Despite searching the top floor for demons, they turned up empty. Metal Shadow slipped into another shadow, leaving Lightflare and Persia, who rested her hands on the edge of a broken water fountain, her gaze focused on the still water below. They were in the west wing, opposite the video game store.

To her best recollection, the demons were never this bold, and violent, actually. Yes, they killed in every despicable way possible, but those instances were few and far, with much lower casualties than today. Her stern reflection on the water’s surface glared back at her.

Something is amiss.

“Are you sure they are here?” Lightflare asked.

“Yes! How many times do I have to repeat myself?” She said.

“Chill. It’s just I don’t see—”

“Silence!" Something sparkled in the water, like the sharp gleam of sunlight, or the glint of metal. Her head shot up. Above them was an expansive skylight, granting them an unfiltered view of the sky. “Fuck.”

A battalion of Nazubs, circling a dark cloud above, dove through the sky at them. These Nazubs were armed with pole arms and spears. Behind the first wave, a group of five Nazub carried a massive demon with dark red skin, lean musculature, smoldering limbs, and long wide horns—the Pitblaze.

The demons crashed through the glass of the skylight and formed a circle around Persia and Lightflare, their weapons raised. The Pitblaze slammed into the ground ahead of Persia. Then it stood up in its full glory, its red gleaming eyes measuring her. It was twice as tall as Persia.

“Impressive display of power,” The Pitblaze remarked. “The realms of hell will welcome you with open arms if you switch allegiance.”

Lightflare adjusted his goggles and set his feet. Most of the demons were grounded, while a small contingent circled above them like buzzing flies.

Persia could barely keep her composure. Right here was the demon that caused this bloodshed. This senseless slaughter of innocent people. She had the highest confidence in herself. However, she was not foolish enough to gobble up any praise the demon sent her way. The demons had surrounded and outnumbered them. She was confident that Lightflare and she could take on all the Nazub. When you factored in a greater demon, that was a living personification of fire—they were royally shafted.

“What do you want?” Persia would converse with the demon, even though it made her skin crawl. She hoped that this would give the able knights ample time to reinforce her. “You obviously haven’t done all this to taunt me, have you?”

“True, true.” Two demons handed a smoldering double-bladed pole arm to the Pitblaze. It swirled the heavy pole arm in the air, checking its balance. “On any other day, I would slowly torture you, forcing you to eat your entrails. Then I would kill you and take your soul back to hell to mold as I see fit. But alas, today is different and my duty calls. You will answer a few of my questions. Then I’ll set you free. I swear this on my name, Therkoth, and the name of my master, Belial, Lord of Ira. What do you say?”

Persia remained silent for a few minutes. What the fuck is he talking about? She regarded the Pitblaze. Its posture was relaxed, with deceptively potent intelligence hidden behind those all-black eyes. Every step of the way, it had outsmarted them. If it didn’t want to be seen, it could have flown away anytime. Could the combined power of her knights, Lightflare, and Metal Shadow win? She sighed. Now was the time to discern the reason behind this attack.

“Ask away,” she said. “As long as I get to ask a few questions of my own.”

“Do not misunderstand, miss,” Therkoth said. “You are the captive. I am the captor. I only will dictate this engagement. First question. Massive amounts of cosmic energy were expelled in this area recently. Were you, or do you know who was responsible for it?”

Lightflare asked her what the demon meant. Frankly, she was just as clueless as him. The Eye of Arixxer granted her the ability to scan areas for anomalies and to perceive things beyond her already enhanced capabilities. Infernal signatures, which she had become so accustomed to, permeated the air, infecting life with its toxic properties.

“I received reports about an infernal energy spike a few days ago,” Persia said. “Perhaps it came from your portal.”

“Do not take me for a fool. The cosmic anomaly happened two weeks before we came.”

Lightflare’s eyes widened. He nudged Persia, eliciting an irritated flinch from her.

“Look, I just wanted to tell you,” Lightflare said. “We discovered 6 men frozen on a street close by, about a week ago.”

Persia’s jaw tightened, her tone low and stern. “And when did you plan on telling me this?”

The speedster exhaled. Before he could reply, the Pitblaze spoke.

“Did you find the person responsible for that?” Therkoth interjected, speaking to Lightflare for the first time.

The speedster was caught in an unfamiliar dilemma. There was no way he would divulge classified information, let alone to the powerful demon standing before him. He thought about running. But quickly discarded that idea. He would not leave Persia alone to fight an army of demons. After a few minutes of tense silence between the two parties, Persia broke the ice.

“What is your end goal, demon? To what end was this senseless slaughter warranted? Just to find someone?”

