Angelica Rapha Redgrave: So how do you plan to do this?
Leon Rapha Blackmore: You and Livia have already made a contract to summon me, I'll make one with these two as well.
Diedre Fia Roseblade: Oh does this mean that we'll be joining your little Harem as well?
Leon: Yours will be temporary contracts using the Cards. For one thing we don't even have suitable weapons to use as conduits between you two and me available. It also means that I'll be able to transport the bastards into Bernhard's storage room when we're done with them.
Diedre: Acceptable.
Hertrude Rapha Fanoss: Won't splitting yourself four ways weaken you considerably?
Leon: Yes. Which is why we need to supplement the gaps. Considerably.
An Excerpt from the Meeting for Operation 'Angel Fall'
A familiar group of individuals stormed through Rodin's bar from the Juke Box.
"Everyone is good with their weapons?" Angelica asked as she turned to face the group.
Angie had her flute, Louise Let Diedre borrowed her hat and wand, Hertrude had her guitar, the only one that had an inadequate weapon was...
"Give me a minute." Olivia looked at two familiar weapons, Dr. Faust and Gilgamesh. "Do you two think you can lend my friend here some power? I promise I'll pay you back." The two weapons appeared to think it over for a moment, then they both glowed and sent power into Olivia's bone Tonfa's, one red and one silver. The Bone turned into Gilgamesh metal, and the hollow part inside was filled in with Dr. Faust's blood crystals.
"That should do it!" Rodin lowered his glasses as he looked at the girls suspiciously.
"We're in a hurry. How much of your buffing candy can one of us buy?" Angelica asked looking at Rodin somewhat desperate looking.
"One large of each, or three smalls." Enhanced damage, invulnerability, healing and mana restoration. "What are you four up to?"
"We made a bet." Angelica admitted with reluctance.
Leon: Get me Devil Arms, something that I can trigger with for a power boost, and help you to control my body while you're focusing on keeping us alive. Get the ships to drop you on top of the gateways to Paradiso. I assume you got your subordinates to map out the Forest?
Angelica: Yes.
Diedre: And when we're inside?
Leon: Buff as hard as Rodin will let you. You won't have Livia there with you, grab healing pops too.
Olivia: Any advice that you can give on how to beat them?
Leon: No I can't. But I do know their strengths, their tactics and how to beat them. If you have to, let me take control.
Hertrude: Dividing your consciousness between four separate fights all at the same time?
Olivia: You struggled so much when it was just me and Angie though!
Leon: I repeat 'if you have to.'
An Excerpt of Operation 'Angel Fall'
Angelica was the first one to be dropped into the forest, not too far away from the lake where she fought Baal. She looked down at the Spear flute combination.
"Hopefully this will be enough." And Angelica entered the slab of stone that acted as the gateway to Paradiso.
To Angelica's surprise, she was standing on a board, the gate was no where in sight. The Board didn't appear to be drift wood, it was too well made and too smooth, it was even decorated with blue swirls.
"This is supposed to be positive memories of the water right?" Angelica looked on at the distance, there were islands sticking out of the water, numerous buildings were visible as well as white sandy beaches. "I suppose this is a point in favour of the Islands use to be on the ground argument." A massive shadow appeared over Angelica's head from behind, she barely had enough time to use a flare spell to push herself out of the way before the arm of a massive monster slammed down on where she used to be. "Fenix, can you tell me what it's saying?" The creature resembled nothing so much as one huge mechanised Gecko, it's various parts of it's body strapped with anti-air weapons like cannons and missiles with white marble and golden metal decorating it.
"It's Sapientia, like you thought. 'A witch as weak as you are either very stupid or very brave to face me in my own domain girl.'" A snort of derision. "'My bet is the first.'"
Sapientia means Wisdom, he's supposed to be the smartest of the Cardinal Virtues so being sneaky with him isn't going to work. A straight up fight is probably out of the question too.
Sapientia's 'Wisdom' apparently translates to Old Human weapons.
