Chapter 6: Gardening

Forest:

Persephone Killgore smiled openly, humming to herself as she sauntered along behind Nero down the forest path. Birds were chirping in the trees, small animals were capering through the brush; it was really quite the nice place. And, there was a demon "crapping" seeds all over the place. She felt mildly offended by that, and she normally didn't give the slightest whit of a care for the environment. Case in point, her 'Apocalypse from the Sky' spell. She could level a continent with that, with no effort. Granted it took her a few minutes to actually cast, but still, you didn't make a spell like that if you were a tree-hugger. She figured she was more offended by the fact that she considered this place her property, or at least future property, and demon-seedlings everywhere turned a peaceful stroll through the woods into a chore.

An exaggerated, fake-weary sigh escaped her. "Nero, are you sure you know where you're going? I like long walks as much as the next girl, but at this rate it'll be dark before we find anything. And I need my beauty sleep."

Nero shot her an annoyed glare. "If you want to try flying and getting beaned out of the sky, be my guest. I'll laugh when you get hit."

She pouted, a part of her genuinely hurt by the hostility. "Now you're just being mean."

The young knight, though she was feeling less inclined to keep thinking of him that way, responded with his back to her. "Whatever." She resumed humming, and after only a few seconds Nero whirled about with a far more perturbed look to him. "And stop humming! Is that even a song?"

She mirrored the miffed look. "In point of fact it is, allow me to demonstrate."

She took a moment, centered herself, coughed lightly. Just as she started to inhale a thought crossed her mind. 'Oh my gosh, I'm about to sing, on purpose, where someone else can hear me. Something must be wrong with me…'

But, ignoring the thought, she did indeed start to sing. "Fly me to the moonand let me play among the stars. Let me see what spring is likeon Jupiter and Mars.In other words,hold my hand!In other words, Darling kiss me!" She did a little acapella to fill the space to the next verse. "Fill my heart with song,and let me sing for ever more.You are all I long for, all I worship and adore." Again, a bit of acapella. "In other words, please be true! In other words,I love you…!"

She ended the song early, both because finishing technically meant repeating the lyrics twice more, with a lot of acapella in between, and she realized that the song she had sung was really, really high up there on the 'romantic' list. Still, she had achieved the desired result. Not only did she feel a great sense of catharsis from singing aloud, for someone other than herself, but her one-man audience looked utterly dumbstruck, mouth hanging open and everything.

Smirking arrogantly, she reached out and playfully pinched the side of Nero's face. "I'm sorry, did I just blow your mind?"

It took three whole seconds for Nero to react, to feebly slap her hand away. "Uh, yeah, yeah… wow."

She brushed by the young man, drawing the index finger of her left hand across the bottom of Nero's jaw. "I know, I know, I'm amazing. Contain your enthusiasm." She kept walking for a short ways, swishing her hips a trifle more than usual, before stopping near a turn in the foliage. "You know what else, I think I'm going to do one more thing for both of our benefit." She turned her face towards her knightess. "Deva, be a dear and fly up just a little ways to point out which direction that giant demon is from here."

Obediently, the angelic demoness took off through the canopy above with a small shower of leaves and a fresh beam of sunlight. A drop in the bucket compared to what she had brewing in her head.

Nero's gaze had followed Deva up. "What are you-"

She cut him off. "Shush, let the lady do her work and then you'll see."

Deva came back down without incident, gracefully alighting like, well, an angelic envoy. Wordlessly, because she still needed to pick out an appropriate vocal style, the demoness pointed straight down the curve of the forest path.

She grinned wickedly. "Perfect." She planted the blade on her staff in the ground and brought her hands up, paused, and shot a coy glance back towards Nero. "If you thought my voice was amazing, you're really going to love this."

Violet lighting started to course through the air around her hands, as if her very flesh were made of tesla coils. She let the charge build, and build, and build some more… honestly just for show. She was channeling quite a lot of her 'level-a continent' power, and she wanted it to look suitably impressive. With poise, she drew her hands up in front of her in what could almost be called a meditative pose. In reality, it was more like the barrel of a house-sized cannon.

She smirked, just about whispering a single word for dramatic effect. "Go!"

