Chapter Text
Sir Pentious was, in general, a rather solitary person.
Partly by choice, partly by circumstance. He had been this way in life and, for the majority of his century in hell, his existence had seen little change. He had lived alone, then he had died alone, and now he once again lived alone. If he were to die once again, he believed he would be unaccompanied then, also. Probably not even mourned, either. It was a depressing thought, but not one Pentious was unused to having.
Well, that was with the exception of Baxter, anyway. He had met Baxter about thirty years ago now, and had been friends with him for almost as long. But despite the fact that the two of them technically lived and worked in the same room together, they seemed to be spending less and less time together as the years dragged on. It wasn't that they didn't like each other, or even that they didn't share the same interests, it simply seemed like their personalities seldom allowed for true collaboration and companionship. They worked together, but (almost) never on the same projects, and oftentimes in relative silence. They shared a living space, but generally stayed firmly separate in their half of the room. They made wonderful, ambitious plans together, but never seemed to get around to actually bringing those plans to fruition.
Baxter was . . . good, almost great. But Pentious couldn't help but feel that same empty, hollow hole that Baxter never seemed quite able to fill. Not that it was Baxter's fault, necessarily, but that seemed to be the nature of their relationship, which only got more prominent with time. Once the honey-moon phase of euphoria from finally having an honest-to-goodness friend and companion (and a fellow scientist, at that!) wore off, Sir Pentious only found the divide between him and his partner only growing wider. He had always imagined that even having one person in his life who cared about him enough to call him friend would be enough. That it would somehow be able to heal decades and decades of sheer, inescapable loneliness. Evidently, Pentious had learned, it could not. At least not with Baxter.
It was . . . saddening. Depressing. Unpleasant. Heartbreaking. As well as a hundred other things Pentious couldn't quite name.
Which is why Pentious tried his best not to think about it most of the time. He could make this relationship work, he was sure of it. Once the two of them became overlords together, it could only bring them closer, right? They would be like Vox and Valentino: an unstoppable duo that spared sympathy for no one but each other. He would finally have this aching void inside of him filled when he was finally close with his partner, and when he had the rest of hell's admiration. It would be the piece that finally clicked into place and gave his life peace. It had to be.
Yes, he just had to wait. Then, this abyssal hole in his being would at least be healed, and he would have a relationship, a connection, worth fighting for. A person worth fighting for.
Sir Pentious shook himself out of his musings, bringing himself back to the subject at hand. He often found himself lost in thought when he was alone (which was most of the time anyway), but he had an important task to accomplish. He needed to focus.
Besides, why force himself into the same bittersweet melancholy that was ruminations about his partner? Until things between them were fully fixed, it wasn't worth thinking on.
His relationship with his- with Baxter was not relevant to his current task of scavenging after a turf war.
Baxter never cared about turf wars, anyway. No matter how much Pentious wished to share his interest with him. It was one of the many things that seemed to separate them.
Scavenging a former battlefield was not a particularly popular occupation amongst most demons, for a number of reasons, so Sir Pentious had come here without his zeppelin or any of his large weapons. He still had his ray gun, of course, but he was mostly certain he would not run into trouble from where he was. The gun was just a precaution, really. It was hell, after all.
Usually, a battlefield left little to desire: anything that had once been valuable destroyed beyond recognition. And few sinners were desperate for the scraps that laid across the destroyed landscape. Usually only the newly damned, who had little to nothing in terms of any kind of resource, and thus were desperate enough for any scrap they could get.
However, for Sir Pentious, scavenging was often a much more beneficial, rather than desperate, endeavor. Most of the time, he was searching for parts of his own weapons or vehicles that had been damaged in the brawl. His materials were generally much sturdier and better constructed than those of the average demon (he bought from Carmine herself, after all), which meant he was more likely to find something he could actually hope to reuse than if he looked through the remains of other sinners' supplies. Plus, Pentious didn't achieve the level of wealth he had today by wasting. If he could reuse his damaged parts, then that was what he vastly preferred to do. He had more than enough technical knowledge to make the best of anything he found, anyways.
He rummaged through any pile of junk that looked promising, grimacing whenever his tail ran over uneven ground, or a sharp piece of junk. It was unpleasant work, but he currently did not have anything better to do.
Baxter had requested full use of their flat for his newest experiment, after all, leaving him to wander the streets of Pentagram City. He didn't like going out much, but he was determined to make the best out of it until Baxter allowed him back into their home. The jerk.
Pentious sighed as he examined a banged-up sheet of gold-painted steel that had once belonged to his zeppelin. It was too damaged for use. Shame. He would've liked to re-attach it to his zeppelin to avoid buying more steel.
