“I did not sign up for this,” Walter mumbles. “I don’t suppose these guys will be easier than the Demons. You know, for a breather.” I shake my head as Sebastian places me on the ground. I flex my wings and take a step forward. “Damn it.”

“I do believe I said I didn’t sign up for this first, though, you know, at the mall,” I respond.

“Yeah, but that was three weeks ago and there weren't 100 friggin Demons in the street!”

The Masters are standing together, they are infuriated. They step over the bodies, having a nasty time navigating the area. They raise their heads to look at me and the far right one holds out a single hand stopping the other two. It seems he’s the leader, meaning he’s the oldest one. “Sebastian. The guy on the left is yours. I’ll take the middle one and then Walter and Gabbie can focus on the last with assistance from Kai,” I whisper.

“Agreed. They can’t take on a Master easily by themselves, so we’d have a better time of dealing with them split up like that,” Sebastian says.

The leading demon steps forward. He has solid white eyes and he glares at me, carefully looking at me, as if making sure I am who they are looking for. He clears his throat. “That’s more than enough Lady Elmira. Your desire to kill should be sated by now, return with us. Your brother has commanded all of us to force you to come back.”

Gabbie looks at me, shock in her gaze. “Who the fuck are you?” She hisses. “And why are they so desperate to take you back, and you have a brother there?”

“Not now,” I whisper. “I think you know my answer,” I announce, talking to the Masters. “Otherwise, there would not be so many dead Demons. I will not squander the freedom my brother has given to me.”

“It is that same brother who told us to retrieve you!”

“Do you think I don’t know that? Do you think I’m that ignorant? I am well aware, but I also understand him better than all three of you. To you, he is a Father who ignored you. To me, he is a close brother. He’s a liar and a cheater. But, he will never bow his head to anyone unless he has an ulterior motive. He sent you here to die.” My Father thought that he could use that vision to tell me my brother had betrayed me. Clearly he is just as ignorant of what my brother does as these three Masters. What’s more is that they think that their relationship with my brother makes them valuable.

“I see... It seems that we won’t be able to convince you to return without forcing you to return with us. Ah, no matter. Aside from the traitor you have by your side it shouldn’t be too much of an issue to emerge victorious. You, alone can probably barely manage one of us, let alone three.”

“You’re wrong, I was only as strong as you without my weapon.” I raise Valor for them to see. “The story is very different now.” They look at my hand, staring at it for a few moments and then one of them grins, before laughing.

“That’s hardly a weapon.” It seems that they don’t know it is indeed my weapon, especially considering they only just met me or gained the knowledge about me. They, just like everyone else have never seen my weapon. Even if I am acting like I want to fight, I’m delaying them. Making them think I have more cards in my hands while we wait for reinforcements. The explosions, tornado and lightning storm should bring enough backup running.

“Do you want to test it?”

They stop laughing, narrowing their eyes before glaring at the gauntlet on my hand. It seems our shared conversation has come to its end. They’ve noticed I’m delaying them, they’re just trying to find out whether some of what I’ve said is real or just a part of it. But I know who they are and they won’t spend much time doing that. They’re Father, after all, is Lucifer, their sin is pride, which means-

The leader flicks his hand and a harsh line of light blasts toward me, through the corpses, which turn to dust. I hold out my hand and the pillar of light stops as hitting a wall, then dissipates. I guess that’s it. I clear my throat. “Sebastian.”

“Understood.” He snaps his wings open and he shoots forward towards the three of them, then he disappears into gray smoke. The Masters look around, then instead of waiting for Sebastian to return the shoot forward towards us at extreme speeds. Just as they're about to hit, Sebastian reappears, kicking the one on the far left to the right side of the street where he slams into a building with a crunch.

That leaves the remaining Masters. I move to the left, dodging the leader as if he were a bull, while Walter meets the second directly and he’s flung back by the force of the blow. He lands on the asphalt a few feet behind where he was standing and Gabbie stabs at the Demon, projecting her sword forward. The Demon raises his hand, as if he doesn’t need to pay his enemy any mind, but he recoils as the sword pierces deep, leaving a large hole in the palm of his hand.

He flings himself back, away from Gabbie and Walter, and takes to the air. “Keep moving! He can only shoot at where you are! Keep moving and he’ll always miss!” I yell at them. I lean back, dodging my opponent, who more than proves my point, firing a large burst of light, which hits a building in the distance.

