#doom guy x reader

“Woah, woah, wait,” you said, throwing your hands up. The instant that the A.I. listed the numbers, cold anxiety spilled down your spine. “Specimen CF597? The Cyberdemon?”

An Argent Accumulator was a cylinder made of a heat resistant alloy mined from another planet outside of the solar system. Inside of it was a refined version of something known as Argent Energy, which the facility pumped from the Argent Fracture. While the UAC told humanity that Argent Energy was just plasma found beneath the surface of Mars, the truth was much darker. Argent Plasma, before it became energy, was the source of power that kept the Hell realm functioning. No one had yet discovered how it was made— or at least, no one had informed you. You only learned of it after having been reassigned to the Lazarus Complex, and the knowledge had rocked not once, but twice now that the memory resurfaced thanks to Vega.

The Argent Accumulator that Vega was specifically referring to was in the chest of the biggest, most volatile demon in containment on the entire planet. During the Second Manned Lazarus Expedition into the Great Steppe, the teams came upon the petrified remains of a massive Titan that later research revealed to be an ancient Baalgar demon. Corrax tablets— the name given to the written history of the demons by the demons— suggested that the Baalgar demons were once Shadow Lords, a high rank amongst demonic ‘nobles’. 

Upon being brought back, experiments began on the remains. It was soon discovered that, upon exposing them to small doses of Argent Energy, the flesh would respond and grow. From what you knew, the scientists began to meld cybernetic technology into the slowly regrowing demon. You were unsure of the finer technicalities behind it, but somehow— and for some reason— they gave the demon the ability to control the Argent Accumulator they implanted in its chest. This gave it the ability to administer Argent Energy to itself as needed but, as expected, they lost control of it. When they allowed it to awaken, it went on a rampage in the lower sector, and they were forced to contain it in holding cell 6— the only one large enough and strong enough to contain it. 

“That is correct,” Vega  answered as the slayer pulled you along behind him. “I have uploaded its coordinates to you.”

“Once you have extracted the accumulator, it should become unstable enough to send you back to their world.” That was Hayden, who sounded unconcerned by any and all of what they had just found out. “We can control your point of entry with the tether system in your suit, and extract you once you have retrieved the Crucible. I must insist, however, that you leave her  out of it—”

Whatever other objections he had were cut off by the obnoxious klaxon of the warning system. A too calm female voice came over the intercom, announcing that a lockdown was in effect due to an extremely high demonic presence, which preceded the actual appearance of the demons by milliseconds.

Figuring that it was as good a time as any to make yourself scarce, you ducked the volley of fireballs cast by Imps in your, but more specifically the slayer’s, direction. Slipping and sliding on their entrails as he cleaned house with nothing but a shotgun, you threw yourself into the relative safety of an overhang, tucking into a corner made by the wall and the staircase. 

The Imps, you came to learn, were just the appetizer, keeping the slayer occupied until the larger demons could make their way through portals. At first it was a handful of Hell Knights, their thunderous steps overpowering the rapid fire of the heavy assault rifle the slayer utilized against them. The cacophony would have been aggravating to begin with, but coupled with the fact that you were overwhelmed by— just about everything, it was all you could do to watch the devastation unfold.

You shrieked when the obliterated pieces of a Hell Knight corpse splattered to the floor from over the railing, following on the heels of an electrical warping sound. The slayer himself appeared right after, and the impact of 350 lbs of metal clad man on a metal floor was  thunderously deafening. Your head, already spinning from the chaos happening, positively vibrated when he landed. The entire room swirled, the lights of Argent Energy and Plasma and fireballs and bullets all spiralling into one another until you were unable to tell where any of it began or ended.

When the Mancubus demons showed up next, you knew right away. The putrid stench they carried with them, whether it was their own rotting flesh or that of their consumed victims, was recognizable from miles away. Being so close forced you to lean over to dry heave for the second time in less than four hours. There was nothing left, not even bile to come up, but that never stopped your stomach from trying. The smell only grew worse when the slayer took the first one down. You had the luck of witnessing it explode first hand with a well aimed shot from the Gauss Cannon. The superheated plasma tore through the poor stitching that held its stomach together. The flesh inside ignited, dousing the slayer and the surrounding demons in a layer of its acidic bile. While the armor he wore was untouched, the Imps that had the unfortunate pleasure of being covered began to melt almost right away. The same would have happened to you if you had hid anywhere besides under the balcony overhand, but you watched it splatter at your feet to eat holes in the thin metal.

Without skipping a beat, a second Mancubus fired at the slayer from the floor above. The blast sent the slayer sliding back on his heels, through the thick soup of blood and viscera that coated the floor. It rolled down his armor, mixing with the vile concoction that made up the Mancubus’s weapon. Your shriek was drowned out by the powerful explosion that followed, caused by the slayer launching up to the second floor, drawing too close to the Mancubus. The room lit up with orange and a sound like a flamethrower before the slayer reappeared. Where he hit the railing sent him cartwheeling down but you, in spite of your near sheer terror, found yourself impressed that he still managed to land on his feet. As if he had meant to do it, the Gauss Cannon withdrew and a third explosion rent the air. Innards and viscera and unnameable other gunk rained down, adding to the puddles already on the floor. 

