Olivia awoke to the smell of perfume burning her nostrils, her bones knitted themselves back together and the internal injuries and bruises that she received from the beating she got healed with a sting. Instead of the cell on the cruise ship though she was in Rodin's bar, and Rodin was having an argument.
"You are planning on Rescuing the Redgrave girl by stealing one of Nick's ships and transporting it back to the battlefield through my Gramophones." Rodin put down a butterfly shaped perfume bottle next to a heart shaped perfume bottle. "In the process of doing so you will destroy the cruise ship with the rest of your classmates still on it, dog fight your way through the enemy fleet of ships and retrieve Angelica by force before fleeing. Is that what you were planning on doing?" Even sitting down Rodin was massive, she didn't see anyone else here but he could just be talking with her.
"Plan?" Olivia admitted that after the beating she took and the mauling that Leon received her sympathy for her classmates was at an all time low. What Rodin was talking about was starting to sound like a pretty good plan. "I didn't mention a plan."
"Yeah pretty much." Olivia leaned over the side of the bar at the sound of Leon's voice and quietly gasped. Leon was on his hands and knees while Rodin was lounging on top of him smoking one of his cigars.
"I would hope that I don't have to point out what's wrong with that plan." Rodin stated still lounging next to the bar as he used Leon as a chair. "For one thing it implies that I know your friend better than you do."
"Rodin, my arms are starting to hurt again." Leon made a grimaced face as he made it quite clear he didn't have the time to figure out what he was saying on his own.
"What it means, is that your friend loves the country that you have been living in. If you do what you plan to do making you, her and your friend over there the only survivors it'll make it look like she sacrificed hundreds of her own kingdom's citizens, the majority of whom in this case happen to be part of the noble class of said country." Leon's face made a grimace as Rodin talked.
"Angie will never be able to show her face again." Leon concluded having acquired some of the enlightenment Rodin had been trying to beat through his thick skull, even Olivia gasped having come to the same conclusion.
"That's the best case Scenario." Rodin stated, now that he was confident that Leon wasn't going to do something stupid he got up and started to get to work. "In the worst case scenario she'll be told to take responsibility for the lives that were killed." Rodin ran his thumb over his throat to emphasise his point prompting a gasp from Olivia.
"What do we do!?" It was good to see that Olivia had started to return to normal, the cocktail that Rodin had given her had gone a long way to help.
"First I'm going to dump this bottle over Leon's head." Rodin popped a cork and splashed the contents on Leon's body.
"Hisk!" Leon took a sharp intake of air as his entire body felt like it had been dunked in acid. The Holy Water he was splashed with did singe his demonic biology yes, but it also removed the curses that had been placed on him as well. The water turned to steam as Leon rolled his shoulders, he was once again in peak condition, the various demonic tumours across his body was unfortunate, but that was it, he was not at anything less than his physical best.
"You're gonna need back up dealing with the Principality." As Rodin spoke he snapped his fingers, and all across the bar the myriad of latches that were holding the different Devil arms in place came undone spilling their payloads all over the floor. "I want those back when you're done with them by the way."
"The hell are we supposed to do with all these?" Leon asked as he looked at the different weapons that were all over the floor.
"Let your classmates use them." Rodin stated bluntly, already he was making his way around to a nearby wall of metal, a garage door.
"You want us to give these to our classmates to fight with?" Olivia's face looked like she was doubting Rodin's words.
"I want you to loan them to your classmates." Rodin emphasised the word Loan as he spoke. "I'm not selling these and I'm certainly not running a charity. But our own fleet is still hours away we have no idea what the hell the royal navy is doing. We need two things, we need time, and we need fire power." Rodin opened up the Garage door and revealed what was inside waiting for Leon. "Your Birthday Gift from your brother."
"It's your birthday?" Olivia looked both confused and offended by the revelation.
"In June." Leon stated as the date in question was still months away.
Cavalier Chimera: A hybrid of machine and demon.
There is a species of demonic Plant in Hell known as Chimeras, The plant in question is a parasite that attaches itself to a demonic host and begins the years long process of consuming and transforming their body into a mature Chimera plant that acts as a breeding unit for the Chimera's seeds.
