A Chaotic Return

Felix, Cammy, and Noah arrived back, confused as they had been at the wedding just seconds earlier. Something had been encroaching, but... they didn't see anything. They never got the chance to.

"We're back," Vizrokoth announced behind them. "And we cannot interfere with what's happening there. Well, other than a brief thing with Hailey, but we can't talk about that."

The demon was very proud of herself, and Felix figured she had somehow sidestepped the agreement, albeit in a very small, deniable way.

"Well, if we can't intervene, there's no use thinking about it," Noah said. "When is it at the bunker? Time doesn't seem to be very linear for us these days..."

The slime girl trailed off as Noah, and the rest of the group, saw a security guard enter the room. One armed with an assault rifle, and who none of them recognized from their own lives. More importantly, one that very much didn't recognize them, and was readying his weapon.

"Oh, silly me, we're in the bunker from about a century before you showed up," Vizrokoth chuckled in a way that showed she very much did this on purpose. "You all get to learn the origin of the bunker. Something I understand Noah was rather curious about."

"PUT YOUR HANDS UP!" The security guard yelled. "I don't know who you are but-"

Before he could finish, the guard's head was severed from his body by Vizrokoth. The whole thing happened in the blink of an eye, as if she had moved so fast that neither Felix, or the people with him, could see what had happened. It was a display of carnage made more terrifying by that... the demon in question was not their host. Felix looked, and saw that his host had remained standing where she was. By contrast, the version of Vizrokoth he saw kill a man was very different, with four arms, was shorter than the demon he knew, was... was covered in scars. This was the demon he saw punish a different version of himself yesterday, except that day already felt like a lifetime ago.

"Don't worry, they cannot see or hear us," Vizrokoth said. "None of you have gotten your combat transformations, so you need to be protected from this time period. As for the demon you see in front of you, that's me, when I was younger and much more foolish than I am now. This was the second time I had escaped from hell."

"Second?" Noah asked. "How many times have you escaped? Is that classified for us mere mortals..."

"Noah, you are no mere mortal," Vizrokoth said while motioning for the group to follow her. "You are a slime girl, and one that's immune to aging. As for the matter of escaping hell... follow me and I'll explain."

Bereft of other options, Cammy, Felix, and Noah followed Vizrokoth deeper into the bunker. During the trip, all three of them saw things they knew quite well from their version of the bunker, but the details were changed. There was a mess hall, but it was larger, and the food wasn't as appetizing. Rather than separate rooms, there was a single, much larger barracks shooting off from the hallway that lead to the mess hall. In addition, where two bedrooms once were on the opposite side of the hallway, there was a security room instead. Most of all, the central, circular room they had grown used to in all versions of the bunker was present, but it was a reception area, and otherwise just a pass through portion of the facility before going off to another part of the base.

All the while, the prior version of Vizrokoth go through the base and slaughtering anyone who she came into contact with using her three blades. Two shorter swords meant for stabbing, each of which looked like a Roman era Gladius, and a longer sword that seemed purpose built to decapitate. Initially the demon picked people off in the hallways, delivering two quick stabs with the shorter swords, followed by a big slash from the longer sword, each strike taking out a separate person. These shorter engagements though were building up to something far more brutal.

Everything changed when the younger Vizrokoth got to the barracks. When she entered the room, she tore apart every single soldier inside in a whirlwind of stabs and slashes, resulting in the kind of carnage slasher movies purport to show. Some of the soldiers managed to get off some shots, but they all missed. The demon just moved too fast, and struck with such force using blades that made short work of the kevlar armor worn by the soldiers. They didn't even see most of the cuts or stabs, the younger demon moved too quickly for Felix, Noah, or Cammy to see anything. The older Vizrokoth meanwhile seemed disappointed, although Felix couldn't imagine why. Her younger self was slaughtering scores of humans without breaking a sweat, and without the aid of an external source of power like Harem Hotel. A similar show played out in the mess hall, where some of the base's staff had tried to hide from the whirlwind of blades and death that stalked its hallways, all to no avail.