He stilled suddenly, once again pulled from his thoughts. He felt . . . something. Some phantom sense telling him he was being watched. Telling him he was not alone.
That was all the warning he had before he felt something crash into him from behind. Or, rather, someone.
He felt the arms and legs crash into him before he saw their face, falling on his front into an undignified tangle of limbs.
The eyes on his tail, unfortunately, were too weak to actually have gotten a good view of them from behind. They had the vision he'd had in life, with no glasses to compensate for it. The only sets of eyes he had that were worth shit were on his face, hood, and hat. Which meant he couldn't actually see behind himself. Just another part of the curse of this form.
When he was able to writhe himself around from underneath his attacker to get a good look at them, the first thing he noticed was the giant pink eye staring right at him.
He was, momentarily, startled by this. It wasn't that it was the weirdest form he'd ever seen in hell (goodness knew there were certainly weirder), but he was rarely ever close enough to any other demons to be surprised by the oddness of their forms so suddenly. And also, well, the look in that eye held a sheer ferocity that he couldn't help feeling slightly alarmed by.
He quickly came back to his senses, pushing and shoving to get the demon off of him. They appeared to be female, and definitely humanoid. They weren't small for a demon, but given how Pentious was quite a bit larger than many of the demons down here, they weren't as difficult to push away as they might have been. Had he still been human, he likely wouldn't have been nearly as able to fight against her, but there were some uses for his giant, muscular tail.
Pentious had no taste for this type of close combat (most of the few times he'd been in a situation similar to this ended in hypnosis or biting). Mostly because he didn't like being touched by people he wasn't close with or didn't like (Baxter was just about the only person who landed in both categories with any sort of frequency). But also because they generally had the effect of short-circuiting his brain into panicked uselessness. Despite his size, he knew he absolutely no technique for hand-to-hand combat, which always left him feeling alarmingly defenseless. When he had his long range weapons or his minions, at least he had a weapon he understood how to use, and at least he was almost always able to escape such situations when things went sideways.
Not so for the position he was in now.
He struggled and shoved, but his opponent was surprisingly ferocious. She elbowed and jabbed and kicked and kneed, aiming for anything in reach, all the while pushing all her weight in keeping Pentious pressed against the ground.
It was irritating and inconvenient and painful.
Finally, Sir Pentious made a noise something in between a huff and a grunt, and wrapped his tail firmly around her middle, and used its strength to throw her off.
It worked, thankfully. Despite her ferocity, she was actually quite light. She made a noise between a yelp and a scream as she was forcefully disentangled from her opponent and forced to land roughly and the ground beside him.
Sir Pentious righted himself, retracting his tail slightly around from his opponent to do so, but staying close enough that he still had something of a hold on her. He quickly brushed his suit coat off, scowling at the new dirt stains on it.
He took a good look at the person who had just so rudely interrupted his scavenging. She was one of the most humanoid demons he'd ever seen, with reasonably slim (but also voluptuous) proportions, and a full head of blonde hair. She didn't look older than twenty-four. The only demonic features he could easily see were her stark white skin and giant pink eye. She was wearing a bright pink crop top underneath a spiked leather jacket. She was wearing jean shorts and large black boots. He narrowed his eyes. She looked a bit familiar . . .
Right! This was the infernal demon who had been lobbing bombs at his zeppelin just three weeks ago. The demon he had believed must be a recent addition to hell, given how he hadn't recognized her at the time.
Well. That was rather inconvenient. But certainly manageable. Whoever this was, was an amateur, after all.
She continued thrashing underneath the part of his tail still pinning her to the ground, her teeth bared dangerously. Then, in a split second, the scowl disappeared, followed immediately by a smug smile before she punched him in one of the eyes of his tail. Hard.
Pentious hissed, and reflexively recoiled, his tail entirely retracting from her. His tail eyes, despite their relative uselessness, were still almost as sensitive as the ones on his face. He slithered back, his tail coiling in on itself.
His opponent took the opportunity to scrabble to her feet and take a few steps back.
Sir Pentious was already pointing a gun at her head, thankfully having enough sense left in his head to remember his ray gun.
Pentious didn't know if he actually use it: it would probably scare her off, and he could move on with his previous task. He didn't particularly want to kill her. He didn't feel like disposing of a body at the moment, and he couldn't leave a semi-dead body on the streets. Particularly not one that appeared female. That was just unchivalrous.
She looked momentarily shocked (frightened, even?) at the weapon, but she quickly bared her pointed teeth once again. A bomb seemed to appear in her hand from out of nowhere. She even managed to light it at lightning speed while Pentious was still debating pulling the trigger of his ray gun.
Well. Shit. This might actually go badly for him if he wasn't careful. As he recalled, those explosives were by no means the best he'd seen, but they were powerful enough to kill him if he was close enough.
