Curvaceous Cardinal Vices

[SoylentOrange]

Okay guys, I've been waiting for this moment for a very, *very* long time. Like, well over ayear, probably close to two at this point. "The Punch" as I've referred to it when talking with Hmmm!, is a major story turning point akin to Mr. Big's penny from Juggalos. This is guaranteed to be the chapter pic when we get to it, and I hope you have as much fun reading it as I did writing it. ^___^v
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Sidney whipped his head between the monster that used to be Erin and the weathered face of the centauress, eyes wide.
"What- who- how-" He stammered, twisting back and forth with his hands up in front of him, like he was trying to avoid touching anything, until he started to lose his balance and slide sideways off of Famine's back.
"No!" Famine and Envy both yelled, grabbing Sid.
"Sidney! Please!" Envy yelled. "Sit still!"
"Wh-where am I?" Sid finally got out, instinctively pulling away from their strange hands. "Who are you? What are you?!"
"You're in Hell!" Famine snapped. "A mortal! In Hell! Envy, what did you do!?"
"I didn't mean to!" Erin wailed, putting her three-fingered hands to her head. "I just... I panicked!"
"You're panicking? *You're* panicking?!" Famine shreiked, straining the bands that tied her lips together. "You remember what happened *last* time we had a mortal in here? The poet? It was a total firestorm! I'm not supposed to touch another Mortal until we hear the trumpets, and I sure as hell didn't hear any trumpets!"
"T-trumpets?" Sid stammered, still too bewildered to form coherent thoughts.
"I-It's fine! It's f-fine!" Envy said. "A-Armageddon's not happening anytime soon! I think!"
"Arma*geddon*!?" Sidney yelped, grabbing his head.
"I, this, this can't be happening," Famine muttered, shaking her head. "This can't be happening. No trumpets, a mortal on my back, this... this... I need a drink," She said, pulling the globe of wine off her sash and knocking it back in one gulp.
"What... what's going on here?" Sid asked, finally able to compose himself a little, still looking all around him at the alien landscape.
"Y-you're in Hell," The Erin-creature said, looking on the verge of tears.
"Hell." Sid repeated, looking down at the twisted landscape beneath Famine's hooves. "Like, honest to God, Hell?"
Erin nodded, biting her lip.
Sid blinked, a little stunned. "That's... And who are you?"
"I... My name is Envy," She said.
"Envy. Like, the emotion."
"The vice, actually, and yes," She nodded.
"So... your 'sisters'?"
"Lust, Sloth, Wrath, Greed, Gluttony, and Pride."
Sid closed his eyes and put his face in his hands. "This is unreal," He said, "This can't be happening."
"That's *my* story," Famine said, "I'm dropping you off as soon as possible, and pretending none of this ever happened."
"Hey, I didn't ask to come down here, either!" Sid exclaimed. "What's so special about me anyways?"
Famine opened her mouth to speak, but whipped her head to look at her hand as the scales tethered to them made a loud *clank*.
"What the-" She started, before her aerial run slowed to a trot. She slowly raised the scales, looking at the two dishes set directly opposite one another on the balance arms.
"...That has *never* happened," She breathed, looking back at Sid. "Who *are* you?"
Sid could only shake his head, eyes wide and hands spread.
"All right, end of the line," Famine said, landing near the roof and bucking forwards and back. "you're freaking me out!"
"W-wait! Ack!" Envy cried as she fell off Famine's hindquarters, Sid tumbling after but offered a softer landing by virtue of managing an arm around her flanks on his way down.
"Please, Famine!" Envy called out, scrambling to her feet. "Don't say anything! We'll fix this!"
"YOu think I'm gonna talk!?" Famine yelled over her shoulder. "I was never here, I never saw this, this is *your* problem!"
Envy dropped to her knees, shuddering as she was abandoned on the roof of the Vice's dwelling with a mortal in tow.

