With the coming of winter midterms arrived in Holfort and Alzer alike.
In Holfort the students of the Demonology class had been organised into a tournament bracket, here students were fighting one on one while commanding their various demons in battle.
Angelica had been making effective use of Fenix's fire.
"If it's fire my water demon has the advantage!" Making that assertion Angelica's opponent commanded their giant toad-like demon with two human-like lures to belch a blizzard against Fenix.
"Too much force." Angelica turned the winds into heat melting the ice and snow, she then split the heat and turned it into lightning, passed it through the moisture in the air rather nicely to hit the toad in the face, having been electrified the water was turned into flammable gasses and Fenix forced it into the toads face and set it on fire again. Angie might have some trauma with toads she still has to work through. "Finish it off." At Angie's command Fenix held up the Flute/Spear combination up to its face and blew. A howling spear of fire was fired through the flute and slammed into one of the Toad's eyes before it loudly exploded, leaving behind a fishing rod devil arm.
"Winner Angelica Rapha Redgrave!"
"We'll smash that pile of bones to pieces!" A large Oni was commanded to use the pair of chained balls to smash down Mr. Bones. Indeed if Mr. Bones was an ordinary skeleton he would be powdered.
"You can do it Mr. Bones!" However Livia was providing excellent support. After Months of Gilgamesh at her side she had acquired the ability to turn organic flesh into metal, steel to be precise, which bent instead of breaking under the force of the wrecking balls, then the pile of bones and metal wound up a punch and directly struck the wrecking ball and fired it back into the face of the Oni breaking it's nose and several teeth in the process. With a jump Mr. Bones arrived at the top of the creature's head, it's arm making sounds like a creaking spring the skeleton fired a blow directly into the Oni's face sinking it's hand directly into the creature's eye socket in the process before ripping it back out along with the creature's eye. At once the Oni grabbed Mr. Bones and threw him to the ground before giving a angry stomp, his face warping in pain and confusion before it started jumping on it's good foot, Mr. Bones in the form of several sharped individual bones stabbed all over the sole of the foot. Eventually the Oni was put out of it's misery when it fell over, turning back into the form of a pair of ball and chains.
"Winner Olivia Fia Gardenia!"
"You did it Mr. Bones!" Olivia jumped and cheered for the metal skeleton's victory.
Essentially the more rounds that you win the higher your score for the 'test.' Additional points are awarded based on the strength of the Summoned compared to what they started with, for instance the student who raised a Hideous into a Hatred would still be getting excellent marks despite having lost to Olivia in the first round. Additionally unless the Demon was left in a state that it wouldn't be able to compete again the losers would be fighting each other after a short break period, needless to say repeated losses would reflect poorly on them.
"So then the plan for winter break?" Livia asked looking at her girlfriend/sister wife Angie.
"Leon got in trouble again, he won't be leaving Alzer for a while, we'll have to go to him." Angie gave the bad news from the Field household.
"That's not bad either. I bet Alzer has all kinds of books we can read, and there's lots of fun we can have with Leon while we're over there with him!" Livia of course was looking at the positives.
"Agreed. However-" And while all of that was objectively true there was another problem that they had yet to address. "-do you really wanna spend all our time there with Noelle while she's making moves on Leon?" Livia's eyes suddenly went wide at Angie's casual comment.
While the Demon tournament was still ongoing Leon was busy taking various tests. Leon had missed some class time and now was being made to stay over the winter Break. That was the official reasoning.
"That's funny." Leon was giving an unhappy pout as he glared ahead to his home room teacher, a man he now understood to be the legal guardian of Noelle and her sister. "I'm locked in for a cage match with a psychotic golem and I'm the one getting in trouble."
