Prologue: Tumbling Down
He knew the day he took up the power of the White Dragon, his destiny was to end the world. Here he stood, having achieved his goal. Around him, the heavens burned; the literal domain of the Angels and the divine was a flaming ruin above the scorched Earth. The house of the dead God was nothing but echoes and cinders.
The realm of man was a smouldering hellscape. Charred cities with their towering skyscrapers reached to the burning heavens like blackened, gnarled fingers. The smoke-filled sky was stained red by the flames of Heaven, casting a malevolent glow upon the cradle of man.
The oceans were still, eerily so. Bodies floated like buoys in the calm, crimson waters. Wings sprouted from their backs, limp and wilted, with some in bloody tatters that were once bat-like membranes or glorious pinions.
What remained of the Earth was naught but corpses and ruin. In the years leading up to the End War, humanity had learned of the existence of the Angels and Devils. The Dragons had made themselves known shortly beforehand, pushing mankind to advance its defences and weaponry to counter such odds.
As he aged, Conrad Mercer had sunk his claws into the minds of the people, twisting them into distrusting the Angels and Devils; to fear and hate them. Eventually, war broke out, with Mercer leading the human forces. However, he had no intention of them surviving.
Across the blasted remnants of the world, dark reminders of the war were fresh. Grim edifices of warfare stood as stained memorials as immense cross shaped super weapons platforms towered over the crimson oceans. They were devastating in the war, hosting weapons that could annihilate a city block of any of humanity's fortified, weaponised cities with bombardments of blinding golden light.
Besides being immense weapons platforms, they were incredible works of divine artistry. Their thick armour was once gleaming white. The centre of the cross shaped weapons were golden, with separable ridges that opened up for the unveiling of more weapons.
The edges of the crosses were covered end to end with sculptures forged in gold. They depicted the Angels in various scenes of battle and in peace times. The centre disks of the crosses each depicted identical engravings of the tree of life, with each Choir of Angels shown on the branches.
Now, they were wrecks; monoliths of twisted angelic metal. Their armour was pockmarked with high calibre entry wounds, dents and scorch marks from artillery shells, both deflected and exploded. Whole sections of them were drowned beneath the water's surface as they had been torn away by Mercer and humans like him who had been blessed with the power of Sacred Gears.
The war engines of the Devils had fared no better in the end. Great war machines, bipedal, quadrupedal and onward once strode the Earth, shaking the ground beneath their vast forms. Their immense arrays of weaponry, more ballistic based than their Angel counterparts, stippled the chassis of these metal monsters.
They were far more heavily armoured than the Angel cross weapons platforms, but were slower, with less propensity for destruction, relying on barrages of shells, bombs, and magically channeled missiles to destroy human defensive positions and launch attacks on the machines of their divine foes.
Their dense hulls were decorated with the snarling faces of the ancient Daemons of the Underworld's past, formed from embossed and polished brass. The plates of their armour were veined with winding red lines of molten metal and demonic energy that pulsed with each mechanical beat of their demon-metal hearts.
They too were now just heaps of dead metal and pulverised flesh of their operating crews. The bipedal colossi of Devil machinery were mostly unrecognisable. The sheer weight of their armour caused them to collapse in on themselves once enough damage was done to their support structures. So they either stood where they died, or toppled and slumped against the charred remains of what ever buildings once stood.
The multi-legged death machines were mostly rendered legless and blown out as strategists abused the key weakness of such walkers. Their lightly armoured limbs were shorn off by human energy weapons, or by strategic bombardments from the air or artillery. Once crippled, they were destroyed by targeted strikes from orbit or by concentrated fire from the units that toppled them.
Mutually the Angels and Devils wordlessly agreed, that they had failed to acknowledge just how good humans were at war. They were excellent, if not peerless. Even individually they were far from trivial, as the ground forces of the Angels and Devils were brutally informed of as the humans launched lightning fast shock and awe strikes against them, engaging them in bloody, savage melees. But as a united force, they bore the brunt of and decimated whatever either side threw their way.
They realised with devastating consequences, that humans had a will that they could not understand nor comprehend. The will to survive was something foreign to most of them, being immortal and far more powerful than most normal humans. But humanity had a singular guiding will, almost a consciousness all of its own. One that told its billionfold body to destroy them. It was a collective entity of wrathful hatred that consumed them in its fire, and propelled them forward into battle.
Too late had they realised that humans hadn't stagnated like they had. Many of the war machines and weapons that fought the End War were there during the Great War between the Devils and the Angels millennia ago. They hadn't advanced, hadn't accounted for weaknesses that the humans had gladly exposed to them and abused to maximum effect. Indeed, the mortal tide was one to be feared.
Though for all of their greatness in the game of war, humanity itself was nearly extinct. The globe burned, its cities crushed, its infrastructure ruined, the very planet itself had a hand in killing on all sides. Country-swallowing floods swept across the land, earthquakes split the ground and sunk cities, volcanoes erupted and choked the sky.
Battle had been the main contributor though. For miles, human bodies in their panoplies and with weapons in hand lay piled high in collapsed defensive formations. Artillery pieces sat as burning husks as smoke billowed up from their slag metal carcasses. Vast sky fortresses were reduced to immolated wrecks with the craters they formed upon crashing acting as their graves.
In this apocalyptic corpse of a world, there was nothing left for anyone unfortunate enough to find themselves among the living.
The preparations humanity had made for the Dragons had been effective, as evidenced by the vast mounds of bullet-riddled, explosive-cratered scale and flesh that lay eviscerated about the planet wide battlefield.