That guy has the strongest weapons mankind has ever built strapped all over his body and he's more than willing to use them with Reckless abandon, combine that with his innate hydro-kinesis and he's a nasty piece of work, especially in his own environment.
I won the first time we fought, I wouldn't be here if I didn't, little did I realise that he was training me, goading me with trash talk and pushing me as hard as possible to promote my growth.
For all of their power the Cardinal Virtues are ultimately Paradiso's strongest disposable pawns, and they know it, at the time my 'father' Balder had convinced them that they were going to get the Left Eye of Darkness out of the scheme so to them any sacrifice would be worth it.
Next time we have to fight him he won't be holding back, worse yet he'll be a lot stronger too with lots and lots of new weapons that mankind has developed added to his ever growing arsenal.
Even I'm not sure I could take a nuke to the face.
An Interview with Cereza Blackmore on her first fight with Sapientia
The various guns mounted on top of the mecha gecko took aim at Angelica. However another ominous shadow appeared behind Angelica.
"There's two of them?" Angelica spun around and was horrified by what she saw, a massive tidal wave spanning the entire horizon. "This is a good memory!?" The angel had no interest or concern in Angelica's shock, instead he fired a missile into the sky, which soon began falling towards her. "I don't even have time to summon Leon!" Angie put the pedal to the metal, or rather the fire to the flute. Focusing her flame into the flute Angelica created a makeshift rocket thruster shooting herself forward towards the Tidal Wave. Angelica didn't know much about this situation, however she was certain of one thing. If the Tidal Wave was a good memory, that meant it was survivable, unlike taking a missile to the face. Praying on the infallibility of her logic Angelica charged at full possible speed, with the missiles chasing after her.
"Those bombs are locked onto us!" Fenix warned.
"How?"
"They're called 'Heat Seekers!'"
Hearing those words Angie had an idea of what to do, the simplest solution was a good old fashion fire ball, so Angie shot one off to the side that the missiles happily chased after.
"He isn't done yet!" Angie looked back at Sapientia, the giant Lizard had opened up his big mouth and was gathering the power for an energy beam in his maw.
"Luxion's Energy Cannon!?"
At once Angelica stopped shooting forward, instead turning the business end of the flute up and fired it, sending her straight down into the water at a massive rate. The energy cannon fired, annihilating a lake's worth of water in the process. The Giant metal gecko tapped his finger impatiently as nothing happened. In the mean time a figure with a yellow barrier protecting her body crawled onto the beach, unfortunately she had to ditch her clothing in the water. The fabric was soaked through and weighed her down too much, on top of being heavy clothing to begin with. Of course Angie had magic to shoot her through the water too, but as heavy as she was it was more energy efficient to ditch the armour. Besides she knew how to get more.
"I'd rather save the majority of my hair for Leon's summon." Angie pulled herself to her feet.
"How about that?" Fenix drew Angelica's attention to a piece of artwork.
It was a female figure, hunched over, arms and legs spread over one of the boards like what Angelica arrived on, likely trying to maintain her balance. As for what Fenix was talking about, the woman was dressed rather skimpily, Angelica would be more inclined to call it underwear rather than proper clothing, only covering the woman's pelvis and, smaller than Angelica's, breasts. However she took the matter into consideration, if the people of the old era ran into the same problem that she had then as little clothing as possible for fighting in the water was the wisest move. There was enough material to cover a few vital, and private, areas and depending on the material or the magic imbued into it might even do her entire body. There were no weapons but if these people were mages they wouldn't necessarily need them either. While Angelica was imagining an entire tribe of wave riding old human warrior mages Sapientia started talking again.
"'Coward! I know you yet live! Stop hiding and face me at once!'" Presumably something he figured out when the Fae didn't come for her corpse.
"And yet I have so little to hide."
Having decided on her wardrobe, Angelica's hair wrapped and wove itself around her breasts and pelvic area. Golden hair formed the majority of the two piece Bikini, with red forming magic runes cupping Angelica's breasts and buttocks. Angie didn't have the knowledge to recreate the full body protection of the Old Human Water Warriors, instead she chose magic that would help to keep her warm in the dark depths of the water, figuring that she couldn't create a barrier that could block Sapientia's attacks. Besides she needed the majority of her hair for the next stage of the plan. A magic circle took up the majority of the beach, summoning a giant 16 foot tall figure in the form of Leon's demon form as it locked eyes with the angel in the water.