Sid was still somewhat dazed as he watched the centaur-monster gallop at full speed away from the mansion he was apparently sitting on, hooves pounding against thin air as she sped away.
"Am I.. Am I dead?" Sid asked, looking around. Even though the house was nestled in a canyon, he could see far up in the distance, rings of terrain like mountain ranges stepped one behind another, their edifices indistinct yet terrifying.
"No!" Envy said. "You can't be! It's against the rules!"
"Rules?" Sid asked, turning to Envy.
"It's... even here, there are rules," She said, looking away. Sidney noticed the two eyes on her drooping wings were looking intently at him, and her skin had started to look more like Erin's than whatever creature Envy was.
"Rules how?" Sid asked, still trying to take in the fact that he had literally gone to hell. Any thoughts of a reality TV show had been obliterated, a host of altogether more horrific explanations assaulting him all at once.
Envy sighed. "'No ray of heaven's light shall a sinner fell, nor a saint's flesh touched by the fires of hell, or so shall cease the enternal struggle of the soul, as purgatorio shall both realms consume whole."
"...And what's that mean?"
"It means that mortals aren't supposed to ever die outside the mortal realm," Envy said as she stood up, Her coloration nearly completely human, even if the shapes were still demonic. "We're not allowed to take mortal lives, save at the behest of other mortals. If a mortal was to die here, the war would..." She closed all four eyes this time, arms and wings wrapping around herself as she shivered.
Sid's eyes wandered over to the edge of the roof. "So you're saying if I was to take a header off here..." He started, taking a step.
"Don't!" Envy yelped, lunging for Sid and grabbing him around his arm. He shuddered a bit at the scaly, three-fingered hand around his forearm, but pulled out of it after a moment.
"Okay, then," Sid said, crossing his arms over his chest. "Since you ruined my life, I'm going to ruin yours unless you tell me exactly what I want to know," He said, nodding towards the edge of the roof.
"Wh-what?" Envy said, her eyes pleading. "Y-you can't! I-I mean, you wouldn't!"
"I'm in *Hell*, sid said. "How much worse can it be? Now tell me what the- er- what on Earth is going on here, or so help me..."
"I-I don't know!" Envy said, sinking to her knees again. "I really don't, I promise! Pride sent us after you-"
"Pride?" Sid asked.
"Er, Priscilla, that's her name in the mortal realm."
Sid's eyes flicked up as he put the two together. "And... And so, Wendy? and Gina? All the other people you 'work' with?"
"M-My sisters," Envy admitted. Wrath, Greed, Sloth..."
"Those are their names?"
"Yes," Envy nodded, frowning. "If you call one by their names in the mortal realm, they revert to their true form. That's why-"
"So *that's* why they kept running off," Sid said, pounding a fist into his palm. "So again, why me? What'd I do?"
"I don't know," Envy said, shaking her head.
"DOn't mess with me..." Sid said, arms folded as her glared at Envy.
"I don't! I really don't!" She repeated, shaking her head. "She's never told us, never told any of us!"
Sidney looked on, the corner of his mouth pulling into half a disapproving scowl. "Fine," He said, putting his hands in the air, "I don't even care why. Just tell me how to get home."
"U-um..." Envy stammered, looking away.
"What?"
"I, uh, um, I don't, that's..."
"Looks like a pretty far drop..." Sid said, leaning towards the edge of the roof.
"I don't know!" she spat out, putting her hands out towards him again. "I don't! I- we've never dealt with anything like this before."
"...Assuming I believe you, I still want out," Sid said, hands on his hips. "Or at least off the roof."
"A-all right," Envy nodded, standing up and taking a few steps towards one of the gabled dormers on the roof.
"Wait," Sid said, folding his arms. "How do I know this isn't a trap?"
"Um, well, I mean-"
"You can't expect me to take your word for anything at this point, right?" Sid asked, raising one hand out of his folded arms.
"I- I'm not clever enough for that..." Envy replied, looking down at the window as she fiddled with the its latch. Sid gave her a simpering look, but she wasn't looking at him- at least, not with the eyes in her head. The eyes in her wings, disconcerting as thery were, never stopped staring at him.
"L-look," Envy said as she opened the window. "Just, um, be quiet and I'll try to get out without anyone seeing. After that, um, well, just worry about getting out of here first..."
Sid looked at Envy, a brow arching as he noticed her looking more human than she had a moment ago. Her hsair seemed to be darkening, her skin lightening to more human tones. It was still her normal colors, just tinted oddly, kind of like it was caught halfway between two colors. Shaking his head, he bent down and crawled into the window, coming into some kind of attic. It smelled of age, the smell of some of the old shops he'd gone into that had been run by the same family for sometihing like nienty years. As he picked his way through the piles of goods, he saw piles of books in several langues, all incredibly old-looking; dolls and games and other odd trinkets tracing back to several ancient civilizations, the familiar shapes of heiroglyphics adorning the topmost objects in one pile and large embellishe old english script atop another.
"This is all sloth's junk," Envy said as she picked her way across. "When she got bored with it, she couldn't be bothered to take it and get rid of it so she just shoved it up here- after Greed nabbed any bits that were valuable, of course."
Sid snorted, but he did notice as they picked their way through the piles that they did seem to be modernizing somewhat.
"Careful now," Envy said as they reached a stairwell at the end of the room. "I'm not nimble enough to go down these without the stairs squeaking, but maybe they won't hear..."
Sid wondered how that was possible, given that her extremeties seemed to be made up of damp clay, the way the skin shifted and drooped, but he continued down behind her, the steps creaking slightly as they descended.

