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The Devil May Care

Part 52

for DuskCypher

by Draconicon

The explosion of light, sound, and smoke cleared with Lord Jarrah's manor no longer having its second floor, nor its roof. Dusk and the Tasmanian Devil groaned as they dragged themselves from the rubble that had fallen through to the first floor, the black cat looking towards the holes in the ceiling, and then back to the Wrath demon.

"What was that?" he groaned.

"They're launching demons at us from a distance," Jarrah said. "Wrath demons that are willing to destroy themselves on the chance that they can destroy you."

Clumsy, clunky, but effective. Lobbing living bombs across that empty space would mean that they were harder to track, and more to the point, if they were Wrath demons being thrown around, they'd be far harder to destroy before they reached their target. The black cat looked around -

The Seal. The other thing.

They had been under his chair in the room, and now, they were buried beneath the rubble. The black cat started to reach for them...then stopped himself.

Cthulhu had said that he would be called to claim his items on the last of his days. The whole world had seemed to be running, if not perfectly, then at least on a good, even keel. He had all but forgotten all the possibilities of the world ending, had felt like he had the whole thing in hand, or at least, in arm's reach. And then, the phone call came, demanding that he pick the spoils from the court case.

He predicted that...

Was there a point in going for the two great items, then? Was there a point in having them, save to deny them to God? Dusk shook his head, looking at the other Wrath demon.

Yet, if he had hoped for some sort of clue there, there was none. Lord Jarrah stared off into the distance. The cat looked out in the same direction, and it didn't take him long to see the catapults that had been set up out on the horizon. They must have been enchanted with something, because there was no way that they should have been able to deliver a living payload from that far off, not when they were trying to bomb the manor.

"...Tell me, Von Doom," Lord Jarrah said. "Did you have a plan for my people?"

"A plan?"

"To heal us."

"...No."

"I thought not."

Dusk sighed. He didn't hear the ringing judgment that he had expected from that statement, but he still felt...wrong. He had come here to see if he could make things better, if he could do something, anything, to bring this part of Hell up to the same standards as some of the other realms that he had visited. Yet, if Lust had been easy - if repetitive - and Greed had been simple, this was a place that had no easy solution.

He looked at the suicidal demons lining up at the catapults, knowing that they were going to come raining down as greater bombs in short order. The very idea of dying in an explosion of anger like that seemed like a pretty ignominious death, but if that was the way that things were destined to go...

Dusk felt almost helpless. He had thought that he could fight, but if all his efforts, his best efforts, were going to come to naught - and that phone call suggested that very thing - was there a point?

Lord Jarrah shook his head, picking up one of the fallen pieces of rubble. The Tasmanian Devil tossed it up and down in the palm of his hand, and despite where they were, despite what he was, he seemed...oddly calm. Calmer and less stiff than any other point of Dusk's visit. The black cat cocked his head to the side.

"Why aren't you angry?"

"I am. I am very angry," Lord Jarrah said.

"You don't look it."

"Heh..."

"...Why do you keep looking for a cure?" Dusk asked. "I mean, if you're this damaged...is it even possible?"

"I have no idea..."

The Tasmanian Devil walked to his window, slowly pulling it open as the catapults pulled back their launching arms. He tossed the stone up and down, looking out the window.

"I have no idea if it's possible or not. I have no idea if there's any kind of cure for me, for my House, for this realm. There might have been too much, too much pain, too much hate, too much fear. There might never be a way out. But I know one thing for sure."

And with that, the Tasmanian Devil reared back and threw the rock with as much force as a mortal railgun, launching it across the great distance and setting off an explosion that verged on that of a miniature nuclear device on impact. The horizon glowed with the force of new fire, wrathful explosions, and the catapults shattered.

"What we are...is intolerable. And I will not settle for this."

"..." Dusk smiled. "Now that is an idea that I can get behind."

He reached out with the power of Greed and Envy, with the power of possession and the power of desire. They made finding the Seal and that other item all the easier, and he pushed some of the rocks out of the way to pull them free. The Seal itself, a disk that had been half-cracked by the explosion, was not yet ready to be unsealed. It still had too much of the power of Heaven around it, and would take time for the power of Hell to completely unravel those protections to the point where it could break.