Nick and Rodin took advantage of that, taking pieces of deceased demons and grafting them together with a Chimera Seed at the core and reinforcing and strengthening the pieces by combining them with Gilgamesh to reproduce and upgrade the Cavalier Carnival.
The vehicle uses lightning as its main power-source with fire providing the thrust and ice being used as coolant, all three elements being provided by parts from different demons. Aside from being a vehicle the Cavalier Chimera is a 1 tonne blunt instrument that has been armed to the teeth with spinning blades and guns, be it on land or in the sky The Cavalier Chimera is not only a extremely fast vehicle but also a highly effective weapon.
Excerpt from Rodin's Weapon's Catalogue
Leon but his hand on the bike's forks, one resembled the head of a dragon, while the other resembled the head of a goat which Leon was paying special attention to right now.
"You look sad." Olivia asked as she looked at Leon.
"He was a friend." Baphomets are a tribe of demons living in Inferno, they resemble humanoid goats and specialise in magic to the point of obsession, they even go as far as to develop rituals to mutate themselves into forms that are better suited to casting magic, but the ritual doesn't always succeed, and in fact it usually fails. Leon's Baphomet had simply been unlucky.
"This is a horrible thing to do to a friend!" Olivia all but shouted looking on at the corpse of at least three different demons, between the two forks and the pivot where the steering block was located she could make out a dragon head, a lion's head and a goat head.
"In Inferno there are no funerals." Leon stated bluntly. "If you're lucky, you turn into a Devil Arm but when you're not? If you don't want your body violated by enemies you put it to work, in death you become a source of strength for your allies." Leon climbed onto the back of the bike as he did a final check. "It beats the alternatives."
"That's horrible!" Olivia took a step back in horror.
"Welcome to hell." Leon's body glowed as all the Devil arms flew into his body, this wasn't the usual storage space, even that had it's limits, no Leon's body had turned into a convenient storage item full of pockets of compressed space. Internally, his body was a mess. All of the organs that had been mutated by his demonic energy trying to put his body back together was different sizes, not to mention the large amount of empty compressed space inside of his body that he was now shoving random things into. "Gou..." Leon was already grunting in discomfort. "I'm fine." Leon could already see Olivia moving to help him. "Get on. We're going back to the ship, I'm not losing anymore friends today." Olivia hugged Leon and nodded in determination, agreeing with the sentiment.
Angelica was having the time of her life. Years worth of Julius's emotional abuse, the pressure put on her by her family and position had reached a boiling point, and Angelica finally, Finally, had acceptable targets that she could take her rage out on.
"SOMEBODY STOP THIS MAD WOMAN!" A familiar looking moustache screamed those words as Angelica dance.
Monsters all across the fleet froze and dropped out of the air as Angie sucked the heat out of them, even the ships weren't necessarily safe as the extreme cold deformed the delicate internal mechanisms and the crew who stepped out got hit with frost bite. Angelica twirled around with her unwilling dance partner Hertrude whom she had overpowered with brute strength and was now treating her as her dance partner at the ball. Above their heads a large sphere of fire had formed, and around them was a hurricane that was smashing together the different ships and monsters. Even the missiles that were being fired into the wind were being caught, gathered up, and drained of demonic and Angelic power by Angelica who had learned that she can siphon a monster's power through the flame element.
"What are you doing!?" Hertrude shouted as Angelica swung her around. She couldn't get to the flute that Angie had tucked into the inner pocket of her jacket after forcibly seizing it from her.
"I am having a blast!" A theoretically unlimited supply of magic. A vast number of guilt free targets to experiment with. And in theory she was serving her country by eliminating hostile enemy forces as well.
There was no reason in the world that Angie wouldn't be happy.
She even had the room to experiment and try the things that she couldn't up until now, like lightning. She's come to understand how lightning is formed naturally through Durga's teaching aide the super magnets. Positrons and Electrons want for lack of a better term to be together, it's why the magnets stuck together when she aligned the negatively charged and the positively charged sides together. When this phenomena occurs and the energy isn't trapped within a solid object, it becomes lightning. It was difficult and complex work, Angelica was using the dance moves taught to her by Leon to control the power. Even though she was sucking the heat out of the ships she was leaving behind plenty of electrons, and she was scattering the protons into the sky through the tornado.
