Creation began on 08-08-19
Creation ended on 09-28-19
Neon Genesis Evangelion
Grimoire of Evangelion: Underwater Royale
Yami came to and found himself in a cave with Gifso…and Shinji and Guardian of the Void, who were present.
"What the Hell happened?" He asked them.
"The High Priest used a spell that was meant to split up the squad for his game," Shinji explained, "only part of it backfired. He was aiming to divide the squad members based on their level of magic, taking out those with the strongest degree from the weakest, except he ended up separating Guardian and I from the squad along with you."
"Which I find unusual," added Gifso; his original intent was to separate the captain of the Black Bulls from the lesser members, but he ended up bringing along a squad member whose magic was significantly high enough to enable him to slip through the cracks with a creature of magic. "What is this young man's rank in your squad? He insists that he's a First Class Junior, but there's no way he could be of such a ranking. He has to be of a higher ranking. What is it?"
"Newbie here speaks the truth," Yami answered him. "He's a First Class Junior Magic Knight. He received that rank due to defeating a former Magic Knight through a simple conversation."
"But…he's too powerful to be a Junior. In fact, many of the squad members aren't strong enough to be anything but Juniors."
"Yeah, that's because I've been helping them to get stronger so that they can raise their ranks in the future," Shinji explained the status of the Black Bulls. "I don't really expect any of them to reach the top ranks of Intermediate or Senior any time in the near future, but if they get stronger, if they can be better than they were before we were attacked by the Eye of the Midnight Sun, then perhaps the veteran members, those that have been in the squad longer than Suki and I have, can get to maybe Third Class Intermediate or Fifth Class Senior."
"The Eye of the Midnight Sun?"
"They're a group of rogue mages with a hatred against the Clover Kingdom. We don't know why, exactly, but they're not the merciful type; if you're affiliated in some way with the Clover Kingdom, whether or not you're a member of the Magic Knights or just a civilian, in their eyes, you're an enemy they must eliminate if they feel they must."
"That sounds a lot of the senseless feud with the Diamond Kingdom over our kingdom's resources because they squandered their own."
"That's terrible, sir."
"But as a Magic Knight, you, a member of the Black Bulls, are expected to face the enemy if they threaten the people of the Clover Kingdom. No war or battle is ever won through noncombatant means."
"Except for the battle between an examinee for the Magic Knight Entrance Exam and Rades Spirito, a member of the Midnight Sun," went Guardian.
"I don't think that counts, Guardian," Shinji told him.
"You fought him, spoke more to him than anyone else did that day, and defeated him with common sense and reasoning. If every conflict was won like that, there'd be very little reason for wars. If more people behaved like you did with Rades, who knows, maybe war would become a thing of the past. But the reality of such is that nobody knows for sure, which makes the realm of possibility all the more vast and infinite."
"You're all about possibilities, aren't you?" Yami asked him.
"You can't get the results one's after unless there are possibilities," said Gifso in understanding. "A world of magic is the same as a world of possibilities."
Gifso then conjured several screens made of water, showing the other Black Bull members in different locations within the underwater temple, looking around, confused over their whereabouts and the situation they were in.
"They're inside the temple where this stone you're looking for is," he explained to them, "but as they try to find the stone, they will have to deal with the guardians of the Seabed Temple that will hinder them, as well. They can either confront them or avoid them as best they can."
"Sounds similar to hide and seek," said Shinji, "except that they have to do both in order to find the stone."
"Exactly…and the game is about to begin."
-x-
"Ah, man," went Suki as she came to on the ground in the temple. "What was that spell?"
Getting up, she took out her grimoire and activated one of her spells.
"Light Beast Creation Magic: Solar Pegasus," she uttered, summoning a creature of light in front of herself, resembling a horse with angelic wings. "Let's find the others now. Compass Chain Magic: Binding Guide."
A large compass was generated from within her grimoire and shot out a chain that led the way. Her first order of business was to find Asta through his Anti Magic energies; after more studying of this rare form of magic, Suki learned spells to find traces of Anti Magic, not just other forms of magic that were more common.
-x-
"…Thank you again, sir," the woman Tenshi served by returning her daughter to her after his brief altercation with Xerx Lugner of the Purple Orcas, offering a mere cup of tea to him as he sat in her home.
