Wow, Cloud in Rudiger's peerage, huh? Pretty sure he should be able to solo everyone in this Game.
Probably, yeah. If you used a version of him that was accurate to how strong he is in even base FF7, never mind something like Advent Children or Dissidia Final Fantasy. But that wouldn't be interesting, so I gotta scale him back to DxD-standards of powerful.
i lked rwg and wizarding lion
Good for you. I didn't. And still don't.
Anything you recognise isn't mine.
It didn't take Rias and Kuroka long to make it back through the forest to the outskirts, where they had left Esdeath to fight whoever she had noticed before they entered several minutes ago. All that the former noble Devil and the former Stray Devil had to do was follow the trail of trees that they had both blown down minutes before, some of them still smoking from Rias and Kuroka's power blasts.
By the time that the trail of destroyed trees stopped (Rias was inwardly surprised that they hadn't started a forest-fire), the sounds of battle between Esdeath and her opponent could be more clearly heard, and making for a more effective method of telling Rias and Kuroka where to go. The fact that they hadn't heard any announcement of Esdeath's retirement from the Rating Game yet also served as pretty major encouragement for Roxas' second Bishop and second Pawn.
"Who do you think she's fighting?" Kuroka asked of her red-haired comrade, as the sounds of battle became louder and louder the further they ran through the forest.
"Probably not one of her Pawns." Rias replied. "Since we encountered three of them just now and took out one, I doubt Rudiger would send more than three of his Pawns to a specific location. I also don't think he'd send his Queen out this early, let alone this way."
"Just leaves his Rooks, Knights and Bishop, then." Kuroka replied. "Both of that Rudiger guy's Rooks are physical-types, and Esdeath's amazing against them, so I doubt she'd have much trouble against them."
"Agreed." Rias nodded. "And even if she didn't have the speed-advantage, I'm not sure that either of Rudiger's Knights would be able to harm Esdeath that badly. And that just leaves..."
At that moment, Rias and Kuroka finally left the forest that Esdeath had ordered them into several minutes ago, and were greeted by an... interesting sight: Esdeath, with torn clothes and several holes in her body from what seemed to be her own ice-spikes, being slowly dragged towards a black hole, behind which Bluenote Stinger stood, with an erected magical barrier shielding him from the effects of the black hole. Speaking of the black hole, both Rias and Kuroka were at least 99.9% certain (because you could never be too certain) that he had created it himself, because black-holes don't usually just randomly spawn into Rating Game dimensions.
Rias and Kuroka both noticed, at around the same time, that Bluenote was focusing healing magic into his left hand, which looked like it had been broken only a few minutes before. Without even thinking about it, Rias raised her hand and began firing powerful shots of her Power of Holy Destruction at the magical barrier that separated Bluenote and the black hole. At around the time that the first one hit, Bluenote noticed that Rias and Kuroka were there, and readied a ball of concentrated magical energy to fire at Rias, in order to get her to stop firing her PoHD at his barrier, which was beginning to crack more and more every time a PoHD ball hit the barrier.
Just before Bluenote finished charging up his concentrated magic-ball, and just before he fired it at Rias, Kuroka swung her arms at Bluenote and sent two wheels of black Senjutsu-flames towards the black-haired Bishop. Bluenote was forced to cancel his attempt to attack Rias and put his energy into a smaller defensive barrier that blocked Kuroka's flames. This distraction gave Rias a long enough time to fire enough balls of her Power of Holy Destruction at the barrier for it to be destroyed, ultimately removing Bluenote's protection from the magical black hole that he had created.
As Bluenote's barrier was destroyed, Bluenote let out a yell of surprise as he felt himself flying backwards towards the black hole that he'd made. Rudiger's sole Bishop was forced to spin around in mid-air and reach out to the black-hole, pouring enough magic into it to cancel its effects and erase the black hole from existence, stopping himself from flying into it and Retiring himself... but also stopping Esdeath, as well as Rias and Kuroka, from sliding towards it. With the black hole gone, Bluenote landed on the ground, but barely had time to process his body hitting the ground before letting out his own scream of pain as Esdeath, who was standing upright again, grabbed one of the ice-spikes that she had summoned earlier in the fight and drove it through one of Bluenote's exposed legs, impaling it through the knee and driving it into the ground.
If this was the first time that Rias and Kuroka had seen Roxas' second Rook in action, they'd probably have recoiled in surprise and fear as Esdeath, the look on her face telling everyone who saw it that she was many shades of pissed-off, picked up another ice-spike and drove it through Bluenote's other leg, fully pinning Bluenote to the ground by his now-ruined legs.
Bluenote was gritting his teeth and panting from the overwhelming pain of having both of his knees impaled by one of the hotter members of Roxas' peerage, but still looked up at her as Esdeath, rather than grabbing a different ice-spike, summoned another one out of mid-air via Demon's Extract, and aimed it at Bluenote's arm.
"You almost beat me..." Esdeath hissed, holding the newly-created ice-spike in her free, uninjured hand and raising it up, a sadistic smile forming on her face. "And now you lost, you fucking weakling." The smile that had formed on her face would have been intimidating enough, but the injuries, blood, dirt and grime on her outfit and body made the smile just one part of an extremely scary whole. However, Esdeath wouldn't get the satisfaction of further torturing her opponent when Bluenote suddenly faded away in the same hazy blue light that had enveloped Lubbock after Rias blasted him, before he even lost consciousness.
Upon the realisation that Bluenote had been Retired (either by himself or by his King's doing), Esdeath grimaced out of annoyance for a couple of seconds, but took a breath before regaining a more neutral expression as Rias and Kuroka approached, with Kuroka's hands raised.
"You're welcome, by the way, Esdeath." Rias remarked, as Kuroka moved her hands towards the wound in Esdeath's shoulder, and began slowly healing it. "For us helping you, that is."
"Yeah, yeah." Esdeath replied, grimacing from slight pain as she attempted to move her arm before Kuroka finished healing her. "It's a game where people getting Retired is bad for the team, and for Roxas, points-wise. I would've done the same for you."
