A/N: Been going through my stories as of late, and after culling my list a bit, which resulted in the deletion of a couple, I decided to put a new harbinger story out there that has yet to be thought of.

To do this, I went through my old archive from stories past and put something together that I believe is unique in its own right. And with the release of Borderlands 3 months ago and the upcoming release of DOOM Eternal this March, I couldn't think of a crossover that couldn't be better than the Doomslayer on Pandora.

Even more so, I brought back my old OC (Mason Riley) from my original fic 'A Slayer's Journey' to tie it together from a different perspective.

I know I have a lot of stories out there that are still in progress. But much like my old predecessor my inspiration is sporadic at best and fleeting at worse. I know it's frustrating for you all at times, but it's even more so with me. I'd much rather take a hiatus on certain stories and try others for a while then try to force my way through a writer's block and mess up something good. All I can ask from my fans and readers is patience.

All that aside, I hope you all get a kick out of this one. Badasses are about to meet the biggest badass of them all!

(Bethesda Studios, ID software, 2K and Gearbox own all rights owed.)

X

My name, is Mason Riley. I'm writing this so that no one gets confused or believes me to be crazy...then again, with everything that has happened to me I wouldn't blame anyone for thinking me to be crazy.

I grew up in an orphanage, with no knowledge of my life much before the age of four. Everything was just a big blur, and I get a headache whenever I try to push myself to remember.

The other kids avoided me, I was...different. Whenever we were all outside playing they would think I was cheating at what ever games we were playing because I seemed to be faster and stronger than everyone else my age. Even some of the older kids had a rough time keeping up with me.

The people running the orphanage always said that I was unique, and that unique was a good thing. But I was still an outcast. Usually playing by myself or reading in the library, I was content...but lonely.

When I turned five, I was adopted by William and Annette Riley. They were kind and gentle people, Annette was barren and couldn't have children and they had agreed to adopt. With my jet-black hair and silver-blue eyes I could have passed for their son even though I wasn't blood related.

They brought me home and loved me like their own instantly. The void in my life being filled now that I had a family.

The Riley's were well off, both of them being high-paid bankers that invested their money very well. Though they didn't care much about their material wealth, they loved the simple things in life and raised me with the same morals and ethics.

As the years went by I adapted well to my new life, going to school and getting high marks in all of my classes with scholarships to several colleges around the US. I had also taken up physical training, after discovering how strong and fast I was my adopted father wanted me to use it in a positive way. So I took up weight lifting and kick-boxing as a way for me to train myself and keep my body in peak condition.

Life was good, and I wouldn't trade that for anything in the universe.

Then it all changed in the blink of an eye.

About three months after I started attending college in New York I got a phone call from home. My parents had been in a car accident, drunk-driver behind the wheel of a semi lost control and slammed into their car killing them instantly.

My world came crashing down, after worrying the hell out of my friends and teachers I managed to pull myself together and made the trip down to Rhoad Island where I grew up. The funeral was a beautiful affair, friends of my adopted family gave me their condolences and offered to help me in anyway that they could if I needed it.

When everything was all said and done I went to our family home. A home that was on a six acre field along the coast facing the Atlantic ocean.

It was a beautiful place...but it felt so empty now that I was all alone again.

A few days after the funeral, I met with the lawyer handling my parents' will. I had known him since I was first adopted and considered him an uncle with how good a friend he was to my folks.

He explained to me that my parents had left me everything. Their home, cars, money and stocks that were still being well maintained. None of it mattered, nothing would bring them back and materialism didn't appeal to me since they raised me that way.

After making sure that everything was in order I returned to the house and went down memory lane, looking through photo albums and remembering all the good times I had with them. I decided to take some time off from school to get my head back on straight, calling my teachers and friends and telling them to e-mail me the assignments and notes and I'll be sure that everything was sent in before they were due. No one had an issue with it and told me to take all the time that I needed.

In no time at all a week had come and gone as I finished settling my parents' affairs, spending time at home and driving into town every other day. I still felt empty from the loss I had suffered, but being there filled me with a bit of serenity that helped me through the grief.

I had no idea of knowing that things were about to take a turn for the strange...and cast me into a situation that will forever be a one for the history books. One where the fate of countless hung in the balance.

