Stronger Together chapter 226 (Patreon)

Parsing the subtext of this conversation was way beyond my level, but  I had to do my best anyway. There were a few important elements even I  got. Firstly, Lucifer had acknowledged he was leading the armies out to  battle to try to profit off the clash between the two sides, which meant  there was going to actually BE a clash to profit off, presumably more  than the usual skirmishes. The Outsiders were planning a concentrated  push at the gates. Second of all he mentioned it to me and offered to  send me home, which meant he probably wanted the Gate forces aware of  that for some reason.

That  meant that most likely he was worried that the Outsiders would hit too  hard and too fast and just overrun the Gate guardians, which would be of  no benefit to him. Thirdly he wanted to use my position with the  Accorded nations to make that happen, and had somehow arranged for me to  end up here so he could do so. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if he'd  been the one to contact Pater and imply there would be benefits if I  was chosen as his champion, which explained the hard sell the Lord of  Dis had been putting on me to accept.

It  was maddening really, not knowing how much of this had been planned out  in advance, but I wasn't going to make the rookie mistake of assuming  it was everything. Part of us ending up in hell had been luck, but  Lucifer had taken advantage as well as he could and was implying more to  intimidate me. It was a classic tactic, take credit for everything so  your enemy thinks you're infallible. Because that was what Lucifer was.  He was my enemy. Maybe we weren't irreconcilable in terms of an actual  fight breaking out, but Lucifer was everyone's enemy except Lucifer's.

Which  meant that this whole thing was just a trap. He didn't need an excuse  to send me back, he already had a reason. He wanted to make me feel  indebted so he could worm more benefits out of me, because despite  already having me in a bad spot he couldn't resist twisting the knife a  bit. He was the Devil after all. But he overextended and gave away the  game. I wouldn't have stopped to figure all this out if he hadn't put me  on the spot. Which meant he wasn't infallible. He might be way stronger  than me, but he wasn't perfect.

I  sat there for a minute thinking, then I gave him a pensive look and  shook my head. "Nah. I don't think so." He raised an eyebrow, clearly  surprised, but waited for me to keep going. "You'll send me back either  way, in fact, I think you want me to go back. This isn't a favor from  you, if anything it might be a favor TO you. So no, I won't 'give you a  reason'. The question is are you willing to hamstring your own plans out  of spite because I figured it out. Despite what people assume based on  your nature or history I don't think you are. I don't think you're that  short sighted."

He  stared at me stoicly for a moment, then burst out laughing. "Damn, and  damn again. I got greedy didn't I. I'm so used to dealing with demons  and fallen. It's in their nature to torment their prey so none of them  would have noticed that. It would be expected for me to try to wring  blood from a stone. Well spotted Cameron. Yes, I'll be sending you home  either way, I suppose you've already deduced that I have use for you  back on earth. Though now I'm almost sad to see you go, you have vision  little brother." My eyes widened at that, because it implied knowledge  he shouldn't have.

He  saw my expression and burst out laughing. "Oh yes, I can see what you  are. Or are becoming I suppose, take your pick. I don't know how but  then I've never been the type to be picky about methods. A new sibling  after so long, how exciting." He glanced at Yang sidelong, my girlfriend  had been keeping quiet, letting me do the talking, she wasn't one for  negotiating and punching the Devil could have been bad so we'd agreed to  let me handle things on that end. "Or maybe two."

I  felt kind of faint. This was not a good thing, Lucifer was...holy shit  had I been thinking of trying to fucking fight him? Uriel could crush  galaxies according to Word of Jim, and he was the WIMPY brother among  the archangels. That was crazy, what had I been thinking? He seemed to  sense my horror and laughed. "Don't be too hard on yourself kid, it's  all the hellfire. I see it refining you somehow, making you stronger  even as you sit there, but it tends to push people to aggression when  they submerge too deeply."

I  swallowed hard at that. "Ah, well ok. Good to know. But I have to ask,  if you know what we're on the path to becoming why not just kill us? No  offense but I think once my mortality is purged I might be a serious  threat. Maybe not to you specifically but at least to your interests?"  Which was a stupid thing to bring up objectively, but Lucifer wasn't an  idiot. He knew exactly what I could become and chose not to kill me off  out of spite or worry. If a simple reminded would change his position I  was misreading this situation so bad I had no hope of surviving anyway.