"You asked me how many times I escaped hell," Vizrokoth stated while watching her younger self slice through the troops in the barracks like a blender. "The answer is three times. The first time through trickery, the second time through force, and the third time...

Vizrokoth paused to watch yet another soldier get decapitated. "...through transformation. The first two times I escaped I was overly focused on punishment. This particular incident arose from that I chose to punish an elite that had let their civilizations die, in this case to encroaching monsters and aspects of nature itself. That wasn't what I was punishing this elite for though, no, that was running their society as a hyper-capitalist shithole that overly rewarded greed and violent exploitation of the vulnerable until there was nothing left worth saving."

Felix realized that Vizrokoth was talking about Zetsuko's world. It had to be, there were too many similarities in how it had fallen, and the bits he had seen of it while it was still around. That world had been a cyberpunk dystopia, with cybernetics very much included, and was also very, very violent. All of that fit the world that was presented to them by Vizrokoth.

All the while, they continued to follow the younger version of Vizrokoth through the base. Watching as she tore through the security, and anyone else, with what Felix realized was rage. A rage he was all too familiar with, but that he didn't understand why this younger demon felt it. The younger demon seemed to be heading towards the headquarters of this bunker, as they went through hallways that were both familiar, and yet different.

"Why did you do this?" Cammy asked. "Why are you showing this to us, for that matter? Why couldn't we just go back to the present version of the bunker instead of seeing a younger version of you inflict violence on people we know nothing about?"

"We're about to get to the primary command room of this bunker," The older Vizrokoth said. "Once we're there, you will know why I showed this to you. Although I suspect Felix already knows the answer, whether he can admit or not."

Did he? Felix recognized the rage, but not what caused this demon's fury. Was it anger at an injustice? Or something more than that? They continued, as the hallway that would, in the future, lead to the master suite instead lead to a very different room. A room with heavy, metal doors far too thick to get through using brute force. It was this security that would've stopped all but the most prepared of intruders. The younger Vizrokoth simply snorted, drew an arcane symbol on the door, whispered a few words, and watched it shatter to pieces.

Behind the door was a small group of soldiers wearing what could only be described as power armor. It let them use belt fed machine guns the way most people would use assault rifles. More normal security was also nearby, armed with shotguns that fed from drum magazines, and as they soon found out, were also full auto. The wave of bullets and shotguns shells unleashed from the collected small arms all missed, as the younger Vizrokoth moved too fast for any of them to hit. But how would she get through the armor? The normal guards got dispatched the usual way, a couple stabs and a good slash from the longer blade for good measure.

For the more armored troops, the younger Vizrokoth had much more creative solutions. She killed one of the armored troops by grabbing one of the shotguns that still had a few shotgun shells left in it, and firing point blank into the visor of one of the armored soldiers. A few of the others she tricked into friendly fire, and while most of their rounds didn't penetrate, enough did to take out one more of the armored opponents. But eventually, the younger demon sheathed her swords, and cast a horrific spell which caused the armor to crumple onto those wearing it, like they were crushed by oceanic pressure.

With the security murdered, the younger Vizrokoth could confront her real targets. Targets that were all too familiar to Felix and Cammy: Corporate elites. The way they wore power suits, with watches that assuredly cost thousands of dollars, and the very particular loss of confidence when someone so used to getting their way loses it all, it all was just like the corporate assholes they dealt with every day.

"What do you want?" One of the men walked forwards from the crowd. "What is-"

He was interrupted by the younger Vizrokoth throwing one of her shorter blades into the man's knee. "What I want is for you to suffer. For you to feel some modicum of the suffering you inflicted on the society you controlled, and the one you failed. But alas, I lack the time for that, so a painful death will have to suffice."

