With a slap from his hand, the flame on his shoulder was extinguished.'

How long he would be able to keep it up, Moxxie didn't know.

Chaos was breaking out around him in real time. The tower was close to collapsing, Alastor was preparing another attack, fire was rising up and enveloping the floor around them, and three of their fighters were injured and close to dying. Moxxie and Millie were the only two left who weren't either cornered or had their noses stuck in a camera.

Octavia's hands were growing cold. The two of them hoisted her around to a concrete slab towards the back of the tower and propped her up against it. She had to stay in a safe place. Moxxie refused to let her die after coming so far.

Millie aided him in lifting the princess up and setting her down in the temporary shelter. The blood spouting from the open wound stained his clothes. Her breathing was shallow and labored. She didn't have much time left until she succumbed to her injuries. Moxxie didn't know how he would get the princess to safety, but he was going to have to figure it out.

"Don't give up on me," Moxxie whispered to her as if she would be able to hear, "Just hold on.

An unexpected explosion from the center of the tower blew him to the side of the building and into a hard concrete wall. Flames seared the hairs on his face and nearly threw him over the edge of the tower. Debris and pieces of concrete pelted his face as they tumbled over the edge and into the darkness below.

Moxxie braced himself as the shockwave came to an end. Screams rang out shortly after. There was blood on his hand and face. He couldn't tell if the blood belonged to him or Octavia.

"MOX!" Millie's distressed voice called out, "MOXXIE!"

Alastor's laughter began to rise up even as it was distorted by static. Moxxie reached to his side and realized that Millie was no longer there. Her voice had come from nearby. But for the life of him Moxxie couldn't see her.

That was, until he found the bloodied hand tightly clinging to the other side of the railing.

NO!

His wife was clinging to the side of the building as the flames threatened to reach her. Moxxie ran over and extended a hand to her to try and get her back up over the edge. Simply looking over the edge was enough to nauseate him. Heights had never been his thing. And with such dire circumstances, it only furthered the sinking feeling and adrenaline flow in his veins.

A stinging sensation ran up his hand as Millie gripped it tightly. He didn't care that her nails were digging into the raw skin and nerves. He would cut his hand off if it meant he could pull Millie to safety.

"Millie!" Moxxie cried out, desperately trying to pull her away from the edge as the flames inched closer.

For the first time ever he saw true fear in his wife's face. Her eyes were shrunken with fear as her mouth was opened at a half-scream. Millie was the strongest person Moxxie knew. To see her so close to hysteria only proved the gravity of the situation.

"No!" Millie called out, nodding her head towards the other side of the tower, "Ignore me. Look!"

Moxxie spun his hand around to the other side.

His eyes fell open as an equally horrific sight fell upon his eyes.

Alastor was preparing another attack. Morningstar was beneath him as she weakly rose to her feet. She seemed to be preparing an attack of her own. It appeared to be a race against time for the two of them. Whichever one dealt the first blow would certainly kill the other one.

The climax of the battle had arrived.

"CHARLIE!" Angel shouted, trying to climb over a pile of debris, "DON'T LET HIM GET YOU!"

Angel and the two anchors were trapped behind a pile of debris. Stolas and Octavia were bleeding. Blitzo was borderline unconscious. Millie was hanging over the edge of the tower and Moxxie was tied up trying to help her.

The realization hit him like a truck. Harder than any explosion or brute force ever could.

He had to make a tough choice. A choice that would change hell as a whole.

The obvious choice that came to his mind first was to save Millie and pull her over the edge. Watching her slip away into the arms of death almost made him wish that he had been the one dying instead. Millie was weak. She might not be able to pull herself back up without his help. Especially with the fire closing in on her and burning everything in its path.

"I'm not leaving you!" Moxxie shouted, holding her hand closer, "If…if you fall…"

"I'll be fine," Millie said with a voice that sent shivers down his spine, "Moxxie, hell needs you. If you stay here helpin' me he's gonna kill her."

"But-"

"If you don't help her, I'll die anyway. Do you want that?"

Those words were enough to shut him up.

