Anything you recognise isn't mine.

Akeno and Neo idly walked down a set of stairs, after entering the Zekram Station (the largest train station in the city of Baal), onto one of the platforms, where they started looking around. Almost immediately, Neo's eyes widened and dropped into a combat stance, seeming to sense something.

"Hmm?" Akeno looked down at Neo as she did this. "You alright, Neo?" In answer, Neo immediately put a finger to her lips, and flipped her umbrella into a backhand stance, as she slowly walked down the platform, like a stalking cat.

As that happened, Akeno noticed a large bone, of all things, rushing towards her and Neo, which the sexy shrine maiden quickly destroyed with a bolt of Holy Lightning that she fired from her finger. The fragments of the bone harmlessly dropped onto the ground, and moved no more. As this happened, Papyrus and Sans came walking out from behind a set of stairs several metres in front of Akeno and Neo.

"welp." Sans said, his voice as lazy as his posture. "that didn't work. guess that's all the work i'm doing today."

"SANS!" Papyrus shouted at his brother. "WE'RE IN THE MIDDLE OF A RATING GAME! DON'T SIT AND BOONDOGGLE LAZILY WHEN OUR OPPONENTS ARE RIGHT IN FRONT OF US!"

"maybe i like to boondoggle, bro." Sans replied, winking at Papyrus. "also i'm not lazy. i'm just bone-tired."

Akeno and Neo looked at each other and rolled their eyes in unison from the awfulness of Sans' pun. Though their reactions were nowhere near as extreme as Papyrus'.

"AAAAUUUUGH!" he screamed, clutching his head. "SANS!" Out of sheer rage, he summoned a bone in his hand and pointed it at Sans. "IF I HEAR ONE MORE PUN OUT OF YOU-"

"hey, bro, bro." Sans replied, calmly. "our opponents are over there. tibia honest, it'd be a waste if we ended up fighting each other."

Papyrus screamed again, but heeded his older brother's advice, pointing the bone at Neo and Akeno and holding it like a sword.

At that moment, Neo immediately jumped into action. She jumped up against a large pillar, twisted her body around so she could land on its side and propel herself towards Papyrus, swinging her umbrella. Papyrus raised the bone in his hand to block Neo's attack, and pushed her to the side, where she landed on the wall on the other side of the tracks, and propelled herself with her legs (again) towards Papyrus, swinging her umbrella again. Papyrus raised his hand to block Neo's attack, and was pushed back a few feet when Neo's umbrella connected.

Neo backflipped and landed on the ground, smirking at Papyrus, before dashing forward and attempting to stab him with twice with the tip of her umbrella (both times Papyrus leaned aside in order to dodge), with a third stab being thrown a second later, which Papyrus stepped back in order to dodge again. He moved his head to dodge a swing made by Neo.

While Neo spun around in preparation for a new attack, Papyrus tried to punch Neo himself, but his punch was blocked by Neo's umbrella, and Neo countered by jabbing him in the stomach with the handle, and then smacking him in the face with the closed canopy of her umbrella.

After opening the umbrella, Neo swung it twice at Papyrus, who dodged nimbly out of the way and caught the unconventional weapon as Neo attempted to stab him with it. He pushed the weapon out of his way and rushed towards Neo, attempting to bring his fist down on Neo's head (after dispelling the bone-sword entirely). However, Neo raised her umbrella and blocked Papyrus' fist.

Roxas' ice-cream-obsessed Pawn then took little hopping steps back, making sure to stay JUST out of range of Papyrus' swings and kicks. She used her umbrella to parry another two kicks from Papyrus, ducked under a flying kick, swung her umbrella at Papyrus while he was airbone, missed, and was unable to stop Papyrus from landing on his hands and kicking her in the face with both feet, sending her flying into the air as he flipped back upright.

Opening her umbrella and using it to glide gracefully down to the ground, Neo dashed forward, swinging her umbrella at Papyrus and missing, swinging it at him again (Papyrus parried the attack with his hands), kicking out at him (he kicked back, blocking the attack with his own), spin-kicking at him and missing, parrying another kick from Papyrus with her umbrella, ducking under a spin-kick of Papyrus', doing another spin-kick at Papyrus and missing, leaning back to dodge an uppercut from Papyrus, and, after spotting an opening, went on the counter attack.

