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This couldn’t be happening.
It just– It just couldn’t be.
Charlie stared out at the battlefield, the second one in the span of just one year, and somehow worse than their fight against Adam. How could things spiral out of control so quickly? Everything had been going so well just a few days prior– Sera was willing to listen, Heaven was ready to acknowledge that redemption worked, and Emily was practically chomping at the bits to get their project in motion!
But then everything fell apart.
If dad hadn’t gone to confront Vox, if Vox hadn’t twisted both her and Sera’s words into fearmongering lies, if the Vee’s would just let go of their insane plan to conquer Heaven, if only mum had been here–
The banquet had swiftly spiralled out of control. Charlie was hanging on by a thread, desperately trying to find a way out of this mess. Alastor was free from his deal – deals?? – and battling Vox, although he was seemingly losing, at least with that weapon of his. A weapon that Carmilla had given him, made of angelic steel. She still didn’t know how it was powered, nor had Vaggie told her anything about it.
And where the fuck was her dad!?
Her chest ached in pain, wrought with guilt from how they parted, just days earlier. If he had been here, then maybe they wouldn’t be losing so badly? Sure, he couldn’t hurt sinners, but he might know how to shut down Vox’s insane weapon? The man had hinted at her dad’s attendance, yet Charlie hadn’t seen hide nor hair of him through any of the chaos. His absence was an open wound in her heart. She hadn’t been particularly kind to him before he left, now, had she?
No, because she had forced him to leave… He had tried to help, on Vaggie’s request, and Charlie had forced her dad to leave because of it. Such a nice daughter she was. His help had caused more trouble in the end, but he had tried, and none of them could have predicted Vox hypnotising Angel. He had gone out of his comfort zone to help her, in return, her reaction was to throw him onto the ground and yell at him to get out.
She wouldn’t blame him if he didn’t come to help them, not after that mess.
An anguished scream tore through Charlie’s self-loathing, a scream that sent cold spikes of dread through her entire body. Emily. Reorienting herself, desperately looking for her friend – to see what happened, to make sure she was okay, hoping to God that she was still alive. It didn’t take her long to spot them. Alastor was quickly tugging the injured seraphim out of the line of fire, leaving behind a trail of golden ichor. Emily was hurt. Emily was bleeding. Emily was missing a wing.
The sight alone had Charlie wheezing for breath, feeling the guilt and dread strangling her where she stood. It was her fault. Her friend – the seraphim who took care of Sir Pentious in her place, who steadfastly supported and helped Charlie with her ideas and dreams – was injured while assisting Hell, because Charlie couldn’t control her people. The Princess of Hell couldn't deal with some opposition unaided, because she kept falling for their manipulations.
What would her mother say if she saw her now? She’d be so, so disappointed, wouldn’t she?
Shaking her head, Charlie banished any thoughts of her mum. She didn’t have time for that now– Vox’s disastrous weapon was recharging, and they needed to do something before it had a chance to fire again. Destroy the controls, remove the power source, collapse the structure – anything to make it stop firing! She spotted Vaggie further away, and began to quickly make her way over, when a deafening crack of thunder shook the very ground beneath her feet. White bolts of lightning danced across the sky of Pride, practically blinding in their intensity, before coalescing into the shape of a person.
A person with three pairs of wings.
Further off, still being supported by Alastor, Charlie could hear Emily let out a strangled sound.
“Lord Michael!” she gasped, her voice a mix of awe and disbelief, before she ducked her head forward in a bow.
A suffocating silence draped itself over the battlefield with the appearance of another angel, many seemingly unsure of what to think. The new figure looked different from the other angels and seraphims they had encountered. Seemingly of average height, the man had short blonde hair and was dressed in different layers of white and pale blues. His wings differed from those of Emily and Sera – still large and white, but the inner feathers were coloured a breathtaking shimmering shade of sky blue. Yet, the most concerning dissimilarity was the weapons hanging along his waist; the unmistakable shape of a sheathed sword and several sharp daggers.
