The late morning sun tasted like a summer lemon: bittersweet and tangy enough to make his saliva glands shoot. It sounded like a geyser in his own mouth. Nearly drowned under the geyser's roar were a million tiny voices that uttered barely understandable words. But their intent was obvious.

They were all sinners, and they wanted him to save them.

"But I'm -- I'm a devil," he said, and the voices sobbed in response. They felt like rough, grainy salt, rubbing his skin and entering the little wounds they festered. The devil made a whimper and smelled his own desperation. It was lightly toasted bread with a thin layer of mold -- or moss. He wasn't sure.

The cries swelled again. Not from his mouth, but from everywhere. The devil swung his head from side to side and found that he was standing. He blinked, more times than he intended to, and the action ended up like a broken record. There were no words to describe it. Matt Murdock had lived in a world of complete darkness since an act of bravery took his sight at the age of thirteen. The handicap became a drive: He became the Daredevil.

But he could see again. And he wished he couldn't.

He felt so minute in the city of dead, gray spires that surrounded him. Each was so tall that they disappeared into the starless night sky before ending. Gray, starless -- All things he hadn't even considered in years. The city went on forever, a flat, sandy wasteland with phallic constructs jutting out, barely any space between. If one fell, the others would follow, and the thought only added to Daredevil's building paranoia.

The people, too many to count, latched to the sides of the ominous towers for dear life and called down to him as before. Their voices compounded into one all-encompassing, undecipherable chant. Its intent was still as clear:

"Save us. Save us."

His gloved hands were trembling, sweat trickling in tiny rivers under his red costume. His mouth was so dry that he thought it might crack. It was painful to speak.

"I can't save all of you!" he cried. As he heard his own voice, the words floated out of his mouth one letter at a time and jumbled themselves to spell ace afloat sun ivy lo. His breathing became shallow as the billion billions called out to him in agony, begging for their freedom.

"How?"

They needed him to escape their sin.

"How can I save any of you," the devil said, on his knees, pulling back his second skin to reveal Matt Murdock's tear-stained face, "when I'm a sinner too?"

Matt heard them crying with him. There was a slight trembling in the sand below him that grew and grew -- And he closed his blood-shot eyes and wished for the darkness again as something burst forth from the sand.

"When should it start working?"

That was all Kyle Richmond wanted to know. Ten minutes ago he and six others had swallowed peyote buttons. He had watched their eyes all glaze over, their worlds falling over them. Illyana, the blonde girl that had tagged along, was smiling ear to ear, humming a Russian folksong as she swayed side to side in rhythm.

"It didn't take this long when I did it before," Kyle said to Eric Simon Payne. They had been friends, long ago. Both were so different now that it seemed like that was the only constant thing.

"Oh?" The Devil-Slayer opened his eyes. He sat Indian-style at the side of the towering Man-Thing, both very still. "You should be feeling the effects now."

"Well, I'm not. I'm not seeing anything..." Kyle thought for a second. "Are you, yet?"

Eric nodded. "Yes. I'm watching three beasts -- a boar, an eagle, and a fish -- council each other behind you. But I know how to channel the freedom the peyote gives my soul."

"...You've done it a lot before." Kyle looked around cautiously. "I just did it once -- in college. Sort of an experimental thing."

He watched as Namor reached out in front of him and grabbed something that wasn't there.

"Stop fighting me," the king said. "You must come back. I am the king and I say you must come back!" After a second of frustration he leapt forward and tumbled with himself on the wet grass. The action lasted a half-minute and then, taken with something else, Namor sat silently with his legs out.

"But I don't feel like that now," said Kyle, turning back to Eric. "That feeling -- that something's there, or that you're being watched. I forget what it was like, but I'm not feeling it."

Eric's face began to melt as he spoke. "Life experience can change the effects." A slew of vermin crawled up his back and began slurping desperately at the liquid.

"I guess," Kyle said, petting the one-footed golem that had hopped over beside him. "I just hope I get into Hell without frying my brain, y'know?" He laughed through his nose. "Haha! Listen to me -- 'I hope I get into Hell alright.'"

