A shower of sparks sprayed against Lilith's arms as her knife struck against the black iron dagger clutched in Cobalt's hand. Sparks filled the air and smoke clogged her throat, but she didn't allow it to bother her for a moment. The metal blades scraped off one another as the two glared at each other, neither relenting for a second. Lilith bared her teeth as she pushed against Immoderata; Cobalt was strong, she could give him that. But she had centuries of experience over him. Curse or no, she was not about to fall to an upstart.

"You hate me," the Incubus said, his voice low and calm despite the ongoing struggle.

Lilith snorted in response, shoving him back as she flipped the knife around in her hand. Ducking beneath a flurry of manic slashes, she aimed the point at Cobalt's chest as she lunged forward. His teeth gleaming in the firelight, he wheeled back and lashed out with his foot, almost catching Lilith directly in the face with a bone-clad leg.

"I can taste it. Smell it. Feel it," he continued, dancing back and forth between Lilith's attacks.

She knew the words to belong to the Curse, and yet... to heart it twisting Cobalt's voice to such ends...

Feinting out of the way, Cobalt abruptly railed his fist into Lilith's stomach, causing blood to spray from the knife-wound in her side. Crying out in pain, she retaliated by slashing her knife across his shoulder, earning her a stinging phantom pain in return.

"You want to kill me, don't you?"

Teeth bared, Lilith sunk the blade of her knife deep into Cobalt's shoulder, giving her something to hold on to as she raised her left hand in a tightened fist. Despite the agonising pain, she began to punch him in the mouth, over and over again, urging the Incubus to shut up. Blood sprayed everywhere - from his mouth and her bleeding knuckles - but the Incubus could only stare into her eyes, his own burning purple. Before Lilith could strike him again, he abruptly spat a mouthful of searing blood and broken teeth at her, forcing the pair to separate.

As the Devil frantically wiped the burning fluid off her face, her opponent calmly got to his feet and pulled the combat knife from his shoulder. He stared at the blade for a moment before grinning at Lilith, his mouth bloodied and his teeth shattered.

She could go at him all night, and not make a dent.

"Hm," was all the Incubus said, tossing the combat knife back to her.

The blood vessels beneath his skin ignited as a fresh array of fangs pierced through his gums, scattering the broken roots all over the grass.

"We're linked. I know exactly what you're going to do," he told her, tapping his horns with Immoderata.

Lilith spat a glob of bloodied saliva to the ground.

"You don't know shit about me. Now shut the Hell up," she grunted, pulling her knife from the dirt.

He raised an eyebrow.

"Maybe I don't. But you do. And I think I'm owed some insight, don't you?"

"What are you- GAH!"

Her question was suddenly cut off as Cobalt bit deep into his own arm. Tearing through the skin, he ripped out a chunk of meat and swallowed it whole, his blood vessels growing brighter as he licked the wound clean. As Lilith clutched the burning spot on her own arm, Cobalt bit into his other arm, leaving a jagged wound from his wrist to his elbow as he effortlessly devoured his own flesh. His injuries hissed and sealed shut as he ate, leaving Lilith in a purgatory of agony, forced to watch him devour himself, over and over again.

She remembered watching the Incubus hordes from the walls, just before evacuation. With no more Devils left to eat, they turned upon each other, shredding through one another until just a single man was left standing. She watched him down there, amidst the carnage and corpses, desperately tearing his own fingers off in an effort to sate his hunger. It took him hours to die, his body refusing to let up until there was nothing left to digest.

"Stop. What are you trying to prove here?" Lilith breathed, trying to drown out the pain.

Cobalt cocked his head and wiped his face.

"I don't need to prove anything. You on the other hand..." he remarked, licking his lips.

He pointed at her.

"You come into my life and drag it down into the mud. I want to know why."

Cobalt's teeth flashed.

"Let's look into that, shall we?"

A wave of nausea washed over Lilith, forcing her down onto one knee as she clutched her stomach. With the Curse afflicting Cobalt, it was able to affect her by exploiting the contract, but no matter how much she reminded herself of that fact, she couldn't stop the world from shifting and shimmering all around her. It was just a vision. A mere hallucination, manipulated by the Curse.

