Cruciata had walked to the other end of the garden to pick some bloodblooms for Pava. She glanced over to Pava who was sitting on a tree swing about thirty yards away. Cruciata admired the beauty of the lovely peacock demoness from afar. How had she not seen it before? Had Pava's human origin really clouded her eyes so badly? The way Pava's green and blue feathers caught the pale light of night made Cruciata's heart flutter. But it was Pava's sweetness and gentle nature that was the most beautiful of all. Yes, Lady Cruciata Carrionfly was truly a lucky demon.
Suddenly, a pillar of smoke blacker than Darkness itself flew into the garden. Cruciata gasped. This black smoke may have appeared dark, but its essence had no ties to cosmic Darkness... this was a thing of Chaos, the enemy of Darkness and Light alike! Worse, this pillar of primordial Chaos was heading straight for Pava!
Cruciata flapped her fly wings as hard as she could, causing them to make a loud buzzing sound as she flew, trying in vain to reach Pava in time. Alas, it was no use. Cruciata could only watch helplessly as the smoke shaped into an ill-defined creature of a type alien to God and the Devil alike and swung a claw crackling with black energy at Pava. The claw made no visible wound, put Pava collapsed onto the lawn choking up blood. The smoke thing then vanished to Darkness-knows-where.
Cruciata finally reached Pava and cradled the peacock demon's head in in her lap, stroking her with four obsidian-colored arms. "Pava!" Cruciata wept, tears streaming from her compound fly eyes. "Please be okay!"
"Cr...Crucie..." Pava choked out. "I feel... weak. I'm... scared."
"Don't be," Cruciata sobbed. "Whatever happens, I'm here. You won't have to face anything without me."
"Th-thank you, Crucie," Pava smiled weakly. "Thank you for everything..."
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Beelzebub sensed the ancient evil from the time before time doing its work. It had been an entity called Tsaahzosch the Corruption. Rumor had it that Tsaahzosch had once served a being that had slain Jehovah's father in some ancient cosmos eons older than the one Jehovah had shaped. There was no way a weak, minor demon could survive the wounds inflicted by such a creature.
Beelzebub grinned to himself, a terrible thing to behold. Discovering how to summon Tsaahzosch the Corruption was the magical breakthrough that could guarantee his success. It almost didn't matter if that meddler Baal and God's lapdog Michael caught all of the Iron Knights. Even if their souls were utterly annihilated, Beelzebub could always send Tsaahzosch to assassinate Lucifer.
Tsaahzosch was silent, stealthy, deadly, impossible to trace, and more powerful than even the Devil himself. The elder entity was honestly superior to the Iron Knights in the same way that an experienced CIA assassin is superior to a gaggle of toddlers running around with kitchen knives. One way or another, Lucifer would die and Beelzebub would claim the titles of Devil and King of Hell for himself. And then it would be Heaven's turn to suffer! Beelzebub cackled softly to himself. Pava's death would be the first of many triumphs.
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Cruciata couldn't just let Pava die. There had to be something she could do! Desperate, she opened a communication portal to Michael and Baal. "Baal! Michael! Something horrible has happened!"
"Is it the Iron Knights?" Michael asked.
"No, worse!" Cruciata wept. "I was in the garden with my fiancee Pava when this... this thing made of something like smoke came practically out of nowhere and mauled her. Only it wasn't actual smoke. It was... it was Chaos essence!" Cruciata broke down into a fresh deluge of tears.
"Chaos?!" Baal gasped, nearly swallowing his cigar in shock. "The forces of Chaos were banished from Heaven, Hell, and Earth before Creation!"
"Could the wards be weakening?" asked Michael.
"If they are, that's bad," said Baal. "Chaos would like nothing better than to tear this orderly little cosmos apart and return it to a churning sea of madness."
"Maybe just the one slipped through a small crack in the magic," Michael said hopefully.
"Did Beelzebub have anything to do with this?" Baal asked Cruciata.
"He might have," said Cruciata. "He was making death threats at Pava earlier tonight... but how could he manage to bring Chaos into Hell?! Not even Lucifer knows how to do that?!"
"It does sound impossible..." Michael mused.
"Either way, Lucifer would NEVER believe it," sighed Baal. "Sometimes I think it would take Beelzebub openly stabbing Lucifer in the ribs and shouting 'I hate you!' over and over again to convince our king that the Archduke of the Eighth doesn't have his best interests at heart. Whatever excuse Beelzebub has, Lucifer eats it up."
"I don't care about prosecuting anyone right now!" Cruciata screamed. "I just want you to save Pava from dying! You were there when Rachel was saved from death, right? Just do what happened there."
"I just don't know," sighed Michael. "For one thing, I can't tell if that kind of magic is strong enough to undo the wounds of Chaos. For another, the magic needs the tears of a Heavenly being and a Hellish one who each love her dearly. We obviously have the Hellish being on hand, but Pava doesn't know any angels."
"You have to do SOMETHING!" Cruciata shrieked. Shrieking always worked when she wanted something from her father. She had a feeling it wouldn't help here, but old habits were hard to break.
"I'll have to find Penemue," Michael said. "She might know something useful about Chaos wounds."
"You have to hurry!" Cruciata sobbed. "I don't think Pava has long."
Cruciata closed the portal and knelt over Pava. "Please, sweetie, you have to hang in there. Help is coming..."