Rias smiled as Kuroka finished healing the wound on Esdeath's shoulder, and began working on the wounds on her arm and foot.
"Anyway, did you fight anyone in the forest?" Esdeath asked, looking over at Rias while Kuroka healed her.
"Three of Rudiger's Pawns." Rias replied. "Retired one. The other two retreated."
"Right." Esdeath nodded, moving her arm and foot again as Kuroka finished healing the wounds on said limbs. After a couple of seconds of thought, she looked towards the forest. "We should go back in. Roxas ordered us to secure the forest, we should do that."
"Should be easy enough, with you not-Retired and all." Kuroka replied. "Not like either me or Rias could do something like create a giant tower out of ice that we can stand on to see any members of Rudiger's peerage from a long-ass way away, nya."
"True." Esdeath nodded. "That's what I was thinking." As Kuroka stepped back, Esdeath began walking towards the forest, picking up her rapier and returning it to its sheath as she did so. "So, how about we get to doing just that?"
Nodding to each other, Rias and Kuroka followed Esdeath into the forest.
Line Break
At around the same time that Asia and Xenovia's Retirements from the Game were announced, Akame, Lavinia and Elsha found themselves walking into the only village within the Rating Game Dimension. It was deserted, thankfully, as well as the smallest that a small village could get. There were only about eighty houses, roughly arranged in four rows, and a few small shops arranged in the middle of the village. Two roads ran throughout the village, but it wasn't like Akame, Lavinia or Elsha would be able to make much use of them within this Game.
"I'll secure the outskirts." Akame remarked, her tone as even as it ever was, adjusting her grip on the sheath of Murasame. After Elsha and Lavinia acknowledged Akame's intent with their respective nods, Akame dashed off, leaving Lavinia and Elsha alone. Elsha summoned several balls of magical energy out of thin air and levitated them around her in anticipation of a potential attack, while Lavinia summoned the avatar of Absolute Demise: a woman-shaped doll made of ice that rose above most of the houses in the village height-wise, which wore a dress and had four slender arms. Its face didn't have much in the way of a nose or mouth, but it had six eyes on the left side of its face, while the right side of its face was studded with something like the thorns of a rose.
It didn't take long for the sounds of heavy combat to reach Elsha and Lavinia's ears, from the other side of the village. Elsha and Lavinia instantly spread their respective Devil wings and flew towards the sounds of combat. In the few seconds that it took Elsha and Lavinia to reach the other side of the village, they both registered the sound of swords clashing against each other, gunshots going off, and both male and female grunts.
When Elsha and Lavinia reached the other side of the village, where the sounds of combat were loudest, they saw Akame clashing with the dark-skinned sunglasses-clad trenchcoat-wearing Eric Brooks, before jumping back to dodge the thrown spear of a suit of armour, who Roxas' two blonde Pawns could only guess was Bulat, judging by the body type that the suit of armour possessed. Elsha instantly fired all the balls of magical energy that she had conjured up at the armour-clad Bulat at the same time, while Lavinia froze the Bulat-thrown spear in a shell of ice, stopping it cold... quite literally.
Lavinia then proceeded to throw the icy shell, which contained the spear that Bulat had thrown, at Eric, forcing him to be the one that dodged backwards away from Akame and go on the defensive. Akame instantly seized the opening that had formed for her and dashed forward, slashing at Eric, blocking his attempted retaliatory slashes and dodging the point-blank shots that he fired at her. Elsha and Lavinia both converged on Bulat, firing shots of magical energy at his armoured form, forcing him further and further away from Akame and Eric as the assault on him continued.
Bulat, summoning his thrown spear back to him from within the ice-shell that Lavinia had made around the spear, hissed in pain underneath his armour as he felt a couple of magical shots catching and dealing damage to him. He span his spear around within his hand to block as many of the shots of magical energy as possible as he jumped backwards, putting some minor distance between the Bronze-Rank and Red-Rank former Mages.
What looked like a Knight piece materialised around Bulat for a second or two, before dashing forward while simultaneously moving side to side, dodging the magical bullets that Elsha and Lavinia continued to fire at him. Just as he changed direction again, he threw his spear at both Elsha and Lavinia, forcing the pair of them to move out of the way and cease firing the magical bullets at Bulat. With that obstacle out of the way, Bulat made a beeline right for Elsha faster than she could react, and sunk his fist into Elsha's stomach, sending her flying towards one of the houses. Though she hit the wall of one of the houses with a colossal crash, and flew through it like it was nothing, the fact that she didn't fade away in a hazy blue light, as well as the fact that no announcement of her Retirement came, was evident... even if no-one paid attention to it at the time.
Bulat turned towards Lavinia, but a wall of ice formed around her on all-sides just as he dashed towards her, like an icy mini-fort of sorts. Demise Dolly (what Lavinia had named the avatar of her Sacred Gear) also fired an intense blast of icy energy at Bulat, forcing him to jump backwards.
Dodging the concentrated energy-blast as it moved towards his new location, Bulat changed direction again and dashed towards Lavinia, but the former Red-Class mage raised her hands and erected a large, thick barrier of ice between her and Bulat. Light cracks formed around the barrier that Lavinia had conjured out of thin air as Bulat's fist crashed against it, and Rudiger's muscular Pawn would have thrown another couple of punches to keep breaking the shield if Demise Dolly hadn't moved the concentrated ice-blast at his new position, which gave Lavinia time to thicken the barrier, and extend its reach to around every side of her body- creating a cocoon of thick ice to serve as a shield against all (relatively) weak attacks.
Safe inside a barrier that was in no danger of breaking anytime soon unless Bulat could retire a High-Class Devil in one punch, Lavinia began pooling the rest of her magical energy into her hands, charging up a powerful attack. Roxas' third blonde Pawn jumped slightly as Bulat dashed back towards the ice-barrier and delivered another few punches towards it before jumping backwards, but she continued to charge herself up. From her position within the barrier, she could see several dents and cracks on the part of the barrier that Bulat had punched.
