Chapter 2a: Fight or Flight
The man laid as motionless as he could and held his breath. Maybe if he played dead well enough, his visitor would just go away. The order soldier came closer and began poking and prodding at him with his boots. The man just had to hope they would go away before he asphyxiated himself. The soldier took his sweet time, walking around him, looking around the cave. He eventually squatted down next to him, and started reaching his hand out to his chest.
Shit!He thought. He's going to check if he has a heartbeat. He'd have to fight he way out of this. He quickly devised a plan: grab his arm, push him down, and take his weapon. The element of surprise would have to carry him here. His arm comes closer and closer until…
Now! He grabbed his arm and kick him in the stomach as hard as he could. It stuns him, but he quickly recovers. He stumbles backwards a bit and tries to pull out his sword. He charged towards him, knocking him to the ground and he attempted to take his weapon. Unfortunately, the sword seems to have been knocked to some dark corner in the cave during their struggle. The order soldier then resorts to his secondary weapon, a knife on his belt.
The soldier takes several stabs at his target. The man managed to dodge most of them, but one of them slashes him on his left elbow pretty badly. Pain. The order soldier attacks some more and he tries to catch the knife with his left arm, only for it to hurt like hell when he put any pressure on it. He would have to rely on his right arm to finish the job.
Time to play dirty. The man took the opportunity while he's distracted trying to drive the knife into his chest and poke him as hard as he could in his eye through the eye-hole in his helmet. He reflexively shouts in pain and takes the helmet off to comfort his eye, buying the man some time. The man looks around the cave and spot his sword leaning against a wall in a dark corner. The man grabs the sword and points it at the soldier's head. The soldier puts his hands up, knowing the fight is over.
"Drop your knife. Now." The victor commanded him in the most intimidating voice he could muster.
Thankfully it's enough, and he complies. He decided that it was high time that his questions were answered.
"Why?" He asks him.
"Why wh-"
"WHY DOES THE ORDER WANT ME DEAD?" He interrupted him. The man has had a long night and he was irritated that he was still in the dark about what's going on. He takes a few seconds, steps back, and responds.
"You possess knowledge that could help the Order prevail over monsterkind." He doesn't know how to respond to that. What am he supposed to say? The amnesiac decided to move onto his next question.
"What did you do to my memory?" The soldier looks confused. He stares at him like he's insane.
"I-I don't understand what you're talking about? We haven't done anything to your head." The man decided that he had gotten enough answers for tonight. In order to make sure he doesn't try to follow me, he gives him a superficial wound in the ankle, enough to hamper his movement but not enough to kill him. Thankfully, it appears that he came alone. He took his knife, and then ran as fast as he could out of the cave. He wanted to gain some distance in case the soldier called for help.
Adrenaline wore off, and he became aware of how hungry he was, and more dangerously, how thirsty he was. Sharon's house was near a river, but during his panicked escape he had gotten turned around and he had no idea what direction it was in. The lack of adrenaline also meant that his leg wound was starting to hurt again, which made it harder to walk.
The man heard shouting in the distance behind himself and immediately started regretting leaving that order soldier in the cave alive. He started to pick up the pace as fast as he could. Paranoid, he frequently turned around to see if they were onto me, but that turned out to be a mistake. He was so focused on what might be behind him that he forgot to focus on what might be in front of him. A group of 5 heavily armed soldiers.
Their leader looked over at the man.
"Hello! Nice of you to join us." he said in an irritatingly cheery tone. The man began running in the opposite direction, but it was too late. Something blunt hit him in the back of the head, and he fell to the ground, hard.
Consciousness slowly left the amnesiac, as darkness closed in from all sides.
…
I want to show you something.
Remember that book I gave to you?
Yeah, go to this section.
Not that one. That one.
Surprised?
As the man slowly came to, He realized he was tied to a chair. The room he was in was tiny, and there was nothing in the room besides a table, a lit candle, and another chair. He could hear some very muffled voices outside of the room, arguing about something. The man strained his ears as hard as he could to try and eavesdrop on what they were talking about.
"What do you mean, he doesn't have it?!" One of the voices yelled.
