Episode 58

- Part VI

... from the Files of Hydrogen Guy

The Story So Far: The Zxanxi pirate fleet continues to hang over the Earth like a incomplete metaphor. Chuck War helps in the clean-up and rescue efforts in Melbourne, while planning a first sortie against the enemy. Robyn Cheung uses her feminine wiles to uncover the Diatomic Duo's insane plans and reveals them to Hans-Raoul. Frank Latimer tells Vanessa that he suspects the real father of Lucy's baby is his brother Donovan. Hydrogen Guy and Deuterium Boy participate in a desperate bid to head off a full scale invasion -- with the help of the Dark Mage Savadini, they journey to the infernal plane of Aybabtu in search of the Crustacean's immortal soul. Meanwhile, Donovan Latimer discovers that Julian Thoreux is, in fact, a pineapple.

The Plane of Aybabtu, Time Everlasting

Hydrogen Guy and Deuterium Boy stood at the top of the rocky point and surveyed the forsaken land below them.

Deuterium Boy
I'm not sure, do you think it's too early to be disappointed?

Hydrogen Guy
That we're not standing hip-deep in molten sulfur while demons poke us with pikes? No, I don't think you can ever really be disappointed that that's not happening. But I know what you mean. It's far from a vacation spot, but it's more serene than I expected.

Deuterium Boy
In a fetid kind of way.

Hydrogen Guy
Exactly.

Deuterium Boy
So where to?

Hydrogen Guy shrugged.

Hydrogen Guy
I don't know. The experience of searching an entire dimensional plane for someone is new to me. Maybe we should find a phone book. Or the local equivalent of Google.

Deuterium Boy
Presumably Savadini would try to put us somewhere near the Crustacean.

Hydrogen Guy
Presumably. The fact that we're not dead seems to indicate he didn't try to double-cross us.

Hydrogen Guy pointed towards the foothills to their left.

Hydrogen Guy
There may be something in those hills over there. I don't know, life, or civilization, or something. Plus they look relatively close and they're in the opposite direction from that storm, which my instincts tell me is Bad and Scary. I say we head for them.

Deuterium Boy
Point of clarification: We're in Hell. Isn't Bad and Scary what we're looking for?

Hydrogen Guy
I'd prefer to start with Unsettling and Creepy and work my way up to it.

Deuterium Boy
I concur. Let's break out the hand-weapons and walking sticks.

They put down their packs and took out the necessary gear. Hydrogen Guy drew the Ruler of Elendil and noted it was glowing faintly blue, indicating mild amounts of danger or evil nearby. He was pleased to see its enchantments seemed to be still valid in this dimension. Sheathing it once again, he took the automatic pistol Deuterium Boy offered him, attached it to his belt, and together they set off.

The rocky point they had appeared on sloped down gently enough that they could walk most of the way down, only using the climbing gear to go down a couple near-vertical drops. An innate sense told them that trying to "float" down with their hydrogen powers could be messy, so they stuck with conventional means.

Once at the foot of the outcropping, they found the desert floor was covered with a fine, crystalline sand that cut their skin easily. Being caught in a sandstorm would be painful and fatal. Deuterium Boy looked at the compass and found the needle spinning lazily counter-clockwise. He tossed it away and they set out across the plain.

They walked at a steady pace for three hours, stopping occasionally, keeping the foothills directly ahead of them. During one of their rest breaks, Deuterium Boy discovered that the desert sand reacted explosively with urea. Deuterium Boy suffered from a slightly injured decorum, but little else.

By the time they reached the foothills, they were beginning to flag. The slightly unpleasant odour of the air, which they never got used to no matter how long they smelled it, was considerably stronger here. The sands of the desert gave way to a grass-land, though the grass had a rotten look to it, and was slippery to walk on.

As they came to the top of one hillock, they saw that the valley below was filled with what looked like black sheep. The creatures had greasy black wool, like unwashed human hair, and their faces were like caricatures of human faces. Standing in their midst was a demon with a gigantic iron shepherd's crook.

