Hello everyone, I just want to let you know that I'm still willing to take suggestions until noon of tomorrow. Sorry this was so late, I was watching a marathon of one of my favorite shows and lost track of time. In this chapter, Lelouch battles...Mao! Big shocker, huh? Well, onto the chapter.
Chapter 7: Golden Touch
At the end of the path, Lelouch jumped down and landed on a rotating gear. 'Must say…' Lelouch thought, looking at all the gears and mechanisms 'This place is largely different in comparison to Gluttony.' Lelouch thought, comparing the organic scenery and makeup of the previous circle, to the metallic and industrial appearance of the current one.
"The souls sent here to Greed are guilty of committing one or both crimes: Ill-keepings or ill-givings. Basically, the hoarders and the wasters. These souls suffer as you can see there." Diethard said pointing to a giant vat filled with a molten, yellow metal of some kind. Lelouch looked closer and saw that there were souls in it, suffering.
"They wallow in the heat of the molten gold, but not all souls suffer the same way here, for there are hundreds of things people can hoard and waste, and thus there are thousands of ways these souls can suffer." Diethard said pointing with his camera staff above and there were souls, strapped to wheels made of rock which rotated, crushing the souls over and over again, their screams echoing throughout the giant death trap. "While I could show you many more tortures, there is no time we have that could be spent here. Let us move on!" Diethard commanded and Lelouch obeyed.
Lelouch felt like he was getting lost throughout the whole contraption, but thanks to Diethard, who passed through here on his way to the gates, Lelouch didn't have much trouble, except for the occasional soul or two trying to grab Lelouch, either to pull themselves out or drag Lelouch down with them. "Must say, for such a big contraption, I'm surprised no one's here for maintenance." Lelouch said, slightly fascinated at how interlocked everything seemed.
"Oh there are maintenance workers here, but they don't maintain Greed, they maintain the peace. A peace, they consider by your very presence, is being broken." Diethard said, but before Lelouch could question him on his statement a giant figure came crashing down.
In terms of size and basic physical appearance, it looked the same as the Guardian Demon, but it was still very different. Instead of a curved sword, it had an axe in its right hand and a shield in its other hand. This one was wearing gilded armor also. "Throne Demons, they are the second choir of the fallen demons and are considerably more powerful than the Guardian variety. Tread lightly." Diethard warned.
"Yeah, yeah, I know." Lelouch retorted before pulling out his scythe, but the Throne Demon let out a massive roar and three massive drops of gold fell down. The drops began to take shape and all of them took the appearance of something that could easily be seen as the work of Lucifer.
All of them looked the same and had pale-brown skin. All of them had two legs, but all of them also had two torsos. Both torsos had a head and the torsos on Lelouch's left had two arms and were constantly trying to hold gold coins inside its hollow chest. The torsos on Lelouch's right had only one arm, their left arm and only had its right arm up to its elbow. The left torso's hollow chest seemed to be constantly releasing coins from it and in its left arm was a giant golden mace with spikes on it.
"What are they? The Siamese twins of Hell?" Lelouch asked, completely freaked out at the monsters before him.
"One of Lucifer's many forms of entertainment. They are known as Hoarder/Wasters. Lucifer fused, yet tore apart two souls, one was a hoarder…" Diethard said pointing at the torso trying to hold the gold coins. "…and the other was a waster." Diethard pointed at the torso whose chest was spilling gold coins. "Lucifer found them to be as good a soldier as they were entertainment."
Lelouch clenched his teeth. 'Yet more souls you caused cruel suffering to? Whether they were meant to be punished or not, some acts just go too far.' The Throne Demon let out another roar and the three Hoarder/Wasters charged at Lelouch, dragging their maces. Lelouch turned his scythe into a spear and launched it at one of the Hoarder/Wasters, but they just separated their torsos, letting the spear zoom in between them. Lelouch turned the spear back into a scythe and pulled it back, and on its way back, separated the Waster torso from the rest of the body. The Hoarder torso let out a roar of pain, but not for long as Lelouch zoomed in and sliced it in half, with all parts of the body dissolving into golden ashes. Lelouch didn't have much time to relax though as the other two Hoarder/Wasters went at Lelouch in a pincer attack formation. Lelouch fired off a cross attack at one of them, but all it did was slightly slow it down and that's all Lelouch needed. Lelouch then did a complete 180 degree turn, with his scythe swinging, to build up power into it, and hit the Hoarder/Waster behind him. It was able to block the attack with its mace, but the momentum of the attack pushed the Hoarder/Waster close to the edge, exactly what Lelouch needed to happen. Lelouch then fired a charged cross attack, not to hurt it, but to push it back. When Lelouch fired the charged salvo, the Hoarder/Waster fell of the edge into the gears below and what was at first roaring soon became the sound of something being crushed, most likely the fate of the second Hoarder/Waster. The third one started spinning around with its mace out very rapidly. It seemed like Lelouch was standing still, but he was actually charging his cross for an extra, extra powerful attack. When the spinning monstrosity came close to Lelouch, he released the cross attack, severely damaging. Stunning, and stopping the Hoarder/Waster's attack. Lelouch struck quickly, cutting both torsos in half before they knew what hit them.
