Chapter 2: Advancing Tides
AUTHOR'S NOTE: This is an experiment on shorter, more concise and often chapters. Tell me what you think of the idea of weekly or bi-weekly chapters of about 2.5k words rather than monthly 5k+ chapters.
He walked through the cesspool that was the city, his face hidden behind a long concealing cloak.
In the distance he could hear the clacking of horse hooves against the cobblestone, the drunken bawling of the people, and other noises one associated with London 1666. Tilting his head upwards he stared at the sky, a part of him longing for white marble halls of his former home, but then his eyes drifted to the moon. Tonight would be perfect, there were no clouds floating across the heavens and the full moon loomed overhead. Looking around he surveyed the den of sin that he was traveling through, and what a den it was. He had never seen so much sin since the days of Sodom and Gomorrah, since the power of his Lord had turned the cities into barren wastelands. It shamed him to think that they had been unable to find even 10 good men in that city, and for the sin that had perverted the people into beasts they were judged. As a man he had lead the purging of his fellows, and as a loyal servant of the Lord he had rained down Heaven's Judgment upon the two cities.
The last time such power had been rained down God had sent his angels to destroy the tower of Babel.
When he had finished there was nothing but a clean and barren waste, his power cracking and turning the ground to glass and sand.
But for all the sin that the humans had been infected with, he knew the true cause of their vices.
Devils.
Those original Fallen that God had cast out, and like a bad wound had festered in the pits of the Underworld, before branching out and converting those that they met. Humans had turned into demons, making deals with devils for the power that they wielded, gleefully sacrificing their immortal souls as well as any hope for salvation in exchange for a bit of power. The deal to turn a human into a Demon was one that still made him shudder in disgust and shame, his mind unable to fully comprehend the depths that some would sink to.
To turn a human into a demon required an act that would stain the soul black. Murder and rape, were the two he had seen the most. He had heard stories of how fathers raped daughters before killing them and their unborn child all in order to forge a pact with a devil. How mothers would rape sons before sacrificing both their sons as well as their wombs to birth hell spawn. That perversion as well as the sins that they had committed had led to them being damned to the deepest pits of Hell. He had grown disillusioned with his fellow man, seeing them given so much only to fail every time, and though few turned to demons anymore, what was going on now was almost as bad.
The Evil Pieces.
Items that allowed a Devil to create more of their own kind, and their target of choice were humans blessed by his Lord. He would not allow such an affront to his Lord to continue! Humans had been gifted with Sacred Gears in order to defend themselves against other Pantheons as well as Devils, and yet there was now an overwhelming amount of Devils who commanded the power that God had given to his chosen people.
It was Unforgiveable!
And it was for that he was here walking in this cesspool of a city. His contact had told him that there was a powerful Demon possessing a sacred gear preying on the dregs of society. So here he was in Whitechappel stalking an unknown Demon, with less than ideal information, all the while nursing a worsening headache. The only thing he knew was that all the exorcists the church had sent to deal with it had never reported back, and after losing so many the church had finally discretely posted an open bounty on the creature through several back channels.
Grumbling to himself he pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket and checked the address to where his partner for this mission was supposed to be.
She should be around here. He thought to himself as he looked around the area. He was so engrossed in his search that he almost missed the presence coming up from behind him, and it was only thanks to his Lord's will that he dove forward, narrowly missing an attack that would've pierced his vitals.
"Well what do we have here?" A sickly voice asked, as he spun around, an arming sword appearing in his right hand as a kite shield attached itself to his left arm.
"So the kitty has claws does it?" The voiced mockingly cackled.
Banging the crossguard of his sword against the shield, the blade pointed skyward, refusing to fall for the mocking of the Demon.
A ball of light shot forth from the tip of his sword rising 10 feet into the air before exploding and bathing the entire area in light.
"Gahhh!" The demon hissed, as its sensitive eyes were hit by the equivalent of a flashbang. He had no such issues as he got his first good look at the demon.
Demons were almost always unique in both their appearance as well as their powers and he wasn't disappointed by what he saw. The one in front of him had purple leather skin as well as an insectoid almost carapace-like armor to it. It was crouched on all fours but what was unique was the fact that it had a second pair or arms this one instead of ending in five dexterous digits ended in three claw like fingers. Its face was oddly human yet strikingly different, it had a massive and currently unhinged jaw with thin stiletto-like teeth. A long red tongue snaked out of its mouth dripping acid like spit that hissed and sizzled against the pavement, and it had ridges on its forehead that similar to overlapping plates. The back of its skull flared out to either encompass a larger brain or the fact that it was simply armored to prevent attacks from getting through. What was most distinct though were the ruby red eyes that glowed with hate and malice.
He wasted no time as he dismissed his sword and created a javelin out of Holy Light. It barely took him a second to create the weapon and within 3 seconds the javelin had taken flight from his hand, crossed the distance between them and taken the head off the demon. Amateur. He thought, watching the body slowly be destroyed, yet he didn't drop his guard. This had been too easy, a Demon of this level could've easily been dealt with by a standard exorcist yet none had managed to do so. Either the level of the Exorcists had considerably dropped since he had served, or this Demon had some sort of ability.
The answer to his question would come a moment later when an identical demon would appear, pouncing on him from above, its claws bearing down on him. He held his blade up, allowing gravity to do all the work for him, as he swung his shield to the side in a single count. The Demon was impaled through his Holy Blade as the shield deflected its arms out of the way, protecting him from harm. Tearing his blade free from its body he kicked the corpse through a nearby wall before pointing his sword at it and letting loose a cone of white light that reduced the Demon to ash. This is more than regeneration. He thought dodging yet another clumsy strike from the Demon. Is it some sort of Sacred Gear? The demon he was facing was cut down with a single stroke of his blade.
