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The Devil May Care

Part 47

for DuskCypher

by Draconicon

"Were we expecting a phone call?" the black cat asked as the phone continued ringing.

"Not that I was aware of," Selene admitted.

"I didn't have anyone looking to call, boss," Arnis called from the cockpit.

"And I didn't have any friends with benefits looking for phone sex today," Balthus added.

"Hmm..."

He debated letting it ring, but considering that it would have been rather counterproductive to ignore a message, he got to his feet. After all, very few people knew how to contact him in the first place, and fewer still would have a way of finding the number to the airplane. If it was someone that powerful, then it was better to answer the phone now rather than later, and certainly better than making them go through the answering machine. Those things were never treated well, and nobody seemed to use them anymore.

He picked up the receiver from the wall of the plane, pressed it to his ear -

"How dare you?"

"...Hello, Hellsmith," Dusk muttered, rubbing his forehead. "I see that we're onto this now, are we?"

"Don't start with that. I gave you everything that you needed, and you pull this bullshit with the Guilds?"

"Mind telling me what 'this bullshit' applies to?" he asked, turning and leaning his back against the wall of the plane.

"Giving the independents first go at the new goods? After all that we did for you, after the gifts that you received from me all that time ago? Hardly the act of someone that appreciates his friends, is it?"

"Oh, boy, here we go..."

"I'm sorry, are you telling me that this IS how you treat your friends, then?"

Dusk rubbed his forehead, trying to keep from letting out too loud a sigh. This was a call that he had, admittedly, been expecting ever since the various reforms had been pushed through. Greed had been changed massively, but it might not have changed so drastically, might not have had the sheer upheaval of power and redistribution that it had if the Guilds had actually sided with him from the start. If they'd listened to him about giving different goods to different buyers, diversifying their stock, and more, then perhaps they would still be at the top of the heap.

Now, they were having to deal with coops and worse among the independents, and having to share the purchasing power of the different realms with those that had been of a more common background. There was no way around it, and no way of getting away from it, either. They were stuck with it.

"You know that I came to you first."

"Yes, and I listened. Remember? I was the first person that you let through the gates to Purgatory."

"That's not what I mean, and you know it."

"I sold to other individuals. I had a few customers among Lust."

"Yes, and how much did you still try and sell to Wrath despite the lack of buyers there?"

"That's not important."

"Considering that it's your own decisions that created the gap for the others to sell in, I think it's pretty damn important if you want to keep making a profit in the future."

"Is that a threat, Dusk?"

"I think that it's more of a reminder. I came to you, I came to all of the Oligarchs before going to the independents. Do you know how many besides you actually listened to me about pursuing other buyers?"

"I would hardly imagine -"

"None."

"None?"

"None. Not even one of them wanted to try something different. Some were polite enough to pretend to consider the offer and the idea, but none of them were willing to seriously entertain it. They were all looking for the same buyers from before, still looking to get all those weapons sold to people that weren't using them anymore. Did they look for people to hire and train for mercenaries? Did they think to sponsor a Brothelic House? Did they think of giving anything to anyone to hook them in for a first-time freebie and then get them addicted to the product?

"No, they were entirely focused on selling weapons for a war that has been on hold, for a war that's not going to start again, and wasting all their money preparing for clients to come rushing in, clients that would never come. And tell me, Hellsmith. How much of your inventory was going anywhere but to Wrath?"

"...Maybe 30%."

"And that 30%. How much of that actually returned on investment?"

"All of it."

"Okay. And the rest?"

"Maybe 5% of the remaining 70."

"That's what I thought. Now, if you'd done what I told you, you'd be fine. You've shifted your operations now, right?"

"Everyone's had to since you broke open the floodgates, but they're not happy about it."

"Are you?"

"Only slightly more than everyone else, but not particularly. I have a lot of dead inventory that I can't move now, Dusk. Do you know what kind of costs that brings to store all that shit?"

"I think that falls under a 'you' problem, considering that I gave you every possibility of not having to deal with it."

"Dusk -"

"Hellsmith, I don't have a lot of time here, so you're going to have to shut up and listen to me for a moment."

