


*******************************************************************************

"YOU SHALL NOT BE VICTORIOUS.............."  is the final bellow from the
evil Demon Lord when impact after impact of volatile missles on his steel-
lined body at last succumbed.  The Barons of Hell that were yet to be blown
away fill the air with howls of rage and pain as they witness the defeat of
their master.  Even as they are unable to reach you, you duck behind a wall
to avoid countless balls of fire that stream past you.  

Above you the rift remains open.  "What happens now," you wonder.  Suddenly
the ground beneath you rumbles as the surrounding wall and ceiling begin to
crumble and crash.  The rift above fluctuates and seems to grow smaller.
You realize that if you do not think fast you will be trapped in Hell!

"The ceiling is to high to reach" you announce with desperation building.  As 
you dodge left and right, you notice that the Barons are able to reach the 
ground and are heading toward you!  "I finally save the world to end up where
I'd expect to be anyway, only not this soon!  I guess I am going to die here."

Suddenly, in the midst of all the rumbling, shaking, and howls, an acknowlede-
ment comes to focus in your pressured mind.  "How can I die in Hell?"  As if
you were asking the Barons, they abruptly pause.  You realize, all of a 
sudden, that the key to cheating Hell out of its little game is in what you
just said.  You came here in mortality where only damned souls of immortality
can go!  The Barons appraoach again, this time with seeming desperation.  You 
stand your ground as you believe you have something....

With more distortion in the rift and the rumbling continuing with rubble 
raining everywhere, fire spreads and heat swells in the new holes and 
openings.  The Barons all surround you, unmoving.  Seconds remain, you 
conclude.  No time to ponder on your theory.  "You will not keep me here!" 
Your sream is barely heard through the rumbling, but you back it up with a 
sudden dash towards the nearest Baron.  As you run towards it, you grab your
Rocket Launcher and continue your pursuit.  The Barons suddenly begin to back
away from you.  Your chosen begins to flee but you grab him by the throat,
almost unable to reach it as the Baron is significantly taller.  The Baron 
fights as the others approach to help.  

Amongst the painful strikes and swipes the Baron delivers, you struggle to 
hold on as you raise your Rocket Launcher.  "At this range, we should both go
down!"  Without further hesitation and with no time to lose as the last few 
remains of the structure crumble to a smoldering inferno below, you fire the
Rocket.  A bright flash and a tumultuous explosion is your last vision as the
Baron breaks into many pieces and your mangled body are hurtled into the air
and as death overcomes....a magnetic force takes place.  The rift now pulsates
and distorts violently.  Fire boils from everywhere and lava-like rock 
crumbles revealing nothing left of what was once there.  Suddenly the rift 
surges and implodes drawing sulfering air, fire and matter up in a raging wave
and then returning from a climatical explosion shattering time and space 
between the rift.  On earth's side can be seen a widening explosion across the
sky, never seeming to reach the earth's surface yet seemingly covering the 
globe at the same time.  A deep dark red hue to an almost black spreads 
everywhere and then suddenly disapates and becomes quiet.









                                **********






A calm breeze fresh with the scent of blooming flowers enters your nose.  As
you open your eyes you look up into a blue sky with laces of white clouds 
here and there.  As memory returns you slowly rise to survey what appendages
are missing and why you feel no pain.  To your surprise, you are whole.  Your
theory was correct.  You rise and begin to walk, in no hurry, back to town 
from the pasture you are now in.  

And to think you guessed right.  When you first entered Hell, you went as a
whole mortal.  With the Demon Lord present, he controlled the inhuman demons
infiltrating earth without harm and any difficulties.  At the same time, you 
existed in Hell, a Human Marine in an inhuman, alternate realm.  If you were
killed there, you would join the minions, which was perhaps the goal of the
Demon Lord toward all the earth.  Once you defeated the Demon Lord, the rift
was in colapse and any Hell beings on Earth could not survive and you could
survive only in Hell, but trapped!  The true sacrifice was the only answer.
No Baron was going to let you go, even if it meant leaving you alone.  Death
in Hell resulted in Life on Earth where the opposite is also true.  Now, you
have closed the rift, destroyed the Demon Lord, and saved Earth.

It is approaching sundown as you reach the city limits.  Stopping to look at
progress resumed once more, as if nothing happened at all, you turn toward the
pasture that you just came from.  You resume walking again toward the sunset
and to the only peace you know since this whole mess started.  "Sometimes the
best way to Heaven is first through Hell," you muse.  The calm breeze returns
as the sun now looks full on one hardened Marine.


                                THE END


















