"Wouldn't that be you?"

I pointed to Natanya, who was the literal walking daughter of Satan. "No," She shook her head, sniffing the air deeply. "We all can smell life growing inside of you," I stared at her in confusion, wondering if I should be understanding this topic. "It appears that daddy dearest didn't tell you how reproduction works in Hell," Nya went to speak but Natanya turned to her. "I know the timing is wrong, but he has to know because, within two months, it'll be over. You know demon births are very quick," She said in a hushed manner.

I was extremely confused, they had to know. Nya reluctantly nodded, allowing the demon heiress to have the floor. She smiled sweetly at me, pointing to my stomach. "Dearest Taen, when you and my father engaged in sexual pleasures," I nearly gagged at the words that came out of her mouth, blushing on the spot. "He must've not used protection because as you know, demons are very fertile. It does not take much, if you know what I mean," She raised a brow and I fought the urge not to scream. She was basically saying it didn't take much demon jizz to knock someone up.

"This applies to demons and humans alike, regardless of gender," She pointed to me and I could slowly but surely put it together. "Are you, are you really saying that Maddox put a baby inside of me?" I gaped in horror as she nodded with a smirk. "Because he marked you at the time, it made the chances higher so congratulations, Troy. You are a mother-to-be in two months," I blinked back and forth, looking from her to my stomach then back to her.

"You fucking lying." I barked, wondering why she chose now to play this fucking prank on me. Her dad was literally above us, fighting for his life, and she had the nerve to pull some shit like this? "No," She inched closer to me, holding her hand out. I stiffened as she touched the exposed skin of my stomach, cursing myself at the weight I seemed to put on. "Put your hand on top of mine," She demanded, a pink glow emitting from the palm of her hand. I felt fear run through me at the thought of her hurting a child that may or may not have been there, but she shook her head and smiled.

So I did what she asked.

Ba dum, ba dum.

Ba dum, ba dum.

"You hear that?" A smile unconsciously came to my lips as the vibrations from her hand seeped into mine. "That's the heartbeat of your young one. Seems to be that they're forming really quickly," I had half a mind to ask her how long it took for them to be born and how they weren't going to get it out of me because let's face the truth, I am a male, but I just left it alone. 

"Because my father is the demon lord, your child will be here a lot sooner than most humans think and a lot stronger. We must retrieve my father now before you get further on," Natanya explained, flickering her blue gaze up at me as I felt the heartbeat of this growing fetus. "Who even said I wanted to have this child?" I grumbled, not liking how they were making the decisions for me. "I'm only 19 and I ain't even married! Do you really think that I would be capable of having this child and taking care of him or her?" I shook my head, knowing my true self. "The child would be better off without me. They'd have you," I grabbed her shoulder. "And they'd have Maddox,"

The daughter of Hell looked at me as if I smoked crack. "Don't be stupid. You are far more suited to be a parent than you think you are, so don't fret. Besides, you've got my father and I," She smirked, the very emotion of happiness gleaming in her eyes. "I'm not calling you mother though," She cringed, leaving that to be the end of that discussion, no questions asked.

"Fine," I sighed defeated, knowing I couldn't put up a fight. "I wouldn't want you calling me that anyway," I pouted and she tapped my cheek before walking away, leaving me to now think about this situation in a different light. I just relished in the fact that there was a child inside of me. Like I was inside of my mother's tummy and she probably felt the same joy that I was.

Wow.

I'm going to be a freaking daddy. A hot one at that. This baby would be so fucking cute.

"I'm so sorry for not believing you Troy," Jade came up to me, tears in her eyes as she cradled my face. I was so surprised that she was here and she knew it too as she looked into my wide eyes. "Even I knew something was wrong, but I didn't want to realize it and when I saw Jexan today, everything came rushing back," She whimpered, rubbing my cheeks and I nodded, knowing that it wasn't her fault. 

