“Have you? Have you really, Knight Captain Pyra of Ratia, level 52 Monk-Paladin?” Zereg-Atsum asked, letting his long mace rest on his shoulder. His voiced changed, now similar to that of other demons, and his eyes were now also glowing a blood red.

“Yes. I need you to deliver this to your master,” she replied, flinging something black and massive from her shoulder onto the ground between them.

It was a giant demon penis.

“I told that bastard I was going to tear it off,” Pyra said, wiping her hands against her yoga-pants armor. “Now if you don’t want me to rip off yours.” She looked the demon boy up and down. “If there’s even anything there to rip. Why don’t you scurry off back where you came from before this escalates any farther?”

Pyra? Giving a demon an out? Against escalation?!

“Thanks for sending Isabella my way,” Pyra said, winking at me. “Patched me up real good.”

“I am a demon prince,” Zereg-Atsum said. “And you will give me the respect I am due!”

The flaming mace came swinging around, forcing myself and Pyra to duck.

“Now that your heads are lowered, you may proceed to beg me for your pathetic, mortal lives!”

“Take Violetta and get the fuck out of here,” Pyra said. Softly. The only other time I had heard that tone from her, was when she was lying naked next to me. “I’ll buy you as much time as I can.”

Pyra wasn’t the type to back down from a fight. But this was the first time I’ve seen her when she knew she couldn’t win.

“Go to her already,” the redhead scolded me.

I nodded and rushed to the pistol-less Violetta still sitting on the ground, still gathering herself from Pyra’s explosive entrance.

“Oh Lord Zereg-Atsum, mighty prince of demons,” Pyra declared as she stood up.

The demon looked at her with amusement. “Now that’s more like it.”

“I have but one thing to say to you and your tiny, little boy dick!”

“Are you alright?” I asked Violetta.

“Y-yes. I think so,” the girl replied, shaking some dust from her hair.

“Pyra says we have to run.”

“What? No! We can’t!”

Zereg-Atsum sighed. “And what would that be, captain? Choose your words carefully, because they will be the last ones you utter before this little boy dick goes into your bratty mouth.”

Pyra took a deep breath, relaxing into her battle stance.

“Cast, level three.” Pyra started glowing with holy light. “Blessed fists!”

The Knight Captain vanished. Vanished into a streak of golden light that flew straight towards the demon prince.

The impact shook the cave so hard that actual man-sized pieces of rock began to fall.

But she didn’t stop.

She was a storm. 

A gale of gold and red, the razor slashes of this shining wind cutting relentlessly against the demon prince who could only brace against them with his arms.

Each impact sent a shockwave that rocked the entire cave, a one-woman earthquake.

Violetta and I stumbled to the exit, dodging rocks as well as we could.

Water began to pour from above as the intensity of the attack burst holes in the rocky surface all the way through. Light shone down through others. 

We were almost to the waterfall when it finally began to die down.

And I, true to my current heroic role, made the mistake of stopping and looking back.

The demon prince Zereg-Atsum was a pillar of smoke.

Pyra stood before it in her battle stance, panting heavily.

I haven't felt such bone shattering strength since my tussle with Anaestraza, a literal dragon who could send your house into a different zipcode with a sneeze.

And nobody bothered to tell me there were levels to casts. Maybe even I could dish out such ungodly amounts of damage.

If the demon prince was still alive, he was sure to be missing an arm by now. Or two.

“There is a misconception among the lower ranks of demonkind,” the demon prince's voice rang from beyond the smoke. “That dick size determines one's power and value.”

The shadowy figure of the boy appeared in the smoke as he stepped forward. 

“And those at the top, like myself, have to keep reminding insubordinate idiots like Gdol-Zayin, or whatever his name was.” The smoke parted as he stepped towards the Knight Captain. “It's not the size that matters, it's how you use it.”

There was... An aura of darkness about him. Even though a ray of light from the ceiling beamed right down onto him. It was as if his mere presence pushed back any light. 

More importantly.

There wasn't a single scratch on him.

A fragment of a second later, Pyra smashed into the wall of the cave.