The world to her front became a mass of violet light, complete with a booming thunder blast that by itself flattened the trees to her rear. More importantly, her one gigantic blast had cleared a direct ground route towards the snake-demon. Specifically, a three kilometer wide, twenty kilometer long swath of the forest no longer existed. That same space was now sporting nothing but a smoking, furrowed channel of flash-melted electric glass. She felt only the tiniest twinge of regret for the mass-destruction of her future property, primarily because she could just grow the mess back with magic, over a week or two.

A small breath escaped her, and a short sentence under her breath. "Phew, I, might have overdone it, just a little." She pirouetted on the spot with a grand flourish, hoping silently that her moment of fatigue would go missed. "Well? Do I work wonders or not?"

Nero wasn't saying much of anything at the moment. The young man was currently flat on his butt, back to the unyielding leg of one of her demon-knights. His expression spoke volumes though, interestingly enough not an ounce of fear. She did see astonishment, she did see disbelief, and she most certainly saw amazement. The latter buoyed her ego like a helium blimp on a potato.

She sauntered over, slowly, before stopping just far enough away that she could look down at Nero over her bosom. "Hello? I asked you a question Mister Silent-Treatment."

Eventually, after a few ashen chucks of the vaporized forest drifted down onto his head, Nero did answer, sort of. "Uh, yeah, really wonderful."

She giggled, rather loudly, and knelt down to offer the young knight a hand. "Come on, I didn't do that for you to gawk at the landscape. We have a giant demon to kill, remember?" After a few seconds, during which Nero continued to just vacantly gaze at the destruction she'd wrought, she reached out her offered hand and pet him lightly on the cheek a few times. "Hello? *whistle* Persephone to Nero?"

The young man reflexively swung at her hand, his focus dialing back in. "Pft, what the hell are you… beh…" His face went red, and his gaze dove into the dirt.

She smirked happily, not needing even a second to think about why given the time, however short, she'd known the young knight. He was at eye level, and not a third of a meter away from her womanly splendor. She didn't know precisely why she got such a kick out of making Nero feel embarrassed, but at least it was cute. There was that.

She grabbed Nero by the front of his coat and stood, hauling the young knight up with her. "Really now, how many times do I have to tell you it's ok to stare? I genuinely do not mind." She gave the, now standing, knight a light shove in the direction they were headed. "Just think about it very carefully if you get it in your head that you want to try touching."

Nero's face went an even deeper shade of red, and he spun about before hustling off as fast as he could without being considered 'running.' For her part, she followed with a huge grin plastered across her face. She actually entertained the thought, however briefly, of smacking him on the tush, just to see what he'd do. Although, he'd probably just get mad and whatever small rapport she'd built would get torn down. It'd be funny, but ultimately self-destructive. And she didn't consider herself the stupid type.

Her heels dug into the glassed ground with a sharp snap, and she muttered to herself. "Oh dear, and I thought my shoes were a bad choice for walking over regular dirt…" An idea occurred to her, and she immediately went with it. "Nero!" She called out.

The young man stopped, flinching like a child caught sneaking away from the scene of a crime. "What?"

She stopped moving forward, a pout on her lips. "I can't walk over this!" When Nero turned she made a small show of stumbling to the right, acting like she would completely lose her balance. "Will you carry me?"

The young man gave her a look that could only be described as 'confuzzled.' "Wha… What?"

She pouted more, letting her lower lip quiver a little. "You wouldn't make me walk through broken glass now, would you? I don't have the shoes for it!"

Nero's face turned completely ashen. "You, can't be serious!"

She retorted, dying laughing on the inside. "Of course I am!"

The young man just stared silently for a very long time, eyes darting between her, the ground, and over her shoulder. His hands twitched, which made her internally celebrate. The guy clearly wanted to, but his decency was getting in the way.

Nero's non-demonic arm came up and pointed, just past her. "Why don't you just have one of them carry you?"

She paused, internally dumbstruck. Nero, for his part, breathed a mighty sigh of relief and started walking again. "Confound it, foiled by common sense…" She indeed, silently, ordered one of her male demon knights to comply. But not without some barely audible grumbling. "Unbelievable. I give him permission to touch the most perfectly constructed woman to ever grace mankind, and he says no? How long is this stick up his butt, him saying no to me?"

