Lots of characters introduced in this chapter. But hopefully you will stick with it.
She stood in the clearing, waiting for them once again. But rather than her familiars this time, she was accompanied by someone else. "Mummy, why are we here again?" Sora asked. Astarte laughed softly and picked up the young boy as he pulled at her stocking. "Because, my little darling, I have to train this lot to control themselves. If I don't those nasty people at the Vatican will make us go back to Gehenna." She said. "But you're a princess there." Sora stated. "Yes, and you and your brother are my princes. But we don't have as much freedom to do what we want there. Remember how mummy was always being followed by several others?" He nodded. "Mummy didn't seem happy when we were with grandfather." He said. "But she's happy here and so are you right?" He nodded again. She smiled then heard branches breaking. "Ah, here they come." She murmured. She turned and frowned when she saw a new student with them. The new girl had soft red, almost pink hair and large yellowy-green eyes with no pupils or whites. She had pale skin and appeared to be shorter than the others with a slim build.
"Mummy, why is she wearing snow boots?" Chikyuu asked, tugging at her boot. "I don't know darling." She murmured as she looked the girl up and down. She noted the singe marks and claw marks on the brown leather trench coat and the red camisole and worn blue jeans she wore. Why is she wearing a supply belt? Amaimon growled to her. I don't know. She shook her head and placed Sora down on the ground before turning once again to the students. "So...I see we have a new student. Care to introduce yourself?" She asked. The girl stared at her. "Amixtri" She said bluntly. "Ok...and are..." "Half demon. Daughter of the bastard Iblis." She snapped. Astarte blinked, surprised by the harshness in the tone. "Something tells me you have ...issues with my brother." Amixtri shrugged. "Only issue is how he killed my mother." "Ah. Moving on." She said, turning and leading them back towards the caves. She led the mis-matched bunch to the caves and hopped up onto the roof of one. "Ok, today we're gonna start by having gain more confidence in your abilities. Megumi, I want you to practice crafting larger weapons from the elements got it?" Megumi nodded.
"Drake, I want you to work on shifting between your blades and armour faster. The time it takes for you to change between them is too slow and leaves you open to attacks. Also, work on your senses as without them, you are susceptible to attacks." Drake mumbled "Yeah, and the fact you don't warn people before chopping their arms off isn't a factor." Astarte turned. "Did you say something?" Her face dangerously happy looking. "Nothing." He quickly said. "I thought as much. And Noel, you need to work more on your power of suggestion. It's good but isn't strong enough yet. You need to strengthen it." Noel nodded, slightly more confident considering she didn't get attacked on her way to the session. "Ok, that just leaves you Amixtri." She said as she turned and jumped when she spotted her standing right behind her. "Eaugh! Don't...don't do that." She said. "Now, what's your ability?"
Amixtri sighed and unveiled claws of bright red flames as well as flames appearing on the horns on her head as well as a fiery tail. "Ok then...Do more flames appear in the heat of battle?" She asked. "Only in cases of extreme concentration or emotional debt." Amixtri said. Astarte tilted her head to one side again. "Right. Perhaps you should focus on how to improve your skills in battle...hang on one moment..." She held up one claw before conjuring several orbs of purple flames and throwing them at the others who had been listening in. "GET BACK TO TRAINING!" She roared. Giggling emerged from Sora and Chikyuu, making Amixtri look at them oddly. "Problem?" Astarte asked. "No." "Well then, for your training, I want you to work on using your flames as a long distance weapon as well as a close-range weapon. Also, I want you to have more confidence in them." Amixtri glanced at her. "You're kinda like Rin Okumura. He too was scared of his flames before I started training him." She clicked her fingers and a small imp appeared with a target. "Try to hit the target with just your flames." She said before moving back and leaning on the edge of the cave mouth.
Amixtri watched her before looking at the target and sighing. She focused but her flame flew off to the left. "You rely on them too much for close-range battles. As hypocritical as this may sound, a blade cannot be successful in all battles." Astarte stated. Amixtri glared at her. "Your flames are your one true friend in battle. The only one you can truly rely upon. If you don't have confidence in them, you will not win." Astarte stated. She paused when she heard the cracking of branches. "He who feasts of flesh and bone, answer the call of the heir to the throne." She murmured. The ground opened to reveal the Wendigo Ossa, causing Noel to squeak and move away. "Ossa, go and see who it is making that noise. And if you see them as a threat, remove them." She stated softly. The great Wendigo nodded and merged into the air. A few moments later, startled yells emerged from the woods. "I wonder who it was." Amaimon stated. Before they could respond, a familiar voice called out. "PUT ME DOWN YOU OVER-SIZED BAG OF BONES! I SAID PUT ME DOWN!"
The two of them stared at each other. "Was that...?" "I think it was." The students all stopped and stared as Ossa bounded back to Astarte, a writhing figure suspended in the air by their ankle and several strangers following behind. Astarte and Amaimon collapsed into fits of laughter when they saw who Ossa had grabbed. "Mummy, why does Ossa have a hold of daddy?" Sora asked. Astarte looked at the little boy before laughing even harder. "This isn't funny!" Mephisto growled. "Oh but it is!" "We need a camera" "Ow! Oh, it hurts to laugh but I can't stop." The two demons rolled around on their backs, holding their sides and laughing manically. The long, skeletal tail of the Wendigo wagged backwards and forwards as they laughed. Astarte looked past him to see the new students. "You brought more?" She asked, as she fought back giggles. "If you get your over-sized bone bag to drop me, I can introduce them." Mephisto growled. "Ok Aniue. Ossa, drop him!" "WAIT!" There was a thud as Mephisto hit the ground. "You asked to be dropped." Astarte said as she leant over him. "You are going to be punished so badly for this." She smirked. "So, who've we got here?"