Hydrogen Guy and Deuterium Boy glanced at each other, wondering what to do. The problem was solved when the demon spotted them and waved.

Matthias
Hi there!

Hydrogen Guy
Hello!

Matthias
Souls of the Damned?

Deuterium Boy
Excuse me?

The demon seemed friendly enough. They slipped and stumbled their way down the hillock. The demon was of the fairly typical hircine variety. His head was shaved bald, with four nubby horns on the top. Dark, bony ridges around his eyes gave the impression of glasses, and he wore the traditional diabolic goatee.

Matthias
I said, are you Souls of the Damned?

Hydrogen Guy
No. We're here looking for someone.

Matthias
Ah! You're on a Quest! Afraid I can't help you.

Deuterium Boy
Why not?

Matthias
It's Hell. Against the rules.

Hydrogen Guy
It figures.

Matthias
Doesn't it, though?

Deuterium Boy
What if we'd said we were Souls of the Damned?

Matthias
I would've disemboweled you with my blunt, rusty shepherd's hook here. I don't get to do that sort of thing often; it's kind of a treat. Excuse my manners, I'm Matthias, Shepherd of the 15,000 Lesser Sins. You can call me Matt.

He offers his free hand. Hydrogen Guy and Deuterium Boy shake it in turn.

Hydrogen Guy
Hydrogen Guy.

Deuterium Boy
Deuterium Boy. We're superheroes.

Matthias
Hence the Quest. Gotcha. Well, I still can't actually help you, but there shouldn't really be any harm in just shooting the breeze for a while...

Sheep
Baaah!

Matthias
You be quiet, Insufficient Diligence.

Hydrogen Guy
What are these things?

Matthias
The grand panorama of foul beasts you see before you is the Flock of the 15,000 Lesser Sins. As mortals, you may or may not be aware that there's a hierarchy of sins. There's the Seven Deadly Sins, which are these great big dragon-type things that live three Infernal Planes over. Then there's the Lesser, or Venial Sins. Basically everything that's not a big name sin winds up here. For instance, those two giant rams butting heads over there are Intolerance and Willful Ignorance. I keep telling Satan he should promote them up to Deadly Sins, but he says making them Venial Sins is the best hook he's got on most of the Universe's religions. That greasy little fellow trying to hide behind your cape there is Excessive Timidity. And these two li'l cuties are Riding Your Bike on The Sidewalk and Between Meal Snacking. Hey, shoo. Shoo.

He hustles the two small sin-sheep out from underfoot, and pokes Excessive Timidity with the end of his crook so that it flees and leaves HG's cape alone.

Matthias
Actually, I should admit that there's only 14,997 of them, or that bastard Exaggeration will come over here and start bleating... hey, what happened to your pants?

Deuterium Boy
I don't want to talk about it.

Matthias
Took a leak in the Desert of Discomfort, didn't you?

Deuterium Boy
I don't want to talk about it.

Matthias
Ha! Yeah, that's the Plane of Aybabtu for you. It's not so much about torment as it is about really nasty party gags. You guys been traveling long?

Hydrogen Guy
Ah, a few hours I think.

Matthias
You must be pretty beat.

Deuterium Boy
We could use a rest.

Matthias
Tell you what. This area's just about grazed out, and I was going to head back for a pot of tea. Can I offer you some?

Hydrogen Guy
Sure! Provided you don't intend to make tea out of our blood, or anything like that.

Matthias
Nah. I'm on an herbal kick these days.

A distant bleating interrupted them. Matthias peered around Hydrogen Guy and looked resigned.

Matthias
Damn. That'll be Meddling Curiosity again. It's been poking around a sink-hole all morning, and dollars to doughnuts it's fallen in. I'd better go get it.

Hydrogen Guy
We'll give you a hand.

Matthias
Thanks, I appreciate it.

He waved his crook and made clucking noises, and the sin sheep that had gathered around them parted. They made their way through the flock.

Matthias
Yeah... you get some characters in this flock, let me tell you. I must spend half my time dragging Meddling out of or away from something. But somebody has to do it.

Deuterium Boy
Why?

