Our drive to the heavenly offices was fairly uneventful. Abigail managed to do as she’d promised, not only surrounding us in a bubble of darkness but also projecting her view of the road ahead of us directly onto the windshield. It wasn’t perfect, what with the perspective coming from the left seat and a bit of lag in the image, but it got the job done.

It helped that there weren’t any other cars on the road and that the journey itself was more or less just a straight line.

“Is it just me, or does this road have surprisingly few destinations to choose from?” 

“If by few, you mean one, then yeah!” Liz confirmed. “I mean, I was planning to build more destinations eventually, but we didn’t exactly have a ton of free energy to spend back when things were just starting out. I’m surprised Luci didn’t build anything, though - didn’t she promise you all a ‘better life’ or something?”

“Sh-she did,” Ashley said, “but she all she really did was increase our energy budget for summoning things… Said we could just… do whatever, and have whatever, we wanted. She put terminals in every house so that we can just summon stuff from home without going anywhere, so… most of us just sort of chill and do our own things after work…”

“What exactly is your work, anyways?” Abigail asked.

“M-maintaning the divine systems, mostly,” Ashley said. “We all monitor different bits of it. I’m in charge of making sure that none of the wildlife turns invasive… It’s so much work since Liz basically just threw a bunch of different  plants and animals together without concern for whether the separate ecosystems would start bleeding into one another! Even if a lot of it is automated…”

“Maybe it’s not enough work,” Liz countered harshly. “Not if you can find time to do Luci’s genocidal bidding in your spare time!”

Ashley didn’t have a reply to that. In fact, she didn’t say much of anything after, leaving us in an awkward silence that only ended when we rolled up to the office a few minutes later.

“So… how are we doing this?” I asked, eyeing the building we’d arrived at. It looked pretty mundane, if large. A few stories tall, and big around as a mansion - just without any of the fanciness. No sculptures, no columns, no expansive grounds in front of it. Just more of that pitch black surface we’d been driving down. Honestly, the only thing about it that really stood out - other than its size - was the number of windows. That was a lot of glass.

“H-how are we doing what?” Ashley asked.

“This,” I said, gesturing at the building. “You know, this. Are we sneaking in? Because I gotta be honest, I don’t think I have enough magic in the tank to keep projecting everything I’m seeing. Especially if we’re talking about monitoring everything around us and not just what’s right in front of us.”

“Just keep the bubble up around everyone but Ashley, and follow her,” Liz suggested. “She should know her way around.”

“M-me?” Ashley squeaked. “You want me to remain visible?”

“Is there a problem with that?” Devilla asked, arching an eyebrow.

“Well… won’t it be suspicious for my car to suddenly appear and for me to show up out of thin air?” 

“That’s… actually a good point….” Liz replied, suddenly realizing the glaring oversight she’d made. “Um… I guess we better move fast and hope Luci isn’t paying attention to this area?”

Ashley looked blankly at the air, in the general direction Liz’s voice seemed to be coming from, before shaking her head and moving to unlock the car door.

 Despite her reluctance, she wasted no time getting out of the car. I dropped the bubble around us, allowing her to exit, and quickly cast it again - using the same ‘password’ as before. Lucy, Devilla, and I all shared a glance before shaking out heads and following her out of the car, with Lucy and Devilla trailing close behind me.

The inside of the building was… odd. It had a bunch of these partitions up, creating these small rooms within the bigger larger room. Each of them had a chair with wheels, a desk, and a square device with a glass front.

A doll, identical to both the General I knew and the one we’d fought - was pushing some wheeled contraption along the floor, as it made a whirring noise. I didn’t know what it was doing, exactly, but if I had to guess it had something to do with cleaning the carpet. 

Ashley shot the thing a few nervous glances as she walked in, but the doll didn’t so much as look her way as she hurried her way to the other side of the room. The doll did actually pause when we walked in after her, but it couldn’t actually see anything except for Ashley no matter how much she looked around, so it went back to pushing its contraption along the carpet, making its way out the room and down a hall. Lucy, Devilla and I all exchanged another look, silently promising to move a little more carefully going forward, so that we wouldn’t cause any noise. 

Eventually Ashley came to a stop in front of two metallic doors, with two raised discs beside it.

“L-Luci’s office is on the top floor,” Ashley nervously stuttered out. “Her office takes up the whole floor, but the portal’s behind a door on the left. Just… go through it and you’ll be there.”

“You say that as if you’re not coming with us,” I said, narrowing my eyes at her.

“I… Maybe if… Maybe L-Luci will still forgive me if she… doesn’t know? You won’t tell her about my involvement, will you?”

“Yeah, no. How do we know you won’t rat us out the moment we turn our backs on you?”