They both locked eyes, daring the other to make the first move. Pentious tried to put a steel in his eyes that he knew wasn't real. He didn't want to kill her, but he wanted her to think he would.
Unfortunately for him, it was her who struck first. In less than a fraction of a second, she threw her lit bomb at him.
"Eat that, bitch!"
Pentious just barely managed to duck out of the way, his reflexes jerking him wildly to the side, and the bomb fell a few meters behind him.
He still felt the blow of the explosions from behind him, making him stumble forward slightly, but at least it was better than being directly hit. He hadn't died at least.
He hissed, partly from pain, partly from irritation. This was not a situation he wanted to be in right now. He can come here for peace (among other thing), and this was what he got instead. His annoyance deepened exponentially.
He immediately raised his gun once more.
"Leave now, girl, or I ssswear upon the nine rings you will regret it." He glared at her and flared his hood, hoping it looked intimidating.
She didn't move; just watched him carefully as she fingered another bomb that was in her hand. It seemed it would take a little more to get her to back off. Damn stubborn woman. Pentious squared his shoulders and rose even further up on his tail.
"For I am the Great Sir Pentious, Kingpin of this City, and Mastermind of Devastation. Begone, Wench!" Though he moved his arm from where it trained his gun at her, he used his other arm to accentuate his proclamation with large gestures, hoping it helped get his point across. If she believed he was important, maybe she would actually show some sensible self-preservation.
Unfortunately, she did not cower in fear as he would have hoped. Instead she looked him up and down, a crooked, insolent smirk coming onto her face. She looked so wild: with the ferocity in her eye and her sharp teeth showing in her smile. She was not intimidated, she was challenging him.
Well, damn it. Pentious hoped this wouldn't take too long; he really would like to get back to his scavenging. He narrowed his eyes at her, and shot a warning shot right above her head.
"Begone!" He repeated, equally as theatric.
She ducked from the blast (not that it would have hit her anyway), but made no other moves backwards. When she righted herself, her grin only grew wider and wilder, almost frantic, or maybe manic.
"Make me, bitch."
In the span of a few seconds, her eyes darted the ruined battlefield, quickly landing on something. She lounged forward, grabbing some kind of sharp scrap of metal. She then repositioned her grip on it like a weapon. She came at Pentious with her makeshift weapon in her hand, completely disregarding the gun he was still holding.
That was a mistake. He bared his fangs and shot right at her as she approached. He didn't want it to come to this, but there was no point in avoiding it now.
He did hit her, though because of her speed it wasn't in her head or heart like he had hoped. His shot of energy ray landed squarely on her left arm.
She let out a cry of pain, but didn't stop her charge. In her right arm she still held the broken metal rod, preparing to swing it right at him. He slithered back and shot her again. Though by now his hands were shaking, so the accuracy of his aim dropped even further.
Sir Pentious wasn't even entirely sure where he'd hit her until he saw a blackened and smoldering mark on her wild blonde hair. It was still burning.
She cursed when she noticed it, momentarily stalled her assault with her rod.
Quick as lightning, and before Pentious could react, she raised the rod and hit Pentious' hand with it, forcing him to drop the gun. It fell uselessly to the ground.
He brought his arm to his chest reflexively, pain shooting harshly from his fingers.
She took that opportunity to attempt to stamp out the fire in her hair with her right hand, probably hoping not to be any more on fire. Though the movements were clumsy and frantic, and Pentious could clearly see that she was still in pain, particularly in her left arm, which she tried to avoid moving. While her gaze was averted, looking at her hair, Pentious reached out and roughly grabbed her by the shoulder, forcing her to meet his gaze.
He spread his hood at looked at her with hypnotism in his eyes. His vision went momentarily blurry, but he could still feel the way she stopped struggling under his grip. It was working. Pentious didn't like hypnotizing people: it usually had the consequence of making him a bit dazed, though definitely not as much as his victim. He also just generally didn't like being close enough to someone to preform it.
"Leave now." He tried to add a threatening tone to the sentiment, but at this point he was just tired and irritated and in pain.
His grip loosened lightly when her shoulder went lax. He had grabbed her with his injured (dominant) hand, after all. That was a mistake. Before he could finish his hypnosis, his hand lightly brushed against the injured part of her arm. She cussed and recoiled, breaking eye-contact, and shaking off his hold on her mind.
Shit.
She looked back up at him, the same dangerous wildness, and clarity, in her eyes instead of the dazedness of his hypnosis.
"That fuck was that?" Her voice was angry, definitely, but there was a bit of roughness there also. Maybe even a touch of fear. He assumed she was too new to have encountered any kind of hypnosis or mind control yet. Most likely for the best. Many sinners would use it for much more sinister reasons than he would.
