It was a day centuries in coming. 

Sketched out a hundred variations, a thousand different methods of taking the usurper apart, repaying the violence with a revenge as visceral as Lucifer’s theft had been coldly impersonal. Baal's blood had been on Lucifer's hands but he had never so much as touched Satan on his way to take his throne. That was a sweet reminder  -- the thought that he couldn't; Lucifer had needed the sway of thousands of lesser beings for the theft to be complete. The stupidity of not killing the former Devil before laying claim to his title was a mistake Lucifer had long since tasted the ramifications of. There would be no one else but them this time. Leviathan remained behind in Los Angeles with her tools, the manor was empty and Satan didn't both to conceal himself in the deep shadows of the hallways as his feet carried him unwaveringly towards his prize. There could be no one else, he thought, fingers tightening in anticipation around the grip of his khopesh, bolstered by the familiar weight of the ancient weapon, the memories of every kill it had given him. Relying on Samyaza was the first mistake. The throne the usurper sat on was a crude reconstruction of Satan's own, but it would know it's true master, it would know immediately which belonged and which had stolen their crown. It was just a matter of dispensing of the false Devil first.

Except Lucifer wasn't in the manor. Satan's gaze turned out to the gardens, the pool just beyond a set of glass doors.

There.

He was doing fucking laps. Somewhere crawling up his throat, Satan's laughter twisted into something all teeth, a grin more a grimace, laced with preemptive satisfaction, oh, how human the mighty become. It wasn’t too easy, no. It was exactly how he had known it would be. Satan waited at the other end of the pool, stance framing where he knew Lucifer would surface again. One moment, one quick indulgence to bore his eyes into back of his head -- itching to crack his skull, unspool that brain, but not too fast, he has to feel it -- and Satan swiftly dropped to tangle his fingers in a handful of dark hair, one sharp yank all it took drag Lucifer out of the water and drop him onto stone. There was no hesitance, no pause for a taunt or accusation, just the blood pounding in his veins and the rush of vindication, all too soon. Easy. Lucifer was given barely a second to register the creature that had come for him until Satan had raised his blade and struck down just as fast at the other’s chest.

*

The water felt good; it wasn’t his preferred element, but it wasn’t far from the top. It had a way of taking all of his stress and smoothing it away, like enduring rain on a stone. It washed him clean—of that, he couldn’t argue. There was too much going on that required his attention; it made him clench his jaw when he thought of it all. Horsemen appearing, heralding either a strange future or a tragic ending; forcing an Ascension forward for the sake of having a God; two Princes demoted in the space of a month, one acting up and the other spitting in his face in repayment for all Lucifer had offered. But heavy lies the crown. He swam to forget, for an instant, the feeling of it.

Not that he’d ever give it up: he remembered what it was to serve Baal, to see Satan at work. He wouldn’t serve again and he did his best to create an environment of upward mobility and enjoyment—as much as could be created en masse, anyway. Caring for his people was a priority Lucifer took very, very seriously. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have a Horseman captured in a warded apartment right now in the hopes of creating a cure not just for humans, but for divine beings, too. He didn’t want to die and he wanted, above all else, for his people to be safe.

There was a sense of ominousness about the day that Lucifer perceived, which had lured him to the pool to relax to begin with. He wasn’t surprised when he was plucked from the water—but almost surprised. It seemed eventual, on the heels of Belial, that Satan would be staring him down sooner or later: Lucifer thought he just had more sense to do it later than sooner. His own fault for thinking Satan was capable of sense… he knew planning was difficult in that demon, but self-preservation usually ranked higher.

He was rolled onto the stone, facing his accuser’s strike—he had the time, given his reflexes, to deflect, but apparently there was a point to be made here. Lucifer let the weapon wound him, though not as deeply as Satan had clearly hoped for, but definitely enough to matter as the blood pooled from the gash—a mortal wound on most. Lucifer just wasn’t in the mood to regrow his heart again. “Ah, well, this provides a sense of deja vu,” he said with the equivalent of a vocal shrug. “Did you feel like getting torn from existence?” The wound from the blade stung, but not enough to show it. “Or did you have something more to say with your toy?”

