My servant that exists somewhere in this vast universe, my divine, beautiful, wise, powerful servant, heed my call! I wish from the very bottom of my heart - add to my guidance and appear!
A flash of light, hot and blistering, puncturing through layer after layer of armored crystalline flesh.
A fleeting moment of calculation- almost too long, the light had broken through another six meters even in the mere nanosecond the calculation took. A thin slice of green cutting across higher dimensional space, just shy of enveloping the core of its being.
A mere hundred meters before certain death at the mercies of physics and a heated packet of light and antimatter burning through its defenseless core.
Calculation after calculation, its core heating up as its processing unit considered every factor, every variable.
A bare instant before death would take its core, it chose to allow the sliver of warped space to take its core, its whole being, into itself. With a tiny puff of light and the loud roar of light superheating the atmosphere around it, the being vanished from its world and into a swirling cacophony of higher dimensional space.
Buffeted around by minute shifts in the dimensional fabric, the being withdrew its mass from the space around it- it had lost a not inconsiderable amount from the damages it had taken in those few seconds before its destruction, but enough remained that structural integrity was not compromised.
Calculations upon calculations piled up, mapping out the dimensional path, mapping out its internal systems, considering all paths of logic.
A searing bolt of light struck through the dimensional tunnel and left its visual sensors blinded.
It screamed, withdrawing more and more mass around itself, piling on layers of geometrically perfect armor that were stripped away by its uncontrolled tumble, leaving its core bare and unprotected, its mass just barely out of reach as the emptiness of the fracturing hole through space tore away its energy.
Still, though, it calculated. It would bide its time- it was alive, it was not taking unacceptable damage. It had a partial path back to its own plane of existence.
Ramiel, the sixth angel, fell through a hole in space and vanished from Earth, with nothing more in its mind but endless numbers and a promise that it would return to fulfill its duty.
Ramiel, the sixth angel, fell through a hole in space heralded by a massive explosion that cloaked its spheroid core in dust and smoke, landing in a grassy plain full of children.
It was inert.
~~~~~~~~
Mukuro Ikusaba's bullet bounced off the door, then the back wall, then the side wall, and it kept bouncing for a good while of time. Mukuro ducked and dodged nervously until the bullet ricocheted harmlessly out another barred window in the back of the cell. So it was gun proof. Mukuro knew she shouldn't have expected less from the Lord of the Dead. She took a look around. The cell was somewhat rounded, with curved walls and ceiling, and one raised platform of solid stone, draped over with a black cloth, might have been a bench or a bed. The window out back overlooked the sickly green River Styx, which almost seemed to glow against the gloomy backdrop of the Underworld.
With a sigh, Mukuro sat down on the hunk of stone and indulged in a good old-fashioned session of feeling sorry for herself. How was she to know that causing the end of the world to slake her sister's despair addiction would land her here? Hadn't the others she worked with all done worse?
There had to be a way out of this cell, she surmised, but the answer wasn't coming to her. And then, she fell backwards through some sort of portal.
~~~~~~~~
Once upon a time on Dragon's Peak, a statue stewed in his rage, scorn and misery, plotting revenge on not only the Skylanders, but his brother for leaving him like this for some odd years, quite possibly driving him insane.
This statue dragon was named Vathek, the undead brother of King Ramses. Now see, Vathek wasn't the typical dragon, he was cunning, ambitious and cruel. He had a plan to ensure that Dragon's Peak would be ruled by him by sitting on the Dragon Throne (As Dragon Law states that whoever sits on the throne is made Dragon's Peak's new ruler), overthrowing his brother and turning him to stone. Now, the normal person would call his plan 'evil' or 'sociopathic' or even 'a threat to Skylands' but if you asked him, he might say something along the lines of 'This will ensure that order would arrive to Dragon's Peak.' and if you ask me, I'd say he's not wrong in motive, we all had a sibling rivalry back in the day, but wrong in execution.
"Know this dear brother Ramses, when I get out of here, I'll rip your spine out of your throat and wear it like a sash! Soon, not only Dragon's Peak, but all of Skylands will be under my command!" The statue screamed and laughed, though no one could hear his rants as he was petrified, then suddenly a portal appeared before him, dragging him through, to a place where he would start his revenge with 3 new friends.
~~~~~~~~
On the other side of things in a foreign world, the scene went like this. Dust, smoke and fire littered the courtyard, students covering their eyes to prevent dust making contact with them, and some people coughing.
Among these people was a pinkette. Louise Françoise le Blanc de la Vallière. The third daughter of the duke who currently is the head of the family. We see her coughing as well.
"Damnit Zero!" Guiche said.
"Probably another fluke." Kirche commented as the smoke finally cleared up a bit.
"She probably summoned something stupid." Another giggles.
Tabitha is just on the side, still reading her book without a care to the world before her.
"Just wait and see!" Louise yells at them as the smoke starts to clear up.
And to everyone's surprise, her familiar seems to be a mountainous orb of red crystal, over seven meters in diameter and utterly dwarfing everyone in the area, even the larger familiars along with a corpse of a dragon tinged black with blue eyes and talons and a young girl wearing a black blouse and green miniskirt with black combat boots. They hadn't seen anything like it. For some of the students, they were practically terrified of the dragon that was summoned, while the summoner, Louise, was practically confused on how she should feel about this and was wondering what in the founder Brimir's name happened to this mighty beast to cause it to look like this.