But it still felt so real.

Gone was the heat and the smoke from the house fire. The ground underfoot felt hard and uniform, and she could feel wind rustling through her hair. Her eye... it wasn't a heavy iron prosthetic, but a living thing of flesh and blood.

What the Hell did it want?!

"My lady?"

She opened her eyes. Both of them.

Lilith stood atop a grand stone wall, looking out over the vast Hellish landscape. The red sky above was clear and cloudless, and the sun was beating down upon her. Blinking a few times, she made to adjust her coat, only to find herself wearing a fine toga, perfectly suited for a summer day. Grey and red cloth, decorated with steel clasps, Metal bracers adorned her wrists, and around her waist hung a belt laden with tools and rolls of parchment.

"What...?" she murmured, looking down at her hands.

She had less scars that she remembered.

"My lady?" repeated the voice, spurring her to look around.

A Devil stood by the edge of the wall, holding a blueprint in his hands. His clothing determined him as some manner of foreman, but... that style of dress hadn't been in use for well over a millennium. It was too decedent; nothing compared to the utilitarian design of the clothing down in Dis.

"Wh- What is it?" Lilith asked, wincing as she held a hand to her head.

There was a crown upon it. A fine circlet of interwoven steel strands and iron beads.

"Is all in accordance with your design?"

The Devil blearily peered over the edge. Far down on the ground, she could see a legion of stonemasons and construction workers assembling a watchtower alongside a grand road that extended out to the horizon. She remembered that tower. Part of a series; a defensive perimeter that would lay the foundation of any future expansion. She remembered watching it fall during the Rapture.

Instinctively she looked up. The sky was clear. No cracks. No pillars of light. No angels. Just the murmuring of the wind, the hubbub of the city, and the beating of her own heart.

"My lady-?"

"I need to go," Lilith gasped, shoving past the Devil.

"Oh, um... shall I-?"

"Just do what you've already been doing; it looks fine!"

As Lilith rushed along the walls, she turned to look at the city contained within.

Pandemonium. A grand, peaceful city. The greatest settlement in all of Hell. Why was she here? What the Hell was going on?

"Kid?" she asked aloud, heading down a set of steps cut into the stonework.

She heard no reply, just the sounds of the city as she descended.

"How the fuck is it doing this...?" the Devil breathed, holding her hands to her head.

A hallucination. It had to be. An extended hallucination that tricked her eyes, her ears, her nose; everything. Out there, she was still in that glade, mindlessly wandering about as that Curse bided its time with picking her apart. But why? What did it want?

"Ho, my lady!" a cart driver cried as Lilith reached street level, startling her something fierce.

"Shit..." she murmured, taking care not to get run over as she made a beeline for the palace at the far end of the city.

That Curse... it had to have an agenda. A reason for making her relive this. If it truly was Iota reborn, then it would be there, where all the greatest Devils held council.

But as she hurriedly rushed through the streets of Pandemonium, the nostalgic nausea in her stomach only grew worse. Every single tiny detail was absolutely perfect. From the patrician's spires and guild hall rooftops, down the tiny carvings inscribed into every single paving stone beneath her feet. Devils of all stripes waved and gave praise to Lilith as she hurried along. Children jumped out of the fountains they were playing in to run alongside her, laughing and babbling all the while.

One of them tugged on her toga. Beside her, a gap-toothed little Devil girl - her horns scarcely longer than Lilith's thumbs - handed her a chain of interlinked flowers. She accepted it in a shaking hand, feeling the tickle of vomit in the back of her throat.

This... how... why...?

She had to keep focused. Stay light on her feet. The Curse was circling her, she could feel it. Just waiting for an opportunity to strike.

So... why hadn't it already?

Lilith came to a stop in the middle of the road. Everything had gone silent. The children were gone, as were the civilians and the guards. The sky was bright and empty, and all around Lilith, not a sound was heard. The wind blew against her, scattering a few scraps of parchment across the street. She panted for breath, staring up at the grand palace looming in the distance.

