Disclaimer: Noblesse belongs to Jeho Son, Kwangsu Lee and line webtoons. I have no affiliation with Noblesse.

Credits: Beta'd by Kaikouken (Nerdanel on AO3) and Argonautica. You guys rock.

I would just like to clarify here:

'Elizabet' - German pronunciation

'Elizabeth' - English pronunciation

16th Century

Gregorian Calendar MDLXXXVII

Year 1587

Duchy of Württemberg

South-east Germany

Faust.

"Any last words before your rightful demise, Miss Elizabet?" a man's voice said, as if it were beneath his tongue to strain.

"Rightful?"

Her words cleaved out of her bruised mouth. Rope twisted around her raw wrists and with a heave from her captors, the woman was wrangled to the ground. A boot connected with her bony figure. "Kngh!" A small crack. "—Still convinced that this is just? What you're doing?" she sighed, blowing her cut hair out of her botched face, her torn nostril.

"Elizabet, there is still time to cleanse yourself of your impurities. You only have to look to the Lord and repent your sins. Confess, I bid you to confess before you are punished, and may the Lord have mercy upon your damned soul!"

"You make the Lord sick."

A hand grabbed her face, slamming her head down onto a newly-cut tree stump. She opened her mouth, eyes shut, face contorting as she willed not to make a single, pitiful sound. Blood soaked into the stump's yellow centre.

A hot voice tickled her ear. "You're unclean, Elizabet."

The other man continued. "Hear, hear! Kill the devil's woman! On this day, under the Lord's own clear judgement, we send this wretched thing back to where she came from. The devil's door!"

A series of muffled yelps and whoops. This wasn't a celebration.

"And now, your soul will be cleansed."

Elizabet squirmed under the executioner's hold, scowling at the clergyman's face and kicking another captor. Not to escape, she was a dead woman, but more to cause as much trouble as her brittle, starved body could muster. If she was going to die, she wasn't going to let them have it easy.

"Elizabet!"

She froze. When the quiet seeped through her skin, she could see some of the villagers crying. A couple turned their heads, another woman held in their sobs. No. If she went this way, who knows how they would all be accused in a couple months? Next week? Tomorrow? The second her head touches iron pike? She bit into her tongue, gnashing flesh.

"Cleanse her—"

"Pfft!" She spat in the man's face as he leered. Her blood sprayed across the grounds.

"You!"

"I confess," she said, simply. Red trickled down her chin and her deadpan face held its stare.

"Papers." The captors bought the official papers. Her thumbprint was stamped onto wax. It was officially a just death.

"Now, we shall commence. Any last words?"

"When I prayed to the devil, I made sure to mention your name—every, single, night." She swallowed more blood. "I'll see you soon."

"Kill it."

The executioner walked forward purposefully, both hands clutching rusted axe, bringing it over his head. Her name echoed across the land, and she didn't try to distinguish friend from foe, from family from foreigner. Goodbye. And the woman didn't blink as the blade came down, and the crowd was soundless.

All hell broke loose.

From the deafening disarray of voices came others, more grievous and in mourning than the rest. "Elizabet?!"

The woman clenched her eyes and forced them open. Men lay languidly on the floor beside her.

"This is hardly a fair trial, is it? Everybody?" A blonde-haired man had caught the tip of the axe between his bare fingers.

"Faust?" she breathed.

The convicted woman gaped as she watched the executioner's grip tighten and writhe, muscles straining as he tried to free the weapon. The blonde man opened his mouth, cocking his head as if deeply disappointed. He flung his hand, easily pulling the axe forward by the blade. In one incredulous 'donk,' the executioner landed splayed over the dirt where she had spat her blood. He didn't bother with another thought for the executioner.

"Lady Elizabeth," the man said. He pulled her up, but Elizabet only straightened before she fell back to sit. "Don't — they've broken my ribs."

He pulled his hands off her, but she shook her head to him, smiling. "Go. I'm already a dead woman."

