The six of them watched as the light from the Script dimmed just in time to see Ericka fade out of existence. Pua leaned into her wife seeking just a bit of comfort. Ericka had become remarkably important to all of them in a short amount of time. Even knowing that she was going to leave like this, Pua couldn't help but get attached to the girl. Her brother was no better, though he might hide it better. It was rare for either of them to find someone who pursued their passions with the same intensity she or her brother did.
Asia finally couldn't hold herself together any longer and dissolved into tears and gasping sobs. Ku put his hands on her shoulders and gently led the former nun back towards the house. Cait left next. Pua didn't catch her go, just one moment she was there and the next she was gone. Thea was still there only because she was comforting Pua. And Sarah lingered as well.
Pua glanced at her out of the corner of her eye and found the other woman staring at the remains of the Script circle vacantly, her fingers pressed to her lips.
"Still straight, huh?" Pua tried to tease.
Her voice shocked Sarah out of whatever fugue state she'd been in. Shaking herself, she turned a trembling smile on the Kahuna, "Yeah. Still straight. I'll admit it... wasn't unpleasant. But not unpleasant isn't enough." She heaved a sigh, "I sometimes wish I was though."
"Gay?" Pua asked, pressing herself closer to her own wife.
Sarah nodded, "I can't help but wonder how much would have been different if I could have reached out to her like that." There was a moment of silence, then she shrugged and with a casualness that was rather forced, "I guess we'll never know. Why are you still here?"
Pua studied Sarah for a moment then turned her gaze back to the circle, "The Gap is atemporal. I kind of hoped that she would return the same moment she left."
"What does her not doing that mean?" Sarah asked.
"That either she never learned how to choose her entry point, or she has some reason for not returning now." Pua didn't mention the third option, that Ericka would just never return.
Sarah nodded, and then without a word turned and headed back to where the village had put her up.
Pua heaved a sigh. She turned in Thea's arms and pulled her taller wife down, kissing her tenderly, "Take this back to the house?" She asked, pressing the folder of banking information into the taller woman's hands, "I'm going to put this," She hefted the Script stone Ericka had given here, "in the heiau."
Thea smiled down at her, "Of course, Ma Chere."
Pua smiled back up at her. How she loved that woman. A last kiss and Pua left, heading towards the highest point in the village, where the stacked stone terraces formed the heiau, the village temple. Only the village Kahuna or Ali'i was allowed to climb to the top of the temple, and Pua had been layering wards to keep others out, or from even seeing the heiau for as long as she'd been Kahuna.
It was the safest place by far to keep Ericka's beacon.
A few minutes of climbing and she placed the Script stone with the other sacred objects of heroes of the village. A fitting place as far as Pua was concerned.
That done she settled herself on a piece of ritually crafted bark cloth before the altar of the temple. Taking deep slow breaths she sank deep into a trance, and cast her mind forward. Peering into the future wasn't something that Pua did often, generally she thought it a bad idea. Right now though she sought the future, sorting through it for any sign of Ericka's return.
She would find nothing.
###
Ophis slept.
The silence was glorious. Although her current nest wasn't as big as the Gap proper was, things like size were vague suggestions at best in the absence of any form of reality, so it wasn't really a problem. With the absence of reality none of those annoying 'real' things could bother her.
No sound, no movement, nothing. It was wonderful.
So Ophis slept.
Then suddenly the real came crashing back in.
Her silence was gone.
Slowly she opened her eyes. She was once again amongst the real, and it grated on her like sandpaper on exposed nerves. At her feet was the glorious table she had been given in shattered pieces.
Her gaze slowly raised to the two people on the other side of her poor shattered table. She recognized both of them, she had recruited them to her cause when she thought she would have to fight the Great Red for her silence.
One of them was the one with the spear belonging to one of the real gods. The dead one she thought, as though that narrowed it down at all.
The other was one of the devils. One of the stronger ones.
The devil began to bow, drawing Ophis' attention. The bubble of silence would have broken immediately upon the destruction of the table, so one of these two had to have done it. Ophis didn't listen to what the devil was saying, instead with a small wave of her hand she wiped him from existence. Then turned her attention to the one with the spear.
He lowered the weapon to point at her, and started to speak. He likely wanted to make a dramatic speech, they always wanted to make dramatic speeches for some reason. Another gesture destroyed him as well. Ophis had no interest in listening to speeches.
Ophis looked back down at the broken table. She would need another one. But where was the girl who made the silence table? Ophis couldn't detect the girl's strange soul anywhere in the headquarters, and the power she'd given the girl's rodent had already returned to her. So she couldn't follow that.
The dragon turned girl thought for a moment, then remembered that her devil kitty brought the silence girl to her. The devil kitty would know where to find her.
Ophis nodded to herself, this was a good plan.
Looking around her, Ophis frowned. The two traitors who had taken her silence from her again, were leaders among those she'd assembled. If the leaders were traitors, then so were the followers. That made sense. And Ophis had no more use for them anyway.
