Redemption lies within

Dynamite Cleaners
Outside at the back of the store, Joshua leafed through a few hundred soul bills from his wallet before handing the agreed amount to the store manager, Kipstor, who gladly accepted the soul money. Sitting not far from the two of them was a crate of D.I.Y. mine kits.
After a quick count of bills through his fingers, Kipster grinned to himself and pocketed the money away. "Pleasure doing business with ya, Mr. Graham!" he smirked up at the Burnt man in bandages.
While Joshua pocketed his wallet inside his vest, he looked back down at the Imp and said, "Quite. I expect the crate to be delivered to the agreed address," he warned.
Kipster scoffed with a grin while waving his hands negatively, "Of course, of course!" he assured the sinner that stood before him, "Can't have repeat customers if all I do is stiff them." he jested while jabbing his elbow in Joshua's direction.
Joshua nodded in agreement as a pickup truck pulled around the corner of the store, driven by an Imp with another Imp in the passenger seat; once the truck was pulled up near Joshua and Kipster, the manager himself gestured for his employees to the crate beside them, "Right here boys." he hollered out.
As the Imps exited the truck, Joshua noted that the imp that was driving the truck had a bit of a stocky but muscled build, while the passenger imp was more on the lean side but carried a shotgun on his back.
"On it, boss." The Driver imp half saluted as he and his fellow worker walked over to the crate next to Joshua and Kipster and hefted it up together with the lean imp.
While the imps carried the crate to the back of the pickup truck, Joshua looked back down at Kipster. "If that is all between us with the exchange, I'll be heading back in to check on the little miss that entered the store with me," he said before turning to leave the store through the back door.
"Hold up, one more thing," Kipster said while his workers finished hefting the crate into the back of the truck before getting back into the vehicle to head to their destination. The imp manager walked over to Joshua once the burnt man stopped and turned to glance back at him.
"Yes?" Joshua questioned the imp without missing a beat.
As Kipster approached Joshua once more, he fished through the coat he wore as manager of the store and pulled out what made Joshua tense at first when he saw what the imp was pulling out the moment he saw the handle grip of a gun. "Don't think I didn't recognize your signature from elsewhere!" he flashed a smirk as he fully pulled out an m1911 pistol.
Joshua wasn't sure what exchange was about to happen, but he certainly was expecting what the Imp was about to say next. Tensing his fingers, he quickly pulled out his own weapon in retaliatory fire.
Kipster grinned as he held his weapon out in his palms. "Mind etching your name into this gun of mine?" he asked in the most innocent way an imp can ask.
"..." Joshua froze his hand just as it was about to go into his vest and pull out his own gun. He looked back down at Kipster with a look of uncertainty. "Excuse me?" he asked suddenly, thrown off by the request.
The imp manager's eyes gleamed back up at Joshua. He held his gun in his hand and gently rubbed it with the palm of his other hand. "Ya see, I was able to buy this nice handgun of such fine quality, but I couldn't afford the package deal of having it signed by the gunsmith himself," he then smirked at Joshua.
Joshua crossed his arms and weighed what the imp was implying on wanting to ask while he looked back at the imp with an indiscernible look in his eyes. "And you wish for me to sign it…" he drawled out, earning an excited grin from Kipster, all while the pickup truck drove off to its intended destination.
On one hand, he usually etches his initials into the commissioned guns he's asked for through Carmilla Carmine. It was a simple idea given to him by Carmine herself; he needed capital for his basic needs at the time, and he knew his way around guns. In the end, it worked itself out for both him and Carmine. The agreed split was a thirty-and-seventy split in his favor. The haggling part of the whole deal is a different story altogether.
Carmine increased her clientele count through his guns while pocketing some of the earned commissions, while he had a stable income to finance his basic needs. It was a win-win for both of them.
Blinking to himself back to awareness, Joshua let out a soft breath as he directed his attention on the imp manager, "I don't usually do requests such as this, but-"
Kipster picked up on the hesitation like a shark homing in on blood in the water, "Initial my gun, and I'll have the boys come back later to send you another crate of the same order you paid for, free of charge!" the imp offered quickly with an eager look on his face.
"..." Joshua closed his eyes for a bit to think about it. Already, he was feeling a bit greedy about the sort of deal, and while he was going to do it anyway without the deal before the imp interrupted him, perhaps he should add something of his own to even out the cost of etching his signature into the imp's gun without the cost of the package deal that usually comes with the commissions.
Joshua opened his eyes back up and looked directly down into the imp's eyes with a measured look, "Fine, but if you are adding in a free crate for the signature, I can't in good conscience do it without offering a counterbalancing deal." He said while unfolding his arms to reach into his vest and pull out a slip of paper.
Kipster's eyes trailed to the slip of paper that Joshua pulled out before he offered it to the imp. "Call this number. You'll be greeted by an operator that will send you a catalog of a wider selection of guns I've made designs for."
The imp gently reached out and accepted the slip of paper, and nodded numbly as his eyes focused on the slip of paper in his hands., "It's a deal!" he said breathlessly.
"Good. Now, where do you want me to initial on the gun of yours?" Joshua asked the imp, who looked back up at Joshua eagerly.
A bit later, after the exchange with the imp manager, Joshua headed back into the store to check on Niffty and see if she had found everything she needed.
Walking past a few rows of aisles, Joshua reflected on his time in hell. It was one thing for him to say he was a follower of the faith and bible, but it was another to abide by what it teaches. He was a sinner, that much was evident, but had done his best to adhere to much of what the bible had taught him.
Joshua was a violent man when warranted, but Hell made it hard to be passive in any regard. In hell, you had to look out for yourself, lest you end up as the downtrodden sinners that lay on the streets.
