Dashing devil omnibus 2.., p.110
Dashing Devil Omnibus 2: Books 4-6, page 110
Boyd spoke mostly for the benefit of the cameras but kept his eyes locked on his foe.
“You see, Silver had this idea to send out a survey last night. It only had one question: ‘What punishment should Archangel face for his crimes.’ She sent it out to almost two billion citizens and received nine hundred million responses. The citizens have spoken—or at least enough of them to satisfy me. Seventy percent of them said that you should be tortured to death, just like you did to all those women and children. They said that the execution the Authority will grant you is too much of a mercy… much too humane for a monster like you.”
“Shut up… demon,” Archangel whined more than seethed.
“Your Handler… Victory Seeker? He was my primary Mentor from the age of six to eighteen,” Boyd continued in a smooth almost casual tone as he glanced up to where his former tor-mentor sat at the back of the stands in a gray suit. “He taught me well, but I’m sure you’ve already gotten his lessons about always giving the citizens what they want. When he taught those lessons, he meant things like wearing a brave smile when facing overwhelming odds, living up to the image of a Hero, and being the force for justice that they need you to be.”
He paused and then dropped his confident grin in favor of all the loathing he felt for the evil creature before him.
“I’m choosing to take it more literally today,” he growled.
Boyd’s tail lashed out to drive the hardened spade tip into his leg, adjusted the angle, and stabbed deep into the bone of Archangel’s hip until he felt it crumble.
“Arrrgghhhh!” the Blonde Buffoon let out a satisfying agonized scream.
“I’m not sure that any of them will get to see the footage being gathered,” Boyd rumbled in a tone that revealed his good spirits. “Blackwall and Davis will make a decision about that, largely depending on how much they think it might traumatize the viewers. They might not get to see my service to them, but that doesn’t remove my duty. I will give the citizens what they asked for. You will not be allowed to die quickly. You will suffer as you have made others suffer. I will not relent until you plead for death, just as you took pleasure in making others beg to be allowed to live.”
Boyd snickered as he pulled his tail out of the man’s hip and drove it in to the other side. “And your arrogance is what made it possible to do it legally. You set the terms as death, which removes our ability to surrender. This duel will only end when I finally let you die.”
There was actually another potential condition, but if the Blonde Buffoon didn’t know it, Boyd wasn’t going to tell him.
“That’s right demon,” Archangel hissed through gritted teeth, “show them that you are the monster you appear to be. Show them the darkness that lurks within you. It will make proving my innocence that much easier after I kill you.”
Boyd gave Archangel an honest smile and nodded with a rumbling, “That’s the idea.”
Chapter 57
The big demon stepped forward and yanked the spear out of the insect it had pinned to the ground with a twist. He took a few rapid steps back as he gave the long spear an expert twirl to clear it of the Blonde Buffoon’s blood.
“We all have darkness in us, Archangel. Most of us try to hide it, but it’s there in everyone. What we do with it is what defines if we are good or evil. You let yours make you rape, torture, and murder women and children. I’m going to use mine to let me do the bad things that my people have said they want done, but don’t have the stomach to do themselves.”
He paused and then shrugged with one shoulder. “Maybe that makes me a monster… but if it does, I’ll be the citizen’s monster. I’ll be the one they call on when the line gets blurry and they need somebody like me. Now get up, the duel isn’t over.”
Archangel flashed up into the air, his wings appearing behind him in an angry blaze, a sword in only his left hand as his right arm hung uselessly at his side. When he flashed again, Boyd swung his spear around, expecting something new from the man who would now be seeking a way to survive. Sure enough, the Blonde Buffoon appeared right in front of him this time, diving forward with his sword to try to skewer the big demon. Archangel likely expected him to have spun around and aimed the strike for where he expected Boyd’s spine would be. Instead, the butt of Boyd’s spear shattered Archangel’s sword before its tip spun around to pierce his gut.