Mercer had raised up mankind into its most powerful form he could. Technology advanced to an unprecedented level, humans at their baseline were stronger, hardier, and smarter than ever before. The union between technology and science, world wide thaumaturgy, had elevated mankind to its greatest height in the span of 60 years.
Mercer though, had not done this to give mankind any sort of edge. No, he had done this to make the End War as devastating as possible. He spent 60 years planning it meticulously.
The last human however, had felt himself declining. He was 77 years old, and time had worn on him as it did with every mortal man. He still stood tall at six feet two inches, with a broad, strong form achieved by years of training and fighting. His Icy white hair had silvered at the edges of his hairline. It stood like a lions mane much like his late father's. A thick, but neatly trimmed beard grew in a similar style to his hair; the lion's main, though trimmed and cared for still held a wild element to it, much like its owner.
His eyes were like tropical water, with a very cool, pleasant blue tone to them. They were half lidded in his senior age, though only slightly more so than in his youth.
He was adorned in the spectacular white armour of Divine Dividing, the Sacred Gear of Albion, the White Dragon. This honour gave him the title of White Dragon Emperor, a title he had made full use of in the last 20 years with the world addressing him as such as he led them to greatness.
The armour itself was of polished pearlescent white metal made from the essence of Albion herself. She, like all Sacred Gear spirits, was unflinchingly loyal to Mercer as he had earned such from her. Though his destiny was grim, she would follow it with him to its end. And she had done so. Blue gems were set into the backs of the gauntlets, and a single large gem sat inside the centre of the breastplate above his sternum. A closed-faced helmet was held within the crook on his arm.
Most strikingly were the large wings sprouting from the back of the suit. The frame of each wing was of the same colour and material as the rest of the armour, but between each finger of the wings was a translucent blue membrane that came to sharp points at their ends.
Now with the world at its end, his own failing health, and a destiny to finish, there was only one thing left for him to do. Die.
He felt the blade before it even pierced his armour. He had been expecting it as preternatural reflexes screamed at him to move, but he would not. The steel blade of Ascalon carved through his flesh and erupted out through his breastplate. Though his dying body's senses were dull, he felt pain, fresh and liberating course through him.
With the wet withdrawing of steel through flesh, Ascalon retracted from him and he fell to one knee. Then onto his back. His blue eyes stared into the burning sky.
"Is all of this as you'd hoped?" His killer asked as he walked around Mercer's body to stand over him. The man stood over him was everything Mercer wasn't. He was his antithesis. His opposite. He was Issei Hyoudou, the Red Dragon Emperor.
Issei had aged much better than he had in his estimation. He expected nothing less from that mongrel half-Devil.
"That and more." Mercer rasped, he smiled as blood seeped through his teeth as he coughed.
"Sit me against the wall, would you?" He asked. Issei's face flickered with emotion for a moment, though which one he settled on was unclear.
"Calling in one of your old favours?" Issei spat venomously. It was true that he no longer owed Mercer anything. Though despite the destruction of the world, the two of them had sailed the tide of destiny together as unlikely friends for decades.
"You'd have me die on my back like the rest of them?" He said with a wry grin.
"This is the last thing I'll do for you. But it seems like that's the case whatever I do now." Issei replied.
"Indeed it is."
Issei picked Mercer up and draped his arm across his shoulders and carried him to a nearby statue. It was carved from a large multi ton block of white marble, built in Mercer's honour years ago. It was an empty throne, with pieces of armour in Albion's likeness decorating the outer edges of it. He sat his rival down, and Mercer let out a laboured but relieved sigh.
"I don't have long. So I have some things I would like to say to you before I go." He said. Issei looked at him. His face was no longer that of the naive, single minded boy he knew as a teenager, but a grizzled warrior made humourless and stern by the eternal rivalry between himself and Mercer. He was a man who had lost everything.
"Go on. I've no one else to listen to now." He said bitterly. Mercer only grinned again.
"Don't give me that you miserable old bastard. You knew this would happen. Their deaths are your fault." He said with a humourless chuckle.
"You don't need to remind me. I know." Issei said. He knew he was right. He knew the End War was coming. He knew his rivalry with Mercer was an all consuming affair. It had destroyed everyone who was dragged in, as such a thing should given the two involved. He hadn't been strong enough. Every opportunity to kill Mercer had presented itself, but destiny's tangled webs seemed to always restrain him. He had paid a terrible price for it now.
"In my heart of hearts, I never wanted this, you know." Mercer said after moments of silence. Were he not broken, Issei would have been angry. To commit to ending the world, succeeding, and then regretting it? The audacity of it was insulting.
"You're not funny, you know?" Issei said. "Now isn't the time for regrets. Especially for you."
"I suppose you're right." Mercer said thoughtfully. "I did all of this. I even somewhat enjoyed it. But all of this just feels...incomplete."
Issei raised an inquisitive eyebrow. What could possibly be incomplete? The world was dead. Heaven burned. The Underworld was in a state of self destruction. The Earth was a dead husk, and humanity was gone. The last one left was Mercer, and even he was at death's door now.
"I thought that would confuse you." Even near death, it seemed he still had it in him to be smug. "Honestly I couldn't possibly tell you why I'm dissatisfied. I don't know myself. It's just how I feel."
Issei frowned. "You don't sound too full of regret." He spat. Mercer gave a half hearted scoff.