It had grown so thick that it began to seep towards you and, faced with the choice of being eaten through with acid or traipsing through the mess, you scrambled to your feet and picked your way around the portions of flooring that had been eaten through.

“Damn, but you are terrifying,” you said upon reaching the slayer. The level of carnage he had left in the Archive Room was on par with the mess the cultists had left in the rest of the complex. Splatters reached all the way to the ceiling and had coated the Helix Stone so thoroughly it was reduced to illegibility. It was impressive.

In response, the slayer grunted. With the muzzle of his still hot shotgun, he nudged you in the back, indicating you walk ahead of him. A staircase was opening around the stone’s display case but, at the top, you came to a stop.

“Woah, woah, wait, I just remembered something,” you said, throwing your hands out to rebalance where the slayer had almost knocked you down them anyway. “Did you find the weapons development lab?”

A hand landed on your shoulder, and you found yourself jerked around. The slayer was glaring at you , eyes narrowed, before they cut to his shotgun.

“If I may,” Vega said, attempting at delicacy, “I believe he means, Why do you ask? As far as we have discovered, he is incapable of speech.”

You clicked your tongue. “I ask because, if you’re going to face the Cyberdemon then dive into Hell, and insist on dragging me along, then I would like to give me the best odds of escaping again. Vega, the BFG is still in containment, right?”

The A.I. made a noise of understanding. “Most prudent. It is indeed still in the development lab in the Advanced Research Complex.”

“All the way upstairs,” you murmured, cupping your chin. “What’s the status of the tram topside?”

“All power has been diverted from non-essentials. The tram is one of them. I can divert power from the elevators, but you will need a clearance keycard—”

“Vega, please, remember who you’re talking to. Bypassing the system would be much faster than looking for whatever shambling corpse has the damn card.” You paused to scan the slayer up and down. “I know you don’t trust me because I look like a demon, but I really do just want to help. Do you want to go up and get this gun or carry on? The longer the portal is open, the harder it’ll be to close, but I’ve heard horror stories about what’s in the Steppe. It might be worth backtracking.”

You could see his eyes narrow in what you assumed to be suspicion, but his desire for a really big fucking gun was evidently stronger than his baser instincts. With the shotgun, he motioned you onward, back towards the elevator. It was a short, silent, and awkward ride back up. If only you had had elevator music to complete the picture, it would have been perfect.

“It will take me a moment to reroute power,” Vega said once the doors had opened. “The lights will dim, but do not be alarmed.”

The platform was still empty where the slayer had obliterated the demons earlier. Their bodies had been transported back to Hell upon death, but evidence of the battle remained— bloodied bodies and chunks, the blackened evidence of missile strikes on the walls, and the broken door that the slayer had entered the room through that was now demolished in its entirety. He was the true definition of a one man army, and it made you take a closer look at his suit.

“Dr. Hayden’s given you access to the Argent Cells, hasn’t he?”

The slayer turned to you, shoulders stiffening beneath his armor. Considering his hatred for demons, you found it a tad hypocritical that he was using energy mined from Hell to power himself up. Then again, perhaps it was a sort of poetic justice. Regardless and considering you liked your head where it was at, you were keeping any and all opinions to yourself.

Well, except for one.

“It also looks like Dr. Hayden added slots like the Elite Guards have in their armor,” you said, circling around the slayer’s back. “Chips are for security alerts per complex, mostly. They contain maps too, though, and the locations for weapons caches— pretty much in case something like this ever happened. Hey, Vega, how much longer?”

“Still a few minutes more.”

When you beckoned to the slayer after that, you expected more resistance than you got. There was still a healthy amount of suspicion, as evidenced by the way he pointed the shotgun at you before falling into step behind. The doors still hissed in a half-hearted attempt at closing, but the slayer had damaged the hydraulics so thoroughly that electrical sparks showered you as you passed through. 

You led him back up to the laboratory, where the four Mancubus demons that had previously occupied the tables now lay in scattered but no less revolting pieces. In the grand scheme of things, you were happier to be sidestepping a few smelly chunks than skirting around full and lumbering demons.

Just up the steps was a lone table, propped up like it had been holding the Mancubus as a museum exhibit. There was just enough space for the slayer to slip between the table and the railing for the left hand staircase, following you into an unobtrusive alcove. 

“A lot of caches are hidden like this,” you said, pressing on one of the decorative panels in the wall. It popped out and rotated to reveal a code panel, into which you put your own identification number. No one but guards, the head engineers, and the lead scientists were allowed access to them, mostly because no one else had need for what ammunition was hidden inside. The panel disappeared and the wall slid in with a pressurized hiss, then up into the ceiling. “Well, that’s convenient.”