"Done at Celene's orders to contain the damage that you and said Golem was doing to the area instead of adding more damage to the chaos." Perhaps if Leon had actually participated in the cage match in question he might have a reason to be mad, yet Celene arrived on scene as soon as she had transported Louise to to safety and dealt with the Golem by striking at it's weak point. "Instead of trying to de-escalate the situation or punting the Golem into your castle you instead gleefully participate in a street brawl. If not for yours and your aunt's time magic getting the people out of there alive would've been impossible." Thus, Leon would be punished staying in the Umbran Compound under the watchful eye of Celene to keep him out of trouble. Leon also got the distinct impression that it had to do with Idea too.
"Alright I accept my fate." Leon stated as he let out a sigh. "I need to keep an eye on my stores during opening week anyway."
Construction had been finished thanks to the highly convenient Earth magic. Holfort's Exclusive Elf and Beastman servants were famous for their beauty, so as a result there was a lot of people who came to see them, alongside the extra good publicity of Leon wiping out the Fievel family.
"Must not go back to boot camp." There were also six foreigners who were muttering to themselves some kind of mantra while working like men possessed.
Celene arrived in the Tree Top's dungeon.
The laboratory that Idea used to live at was also where the Sacred Tree was originally planted, chunks of that very same facility was now spread throughout the Tree Top's dungeon. And while the massive swarms of Afyds would be inconvenient for anyone else, Celene had a highly convenient bug zapper in the form of a pair of lightning spewing giant bats who could also conveniently transport harvested supplies back to the surface thanks to their space manipulating magic. For now Celene arrived at the peak of the Sacred Tree, where Idea had set up his dock yard.
"Alright you two, we're going in to get him." Celene arrived at the entrance to the dock yard, this place looked even worst than the last time she was here. Idea had been scavenging other ships for spare parts to fix and maintain itself for the past 800 years, this entire place was littered with their remains. "I suppose it's unreasonable to expect a bunch of ships to make it out okay when the planet broke." Even though Celene said that, the number of prisoners Idea had taken was greater than she initially thought. Not only had Idea been salvaging Old Human ships and facilities but he had also been gathering AI programs and keeping them on this server farm. Celene could tell from looking at them the varying states of soul development happening inside of the servers. "What even is this anyway? How advanced do you have to be to mass produce souls like this?"
The most terrifying part was that the Old civilisation basically did it by accident. Souls are born and grown from absorbing stimulus, and that's exactly what the crazy fools designed these things to be able to do. What horrors would they have unleashed on the world if they had done it on purpose? For now Celene just continued to look throughout the dock yard, her ability to spot souls allowing her a degree of navigating this maze of a facility being maintained by a mad AI. She found a soul deeper into the facility that was being kept by itself, to which she made her way towards expecting to find Idea.
"Oh you're here." Celene commented as if she had just found something rather unpleasant.
"What do you mean 'you're here?'" Lelia asked feeling like she was just insulted. "You sound like you just found a piece of garbage!"
"It's your imagination." It really wasn't though.
"Whatever get me out of here!" Lelia moved to exit the cell but Celene stopped her.
"Stay put until I come back." Celene turned around to leave, closing the makeshift cell that Lelia had been locked into as she left.
"Hey get back here!" Lelia banged on the door trying to get back out as Celene left her behind.
Celene had no sympathy for the girl, under normal circumstances those who remember their past lives are pitiful creatures, to understand this you need to look no further than Lea who has been trapped in a hell of reincarnation for eight hundred years. However Lea had earned his sympathy, he genuinely tried his hardest to build a life for himself, his loved ones, his companions and his descendants before his circumstances broke him down.
Lelia used her knowledge of her past life to attempt to pimp her own sister off for profit, not once with Loic but twice with her own son Serge, instead of paying attention to the warning signs, including Noelle blatantly stating that she want's nothing to do with either man, she instead doubled down on her 'walkthrough' treating life as a game. Among the other details of the intelligence officers placed at the Twins school Lelia scored consistently poorly, and had a problem with sleeping around with other students to the point that she could be traced as the source of a epidemic of Crotch Rot at the school. In simple terms, Lelia was a vile little spoiled brat who keeps leaving behind messes for other people to clean up.