The next room was similarly cluttered, full of industrial-era contraptions and victorian furniture.
"...Where does all this stuff come from...?" Sid asked aloud.
"From the mortal realm," Envy answered. "Where else?"
"Er," Sid started, not really mezaning to start a conversation. "But- don't you have that sort of thing here?"
Envy shoot her head. "We can forge chains from adamantium and bound sinners in searing stone, but that's all for work. Weapons of war, thrones of torture, we've had those perfected for millennia, but no demon ever thought of an easy chair."
Sid blinked as he stepped over a brass footstool, processing all the bewildering information. A look out of thw window at the far end of the room revealed the same craggy mountainscape, and he was alrady slicked with sweat.
"Does, um, the other side have this stuff? I mean, heaven? If this is hell, there's got to be a heaven, right?"
Envy paused with her hand on the banister leading down to the next floor, still unable to face Sid but her wing's eyes unerringly locked on him. "...Yes," She finally said, "But I don't know anything about it. We're not allowed up there."
Sid said nothing as he followed behind Envy, trying not to meet the gaze of her wing-eyes as they turned around to stare at him. He noticed her footsteps creaking slightly on every stair, but even when he followed right behind her, the steps didn't creak beneathn his footsteps. Were demons just unusually heavy, he wondered? It would explain why every time he'd tried to touch or hold one of them it had been like trying to pull a car...

The next room down was littered with things Sid recognized- old recor players, radios, and ancient, bulky televisions.
"Sloth loved this stuff," Envy murmured as they made their way around the clutter. "Once she could have entertainment come to her, she barely left the den anymore."
Sid shook his head, trying to wap his head around the timeline he'd just traversed through. He'd gone through several thousand years of history in three floors of someone's junk storage.
"Okay," Envy said as they reached the door. "Um, I think, maybe, they'll all still be upstairs, but if we hurry- quietly- we can maybe get out the front door without, um, anyone seeing. I think. I hope."
The door opened up into a marble hallway, the walls made of solid polished stone, and (Sid thought) surprisingly well-lit for a house in hell. Envy tip-toed to the opposite wall, taking care not to let her toe-horns clack against the floor, sid following behind as Envy pressed herself against the wall. Sid's eyes widened slightly as he saw Envy's skin darkening where it pressed up against the black marble walls, the color fading but never quite matching the wall's glossy black.
As she came to the corner, she edged out slowly, looking first down the hallway to the left and then around the corner to the right. She tip-toed past the small door set into the corner of the room they were passing along, and headed towards the large double doors. Sid could hear a television going down the hallway behind them, and hoped as Envy neared the handle that it would cover the noise of their exit.