"Ah the fun part should be starting soon." Angelica commented as she smiled maliciously.
"The Fun Part?" Hertrude parroted the comment with fear in her eyes.
"GET THOSE SHIPS OPERATIONAL!" Earl Garrett was doing little else other than screeching like a rapid monkey as he made demands for people to get to work. "I WANT THAT BITCH DEAD AND THE PRINCESS RESCUED IN THE NEXT FIVE MINUTES!"
The Skies had turned dark, no matter the era Sailors know that there's nothing more fearsome than sudden black clouds. Bolts of lightning were fired out of the sky, Air ships were made out of a combination of metal, wood and dungeon materials, all of which conducts electricity, not to mention the countless monsters caught in the path. Lightning shot down from the sky, jumping from ship to monster to ship in a complete circuit of monster, man and cloud. Lives were lost, munitions were detonated, circuits fried and monsters were slaughtered.
Garret was the proverbial deer in the headlights as a bolt of lightning went straight for his stache, frying him down to his core, which if that hadn't killed him then his body falling off the railing he had gripped screaming orders over and into the abyss below would do the trick.
"Can't let these go to waste now can we?" Speaking as if she was picking up money someone left lying around Angie adjusted her tornado to pick up all the orbs and halos and sucked them straight onto the floating island that the Principality had turned into the captain's cabin of their flagship.
While Angelica was performing one of the most impressive feats of magic anyone in Holfort had ever seen the various students, crew members and staff of the luxury liner all were gathered together in the room's ballroom, mostly panicking though even those who remained calm could see the writing on the wall. Rather the ones who remained calmed had plateaued their despair and recognised that they had no hope for getting out of this situation alive, so they had stopped struggling. And then they heard the roar of a monster coming from down the hallway.
"Shit! One of those bastards got inside!" A few students were already getting ready to cast magic, only for something black to appear from beneath them and swallow up the spell formula.
"If you shits try to kill me again I'm feeding you to the demons!" The roaring monster rode out through the crowd and onto the stage, being ridden by Leon and Olivia.
Many students here were familiar with air bikes, they were machines that quietly ran on magic, the concept of a internal combustion engine, even one running on electricity and fire magic, was completely unknown to them. While some were curious about the demonic machine and where it came from no one really cared.
"Allow me to make something perfectly completely clear to all of you garbage people." Leon stepped off of his bike and looked down at the crowd. "I hate you. All of you. Each and every person before my gaze here is a piece of trash worse than any demon I have contracted or fought against. I would sooner face thousands of them head on and alone than tolerate a single one of your presences at my side."
"That is enough!" The Crowd parted as a new figure emerged, blonde hair tied into large ringlets hung down all the way to the waist with navy blue eyes. "I Will not be talked down by some Beggar chasing after Angelica's heels! I am from the Prestigious Ro-"
"Baron, Count? Duke?" Leon casually listed off and dismissed a few court ranks. "So what? You did nothing to earn those ranks. No one here wants to listen to another bitch bragging about being carried on the backs of their ancestors."
"Wha-ah!" Deidre Fia Roseblade, of the Prestigious Roseblade family, has never had anyone talk to her this way before.
"I hold nothing but respect for your esteemed founding ancestor, which is more than I can say about you." Leon stepped forward, Deidre stepped back. "While the enemy is at the gate, while you are surrounded by monsters, you are sitting here, hiding like a coward while someone who has earned the respect you have deluded yourselves into thinking that you are owed is out there fighting by herself." Leon stepped forward, Deidre took two back. "Your prestigious and glorious ancestor is rolling in his grave because you are the culmination of his respected bloodline!"
"Angelica sold us out to the Principality of Fanoss!" A familiar face piped up at that time. Leon didn't remember the name that went with it, he didn't bother to, if he thought about long enough she looked like one of the girls who were always chasing after Angelica at school.
"Which one of you was the one who lured the Principality to our ship?" The entire crowd stiffened again, hit with the familiar sensation of Olivia's mind control magic that she spat out in a moment of anger. Slowly three individuals raised their hands into the air. Olivia hopped off the stage, her eyes were hollow and full of rage as she walked up to the leader of the trio and questioned her. "What did you do?"
