• • The House of Asmodeus
• February 16, 2021

The House of Asmodeus: A Trial by Fire (Chapter 28)

“Security is a kind of death.” – Tennessee Williams

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Asmodeus and his friends are nearly on the doorstep of Pluto’s Palace. 

“Go over there! There’s a back entrance where we can enter unseen,” Alice tells Asmodeus.

“Wouldn’t taking a back entrance make us seem… hostile?” Asmodeus asks his sister.

Alice admits to him, “Odds are that if we showed up at the front we’d be attacked by guards.” 

“Oh, well, super-sneaky-suspicious back entrance it is.” 

Alice giggles at his quip. “You got funny in the past 15 years,” she tells him.

“10,” he corrects, and Alice responds to his correction with a snort.

Asmodeus stops by the the side of castle to put Alice down. As everyone else catches up, Alice starts looking for a switch in the wall.

Saphira is confused watching them, “What are we doing here?”

“Going inside,”Alice answers and with that she flips some kind of switch and a section of the rock phases out of existence, as if it were a hologram.

Saphira and Talon gasp, Talon admitting, “I never knew this was here, where does it lead to?” 

Alice tells him it leads to Old Ticket’s workshop.

Talon is angered by this response. “We’ll see,” he grumbles. 

Alice leads them down the passage. Alice opens it up and Talon sees for himself that what she said was true. “Can anyone be trusted?”  he questions

Lolara comes up behind him to burst his bubble. “Didn’t you go against your orders to bring us here?”

“Yes, but I did for the better good of my community,” Talon points out.

“And that makes it okay?” 

“Well, yes.” Talon looks away, doing his best to find a difference between what he is doing and Alice, but the only answer he comes up with is just to say they’re different. 

“Then if Alice and this guy called Old Ticket are doing what they think is best for the community, who are you to judge?” Lolara’s point shuts him up.

Lolara then curiously starts rummaging through the workshop to see if there is anything of use or interest for her. 

Alice tells Lolara, “I’m sure Old Ticket would be happy to share with you the intricacies of this room, but we should really hurry to the Council.”

“Oh, the Council, how very totalitarian and dramatic,” Asmodeus jokes.

Lolara points to him with a fake face of confusion, “Aren’t you the sole ruler of a whole realm?” His obvious hypocrisy makes everyone else giggle. 

Asmodeus mumbles under his breath, “Well, not the sole ruler.”

“Yeah, that’s right, I forget that you’re whipped,” Lolara teases.

“I am not,” Asmodeus says, “the fact that I’m here proves that I am not!” but Lolara only waves him off.

Alice is trying to control her grin at their exchange, but they need to hurry. “This was funny but seriously let’s go, Asmodeus keep your silly comments for later, promise?”

“Scout’s honor,” with the wrong hand over his heart.

Alice squints her eyes at him and points out, “You were no scout…” Then she opens the door and leads them down several hallways.

Several, empty, hallways.

“I would have expected people to be roaming at this time of day,” Saphira notes.

As they move closer to the front of the palace, where the large auditorium is, which is near the Council’s chambers, they can hear loud arguing and yelling.

“What the hell is that?” Talon questions.

As they get closer and closer the sounds become voices, and the voices become clearer. Eventually, Alice leads them to a set of double doors.

“This should lead to a balcony overseeing everyone,” Alice explains.

“Well, open it up sis,” Asmodeus says.

Alice pushes the doors open and the group walks onto the balcony.

Most of the community has gathered, angels, daemons, Nephilim, the gang’s all here. A’rock is giving a speech to them, with all of the Council behind him. A’rock and the Council stand in the middle, as if the main speakers of a Roman Senate. 

“It is with a heavy heart that I regret to inform all of you of the violent death of our own Selena,” he shouts. His oration is quite clear and on point, mixing in fake emotion effectively, which Asmodeus notices. 

“This is where he’s supposed to lie about how she died. When he does, that should be when I speak up” Asmodeus says to himself. 

“I see you still talk to yourself,” Alice mutters.

