The bus came to a screeching halt right below the grand staircase that led to the neighborhood in the Hills, where a currently sleeping Moxxie was raised for most of his childhood.

His loud snoring caused the bus driver to come out from his seat and slapped him hard across the face. Moxxie's eyes opened wide as he repeatedly shifted his head left to right trying to remember where he was.

"Hey Sleeping Beauty, naps over bub. Get the fuck out."

Moxxie opened his eyes halfway, but was too tired to come up with a response of his own. He wanted to flip him off and blow his brains out, but he had quite literally no heat to pack. All he could do is concede for this asshole of a bus driver and avoid trying to add more to the conversation of imps versus demons.

"What are you, deaf?"

The imp grabbed his backpack and stood up, finding himself just a couple of inches below the plump driver's glare. Reluctantly, he walked around him and left the bus. Once he climbed down the stairs, he looked around in sincere disgust by the scenery of the gold plated walls and the golden statues and the golden leafed trees with their golden apples. The best title to describe this place is probably "Heaven in Hell". Only problem is, this place was far from angelic. On the inside, it was an endless struggle for a higher extent of power, with participants ranging from multi billionaire drug lords to porn actors. No matter who it was, as long as you were rich, you had an equal shot to take over the Hills.

As Moxxie walked across the cobblestone, he contemplated just how many steps his child will take on these detailed floors about thirty years from now. He felt that he and Millie will probably have moved on to the next big thing, and will hopefully be renowned for their ability to kill based on current trends. It was a painful transition, even for Moxxie, but whatever happens by the end of the month, he was ready to finally move back in to the place that chewed him up and spat him out. He was no longer the clueless baby fish left to swim in the ocean. He has matured now.

Moxxie gazed at the post-modern white houses on his left. Tall and grandiose, the architecture of these beauties can be best defined as sharp and wild. Lots of windows and patios to make the mansions pop. He then turned to the grassy area on his right. Local millionaires having a formal picnic with the addition of a full-blown fencing session, their elegantly crafted towels stained with crimson blood, and other fine-suited overlords playing a game of chess on multiple tables. Visibly, it was still less chaotic than Imp City and Pentagram City, which was a huge relief for the imp. What really sold him, however, was the delightful fact that the air was barely filled by quiet chatter and the clanking of fencing swords. Despite the violent nature of all who inhabit it, the Hills were actually quite peaceful.

He continued staring from a distance. This time, he had stopped walking forward and planted himself onto the edge of the park.

The imp just wanted to appreciate the view a little more.

Moxxie hiked up the trail and paused when he found it.

An enormous recreational center. Wooden tiles, white frames and an exterior almost entirely made up of windows and warm lighting. This looked like just about any recreational center on Earth. The problem is, it was practically deathcamp for Moxxie, where dreams and aspirations alike come to die.

All because of one man.

[Hello, random intermission here. The rest of the chapter may be a little confusing here for all you new readers. See, this is all explained in Chapter 4 of my prequel fanfic, "How We Met". You can click on the IMP collection and find it as Part 5. If you want to read it for some context here, go ahead. If not, that's perfectly fine. Just don't expect everything else after this part to make sense. Ok, I'm bouta shut up now. Enjoy the chapter!]

The imp scoffed and took a couple more steps forward. The entrance was right there, and there appeared to be nobody else around here. After a while, he thought to himself, "what the hell". Moxxie resumed walking and stopped just a few inches from the door. Nothing posted on the door to ensure him whether the rec center was open or not. Nevertheless, he was going in.

Moxxie opened the door and was greeted by an empty hall. Nice beige tiles and an applewood reception desk in front of him surrounded by an array of exotic plants. The problem was, there was nobody behind the desk, and it appeared everything was shut off for the day. To no surprise, however, a giant door on his right was still left open. Moxxie shook his head. The intimidation of that entrance has spawned tons of trauma for him. From beatdowns by his despised instructor during rehearsals to near perfect performances rewarded with more beatdowns behind the curtain, it was all crushing for him to remember.

With a large gulp and a determined expression, he let himself right in. From there, he saw the stage that housed his biggest failures. A sea of red leather seats and a nice looking desk propped up in front of the stage…

...and somebody was sitting right behind it, scrambling through stacks of paper and leaving a stamp on a selected few.

Moxxie squinted.

It was him. The Instructor. He still had his black robe. His shitty goatee. His pathetic dumb fucking bald ass head-

Moxxie was drifting off again. He shook his head to get himself together and decided to take the steps down.

A creak followed.

