Disclaimer: Black Clover is owned by Yūki Tabata, Studio Pierrot, and Shonen Jump.
Saga 4: Shoot to Thrill Part Finale
Agartha's Ruins, Mimo Amazon, Neutral Territory, Morning
"996..." Nikolas grunted as he did his daily handstand-pushups, "... 997..." his body dripped a full puddle of sweat beneath him all the way from the toes pointed up to the sky, "... 998..."
"Uh, hey Nik," greeted Aleister, the (unofficial) co-leader of the the reorganized Eye of the Midnight Sun faction, the Illuminati, "... what are you doing?"
"... This body... 999... is in shambles... even before... it became a corpse!" the poltergeist zombie grunted as he maintained his handstand posture, "... signs of... malnutrition... and neglect... I must... amend! ... 1000!"
"I see," Helena (the other unofficial co-leader and resident archeology maniac of Illuminati) remarked as she came out from behind Aleister as Nikolas jumped off of his hands and back onto his feet, "... you know that if Orme was still here, she would've gone through an existential crisis of you both taking care of yourself and making a mess at the same time."
"A shame for her," Nikolas remarked in disappointment as his beaked compatriot no longer being around, "since unlike me, she's not a ghost who can easily wear herself into a new body crafted by our Necromancer comrade."
"Speaking of whom..." Aleister looked around their base of operations, "where the hell is he?"
"I think I heard someone mention of him bringing back corpses from the wrecked brick mansion that was parked right near our proximity about a while back," Helena pointed out, "as for who said it first, I cannot tell if it's either Sally or Valtos. Could be both."
"Let him do whatever he pleases," Nikolas remarked as he stretched his arms to the side, "provided as long as he doesn't bare his or his 'toys' fangs towards us, that is."
"Right," Aleister agreed before he realized that his team cohesion wasn't exactly solid due to his stint as "leader" being more nominal than anything substantial, now planting a seed of concern for him, "... I don't know what else to say."
"Then why not join me in my training?" Nikolas requested, much to the other two's shock, "you two look positively awful, feeding off nothing but fruit and bugs for the past months! A couple of push-ups and squats with a more... balanced diet, then you two will at least command a bit more respect for your peers!"
Both Aleister and Helena looked at themselves and each other. "We're not that bad," both spoke in unison, "... right?"
"No, but your bodies can be a bit better," Nikolas remarked, "before I met my initial demise, I trained my body every morning and grew to a respectable height of 190 cm and maintained a steady weight of 196 pounds of muscle and fat."
"And how did that help out with the whole knife in your back?" snarked Aleister, "was it worth seeing your perfectly-regimented body slumped dead while you were a ghost?"
"That is but the past, today is the present!" he confidently rebuffed, "no more wasting time! We'll start with 10 push-ups!"
"... Is it possible to use my [Fate Magic] and bullshit our way out of this?" Aleister asked Helena.
"And make us do 20 later?" Helena snarked back, "fat chance on your bipolar Karma Debt!"
"I said," Nikolas growled as bolts of raw electricity crackled in his hands before striking right before the two's foot, "no more wasting time! 10 or I zap you both with my [Plasma Magic]! Which by the way, it basically being shocked and burnt at the same time! I would know!"
As soon as the two bookish co-leaders began their new physical training regimen, elsewhere, Valtos and Sally saw Rades come back to their place of operations, dragging behind him a sled of dead bodies of slain magic knights and others of unknown origin, most of them stripped to the bone with only a fraction of their ligaments still hanging by literal threads.
"Whoa dude," Sally remarked at Rades looking like if he'd came back from the dead (more than usual), "what took your ass so long?"
"You were gone for 2 days straight," Valtos pointed out, "explain yourself."
"Well excuse me, princess!" Rades snapped, "apparently, you didn't know there are giant, murderous bug monsters crawling about the fucking jungle kinda made the trip back home a little harder than it was supposed to be!"
"Eh, you seem fine," Sally shrugged, "I mean, saw a few myself a while ago while I was out with Morris. Got any good samples?"
"No, because you didn't tell me about those creeps sooner, so I'll turn those crushed insects into my own playthings!" pouted the Necromancer as he shuffled back into his workshop with plans to create bug-man hybrid zombies into his arsenal of minions. For a while, after he'd entered into his room, he throws out a red sac out the door. "... But you can keep this thing," Rades remarked from his workshop through the sounds of hammer and pilers clanging against his operating table, "there's nothing useful in that piss-sac. Go and make some poison with that thing or whatever you're good at!"
"... Okay, thanks," Sally replied as she eagerly took the bulbous red sack filled with an unknown liquid and begins brewing it so see if she can concentrate the sample from this obvious Demon organ that Rades just tossed out. It may not have anything that is recognizable (in conventional human knowledge) in it, but the possibilities that it offers for Sally's overinquisitive mind has opened way too many doors for her to properly contain her own excitement.
