Wauten Dayhil, the world's first and - unfortunately - only defense against the terrors of demonic power, slowly opened his eyes as the blindingly bright light began to fade from behind his eye lids. He blinked several times as he tried to get his bearings, but could see nothing. All about him was an empty void, colorless and full of the unknown.
"Well," he said aloud, "this is boring." He spat to the side in disgust, and was surprised by the sound of it hitting cloth, which prompted a voice to respond.
"f***f's sake, Dayhil," the voice complained, "I just got this thing cleaned since our encounter with that Chimera last Thursday."
"Ehehehe..." the Demon Hunter laughed sheepishly, "whoops."
"So where the hell are we, anyways?" the voice asked, followed by the sound of robes shuffling around in the dark.
"Funny you should say that," a different voice boomed from the void. It sounded as if the voice had come from all directions at once, reverberating through the Hunter's body like a speaker's bass, "because you're in Hell."
As that last word rang out, the sound of beating drums picked up. First slow and rhythmic, they thumped and thumped for a moment before the tempo started to increase. Faster and faster and faster, the beat quickly lost its rhythm and became a frantic hammering of thumps and umphs. It turned into a chaotic thundering that reached a massive, ear-splitting crescendo that abruptly stopped as a flash of white light pierced the entire space.
Dayhil attempted to shield his eyes from the glare, raising a hand to cover his face, but it did no good. The light may as well have been emanating directly from Dayhil, for all it did. Even squeezing his eyes shut did nothing to stop the onslaught of piercing light. Finally, though, the lightbulb-infused agony subsided, and the Hunter could bear to look around.
Beside him, cloaked in black robes and blacker shadow, stood his companion whom he'd accidentally spat on, looking entirely unfazed by the light from a moment ago. The... "man" was a former Soul Reaper, an elite among his kind. But he'd been forced into a contract, working for the Demon Hunter he stood beside, after Dayhil had endangered and then accidentally saved his life. He had even - much to the dismay of himself and his kin - been subjected to the ritual known only as "nicknaming" by the arguably insane Hunter. Worse yet, the "nickname" stuck, and the once-proud Soul Reaper was reduced to.... "Shnigmi".
"f***f your puns," Shnigmi lamented quietly.
"Hmm?" Dayhil replied, the picture of innocence.
"You heard me," the Reaper growled back.
"Now, now," the voice boomed again, "that's enough banter between the two of you, for now."
The duo looked about, surveying the newly-lit area. The stood in the center of a black dais, while above and all around them was a sky-like cavern ceiling of the purest Baby Blue. Dayhil walked out from the center of the dais, which was only about forty feet in diameter, and looked down. As he did so, a low whistle escaped his lips, as he studied what should have been the cavern's floor. But rather than have a bottom, the cavern was filled with fog, as far as the eye could see. And scattered throughout the fog were hundreds, thousands, even millions of what appeared to be small planets. Skyscrapers shared real-estate with simple wooden huts. Glaciers ground their edges against hot desert sands and rolling grassland. Medieval castles fought with futuristic Utopian cities for dominance. And, inhabiting all of the multitudes of homes, were all manner of creature. Demons, humans, aliens, the natural enemies of aliens, strange men in blue Police Boxes, hive-mind entities screaming about the futility of resistance, whilst cocky captains resisted and somehow achieved victory... Even white-robed, winged seraphs flitted about. Never before had the Demon Hunter witnessed such a gathering of people and cultures.
"Holy plops," he murmured, "they'd better have some smoking hot strippers, or I'll be disappointed."
Dayhil was shaken from his awe when he heard the clacking of high heels on hard flooring. It echoed all around him, as if it were from some other dimension that shared almost the same space as his own. Shnigmi drifted over from the dais' center, producing a revolver from his robes. Dayhil, too, retrieved his favored weapon. A crossbow, ornately decorated with the silver faces of the Demons he'd slain, appeared in his hand as if called by magic. It was already loaded, tip glistening in the light in such a wicked way that it almost seemed sentient.
"Is that any way to treat your host?" the voice boomed again, closer now, and losing its PA System effect.
"Only in Hell," Shnigmi replied.
The clacking of heels grew louder and louder, until it sounded as if whoever was walking could have been stepping through Dayhil's skull. And then it didn't. It stopped altogether.
Dayhil was just about to look around when a dot of white light exploded out from thin air. It grew from the size of a pinhead to a baseball, to a beach ball, to a monster truck's tire, and then - like the clacking - stopped abruptly. Slowly, the circle's surroundings began to blur and warp as the two-dimensional circle stretched out into a perfect, white sphere. The growth from pinhead to truck wheel took all of six seconds to occur, but then in less than the blink of an eye, the bubble shattered into glistening specks of rainbow light.
In the sphere's place stood a beautiful figure, stark naked. Both a man and a woman, and somehow neither, the figure was undeniably alluring in an ethereal fashion. Smooth, unblemished skin from head to toe, with no hair to speak of. Its chest was adorned with supple breasts that hung while still retaining a certain perkiness. Their arms, legs, and stomach were all wonderfully toned without seeming too thin or too muscular.
Finally, Dayhil's eyes came to rest on the figure's nether regions, and his eyes widened dramatically. He stared for a moment, and then dropped a hand to his own crotch, checking what he felt and comparing it to what he saw.
"Well f***f," Dayhil cursed under his breath, returning his hand to his crossbow.
"What?" Shnigmi questioned, eyes never leaving the figure, ever wary.
"N-Nothing," Dayhil hastily replied. "A-Anyway," he addressed the figure, "who're you?"
"That's a Devil, you idiot," Shnigmi spat out.
Dayhil's mouth dropped open, shock etched upon every inch of his face. The Devil smirked, and opened its mouth to speak, but Dayhil cut off its next words with his own.
"Shnigmi!" Dayhil cried out, turning to look directly at the Reaper. "Did you just assume its gender?!"