Eric simply nodded and closed his eyes again. The time was approaching. And Stephen could feel it as well.

The doctor remained silent the whole time. He heard Daredevil's muted sobs and hushed whimpers, the only movement about him in his shifting facial expressions. He heard Regina Garney's deep breaths that sounded like they went all the way down to her soul. He wondered what she saw -- what they all saw. No. More importantly, he wondered what he would see, or feel.

And he realized he felt more relaxed than he ever had in his entire life. The hint of a smile curled one side of his lips.

"The time has come," the Devil-Slayer said, more to the Man-Thing. He stood slowly. "Now we go to Hell."

A massive trunk of an arm was raised, hair-like vegetation hanging off of it, and the Man-Thing froze again. There was a statuesque beauty in it. From that came a hot feeling over the seven.

The heat they felt became a yellow grid. All of the squares were monotonous and black. Circles, triangles, all shapes except squares, flew into the spaces. Nothing fit. But enough of them together broke the grid.

Further. All seven saw at once with a single pair of eyes.

A comet made of burning silver fell from the sky and splattered ginger ice cream and coral all over them. Illyana giggled, and Namor tried to eat the coral.

Further.

Piles of purple rattles became toy knives, which became rocks. Gore-encrusted spears. Three bloody nails. A hall of torches, paved with human flesh. They walked down the corridor. It was Stephen who unlatched the door and opened it. A blistering hot wind blew on them. Nighthawk screamed as leathery wings ripped out of his back in the realm of eternal night.

They had arrived. The Man-Thing was alone again in its swamp.

"Back already, master Hulk? What happened to the others?"

Glowering, the Incredible Hulk pushed through the doorway and into the foyer of Dr. Strange's Sanctum Sanctorum. He towered over the bald, utterly inscrutable Asian man who had allowed him entrance, but said Asian man did not flinch or cower. He simply pushed the door closed and folded his arms in his oversized sleeves, awaiting a response.

The Hulk's eyes narrowed, and for just a moment he seriously considered backhanding the puny man. How dare this weakling not quake in fear? He was the Incredible Hulk for Christ's sake. He was the mightiest mortal on this planet, and he would damn well be shown the respect that entailed, even if he had to smash every--

The man known in more formal circles as Dr. Robert Bruce Banner shook his head suddenly in a vain attempt to clear it. God... what was he thinking? This was Wong, for crying out loud. Manservant to Dr. Strange. Helpful, good-hearted, completely inoffensive Wong. And he was contemplating slapping the little guy through a wall? What the hell was wrong with him?

"We met up with Devil-Slayer in the swamp," was the Hulk's tacit explanation. "Right now, your boss and the others are getting hopped up on the local flora, and then they're gonna head into Hell."

Wong blinked. "Beg your pardon?"

"You heard me," Banner replied, and then he spun on his bare heels and moved through the doorway into the great room. He kept his head down and walked quickly, making a heroic effort to keep a lid on the aimless rage growing in him. Fortunately for Wong, the manservant didn't choose to pursue the matter. Even had he been insensitive to the Hulk's hair-trigger anger, he was distracted at just that moment by another knock at the door. He answered it.

Standing on the stoop outside was a blue-skinned, pointy-eared demon in a black trench coat. Beneath the open front of the trench coat was a black suit topped by the white hyphen of a priest's collar.

"Good evening," the demon said, smiling to reveal sharp teeth. "I was wondering if I might have a word with Dr. Strange."

"The master is not available right now," Wong replied. "Perhaps you might come back later? He would be happy to honor an appointment..."

The demon didn't answer right away, just gave Wong an appraising glance. "You're not frightened by my appearance?"

Wong almost laughed. "I've seen worse."

The demon did laugh then, and Wong understood immediately that there was no harm in this man -- for man was what he was, not demon.

"Well, perhaps I might talk to the Hulk then," Nightcrawler suggested. "I really need to speak to someone who was in the area this morning. I've been sent from the Vatican to look into a possible... well, encroachment on this plane by the forces of Hell..."

