The Birth of the New World

Black flames meet red, turning the crater into a burning kiln in the middle of a decimated forest. It only took a couple of attacks for us to reduce this place into nothing but dust and ash, a trail of destruction leading back towards the city, clearly showing where we had attacked each other as I chased after him. If it wasn’t for the raging storm and my black flames devouring his, there would have certainly been a forest fire spreading even more destruction further north.

Dodging under a searing laser as it cuts through about a mile of woods and several houses, I take stock of my situation.

Ok, so my instincts made me do some weird shit again. Which, I guess, is pretty normal for me now… Apparently, I can teleport? I don’t really understand how I was doing it, Devil brain thinks funny and just does stuff sometimes, like with these contracts. I need to figure out how to do it without turning myself back into an instinct driven animal. Though, I did get good results from it. I managed to kill him.

And we really need to figure that out…

He was dead. No breathing, no heart, because I fucking ate it for some reason, and I could even feel his Field fading away. By every right, he was dead and gone. Until suddenly he wasn’t. Suddenly, he is back at full power, completely healed, and definitely not looking like a corpse anymore. What the fuck is he, a phoenix? Do I need to drown him in an ocean of water to put him down for good? I already know that a river’s worth won’t do it, he freaking vaporized the Ohio river earlier… Oh well, Devil me had a good plan, just keep killing him. Eventually, he should stay dead.

I delete another section of forest as I send a massive black fireball flying towards him, the implosion sucking everything away before popping out of existence and then promptly exploding, leaving another massive crater where he used to be. As Father is busy pulling himself out of a collapsing single story ranch style house with two car garage, three bedroom, two and a half baths, I keep thinking.

Alright, what else? Well, I still have my knife and hammer, so that’s good. Don’t know why my instincts decided to run naked, but at least it had made sure to hold onto my stuff with some shadows and not just leave them behind. I would have been pissed! Oh, wait, that’s probably why. I’m a greedy Devil, it only makes sense that I wouldn’t just drop them…

Ok then, bigger question, and also something that I really don’t want to test… If I die, will I come back too?

Father explodes forward in a burst of flames, lighting up the night as he leaves flaming woods and half a burning neighborhood behind him. His flaming fist passes by my head as I dodge, fire and shockwaves traveling out behind me in a cone of destruction to blast away even more of the scenery as he goes flying past. I move to deliver a kick into his gut, but he catches my leg and tosses me in the air, fireballs quickly following to strike me. I defend with my own, letting the resulting shockwaves carry me even further into the air where I can spread wings of shadow and hover. With the raging thunderstorm behind me, I send down a deluge of spells down towards him. Spears, fireballs, streams of black flame, everything I can send down at him all at once until my spells are practically falling like rain.

My core doesn’t even come close to running low now, the surrounding darkness of night constantly fueling me as I rain down more and more attacks, carpet bombing this unfortunate section of what used to be a cul-de-sac. Houses and whole sections of forest are deleted, reduced to dust and nothing but potted craters in the ground. Where a children’s park and jungle gym used to be, there is now nothing but a half-deleted swing-set, collapsing to its side.

Father, being the tough bastard that he is, is of course unharmed. The area around him is charred and melted, his flames having protected him from my bombardment.

I narrow my eyes as I look down at him.

How the hell is not running out of energy? It was bad enough during the day, but he should be burning through his reserves right now. I’m even trying to keep the surroundings from staying on fire so he can’t draw on them, but it doesn’t seem to matter. This guy is like a limitless source of energy!

He points his finger at me and then I am forced to start dodging again, flapping my wings about quickly as I try to avoid lasers cutting though the sky and parting the clouds behind me. In the gaps carved through the clouds, black lightning crackles and rumples, streaking between the cloud gaps like stiches trying to pull a wound closed. As I flap through the air on untrained wings, dodging left and right, lighting crashes down around us and strikes the landscape, reducing trees into dust and exploded stumps.

