So, Nancy is finally not looking at me like I'm a traitor to the motherland, which I can congratulate myself on.
We spent about three hours talking: I was digging for information about her "Investigation," her personal life (strictly for better acquaintance and understanding, nothing else), and the topic of faith in general. In return, she asked me about the structure of the world: Heaven, Hell, angels and demons, God and the Devil (who doesn't exist, ha!), and about magic, which the girl was absolutely thrilled with. I completely understand her, because even now, magic for me was not just a tool, but a favorite pastime that was captivating no matter how small the manipulation was. Even a simple magic flashlight gave me a few shivers in my stomach and a sense of inspiration, and the young detective was on the same wavelength as me in that regard.
Another thing was that I had to literally prove that I wasn't a demon at all, but a real angel. At the same time, I can feel it in my gut that one little detective still didn't believe me, especially about me being the "Adam." Sad, but I can work with that, so we'll pretend that we believe that she believes that... In short, I don't give a damn if she doesn't believe me; maybe in the future, she'll be convinced of my nature.
Right now, we were sitting in a cafe eating ice cream. Why am I even bothering with her if I had a "plan" before? Because the plan was shit! I seriously relied on "winging it," because I have absolutely NO experience in detective shenanigans! Literally zero point fuck all, so my ideas were a bit half-baked and counted on the general stupidity of this world and its population.
Nancy, however young she may be (21 years old), is still significantly superior to me in this art, and she also has similar goals—uncovering certain "secrets." So I thought and thought and realized that our goals currently align, so a mutually beneficial collaboration looks pretty good. It's worth noting that I had periodically considered a "full-scale invasion of Earth by Heaven," but each time I suppressed those thoughts because a feeling of... wrongness would arise in my chest. As if by going down that path, I would only harm this world, which I didn't want to do. Even though I contain Darkness, I remain true to the Light. Such is the way!
"So what's the plan?" I slowly sip my coke through a straw, watching how happily Nancy is sucking on her poor little ice cream... She assured me she had no financial problems, but she really did turn out to be a student on her summer break. Looking at her now, thoughts of a hungry childhood and all that came to mind, so I ended up pushing that money on her anyway, under the pretext of hiring her to investigate a "top secret secret" about the world government. For her last "Case," she had received $200…
"First, we need to find where the employees of this firm live, then break into their homes and get access to their electronics," the girl answered, licking her ice cream and looking thoughtfully at the glass it was in. "After that, we can either repeat this a few times for reliability, or try to somehow get into their headquarters, and there… find servers, some flash drives, or wherever they store information?" she shrugged at the end of her speech, unable to resist and starting to devour the poor strawberry ice cream again, which was already sadly melting in the glass from the heat, and now it was being… devoured by a vicious ice cream devourer.
Oh, how "happy" I was when I found out that the shitty, dilapidated building in that very alley was, in fact, the goddamn secret base of a certain "mysterious organization" shown in Helluva Boss! I mean, what are the odds of such a coincidence? 1 in 1000? More like 1 in 1,000,000, because I didn't even remember the city from the canon, so such a direct hit caused first shock, and then a desire to find the local "Fate," if such a thing exists, and stick something somewhere in it.
The organization that hunted demons and other supernatural entities bore the proud name "D.H.O.R.K.S.," the full meaning of which we couldn't find absolutely anywhere. Well, to hell with the acronyms. As far as I understood, this organization is sponsored by a multitude of world-renowned companies, which in turn suggests that the "powers that be" are, at the very least, aware of the existence of Hell and Heaven, which is confirmed by memories of Helluva Boss.
In one of the episodes, we were shown two brilliant scientists who created a literal rejuvenation machine! From a magical standpoint, that's okay, but how did they do it using science? This world is really crazy… Anyway, these "brilliant scientists" (more like brilliant screw-ups) got into this machine and… forgot to switch the lever from "age" to "rejuvenate"…
Yes, their machine could also age people. Due to this blunder, one of these "great minds" kicked the bucket from a heart attack, and the other turned into an old, shriveled piece of a man. His character turned out to be extremely foul, but he possessed enormous wealth that could have saved many people. Naturally, Heaven knew about this, and so the cherubs came to him, trying to get him to do at least something good in the last days of his idiotic life.
And then Blitzo and company showed up, on a job from that same "second brilliant scientist" with the weaker heart. Then half an episode of some bullshit with "very funny jokes," and finally, a battle between the imps and the cherubs, which ended with the crazy old geezer's death at the hands of a cherub who accidentally shot the rope holding a piano, or something like that, I don't remember anymore. In the end, the two "friends" met in Hell, and the cherubs were exiled for their mistake by some stupid deer-bitch…
So what's important in this seemingly filler episode? Ooooh! Now that's the right question!