"Ah yes, the matter of master Isaac. Come in, come in."

Wong let him in, took his coat, and led him into the great room. At his entrance, the room's three occupants turned and regarded him.

First there was the Hulk of course, a threat implicit in his stance and in the generally unhappy expression he wore. He stood near the window, an island unto himself. On the couch near the center of the room, two beautiful women sat, one a redhead, one a blonde. Nightcrawler immediately recognized the redhead. The blonde was unknown to him, but she stared at him over a cup of tea with eyes he could simultaneously fall in love with and run screaming from. She was wearing an armored outfit somehow reminiscent of the garb of the Avenger Thor.

"You already know the Hulk," Wong said by way of introduction. "These ladies are the Black Widow and Brunnhilde the Valkyrie, respectively. Defenders, this man is a representative of the Catholic church--"

"I'm not buying any Watchtowers," the Hulk growled.

"--and he would like to speak to you about Master Isaac."

Brunnhilde's eyes flashed at the name, and she set her cup down with hands that trembled. The Black Widow put an arm around the woman's shoulders, then looked toward Kurt.

"Nightcrawler, right? Of the X-Men?"

"Yes. But I left the X-Men some time ago. I'm now a representative of the Church." Kurt's eyes flicked toward the Hulk. "The Catholic church. Not the Jehovah's Witness."

The Widow snorted. The Hulk frowned and turned toward the window. Brunnhilde folded her hands.

"What is it that you wish to know, holy man?"

Kurt's eyes widened for the briefest of moments. He hurriedly regained his composure, but he saw that Brunnhilde had noted the change of expression. In his investigations before coming here tonight, one of the witnesses had described a beautiful blonde woman that had appeared to be the object of the brawl between the Sub-Mariner and the orange demon. This witness, who had seemed more than a little distracted by the fact he was talking to a mutant, had added that the woman had looked pretty badly hurt -- assaulted, maybe.

Kurt had talked to three people, and only the one had thought to mention the blonde, so he'd discounted it. Now though...

But Brunnhilde's eyes asked for no pity. They were hard as steel, and silently demanded an answer to her question.

"Only what happened. And whether my superiors are right in suspecting the monster sighted here was truly a demon."

"Wong, would you mind brewing us some tea?" the Widow suggested. "Nightcrawler, why don't you sit down? It's a long story..."

"So this is Hell," Illyana Rasputin mused, looking up into the burning firmament. Then, with a disappointed sigh, "I've seen worse..."

Devil-Slayer was crouching down in the red and black dirt, sifting his fingers through it. Now he frowned up at the beautiful young woman at his side. "Don't fool yourself, girl. This is the very threshold of the underworld. We haven't seen one tenth of one percent of the horrors this place has to offer yet."

Illyana looked surprised at Devil-Slayer's bitter tone, but Namor--who knew a little about deep, almost genetic, anger--understood completely. Eric Simon Payne was exactly what his name stated: a slayer of devils. For him, coming to this place was like an Inquisitor going down among the heretics. Heretics who drank blood and burned inverted crosses.

The Sub-Mariner looked around. Unending rock met his gaze, glowing a dull red from the endless flames licking out of the sky and the horizon. The only colors here were black and blood-scarlet. He wondered with an uncharacteristic twinge of worry how long he would last in this blasted land before dehydration laid him low.

At least the madness brought on by Eric's narcotics had seemed to burn itself out in their crossing. Namor had a dim, disquieting memory of eating coral from the sky...

"Guys... I don't think Daredevil's doing too well..."

Namor and the others turned. Nearby, the woman Regina Garney knelt next to the red-suited Man Without Fear. Daredevil was convulsing, thin lines of snot and drool tracing lines through the dirt crusted on one cheek. Dr. Strange moved forward and knelt down to examine him.

"Who's doing this to him?" Regina demanded.