"Took you long enough."
"Please excuse my tardiness." Angelica threw Leon her flute/spear and the summoned demon grabbed it. The demon transformed, an entire body that looked like it was composed of fresh charcoal including the wings and the one eyed head with the mouth that opened too wide and large sharkish teeth.
"Which one of you are in control?"
""Both. Neither. Support us!"" Angelica nodded her head, stepping onto Leon's palm and bringing her to his shoulder. Sapientia was talking shit again but he wasn't wasting any time either. ""Yeah yeah I know I disgust myself."" The Leon/Fenix combination threw a punch, multiple crimson fire balls flew from their knuckles and slammed into the explosives detonating them in the process.
"You understand what he's saying?" Angelica asked cocking a brow.
""Nothing worth mentioning.""
'Your presence here is a clear violation of the pact Warlock!' In fact Sapientia was talking about something extremely important. 'The Clans will be hearing about this!' Those implications in mind Leon/Fenix charged through the water and locked claws with Sapientia.
"I'll create some more fuel for the fire!" Angie threw lightning into the water, flammable gasses steaming off of the water and rising into the air. Sapientia started charging another energy blast to fire point blank into Leon/Fenix's face, at which point in time the left wing on the pair's back turned into a, proportionately, giant flaming arm that slammed down into Sapientia's head into the water. Said arm was then hit with an array of missiles launched from Sapientia's back and slammed into Leon/Fenix's body.
"Leon!"
""We're okay!"" Leon dodged out of the way on one foot, narrowly avoiding the energy blast from Sapientia that would've blown off his foot and spinning around into a round house kick.
"Get me onto its back!" That's where the missiles kept coming from, so Angie figured she could do some damage from there.
""That's not a good idea!"" Leon/Fenix was keeping to close quarters as they ran around Sapientia's sides.
"TRUST ME!"
Leon/Fenix shoulder charged Sapientia, slamming into its body Hard enough for Angelica to jump off. All the missile racks on Sapientia's back fired off at once, Angelica didn't miss how the missiles were powered and pushed forward by fire, so she split that, taking the protons and holding on to them as the missiles crashed into Sapientia's back and exploded, then Angelica followed up by releasing the protons she was holding onto and shooting lightning into Sapientia's back. Feeling no particular need to translate what insult the angel just threw at Angie Leon/Fenix instead separated from the Angel, with Angie still riding on the creature's back.
'What's the most dangerous place that we can put it?' And the reply that came mostly from Leon's side of their shared consciousness.
'I have a place in mind.' With Leon's instructions the giant Demon let out a tune, a whistle like he was playing a flute. Heat in the surrounding area was being sucked away, water turned into ice, demonic energy filled the air and mixed with the angelic atmosphere of Paradiso turning into mana, notes of a tune turned into a spell as a massive whirlpool appeared in the middle of the lake. Angelica could tell from the creature's tone that it was cursing at Leon, but it was also afraid.
"An obvious target?" Angie smiled as her Bikini came undone. "That's All I need to know." Angelica's hair wrapped around the limbs and neck of Sapientia and with that Angie started to steer and push the giant mecha gecko into its watery grave. Screaming one last curse the creature threw off its restraints and the one restraining him as he fell into the hole.
""We Got you!"" The Demon grabbed Angelica with both hands.
"Did we get him?" A singularly massive missile was fired into the air above the whirlpool. "One Missile?" Angie was more alarmed than amused at the possibilities that such a thing represents.
""It's a nuke!"" Angelica read about that in on of the books that Nyar gave her.
"I see!" With that Angelica Dismissed Leon's summon as she used another flare to redirect herself to the shore and land on the beach.
"What are you doing!?" Fenix demanded as Angie stripped out of her hair clothes.