It was very petulant of her, she realized that within a couple of heartbeats, but she couldn't really help herself. She knew full well that her father and aunt had spoiled her rotten, their own words. She could practically see a phantom of her father before her, silently wagging his finger in admonishment. But, REALLY? He was seeing what she saw in the mirror every morning, right? He hadn't lost THAT much blood when he fainted earlier.

She mumbled to herself. "Maybe I messed up his head a little, by accident, when I tweaked his memories…"

A roar interrupted her irate musings, a very loud one, a very, oddly, feminine one. She looked up to find that they, her little band of bodyguards and Nero, had traversed the entire length of her forest-clearing. Now, that giant demon was confronting them, right in the shadow of another Hell Gate. Go figure. She was more immediately concerned by how she had burned through twenty kilometers of ground travel grumbling over a guy.

The demon, the 'head' of which opened up like a flower to reveal that it was in fact a 'demoness,' shrieked at them. "You insensate brutes! Where are my children to live if you blast half the forest to ash?"

She had her demon knight set her down, and she answered the query with a smarmy grin. "You shouldn't be complaining too much. I think the 'ash' look would suit you much better!"

Nero chimed in, echoing the tone of her taunt while brandishing his oversized revolver. "That's not a bad idea. Bring the whole family, I'll give them all the same look."

The giant demon, rather ironically succumbing to its own "insensate" comment, charged, barreling straight towards the both of them while turtling back up inside the fake 'snake head.' It was rather shockingly easy to avoid, even swaying about as it was. She personally didn't even have to exert herself, as one of her knights, Deva probably, seized her by the shoulders and dragged her out of harm's way. When the demon passed completely by, Nero didn't even look liked he'd moved at all.

The young knight shot her a surprisingly calm look. "So, we pissed it off. Got any other plans, or do we just wing it and kill the damn thing?"

She made a greatly exaggerated 'hmmm' before answering. "Oh, I think the latter is the best option right now. I mean, you really don't think it'll just give us the time to stand around and chat to come up with a plan now that its decided to kill us, now do you?"

Nero absently drew his gun, shooting seed pods out of the air behind him without even looking. "I don't know, seems like it's doing a pretty bad job of 'trying to kill us' so far."

The man's glibness brought a genuine half-smile to her face. "Well, there is that. And it's seven-on-one odds right now. I'd say that's probably the best numerical odds you've ever had, right? The rest of the Order really doesn't seem up to fighting demons of this size, or the little ones for that matter."

The demon dove through again, once more missing Nero, who again only seemed to exert the minimum of effort to avoid it, while simultaneously giving it a solid smack on the body with his sword. "They usually just sent me, so yeah, not really. I'd have ended up fighting this thing by myself eventually. Should be a lot easier with some other bodies for it to aim at." The young knight grinned. "Would have been easy anyways."

Based on the last few seconds, she would have to agree. Not that the demon seemed all that smart anyways, but Nero was demonstrating a very exemplary set of physicality, reaction speed, and agility. The only comparison she could draw was, well, her father. Both of them had the same sort of air of contemptuous ease about them in a fight. That duel she'd witnessed in the Opera House notwithstanding, against, what had she heard, Dante?

Nero barked at her. "Hey, pay attention!"

Her immediate reaction was a very dumb-sounding 'eh?' That was before she looked up and saw the demon diving towards her instead of Nero. "Oh, right, that thing's still here."

She took it upon herself to evade this time, teleporting herself and her retinue a good halfway across the clearing in front of the Hell Gate. Situated and focused, at least for the time being, she gestured that same retinue towards the demon with a curt 'kill it' order. Her knights, Deva excluding, tore upwards into the sky after the demon, which for the time being was ignoring them.

She hummed thoughtfully. "I wonder, can it see where it's going when its head is closed like that?" Acting upon her thought, her knights flew out in front of the demon in a spread square, waiting for the right moment. She gestured down with two fingers on her right hand. "You get down here where Nero can hit you."

In time with her fingers the four demon knights simultaneously dove in and smashed their shields against the top half, or bottom half, she couldn't really tell the bloody thing twisted around so much, of the fake snake-head. The struck demon careened earthward, opening up and stopping at ground-level, but just before crashing.

The giant demon shrieked, at her specifically this time. "You'll pay for that!"

Smirking royally, she daintily pointed at the air over the demon's shoulder. "Look out behind you."

