Highschool DxD: Dark World
For eons, the Supernatural World has existed along the human one.
Gods, Demons, Vampires, monsters and Angels and many other creature had all the time next to humanity, showing themselves to them whenever it was in their interest... and hiding from their sight when it was not.
And while some organizations, like the various Churches and other spiritual leaders of the different religions, knew perfectly well about their existence, many people only thought of them as myths.
Three of the largest and most prominent sub-groups of these beings were the ones that formed the mythology of Christianity - the Angels, Fallen Angels and Devils.
They were also called the three great Factions of the Bible.
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Many centuries ago these three Factions were fighting each other in the so called Great War, over control of both, humanity and the Underworld. The conflict waged on for countless years and ultimately... brought all three races to a point, where they would be threatened with extinction if it continued.
Aside from all that however - there had also been another group that had risen during that time, that had become an important factor in the war - the Sacred Gear users.
Sacred Gears were supernatural weapons or tools, created by God, to give normal humans a way to fight back against supernatural beings. Every Sacred Gear was given by Heaven at random to a human at his or her birth. It was luck, or maybe fate as you could call it. And with every new generation, the Sacred Gears went on to another host.
Over the years however, all three sides of the war had started to recruit some of the humans who carried these powerful weapons to their sides. So they had not only become a protection for humanity, but often also an asset for the Supernaturals themselves.
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One thing that very few were aware of, was that creation actually consisted of multiple - countless - parallel universes, that existed next to each other. Dimensions like the Underworld - where the Devils and many of the Fallen Angels resided, was just the next sub-dimension, closely connected to the main universe.
Many of these parallel worlds were in fact near copies to each other. And so came it that the same conflict was in truth happening at the same time in many different realities.
In most of these alternate worlds of the Multiverse, the great war ended in a similar way... in a stalement in one way or another and led to a centuries long ceasefire between the three Factions. There was no actual peace, but none of them dared to continue a full-scale war since it could mean the end of all three races. That was until finally a Peace Treaty was signed between the three Factions.
There was one world however, where things were different... and the events had taken a completely different course.
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It was at the final phase of the conflict... it was some time after the two Heavily Dragons Ddraig and Albion had been sealed away by the Biblical God, as their destructive fight against each other threatened to devastate the world and the three Factions had temporally to work together to stop them. But this short lived alliance didn´t led to an and of the war.
Instead the fighting was quickly resumed after the common threat had been removed.
Then, a short time ago, the unthinkable had happened... the biblical God himself had died... and so were the four Devil Kings. They had destroyed each other during the last greater battle, that had been fought at the Gates of Heaven itself... in a terrible - you could say apocalyptic - fight.
Right afterwards the armies of all three sides retreated, with the Fallen Angels being the first.
But that was not the end... not yet.
Like in most other realities, in the end it ended in an armistice.
But the nature of this ceasefire was complitely different from what one might expect.
Something happened, an event that changed everything. At the end of the war, it was not longer about the Three Factions and their rivalry. In fact two of these Factions had at this time effectively ceased to exist...
... and instead and ancient threat had returned to their world.
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Eons before
Only few were old enough to still remember it at this point, but the Devils were not the first creatures of the Darkness... and not the first inhabitants and rulers of the Underworld. Before them - at the brink of known history... there were the Demons of old...
The Devil race like it was known today came actually into existence through crossbreeding between these original Demons, corrupted humans - who had often formed pacts with them - and later with the first generation of Fallen Angels, the followers of the former Great Seraph and Archangel Lucifer, who had been banished from Heaven after his failed rebellion and sought refuge in the Underworld.
For centuries, these `halfbreeds´ had spread under the Demon population, slowly beginning to rival them in numbers.
But at the same time, the pure Demons were growing more and more complacent and arrogant and started to treat their `impure´ offspring like 2nd rate citizens at best and slaves at worst.
