Chapter Text
In the midst of a boiling ocean, on a world in another dimension, there was a colossal skeleton.
Its limbs were the size of islands and its rib cage could hold a country, its skull could blot out the sun and its horns rose up like mountains to touch the very clouds above. Though it was only bones, its corpse was covered with life: rolling hills, sweeping plains, all-consuming forests and rocky hills dotted the truly gigantic corpse.
This skeleton was known as the Boiling Isles, and it was the home of witch and demonkind.
Every myth and legend that humanity had ever produced was the result of the Isles bleeding through to the human realm… save for a few unknown outliers. The skies were filled with pixies, dragons, gryphons, and harpies. The forests were filled with monstrosities both known to mankind and never before heard about outside the Isles, while the oceans did not hold very much life since they could boil your blood in seconds.
The Boiling Isles was a dangerous and wild place, filled with threats around every corner… and yet civilization still sprouted here in its multitudes.
Cities and towns dotted the decaying landscape, filled with all sorts of wild and wondrous beings. Airships drifted through the rusty skies as witch and demonkind, those creatures that called the Isles home, lived life to the fullest.
In the corner of the left hip resided the new capital of the Isles, a growing city known as Bonesborough. Though the city had been damaged in the final acts of a mad dictator, the scars of his crimes were fading. New towers and buildings were being built around the clock as everyone pitched in to make Bonesborough a city worthy of being the new capital.
And yet around every corner were dangers: The markets were best not traveled at night, it was best not to catch the eye of stray demon hunters, and those who were once coven scouts were best off not revealing this factoid. Pixies could come for your skin, wild beasts could come for your life, and angering the wrong person could cost you a few teeth.
Bonesborough had a long way to go, but compared to what it was before it had progressed by leaps and bounds.
For three new inhabitants, however, it may as well be Hell.
**********
Once it was known as the Treasure Shack.
It was a hideaway for the popular kids of Hexside School of Magic and Demonics, one of the three premier schools of magic throughout the Boiling Isles. The popular kids once used it as a safe haven from the consequences of their pranks and mischief, or a place to share the latest gossip, or even just somewhere to hang out without parental supervision.
When Belos tightened his grip over the Isles, many of the popular kids stopped coming due to the increased presence of Coven Scouts who constantly looked for any reason to bring someone into the Conformatorium. And then came the Day Of Unity, where Belos attempted to wipe witch and demonkind from the face of the world. And after that came the Collector’s Reign, where chaos and whimsy ruled and the laws of reality took a back seat to a god-child’s fun. And after that came Belos’ second attempt at genocide through body possession of the Titan themself.
It had been a hard year.
Suffice to say, the last thing anyone wanted to do was play pranks on people who were completely and utterly traumatized by the Fall of Belos’ Empire and the Collectors Reign. As the Isles tried to rebuild from the back-to-back apocalypses, the Treasure Shack was almost completely forgotten as it was left to rot, the popular kids having a number of personal revelations about the fleeting nature of life after seeing someone turn into a living doll or disappear into a fungal waste that spread across the entire Isles.
The Treasure Shack was a little domicile that had been built up by various cliques and students throughout the years but now slowly faded from time and abandonment: the roof was starting to rot, the lights had long since died out, and the curtain that served as a door had all but turned to dust in the wind. To anyone else, the Treasure Shack would be a sad reminder about the fading nature of youth.
To three homeless cherubs, it was perfect.
The roof may be thinning but it was still sturdy, four walls that didn't have that many holes in them, and a safe locale due to the height of the shack itself? It was the perfect hide-away from the chaos that was their new home in this strange… strange world
Keenie, blonde lamb cherub and second in command of the CHERUB squad, sat on a moldy bean bag chair and cleaned her golden crossbow while she tried not to think about life. It had been a week since the disaster that was Dolce Vita and life had not gotten any easier: They were no longer homeless ragamuffins scraping by to survive on earth… but homeless ragamuffins scraping by to survive in a place that looked an awful lot like Hell.
She sighed and put her rag down, not really feeling the energy or motivation to keep up appearances now that their last hope had been dashed so cruelly.
