Ritsuko cut down another mechangel with a swift strike from her dagger. Hir'el was dead, at least she thought so… So why were his machines still attacking?

"You think you've won?"

The sudden sound of his voice took Ritsuko off guard completely. She was certain he was dead, but turning to face him, she saw that indeed he was still holding himself up somehow. It seemed impossible to her.

"How the hell are you still breathing?" she challenged.

"Loyalty beyond death, mortals."

Everyone turned and looked, watching as his hand grew hooked claws, and how he tore into his own chest to grab his broken core.

"Impossible!"

His last act, made with what little energy his body still held was to merge what was left of his core with the Soul Cage, an act which corrupted its purpose, and its power. His body fell to the floor useless as the core levitated off of the Altar. Twelve segmented tendrils of metal, ending in three pincered clasping hands writhed out of the sphere as it continued to rise.

Ritsuko barely registered Misato's voice as her mind was too busy reeling from the possibility of what she was seeing. A green shockwave of energy rolled over them, and Ritsuko felt nothing, but she watched in horror as the bodies began to move. In moments they were starting to stand, and then float before being drawn towards the sphere, covering it like layers of undead armor. The sphere continued to rise as more and more bodies became part of the horrific conglomeration. As the last of the dead joined the sphere of flesh, the bodies shifted, changing the facing side of the sphere into a death's head skull before shrieking with thousands of voices.

Ritsuko didn't register Misato's quip about this being disturbing, because the shock was already setting in. Somehow, Hir'el managed to create an entity able to control the minds of the dead…

"Not control… connect together…"

"TREMBLE BEFORE US AND DESPAIR… FOR WE SHALL DEVOUR YOUR VERY SOULS... WE ARE LEGION… FOR WE… ARE… MANY!"

VII: Heart of Iron, Part II

With a horrendous crash, the front of the fortress blew apart from the inside by the sheer force of what was escaping. Huge chunks of marble and steel were thrown hundreds of meters in all directions, as the massive sphere of pressed together bodies floated away from the fortress. Below, leaping through the rubble and dodging falling debris, were five of the most powerful women on the planet, scrambling to keep up, and hoping they could find a solution to this latest problem.

Asuka was actually running fast enough to keep up with Fenris, a feat Ritsuko though the girl incapable of. Not only running, but holding a conversation.

"So how do we kill it?" Asuka asked, her arms swept back behind her in a run a ninja would be proud of.

"This isn't really a true Legion demon," Ritsuko noted. "At least I don't think it is. Firstly, it's artificially created using an angelic relic. And secondly, the minds are basically being remotely operated. This thing is more like a Granfalloon, a conglomeration of minds that are exactly the same mind."

Misato flew in from above, flying just above and to Ritsuko's left. Rei flew above her and to her left.

"So, if we destroy the relic, we kill the hivemind," Misato noted.

"I thought you said it would be virtually impossible to accomplish such a feat?" Rei noted.

"That was before Hir'el merged it with his core," Ritsuko explained. "In doing so, he corrupted the artifact so it's not nearly as indestructible as it was before."

"No wonder the bodies are packed around it like that," Asuka noted, looking up. "Strange, there's almost a pattern to the way the bodies are connected."

"You noticed it too," Ritsuko noted. "Those tendrils we saw grow from the sphere were likely some sort of control mechanism. Meaning the sphere has 12 sections to it. We break though a couple of those sections and we expose enough the core to attack directly."

Suddenly a group of bodies seemed to break off of the main mass and was hurled at the party at high speed; the ball of humanity screaming all the way.

"Scatter!" Asuka yelled, causing the four to break off in multiple directions. The bodies slammed into the ground at the impact point, two broken beyond the ability to animate, the other were in a full run heading for Ritsuko with teeth gnashing and snapping like wild beasts.

Ritsuko waited until they committed to their attack and stabbed each on as it either leapt or ran at her. They each fell in turn, shrieking, mutating and then getting back up to join Ritsuko's side as Night Creatures.

"Well," Ritsuko began, "the good news is I can turn the bodies into Night Creatures. The bad news is we need to stop it before it reaches the next city, or this situation will domino out of control very quickly."

Below them, passing though the earth even faster than the other can ride on it. Hikari in her rosebud moved to get ahead of the mass. Using what plant life on the surface still existed to gauge where it was, she adjusted her direction and picked up the pace as fast as she could, quickly shifting out of the way of upcoming huge rocks, or underground infrastructure that might block her advance. Finally bursting from the ground less than 400 meters ahead, she bult up as much mineral and biomass as she could before launching a series of massive vines into the sky like harpoons. Each ended in a hardened woody blade tip that punched though many bodies and dug deep into the mass, until the vines were literally battling for position against the tendrils inside the sphere.