Archangel cried out and brought his wings up in an attempt to use his pincer attack. Boyd’s own darkly burning wings shot forward, shattering the golden constructs and devouring the fire they contained. The Blonde Buffoon’s eyes went wide as Boyd extracted the spear and drove it back into him three more times as he stumbled back, once in his unwounded shoulder and twice in the abdomen.
Boyd was aiming for non-critical injuries, and now that he had removed Archangel’s ability to teleport for a short time, he began putting as many holes in the man as he could without doing fatal damage, all with pin-point accuracy. Each time his spear found a new place to leave a hole, the monster let out another cry of pain. By the time he was able to reform his wings, there were more than a dozen holes that turned his formerly pristine white suit crimson. Just as the six golden wings reformed on his back, the weighted ball of Boyd’s spear crashed into the side of Archangel’s left knee, driven by the force of Boyd’s now S-ranked strength.
With a satisfying crunch, the pseudo-angel was sent corkscrewing into a tumble across the sand. His crippled leg and arm flopped about in a spray of sand. The big demon was done with this and chased his tumbling quarry down to sink the needle tip of his spear into him two more times.
Boyd began bringing the ball down on his other knee while the Blonde Buffoon gasped in agony-induced shock. Archangel flashed away just before it would have landed, the ball crashing into the sand floor and sending out a shockwave and spray of sand once more.
The demon leaped back, finding Archangel hovering a good hundred feet up, likely thinking it made him safe. Boyd’s legs and wings were stronger than ever though, and by using both, the demon was on him before he had a chance to even process his next action.
Since Boyd didn’t want to cripple Archangel’s other arm worse than he had already done, he grabbed the Blonde Buffoon’s ankle, twisted in the air, and threw him back to the sand below. The man landed on his face and chest, sending out another shockwave and spray of sand. With a mighty flap of his wings, the big demon launched himself back to the ground, coming down on his feet and driving the spear down through the back of his opponent’s right knee before twisting it and viciously yanking it free.
With a contemptuous flick of his foot, Boyd rolled the broken and bleeding man over, his ruined white suit not doing much to hide the amount of blood he was losing. Rivulets of red leaked out of the holes his spear had punched in it. Archangel’s face twisted in agonized terror as he stared up with wild eyes at the demon who loomed over him. Said demon, wreathed in dark fire, stared back down at him with cold contempt.
“This—herk—this isn’t happening,” his confused babble was broken by the agony he was experiencing. “This can’t—GAH!—can’t be happening.”
“This is real,” Boyd rumbled in reply. “This is what happens to monsters like you.”
As he spoke, he reached out with the tip of his spear and drew a line in the Blonde Buffoons flesh that led from between his brows up to his hairline, flicking Omega Ray’s crown from his head in the process.
Archangel didn’t process what had happened, too distracted by the pain that radiated through his body to notice that the weight no longer pressed into his head—that is, until Boyd’s tail lifted the crown from the sand and brought it to his hand.
“Wait! No, you can’t!”
“I can’t recover Omega Ray’s crown from the man who arranged for it to be stolen from one of The Authority’s facilities?” Boyd asked, staring at the dark device as he coiled his fingers around it. “This is the item that enabled you to strip Bianca Taylor of her free will… and who knows how many others in the short time you’ve had it. It doesn’t seem like you even skimmed the Hero’s Handbook. Something like this is part of the job.”
With that, Boyd crushed the portion of the crown he had between his fingers.
“NO!” Archangel screamed and weakly tried to lunge at the demon’s leg.
Boyd kicked him in the face with enough force to break his nose without shattering his skull and proceeded to crush the rest of the evil object as best he could with one hand, unwilling to take the other from his spear. He discarded the shattered pieces of the evil artifact to the sand and gave them a stomp for good measure.
Then, as Archangel rolled over to reach for the flattened pile of metal and electronics, Boyd set a tether into the man’s mind and fed him a mix of the same fear and defeat he’d smashed the man’s psyche with in their last duel.