As much as he hated to admit it, Millie was right. If Moxxie stuck around for as long as it would take to pull her over the edge, Morningstar might get struck. And if Morningstar was struck, she would die.

Morningstar dying would be the end of their hope for a better tomorrow. Alastor would secure his spot on the throne and make life even worse than it already was. Moxxie wouldn't be able to live with himself if his own indecision cost an entire realm their freedom and right to live.

Moxxie stifled a sob as he knew what he had to do.

"I'll be right back, okay?" Moxxie said, kissing Millie's hand before he forced himself to leave her to her own devices, "Hold on for me, okay?"
Millie nodded, "I will."

Watching as she worked to pull herself back over the edge on her own, Moxxie rushed to the other side of the tower to aid Morningstar. His eyes were too dry to generate tears by that point. He could only hope that Millie had the strength left to pull herself back up. Losing the love of his life to Alastor wasn't a thought that he wanted to entertain for very long.

Keep fighting Millie.

If you die…

I don't know what I'm going to do.

Alastor was about to deal the final blow. Moxxie used Millie's final words to push him forward.

"If you don't help her, I'll die anyway. Do you want that?"

The green glow was outshining the fire by the time he was able to make it over to her vantage point.

He wouldn't be able to fight the man himself. Alastor shouted something at him, but by that point his words were nothing more than a jumbled mess of sputters that made no decipherable sense. He was falling apart before Moxxie's eyes. All he had to do was buy Morningstar more time.

The daughter of the devil glanced at him right as Alastor launched the beam.

And in a sudden burst of courage, Moxxie leapt into action.

Just as the beam was about to make contact, he dove into the princess's side and pushed her out of its way. The explosion knocked both of them forward with searing heat and the force of a thousand bombs.

Bits of fragmented debris pelted them like rain. Moxxie coughed as the toxic fumes of burning material filled his lungs and made his breathing even more labored than it already was. Morningstar wasn't doing much better than he was, Moxxie's arms coming away covered in blood from her wounds.

A stifled grunt from the princess proved to him that she was still alive. And that was all that he needed from her.

"Sorry about that," Moxxie coughed, "But…but we need you alive…"

Morningstar weakly put a hand on her head, "Thank you…"
Alastor shouted something at them, but it only came out as a burst of static. He was weak. Morningstar needed to deal the final blow soon. Any more time taking cover would give Alastor time to recharge.

The slant of the tower was becoming more severe. Moxxie helped the princess gain her balance on a railing.

"Make him pay," Moxxie muttered, glancing back and forth between her and the ledge where Millie was hanging, "Please…"
Morningstar wiped blood from her forehead. The woman was clearly in pain. She deserved praise for fighting through to the end. Hell only needed her to do one more thing. One final blow that would wipe the tyrant they called Alastor off of the ethereal plane for the rest of eternity.

"He will," Morningstar replied as her eyes began to glow with a brightness Moxxie had never seen before, "He's dying if it's the last thing I do."

As the tower began to lurch once again, Moxxie began to wonder if it truly would be the last thing she would do.

In the blink of an eye the princess was gone.

Or, at least he thought she was gone.

His vision had gone dark as he lost sight of Morningstar. Intense heat rained down on him from the sky above. He didn't know what was going on, but he assumed it was something magical. Something that only one demon could do.

A brightly-colored blast from the sky above a few seconds later told him that Morningstar was finally leaping into action.

-o

-o

Charlie owed her life to that little imp.

Pulling her out of the way of the blast had bought them just enough time for her to recharge. The intense rush of adrenaline coupled with the pressure of having an entire realm in her hands pushed her further than she imagined possible.

All of her life she had been told that she wasn't enough. Time after time, her work ethic, worth, and status had all been questioned. Being the daughter of Lucifer was supposed to be easy. She hadn't been granted the luxuries that other demons had been given. Charlie planned to finally show her worth. To blast Alastor into next week and free the realm from the grip of his iron fist, in which he held them all in his palm.

