Disclaimer: I don't own Blood+, Harry Potter or Stargate.
The Wars of Legends
Book 2: Bats Rising
Chapter Two: Wizarding Complications
Beta:
Trigger warnings: Incestous behavior, Gore
Corporal Émile Boisselot was a loyal soldier of the French Third Republic who was willing to serve his country in anyway it required up to and including dying for it on the battlefield if need be. Thus unlike many of his fellows in his Company he had not minded, over much anyways, marching through the countryside to investigate a fire and subsequent loss of contact with the country estate of some rich eccentric.
That said, he did very mind that this had led him to fighting what appeared to be literal demons out of hell.
"Fire! Fire, you fools! If you want to live, fire!" The lieutenant ordered, sounding half-crazed.
Émile couldn't honestly blame him as he took aim and fired his rifle at the monsters advancing on his unit.
How in the world did it come to this!? The soldier wanted to scream, but found his throat too choked by fear to say a word.
As they approached the estate on one of the back roads, the company had spotted a ragtag caravan of people heading in their direction. From Émile's admittedly limited point of view they looked simply like a group bedraggled refugees fleeing whatever tragedy had befallen the estate, but apparently their officers decided that the way they were moving suspiciously like a military unit. The corporal didn't see it. All he'd seen was that they were keeping a watchful eye on their surroundings, which was understandable considering their situation.
The officers didn't ask for his opinion though and decided to send a scout ahead while the rest of the company formed up in battle formation. Émile had thought it ludicrous. At least he did until the whole band of supposed refugees had transformed into demons with oversized arms and long bestial faces at the first sight of their scout.
The poor man had tried to turn around the moment he realized what they were truly facing but had been brought down when one of the abominations had leapt impossibly high into the air, revealing a pair of bat-like wings growing from those unnaturally long arms of theirs and dived down to take him and his horse down in one fell swoop.
Then the demons had started advancing on them, forming up into a wall of monstrous flesh as if to shield the lone coach that had been at the center of their infernal caravan.
"Where's that cannon?" Someone shouted hysterically from further down the line, just as said artillery piece announced its presence by firing into the line of monsters.
A few of the beasts were thrown around by the shell's impact with the ground, but they quickly got back up and resumed their positions in their formation whilst their wounds, grievous looking though they seemed, healed before the soldiers' terrified eyes.
By this point Émile was on the verge of fleeing and he doubted he was the only one. He and his comrades had shot volley after volley at the enemy to no avail and now not even cannon shot was doing them any damage! The only thing keeping him there was the understanding that if he fled, he would only be easier prey for these hellspawn.
"The devil!" Another soldier shouted, while pointing wildly up into the air.
Émile looked towards where he was pointing and he felt his blood freeze in terror. He'd thought that he'd been afraid up till now, but he hadn't known what true fear meant. Not until now. For his comrade was right. There in the sky was a creature with the body of a man but had a pair of bat wings growing out of his back and a pair of vicious claws for hands.
It seemed to hang in the air for a moment, surveying the company of panicking soldiers with cool disdain before in a sudden blur it disappeared.
Almost in the same instant there was the sounding of tearing metal and the sound of screams. Risking a glance behind him at the cannon, Émile was horrified to find the devil standing amidst its torn wreckage and surrounded by the corpses of its gunnery crew.
Time seemed to slow for the soldier as the devil turned to look at him with crimson eyes full of cold, calculating malice. Seized by his fear, Émile took a horrified step back.
This failed to save him as the devil slammed into him in a blur and impaled him on this right arm, his claws easily piercing through his flesh and bone.
The last sight Émile Boisselot, soldier of the French Third Republic, ever saw was the devil tossing him aside before tearing into his comrades with his infernal host joining in the carnage just as his vision went black for the last time.
Diva sat patiently beside her sister in the carriage as their hive dealt with those pesky human soldiers who had come to bar their way. Or more accurately, she was draped over Saya as they waited.
Saya, for some reason, was worried.
As if these primitive humans could possibly pose a threat to us.
Despite not understanding her sister's worry, Diva was a dutiful sister and was helpfully distracting Saya from her concerns by playing with her hair from her position halfway in her lap. She would have done more, like kissing along her sister's neck which she'd found out over their experiments the last few days was something of her weak point, but had been pushed away when she tried.
"Saya, it's done." Haji, sister's Chevalier, said from outside the carriage.
The red Queen sighed in relief at that and pushed Diva off her completely.
"What are you doing?" The blue Queen asked with a pout as her sister stood.
"I want to survey the damage."
"You can do that through the Hivemind." Diva whined, reminding her sister that they could just as easily see out of the eyes of their children as their own.
