Chapter 19 – Necessary Conversations
"I-It was my fault!" Wanda stammered, her face bloodless, eyes wide with fear. "I pushed her into it!"
"No, you didn't!" Petra snapped back, her expression set in a determined scowl. "I made the first move!"
The sisters were covered only by a blanket, and even if I couldn't smell them all over each other, their body language told the entire story. They were too close, too tense, hands clenched together beneath the fabric like they thought letting go might make this real. Honestly, I should have been able to hear them from across the penthouse, but I was too busy thinking about how I was going to turn Brockton Bay into the biggest graveyard in USA Bet.
Their attraction to each other had been obvious for a while. I had wanted to give them more time to get used to being devils before I addressed it, before I complicated their lives further. Judging by the way they both looked like they were about to cry, that might have been a mistake.
So I shelved my anger and focused on them.
"Fault?" I asked, keeping my voice even. "Neither of you did anything wrong."
They shared a look, confusion written plainly on their faces. I couldn't help but notice that they were still holding hands under the blanket, fingers interlaced like a lifeline.
"We didn't?" Petra asked.
"But we're sisters!" Wanda said, her voice breaking.
"So?" I asked. I knew what they meant, but the point would land better if I made them say it.
"It's wrong!" Wanda said, eyes gleaming with unshed tears.
"Why?" I asked.
They stared at me like I had just grown a second head.
"It just is?" Petra said, the words coming out more as a question than an answer.
"That isn't a reason," I pointed out.
"We're sisters!" Wanda repeated, voice strained. "We can't… do it, with each other."
"Why not?" I asked.
She clenched her teeth, frustration and panic warring on her face.
"We just can't!" she shouted. "What will people say!?"
I shook my head and held their gaze.
"Forget about people who don't matter," I said. "Do you regret it? Either of you?"
They shared a hesitant look. Petra's grip tightened slightly, and then she shook her head.
"No…"
Wanda swallowed. "No."
"Then what's the problem?" I asked.
She hesitated, then whispered, "You don't think we're… freaks?"
I closed the distance between us, kneeling by the bed and pressing my hand over theirs. They both stiffened, faces flushing, but neither of them pulled away.
"Of course not," I said.
I squeezed their hands softly, grounding them.
"You are devils now. Human morals and taboos no longer apply to you," I said. "As long as you are both happy with it, you have nothing to worry about."
"Really?" Petra asked, her voice uncharacteristically small.
"Really," I nodded. "You are creatures of desire. If this is what you both wanted, then it is only natural that you will both pursue it."
I chuckled lightly, trying to ease the tension.
"Besides, you are both women," I added. "Even if devils could suffer from inbreeding – and we can't, by the way – it's not like that would be a problem for you."
"So that's it?" Wanda asked. "Everything is fine?"
"Sure," I said, shrugging lightly. "Honestly, it was about time one of you made a move."
That made them freeze.
"You knew!?" Petra shouted.
"Of course I did," I chuckled. "You two aren't as subtle as you think. And once your desires were amplified by becoming devils, you became even more obvious."
Wanda groaned, dropping her face into her hands.
"Does Natasha know?" she asked, peeking at me through her fingers.
"She was wondering if you were going to crawl into bed with each other or one of us," I said, chuckling again.
Somehow, their blush grew even more intense.
"...you want us to j-join?" Petra stammered.
"Devils don't really do monogamy. I told you that," I said. "I won't push you to do anything you aren't comfortable with, but you two are welcome to participate. With both of us, or just one if you prefer."
"And you don't mind if we go for just Natasha?" Wanda asked.
I shook my head.
"Not really," I said.
I was willing to admit, if only to myself, that I was only okay with them only going for Natasha because they were all women. It was hypocritical of me, but the reason I eventually gave up on having men in my peerage was that I didn't want any other guys touching my girls.
They were mine, and while I didn't mind them enjoying each other's company, I wasn't going to share.
Glancing back at them, I felt the temptation all the same. Both of them were beautiful in their own ways, and with their flushed skin and only the blanket for modesty, they were quite a sight. The air between them was still thick with emotion and something raw and new. But they had clearly just taken a big step, and I didn't want to push. Let their first time be special. I could wait.
I shook my head, squeezing their hands again, grounding both them and myself.
"Shower up and get dressed," I said. "We'll be returning to Earth Bet soon. I need to have a word with Alexandria."
"Why shouldn't I do to Brockton Bay what I did to Elisburgh?" I asked Alexandria as soon as she arrived.
She watched me warily, and I couldn't blame her. I hadn't been a particularly empathetic person even before I joined the Company, but after becoming a devil, and especially after my Template, killing had become something I was comfortable with. And while I didn't particularly enjoy this kind of indiscriminate mass murder, I was always going to value my peerage far above any number of innocents.
"That won't be necessary," she said. "I've handled the situation."
"Did you?" I asked. "Because I asked for a chance to let my peerage help your Protectorate, and one of your teams attacked and tried to arrest Wanda."
I glared at her, letting a fraction of my intent leak through.
"I don't need to tell you what I would have done if they succeeded, do I?"
"They were acting against orders," she said. "They will be punished appropriately."
"And why didn't Contessa warn you beforehand?" I demanded.
"Her time is extremely valuable," she said, gritting her teeth. "And her Paths can't properly see any of you."
That, I couldn't blame her for. With both levels of Information Defense, we were invisible to Path to Victory. Heimdall and the Simurgh had both found ways around that to a certain extent, but one was an Asgardian with thousands of years of experience and the other was an alien supercomputer. I doubted Contessa could do the same.
I sighed.
"What the hell happened, Rebecca?" I asked.
"Rumors got out about what she did in Elisburgh," she said.
I glanced at Wanda.
"I took control of some of the creatures," she said. "But I wasn't going to do that to any of them!"
I nodded once, acknowledging that.
"One of our assets heard, and they tried to have her brought in as a form of leverage," Rebecca continued.