"What happened to the wings?" Another student asked, noticing that the wings are tattered beyond belief. This was the detail that caught most students' attention.
What in Brimir's name...?
She stepped forwards. I summoned... These three?
"Miss Vallière?"
She started. "Yes, professor Colbert?"
The balding man cleared his throat. "You can, ahem, complete the contract now. As it is."
'Is this some sort of trickery?' He thought to herself, but then he noticed that the only dragon here is that mockery of Wind Dragons in general.
They made various comments about the familiar, but to the familiar, he seems too confused about what's happening. First off, the language is foreign to him but it sounds like something from the world the Skylanders were sent to when Kaos went on the offensive, was it French?
He then proceeds to observe the surrounding area. As he observes, the architecture and the clothing is nothing like he had seen back in Skylands, to be more specific, back in the world he knew.
'Where in Skylands am I?' He continues to observe the place while Louise is currently arguing with Mr. Colbert.
Louise turned her gaze at the sphere. "Right." She took out her wand and cleared her throat.
"My name is Louise Françoise Le Blanc de La Vallière. Pentagon of the five elemental powers; bless these humble beings, and make them my familiar."
She waved her wand at the girl, the sphere and the dragon. Oh Founder, I feel ridiculous.
Her magic activated then the dragon then felt a burning sensation. On Vathek's side, he never had felt such sensations, but now, it really does confuse him. So he did the logical thing and tried to scream his lungs out. While on Mukuro's side, she just started flailing her hand, trying to make her hand stop heating up. All with a look that said 'This shouldn't take long.'
Vathek struggled to hold in the screams, the confusion is too much for him. Witnessing this, no one knows what to do with the situation. For everyone else, their familiar hadn't felt pain when they made the contract, but for Louise however she was panicking inside.
'What is this sort of magic!?' The dragon thought while he was going through the burns.
Glowing runes started etching themselves on the crystal orb and it screamed. The runes burned into its surface lifted off and began to spread, repeating in two rings that spun around the orb as it lifted into the air. Its inhuman screeches shook the earth with their intensity, sending the familiars in the area into a blind panic as a crushing presence slammed down. This orb, whatever it was, was no mere inert object. It was a monster, a predator, an existence so powerful that its mere presence seemed to darken the sky and chill the air.
Louise stared up at it, dread mixed with an odd resignation resonating within her. Oh, look. One of my familiars is a force of terror. Bet we'll end up blowing up even more of the Academy together. "What are you doing!" She screamed.
"W-What do I do, Mr. Colbert!?" A panicked Louise asked.
"Seal the contract!" Colbert said as he couldn't take the roars anymore, covering his ears. The same goes for the rest of the students.
"Damnit! Make it stop, Louise!" The redhead tanned girl, Kirche Zerbst, demanded as she's on the verge of tearing out her ears.
Louise did just that just to make him stop roaring.
"Just endure it for a second." She muttered to the familiar.
'Why is she getting closer all of a sudden? Is this supposed to mean anything?' The dragon asked himself, and then he felt a kiss on his snout.
Louise kissed the dragon's snout and then the orb and then the girl in front of everyone. And as the second passes by, the dragon and orb calm down, and the pain he felt was gone. As soon as the runes had started appearing on the dragon's left wing, the contract was as good as sealed.
"There, done." Louise utters, enduring the embarrassment from the action she took.
Then her familiars looked around at the general surroundings again. And then Mr. Colbert spoke.
"Louise, bring these three to your room. The dragon might need to recover from that… Contract…" With this, Louise earned some small giggles from her classmates, and in response the dragon just gave them the death glare that made them shut their mouths.
She then proceeds to head to her room with her Familiar.
'Why does it have to be a commoner, an undead dragon and an orb?' She sighed and just went back to her room. She expected something like a normal dragon or some type of beast, but no. It had to be an undead dragon. The surprise that is waiting for her the next day would not make her regret summoning these three.
The students' day went on like always, attending classes and such, while the newly summoned girl rested in Louise's room, being cared for by Siesta. Everything seems to be going normal so far.
The presence of the orb changed suddenly, going from an ancient and unknowable terror to a cold and unfeeling aura. It seemed to be curious as it stared down at Louise, drifting lower until the rings of light that surrounded its core were barely more than a few feet from her face.
A sudden thought crossed her mind. A name, loose as it was, a fleeting feeling of divine fury and endless roars of light and sound. An imprint of a name that held no meaning, but held all the meaning it needed.
R A M I E L
"Your name is Ramiel? I like that name," she offered. "Wait, you're sentient? What are you?"
Another imprint in her mind, a crushing weight, a divine command, holy light, destruction, a song that could only be heard by her. A single word, bearing the meaning of the divine. The sphere, Ramiel, shuddered as it began to vibrate, a thousand crystal voices letting loose in a choir of song as its core became hidden away in slowly forming plates of crystal that shone sky blue in the morning sun.
M E S S E N G E R
The words slipped out before she could catch them. "I don't think you're going to fit into my room." She immediately slapped her hands over her mouth, eyes going wide. "I'm sorry! I-"
The humming stopped.
