On a distant world, a mummy-robot and a brown-robed monk silently made their way to the center of a blasphemous cathedral.
Though the robot lurched ungainly, it's servos making an uneven whirring sound as they moved the broken machine through black-stone hallways, it held it's bandaged head high, the ghostly Pschent crown floating just above it. The robed figure kept his head down, hood over his bald head and a silver gong in his hands which he occasionally struck. They unerringly navigated a maze of hallways that had been designed to drive mortal minds into madness, traveling deeper into the evil cathedral until they entered the central auditorium.
In the cavernous room they found a dozen of the planet's alien inhabitants, naked and twisted in piles of two or three. They seemed to be arranged geometrically around a massive space-pentagram that had been painted on the floor with blood, bile and chalk. Every one of them were dead, their faces contorted in ecstatic agonies.
In the middle of the room, in the center of the space-pentagram, stood a thin red man with greasy black hair, a pencil moustache and a curled goatee. He was dressed in a formal tuxedo, had an opera cape over his pointed shoulders, and an iron two-pronged pitchfork in one hand. A chill filled the entire auditorium, like a sense of crawling villainy that oozed out from his evil presence and sucked dry any hidden heartbeats that might remain in the surrounding corpses.
When red man looked up and saw the two newcomers, he smiled and gave them a friendly wave. "Hello there! I'm the Devil!"
"Greetings and salutations," said the hooded figure, bowing with carefully neutral respect. "I am one of the Invisible Monks. I apologize that you cannot perceive me. My space-kung-fu is so powerful that it entirely erases me from all sight." He gestured to the undead machine beside him. "This is Emperor-M, ruler of Planet-M."
The mummified robot used a mechanical arm to lift a troublesome piece of gauze from its video-eye and examined the odd positions the alien bodies. "Server-ping-boolean-response-required, were-these-flesh-things-fornicating-when-attempting-to-communicate -with-you, end-query?"
"Yes," the Devil said with a sigh, looking about at piles around him. "The space-incantations to summon me to this non-hell realm only requires some mystic sentences and a single brazen act of evil, but more often than not, these cults create unnecessarily elaborate rites that involve hours of consensual physical activity. At first I thought they were confused, that they believed natural biology was somehow a terrible, forbidden thing... but then I realized they just liked the rutting."
The undead machine stared at the bodies without understanding.
The monk rung his silver gong once. "The super-civilizations have agreed to a tournament, a series of space-champion challenges never before recorded in any space-history-book."
"Yes, I know. That's why I am here."
The monk rung his silver gong again. "It was said that you perished, an egg dropped and shattered by the very wizard that you now wait to face in space-combat." { Diabolical Devilman #18 }
"So I was," he replied, "fatally murdered to death. All things can die... even I. And there is a terrible place reserved for the denizens of Hell when they pass on, with punishments and sufferings a hundred-fold more harrowing than anything found in my own realm..." the Devil's voice cracked with the memory.
But he opened his fist, revealing a tiny bit of parchment no bigger than a playing card, the writing on it smeared and illegible. He seemed to regain his courage looking at it, and grinned maliciously. "But I made a deal to regain my freedom. And thanks to the sacrificial death-rites performed by these alien-cultists, I will show the Super Wizard From Space first-hand the tortures I had to endure."
"Battle-calculation-function-results, we-estimate-a-less-than-zero-point-six-repeating-chance-that-you- will-be-able-to-defeat-the-Super-Wizard-From-Space-in-single-space -combat, end-statement."
The Devil looked at the piece of paper in his clawed hand. Clenching it in his fist he crumpled it satisfyingly. "Winning isn't my intention."
A deep rumbling thunder rolled in from outside somewhere, echoing off the black stones and filling the auditorium. The sky was cracking open. Someone was arriving.
"You two best be going," said the Devil, pulling a black domino mask from a jacket pocket and placing it on his face with fond remembrance. "Cosmic tournaments of this sort forbid more than two space-champions in combat at once... and it sounds like the first of them is arriving now."
The Invisible Monk rung his gong a final time and bowed to the now masked man. The robot broadcast a series of radio-hieroglyphics from his phantom crown, opening a sarcophagus-shaped portal, a glowing space-doorway which he and the monk retreated into before it snapped shut with a creak and a pop.