Matthias
Well, you can't just let these guys roam wild. Never underestimate the damage a stray metaphysical concept can do, even a minor one like, say, the personification of nosiness.

Hydrogen Guy
So these sin sheep are actual flesh and blood representations of the sins they're named after.

Matthias
Well, yes and no. If I left Meddling to pine away in that sink-hole, Hades forbid, that wouldn't mean that all the nosy parkers in the Universe would suddenly start minding their own business. The sheep are manifestations of the sin, not the other way around. Really, the sheep, the Desert of Discomfort, the Infernal Planes, even Great Satan himself are all just consequences of Zela's Law.

Hydrogen Guy
What's Zela's Law?

Matthias
It might be called something else in your reality. That's what I know it as... okay, here we are.

They'd reached the edge of a shallow sink-hole, around which a blasé collection of sin sheep had gathered. Matthias shoved some of them aside with his crook and stood at the edge of the hole. A sin-sheep with a face eerily like an old woman's look up at him from the bottom of the hole and bleated sorrowfully at him.

Matthias
Well, it's your own fault. Did Coercion put you up to this?

Sheep
Baaah!

Matthias
A likely story. Okay, I'll hop down there and push, HG, do you want to grab its forelegs and pull when she gets close? You have gloves on? Good, sometimes they bite...

He scrambled down into the hole and proceeded to shove the sheep back up.

Matthias
As I was saying... Zela's Law says that any sufficiently detailed fictional world actually exists as an independent reality somewhere in the Multiverse... you got her? Okay, pull!

Sheep
BAAAH!

Matthias
Good work! Give me a hand up...

The Meddling sheep bounded off into the flock as Deuterium Boy helps Matthias out of the sink-hole. He brushed off his shaggy lower half like a pair of mohair trousers.

Matthias
Thanks... Anyway, Hell's been described by everyone from Danté to the Aztec myths to the Hellraiser series, so by Zela's Law, here we are. The greater philosophical and religious ramifications of that are left as an exercise for the reader. Me, I'm just a shepherd. Okay, what do you say to some Hot Tea Action?

Hydrogen Guy
Hello, Hot Tea Action!

Matthias
There's a place in Tatarus for people like you.

Matt the Shepherd kept up a continuous commentary on Hell, popular comics, and life in general as he led Hydrogen Guy, Deuterium Boy, and the Flock of Lesser Sins across the field to his cottage. Hydrogen Guy had the impression that it had been time out of mind since Matthias had last had anyone to talk to; he refrained from asking partly out of politeness and partly to keep his head from spinning.

The cottage sat on top of one of the rolling hills in the middle of the grey field, looking like something out of a fairy-tale set down in the middle of a nightmare. Thatched roof, garden of decidedly non-evil looking flowers, white picket fence, cobblestone path, the works. The grass inside the fence was the sweet-smelling, Earthly green kind, not the rank, greyish kind that covered most of the sin sheep's grazing land. Hydrogen Guy commented on the incongruity.

Matthias
Let's just say that the benefits package for minor demons like myself is a rather well-kept secret. That's real grass, my friends, not the soul grass.

Deuterium Boy
Do I want to know why the stuff out there is called "soul grass"?

Matthias
It's diabolical. Each blade of soul grass is actually the soul of a venial sinner. The sin sheep eat the soul grass, and the souls work off bad karma in the sheep's unspeakably putrid intestinal track. When they come out the other end - which is spiritually painful, so I'm told - they get replanted. Repeat ad naseum, at least until a soul's finished that particular phase of its penance. Considering that there's quadrillions of blades of soul grass out there and only 15,000 --

Sheep
Baaah!

Matthias
-- pardon me, 14,997 sin sheep, that can take a while. You know, rounding off isn't a sin, buddy!

Hydrogen Guy
You mean that that grass is made of... human souls?

Matthias
Actually, only a very small percentage of the grass is human souls, given the vast variety of intelligent beings in the Universe, but, yes, in a manner of speaking, they are.

Hydrogen Guy turned a bit pale.