My parents had always told me from the day I was adopted that I was special, that I was born to do great things one day...they had no idea how right they were.

X

Mason sat up in bed, blinking the last of the grogginess from his vision as he came back to reality. Running a hand across his face and over his freshly buzz cut hair. Standing up, he made his way over to the bathroom attached to the bedroom and flicked the light on, squinting through the brightness of the lights as he approached the sink and splashed water on his face.

He hadn't had a good night's sleep in the last week since he had gotten here. The loss of his parents still very fresh in his mind. Part of him still not believing that they were gone, they were the first people in his life that he could remember that showed him love and care. They may not have been blood, but they treated him like their son and raised him as such.

Wiping the water away, he looked at his reflection. At 19 years old, he stood at 6''1' and built like an athlete. All of the physical training he had gone through bulking him up in a way that had many girls back at school doing a double take.

His piercing blue eyes looked back at him with a dull shine in them. Scanning over his face briefly, his once jet black-hair was shaved down to stubble and a slight five o'clock shadow that marred his face. The dark circles under his eyes from the few hours of sleep he had lost in the last couple days showing in the dull light as he sighed. Switching off the light and heading back into the bedroom and flopping back on the bed.

Grabbing his iphone from the bedside table and checking the time, he saw that it was just after three in the morning. "Dammit." he muttered realizing another night of sleep had eluded him once again.

A familiar symbol for messages in his voicemail box blinked in the top right corner and he clicked on it along with the speaker.

"You have 2 unheard messages." said the automated voice. "First unheard message;"

"Hey, Mason. It's Bryce. Haven't heard from ya in a couple of days. Jessie and I have been pretty worried about you, hell a lot of us back here on campus are. Just give us a call back and let us know you're okay. Later man."

He tapped the delete button when it finished. "Deleted."

"...Mason? It's Miranda." Mason rolled his eyes hearing the voice of his ex-girlfriend. "I just heard about what happened with your parents. Look, I know we didn't end things on the best of terms, but I wanted to say how sorry I am. They were good people. And...I wanted to know if we could talk sometime. About what happened-"

"Deleted. No new messages." He hit the button without a second thought. Talk about what had happened in their relationship? There wasn't anything to say about her throwing their 15 month relationship down the toilet for a quick fuck.

The fall out resorted in a broken table, two chairs and her 'new special friend' being sent to the hospital with a broken nose and fractured jaw. He ended their relationship right there and never looked back, ignoring her calls and texts until they finally stopped.

That was a month ago, and thankfully he had his friends there to help ease the pain from it.

Sighing again, he stuffed the phone in his pocket and got out of bed a second time. Wearing only the jeans he had fallen asleep in and barefoot, he went out into the hall and down the main staircase of the large, two story house he had grown up in.

The place was pretty grand. Five bedrooms, three bathrooms surrounded by six acres of land with a good sized pool set up in the back next to a stone patio. His parents may not have been materialistic, but the home alone was enough to show that they were very well off. But that was the only thing they were really frivolous about with their money.

Reaching the ground floor, Mason walked down the small corridor that led into the kitchen/dining room. One big enough to house roughly a dozen people, and had done so whenever the Riley's had company over for birthday parties.

Heading to the fridge, he dug out a bottle of water and downed half of it in a couple of gulps. The house was very silent, save for the crickets that were chirping outside. He'd grown used to it in the time he had been back.

When the silence became too much, he'd retire to the living room and power up the Xbox 360 he brought with him and start playing one of the games from his collection. He'd always been a fan of sci-fi shooters since he was little, and became a fan of the Crysis and Halo series'. But his friend Matt had gotten him into Borderlands roughly a week after he and Miranda broke up.

The story was pretty interesting, the characters were awesome in their own way, and the games has a good amount of comedy mixed in with all the action and bloody violence. It had taken him over two months to beat the first and second games, infact he was about two hours into the 'Pre-Sequel' when he got the call about his parents' accident.

Thinking about his parents and their passing for what must have been the hundredth time. Mason felt another tear slide down his face. His fists balling up on the countertop as he fought back the urge to start sobbing again like he had the night he had first been told of their passing.

