Author's Note: Still behind on my writing but so far hasn't affected my publishing. Read, Review, Favourite and Enjoy!
Chapter 122: The Enemies of Mankind
Goll was looking out at the sky before her, the contents of what she was seeing was maddening. The lightning going through the sky was like Thor's but... different, stolen, repurposed, as if it's source defied the will of the gods themselves, like someone stealing Thor's hammer and completely changing the purpose. The opponent on the other hand boomed like thunder but it had a pattern, musical, like the blasted choir of those angels! It was unnerving, every hair on her arms going off at once.
"Good, I can tell that you have no desire to be here a moment longer." Naofumi stated approaching Goll from behind.
"What are those two?" Goll asked looking scared.
"You should be familiar with the people by now so instead I'll speak of the weapons." Naofumi stated bluntly as he leaned out on a balcony.
"Rishia has equipped herself with a class card, a piece of history from earth turned weapon, and has upgraded that power using the 'lightning' weapons she took from the other heroes."
"Which piece of history?" Goll asked looking concerned.
"Nikola Tesla, the new God of Lightning."
"'New God?'" Goll liked nothing about that.
"A mortal who learned how to take the power of the gods and give that to man." Naofumi explained bluntly. "You'll get the chance to meet him soon enough."
"What does that mean?" Goll asked looking concerned.
"You and your sisters will have to figure that out." Naofumi stated as he walked out the way that he came. "Don't take all day."
As Goll was wondering who Naofumi was talking about a new figure took his place in the room, someone that Goll never thought she'd see again. She was older than Goll, taller and try as she might to deny it, better built too, better than the last time she saw her.
"Big Sister Brunhildr?" Goll asked eyes wide in shock.
"Follow me. We have a lot to talk about. All of us." At that Goll, and the big lizard that had hijacked her weapon through the Sacred Gear, followed them out.
"But this doesn't make any sense! You went missing! We thought you were dead!" Goll shouted, relief, concern, anger all mixed into her voice.
"Missing? I was dead. I pushed farther than any of us, met a monster that I couldn't beat and formed the pact with it to kill it. To this day I still can't decide if I want to Kill Naofumi or thank him for setting me free." Brunhildr waved her arm and produced the Rainbow Bridge stepping onto it in the process. "A rather unique human was made to wield me, and destroyed the demon I made the pact with."
"A demon!?" Goll's face twisted in horror. "You made a pact with a demon!?" "Reluctantly but yes." Brunhildr stated as she shrugged her shoulders.
"And what's with this human that you made the pact with after?" Goll asked still looking concerned.
"His conception was rather unique, a hybrid of human and demon, born of a divine with the curse of the Dragon Slayer in his veins." Goll made a horrified face at that summary. "Thank you, that was exactly the reaction I was looking for." Brunhildr stated sounding quite proud of herself. "Why didn't you come back?" Goll just slumped forward defeated.
"Exile. I am now something that Odin will not approve of, and now neither are you." Brunhildr stated indicating the demon dragon following behind Goll.
"Um... aren't I suppose to go into myself and dig deep through my connections to form a link with with this thing?" Goll asked to wit Brunhildr spun around and Karate chopped Goll on her head.
"Since when do we need to go poking around our souls to form a pact with another!?" Brunhildr snapped holding her sister's head in a vice grip. "For one thing, you are a god killing weapon!"
"Oh..." Goll forgot she could do that. Turning around Goll took her hand and held it out to the Demon Dragon.
"I'd rather form the pact with Naofumi, you'll do in a pinch." Goll and Brunhildr both were Valkyries, beings who form pacts with dying mortals on the field of battle in order to pick out the ones suitable for producing heirs to Odin. Part of the pact was that the Valkyrie transforms into a Volund, a weapon suitable for battle between the gods, albeit wielded by mortal hands, to put it another way a Sacred Gear. The Demon Dragon was considered to be a Sacred Gear too, after feeding herself to the Hunting Tool weapon she took on the form of a God-killing weapon. The two transformed at the exact same time, mixing together into a mass of black and white before eventually settling down into a humanoid form. A black set of feminine draconic armour, a silver fishing in hand.
