On the outskirts of Kuoh, Japan
2330H, Sol 101, Y-1453 (Interstellar Standard Calendar) – 11:30 p.m., April 11th, 2011 A.D. (Gregorian)
Arving Jiodo
"Fresh… meat?"
Pulling himself to his feet from the grasp of lingering fatigue, he turned to see who had spoken.
"Meeeeat…"
What in the blasted void was this thing!?
"Meat… Hungry… So hungry…"
"Can I… Help you?" Arving addressed the… He didn't know what it was.
It straightened, rising from the ground on ten insectoid legs. The creature's face vaguely resembled that of a devil's, though only vaguely, as its nose was flat against its face, and it's jaw split apart into five parts across two mouth, each moving independently in their shivering bruxism.
"Succulent blood. Let me fuck your ear, Shirley Temple…" It whined, almost moaning in pleasure. It continued in a disturbing, incoherent stream of obscenities, "Stick your eyeballs into my pussy…"
"Pardon?" Arving, despite inheriting the universal tongue from his devil and angel ancestors, had no idea what this thing was going on about. If it was going on about anything at all, that is…
The creature's legs tapped against the mud as it grew more agitated, spouting gibberish, "Sephiroth Graal! Fuck the Antichrist! Cum in my ass, Mitt Romney! Death to all CIA spooks! Azazel is Obama! Bush 2012!"
Suddenly, it froze eerily still for half a second, like a demented statue, before launching itself at Arving, jaws wide open.
Arving's instincts kicked in. He stepped back, raised his hand, and let the mana flow into his blood. The sheer amount from all around almost overwhelmed him, but he regained enough control to cast a simple spell.
"[Monopole]" He whispered.
Pop! Boom!
An instant passed. The top half of the creature vanished with a large bang as air rushed in to fill the sudden void. The bottom half collapsed into a pile of rotting organs and chitin.
It was a simple spell. A magnetic monopole was formed and used to induce a topological defect in spacetime, forcing the matter into the Dimensional Gap as it repaired itself. It was among the first spells taught in the Redoubt Militia, perfect for self-defense.
"Void-damned crazies…" Arving sighed.
"[Monopole] [Monopole] [Monopole]" He cast in succession.
Pop! Boom! Pop! Boom! Pop! Boom!
Now, all that remained were three oddly circular craters, rapidly filling with water from the… pond? Was that the right word? The foreign memories bouncing around in his skull seemed to think so.
Ancient geology wasn't particularly useful in a universe where all the planets had either decayed to dust or been swallowed by black holes. And Arving had always been a below-average student when it came to history.
As he walked away from the scene, "Gah!" He recoiled and covered his eyes, having made the mistake of staring directly at a light. "Void's sake, turn down the damn brightness… you're wasting power…" he grumbled.
He kept his eyes squinted tight as he walked down the path.
A few blocks away from the Main Plaza, Kuoh, Japan
0145H, Sol 102, Y-1453 (Interstellar Standard Calendar) – 1:45 a.m. April 12th, 2011 A.D. (Gregorian)
Arving Jiodo
The sights might have been more impressive if he wasn't nearly blinded by the lights searing his eyes. He did manage, however, to find an instrument of relief during his travels among the primitive brick and concrete structures.
Hanging from a display at one of the markets were "sunglasses," meant to protect the eyes from excessive light. So, of course, considering he lacked this place's equivalent to Energy Credits, he… borrowed a pair for his own personal use, even enchanting them to filter out the glare more aggressively.
It was a little disorienting walking among these streets, especially when the horizon in the distance didn't wrap around. Up above, there was only the star-studded void, with a glaringly bright gray orb hanging there, stealing most of the attention; "the Moon" the foreign knowledge supplied.
Perhaps it was a good thing that there weren't many people around to see him gawking. Yet, strangely, despite the ever-present unholy aura soaking the area, the few people he encountered were purely human, almost impossibly so.
Vrrm…
Then… an itch tickled at his arm, right where the dormant sacred gear was supposed to be—he resisted the urge to let it out. It was telling him to move. Pulling him. Where? No idea, but he trusted his instincts.
The streets widened as he drew closer, the itch in his arm intensifying, demanding that he let the gauntlet out. Mana—this place was absolutely teeming with it, almost bursting at the seams. His body wasn't used to such plenty. His bones ached as he approached a barrier of some sort.
Without a second thought, he activated a basic anti-tracking spell and crossed it.
Hmm… An ignorance shield? Those hadn't been used since the masquerade broke a few millennia ago.
The reason for using such things became moot when the remaining population scattered across the stars, interbreeding without care for petty things like "pure bloodlines." This ensured a sufficient supernatural admixture among any given population that such a spell wouldn't work regardless. The folks of the Redoubt, for instance, had mostly a commoner Devil background, with some Fallen Angel, Youkai, and scraps of Human mixed in.
Turning a corner, he caught sight of a fresh corpse, wheezing its final breaths as blood pooled on the ground. Arving backed away, cautious, as he felt some holy energy in the area, giving him a bit of indigestion.
His first instinct was to call the janitors for biomass reclamation, as was routine when someone passed on the Redoubt, but then he remembered that he was on an actual planet with an ecosystem.
Also, whatever this was wasn't any of his damn business.
Fwoosh!
Then, a positively ancient-looking teleportation circle appeared midair, bathing the night in a crimson hue. His sensitive senses were assaulted by the shining aura of a pure-blooded devil—like, really pure-blooded, as in high-class noble and not the pseudo-commoner "pure-blooded" Commandant Bael claimed to be.