She cartwheeled forward, delivering a pair of quick kicks to Papyrus as she did so and attempted to trip him up with her umbrella, but missed as he jumped over the swing. From her low position, she tried to kick Papyrus as he landed, but he was ready for her, and suddenly grabbed her leg. He then proceeded to swing Neo around and throw her away from him, but Neo opened her umbrella in order to slow herself down and land calmly on the ground in front of Papyrus, who jumped into the air and flipped over, attempting to cave Neo's face in with a kick.

After the first miss, as Neo neatly stepped back when Papyrus' kick came so close to hitting her that she felt it brush up against her hair, Papyrus jumped up into the air and tried another kick, which also missed, but by a further distance this time. Papyrus swung at Neo, missing, tried to punch her, but his fist only met Neo's umbrella. He tried to punch Neo again, but had the same result. He kicked out at Neo, but again, was blocked by her umbrella. Papyrus paused for a second, then suddenly punch at Neo, catching her right in the face and knocking her down to the ground.

As her nose bled, Papyrus rushed towards Neo and jumped up into the air, attempting to slam into her and finish the fight by crushing her, but Neo quickly kicked Papyrus right in the small of the back he was attempting to crush her with, and sent him flying so high that he crashed into the ceiling of the station that the pair of them, plus Akeno and Sans, were in.

Dazed from how hard he crashed into the ceiling, Papyrus fell... fell right into the path of a gigantic laser, comprised entirely of Holy Lightning, created by Akeno.

"A-ALAS, POOR PAPYRUS..." Papyrus stammered, as he disappeared in a flash of blue, though this flash of blue was covered up, almost completely, by Akeno's huge lightning-laser.

However, something else that was covered up was the sound, and the sight, of something charging up right around where Sans was. As soon as the lightning-laser faded, a laser of Sans' own shot out of a large, skull-like thing next to Sans' head. The laser hit Akeno directly in the stomach, forcing her to drop to one knee, bleeding heavily from the hole going right through her, bleeding that she was unable to stem.

Roxas' first Bishop then dropped onto the ground, losing consciousness and fading away, showing that she was, in fact, Retired.

"welp." Sans remarked, looking over at Neo, who saw, to her horror, that Sans' white pupils had faded away, leaving a pair of empty black voids in place of his eyes. "looks like you managed to beat my bro. impressive, given that pap is actually pretty tough, in spite of having taken only three of raven's pawns. but since you took him out..."

Sans looked over at Neo, and raised his hand.

"you're in for a bad time, girlie."

Neo opened her umbrella and held it in front of her as another laser was fired from the skull-like thing next to Sans' head, with the laser impacting her umbrella, which she used as a shield. It protected her from damage, sure, but at the cost of most of the canopy of the umbrella being absolutely obliterated.

The skull thing faded away, and Sans raised his hand again, his left eye beginning to flash blue and yellow. Without (seemingly) any control over herself, Neo then found herself flying to the left, and slamming against the wall, the force of which was enough to knock her out instantly.

She then faded away a couple of seconds later.

Once she was gone, Sans let out a loud yawn, shoved his bony hands back into the pockets of his hoodie, and walked behind a pillar, out of sight of anyone that could have been watching at that time.

As soon as he did so, Sans then inexplicably appeared a couple of streets away from the Zekram Station, on a street corner, next to a lamppost. Subsonciously leaning on said lamppost, Sans looked down the street, and noticed, for the first time, his fellow Bishop, Ur, fighting a two-way battle against Asia and Xenovia, Roxas' blonde Pawn and blunette Knight, respectively.

Thinking to himself that it would be worth it to step in and at least try to help fight Asia and Xenovia (as he was too lazy to disobey Raven's orders to fight the members of Roxas' peerage), Sans pushed himself off the lamppost, and began walking towards Ur, Asia and Xenovia.

Line Break

From his position, stood leaning against a wall and watching one of the gigantic screens that had been magically attached to the wall, which was currently broadcasting the Game between Roxas and Raven (specifically, the battle between Ur, Xenovia and Asia), Achilles Astaroth silently watched, taking careful note of Xenovia's up-and-in-your-face method of battle and swordplay, as well as Asia's more keep-away aspect to battle, as she fired a range of spells.