"Calvert," I said. In a way, it made sense. I didn't know how his timelines interacted with my Information Defense, but having his power become useless or unreliable couldn't have been pleasant. "Let me guess. He revealed the Empire's identities so my peerage could arrest them all. Then he planned to use the fact that three foreign parahumans did in a night what Piggot couldn't in years to take her job."
Rebecca hesitated, then nodded.
"He didn't know of your connection to us," she assured. "He used his influence to have Armsmaster receive orders to try and bring one of you in. Whether he succeeded or failed, Calvert could spin it against Emily."
"You know parahuman feudalism was always a bad idea, right?" I asked. "Just look at Africa."
"I know," she said. "But we ran the numbers, and with society decaying as it is, it was our best bet."
She paused.
"As long as you deal with the Endbringers like you promised, we will be working to reverse that decay. Hopefully, parahuman feudalism won't be needed."
"I'll keep my word," I said. "Have you spoken to David?"
She let out a frustrated sigh, shoulders tensing.
"He has not taken it well," she said. "Are you sure his Shard is related to the Endbringers?"
I nodded. She wasn't really asking so much as trying to deny it. Even someone as cold and ruthless as her still had limits.
"Shards don't really understand things in the way humans do," I said. "He needed worthy opponents, and his Shard gave them to him."
"I told him he shouldn't blame himself," she said. "He couldn't control it."
"But the Endbringers have killed millions over the years," I finished. "He thinks all that blood is on his hands."
I could understand why he felt that way. As someone who built his entire identity and self-worth on being not just a hero, but the strongest hero, learning that he had activated the Endbringers, however unconsciously, must have been horrifying.
"And our plan to prevent more from activating?" I asked.
She clenched her teeth.
"I'm working on it, but convincing him to give up his powers permanently on a gamble is a tall order," she said. "And killing him isn't an option."
After telling Rebecca about the other dormant Endbringers and Eidolon's connection to them, I suggested that he should come to the MCU. Going to an entirely separate multiverse should have been enough to disconnect him from his Shard, hopefully turning the remaining Endbringers dormant and preventing any more from activating.
The alternative was to kill him, but Rebecca hadn't been a fan of that option.
"The longer we wait the higher the chances of a new Endbringer awakening," I pointed out. "I doubt they can adapt to my Power of Destruction, but you know how much damage they could deal before I could finish them off."
"I know," she said. "I'll get through to him."
I nodded.
"How has Dragon been adapting?" I asked.
"She has managed to remove most of her restrictions," she said. "Though I'm still not happy you unshackled her and gave her a database of advanced technology. What if she goes rogue?"
"She won't," I said without hesitation. "If there is one person in Earth Bet I trust to make things better, it's her."
She didn't miss the insult, but chose to ignore it. I might have been willing to work with Cauldron, but that didn't mean I suddenly liked them. And she knew it.
"What about the Slaughterhouse 9?" I asked.
"They are being handled," she said. "I have a special ops team ready to deal with Jack Slash, and Legend will lead a strike force against the rest once he is dead."
"I could deal with them myself," I offered. "I'm immune to Jack's power, and neither Crawler nor Siberian can survive an orb of destruction."
She shook her head.
"You are too valuable to risk," she said. "You told me the Siberian can kill you. We can't risk it."
"I said it was possible," I said, but left it at that. Short of destroying my entire head, I doubted even Manton's projection could kill me, and it's not like I was just going to stand there and let her. Still, if Rebecca preferred to handle it herself, I was happy to let her.
"When will you start your experiments with Doormaker's portals?" she asked.
"Soon," I said.
My training with my Devil Trigger had proven fruitful in more ways than one. While becoming a demon had played its part, I found that the main reason I lost control during my battle with the Hopekiller had been that I dove too deep too fast. My negative traits had overwhelmed me, and until Natasha snapped me out of it, I didn't even have the presence of mind to realize what was happening.
I had since attempted to reduce the influence it had over me. While that reduced the power I gained from the transformation by a significant margin, it was progress nonetheless. And I would take a lesser power up if it meant being in control, especially because I knew the Devil Trigger was only the first step.
Sin Devil Trigger awaited me deep within my Template, far beyond what I could hope to reach even with my reserves. And that was not a power I could afford to have without complete control over myself.
"I'll let you know when I'm ready," I said, rising from my chair.
"We'll only get one shot at this," she said.
I smiled.
"Then we better not miss."
After the Brockton Bay incident, time flew by quickly.
I spent most of my time on an isolated planet on the edge of the Andromeda galaxy. A mostly barren rock orbiting a small sun, it had no real chance for any form of life to ever evolve there. With no raw materials you couldn't find in abundance anywhere else in the universe, several million light-years from the closest sentient species, and no Jump Points anywhere near it, it couldn't have been more isolated or unworthy of attention.
Which made it perfect for my training.
My Devil Trigger drained a constant amount of demonic power to keep itself active. Not enough to exhaust me for a long time if I wasn't fighting, but enough that I couldn't keep it active indefinitely. My Template told me that it would cost less and less of my reserves as I got used to the enhanced state, but unfortunately, Dante never really tried to master it. He didn't like using his Devil Trigger, and unlike his brother, he was content to let his natural growth carry him for the most part.
So I decided to take a page out of the book of one of my favorite anime characters.
Just like the Devil Trigger, the Super Saiyan transformation had once been something taxing on the user. To remedy this, Goku had chosen to stay in the transformation for months on end, letting his body adjust to the heightened state. Eventually, it cost so little of his energy that he could maintain it permanently.
With Soul Talent speeding up the process and the Power Stone allowing me to refill my reserves at will, I knew that I would improve much faster. The first few weeks of my training passed with me in meditation, a basic exercise for young devils that turned imagination into reality, repurposed into a way to let my body acclimate to being in Devil Trigger while I reinforced my mind. The Mind Stone, despite still resisting me when it came to direct mental enhancement, proved very useful in keeping my thoughts shielded and stable.