After taking several minutes to keep his emotions in check, he finished the water and tossed the empty bottle away and headed back up to his room in the hopes of salvaging what sleep he could for the night.

Unaware of what the next day was going to bring him.

X

South Yarmouth was a very small town in Rhode Island. Located along the state's coastline facing the Atlantic ocean and slightly long drive from Providence. But the remoteness of the location was very peaceful and familiar to Mason.

Having grown up here, he knew almost every road and landmark like the back of his hand. And he enjoyed driving through his home state, taking in the sights and breathing in the salty sea are that he had known since childhood.

After catching a couple more hours of sleep. He had gotten a call from his family's lawyer, Jack Mercer, and had to drive up to Providence to handle a couple of things that had almost been forgotten during their last meeting.

It wasn't anything serious, just a couple of documents that needed to be signed and several others to be looked over. Being a legal adult, he was entitled to everything his parents left behind according to their will. There had also been a letter left to him written by both of them that he had yet to open, it being left on the bedside table in his room since he wasn't ready to read it yet.

When everything was in order, Mason talking with Jack about what had been happening while he had been at home. The teen got back into his car and began heading back for home. Taking the scenic route so that he could relax and try and enjoy the ride.

The 2007 Mustang GT he had gotten as a gift for college rumbling softly as he went down the long roads along the coastline. The view of the ocean with the sun slowly starting to dip down toward the waves being a beautiful sight to behold as he made his way back to the house.

A few dark clouds were gathering in the distance, but that didn't take away the sight that was right before him.

Dressed in one of his casual outfits. Faded blue jeans along with his dark-brown carhartt boots, a black t-shirt and a denim jacket. Mason kept his eyes on the road as he went around a curve. The only thing keeping him from the embankment that led down to the lapping waves below being a metal guardrail.

As he drove, he began to think about what he was going to do next. He'd finish school, that definitely being on top of his priority list. But after that he hadn't a clue. A part of him always wanted to open his own auto body shop, hence why he as going to school for auto mechanics. He loved working on cars, his father had as well which was what got him started on it in the first place.

He remembered tinkering with several old vehicles that his old man had gotten his hands on, enjoying every second of it. And as he got older it became something that he wanted to do as a profession. And being the loving, understanding people that they were, his parents supported his choice and stuck by him.

Shaking the thoughts and memories away, Mason turned around another corner...

Only to be met with the bright headlights of an eighteen wheeler drifting over to his side of the road with its horn blaring. "SHIT!" he shouted spinning the wheel and swerving around the larger truck as it flew past.

But in doing this he found himself in the path of a jeep coming his way in the opposing lane. The teen twisted the wheel back to the right in time to miss a head-on collision; however, a loud crunch was heard as the jeep collided with the back end of his car sending him into a spin.

Gritting his teeth, Mason tried to regain control but was jarred when the Mustang went through the guard-rail that seperated the road from the ocean and found himself airborne.

Everything seemed to slow to a crawl as the car and its driver began to free fall. Hitting the dark waters hard and causing him to smack his head hard enough against the steering that he saw stars.

The pain in his head was nearly forgotten when the cold salt water got inside and sent a shock into his system.

Trying to stay calm, despite the life/death situation he now found himself in, he made quick work of undoing his seat belt as the inside of the vehicle began to fill up fast. After getting the safety restraint off, he pressed his back to the driver side door and slammed his booted feet against the passenger window several times before it shattered.

By that point, the Mustang slipped beneath the lapping waves of the Atlantic. Mason managed to get what breath of air he could before going under water and working his way out of the sinking vehicle.

It was a rough fit for his large frame through the shattered window. But he managed and found himself in open water kicking as hard as he could for the surface. Being around water most of his life, he knew how to swim pretty well. But it was a challenge since his boots were steel toe and were weighing him down significantly.

With a lot of exertion, the teen breached the surface of the water gulping in air as the waves knocked him around. 'Have to make it to shore!' he screamed in his thoughts as he began to fight against the pull of the ocean toward the slope that lead back up to the road.

Even with his boots and his soaked clothes weighing him down, Mason began to make his way back to land. But the waves were getting choppier by the second, a storm must have been coming because the salt water was churning like crazy.

