand labeled "Not beer."

Aphos shook his head, resolving to never find out what actually 'was' in the bottles if he could help it. One good thing however was that where the mountain of bottles stopped, a fairly normal tower floor began. That meant food... probably... he hoped. Jumping down carefully, his chains gently guiding his descent, Aphos looked intently at the odd quasi-City before him. Like just about all of the tower, it was impressive looking until you looked closely at it. Red glass spires and crags of ever-flowing red liquid, which Calamity assured him was not blood, but sure looked like blood, and, according to Maxwell, tasted like blood too.

His impromptu survey having born metaphorical fruit, Aphos began to trek in the direction of what had, at least from the air, appeared to be a gigantic plastic hot-dog. The demons and other assorted creatures in the street by-in-large gave him a wide berth. He figured that was one of the perks of having killed a few of heaven's fallen big-shots. He considered whipping out his shotgun just to see who tried to run, but decided that it wasn't worth creating a self fulfilling prophesy.

As he approached the gigantic hot-dog, he marveled at how absurdly out of place it looked tucked against the shining obsidian shell of the roof it rested upon. He also noticed that it was on fire, but honestly, advertising in hell was pretty much always on fire. By the time he reached the front door, Aphos had begun considering a career in infernal advertising. It had to be easier than what he was-

Aphos's train of though crashed into the veritable mountain that was the gun barrel pointed in-between his eyes.

"You think you can go around fucking with the order of things and not pay for it?" The voice behind the barrel asked nastily.

Aphos blinked, and leaned to the left slightly, so as to better observe who was threatening him. Large feathered wings, nasty attitude, naturally punchable face. Ah, fallen angel. Aphos considered the reasons that angels would be casually walking around the tower, but decided that the answer was probably irrelevant, and ended with axwell. Leaning a little farther provided a view of about four or five other angels, two of them hastily finishing their meals.

"And you guys are?" Aphos asked, raising an eyebrow.

"That's no concern of yours." The angel sneered. "Since you're about to be a messy example for the usurper."

Aphos grimaced. Ah, another rebel group. Likely remnants of Olivier's flock or the like. "Look gentlemen, I have killed enough of your friends to make the mother of all feather beds, but right now, I just want a goddamned sandwich. If you get out of my way, I promise not to splatter all of you against the walls, if you don't, I'm going to turn you into mist."

"Big talk about feather's from the plucked raven." The angel taunted, cocking his pistol unnecessarily.

Well that wasn't going to fucking slide.

The Lead angel's head went one way, his body went another. Aphos now had a clear view of the remaining four angels. His stolen eyes flicked from one to the other, watching as though in slow motion as they all began by degrees drawing and firing their weapons.

Aphos started with the shot-gunner, puzzling idly over the likely Freudian dislike of other people carrying 'his' type of gun as he blew half an angel-torso into oblivion. Next came the guy trying to pull the trigger of a rifle. He had to go, if only because Aphos had noticed that his safety was still on. Pathetic. His skull made a nice thunk as it impacted the ground. The third had dropped his hamburger on the ground, which Aphos figured was grounds for execution to begin with. He went flying out of the window with no chest cavity. Last came the poor sap with french fries hanging out of his mouth, hand half way to his pocket who froze as his brain finally caught up to what had just happened.

Aphos leaned close, casually reaching into the angel's pocket and withdrawing a nine millimeter handgun. "Go ahead and finish your fries." He said, tossing the handgun behind him.

The angel nodded slowly, tucking the exposed ends of the fried potatoes into his mouth. He finished chewing and looked up at Aphos apprehensively.

"Would you recommend the fries?" Aphos asked.

The angel slowly nodded.

"Cool." Aphos said "Thanks."

There was a loud bang.

Aphos cracked his neck and strode over to the thoroughly traumatized imp behind the counter. "I'll have a sub sandwich, tomatoes, hot sauce and lots of bacon. Oh, and an order of fries."

"Okay." The imp squeaked.

"I'll be over there." Aphos said, gesturing jauntily at one of the few booths not covered in angel.

