A/N: Wow, thanks for all the reviews. I think that's the most I've ever gotten for one chapter. (it's practically the most I've ever gotten...) Now I feel so pressured to live up to all of your expectations! Aghh! ^_^;;; Well, at least I can oblige you by giving you a longer chapter, with more action too. Please note that, while I tried to stay true to everyone's original character, this is not supposed to be your typical, silly, Dark Lords fic. (i.e. Phibrizzo is not just a whiny pushover and Dolphin is not just a cute, bouncy little girl.) Hopefully you like this next installment, but if ya don't, pop on into the review section and tell me why.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Several decades later, a meeting was called again, this time on neutral human ground to prevent any favoring of one lord over another. The officially broadcast reason for the council was to discuss some mildly threatening movements of the dragons in the region of the Air Dragon King. However, the real motivation behind it was because each mazoku lord wanted to be able to inspect the others' generals without seeming too interested.
Generally the five kept their distance; they did not get along particularly well under any circumstances, and, having each found his own niche in the world of Gaia, they found it worked best if they simply left each to his own devices. Only when it seemed some cooperation would be necessary did they bother coming together. Or when they wanted to keep an eye on their siblings' doings.
Phibrizzo was the first to arrive. This was mainly because he had come several days too early, and not by accident either. The truth was that the rumors of the dragon uprising had been begun by him in order to find an excuse to see his younger siblings again. But he felt it would be a disappoint for them all if they arrived only to discover that there was no threat. Therefore, he had sent his young general off on his first true mission: to awaken the dragons' wrath.
Flickering for a moment in the material plane, Phibrizzo slowly formed his range of influence into the shape of a young boy, wide-eyed and raven-haired. This was his favorite form to take; the irony of his possessing such a form amused him to no end. Phibrizzo was, after all, the undisputed master of the Mazoku in the absence of Lord Ruby Eyed Shabranigdo. For, while technically the race was split evenly between the five, Phibrizzo was by far the most powerful, feared even by his siblings, and considered to be the embodiment of absolute evil.
His realm was the Spiritual world where he controlled the souls of all the living and dead on Gaia. Most of these souls he toyed with absently, allowing them to continue in their pointless existences and reveling in their pain and misfortune. However, once a soul left the material world and came completely under his control, he would judge it. The spirits of all those mortals who had annoyed him in life he brought to his palace in the Desert of Destruction and subjected to endless tortures for the rest of eternity. It was his main source of joy in life. Other than the tortured souls, Phibrizzo lived alone; he disliked company and preferred to take personal control of all of his affairs.
For this reason, Phibrizzo was still having trouble figuring out just what to do with his new servants. Just then Mephista, his priest, was sitting beside him, awaiting his orders. He had somewhat impatiently taught the priest how to give itself a physical presence on the material plane, but being young and inexperienced, Mephista had created for itself a rather incomplete and odd-looking form. Having little other company to look at, it had created its image after the appearance of some of the lost souls that wandered about the Desert. Basically, it looked like a female wraith. 'I guess I could call it a priestess," the Hellmaster mused. He had only gone through with all of this because he knew the others would see his lack of servants as a personal failure or a weakness.
At that moment, Cerberus, his general, reappeared. The young demon had been created by Phibrizzo in the form of a three-headed dog (it had been a boring day…) and hadn't had the attention span to learn how to change his form. The fiendish hound skidded to a halt in front of his master and confirmed the completion of his task. The unsuspecting dragons had been caught completely off-guard by his attack, giving him ample opportunity to assault a nest of recently laid eggs. Dragons went into heat so seldom that the birth of young ones was a special occasion, indeed. Phibrizzo considered it simply one more of their infernal weaknesses that the dragons could only reproduce in such a fashion. Zelas seemed to have a strange penchant for this method of reproduction, although she never produced offspring by it, but other than that, Mazoku generally stuck to forming underlings from themselves or converting wayward humans.
In any case, Cerberus had literally made omelets out of the unborn dragons and had succeeded in getting a large number of enraged female dragons on his trail. "Perfect," Phibrizzo smiled, rubbing his childish hands together in anticipation. As if on cue, a ripple appeared in the atmosphere and Deep Sea Dolphin materialized from the Astral Plane. As usual, she took the form of a busty, blue-haired young woman. Full of dignity, she descended to the ground in front of Phibrizzo dressed in silken blue robes and flanked by her servants.
"Well, Phibrizzo," she greeted slyly. "Punctual as usual, I see."