With a clench of her fist the Infinite Dragon annihilated the Khaos Brigade base and everyone and everything in it. Assuming her full draconic form, Ophis ripped her way free of the underground base and the water above it, and took to the sky.
She would find the devil kitty. And then she would find the silence girl. And then she would have her silence again.
May the puny real gods help any who got in her way, because they certainly couldn't stop her.
###
Valper ran as fast as his pudgy body would let him. He had no idea what was chasing him, but it was dressed in full-covering off-white armor, carried a huge axe, and had blown through the Exorcists that had been guarding him like they weren't there. The guards had given him time to escape out the back, so they'd served their purpose. But they hadn't managed to stop whatever it was, so they hadn't served it very well.
The plump, defrocked priest continued down the street as fast as his legs would carry him. He only had to make it a little further, after all. The Grigori had an outpost just down the street; if he could only get there he would be safe! They would protect him, he was still too valuable to lose. Especially now, even if the number of holy swords in the world had shrunk dramatically. Ophis erupting out of the Atlantic in all her draconic glory and rampaging across Europe seemed to have convinced the supernatural that the time of hiding from the mundane was over. Humanity would need some way to fight back against the unholy abominations!
And what better way than the wrath of god made manifest in the form of swords?
The sound of heavy armored footsteps behind him refocused Valper on running away. He tried to squeeze a third or fourth wind out of himself and almost sobbed with relief when he rounded a corner and saw the church that he'd been trying to reach.
He just had to get there and he'd be safe!
Nothing could stand before the might of God's first born!
The sound of slow, heavy steps behind him spurred Valper onwards. He staggered up the steps of the church and barely managed to push one of the large doors open. He practically fell through the opening and, gasping for air, managed to pull himself to his feet long enough to push the door closed again behind him.
Wiping sweat from his brow, the fat priest staggered down the aisle where three figures stood before the altar.
"You have to help me!" Valper cried out as he approached the inhumanly beautiful figures.
The female closest to him sneered in disgust, "What do you want mud monkey?
"I," Valper gasped, "am Valper Galilei! Head of the Holy Sword project! I'm being chased by something, it killed my guards! You have to protect me!"
The Fallen that had spoken to him, backhanded him hard enough to send him to the floor, which granted didn't take much, "We don't have to do anything. Especially not on your say so, you pathetic..." She pulled her hand back to strike him again, but was interrupted by the doors to the church exploding into splinters and sawdust.
"Save meeee...!" Valper whined as he crawled across the floor to try and hide behind the altar.
The figure standing in the ruined doorway was covered in the off-white armor that Valper had managed to notice while he fled for his life. The Fallen Angels saw more though. Like how the figure's legs were hidden by a floor-length skirt of cream colored cloth. Or the two-handed axe that stood taller than the figure holding it, the sharp crescent of the axe head balanced by a square hammer head with rounded corners. Or the sword that hung at their hip. Or the bow on their back. Or the belt around their hips and the bandoleer across their shoulder covered in devices that the Fallen couldn't identify.
"Who the fuck are you?" The female Fallen demanded as she turned to the stranger and spread her four wings. The other two stepped forward and followed her example, one of them displaying six wings, the third spread ten.
The figure raised their off hand, the one not holding the axe, and pointed at the former priest on the ground, "I have no quarrel with you Fallen." The voice, while rendered metallic and echoing by the helmet they were wearing, was distinctly female, "I only want the worm behind you. Give him to me and you will suffer no harm."
"Fuck you!" The female Fallen yelled and a moment later a Light spear thundered down the aisle between the pews.
The figure didn't give any sign of an opinion about this response. Instead, a shield that hadn't been visible at first was quickly swung off her back. The mirror polish on the face of the shield would seem impractical, except that when the Light spear struck it, the spear was reflected back at the Fallen that threw it.
The Fallen was struck by her own spear and knocked into the air, only to be hit moments later by a small thrown knife. The knife did little damage, but did leave the Fallen frozen and unable to move, hanging in the air.
The armored woman started forward and thrust her off hand at the six winged Fallen. Black thorny vines erupted from the woman's gauntlet, and moved at unnatural speed to wrap around the black winged angel. The thorns dug cruelly into the angel as he was dragged swiftly across the room to the armored woman. The woman's axe goes up, and then the hammer end of it comes down on the angel with enough force to shake the entire church. The six winged angel didn't even have time to scream as his torso was reduced to paste.
The ten winged fallen sighs dramatically, "You will not find me so easy to fell, foul..."
The armored woman didn't listen to him. Instead she fell into an easy and well practiced stance gripping her axe with both hands. A powerful horizontal swing ripped through the church walls, altar, and the chest of the monologuing Fallen, without ever coming close to them.
The angel coughed once, blood dripping from his chest and his lips, and fell to his knees. He tried to speak, to tell the armored figure how the Grigori would hunt her to the ends of the earth for vengeance for what she'd done. He can't quite catch his breath to do so though.
