I did it, Ashtoreth thought.

For a few seconds, she just stared up at the arena around her as the red ether that had once been War drifted through the air around her, fading. Slowly, a smile came over her face.

"I did it," she whispered.

Earth was saved, for now.

It had taken more than a year, but at long last she was standing in the place that she'd been trying to get to from the very beginning. At the start, before she'd stolen the antithesis shard from her mother, it had been hard even for Ashtoreth to believe that she could make it this far.

She could see new lines of system text appearing in her visual field.

{For your victory in the election, you have been appointed the Monarch of Earth. Consult your system interface to learn more.}

{Ding! You can upgrade your class rank from B to A!}

{Ding! You can upgrade your race rank from S to S+!}

She grinned. "Ding!"

Then she was teleported back into the very same hall of the hotel where she'd last seen her crew.

{The election will conclude in 3:00, at which point all remaining participants will be returned to their former positions in normal time.}

"You did it," Frost said, his words coming out in a relieved rush.

"I did it!" she said, spreading her arms and letting him take her up in a powerful embrace. Hunter added himself to the group hug a moment later. Kylie watched.

I did everything, she thought.

Everything she'd wanted to. Before she'd stolen the shard, she hadn't even thought getting this far was possible. But they'd turned back the initial invasion and secured the Monarchy for humanity, just like she'd planned.

She had a sudden feeling that even if humanity's bossmen didn't find a way to appreciate her, she'd at least know, deep down, that she'd done this to save Earth.

"So Earth is safe for now, right?"

"Uh-huh!" Ashtoreth said, nodding and pulling away. "Goodness, you guys! I probably saved… I don't even know how many people! It's probably impossible to estimate! It's probably more people than anyone else has ever saved—maybe." She frowned as she thought to herself. "Is it? Say, do you guys think I'm number one in terms of lives saved?"

Frost was already starting to look at her with his typical, unamused expression. "Sure, Ashtoreth. If you need it to be."

Dazel floated down through the air to land in her arms, and Ashtoreth gave him a squeeze. "Thanks for all your help," she whispered.

Dazel grumbled and rubbed his head against her elbow.

"I don't know if you're the first," Hunter said dubiously. "Who was that guy who invented germ theory? He saved a ton of people from getting unnecessary illnesses…."

"Can it really be that many, though?" Ashtoreth asked. "I mean, you don't even know his name." She stood up a little straighter. "I think there's actually a good chance I'm on top."

"Well that's…." Hunter scowled. "Look, I just can't remember it right now. But he saved a lot of people."

"And for his efforts, we can call him number two," said Ashtoreth, flashing him a smile.

"Yeah, Hunter," said Kylie, flashing him a smirk. "It's important that we establish that Ashtoreth's coming to Earth was even more beneficial to our species than like, 'wiping out disease,' or whatever it is your guy did."

"Discovered germ theory," said Hunter. "Which is probably as close to wiping out disease an anyone's actually gotten."

"Yeah, sure, whatever," said Kylie. "But remember that time Ashtoreth wiped out Famine? She didn't even have to use your fancy science, just shove a blade through his chest."

"We're going to have to continue this important conversation another time," said Frost. "Timer's counting down, and if you'll recall—"

"—In real time, I'm stuck outside a portal on a nexus bastion that's about to be completely destroyed!" Ashtoreth said cheerily. "Don't think I haven't forgotten—I can't wait to sink my teeth into that juicy bounty of cores, sweet cores."

"Right," said Frost. "I just wanted to check."

"Dazel's the one who has the portal controls, but he remembers. Right Dazel?"

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"Wha?" Dazel asked, raising his head.

"We're about to return to normal time," she said. "You have to close our portal once I'm through it."

"Oh. Right." He lowered his head again.

There was, Ashtoreth had to admit, a certain awkwardness to waiting for the countdown timer to reach 0:00 so that they could teleport away. Nobody wanted to say anything, because there wasn't any time to respond to it… and so the last ten seconds consisted of nothing but the four of them standing around, gazing into nothingness as the watched the seconds tick by.

Then the timer hit zero and the world seemed to rush away from her, quickly being replaced with the chaos of the battlefield that she'd been absent from for hours. The dark metal of the bastion slammed into place below her feet and the sky was suddenly filled with flying infernals. In the distance, she saw the glowing orb of building power above the two-pronged rift tower.

She had an instant's impression of a spear being thrust her way, spotting it quickly enough to twist out of the way of the point as it came toward her. Then she flashed the spear's wielder, a winged devil, a scowl.

Did none of these people realize that she'd just become the Monarch of Earth?