"Sir, he's empty handed. He must've hid the scroll somewhere in the forest." What were they talking about? He never picked up a scroll of any kind. Any belongings he did have he was forced to leave at Sharon's house when they broke into it. Speaking of Sharon…
"The Unicorn that was sheltering him, have you found he-" The man heard a loud slap. "Not her, IT. Don't start giving them human attributes. They're monsters. Treat them like monsters."
The voices went silent. He tried to break out of the ropes tying him to the chair, but they wouldn't budge. Whoever had tied him up clearly didn't want him to escape them again. The man's thirst returned with a vengeance, and with it, a nasty headache.
After what seemed like hours, the door opened and a well built man with short brown hair wearing light armor walked in. He recognized him as the person who punched him in the forest. He pulled the chair out and sat down.
"Adrian Walker. How are you doing this fine evening?" The man had learned what his real name was, or at least what the name they had given him. Now all Adrian had to do was escape. Somehow. Adrian didn't grace the man with a response. The interrogator looked at him with an annoyed expression, then returned to the same irritating cheery smile that he was wearing when he punched him.
"Fine. You'll be talking soon enough." he said. "I have a series of questions that I want you to answer as truthfully and concisely as possible. There will be consequences if you don't. Understand?" he continued.
"Question one. Where did you put the scroll?" Adrian didn't know what he was supposed to say. He decided that lying was the "best" course of action. Not good, but better than saying that he didn't know.
"I must've dropped it while I was running…" He answered unwillingly. The man didn't say anything in response. After a very awkward few seconds of silence, he stood up suddenly.
"Bullshit. The scroll glows bright red. I would've seen it from a mile away. My men have occupied this entire forest, and they haven't seen it. And we know you came here with it. So let me ask you again, where did you hide it?!" Adrian's heart began beating faster as the interrogator got angrier.
"I don't know…" He couldn't continue like this. Adrian was scared of what would happen if he continued to not give answers.
"Fine." he replied, sounding more annoyed by the second. "Aww… you look thirsty! Do you want some water?" This caught him very off guard. "Be right back…" he said in a sing-songy voice, as he stood up and left the room. Adrian was beginning to get worried.
Suddenly, Adrian heard several loud bangs outside of the room, followed by panicked yelling. It sounded like things were exploding! He tried once again to get out of the chair. No luck. Adrian decided to listen as hard as he could again to see what was going on.
"We need hel-"
"She's moving too fast!"
"Stop her!"
It looks like someone was breaking into the building. This could be his chance; if she was friendly, then he would gladly go with her. If she wasn't, she would still make a good distraction while he could sneak out. Then, the door burst open.
"God damn it! This had to happen! Why can't these fucking monsters mind their own business?!" He then jumped over the table and began to untie Adrian from the chair.
"Don't even think about running. I will not hesitate t-" One of those incredibly loud "explosions" rung out and the man slumped over. Adrian turned to the doorway to look at his savior.
A woman about his height wearing a plain red shirt with a black coat and brown trousers stood there. She was holding a strange looking device that looked like a tube with a handle coming out of it. The end of it was smoking. Adrian instinctively put his hands in the air.
"Whoa! Relax, I'm not here to hurt you. Are you alright?" She consoled him.
"I'm fine… do you have any water? I feel like I'm going to faint…" Adrian replied.
She takes a bottle out of her coat and gives it to him. He snatched it out of her hands and began drinking like his life depended on it. He had drunk nearly half of the bottle once he had quenched his thirst.
"Eager, aren't you? My goodness, they were treating you awfully… Has the order fallen this low?" She remarks, as she cuts off the rope binding him.
"Let me introduce myself. My name is Saralyn. I'm here to rescue you, and everyone the order has unfairly imprisoned here." Adrian was surprised to learn that he was in a prison, and not some outpost.
"Does that mean we're close to society?" He asked her.
"Unfortunately, no. The order was disguising this place as a normal wilderness outpost. I snuck in here because I was sensing a large amount of spirit energy and mamono mana underground."