"What do you want from me?" she asked, clenching her fists.

She received her answer in the form of an almighty, deafening horn blare. She clamped her hands over her ears as high above, the sky began to crack. Seams of light split the very aether, tearing open the way for beams of blinding radiance to bear down upon Hell, all the while the horn kept sounding, over and over again. It cut right through Lilith, rattling her skull no matter how hard she tried to block it out.

The Blares. How could she forget them? The First brought drought. The Second brought plague. The Third brought madness. The Fourth brought ruin. And the Fifth... She still had nightmares about what the Fifth Blare could have done.

Heat on her skin, basting her in own sweat as her armour constricts her tighter. Copper and smoke in the air. Warhorns and sirens firing off every twenty minutes. The scream of angelic skyships. The howling of terrified citizens. Pandemonium held fast, but the cracks were beginning to show.

Lilith opened her eyes.

The streets were in turmoil, churned up by the years of senseless fighting that had plagued the entirety of Hell. Homes lay broken and burning, whilst others had been completely razed, obliterated by bombing strikes from above. HIgh above the city, angels clashed with Pandemonium's staunch defenders as angelic vessels slowly circled it, some already in the midst of getting shot down by the ballista emplacements.

Gone was the toga of bygone days, replaced instead by heavy-duty steel plate. She held a hammer in each hand, while all around her, the bent and broken bodies of a dozen angels lay bleeding into the cracked road, their halos lying within pools of blood. Only one still stood; a tall warrior dressed in a suit of golden armour, clinging to a silver greatsword. Six metallic wings spread from their back as a golden halo hovered just above their helmet.

An Archangel. The leader of this particular squad.

Duty kicked in, overriding her doubts. Omega took no time to think, only act.

She deflected an overhead blow from the sword, ducking down low in order to strike the Archangel's knees. They howled and tried to take to the sky, only for her to jet off after them. With a well-placed throw of a hammer, she drove them back to the ground, whereupon they attempted to slice her in two.

Two iron points suddenly pierced through their breastplate, splattering them both in angelic blood. The Archangel looked down at their wounds before groaning, their halo coming free as they slumped forward, dead. Scoffing, Omega picked it up and clipped it to her belt, alongside the half-dozen other halos that hung from it.

"Omega!" called the voice of her saviour, spurring her to look back.

A slender Devil woman dressed in lighter regalia; dark leathers interwoven with steel scale. Her long hair nearly covered her face, and the twin daggers she clutched dripped with blood.

"Iota? What the Hell are you doing here! I told you to-!"

"I already did! Rho's rallied everyone back to the palace! Alpha wants to send you out again."

"Again?! As if last time wasn't bad enough! We can't waste time with the Horsemen; we're needed here!"

Iota nodded frantically.

"I know, but we need you back regardless. Gamma spotted an incoming dreadnaught, and I don't think we have enough ferrohaem to drive this one off."

"What about that thing Lambda was working on? The javelins?"

"Not finished yet."

"Fuck!"

Omega took a deep breath and dispelled her hammers.

"Right. Let's go," she sighed.

With a nod, Iota started on the way back, only to freeze up. Swallowing hard, she pointed at Omega's breastplate.

"You... You're hurt," she breathed, dispelling her own weapons.

Frowning, she looked down. The front of her armour was badly damaged, with much of the metal cracked and corroded from relentless assault. The tip of an angel's sword was still lodged in her side, and dark blood was oozing from it. With an annoyed growl, Omega shook her head.

"I'll swing by Phi's later. For now, just get me to-"

"We have to get that treated now! Come on!"

Grabbing her wrist, Iota began to drag Omega through the warzone that was once Pandemonium, avoiding the wider streets for fear of getting spotted by another angel patrol. Seeing the city like this... it broke Omega's heart. She had been born there when it was little more than a Devilish enclave clinging to the Cocytus River in the middle of Mauqsun. She had helped design most of it, and some of its very foundations bore her mark. What the Hell did they ever do to deserve losing their home like this...?

"In here!" Iota cried, barging through a doorway.

