"Alright, muscles, just place the shrine down there. Tako make sure you light it up enough for him to see," Nike instructed.

"Uh, you know I can see in the dark right?" Amon ribbed at her.

The demoness rolled her eyes at him as she placed down the assortment of jars, she had flown up the mountainside with.

"Oh I'm sorry, I didn't mean to forget such a potent detail. I've just been so distracted with this ceremony I've been planning for months now, that you've so graciously been aiding me with. You know, no big deal," she jested as she lightly flicked him with her tail.

A small smile came to the demon. She always had a comeback up her sleeve. In truth, half the fun of picking on her was hearing what she'd say about it.

"Okay, everything's almost ready, the stars should be aligning just perfectly soon," she spoke in a frazzled daze. Her body fidgeted around as she set up and made the adjustments she needed for the ritual. Amon took a much calmer approach, as he rested on a nearby rock and watched her contently.

"Let's see, let's see, where did I put down my proprietary herbs? Tako, have you seen my-" before she could finish her question had been answered. Amon extended his arm, holding a relaxed smirk as he quirked his brow at her. She deflated some and allowed herself to ease slightly as she smiled back at him.

"Oh, so you stole it I see," she said lightly, taking it from his hand.

"Yes exactly, I just needed it so bad," he rolled his eyes with a chuckle. She simpered at him as she put her herbs in their final place. It seemed everything was now set and ready to go. What this was all meant to accomplish escaped the beastia despite hearing an explanation for the hundredths of times. He couldn't care much, she seemed happy enough.

The demoness sat down before her several various items as she watched the stars above as if on pins and needles. Her familiar settled in her lap as Amon's eyes wandered upwards much like everyone else's.

At first, it didn't seem like anything much was changing. But then, as strange as it was, Amon began to feel an odd pull. It was as if he could physically feel the pressure of the Earth starting to change right where they were. His genuine interest began to peak as his winged ears rose. He could see a faint light begin to glow from Nike's feathery wings. The outline of a pentagram that rested on her back now lit up like embers, signifying her abilities use. Next thing he knew, her third eye that sat vertically upon her forehead opened with a haunting glow.

It was as if a streamline to the sky and earth had been opened up. Amon wasn't even its direct target, but he too was beginning to feel the overwhelming weight of the above. The pressure and emotion came over him and somehow, it never felt the least bit unusual.

He could see Nike and Tako become almost statue-like as they peered into another world. While they were caught up in their own practice, Amon too couldn't help but notice something come over him. It was unshakable, but at the very least tolerable. Whatever it was, it did not feel menacing, in truth it didn't even feel current. It felt like sorrow from long ago. He recognized this, he couldn't remember directly yet, but he knew what this was.

Suddenly, visions began to appear before him once more. They were blurred and distorted, but even still Amon knew them all too well. He could see the stars move, they put on an act, reconstructing the events of his past, his conception. The great devil didn't want to watch, but he no longer had the privilege of looking away. He relived the memories that had been long tucked away, he felt that sense of desolation and loneliness all over again. How utterly powerful yet small he was in the grand universe. It was almost too much to bear all over again, but then suddenly something unexpected resurfaced.

It came almost as if it was from the furthest reach of space, the deepest recess of his mind. Quietly a familiar sound whispered in his ears. It was soft and comforting. Amon felt a strange wave of nostalgia roll over him. He couldn't explain it, but he knew this song, this lullaby from somewhere. The most curious thing of all was inside he felt he had heard it before, from two very different places. His memories fought between one another, as if in one life he had heard it several times from the heavens, and the other once came from the ground. From the second recollection, he could actually remember the one who gifted him with such a sweet song.

It was fuzzy, but the voice and the outline of the figure slowly began to piece together in his brain. It was a struggle that suddenly lifted all at once as everything became clear. It was like being knocked over the head, but it was there now.

The demon's eyes widened, feeling himself come back to the present moment with a racing heart. His spread eyes fell to the demoness. It was her. Somewhere in the pit of his gut he always knew it was her.