If she lived to see Vaggie again, Charlie was more than ready to admit that she was wrong. Letting Alastor into the hotel had allowed him to slip under the radar. If she hadn't opened that door for him the first day, perhaps he would have never risen to power. Her father may have been alive. So much turmoil because of her desire to see the good in people.

She still did everything she could to see the rainbow inside every demon. But she had come to learn that some demons were simply unredeemable. Alastor was one of them. She would gladly see him thrown into the pit without so much of a second thought. The idea of him having a chance at redemption went against everything she knew. Alastor was too twisted and cruel to even have a chance.

The time had come for her to finish him. It was her fault that Alastor had risen to power in the first place. She was going to be the one to dethrone him.

Regard for her own safety was gone. Her comrades were bleeding out around her as it was. The only hope they had left was if Charlie survived. Then she could attempt to heal them with whatever strength and power she had left. It pained her to see them in such a terrible shape. Her heart wanted to help them. But her brain knew that without having Alastor dead, they were all going to die anyway.

A burst of static came from the demon's mouth. Charlie couldn't even begin to understand what he was saying. His body was beginning to pixelate. One of Alastor's eyes had been gouged out. Octavia had done enough damage to him for Charlie to battle him with her remaining strength.

The fight of a millennia was about to take place. If she succeeded, her name would go into hell's history books. She would get a spot in history and have her name remembered for millennia to come. As if being the daughter of Lucifer hadn't given that to her already.

The final blow was about to be dealt. Her arms were awash with the searing heat of her powers. It would have to be the strongest attack yet. Anything shy of her best would leave Alastor alive and Charlie without enough time to prepare another one. She was tapping into spells and magic that she had never dealt with before.

Her father would have been proud. Part of her wished he was alive to see it. For the first time ever she would have done something that didn't disappoint him. She was about to shake the power structure of hell. She was about to transform the realm with a single spell. A spell that no overlord would survive.

Red and white glows came from her hands. A deep rumbling came from the ground. Lightning began to strike the sky. With each passing second the flashes grew more intense. Soon enough the entire sky was aglow with a blinding shade of white. Charlie had to shield her eyes as the heavens erupted into what could only be described as a supernova. The sun itself was washed out with the brightness. The clouds burned up in the sky with the intense heat.

Charlie was amazed by the sight. Her body began to tremble under the strength of the brewing spell. Alastor was preparing to blast her into next Tuesday. Moxxie had given her a chance to fight. Now it was up to her to take it.

Moxxie took off running from next to her and ran over to his wife on the other side of the building. Charlie stood alone against hell's greatest foe. A few more seconds, and she would be ready

Her comrades shouted from behind her in what she hoped was amazement. In all honesty she couldn't tell if their cries were from fear or amazement. Only one thing mattered in that moment.

Charlie could feel herself lifting off the ground as the spell charged further. Beams of light from the sky above shot down and made contact with her. Each beam powered her further. The most powerful magic conjurabale was now in her possession. Alastor didn't stand a chance against what she had in store for him.

Whispers of an ancient language filled her head once again as the magic neared its peak. The sky above began to swirl at speeds that she didn't believe to be possible.

She was ready.

Charlie let out a deafening scream. Wind whipped at her hair and magic burned at her hands waiting to be let out. It was all to be concentrated on one psychopath. Alastor was about to get his comeuppance. The time for justice to be delivered had come. The iron fist was about to be dissolved.

The force of the magic sent her flying into the air. She found out that she was no longer falling. Something was holding her up. The swirling sky seemed to be favoring her at the best time possible.

Opening her eyes for a moment, she watched as the rainbow-tinted beam from her hands struck Alastor directly in the chest. A split second later the sky opened up and sent what she could only describe as thousands of beams of lightning directly into the man's body. Flames engulfed Alastor as she began to struggle to stay in the air.

As if that wasn't enough, Charlie watched as the spell seemingly reignited itself. If Alastor had survived the first wave, he was almost done for by the time the second round came around.

Lightning shot down from the sky and engulfed Alastor yet again. At the same time, holes opened on the ground below and shot pillars of fire up directly into Alastor's body. He let out a discernible scream as the magic tore through his body.

