DMZ
The DMZ had slowly turned into a village. Yurt-shaped tents ringed the conference building, and humans and beastmen mingled freely. Some were merchants chasing new opportunities; others were settlers just trying to survive. Even though they were stuck in the middle of a wasteland, life wasn't half bad thanks to the Muricans installing water pipes, public bathrooms, and other public facilities.
Children ran along the dusty road, playing without a care in the world. They weren't afraid of the human soldiers or the demon soldiers—both sides were "the nice people." Especially the demons who kept handing out colorful sweets the locals had never seen before.
Hannya, the diplomat stationed at the border, was practically a celebrity. Everyone in the DMZ knew her for her friendliness and her bright smile. One kid in particular—a wolf boy named Little Timmy—was glued to her whenever she visited.
"Hey, lady, what did you bring today?" Timmy asked, tail wagging.
"Nuh-uh, say it nicely," Hannya teased.
"Pleeeasee, big sis…"
She chuckled and pulled out a few hamburgers from her bag.
"Whoaah! Hamburgers! YEAAY!"
They sat on a bench, sharing burgers while the sun dipped lower.
"Big sis… Do you think me and Mommy can come to your kingdom?" Timmy asked between bites.
"I don't know yet, Timmy, my… bosses are still figuring out how to bring you in."
"Really!? Wow! I'd love to live there! Your kind are nice. All these times people are lying by saying the demons are evil."
Hannya smiled sadly.
"I mean some humans are okay too," Timmy added. "Like the Ravendawn soldiers; sometimes they played with me. But the Vandorians, they are bad people… When me and Mommy were in Vandoria, we were running a lot because they were always trying to make us slaves."
"… Why don't you and your mommy move to Ravendawn?" Hannya asked.
"We tried, but there's not enough food there. That's why Mommy brings me here."
Hannya's heart ached hearing that.
At sunset, she climbed into a Humvee with other diplomatic staff and soldiers.
"Ok, big sis has to go back to the base now. I'll see you again tomorrow, Timmy."
Little Timmy is holding a bag of hamburgers for his mommy.
"Thank you, big sis."
As the Humvee rolled away, Hannya couldn't stop thinking about Little Timmy's story and suddenly stuck her head out the window and shouted,
"TIMMY! TOMORROW BIG SIS WILL BRING YOU SOME SWEETS! AND AMAZING FOOD CALLED PIZZA!"
Timmy jumped in excitement.
"PROMISE??"
"PROMISE!!"
They waved to each other with big smiles under the warm glow of sunset.
Little Timmy's Tent
"MOMMY! MOMMY! LOOK! BIG SIS GAVE US HAMBURGERS."
"Oh, Timmy! Thank you, my boy." His mother said, hugging him tight.
"Oh, and Big Sis said her boss is trying to get us inside her kingdom."
"It would be nice if we could go there."
"I know, right? I bet there'll be a lot of hamburgers there and also pizza!"
"What is pizza?"
"I dunno, but Big Sis said it's an amazing food, and she'll bring it tomorrow."
Little Timmy's mother smiled at her son, and they enjoyed their peaceful evening with love and laughter.
Later on at dawn, Little Timmy is sleeping. But suddenly his mother woke him up.
"Timmy, wake up… wake up."
"Mommy? What's wrong?
When Little Timmy's fully awake, he realizes that many people are screaming and there's fire everywhere.
"Timmy, you need to hide." She whispered, voice trembling.
She shoved him under the bed, piling blankets and junk on top to cover him.
Suddenly, a soldier kicks their door broken. Little Timmy can peek from his hiding place, the soldier is wearing ancient Roman-like armor.
"DIE, YOU LOWLY BEASTMAN!"
"MERCY! OH PLEASE, MERCY!" His mother cried.
The Vandorian soldier struck Little Timmy's mother with his sword, spurting her blood everywhere. The sword came down again and again. Little Timmy watches the slaughter with horror, his hand clamped over his mouth to silence his cry.
"HAHAHAHA" The soldier kept laughing while hacking her corpse long after she was gone.
Similar horrors unfolded across the DMZ that night.