Just inside the door, propped against a crate, was one of the Elite Guards. The pool of blood around him had long since dried, and in his hand was a stun baton. As if that would do any good against anything more than a Possessed.

The slayer moved past you while you crouched, and while you patted at the guard’s vest you heard the clatter of metal on metal. With your fingers pinching the chip, you looked up to find that he had broken the lock off of a crate full of shotgun ammo. Into one of the numerous metal supply pouches that adorned his armor went handfuls of shells, stacked neatly within reach. Next, as you yanked the chip from its slot, the lock on the crate for missiles for the rocket launcher was broken. Those were locked into the belt on his back, a dozen or so along with some mini-missiles off of his hip. 

“Here,” you said, holding the chip out to show him. “I don’t know what this one will give you, if you want me to plug it in. Vega might be able to locate more using the signals, but—”

“I am afraid not. The signals have been corrupted by the Hell Portal’s opening,” the A.I. responded. “You may be able to access them via a security data terminal.”

The slayer handed the chip back to you and, in spite of what you guessed was his better judgement, knelt down so you could reach the designated spot. It was a perfect fit, and the slayer pressed a few buttons on his arm guard before standing. He turned then and stepped into your personal space. Unsure of what to make of it considering everything else so far, you put your hands up as a useless barrier between you, and took a step back. 

“Two pieces of good news,” Vega said, startling you. The slayer had just reached out with one massive hand, up towards your banded horns, but it dropped at the sound of the A.I.’s voice. “One, I have successfully rerouted power to the tram. You need only make it to the lab and back to the tram once you have collected the weapon. Two, the chip you have has the locations of all of the weapons caches within the facility.”

“There’s a security terminal up in the ARC too, in the same area as the BFG,” you said, dragging your thumb across your lip. “In theory, there might be a guard up there as well, considering how important that lab is. Also in theory, if I can find a blank chip or a chip that proves useless to us, I can reprogram it to bounce back the signals from the others.”

“Well, whatever you decide to do, you must hurry. The longer the portal is open—”

“Yeah, well, it won’t do us any good if this guy dies before closing it, so the few extra minutes it’ll take to get the gun should prove worth it, especially against the Cyberdemon— or god forbid we meet a Titan.” You paused, narrowing your eyes at the slayer, who was rummaging through a crate full of grenades. “Remind me why I have to go with you?”

It was Vega that answered, of course, saying, “I believe he distrusts leaving you unguarded. It is fair reasoning, given we do not know how the transformation might effect you the longer it goes on.”

That logic was hard to refute, even if you still disliked it. Then again, who would like being dragged into the depths of hell by a man who was somehow twice as likely to tear their head off as literal demons were? You knew how you felt when you woke up, which had been confused but still human. Even terrified by the slayer and all of the demons, you had never stopped feeling human. Only looking down at your hands reminded you of your new appearance, or when wisps of your white hair fell loose from the tie holding it back. On those occasions, you would push it back with your fingers only to be stymied by the horns twisting up from the center of your skull. 

You returned to the platform to find the tram ready and waiting with the doors open. The slayer stood silent sentry, shotgun propped on his arm while you fiddled with wires and pressed buttons. You could appreciate that he was putting some faith into you and had listened to your suggestions and followed your advice so far. At least this time there was no direct warning, with the barrel of the gun pointing towards the window instead of at your back. 

The power went off with a barely audible click but, before the slayer could begin to think you had betrayed him, it came on once more and the doors began to close. Pressing one last button to get the tram moving, you turned to him and lifted a shoulder.

“Vega rerouted the power, but I had to reroute power away from the key pass in the panel,” you explained, tapping the glass. “Meant turning it off for a sec.”

The slayer stood still for a moment, silent as ever, then grunted.

You supposed, considering Vega failed to elucidate, it was a good sign. 

There was a massive body laying on the table in the center of the room right in front of her, and your brow furrowed as you tried to remember what they had called it. It was one of the most disgusting demons you had encountered, a fat, bulbous thing made of putrid flesh stitched together. 

At all costs, you intended to avoid those behemoths. Even if the demons tended to ignore your presence, the stench from a— it was called a Mancubus, you recalled with a suddenness. It was capable of collecting the flesh it consumed in its stomach, where some horrific process turned it into a gelatinous bile that mixed with its own Argent Energy. When fired, it would douse the victim in that acidic bile and either obliterate them or, worse still, render them inert to be consumed as fresh ammo. Just being in the same room with one was enough to make anyone nauseous, and the smell would stick to the skin for days to come. 

Imps and a Hell Knight had joined in the fight between the revenants and you, having decided to make your escape before one of them remembered you were there, slipped out through the other end of the cargo container and out of the center lab room. You knew where you were now, somewhere very near the elevator to the archives, which was where you hoped to find an explanation for what had occurred in the facility. You held little hope that anyone aside from yourself and the Doom Slayer— and maybe Samuel Hayden, considering his body was incapable of being affected by the Lazarus Waves— had survived, but if anyone else had, they would be down in the Archives.