Lavinia began to sweat as the magic in her hands charged up further and further, getting more and more powerful as she did so. She normally wouldn't have been, but she'd poured a good portion of her magical energy into the ice-barrier that she had made, so the attack that she was presently charging would drain a good amount of her remaining energy.
However, as Bulat came back at the same part of the barrier that he had been punching earlier, and continued his assault, Lavinia was pretty sure that this extra-powerful attack would be worth it. It would certainly Retire, or at least severely injure, Bulat, and vitally reduce the point count of Rudiger's peerage. Plus, Demise Dolly could easily protect her until she was able to recuperate some of her energy.
As more severe cracks and dents appeared in her ice-cocoon, Lavinia swivelled around and pointed her charged magical energy-attack at the part of the barrier that Bulat was currently beating down upon, with more and more cracks forming in that portion of the barrier with every second and with every punch. As Bulat finally succeeded in fully breaking through Lavinia's ice-barrier, and clapped eyes on her for the first time since she sealed herself inside... Lavinia fired her charged attack.
It was a concentrated attack of pure magical energy, piercing Bulat's armour, his body, going all the way through his body and out the other side, piercing his armour on the other side. Beneath his armour, Bulat could only let out a silent yell of pain as he faded away in a hazy blue light, Retired from the game as Lavinia's concentrated attack faded away.
Under her command, Demise Dolly broke down enough of the ice-barrier for Lavinia to walk out, just in time to see Elsha walking out of the hole in the building that she had formed when Bulat punched her into that, with what looked like a Rook piece materialising around her body. She looked slightly bruised, and her Magician's robes were tattered and torn- showing off a good bit of skin- but Roxas' second blonde Pawn was otherwise unharmed.
"You got him?" Elsha asked, looking at the haze of light, at Lavinia, and back again. "Nice."
"Yeah." Lavinia replied. "Took a fair bit of my energy to take him out in one go, but I'd say it was worth-"
Lavinia didn't even get to finish her sentence before she found herself lifted up into the air, by a force that wasn't her own. She let out a squawk of surprise at something behind Elsha as she was flipped over and flung into the ground with such force that the road beneath her cracked. She was Retired instantly, with Demise Dolly fading away as well.
Elsha looked up and around to see Tatsumaki, Rudiger's Mutation Queen, moving her hand from where Lavinia had just been towards Elsha. Before anything could happen, Elsha tried to fire a number of arrows of magical energy at Tatsumaki before she could do anything to her that was anything close to what she had done to Lavinia, but the magical arrows hadn't even reached Tatsumaki before Elsha found herself flying up into the air, flipping over in the same way that Lavinia had been, and was flung down into the ground. Her whole body ached from splitting pain, but she didn't lose consciousness, nor did she find herself fading away.
'Thank fuck I promoted.' Elsha thought to herself as she felt herself lifting up into the air. Her light eyes met Tatsumaki's darker-green eyes, only one part of her childlike face, which wore an expression of annoyance. Elsha flung more magical arrows in Tatsumaki's direction, but they only bounced off of her body without doing much damage to her.
Her face screwing up further in annoyance, Tatsumaki raised Elsha further up into the air before flinging her down into the ground, seconds before proceeding to pull the house directly opposite the one that Elsha had been punched into by Bulat up into the air, before flinging it down onto Elsha, lifting it up and flinging it down again.
"Come on... Retire already!" Tatsumaki muttered, lifting the house up again and preparing to throw it down upon Elsha again, before feeling a sword penetrating her lower back from behind. She let out a loud scream of pain and looked down, seeing Akame's sword in her body. She looked behind her, but Roxas' red-eyed Knight was nowhere in her eyesight. Turning around again, her eyes widened as Akame could be seen dashing towards Elsha, picking her up and dashing out of the village, with Tatsumaki's psionic power wearing off as Elsha left her sight.
Rudiger's Queen narrowed her eyes as Akame returned to her sight, dashing through the village and jumping into the air, reaching out to grab her sword from within Tatsumaki's body, but Tatsumaki's reactions were unfortunately fast enough for her to dodge out of the way of Akame's jump, and reach out to psychically grab Akame in mid-air with one hand.
"That was a mistake." Tatsumaki surmised Akame's move, reaching behind her and physically pulling Akame's sword out of her body, before taking control of it with her psionic abilities. She then threw the sword at the immobilised Akame, impaling her through the stomach and Retiring her in an instant.
With the sounds of Akame's yell of pain fading away, along with her body, Tatsumaki let out a breath as, in spite of feeling herself becoming fatigued, she focused her power on the wound in her stomach and began healing herself via her psionics.
As she did so, she wondered about where Eric was. He'd reported that he'd engaged against Akame a few minutes ago, but Tatsumaki hadn't seen him during her trip to the village that she now floated in. The fact that no announcement of his Retirement from the game had come up was encouraging, as every non-Retired point counted in this new Rating Game system, but still. She wanted to know where Rudiger's second Knight was.
Her inner musings were interrupted, however, when a flash of white light showed up in the corner of her eyes. She stopped focusing on her own wound (which was almost-entirely healed) and cast her powers out at the source of the white light, but was too late to stop the silver-haired Valian Lucifer from sinking her fist into her still-wounded stomach, sending her spinning over and over in the air as she flew backwards from Valian's punch.
Tatsumaki righted herself, gritting her teeth as she cast her powers over Valian, who flew forward to presumably try and punch her again, and managed to hold her in place... for a couple of seconds, as Valian released what looked like omnidirectional pulse of dark energy from her body, breaking Tatsumaki's psionic hold on her.
"Not bad." Roxas' Queen remarked to Rudiger's Queen, a grin on her face as she hung in the air on her ten Devil wings. "It's not every day I meet someone who can actually catch me in some power-based hold. Even rarer when they turn out to be a kid."
Angered at Valian's remark, Tatsumaki extended her hands out towards two houses, pulling them up into the air with her powers. With one house under the control of her left hand and the other under the control of her right, she swung her hands together and attempted to crush Valian between the two houses, hoping that this would teach her to make fun of her for her stunted size.