"Hm," Valtos observed Rades' behavior and Sally's reciprocation, "... it seems that both of them are becoming more... sociable," he thought out loud as he continued walking down the halls of the ruined Agartha, "normally, Rades isn't the kind of person who was taught how to share with others... let alone consider others than himself..." the [Spatial Magic] user surmised, "... and Sally wasn't so different from Rades as well, both being insular in their own desires and worldviews. Now, she's more inclusive towards others when sharing her... interests..." he chuckled to himself, "... they still have a long way to go, but nevertheless, they're improving as people," Valtos amusedly thought, "... I wonder, how I can also grow myself-ow!"
Valtos shakes his head upon bumping headfirst into a door that he didn't recognize.
"... Hm, that's weird," he spoke his thoughts as he tried to use his [Spatial Magic] to breach through the barrier, but is then repelled by the door itself rejecting his unauthorized entry, "... even for a centuries-old ruins of an ancient civilization, I'm impressed to see that it's security isn't done in halves."
As Valtos thought at what lied behind these sealed doors, unbeknownst to him and everyone else, at the other side of those secret doors, Angra and Morris were looking through old stone tablets with ancient language engraved into them. In the same room that the two Contractors were in, their respective Demons, Mammon and Mainyu, were both watching the terminal filled with severed body parts floating about in a container filled with a colored liquid that acted as a preservative and a stabilizer for any latent [Time Magic] that may linger in their essences of the Agarthan descendants.
"Remind me," deadpanned Mainyu to his (technically) superior officer, Mammon, "why are we watching cut hands float about in this oversized pickle jar?"
"Patience, dear friend," assured the Raccoon Demon, "all good things shall come to those who wait. I'm no Beelzebub, you know," he smirked, "I'm above simply gorging at what's in front of me like a mindless beast."
"You think you're hot shit, aren't ya?" growled Mainyu.
"For us Demons, patience is no virtue nor cruelty a vice," Mammon explained, "to master our base patterns of instinct, that is when we can achieve strength greater than we can ever realize."
"Keh, what strength?" rebuffed the Demon in disgust, "we're plenty strong enough as is!"
"Then tell me, dear Mainyu," asked Mammon with genuine sincerity, "are you content where you are right now? Under my buttocks and licking my heels?" he taunted, "were you merely content of simply pulling others' strings and get them to do things for you? Not truly living to your fullest of potential and simply letting your ambitions die at the doorsteps of true power?"
"... What power are you talking about?" Mainyu snarled, "do you even know where you and no-eyes are heading?"
"No, of course not," admitted the Demon, much to the lesser evil's surprise, "all we know for sure is that what's going to happen when we reach the top; we'll become the new god of this sad, pathetic world infested with imbeciles. I'm selfish for a reason, Mainyu. I'm not content with just one thing. Me and Morris want it all, including each other. We're endlessly hungry for more. Knowledge, material wealth, pleasures of flesh, if it can be held, well... we want a piece of that ass. Just sayin'. And no, the only exception to not sharing is me and my partner."
As the Demon tried to come up with an answer, Mainyu came up blank. Sure, as a Demon, it was in his nature to use others as his sin of [Manipulation] dictates that he uses others rather than use himself. But throughout his whole existence stewing in his own sin, has he accomplished anything worth of value aside from securing a Contractor that neither he or his human Angra can even comprehend of being anything consensual?
An empty feeling was dug out in his chest. A hole that was impossible to fill with the puppeteer's threads alone. Suddenly, Mainyu desired more. He doesn't want to admit that Mammon was right that he accomplished nothing in the end, but this contradiction began to gnaw at his black mind.
... I need a new sin, thought Mainyu, I can't keep going like this. I'm not meant to be someone else's bitch!
While the two Demons were busy conversing with/mocking each other, Angra and Morris were still trying to translate the records left behind by the people of Agartha.
"So, you never mentioned what do you need two artificial Demons for at all," spoke Angra as she tried to make heads or tails of what she was reading (even with Morris being the one tutoring her, she was still partially illiterate: her previous job as a custom broom repairwoman was all physical), "and why you exact need the goddamn Wizard King himself to make your currently untold plans work?"
"Well, let's just say that #6 needs to be put in a jar and his [Time Magic] needing to be mine to use exclusively," Morris replied with another vague answer, "so much power yet so little use..."
"... Are you being vague with me because you still think I'm too stupid to understand what you're saying?!" snapped the lab assistant, "I ain't that dumb, so spill it! What is going on with body parts, the Wizard King, ancient civilization crap that you're related to and artificial Demons?!"
Morris lets out a sigh. "Very well. The truth," the mad scientist remarked, "in a general term, my grand plan is to go back in time."
"... What," Angra remarked, completely baffled at the man's ridiculous claim of rewinding the preverbal clock.