Charlie only watched with cold apathy. Alastor's suffering was the only suffering she would revel in. He deserved every ounce of agony he received.

The pixels fell off of his body one by one. Black blood seeped from his insides as the magic slowly melted him. His staff fell from his hands and onto the ground below. The once cocky smile on his face devolved into an expression of pain and agony.

"NO!" he shouted, his last discernable words before his body melted beyond recognition.

Within a few seconds Alastor was nothing more than a handful of deformed pixels hovering in the sky. A green glow came from his body as he put up his final defense. Charlie already knew it wasn't going to do anything.

He had finally received his karma. Alastor was dead.

One groan came from the man's shattered vocal chords as the body that had once been his vessel of destruction fell apart before her eyes. The green glow turned black before finally disappearing.

"See you in hell," Charlie spat, waving at the man as the remains of his body disintegrated, "Send my regards to my father."

Charlie smiled as she realized that the mission had been completed. Alastor was finally dead. The last bits of his body disappeared over the edge of the tower and directly into the pit below.

Her breath hitched as the spell came to a close. The swirling of the sky began to calm and the brightness slowly dimmed. Charlie felt herself slowly falling back to the ground and landing at the top of the collapsing tower.

Even though she was weak and trembling from her injuries and the exertion from using the magic, she was still alive. Something about that spell had helped patch up her wounds. She was still bleeding, but not nearly as bad as earlier. Charlie could walk again without nearly collapsing from pain. Her breathing was back to normal. Her heart even seemed to be beating faster.

The bliss of accomplishment was short-lived.

She soon found out that she had a bigger problem on her hands.

Part of the railing to her right gave out. The tower was nearing the point of collapse. They had two minutes tops before the bottom gave way and the structure went crashing to the ground.

Moxxie was positioned at the railing with his wife hanging over the edge. Charlie used the remaining railing to pull herself to his vantage point as the building shook beneath her feet. Her powers wouldn't recharge in time to get them to the ground safely. And they could only make it ten floors at most on foot with the time they had left.

The poor imp was strained and barely able to hold onto his wife anymore. Charlie made it just when he looked like he was going to pass out.

'Need a hand?" Charlie offered, carefully avoiding the flames that were rising up towards the railing.

"Please…" Moxxie grunted, "Help me!"

Together, the two of them grabbed Millie's wrists and pulled her up over the edge of the leaning tower. They pulled her away from the edge and towards the center of the structure. There weren't many safe places left for them.

"Thank you, princess," Millie said with gratitude, "What happened to Alastor?"

Charlie stared at the spot in the sky where Alastor had once been. There was nothing left but a few residual wisps of smoke from the searing heat and power. The tyrant was officially dead. Nobody in hell would ever be harmed by him again.

"He's been taken care of," Charlie panted as she gripped the side of the tower, "But we're not out of the woods yet."

Another round of shaking knocked Charlie to the ground. Moxxie picked her up and led the two of them over to a cement wall where a familiar owl was laying.

Octavia.

The Goetian princess was in rough shape. Her body had been placed next to Blitzo's, who also wasn't looking too hot. They both had fallen unconscious. Prince Stolas had been pinned under some debris nearby, but the dramatic swaying of the tower made her hesitant to try and go after him. At the very least, Stolas was lucid enough to be shouting at them from a distance.

"WHERE'S MY DAUGHTER?!" he called out, "OCTAVIA?!"

"She's over here!" Charlie shouted back, "She's a bit…beaten up…"

The distraught prince continued to cry out, but Charlie had other things to worry about.

Octavia was in the worst shape. Charlie decided that she would be the first one to be healed. Even as the tower was doomed to collapse around them, she wanted to do everything she could to try and keep them alive. Time was running out. Charlie could only hope that she had enough time for her healing spells to work.

In spite of her power, the healing spells would only be temporary. It would buy them a few hours to go and get help. Charlie had never bothered to practice medical spells. She had never seen herself needing to use any of them.