Matthias
Let's just think of it as encouragement to give up some of those bad habits. Hey! Procrastination and Littering! Get offa there!

He jabs at a pair of sin sheep trying to climb over the picket fence.

Matthias
Mangy bastards. Get into my garden again, and I'll give you a whuppin'. Come inside, guys, I'll put the kettle on. Just wipe your feet on the mat there.

Making sure the gate was closed, he leaned his crook up against the wall and led them inside. In a short time, Hydrogen Guy and Deuterium Boy were sitting at the table in Matthias's cheerful country kitchen while Matthias poured them a freshly brewed cups of tea. The cups and teapot were the only immediately visible concession to the demonic, being made from strangely warped and distorted skulls. Other than that, thought Hydrogen Guy, it felt like he was visiting one of his Great Aunts. Deuterium Boy thought it was exactly like visiting one of his Great Aunts, many of whom were members of the Greater Baltimore Coven and Quilting Society.

Matthias
This is a new blend I'm trying out.

His guests each take a sip.

Hydrogen Guy
Mm, minty.

Deuterium Boy
Very nice.

Matthias
Glad you like it. It's Essence of Hellbane, which dooms mortal travellers to spending an eternity in the Lake of Fire.

Hydrogen Guy and Deuterium Boy performed a well-coordinated spit-take.

Matthias
Ha ha ha! Just kidding, guys, it's President's Choice Mint Refresher. Here's a napkin...

Hydrogen Guy
Very funny.

Deuterium Boy
Just our luck, first demon we meet has a sense of humour.

Matthias
I warned you, this place is all about nasty party gags. I'm bad, I know. But anyway, I've been monopolizing the conversation. I bet you guys are dying to tell me about this Quest you're on.

Hydrogen Guy
We're looking for someone who apparently arrived on this plane eight months ago. A super-intelligent lobster named the Crustacean.

Matthias
Well, like I said, there's a quadrillion blades of soul grass out there. Should only take you a few billion years to check them all. Unless he'd committed some major league stuff, in which case you're lucky and he's probably in one of the fire-pits to the west.

Deuterium Boy
He was a super-villain who wanted to wipe out the human race and replace them with a race of lobsters like himself.

Matthias
Ahhh... okay, then he's probably in a Personal Hell in the Dungeon of Castle Aybabtu, living out his own worst nightmares in an eternity of unending psychological torture. I gather he was some kind of arch-nemesis of yours?

Hydrogen Guy
You could say that.

Matthias
Ratings are dropping, he got killed off too early in the series, so you've decided to bring him back to life, eh? Is that it?

Hydrogen Guy
What? No! Of course not!

Deuterium Boy
It's complicated. There's this fleet of alien shrimp threatening to destroy the Earth --

Matthias
Oh, you're from that reality. There was a memo about that a few centuries back... I'm supposed to give you my utmost cooperation.

Deuterium Boy
Really?

Matthias
Priority instructions, from the Number One Bogey Himself.

Hydrogen Guy
That makes me nervous.

Matthias
And well it should, my friend. Anyway, to reach the Castle, you head northeast to the Peaks of Putrefaction. Cut through Running Sore Pass and into the Valley of Anal Rape --

Deuterium Boy
Please tell me that's just a poetic name.

Matthias
Just don't drop the soap, and watch out for the wild boar-men. When you reach the far side of the Valley, you'll see three mountain ranges meet - the Range of Tumours, the Range of Fungal Necrosis and the Range of Unholy Defilement. The meeting point is called the Enduring Peak of Anguished Regret, and at the very top of that Peak is Castle Aybabtu. The porter will meet you at the Gate of Good Intentions and help you with your luggage. All in all, it's about three days' journey on foot. You can cut it down to a day, actually, if Joyful Ned's stable at the mouth of Running Sore Pass hasn't closed for the winter. If you can answer his questions, he'll rent you a pair of Alpacas of Heresy.

Hydrogen Guy
"Joyful Ned"?

Matthias
For the love of God, don't ask why he's joyful.

Hydrogen Guy
Ookay. Just one more question.

Matthias
Shoot.