Suddenly the doors burst open, causing Envy to yelp as she backpedaled into Sidney, two figures visible past Envy's wings.
"I don't know... Where..." The one in front said, her four hands and leafy wings dropping limp against her gold-tinged skin as she saw Sid, her eyes going wide.
"Oh no," Sid heard Envy whisper from in front of him.
"Well hel-looo, handsome," The purple skinned and vastly-bosomed one next to her cooed, grinning. "Funny meeting you here."
"He- you- that's-" the four-armed one stammered, one hand pointing a finger at Sidney, one pointing at Envy, one gabbing the side of her head and the last cupping her mouth in shock.
"Greed-" Envy started, backing up into Sid and walking the both of them past the small door they'd just passed.
"How- he- what-" Greed continued, looking near hysterics.
"Who cares how..." The purple-bosomed one said, sauntering up next to Sidney. "All I care about is if there's enough time for a roll in the hay before Pride finds him." She leaned in close, causing Sid and envy's backtracking to veer off towards the wall under the second-floor catwalk. "If you thought I was sexy as Lucy, you should see me like this. I can blow your mind..."
Sidney gulped hard, figuring the demoness with the venus flytrap wings must be Lust.
"ENVY!" Came a bellow from behind them, causing Sid and both of the demonesses he was next to to spin around. Sid felt his stomach drop and his skin grow cold even through the oppressive heat as he saw a great shining silver demon, her sking glowing bright enough to cause him to squint and violet flames seeming to burn from her eyes, her rage rippling the very air around her. "You foolish im-" She started, jerking to a stop when she recognized Sidney. The flames seemed to cut out, like a grill fire that had suddenly had its valve closed, and Sid was able to notice for the first time the wild-haired woman standing next to her curling her claws wickedly and the grossly rotund woman opposite her.
"...YOU!" The silver demoness spat, the flames reigniting even fuller than before. "Sloth, you incompetant lump of excrement, I told you to watch the interior!"
"They didn't come in here, Pride!" A voice protested from the den.
Pride's face contorted in some kind of seizure, a mixture of rage, bewilderment, and resignation flowing over her featured until her head snapped back up to Sidney and Envy, Lust having wisely backed away when Pride made her entrance but Envy too paralyzed with fear.
"YOu I'll deal with later, Mortal," She said, her eyes locked on Envy. "Move."
"You-you're Priscilla, r-right?" Sidney stammered as he backed up, Feeling Envy's tail wrap around his leg.
"When I must go among you flawed, pathetic mortals, yes," Priscilla spat. "Now move."
Sidney backed up some more, feeling himself bump against envy as she backed into the wall. They were the only things in the hallway now, all the other demonesses hanging back at the far end of either side.
"S-so it's your fault, then," He said, clearing his throat.
"...What?" PRide asked, hauling to a stop a few feet from Sid.
Sidney felt Envy's three-fingered hands grab a fistful of the back of his shirt and heard her whimper. "You're the one that's been sending them all out on these stupid 'dates'."
"Stupid?" Pride echoed, standing up straighter. "Did your feeble, imperfect, incomprehensibly moronic brain just judge one of MY brilliant plans as 'stupid'?" She growled, her lips pulling tight across her teeth as her brow dove between her eyes.
"Oh, now he's in for it," He heard the wild-haired one say.
"S-so that's it," Sid said, feeling himself lean away from Priscilla's terrifying true form. "That's why-"
"That you've DARED insult me shows what an utter FOOL you are compared to my perfect radiance," Pride interrupted. "NOW. MOVE."
"If you're perfect," Sid retorted without thinking, "I'm glad I'm not."