"Of course I regret this. What sane man wouldn't? Was I to fight destiny; a destiny we share? If I could have avoided this I would have. But to do so would have led to much worse."
"I fail to see how." Issei replied flatly.
"I'm a Magus, Issei. Believe me when I tell you there are things beyond us. Beyond the Gods. Beyond the Dragons." He coughed wetly as globules of blood trickled from his lips. "If I hadn't, those things out there would have. There'd have been no dignity in that."
"And what about the others? My peerage. Your friends. Your loved ones?" Issei questioned. He had a difficult time gauging Mercer's morality at the best of times. He was never set in one way or another, only what worked for him at the time. He knew he wasn't inherently evil, but there wasn't much good in him either. Despite this, there was still love in his heart, love he'd shared.
"My deepest regret of all. It kills me inside to know I killed them. But destiny demanded that I make you fight me, so I did what was necessary." Mercer explained. For a brief moment, Issei could scarcely believe his eyes. The eyes of the White Dragon Emperor were wet. Tears threatened to spill down his face as he spoke. He could honestly say that in the decades he'd known Mercer, he had a hard time seeing him as a human most of the time. But now, old, dying, and crushed under the weight of his sins, he had never looked so human.
"And Rossweiss? What about Siris? Or maybe Scathach?" Issei asked. His tone was a lot harder than he'd intended, but he needed to know. He watched as Mercer placed a trembling gauntleted hand over his eyes. As much as he hated him for causing all of this devastation and death, something about this hurt Issei. Just seeing his old rival like this was disturbing on a deep emotional level. It was just wrong.
"Rose was never meant to die." His voice was fragile like glass. Issei resisted the urge to recoil at the sound. "I had hoped she could deter me from this. She couldn't, but I'd have liked to have spared her."
"And the others?" Issei asked with narrowed eyes.
"Siris couldn't stand to help me towards the end. You know this. She was caught in the crossfire. I'm not sure where she is, but I know she's gone too." He replied. His voice was becoming more and more pained, both physically and emotionally.
"And Scathach," he let out a strangled laugh, "I couldn't kill her if I tried, and trust me I have at her request. But no, I couldn't have her seeing all of this, so I banished her back to Dun Scath. I do wonder what she'd say to me now though. That's if she says anything at all. I wouldn't put it past her to just skewer me and get it over with." He said fondly.
"Listen, Issei." He wrapped his armoured fingers around his old friend's forearm. "You can start the world again. Without me, without all of them. I trust you to make it better than ever before. I also trust you to make sure people like me can never emerge to anywhere near my power."
"What?" Issei's voice was laced with confusion. He couldn't begin to think of how he was going to rebuild a world so thoroughly ravaged by the End War.
"You have to keep those things out. Just as I did, I killed this world to drive them away. If they come here, there's no stopping them. There will be nothing left." Mercer said gravely. Issei couldn't imagine just what things Mercer had seen in the years he had been away from him and the ORC. Whatever it was had shook him to the core, terrifying him into desperate action.
"What? What things, Mercer?" Issei asked. Mercer coughed raggedly and blood speckled the armour about his neck. It was a wet sound, punctuated by the wheezing of failing lungs.
"There's another realm. Heaven, Earth, the Underworld, even the Void; there's another place beyond them. There's so many places. Scathach's realm, the Land of Shadows is one of these places." He coughed again.
"This place is what I found 20 years ago. It's unlike anything I've ever seen and trust me, I barely got out." His already pallid skin somehow appeared paler as he recalled the memory.
"They told me they'd come here. They said they would devour whatever life was on the planet and the planet itself. They've no interest in dead worlds."
Realisation slowly crept onto Issei's face. "So you killed the world to save it."
"Yes. Now that only you remain, you have the chance to build a world that can fight them. I left some things for you at the World Spire to get started. It won't happen over night, but you're a mongrel now. You have all the time in the world."
"How will I know what to do?" Issei asked.
"You'll know. There's no way you couldn't." Mercer sighed. His eyelids flickered and his head slumped. "All that talking really took it out of me."
Issei knelt beside Mercer and clasped his gauntleted hand between both of his own.
"You can rest now. If you have faith in me, then I think I can do what you've asked." Issei said. Mercer smiled at him, one that was truly grateful.
"Well, wherever souls go, Rossweisse and Siris can scold me now." He laughed laboredly."Take me to Dun Scath. Scathach has the final rights to my body."
"Will do." Issei replied.
"See you around. You were a good rival. Couldn't have asked for better."
"And you were the worst rival. But for all the right reasons. Tricky bastard." Mercer laughed at that. After that, he went quiet, still with a smile on his face. He stayed that way. Issei took a few moments to process the sight. There Mercer sat, dead. A dead Emperor, sat on a cracked throne, in a dead world. Without Mercer, Issei suddenly realised just how empty the world was now.
"Get up, boy." Scathach's scathing tone broke Mercer's sleep. He rolled onto his back to see the dark haired woman stood at the side of his bed with a scowl on her face.
"Leave me alone you hag. 10 more minutes." He grumbled. Before he could roll over, he felt his bed tip from the side Scathach stood and he was rolling to the floor.
"You're going to be late." She said, lowering the bed back to the floor. Mercer pushed himself up and glowered at the warrior woman with his just above the edge of his bed. He stood, grumbling as he did.
"Alright, fine, I'm up." He said.
"I can see that. You wanna do something about that?" Scathach replied, her eyes wandering downward.
Mercer shrugged. "You chose to come in here. Don't say you weren't expecting to see something. You may want to savour it this time." He said dismissively.
