Unholy powers like hell fire couldn't hurt Samael, and holy weapons like sword Steve only hurt him temporarily. Steve was holy because regardless of being the son of Satan, Lucifer was an angel. A fallen one, but still an angel. All angels are made from God's grace or light, depending on how you interpret the texts. When they are created, angels are entered into a contract with God.

  In order to maintain their grace and holiness, they must stay ascended beings. If God were to cast them out of Heaven for any reason—usually for disobedience—their grace reverses. They not only lose their holiness, but they become unholy, which makes them vulnerable to holiness.

  Because Steve was born of an angel, he is similar to a nephilim, a half angel, half human. The only difference being he's actually half satyr instead of half human. Regardless, he is still half angel. Because he never disobeyed God, he still has God's grace.

  This makes him holy, even though he is technically supposed to be the Antichrist. The Antichrist is a position, not a nature. To carry out the duties of the Antichrist, he would've had to have been led down that path by Lucifer or someone else.

  Since I got my hooks in him early, Steve never truly became the Antichrist as he was supposedly destined to be. Steve is good. And as such, when in sword form, he is a holy weapon. All that is to explain why Steve is specially tuned to hurting an unholy being like the fallen angel, Samael.

  But since he could only hurt Samael temporarily until he healed himself, we had to kick it up a notch.

  "Steve, I need you to pull out all the stops. Go supernova," I said.

  "Are you sure? The last two times I destroyed Las Vegas and activated a volcano," sword Steve responded. "Which might I remind you, is still active and causing ash to fall on rebuilt Las Vegas."

  "I know, Steve, but this is one of the rare times it's necessary. Even with all my abilities, you are still far stronger than me. I need you right now. Please," I said, to a seemingly inanimate sword made of solidified light.

  "Ok, but you don't get to scold or criticize me if something goes wrong. I'm just doing what you told me to do," he said.

  "I know, I know. I won't scold you," I promised.

  Something strange happened. The crown instantly turned into the wreath and energy flowed through my body. After a few seconds, I realized it was much like my deal making ability when I had the crown.

  The wreath seemed to have a similar ability that worked on promises.It made the promise binding. Whenever I promised something to someone, I had to follow through with it or there would be consequences.

  That didn't seem very convenient. It gave me no benefit and only enforced my selfless behaviors on my part. Although, almost nothing about virtues were convenient to yourself, other than how they related to your ability to sacrifice for and help others.

  No wonder it was so much easier to fall into corruption. Corruption gave someone things that directly benefitted them, whereas virtue either inconvenienced people or, at best, was neutral to them. And I wasn't just talking about the crown and wreath abilities.

  "Ahhh!!!" sword Steve screamed.

  White beams of light shot out of the sword in different directions. One of the beams swiped across Samael's chest, burning him and even his clothes, which somehow seemed to be part of him. "Arrgh!" Samael grunted. "What are you—"

  I lunged forward, swiping at the glaive as he raised it to defend himself. My sword cut right through the glaive, and setting it on fire. Samael threw the burning glaive to the ground that was the surface of Behemoth's shoulder. The beams of light hit me and the surrounding trees and did nothing to either of us.

  I aimed the tip of the sword at Samael. "Single focused beam," I said.

  “Yes, boss,” Steve replied.

  The rays of light shooting out of Steve in all directions, came together into a single beam emanating from the tip of the sword. It hit Samael in the middle of his chest causing him to scream. He twisted out of the way and dove behind a tree.

  I followed him with the beam, but when it hit the tree, nothing happened. “Steve. I know you can burn through the tree. What's wrong?”

  “But the tree is innocent. It's done nothing to us. Why must I harm it?” Steve said.

  “I guess that's a fair point, but this is a life or death situation. It's kill or be killed! Do you really want to risk both of our lives over a single tree?” I said.

  “Yes, I do,” Steve said, not budging on the issue.

  “Fine,” I said.

  I ran around the tree to get line of sight back on Samael, but I saw him jump around the tree to stay behind it.

  “You can't hide forever!” I said.

  Stolen story; please report.

  “Watch me!” he yelled.

  I considered burning down the trees, but Steve got into my head about it. I would feel bad if I did that. Instead, I decided to ask Behemoth for help. I jumped into the air and flipped my wings to hover a few feet off his shoulder.

  “Behemoth! Can you shake your shoulder for me?” I asked.

  “Sure, Dave,” Behemoth responded.

  Behemoth shook his shoulder back and forth violently. Trees rushed past me quickly until one hit me, sending me tumbling through the air. I hadn't anticipated that.

  When I caught myself, I was a decent distance away from Behemoth's shoulder and watched as Samael was flung off. Samael caught himself with his jet black wings, but I aimed Steve’s beam and cut off one of his wings.

  Samael fell. I dove after him. I tried to aim Steve at him but it was too difficult at that speed and with Samael tumbling. I tried to catch up to him and grab him, but his body started to ripple and morph.

  Just as I reached out to grab him, Samael’s body split into a dozen hawks that flew away. One of the hawks still had a cut burnt wing and that one fell, but the remaining ones fell off. Then their bodies began to ripple and morph and grow. Each of them split into another dozen hawks each.

  The now huge flock of hawks flew away. I followed them, but each of them grew and split and grew and split until their were hundreds of them. It was at this point that the flock split and flew in all different directions.