She had been so certain that they would return to Heaven, so certain they would be able to actually escape back to their homes… and now they were trapped in the Bad Place.
She shivered as if a cold breeze had drifted across her back as she continued shining her crossbow to a clean glow. They had all taken to making sure their weapons were ready at a moment's notice nowadays.
After all, their arrival in this place wasn’t the best…
**********
One week ago…
**********
“Ahhhhh!”
Three homeless cherubs huddled together and screamed their lungs out as they kept trying to look away from the horrors around them only to see a new, previously unknown horror.
The surrounding freaks and weirdos were wincing, covering their ears and flinching away from the glass-shattering pitch that Cletus was reaching as the tiny leader of the squad tried to decide between protecting his comrades from being eaten or huddling behind them so they would be eaten first.
“Ahhhhh!”
“Would someone please shut them up?” A man who looked like he was growing a tree out of his head shouted, leafy hands clapped over his ears as he glared balefully at the three of them. “I’m trying to do semi-legitimate business here!”
“Call the Guild!” A human head the size of a horse with an arm growing out of the hairline shouted fearfully, using the lone appendage to drag himself away slowly. “Run! Run away!”
The three cherubs stared at the head dragging himself away and screamed louder.
Finally, mercifully, someone responded to the cries as an armed man arrived: he was clad in a brown tabard with a horned skull shining multiple rays of light down on a tower stitched into the cloth, and his leather clothing looked worn and used as boots hit pavement and he winced at the noise. “Guild of Law Enforcement here! What’s going on?”
“What’s going on?” A yellow… pig, thing with a vest and glasses jumped atop his stall and pointed angrily at the three of them. “What’s going on is these three were dropped here by Sovereign Clawthorne and the Owl Lady and they began to make the most annoying noise in all existence! Arrest them now!”
The man, someone from something called a ‘Guild of Law Enforcement’ sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Being annoying isn’t a crime.”
“The Emperor’s Coven would have arrested them!” The pig argued as the guild man glared.
“Yeah, well, the Guild isn't the Coven. That’s the whole damn point, sir!”
Cletus finally decided to shove his comrades behind him and shiver in pure horror at the weird and freakish world around them. He tried to glare up at the man but shivered and simply winced away. “He’s going to take us back to his… his Hell Prison and eat us!” Keenie whispered fearfully.
“Or worse… make us sin against Heaven! Again!” Collin, ever reliable Collin, finally broke free from the trance of terror that he had been caught in since realizing that they were not working for an agent of the Joybringer, but an agent of Hell itself who had dragged them down into the bloody pit itself.
“Cletus!” She began to tug on one of his overall straps and stare at him with terror. “Cletus, what do we do? If we get caught-”
“We’re already caught.” Cletus sounded so defeated and broken as he spoke, a look of resigned terror in his eyes as the leather-clad enforcer of Hell approached them. “All we can do is choose the only option left.”
The man knelt down and tried for a kind smile. “Hey there, my name is Ajax. What’s you-”
“WE GO DOWN FIGHTING!” Cletus screamed as he launched himself at the man's head and began to land as many blows as he could against him. The man began to scream and reached up to grab ahold of their leader only for Collin to rush forward and try to trip him over while she flew up and latched her teeth onto his arm.
The man stumbled backwards with three cherubs savagely attacking him before falling to the ground. Silence reigned in the Night Market as many different people of less-than-legal intentions stared at the scene unfolding before them.
And then anarchy broke loose.
Hoots and hollers broke out as many people surrounded the downed Law Enforcer and began to place bets on who would win, while many stands and stalls began to pack up in a hurry before more Guild Members showed up. A few wild beasts escaped and caused some minor damage to the market while a small yellow pig demon began to try and rifle through everyone's pockets while they were distracted.
This, of course, was noticed almost immediately and another brawl broke out as everyone blamed everyone else for the thefts and a riot started to form.
“Go for the eyes, Cletus!” She yelled out in between trying to gnaw her way through leather and chainmail, latched on like an alligator as the arm waved through the air and took her with it.