"Right. It will be about ten minutes." The imp said shakily.

"Sounds good." Aphos said, slumping down in his newly claimed booth.

Well, he though, perusing a discarded flyer for 'Carrion Carl's Tower Terrariums', that was five. Technically he was still below his initial prediction.

Soon, a worried looking succubus wearing a uniform clearly not designed for her proportions slid Aphos's order onto his table. "Thanks." He said cheerily, noting too late that that might sound a tad sinister after recent events.

"Let me know if you need anything else." his waitress said quietly, stepping over the better part of an angel.

Aphos nodded absentmindedly, picking up a fry, before tentatively putting it in his mouth. They really were quite good.

Several minutes later Aphos was back on the street. He figured that the excellent tip would make up for all of the blood-spatter.

He sighed, messing with the brim of his hat in irritation, a habit he wasn't sure he remembered picking up. He was getting really tired of having to shoot things. Not of shooting things, but of having to. There was no grace to it, no satisfaction. His fingers grasped reflexively for Midnight, and found only air. He felt a pang of something that he promptly buried under a snarl. First the fridge had gone missing, and now he was getting existential about murdering people. God fucking damn it.

Without warning, he launched into the air, his chains whirling around him. He was sick and tired of it, all of it, he fumed. This tower, this form, and especially the maniac who regularly did things like hiding the fucking fridge. As he rose higher and higher from the ground, he was forced to admit something to himself that he had avoided confronting for a very long time. He was homesick.

The fridge didn't matter, it wasn't like he actually needed food anyway, it was the principle of the thing. Maxwell didn't even bother him so much because of his ludicrous stunts, but because he seemed so obliviously happy about things. He was a being from a completely different plane of existence, forget just a different realm, but he seemed perfectly content with hell and all it represented.

Aphos let out a growl that evolved into an enraged bellow, unleashing a torrent of gunfire onto the streets below, none of it seemed real to him at that moment. Then, finally, he reached the central tower, just as he would from whatever angle he set out in... That was just how hell worked, one of the many things he had to accept. He brandished an outstretched arm at the wall and got sucked through the straw again to pop out in the main hall of the tower's top floor.

"You uh, alright there?" Calamity's voice asked from a nearby monitor. "You killed like twenty people just now." Aphos's eye twitched. Without a word, he strode over to his door, opening it, and closing it silently behind him. The smell of gun oil and aged leather encased Aphos, its familiarity lulling him back to relative calm.

He slumped into his chair. It was an imitation, he knew, constructed from his own memories, but it was, for the time being, enough. He sat for a long time, just thinking. Outside he could just barely hear the cacophony that surely meant Maxwell's return, but, mercifully, it seemed that Calamity was occupying his madcap attention.

Aphos glanced up at the ceiling, the words there just the same as the day he had painted them. "Come whatever may." He muttered.

He sighed deeply, and sat up in his chair. He was homesick, but that didn't mean that he couldn't do something where he was. He was angry, but that was pretty much a constant anyway.

"...to claim eternity, come whatever may."

Aphos stood up, chains clanking as he made his way to the door, bracing himself for a moment before stepping out into the whirlwind that was a room with Maxwell inside of it.

"Hey!" Maxwell called from across the room. "I have a thing for you to do. It includes murder and maybe extra eyes for you."

"Oh really?" Aphos asked, the corner of his mouth tugging upwards despite his reservations.

"Yep, good shit let me tell you. I had to do some serious research for this." Maxwell confirmed with a nod.

"Research is mine, don't worry." Calamity chimed in from a nearby console.

"Anyway though, bring your best guns." Maxwell said, already heading for the door.

"Okay, I mean, i really only bring...the one...ok." Aphos trailed off. "Well, give me a minute."

With that, Aphos headed off towards the nearby bathroom.

He shook his head, surprised that he actually felt better for some reason. He considered and then immediately crushed the thought that it might be because he actually enjoyed the company of the two ludicrous beings he shared space with.

He opened the bathroom door and suddenly found himself face-to-face with a large jar of mayonnaise.

"Oh." He muttered "So this is where he put the fridge.