An angel ready for combat.
He regarded the battlefield below with an unimpressed expression, almost bordering on bored, before his icy blue eyes locked onto Vox’s destructive laser machine. With a wave of his hand, and a frugality that Charlie deeply envied, the machine broke apart into numerous pieces. Loud, echoing sounds filled the area as they fell to the ground, revealing a hidden core at the very base.
Charlie hurried closer, squinting her eyes in an effort to make out just what it was. It seemed to be some sort of glass sphere, the pale white surface making it hard to discern exactly what lay within.
Another wave of the angel’s hand, and she felt her breath get sucked out of her lungs as the glass cracked away. Captured within the sphere, looking haggard and bleeding from several stab wounds, was Lucifer. Stab wounds caused by electric cables jabbed into his body. The pit in her stomach grew worse, and she struggled to take in the scene. Her dad – the untouchable angel, the King of Hell – looked so achingly weak, worn and small. Was this where he had been since he disappeared? Was this why he didn’t answer her calls? Was this what Vox meant when he said that her dad was around somewhere!?
Terror and helplessness clawed violently at her insides, seemingly attempting to rip her heart from her chest. She didn't know. How could she have known? She didn’t think– He– He was so strong, and had always been able to handle himself! She hadn’t considered– She had completely forgotten–
An incredible, unfathomable chill cut through her panic, forcing everyone’s attention back onto the flying seraphim – Michael, if she’d heard Emily right – who glared down at her father with an absolutely furious look.
“Enough of your games, Samael,” he growled, a deep and polyphonic voice echoing the words across the city. The name didn’t ring a bell, but Charlie wasn’t given much time to ponder it either. As he spoke, Michael raised one of his hands. In another burst of bright light, a sharp golden spear manifested in his waiting grip. The angelic steel glinted dangerously in the dim skies of Pride, and Charlie saw Vaggie take a hesitant step back; eyeing the weapon with trepidation.
She wanted to ask what was going on. She wanted to ask what Michael was doing here, why Emily bowed at his appearance, and who on earth was he talking about. Was he there to help? If so, why bring out a spear? Was he about to kill the “unruly” sinners? How had he known her dad was the power source of the laser? And why–
Any such thoughts were swiftly wiped from her mind as the man attacked, launching his weapon through the air with a sharp, whistling sound and deadly precision. A gut-wrenching wail echoed across the battlefield as the spear pierced her dad’s chest, right through his heart. His entire body convulsed from the hit, twisting in pain as mouthfuls of golden ichor escaped his lips in rough, staggering coughs. Those familiar red eyes gazed up at the angel, pleadingly and in pain, while his body struggled uselessly.
A collective, strangled gasp seemed to rip through the entire city, interspersed with individual screams and exclamations. She could recognise Alastor’s deafening radio static, Vaggie’s quiet curses, Niffty’s sudden silence and Emily’s choked off sobs. From all around she heard echoes of terrified cries, angry shouts, disbelieving stuttering and panicked pleading.
It took Charlie several long seconds to realize that the loud, heartbreaking wail was coming from her. She couldn’t breathe. Her heart stopped dead in her chest, while the anguish and despair made her body feel eerily cold and numb.
No.
No no no nonononono–
“STOP– NO, YOU CAN’T–” The words left her before they properly registered, already scrambling to get to her father. Vaggie just barely caught her as she stumbled, locking her arms tightly around the princess to prevent her from going any further.
“Don’t–” she cautioned, glancing wearily up at Michael and refusing to look at Lucifer.
“No, no, no– HE CAN’T TAKE HIM–” Charlie repeated, the tears finally beginning to fall down her face as the panic and despair began to set in. “He can’t be– I’m not ready– I never got to apologise!” It’s a hysterical thought, so out of place among the hurricane of emotions clogging up her mind. She never got to say sorry. She never got to hug her dad again and take back all those awful things she, in a fit of rage, hurled at him. She never got to tell him that she still loves him more than anything, and wanted him to come back to the hotel, to her.