"Don't flatter yourself. Now get moving. You're a mess." She said before leaving. He watched her leave. He was beyond the point of being embarrassed no matter how Scathach saw him.
She had been by his side since he was seven years old. His parents were two prominent Magi, the leading heads of the Mercer family line. The history of his parents was shrouded in both lies and half-truths, as was common amongst Magus families.
However, the two disappeared during an expedition to find and slay the great Dragon, Tiamat. Presumably, they and all they took with them were killed. His mother, as farsighted as she was iron willed, formed a contract with Scathach, the god slaying warrior woman of the Land of Shadows prior to the expedition.
Scathach had explained upon meeting a young Conrad Mercer that she was under strict instruction to care for, raise, and train him in his parents' absence. That was ten years ago. She had done as she had been asked as she'd taught him the basics of combat and the use of runes by age 10. By the time he was 15 he was duelling her fiercely with both his hand crafted spear and personal set of runes.
Though she had done this, daily living was a challenge unto itself. Hers was the mind of a warrior, and so such things as physical boundaries and modesty were secondary things to her. She insisted that as a means of establishing a true master/student relationship, when they trained, ate, bathed, and slept, it was together.
Thus the lack of embarrassment between them. They had for all intents and purposes seen everything of each other. The other challenges posed by living with Scathach was the strict adherence to her rules. What Scathach said went, no matter what it was. Disobedience was met by swift punishment, with her spears being hurled at his head or an especially brutal training session. Other times it was simply a swift heel-kick to the head. He especially hated those.
Breakfast was handled by Scathach that morning. It was an unusual occurrence these days. Usually Mercer handled his own food, not because he felt he had to out of some sense of independence, but because he didn't trust Scathach not to slip some kind of explosive rune into his food. He'd been expecting her to do that since he was 12.
"Oh good, finally dragged your carcass down here did you?" Scathach said without looking at him. Mercer pulled a face at her behind her back. "You keep pulling that face I'll make sure it stays that way." She warned pointing a spatula.
"You're crabby this morning, hag." He noted. He narrowly dodged the very same spatula as it flew past his face and embedded itself into the wall, shaving off some of the hairs from his lion's mane.
"I can't imagine why. Could be something to do with my idiot student dragging his feet when he knows he's going to be late." She shook her head. "And I thought I had trained you better than this."
"I've told you, I'd rather hone my skills here than mingle with the rabble and learn things I'll never need to use. I'm a Magus, and your star pupil. I'm meant for greater things." He huffed. "On top of that, I'm an Emperor. I decide if I am late whatever time I turn up."
He placed a foot on one of the dining room chairs and began laughing pompously. His fists were placed against his hips, his chest puffed out as he threw his head back. Scathach casually came to the table, placed Mercer's breakfast on the table, then smacked him upside the head, swiftly silencing him. His expression rather quickly went from smug to confused as his ears rang and he could feel a welt rising on his head.
"You are still just some punk kid with too much power to play with. Until you can best me, that's how I will always see you. So until that day comes you will do as you're told." Though she was still facing away from him, he knew the face she wore. She wasn't joking. Though it pained him, she was right. He was quite possibly the strongest human alive, but Scathach's strength would crush him several times over. She was a superior warrior to him in every way, even in her runecraft. His pride took a crushing blow whenever he had to admit that he was nowhere near her level.
"Hmm." He grunted. As much as he wanted to, he couldn't argue.
"That arrogance of yours will be your undoing one day. All I ask is that you let me temper that arrogance to make it a help, not a hindrance." She said with a softer tone than before.
"What is an Emperor if not arrogant?" He questioned. "With my wings I rule the sky. With my feet on the ground, I rule the Earth. Nothing is beyond my grasp."
"We shall see. There are many who make similar claims, boy. Would you face them all?" She replied, knowing his answer.
"Of course. What else would you have me do? The sky and Earth belong to me. By way of being an Emperor, these are my property to do with as I see fit." He said haughtily.
"Very well then." Scathach said. There was no changing his mind. He was set on the path of domination. All she could do was watch and guide him. There was no malice or ill intent in his words, as arrogant as they were, just a very vexing sense of entitlement.
Once they were done eating, with no exploding runes disguised as cutlets to Mercer's surprise, they stood at the entry hall as he was about to depart for school.
"Hmph, so messy." Scathach muttered as she smoothed Mercer's hair with her fingers. He had found it was pointless to resist and just let her get her fussing over and done with. Though he outwardly displayed displeasure at her fussing, he secretly liked it. Not that he would ever tell her that.
"I want you back as soon as school ends today. We're hunting tonight, so I want us to eat before we go." She said.
"One of those stray mongrel beasts?" He said in distaste.
"Yes. However, I am only going to observe. I want to see your spear work against larger prey." She replied.
"Very well. To use my Balance Breaker for such a thing is a waste of energy anyway. Not to mention insulting to Albion. To dirty her mail with the blood of those vermin would be unforgivable." He spat.
"Alright. Have a good day." Scathach said before waving him off. She watched him go and chuckled as she shook her head. What a troublesome pupil he was. He was fantastically talented and bright, but his arrogance and pride would make any Devil king blush. At the very least, his behaviour in that manner towards her was mostly playful. Were he undiluted in his arrogance towards her, she'd have made a pincushion of him years ago.
