Xavier Rodriguez hated Arizona with an absolute fucking passion. He may have been born here, but ever since the day he left Phoenix and enrolled at Yale, his goal had been to never return. He finished his schooling, ending up working for a prestigious hedge fund on Wall Street, earning an easy seven-figure sary within his first year. The party life had quickly followed, a high-end apartment, escorts, drugs, and fast cars all helping separate him from his paycheck as quickly as possible, although certainly in an enjoyable fashion. Xavier didn't mind, the whole point of money was to spend it, and his ten thousand dolr tailored suits and alligator skin shoes helped him fit the bill of a successful investment banker. If you couldn't look rich as fuck, how were the clients going to believe you could make them even richer? Nobody ever went to the homeless guy for investment advice, after all.
His clients didn't mind his extravagance either, as they blew their money on even more outrageous expenses. Xavier even had one client tell him at a party that he'd decided that st year's forty million dolr private jet wasn't good anymore because their neighbors had bought one with shag carpeting and a stripper pole, so he sold it at a loss and upgraded on the spot - only realizing after the fact that he'd left a half million dolrs worth of his wife's jewelry in the pne. The man had ughed hysterically, shrugging, and said he'd flown her to Paris to buy more. Women, right? What could you do? If they didn't fall in line, they'd get repced just as quickly as the jet had been, and for a lot less money, too.
And yet, here he was, in Arizona, stepping off a commercial pne, mingling with the fat tourists, the sweaty children, and the absolutely disgusting smells of mass transit. He'd barely avoided stepping in gum that someone had left on the jetway. Ugh, if he'd done that, the shoes would have been ruined. The only reason that Xavier was back in Arizona was because he was forced to, unfortunately. His parents somehow had become friends with the managing partner of his firm - a fucking Boomer who valued family and invited his associates' parents to events, who told Xavier that he needed to go visit his parents for their anniversary party or else he'd lose his next quarterly bonus. The partner had thought it was fucking hirious to bckmail him like that, and Xavier's parents had loved the man for it, but Xavier wished they were all dead. He could be back in New York City, balls deep in one of the secretaries from the typing pool while snorting a line of cocaine off her breasts, not staining his Armani shirt with sweat on the tarmac in Arizona of all pces.
Xavier made his way through the terminal, cursing loudly at anyone who stepped in his way, before finding the luxury car rental counter. It was stupid and ostentatious to rent a Ferrari to drive two hundred miles through the desert to his parents' house, and there was a decent chance the Ferrari would get damaged because his parents lived out in the middle of fucking nowhere, but again - why not spend the money, it would make it more fun. Plus, it would remind his parents how fucking poor they were and how their decisions kept them poor, while their son, who they didn't respect, got fucking rich and slept with models.
An hour ter, he was doing a bump of cocaine in the bathroom of the car rental agency and then walking out to the Arizona morning heat, spinning the Ferrari's keys in his hand. Maybe he'd see if he could hop over to Vegas while he was here, if he could just find a way to ensure his parents didn't tell his boss that he'd bailed on the party. He could swing by the anniversary party, drop off some expensive gift, tell them how much he loved them and was proud of their marriage and how he looked up to them, then be in Vegas two hours ter, maybe an hour and a half with the Ferrari if he really let the engine rip, and hit the strip clubs there.
"Pay attention, you rich asshole!" he heard someone scream, the squeal of brakes audible even over the music he'd cranked on the Ferrari's stereo system. He gnced to the side, realizing he'd accidentally run a minivan off the road, some blonde soccer mom screaming out the window and giving him the middle finger while four children cried in the back, terrified. Somehow, Xavier had gotten distracted and drifted the car out of his ne. Whoops.
"Fuck you, breeder bitch," he yelled back. "Go back to the kitchen and make me a sandwich!" He dropped the car back in gear, spinning the wheels intentionally to spray dirt through the open window of the minivan and shot back into traffic, causing some huge redneck truck to swerve into the median and run over a stop sign as Xavier shot through the next three red lights at double the speed limit. Fucking losers, he thought. They deserve it.