There was so much she wanted to say and do and experience, all those father-daughter moments they had missed out on for most of her life. They were supposed to have eternity to do that.
Now she’d never get to speak to him again.
Lucifer sucked in another ragged breath, this one distinctly louder than the last, as his gaze flitted helplessly about the area; stopping at nothing in particular. His red eyes were hazy and drooping, golden ichor dripping from his chin.
The grief was overwhelming, nearly numbing Charlie’s entire being, making her collapse all her weight into Vaggie’s arms with a weak, strangled sob. This couldn’t be happening…
“I don’t have time for this…” Michael’s voice was almost bored as he spoke, the words laced with a sharp, deadly edge. Charlie wanted to hit him. Punch him. Scream and kick and cry and fight until she could no longer stand. He came down here, killed her dad, and has the audacity to sound bored!? He was lucky that her trident was not near, and that Vaggie was holding her back, or else she would have done something monumentally stupid. The thing that broke her from her mental spiralling, however, was an unexpected laugh. A smug, familiar laugh.
Whipping her head around, Charlie looked up just in time to watch her father’s body disintegrate into nothing. His laugh echoed eerily through the air, bouncing off non-existent walls, drilling into her brain. Otherworldly, ancient and not human.
“No need to be so harsh on the clones, Mikey, you know they can’t take much damage.” Charlie was going to give herself whiplash, she was sure of it, with how quickly she spun around. Hovering above them, just a few feet away from Michael, was her father, looking none worse for wear as he leaned on his cane – presumably supported by magic – and looking distinctly amused.
“Y’know, that was much quicker than expected,” Lucifer continued, idly looking down over the battlefield and gesturing vaguely. “I thought it’d take much more to get you all the way down here– are you really that desperate?”
Michael’s eye visibly twitched.
“You should know better than to let sinners play around with angelic powers.” He growled, drawing his sword in a lighting quick motion as he turned to face her father – blade poised just underneath his chin. “Just what were you thinking?!”
Lucifer merely smiled back, looking eerily calm for someone with a sword to their throat. Although that calm may have had something to do with the fact that a thin, red spear – drenched in the Devil’s recognisable magic signature – was pointed back at the blue seraphim. It was aimed squarely at Michael’s heart, and was already cutting through the outermost layer of fabric.
The tension in the air grew almost thick enough to physically touch it.
“Careful now, dear brother. Do you really wish to do this?” Lucifer hummed, playfully tilting his head to the side. “Do you really wish to test which one of us is quicker? You know the answer already. We’re evenly matched.” The smile he offered was not a kind one, and filled with far too many teeth. “Is Heaven ready to lose its protector?”
Michael twitched ever so slightly, but didn’t move from his position. “You’re forgetting something, Luci…. Hell would also lose its King.”
Lucifer laughed at that. A loud, mocking laugh.
“Oh Mikey. I have an heir, Hell will be fine without me!” He gave his brother a sharp, cold smile – a smile that made Charlie’s skin crawl, a smile that was too big for his face yet not big enough. His eyes glowed ominously, the red of his pupils bleeding into the sclera until they were completely covered. “The question is, would Heaven survive without you?”
The other seraphim’s scowl deepened, yet Charlie didn’t miss the glint of fear that passed through those blue eyes. He met her dad’s gaze head on, letting a tense, uncomfortable silence envelop everyone for several minutes – a silence nobody else dared to break, weighed down by two suffocating presences that made it hard to even think – before reluctantly lowering his weapon.
Her dad clapped his hands with a self-satisfied smile, allowing his own spear to dissipate into thin air. “Ah, that’s much better! See, it’s not that hard to have civil conversation…”
“Nothing with you is ever civil, Lucifer.”