“Yeah, he never grew out of that, sometimes he doesn’t realize it’s no tin his head,” Lolara tells her, drawing an eyeful from Asmodeus.

A’rock is still speaking, having waited for the crowd to calm down. “Her life was taken not on a outside mission, if that was it I wouldn’t feel the need to inform everyone about it outside of a funeral. We still haven’t buried everyone from our last excursion to man’s domain, but Selena died differently, painfully… at my hands.”  

Asmodeus lets his voice slip out. “What. The fuck?”

Alice starts to panic, “What the hell is he doing? Is he trying to commit political suicide?”

Talon smiles and says, “I think he’s being honest, like he usually is.”

The crowd collectively gasps, and some even start shouting that it couldn’t be true and why would A’rock do this.

A’rock raises his hand to silence the crowd. “It was in self-defense, she tried to kill me in my room.”

The Council member and Nephilim, Jessibana, gasps. Then she points her finger accusingly at A’rock. “Selena was a trusted member among us, she had fought, sacrificed and killed many in your name, we’re supposed to believe she would kill you?”

A’rock feigns a look of shock. “I know, that’s why it’s angers me so that such a trusted friend could attempt such a thing. To attack me in my sleep with a soul weapon no doubt.”

“A soul weapon?” Jessibana questions while standing in front of everyone. 

The people’s eyes are glued to the conversation going between A’rock and Jessibana. This kind of interaction being so public seems so strange to everyone. This strangeness emitting from A’rock is lending credence to his story, they are starting to believe what he is saying.

“Yes! And I don’t know where from, but I have it right here.” A’rock pulls the soul weapon from a small sheathe on his side. It’s the shape of a tri-dagger. 

David, another angel Council member recognizes the weapon, and makes it apparent by a look of sadness and agony on his face. He reaches for it from A’rock’s grasp who gives it to him willingly. 

“I know this weapon’s power, and who it used to belong to. It’s name is One Touch, as it’s heavy poison can kill someone with one cut. It was used by a long dead member of our community, Sarah.” Everyone holds a shock of horror, as Sarah had been the dead wife to someone they all trusted strongly, Old Ticket.

A’rock turns back to the crowd before to speak. “It seems betrayal runs deeper in our community than I thought. I knew that there were some who do not have the will to make the needed sacrifices, to take what we all deserve, what we all desire. We must root out all traitors among us.” He then turns to some cloaked angel and commands that he find Old Ticket and bring him before them. A’rock continues his speech. “I do not believe that we have the necessary time to weed traitors among us. On our last raid to capture humans we were discovered by Archangels, and a Demon King.”

People in the crowd begin to panic, worrying that their long held harmony has been put at risk because they wanted what they have lived without.

Alice is flabbergasted by this whole exchange. She whispers, “How did he know not to lie about Selena? How did he know what to not say?”

Talon turns to her with a look of victory on his face. “He didn’t know anything, he simply did the right thing, he told us the truth, like good do.” 

“Please my friends, my family! Calm down!” 

Asmodeus comments that, “Jesus, he sounds like a preacher.”

When they do not calm down A’rock gets aggressive. “Everyone shut up!” This gets everyone’s attention. “Do. Not. Panic. Such behavior will help no one. We must come together, we must enact our plan, and harvest the humans to storm humanity.”

Talon’s smile fades from his lips. “We need to let him know that this doesn’t need to happen!” They start moving away from the balcony, but Asmodeus holds up his hand to stop them. 

“Wait,” he calls to them.

Uriel asks him, “What are you thinking, Asmodeus?”

“I think we should listen to how he plans to use the human souls, so we’re not going in blind. He obviously knows more than he should, and it’s possible that his plan may have been changed to seem like the better offer. We don’t know enough to go in now, and that’s not a good idea ever.” Asmodeus strategic prowess is showing. “Maybe I can catch him in a lie, or find some flaw in his plan.”

The small group goes back to the railing as Asmodeus had motioned. 