Though it was not to be: Valian seemed to casually drill her way through the house controlled by Tatsumaki's left hand (which flew at her from her right) and out the other side, escaping harm completely. She opened her mouth, another remark coming up before she found herself caught in another bond, similar to the one that Tatsumaki had caught her in... but far weaker. She didn't even need another pulse of her Primordial Power of Darkness to break free of the bond that Fubuki, Tatsumaki's much-older-looking-but-actually-younger sister, had trapped her in, and returned in kind with a few spears formed from the darkness that she inherited.
Fubuki caught the darkness-spears that Valian tossed her way with her power, and flung them back at her, though Valian casually dodged them as she flew towards one of Rudiger's remaining Pawns, a fist clenched in preparation to deliver a heavy punch. She was, however, caught in another powerful bond courtesy of Tatsumaki, and thrown backwards before Valian could do any harm to her little sister.
"Let's go, sister." Tatsumaki remarked to Fubuki, glaring at Valian as she conjured up more spears of darkness. Fubuki simply nodded, since she didn't need to be told twice.
Line Break
Just as the battle between Valian, Tatsumaki and Fubuki began on the side of the village closest to Rudiger's base, Roxas himself arrived on the side of the village closest to his own. After hearing the announcements of Asia, Neo, Elsha, Lavinia, Akame, Xenovia and Akeno's Retirements, he figured it was time for some major damage to be done to Rudiger's score in this game.
Idly taking in the sounds of his Queen engaging Rudiger's Queen and Pawn, Roxas noticed a volley of bullets flying at him from the left just in time to raise a magical barrier with one hand that blocked all of them, before they even came close to him. From his right, he vaguely recognised a large sword being swung at him... or rather, where he was about to be in half a second.
Roxas casually stopped walking and took a pronounced step backwards, summoning Clarent Galatine in one hand and swinging it at Cloud, who was now in front of him. With respect to Rudiger's blond Knight, he had the speed to realise that he'd missed his first swing, and turned to clash with Roxas before the Holy-Demonic Sword could tear into his side. However, despite his speed, Roxas was physically stronger than him many times over, which Roxas was easily able to prove by pushing Cloud backwards with next to no visible effort.
A pink bat flew overhead as Cloud jumped backwards, putting some distance between himself and the stationary Roxas. As he did so, several other members of Rudiger's peerage began appearing in front of and around Roxas: the frog-Youkai Tsuyu, the gun-wielding Lara-
Lara didn't much fancy waiting for the narrator to finish talking about everyone else that was about to fight Roxas, and opened fire on the opposing King again after reloading both her guns. Rather than pull up another shield to block the bullets, Roxas simply span Clarent Galatine in his hand, blocking all fourteen bullets that Lara fired at him from both of her guns, and actually catching them all on the blade of his sword.
When Lara stopped shooting and prepared to reload, Roxas also stopped spinning his sword, proceeding to tap it against the ground and line up all the bullets that he'd caught on the ground. He then swung his sword at all the bullets he'd lined up on the ground, sending them all at Lara, about as quickly as she'd fired them at him in the first place. Before Lara could be damaged by her own fire, Cloud dashed between the bullets and her, raising his own sword to block the bullets again as Ryu, Ken and Eric arrived, all getting into their respective battle-stances. Cloud, Tsuyu and Lara did the same, with the six peerage members surrounding their silver-haired opponent.
Without comment, Roxas de-summoned Clarent Galatine, switching it out for his new weapon, Dáinmung, which he split into its two-smaller-blades form. Getting into a battle stance of his own, he smirked at the six peerage members, who all slowly prepared to attack, with a single comment leaving his lips.
"Bring it."
Line Break
Meanwhile, back at his own base, Rudiger Rosenkreutz stood up, having just heard the word from Cloud: that Roxas Gremory had left his own base and come onto the Rating Game field, and that most of his remaining peerage members were presently engaging him in battle, with his other two servants taking on Roxas' Queen, the current holder of Divine Dividing.
Rudiger had seen and faced many Kings that just hung back at their bases and let their servants do all the fighting, without doing a thing themselves. He'd also faced many Kings that used their servants to bait the opposing King's peerage, as well as eventually the opposing King themselves, back to their base where a trap would usually be laid. The latter was a that he himself employed quite often, especially against opponents that had could gather lots of intel on, particularly of the recordings-of-past-Rating-games type.
However, against Roxas, a King who was presumed-dead until less than six months ago and with only two Rating Games to his name... Rudiger had been somewhat stumped when coming up with a good strategy against the team of powerful Devil/Angel Hybrids, two of which were possessors of Longinus-Class Sacred Gears, and especially with Roxas himself as the son of the current Lucifer and grandson of the past Lucifer. It almost seemed unfair.
"Well, I definitely can't blame him for his confidence." Rudiger spoke to himself, standing up and preparing to leave his own base, with intention to travel to the village where Roxas was currently fighting most of his remaining peerage members, and help in the battle against Roxas. However, his attempt to leave his base was interrupted by a blood-coloured lance flying through the air towards him. Rudiger, seeing it at just the last second, jumped backwards and fired a powerful attack at the lance, with the attack shattering the weapon like glass.
As the lance shattered, Rudiger looked up into the air to see Akasha Bloodriver baring down on him, a collection of blood forming in one opened hand and forming into a similar lance to the one she had thrown at him seconds earlier. Another, larger collection of blood formed out of thin air around Akasha's whole other arm, before extending into a long, sharp, sword-like blade that ran down just by her hand (like the wrist blades from the Predator movies, Rudiger thought for a second). Akasha descended to the ground, her game-face on as she pointed both lance and wrist-blade at Rudiger, who gave off a small smile as he addressed her.
"I actually had to double-take the first time I read the reports on your peerage, Akasha." he remarked. "Rawnel always had a thing for you over the years."
"Your King?" Akasha asked by way of reply, her eyebrows raising slightly. "That'll be a fun match when we meet him, later on in the season. Unless you're planning to take me to him by force. If you are, then fair warning: Roxas doesn't take too kindly to someone trying to take his girls."