"No one, I suspect." Strange had cast a quick spell over the hero's body, and was startled at how difficult the simple incantation was. For the moment he kept this disquieting tidbit to himself. "There's no magic involved here. I believe he's still experiencing the effects of the peyote."

"He looked like he was tripping pretty hard back in the swamp," Kyle growled. He hadn't intended it as a growl, but the leathery bat wings sprouting from his back weren't the only change this place had wrought upon him. "But why is it still affecting him and not the rest of us?"

"I... don't know, but perhaps--"

"To arms!" Devil-Slayer cried suddenly, leaping to his feet and slipping one hand behind his back and into his cloak. When the hand reappeared, it was brandishing a one-handed axe, its handle wrapped in leather. It looked like the Hollywood tradition of a tomahawk, but like all the weapons Eric drew from his cloak, it was far more than that.

"Eric?"

"To arms now! We are under attack!" At Devil-Slayer's feet, where he'd been stirring the dirt with his fingers a moment ago, the black soil seemed to be separating from the red, and rising up on a pillar of its own mass. In moments, the pillar was eight feet high, and then it began to take a definite shape. The bottom half split down the middle into two legs, massive arms sprouted from new shoulders, and an assortment of tendrils reminiscent of dreadlocks sprouted from the crown of a black, featureless head. Featureless, that was, until two crimson eyes flared to life in it.

Blackheart, the son of Mephisto, had come to welcome the Defenders into Hell.

A feral cry on his lips, Devil-Slayer charged... only to be batted aside by one of those massive arms. As Eric was still flying through the air, Blackheart gestured with the other arm, and the very earth beneath Strange, Daredevil, Regina Garney, and Nighthawk erupted. Regina screamed, and the four of them were hurled across the rocky earth.

"Demon!" Blackheart turned toward the voice, and Namor's fist punched all the way through his black skull and out the other side. Before the King of Atlantis could wrench free, the black soil that currently made up Blackheart's form tightened and hardened around the arm. And then hellfire leapt from the demon's face, and Namor the first began to scream as his skin cooked.

Illyana raised her soulsword, not sure if it would be any use against this thing, but positive she couldn't just stand by and watch the Sub-Mariner get broiled alive. "Go for his head," she heard from behind her, and looked over her shoulder to see Nighthawk roaring past her, his wings beating the air. "I'll distract him." He looked wobbly, as if he'd been badly hurt by Blackheart's opening attack, but he dove into battle anyway, slashing ineffectually at the demon with his talons.

Illyana tightened her grip on her sword and leapt into the fray.

Nearby, Stephen Strange and Regina Garney lay prostrate across the unforgiving dirt of Hell. Slowly, the world began to swim back into focus for Earth's sorcerer supreme, and he lifted his head weakly. The rest of the Defenders--those still standing anyway--were engaging Blackheart.

Stephen tried to clear his head, but there was a buzzing near the back of his skull that made it hard to concentrate. He was concussed, he was sure of it. And if what he had begun to suspect about his abilities was true--if the barrier around Hell had blocked him off from the power of his mystical benefactors--then they were all in some very serious trouble here.

He began to get to his feet anyway, an attempt at a spell on his lips, when something the size of a football hit him hard in the chest. He fell to the ground again, this time on his back.

"Zorcerer, Zorcerer, not zo zupreme. In more trub-bul dan even 'e could dream."

Sitting on Steven's chest was a small, blood-red demon. It was the size of an infant, but more than half of that size was taken up by its head. Its huge eyes were coal-black, and though no lips surrounded the jagged fangs in its mouth, it still seemed to smile at him. Wings made of bone and burlap sprouted from its back.

Stephen's lips skinned back from his teeth in disgust. A blood cherub... and where there was one of them--

Before he could complete the thought, a dozen more of the cherubim descended on him from nowhere. He got his hands up above the torrent of leathery red flesh, and gestured in an attempt to invoke the Fiery Bonds of Balthak. For a moment, the Bonds appeared, encircling the writhing body of cherubim and the sorcerer they encompassed in bands of mystical plasma. But then they sputtered and vanished altogether, and Stephen Strange's cry of panic was cut off just as abruptly.