It seemed just as quickly as it all came everything began to die down again. The energy of this space started to ease itself and Nike's body started to relax as well. At the same time both her and Tako's eyes popped open as she gasped. It was like she had just resurfaced from being underwater and the started daze in her eyes was still very much present. She could barely catch a breath as she held onto herself tightly.

Amon's winged ears lifted as he came down to view her better, "Nike, Nike what's wrong?"

He could tell she was trying to mumble something, but her breaths were far too short and raspy. Whatever she had seen had shaken her up terribly. Amon only wished he knew how to help her, or to even know what the matter was.

The one thing that came to his mind was something he was unsure of. He had never attempted it before, and certainly not with her. He had no idea how she'd react, but desperate times call for desperate measures. Easily he took her into his arms and held onto her firmly.

"It's okay Nike, it's okay, I gotcha. You have to tell me what's wrong, I can't fix anything if I don't know what's wrong. And you know how picky you are with me fixing your things already," he tried to toss in a bit of humor. Whatever he was doing it seemed to be working. He could feel the shaking of her figure begin to die out as her breathing became regular again.

"They're almost here, they're almost here and we have almost no time…" she speedily explained.

Amon looked confused but pressed on regardless, "Who is? Who's almost here?"

Her face looked wearily back into the sky, "God."

Amon's head lined up with hers to view the constellations of the heavens above. It looked no different than it had before, but she was right. Now that he focused on it, something deep within him, as if it were a sixth sense told him his ultimate rival was drawing near.

The beastia would be lying if he denied the small, but sudden sense of panic that set over him. Very rarely did he undertake such a foreboding feeling, for one of the few instances in his existence he felt so utterly small.

Nike began to fidget against him, bringing the demon back to his senses as he returned his attention to her. She had calmed enough now but still chose to remain in his grasp. He was surprised by her vulnerability towards him, but he wouldn't turn it away. In an odd way, he enjoyed returning the favor, and more than that he enjoyed just having her there to hold.

"Wait, so you did all this to spy on God? Why would you do that?" he pondered.

Her head flicked around to look up at him. If he wasn't mistaken, she looked somewhat offended by his asking.

"Why did I do this? I did this because our kind is on the brink of war, possibly the brink of extinction. I had to do something."

Amon was slightly surprised by her reply. His head softly tilted to the side trying with all his might to make sense of her.

"I see, it's just I thought you didn't care much for other demons. I mean, you ran away from everybody else because you couldn't stand them, right?"

Nike's frame dipped slightly as she too appeared to become ponderous. Her eyes seemed to be peering into something far off and far back in her mind. Amon awaited patiently to hear what she would say next, knowing there was something more.

"I suppose old habits die hard…" she confessed timidly. She stopped for a few moments as her stare scanned the ground. Ever so slightly a mournful smile came to her face before she started once more.

"Did I ever tell you what I used to do?" she asked.

Amon shook his head, "No."

She laughed quietly, "I used to be the symbol of victory to all of demonkind, would you believe that?"

Amon's face jerked back in disbelief. He knew he had heard her correctly, and yet still it wasn't clicking in his brain. Nike had never seemed the cheerleader type, or even the type to get involved in war at all.

"You were?" Amon queried.

She nodded her head pleasantly, "Mmhm, I used to be one of the greatest warmongers this planet ever did see. I even lead armies at times, I wasn't half bad at it either. I used my powers to create thrilling illusions to get soldiers rallied for battle and play nasty tricks on the opposing armies. Oh, I was bad let me tell you, I would have hated myself now."

The beastia's expression twitched, visually displaying his thought process. It was a lot to take in for him, and much harder to apply it to her. It was so disconnected from his image of her. Part of him considered the possibility she was simply fooling with him, but then she appeared so sincere. In truth, Amon wasn't sure what to think at all.

"Really?"

"Yes, I had a whole get-up and everything too. I used to shapeshift myself to look like an angel, to mold myself in their beauty, to mock them. The other demons just loved it."

