When Promestein walks back into the next room over after a few hours of conducting data analysis and remembering that for humans food and drink is a need, not a choice, and that the post-anesthetics period where Noah would probably vomit all over himself should he have access to those things was over, she finds an... interesting sight.
Sitting on his lap, snuggling against his shoulder as she held his hands and stared at him like a gifted puppy, while the target of her affections held the expression of a deer cornered by a predator, was Hecatolomea. The pink-haired angel looked entirely unrepentant about her presence here.
...and while she could get protective of her sister sometimes, Promestein would acknowledge that this was most likely not a situation fabricated by the human-shaped headache. "Heca, get off the human. You don't know where he's been." Promestein commands drily.
That seemed to thankfully snap the both of them out of the moment, as the pinkette turned to her, and Noah seemed to make use of the distraction to stand up, putting distance between himself and the angelic seekers of truth.
No erection... good. It seemed that she wouldn't need to see if she could make a human man function without a penis.
"Pro! How long have you been here and didn't even tell me you had come home?" Heca pouted at her, and Promestein sighed. She'd put off interacting with Heca in favor of research, and knowing she was fine sitting in the forcefield... clearly, that failed to hold up with Noah in the vicinity. It seemed that a lot of things did.
"...what is going on, here?" Eventually, Noah asked, voice still rough and grating. Deep down, Promestein took a special kind of pleasure in the person who seemed to behave as though he knew everything finally looking surprised.
"I see you two are becoming accustomed to one another better than you were with Laplace, good. Would be a shame if you got hostile with every woman you met, Noah."
Evidently, this is the moment when his brain finally catches up to him. His expression rapidly flies through several colors of the human emotional spectrum before settling on a carefully blank facade. "You left me to die. In Gold Volcano."
Now that's just erroneous. "The chance you would die was fairly slim. More likely, you would've been kept as a semen slave to one of the many denizens of Gold, provided you didn't manage to seriously injure anyone. In fact, the chance I calculated of needing to fish you out of a lava girl's w-"
"What is your dysfunction, woman?" Noah hissed. "I get it, you don't like me, but barging into my business just to toy with me, then leave me stranded in a situation that you know to be unpleasant just for shits and giggles?"
"It was a-"
"Don't insult my intelligence with the "it was a test" bullshit. Tests are monitored. The moment things went wrong, in a test, you should've been there. Was it a test too when Tamamo-no-fucking-Mae's furry ass was all over me trying to dig for secrets? How about when her second in command blew my fucking leg off because she smelled your angelic power all over me?" The man seethed, and Promestein's eyebrows shot up in concern.
"Tamamo-no-mae is at large?"
"Is that-?!"
"Uhm..." Heca meekly raised her hand, and the both of them turned to her. "I think what the kitsune felt on you was... me." At the withering look Noah gave her, she cringed. "Not intentionally! But I'd been stuck for so long, the barrier around your soul was reforming, and since you were the first... anything, really, that I felt in thousands of years, I just kinda went for it? And by the time I realized, we were tethered. Not that I mind... you're really cool. Promestein doesn't say it because she's all tsun and stuff, but we both thought that beating that mermaid the way you did was pretty impressive." By the end of her impromptu speech, Heca was wholly blushing. At no point had Promestein made any comment on Noah's performance except deeming an adequate if clumsy showing.
"...thank you," Noah grunted, deflating as the self-righteousness blew out of his sails. "Wait, I've been tapping into your power? Wouldn't that cause my body to corrode?"
Promestein was frozen for a moment. Noah and Hecatolomea had made a bond... on the same level as a spirit. Besides the fact that, while she acknowledged that angels were a form of light elemental, there were no documented cases of this even being possible... the important part was that Noah's plan had just come to fruition, and Promestein had played right into it. One would almost mistake his stumbling around as done on accident, but for someone who had the information... this little human bastard had just made himself non-expendable.
She would admit, it was a well-executed plan. The only one who could pull the plug safely was Heca, and she was clearly smitten with the human.
"Pro?" Heca's poking of her cheek brought her back to awareness.
"You would sooner die of running out your natural human lifespan than of angelic toxicosis even if you constantly kept using her power." Promestein bit out with a scoff. "You'd need at least the power of a Dominion for it to affect you in any appreciable amount of time."
"...right." ignoring the worried look Heca was sending her, she turned to Noah, who had resumed speaking. "Anyways... do you need me for anything, here? Otherwise... well, first of all, I'd like to know where Lazarus is, and secondly, I should probably get going. If we're I think we are, it's going to be a journey and a half to San Ilia."