"You think you can patch her up?" Moxxie asked as he tightly gripped the wall, "At least…before this whole thing collapses and we all die?"

"I'm gonna try my best," Charlie replied, "We'll see…"

Charlie knelt down next to the bleeding owl. She could see her chest slowly rising and falling with each shallow breath. Octavia was alive, but not for much longer. A direct hit from a beam like that should have killed her. How the hell she was still alive, Charlie would never know.

She didn't have much energy left in her. It would be a fight to try and heal the two wounded demons. And yet she was going to try.

The glow from her hands changed from white to a bright yellow. Slowly, the heat in her palm grew more and more intense. It was only when the heat began to burn that Charlie let the beam go and allowed it to gently make contact with the wounded owl.

'You fought like hell out there," Charlie muttered, "Don't give up on me now…"

Moxxie and Millie let out audible gasps as the magic did its thing.

Slowly but surely, the bleeding began to slow. The poor princess was far from okay. But she was alive at the very least. Charlie listened for a heartbeat as her breaths became fuller and fuller. The dislocated ribs and massive entry wounds were slowly healing themselves. Charlie didn't have nearly enough power to heal her fully, especially after suffering a hit from one of the most powerful men in hell.

Charlie's only goal was to get her stable. She only had so much strength in her, and it had to be evenly distributed among the injured. Even as the tower came closer and closer to collapsing, Charlie planned on saving as many lives as she could. Even though such a fall seemed like it would be unsurvivable.

Unless.

The tower was clearly going to fall to one side. It was leaning heavily towards the east, where Alastor had been hovering just a few minutes earlier. If they could get behind the west railing and ride the tower down, there was a slim chance that the rest of the structure would take the impact without killing them. It wasn't going to be pretty by any means. Charlie anticipated there being horrific injuries among those who survived the fall, if any survived at all.

The time to act was to be measured in seconds, not minutes.

"You two," Charlie said to Moxxie and Millie, "We need to get everyone on the west wall before this thing falls. Can you try and pull the three of them out of the way of the fire over there?"

Charlie pointed to Angel and the three anchors. They were backed up against a wall with flames on both sides. They held their own footing with the aid of the nearby railings. If they took impact from where they were stationed, it would be messy.

"What about the Goetias and Blitz?" Moxxie asked, "We can't just leave them! They can't get to that railing on their own?"

"Leave them to me," Charlie replied, "I'll see if I can patch them up. You guys need to hurry. We've got two minutes tops before this thing crashes to the ground."
Moxxie and Millie slid down the railing and made it over to the center of the building. Charlie focused her attention on the three wounded demons that were spread out before her. It would be a cold day in hell when she dared to leave a demon in need without trying everything she could to save them.

Charlie pulled the wounded princess over towards the west railing. Luckily for her, Blitzo was nearby and within the range of her magic. Him simply being nearby made her life ten times easier.

The same beam shot out from her hand and made contact with the wounded demon's skin. His bleeding was far slower to come to a stop. She was holding her beam over him for at least thirty seconds before his breathing grew deeper. As long as the two of them were able to get over the railing, they would be okay. Or at least as close to okay as they could possibly be.

Parts of the northern arch of the tower crumbled and plummeted towards the ground. Collapse was closer now than it had ever been before. Charlie had never been a fan of heights. Even in death, Alastor had managed to screw them over somehow. It only festered her hatred for him.

She pulled the two demons over to the railing and placed them where they wouldn't fall. Blitzo seemed to be regaining some degree of lucidity. His eyes fluttered for a brief moment before looking her in the eye.

There wasn't much time to meet his gaze, however. There was still one more demon that she needed to save before it was too late.

Stolas was calling out for help as the flames inched closer to the ruined antenna pinning him to the ground. There was blood pooling at his side along with burn marks covering his face, but at the very least he seemed like he was lucid and alive enough to scream.

"I'm coming!" Charlie called out, carefully siding down the railing and avoiding the flames rising higher and higher by the second, "Hold on!"