Xavier found himself zoning out a few more times, trying to ride the high of drugs, speed, and music as he drove the two hundred miles from the airport to his parents' house. It was such a boring drive for the twenty-four-year-old banker, he would rather be doing literally anything else, but with a two million dolr quarterly bonus on the line, he could probably make it through the weekend without telling his parents what he really thought of them. Plus, it was fun to see how fast he could go in the Ferrari, dodging the tourists who had traveled out here in their minivans and SUVs to go camping by the Grand Canyon.
He id on the horn, furious as two minivans formed a rolling roadblock at precisely five miles an hour under the speed limit, preventing him from passing. He'd been cruising along at about a hundred and twenty miles an hour, zipping past people, but these two were really pissing him off. Xavier smmed the horn again, drifting the supercar back and forth behind the two minivans, reaching out and giving them the middle finger and screaming profanity, honking. What was wrong with these people? He wished they would just fucking die, they had no right being here, slowing him down. Didn't they know how much less their lives were worth, compared to his?
Finally sick of it, Xavier dropped the car down two gears, the engine screaming as the RPMs shot toward the redline, and he smmed his foot to the floor, ripping the car onto the dirt shoulder and passing the minivans in a blur of Italian metal and gasoline. As he did, he turned to look at them, extending his middle finger and screaming "FUCKING DIE, LOSERS!" He could see a terrified wife, screaming at her husband, the fat asshole holding the steering wheel with two hands, white knuckles clenched and pretending not to notice him, while idiot children sat in the backseat, wearing headphones and watching tablets, oblivious to the world.
The Ferrari started to slip, the racing tires not suited to the dirt shoulder at over a hundred miles an hour as he passed the minivan, and Xavier felt a thrumming sound - deep in his bones - as everything seemed to freeze, the car hitting a bump and starting to go airborne, spinning to the side. The sound intensified, doubling in volume and rattling his teeth. His vision faded to white, then violently shifted through a range of colors he couldn't even describe, ending at a pid-patterned purple that seemed to vibrate in time with the thrumming sound, before finally there was a loud pop that knocked him unconscious and everything went bck.
---
Xavier blinked his eyes, pain searing a line across his forehead as blood dripped into his face. He could smell gasoline ... and fire. That didn't seem good. Also, the world seemed to be upside down, or at least he was. He finally got his bearings, realizing the Ferrari was on its top in a ditch, apparently having cartwheeled off the road. Fuck, his insurance was going to go up again. But hey, maybe he could use this as an excuse to avoid visiting his parents? Xavier could cim the trauma was just too terrible, he needed to go see his therapist, and instead catch a ride to Vegas and spend the weekend in a penthouse suite with a few escorts. Xavier wondered idly if there were helicopter taxis he could call, just to get there faster.
<< SYSTEM INITIALIZING. EARTH DIES IN FIVE YEARS. YOU HAVE ONE WEEK TO UNLOCK YOUR CLASS AND PREPARE FOR WAVE ONE. >>
Xavier froze, staring at bck spidery letters burning across his vision. The cocaine had never done this before. Maybe he'd hit his head harder than he thought when he crashed the car?
A pair of bck Gucci loafers appeared in his vision, walking up to where the supercar y, threatening to burst into fmes at any second, Xavier still trapped within. A figure crouched down, woolen dress pants hiked up showing red skin at the ankle. Xavier could tell the man's shoes alone cost easily double what his own outfit cost, so who the fuck was this person randomly on the side of the road? And what was with the letters still floating on his vision?
"Hello there, Xavier," an eerie voice came from the figure. "Doing okay in there?" Xavier peered, but still couldn't get a glimpse at anything other than the man's shoes and legs, the body of the car in the way.
"How the fuck do you think I'm doing, asshole? My head fucking hurts and I think this car is going to explode. I'd rather be nutting on a hooker's face right now than ying upside down in the fucking desert, bleeding on myself."