"Nor should any sane person." Rudiger replied. "And what gave you the impression that I'd try to take you during this game? What feelings my King either used to or currently has about you isn't any of my business. But moving on from that topic, I'm guessing that Roxas sent you hear to keep me from directly confronting him."
Akasha dashed towards Rudiger, with surprising speed for a Rook, thrusting her wrist-blade towards his lower chest and her blood-lance towards his upper chest. Rudiger, after creating a moderately-large barrier via demonic power and attaching it to his hand, pushed both weapons away from him while firing a powerful shot of demonic energy at Akasha from close-range. It hit her, and sent her flying backwards, spinning over in the air a couple of times before she landed on the ground. She then jumped up, unhurt, and glared at Rudiger for a second before throwing her blood-lance at him and dashing at him again, summoning a large wave of blood to crash down on Rudiger.
'Well, that's as definitive an answer as any.' Rudiger thought to himself, creating a larger barrier to form over himself as the blood-wave was about to envelop him. He didn't want blood soaking his favourite outfit, after all.
Line Break
Valian had to quickly erect a barrier of demonic power to protect herself from a great number of flying bricks, wrenched from the nearest house and flung in her direction by Fubuki. As the cacophony of sound that was dozens of bricks rushing against her erected barrier as fast as bullets, Valian fired a bolt of dark energy out of her other hand in Tatsumaki's direction, forcing the psychic to drop her attempt to catch her in another psionic bond and fly out of the way. Roxas' Queen fired another few dark bolts at Rudiger's Queen until the bricks stopped coming at her from Fubuki's direction, at which point she dropped the barrier.
"This all you can do?" Valian asked, smirking at the two green-haired individuals floating in front of her. "I mean I'm not exactly surprised, kid, but still-"
"KID?!" Tatsumaki yelled, her power flaring up all over her body, before collecting around her hands as she raised them up above her head. "I'LL SHOW YOU 'KID'!"
Valian raised an eyebrow as the entire town beneath her, Fubuki and Tatsumaki began to rumble, with the sounds of it tearing up following a few minutes later. Valian and Fubuki both widened their eyes as Tatsumaki then proceeded to lift THE ENTIRE TOWN up off of the ground, and began psionically tearing it up. Valian counted ten, twenty, fifty, a hundred, two hundred, five hundred, a thousand, ten thousand, more than ten thousand pieces, all varying from the size of a pebble to the size of Valian herself in terms of size. Tatsumaki proceeded to then lower her hands, and send all the pieces of town (consisting of chunks of buildings, signs, trees, plants and fuck knows what else) flying squarely in Valian's direction, with all the pieces flying at Roxas' silver-haired Queen faster than bullets.
Narrowing her eyes at everything flying her way, Valian raised both hands up and conjured up another powerful barrier in front of her, grunting in slight annoyance when her barrier bent from the force of the first few chunks of town slamming into said barrier. A couple of seconds into the assault on Valian and her barrier, Valian let out a gasp of shock and pain as she felt many chunks of town flying into her from behind, tearing through her clothes.
While she flew aside and away from the constant assault of pieces of town being flung at her, Valian looked up at Tatsumaki. She snorted through her nose at the sight of a transportation-circle, placed by Fubuki, in front of the stream of town-pieces that were still being flung at her, with the other end of the transport-circle turning around in order for the pieces of town to be aimed at her. Stopping in mid-air and turning around in front of the other end of the transport-circle, she summoned several small balls of dark energy in both hands, before flinging them towards the chunks of town.
As the balls of darkness flung by Valian impacted the chunks of town flung by Tatsumaki and aimed at her by Fubuki, the balls of darkness began exploding like bombs, throwing the chunks of town out of Valian's way. Valian pointed her right hand at the chunks of town that continued to be flung at her, firing out more of her little bomb-balls of darkness, and used her left hand to wrap the smaller fragments of the chunks of town (after they were blown apart by her bomb-balls of darkness) to wrap them in her signature dark element, before flinging them back at Tatsumaki and Fubuki.
Tatsumaki and Fubuki both had to split up and fly away from Valian and her retaliatory assault on them, having been forced to drop their assault on Roxas' Queen. The noise caused by the un-thrown pieces of town landing on the ground around them was incredible, but went ignored by all three women as Valian pursued them, dodging the bolts of psionic energy that both opposing Queen and Pawn threw back at her.
It didn't take the Vanishing Dragon wielder very long to catch up to Fubuki and Tatsumaki: it took her even less time to gauge that Fubuki was the weaker of the two (which made sense, considering that she was the 3-value Pawn and Tatsumaki the 18-value Queen), and throwing a volley of powerful dark energy-tendrils out of the fingers of her right hand at her.
Fubuki only noticed the tendrils that flew at her a few seconds before they wrapped securely around both of her legs and began pulling her back, in spite of her best efforts to fly away. Letting out a shout of surprise, Fubuki focused her energy into her legs, trying to force Valian's tendrils to release her as she was pulled further and further away from Tatsumaki and towards Valian. It was then that Tatsumaki, now a couple of dozen meters or so away from Fubuki, turned around in mid-air and realised what was happening to her sister, and extended her hand out to use her considerably higher power and try and free her younger-but-far-older-looking sister from Valian's tendrils.
But it was too late: When Fubuki was dragged through the air to within reaching distance of Valian, Roxas' Queen reached out with her free left hand and grabbed Fubuki by the face. Without a second's hesitation, she formed the armour of Divine Dividing's Balance Breaker around her, Fubuki's face still in her now-armoured hand, and began Dividing her power.
"NO!" Tatsumaki yelled out, flying at full-speed towards Valian, with each loud ["Divide!"] that rang out from within Valian's armour making her angrier and angrier as Valian sapped more and more of her little sister's strength and power from her. By the time she reached Fubuki and Valian, Valian simply dropped Fubuki, her pale-blue energy-wings glowing from the intake of power she had just received.
