His imaginings of hell were not far off to what he saw when he opened his eyes once more.  He wasn't sure if this was better or worse than it being different to what he imagined.
The ground under his feet was cracked and dry.  Strange bloody roots littered and coiled against rocky partitions.  Seas of lava stretched beyond the horizon into a howling sky of discord.  Chaos seemed to reign supreme, especially from the dark tall tower stretching up before him.
Already from where he stood, he could see terrible creatures scuttling across the land.  Small dinosaur-like beasts with thick plated heads.  Goblins with scruffy little weapons.  Even a large spider with a pale human face the colour of the moon.
James snarled as he readied himself for his greatest battle yet, scissors in one hand and nanos charging in the other.  He had to find her.  She had to be here.  He made his first steps into Oblivion, cautiously scoping out the lay of the land.
Despite the chaotic stone-hewn architecture, he could see only one pathway to go, guarded well by enemies that he had to take down one by one.
The first one to die was a small grunt of a lizard, its plated head deflecting James' scissors well, growling at such as he decided to bring out another trick.  He didn't want to use fire, obviously in such a wasteland of fire itself, so he went for the opposite.
Blocking the beast away with his blades, he soon summoned up a good cold blast of ice, a dare he had to take since he reasoned that if he could make water, why not ice.
The beast soon received a nasty freezeburn within its head, causing a terrible squawk of pain before being stabbed through its side, dead.
	"Hehehe, I can still burn you in other ways bitch."

Cocky in his newfound use of other abilities, he moved onwards into the hellish planes, letting his confidence cover his fear.
Pint-sized goblins also came his way, new creatures for him to face, but their numbers made up for their lack of fighting skill.  Some had short swords, some had maces or axes, and others even had armour as elite goblins.
They snarled and nattered at the raptor, clerly offended by his presence, but that did not dissuade him from readily hacking and slashing away at them.  The smaller unarmoured ones were easy prey.
A deflecting blow here, a trapping movement there when he swung his scissors down to trap an axe, before kicking them away and lunging a deep impaling thrust upon them.
Sometimes he went straight for the arms and literally disarmed them with a good scissor cut, snipping them off much to their anguished scream, before another beheading came to them.
One unlucky goblin received a hearty thrust of rusty scissors straight into his mouth, piercing out the back of the skull.  The goblins were clearly intimidated except for the armoured one.  He would be tougher with hiis steel axe.
James readied himself into a fighting stance and looked for a weak point, deflecting the axe as best as he could.  Despite the height advantage, the axe was strong and the goblin had a good arm strength, readily swinging and cutting towards the raptor.
James couldn't even trap his weapon when the goblin shoved him hard with his armoured form, and tried to cut for the leg.  But the raptor was quicker and grabbed at the goblin's head, spinning him around before a violent thrust came straight to the back.
With his blades deep within the spine, he cut straight down, literally carving the spine out in front of the goblin's soldiers.  The fear got the better of them and they ran.  But he was more worried for the larger terrifying beasts ahead.

Walking onwards, he decided that discretion would serve him better somewhat, as he sneaked his way through the infernal planes.  Rocky crevices and overhangs gave him a good advantage with his claws, as he managed to carefully pass by some larger enemies.
The spider lady scared him the most.  All those spindly legs, that bulbous abdomen, it rubbed him up the wrong way.  Enough for him to lose his focus and end up kicking a few rocks down by accident.  The spider lady was alerted, her gaze a venomous red, staring up straight at the raptor with a hissing scream that deafened the raptor.
He took no chances in what such a thing could do to him, running immediately as he leapt and rolled his way through Oblivion, skirting around the dark terrible tower.  Other beasts came, one of which was a terrifyingly huge lizard, its face like a crocodile.
Soon he found a doorway at last, kicking his way inside and locking the other beasts out.  Now he was inside the tower, facing towards a circular room with a single thick column of pure fire.  It burned towards the sky, pulsating like a vein.  The way it throbbed and undulated before him made him think it was some sort of power source.
Despite that, he wasn't even sure where Dar-Ma would be, if she even was here.  He had to either interrogate one of the beasts here, which was unlikely, or find her himself.