An old alchemist's workshop, abandoned in the first rounds of evacuations. Iota cleared off a table and instructed Omega to strip down while she prepared her medical kit. Frowning, she did as she was told, stripping off the ruined breastplate before fumbling for the rest of the clasps.

"Rho was right. There's more patrols in the lower city areas. Looking for survivors, maybe," she explained, shedding her armguards.

"Of course he's right. Rho's always right," Iota responded rather pointedly.

Omega frowned.

"That's his job. He was appointed Defender of the-"

"I know, okay? Trust me."

Something had been going on between those two. At first Omega thought it was just Iota's usual curiosity, but it had grown into something... stranger. She was always clinging to Rho's every word, probing him for more when he spoke, and hanging around him every chance she got. There were numerous security violations flagged when she was caught in his personal quarters, but they were always passed off as her simply testing her infiltration prowess against his knowledge of security and fortification.

But Rho was Omega's closest friend. She could see that Iota wanted something more.

"Lie down," Iota instructed, producing a pair of shears from her pack.

She lay down on the table, allowing her companion to cut away the bloodsoaked material of Omega's gambison. Once the wound was exposed, she picked up a pair of forceps and began to gently extract the broken sword tip. As she worked, Omega glanced down at the brand in the centre of her chest; the mark she received on the day of the Alpha Corps' creation. She didn't like it much. Neither did her mother.

"Iota," she asked, wincing as the shard of jagged metal was pulled free.

"Yeah?" asked her comrade, rooting around for something to clean the blood with.

"I'm not in love with Rho."

She froze up.

"... Okay, and?"

"I'm just letting you know. He's a good guy. All yours if you want him."

Iota went quiet. She stopped cleaning the wound and began to slowly trace her fingers around its jagged edges.

"You think... I want Rho?" she asked, cocking her head enough to cause her hair to obscure her eyes.

Omega sighed. She never had time for all this courtship nonsense. Even less so now that there was a war on.

"I just-"

"This isn't about Rho."

She grasped the wound firmly, causing her to yelp in pain.

"What the fuck are you doing?!" she choked, trying to prop herself up on her elbows.

But Iota was too quick for her. Leaping over the Devil, she straddled Omega and kept her pinned to the table. With her fingers firmly jabbed in the gaping wound, Iota leaned in close, her breath quivering and shaking.

"This was never about Rho."

"Anyone can see you're obsessed with him! No point in trying to hide-!"

"Because he was the closest to you."

Omega's eyes went wide as Iota laughed softly. A quiet, haunting noise.

"He knew everything about you. Things unavailable in the archives, both private and public. He alone drew close enough to stand by the unattainable princess' side, and I hate him for it," she rasped.

"Wh- What...?"

A smile grew on Iota's face.

"You've always been above us, Zelde. Our glorious leader's precious little daughter. The architect of our future. Forever out of the common Devil's reach. And yet here you are, stripped and helpless before me. I want to know everything. The things you don't show the world. The secrets you tell to no-one, not even Rho. What really makes you tick," she continued, sounding more and more deranged as she went on.

"What kinda sick crush is this, Iota?!" Omega snapped, balling her fists.

"Not a crush. An infatuation. I want to pick you apart, Zelde, and put you back together with me. I want us to be one," Iota continued, capping it off with a giggle.

Omega swallowed hard. This war - the Rapture - had taken its toll on Iota, crushing her rationality like a sparrow's egg. She would be in her right mind to throw her off and drag her back to the palace for treatment. Phi would ensure she'd be taken care of.

But for some reason, she didn't do any of that. She just lay there, staring up into Iota's eyes as the Devil's face drew closer. Something about her words touched her, and she couldn't fathom why. Maybe there was some truth to it; Omega had always been tending to a higher station than everyone else. Even back in times of peace she had no-one she could truly call her friend, and even the other Alpha Corps members were more subordinates and comrades-in-arms than people she could truly confide in. Only Rho came close, but he had his own troubles to deal with, and there were some things that he just couldn't understand.

But Iota, she...

Well, she certainly had her charms, right?

"We could run away," Iota breathed.

"What?!"