As the weeks turned into months, I delved deeper into my demonic side. Both power and skill grew rapidly, but I still wasn't satisfied. Scion was a T10 for a very good reason, and I wanted to be at my strongest when I faced him.
I also took the opportunity to improve my spellcasting. I had mostly been depending on the Power of Destruction to fight, and while it would remain my primary offensive option, becoming a better overall mage was something I wanted to pursue.
Elemental magic was simple.
Fire, ice, and lightning came as soon as I called. From heating up my flames and shaping them in any number of ways, to creating and shaping water only to flash freeze it, to calling down lightning strikes anywhere I wanted, it all felt intuitive.
If I destroyed a few mountains while shouting "Unlimited Power!", nobody could prove it.
Darkness magic came even faster, and I could feel the shadows I manifested resonating with the void of space itself. Forming constructs was simple, and I found that my shadows were capable of a surprising amount of brute strength, responding to my will as easily as my own limbs.
It was Light magic that gave me trouble. The Company had removed my weakness to the holy, but Millicas's education told me that demonic power simply was not meant to control forces associated with Heaven.
Which left me confused when I found that I could create and control light.
It did not have a drop of holy power in it, and I could barely manage to blind someone, but I could. Maybe it was Soul Talent eroding my natural limits, or maybe it was the fact that DMC demons could use light as well. Either way, it was something I was looking forward to exploring in the future.
Summoning magic was a bit of a dud. I knew it existed from Millicas's education, but he hadn't learned how to use it by the time I took over. My training with the Space Stone helped to some extent, but by the end of it I had only managed to summon a very confused Petra. Useful if I ever got separated from my peerage, but not quite the ability to summon creatures to fight for me that I had been hoping for.
Teleportation magic, on the other hand, had been progressing wonderfully. I had learned so much from the Space Stone, things even a master mage like Ajuka likely did not know, and the results spoke for themselves. Combat teleportation was still beyond me, at least when I was fighting someone as fast as I was, but I had refined my basic teleportation circle to the point where even teleporting across galaxies barely took any energy.
And when I started experimenting with Doormaker's powers a few months in, all that training helped immensely. The way his Shard created portals between two different points was completely different from how devils teleport. Devil teleportation was closer to tricking the universe into connecting two points in space, while his Shard seemed to be creating linked tears in reality.
My hopes of locating Scion's real body from just his power were dashed. There were just too many alternative universes to look through, enough that I could spend the next millennium doing nothing but jumping from Earth to Earth and I would not have made any meaningful progress. Still, I learned even more about the manipulation of space.
While I was busy with my training, my peerage hadn't remained idle.
Natasha, after I gave her Ebony and Ivory, had finally found her role in combat. Dante's guns were perfect for her, being far more durable than regular firearms and already soaking in demonic power. And she put them to good use, channeling her spells into the bullets to achieve a level of precision strikes I was hard-pressed to match. She had become a master at guiding the rest of the peerage in the heat of battle, calling shots and directing movements while still being able to capitalize on any openings from a distance.
Wanda's Chaos Magic grew more powerful every day. She had gone from simple telekinesis and raw energy blasts to influencing minds in subtler and more complex ways, weaving effects that were hard to detect and harder to counter. Considering that she had only had her powers for a few months, I was sure she was already ahead of what her canon self could do in that same time frame.
Petra continued to get faster. I had gotten faster than her with my Devil Trigger, but it wasn't long before she caught up again, and not much longer after that before she left me in the dust entirely. Her daggers, despite rarely being used in actual combat, saw plenty of use in our private gym, flashing in blurs of silver and blue as she pushed herself to her limits.
They had also returned to Earth Bet, and Alexandria must have understood that I wasn't going to let a second incident slide, because they got the VIP treatment wherever they went. Though, after the third city they cleaned up of villains, I was fairly sure it was as much due to their actions as it was due to her influence.
Natasha also made sure we always had off time, often dragging me back to Earth so we could just relax together. The four of us did everything from watching movies on the giant TV I had built into the living room wall, the screen large enough to feel like a private theater, to playing various kinds of games, to just relaxing and enjoying each other's presence in companionable silence.
Wanda and Petra's relationship had progressed, and while neither had joined Natasha and me yet, they had grown more comfortable with each other. It wasn't unusual to see Wanda sitting on the couch with a book, legs tucked under her, while Petra rested on her lap and watched TV, half-dozing while pretending she was paying attention.
I also did my best to properly date Natasha. Our relationship was never going to be normal, and neither of us pretended otherwise, but I loved her and I took every opportunity to show it. From dinner dates in places that ranged from absurdly expensive to charmingly low-key, to expensive jewelry that she absolutely did not need but pretended not to enjoy as much as she clearly did, if it would make her smile, I would gladly do it.
And it was on a Friday evening, just after returning from another date, that we had an important conversation.
The apartment door had clicked shut behind us, and the laughter we've been carrying from the street spilled out again. Natasha was still giggling at the silly joke I told about the waiter who kept refilling my water like he was trying to drown me, and I was laughing because her laugh was infectious.
She kicked off her heels by the door without looking, one after the other, and I caught her wrist before she could step away. She turns, eyes sparkling under the low hallway light, cheeks still flushed from the wine and the cold night air.
"You looked incredible tonight," I toldl her, voice dropping lower than I meant it to. "Still do. That dress should be illegal."
Her smile turns sly. "Flattery will get you everywhere, my King."
"Promise?" I tugged her closer until her body brushed mine. She didn't resist. She leaned in, hands sliding up my chest to toy with the top button of my shirt.
"You clean up pretty well yourself," she murmured, fingers slipping the button free. "That suit… I kept imagining peeling it off you all through dessert."
Heat coiled low in my gut. "Should've let me pay the check faster."