The blonde man frowned and rolled his eyes away. "Do you even have the slightest semblance of proof of her accusations?!" His voice reverberated over the frenzied crowd.

Their mutters sounded into a blur, but quickly muffled into silence as the clergyman stood, "a straight confession, good sir. Confession — and all the details match up. That thing is a heathen."

"Confession?" he hissed.

Lady Elizabeth, what is this?

The woman nodded a gaunt head to him, both arms clutched over her centre. She'd condemned herself. For what? Her blood spotted the soles of his shoes. The sobs of the other women reached his ears.

He was so hell-fucking sick of this.

"Fine. I'm here to testify: Lady Elizabet is innocent."

Voices rose in an uproar, and the blonde man slit his eyes down to a sneer, forcing half of them quiet. The other half tested his patience. Hundreds of years, and he'd no damned patience left to humour humanity for another tick of the clock.

"The proof ends all discussion! That thing will die!"

"You mean this proof?" The blonde man snatched up the papers. The axe swung haphazardly out of his hand, and he guided it down in two fingers as if it were feather-light. He un-scrunched it to read, but cringed as soon as the first or second word hit his eyes. He began to tear it into two pieces, dragging the sear of ripping-paper out before the crowd.

"Anything else?"

The clergyman was fuming. But this man was something to contend with. "A full confession. We all lay witness," he stated, politely.

Elizabet turned to the blonde man. "Let it go Faust! They won't let all of us go free. People must die or they won't be happy. I'll be the witch, just go!"

"Oh yes," the blonde man said boredly, ignoring her. "Yes, yes. But I concur, definitively, irrevocably, Lady Elizabet is innocent."

"On what grounds?!" came another angered voice.

"Because I confess."

Elizabeth whipped her head up to glare at the idiot.

"I'm the man you're all looking for. Try executing me," he said, tapping a finger on his tilted neck. "I'm very unclean."

"That's ridiculous!"

Voices sounded over the crowd again.

"Forget it, just sentence him too!"

"He's a liar!—"

Elizabet got to her feet, wincing as she tried to near the man. "Stop this — stop this. I don't need you to try and—"

"Confess?" he said, rolling his head to her in disdain. "But I just did." When the man's eyes fell on her limping form, he spasmed. The man dropped the axe and moved instantly to steady her. "I'm sorry, Lady Elizabeth," he croaked, "I'm sorry."

"Nobody believes a sham confession like yours," the clergyman leered.

Elizabet wrung a hand over the blonde man's wrist, stopping him as he lunged to face them all. Her nails dug into him. "Don't."

He didn't look at her. "Sorry."

The man trailed his sleeve out of her bony grip and walked to centre stage. "I just pled guilty that I did…." he blinked a couple of times, "whatever she did…Crimes against the Lord!" he quickly fixed.

Hateful eyes stared back. "Prove it," the clergyman spat.

The blonde man lifted his sight, showing his neck in a jeer. His smiling mouth bared a dark, toothy grin.

"Ok."

His hands burst into flames.

The clergyman's eyes popped wide, and the audience twisted apart, nothing but unadulterated panic seeping through the heated up air. Elizabet balked. There was screaming and running in all directions, and the blonde man lifted his smouldering purple hands, letting everybody see them crackle and hook into gnarled claws. The flames danced over his skin — a burrowing, parasitic aura infesting over the surface as they seeped into bone. The flames simmered lower, and the man shut his eyes. Concentration skimmed over his face, and then belatedly, he lifted his hands up. He hovered an exaggerated pattern over the people.

Screams caught in throats. The entire village was paralysed.

"That's right. Look here. I'm going to say it again." His eyes flicked over to the frozen clergyman. "I. Confess."

The blonde man bounded away from the centre, slowing to stop before a bush. A purple-scattering hand waved over the greenery. Smiling back with blank eyes, he waited for the colour of their faces to drain and for some to faint. A few bodies dropped unconscious to the ground, and his brows lifted in amusement. Behind him, the green of the bush began to curtail and fade, the leaves shrivelling over the touch of his purple and flowers wilting in unnatural speed. Its vitality dried up like spilt water on a hot day, like smoke stream from a doused candle light. The plant crinkled back into the ground as a dusty skeleton.