Be they creating shields to defend herself and Xenovia, casting magic-circles onto walls so Xenovia could jump onto them and use them as platforms, or even throwing a couple of tricky long-range attacks at Ur in order to try and distract her from the blue-haired Knight coming at her swinging the second-strongest Holy Sword in existence (Achilles didn't envy anyone who endeavoured to try something like that), the descendent of the slayer of Hector was impressed with what he'd seen of Roxas' peerage, in the two Rating Games they'd been in.

Even if, from just the way that Roxas' peerage (not just Asia and Xenovia but all the women under Roxas' command) carried themselves, it was extremely clear to Achilles that Roxas had stuck his dick in all of them. Multiple times. However, that certainly didn't detract from the fact that they were holding their own against a hardened Rating Game veteran, and one of the most desired bachelorettes in the whole Underworld.

Fighting away a small blush at the thought of sex, Achilles noticed some movement just under the screen he was looking at, and his eyes, just by reflex, followed it momentarily. But when he realised just who was moving, he focused on it a little more, as the person moving was one of his Rooks, Mordred, the last living descendent of a certain Knight of Treachery of the same name.

Mordred was small in stature, yet had a very pronounced muscular and toned body, but not too much to be considered ugly. She had blonde hair that was tied up in a loose, high ponytail and with two chunks of hair framing her face, one on each side, green eyes, and wore a tube top that exposed her abdomen, and a crimson leather jacket, along with a skirt that was outfitted with armour, coloured red and gold, with black socks and red shoes.

Looking around to try and see if anyone noticed her leaving, Mordred made her way across the room and walked out of the gathering hall, and judging by the direction she was going, Achilles mentally surmised that she was heading outside. And so he followed, as he wasn't talking to anyone, and no-one looked like they wanted to talk to him much.

Achilles was around ten steps behind Mordred as he exited the Bael Castle and turned left, following his Rook into the nearby woodland. From what he could see of Mordred, as the night was dark, she looked like she was looking down at something that was travelling along the ground in front of her. Mordred took a sharp left, and so did Achilles when he got to that position, easily concealing his presence from Mordred (who, like all the members of his own peerage, had been taught to be able to sense beings around them, to an extent) until she came to a stop in front of three people that Achilles could see as he took a position behind a large oak tree. Two of whom he recognised, and one of whom he didn't.

The person Achilles didn't recognise was a tall, imposing-looking man with slicked-back black hair that went down to his shoulders and cold blue eyes. He had an extremely muscular body, which was kept under a full set of black body armour (sans the helmet), and over that, he wore a blue cloak with white fur at the top of it.

The first of the two people Achilles did recognise was one of Mordred's half-siblings, her older half-brother, Arthur Pendragon. Arthur was a European-looking young man with blond hair, some of which was tied into a little chunk that went down the left side of his face, and another chunk of which was swept across his fringe. He had blue eyes which were kept under a pair of glasses, and wore a dark blue business suit.

The second of the two people Achilles recognised was Mordred's younger half-sister, Le Fay Pendragon. Le Fay was a cute young girl with a slim body, shoulder-length blonde hair and sapphire-blue eyes. She wore a sorceress-like dress with a huge blue hat (which had a black bow and yellow stars by way of accessories), and matching cape with pink flowers and a white interior.

"Arthur." Mordred greeted her half-brother through slightly gritted teeth as he looked calmly at her. "How… nice, to see you here."

"It's nice to see you too, big sister!" Le Fay replied, good-naturedly, as a small puppy with fur that was a mixture of jet-black and pure-white, as if it had had parts of its fur dyed, jumped up onto her shoulder. "Glad that you recognised Amos and followed him here."

"Which brings me to what I was going to say next." Mordred repllied, decidedly unamused by what Le Fay had just said. "Why are you here?"