Archanglel’s good arm—actually his better arm—slumped to the sand, and Boyd got what he had been seeking since the start of the duel. The thing he would show Archangel’s supporters to sour the esteem they held the man in: Weakness.
“No…” Archangel sobbed into the sand. “No, no, noooooo, this isn’t happening. This isn’t real. No one could possibly do this to me… not me. I’m a god. This can’t happen to a god.”
“I’m afraid you’re just as mortal as the rest of us,” Boyd corrected the man as he reached down and took a fist full of Archangel’s hair to drag him up to his ruined knees. He had to prop the man up because his body kept wanting to slump forward. Eventually, Boyd got him into a position so the cameras could see his broken face.
Crimson ran down from the line Boyd had carved across his forehead. Streams of tears failed to wash away the blood and sand that stuck to his cheeks. Snot dripped from his ruined nose over his lips.
“This is reality reasserting itself and crushing your delusions. You were never a Hero, and monsters like you need to be put down.”
“No! I’ll give you anything you want. Please, no!” he wailed, his voice breaking into gut-wrenching sobs of agonized terror.
“You have nothing that I want,” Boyd sneered.
“N-nooo! This can’t be happening, not to me,” he cried out in heart-wrenching despair.
“How many of your victims begged?” Boyd asked with a cold growl, setting the spear tip in the small wound in Archangel’s left shoulder. “How many of them pleaded with you to make it stop? How many cried out that you couldn’t do this to them? Answer me, and I’ll finish it.”
“M-most of them,” Archangel sniveled, willing to do what it took to make the torment stop. “S-some c-couldn’t.”
“How many?!” Boyd shouted, the fire in his chest burning cold instead of hot.
The sheer volume of his question blew Archangel’s blood and sweat streaked hair back. Boyd would need the comfort of his loves after what he had done today. He needed their reassurances that he wasn’t a monster—or that if he was a monster, he was a good one.
“I d-don’t… I d-don’t know,” Archangel’s eyes were already dull and dead inside. “I d-didn’t c-count. They d-didn’t m-matter. Just f-fucking Changed, n-not people.”
Boyd drove his spear home, pushing it all the way through the man’s shoulder and destroying the joint, but then retracted it sharply to let Archangel fall in a heap.
The big demon stared at the broken figure before him, the once proud Archangel was now a pathetic heap of blood, broken bones, blubbering flesh, and fear. What was left of the man sobbed in pain and defeat. His limbs destroyed, he leaked blood from punctures all over his body. Archangel lay unmoving, except for the rapid rise and fall of his chest.
“My opponent is disabled and unable to continue,” Boyd rumbled as he leveled his spear, aiming it for the monster’s heart. Part of him wanted to drive it home and put an end to this, but that’s not what his plan called for. “Please begin the count.”
“One, two, three, four…” Blackwall counted in the slow but efficient pace the ritual called for. After reaching ten he called out, “The duel has been decided. Archangel has lost. Am I correct in assuming you do not wish to end his life per the terms he set, Dashing Devil?”
“I do not,” Boyd kept his eyes and spear on the man. “I would have Hopewing heal him so he can be executed properly by The Authority as decided by the Tribunal that presided over his case.”
Archangel continued to sob weakly, having lost so much blood by now that he couldn’t project his energy at all.
“You may heal him,” Director Blackwall said to Hope.
The angel joined Boyd on the sand a moment later with a flap of her majestic wings. She was dressed in her new suit for the occasion. Unfortunately, not even how good she looked in it could distract him.
Boyd struggled to lower or lift the spear still aimed at the man’s heart. More of him wanted to end the monster than he’d thought. But then his angel stepped up to his side and gently ran her fingers over his where they gripped the spear, carefully taking it from him and smiling sweetly into his eyes when they shifted to her face.
“It’s over, my love,” Hope’s musical voice was soft.
“Yes,” Boyd nodded, looking down at the pathetic, broken man in front of him. “It’s over.”