A good sized wave knocked him off course and forced him to lose focus just as another slammed down on top of him sending him back under.

Barely any air in his lungs, the teen kicked with everything he had to get back to the surface. But the current kept pulling him back down, and with each kick be began losing more and more strength. His chest burned with the urge to breathe in as he kept his mouth clamped firmly shut to keep what oxygen he had left inside.

By sheer luck he breached the surface again and sucked in air...only for another good sized wave to crash on to him, forcing water down his throat in mid-breath causing crippling pain to shoot through his form.

Mason coughed unconsciously, but since he was already under water he ended up sucking in more making the pain beyond excruciating. His vision started to blur and darken as what strength he had left began leaving him like a large hole in a fuel-line. Eventually his struggles began to fade as well as his body began to sink into the dark depths.

'This...can't be how it ends...' he thought trying to will his body to react, but it was as if it was out of his control. His form was nothing more than dead weight.

Darkness surrounded his vision and began closing in. Thoughts of his friends, and the life he had flashed before his eyes as he began to lose consciousness. An image of his parents appeared in his minds eye as he slipped farther and farther away.

Before his fell into the embrace of oblivion, the teen saw something glowing in the water around him before everything went dark.

X

I was dying. Despite how hard I tried I couldn't fight against mother nature, no matter how strong I was.

As I fell unconscious all I thought about was what I was leaving behind. That I still had so much more to do with my life and that I wasn't ready to go yet. Even though I was still grieving over my loss, I knew that they would have wanted me to live on and become something they could be proud of...

...and in the end I thought I would end up joining them all too soon.

But it seemed, fate had other plans for me. And this little accident of mine was just the beginning of something far greater...and far more dangerous.

X

He had expected weightlessness, floating through an endless void as some higher power decided where he would go to spend eternity.

However, he wasn't expecting to be laying on a solid surface with darkness all around him too dense to see anything. Unable to move as if something was restraining him.

"THEY ARE RAGE, BRUTAL, WITHOUT MERCY."

A voice suddenly boomed all around him, sounding just as dark as the dark abyss. Then he felt a pulse, like a powerful heartbeat that impacted his chest.

The darkness of his vision was broken when glowing-red markings appeared. Forming into a symbol that was unlike anything he had seen before.

"BUT YOU. YOU WILL BE WORSE. RIP AND TEAR, UNTIL IT IS DONE."

The deep voice ended with another strong pulse. A bright, red light pierced the darkness, blinding him as he was pulled harshly into it.

X

Mason gasped deeply as he jolted awake, taking in huge gulps of air as his vision was blocked by the red light. His heart beating like a jackhammer in his chest while his mind went into panic mode as he tried desperately to get his bearings.

He couldn't move, he felt heavy, restrained and save for the red light infront of him everything else was still a little dark. When everything started settling, his vision slowly swimming back into focus, while getting his heart rate and breathing somewhat under control, he finally took notice of his surroundings...

Mason found himself staring up at a ceiling where a strange stone slab hung above him, in the center of the slab was the same strange symbol that he had seen before. Shaped like a 'T' and glowing a sinister red with four smaller markings surrounding it at each corner with a couple slash markings running along the bottom.

Looking around, he saw that he was in what looked to be some kind of lab. His form laying naked on a table in the very center inside another stone slab that looked to have been connected to the one above him. Various pieces of machinery sparked and sputtered around him, the room itself shaking at various points sending dust and sparks raining down from the ceiling.

"W...What...where...?" he tried to speak, only to go into a small coughing fit. His voice was cracked, haggard, almost as if it hadn't been used in a really long time

Trying to move, he found his arms chained down to the slab he woke up on. The metal looked old, covered in markings similar to the first he'd seen.

Pulling on the shackles a few times in an attempt to loosen them, Mason heard something moving in the shadows on the right side of the lab.

Craning his neck, he saw the darkness move as whatever had been there shambled into the faded light. An instinct he couldn't explain kicked in and he started yanking on the shackles even harder, whatever it was he had a strong feeling that it wasn't anything good.