"If nothing else. I can think of worse ways to die." A portal leading into Bernhard's castle had been opened in the water, the demonic power mixing together with Angelic energy, a massive quantity of magical energy was released into the air. So naturally Angelica went somewhere relatively private, behind the old human artwork that Angelica admired so much, where she summoned a very specific part of Leon. Angelica's moans echoed from the surf shack, and not for a bad reason.
Nuclear Technique is a term used to refer to one of the most destructive techniques of magic casting.
Mana matter is the term used to refer to magic that creates physical matter, like Earth magic creating a stone to throw, usually it disperses when no will is left in the spell to control it. But if you continue to compress mana down more and more something else might form.
The heavy metals, the so called nuclear material are among the densest material on the periodic table, when mana is compressed to the point that something similar to this is formed the end result is a process similar to a process known as Nuclear Fission.
The end result violates the standard laws of physics, the known laws of mana, and generates a burst of magical energy so large, so massive, that it actually exceeds the mana that was put into it.
If the mana was imbued with an element the burst will also adopt the same elemental properties.
A water mage would create a lake, a fire mage a massive ball of fire, an Earth mage a mountain, the list goes on and on. As a by product the explosion leaves behind a type of energy, a radiation imbued with the element of the explosion that affects everything in the area, and that includes those who cast the magic to begin with, if they survive the process.
Frankly speaking, considering the huge mana requirements, the ensuing explosion, and the radiation that comes after this is a forbidden magic that would only be used by those who have the resolve to destroy the enemy alongside themselves.
Excerpt on 'Magics of the Old Era' by Nyarlanthotep
Angie already had an accessory for compressing down magic, though the requirements were rather... unique. She took advantage of that, compressed the energy down even further using the techniques explained in Nyar's book, took advantage of Leon's affinity for Shadow magic to eat up the huge amounts of mana left in the air to pump and compress the mana even further. However while the Fission reaction was what she was aiming for Angelica had no intentions of dying to the explosion that would follow.
Pride as a Noblewoman, Wrath against Julius, Envy of Noelle, Humility of a Leader, Indomitable Fortitude, Joy of being together with Leon and Livia. These were the emotions that existed inside of Angelica's soul, the very core of her being, and the seed that would one day grow into a great power as shown to her by the statue. That power was still a long way away, for one thing Angelica hadn't grasped the use of shape shifting magic as of yet, nor how to use her hair to make up for her lack of mass. But it'll do for now.
"RRRAAAWWWRRR!" A giant mass of gold and red tore its way out of the beach, its features hazy and lacking in definition but it was obviously a being of unimaginable power. With a jump the creature flew into the air and intercepted the bomb in her teeth. As the monster was wondering where to put the bomb she saw something familiar, and annoying. "DIE ALREADY YOU STUPID GECKO!" The Monster dive bombed the hole that was punctured into Inferno, where Sapientia was still clinging on to his domain! Throwing the Angel's own bomb back at him before tackling him with full power pushing him into the hole with a massive geyser of water. Sapientia crashed down into a massive clock tower surrounded by a sprawling castle, factories and various skyscrapers.
In the mean time Angelica fell out of the sky having reached the limit of her transformation, she was intercepted by a pair of Gargoyles who flew up and caught her before bringing her to safety.
"This is quite a power move by the Young Master." Bernhard's puppet body and Gabriel were watching Sapientia as he righted himself in Nergal's territory. "I must admit I am impressed."
"That's Nergal's territory isn't it?" Gabriel asked looking at his enemy's base getting wrecked by the Cardinal Angel.
"Correct, I believe he was a weapons manufacturer correct?" Bernhard continued to laugh in amusement. "Considering how many tools of destruction Nergal has invented and manufactured I believe Sapientia should be quite familiar with him, and his actions."
"NNNEEERRRGGGAAALLL!" Sapientia screamed murderously at the realisation of where he was.
"I believe it is quite possible the Young Master has framed your rival for this attack on him."