The man ughed, standing up and walking around the car, his soft footfalls somehow echoing loudly in Xavier's ears. He could feel as the man walked over and patted the side of the car, rocking it on its frame as it y upside down. Xavier could smell the gasoline dripping from the fuel tank, mingling with the dirt that now was above his head. He could hear the crackle of a small fire, and he was pretty fucking sure this joker was smoking a cigarette, too.
"Xavier ... you're an interesting one. Your parents don't love you, they often wonder where they went so wrong and your own mother wishes you'd never been born. Your boss hates you, he's afraid that you're better at your job than he is and fears you will repce him. The women you fuck? They only want your money and drugs and would happily repce you for someone else in a heartbeat. In short, nobody will fucking miss you. The people who are going to care the most about your death are the paramedics who are going to need to scrape your corpse off the cacti when the car explodes, which will be roughly thirty seconds from now. And they're going to hate you just as much as everyone else, so much so that they decide to leave you for the vultures instead of bothering to stuff your remains into a body bag."
Xavier started to panic, struggling to unclip his broken seatbelt as the car continued to smolder, yelling as his hand touched sizzling hot metal. He couldn't get himself free and the car was going to explode. Oh fuck, was he actually going to die? In Arizona of all fucking pces?
The eerie voice continued. "But me? I think you're a good investment. I'd like to buy-in while the market is down, so to speak. I think there's a lot of potential for growth, and I'm feeling bull-ish about our future. What do you think?"
"Who the fuck are you? You're a fucking weirdo, how do you know so much? HELP! HELP! SOMEONE FUCKING HELP! I can't get free!" Xavier struggled, panic seizing him as he fought against the deathtrap, unable to free himself. He could see the gasoline trail ignite, but somehow time slowed, and he could watch individual molecules of gasoline slowly catching on fire, one igniting in a burst after the next, giving him more time to struggle as the impending explosion ticked closer to ending his life.
The figure crouched down, Xavier finally getting a look at the individual he had been talking to. Eyes as bck as space stared at him, surrounded by a red face, skin the crimson of blood. A neatly trimmed goatee finished out the angur face as the figure gazed at Xavier, smoke and dust slowly swirling in the air around the figure. The suit was tailored to perfection, any celebrity would have sold their entire family to wear something half as well-made, the deep blue fabric offset by what looked like bone-white buttons on the bzer. A pair of horns jutted from above well-coiffed hair as the man rested a hand on the sizzling hot metal of the car, ignoring the heat.
"Me? Why, Xavier ... I'm a man of wealth and taste. I've been around a long, long time. Pleased to meet you, hope you guess my name?"
Xavier blinked, the words oddly familiar. Suddenly, he recognized the lyrics. "Is this a fucking joke? It's too early for Halloween," he snapped.
"But you can call me Asmodeus, my dear boy. What do you say? Would you like to make a deal?"
Xavier watched in horror as the slow motion fire inched closer toward the gas tank, each second bringing his inevitable explosive death closer to reality. He stared at the man ... the devil ... who was casually crouching in the dirt on the side of the Arizona highway, chatting with him. What the actual fuck was happening? He was going to beat the living shit out of his dealer when he got back to New York. If he got back to New York. Fuck. Had the cocaine been ced with PCP? It was the wildest trip he'd ever been on, and he'd even tried shrooms a few times before realizing he didn't like the introspection of being in his own head.
"What do I get out of it?" he challenged, deciding to give in to the fantasy, at least temporarily. Asmodeus roared with ughter, standing and pounding his fist on the side of the burning vehicle.
"Xavier ... you are trapped inside a burning vehicle, only alive because I slowed time temporarily so we could have this chat. If I do nothing, you will just die. What do you mean, what do you get out of it? You get your life, for whatever little it's currently worth." The devil straightened his cuffs, brushing a bit of smoldering ash from his suit coat as he did.
