The defenders had been hard at work, where possible enemies were trapped, pinned, or restrained, where it was not they were beaten up as best Mawri and the others could manage. Which given that they were angry canines defending their territory was surprisingly well.

Midway through the battle though something incredibly concerning happened. The entire battlefield lit up with a magic array of mind blowing proportions. What the hell were the humans trying to do? This spell was gargantuan, and felt unstoppable. Mawri felt her heart was in her mouth as the spell engaged, and reality decided yet again to take a brief vacation.

**************************************************************************

Down in hell the accountants were hard at work, they had been working on the Belli account for quite some time, and now it was almost time to collect. They were expecting a surplus of low grade souls from the recently deceased, and more specifically those guilty of killing innocent and guilty alike. The account holder had assured them the level of hatred needed to set this up would be easy to arrange. (nothing makes a soul consent to hell faster than hate, it was an instant upgrade in quality.)

Diablo Entre was quite excited for this account, if this deal worked out then it would propel him to the big leagues. It hadn’t been easy to arrange for a chaos demon to step in and take this account, and the “system” spell? He’d had to arrange that particular setup as a personal cost, two whiny extra virgin sacrifices. That hadn’t been cheap, and now it was time to collect on the debt he looked at the tally, and far worse than hell he learned of despair.

Death toll was minimal, as innocent victims had been restrained. How did that even happen? To make matters worse there was a hell cat on site, meaning two separate clauses were in effect. The first, the creature was infernal in nature. That was not a good thing, it could imply direct infernal interference. The boss was not going to be happy about that. Second, and arguably more importantly the creature in question is a CAT. Now given that belief made gods to an extent cats by default fell into a unique theological loophole. Each individual cat believed themselves to be a god, fully and wholeheartedly. Often their human, and/or handler also believed it. That was a lot of belief, and there were plenty of cat deities formally on the pantheon (many worshipped by humans) who wished it to stay that way. The end result had been an amendment indemnifying in case of act of cat. Diablo literally couldn’t collect on that. (Under the same rules all dogs fundamentally believe themselves to be good boys, humans adhere to this belief. Which is why so many dogs are so angelic, and why heaven eventually gave in on the animal soul issue and granted heaven a dog park of its very own.) By itself that put him in the red.

Then we get to the intent issue, while many had intended harm many had not. No rage at innocence lost due to minimal casualties. Well any demon will tell you in that scenario there was a time honoured solution. Diablo choose to do what middle men do best he covered his own arse.

*************************************************************************

The array lit up brighter than ever, while the hooded stranger cackled gleefully, raising his arms and basking in the absolute power the spell was granting him. Then unexpectedly a second circle opened behind him.

From it stepped two serious looking humans in suits, followed by two much larger demons carrying rather large and terrifying spiky clubs.

The human cleared their throat, and the hooded figure went pale, (at least the bits they could see of him.)

“Umm can this wait?” the pink robe asked nervously. “I’m in the middle of a rather large deal here.”

“Hence my presence,” the neatest looking human replied (by which I mean his suit was so ironed the creases ironed in actually had additional starch, and his hair was so controlled that even the strongest hair mousse would be nowhere near as effective.) “I represent Arman and Legg collection services, and during our collection attempt it was decided that your repayment schedule, along with the debt potential for the following transaction are deemed nonviable. Arman and Legg were handed this debt for enforcement.

“Wait, wait, what about the ongoing battle?” Pink robe stammered, “surely the toll from a battle on this scale has a high enough toll to repay my debt.”

“Whether you believe it or not this battle has provided minimal casualties, the initial outlay has not been paid off much less the total debt. This is a fact and not open to discussion. So we need to discuss repayment options. Unless you wish to take part in the instalment repayment plan, in which case your soul will be free of debt in roughly three hundred thousand years, oh and of course there is the matter of interest, debt handling. Fees for collection, and miscellaneous expenses.”

“Wait.... three hundred thousand years?”

“Plus additional expenses, again I can not stress that enough”

“I can’t do that,” he whimpered. As Beelzebub’s bailiffs bearing big bashers approached. They liked it when somebody tried to squirm out of a debt, it usually meant repaying via the other type of instalment plan, in which they got to take bits off until the human in question paid up. It usually didn’t take long for them to desperately figure out another repayment method.

“Wait” Mibbet shouted to the collectors, who turned to look at her. “Can we see who they are at least?" She pleaded.

“I apologise, even for royalty we cannot violate debtor client privilege, and it would act against our interests to reveal a client at this time, now if you’ll excuse us. We have a new unpaid intern to get back to the office.”

The pink robed figure went limp at that (he would usually have kicked up more of a fuss but it is amazing how much of a deterrent from such actions two bailiffs with big spiky sticks can me. As he was dragged through an infernal circle, leaving behind nothing but a meticulously notarised receipt.