The humiliation was a fire in Lucifer's veins, hotter than any hellfire. To be held, constrained, overpowered like some common brawler—it was an insult that burned deeper than any wound. The cracks in his composure weren't just showing; they were splitting wide open.

"Unhand me," he snarled, his voice a low, vibrating thing that was more beast than angel. "You gutter-born relic!"

Zeus just tightened his grip, the storm-energy making his muscles crackle. "It's over, Lucifer."

A horrible, broken sound escaped Lucifer's lips. It wasn't a scream. It was a laugh, sharp and jagged, like glass grinding on stone. "Over? You think this is my limit?"

His body, held tight against Zeus's, began to grow hot. Not the cold void-like chill of before, but a real, physical, burning heat. The fine robes he wore began to smolder, then blacken.

"You wanted to see a rival to your Father?" Lucifer's voice was a distorted whisper, strained through clenched teeth. "You wanted to see true power? Not that borrowed light from His throne. Mine."

The heat intensified. It was like holding a star. Zeus's own storm-energy sizzled in protest, the two forces warring where their bodies met. He could feel his own skin starting to blister.

"Let... GO!" Lucifer roared.

The explosion wasn't of light or sound. It was pure, concussive force, a wave of absolute "NO" that slammed into Zeus and threw him backward like a doll. He tumbled across the fused glass of the crater, skidding to a stop dozens of yards away, his arms and chest smoking.

He pushed himself up, his vision swimming. What he saw made his blood run cold.

Lucifer was still standing where he'd been, but he was… changing.

He was hunched over, his shoulders shaking. A low, guttural growl rumbled from his chest, a sound that had no place in any angel, fallen or otherwise. The air around him began to warp and bleed. The very light of the realm, faint as it was, seemed to be sucked into the space around him, dying.

His wings, once a majestic, if terrible, expanse of folded night, were tearing themselves apart. The captured starlight within them winked out, one by one. The dark feathers weren't molting; they were rotting, sloughing off to reveal raw, muscular tissue beneath, webbed with pulsing, black veins. What remained were leathery, bat-like appendages, jagged and cruel.

His skin, once pale and perfect, split along his arms and back. From the fissures, not blood, but raw, volcanic rock and searing hellfire erupted, plating his form in a crude, brutal armor. His hands elongated, his fingers becoming black-taloned claws that scraped against the ground, sending up sparks.

But the most terrifying change was his face.

His handsome, arrogant features contorted, stretching, his jaw unhinging with a sickening crack. His eyes, those pale, intelligent pools, flooded with a solid, raging crimson, like lakes of fresh blood. From his brow, two massive, twisted horns of obsidian and burning brimstone erupted, curling backward like a crown of thorns made of hatred.

He straightened to his full, terrifying height. He was no longer the elegant Morningstar. He was a primal engine of ruin. This was no longer a fallen angel. This was the Devil, fully awakened.

His voice, when it came, was a layered nightmare. The cultured tone was gone, replaced by a basso growl, overlaid with the screams of the damned and the crackle of infernal fire.

"YOU SEE?" the voice boomed, shaking the very foundations of Hell. "THIS IS WHAT HE MADE ME! THIS IS THE TRUTH HE TRIED TO HIDE! THE BEAST IN THE BEAUTIFUL SKIN!"

He took a step forward. The ground didn't just tremble; it liquefied under his foot, boiling into a pool of slag. The air grew so thick with sulfur and despair it was hard to breathe.

"YOU WANTED A GOD TO FIGHT? YOU HAVE ONE NOW."

Zeus stared, his mind reeling. The power radiating from Lucifer now was orders of magnitude greater than before. It was chaotic, raw, and utterly without restraint. This wasn't a style of fighting he could counter with grit and cleverness. This was a force of nature, and it was coming for him.

Lucifer moved.

It wasn't a blur. It was an eruption. One moment he was there, the next he was in front of Zeus, his new, clawed hand already swinging.

Zeus brought his arms up in a cross-block. The impact was like being hit by a continent.

The sound was a sickening crunch. Zeus was thrown backward again, his forearms screaming in agony. He felt bones grate. He landed hard, rolling, coming up on one knee, breathing raggedly.

He didn't have time to recover. Lucifer was on him again, a storm of claws and fire. Zeus dodged a swipe that would have taken his head off, the wind of it tearing his cheek. He ducked under a second, the claws ripping through the air where his neck had been.

He tried to summon a bolt of lightning. A spear of white energy lanced from the sky, aimed directly at Lucifer's chest.

Lucifer didn't dodge. He caught it.

His claw closed around the pure lightning. It writhed in his grip, sputtering, its light dimming as his hellfire consumed it. He crushed it in his fist, the energy dying with a pathetic fizzle.

"YOUR TOYS ARE USELESS," he snarled, and lunged.

Zeus met him head-on. It was a mistake.

Fist met claw. The shockwave was immense, but this time, Zeus was the one thrown back. He slammed into a jagged outcrop of hellstone, the rock cracking behind him. Pain exploded through his back.

He was losing. Badly.

Lucifer advanced, a predator savoring the kill. He backhanded Zeus, sending him spinning to the ground. He kicked him, the blow lifting Zeus off his feet and sending him skidding through ash and stone.

"WHERE IS YOUR DEFIANCE NOW, KING OF NOTHING?" Lucifer bellowed, stomping toward him. "WHERE IS YOUR FAMILY? YOUR CHOICE?"

Zeus pushed himself up, spitting out a mouthful of blood. His body was a tapestry of pain. One of his eyes was swollen shut. He could feel ribs cracked, muscles torn. The storm inside him was guttering, its fuel nearly spent.

He looked at the monstrous form of Lucifer, at the raw, unchecked hatred, and he knew. He couldn't win this fight. Not like this.

But as he thought of his family, of Ares fighting with clarity, of Athena's mind freed, a strange calm settled over him. The fear of a mortal, Ixion, was still there—the terror of being nothing. But it was joined by the stubbornness of Zeus—the refusal to yield.

He wasn't just fighting for a throne anymore. He wasn't just fighting for pride.

He was fighting for the right for them to exist. For the messy, chaotic, beautiful right to live.

Lucifer loomed over him, raising a clawed hand for the final blow, hellfire gathering in his palm.

"DIE KNOWING YOU FAILED THEM ALL."

Zeus looked up, his one good eye meeting Lucifer's burning red gaze. He didn't see a god. He didn't see a devil. He saw a tantrum. A cosmic, universe-spanning tantrum.

And he was done with it.

A faint spark, not of lightning, but of something quieter, flickered in his palm. It wasn't much. But it was all he had left.

It would have to be enough.

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