Ramiel looked down at Louise and the dragon impassively, though it was difficult to discern any emotion on a nearly ten meter tall cube of blue crystal with an orb inside of it. Silently, its crystalline flesh rippled away, taking its core with it as everything seemed to shrink in size, slipping out of reality in a headache inducing manner before all that was left was a two meter tall octahedron of the same sky blue crystal, with a core about the size of a peach just barely visible in its center. The question was clear, though Ramiel stayed silent and still to the point where it was almost unclear if it was even 'alive'.
Louise blinked. Ramiel had just violated reality by collapsing itself to a 'human' size... Because she had wanted her familiar to fit into her room? She couldn't help it, she glanced at Kirche. "I told you my familiar would be cooler than yours, Zerbst."
Yet unknown to them, Zero Louise had summoned not only a monster, but also a vengeful dragon with a penchant for death and a fairly insane soldier upon their world. And they're are gonna enjoy watching them scream as they burn like the rest.
~~~~~~~~
It was already night when he had entered the room, staring at the ceiling blinking twice to confirm what he was seeing.
"Huh?" He then proceeds to sit down and check the room. The room's design was like that of the medieval era for nobles.
"I can't sense any magic interference, looks like this is not an illusion." He mutters to himself.
He then stood up from the bed and walked to the window to look outside, what she saw further confirms that she is somehow in a different world.
"Okay, what predicament am I in?" He utters as he gazes at the beautifully lit sky.
"Well scaly, wherever we are, the stars aren't the same." The girl sighed.
"About time we got here." Someone said, but to him, he didn't understand a thing.
"Who's there?" He asks as he turns around, "Oh it's you."
"What the hell are you saying?" Louise asks him.
"Louise, we should probably cast the spell for her to understand us." The man said finally in the room, now pulling out his wand and began to chant something. The dragon was about to attack but the chanting stopped and the spell was cast.
"What did you do?" The dragon asks.
"There, much better." Mr. Colbert commented, then left. "And to what Colbert did, he just cast a spell so that you two can understand us, and we can understand you." Louise said.
"I see." The dragon said his smile was still on. "Now tell me, why am I here?" He said as his wings sharpened with spikes growing and revving.
She was taken aback freaking out
"I'll give you 10 seconds to explain the situation." He said as he started walking forward.
"You were summoned here because you two are to be a Familiar to me along with Ramiel." Louise explained as she stepped forward.
"A Familiar? And who's Ramiel?" The girl said, not lowering her knife, not satisfied with the answer she got.
"Yes, a Familiar. And Ramiel was the crystal you were sent here with"
"What do you mean by 'Familiar'?" He asks.
"You'll be serving me for the rest of your life, binded by a contract."
"And this contract was made when?"
"Earlier, in the ceremony." She replied.
The dragon then looks back from earlier. Remembering what had transpired after he got the intel he needed. The confusion and the pain he felt, flashed back to mind.
"I see, so the contract is done I assume?" He asks.
"Yes it is." She replied.
"Then let me ask you one more question." He said,
Louise looked at Vathek and Mukuro, and then she nodded, signaling him to ask his query.
"Is there any way for me to go back to where I came from?" He asked, now curious.
"Sadly, I don't think so." She replied.
The dragon then chuckles, confusing her.
"Well, looks like I have no choice but to make my own way out." He said, his smile was not faltering. His wings then unsharpened.
Louise sighed in relief as the sharp wings were now not in his presence and then touched Vathek's head then froze. "Wait... I can feel my magic reacting to this, you do have magic!"
"Of course I do!" exclaimed Vathek, rolling his eyes. "What did you think I was, a corpse?"
"Oh Brimir in heaven, can you really do magic?"
"Yep, what, first time seeing an undead dragon?"
Louise didn't even notice the snark, she was too busy hyperventilating. "Oh Brimir, I kidnapped a foreign noble! I'm dead! Mother is going to kill me! And then she'll hand what's left of me to the Crown to be executed!"
"What on earth are you on about now? I mean, I am royalty, but that doesn't mean I hold water in your council."
"But... it is written in the words of Brimir that magic is the mark of nobility, a sign of our divine right to rule!"
Louise began shaking as sobs wracked her body. "I just wanted a familiar, that's all! I didn't mean to kidnap a noble, let alone a person, I swear! I just wanted to show everyone that I'm not useless, that's it! I just wanted them to see me, not the Zero! Not the failed Valliere! Just me! I wanted to matter! I wanted..." Her hands shot up to her eyes and began rubbing at them, trying to force the tears from coming. But they wouldn't. Her mother would be so ashamed.
Suddenly she felt two arms wrap around her and she gasped in surprise. From the black wings, she realized it was her familiar. Funny, she never even heard the dragon come towards her. The wings tugged her tightly into a warm embrace, and soon she heard her familiar's voice, the tone strangely soft and comforting, wafting against her ear.