He jumps up at me, flames blazing from his palms as he rockets up into the sky towards me. When I try to move out of the way, a bolt of lightning strikes me, my body locking up and refusing to move. I can’t even let out a scream of pain as his fist smashes into my face, sending me flying back and smoking through the air.

With a burst of black flames, I force my body back into working order, burning the twisted black lightning out of my nerves to regain control, but he is already on me again, rocketing forward on twin jets of flame as he laughs and delivers a kick into my midsection, sending me spinning further away.

Even without looking, I can feel him quickly following behind me, cutting through the night sky as he prepares to strike me again. I explode with black flames to keep him back, giving me a chance to right myself and get my flight back under my own control. When he comes tearing through the explosion to attack me, I meet him with my claws, tearing though his chest as his fist hits me.

Spinning through the air, I grab my sledgehammer from where it is hanging from my body by a tendril of shadows, swinging it through the air to smash down on his head with a loud crack that sends him spinning through the air and out of control for some distance. That actually seemed to do something, as I see him shaking his head like he is dizzy. Cursing, he explodes back towards me, keeping on the attack as I continue to flap my wings and try not to get pinned.

When this is over, I swear I am going to get some actual flying practice in, I probably look like a drunk pigeon up here! Holy shit!

A laser severs my left wing, destabilizing the construct enough to make me lose lift before I can remake the shadowy appendage. I tumble through the air awkwardly as I beat my wings and try to regain control, but Father is already on me before I can do anything, his knees smashing into my back as he rockets down from on high.

With his knees buried in my back, the two of us go flying across the sky and back down to the surface. When we land, I am forcefully slammed into the earth, pushed forward and forward as he keeps pushing into my back and plowing my body through the earth.

We crash into trees, carve through houses, smash aside long abandoned cars and trucks, and leave a burning path of a trench in our wake. Eventually, we come to a stop, my body getting knocked into the air before a fist smashes into the side of my ribs and sends me flying again, smashing though more trees until a house manages to stop my body. I come to a stop in someone’s garage after plowing through their kitchen, smashed into the side of a canary yellow Mustang, its body now crumpled against the wall and several shelves full of tools.

“Well, that fucking hurt…” I curse out as I pull myself out of the poor car’s chassis, ripping the door off its hinges with me as I go. I give myself a look over, but despite having just plowed for who knows how far though a lot of bullshit and then smashed through even more, I’m not injured. My bruises are already fading and none of my bones are broken, my spine having somehow just shrugged off getting hit with the world's most deadly double knee backbreaker ever.

“Hahahaha… This is such bullshit.”

I can’t help but laugh as I drag the car door behind me and back out of the house. I look towards a shattered mirror and see that both of my horns are still intact as well, not even chipped in the slightest. My black flames are cleaning my body until it is pristine, not a speck of dirt or debris left behind on my grey skin or in my black hair.

“And to think that just a few months ago, that bear could break my horn just by smashing me through a tree. Look at me now mom, I’m a big girl now! Hahahaha!” I laugh as I swing out with the car door, smashing it into Father just as he comes flying out of the woods to try and strike me. The door twists and dents as he gets sent flying down the street, but I keep it with me as I move to follow the batted aside Hobgoblin.

Dragging the door behind me, I can’t help but gloat. “You know Goblin King; this reminds me of when we first met… I don’t remember which one was you, but I’m sure you saw it. How I smashed through you little Goblins with nothing but a muffler and the corpse of one of your little buddies. How I ripped the door off of that car and smashed a bunch of you into red paste. You guys looked so scared as you ran off, finally realizing that you couldn’t beat me… It’s too bad that you guys were too dumb to retreat sooner, more of you could have lived if you just ran away.”

He scowls at me angrily as I walk towards him, eyeing the twisted and dented car door as I drag it behind me.

“You think that you can scare me by bringing up the past!? Do you think I would still be afraid of you, after all this time?”