Dusk turned away from his little audience, knowing that they were hanging off his every word, and more to the point, that they were going to critique everything that he had said, find ways that he could have said it better, and more. They were going to be 'helping' him in ruling Hell indirectly like this, and while he had every thanks that they were willing to do that, he didn't want to be thinking about how they were going to react to his little speech before he even gave it. Shaking his head, he leaned his head against the metal wall of the plane as he whispered.

"What you need to do is exactly what I say. Sell to the Lust demons, sell high to Pride, sell low to Envy, and make sure that everyone that comes to Greed finds something interesting and unique to take home with them. Hell is no longer going to be so separated as it is. Take it from me; I already solved the problem of you losing so much of your revenue. I'm going to solve your other problems, your infrastructure problems, too. By the time I'm done, you're going to have more business than you know what to do with, but if you don't listen to me, the Guilds aren't just going to have to share power. They're going to have to give it up, too."

"You can't be serious."

"Deadly serious, Hellsmith. Deadly. You should be thankful; I saved all of you from going bankrupt. If that means sharing profits at the moment, then you only have yourself to blame. I'll be in touch."

He hung up before Hellsmith could respond, and he shook his head as the phone rang again immediately after. Picking up the receiver and slamming it back down, he waited to make sure that there wasn't going to be another call coming through before he sat down with the others again. The various demons and the one fallen angel arched eyebrows at him, and he sighed, shaking his head.

"Hellsmith was being pissy."

"He has lost a great deal of power in this particular arrangement, though not as much as some of the other oligarchs," Selene pointed out. "And he is not a good one to anger."

"Well, all of them are going to be angry at me, so I might as well be blunt. If nothing else, I can tell him 'I told you so' when everything comes crashing down around his ears."

"Pettiness does not endear one to one's subjects, however satisfying it is."

"Hard to believe that I'm hearing that from a demon of Pride," Dusk muttered.

"We are able to recognize our own weaknesses, particularly when we have gone through the damage that Pride can deliver unto us." She shook her head. "Regardless, we have other problems than Greed at the moment. My father, namely."

Dusk nodded, as did the others of those assembled. He could see that Arnis was leaning over the back of his chair from time to time, looking back from the cockpit, and the black cat chuckled.

"You might as well put it on autopilot and join the conversation, Arnis."

"Sure, boss."

As the bear left the cockpit, so too did Ornar leave the lounge. The black-skinned orc joined them in the main part of the plane.

That meant that he had the equivalent to his council here with him. A lustful orc, an angry bear, a prideful lioness, a rather mono-focused servant in the form of the bull fallen angel, and an even more lustful rabbit that had taken up residence in his presence of late. It was a small council, but it was still a useful one, particularly as they covered most of the sins that were on his side. Most of them.

Dusk leaned back in his chair, pressing his fingers together as he thought through the situation once more. He took in one breath, and then let it out.

"We are going to be walking right into a trap. I'm guessing that's right?" he asked.

"As far as my mother has heard, more than likely," Selene said, nodding. "My father plans to spring some sort of trap in Wrath, which seems...oddly stupid for him."

"Yes, considering that Wrath is more or less on my side," Dusk said, tapping his chin. "Unless that's changed, Arnis?"

"Far as I've heard, it hasn't, boss," the bear said, shrugging. "Far as I know, they're all still happy little fuckers that are glad to have the war done. Yeah, some of 'em are stressed as fuck without something to take all that anger out on, but hell, they're used to that. They're just glad not to be forced into it all the time."

That's what he had been expecting, and he was glad that he had remembered correctly. The fact that Wrath had been on his side more or less since the beginning of his would-he-wouldn't-he rule had probably been a greater deterrent to other actions than anything else. Brutus hadn't been able to push that hard without the Wrath demons being worried about someone pushing back, and Darith wouldn't have been able to make any easy inroads there without Dusk having some evidence of being a worse ruler than Lucifer.