The next room was a central meeting place of sorts, where those in the Archives met with those in the research laboratories as they passed from one to the other. A tram ran from the ARC up top, bypassing the entirety of the Lazarus complex in order to bring artifacts brought back from Hell directly to be studied by Olivia and the other scientists. It was currently being patrolled by a horde of Possessed and a few security guards, who all turned to regard you with passive malice when you fell from the ceiling. The door, which was being guarded by one particularly massive security guard, no longer functioned correctly. It would open a few inches before slamming almost closed, and you had wasted precious minutes searching for a roundabout way to enter. 

You had made it halfway across the room by playing a dangerous game of snake with the shambling Possessed to get there when an obscene shrieking noise made you wince. It was the sound of metal on metal, very unhappy metal on metal, and it made you turn against your better judgement to watch as the doors were pried open wide enough for the Doom Slayer to step through. 

The reaction was instant— the demons all roused with snarls, the Possessed limping towards him while the guards fired up their guns. The room soon filled with the sounds of gunfire and, despite every self-preservation instinct you possessed screaming at you, you continued to stand there for a moment, just watching the slayer. He was every bit the terror that the legends claimed, a massive bulk of a man that tore through the horde before him with the ease of a knife through paper. 

Only when he turned his attention— and his sights— on you did you react, turning on your heel to run. The door was mere feet away but, with the demon presence in the room, it refused to react to your touch. You could hear the heavy stomp of boots drawing closer even as you fumbled with the wires but, before he could reach her— why he had yet to shoot you was a mystery you were unable to mull over in your panic— a startling, tri-tone snarl broke the oppressive silence.

You recognized the sounds of a pinkie charging, its steps twice as heavy as the slayer’s as it no doubt attempted to bowl the man down. The sounds of battle distracted you from your frantic task of bypassing the lock in order to escape the same fate as the first two Pinkies, and you stumbled in your haste to step over and through the still-opening doors. Hitting the floor for the hundredth time gave you a fleeting glimpse of the slayer ducking yet two more pinkies, both charging from opposite directions. Even though he was trying to kill her, you could appreciate how well the hunter did his job, shooting one pinkie with a gauss cannon he had acquired from who knew where in mid-air before landing behind the other. With a well-timed shot, the second pinkie exploded in a shower of bloody chunks and viscera, coating the slayer’s armor in a thick slime. 

As the remaining pinkie voiced its outrage, you found your feet again. Slapping the button to close the doors again would give you only a handful of seconds as a headstart, but you were taking what you could get. You need all the advantage offered to you in order to outrun the slayer, who was already stepping through the door by the time you hit the elevator.

Slapping the close button never made it move any faster, but it was enough, in any case. Even at a run, the slayer was too slow— close, though. A massive fist pounded on the glass, and you could see the twisted scowl on his face, the hatred in his eyes through the visor. You were alarmed to see the thick plexiglass crack beneath another punch, spiderwebbing from his hand just before the elevator began to move. 

With your heart in your throat, you willed the cart to move faster. You were entering Olivia’s private office now, and there was some slim hope that the scientist might have survived. If anyone would have answers, it would be the leader of Lazarus. 

When the elevator landed, you had the fleeting thought to disconnect the terminal that would send it back up, to leave the slayer trapped topside or, at the very least, inconvenience him while he sought a workaround. As soon as the doors closed, however, the elevator was already on its way back up. Even if you took the precious time to tamper with the panel now, it would only serve to infuriate the slayer when he became trapped inside. It was time you could, and should, have instead used to reach Olivia’s office. There you could lock yourself in and, hopefully, give yourself enough time to snoop.

Compared to the rest of the complex, the archives were positively sterile. Everything was made of polished, black metal, perfectly clean as if someone had taken the time to clean up after  all hell broke loose. The centerpiece of the room was a massive tablet dubbed the “Helix Stone”, an artifact extracted during an excursion into hell. It was in several pieces,  and the words etched in the demons’ native tongue glowed red with the energy it was carved with. Olivia had been obsessed with it, you recalled as you stared up at it. Even now, it called to you, threatening to distract you from your life-or-death task. 

Only when the elevator dinged to signal its approach did you startle back into action, flying up the stairs two at a time. There were several drawers open, containing smaller, less important artifacts brought back, slowing your progress down to slip through the narrow space between them and the railing.

All you could hear by the time you hit the door to Olivia’s private office was the rush of blood in your ears, though that sound was cut quite quickly by a single, loud gunshot. A bullet lodged in the wall right beside you, just after you realized you would have no time to bypass the lock to keep the slayer out. You slipped when a second shot rang out, this one slamming near your feet. You landed hard on an elbow, the impact this time causing it to collapse under your weight. Your breath left you in a rush, and you found yourself blinking away tears to see the ceiling with any clarity. By the time you regained your senses enough to realize you were still very much in danger, it was too late.