"Let's end this before you embarrass either of us any further than you have." The two separated again into dragon and Valkyrie, pausing as they waited for something to happen.
"I don't feel any different." Then the H.U.D. returned like a old friend.
"I'll leave sweeping out the trash to you, you big ugly lizard." Brunhildr stated as she continued to lead Goll away.
"Are we going back to Odin now?" Goll asked looking concerned.
"I'm far too fond of my head for that." Brunhildr stated bluntly. "Besides, we're going to have to deal with him anyway."
Goll stopped following Brunhildr.
"What do you mean 'Deal with?'"
"I'll show you." Brunhildr opened a door and stepped inside, with Goll following behind her. "As unfortunate as this may be for us to admit our father and his fellow gods are rather lazy." Brunhildr stated as she led Goll through her place, or rather Brunhildr's war room. Books on Physics, geography, history, photos had been attached to a nearby tack board and had numerous tacks connecting together different pictures to files and different articles.
"Tsukuyomi, the Moon god, also the god of outside influence and of science and technology." Brunhildr stated as she indicated a small shrine made off to the side.
"What does Mr. Tsukuyomi have to do with this?" Goll asked looking around her.
"Efficiency." Brunhildr stated as she held up one of the physics books she had gathered together. "Everyone wants things to become more efficient. The Sea god wondered if there was a way so that the tides of the world could manage themselves, so he asked the brains of the gods if he had an idea, so he came up with the idea of 'lets use the gravitational pull from the moon to tug on the world's oceans.' That was the start of it, one after another gods came to Tsukuyomi asking if he had any ideas on how to make things 'easier,' how to make it so that their various domains could be handled and he in turn created various laws that would govern the forces of the world. The Humans call these things 'physics.'"
"I knew that already." Goll stated as Brunhildr moved onto the next part of the wall that was in play, various movie posters, sports and the likes.
"Because of Tsukuyomi's 'physics' and 'science' faith in the gods dropped to an all time low, some wanted to shatter what Tsukimichi had created, destroy the fire given to man kind so that the humans would pray for warmth. The loudest voice among them though, Ywach, was killed a long time ago so everyone went with Easter's idea. Easter's proposal instead to make use of a new trend among humans: mass media, as well as an old trend among the gods: mass proliferation." In posters various tv, movie and pop stars were being compared to images of the gods. "The Gods descendants walk among humanity, by putting them into positions in which they will be seen and worshipped the gods were able to absorb the faith of the masses from them. In the old days it was kings and queens, now it's movie stars celebrities and the like." Now Brunhildr walked up to another wall. Posters, lots of posters, not the movie posters either, these were posters of missing people, Brunhildr's finger landed on a young man with piercing eyes.
"This was the start of this mess. A goddess of another world arranged to have two of her followers sent to a new world to start a new life, in exchange she would one day take that which was most precious from those followers. Their only son. Tsukuyomi acted as the broker for the exchange, after all outside influence was his domain, and then, actually doing his job on top of everything else he had to do was the straw that broke his back. 300 years, that's how long he will be taken out of the picture for, that was over ten years ago, and his system is already degrading with his loss and even worse? The 'responsibilities' of the gods who have been mooching off of him have expanded. Thousands of worlds have appeared, thanks to Naofumi picking off the Bitch, Earth is now more trouble than it's worth, in it's every possible configuration past and future the strongest creatures in the universe are being abducted as weapons in wars between nations and worlds." Goll looked up at the wall of missing people, at the mass produced weapons of mass destruction. "Now their domains are being threatened, so the gods have decided to end this chaos at the root."
"This doesn't make sense... heroes have been summoned to that world for thousands of years!" Goll shouted in confusion.