Instead, he was forced to watch as the armored woman casually walked down the aisle and knocked him onto his back with the butt of her axe. Something dropped onto his chest. A flat disc of metal landed on his wound, and a moment later, ice cold tendrils climbed through the rent in his skin and into his chest. He tried to scream as those tendrils crawled through him, and finally found the spark of divinity that his Father had given him when he was created.
That little spark of divinity was torn free. Pulled from his flesh to the disk of metal which wrapped around it, forming a sphere that preserved it for later use.
The woman though didn't stay to watch. She calmly walked past the dying angel to the altar. She paused for a moment, then with one hand flung the bisected table to the side with enough force to embed it into a wall. Curled up there, face pressed into the floor, was the trembling form of the priest.
"Valper Galilei." The figure declared looking down at him, disgust dripping from her every word, "I am Vivain, Lady of the Lake. And I have been looking for you. You perverted my Excalibur. And perhaps worse, you did so with the torture of children. For that, your suffering would be legendary, if any would remember you." Vivain reached down and grabbed the fat priest by an ankle, then started dragging him out of the church, pausing only long enough to collect the sphere from the corpse of the ten winged fallen, "I struggled to decide on something... appropriate for you, Valper. Then I remembered how obsessed you are with my sword. So I've decided to make you into a sheath for my Excalibur. You will get to spend eternity with the true sword you are so obsessed with. Your soul flayed a bit at a time to fuel healing for it's true wielder, aware and unable to die." Vivain paused at the threshold of the church, "An eternity suffering with what you love, am I not generous for giving you such a reward?"
Valper screamed as he was dragged into the night.
For a moment the church was silent. Then the knife that held the four winged angel pinned in the air glowed like a rising sun, and the angels, the church, and all evidence that Vivain had ever been there were reduced to fine grey ash.
###
Serafall sat on the comfortable couch in her office reading through reports coming in. Disaster wasn't a big enough word really. She was used to those who were far and away more powerful than anybody had any right to be. She worked with Sirzechs and Ajuka after all. But apparently Ophis took that well beyond what any of them had thought possible.
So far Ophis had ripped through three different pantheons without slowing down, leaving large collections of deities broken and bleeding in her wake. Apparently Zeus had been spiked clean out of the universe, and nobody was sure if he'd survived or not.
Perhaps most telling was that the Hindus were staying on the Indian subcontinent and well out of the Infinite Dragon's path. And worse still, Son Wukong, the Great Fighting Buddha himself, had collected his followers and was rushing to get out of the way of Ophis' rampage now that she was reaching China. Anything that could make the Great Sage Equal to Heaven tuck tail and run without a fight was something best avoided.
Even the humans had figured that out. After a couple of attacks by various air forces and one attempt at nuking her, that Ophis hadn't appeared to notice, the mortals had just tried to go unnoticed. Which was working remarkably well for them. Some supernatural factions might have not figured it out yet, but Serafall had noticed pretty early on that Ophis only responded violently when attacked.
Otherwise she seemed to be searching for something. Not that the Leviathan had any idea what, and she certainly wasn't going to ask Ophis in person. So her curiosity would have to be left unsatisfied.
So instead, the Satan of Diplomacy had to focus on the next largest problem. Specifically that the masquerade was well and truly dead. There was simply no way to erase the memories of the entire planet and cover up all the damage done. Not to mention that video of Ophis, in the form of a fuck off huge dragon, plowing through what was recognizably the Greek gods without slowing down, had appeared on both international news and the internet. There was no putting this genie back in it's bottle.
So they'd have to adapt to a world where the supernatural was in the open again. It would require some changes. The way they went about hunting stray devils would have to experience at least some minor alterations. And recruitment practices would probably have to be adjusted as well. But at least among the Biblical Factions, the devils were the best set up for adapting to the new world.
They'd had their fingers in most world governments and large corporations for centuries. Politicians, CEOs, and devils just seemed to get along well for some reason. So getting support for both spinning their image for the public, and continuing to operate largely how they had been, wouldn't be hard to come by.
By comparison the Angels were the next best off, having the Church in its pocket. Christianity wasn't exactly well received in all parts of the world though, which would limit them. And even where it was popular most of the world had forcibly removed religion from having any sort of governmental power. The angels would likely be able to make it work, they were starting from a much better position from a PR perspective after all, but they would have to make it work.
The Grigori were completely screwed though. They'd disdained mortals with an almost psychopathic glee. They had next to no ins with either popular opinion or governmental power. Sure they made money hand over fist somehow, Serafall personally suspected Azazel of working the stock market. But no matter what some liked to think, money wasn't the be all and end all of manipulative power. It was useful certainly, but so many things couldn't really be bought with mortal currency.
Serafall glanced to the side at her other major source of worry. Both she and Sirzechs had yanked their beloved little sisters and their peerages out of the mortal world the moment Ophis erupted from the sea in her full draconic glory. She didn't know how it went with Rias, but Serafall had expected more of a fight from Sona.