With one more powerful yank, the restraint on his right arm broke free just as a lanky, rotten form lunged for him. Out of reflex, he lashed his hand out and backhanded the creature then grabbed it by the head, thumb digging into one of its eye sockets while it snapped its jaws at his arm that was just out of reach.

Without thinking, he slammed the head of the creature against the slab he was laying on, shattering its skull like an egg and sending blood, bone and grey matter spraying in all directions.

Mason didn't have time to fully register what he had done as more shadows started moving, more creature's like the first one shambling out of the darkness around the lab and heading straight for him.

Flexing his other arm, he tore free from the other shackle and vaulted over the side of the slab. Landing on the floor in a crouch and looked up to see a futuristic pistol laying beside him. Hearing the creatures getting closer, he picked up the weapon and fired into the closest one.

The pistol chirped loudly, blue colored rounds leaving the barrel and punching bloody holes into the abomination. Blood and chunks of flesh spraying the walls before it collapsed to the floor unmoving.

One of the creatures came up behind him and made to grab him, but he could 'feel' it closing in and spun on the balls of his feet. Slamming the weapon into the side of its head and staggering it before putting two shots into its chest.

Two more came from the other side of the room, both being quickly dispatched with a few well placed rounds. Clearing the room of hostility.

When everything settled down, Mason looked at the weapon in his hand. Clicking a button on the side causing the slide to lock back and reveal a glowing-blue energy cell inside, hitting another switch caused the barrel to spread out at the sides.

Clicking the pistol closed again, he looked around the bloody and debris riddled lab, he tried to piece together where he was and how he had gotten there.

He remembered the accident, finding himself in the ocean and slowly drowning as he sank to the bottom...then darkness...then...this.

"Is this some kind of sick version of Hell?" Mason couldn't help but think to himself, "Waking up in a strange lab, strapped inside a stone tomb of some kind, killing what looked like mutated zombies with an energy pistol...all while naked...That's pretty fucked up." wiping blood off his chest, he blinked in surprise when he found his body covered with hardened muscle with an untold number of scars marking his flesh.

"I definitely don't remember being this ripped either." He always stayed fit, but this was something else entirely. Finding a badly damaged mirror beside a leaking sink in the corner, he approached it and looked his reflection...his mouth dropping when he saw it.

His face and hair was still the same as it had been before the accident, but his eyes...

What had once been blue was now a dark, glowing red. Giving off an almost demonic like appearance to his normal features.

"What fucking happened to me?" Mason thought in stunned silence, reaching up and touching the side of his face as he stared at his reflection in the broken mirror.

He turned and looked at the corpses of the zombie-like creatures he had put down, tightening his grip on the weapon.

"Need to find a way out of here...worry about how I got to this place later. And find some goddamn clothes too while I'm at it." His eyes locking onto a doorway that to be the exit, bare feet slapping through the pools of blood spreading across the floor as he approached a still active terminal that hadn't been damaged by whatever was happening around here.

Seeing a 'play back' button on the holo-screen, he reached out and pressed it causing the air around him to distort and several holograms to appear. One of them, shaped like a woman, stepped into the room and toward the center where the tomb he had woken up in, sealed and surrounded by lit candles, where four other people were on the floor kneeling beside it like they were praying.

The woman walked around observing the tomb before speaking. "We have to contain this..."the images faded away leaving everything the way it was before the holograms appeared.

Beside him, the door slid apart allowing him to leave the lab. Entering another where a large hunk of stone sat against the back wall surrounded by machinery. Inside the stone, set up in a similar fashion Mason had been before, was a suit of what looked like power armor.

It looked a little like Spartan armor from Halo, but it looked far more durable and had obviously seen combat in the past with the various scratches on the plating.

Mason felt a pull in his chest that led him toward the suit. Like a part of him was reaching out and calling for it. Stepping toward the armor until he stood before it, his face reflected in the visor of the helmet and looking back at him.

Reaching out, his hand touching the chest plate of the suit before an explosion of images flooded his mind;

A fiery pit. Forged from stone, flesh and bone. Structures covered in glowing pentagrams and other unknown symbols.

Fierce battles against monstrous hordes of creatures from the depths of one's nightmares. Their hate and rage filling the air like a fog, but so was their terror of the one ending them.