The Instructor instantly reacted frantically and fell out of his chair, with the papers flying out to the front. He grunted and with a great amount of struggle, he tried to get himself up. Moxxie was standing there, frozen in fear. Probably not the impression he wanted to make after so many years.

After the Instructor got up, he turned to the rails and changed into a state of shock. He dropped the only sheet of paper he managed to catch from his hand and widened his eyes.

"M-M-Moleshi?"

Moxxie was extremely confused. There was something odd about this Instructor. Usually, even the sight of the imp was more than enough to piss off the demon. Even his old name "Moleshi" was enough to cause the Instructor to throw a tantrum. This was different, however. He acted much more cowardly than usual.

The imp could only raise his hand up and make an awkward wave motion out of it. "Um, hi?"

An uncomfortable silence followed. Thankfully, the Instructor finally blinked and nodded his head. "Ah yes, I-I-I um...see that you've finally returned. W-What brings you here?"

Moxxie took his backpack out and plopped it onto the floor. He unzipped the large bag and took out a significant object. The same one that caused Millie to freak out last night. Once he got it out of the bag, the imp walked further down the aisle and handed it to the Instructor.

It was a golden token. One side displaying a flaming skull, while the other displayed a plain violin.

The Instructor sighed. "I see. I'll inform the…'head honchos' up there, but you should expect a response by the end of the week."

Moxxie nodded. "That seems about right."

The two scratched their heads while avoiding eye contact. None of them really wanted to go back to talking about their ferocious past.

Then Moxxie took a deep breath.

"Okay, now that we have that out of the way, I need to ask you. What the hell happened to you?"

The Instructor jerked his head down to Moxxie. "Me? W-W-What do you mean?"

The imp shrugged. "Well, usually you'd scream down at me and threaten to rough me up. You don't look like you're in good shape.

"Well, I've been struggling all year with this next performance. So many delays. I feel like I have to clean house agai-"

"And whose fault is that?"

Another pause. Moxxie brought the cannonballs to the Hills this time, and it completely threw the instructor off guard.

"Come on, Moxxie. You can't still be mad."

"Yes I can, and I will. Excuse my language, but you really fucked me. You fucked me insanely, and now I am paying the repercussions because I trusted you."

The Instructor put his hand to his face. "Moxxie, you need to understand that I-"

"That you were hard on me so I can be the best damn musician the Nine Circles of Hell has ever seen? Oh yeah, I could have made it out there. I could have been the one to pack places like these every day. So answer me this, why couldn't I? Why couldn't I have been the successful imp I was always meant to be? Look at me. I kill humans for a living now. I mindlessly shoot someone's brains out and get paid insufficiently for it. I have a wife that works with me, and we can barely get by. Why did you fuck me? Why did you lie to the Nine Circles about me?"

The imp kept his composure. He did not look as upset as he should have been. Moxxie still wanted to prove himself the bigger man. The Instructor kept his hand to his face for a little longer until he turned his back on his former student and proceeded to make his way up the stage.

Once he got up, he raised his hands out of his robe and clapped twice. The looming red curtain slowly opened, and a line of robed creatures the same size as Moxxie were there to be introduced. On one hand, they had an instrument of their choice, ranging from the harmonica to the 5-string. On the other hand, however, they also possessed a melee weapon of their choice.

The teacher turned back around and pointed to the band of creatures. Something inside him had awakened, and caused a major shift in his tone. "This is your time to shine, bud. Just like we practiced in the old days, right? Show me you still got it, and maybe we'll talk some more. Good luck."

Without any hesitation, the imp walked over to the top of the stage and faced the first creature in line.

"Dare eam!" Moxxie exclaimed in Latin.

In response, the creature took a step forward and handed his violin over. Moxxie grabbed the bow as well and positioned himself center, facing the audience that wasn't even there. After taking a moment to gulp, he began playing.

Once the first note hit, the "creatures" all dropped their instruments and proceeded to rush Moxxie. They held their weapon up and were ready to take turns stabbing the player. Before any of them got to him, however, the imp did a full 360 and ran to the edge of the line, ramming the one who offered him and knocking the sharp kitchen knife out of his hand. Moxxie lowered himself and yoinked the blade from the floor. While he continued playing with no brakes in between, he faced the entire line and held his ground. Three of these creatures were tied for the lead for the race to the imp, and once they got close, Moxxie threw his kitchen knife up in the air, caught it with the butt facing the opposite direction, and swung at all three of them. The blade penetrated an unlucky crone through the head.