So far, he hadn't given Darith that sort of evidence. Everything that he had done had improved Hell to some extent, and sometimes, he had taken it further than just 'some extent'. He had taken it right to the point of making it amazing for those demons living in different realms. Lust had gotten the best treatment so far, even though that had been as much rescue as it had been uplift. They had been given greater privileges, more feeding capability, and the most loyal had had their lust taken from them in a way that left them powerful, but no longer perpetually starving.

It was a good situation for the Lust demons, and while the Greed demons were not as happy with him, the populace was gradually growing, and their power would slowly come to replace those of the Oligarchs that disagreed with him. That meant that there was quite a bit good to be said for him, even if he was something of a destabilizing influence for the tradition that they all seemed to worship.

Now that he was coming to Wrath, Darith might have a few inroads to take, a few things that he might try and stir up. Fear of change would be a big one for the Pride demon to push, but he imagined that would be less effective in Wrath than it would have been in Gluttony and other places. Wrath wanted things to change, Wrath pushed them to change just by its very existence. No, if Darith was going to try something in Wrath, it would be something different, something besides fear of change.

"No further information from home about what this trap could be?" he asked.

"None. Not even a hint. My father must have become very closed-lipped about this one for my mother not to hear anything, but..."

"But it means that he knows that you two support me, and that means that he's not going to risk the plans getting to me while I can have a chance of thwarting them."

Which meant that Darith was already proving to be smarter than Brutus, though that wasn't exactly a high bar to clear. He tapped his fingers together, glancing at Ornar.

"Do you think that we have any ins to his particular organization?"

"Not with any of us, my Lord," Ornar admitted. "We've become too tied to your particular cause. Any of us sniffing around would immediately be pegged as trying to get information for you."

"Hmmm."

"We'd need someone that isn't so recognizable, someone that hasn't been traveling around."

"Someone that Darith might trust, you mean?"

"Perhaps, if there was someone that we could trust, as well."

"...I think I might know just the being, but a moment later on that. Any chance that we could be ambushed as soon as we land?" he asked.

"I doubt it," Selene said. "My father is less likely to strike when there's a chance that you could fly off without getting caught. I imagine that he sees this craft as the fortress that it is, and the fact that we know that we're walking in a trap means that he will take his time, wait for us to drop our guard."

"He'll seduce us into being vulnerable, basically," Balthus said.

"Very good way of putting it, Balthus, very good," Ornar said.

"Everything can be rendered unto Lust, my Lord Onsen," the rabbit said with a smirk and a bob of his head.

"Not to mention that we will all be there, looking out for you, Master," Seraph pointed out. "When we all come off the plane, we'll be ready for a fight. If we wait, however..."

He nodded. They would also likely be housed in different parts of Wrath, or at the least, different parts of the same building. It would mean that the longer that they were in the realm, the more that they would become personally vulnerable. That said, there would also be the chance of swaying Wrath more and more tightly to his side, which in and of itself would give him more strength, and that would mean Darith would have to weigh letting them get complacent with how much support the realm itself would give them.

It would be a balancing act, and one that he was unfortunately certain that Darith would find a way to accomplish.

The first time I've had to deal with someone that has a brain...

But he could find his way through this. He had already taken care of Brutus Diel, he had the support of the daughter of his opponent, and there were multiple realms that were solidly on his side. The minute that he got all the infrastructure in place in Hell, the very second that they weren't going to implode on themselves and they were more willing to cooperate than to try and replace him, he would go back to the mortal world and go back to his fun, as well. No more Hell for a while, no more politics, just getting his dick wet and having fun with everything that he could corrupt up there.

I never wanted to do this, but you keep making me step in, he thought, tapping his fingers together. If you could just take care of yourselves, then this wouldn't be a fucking problem.

But they couldn't, so he had to. He sighed, shaking his head.

"Okay, so there's no chance that he's going to take us down just as we get there. We'll probably have at least a day, time to start splitting up, time to get comfortable, time to start making mistakes. He's going to have other people there to help him, because there's no way that Pride can take us on its own."

"...I would be offended by that, if you weren't correct," Selene muttered.

"It wasn't meant as anything offensive, but if I am not wrong, you are the least populous realm of Hell, and that means that you are going to be the least well-armed, and the one with the smallest army."