The Devil took the few moments alone to psyche himself up, breathing in and out quickly and shaking his hands to relax them. It felt good to be wearing his old crime-fighting costume again, felt good to be on the mortal realms. If things went well, this would not be the last time.
The rumble turned into a deafening thunder, then a series of booming crunches as the object falling from the sky started crashing through the upper levels of the cathedral. It went right through the black stonework, the ancient masonry, the petrified timbers, and finally exploded through the spiral-filled fresco painted on the ceiling of the auditorium. As rubble smashed down around the space-pentagram, some larger pieces crushing the piled bodies with wet squishes, a pale glow filled the cavernous room and the golden crowned Super Wizard From Space floated majestically to the floor.
They stared at each other, the greatest of enemies, but once upon a time, the greatest of allies. The dust settled around them for seemed like space-eternity.
"My star-instruments alerted me the moment these alien-cultists started the hell-rites that would allow you access to the mortal realm," said the Super Wizard From Space. "I never truly expected you to return. I was certain that my cosmic judgement had dealt you a fair punishment."
"Fair? You didn't give me half a chance to explain myself. You were happy to team-up with the Diabolical Devilman to fight space-crime, but as soon as you accidentally discovered my secret identity... that the Diabolical Devilman was actually mild-mannered ruler of hell, the Devil... you killed me! Without hesitation!"
A vibrational hum emenated from the Super Wizard From Space's fists as unimaginable science-sorcerous power welled up. "And now I must again. Space-justice demands it."
The Devil frowned, disappointed. He took up his iron pitchfork in both hands and took a step back, preparing himself to strike.
"Surrender," demanded the Super Wizard From Space, pointing at his opponent. "Your hell-powers were never a threat to me."
"Quite true, old friend," the Devil spit out with some venom. "On these mortal realms, my hell-powers are a mere fraction of their true potential..." he spun the pitchfork in his hand, and plunged the tongs into the floor at their feet.
The black stone gave way and they both tumbled through a thick red mist. Caught off guard, the Super Wizard From Space fell through an infinity while also not falling at all, the impenetrable mist seeming to grab and yank at him, dragging him down between seven and eight and nine disc-like dimensions at a faster and faster speed. Sound was nonexistent, light was nonexistent, but he could feel the cathedral, the alien world it was built upon, the entire universe that contained it whisked up, out, and away from him.
Then he felt the heat.
The red mist suddenly dissipated, and there was an unbearable burning from his insides and outsides, a fire that was flaring from every atom everywhere. His eyes snapped open and saw black mountains, red clay fields, dried riverbeds, and fire. So much fire. Everything on fire.
A boom as he crashed to the ground, but a ground that shattered under his weight and engulfed him in a sudden freeze. He thrashed and climbed and tried to push up, but the rock and ice around him was too slippery, denying him purchase. It seemed to consciously defy all his efforts to escape, strangling him with shards when he tried to breathe, held him down with sheets of forming ice when he struggled.
Inevitably, the stones and gravel morphed to water, infinite ice that stretched in miles left and right, down and up, a lake beyond imagining that froze and froze and froze until only dirty ice remained. A glacier prison for the Super Wizard From Space.
Walking on top the frozen landscape, the Devil came to the spot where his foe was imprisoned. The filthy ice was just clear enough to make out the blue and gold suit, the strength of the blonde face, all held immoveable hundreds of feet below the surface.
The Devil had abandoned his crime fighting costume, instead reverting to the classic uniform of his hell-office. His cape had turned red and ragged, his tuxedo disappeared leaving only a shiny pair of black short-pants, and a fresh pair of stubby bone horns protruded from his forehead.
He laid down his iron pitchfork and went down on one knee, placing a clawed hand on the ice. "Yes, on your mortal realm, you would easily be the victor," he said with a sneer, "but now, here in my Hell, I am restored to my full strength! Here in Hell, only the Devil can be victorious!
"I will leave you here, a prisoner of Cocytus the demon-glacier. You will freeze for space-eternity... as all unrepentant traitors do, contemplating your betrayal for all time!"