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Chapter 9: Justice.
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Chunks of broken wall shattered against the floor with a thunderous sound, filling the room with a cloud of flesh-brick dust and a deep, rumbling echo.

The attendants paused their duties to get a good look at the explosion. As the dust cleared, they watched an enormous, looming figure step into the chamber through the gaping hole in the wall, cuboid head scanning the room with deliberate intent. Many of the servants fled at the sight of him; some remained to gawk at him as he stepped out onto the clean red carpet.

Adonis turned to look at Argon from across the room. Ignius, bound to the foot of the archdemon’s throne, recognized the distant eighteen-foot figure immediately and began struggling against the chains like a feral dog.

Adonis’s roving eye widened as it found precisely what it was searching for. His son was chained up on the other side of the chamber - still alive, thankfully - but not safe. He could see, even from across the room, the bloody handprints and deep gashes that covered the boy’s skin, and the thick cloth that had been shoved into his mouth, preventing him from speaking. Adonis imagined that Iggy didn’t have enough energy to shapeshift at the moment - otherwise he would have been able to escape. He hated to think about what that vile bastard Argon could have done to his baby boy to leave him so tired and bloody.

In that moment, he swore to himself that Argon wouldn’t leave the castle alive.

“Argon.” Adonis narrowed his eye at his estranged kin. “You’ve stolen what’s rightfully mine.” He began his walk down the hall, approaching Argon quite quickly.

“What do you care?” Hissed the archdemon. He gave Iggy’s chain a brutal yank in an attempt to keep the boy under control. “You’ve got a hundred more capable children. Why fret over garbage?”

“You will not refer to my son in that way,” snarled Adonis. He continued to make his way down the hall. “That boy’s more important to me than any archdemon will ever be. That goes especially for you.”

“Liar,” retorted Argon. “You know what they say, Adonis: One man’s trash is another man’s treasure. And the fact that I found this little treat skulking around a back alley tells me that you don’t value it very much.”

The looming archdemon stopped at that remark, planting his feet firmly on the stone floor. The narrow slit in the center of his chest opened up, revealing a massive, glaring eye - the ‘true’ eye of Adonis, and the center of all the power in his body. It began to glow, flashing rapidly in the darkness and emitting a threatening hum as it stared directly at Argon.

Argon grabbed Ignius by the neck and held the little demon in front of himself, using the struggling creature as a meatshield. “You haven’t got the balls, Argon! If you care about this cocksleeve so much, you’ll just have to prove it. Turn around and go back the way you came, or I’ll kill your son.”

The glaring eye blinked as it looked around - first at a trembling and fearful Ignius, and then at Argon. There was no denying that any magick directed at Argon would harm Ignius at this range. Adonis folded his arms. “Are you scared to fight me? ”

Argon grit his teeth, though he chose not to answer.

“I thought so. You’ve always been a coward, Argon. You only ever dared to fight when you had help. And, looking around…” Adonis’s glaring eyes scanned the room once more, only to find that the chamber was empty now, save for Ignius and the two cube-headed archdemons. “You’ve got nothing. No guards. No mages or viziers. Completely alone.” He turned back to Argon, staring him directly in the eyes. “You finally did it, didn’t you? You became your father. You always said it would never come to this, and yet here you are, fearing the blade of a knife at every turn.”

“Shut the fuck up, old man,” retorted Argon. He tightened his grip on Iggy’s throat; there was no danger of breaking the flexible little demon’s neck, but Argon could rip his head off and let him bleed out if he wanted to, and that assurance of that allowed him to retain his composure. This was all part of the plan. If he could get Adonis in the right position, he would win, no matter what.

“Your jealousy and paranoia have ruined you.” The giant eye in the middle of Adonis’s chest closed, and the archdemon continued his approach, stepping deliberately towards Argon, who was now within spitting distance. “If you want my son so badly, you’ll have to kill me. I won’t give you another chance to hurt him.”

Argon grinned. Nothing but the five feet standing between him and the wrath of the most powerful archdemon in Hell. He could kill Ignius, but that would end in his death for certain. He could alway wait for a better opportunity - turn Iggy over now, and live to plan out an assassination another day.

But Argon had no intention of sharing his toys.