Line Break

Ur created a shield out of ice on her arm and quickly raised it into the air in order to block Xenovia, who came jumping at her from above, swinging Durandal right at her. She groaned under the force of the former Exorcist's swing, and pushed Xenovia away, before creating several layers of icy shields behind her in order to stop a number of magical blasts of energy sent at her by Asia

Ur hurriedly ducked under a swing from Xenovia, and after creating a large hammer in her hand, swung it with all her might at Roxas' Knight. The hammer met Durandal, and though it didn't knock the sword out of Xenovia's hand like Ur initially intended, the sword was embedded for a short moment in the hammer. Ur then proceeded to infuse her hands with ice magic, and deliver a quick one-two punch to Xenovia's gut, which sent her flying away, Durandal still in hand. Xenovia landed on the ground and groaned, clutching at her stomach, which was so cold that it hurt, a lot.

Xenovia groaned and pulled herself to her feet, gripping Durandal tightly with both hands as Ur walked over to Asia, blocking each and every magical attack she sent at her, and dodging to the side of a couple of light-spears that Asia threw towards her. While Ur was distracted with Asia, Xenovia let out a roar as she raised Durandal for a second, then brought it down, sending a huge wave of Holy energy towards Ur, who didn't notice it coming until it was too late to properly defend against.

Ur could only create two layers of magical shield to block the Holy destructive wave from reaching her, but those two shields cracked like glass against the intensity of the huge wave, and sent her flying over Asia's head. She then crashed to the ground, unable to move, before vanishing in a blue light a couple of seconds later.

"Are you alright, Asia?" Xenovia asked, walking over to Asia while clutching her stomach. She then got down on one knee so she was on a level with Asia. "You hurt?"

"I'm fine." Asia replied. "Are you alright? You look hurt." she raised her hands and began healing Xenovia via Twilight Healing.

"I'm feeling better." Xenovia replied, as the healing effects of Asia's Sacred Gear took effect on the wounds Ur had given her. "Thanks to you."

Asia let out a small giggle as Xenovia got to her feet, but turned around and widened her eyes in horror when the sound of a laser of demonic energy charging up inside a certain skull became known to her ears. She turned around while healing Xenovia, and saw Sans standing there, his bony hand raised and pointed at her and Xenovia, while they were almost completely defenceless.

However, as fate would have it, right before the energy laser fired from the skull that was levitating next to Sans, a large blast of red and black energy fired from behind Asia and Xenovia, flew over their heads so fast that they could feel it, and impacted the skull, blowing it up before it could fire the energy laser that would've surely Retired Asia and Xenovia.

"...what." Sans blinked, looking up. Asia looked around as well, and saw Rias and Kuroka walking past them, glaring at Sans.

"Asia, Xenovia, you should leave." Rias informed the two former Church members, as she readied another attack from her Power of Destruction.

"Yeah, what she said, nya." Kuroka replied, summoning a number of big wheels that were covered in some black flame-looking substance. "You don't want to get wiped out in the crossfire of what's gonna go down, nya."

"R-right!" Asia replied, straining for a second as she lifted Xenovia, who was quite a bit heavier than she was, to her feet, and helped her walk for a couple of steps as she finished healing her stomach. The two then jogged a safe distance away once the healing was finished, as Rias and Kuroka dodged out of the way of another demonic energy laser, fired by Sans.

Battle Music: Song That Might Play When You Fight Sans - Undertale

Kuroka covered herself in an aura of Ki, and was the first to retaliate, dashing at Sans while gathering some kind of spiritual-looking flame in her hands and pulling back, preparing to punch Sans. However, Sans took a step back, out of the way of Kuroka's attack, and flicked his hands in order to summon a large number of bones, which he all sent at Kuroka and Rias.

Rias quickly reacted, sending out blasts of her Power of Destruction, each of which were about the size of footballs, and all of which destroyed every bone Sans sent at her on contact, while Kuroka ducked and dodged under and around the ones that Rias was unable to destroy, before dashing towards Sans and throwing her fair share of punches and kicks at him.

However, Sans was able to either deflect or dodge every single one of Kuroka's physical attacks, and countered with several attacks of his own, while Rias hung back, hoping that Kuroka didn't get Retired by something like a bone that got her through the chest, as she had devised a plan that, if it worked, had a good chance of taking out the member of Raven's peerage with the most potential to be a major pain in her King's ass.

Sans slid to Kuroka's right and made to attack her, but his attack was deflected by one of Kuroka's own attacks, so he dashed (surprisingly quickly, too, for a member of Raven's peerage that, at first glance, looked to be the absolute epitome of everything that was laziness and sloth) behind the black-haired Nekoshou, but Kuroka followed his movements and blocked his attack without even looking behind her, before turning around and counterattacking, but her attack was deflected as well.