"No need." Promestein rolled her eyes. "I managed to work out what went wrong with attempting to teleport you last time. And yes, I'll be pleased for you and the other human to get out of my sight."
"Oh... can-"
"No. It's already bad enough that you bypassed the main forcefield. If we are lucky, this brief amount of time is not enough for the heavenly bimbo to have noticed you."
"Aww..." Heca huffed, before turning for a moment to Noah and giving him a quick hug. "Bye Noah! See you soon, and thanks again!"
Noah leveled her with a raised eyebrow as she began the teleportation while giving him a withering glare, leaving Heca to fall to the ground as her human support vanished.
"You're so mean... come on, Pro! It's a human, doing science, doing magic! Sure, there's a bunch more now, but he's doing it the way we always wanted! Isn't that exciting?"
"I am starting to reconsider my excitement."
A pillar of light shone on the altar of the San Ilia Castle. Typically, this is reserved for ceremonies with grand fanfare, where an apparition of Ilias or one of her angels would represent a merry occasion, or a dreadful punishment if any one particular sinner happened to anger Ilias enough.
But today, on a quiet Tuesday afternoon, the light from the windows hitting in just a way to partially obscure the man from sight as he adjusted his cap over his eyes, Noah Romero appeared, to the awe of the many who were there.
For a moment, Noah stood on the altar, uneasily looking around at the people who had gathered around him. For a moment, his eyes widened comically, wondering if he was going to get smited, but Ilias or whoever was her eyes seemed to understand that he hadn't exactly arrived here of his own volition. Still, he was not eager to push his luck, so he decided to be a good boy about it. His voice came out barely above a whisper.
"Please assist me off the altar. Ilias' grace be aplenty to shelter me back to safety, but I'm still wounded."
The two closest, a muscular woman and a handsome-looking boy seemed to hear him and nodded, as he began lowering himself off of the altar.
"Don't worry, kid, we've got you." The woman nodded at him, and with a grunt of exertion coming from him, they eased him off the altar, the movement making him grimace as the bandages on his body pulled.
He turned around, glancing at the prone form of Lazarus behind him. "Can anyone-" he coughed, though that cough turned into a growl as he felt a hand clamp down on his behind. "Escort me to king?"
His glare snapped to the offending girl, only to freeze. The girl was touching him almost hungrily, but as her touch wandered over his body, it was more out of reverence than lust; she was grabbing at his form, trying to grasp some ethereal quality only she could see. The nun, blonde and with blue eyes, was almost a lookalike of how Ilias was depicted in the statues, her appearance carefully constructed to be so. Her eyes were large, boring within him, following with an adoration that gave them a dreaming quality as if she wasn't quite seeing Noah, to the point of having pushed herself to his side, prompting the muscled woman to move away with a raised eyebrow.
He was seized with fear for a moment, as she looked up and met his gaze, and her gaze turned pleading as she realized that he'd realized. After a moment, he dipped his head as he let his gaze wander back to Lazarus' form, as he was being hauled by a pair of boys who looked too young to be wielding the swords that hung from their hips and grabbed him from the shoulders and the legs. Noah nodded in thanks, ignored all the murmurs, and quickly started making his way through the castle's chapel, heading towards the throne room with all the authority granted to him by the senile old man sitting on its throne.
...for some reason, he imagined that the first shapeshifting lamia who could fold him like a pretzel he'd meet would be Alice, not... her.
"Carry him as well, please." He breathed, and for a moment, he reveled in the irony as the Lamia Nun moved from his side with a nod, carrying Lazarus. With a wave, he dismissed the boy who'd been helping him stand. "Do not follow me. I have business with the king," he warned behind him.
As he dragged himself through the city and to the castle, murmurs followed him. "What's your name, sister?"
The blonde nun blinked at him, before offering a small smile. "Sofia, sir Romero." he let out a grunt of displeasure at her already knowing his name. "If I may ask…"
"You may not, in the middle of the streets," he grunted. He didn't exactly want anyone overhearing. "I know not what Ilias thinks of your ilk, but I can only assume that if you haven't been smited yet, you're doing a good enough job." Know not? Ilk? It was incredible how quick he was to slip back into a "proper" medieval persona when the other party didn't know him well enough.