In the room however he had a more immediate problem.  Two humanoids made entirely out of fire, flowing burning arms and a tufted head of flame.  Not even any features on the face, just nothing but flickering tongues of flames everywhere on their bodies.
They readily approached the intruder with obvious intentions as James braced his weapon, trying to figure out how to fight them.  The only thing he could think of was using ice again, but he couldn't use it all the time.
He was sure he couldn't hurt them with his scissors, and he didn't want to test that as he started moving away from them.  They responded to the retreating action with fireballs aplenty, sending a volley of them in James' direction.
Dodging swiftly with a minor burn on the foot, he tried to think of an idea as he shot out a blast of ice towards one, which worked very well in repelling the beast as they skirted around the fire column.
Deciding to stick with the original idea, he blasted more volleys of ice out, sometimes even up close for extra damage, blasting it straight into where their hearts would be.  If he weren't so pumped with adrenaline in the battle, he'd have made a pun about heartburn as he killed one of the flame creatures.
The other one howled like a scirocco at the death of its brother, and readily charged towards James with a powerful swing of its burning fists.  James blocked instinctively, finding out that the creature was somehow solid enough to be hit by his blades.
Grinning at such new information, he thrusted and stabbed readily into the unarmed beast, which responded with strong punches that left bruising burns on his body, making the raptor cry out in pain.
With one final thrust, he skewered the monster and made sure it was dead, watching it fall and dissipate into wreathes of smoke.  Barely entered the tower and he had weak burns all over his body.  Shaking the pain off, he found another doorway, shaped like a smooth triangle with a symbol in dried blood.

A long ramp-like stairway ascended upwards, giving the raptor some hope as he climbed upwards.  He barely had time to notice the unusual slats in the floor, thin holes for something to come in, or out of.  Then he heard the swish of something fast, rolling fast, but not fast enough.
He struggled to not scream as the huge blade that came downwards managed to catch on one of his back legs and slice a bit of his skin off.  James struggled upwards with a new leg wound that bled somewhat, his tail flapping a little trail of it along the already blood-crusted floor.
Even with his strong stomach for bloody matters he was a little repulsed, being careful to avoid more traps as he soon came upon a most troublesome sight, in the centre of a rectangular room separated by partitions.
In the middle of a pool of blood, with a foot upon a monster's corpse among several others, was a tall shadow.  An Argonian, black as night with whitened silver hair between a pair of large membranous wings.
A most unusual ill-covering black chanmail covered only the chest and crotch.  James tried to ignore the fact that it resembled a bikini, even with the fortuitous-looking breasts the chainmail shirt had underneath.

The creature turned fully towards him, powerful eyes of red and purple staring him down, wielding a tremendous claymore in one hand.  The large blade seemed to be made of glass, with all the treacherous appearance of black ice.    The voice was dark, deep, ageless somehow.  And also female.
	"What's a little thing like you doing in the pits of hell?"
	"Wh...who are you?"
	"Hm...don't ask questions before you answer mine."
	"I...I'm here to save someone."
	"Oh?"
	"Someone was kidnapped...and taken here.  I have to save her."
	"A noble knight is worthless in this place.  I hope you aren't afraid to fight dirty."
	"I got no problem with that."
The raptor grinned and brandished his scissors.  She was hardly impressed.
	"Well...you do what you want to...just stay out of my way...I'm sure you're not ready to meet your maker yet."
	"Oh I got way too much left to do before I even get CLOSE to dying.  I won't get in your way, I just wanna rescue the girl."
	"Hmhmhmhm...well hurry up.  I'm getting bored.  Not many Dremora left to kill here."
Her power was certainly immense from what he had just witnessed, to see such demonic gladiators turned into ash within seconds.  He felt insecure with his own fire power.  Insead he shrugged with a grin.
	"I'd say take care of yourself but...you got that covered."
	"I should say the same for you.  You'll need it."
	"Just a bit...unlucky."
	"Which will get you killed."
	"Fine...do you know where the prison cells are?"
	"That way."  She pointed to a door on her right.  "A bridge stretches out to the prison tower.  She will be there."
	"Thanks."
With little more to say, James let the strange creature be, thankful that she wasn't looking to fight him, as he headed out onto a long perilous bridge.  Not particularly wide, and stretching out quite a way above the impossibly-far-down landscape of Oblivion, He limped onwards, trying to heal up enough to get into a walking pace.
At that thought, he went for his satchel and brought out his healing potion, sighing as he drank it without a second thought.  The taste was strange, like a medicinal cranberry, not unpleasant with sweetness but certainly with a bitter herb in there.
Upon drinking it all, he felt more energised, able to stand up and walk more strongly towards the prison tower.  It was a thinner-looking tower than the main one, and the bridge connecting the two was longer than he expected.  He hoped, but only here, that Dar-Ma was in them.