"It was really a simple choice, ma'am," Tenshi explained. "I could either do something I know is the right choice to make…or ignore the needs of the people in front of me when they ask for aid. To have gone against my conscience would've been to go against everything a Magic Knight is supposed to stand for. One of the morality points of a Magic Knight is to either own up to their vulnerability against being corrupted by ideals of greed and power or embrace their unwillingness to be corrupted by the misuse of power or acceptance of bribes…when really just a simple cup of tea from a kind stranger should suffice when doing a good deed."
Once he finished his cup and gave his thanks, Tenshi stepped out into the dark night, looking up at the gathering of clouds. If they were in for a shower of light snow, he looked forward to walking around in it.
"For a cup of tea, you'd even go against any number of bad Magic Knights, wouldn't you, Tenshi?" He heard the voice of Excalibur, who appeared outside the rejuvenated man's grimoire, asking him. "You'd weed out the good from the bad, showing people their true colors for the sake of preserving the Order of the Magic Knights' honor, wouldn't you?"
"Only if it became absolutely necessary, Excalibur," he answered back. "It's never a good thing to force one's beliefs upon others. To even project oneself onto others has unintended repercussions if the people you're projecting onto aren't of sufficient mental endurance."
"Well spoken, Tenshi," came Arachne's voice as she appeared outside his grimoire. "It's really nice out here tonight."
"Yes, it is," Tenshi agreed, and started to walk down the stone walkway. "I've truly missed this among the things I enjoy about the Clover Kingdom."
"What, the primitive layout of how these towns and villages are made?" Excalibur asked him as he and Arachne followed him.
"No, walking at night in a common town and just thinking," he explained. "I tried to do this in Tokyo, in Osaka, even in Hokkaido, but it was hard to think when you're in a place that was just so…devoid of the emotional security that you'd feel in a place like this one."
"Sounds like this…Japan, while not entirely that bad," went Arachne, "was just not the kind of place you could ever fit in, was it, Tenshi?"
"But I was able to make do with what was there in the absence of the mana," he admitted. "Because of the abundance of comics and cartoons that I immersed myself in, I might as well be known as the Grand Otaku of House Ikari, not just the new patriarch."
A snowflake fell from the sky and landed in his left palm, earning a contented sigh from him.
"I love the snow," he expressed. "It's beautiful, it's mystifying, and it's full of wonder. I've missed it so much."
-x-
"…So, they were able to get to the Seabed Temple before we could get to it," went Vetto of the Despair as he, Rhya and Fana stood by the beach of Raque. "Quite the unexpected turn of events we have here."
"And you mean to say that the previous encounter you had unexpectedly with the Black Bulls here wasn't a turn of events?" Rhya asked him.
"That Ikari boy, he made those misfit knights stronger. I stood very little chance of besting just one of those weaklings without getting ambushed by two more of them!"
"Licht believes that out of the three Black Bull members that threaten our plans, it is the boy that may become the most dangerous to our cause," Fana uttered, "which makes him the one that needs to be dealt with above all. That boy, wretched, loathsome… We must destroy him above all others that stand in our way."
While Licht wanted to face the boy if he had gotten too strong for the Third Eye to contend with, the three mages still had a shot, only a shot, at disposing of Shinji before he had grown beyond their ability to overcome, however long they had left to achieve such a feat. They needed to unleash upon him the full might of their despair, treachery and hatred, to make him suffer like they had all suffered. And when he was on his knees, broken by their power…they would snap his neck, immolate his corpse…and reduce him to a forgotten memory.
"Beast Magic," Vetto called out one of the spells from his grimoire. "Humpback Whale's Farer!"
-x-
"I should really be out there helping to find the stone," Shinji told Gifso as he looked at the other Black Bulls as they were either looking around for a way out of the temple or trying to find each other. "Should my level of magic really determine my rank? Put me out there, and I'll show you I ain't entirely different from my squad mates."
"A Magic Knight that can use more than one type of magic is not one to take lightly," Gifso stated, unsure if he should let Shinji out of the cave they were in. "And you trained these mages to make them stronger, which, in turn, made you stronger. If you had progressed before coming here, I'd almost mistake you for a captain of a squad."
"I'm years away from being anything like that. Newbies still have much to learn before they can get anywhere that promises something of significant interest. But the best part of being the new guy…is that I have time to improve and get somewhere that promises something of significant interest. How many years did it take you to become the priest in charge of the order of the Seabed Temple?"