In all of her time as the 'ideal instructor', as her many students had called her, she had never had just one student. There were always two or several at a time, never a lone pupil. Over the years, she found she quite enjoyed one-on-one teaching. It allowed for her to put more effort into crafting a single truly exceptional warrior, as opposed to several great ones. Though Setanta was an exception to that. In conjunction to that, she enjoyed the simple day to day of living with another as an ordinary person would, something she couldn't do in the Land of Shadows.
With him gone and her alone once more, she went about her own tasks for the day. One being setting up some traps for that idiot student of hers when he came home.
Conrad hated being surrounded by the lesser masses he attended school with. For all of his declarations of superiority, for the sake of an easy school life, he kept his speeches of self aggrandisement largely to himself. Instead, he let his academic achievements and performance in sports speak of his superiority.
Though what was irksome was that while it garnered some attention, no one actually cared. Though they feigned interest, students would swarm him to speak to him. His natural charisma and the aura about him that Albion produced drew people to him. But he knew it was all fakery to gain his favour. No one seemed able to truly recognise him as their better.
The bell beckoned the end of the day to his relief. As students piled out of the school in droves, he noticed he and only two others remained.
Amongst the third year students, he was one of very few male students since Kuoh Academy turned coed. As such, he had been in close proximity to the two 'idols' of the school, Rias Gremory and her close friend Akeno Himejima.
As it was the nearing the end of the first school term, the school clubs were filling their last spaces for the term. The two were discussing something rather animatedly, with the glances in his direction not going unnoticed by him.
As he grabbed his bag and made to, the crimson haired Rias Gremory addressed him.
"Conrad? A moment of your time?" She asked. He stopped and regarded her. He had worked close to her many times throughout his time at Kuoh, but never had much of a need to speak to her. Undoubtedly she was a beautiful spectacle, but Mercer found himself largely uninterested in her.
"Mercer will do." He replied. "Do you need something?" He asked cordially.
"I'm sure you're aware that we're near the end of the term now. That means clubs are filling up and we noticed your name isn't down for any of them. We were wondering if you had any clubs in mind." She said.
"No." He replied flatly.
"Well, the Occult Research Club still has open spaces if you're interested." Though he didn't think it would, it slightly teased his interest. Though he doubted that a high school club would really delve into the occult, he thought the idea was novel enough to at least look at what they were doing. As he had extensive knowledge of the occult, he found the idea rather cute.
"Occult research, eh? Do elaborate." He prompted. Victory shone in Rias' eyes for a moment before she spoke.
"Our club is dedicated to debunking urban myths, researching Youkai, folklore, and the influences of magic and superstition." She summarised.
"Anything on Jewish Kabbalism? Or the Ars Goetia and the 72 demons of King Solomon?" He asked.
"I think you might just be better fit than we first thought." Rias said happily.
"See, told you he might surprise you." Akeno chimed in.
Though Scathach had given him a strict instruction to head straight home, he was admittedly a little bit intrigued by her offer. Hmph, he was an Emperor, dammit! He was the rules!
"Very well, I am willing to at least see what your club can offer me. Where is your club based?" He asked.
"The old school house. You know where that is, right?" Rias said.
"Of course." He had to stop is tone from being a biting one. He didn't know, but she dared assume he didn't? Granted, he'd been at Kuoh for a while, so suddenly being confronted with not knowing where it was embarrassing him, though he hid it well. "I am busy this evening, so I will need to make this visit brief."
"That's fine. We just want you to see the place and introduce yourself." Akeno said. Mercer nodded silently and followed the two to their little club, fully expecting to be disappointed.
Scathach was a rather patient warrior. She had to be in order to be an effective combatant, but it was also a gift received by age. Patience had time to set in one's mind when they were over two millennia old. However, her patience always wavered when it came to her students. Especially her best and brightest. She expected great things from them; tardiness and inability to follow a simple instruction were two not so great things.
She sat quietly, calmly seething as she readied a metaphorical Gae Bolg to immediately hit her idiot pupil with when he got home. All of his talk of being so great and he couldn't even come home on time.
Before her and in front of the seat opposite where she sat were two bowls of beef udon. She had gone out of her way to make Mercer's favourite before their hunt, and he had the nerve to be late. Though she did find it both strange and amusing that despite his sense of grandeur, his taste in food was rather simple in comparison.
As soon as she heard the latch of the door click open, her eyes snapped open and focused on the hallway he would approach from. She waited for several moments. She heard him enter, close the door behind him, then several regularly paced steps, but he suddenly slowed down, then stopped.
He didn't cross the threshold into the dining room. She raised an eyebrow as she knew, being the idiot boy he was, he finally acknowledged that he was in trouble. It satisfied her to know that at least she made disobeying her something he regretted doing, be it sooner or later.
"Boy." She called out.
"Boy isn't here." Was the reply.
"Come here. Now." Her order was met with silence. "Boy!" Her patience was wearing thin.
"You're just gonna get mad at me." He said.
"And I will get even more mad at you if you don't come in here and sit down." She said sternly.
"Are you going to shout?" He asked cautiously.
"What?"
"Are you going to shout at me?" He repeated.
"Boy, you and I both know I do not need to shout." She answered.
She had taught Mercer for almost over a decade that the alternatives to obeying her were all both painful and unpleasant. He would find himself in her better graces if he stopped acting like a naughty child and sat down.
Make no mistake, under her tutelage he had become a fearsome warrior with his body, spear, and runes. Not to mention the massive boost that Albion gave him alongside his own inherited magical ability and reserves. But for the love of Lugh and all his light shined on, the boy's childish antics would have anyone fooled.
