Temperantia, the true embodiment of the Cardinal Virtue of Temperance, is often illustrated as an epic giant.
Its body rising like a castle, Temperantia possesses two tree-like arms; a composed figure said to illustrate the total reverence in which the Laguna are held by the faithful.
When the true power of the virtue of Temperance is laid upon our world, it is said to come as a tornado, capable of swallowing an entire country.
Humans are helpless to guess at the impetus behind Divine Will, whether it be anger or happiness, and are left only with prayers and promises of personal temperance if only the heavens should make the storm subside.
Excerpt from the Hierarchy of Laguna.
Temperantia is the big bruiser among the Hierarchy of Laguna, the idea behind Temperance is that while you are capable of doing great and terrible things you deliberately choose to hold yourself back for the sake of those around you, in battle this means instead of emptying your entire arsenal in the first volley you instead hold your fire, watch what happens, and then fire as you deem necessary.
When we fought for the first time this bit the poor bastard in the ass hard, I saw a giant weapons platform and together with my mother unloaded as much fire power as we had access to at the time to stunlock him and drop him as fast as possible.
By round 2 he learned his lesson.
The giant's opening move was to sweep up the entire airfield that I was in at the time into a huge tornado, taking entire chunks of the scenery with me that I ended up having to jump from and to in order to avoid Temperantia's attacks which included machine gun fire, laser beams, missiles and good old smashing with his giant body.
When dealing with someone as strong or stronger than you the concept of overkill goes straight out the window.
Cereza Blackmore on Temperantia
Olivia was sitting in the cockpit of a unfamiliar vehicle, looking outside there was sky as far as the eye can see, no matter if she looked up or down, however in addition to sky there was also countless other airborn vehicles and animals such as birds or bats. Many of them Olivia didn't recognise, however she did see countless airships and armours too, and there were hundreds of floating islands as well. However there was something that wasn't here. At once Olivia summoned Leon to fly alongside the aircraft that Olivia was inside of.
"Leon, this isn't a forest!"
"You and Angelica were the ones who assumed that you would be dealing with a forest or a wood type monster." Leon countered bluntly as he soon saw a disturbance in the various flying machines that had been flying in formation until now. "Get ready, he's coming." The various vehicles and animals soon made way for a new figure, a giant gold on white torso with giant thick arms almost as big as the main body that was floating in the air.
"Is it too late to switch with Deidre?" Olivia looked more than a little scared. If she knew that this was going to happen then she would've gone after the earth monster and let Deidre and her big bird fight against the giant in the sky.
"We can handle this guy." Leon countered bluntly, already cracking his knuckles as he got ready to fight.
"Okay!" Olivia looked less sure than Leon did but for now she just gave Leon her Tonfa.
At once the Giant Leon was transformed, like a person whose skin was removed his flesh had become red and shiny, like he was made out of red orbs, despite that the metal bones could still be made out underneath his crystal flesh. At once Leon locked onto the giant, and fired. The Red Orbs can be controlled remotely to attack, flying around to perform hit and run attacks, with the repulsive effects of Gilgamesh the orbs could be fired off with even greater force, and after being turned into metal themselves strike with greater force as well. The only issue here came down to range, which as Leon was now learning he was lacking in order to beat Temperantia, his attacks caught in the storm.
"I need to get closer." Leon stated as Olivia climbed out of the air plane she was in.
"I'll come too." She didn't know how to fly this thing, and even if she did it was flying just fine by itself, it was entirely possible that she couldn't turn it around if she tried.
"Can you even get around on your own?"
"I'll manage!" Olivia called over one of the giant birds with her magic, climbing on to the back of the animal in question and flying with Leon as more and more of the planes and other things were being pulled into Temperantia's tornado. "Got any good ideas?"
"Hit it until it stops moving. You?" Leon didn't sound like he had any good ideas.