"It's alright, Louise," Mukuro whispered in her ear. A small smile twisted the teenage girl's lips; it was the first time her familiar had ever used her name. "I am sorry, too. I should not have tried to attack you. I was scared, and sometimes in fear we all do things we should not. In truth, I am very grateful for what you have done. For bringing me here, to this beautiful place. Believe it or not, you saved me from eternal imprisonment. If it weren't for you, I would be stuck in prison for eternity, and Scarlet might be rotting in prison too. For that, I will forever be in your debt." Mukuro said. "Now, I shall be your familiar. And I swear to you, even if I find a way home and even if we go beyond both of our worlds, I will be your servant along with this Ramiel and the dragon. The one that you deserve. And we shall make all four of our worlds feel the pain we went through, and see how they like it."
Louise choked down another sob. Only her big sister Cattleya had ever promised her something like that (well minus the making everyone who hurt her feel the pain she went through). "A-and," she coughed, but plowed on through, intent on giving her own oath. "And I swear, as your master, that I will do everything in my power to find a way to get you back home and help you seek justice against those who wronged you. I swear by the good name of House Valliere." Truth was, she didn't really understand what the big deal was. Despite her confusion, Louise was determined to keep her promise no matter what.
She heard her familiar chuckle. Vathek then stood up, wings leaving Louise. But before his grasp slackened, the teenager felt a kiss placed atop her head. "You are such a sweet child, you know that?"
Louise wiped at her eyes, then shook her head in mock anger. "I'm not a child!"
Louise continued to use the sleeve of her blouse to wipe away at her tear-stained face. Once she was satisfied that her cheeks were dry and she was presentable, she turned around and gave her familiars a smile. She realized that she should have done this in the first place, instead of acting like a haughty bitch.
Whether her familiar was a human, commoner, or mere beast, he deserved to be treated with respect. These two, after all, her familiars along with Ramiel.
"Hello," the pink haired girl stated, then gave a low, respectful bow. "My name is Louise Francoise le Blanc de La Valliere. So nice to meet you."
"Oh, where are my manners?" He said, playing along. "I haven't introduced myself." He sighed.
He then proceeds to introduce himself politely, bowing as much as a dragon could bow. "My name is Prince Vathek. And I'm a dragon of the Undead Element and the true heir to the Dragon Throne. Pleasure to make your acquaintances. And I believe the crystal is Ramiel, correct?"
"Yes you did." Louise said.
"I'm Mukuro Ikusaba, the Ultimate Soldier of Fenrir and part of Ultimate Despair." Mukuro said, bowing.
"Now that the introductions are out of the way, may I ask you something, Vathek?"
"Hm, what is it that you wish to know, Master Louise?"
"When you say you're a dragon of a supposed Undead Element, what do you mean by that?" She asked.
"Ah, you see, those with the element of Undead are, well, able to use the most horrid stuff to attack." He explained as if it was basic knowledge.
"The dead?" Louise utters, "What do you mean?"
"Of course, I am not from this world am I?" He said, "I speak of sorceresses able to use bones to attack, of vampires on roller skates, of one eyed giants, of werewolf musicians, of undead ostriches and of basically anything spooky in general" He said so calmly, even as if it was nothing of concern for her.
But to no one's surprise, she was shocked when she heard the information.
"W-Werwolves, v-vampires and undead o-ostriches?" Louise uttered.
"Yes, you heard me right, those things exist in my world. Now, shall we depart from this realm?" Vathek asked.
"We shall, Vathek." Louise agreed, confused but eager to see the other worlds.
Vathek made a black portal appear and the trio walked through, to new parts unknown to both of them.
~~~~~~~~
The portal opened up in the lower levels of his shadowy palace in the Underworld. "Welcome to the Land of the Dead," the dragon introduced to his master. "It ain't much, but really, it ain't much. It is, however, the property of Hades, Greek god of death. Be ready to hide, kid." He and Louise hid in a stone cell left open. "If he sees you, well, he doesn't roll out Tartarus punishments until they're, y'know, actually dead. But will you be in for a treat! You see, Tartarus is where the worst of the worst get individual punishments tailored to them."
"I know what Tartarus is," Louise seethed. "I'm not an idiot."
"Good," Vathek told her. "Save me the breath."
"Huh, guess this brings back memories." Mukuro snarked.
H I D E
A pale grey man wearing a smoky toga and blue fire hair skulked by, before Mukuro knocked him out with a wooden board before Vathek started beating him to death with a stone bench before Louise, Mukuro, Ramiel and Vathek made for the throne room, incinerating imps named Pain and Panic along the way.
~~~~~~~~
The soul in the throne room was not that of a patient man. He paced back and forth, his low-heeled leather shoes clicking ominously on the floor as he did so. His intricately embroidered red jacket was billowed. It was rather funny, he thought, that the dead should get to keep some form of clothing when they arrive in the Underworld. What was not funny was that he'd ended up with a red top hat, of all things. Had his death been at all fair, he thought, he at least should have gotten to keep the white one. They always said you couldn't take it with you, but for some cruel reason, fate had decided he could take the wrong one with him. And with him was a shark, two twins with lavender and red hair with one more 'endowed' and clinging to the other twin and a man dressed like a street thug with a glowing mask.
He stopped by Hades' table, looking down at the chessboard pattern and tiny figurines that studded it. It was all intricate work, and he couldn't resist picking up a miniature carved chimaera to get a better look.
"What have we walked in on?" Louise said, confused as was Mukuro, Ramiel and Vathek at the scene they walked in on.