"And I'm glad I did. They're keeping these poor humans and mamono in horrible conditions. I'm going to liberate this place." I then remember Sharon. In the midst of everything, Adrian hadn't forgotten that he had promised to come back for her.
"Have you explored this place thoroughly? Did you see a unicorn anywhere?" I asked her.
"No… Is she your wife or something?"
"No. She's just someone I owe a lot to, and I feel obligated to make sure she's alright." Adrian noticed the unconscious man that Saralyn saved him from.
"Is he…?"
"No." Saralyn responds quickly. "Mamono Realm weaponry. You couldn't kill anyone with them if you tried."
"Enough talk. We're going to do a bit of renovation on this Maou-forsaken place. Are you with me or not?" she asked Adrian. He nods his head, and both of them leave the interrogation room. Time for payback.
As soon as he started walking, Adrian's bad leg began hurting again. Saralyn noticed this.
"Oh no! What did they do to your leg? You can't walk on that, you're going to hurt yourself!" she exclaims worriedly. She takes out another bottle with some weird purple-looking substance in it. She pours some out of it onto her hands, takes off the leaf he had wrapped around his leg wound, and rubs some of the substance on it.
It starts healing the wound with shocking speed. Adrian felt the area around the wound get very warm. After a few seconds the leg didn't hurt. In fact, it feel amazing. Fascinated, Adrian asked Saralyn where she found this stuff.
"I bought it off of some traveling Danuki. You would not believe how much those trash pandas charged me for this." Adrian chuckles a little at her snarky remark.
"Anyways, here's the plan. The order is keeping humans and mamono in separate cells. The humans will be easy to free, but mamono are going to be a bit harder. They're being held in magic-reinforced cells. I say we free the mamono first, then together, all of us free the humans."
"Got it." Both of them agreed to give the zealots a night to remember.
Chapter 2b: Conspiracy
Aperia
Ophelia was incredibly, incredibly nervous. The last time she was this uneasy was when she made the decision to start a civil war in Heaven. And now, she was going to start what was essentially a civil war on the surface.
"How do I look?" Ophelia asked her angel assistant.
"Brilliant as ever, Matriarch. Good luck tomorrow." The angel responds.
Ophelia went back to her room. She sat down at her desk, and stared at the piece of paper containing a script for a speech. She had rehearsed this speech, both in her head and out loud countless times, and she was still nervous. Not because she was afraid she would mess up the speech, but because of how some Aperians would react to the contents of the speech.
This was the first step to her master plan. If she could get rid of the most zealous Order cities, the Chief God would be furious. She needed to get the Chief God's attention.
But there wasn't a 100% chance of this working. The last time she came down to the surface, she nearly died. Hopefully she would be overconfident enough that she would beat Ophelia again.
But things were different. Ophelia had learned from her mistakes and planned accordingly. Besides, the Chief God had the advantage of being in Heaven when they first dueled. She was connected to every single angel in the dimension; 10,000 angels had stood behind her when she had first started the rebellion. Now, she could only sense around 9,000.
The Fallen God. She was reminded of her own personal grudge with the sex-addicted deity. She wanted her subordinates to pursue more intimate relationships with their heroes, she really did. But angel-human love was a slippery slope. First they start getting too close, then they start interpreting "Make sure you and your assigned hero work well together" as "Give them a blowjob, it's the Matriarch's will", then they turn dark, then they abscond to Pandemonium and do nothing but fuck for the rest of their lives.
It was why she prevented angels from learning their hero's names. She didn't like it, but she needed every clear-minded, uncorrupt angel she could get in her war against the Chief God and her corrupt zealots.
"Thinking about me again?" A voice in Ophelia's head echoed. Ophelia immediately knew who it was.
"Get out of my head." Ophelia angrily snapped.
"All I want is to make you happy. You're doing nothing but hurting yourself and your fellow angels. I want to help you, but you don't listen. Why?"
"I don't want your help." Ophelia responded.
"You could've saved him. He had feelings for you, you know. But life might give you a second chance. He may have reincarnated by now…"
"Don't talk about him like that. We were friends. Nothing else. And besides, I've moved on."