"I've got a bad one." Olivia pulled some of the Material from Leon's demon body, a mixture of her own hair and demonic blood. She magically combined that material with the bird she had been riding and from there it grew in size and acquiring a mixture of gold, red and silver as a colour scheme as the bird in question became part Demon.
"Okay that'll work!" Leon bolted off through the air, propelled by the repulsive force of his body and zoomed towards Temperantia, the brute continuously firing on Leon as he gradually came closer and closer. Luckily the Gilgamesh was able to repel most of the attacks until Leon had gotten close enough to start firing off at near point blank range.
"If I adjust that, swap that around..." Olivia in the mean time was casting magic. Through Nyar's books and Rodin's statue Olivia had learned how to take her magic in a, to use her words, 'disturbing' direction. A mere 1% of DNA separates a human and a monkey, a mere 10% a human and a cat, a admittedly kind of dramatic 50% a human and a Banana. So the question then came down to what kind of damage can Olivia do having studied Nyar's books which shows where these differences are and what has to be changed? As Leon fought Temperentia the orbs that were flying around him striking him shook as they were transformed into insects and started flying around the Cardinal Virtue.
"What are these things you're flinging at me Warlock!?"
"I'm honestly not sure myself." Leon was more concerned about the fact that those were a part of him a few moments ago. With a mere thought the various insects were crushed under the might of intense air pressure.
"Then this is the work of your summoner not you?" Temperantia pointed a single finger directly at Olivia and fired, a mass of air had been forcibly compressed down into a chunk of dry ice and fired it directly in Olivia's direction. Leon immediately moved to block the shot with his body. A mistake.
"Oh damnit!" The Angel held out all eight of it's fingers now, firing off a machine gun barrage of dry ice chunks, hammering Leon who couldn't move out of the way with several going past him, guided by the air to be thrown at Olivia directly.
"Don't worry about me!" Olivia was also able to fly past the chunks of dry ice, however something unexpected occurred. The cross that Olivia had been keeping on her hip the whole time suddenly produced a chain which snapped through the air smashing the dry ice before it could strike Olivia, not only that but the Cross came off of Olivia's hip and glowed and grew.
"Temperantia, a word!"
Christ: A common Shoe Maker elevated to the realm of the gods.
Christ was the son of a god of Paradiso, though he lived his life humbly as a mere shoe maker he advocated for peace wherever he went.
Tragically, the officials of the city he lived and worked in did not take kindly to his efforts, as a result he was dragged through the streets towed by horses, stoned, nailed to a cross, set on fire and finally stabbed.
After his death Christ was worshipped for thousands of years, though it is often a rather sore point that his followers have immortalised his image of being nailed to the cross and then bled to death having resulted in him being stuck with that form, furthermore the people who claim to worship him rarely follow his teachings another sore spot.
Excerpt from the Hierarchy of Laguna
"The heck is going on?" Temperantia was bowing his head to the newcomer, if there was any ground here Leon would say that he was on his hands and knees. The figure resembled nothing so much as a massive bright glowing cross wrapped in layers of thorny ivy.
"Master Christ I can-"
"You and your fellow virtues attempted to summon my mother to the mortal world, place her under the control of the incarnation of malice itself, and remake the entire Trinity of Reality to fit your warped beliefs." By the sounds of things the Angel was not the cross's favourite individual right now. "You have two choices, you can go with these two off to meet your fate, or you can stay here to have a taste of my anger!"
"Master I can explain-"
"Taste of my Anger it is!" The length of vines that was wrapped around the cross unravelled, transformed into a mass of menacing spiked chain that was now swirling and flourishing around the area menacingly.
"No no! I'll go! I'll go!" Leon had a basic idea going on here. This grovelling Angel here together with the other three Cardinal Virtues hatched a scheme to try and bring forth the big boss of the Angels Jubileous, who by the sounds of things was this guy's mum. The four of them didn't exactly get away from the whole brawl unscathed but that was the plan from the beginning, hardly what you'd call a fitting punishment in Leon's opinion.