“I’ll do tha-urghk!” Cletus tried to get out before a hand grabbed ahold of him, squeezed the life out of him, and then ripped him away from Ajax’s face and began to try and wind up for a throw only for Collin to latch on and try to pry his fingers open.
“You little shits!” Ajax shouted, his face bruised and his arm still being gnawed on by a feral Keenie. “I'll throw you in a cell and leave you in there!”
“We’ll die before we go to your Hell prison!” Collin shouted as he began to kick the Guild member repeatedly with as much force as he could in the knees. A few of the fighting demons and witches around them began to cheer them on as they kept up the riot all around.
Before it could spill out anymore than it already had, spotlights began to shine down on the frenzy of fighting all around them, a bunch of chainmail wearing people in leather overcoats with wide-brimmed hats descending all around them as small and goopy-looking purple air balloons began to circle the crowd. “This is the Guild of Law Enforcement!” A voice roared down at the riot around them. “Cease this violence immediately and raise your hands in the air!”
Cletus let go of the enforcer and turned to his comrades. “If they take us in-”
“Let’s go already!” She yelled, grabbing them both and taking off into a side alleyway as all their wings began to flap faster than a hummingbirds. Purple goop monsters began to round up the freaks behind them while a few angry guild officers began to chase them down.
Alleyway after alleyway, sidestreet after sidestreet, they flew like their lives depended on it… which it did because if they were caught they would be killed and eaten or worse: led into sin. She panted and huffed as she flew faster than she ever had in her entire life, her wings actually hurting as she made her way in whatever random direction she could away from the pursuing hell demons.
Finally, a dead end arrived in front of them and she dropped Cletus and Collin and turned to face her adversaries. She looked around for anything they could escape through and spotted a lone sewer grate they could sneak through, and thus pointed towards it so her comrades would help her lift it up so they could all go underneath into the sewers of Hell.
It was a dismal place, reeking of refuse with walls covered in graffiti rabidly insulting someone called ‘Belos’ and ‘The Covens.’ Collin splashed down into the waste water with a sputter and she landed atop his back while Cletus flapped down gently before closing the sewer grate behind them. Once they were safe she summoned her golden crossbow and with trembling hands, held it pointed towards the sewer grate. She heard Cletus follow after her and point his own crossbow with her and together they waited for the Hell Police to show up.
And so they waited.
And waited.
And waited some more.
“Did we… Did we lose them?" Cletus asked nervously, his voice trembling as he shook in place. She flew up slightly so Collin could get up and get out his own weapon. They waited and heard nothing but the rushing water beneath them and the echoing silence of the empty sewer.
“We… we escaped.” She laughed to herself, feeling safe enough to fly up and do twirls in happiness. She was filthy, she was scared, she was tired, and her wings hurt but she also felt absolutely alive!
“We did it! We’re safe!” Collin cheered before Cletus rounded on him angrily.
“And we’re stuck in Hell… thanks to you!” He snarled as he pulled on Collins' shirt enough to force his head against his own. “We are stuck in the Bad Place… because of you!”
Collin paused, thought about it, and then began to cry. She awkwardly rubbed the back of her head and floated down beside him before giving Cletus a ‘fix this!’ glare. He sighed and scratched his head.
“Hey… um, it’s- we’re okay at least!” The leader of their little trio tried. The toddler-like cherub gave an awkward smile as Collin sniffled before him, the purple lamb looking completely put out as he lost himself to despair.
“She was supposed to help us!” He cried out, sorrow radiating off of him in waves. “She was- she was… she was supposed to be working for Emily!” Collin fell down into the filthy waters around them and began to weep softly, his little body shaking as he did so.
“Hey, hey, hey.” she flew down to begin rubbing his back, trying to comfort the weeping cherub. ‘It’s gonna be okay, Col. It’s…” she tried to find anything that could make the situation better and came up empty. She stammered a bit as she fought to find anything she could say to make him feel better at all.
“At least we have each other?” Cletus offered and she beamed as she started nodding furiously.
“That’s right! We do have each other!” She tucked Collins’ chin upward so he could look at her smile. “So long as the three of us have each other things will be okay.”