This makes me a little suspicious. Something tells me these guys have never fought an equal, or someone as strong as them. In other words, they torment the weak to make themselves feel all the better about themselves. Another great thing about this fight is that they can’t kill me, but I can kill them.

.The leader backs up away from me and he fires a few thin beams of light at me, I raise my left hand and catch the light, which collects in an orb, then I fire it at the one in the sky. He doesn’t notice it coming for him and the leader doesn’t warn him. It hits his wings and he tumbles out of the sky, his wings resembling swiss cheese.

There’s a loud bang and a scream of pain and then I turn to focus on my own enemy, knowing that Walter and Gabbie should be fine with taking on the Demon Master now. I raise my hand to intercept a second large blast, which wraps around me like I’m in a large bubble. I grind my teeth, all he’s doing is wasting our wells of power and inevitably, mine will last longer. I have no interest in outlasting him right now, I might be getting backup, but I’m not completely sure who will get the backup first.

I lunge forward. Something Lucifer once told me to do. If you’re weaker or the same strength, don’t give it away, make yourself seem stronger. Alter yourself rather than directly targeting the enemy, in the end, it will be like standing on a crate, you’ll seem bigger than you actually are.

The slow backward steps hasn’t even brought the Master out of striking range and I pass him without him reacting. He shrieks in pain and I stop just behind him taking a few measured steps to turn to face him once again. In my right hand, clutched by my gauntlet is his right wing. The stump of the wing is slick with blood, but there’s not even a small amount of blood leaking from it. I flick it to the side, leaving it forgotten and the Master growls at me. “You’ll pay for that.” He maintains his distance, seemingly not learning his lesson and he keeps trying to hit me with small blasts of light.

During this time, Sebastian emerges from the building that his own opponent was in, completely unruffled and lazily looking toward my own opponent. I guess that means he’s done. I move straight toward my enemy, through the blasts of light then strike him in the gut with my left hand. He reels, falling forward a little, clutching his stomach.

The Master groans and I strike him in the face with the same hand. He makes a feeble attempt to grab me, but all it results in is his claws scraping against my gauntlet. I wrap my gauntlet around his head and squeeze and there’s a loud crack and my gauntlet sinks in. I jump back, pulling my gauntlet away as the Demon drops to the ground.

“Gates and Hercules incoming.”

I look around and only see Walter and Gabbie fighting their own Master. He keeps trying to hit Gabbie with some light, but Walter is in the way whenever he tries and the light doesn’t seem to phase him. Gabbie keeps switching in and out with him to strike at the Demon, but it’s not doing much and the Demon is far too fast for Walter to lay his hands on him to petrify him.

“Where?” I ask, starting to walk toward the final Demon.

“Look up.” I look up to see a golden portal open in the sky. I watch the large form of Hercules exit the gate at fast speeds and for a moment, it seems like he’s unneeded. Almost. Large gates burst open to the side of Hercules’ portal, two of them to be exact, and then last, a third gate, twice the size of the other gates appears, a startling white color amidst gold and red.

A chill runs down my spine and I go pale. Hercules lands behind the demon and wraps his hands around him, then flings him toward Walter who manages to catch him and I watch the Demon struggle as he turns into a large block of diamond, but neither of them even notices the portals in the sky.

“Oh- You guys really should move,” Nav mutters. “Like right, fucking now.” I watch two forms shoot out of the two red portals, a fiery red figure, and a silvery gray one. Hercules runs forward, wrapping both Walter and Gabbie in his arms and carrying them through, down the length of the street in the direction of the trailer.

I immediately move when I see that, moving as a burst of light and reappearing by Hercules’ side as he stops. Sebastian just manages to get past the two of the descending demons before they land with a loud crunch.

Both of them form craters as they land, each displaying different effects. The hole burns with fire, the asphalt melting from the intense heat. Within the hole there’s a large bodied demon with massive wings that make him look like a gargoyle, his skin is red, but mottled with white, while his head is large with larger white horns, tipped with small flickering flames. The hole on the left has floating debris, kept afloat by tiny tornados. The Demon within the hole is much smaller than the other demon, he’s one of the feminine looking demons, with large spindly arms with spiked hands and a body that reminds me of cloth his head adorned by regal, twisted, white horns.

Sebastian growls by my side and I know what he’s feeling. The Arcanists have arrived and that’s just the start of it. They’re just guards of a far scarier problem. “My brother has arrived,” I mutter. A portal explodes open behind me and I spin around, readying for a fight from someone coming from behind, but instead Gates walks out. I exhale. “Don’t do that, you gave me a heart attack.”