“That’s…” Ashley hesitated, and I glared at her  before realizing she couldn’t actually see me. “You’re coming with us,” I said instead, hoping that Devilla and Lucy wouldn’t notice the red in my cheeks. “Even if I have to force you through myself.”

How I was going to do that I had no idea, but thankfully Ashley didn’t seem to want to find out.

“A-alright…” she whispered after a moment, before pressing the disk with an up arrow, causing the door to open.

I wasn’t really sure what to expect on the other side of the door. Stairs, I guess? Maybe different stairs, depending on which disk you pressed? Or maybe some sort of magical transport? What I didn’t expect was… “A tiny room?”

“I-it’s an elevator,” Ashley explained.

“It’s a mode of transport,” Devilla helpfully added. “Can you move the bubble into it?”

I nodded, stepping forward and willing the bubble to close in a little. Ashley lingered for a moment, obviously not wanting to go with us, but when I used the edge of my bubble to nudge her she reluctantly walked through the doors, which closed behind us.

“So how does this work?” I asked, eyeing the raised disks on the wall, by the door. “Just hit the highest number?”

“Essentially,” Devilla replied. “The room we’re in is actually more of a box, held up by a cable. The cable will lift us up or lower us depending on which button you press.”

“What if the cable breaks?” I asked, suddenly a lot more nervous. The building wasn’t that big - nothing compared to the tower, for sure - but I still didn’t relish the idea of being trapped in a falling box.

“A fall from this height wouldn’t kill any of us,” Devilla replied with confidence.

It didn’t help.

“And it’s backed up with magic besides!” Liz chimed in.

“Right… Magic you designed? Like this new ‘hiding spell’ that doesn’t even hide sound?” I asked. I glared at the air, hoping Liz would see it, before suddenly remembering that she couldn’t see anything through the hiding spell. My face flushed bright red, again, and I really hoped neither Devilla nor Lucy would notice or comment on it. Thank Liz, they didn’t seem to - or if they did they were at least polite enough to keep it to themselves. As for the aforementioned Goddess herself…

“I said I was sorry, okay?! Coding on the fly isn’t easy, even after that coding camp…” I could practically hear the blush in her voice. Which, ironically, helped me calm down. At least I wasn’t the only one making dumb mistakes.

“A-anyways I left the elevator enchantment to Luci….” Liz continued.”

“And she passed it down to me,” Ashley admitted, sounding miserable. “She always did that. Even when you were around.”

“Really?” Liz asked, sounding a lot more serious. “Damn… I really should have been paying more attention, huh?” 

“Probably,” Devilla agreed, bitterness in her tone. “But I doubt the fault is yours alone. Knowing you, I doubt you took the time to meticulously craft every angel’s personality.”

“Nope!” Liz agreed. “I mostly randomized it… Wanted them all to be unique, and… y’know… human-like? But uh… I wasn’t the best at being there for them during development. Too distracted by all the humans and making sure things like the atmosphere were set just right so that they wouldn’t all die on me - there were a couple close calls early on, actually! And then there was the magic spillage, and all that mess…”

“I don’t think an absent parent really explains how they all went genocidal,” I pointed out.

“I doubt it helped though,” Liz replied. “But yeah. No. I don’t really know where I went wrong. Which… honestly scares me more than anything?”

“Um… We’re here,” Ashley interrupted, looking a little nervous. The doors opened as she spoke, revealing what looked to be a waiting room, with chairs to the side and a large desk in the back. A woman sat behind it - or rather, a doll did.

“Hello,” she said. “Do you have an appointment?”

“N-no,” Ashley said. “We- uh… I’m just here to go through the portal?”

“The portal is not to be used except by Mistress Luci,” the doll warned Ashley.

“Yeah, well… try and stop us,” I replied - a disembodied voice from the doll’s perspective. Not that it seemed to react to that. “It’s the door on the left, right?” I asked, indicating a door behind and to the left of the large desk. “Let’s go.”

“I ask that you please respect the rules,” the doll stated. It did not, however, rise from its chair.

“I don’t think this one has any combat potential,” Liz said. “That’s not exactly a standard feature for them…”

“Then let's get moving,” I said, hurrying towards the door. “Before it gets a message out to Luci.”

“I have recorded this interaction and will be reporting it later,” the doll stated in response. “She will be alerted once office hours begin.”

“Office hours?” Lucy asked curiously. “Shouldn’t you be telling her right away?”

“Mistress Luci left strict instructions not to interrupt her outside of work hours,” the doll replied. “She stated that it interferes with her work life balance otherwise.”

“...Right,” I said, moving quicker despite the doll’s assurances. “Come on, let’s go.”

The door opened easily, not even locked. On the other side was a small room, with a glowing white disk of energy floating in the center.

“The portal?” I asked, just to confirm.

“That’s right!” Liz replied. “Just step through it and you’ll be in the divine realm!”

