My Calling: Second Cycle

Author: Cornell Valentine Gainsborough

"Speech"

'Thoughts'

MAKAI! Seperates Paragraphs

A/N: I'll admit, I've been in something of a creative funk as of late. Most new ideas I've been trying to come up with have crashed and burned, updating Soul Cradle: Reinvented is much harder due to the fact I can't access the site with the Let's Play script, and I've been feeling a real need to reinvent myself. Hopefully, this overhaul of my first story will help me do that.

For the most part, if you've read the previous edition of this story, you'll know what to expect, but there are several changes here and there; not just extended scenes, but some things have been revamped altogether.

Originally, this was supposed to be something of a spoof of the New Game Plus feature, a non-canonical story taking place after my third story. Maybe if I can get enough motivation, I'll try to write it out and see what I manage to come up with, but don't expect any big promises.

Disclaimer: Disgaea and related characters are property of Nippon Ichi. Nelius, Brad and other related OC's are property of my friend and myself. The rating for the story is largely for language.

Chapter 1: The Departure

Nelius' Journal Log: August 17, 33XX

Normally I'm a patient guy with most people, but ever since that investigation three years back, she's pushed me past my limit.

I don't understand why the Overlord's been acting like such a bitch, but this change in attitude has gome on for too long. She's been basically lazing around the castle and barking out orders while most of the vassals are the only ones actually getting anything done. I am not taking this shit anymore.

Out of all the plans I've come up with, the third option falls perfectly in with what's going to be happening.

Soon, Sirea's going to be heading for that meeting in another Netherworld. While she's gone and security's lax, I can use that as my chance to get the hell out of this place. After grabbing some provisions out of the storeroom and taking some of my personal stuff with me, I'll head for the Eastern Dimension Port. I can sneak aboard one of the vessels there and escape this hellhole. I'd like to bring some of the others along with me, but they might end up blabbing about it, and that's a risk not worth taking. Sorry, guys, nothing personal.

Dad, how you managed to survive working under her, I will never know.

Castle Sirea

"Attention, all vassals. Get off of your lazy asses and report to the Throne Room for an important announcement." A vassal of the Overlord was going up and down the hall, shouting the message. From the tone of his voice, and from the utterly bored expression on his face, he'd been doing this for a long time. "If you miss this, it's your own damn fault."

A young, brown-haired demon closed his journal, slipping it underneath a secret panel before standing up and heading out of his room. He was quickly joined by other vassals who were heading for the same place he was.

'Let's go see what Queen Bitch wants this time.'

Taking a right, the young demon called Nelius headed for the Throne Room, where the Overlord of this Netherworld sat upon her throne, as if that wasn't obvious enough. He knew that attendance of these announcements was mandatory to his plan, so he wouldn't cause anyone to suspect that he was up to something. All he had to do was play along, then wait for the perfect moment to spring into action.

The Overlord of this realm was female, a rather rare occurance, but the number of female Overlords was already rising in other Netherworlds, especially those who had aspirations to become the next Pram, Salome or Priere. (Etna doesn't count, she's not an Overlord, no matter what she tells you.) Many of this Overlord's vassals held a recurring joke among themselves that she was a near copy of Overlord Priere, maybe her long lost twin. Of course, nobody ever said that when she was within earshot, with good reason. The last vassal who said that joke out loud.... well, let's just say he cannot move around without assistance anymore.

"All right, down to business." Hell, change her blue hair to red, make her about three or five inches taller and place a baton in her hand, and you would practically have Overlord Priere standing right in front of you. "As most of you know, I'm leaving for the Interdimensional Meeting being held in Priere's Netherworld." A few of the vassals had to suppress a good laugh, in memory of the above mentioned joke, Nelius included. "Cera, I'm leaving matters here up to you, until I get back." Most of the vassals let out a low groan, and some had to cancel their plans. The moment the mentioned demoness' weapon hit the ground, everyone shut up, and with good reason.

Cera was the Overlord's militiant officer, and second in command while the Overlord, Sirea, was away from the castle. This proud Samurai demoness, once having worked for the previous Overlord, was rather infamous for her advanced levels of strictness, especially when it came to completing tasks around the castle and getting the vassals on the battlefield motivated to fight. One of her personal hobbies was whacking people's backsides with her modified Heavy Sword, already having sent two others to the Hosptal with cracked spinal columns months earlier.

Speaking of those two, Eylssa the Gunslinger and her brother-in-arms Russel the Ranger, the both of them just got out of the Hospital with a clean bill of health when they heard that announcement. Looking to each other, they grimly nodded, then promptly re-cracked each others' spines (and utterly wrecked a few other bones and major organs for good measure) before crawling back in. Hospital bill be damned, they were not working while Cera was in charge.

'Shit! This I was not expecting.' His yellow eyes were focused on the Army officer. 'Guess I'll have to modify the plan some.'

Five minutes later...

So begins the torture. The moment Sirea headed through the Dimension Gate, hell personified descended upon the castle, and her name was Cera.

"Walk faster! Keep yourself straight! Watch what you're doing!" With each of those commands, she swung that Heavy Sword around, not giving two shits about whoever or whatever got in her way. As a point of reference, two people almost had their heads whacked off, and three others would need to see the chiropractor if they wanted to walk straight ever again.

'Someone really needs to tell her this ain't the military or the battlefield.' Nelius thought to himself as he ducked under the swing of the blade. 'Hell, she might actually be more of a pain than Queen Bitch herself.'

