Entry 09 Scath Showed up
Finally get something more than foot soldiers. Only took 10 chapters. Ah well, combat is about to go full blast.
I preface this entry with "Damn it." Honestly, it didn't go as badly as it could have, and I sensed pretty much immediately when Scath started fighting. It just took me 5 minutes to get to Leon and Serene. The two of them, while strong, weren't enough for a Greater Demon with a Diviner. From what I heard, Leon even had to fight alone for a while. Scath was just playing with him, causing as much pain as he could. Thankfully, neither of them figured out their relation this time, but it wouldn't be hard for either of them to realize it. When I finally got there Leon was on the verge of collapse, and Serene was already out cold so I had to fight Scath myself until backup arrived. Thankfully, Fia arrived shortly after I did and was able to stabilize Serene. Leon man. He has a high tolerance to pain, I tell you. He'd been slashed a few times, and was losing quite a bit of blood, but he was right there beside me, fighting. I didn't want to kill Scath, that was Leon's call once he knew the truth, so I just chased him off under the pretense of ending the fight quick so I could treat their injuries.
Leon passed out immediately after Scath left, just after Serene had woken up. She was not thrilled in the slightest. It's been obvious for a while but this really showed how much those two care for one another. Anyway, we got them home and patched them up, and I have to give her credit, Serene quite the trooper herself. I mean, her spine had been clipped, he must have caught them off guard. Probably wasn't too hard with that Darkness element of his. Scath can make it pretty hard to see or even detect his presence if he tries hard enough. Once everyone had calmed down I told them that this is the caliber demon we'll have to be able to beat easily. They weren't exactly thrilled.
After treatment we woke Leon up with a cold glass of water to the face. In retrospect I should have let him stay unconscious. Ledah and I decided to escort the couple home. Ledah was a clever bastard and left immediately upon arrival at Serene's to go do something with Rose. I, on the other hand stayed behind to make absolutely sure everything was alright. This gave Leon the chance to start asking me questions... He recognized Scath's weapon both as a Diviner and on a deeper level. After I finished choking on my words I told him I wasn't sure what he was talking about. It's not a lie if you tilt your head and squint at it real hard. I debated telling him then and there, but knowing the kid like I do, it would probably get him killed. I'll ask Kazé if I should talk when he gets in tomorrow. I need to figure out what's more lethal, the shock of finding out in battle, or the doubts and desire to save his brother that Scath will defiantly take advantage of. I told them that I had asked Fia to meet me my house so I could fix up her Rosier into a better weapon and left before further questions could be asked. When I got back I found Ein had come with her. I made a ruling on Ein's true character a while ago. He isn't a player or innocent, he just has absolutely no idea how relationships are supposed to work after you say "I love you." As a side note, Fia also has this problem but not to the extent that Ein does. Also he's a little completely overprotective. I get that Leon and Serene just got savaged but Fia is in close proximity to me at this juncture. You know, the catastrophically strong Ancient One class Angel that you can barely touch. Whatever, heightened emotions, love and the like.
I took the Rosier and completely replaced the blade with a far more durable Asgardian metal, and used the Longinius to enchant the thing. End result is something I call the Vanaheimr. She seemed impressed and asked me to let her test it out in a little training session.
We went down to the training ground and had a good spar. Ein and Fia fought together and actually attacked me at the same time! No match for me still, but it was an improvement. Fia needs to practice a bit more before she can learn some new skills, but when she does, she'll be much better suited for combat against Greater Demons. Also apparently Cierra let Fia practice healing with the Agilion Flash, which is a nice unexpected bonus. Sometimes I forget that they share weapons. Most of them can use rapiers too, so this should be good in the long run.
I don't think I've mentioned this yet, but Kazé, Chris, and Nardi are in Riviera. They got in last night and are on their way towards Elendia. I hope they don't get lost like Leon and I. Chris is pretty good with directions though, so they should be fine.
Wonder how long it will take The Origin to really start laying into us with his Generals. I'm sure Matok is really gearing up right about now. I've lost count of how many generals I've beaten. Since direct combat with The Origin usually results in getting reduced to a fine ash, Asgard mostly targets His armies and tries to cripple His plans. We only directly engaged Him with large groups of Ancient Ones. However, since there are no large groups of Ancient Ones anymore, that tactic isn't exactly possible. See, the thing with Angels like me and Agreth, we're irreplaceable. Because we were directly created by the Gods' sacrifice, we have the highest concentration of their powers. As such, we Ancient Ones are worlds apart from most other Angels.
See, Angel's like Ein and Ledah were created much later by the Magi. Sure, they still use whatever fragments of the God's that haven't been used yet, but the end result is a bunch of Angels made from scraps. Agreth and I, on the other hand, were made from much larger portions of the Gods. The Magi figured we'd kill The Origin fairly quickly so they didn't exactly manage their resources that well. You can imagine that as time went on new Grim Angels got weaker and weaker. They can still be trained to fight quite well though. With enough effort you can compensate for not having too much base power. Although I guess this is a good thing considering that this makes new Fallen Ones considerably weaker as well. I guess I could explain this again, it's been a while and could use some reiterating.
Fallen Ones are Angels that have turned against Asgard. They're stripped of their Diviner and a curse is inflicted upon them, usually much more crippling than their original sacrifice. Fallen Ones really only started being made after the First Holy War, when we Ancient Ones started to see that The Magi weren't exactly on the level. A non insignificant amount of Angels turned to The Origin's side and that sparked the Second Holy War. The Origin was understandably pissed at losing to us the first time so He took great pleasure in corrupting Angels to His side, only to devour them when the final battles of the war started to turn against Him. He got quite far into Asgard proper, after laying waste to Heaven's Gate, ruining every village in His way until we managed to fight him off. Gersemi was one of them as I've mentioned before.
After that, Asgard became obsessed with making sure that The Origin wouldn't have any more Fallen Ones to use against them, triggering the Genocide of every Fallen One we could find and eventually the Third Holy War.
Alright, enough history. Maybe I can talk Agreth into joining me on the Final Assault. I'm sure he'd love to duke it out with The Origin.
I've noticed that I get horrifically off topic in almost every single one of these entries. I'll write again when Chris gets here.
-Ø-
Finally, some bloody explanation. Sorry that took so long, I wanted to weave it in but realized I would really just not get a good chance to do that so if it seems forced, it was.