"Allow me to explain," the scientist cleared his throat, "the theory of time travel in itself is considered a contradiction in the laws of physics. After all, it is physically impractical to swim directly against a strong rapid current, but what if you had the means to change the direction of which way the water flows?" he proposed his hypothesis, "enter, subject #6, Julius Novachrono. His [Time Magic] is the key. A key that'll let me into the inner workings of the physical world. The Agarthan people built their civilization defying the laws of the very world, and its lost knowledge ingrained into their MNA, or Magical Nucleic Acid, the very part of our biological composition that allows humans to use magic and regulate mana into their bodies in the first place," he explained the general principles of how people were able to use magic, "just like dear old mom and dad that I got to tinker with, these cadavers inside the tubes, and dear old Julius himself, their kinds of esoteric and world-defying magic are indeed the legacy of Agartha themselves."
"... Okay," Angra replied, noting that the Wizard King's powers are needed to effectively get their hands on the world's clock hands, "... what about the artificial Demons?"
"I have a pair of proposals that happens to serve the same purpose," Morris began with his answers, "those two are meant to act as counterbalances in the process of accessing the flow of time itself. After all, simply moving time isn't enough when we'll be stretched to spaghetti in the process!" he pointed out the possible consequence of reckless handling of his time, "so, to stabilize the process, I need two vessels, the ideas that the Zogratis clan were more than happy to share with me when I was working with them. Therefore, artificial Demons, using the very MNA of the Agarthan descendants that I've gathered and more to gather in the future, all to act as conduits to throw off the strain of time travel and effectively tame it to a more manageable degree, at least according to the level of human whims," the scientist explained his idea to Angra, "Maxwell (Chaos) and Laplace (Order). Vessels of entropy and negentropy respectively. Destruction and creation all rolled into a harmonious cycle, smoothing the wild flows of time into a dead lull, allowing for smooth sailing back towards the distant past. With my own [Implant Magic], applying mismatching concepts to effigies is easy as sleeping."
Angra herself couldn't believe what he'd just said. A method to go back in time, using absurdly powerful magic to effectively rewrite the laws of the world for long enough to make a certain amount of difference. The man's ambition was cosmic in scale. Almost cockamamy in its way of seeing and defying the world out of a twisted sense of legacy and warped view of curiosity.
"... But why?" Angra asked, her mind starting to fall apart at Morris's vision, "why time travel now, of all times?"
"A little birdie told me one thing while I was bound while no one else were looking or listening in," grinned Mammon, "that 'time itself is broken'," his grin creased further upwards into a smirk, "and when I smell something, then someone clearly farted, which happens to be this group that I ended up running into after my jailbreak! Who knew a magic that can counteract [Time Magic] in scale of metaphysical bullshit would end up here of all places?! And that, my fair lady, is opportunity!"
"Opportunity?!" gawked Angra, "for what?!"
"There's a saying I heard back when I was a poor, blind boy, hated by the world," Morris spoke to Angra with a wicked grin that was more akin to a pitch-black crescent moon, "it goes as: 'in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is the king'. To put it simply, I'm gonna go back in time, where all magic were at their most primitive and undeveloped, and use my superior knowledge of the present to make myself the undisputed being of power there! No elf or dwarf will ever match me or my intellect over the arcane arts both conventional and heretical! I will rule and dictate the development of this world's magic by completely rewriting history, worshipping me as their immortal god of magic!"
"... You're fucking insane," shivered Angra, the man's needlessly complicated plan for it to desire something so childishly simple at its end, "all that for you to become a god of magic? I know you were tapped in the head because of your folks, but what the fuck man?!"
"Admit it," Morris goaded with a tempting smile, "if you had the chance to rewrite history for your own benefit, you'd take it."
A surprisingly large part inside of Angra's heart agreed with the Devil Scientist's words. If she had it her way, her family would be nobility and living the high life and in comfort for the rest of their lives.
No more dead end jobs, no more broken futures, no more compromises and half-assed outcomes and especially, no more of being spat upon by those who were born above her. In fact, it is why she took up being a Contractor with Mainyu in the first place. Angra wished for power, any power, that would allow her to make a difference for her and her family.
"... Don't be ashamed, Angra Swing," the Demon (either Morris or Mammon) reassured, "being selfish means that you want more out of your life. You reject mediocrity and chase after the sun even if it means burning your hands to a crisp," he pointed out, "don't worry, you're not alone. Project A.L.E.P.H., or Alternative Linear Event Phenomenon Happenstance, will make all of our dreams come true."
It was at this moment that Angra was more than willing to sell her very soul to the fucking Devil to make her and her family's life better forever.
"All you have to do..." Morris smiled gently like the holiest of saints with the intentions darker than all of the Zogratis Clan's lineage combined, "... is say, 'I'm in'."
If hell had a place for her, then at least the seat will be warm by the time she gets there.
"... I'm in."
Quatre Refugee-State, Noble Realm, Clover Kingdom, Afternoon
"Before we start," Julius spoke to a meeting table occupied with two participants, one being a white-cloaked man wearing a wooden mask that resembled a hammerhead shark, and the other being less of a seat and more of a small perch for which a crow with a small brooch around its neck stood upon, "I'd like to thank you for coming here on a short notice, given the... current circumstances that our nation is in."