“Now that’s just harsh,” the devil tutted, his smile turning into a faux pout. “I’m plenty civil, you just don’t want to acknowledge it.” That knowing smirk of his was back again as he twirled his cane nonchalantly, gazing down at the sinners below. “Anyway, want to tell me why you decided to crash the party? I think they were just getting to the good part of the battle…” Michael’s eye visibly twitched.
“That is exactly the problem!” He growled, seemingly just barely restraining the urge to lunge at her dad. “You’re letting sinners play around with angelic magic–”
“Aw, now that’s not entirely true.” the king cut him off, a playful smile still playing on his lips as he shrugged. “I just lent them a clone to play with!”
“Lucifer.”
“Ah, but I don’t see why you’re so upset. It’s not like I can do anything about it anyway. Sinners are distinctly not my problem, aren’t they?” The unnatural glow of his eyes intensified ever so slightly, the smell of acid and sulphur suddenly hanging heavy in the air, as he stared down the other angel.
Michael shifted uncomfortably, his gaze darting about and refusing to settle. “That doesn’t mean you should be aiding in their efforts.”
“Why, I’m not aiding anyone! The clone was fighting back and everything, just not breaking the agreement.” Lucifer sounded far too chipper in his explanation, waving his hands about before throwing his brother a calculated look. “You know that if you want enforcement against sinners, you either do it yourself or you ask Lilith.”
The seraphim visibly froze at the mention of the Queen.
“Tell me, dear brother of mine, why have you yet to smite these unruly mortals yourself?” In the blink of an eye, the king was invading the other angel’s space; circling him slowly and hovering just above his shoulders. His voice was low and sultry, heavy with unspoken implications – a silent promise, an enticing offer, an alluring temptation. “It’d be so easy, would it not? A wave of your hand, and they are wiped from existence. A few simple words, and the army will descend to take them all out. So many options at your disposal, yet here you are, waiting, stalling. For what, I wonder?”
“You know damn well why…” Michael hissed back, the words barely audible through clenched teeth.
“Ah yes,” Lucifer hummed, draping himself across his brother’s shoulders, causing the man to tense up even further. “Redemption is a wonderful thing, is it not? So many millennia of speculation and failed attempts. So many battles and uprisings, suppressed with violence. Near a decade of genocide, killing without rhyme or reason… I wonder how many potential redemptions were cut short by a holy blade. Would you care to wager a guess?”
Many times had Charlie heard her dad be referred to by strange and long-winded titles. The Father of Lies. The Serpent of Eden. Prince of Darkness. Lord of the Abyss. Temptation Incarnate. For as long as she had lived, she had never been able to correlate those dramatic, sinister titles with her socially awkward, overly loving, disaster of a dad. How could she? It was the same man that made rubber ducks as a hobby, sang her lullabies about the world’s creation, and made two magical bodyguards out of her toy plushes. Yet as she looked up at the scene above her, at the way Lucifer whispered in Michael’s ear, and the way his voice carried through the air – slippery, soft and tempting – she thought she finally understood.
“No takers, hm? Well, I suppose that simply means I’ll have to voice my own theories,” her dad chuckled, taking in his brother’s silent, frozen state with no small amount of glee. “It all leaked to the public, didn’t it? The exterminations, the indiscriminate killings, the redemption. The narrative is out of your control, and the masses are demanding answers… I can’t imagine the other Orders were terribly happy with your little murder schemes, now were they? Lying, omitting the truth, going behind their backs… Awfully sinful, isn’t it?” A chill was beginning to settle in the air, icy and unnaturally cold, something that shouldn’t be possible in Pride. Charlie suddenly felt incredibly underdressed, wrapping her arms around herself in a vain attempt to keep warm while her father’s voice continued to echo in the silence – silky, sharp and dangerous.
“You can’t kill them either. You’d be going back on a promise to the courts, to the Orders. Heaven has a new image to upkeep, to practice what you preach…” He pulled back ever so slightly, rounding his brother one last time before settling in front of him once more, nonchalantly studying his own nails. “It’s almost as if this whole situation could have been avoided to begin with, if you had just listened to me back when the exterminations were first instated. Genocide has never solved any of your problems in the past, what made you think that this time would be any different? Then again,” he shrugged, causing Charlie to shudder in fear at the side eye he sent towards Michael, “I suppose I didn’t have any say anyway, considering your deal was with Lilith and not me.”