Sheare is the last present Council member to speak up, in his deep vibrating voice. “You have yet to say how you plan to use the humans to attack the human world. We do not have the manpower for any war against them, and those humans are nothing compared to the 7 billion humans we wish to overtake. What do you plan to do A’rock, and how soon can you do it?”

A’rock turns to Sheare to respond. “Seraras and I have found the Helm of Pluto. Any soul sacrificed to it will create immortal soldiers who get up after any blow, as long as the user is still alive. Human souls can be used to summon more individual dead than any other, and I can begin raising this army to attack humanity tonight.”

Everyone else is surprised to hear about the weapon in A’rock’s possession.

Jessibana is suspicious of Pluto’s weaponry that’s seemingly been pulled out of A’rock’s ass. “How do you know this helmet will even work?”

A’rock smiles at her accusation. “I know it will work because I have already used it, the angel I just sent to acquire Old Ticket was one resurrected to fight for us!” Some people gasp at this idea, some cheer at A’rock for his genius strategy, and some don’t know how they felt yet.

Sheare then asks, “Can this army be raised and used to defend against the magic of Demon Kings and Archangels? Or are they deceptive to dark magic or light magic?”

“They can regenerate against either.”

Asmodeus is starting to tense up listening to A’rock explain his master plan. If these, zombies let’s say, aren’t killable with dark or light magic, an alliance between the Dominions of Heaven and the Circles of Sin would even be unable to stop any large military force of the kind.

Then A’rock calls out, “If you don’t believe me, we can test it against the King of Lust. How about it, how long are just going to listen, Asmodeus?!” 

Asmodeus whispers to himself, “Fuck my life.”

*****

“Okay so our plan is all in place,” Leviathan says to Satan and all of their Reavers.

“Yes, we all listened the first time,” his Reaver of Spite snaps.

“Enough bickering, we know what we have to do.” Satan is done being patient. He has been waiting for this moment, to strike back at the angels. 

They stand on the battlefield where the first war was fought. They stand in a barren valley several miles wide, beset between two mountain peaks, so devoid of everything that even a god of death would weap. 

It will once again contain the battle between two armies, each several million in strength. The first side to win this battle will have the chance to invade the loser’s Circle or Dominion, and from there, the war can last hundreds, even thousands of years. 

The saddest thing about this battleground is that there aren’t any discerning features to let anyone know what was here place was before the angels and daemons ravaged it with conflict.

Satan turns and exits his tent, to look upon the combined might of the armies of Wrath and Envy. The millions ready to fight and die wait with bated breath for his pre-battle speech. He is given a magical horn to amplify his voice to the army of several million. 

“I will make the angels to come to us with the horns of war,” he announces, and he is greeted with the thunderous cheers of millions. “In the past, we have gone to them, fought on their terms, on their ground, because we were the invaders trying to take the respect we were owed! The respect, that we were denied! I say, after they come to pick a fight with us, we show them, no more!” Satan raises his fist in the air when he finishes, causing the masses to cheer. “Now they want us to impose their rules?! Their laws?! The only laws we follow, are our own!” The crowd cheers even louder with Satan’s every shout. “And the only laws we are going to follow today, is that if you don’t kill as many angels as you can, you’re not one of us! You’re not truly of sin! BECAUSE DEMONS BOW THEIR HEADS TO NO GOD! TO NO HEAVEN! TO NOTHING BUT SIN!!!” 

The crowd starts to rally their weapons, pumping them into the air. Satan turns and points to the horns of war. “Blow the horns! Let the angels know that their doom is upon them!” 

Then some daemons blow into them, sending the signal to the spellcasters to release the magical barrier blocking the angels from coming through any portals.

Leviathan comes up alongside Satan with his weapon, Pestilence, the symbol of Envy’s crown. The wild and reaping whip was taken out just for this occasion. He asks Satan, “How long do we have to hold out before Beelzebub and his army rain hell on the angels from above?” Such an ambush should slaughter them, but only if all the angels are caught in the attack.