"You're alright, Jade," I reached up to squeeze her hand, using my free finger to wipe the tears from her eyes. "You're alright," Now that she knew, we could move on and forge a plan. Time was ticking and even though our demon lord was strong, Tion was stronger from what Hannah told me. 

"We have more pressing matters at hand," Nya said as she gave me a look of finality. "What do you mean?" I raised a brow and the first division commander stepped forward with the second, Yara, next to her.

"That child is precisely why you cannot fight," I stared at Lexica with a monotone expression, wondering why she felt the compelling need to tell me that. "On top of that, you are human. If you get caught in a fight with an angel and he manages to get a hit on you," She exasperated, throwing her hands in the air. "You're just as good as dead!" I clicked my tongue, shaking my head. "So much faith you have in me, Lexica. I almost want to cry," I deadpanned, standing up straight. "I know full well what the risks are. I could die, this baby could die," I was still shocked that it was even possible for me to have a child and the fact that I, Troy Morelli, was having a child. "However, I said what I said and I'm going to save Maddox one way or another. You brought this to my attention. The least you could do is let me go with you and fight with you in order to get the man that I love, the man that you all serve," I pointed to all of the people in the room who hung their head low.

"Back where he belongs," Right here in my arms. Even though I said what I had to say, they still were unsure of letting me do what I wanted, arguing amongst each other as they tried to convince me that I should let them handle it. The hell did I look like sitting back and allowing them to return Maddox to me? No, I wanted to be the one to kill Tion for all that he did to my poor baby. I was the only one that he told and I was going to be the one on the front line, charging forward to get him back. I wanted to be the first person he saw because I knew he was probably regretting everything that he did.

When I got him back, I was going to kiss all over him and then let him think about what he did. Back or not, he was going to have to deal without me for a few days so that he could see how bad it was without him.

"I'll be there by Troy's side," Jade spoke up suddenly among the commotion, drawing all eyes to her. "I know Troy better than he knows himself and I'll be able to protect him on the battlefield and help him make concise choices that will be in the interest for him and for his child," She nodded, gripping my hand so that I could feel how serious she was. "He will be too focused on getting Sir Alistair back to care about himself, so I will do that for him," She smiled at me, letting me know that she had my back. 

"Don't worry, Troy. I won't let this little munchkin get hurt," She tapped my tummy, giving it star eyes and I had to grimace internally. I hoped that she wasn't that type of person to fawn over an embryo like they did in the movies. I smirked, nodding to her. 

"Just leave it to me. I'll make sure that Maddox gets back to us and that you all can live your lives freely," They saluted me and I knew that it was time to get serious. 

"If I could please have Nya, Lexica, Yara, Availa, Zero, Pazul, and Jexan please come up to me? The rest of you all, prepare," I barked out and they nodded, the responsible crew coming to me, towering over me. "You all will have a troop assigned to you. You and your troop will be responsible for landing in a specific division of Eden and taking out all of the angels there so that the rest of us can meet up and fight on one battlefield," I explained, Hannah's explanations coming to mind. 

"I will take two people from your troops to make my own as I don't want to be charging in by myself. Hannah, Natanya, and Xani will be part of my troop as they are the key to us solving this mission," They nodded, seemingly agreeing with my plan. "We leave in two days. Jexan, I trust that you will be the one to lead us to Eden?" I wasn't sure how the process of us breaching the upper world worked, but he seemed to know as he nodded in acceptance. 

"Nya, I trust that you'll be able to handle getting the saucers ready for travel and getting everyone their respective gear, ones that'll help them when they aren't on their own turf?" She nodded, understanding her task. "Okay, the rest of you, prepare your body and your mind. We are entering newfound land and we are unsure of what the enemy may know about us. Make sure you are strong and ready to go," I said and they smiled at me, ready and energized for some angel ass kicking. 

I still had to formulate a plan, keeping everything and everyone in mind and I was going to need an hour to make sure that it was perfect but I had something to do first.

"Nya." I caught the demon before she dipped out. "A world please?"