"Decades, young man."
"Was that time you took to work for the position…worth your patience?"
Gifso smiled as he responded, "Throughout all the ups and downs. Quite impressive… Nobody here was able to best this game in such a short amount of time."
"Huh? This is a game?"
Guardian sat on the ground, cross-legged with his claws folded against his chest, trying to see a possibility of Shinji and he getting out there and helping the others find the stone. To hear Gifso say that he and Shinji were engaged in some verbal game…had clearly been among those possibilities, but wasn't one of the most likely to be within his perception.
"Game Magic: Burning Desire," Gifso explained. "People talk, trying to find a way to get away…but have to first ask the right question to receive the right answer. You asked the right question…without even knowing what to ask…and got the right answer. Eh-heh! Your exit to the temple is right behind your magic creature."
Shinji turned to Guardian, just as a portal opened up behind him.
"Unpredictability," said Guardian as he got up. "Shall we?"
Shinji bowed his head to Gifso and went over to Guardian and the portal.
"Let's go do this thing!" He told Guardian and jumped through it with him.
The portal closed, leaving the High Priest with the Black Bull captain.
"There's a lot of magic in that boy," he told Yami. "Untapped, unmeasured and extremely powerful. I'd almost mistake him for nobility, but he's nothing like the ones I hear of."
"No, he comes from a family of nobility, but he's somewhere in between nobility and commoner. The girl with him is his aunt, and she's a noble who spent her whole life in another world where magic was nonexistent and their family had to wait a long time just to come back to this world. They say it was the young man that opened the door for them to return, but he was in a situation of his own that he had no say in…and it ended up being the last situation he was in before he ended up here, a place he only heard about in stories his grandmother and uncle told him of when he was little."
"House Ikari…is a family full of mystery and unfathomable power, whom some used to believe could rule the entire Clover Kingdom if they wanted to…but instead are content to living among the commoners and helping them out rather than be anything like most other houses that look the other way."
On a new screen that appeared in front of them, they could see Shinji and Guardian walking down a tunnel. With his grimoire floating beside him in its active state, Shinji was now sporting strange gauntlets that were aglow in blue.
"Is that some sort of Steel Magic?" Gifso asked Yami.
"I have no idea as to what magic that is," he responded. "He's able to use so many different forms of magic, even mixing two or more magic types that shouldn't go together, it could be any type of magic he's capable of performing. Steel and Light Magic, Copper and Fire Magic, or maybe just some other form of Union Magic."
"The Infinity Affinity is such an unusual power they possess."
-x-
"Hey, Asta," went Suki as she finally found the Anti Magic swordsman mage. "Where've you been hiding?"
"I wasn't hiding, I was looking for the others and… Whoa! What is that creature you're on?!" Asta asked, pointing to the winged horse she was riding.
"Solar Pegasus," she explained, "a Creation Magic spell. Any sign of where anyone else is?"
"No."
Suki used her locating spell again, this time to find Grey through her Transformation Magic; if Grey was by herself or with someone else, she'd likely hide herself as them because she hadn't overcome her shyness just yet, something she was trying to get past.
"Get on, Asta," she told the boy, getting a lock on Grey's magic. "We're going after Grey now."
Asta climbed onto the back of Solar Pegasus and they went further down the tunnel.
"Say, how were you able to find me, anyway?" He asked her.
"Anti Magic gives off an aura that's extremely different from other forms of magic. It's almost like searching a needle in a haystack, except the needle is at the very bottom of the haystack. You could almost say that I was looking for you through something beyond your magic, like a blood flow or a set of muddy footprints, something that only you could leave a trail to follow."
-x-
"…Yui requested a solo mission?" Tenshi asked Captain Vangeance when he was informed by Klaus that his sister wasn't at the Golden Dawn Headquarters, causing him to become curious.
"Yes, there was one mission that hadn't been resolved," William explained, "and she requested to handle it herself. She was pretty adamant about doing so."
More like secretive about it, Tenshi thought; he was hoping that by being on missions with Yui, he'd be able to keep an eye on her and monitor her actions, but if she went on solo missions, that made knowing what her intentions were more difficult to ascertain. As much as I want to believe that she's just trying to increase her ranking, Yui has never had me convinced of anything about her, except how far she's willing to go to do something she wants to achieve.
