Hell

Saving Eryk and Host

        I see Lucifer disappear for a bit then Eryk's hair turns red and Lucifer goes upstairs and puts the body to bed and manifests in the basement. "He will be okay. He just needs an hour of rest." Everyone nods and Grim crawls out of the hole in the wall. Elizabeth then asks, "So both of you live inside of him?" Grim and Lucifer look at each other. "Yes and no, while both of us live inside his head only one of us is physically living at a point in time." Lucifer answers. "What does that mean?" I ask. Grim put his hood back on and answered, "It means that only one of us is boosting his power at a certain point." He points to Tod and Elizabeth. "They saw me boost his power in the forest while I'm sure you saw Lucifer boost his power here." Lucifer nods looking tired. "Grim you know there's only one way to let him use that armor right?" Grim nodded. "Should we even consider doing it?" Lucifer asks Grim. Grim is silent for a moment then speaks "If it's the way I'm thinking of, it's a bit dangerous but doable." Lucifer nods. I wonder what way they were thinking of doing. After a few minutes I get enough courage to ask, "What were you talking about?" Lucifer looks up at me and says, "A very dangerous method to get him a lot stronger and one of you 10 times as strong." "What would we have to do?" I ask. Grim shifts and says, "Mix your blood and his blood and have you bring him back from the dead after we make him possible to be 5,000 times stronger." I back away, if I wanted to help him I could die. Grim seems to notice this. "We are not asking you to do this but you see the aftereffects in the long term of that armor." I think about it for the next 30 minutes, and then I say, "I will do it." Lucifer raises his eyebrow while Grim lowered his hood again. "Why would you risk your life for someone you barely know?" "I trust him and it's the least I can do since he saved my life three times now." Lucifer laughs along with Grim on something they must've thought of and looked at each other, "You wanna try it you old cheeky bastard?" Lucifer asks and Grim nods. Lucifer disappears then Eryk walks downstairs with Lucifer's influence clearly visible. He grabs a katana and slices Eryk's hand open and starts painting symbols on the ground. Grim gets up and tells me to lay in the middle of the circle of symbols Lucifer drew. As I lay down, the katana was making scratches on the floor where the blood would mix. "Why does the blood have to mix?" I ask. Grim looks over and says, "You need to be able to sense his life force and bring him back." Lucifer poured some blood into the scratches on the floor then grabbed my hand and cut my palm. I wanted to pull back but then I remembered why I was doing this. I resisted the urge. When there was a suitable amount of mixed blood Lucifer summoned to shot glasses and filled them with the blood. He handed me one while he swallowed his shot. I thought I was going to puke at the thought of drinking blood but for some reason I thought it would help me get closer to him, so I swallowed the shot. Then Lucifer grabbed my cut palm with his cut palm and left Eryk's body. "Well Grim up to you now start the enchantment." Lucifer says and tosses him a knife. I get a bad feeling. Grim exposes Eryk's chest and carves latin words into his chest but above his heart he makes a pentagram and the word LUCIFER on the top of the pentagram and three 6's two above each lung and one right below the pentagram. He looks at me and starts chanting and I feel myself slipping away into the mind of Eryk. It feels like hours but then I realize that only a minute has passed and I realize that I am inside his memories. Then I come across the memory most strongly bonded to his heart, the girl that Ryan had mentioned. I see it happen, I know what the graduation is. The girl's name was Nicole and he found her as one of the best sparring partners so he recommended her as the host of Azazel, who I found out is the general of the first and most powerful legion and Lucifer's right hand man. He agrees to try but just before the ritual bonding happened, Leviathan possessed Nicole and made her attack Eryk who was stunned when his hair turned black and he got a sword and gutted her. I feel a presence beside me. I look to see Eryk. "How did you get in my head Silver?" He asks then looks behind me. I look and see the most recent memory I have flown past and he sighs. "Why would you risk everything to help me?" He asks. "You let me see all your feeling, memories and weaknesses, even your most guarded secrets and I let you see mine." I am