"It wouldn't take an army to take you down, boss."

Everyone turned to Arnis at that, and the bear rolled his eyes.

"Oh, come the fuck on. You're gonna make me be the one to say the bad news?"

"I think that you might as well, Arnis, if you're going to be that blunt about it," Dusk said. "But keep in mind, you saw me in Gluttony. You know how much power I have, and how much I can bring to bear on someone else."

"Yeah, because you were in a fucking flying fortress, giving it weapons, spawning 'em in and dropping them on the ground from the heavens. You think that you can do that on the ground?"

"I don't have to. You remember -"

"Peons, boss, peons."

"...Explain yourself, Arnis."

"Oh, fucking hell...boss, you really think that Brutus kept that many good fighters on his payroll? There wasn't a goddamn demon there that had a soul-weapon, wasn't a fucking Wrath demon in the bunch. Sure, they had numbers and some fucking spells, but fighters, they weren't. They just had numbers and weapons and thought that they could swarm ya under. That was Brutus's stupidity, but that's not the kinda general that we're dealing with now. Darith ain't gonna be concerned with numbers, he's gonna be concerned with quality. Back me up here, girl."

"..." Selene sighed, rubbing her forehead. "Much as I would like to put my father down and call him a moron that would do something stupid like that...he's not. He's cultivated many contacts over his time in Hell, particularly after his meteoric rise after trading me to Lucifer."

"Yeah. He knows the big guys, the movers and shakers. Hell, he would have used Brutus if he fucking could. If he's putting together something to fight you, sure, he could throw a giant army at you. But that army? That's not gonna be the fodder that you dealt with last time. It's gonna be fuckers that know what the fuck they're doing. And that's gonna be hard, even for someone like you to deal with."

"How did Lucifer deal with that, then?" Dusk asked.

"Wrath was too angry to fight him. He kept us scaring the fuck out of everyone else. You ain't gonna be able to do that, and if ya try? I swear, you'll lose everything there."

Lovely. He'd known that Lucifer had pushed the Wrath demons around, using their perpetual anger to his advantage, but he hadn't quite guessed as to the scars that would have left behind on the Wrath demons themselves. He had hoped that, perhaps, he might be able to harness them as warriors against his immediate enemies, but if he tried to do that himself rather than allowing them the choice...

No, that would be a problem, and he needed to find a different solution. One that didn't involve leaving the Wrath demons back at the mercy of their baser urges. He rubbed his forehead.

"Any newcomers that we've heard about coming to Wrath?"

"A series of different demons, mostly from Gluttony. I would imagine that a lot of them are demons from the battle recorporated with one another, trying to find a weakness of yours," Ornar suggested. "If nothing else, they'll be a large number of reinforcements for whatever Darith has planned, even if they're not the main force or part of the original plan."

"Anybody else?"

"Some from Greed," Balthus said. "I got wind of a couple of clients teleporting in. Some big names in there, from the bigger Guilds."

"No chance that they're just coming in to gamble and make deals?" Dusk asked.

"Not a chance in, well, Hell, sir."

"...Damn."

"Unfortunately, that isn't the end of it, either," Selene said, shaking her head. "I have received word that some of the more powerful demons from Envy are making their way to Wrath. In order to render some judgment and decisions on weapons and fighters, it is said, and to give complaints, but..."

But it was too coincidental with the timing. They were likely being summoned to Wrath, just like the others, which meant that there would be representatives from four different realms that were likely to want to see him taken out. Four different realms, a majority of the Hell regions, he realized, and that would likely be significant to whatever Darith tried, something to make it look like Hell had decided, democratically, that he wasn't worth keeping around. Four different regions out of the seven speaking up - Pride, Greed, Envy, and Gluttony - would mean that whatever Lust and Wrath had to say could be ignored, and even if Sloth somehow poked its head up and spoke up for him, he seriously doubted that would matter in the slightest.

No, this was being played very cannily, particularly as he doubted that he could pull the same sort of trick. Calling in reinforcements outright would probably trigger Darith's plan early, and that would mean that they would be fighting and hoping that reinforcements would get in on time.