"Okay then." Leon opened a new portal leading into Castle Bernhard, before directing Temperantia into the portal in question, before he would've dumped them onto the heads of one of the enemy forces inside of the castle but that might cause a misunderstanding. "Go find an empty cage and stick yourself into it, your punishment can wait until after we've settled down the other three."
"At once!" And then the angel flew through the portal.
Aside from their collection of Kinships and Worships the Lumen also kept a supply of more normal ships as well, as they should, since one doesn't send a warship out to deliver and retrieve cargo. A well muscled girl was working on one of the ships, pausing as she felt several figures appear behind her.
"So you three felt it too?" Michel, Uriel, Raphael and now with the Mechanic Gabriela.
"If you understand then get a move on!" Michel snapped, the fighter was feeling rather impatient today.
"Father has forbidden us from stepping foot in Holfort." Gabriela stated as she finished replacing the part on the ship that she had been working on. "Most likely he's chosen diplomacy." Which is more than she can say for these three, all three of them already had their weapons at the ready after all.
"Come on!" Michel clearly had a look of complaint on her features.
"Then we post our inquiry to Alzer instead." Raphael pushed her glasses up on her face as she made her opinion on the situation known.
"Agreed." Gabriela picked up her own weapon as well as she entered her ship, the other three quickly following her.
The Four Cardinal Virtues had been shrunk down in order to fit inside of the cells that had been prepared for them, though three of them looked like they had been put through the wringer already. Of course if you think that then you should see the other three. Raisa had both of her wings and three of her legs ripped of, Nergal was reduced to inhabiting a wind up toy, Guido had been beaten so hard he was knocked out of his own corpse and then beaten back inside.
"Hey Warlock!" Sapientia called out to Leon as he read the contents of the report he had been given concerning the prisoners. "Do me a favour. Whatever you're going to do to us do it to them first!"
"Is this really the time to be thinking about that?" Nergal snapped a come back from his diminutive form.
"When we get out of here we're going to make you our little pet!" Raisa sure talked big for an amputated torso.
"Ah ha." Three out of Ten as far as threats go, it came from a half dead monster, lacked imagination, and she lacked time to make good on her threat. "Alright Temperantia you wanna tell the others about how this is gonna work?"
"Christ found us, we can accept our punishment or taste his anger." They immediately chose to accept their punishment, the worse that the demons can do is torture them for all eternity, in comparison to a actual literal reality warper's wrath it was a vacation paradise.
"I'm so glad you guys agree." Leon's voice was full of sarcasm. "Fortitudo, you're up first." Suddenly a vine reached down from the ceiling, broke through the rainbow coloured cage, and dragged the angel dragon up to its doom.
"A Qlippoth!?" Guido and the other two Acolytes sounded a lot less confident now.
"It's inconvenient that you guys are so knowledgeable." Leon simply walked away as the three Acolytes struggled to break free. "Enjoy the rest of your lives."
As Leon was walking away Gabriel came to pay him a visit.
"Most of your companions are okay, there is one who is problematic though." Gabriel explained as he Led Leon to the Traveler. "The fire user."
"Right... it's all a haze but I think I... plowed Angelica? That's not right." While Leon was trying to figure out what was going on Leon was led through the eldritch Horror' turned door.
Leon was greeted by the sight of a old large wine barrel, a hogshead assuming that his knowledge as the godson of a bar owner, that someone had turned into a hot tub, several vampires were shovelling snow into the barrel, as Leon was wondering why they were going through the effort to boil all this snow a familiar face made her presence known with a splash.
"Hello Leon." Angelica gave a seductive smile to Leon, even as she winced in obvious pain. Leon also noticed Olivia, Hertrude, and Deidre standing off to the side looking at the young duchess with obvious concern. "I would offer you to come in with me but there's a bit of a problem with the water."