"I'm the sorcerer," he stated proudly. His eyes hooded as a scowl curled over. "I also eat children, kill doves, drink blood…and bless whatever black cat I can find in my path," his brow ticked, "…and I go after corrupt officials, unkind villagers…and unfaithful men! Just for your information."

He sauntered leisurely up to the clergyman. A long, flaming finger tapped under his chin. "And I have tea with the devil every Tuesday. Guess what day it is today, good sir?" The clergyman's eyes began to roll and turn up, but the blonde man clicked his fingers, concentrating his mind control — this one doesn't get to faint out so damned easy.

"Faust…"

He hardly stopped himself from flinching. The blonde man turned slowly back to the battered woman. Her huffs were laced with wheezes, and his heart palpitated hearing her every struggling breath.

"You're a…sorcerer?"

He managed a weak smile. "Thank you for teaching me modern French and English, Lady Elizabeth." He tottered forward, hand extinguishing as he reached out. She recoiled back.

"…Tell everybody who I am, My Lady." He turned to the village again, raising his voice. "Tell everybody my name is Faust."

Elizabet scowled at him. "What?! You just admit that I've taught an abomination for all this time?! What the — what the hell are you trying to do?!" She gagged, sucking in air as blood trailed from her lips. "…Release these people. Right now."

The man shut his eyes. The screaming resumed.

"…Now get out of here. They'll be after you forever. Run, Faust," she got up on rickety legs, broken bones. "I won't give them a shred of anything on you. Just run."

The blonde man's expression softened. He spoke English — his words meant for Elizabet's ears alone.

"Frankenstein."

"What?"

"I wanted to tell you my real name."

"…Why now?" she whispered.

"Because you won't remember it."

Elizabet was suddenly struck with his eyes, a gorging, piercing blue. She was entrenched, and all of a sudden, it was as if she was being slowly submerged under their chasmic waters, beyond the black pupils of the horizon. As she sunk, and sunk, her memories began to ripple and dilute; and with one waver back, blonde hair, blue eyes, disappeared from her slipping grasp.

"Goodbye, Lady Elizabeth."

When she awoke, Faust was the name of the Devil's contractor. She remembered purple flames, though she didn't know why.

And Frankenstein — she'd never even heard the name.

Down the rabbit hole

"Go check the security footage already, Tao!" Tao swung his feet onto the counter, throwing back his head with a dramatic flair.

"But good sir, I've just checked last week's, can't we let it go for a sec before I break my eyes looking?" He slammed his finger from a metre height onto the 'enter' button, making another false, surprised face. "What? What is this?! Delaying watching mindless security footage for one, entire day? Madness!"

Tao flicked his hair over his eyes, yelling blindly. "Outrage!"

He bought a fist down onto the desk — THACK — then retracted it like he'd just put fleshy hand onto hot stove — oh phew, left no marks on the desk, lord almighty. The nervous sweat that threatened to pour, didn't. "Got myself there, heh."

He sat quietly for awhile longer tapping away before his fingers on the computer began to slow. Gradually, uncannily, the clack-clacking slowed to a stop and Tao looked up from the screen. The realisation was strange. He doubted himself. Tao was designed to collect and analyse intel, and his mind was a buzzing hard drive that processed information like machine gun fire. He sat back, hovering his feet over the table, and then dropped them limply. 'Thud.'

Oh.

So he wasn't just reading too far into things.

Tao was the weakest member of the DA-5; he was the weakest member of the RK. But he was also the smartest, and still many times stronger than the unmodified human. The slight shock-wave of bone-on-table reverberated over him, and he had thought nothing of the feeling. Until he realised this was meant to be the lowest floor of Boss's lab.