She hadn't gotten it though. Instead her beloved So-tan had come along without a word. She'd seemed very distracted instead. Serafall had tried to give her space while letting her know that her big sister would still be there for her, but this was getting ridiculous.
Sona had just sat in her office for the last week studying a chess board with a game already mostly finished on it, while clutching a letter from Ericka in one hand. Serafall had gotten a letter from Murder-chan as well. A very useful thing. Really, the girl having had a vision of the future explained so much about how she acted. Though how much of the information was still applicable with Ophis doing her thing was anybody's guess. Permission to continue using Ericka's character was unnecessary, but welcome.
Sona seemed to have had a much more dramatic reaction to her letter, though.
Finally, the big sister in Serafall couldn't take it anymore. She stood and walked over to where Sona was still studying the chess board and lay a hand on her shoulder, "What's wrong So-tan? I thought you'd have been glad to have gotten a letter from her?"
Sona sat back in her chair with a sigh, "She won."
Serafall blinked, "What?"
"Ericka." Sona explained, sounding more than a little sad and bemused, "She won our chess game. She included her last moves in the letter. I looked at them one at a time and played against them." The younger devil reached out and knocked her king over, "Ericka beat me. At chess."
"Oh, So-tan." Serafall leaned down to hug her beloved sister. Sona for once didn't object to the sisterly affection and leaned into the hug.
"You know, I asked her why she chose to come to approach me, when we first met?" Sona said softly, "I mean, Rias was right there. Everybody picks Rias." Serafall hugged her harder, "But she told me that she found my competence more appealing. I thought it would be temporary, that maybe once she met Rias. But then they did meet and apparently Ericka almost threw her out of her house. I'd never thought of competence as attractive before." Sona blushed, "Or sexy even. But damn if she didn't convince me."
Serafall sighed and picked her sister up so that she could set Sona back down into her lap, "She did have a certain something, didn't she?"
Sona nodded. After a moment or two she spoke up again, "I'd have expected you to be more upset by this." the younger sister pointed out, cuddling into her older sibling like she hadn't in years, "You don't tend to react well to other people being interested in me." Or Sona showing interest in other people, was left unsaid.
"Well, like I said, Ericka certainly had a special something." Serafall said chirpily, "I'm sure I could convince her to take us both!"
"Serafall!"
###
Pua, when she wished to find somebody, was spoiled for choice. Granted, she was also largely limited in those choices by what she knew, or had, of her target. Not nearly as much of a limitation for her as it might be for most, but still requires at least a little bit of something to work with.
Looking into the future, into the past, sympathetic tracking, blood tracking, dousing, or even simple scrying. All were methods by which Pua could seek any who might try to evade her. Or even if they're not trying to evade her, but somebody else all together, which was what she suspected was happening with her latest target.
Pua slipped between places as easily as a fish slipped through water. She followed the glowing ghostly thread, invisible to all but herself, where it led. She found who she sought in the middle of a wilderness in Japan, and not alone.
Kuroka was dressed in a revealing kimono that Pua made a note of. She'd have to find one for herself later. Granted she wouldn't fill it out as nearly as well as the Nekoshu did, but Thea would love her in it all the same. The Black Cat was pressed against a tree trunk, trying to get as far away as possible from the other person who had her trapped there. It looked a little comical really, since the other person didn't look to be older than twelve at the most.
Pua would have laughed, except her senses for magic had been honed to a point beyond any other practitioner in history, and were entirely unnecessary. If she couldn't identify the Infinite Dragon when she saw her, Pua would retire on the spot and never touch magic again.
"Where is the girl you brought before me." Ophis was radiating her power outwards in a manner that was oppressive. Almost physically so. With a thought, Pua took hold of a bit of the incoming power and spun it around herself, the spin deflecting the rest of Ophis' power keeping Pua safe without ever directly opposing Ophis' energy.
"I don't know!" Kuroka screeched, visibly sweating and trembling, "I met her the day I brought her to you, and I never saw her again after I left her there! I don't know where she would have gone!" Her ears were pinned back, her eyes wide with fight.
"Tell me where the silence girl is, devil kitty." Ophis' usually dead voice had started to rise in anger, and was accompanied by an equal increase in the power she was releasing. The trees around them began to splinter under the pressure of the Infinite Dragon's temper.
Before Kuroka could speak again and either try to lie or get smote, Pua stepped forward, "She's telling the truth." Both of the other people, if Ophis could be called a person, Pua had her doubts, turned to stare at her, "She doesn't know where Ericka is. I know where she went, though."
Immediately she had Ophis' attention. Her simple ward blew away like smoke in a high wind under that focus. With a sigh, Pua adjusted her internal magic and how it related to the world until she was transparent to the dragon's power. A dangerous technique since she had to be completely exposed to the power in question for it to work, but it would render her immune to any one thing's power. Extra vulnerable to anybody else's, but she doubted that Kuroka was going to attack her.
"Ericka has left the universe." Pua explained quickly. Just because Ophis' power couldn't affect her didn't mean that the dragon couldn't break her in half with the flick of a finger, "That's why she wanted a sample of your power. So that she could study it and become immune to the Gap. Once she succeeded, she left. Beyond that nobody knows."