*

Lucifer's nonchalance was a faint twinge of irritation in the face of all that blood, but irritation nevertheless. Causing such irritation would be the greatest skill of his, wouldn't it? But in that moment it was Satan looking down on Lucifer's form, seeing him at his feet and split open, even from a single cut. It was just. No heaping serving of Lucifer's disdain could change that. There was a ring of the Old Testament about it, violence and retribution, all the gory details humanity had loved enough to write down. And this -- Isaac had been rescued from his sacrificial altar just in time, but Lucifer's blood already stained this stone and there was no sign of an angel coming down to stop the knife.

The usurper owed him this, owed him the battle they had never had; to wipe him out with a flick of his wrist across Lucifer’s throat would offer nothing but rage that the farce of Lucifer's rule had been allowed to stretch on this long with no consequences. Another way he knew this could be only them. Even the strongest of Satan's own creations had once betrayed him. Even the first.

If Lucifer would not leap to the fight -- weakweakweak of him -- Satan would force it from him. He planted the heavy weight of one foot on Lucifer's chest and leaned into it, an electric adrenaline skittering across his skin even with the unwelcome pause and Satan dragged his eyes up from the wound to Lucifer's face, inappropriately slow, purposefully indulgent. "You can die on your back or your feet," Satan hissed, the point of his blade pressed against the hollow of Lucifer's cheek, digging into what he knew to be deceptively giving flesh, "Chose quick, or I choose for you." A twist of his wrist, digging in harsher, seeking out the gum and the teeth underneath;  Lucifer could choose the coward's way out and Satan would not be surprised, but he would approach something dangerously close to disappointed.

*

Lucifer almost snorted his amusement. It’s not that he felt himself so amazing as to be infallible—logic and voracitosis both defied this logic—but more, it was just kind of droll. Of course Satan would perceive anything he did as weakness, as Satan saw only one route to strength. As the weapon moved toward his face, Lucifer pushed it away, his hands strong enough to weather the force, and Satan’s indulgences an easy leverage. “I don’t plan to die at all, old friend,” Lucifer said softly, propping himself up on his elbows as the blood carelessly formed rivulets down his chest. “I could have blipped you from existence in the past ten seconds. But I believe in you and I need you alive.” Lucifer paused to gauge his interest in that statement; if there wasn’t any, he would sigh and stand up. “I see after so long, you still have difficulty learning new tricks.” He wasn’t going to attack Satan outright, still trying to understand the point of the charade when Satan knew what he was capable of—or had he forgotten? Was that the trouble of it?

*

Lucifer needed him alive. It was a laughable statement but undeniably true. Satan could almost imagine that somewhere along the way between this most recent plague, the Horsemen's appearance, the ominous threat of Rapture on the horizon Lucifer had decided that yes, he did need him alive, the only survivor of what had been the original intentions of the universe it-fucking-self. Satan knew the truth: the gears of the apocalypse had begun to turn the very moment Lucifer had made his first mistake and impaled the true God on the Behemoth's claw. All these petty attempts to soothe him, his title, the grail -- only further mistakes. And here was another and an actual threat to go with it. It sounded hollow to Satan's ears, as hollow as every single one of Lucifer's useless attempts at charm. "Could you?" He challenged, wholly confident in the answer. Lucifer was not exempt from their growing weakness; his best had never matched Satan's ability in his prime. If wiping Satan out was possible, he was certain it already would have happened.

"You do need me." The only agreement they would ever have. "This whole fucking world does - but you?" An upward quirk of his brows, white-knuckled from the coiled strength of his grip, "Much more replaceable." He allowed Lucifer no chance for another attempt at his honeyed words, the next flash of Satan's blade coming down hard over the fallen angel's face, a broad slash across one of those eyes that had so often directed towards him frustration, contempt, even a pity that was only ever infuriating. 