They have mass to them, so it's not an illusion. He was fighting the fourth one when he felt something in the air shift, and he immediately leapt, taking to the air just in time to avoid an attack from the shadows. Oh no. He thought seeing the 6 identical forms of the Demon in front of him, and realizing exactly what it was that had killed the exorcists. It wasn't through skill but through sheer numbers and attrition, all caused by a high-class Sacred Gear.
Trickster's Gamble. He thought grimly. The base form of the gear allowed the wielder to create two copies of themselves and if the wrong copy was attacked then the copy would double almost like a hydra. There were no recorded limits to the multiplication and the only way to stop the copies from doubling was to strike and eliminate the original. The worse part was that the copies each held a similar intelligence to the original.
This city may be lost to us. He thought sadly, as dozens of Demons appeared and began to flee towards the more populated parts of the city.
Snap! Crack!
The demons fell apart into tiny pieces as a purple net appeared in the entrance to the alley.
"What!?" The demon hissed staring at its doubles failing to regenerate. He did not respond as he continued to activate his own ability. "Kill him now!" Dozens of demons descended on him, only to be turned to ash as he unleashed his own attack.
"How?" The demon asked seeing all of its doubles slowly being destroyed by the cleansing Light he unleashed.
He took a step forward, his sword turning white as it glowed with divine power. "I refuse to die like this!" The demon jeered, as over a hundred clones appeared all over the roofs and began to scatter. "You might be immune to my attacks, but the rest of the people in this city aren't!"
"You poor deluded fool." For the first time since the fight began he spoke. The demon bristled at the comment, made in such a way that it the speaker was stating the obvious. Like the sky is blue or that the sun is bright.
A hundred spears materialized overhead and each speared a demon. Tch. He thought as each demon burst and created an additional two copies.
"You can't catch all of us!" It mocked, the rest of the sentence cut off into a gurgle as a spear of light pierced its throat.
"What's taking so long?" A smoky and sultry voice asked. A woman, appeared out of the shadows, radiating sexuality and power, her black leather clothes while not revealing were tight against his skin, giving him an idea of the succulent flesh underneath. Looking at her made one think of the darker aspects of pleasure and sex, the domination and submission, the mind numbing pleasure that made men and women putty. She had long dark purple hair and a superior smirk as she stared at him dispatching the Demon in front of him. To call her beautiful was an insult, as words were unable to fully describe her magnificence, and in her glory days she was spoken in reverent tones, her beauty often compared against her rival, Gabriel. This was his partner, the Fallen Cadre Penemue. "I'm getting bored." She yawned covering her mouth with one dainty glove covered hand.
"A pest refuses to die." He answered, dismissing his sword and taking to the air. She followed him up, 10 magnificent wings the color of the blackest night sprouting from her back. Hovering above her head was a perverse mockery of her Holy Might, a black shadowy halo.
Channeling the Holy Light flowing through his veins he connected himself to the System that his Lord had left in place, to enact a miracle. "Then you call on the name of your god, and I will call on the name of the Lord. The god who answers by fire – he is God. Lord, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, let it be known today that you God in Israel and that I am your Servant, and have done all these things at your command. Answer me, Lord, answer me, so these people will know that you, Lord, are God and that you are turning their hearts back again." Raising his hand high into the sky he let loose with a clear commanding voice that shook the entire city of London. "Then the fire of the Lord fell and burned up the sacrifice, the wood, the stones, and the soil, and also licked up the water in the trench!"
From the sky fire began to rain down upon the city.
It wasn't so much meteors as thousands of spears of Holy Light crashed into the medieval city of London inside the old Roman City Wall, where the demons had begun to congregate and feast on the inhabitants.
"Let justice be done though the Heavens should fall." Penemue said solemnly
"You're 100 years too early to be quoting Adams." He responded, and for three days and three nights from the Lord's Day to Wednesday the two hovered, standing vigil while raining down Divine Judgment upon the heretical Demons. After the third day the attack waned and finally abated. No trace of the Demon remained.
They had watched the humans attempting to combat the Divine fires, to little avail. Lines of men carried buckets of water from the Thames while others swung firehooks breaking down the buildings in an attempt to make a firebreak. He had smirked as several made a makeshift bomb out of hastily gathered gunpowder in an attempt to take down one of the larger buildings. While they might've had some success against the Divine fire, it did little to delay the inevitable holocaust, and at sunrise on the fourth day the sun peeked above the horizon to reveal a devastated city. Most of the old city had been gutted, and even the mighty Cathedral of St. Paul was not spared the devastation, as the Demons had taken sadistic pleasure in rounding corralling people into the Sacred building before setting it aflame.
"Isn't it beautiful." His companion spoke, watching the people hard at work to reclaim what they could.
"It reminds me of Rome." He shivered, remembering the days when the Great Fire had ravaged his home.
"Those were the glory days." Penemue sighed in nostalgia, crossing her arms and pushing up her generous bust.
"Maybe for you." He snorted. "But I didn't particularly enjoy being hunted down and forced to hide in caves in order to practice my faith."
"No I guess you didn't, my Legate." She tinkled, dodging out of the way of a spear of Holy Light. "Now, now that isn't the way to treat someone as important as I. Isn't that right…husband?"
In that moment she wondered if she had pushed him a bit too far as his eyes turned to her with both hate and resignation.