"Ah…" Sofia blushed. "I… do get the occasional thunderbolt thrown at me for seemingly random occasions… I've started to develop a bit of a resistance to them."
At that, he couldn't help a chuff of laughter. That's what comes with sharing a race with the Monster Lord, he assumed, since Alice must've been pissing her off left and right.
Finally, they came to the castle gates proper. It was insane how much leeway he was being given, in his opinion, for a guy who'd made his public appearance… sometime around two months prior, and had just left for three-fourths of that time.
As he entered the castle, Noah froze. What... what was he doing?
Did he seriously think that he could go into the castle, and tell the king "Hello sir, please arrest this man"?! On what accounts? Killing monster children, an act that would probably see him receive a thumbs up from Ilias? For killing his fellow hero, where it was Lazarus' word against his, and for once, it wasn't Noah's who carried more weight?
Damn it. No matter how he looked at it, Noah had no way to get this man to justice.
...not that he's sure what he himself did can be considered such. When he thought back on how much vehemence Salamander showed when she wanted him to get out of dodge, strictly speaking, the mermaid was in her full right to arrest Lazarus. Of course, there wasn't exactly any place in the world she could consign him to that could enforce his punishment properly, without rape and death...
There wasn't exactly a court to hand him to. And it wasn't like he hadn't committed enough crimes to justify being court-martialed, as the humans and monsters were, strictly speaking, still at war, it's just that... well, it was death or defilement. Possibly both at the same time. Slavery, if they were feeling merciful.
Where could he consign him to that would alleviate his conscience?
"U-um, Dark Avenger?" Sofia muttered, startling him. "Why did we stop? The guard is looking at us weird..."
Ah. Maybe... maybe, that would do. Either way, Noah would have his suspicions confirmed. "Apologies, sister Sofia. Just... how do you feel about the Kreus?" 'Please don't be a fangirl, please don't be a fangirl, please-'
"That is... a sensitive subject, sir. Why do you ask?" She replied softly but with a hint of steel in her tone.
"If I told you that the man you're holding is the head of the snake... sorry, that was insensitive," Noah replied, not at all sorry as he saw how she stiffened. He needed her to think of him as powerful, divine, capable of seeing through her guise. "If I told you that he's the leader of Ilias Kreus, what would you do?"
Her grip on Lazarus tightened- around his neck, particularly.
"The King won't want to put him on trial, I assure you. Not even if yesterday he bombed a school in Natalia. Not even if this is only the last of his no less heinous crimes in the past twenty years."
Sofia was now shaking... and Lazarus had turned a little purple.
"...and what would you suggest this lamb do instead, sir?" She asked, trembling.
"Take him to the Heroic Lodge. We'll handle things later, I must see the king now." He palmed her the key.
She was still trembling, but she nodded resolutely. A moment later, they parted ways, and Noah made his way to the throne room.
As he walked through the hallway filled with statues, he was careful not to point his sword at the statues of Ilias, not so much for his own benefit like that of the no doubt many eyes watching him. At that moment, he gasped as he felt the cold in his chest reignite, pausing to cough as a sensation not unlike heartburn gripped him. That was the first he'd felt of Salamander ever since the fight. He'd assumed that in the lab, their connection had been severed by whatever scientific mumbo jumbo Promestein had pulled... or that perhaps, the fire spirit had withdrawn her support. But no. She was there.
Salamander yawned, appearing at the corner of his vision with a sputter of flame, rubbing her eyes. "I'm back. Apologies, I had to exert myself much more than usual... oh. What happened? You're no longer in that metal place with the angels."
So she had been there as well, just... not speaking. Deciding to keep the conversation on a more casual note, not wanting to address what had happened, Noah snorted. 'Long story short, I got sent back, we're home, and I'm picking up my new sword.'
She huffed, apparently deciding to play along. "Ah, yes, that mysterious "cool sword" that you went and made a whole detour of theft for. I'll judge whether it's worth the effort." After a moment, she narrowed her eyes at him. "And after that?"
'See if I can send the prick to jail, then going to bed forever.' he finished, and she hummed in dark satisfaction. She seemed... less bright than before, both physically and emotionally. But he had no time to ponder about that as he crossed from the hallway into the throne room, shuddering as he passed next to the library.
Time to put on his brown nose for the king.
Shame that Noah is too prude to inquire for Hecatolomea's deep, important backstory.
Usually murdering someone comes with consequences different than an angel fangirling about you. I'm sure this isn't going to set a bad example, going forward.
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