A unique aspect to the world of Scarlet Nexus is how the people of this Earth have integrated augmented reality into their every day lives. Road signs, traffic signals, even the names of shops are all projected via holographic digital constructs. The people here can see and interact with the holograms due to chips that are implanted into their brains.

This technology is also what allows them to use their powers. Each person has a unique way of interacting with the energies of the Extinction Belt, the source of the Other phenomenon and psychic powers alike. With the aid of the chip, humans can gather the energy of the Extinction Belt and use to manifest their unique expression of their powers.

The chip aids and regulates the gathering of the energy, and modulates its use. However, it is a piece of technology and it does rely of the conduction of electricity across it's circuits to preform it's function.

The transfer of electricity that I just Locked.

Commander Travers knew I was up to something as soon as I stared speaking and tried to stop it, but it was way too late, "Quickly, stop him and aglhlhlsh..."

His barked order transformed into gibberish as he collapsed into heap on the floor, all control of his body seemingly compromised. I admit, it was a heady feeling. Here was a man who had taken on the entirety of the Suoh OSF, as well as both protagonists at the same time and won. He had copied so many powers from different people that he was basically a one man army.

I had just taken him out with a single word.

He was far from the only one affected, however.

Shiden started convulsing and twitching as if he was having a fit.

Arashi tripped over her legs and seemed to have difficulty controlling her limbs.

Kyoka grabbed her head and curled up into a ball, moaning in pain.

Kagero slapped his hands over his eyes and stated screaming.

I watched all this happen dispassionately, idly noting that each person's powers seemed to have a correlation to how they had reacted. Considering that I had just turned off a microchip inside their brains, the possibility of severe brain damage occurring was present, especially as it seemed the Extinction Belt energy they were attempting to draw in and use was attacking their central nervous systems.

That's not my problem, however. I was going to leave this world behind very soon, never to return, so whatever side effects they would experience from this had nothing to do with me.

As they were all distracted by their various maladies, it was extremely simple to hypnotize each of them asleep. They could not gather the willpower to even realise I was still there, never mind attempt to fight off the spell.

The only one who seemed somewhat still coherent was Commander Travers, who stared up at me when I moved over to him.

"Hblu? Ack gha jih." He spat out some gibberish at me.

I didn't even bother trying to converse with him.

There was no point.

As the white haired man succumbed to slumber, I turned around to walk back through the door I had just gone through, the entire thing taking no more than a minute.

Still holding Naomi, Kasane just stared at me in shock. Seeing her entire squad and the strongest person she knows taken out like that must have been quite the thing to witness.

I smiled at her, "See? I told you I'd be fine."

Her face turned conflicted at that, likely not knowing how to feel about the situation. Before she could decide however, Naomi reached up and tugged weakly on the strap of her tank top.

"He said something about your piece..." Her blue eyes stared up at her sister, "Why would you need a piece?"

I answered her, causing Kasane to snap her head back and glare at me, "The deal your sister made with me is the reason. Those Pieces are originally meant to turn you into my servant, in a form known as a Peerage. Kasane is extremely powerful and skilled and in the situation I'm in back home I need all the help I can get."

Naomi's eyes went wide, "Kasane! You agreed to become a slave to save me?"

I stopped the her with a sudden, authoritative order, "Naomi. Raise your right hand!"

Both girls looked at me, confused. Naomi tentatively asked, "Why?"

I smiled, pointed down at the hand that was still resting on her stomach, "You have one of my Pieces inside you, but could disobey a direct order. I'm not taking your sister as a slave, or a pet, Naomi. If anything, I would want her to be my partner."

Naomi bit her lip at that, as Kasane started explaining, "It's not just for you I agreed, Naomi. There's also the problem of the Kunad Gate that going with Damocles would solve."

Naomi inquired, "The Kunad Gate?"

We explained the Gate and the options to fix it to her. She took on a resigned look when the options of Kasane or Yuito dying were the only other ones we knew, "I see."

I decided to get things moving and thus pulled out the Knight piece from my pocket. "Kasane. are you ready? We'll need to be quick. My time here is running out. If you still want to, I'll take the piece out of Nao..."

"Stop!"

Both Kasane and I looked at Naomi as she explained, "I'm coming with you. I'll help you along with Kasane, and make sure that you'll treat her right."

Convenient. It was what I was angling for, but I expected to have to finesse the conversation a bit before it came up.

"You will agree to be my servant?"

"Absolutely not!" Kasane shot to her feet, "I agreed to go with you on the condition that Naomi not be involved!"

"You did," I allowed, "Are you sure you still want that to happen though?" I indicated the limp bodies of the OSF personnel in the hallway behind me.

Kasane had a look of realisation on her face, the obvious consequences of what just occurred becoming clear to her. Just in case, I decided to spell it out.

"Kasane. We are in a facility dedicated to studying the reversal of the Otherization process. The process I just reversed for Naomi. What do you think they will do with that information? If I take my piece back and leave her here, what do you think will happen to her? I'll bet they don't just let her go to live her life."