Ophis studied the Kahuna carefully, searching for any hint of a lie. For all that Ophis was supposed to be an emotionless automaton that sought only silence, Pua could detect a surprising amount of emotion there. Micro expressions revealed much to anybody who could read them, and Ophis was desperate.
Pua made sure that her own expression showed nothing but sincerity. Showing only what you wanted to was an essential skill when negotiating with things like devils, fae, and mo'o.
Finally, Ophis seemed satisfied with what she found, and nodded once before turning away from them. The two non-dragons relaxed imperceptibly, only to tense right back up when Ophis stopped no more than a few steps away and turned back to Pua, "Thank you." She said like she was reciting from a script. Then Ophis took Pua's hand, put a snake in it, and turned and left again. This time vanishing between one step and the next.
Pua looked down at the snake in her hand with a bemused smile, before selecting a currently empty gourd she had on her person, and put the snake inside it. Once she had the gourd sealed, she turned back to the other person present.
"Kuroka, the Black Cat?" Pua asked carefully, making sure she had the right person. As good as she was with tracking magic, and she was damn good at it, just like all other forms of magic, it never hurt to be sure.
"Nya, who wants to know?" The cat Yokai asked while trying to smooth her puffed up tails down.
"I'm Pua Ke'Kua'Okolani." The Kahuna introduced herself.
Kuroka looked blank for a moment, then her ears perked up, "You're who the Princess called to get that table she bribed Ophis with, nya..." the Yokai looked at where Ophis had been standing when she vanished, "I wonder what moron broke it nya, and why?" She asked, mostly to herself, so Pua didn't answer her.
Instead she nodded, "I am. I have an offer for you." Kuroka refocused on the Kahuna.
She'd never met either of the Ke'Kua'Okolani siblings, but one couldn't deal in the larger supernatural world without hearing about them. The two were apparently immortal, and completely human. Both also accomplished things in their relative fields of expertise that those many times their age and experience couldn't claim to have accomplished. Any offer from one of the siblings was worth at least listening to.
"What's the offer, nya?" Kuroka asked.
"I've recently had the opportunity to interrogate two experts on soul manipulation." Not that Ericka would likely think of herself as an expert. But given how many people there were who dealt with the soul at all, and what Ericka had accomplished, she qualified, "As a result of what I learned from the two, I would like to try and remove your Evil Piece and, in the process, make you no longer a devil."
Kuroka blinked. If she wasn't a devil any more, she couldn't be hunted as a stray. Still, best to not appear too eager, "I don't know, nya. There are a lot of upsides to being a devil after all."
"Which is why my method, if I'm right, will leave you those advantages, even if you are no longer a devil." Pua said, sounding very smug. Which, if she was telling the truth, Kuroka thought, she had every reason to be. "In addition to being a recipient of the technique, I'm willing to offer you asylum in Hawaii."
"Sold!" Kuroka cried out almost before Pua could finish speaking, purring loudly. She bounced over to Pua calming down slightly as she went, "Why are you doing this, nya? If you pull it off it will upset a lot of people."
Pua examined Kuroka closely for a moment, then shrugged, "Because Ajuka is an unmitigated ass, and the last time I met Azazel I had to curse him with a decade of impotence to get him to pay attention, and I can beat them both at their own game. Because there are a lot of people who had their Pieces forced on them and they don't deserve to be trapped like they are. Because I'm human, and in the coming days humanity will need symbols that we can be better than the monsters coming out of the woodwork.
"Because somebody I like a great deal is absolutely terrified of those things, and when she gets back I'd like to be able to reassure her I have a solution."
###
Elizabeth, once Rhostana, watched the news wondering if this was what her daughter had been so afraid of. She assumed that if Ericka had actually known about a massive dragon erupting from the sea, she would have mentioned it. But the mass chaos that had resulted from the wool being pulled from over the eyes of the world in general certainly sounded like what Ericka had been afraid of.
Fortunately there seemed to be as many benevolent creatures appearing as malevolent ones. Though which were which could be hard to tell. Some human groups, that were aware of things before the great reveal, had put out pamphlets to help people tell. But as time went on it became increasingly clear that even the most informed normal human groups had a pretty shallow understanding of supernatural groups.
Or they were the church.
Elizabeth had never been the biggest fan of organized religion even before her daughter had revealed that she remembered her previous life. Now much more informed, the church's stance of, 'They're all evil, do nothing but call your local priest' seemed even more underwhelming.
Now, months after the dragon that had been most of the world's first introduction to the supernatural had vanished, other problems were rearing their heads. Sure, there were governments trying to adapt laws to cover the new reality, and entirely new forms of corruption to be wary of. But what worried Elizabeth was the feeling of depression and despair that seemed to be slowly growing in the general population.