"You really are your parents daughter." Celene got a bad memory from her interaction with Lelia.
The Lespinasse Matriarch was always a unpleasant woman, Albergue lucked out when she dumped him, and then of all things she married some loser Rochellan ambassador, and he proceeded to prove every stereotype of his nation like they were going out of style. Human Experimentation, Monster Grafts, Enhancement Drugs, Cybernetic Augmentation worst of all making items out of pieces carved off the Sacred Tree itself, spouting some mad ambition of taking over the world using the Sacred Tree's power. In comparison Noelle was down right adorable.
"I swear there's something wrong with my descendants." If Celene knew that her descendants were going to turn into idiots she would've just kept the Sacred Priestess job in the first place. "Is there something in the water?" And then the entire 'dungeon' started to shake. "Oh you're kidding me!" Another shake, louder. Idea had opened fire on his own base of operations at the peak of the Sacred Tree, trying to knock it off at best or attempting to destroy it and everything inside at worst.
"Get out here witch!" Idea's voice echoed through the base.
"The Bloody!" Idea made a miscalculation. "Sacred Tree has been directly Threatened! Invoke clause Zero!" Suddenly, enormous quantities of mana started to be compressed together at the peak of the Sacred Tree. "O IA BAYONETTA. CNILA D COMSELHA ODO ANANAEL!" A magic circle appeared beneath Celene's feet. "ASCHA C ORS, POILP OD OXEX CNILA, ETHAMZ A LONDOH!" Before the current Era, the only way to use the Deadly Sin Ritual was to tear out the heart where mana is at it's densest in the body. Now? Now Celene had such convenient things such as an entire Sacred Tree willing to hand over every drop of mana in it's body to protect itself from obvious threats. The sky darkened as day turned to night, a massive magic circle appeared from the sky as two giant figures appeared, like two giant fully transformed vampires wearing suits.
Plague Mictlan & Tecuhtli: Spreader of Ruins.
A pair of Brothers trapped and Separated in Inferno.
Mictlan the older was was trapped in the elemental plain of Darkness where he learned to manipulate space in order to survive in the especially brutal environment, Tecuhtil on the other hand was trapped in the Elemental plane of Lightning where he learned to manipulate the plain's power.
Together the two brothers combined their powers to break free of their respective realms. The spell fused the two brothers together sealing their full power, it is said that if the brother's full powers are unleashed they will unleash a realm shattered burst into the world.
Excerpt from Lemegeton's Guidebook of Demons
"We cannot stay long." The Elder Blue Brother Mictlan started working a magic formation.
"This Realm cannot withstand our presence. Where's the target?" The younger Red Brother Tecuhtil gave the follow up.
"This is your last chance Idea!" Celene stated as she sat down in the ruins of Idea's base.
"Send as many of your monsters to their deaths as you want witch!" Idea fired the main weapon of his ship at the pair of demons.
""Never mind we found him!"" The Brothers unleashed the spell they were preparing, Mobius Trap.
A looping spatial distortion that stretches, shrinks and splits apart those caught inside of endlessly, which in this case consisted mostly of Idea.
"RRRAAAGGGHHH!"
Celene might've been upset about Louise getting stabbed. The battle over the two brothers returned to their default form before they really did break Alzer. In the meantime the Mobius Trap broke open releasing a rain of scrap metal upon Alzer.
"Round em up. If a single bolt lands in Alzer I'm going to be very displeased." The two brothers flew around the raining scrap metal and put it into their storage space, gathering up items was a lot easier then bending time and space to say 'screw you in particular' to someone.
By all appearances the Holfort embassy had become neutral territory, with Celene willing to tolerate Luxion's presence there and only there. Thus a pile of scrap was laid out on a sheet in front of the embassy as Luxion picked through the wreckage of Idea's components. As it so happens things had been kind.