Satan admits that he does not know, but, “We will hold out until the last angel has entered this plain, then we will end the lives of the Archangels. Our soldiers here, they know the risks, they know that they will not all survive, probably not even most, but we will hold out.”

A shining light breaks a hole in the sky. 

“Here they come!” Leviathan warns everyone.

“Let’s go,” and with that Satan unsheathes Conquest, in the form of a handgun. Then it lights up, and transforms into an enormous embroidered mini-gun, that can only be held by the 8-foot-tall frame of the King of Wrath.

Jophiel comes out first with her forces in tow. 

“She’s mine!” Leviathan yells as the King of Envy spreads out his wings and flies to meet the Archangel in the sky. Jophiel has the same idea and speeds up quickly to meet him. 

Other angels and daemons will not interrupt their battle. There have been so few in history who could survive to get between a battle of Archbeings. 

The angels descend upon the daemons. The majority of daemons have no room to fly, and are having their heads lopped off by the descending angels. In response, trained daemons among Envy’s army have the job of casting large magical and physical nets to bring down any angels who tries to swoop down for a kill. They are taken to the ground to be brutally beaten or stabbed repeatedly. 

Then Chamuel, the Archangel of Patience, comes onto the battlefield. Upon seeing his rival, Satan flies up a mile high, and launches a barrage of fire at his enemy. The Archangel is able to block the upcoming bullets with his shield, but hundreds of angels are killed with the bullets. As Satan needs to let Conquest cooldown as to not burn his hands off, Chamuel takes out his powerful bow to line up a shot on the Demon King of Wrath. He shoots off three arrows moving faster than the human eye could process, but not Satan’s.

Satan dodges the first and the second, then drops one of his hands from Conquest to catch an arrow about to intercept his nose. “Hehe, not so slow am I?” Satan applauds himself. 

He noticed something strange. Satan squints his eyes, and thinks that he sees the Archangel smiling. “What’s so funny?!” he calls to the Archangel, but then he feels heat coming from his left hand. He looks down to see the arrow starting to light up. “Damnit,” Satan curses to himself.

PLUME! 

The arrow detonates, causing an explosion of a several thousand tons of dynamite. This leaving a quite noticeable hole in Satan’s hand. 

He flaps his wings to separate himself from the smoke as Chamuel gets within earshot and keeping his distance.

“Did you enjoy my gift?” the Archangel teases.

“I swear to you that this injury will not stop me from sticking Conquest’s barrel down your throat!” 

“Don’t worry, the rest of my arrows will put you down just fine!” Chamuel taunts the King with a smile. 

“That’s it!” Satan exclaims, throwing his arms down at his sides like a child throwing a tantrum. “I’m sick of that pompous attitude of yours, and the cowardly way you fight! We end this rivalry, now.” 

Chamuel responds sarcastically, “I’m pretty sure rivals help each other become stronger, but you’re never done that for me.” Chamuel has really done it now. Satan starts charging up his power to ascend to his True Satan form.

“Hmm, I agree, this, ‘rivalry,’ ends now.” Then Chamuel begins to ascend into his True Chamuel form.        

They charge up their power for what seems like minutes, the whiplash of it blowing angels and daemons near them out of the sky and to their knees. The power to destroy whole worlds is called upon without care.

This is why they picked a location like this. The realm of a Pagan is not like that of Circles, the Dominions, or any mortal realm. They were made for beings stronger than either to display their power as they see fit. The land is nothing if not durable, and even if enough power surged and collapsed it, it could rebuild.

The two completed their transformations at the same time, exhuming red and white gases. When the dust cleared they faced each in the sky fully realized.

Satan’s skin has turned dark blue, almost as black as his wings in the heat of night. His horns have twisted forward, sharp enough to pierce a man as if they were an animal’s tusks. A second set of horns grows and points backwards, as if a defensive mechanism for an apex predator, and his tail has grown long and meaty like a lizard’s to swat away maggots unworthy to meet his hands. His armor looks like a second layer of skin from his torso up to his face, where there are only yellow eyes piercing through a helm of flesh. His hands have grown talons, and spikes line his arm. His legs have grown a thornlike armor that coils up and around, just above his thighs.