*

So short-sighted. Needed, perhaps, was even a strong word. There was about the same need for Satan as for any of the cosmically-aligned, himself included. A single line or two in scriptures were the reason Lucifer kept him alive: the idea that some day, Satan might be useful beyond ruling his legion in much the same iron-fisted fashion that he’d ruled Hell. If anything, it was a humbling that stopped Lucifer from erasing Satan: had he further arrogance, he would assume that whatever role Satan had left to play, he would sort out a replacement on his own. It was very tempting, especially when millennia proved nothing would change. It was time to finally find out what the temper tantrum was for and what leverage he could force from it. “I could,” Lucifer confirmed with a shrug. Of many the many things Lucifer was curious and dubious about, his ability to wipe Satan from existence was not one of them. It was just a last resort. Satan liked to believe he held more power than he did; their current predicament proved the rule.

“The world would rather I do away with you; you don’t see beyond yourself, but I hope, in time, you can. We will see, tomorrow.” The words were ominous and Lucifer was done with speaking; Satan only understood one form of language, that was clear. Lucifer thought he’d done a great deal of good in all three spheres of earth, and if the cosmos would deal him out one day, so be it—but it wouldn’t be without a fight, and it wouldn’t be at Satan’s hand. He had been too much the universe’s creature for it to deceive him now. He stood his ground after he rose, knowing Satan had attacks in mind like a dog with a bone: he wouldn’t drop it until he’d had his way. Satan slashed towards Lucifer’s face—such an attempt at vanity—and he closed his eyes, the surrender to the injury allowing a certain amount of control over it, leaving part of his forehead and eyebrow weeping blood, but his eye in tact through the ichor.

Lucifer flicked his wrist and sent Satan sprawling into one of the side walls with enough impact to injure his spine, but not sever it. The Devil had half a mind to believe that poor backbone would still be needed in the days to come. The other hand called not a gun to his hand—as much as he liked their efficiency, again, overkill for the current goal—but a set of balanced knives. Between telekinesis and throwing, their accuracy and speed were unmatched. Thinking of how Satan had ruined the Centennial, he sent one grazing across Satan’s stomach with the aim to disembowel—Satan would recover his innards eventually, after all, and it seemed almost a poetic justice to be allowed to watch them fall with the same gravity reserved for humanity.

*

Satan got his one last satisfying gleam of red before the ground was out from under his feet again and it was too familiar to be torn away from the satisfaction of blood drawn, the Centennial springing to Satan’s mind as well but recalling the aftermath rather than the unofficial ending he’d notoriously given the night. The pain was expected. As unwilling as Lucifer was, there was only so far a being could be pushed before they finally took up arms instead of accepting the blows as they came. Satan wanted that. But with this defense, even if Lucifer’s calm may well have been rooted in his own confidence in the inevitable ending of this encounter, there was nothing changing his predecessor’s perception of it as disgraceful evidence of cowardice; Satan thought it still, even as his back hit the wall and the shock to his body translated as a sudden vice grip crushing his lungs, a rush of useless fury claiming him at the unavoidable nature of the attack -- Satan could hardly retaliate with another strike the way he instinctively jumped to do, but that didn’t stop his snarl at the sudden distance between them nor Lucifer’s continual reliance on the powers granted by his stolen position rather than his own strength.

This could not be another battle of one-sided combat. Satan had been plagued by that already for centuries and the sudden arrival of Lucifer’s knives barely registered in his mind as focused as he was on his weapon still in his hand, the fact that he was no longer held against the wall by that invisible hand. Stubborn to the end, Satan was allowed one lurching step forwards before Lucifer’s first knife opened a wound all too familiar and he came to a halt in a single jerk,  one hand instinctively darting to stopper the sudden gape in his flesh, knee hitting the dirt as the other hand went to brace himself against the ground. A moment of pain shuddering through, dazzling in its intensity, before the air could enter his chest again and Satan was gritting his teeth, wrenching his head up to still meet Lucifer’s gaze with eyes blazing as he panted, gathering just enough of his strength. “No more fucking parlor tricks,” Satan spat, somehow forcing himself back to his feet -- he’d known this pain before and he’d move forward again, even stooped with his own fist buried in his gut (and how fitting in this moment he’d know the same sensation the old Virtue felt in his final throes), “Face me!”