  He was trying to escape obviously, but the nature of his shape shifting and regenerating powers led me to believe that if even one hawk escaped, he would be able to regenerate into a whole Samael again. He could disappear and I'd never be able to find him again.

  I had gotten lucky this time because he made himself a target, but if he wanted to hide, it would be impossible for me to find him. I needed to end him here.

  “Behemoth! Ziz! Kill the hawks! All of them!” I yelled. “Even the wounded one!”

  Ziz moved in and Behemoth began swatting birds out of the sky while avoiding hitting me or Ziz. Every hawk that Behemoth hit, exploded into feathers and blood. Ziz flapped her elemental wings, sending out waves of elemental attacks, getting a large portion of the birds with each attack.

  Realizing they were effectively boxed in, the hawks that were left, flew at me. They all grabbed hold of me with their talons and beaks. I swung sword Steve, getting a few at a time, but their were too many of them.

  They weren't hurting me, so I didn't see Samael's plan at first, but the hawks morphed into three Samaels. One held my legs, while another held my arms behind my back and the third clawed at my chest.

  I realized a little too late, that he was trying to remove the mark from my body.

  I tried to swing my sword, but the Samael holding my arms was too strong. I got angry and focused on imposing my might on him, and it worked but not before one of the others ripped the mark out of my chest.

  I broke free of Samael's grip, but the one with the mark pushed himself away from me. Then the other two Samael's shot at him and they merged.

  Now one Samael, he pressed the mark against his chest. It started to merge with his chest. I couldn't let that happen. If he became invincible, I would probably lose. Even with Behemoth and Ziz backing me up, an invincible Samael was very bad news.

  I couldn't let that happen, but what could I do? I flew at him and swung sword Steve at him, but he nimbly dodged out of the way. Out of options, I swung at him again, but the sword changed shape in my hands.

  I looked down at Steve. He looked like a hand grenade. “Throw me,” he said.

  It dawned on me. He wasn't just a hand grenade, he was a holy hand grenade. If he exploded, he could potentially obliterate Samael.

  But…”what will happen to you?” I asked.

  “You've treated me with kindness, companionship, and gave me a purpose. Let me do this one last thing for you,” he said.

  “No! You can't do this!” I yelled.

  “Do it before it's too late!” he yelled.

  Tears dropped from my eyes, hitting his white metal surface. Taking a deep breath, I pulled the pin and gently tossed Steve at Samael, whose skin was healing over the mark on his chest.

  “Catch!” I yelled.

  The grenade bumped against Samael’s chest and he instinctively grabbed the object. Looking down, his eyes widened, realizing what it was.

  “Noooo!!!” Samael yelled, and opened his hands to drop the grenade, but it was too late.

  Grenade Steve exploded in a flash of brilliant white light, burning and tearing apart Samael’s body. The light didn't hurt me, but the explosion pushed me back.

  I blinked my eyes, trying to get my vision back. When I finally could see again, I looked around for signs of Samael’s potential survival. On the ground I saw a blackened ball.

  I flew down quickly and scooped it up. At first I didn't know what it was. Until it started talking. Well, talking is a very generous description of the noise it was making.

  It sounded like someone gargling gravel. My domination jewel translated the noises into words. “Damn you, Dave. This isn't the end of me. Give me a minute and I'll be regenerated and ready to fight you all over again.”

  I looked at the head. Could he really come back from this? As I was staring at the blackened and charred object that was completely unrecognizable, I saw movement. It was started to writhe and warp like his body had when he turned into a dozen birds.

  Knowing I had very little time before this thing turned into a bunch of bugs for all I knew that would skitter off and escape, I said, "Steves, I need a holy weapon. Can one of you teleport here and turn into a mace or something so I can finish off Samael before he escapes?"

  "What happened to sword Steve?" Steve 4 asked.

  "He…didn't make it," I said.

  "What? What happened?" Steve 3 asked.

  "He sacrificed himself to stop Samael, but his effort will be wasted if someone doesn't holy weapon up in the next ten seconds," I said.

  "I'll do it!" Steve 1 said.

  Steve 1 teleported next to me and then dropped to the ground as she transformed into a mace made of light. I dropped the head, grabbed the mace, and wound up a swing. The head started rippling more rapidly. It was about to pop any second.

  I swung the mace down and smashed what remained of Samael's head. I squashed into green and red fluids. So he had been transforming into bugs. Gross. I didn't know how powerful his regeneration was, so I rolled the mace around in the fluids until they blackened and boiled and dried up. I kept going after that. I kept going until the black stain on the ground no longer reacted to the mace.

  Finally, it was over. We would have to hunt down the remaining fallen angels, but the leader, the most dangerous one, was defeated. As I was staring at the black stain on the ground, a glint of something caught my eye. I picked it up.

  It was a glowing white piece of shrapnel from the holy hand grenade that Steve had become. I put it in my pocket. The Steves all had very impressive regeneration abilities. There was a chance, however slim, that he might be able to come back from this. We had already lost two Steves three years ago, we didn't need to lose another.

  Ziz landed near me and Behemoth gently stepped next to me with his foot that was hundreds of times my size.

  "What's next?" Ziz asked.

  "I second that question. What is next?" Behemoth said.

  "Let me think," I said. And I did.