Tatsumaki barely managed to catch Fubuki before she hit the ground, and her emerald-green eyes widened when she saw that Fubuki had already lost consciousness, and began to fade away in a haze of blue light in her arms. The announcement of Fubuki's Retirement from the Rating Game barely registered in Tatsumaki's mind as she stood up, and slowly turned around, staring up at Valian, apoplectic with rage. Valian, unseen within her armour, could only smirk: the likely-intended effect of Tatsumaki's current expression (which, if someone like Roxas was wearing it, would've caused all pairs of worn pants for miles around to be soiled within nanoseconds) was somewhat lost due to the fact that it was currently being worn by someone who wouldn't have looked out of place in primary school.
"I'm gonna have fun with this, I can tell." Valian remarked, her smirk growing as Tatsumaki grew more visibly enraged. Rudiger's Queen then shot up into the air at breakneck speeds, ready to duel with Roxas' Queen without holding anything back.
Line Break
Cloud made the first move against Roxas, dashing forward and pulling his huge sword backwards in order to swing it at him. As he did so, Lara opened fire on the silver-haired King with both guns. Twisting his body around, Roxas span the left blade of Dáinmung in his hand to block the bullets that Lara fired, while raising the right blade to meet Cloud's larger sword. The speed and force behind Cloud's massive sword clashing with Roxas' smaller one forced him back a little, but he held firm against the blond Knight for a few seconds before pushing him back, twirling his left sword around to block Lara's bullets.
However, Roxas only succeeded in stopping twelve out of the fourteen bullets that Lara fired out of both her guns, as he found out when one whizzed just past his left blade and struck him in the stomach, dead-centre. The feeling of the bullet hitting his stomach did little more than force a slight grimace of annoyance out of the Nephalem, as it didn't penetrate him at all. As he noticed Lara reloading, Roxas thrust the left blade of Dáinmung in Lara's direction in a stabbing motion, sending a cold whirlwind her way that Lara was forced to tank as best she could. While Roxas dashed at Cloud, dodging the three waves of energy that Cloud fired at him out of his sword, he could see Lara shivering from the effects of the icy whirlwind he sent her way as she reloaded.
Roxas heard fast steps behind him, and instinctively raised the left blade of Dáinmung to block a swung sword from Eric, who had attempted to come up at him from behind. Turning fully around to face him, Roxas dodged one swing from Eric's sword, blocked another, quickly ducked as Eric pulled out a gun and attempted to shoot him at point-blank range, and swung at him in return, slicing through his gun and rendering it utterly useless. He blocked Eric's next swing while turning around to watch Cloud dashing at him, before jumping out of the way to dodge the blond's next swing. However, he didn't notice Tsuyu jumping above his head, tongue out and attempting to wrap said tongue around Roxas' stomach.
Just before the frog Youkai's tongue could reach Roxas' stomach, never mind fully wrap around it, Roxas de-summoned Dáinmung, reached out and grabbed Tsuyu by her elongated tongue. Ribbiting in surprise, Tsuyu tried to pull her tongue back, in order to pull Roxas into the air, but Roxas' strength proved superior as he yanked Tsuyu down to the ground, dazing the Pawn as she was flung down and bounced up. The next, and last, sound she made was a loud gasp of pain as Roxas performed a roundhouse kick on her. She was sent in the direction of Lara, who had just finished reloading her guns, but had faded away in blue light before she even reached her.
One out of six down.
Lara winced on pure reflex as Tsuyu's unconscious body flew at her, with that wincing opening her up for long enough for Roxas to rush towards her and, with both fists imbued with his Power of Twilight, sent Lara to a similar fate with a quick couple of punches.
Two down.
Roxas then had to lean backwards as Ryu came at him, aiming a powerful swung kick at his head, then forward again as Ken swung another kick at the back of his head. He rolled forwards, jumped up while spinning around and landed in a defensive stance, facing both of Rudiger's Rooks, who ran at him at the same time. Ken came first, throwing a punch at Roxas' head, which he dodged. Roxas grabbed Ken's fist, span around while still holding onto it, jumped into the air and flung Ken into the ground, with said ground cracking from the force of which Ken was flung into it.
Ken raised his hands to block Roxas' attempts to punch him in the face in return, and knock him out quickly, and was inwardly thankful that Ryu chose that opportune moment to fly in Roxas' direction with a spinning kick, catching the opposing King in the back and sending him rolling backwards. Though Roxas was back on his feet within a second, firing an arrow of dense Twilight out of his hand at Rudiger's black-haired Rook in retaliation for his spinning kick. Ryu seemed to block it via raising his arm as a makeshift mini-shield and focusing a dense amount of Touki into it, before gathering a great amount of Ki into his hands and firing it in a concentrated ball at Roxas, though he missed.
Roxas moved forward, closing the gap between himself and Ryu and throwing another punch at his face, which though it connected with him, didn't seem to register as Ryu kicked Roxas in the stomach. Then Ken came up from behind Roxas, throwing a punch that connected with the back of Roxas' head. Roxas twisted around and raised his hand, preparing to blast Ken from close-range, but saw Ryu coming up at him again from the corner of his eye and redirected his close-range Twilight blast at Ryu.
Ryu dodged it at the last second, however, and interrupted Roxas' next attempted to come at him with a powerful Touki-enhanced kick to the leg, which Ken took advantage of by attempting to kick Roxas in the face again, which he interrupted by catching Ken's foot. Roxas made to fling Ken away so he could fully focus on Ryu, but Ryu throwing another punch at his chest caused him to drop Ken, who repaid his kindness by kicking him hard enough in the mouth that Roxas felt a couple of his teeth coming loose.
Spitting the loose teeth out of his mouth, Roxas rolled away from Ryu and Ken's attempts to hit him from both sides with the same hand-focused Ki balls that Ryu had used against him a moment earlier, focused a great amount of his Twilight energy into his hands, and planted them both on the ground, palms-first and focusing that energy into the ground around him.
Ken widened his eyes just as he realised what Roxas was doing, with Ryu's eyes widening a second or so later. Roxas didn't register their cries of "LOOK OUT!" or something similar to that, as the ground-focused energy he had been charging up from his hands was released in an earthquake-like pulse that shook the ground around him, with the Twilight energy that the Nephalem had focused into the ground shooting up from below the feet of all four of his remaining opponents. From the middle of the AoE attack that he'd just cast, he could see Ryu and Ken doing their best to either dodge or tank the shots of Twilight that were now flying everywhere, or just make their way out of the area that he'd just affected.