As for the other thing...

The black cat tentatively reached for the long, rod-shaped box, but it refused to allow his hand to come any closer to it. What was sealed in there defied him in a way that few other things could. It would defy most anything in this realm, he imagined, save for perhaps a few lucky souls on the Fields of Torment.

But he would need it, eventually. He tucked it under his arm, looking out the window with Lord Jarrah. The catapults were gone, but in their place, something new had risen. Holes of pure darkness had been conjured, and behind them, other weapons were being raised. More demons of Wrath, some demons of Greed and Envy, and behind them, the boars and pigs of Gluttony.

Darith had raised an army, alright, and he had raised them from bits and pieces of the discontented upper classes of all the different realms. Dusk could almost appreciate the masterstroke of trying to seal him here, in a realm where the anger would eventually get to him. The more time he spent here, the harder it would be to leave, and the greater the effects of Wrath...until he finally exploded, the way that some of the other demons had.

Brilliant...

The only thing that it didn't take into account was the possibility of him fleeing. Dusk held out his hand -

Shwoooom.

But rather than a portal opening, a blast of dark magic descended. Like a cutting blade, it sliced through the portal that he had tried to create, cutting it apart. He stared for a moment, looking down at his hand.

"What..."

He tried again, and again. Each time that he tried to open a portal, other dark powers cut them apart. He could hardly believe it. It wasn't demonic powers, but rather, the power of black magic, dark things that had to be learned and studied rather than just wielded at will.

"What the hell is happening?"

"I don't know, Lord Dusk...but I would suggest that you make your way from here. By foot, or by wing, or whatever way you can. This will be your grave, otherwise."

The black cat looked up at the Tasmanian Devil standing at the edge of the house, looked at the way that Lord Jarrah stood with the debris in hand. Another one launched, but this time, rather than detonating, it was sucked up by the black holes that had been created at the edge of his estate, pulling the Wrath from them. There was no explosion, no more deaths.

And more demons pushed forward. Bears, this time, and he wondered if they were from Arnis's House.

"What are you going to do?" he asked.

"I'm going to fight."

"Alone?"

"My House is gone. And I will not be part of this."

"..."

"House Jarrah will not be remembered as one that betrayed its oath. House Jarrah will not be part of this uprising. Wrath does not bow to the inevitable!"

And with that, the Tasmanian Devil jumped from the hole in the wall, rushing across the fields of his estate to the enemy lines. The other Wrath demons surged forward to meet him, and with a clash that shook the ground, they fought. Lord Jarrah swung his arms with the ferocity of a force of nature, only to be met by blows of equal strength. Yet, he was still a lord of Wrath, and that meant something.

Yet, Dusk saw it as something else. He looked at the fight, and then past it at the line of demons that waited on the other end. He saw this for what it was: a means of clearing the field of pawns and troublemakers.

You know that Wrath will not be fixed by this, he thought, shaking his head. So you let the demons of Wrath go first, so that they have the least to fight back against your rule when you take over. Bastard.

Well, if they were using black magic - somehow - to keep him from leaving Wrath, then he needed to get to the plane. He was no pilot, but it was sufficiently easy to fly that thing that he was pretty sure that he could still escape from Wrath with it. If he could break through their lines, then one way or another, he could make his way to Lust, and then to the Hellspire. From there, he would be able to fight back.

Wrath does not bow to the inevitable, and neither do I...

It was more than a fight to get free of the manor; it was an all-out war. Demons from across Hell had come to fight, with demons of Gluttony, demons of Envy and Greed, demons of Wrath, and demons of Pride waiting for him out there. All of them were keen to take him down, but were smart enough not to engage him directly. They were always on the outside of his immediate range, trying to contain him, pin him in place.

They wanted him trapped, wanting to keep him from exercising his options, trying to keep him from getting away before the demons attacking Jarrah's estate managed to get through.

Well, if that was the case...

Dusk pulled free the blade that Hellsmith had given him all those weeks ago, all that time back when he had been visiting Lord Brutus Diel. The seven sins burned through the blade, making it catch fire with an unholy blend of black and red as he took to the cratered streets. The ruined buildings all around him stood between him and the landing strip miles away, and he knew that the demons were waiting in the buildings, waiting in ambush.