*

“I am facing you,” he laughed, gesturing to his head wound, “I am the reality of what you are facing. You’re asking me to throw off the sheer fact that the people favor me over you. That’s what you’re dealing with. Parlor tricks—your envy. But so be it—if you rise to meet me, that is, and stop acting like a petulant child who couldn’t use over two thousand years to shift in the slightest; you’re no shapeshifter, and when one doesn’t bend, one breaks—if you rise to meet me, I will hold back using the Devil’s gifts.” Lucifer’s eyes narrowed as he wiped some blood off of his face, his mouth contorted into his signature half-cocked smile. “Say this as a wager, old friend? Because you know I like those betting odds,” he taunted, toying back in his own way. “Should I lose, I know what you gain. But if I win—well—you will learn how to grow, yes?” During Satan’s demotion and punishment, Lucifer had said there were worse things than death… and a few of those were on his mind. “Otherwise—still beneath my notice, I’m afraid. Demoted from even peripheral view...” Lucifer trailed off, turning his back purposefully, offering the vulnerability as much a ploy as anything else. He wouldn’t let Satan land another mark until he agreed to rise to the occasion of playing chess with the Devil… if he could manage to keep on his feet.

*

Too many words. Satan loathed this exact sort of banter Lucifer had always been fond of: statements bearing dozens of insinuations, statements that carried too much history on their backs for a creature that had lived through all of it. Insults. Satan refused to break their line of sight, even as the anger poured over him. When this moment had first come to form in his head it was words like these that had fortified him, years upon years of resentment that had only been used as fuel and it still burned, white hot and incredulous in the face of Lucifer attempting to wheedle Satan into playing his game. Lucifer couldn’t use his words to worm his way out of everything -- but they were wielded as deftly as Leviathan wielded her knives, and she had known too (and Belial and Raziel and countless others more silent but aware) precisely where to pluck him to arouse the greatest outrage.

 Satan had never been a creature of subtle emotion and it was never clearer than in the expression he sported now as Lucifer turned his back on him: an ultimate illustration of the word murderous. He forced his spine straight, every line of his body quivering with pride even as they both stood bloody and the khopesh became a more physical support, knifehead speared in the dirt and one hand braced atop the grip. "Your life," he lifted the blade from the earth again to point it at Lucifer's back, "Against my ability to learn? That's your wager?" In any other moment, Satan would have barked out a laugh at the sheer absurdity of it but his resolve only hardened then, the dull pain and irritation both playing their roles. He had not come to this moment with a mind that accepted criticisms; no, Satan had taken heads for less of a direct suggestion than this. Still, he knew the odds and as stubborn as he was to follow Lucifer should he try to walk away, they fared worse in the air rather than on the ground - mounting frustration be damned. This had to be finished. "Fine." One acquiescence, the only one, Satan's eyes narrowing, “I’ll take those odds.”

*

“That’s my belief,” Lucifer agreed, of his wager. “Fine,” he met, “so be it.” While he was more than capable of weaving riddles through his bargains, reading lines between his words for the greater end-goal, the greater end-goal here was to sway Satan, however unwillingly. So he refrained from his higher powers—he’d defeated better with less, after all. The point was the right move: that was his current curiosity, though he had an inkling or two on what would make Satan more malleable. This wasn’t it, yet. Wiping his eye with his free hand, Lucifer then turned back around to face Satan, given his agreement, and with the fast turn and the momentum, send one of his knives squarely into Satan’s eye socket with a speed that would rival whiplash. He sent another immediately to take out Satan’s achilles heel on his right side, severing it to hinder his movement before moving into a defensive stance.

