God's Gone AWOL

[9] Lucifer Adopts a Sheep

[EPISODE 9: THE END OF THE WORLD]

Hell.

"He escaped???" Wingo said, staring at the empty cell.

Half an hour ago, Lucifer was tightly chained up in his specially-designed cell beneath the mountain. His incessant singing made him hard to lose track of. And at the time, Yardley had been ready to smash her own head against the side of the cave wall just to stop her own misery. But now, there was only a pile of discarded chains and Yardley suddenly wished that he was still singing. Things had gotten so messy.

"Yeah, thanks to Xander," she told Wingo, "See, I told you those two are sleeping together, but did you listen?"

But Wingo didn't care about any of that. The situation was just becoming more and more complicated, and Smythe —the demon who would normally be resolving these things— happened to be the only person currently locked up where she should be. What a headache.

"Lucifer himself has been set loose on this world..." Wingo continued staring at those empty chains with a horrified look in his eye, "Who can say what horrible atrocities that soulless monster will commit?"

Earth.

"C'monc'monc'mon!" Lucy told the claw machine, "Grab it! Grab the little sheep!!"

After breaking everyone out of Hell, Xander was bullied into taking Hazel and Lucy to a disgusting United States breakfast restaurant. —Okay, he wasn't bullied. Hazel was a human and she needed to eat some proper human food. Lucy was the one who begged for waffles. Even though he was pretending to be reluctant, Xander was actually a little relieved. They had made it out of Hell and everyone's first instinct was to get some breakfast. The situation could have turned out a whole lot worse.

The restaurant wasn't Xander's first choice. In fact, he found it quite disgusting. Blocky colours were plastered over every single surface, from the squishy faux-leather booth seats to the meaningless designs painted on the walls. It was so bright and child-like in contrast to the dark cavern of Hell that it was almost nauseating. Plus, everything reeked strongly of coffee, over-processed cane sugar and clogged arteries, so that didn't help his mood in the slightest. But Lucy said he wanted to try their waffles, and whatever Lucy said was indisputable so they just had to go.

However, they hadn't even made it past the entranceway before Lucy decided to glue himself to the ridiculous claw machine just inside the double doors. So Hazel and Xander spent a solid five minutes leaning against the wall as Lucy failed time and time again to lift a stuffed sheep out of the pile of cheap children's toys.

"Awww man," he said as the claw allowed the sheep to fall from its grasp for the sixth or seventh time, "How many tries is it gonna take to free you, wee lass?"

"You know those things are rigged, right?" Xander told him.

"Why can't you just angel-power it out?" Hazel wondered.

Lucy spun around to look at them.

"But that would be cheating! And stealing!"

"Right. Because Lucifer himself obeys human laws of morality?" Xander raised an eyebrow.

"Well Mr. Lunatic, why don't you give it a go?"

The challenge was a stupid one, but regardless of that little fact, Xander naturally couldn't back away. A challenge was a challenge after all, and if he was given any opportunity to prove that he was better than Lucy, of course he was gonna take it. So without further ado, he kicked off the wall and stomped over to the machine.

"Fine then," he said, "I will,"

Coincidentally, when he went to take hold of the small joystick, he accidentally pressed his hand over Lucy's. Immediately, he felt his royal highness' entire body tense slightly, but he didn't pull away. It was a little awkward, but Xander pretended not to care. He just conjured a coin and pushed it into the machine, maintaining his cool and mildly threatening aura.