It were mostly the halfbreeds who were forced to do the most manual work in their society... and enlisted into the lower ranks of their armies to be used as cannon fodder in the regulary taking place fights against the Angels and other races. One of them being Lucifer´s Fallen, who were starting to get a foothold in the Underworld.
Over time, this situation of course slowly begann spark a rebellion. But while their number was great, they were scattered and disorganized and barely any of them were truly well trained. So despite having become for a great part lazy, overconfident and corrupt, the old Demons were still holding the most power.
It was not until Lilith, one of the leaders of the demonically transformed humans and Lucifer decided to join forces, that the `halfbreeds´ were able to truly organize themselves and a true open war was breaking out.
After nearly a year of fighting, the forces of the old Demons - who had despite their claims of superiority, had been relying more and more on their now rebelling servants - had been beaten.
The surviving Demons, now facing a undefeatable superior number of crossbread Demons and Fallen Angels... decided to retreat from the Underworld and fled into the Dimensional Void.
There they were soon confronted by an very annoyed Infinity Dragon Ophis, who was all but happy about thousands of demonic refugees taking shelter at it´s home.
It became quickly clear to Ophis - and also to the Demons themselves - that they had survivors from not less than three different parallel universes here. In all of them had exactly the same war taken place... and they all had finally landed here.
For a few moments, the Infinity Dragon had considered simply destroying the refugees... but then instead - after hearing the beaten and worn out Demon´s pleas that they had not come here willingly and had to flee for their lives and would gladly go somewhere else, if they only had such a place...
Ophis decidded instead to send them to yet another universe to live their lives there. This single decision from a nearly allmighty being - an act of mercy - should in the end, ultimately, have terrible consequences for many worlds. But that was nothing anybody would have been able predict at that time.
The reality where Ophis had send them was a world where humanity as most other worlds knew it had never evolved and no Supernatural beings had never set foot on the planet Earth. Instead however this Earth had been briefly colonized by an highly technological advanced race of aliens.
Until a plaque had wiped out the small population. (A plaque that had in fact been manufactured by an extremist rogue faction of these aliens and got out of control as it was released on the people. But they had no way to know that.)
To their luck however, the plaque - along with the beings who had once lived there - had long disappeared. And they, being Supernatural creatures, would have most likely been immune to it anyway.
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Meanwhile the Halfblood Demons and Lucifer´s Fallen Angels had taken complete control over the Underworld.
From their on they were quickly merging into a single race that quickly came to be called the `Devils´. Not only through crossbreeding - but also because many Fallen Angels decided - as a sign of their new unity, to use magic to turn themselves into demonic beings.
This also had completely pragmatic reason, since the Fallen who were left of Lucifer´s original army quickly found themselves vastly outnumbered by the halfbreed Demons and feared they could end up as a small oppressed minority in the new state, they themselves had helped to create.
Lucifer himself, along with the most powerful and skilled generals of their united army - Beelzebub, Asmodeus, Belial and Leviathan - soon declared themselves the five Devil Kings, with Lilith as Lucifer´s Queen.
Belial however was killed during a battle with the Forces of Heaven that the newly crowned Maou had started a short time later out of overconfidence.
That reduced the number of Devil Kings to four - like it would be for the centuries to come - and the rest of the Belial line settled for the title of `Prince´ instead.
The new Devil race however turned out not to be much different from the `masters´ they had overthrown. Like them, they found themselves soon overcome by pride, arrogance and decadence.
Soon they declared themselves as `pureblooded´ Devils... and many of them started to downright deny their human or angelic heritage. At first it had mostly been the thought that they were now a new race and that the `before´ didn´t matter anymore.
Not much later however they in fact started to claim that the Underworld had always been theirs and acted as if the original Demonrace had never existed... and begann to teach this to their children. It was a lie born out of false pride, spawned by their victory and new power.
After a few centuries, only a few of the oldest Devils were even left to remember the truth. Many of the original ones had died in other wars or smaller skirmishes with Heaven or other races.
And none of them was aware of the terrible enemy, that was rising only a few realities away.