Collin sniffled and rubbed at his now puffy eyes. “You… you promise?”
She nodded and the depressed cherub breathed in, his breath hitching a bit, before offering a shaky smile.
“Okay!” Cletus began to fly back and forth, his expression severe. “We are trapped in hostile territory, surrounded by enemies, and actively hunted by demonic jailors who seek to lock us up and throw away the key.” The toddler-cherub clapped his hands together, grimaced, and then turned to them. “Luckily, there is a solution to our problems.”
He smiled. “I heard from my mother’s best-friends sister’s aunt whose former roomate joined the Exorcists that there’s a Heavenly embassy in the middle of Hell. If we can make it there, we can get out of here and ask for a lift back to Heaven.”
She frowned. “Uh, Cletus? You forget we still need to find a reason for them to let us back in?”
Cletus’ smile dropped before it picked right back up, the toddler-cherub flying up and around the filthy sewer. “Then we simply need to tell them about the witches!” He chuckled darkly as he flapped around. “Yeah, yeah! If we can tell them we engaged in glorious combat with satanic witches who sought to corrupt a poor and probably very confused human man, and when they hear about how we tried to save him we will be let back in no sweat!”
Collin and her shared a look of concern, a frown on both of their faces as they turned to look at the slightly crazed look in Cletus’ eyes. “Cletus… I don't think that will-”
“Fail?” The toddler cherub laughed to himself like a crazed angel. “I know, it’s foolproof!”
Collin raised his hand to say something and she slowly lowered it with a sigh. “Just let him have this.” She whispered into the purple cherub's ear. Collin nodded slowly and they let Cletus laugh to his heart's content.
A thought occurred to her, one she really didn't want to have right now but one she had anyway. She grimaced as she voiced her ultimate concern right now. “Cletus? Where will we stay while we’re looking for the embassy?”
Cletus’ laughter slowly died out as an awkward expression formed on his face, the leader of the trio looking around nervously as he coughed into a fist. “Er… here?”
Both Collin and her stared at him in disbelief. “You want us to stay in a filthy sewer? Again?” she asked furiously.
Cletus held up his hands to forestall her very justified anger. “Okay, this won't be like last time! Hell doesn't have any rain as far as i know so we won't be flooded out and thrown about like ragdolls this time.” He flew about and gestured wildly at the filthy squalor around them. “Look, it’s safe form the elements, nobody will bother us-”
“Because nobody else is desperate enough to live in a literal sewer!” She protested and Collin flew between them with a conciliatory look.
“Hey, we don’t have to live like literal rodents.” The purple cherub said happily. “We can try to pretend to be demons and live up above in plain sight.”
They stared at him until he realized the colossal stupidity of what he said and flew down with a defeated look.
“That dumb idea aside… we can’t stay down here forever.” She brought up, her golden brow furrowing as she looked about the dank and dreary looking sewer. “We need to eat now and I would rather walk up to the M-Mor…Morningstar himself and ask him to kill me than eat anything found in a sewer.”
Cletus and Collin opened their mouths to comment or argue before a trifecta of stomach growls sounded out in the silence around them. Cletus sighed while Collin nodded sheepishly. “Should we…?” Cletus motioned into the darkness around them and the three cherubs formerly of heaven stared. “I mean, this Sewer has to lead somewhere, right?”
She wanted to argue that that didn’t sound right and they could get lost down there… but when she thought about it, she truly didn’t know enough about sewer systems to point out what exactly she thought was wrong with that statement and so she kept quiet and flew forward with her fellow cherubs into the unknown.
The sewer went on for what felt like endless miles, bends and twists in the system leading them into what felt like a labyrinth of darkness that was only broken up by the slight glow of their halos. They followed the movement of the… let’s call it water and leave it at that, in the sewer as they tried to find an endpoint. Collin sniffled sometimes, a look of obvious distress on his face as he hovered alongside them while Cletus had an almost manic determination on his face as the three of them travelled the dark underworld for hours… perhaps even days or weeks…
Not even a singular hour after they entered the sewer, Cletus paused and looked above at what might have been a different pothole unless they had actually gone around in circles like she was beginning to fear. “Lets pop-up here and see if we can find some stuff to make a shelter down here.”
