The Devil Warriors

 

Many things are called devils and demons throughout the multiverse. Many places are called Hell. Rarely is there a devil without a shred of goodness. Rarely is there a Hell without a beam of light in its darkness.

 

But there is a place where there is nothing but hatred and contempt for life, nothing at all.

There is such a place, and in this place there are beings that hate you. You, specifically, for the same reasons you dislike yourself. Everyone has a devil set aside for them, who was created to delight in their suffering, no matter how personal, no matter how minor.

God, the Monad, as known to the Greek philosophers, the Ein Soph, as known to the Hebrew Kabbalists, ARARITA, as known to Crowley, and Iad, as known to his servants, vomited this place out when he began to search the multiverse beyond himself, for his mind was unalterable and his thoughts absolutely, physically true. He had no thought that did not also have an existence, for imagination and abstraction are the results of imperfect wills with imperfect power, and God is a perfect will with perfect power. God understood love, and so his love was a force, it had an existence as something tangible and powerful. But because he knew love, he also knew its opposite, hate, and because he knew hate, that hate had a tangible existence within himself. But God also had perfect reason, and with his perfect reason, he was able to sperate his love from his hate and place his hate far, far, far away from the living regions of the multiverse. Thus was born the shadow of God’s creation, justice, and love.

 

While God manifested his will in the form of glowing spheres of light, in the form of the worlds of Es Hayyim, his shadow manifested its will in the form of hollow shells, worlds as dark as God’s worlds were bright.

 

The shells were without life, but were filled with a predatory hunger for life, as natural and total as the hunger night has for the last rays of dawn, as the hunger winter has for the last mote of fire on a spent log. They seek to destroy as God seeks to create.

 

Because they have been thrown to the furthest infinities, their influence upon the multiverse is minimalized compared to what it might otherwise be. But that does not mean the shells do not have any influence.

 

One of these empty shells is called Gharab. It is the shadow of a universe known as Netzach, God’s justice made manifest. The angels of Netzach are warrior angels who fly out across the multiverse to wage war against evil. The devils of Gharab are, conversely, warriors completely without justice, killing machines without discrimination. They are known as the Ahreb-Zereq, The Ravens of Dispersion, The Ravens of Death Who Even Reject Their Own. They are also known as the Harab Serapel, Ravens of the Burning God.

 

There number is endless, but there are five in specific that have made their presence known to our world.

 

They are a parody of the concept that there can be such a thing as a just war and righteous warriors.

 

They are a combination of devil and man.  Men who lose their souls in the heat of battle and men who foolishly, foolishly call upon their presence are taken up and incorporated into their being.

 

They are summoned by mass bloodshed and conflict. The two must be together. Bloodless conflict, no matter how heated, will not call them, neither will slaughter. There must be pitched battle, two sides trying their hardest to annihilate the other. There are devils that respond to conflict and devils that respond to slaughter, but these are devils made for war, that are called by war, and who wage war.

They kill indiscriminately. They do not take sides. They do not take prisoners. They not accept pleas, they will not give mercy. They do not recognize civilians. All are combatants. All will be killed.

 

There are five of them, no more, no less. There have always been five and will always be five. The human components eventually wear down and are discarded, but the devil halves have always and will always exist. They can be slowed, but never stopped. They can be turned, but never destroyed. They have killed and will kill again. When they and they alone are left standing on the battlefield, they turn their weapons on each other, and die laughing, only to rise again.

 

They are known as the Hand of Ares. They are known to appear in the form of a modern 4-man fireteam, though this is a feint to hide their fifth member.

TL

 

 

A TL is the team leader of a fireteam, and this skull-faced monster seems to be the leader of the Hand of War. At the very least, he gestures, and the others act. But it’s possible that the other members act on their own and he simply mimes the actions of a leader to mock the idea of military leadership as the Hand of War mocks the idea of war.

 

When Men are close to the TL, they hear the voice of their trusted commander whispering in their ear to turn their weapons on their allies. In melee range, the words become supernaturally persuasive.

The TL’s human component has been identified by his weapon–a Muramasa katana that once belonged to an Imperial Japanese sergeant named Chikahiro Ishi, a brutal colonel who pushed for the torture and dissection of superhuman prisoners. His katana, unfortunately, is a real Muramasa, and has the power to cut through nearly any substance. Whether or not he’s affected by the blade’s infamous bloodlust is a moot point. He would act the same with or without a Muramasa infecting his thoughts.

R

 

 

The R, or rifleman, sees through all with his nonexistent eye. It’s impossible to hide from him, or sneak up on him. He is aware of everything that goes on in a battlefield. He knows where the civilians are hidden.