Sans jumped back, and went on the offensive, conjuring up two bone-swords, one in each hand, and summoning several more bones above him, as he rushed towards Kuroka, attempting to stab her. Kuroka's tails (coated in makeshift armour made of stone, in order to protect them) came flying up to meet Sans' attacks, pushing them away from Kuroka or flicking the attacks towards Rias for her to destroy, before Kuroka got her first hit of the fight, with one of her tails smacking Sans on the side of the head, and sending him flying to the side, though he landed on his feet and slid a few metres away from Rias and Kuroka.

There was a noticeable crack in Sans' skull from where Kuroka had hit him with her stone-covered tail, which he took a second to reach up and feel with one of his bony hands, and he didn't notice that a number of magical seals formed around his position until it was too late.

Song end

"the hell?" Sans looked around, and pushed up against one of the shields, in a half-hearted attempt to get out. "aw, shit."

"See you later, lazybones." Rias grinned, before snapping her fingers. A huge pillar of Power of Destruction formed under Sans' position, and he had no way to escape the huge blast that engulfed, and Retired him.

When the PoD faded, Kuroka looked at Rias, unimpressed with her last remark.

"See you later, lazybones, nya?" the black-haired Nekoshou raised an eyebrow at Rias. "That's the best you could do?"

"Well it wasn't like I had much time!" Rias replied. "What would you have said, anyway?"

"Nothing!" Kuroka retorted. "Because blasting Sans to hell wasn't something that warranted a cheesy remark!"

Rias and Kuroka continued bickering for a good half-minute, but their argument was brought to a sharp end when they saw Velvet Crowe, Raven's Queen, walking calmly towards them, slowly unwrapping the bandages that were wrapped around her left arm. As she finished unbandaging her arm, and dropped the bandages to the ground, Rias and Kuroka both saw a large red and black arm taking shape, which Velvet clenched into a fist as she glared at her two opponents.

Rias turned around and looked to the end of the street, where she knew Asia and Xenovia had retreated to and had been watching the battle between her, Kuroka and Sans, and saw Adam coming down the other end of the street, vibranium sword in his sheath (which was also a gun) held in his hand, looking coldly at Xenovia through his mask.

Xenovia saw Adam approaching her and Asia, and felt a bead of sweat running down her face as her eyes met the (presumed) eyes of one of the strongest Knights in the whole Underworld, as she made a quick decision after looking around and seeing Velvet approaching Rias and Kuroka.

"Asia." Xenovia addressed the blonde former Nun. "Go and help Rias and Kuroka. I'll handle Adam."

"R-right!" Asia replied, running away from Xenovia and Adam, who both stalked towards each other, holding their respective weapons in preparation for a fight.

Line Break

Velvet made the first move, jumping into the air and quickly rolling over in mid-air to dodge blasts of both Power of Destruction and Senjutsu that Rias and Kuroka sent at her, and landed close to them. She spun around and kicked Rias hard in the mouth, sending her flying backwards while Raven's Queen fought Kuroka.

Kuroka could instantly see, just from the strength of which Velvet sent Rias flying that fighting Raven's Queen close-up would just be a lost cause, and spread her six Nephalem wings in order to jump back and put some distance between her and Velvet, but Velvet was right on her tail, jumping right along with her and raising her leg so she could send Kuroka flying into a wall.

"Fuck!" Kuroka shouted out in pain as she slammed against the wall and landed on the ground, every part of her body aching. She tried to push herself to her feet as Velvet walked towards her, preparing to Retire her.

"Don't feel too bad, Pawn." Velvet remarked to Kuroka. "There's only a few members of your Master's peerage that could take me on unaided. And all of them are either Retired, or not here."

Kuroka groaned as she saw Velvet prepare to finish her off with a demonic attack, but Raven's Queen suddenly turned around and created a magical barrier in front of her that blocked another huge blast of the Power of Destruction, sent by Rias, who was enveloped in a light green healing Aura. A couple of steps away from her stood Asia, both her hands out and sweating hard from the constant use of Twilight Healing.

