A Hellknight was, ceptually, pretty simple: they were the demonic equivalent of an Elven Mage-Knight. A humanoid demon skilled in both ons and spellcasting, pair-bonded with a rger, quadrupedal demon that had a lot of i magical energy but an impaired ability to actually use it. They were the elite, highly-mobile warriors that spearheaded the armies of Hell.

  And now I got to fight one.

  Yay.

  "Talia, horse," I ordered quickly. "Faith, hop on Talia and hold on tight. I'm gonna buy you some time."

  "What are you- Joseph!"

  I guhe throttle, charging towards the Hellknight, gun already bzing. The bck, chitinous armor he was wearing seemed to deflect all the bullets, but he wasn't pletely shrugging them off, either- they were, at least, irritating and distrag him, which gave me time to slip past him, drawing his attention away from Talia and Faith.

  I didn't know what exact sort of demon he was- there were too many more-or-less-humanoid-shaped demon varieties for me to know them all, and he was wearing full-body armor plete with a helmet- but his steed was a grotesquely wolf-like mohat seemed to drool fire, and as near as I could tell, that signified a Hellhound- meaning that I also had to worry about the Hellknight's mount breathing fire.

  The ime my dad tries to py the "I fought in the War of the Roses" card in an argument, I'm going to point out that I had to fight a Hellknight when I was eighteen.

  Well. Assuming I survived this, anyhow. Which was a hell of an assumption.

  I zipped past the Hellknight, narrowly dodging a burst of hellfire from the Hellknight's hand- good god I wish they'd stop using "hell-" as a prefix for all things demonic, it sounds ridiculous when you're talking about actual demons for long enough- and whipped around to see... Talia still in the shape of an elf, having ignored my order to turn into a horse.

  But, well, it made sense. I was a knight- I saw a mounted oppo and immediately thought to have a mounted duel, because that's what I was trained for. Talia was not a knight, she was a Druid, and quite aside from the fact that mounted bat was hard and she'd never been taught how to do that, she was, first and foremost, a spellcaster.

  And right now, she was casting a spell to summon up aal spirit, which was rapidly coalesg from bck sand into the shape of some strange fged beast, which reminded me more of a lizard than a mammal.

  Right. Here's hoping that hellfire does not turn out to be a hard ter to a sand elemental.

  I kicked my bike ba gear, and sped down towards the Hellknight, who now had to deal with both the Mage-Knight ing at him from one side and the sand elemental ing at him from the other. Evidently, though, I was judged the bigger threat, as the Hellknight turo face me, shooting off a barrage of firebolts in my general dire that'd be abominably hard to dud weave through.

  I cast a quick fire-aspected shielding spell, and then did my best to weave through the gaps. I still got clipped by a few of them, but aside from a bit of drained magicka, I was fine, and got close enough that the Hellknight couldn't rely on spells anymore.

  Steel rang against steel, as I deflected her sword with my own.

  Once upon a time, I'd wao make my own sword. I was a maist, I knew how to tural into finished goods. But then I learned more about metallurgy, and the fact that, no, a sword really did have to be fed, not maed, and also that, no, I did not want to spend the years it'd take to learn how te well enough to make a sword that was actually good. Not when I had a much better alternative.

  Frederick Iro had already learhe art of the fe, in his youth, and had produced a number of high-quality swords fe-Knights and soldiers alike. But a few swords he'd made, he kept, in pristine dition, waiting for the right moment. And when his nephew needed a sword of his own? Well, what moment would possibly be mht than that?

  I kept going after the impact, my arm a little jarred, but otherwise unharmed. Frederick's work was ostentatiously pin and undecorated, but he could get away with that for a reason: it really was just that good, even before it was ented by an a archmage, and could stand up to a high-speed impact with a Hellknight's sword without so much as a ni the bde.

  Unfortunately, it turned out that a Hellhound could turn on a dime, and now I had an angry Hellknight at my back, with only speed as my recourse. Talia and Faith were right in front of me, so I had to do some turning to keep the Hellknight from barreling into them, but I could ma, especially with some quick magic to harden the sah my tires for better grip. Plus, if I did it just right...

  "Hell yeah!" Talia crowed, as the sand elemental collided with the Hellknight, catg him in the side at the apex of a powerful leap. The ensuing struggle was brief, and did not end in the sand elemental's favor, but it wasn't a victory for the Hellknight- in the initial impact, before hellfire could roast the sand elemental into molten gss, the elemental had mao dislodge the Hellknight's helmet (hellmet? No, no, that's stupid), revealing...

  ...Ah, shit, that's anoddamn Succubus. She's got her own Occult bullshit, and this is a Big Dramatic Twist, and she's gonna capitalize on that.

  "Is this the best the mortal pne muster?" she demanded, as I skidded to a stop and turo face her. "A half-trained Mage-Knight on a bicycle and a lizard made of sand? Your det softness will be the end of you."

  I scowled; I did not like where this was going. If she wasn't an Occultist, I wouldn't bother listening to her- I simply did not care what the denizens of Hell thought, and I especially did not care about what the followers of Paimon, who had killed me, kidnapped my friends, and stolen my van, thought. But... Well, she was an Occultist, and I o know what kind of story she was trying to tell here, and why the shape of that story ensured her victory.

  "I'm 18 years old," I said dryly. "And so far, you have failed to so much as draw my blood. Tell me, what exactly makes you think you're winning, here?"

  She was gonna monologue anyways- why not give her a prompt to get it all out more effitly, so I have to listen to as little of her bullshit in the process?

  "It's aability," she said. "King Lysander, fed in the fires of the Fairy Rebellion, was the greatest fighter who ever lived, and millennia of the Dark Crusades kept him sharp. But Lucifer is gone, and so is Lysander; you and your kind have known nothing but peace, and soft times make soft men."

  Oh no. Ohhhh not this bullshit.

  "The fires and trials and miseries of Hell have hardened me, made me strong," she tinued. "Steel sharpens steel, and this bde will-"

  She was cut off by a force bolt to the face, being very nearly ued by the impact.

  "I do not care," I began, loudly, "about the stupid lies you tell yourself about why it's not only normal but good that your parents hit you when you were a child. I don't care about your miserable, self-serving worldview of victims and victimizers, where kindness is somehow a worse cruelty than torture. I don't care about your excuses. So do me otle kindness and shut the fuck up, before I e over there and make you."

  When I looked ba this moment, I'd view it as the Occult equivalent of a terspell, dismantling the narrative she peddled to repce it with my own, stronger narrative. In the moment, however, I wasn't thinking about it in such cold, detached terms. She was wrong, both factually and morally, and I was right.

  I guhe throttle o time, sword raised to finally finish this farce of a fight. She spurred her own mount towards me, a fierce scowl upon her face that oiled by the blood leaking from the er of her mouth, her own sword- visibly chipped where it had impacted my own- raised to meet me.

  In the middle, we collided. My own sword went through her eye, through the gap in her skull, through her brain, and mao punch through the solid bone in the back of her skull.

  Her sword, taking a path of lesser resistance, slipped between my ribs, and into my heart.

  AnnouAs always, if you like Iro and wao keep making it, the best way to do that is to leave a ent, here or on my discord server.