"W-We w-w-were ap-approached in Y-Y-Yamatai. Th-they said th-they j-j-just wa-wanted to embarrass th-the Redgraves." Antoinette was desperately trying to shut herself up, but her mouth wasn't cooperating with her. Leon in the meantime simply noted that it wasn't something as convenient as a complete brainwashing ability, which had it's own positives and negatives. To cut out the stuttering: "We were approached by guys who said they were from the Marquiss Frampton's faction. They gave us smoke signals tied to parachutes that we deployed in order to let the principality track the cruise ship." And when questioned why they had done this they responded with: "Angelica threw us aside after all the years we wasted on supporting her, so naturally it's only natural that we would've discarded her just like she had discarded us." They were scum beyond scum, but they got off topic.
"Anyone who doesn't want to die a disgrace to their family name will get out onto the deck and fight right now." Leon raised up his arm, and suddenly it started to rain weapons, everything from swords, missile launchers, staffs or wands, even a miniature train fell out of the air and landed at the feat of the various noble men. "You can use these just don't fight over them and try to grab something that matches your affinities and give them back when you're done. If you break or lose any of them well... just walk off the side of the ship." Ending his statement with a comment that would fill people with dread if they were paying attention Leon began explaining his plan of attack. "In simple terms, we need this ship in one piece. Everyone who can fight at range needs to stay behind the melee fighters, and the melee fighters need to position themselves in the gaps that Livia here gives them." Leon indicated Olivia who started to produce barrier magic. "Anyone who finds her barrier work less than satisfying can join her in her duties. Once I get Angelica back we can get out of here." Leon took the bike again as he prepared to leave, with various people looking at him funny. "What?"
"You seemed to have given the impression that there was a more detailed plan. Sir." One of the Crew men explained.
"Oh right there is one last thing."
Despite their attempts to plead and whine to the contrary, Antoinette, Mildred and Elizabeth had been shackled using the chains from the holding cells, which were now being nailed to the deck of the ship despite their pleading to the contrary. When you think about it, the cells were probably one of the safest places on the ship, after all they were deep inside, reinforced with steel, and far away from the front lines. Leon could only see it as a place to put non-combatants or people that would get in the way, on the other hand trapping the traitors here so that they would have to fight and die with the rest of them was a more appealing punishment, not that anyone had any intention of dying.
"Captain you're responsible for coordinating the students on the ship except for Olivia." Leon stated bluntly. "You should have the most experience fighting monsters and organising offensive forces of anyone here." Leon stated bluntly counting on a mariners experiences for this situation. That said, Olivia was so abnormal that he'd only stifle her potential. "If you leave without me and Angelica I'm gonna be pissed."
Currently, the ship wasn't going anywhere anyway with all the monsters in the way, students picked out and exchanged weapons, got into position and distributed the buffing candy that Leon took from Rodin. About two thirds of the monsters had been left behind to tear apart the ship, about half of the total fleet the principality had brought with them. The reason why they could spend all this time leisurely preparing their counter attack and defence could be seen from the ship, as the main fleet was being hit with sudden hail, hurricanes, lightning and fire storms. It would appear that someone started a fight in the middle of the fleet and they couldn't command their monsters. That said, as soon as Leon tried to break through the critters would likely try to go on the offensive, of course the same would be true if the ship tried to leave.
So having spent enough time on preparation, Leon went on the offensive. The Warlock quickly drove the bike off the edge of the ship, the sides of the massive motorbike soon unfolding as the front wheel was retracted into the chassis. Soon the Ground vehicle had become an airborne plane, and then the back had it's wheel that was held in place with a pair of demonic horns retracted and was replaced by the exhaust, that then ignited and the sky-cycle shot forward. "You're in the way!" A machine gun popped out front of where Leon had been steering the demonic vehicle and the weapon soon started to release blasts of purple fire as he cut into the enemy forces. As if that was the cue, the monsters started to go on the offensive, but they were soon met with resistance as countless drop items augmented by offence boosting rose lolipops were fired into the horde and it was minutes before they could get through the blasting to the ship itself.
"Deidre, can you pick up the drop items for me?" Olivia recognised the fan and high heeled shoes combination that Deidre had picked up as Simoon, a fan with wind manipulating powers. All of Rodin's Devil arms had introduced themselves to her while she was at Leon's home.