He tried to shake off the lingering emotions, but the sight of Archangel’s helplessness weighed heavily on him.
Hope left a hand on his chest while the other held his still burning spear—his Black Flame continued for several minutes these days. She turned an angelically disdainful look on the broken monster who had once plagued her. She and Boyd were both glad that she no longer needed to touch someone to heal them as the golden light built up around her and the wounded sniveling pile of filth mere feet away.
She didn’t heal much, only minimally stopping the bleeding and barely setting the man’s shattered bones. His last few days would still be spent in agony.
“The criminal is stable,” Hopewing announced after a moment.
Boyd took a deep breath and reluctantly nodded. “Good,” he rumbled.
He let out a sigh of relief as a mixture of satisfaction and unease filled him. The duel was finally over and he had won—exactly in the way that he needed to. But he couldn't shake the feeling of guilt and sadness brought on by how easy it had been for him to torture another sentient being.
He risked a glance at Hope. His angel graced him with a soft smile, and her gentle touch still lingered on his chest. She still approved of him, and Boyd took solace from that.
His angel must have seen the unease in his expression and her pleasant smile took on an understanding cast. “Let’s go,” Hope moved her warm hand to his shoulder to turn him from the sight of what he was capable of doing to another.
She looked back over her shoulder, enjoying the view much more than he did. “Hopefully you’ll never have cause to do such a thing again,” she said softly. “That you are capable of it does not make you evil. Like you said, what you do with your darkness is what—Look out!”
His angel, while having no love of combat, had received plenty of training in it. She spun around on her heel and thrust his spear forward with near-perfect form. If not as fast as he would have managed, her aim was true. The tip pierced Archangel’s chest, right through his heart as he flashed behind them. His wings were already beginning to close in on both of them.
Archangel’s wide eyes blinked once in confusion as his forward momentum stopped and his wings didn’t cut them in half, having flickered out as the spear ended his life. His brain didn’t seem to understand that he was dead—not until his wide eyes looked down to the shaft that stuck out of his chest.
He coughed up a splatter of blood and fell to his knees.
Hopewing held the spear in place. His blue eyes followed the shaft up to the angel that held it. The confusion in his eyes redoubled and he reached one hand out towards her, his arm only half lifting before it dropped limply to his side. His blue eyes glazed over as his life ebbed away, his chin finally dropping to his chest.
Hope extracted the spear with a twist and a sigh before turning to face Boyd. “I’m sorry my love; I must have healed him too much. I know you wanted him to live to face justice at the hands of The Authority.”
Boyd sighed but slung an arm over Hope’s shoulders and pulled her into a hug. “It’s okay, my angel. I don’t think you healed him too much. It was probably the madness that consumed him that allowed him to push beyond what a normal person could. This was enough justice for me”
He frowned at her. “Are you okay? I know you’ve never taken a sentient life.”
“I don’t believe I will harbor any guilt for taking that life,” Hope responded softly, her voice steady though she nestled closer into his embrace. “His deeds transformed him into a monster, devoid of humanity.”
“Ah… what is that?” Her question was about the golden fire that rose from Archangel’s corpse.
“I don’t know,” Boyd admitted as he redoubled his attempts to push his black flame into his wings as he held them up as a shield they could peer over. He shifted Hope so that his body shielded her as well.
What happened next happened so quickly, it was faster than he could react, but not too fast for Silvie to try. The golden flames gathered into the shape of a featureless angelic figure, with six burning wings extending from its back. Its featureless head turned to the stands, where the few onlookers sat in silence. They’d witnessed nothing worth cheering for today.
Suddenly, the golden angel of fire transformed, first turning a hot pink and then changing shape. The wings remained but shifted into ones that resembled pointed butterfly wings. The androgynous shape of its body became distinctly feminine. When it was done, Boyd was left gaping at what appeared to be a pixie or some similar creature made of hot pink flames.