Instantly after the stab, the imp spun the other way and dodged the two weapons going straight for his head. As his hand continued using the bow, Moxxie remained square. Tactically, all the creatures surrounded the imp and kept him isolated in the corner. All of them crept up while Moxxie began playing the violin at a much faster rate. He was tense, knowing that this was not going to be easy to get out of. Before he knew it, every single one of them ran towards him and swung at the same time. Moxxie ducked and poked into two of one creature's kneecaps.

He tried rolling out of the circle, but one of them threw down a flail and the spiked ball landed right onto his violin, damaging the integrity and the structure of the instrument. However, it saved Moxxie from taking a devastating blow to his face. Another creature stabbed him right into his leg with a dagger. He yelped and tried to get back up, but another one struck him across the face with an oversized hammer and sent him flying back, blooded and bruised. Moxxie's violin had already left his hand, but he crawled fast towards his instrument, grabbed the bow, and continued playing the song. Now he was completely defenseless, with nothing but a measly instrument and a kitchen knife. He has only taken out two of them. Six remained, and they did not look like they were going to be easy to beat. They stood together in a line and shook their weapons around at him, taunting the imp. Moxxie was heavily breathing, he could not conquer the performance, which meant he had to switch things up. Instead, he decided to throw the knife at one of the robed creatures, but the knife had missed by an astoundingly large distance.

Moxxie was losing it right now, and was also completely weaponless against them. In desperation, he decided to drop the violin and shank forward with his bow, striking one of the creatures inside their eye and through the brain.

While there was no reaction from the bow, the creature did fall backward and die, but none of the others stopped from advancing. They got closer and closer. Moxxie decided to try again, but the bow was slapped out by a longblade. After the successful defense, one creature dropped their weapon and grabbed Moxxie by his arm. He sent him down on the floor hard, causing the imp's eyes to roll back. They all stood over him.

After a shared nod, the one with the longblade swung down and severed the imp's left arnoff.

He shrieked in pain and sat up in complete shock, getting a closer look at the major incision they had just inflicted upon them. Moxxie was left with no choice. With his remaining arm, he dug into his jeans and ripped something right out of his right hip. In a swift motion, he took out a handgun. Oh, did I say he didn't bring any weapons with him? Yeah, that's a goddamn lie.

The imp loaded it quickly and shot one creature through the head. All of a sudden, the other creatures began yelling all at once, very displeased with the encroachment of the sacred rule. They got a tighter grip on their weapons and tried to all swing at once. Moxxie exclaimed and scooted right out of the death zone. He raised his handgun once again and headshot two of the creatures. Only two remained. They stood there in shock, trying to peek over to the curtain to see if the Instructor would even do a single thing to stop this obvious rule-breaking. Instead, Moxxie got back up and shot both of them as well.

The performance was over.

The imp continued breathing heavily, and once the adrenaline completely wore off, he fell down in immense pain and held his wound, trying to stop all of the blood squirting out of the socket. After the performance went wrong, the Instructor reappeared from the curtain and stepped forward right above Moxxie, clapping sarcastically.

"Congratulations, Moleshi. You have failed us all yet again."

Moxxie sighed and tried standing up using his left arm, but he fell on the floor once again and injured his nose. He got himself back up and with another deep breath, he shot the Instructor in the foot.

"YOWW! WHAT THE FUCK!?"

The Instructor fell to his side and held his injured foot. Once he was down, the imp held him down aggressively and searched through his pockets with the Instructor trying to fight back. "H-HEY, DON'T YOU DARE-" Before he could finish, however, Moxxie swung hard at his face and caused him to stop while his conscious remained. The Instructor could do nothing but moan in pain. He also could not do anything to stop Moxxie from getting back his token.

"F-F-Fuck you, you shifty cocksucker. I'll d-do it myself." He put the token on his pocket and once again held his wound while groaning. The Instructor finally came down to Earth (well, Hell, really) and looked on as Moxxie picked up his own arm with his only hand.

"Moleshi..."

The imp turned around with a world-shattering scowl on his face.

"I...didn't mean to fuck up your career. The damn media pundits got to me and th-they—

"They what? Forced you to conceptualize and create that fabricated story? All the things that I did with you?"

The Instructor coughed while Moxxie's back was still turned on him. "...yes. Look, I did not want to lose you. The fact that you went out there week by week killing it under my direction made me feel proud knowing that I at least did something productive in this shitty ass realm. But the bigwigs up all the way in the Hills were pulling me by my hair, and they forced me to do what I had to do…"

Moxxie looked down and clenched his fists. "But why? Why did you pull me out like that? Why did they think I was not good enough to do it? Why me? Why fucking me?"