"Possible jealousy, Tenshi?" William asked him. "You and Yui started out with the same rank. Could this be a race to see who rises up faster than the other sibling?"
Tenshi sighed and responded, "If only it were a race, Captain Vangeance. If only it were a race."
Dismissing himself, Tenshi returned to his quarters and decided to train with his magic spirits; he needed to be ready for anything short of what was within the foreseeable future.
Alecdora Sandler, whom he walked past, gave him a scornful glare, causing him to stop and face him in the hall.
"Is there something on your mind?" Tenshi asked him.
"Were you out there serving the peasants again?" Alecdora questioned.
"I wouldn't be a good person if I didn't help the people nobody else would," he answered. "Two Purple Orcas were problematic, and I had to deal with the issue the way I saw necessary."
"You're wasting your time assisting a pack of slum rats."
Tenshi kept his face neutral, but was offended by Sandler's remark about the people he helped as a Magic Knight and as a person. This was just another sign of how different he felt he was from most of the nobility due to living with commoners and peasants that had a softer side to their souls than this…this hardened viewpoint of which category of people deserved to be aided…and which category of people deserved to be ignored. But Tenshi couldn't ignore the commoners or peasants just because of a bunch of people that were born into lives of wealth, privilege and authority believed that they were above them. He needed to honor his family and himself by helping the less-fortunate in any way they could.
"I grew up around these people," he told Alecdora, expressing his opinion. "I hear their complaints, their desires, their fears, and every time I do hear them, I just think of how alike they are to the nobility. Someone wants something at some point in their lives, whether it's an object, a space, or just another person to spend time with. For some, the reason is as obvious as a sense of greed or pride, and for others, it's because they simply want to make their lives easier for their families, where everyday can be spent trying to decide how you're going to enjoy a period of your time and not worry about something that you can worry about later. I have nothing against people that come from meager beginnings; there is a strength in them that has yet to be shown that can match or even exceed the strength of those that have known power their whole lives. I can respect them, even admire them to various extents. And yes, it's true that there are some that are cruel and fueled by darkened desires that lead them to commit devious acts that render them irredeemable, the same is true with the nobility, only they have the means to enable their acts to get overlooked from time to time. In the end, though, it all comes down to choice…and causality. The action that one takes…and the consequential reaction that comes afterward. Cause and effect. Do I choose to look the other way and let a commoner or peasant suffer…or do I do something to alleviate their suffering without crossing personal and moral lines? I'll choose the road most moral every time. Which road will you choose, Alecdora Sandler?"
"I choose the road to fulfill Captain Vangeance's dream," he answered.
"Okay," Tenshi responded, and then walked away; this elitist clearly had blind loyalty to the captain…but lacked his own ambitions, his own goals. I pity him.
-x-
RUMBLE! Something shook the temple with enough force to unsettle Shinji and make Guardian pause in the tunnel.
"You felt that, too?" Shinji asked him.
"Enemy magic is here," Guardian stated. "The Third Eye is here. I'm guessing that they forced their way through the barrier, as well. Against one, we were all but assured victory. Against all three, it will take fierce determination, faith in oneself and others, and teamwork."
"Many of these requirements the Third Eye may not embrace wholeheartedly."
Shinji's grimoire floated in front of him and flipped through a few pages to a new spell that he hadn't used before.
"Compass Scale Magic," he uttered, summoning a brass set of scales and a compass that was attached to its base. "Safety/Danger Seeker."
This spell functioned as a means of detecting a path that would lead to either a safe zone or a danger zone. Shinji had studied the spell, but this was his first time using it; his objective was to use it to know which direction he took led to friends or possible enemies. The scale on his left was tilting down, indicating that the path to his left was a danger zone, meaning the path on his right was a potential safe zone. But Shinji had no intention of going right when going left meant doing his job as a Magic Knight.
"Tell me, what do you think our chances of being able to best all three of the Third Eye at once?" Shinji asked Guardian as they ran down the left path.