Then why did the ground feel hollow under the desk?

Tao impulsively stood from the table, sending the computer chair skirting to the side. He bobbed to one knee and cautiously, rapped his knuckles under the desk. The impact echoed over him. Tao sat back languidly, tilting his head. Ok. So, now what? Was he going to break up the tiles on Boss's lowest floor and accidentally have the entire house cave in? Unlikely, he thought, the house foundations had to be good for such low levels of floors to be constructed—there was no way there was going to be some batman-ish cave under there. It was definitely purposely constructed.

Why was this lower, lowest floor not on the elevator then?

Tao sighed exasperatedly into the air. What was happening these days? He was keeping Raizel-nim's visitor a secret from Frankenstein, now he was going to snoop around his basement?

Tao's eyes darted to the far elevator door, then flicked to his watch arm. Frankenstein should be busy enough and no one should be bothering him on the lowest floor when they knew he had work. On a damned whim, he used an outstretched leg to push over the entire desk.

Woah. Am I really going to do this?

Cables disconnected from the computer, but he could fix that easily enough.

Shit. I'm really going to do this.

Tao rocked himself up and scraped the desk over a couple metres more. A whiter floor patch met him back. He skimmed his eyes lazily over the floor, but then shut them, annoyed at himself. Sigh. If he was going to snoop, he might as well put his heart into it. When his eyes blinked open, he scanned the place with enhanced keenness. There was a subtle incline in the ground, something like a sunken circle on the floor. Tao knocked a fist over it.

Knock.

Dude. How deep did this place stretch on?

With one more quarter glance behind him, he used some strength. The entire tiled corner cracked into tiny crevices.

Mother.

Suddenly intensely still, Tao internally screamed before he had to shut even that part of himself up. What if Raizel-nim heard?! What if Frankenstein just felt stuff? What if Regis came and told on me why did I have to do this gosh why does this — why did the tiles not cave in?

His eyes traced the creviced floor. Tao lifted a couple fragments up. Huh? Wood. Very, very old wood. He touched a hand to the rickety material, and pulled away when it creaked dangerously under him. Wood that was about to flake away in his hand. There was a wooden trapdoor under the tiled floor under the desk under the floors of the house.

Boss was going to kill him.

Tao brushed his mess back, revealing the trapdoor. I'm going to hell, he thought, as he opened the door. A musty smell wafted from beneath. The glaring white walls of the lower lab hid a dark, dank staircase that dug even further into the ground. Journey to the centre of the world! Let's, he thought, grimly, as he descended into the dark.

"Whoa — Hey?!" Takeo interjected as Tao swiped his lemonade out of his hands and chugged it down in one continuous, miffed gulp.

"Ahh!" he sighed.

Takeo batted Tao's hand away as he returned him the empty cup. "What was that?"

"No fighting in the living room, high schoolers," droned M-21 as he walked pass.

"M-21!" Tao called out, and M-21 spun to lift a brow.

"My lemonade!"

"You guys have to see this!"

M-21 only blinked.

"No, honestly! Something's up and I need to show you guys," Tao strained.

Takeo made a face and stood. "I thought you were meant to be working."

"I WAS working! Until…about half an hour ago. Just c'mon, before Boss kills me."

That got them both rushing behind Tao. Tao could hardly contain himself as they took their ride down the high-speed elevator, and when the doors popped open he practically dragged Takeo and M-21 to the hole in the lab.

….the hole in the lab? Takeo faltered. "Tao…what did you do?"

"No, look at this, you guys have to come down the stairs and see this!"

They made their way down the spiral staircase, the wind from their lungs cooling as they descended. It looked like Tao had moved every single battery powered light source into the tunnel—old phones, torches and lamps…he was so in trouble. But Takeo couldn't worry about that right now. His sniper's eyes drank in the strange rock-stacked walls of the tunnel. It smelt lurid and dense around him, and he knew the air here hadn't touched daylight or wide spaces for…how old was Frankenstein? Centuries? More than 800 years, he guessed, contemplatively.