"Are you going to let this beef udon that I spent all afternoon on, making it just how you like it, go to waste?" Got him. As soon as he peered around the corner, it was hook line and sinker. She even fluttered her eyelashes and went so far as to look sad. She knew that wouldn't work, he only cared about the food, but she felt it was a nice touch.
He muttered something. "What was that?" She asked.
"No." He mumbled slightly louder.
"Good. Now sit down." She instructed. He did so but still kept his gaze down. Honestly, with all of his bluster, no one would believe he would act like this. Though it did make Scathach feel rather pleased that only she could make such a fiercely ambitious and proud personality come to heel. Not that she enjoyed it or anything. Honest.
"You're quite fortunate that we're hunting tonight, or my heel would have met the back of your head the moment you opened that door." She said as they ate.
"Of that I've no doubt, master." He said before another mouthful.
"My familiars have told me about the Stray Devil we're looking for. It seems to have made its home in the industrial district, using one of the shipping warehouses as a den." Scathach said after a couple of minutes of silence. Having a ghost army came in useful sometimes. Though in the modern era, she don't really have a use for the souls in the Land of Shadows.
"Oh good. Anything else?" Mercer asked.
"The ghosts told me that it killed its master and has been on the run ever since. It could be linked to some of the disappearances of late. I wouldn't be surprised." She said.
"How did they find that out?" He asked.
"They have heard it muttering to itself. Going on about its King, and how it 'didn't want this to happen', or so it says." Scathach replied.
"Think there could be more?"
"It's possible." She said. "Only, most Stray Devils come from fledgling Peerages. So it's unlikely."
The two finished their food and prepared to leave. Mercer grabbed his runes, one of which was for summoning his spear to him from any distance. Scathach's casual wear was enveloped in shadows and replaced with her dark, form-fitting bodysuit with black steel boots and greaves. Gae Bolg, the spear of mortal pain carved from the skull of the serpent Curruid, erupted into existence in her hands in a flash of crimson light.
"When you graduate me from being your student, do I have to walk around in a spandex suit like a pervert too?" He asked flatly.
"Ask a question like that again and you won't have to worry about walking around much at all." She replied, her tone just as flat.
"My, my, if you take everything so seriously, your youth will slip away. Oh, wait." He laughed, and kept laughing as Scathach chased him out of the house and down the empty street, throwing her many spears at him as she did.
High above, overlooking the night skyline of Kuoh Town, and the distant skyscrapers in the neighbouring city, Mercer and Scathach scanned the the industrial district with both eyes and spectres. The young student of Scathach held a steady position in the air as Albion's wings stretched four metres outward to his flanks from his back.
The master stood at the peak of an aircraft warning light, balanced with perfect poise with Gae Bolg in hand.
"Anything?" Mercer asked as he stretched his physical and mystic senses looking for the Stray Devil.
"If I'd found it, I wouldn't tell you. This is your hunt." She said with a hint of amusement.
"Hmph. Hag." He taunted. "Very well, I will take to the ground and tear through every one of these warehouses if I must." He dove toward the ground and sharply turned and began flying in between the large storage units. Scathach chuckled quietly before seemingly vanishing from her position in a single massive burst of supernatural speed.
For roughly half an hour Mercer searched the warehouses, entering by kicking a hole through the roof and landing on the catwalk above the concrete floor. He would generate a ball of light with his mana and cast it out into the centre of the warehouse, where it would float and illuminate the space.
He did this for two rows of warehouses out of five, and he was losing his patience. Where could some mangy Stray Devil hide as to avoid his keen senses? He refused to believe that a filthy creature like that could outwit him.
As he stood in thought, he felt something. His stretched magical senses felt what he could only describe as a vibration, like a fly touching a spiders web. It was coming from a storage warehouse on the next row, second to last on the left. He smirked and leisurely drifted towards it.
"Found you, damn mongrel." He summoned the power within him, the mana that flowed through him manifested as it stirred. Large, brilliantly shining white magic circles drew themselves on the air at Mercer's back with painstaking intricacy. They were separated into three circles, the outer being the largest, and the inner being the smallest. Between the circles were runes and glyphs of various origins; Norse, Celtic, Hebrew amongst others.
A small storm of fist sized bolts of mana shot from the casting circles at Mercer's back and perforated the roof of the shipping warehouse. The sound was like hail striking metal, and it echoed throughout the district.
He waited for a moment as he waited for the dust kicked up by the collapsing pieces of the units roof hitting the concrete floor.
"You can either come out and face me, or run and annoy me. The choice is yours." He called out. He heard no response, but suddenly and without notice, his prey leapt out from the dust straight at him.
It raked its claws at him. It would have sliced his chest to ribbons had he not moved in surprise. Rather than persist in its attack, it hit the ground running, rounding a corner and sprinting away. Mercer scowled and took off after it. Behind him, eyes keen and no intent of pursuit, Scathach watched.
The Stray Devil ran, its large, lumbering form sped its way between the storage units on its four limbs. It didn't know what was chasing it. It didn't feel like an Angel or one of the Fallen. It didn't feel like a Devil either.
It felt like magical energy. The type that belonged to a Magus, though there was also a slight feeling it didn't quite know. It felt like nothing it had experienced before. It was ancient and powerful, but somehow reduced.
"You dare turn your back on me?" It heard its pursuer call. It carried on, turning corners and looping back at random to escape from its seemingly relentless pursuer.