Even through the raging violet flames Sid could see the look of utter shock on Pride's face. What he didn't see was her fist racing towards his face until an instant before impact, barely having the time to flinch before he felt it on his face, but it wan't a bone-crushing blow; rather it was a great woosh of air, like he'd just been standing inches from a passing semi-trailer on the freeway. Sid opened his eye to see Prinde's fist inches from his nose, the flesh quivering against some kind of invisible line, a demarcation as insubstantial as his breath but impenetrable enough that he could see the flesh of her fingers pressing and flattening out against it.
It was the fat one- Gluttony, he guessed- who broke the silence, an astonished "Fire and brimstone..." Escaping her mouth, followed by a more emphatic "By the Acheron..." from the golden-hued one to his right.
It wasn't until the firey-haired demoness let out a "What the ever-loving *fuck*?!" that Pride seemed to snap out of her trance, eyes wide and incredulous as they darted back and forth quickly between her stopped fist and and Sid's unscathed face.
"...No ray of heaven's light..." The gold one breathed, almost too quiet for Sid to hear.
Pride snarled, finally pulling her fist away. "Fine, then," She sneered reaching out and putting her hand against the side of Sid's face and stumbling several feet to the side. Sid blinked; he's felt the cool metallic texture of her skin on his cheek, but when she'd gone to push him it was like somebody haqd tried to strike him with a feather duster.
"Grrr..." Pride seethed as she righted herself. "So it seems." She pointed a clawed finger at Sidney. "Move. She's no concern of yours."
In response, Sid slid his arms further to the side until they were on the outside of Envy's, more or less sealing her against the wall behind him.
Pride gritted her teeth, the muscles in her face battling each other to contort in the most rage-filled grimace it could.
"Give her to me. She's my servant, my underling."
"...No," Sid managed, swallowing hard. "You're a jerk." He wondered why of all the words that was the first that came to mind, but didn't have time to ponder it as suddenly the wall behind him shook, splinters of black marble flying against his neck and shoulders as Pride buried her fists in the wall scant inches from either side of his head.
"I am *Faostus*," she hissed, the heat from the violet flames inches from his face feeling like when you first opened an oven. "Second to the morninglord himself! Armies have withered at my approach! Cities have been razed to ash! No mortal has ever stood against me and lived to tell the tale!" Sid closed his eyes and tried to shy away from the sheer waves of hatred radiating from Pride's face. "Get. Out. Of. My. Way."
Squinting against the light, even though it made his eyes water just to be so close to her radience, Sid gathered up every bit of courage he had and looked Pride straight in the eyes, swallowing hard as the sweat beaded down his face. "M-make. Me." He replied.
Pride's entire body shook, twitching and shivering this way and that. Finally, with a deafening scream and a whoosh of violet flame she was gone, only a crater on the floor and a hole in the roof through which the intensity of her screaming could be heard trailing away remaining as evidence of her presence. Sid stared up through the hole, seeing the infernal sky through the splintered roof, and slowly came to the realiziation that he couldn't tell which way was up. He fumbled for Envy's hands, trying to hold onto something as his legs turned to jello and he slid down her front, baely registering the impact of his rear on the ground before he passed out.

[SoylentOrange]

...Come on, say something! I can see the views going up, I know you're out there reading it...! >_<;

[Tindalos60]

I just finished reading it, that was... intense there, and I really want to see where it goes next now that Sid's so seriously tweaked Pride's nose.

[vidgamer85]

Nother solid chapter, if a bit shorter than the others but that's a given with the events going on. Really interesting on what Sid's passive abilities seem to be; can't be sure if its because of him that Pride couldn't punch his head off or if he has some sort of other protection, but causing food to appear on Famine's person is interesting to say the least. So he can in a sense, counteract a demon's defining trait, if inadvertently?

[SoylentOrange]

Wait, what? Causing food to appear? Are you talking about the wine? Because if you look at spiral's pic, Famine's always had the sash of oil, wine, wheat and barley on her; she was just stressed out enough to want to chug her booze.

And as for Sid, it's not anything he was doing- the little "No light of heaven shall a sinner etc." rhyme Envy said was supposed to establish that neither Hell nor Heaven have any jurisdiction over an unaffiliated mortal. Greed even references back to it.

...So I guess I need to make that more explicit? I meant for it to be that it's not Sid himself who was super-powered, but rather that Pride was running up against an immutable law of the universe, that *any* uncorrupted mortal would have had the same protections.

[vidgamer85]

I got the impression that she was just saying that for lack of a better explanation as to why he has basically a forcefield around him.

The other thing I misread, I didn't look at famines pic again and assumed that food would be nonexistent on her person. What I was referring to was the scales acting up which I know has some importance but obviously not what I first assumed.

[SoylentOrange]

Well, I mean, that *is* the explanation, those are the rules. Pride would have known her punch would do nothing if Sid hadn't made her apoplectic.

And yes, the scales are important, but neither Famine nor Sid knows why yet.

[cyero]

Splendid read! And aw, Envy.

Although, I'm confused by the referral of Pride to herself as Faustus, seeing as he was the HUMAN in that story... ._.

[SoylentOrange]

"Faust" from Goethe's novel is not "Faustous", the latin word for Pride. ^^;

Anything else? I mean, "aw, Envy" isn't exactly a review... ^^;

[cyero]

YOU EXPECT ME TO HAVE BIG WORDS

Also I did not know this. *chalks this down for more Latin goodness*

And well, it was great. Too few paragraph breaks made it hard to read at times, but I liked the little bits of insight - mostly in to Sloth.

[SoylentOrange]

Well, speaking of insight, here's a little something I put together just on a whim:

[cyero]

Pfft. That Death quote is... basically all my versions of Death in a nutshell.