"Now might be a good time to use your Balance Breaker, Asia!" Rias remarked to the blonde Pawn, who, still sweating, nodded, and closed her eyes. After a couple of seconds, during which Velvet began to run towards her and Rias, Asia called out the two words that would activate the Balance Breaker of her Sacred Gear.

"Twilight Amplifier!"

The green aura around Rias seemed to intensify, and the crimson-haired former Gremory Heir gave a moan of pleasure as she felt herself becoming stronger with every passing second. Grinning at Velvet, she raised her hands and created a large barrier that stretched across the entirety of the street, a barrier that Velvet was unable to stop herself from running into. As soon as she impacted it, a pulse of energy emenated from the shield with such intensity that, like Kuroka and Rias herself before her, Velvet was sent flying.

However, very much unlike Kuroka and Rias, she righted herself in mid-air and landed on her feet, glaring at Rias and Asia, whose rings of her Sacred Gear had seemingly been replaced with silver armoured gloves with green trim.

"Well that's interesting." Velvet remarked to herself, as Rias dispelled the barrier, and began preparing another attack. In an attempt to stop Rias from attacking her, Velvet rushed towards Rias, pulling her demonic left arm back, in an attempt to send Rias flying with a punch that would surely Retire her. However, it was not to be, as Rias got her attack out first, sending Velvet flying, again, with another blast of her Power of Destruction.

Except it wasn't, strictly speaking, a blast of Power of Destruction, as the Power of Destruction took the form of a black and red energy. But the destructive energy that Rias had hit Velvet with was white and red, as opposed to black and red.

This was Power of Holy Destruction, a technique that Rias had created by using Amalgamation to combine her Power of Destruction with her ability to control the element of Light that came with her being transformed into a Nephalem by Roxas' second Bishop piece. Through constant training, Rias was now able to summon the Power of Holy Destruction without even summoning the crimson holes that Amalgamation was known for.

And judging by how it blew Velvet's clothes off, as well as sending her flying through several walls (Rias, Kuroka and Asia could all hear Raven's Queen flying through each and every one that she hit), was pretty goddamn powerful.

Rias remained silent as Asia disengaged Twilight Amplifier and the armoured gloves on her hands returned to rings, and walked over to Kuroka (Asia at her side), before helping her to her feet.

"W-well." Kuroka groaned, as Asia began healing her with Twilight Healing. "At least you didn't make an extra-cheesy remark, nya."

"Oh, stop it." Rias replied. "You've made your point."

She and Kuroka both laughed, but their laughter was cut short by a loud shriek of pain coming from the other end of the street. Rias, Kuroka and Asia all turned around in unison to see Xenovia falling to the ground and dropping Durandal.

Both of her lower legs had been separated from her body, and Adam stood over her, swinging his sword to the side, casting blood from its blade as he walked over to Xenovia, preparing to finish her off. Before he could do so, however, a small magic-circle appeared by his ear, and judging by his reaction, someone was talking to him through it.

In unison, Rias, Kuroka and Asia took the chance to save Xenovia, and prepared to rush Adam, but before they could even take three steps, Xenovia faded away in a blue light without any intervention from either them or Adam, signifying that she was Retired.

Adam noticed this, and as he noticed Rias, Kuroka and Asia approaching him, the fifth-strongest Knight in the Underworld dashed away before another fight could occur.

Meanwhile...

From her position in the VIP booth, Alice silently grinned as she saw Rias unleash her Power of Holy Destruction, the very technique that she had been working on with her granddaughter on Velvet. She remained silent as everyone spoke up, in admiration of Rias' new attack.

"Damn." Zeoticus spoke. "That was certainly some attack from Rias."

"Amplified by Asia's Balance Breaker." Sirzechs added. "Just saying that it's 'certainly some attack' is a bit of an understatement. If it Retired one of the strongest Reincarnated Devils alive today, in one shot, I'd go with 'impressive' to describe it."

"Indeed." Venelana replied. "But that only begs the question. If Rias' Holy Destruction, amplified by Roxas' Pawn, is capable of something like that, then one can only imagine what Roxas' Power of Holy Destruction would be capable of. That is, if he ever used it."

"I wonder indeed." Alice spoke up, as everyone turned to her. "I'll train Roxas to be able to create Holy Destruction. If he wants to, of course. However, given his... current stance on the Power of Destruction, I'm not so sure if he'll want to do that."