I didn't even see the swipe of the mace. 

But it was now pointed right towards us.

We turned around to resume our escape, but instead of a clear way to the waterfall, we were greeted by Lord Zereg Atsum, drops of stray water steaming off his flaming weapon.

“I enjoy putting the impudent in their place but I have had quite enough of this,” the demon prince said.

Our trump card was lying naked amidst a pile of cave wall rubble.

Pistols and spells had been spent

All I could possibly do was what I do best. Talk.

"Alright, alright. You've won," I said, raising my hands in surrender, to Violetta's dismay. "Just, before you do what you came here to do, can I ask you why a demon prince as mighty as you needs a puny mortal like her?" I pointed to the puny mortal in question.

My ego patting seemed to work.

“Her expertise in manufacturing weapons of war for my army,” he said. "And her delicious body for my harem. A young god-touched slave…" He licked his lip, staring Violetta up and down.

"Won't that anger her god? Won't it burn you to touch her?"

I was grasping at any straw I could.

“Are you trying to stall me for some other last minute rescue? Because I assure you, there aren't any. Not for a thousand miles.”

There was one. But she was quite firmly and contently asleep atop a pile of gold.

Clearly he wasn't afraid like Gdol-Zayin was. I had to try a different angle.

"Of course not. I'm just curious. You said for your army. You want to be the demon king?"

The demon prince smiled. "Careful, human. That's treason." 

"Naturally. We wouldn't even think of usurping the kingship. I just figured you were overqualified for your position. Are Violetta's weapons even a threat to beings as mighty as yourself and the current king? That holy bullet didn't even touch you."

I stared deep into the one visible eye of the demon prince. 

He knew full well I was stalling, and he knew I was talking him up to flatter his obvious ego.

But he also liked it.

“Her current work, no. But I'm certain that with the proper guidance, and a never quenching thirst for my demonic semen, she will be able to create for me the greatest weapon ever forged. One capable of killing the gods themselves.”

A picture began to form in my mind. 

A demon of immense power and limitless ambition, but no one to truly trust. No one to share his true desires, his true genius. Always hiding parts of himself. 

It's why the Bond villains always talk about their plans, and why writers cannot shut up about anything other than their latest works. 

Zereg-Atsum, a demon prince, needed to be seen.

"I see. I actually have something of a divine problem myself," I said, choosing my words very carefully. "She's threatening to send me to heaven."

“The gods are deceitful and cruel. With us demons you know exactly what you're getting.”

And there it was. 

He made conflicting deals with the RFF and the cell-inners. And he was pretty much leading me to make a deal myself if I convinced him we were on the same side.

"So if I were to assist you in attaining this weapon of yours, would you be willing to help me with my own problem?"

The demon prince narrowed his eye as he examined me with a demonic smirk.

“Assist me? How?”

"I come from a world far from this one. One far more advanced in many ways. The knowledge I possess could be priceless to a demon king.”

“Demon prince,” he corrected.

"Yes, prince. I got ahead of myself."

Violetta was going from expressions of shock, to outrage and disgust and back to shock.

"All that I ask for now is that you delay whatever demonic-sexual-slavery-brainwashing you have in store for my friend Violetta here, until we find you a better sex-slave candidate. Perhaps even, a goddess?”

Hopefully the coin of realization had dropped in her head now. 

All I could barter for was time. Once we were in the demon realm, I might find someone or something else to barter with.

The demon boy raised a curious eyebrow.

“And your friend here would be willing to work of her own free will?”

Violetta bowed her head. She was shaking. "Y-yes…"

She was playing along! I could have kissed her right then and there!

"Willing obedience is always better than forced obedience," I said. "It's a good deal, your majesty."

The demon prince paused. He was actually considering it. We had a chance.

“It is a good deal,” he said. “Too good.”

The next thing I felt was a fancy dress shoe connecting with my stomach and sending me flying backwards and into a small pool of water formed by the holes pouring the river above inside.

Violetta screamed.

I struggled to even realize what had just happened, let alone pick myself back up following what I was sure broke a few of my ribs.