"All in good tidings, my friend," spoked the masked man, "rough seas and widespread troubles are no strange bedfellows."
"I however, am less inclined," spoke the crow, emanating a woman's harsh tone, "my own domain is in shambles to due to an outside interference. Be grateful that it was beyond all of our control or I wouldn't have even bothered."
"Right," Julius spoke, "is there any house matters do we need to go over before we start?"
"Uh, yes," the hammerhead raised his hand, "what do we do about the noise outside?"
Outside of the meeting tent (the building where the meeting was supposed to take place in being still repaired), about a few paces away was Yuno and Saiga sparring with each other, their weapons clashing with each other blow after blow.
"Come on, boy!" Saiga howled as he swung his two raven-headed warpicks, their metallic beaks fracturing the earth which they dug into, "at this rate, the Spade Kingdom will eat ye alive!"
"I'm just getting started!" Yuno roared back as he swung his sword [Gram] at the High Inquisitor before he commanded the blades to split off into multiple, smaller blades that orbited around the two, "I will not be held back by my the chains you've thrown upon me!"
"Spoken like a true Spade Kingdom blooded lad!" Saiga cackled as the two continuing with their sparring, "[Huginn and Muninn, the Great Communicators], shall feast on thy corpse!"
"Ignore them," Julius remarked at the sound of two people trying to murder each other in broad daylight, "in fact, Yuno sparring with him is the only thing that is keeping that unstable Inquisitor away from our more... delicate matters."
"I suppose the only way to deter a Spade Kingdom aggression is to use the rut of similar stock," the crow rolled its eyes, "... barbarians. All of them."
"Okay, let's begin," Julius immediately diffused the situation from getting potentially worse, "as you know, the Rain of Steel has occurred a month back and while clean up has been possible, the process itself is slow given that, well," he sighed out, "big, giant, indestructible swords the size of buildings. Basic premise on paper aside, the resulting devastation has proceeded with long-reaching consequences regarding all of our populace and infrastructure."
"My domain, the Seabed Temple, has its dome pierced and seawater has been pouring into our home ever since," the masked man spoke, "we can't afford to keep pumping out water while the hole itself is irreparably damaged, with pulling the sword out will increase the deluge to a rate that we'll all be drowned instantly. At this rate, the council of priests are considering abandoning our home and emigrate our populace here, but the general opinion on it has been... divisive, to say the least, particularly the ones of the previous generation, myself somewhat included," he sighed out, "I want my people to survive, but at the same time, I can't abandon the legacy that has been entrusted to us by Sephira herself 1,000 years ago. Some of us are heavily considering to go down with our ship, but my own two children will never forgive me if I do such a selfish thing!"
"For the Witch's Forest, the situation has just as been debilitating," spoke the crow, "the swords that came into contact with our security golems has ran amok and began attacking my own daughters before they were all put down after a prolonged resistance," she explained her own brand of issues that occurred weeks prior, "I lost about 40% of my original populace overnight and our own efforts to remove the swords, while progressing, the psychological damage inflicted upon my witches is even more troubling. Defections and talks of leaving to other lands has become more prevalent. The commune must be united at all costs, and I will not tolerate any insubordination."
"Even with your own abilities of precognition, you should've seen that you can't keep everyone together forever," the masked man snarked, "aren't you the one defying fate?"
"No," retorted the crow, "the disobedient children are the ones defying fate, such as those two harlots that have joined this Kingdom's military and one heretic that left to join a terrorist group," she crowed, "be grateful that your people were much more agreeable back then."
"If you haven't simply killed over half of your witch populace for being born the wrong way some years ago, then maybe dissent wouldn't pose as much of an issue," snarked the hammerhead.
"That enough," Julius snapped, trying not to lose his temper, "we are in a time of great tribulation and I will not let any differences divide us further!" he pointed out, "we need to come together to get through this crisis or we will all not survive the coming calamities that may happen in the future! We need to prepare by collaborating our resources together!"
"And how do you plan to go about it?" asked the crow.
"Thanks to the efforts from the Spade Kingdom's... differing factions that are also affected around the time they visited our nation ever since the Hellhound Incident a few months ago, we were able to clear out most of the swords throughout the nation thanks to their admittedly, terrifying physical strengths," the Wizard King pointed out, "now with the airspace cleared up, I can now propose an intercontinental communication policy that allows us to remain informed on our own happenings to organize a proper response aid to avoid situations like his in the foreseeable future."
"Sound logic," spoke hammerhead, "what's the next step?"
"Organize a joint domestic response taskforce," Julius remarked, "with about two-thirds of this kingdom's Magic Knights being at other nations securing allies or are trapped behind a siege, simply having two Magic Knight squadrons with an auxiliary troops from the Order of the Spade Cross won't suffice in the long term," the Wizard King explained, "by fostering cooperation between different cultures and nations, not only we would solve the issue of numbers deficiency that this kingdom is currently under, but it would also increase our PR between the Spade Kingdom, making the likely hood of us forging a united front against the Demons more plausible if this show of goodwill is known at the other side of the fence."