The soul set the manticore back down quickly. "Only the brink of madness, milady." He said innocently, his voice was deep and thick with a British accent. "Quite well crafted, this statue is."
"There are more people here?! Oh thank god! Please, you have to help me!" The less 'endowed' girl exclaimed and ran behind Louise and clung tightly like she was scared of the other girl.
"Oh come on sis! Stop hiding behind her like a meat shield, you might be crushing her." The more 'endowed' girl said.
"Excuse me, but what's going on?" Louise said.
"N-no! I thought when I died, I would go to heaven and you would go to hell, but now we're both stuck here in the afterlife with no clue how to get back!" The girl said.
"Um, excuse me, are you insinuating that you and your sister died or something?" Vathek asked.
"Yeah! We killed the ones who drowned the world in despair, after they killed our friends, and both me and her died shortly after that!" The girl said, now even more scared. Ramiel shared the sentiment.
F E A R
"Oh come on sis, stop living in the past, Pigtails got on my nerves anyway, thinking she could touch my precious little Hibiki." The other twin said, rolling her eyes.
"Yeah, yeah, let's cut to the chase." Vathek sighed. "How long have you been doing this?"
"Four, milord."
"Four times you claimed that you don't belong down here. Despite the fact that you are very obviously dead."
"In my defense, you haven't fully heard me out on it." The soul protested.
"Then go ahead." Louise groaned. "Explain. What don't I know here?" She crossed the room, with Hibiki clinging to her back so she could lounge in the throne while she heard the soul's excuse.
Once Louise was seated, the soul cleared his throat. "You see, madam, death can only have come to claim me by accident. One moment, I was sitting in the Tasting Room of my dreams, about to dine on the finest cheese known to mortal man, and the next, I found myself down here, with absolutely nothing to indicate that any sort of death had occurred. I only figured that with so many souls coming into your domain on a daily basis for so many years, occasionally, there are mistakes made!"
"Uh huh." Louise sighed before rummaging through the scrolls. "Name: Archibald Penelope Snatcher. Cause of death: Allergenic attack due to dairy. Name: Hibiki Otonokoji. Cause of death: Decapitation. Name: Kanade Otonokoji. Cause of death: Asphyxiation by hanging. Name: Grimes. Cause of death: Shredded by a Boat Propeller. Name: Tsurai Handan. Cause of death: Upper body atomized."
"Now, the first one's where the mistake's been made, you see." Snatcher elaborated. "For I'm not actually ALLERGIC to anything."
"File did say you were. And it ain't wrong." Louise explained, calmly.
Suddenly, three people came storming in, one set of footsteps heavy with anger. Snatcher and the others both looked around to hear the commotion just outside the door. The first to step in was tall and lanky – offsetting Snatcher's somewhat-tall-and-heavyset figure – with bright red-orange hair and heavy mascara and eyeliner. One assumed it was on both eyes, since his right eye was swept over by one red-orange bang. His jacket was white, his bowler hat was black. The other was a girl with short blonde hair with a curious headband with a blue ball on one side, she was beautiful and had lovely blue eyes, her figure was decently endowed and graceful, she wore a white long-sleeved shirt, with a light blue ribbon on her neck above her shirt, she wore a sleeveless light blue dress, with a black bodice, and white frills and white boots, she was about the same age as Hibiki and Kanade give or take a couple weeks. And there was another girl with a short stature; her hair colored pink, white, and deep brown; her clothing choice a matching palette; her irises mismatched. The man pointed at Louise with a gloved hand. "You."
"What about me?" Louise wondered.
"Send me back," the newcomer demanded.
"Hmmmm," Louise mused. "Let me think about that for a minute."
"Send me back RIGHT. NOW." the blonde female soul reiterated. "I should NOT be here."
"Welcome to the club." Snatcher sighed.
"We have T-shirts." Hibiki said, this time with more confidence.
"And coffee mugs." Grimes added.
"And why shouldn't you be here?" Louise asked.
"BECAUSE I'M NOT SUPPOSED TO BE DEAD!" the soul cried in exasperation. "Furthermore, I am not supposed to DIE! Do you know what I vowed to do? What I do best! Lie! Steal! Cheat! SURVIVE! And yet, HERE I AM!" He spread out his arms to indicate the throne room and, by extension, the whole Underworld.
"Ooooh, death by irony!" Vathek had himself a chuckle. "That always smarts, doesn't it? What's your name again?" Vathek asked.
"Torchwick," the soul sighed exasperatedly. "Roman Torchwick."
"Let's see. Torchwick…" Louise rummaged through the scrolls again, and a scroll was in her hand. She unrolled it to take a look. "Name: Aria Grundel. Cause of death: Sliced in half. Name: Neo Politan. Cause of death: Neck snapped. Name: Roman Torchwick. Cause of death: Throat slit by a Deinonychus. Brimir's ballsack, that must've hurt. At least you one-upped Archie here on the last words front, what with saying that some 'Blake Belladonna' wasn't a killer. All he said was something about the taste of cheese, and it was so cliché that I'm pretty sure he was just making it up to sound smart." Louise stated.
Hibiki took a deep breath in and steeled herself. "I don't think I should make this any longer than I should. I'm sorry, Kanade." She started. "I know that you won't forgive me with just a simple apology, but I'm sorry for how I treated you all our lives."