Amon had a hard time imagining her as anything but what he had always known. It pestered his brain, all these questions, and doubts.

"So…" the devil hesitated. "If that's true, why are you all the way out here? And why are you so different from that now?"

Her movements were slow and thought out. It was as if she was suspended in-between this world and a dream of memories.

"I finally was forced to face the truth of this world." She spoke with such certainty. In that moment she sounded so wise, and so very old despite her appeared youth.

"When I was at the height of my run, I remember I would keep pushing my spectacles. I'd keep widening the boundaries of my abilities. I wanted to become bigger and greater after each and every time. I wanted to manipulate time and space itself, and I succeeded, but that toll was more than I could have ever expected."

"You could bend reality itself?" Amon uttered.

She breathed with a skeptical laugh and her eyes nearly rolled as she shook her head, "No. That's why I changed, I learned there was nothing I could do. At first, I tampered with time, I would give my own armies an advantage by slowing or speeding up the natural flow. I even got so good I could leap to and from different points in time. There were instances I gathered knowledge and weaponry that the opposing armies could have never anticipated. It was unfair truly; they had no chance at all and yet I still sought out more. I couldn't get enough of the power, of the thrill, of the praise…" she halted for a moment as if looking into the past itself. Swallowing hard she reigned herself back in.

"I had gained the authority over time, and yet it still wasn't enough for me. For how I was, nothing would have ever sufficed, but I believed my next goal would be to manipulate space. To do that you must understand space, so I meditated. I spent hours, days, weeks, months in trances, my spirit traveling amongst the stars and this whole plane of existence. The information I accumulated was staggering and to this day many of it still baffles me…haunts me," she admitted.

"What stopped you?" Amon questioned fully invested.

Her face slowly turned to him as her eyes seemed to peer into his soul, "I met God."

The severity of her words rung in through Amon's entire being, as his ears perked, "What happened?"

"He scared me," she bluntly replied. "I could never have understood the true ultimate power of God and his army until that moment. I always knew he would be a formidable foe, but it was then I knew demonkind had no chance against his power. I had never been so frightened in all my life; it was the very first time I wanted nothing more than to flee from battle."

Amon leaned in further, feeling the story resonate within him. He didn't need to say another word for Nike to know he wanted her to go on.

"And you know, looking back I don't know why I ever thought this would be a good idea, but I told the council right afterward. I told them we needed to escape while we could."

"Oh no," the large devil grimaced. He knew well enough from his own experiences how telling the council what they didn't want to hear would go.

"Oh no is correct. Ever since then my life slowly crept downhill. I was quite flustered after it all and had spooked the armies. They had never seen me so panicked. Zennon took me back as soon as he could and scolded me. He told me I was creating a scene and destroying the fighting spirit of the soldiers. I'd never been barked at by him before, and right afterward he spoke to me again as if everything was fine like we were buddies," she rolled her eyes.

"Hey, hey yeah!" Amon hopped up. "He was always like that. Anytime you did something he didn't like he'd get after you for it and then try to reel you back in!"

Nike's feathered ruffled as she nodded her head, "Yeah, exactly you're only useful to him when you're being obedient after all."

"Ugh, that used to get on my every last nerve. So what was it he wanted you to do?"

The demoness's body sunk again, thinking back, "Oh, I was hardly allowed to be seen anymore after that. But I couldn't leave still."

Her eyes squinted, "That was a hard time. I was still powerful of course, so Zennon didn't want to let me go, but I was miserable. I felt I had let everyone down, everyone that depended on me. I was meant to be their guiding light to victory," her voice trailed off. For a fleeting moment, Amon could almost hear the long-departed sadness resurface in her tone once again.

"I wanted to do all I could for my demons still, but it seemed they wanted no more to do with me. I went from the Demoness of Victory to the Demon Witch. My original status meant nothing anymore. The demons I once inspired and fought alongside would give me no more than a passing sneer. I was treated like a servant. But I suppose that wasn't all bad, for that was when I began to view servants differently, as a matter of fact, that's when I began to view the council differently." Her brow narrowed and her voice had become more severe and harrowing. Amon felt her contention. As a matter of fact, he felt it all. It was eerie how similar her story was to his own. It was only at that point did he realize he had been nodding along with her almost the whole time.