"Is there any other reason why I should risk relinquishing more of my people to your side?" asked the crow.
"Maybe simply letting get some fresh air once in a while might help quell what you call 'dissent'," Julius answered, "after all, children become more rebellious the more they're stifled by their parents. As a mother to a whole race, I'm sure you know how proper parenting works, correct?"
"Take it from me," hammerhead remarked, "I let my children practice their own version of their artistic craft, and they turned out more willing."
"... Your plan better work," the crow spoke in a reluctant manner, "if I see any signs of poaching from your side, I'm breaking the agreement."
"Likewise," Julius replied with a smile, ensuring that he'll protect his own people from all walks of life from being extradited, "now with that said, may I have your signatures for our mutual aid treaty?"
The Wizard King then sets down a paper with a waxen seal engraved with a three-leaf clover on its surface.
"Ah, I see what you did there," hammerhead pointed out at the three-leaf symbolism indicating an alliance between the Seabed Temple, the Witch's Forest and the Clover Kingdom, "those Demons wrecked all of our homes and livelihoods, so yeah," he remarked as he signed "Gio" onto the treaty, "I'll help you out punching them as long you help us out in turn."
"For you, Witch Queen?" Julius turned towards the crow familiar with an ink bottle in hand.
"Hand me the quill," spoke the Witch Queen through her familiar as it snatched the quill out of Gio's hands with its beak before signing her own name "Agatha" onto her part of the treaty, "do not let me down, either of you."
"We will not disappoint," Julius reassured as he signed his own name onto the paper.
After the alliance treaty was signed and made official to the public, the other two representatives made their way back to their own homes. Gio being escorted by the Purple Orcas and Agatha's crow familiar being seen off by the Blue Rose Knights.
"... Phew," Julius sighed out in exhaustion, "that went better than I expected."
"What made you think that doing any less would be a possibility?" asked Marx as he filed in the daily report from two other detachments of Magic Knights outside their domestic front, "given how dire current circumstances are?"
"Call it human nature..." the Wizard King remarked, "... at the best of times and the worst of times, all one can do is hope."
Outside, as the sun itself began to set, Yuno was found lying flat on his back, heaving like a fish out of water, whereas Saiga was down on his one knee, using one of his warpicks as support to keep himself aloft.
"... Hahaha..." cackled the High Inquisitor, "... for a green lad, thou art's fighting spirit is commendable!"
"... Choke on it..." heaved Yuno, flipping him off, "... you geriatric psycho."
At the spectator's end of the area where the two sparred, Rill, the Captain of the Aqua Deer and Deirdre were watching the whole thing since the beginning, the former even managing to paint a portrait where the High Inquisitor was depicted as a long, white-bearded king of darkness and Yuno as a youthful hero with a winged crest shining from his forehead.
"Looks pretty apt, doesn't it?" Rill asked Yuno's Sylph companion.
"You betcha!" she agreed, proud of Yuno of being able to use (but not yet master) [Gram] without her assistance in a single day.
Witch's Forest, Neutral Territory, Evening
Agatha, after seeing that her crow familiar returning to her, lets out a deep sigh of exhaustion as she slumped on her throne.
As the progenitor of the entire witch race, her scope of responsibility was beyond that of simply managing a single independent nation. No, instead she was running what was effectively a giant incubation lab. A lab that was meant to strain the limitations of the natural human MNA to create Sephira's reincarnation in order to bring back the Golden Age of Magic.
Body after body, centuries after centuries of nothing but failure after failure, from her samples being tainted by outsiders upon discovering that the witch's MNA are tied to their compatibility with outside human stock to her own supposed Magnum Opus that was supposed to dictate fate itself failing to live up to her expectations, Agatha's patience was starting to wear thin.
"Of all times for my precognition to stop working, why now?" the Witch Queen bemoaned, "those swords not of this world... disgusting."
She then closed her eyes for a vision to a possible future, but only static was shown.
"... I am not in my right mind," Agatha shook her head as she got off her throne and clapped her hands twice, "servants! Prepare the baths!"
As soon as she got into the pool of heated waters, the Witch Queen's mind began to settle down from a day's worth of stress, out of a the immeasurable amount of time that she'd seen the world pass by her.
"Twilight after twilight..." she sighed out as Agatha pooled her hands of the heated water before blowing the scooped-up bubbles into the air, "... dear Sephira, mother of all magic and the embodiment of perfection of humanity... why were you taken from us at our greatest time of need?"
As she kicked up her leg, her upper thigh showed itself to have "III" tattooed onto her pale skin.