"As are you," Phibrizzo responded coolly. He wondered if his sister could sense his true purpose for being there. As master of the Psychological realm, Dolphin had extraordinary powers of divination which she often used to scan people's minds or look into their futures. This unnerved her siblings to no end, especially as Dolphin was a naturally mistrusting person and put her gift to use as often as possible. For this reason had she developed a sort of rivalry with Zelas who was naturally a secretive person and who did everything in her power to prevent Dolphin from knowing her thoughts.
"Hey, Phibby!" came a loud roar from the Astral Plane as the Demon Dragon King assembled his physical form. He favored the diminutive master of hell with a hearty slap on the back.
"I dislike your insolent familiarity," Phibrizzo said by way of response.
Sensing a forthcoming retort, Dynast Grausherra entered next to Gaav and pushed him aside gently, but forcefully. "Enough. Let us turn to the task at hand, which, I believe, is the discussion of some restlessness in the region of the Air Dragon King…"
"Hey, tell this little bitch to leave me alone!" an unfamiliar voice cried gruffly from behind Gaav. The four lords turned to see Mephista curiously prodding an orange-haired man with one semi-transparent finger. Having lived in the secluded Desert all of her short existence, she had never seen so many mazoku gathered in one place, and she was now enthusiastically examining the two demons who had followed Gaav's entrance. They were extremely similar in appearance with the exception that one had orange hair and the other blond, and that the orange-haired man took a human form whose impressive physique far surpassed that of his lanky, trembling companion. He was decked out in heavy iron armor and carried two broadswords at his belt.
"That must be your general," Phibrizzo commented, trying not to sound interested. "He looks every bit as intelligent as you..."
Gaav scowled at his sibling. "I saved the intelligence for the priest," he said haughtily. "But wait 'til you see him in action. He's a genius!" Phibrizzo sighed. It was like Gaav to do everything in extremes. However, Phibrizzo could sense the power already emanating from the young demon general so he refrained from commenting. Instead he said, "Mephista, return to me."
Immediately, the strange priestess floated back to her master's side. "This is Mephista," he added unnecessarily; he was feeling very self-conscious. "…And Cerberus." Each of the Mazoku Lords was intently examining his creations, and surely they could sense that neither was particularly strong. Phibrizzo had done this intentionally; why would he want to risk bestowing all his power on lesser beings who might fail him? As far as the Hellmaster was concerned, they were merely there to do grunt work for him anyway. But all the same, he knew his siblings were all carefully mentally noting the fact, and it made him squirm.
Deep Sea Dolphin, undoubtedly picking up on his inner thoughts, relieved him of this pressure by calling attention to Gaav's servants once again. "And who are these handsome young fellows?" she crooned.
"Rashart and Raltark," the Demon Dragon King said briskly, indicating his general and priest in turn.
"Well, if we may now turn our attention to more pressing matters," Dynast interrupted, averting his gaze pointedly from his companions.
"Oh no you don't!" Gaav growled. "Think you can size up the competition and then get away without revealing your own hand? Maybe you'd like to explain why you've brought four little friends along with you?"
Phibrizzo started. He hadn't noticed until now that Dynast did indeed have four companions. 'Show-off!' he grumbled to himself.
"I thought two might be underdoing it a bit," Dynast replied calmly, unfazed by the accusatory tone of Gaav's voice. "After all, I have a lot of work to attend to and I figured having a back up set would help alleviate the pressure if one of my servants should meet an unfortunate end."
'So he says,' Phibrizzo fumed silently, 'But he just did it to show off how powerful he is. Well, I'll show them all who's the powerful one here.'
"Sherra here is my commanding general," the ice king was saying, "and with her is Grau, my high priest. Those other two are Norst and Grou, my thirds in command." Gaav and Dolphin, who themselves, would have been very hard pressed to create four servants using only their own power stared with open jealousy at the general called Sherra. It had already learned to take human form and had chosen that of a young girl, her azure hair caught up in a practical braid down her back and her icy eyes glowing with strength and intelligence.
Phibrizzo, however, snorted and looked away. "Cerberus," he said under his breath, "Why don't you do those dragons a favor and let them know where you are."
"But master," the dog whimpered, "then they'll come right here and attack us."
"I know." Phibrizzo grinned evilly. He turned back to the group. "Well, now that that's done, let's get on with it shall we?"