Kasane looked to the floor as Naomi chimed in, "He's right Kasane, they're going to want to study how he did it. If I stay, I'll just be a test subject again."

Kasane looked back at me then, glaring, "You planned for this. You knew this would happen."

I shrugged, "I had a very decent bet on this outcome, yes. However... I never lied."

She seemed about to disagree but I cut her off, "If you truly, honestly wish for it, I will take my piece back from Naomi and we can go with her toward Suoh. Yuito should have the pull to keep her safe, but that is by no means a sure thing. There is one condition, however, Naomi needs to agree too. It's her life, after all."

"I'm coming with you!" Naomi resolutely confirmed, "I don't need protection Kasane, besides with the two of us together we can make sure he's being honest."

Kasane's glare didn't abate, "That's not fair. That wasn't our deal. Naomi should be kept out of this!"

I sighed, "I'm not your enemy. In fact, I hope for us to be close allies, true friends. This is Naomi's choice as well, and I promise to provide for and protect you both."

She still seemed to be put off by the reversal, but that will fade as I prove I'm on the up and up. She looked at Naomi, who had managed to sit herself up and was giving her sister a determined gaze. She bit her lip, then Naomi delivered the finishing blow.

"Please Kasane. Let's stay together, like we promised."

Kasane's shoulders slumped and I knew I won.

From there, it was a rather simple affair to put in Kasane's knight piece and put the Stamp on them. I explained that it was a mystical tattoo that would allow them to come with me when I used my planeswalking.

Naomi chose to have it on the inside of her right ankle, above the ball, which I put on as Kasane was unconscious from the resurrection.

As I did so, her arm lashed out and held my wrist with a surprisingly strong grip, "If you hurt Kasane or try and make us do anything weird, I'll kill you. I promise you, you won't even see it coming."

I nodded, not surprised. Both sisters were extremely protective of each other. "I'll make a promise to you, Naomi. I have no intention of forcing you to do anything against your wills, I promise."

I wasn't lying either. Pushing them too quickly was a dumb idea, especially as the Stamp would ensure that "against their wills" would cease being a hurdle soon enough. She nodded and then let go of my wrist, allowing me to place the stamp. As I pulled my hand away, I noticed the shape that the Stamp was in and had to fight the urge to laugh.

Catharsis sure did have a sense of humour.

Once Kasane had regained consciousness and got her stamp (Between her shoulder blades), I prepared to give them a basic run down of the situation they were stepping into and what would be expected of them. As I turned to address them, however, I was stopped by time halting in a very familiar way.

In front of me was a screen that I had seen before, with the perks of the Waifu Catalogue laid out on it. It seemed that my stamping of my first target had been accepted. I brought up the list and decided to look through it for anything that had been unlocked. Unfortunately, it appeared that Kasane was not unique enough to unlock any of the options I would change my plan for, like Inexhaustible or Blessed Talent.

In that case, I decided to follow my original plan. I picked up Mind Defence to better safe guard myself against hypnosis, now that I knew how useful the spell was. Zenryoku Zenkai was picked up to give me a leg up when I started my plan to get back at the New Satans. But it was the last choice that was a matter of survival.

See, It's very likely that my planeswalking traversed the Dimensional Gap. If that was the case, then it was only a matter of time until Top Loli (Ophis) came to investigate. If she did, I needed to be ready for her, to have a weapon on my side so powerful there was no possible way for her to win against me.

Yes, that's right.

I picked Fairy Feast.

Calypso was getting frantic. Damocles was a lot more switched on then they gave him credit for. He had completely disabled his phone, so tracking him that way was infeasible. If he had moved around using any public transport, he did it under aglamour or with a face obscuring cloak, as well as using hard currency so they couldn't track his card usage.

Serafall had mobilised almost the entirety of the free Sitri retainers, as well as her own considerable staff, but they still had found neither hide nor hair of the boy. Calypso had just finished doubling back on the route they took earlier to go to the playground, to no avail.

Suddenly, a shimmering teal flash illuminated the area and she was faced with the very displeased expression of her boss.

"Nothing!" Serafall yelled, "Little shit is slippery, I'll give him that."

She glared at the ground before taking a deep breath and looking up at Calypso, "We are going to have to involve Ajuka in the search, see if his pet magicians can scry him, wherever he is. First, though, we need to go back to the Manor to get..."

She was interrupted by Calypso's work phone ringing. The area cooled off significantly and murder was in her eyes, but Calypso put up a hand frantically after checking the caller ID.

"It's him!" She blew out a breath, slipping back into her Cleria persona, before answering the phone, "Damocles! I'm glad you're safe! You gave us quite a scare disappearing like that."

"Sorry, Cleria." Her charge's voice came through the receiver, "I had an appointment to meet some very interesting people, but I didn't think you'd let me go."

Serafall's eyes narrowed at that while Calypso quickly tried to dig for more info, "Who did you meet? Did it go well?"