The Instructor sighed.

"Because you're an imp."

The words struck Moxxie hard, and gave the ikp much more pain than the blade that literally cut his arm off and left him to bleed in agony.

"I don't think it's relevant. They did. They threatened me and the entire theater. I had to do what I had to do in order for the music to remain in the Hills!"

Moxxie walked forward and got down on his knees. He inspected one of the robed creatures that he just shot dead. Although they could respawn outside, potentially kill him and leave him with nothing left out of intense rage, he felt a great degree of remorse once he unhooded the creature.

It was an imp. A black haired woman with messy long hair and black horns. She looked eerily familiar to Millie, and it made Moxxie feel absolutely sick to his stomach.

"T-These are imps…"

He stood up and turned around. The Instructor looked him on with big pleading eyes. As a "parting gift", Moxxie threw his severed arm at the Instructor and hit him hard across the head with it.

"Take it. Take it as a daily reminder that no demon nor any normal-sized bastard can play like this imp can play."

The Instructor sighed. "I'm sorry Moxxie…"

The fact that the demon used his most recent name was more than enough for the imp to make his way to the exit.

An easygoing demon in office attire and a brown toupee spun around his swivel chair towards Moxxie. "Okie dokie, so I got one golden token that will grant you room and board for the Hills for up to ten years."

Moxxie nodded. "That's correct." This time, he had both arms with him now. All it took was one private moment in an empty bathroom nearby and he was able to come back with all the possessions that he entered the Hills with.

The demon looked through the signed papers. "Alrighty then. And um...this is a completely optional question. I know this seems like rubbish to you, but we need to ask every time for our annual survey. I know. Surveys, yeesh. You understand, right? All I want to ask is how did you receive this token?"

Moxxie sighed. "Compensation."

"Ah, I see. Okay. It says here you were wed a few years back. You bringing the missus along with you too?"

"Yeah...She nearly killed me when I showed her the token, though. She really doesn't want to move."

The demon chuckled. "Oh geez, buddy. I've been there before. Women...are very hard to please. But don't worry, she'll come around. You can bet'cher bottom buck."

Moxxie laughed nervously.

As the 'night sky' set in, Moxxie sat alone at the bus bench. There were still some wanderers out in the area doing obscurely rich overlord things, while the rest were out in the cities doing obscurely rich overlord things. Either way, this was the time frame for overlords to do obscurely rich overlord things.

Moxxie took out his wallet and additionally took out a photo of his wedding photo with Millie. He took a deep breath.

"And now, the end is near

And so I face the final curtain

My friend, I'll say it clear

I'll state my case, of which I'm certain"

He looked up at the blood moon with determination.

"I've lived a life that's full

I traveled each and every highway

And more, much more than this

I did it my way"

The imp jumped out of the bench and began strutting his way through the entrance of the Hills. With bystanders all around him, he hopped on a lamp post and held his hand out in enthusiasm.

"Regrets, I've had a few

But then again, too few to mention

I did what I had to do

And saw it through without exemption

I planned each charted course

Each careful step along the byway

And more, much more than this

I did it my way"

A crowd of luxuriously dressed demons began forming around the lamp post, taking a gander at this mere imp making musical magic.

"Yes, there were times, I'm sure you knew

When I bit off more than I could chew

But through it all, when there was doubt

I ate it up and spit it out

I faced it all, and I stood tall

And did it my way!"

The crowd began chattering amongst each other, as Moxxie hopped out of the lamp post and made his way through the park, stopping periodically at various sights such as the koi pond underneath the bridge and the fiery blossoms.

"I've loved, I've laughed and cried

I've had my fill, my share of losing

And now, as tears subside

I find it all so amusing

To think I did all that

And may I say, not in a shy way

Oh, no, oh, no, not me

I did it my way"

The crowd followed him wherever he'd go.

"For what is a man, what has he got?

If not himself, then he has naught

To say the things he truly feels

And not the words of one who kneels

The record shows I took the blows

And did it my way!"

The crowd clapped as Moxxie's eyes remained closed.

"Yes, I did it my way…"

Despite the general applause he got from the crowd, he departed and made a long walk back to the bus bench, to the surprise of everybody. No acknowledgement of the many overlords who gave him an honorable applause.

Moxxie was focused.

He was not going to stop moving forward.

And that begins with what could potentially be his final month in the I.M.P.