It didn't understand why it was being chased in the first place. It knew that Devils would have reason to hunt it. The area was deemed to be Gremory territory. There were Fallen Angels in the area too, and they made sport out of hunting Stray Devils.
"Found you!" The Stray Devil was startled and was slammed into the side of a storage warehouse. The steel wall caved under its weight as it crashed violently into it.
Mercer landed and dismissed Albion's wings at speed. He reinforced his body; his flesh became like Kevlar as mana weaved itself under his skin. His bones were latticed with mana, making them stronger than steel as his magical power formed crystalline structures within them. His muscles and tendons became like steel cables, able to pull taught and exert force like no human should be able. His nervous system and synapses were strengthened and coated with mana to better communicate his thoughts and actions, making him faster and more precise.
He called his spear rune to his hand and clenched his fist around it. He let a pulse of mana flow down his arm and into his hand. The rune vibrated for a moment, then in a burst of light as Mercer opened his hand, his own spear materialised.
It was a spear fashioned by a process Magi used called Manaforming. It was similar to Scathach's Gae Bolg, as it was enchanted with deadly effects, though its physical form was different and it was pearlescent white in colour. The spear shined blue under the LED lights edging the rooftops of the warehouses.
The weapon itself was close to seven feet in length, appearing to be made of a bone-like or chitinous material. Its blade was three feet long, making the weapons seem like a sword with a too long handle. At the blade's base were quillons and two ring guards, the four making something akin to compass points. Raised embossings like vines wound the length of the shaft. The bottom of the spear was tapered to a lethal point, with the blade preceding the point being jagged.
"You had the audacity to turn your back to me. I don't take kindly to such insults, filth." Mercer said scowling.
The Stray Devil stood up, pulling its various spines from the metal it had collided with. It glowered down at the Magus when it was at its full height. It was a towering beast, at least twice Mercer's height. Matted black fur like knotted wreaths of flame covered it's arms and shoulders. Its arms ended in gnarled, boney claws. Its body was of muscular grey flesh with shallow black veins pumping ink-like ichor through its body. It's legs were like that of a dog, digitigrade with the paws just as clawed as its hands, though the lethal digits were shorter.
It's skull was like that of a horse, though the teeth were wicked fangs, disturbingly there were too many to fit into its mouth, so its jaw hung open. No eyes filled the sockets, only minuscule red beads that glowed like red dwarfs in the void of space.
"So who hunts me? Angel? Devil? Fallen?" It asked, its jaw not moving with its words. It was a mouth incapable of human speech. Its body was tense and ready to pounce.
"None of that sort, beast. Though tonight you should be honoured that you die by human hands." Mercer replied. For a moment the Stray was silent. It turned its head to the side, then back again. Then it laughed. Two voices came from a single throat.
"So a human comes to claim my life?" Its tone was incredulous. "Would it be a trophy you look for then? Though I must admit, you're brave to face me so self assuredly."
"I'm no normal human. I am a Magus, and you, mongrel, would do well to remember that while I allow it." Mercer snarled.
"Materials then, not trophies." It said.
"There's nothing I want from you. However, I do want to test Gae Ban on you." Mercer replied as he idly spun the weapon between his fingers.
"Then you hunt me for sport?" Its voice shook. "But why? My King warned me about Magi and their ruthless hunting for materials, but he said nothing about wanton extermination."
"It's simple. You're dirtying the ground that belongs to me by standing on it. The air you breath is made foul; air that belongs to me also." Mercer said. "I also don't take kindly to you killing my future subjects."
"Just what are you? Who are you to say these things? The ground belongs to you? Ridiculous!" It hissed. The glowing stars in its eye sockets intensified their glow momentarily.
"Silence!" He roared. "Filth like you has no right to voice your opinions or your thoughts, especially in regards to my rule. I have wasted enough time talking to you. You should feel honoured." Mercer set into his spear stance. It came naturally with years of Scathach's rigorous training. He set his set shoulder width apart and bent his knees. His right hand rested under the spear guards and the left rested on the shaft at the latter end of the spear with the blade pointed toward the ground.
"Whatever you claim to be, you sound like nothing but a tyrant." The Stray spat. "My human life was surrounded by people who sounded just like you. It was people like you…" its voice lowered into a guttural growl. "…that made into this!" With its roar, its dark blue tongue lashed from its mouth and it launched itself at Mercer.
For its size, it was incredibly fast. Deceptively so. Mercer considered the possibility, and it was a strong one, that this mangy beast had been a Knight in its peerage.
"Then you've nothing but your own weakness to blame. If you were to die, then have the strength, or at least some dignity to stay human." He dodged around it's swiping claws and flourishes the spear. The pearlescent blade sliced through toughened skin and cable-like muscle.
The Stray's claws only found purchase in the ground to Mercer's flanks as they cut gashes into the concrete. With the Magus was under it, it snapped its jaws at him. The clusters of razor teeth would have bitten him in half had he not thrust Gae Ban above his head and split the skeletal snout in two and smashed its frontal upper teeth from its mouth.
It's head snapped back and chips of tooth bounced off of Mercer's head and shoulders. As it made to place its clawed hands on the ground, Mercer side kicked it in the abdomen. It's lack of balance and the sudden impact mad it roll awkwardly on it's back.
Wordlessly it roared and climbed back to its standing height. It pushed off from its back legs and slashed wildly at the air. Mercer met its efforts and leapt into the air above the creature. He lanced his spear down into its back between its shoulders, soaking the dark tousled fur with its black blood. It swung its arms around in an attempt to reach its back, but its arms were too long and too clumsy to reach the nimble Magus.