Statues of demons bellowing into the void surrounding an altar with a sphere of red energy in the very center of their open chests. Tendrils of energy leading to a bigger sphere in the sky that glowed like a miniature sun. The power from it overwhelming.

A strange artifact. Made of bones and flesh with a skull sitting on the top lost amongst the inferno. Something important.

Something that needed to be found.

The images came to a sudden stop, Mason collapsed to the ground, blood rushing in his hears and his head feeling two sizes too big. Vaguely aware that he was now wearing the armor with the helmet laying on the floor beside him.

His brain felt scrambled, fractured. He couldn't explain it, but the images awoke memories that were not his own.

There was no possible reason behind any of it, and there were far too many questions than answers. But somehow, someway, he understood what he had seen;

The monsters...the demons, filled with hate, malice and rage. They hungered. For flesh, for conquest, for death...they were here. Attempting to claim this place for their own, to harvest all living, knowledge and culture and assimilate it into their own twisted realm.

Like a scourge that would never be satisfied.

Mason clutched his head, he couldn't think straight, two sets of memories attempting to overpower the other making him feel like his mind was breaking in two. As if two identities were trying to assume control of one vessel.

He now knew how the armor worked, what it was and where it had come from. There was so much more to this than he could ever possibly imagine. Whatever he was before seemed to pale in comparison to the greater purpose he had now...a purpose that was now his own to carry out.

As if sensing that his resolve was becoming as solid, the pain in his head slipped away allowing him to focus again. Standing up again while picking up the dropped helmet, he wiped a bit of dust from the visor before turning it around in his hands and slipping it over his head, clicking it into place with the rest of the suit.

The HUD came online with data scrolling across in an unknown language before shifting to english as it calibrated, health and armor monitors appearing in the bottom left corner and an ammo reader for his weapon coming up on the bottom right.

Rolling his shoulders, the suit fitting like a glove, felt comfortable and light despite how big and heavy it looked. Mason had been flexing his fingers, making fists when his HUD chimed with an incoming message.

With a thought, the message opened and was displayed before his eyes;

-You have questions, and I have the answers that you seek.

But the situation you find yourself in needs to be resolved first and foremost. You are the only one with the power to stop what is about to take place, countless lives hang in the balance and failure is not an option.

When you succeed, we will meet and you will have your answers -

There was no sender, and the message deleted itself when he finished reading it. Mason glared at his HUD, now aware that there was someone pulling the strings, someone responsible for why he was here.

At the moment he had no other options but to play by this person's games. And hope that by the end of it he'll figure out what was going on.

Turning to the terminal screen beside him. 'Demonic Invasion in Progress' flashed on the screen as Mason swiped across it and bringing up the status report;

Scan Complete...Report Error.

Base Casualties: Unavailable

Facility Damage: Unavailable

Threat Level: Unavailable

Attack Origin: Unavailable

Analyzing Error...Satellite Dish Array: Offline. No Signal.

"Well, that was helpful." he thought sarcastically just as a map of the facility appeared and pinpointed the location of the array where all the issues for the system were coming from.

"Cannot determine the cause of Demonic Invasion until the Res Ops Satellite is brought back online." said a computerized voice from the nearby speakers.

"Guess I have to get things running again if I want a complete rundown of what the hell is going on." Mason summed up as the terminal chimed and an icon appeared on the screen reading 'Incoming Voice Comm'. "Someone else is alive out there?" he wondered hitting the icon.

"Welcome. I'm Dr. Samuel Hayden, I'm the head of this facility. I think we can work together and resolve this problem in a way that benefits us both."the voice that came through sounded robotic, but had a hint of an accent to it. "If we are to solve the issue at hand the Res Ops array needs to be back online to get a full review of the situation. A nav-point has been sent to the Praetor Suit's systems, time is short."

The communication cut out before Mason could say anything. Shoving the terminal aside, he walked to the other side of the room and down a winding corridor. The facility shook again, debris raining down from the ceiling that did nothing to hinder his progress as he turned a corner and found five more zombie-creatures waiting for him.

The first one lunged, but Mason grabbed it by the throat and choke-slammed it to the floor before stomping on its head. The heavy boot of his armor splattering its cranium like a grape as he raised his pistol and blew the head off the next two that came at him.