Wait, what–
“Okay enough!” Michael’s voice echoed like a bolt of thunder through the air, jolting several poor souls on the ground while he glared at Lucifer. “That still doesn’t clear you from helping sinners! That’s part of your original punishment, and has nothing to do with the exterminations.”
Charlie recognised the look that passed over her father’s face. It wasn’t an expression she often saw, yet it had appeared enough times to be familiar. The most common culprit for the exasperated, almost borderline disbelieving look was Alastor, incurring it many times back at the hotel. She could practically see the way Lucifer mentally calculated if it was worth the headache of getting the conversation back on track, before ultimately giving in to the change of topic with a heavy sigh of resignation.
“I'm not helping them,” he said simply, raising a judgmental eyebrow in Michael’s direction.
“You are allowing them to use your clone.”
“Allowing is such a strong word…” Lucifer hummed, waving his hand dismissively. “I’m not allowing anything, I simply can't fight back.”
“You could get out of there if you tried.” Michael drew out the last syllables, eye twitching with irritation.
Her dad simply shrugged. “Well, important to remember, it wasn't really me in there then, right?”
“And why not, exactly?” He raised an eyebrow, fixing his intensely blue eyes on the devil. “Passing up a chance to screw with Heaven personally is not your style… And playing weak isn’t exactly difficult. So why the clone? Why the unnecessary theatrics of it all?”
In the blink of an eye, all humour and easy going attitude was wiped from her father’s face. Replacing it was a carefully neutral expression, one that had Charlie feeling incredibly uncomfortable and strangely uncertain. Those feelings only multiplied as those venomous red eyes – swirling with untold negative emotions – glanced down at her with a cold, disappointed look.
“I do not linger where I am not welcome,” was his reply, voice eerily empty and without a hint of his previous jovial demeanour. “Hell does not run itself, and I would be a fool to waste my full consciousness where I am not wanted.”
Charlie couldn’t help the full-body flinch that wrecked through her. The words hit like a physical blow, once again opening a pit of dread, guilt, and sorrow within her.
She had said that.
She had told her dad to go away, that it’d be better if he left her hotel entirely. She had yelled at him, physically pushed him to the ground, and demanded he get out of her life. He had tried to help her, at Vaggie’s request, and Charlie had screamed in his face when it didn’t go to plan.
And her dad had done as she asked. He had left, and Charlie hadn’t even bothered to contact or locate him. He had disappeared, and she hadn’t noticed. And even when he returned, it wasn’t truly him, but a clone sent in his place.
Judging by Michael’s unsure expression and suspicious, sideways glance in her direction, not even he looked particularly inclined to address his brother’s abrupt change in mood.
The pit in her stomach only grew.
… W–what have I done?
“Besides that,” her dad’s once again cheerful voice cut in, almost giving the captive audience below whiplash, “it’s not my fault that the clones are weak to angelic glass…”
“It could have made a token effort of resistance, at least!” Oh, Charlie could hear how Michael’s patience was beginning to wear thin, although he looked vaguely relieved at the return of their arguing.
Lucifer gave him a deadpan look, his voice carefully neutral as he raised his hands in a mock gesture. “Oh no, I’m being kidnapped. Golly me, what shall I do? Teleportation isn't working? I guess I'll just stay here then and wait. Uh oh, seems like nobody is coming to my rescue! I’m being forced to become a living battery–”
A flash of blue lighting interrupted the King’s mediocre performance, rocking the ground beneath their feet from the force of the thunder. Still, when the sky cleared again, Lucifer remained distinctly untouched, staring at his brother with a smug and expectant smile. Michael, on the other hand, seemed to be going through some sort of inner turmoil, bringing his hands to his face. Seconds ticked by, Pentagram city once more blanketed in a suffocating silence.