Ignius was suddenly cast aside, thrown to the floor as his captor and his father engaged in bloody and violent combat. He could only turn and watch as the towering archdemons engaged each other and exchanged fists, each strike powerful enough to shatter stone. Argon made it his goal to crack every rib in Adonis’s body, trying to strike him consecutively, but his smaller stature made it difficult to get past Adonis’s defense. His fists were blocked at every turn by the rigid surface of Adonis’s forearms. Each archdemon had a particular way of dispatching their foes, and for Adonis, this came in the form of cold, calculated patience, biding his time until the right opportunity presented itself. He watched the furious demon closely, keeping his central eye shut tight to keep it safe from harm.

Yet still, Argon persisted, throwing his back into each brutal strike. He began to take the advantage, pushing Adonis back through the throne room and snarling at him like a caged animal.  Adonis backed away, moving slowly towards a pillar, where Argon hoped to pin him down and gouge his eye out. As the larger archdemon’s back touched the pillar, Argon reeled back and took a wide swing at his head, only to have his wrist snatched firmly in Adonis’s grasp.

He delivered a swift, deliberate punch to Argon’s gut. It knocked him out of focus long enough for Adonis to swing him ‘round, directly into the side of the column behind him. Argon’s cuboid head hit the stone with a crack, fracturing the column all the way to the ceiling.

“Years of hiding in your father’s shadow. Centuries of trying to swing your dick around. What are you trying to prove, moron? That you’re not a sniveling little worm?”

Argon wiped the blood off the flat surface of his face as he stood up. He chuckled wickedly under his breath. “It must really hurt to know that I fucked your son, huh? You old bastard…”

Adonis answered him with a right hook that nearly knocked Argon’s head off his shoulders. And while he was still reeling from the impact, the larger archdemon took the opportunity to kick Argon to the floor, where he landed on his back.

Ignius watched the towering demons battle from afar, unable to do much but bear witness to the brutal acts of ultra-violence raging in the distance. He prayed to Satan himself that his father had what it took to take Argon down. Iggy knew that Argon had no chance against Adonis in hand-to-hand combat, but he also knew that Argon was a dishonorable, scheming bastard, and Adonis’s tremendous strength wouldn’t make any difference if Argon somehow managed to pull the wool over his eyes.

Argon managed to pull himself off the floor just in time to defend himself from Adonis, who moved with the deliberate intention of finishing him off. The smaller archdemon took a moment to process Adonis’s movements, narrowly avoiding the sharp points of his claws as he tried to put some distance between him and the lumbering monster. Each time he ducked behind a pillar, Adonis tore it down with a single swipe, reducing them each to piles of dust on the ground.

“You’re too slow, old man!” Argon ducked underneath one of Adonis’s punches and threw a dozen punches at his chest to try and hit him in the central eye. “At this rate, you’ll end up tearing the building down!”

“If you intend to survive, you should quit running your mouth.” Adonis shut his central eye to protect it from Argon, and then he answered with a brutal kick that sent the smaller archdemon sliding several feet back. Then, without a moment’s hesitation, he dashed forward to close the gap, swinging at Argon’s head with unparalleled speed. A strike that almost certainly would have ripped his face open had it hit its mark, but the archdemon just barely managed to avoid it. And so the demons continued, with Argon continuing to dance just barely out of reach.

“Are you trying to frighten me? You don’t have what it takes! You’ve gone soft, Adonis! I - “

His rambling was cut off when he found himself falling backwards. While focusing on avoiding Adonis’s attack, he had ended up backing up near where  Ignius had been chained, and Iggy had reached out with his tail to trip him. Under his own weight, the archdemon came crashing down, and before he could say anything - much less get up - he was hit in the face by one of Adonis’s sturdy fists. He was punched again, again, and again, struck repeatedly with the giant, clawed hand of the towering archdemon. Adonis held nothing back, ensuring that every punch was made with vicious precision. Blood began to pour from the demon’s head, and eventually, Argon stopped trying to get up.

Adonis’s head rotated slightly, floating in place as he examined the body beneath him, watching the blood pool on the floor.

But he was still moving.

“You don’t realize that you’ve already lost,” snarled Argon. Slowly, he extended his arm, crawling around on the floor amidst the pool of blood around him and spitting out teeth as he spoke. “You’ve been knocking down pillars without thinking!”

With a desperate swipe of one of his claws, Argon knocked out a pillar. That was the last one supporting the section of ceiling directly above them. After that, the bricks came crashing down, tumbling down on top of Adonis as Argon grabbed Iggy and dashed out of the way of the falling rocks.

