A phantom wind blew through across the monochrome Prototory reflection of the Saint Bethany's quad, stirring the hair and clothes of those who had them. Lily turned to and fro as she struggled to get a look at her derriere. "Seriously, is my ass big?"
"Several thousand years lying dormant and the first thing you care about is how your butt looks," Satan drawled. "Seems so appropriate for you, Lilith."
Lily turned her head towards him. Her eyes narrowed, and both Nico and FIlia caught a glimpse of something old and ancient slithering behind her gaze. "You... I remember you." She raised an eyebrow. "Didn't you use to be taller?"
Satan gave her a flat look. "Times change."
"And you two." She looked to the two Infernals. Her lips curled up in a small, demure smile. "Guess we had more in common than we realized at first, hm?"
"Aye," Nico nodded. "Good to have you back, Lily. Or is it Lilith?"
Lily raised an arm and looked over herself. "I'm not sure. I
am
Lilith, yes. There is no crisis of identity for me. Yet I also am just Lily. It's like I'm perfectly capable of being both at the same time, like they're one in the same."
Filia's wings gave a little flutter. "Then what name do I call you when I'm knuckle deep in your-"
"Ahem!" All of them turned towards Judith, who was picking herself up out of the dirt again. "Maybe instead of immediately segueing back into your innuendo filled banter we could deal with the
big godsdamned problem!
" She pointed with her dagger.
Azagthoth was on his hands and knees. He crawled towards them slowly, the motions jerky and unnatural, like a marionette manipulated by a drunkard. With every motion, a bit of him sloughed off, the flesh putrefying in milliseconds and sizzling with an acrid smell as it touched the ground.
"So long,"
he gurgled, the sound emanating not from his mouth but somewhere in his center mass.
"So long without remembering, so long with a cohesive form... it's maddening..."
His voice had a metallic ring to it, yet with a wet undertone, like water sloshing around in a tin can.
"What the fuck
is
that?" Filia said, taking a step back.
Satan's voice was surprisingly free of snark as he stepped forward, his own form warping and twisting. "Do you lot want to know the secret to killing a deity?"
"Inflicting copious amounts of pain until it dies?" Judith ventured.
"Outlasting it in a test of wills?" Nico guessed.
"Fucking it silly?" Filia asked.
"No, no, and no." Lily flapped her wings and took flight. She held out her hands. One became surrounded by a soft, almost angelic glow. Around the other coalesced a swirling, writhing darkness. "You make it forget. For if an immortal forgets what it is, it loses itself and with it, it's power."
"And I forget no longer!"
WIth one final, violent spasm, Azagthoth came undone. His physical body was ripped to pieces in a heartbeat as his true form burst from within, an infinite vortex of thick, barbed tentacles that spread for miles in an instant. They coiled and writhed, whipping through the air faster than mortal eyes could track.
Lily raised her light hand and a dense bubble of light bloomed around them, the tentacles slapping against it with dull thuds and creating pulses of power where they struck. "How much longer?" she asked Satan.
"Not much," he grunted.
In the center - or at least, what they perceived as the center - of the tentacle mass, a single, giant eye opened. It had no lid. The pupil was jagged and irregular - Nico thought it looked like the classic radioactive symbol on barrels of nuclear waste. It shifted constantly as it bored into them. "
Pathetic creature. You cannot hold me at bay forever, not any more!"
"Seriously, what the
fuck
is this thing?" Filia shrieked.
"It's name is Azathoth," Satan said. "They say the biggest lie ever told is that I tricked everyone into believing there's a God to give people hope that there's a way to escape me." His skin turned tomato red, hardening as his body expanded. Jagged horns burst from his forehead and curled regally up over the crown of his skull. "Not even close. The biggest lie ever told was that there was nothing before God came about. Oh there were things, alright. Things so great and terrible that He had to force them to forget what they were less they tear Creation a new one."
"One letter!"
Azathoth roared.
"By one letter you stripped my name from me, my power, my purpose! I shall subject you to torments your pathetic mind cannot even fathom, Infernal!"
Those tentacles battered against Lily's shield again and she grunted.
Nico and Filia braced themselves. "And how did He do that exactly?" Nico asked.
Satan rolled his shoulders with a meaty pop. He was in full form now, twenty feet tall with his great bat-like wings spread wide. "Not sure," he admitted. "He never told me. But figuring things out on the fly has always been my specialty."