The slayer had come to tower over you. Through the dark visor, you could see the hate again, clear as day. The ferocity behind it made you scuttle backwards without thought, the pain in your arm forgotten as you fought to put as much distance between him and yourself. It proved a futile endeavor as the slayer lunged. A hand wrapped around your ankle and dragged you back towards him. The other wrapped in the front of your shirt and jerked you up, right off of your feet.

You kicked out on reflex, connecting first with his stomach and, when that netted you nothing, you thought to plant your foot on his chest and push. It, too, would have been futile had the slayer not let you go.

The force sent you skidding on your back until you caught on the door jam and went tumbling right into the office proper. The desk brought you to a stop with a sickening crack, a small cry erupting from her, taking what breath you still had left. When you took another, it was with horror that you realized at least one rib had cracked from the impact.

Still, you forced yourself into a sitting position, watching the slayer approach. It seemed to you that he was taking pleasure in stalking towards you slower than necessary. He could have just shot you from a distance at any point, so why was he taking his time to terrorize you?

Even knowing there was nowhere left to go, you still fought to push back against the desk, staring up into the slayer’s visor with wide, almost unseeing eyes. He reached out towards you, presumably to put an end to you at last, until a soft, flat voice interrupted the steady pounding of your heart in your ears.

“We agreed, Slayer. Please wait.”

He did in an instant, pausing as if frozen, hand suspended in front of you.

“Are you capable of understanding me?”

Looking between the slayer and the speaker overhead, you said, “Yes, Vega  I—”

Your throat clicked when you swallowed, drawing a knee towards your chest in preparation to spring up and run as far as you were able. Even if the slayer was faster, you refused to make yourself an easy target for a man who would rather kill without mercy than listen to reason.

“Interesting,” Vega said and, though it was feigned, sounded as curious as an AI could. “Were you a UAC employee?”

“Yes. I— my identification number was— 6020—” You cut off, swallowing against the dryness again, trying to recall the fuzzy numbers. “It was 602082-47— no, 1712.”

There was a pause while Vega presumably pulled up the information. After a moment, the AI hummed. 

“You do appear to match the credentials provided. Can you tell us what you recall of the event?”

You shook your head. “I don’t recall an event at all. I woke up in front of the service elevator just as he—” You pointed at the slayer. “— was coming down. I had hoped Olivia’s computer would have answers.”

“How did you make it through the demons?”

That was a new voice— the voice of Samuel Hayden. It was more guttural than Vega’s soft inflection and proof enough that he had survived. With a human brain, the intrigue in his voice was real, though it was undermined by a sort of coldness that made you uneasy.

“They ignore me, for the most part,” you answered, hesitant. There was a small voice in the back of your head that told you that the less information Samuel Hayden had, the better. “They watch me, but don’t react when I get near, unless I touch them, so far.”

While Hayden found it “fascinating,” the slayer seemed to disagree. You were jerked to your feet again and kept prisoner by a tight fist in the collar of your shirt. 

“She seems to have retained all of her humanity,” Vega said, which seemed to be the only thing that gave the slayer pause. “What do you think could have caused this kind of transformation, Dr. Hayden?”

“It has been some time since I received a report from Olivia. If she discovered the cause of a reaction like this, she kept it from me. She must have been a part of Olivia’s experiments. Tell me what you know.”

The slayer’s grip loosened a fraction, just enough that you could answer, “I hardly remember anything before the wave hit. I know that there were some of us that fought against the cult’s practices, but Olivia kept us all so locked down, we couldn’t get word out to you or anyone else about what was happening down here. I think we went along with it because— because if we didn’t, then we would end up part of the rituals too. That’s another thing I was going to see if I could find on her computer.”

“Vega, can you access her terminal?”

No answer was immediate, but after a minute— during which the slayer forced you back into the desk, so the edge bit into your spine— the AI sighed and said, “I am afraid not, Dr. Hayden. Dr. Pierce appears to have locked me out of almost all of the computer terminals in the complex.”

“I can,” you said, looking up at the slayer. “Olivia asked me to bypass Vega because— well, I don’t remember why, but I think if I had refused, she would have known I wasn’t buying into her nonsense. I think— I’m pretty sure that I programmed a failsafe into it, just in case I or anyone else needed to get into it again.”

Your memory was returning to you bit by bit, a piece returning to you with each small, new tidbit of information given to her. You swore you could see the slayer’s lip curl through the visor before his eyes cut to the terminal behind them.

“Let her go,” Hayden said. 

When the slayer refused, Vega injected, “It will take me too long to filter through all of the programs and firewalls that Dr. Pierce had installed. You will require her expertise if you wish to unlock the Helix Stone in time.”

Hands held up in defense, you waited until the slayer relented, and inched your way out from between him and the desk. Skirting around to the terminal, you said, “Vega, you can help me. I can’t remember which file I planted the virus in. I need you to scan for a specific sequence of numbers in the code and tell me where it's located.”

