Disclaimer: All copyrighted material is property of their respective owners. I own nothing. This work is merely to show my appreciation to the original creators.
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Shal-Mari, Hell
Kobal, the Demon Prince of Dark Humor and The Court Jester of Hell sat in the backroom of his private office in Hell, and was completely absorbed in his most common hobby in recent times. He was brooding and staring at the back wall of the room. It had been a long time since anything had truly amused him as he felt he had already seen every possible nasty gag played and every form of humiliation presented in some form too many times to count.
He was bored, totally and completely bored. Even that little prank war with a certain Malakite of Creation that had been on even before he Fell had lost most of its amusement factor. Sure he did chuckle a bit when Amesoton had massacred several of his servitors by fighting them in dog food factory couple of days ago. The end result had been several sacks of dried-demon kibble which the Malakite had sold for nice profit. Yes, that had been quite hilarious for a while but what Kobal truly needed was something big, messy and truly daring. It had been several centuries since last such gag and sadly he was out of non-suicidal ideas.
In Kobals opinion his current mindset was too close for comfort of what it had been just before the Fall. Jaded and bitter just like then. At least he had no God hounding him with some "perfect" joke that He wanted him to machinate. He wanted to do his own scheming. Then it hit him. The Perfect Joke. God hadn´t revealed it to him but had given him a sealed letter and told him to open and read it when the time would be right. He had tossed the letter away soon afterwards but that pesky little thing had popped up again when he had been organizing his realm in the city of Shal-Mari, one of the principalities of Hell. He had tried to destroy it as it annoyed him to no end but it had resisted. Finally Kobal had relented and had stuffed the letter in a drawer and forgot it for several dozen millenia.
Now that same drawer was sitting in the darkest corner of the room and looked oh so inviting in Kobals eyes. Maybe he should at least read what Gods idea of "the Joke" was. He could always improvise and twist it. He walked to the drawer, opened it and snatched the letter out. After long just looking at the letter he opened it and started reading. Very soon a genuine smirk possessed his features and he started to laugh loudly, heartily and maliciously.
"Got to admit this to you God, I have never seen anything more devious as this is" Kobal whispered after catching his breath and then he started to laugh again so loudly that propably everyone in Shal-Mari heard him.
Down the street, in a greasy all-you-can-eat buffet a monstrous ball of fur with a big maw commonly known as Haagenti, Demon Prince of Gluttony, was devouring a mountain of food as it heard the laughter.
"Ooh," it said. "I hope my buddy Kobal has figured out something delicious!"
Then the devouring of the food continued with hastened speed.
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Yves´s Library, The Eternal City, Heaven
A young Cherub of Destiny silently made her way through the ever sifting corridors of the greatest collection of knowledge in all Creation. She had been summoned alone in the presence of her Archangel for the very first time so she was a bit anxious and curious for the reason why the eldest of the angels would want to talk with one of the youngest, as she was only decade old and barely out of the training.
Koriel had been in Yves´s presence before, of course, as the Archangel did some of the training himself and had lectured many times for many aspects of his Word so she feared not meeting him as he had always felt like a kind grandfather to her. His presence was soothing and calming, unlike so many other Archangels. Koriel shuddered briefly as she recalled the only instance when she had been in the presence of the Archangel of Judgment and he had looked at her below his all-concealing black robes.
She banished the thought and stepped around the corner of a bookshelf almost colliding with Yves who had been browsing a book there.
"Um, I´m sorry my lord, I..." She stammered.
"That is alright young one, no harm done." The old archangel interrupted. "And mere Yves will do fine."
"Alright, Yves." Koriel said timidly.
"Good. Now that you are here, we can proceed. I have decided that you are ready for your first assignment in the corporeal world." The old Archangel put the book in his hands back to shelf and headed to the direction where Koriel had come gesturing her to follow.
"Earth!" Koriel was now smiling widely.
"Yes, Koriel. You will be sent to Earth to be born to human parents so that you can safely adjust in a role as one of them. I need someone to watch the area you will be sent and it´ll be good training for you. Now run along to see what kind of equipment Tilsrur has for you."
"Thank you, my lord Yves." Koriel responded before leaving.
Yves looked after Koriel sadly and after she was out of sight sighed. "Thank me not, Koriel for you may find Earth a hard place to be. I fear for you as your Destiny and Fate require almost same path."
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In armory Koriel was greeted by a sight of two malakim fighting with swords. One of them, Orizon, was an youngling like her and was rapidly being trashed by the older Tilsrur while all of his moves were commented and analyzed. Koriel had been subjected to same "training" many times before and winced every time Tilsrur swinged his sword.
Finally Tilsrur finished the match with a mighty swing that knocked Orizon to nearest wall and turned to Koriel. "Well, if it isn´t my favorite Cherub. I have your gear waiting over here." He gestured towards a table filled with all sorts of weapons and gear.
"Ok, you are not able to use these before your fourteenth birthday in your corporeal role but we are going trought these now anyway. Here. This is your main ranged weapon." Tilsrur produced machinegun from somewhere.
Koriel sweatdropped. "Um..."
"Here´s your sidearm." This time he produced a .50 Desert Eagle with word "executor" carved in its barrel. "Lucky girl, this baby fires Essence powered holy bullets in addition of normal ones."
The sweatdrop grew. "Ehh..."
"And now your melee weaponry. First some throwing knives and their accessories. Then a rapier for close defence." Said blades popped out of nowhere to the table.
"Um, ok."
"I´m not finished yet, girl. This here is your main melee weapon." He slammed a long glowing Dai-katana to the table. Koriel was busily inspecting the floor after major facefault. (Perhaps it would be best to mention that Tilsrur was a Malakim of Sword on loan to Destiny for training purposes.)