“Say exactly what you said just then,” Gates hisses. “Your brother has arrived?”

“What’s going on?” Gabbie asks, her voice quivering. She’s released by Hercules and he steps in front of them. “Who’s your brother, Elmira. Why is he also with the Demons? Elmira… You’re- You’re not Human, are you?”

That hurts the most, being called out on a lie. How hurt she sounds. I grimace and nod. “My brother, Lucifer. I’m a Demon Lord. I came here to escape my Father,” I mutter. “Please stand back. It’s probably better that you don’t ever get caught up in a fight with my brother.”

“El-” Walter gasps. “What the hell is happening? Why are they so desperate? Why are there so many?” I shake my head. I know the answer, but I don’t want to say it. I look up at the portal Lucifer is to emerge from, instead, I find him standing in the air, his massive body, clad, not in his usual suit, but rather white armor. He has a long spear in his hand, with a long white tip, adorned by thin white metal wings near that tip, his spear named Hubris. His eyes are darkened as if blackened by fists, and he has a large amount of cuts on his face, damaging his otherwise regal face. Even his circlet has been removed and a large red S has been burned into his forehead.

“Are you done, sister? I thought I would allow you some time to say your goodbyes, as is customary. You’ll find that even though I went back on my promises, I will at least give you that,” Lucifer announces. His voice is monotone, and his eyes stare at me and only at me as if holding all others as nothing but annoyances. “Will you come back willingly or…” He trails off.

I glare at him. “You know my answer. But I’m surprised at you, brother,” I say. I’m a bit spooked, I honestly didn’t expect him to actually go through with it. Even when I was fighting the Masters, I didn’t expect it, but now- now I realize that perhaps I gave him too much credit. But there’s still the potential of him being here just because he was forced.

He closes his eyes as if sighing. “I see.” He waves his free hands and the two Arcanists climb out of their craters, approaching us. “Kill the Humans, capture the girl. Also, deal with the Arcanist if you can,” he commands them. For a moment after that, his lips move, two words ‘I’m sorry’.

We can delay for a while, Lucifer doesn’t want to do this, so we can delay them and if we leave it so he’s forced to fight, he might back off. “Sebastian, take the waif, I’ll take the big guy. Hercules, Gates, help me if you can.”

“You don’t command me,” Gates hisses.

“Just do it!” I yell. The Arcanists shoot forward, the waif is faster and comes up by my side in a second to find her path blocked by shadows. The massive fire demon comes up to me, running sluggishly toward me. He leaves melted asphalt as he sprints and flames flicker for a second before disappearing. I run up toward him and I raise my head to Lucifer.

Lucifer raises his spear and I shriek, jumping to the right. The Arcanist in front of me looks confused and then all of a sudden there’s a loud explosion and I watch a large pillar of light descend upon where I was, leaving a giant hole in the ground. “Uh- Hercs, Gates, Elmira get the fuck off that street. He just exposed a gas pipe. And that guy is made of fucking fire,” Nav interjects. Gates immediately disappears into a portal and Hercules steps from foot to foot, confused at the sudden evacuation of Gates.

There’s a high whistling and the smell of rotten eggs, and I can see the Arcanist turn to face Lucifer, the flames on his horns growing hotter. “You could have hit me!” He roars. Lucifer shrugs as if that doesn’t matter. The demon turns to us, stepping forward while tilting his head.

Suddenly, I’m thrown back as the entire street erupts upward with an absurdly loud explosion, flinging rocks skyward into the side of buildings. Kai’s explosion pales in comparison to the magnitude of this explosion, which uproots the entire street.

My flight stops in a building within a set of shelves. It seems the shelves of a small store broke my fall and I’m mostly uninjured, only my wings seem to be even slightly harmed, being that there are small, painful tears in the membrane of my wings. My ears are ringing and I stand up, dust falling from my lap as I stand. I tap my ears, but it takes a while for my hearing to come back. My earpiece is crackling, a similar sound to what happened when Kai was eliminated from the exercise yesterday. “Hello?” I ask, walking slowly toward the exit of the store. “Is everyone okay?”

There’s no answer and I feel a chill. Does that mean the others were hit? What’s going on? There’s a bang behind me, the sound of a portal opening and I spin around and grab Gates arm as she appears behind me. “Let go,” she whispers. “Or I’ll make you let go.”

“Stop sneaking up on me,” I snap, this is the second time she’s done it and next time I might kill her. “What’s going on?”