*

They moved to strike at near the exact same time, Satan taking Lucifer’s acquiescence as his cue to lurch forwards again, still physically holding himself together and brimming over with malicious intent. There was the faint recognition of one knife whistling past to pierce the ground beside his feet but that was nothing to the sudden darkness and burst of fresh pain bursting inside his skull. It couldn’t matter -- the gap between the two was closed and his own momentum poured into plunging his sword into the flesh above Lucifer’s hip, burying the blade up to where it ceased to curve. There was the satisfying give that signified an exit on the opposite side of his opponent’s torso and Satan spent the last energy he had left into twisting it before pulling himself free again, the hooked end taking some of Lucifer’s flesh with it. 

More blood drawn, his own should have been singing for it but there was little time to acknowledge that success, Satan stumbling back to get his hand around the knife in his eye instead, innumerable raw nerves screaming protest as it was yanked from the ruined socket and blindly thrown aside. The blood was profuse and immediate, streaming down over his cheek in a grander mirror to Lucifer’s own injury and for the first time since the fight had truly begun, Satan’s breathing gained a ragged, desperate note as his remaining eye darted to Lucifer again. He was accumulating too much damage, every rapid-fire thought that had always kept him quick in battle was twisted and distorted by pain, but he raised himself again, kept his focus the only place it could stay and shifted from his wavering stance into one last attempt at an attack, teeth bared in persistent defiance.

*

Satan was all momentum and practically impaled himself on the shooting dagger, undoubtedly embedding the knife even farther into his skull than Lucifer had aimed for. The movement hadn’t been incorporated into the knife aimed for the ankle and so it buried itself in the grass. For his part, Lucifer laughed when Satan’s blade found its way into his side: not out of derision for once, but something between the joy of being surprised and the awakening of rising to the task at hand. His half-cocked smile turned and curled into something fiercer, something with which some demons and more angels would have been familiar. As Satan grabbed at the blade protruding from his face, Lucifer pulled Satan’s weapon from his side, almost delighted at the chance to get his hands dirty himself. The pain in his side was jarring but somehow utterly invigorating—it was like being gifted the opportunity to take his monstrous side out for a walk lent him to whistling. The pain was undeniable, the chunk missing debilitating, but it didn’t hinder the Devil—powers or no—from doing as he needed to do.

He put the weapon through his belt loop and focused his sights on Satan. The demon bared his teeth for an attack, but Lucifer was no longer interested in entertaining any pursuit of the idea of further personal injury. Hoping to return the favour of surprise, for the first time, Lucifer charged Satan instead, lowered his shoulders and went in like a linebacker, impacting his shoulders just below Satan’s and shoving his forefingers into the disembowelment wound, using it as the handle by which he lifted Satan and then threw him across the cobblestone of the pool patio, satisfied by the thickening crunch the mass of flesh made sound. As he laid on the ground trying to gather himself, Lucifer had the time to prepare the last of his throwing knives—this one for Satan’s heart. Shaking the blood from his face, he was careful and certain with his throw. It was Satan’s turn to regrow a part of that muscle and it wouldn’t have half the pain Lucifer felt when he had manipulated Samyaza into his betrayal. But it would do for now. Lucifer paused, waited for Satan to get up, practically hoping he would. He wasn’t done making his point yet.

*

The surprise worked. For all Lucifer's chattiness, Satan never saw the sudden rush coming until his balance was lost and it was all the demon could do to claw at what expanse of back was vulnerable to him as Lucifer lifted him off his feet again. There was something rabid to it, nails biting into skin as Lucifer's fingers sank inside the wound and Satan was flung from his hold entirely. The throw was effortless; the landing, far more brutal. He could hear the moment of impact more vividly than he felt it. Injury multiplied upon injury, each blurring together in a constant throb alongside his pounding heart and his stillness was shock just as much as it was pain. He had gotten what he wanted. Lucifer was finally fighting the way Satan had always demanding, but it was not a victory that loomed closer with every blow. Impossible still beat at the back of his mind but reality seemed not to care about the word any more. And he wasn’t dead yet.