still stunned. "If you still don't understand, it means that now we are no longer teacher and trainee, it means that we are bound by blood to help each other, meaning family by blood, you will earn all my skills and strengths I have right now, while I will gain the power of nearly 72 billion demons and will be nearly unstoppable." He said. "I think it's a worthy sacrifice to let you be able to use that armor and not be pained by the memories you have now." Then I saw it all. The past memories that had risen up to torment him were drifting harmlessly past him and they were replaced by feelings of hope, joy, happiness and love. I realized that the memories that pained me were replaced by those emotions as well and I leaned in and kissed him. I felt as if I was being infused with all of his strength. Then I woke up and saw that he was sitting up and his hair was now deep red with a black highlight on his left side. "I would normally punch you for this," Eryk said pointing to a smiling Lucifer and Grim, "but right now I'm too damn happy that this work... Who the fuck carved a latin chant on my chest?" Grim backed up a bit. "Thought it was appropriate." Eryk laughed and said. "It is appropriate but really the idea of having "trough tenebris lucem tenebras dominus spiritum vitae, et timeatis timete vermiculus noctis ut ferret messoribus,' on my chest seems weird." "What does it stand for?" I asked. Eryk looked at me and answered. "Through the darkness and the light, the lord of darkness breathes new life, fear the darkness of the night and fear the Crimson Reapers might." Yeah that's appropriate I thought. "What happened to you?" Asked Ryan who was sitting on the stairs. "When I walked down here you and Silver were enveloped in a blood red aura... Your hair... Ah I see Lucifer and Grim did that ritual and they used Silver to bring you back." Eryk nods. Patryk comes downstairs and sees me holding hands with Eryk and smiles. "So she's the lucky one... She is too good for you." He tells Eryk. I get up, I've had it with him. "What you need pr..." I cut him off by kicking him where it matters. All the men in the basement grimaced and crossed their legs as if they could feel the pain. "Well he is not walking for the rest of the day." Says Eryk and everyone else nods. He snaps his fingers and he is moved to his room the best we can say. "Now we have this matter to deal with, are any of them ready for graduation now?" Azazel asks. Eryk looks at him and says, "You really can't wait can you?" He nods and Eryk sighs. "The only person ready for graduation is Silver since she now has all the skills I had before this ritual." Azazel nods and walks over to me. "Can I ask you to be my host?" He asks me. "How would that work?" I ask. "It means that he would live inside your body and strengthen you while being able to exist in this world without minor pain that builds up over time." Lucifer answers. I nod knowing that I now have the support of something that I thought I did not have before, friends, allies and family. "Very well." Azazel says. I feel his presence slowly enter my mind and as softly as he can. After two minutes he disappeared and I could hear him in my head. Then he appeared in front of me, yet I could still feel his presence in my head. "There now you will be able to contact or summon me by just thinking my name." Azazel said. Eryk walked over and put a trench coat on my shoulders. "Welcome the new second-in-strength and command, Silver." He said. Second-in-command... I wondered who was the leader. Azazel laughed. "You know the answer to that question Silver. He is standing right beside you." I looked at Eryk, and Azazel nodded. "Time for you to pick your weapons since I already know you are more skilled in close combat than Ryan is." Eryk says as he walks over to a concrete wall that I realized had a lock on it. When he twisted the key the wall slid down to reveal masterfully crafted weapons. I picked a long sword because I actually practiced with it before the ritual. I also took a scythe because since I had all of Eryk's skills, I know Grim's scythe was a good weapon. I also took a magnum revolver, a ACR, a ppsh and a barrett. "Interesting choices." Ryan said, "Those are the exact same weapons that Eryk chose... Oh wait no shit his experience rubbed off on you no wonder you chose those." The three demons and Eryk laughed. "Now the real test begins." Azazel said, "Look through my memories and will my weapon to appear in your hand." I quickly skimmed through all his battles and willed his mighty warhammer to appear. After a moment it appeared but