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Meanwhile, in the universe the surviving Demons had been banished to, took over the ruins the former alien inhabitants had left behind... and also found the leftovers of their technology.
In some sense Ophis could not have chosen a worse world to send them to.
They begann to rebuild their lost civilization, by taking over what the mysterious aliens had left behind. They started to combine the technology of the aliens they had recovered with their own and their magical abilities.
At the same time however, their fanatism and their hatred of their in their eyes impure kin - that had taken `wrongfully´ from them what had been theirs, grew more and more.
They started to look back and to recapitulate about what had caused them to loose against them... and came to an terrible conclusion.
They had lost their way. They were Demons, beings created from the dark side of the universe. By allowing themselves to grow lazy, corrupt and weak, they had practically invited this rebellion to happen. So they decided to once again concentrate on the things that had made their race reat in the first place - strength, power, ruthlessness and terror.
In honor of the Darkness, that they knew gave them all life, they renamed their race into the Erebos Demons.
They soon forgot about the fact that they themselves had been at Ophis mercy not so long ago and only still existed because the Infinity Dragon had decided, on a whim, not to destroy them.
After their number had recovered enough, they begann to purge everyone from their race they viewed as `weak´.
They pushed their development in both technology and magic even more and stripped the version of the planet Earth they had been send to of it´s resources to build up fortress-cities around the globe and create weapons of war and mass destruction.
They also found better and more effective ways to travel between dimensions. Slowly they were developing a nearly perfect balance between magic and technology.
This however was nothing against the terrifying mindset, that was spawning itself through their entire race.
They completely rebuild their entire society into an army like their race had never seen it before - always driven by one thought... revenge.
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Earth, the region of Palaestina - the valley of Megiddo... over a thousand years before the present
The armies of the three Factions were facing each other, each of them ready to strike.
They all knew this would most likely be one of - if not the last - battle of the war. All sides were already more than depleted.
Too many had already died. Everybody knew that. Even God did... but this was something that currently very few, outside of the remaining Faction leaders themselves, knew about.
The Heavenly Seraph Azazel - who was leading one of the contingents of Heaven´s Army - sighed. There would be no more Angels created from their father himself... their would never be again.
The only way for their race to increase left, was now like for most other species, through sex. This alone however was a problem in itself, because every Angels who tried, would most likely end up as Fallen themselves.
It had been more than a surprise, that the Fallen Angels - who had the lowest population of them - of all people, had suddenly started another offensive.
But they did exactly that... and the other two Factions had moved their own forces to met their advance.
And now they were here. Ironically in the region that had been prophicied as the sight of the last battle in the bible. If the Fallen had chosen this place on purpose, they really showed a sense of humor.
Azazel´s eyes begann to move over the lines of the Fallen. Under them he could make out Baraquiel... and also Kokabiel, who looked actually eager for the fighting to start. And Shemhazai, the Second in Command of the Fallen Angels. All three of them had been his friends before their fall.
Sometimes he had to think, if thinks had only been a slightly bit different, would he then standing over there on their side? Maybe leading them?
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It was originally him, who had been chosen to lead the Watchers, the organization the Fallen Angel army had sprung from - a group of Angels who were tasked to watch and oversee the development of humanity closely... that was until one of the other Seraphs, who showed an equal interest in humans as himself, had asked for the position instead.
The Watchers or Grigori however became corrupted by temptation and got to caught up in their work. Not only had they fallen to sin and started to have intercourse with human women and men... they also showed them how to build weapons, fight and wage war. Instead of observing the development of humans, they were menipulating it.
For what they thought was best probably - at least in the beginning - but it was still something God could not tolerate.
Had he insisted on taking the position himself, he questioned sometimes, would he had been corrupted and fallen along with them? WOuld he have stayed their leader and leading them against the Forces of Heaven? But such thoughts were meaningless now.
Quite ironic, Heaven could have most likely deal better with his loss, than with the one´s who had truly become the leader of the Fallen, he told himself.