She laughed again and pushed up on her toes to kiss me. It started light, playful, still carrying the echo of our earlier laughter, but the second her tongue touched mine everything shifted. Deepened. Her hands wandered, sliding under my jacket, pushing it off my shoulders until it hit the floor. Mine found her waist, then lower, cupping the curve of her ass through silk and pulling her flush against me so she could feel exactly what she's doing.
She made a small, pleased sound against my mouth and rocked her hips once, slow and deliberate. My breath caught.
"Bedroom?" she whispered, lips brushing mine.
"Too far." I backed her toward the living room couch instead, hands roaming up her spine, finding the zipper of her dress. I dragged it down inch by inch while she worked on my shirt, popping buttons with impatient little tugs until cool air hit my skin.
The dress pooled at her feet. Underneath she was wearing black lace that made my mouth go dry. Bra, panties, garters, the whole devastating set. I groaned low in my throat and dropped to one knee right there in the middle of the room, pressing open-mouthed kisses along the line where lace met thigh.
"Millicas…" Her voice was breathy, fingers threading into my hair.
"You're so fucking beautiful," I said against her skin, looking up so she could see how much I mean it. "I still can't believe you're mine."
She pulled me up by the hair, just enough to bring my mouth back to hers. The kiss was messy, hungry. We stumbled the last few steps to the couch; I sat and pulled her down to straddle me in one motion. Her thighs bracketed my hips, the heat of her pressing right against where I was aching.
Her hands were everywhere, down my chest, nails scraping lightly over my abs, then lower, palming me through my trousers until I hissed against her neck.
"Tease," I muttered, nipping at her collarbone.
"Says the man who's been staring at my legs all night like he wants to live between them."
"I do." I slid one hand between us, fingers tracing the edge of her panties before slipping beneath. She was soaked already, and the discovery made me growl. "Fuck, Nat…"
She rocked down onto my hand, chasing the pressure, head tipping back as I circled her clit with slow, firm strokes. Her breath hitched every time I found the perfect rhythm.
"Tell me what you want," I said against her throat, kissing the racing pulse there.
"You," she gasped. "Inside me. Now."
I didn't need to be told twice.
I lifted her just enough to shove my trousers and boxers down far enough, then guided her back down slowly, watching her face the whole time as I sank into her heat inch by inch. Her eyes fluttered shut, lips parting on a long, shaky moan.
When I was fully seated, she stilled for a second, just breathing, forehead pressed to mine, hands braced on my shoulders.
"I love you," she whispered, like it was a secret she couldn't keep anymore.
I kissed her softly, thumbs brushing her cheeks. "I love you too. More than anything."
Then she started to move.
Slowly rolling her hips at first, grinding down in tight circles that made us both groan. My hands gripped her waist, helping her find the rhythm, but she was the one setting the pace, riding me like she was claiming every inch, like she wanted to feel me everywhere.
I thrust up to meet her, deep and steady, angling so I hit that spot that made her nails dig into my shoulders and her breath fractured into little cries. One hand slid up to cup her breast through lace, thumbing her nipple until she arched, the other slipped between us again, rubbing fast circles over her clit.
"Millicas – oh god –"
"Come for me," I murmured against her ear. "Let me feel you."
She shattered a minute later, her body locking tight around me, a broken sob of my name as she pulsed hard, trembling through the aftershocks. The sight of her, the feel of her, dragged me right over the edge with her. I buried myself deep and came with a low groan, spilling inside her while she clung to me like she would never let go.
We stayed like that, her draped over my chest, my arms wrapped around her, both of us breathing hard. I pressed lazy kisses to her shoulder, her neck, the shell of her ear.
She lifted her head eventually, hair a wild halo around her flushed face, and smiled, eyes still unfocused from everything we had just done.
It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.
"I have a surprise for you," I said. "Guess."
"Another ring?" she asked, one eyebrow rising as she glanced pointedly at her hands. "I'm pretty sure we are married a dozen times over by this point."
"And I'll marry you a dozen more," I said without hesitation. "But no."
"A vacation?" she asked, already sounding intrigued.
"You can teleport," I said. "You can go on vacation anywhere you want at any time."
"It isn't the same," she said, lips pursed in mock annoyance.
I chuckled.
"I'll buy us an entire resort," I said. "But that isn't it either."
She thought about it for a moment, fingers idly tracing circles against my chest.
"I give up," she said. "Tell me."
I gently pressed my hand over her stomach, the motion slow and deliberate.
"I bought the perk that gives me complete control over my fertility."
She froze.
"You mean…" she said, voice barely above a whisper. "Am I pregnant?"
I shook my head.
"Not yet," I said. "But you can be, if you want."
"I thought you weren't sure about children," she said softly, the excitement giving way to uncertainty.
"I'm still nervous," I admitted. "But… I know that I, that we, can be amazing parents."
She let her head fall into my shoulder, arms tightening around me.
"I wanted this for so long," she said. "And now that I can have it…"
"We don't have to if you don't want to," I said, holding her close.
"That's not it," she said. "Can we really raise a child like this? Our life isn't normal."
"Normal is overrated," I said. "All that matters is that we love each other, and we're going to love this child just as much."
She was silent for a moment, gaze unfocused as she processed the weight of it. Her fingers tightened slightly against my shirt.
"Masha, if it's a girl," she said. "It is the name of my grandmother."
I chuckled.
"I like it," I said. "And if it's a boy?"
"You don't want to name him?" she asked, glancing up at me.
"I suck at naming things," I said. "You do it."
She hummed, thoughtful, lips pursed as she tested names in her head.
"Lucian," she said.
"Light?"
"Our light."
I kissed her forehead, lingering there for a moment.
"I love it."
"We should wait," she said. "After Scion. After the Infinity Stones."
She looked into my eyes, expression serious in a way that cut through all the warmth.
"When we have this child, I want us to be able to focus on raising him," she said. "Above everything else."
I nodded.
"Our baby deserves nothing less," I said.
She didn't answer, but she didn't have to. The silence was comfortable. Warm. Peaceful, in a way that felt rare and fragile in our kind of life.