She took me into one of the under rooms in the basement of the campus, showing me what I had asked of her. "Here is what you need if you want to make a worldwide broadcast," She pointed to the newly developed push-to-talk microphone that was sitting in front of a large holographic screen that portrayed the entire Earth before my eyes. I could see all of the seven continents and she motioned for me to sit down.

"Is there a way that you can make it so that everyone but Tion and the angels hears it?" She nodded, pressing a button on the screen, a mute symbol popping up. "Whenever you're ready," She said and I took a deep breath, finger hovering over the button. If I pressed it, everyone in the entire world would hear me through the speaker that every one person got in the house that they were assigned to.

There was no point in me doing this, really. This was just for me to comfort them because they had no clue what was happening.

So I pressed it.

"Hello to all of you beautiful people around the world. You may be sleeping or you may be wide awake, wanting to die because you hate your job. Whatever may be the case, My name is Troy Morelli and I am a 19-year-old who lives in No Man's Land or what you all may know as Toronto, Canada," I spoke, seeing Nya motioning to me that I had the attention of millions or billions of people around the hemisphere.

"I'm sure you all remember four years when the world as we knew it changed because the demon lord rose to claim Earth as his. I know we were probably all really upset, frightened, even angry. I know that because I was very vengeful. He had taken my parents away from me and made me live on my own without a single care as to how I got by. I was forced into a life I didn't want to leave all because of him," I could see his demons frowning, wondering why I was bashing him. "Like all of you people, he probably took someone that was close to you away from you, leaving you feeling alone and wrathful. You probably can't stand his ruthless rules and you hate how easy he has it while we have to struggle. I know that because I felt the same way," I took a deep breath, trying to gather my thoughts together. I had no point in doing this. I wasn't asking them to fight nor was I asking them to change how they felt.

"But that all changed once I met Maddox Kane, the demon lord of all demons," I could see various red dots all over the map of the entire Earth popping up, letting me know that I had their entire attention. "I met him because he originally came to punish me for all of the laws of the 13 Commandments that I had broken. Like I always told myself, what the hell is the point of living if I couldn't live the way that I wanted to? Not one fucking person is going to stop me from doing me," I could see the change in my mindset from the very beginning I landed in No Man's Land.

"That was all very true until I got to know Maddox and I realized that he did everything to make sure that we didn't have to suffer at the ends of his natural enemy. If we have demons, you must understand that we have angels, angels that don't care for us humans. If they did, Maddox would not be fighting tooth and nail so that we remain untouched. He would not have made these strict rules and made us live the way that we do if he didn't have an enemy to fight all this time," I desperately wanted them to see what I saw, but it had to be done through actions. "I can't tell you to believe me because you've never even met the man nor have you seen the good that he has done but have faith in the fact that he has done nothing but think about every one of you guys every single day for as long as he has woken up for the last four years,"

I didn't know what I was saying or why I was saying it. 

"He kept my parents alive this whole time, even after he took them away from me, so if that gives you any hope, please latch onto it. He is not that cruel and dangerous man that he made himself out to be. Give him that chance as I did, and you will see what I see. People of the entire nation, from California all the way to Tanzania, there is a war happening and said demon lord has sacrificed himself so that there would be backlash on us. I, along with a bunch of the demon code enforcement are going to get him back," I said what I had to say because, at the end of the day, Maddox had to get these people to like him when Tion was dead. If he couldn't, there was no way this would work.

I sighed heavily, covering my eyes as my heart began to beg, finger quivering as it held onto the button. "I know you don't owe anything to the man who basically ruined your life, but if you have one iota of compassion in your heart, please keep us in mind so when we return, we can come to you all and fix what has been broken. Please keep us in your mind so that we have that power when we fight to get what is ours back. Please keep us in mind so that you can build that trust in us to keep our world from going to shit because let's face it," I smirked as I cracked my knuckle with one hand, gameplan Troy Morelli ready to roll. 

"We won't let anything happen to us."