 

He can share his knowledge with the rest of his fire team. When they want to know what he knows, they simply reach into his skull, pull out a little bit of decayed brain, and eat it.

 

The R has been identified via DNA analysis of a bit of brain left behind as Grant Seers, a grunt of the Black Card mercenary group, who, in a fit of anger over a hostage situation not going the teams way, opened fire on the hostages until the Black Card’s leader Snake shot him in the head.

GR

The GR, or grenade rifleman, is a living (if such a creature can rightly be said to be living) grenade, able to emit explosive waves of energy from his body. He throws himself at his opponents, laughing as they explode and laughing again as they rain down in a streams of gore.

 

Owing to the extensive damage done to the face, the GR’s human component has remained unidentified.

AR

 

 

The AR, or automatic rifleman, doesn’t use a weapon. Instead, he fires an endless stream of shrapnel out of his body that homes in on his victims. He’s a machine gun that never has to be aimed.

 

That’s not a red mowhawk on his head. That’s a piece of metal, and it helped identity his human component despite the condition of his face. His human component is Robert Cain, a US Colonel who covertly masterminded the burning of Dresden. He attempted to pressure various superheroes into carrying out the deed, but when they threatened to report his activities to the public, he had them jailed under trumped-up espionage charges and carried out the burning himself using long-range heat ray tanks. He would later be killed by a Nazi assassin in a car bombing that left a characteristic piece of vehicle stuck in his head. He would be martyred until the war ended and his deeds became known, then he was vilified as the war criminal he was.

 

The Hidden

 

 

The Hidden is the nasty surprise of the Hand of War. People familiar with military tactics see that they’re in a fire team and assume there’s only four of them, little knowing that it’s all part of the joke. There’s a fifth member, and he’s got fangs that’ll cut through anything and a jaw that can dislocate like a snake’s. He would be a cannibal, if he was still human in any meaningful sense of the word.

 

Supernaturally silent, he kills brutally, but with a gentle touch. He can sneak up on a man and chew his arm to the bone, and the man won’t realize what happens until he tires to move away.

 

The Hidden’s human component has never been identified. He may not have one.

 

(Behind The Scenes Inspiration)

 

Like Amicable Herculeans, the Devil Warriors are another bootleg product by another (the same?) unknown Hong Kong manufacturer now long dissolved and lost to history, meaning I can add them to the increasingly weirder bootleg toy area of Capeworld.

 

It has been suggested, and not without evidence, that Devil Warriors were made by the same guys that made Amicable Herculeans. The bodies are similar and the sword accessory looks like the one that (sometimes) came with Amicable Herculeans. Another point in favor of the connection is that accessories (I suppose they’re the “playing assortes”) vary, just like in Amicable Herculeans. Sometimes the Devil Warriors have katanas, other times they have get a rifle+handgun combo.

 

But then again, it’s totally possible two unrelated bootleg companies (gangs? clans?) got hold of similar molds that fell off the Remco truck. If Devil Warriors were made by the Herculean people, they toned down the engrish, though it’s still gleefully present. “Playing Assortes.”

 

Not much has been written online about these bad boys, meaning they’re obscure to a level even beyond that of Amicable Herculeans. The box art, however, has been identified as having been lifted from GI Joe’s Falcon (he was like the Rodimus Prime to Duke’s Optimus Prime) by the website Joeaday.com. Good catch!

 

 

Does this mean Devil Warriors is from an timeline where Cobra killed the Joes and brought them back as zombie minions? Esch, talk about dark! The Arashikage mindset isn’t going to fix that!

 

What on Earth led to the creation of these grotesque nightmare soldiers? There are a few theories. Knockoffcollector believes they were inspired by the Toxic Avenger and Desert Storm. Poe Ghostal sees them as inspired by the bomber scene from Heavy Metal. As for me, I’m really not sure. As a monster focused line, maybe they took inspiration from Skeleton Warriors? Skeleton Warriors, Devil Warriors? Maybe they wanted to make skeleton toys, found out it was hard (they would have to make new bodies), and decided to splice in some Toxic Avenger influence and make them modern soldiers? Skeleton Warriors was 1994, however, which may be later than Devil Warriors, though its always hard to say when what was made in bootleg land.

 

It’s hard to say what inspired Devil Warriors. I think that’s why I like them so much. I can’t go “Oh, these are inspired by X, Y, and Z” like Amicable Herculeans. There’s a mystery to these little bad dudes. And you know, as far as generic action figure enemies are concerned, you could do a lot worse than zombie/mutant/mutant zombie soldiers.