"With the increase in mana and spells you and your squad mates have, the chances of besting all three are half and half," Guardian answered; he didn't want to give too much faith in beating a trio of rogue mages when he could only see possibilities over the actual outcome. "You have to show determination in yourself and strength in your conviction to get these three. Who knows for certain, maybe if your squad captures these three, it could mean a substantial rank increase. You'd all cease to be Junior Magic Knights and be Intermediate Magic Knights. That's what I want to believe to be possible for each of you."
"But for something like that to happen, we have to capture all three."
BLAST! They heard an explosion further down the tunnel and ran faster to the end of it.
"Fire Creation Magic," they heard Magna's voice. "Burning Ape!"
Reaching the end and entering a large cavern, they saw Magna, Luck, Finral, Noelle and some people dressed in robes like those of the people that lived in the Seabed Temple, wearing sea creature-themed masks…and the three mages that gave the Black Bulls a challenge.
"What'd we miss?!" Shinji shouted, getting their attention.
Magna's Fire Magic spell had collided with Fana's Fire Spirit Magic spell, forcing the fire spirit Salamander, which had gotten a little bigger since their initial encounter, backwards. After which Magna's fire creation extinguished, no longer supported by his mana.
Fana was pushed back by the force of the collision between the fire spells, feeling further enraged by being somewhat-outpaced by some…delinquent mage.
"You wretched…ill-bred…disgraceful person," she addressed Magna, her voice rising in tone and demonstrating more expressive emotion. "You disgrace the mana."
Holding up a fiery baseball bat, Magna pointed it at her and expressed, "Why don't you smile once in a while, and then we'll know who disgraces what?"
"You didn't miss much," went Noelle to Shinji, looking at Rhya as he was facing her and one of the sea-themed people that didn't have a mask on, revealing themselves to be a young woman a bit older than her. "Be careful around this guy. He got near my and somehow copied two of my spells for his grimoire."
Shinji looked at Rhya again and saw Noelle's Water Healing Magic spell behind him…but it looked off by a degree.
"Imitation Magic," said Guardian. "This mage can copy other spells and use them as his own, but he's at a disadvantage in the way his magic works."
Then, looking over at Vetto, who was preoccupied by Luck and Finral, unable to land any blows towards either because of the Spatial Magic and Lightning Magic at work, Shinji decided to take on Rhya.
"Let's handle the copycat first, Guardian," he told him.
"Gladly," Guardian agreed, and they jumped into the air.
-x-
Returning to her home in Hage, Rika sighed as she kicked off her sandals and walked to the kitchen. There had been a minor shower of snow that had covered Hage by the time she got back from the capital after spending her time either providing her knowledge of the past or just re-exploring the ruins of her family's ancestral home grounds. A while ago, the Wizard King had made another suggestion that she could be an information source for the Order of the Magic Knights due to her knowledge of the past from over fifteen-hundred years ago, however small or large the information might've been, just an occupation for her to freely choose, and while she hadn't declined the offer just yet, Rika was considering it.
Except there's more information to the past that wasn't salvaged in the relics we reclaimed after our return, she thought as she sat down at the kitchen counter with a cup of tea in her hands. A lot can go missing during a fifteen-hundred-year absence, either through incidents of theft or destruction…or intentional acts of trying to destroy the past as much as possible. There were also some weapons that weren't in the collection of salvaged items the Clover Kings of the past kept for us. Whether they were stolen or lost, they'd be useless in anyone else's possession…and they can't be destroyed; our family's ancestors knew exactly what they were doing when they harnessed the power to create indestructible items that would outlast the breaths of the heartbeat. And there was an archive of information on at least three dozen magical beings that were captured at some point in the past by some of our ancestors, but I couldn't find anything relating to them. In any society, knowledge is a source of power because what you don't know about can be dangerous if you take it only at face value.
Then, she took out her grimoire from her pouch on her side and opened it to the hardback covering's inner left side, looking at an old inscription she had made two years after she had received it during the Grimoire Acceptance Ceremony she had attended when the time came for her to receive her grimoire. "Do what ye will, so long as thou harms none" was what she inscribed, a long-time reminder of what her mother and grandmother had taught her about one of the most rudimentary teachings of magic's morality when it came to helping or harming others. During her exile in Japan, she had decided to research what passed as a magical belief around the generations, and discovered the lore and practice of Wicca, which had some similarities to what the people of this world practiced or preached. Basically, anyone with a measure of magic in their being, able to do things no other person could achieve, had to follow this moral rule of how they did anything, and as long as they weren't harming people with the way they performed a spell, they could do as they desired. But Rika knew this knowledge was both a blessing and a curse, because everyone was different and not everyone chooses to follow the rule of morality.