"I'll do one better!"
With a swing of her fan Deidre began sweeping up all the orbs and halos that were falling away from the monsters as well as smashing them against each other to break their bodies, eventually the orbs had landed on the deck, and Olivia could now implement another Devil Arm that she had picked up. There wasn't any Devil Arm that dealt in healing specifically, but there was one that used organic matter as a means of attack, and now Olivia, and her snazzy new Fedora and smoke like scarf combo, had all the ammunition she needed.
Dr. Faust: A stylish accessory turned deadly weapon.
Normally, a mere Faust would be too weak to turn into a Devil Arm. However in the years leading up to the shattering war extensive research was conducted into weaponizing the materials that came from the enemy forces.
Red Orbs were found to be both hard enough to break through demonic skin, catalysts that would conduct mana with extreme proficiency and explosive projectiles if detonated, so utilising the soul of a Faust as the base the Dr. Faust was created. A powerful projectile weapon launcher that fires and remotely controls the crystalised blood that is naturally produced from demons bodies, this weapon is a devastating and invaluable tool in any Devil Hunter's arsenal with even a hint of magical power.
Excerpt from Rodin's Weapons Catalogue
Olivia had been using the Faust in combination with another Devil Arm, the Gilgamesh. The organic Red Orbs were being turned into metal and launched with the force of a cannon thanks to the Gilgamesh's repulsion effect, in the mean time the Red orb could be controlled remotely and be repeatedly used to draw the enemies blood for more projectiles. Dr. Faust and Gilgamesh were devastating together.
That said Olivia's reserves of mana to operate the weapons were vast not unlimited, on top of using the two Devil Arms once the demons had reached the ship proper she covered the entire ship with dozens of individual magic barriers with enough gaps in between to allow the students to still attack the enemy forces.
"Please make an effort to capture the ones that I mark." Olivia was also throwing the hat at selective monsters, the fallen that were floating in the air, which in turn caused the hat to appear on their heads. Just like Angelica could siphon power out of fire type angels and demons Olivia believed that she could siphon energy out of living creatures. Of course she wasn't going to do this with her classmates, but she believed she could do it with the enemy monsters.
"Yes Ojou." Among the students there was one using Abracadabra to telefrag the enemy, and to trap various fallen inside of the cube shaped barriers that Olivia had prepared beforehand to test her theory with. "Incoming!" Among the enemy monsters, there were the Insidious, the kind of creature that had firepower equal to a war ship, and was being used as a carrier for other kinds of monsters as well on top of that.
"Yes. I'll prepare a bigger attack. Do something about those for me would you?" Olivia calmly directed Deidre's attention to the incoming missiles that were flying straight towards them.
"Aho-ho-ho-ho! You mean to take me in the air!?" Deidre waved her fan, the Simoon, and all the missiles were swept up and crashed into several other monsters. "Aho ho ho ho ho!" The entire ship shook, the nearest Insidious spat out some that looked like a great big tar Loogie that had now attached itself to Olivia's barrier.
Nightmare: Fear incarnate.
A Nightmare is born from the uneasy feelings felt during sleep but are forgotten when awake. A Nightmare's base form resembles a giant tar-like slug with a black skull for a head, however just as it's said one's fears can take any form a nightmare's shape is ill defined and thus can be anything from a slow moving sweeper blocking all escape or a hulking giant to shatter any defence. The real danger from the Nightmare however is two-fold, the first is that it's physical form contains a horrific landscape that slowly dissolves those trapped inside but is equally useful as a form of demonic troop transportation, the second the the ability to siphon magical energy from those around it weakening them and empowering it's own attacks.
Thus a Nightmare is a terrifying opponent on the battlefield whether as a siege engine, troop transport, or simply another opponent standing in one's way.