So, Lyle Lipton, as that old man was called, was NOT surprised when he saw actual imps and cherubs. He was NOT scared and didn't even bat an eye at their first meeting. Strange? Very, but that's not even the main thing. The main thing is this—why the hell didn't that idiot just restore his youth with his own invention? For what reason did two, supposedly not stupid, people just up and activate such a dangerous machine without even testing it on some "pathetic poor people"? How did they even manage to create something like that? Oh yes, this damn episode is literally the quintessence of the absence of common sense, but that's only at first glance. Because, knowing the laws of this universe, knowing about the "players" and their "pieces," as well as the real situation on the "board," one can form a perfectly logical theory that is confirmed by certain facts.
The laws of this world are extremely similar to the laws of my "native" one, not counting the appearance of "Gods" and their "miracles," of course. According to the laws of physics, with modern equipment and knowledge, a machine that could age or rejuvenate is simply impossible! It's physically impossible to build such a mechanism, which means magic had to be involved in its creation… Scientists almost always test their inventions on volunteers first (or not-so-volunteers), and only then do they start using them themselves. In that episode, it was said that they "became so proud that they considered tests and checks to be an unnecessary, useless folly," for which they paid the price… But the chance that they would ACTUALLY forget to flip a damn switch is close to zero, because there were two of them, and it's too important a detail. The old man did not restore his youth. Even if he wanted to die sooner and be reunited with his friend, you can recall an episode from that series: at the end, he decided to continue living, literally: "I may be old, but I'm fabulously rich!" Even if he wanted to die before, why did he talk about old age when he decided to continue life on Earth? One of Lucifer's names is the Father of Lies. He is known for coming to scientists in their dreams and "whispering" secrets to them, thanks to which they can make incredible discoveries. However, these discoveries always lead to failures, catastrophes, and all sorts of similar shit.
Yes, if you put all the information together, you get this picture: Lucifer entered the dreams of these individuals, after which he "revealed" the blueprints for the rejuvenation machine. These two created it and, considering themselves geniuses for coming up with such a creation through their intellect, BECAME PRIDEFUL and suffered from their own creation, which immediately stopped working after that (because its operation was ensured by the magic of a certain little snake. And I'm not talking about Pentious), thereby punishing both scientists. Yes, this isn't even quite a theory, but rather a hypothesis, yet it sounds extremely coherent. And it ties in with Lucifer's role as a fallen, but still, Seraph…
Oh yes, when I learned about this duty of the duck-lover, I stared at this seemingly pathetic loser, as he was portrayed in the cartoon, with dumbfounded eyes for a long time.
Lucifer Morningstar, bearing the titles of Fallen Seraph, King of Hell, and… The Final Frontier.
Sounds cool, doesn't it? And what does it mean? Oh, this is just game-changing fucking information!
Lucifer would enter the human world, find those people who were supposed to go to Heaven not by their way of life, but by the "sum total of good deeds"—we're talking about those who did evil and good, but the good slightly outweighed the evil. Lucifer would test these people, like these two scientists. They paid huge amounts of money to charity, helped thousands find work and feed their families, but most of their actions were dictated by self-interest. That is, in theory, they did nothing bad (on a large scale), but their good deeds were ambiguous. Lucifer, in this way, tested them, sent them a trial, as they say in Christianity. Only, while believers attribute all "trials" to God, in the reality of this specific world, Lucifer was the one doing it, and his "fairness" was closely monitored by Raphael, who often had to rein in his "over-enthusiastic" older brother.
And why the hell didn't Adam know this? Why am I forced to gather SUCH knowledge piece by piece? Vivzie, why the hell isn't there a word about this in your damn cartoon?
Once again, I'm convinced of how one-sided the story was shown in Hazbin Hotel and Helluva Boss, and the way they made me out to be such an asshole makes a certain part of my angelic body burn—my ass.
Okay, I've strayed too far from the topic of conversation—the knowledge of the local elite.
It seems that many people are aware of the existence of demons and angels, but in that case, the question arises—why the hell do they continue to sin?
What idiot wants to go to Hell after death?
…
Exactly, no one. But the local "cream of the crop" can't all be completely stupid, can they?
And for this phenomenon, I also have an explanation: they literally see that demons do whatever they want and Heaven doesn't react at all. Moreover, angels haven't appeared on Earth in who knows how long, and cherubs can hide from people so that no one interferes with their "work."
So that's the deal. The rich see that demons are doing great, they see no action from Heaven, then they compare people of the past (before Asmodeus started his work) with people now and come to a conclusion: God has abandoned this world, so the best option for them is to do as much evil as possible, and also to study all esoteric dark practices, so that after going to Hell, they will have power and strength there too.
