Screaming in rage, I smashed my fist into the Devil's stomach at the same time as firing off a Gigadeath beam right in his stupid face. He slid back from the sheer force of the massive beam, which annihilated what little was left of his palace from our fight as well as a good chunk of the mountain behind it. His face split into a grin as he said, "Well, you got me. You beat me. You're the Devil now."

Shit. I could only stare at the handsome garnet-skinned demon as he collapsed onto the scorched, largely destroyed floor. Damn, I had let my anger get the better of me again. "Wait, I beat you?"

"Yeah. You know why I've been kidnapping folks into Hell? I did it in the hope one of you would get strong enough to beat me and take the role. I'm free now! Free!" Maniacal laughter escaped from him, only to be interrupted by his sudden bloody coughs.

I gritted my teeth. "I know why you were doing it! That's why I was trying not to fight you, but then you said those stupid things about me, my parents, and my sister!"

I crossed my arms and glared as he said, "So you knew and still fell for it! So hilarious!" He just resumed laughing as he crumbled into dust. This wasn't the end for him of course, he would come back to life as demons do. I squeezed my fists hard enough for my obsidian claws to dig into my violet scaled hands.

Soon enough he faded back into existence, this time as naked as a jay. Seemingly indifferent to that, he crossed his arms with a grin still showing through his impressive dark green beard. "I wasn't lying about getting to go home if you beat me, you know. The holder of the Key of Hell can go anywhere they wish. Speaking of... you should get that soon enough."

Before I could say anything I felt massive flows of energy rushing into me, along with what felt like a lot of eldritch knowledge. Before I could scream, it was over. I knew. I knew everything about how to run Hell, and what kinds of power and authority I had. As well as the unbreakable rules that now bound me. "...Fuck you," I said to the visibly pleased former Devil.

He waved casually. "Well, name's Chew. I'll be off now, feel free to ask me anything you need to know, though there shouldn't be much you don't know now."

I heaved out a heavy sigh. Ever since a reddish portal had sucked me into Hell as I was walking back home from my college class and the Devil had appeared to tell me the only way to get home was to beat him, I had been fighting. I had fought my way through Hell, getting stronger and stronger, even becoming a demon along the way. And all that because this shithead wanted someone to take over his job for him.

My thoughts were interrupted by another demon, this one unnaturally pale with huge horns and no visible eyes, smashing into the ruined palace floor in a great ball of icy white fire. "Where's the goddamn Devil?! I want to go home!" she yelled.

I shrugged. "I beat him which made me the Devil. Oh, right, I'm opening up the lock he placed on passage in and out of Hell. I'll ask the palace to make a door for you."

I could feel the terrifying eldritch edifice that was the palace listening to me. I now knew what it was thanks to becoming the Devil, and I could do without that knowledge. Still, it could be useful in many ways. "Palace, stop pretending to be dead and give me a door to anywhere."

In but a single moment, the palace reassembled itself, everything reforming and returning to its original place, leaving the new arrival and me in a gaudy pink gold throne room. I pointed to a door to the side that hadn't been there before I destroyed said throne room. "That door'll take you anywhere you want to go."

I could tell she was staring at me even without any apparent eyes. "Just like that?"

"Look, I'm nicer than the former Devil. In fact, everyone he kidnapped gets to go home, I'm making that official." I rubbed my forehead wearily. "And... I'm going to go home for now. I'm stuck ruling this place myself, but I still want to see my family."

"Oh," she said, "Best of luck with that. I'm Violet. What about you?"

"Angela," I replied. "Actually, wanna join a Helldream group for victims of the former Devil, I'll create one..." I opened the app for the largest social media site used by Hell on my Hellphone. "Oh, wait, one already exists and it's pretty big. Guess guy really was as much of a jerk as I thought he was."

She chuckled. "I'm already in that group. Dreamname is EyelessMom5847."

I raised an eyebrow. "You're a mom? Even more shitty of him to kidnap you then."

Angela smiled. "Oh, I wasn't a mom before I came to Hell. Met several someones here. I'm going to bring my youngest child home with me. The rest're adults now, so they can do whatever they decide they want to do, but they'd better visit or at least call."

I blinked. "Ah. And here I had spent the whole time mostly just fighting. Not like I didn't take breaks. I suppose there's--"

Suddenly, I heard some very familiar rocket jets. I turned to see my girlfriend descend, flames shooting from the boosters in her feet. She was just as beautiful as ever, even in her war-form covered with spike-adorned pitch black metal. Her metallic cat-tail swayed from side to side, and her ear-sonars perked up as her glowing red eyes saw me. She smiled with her shiny sharp teeth and raised her bulky arm and flexed the half-foot long claws on her hand. "Love, is the battle over? Do you need me to claw some faces out?"

Waving cheerily, I said, "Hey, Flick, fight's over. Got stuck with the whole Devil job, tho." I grimaced at that.

"Emotion.concernedAnger loaded," Flick said in that manner when she got sufficiently emotional. She launched a swarm of mini-rockets from her arm at me as she yelled, "I warned you! I told you not to fight him, just pressure him into letting you go home! Now you're stuck with the job no one wants!"

"Erm." I noticed Violet stepping quickly into the door to anywhere. Good for her. I let all the mini-rockets to explode harmlessly against me before responding, "Yeah, I was dumb. The guy just pissed me off."

This time she loaded a bigger rocket on her arm out of nowhere and sent it at me. "Now we won't be able to date as often because you'll be busy! And you'll have to put up with all the crap he did!"

This rocket actually pushed me back a few inches and stung a little, as well as destroying the nearby floor and wall. I walked forward, not bothering to defend against the rockets that kept crashing into me. If Flick was truly trying to hurt me, she would've brought out the real heavy artillery. This kind of casual violence was normal with demons, it wasn't a big deal.