"With my own eyes," Saya insisted as she opened the carriage door.
Her Chevalier was there immediately to help her down, and Diva took a moment to admire his true form as she followed her unreasonable sister. His transformation was surprisingly minimal, involving only the growth of a pair of wings and his hands changing into a set of claws.
I wonder if this is because he was transformed by sister's blood when she wasn't awakened to her true self. Diva mused curiously. It shouldn't have made a difference, but I really can't think of any other reason.
"This is-" Saya trailed off suddenly, catching Diva's wandering attention.
Turning back to her sister, she saw that she was looking out at the field of dead humans with a look of shock.
What did you expect, sister? Diva sent telepathically. You know what we're capable of. Considering that, did you honestly expect anything less?
No, but still… Actually seeing it is still surprising.
Diva really couldn't empathize. She didn't understand what her sister was so worked up about at all. The blue Queen blamed it on her human upbringing. It had skewed her sister's thinking from what a proper Chiropteran Queen's should be like.
Like the need to wear clothing. Diva griped as she pulled uncomfortably at the overly tight fabric of her dress. What was wrong with walking around naked? She'd been naked the better part of her life and hadn't found anything wrong with that. Though she knew better than to let her sister hear her even think that. Saya got very angry when she mentioned that and Diva didn't want that, even if it felt nice that she was angry on her behalf. Not that she understood why.
"This, this massacre will attract attention." Saya said after a moment of silence. "Too much attention."
"So what?" Diva asked, unable to follow her sister's logic.
"So the authorities might choose to send more than just a company at us next time."
"Then we'll just kill it all the same." Diva replied dismissively. "I don't see the problem."
"And the time after that? Or the time after that?" Saya pressed. "Are we going to kill all of France just to remain safe?"
"Oh," Diva said, chastised.
"Yes, oh." Saya said running a hand through her hair in frustration as she tried to formulate a plan.
Diva watched from her end of their link as Saya thought up and discarded plan after plan at a furious pace, before settling on one. Though she sensed she was hardly fully satisfied with it.
"We'll send the bulk of the Warriors in one direction to serve as a distraction, while the two of us will take a smaller group and travel in another."
"This will leave us vulnerable."
"I know Haji, I know." Saya said with a sigh. "But we'll attract less scrutiny if we travel in a smaller group."
The Chevalier looked unconvinced, but didn't offer an alternative suggestion.
"Is that the best plan you have, sister?"
"Unfortunately, yes." Saya admitted.
"Then, we have no choice do we?"
No one could fault Diva's logic.
"Haji, pick out the Warriors you think should follow us. Get them back into human form and into clothes that will make them look like part of the retinue of a pair of young ladies on a tour of the countryside." Saya ordered now that the decision was made. "Send the rest in every other direction than the one we're headed. Have them stay in packs and tell them to be as obvious in their movements as possible. They're our decoys so they need to be as attention grabbing as they possibly can be."
Diva blinked in confusion as her sister verbally gave her commands.
Surely she remembers we can communicate with all the members of our hive telepathically, right?
Shaking her head at her sister's apparent silliness, Diva turned to return to the carriage.
Saya did say nudity is only frowned upon in public right? And if I pull down the blinds on the windows then the carriage would be private, right? The blue Queen thought as a smile spread across her face. Oh! Isn't Saya going to be surprised when she gets done barking orders.
Javert Marcon, Senior Auror at the French Ministry of Magic was looking forward to a good old boring day at the office. He'd just gotten off a case of rather malicious muggle baiting that had left over three dozen muggles dead and the Muggle government breathing down his neck, and could really use a more relaxed pace for a while.
Unfortunately for the muscular man with a well trimmed beard fate had other plans. No sooner had he stepped into the department when his boss, the Chief of the Bureau des Aurors (Bureau of Aurors) called him into his office.
"Can I help you, Chief?"
The old man shot him a look for his tone but otherwise showed no sign of annoyance. He was after all well practiced with Javert's attitude.
"There's been multiple reports of monsters in the South," the Chief said, getting right to the point. "I want you to go investigate."
"Monsters?" Javert asked skeptically. "You don't have anything more concrete for me than that?"
"Unfortunately not. We've plenty of descriptions, consistent ones at that, but none of them match any known magical creatures." The older man said as he handed Javert a file on the case.
"A new breed?" Macron said as he paged through the file, stopping to look at a furry, horse faced humanoid monster with grossly elongated forelimbs.
"Possibly," the Chief acknowledged. "Which is why we need to investigate it?
"Why us? Why not the Bureau de Régulation et de Contrôle des Bêtes Magiques (Bureau of Regulation of Control of Magical Beasts)?"