"Millions." Brunhildr corrected. "It's not always from the same earth though, nor do the time periods necessarily line up either. Every time they have to pass by Tsukimichi to do it. Aware of how dangerous time Magic is even though Tsukuyomii can tell what time period the summonings were coming from he never bothered to check with his future self with them. Not even he wants to interfere with the laws of time. That said he would always give the people who pass by him a blessing. Knowledge, power, factors that would inevitably lead them to develop new powers on top of their existing physical abilities that they get just from living on earth in the first place, which encourages people to keep summoning them." A vicious cycle, and what's worse is that arguably it was all Tsukuyomi's fault to begin with.
"They... they want to wipe out humanity!? Just because they're getting caught up in these wars!?" Goll asked looking horrified.
"You're forgetting how horrifying humanity used to be before the gods came along and sealed them away." Brunhildr stated bluntly. "They're more trouble than they're worth, so the gods are phasing them out." Brunhildr stated as she opened up the door leading into the next room. "And our job is to keep them from destroying this world." Before the two newly arrived valkyries, were ten more of their sisters.
"Before I even touch upon the sanity of what is happening here." Goll was rubbing her temples with a massive headache on the horizon. "How are we planning on beating them?"
"Naofumi already rounded up our army, there's enough Reincarnated and world travellers to cause a lot of damage to them." Brunhildr stated as she pulled up a file. "We just need to get back our of god science so that we can start kicking their arses for real."
"Tesla?" Goll asked confused.
""""TSUKUYOMI!"""" Goll's various sisters snapped at once.
"But he's in a coma right?" Goll asked and feeling distinctly like she was being made to suffer because she showed up late.
"Which is why we need to get our hands on his follower first." Reiginleif stated as she threw Goll a crunched up ball of paper. Goll caught the paper ball as it fell off of her head and unrolled it and a picture of the Guy Brunhildr showed her before appeared within the paper, the one with black hair and piercing eyes. "Before he went into a coma Tsukuyomi dumped a bunch of his power into that guy, which then mixed together with the power of Aphrodite who's the one governing that world, he's fulfilled the bare minimum conditions to become a god himself. He can't beat these pains in the butt, but we can use that divine mana he's giving off to accelerate Tsukimichi's waking up."
"The Gods are going to realise if one of us goes to another world though." Goll commented looking concerned.
"That's my job isn't it?" The Demon Dragon chose now to pipe up. "You want to use me to disguise myself as this brat, who got punted off to another world, and take her place while you take me back to her world and go stall for time?"
"No we got her for that." Hlokk pointed behind the duo. A lavender feathered Filolial, one who turned into a clone of Goll in a poof of smoke, just with a bigger bust. "Goll, this is Goll."
"Hello." The slightly bustier of the Two Goll's introduced herself with a smile. "When we return we'll bring her with us. You in the mean time will go to Aphrodite's world and get that guy to donate divine power to Tsukimichi like crazy, and after you're done doing that you two can start grinding each other up like crazy."
At once the two figures looked at each other and gulped. And then Goll and her dragon fell out through the rainbow bridge onto the world below, the dragon disappearing into Goll's form as a fishing rod. Humiliating? Maybe but this way they didn't create a panic from a dragon appearing in a populated area. The two immediately entered a free fall state, of course both of them being winged creatures they simply started flapping their wings and hovered around in the air. This place was a waste land, there was a endless stretch of desert that went on all the way to the horizon in both directions the only thing that broke up the scenery was the town below them, it would seem that was the place to start.
"This is definitely that goddess's world." Goll twitched with visible annoyance.
The person she was looking at both hair and eyes sparkled, it was easily a face you could fall in love with, if Goll sunk any stock into looks she would've started to hump him right then and there. Why did this make her annoyed? Based on the ragged clothing, the dirt that piled on him, in defiance of which his hair still sparkled by the way, and the thinned body Goll came to the not unreasonable conclusion that he was homeless, and everywhere she looked she saw people who easily rivalled if not surpassed him in looks.