"She's radioactive." Gabriel warned as he handed Leon the documents from his own experts. "She triggered a nuclear reaction with her mana, if she forcibly spat it out to nuke Sapientia then that would be the end of it, instead she swallowed the blast and gave herself the full brunt of her own attack."
"Is there anything that we can do for her?" Leon asked sounding rather concerned.
"If we had someone who could drain the mana from her we can stop any further damage." Gabriel explained as he took a step back.
"Oh I can do that." Saying that Leon climbed up the open ended barrel and held Angie's hand, her body briefly being wrapped in shadows as the offensive fire energy was drained away.
"I suggest that you task the other one to heal her, and while you're at it some shadows came by here earlier, apparently your parents are looking for you." For the time being Gabriel returned to managing his offensive on his enemies, without their leaders he soon wouldn't have any. "If I was you I'd have a bribe ready!"
A Worship was approaching the Fraser territory, carrying on it a certain VIP from Rochelle. Under normal circumstances the ship would just fly by unnoticed, but someone had noticed them. So here Charles Whitehill was.
"It's a pleasure to meet you Mr. Whitehill." Erica made a cramped smile as she poured Charles a glass of red wine inside of Luxion's meeting room. "Luxy has told me everything he knows about you." Which wasn't much if Erica was being honest, the only thing that Luxion had on him was his military power, which was terrifying. "Though he doesn't know why you're here exactly."
"A problem has arisen in Avalon Forest. The matter is mostly an internal one, but luckily that also means that we have no intention of harming your kingdom either." Erica breathed a sigh of relief at that, the last thing they needed was a fight between the two clans breaking out in the middle of the capital.
"Still we'll at least take you to them." Erica of course shamelessly made a move to ingratiate the Kingdom to the newly introduced clan. "I do appreciate that." Charles stated bluntly. "I am hoping to be able to avoid violence at the very least."
As it so happened Leon did in fact have a bribe ready, mind you he now had to make another cake for his parents anniversary. For now he simply gave his parents his explanation of what happened.
"So you thought that making something that most countries in the world would actually, literally, start a war to get their hands on, nabbing several of the strongest angels in Paradiso as sacrifices in the process, was a good idea?" Cereza asked fork in one hand and checker board cake on a plate in the other. "Why?"
"If it makes you feel better the angels are alright with it." As Leon explained that he turned to face Olivia and held his hands out to her to catch something.
"Here you go." Olivia tossed Leon Carmilla's Bane as she resumed her work on Angelica. The fact that Nick was sitting next to them muttering while he took notes was not making him feel better.
"Ow!" Leon's hands burned just holding the cross. Cereza picked up the cross between her finger and thumb as she communicated with the angelic being inside.
"Well I can sympathise with that." Cereza tossed the cross away as she got down to business. "Jeanne, I leave this to you." Cereza's role as clan leader was finished, which meant it was Jeanne's role as clan teacher now.
"What the four of you did was extremely reckless." Jeanne paused as she daintily snacked on her cake. "You not only put your lives in danger, but you also violated the fail-safes put in place to protect you. Because this is your first offence I'll even go easy on you and let you choose your punishment from one of three options." Jeanne snacked on more cake as the girls audibly gulped.
"Um first." Olivia awkwardly indicated Angelica who was still soaking in a tub of ice.
"Yes the most reckless one of all. I don't know if you simply didn't read the warnings in the book but your punishment is going to have to be the worst of all." Jeanne gave a predatory grin to the Duchess.
"She's serious about this. Stabilising your mana means that we're going to have to stabilise you with an artificial mana circuit to bypass the one that has been damaged as a consequence of your mana running wild." Nick informed as he showed the girls the diagram he had been working on. It was a outline of a woman's body, however Nick had drawn symbols on it resembling lizards, birds, triangles and the Umbran clan symbols, additionally there were additional markings in rather provocative places.