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"It is beginning - charge," he heard Michael´s command... and he gave the sign to his own troops.
He watched as the three armies clashed with each other. Dozens of soldiers from all three sides died alone in the first three seconds.
What in the world were the Fallen thinking for starting all these in the first place? Azazel asked himself. They were the ones with the least people and so the ones with the greatest risk of dieing out from this senseless massacre.
The battle had now fully broken out, the lines of the three armies were placing each other under fire, with long range weapons, energy blasts and light-spears.
Sacred Gear users, who had joined the ranks of each side, were activating their full powers and used it against their opponents.
Some of the higher level fighters and even a few leader-class Angels, Fallen and Devil were now standing in direct duel against each other.
Azazel´s question however was answered only a few minutes later.
Something happened what nobody - not in a thousand years - would have expected.
Suddenly all over the battlefield, strange vortexes were appearing in the air, that they could only identify as some sort of interdimensional portals - of a kind they had never seen before...
... That and hundreds of bizarre looking warriors, who came swarming out of this portals and were instantly attacking the Devil and Angel armies.
The newcomers had wings, that had great ressemblance with that of the Devils and small horns at the sides of their foreheads. Like the other supernatural beings, they also possessed different forms of magical power, like destructive one or the ability to augment their physical strength and fighting prowess. Or to weaken their enemies. Actually, many of the Devil Clans `special abilities´, like `Power of Destruction´ of the Baels and `Worthlessness´ of the Belial family, had their origins from the Demons.
Quite ironically, they were looking far more like Devils from human folklore, as the actual `Devils´ present did.
They all were also wearing dark colored armor, that gave them a sinister and dangerous appearance. All of them were carrying swords those blades were radiating light-energy, obviously designed to be used against Devils and many of them had some sort of long range weapons, slighly ressembling crossbows - but more modern - that were shooting energy blasts at their opponents.
Azazel watched how a half dozen of them were concentrating and channeling their power as one... and firing it into the lines of the Devil forces, annihilating several of them.
But they were not attacking the Fallen and indeed were taking positions next to them. That explained why the Fallen Angels had dared to start this campaign. They had found an ally.
"Lord Azazel," Reyila - a young very attractive female Angel and one of his squad leaders - asked him confused, "who are these creatures?"
"Demons," he replied grimly. "I had never thought I would see one of them again. And it seems they are able to teleport without using Magic Circles... and we have no way to block it."
"Their energy feels similar to that of Devils," Reyila pointed out. "But they are attacking them."
Yes - while they were engaging the Angels as well, the main force of their assault was directed at the Devils. This didn´t really surprise Azazel. By what he knew about the history of this two races, he was sure that they probably had a major grudge against them.
"Azazel," he received a message from Michael, "they are appearing everywhere. We are attacked from all sides and we have no way to stop them. Raphael and Uriel are holding their positions for now. But if even more of them arrive - and we have no way to prevent that - we will be getting overwhelmed," the leader of Heaven stated.
"We have to retreat for now," he declared, "until we figure out how to deal with this."
As he had ordered, the Angels were drawing back and the Demons let them... for the moment. They concentrated more on the Devil forces and destroying out.
What none of them knew at the moment, at the same time the Demons and their Fallen Angel allies had started a full scale attack on the Underworld.
Techno-magical weapons of mass destructions were being used to wipe out entire cities. Thousands of Demons and Fallen Angels were attacking at once, using their new form of teleportation to move and taking the remaining Devil forces by surprise.
The destruction and carnage surpassed everything seen before during the war.
The already decimated and worn out Devils - who had not even fully reorganized after the loss of their kings - had no chance against a full powered army, that had been build up for centuries and possessed weapons they had never seen before.
It took not more than three days for the Devils to finally surrender - or more precisely `trying´ to surrender, because the Demons just decided to ignore them and continue to slaughter them. It wasn´t until another four days - and many massacres - later... soldiers, civilians and children had been murdered without difference or care... that the fighting in the Underworld finally came to an end.
