I hovered over the battlefield, looked at the bodies below, and said, "Steve, can we transport the dead and undead bodies to a safe location?"

  "Yes, sir," he said.

  Infernal red lights shot down and the bodies, dead and undead, disappeared.

  "Thanks, Steve," I said.

  "No problem, sir," he said.

  I flew down to where I saw Gilbert standing. Or at least, the person I assumed was Gilbert. There was a demon in purple robes standing in the middle of the battlefield looking up at me. His flesh had been restored, but he looked different from a normal demon.

  He was gray-black with branching veins and cracks of gold in his skin. The gold seemed organic in nature. It didn't seem like actual gold so much as just gold tinted skin. He had a deceptively young-looking face for someone who was probably hundreds or even thousands of years old. He had a goatee, spiky black hair, and gold horns.

  I touched down on the ground a few feet in front of him. "Gilbert. Good job out there. Judging by the number of undead, you were effective in your work, I assume."

  "I was. Although, I would have preferred to prevent as many casualties as there were, my undead soldiers did do a good job of buying time until you decided to use your overwhelming power to end the fight without further bloodshed," he said, gritting his teeth.

  "You seem upset by that," I said, a little taken aback. What had his underwear in a twist?

  "I am. Here I was risking my undead life and watching my brethren—of which you are not, even with your new features—die, when you could have ended the battle before it even started. So many lives could have been spared!" he said.

  "Hold on. I didn't know I could stop them without using mind control until later," I said, putting my hands up.

  "You're saying you could have in fact prevented the battle, but you didn't want to use mind control on a bunch of mindless monsters? What is wrong with you? You valued the consent of soulless creatures over the lives of your subjects? That is so illogical, I can't wrap my mind around it!" he said, throwing his hands up and walking away.

  "Hey! I'm sorry I didn't violate their consent to save our lives, ok! I'm going through a lot that you don't know about right now that could lead to catastrophic disaster if I make the wrong decision," I said.

  Gilbert turned around and crossed his arms over his chest. "Try me."

  "If I use these sinful powers of mine, I could lose myself to them and go as psycho or worse than Lucifer did. I could try to take over the world and cause the deaths of not only millions or even billions of humans but also millions of demons," I said, pulling at my hair.

  "Every moment I let myself relax, the crown of corruption, the thing that gives me my powers, starts to warp my mind. Not too long ago, I was actually considering taking over the world. It would make managing these apocalyptic scenarios a hell of a lot easier."

  "In the middle of the fight, I was cursing God and planning revenge against Him. That's insane! If I had mind controlled thousands of those abyssal creatures at the beginning of the battle, who knows what that would have done to my mind! I could have lost it and led the army to take over this entire country!"

  "Ok, planning a war against god may be a little too far, even for me," Gilbert said. "I suppose I see your point, but I still don't like it. I'd like to see you become the administrator we all want you to be, and kowtowing to Heaven isn't it."

  "What do you suggest I do then, oh mighty Gilbert? Please teach me oh wise one!" I said. I was getting a little tired of being pushed around by him.

  "Hey! I'm just giving you my honest opinions. I never said you had to follow them. I just want what's best for Hell, and you're taking us down a bad path. Is it really so wrong for me to raise my voice and speak up?" he said.

  "No, not necessarily. You're just taking me in a very different direction than I was going and I don't know how to reconcile in my mind which is the right decision," I said. "This is all very confusing and difficult to think about, especially after such a massive and exhausting battle."

  "Ok, I suppose that makes sense. I did go pretty hard on you there. I just don't like to see my brethren die in front of me," Gilbert said. "It's not a pleasant experience."

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  "I understand that. What do you think I should do?" I said. "If I'm being honest, I don't just want to stop Samael and the fallen angels for God or Heaven. I want to stop them because Samael tried to kill me and made me look like a chump. Also, he's an asshole and I don't want to see him get his way."

  "Ok, that's a motivation I can get behind," he said. "Do that, and then come back to Hell and we'll talk. I know I'm not the foremost expert on running Hell, seeing as I've never done it, but I've been around the block a few million times. I think I have a lot to offer as an advisor, and I'd like to help you, Dave. I don't hate you. Not yet. I just think you need to reconsider your priorities."

  "That's fine. You can stay in the control room building. We have some beds in the basement for day time naps in case anyone needs one," I said. "Steve, beam him up."

  "Yes, boss," Steve 2 said.

  "I'll see you on the other side," Gilbert said.