For her age, Cera had hearing that could detect an insult from several miles away, and mind you, that was no exaggeration. One time in the past, she'd been on the other side of the castle, heard a derogatorial comment about her, and made a mad dash straight for the insulter. If not for the fact that the insulter in question was female, she might've killed her on the spot. On second thought, would it really have mattered? Just be glad she lacked the ability to read minds, otherwise Sirea would have to start recruiting again.

'Still, there has to be some way to keep her distracted...' As he was forced to work and dodge out of the way of the Heavy Sword's path, he found himself wishing for some kind of distraction. 'Come on, need something to keep her occupied... for at least five minutes...'

Lo and behold, his wish was granted; his distraction came in the form of a large scale bandit group who previously made attempts to rob the Overlord whenever she was out. Though it was Cera's entourage who drove them off time and time again, the group was fairly persistant, having large numbers in place of strength, integrating other groups of thieves. On an additional note, they were the rare kind who learned from where their previous attempts went wrong, and as such had a brand new plan of attack. As they swarmed the castle and made their usual entrance (which involved something illegal, and all I'll say is "Knock, knock, bitches!!"), Nelius saw his chance to put his escape plan into action. The first part of said plan was to get some supplies, and so he made his way to the storeroom in the midst of the confusion, where a few bandits were trying to grab a free bite to eat.

Sneaking up behind one who was about to dig into a bag of chips ("Hey, my favorites!"), he reared his bare fist back and let it fly, hearing a crunch of bone as his confirmation that this bandit wouldn't be taking any food. As soon as they heard the skull of their comrade crunch, two more bandits who were trying to grab some other items headed for the young demon, who swiftly took care of them via a pair of well-aimed kicks to their respective groins, and with this being the Netherworld, one kick's enough to incapacitate, and two will knock you out for a month, gender be damned. Once they were done for, Nelius noticed something odd sticking out of one of the bandit's belt. Upon inspecting it, he discovered there was a sack with a nice amount of Hell inside of it.

'Sweet, free cash. I wonder if his friends got any more.' He made his search, and was rewarded for the extra effort. Though, that third bandit hid his cash in the one place nobody would ever like to search; I'll leave it up to your imagination to figure that out. 'My dignity will never restore itself if this ever got out.' He immediately went to wash his hands... several times.

Remembering his original mission as another shout of orders was heard, he grabbed one of the bags normally reserved for long Item World trips and began to stuff all kinds of food and other supplies inside of it, mostly whatever it was he could get his hands on; as long as it was edible and didn't taste so horribly, he wouldn't care about what it was. As another wave of bandits descended upon the castle (they must've hit Cera's favorite room, he could hear her swearing loudly), Nelius dashed back to his room, stuffing traveling clothes, a pillow, blanket, and his journal into the confines of the bag; he didn't have much else worth taking along, since it was all mostly junk that the other vassals decided to get rid of. Hoisting his newly acquired travel bag over his back, it caught him off balance for a moment, but he righted himself.

Then.... silence. A disturbing calm settled over the castle under siege.

'Cera must've cornered them all; it's too quiet.' Nelius didn't like how quiet things became. If Cera cleaned them out this quickly, then... oh wait. The sound of an explosion rattled the castle. 'I spoke too soon. Looks like they still got some fight left.' Confident that they could hold out, he ran over to the designated escape point, since the front gate was too obvious.

He made his way over to the back of the pantry, where an old back door constructed by the previous Overlord stood intact. Perhaps it had been used as either an escape tunnel or a way to sneak in some of the more.... illegal stuff that populated the Netherworld, the stuff that even the Assembly Senators wouldn't go near. Most likely it was the latter; he had heard stories from the older vassals about what the female Overlord's favorite side hobby had been.

Moving the shelf unit aside, he took one last look at his prison for the past three years as the battles continued. Not a single soul seemed to even notice, or care that he was leaving. Of course, when there's arrows, bullets and spells flying around, I doubt you'd be looking for just one person in particular.

'Good bye, you rotten bitch of an Overlord, and here's hoping I'll never set foot in this dump again!'

He swung the door open, moved the shelf unit back to its original place, and, after closing the door as to cover his tracks, made his way through an underground passage that lead him east. It was far cooler down here; that would make walking through this passage much more bearable. There were some monsters roosting down here, mostly Mothmen, Sabercats, and the occasional Mandragora plant, but they were content to simply sleep and let the young escapee get as far away from the castle as possible. It's surprising that the commotion in the castle didn't wake them up.

After traveling for what felt like several hours, due to the sack's weight, he eventually found the trap door that lead to the surface.

"I should've planned this out some more. Regardless, I can't stop now." Wiping some sweat from his brow, he grabbed one rung of the ladder and began climbing. After a good ten to fifteen minutes, mostly because the sack wanted to shift in every direction except one favorable to him, he reached the surface, pushing the door aside and climbing out. Said door was built into the side of a rock that had been artificially designed to look natural; more handiwork of Sirea's predecessor.

He couldn't tell exactly where it was he ended up, but he couldn't see the castle anywhere around, and that was good enough for him.

"Lemme see. The Dimension Port should be in this direction. Too bad I don't have a map."

He positioned himself eastward, and began walking. He had a long road ahead of himself, and if his plan was to go off without a hitch, he needed to make the best use of time, for there was no telling when his soon-to-be former boss would return.

End of Chapter 1

Until next Chapter,

Cornell Valentine Gainsborough