"Because Javert," the Chief said, his tone serious. "These monsters have reportedly wiped out an entire company of the French army already, ravaged a dozen villages and attacked at least one train causing a major derailment. All told they have been responsible for no less than the death of three thousand people and that's only in the month since we've become aware of them. Who knows how many more people they killed before then?"
"By the Philosopher's Stone!"
"Exactly. Which is why I want you, the best Auror in France on this case." The Chief said, completely honest in his sentiment of Javert's skill. "I can't trust something as serious as this to anyone else."
"What do you need me to do?"
"Find out where these things are and kill them. Trace them back to their source and kill or destroy whatever created them."
It was an extreme set of orders, but considering the circumstances Javert could understand them. Tensions between the Ministry of Magic and the muggle government were running high. A situation like this, with a runaway infestation of deadly magical creatures could very easily be used as an excuse by the muggles to start a war. A war that the Ministry could not win, not when half of Beauxbatons' graduates every year for the past ten years were now working for the muggles.
"I'll handle this Chief," Javert told the older man confidently. "You don't have to worry about a thing."
The Chief just nodded and waved at him in dismissal.
Saluting his superior, Javert marched out of the office and searched the department for his best friend and partner, Jean Valjean.
Spotting the roguish man chatting up a pretty young junior Auror by the floo, Macron walked right up to the man and tossed the case file into Jean's chest. The slightly younger man stumbled at the suddenness of it all, but nevertheless caught the file before its contents could spill out on the floor.
"Save your flirting for later, Valjean." Javert told the man. "We have a case. Oh and Miss Allard, please gather your team and meet up with us at the central atrium in ten minutes. You're all coming along with us."
"Y-Yes sir," the startled junior Auror said as she snapped off a salute and rushed off to do as Javert asked.
"Was that necessary, Javert? I was getting really close to getting her to visit me this weekend." Jean told him shamelessly.
Javert just snorted at his friend's proclivities while leveling a glare in his direction.
"Yes, it was."
"Serious case then?" Jean asked, finally getting the hint.
"Deadly so."
"Then let's get me up to speed." Jean said, all traces of the playful flirt from earlier gone.
Javert nodded and began to do as his friend requested.
It took only an hour of tracking from the last known sighting of the creatures to catch up to a pack of five of the unknowns in the middle of field. Though Javert had a feeling that this was quite deliberate on the monsters' part.
"They're just standing out in the open like that? Are they trying to be discovered?" Jean asked, giving voice to the suspicion shared by all the Aurors as they observed the monstrous creatures from a considerable distance away.
"Perhaps. But whatever the case, we have our orders." Javert replied. "Allard, take Touchard and go to the right. Besson, Chevotet, you two take the left. Millet, Lecocq, take the other side. We'll box them in and finish them off with a standard crossfire."
The Aurors all nodded in acknowledgement, but before they could move into position things fell apart.
Seemingly having heard their plan somehow, the creatures decided to preempt it by making the first move. With a furious screeching roar they had suddenly started running on all fours at speeds well beyond what something that size and with the awkward gorilla like gait the creature had should have been able to manage directly at the Aurors.
"Firing line!"
With the discipline that came with extensive training, the Aurors reacted to Javert's order without any hesitation and lined up in a straight line.
"Fire at will!" Javert roared the moment his men and women were in position.
"Confringo!" The six Aurors cast in a staggered volley.
Fiery orange beams of magic raced from their wands at the rapidly closing beasts. One hit the lead creature in the shoulder, engulfing it in a explosion and sending it reeling back from the impact. The others' spells didn't go anywhere as well though as the monsters zigged and zagged across the field, evading the spells and the explosions they caused.
"Keep firing!" Javert ordered even as a cold chill went down his spine as he saw the one downed creature get back to its feet. Its shoulder was a mess of burned flesh but in front of the Aurors' eyes it healed.
"Expulso!" Jean cast from beside Javert with a grim smile, having escalating to the more powerful spell at the sight. "They have a healing factor."
Javert nodded as he too threw an Expulso Curse, the enhanced explosive curse, at the monsters.
Not that it did any good. Between his Expulso and Jean's, they managed to send a trio of the beasts flying but this only kept them down for a bit before they picked themselves back up and continued their charge, healing any injury they had sustained whilst doing so.
"Allard, call for backup! Now!" Javert shouted urgently while still sending Expulsos at the enemy, adding his spellfire to the veritable storm of magic his fellow Aurors were sending downrange.
At his command, the young witch quickly stopped her casting and hastily pulled out a two way mirror before requesting for reinforcements from the Bureau. Unfortunately, it was her distraction with this task which cost her life. She had just finished when one of the monsters leapt up into the air in an impossible jump and crashed back down to earth directly on top of her crushing her into bloody paste with its weight.