  A red light came down and teleported Gilbert away. Shortly after that, Fredericka ran up and said, "Hi, master. What do you want me to do?"

  "Hang out in the control room. I'll have Nimby get you something to eat," I said.

  "Yes, master," she said.

  "About the master thing, there's something I need to tell you. I realize now, I accidentally mind controlled you into obeying me. I understand if you don't want to have anything to do with me because of that. I'll just send you to the Dire Wilds and we'll go our separate ways," I said.

  "But I'd like to apologize and I'd like you to consider that when making your decision. I deeply apologize for violating your consent. I didn't know what I was doing at the time, and I'm sorry."

  "Master? You changed my mind? I don't know how to react to that. I kind of want you to keep being my master, but I don't know if that's what I should want or if that's the mind control," she said.

  "Think about it. Consider that I will take very good care of you and compensate you fairly if you decide to stay. But ultimately it's about what you want. I'm not entirely sure I can undo the mind control without messing it up more, so I'll try to leave it as is. Unless you want me to try," I said.

  "No. I feel fine this way. I don't want you messing around in my head anymore than you already have. I will think about it. Regardless of what you did, I would like to be fed and taken care of. You have no idea how hard it is to be the leader of a herd of dire unicorns. It's so much pressure!" she said.

  "I hadn't considered that," I said, chuckling. "Well, I'll send you on your way. Steve, beam her up."

  "Yes, boss," Steve 2 said.

  "Bye, master! Impale your enemies' butts for me!" she said.

  Another red light came down and teleported Fredericka away. It would be dramatic for me to say I was all alone now, but that wouldn't be true. There was still Ziz, flying around in the sky.

  Then there was Behemoth. I had a job to do. I had to restore him to his original form. And then we would talk. I flew over to where Behemoth's head was. I had smashed his mouth so he couldn't speak and I needed to speak to him, so I would have to heal that first before I did anything else.

  I focused on my compassion for his well-being, on how much I wanted him to be whole again, and the crown shrunk and disappeared, and was replaced by the Wreath of Virtue. The yellow rose of compassion emanated yellow light, and I gained the ability to heal and restore.

  With my healing ability back, I set to work on mending Behemoth's mouth. I focused on the image of what his mouth looked like before I smashed it to pieces. Slowly, pieces of rock and earth floated back into place and reformed his head to its original state.

  "Behemoth, can you speak?" I asked.

  "No thanks to you," he said.

  "What do you mean? I healed your mouth. It is thanks to me," I said.

  "Oh. Right. Well, I wouldn't need to be healed in the first place if you hadn't disfigured me," he said, furrowing his brow. It sounded like rocks sliding over each other. If I thought about it, a lot of his movements sounded like rocks sliding over each other. Probably because they were.

  "I apologize for that. I'm looking to make it up to you. What if I made you whole again? Would you agree not to kill any humans?" I said.

  "Hmm. I don't love that you're not actually giving me anything extra, beyond just restoring me to how I should be before you broke me, but I am broken. So I do need mending. You know what? That's a deal. I'll agree to that," he said.

  "Good. Now we're going to shake on it, ok?" I said, smiling.

  This is exactly what I wanted. To make a binding deal so that he had to obey our agreement. I felt the wreath immediately disappear and be replaced by the Crown of Corruption. Damn it! It felt like the thing was just mocking me now.

  "Ok," Behemoth boomed.

  I flew down to Behemoth's right hand, which was smashed to pieces, but I grabbed a piece and shook it up and down. I felt as the deal magic sealed the deal and flowed through my body into Behemoth. Nice.

  Then I focused on getting back my restoration ability by forcing myself to think about how much I cared about Behemoth's well-being. The wreath came back, the power was restored, and I began my work.

  I created the image of Behemoth whole again in my mind. I closed my eyes to focus, but I could hear the movement of rocks and stone and earth coming back together to form his body. After an hour, I opened my eyes. My work was done.

  Behemoth stood up, shaking the earth tremendously. "This is wonderful! I feel great!" he said, jumping up and down and causing huge holes to form in the earth around his feet.

  "Now I want to discuss a plan with you that you are free to opt out of. I do think it would help you and I equally in the long run though. What I want to do is…" I said.

  I explained the plan I devised to take down Samael. I didn't know what I was going to do about the rest of the fallen angels, but Samael was the leader and without him, hopefully, the rest would abandon whatever plan he had and scatter to the wind.

  If not, I would have to engage in some angel hunting, which I did not want to do, but I would if I had to. Ziz came down at some point during the conversation and I relayed the plan to her as well.