Now and then I lost a few inches as I pressed forward, but I finally reached her and hugged her, not caring about the spikes digging into my extremely tough scales. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have let my anger get the better of me."

She quieted down at that, nestling into my breasts. "Yeah... But it's over and done. Love, we'll have to figure out what to do now." She stepped out of the hug and her body folded in on itself as she changed into her civil form. Her armor was swapped out for soft, touchable blue synthetic skin and her eyes glowed green. Her hair was similarly green with two horn-like rounded spikes sticking out of it and her ears and tails were covered with green artificial fur. This time she was wearing a lovely yellow sundress.

I looked over my own war-form and decided to don my own civil form. Most of my scales melted into my body, leaving just some magneta scaly highlights against my lavender toned skin. A similar fate befall my horned lizard-like horns, until I had just nubs sticking out of my dark violet hair. My slight snout receded into my face until I had a human-like face again and my teeth were no longer sharp. In both war and civil forms, I had a curvy muscular appearance that I liked, but the muscles became less pronounced in my civil form. And my claws became human-like fingers and toes. The only change in my scaly tail was it becoming less spiky. Basically my war-form looked like a human-horned lizard fusion, kinda, while my civil form was more humanized.

Originally I didn't look like a girl, but I preferred it. One of the better aspects of getting trapped in Hell and turned into a demon was the ability to control ones form. Though no matter what I tried, I always was at least a little lizardly. It wasn't like I had major objections to that; I liked lizards. It was just one of those form quirks all demons had. Not all such quirks were animal-related; they could vary from always having horns of some sort to always being a certain color to always having flames on some parts of the body. Horns were very common features of our natural forms, though.

I glanced at the throne which looked remarkably comfortable actually. Lots of pink cushioning and it looked like the sort of chair you could slouch in. "Yeah we'll have to work something out with the whole Devil thing. It would help if I had someone to help..."

"You called?" a voice next to me said. When I turned, there was a demon in a butler outfit standing there. His face was soft, almost androgynous, with sheep eyes and ram horns as well as sheep ears. He had a slender build and skin as white as pure snow. Instead of regular hair he had the thick wool of a sheep. As I watched, his features shifted slightly, becoming slightly feminine instead of slightly masculine.

"You don't have to do that. Change forms for me," I said.

She bowed. "Lord Devil, this shape falls well within the range of shapes I prefer. If Lord Devil asked for me in a more masculine or feminine form or one more musclebound or more shapely, I am afraid to say that I would have to respectfully decline."

I nodded at that. "I can respect that. You must be Ink, the head servant of the Devil that I've heard about. I don't feel comfortable about being served, but I do need someone to help organize things. So..."

Ink raised a palm to stop me. "I will say this straight up, Lord Devil. I am not obliged to do anything and I can walk off the job if I so wish. In fact, I have done so, for unreasonable Masters. If you do not wish my servitude, I can simply walk down the hill to the capital and find another master to serve for the time being until your time as the Devil ends. I find great pleasure in serving, particularly serving the powerful." Her eyes began to shine. "I enjoy being an support to my Master and I enjoy easing said Master's path. Tending to their every wish, anticipating what they want and having it already ready for them. Standing at the apex of servitude for millenniums, atop a mountain of those that would challenge me as the ultimate servant."

Flick's ears flicked. "Emotion.cutenessOverload loaded. She's so cute! Can we keep her?"

I just shook my head with a smile as I chuckled. "Alright. This is gonna be a little strange to me, having a servant, but it won't be the only strange thing about being the Devil."

Ink smoothly teleported to the side, dodging Flick's outstretched hand. "If I may, Lord Devil, I can begin setting up things for you. I ask to be dismissed so that I can attend to that. Later we can talk about such matters such as setting up your schedule as a Devil. You will need an agenda calendar, trust me."

"That's fine. I'll be gone for a decent while. I want to return to my original world to see how things've changed and how my family's doing." With that thought, I willed Hell's current extreme time dilation to end. From what I can tell, the previous Devil had set it so that only seven years had passed in the time I had been here. Whatever his reasons, I didn't want time passing quickly while I was visiting my homeworld.

"Very well, Lord Devil. I will see to things until your return." Ink teleported again, avoiding Flick's pounce.

"Why can't you just let me hug you?" Flick cried as she tried again, tail lashing.

"My regrets, Lady Flick, but I do not like being hugged by those I am not close to," Ink replied while standing perfectly still.

"Oh. Alright then." Flick set to straightening out her hair. "Outside has a nice view, I think I'll do a landscape painting."

I agreed with her. From the hill the Devil's palace stood on, there was a spectacular view of the capital of Hell, Dis, spreading out before us. Not that Hell had much of a government, but everyone agreed the Devil's palace was the seat of power and Dis was the most central city in Hell. Metaphorically and literally; Dis was directly in the middle of Hell. Dis itself sprawled down all sides of a circular valley, descending the sides in a continually descending spiral street, until it reached the Heart of Hell at its very center, a brightly glowing light that was different between everyone looking at it. There was a pretty nice park with an ice skating pond surrounding the Heart; I had taken a break in it right before storming the palace. Even went skating and touched the Heart while I was at it. It had felt to me like the nostalgia of home. The Heart was weird like that.

As I was lost in thought, a rather pretty classical looking demon boy smashed into the throne room with a huge hammer and screamed, "WHERE'S THAT ASSHOLE?!"

I pointed and said, "I beat him. You can go home through that door there."

I would have to ask the Palace to put up a sign outside about that. Something like "The Green Jerk is Defeated, Go Straight Ahead and Left to Exit Hell."