SCP-4661: Sin City.
Demons and demonic forces unquestionably exist within the SCP universe, as the foundation
has tackled both the entities themselves and anomalies related to them on a number of occasions.
These are generally pretty isolated incidents, affecting only small remote towns or individuals,
but sometimes bigger problems spring up.
SCP-4661 concerns a full scale demonic invasion in a major tourist destination, Las Vegas,
and once more the foundation has to swoop in, contain the situation, and send some demons
back to hell.
SCP-4661 is a region of space wherein the city of Las Vegas and the fourth circle of
hell overlap, resulting in the weakening of, and in certain circumstances, complete separation
from baseline reality.
The overlap contains an extremely high density of demonic entities, and if uncontained, will
fully collapse into the fourth circle.
The demonic entities superficially resemble humans, but exhibit significant internal and
limited external anatomical differences.
They possess small, curved horns on their heads and a paler complexion than most humans,
along with limited pyrokinetic capabilities, such as manifesting sparks from their hands
or igniting small objects.
When exposed to individuals engaging in hedonistic activities however, such as alcohol use, sexual
intercourse, and gambling, these abilities increase in effectiveness.
Finally, these demonic entities naturally produce significant quantities of tartarean
resonance energy, or TRE, a type of radiation that is sustaining scp-4661.
The anomaly came to the attention of the foundation between January 12th and 16th of 1992, with
significant intervention required to reestablish normalcy.
We're given some daily logs from during the incident, starting with the initial report.
The report details an unexplained ongoing event occurring in las Vegas, with a spike
in TRE accompanied by a significant drop in Hume level, or measurable reality.
Along with this, a red visual tinge has manifested, and a large amount of humanoid entities with
pale skin and horns have appeared throughout the city.
So far, there's been a suspicious lack of public response, with interviewed individuals
being lethargic and unresponsive, wishing instead to engage in copulation.
Reported entities have begun to engage in violence against civilians, with no self-defense
responses.
Additionally, some large indistinct shapes are visible in the desert outside of the city,
appearing to be moving closer.
An incident committee meeting is held, with its members including the applied force liaison,
an occultic sciences senior researcher, a hazardous materials containment liaison supervisor,
and a large-scale containment specialist.
The department of applied force has already begun shuttling troop transports towards Vegas,
with four MTFs being sent in to help manage the situation.
Apparently if the foundation didn't send in some MTFs, the occult branch of the US department
of defense was going to call in the GOC to assist.
All signs point to this being a demonic invasion, and this must have been building up for a
while, although given the industry that Las Vegas services, this was not unprecedented.
The Applied forces liaison wants to arm the MTFs with a bunch of guns filled with holy
water, but the others aren't so sure.
It seems that a staggering amount of demons have now flooded the city alongside all of
the civilians there, and they really want to avoid an international incident.
For now, their first priority is to get the MTFs in there to figure out the extent of
the situation.
The MTFs were deployed throughout the city, setting up mobile scranton reality anchors
in order to bring small staging areas back to baseline reality.
The largest of these areas is in the MGM Grand Hotel and Casino, located on the strip, the
epicenter of demonic activity.
At 4:47 AM on January 13th, the first convoy entered the city limits and encountered light
opposition from demonic entities, mostly armed with broken liquor bottles and blunt weapons.
By 5:55, they made it to the strip, finding entities packed into the streets, hindering
the convoy's progress by attempting to seduce the drivers.
Two of the drivers are incapacitated.
At 6:24, trucks entered the parking lot of the MGM Grand and began clearing it of entities
using holy water.
Several entities are targeted before it is realized that they are human prostitutes.
By 7:02 am, the MGM Grand is secured, and a command and communications center is established.
Another incident committee meeting is held later on that day, with the applied forces
liaison stating that they've seized most of the major key points along the strip and sealed
everything down.
The demonic entities are proving to be pretty strong though, taking several holy water bullets
to stop the bigger ones, so they're chewing through ammo reserves quickly.
They're using a rather unique method of generating holy water, as the foundation-employed priests
have become exhausted.
They're now relying on SCP-4967, the corpse of a former Elvis impersonator that was murdered
in 1984.
His body had been dumped in the hoover dam reservoir, where it still remains, and is
still in perfect condition.
The Foundation Department of Tactical Theology had him canonized as a saint due to his body
being incorruptible as the priests call it, and so any water that his body touches becomes
holy water.
Therefore, all of the water in the reservoir is now holy water, and it's believed that
by 2023, all of Las Vegas' water supply will become holy water as well.
Even so, the factories that take the holy water and turn it into blessed ammunition
are running at maximum efficiency now, so hopefully they can resolve this situation
quickly.
The Occultic Sciences researcher says that they believe that Vegas is currently slipping
into hell, which does not bode well for anyone.
The Large-scale containment specialist says that no one would likely notice the difference
if Vegas did, but regardless, this problem needs to be solved.
The researcher says that this sort of thing doesn't just happen on its own, so there must
have been some kind of inciting incident.
Based on the fact that most of the demons are crowed around Caesar's Palace, he bets
that whatever's in there is their target.
The Applied Force liaison then says that they'll just send in a team to scout it out, despite
the researcher's protests about how many demons are likely in there.
The researcher actually ended up accompanying the applied force liaison with the MTF, "Ocean's
Three-hundred" into Caesar's Place.
The group entered in through some freshly dug tunnels located beneath the casino, created
by the demons.