As the third and final Hoarder/Waster fell to the ground and dissolved into golden ashes, the Throne Demon started its attack. First it sent a charged fire attack from its axe towards Lelouch, to which he evaded and then sprinted at the axe-wielding demon. The demon tried to swat Lelouch away with his shield, but Lelouch side-stepped at the last second and cut off the demon's left arm, in between its pieces of armor. "You know, for someone that's supposed to be greater than the Guardian Demon, you certainly failed to do so in the brains department." Lelouch taunted, moving back and shot a couple cross bolts at the demon. The demon fell for the taunt and charged at Lelouch with its axe. Lelouch just smiled and waited. The Throne Demon did a diagonal slice that Lelouch just avoided by ducking and then skewered the demon with his scythe-now-spear. He hurled the demon for him and onto his back with the spear still in him. Lelouch then fired a point-blank charged cross attack, about ¾ as powerful as the one he used on the last Hoarder/Waster, right on the demon's head. The demon exploded in a flash of holy light.
"Bravo…bravo…" A voice said. Then a familiar clapping gesture was heard. Lelouch turned around, fearing that the source of the voice and clapping was a certain person from the no longer existing Chinese Federation. His fears, unfortunately, were answered and standing right on top of a giant, golden statue was a familiar Chinese who had white hair, pale skin and a light blue coat.
"Mao…" Lelouch said, almost hating that word as much as his father's ideals.
"Wow… good guess Lulu. Such a shame you can't have geass when you die or I would definitely screw your mind over right now." Mao said, looking smug.
'Wait, how is he unaffected by Hell, he died, he went to Hell, but he looks the same as the day he died. How…unless…' Lelouch was in the middle of thinking when Mao crashed his train of thought.
"I don't even need geass to figure out what you're thinking, Lulu. Yes, I was sent here as any other soul, condemned for my possessiveness of C.C., no matter how much I protested that she was rightfully mine, they wouldn't listen…"Moa said with an angry/crazed look. "…but then I met Lucifer, he helped me. Said that if I kill one person, he would give me as much of C.C. as I could want and when I found out that person was you, oh that just made my day!" Mao said with a crazed/borderline homicidal look.
"Well then, come down here and let us see who deserves C.C. more." Lelouch taunted, hoping to start a battle with Mao while Mao was enraged.
"Sorry, but not yet." Mao said, clearly not falling for the taunt. "I want to see you squirm just a little bit more." Mao said before vanishing into a cloud of golden smoke.
"Wait!" Lelouch shouted, running towards the statue, only stopping when he saw how massive it was and heard it constantly saying 'Papé Satàn, papé Satàn aleppe' over and over again. "Who is this?"
"This is the fallen god of wealth Plutus. The condemned here still worship him as he watches over them." Diethard said.
Lelouch noticed that the statue was quite normal except that it had multiple arms and blue gems placed around the statue. "Well then, better start climbing." Lelouch said, but a beam of light shot out of Plutus' eyes and, on the spot where the light was shown, a giant block of gold formed.
"Do not let yourself falter at the powers of Plutus. Steel yourself and move onward!" Diethard said. Lelouch jumped onto the golden block to gain a height boost and jumped onto one of Plutus' arms. Lelouch made his ways up the statue and saw a massive, golden, and spinning wheel.
"What is that?" Lelouch asked as he jumped onto the platform behind Plutus.
"That is Lady Fortuna. Some people call her Lady Fortune, the Wheel of Fortune, or Lady Luck, but they are still all her. She was tasked by God to transfer material wealth from one person to another, making people poor and others rich. Her name gets slandered by many people, even those who worship her, but she doesn't care, she just spins away, enjoying the misery she causes.
'Bet she enjoys my misery to an extreme.' Lelouch thought and saw on closer inspection that there were souls being crushed under the Wheel's massive weight.
"Please save me!" One of the souls called out. "I was just a Roman Governor doing my job in taxes, nothing bad!"
"That is Gessius Florus, a Roman governor that was in control of Judea. Known for his public greed, Jews hated him for he sucked them dry of their money, making up excuses and using his power as governor to get away with it. He even sacked the temple in Jerusalem and-" Diethard stopped when Lelouch held up his hand. 'Seems like he has made his verdict.' Diethard thought.