Hydrogen Guy
Which way is northeaAAAH!

As he was talking, Hydrogen Guy, who was sitting closest to the window, twisted around to try and get his bearings. When he turned, he found a large sin-sheep leaning through the window, staring at him.

Matthias
That's Perverse Sexual Lust for Comic Characters. For some reason, she seems to like you. But Mother of All Gorgons, if she's trampled my begonias...

The sheep stuck out its tongue and licked the back of Hydrogen Guy's neck.

Hydrogen Guy
Agh! Agh! Agh! Get it away!!

He leaped back, almost winding up in Deuterium Boy's lap. Matthias shook his head.

Matthias
Just a word of advice, diablo a mano - if a giant sheep is all it takes to give you a fright, you're in for one hella trip. And I mean that literally.

Deuterium Boy
Pull yourself together, HG.

Hydrogen Guy
It just startled me! That's it! No deeper psychological significance, I swear it!

Deuterium Boy
Sure, HG.

Matthias
Okay, Heckle and Jeckle. Come out and help me de-sheep the garden, and I'll point you in the right direction. And may the Author have mercy on you souls.

He was writing a progress report on the Ballistier project - or maybe it was on labour negotiations with the assassin's union, he was so deeply involved in it he couldn't tell - when Hans-Raoul felt the mirror getting hot.

Instantly he shoved the laptop aside. He pulled the palm-sized mirror - framed in a delicate filigree of some gold or brass-like metal - out of his back pocket. He muttered a word to deactivate the warning spell, and gazed into the glass intently as it began to cool.

His reflection began to cloud over, and then he was peering into an indigo mist. The mist reddened and then showed a blasted plain under a dark, red sky. Two tiny figures - one blue, one orange and green - were trudging across the plain towards distant hills.

Hell, he thought. Somebody must have sent them to one of the Infernal planes. Who? It had to be the old wizard, Savadini. Dumnoric was lost, and wouldn't have helped them anyway.

He studied the scene carefully. Guiding the mirror's view, he scanned the territory around the two figures. It all look so... generic, it might be any one of the Infernal Planes. Nyx, maybe? No, the sky was the wrong colour. Abyss didn't have any deserts... it had to be one of the peripheral planes.

Then he caught site of the mountain range beyond the hills that the two heroes were walking towards. He willed the mirror's "camera" to zoom in. Ah ha. A giant castle on a mountain peak where three mountain ranges meet. That sounded familiar.

He searched his memory. His father once dragged him on an expedition to map some of Hell's peripheral planes, and they'd catalogued this one... Yes. 046656H-AY, the Plane of Aybabtu. A sleepy little Hell, as far as they went, ruled over by a rather insignificant archfiend leftover from the Babylonian days. Somebody he could easily make a deal with...

He told the mirror to hold the image and set it down. He jumped up from his desk, ran to the door and flung it open.

Hans-Raoul
Robyn! Hold all calls and set my email's "covert mission" message until further notice.

Robyn
Who --

He didn't hear her back talk as he slammed the office door and locked it. He went to the desk and picked up the mirror.

The castle. He cleared his mind, steadied his breathing. Concentrating on the image of the castle, he let the scene fill his senses. The image started to grow, swell out past the boundaries of the mirror.

He was almost gone when he felt something grab him by the shoulder.

He failed to suppress a yelp as his concentration was broken. He felt himself falling, his mind was filled with noise and blinding flashes of light. He felt the terrifying sting as drops of the infinite Mist hit his cheeks. If he didn't pull out of this, he'd be lost in it forever.

The grip on his shoulder tightened painfully, reminding him it was still there. Hans-Raoul thought he heard a female whimper, then realized what had happened. Anger surged inside him. He reached behind him and grabbed her arm, tightly. She cried out, and he felt bones shift dangerously in her wrist.

He filled his mind with the image of the castle in the Plane of Aybabtu. His thoughts expanded out into the Mist, and then suddenly the light and noise disappeared, and they landed rudely on a gravel path. The sky was dark overhead, and forbidding black stone rose in jagged peaks all around them. The Castle Aybabtu lay up the path in front of them, like a visual from an antique horror flick.