“Right…” I said, glancing at Devilla and Lucy. “You girls ready?”

They nodded. Ashley, meanwhile, shook her head,, but I didn’t really care about that.

“M-my job was just to get you to the portal!” she complained. “I’ve done that…”

“Well, we’re still going to need a guide to Liz,” I pointed out. “Unless you expect me to believe you don’t know where the Goddess’s bedroom is?”

“I-I mean, I’ve only been there once,” she said. “Back before all this started… I was trying to deliver a message to Luci, and they were both in the bedroom, and… And… Well, I was ordered to try and burn out that memory, but… I can draw you a map?”

“A map would be wonderful,” Devilla said before I could reply. “And to be honest, I hardly see a reason to bring someone who doesn’t want to be here any further. Assuming we can trust you not to alert Luci, that is?”

“Of course I won’t!” she said with surprising firmness. “Luci would never forgive me for helping you get this far… plus… Well… I do kinda want the war to stop, too, believe it or not… I mean, maybe if there’s peace you all can advance your civilization enough to create video games in the next two thousand years!”

“...Right,” I muttered, rolling my eyes even as Ashley ran back to the doll - Luci’s secretary, I guess - to get some paper and a pen. Unexpectedly the doll handed them to Ashley without comment.

A few minutes later she held out a crudely drawn, but surprisingly detailed map in the direction of the portal. “You start in the foyer - or at least, that’s what it was when I went last? Luci may have changed things around, in which case this whole map is useless, but… that’s kinda pointless to think about, so let’s just assume you’ll be entering in the foyer. I’ve mapped out the exact path I took. The numbers I put in are how many doors you need to pass before you make the next turn, since it’s not exactly drawn to scale…”

“You sure finished that quickly,” I remarked, a little suspicious.

“I’ve… Well, I’ve considered going to see Liz… once or twice… maybe even letting her go? But… I could never work up the courage…”

“Yeah, well… better late then never, I guess. Even if you aren’t actually coming with us.” I couldn’t actually take the map without dropping the bubble around me, but thanks to my new status as a full-fledged Demon, that was enough to commit it to memory. After glancing at it, I started towards the portal - only to stop when Devilla put a hand on my shoulder.

“Me first,” she stated.

“You?” I questioned. “Seriously?”

“Of course seriously,” she replied with a frown. “I’m the-”

“What?” I interrupted. “The strongest? Because I’m pretty sure we’re all equal in that regard at this point. Hell, I’m the one immune to holy magic, between the three of us, which arguably makes me stronger here! So unless you’ve got a reason beyond just self-sacrificing tendencies, I’m gonna say no to that.”

“It’s…” Devilla hesitated, clearly struggling to come up with an excuse for why she should put herself in danger instead of me. “My family’s drama?” she suggested, after a moment. “I mean, it is my ancestor we’re going to face…”

“You mean it’s your ancestor we’re trying not to face. Unless you’ve forgotten that the name of the game is stealth here?”

“That’s… I mean… What about the spell?” she asked. “If you go through first we’ll all be exposed here.”

“And if you go through first you’ll be exposed in the middle of the divine realm!” I countered. 

“Actually, you should be able to keep the spell up through the portal,” Liz said. “Just make sure you all hold hands, or something, so that the portal stays fully open while you’re going through it.”

“Great. Let’s do that,” I said, holding out my hand before Devilla could reply. “Unless you can think of an actual reason why I should be letting you risk your life instead of mine?”

“That’s…” Devilla frowned, clearly unhappy. “...Fine. We’ll go in together. The portal’s wide enough for two people side by side, and we can have Lucy behind us.”

“Fine by me,” I said, rolling my eyes. Devilla just couldn’t accept the idea of someone else being in danger for her, could she? Even though I was just as strong as her, now… not that I exactly hated the idea of being worried over, but I wanted her to get it through her thick head that I worried about her too.

A conversation to be had for later, I guess. When we weren’t trying to free a goddess from what was probably the single most dangerous entity alive.

For now, I grabbed hold of Devilla’s hand, intertwined her fingers with mine, and then proffered my tail for Lucy to take. She accepted without a word, and - after taking a deep breath - we stepped through the portal.

Before I could even see what was on the other side I felt my spell shatter.

~~~

Author's Notes

Chapter 89! Wasn't sure this was going to be done today, but FallingLeaf came through for me and got the editing done. (Many thanks!)

Again, not sure how I felt about this chapter... the second part was originally written from Devilla's PoV, but then I realized that she wouldn't be able to see anything unless they dropped the darkness spell, so... yeah. Abigail instead! Which meant having to write things a bit differently, but hopefully it worked out alright?

On another note, if ever you've been tempted to skip past a cliffhanger via Patreon, now's the time! I've written all the way to the end, so there's no cliff hangers left! (The chapters are still unedited, though.)