"Are the crotch and breast tattoos really necessary?" Angelica asked with a blush. "Yes, as are the piercings that I'm going to have to make using the shavings that we'll need to take from your catalyst crystals." And now Angie was really blushing from Nick's words. "Your body stores energy using fat, so I have to put the stabeliser engravings where your body fat is gathered, as I also have to put in a place for you to expel magical power, so unless you want to throw up every day..."
"The crotch tattoo is fine!" Angelica immediately cut off the dangerous chain of thought.
"Wouldn't a rear one work just as well?" Olivia of course raised one hand into the air, heedless of seeking death.
"Stabeliser." Nick replied as he went back to designing Angelica's new mana circuit, who now was curling up and trying to disappear.
"As I was saying." Jeanne coughed into her fist as she steered the topic back on track.
"For your First option, from now until the school festival is over, the four of you will be completely naked, including when you go out in public in your family's respective territories and when you're at the school, and don't think about trying to call in sick."
Spontaneous nudity was something that the Clan has to deal with on a regular basis. Every. Single. Time. Jeanne and Cereza went from their normal day to day lives back in the day to fighting off ambushes of angels whatever, exquisitely crafted, outfit they were wearing that day would be destroyed. Not only that but with their battle uniforms and summons both being made out of their own hair the last thing many a angel has seen before being mauled to death has been one or both of them performing a strip tease to summon some giant monster to eat them. The two of them have been accused of being exhibitionists, though never more than once, and never by someone whose bravery wouldn't match their foolishness. The two witches started a tradition of a month of nudity for their pupils so that they could get use to the exhibitionist lifestyle. The girls let out an audible gulp at that, three of them had their respective families reputations that they had to think about, and they would never recover if they became known as perverts who spent a entire month naked in the capital.
"Your second option is only for the school festival. Every day for the school festival you four will serve Nyotaimori to the people visiting the festival, with a fresh serving of milk directly from the source." The four girls just looked confused at that.
"Nyotaimori?" Deidre asked not familiar with the dish. She assumed it was some kind of food based on context clues but that was it.
"It's a seafood and alcohol dish, traditionally served directly from a naked woman's body." Leon stated as he let out a sigh, his four co-conspirators looking at him horrified in response. "As for the milk, I presume it is human milk."
"As in-" Olivia suddenly had the urge to cover up her breasts as Leon continued to explain.
"You read every book in the library on Biomancy you tell me." Leon of course confirmed Olivia's worst fears.
"For hygienic reasons there are usually leaves separating the body from the food, so you probably won't be completely naked." No their crotches will just be turned into dipping bowls and their nipples taps.
"Option Three." Jeanne of course had promised the girls that they would have three options to abate her anger, in her opinion she had saved the best for last. "For the third option, a Burlesque show, performed every day of the school festival."
"Leon." Angelica has never heard of a Burlesque show before in her life. "It's like a play, crossed with a strip tease. You won't be completely naked by the end of it, and you'll probably be wearing costumes the whole time. I can also probably get the shadows like Left and Right to provide you all with alibis provided that you take a bare minimal amount of effort to hide your identities."
"It sounds like you're trying to convince us to take this option." Angelica made her suspicions known.
"I am." Leon saw no point in denying the obvious. "While humiliating for you lot personally it's the option in which your families come out of it without being publicly embarrassed by clan traditions, which will allow you all to avoid getting into trouble with your families while getting out of trouble with mine." Leon then indicated his parents. "I'd just do what they say already. If they're doing the 'three options' at the point it means that they're pissed enough to whip out the torture machines." Truthfully though, the two of them prefer public humiliation as a punishment, call it their sadistic urges at work.
"May we have a moment to discuss our fates?" Deidre looked resigned, having bore witness to Leon's power she doubted they'd be able to fend off the two witches if they had to throw hands.
"You have until I finish my cake." Jeanne warned darkly as she resumed eating.
"Oi Leon." Rodin however sent Leon out on an errand.
"The Queen's here to talk with you." With Charles on his way it was best to stash away the main perpetrator.