Kanade was surprised, not expecting this from her sister. "But are you?" She simply stated.
"I really did treat you terribly, Guilt and time here helped me to realize that. I guess over time, my regret and the time spent with Guilt helped me realize that I was a fucked-up sister. I know what I did was completely wrong, and even though our parents weren't there to correct what we did, it doesn't excuse what both of us did." The vocalist continued.
"There was a time that I was willing to kill for you. I was so obsessed with having your love that I wanted it all to myself, and I killed anyone that got in the way. That's why I did what I did, even if I became less than human in the process. But as we've both shown, even the worst person can change." Kanade began. "We realized that we've both done terrible things, and now, we actually have people who can steer us back on the right path. Even if they're a little insane."
"Guess so." Hibiki agreed. "I know that simple words aren't enough to make up for everything that's happened, but you've been helping me and I've been trying to make it up to you by bettering myself, just as you told me. I've been waiting for this for a while now."
"Yes?" Kanade asked.
"Do you..." Hibiki had to take another deep breath. "Do you...want to become sisters again?"
Kanade looked at her silently before smiling. "Of course. Let's be better sisters to each other." She replied.
"Yes, let's!" Hibiki exclaimed with tears in her eyes, suddenly engulfing her younger twin in a hug.
"So you, that crystal thing and Louise are not even dead, but Mukuro was revived through a summoning spell." Roman figured out.
"Nope." Vathek confirmed. "I'm not dead. Not in the traditional sense, anyway."
"So you're dead in the non-traditional sense, then?" Snatcher posed. "Is that your way of stating you've some existential crisis?"
"No." Vathek stated. "It's my way of saying I'm using the dead for my magic anyway."
"Magic." Snatcher snorted. "No such thing."
"You'd be surprised." Roman countered. "I thought that too, until my boss from Hell – and no, not literally, or else she'd be able to cut us a break – let me in on some of the secrets of life."
"Same with me, Hibiki and Mikado." Kanade said.
"Hell, I'm pretty sure Crimson Death was there when the Miraculouses were used." Guilt added.
Vathek knew better than to try and fire a plasma bolt or anything else destructive in the cell. However, he can conjure up a faint blue glow around his right wing while Louise made the manticore statue silver in an explosion that rocked the room, opening up his eyes so he could see the others' reactions.
Two thoughts were flashing around in Louise's mind. One, smaller, cynical one pointed out that less power was somewhat of an impossibility now that Ramiel and her two other misfits were around. It was however quickly drowned out by the louder, excited chant of 'I did magic! I did magic! I did magic!' that was hopping around in her head.
Snatcher was absolutely stunned. "How are you doing that?"
"Magic," Roman answered for Louise and Vathek. "Though with Blue Scale, I thought you had to be a woman to do that. Okay, which ones are you two? Summer? Fall? Spring? Winter?"
"I don't know what you're talking about." Vathek called off the glow. "I'm a magic user of all seasons."
"As am I." Louise stated.
"Did you say you were an emperor?" Snatcher asked. "Of sorts, at least?"
"There's no 'of-sorts' about it," Vathek clarified. "I have an empire. Soon the Dragon's Peak is gonna be mine."
"And I don't suppose anyone there is coming here to spring you," Roman posed. "None of those people did appreciate you."
"I don't give them that much room to move," Vathek admitted. "This might be the first and only time I'll regret that." He shifted to better face his seven companions. "So, now that you know why I'm here, why are you seven here?"
"Oh you know, tortured hicks from the countryside for a living, including treating one who had better hair than me extra special, say what you will, she should be grateful that anyone paid that much attention to her, and let's just say, I learned to do background checks on people." Aria explained.
"Ate seals and almost ruptured the ecosystem, I learned that just because I'm an apex predator, doesn't mean I'm boat proof." Grimes added.
"Murdered and maimed around 60 people, Hibiki was my accomplice for my latest murder. And we also helped a terrorist cloak the whole world in a sea of despair." Kanade added.
"Sadly true. And then we killed said terrorist and ourselves." Hibiki added.
"And yes, said terrorist was my younger twin sister.' Mukuro stated.
"So many heroes with strong Quirks and confident auras. My will was getting sapped to the point that I couldn't even rob a convenience store. I was becoming a joke. Then Shimura and the others helped me, only for my chance to be taken away by that Chisaki jackass, now I know that unless I know the people I guilt trip aren't sociopaths, don't fuck with them." Guilt added.
"By a complete and utter mistake," Snatcher grunted. "I was reportedly given a sentence of death when I did not, in fact, DIE."
"So, what, you just got teleported down here at random?" Roman asked.
"The last thing I remember before coming here," Snatcher reminisced, "was at long last achieving my dream of becoming one of the White Hats of Cheesebridge, with all the power I could want at my disposal, and enough status to ensure I'd be cheered and praised by the whole town!"
"Are you saying you took over this…kingdom of Cheesebridge?" Kanade asked for clarification.