He didn't have time for this.

With a single swing, he leveled all the buildings facing him and those in the row just behind. Demons screamed as the houses caved in on them, and those that occupied the houses further back spilled into the streets. Dusk spotted one Greed demon that was trying to run off, carrying a case of scrolls with him, and the black cat rushed across the ground, pulling on the power of Gluttony to eat the distance between him and his target.

With the other demons in disarray, he pinned the Greed demon to the wall, holding the blade to the fox demon's neck and keeping him there. The scrolls fell, spilling open to reveal contracts, of all things...contracts with mages in the world above.

Greed feeds the power, and the mages cast their spells into hell...

That's how they were keeping him from portalling. Not through their own power, but by enhancing the power of mortals. A summoning spell that cut through the portal spells, keeping them from existing in the same place. Very clever, and very infuriating. His rage burned in his core as he realized how he was being kept from escaping, from finding his way to a place where he could fight back.

Darith had taken great care to ensure that there would be no easy escape from Wrath, that was for certain. Dusk looked the fox demon in the eye, saw a hint of fear, and shook his head.

"You made your choice."

A single slice was enough to bleed the life from the demon, and its blood burned on the glowing blade. Other demons had flooded into the streets, and the black cat turned to face them, his coat flaring out behind him. He looked into the distance, at the airfield that was miles off, and at the glow that came from it from the great lava river that passed by it. The cat brought his gaze back down at the demons before him, lifting his sword and pointing it at the massed Wrath and Envy demons.

"You're in my way." He flicked the sword to the side. "Move."

There was a tremor of fear from the Envy demons, but they didn't do what they were told. Neither did the bear Wrath demons. Dusk shook his head, pulling the blade up high.

"On your heads be it..."

With another surge of the power of Gluttony, he ate not just space, but time. The world slowed around him, and he charged.

At first, it was easy. The Wrath demons in the front line could not stand before him, not when he moved faster than time did, when he was able to slip between them while they were frozen in the consumed currents of time. He slipped under their weapons, cutting open their stomachs, delivering the most brutal death blows that he could to make sure that everyone else knew the consequences for standing before him in defiance. Let them see that they were going to die, and see if that made them make a smarter choice in the future.

Then he came closer, and something happened. The black holes of the Envy magic sucked at the edge of his aura -

Crack!

One blow got through, and Dusk stumbled back, clutching the side of his head. He was bleeding from his temple, and he could hardly believe that the blow had actually gotten through. A morningstar came down, almost cracking his head before he dodged to the side, and he gasped for breath at the ache that rippled through his skull from the first blow.

How...how...

The black holes. Envy. Envy sucked away at the life and power of everything around it. That was why Darith had sent the Envy demons. They could weaken and steal away the power of another. That was how the explosions had been rendered pointless after Jarrah's first counterattack. They had pulled away the power of the Wrath bomb.

The other demons lunged forward, and Dusk barely kept up with them, dodging desperately. Weapon after weapon came into play, and they were experts in their use, while he was a rank amateur in comparison. The most he could do was just not be there.

I'm going to have to...get creative...

Dodge, duck, swing -

Clank.

Thunk.

Another blow, this time from a warhammer to his chest. He felt a rib go, and he fed that pain to Gluttony to keep on his feet, pulling on Wrath to keep from losing his nerve. The angrier he was, the more that he could fight. But he needed more. Needed something, needed more than anger to stay motivated.

Lust? Blood lust.

He pulled on that sin, too, and put aside the feeling of a hard-on for the feeling of satisfaction when his blade cut through one of them, for the feeling of the blood on the sword when they went down.

But it was just one, and there were so many more...

Envy...

Envy for the sake of their numbers. Envy for the sake of them having their friends and him having sent away his own. Envy to bring them down to his level.

He surged, and he charged with a roar and scream.

Dusk had made it to the halfway point, but he was badly injured. He groaned, using his sword as much as a cane as a weapon now, leaving behind the bodies of dozens of demons of Wrath, half that of Envy, and two more contract-carriers of Greed. They were burning through their contracts quickly keeping him contained. He half-hoped that they would run out, but he held no illusions of that happening. Darith was too smart to allow him that chance at escape.

He's probably waiting at the plane, knowing its my only option...