Reaching him didn't take long. By some miracle there was a path of clear ground without fire that led directly to him. Stolas appeared heavily distraught as he began shouting for his daughter while Charlie tried to free him from the debris.

"Where's Octavia?!" Stolas shouted, "Is she okay?!"

"She's hurt," Charlie replied as she used her magic to push the debris away, "But I patched her up the best I could. It's all gonna be okay."

Something about the man's increasingly distressed body language made her question the effect of her words.

Another section of the railing gave out, this time taking out the southeastern portion of the tower. The swaying was becoming violent enough that Charlie was having trouble keeping her own footing. One hand was guiding her magic, the other one was gripping a pole in the ground that was slowly being heated by the growing flames.

"Careful," Stolas said as the bottom portions of the debris were removed, "I…I think I got something in my side…"

Charlie glanced down at the man's side. Sure enough, there was a piece of metal pinched into his side. It wasn't a pretty sight. The fact that it had avoided any vital organs amazed her. Blood stained her hand as she prayed her magic would help heal the ugly wound.

The same beam shot out from her hand. It made contact with his skin as the bleeding slowed, just like it had with the others. The last of the debris was wiped away in the nick of time.

"I'll try," Charlie replied, "Can you walk at all?"

One burst of magic was enough to wipe the debris over the side of the tower. Using so much of her power was making her feel dizzy and fatigued. It would take all of her remaining strength to get over that railing before all hell broke loose.

"Yeah…I think I can…" Stolas muttered, "Where are we going?"

Charlie extended her arm and shielded Stolas from a shake that threatened to send the tower to its final doom. She had to give Alastor credit. That tower had survived more of a beating than most of hell's buildings could withstand. Their time was down to mere seconds. She would have to rush them to safety before they were all reduced to a pile of ashes.

"West railing. Come on, I need help getting the others up and over the edge," Charlie replied, "If we ride the tower down that way, we might survive when it goes down."

"Might?!" Stolas asked.

"You got any better ideas?"

The man's silence spoke volumes. Together, the two of them climbed the railing towards the westward face. Five additional steps of footsteps from behind told her that the others had arrived as well.

"We got 'em!" Millie called out.

A strong forward tilt was forming facing the East. By the time they reached Octavia and Blitzo it was nearing almost ninety degrees. Charlie was by no means a gymnast. She began to wonder if she would have the power to pull herself up over that railing.

"Where's Via?" Stolas asked for what must have been the thousandth time.

"She's by the railing," Charlie grunted as she began to struggle against the tilting tower, "You're gonna need to help me pull her over."

"We can do that too," Moxxie replied, "Blitz needs us too."

Fire engulfed the eastern portion of the tower and began to creep up towards the western railing. It looked like they had a chance of making it if they didn't waste a second. Each sway was becoming more and more violent. The tower's final seconds were commencing.

"Hold on!" Charlie shouted as she dodged falling debris.

Whatever loose objects were left on the floor were sliding to their doom. And that included one object that Charlie knew they couldn't lose.

The orb.

-o

-o

Moxxie held Millie's hand tighter than anything else in that moment.

The tower was keeling over quickly. Moxxie had already almost lost her once. And he refused to risk losing her again.

"Hold onto me, okay?" Moxxie said, "I'm not going to lose you."

Millie nodded as the two of them made a beeline for the railing.

They were at the very back of the line. Angel and Stolas worked at hoisting Octavia and Blitzo over the railing. The angle of the tower was so steep that they could stand on the back of the railing. The only thing keeping Moxxie and Millie on their feet was the cement wall just a few feet from where they were supposed to be.

He dodged a piece of falling cement as it whizzed by only inches from his face. One shift to the right and he would have been a dead man.

The entire front portion of the tower had gone up in flames. He could feel the heat rubbing against the back as he ran towards the back with as much speed as his aching and bloodied legs could muster. Metal began to burn as the railings heated with each rising flame.

Support beams moaned and groaned beneath his feet. They resembled the cries of a dying beast. The flames were eating the building alive. Moxxie was growing more and more fearful that he wouldn't make it to the railing in time. He was already close to losing his grip and plummeting into the flames and off the edge over the east side.