"#6's impudence is starting to get on my nerves, #4 and #7 have gone missing after their engagement and numbers #1, #2, #5, #6, #8, #9, #10, #11 and #12 are nowhere to be found after centuries of observation..." Agatha muttered to herself as she tried to block out her previous life before becoming the "Witch Queen", "... Agartha," she snorted in contempt at her past, "what a fucking joke..."
But as soon as she submerged her head into the waters, her precognition flares back to life all of the sudden, much to her surprise as she burst out of the waters lest she drowned.
"... What was that?!" she exclaimed as she tried to process her sudden vision, "... three beings? Great death?!" Agatha tried to recall the images that were suddenly flashed before her eyes, "... all of whom powers are surpassing Hell itself?! How?!"
Sixth Layer, Heresy, Hell
The sixth layer, Heresy, where the ones who defied against goodness itself were sent to burn for eternity. An endless field of hellfire coupled with the screams of the damned coming from the perpetually burning flames.
Easily one of Hell's nosiest places, rivaling the endless sea of blood known as Anger. Not exactly the most ideal of places for Hell's strongest to plot their schemes, so Lucifuge, the sin of [Paranoia], to come here in the first place.
Then again, after her hiding hole back in Treachery was wrecked by Cain's little temper tantrums, she now needed another place to hide. So a place where no one would consider a popular visiting spot was the next best thing.
Now all she had to do is get used to the noise. "Like if it's gonna be that easy..." the mouse Demons muttered to herself as she walked around the burning, writhing souls flailing about the late of eternal fire, "... come on, Luci, they're too busy screaming in agony to even notice you..."
She tried telling herself that. Repeatedly. The biting sensation in her head never ends.
"Well..." Lucifuge sighed out as she looked around the area with her [Discernment Magic], trying to detect anything that might be coming towards her way, ".. at least I'm alone... for now..."
She then hears an echoing screech across the crackling air baked in flames.
"... Please let that be just the flames or the people screaming down there..." she begged, only for a sudden tailwind to blow behind her and sent her careening towards the flames before her, the scorched and charred arms reaching out towards her, "GET AWAY FROM ME!"
Her [Discernment Magic] activates upon her words of desire, the flames and the souls diverging away from where she was about to land before Lucifuge scrambled back up to her feet and quickly scampered out of the hole that she cleared up.
As soon as the Demon of [Paranoia] peeked out of the hole that she fell into, she spotted an anomaly that was too bizarre to be neither condemned soul or Demon. Rather, it was it's own thing from how everything seems to... prostrate itself in its malignant presence.
The being in question was a giant black raptor bird of prey, completely devoid of features like eyes and an anticipated beak. In it's back however, contained a net full of squirming bodies and writhing souls of the damned, their appearances ranging from beast-like man to innocent girl with pigtails. As Lucifuge continued watching this thing collect more souls for itself in the various lakes of fire, it began muttering something to itself, the speech being less of a complete sentence but more a loose collection of words that vaguely made sense in context.
"Busy. Collect. Souls. Must. Forage. More," it jittered as it scooped up a batch of souls with its talons from the pit and stuffed it into its net, "find. Perfect. Vessels. Make. Plan. Future."
She tried to analyze the thing with her [Discernment Magic], but as soon as she made eye contact, her eyes exploded as if she'd seen something that was forbidden to see, even for Demons, who have no concept of things being "too sacred". But even as the agony of her eyes being destroyed shocked her to her very core, Lucifuge grasped her mouth shut to got give herself away, even as she allowed the flames and the condemned souls to bury her whole, all if it means to prevent herself being found by this... thing that rejected her [Discernment Magic].
"Busy. Collect. Souls," it continued to chitter repeatedly as its talons dug into the flames where Lucifuge was hiding at, narrowly missing her as the thing opted for a blind grab rather than a thorough sweep and comb, "must. Forage. More. Find. Perfect. Vessels. Make. Plan. Future."
No longer her eyes being an option, Lucifuge uses her ears to indicate whether the anomaly has left or not. Upon hearing its wings flap and fly away from the area that she was hiding at, Lucifuge finally crawls out of her hiding hole, the pain of being burnt and clawed all over being nothing compared to the sensation of dread that she'd just experienced.
"... Yeah," Lucifuge whimpered as she got comfortable, her eyes irreparably damaged by that thing's rejection, "I like it here. Away from that Wingthing."
Formerly the Grand Meridian, Neutral Territory, Midnight
Saiga was by himself right now, spading through the wastes in search of something. After all, if a Demon were slain there, then clearly, there would be something left behind, correct?
Surely, it was reported that Astarte showed up after the Grand Meridian was stripped of all life. So there must be another Stigmata that was buried around here! Astarte's Stigmata was collected by his men a few nights back, and Saiga, despite his age, is still more than capable of fending for himself.
"Ho ho ho! Digging thou art go!" he sang to himself as his dual Relics strikes the barren earth, "ho ho ho! Through the earth thou shall tow!"