Dusk growled under his breath. The futility of this was coming down on him again, and he knew that there was every chance that he wasn't going to make it out. He could stop here, find some dignity, find some hint of self-respect and show that he could face his fate on his feet.

Wrath does not bow to the inevitable!

Lord Jarrah's sacrifice for his sake, as well as his final words, lingered in the cat's mind, and he used his sword to drag himself further along. He could make it...and if he did not, then he would damn well make Darith work for this victory. He did not deserve the throne of Hell, and Dusk would make goddamn sure that everything that the lion did to take it would cost him dearly.

Crack.

His sword finally cracked as a Greed demon stole the last of his Sin energy from it. Dusk fell backwards, panting hard as the Greed magic swirl around him, pulling at anything and everything that he had. They were trying to repossess his powers, his strength, his tools. Anything that Hell had given him, the demons of Greed were trying to take and make their own once more, pulling at every loophole in the contract, everything that they could use to take what they could.

But they could not take everything. His soul, Lucifer's soul, were still bound together. He still had power.

Dusk threw his arms out, a pair of pistols coming to hand. They flared with fire as he pulled the triggers again and again, mowing down demons with every bit of pain and anger that he still had to bring to bear. Their heads exploded, their arms shattered, their torsos imploded. It was gore like one had never seen, and he could feel his throat ripping apart from the screams that echoed from the depths of his chest.

When they fell, he stumbled forward, walking through the slime and metallic-smelling gore that soaked through everything. Every step was another commitment to not falling into the trap of destiny, of not giving in to fate.

Let him try...let him try...

If Darith wanted to take him down, then he would have to pay the blood of all of Hell to take him. If the lion of Pride did take the throne, he would not have the men to hold it.

In that moment, Dusk felt an almost sickly pride of his own, and he held to that, giving him the strength to keep moving forward, to keep pushing through the streets and clusters of demons towards the landing field.

He was right at the edge of it when he found himself face to face with a single demon of Wrath. Not another legion, just one. A female, a bear, and one that was dressed in the roughest leather armor that he had ever seen. She held a blade in hand, and she held it with the experience of a soldier that had served for a lifetime. And as he approached, she sliced it across one of her arms, staining it with her blood and setting it alight.

"No more," she growled, her lips pulling up and showing her fangs.

Dusk groaned, squeezing the handles of his guns all the tighter. He had been drained, horrendously drained, by every fight that he'd been forced to go through. Every Wrath demon forced him to fight harder than any Gluttony demon that he had taken down in the assault on House Diel, and every Greed demon demanded a certain 'tribute' of his power on its death, somehow. The whole thing was a mess, and he had been pushed nearly to his breaking point.

And through it all, he had seen that Darith had used the demons that were least likely to support him after the war to fight the cat directly. Wrath demons that were never going to be cured, Greed demons that were dissatisfied and greedy enough to drain the new coffers, Envy demons that would never be satisfied; they were the front-line troops, with the loyal Gluttony soldiers and Pride officers kept in reserve.

You're already preparing for the next war, Dusk thought. Ensuring that nobody else has the strength to displace you, at least not for a long, long time...

It was a brilliant move. A bloody, dangerous thing, but it had managed to keep him in Wrath, weaken those that weren't going to support Darith without exceptional bribes, and put the lion at the top of the heap of the remaining factions. House Sertus...was well served.

"You die...and you will never, ever do what he did," the bear said.

"I never would have."

"I can't trust that."

"And you can trust Darith?"

"I can trust a demon more than I can trust a mortal. Now...die."

She lunged forward, and he barely managed to deflect her with his guns. The metal barrels barely reflected the enchanted blade, knocking it off-course and keeping it from hitting his vitals. He dodged backwards, left, right, down. He jumped over her blade, knocking it down with one pistol before bringing the other to her face -

Bang!

She rolled back and used her blade to swing him over her head. He barely managed to land on his feet and roll to the side before she could cut his legs out from under him, and the pavement of the airfield paid the price instead, gouged out by the wrath of her blade.

I can't keep this up for long...