The rough of the wall scraped onto his finger, and Takeo knew why it felt so dark in here. The rock was charred, as if covered in an inch of soot that had long sunk in and become a crunching layer with the wall. Evidence of fire damage poured out to his senses. The crusty edges, the dusty debris kicked up and—

"Here!" An emptied room stood doorless on the right. Tao gestured to the left. Takeo could tell where the burns had eaten away the hinges, and the remnants of the door—they were probably breathing in.

"…What is this place?" M-21 asked, baffled look on his face.

"Somewhere where we probably shouldn't be, I'm guessing," Takeo said, sifting through the remaining old scrolls. Once, this stone shelf would have been full of this stuff—scrolls and books and information, a treasure trove of things that the Union would happily kill for. Things that bought Frankenstein to the twenty first century. This place was intense.

M-21 didn't turn his head. "So that's why this floor was boarded off," he said, engrossed in another parchment that broke away under his hand — oh crap — I just destroyed how to identify cholera symptoms in 775.

"What happened here," Tao's hushed voice drew their attentions. "Look at all the burn marks."

"I know. Look at this," Tao said. He lifted something like a framed piece of parchment, with the glass hastily cleaned over with Tao's sleeve. It wasn't in Korean, but Takeo could make out the alphabet, and Frankenstein's name.

"Professor Frankenstein, of the University of Ingolstadt. Deutschland," Tao recited, "that's Germany." He handed the piece over to Takeo to squint at, not sure what to make of it. "There's a heap of other stuff here. Everything was in a total mess when I found it. Someone tried to burn this place, but this pile of stuff didn't get destroyed. Here — Doctor Frankenstein!" Tao smiled, impressed. "He actually got his qualifications, you know…sometime in BC or AD or whatnot!"

"BC stands for 'before Christ,'" came a cold voice from the door. "Or now, just 'before common era.' AD stands for 'anno domini, in the year of the Lord."

The blood drained from all three of their faces.

"Boss?!"

"I've only existed in AD, for your information."

"F-Frankenstein."

"What are you three doing?" Frankenstein glared over his pair of cracked glasses, standing in the eroded doorway.

"…What happened to your glasses, Boss?"

"Answer the question, Tao. I thought I had you looking at security footage."

"…"

M-21 delicately put down another fragilely bound book. "Frankenstein, look-"

"Oh my gosh, M-21!" Tao interjected quickly, "Jeepers man. This was all me. I'm sorry, Boss, what happened was, I found the ground under the table was hollow, like, really hollow, and something came over me and I…followed my nose until I found this place. Yeah, I should have alerted you, but you were busy doing your thing and I…I was really curious," Tao said in a half-mumble.

"You broke into this room," Frankenstein didn't look normal, "…because you were curious?"

Tao nodded, and gulped.

To his surprise, Frankenstein sighed and walked over, reaching a hand out. Takeo gave over his scroll to him. "Can you even read this?" he asked, after a more bearable silence than they'd thought.

"Uhh. No. Not really." Takeo replied, smiling nervously.

"Archaic language from way back when," Frankenstein huffed, "stuff that's hardly relevant anymore. Even I'll have trouble deciphering it."

"Really? Even you?"

"Hmm. I wrote down all my work in different languages, ones that have long lapsed out of use, and then with the important parts, I coded it."

"Woah." Tao breathed. "So then whose is this," he turned another paper up to them, "looks like a medieval pop quiz! Is that a child's handwriting?" he grinned. "Little Boss's early work?"

"Forget it," Frankenstein said, ripping up the historical paper in his hands and Takeo winced. "This is all garbage now. This room failed to burn. I'll have that safely finished once you all leave and get some showers. I'm not letting you walk around the house near Master with that smell on you."

"What?" Takeo piped up, "What do you mean? You're actually going to get rid of all this? Didn't you save this room?"

