Double or Nothing: One in a Million

The Sound of Progress

Buried in the cables tangled through the most powerful generator in all of Hell, Eleanor twisted her hands through the inner components of the machine, fixing her hair often before returning to work. Eleanor, admittedly, was no engineer. She couldn't find her way around a toaster if it were dissected. Truthfully, her business was in business. Statistics, marketing and the foundation of money-making were her core principles, all done with paper and a pen.

While this technology wasn't alien to Eleanor, it surprised her to see things that were far simpler than she had anticipated. Her hands set to work on whatever they could tangibly grasp, unwinding cables and rewrapping wires and gears to arrange the power core in a new formation. This new formation would allow her to come back and easily revert the core back to its functioning state, but for the time being it needed to be dismantled. While Eleanor worked against her own mental clock, the hands ticking in her eyes as while her hands flashed across the machinery, a door opened into the engineer room behind her.

Eleanor swirled around, disappearing in a shimmering distortion, invisible to the eye if one weren't looking for something amiss. The spectral servant floated around the door space, hovering in the air above an accelerator. The rafters connecting walkways into the core and out into the breathing room of the chamber had a new guest, one that startled Eleanor. Their form was hunched, more Demon than scientist, with long, wiry fingertips and a set of bulbous, fish-like eyes that bulged out of a writhing, clammy face.

Eleanor floated around the wandering creature, rubbing her chin. "Whoa. What happened to you, big fella?" Eleanor floated around the aquatic Demon, her face scrunched in an empathetic dismay upon seeing the full extent of the Demon's transformations. "Is this what those brainwashing screens are doing to you and your friends?" Eleanor asked herself, fixing her hair before diving into the back of the Demon's inert head. Plunging through the darkness, Eleanor landed on the frozen coast of a tropical paradise.

The waves weren't pulsing in and out, the sun remained rigid in the sky, and the palm trees of Lust hung limp and lifeless in their sandy roots. Eleanor removed her shoes, wiggling her toes in the sand. 'At least the shore is still nice and warm,' she sighed, wandering along the coast until she found a voice reaching her ears. "Help! It's so cold, so lonely here!" Eleanor tied her hair back, running toward the voice. It came from a row of bushes just beyond the coast. "Hang on! I'm coming!" She replied, pushing through the leaves until she stopped in the clearing.

There on the coast, huddled in the ruins of a shipwreck, a scientist stood with a plasma rifle raised, shooting at a swarm of parasites crawling through the sand-ridden wood boards. Eleanor leapt away from the ground, swirling in a cloud of smoke before sweeping her arms across the shipwreck, lifting the startled scientist into the air and blowing the emerald green parasites into the ocean where they sparked and shuddered before shrieking, dissolving into clouds of noxious green smoke. Eleanor landed on the shore, helping the trembling scientist to their feet.

"Sorry about the shake up. Are you feeling alright?" Eleanor asked the shaken Demon. The Demon, fixing his pair of goggles on his face, turned to face the now deceased Demoness. "Yes, I'm alright. Thank you," they replied with clear trembling in his throat. Upon helping the Demon to his crustacean legs, Eleanor turned her gaze out to the waves of the tropical coast. "Let me guess," she grinned, "you were dreaming of some vacation time in Lust when the screens started fritzing?" The scientist shook sand out of his pincers and straightened out his beady eyes.

"Uh, yes. I have a son who lives on the coast. We had arranged to visit, but then I was put under by some strange green light." The barnacled bioengineer turned to face Eleanor, clasping his lab coat sleeves together. "You wouldn't happen to have something to do with this, would you? The hypnotizing, I mean." Eleanor pursed her lips, shaking her head. "No, not me. Something worse is coming around, I just can't figure out where they're from." Eleanor mulled over the subject while the scientist stepped back, admiring the shores.

"It's Leviathan," he exhaled. Eleanor spun around in the sand, her hands at her sides in curious flapping motions. "Wait, you know what Leviathan is?" She asked. The scientists turned to face Eleanor now, a grim expression on his crabshelled face. "There's only ever been records of one being who originated in Sloth. One being who could hold this strange form of enchantment over the minds and psyche of Demons." Eleanor took a step toward the crab-like Demon, rubbing her hands together. "Is there anything specific you could tell me about a weakness, or how to beat him?"

The scientist raised a claw to his bubbling mouth, fixing his goggles with the smaller of his pincers. "Leviathan is an elusive legend, a scary story you tell your children about to make them go to bed. But if he has returned, then this nightmare has become a night terror. Further evidence must be found before I can conduct a proper investigation." The turquoise and bronze crustacean turned to face Eleanor. "All being said, you helped me stave off that virus. I am indebted to your service, woman." Eleanor grinned, fixing her suit and wiping sand off of her sleeves.

"Ah, it's nothing much. Just making a small team to tear that bully apart from the inside out. So," the ghost declared, clapping her hands together with the ocean breeze on their shoulders, "what can you tell me about this Leviathan deity?" The scientist adjusted his goggles, cracking a smile under his razor edged shell. "You would be wise to pick up on this. I'll only say it once, so make sure you have the proper writing tools to jot this down."

Eleanor grabbed her notebook from her pocket and a pen from her pocket square. Clicking on the pen, the scientist rested himself in the sand by the water, sighing as his legs eased into the warm sand. "Alright," he replied, "here's everything you must know about Levithan and his corrupted world."