Old Scratch was displeased. The sky above him was scorching as he set eyes on the border between his realm and the human world. 

They sickened him. 

He tried to avoid the humans, and really only ventured into their domain when his daughter had been away too long, but as his home faded into the horizon, and his Soldiers, gathered on the deck of his ship, he was heading to war. 

His daughter smiled from behind the cloaked warriors, her lover’s hand tightly clasped in their own. 

The reclaimed Princess had been home for a long time, finally satisfied, now that she had all that she had really wanted from the Earth. 

Lady Catherine. Adored by the Princess, and placating her need to wander, was thought of fondly by the old King, 

Scratch did not blame his child for needing her. She was, after all, born of the human realm, and so he could not deny her one small comfort, and with every passing day, her past fell away, and he no longer worried about her loyalties to the humans. 

She was joining him for the hunt. Her dark eyes shone bright against the blistering sky as the ocean that parted the two realms rapped against the boat. 

He hadn’t planned to hunt this late into his life, except for special occasions. Scratch was, as his full name suggested, old, and he had hoped to settle into retirement while the Princess ruled, but there were a few loose ends to tie up, and Scratch didn’t do things by halves, so it would be a hunt that the humans would never forget. 

Princess Lacey had gotten lost again, just before she found her Catherine, and she had gotten a job, as many on Earth tended to do. She hated it, as many on Earth tend to do, plagued by unrealistic targets and unpaid overtime. 

Most Father’s would recommend joining a union, but Old Scratch had decided that revenge was the only way to avenge his child’s suffering. 

The flames of his home called to him, crowing of the delights of damnation, and all the things he could do to those who wronged his little girl, and as his grand warship approached the Earthly realm, his smile was wicked, and wide. 

They arrived in the human’s territory on foot, Scratch leading the pack with his daughter and her love by his side while hundreds of soldiers followed behind, chanting their master’s name as people scurried and fled.

Police officers gathered, but in an instant, they were gone, leaving nothing but bones and a few patches of flesh as the soldiers licked their lips and glared at the screaming crowds that parted to let them pass. 

More police officers marched towards them, and Scratch cocked an eyebrow, halting his soldiers with a single claw and beckoning the officers towards him, chortling at their pale, reluctant faces. 

One stumbled forward, shoved by his colleagues into Scratch’s path, and he smiled warmly at the man, watching with glee as the officer’s face fell with every inch that the old King’s jaw grew. Soon, his mouth was wide, and his teeth were bared. Many tried to run, but Scratch made short work of the officers, and within minutes, he was on the move again, picking his many rows of teeth with their bones. 

The Princess pointed the way, guiding them to a grimy, cramped office building in a small town that Scratch found quite quaint, and perhaps, in another time, would have been an appropriate chamber for his torment of mortals that displeased him. 

He smirked as he ascended the staircase, throwing open the door to the office with a snarl, and sighing a little as a Young boy, barely on the cusp of adulthood to the old King’s eyes, stared back at him. 

“Do… um… do you have an appointment sir?” The young boy babbled, as Scratch stormed through the reception area, followed by his legions. 

He pulled the door ahead of him from its hinges with no more than a laboured sigh and glared inside as his daughter met his eye and nodded. 

Behind the desk, was his prey, white as his freshly pressed shirt and scrambling around his desk for the phone. He didn’t call for help, and he didn’t escape. He was in the claws of the soldiers before he had even had the chance to cry out, and as they dragged him, thrashing and howling from the room, it was clear that while he didn’t know his fate, he knew that he was going somewhere grim. 

“You disrespected my daughter.” Scratch spat, clasping the man’s frightened face in his claws and lifting him, with alarming ease from the soldier’s grasp into the air as his helpless legs kicked. “And now, you’re going to suffer, for all eternity.” Through strangled gasps, the man tried to plead for mercy, but Scratch simply shook his head. “It isn’t hard to be nice.”

The old King threw the hysterical man back into the arms of his soldiers and stormed from the office towards the reception. 

“I’m the King of Hell. I don’t need an appointment.” He growled, grabbing the young receptionist around the back of his neck and lifting him from his seat. The young man yelped, struggling but failing to free himself from the claws of his captor. “You’re going to learn a hard lesson in manners, young man.” 

The journey home was uneventful for Scratch. He watched with a grin as his soldiers teased the young receptionist, and as his daughter tore strips from her former employer, quite literally. 

His tension eased as the Kingdom swam into view, and as Scratch descended the boat, with the spoils of war carried high above his soldiers heads, he skipped, merry as a schoolgirl to his dungeon. 

The dungeon ached with echoed sobbing and screaming, as the soldiers dragged the shaking captive down the stairs 

Scratch’s hearty laugh swallowed the room as he shoved the young man into an empty cell, smirking, as he saw another of the captives peek through the bars at his sobbing, new cellmate. 

The older captive gulped, patting the helpless young man on the head through the bars as the King’s shadow fell across them. 

“Make young William feel at home Diego.” He called behind him as he strode back towards the chamber, and all the strangled screams that leaked from within it, to polish off the man who had wronged his little girl. “I think you two might really get along.”