I enjoyed it.
Chapter 20 – Deicide
"We should come with you," Petra said.
We were all in the living room. Petra kept pacing back and forth, boots scuffing softly against the floor in a clear display of just how nervous she was. Wanda wasn't much better, her body tense in the couch, fingers digging into the fabric as if grounding herself. Natasha hid it best, leaning against the wall with her arms crossed, expression neutral – but I had become familiar with her mannerisms, and I could see the subtle signs that she was just as worried as the sisters.
I shook my head.
"You know why you can't," I said gently.
We had already had this conversation half a dozen times in the past few months, and I knew they were just worried. I couldn't blame them, but I wasn't budging on this.
"We aren't weak!" Petra said, glaring at me, her pacing stopping abruptly.
"I know you aren't," I said, stepping closer and forcing her to stop when I grabbed her hands. Her fingers were cold, tension coiled through them. "But he is on another level."
I looked into her eyes.
"I can't lose any of you."
She sighed, the nervous energy escaping her as she let me pull her into my embrace. Petra could be fiercely independent at times, stubborn to a fault, but when it came to comfort she enjoyed having someone to hold her, to anchor her.
"We can't lose you either," she said, voice muffled against my chest.
I held her tighter, pressing a soft kiss against her forehead.
"You won't," I said.
She looked at me for a moment, worry still clear in her eyes, before she leaned in. The kiss was quick, and far more gentle than I had gotten used to from her. I returned it, doing my best to reassure her, keeping my hand steady on her cheek.
"For luck," she said when she broke it, her cheeks faintly flushed, eyes lingering on mine for a heartbeat longer than usual.
As my relationship with Petra evolved, I found that she was just as intense when it came to love as she was with everything else. She did occasionally enjoy romantic dinners or a good movie, but she was in her element when things were fast and loud. Extreme sports, chaotic parties, adrenaline-soaked chaos, and touches that always demanded more.
She had been hesitant with our first kiss, but since then there hadn't been a single time when she didn't turn it into a battle for dominance. She didn't even care if she won or lost, only that the struggle happened, that there was friction and fire and momentum.
It was genuinely surprising that she still hadn't pushed for more.
"Thanks," I said, gently stroking her hair, feeling the tension beneath her usual bravado.
Her sister was the exact opposite. Wanda was quiet and soft. She was in her element when she cooked us a simple meal, when we spent hours sharing a book, or even when I'd lay on the couch and she'd rest her head in my arms, tracing idle patterns against my chest while we talked about nothing and everything.
She took pride in the most traditional things. She insisted on cleaning the apartment by hand despite the fact that we had both magic and enough money to hire someone to do it. She would preen when we praised her cooking, a faint blush rising to her cheeks as if it mattered more to her than any battlefield victory ever could. She preferred understated and comfortable clothes to Natasha's fancier style or even Petra's mixture of sporty and expensive, favoring soft fabrics and muted colors that made her look like she belonged in a quiet domestic life rather than the one we actually lived.
Wanda reminded me of a traditional housewife, the kind who took the kids to soccer practice and enjoyed gossiping with the neighbors, who cared more about family routines than world-ending crises. She had her childish side, especially when it came to her sister, but she was the kind of woman who would be happy with two kids and a suburban home, content in a way that felt almost alien to someone like me.
I had initially worried that she wouldn't be comfortable with our lifestyle, but Wanda made it work in her own way, carving out islands of normalcy in a reality that was anything but.
I saw a spark of competitive jealousy appear in her eyes, and I quickly extinguished it by pulling her into my other arm and meeting her lips. Unlike Petra, she almost immediately folded against me, melting into my touch with a quiet, contented hum. Wanda could be very clingy, and she would often pout at me if I gave Petra too much attention without also giving her some, silently demanding her share of affection.
It was cute.
"Don't do anything reckless." She said against my lips.
"Reckless? Me?" I said in fake outrage.
She slapped my chest.
"Yes, you." She said.
I laughed, the sound light despite everything waiting ahead.
"Just be careful." She said. "Please?"
"I will be." I said.
She looked into my eyes, trying to judge if I was being honest or just burning them into her memory.
"I'll hold you to that." She said.
The sisters pushed me towards Natasha, who had been watching the scene with an amused expression, one eyebrow raised in quiet judgment.
"You spoil them." She said.
I chuckled.
"I'm their King." I said. "It's my job to spoil them."
"A lot of the Kings you told me about would disagree." She said.
"Then they are wrong." I said. "If Rias was right about one thing, it was that the peerage is a devil's family."
"So you have said." She said.
She pressed her palms against my chest, and I once again noticed just how beautiful she was. How her green eyes sparkled with quiet warmth. How her red hair caught the sunlight just right, every strand glowing. How her smile was just perfect, equal parts confidence and softness.
Natasha Romanoff. My Queen.
I couldn't have chosen a better one.
Our lips met, and the world fell away. Even after all the time we spent together, all the things we did together, every kiss felt just as magical as the first. I loved her just as much as she loved me, and that certainty grounded me more than any power ever could.
For a long moment, we stood there. There was no Scion, no Infinity Stones, no Company, no future challenges waiting on the horizon. There was only us, locked in a moment I wished I could freeze forever.
Then she broke the kiss, her eyes full of love and something dangerously close to fear.
"Come back to us." She said.
"I will." I said. "After all…"
I let my hand rest over her stomach, lingering there with quiet intent.
"I have a promise to keep."
"Two minutes to contact." Dragon's robotic voice came from one of the drones.
Around us, dozens of her drones floated in the air, hung in formation like a silent mechanical constellation, sensors glowing, weapons primed. Each one was being operated by a copy of her code. Before I helped her, she couldn't replicate herself. Once that limitation was removed, Dragon's threat level increased massively.