Sounds logical? Quite, but while my previous conjectures had minimal confirmation, these have only indirect signs based on my understanding of human psychology. It needs to be checked.
But checking that can come later, when we get to all these gentlemen. For now, the tasks are not so global—"D.H.O.R.K.S." and their secrets. I'm especially interested in the "Truth Gas"… and the "Bitch Juice"… Seeing the button with that inscription in the cartoon, my curiosity demands to know as soon as possible what the hell it is and what exactly it does.
"So how are we going to find out who works at their headquarters? We need to know exactly who to stalk, and they don't feature their employees on the internet, and in fact, they don't feature anything if you think about it," I ask for the opinion of the "professional detective," who has already managed to finish her second ice cream and is now licking the spoon with an air of importance. Like a cat, honestly.
"I have camera footage that covers one of the entrances to their headquarters. It's thanks to that footage that I went to that alley when I saw three unknown people who appeared there out of nowhere," Nancy shrugged, glancing at the menu, apparently choosing a new ice cream… How has she not gained weight with tastes like that? Although yes, right now she's, as they say, letting loose. A reminder: poor students, and all that.
"And how exactly you obtained this footage, I assume it's better not to ask?" I look at the girl with a sly smile, who blushed a little at the question.
"I… It was all for science! That is, I meant to say, in the name of Truth!" my partner made an important face, wagging her index finger. "And besides, it's not for a demon who pretends to be an angel to shame me!" the young woman went on the attack. What is this, kindergarten?
"I've told you a hundred times I'm not a demon," I sigh, hiding a smile behind a cup of tea. I had to sweet-talk the waiter to bring me just boiling water, because the tea here was… mediocre, frankly speaking, so I brewed my own—from Heaven, which I always carry in my "spatial pocket" for just such occasions. "And besides, who just admits to committing crimes like that? You could have said you just bought the footage, and I would have pretended to believe you, and everyone would have been happy," I shake my head with feigned regret, noticing a vaguely familiar dark-skinned woman with short white hair in a sharp suit enter the cafe… That's…
Agent Two, Linda Taylor
Linda Taylor, or Agent Two, hadn't been herself lately. For several years, she had been working for the newly created company "D.H.O.R.K.S.," whose main task was to find the paranormal, primarily demons.
Linda didn't believe in these fairy tales. She was raised in a religious family, but when she encountered the dark side of the church, in the form of some of its representatives… It inflicted a severe moral trauma on the little girl, which made her completely lose her faith and seek answers to her questions only from science.
Years passed, and the little girl grew up. She took courses in self-defense, kendo, taekwondo, karate, hand-to-hand combat, boxing, and many other sports intended for fighting. It was her way of escaping reality and overcoming her fear of men, which had developed over time along with nightmares about that day in the church, and her efforts were duly appreciated!
When "D.H.O.R.K.S." was just being formed, she received an invitation for a very high position in the newly created organization, and Linda, who needed money for eye treatment, agreed without hesitation. And then she heard what "D.H.O.R.K.S." was supposed to do…
Hunting for paranormal phenomena, demons, ghosts, and spirits…
At first, she thought it was some stupid joke, but days passed, then weeks, and then months, and they still hadn't been given a normal assignment.
In the organization, Linda met John Harper—Agent One. They became friends and "worked" together, simply responding to various calls about demons, which, as expected, always ended in nothing. This went on for several years, funding began to drop, and "D.H.O.R.K.S." would have had to close if it weren't for that one evening…
News of large numbers of demons on the streets of the USA instilled hope that they could finally find something, thereby saving the organization from collapse and complete disbandment, but nothing changed, and the calls continued to be duds, which took a severe psychological toll on the friends responsible for such a strange task.
This continued until two real demons literally fell into their laps.
At first, Linda didn't even believe it, but they were interrogated with truth serum, and their body structures were checked, which were different from human or animal, so there could be no doubt. Demons exist!
And the shock of this discovery even overshadowed the death of 80% of the staff at the hands of those demons, and only the arrival of the Devil himself made Linda seriously worry for her life.
That huge owl, as if from a nightmare, reminded Linda of the past, of that helplessness and pain, and although she tried to hide her feelings, it was becoming increasingly difficult, and the death of her friends didn't make her happy at all. So, periodically, the woman would go to a bar and drink, trying to forget what she had seen. It was the same today.
A terribly hot day, a completely empty cafe-bar, and… two people—a man and a girl, who were sitting at a table and discussing something. And then the man shifted his gaze to Linda, and his eyes filled with something strange, some unusual, incomprehensible feeling for her…