The tunnels aren't mapped, so they're going in blind, and end up arriving at a set of
elevator doors embedded into the rock wall.
They decide they don't have much of a choice, and hit the call button, revealing a large
hotel suite looking out over las vegas.
A man in a bathrobe wearing a tophat is seated in front of the window, sipping from a teacup.
The man welcomes them and tells them to take a seat, at which point a number of different
types of chairs manifest and force themselves against the team, forcing them to sit.
The man says that he's still getting the hang of this stuff, and introduces himself as Pluto,
the roman god of the underworld.
They ask him if he's responsible for what's going on here, but Pluto can't take all of
the credit, as he couldn't have done it without all the other major demons.
Paradise, the unincorporated town that actually contains the vegas strip and most of the tourist
attractions, was apparently founded by demons.
Specifically, fourth-circle demons, those that were corrupted by greed, who founded
Vegas to get away from Satan and all of the taxes he was levying against them for gambling.
They set up shop in the middle of a desert in the US, a place where he couldn't send
his collectors.
Now that Vegas is overflowing with sin however, it's being pulled back to where it all came
from.
Pluto plans on taking all the demons and humans here and taking over the economic side of
hell.
Two of the MTF agents unholster their firearms and fire holy water at Pluto, to no effect.
As Pluto begins advancing on the soldiers, he's interrupted by the occult researcher,
Dr. House, who asks if they can make a bet instead.
They'll play a game, and if they win, the demons go back to hell, and if Pluto wins,
the demons can have earth.
House then gets a transmission in his earpiece, telling him that he's not allowed to bet the
entire world, so instead he just bets for Vegas.
Pluto says that the idea is tempting, but there's no risk for House personally here,
so he throws in his soul in exchange for being allowed to pick the game.
House's first suggestion is Magic the Gathering, but Pluto tells him to pick a real game, so
he goes with Blackjack.
Some time later, House and Pluto are seated at a blackjack table in a secluded backroom
of the casino, with a demon wearing a tuxedo acting as the dealer.
The rules for the game are standard blackjack rules, except the dealer isn't getting any
cards, so it's just House and Pluto competing.
Each are dealt two cards, one face up and one face down, with House showing a six of
clubs and Pluto a two of spades.
House looks at his facedown card and hits, taking another card, a three of diamonds.
He proceeds to swear, thinks for a moment as Pluto taunts him, and then hesitantly hits
again, being given a five of clubs.
He sighs and then stands, so play moves over to Pluto, who hits, being given a jack of
spades.
This seems to confuse Pluto, but delights House, and the two show their hands.
House's facedown card was a four of diamonds, leaving his total at 18, and Pluto's was a
king of spades, with his total at 22, resulting in a bust.
The dealer announces that House won the hand and therefore the bet, with the contract sealed.
As House leaves, Pluto tells him that Paradise was founded by demons, and so demons still
run most of these mega-casinos.
He'll leave and keep his promises, but he won't be the last.
Following the game, a significant portion of the demons in the city dematerialized,
leaving behind large amounts of alcohol, narcotics, and currency.
Regional Command declared the incident concluded, and cleanup efforts began, along with the
deployment of aerosolized amnestics.
House speaks with the HMCL supervisor, Thompson, who has some not-so kind words for him in
relation to betting the entire operation on a game of blackjack.
House however says that there wasn't any risk, because he had paid the dealer 10,000 dollars
to stack the deck.
He was nervous during the game because he forgot where they agreed to put the jack.
Thompson wants House fired, but command overruled him.
As Thompson turns to leave, House tells him that he put the bribe money under his name,
since he has a big budget.
Thompson tells him to go to hell.
Afterwards, the foundation ordered the construction of a site within the city of Paradise to ensure
the prevention of another such event.
Site-666 was constructed under the cover story of a new casino and hotel named Luxor Las
Vegas, with construction completed in 1993.
It has since served as the primary deployment site in the southwest united states, with
House as the site director.
The House-Nicolas theoplanar vacuum unit has prevented any further collapse incidents by
siphoning radiation produced by demonic entities.
They also investigated Pluto's claims about Vegas, revealing that it's likely that most
or all of the major casinos in the Paradise area are owned and operated by demonic entities.
These entities have organized into a commission for mutual protection, the Nevada Gaming Commission,
and plans to establish containment over these entities are in development.
We're then left with an email from House to a group of new personnel being relocated to
site-666.
He informs them that this is not some cheeky off-site celebration, and there will be alcohol,
gambling, and sin, but not for them.
They've been picked to make sure what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.
They'll be dealing with demons, both literal and metaphorical, they'll be firing bullets
blessed in factories, bathing in mass-produced holy water, and researching things that the
Vatican would rather they don't know.
Vegas is called Sin City for a reason, and they'll be in their home, but that doesn't
mean they have to bow to them.
With all that in mind, there's really only one rule in undervegas: the house always wins.
I know that when you think of the foundation rushing in to put a stop to a spontaneous
demonic invasion, you likely picture more Doom than Ocean's Eleven, but not everything
in the SCP universe has to be so dark and horrific.
This isn't the first time that the foundation has dealt with demonic entities and forces
from hell, and it likely won't be the last, but fortunately this time involved a relatively
low loss of life.
In the meantime, they'll continue to use a dead Elvis impersonator to make some holy
water, and prepare for the next time a god of the underworld wants to raise hell.