On the inside, the prison tower was far smaller in diameter, barely allowing more than a circular stairway and hanging cages upon several levels.  He didn't call for her yet, starting from the bottom downwards to search each and every cell, only to find that he started his search as soon as it had ended.
There she was, lying in an oval cage hanging barely above the floor, shivering in fear.  He could see even from above her a few bruised wounds, her filth-ragged dress and linen shirt torn randomly, showing a part of a breast here or a full leg there.
He feared the worst had happened to her despite her being still alive, doing all he could to control his rage at such a thing to happen to that sweet Argonian.
	"DAR-MA!"
Her head suddenly craned up with surprise, her face paralysed with joy and fear before screaming:
	"JAMES!  PLEASE, HELP ME!"
He stood with his scissors at the ready within one hand, leaping down in front of her cage to stand before her jailer.  A guard of a demonic complexion, skin of blackest ash, resplendent in Daedric armour that shimmered within the torchlight.
It wordlessly brought out a thick mace and shield of equally infernal design, wrought in twisted patterns, the mace a rather terrifying thing with four blades on each corner of its blunt top.
	"LET HER GO YOU FUCKING PRICK!"
It said nothing as it charged towards James, who steeled himself and dodged to one side, readily delivering a glancing blow across the side of the guard's waist.
The scissors did nothing to the armour, making James snarl as he maneuvered as best as he could with his somewhat-healed leg, avoiding the mace as best as he could.  The shield offered ample protection to the jailer, so James kept away and towards the mace.

Normally this was dangerous enough due to how powerful it could swing the weapon, but the raptor had all of his focus up, and regressed back to his training.  Blocking at first, allowing the force of the mace to carry him around, utilising the momentum of the blow to swing out even harder, striking at the arm and crippling the armour.
The jailer was not impressed and sent forwards a thrust with his shield to put James off-balance, before a mighty downwards swing would crush his skull.  The raptor however knew better, pushing himself backwards and rolling to one side before sending out a blast of fire at the back of the weaker armour spot, following up with a mighty thrust.
It did enough of a job to split and crackle the dark armour, but the Dremora countered with a spinning swing of his mace, catching James' shoulder and denting his shoulderguard, but also managing to scar across his chest.
Clutching his new wound, he stood up once more to readily defend and evade.  Waiting for the chance, he watched the jailer swing once more, sending out a blast of fire to throw him off before dodging past him.
Strafing inwards towards the mace, he cut past the arm guard and stabbed through the upper elbow, the jailer roaring and going down onto one knee from the pain.
James offered no mercy as he cut the arm off with some effort, bone snapping with the crippled armour before he pulled back the guard's head and thrusted straight into the exposed slit of a throat.  A demon's gurgle was his reward, making sure he was dead with a tearing twist before pulling out his scissors, now drenched in black blood.
Dar-Ma watched it all with fear, the raptor covered in blood and bruises, but nevertheless smiling at her.  Despite her clothing ruined, she seemed relatively unharmed other than one or two bruises and a few small puncture wounds on her skin.
	"Are you okay?"
	"I am now...th-thank you for saving me."
	"We're not out here yet."