"More or less," Snatcher confirmed. "The White Hats and their Cheese Guild oversee all that goes on in that town, from dawn till dusk and after. Of course, most of them were absolute blowhards with no respect for the men who TRULY worked to keep the town in order, such as myself, and I took my fair share of insults from them, I did, but I digress. I'd concocted a brilliant plan to ensure myself the seat. The local Boxtrolls had always been hated and feared as monsters. All I had to do in order to obtain permission to capture them was to pin a crime upon them. A crime such as…the theft of a child. For ten years, I worked down to the bone capturing every last Boxtroll in order to get them to fashion me a machine that would allow me to be unstoppable. A sort of…large riding machine, tall as a building, from which one could cause the appropriate amount of destruction."
"Like a Paladin." Roman nodded. "Go on."
"Then, once the Boxtrolls had served their purpose, I was to make a show of crushing them and showing off the boxes of the dead to the head White Hat, Lord Portley-Rind, and in turn, he would be so grateful, he would make ME the next head White Hat," Snatcher went on. "However, the slippery little beasts fled at the last second. I was forced to simply use the machine and take Lord Portley-Rind's daughter hostage instead. Still got me the hat. And so I found myself at last in the Tasting Room, where the elite conducted their business while sampling only the finest and most elegant of cheese." His demeanor took a sudden downturn. "And this…Lord Hades has the NERVE to accuse me of being ALLERGIC TO CHEESE TO THE POINT OF DEATH! It's all been a cruel mistake!"
Vathek couldn't hold back a smile. "You know, I like the way you think," he told Snatcher. "Me and Louise could use somebody as smart and ruthless as you."
"Well!" Snatcher straightened his coat, looking pleased as punch to receive such a compliment. "I thank you, milord!"
"I don't suppose you were much of a conqueror." Louise made a lazy gesture in Roman's direction.
"Are you KIDDING ME?" Roman sputtered. "Where we come from, we had an entire kingdom running scared. Me and Neo were working with the people who were going to change the world by force, though the less said about them, the better. No self-respecting Dust shop owner ever turned us down when I asked them to hand over the merchandise. We had an entire army of animalistic terrorists at our beck and call! We were on a train, poised to crash and let the Grimm army waltz in! …So that our boss could take the spoils. But we still had fun with it, and that's what really counts in the end, right? Plus, we weren't supposed to die," Roman elaborated. "Ever. Though while we're here, I will say that working for either of you sounds like a lot better of a gig than what me and Neo had."
"Could've used more people like like you," Snatcher replied, "and less like the softhearted idiots I'd got saddled with. Needed to be convinced they were 'ridding the streets of evil' to get them motivated to do anything."
"Yeesh." Roman flinched.
"Hm." Louise was thinking things over. "You know…I just may have a proposition for you."
"And what's that?" Snatcher asked.
"The more I listen to you, the more I'm surprisingly not annoyed by everything you say, and the more I realize you're exactly the kind of people I'm looking for. However, I don't want to waste my time on people who are all talk. So here's my idea: you eight can come work for me. After all, I can get you back to life pretty easily. We might find some stuff in Tartarus, basically Greek hell."
"And who says we want to work for you instead of going back to where we were?" Roman asked. "We had it pretty sweet."
"Really?" Vathek countered. "Because all I heard was that one of you was working for a boss you hated, one was just about to join a government that never did anything but look down on him, two were stuck with bad parents, the shark lost his lunch, the other girl lost her noble rank, and Guilt over here died at the yakuza's hands."
All seven of them simultaneously thought to themselves that Vathek had a point.
"Put a weapon in my hand," Roman said at last, "and I'll do what you need."
"Come on, Kanade! We're getting out of here!"
"O-Okay, sis!" Kanade hurriedly replied. Hibiki's heart grew warmer as she heard Kanade call her that name again.
"If we ever have to do stealth missions," Snatcher offered. "I just happen to know what to do."
"What, annoy them to death?" Roman asked.
"As a matter of fact, no," Snatcher clarified. "I'll need some sort of paint – actual rouge would be best – something that can act as hair, and…" His eyes fell upon the cloth that was draped over a stone bench. "That."
"You want it?" Aria got up off the bench, balled up the cloth, and handed it over. "You can have it."
Snatcher took off his coat, tied the cloth around his chest, then shrugged his jacket back on to be able to carry it hands-free. "I'm hoping we'll find the rest of what we're looking for in this Tartarus," he grunted.
"And what, exactly, is your plan?" Louise asked.
Snatcher began to spell it out, interrupted at one point by an enthusiastic "NO WAY!" from Roman.
~~~~~~~~
Then, the ten were corralled together and walked (or in Grimes' case swam and in Ramiel's case, got carried) down to Tartarus, on their way to get stuff Snatcher needed and to potentially get new members.
"You know, I didn't notice this earlier, but you have nice hands." Kanade whispered to Aria.
"What's that got to do with anything?" Aria hissed.
"It's a long walk and I'm making conversation!" Kanade hissed back.
After what seemed an eternity, the ten misfits went into a corridor, searching the adjacent shadowy caverns. Weapons were easy enough to come by; the poor man whose fate was to be prodded by spears forever was somewhat grateful that the mysterious people had removed ten of the weapons from his torture queue in order to wield them for themselves. Another particularly gruesome form of torture best not described obtained the group a sewing needle. One room contained a very angry chimaera with a shimmering golden mane; it soon found one chunk of its mane severed off before the trio disappeared into the next cavern. And somehow, one of the prisoners of Tartarus happened to be a man so insecure in his masculinity that his "punishment" was to be repeatedly dressed in chiffon and painted with makeup; units of rouge, lipstick, and eyeshadow were immediately confiscated.