Like a legion of ants, the bodies crawled to and attacked the vines, even as they pulled taunt with the sphere almost directly over Hikari's position. Several dozen more vines and plant creatures of various types waited as bodies began to drop from the sphere to attack her. At her signal, all the heavy vines penetrating the sphere grew long thorns, making it almost impossible for Legion to simply drop bodies to escape the grapple as it would have to sacrifice entire sections of its armor to do so.

The rest of the group caught up, with Rei and Misato attacking the lower quadrants of the sphere with a combination of soul powered energy blasts from Misato and multiple explosive arrows from Rei, blowing multiple bodies off each time they attacked. Misato didn't have the energy to spare for a full onslaught as she was not a very active succubus in regards to soul sucking, so she searched for a location she could attempt flyby attacks.

Ritsuko lept from Fenris and had both him and Daisho watch her back. She sent any night creatures that can fly to attack the sphere and any that could not to help defend Hikari. Asuka used her own Bow Glyphs to attack from a safe distance, ready to switch to sickles at a moment's notice. As it stood, she had to. A blast from Rei dropped a mass of screaming zombies to the ground where they got up and rushed the pair. Asuka switched and went on the offensive, cutting down as many as she could, while Ritsuko converted any she was able to reach with her talisman dagger.

"Try not to get surrounded!" Ritsuko yelled.

"Pretty sure that's rule number one of a zombie apocalypse, which this is really starting to resemble!" she returned. "Speaking of which, the bodies looked prestine on the pile, why are they rotting so fast?"

"The artifact and the ritual that created it have been corrupted," Ritsuko noted. "The bodies are no longer preserved by holy magic."

Misato used a few high-speed dashes to slice though the bodies on the sphere, taking out quite a few in the process. Then her luck ran out as a zombie managed to grab her wing. She tried to pull away, only to have half a dozen other hands grab her wing and pull her towards the sphere. Just when she was about to scream for help, a snap could be heard causing Misato to simply scream instead, though her scream amongst the swarm of other screams went unheard. With the bones in her wing shattered, they dragged her against the press of bodies the started to pull her in, tearing at her clothing first, then her flesh. Misato struggled, transforming her only good wing into barbed tendrils which shot though the lines of bodies, but the zombies were relentless. The destroyed were simply ejected from the sphere while still active zombies took their place, pulling her inside. Hands grabbed her face and her senses were suddenly overloaded with the stench of so many bodies. Her right arm reached out, as darkness closed over her, the feeling of hundreds of fingers trying to tear her body apart turned her heart cold and she realized this was likely the end for her.

A sudden eruption of dark energy ripped around her. She felt none of it as dark energy was something she had a close affinity with, but for the zombies, it tore their bodies asunder, many disintegrated into ash around her, changing the clawing sensations to an almost soft and soothing one. Then she felt herself start to fall. She tried to open her wings but only one would obey her, before she fell very far though, Rei caught her and flew her away from the monster.

"That was not your most intelligent move, Misato," Rei noted. Misato was barely conscious and couldn't respond, but she knew enough to know she was safe now.

One of Hikari's harpoon vines snapped, and Legion pulled hard as soon as it did so, hoping to break the others in the process, but before it moved very far, three more harpoon vines slammed into it.

"Oh no you don't!" Hikari yelled. "Then quickly directed some of her smaller vines to trap and crush more zombies trying to reach her. The Night Creatures around her continued to help but the volume of bodies seemed to be getting worse, not better. "Hir'el must have sacrificed the entire city to make that relic, there's no end to this."

Suddenly her arm was pulled back from her. She gasped and then screamed as three sets of half rotted teeth sunk into the flesh of her arm, causing a mixture of blood and liquid chlorophyl to run like water from the wounds. A series of thorny vines rammed though the backs of the zombie's skulls before pulling them away but the damage had been done, cradling her arm, she mentally controlled her plants, but this was taking more concentration, and she had a lot to try to focus on. Using a few "Plant bandages" she covered the wounds but she felt the rot in the wound start to fester. This would slow it down but much more direct healing methods would be needed to repair the damage and completely stop the spread. She held her wounded arm close to her and used her free arm to direct her plants, now being much more alert to potential sneak attacks.

Askua cut down another group with her scythe then suddenly flipped back from a beam of raw energy that strafed her position.

"The fuck?!" she yelled looking up at the direction it came. A few bodies still covered the sphere but one of those tendrils was now visible and longer than she remembered. The claw aperture opened and unleashed another beam at her, forcing her to dodge again. "We're almost through!"

Rei, upon noticing this as well, flew towards the location, and unleashed a cluster of three explosive arrows into the location, causing the remaining bodies to be blown away, revealing part of the corrupted Soul Cage. Before she could get another shot into it, two zombies dropped on her from below and tried to bite into her wings. The thick feathers prevented them from doing any damage and Rei was able to throw them off quickly, but now she was forced to dodge away as more zombies were falling from above, or being thrown at her. She looked back at her opening in time to see zombies from other parts of the sphere reforming the shell at that point, preventing further exploitation of the opening.