"We need more information," Dusk muttered.

"You said that you had an idea about that," Arnis said. "What's the idea, boss?"

"Bitch."

"The fuck you calling me?" the bear asked, getting to his feet.

"No, no, Bitch. The lust demon from Ornar's house, the one that Darith already believes is on his side, the one that he paid to spy on me already."

"...That's brilliant," Ornar muttered. "I had almost forgotten him."

"That's because he's been in the Hellspire since that mission, out of the way, out of easy contact, waiting for a reward."

"And you think an appropriate reward is a 'promotion' to field work?" Selene asked, a slight smile on the lioness's face.

"Obviously, you do."

"Of course. Make use of any asset you can, and make them feel good about it in the process."

"Indeed." He cracked his knuckles. "Well, let's see what we have to work with, shall we?"

Dusk snapped his fingers. Much as he preferred the slower route of travel by taking the plane between the different realms, he preferred quicker means of getting his underlings to him. Opening the portal to the Hellspire was as easy as combining a Gluttony spell with one of Greed. One of hunger to eat the distance, one of want to determine where it went. Just like that, the pit bull was on display, wearing a pink collar that had a little bell on it.

Bitch immediately blushed, ripping the collar off as he realized that he was being seen by more than just Dusk, and he growled deep in his throat.

"What the fuck do you want, master?" he asked, even as he bowed, the conditioning still there despite his words.

"I want you to come through. Now."

"Ugh. Cats. Masters you might be, but the way that you treat us all -"

"Now, Bitch."

The pit bull obeyed, stepping through with alacrity. Dusk closed the portal, looking the muscular pit bull over. The obsequious act that the dog had put on in front of Darith before had all but faded, and he doubted that sort of attitude would work a second time. Bitch didn't seem to have the willingness to keep that sort of act up all the time, and that brattiness would need to be broken if he was going to be that useful.

Already, the pit bull was getting up from the bow, growling and whimpering, his cock rising and then falling, his tail doing the same as he struggled to maintain some sort of control over himself.

"What the hell do you want, Master? I was busy getting some...some things done."

"You mean getting ready to plug yourself properly?" Dusk asked. "I imagine that you were getting some dildos modeled after me."

"That's none of your business, master!"

"I think it would be."

"Well, it's not."

The pit bull would only have looked more petulant and childish if he had stuck his tongue out at that moment, and Dusk was almost surprised that the canine hadn't. This behavior was about as childish as one could get, but at the same time, the pit bull was maintaining the conditioning that allowed him to fall under Dusk's control earlier. He sighed, rubbing his forehead.

"This is going to take a lot of work..."

"What the hell are you talking about? Seriously, just tell me what the fuck you want, Master, so I can get back to what I was doing."

"Bitch. Did you already use the Soulari that you were paid for that job?" he asked.

"Yeah. Bought myself some upgrades."

"Upgrades? Like?"

"Some fucking muscles, for one. Ain't going to be taken down by anyone else besides you."

"Is that a fact?" Arnis muttered.

Just like that, the pit bull stiffened, and the fear in his eyes was clear as day. Dusk cocked his head to the side, suddenly rather interested in that reaction, looking past the canine to the bear sitting behind him.

"Am I missing something?"

"Nothing, boss. Just not sure I like hearing him say something like that."

The Lust demon bit off a whimper, a sound that only Dusk could hear. He glanced at Ornar, who looked as clueless as he felt, and then at Selene. She smiled knowingly, obviously getting what was happening, while he was still trying to sort it out in his own mind. What the hell was going -

Oh. Now he got it.

Wrath demons were known to be fearful things, and Arnis was definitely one of the bigger, harder-hitting ones that had gone out of the realm. The very fact that he was here on the plane meant that the pit bull, already conditioned to bow to the bigger, stronger people around him, would be triggered to have submissive feelings, to be pushed to different behaviors just by Arnis's very presence. The bratty persona had already been dialed back by a few degrees, and more than that, the pit bull looked positively cowed by the way that he was getting treated right then.