“Or, we can pop-up here and see if we can find somewhere else to live that isn’t a sewer.” She said with a frown. “I really don’t want to stay down here, Cletus.”
“It’s this or we get captured by the demonic minions of Hell and taken away to… I don’t know, Helljail or something.” Cletus frowned and looked down in confusion. “Can a prison have a different prison inside of it?”
“I don’t think demons care enough about rules or anything like that to try and police themselves.” She said with a frown. “Like, they kind of threw that away when they screwed up on Earth enough to get sent down here.”
“But there were guards down here.” Cletus argued, flying back and forth as he waved his hands in the air. “Like, we actually saw literal guards down here.”
“Maybe we misheard?”
Cletus looked at her and opened his mouth-
“Hey guys!” Collin’s voice rang out from above them and the two startled and looked up to see Collin, his purple fluffy body holding up the sewergrate cover and looking out into the demonic world above. His fluffy head poked back in and looked at them with a smile. “I think I found a place to live that isn’t a literal sewer!”
Cletus and her looked at one another for a moment and floated up to join him and poked their heads out to see a dingy looking dead-end alleyway of stone buildings and cobbled streets with a bunch more graffiti in it. She didn’t know, personally, who the heck Lord Calamity was or why it was necessary to write on a wall that said lord was here at one point but she ignored it in favor of looking at the heavily vandalized poster of some white-robed and golden helmed figure with antlers rising from their bird-like helm and a white mechanical looking staff in their hand. Said figure had been defaced with a fake mustache, stink lines, red X’s over their eyes and what looked to be a small hellhound creature going ‘weh’ and sending a shock wave that spelled out ‘loser’ at the figure. “Witches Rule, Belos Drools!” Had been written prominently around the stink-lined head of the figure.
Whoever this demon was, he seemed to have pissed off his fellow denizens of hell.
“I’ll admit, we could maybe steal some blankets and make a nice tent here,” Cletus said slowly as he looked around the alleyway. “But I don’t think-”
Collin grabbed their heads and turned them around.
The city opened up and showed a street leading off into the beginning of a forest: white barked trees with red leaves that swayed in the wind while red grass grew underfoot. And that forest was overshadowed by a pale-stone cliff that rose up and hung above the city like a massive pillar. But it was the lonely looking shack that even from here looked dilapidated that Collin pointed at.
“It can’t be worse than the sewer, right?” The purple lamb cherub said eagerly as Collin and her looked at one another and shrugged.
He wasn’t wrong.
**********
Present day.
**********
Hell, The Bad Place, The Bottomless Pit… Keenie sighed as she reclined against the patched-up beanbag as she thought about the circumstances of their new life in the depths of Hell. They were trapped with no way to get out so far and it looked like nature itself was out to get them.
So far she had managed to figure out that the rain scorched everything it touched and the rainbow that appeared after said rainfall was honestly painful to look at. But that was just Hell, apparently. At least there was growing vegetation here, and at least the stars were pretty to look at alongside the vaguely skull-faced moon. Honestly, Hell wasn’t completely awful…
Which was the problem.
They were acclimating!
She was an angel of Heaven, she shouldn’t feel anything but overwhelming terror at the thought of being trapped in Hell. She sighed angrily as she settled deeper into the beanbag chair and stared at her golden crossbow in contemplation when the raggedy curtain to their little shack and Collin flew in with a resigned look on his face.
“Northwest of the market area is a bust, couldn’t see any sign of the Embassy.” The purple lamb said grumpily as he floated over to the massive hand drawn map of the city that had been pinned to one of the sturdier looking walls. Collin, Cletus, and her updated the map as they searched throughout the unnamed city they had taken to calling ‘Hellopolis.’
Collin took a marker that had been left in the shack by whatever unknown people had abandoned the perfectly workable shack for whatever reason they had. Good riddance to them, it meant the three of them were safe from the elements and also the many demons of Hell that stalked the streets of the city below.