That took Vega a mere handful of seconds to do. The problem was that the program Olivia had had you install was designed to short out the AI if he attempted to root through the individual files. It was, you realized after Vega announced the location, a part of your own virus that allowed him the leniency to scan the coding as a whole. 

“Man, thank god I thought ahead,” you muttered to yourself. Your fingers flew over the keyboard, dictating codes for Vega to seek out so that you could follow the directions to them. Each sequence had to be replaced with a new string of your own, forcing the virus to replicate— though, as you carried out the task, you realized it was less a virus and more a flaw you had left in the new system. All you were doing was giving the old program freedom to override the new one, and therefore allow Vega back in.

After several minutes, you stood up and stepped back. Gesturing to the terminal, you said, “There, Vega. You should be able to access everything again.”

“Ah,” he said, sounding pleased, “Indeed I can. Give me just one moment.”

The slayer, to your relief, stayed on the other side of the desk. He had, without your realizing it, withdrawn a standard-issue UAC pistol from a holster on his hip. Given the circumstances, you understood his suspicion. Even after working in the labs for the last few years, you had never heard of a human transforming into a demon but remaining sane, and you would never trust it either if you met someone else like that.

“I have found something. It seems they were researching people with a special brainwave that reacted differently to the Lazarus Waves. It is aptly labeled the Lazarus wavelength in the files. You are on here, as well as a handful of others.” Vega paused, and Hayden hummed over the intercom before the AI explained, “The list also designates everyone on it as ‘non-believers’, and Olivia indicates that the brainwave might prevent the Lazarus Waves from infecting them.”

“That would explain why she let us all live,” you said, cupping your chin. “I had noticed a few of us go missing over the last few months. Ryan Evans, Alicia Knowles—” You snapped your fingers, trying to recall others. 

“They are on a list, along with three others. They were labeled—” Again, Vega hesitated, and failed to continue until you prompted him. “They were taken for research, to see what would happen with direct exposure to Argent Energy. Two died during the experiment. One disappeared without explanation. One turned into a Possessed. According to Dr. Pierce, the last experienced the same transformation as you. She was terminated when she proved too strong.”

“What were the effects, Vega?” you asked, fingers wrapped around your throat. Your pulse fluttered, thready beneath him, and there was another distinct ringing starting up in your ears.

“Superhuman strength and advanced intellect, an incredible pain tolerance. She was also impulsive and quick to anger, leaving her harder to control even than the strongest demons in containment. It was decided she would be terminated, pending an autopsy to discover what other ways the waves affected her.”

“What is it you are experiencing?” Hayden asked, and within the curiosity was a healthy dose of suspicion.

You were also suspicious, of both him and the changes within your body. It was something you had suspected but, amidst everything that had occurred, it had been the least important item on the list. Now, though, with nothing else to worry about, it deserved proper attention.

Hayden, however, deserved no proper answer. How had he allowed Olivia to go unchecked for so long? Had he just trusted her too much, or had her wild antics served some purpose for him up until she took it too far? In either case, you would just as soon trust the slayer as you would Hayden. At least you knew what the slayer’s intentions were.

Reaching slowly overhead in a stretch, you frowned. “My rib isn’t broken now, and I don’t think I have the impulsiveness or anger. The demons ignore me too, as I said.”

“Nothing else?” Hayden asked, and it was obvious that he thought you were lying. “No voices, no strength?”

You certainly were hearing voices, and for a moment you worried that he somehow knew that. They had told you who the slayer was in the very beginning and looking at him now filled you with an irritating sort of itch in the back of your mind that told you to both run and attack the threat before you. The part of you that was still very much human knew better than to follow either of those urges, hoping that doing nothing was the path that would lead to your survival.

“No,” you said, and made a show of flexing your fingers. “Not that I’ve noticed, anyway.”

“That may be the Lazarus wavelength,” Hayden said, and you were unable to tell if he had chosen to believe you or not. You could imagine the towering android pacing his office, slender, robotic fingers cupping his chin. “Olivia may have gotten ahead of herself, exposing the others to direct argent energy. There is the possibility that a more diluted wave is required for a proper transformation. Slayer, it is imperative that she be brought back to me alive. We must study—”

In answer, the pistol levelled at your head. You froze while Hayden hissed, a crackly sound through the speaker.

“She is obviously not a demon, no matter what she might look like,” Vega said, almost chiding. “She has done nothing but run from you this entire time.”

“You would kill an innocent?” Hayden interjected, and he was clearly chastizing.

The slayer’s grip on the pistol faltered before it fell to his side again. Somehow, even as he tucked it back into its holster, you knew that he had some plan for you. No doubt he would see you dead one way or another, even if his hand was not directly involved.

“I think I can make my way back up alone,” you said, backing away with your hands raised, “since the demons don’t bother me—”

In just a few quick steps, the slayer was in front of you. An arm lashed out and your wrist clicked when he grabbed it, squeezing down so hard that the bones ground together. A sharp cry made him relent, but his point was made— you were going nowhere unless he said so.