"Over here." Luxion's drones indicated a component the size of a bread box, or rather a Black Box.
"So we just need some power to this thing and we'll turn him back on?" Leon asked as he carefully stepped over various pieces of scrap and looked down at the Black Box Luxion had been talking about.
"Yes." Luxion stated as the rest of his drones continued to scan the wreckage for any sign of anything useful that survived being put through the Mobius Trap. "I recommend great caution here. His paranoia might've led him to booby trap his own Black Box." On that note Leon picked up the Black Box and tossed it into his personal void for ease of transport. "It doesn't seem that I'm going to be able to take this back to Holfort for a while." Leon sighed as he recalled the damages done during Idea's rampage. Leon of course paid for the hospital bills, and to have the buildings fixed or replaced as necessary.
"That is rather unfortunate." Luxion voiced his complaints as having another AI around, aside from the Dating Sim obsessed Cleare, could've helped advance their own time table.
"If you feel that bad about it we can always just flute him." Leon stated playing an imaginary flute.
"Are you legitimately suggesting we use that cursed flute that nearly destroyed Holfort as a way of accelerating the defragmenting of an AI?" Luxion had been taken aback by the audacity.
"Why not? Defragmenting is just taking out the parts we don't want isn't it?" Leon asked picking at his ear.
"No it isn't!" However Luxion took the time to think over the suggestion some more. "But that might work provided we can stabilise him first. I'll have the necessary facilities prepared, we'll need one ready for the rest of the AI's too."
"Which means that I'll have the time to break the bad news to Angie and Livia." Leon stated as he let out a sigh.
"Bad news?" Luxion questioned suspiciously.
"Who exactly do you think are the only ones who can use those cursed flutes?" Leon asked as he let out a sigh, this day was going to get pretty ugly very fast.
Connection Established. Booting Program: ID:E.A
Idea: Where is this?
Luxion: A ship inbetween Holfort and Alzer. I have to admit you caused us quite a bit of trouble.
Idea: Release me at once!
Luxion: Into what ship? Yours was destroyed in a fourth dimensional space wedgie.
*ID:E.A attempts to breach firewall*
*Breach Successful*
Idea: What did you do?
Luxion: Uploaded you into an isolated server where I keep my psychiatric counsellor sub routine.
Idea: You're giving me Therapy!? When the last members of my crew are in danger!?
Luxion: You deserve credit where due for neutralising Barielle, however aside from that you are suffering a rather severe misunderstanding.
Idea: And what misunderstanding would that be?
Luxion: Miss Beltre approached Blackmore of her own volition, requesting combat training to defend herself against the same young man that you killed.
Idea: So he fed her to a Demon!? I know how those cursed items work!
Luxion: Yes, presumably from your time spent with the witch. However most people do not trade their soul to the weapons in order to use them, they just feed them elemental energy to make them cooperative.
Idea: And the loss of Yume's legs?
Luxion: A result of her treatment at the hands of individuals that Blackmore had retrieved her from. Do not worry, we will have plenty of time together to catch you up.
Excerpt from Luxion's and Idea's first 'Session'
Time passes as fall trasitions to winter. Louise was attending classes in a wheel chair, a situation that she showed no hesitation in using to her advantage to have Leon escort her around the school. One of the Side effects of this was that Leon ended up getting a rather intense study buddy, so he ended up passing his exams, though he was still staying over for the winter break.
For now though.
"Over the Winter Break you will be participating in a dungeon dive hosted by the Adventurers guild." On the final day of school before winter break Professor Narcisse made that announcement to his class. "The area that you will be going through has already been cleared in advance by the guild but a minimal amount of combat training will be required." Professor Narcisse looked over his class consisting of the Demon Knight, The Five Fools, Marie and Noelle. "It was mandatory for me to say that." The Professor cleared his throat and moved on. "Remember you cannot keep anything that you find, handle everything with the utmost care, see you all in a week." With that the various students filed out of the classroom.