"Tend to the girl." As Gabriel gave that command the half melted gargoyles landed on the castle wall, with Angelica screaming in pain as her body blistered and smoked from the intense heat she was being subjected to. "I'll go and rally our forces to invade Nergal's territory. If we're lucky we can take them both out." As Gabriel left Bernhard turned his attention to Angelica, whom simply opened another blood portal and spat her out into the snow banks of Wygol Village, along with vampires to start shovelling more snow onto her, the snow melting faster than they could pile it onto her.
The Modern Lumen Sages are similar but different to the Modern Umbran Witches.
The Sages operate out of a monastery island on the border of Rochelle and Repard, led by Cardinal Charles Whitehill. Many members of the Sages are immigrants from the Holy Kingdom of Rochelle, though they owe the country no particular loyalty their respective association with the holy besides they out point they are also not enemies either, Rochelle providing the Sages with food and other resources while the Sages keep their border free of monsters and other such nuisances.
The Lumen Sages Primary duty is to protect mankind from the threat of Demons utilising the power of Angels in much the same way that the Clan is responsible for defending man kind from the Threat of Angels using the power of demons.
The two groups are... cordial to one another, as they were in the past, even to the point of cooperating on matters of mutual interest but that's it.
We've put distance between us for a good reason, and it's best that it stays that way.
Cereza Blackmore on the Clan/Sage Relationship
South of Alzer, very south of Alzer, was a floating mountain with a monastery and town built into it.
It was modern town by all accounts, the roads were paved with clay bricks and smoothed over with Earth magic, the buildings had glass windows, even street lights had been installed using oil lanterns. It even had its own public library.
With a loud 'Thud' 'Thud' 'Thud' a young woman dropped several books that she had been carrying with her onto the floor. She was a mousy little thing, unimpressive in figure with blue hair, however her most notable trait was the pair of large round glasses that took up half of her face. She was dressed humbly, knee length plaid skirt, a white t-shirt and a black sweater vest with the sun and feather crest of the Lumen stiched into the area above her heart, and wearing a upside down cross around her neck. The commotion attracted the attention of the librarian who looked on concerned at the young girl in question.
"Sister Raphael? Is there a problem?"
"My apologies." Raphael bowed apologetically repeatedly to the Librarian. "Something urgent just came up, so I must ask you to clean this up for me." And then the girl ran off.
Golgoth: Twisted hybrids of Man, Machine and Monster.
The Golgoths are genetically altered human heads, laboratory grown and grafted to mechanical armours built using the finest in old human technology and made from metals of the abyss.
These Biomechanical soldiers act as guardians of the Army of Satan, positioned in narrowed hallways blocking the way with their bulk and totting heavy machine guns or rail guns.
Their exposed heads are a weak point, and their accelerated upbringing has left them with underdeveloped egos ill-suited to battle, in fact if not for their deeply ingrained mental conditioning their mentalities would be no different from children.
Excerpt on inhabitants of the Castle
Machine guns and Rail guns being wielded by eight foot tall cyborgs were continuously firing into Sapientia's body. Thanks to the brawl with Angelica his various back weapons had already been broken, and right now it was like he was walking on caltrops as the various Golgoths fired into his feet whenever he tried to walk anywhere. If Sapientia was anywhere else he would simply return to Paradiso, however this was the base of operations of the Wretched Nergal Meslamstea, the son of the traitor Satan, and the one chiefly responsible for the transformation of his body from a shining beacon of progress and civilisation into a giant pile of guns and explosives. For that Sapientia swore many hundreds of years ago that he would banish the Hellspawn to a den of nightmares the likes of which not even a being as wretched and twisted as he would enjoy. This was almost enough of a boon that he was willing to forgive the Demon Warlock and his Pet Witch for sending him here, almost.
"If it isn't my old playmate." A nearby statue came to life, one of a winged man holding a weapon that was equal parts chainsaw and axe.
"Nergal!" Sapientia snarled the name of his hated enemy.
"Growling like a common beast? My how the great wise one has fallen. So who killed you this time? What has it been eight hundred years since the last time you got sent down here?" In Lieu of an answer Sapientia started charging another energy beam from his mouth. "And once again you resort to violence when you are unable to make a valid comeback."