"Gadder dem," one of the blood cherubim--the one who'd first landed on Strange's chest--commanded. He glanced around, saw three of the Earth dwellers engaging Blackheart, and the Defender known as Devil-Slayer lying insensate nearby. The cherub pointed at Eric. "'im doo."

In moments, the demons had vanished again, this time with Dr. Strange, Regina Garney, and Devil-Slayer in tow.

Namor had already fallen mercifully unconscious by the time Nighthawk dove toward his tormentor, black talons outstretched and fangs bared. Kyle slashed at the demon's hide, but the injuries sealed themselves as quickly as they were created. Blackheart turned toward his opponent, Namor still hanging limply from his face, and a gout of flame erupted from beneath Nighthawk. The Defender swerved in his ascent, but it wasn't quite enough. Hellfire engulfed him and he tumbled to the ground, his flesh burning.

Magik, meanwhile, had used the time Kyle had bought her well. Blackheart had completely dismissed her as a threat, turning away to focus on the more aggressive Nighthawk. Magik got in close, and remembering what Kyle had told her about where to strike, drove her soulsword into the back of Blackheart's head, above Namor's trapped arm.

Illyana Rasputin's soulsword will, depending on its wielder's intent, cause little or no physical damage, targeting instead the victim's soul. On the Earth plane or in Limbo this attack can be devastating. In Hell, where the souls of the tormented give shape to the land itself, it is absolutely cataclysmic.

Blackheart roared--the first noise he'd made since appearing to them--and both Magik and Namor were hurled from the demon in the resultant outburst of power. Magik lost her grip on her soulsword, leaving it buried deep in Blackheart's skull, and had only half a second to worry about this before her spinning body struck an outcropping of rock and lay still.

Blackheart had fallen to one knee and now, with ebon power still radiating from him, shakily drew the sword out of his head. He considered the blade for a moment, then put his hand to the wound it had inflicted. It had not healed as the injuries inflicted by Nighthawk had. Blackheart looked to his opponents.

Nighthawk, Magik, and Namor were all either unconscious or too dazed to resist him further. But the other half of the Defenders, including the sorcerer... were nowhere to be seen.

The burning coals that served as Blackheart's eyes in this form narrowed. His attack hadn't been powerful enough to vaporize the fleshbags, he was sure of it. Ever since he and Daimon had hatched their scheme to seize control of Hell, Blackheart had endured a disquieting sense that they were being conspired against. After all, considering the very important faces missing from Daimon's hell-lord menagerie, it was perfectly conceivable.

And now, here was further proof. Someone had spirited the rest of his victims away, for what purpose he knew not. And Blackheart was at least as unhappy about this as Daimon Hellstrom would be.

Tendrils of black earth and rock sprouted around Nighthawk, Magik, and Namor, clutching the trio of Defenders close and then pulling them below the surface. Blackheart tarried for a moment longer, still clutching Illyana Rasputin's soulsword in one hand, then he flowed back into the soil of Hell and was gone.

Nearby, hidden behind a blasted, blackened stand of cobalt, Daredevil continued to fight the drug rampaging through his body and his brain, forgotten by all but the lithe, sinister shape whose shadow now fell over him. "Well," the shape breathed, "isn't this an interesting development..."

"...and Isaac -- Gargoyle. He was--"

"A friend. A friend most dear..."

"And then--"

"He vanished. I and the others lost contact with him for years. The last I saw him, he was a sweet, dignified man... trapped in the body of the monster, but a man no less. But then... his power. 'Twas tenfold more than ever before. He ambushed me, me, on the bridge Bifrost as I fled to Midgard. And then... the things he did..."

Brunnhilde strained to go further. She looked down at her body -- a body no longer clean, thanks to him. Thanks to Isaac. There was phantom pain in her bowels. A gentle hand touched her taut back, that of the Black Widow, and it told her that she needn't go any further.