"And the Magic Knights and this Eye of the Midnight Sun are examples of the limitations of this rule," she sighed; the Magic Knights used magic to serve the Clover Kingdom to protect its people from any and all threats made against the country, but they harmed the bringers of said threats, and the Eye of the Midnight Sun threatened to harm the Clover Kingdom, thus using magic to backup their intentions, including harming the people. "But the knights are the order and authority of the kingdom while the rogue mages are the chaos. Order and chaos, right and wrong, light…and dark, yin…and yang."
Sighing again, she tapped her left index finger on the inscription, reflecting on the days of her teens when she was just starting out with her advanced education into the art of magic.
Flash! She looked up and saw that she was surrounded in darkness, standing in front of a creature she had never seen before.
It was dark, stood as tall as a human with exceptional height, looked to be armored from top to bottom, and was clearly an unpleasant sight to behold. The way it looked from a physiological standing, however, was what disturbed Rika the most: It appeared to be reptilian, but its facial structure and feet were somewhat mammalian, with a pair of large, curved horns on its head and hoofed feet. There was some fur or hair on the sides of the arms and legs, likely singed or a sign of decay, and a scarlet-colored feather boa wrapped around its neck, mimicking a lion's mane. If Rika had to guess, this creature seemed to be associated with the Anti-Magic creature that could emerge from Shinji's grimoire…but she didn't feel any degree of Anti Magic emanating from it like she had with the other one.
"Guardian of the Void?" She asked it.
Glaring and baring its fangs, which appeared jagged and crooked everywhere in its snout, the beast responded, "You wish I was that morally-driven cretin!"
Flash! Rika was back in the kitchen, away from that strange creature…and relieved.
That…that thing…wasn't emanating Anti Magic, she realized, trying to recall which form of magic the being had been emanating from its body when she saw it. It wasn't Dark Magic. Maybe Poison Magic? No, Dream Magic? No, it was too displeasing when it spoke to me. I know I felt that type of magic from somewhere before, but where…and what magic was it? What was that creature?
Then, looking down at the countertop in front of her, Rika's eyes widened. Above her grimoire was a word that looked as though it had been carved right into the marble…by something vicious. "Harbinger" was what it said, and she had to wonder what, if anything, it meant.
Harbinger?
-x-
"…That thing doesn't look anything like the one with Shinji," said Asuka as she and the others had saw the picture of Rika with whatever that other creature was with the horns.
"It gives me the creeps," Kaji expressed. "Has 'dangerous' written all over it."
"I'd rather say that it's evil," Misato shared her opinion.
"It does look evil," Fuyutsuki added; his opinion was based solely on the fact that the creature clearly disturbed him. "The one with Shinji gave off a positive attitude…if somewhat mysterious in the way it speaks."
Gendo turned to the next page…but ended up skipping several more pages in the album like before, resulting in a picture of what looked to be worse for Shinji than what they saw earlier.
"Gott im Himmel," Asuka gasped, seeing the young man about to be attacked by the beast man, already bleeding from his sides and on his knees, looking like he was getting ready to return to the paradise he was sent away from.
"Dammit!" Misato expressed, turning the pages back to the intended page. "If you can't turn to just one page, then you shouldn't turn any of them."
On the desired page, they all saw Shinji facing Rhya, the latter of whom looked as though he would rather face someone that didn't have a strange monster for an ally. This was on the top page on the left side while the photo under it depicted Suki and three other Black Bulls (Vanessa, Gordon and Asta) entering the large cavern.
"You three won't be enough to best us for the magic stone," they heard Shinji say.
"The three of us aren't what you'd expect from an opponent," they heard Rhya respond.
"You should've brought more."
Rei looked at the picture at the bottom of the right page and saw Shinji…bashing Rhya in the face…with his own grimoire.
"What is Ikari-Kun doing with his grimoire?" She questioned, confused by this action he was doing that held no logic.
To be continued…
A/N: Sorry to leave you guessing what happens next, but all good things come to those who wait. Hopefully, some of you will wonder if there's a way to deal with Imitation Magic that most wouldn't think to do in the next chapter.