Athena looked at Daiki. “We’d better get to the front gate,” she said. “Last thing we need is the delegation leaving without us.”

    Daiki nodded, and looked at Cap, Aquila, and Kasumi. “You’re welcome to come too.”

    “Wouldn’t miss this for the world,” Cap said. The others nodded. Then Aquila cursed under her breath.

    “What is it?” Kasumi asked.

    “It took us forever to get me up those stairs,” Aquila replied. “Now we’ve got to go back down again.”

    Cap chuckled. “I’ll fly you down. See the rest of you at the gate.”

    Aquila stared at Cap for a moment.

    “What is it?” Cap asked.

    Aquila shrugged. “Nothing, I guess. I just had this sudden recollection of you being really warm. I don’t know where it came from.”

    Cap smiled and held out his hand. “I’ll try to live up to it. We’ll see you at the front gate. Whenever you’re ready, ma’am.”

    Daiki looked at Athena and grinned as Cap took Aquila in his arms, crutch and all, and glided away. He, Athena, and Kasumi made their way to the front gate, where they found a small delegation forming. Both of the other heroes were there, without their parties. Aquila leaned on her crutch and waved as they approached. The King and Queen of Etrania spoke quietly among themselves, and then acknowledged him with a curt bow.

    The gate opened, and they made their way to the tent. The field reeked of death. The demon sentries outside the tent opened the flap and stepped aside.

    Inside the tent, they found the Devil King, a tall, lean man with a short red beard and two small horns growing out of his head, sitting on a chair before a large table. He wore the mail and tunic of a common soldier. As Daiki stepped before the table, the Devil King looked up at him with worn, tired eyes.

    “You wanted to speak to me, Daiki Yamato,” he said. “I’m here.”

    The king of Etrania stepped forward. “I’m King Altra–”

    “I’m not here to speak to you,” the Devil King stated.

    The king’s mouth opened in shock. “But–”

    “Be silent and still,” the Devil King commanded. Daiki looked at the king in surprise. He was frozen in place, his eyes bulging as he struggled to look around. Daiki turned to look at the others. The only ones who weren’t frozen were his party.

    “That’s a neat trick,” Cap said.

    The Devil King nodded. “I’ve found it very useful since I got here, Matthew Markham of America.”

    Cap’s eyes widened.

    “I know who all of you are,” the Devil King said. “You, Matthew Markham, are a superhero known as Captain Infinite. You are Aquila, the creation of Kasumi Agawa of Japan, and you hold the powers of a god of destruction. And you, Kasumi Agawa, are something called a ‘creator’, whatever that means.”

    Daiki took a deep breath. “I wanted to talk about ending the war. I think–”

    “No,” the Devil King said.

    Daiki blinked. “But–”

    “Do not mistake a courtesy for a negotiation,” the Devil King stated. “It is true that you bloodied my vanguard, but they accomplished their mission, and my main body of 150,000 men will be here tomorrow morning. Those walls and obstacles that you put up so quickly I can remove with equal speed.” He looked at Aquila. “And the only person who posed any threat to me is now incapacitated. You were correct on that hill that yesterday’s attack was an assassination mission, Matthew Markham, you just weren’t correct about the target – your friend being unable to fight due to recovering from blood loss is as good as dead for my purposes. The three Legendary Heroes pose no threat to me, regardless of the powers of their weapons. And, to answer your question a couple of days ago, I made quite a lot of your conversation over whatever coffee is, at least what I understood of it. I was very interested to hear about your friend’s recklessness. Once you know that you can lure somebody away from a place of safety, the means is nothing more than a detail.”

    Behind him, Daiki heard a sharp intake of breath from Kasumi. “It was my fault,” she said to Aquila. “I gave him the information he needed to nearly kill you. I’m sorry...I...”

    “No, it wasn’t,” Aquila said. “We all made mistakes and got outmaneuvered, that’s all. Don’t blame yourself for this – don’t be unfair to yourself. Don’t...don’t be like me.”

    “The war over this country will end tomorrow,” the Devil King continued, turning back to face Daiki. “My detached forces have encircled and cut this village off from any reinforcements. The only person powerful enough to stop me is crippled. I may not be able to kill this superhero, but I have figured out how to contain him. The leadership of the country is here, and will be captured or dead by tomorrow afternoon. All of the Legendary Heroes and their parties will be dead by noon. I have no need to negotiate with anybody. I am meeting you as a courtesy before you die. Think of it as the granting of a last wish, if you like.”

    Daiki glanced at his friends, and then stared at the ground. “I see.” He looked up at the Devil King. “Will you at least tell me what this war was about? Why are you fighting?”