"I apologize. I don't mean to pry with these questions, but..." Nightcrawler said from his seat, a crouching position in the center of the wall. "Well, you realize that this is all very... very complicated." Wong took the empty cup dangling from one of his six fingers, to which Kurt nodded graciously. He returned to the Black Widow, who sat next to Brunnhilde on the couch opposite him.

"Yes, well," the Widow admitted, "that's very... impressive, considering your affiliations."

Kurt's eyes lit. "I'm sorry?" He watched Natasha, whom he'd only known from the loosest meetings but always saw as confident, struggle uncomfortably for an explanation.

"Come on," she said. "You know..." With two black-leather fingers she made either an X or a cross. Kurt exhaled.

"Ah. This is the truth... I can't deny that. But still," he insisted, "even considering that -- Defenders in Hell. Friends becoming enemies. Limbo -- empty. People showing up out of no..." The Widow gave him a look and he exhaled again. "...where. Okay. Your point is taken."

"Such is the life of a Defender," Valkyrie said. She was halfway through downing her third cup of tea, upon Natasha's insistence, and looked into the center of its swirling. "No matter what paths we take, each seems to lead to the realm of the damned."

Something like a huff sounded in the background, near the window where the Hulk stood rigid. His expression was statuesque, a permanent squint looking out into afternoon Greenwich.

"There is no need for hopelessness," said Wong, who had hovered about the entire time. He was as much a part of the conversation as he was part of the room itself, poking out only when necessary. "Master Stephen and the others are more than capable."

"Which is why we stayed here," Natasha said as she nodded. "Or partly why I did." Not wanting the quiet to creep in -- as quiet in this room of Doctor Strange's sanctum so far had never brought good -- she asked of Wong, "Do you think, if it's not too much trouble, that you could bring us some more tea?"

His slightly wrinkled smile was otherwise flawless. "Of course, Miss Natasha. No trouble at all." Wong spun, tray of cups in hand, and immediately found the pain of a swinging door in his arm. The dishes crashed down to the thick carpet, where Wong instinctively looked first. Coming up, his eyes caught two well-crafted boots, connecting to chainmail, passing a sheathed sword and broad chest finally to a familiar face, half-hidden by navy-colored metal.

The helmet was removed as Wong and the others shared a collective gasp. "Dane," Natasha said, "you... you're--"

"I'm back," the Black Knight said. "And I'm here to help. Things are happening -- big things." He surveyed the room and naturally focused on the patch of shadows on the wall. "Wait, is that... what is it, Nightcrawler?"

"He is a guest," Wong said, cleaning up the mess of shattered porcelain. "Much has happened in your absence."

"More than you know," the Knight said. "But I know the gist of what's happening here."

"You... no longer speak a fancied tongue," Brunnhilde said behind the thin wall of her tea's steam. Dane stared through it, into her large blue eyes.

"No. I was confused then, when I did." Dane traced the hilt of his blade carefully. There was a spark that was always there, in the unshaven face of the Black Knight. But here it was more intense and, unlike the last time he had been there, with direction. "I've been ping-ponged from here to the past more times than I care for, all leading up to this." A beat, and his eyes darted. "They've left already, haven't they?"

"If you mean the master and his companions," Wong nodded, "then yes."

Dane hurried to put his helmet back on. "Then we're following."

"Wait, wait..." the Widow said, coming over from the couch. "Okay. First, I told them I was staying here with Val, and she's in no shape to go anywhere. Anywhere. And second--"

"Please." Brunnhilde had stood as well, and though it didn't look like the most natural thing in the world, she was feeling more vital by the moment. "Please," she said again, "do not speak for me, Natasha. Your nobility rivals that of my own sisters, and this I appreciate... but I am nothing if not a warrior, and more importantly, my own. It has done my heart no good to lie like a bed stricken hag. My fellow warriors -- my friends are lost in a land where none are welcome, defending Midgard and much, much more, the Allfather has assured me. My position demands that I join them... and my soul asks me the same, at disadvantage or otherwise."

Natasha continued looking at Brunnhilde after she had her say. Words failed her. Not so for Nightcrawler, though, as his voice emerged from the shadows.