"It didn't have to just be friendship. You could've moved onto something… better. Just think about it. The two of you, in Pandemonium, not a single care in the world, just endless love and pleasure. But I can't make you change. Your power doesn't allow it. You have to do it yourself."
Ophelia was getting increasingly upset. How dare she use him against her!
"Let me give you an example. That dark valkyrie and her husband that you kicked out of Aperia. She was hurting because of your restrictive policies on angel-human relationships. She learned of the love, the happiness, the pleasure I could give her. And now, both of them are happy. They've even had their first chil-"
Ophelia had had enough. She immediately gathered all of her power into her hand and brought it to her forehead. She sent the strongest mind-clearing spell she could muster into her head.
"Before I go, Ophelia, I just want to let you know… You're being watched."
Ophelia's eyes widened. "What?!"
Ophelia frantically looked around her room. Nothing. She looked outside and saw what looked to be a werewolf with green hair staring at her in a nearby building. Furious, she channeled her magic into her arm and fired a beam of holy energy with the intent to kill.
But the werewolf wasn't alone. A short witch with pink hair wrapped her arms around the werewolf, and the two of them vanished with a flash of blue light.
Ophelia was now livid. The Fallen God was trying to get into her head, and there were Mamono spies in Aperia. She had to do something about this, immediately. The fact that this had occurred a mere day before her speech was definitely not a coincidence. Ophelia quickly formed a plan and started acting. Ophelia began telepathically communicating with several important people around Aperia.
"Markus, spread the word that I'm delaying the speech by several days. Something unexpected has come up."
"Valkyrie Novak, increase security on locations with heavy populations of mamono. Be on the lookout for a werewolf with green hair and a witch with pink hair. I caught them spying on me in my room. If you manage to catch them, interrogate them and find out why they're here."
"Valkyrie Cassandra, please monitor new mamono immigrants very closely. Especially any stealth oriented mamono like Kunoichis or Mantises. I caught a werewolf and a witch spying on me. Clearly, we've been too lenient with our security."
Ophelia finished communicating to everyone she needed. Her plan needed to move forward and she was not going to let anything or anyone get in the way of it.
Lescatie
Primera Concerto and Mimil Miltie reappeared in Lescatie's College of Sorcery. Both of their clothes were slightly singed from the angel's attack on their hiding spot.
"Too close, Primera. What did I tell you about spying on beings with near godlike power?" Mimil chastises Primera.
"I simply wanted to get a better look at what she was doing. I heard her talking to someone, but there was nobody in the room with her." Primera responds.
"And what was she saying? Not all of us have werewolf hearing."
"Something about moving on from her friendship." the half-elf half werewolf responded.
"How exactly are we going to use that to shut down whatever she's planning?" Mimil asks, irritated.
Primera let out a sigh. "Listen, I'll make sense of it later. I just want to cuddle with Elt. Tell Druella to wait for me, I'm going to blow off some steam."
"Well, good luck with that. Wilmarina and Francisca have been hogging him lately. Tell them that they're not the only ones who love him."
Primera walked out of the college and out onto the roads of Lescatie. The city was quite dark, a stark contrast to the bright sunlight of Aperia. The ludicrous amounts of mamono mana in the sky blocked most of the sun's rays from reaching the city. For some reason, it was brighter at night than it was during the day. When she had first become a werewolf, this was somewhat annoying for her to adjust to.
Speaking of which… It had been 30 years. 30 years since she had been turned into a mamono. Time flew when she was enjoying herself, or when she was in Pandemonium, or when she was in Pandemonium enjoying herself. She had even become friends with the werewolf that had turned her.
Primera began a slow jog towards Druella's palace, which slowly became a full sprint. Elt was close by, and she needed him. Badly. She entered the palace, waving at the kikimora and shoggoth maids as she ran through the hallways. Eventually she reached the large room where her fellow wives and Elt did most of their lovemaking. Knocking on the door, she waited a couple seconds and then came in.
Wilmarina and Francisca were enjoying themselves with Elt. Wilmarina was riding on his dick while Francisca was engaging in a very sloppy kiss with him. "Hi ladies. I've had a long day and I need to relax. Got space for one more?" Elt nodded eagerly in response.