"It seems you know what I mean?" her rigidness flowed away as her tone playfully pecked at Amon.

"Oh do I," he slouched. "You know it's crazy, everything you're talking about is like what happened to me. They wanted me around to do their dirty work and then they praised me for it, but the second I wanted to do something against them they didn't want any part of me. I couldn't stand it. I couldn't stand how they favored some and treated other certain demons lower, without even giving them a chance to prove themselves. And yet they always spoke about how they would fight for all of demonkind. Ha, what a sorry joke."

Nike could see the fur on his back attempt to relax after his tangent. It was touching to see how much he cared. It stirred something strange in her, something she couldn't begin to understand. She recoiled slightly from the feeling allowing her arms to rest against her bust.

"You know Amon, it wasn't all bad I suppose though…" she started.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I grew a greater understanding of the world. One I could never have begun to grasp without such an experience. I developed a bond with many of the smaller devils I would have never considered beforehand. I was actually in a position to listen to them. I could see something in them, it may not have been strength, but I became fond of many of them regardless."

"Me too," Amon contributed.

"Yeah," her eyes glanced up to trace him as warmness made her cheeks rosy. "And then, well, with my new job of keeping a lookout for God and other strong entities, I was able to come across something entirely new. Something that could actually rival the might of God, but something stunted its power…"

She trailed off and became unusually vague. It was as if something began to coil within the red beast's chest, noticing her shift. He tried to make contact with her sights again, but it seemed now she deliberately avoided them. He had a nagging suspension, but he allowed her to go on.

"It could never seem to reach its full potential, it was trapped, and from a very early stage. But it wasn't just that. Whatever this was, it was sorrowful somehow. Denied any form of existence from its inception, locked away to be forgotten. I knew of it though; I knew how incredibly brutal it could be and yet how fragile it was… I used to comfort it, back when I was the only one that knew about it…"

Amon started to feel weak in his knees and his breathing was quickening.

She released a quiet laugh, "But no good secret stays secret forever now does it? Soon I told the king of this being's presence and ever since then, every warrior and their best friend wanted to attempt merging with it." Her head shook dismissively thinking back to the occurrences. A slight giggle slipped through her fangs as she started once again, "Ridiculous, they were. Not a single one of them ever got their wish, even still I didn't give up on it. I had no desire to merge with this being of course though, but I would visit the moon spirit…"

The tension that filled the in-between now felt suffocated. Not an air of doubt remained, and both were aware of this fact despite no words of confirmation being uttered. Nike lifted herself from the arms of the devil as she slowly walked out over the cliff. Amon and Tako remained where they were watching her. Her feathered tail swept over the rocks gracefully as her talons carried her to the edge of the stony peak.

She stood in front of the large full moon, her back to her companions. Amon was overcome with a strange instinct, one that comforted him, but also confounded him.

"…You know, I remember I used to sing up to the moon. It always seemed to help make him feel even the smallest bit better…"

Only a mere minute passed before she started to sing a melody. One so soft and sweet it had fully captivated the great beast. His blood pressure spiked hearing the same tune he had known for so long, only for his body to almost completely ease at the exact moment. Amon listened to every note, predicting each and every one, knowing the song by heart. A flood of emotion and memory returned to him, like a wave washing over. He couldn't stop it or fight it, only be taken by it. It was as if he had been possessed by a ghost, the ghost of his past. He recalled all the pain and loneliness and the uplifting joy it was to hear her voice.

When at last she concluded, the world was eerily silent. Everything was deaf in the beastia's ears, as his attention was pinpointed strictly to the demoness before him. He felt the wind pass over both of them brushing through her feathers and flowing through his thick fur. It was the first thing to undo him from this trance. Finally, he opened his mouth, he could not stay silent any longer.