He leaped to his feet, pulling the triggers of his pistols as fast as he could. Bang-bang-bang-bang, the bullets meant to drive the bear back only leaving her swinging her blade in arcane patterns -

She's cutting them?! No, reflecting -

One bullet bounced back, and took him in the knee. He stumbled back, unable to put his weight on it, and he screamed despite himself. He kept firing, only for the bear to casually block another bullet, swinging it back into his other knee, and sending him to the ground.

Dammit...dammit...

The pressure of destined defeat that he had been fending off throughout the attack came back with a crushing vengeance. Even as he glared at the bear - and even as he saw the bullet holes that he had managed to land, even as none of the killing ones had gotten through - he couldn't help but feel the weight of his impending death. She had lived through everything that he could throw at her, and then crippled him. He couldn't even put his weight on his legs. Even here in Hell, even with all the power of the Devil behind him, he couldn't just heal from nothing that fast. He was helpless as she advanced on him.

"No-one can rule Hell but a demon," she muttered. "That's just the way it is. They're the only ones that we can trust. You'd enslave us all, take us back to where it was before..."

"You have...no proof...of that," Dusk said through gritted teeth.

"I have enough. You aren't a demon. That's enough."

She was half-mad, he realized, half-insane with fear. Just like everyone else in the realm, she had been inflicted with trauma beyond anything that a mortal could have gone through. The closest thing would have been someone that had gone through all twenty years of one of the great wars that had occurred in recent history, but that would have fallen far short of this. Not ten years short, or twenty, but millenia. They had been through this for as long as Lucifer had been in charge and completely insane, and it was no wonder that his insanity had been passed on to them.

Dusk gritted his teeth, trying to pull his guns up again, but she flicked her blade, cutting them away and sending their fragments far from him. The black cat looked past her at the plane. It was only a few hundred feet away. He reached out, trying to twist Gluttony to pull it to him -

Shing!

The cut across the back of his hand broke his concentration, and nearly cut his hand off at the same time. Dusk whipped his hand back, covering the slashed part.

"You will not escape."

Mad, she might have been, but she was attentive. More attentive than the other Wrath demons. She pulled her arms over her head, readying her sword for a single killing strike, and Dusk couldn't do anything about it. His one thought, that of breaking the Seal, was impossible. It was still whole, too strong to be broken, and Hell hadn't done enough to shatter it yet. He couldn't move it to intercept her blow. He was too weak. He was too weak!

The blade came down -

And a flash of black intercepted it.

Dusk stared as he realized someone had jumped between him and the blade, and worse, that the person was bleeding. The thick silhouette between him and the blade slowly expanded, becoming recognizable. Ursine.

Chained.

Arnis.

"...No...no...no, no, no, no!" the bear female shouted at the top of her lungs, dropping her sword and pulling back. "You can't...you can't be here!"

Dusk was almost as much at a loss for words as the bear woman, particularly as Arnis stumbled, falling back but still managing to throw his body over the cat's frame. A living shield. The bear looked at him, coughing up blood.

"Heh..."

"I told you -"

"To find the family I cared for, boss..."

"..."

"I did."

"No! NO! We're your family!" the bear woman shouted.

"And that's why...I couldn't kill you first..."

The impossible situation left him stunned. He had sent Arnis away so that the bear would live. The bodyguard was supposed to be somewhere else, taking care of Bitch, not here dying. Dusk tried to shift his weight, tried to get a better look. The wound - it was just a slash across the chest and stomach. Surely, Arnis could eventually recover from that, right? Surely there was a -

A glow filled the air, and he stared as he realized that the bear woman had gone from brown-black to a deep yellow. She was about to blow.

Arnis saw it, too. He looked at her, then at Dusk, and laid himself flat. No words were said, or if they were, the explosion drowned them out.

BOOOOOOOOOM!

The explosion of Wrath burned away everything that was Arnis, leaving only hints of bone and ash at the end of it. Dusk stared at the pile of dust that stained his fur and clothes, and slowly shook his head in disbelief. The loyalty of a servant had saved his life...and he had lost someone that had been utterly devoted to him in the process.

Dammit...dammit...

It gave him the bit of strength that he needed to keep moving, though. He crawled across the catered airfield, his ruined legs dangling behind him as he made his way to the plane. He circled it slowly, growling deep in his throat, almost consumed by his own Wrath as he made his way to the gangplank. It was already open, and he groaned, knowing what he'd see when he came around the corner.

