Chapter 46
charclone
Well-known member
Rob cursed as a blast of demonic power hurtled over his head.
The Brotherhood was not a militant organisation, but the current diplomatic situation was and had always been, one of low-level anarchy, necessitating a level of willingness to do violence. Rare was a true pacifist among the supernatural communities.
Thus, he and several other senior members had found themselves called upon to defend one of the group's facilities from a stray, likely after the reagents inside, either in an attempt to cure their out-of-control powers or simply to make a quick buck.
At least, that had been the initial assumption.
A dozen magicians, each equal to an upper low-rank devil at the least, should have been more than enough to deal with a single stray, whose power was out of control.
Should.
A stray devil that was once human, however, with a Sacred Gear, however? That complicated things.
"Bastard has a twice critical!" Someone shouted.
The Arizona desert surface was already pitted with craters from earlier blasts, providing cover for the magicians against the stray's erratic attacks.
Rob glanced over the lip of the shallow crater at the former human.
Standing on two legs, its torso was obscured with the many grasping and twitching arms. No head was visible, but here and there an eye appeared between the shifting arms.
"They have to be out of power by now!" Another magician shouted, earning a barrage in their direction.
In the distance, the facility, little more than a minor storage centre for local reagents bought from local beings, smouldered from several hits that had breached the wards. Who or what they were, Rob didn't know, but he didn't need to.
"Moreal, got any suggestions?" He asked.
His girlfriend, lying next to him in the crater, pulled several vials and jars from her dimensional pocket.
"He's too fast with triggering his twice critical, boosting defences and resistances right before the attack lands," She said, inspecting one vial. "Whoever reincarnated him trained him just well enough for him to do that, but then why let him loose?"
"Theorise later, kill it now," Archmage Lucinda, one of the council members and leader of the current militia unit, grunted through the communication spell tying them all together. "What do you have?"
"Well, since he is relying on an unknown sense to react, I can't say," Moreal flinched as someone cried out, a demonic blast striking them.
"Damn," Someone shouted. "He got Jeff, I'm teleporting him out."
"Go," Lucinda barked. "Fine, what sense are they probably using?"
"Eyesight is too poor, based on their inaccuracy and inconsistent eyes," Moreal thought aloud. "Can't be directly related to magic. Hearing? Touch?"
Lucinda stood up from her crater, a spell conjuring a zone of silence leaping from her hand. A moment later, she cursed and threw herself down.
"Touch," Lucinda hissed. "Bastard is headed towards me, now or never!"
Moreal stood and chucked a jar of liquid into the air. A spell struck it, carrying it the distance to its target.
She leapt into the air as a blast of magic passed through her former spot, her black wings glistening in the sun.
The jar fell short, shattering and releasing the liquid, which in turn emitted smoke.
"Numbing agent!" Moreal barked. "Hit it!"
Ten magicians stood, pouring their power into their spells.
The stray wasn't stupid, just crazy. It knew what was coming, and triggered its sacred gear, boosting its natural defences, while dumping power into its shield spells.
It reeled when the spells struck but remained standing.
And then Moreal hit it from above, her spear of light bypassing the devil's boosted defences.
It gurgled. One eye stared back at her as she panted. She was not used to fighting directly and hadn't needed to for over a century.
The eye slowly looked down at the spear piercing its flesh, in what could have been disbelief or incomprehension.
"They… told me… I could… kill whatever I… wanted," It gurgled as it died, speaking with something between disbelief and absentmindedness. "Said… I was important, just had to… destroy this place."
"The devils tend to say a lot of things like that," Moreal spat as she pushed the spear deeper. "They're just as prone to lying as anyone else."
The stray collapsed.
"Well done, Moreal," Lucinda nodded. "I'll let the council know you were a great asset here, and well done to the rest of you. Let's get that fire out, dispose of the body, then we can all go home."
Three hours later, Rob groaned as he walked down the corridors of the main headquarters, nearly running into Philip.
"Hey, Philip," He greeted. "What's with all the papers?"
"Researching a sort of defensive spell," Philip said around the stack in his arms. "What happened to you?"
"Stray in Arizona," Rob grunted. "Moreal killed it after it damaged the warehouse there."
"Any luck finding out where they are coming from?" Philip asked, shifting the stack of papers in his hands.
"Kinda," Rob shrugged. "I heard they ID'ed the human they used to be. Death row inmate that should have been dead a year ago, which is alarming."
"Yeah, that would give them a steady supply of disposable recruits, wouldn't it?" Philip sighed. "I heard from Serafall about a dozen other attacks in the Underworld by strays trying to get loose. She was complaining that it was making it hard to identify the ones with actual grievances who were just trying to get out of bad peerages. How much of that is true… well, I suspect she thinks it's true."