Wasn't this important to him? Takeo knew, if he had even a shred of his past returned to him, he couldn't imagine what it'll mean. He looked to M-21. His split mouth was parted. For M-21…forget his past, if he had even the good fortune of finding his name, the names of his comrades — he could die peaceful.

"I forgot." Frankenstein's flat voice rung in Takeo's ears.

"…"

Frankenstein tilted his head wryly. "Honestly, I forgot this place even existed."

"Who tried to burn this place?" M-21 asked. "Or did you casually try to destroy your bunker room in…AD 500?"

"That would be 500 AD, and no, I wasn't even born yet then, M-21."

"Sorry for snooping but—"

"Professor Frankenstein, do you ever forget anything?" Tao asked.

An icy glare fell upon him.

Tao continued, oblivious. "You...you forgot. I mean...Boss forgot his secret, underground room in his secret, underground fort in his secret, underground…lab?" He looked confusingly offended for a short moment. "Wait a sec, then how many floors does your house have underground? I mean, Prof, you're missing the opportunity—could we make a spa room?!"

"Shut your mouth, Tao."

Tao's goofiness wiped off him like his grin, and he drooped, honestly lowering his head. Suddenly, nothing was funny, and he got it—he'd overstepped some line, done something he shouldn't have done. Going into this room punishable on pain of doing a month's dishes was one thing, but this, this was serious. "Professor, I'm sorry, hones-"

"Don't call me that!"

Tao stumbled back into Takeo. He went quiet.

Frankenstein's eyes flashed with an anger they'd only ever seen on the battlefield, and it chilled the room with his aura. The second passed. Tao stood there, quiet. And scared. Frankenstein balked, visibly balked — disgust that wasn't directed at Tao plastered on his face. The violent aura swept away as suddenly as it came, and Frankenstein averted his eyes. He briskly turned away.

Takeo spoke up. "Frankenstein?"

"...Tao..." Frankenstein said gently, barely a whisper against Takeo's voice. "Tao...I am sorry. I didn't mean to—I...overreacted." The modified humans stood frozen, the ample uncertainty, the hesitant waver in Frankenstein's voice a stranger. A stranger they never wanted to hear again. "You didn't deserve that and I apologise. Tao, Takeo and M-21, I am sorry. I...frankly, this—"

"Pffftt." Tao lunged his hands to cover his mouth. "Pff- ohmygod, I'm sorrysorry... It's just that, that…you said, 'frankly.' "

Frankenstein turned, truly facing them again for the first time. They realised this too. "Get...get it? Frankenstein? Frankly? Ahah!...no? Takeo?!" He waved a hand through his head, messily tousling his hair, and with that, instantly told Frankenstein: 'look I'm fine just please don't apologise oh hell, I've gotta lighten the atmosphere Takeo halp.'

Hell, I'm a mess, Frankenstein berated himself, not-out-loud.

A black hand scathed the back of his neck, and the hairs there pricked in a jarring bracing.

The boy?

Frankenstein inhaled sharply. No! Just go.

"Boss?" M-21 murmured finally, after taking everything in. He seldom called him that. "Frankenstein, look, it was our fault in the first place and—"

You're remembering the boy…

"Shut up."

"..."

"Oh! M-21, that wasn't for you I...I was telling Dark spear..."

He looked up again, feeling the confusion in their eyes. Wow. He sounded crazy. Well, they're not wrong for thinking that.

"Haah. Let's just go upstairs and forget about this mess. Don't worry about those things, I'll tidy it myself later. Can't have you messing up my stuff."

Takeo twitched. The Boss had just proved that he'd had no idea of his secret, underground bunker. The Boss had just expressed intention to get rid of said secret, underground bunker.

"Tao, don't apologise again. I was in the wrong."

This was getting mighty uncomfortable. "Woah, Boss ok, it's fine."

Frankenstein set a stiff jaw and smiled. "I'll make it up to you."

"What did he say?" M-21 said.

Frankenstein looked to him through the corner of his eyes. His lips thinned into a line.

"What are you-what were you so angry about."