The mismatched trio consisted of two girls and a boy. One of the girls was dressed in loose brown sweat pants, a graphic black t-shirt, a dirty lab coat, old sneakers and thick glasses. I think she's what the humans call a nerd Amaimon growled to her in their native tongue. She glanced backwards and used her tail to bop his forehead. The girl also had short brown hair pulled back into a messy bun and purple eyes with crimson and bright green flecks. The second girl had a black leather jacket, reddy-orange shirt underneath, combat boots and the typical type of pants she had seen worn by specialist ninja in some of Mephisto's manga. However, the one main noticeable feature was the bushy fox tail she had. The only boy of the group seemed to be the most interesting of the group. He reminded her alot of Rin, especially with his hair that was similar in style and colour with silver tips and bangs falling over his right eye. "You gonna introduce them?" She asked Mephisto. "I'll leave them to do that." He said. But he didn't leave.
The students behind her had stopped their training to see the new classmates. "So...who are you?" She asked. The girl with the fox tail glared at both her and Amaimon. "I'm Hakuhen Yuki." She said rather coldly. "And you're obviously a half demon." Astarte stated. "Who are you kin of?" "Kurama." "...Why does that name sound familiar?" Astarte mused. "Your bastard of a father killed most of my clan." Yuki growled. "Oh yeah...That was the time he told me he did it to make sure no-one else could get a familiar like Kitsune." Astarte said. Yuki glared and stormed forward before harshly kicking her in the knee and stamping on her tail. "OW! WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT FOR?!" Astarte screeched, jumping back and holding her injured tail. "I don't like Satan, or his relatives." Yuki stated. Astarte growled before pointing to the group. "Go join that lot and I'll start you on your training in a moment." She snapped. She heard snickering and threw her sword, once again slicing Drake's arm off. "AGAIN!?"
"You deserved it that time!" Astarte roared. She turned to the second girl. "What about you?!" Her mood was now dancing on the line of "I'm going to massacre everything within a 30-mile radius if I get annoyed once more." The girl stepped forward. "I'm Ame Daisuke and I'm the kin of Amon." She said quickly. "Any familiars?" The question was barked at her. "I can summon small green rats that spit acid and can form a larger rat." Ame stated. "...Ok...Weird but ok." She moved to join the others. "Which just leaves you wolf boy." Astarte smirked at the only boy. "How did you know?" "Because I can see the ears and tail in your aura." Astarte stated, her eyes glowing ever so slightly. "Whatever, I'm Gen Satoshi. Son of Fenrir, king of the wolf demons." He said as he walked past. Astarte sighed. "Right, I need to know your abilities and then I can create a specialist task for your training." She paused when she heard branches breaking. "Did you hear that?" She asked Amaimon. He nodded. In an instant, she had her blade poised for attack and stood between where the sound was coming from and the students. "Mummy?" "Stay there darling." The sound got closer and closer. What was it? In the darkest, glowing red eyes shone brightly. The creature leapt out of the branches to reveal... "It's a...dog?" They all stared at the large black haired dog that stared back. "That's one big dog." The hound looked at them, one paw raised up in the air. "And it's lame in one leg." She turned and shook her head.
"We got freaked out by someone's pet." She sighed. She froze when it growled. "That's not an ordinary dog is it?" She asked. She turned as the hound sprang off of its back legs and aimed for them. Fangs glinted in the sunlight. She leapt to one side and rolled between it and her children. "It's a dip!" She yelled to Mephisto. The hound leapt again towards the students, jaws wide. There wasn't enough time to get between them, it was going to kill her class. "STOP!" She yelled. Three gunshots echoed through the air and the hound fell with a thud. They all stared at the corpse before turning to the sound of footsteps as a boy of about 14 wearing a exorcist uniform with a white overcoat, rectangular glasses and had jet black hair stepped forward whilst holstering his magnum pistol. "I hope you're grateful to the Vatican now." He said as he examined the corpse, blind to Astarte and Amaimon who appeared to be having a vivid mime contest with each other, pointing to him, the corpse and the trees he emerged from. "If you don't mind me asking, Who the hell are you?!" Astarte snapped. "I'm your security sent by the Vatican to maintain observation on the students. My name is Eric Shin." He said.
"Wait, you were sent by whom?" Mephisto snapped. "The Vatican." The three demons just stared at him.
Phew, long chapter huh? Well, I got alot of submissions and I didn't want to leave any out. Also in response to a point made with a submission, the pairing question is simply if you want your character to be paired with someone and who you would like them to be paired with. I do not plan to pair other people's characters as I would rather leave an important decision like that to the creator. Anyway, submissions are still open for characters and can I request maybe one or two more exorcists. Also, those who have submitted characters, some of you need to provide me with more information such as more detail for the character's appearance. Aside from that, please keep submitting as this is so much fun to do and I hope the next chapter will be more entertaining than this one but not as long. So until next time this is sayonara from the psychotic author