Lily reached out her hand to the Infernals. "Take my hand, you two. Let us fight this monstrosity together."
As Nico and Filia did, Judith grunted and dropped into a fighting crouch. "Well, guess this is it for me then. One swipe of those things and I'm paste."
The hand suffused with light was extended to the demon hunter. "I hold both powers," Lily said. "You
will
survive this, hunter."
Judith hesitated for a second, then shrugged. "Eh. What have I to lose?" she said, and grabbed hold.
The moment she did, both demon hunter and the Infernals felt as though a circuit had been completed between them. Judith and Filia's hair stood on end, and Nico felt as though someone had jammed powerlines into every inch of his exposed skin. The three of them jerked wildly, their hands practically welded to Lily's. Memories flashed through their heads as power poured into their beings - a hedge maze, a serpent, a wide vastness of sand and heat that stretched from horizon to horizon. Flashes of beings great and terrible, formless voids and eyes floating free of faces.
When it was done, Lily yanked her hands away. The Infernals sucked deep breaths into their mouths as they collapsed against the side of the light bubble, their bodies shifting and changing. Nico's wings sprouted anew, bursting from his back like newborn plants. There was no pain, only a euphoria as his body became that of an ascended demon again. Beside him, Lily was back to her fuller figure, her own wings sharpening up into bony points and her hair growing lustrous and long.
Slowly, the Infernals picked themselves up, feeling their power resurgent. Nico clenched his fist, and called upon two fiery swords that manifested in his hands. He stared down at them, testing their weight. "How is this possible?"
"You poured your power into me," Lily said, running her hands down Nico's back. "Among other things."
Filia's shadows came back to her like loyal hounds, draping over her shoulders like a scarf and winding along her arms to hang down, ready to be shaped as she willed them. "How is this happening, though?"
Lily stepped past the succubus to stand at Satan's side. Somehow, the big demon had produced another pair of oversized sunglasses that sat on the end of his nose, obscuring his fiery eyes. "Think of me like... a battery, if you will. All I needed was a bit of charge from the two of you, and now that I have that, I'm perfectly capable of generating power on my own." She flexed her fingers. "And trust me, I can generate a lot."
A heavy tentacle smashed into the bubble, and a large crack appeared in the glowing surface. "Get ready!" Satan rumbled.
"What about Judith?" Filia asked, turning her head.
Another heavy tentacle smash shattered the bubble like glass, and their world became slick, oily flesh as heavy tentacles scattered them apart. Nico hung on grimly as he flew through the air at ludicrous speed. A heavy tentacle slammed down against his back, as if Azathoth was trying to pancake him. As it lifted, he got his feet under him and balanced on the thick length of flesh. When the tentacle came down again, he caught it with both hands. It's weight bore down on him, his legs screaming in pain at the mass pressing down on him. Nico roared and pushed up, managing to throw the tentacle off him. As it came down again, he held his two swords above him in an X shape and caught the tentacle on it. A quick motion scissored the tentacle off.
Almost immediately, another rushed at him. Nico jumped off the tentacle he stood on and flapped his wings, the motion making him shoot high up into the fleshy chaos. At the apex of his flap, he tucked his wings in, turned over, and fell. Tentacles rushed up to meet him. With a thought, the longswords in his hands grew longer and heavier, until they were more hunks of metal than swords. Nico used the motion of his fall and twisted his shoulders until his arms hurt. The motion made him spin like a top, and the velocity of the massive swords turned him into a demonic buzzsaw as he fell. All the tentacles that came at him were sliced apart like sushi. Gore streaked his crimson skin, and his whole body felt hot. He was a full-fledged demon again, full of power and-
A heavy tentacle drove into his chest and completely altered his momentum. The blow pulverized his ribcage into gravel, and Nico's breathing hitched as he was borne deep within the morass of flesh around him. Deeper and deeper he went, the tentacles become barbed and slicing his flesh to ribbons. For a moment, he began to panic.
A blinding beam of light sheared through the tentacles and sliced through them like an industrial laser. Azathoth's screech of pain was deafening. Nico planted his feet and flapped his wings powerfully, shooting up to hover next to Lily, who had been the source of the attack. "Thanks," Nico panted, his wounds itching as they healed.