But there was no time to belt out an enthusiastic who the hell do you think I am? She checked inside their psychic connection to make sure that the rest of her people had made it to the rift, then threw herself backward into the glowing column of light.

The world flashed, and she was suddenly standing on a plated metal rooftop of the other nexus bastion, the one they'd stolen, looking out over a dark cityscape of foreboding shapes and spires.

She heard a clamor as soon as her feet touched down and looked over to see Hunter executing an errant skygorger demon with his katanas. She conjured her scythe as the column of light disappeared behind her, then conjured her hellfire javelins and helped her people dispatch the few remaining enemy soldiers who'd had the sense to charge their portal in the few moments that it had existed for.

Even with their slight level advantage, the few soldiers were too weak to pose any kind of serious threat to Ashtoreth's people. The enemy infernals lived for only a few short, violent moments after Dazel shut the rift.

Soon Ashtoreth was dismissing her scythe and watching her system notifications as elsewhere, the other bastion collapsed.

"Come to mama!" she said as she was awarded hundreds of thousands of cores.

"What?" Kylie asked.

"Oh, context, right," Ashtoreth said, blinking and looking around at them. "It's the cores. I got a bunch of cores."

"Just in time to be slightly too late," said Kylie.

"Yup!" said Ashtoreth. "It's too bad that I didn't get to eat anybody's hearts. I'd like to know how Heaven managed that one."

"Same," said Frost. "It's really feeling like some egregious cheating on their part."

Ashtoreth nodded. "It's shameful and immoral. I've really got to eat an angel's heart."

"Yeah, we'll have to keep an eye out," Frost said. Then he looked at the empty metal buildings around them and sighed. "So… what now? There's still infernal forces scattered all over the world, right? And Hell still has bastions on Earth's doorstep."

Ashtoreth resisted the urge to shrug. She'd wanted to become the Monarch for a long time… but past this moment, her plans had always become a haze.

"We'll mop up the rest of Hell," she said. "Then, hopefully, things will quiet down for a bit. Humanity will get a chance to gain its bearings and gather its strength."

"So we're going to keep doing what we've been doing, then?" Hunter asked. "Hunt infernals, destroy bastions, give the cores to the humans?"

"Pretty much," said Ashtoreth. "And I guess we'll see whether Heaven has any kind of followup to their, uh, failed attempt at kickstarting the apocalypse, if that's what they were doing." She shrugged. "We'll also get to see if Hell has any tricks, though it should take them awhile before they can field any challengers."

"But if neither Heaven or Hell hits back soon, we can chill?" asked Kylie.

"Uh… yes?" Ashtoreth said uncertainly. "I mean, not right away—there's still an invasion in progress…"

"Sure, sure," said Kylie. "But maybe we should take a break anyway, to celebrate. Take a day off now in case Heaven invades tomorrow."

"Why do you need a day off?" Frost said. "You're a minion class. Three quarters of your job is to merely exist while your minions phase through walls and take out entire armies."

"Fair enough," said Kylie. "But maybe I'd like to destress, you know? Maybe get a longer look at everything that's going on in the world right now. Actually pay attention to politics for once in my life."

Ashtoreth peered at her. Was Kylie trying to make room to spend some time with her parents, but not saying anything?

Looking to start scoping out potential territory for yourself, eh? Dazel asked, apparently having a different idea. Maybe hoping Australia might come up for grabs?

"Please," said Kylie. "Like I want to spend my day bossing people around."

"You're a minion class," Frost said pointedly. "That's already your whole day."

"Those aren't people, though," she said. "Those are dead people. They're more agreeable, it's different."

"Look," said Ashtoreth. "Right now, the important thing is that we have no reason to be here. Let's get back to headquarters so that Frost and I can talk to Matthews and figure out what I'm going to do with my monarchy."

"Me too, huh?" Frost asked.

She flashed him a winsome smile. "Of course! Let's get down to HQ."

"Should we level up first, though?" Hunter asked. "What if the humans attack you?"

Ashtoreth laughed. "Good thinking, Hunter. But once they get an idea of the results of the tournament I'm sure they'll have second thoughts about taking me out. Plus, it's only been a few minutes in real time—they can't have had much time to prepare. I doubt we're walking into a trap. Let's just eat the cores and pick our upgrades once we're back."

"If you're sure," he said.

Kylie reached into her bag and pulled out her stylus. "I'll get the circle."

Frost moved closer to Ashtoreth, joining her. "Let's hope Matthews takes everything well," he said.

Ashtoreth briefly thought about the person she'd killed, then shook her head to clear it and smiled. "Please," she said. "Now is when all of the military bossmen get to figure out that I've been telling the truth about my intentions this whole time."

She grinned. "I bet Matthews will be super happy once he realizes I'm for real."

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