4 Miles From the DMZ
A few hours later, the sun is rising. A Humvee convoy rumbled toward the village. Hannya sat inside with a stack of pizza boxes in her lap, smiling.
"That sure is a lot of pizza, ma'am!" the driver said.
"Yeah! I promise it to a little kid… "I'm his big sis, you know," she replied proudly.
Suddenly the radio crackled.
"10-33, 10-33, we got visual of smoke coming from the DMZ."
"Copy that, proceed with caution." The driver replies.
Hannya stared at the rising smoke with dread tightening her chest.
DMZ
The DMZ now is in ruins, many tents already becoming ashes, while some of it is still burning. Dead bodies are lying everywhere, human, beastman, and also the demon soldiers who are being stationed there. Murica's Rangers are walking in in a sweeping formation, while Hannya follows them shakily from a safe distance.
From behind a corner, they can hear people laugh. A group of Vandorian soldiers was mocking a bloodied Ravendawn soldier.
"Contacts, 2 o'clock," whispered a ranger.
The Vandorian soldiers don't realize that Murican Rangers are closing in.
"You fucking beast lover, you should just go to hell with them."
One Vandorian soldier raised his sword and was about to strike the Ravendawn soldier.
RATATATATATATATA
But the sound of a gunshot pops, and blood spurts from his head as a bullet passes through, all of his friends are following the same fate. All of the Vandorians are dead now.
The rangers then approached the trembling Ravendawn soldier.
"You! Tell me what's happening here."
"They… they… they ordered us to kill the demon soldiers… and the civilians… I refused… so they tried to kill me…"
"Who were they?"
"Vandorians… their main force… already left."
Hannya's fear snapped into full panic. She sprinted away.
"TIMMY! TIMMY!" She screams while running deeper into the village.
"MA'AM! IT'S DANGEROUS!" The captain yelled.
She didn't listen. Hannya keeps screaming and screaming, hoping that Little Timmy's still alive.
"TIMMYYY! …TIMMYYY, WHERE ARE YOU??"
She heard a weak voice answer.
"Big… sis…"
Hannya spun. A tiny hand poked up from beneath a pile of bodies.
She ran.
Timmy lay in the dirt, soaked in blood.
"Timmy! D-Don't worry, I'll get help! You'll be okay."
"…big…sis…"
"D-Don't talk! Please, save your strength."
Tears streamed down her face seeing Little Timmy's condition.
"I NEED SOME HELP OVER HERE!!" Hannya screams to the rangers.
Little Timmy forced a tiny smile.
"Did you…bring…the pizza…?"
Hannya nodded rapidly, sobbing.
"Yes! Yes! I brought the pizza. I bring so many kinds of pizza… and sweets."
Little Timmy smiles hearing that, and slowly he can feel his energy leaving his body.
"You're... the best… big… sis…"
His hand dropped.
His eyes dimmed.
Hannya froze—then broke.
"Timmy… no… no…" Hannya hugs Little Timmy's body tight.
And then, Hannya screams her lungs out to the sky.
"WHYYYYYYYYYYYY~!!"
"CUT! CUT! FUCKING CUT!" a voice boomed through a megaphone.
The scream comes from an obese demon who sat in a director's chair. He then stomped angrily toward the scene.
"Who the fuck is telling you to scream out loud like that!?? I've told you I want a subtle cry! A muffled, heartbreaking cry!"
"I'm so sorryyy!" Hannya whined.
"We're taking a break!" command the obese director
The crew sighed in relief. The "dead bodies" stood up stretching, shifting back into their succubus and incubus forms. "Little Timmy" leaned on a crate, smoking a cigarette beside his hooker/assistant.
Meanwhile, the real Hannya stood beside the obese director, Belphegor, who flopped back into his chair.
"Mr. Belphegor, may I ask you something, sir?"
"Mm? What is it?"
"Why the fuck are you turning me into a crybaby big-sis material?"
"Tch, you government people just don't understand art. It's called a character development!"