Then, the misfits found some allies, Jason Voorhees, a large man wearing a hockey mask and dressed rugged. Tsumugi Shirogane, the Ultimate Cosplayer (Mukuro was surprised to learn that in another world, the Tragedy was fictional), Ark, some sort of cyborg in white and black, Sho Minamimoto and Coco Atarashi, two reapers, Taylor Lee and Albert Krueger, a nonbinary college student and their therapist, Rui, a spider demon dressed in a kimono, and Stocking Anarchy. An angel with long, straight hair cascading from her head, reaching down past her hips – from the back, it would have looked purely navy blue, but from head-on, one could see that the hair on the inside was a vivid pink. She was dressed like a gothic lolita and her legs also bore blue-and-white striped stockings that reached from thigh to ankle.
"Okay, so I've put up with this bullshit long enough! I join you because I'm sick of this boring-ass dimension and its boring-ass rooms with nothing good to eat! Do you have any idea how fucking desperate I've been down here ever since I was stationed? Do you, fuckwits? For WEEKS I haven't so much as gotten to smell a donut, a Swiss roll, a cupcake, a hard candy, a soda pop, a goddamn box of Frosted Flakes! At this point I'm desperate enough that I'd eat my own goddamn flesh if it had sugar in it! All this goes to say that I'm really motherfucking angry and I don't give a SHIT if anyone drags me out but not if it means i have to stay in this dumbfuck prison without even these idiots to talk to out of sheer boredom so I don't go fucking nuts!" Stocking ranted.
"Fine with us." Vathek stated. "We can get you out of here and pay you in sugar if you join us."
"I wanna see some fucking collateral before I agree to any goddamn scam bullshit," Stocking replied.
In a flash of magic, Vathek summoned a mound of cake, pastry, jam, and icing, dripping with all manner of confections in rainbow colors.
The angel gasped in pure joy, her eyes seeing nothing but the desserts. Then she waved a hand with a smile; "Okay, I'm in. Time we go home."
Then suddenly, a jet black three headed dog went charging towards them. It was Cerberus, and he was angered.
"Not to alarm you," Snatcher called up to Vathek, "but the hounds are on us!"
"Then release the chains," Mukuro said in a tone that sounded calm. In fact, she was having one of the most fun times of her life.
Roman and Snatcher quickly undid the knot that bound the chains to the wheel, and the fiery wheel of punishment went rolling right backward. None looked back to see what happened when it impacted Cerberus, but they did hear three distinct doggy howls of pain. "First things first…" Vathek spread his wings and chanted in a long dead language.
Aria, Grimes, Kanade, Hibiki, Roman and Snatcher, Tsumugi, Ark, Jason, Taylor, Albert and Rui felt the sudden rush of gaining corporeal forms: an absolutely indescribable feeling that they could never compare to anything else in their lives (or afterlives). And as a plus, Grimes got hitched to a cobalt and arctic blue mech suit with claws and talons.
Then, the group that now has nine stronger strutted through the portal, Cerberus is terrified for Louise's world.
~~~~~~~~
It felt.
In and of itself, that was not strange. Its touch sensors had always functioned just fine. But this feeling was not touching.
It was an introspection.
It could feel. It could think. It could make its own decisions, and it found itself heeding the orders of this lowly human, this being spawned by- no, this being with an existence that was neither of its progenitor's white moon nor the other progenitor's black moon. It could not sense either moon, no matter how far it sent out its signals, waiting for a reply.
It- Ramiel, floated silently in the girl's- Louise- room, expending just the barest amount of energy as it considered the new sensory data filtering through the ring of text surrounding its core.
A connection via its soul to the soul of its summoner. It was weak, though the strange energy readings within Louise seemed to improve the quality of the connection with every passing second. A mingling of energies, the mass of quantum energy that made up its power source being converted into the strange, unquantifiable stuff that seemed to pool inside Louise's body.
Ramiel found itself confused, a first for itself, as it normally had no emotion nor capacity to be confused. It also found itself capable of using language created by beings not of its flesh, capable of using words like "stuff" and "Louise".
Then Louise did the same ritual she did on it and Vathek on the others, giving them the exact same marks, marking them as familiars.
Ramiel decided that it quite liked words, though they were limited in scope and did not relay information in a timely, complete manner as well as its normal methods of communication- though the normal method seemed to cause some manner of distress in beings that did not share in the quantum energies that allowed it to function.
Curious
Perhaps the communication it preferred caused unwelcome changes in the processing cores of those beings, Ramiel mused, then paused as it realized then that its processor core was now capable of thought tangents and multiple lines of calculation.
Interesting.
Ramiel vibrated, almost overwhelmed with the sheer amount of new things its sensors and processor core could experience. Entire cycles became devoted to assigning previously archived memories to these new experiences, with its vibrations growing in intensity over time in a sound that its new language profile decided to call "giggling".
All through the night, with the moon high in the sky, Louise slept fitfully while Ramiel's haunting giggles echoed through the room and into her dreams.