"I believe you had a second point?" he asked, smiling lightly with two protruding incisors. Natasha sighed, looked at Dane, handsome as ever in his battle gear, and sighed again.

"Yes. There's no point now. I've made my decision too. Fine -- we're going to Hell. I don't know how, but we're going to help. I guess...that's what Defenders do."

"As I said," the Knight stated, "we're following."

"You are not."

The source of the voice (which was really more like a great, warming vibration through each of their bodies) was from above -- through the arcanely-marked window and up into the air, where something shone brighter than the sun itself. In fact, they first thought it was simply fire. But it was much more than that.

Wong again dropped the mess he was cleaning. "Oh my..."

Hovering a good seven feet above where they stood, it... he floated, aloft on a pair of wings whose feathers danced with pure white flame. Another pair covered his eyes, just below the fair blonde curls of his untamed hair. His skin was pale, and there was a faintly luminescent quality about his wiry build. Yet another pair of wings hid his abdominal area, for he was quite nude, make no mistake about it -- the sort of thing only angels can get away with.

All the heroes, save for the Hulk, looked up and had to stare for a time. The sky, and the world, seemed so mundane and lifeless behind him. Brunnhilde, highest of the Valkyrie, came from a place some called the Golden Realm. She had seen treasures and beings beyond imagination. She had even been in the presence of Thor, Prince of Asgard and the Nine Realms' greatest champion. But this -- this was the most awe-inspiring and beautiful sight she had ever seen in her immortal lifetime.

"God, Wong... you and Stephen running a commune here?" Natasha said from the corner of her ruby lips. The Asian man shook his head very slightly, very carefully. "Well, it sure seems that way. And I can't believe you missed that punchline opportunity, Hulk." She let her gaze wander over to the monstrous figure by the window. "Hulk?"

He turned around, absent of any urgency, and looked plainly at the angel above the sanctorum... though not before thoroughly trouncing Natasha with a single emerald glare.

"Who are you?" Dane called up, shielding his eyes as the others had to. "... What are you?"

"I?" asked the angel. "I am a seraph of Heaven's first circle. His will is my message. My name is Gabriel."

"Gabriel?" Dane blurted out. "... as in... as in 'in the Bible' Gabriel?"

Nightcrawler more than muttered, still staring. "He interpreted the prophet's vision of the ram and the he-goat, explained the seventy weeks of years. He... he announced the birth of John the Baptist..."

"The same. And now I descend once more, combining forces mortal and divine to stop the madness of the Pit."

"Then we're going up -- instead of down," Dane said.

"There is no direction humanly imaginable for the fraction of Heaven you are about to visit, little knight." A benevolent light began to fill the room.

"Wait," Natasha held up her hands. "I don't remember agreeing to any--"

"It is not your choice, woman," said Gabriel, his body becoming more and more part of the glow. "Your fate has been decided by a higher power."

The light swallowed them, then fizzled out of the room. Wong emerged, eyes wide to watch it dissipate. After some thought, he decided it was a good idea to have a cup of tea himself. He had heard it soothed worries.

Eric Simon Payne. He is called the Devil-Slayer. Why, one might ask? And the answer would be that, due to a number of circumstances beyond Eric's control, it has come to be his main point in life to slay devils or demons, what have you. Cherubim, in this case, who had transported he, Doctor Strange, and Regina Garney to the sand-blasted wasteland on the outskirts of Hell, which made New Mexico's deserts seem fertile in comparison.

The cherubim had maintained a constant squeaking and giggling between each other, speaking barely audible words if they were words at all. Their tones were snide, though, and the voices unmistakably demonic: of the devil.

So one could understand why it took a crippling headache, a perpetual red sandstorm, and bonds of hellfire to hold back Eric's rage. He waited with the other two, too taken by their injuries to do more than listen to the murmurs of the hellborne and wait.

