Protect the king, eviscerate his enemies. Those words echoed through Wrath’s skull like an incantation as the audience let out a collective gasp in response to his lineage. More than anything, they were probably appalled by Strife having sired a cambion. If he cared at all about preserving his father's legacy, a demon he never met, he might have attempted to hide his shameful human-half behind a fade periapt. But if his relatively limited skill didn’t give him away, his round pupils certainly would. Besides, how magnificent could Strife truly have been if he was killed by his firstborn, Resent, a demon not half his age? And if Misery had single-handedly slain Resent, was he not superior to them both?

Wrath stopped mere meters from his prey, staring them down through the slits of his helmet. Misery had warned that the Blight was not an opponent to be trifled with, yet her allowing him to get this close without attempting to incinerate him seemed amateurish. Still, seeing the initial shock in her cerulean eyes quickly replaced by steel, made him reassess her. But he almost pitied the smaller girl, her breath rasping in her throat as her firearm shook violently in her grip. Almost.

Wrath raised his gauntlet-covered left hand and gave the speechless crowd the evidence they were so desperate for. Black nebulae swirled and crackled, coalescing into a near-perfect imitation of Misery’s great sword, scaled down to better suit him. The blade was a contradiction. Weightless, and yet exuding an immense amount of pressure that seemed to be bending the surrounding atmosphere.

“Is that...it is!” Amdusias yelled. “A blade crafted from the nebulae. One of King Strife’s signature techniques.”

Little by little, Wrath could feel the sword’s presence draining his energy. Executing the two girls with haste would be best for all involved. He rushed the Blight and swung the sword at her neck with such speed that it was as if he were barehanded. Inconceivably, a scythe materialized in the Blight’s hands, the curved blade catching his own nebulous generated one.

“I can only guess what Misery had done to you, but you need to snap out of it, Rodrigo,” the Blight said through gritted teeth, and Wrath’s nebulae wavered, the edge blunting without his command. “You trusted me more than anyone else, even when it could have cost you your life. I want to repay that trust...but I know you would rather die than hurt Raquel.”

What? What was she blathering about? Wrath looked at the smaller girl, who he assumed was Raquel, and was baffled to see her firearm no longer aimed at him, but quivering toward the Blight. It gave him pause. As did his strength and speed, diminished from what they were even prior to his decade’s worth of training with Misery. Even using both hands against his one, the Blight shouldn’t have been able to block his blow. Was he ill? Impossible. Cambions were immune to human maladies. But then, the woman who bore him had been a captive from the past, as these two were, hadn’t she? Not as durable or resilient as the modern subjugated humans. Could she have passed her vulnerabilities onto him?

The Blight lashed out with a foot, as if to sweep Wrath’s legs from under him, but even in his ruminations, the move was obvious. Yet in the split-second he glanced down, the scythe in her hands had changed position, small embers rising from it. The snath now blocked his nebulae, and the tip of her blade was under his chin. Of course! All that nonsense she had been spewing was just a ploy to drop his guard.

“You have the knowledge, but the muscle memory just isn’t there, is it?” the Blight asked over the clamor of the furiously booing crowd. “I imagine Misery got a bit overzealous, unable to resist the spectacle of having his newest pawn kill the old.”

“Adena, stop!” Raquel screamed, her firearm now firmly leveled at the Blight. The girl’s pleading voice cut into Wrath like a dagger, and for the first time, he considered she might be the real threat. Perhaps she had an enfeebling Flair that Misery withheld to further test him. If so, Wrath’s energy sense was just another casualty, because he couldn’t use it to discover the truth.

The Blight lowered her scythe slightly. And that ounce of mercy was her undoing. Dispersing his disobedient nebulae, Wrath swerved under her blade, and using the clawed fingertips of his gauntlet, slashed through cloth and her toned abdomen beneath. As she collapsed with a gasp, Wrath blew past her, barreling toward Raquel. The girl pointed her firearm at him, but couldn’t pull the trigger before his right hand wrapped around her throat. He lifted her into the air so that he was staring up at her dark, terrified eyes, his claws digging into her soft flesh hard enough to draw blood.