"This war will kill us, Zelde. Let's run away, you and me. Start anew someplace else."

"But-!"

"Better to live in stick huts than die amidst palaces. Please. Just think about it."

She was drawing closer, enough for Omega to feel the heat of her breath. She was shaking now; she didn't even know she was capable of that anymore. As a thousand thoughts rushed through her, she slowly shut her eyes, allowing Iota's offer to replay in her head, over and over.

Maybe...

Something broke the tension. A sound from the corner of the room, drawing Omega's gaze to the tiny beast sat amidst the shadows. Small, four-legged, coated in black fur... and bearing piercing green eyes that stared right through her.

What was that?

A... cat?

There weren't any cats in Pandemonium. They only came to Hell once humans started meddling with bloodstones, back in the 1300s.

Wait.

No.

This wasn't right.

This never happened.

This was all just a fucking trick!

Baring her teeth, Lilith - for that was her name - conjured a combat knife into her hand and abruptly stabbed it through Iota's cheek. It pierced her flesh, scraped between her teeth and over her tongue before tearing out through the other side of her face.

She laughed, and the entire world broke into pieces around them.

The sky was filled with smoke, and the trees cowered away from the burning building in the centre of the forest glade. Lilith lay on the ground, covered in cuts and gashes as Cobalt bore down upon her, knife driven straight through both cheeks. Immoderata was held a mere inch from her throat, but as searing blood hissed against her face, the Incubus staggered back, gasping as he carefully extricated the knife from his flesh.

"Cruel," he muttered, tossing it away into the grass.

Lilith forced herself to her feet, feeling as though her very life force was being drained from her countless wounds.

"Cruel? Fuck you. You have no idea what cruelty is, Iota," she spat, voice dripping with venom.

He smiled.

"Was that her? The Devil who loved you?"

"That wasn't love! That was obsession!"

"It's as close to love as you'll ever get."

Lilith balled her fists, but she could no longer count on the strength to push the offensive.

"Rho... he found out about what you did. What you tried to propose..." she guttered, piecing it all together.

She had locked those memories away, deep inside her. Buried under all the guilt and stress.

"And you killed him for it. Tore out his fucking heart!"

Cobalt smiled, unperturbed by the wounds on both sides of his face.

"I'm feeling peckish after all that," he sighed, flipping Immoderata around in his hands, "so we'll have to wrap this up."

Lilith scoffed.

"Just come and get me, motherfucker," the Devil spat, bracing herself for a final stand.

"Gladly."

He made to lunge at her, but he didn't move, held back by something. Eyes wide, the Incubus looked down at his foot.

Elya was clinging tightly to it, her eyes wide and defiant. Through all the chaos, she had woken up from her stupor, and though her throat was ruined, she managed to sneak up behind Cobalt. Wrapping both arms around one bone-plated leg, the terrified Fallen looked to Lilith, silently pleading for her to intervene.

"... You got it, you crazy bitch," she breathed.

She lunged forward, pushing her body to its absolute limit. Cobalt's eyes widened as he raised the dagger to intercept, but Lilith quickly reached up and caught the blade as the two demons locked themselves into one final struggle for control. With one hand clutching the sharp dagger, the Devil grabbed his throat as she began to incant, flooding her hand with ferromantic magic.

The dagger began to creak as she gripped it harder.

Alarmed, Cobalt tried to pull it free, but when her grip proved ironclad, he bore his claws and dug them into Lilith's wounded side. Her screams were nothing short of harrowing, but she kept focusing, intensifying the Devilish magic in her hand until her ears rang and her teeth began to chatter. Immoderata, the deceptively tough dagger that had weathered all previous attempts to destroy it, shuddered and groaned as the blade began to bend. The purple fires in the Incubus' eyes blazed as he did everything in his power to gouge Lilith, but she refused to let up.

Immoderata screeched.

Cracks spidered out across the weapon.

After one final push from Lilith, she crushed the blade in her hands, shattering the dagger into a dozen useless shards of iron.

And for a single moment, the entire world seemed to go silent as Immoderata - after so many years - was finally destroyed.