"Nothing." His response was too fast.

M-21 swallowed. "Boss?"

Don't poke, M-21, don't poke.

"...Professor Frankenstein," he said starkly.

Frankenstein didn't move, but he could feel the modified humans' brace themselves like he felt the army do, ducking their heads and helmets in their trenches in 1915: waiting for a time bomb to go off. M-21 cut the red wire. He swallowed dryly, eyes tracing to Frankenstein as he averted Takeo's shake of the head. Don't do it, M-21.

"Professor F-"

Another figure emerged from the doorway. "Miss Seira is nearly done with our meals."

Frankenstein whipped his head around, throwing his hair behind him. "Master?" he clenched a hand to his chest and fell into a bow. M-21, Takeo and Tao dipped their heads in acknowledgement too. A pile of rotten books tumbled from the eroding shelf to the floor, and the trio looked up from a mist of cindery dust.

"Hello Sir," Tao waved from behind the smog.

Frankenstein peeked through his blonde hair, but all Raizel could see was the cracked surface of the glasses lens. "I will be up shortly to prepare it Master." How did he find this place?

"I heard the ruckus," Raizel said, carefully.

Heard? Twelve floors down through solid concrete? Goddammit! Frankenstein had let Raizel feel his childishness. Forgive me, Master.

"It is nothing," Raizel said, apparently answering no one. M-21 blinked. "Come," a warm smile stretched across his face. "Come upstairs now. It is mealtime. Seira has kindly prepared everything. Regis may need help setting the table."

Tao and Takeo sighed and M-21 nodded to him on his way out.

Raizel stood with Frankenstein to his side. "Are you alright, Frankenstein?"

Are you alright? Professor?

"Yes, Master. Please head up to the house now, it's quite grimy in here. I'll help Seira finish the last dishes." Raizel didn't say another thing as he followed Frankenstein's gesture out, hearing the careful thump of the trapdoor closing away the spiral staircase. The dirty room on the left, and the empty chamber on the right.

Frankenstein was lying.

He wasn't alright.

Deals with the Devil: the Anthology

Und hätt' er sich auch nicht dem Teufel übergeben, Er müßte doch zu Grunde gehn!

And were he not the devil's by his bond, Yet must his soul infallibly be lost! — scene VII, Goethe's Faust.

"Faust" and the adjective "Faustian" imply a situation in which an ambitious person surrenders moral integrity in order to achieve power and success for a limited term. Deeply bored and disillusioned, Faust wanted more. A life as a highly successful scholar could not strike him enough fancy. Allured by black magic, the sorcerer ultimately descends to doom through his own hubris. God is forsaken. The Devil is summoned. The pact is made — the Devil promises to grant worldly knowledge and magical powers. To seal his fate, Faust willingly gives his soul over to eternal damnation.

Revisit the classic German legend of the Deal with the Devil. First penned in a small chapbook, published 1587, Historia von D. Johann Fausten has since spawned many stories of the now infamous folklore. This spellbound collection includes both Christopher Marlowe's The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus, and Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe's Faust. Discover the hundreds of variations of theme in theatre, music, film, art and literature, that has immortalised the nefarious legend of the man who sold his soul.

Centuries of satanic storytelling is made accessible, side-by-side for the first time, in this modern Anthology — very much worth the deal.

"Pffft!"

The ends of his lips spiked up before he dropped it back into a blank. Blood spattered over the clergyman's face, and he was amused. This human had spirit.

Enclosed within the crowd, shuffling, squeezing, rip-roaring, he was still. He watched the audience move around him, a mass of shouting men and weary women. A dangerous kind of passion lapped from their voices, an edge of fear-induced anger laced in their sweeping emotions. They swathed him in unrest, and he almost wanted to urge on with them. Kill the lady. But no. Humanity was always like this, always tell-tale lies and Chinese-whisper-like fear mongering. The village shuffled, shoving into the crowd, calling to make themselves heard over the many of them—cursing. No force in the world could convince them now—the lady could be guiltier than the damned devil she worked for. Amid the churning sea of people, he was still. His amber eyes were dimmed under a scruffy hood, blonde hair dirtied and matted and barely recognisable. A stranger no one would see in a place like this. Like this, he was invisible.