She saw it in her friends, her fiance, even the two little boys that she couldn't love more if they were her own. Humanity in general was being faced with the reality that they were nowhere near the top of the food chain. That for all of their advances since the dark ages, apparently the last time the supernatural moved in the open, they were just as helpless now as they were then. Guns were useless, tanks and armies easily overcome by single individuals, nukes had even been proven worthless when used against the dragon.
What could a single human do to protect themselves against the supernatural when the greatest of humans were outmatched by even the least of this new world?
Elizabeth knew better of course. Ericka had done it after all. Elizabeth knew enough of her own family tree to know that there was nothing but mundane human anywhere in it. Her ex-husband's family was similar. So with nothing to help her, Ericka had managed to climb to the point where she could compete with the things that went bump in the night, and beat them.
Sure, it took hard work, and risks that Elizabeth wished her daughter had never had to take. But she was proof that humans could stand in this new world. Ericka had even made friends with humans that did so even better! Those Hawaiians that Ericka had told her about!
Most people didn't know that though.
Elizabeth hummed to herself, as an idea occurred to her. The problem was that most people didn't know about those few cases, or what they had accomplished. But that could be fixed... She did promise her daughter that she would be remembered after all.
With that in mind Elizabeth stood and went looking for the notes she'd taken while Ericka told her story. Finding them she retreated to her office and booted up her computer.
A heroine who had started with nothing and rose to heights that were supposed to be impossible for her to reach. Getting there with nothing but her own determination, intelligence, and hard work. All without ever losing her humanity in the process. This was exactly the sort of hero people needed right now.
Just another reason Elizabeth was unbelievably proud of her daughter.
With a happy hum, Elizabeth set her fingers to the keyboard and began to write.
###
Deiodora appeared in a muted flash of light and immediately fell a little more than a foot into warm salt water. Taking a moment to find his bearings, the devil grinned to himself. He was right where he intended to be, standing on a reef just outside of what he thought was the best range the local so called magic users could manage.
Wrapping himself up in his own magic to increase his stealth against any supernatural protections, he strolled out across the waves towards the beach. He loved walking on water, it was always such a blow to new pieces for his collection when he performed one of the classic miracles. It's why he'd gone out of his way to learn to perform as many of them as possible.
Only moments later he set foot on the beach and looked around. Several very attractive specimens wearing very little, and many less attractive specimens wearing less than they should, populated the beach. They weren't servants of the church so he had no real interest in them, but it was still far more pleasant to use his charm on nominally attractive people. Or at least as attractive as a human could hope to be.
Looking around he spotted one female already staring at him. Clearly she was already enamored. She had the skin tone of a local, which meant she was more likely to be useful. She was short, not extremely so, but certainly shorter than average. Still, she was well formed so it wouldn't be too onerous talking to her.
Really, he had no idea why everybody else was so worried about coming here. This was hardly difficult at all, and besides they were humans, what could they do? The girl he approached had produced some sort of organic container from somewhere, probably some sort of quaint local water carrier.
He opened his mouth to turn down the drink she was no doubt going to offer in the hopes of impressing him, when she popped the container open. There was a moment of terrible suction, a pulling and compressing, a feeling of movement, and then darkness.
Deiodora wasn't unconscious, he just couldn't see. Or move. There was the feeling of being moved and a female voice from outside his prison very faintly saying something about, "Ancestors damned stupid devils." But that was it. There was a further feeling of movement, then a loud sound like his container had been set down on something hard.
That would be the last thing that Deiodora would experience for a very long time.
###
Asia smiled and laughed at the dancing around the beach bonfire. The sun was beginning to set, the party was just getting started, and the bonfire was easily the most impressive part thus far. When she'd come down to the beach to check on things the bonfire was already stacked well over her head. When asked how big they intended to make it the answer was, "Big enough to appease the gods!" A phrase that she would have been deeply uncomfortable with when she first arrived on the islands.
Now she found it hilarious.
She'd been chased off afterwards. Apparently since this was her party she wasn't allowed to worry about setting it up.
Really, when she'd first arrived on the islands she'd been incredibly lost. She'd devoted her life to helping people in God's name. Upon discovering God was dead she was cast adrift. Ericka had ensured that she wasn't depressed, but the other woman couldn't do anything about being lost. Her friend leaving hadn't helped, at first. It had taken months before Asia could bring herself to read Ericka's letter.
But that had been a turning point. Ericka's hopes for her, the woman's faith in her, had gotten Asia moving again, and asking questions she probably should have asked a long time ago. What did she want to do with her life? Who did Asia want to be?
The answer she eventually came to wouldn't have surprised anybody who knew her. Asia knew that Ericka wouldn't have been surprised. The thing that she had decided on was that she wanted to help people. Even without God motivating her, she loved making people better.
Pua had promised to help.
And now ten years of apprenticeship under Pua later, Asia was a Kahuna in her own right, with her own village to protect. This party was a celebration to welcome her to her new village, and present her to her new people.
Sure, Kahuna were traditionally male, and a Caucasian and blond one was unusual. But Pua had smashed the first problem, and her word was enough for people to ignore the second. So she was welcomed and honored as doctor, priest, psychologist, and sorceress.