In all honesty, singing out loud was the High Inquisitor's private hobby for a reason. If torture wasn't illegalized in Avalon 20 years ago (the Patrem Inquisitor Tokarev signed in an order to skip the vetting process for suspected deviant Demon-worshippers), then his singing would've constituted as a torture method for how horrendous it is.
Fittingly, singing it in a dead land at the dead of night was the safest course of action, lest Saiga has to register unintentional casualties into his monthly briefing.
"Ho ho ho! Where art thou it is?" he sang as his picks raked through the wastes, "ho ho ho! Thou shall not miss!"
Suddenly, upon finishing his verse, [Huginn] hits something that didn't break. Quickly, Saiga begins digging up on the same spot of dead earth with his picks and excavates a chrome-dabbled black stake the size of common doornail.
"Hm, a little nebbish to the usual fare," Saiga muttered to himself as he observed the piece of a single Stigmata, "still, to think something this small and quaint devouring all life on Sephira's green earth..." the jovial old High Inquisitor suddenly adopted an intense and serious mood, "... terrifying indeed."
And it was only a fourth of a whole Stigmata. There were three other pieces out there, and each of them would be devastating as the one that he held in his hand.
"... Plenty of time to contemplate of how thou shall report this," the High Inquisitor remarked to himself as he pocketed the Stigmata piece before he walks back to Quatre.
Even before Demons, the world still had its own dangers.
The Spade Kingdom, was known by it other moniker, "The Devil Kingdom".
Not because of it's inhabitants being populated with pockets of heretical sects, but rather, its own, domestic, home-grown dangers that have long roamed the lands were the true "Devils" of the land before the denizens of darkness came to walk this earth.
To the Eastern glades of Ulster, a lone figure stood before the moonlight. Standing there as if it were the only thing left alive in this empty plains.
Its armor rusted and covered in ivy. Its helm antlered like the lost pagan god of nature. Its blade, dull and wrapped in thorns thick as arms.
To outsiders, they saw a pathetic wretch who would be destined for an ignominious death. To those who still remember, this thing, is a survivor.
"Survivor", means that it kills whoever disturbs it without discrimination. It's old mail creaks as it begins to trudge in a shambling limp.
But in its clumsy footsteps, wildflowers bloomed in both imprints and trails left behind.
Below the murky depths of the Southwest was a cesspool of waste and piss. Where rainwater and sewage alike are all collected from the world above.
Rats and vermin make this place their home. A single rodent scampers through the pitch in search of what little of food was found in the dumps.
As it runs through the tunnels blindly, a sweet scent was picked up. Its nose then drags the rat's feet ahead, not knowing what waits but food.
"Food", was the rat. A slithering tendril wraps around the vermin's body before snatching its claws off of the cold stones and into a different kind of darkness.
The only sounds remained, were bones being crunched between teeth, slobbering and hissing, all the while.
Northwest laid the Valley of White Death. Home to lost souls to both of this world and outside alike, all who are found here never deviate.
Dragurs, forever loyal to their new and forever king.
"King", a ruler without compromise. Without compromise, only one decree was established.
Stood tall, the apex undead. The Lich King, felling humans and Demons alike with its control over its domain of the end of the world.
His subjects, forever and fruitlessly attacking the bastions walls that dare remain standing before its wake.
"Our... land... grows..!" spoke the Lich King as its horde of Dragurs clawed at Avalon's walls before them, "humanity's... end... approaches..!" his booming voice pierced through the howling snowstorm of his own making, "our... wrongs... will... be... AVENGED..!"
To Be Continued...
Author's Notes: And that's a wrap for the re-introductions.
I have a lot that I want to get out for Book 2, and this arc is a way to organize my thoughts. I want them out but I also want to keep it consist within the chronological sphere of things. So with that in mind, here are ideas of potential arcs that I have in mind (in the order of introduction):
1) Yuno's training with Saiga along with other unresolved matters, like Gordon's family, Grey's own insecurities and Rill realizing that he can't afford to indulge in his own hobbies as much as he wants to.
2) The Spade Kingdom matters, comprised of three separate mini-arcs that will all come together:
- Ulster cultural exchange with the Clover Kingdom, Jericho and Corrin (the mini-Zogratis siblings are gonna be audience surrogate to Ulster's more... bizarre spectacles).
- Loki on the run, Kreiger alluding everyone around him, Makarov and his goons' stakeout, and Heracles and Bizon being cellmates at the Chateau Detainment Center.
- Archangel Mikhael's search for his chosen child at the Spade Kingdom.
- Fana's peaceful new life being about to turn upside down (again; for both Fanas) from the collision of the three prior mini-arcs.
3) Astaroth and Tiamat's fight against the Lich King with the help of the Freischütz.
4) Battle of attrition between the Clover-Heart Kingdom alliance against the Thanatophages until the completion of [Alf Layla wa-Layla] for the former.
5) Cleopatra's search for Goliath to overthrow Yama while he's busy regaining his knowledge that his [Death Magic] is reliant upon.