... And that only after several of the Fallen Angels had openly declared that they would not longer get along with this bloodbath and started to pressure the Erebos Demons into accepting the Devils surrender.
Knowing that they had still use for their Fallen allies, the Demons finally accepted. In the end it was just the interferrence of these Fallen Angels, that kept them from commiting full genocide on the Devils ad wiping their race from existence.
Instead a `compromise´ was formed and the Devils turned into slaves - this time without any pretense of being `citizens´ or `soldiers´.
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Meanwhile however, the war on Earth was also continuing.
The Angels reacted in horror as they heard what happened in the Underworld and deployed all their remaining forces to stop this new enemy.
In the end it was only through all their strength and full use of their human allies from the Church, that they had managed to stop their advance.
At this time however, the new `Alliance´ of Erebos Demons and Fallen Angels, had already brought all of Japan and parts of China under their control. In opposite to the Devil or Angels, the Erebos didn´t hesitate to show themselves openly to the humans and so they were suffering under their tyranny as well.
This was how the Great War ended centuries ago - not longer with three Faction, but instead with two even larger powers, struggling over control of the world.
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Japan in the present - the ruins of the town known as Old Kuoh
It was one of the many human towns that had been raided and in this case completely destroyed, by marauding Erebos troops across Japan and the rest of Eastern Asia.
The young man known under the code-name of `Red Shadow´ was walking through the remains of what had until nearly sixteen years ago, been a human town - until it had been burned to the ground.
He had grown up not so far away from here in `New Kuoh´, a small secret settlement of humans and some Yokai and freed Devils, a few dozen miles away from here. It was a place that was hidden from the outside world by magical wards... And located close to it was also the base of their resistance cell.
Still, his mother had told him that he had been born here, in the old town... not long before it had been destroyed. His father had died during the attack, his mother had also told him. He had been too young to even remember him.
Nobody even knew for sure why Kuoh had been attacked like this.
Of course it happened regulary that humans were being targeted, sometimes kidnapped when the Demons had need for a few of them for their experiments... or just hunted and killed for sport.
But this - one town, so completely wiped from the face of the world?
Sometimes they also targeted humans because they possessed potentially dangerous Sacred Gears.
This gave the boy, whose real name was Issei Hyoudou, to think. Had the Demons somehow known who he was and what he had been born with? Had the hometown of his parents, the place where he had been born... been destroyed, just because of him? Because of the Boosted Gear?
He had by now nearly reached the meeting place.
It didn´t take long and he could sense the presences close by - one of them he knew like no other.
A second later three figures, wearing grey cloaks came out of the shadows.
"Red Shadow," one of the figures greeted him - "Issei-kun," she said then in a much softer voice and lowered her hood. He saw her blue eyes and her silvery hair falling over her shoulders.
Issei smiled at her. He was glad that she was back as well.
This girl - also known as `White Shadow´ under the rebels - Vali Lucifer, was supposed to be his greatest rival and opponent. She was the Hakuryuukou - the carrier of the Dividing Gear, where the Dragon Albion was sealed into, while he was the Sekiryuutei and carried the Boosted Gear that was holding his old rival Ddraig.
For many generations, the weilders of this two Sacred Gears had always been opponents, always fighting against each other - like the Dragon who gave them their power in the first place.
She was to one quarter Devil, a direct descendant of one of the old Devil Kings and three quarters human. As such she had literally a death sentence on her since the moment of her birth.
Issei remembered, as they had first met, a fight had nearly broken out between them... and many times afterwards nearly as well. So strong was the need to fight between their two Dragons.
But in the end it came different... completely different.
He stepped closer to her, layed his arms around and gave her a quick kiss. Beneath her cloak, he could feel her body pressing against him and her breasts - especially her breasts.
Her two compatriots lowered their hoods as well. The first was a very beautiful dark haired young woman, Kuroka - a nekoshou Yokai and the Second in Command of Vali´s team.
"I fear we have not much time for this," the other one - a young man - said, "as much as I would like to watch you." He grinned.