Moving forward, he backhanded another zombie, breaking its neck and slamming his other fist into its stomach. The limb tearing through the lanky creature and nearly splitting it in two as he threw the corpse aside.

The last zombie shambled forward, either unaware of the fate of its kind or uncaring Mason couldn't tell. Nore did he care as he grabbed its shoulders, brought it down and smashed his knee into its head with enough force to obliterate its skull.

Pausing for a moment, he observed the carnage he had just unleashed, the blood splattered on his armor. Yet once again he felt no regret, shame or even disgust from what he had done.

Maybe it was his new body, or maybe something changed within him after his 'death', Mason didn't know. But what he did know, was that if he was going to survive what would surely be coming at him, he couldn't hesitate.

Rip and tear until it is done...that's what the weird voice had said before he woke up in his new body. It seemed fitting, and he was more than happy to oblige if and when more of these freaks came out to greet him.

Moving down the last few meters of the corridor, up a small flight of stairs, he was stopped by a door that had been sealed. The corpse of what looked to be a soldier in bloody white armor pinned under it, the body nearly severed in half when the heavy panel came down and he wasn't lucky enough to get out of the way in time.

Eyes trailing along the fallen man's upper-half, Mason found a weapon clutched in his hands. Reaching down, he pried the gun from the soldier's grip, the corpse severing fully and falling to the ground as he looked at it up close.

A shotgun, the weight feeling better in his hands than the pistol did. Mason gave it a good once over to make sure it wasn't damaged in anyway before racking the pump to eject the round in the chamber and loading a fresh one. His HUD blinked as his suit linked with the weapon, the ammo counter changing to the shotgun's specifications.

Looking at his pistol, the sidearm glowed a moment before disappearing in a small burst of light. One of the features Mason had learned about the armor when he put it on, aside from enhanced strength, any weapons he found would be sent to a digital inventory within the suit itself for safe keeping where he could access it at any time he wished.

New gun in hand, he knelt down and grasped the bottom of the sealed door with his free hand. With a small grunt, he stood, lifting the panel with him, metal grinding and sparking as it was raised high enough for him to duck under and enter the room beyond.

When the door slammed down behind him, Mason turned and looked forward just as a form dropped down from the ceiling a few meters ahead. Slightly bulkier than the undead he had encountered, this creature had long, sharp claws and glowing red eyes that locked on him immediately.

A hissing-roar rose from the back of its throat while it put its hands together, energy gathering between its talons before pulling one back and hurling a flaming ball right at him.

Mason ducked, the attack striking the wall and scorching the metal as he raised his shotgun and fired. The spread too wide at this distance, but enough to stagger the creature as he charged toward it. Another round blasting from the barrel and hitting it in the chest, knocking it back a step and spraying blood across the floor.

On the third trigger pull, the creature collapsed to the floor twitching. The body a bloody and mangled mess from the rounds fired into it. Now standing over its prone form, the monster looked up and hissed in defiance. Clawed hand reaching out and grasping at his boot.

"Don't think so," he said, raising his foot and bringing it down on the creature's head and ending it.

"Warning! Demonic presence at unsafe levels. Lockdown in effect."the facility's voice echoed out as he left the small entry room and into a larger chamber. Emergency lights flashing in every corner, and in the very center, surrounded by a large group of undead and more creatures like the one he had killed, was what looked like an altar made entirely out of flesh with an open maw growing out of the floor with a large sphere of red energy pulsating in the middle of it.

Upon his entry, every demonic entity turned and looked in Mason's direction, snarls and hisses reverberating through the room like static. "Alright," he said over the alarms, lifting his shotgun. "Who's first?"

The creatures surged and he pulled the trigger.

X

A/N: The first step to a long journey. Or, in this case, a massive leap through the nine circles.

The next chapter is a timeskip before leading into the actual story itself. If you've played DOOM, know the lore and what is coming, you can expect there to be a lot of bloodshed before things really kick off.

I already have the next two chapters written out and ready. The next update will be later today, but for now tell me what you think and what you might like to happen in the future and I'll see if I can set said ideas into motion.

Till next time folks!