“I won’t shoot you, Rodrigo,” Raquel choked out, dropping her firearm to the ground, and Wrath’s grip loosened. “Because if I have to lose you, like Carlito, what’s even the point anymore?”

Wrath shook his head, as if to clear it of the sympathy addling his brain. This was simply because he had never killed one so young. So seemingly defenseless. Part of him wanted to request Misery spare her. Perhaps have her serve as a chambermaid, a much kinder fate than most humans in Hell received. But such thoughts were treacherous. Protect the king, avenge...who? The word had bubbled to the surface unbidden.

No! This was all nothing but illusions and distortions. This girl, if indeed she was a girl, was a trickster, making a mockery of him when he needed to impress these savages, and earn a position on the royal guard. Only from there would he be able to take care of Misery. For some reason, likely this little witch’s influence, the thought suggested malicious intent.

Wrath could hear the Blight grunting behind him, as the reek of burning flesh wafted through the perpetually hot air. Cauterizing her own wound? For a human, her pain tolerance was incredible, but while she might save herself from bleeding to death, Wrath could crush Raquel’s throat with a flex of his fingers. The image brought a wetness to his eyes, a sensation he couldn’t recall ever having.

Enough! She had to die. As his nebulae were unresponsive, Wrath drew his left hand back, knitting his claws together like a blade. He would rip straight through her heart and kill her instantly, sparing her any pain. He could hear the Blight sprinting closer, and the realization that she wouldn’t make it in time to stop him made him want to scream. His hand stabbed forward.

Then stopped as he staggered, dropping Raquel to the ground. Something had crashed into him with dizzying speed. He looked down, and saw the blade of the Blight’s scythe inches from beheading him. She had frozen mid-swing, her hands trembling with exertion. Physically, he was unharmed.

“Is this the limit of your resolve?” a haughty voice asked in his mind. One Rodrigo, not Wrath, had never been more relieved to hear. “And you have the gall to masquerade as my kin?”

“Resent,” Rodrigo said, already feeling the patchwork of cherry-picked memories transplanted to him by the necromancer, returning to their original owner. A false lifetime fading away, like waking from a vivid nightmare. “H-how are you here? I thought that necromancer—”

“Did away with me?” Resent scoffed. “On the contrary, things were going swimmingly for me. An ally of mine even procured me an intact cadaver, so I had a body of my own again for a fleeting moment. We were among the spectators until I saw the miserable end awaiting you fools.”

Despite the many questions and accusations Rodrigo had piled up for the prince in their time apart, all he said now was, “Thank you. I wanted so badly to stop myself, even if it meant dying, but...thank you.”

“Yes, well...” Resent seemed embarrassed by the heartfelt gratitude. “If you ever decide to kill the brat, I figure it should be a choice of your own making. Not Misery’s.”

The mere mention of the king was enough to stoke Rodrigo’s rage. The demon had taken Carlito and Leila from him. He made him uncertain of his own identity, then stripped him of it completely, reinventing him into someone else. Someone who nearly used his own hands to kill his sister. No. Rodrigo was beyond anger now. Every action Misery took was an education in pure, undiluted hatred.

Rodrigo yanked his suffocating helmet off and tossed it aside. It wasn’t just heavy and uncomfortable, it restricted his peripheral vision. But more than anything, it gave him the appearance of the monster he had been forced to behave like. He knelt down, feeling a surge of shame as he saw the bloody marks on Raquel’s neck. It was far worse than what his drunken mother had once done. What he had self-righteously berated her for.

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“I’m so sorry, Raquel,” Rodrigo said, tearing a piece of black fabric from his cloth fauld to tie around Raquel’s wound.

But she shrank away from his touch as tears rolled down her face. As much as that stung, her words cut deeper. “A-Are you even really my brother?”