“Isn’t that obvious?” Therkoth spread his arms wide. “What reason is needed to kill some mortals? I know you are stalling for time, woman. More men in metal will not sway your chances. But it seems you do not grasp the forces at play here. My time is ill spent. Hear me now master, Belial, Lord of Ira! I have called your name. You lay witness to my parlay. I shall await your next instructions.”

A black swirling smoke appeared behind Therkoth, startling the demon battalion, Persia, and Lightflare alike. The wall of smoke expanded to the height of the Pitblaze.

“It seems our master has spoken,” Therkoth said, addressing the demons. “We fall back.”

There was a frenzy of hisses and cries amongst the demons. A few particularly defiant demons rushed towards Persia, their spears pointed. Before Persia could react, a wave of fire struck down the attacking demons a few steps from where they first stood.

“We… fall… back,” Therkoth commanded.

Therkoth stood still, staring at Persia with the burning bodies of the dead demons between them. Behind it, the demon army reluctantly retreated into the portal. Therkoth was the last to leave, warning Persia that next time wouldn’t be this easy.

Once the portal was closed, Persia rushed into action. She retrieved a few vials from her armor’s storage compartment, doused the area, the portal occupied with holy water, and recited a brief prayer in Latin. She repeated this process with the dead demon bodies.

“What are you doing?” Lightflare asked.

“Purifying the area,” she replied. “Once a portal is opened, it becomes easier to open subsequent portals in that same location. Oh, and… Don’t ever lay your fingers on me again. Have I made myself clear?”

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Lightflare sighed. “That, you have. It won’t happen again.”

Metal Shadow came about five minutes later, decked to the teeth in an armored suit twice as bulky as his previous one. A further 10 minutes passed and what was left of the Knights also came. Persia relayed her encounter with everyone present—the superheroes too, much to her dislike.

“This is serious,” Metal Shadow said. “They are clearly after something. Presumably, the person who caused that cosmic energy signature…whatever it is.”

“Aye. The question is why,” Peter said. “What do they want with that person?”

They went silent, lost in thought. Lightflare chose this moment to introduce himself to Persia as the handler HAVEN director, Howard C. Burns, assigned to her. He assured her that he wouldn’t get in her way as long as she followed the set guidelines. She, in turn, requested access to the 6 frozen men and any other information withheld from her. Lightflare begrudgingly obliged.

After Lighflare and Metal Shadow departed to deal with the aftermath of the demon attack, Peter stepped beside Persia, his expression tense.

“You neglected your duties,” Persia said. “To save one child.”

“My apologies Grand Master,” He said. “I could not leave that girl to die. I accept the full consequences of my action.”

“Consequences, Peter! That’s right. Consequences! Look around you. How many of your brethren still stand?”

“Grand Mas—”

“Do not fucking Grand Master me. How long did you spend saving this child while we faced the forces of hell?”

“About an hour, madam,” Peter answered, his voice weak.

Persia sighed. “Did the child make it?”

“No, madam.”

“Get out of my sight this instant,” Persia said.

“Ma—”

“Get out!”

Peter stepped away, his gait slow.

“Spread out and purify the area, knights. Our work isn’t done.” Persia turned to another knight beside her. “Request for reinforcements from the Vatican, immediately.”

The knights of Arixxer scoured the district of the city hit by the demons, purifying and cleansing the infernal corruption. The scale of damage caused to human life and infrastructure was unprecedented, evoking mass riots by the general populace, who demanded retribution. Unsurprisingly, the knights became popular with the people, their valiant efforts to purge the demons, resonating with the people.

Persia was the only knight, exempt from the near-unanimous praise. A video of her assaulting a civilian by destroying his property spread through the internet. Some commended her persistent means of protecting people, even if it meant inconveniencing those very people. Others criticized her, stating that violent methods were never right under any circumstance. Persia herself did not bother with the opinions of the weak masses.

She sat in the back of her SUV, headed to a nondescript grouping of warehouses. Outside her window, scores of scared and angry people passed her by with determined law enforcement struggling to contain them. The SUV pulled up to a security gate, then, once cleared, parked in a spot near a concrete warehouse. Persia stepped out and was greeted by a few of her knights along with HAVEN security.

Inside, the building resembled no ordinary warehouse. There were state-of-the-art vehicles, surveillance equipment, armories, schools of agents running about, and containment facilities—where Persia was headed. Scaffolding, machine parts, and sealed loading docks were present, alluding to the warehouse’s previous purpose. Lightflare came up to shake her hand, which she ignored.

“Where are they held?” She asked.

The speedster rubbed the back of his head. “Holding cell 24. Look, they’ve only just regained control of their bodies. Also, keep in mind that they are very uncooperative at the moment.”

She moved on. The captives, no matter how unresponsive, would soon sing to her tunes. There was too much at stake now. Over the past few days, while purifying the city, she had found the origin point of a portal used weeks ago—around the time Therkoth mentioned the cosmic energy was released. She discovered it in an alley close to the place where these six men were found. She had to know who erected that portal and why the demons wanted the person.