Finally, the seraphim heaved a long-suffering sigh. The look on his face was blank as he extended one of his primary wings, carefully reaching out to dislodge a large, shimmering blue flight feather.
Somewhere to Charlie’s left – having apparently moved closer during the arguing – Emily let out a strangled gasp.
Michael held the feather in his hand for a moment, seemingly considering his options one final time, before extending it towards Lucifer. “Let’s make a deal.”
Absolute, stone-cold silence.
Vaggie tensed next to Charlie, instinctively wrapping her wings around them both. Wings… They seemed to hold more importance among angels than the princess had originally assumed. Her father had never really talked much about his angelic side, and Lilith had refused to discuss it, always shutting down any conversation as soon as the topic came up. It was easy to forget, with how estranged she had become to her dad, that she was in fact half angel, yet she knew absolutely nothing about said heritage. But Vaggie and Emily, they knew. They understood. And they had obviously picked up on something about Michal’s gesture – about the offered feather – that meant more than simply offering a verbal deal.
The thick, heavy silence was interrupted by a laugh. Loud, disbelieving laughter that bordered on hysterical. Looking up, it came from none other than Lucifer, who was almost folded in half as he tried to regain his composure.
“Oh, oh my stars, you’re truly more desperate than I thought!”
“It’s not that funny,” Michael snapped, obviously displeased with the perceived mocking.
“Oh, but it is,” Lucifer chuckled, wiping a tear from his eye. “The virtuous and loving Heaven, sending Michael – the warrior of God – to make a deal with The Devil, because they can’t do their own dirty work!” He clutched his stomach, wheezing out another bout of laughter. “Ah, your own choices are truly coming back to bite you! I couldn’t have written a more ironically karmic comedy myself.”
Hell stood silent at his feet, looking nervously between their laughing King and the displeased angel. They couldn’t quite follow what was being said, what the two beings were insinuating, but they understood that it was big. A deal between a demon and an angel, between the representatives of Heaven and Hell. It could very well decide their future.
“Tell you what,” Lucifer began, extending his own wings with a dramatic flourish, and easily plucking a gleaming red flight feather from his primary set, “I’ll offer you a deal as well. Something that could prove to be… mutually beneficial, if you’re willing to see past your own pride.” He held out his own feather in a confident, almost mocking manner.
Michael studied the gesture with critical eyes. “... You knew I’d come. You knew I’d make the vow, and we’d end up here.” The statement wasn’t accusatory like Charlie expected, but rather factual, if, perhaps, a bit resigned.
The Devil merely smirked back. “You are set in your ways, it was hardly difficult to foresee. Everyone grows complacent, especially when pride is involved. And you, my dear brother, have that in spades.”
“Very well then…” Running his thumb along the soft plumage of the feather, it soon began glowing bright blue as strange, incomprehensible sounds slipped past Michael’s lips. With each new word – because it had to be words, possibly from some old, long forgotten language – the glow spread up along his arm, until it eventually engulfed his entire body. The bright blue light made him hard to look at, even more so when eyes began blinking in and out of existence around him.
With a smile still playing on his face, and his eyes locked on Michael, Lucifer soon followed his lead. The red feather in his hands glowed as he began to speak the same incomprehensible language. It was harsh yet soft, melodic yet dissonant, and Charlie couldn’t seem to remember the sound of it no matter how hard she tried. It slipped from her mind like water through her fingers, refusing to stay even as she attempted to roll the words in her mouth.
“It’s no use,” Vaggie whispered, her voice caught between immense awe and terror. “It is not a language you can learn, only be given the understanding of. The language of the First Angels…”
The scene above them was hard to take in; two seraphims engulfed in bright light. Only their respective feathers could truly be made out, hovering in the air. Michael and Lucifer’s voices sounded from all around them, polyphonic and echoing in a truly inhuman manner, as they spoke in a language far beyond mortal comprehension. The pressure in the air was almost unbearable, invading Charlie’s mind with contradicting sensations. The warmth of the sun and the coldness of space; the softness of feathers and the hardness of steel; unbearable pain and mind-blowing ecstasy; overwhelming love and cool indifference. The taste of blood filled her mouth, followed by the sweetness of sugar and the bitterness of chicory.