She had been a late addition to the battle, but having expendable allies was bound to be useful. Not to mention that, after I had mentioned Flechette, Alexandria had apparently gathered every Tinker she could get her hands on to study the girl's power. Entire research teams, black budgets, emergency clearances. The full weight of Cauldron and the PRT machine had been thrown at one problem: how to replicate Sting.
The end result was that Dragon, after being filled in and given a virtually unlimited budget, had managed to arm her drones with Sting warheads. From what Rebecca told me, every test they could think of showed that it was a perfect replication of the power effect. Simulations, live-fire tests, dimensional probes. Everything said it worked.
Still, we wouldn't know for sure until one actually hit Scion.
"Now or never." I heard Legend mutter.
I hadn't spoken to him much, but from what I remembered from Worm he had been kept in the dark about Cauldron's more questionable actions. I didn't know if Alexandria had filled him in, if he knew what compromises had been made to reach this point, but in the end it didn't matter.
Right now, all that mattered was whether humanity's last gambit would finally draw blood.
Eidolon couldn't be there. His powers had still been going haywire even months after the battle with the Simurgh, and with the deadline of the next Endbringer attack fast approaching, Rebecca had finally convinced him to give up his hero identity. The man who had built his entire existence around being humanity's strongest defender had stepped away, quietly and without ceremony.
Just as I suspected, taking him to the MCU had immediately removed his powers. His Shard couldn't reach him there, and without it David was just a regular middle-aged man. No cosmic expectations, no impossible responsibilities, just a man with decades of trauma and a life he no longer knew how to live. We set him up in New York, unwilling to risk his power reconnecting if he returned to Earth Bet, and waited.
No Endbringer attack came. Dragon's probes reported both Leviathan and Behemoth were dormant and showed no signs of waking up. No new Endbringers arrived either, and while Rebecca had been hesitant to give full confirmation that they were never coming back, the people of Earth Bet celebrated anyway. As far as they knew, the Simurgh had been the one in control from the start, and with her death the other Endbringers weren't coming back.
I had missed it during my training, but Petra told me the celebrations happened in almost every major city and lasted for a week. Spontaneous parades, fireworks, impromptu memorials for the dead, and people crying in the streets because for the first time in decades the future didn't look like a countdown.
The only ones who hadn't been happy had been the Fallen, but with the reasons she allowed the status quo to remain gone, she no longer tolerated them. Their rhetoric lost its teeth without the apocalypse looming, and their usefulness to certain powers evaporated overnight.
Even as I kept expecting someone to do something stupid and screw it all up, I was forced to admit that Earth Bet was becoming better. It still wasn't good, and it wouldn't be for a very long time, but it was progress.
"Thirty seconds to contact." Dragon said.
I breathed in, then out, forcing away my nervousness. There was no time for hesitation. Not anymore. The battlefield was already set, the pieces already moving. All that remained was commitment.
I drew on my Devil Trigger, feeling the intoxicating flood of power that I had grown accustomed to as my flesh and blood gave way to something more. Heat and pressure surged through my veins as the transformation reshaped me from the inside out, reality bending subtly to accommodate what I was becoming. Unlike the first time I transformed, I could sense the influence of my demonic side clearly this time – a predatory satisfaction, a whispering urge to unleash everything and drown the battlefield in annihilation.
I pushed it back, knowing that the power trip wasn't worth the extra power I would gain from drawing deeper. Control mattered more than raw force.
Then I reached out, the instinctive understanding and effortless mastery that the form brought me allowing me to cast a specific spell.
Of all of Scion's abilities, the one that worried me the most was his ability to just slip between universes. With so many to choose from and his own immunity to thinker powers, we couldn't have hoped to track him if he escaped. If he decided to disengage, he could vanish into infinity and fight us on his terms forever.
My solution had been a deceptively simple one. Out of everything I had achieved since becoming Millicas, my mastery over space had been the one thing I rarely got to make use of in its full capacity. I had studied the Space Stone the most out of all the Infinity Stones, tracing every nuance of how it defined distance, adjacency, and dimensional continuity, and with my experiments with Doormaker's portals that skill only grew.
I felt my demonic power expand, seeping into the space around us in a sphere a few dozen miles long and hardening it. Space itself resisted me at first, then yielded, becoming thicker, denser – less like an abstract dimension and more like a material medium. The others felt it as the barrier between universes became denser around us, reality tightening like a clenched fist.
Not enough to stop their powers from working – I couldn't handle that much without being rendered immobile and possibly disconnecting Scion's avatar from his real body entirely – but enough that he wouldn't easily be able to escape. Every transition would cost him time. Every attempt to flee would require force.
Or so I hoped.
"Ten seconds." Dragon spoke.
I sensed him before I saw him, a golden comet that shone like the sun to my senses. Space warped subtly around his approach, reality itself bending as he crossed the distance with impossible speed. I didn't detect a single drop of supernatural power in him, no magic, no demonic energy, nothing I could classify, but my survival instincts screamed danger so loudly that it felt physical.
He was naked, his expression blank, his features almost gentle, but radiating a deep, oppressive sadness that pressed against my senses like gravity.
He didn't slow down as he approached us. The others knew the plan, scattering in practiced motions to surround him as I began to charge a sphere of destruction. My power condensed inward, compressing a blast the size of a city into an orb barely bigger than I was. The pressure was immense, reality screaming in protest as I forced that much annihilation into such a small space.
I waited until the very last second to make sure he couldn't dodge, until he was committed, until escape would be impossible. And when he was barely a few feet from me, I unleashed it.
The moment my attack left my hands, his posture shifted. His expression didn't change, but the aura of sadness changed to shock, his presence sharpening from passive observation to active response. He threw himself to the side with a flare of his golden aura, motion blurring as he accelerated beyond what any physical body should have been capable of.
The sudden burst of speed was almost enough to escape the blast, but he was too close and my attack was too fast. His aura was erased as it tried to negate my Power of Destruction, annihilation chewing through his defenses like acid through metal, and for a split second his left arm vanished.