The demonic statue gestured to his forces and had the Golgoths open fire on the Cardinal Angel. Unfortunately for them Sapientia instead of blasting the statue instead fired his beam into the ground and shot himself into the air, flipped over, before landing on the factory and starting to tear it apart.
"What do you know, he really is a genius." Nergal turned to face the new force that appeared before his factory. "Instead of staying here to get caught in a pincer, he's off to destroy your spare bodies." Gabriel was marching forward, at his back was his combined forces of vampires, werewolves and demons. "Now then Nergal, I believe we have some catching up to do. Ah But we can't wait too long~!" Suddenly three more portals opened dropping three more giant angels into the bases around Nergal's. "I have a busy schedule after all."
Nergal Meslamstea: The Son of Satan and Demon Lord of Animation.
In life Nergal was the head of a massive weapons manufacturing company, at the time of it's fall it was the largest in the world, a position that Nergal achieved partly through the overwhelming power of his designs, but mostly through the use of assassination, bribery and blackmail to devour and absorb smaller companies into his own.
In truth, Nergal is a son of the Fallen Angel Satan, his company a mere front to arm the mortal army of his father and spread chaos and destruction throughout the world, he wields the power of lightning inherited from his father, as well as his own power of possession of inanimate objects thus his moniker.
After his death he lost his physical form, relying on his collection of war machines as spare bodies.
Excerpt on Inhabitants of Castle Bernhard
Rodin had called a meeting, Jeanne and Cereza entered the bar for said meeting and he greeted them with their favourite margaritas.
"Leon might've increased the number of partners he has, not sure. Two more girls walked through here with cards with his blood on them." Rodin was already working on the next round of drinks. "One other thing, the Redgrave girl said that they made a bet, then they paid for an express pass to each of the Angel Colossi."
"So they're off to hunt the bosses, over a bet?" Jeanne asked sounding rather suspicious as she downed her drink.
"One of them was the brat who came by here a while back with a bunch of islands for Leon, the other one was the duchess that almost got roped into turning into a demoness by her people." Rodin further explained as he supplied Jeanne with more alcohol.
"Oh? Sounds like date night is going to get interesting for Leon." Cereza sipped her drink as she watched her wife down her second glass. "If I know Umbra the bastard clock is probably jumping with joy at the idea of one of the boys knocking up enough people to restart the clan." Jeanne chuckled, downing her third margarita.
The three people paused. Even Rodin seemed so shocked that he dropped the drink he had been working on leading the fine glass to smash all over the floor behind his counter. All three of them felt a massive quantity of angelic energy vanish.
"Rodin by any chance, did you ask what the contents of the bet was?" Cereza even noticed that her wife who was happily getting wasted was suddenly very sober.
"No. I didn't." Rodin went down and cleaned up the mess that he made. Theoretically, per the terms of the deal made with the Cardinal Virtures, if one of them gets killed off their essence is to remain in their realms, where it will turn into an Seraphim arm and they can quickly recover to full power, if anyone catches their eye they can even offer to become their contracted summoned. Needless to say in this scenario four Cardinal Virtue sized chunks of angelic power should not simply vanish from the Paradiso side of Avalon Forest.
"Are those four in danger?" Jeanne's first instinct as teacher was the protection of her students.
"Yes." To Cereza there were two scenarios. "Whether 'Someone has struck to snatch up the four Cardinal Virtues' or 'The four of them have conspired to snatch up the four Cardinal Virtues for some purpose' the fact that they are in danger has been established."
"Whitehill should be on his way over to investigate the missing Virtues." Rodin gave the follow up. "He should be reasonable, his daughters... less so."
"Then we'll leave the neutral party, you to deal with them, I'll go and find out where those four went." Jeanne stated as she already got up to leave. "Then that leaves me to bring up the rear."
Review Section:
Mwkillkenny84: If you feel sorry for Lelia then you clearly haven't read the light novels.
RonaldM40196867: Of the ones I created or the ones from the games?
Dakota Bruder: I Believe so yes, though they are the minority.