Millie tried to jump up and grip the railing to no avail. It was just a couple of feet out of her reach.

"Damn it!" Millie grunted with increased worry.

"Get on my shoulders," Moxxie ordered as he crouched down for Millie to climb atop, "You'll be able to reach it from up there."

"What about you, Mox?"

"Just pull me up when you get up there. We don't have a lot of time, come on!"

-o

-o

With a brief flash of worry in her eyes, Millie climbed atop Moxxie's shoulders. He mustered all of his strength to lift her up to the railing where all of the others aside from Charlie were waiting for them.

Angel helped pull her over while Stolas kept an eye on the two wounded of the group. Tom and Katie were busy filming the whole ordeal and contributing absolutely nothing to the rescue effort. Those two had always been a vain bunch. But this was something on a whole new level.

Charlie was next to Moxxie, offering a hand to him just as he was about to make a break for the top.

That was, until a piece of falling debris caught both of their eyes.

Moxxie recognized the swirling mess encased in magical glass. Anyone with two eyes could tell what they were looking out.

The orb.

The powers of every demon in hell were trapped within that piece of glass. There was no telling whether it would survive the fall into the pit below. And even if it did survive, chances were they wouldn't be able to retrieve it should it land in the Pit of Fire.

It rolled haphazardly from side to side with each sway of the tower. By some miracle it landed on a bent railing just by the edge of the eastern wall in front of the flames. If the tilt increased anymore, the orb would plummet to the ground and shatter any hope the demons of hell had at returning to normal life.

"Oh no," Charlie muttered, before shaking her fist at the sky, "Really? Did you have to do that right now?"

Moxxie's gaze followed the tumbling artifact. There were only two demons left that were in any position to dive down there and retrieve it.

"Moxxie! Come on!" Charlie said, "Take my hand and I'll get you up there. I'll go down there and get it."

The princess was trying to hide it, but she had been weakened by her fight with Alastor. Her hands trembled violently as she tried to offer Moxxie aide. Her eyelids fluttered and were noticeably swollen. The once chirpy smile that the princess had been known for was trapped somewhere between an open-mouthed screen and a seething frown.

Just as salvation seemed so close, Moxxie had to leap back into action.

"I'll be back in a minute!" Moxxie shouted as the tower shook, "I'm going down there and getting it."

"Moxxie! No!" Millie called out, "You're gonna get yourself killed!"

"And maybe I won't. You don't know!"

In truth, Moxxie was fully aware of the risks that his endeavor was going to hold. Like everything else, the chances of death were higher than the chances of survival. He had come to terms with that. With Alastor dead and hell now partially free, he was willing to take one final risk. The final risk that could ensure a return to as close to normalcy as they could get. The scars of Alastor's reign would remain for centuries. But Moxxie was willing to put his life on the line if it meant he could try and heal those scars. Slowly but surely the tides of time would wash away the satanic lines in the sand left by their dictator. If worse came to worse, he took solace in the fact that he had tried his best and that his name would go down in the history books.

He wasn't doing it purely for himself. He was doing it for hell. For all of those who had been harmed under Alastor's reign, both the living and the dead.

Ignoring the calls for him to return, Moxxie slid down using the railing as a stabilizer towards the glass orb. His descent ripped most of the scabs off of his scarred hands as they had slowly begun to heal. The pain was next to unbearable. But he pressed on with only one objective in mind.

The orb appeared to be repelling the flames around it. Moxxie watched as the fire drew closer and should have engulfed it. Yet it didn't. Instead a sphere of flames was formed around it with a break in the center.

Even stranger, the flames around the edges were taking on a black, ashy color. It looked like they were dissolving in the orb's presence.

A broken pipe rolled down the slanted floor. It should have crashed directly into the orb.

But it didn't.

Right as it was about to make impact, the pipe was thrust into the air by an invisible force. Moxxie could feel the mini-shockwave from where he was standing. Storm clouds swirled about in the orb, changing color every few seconds and taking on a faint glow.

Fascinating.