In a shocking, and disappointing, display of gullibility the demon did indeed turn it's humanoid body to look, only to writhe out of the way when Nero vaulted into that space with sword flashing. The immediate retaliation was a very long sweep of the thing's suddenly barbed tail.

Her knee-jerk reaction was to state the obvious. "Oh shoot that's long!"

While she was sure she had the mental capacity to figure out where to teleport to avoid taking a hit, the choice was taken out of her hands as Deva, she could tell by the slender fingers, swooped in and hauled her bodily into the air by the waist.

She glanced over her shoulder at the demoness. "You know, you could pay a little less attention to keeping me safe and a little more to shooting that demon in the face, ok? I'm a big girl, I can watch out for myself…" She grudgingly added. "Most of the time."

Face falling as if disappointed, Deva dropped her at the edge of the clearing before zooming off towards a different point. As for the ongoing battle, the demon had flown up again, straight up. And was now diving straight down, not apparently aiming for either her or Nero.

Her mouth moved almost on its own. "What in blazes is it…"

The unfinished question was answered when the demon spun about at the last minute. Instead of its 'head' splitting open, its tail did, and the many divisions speared the ground, creating what looked objectively like a gazeebo, complete with a… glowing, closed flower in the middle? Before she could ask the obvious question again, aloud or internally, that 'flower' convulsed and out dropped a writhing mass of bladed tentacles and slimy petals, which was moving. She threw up a little in her mouth, before letting out a shrill cry of disgust and blasting the small thing into a cloud of ash with a lightning bolt. And then another dropped out, and another, and another…

She half-way screamed, and her words blended together. "Someone do something it's disgusting!"

Nero was the first one to act. Said act was rushing straight towards the 'flower' and jumping for it, fist first. Another creature dropped out, lashing at Nero with its tentacles, and forced the young man to clumsily re-direct himself in mid-air. Deva though, the demoness flew through and grabbed Nero by the boot before flinging him right back towards the original target. Nero connected and, of all possible actions, punched it. A Lot. Great gouts of pink fluid splashed out with every blow, soaking both the ground and, rather tragically, Deva, as the demoness flew out from under the demonic canopy.

On the plus side, the giant demon screamed in agony, of course, and flew back up so the rest of the 'things' could be dealt with. The tangential downside, was that her lady-parts were suddenly feeling rather sore for no physical reason. It was stupid of her to empathize for even a fraction of a second with a giant, not to mention revolting, demon. But it was happening.

She shook her head, banishing the empathy from her mind. "I know we've only been at this for a few minutes, if that, but I still feel like this is taking too long…" She looked up, tracking the flying demon for a short way. "Ah, right, I can always shoot at it myself. That'll speed things up." She brought up her right hand and mimed a gun, because reasons. "Bang."

A bolt of iridescent light leaped from her fingertip, to whiff completely. To be perfectly fair to her, the demon did just suddenly writhe through the air and make a perfect loop for her shot to go through, but it was still very, very vexing. She compensated by sending her four knights after the target immediately, but the damage to her image was done.

Nero barked over his own gun's rapports. "So, you need glasses or something? Or does it just need to be sitting still for you to hit it?"

She did not deign to answer that. Although the comment did conjure up the mental image of herself with a cosmetic set of glasses, thin-framed. The freeze-frame vision gave her a 'sultry teacher' look… now was a bad time for daydreaming about alternate wardrobes.

She tried taunting the demon. "Yoohoo, grotesque-woman-wannabee, your children make wonderful sounds when I blast them to ash!"

In a word, she succeeded. The demon did an aerial about-face and dove towards her with all the speed it could manage.

She grinned, and murmured to herself. "Not going to dodge me now, are you…" As the beast drew closer she kept a count. "Five, four, three, two…"

Just as she was about to bring up her hand and more or less shotgun the demon from point-blank range a tremendous report split the air, and the demon's head. As the giant body turned to ash and faded away she just stood there for a moment, confused. Nero's pistol, large as it was, wasn't nearly as loud. Then who… oh, of course. She turned around. Sure enough, Deva was standing some distance behind her, rifle propped on shield exactly as she had envisioned. The end of the rifle was smoking.

Quietly fuming, a small pout puffed her lips. "Kill-stealer…"