Eric and Cloud, you'd think, would be a lot more successful at the 'getting out' idea. And Eric was, having made his way out with some rather impressive dodging of the Twilight shots that flew everywhere. Cloud, however... wasn't as lucky: he was close, sure, but he was unluckily caught out by a shot of Twilight that was flung up from the ground directly in front of his face, too close to him for him to react to, especially when he was going at the speed he was.
Rudiger's blond Knight was stunned by the Twilight shot that impacted his face, giving Roxas the chance he needed to dash forward and score a free, devastating hit on Cloud from behind, with the blond only letting out a silent scream of pain before fading away in a hazy blue light.
Three down.
"Not bad, you guys!" Roxas remarked as the effects of his Twilight-pulse attack began to calm down, while summoning Clarent Galatine to one hand and getting into a different battle-stance. "But I'm a bit hungry. How about we finish playing this Game, huh?"
His question was seemingly answered, not by any of the three remaining peerage members standing against him, but by a portal opening almost directly to his right, and a powerful shot of divine energy shooting out of it and catching him in the side, sending him off his feet. Roxas landed on the ground, and rolled over and over a couple of times before coming to a stop, though he was back on his feet within a second, his head spinning and his side hurting from the shot of energy.
"Ahhh..." Roxas moaned, clutching the part of himself that the divine energy had hit. "Ahhh- fuck, fuck, fuck that hurt."
"Oh, you're still alive." A female voice, one that Roxas hadn't heard in a very long time, spoke up from within the portal. Roxas widened his eyes slightly through the pain as Hera stepped out of the portal, flanked by two individuals: the fiery white-haired Ares, dressed in heavy armour and glaring daggers at Roxas, and-
"Diana?!" Roxas exclaimed. "What the hell?"
The light armour-clad Amazon princess didn't reply, and could only slightly turn away from Roxas as Hera spoke up again.
"It's not every day I find someone who can survive the power of a god, particularly me." Hera remarked. "Though I guess your survival had to do with your nature as a Nephalem. But it doesn't matter," she continued, raising her hand and pointing it at Roxas. "You won't survive again, I'm sure of-"
"Why are you working with her, Diana?" Roxas asked, doing his best to remain in his battle-stance, in spite of the pain in his side. "Don't you know she's with the Khaos Brigade?"
Diana didn't reply, and the next question that Roxas had on the tip of his tongue was metaphorically forced back down as Hera fired another shot of divine energy at Roxas, but Roxas saw the attack coming this time, and jumped out of the way.
"Answer me, Diana!" Roxas shouted, pointing his sword at her. However, rather than receive any answer from Diana, what he got by way of answer was a punch in the face from Ares, which was so powerful that it literally sent him flying, and flipping over and over in mid-air before he spread his ten Nephalem wings and righted himself in mid-air.
"Ignore my mother again and you'll sorely regret it, Gremory." Ares spoke, a calm and focused expression on his face as he rose into the air, to the point that he was on a level with Roxas. "You're hardly even worthy to be her footstool, let alone for her to speak to you."
"Something tells me you'd hate it even if I was a footstool." Roxas replied. "Given that you'd probably want to be there yourself. Or am I wrong?"
A dense, divine aura began gathering around Ares as an angry expression formed on his face. Evidently, what Roxas had said had touched a MAJOR nerve in the Greek God of War. White flames danced in his hands, which were raised to point at Roxas just like Hera had done earlier, and then flung at him. However, before Roxas could even raise a shield to try and block the flames, a shout of ["Reflect!"] was heard, and a white barrier formed between Roxas and Ares, blocking the divine flames and sending them right back at their originator.
"Roxas!" Valian called from within her Balance Breaker armour, flying up beside him and stopping next to him in mid-air. "You okay?"
"Been better." Roxas replied, raising his hand to his face and wincing slightly as he touched his face. "I think Ares broke my nose." Valian glanced at Roxas' face, and snorted slightly.
"He did." She replied. "It's an improvement."
"I'm sure it is." Roxas shook his head. "Still hurts, th-"
Roxas' reply was interrupted as Ares flew over to him and Valian faster than he could react, and delivered a mid-air axe-kick that sent Roxas flying down into the ground, with the impact of the Nephalem flying into the ground sending ripples around the entire Rating Game dimension.
"Roxas!" Valian yelled, now very worried for her King. She tried to fly down and help him, as she could see Diana approaching him, but she found herself grabbed from behind by Ares, span around a couple of times and flung away from where Roxas was. She managed to right herself in mid-air as Ares came flying at her, a look of manic glee on his face, evidently brought on by the prospect of throwing down with the inheritor of the White Dragon Emperor. Valian didn't get to see that expression for very long, however, before Ares delivered a heavy punch to her armoured face and sent her backwards, spinning in mid-air over and over again.
Meanwhile, Roxas was picking himself up from the axe-kick that Ares had delivered him, slightly dazed from how hard he'd hit the ground. The pain in his... everywhere, from getting axe-kicked into the ground by the God of War was a nice enough reminder that the attack hadn't killed him, though he couldn't quite figure out the WHY of this new situation. He almost stumbled over as soon as he'd picked himself up again, but caught himself just in time. Wiping the blood and mud from his face, he turned towards Diana as she steadily approached him, and summoned Clarent Galatine (which he'd dropped when Ares punched him in the face) back to his hand.
"Come on, Diana!" Roxas cried. "Least you could do before you try to kill me is tell me why you're trying!"
"I have nothing to say to you, Roxas." Diana replied. "Other than it's Hera's-"
"AHEM." Hera cleared her throat from above Diana, who corrected herself.
"I mean, Lady Hera's, will that you need to be eliminated." Diana then drew her sword, and got into a battle-stance of her own. "And if that's the case, then you will be."