It was a heady feeling.
Asia's attention was suddenly jerked upwards from the festivities. Circling in the dying light above her was a white pueo, a Hawaiian owl, and her ʻaumākua or guardian spirit. The little owl gave out it's short barking cry of alarm again. Some might have dismissed this as an animal concerned by the light and noise on the beach. But Asia knew better, this was her ʻaumākua, and it was trying to warn her that something dangerous was coming. Asia shot to her feet, attracting the attention of the party goers as they stopped the celebration to look at her with concern.
"Everybody back to the village!" She called out, "Something is coming. Everybody take shelter." Her villagers didn't question her, but turned and hurried away. Parents grabbed children, teenagers helped elders. Their trust and belief in her gave her a warm feeling in her chest, and she promised again to be worthy of everything that they had entrusted to her.
From behind her, as she watched them go, a familiar Light spilled across the beach. Knowing what she would find, she turned around to see the once beloved sight of an angel of the Lord. Four wings spread wide and the Light shining around him.
Asia frowned. Once she would have been honored beyond measure to receive a messenger of God. Now she was just annoyed.
"Holy Maiden of the Church." The angel's voice was warm and sweet, like music made of honey, "A great wrong was committed against you, but this has been corrected. Your people have need of you." She bet they did. Given the way the world had changed the church needed all the miracles it could get. "Come, and the arms of the Lord will welcome you home." He spread his arms like he expected her to rush into them.
Instead she took one firm step forward, "I am Asia Argento, Kahuna of the islands of the line of Pua Ke'Kua'Okolani. Your kind are not welcome here, you will depart, or I will make you." Her voice was high but firm. She was no longer the weak girl she had been.
The angel sighed sadly, "Then you have been corrupted. Fear not child, your soul may yet be saved. Do not struggle, your power is not enough to make a difference." He told her gently, "Be calm, and this will not hurt."
Asia grit her teeth. How dare he?
If he wanted a fight, then fine.
Asia was not powerful. Her work with her Sacred Gear made her strong by human standards, but she wasn't as powerful as Pua even so, and neither of them were worth mentioning in supernatural terms.
But preparation beat power, Ericka had been fond of saying. So when it was time for Asia to choose how to focus her studies in magic, and inspired further by her friend, Asia had chosen to work with the little spirits.
When she'd made her choice Pua had nodded pleased, "Most people dismiss the little spirits." She'd said, "In supernatural terms they're pebbles. But get enough pebbles moving in the same direction, and we generally call that an avalanche."
So knowing that she would one day be called on to protect a village, Asia had prepared. She had made friends with every little spirit she could find. The little creatures of nature that actually formed most natural phenomenon. The spirits of grass and trees, of stones and water and wind.
Asia knew most of them by name. She played with them, helped them, protected them, and now she called on them to help her in turn.
Enough pebbles make an avalanche.
Enough breezes make a storm.
Clouds gathered above them with unnatural speed.
Enough sparks make lightning.
Thunder rumbled as actinic light crawled across the sky.
Asia grabbed one of the empty gourds she kept on hand, "Preparation beats power." Asia told the angel, and Asia had prepared, "This is your last chance, leave now or learn why none of your kind dare the islands." Rain fell around them like a dropping curtain even as the waves grew tall. The wind howled its fury, as the sky flashed brightly and thunder roared again.
Looking around, the angel gulped.
###
Sarah watched Kuroka play with the village children from her porch. Apparently the tumbling lessons were the continuation of a tradition that Ericka had started while living here. Kuroka certainly looked happy, her ears perked and her tails held high. Her escape from devildom had removed a great weight from the nekoshu's shoulders. And she absolutely loved to tell the story of the first devil that had tried to forcefully re-recruit her.
Admittedly, it was a funny story. Keeping all her powers as a devil had apparently made the fight hilariously one-sided.
When Sarah started college she had certainly never expected to end up where she was today, representing the Ke'Kua'Okolani village as a corporate entity. She couldn't really complain though. She lived in Hawaii, got to go to work in a bikini top on most days, and Pua was happy enough to keep her young so she would still be here whenever Ericka decided to come back. And Sarah never doubted that her friend would come back.
The sound of a slamming door and a frustrated scream jerked Sarah out of her thoughts. With a sigh she turned and headed into her house. As expected, she found her daughter flopped across the kitchen table, her black hair spread around her head like a dark halo.
Sarah sighed and patted her daughter on the back, "What is it this time?" She asked lightly as she moved around the kitchen preparing an after school snack. The twelve year old would need the energy for her lessons with Ku later.
"What is it every time? Can't leave the village without an escort, I'm human. Can't go too far out on the water, I'm human. Can't even think about seeing the mainland, I'm-" The girl cut herself off with another scream.
Sarah flicked her daughter in the head, "No screaming in the house." and placed a plate of food down in front of the girl.
"I just want to help." She muttered as she pulled the plate closer, "I want to fight. I'm tired of being..." Helpless, Sarah filled in.