He rifled through the guard's corpse for the key, taking it and opening the cage.
	"We have all of hell to go through first before we leave."
	"Why would they do this?"  She asked tearfully.  "What have I done?"
	"You had something I bet.  Do you still have that pendant?"
	"Wh-what pendant?"
	"Some sort of black stone, like this."
He brought out his orb piece, making the maiden's eyes widen as she showed hers.
	"Y-yes!  This!  Where did you get it?!"
	"Some crazy Argonian, he gave you it too?"
	"No...he gave it to my mother, but I took it for my own."
She slowly got up and hugged James tearfully, whimpering softly as the raptor hugged her tighter, stroking her frills and nuzzling her cheek.
	"Shhhh...it's alright."
	"Oh James...you...thank you."
	"It's alright.  Come on, let's get you back home."
	"Alright...how are we going to get out of here?"
	"Either back the way I came, or someway else.  What did they want with that thing?"
	"They said I was marked or something, for some sort of sacrifice.  My purity they had to....to...e-extinguish."  James snarled to himself at such a terrible thought.
	"Well they're never getting the chance now.  I'll protect you."
	"Why did you come to save me?"
	"Wha?"
	"You've barely known me long enough...why did you come all this way to save me, through Oblivion itself?"
	"You...remind me of someone.  Someone I loved a long time ago.  I...I couldn't live with myself if I left you to die...after all, you saved me right?"
	"R-right...please, take me home."
	"I will.  Let's go."

Taking her by the hand, James walked out of the prison tower towards the central one, finding his way blocked by a few unsavoury beasts, forming a line on the bridge.  Two more flame demons and a Dremora dressed in black robes.
	"They found us!"
	"Get behind me Dar-Ma, I'll handle 'em!"
	"You."  The Dremora pointed to the raptor.  "Hand over the maiden, or suffer a fate worse than death."
	"No way in HELL are you getting her!"
	"Then suffer eternal torture, mortal!  Atronachs, turn him to ash!"
He sent out his burning bodyguards to readily charge towards the raptor, who ran towards them in order to keep them away from Dar-Ma.
Knowing how to handle them from before, he brought out his ice power and blasted it into both of the Atronachs, the width of the bridge assisting in his cleaving of both of them.  They had nowhere to dodge, and no way to protect themselves from the raptor's merciless skewering.
Thrusting enough times, alternating with shots of ice, backed them up enough for him to kill both, only to have one of them send a final unexpected punch to his face, knocking him off-balance.
Dar-Ma screamed as he fell from the bridge, but he desperately grabbed on with his hand, the scissors quickly brought up to stab into the bridge texture.  He remembered how this happened a few times in his life, bracing himself for a mighty vaulting leap.

Bringing his feet up, he pushed them against the bridge to boost himself up hard and back on top, staring down the Dremora who brought out a fistful of dark magic, slamming it hard into James to knock him down on his back.
	"Fool.  You expected less from the followers of Mehrunes Dagon?"
	"Yeah, I did, cuz you're all fucking wetwipes!"
Sending a shot of water from his hands, he made a puddle appear underneath the Dremora, before readily sweeping the leg to kick him off, making him slip and land hard on the bridge.  Enough time for the raptor to get up and stab straight into the foul wizard's heart.
	"ABRACA-FUCK YOU"
With a howling roar, the wizard was dead, and the way was clear for the two to head on.  Taking Dar-Ma's hand once again, he passed the room where he met the winged Argonian, finding her gone but the bodies left behind.
However, there was one living monster within the room, a Dremora guard who eagerly bashed James across the face with an iron mace, scarring his cheek and knocking him against a strange horned jar, pulsating a thick bloody red.
Dar-Ma quickly ran to his side, but was grabbed by the Dremora guard, the girl screaming for her saviour.  James grunted and tried to get up, inadvertently dunking his hand into the odd bloody cauldron.
	"JAMES, HELP ME!"
	"D-Dar-Ma!  Nnngh...wh-what?"
The cauldron seemed to surge a most potent energy within him, the blood crawling up his arm and covering his skin.  Despite the horrific-looking feel of some strange viscous liquid saturating his limb, it felt strangely soothing, coiling up his scales like bloody vines before reaching his wounds.
At the touch to his wounds, he shuddered as they began to heal, closing up, knitting them back to his unharmed self, burns cooled and bruises restored.  He sighed with a great release of rejuvenation, standing up with scissors in hand towards the Dremora.
	"Let go of her, or you die in the next minute."
The guard refused and kept her tight in his grip.
	"Alright, we do this the hard way!"
Sending a blast of ice towards the guard's feet, who looked down in surprise at his greaves suddenly turning cold, James charged with his scissors straight for the head, skewring through one cheek but deflected by the armour.
It was enough to make the guard roar with agony, throwing Dar-Ma to one side as James crammed his hand near the wound and blasted fire into it, burning it violently.  Managing to melt the armour a little, he had plenty of opportunity to shove down the guard and stab him repeatedly through the face until he was either skewered or a bloody pulp.