He is Wrath, he is the vestige of terror.

Chamuel is a vestige of light, but not fire. His wings and hair of turned into a fiery gold with feathers that flow with his power, and the winds bend to him. His eyes have turned white, full of a thousand souls. His robe has changed, to a golden breastplate that stretches down his left arm, with a blue sleeve of calm underneath. That same blue is a sash down his chiseled chest, to the massive golden belt with a giant heart as its central symbol. 

He is Patience, he is the last strike of honor.

“Now we begin.” 

With that said, Satan attacks.

*****

“Make way for our intruders- I mean guests!” A’rock corrects as he gestures for people standing under the balcony to make way.

Asmodeus turns to his travel party to say, “Yeah, I won’t lie to you, I just got got just now.”. Then he outstretches his wings, takes Alice’s hand in his right, and Lolara’s in his left, and levitates them off of the balcony, much to the gasping of many onlookers. 

“Asmodeus is here! A Demon King is here!” one daemon screams in terror. Then Uriel descends with her two child companions dropping down next to her. The Archangel of Chastity causes an even bigger uproar.

“The Archangel! They’ve come for us!” People start screaming things along these lines.

Asmodeus tries to calm the crowd that was inching away from them. “There’s no need to fear, we didn’t come to harm anyone!” Angels and daemons continue to back away while a choice few start to summon weapons.

Then Saphira and Talon come down, hand in hand to symbolize to any who doesn’t recognize them that they are from the community. Saphira starts to tell them that, “They have really come in peace! We can vouch for them, if they came to kill us why leave us alive?” Those with swords start to hold themselves back, and the crowd starts quieting, but everyone is still on edge.

A’rock finally speaks up again. “I’m not surprised to see that my wife had betrayed us for her brother,” some confused looks are traded among many, “but Saphira, Talon, I trusted you, as did others. You’re some of the most noble and trustworthy among us, why have you turned your back on us?”

Talon is hurt by such an accusation. He tries to plead their case by saying, “No, A’rock, I swear we have betrayed no one! There is no ill will against anyone here! I swear on my life that these Arch-beings come in the name of peace. To allow us to live-” 

A’rock cuts him off. “In the name of peace? How many of us and others like us have been killed by angels and daemons for being too peaceful, for not staying with our own kind? Who were you to decide to bring them here without asking any of us?!” The crowd is quickly convinced of the lack of care that Sahira and Talon had. They begin to get riled up and stop backing away.

Alice then states that such action was necessary. “There was no time to wait! If we had not come it would be too late to prevent a war!”

“But it is already too late, too late for forgiveness!” A’rock snaps. The crowd is turning on them, inching forward. Uriel starts to reach for her sword, and as she’s halfway through unsheathing it, Asmodeus puts his hand over hers. 

“No, Uriel,” he tells her in a hushed tone, “if we fight them not only will everyone besides you and me not make it, no good can come of it.”

Uriel quickly warns, “If we do not act soon, we most definitely will be the last ones left!” Asmodeus asks her for one more chance. “Fine, make it quick and make it count.”
Asmodeus turns to the crowd to make his offer. “Let me explain ourselves. What you all want, what you desire, deserve even, is a safe place from persecution or death, to be able to live together like everyone else, with anyone else. You want this so bad that you’re willing to take innocent humans lives for your cause.” The crowd starts to slow while he is speaking. “What if I told you that you could have that? That you wouldn’t have to hide, cut off from your Circle or your Dominion, that if you just released all the humans I could give you a place to build your own city in the Circle of Lust? A place to live with quality land as good as anyone else’s, where you can leave and travel at will across my Circle with legal protections to dissuade anyone from hurting you again.”

“But what about Heaven?” Asmodeus hears someone ask. Another yells that, “Not everyone is of Sin!”

Uriel lets her sword hand drop, sheathing her sword, leaving her right hand on her hilt and moving the other back to her hip. She exclaims loudly, “Heaven would like to offer something similar,” and in a more hush tone, “simply not as soon, forgive me, but Heaven is understandably not as trusting.”  