He was right. Gray-maned Darith Sertus stood on the gangplank, looking down at him with his head tilted back, a small smile on his face.

"I see that you managed to get this far."

"You..."

"The power of Pride is insidious, but predictable."

"..."

"After all, you would not have believed that you could come this far without the Pride to believe in yourself...and would not have pushed yourself past all intelligent bounds without such arrogance."

"..."

He had been manipulated worse than he thought. Darith had kept him coming, used him as a tool right to the very end. Weakening him until he could no longer fight back. The black cat slammed his face against the tarmac, cursing his own stupidity.

The lion approached, lifting him by the throat. One hand stayed behind his back, the other clenching all the tighter until it was all Dusk could do to breathe. The lion fixed him with a solid stare.

"This has taken far longer than it should have."

"Mmmph...You'll make God happy with this..."

"Do not...mention him...This has been done for the good of all demons, and no more."

...He doesn't know...

Dusk would have laughed if the situation wasn't so dark and horrible. The fact that the lion didn't know that he had been manipulated into this, the fact that he genuinely believed, in his overweening pride, that he had done this for the sake of Hell and not for the sake of someone that wished Hell dead and gone...it was horrible, absurd, and hilarious all at once.

As Darith carried him by the throat with one hand, the lion reached for his belt with the other. He pulled out three different scrolls, two of them bound in black magic, and the third almost familiar. Darith unrolled it, holding it up.

"A contract is a contract, Dusk...I believe we can all agree with that. And Hell is owed a soul..."

Where did he...

"You will surrender it now, Dusk...and then...you will die."

The other two scrolls glowed, and chains of darkness wrapped around the black cat's ankles and wrists. He was held spread-eagle right at the edge of the airfield, suspended over the glowing red river below. Darith rested his hand right over Dusk's heart, and as he did, the tendrils of black magic reached in, searing him. The black cat screamed out loud, throwing his head back, feeling the scouring touch of the black magic reaching for his soul, his altered soul, and seizing hold.

"Surrender it to me..."

Dusk held out as best he could, but he was drained, tired, lost to the world. He had lost everything that he had gained, and he had lost a friend. A surprisingly dear friend, for that matter.

It came free with a sickening sucking feeling, leaving him feeling like he was missing an organ inside of him, or three. He sagged in the chains, feeling them coming loose, almost dropping him right then and there. He clenched his fists, extending what little power he had left to keep the chains going as he looked up at the lion.

A dark flame danced in the feline's palm, a soul that had been utterly warped and corrupted by the power of Hell itself, and merged with the power of an Archangel's soul, it too corrupted. Darith smiled.

"And with this...I will assume the Dark Throne, and set to right all that you've done."

"You...will be cursed..."

The lion turned to him, and the black cat chuckled, almost madly, to himself. He strained himself, hanging from one chain as all the others faded.

"Your reign will be cursed. You will face uprisings, anger, fear, fury for the entirety of your reign. The realms of Hell will see you for what you are, nothing but a usurper, a slave to the old ways. Some will support you, but everyone else? They will fear you, and you will be like Lucifer, trying to rule through fear and power, but always with the knowledge that everyone else is trying to bring you down."

"They will fail."

"You hope."

"Give up, mortal. And die."

"You first."

And with the last of his strength, Dusk swung himself by the barely-there chain, managing to slice his claws across the lion's face, through his mane and along his cheek. Blood and fur clung to his fingers, and Darith screamed, in shock if nothing else. The lion clapped a hand to his face as the mortal fell to the solid ground again, the weight on his knees leaving him screaming in agony.

"Fool...utter fool..."

Darith fixed him with a glare, then, in a horrible reversal that left the fading Dusk all-too-well-informed of what had happened to Lucifer at the conclusion of their deal, the lion kicked him off the edge of the airfield. He had a moment of floating backwards before gravity seized him and he fell. Down, down, down towards the river of fire, and into shadow...

The End

Summary: Dusk faces the worst battle of his life, and finds himself barely able to hold out hope that he can eventually get free of this.

Tags: No sex, Fight, Fighting, Magic, Death, Blood, Hell, Demons, Loss, Series, Politics, Lion, Cat, Various Species,