"Yeah yeah." Leon of course went to the guest room while the fate of the girls was being decided. Leon entered the guest room where he was greeted by the sight of a familiar silver haired pest. "What do you want now?" Leon asked with a glare.
"To beg for the future of the Kingdom." Mylene stated as she made her plans known. "Luxion."
The drone projected a hologram, explaining Mylene's plan Leon in the form of pictures and an audible explanation.
"I don't know why I'm still surprised at this point." Leon's anger had flipped back around to calm. "I'm actually impressed by how shameless you are."
"I'm actually getting tired of listening to you bad mouthing how the country is run." Mylene stated making her frustration known. "Do you have any ideas how things should be done?"
"If you insist." Leon actually did have a few solutions to the issue of the distance between the various different islands, he didn't even bring up the juke box, instead suggesting short cutting through Inferno.
The paths were more dangerous, that actually holds appeal for the nation of adventurers, and instead of relying on the airships they could instead use land vehicles like trains or trucks for transport. He also proposed reduced taxes, instead the funds should be going to developing the territories especially the food producing islands which need regular soil maintenance and fresh water which with the ability to regularly send heavily armed troops to the various islands on a regular basis they don't have to worry about rebellions, or if they do they can reduce the worry for rebellions. In order of biggest to smallest priorities, food needed to be at the top of the list, followed by clothing and shelter, you can live without weapons but without the three key parts of life that being food, shelter and clothing you're dead by default. Weapons come after that, dungeon items were good but whether it was industry or defence Armours was a vital force multiplier. With more done for less they could start educating a larger portion of the populace has the time go get a proper education and increase the countries quality of life.
"You are missing my point Leon." Mylene stated as she let out a sigh. "Doing things like using another dimension for a short cut or employing demons is something only your family is capable of."
"Hence why you want to inflict the insult of claiming Roland as my biological father." Leon stated tapping his fingers on his arm. "Is that the only part of this you have annoyance with?" Mylene asked letting out a sigh. "If I'm being honest with you thanks to Julius and Roland there's so little good will with the royal family that they'd just throw you onto the throne regardless of bloodline."
"'They' sound like a pain to deal with." Leon stated brow twitching.
"What are you complaining about for something that you only have to deal with for a few decades Mr. 'close enough to immortality I might as well be immortal?'" That was truthfully the biggest problem here. Nobody is fond of the idea of being under an immortal ruler until the end of time, even if he was a highly competent warrior/general.
"What are you on about 'a few decades?'" Leon made his confusion known.
"Produce an heir, teach them how to run the kingdom, leave them here once they become an adult." Mylene sensed her opening and took it with ruthless enthusiasm. "Or just stay king forever if that's what you prefer and we finish the transition into a Demo-monarchy." That was actually the best possible scenario, they get to keep the insanely competent warlock warrior with the personal army of demons until the end of time, the flying factory full of highly advance old human technology stays happy, and they don't have to worry about the Redgraves launching a rebellion so that they aren't under a family of idiots.
"Hmm." Leon's instincts were honed by being under Rodin's thumb for over a decade and a half, so he was familiar with the feeling that he was getting scammed.
"I'll have to talk about it with Angie." Leon conceded the conversation. "For now Angie and the others should be finished getting chewed out by my parents for putting herself in danger." Leon explained as he let out a sigh.
"Waka." Left appeared in the room from one of the shadows. "The Alzeran compound has been invaded by Lumen."
Leon just let out a sigh.
"I have a real problem I have to deal with now, are you done yet?"
"Is it too much to ask that you people stop insulting us for five minutes?" Mylene asked as she made her exasperation known. "My opinion of you is so low that you'll have to go under the capital's continent just to find it." Leon stated as he got up and left with Left.
Review Section:
Ronald40196867: I don't quite think you appreciate my dislike for the christian church, I won't go into details here because I don't want to put my politics into my work, but why don't you look up 'Truth and Reconciliation Day' some time? Whitehill, and I thought it rolled off the tongue nicely.