Even though Belphy's official title was the Minister of Culture, he spends most of his time out of the office making his own "cultural products." Solo had complained about this once, but Belphy simply argued, "Demons don't have culture. I'm fixing that." Solo lost the argument immediately.
"Say, is your office really sure that this will go international?" Belphy asked. "Those humans don't even have TV."
"But they have something called a comm crystal, it pretty much works the same."
"I hope those things have a good resolution." Belphy muttered.
An attendant comes to Hannya, delivering her mail. Hannya opens the envelope and checks the photographs inside.
"Sir, there's mail from Mr. Asmodeus's office. They sent some pictures of the Vandorian Military."
"Hmm, let me see."
Belphy examined them closely.
"WHAT THE FUCK!?"
The Black House
A green orc hunched over his computer, wearing reading glasses, trying to recreate an MQ-9 Reaper drone blueprint. One of the problems with his unique skill is that there's no download feature. So basically he needs to redraw everything manually to the smallest details, and the bigger problem is he sucks at drawing. Before computers were invented, his most epic failure was the oil refinery that exploded three months after completion due to "faulty design," killing hundreds of demon workers. Although the surrounding city declared it a beautiful fireworks event and made it annual.
Lilith and Mo' burst into Solo's office.
"Solo, we have a problem," Lilith said.
"What is it?" He folds his glasses.
"I just got an angry call from Belphy saying he needs another month to finish the productions due to, quote unquote, 'fucking wrong wardrobes.'" Apparently, the Vandorian references that we gave to him before are a couple hundred years outdated."
"And? We just need to wait, right?
"Unfortunately we don't have the time for that, Sir." Mo's handing a couple of aerial photographs.
"Our spy plane caught the Vandorian fleets being amassed at the port of Dawn. Meanwhile, we also see a lot of movements at Ravendawn Castle. Every day there's a battalion marching in to their castle, and we predict more are to come."
"We can't wait for Belphy anymore," Lilith concluded.
"Damn… But what about our PR?"
Murica recently managed to make contact with some other kingdoms. But the problem of being a Demon Kingdom is everyone already knows that you are the bad guy, shutting doors to Murica's diplomats. That's why Levi and Mo come up with the idea that they should use the upcoming conflicts with the Vandorians as PR material. They should soften the world's opinion by showing that the demons are the victims. Thus, they asked Belphy to make a promotional video about it.
"Maybe… rather than making a fiction, we just record a real one?" Lilith thinks, "I mean, Belphy's storyline shouldn't be that far off from reality."
"You're thinking about a false flag operation?" Solo said. "Well… It's kind of hard to make demons the victims without… demon victims. I can't just let our soldiers or diplomats be killed and take a picture of it. They are expensive."
Mo' shrugged. "Hmm, how about the demons that nobody will miss?"
"Who?"
"Maybe... the Jehovah's Accusess?"
"..."
Even demon nations had annoying religious cults sprawling up here and there, spreading the teachings of some random demon god. Many of them are not dangerous, just plain annoying.
"Yeah, that can work," Solo said instantly.
"Yep, totally. No one will miss those door knockers." Lilith agreed.
Later on that night, Belphy reportedly transformed back to his true demon form and rampaging on the set after being told that he needed to redo the production, changing it from a war drama into a documentary.
Ravendawn Kingdom, Raven Castle
Duke Pierre and Archbishop Antonio stood on the balcony, watching new troops pour into Raven Castle—mostly mercenaries who stirred trouble wherever they went. Ravendawn citizens and soldiers alike suffered under them, but numbers silenced complaint.
"…Are you sure this will be the last one?"
Duke Pierre turns back to answer King Luxtor's question.
"How many times do I have to repeat? Yes! The king promised that after this you can get your sovereignty or whatsoever back. Vandoria won't have need for this backwoods territory anymore."
"… Thank you… Duke Pierre."
King Luxtor turns back and leaves while the Duke smirks.
"Are you sure to let go of this castle?" Antonio asked.
"Nah, this castle should be perfect to round up the slaves before being transported to Vandoria."
"Will the owner agree to it?"
"Which one? None of them will be alive after this war."
He smiled as the seemingly endless line of mercenaries marched through the castle gate.