Lelouch pulled out his scythe and immediately stabbed it into Gessius' face and watched him turn to ash. "Another wasted soul." Lelouch said before he heard a large stomping sound behind him. He turned around and saw an Asterian Beast staring right at him, but this one had no Beast Tamer on it.
"Come on! I'm waiting." Lelouch heard Mao's voice coming from the other side of the Wheel.
"I see what you're doing." Lelouch grinned as he jumped on top of the beast and took control of it by stabbing his scythe into its head. Lelouch then had the beast start pushing the Wheel out. It took some time, but Lelouch finally got the beast to push it out and the Wheel fell down into a vat of gold and laid down on its side. Lelouch jumped off the beast and landed onto the side of the Wheel, where Mao was waiting with a golden chainsaw.
"Been waiting for you, Lulu." Mao said as he revved up the chainsaw.
"Yes, let's end this, no geass, just you, me, and the inferno." Lelouch said as he took out his scythe.
Mao rushed forward and swiped with his chainsaw. While his speed and maybe his strength have increased, Lelouch's experience made him superior in this battle. Lelouch easily dodged the swipe, grabbed Mao and threw him to the other side of the Wheel. Mao, shocked at how strong Lelouch was, didn't have time to react to Lelouch's barrage of cross attacks which sent Mao over the edge and into the golden goop below.
Lelouch leaned over and looked at where Mao fell in before turning around and started looking for and exit. Suddenly, a giant explosion came from behind Lelouch followed by the sound of a waterfall of molten gold. Lelouch turned around and saw Mao in his true, demonic form. He was twice as big as the demons and had no clothing on his chest. His right arm and pectoral were replaced by gears, the same kinds that mostly made up Greed, but these were made of gold and instead up a hand, his right arm ended in the golden chainsaw, the same one he had before he fell. For the rest of his body, there wasn't anything else that could be noticed except his ears were pointy now and his teeth were jagged. "This power is a symbol of my love of C.C.! No one can have her except me!" Mao roared with his demonic voice.
"That power is a symbol of how corrupted you are!" Lelouch retorted, but Mao just rushed at him at a blinding speed, barely giving Lelouch time to dodge.
'Damn, seems like his speed has gotten a significant boost.' Lelouch thought as he fired cross bolts at Mao, but he just swatted them away. 'But with such a massive body, he can't be as nimble as I can, no matter how fast he is.' Lelouch thought as he sprinted at Mao. Mao cut downward, but Lelouch quickly evaded, slashing Mao in the process. Mao just roared and charged at Lelouch, but it seemed like Mao couldn't change directions easily when going full speed. Using this to his advantage, Lelouch easily dodged Mao's attacks and counterattacked him. While Lelouch couldn't pull off a strong blow, Mao was slowly, but surely getting weaker from all the cuts.
"You…will not…stop…my love…for C.C.!" Mao roared as gold gears begin to form behind him which seemed to have grown from his shoulder blades, and in his right one's case, where it should be, and at the end of the gear arms were chainsaws. This gave Mao one human arm, his left arm, and three gear arms, each of them ending with a golden chainsaw.
'This will be difficult.' Lelouch thought as Mao came rushing at him again. Lelouch tried to dodge, but his two new chainsaw arms acted like they had minds of their own and struck Lelouch, not critically, but struck a blow all the same. Lelouch jumped back and thought. 'Seems like I too will have to start using multiple weapons at once too.' Lelouch then let go of his scythe with his left hand and took out the cross with it.
"Just because you're now using two weapons doesn't mean you can beat me!" Mao said as he charged. On the contrary, it seemed like Lelouch could. Whenever Lelouch side-stepped, he used the cross to keep the other two chainsaw arms at bay and it worked. Things seemed to start going back into Lelouch's favor.
'Time to end this.' Lelouch thought as he rushed at Mao. When Mao struck down, instead of evading, Lelouch just ducked and then jumped over Mao. Lelouch evaded the shoulder mounted chainsaw arms in midair and slashed Mao in the back as he landed. Lelouch then turned his scythe into a sword and stabbed Mao right where his heart should be. "Sorry Mao, but C.C. is going to be with me." Lelouch said coldly as he twisted the blade and then took it out. Mao stammered a bit and the gears that made up three of his arms fall apart at the gears and melt to gold. Mao then fell to the ground and dissolved into golden ashes. Lelouch watched the as Mao's corpse dissolved and turned around when the last of the golden ashes vanished. "Where's the exit?" Lelouch asked out loud, knowing Diethard was somewhere near him.
"Right over there." Diethard said pointing with his staff. The path started out gold, but soon turned black. "This is the way to the fifth circle, Anger."
How did you like my demonic form of Mao? I tried to combine the circle's properties with Mao's signature chainsaw and that's what I got. Well, next stop Anger and the City of Dis. See you there, well hopefully not literally.