Chapter 94: Change of Attitude

Meanwhile...with Adrian and Damon...

"Zeus? He was here?!" Adrian asked, his temper flaring. Llarya scooted back on her rear, fearing what Adrian would do to her, but gave him a solemn nod,

"He was here in these lands, yes."

"Where?!" Growled Adrian, his eyes. briefly glowing red. He felt a hand on his arm, and turned to see it was Damons spectral devil arm, stretching from almost two meters away just to keep Adrian under control,

"Deep breaths A, the son of a bitch that killed your mom is the same one that killed her parents." Adrian shrugged off Damons Devil Bringer,

"One more word about my mom, Damon, and I will hurt you." Llarya looked at Adrian with less fear and more understanding, and stood up, brushing the sand from the beach off of her nude self. Adrian turned away, not wanting to stare, "Damon, do you have any spare clothes on you?" Damon casually reached into his coat, and tossed a full set of clothes to Llarya, consisting of a pair of faded blue jeans, a plain black tee shirt, white DC shoes, and a pair of black socks.

"Oh!" Damon used his Devil Bringer arm to reach into Adrians' jacket, and retrieved Katrinas' red thong, earning a glare from the Devil Virus.

"Dude..."

"Oh come on! Like Katrina is going to know!"

"You don't share underwear Damon! That's gross if you do!" He snatched the thong away from Damon, and stuffed them back into his jacket. Llarya slowly dressed herself, as if wearing clothes for the first time. Nyna turned to Damon,

"Um...who art thou?" She asked the two boys, "and where didst thou come from?" Adrian and Damon looked to each other, and they gave her mixed answers, with Damon starting first,

"We're dev-!"

"Mercenaries!" Adrian interrupted, "We're mercenaries." Damon gave Adrian a questioning look, while Nyna looked to the two boys with hope,

"If thou art mercenaries, that means thou can help thy kingdom!"

"Nice going Adrian," Damon sarcastically praised. Adrian closed his eyes as Damon took over, "Don't listen to Adrian, he's lying so then you don't freak out at what we really are." Nynas' hope was beginning to deminish,

"What art thou truly?" Adrian sighed, not wanting Damon to say it, but the hunter said it anyway,

"We're devils," said Damon, unfurling his wings, causing Nyna to gasp and Llarya to step back,

"Devils?! Both of you?!!" Adrian sighed, revealing his own wings, and Llarya gasped as well. Nyna sank to her knees, looking as though she were ready to break down and cry,

"So that's it then...first orcs, now devils!" Sobbed Nyna.

"Hey hey, easy princess!" Soothed Damon, hiding his wings, "We may be devils, but we're not the bad guys."

"Don't toy with us!" Said Llarya, backing away from the boys, "Zeus claimed to be a god, and wiped out everyone I cared for!" Damon turned to Adrian,

"You want to tell them? Or should I?" Adrian sighed, and turned to Llarya,

"Back where we are from, we (or at least I) used to be part of House Gremory, with Lady Rias as our master. But Zeus came along and killed one her members, who was also one of our friends, then the same bastard killed my mom. We...I abandoned her, so we can find him, and keep him from killing anyone eldrSo right now you can either point us in the right direction of where Zeus is..." Adrians' attitude turned menacing, "...or you can stay out of our way while we figure it out." Llarya stared at Adrian, focusing on his eyes, and saw he was speaking the truth.

"Alright...Adrian of House Gremory-."

"Formally of House Gremory," corrected Adrian, "ever since Rias ordered me not to persue Zeus, I went on my own."

"...Adrian, formally of House Gremory...lead on." Adrian turned to Nyna,

"Which way to find Zeus?" Nyna hesitated, unsure to trust Adrian, but turned to Damon, who gave her a comforting smile. She sighed, and pointed to the mountain in the north,

"...My kingdom is built into the mountainside...we can walk from here." Soon the two devils and light elf began to walk towards the mountain, with Llarya stumbling after them, not accustomed to wearing shoes,

"Just how the fuck does one walk in these?" Llarya asked herself in an elven dialect. Adrian looked back at her, seeing her struggle,

"Just one foot in front of the other," said Adrian, being half sympathetic and half impatient.

Elsewhere...with Katrina...

"Kratos...?!" The man in the shadows of the trees stepped into the sunlight, revealing himself to be, in fact, Kratos, but far older than the last time Katrina had seen him. Vaas turned back to Katrina, his rage turning to shock laced with fear as Pyramid Head slowly rose to its feet,

"'Kratos?' The god killing Kratos?! That old fart?!!" Kratos glared at the mohawked psychopath, and pointed at him with his axe,

"You, and that pyramid creature, don't belong here," he said with a gruff tone.