To say that Joshua wasn't already well acquainted with the situation, was an understatement. Much like the wastelands of the Mohave, life was harsh and one had to be efficient in killing any opposition to one's own life. Where you have raiders in the wastelands, you have crime mobs in hell. The Mohave has its warbosses, Hell has its Overlords.
It was a song and dance that Joshua was very familiar with.
Rounding the corner of an aisle at the end of the store, Joshua rid himself of his inner monologuing once he spotted Niffty in the midst of a conversation with an imp he was unfamiliar with.
"I've always figured Apollyon's brand was better on stains," Niffty remarked while standing beside her cart of cleaning products she had in her hands two different brands of cleaning fluid with sprayer nozzles. Her eye narrowed at the one in her left hand, "I never figured Baphomet's brand was a stain remover and an all-surface cleaner as well."
Standing not far from Niffty with her own cart of a few cleaning supplies and tools, the imp shifted on her feet a bit as she took out a bottle from her own cart of the same brand that Niffty was cautious against. "Oh B'lieve me!" the imp remarked with a southern accent as she held the brand bottle in her palms, "After run'n outta anything to use at th' time, Bapho cleaner was all I had left so…" the imp rolled her eyes shrugging with a smile.
With eagerness evident in her eye, Niffty held her bottle up to look at it more closely. "Ooh! Can it also function as a flamethrower like Apollyon's?" she asked with a sharp smile.
After putting her own bottle of cleaner into her cart, the imp gave Niffty a close-eyed smile. "Sure!" she drawled and opened her eyes to look straight at Niffty, "it even works on caked bloodstains that are over months old!" she gushed in response before her eyes trailed behind Niffty to finally noticed Joshua walking up to them during the conversation they were having.
"Oh, hello, thar!" The imp greeted the burnt man with a simple wave while earning Niffty's attention as well. "You must be th' gentleman that lil' ol Niffty here calls mista Graham," she remarks as Joshua approaches the two.
Joshua gave the imp a nod and glanced between the two, "...I'm assuming you know each other in any capacity?" he asked in a measured response.
Niffty giggled manically as she looked up at Joshua with her eye, "Acquaintances, actually! We bump into each other now and then in this store!" she answered him.
The imp, on the other hand, reaches out to shake hands with Joshua. "Th' name's Millie! And it's nice to hear little' ol' Niffty has a place to stay at."
Reciprocating the handshake with the imp, Joshua glanced between the two once more before voicing his thoughts. "I've bought what I needed. If you need anything else, you'll find me waiting at the front," Joshua told Niffty, looking directly down at her before excusing himself to the two ladies.
As Joshua left the aisle, Millie looked back over to Niffty with a perky smile, "Nice guy! Ya'll think he needs assassins for any unfinished business on Earth, by th' way?" she asked, hoping to help her boss by adding a client to I.M.P's list of clientele.
Niffty frowned for a bit before smiling once more and giggled with a sharp grin, "Nah, I don't think he's the type." she remarked.
Millie smiled gently in response and fished out a card to hand off to Niffty. "Well, here, jus' in case," she said, before excusing herself to take her leave and finish her shopping. She waved back at Millie as she rounded the corner of the aisle. "Ya'll don't be a stranger now, ya hear!" she hollered before leaving Niffty's sight.
Niffty hummed an excited tone to herself as she looked at the card in her hand and smiled sharply at it. Depending on how much time had passed on Earth since she had died, perhaps it wasn't too late to finish the job of killing her boyfriend for hooking up with that skank! It wasn't her fault that she was clingy to her boyfriend!
Those Geisha had it coming for trying to seduce her man after all!
HeavenRestricted Archives
As the top dog and leader of his extermination force and the first man of mankind, Adam was granted a very good amount of authority that came with his station, chief of which was access to the deeper levels of Heaven's Great Library—an enormous building that housed every single bit of literature that humanity had created…with some exceptions, of course.
…But that's besides the case…
Adam was looking for a book, and it wasn't just any book either, it was Saint Peter's book. He never really got around to reading the book other than to skim through it. A few preachy gospels here and there, but supposedly good enough of a reason for the man to be granted the rank of Saint and passage into heaven…
What he doesn't remember is the book teaching anything about what that damn sinner had said that had rankled him something awful for the past month.
And last he checked in his brief skimming of the book, Peter didn't write anything about a god or anything other than preaching to the angels. Something did not add up; whatever that sinner said that came with his bitch of an ex-wife's daughter seemed way off the mark of what most humans tended to be preachy about.
Using his gear's index finger claw, Adam looked through each title of the books before finding what he was looking for. "There you are, you stupid thing!" Adam grumbled to himself to pull out a bible that was not supposed to exist on their Earth and Heaven.
Pulling out what was labeled as an orthodox bible, among several other denominations of bible books that had found their way into the realm of heaven, Adam grumbled to himself as he tried to remember what passage the sinner had said the verse was in.
After flipping through several pages and searching from the index page, Adam finally found what he was looking for before slamming the book shut after a quick read. "Well…" he began to say to himself, as he placed the orthodox bible back and glanced between the other bible books. "Looks like we got ourselves another soul that found themselves crossing the aether…again…" Adam mused to himself while noting that while the passage he read wasn't to the exact lettering of what the sinner had said, it was nevertheless spot on what it was trying to convey.
Scratching his chin, Adam looked on with confusion, "When was the last time we had one of those souls here…a hundred or so years ago?" he muttered to himself before frowning to himself, "Ugh…better tell Sera we got another errant soul from some stupid other earth…" Adam shrugged lamely and said as he took his leave of the place.