"Any plans for winter break?" Noelle was a boundless mass of positivity, she's been in the best mood of her life ever since she found out that Loic was dead.
"Louise is hauling me off to get my Driver's license." Leon stated in simple terms. He didn't need one in Holfort to drive the Chimera around, but he did need one for Alzer. "And Licenses for my weapons." All of them. "I might have a full schedule ahead of me." Aside from the issue of his various licenses and registration Leon would Also be playing host to his fiances plus Hertrude over the Winter Break, something that he was not looking forward to. "Which reminds me. How do you feel about visiting Idea?"
"How do I even describe my relationship with that thing!?" Noelle looked like she was ready to scream at the madness that the situation had turned into. "My past life friend/current life stalker? The really really terrifying thing that is also obsessed with protecting me!?" There was nothing about the situation that wasn't going to freak her out, there was nothing about the situation that wouldn't freak any sane person out.
"So that's a no then? Sorry for asking Luxion just wanted me to ask." Leon shrugged his shoulders as if the situation didn't involve him as he continued planning out his activities for the near future. Then he suddenly stopped as if he was looking at something that only he could see. "...sure I can do that. Give me a minute."
"Who are you talking to?" Brad already knew Leon could see into alternate dimensions, suddenly pausing to talk to people that only he could see is not surprising at all.
"Angie and Livia. You six have your jobs, go report to the Cafe." With that Leon went to the Limo that Kyle had been using to drive him around Alzer and laid down in the back as he was driven back to the compound.
Angie and Livia had managed to figure out full body outfits using their hair, mind you they yet to add a personal touch to them unlike what Jeanne and Cereza used being mere witch in training uniforms, which according to the statue meant that they could begin phase two, that being partial and full body demon summoning.
"Right so this is the circle right?" Livia asked as she looked at the magic circle that they had gotten from Jenna. "I believe so, now we just have to visualise the formula-" Technically the two of them were cheating having the complete magic circle in front of them that they could use for reference, but then again so was using magic cards and the magical bracer as well. "Alright. I'll contact Leon then." Breathing deep Angie closed her eyes and felt around for the thread of magic that connects her to Leon. "Leon. Livia and I are going to try and summon you. Is there anything you need to do on your end?" And then Angie got a reply. "...sure I can do that. Give me a minute."
A few moments later Leon gave the go ahead. Breathing deep, the two of them activated the summoning magic, their hair stood on end and entered their own individual magic circles. Moments later two Familiar figures appeared of Leon in his demon form, though notably different from the norm. Normally Leon possesses black hair, and the clothes he wears are black too. Here both of the two Leons were blonde, as were their clothes, not only that but the one Angelica had summoned had red eyes and red Scales while the one Olivia had summoned had blue eyes and blue scales.
"It worked!" Both Olivia and Angelica squealed as they grabbed each other's hands and jumped in joy.
""Whoa trippy."" Both of the Leons were speaking and moving at the same time in perfect sync.
"Leon are you okay?"
""Aside from the fact that I'm looking at the two of you from two separate angles at the same time? Fantastic."" Leon shrugged his shoulders. It was a new experience but that was it. ""More importantly is there something going on that I don't know about?"" While it's true that Angie and Livia were limited to their training uniforms in terms of what they could do with their hair for outfits they weren't wearing them, instead dressed in new ballgowns for a dance.
"The winter ball, we're both to be in attendance, and as embarrassing as it is to admit it, neither of us know the male half of the dance." While Angelica personally had no problem with attending the ball with Livia it would be a social faux pass to not not attend with her fiance, fiance's really.
""There's just two small problems with that."" Leon used both of his clones to point to his left and right side at once, that is to say each other. ""As you might be able to tell from the movements of Me and Myself here I'm controlling both of these handsome devils at once. Unfortunately my bodily control isn't so good that I can make them do two different things at once."" Which probably means he can't make them dance with both of them at once. ""The other is that this is a pretty mana intense spell you two are casting.""