Hmmm...I wonder...

"Are you afraid of Arnis, Bitch?"

"N-no."

"Heh, fuck yeah, he is," the bear muttered.

"Shut up! I'm not afraid of anyone. Not even Master."

"You say that, fucker, but you ain't never seen one of my people angry."

"I could take you."

"Yeah? I'm getting real fucking tired of hearing bragging that you can't fucking back up."

"Y-yeah? Try me!" the pit bull said, whipping around.

Dusk saw what was coming an instant before it did, and he flicked his hands out, pulling at various sins. Spells of Sloth to slow them down, spells of Greed to pull them to him, and more to ensure that the plane wasn't ripped apart in that moment. They were yanked to either side of his seat, made to kneel in a position akin to waiting hounds. He rubbed their heads slowly, getting a panting groan from Bitch and a grumble from Arnis.

"Really, boss?" the bear grumbled.

"I don't want to rip the plane apart. But...I will let you have a moment. Just a moment, though."

"...Heh, do I get to pick the moment, boss?"

"If you think that you can make your point with it."

"Then lemme up. I can show this bitch who's stronger."

"I'm stronger!" the pit bull said.

"Yeah?"

Arnis stood up as Dusk loosened the chains of the spells that he had laid down, allowing the bear to move around the chair and stand in front of the pit bull. Dusk was, admittedly, rather curious just what the Wrath demon was going to do in a split second to show off just how much power he had. He knew that some of the strength of Wrath came from the almost berserker-style of fighting that they did, the way that their magic endowed them with greater strength and the ability to take pain that no other demon could withstand, but this was the first time that he was really getting the chance to watch it from outside. He leaned back a little bit, crossing one leg over the other, and waited.

Instead of just throwing his head back and roaring, or pumping up his arms with greater muscles, or something that Dusk actually expected, Arnis leaned in. He held eye contact with Bitch, staring the pit bull down. They stared at one another for nearly a minute, neither one breaking eye contact.

Dusk opened his mouth, only for Arnis to hold up a finger.

"Now."

The black cat mentally started the timer for a single second, but in that moment, it felt like that second stretched out for eternity. It felt almost like some sort of hyper-adrenaline time stretch, the way that the world seemed to bend and slow when one was hopped up on the body's natural chemicals, feeling like everyone else was moving slowly, like you had a moment more to react. It was anger-time, he realized, and he was being included in it.

Without his power, he realized that he would have been helpless. The sheer rage that filled the air, the pressure that it put on his limbs and his body, meant that he would have been moving as if he was swimming through syrup, everything going slow while his opponent was moving as fast as they ever had. He would have been weak, while they would have been strong.

More than that, he could hear the roar in his ears, the eternal din of the ever-lasting anger in a Wrath demon, the raw rage of the monster coming for him. He could feel the fury that would only be silenced, even if only for a moment, with his blood thrown on the fire. He could feel what Arnis could unleash if that rage ever got out of control, if he ever found himself with a target that had to die, no matter what.

He felt, for the first time, the raw power of Wrath directed at him.

In that moment, his heart almost stopped, and he realized just how the entirety of Hell could have been held hostage to a single one, if Wrath had ever been directed at someone. That level of power, that level of anger, could theoretically be handled, but that purity of it would break so much before it could even be slowed down, let alone actually stopped.

It was enough to break Bitch, too, as the pit bull lowered his head to the floor of the plane, whimpering.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'll stop. I submit."

"Heh...told ya."

"Yes, you did," Dusk said, shaking his head. "Now, why don't you get back to the cockpit? Bitch will join you on security later, after he's done some of the spying that we need..."

"Yeah, we should be close to landing, anyway. Better get ready for landing, everyone. Welcome to Wrath."

The End

Summary: Dusk has a call from Hellsmith, which reminds him of all the instability that still exists in Greed, followed by some politicking about how they are going to handle the trap in Wrath.

Tags: No sex, Orc, Cat, Lioness, Bunny, Various Species, Series, Modern Fantasy, Planning, Running A Kingdom, Plots and Plans,