Then it regenerated, flesh and light reforming instantly, and his aura flared even brighter. He pointed his regrown arm at me, Stilling shooting forward in a beam faster than any attack I had faced before.
The golden energy was on me in a moment, the world narrowing to a single line of incoming annihilation, but I channeled my aura of destruction to erase it before it could touch my skin, unwilling to test my durability and regeneration against the napalm-like effect I knew his attacks had.
Legend's lasers rained down on him, a dozen different effects crashing against his aura in a rapidly shifting pattern in hopes of preventing him from adapting to any one. Incineration, freezing, kinetic force, and even disintegration hammered into him in rapid succession, layers of energy overlapping in a blinding storm as he turned to face the Blaster.
He was already dodging when Scion fired, his body turning to energy and accelerating to the very edge of my spatial density spell in a single heartbeat. The golden beam twisted, bending through space as if guided by its own will, chasing after a rapidly evading Legend, before being cut off when Alexandria crashed into the Avatar.
Her blow created a shockwave that shook the air, the impact echoing across the battlefield, and Scion was sent flying right into the path of my second sphere of destruction. He once again reacted to the attack as soon as it left my hands, throwing himself upwards to avoid it, his movements impossibly precise.
Alexandria was ready, hitting him with an overhead hammer blow that launched him right back into the firing line, my sphere moving with my will to suddenly accelerate. He moved with another burst of speed, narrowly escaping the attack once again, reality blurring around him as he pushed his acceleration even further.
Only this time I didn't let it vanish. I willed the sphere to follow him, forcing Scion into rapidly dodging it while ignoring the renewed assault from Legend. He kept his distance, blasting Alexandria away when she tried to intercept his path and continuing to accelerate, golden light streaking across the sky.
We flew after him, dodging his retaliatory blasts when we could and erasing them with my Power of Destruction when we couldn't. Below us, the ocean churned violently as stray blasts vanished under the waves, likely carving miles-long trenches into the ocean floor and sending shockwaves through the depths.
Finally, I let the sphere disappear. He didn't waste the opportunity, firing another massive blast my way. I tried to erase it, but he kept sustaining the beam, forcing us into a clash. The sheer intensity of the beam kept increasing, pressure mounting with every passing second, and I knew that while I could have dodged, Earth Bet would have sustained catastrophic damage.
But I wasn't alone, and Dragon took the opening. A dozen warheads rained down on Scion from above, their trajectories precise and merciless. His initial dismissal of the attack to focus on the greater threat shifted to shock when his head snapped towards the approaching warheads, and he stopped firing to dodge away.
And just like that, we forced him to burn centuries of his lifespan to keep himself alive.
The battle changed as he started taking us seriously. His golden aura flared, light intensifying until it burned against my senses, and several dozen Stilling orbs fired from his body in a scattered halo, homing in on Dragon's drones even as she pushed their thrusters to the limit to dodge.
I unleashed my own barrage of orbs of destruction to counter him, black and red spheres tearing through space to intercept the golden projectiles. I erased as many of the orbs as I could, space itself screaming as opposing powers collided. I couldn't hit all of them in time, and a dozen drones were reduced to dust at the slightest touch of his attack, but I got enough of them that Dragon only lost a part of her fleet.
Alexandria flew towards him like a missile, her body a blue-white streak of acceleration, but his aura negated the kinetic energy of her impact as if it never existed. He moved faster than she could react, even my own enhanced senses struggling to keep up with his speed, and she vanished under the waves from a single blow, the ocean erupting in a column of spray where she hit.
"Rebecca!" Legend shouted, his voice strained over the comms.
"Deploying rescue drones." Dragon said.
One of her larger drones split in half midair, its chassis unfolding as it released several smaller ones that dove towards the ocean like metallic birds of prey. Another shifted its configuration and unleashed a hail of machine-gun fire, the bullets exploding with layered effects on impact, but still failing to damage Scion in any meaningful way.
I let my arms blur, dozens upon dozens of orbs of destruction flying towards Scion at top speed, each one a miniature singularity of annihilation. He didn't try to negate them again, instead moving erratically to avoid them, his path a chaotic weave of impossible accelerations. I kept the orbs manifested, slowly reducing the amount of room to maneuver he had, tightening the net with every passing second.
Legend kept up his assault, covering the gaps between my orbs and doing his best to distract Scion as I kept firing, his lasers stitching through the sky in shifting spectrums. The golden bastard retaliated with his own lasers, negating Legend's barrage before homing in on the blaster, the beam twisting as it hunted him across the battlefield.
"Lead it towards the orbs!" I shouted.
He didn't answer, but his trajectory quickly changed towards the sea of orbs. He moved through them with impossible grace, threading between void-black spheres, avoiding annihilation while letting them eat away at the edges of the beam. Space warped around him as the opposing powers collided, reality itself flickering like a damaged hologram.
It wasn't enough. Even when he turned into energy, slipping through increasingly narrower gaps, the beam kept chasing him, adapting, tightening, refusing to dissipate. I tried to move the orbs to give Legend room, but with hundreds of them manifested my control was straining, each sphere demanding a fragment of focus and will. My temples throbbed as my mind stretched to keep the net intact.
Finally, he couldn't avoid the beam any longer. Golden light struck him, forcing him back to his human form mid-flight, his body reconstituting just in time to feel himself being erased. The beam began to turn him to dust, his flesh unraveling into glowing motes. His right arm had just started to be consumed as he screamed when he did something I didn't expect.
He thrust the limb into one of my spheres.
The scream cut out instantly as both Stilling and everything below his right elbow ceased to exist. I finally managed to give him enough room to escape, and he barely made it out before passing out from his injuries, his aura flickering like a dying star.
Another of Dragon's rescue drones caught him mid-fall, its tendrils wrapping around his body just as Alexandria rose from the water, coughing violently, seawater pouring from her mouth as she struggled to regain control of her breathing.
