Chapter Text
The D.H.O.R.K.S. warehouse reeked of ozone, shoddy technology, and desperation. Agents One and Two were still gloating over having captured "the creatures," convinced that their gadgets and cameras were the key to glory.
In a dark corner, sitting on an ammo crate, Cain exhaled a thick cloud of cigarette smoke. She watched the two agents with a mixture of pity and annoyance. To her, One and Two were like children playing with matches in a powder keg.
"Stop patting yourselves on the back," Cain croaked, his voice hoarse from millennia of tobacco and battle dust. "Those things aren't animals. They're killers. And they're pissed."
"Oh, come on, Cain! We got them!" exclaimed Agent Two, adjusting his glasses. "With your tactical advice and our technology, we're unbeatable!"
Cain didn't respond. He simply crushed the cigarette butt under his combat boot, feeling the familiar weight of the angelic axe strapped to his back. He felt something in the air. A shift in pressure.
The Escape
Inside the interrogation room, chaos erupted. Cameras blew, lights flickered, and the screams of security officers filled the corridors.
Blitzø, Millie, and Moxxie burst from the room like bullets, cutting down anyone in their path with brutal precision.
"See? I told you it was a walk in the park!" Blitzø shouted, reloading his gun as he leaped over a corpse. "These humans are more dumb than Moxxie at a sheet music sale!"
"Hey!" Moxxie protested, shooting an agent trying to hide behind a desk. "We just need to find the book and get out of here before the cavalry arrives."
"There won't be any cavalry, honey!" Millie laughed, swinging her blood-stained cleaver. "We've already wiped out half the base. Who else can they send us?"
Just then, the double doors at the end of the corridor opened with deliberate slowness.
The Encounter
There were no soldiers in tactical armor. There were no drones. Just one woman.
She wore a worn black leather jacket, ripped jeans, and a pair of white flowers in her dark hair that clashed terribly with the cynical look in her purple eyes.
Blitzø paused, raising an eyebrow. "Uh... we're in the middle of a massacre, babe. The 'Depressed Goth' fashion show is upstairs."
Cain stepped forward. The clatter of his boots on the concrete was the only sound in the hallway. "You little monsters make a lot of noise," she said, calmly drawing her angelic axe. The blade glowed with a cold, deadly light. "And I'm trying to enjoy my drink."
Millie didn't wait. "Move over, human!" she shouted, lunging forward with her cleaver raised.
The blow was perfect. Millie's blade struck Cain's neck with the full force of her demonic fury. There was a metallic sound, as if steel had struck a diamond pillar. Millie's cleaver snapped in two.
Cain didn't flinch. There wasn't a scratch, not a drop of blood. Just a faint mark on his brown skin that vanished instantly.
"My turn," Cain said.
In one fluid motion, he struck Millie with the back of his hand. The force of the impact hurled the demon into the opposite wall with such force that the concrete cracked.
"Millie!" Moxxie shouted, terrified. He emptied the entire magazine of his rifle at Cain.
The bullets struck the woman's chest, face, and arms. Each one crushed as if hitting a battleship, falling uselessly to the ground. Cain continued walking, relentless, through the rain of lead.
Blitzø's eyes widened, his usual sarcasm gone in an instant. This wasn't a ghost hunter. This wasn't an occult fanatic.
"Moxxie... back away," Blitzø whispered, feeling for the first time a shiver of pure human terror run down his spine. "That thing... it's not human. It can't be human."
Cain raised his axe, his violet eyes fixed on them with the weariness of one who has watched empires die. "I'm Cain," he said simply. "And I invented the concept of murder. Let's see how you do with the original."
Cain's Carnage
Cain continued to advance, his angelic axe now aimed at Blitzø and Moxxie. Millie was still on the ground, trying to recover from the blow that had sent her bouncing like a rag doll.
"P-little one, are you okay?" Moxxie murmured, trying to help Millie, but her eyes wouldn't leave Cain.
Blitzø, for the first time in his life, felt true desperation. This woman wasn't just strong; she was... invulnerable. Every blow was futile. Every bullet crashed into her with no effect.
"You demons are all the same," Cain hissed, his voice now a low, guttural growl, almost an echo of millennia of suppressed rage. "You strut your stuff. You think yourselves are dangerous. Alpha predators, aren't you?"
With a swift movement, Cain was upon Moxxie before she could even react. He grabbed the little imp by the head and slammed him against the wall. Not just one punch, but a rapid, brutal series of impacts, like a jackhammer hitting concrete. Each blow shook the entire structure, and the sound of Moxxie's skull crashing against the wall was horrifying.