"Lucienne!" Jean cried bitterly, even as he hit the creature with a Expulso at what practically amounted to point blank range. Not that it fazed the creature which ignored its already healing burns to reach out and with a casual swing of its left forelimb decapitated Javert's best friend.
Javert froze in shock at the sight of his partner's corpse collapsing forward onto the blood soaked field, totally oblivious as the rest of the monsters reached his squad and began tearing them apart. Literally.
It was only when the bloody remains of Besson's limbless torso slammed into him that Javert regained his wits. Thankfully, this was just in time to roll out of the way of an overhead smash from one of the beasts.
"Flipendo!" Javert cast hastily, forcing the nearest monster back. The beast roared as it was pushed back by the power of his spell but the Auror ignored the bone rattling sound to assess the situation.
It was unfortunately beyond grim. He was the last man standing. Of his squad of eight, everyone else was dead. Their bodies having been physically torn apart by the beasts. Beasts who were now eating their remains!
This realization filled Javert with a sense of hatred that he'd never felt before. He'd handled countless cases in his long career, some of which involved despicable beings that probably didn't even deserve the right to considered people. But none of them had treated their victims with such barbarity. None of them had hurt his friends and coworkers like this.
Pointing his wand at the monster which had attacked him earlier and which was now gearing up for a second round, Javert poured all his hate and the accompanying desire to murder the object of his ire into the one spell he knew would kill the thing.
"Avada Kedavra!" The Auror incanted, sending the green light of the killing curse shooting out of his wand to slam into the monster.
Living up to its name, the curse dealt its trademark instantaneous death upon its target. The mighty beast fell like a puppet whose strings had been cut, collapsing into a lifeless heap.
The death of one of their ilk had the four remaining beasts turn away from their meals to give Javert their undivided attention. Smiling grimly, his wand still glowing with sparks of the green magic of the killing curse, the Auror made the come hither gesture with his free hand.
As one the monsters pounced at him, moving so fast the edges of their bodies appeared to be blurring. Despite this, Javert faced them with the same death's head grin and the killing curse on the tip of his tongue.
It would be fifteen minutes later that the reinforcements that the now deceased junior Auror Lucienne Allard had called for arrived. They apparited into a bloodbath. Human body parts were littered all over what might have once been a nice empty field. At the center of which stood a pile of monstrous, inhuman corpses of equine faced magical beasts with disproportionately long forelimbs.
These would have been disturbing enough.
But the most unsettling thing the Aurors found on the site was their colleague Senior Auror Javert Marcon sitting atop the pile of bodies. He was covered in blood and his torn uniform allowed them to see a staggering array of cauterized wounds that crisscrossed every visible part of his body. Despite all this, he was grinning maniacally.
"What took you lot so long?" The clearly unhinged Auror said, never once letting that twisted smile fade from his face.
Hundreds of kilometers away, in their carriage as it raced across the back roads of the French countryside, Saya shot Diva a worried look as the last of the Warriors facing against the wand wavers were killed. They had been watching the whole battle through the eyes of their children and had witnessed how a single one of those near-Ascended Beings had managed to kill five of their Warriors.
"Maybe he was unique?" Diva suggested hopefully. "I mean none of the others were much of a threat."
"I think having near-Ascended Beings on Earth at all is a threat to us," Saya rebutted. "Besides what if he isn't one of a kind? What if whoever these people are have dozens more like him?"
Saya took no pride in causing Diva to shiver in fright at the prospect she'd raised.
"We need to leave," Diva concluded.
Saya nodded, pleased that she'd finally convinced her sister of the necessity. "We'll need to secure a base first, but yes once we're able we'll leave the planet."
"We'll need to hurry."
That they would need to escape before the strange wand wavers caught up to them was left unsaid.
And done! As always I hope you guys liked it.
So, not much to say about this chapter. It's pretty straightforward, even down to the homages I made by choosing those names for my lead Auror characters. Sadly the rest has no significance. I literally just took them from a random French name generator.
So I've been getting a lot of reviews suggesting how the story should proceed. Things like how Nimue should develop her domain further, etc. While I'm heartened by all the interest, I'd like to remind everyone that this story is already complete. That's what allows me to release the chapters daily. In other words, I've made my decisions in regards to all these matters already. Feel free to speculate & even provide suggestions on what you think will happen in the story but please don't be too pushy about it. So far no one has crossed the line but I'm putting this up before someone does. Please keep in mind that I won't rewrite thousands of words without a very good reason.
Well, that's it folks. Till next time, ciao.