"Like always Freed," Kuroka commented. "You know that such statements are not exactly proper for a Priest right?"
"What shall I say, I admit I was never that good when it came to this part of my job," he answered, his grin only deepening.
Freed Selzen was an Exorcist and somewhat of an inofficial member of Issei´s and Vali´s teams. He was one of the contacts of the japanize resistance to the Church.
"I hate to admit it," Vali pointed out, "but Freed has a point. It is good possible that they are following us. So we shouldn´t waste any time. We will continue this later," she told Issei with a meaningful smile.
"Do you have the information?" he asked her.
"What do you think? Of course we do," she replied smugly.
Some time ago, the resistance had found out about a secret project that the Emperor - as the Mao of the Erebos Demons was calling himself - was working on. This project, according to the rumors, was meant to give him even greater power than he already possessed. Something that - if it was actually true - they knew they needed to prevent at all costs.
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Many hundreds of miles away
In the center of the former human town Kyoto - that was now the capital of the occupied Japan - was standing a giant dark palace, that overshadowed the rest of the town... just like the Demons and their Fallen Angel allies - that meant the ones of the Fallen who still actually supported the regime - overshadowed the still existing humans and hiding Yokai in the country.
Here however, at the place that the Erebos Demons had decided to raise up their capital, humans and japanise Yokai not longer existed. The former citizens had all either chased away or killed as the Demons took over centuries ago.
And since then, none of the actual natives had dared to set foot in the town again.
And the towering palace that was the center of the Empire of the Demon-Fallen Angel alliance, had literally been build on the remains of the former city.
It was then, as a wide Magic Circle lighted up on the ground on the large place in front of the entrance of the palace... and a very important `guest´ of the Emperor appeared - surrounded by an half dozen heavily armed guards - his most important ally in this world.
It was an incredible attractive - seemingly young looking (but everyone who knew her was aware that she was all but young, but simply possessed eternal `youth´ and beauty) - blonde haired woman. She had a deceptively cute and innocent looking face.
But she was clad in an incredible lasziv low-cut black dress, that showed off most of her cleavage and her incredible large breasts. She was also wearing a knee-lomg black leather skirt, with a long slit, that completely exposed her long legs whenever she was walking.
She was Gabriel - the leader of the Grigori and the Fallen Angel forces - or, as she was also often called, the `Queen of the Fallen´.
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Meanwhile Issei, Vali and their small team were by now halfway back out of the town.
They didn´t dare to transport themselves back to their base, in case their enemies managed to track them. So they would make the most of the way on foot.
As it turned out however, their suspicions had been completely correct.
"Stand down rebels," they heard a voice... and found themselves suddenly surrounded by a group of a dozen Erebos Demons and three Fallen Angels.
"So they were truly following us," Vali stated.
They sensed the power their opponents were radiating. Unless some of them were hiding their strength - and Issei doubted that they would see reason to, given the situation - none of them was stronger than middle-class.
None of the Fallen possessed more than four wings.
In short, these guys were simply no match for them.
"Surrender," the leader of the group of Demons ordered, "you are surrounded and outnumbered."
"Surrender?" Issei asked with a grin, exchanging a short look - first with Vali - then with the others.
"Obviously they don´t know who we are," Freed stated sarcastically, as he draw his gun and his comrades started to power-up.
Like it was said, this story is technically a spin-off of `Issei Hyoudou: the Guardian´ and plays completely in one of the parallel worlds it had introduced.
The `Erebos Demons´ are also a group of villians I had invited for Guardian.
So this story is an complete AU to the regular DxD world. As it was seen, many characters are actually the complete opposite of their canon counterparts.
Like in many other stories, Vali is female here. I had actually been requested by one of my readers to write a Issei x female Vali story.
Issei´s codename here `Red Shadow´, has of course nothing to do with Ronin2106´s story `Crimson Shadow´. That is just coincidence.
I don´t owe Highschool DxD or anything related to it.