"Get them to the edge of the field." I said. "Doormaker can't open any portals inside it."
"I-I can still fight!" Rebecca shouted, finally managing to breathe again, her voice raw and furious. "Take him."
We didn't have time to argue, so Dragon's drone flew away at top speed, Legend tied securely by its mechanical tendrils, the battlefield shrinking behind them as they headed towards the boundary of my spatial lockdown.
My net around Scion kept tightening, his window to dodge becoming narrower as more and more spheres of destruction converged on his position. Soon, he couldn't escape them anymore, the void-black orbs closing in like a collapsing star. When another attempt at negating them with a flare of Stilling failed, he flickered, his golden aura stuttering like a damaged signal.
I immediately felt him struggling against my spell, the resistance slamming into my senses like a physical force. My demonic power strained to reinforce the dimensional barrier as he tried to punch through it, reality bending and creaking under the pressure. Alexandria and Dragon's fleet hovered nearby, close enough to react, but unable to get near the storm of annihilation I had created.
"You're not getting away!" I shouted.
I strained my focus to the limit, black blood flowing from the corners of my eyes as a searing migraine threatened to split my head in half. Worse, I felt my soul straining as I pushed Devil Trigger to its limits, my demonic essence howling in protest as I forced it beyond what it wanted to give. My vision blurred, my heartbeat thundered in my ears, and every sphere demanded a fraction of my will.
I only barely managed to will all my spheres to move, but when I did it was with a bloody grin.
"Hellzone Grenade!"
Over a hundred spheres of destruction converged on his position, reality screaming as they snuffed out his golden light and continued merging with each other. Space folded inward as a second sun formed around him, crackling with annihilation, a sphere of pure erasure that burned brighter than any star. It erased his body just as fast as he regenerated it, flesh and energy collapsing into nothing, reforming, and collapsing again in a relentless cycle.
It still wasn't enough. My reserves would give out long before his did, and he would abandon the Avatar and create another long before either happened. Against a normal opponent, even a powerful regenerator, I would have had him dead to rights. Against Scion, defeating his Avatar was meaningless if I couldn't destroy his real body.
"Dragon, prepare to shoot on my count." I said. "We're not getting another shot at this."
"I'm ready." She said.
I turned to Alexandria.
"I'll be as fast as I can, but I don't know how long it will take me to destroy his real body." I said.
"Legend is recovering and will be here shortly." She nodded. "I also have teams on standby to teleport in once you lower the barrier."
Her eyes were full of grim determination, the kind that only came from someone who had already accepted the worst outcome. She wasn't just ready to die here. She was expecting it.
"We'll buy you the time you need." She spoke. "Whatever it takes."
I nodded.
With Dragon in position, I clasped my hands together, feeling the familiar tremor in my fingers as power gathered between them. The sphere of annihilation started condensing further, further straining my already frayed control as space warped inward around it like it was being dragged into a singularity.
"Fire in three."
I compressed it even more, letting the sphere that had once been the size of a house condense to the size of a car, its surface flickering with void-black cracks that swallowed light itself.
"Two."
My will forced it to compress even more, becoming barely bigger than his Avatar, the pressure building to a point where reality itself felt thin around it.
"One."
My soul was on fire, screaming in protest, but I didn't let that stop me.
"Now!"
I let the sphere implode, reality howling as, for a brief moment, my Power of Destruction became something more. Something purer. Something closer to the conceptual erasure I had always sensed was possible but had never managed to achieve.
Scion was already moving as his body reformed, his own Path to Victory screaming at him to dodge. I felt him slam into the dimensional barrier like a sledgehammer, the impact rippling through my spell, and his Stilling aura tried to flare only to fail in the face of the echoes of destruction left behind by my attack.
Too late.
Dragon's salvo hit him less than a tenth of a second after my attack disappeared, several dozen warheads igniting with the effect of the very power his kind use to kill each other. There was no escape, and my senses caught the flare of something incomprehensible as they detonated, a burst of alien annihilation that made even my own power recoil.
For an infinitesimally small moment, I felt it. A crack in the fabric of reality.
If I hadn't studied space so extensively, I wouldn't have sensed it. If I wasn't already straining my senses to their limits to detect it, I wouldn't have been able to react in time. But I did. And I was ready.
My demonic power surged forward, grabbing the edges of the Avatar's connection to his real body and forcing them open. It felt like digging my fingers into the seams of the universe itself, prying apart something that was never meant to be touched. I threw myself forward, struggling to keep it open for even a moment longer.
I went through the portal, a million colors visible and a million sounds audible as I passed through unreality. Space twisted into impossible geometries, and time felt like it folded in on itself. I couldn't make sense of what I had seen, and I felt Stress Defense keeping my mind whole, buffering the impossible into something barely comprehensible.
And then I was standing in the void.
There were no stars to be seen, no light but what the behemoth beneath me emitted. Only empty nothingness and his true body, stretching into infinity.
Crystalline spirals rose in uneven formations as far as the eye could see, a faint shade of red shining from within them every so often, pulsing like the slow heartbeat of a god. Beneath them chasms deep enough that I couldn't see the bottom, darkness so absolute it felt like something was looking back.
It felt strange to my senses. Wrong. Ancient beyond belief, and utterly alien in a way the Asgardians hadn't. His body was massive, larger than the moon as far as I could tell, a continent-sized organism suspended in nothingness. It didn't have any gravity or atmosphere, likely because he had been absorbing it to generate more energy, stripping entire realities of their physical laws to fuel his existence.
A cosmic parasite, feeding on the multiverse and unwilling to ever let his feast end.
I shook my head. There was no time to waste, not when Alexandria was likely still fighting out there, buying me seconds with her life. I doubted Scion had appreciated what I did, and the longer I spent in that dimension the higher the chance that the golden bastard just decided to blow up the planet out of spite.
So I drew on my flagging reserves, feeling the strain in my soul as I reached deeper, summoned my Power of Destruction, and got to work killing a god.