Eager to turn attention away from Dynast's success, Gaav showed a sudden, unusual interest in foreign affairs. "Right. Do we, um, know just what incited this rumored rebellion?" he asked while scanning Dynast for signs of weakness and fatigue out of the corner of his eye. No one noticed when the three-headed dog silently slipped off to the Astral Plane.
"No, which is what makes it suspect," Dolphin sniffed. "Dragons are not an impatient race, nor a rash one. I cannot help but wonder why they have stirred unprovoked…well, I haven't provoked them anyway…"
"What race are they?" asked Phibrizzo quickly.
"Black, according to rumor." Dynast replied.
"Hey, where the hell is Zelas?" Gaav said suddenly. But his question was never answered, for at that moment, Cerberus returned...with a good four dozen adult female black dragons on his tail.
General chaos ensued, mostly involving the Mazoku Lords arguing about where the dragons had come from while their servants fled in surprise. "Well, frankly, I don't much care where they came from. I'll leave that to you all to discover." Dynast shrugged coolly and turned to retrieve his servants, only to discover that he, and all his siblings, seemed to be surrounded by some strange magical field, one which rendered them unable to phase out, or even to wander more than a few feet from their present location on the Material Plane. "What the hell?" he muttered.
At the mention of hell, three mazoku heads turned suspiciously towards the only one of them capable of creating a force field strong enough to hold Dynast Grausherra prisoner.
"Ahem….Hellmaster….." Deep Sea Dolphin said slowly, "You wouldn't know anything about this, would you?"
The little mazoku merely smiled in response. "Well, we'll certainly get to see our new servants at work, won't we?" He gestured to the plain beyond the barrier to where the 48 black dragons were viciously descending on the 10 mazoku who were conveniently trapped in a similar force field directly in front of them.
"Dammit, Phibrizzo! They're young and inexperienced! You can't mean to say you think it's a good idea to risk losing everything we've worked to create just for the sake of a stupid test," Dolphin raged. Ever since Shabranigdo had proclaimed Gaav as his favored child, Phibrizzo, the eldest, had felt slighted and had begun his never-ending quest to prove his dominance over the others of his kind. His passion for embarrassing his siblings almost outshone his avid devotion to winning Shabranigdo's approval by finding his seven pieces and resurrecting them. So far he had proven successful only at the former, but it was a considerable success.
"What's the matter, Dolphin? Worried you didn't train them well enough? I guess you should have spent more time on that and less time on trying to impress other people. I, for one, know I trained my servants exactly how to act in a situation like this."
Dolphin looked out at the battle again to see that the priestess Mephista had erected a protection sphere of her own….. around herself and her "brother" Cerberus. The two sat back and enjoyed the pain and fear emanating from their peers as they tried to ward off their enemies.
"Bastard!" Gaav roared, throwing himself repeatedly against the barrier that prevented him from coming to his general's aid, to no avail.
"Oh stop whining and watch. Rashart really isn't doing all that badly. My intention is not to destroy your servants, my brothers and sister, but to test them. Should they come out of this alive, they will all be stronger for the experience!"
"You would suck as a parent," Dolphin pointed out moodily.
Dynast remained silent and cool as he watched Sherra, his prize general fight off six dragons single-handedly. Rising into the air, she drew the sword he had forged for her in the icy pits of his palace and viciously replied to the dragon's advances with a counterattack whose speed and cunning left the six dragon maidens suddenly on the defensive. When she was joined by Norst, the two stood back to back and advanced slowly on the dragons, growing stronger and stronger with each whiff of fear and doubt. Grau phased in behind Sherra and combined his powers with hers to create an enormous icicle which he hurled at an approaching dragon, piercing her through the heart.
Rashart, too, was proving his mettle as he fearlessly engaged several dragons in battle. Raltark floated nearby, casting spells to distract the dragons from his partner whenever Rashart's reckless moves left him vulnerable for a moment. And Blue, who had never seen fit to alter it's blob-like form, proved to have powerful magical abilities, drawing power from Dolphin's mental prowess.
All in all it was a bloody mess of a battle, and it was soon obvious that the dragons stood no chance against this new breed of monsters. When only a few remained, they tried to beat a hasty retreat to warn their clan of these newly discovered enemies, but Phibrizzo raised a finger and turned them all to ashes before they could fly 100 feet.
"There. That wasn't so bad, was it?" he asked gleefully, the deaths having left him sated. As he spoke the barrier around his companions melted and they hurried forward, more out of desire to remove themselves from nearness to Hellmaster than actual concern for their servants. However, they did, one by one, attend to their underlings needs.