“MMMMPPH!” Iggy struggled in Argon’s grasp, trying his hardest to squirm away from him. “MMMMMGGHH!”

“You’re a fool if you think that’s enough to kill me,” rumbled Adonis from beneath the rubble. He coughed, his voice muffled by the dense rock covering him. The pile began to shift, slowly but surely.

Yet, there was blood spilling out from under the shattered bricks. Adonis was, at the very least, injured. He was at a disadvantage, now.

“I don’t doubt that,” he muttered. Argon threw Iggy aside with a sinister chuckle, cackling like a maniac as he stood up and approached the pile of rubble. “But this…this will kill you…”

Adonis emerged finally from the pile, poking his head out from beneath the debris with a groan. His head was bleeding, and, as he struggled to free himself, he found that he had actually gotten stuck.

Argon looked down at Adonis with a malicious grin as he opened up the strange, fleshy cavity in his stomach and reached inside. “A weapon given to me by the angels themselves…If this won’t kill you, nothing will! Behold: A Shard of God!”

The manic archdemon paused, and he took a moment to feel around in the space in his stomach a bit more. Slowly, his eyes widened. “What?”

There was nothing inside of the cavity in his stomach. Where there once was a messianic dagger, there was now nothing - nothing but a gaping hole. Argon’s ace in the hole was entirely gone. Adonis now stood before him with his claws bared.

Argon suddenly felt a searing pain travel all the way up his spine and set fire to his brain.

He realized, almost immediately, that he’d been played. Vivid memories of something he did about an hour ago; the blowjob he’d forced Iggy to give him. In his moment of revelry and pleasure, he didn’t notice Ignius swiping it out of his hidden stomach cavity and stuffing it discreetly into his cleavage.

Now, the weapon was buried deep between his shoulder blades. Ignius had taken advantage of his brief moment of freedom to free himself and stab Argon in the back when he wasn’t looking.

Agony, as if his flesh was melting, pulsed violently from a single spot in his back. Iggy forced the shard deeper into Argon’s back, and the archdemon fell to the ground, howling into the sky as the pain intensified.

“Accursed demon flesh, torn asunder by a flaming sword.” Adonis sneered at Argon, who now lay before him in a heap. “To think you were going to use that thing on me.”

Iggy dropped down to straddle Argon. He pulled the weapon out of the archdemon’s back and then plunged it right back in, sinking the shimmering blade deep into the meat of his back and running him all the way through. Then, he continued, forcing the weapon inside of him again and again and again, violently stabbing Adonis’s trembling body until finally, he stopped screaming, and he went still.

Blood pooled onto the floor, and it dripped from Ignius’s claws. The little demon dropped the shard and stared at the open sky where the ceiling had fallen, taking a precious moment to bask in the deep red glow of Hell.

“Ignius…”

Iggy looked at his father, sighing as he savored the wetness of the corpse beneath him. Finally, with his hands free, he drew the gag out of his throat, pulling all seven feet of dense cloth out of his body and spitting it out onto the floor, so that he could finally speak again. “I’m sorry…”

“It’s okay.” The ceiling debris rumbled as Adonis tried to move, but ultimately it didn’t budge. “Christ, I’m getting too old for this…”

“Let me help you…” Iggy stood up and walked over to the pile, blood dripping from his fur. He reached under a large chunk of ceiling and pulled up on it, lifting it up as high as he could to help his father get free of the rubble. Before long, Adonis was free of the debris, and he brushed the dust off his fur before rushing to his son and scooping him up into his arms, pulling him tight into a warm embrace.

“It’s over. I’m here.” Daddy pressed a gentle kiss to the top of the boy’s head, slowly stroking over his blood-stained fur. The little demon pressed his face into his father’s chest, spilling tears onto his fur and smearing Argon’s blood all over him.

“I want to go home,” he breathed.

“I understand.” Adonis set his son back down on the cobbled floor, placing a gentle hand on the boy’s shoulder as they both looked down at Argon’s mutilated body.

The brimstone flickered, and the Hell-lanterns shone bright upon what remained of Argon’s killspire. Argon the Archdemon Tyrant bled out on the floor of his own throne room, in the exact same place where his father fell.

Ignius reeled back and kicked Argon’s lifeless corpse as hard as he could. “That was for Gruno. You fucking cunt.”