"That's not enough. I don't know what you want from me, but I'm worth a lot. Make it worth my while." Xavier tried to bargain, watching his death creep even closer, the fire slowly accelerating.
"That's my boy," the devil said proudly. "You're at rock fucking bottom with no assets, and you're still trying to shoot for the moon. This is why I picked you, why I think you'll go far."
"So spit it out, creep. What do I get out of this deal? What do you want, my soul?"
"Well, yes. As trite as it may be, you swear your soul to me. I have the contract right here, just a small bit of paper to sign, you might feel a little pinch. In return ... the world is changing, Xavier. Cities are gone, everyone older than you is gone. You're lucky your birthday was next week, or else you'd be gone, too. Children are gone. The world has five years of pandemonium, of chaos, of war, where the strongest will rise up. And at the end of five years, whoever controls the world will fight to keep it against a great foe. If they fail, Earth dies. If they win ... well, that's why I'm betting on you. If they win, they own everything. And I want that person to be you. I'll give you a rge jump start on the rest of these savages, marking you as having my favor, and watch as you grow."
"More," Xavier croaked, panic seeping in as the fire started tracing the vertical trail of gasoline upwards towards the Ferrari's tank. He had milliseconds left to live, possibly slightly more depending on how much Asmodeus had slowed time. "My soul is still worth more than that. You're not going to short-change me, you over-dressed rat-fucker."
"What more do you want? I'm offering you a portion of my power and the promise to rule the world when you win."
"Women. Money. Whatever else you'd throw in at the st second to close the deal. You know you're going to give it, too. You want me too badly." Xavier saw the fire reaching the entrance to the gas tank, the fme temporarily vanishing as it entered the gas tank, sweat pouring from Xavier's face in rivulets as he braced for the explosion that would cim his life.
"Deal. If you could just sign here, please?" An ornate contract written on what appeared to be dried human skin appeared floating in front of him, a Montbnc High Artistry fountain pen he didn't recognize mysteriously showing up in his hand. Xavier gazed at it, images of devils fornicating with screaming humans etched into the gold frame of the writing instrument. He pressed down on the contract, grimacing as he felt a pain deep in his chest as the ink appeared on the contract.
By the time Xavier had finished writing his first name (which was hard enough, trapped and hanging upside down in a crashed supercar), he was panting and screaming in pain. As he finished writing his st name, he colpsed, more exhausted than the time he'd stayed up for four straight nights in Bangkok during a bachelor party. There had been so many drugs, so many hookers, nobody had wanted to call it quits, and it had worn him down like never before, but this was even worse. His soul felt tired ... oh, fuck. His soul.
Xavier blinked, the full impact of his actions coming back to him in a rush. The seatbelt clicked loose, dumping him unceremoniously on his head with a curse. He crawled out of the car crash, ending up ying at Asmodeus' feet, staring at the devil's shoes, aware he had just dirtied them with the blood still dripping from his gashed forehead. Behind him, he heard the car detonate - the massive boom echoing across the Arizona sky as expensive parts of the Italian machine flew in all directions. Xavier knew he was close enough that he was absolutely going to die, but somehow not a single piece hit him or the devil at whose feet he y.
Asmodeus reached down, extending a hand and helping Xavier to his feet. The devil kindly brushed the dirt from Xavier's clothes, straightening the exhausted investment banker's attire and gncing him over with a critical eye. "Well done, my boy. Welcome to the winning team. Now let's shake on it and I'll unlock your css for you. I can't wait to see what you accomplish!"
The stunned Xavier shook hands with the devil, backlit by the burning Ferrari. He gnced around, seeing the abandoned cars on the highway where families vanished mid-drive. He saw other car wrecks, corpses impaled on a guardrail, the sound of someone nearby crying in pain, screaming for an ambunce. Fuck it, he thought. If it wasn't me, it would be someone else getting this power. The world owes this to me.
<< CLASS UNLOCKED. FAVORED REAPER OF ASMODEUS. >>
Xavier grinned maliciously. This was going to be so much fun.
WhimsicalLantern
