Blazing Devils: Vive la résistance
Prologue
Cincinnati, Ohio
In one of the city's funeral parlors, a man with effeminate facial features stood over a coffin containing a brown-haired woman in a fancy dress. The man had long, waist-length silver hair tied with a ribbon and shone as if light by a fire while his eyes were shut tightly, trying to stem off the flow of tears. He wore a black coat embroidered with angelic and devilish imagery. Under his coat was a two-tone charcoal gray and white three-piece suit that was custom-tailored for his frame. Under the sleeves of his coat he wore fingerless patent leather gloves while matching knee-high riding boots adorned his feet.
This was Francois Laurent, also known as Semiazas, the Devil of the Black Wings, and as he opened his eyes, they were revealed to be a reddish-gold that seemed to glow in the rather dim lighting of the parlor. He looked down into the coffin, grief etched deep into his eyes as he beheld the body of his deceased wife, Bianna.
At his side stood two women, one with dark brunette hair and the other bluish-black, one with a moderately pale complexion and green eyes while the other was tanned and had violet eyes. Both wore blouses and pants with heels. These two were Valentina and Katina, two Hell Knights sworn into Francois' service for saving them from being enslaved and sold as sex toys, the two She-devils had a hand on either of Francois' shoulders, comforting their Lord in his grief.
As he stood there, his grief became too much to bear even for his demonic heart, so he brushed her hair with his left hand one last time, kissed her forehead, and walked out, to never see her again.
Laurent Home, Outside Cincinnati
Francois sat in an ornately embroidered saddle astride a massive warhorse who's coat was a deep and dark green and was matched with black feathers and mane as he watched the coffin containing Bianna's body be lowered into the ground, a trio of women by his side. The first was a silver-haired woman wearing a business suit with stiletto heels, while the other two wore a blouse with a skirt, the larger of the two women wearing knee-high riding boots while the other wore heels. The one in boots had dark brown hair and green eyes while the other had blond hair and blue eyes. The Silver-haired woman was a demon seductress named Kitty, the woman in boots was the half-giantess Sinmara, while the blond was an angel named Angelina.
After the priest finished his sermon, Francois very lightly nudged the massive horse forward before dismounting, depositing a handful of dirt on Bianna's coffin and mounting back up, his reddish-gold eyes now slitted as the grief kept hitting harder and harder. After everything was done, he rode up to a nearby hill and looked over the land, at the two-story cabin he and Bianna had lived in, raised their four children, and turned into a very successful bed and breakfast, at the stables that had been used as his warhorse's home for the last 3 decades, the garden that they had grown all of their fruits and vegetables in, and finally the cellar that served as Francois' personal armoury, holding every weapon he'd ever purchased or won inside of his 2 and a half century long life.
He carried different sets of them on him depending on what kind of mission he might face. He was even carrying one of those sets on him now, a set designed for putting up the maximum amount of hot lead in a short period.
Looking at the garden, he remembered one of the times he and Bianna had fought with gophers and moles, the rascally rodents turning the garden into an impromptu game of whack-a-mole that had left Francois' coughing smoke with his normally calm personality shattered and Bianna laughing up a storm. Francois had been forced to send a lightning bolt through the mole-hills in an effort to kill the rodents, only for the blast to strangely zap him too after following the tunnels. He'd shut her up by leaning over and crushing his lips onto hers, causing a make out session that had their eldest son, Royce, coughing and sputtering after he caught them.
Shaking his head to clear his thoughts, he pulled back on the reins, the massive horse neighing loudly before galloping away, throwing up clods of grass and dirt with Valentina and Katina astride their own horses following him without question.
The people in attendance at the funeral looked up when they heard the neigh, watching as the widowed husband rode away and the sky, filled with heavy clouds, released it's burden and covered the land in rain, as if the heavens themselves shared the devil's grief.
Francois continued to ride, the rain strangely soothing his soul as he flared his mana, opening up a portal to an unknown location. His expression became cold and uncaring as he rode through, the portal vanishing almost as soon as the three horses' tails went through.
Meanwhile, on the floating Island of Albion
After the defeat of the royal family, the political situation of the nation of Albion could be described as Chaos, put simply. Nobles were turning against each other, not one army was truly united, and the troops were in turmoil. Reconquista, a group of ambitious nobles that had led the anti-royalists, in a mad attempt to retain their power and influence, had oppressed and persecuted anyone who was even suspected of plotting against them. Those who's families were suspected of treason were often taken to labor camps as hostages in order to spread fear and paranoia amongst the common people. In one of the western provinces a village had all of it's women and children taken away after a chieftain was falsely accused of assisting the royalists during the rebellion. Needless to say, the chieftain suffered an even worse punishment. The nobles publicly executed the poor man and displayed his corpse as an example to all of those who dare question Reconquista's regime. With fear, paranoia, and hatred for the government running high, the situation in Albion was a powder keg laced with nitroglycerin just waiting for a good hard shock.
At the same moment, an inhabitant of the aforementioned village was in the woods hunting for deer in preparation for the coming winter. He had already sighted his prey and drew his smoothbore rifle up to his cheek, narrowing his sights on the unsuspecting buck. He exhaled slowly and fired. A shot rang out and echoed across the valley as the lead ball tore through the buck's neck, killing it almost instantly. He pumped a fist into the air, exhilarated by his own success. He went to retrieve his prize when, suddenly, a ghostly neigh echoed through the woods.
Jerking his head to see where it had come from, he saw a giant black horse come galloping out of the early morning fog, with a silver-haired man riding it. The man wore a strange coat that seemed to flutter behind him as the horse suddenly reared and gave a neigh. The man riding the horse had a look on his face that said he didn't care about anyone or anything, though the man with the rifle could see pain in those reddish-gold eyes.
Alongside the silver-haired man was two women, one with dark brown hair and the other bluish-black.
"I am Francois Laurent, and you?" the horseman asked as he introduced himself, the hunter noticing the apathetic tone the man used, which made a chill go up and down his spine.
"Dubois, Brice Dubois." the hunter, Brice, replied.