Excerpt from Lemegeton's Book of Demons
The Giant Skull slime thing rose up into the air, forming a humanoid form with two massive wrecking balls for fists. In response to this hulking brute of a creature getting ready to utterly wreck her barrier Olivia responded with a looney tunes gag, the healer who was nigh single handily holding back the attacks of the monsters and enabling her classmate's counter attack waved her arm and changed the angle of the barriers the Nightmare was standing on dumping it into a bowl shaped barrier with a splash. Of course with the tiniest movements this barrier would shatter, so Olivia didn't give the nightmare the ability to move. Pooring mana into the barrier Olivia began squeezing the enemy into a tight ball, not only that but she used the Gilgamesh to turn the demon into a ball of metal just to further immobilise it. Olivia scanned the horizon for the Insidious that spat the thing at her and soon found it.
"You can have this back now." Olivia punched the ball of demonic metal, the Gilgamesh repelling the demon and shooting it across the sky directly into the face of the Insidious. "I can do that as many times as you like!" Olivia was still upset, not only for her however short spat with Angelica but also as a result of the angel flute tampering with her mind. "I can keep returning demons to you as many times as I like!"
The other students had a fire lit underneath them too, being left with only their worst parts had the side effect of giving them a back bone made of pure spite.
In the mean time the Principality forces had taken to range, by now they had figured out that there was a minimal safe distance from Angelica, that her broken mix of fire, ice, wind and lightning only extended so far. Instead the enemy armours had decided to out range her, which wouldn't be hard since their primary armaments were designed to snipe enemy armours at range. Angelica though was a much smaller target, worse yet she was surrounded by the Chaos of her various spells so a clean shot was approaching the level of impossible, but worst of all was that she had a hostage. As the various thugs were wondering what to do, they came under fire.
"Out of my way you bastards!" Leon had come flying guns blazing, mounted on both wings were fully automated turrets spewing lightning and freezing while the middle had the lion's head open up to reveal a cannon spewing fiery blasts. Leon was fast but these soldiers were trained to hit moving targets, this time they weren't hesitating to shoot.
"Oh so it's gonna be like that is it?" Leon disappeared from the soldiers sight as the bullets flew past him. The time manipulating mage had already appeared next to the armours, from his back was red and black wings of demonic power and hair, and in his hands was the bike he had been riding on, one hand holding the throttle and the other the other the kick, right now the way he was holding it it wasn't a bike at all but rather a turret. "Piss off!" Guns from the folded wings firing armour piercing rounds and the flame belching thrusters spewed into the nearest armour, the combination breaching the cockpit and torching the pilot. "I'm here to rescue my friend and kill Fanoss Sons of Bitches!" Leon snapped as the rest of the Fanoss armours turned to face him and opened fire, and Leon disappeared again. "Really? Why don't you just mail me the bullets?" Leon right now was sitting on the shoulder of the armour, the ass of his fire belching monster pressed up to the hatch of the armour, the open hatch. The death screams of the soldier accompanying a couple of revs of Leon's bike as the Warlock stood to meet the enemy before him, who at least got wise that it was pointless to keep shooting at him. "Now are any of you pieces of shit going to actually put up a fight or am I just going to feed you clowns to my demons and leave with my friend!?" The Fanoss soldiers suddenly retreated. "That's what I thought!" Leon got back on his bike to drive over and pick up Angelica.
Suddenly, a hunk of ice and Fanossian ship was hacked a apart from within by a blood red blade, the culprit responsible who until now was trapped inside revealed himself, a jet black gold trimmed armour.
"One of these days I'm gonna stitch my big mouth shut." Leon grumbled as he came face to face with the Black Knight of Fanoss, most powerful Swordsman and Armour Pilot in two kingdoms, in the flesh.
Review Section:
RonaldM40196867: Blame Rodin, he's the one who made his potions into suckers, or blame Cereza for loving them so much. Great sword, can't beat the classics. Legendary Heroes, I get the feeling that I improved a lot over the course of writing it.
Chronos0305: So long as you don't mind the spoilers for the Marie route, which I assume you already had based on your question, yeah Ann divided her soul into pieces and put them into the Saint's relics, it was never brought up in the main story, apparently Marie was so strong willed that she was able to force Ann out of her body and out of the Saint's relics. Ignoring all the horrible things that they can do with those flutes and all the ways that can go wrong: their ultimate fates were sealed the moment the clan became aware that they have clan relics in their possession.
RedRat8: Yeah. That's my fault. I'm thinking of going back and doing 29 over again to include some time at the petting zoo.