It was around this time that a sulking Beastmaster appeared on the scene. She glanced around uncomfortably at the dragon corpses and then at her older siblings.
"Zelas, how nice of you to join us!" Dolphin said, her voice dripping with mock sweetness. "Although I fear you've just missed the best bit."
"It seems it wouldn't have been of much use to Zelas anyway, seeing as she doesn't have any servants to test…" Gaav raised his eyebrow at the conspicuous absence of any attendants at Zelas' side.
Zelas tried to appear haughty and unfazed, but Dolphin felt the turmoil in her sister's mind and licked her lips at the bitter taste of it. "I…..I've decided that I really don't prefer to make any servants." Zelas said at last. "Seems to me to be a complete waste of energy and time."
"Not to mention power, which our dear Zelas can hardly afford to waste," Dolphin purred. Zelas's bitterness at having been created the least powerful of the five was Dolphin's favorite dish. Zelas was undoubtedly weakest in every way imaginable and it was a great source of shame for the Mazoku Lord of beasts who was generally considered to be of little use. She kept mainly to herself, preferring to sit back and watch others at work. She pretended a great devotion to her own pleasure, but Dolphin felt sure it stemmed at least partly from fear that should she apply herself to anything else, she would fail.
"That has nothing to do with it," Zelas replied stiffly.
"Then why didn't you do it?" Dolphin pretended innocence, but the sneer in her voice shone through.
"Well...that's a secret." Zelas replied lamely.
"Is the secret that you don't feel up to the challenge?" Gaav suggested. "Honestly, Zel-chan, we're siblings! You don't gotta hide stuff from us. What does it matter to us if you don't want servants? We do all the work anyway. I mean, what would you even need servants for?"
Phibrizzo snickered.
"It isn't important, Zelas," Dynast waved off the others. While he often felt superiority over his peers, he was not given to expressing it through teasing, and the whole affair seemed overblown to him. "We've already taken care of the threat which we congregated here to discuss. Your presence is no longer required. If you wish to return to the island, feel free."
Although not designed to cause pain, this comment stung Zelas the most. It illustrated to her how unnecessary her presence had been in the first place. She had put off coming all decade, trying to decide how to explain her failure to create even one servant to her siblings. But she hadn't meant to miss the entire event. Ashamed, she prepared to disassemble her physical form and return home when she heard Phibirzzo's voice.
"Well, I didn't think much of the idea either. If Zelas doesn't want a servant, kudos to her for having the guts to say it to your face, Dolphin. Of course, it's a pity she didn't even try. She might have discovered something unexpected."
"Oh, honestly, Hellmaster," Dolphin laughed loudly, "You don't think she really didn't even try, do you! Of course she did. It's just that she failed miserably. That's what's so funny."
"I don't know. I'd give more respect to someone who tried and failed than someone who's too cowardly to try at all." Gaav said absently as he prepared his servants for departure.
"But it's better to use wisdom to recognize one's weaknesses than to foolishly rush into a battle which is already lost," Phibrizzo countered. "…Of course, I don't have any weaknesses…"
This comment began a mock wrestling match between the three mazoku which Zelas did not stay to watch. The damage had been done. Dolphin knew that she had tried and failed. Dolphin knew that she was incapable of reproducing in the normal fashion. In fact, Zelas was convinced that Dolphin had only started the whole experiment in the first place in order to add salt to an old wound. 'Damn that Deep Sea Dolphin,' Zelas thought bitterly. 'Somehow I'll show her that I'm not as useless as she thinks.'
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A/N: Yes, I stole Phibrizzo's servants' names from mythology. A lot of the generals and priests have names stemming from their masters, so I decided to base their names off the whole Hellmaster thing, and then went for using names from stories concerning Hell. (I was gonna name 'em Hades and Persephone, after the Greek god of the underworld and his wife, but I didn't want anyone to read my story and be reminded of that awful Disney interpretation of a beautiful myth. *shudder* And I figured Pluto and Proserpina (Roman counterparts) would make people think of the planet or Mickey's dog…btw, why is Pluto the only animal in that place who's not sentient…???) Cerberus is the name of the three-headed dog who prevents souls from leaving Hades in Greek/Roman mythology. (Then I was gonna name 'em Dante and Virgil, but it somehow didn't seem right...) Mephista is a take-off of the name Mephisto coming from Mephistopheles, which is a name for Satan. (I got it from Faust!)