And he knew the one he was looking for would be here.

"This is hardly a fair trial, is it? Everybody?"

Ah.

Suddenly, he was pushed back, so he pushed forward, and the show in the centre bloomed into view. His insides stilled. The one in the middle, adorned in his favourite black attire, long-tailed bow and free-flowing blonde hair stood stern and proud. He watched the man masquerade for the crowd, taking his time to rip up paper and swing around axes and comfort innocent women. He tried to get closer, not caught up in their momentum but joining in the commotion.

From a couple rows behind, to the left, he glimpsed flashy scowls, heard the mocking voice. But he was still so close: he could practically feel the heat warm his face. The people's screams grew shrill, deafening him momentarily, forcing him to stand ground before he thought better of it. He jolted apart with the running people, mock-paralysed with them on the spot. A plant withered back into the grounds, more people screamed bloody murder and he—was he the only one who wanted to applaud? Purple seared into his mind, he couldn't forget that. Couldn't forget that heat. Then the show was over, the man disappeared with a flamboyant show of power. Leaving hundreds of people to fear his name. Thousands of people to fear his shadow. Generations to pass down just another one of his many disguises.

Yet he wasted his time to do this?

The stranger died away with the crowd.

And as time went on, things changed. In the 1500s, knowledge of the nobles had not yet passed out of existence. There were great clashes between powerful creatures, unexplainable creatures — things that made humans tell their children, beware black cats, beware the full moon. So they explained the unexplainable. They spun reality into stories they could pass down around a campfire. Gods and spirits and magical curses — the one once hailed as a god became the devil. The one once hailed a saint became a sinner. Contracts with nobles became deals with demons. But how wrong was that really, when those very same contracts set loose mutants — a reign of terror over the world?

Notes.

Working title was - Tao's Discovery

I would like to thank Laryna6 here for their A+++ world building skills. A couple of things in this fic, including Takeo's changing 'sniper's eyes,' and that the trio's memories only went back for a decade, are all their genius. I agree with most of their thoughts and then head canon them, and then they show up in fic. So pls tell me if I accidentally stole something, I have to credit.

(And also, I double checked and it ok~ Entrench, verb 3. to encroach; trespass; infringe; to entrench on the domain or rights of another.)

I admit I've never actually read 'Frankenstein' I just googled really hard. But I've littered a bit of Mary Shelley's book references in the fic. Remember the dying lady in Franken's dream (nightmare for two chapter)? In the book, Victor's mother dies from scarlet fever, and (if you look in shmoop notes~) this was one of the things that might have made him obsessed with creating life. In the chapter, she gets turned into a mutant. So yes, that was mum that crumbled in his dream, that Raizel saw. That particular man that he buried last in the grave was supposed to be (well I imagined him to be, though there's not much ref about it) Henry Clerval, his bff. And in this chapter, I named dropped Elizabeth Lavena, Victor's fiance. In the book the characters that Victor cared about most all die off. Elizabeth was supposed to go like everybody else, :( but then somehow, when I wrote this, she ended up living so? :) And one more thing: Victor went to uni at 'University of Ingolstadt,' so naturally, I made Franken a prof there.

I know Germany didn't exactly exist here, Prussia doesn't even exist here yet, I cleaved off Duchy of Württemberg, South-east Germany, from the German legend. This was where the story was set in Historia von D. Johann Fausten.

Mary Shelley picked a super German name, especially since she was travelling around the Rhine and stuff when she started writing the book. ('Frankenstein' very literally means 'stone of the Franks.) And in the fic, very possibly, he might be descended from or related to the Franks or Frankish people: germanic nomads.

No chapter next week~ Will resume right after.

Thank you for all your support.