He got up and jerked her to his feet. She struggled against his grip, shouted at him to let her go. He lashed out with his other hand, striking her on the cheek. She flew back, wrenched out his grip, and landed on the ground. He loomed over her, and for a moment she was terrified.

But sons of kings do not kill in hot blood. In a less than a second he'd composed himself enough to start yelling.

Hans-Raoul
What the fuck did you think you were doing?!

Robyn relaxed slightly, and tested her wrist. It wasn't broken, but it hurt like hell. So did her cheek and jaw.

Robyn
When we get back, I'm filing a grievance and then suing your ass into Hell and back, you motherfucking --

Hans-Raoul
HELL? Where do you think we ARE?!

She looked around her. She fought the urge to panic, and stared back at him with enough chill to make Satan consider buying ice skates.

Robyn
Transylvania? What the fuck do I care, all I know is YOU are going to PAY --

Hans-Raoul
SHUT UP. Do you realize you almost killed us?! When I'm using the mirror, I have to CONCENTRATE, otherwise I'll end up Val knows where! When you grabbed me, you broke my concentration and we were sucked into the Mist! Lucky for you I could recover. If we'd been separated, you'd be learning a new definition of eternity right now!

Robyn
What the hell are you talking about? Where are we? What did you do to us?

He reached out to pull her back up, but she jerked back from his hand. She got up herself, dignity bruised but intact. Sometime in the transition or after, she'd lost her glasses.

Hans-Raoul
How'd you get into my office?

Robyn
I had a key made last month. Well?

Hans-Raoul
Well...

He slipped the mirror back in his pocket. At least she's not in hysterics, he thought; she's handling it rather well. Maybe he could use her here. As bait, or a bargaining piece with the demon.

Hans-Raoul
Well, you're here, so you might as well make yourself useful, mortal. Get this straight - you are still my "executive assistant", but now you need me to survive. You will refer to me as "my Lord", at the very least in the presence of others. Understand? You won't survive a New York microsecond in this reality without my protection. I'm not even joking. You will obey me unconditionally. Got it?

He expected, at the very least, the usual back-chat. Instead, she smiled demurely, and curtsied. Hans-Raoul found it unsettling.

Robyn
Of course, my Lord.

He nodded.

Hans-Raoul
Good.

Robyn
Will you tell me what's going on now?

Hans-Raoul
I suppose you need to know. This is a dimensional plane on the periphery of Hell. Hydrogen Guy and Deuterium Boy are here, too, looking for the Crustacean. We are going to that castle over there, and striking a deal with the resident archfiend to make sure that they don't escape.

Robyn
All right. What have we got to offer him?

Hans-Raoul
The demon? Other than the souls of two of your world's greatest heroes and the prestige of capturing the same, my family has something of a reputation. He'll deal.

Robyn
That's not much to go on.

Hans-Raoul
We're not in Kansas anymore, Toto. Just trust me, I know what I'm doing.

Robyn
Yes, my Lord.

Hans-Raoul
Turn it off for now, will you? You're creeping me out.

Robyn
Yes, my Lord... that mirror of yours is a pretty useful tool, hm?

Hans-Raoul
You could say that. And no, you can't see it.

Robyn
I wasn't going to ask. Lead the way to the Castle, my Lord?

Hans-Raoul
I told you, cut it out. Save it for Aybabtu... hmf.

Robyn
What?

Hans-Raoul
I was just thinking, too bad we didn't have a Japanese school girl's outfit for you. It might help negotiations.

Robyn
Bite me, my Lord.

Hans-Raoul
That's the spirit.

If this plot got any thicker, you'd have to eat it with a fork. The Covalent Crusaders have a hard journey ahead ... and a devilish surprise waiting at the end, courtesy Hans-Raoul! And what of the Boys and Girls at the Front, back on good old Gaia? Can our heroes come through in the Netherworld in time to save the Earth? The story continues (interminably) in part VII of...

The Golden Claw
Same Hydrogen Time, Same Hydrogen Website!