What followed was a level of torment that reminded Felix that this younger version of Vizrokoth still tormented the damned for longer than he had been alive. Cuts were made with such accuracy and precision to deliver injuries that mixed agony with things like humiliation, or more sophisticated versions of torment. Castration was common, as was eye gouging, and the cutting out of tongues. The worst of it by far was when this younger Vizrokoth chose to mangle a man's son right in front of him, to the point the child begged in futility for his father to do something, over and over. All of this was delivered by blades that should've been too large for such intricate wounds, and yet the demon did it without any sign of difficulty.

All of this torture would come to an. After tormenting the last of the men by mangling his body with a series of cuts that carved the symbol of a CEO's corporation into his body in a way far more painful than anyone watching could've appreciated, the younger Vizrokoth came to a stop. Felix and those watching didn't understand, until a portal appeared. It showed a place full of lakes, some full of lava, some full of acid, some full of hot tar, and some full of ice. But most of all were countless cages that were everywhere, and made of dizzying variety of materials including some made of glass. Glass rooms, often suspended above lava or hot tar, but sometimes simply placed near steam. Felix could remember how painful such rooms were in a way he very much wished he didn't.

"Vizrokoth... you have been gone for too long," A voice emanated from the portal. "Come back."

"If you want me," The younger Vizrokoth prepared her weapons, "then come and take me back. But I must warn you, I will make you suffer for it."

Before Felix, Cammy, or Noah could see what would mean, the Vizrokoth they knew clapped, and teleported them out of the room. "You have all suffered enough, in some manner. You don't need to see how I made them suffer, or how they made me suffer."

"What does that have to do with us?" Cammy asked. "Other than showing us the origin of the shithole we're all stuck in until the end of the season, what does any of this endless showcase of gore have to do with us?"

"Cammy, despite knowing what a horrible man your father was, you did everything in your power to try to save him," Vizrokoth said. "Yet you failed. Nobody, not even his own child, could save Austin White from his own overpowering narcissism. Except..."

The pause Vizrokoth introduced was one Felix knew was going somewhere specific. Somewhere he wanted to avoid at all costs, even though he talked about it with Cammy before.

"... Felix." Vizrokoth finished. "He didn't make him die, but we both know he could've saved him, but chose not to. Don't blame him, I knew it was the choice he was most likely to make."

Would Vizrokoth reveal Felix's secrets? Would she tell Cammy the person he could've been? He had no power to prevent it, but he glared at the demon for threatening to break any trust he had ever placed in her.

"If you knew that was the decision he would make, or not make in this case, then why make him live through it?" Cammy asked. "Why make Felix suffer if you already knew the result?"

"Because Felix had to learn what I did," Vizrokoth said, "that no matter how much Austin White suffered, it was not going to make him feel any better. Anymore than me making those men suffer made me feel any better, despite delivering a modicum of justice to their many, many victims."

Vizrokoth went up to Felix, and kneeled to look him in the eyes. "When vengeance just, it is not a mere act of retribution, but instead an act of empathy. To make someone, against their will, feel what you felt. Hurting them is so they understand how they hurt you. Taking away their power is so they understand what it means to be helpless. That is what allows vengeance to be justified. But you could never get that from Austin, anymore than I could get it from those men."

The demon stood up, and went to the others. "I tortured a man's son to death in front of him because he needed to understand what it means to watch your child die, and be able to do nothing about it. That was just of many horrible things their victims had endured. Yet that man did almost nothing to save his son, because he only viewed his son as a status object, and not as a person. Hence, all I did was make them suffer, without making him truly understand what they had done."

"This lesson is important Felix," Vizrokoth said. "I re-iterate it to you because when we return, you will be running out of time to save those who do deserve it, including yourself. After all, I got captured here because I could not let go of punishment, no matter how vulnerable it made me to the place I was fleeing. Are you ready to embrace that?"

"I'll do my best," Felix answered, and then went through a portal the demon summoned. Noah and Cammy followed behind, all hoping this time they would get back to the bunker's present...