That response angers some. “We’ve waited years to be able to get back to Heaven!”

“Heaven is not safe for anyone, the Archangels are… more or less split, and are warring amongst each other,” Uriel informs them, fiddling with the truth more or less, verbal persuasion not being her strong suit.

A’rock jumps on this response. “You see! Why should any of us believe in what you’re saying, you cannot even guarantee order for yourself.” A’rock turns to speak to the crowd. “We cannot rely on their handouts, we cannot trust in their promises, we cannot believe what they say!”

“Yes we can, Dad!” a girl’s voice can be heard coming through the regular entrance to the auditorium. It is Laya running ahead of the reanimated soldier A’rock had sent earlier, the undead forcing Old Ticket along roughly by the arm. “We can trust, Uncle Asmodeus! I know that his offer is real!” 

A’rock is caught completely off guard, and shows in his face how his composure reels back. He doesn’t know how his daughter could possibly know her own relation to the King of Lust, much less have an informal name for him. “How can you possibly know that?” A’rock mutters.

“I, I,” seeing everyone now staring at her doesn’t do much to help her speak, but she pushes herself to anyway, as meekly as she sounds. “It’s a long and complicated story… but Dad, this is our chance, we don’t have to fight!” Laya pleads.  

A’rock is having none of it. He commands the undead soldier, “Hadel! Forget the old man, bring my daughter to me.” Hadel then releases Old Ticket to fall to his knees, and reaches for Laya, grabbing the teenager roughly by the arm. “Owww!! Let go!” She starts to punch and kick at him with her free limbs.

Alice starts moving towards Laya but is blocked by the portion of the crowd between them. “Leave her alone!” Alice yells.

A’rock loses his cool for moment, letting his mask crack, not approving of the manhandling of his daughter. “Hadel, control yourself!” A’rock starts to push through the crowd himself to get to them with little luck.

When neither mother nor father can reach Laya, another flies over the heads in the crowd to get to his niece, and the creature who mistakenly laid its hands on her. 

Asmodeus is on them in a flash and intercepts the creature’s hand by wrapping his own around its wrist, and then heating his hand with a spell. 

When the creature’s arm starts burn it does not flinch. Asmodeus turns his other fingers into a heated blade and cuts the creature’s hand off at the elbow. 

Laya pries off the fingers from her wrist and flings her hand around, the grossest thing had just been touching her. Asmodeus sweeps her behind him with his arm, allowing her to hide with her arm wrapped around his torso. 

“Stay behind me,” he instructs her, and she nods her head in understanding. 

Asmodeus takes a great big inhale, and when the creature called Hadel lunges for him, Asmodeus blows blackfire like a dragon into Hadel’s face. Hadel’s head is a scorched skull atop a body as it falls backwards.

Alice comes up behind the two and embraces Laya to hold her close. Laya hugs her mother back. A’rock has come up behind them too, about to remove Alice from his daughter. “Unhand her,” he growls under his breath.

As A’rock reaches for Alice’s head, Asmodeus grabs his wrist. Then Asmodeus growls with some excess fire still coming from his mouth, “Keep your damn hands away from them.”  

A’rock’s responds with, “I will remove you from existence, Asmodeus,” the last part coming out like a hiss. 

“No, stop fighting!” Laya pleads. She escapes her mother’s embrace to move herself between her father and her uncle. “Fighting won’t help anyone!”

“Look behind you!” Asmodeus hears Lolara warn him, then the four turn to see undead Hadel’s head start regenerating. 

A’rock backhands the King of Lust across the face making an audible SLAP! 

Asmodeus is knocked down to his ass by A’rock’s rather powerful blow. Alice then moved to get between them to protect Asmodeus from another attack, but A’rock has picked up Laya, and backed away.

“Dad, put me down!” A’rock ignores his daughter.