“The big guy got caught in the explosion and so did Hercules. Hercules should be fine, but I’m not sure about the big guy.”

Because he’s an Arcanist, I doubt he’s dead, but there’s no way he could have made it out of there unscathed, but inevitably, someone was going to get hurt, and because I had Valor, it wasn’t going to be me. Lucifer knew exactly what he was doing, he planned with my weapon in mind and he wasn’t targeting me or my friends, most of whom were out of harm's way which means… Lucifer was targeting the Arcanist.

They probably haven’t figured it out yet. They probably think that it was an efficient way of disabling me. I could be wrong, but if I’m right, then my brother is trying to deceive my Father once again. He’s trying to show him that he’s trying to capture me without actually capturing me. “We have to kill the Arcanists,” I whisper. “Soon as we do that, we’ve won.”

“Oh, so you can take on a Demon Lord?” Gates asks, sarcastically.

“I may not need to.” I climb out of the wreckage of the store, onto the main road, now dirt with asphalt littering the area and the exposed, warped remains of the pipe. I look down the street, where the trailer is located. It’s surrounded by debris, but it’s hard to tell if anyone is hurt inside or whether it just came close. And that’s not the start of it, Walter and Gabbie are missing. “Gates-” I mutter.

“Think about the task at hand. Then we’ll figure out what happened to the others,” she points a figure to my right. I look there to see the large Arcanist, kneeling on the ground. Both of its horns have been blown clean off, leaving blood trailing down its face, obstructing its eyes, it's also got numerous wounds on its chest. It might not have been harmed by the explosion, but the debris is another story entirely.

I walk forward, raising my hand to grab the Arcanist while he’s currently unaware. His head suddenly lifts and he shoots up and swings a punch. I intercept the punch and there’s an incredibly loud bang and I feel the air around me heat up. The Arcanist is just barely as strong as Hercules’ attack, which means that in a battle of strength, we're about even. I pull back my fist and the Arcanist slinks back, before slipping on a stone and dropping to the ground.

“Belphegor, trap him,” Gates growls, the ground raises up around the Arcanist as he tries to stand up, slowly wrapping around his arms and legs. He keeps trying to shake free the bonds, but he’s slowly just becoming more and more entrenched.

I raise my foot, ready to crush his head beneath my foot, then I get thrown to the side by a strong gust. I recover, just in time to see the second Arcanist flying toward me. I raise my gauntlet to intercept and Sebastian appears in front of me suddenly. He’s bleeding from his brow and his clothes are a wreck, but he seems otherwise fine.

Sebastian flicks his hand and suddenly a shadow moves away, revealing what looks to be a large hole they had obstructed. Gabbie emerges from the hole to my complete surprise and she lunges. The Arcanist notices her, and he raises his hand to throw her blow to the side, but the projection has already been cast and it strikes him in the right shoulder. Gabbie gets thrown into a damaged car, where she sits there, panting, bleeding and grinning to herself, while Sebastian steps forward to finish the job.

All of a sudden, just like every other god damned surprise in this fight, a spear sprouts from the waif-like Arcanists chest. It croaks, blood bubbling from its mouth and it starts screaming and thrashing, with inhuman pain. The spear is Lucifer’s spear Hubris and it slowly pierces and devours the soul of the Arcanist. I wince, trying to close my ears to the screams and finally screams go silent.

The second Arcanist manages to free himself during the small skirmish with the second Arcanist and he turns to look at Lucifer. “Have you betrayed us, Lucifer?” He roars.

Lucifer laughs and shrugs. “Oops. Missed.”

“You bastard!”

I approach the dead Arcanist, which lies nearby the other Arcanist and he turns to face me. He’s shivering, fear and an anger that he’s failing to contain. I clear my throat. “Sebastian, you know how I said that Demon Lord weapons can destroy the soul if anyone but their owner takes up the weapon?”

“Yes, my lady,” he nods his head.

I’m talking for the sake of everyone listening, for the sake of the message that will be carried to the Demon Plane. Because this is a secret I have kept for a long time. A secret I have kept that only Lucifer has known. I wrap my gauntlet around the shaft of the spear. “I lied.” I pull the spear out of the dead Arcanist and I feel a massive burst of strength. It feels as if my muscles are about to burst. Like my skin is made of titanium as if I can run faster than light itself. “Because of the unique form my weapon took. I can borrow the strength that the weapon holds.”

For some, this reveal might not mean much as they didn’t know the limitations in the first place. But for Sebastian and the already terrified Arcanist, it’s world-shattering. Sebastian remains silent and doesn’t say anything. His usual, composed self. The Arcanist breaks. He immediately starts to flee, a portal forming in front of him.