    “To save my people,” the Devil King replied. “We came to this world as refugees. We were met with violence. I used my power to create a citadel, arm what was left of my population, and fight back.”

    “So your world was dying?” Daiki asked.

    “Dying?” the Devil King replied. “My world is dead. Nothing grows there. Almost all of us died in the famine. I will not allow twelve thousand years of history, art, music, and philosophy to end on my watch. If the people of this world won’t give my people the space they need to survive, then I will carve that space out of their lands myself.” He looked at the frozen king and queen, and the other two Legendary Heroes. “All of you would have done the same. If only one of our civilizations can survive, I will make certain it is mine.”

    “I see,” Daiki said, his mind racing.

    The Devil King sighed. “Tomorrow you’re going to die. Go spend time with the people you love. Make your last night alive a good one.”

    An idea flashed through Daiki’s mind. “Suppose nobody has to die?”

    “That would be wonderful,” the Devil King replied. “But reality isn’t that kind. Your rulers will never surrender their lands to us, and even if they did, they would just be buying time to attack and destroy us. I’ve seen their councils through my scrying spell, I know their minds. Even your fellow Legendary Heroes were trying to figure out if they could attack me during this conference.”

    “Suppose your people could have a brand new world of their own,” Daiki said. “Untouched and unoccupied. Tailor-made for your civilization.”

    “That’s impossible,” the Devil King stated. “Nobody can just create a new world.”

    Daiki pointed at Aquila and Kasumi. “They can. I’ve been to the world they created.”

    Aquila nodded. “It’s true,” she said. “We live on a world of our own creation. She’s a god of creation, and I have most of the powers of one.”

    “Why should I believe this?” the Devil King asked.

    “Did you watch us raise those walls?” Aquila said.

    The Devil King nodded. “It was quite impressive.”

    “That took the merest fraction of our powers,” Aquila stated. “Is it so hard to believe that we could create an entire world?”

    The Devil King blinked and cocked his head. “And you would create one for us?”

    Aquila glanced at Kasumi, and then turned back to the Devil King. “Yes.”

    “How long would this take?”

    “We’d have to do it with an algorithm,” Aquila said, looking at Kasumi. “Make sure all the biomes and resources will be properly distributed, and then let the world generate itself. That would be, what, one week?”

    Kasumi nodded.

    Aquila turned to the Devil King. “One week,” she said. “But the new world will only have what we put into it. So we’re going to need a list of every single raw material and resource your civilization uses.”

    “I can arrange that,” the Devil King said. “But what about them?” He pointed at the king and queen. “Will they keep the peace while you create this new world for my people? You can speak now.”

    Suddenly able to move, the king opened and closed his mouth a couple of times. A relieved look crossed his face. Then he said, “Our people have suffered at your hands. There will need to be reparations.”

    “No,” the Devil King said.

    “Then why should we give you anything?” the king demanded.

    “If I may,” Cap said, stepping forward. “I think what he said is correct – we will lose the war tomorrow if we fight. You’re in no position to demand anything. But you have an opportunity here that I don’t think you realize.

    “In my world, there was a great war against a nation called Germany. Around twenty million people died. After the war was done, the victors decided that Germany needed to pay for all their suffering. They cared more about taking revenge than they did about securing a lasting peace. And in the end, the only thing they did was guarantee that an even bigger war against Germany – the one that I fought in – would happen only twenty years later. Germany was defeated again, but this time around seventy million died.

    “Afterwards, the victors decided that such a war could never be allowed to happen again. There were those who needed to be punished for war crimes, and there were reparations paid. But after that, Germany was rebuilt into a nation that could be a friend and ally. That was almost eighty years ago, and there hasn’t been a war like it since.

    “You have a choice here today of what your world will be going forward. Will it be a place where the most important thing is revenge, or rebuilding? The time may come when you need to come to them for help the way they came to you. Do you want them to remember you as the civilization that let them leave and live in peace, or the one that tried to take as much as possible from them as they left?”

    The king sighed. “We’ll let it end here.”

    Cap turned to face the Devil King. “If you know who I am, then you know what I stand for. I will guarantee and keep this peace until your people leave for their new world.”

    The Devil King took a deep breath. “That’s good enough for me,” he said, a quiver entering his voice. He looked at Aquila and Kasumi and said, “You will have everything you need by midday tomorrow.” He turned to Daiki. “I will stand my men down and gather them for evacuation to a new world. This war is over.”

    The Devil King motioned for them to leave. As they stepped out of the tent, Daiki looked back and said, “One last thing – what is your name?”

    The Devil King stared at him. “What does it matter?”

    “I...just thought I should know,” Daiki replied.

    “My name is Zoltanar.”

    “Thank you,” Daiki said, and joined Athena outside the tent.

NEXT: “Homecoming”