- Yama's own mini-arc in-between to help him collect knowledge faster (been on my mind for a while; never had a chance to execute until now-ish).
6) Project A.L.E.P.H.
- Mainyu decides to hatch his own plans against Mammon to acquire his "new sin".
- Angra tries to reach out to the other members for help.
7) Clover Kingdom's united home front.
- Characters from the Seabed Temple Arc will show up, interact with other characters.
- The Witch Queen begins talking with Julius more proactively regarding his status as "#6".
- Will happen during or before Project A.L.E.P.H. arc.
8) The Blackbird, collecting souls in Hell for its own, unknown purposes.
So, onto the general thoughts for this Saga:
Regarding the Illuminati, I inadvertently made them to the level of "goldfish poop gang"-level of threat, so I decided to give them a long-term endgame plot to make them enough of a threat to not be considered the "big bad", but more akin to "big bad wannabe". Morris' little Project A.L.E.P.H.? Yeah, that is begging to be backfired onto his face for how many moving parts it has and how much resources it needs to make it even feasibly work. Effectively in hindsight, Illuminati are on a verge of an enemy civil war, of who becomes the helmsman to steer which direction the remnant faction takes. As for Project A.L.E.P.H. itself, that's my way of bringing back the whole "time is broken" after the clusterfuck between Julius and Aleister (called Crowley in his debut before changing his name to the aforementioned), and Lucifer's inconsistent exposition of the past between fic-original and manga-canon? All of that is going to be explored when Morris decides to tamper with the temporal realm of the world's inner workings, with all the possible time-traveling tropes possible, from Back to the Future to The Langoliers, what is about to happen next, absolutely no one will see it coming. Who knows? Maybe this can be Julius' own take on Yuno's dream world exploration to find himself, in more ways than one.
As for the Clover Kingdom united front, it's my way of revisiting the canon material I've ignored in the previous Book 1. The Seabed Temple was only mentioned like, what? Once? In passing at best? And I'm pretty sure I never even mentioned the Witch's Forest in name at all. Well, now it's my way of welcoming them into chaos, and good news, one of the leaders happens to be familiar with Julius's legacy and Agartha itself! Maybe there might be a connection? Perhaps Helena knew too much? So many opportunities to tackle, I can't wait. Who knows? Maybe even the Seabed Temple residents might have a thing or two to hide.
Speaking to of the Witch Queen, yes, she's #3, with Julius himself as #6, Morris' parents as #4 and #7, and Morris implies that the False Diamond Kingdom's King and his [Chaos Magic] might be one of the numbers (#1, #2, #5, #6, #8, #9, #10, #11 and #12) that Yama inadvertently wasted.
As for the scene in Hell... well, that's gonna be a massive slow-burn overarching arc.
And finally, regarding the trio involving the Lich King. Yeah, just the Lich King alone is making things too easy. Let's add one for each region in the Spade Kingdom just to make their journeys a bit more miserable and actually dangerous. More on them individually in later Sagas.
References:
- Nikolas' behavior while he's adjusting to Luck's mana-saturated corpse is a reference to a Regular Show Season 1 Episode 11, "Rigby's Body". Only time will tell if ol' Nik pushes the underdeveloped body too far...
- Morris' little time machine project, Project A.L.E.P.H. (Alternative Linear Event Phenomenon Happenstance) is named after the Hebrew name that means "chief" or "number one", also "Aleph" itself being the first letter of the Hebrew Alphabet. The two proposed artificial Demons for said project, Maxwell (Chaos) and Laplace (Order) are based off the thought experiments Maxwell's Demon (hypothetical intelligent being or a functionally equivalent device capable of detecting and reacting to the motions of individual molecules. It was imagined by James Clerk Maxwell in 1871, to illustrate the possibility of violating the second law of thermodynamics; ergo, Chaos) and Laplace's Demon (Laplace's demon was a notable published articulation of causal determinism on a scientific basis by Pierre-Simon Laplace in 1814; hence, Order). Simply put, Morris is planning to rape the laws of physics simply to make himself a god.
- Saiga's dual Relics, [Huginn and Muninn] are named after the twin ravens sitting next to Odin, and the moniker [The Great Communicator] is derived from King Harald "Bluetooth" Gormsson I's title after uniting Denmark and Norway in 958 AC.
- Rill's portrait of Yuno and Saiga's sparring is a tribute to Dragon Quest The Adventure of Dai, with Yuno as Dai and Saiga being Vearn the Dark King.
- The Witch Queen (Agatha) receiving her precognition while in her bath is a reference to Rose's arcade ending in Street Fighter V.
- "Wingthing's" speech pattern is based off of Fecto Forgo's from Kirby and the Forgotten Land. Also the nickname from Lucifuge is named after an obscure mini-con from Transformers G1.
- Second-to-last scene of the rat being devoured is a tribute to Resident Evil 2 Remake's announcement trailer, right down said rat being used as the doomed POV.
And as usual, please leave a comment or a review, for I'd love to know what my readers think!