"And now your protective gear..."
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Somewhere in Japan, Earth, 1986, Ten years later.
The Shedite chuckled slightly by himself as it thought its next intended victim. The boy was so perfect. Young, pure of heart and with the father being like he was the shedite could get away with almost anything before it would need to possess someone else. Actually the father had been a source of constant inspiration to the demon for the little while it had been watching them.
It had been trailing the boy and his father for days now, possessing random people around them. Now, it decided, was the time to possess the boy before the idiot father would damage him too much, although there definitely was something hilarious in the situation. How many times did you see a kid dropped in a pit of starving cats for training, afterall. And the punchline of this joke was the fact that the father genuinely thought this as some sort of martial arts training. The shedite exited the latest host which it had been using to observe the situation at the pit hidden so that it wouldn´t be detected and slipped in a celestial form through the hillside to the pit to where the boy had just been flung again.
It found the kid sobbing in the middle of meowing, hissing, clawing and very hungry cats. The chaotic scene resembled somewhat that meeting with the demons of gluttony that he had been dragged by his superior.
After sliding in the body and short fighting against the almost gone willforce of the boy the demon thought it was in control but something was amiss. The boys fear and pain almost overflooded the Shedites mind. Normally it would just have a somewhat vague feeling of the emotions. Now they felt like the demons own. More alarming was the weird feeling that the boys body was not just a possessed "meat-suit" but actually part of its being. Not being entirely stupid it decided to leave the body, and failed totally. Somehow the boys soul had entrapped the demon.
The demon panicked, all these new sensations were way too much, it wanted out, it wanted the pain to stop, it wanted papa... Wait that was the boy. The Shedite was now totally confused. Its survival instincts started to kick in as all coherent thoughts from both the boy and demon ceased. It started to yowl and hiss and flail.
The man outside of the pit was thoroughly shocked as the boy suddenly burst out of the pit heading to the woods nearby. After moment of bewilderment he ran after his ungrateful son. It would do no good to lose him or his wife would definitely kill him with that damnable sword of hers.
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China, 1996.
Kobal giggled in anticipation. He had hunted down the pair of martial artists and was now approaching them in the disquise of old Chinese man. The pair had just set up a camp and were cooking dinner for themselves.
"Excuse me young sirs but could an old man ask to spend a night at your camp and perhaps have a small share of your food. I lost my camping gear couple of days ago and thus am forced to
visit a nearby town and it is quite a long trip." Kobal asked after reaching the pair´s camp.
"I´m not..." The man started.
"Shut it pops. We cannot just leave him without food and warm. It´s a cold night." The boy interrupted.
"Worry not, young sirs. I can pay for your hospitality. Here, in exchange of the food and place to sleep I will give you this guide to the legendary training grounds at Jusenkyo. It shows the location of the training grounds and has much information which young martial artist like yourselves will find interesting. Besides you can visit nearby tribes. I´m sure they will teach you some very interesting technigues. Oh and not to forget, the tribe of Joketsuzoku will have a feast planned soon. If you hurry, you may be able to participate it." Inside his head Kobal was howling with laughter by now.
The man´s eyes were gleaming. "Deal."
The trio then gathered around the bonfire to eat. The boy and the man ate with unbelievable speed trying to steal food from each other and Kobal. Kobal ate slowly, defended his plate succesfully and chuckled at the other´s antics.
"What´s so amusing, old man?" The boy asked.
"Nothing my boy, it is just that you two remind me much of a certain friend of mine. He too has quite healthy appetite. Perhaps I shall introduce you to him if we meet again."
The boy shrugged and resumed eating.
The next morning when the two martial artists woke up the old man was gone. All that remained was the brochure of the Jusenkyo area.
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A/N Here it is. The start of my first fanfic. All feedback is appreciated and since I´m not a native English speaker there may be untold amount of mistakes in the text. Thus I´d like someone to proofread my texts before uploading. If you are interested e-mail me.
Then some help for those not familiar with In Nomine -universe:
Essence: The energy with which everything in the Universe operates. It is generated by living beings and thus is comparable to ki or chi (at least I´m using them as same thing in this fic).
Angelic Choirs in order of descending divinity:
Seraphim - These angels cand detect falsehoods and if lucky what the real truth is.
Cherubim – The guardian angels. They Know their charges current location and sometimes more.
Ofanim – The agents of motion capable of mind-boggling speed and accuracy.
Elohim – Elohim are the most logical of the angels always trying to be objective and hide emotions.
Malakim – The Warrior Angels, incapable of Falling, are the terror of Demons
Kyriorates – These angels can posses people or animals and do not usually have their own body on earth.
Mercurians – The most humanlike of angels. They are the celestial negotiators.
The angels can Fall and thus become the members of corresponding Band. Exception of this are the Malakim who cannot fall. Their counterparts, the Lilim, have never been angels to begin with.
Demonic Bands in ascending order from furthest from God to least furthest.
Balseraphs – The Liars are capable to twist the truth so that almost anyone will believe them. Even Seraphim must be careful when dealing with them. For reference Lucifer is a Balseraph.
Djinni – These demon are the enforcers and guardians of Hell.
Calabim – They destroy almost all which they touch with a entropic field their soul generates
Habbalah – Twisted, delusional. They think themselves still as angels and are set to test and punish people to see if they are worthy.
Lilim – The daughters of Lilith, first wife of Adam. They can make deals that literally bind targets soul by laying a Geas to the side who is required to do something in return when they for example provide something needed.
Shedim – The vilest of the Demons. They possess people and drive them to do evil untill the possessed is too corrupted to be able to do anything more evil than their last malicious act was.
Impudites – The most humanlike of demons. Like Mercurians except for motives and the fact that they are capable of extracting Essence from people.