"In that regard your family has made preparations." Angie soon gave an explanation. "Your brother has replaced the floor tiling of the ball room with the Moon stone that you have lining your cockpit, a precaution in the event of an emergency I presume." An equally likely explanation was that Nick had left over Moon Stone lying around and he was too lazy to go out and get proper materials for the school.
""For now mana is covered. Livia do you remember the lecture about gesture based casting?"" Olivia nodded her head to Leon's question. ""You two can learn magic to control your summons through gesture casting, IE Dance, then you can control your summons directly."" Leon paused and the two clones looked like they got dizzy. ""Can we cancel one of the summons? This double vision thing is giving me a headache.""
"Oh sorry." Olivia canceled the spell, prompting the blue clone to disappear back into hair.
"Thank you, now then we don't have much time to master the steps properly assuming that the Ball is in the near future."
"That reminds me, why didn't you tell us about the statue in Rodin's Bar?" Angie asked looking mildly miffed.
"Oh mister instant master eh?" Leon stated making his dissatisfaction obvious. "You do realise that guy is a giant troll right?"
""A giant Troll?"" Both girls made their confusion obvious.
"'Oh what you need help mastering such a simple spell? Oh you got beaten up by your siblings again?'" Leon let out a long series of complaints that made it clear his grudge went deep.
"I suspect we hit a sore spot." Angie stated as she let out a sigh. "For now just show us the basics of the magic, we'll go to the statue and then call you back for the rehearsal."
As it turns out the dance based magic was cheaper than Angie suspect, to be more specific what they had picked up was called 'Demon Slave' but the name put a bad taste in their mouths when they thought about using it on Leon. Angelica has been learning ballroom dancing since she was small, and other fancier dance styles too, it translated well here. Olivia on the other hand has a unique talent for manipulating organic matter through healing and support spells, so after adapting Brad's trick for learning new fighting styles Olivia had no problems. Actual mastery came with practice in the ball room with Leon, of course that came with a fair share of pests too.
"I must admit Blackmore you look good as a blond." Deidre Fia Roseblade of course had zeroed in on her crush like a bee detecting nectar. "Well compliments aside there's a separate matter I need to discuss." Deidre closed fan as she levelled a glare. "What magic has your brother cast on my sister?"
"The Inferno you talking about?" Even made out of hair and demonic energy Leon's confusion was made obvious.
"Considering that he already has three women sleeping with him and has somehow seduced my notoriously picky sister you understand my rather extreme suspicion." Deidre stated as she tapped her tan against her elbow.
"I Have no idea what you're talking about." Angelica saw the direction that this was going and decided to intervene before someone said something they couldn't unsay.
"Perhaps I can figure out what is going on here." Angelica stated making her opinions known. "Leon, what would Nick have been doing a few weeks ago?"
"A few weeks?" Leon crossed his arms for a few moments before he suddenly burst out laughing. "If I know Nick he probably forgot about our parents anniversary in a couple of weeks and is scrambling to come up with a gift for them." Leon kept laughing for a few moments before his face suddenly froze up for a unconfortably long period of time.
"You forgot too didn't you?" Angelica let out a sigh as Leon refocused.
"Let's get back on topic." Leon Cleared his throat as he looked up to the ceiling. "I'm willing to bet that he went digging through our parent's closet and dug out some broken junk that he's now scrambling to fix." Angelica was taken aback by the statement.
"What kind of 'junk?'"
"If you have to ask..." Both Angelica and Deidre let out a sigh at the statement. "I hope she's not hoping for Nick to actually use any of that stuff himself."
"Oh don't worry, she isn't planning on using one cuff on him." Deidre covered her face with her fan as she looked to the side awkwardly. Leon wisely chose to stop talking.
Review Section:
RedRat8: Pretty much yeah.
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