Confusing and distracting, overwhelming her senses in a cruel, never-ending cycle until it abruptly stopped. Slowly but surely, sound and awareness began to trickle back into her mind, bringing back clarity of her surroundings. Pained moans echoed across the battlefield as sinners desperately tried to get back on their feet and pull their minds together, weak and unsteady in the face of such inhuman beings.
Up in the air, Lucifer and Michael hovered exactly where they had before; the angel seemingly annoyed but resigned, and her dad looking like the cat who caught the canary. Their feathers had been exchanged, and were still glowing faintly in their hands. Then, with a blink and a shimmer, the plumages dissolved in a burst of glitter.
Lucifer chuckled to himself at the display, lazily stretching his arms above his head.
“You better keep your end now,” Michael muttered with a stern look.
“Yes, yes, yes… Our promise back in Mycenaean times about not double-crossing each other still stands.” Her dad waved him off. “We never get anywhere with that anyway, so I don’t see the point.”
The seraphim inclined his head in silent agreement, but didn’t reply. Instead, he watched as Lucifer lifted his staff, waving it around with a flourish and aiming it at the ground. An explosion of light quickly enveloped the area, washing over Charlie and her friends like a warm wave; lifting them into the air and tossing them about before gently depositing them back on her feet.
Looking down at herself, Charlie could see – and feel – how her clothes had been repaired and any injuries healed. Her friends were in a much similar state, with Emily’s destroyed wing having been returned to its original condition, and Alastor’s large chest wound disappeared completely. All around them, destroyed buildings and ruined streets had also been repaired, and misplaced sinners deposited in the open plaza, in front of the Vee’s stage.
It was as if Vox’s insane rampage with an angelic weapon had never occurred in the first place.
Speaking of whom, the offending Overlords in question – along with those who had aided their bid for power – were all restrained on the stage, with Vox spitting curses as he tried in vain to escape the golden chains. Velvette and Valentino appeared rather harrowed, with a haunted look in their eyes. Zeezi was passed out, Maestro looked ready to vomit, and Carmilla Carmine just appeared to be resigned.
“You happy with that?” Her dad sounded almost mocking as he gestured down at the pentagram, aiming an expectant look at his brother.
Michael studied the scene with a critical eye, before nodding back. “It’s as good a start as any,” he finally sighed, turning back to Lucifer. “I’ll contact you again after I’ve had a discussion with Sera… Dragging her feet on the redemption matter is unbecoming in any case.”
The Devil whistled approvingly. “Getting involved directly? Wow, you’re taking this seriously, seriously.” He chuckled to himself, expression happy and smug, before it abruptly turned hauntingly cold. “Good. It would have been unfortunate if you ended up discorporated because of a deal rather than someone else’s hand.”
Michael said nothing to that, his silence perhaps speaking louder than any reply possibly could.
“Now, time for you to get out of my house! I have sinners to punish, and you need to bring your little uninvited guests back home!” Lucifer clapped his hands, all smiles and laughter once again. Michael, already way ahead of him, was already summoning both Lute, Abel and Emily to his side while the Devil was speaking. A portal opened right beside him, through which he unceremoniously shoved a struggling Lute and a thoroughly chastised Able. Emily hovered by his side, staring nervously at Michael as he gave Lucifer one last nod. He waved back with a smirk. “And do say hi to the All-mighty for me. It’s been so terribly long since they last called, they haven’t even met my daughter.”
It wasn’t until the portal was closed and all the angels were gone that Hell realised what had just happened. As Lucifer turned back towards the sinners with a sinister grin, they all cowered at their new reality.
The King was free.