“I promise, Raquel, it’s me. That...thing was—”

“That’s not what I meant! That guy, the announcer, he said you’re the son of some former demon king. Was that a lie? If not, what does that mean about our family?”

Adena tapped Rodrigo’s shoulder, and as he turned, he cringed, eye level with the more severe of the two injuries he had inflicted. For someone without her ability, that cut, now seared closed in a puffy scar, could have been fatal. “Explanations will have to wait.”

“Sorry about that,” Rodrigo said as he stood by her side, though he didn’t feel an apology alone sufficed. “Are you all right?”

“I’ve been through worse.” Adena wasn’t looking at him, and at first, Rodrigo thought she might be as disgusted with him as he was with himself. But then the gate he had entered the arena through rose again. He had been so preoccupied with his warring emotions that he nearly forgot where he was.

“In an unprecedented turn of events, our young executioner has laid his own head on the chopping block!” Amdusias yelled, and the crowd jeered at Rodrigo like he had murdered their children. “Taking his place, are the elite of the elite! Excelling at teamwork and each training for a decade with the king himself, they are some of Hell’s deadliest soldiers! Ten of King Misery’s personal guard, the Brutes!”

Ten diavoliks in armor identical to that of the sentries from Rodrigo’s imprisonment in the dungeon came forward, each armed with a broadsword and spear. Only now did he realize how closely his armor resembled theirs, like Misery had been grooming him to be one of them.

“What? He can’t be bothered to fight us himself?” Rodrigo asked.

“Precisely. He has no need to tarnish his blade with the blood of a half-breed and some humans. You could challenge him directly, and he would still be within his rights to send legion after legion until you all dropped dead.” Resent took control, and for once, Rodrigo welcomed it, feeling like a weight had been lifted off him. Resent swaggered toward the Brutes, as he ordered Adena and Raquel over his shoulder, “You two, stay put.”

The lead Brute yelled in Demonic, and the entire squad halted, spears pointed at Resent. The Brutes were in a wedge formation. There were two behind the one in front, three behind them, and four brought up the rear. They looked so self-assured.

“I see Misery is unaware of my return, or he never would have insulted me with your presence,” Resent said as he stretched his arms out, overlapping his left wrist with his right, fingers splayed. “Your time training with him may have put you all a notch above the rabble. But I learned from him all my life. I’ve long since been able to see through every idea that comes into those diminutive minds of yours. Minds that concluded forsaking your prince was wise.”

The lead Brute’s eyes widened, and he shouted in Demonic. In the next second, all the Brutes were converging on Resent. A spear came flying at him, but he caught the shaft with the nebulae, and hurled it back twice as fast. The spearhead pierced straight through the thrower’s helmet and into his skull.

“Your entire regiment shall follow shortly, traitors,” Resent hissed, as the twister of darkness began in front of him, cutting off the Brutes’ advance. It was immense, by far the biggest twister Rodrigo had ever seen Resent form. It nearly reached up to the beginning of the crowd and spun more violently than ever. With the nebulae, Resent rooted Adena and Raquel to their spots behind him.

Resent let out a harsh laugh, as the screaming Brutes were sucked into the twister, and within seconds, hazes of blood and stray body parts were flung through the air, like the byproduct of a wood chipper. This impressive display of gore whipped the crowd into a frenzy, even more so when bits and pieces ended up in the stands. Demons wasted no time in fighting over the bloody souvenirs, or tasty morsels depending on their preference.

“I am Prince Resent, son of King Strife! Let all bear witness as here and now the usurper meets his demise at my hands in a reclamation of my throne!” Resent roared as his voice rose over the chaos, causing all the demons to fall silent in utter confusion. Then he looked up to where Misery sat, exactly where Rodrigo had seen Resent and Strife in the most recent dream. “Enough of this farce, Misery! Do you intend to throw more fodder at me? Are you satisfied with forever leaning on your Brutes to give you the edge against me, general?”