“Nope. I just can’t help but think that things could have been different if we made different decisions. If I hadn’t lost my shit and just walked away. If you guys would have run away sooner, instead throwing your lives away… We wouldn’t be fighting right now.”

He stops himself from walking forward, glaring at me.

“You don’t want to fight me?”

“If I’m being honest? No. I have much more important things to be doing than getting into a fist fight with you. I could be doing literally anything else right now, but instead, I have to deal with you dumbass Goblins instead.”

His glare intensifies. “How could this not be important to you? Do you have any idea how long I have waited for this moment!?”

I shrug and casually toss the car door at his feet. “It’s only so important to as far as is defending what is mine. Honestly, if you were to walk away, I wouldn’t have any reason to fight you. I don’t give two flying shits about you or your quest for vengeance. And even if I did, what would be the point? For the two of us to just keep beating the shit out of each other until one of us keels over? I would rather be doing anything else. I have a library full of books I could be reading right now. I could be at home with my lover, you idiot! Instead, I am standing in the rain, practically naked, with a big ass Goblin, that is naked, please put some pants on by the way, instead of being at home, eating cookies and drinking coffee by the fireplace in my favorite chair!”

He remains silent as he just stares at me for a long while. Eventually, he responds, his voice flat but angry. “This isn’t important to you… but it is to me. I was having fun, getting to finally face someone like myself, but I guess I’ll just have to end this now…”

“Hmm?”

“If your home is more important than this fight, then I will destroy it. I will make this fight important to you, like it is to me.”

He goes to move towards the base, but stops as I ping him in the head with tiny fireball. It doesn’t even hurt him, but it gets his attention.

“I would really recommend against doing that. Threatening my stuff is dangerous. You should know, we’ve only gotten closer to my home, my territory. The more you do, the more I’ll get pissed.” I warn him.

“Good.” He says as he shrugs off my warning.

“No, not good, you big dumb Goblin. In case it isn’t obvious, I’m giving you a chance to leave before it becomes too late. If we get any further into my territory, I will end up losing control. You already had your fun, we got to beat the shit out of each other, and I honestly don’t know if we can even actually kill each other in the first place. So, leave, before I am forced to really try and kill you. This is the last chance you will get to walk away.”

“I won’t.” He says as he turns to walk away again, heading straight towards base.

In the back of my head, I can feel myself getting angrier with each step he takes, my Sin slowly rearing its ugly head and pushing me towards violence as he gets further and further into my territory.

“Fine…”

I give in just a little, drawing on my powers and pushing my will into the world.

Let’s see if I can do this without losing complete control this time…

Shadows gather at my feet and by his. I force them to connect and then I am there, suddenly standing beside him. The process isn’t anywhere near as smooth as when I was under the influence of my instincts, but I managed to make it work. It’s far too sloppy and I need actual practice, but at the end of the day, magic is mostly just energy plus imagination and willpower. Literally bullshit.

He swings for me, shouting, “I said, this trick won’t work anymore, Gre’dem!”

I take the hit, my feet anchored to the floor by a pool of shadows, so I don’t budge an inch, even as his arm smashes into my head and his flames eat into my flesh. In a flash of motion, I elongate a single claw with shadow flames and stab my middle finger through his ear before he can react. There is some resistance, but my flames manage to burn through his skull, my claw finding grey matter and carving through. With a burst of fire, I torch his brain, destroying it instantly. His body goes limp, only held up by my hand holding the side of his face with one finger stuck in his ear.

Being thorough, I draw my dagger and wreath its blade with black flames. With my finger still burning away the inside of his skull, I take my knife and stab him in the chest, sliding the blade between his ribs to destroy his heart and then ripping it out to tear through his lungs. I slit hit throat next, forcing the burning blade further and further in until his head is only attached by his spine.

I push further, forcing the blade between vertebrae and burning through cartilage and nerves. With a pull, I rip his head off from his shoulders, kicking his headless corpse aside as I look at his dead face.

“I gave you a chance to leave. You should have taken it. Let’s see if you can come back from this.”