Sarah studied the daughter that she'd almost named 'Ericka' after her old friend. But had decided against it, in the end going with Rebekha instead. Or Becky, as she preferred. The girl was in fantastic shape having started gymnastics at the same age that her mother had. A request to Ku had gotten her martial arts lessons at the same time.
This wasn't the first time she'd heard this complaint. The first time she'd tried to get Becky lessons in magic from Pua. But the girl had the same amount of talent in magic that her mother had, which is to say none.
Mana Breathing was apparently an option, but very few managed to actually achieve much with the art at a young enough age to matter. Given how difficult it was that was really unsurprising. So even for how hard Becky was willing to work, actually competing with the supernatural without leaving her humanity behind appeared to be impossible.
On the other hand Sarah had seen this kind of struggle before. Once. Not at this stage of it granted, by the time she'd known what was going on Ericka was already well on her way. She kind of wished she'd paid more attention during those long afternoons in the back of Cait's book shop while she worked on college applications and Ericka had struggled with magic symbols.
The memory drew Sarah's mind to another that she hadn't thought about for a very long time. Without saying a word she stood suddenly and headed into the attic of her house, leaving her daughter looking after her curiously. The food in front of her was more important though, so with a shrug Becky turned back to her sandwich.
A few minutes later her mother returned with two large, old books. Being an active girl, Becky had little interest in books outside of the fiction she read. Especially her favorite series 'The Death Witch Chronicles'. The lead character was everything Becky wanted to be...
"She's real you know." Becky blinked at her mother's voice, realizing that she'd been staring at her copy of 'The Fox Princess' that was sitting out on the table.
"Who is?" The girl asked around a mouthful of sandwich.
Sarah tapped the book she'd been looking at, "Ericka. You were almost named after her actually. But she's real. I knew her, quite well."
Becky blinked again. Sure, there was a character in the books that was sort of like her mom, but really? Her doubt must have shown because her mother smiled and pushed the two old books she'd brought at her daughter.
Sarah wasn't really surprised her daughter didn't believe her. Right after Ericka left, talking about her with people who didn't know her had been hard. And then the books had come out, only discovering that Ericka's mother had written them had stopped her from trying to sue the author into the ground. But it was hard to get anybody to take her seriously when she spoke about her old friend, given how popular the books were. Eventually she just fell out of the habit of speaking about her except with Pua, Ku, and Cait when she came around.
"Take a look." Sarah said, "She wrote these herself, and gave them to me before she left. The smaller one on top are her notes of how she became the 'Death Witch." Sarah giggled at the title the same way she always did. Ericka would have made such a face at it.
Cautiously, Becky pried open the cover of the indicated book, and nearly dropped her sandwich at what she found. Diagrams of ritual circles. Lists of recommended traits and the order they should be acquired in. A sketch of an athame and the Script that should be inscribed onto it to steal traits. A rough outline of the tattoos that would be necessary, and a warning that the tattoos should only be done by a professional, a Kahuna if you could find one.
The last page of the book had the diagram of an amulet, along with a description of what it did. Becky wasn't sure what 'being able to detect the beacon' meant. But apparently the amulet would also allow the wearer to find it's twin...
"If you do this," Becky snapped her attention back to the older woman. She was using her 'serious mom' voice, and that voice was not to be trifled with, "It will be under supervision. You will go through this with both Pua and Ku and only advance when they think you're ready. If I find out you've gone around them or tried to jump ahead...!"
"I won't!" Becky squeaked, "I'll do it exactly like the instructions say I should, and how aunt Pua and uncle Ku say!" She promised fervently. There was no way she was going to screw this up.
She was going to become a Death Witch!
And maybe after she grew powerful enough, her thoughts returned to the amulet, she'd go looking for it's twin.
###
Pua stirred herself from where she sat on the top of the heiau. Visions of the future fell away from her eyes as she reacquainted herself with the present. The sun was setting, it seemed she'd spent all day in the trance.
The future was certainly interesting. Apparently she was going to have an apprentice! Which was something she'd never had before. And it was nice to know that her plan with the evil pieces would work, even if her visions hadn't shown her how she would pull it off. That would have saved her a lot of time, but peering into the future never gave information like that. And Sarah would be moving to the village with a daughter! Though Pua did wonder who the father would be.
The other visions were interesting but not as personally relevant.
Still, there had been no sign of Ericka's return in any of her visions. Which meant that either she wasn't coming back, Pua hadn't peered far enough into the future to find her, or Ericka had found some way to render herself invisible to precognition. Which wouldn't surprise Pua at all. Who knew what was out there, after all?
Standing, Pua slowly worked the pins and needles out of her legs as she stretched. It might be time to take a few years off of herself given how she was feeling. Stretched out, the Kahuna started back towards the village.
She paused at the top of the stairs leading down though. She smiled at what she saw even as her eyes widened in realization.
"Give us some time." She said, her smile growing, "The future is bright, we'll be just fine."
~The Beginning~