Persia stepped in front of door 24. The door was gray and opaque, shielding the contents of the room. A HAVEN agent walked up to the electronic lock and used a combination of her fingerprint and iris scan to unlock it. Stepping into the room, she glanced at the defiant faces of the six men seated on the floor, with their hands cuffed.

“Oh man, they sent us a scary bitch,” one man said, eliciting laughs and curses from the rest of the bunch directed at her.

She studied the ragtag group of weaklings, her Eye of Arixxer floating into the air. The glowing artifact gazed at the men with a symbol resembling an eye. This quieted the men real quick.

Persia focused on the man who talked. “What is your name?”

“The name’s fuck you. How about that, cuh?”

This time around, no one laughed. A smirk spread on Persia’s face and in the next moment, an ice dart lodged itself in the man’s thigh, evoking pained screams.

“The next time I ask questions,” Persia said. “You lot answer honestly and politely. Is that clear?”

No one answered, so she shot another dart into the injured man’s leg.

“Is that clear?” She repeated.

“Yes, ma’am,” they replied in unison.

“Good.” Persia clicked her recorder and regarded the injured man once more. “What is your name?”

“Yo… Young Draco,” the man cried out, holding onto his injured leg.

“What? Oh, I see. From now on, you will state your gang names, followed by your real names. If I find any of the information given here to be false, I will flay the skin off you worthless waste of space. Now, who is in charge here?”

The tallest man reluctantly spoke. “That’s me… ma’am.”

He introduced himself as Maurice Price—gang name, Twotone—and started detailing everything that happened that fateful day. He owed the Grimshaw gang, a massively expanding criminal organization, a substantial amount of money. So he got together with some of his boys to hit a few stores. Further persuaded by a few ice darts to his thighs, Twotone gave precise accounts of what they did to some shopkeepers.

One particular portion Persia noted was after they beat and raped a shopkeeper, they met a black man on a bicycle outside the store. It took great effort for her to maintain her cool and not skewer these rancid men with hundreds of ice darts. Still, she made sure each and everyone of them felt excruciating pain.

“... We just tried to roughen the guy up, I swear,” Twotone continued. “you know, a few broken bones ought to scare him away from the cops. Then before I knew it, I woke up here. That’s the truth.”

“Who was the man?” Persia asked, her voice calm and measured. But her fists whitened from how tight she flexed. “Do you remember what he looked like?”

“He’s like any of these broke niggas you see…sorry ma’am. I don’t… eh… know him.”

After stepping out of the holding cell, two medical agents rushed in her stead. Lightflare walked up to her, spotting a shocked and slightly angry expression. Persia passed him, leading the speedster to follow beside her.

“Was a bicycle found on the site?” Persia asked.

“Ah… yes. Follow me.”

He took her up the metal stairs to the second floor, where agents behind computers and other equipment were situated. Persia was further led to a blonde female agent with glasses.

“Mrs. Thompson, please bring up all the information we have on the bicycle,” Lightflare said.

“Yes, sir. Hold on… one sec.” The agent replied, sitting up.

Persia watched the agent’s computer screens closely. Mrs. Thompson brought up fingerprint scans and portrait photos of a young black man, as well as some other information she couldn’t make out at the moment.

“His name is Jalen Nkanga,” the agent said. “We pulled his prints off the bicycle. 18-year-old. Was about to graduate from high school but went missing about 4 weeks ago, around the time we apprehended those six frozen men.”

“Missing?” Persia asked.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“What steps are being made to find this person?”

Mrs. Thompson leaned back in her chair. “It’s a matter of voluntary disappearance, ma’am. We found no evidence of foul play causing his disappearance, so the subject’s case has been classified as low priority. In fact, we believe the reason for the subject’s disappearance is the medical debt they incurred.”

Persia rubbed her temple, parsing through her next words. She had a reputation for being a brash and hotheaded person, always combative when she wanted something. One would think these personality traits would mellow out over thousands of years, but time seemed to amplify her strongest traits and nullify the others.

“Ok Mrs. Thompson,” Persia said. “The very fact that demons laid waste to a district in this city over the whereabouts of someone powerful means that every lead, every suspect connected to this fuckery, is a foremost priority. Do you understand that, ma’am?”

“Uh, you’d have to take that up to my superiors, ma’am. I can’t help you there.”

“Bitch d—”

Lightflare stepped in. “Whoa, it’s all good Grand Master Persia. Mrs. Thompson here will put in a report to reclassify the subject’s priority and I will corroborate her reasons. Okay?”

Hymph, Persia spun around and walked out of the warehouse. She had better things to do than argue with useless people.