"It was you…" he murmured. "You always knew…"

Finally, she turned around to face him. There was a world of subtly to her expression but also a simple truth. She confirmed his suspicions without ever opening her mouth, and somehow, he also knew she wasn't the least bit surprised.

"Yeah," she concluded quietly.

Amon shook his head slightly and attempted to blink away his stunned appearance, "B-but why didn't you say anything?"

She smiled at him as if he were a lost puppy, "Well simply, I didn't want to interfere. I mean I didn't enjoy holding my tongue of seeing what you would become. I knew what the council would do with you, and I knew you'd most likely end up just like them. I suppose I tried to change it though, when I lied about you."

"You lied about me?" Amon's winged ears pulled inwards as he reminisced on her meaning.

"At the trial for a new commander, I knew what you were. I knew you were exactly what Zennon and the others were looking for. I guess in my own way I wanted to protect you from the inevitable, but it was a silly resistance. It was obvious you were the being born from God's shadow and I knew they would take you in anyway, with how strong you were. After that I suppose, I just couldn't bear to watch anymore, so, I left. I banished myself out here, and I've been like this ever since."

Her head tilted lightly, as if in slight defeat, "Guess even I was wrong about some things. You're here, and I would have never predicted you end up like this."

"Well, can't say I'm not used to surprises anymore. I feel like half the time I never know what's going to happen next. And you know, for once that doesn't really bother me," he sighed. Amon and her shared a longing look as he found the momentum to approach her. He could see her swallow and smell the subtle whiff of her fright. He knew it was not him she feared, at least not in the traditional sense. Even he felt a pang of fright within his own chest. He wouldn't stop though. As much as his heart quivered, it yearned even more.

Considerately, he reached his hand out to her. She didn't move, allowing him to come nearer, thus he placed his fingers along her soft jawline, cupping her cheek.

"Now now big boy, just because I was nice to you this time doesn't mean I'm going to be all the time," she jested. He could tell; however, it was a mask for her anxiousness. Even still he found her antics amusing.

"Oh I know, I know. I wouldn't want it any other way," he bent down, becoming face to face with her. The intensity molded the gap between them. It was electric and vibrant, but also stifling. Neither could hardly move, being stuck in fear, but the magnetic pull kept bringing them closer somehow. Amon was willing to give in to this natural flow more easily. Nike could feel it, and, in a way, she too found it coaxing but her heart race began to feel uncontrollable. As enticing as it all was, she couldn't remain she had to halt this somehow.

"Amon, I'm scared," she regretfully revealed. That one statement was enough to make Amon abort his whole trail of action. He instantly removed himself away from her.

"Scared of what?" he asked almost frailly.

Her head shook. She wasn't a fan of this change either, but there was nothing she could do for it now.

"Not of you, you loon. I'm scared for our kind. I'm scared of God…" she squeaked.

Amon felt a relishing sense of relief knowing her fears were not in place of him. However, knowing the presence of her fears still remained did not sit comfortably with him either. His face wrinkled as he muddled through his thoughts. Only a few moments after did his eyes glance up to the heavens once more. He sneered and tapered his gaze. The sound of a growing growl emitted from his clenched fangs.

"Don't you worry Nike. Whatever happens, I know I have the strength to overcome it," he insisted.

The demonesses' relaxed nature reappeared as she allowed a soft smile to come to her.

"Yeah, but what if you can't? You've never been able to hold your power that consistently…"

His features drooped but didn't leave her. As worthy a point that was and how unsettled it made him feel, something about her eyes gave him the persistence to go on. As a matter of fact, this same feeling existed within in him when he gazed upon his men, and the demons that revered him so. It was at that moment his peace of mind dawned on him.

"Nike, if there's one thing I've learned is that strength can come from the least likely places. And I know quite a few demons that need me, and thus will grant me the power I need," he finished pleasantly.

Slowly the demon witch matched the simple smile he wore. She didn't have anything more to say, all she could do was lean into his brawny hold. As threatening as the circumstances were, being there with him she felt safe.