Pentious scowled. This was going on far too long.
"Well, if you must must know, it was-" He quickly cut himself when he saw her make a dive for his ray gun (with her working arm), still on the ground beside him.
Before she could reach it, he grabbed her by the hair and lifted her head up, high enough that the ground was out of her reach. He saw her wince in pain. He would've felt a little bad (he too had once known the troubles of having long hair once), but honestly he was far too annoyed to care. This woman had been the one to attack him, anyway.
"Now look here!" He glared at her. She just glared back.
"You have one last chance you leave before I kill you. Understood, madame?" he continued, despite her scowling.
She smirked up at him, still trying to appear smug despite the clear amount of pain written in her features. He found that most bothersome. She wasn't going to leave if she didn't take his threats seriously. He quickly positioned his tail to grab his gun from off the ground. He forced himself to keep eye contact with the woman, making sure she wouldn't notice what he was doing.
He groped along on the floor with the tip of his tail for a moment before he felt was he was looking for. He wrapped his tail around it and lifted it up towards his free hand, allowing himself to grip it once again.
Before the woman could respond, he pressed the gun against her temple. She stilled.
"Are you leaving or not?" He hissed by her ear. She stared at his ray gun, and he couldn't tell if she was considering it or not. He pressed the barrel a little deeper into her temple.
Her eye darted wildly, looking for an advantage. Before she could even think about trying anything else, however, Pentious grabbed the bloodied and blackened part of her arm from his shot and squeezed. She curled violently into herself from pain, but Pentious kept the gun at her head. If she didn't want the pain, she should have left earlier.
"Do I make myssself clear?" he hissed again, lowering his voice for intimidation.
She seemed incredibly reluctant as she slowly nodded, her face twisted in a nasty and pained scowl.
Pentious nodded in response, but didn't immediately remove his gun.
"You will return the way you came, and leave me alone, understood?'
She nodded once again, no more enthusiastic. It was only then that he relieved the pressure of the gun on her forehead slightly.
"Very good. I'll be watching you, ssso don't try anything." She once again nodded. Deep down, he felt a bit relieved with her compliance. He was worried she would continue with her brash recklessness.
He was about to remove his hand entirely, when something entirely unexpected happened. The woman lifted her head at lightning speed, swiveled it out from the tip of the gun, and bit the hand that was holding said gun. She actually bit him. Pentious was just as surprised as he was in pain.
He involuntarily let out a little cry of pain and dropped the gun. She used the opportunity to elbow him in the jaw, and run away like lightning. He stared dumb-founded at her retreating figure. She ran across the ruined ground, before quickly turning down the nearest corner and disappearing from his sight. At this point, it would be far more trouble than it was worth to chase after her.
Why, that unbelievable woman.
He cradled his hand to his chest, letting out an annoyed huff. On one hand, that woman clearly hadn't gotten what she had come here for (probably a cleared area for scavenging, similar to Pentious. She was new, after all. Or perhaps she just wanted his ray gun.). Her time had been wasted, she hadn't gotten what she wanted, and she had been forced to retreat, so by default Pentious was the winner of the altercation.
On the other hand, damn that inconveniencing woman. Now his hand hurt and his time had been wasted. That made it difficult to feel particularly victorious. At least he was pretty sure she wasn't coming back after that. He probably would kill her, then.
Sir Pentious sighed as he picked up his ray gun from the ground once again. What could only have been a few minutes of interaction felt like it had been much longer. He hadn't lost too much time at least. But he did feel much more tired than he should have. Damn wench . . .
He slowly returned to his scavenging, a scowl on his face.
Whatever that woman got up to, Pentious hoped that she would at least stay away from him. She wasn't a dangerous opponent, exactly, but she was an irritating and inconvenient one, and Pentious was above that. There was no glory in fighting a sinner who had nothing to her name and bit people to get the upper hand. If she was reckless enough to pick fights, even in her circumstances, then Pentious hoped that at least she wouldn't come after him again.
There was a small, secretive little part of him that was almost impressed with her sheer ferocity in the wake of odds stacked against her. It was stupid and reckless, but . . . it was brave and resourceful, and she was maybe a little clever. And Pentious couldn't help but admire bravery, and cleverness, despite himself.
But any small feelings of admiration he might have towards that infernal woman were currently outweighed in his mind by the throbbing in his hand. Her teeth were sharp. Was that what it felt like when he bit his opponents?
Whatever happened, Sir Pentious just hoped that he was never forced to cross paths with that woman again. He hoped he never had the displeasure of being on the receiving end of her bombs or her teeth ever again.
He continued to grumble as he resumed with his scavenging.