"You boast of your cruelty, your strength," Cain continued, continuing to beat Moxxie, whose body was now little more than a twisted sack of flesh. "But it's all pride and ignorance. As soon as you face someone who can't be killed... someone who doesn't bend..."
Blitzø, blinded by fury and terror for his imp, lunged at Cain with unprecedented ferocity. He drew his knife and attempted to stab her in the chest, then in the throat.
Cain intercepted each attack with disarming speed, locking Blitzø's wrist. His hand closed around the I.M.P. leader's throat, lifting him effortlessly from the ground. Blitzø thrashed, legs dangling, struggling for air as Cain's grip tightened.
"You're complaining," Cain said, his face devoid of emotion as he watched Blitzø struggle. "You're crying. You're begging for mercy." With a cold gaze, he threw Blitzø across the corridor, crashing him into a pile of metal crates that bent and shattered under the impact. "Yet you never show it. You fucking hypocrites."
Millie, though battered, staggered to her feet, her broken cleaver useless. She saw Moxxie smashed to a pulp against the wall and Blitzø unconscious in the rubble. Terror gripped her heart.
"Leave them alone!" Millie screamed, lunging forward with her claws in desperation.
Cain simply delivered a powerful kick to Millie's chest, sending her back into the wall, this time with such force that the air whistled through her lungs and several ribs snapped. The demon collapsed to the ground, coughing up blood.
Cain slowly approached Millie, his angelic axe now aimed at her head. "For millennia, I've seen demons like you. Creatures who feed on the weakness of others, who believe themselves superior. But when the scales tip... when you encounter a true predator... your courage evaporates."
Cain's violet eyes burned with an ancient rage. "And I... I'm always here."
One and Two, who had barely managed to peek out from a hiding place, were paralyzed with terror. They had never seen anything like it. Their most precious asset was not only invulnerable; He was a force of nature, a living apocalypse.
"Do you think you're the most dangerous demons in Hell?" Cain murmured, leaning over Millie, who lay trembling in a pool of her own blood. "Let me show you what despair truly means."
The warehouse was deadly silent, broken only by Moxxie's gurgling breathing and the crackling of a few exposed electrical wires. The I.M.P., Hell's most feared assassination squad, was reduced to a pile of shattered flesh and bone.
Cain walked over Moxxie's spent shell casings, which now felt like useless pebbles under his boots. He grabbed Blitzø by the horns and dragged him to the center of the corridor, throwing him near Millie, who was feebly trying to reach out for her boss.
"P-please..." Moxxie whispered from her position against the wall, her voice reduced to a high-pitched whistle. "Stop... please... mercy..."
Cain stopped. She turned slowly toward him, tilting her head with an expression that wasn't anger, but something far more frightening: a cold, age-old indifference.
"Mercy?" Cain repeated, the word sounding bitter on his lips. He leaned over Moxxie, grabbing him by the collar of his burned shirt. "It's funny to hear you say that word. Tell me, little monster... how many times have you heard it in the last year? How many humans have knelt before you, crying for their lives, thinking of their children, their mothers?"
Moxxie trembled, unable to answer.
"I'll tell you," Cain continued, tightening his grip until his knuckles turned white. "Thousands. And every single time, what did they get in return? A sarcastic quip? A bullet to the face while you laughed at how pathetic they were? You enjoy watching the light fade in the eyes of those who can't defend themselves."
He rose to his feet, looming over them like a vengeful deity.
"You come to my world, bring your chaos and your gratuitous violence, and then, as soon as the prey bites the hunter, you start whimpering like newborns. You are the worst kind of cowards: those who think they're wolves until they meet iron."
Blitzø coughed up blood, trying to get up, but Cain stomped on his back with such pressure that the demon's spine creaked.
"No jokes today, Blitzø," Cain said, gripping the angelic steel axe in both hands. The blade glowed with an eerie light. "No funny monologues, no last-minute escapes. Only the debt being collected."
Cain raised the axe above his head. There was no hatred in those violet eyes, only the weariness of someone cleaning up a mess that had been going on for too long.
"Say hello to my father when you get there," he concluded coldly. "Tell him his daughter's still doing the dirty work he's too lazy to finish."
The blow fell like a guillotine, a flash of angelic light that silenced the screams in the warehouse. Cain stood there, motionless, as demonic blood, black and thick, dripped down the blade of his axe.
He reached into the pocket of his leather jacket, pulled out a cigarette, and lit it with perfectly steady hands.
"Agent One, Agent Two," he called without turning, smoke rising toward the ceiling. "Bring the bags. And clean this mess up. I need a stiff drink."