That alone was enough to get her annoyed, but what really got Goll's goat was the fact that they were looking at her like she was garbage. Every human was innately beautiful? Check. Aphrodite was part of the design team for the various humans, more specifically of the Greek variety: each and every man and woman were tailor made to her stringent standards of beauty, while the rest of them members of the design team focused more on practical ability than aesthetics. Consequentially men were created with shining glistening muscles that while nice to look at due to a lack of fat lack energy to actually be useful, women on the other hand were made with thick and huge lumps of fat hanging off of their chests the size and weight of which would result in serious back problems without enough muscle and bone to support them. The Norse on the other hand acknowledges the value of both and has them in appropriate amounts.
Non-humans were being pushed around and discriminated against? Check. One of the biggest reasons for Aphrodite to hop on board the project was so that she could wipe out the 'ugly' things that were within her line of sight, Which considering the blatant war monger's supposed omniscience was to say everywhere. You could imagine her disappointment when she didn't get to spread her spawn all over the world, and how their looks started to degrade under the influence of survival of the fittest. She did however manage to 'save' a select few individuals off to a world that she seized control of after beating it's resident deity into submission and started puffing them up on blessings to wipe out the local civilisations. Chances are good that the last remnants of the locals were already pushed to live in the far off most inhospitable recesses of this world, and based on this town they were making preparations to go after even them. Well, that's not what Goll's here for.
"Now, where's the best place I can post a missing person's report?" Goll tried talking to some of the locals, it wasn't until that she met a party with two demi-humans, a blonde haired elf and a silver haired dwarf, that Goll finally met people willing to talk to her.
"You're looking for Raidou-Sama?" Japanese honorifics? Why is this a thing in this world.
"Why?" The Leader of the party, a red haired woman with a rather impressive bust, asked looking rather concerned.
"His friend Tsukuyomi has fallen ill, and his sisters Mari and Yukiko are worried about him." The Poster had the information about the guy's family written on it, considering that his parents apparently sold him out to Aphrodite in the first place she instead banked on affection for his sisters.
"He opened a store in town, look for the Forest Oni clerks handing out flyers."
It took Goll a little while to find the store in question, having passed by it several times before she asked the nice Dark Elf girls in front of it where the forest Oni's were. Naturally, the Dark Elves/Forest Oni's cleared up the misunderstanding and Goll apologised for the offence and explained that she was sent by the associates of Tsukuyomi, and in that moment Goll got black bagged and kidnapped.
"The Poster is definitely written in Kanji." After a while of darkness, and Goll suspected being tied up, a young man's voice from the other side of the darkness with genuine surprise in his voice at what he was looking at. "You said you found her outside of the Tsige Store Mio?"
"As if I could let a matter as serious as this slide." An offended woman's voice echoed out in response to the question.
"Was it necessary to kidnap her though?" The Young Man's voice again. "It's going to make talking to her a little awkward."
"We don't need to talk to her." A second woman's voice, higher pitch in contrast with the first's deeper tone of voice. "I can just extract all her memories of where she came from and what she's here to do." White smoke took on different colours as they few out of Goll's face and formed images, through the black bag Goll heard the contents of the conversation between Goll and her sisters.
"This is serious. Even if he's never going to see them again Waka would still be upset about his family back home getting killed." The Male voice stated before a Chair rubbed against the floor, indicating that he stood up.
"I'll go get him." The Male voice left, and returned a few minutes later, and when the gaggle of footsteps returned Goll was cut down, dropped on the floor and then sat up. When the bag came off there were five people in the room. A turquoise haired woman wearing a Hakama, a Black haired woman in a black spider themed Kimono, a handsome red haired young man, a green haired woman dressed as a shrine maiden who had her back to the group and the person that she was looking for, Makoto Misumi.
"Tomoe was able to fill me in." Makoto stated indicating the woman in the Hakama. "What's this about god's trying to wipe out humanity?"
"It's complicated, and maybe a little of the fault of your friend Tsukuyomi and the goddess that summoned you." Goll explained the botched management of the gods and how that has spiralled out into this out of control situation. Needless to say, Makoto was not amused.
"Tamaki! How do we get Tsukuyomi back?" Makoto asked the rear facing shrine maiden. "Wait more important than that what are you doing?" Tamaki was not only facing away but also had her ears plugged. From one of Tamaki's currently unused fingers Tamaki produced a screen written in Japanese lettering.