"Stop toying with me!" It bellowed. Mercer was taken by surprise as it stopped thrashing and a sudden sound of bone snapping and reforming met his ears as honey spines shot from its back. He leapt, but not before one of the spines pierced his hand before he could fully get away.
"Very well then. You bore me." Mercer hissed. He resumed his assault, stabbing and slashing at the Stray Devil. He leapt over its swipes and stabbed at its hands and arms. When it would leap at him, he would flourish his spear and dodge, carving deep gashes into its torso and back.
It slashed low in an attempt to sever his legs at the knee, but Mercer had been anticipating such a move and jumped over it, then axe kicked the top of its head as he came down. The impact splintered and cracked the horse skull and black ichor spewed from the cracks. Its jaw struck the ground and clacked its jaws together, breaking and chipping its multitude of fangs.
Dazed, bleeding, and hopeless, the Stray Devil lay there as a perforated, sliced mess on the ground. Mercer held Gae Ban in front of him. A white light radiated from both him and the weapon.
He lowered his stance and the spear. Its tip was still pointed at the creature and the light intensified. The spearhead began to tremble as it became blinding to look at.
"Finish it. Gae Ban!" He called as if ordering the spear to act. The air in front of Mercer was momentarily made into a hot vortex as a sonic boom sounded. Seemingly the spear did nothing, but the result was the body of the Stray Devil exploding. It's back and the top of its skull were utterly obliterated as what remained was a corpse that looked as it it had a very neat semi-circle blasted out of it.
Bone chunks, brain matter, black blood, and organ paste plastered the exteriors of the surround buildings. The warehouse behind the dead Stray had a large circular hole punched through the back wall and the large front doors.
Mercer leant the spear against his shoulder as he place its bottom on the ground. He sighed, both in satisfaction and a hint of irritation.
"A bit much don't you think?" Scathach asked when she came to stand by Mercer.
"Perhaps. Felt pretty good though." He replied. Suddenly he was sent careening into the warehouse wall to his left. He made a rather respectable dent that he sat in feeling rather confused.
"What do I keep telling you about collateral damage you idiot?" Scathach said. Her voice wasn't raised. Such a thing was unnecessary for her.
"Well what do you call this?" Mercer replied indignantly as he gestured to the dent he sat in.
"It's pointless being careful now. You didn't need to unleash Gae Ban for something like this." She scolded.
"I suppose. That thing certainly didn't deserve the privilege of tasting its power, but I haven't used it in a while. I felt like it." He said.
"Well, unnecessary displays and collateral damage aside, you did well. It's harder fighting with restrictions, and I wanted you to know first hand in a real situation." She said, her tone returning to its usual calm.
He nodded earnestly. "Yes. It is. Fighting without using my magic for direct combat is more difficult. Being human, this will surely help me survive in future." He said. Despite how his attitude came across most of the time, he took the lessons Scathach had to teach very seriously.
"Very good." She awarded him a smile. "Now then, we should return home and see to your hand. The wound might be shallow, but I wouldn't doubt for a second that there was something on that spine." She said.
"Good idea. The throbbing in my hand is uncomfortable." Mercer said as he shook the afflicted hand.
The master and student duo made their way out of the industrial district chatting amiably between each other. As they did, the jewel green eyes of Rias Gremory watched them go.
Conrad Mercer, her third year classmate, suddenly became an awful lot more interesting. She thought he had known more than the average high schooler about the occult, but to be a Magus and single handedly defeat a Stray Devil, she was sure she had just struck gold.
"Akeno, invite him to the club tomorrow. There's something I'd like to discuss with him, but I need to prepare some things." She said to her best friend and Queen of her Peerage.
"Will do. Who would have guessed he'd be a Magus? Then again, I suppose hiding their existence is a hallmark of their kind." The dark haired girl said. Her interest was piqued as magic was her specialty.
"You sound excited." Rias noted. The crimson haired Devil had learned during their time together that there was little difference in casual excitement and carnal arousal to Akeno.
"Just a bit of the tingles is all. I'm curious just how strong his magic is and what he can really do with it." She said, touching her fingers to her lips as she smiled.
"Well, should things go to plan, you'll have all the time in the world to learn what you want from him." The Gremory King said. "Let's go home for now. I'm sure the others will want to know what we've seen tonight."
Mercer stopped and turned at the threshold of the industrial district. He felt like he was being watched. Scathach felt it too as she cast him a knowing look. It took some time for his senses to readjust when he stretched them as much as he did looking for that Stray Devil, so he couldn't quite pinpoint where or what it was. However, if Scathach deemed it a threat, she would have said so.
He had a feeling something had changed, and he would feel the effects of it from tomorrow onward.
Here it is. The beginning of the Chess Game Of Life rewrite. Now, I know there are a few stark changes with how things work. So, the elephant in the room, the Fate Scathach will feature prominently in this story. Why? I felt it worked for some reason. Plus she's just a pretty cool character in general. Mercer has a different name as I'm sure you noticed, and his attitude is way different. For anyone who didn't read the final update for Chess Game Of Life, I did state that Mercer's attitude and personality would change. He will be less likeable, but hopefully not to an extreme degree. Think of a mix between Gilgamesh and Gin Ichimaru, for those of you who know these characters. Also the dynamics of how he will act towards other characters and his relationships with them will change. So for now, enjoy the fresh start. Review, fav, follow, all that good stuff.
Gae Ban: White Spear.