There. A looming orange figure appeared in the crimson maelstrom, followed by a smaller shape that trudged along beside. They seemed to cover miles in one second or perhaps the three humans and their captors were meeting them halfway. In any case, the two shades on the horizon took form quickly. Regina bit her lip, furrowing her brow so hard that it felt like the blood vessels in her forehead would all break at once.

He was such a wonderful sight. She hadn't gone a day without seeing him since he was born... up until all this business. And yet, as he came into view, Regina Garney felt a rush, millions of tiny pinholes that could've been made by the swirling sand or not. It was discomfort, no, she knew it wasn't just that. It was pain.

"Mark..." she said through dry lips. The boy smiled in a way she'd never known, walked a way he never had before, at the side of the scaly demon. At once, both groups stopped in the middle of the landscape.

"Hello, mother," Mark said. "And hello, brothers."

The cherubim grumbled a general response and smiled their bloody grins. A hot tear slipped down Regina"s cheek. "Mark, what"s wrong?" She shook uncontrollably. "You... you"re..."

"I'm me, mom. It took a while for Isaac to explain what that is to me, but we've been walking for a long time and, well... I"m going to finally be what I was born to be." Regina was slapped by a cherub before she could blubber any longer. She stood, bound, bruised, and beginning to believe that she was seeing her son for the last time.

"And here we are," Mark"s companion said, running his eyes over the pink flesh before him. "A family reunion, and yet more." He wandered over to Devil-Slayer, Mark at his heels, and looked into him no more than an inch from his face. Hot, musky demon-breath entered Eric's nostrils.

"Eric. The Devil-Slayer. Even you've shown up today. How special. I thought you'd have been lost in the folds of history by now."

Eric almost growled, "Like how your dignity and passion have been swallowed by that swollen form you wear?"

Isaac did growl. "I will show you passion," he said, grabbing Eric by the neck and lifting him. The claws pierced his outermost flesh and threatened to go deeper. "Passion from years of blind pity and manipulation by the weak things. Passion"

"Come now, Isaac," the voice said, cool and everywhere at once. "We spoke of your temper." Eric felt the ground hit him hard, and he fell to his knees without balance. Stephen's interests laid elsewhere.

"You," the mage said. "I know that voice." Images sprang to Doctor Strange's mind, of Hell itself bursting in the middle of Greenwich Village, of Defenders separated and battling the forces of the damned. History wasn't repeating... but it was echoing.

"Of course you do. Every human knows this voice, it lives inside of you. Each of you pathetic, sinning, insignificant little Adams and Eves, stealing, screwing, and killing in your wonderful Eden. When you do these things and ask yourself 'Is it right?', it's my voice that you hear tell you:

'No. So just do it.'

Stephen, Eric, and the demons all knew the voice, the face and the name that went with it. But the rusted gears of Regina's mind took their time, until she finally realized that, yes, she too recognized the voice. She had heard it woo her, speak in quieter, more intimate tones. Regina had heard it in the middle of the night, in her dreams, breathing deeply onto the back of her neck as it raped her and called her whore-mother. And it was unmistakable that this voice speaking was the same one that groaned heartily as he spilt his burning seed in her womb almost four years ago...

Mark Garney would be celebrating his fourth birthday in three weeks. Regina closed her eyes and felt the pain grow and grow. "You... you..."

"Me," he said contently. "I"m glad you"ll be here to see this what you've made possible." And simultaneously Isaac and Mark stood together, legs shoulder width apart. They held hands, the orange scales almost crushing the boy's tiny fingers. The air felt so dense that it was choking.

Stephen felt it happening more than any of them, but they all felt something. The sands increased, almost blinding, tiny debris assailing all senses. Through it all, the two figures clutching one another's hands again grew vague, and even more so as the storm intensified. The trio of Defenders thought they might be seeing things. But that wasn't a good assumption in this place.

Through the sandstorm, it appeared that where Mark Garney and Isaac had stood was a single, bulky figure. Above it all, over the sound and fury that was almost too much to bear, and the wailing scream of a mother's breaking heart, only the voice was dominant:

"My son finally has a worthy brother... and Hell, a new prince."