He  grinned at me. "See, now you're just not listening. I told you that  already. Disruptions in the status quo provide people like me  opportunities, and you're just one big disruption. Sure that might make  things annoying for me, but honestly hell has gotten a tad ungainly  anyway. A bit of a cull wouldn't be too much of an issue, I'm confident  I'll come out on top in any case. No little brother, I'm not going to  kill you. I'm going to help you. Because a new archangel will set the  world to burn, and I have marshmallows to roast."

A  sentiment that eerily echoed one Harry had made in the books, though  admittedly Harry was more grimly accepting and less openly gleeful about  it. But all that said it was enough to understand where he was coming  from. Didn't make me feel comfortable about it exactly but hey, if I'd  been comfortable with the devil I suspected I'd have other things to  worry about. Still there wasn't anything I could really say to counter  someone saying "you exist, things are gonna' get fucked up now".

From  a certain angle I got his point about us. Sure, he could grab and  capture us and then kick my ass up maybe experiment on us, but to what  end? He had access to armies of true born fallen, making new angels  wasn't really useful to him. Our personal strength was pretty  insignificant compared to his own and if he was to be believed it would  be more useful to him to have us running around being giant pains in  everyone's ass. Part of me itched to try to come up with some way to  foil his plans, but how do you foil someone basically telling you to be  yourself?

I  sighed, this was all over my head, the only thing that mattered was that  it was time to go. I could worry about being puppeteered by the devil  when I was back home and away from this bullshit. "Ok, so we go home  now, what does that entail? Since this isn't a favor and it's something  you need from us too I doubt you'd be stupid enough to try to get me to  make a deal or sign something. What, do I just click my heels three  times and say there's no place like home?" Just to fuck with me, Lucifer  agreed with a serious face.

I  rolled my eyes and dismissed it, but unfortunately Yang had never seen  the wizard of Oz and took him at his word. She stood up and clicked her  heels, muttering the supposedly magic words. Lucifer burst out laughing  so hard he fell out of his chair. "Oh little sister, that was just  perfect. Hells bells, I can't wait to remind you of this again in a few  millennia. Just for that I won't even be mysterious." He waved a hand  and a red portal whirled into being next to him. It reminded me of the  one in the lake, but much more stable.

I  shouldn't have been surprised. We'd tried to open portals to earth a  bunch of times but it never worked, too far I supposed. But Lucifer  wouldn't have that problem. With strength like his he could rip his way  to earth with a pinkie provided it was withing the rules to actually do  it. I supposed us being here constituted a valid reason to make the  connection. I was just hoping that having all of his forces massed for  war meant he couldn't send anything along with us, though who knew if  that was even possible.

I  rolled my eyes at his antics and went to grab Yang's hand and pull her  over to the portal. I glanced over at Lucifer. "So this will take us  home? Back to Sibiu or back to our own place? And when will we be going  back?" I was hoping that it wasn't going to be like years later, I  couldn't imagine how devastated the girls would be. I had horrible  mental flashbacks to that teen titans episode where Starfire fell into a  time portal and ended up in a future where her disappearance had ruined  all her friends lives.

Lucifer  just waved a hand. "Sibiu of course, it's easier to connect there  because of all the legends. Don't worry about the time though, I need  you to rally the troops as it were, and that would hardly be possible if  you arrive years too late. No I shifted the flow of time in this realm  when you arrived. You've been gone a few hours over there. This is my  world after all I can do things like that quite easily." He sounded smug  as hell, but all I felt was relief at how I wouldn't be breaking any of  my girls hearts with my vanishing act.

Yang  looked just as relieved as I was. She stared at him uncertainly then  stepped forward, and to my absolute shock and his own obvious  astonishment, she hugged him. He looked...confused. She stepped back and  smiled at him. "Cam says people here are all terrified of you and  you're some kind of scary superdemon. I don't know about any of that. I  just know I thought I'd lost yet another family, and not only are  sending me back to them, you claimed me as a member of yours. Which I  guess since I'm becoming something different is fair. So thank you, big  brother."With another smiled she took my hand and led me through the  portal.

The last view I saw of  Lucifer was the prince of lies standing slack jawed with confused  astonishment as we vanished back to the real world. We rocketed through  the portal again slingshotted through the powerful vortex of swirling  light and fire, but we didn't black out this time. We were hurled up out  of the tunnel at high speed, and I felt the cold water hit me as I  splashed into and then out of it from the bottom up, like diving in  reverse. I was hurled out into the forest still holding Yang's hand as  we flew into the air towards the trees. As I turned myself to take most  of the impact on my metal side to protect her I winced, but under that I  was thrilled. It was good to be home.