I chase, the ground behind me explodes and the corpse next to me turns into a splotch of blood on the stone. Before the Arcanist makes it to the portal, the spear sprout out of his chest. The spear cuts to the left, exiting his ribs before I pierce it through his head and tear the head free and sending it flying down the length of the street. It bounces once, twice, three times before rolling to a stop in front of a group of men in heavy armor.

The crackling has stopped. “Reinforcements have arrived and I finally got the earpieces to work again,” Nav announces.

“Timing is impeccable, as always,” Gates says, sarcasm translating well through the headset. I push my lips together, I doubt these guys can kill Lucifer, but I don’t want to take the risk. I lean back and throw the spear at Lucifer as hard as I can.

There’s a loud bang and the air seems to warp for a second. Lucifer holds out his hand and the spear stops before moving right into his hand. He grins at me, mouthing another two words. ‘Thank you’.

The reinforcements approach, the lead man is a man in heavy silver armor, shined so well, I can see my reflection in it. He’s flanked by four men, each in gray armor as if they are the silver man’s knights. The silver man stops in front of me, glaring at me for a few moments. “I think I’ve seen and heard enough. Salvo, Chains, apprehend her. I’ll deal with the Demon Lord,” comes a commanding, mechanical voice.

The two men, by the silver man’s side approach, one is the man I met yesterday, the one with Tagert. “Yes, Mirror Knight, sir,” Salvo’s familiar voice responds. Sebastian appears by my side. “Will we have to fight?” Salvo queries. He raises two fingers and a series of loud pops come from within his hand. The one beside him raises their arms and chains raise from the ground, made of strange metal. “You’ll find we’re well equipped.”

I raise my hands. I’m done with this fighting and I don’t think it would be a good idea to make myself an enemy of the Humans too. “Sebastian,” I murmur. “I think that’s enough.” I see Sebastian’s shoulder slump and he raises his hands, joining me in my willful surrender.

Mirror Knight approaches the area where Lucifer is flying over. He raises one hand, taunting Lucifer. “Come on, Lucifer. I’ve heard you were the weakest Demon Lord. I want to have a taste of your power.”

I see Lucifer’s smile curdle and I can’t help but cringe. My hand lowers a little to cover my face and I slowly exhale. Don’t EVER taunt Lucifer. “You know. I don’t mind killing this one,” I hear Lucifer grumble. Lucifer raises a spear and then I see a large orb form at the tip. “Mr. Mirror Knight. I don’t think you need to bother with being cremated. I’ll do that for you.”

The orb detaches from the spear and for a second is looks like nothing will happen then it speeds up until it’s right in front of Mirror Knight. Mirror Knight looks nonchalant, but I suppose that could just be his armor. For all I know he could be pissing himself. The orb expands and it becomes a massive pillar of light.

I lower my head, sighing to myself. The pillar then widens and shoots straight toward Lucifer, leaving the Mirror Knight standing there, unscathed. Lucifer moves to the side, just as the pillar reaches him and the entire night sky burns brighter than any sun could make it. Lucifer stares at Mirror Knight. “What an annoying Vigor. I have no interest in fighting you to a stalemate. Nor do I have any intention of staying here until you get more men. I will now make a tactical retreat.” A white portal forms behind him. He looks at me, Salvo and Chains are approaching carefully, but my brother pays me no mind. “Make sure to keep my sister safe.” This time, he mouths three words ‘I love you’, before disappearing into the portal.

“And that’s that,” Mirror Knight grunts. “It seems we have a hell of a lot of issues. And I mean that literally. Hell brought its issues here.” He turns to face Sebastian and me. “Chains, we’re taking them to the VCF.”

“Yes, sir.” A woman’s voice replies. Chains explode from the ground, wrapping around our hand, before bringing them down in front of them. “Uh- You have the right to remain silent, everything you say and do can be- Um, Mirror Knight, they’re Demons. Do we still do the whole spiel?”

“Fuck, Chains. We aren’t the police, we don’t do the spiel anyway!”

Author's Notes

I actually managed to finish it. This is the final chapter of the arc, there will be a short side story that will introduce Mirror Knight and then we'll get started on Arc 2. I think a lot of you know how that will start.

As a quick side note. No more daily chapters. I'm a fast writer, but I can't keep writing to the level I have been writing here if I force myself to write at incredible rates. So I hope you guys can wait that while longer.