Nat'masi awoke from his slumber with a vengeance, screaming at the top of his lungs.

After a moment, he stopped, eyes blinking, and looked around.

Where am I? Where has my army gone?

Shaking his head, he punched his own skull, and the final vestiges of blue magic dissipated from his mind. It left him with a searing headache, and he blinked repeatedly, rubbing his eyes.

Standing, he discovered he was in a cave, the absolute absence of light making no difference to his many eyes. Cursing his migraine, he popped his joints, rotating them in a full hundred-and-eighty-degrees.

What... what happened?

He had the foggiest memory of a bright orange cat fhuma, a spider fhuma with a red bow tie, and... a humanoid chunk of sentient cheese? That couldn't be right.

Nat'masi shook his head again. What had happened to him? Why were warlords so hated? It wasn't as if he was cruel or anything. He killed his opponents quickly and mercifully, unlike most of his kind.

He cracked his neck, rubbing it with a wizened black claw and itching his horns. Kicking at the ground with his cloven hooves, he wondered where he'd gone wrong.

No, he knew where he'd gone wrong. It had something to with... a kid. A teenager in a black hoodie. What was his name again?

Flexing his impressive wings, he grabbed his leg and stretched it behind his back, groaning as he exerted himself. That was the problem with Death Prevention - it always left your joints in such a...

He snapped to reality, his headache vanishing entirely. Death Prevention? He'd had to use Death Prevention?

What had happened?

He spoke out loud, hoping his imp was still around. "Ber'Serth? Are you here?"

A hole ripped in space, and a small red creature tumbled out of it, cursing wildly in an unintelligible language. Rolling over, it climbed to its stick-thin legs, using its tiny wings to support itself. It looked nothing more or less than like a mouth with legs and wings, although the large watery eye set in the back of the mouth didn't exactly look like it could serve the purpose of a tongue.

Looking up at Nat'masi, its mouth dropped. "Master?"

It flopped up to his eye level, the eye watering. "Master, is that really you?"

Nat'masi crossed his arms. "Yes, it's me. What-"

The imp tackled him, screaming loudly. "Oh, at long last my beloved Master has returned! I was certain you would never recover!"

The archdemon shoved him away, grinning with sharp teeth. "I missed you too, Ber. What happened?"

Ber dropped to the ground, whimpering. "I apologize, sir Nat'masi. You and all of your brethren were summarily crushed by Noah Cosmic."

The name slammed into Nat'masi's skull harder than his fist had, and he staggered away, collapsing. "Noah? What on earth did we..." His face paled. "What did you say about the others?"

Ber slumped. "They were all destroyed. In one attack, no less. The Council broke the treaty."

Nat'masi's eyes widened. "What on earth possessed them to do that?"

Ber snarled in his fury. "I don't know! They were insane to think that Noah would forgive them for breaking the truce and attacking the Citadel warriors on their vacation."

Nat'masi's jaw dropped. "Wh- they attacked the Citadel warriors?" At least that explained the cheese in his discombobulated memories.

Ber nodded. "But, Master, your entire race... they've been gone for millennia. You've been gone for millennia."

The arch collapsed entirely, lying flat on his back and groaning his misery at the cave roof. The imp let him. It, too, had grieved long ago.

Nat'masi dragged a hand along his face, realizing there was no point in hoping for revenge. Noah was utterly unstoppable, and the Citadel warriors were almost equal to his power when working together, to say nothing of their outright terrifying pet cat. He would remember that cat's maniacal laughter for the rest of his life.

"Master, Noah has found a champion."

Nat'masi stared at him. Revenge... was an option?

"Then we shall murder it so thoroughly it will beg us to die."