"I bet that if Roxas used that Holy Destruction..." Millicas spoke up, his eyes wide from excitement from seeing a replay of the Holy Destruction attack Rias had done. "Then it'd be super powerful! I bet he could even fight a God with an attack that strong!"

"Calm down, Millicas." Grayfia gently hided her youngest son while rubbing his hair. "Don't get too excited."

However, as Millicas calmed down, Grayfia would have been lying if she didn't inwardly agree with Millicas. Just how powerful could an attack like that from Roxas be?

Line Break

"So you applied for a set of Evil Pieces?" Roxas asked of his Queen, as the two of them were sat on a small bench together in the Bael Miracle Flo Garden. Or rather, Roxas was sat on the bench, and Valian was lying on it, her head on Roxas' lap. She let out an "mmm-hmm" in response as Roxas' fingers ran through her hair.

"Cool." Roxas replied. "Anyone you're thinking of adding to your peerage, if you get your Pieces?"

"Of course I'll get my Pieces." Valian replied to the second half of Roxas' question, opening her eyes and raising an eyebrow at her King for a second, before relaxing again and yawning. "But as for people I fancy adding, I don't really have anyone in mind. Maybe Ingvild, if she wants it."

"Yeah, I can see her being useful if you ever entered the Rating Games." Roxas replied. "Anyone else?"

"Hm." Valian shrugged. "Can't think of anyone else right now. I think I'll just make like you and let the chips fall where they may."

"Good idea." Roxas replied, continuing to stroke Valian's hair before stopping for a second, mid-stroke. "Hey. Weird question: is it just me, or does your hair look whiter than usual?"

"Huh?" Valian sat up and looked around at Roxas. "What're you talking about?"

"Your hair." Roxas replied, reaching behind himself and grabbing a clump of his own hair. He then brought it around in front of himself and showed it to Valian. "Might've been the light or something, but I could've sworn it looked whiter than mine."

Valian furrowed her brow, and did the same thing with her hair, before she held her clump of hair in front of Roxas'. Her King was right: her hair did look slightly whiter than his.

"Hm. So it is." Valian remarked, shrugging as she stood up. "That a problem?"

"No." Roxas replied. "Just an observation."

"Fair enough." Valian replied, looking around as she saw a red and black portal opening out of the corner of her eye. Roxas noticed this too, and tensed up, but relaxed when a piece of paper flew through the portal and landed on the bench. Valian immediately bent down and picked it up.

"Baal Tower. Middle of city centre. Come get me."

Roxas' Queen frowned as she looked down at the note, before looking back at her King.

"Think it's a trap?" she asked. "You think she's trying to ambush us?"

"I doubt it." Roxas replied, standing up and stretching. "I'm pretty sure Raven doesn't have many peerage members left to ambush us with." He walked over to Valian, and gently pressed his lips against hers for a second or two.

"Let's go."

Remaining Members of Roxas' Peerage:

Roxas (12), Valian (9), Rias (3), Asia (1), Kuroka (2)

Total Value: 27

Remaining Members of Raven's Peerage:

Raven (11), Adam (3), Reiner (5)

Total Value: 19

And that's the thirty-first chapter of Nephalem! The Rating Game between Roxas and Raven is approaching its end, and Roxas has taken the lead, thanks (mostly) to a certain black kitty cat and Rias' newly created power, Power of Holy Destruction!

We've also got the introduction of Arthur and Le Fay Pendragon, who will feature a lot more in the fic (good news for the readers who like those characters), and... Valian's hair is different. If any of you readers can figure out why that's the case, then kudos to you.

Anyway, what did you think of this new chapter? Please, review and let me know, because I really do love hearing feedback. If you fancy letting me know about some possible ideas you might have for later in the story, or just have questions for me, let me know in a review or PM (or talk to me on Discord (my name for it is on my profile)), as I really enjoy talking to readers!

Three Sizes for New Girls:

Le Fay Pendragon: 77-56-78

Next Time: The Rating Game Ends

Preview of Next Chapter:

Roxas and Raven stepped onto the roof of Baal Tower, and faced each other, neither of them making a move for several tense seconds.

Seeya!