She could hear a brief sound of ambient conversation before Damocles answered, "Oh, yes, it went very well. I even got my first peerage members out of the whole thing. But I think I'm ready to be picked up now."

She noticed he didn't answer her first question, but that could come later once they reacquired him, "Of course, I'm glad to hear that. Where should I pick you up?"

"32 Lilium Way, the Cafe Baleful."

She froze, Serafall also looking at her with a wide eyed gaze. She swallowed, before confirming, "The one right next to the Bael Mansion?"

"The very same!"

She put the phone on mute. This was bad, this was very very bad. If Damocles had a meeting with Zekram Bael, a meeting where he got given Peerage members... what deals were made? What was Zekram's angle? It was very rare for him to intervene directly like this, but that just made it worse when he did.

Serafall summed up the whole situation with an eloquent, "Fuuuuuuuuuuuck me..."

"Neither of them have Sacred Gears." Ajuka confirmed, "I don't know what was so special about them for them to have caught Zekram's interest."

"It could be a family magic, one that they are keeping secret for now." Sirzechs posited.

"That may very well be the case. In any event, to round out my report I have removed most of the blatent monitoring spells from the Sagan Manor, so neither of them should be able to pick them up and inform Damocles of their presence. We still have a pretty good coverage when it comes to living areas, but the ones on the training ground were a bit too conspicuous."

"Good." Breathed Serafall, "It seems Cleria was compromised somehow. Damocles suggested that she teach Naomi how to perform her duties, so it's obvious he's going to replace her soon."

"The boy played us well." Sirzechs had a wry grin as he remarked.

"The boy might still be playing you." The others fell silent as Falbium spoke, a rare occurrence in these meetings.

"What do you mean?" Serafall asked.

Falbium explained, "Do we know he really met Zekram? He might be misleading you after grabbing two random sisters as peerage members. This could be a ruse. You underestimated him once, making a habit of underestimating your enemy can be deadly."

Sirzechs blinked, "He isn't our enemy."

"No?" Responded Falbium, "The boy grew up in period of conflict. The first interaction he had with us was Serafall threatening him. Then we very obviously put him under surveillance and attached a handler to him. You've also attempted to control his every action when it comes to the world outside his Manor. If you didn't want him to treat you as enemies, you are going about it in a strange way."

Serafall sighed, "He's right, we screwed up. Damocles is obviously weary, if not outright hostile to us right now. Even if he didn't contact Zekram, if we eliminate him now and he did, then we'll be gift wrapping a political cudgel and delivering it right to Bael's doorstep."

"So, what should we do?" Asked Ajuka.

"Leave him." Replied Sirzechs. He then quickly spoke over the complaints of the other two, Falbium having lost interest, "Any further action we take now will just alienate him further. He's already used the Evil Pieces, so he's distanced from the Old Satans and if he formally allied with the Great King Faction we'll know about it soon. I'd rather keep him neutral for now and try to make him warm up to us later."

He tapped his fingers on the desk, a thoughtful look on his face, "There is one thing we could do, however. Serafall, Calypso is a shapeshifter, correct?"

Serafall nodded, "She is."

Sirzechs smiled, "We can use that. After all, the Queen spot is still open."

Unseen by the others, Falbium just rolled his eyes.

Perks obtained this chapter:

Mind Defence: Grants Damocles an instinctive understanding of his own mind. Any attempts to alter or influence him mentally will be made immediately obvious. Damocles now knows how to fight against mental effects, expending willpower and energy to do so. The more he understands the specific mental effect, the more effective he will be in combating against it.

Zenryoku Zenkai: Damocles can mentally decide to activate this effect when he takes part in a game or wager. Once activated, should he win, the other party becomes attracted to him, admiring his skill and cunning. The more victories that are scored against the same person with this effect, the stronger and more intense the attraction. Caution: Repeated use could induce a defeat fetish in the target, aimed specifically on Damocles, causing them to fetishize losing against him.

Fairy Feast: Damocles gains instinctive knowledge on how to cook and bake to an extremely high level. When preparing an edible substance, he can mix in his own magic, enchanting the food with various effects based on taste. With enough experimentation, he will be able to induce emotional states with his food and even make it mildly addictive.

AN: So yeah, turns out going against someone who has intimate knowledge on how your power functions and can immediately counter it with a force you can't even detect let alone fight (magic) is a pretty hard thing to do. Sorry if the "fight" was anti-climactic, but this is better then padding it our for stupid reasons.

I considered allowing Commander Travers to fight through the effects and at least attempt hand to hand, but Damocles just turned off part of his brain. Will powering your way through that just strikes me as a cop out.

In case anyone is confused, no, Damocles did not actually meet with Zekram Bael, he just made it look like he did. The reason is this: If you think the Satans are controlling over a newly discovered Pillar Clan, wait until you see what the less "nice" guy will do. It's put the Satans in a tough spot, where they don't have enough information to act either way.

Next chapter will be a lovely trip to go look at some interesting foxy statues!

Hope you enjoyed, stay tuned!