“You must think I'm a complete idiot. I can smell that goddess' stench on you. No wonder she picked you with that silver tongue of yours.”

I managed to sit up, coughing blood and my ribs absolutely killing me. 

Zereg-Atsum was walking towards me, Violetta flung over his small shoulder in a surreal sight as she kicked and screamed. 

“Convincing an acolyte of Athena, a herald of truth, to lie! You would make an excellent demon.”

He stopped right before the pool I sat in.

“But I don't need an excellent demon. Excellent, talkative demons are dangerous. And I only need her.”

The hand holding the flaming mace rose for a strike.

But Violetta's hand moved too.

Into her cleavage.

The last resort. 

The demon's mace stopped.

“What are you doing girl?!”

He tossed her to the ground. 

“That little toy won't even scratch me,” he said, looking at the grenade in her hand. His eyes widened with realization as she put her finger through the pin.

She pulled it out, her hand tightly clasping the safety handle. 

"If I let go of this handle," she said. "The grenade will explode."

Going to Athena's embrace with a bang.

That was literally the only option we had left. 

My hand went for the grenade I remembered her handing me before. Only to find it had probably fallen off somewhere.

“If you kill yourself, I swear to you by all the gods, this man will never know death,” he said pointing to me with his flaming mace. “He will be tortured to the edge, for all eternity, and never be allowed the sweet embrace of the afterlife. I will find anyone and everyone you cared for and make sure they suffer the same fate.”

Her beautiful soul would endure and survive, rather than be twisted and destroyed by torture. 

And I would face the worst demonkind could inflict in exchange.

It wasn't even a choice.

"Do it Violetta. Save the world. Don't worry about me."

"Let him go," she said.

Oh no she didn't. 

"Let him go in peace, and I will go with you."

"Violetta, it doesn't matter what happens to me! Save yourself. The afterlife isn't that bad. I should know. I've been there twice!"

Zereg-Atsum rolled his eyes. “Fine. He can go.”

"Don't do it Violetta! Don't go with him!"

The demon's hand grabbed me and tossed me across the cave towards the waterfall. “She told you to run stupid.”

"Swear to me on your name that if I toss this away you won't go after him," Violetta said.

He sighed. “I swear in my name, Zereg-Atsum, that I will not harm this man if you come with me willingly and throw that damned contraption away. You know your demonic technicalities well. Happy?”

The wind was quite firmly knocked out of my lungs when I connected with the ground, so my protests weren't audible.

Violetta slowly inserted the pin back into the grenade. After another moment, she dropped it to the ground.

“The deal is sealed,” the demon prince said, stepping towards the girl and offering a hand.

She took it and he flung her onto her feet.

She looked back to me with one final glance of concern before the demon pulled her away.

Her head bowed, she walked in defeat with her captor towards the still open portal.

I tried to get up, but my ribs were quite definitely broken, and to them joined a bruised back from the second impact.

All I could do was lay there and look at the pink haired girl being led away.

So wonderfully beautiful in both body and soul, all the way to the end.

And she was going to be completely destroyed by this demon.

I looked over to Pyra. 

Her condition seemed even worse than mine, though at least the demon prince had forgotten about her. 

The two stepped ever closer to the portal.

God dammit.

There was nothing I could do.

God fucking dammit.

There was a hole right above me. One where light poured through rather than water.

God…

I opened my mouth to speak, only to cough more blood. 

I tried again.

"Aphrodite… I know you can hear me. You win. You win, alright? I will do everything you ask. Just please, don't let such beauty be taken from this world." I coughed some more blood. "Please…"

Nothing.

Not that I actually thought she’d respond.

Violetta and Zereg-Atsum were so close to the gate…

And my ribs didn’t hurt anymore.

There was a flicker of pink. A pink flame.

It came from the spot where Aphrodite had once pierced me with her heavenly hair.

And it spread, until it completely engulfed me.

I stood up. I think.

And the demon stopped. Looked back to me.

Everything was a blur of the divine glow that I saw in Aphrodite’s cloudy domain.

Everything.

And then it was over.