"Trust me old man, my freezing balls agree with you!" Said Vaas, adjusting his cold organs through his pants, "But you see, we needed to be here to catch up with little miss goddess right here," he said, pointing to Katrina, "and bring a piece of her back to the boss." Kratos gave Vaas an inquisitive glare,

"'The boss'...do you happen to mean the imposter Zeus I tried to hunt years ago, but gave up the search?" Vaas went silent, and instead turned to Pyramid Head,

"Yo! Boogeyman! Kick this old mans ass back to the retirement home!" Shouted the madman, stuffing Katrinas finger inside his parka, replacing it with his talisman and pointing it at Kratos. Pyramid Head readied his sword, and Kratos raised his ice axe, ready to fight. The old god ran to the pyramid creature, throwing his axe into its chest while he did so, creating the same ice tinged wound that injured the monsters back. Pyramid Head stumbled backwards, while Kratos landed a left and right punch to each side of the metal pyramid thay made up its head.

"C'mon Boogeyman!" Vaas cheered on, "Slash him from the right! The left! No, the other left!" He couldn't continue his praising as Katrina speared him into the snowy ground, silencing him, and causing him to drop the talisman. Vaas stood up on his feet, flipping his bowie knife around to fight Katrina as she summoned one of Sektors gauntlets onto her one good hand, keeping the injured hand behind her back. Vaas grinned, and took a slash, then a second, with Katrina dodging both attacks, but caught the top button on her shirt, chest, and chin with an upward slice, leaving a fairly deep cut that leaked crimson blood down her front. Vaas chuckled at his deed, but was soon met with a metal punch to the face from Katrina, which lead him to whirl around, clutching his jaw, and as he had his back turned, Katrina dropped to a knee, and swung her metal forearm up between his legs, slamming into his groin.

"OW!" Vaas wheezed, hunching over and cutching his swollen man parts. As he was hunched over, Katrina stood back up, and brought a flat foot to Vaas' rear, making him faceplant into the snow. As this was transpiring, Kratos was still dodging sword strikes from Pyramid Head, landing punches onto the metal headed monster. Finally, he called back his axe from the monsters chest, and swung it into the beasts neck, cutting deep, then yanked out the blade and swung again, and again, and again until finally...

WHOO-SHINK!!

The metal pyramid that was the monsters head fell to the ground, the body still standing upright. Kratos threw his axe into a nearby tree, grabbed the pyramid, held it so the beaked end was pointed down, and with one mighty leap, he slammed the beaked end of the Pyramid Head down into the monsters throat, causing it to fall over, turn into black ash, and the mist surrounding them to dissappear. Katrina looked to Kratos, seeing the old god reaching a hand out and silently calling his axe back to himself, the weapon returning with no fuss. Katrina looked back to Vaas, who was back on his feet, and shocked to see Pyramid Head had been defeated. He looked from the gruesome mess that was Pyramid Head, and looked at the God and Goddess of War. He brought his bowie knife to his temple, and tipped his blade towards them,

"Bye!" He then dashed off into the forest, with Katrina and Kratos hot on his trail, and after a decent run, they ran into a clearing, which lead right to a high cliff. Vaas grinned cockily as he ran, and with zero hesitation, bounded off the edge, cackling as he does so. Katrina and Kratos ran to the cliff as well, stopping at the edge, but when they leaned over to see if they could see Vaas, he was nowhere to be seen, just snow covered rocks at the bottom of the cliff.

"Dammit!" Katrina swore, unable to believe that a simple human managed to get away from her...with her ring finger in his pocket.

"Girl!" Katrina turned to Kratos as he called her that, "It seems we have much to discuss since the last I saw you..."

Meanwhile...at an undisclosed location...

Vaas was catching his breath outside of a massive yet seemingly broken down warehouse, removing his parka to reveal a red muscle shirt, retrieving the gray finger that was once Katrinas', and walked into the front doors, seeing countless workers cleaning and polishing weapons, overseen by a shorter man dressed in a makeshift military garb with an edged red and silver mask, slightly resembling a stereotypical devil, propped up on his head, revealing a heavily scarred face. Vaas shouted up at him,

"What's up Salem?!"

"Go to hell Vaas! I'm working!"

"Okay! See you there! Is the boss around? I got something I know he will be proud of!" Salem jerked a thumb over to his right, and Vaas climbed up the stairs, past Salem, and into a small office, revealing Zeus seated in a folding chair, jacket gone, and a thin plastic tube taped to his arm, extracting blood from his vein and filling a decent sized blood pack.

"This had better be good Vaas," said Zeus, already sounding irritated. The madman held up the ash gray finger,

"I don't know boss, you tell me," he said with a twisted smile...