it seemed that after gaining all of Eryk's experience Grim rubbed off a bit, the warhammer was there but above the actual hammer a large blade extended and under the hammer was the same so whenever I would hit something with it the swing would gain its power from the hammer but the enemy would be impaled then the actual blow would land and send them flying. "Grim... Love the after affects on the hammer." Said Azazel. Grim nodded. After two hours of sparring with Azazel and noticing his punches didn't hurt I won. "Eryk, how the fuck were you this skilled in hand to hand combat?" Asked Azazel, it occurred to me that he never looked at the memories that passed between me and Eryk. Eryk pointed to Lucifer "I had a good teacher." And Azazel nods. Then Eryk and Lucifer went up to spar and I noticed the guitar case from the first time I saw him and realized I never saw what was inside it. Lucifer manifested his sword while Eryk opened his case and pulled out a beautifully made katana. "Have not seen you use that sword in a long time." Lucifer states and charges at Eryk who is standing his ground with the katana in its sheath when Lucifer sliced at Eryk. He appeared behind Lucifer with the blade to his neck. "Your speed is still unmatchable Eryk, good for you." Lucifer says and makes the sword disappear. Eryk sheaths the katana and straps it to his back. After a party and lots of drinks Eryk teleports everyone to their rooms and the demons go back inside our heads. Eryk cleans up the mess and walks to the third floor with me. "So we know every detail of each other's past and present now?" I ask and he nods. I start to go into my room but he calls me over and we go into his room. That night was the only one so far that my usual memories did not make my dreams but the happy memories did. I woke up alone and could hear the shower running in the side room. I got dressed and went downstairs to greet Ryan who was in the living room watching the weather. "Morning." I said. "Morning Silver." He looks at me and raises an eyebrow. "What happened last night? Did you dye your hair?" I go look into the mirror and see what he meant, my hair was now silver and my eyes were golden. "Azazel, what happened to my hair and eyes?" I asked in my head. "Part of the influence you have from hosting a demon. Why do you think Eryk has red eyes?" Azazel answers. Eryk then walked downstairs and started making breakfast. "How are you Sliver?" He asks. "Great, no nightmares last night." I respond and he nods and goes back to cooking. Next Patryk goes into the kitchen and starts bothering Eryk... Again. "You never learned to cook like me, move over scrub let me show you how it's done." Eryk grabs an empty pan and turns into Patryk, slamming him in the stomach with the pan. "Oh sorry a new chef like me did not know where you where." Eryk said his voice dripping with sarcasm. "Fuck you." Patryk said. Eryk went back to cooking and it seemed like forever passed before he spoke again. "Silver you know about the mid year formal dance right?" He asked. "I remember hearing about it in calculus why?" I ask, knowing somewhat what he was gonna ask. "Would you go with me?" On the floor Patryk laughed and said. "She is too good for you, of course she will not go with you." When Eryk turned to deliver my food he made a point to falsely trip and knee Patryk in the gut while perfectly tossing my food to me. "Is that even a question of course I'll go with you." He smiles and Patryk gasps. Elizabeth walks through the door and Eryk tosses the plate right where she sat down. "I give that toss 10 points." She said. Ryan walks into the kitchen and Eryk tosses him a root beer. "You are on top of things today Eryk." He comments. "Well after last night I gained a lot of skill and knowledge." Eryk responded. I blush and Elizabeth starts putting the pieces together. "Ryan you know about mid year formal, who you going with?" I ask. He looks at me. "I have no idea, normally someone asks me last minute." Eryk laughs and says, "Just ask Elizabeth it's not like it's not clear that both of you like each other." Ryan attempts to punch Eryk but he catches Ryan's hand and moves him to where Elizabeth was sitting. "I believe that Ryan has a question for you." Eryk says and walks back into the kitchen. "Would you go to the mid year formal with me?" Ryan asks. Elizabeth practically tackled Ryan and said. "Yes!" Then Tod and Lili walked into the kitchen to find Ryan and Elizabeth in a very bad looking pose. "HOW DARE YOU WHEN PEOPLE ARE WATCHING!!!" Lili roared and started slapping Ryan. Me, Eryk and Tod were laughing.