Lucifer still lay in wait and Satan could never resist the compulsion to face him upright, empty handed and glassy-eyed but clinging to that last frayed thread of strength. He couldn't stay down, not like this, he would not die lying beside Lucifer's fucking swimming pool. Satan's hands were first to brace him against the stone, legs somehow collecting underneath his weight as he lifted himself from the ground, earth spinning under his feet.There was no thought to it, no planning ahead even into the next second. He stood. He had to -- or something close to it, no matter how his body instinctively sought to curl into itself and shield the most vulnerable parts from any further damage. He would keep standing, or so he swore to himself, the knife still held in Lucifer's fist a faint smudge now he could only just discern, the sheer mirth written across the usurper's face enough for a flare of anger again (there was nothing left to rely on but that) -- except  the dagger was no longer in Lucifer's hand. The sensation of it piercing his chest was duller than any of the landed wounds so far, but it punched the breath from him again as cleanly as Lucifer had thrown it and his last stumble in Lucifer's direction was nearly a fall as Satan clutched at the protruding hilt, the quiver of his legs enough to mark it as his last. He won't kill me. It was certainty or something dangerously close to self-deceit.

*

Satan stood—bless him—and Lucifer’s face transformed into a blood-splattered smile, trails of red in his teeth and gums, marring the charm and contorting it into something darker. The Morningstar made his engagements of this matter specific and pointed, always one to make examples and guidelines rather than blindly issue violence to all who wronged him. The act of just violence, to Lucifer, required a certain finesse… a certain psychology, because at the end of it all, pain was pain. It was the memories that stayed long after, the how of it beyond the scar, the story that transcended time. So Satan stumbled toward him, unable to give up, that was something Lucifer could appreciate. Unfortunately, it wasn’t going to get him what he’d yearned for. Lucifer took Satan’s own weapon from his belt and swung clean, just below Satan’s knees, imagining it might be something like swinging at croquet, though he wouldn’t really know. He was a man for metaphors after all; Satan always was his own undoing, and by his own vices fall. The once-Prince would collapse to his knees by the poolside, and it would almost be enough.

*

There was nothing Satan could do to stop it and that was a greater blow to absorb than the blade at his calves: the betrayal of his own body sending him crashing down to his knees at Lucifer's feet with an ominous finality. His rage could not win him this. His certainty in his birthright would not claim this fight. When everything close to an ally was gone, without his supporters, without the loyalty of even his own weapon, this was the betrayal that was last and most complete. Satan's remaining eye fixated on the space between Lucifer's feet and refused to register the significance of the position he'd forced him into, this charade of fealty. Get up again -- Satan tried, he would latch his hands on Lucifer and use his body as a damn ladder if it got him up from kneeling in the dirt, but he couldn't. His muscles quivered with an effort that got him nowhere. Impossible, except for the fact it wasn't. There was one hand still in his stomach forcing one wound closed, another clinging to the knife still plunged into his chest, and nowhere to go but to lift his chin and see the face of the creature that had stolen so much from him before and was again. Past words, Satan wavered on the edge of toppling over to the ground and spat at Lucifer's feet with as much disdain as he had left, stubborn even with the inevitable end looming in sight and blackness swimming at the edge of his vision.   

*

Lucifer shrugged at the spitting at his feet—even in defeat, childish, but he’d expect little less. With Satan finally getting what he wanted—some mano e mano machismo, it seemed—it was time for Lucifer to get what he aimed for. Moving to step behind Satan, he lightly traced the dark ink tattoo of his wings, markers of who he was, in a way: that divinity that defined them all. Then, Lucifer dug into the place he knew the wings would connect with flesh, prying them out from beneath the skin, knowing intimately the shape of such things. It would have been easier with telekinesis, less painful, but—a wager was a wager, a promise a promise. 

With the wings forced into exposure like so much leverage, Lucifer ripped them from Satan’s back with his bare hands. Perhaps he’d hang them on the wall behind his desk, in his office, just in case they all survived this and he had reason to remind Satan eons down the line. Raven and scarlet, Lucifer tore them out and plucked them free until no part was left connected. He leaned over from behind and said, softly, “I warned you long ago there were things worse than death. Now… shapeshift.” Lucifer left Satan to fulfill his end of the wager now. He’d offer Satan a room to rest in, but he knew Satan wouldn’t take it.