Rob frowned.
"Not sure how far I'd trust a devil," He said. "But then, she did help keep… You know what from getting loose, so I guess I can give her the benefit of the doubt. The people that might be lying to her, though? No. So, where's your other half?"
"Aya's in a practice room, running a ki version of the spell, the original we're trying to replicate," Philip said. "Anyway, I got to go over these, I only have so much time I can use the supercomputers."
"Wait," Rob blinked. "You got permission to use them? I haven't been permitted to use them."
"When was the last time you tried to make a new spell that needed to be calculated by a machine?" Philip asked.
"I wanted to test an algorithm for checking spells from errors, but I keep getting denied," Rob grumbled. Jealousy towards his younger co-worker bubbled up.
"Who do you ask?"
"Uh, Will? The guy in charge of them?"
"Oh, I was told to send it to the Council," Philip blinked. "Will's an ass. And uses one for gaming half the time. It's a supercomputer, using alchemical solutions to cool it, rare metals to handle the heat better, and a spell to quickly replace the heated coolant through teleportation. And he uses it to play games."
"… I mean, I would too," Rob admitted.
"Dude, it's safer, easier, and cheaper, to get a regular PC, and then modify it. Besides, the games are throttled by not being made for those rigs," Philip rolled his eyes. "Anyway, I seriously got to go."
"Yeah, yeah, later," Rob waved as he headed to his quarters. "Tell Aya I said hi!"
Philip snorted and continued towards his office.
He blinked when he found Kuroka sitting behind his desk.
"What happened?" He asked, setting the papers down.
"Who said anything happened, nya?" She meowed, leaning forward onto the desk. "I can't come to visit?"
Philip just raised an eyebrow at her antics.
The catgirl pouted.
"You're no fun," She sighed. "Fine. So, I'm sure Aya told you what I've been up to?"
"Spying on the Hero Faction of the Khaos Brigade, using the ki tag you hid in Jeanne's underwear," Philip sighed. "I thought Aya convinced you to stop, given you hadn't found anything?"
"No, I agreed to not spend so much time spying on them," Kuroka corrected. "But I did find something, yesterday. I spent some time hiding my trail."
Philip looked at the object she placed on his desk. He looked back up at her, unamused.
"Jeanne's underwear is not of any value or interest to me," Philip glowered at her.
"Fine, I'll skip the teasing," Kuroka pouted as she made the clothing vanish. "I had a whole bit thought up, but you have no sense of humour."
"Not on serious matters, no."
Kuroka made a dramatic sigh, making a show of crossing her arms beneath her breasts as she leaned back in the chair.
"How about this, then?" With a flick of her tail, a seal appeared on the desk, disgorging a copy of a map, alongside several photos.
"What am I looking at?" Philip frowned. He recognised Cao Cao and George, though several other figures they were meeting with in the photos were unfamiliar with him.
"The map is of Kyoto, I'm sure you know why they are interested, and why it has the leylines marked," Kuroka smirked. "As for the photos, I overheard most of them talking about Sacred Gears, and a few of them displayed them. All 'pure' humans."
Philip sighed, rubbing his face as he felt the stress build.
"Do we have anything that connects them to the Khaos Brigade?" Philip blinked as she handed him a photo. Philip stared at it for a moment.
"You were spotted."
"You try avoiding Ophis!" Kuroka grumbled.
Philip acquiesced the point, glancing back at the photo of Ophis, next to Cao Cao and a human he was talking with, looking straight at the person taking the photo.
Even in a photo, Philip felt something unsettling about her.
"I'll take this to the Archmage," He sighed. "But he is probably going to want you to give a report."
"Noo…" Kuroka whined. "I don't want paperwork…."
"Verbal, not written," Philip corrected. He exhaled in annoyance as his cell phone rang. "When it rains it pours. Hello?"
Kuroka snickered at the emotions that flickered across Philip's face as he listened.
"Wait, hasn't it been a week, and your just now telling him about the supernatural? Why leave him in the dark, no pun intended, about what happened for so long?" Philip asked. "Fine. Fine, but I'm not agreeing to teach him more than the basics. Right, then I will see you then to discuss the details."
Kuroka gave him a questioning look as the call ended.
"That… is a stupid amount of money she is willing to pay," Philip snorted. "Okay, so, Rias is paying me faaaar too much to teach her new pawn the basics of magic. I don't know why, but I intend to find out. She also didn't give a very good explanation on why she didn't tell him about the supernatural until he ran into a Fallen at the edge of her territory. Claimed it was to 'let him settle in' before dumping everything on him. Bloody hell. Aya's coming, I'm willing to bet. And I am dragging you along because Rias asked me to on behalf of her sister."