"So, you must be the one who summoned me, right?"
The pure-blooded devil girl gently floated down to the ground, her crimson hair waving gently in the breeze. Her expression was mostly neutral, but there was a bit of pity in her eyes for the dying boy.
Well, at least that solved the mystery of the unholy aura. The entire town reeked of her mana.
Now, Arving was far from a fashionista (having lived most of his life in jumpsuits and uniforms), but what she was wearing was certainly… flattering, almost to a tasteless degree. Was this girl a pervert, or was this some strange Old World custom he was unaware of?
"Since you are dying anyway…" In her hand, appeared a…
Holy shit, was that an Evil Piece!? He must have been back much farther than he'd thought – the ancient devils had done away with that barbaric practice millennia ago. Was she really going to take this soon-to-be corpse as a slave?
"...I hope you don't mind if I take you in."
The piece floated downward, splitting into eight pawns as it slowly approached the boy. Then, right before they touched, the pieces froze.
Huh?
"Huh?" The girl, confused too, tilted her head like a lost puppy.
She made a forceful downward motion with her hand. Four of the pieces were absorbed into the body, but the rest started shaking and twitching midair.
"Come on… this has never happened before…" the girl muttered in frustration. "Just get in–"
Fwip! Fwip! Fwip! Fwip!
Out of nowhere, the four remaining pieces shot out like bullets, straight toward Arving. He had barely half a microsecond to react before he was thrown back and knocked out cold.
?
?
Arving Jiodo
In an instant, he opened his eyes to…
"Must be dreaming… Must be dreaming…" An incessant whisper from his left. It was the boy.
He pulled himself up to stand upon the nothingness. The non-existence surrounding him wasn't the familiar pitch-black void he'd grown up with. It was more akin to what you see from the back of your head when you try to look. The (lack of) sight twisted the mind, which tried to fill it with something: darkness.
"Just wake up, Issei. Just wake up," The boy muttered to himself, pacing in a circle.
Was this all just some fucked up dream, as his mind grew closer to the inevitable singularity? Was the Beast playing a trick on him, tormenting him as its last victim in his final moments?
"What in the shit is this solar cycle…" Arving shook his head in disbelief.
The boy whipped his head over to Arving, "Who are you!? What is this place!?"
"Brother, do I look like I know?" Arving retorted, "Who are you?"
"Hyoudou Issei. You?"
All of a sudden…
Crackle!
The nothingness parted in a bright red light behind the boy. When it dimmed, a gargantuan, winged, scaled creature glowered down. Issei trembled before the creature's gaze, as the area took on a deep crimson tint.
[Who dares to interrupt my slumber!?]The creature's voice was a deep roar, its aftershocks trembling deep inside Arving's guts.[You are… Why are there two of you?]
"Fuck me, the questions just keep piling up," Arving groaned, starting to get a headache from all the light shows he's been involuntarily subjected to, "Hey, big guy! Any idea on what this place is?"
The creature fixed its gaze upon Arving, and a faint pressure squeezed his chest.
[You stand before a Great Dragon, weakling! Show me the respect that is due!] The creature chastised.
"Uh, dude, I don't think we should–"
"That is not an answer, 'Dragon'." If this was truly eternal torment, then the Beast must be planning to torture him though inconvenience and confusion, "Where are we?" Arving asked impatiently.
The creature studied him with a sharp gaze for a brief moment before whipping its head upwards and opening its maw.
[HAH! Hahahahahahaha–]
It let out a deep, rumbling laugh, almost shaking the void itself from the sheer power of its aura. The clamor went on for a long moment as they stared in confusion until the creature regained its composure.
[–Hahh… You've got balls, half-breed, speaking to the Welsh Dragon like that.] Was that supposed to mean anything to him? [I am Y Ddraig Goch, the Red Dragon Emperor. And this is my prison.]
"Uh… Mister Dragon, Sir? What do you mean 'prison'?" Issei finally summoned the courage to speak.
[Ddraig will suffice, human. It is a long story, but to make things short, the White One and I were having the usual brawl—which I won, by the way. The puny gods did not like that very much, so they sealed us into these weapons. This one, the Boosted Gear, resides in your left arm…] The creature explained with no shortage of humility – very unhelpful. [...Or, both of your left arms? I am still trying to understand how I am being wielded by two souls.]
"Well… uh, is there any way out of–" In an instant, the boy flickered out of existence.
"What the!?" Arving recoiled.
[Cease your panicking, half-breed. He just woke up.]
"Oh…"
[Wait…]Ddraig extended his neck, leaning in close, his massive snout inches away from Arving's arm. He could feel scalding hot air brushing over his skin from the nostrils. [This one is… Time travel? How? I thought the creators had made that impossible. Yet here you are, half-breed, your soul and the human's daisy-chained together. Who are you?]
From browbeaten instinct, "Lieutenant Arving Hemorig Jiodo of the Redoubt Militia, 2nd Infantry – citizen number 566762,"
[Interesting…]
"So what–" Arving started.
?
0704H, Sol 102, Y-1453 (Interstellar Standard Calendar) – 7:04 a.m. April 12th, 2011 A.D. (Gregorian)
Arving Jiodo
Before he knew it, he opened his eyes once more to a blinding light that nearly fried his sight. "Gah, fucking lights!" His hoarse throat itched.
"He's awake, Buchou" A little girl's monotone voice.
"I see…"
Through the cracks of fingers, while he covered his eyes, he saw a shoulder covered with red locks of hair.