There was a second's pause between Diana and Roxas, before Diana suddenly dashed at Roxas, who raised his sword to block her swing and countered with a kick to the stomach, sending her skidding backwards. His body still aching from Ares' axe-kick, Roxas sighed as Diana righted herself.
"Really?" Roxas asked, as Diana glared at him. "You're going to go with the defence that's fallen out of usage by sane people since Nuremburg? If you're attempting to bullshit me, Diana, it's not working."
Diana didn't answer, and swiped at Roxas again with her sword. The red-eyed Nephalem managed to block the Amazon/God hybrid's aggressive swing, but he felt his body aching in protest from the aftershock of Ares' powerful axe-kick, which slowed him down to the point that he was only barely able to block Diana's attack, resulting in a small scratch on his hand from the tip of Diana's sword.
Diana then began laying down blows, thick and fast, against Roxas, easily forcing the Devil/Angel hybrid on the defensive, and delivering more small cuts to Roxas with every time she came close to breaking through his defences entirely. However, Roxas held his own in spite of his pain, and even managed to push back a little against Diana when their swords clashed again.
"I'll be sure to give you a less painful end if you stop resisting, Roxas." Diana spoke, gritting her teeth as she tapped into her divine power in order to push back against Roxas, gaining an advantage in the clash against him almost instantly. "You're only making this harder for everyone."
"Oh, I feel so compelled to stop trying to stop someone from killing me, now." Roxas replied, sarcastically. "Thank you so much, Diana. How about I give you this instead?"
He then proceeded to whip out Ombra with his free hand, and quickly aimed at Diana's face before pulling the trigger, sending a bullet of concentrated dark energy at the woman's face from point-blank range. Diana wasn't fast enough to dodge the bullet that Roxas fired, and let out a yell of pain when the bullet went into her lower jaw.
Roxas jumped back and, almost immediately, began focusing what healing magic he knew into his body in the short time he knew he had between his shot hitting Diana and her coming at him again. It wasn't powerful healing on the level of someone like Asia or Palutena, but it was at least enough to dull the current pain that he felt throughout his body.
Once he felt himself at the point that he could move his limbs without his muscles crying out in protest, Roxas switched out Clarent Galatine for Luce and began firing bullets of both darkness and light on Diana again, hoping to keep her distracted for longer until he could get himself into a state in which he could properly fight back, or failing that, retreat like all of Rudiger's peerage members had done as soon as Hera, Diana and Ares had jumped into the Rating Game dimension.
Unfortunately for him, Diana was able to ignore the pain of getting shot in the mouth, and raise her bracelet-clad wrists to block the bullets flying at her with impressive speed and precision, all while she jumped towards Roxas. Catching the last bullet of light between her teeth, she reached out and gave Roxas what looked like a light shove, but the speed at which she flew at him and the unseen force behind her shove was enough to send Roxas flying through a nearby tree and into the ground, both Luce and Ombra slipping from his hands as he went.
Before he could even get back up, Diana was on him, grabbing his head and slamming it twice into her knee, before sending him back to the ground with a punch to the face, followed up by another couple of punches to the gut.
Coughing up blood as Diana continued her beatdown on him, Roxas tried to summon Clarent Galatine back to his hand in order to get a cheap stab in on Diana, but just as his main weapon began materialising, Diana moved out of the way of Clarent Galatine's blade as it formed, since it would have impaled her through the stomach had she not done so. She grabbed Roxas' sword-holding hand in one of hers and delivered a brutal punch to the wrist with the other- breaking it, sending Clarent Galatine from his hand again and drawing a yell of pain from the already-injured Roxas.
His vision swimming and mind fuzzy from the repeated heavy blows to the head, each of which would probably have been enough to kill an Ultimate-Class Devil on their own, Roxas only barely registered Diana suddenly jumping away from him, and an incredibly powerful blast of dark energy flying over his body in Diana's direction, and a feminine yell of pain indicating that the blast of dark energy likely hit her.
"Roxas?!" He heard Sirzechs' worried voice as the blurry image of his father appeared over him, the sight of him becoming slightly clearer as Sirzechs leaned down. "You're gonna be okay, Roxas, don't worry."
Roxas felt himself being lifted up, as he heard the sound of a portal opening, as well as Hera's voice. Though as he barely clung onto consciousness, he couldn't quite make out what Hera was saying.
After a few seconds, the portal closed, and Roxas saw Grayfia approaching, extending her hands over him in order to focus healing magic onto his most severe wounds.
"He needs a Sitri hospital, Sirzechs!" Grayfia spoke, her voice panicked as she did what she could for her oldest son.
"Y-yeah, you're right, Grayfia." Sirzechs replied, as Roxas heard the sound of a transportation-circle opening a couple of steps' distance away from his location, and felt Sirzechs walking towards it.
It was at that point... that Roxas passed out.
Before I leave you, I just wanted to say that I've cross-posted this entire fic onto AO3. If you prefer to read this fic there rather than here, cool. My name on there is the same as on this site: SlashFan2018.
Anyway, that's the 56th chapter of Nephalem of Gremory finished, and 9 to go for its first stint. The Rating Game between Roxas and Rudiger reached a rather... unexpected, conclusion. And don't worry everyone, Roxas isn't dead. I wouldn't kill off the MC of one of my DxD fics... not like this, anyway.
Also, sorry that this chapter took more than a month to come out. A combination of real-life shit getting in my way and the fact that I'm currently developing a couple of new fanfics... one of which is that new DxD work that I mentioned a while back. You know, the one that I said could end up even grander than Nephalem? Yea, that one. The first chapter of it may or may not be coming out soon, both on AO3 and on FFnet, so stay alert for that on whichever website you prefer.
Anyway, I really hope you enjoyed this chapter. Whether you did or you didn't, please leave a review and let me know, because I really do love hearing feedback, of any kind. If you fancy letting me know about some possible ideas you might have for later in the story, or just have questions for me (because I'll be happy to answer them), let me know in a review, drop me a PM or hit me up on Discord (my name for it is on my profile), Either method works for me!
Next Time: The Spider, Aftermath of Hera's Attack
Seeya!