The raptor quickly ran over to Dar-Ma's side to pick her up off the floor.
	"You alright?!"
	"Y-yes!"
	"Good, let's head down and-"
The clamouring sounds of terrible monsters down below prevented that idea very swiftly.  James cursed silently as he looked towards another door in the area, quickly opening it and taking Dar-Ma up with him.  No way else but up, and he hoped that there was a way out at the top.
Less guards were at the top as they skirted around winding stairways focused around the column of flame from the first floor.  But there were still Flame Atronachs and one or two mages to avoid or kill, the raptor now less concerned about fighting as he was now about escaping.
Dar-Ma even surprised herself when, in the midst of running, James was knocked down by a Dremora Kynval mage, defenceless temporarily and directly underneath the demon.  He did not expect however for the Argonian maiden to club him across the head from behind, the unexpected blow knocking him out cold.
	"Th...thanks."
James was rather surprised at seeing Dar-Ma holding a mace.
	"Are you alright?"
	"Where did you get that?"
	"The guard downstairs."
	"Alright...uh, cool.  Keep a hold of that, let's go."
Despite their efforts to escape to the very top of the tower, they soon found themselves at a rather strange dead end.  A central membranous site, two stairs leading up to a glowing altar, thick red flaps covering the centre of the room.  Ignoring it, they ran towards another door, finding only a broken bridge, and themselves now even higher up above the wasteland.
The bridge itself was wider than the one below, but nevertheless broken, making Dar-Ma even more frightened.
	"J-james, we're trapped!"
	"No we're not, just lemme think!"
	"But we can't escape, the horde's coming after us an-"
	"LET ME THINK DAMMIT WE CAN DO THIS!"

As he held the argonian's hand tightly, he stood upon the precipice of darkness itself, finding himself with no other options, before an unearthly voice came from behind him.
	"Nowhere to run, mortal."
Dar-Ma gasped with fear, shaking visibly at the sight of the elite Dremora Kynreeve.  His armour was terrifyingly spiked, a helmet covering his entire face perfectly so as his voice came from a most terrible darkness.
	"Your cowardice only makes you even more worthless, scaled maiden.  Come.  Accept your destiny, to be extinguished as another light in this pitiful world."
	"Don't even THINK of touching her."
James stood boldly in front of the former hostage, scissors horizontal before him.
	"Hah...another worthless beast of this land."
	"I'm not from around here.  I'm not afraid of you."
	"Then why are you here?  You would do well to leave this world, either by your own volition or by my blade."
	"Go fuck yourself."
He held his weapon firmly before him like a true knight would, his spirit strengthened.
	"I don't care what you want, I WON'T abandon her!"
	"Hah...your tone is bold, yet your eyes speak of regret.  Is this perdition I sense from our young noble warrior?"
	"That gonna matter when I gut your skull?!"
	"It might, if I see not a brave knight but a failed hero.  Did you fail to protect the maiden that came before her?"
James was in disbelief, eyes widening briefly.  But he did not falter in his verbal advance, his rage taking over, gripping his weapon tight enough for his knuckles to turn pale as he roared vehemently:
	"WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU KNOW!?!?  YOU KNOW WHO I AM!?!  I'M THE FINALGAMER, MOTHERFUCKER!  AND AS LONG AS I'M ALIVE, YOU WILL NEVER HAVE HER!"
	"That can be arranged, vagrant!"
He drew out his longsword, a blade of Daedric design with terrible symbols and the texture of rock-encrusted lava.  James had his rusted but unnaturally sharp scissors already out, ready to clash.