“You cannot bring her with you where you’re going,” Hayden said, his anger distorting the microphone he was using. “She will never survive—”

It fell on deaf ears, as the slayer pushed you out into the hallway again. Even as you stumbled, you had the mind to ask, “Where exactly is he going, Vega?”

“Into the hell realm. Considering her evident status among the demons, she may well prove an asset to the slayer, Dr. Hayden.”

That might have been reassuring to someone else but to you, it sounded akin to a death sentence. Though you had never gone into the hell realm— evidenced by the fact that you were still alive, in a manner of speaking— you had heard the horror stories. Only two people had ever made it back from an expedition. One had been Samuel Hayden himself, and everyone was certain that was due to his inhuman body. The other was the Doom Slayer currently dragging you towards the helix stone, evidently on a mission.

There was, you supposed, the slightest hope that you would make it through Hell in your new body. That was up to the slayer too, whether he left you to fend for yourself in the other realm or killed you outright where there were no witnesses to say otherwise. With that thought in mind, you were almost certain you were dead walking. Still, your chances were better if you avoided pissing the dangerous, angry man off any more than your existence already did.

It leveled at you in an instant, even before he stepped out of the elevator. More pain, sharp and searing, erupted in your temples. Electricity shorted your brain out as a voice hissed the words doom slayer. It was enough to kickstart you into motion and, faster than you thought possible, you sprinted headlong back the way you had come. Everything you had carefully weaved through before was hurtled on this pass, well aware of the heavy stomp of metal boots trying to close in on you from behind. The whispered words tickled something in the recesses of your memories, something to do with the labs— Pierce, Hayden?

You came to a sliding stop in front of an automatic door, which took precious seconds to open. The decision to duck was reflexive following the rack and slide of the shotgun, but it saved your life. Pellets slammed into the door in a wide spray and, as a second rack followed, you scuttled through into the next corridor.

You heard something clatter and crash at your back— something heavy hitting the floor. That was what you heard first, until something much, much heavier shook the floor— from in front of you. The noise you made when you looked up was unusual, the shrill cry of a startled bird after it was shot from the sky. That was what you felt like as a creature approached, slow and lumbering but steady. It was massive, skin missing around its stomach and its broad neck. Even without eyes, it knew you were there, its slit nostrils flaring with a deep breath. It seemed to you that you hovered in a limbo of sorts with it, with the sense that the Knight was unsure of what to make of you even though it should have torn you limb from limb already.

As it was, you were stuck between a rock and a hard place, just shy of literally. From all that you knew of the slayer, he was not much better than the demons he hunted with such vicious passion that it left him blind to everything else. The Hell Knight was an obvious danger, and there was no room for you to escape.

In less time than it felt to you, a quick burst of rifle fire broke the stalemate. Your own shriek was drowned out by the Knight’s and, enraged, it leapt over you, right into your other problem. You threw your arms over your head out of reflex, as if that would stop you being crushed by either heavyweight. The ground shook for a third time following yet another weight landing on it, and the sound of more, now continuous, automatic rifle fire tore through your delicate eardrums.

There was a distinct ringing in the room now, compounding the roars of not one Hell Knight, but two. In tow of the second were a slew of Imps and a handful of Revenants. The distraction allowed you, once you had scrambled out of the way, to realize that all of the demons were ignoring you in favor of the Slayer. That in itself was good, but there was more to it than that. It was more than just disregarding you. They would look at you for a handful of seconds as the first Knight had done before moving onto their primary concern. You were nowhere near the threat that the Slayer was to them, but that failed to explain why they acted as though you were not even worth taking out.

The moment a Cyber Mancubus showed up was also the moment when you decided it was high and well past time for you to make yourself scarce. The floors further down were rigged with an external power source in case of a facility wide failure, and that was where you felt it most prudent to head. You could find out what had happened— how and why demons were running amok in the laboratory first and foremost. Memories were starting to return to you, of rituals and experiments being performed on willing UAC employees, the results of those rituals and experiments, and something Pierce— Dr. Olivia Pierce, lead researcher in the labs— coined “Lazarus waves”. What it all meant was still hazy, but you hoped that it would all become clear with a little help.

Given that you were a head engineer and not a researcher, you were one of a handful of employees that knew how to bypass the security lockout caused by the demons. If what was said about the Slayer was true, then it would cause him no more anger than he already felt if you slipped out and locked the door behind you again. You saw no issue and felt no guilt, in keeping him occupied with the demons for awhile. After all, it was his sole purpose in life.

The corridor you entered was empty, devoid of life save for what was already dead and coating the walls or made up the blood sacrifices that littered every corner. Olivia, from what you could remember, had cared little for how or where rituals were performed, just that they were performed. It had been her belief that that was how they kept the energy flowing, by keeping their hellish new overlords pleased. There had been, you knew, a handful of employees that opposed Olivia’s views. You had the obscure feeling that you had been one of them. That, or your wiped memories had returned the disgust for the carnage splattered everywhere that you should have had.