It was nothing short of mesmerizing. He could have stared at that thing for hours, if it wasn't for the looming threat of death around the corner.

A loud snap told Moxxie that it was time for him to get his ass back to the railing.

He picked up the orb and tucked it beneath his arm. It was surprisingly light and heavy at the same time. As if it was caught within some kind of suspension on Moxxie's arm. Something that dense with so much power should have weighed more than a car. Moxxie shouldn't have been able to pick it up in the first place.

Perhaps some higher power had taken pity on him. Maybe he was finally being blessed with a drop of good fortune.

"MOXXIE!" Millie shouted again, "HURRY UP!"

Morningstar hadn't yet hoisted herself over the edge. She remained braced against the cement wall, one hand on the railing and the other extended out towards Moxxie. He would expect nothing less of hell's rainbow princess. He thought she was being an idiot waiting for him to return.

And yet, he took her hand the second he had the chance.

"Hold on," Morningstar called out as the tower swayed yet again, "We need a little help down here!"

Sure enough, the top of the tower had bent beyond ninety degrees. Whatever the hell Alastor had built the tower out of was flexible beyond anything Moxxie had seen before.

Their time was running out. He could feel the shaking of the lower levels collapsing beneath his feet.

Morningstar slipped and held the railing with one hand. Moxxie and the orb were held tightly in the other. The cement wall beneath them crumbled and fell to the ground without warning.

Just when he thought he was about to have a hint of luck, it was snatched away without warning.

Angel and Millie bent down and tried to grab Morningstar's hand to pull them up.

"Don't let go now, Charlie!" Angel grunted, "We're almost there…just hang on a few more seconds…"

"I'm trying!" the princess replied with speech that was slightly but noticeably slurred, "I…I don't know how much longer I'm going to be able to do this…"

"Well, if you let go now you both die. So don't!"

Wails of bending metal and falling machinery filled the air with deafening volume. Moxxie made eye-contact with Millie as yet another explosion shot out from one of the upper floors. It created a blindingly bright display of fire and smoke behind them as the tower began to buckle for the final time.

She mouthed something to him as Moxxie suddenly felt weightless with the tower's collapse.

Morningstar held on for dear life even as their little slice of hell began to plummet towards the ground at terminal velocity. Moxxie couldn't breathe with the intense upward force being exerted on his body as they fell .

The flames from the eastern face of the tower shot up and swallowed them.

His end had finally come. Moxxie came to terms with it. Days of fighting had led him to that moment.

And yet he didn't feel bad about it.

He had fought his way to the top. Together their group had freed hell from the grasp of its terrible dictator. The realm would soon go back to the anarchal wasteland that it had once been, as opposed to the authoritarian hellscape that it had become.

There was still a twinge of regret among his final moments. He wished that he could have seen the day that I.M.P. made enough money for him and Millie to buy their own place. To finally be able to afford a honeymoon. Growing old and retiring on the beaches of the wrath ring. He wanted to live the same life that the other demons around him had gotten to live.

All of their faces were frozen in fear. Stolas held Octavia and Blitzo in one arm while he gripped the rapidly descending railing with the other. Millie had both of her hands on the railing as she glanced nervously at Moxxie with despair in her eyes. Angel and Morningstar were working together in a vain attempt to pull the two of them over. Tom and Katie were doing nothing more than recording their final moments. It was a shame that Moxxie probably wasn't going to live to see it.

For a moment he envied Octavia and Blitzo. They wouldn't have to see their death approaching so rapidly. They had fallen asleep and simply wouldn't wake up. That was, of course, ignoring the pain that had followed leading up to it. The two of them had taken their injuries like champions. It was fitting that they would all go out together.

The ground was approaching rapidly. He watched as a group of demons rushed out of the lower stories of the tower in the nick of time.

Moxxie mouthed a goodbye to Millie. Their final moments had finally come. The curtains had descended on their lives. Millie mouthed it back.

The last thing he remembered was the warm sensation of the orb just before he hit the ground.

A loud slam followed as his vision went white.

Then, nothingness.