[Isolation Kai, now]
After a few moments Goll felt a barrier of divine power spread out from Makoto and cover then entire room, only then did the Shrine maiden turn around and face Makoto with her ears unplugged.
"First and foremost. Waka I was planted within your ranks as a spy." The woman called Tamaki explained bluntly. "Susanoo was frustrated that he couldn't use your follower as an intermediary to watch your actions and so instead planted me who he's compatible with." There are certain humans that gods are able to communicate with, see through their eyes, listen through their ears and give them messages.
"Who's the one the other gods are watching me through?" Makoto asked sounding suspicious.
"The little Forest Oni, Eris." Tamaki stated, a look of revelation crossed the young Misumi's face as he nodded as if that explained some deep mystery. "As I was saying. To answer your question: absolutely yes. Daikokuten's entire job is to destroy worlds that have become too dangerous. You may recall this yes?"
"Please don't remind me. I still get nightmares about that time." Makoto visibly paled as if thinking about something horrifying.
"My point stands." Tamaki countered bluntly.
"How do we wake up Tsukuyomi?" Makoto was content to let Tsukuyomi rest and recover at his own pace, in fact after seeing the explanation of how hard he was working from Goll's memories he wanted to let him rest even more, However there was the need to protect his family and everyone back on earth.
"If you would to go to the temple and sincerely pray from the bottom of your heart 'I wish that Tsukuyomi would recover right now' the mana drain from your body would be enough to have him recover at the cost of your life." Tamaki clinically explained.
"""Rejected!""" The three voices of the other three servants spoke up at once.
"Alternatively if you went to the shrine and prayed 'I wish that Tsukuyomi would recover a Year faster' it would drain enough mana in your body to leave you unconscious, but Tsukimichi's recovery will be sped up by a year. If you can perform that prayer once every eight hours every day for one hundred days then Tsukuyomi sama would be revived." Tamaki explained as if she was expecting that rejection, and frankly speaking probably was.
"Okay let's do that!" Makoto stated however the suggestion was immediately shot down.
"Waka haven't you forgotten that you need to stabilise the divine power that insect shoved into you before it becomes lethal?" The woman in the black kimono asked looking genuinely concerned.
"Not to mention that you agreed to assist with the war for Tsige that Rembrant is planning." Tomoe pointed out with the follow up.
"There's also managing the business and the classes in Tsige, as well as the daily work of Asora." The Red haired man gave the follow up. Too much work to spend all day praying and recovering.
"By the sounds of things it should be alright if I do the prayers once daily before I go to sleep." Makoto stated it sounded like a good idea. Massive exhaustion right before he goes to bed to help him sleep, sort of like doing exercises before you sleep.
"You say that, but right now this one's sisters are working to buy as much time as possible, the more time is spent preparing the less that they are going to be able to buy." Tamaki explained indicating Goll.
"It seems that we're going to have to come up with a schedule." Makoto stated as he cross his arms and sighed.
"For now we're going to have to put this little 'god killer' here to work." As the samurai woman said that she picked Goll up by the scruff of her shirt and looked her straight in the eye. Goll could feel the power building in her sacred gear just from that much. "You have a lot of useful knowledge and abilities, so we're going to have you work hard." Like that, Goll's 'Year of Hell' had just begun.
Review Section:
RonaldM40196867: The Pan'Ku Box was created using good magic, it was never used for good purposes, and despite the danger that it posed the people who created it took no measures to make sure that it wouldn't be used for evil beyond attaching a feature to it that fries any demon that tries to hold it. If I woke up tomorrow and learned that Jackie Chan Adventures was to get a sequel or Reboot I would be cautiously optimistic, but it's been my experience that those words are just euphemisms for 'Make an inferior show that is supposed to take advantage of people's nostalgia for their favourite childhood shows but instead ultimately contaminates the memory with their existence.' I've been let down before.
Nightshadegirl: Hellsinger if it's of any interest.
shiramasoken: Glad you like it.