"This thing is going to outlast us," Asuka noted, breathing hard as she had a second to see their window close, and saw the other zombies now rushing down their position. She retook her stance and waited.

"We've got to cause one large opening all at once," Ritsuko noted, reaching into one of her pouches. "We're only going to have one shot at this." She pulled out a cluster of six crossbow bolts.

"More acid?" Asuka asked.

"No… Alchemist's Fire. If we set them all off at once, it might just do enough damage to stun Legion long enough to take advantage of the opening." She pulled out another crossbow bolt, this one with a black band near the tip.

Asuka took the bolts and bound them together with one of Hikari's snapped vines, then yelled for Rei. The azure haired Valkyrie flew in, grabbing the cluster and flew towards Legion. Ritsuko loaded her Crossbow and whistled. Fenris quickly ran over to her.

"Protect Hikari!" Ritsuko ordered before riding towards Legion. Asuka quickly moved to help the former Class Rep.

Rei fired more explosive bolts into Legion while dodging balls of humanity and laser beams, as Ritsuko rode faster, stabbing any zombie she could with her dagger to help keep the enemies off of her. Finally getting into position, Daisho and a few dozen Night Creatures now guarded Ritsuko, destroying every zombie that tried to get to her as she took aim with her crossbow. After burning down a significant amount of the shell again, Rei flew in fast, and stabbed the sphere with the bound bolts, then flew away before the zombies could grab her. As she back winged, she fired one last explosive arrow at the same spot. This shattered the shafts of the crossbow bolts igniting the alchemist's fire and blowing a huge chunk off of Legion, exposing three tendrils. Rei herself was partly caught in the blast and had to shield herself with her wings as she was thrown back then prepared to dodge the trio of lasers aimed at her. Ritsuko took aim, finally seeing the cage, and before Legion could protect itself again, she fired. The bolt hit the cage directly exploding as the entire shaft was full of C4. The sphere inside shattered instantly under the explosive force of the attack, and legion finally died. Hikari quickly pulled Asuka to her, then pulled them both underground as the sphere was now falling from the sky and they were directly under it.

The bodies fell, like rain at first then heavier, into a veritable waterfall of the dead. The pile was almost the height of a two-story building when it finally stopped.

Ritsuko watched the pile of bodes build, and then watched what was left of the soul cage roll out of it, its tendrils broken off, a section of the cage itself blown away and the crystal inside was gone, likely reduced to powder from the shockwave.

Ritsuko sighed heavily, finally feeling the weight of her task removed. They had victory, but there were injuries, and an entire city was still lost in the process. Fenris made a concerned noise, earning a pat on his flank from Ritsuko.

Rei flew in and landed near her. "Misato is injured, as is Hikari," she reported. "Misato is in the most immediate need of care so Hikari left with her and Asuka."

Ritusko said nothing, and simply watched as the massive pile of bodies began to slowly burn away like a massive funeral pyre. With the soul cage destroyed, the souls of the dead had been released to their final rests.

"Are you alright Doctor?"

For a moment more she didn't reply but finally did so. "I really don't know, Rei. As far as victory's go… this one was a bit Pyric. But it is a victory… Hir'el is dead, and the device he was trying to use to kill everyone on earth is destroyed. But…"

"But?" Rei offered.

"But I wonder… how much more must we suffer before we earn some kind of respite?"

Shinji wordlessly sat up in his bed. His sheets were down about his waist, and he wasn't wearing anything at all. He felt physically better, but emotionally… he wasn't sure. A cute sound came from next to him, and Shinji turned to see Maya laying next to him, she was mostly curled into him, likely for warmth. Her naked frame was covered under her arms in the sheet and currently laying on her left side… the side that her injuries were on.

"Injuries I caused," Shinji reminded himself. He looked across the room and saw his dressing mirror, his image was partly transparent now. His fangs were extended, and they weren't going back any time soon. His transformation had begun, spurred on by drinking human blood. He had no idea how long it would take, but inevitably, he was changing into a true vampire, just like Mari.

He looked at Maya again. Though he didn't feel the same connection he had with his other girls with her, there was something there. She was now bound to him in some form. He would protect her, just as he would protect any of his other girls. Though he wondered how Ritsuko was going to take this. Would she be relieved that Maya was now part of the harem? Would she be upset with him that he hurt Maya to do it? And how was Maya going to handle everything when she woke up and realized, that she woke up the demon?

His head turned towards his bedroom door, he heard the sound of people returning to the house… and Ritusko's voice was amongst them…

"Time to face the music…"

"While I can't say it went well, it didn't go horribly either. After it was determined that Maya was okay, Ritsuko and I had a discussion about these changes… In the week that followed things oddly calmed down a bit, and I decided it was time for me to find myself. Though the others protested, I decided I would travel alone. During my little walkabout I ran into a witch of extraordinary power that needed help freeing herself of a burden. I had no idea then, that she was about to become harem girl number seven."

Next Story: The Art