“While it would certainly explain how this enigma wields the nebulae, could this truly be our prince?” Amdusias wasn’t so much announcing as asking the audience for an answer.

As if the demons needed no further clarification, a small chant in Demonic began to build in the crowd, growing louder with each repetition. “Gliljh! Gliljh! Gliljh!” Somehow, maybe as an aftereffect of the memory transference, or just because it was the most sensible translation, Rodrigo was almost certain the guttural cry was Resent’s name in their language. Clearly, the demons were divided because several of the brawls that had broken out in the stands escalated into Flair-fueled death matches.

This went on for about a minute before Misery got to his feet and slowly clapped. The clanging of his gauntlets slamming against each other echoed through the arena, hushing everyone. “If you truly believe yourself capable of defeating me without the aid of your human pets, so be it!” Then after removing the crown from his head and placing it on the throne, Misery vanished from sight.

When the twister dissipated, Adena came over, visibly irritated. “If he beat you when you were still in your own body, what makes you think you can take him alone now?”

“He won because I was careless,” Resent said. “And so what, then? Am I to rely on a child whose presence will be more of a hindrance than a boon? You might make a difference if you weren’t so haggard, yet even then, with all eyes on this battle, the only way I could ever be accepted as a suitable king is to destroy Misery with my own strength.”

Adena’s expression darkened. “Do you have any idea of the lengths I’ve gone to? Just how long I’ve waited for this?”

“Girl, I have been waiting for my chance for near as long as you’ve been alive. Besides, from what I heard from our mutual ally, this was your goal all along. Giving me this opportunity is the reason I deigned to come rescue you. Now, unless you’re planning to fight me before Misery, take the brat and clear the battlefield.”

For a moment, it seemed Adena might take him up on that offer, but then she sighed. Walking past him, she said, “You better not get killed again after all this posturing.”

“Wait, there’s something Rodrigo should know,” Raquel said.

“No. Everything else can wait until Misery’s dead,” Adena said, leading her away by the arm. Rodrigo doubted whatever Raquel had wanted to say was good news. For all he knew, Jett’s absence could have a far more tragic explanation than a rational amount of fear.

“As much as I want this bastard dead, are you sure we can do this?” Rodrigo asked.

“There is no ‘we,’ in this fight. And before you argue, remember that all it took was one blow to bring you to death’s door the moment Misery considered you a threat. If you wish to be helpful, keep your temper in check, and stay out of my way.”

Despite knowing Resent was right, Rodrigo felt a selfish need for his pound of flesh. Whether he lived in this world’s past or not didn’t matter. Imperfect and cruel as it could be, it was the only world he knew. For Carlito, Leila, Emelina, and himself. For every human life lost or ruined because of Misery’s invasion, Rodrigo craved vengeance down to the marrow of his bones. As he was thinking about what he could contribute to this battle, inexperienced as he was, it hit him. “Could you create a sort of...smokescreen with the nebulae?”

“Yes, though without a fade periapt, executing one against a demon is pointless.”

“Thing is, that energy sense you guys have, I don’t think Misery has it.”

“Of course he does. I’ve seen him utilize it. Now, just shut—”

“No, you shut up and trust me for once!” It was such a glaring Achilles heel that Rodrigo hated himself for not picking up on it the second Raquel managed to sneak up on the king. Not only that, but Misery apparently hadn’t been able to determine that he was a cambion until returning to Hell, where he probably had one of his lackeys do the sensing. Or maybe Rodrigo was grasping at straws and his hunch would get them both killed.

Resent clearly wanted evidence, but as part of the arena’s wall, far under the throne, split open, and Misery stepped out, he kept any further questions he had to himself.

“I will now follow the king’s command of ceasing commentary until the end!” Amdusias yelled. “But who could have imagined that on this day we would all be treated to such a momentous duel? King Misery in single combat with Prince Resent...begin!”