Collin grumbled as he carefully drew out a new section of the city on the map, buildings and streets being made by the purple lamb cherub as he nodded and drew what he could from memory. She frowned as she stared at him, not saying anything as he finally finished up and turned to look at her. He saw her gaze and sighed as he flew down to settle into the beanbag chair across from her and just stared.
“Do you hate me, Keenie?” he finally asked after a few moments of silence.
She didn’t hesitate for a second. “No, I don’t.” It was the truth, in fact.
Collin just kept staring at her. “Even though I got us trapped here?”
“Collin, I dislike that you didn’t ask the first human to recognize you’re an angel from heaven any important questions about who she really was, and I’m incredibly annoyed at how the restaurant mission ended… but I don’t hate you.” She nodded at him and tried for a smile.
Collin shook his head. “I… know you’ve never really liked me so it’s nice to hear you don’t actually hate me now.”
“I,” She swallowed and felt a lance of guilt go through her because he was right on the money: she had never really liked him.
Oh, when they first met as members of CHERUB she had thought he was nice. A little dopey and a little naive at times but overall a swell guy that she would be proud to serve alongside in giving blessings to mortals. The problem was… well, it had been a number of things and most of them boiled down to the fact they just had generally incompatible personalities.
Their likes and interests seemed diametrically opposed to one another: He liked staying indoors with a nice book, she thought that was too boring to do even once. She liked full contact sports while he thought those were barbaric. He liked being peaceful and turning the other cheek while she had tried joining the Exorcists but had been turned away due to being too short. They just… never really meshed as they actually got to know one another and it had led to her getting annoyed by everyone who thought that because she was also a lamb cherub that that somehow meant she and Collin were perfect for one another and should get together.
She had no plans on doing that now or ever.
“I don’t…” She tried before trailing off, not really knowing how to put it but wanting to try anyway. “I… do dislike you, yes. But I don’t hate you, never have.”
Collin finally smiled and the guilt lessened. “So,” She moved on as she tried to think of anything else to say that wasn’t deeply personal. “How’d Cletus do on your mission?” Cletus had said he was going out around the exact same time Collin had left on his scouting mission and so she-
Collin blinked at her and cocked his head to the side. “He didn’t come with me… I thought he was with you?”
She blinked at Collin as a cold sense of horror washed over her. “He said he was going out… why would you think he was staying with me?”
“Because he wasn’t with me at all during my scouting mission.” Collin said with an equal amount of growing horror.
The two lamb cherubs looked at one another and she reacted first: she launched herself at him, grabbed him by the lapels, and began to shake him back and forth like a ragdoll. “COLLIN! WE AGREED WE WOULD NEVER LET CLETUS GO OUT ALONE! HE’S TOO DESPERATE AND STUPID!”
“Wow, thanks.” Cletus’ voice came from the entryway of the shack as the toddler cherub floated in with an unamused expression. “And here I came back with great news about our stay here but now I kind of want to throw you into the next rainstorm.”
“CLETUS!” Both Collin and her flew forward and looked him over for every possible injury. “Cletus, you know you should go with one of us whenever you leave. It’s dangerous out there!”
“I’ve been leading CHERUB squads for ten years, Keenie! I think I know what I’m doing.” Cletus said with a dismissive expression as she fought his way out of their grasp and floated around them to look happy. “Anyway, I happened to go out looking for more thrown away food for us to eat and actually struck gold! Our food problems are over!”
She blinked at him in confusion and looked at Collin, who shrugged back at her with a wry look.
“Ah, that would be my cue I think.” A rather nasally voice came out from behind the curtain and in walked… well, she first thought it was a wingless cherub since it was a small and upright piglet in a red waistcoat with a smart looking pair of glasses on his face as he looked the two of them up and down with a considering look. “I am Tibblet-Tibblie Grimhammer the Third… Tibbles to most witch and demonkind and I have a proposition for-”
“Yeah sure whatever do you actually have food or do you have ‘potential’ food for us to have ‘later?’” She interrupted him with a glare, fists on her hips, as he sighed in annoyance.
“I brought a bag of Not-Dogs with me, they’re quite good with ketchup and mustard.”
“Now we’re talking!”