Instead, he decides to gloat. “This Asmodeus, I have an army of them. Unstoppable killing machines made to seize a mortal realm for my people! No one can stop us, isn’t that right?” A’rock turns to his people, looking for a cheering of support, but instead he finds horrified faces, terrified as to what A’rock has created from one of their own dead.

The Nephilim Council member, Jessibana, steps forward to call out A’rock. “I always suspected that you loved absolute power and control, that you weren’t as perfect as everyone thought you were, but this, this monster… you made him from one of our own… you defiled one of our dead… this was a line that I never considered you’d crossed, and you want to do the same to more? I don’t think I’m assuming much when I say we won’t stand for this.” She turns around to look among her people and no one speaks against her words. “At this point it seems as if we’re better off risking it with a Demon King if this is how you plan to take what you want. No home is worth completely disrespecting all of those we’ve lost.” Once again no one speaks out against her claim, and many find themselves nodding along to it.

The angel Council member, David, comes up next to Jessibana to say, “King of Lust, we will have all the humans returned to their homes as per your request, as soon as A’rock releases the girl.” Laya is still one of them, they are not going to let A’rock hang on to her.

A’rock has become enraged over all the support he has lost, but he still holds onto Laya, hugging her close to his chest. “Damn you… damn you all!” he curses at them all. “You won’t take my daughter from me.”
Laya tries to calm him. “Dad, please! Let me go! You’re only making things worse!” Again she is ignored.

“If you won’t follow me, you’re damn sure not going to follow him!” A’rock gestures towards Asmodeus. “The humans that we took, they’re already all dead, sacrificed to my army.” He then holds on to the Helm of Darkness, which then starts to give off the sound of a screams, of thousands of human souls.  

“No!” Asmodeus yells, fire erupting from his eyes as lightning forms in Uriel’s.

“You’ve doomed us you, fool!” David screams at A’rock.

“Enough!” Uriel bellows, her command ringing through the room. She has her sword at the ready, and like lightning she is upon A’rock before he can stop her. She slashes at the arm holding Laya, causing him to drop her, allowing her to roll away towards Alice. 

“You damn bitch!” A’rock grunts at Uriel.

Uriel points her gladius at him, lightning pulsating from it as if sucks the light out of the room. With the blade lighting white eyes in flashes, she vows, “You’re going to pay for your crimes, I swear it!”

“You think so?” he asks sardonically. “I don’t!” 

Then he, unimaginably fast, charges up a ball of dark energy in front of the Helmet as he raises it, and is about to blast her way. 

WHOOSH! 

Uriel prepares to block. To move would be to doom those behind her, and at the time she thinks she can survive the blast. Someone else knows better.

Abe jumps in the way, letting the blast hit him in the face. His body convulses as he absorbs it into his body, causing him to spasm from the dark energy’s poisoning effect on him.

“Amy!” his voice bellows, sounding more like a creature from the Underworld more than a little boy. “Get near a window! This will kill us all!” 

“Here!” Asmodeus yells as he blasts the wall directly behind him. It creates a view of the desert which Amy promptly runs over to. 

“Give the power to me now, Abe!” Amy shouts to her brother. With a groan of pain, a white cord of energy quickly appears to connect the twins. The power surges from Abe to Amy,  causing her eyes and mouth to swell up with power. Once the power has been completely transferred in a matter of seconds, Amy all at once shoots the energy out of her eyes and mouth, sending a blast of dark energy moving thousands of miles a second, miles away before it hits the ground and explodes. 

The explosion of dark energy creates a wall of fire, several miles high, with a shockwave that shakes the very land they stand upon.

If Abe and Amy hadn’t acted so fast, A’rock’s surprisingly powerful attack would have killed everyone. 

Out of breath, Abe turns to Uriel to jest. “Glad you brought us now, aren’t you?”

“Most certainly,” she assures him as she embraces him, to hold him up so he can rest. Amy comes over and Uriel takes them both into her arms.

“Wait a second,” Lolara says as she moved to help Asmodeus off the ground. 

“What?” he asks as Asmodeus realizes something. “Where the hell is A’rock?!”

He had disappeared in the commotion.