You were at war with yourself as you made your way down to the next floor, torn between running before the Slayer could catch up and taking your time to avoid any unnecessary run-ins with stray demons. It was still worth mulling over the way they had overlooked you before, and you continued to wonder if that had been due to the Slayer’s presence or not. There remained a nagging suspicion that it was more than that, but to discover for sure, you would need to face a demon without him around. Self-preservation was, for obvious reasons, stronger than your curiosity.

Most of the facility had locked down after the demons swarmed it, but it was what you and the other engineers termed a “loose lockdown”, which meant that with the right clearance, areas could still be opened again. You had clearance that was just below Olivia herself, which let you into everything aside from her private office. There had been some concern about the engineers having such power, and it had been taken into consideration right up until several employees lost their lives when access to their lab had resulted in a complete breakdown of the fire suppression system. After that, it was at the discretion of the head engineers— yourself, a woman named Tonilia, and a man named Nate— who was allowed into what offices and laboratories. 

You still had yet to run into any demons, and bypassed the lock on the elevator unimpeded. As expected, the next floor down was brightly lit, save what lights were shattered. There was half of a body pinned to the wall above the elevator doors, and the blood that dripped down to your cheek made yours curdle. Following the drag marks on the floor led you into a Dr. Neilson’s office, where you found the other half pulled halfway into a vent in the ceiling.

You wrinkled your nose at the sight, then turned your attention down to the desk. It was splattered with yet more blood, was made up of more candles than anything else, with a pentacle carved into the wax covered surface. There was no sign of the doctor, who was decidedly not the corpse in the vent and over the elevator, and you turned, intending to leave.

Upon catching sight of something moving, however, you stumbled backwards, away from what you thought was a demon. Slipping in a pool of blood, you went down hard for a second time, and cursed the renewed ache in your shoulder. You were lucky you had yet to break anything. 

When nothing came after, no Imp jumped out at you and no Possessed came around the corner, you stood up once again. At first, you thought the demon was still there, just on the other side of a window. It was staring at you with vivid yellow eyes that, to your imagination, almost glowed. There was no malice in them, just a fear that reflected your own, that turned to confusion when yours did—

“No way,” you breathed, moving closer. The demon did the same, matching you step for step until you were all but nose to nose in the mirror. “There’s no way. There’s no way—”

But the demon shook its head when you did, white hair that was once a more natural color bouncing with the motion. It accentuated the twisting horns that you now sported, bandy black things a half a foot long sprouted from the top of your head. Where you had blamed the lights for the odd shade of red your skin had turned, it turned out that you had, in fact, not been imagining it. It also explained the long nails you now sported, just shy of being claws.

When you started to hyperventilate, so did the demon, and when you collapsed, it disappeared as well, presumably hitting the floor at the same time you did. It explained why the Slayer had been so prepared to gun you down, and perhaps why the demons had been so confused before moving on from you. What you were unable to understand was why you had turned into this, when everyone else had turned into Possessed. There had been some speculation, based on the results of some tests performed, that some humans were capable of becoming more than the mindless, shambling husks that most turned into when exposed to Lazarus waves. That was a memory that came back to you when you stood up and faced yourself again, though it did you little good. No one had come up with anything concrete before all hell broke loose, and now there was no one who could look into it left.

There was no time at present to dwell on it, at any rate, not if you wanted to find what answers you could. There was, you were determined to make yourself believe, a possibility that there was knowledge on what had happened to you that they had just not seen fit to share with anyone else. 

It was with renewed but meager confidence that you skirted past the first group of demons you encountered. It was a handful of Possessed, standing stock still in the middle of the room with the next elevator down. The design of the complex was meant to contain an outbreak if one should occur, each floor with their own elevator up or down in order to seal them off as needed, rather than shut down the whole facility. The Possessed, when you stepped out of the corridor, made a collective grumbling noise, heads snapping forward where they had been staring up at the ceiling. They turned to you as one, took a few shambling steps, then stopped. All continued to regard you with eyeless sockets and a sense of malevolence that you might have been imagining. 

Stepping past the first, you flinched at the way its teeth clacked, jaw snapping like it knew that there was something wrong with you. There certainly was something wrong with you, but it let you pass, as did the next, and the next. When you hit the button for the elevator, you turned to look at what were once humans, UAC employees, and found that they had also turned to face you. The curious part of you had to wonder what, if anything, could make them hostile towards you. You were disinclined to test any theories you could come up with but, considering how the larger demons were often quite violent with one another and the lessers, you figured it would take little effort.

The elevator came to a stop behind you with a quiet ding, and the doors slid open with a quiet swoop. With your eyes still fixed on the Possessed in case they changed their minds, you backed into the lift in a careful shuffle, well aware that your arms could only take so much more abuse. 

The worst, you found once the doors had closed, was that you had the corpse of an imp as unwanted company on the ride down.

You wondered, with a mild sense of nausea, if you should be grateful that was all.