"I'll come, no need to force me…" Kuroka said, before continuing with a suggestive tone. "But if you want to have to tie me up…."
"Not dignifying that with a response," Philip gave her a flat look, ignoring the heat on his cheeks. "Meeting is tomorrow. In the meantime, let's go talk to the Archmage."
"Who is he anyway?" Kuroka asked. "I get he's old, and not Merlin, but you never told me his name."
"Oh," Philip gave a half snort, gathering up the map and photos. "Uh, Cain. The first murderer. Turns out, he was made immortal by God, and has been spending his time learning magic."
Philip paused.
"Also, you better hope Ophis doesn't care about you, because this place is not a fortress, and most people here are researchers, not soldiers."
The Brotherhood was not a militant organisation, but the current diplomatic situation was and had always been, one of low-level anarchy, necessitating a level of willingness to do violence. Rare was a true pacifist among the supernatural communities.
Thus, he and several other senior members had found themselves called upon to defend one of the group's facilities from a stray, likely after the reagents inside, either in an attempt to cure their out-of-control powers or simply to make a quick buck.
At least, that had been the initial assumption.
A dozen magicians, each equal to an upper low-rank devil at the least, should have been more than enough to deal with a single stray, whose power was out of control.
Should.
A stray devil that was once human, however, with a Sacred Gear, however? That complicated things.
"Bastard has a twice critical!" Someone shouted.
The Arizona desert surface was already pitted with craters from earlier blasts, providing cover for the magicians against the stray's erratic attacks.
Rob glanced over the lip of the shallow crater at the former human.
Standing on two legs, its torso was obscured with the many grasping and twitching arms. No head was visible, but here and there an eye appeared between the shifting arms.
"They have to be out of power by now!" Another magician shouted, earning a barrage in their direction.
In the distance, the facility, little more than a minor storage centre for local reagents bought from local beings, smouldered from several hits that had breached the wards. Who or what they were, Rob didn't know, but he didn't need to.
"Moreal, got any suggestions?" He asked.
His girlfriend, lying next to him in the crater, pulled several vials and jars from her dimensional pocket.
"He's too fast with triggering his twice critical, boosting defences and resistances right before the attack lands," She said, inspecting one vial. "Whoever reincarnated him trained him just well enough for him to do that, but then why let him loose?"
"Theorise later, kill it now," Archmage Lucinda, one of the council members and leader of the current militia unit, grunted through the communication spell tying them all together. "What do you have?"
"Well, since he is relying on an unknown sense to react, I can't say," Moreal flinched as someone cried out, a demonic blast striking them.
"Damn," Someone shouted. "He got Jeff, I'm teleporting him out."
"Go," Lucinda barked. "Fine, what sense are they probably using?"
"Eyesight is too poor, based on their inaccuracy and inconsistent eyes," Moreal thought aloud. "Can't be directly related to magic. Hearing? Touch?"
Lucinda stood up from her crater, a spell conjuring a zone of silence leaping from her hand. A moment later, she cursed and threw herself down.
"Touch," Lucinda hissed. "Bastard is headed towards me, now or never!"
Moreal stood and chucked a jar of liquid into the air. A spell struck it, carrying it the distance to its target.
She leapt into the air as a blast of magic passed through her former spot, her black wings glistening in the sun.
The jar fell short, shattering and releasing the liquid, which in turn emitted smoke.
"Numbing agent!" Moreal barked. "Hit it!"
Ten magicians stood, pouring their power into their spells.
The stray wasn't stupid, just crazy. It knew what was coming, and triggered its sacred gear, boosting its natural defences, while dumping power into its shield spells.
It reeled when the spells struck but remained standing.
And then Moreal hit it from above, her spear of light bypassing the devil's boosted defences.
It gurgled. One eye stared back at her as she panted. She was not used to fighting directly and hadn't needed to for over a century.
The eye slowly looked down at the spear piercing its flesh, in what could have been disbelief or incomprehension.
"They… told me… I could… kill whatever I… wanted," It gurgled as it died, speaking with something between disbelief and absentmindedness. "Said… I was important, just had to… destroy this place."
"The devils tend to say a lot of things like that," Moreal spat as she pushed the spear deeper. "They're just as prone to lying as anyone else."
The stray collapsed.
"Well done, Moreal," Lucinda nodded. "I'll let the council know you were a great asset here, and well done to the rest of you. Let's get that fire out, dispose of the body, then we can all go home."
Three hours later, Rob groaned as he walked down the corridors of the main headquarters, nearly running into Philip.
"Hey, Philip," He greeted. "What's with all the papers?"
"Researching a sort of defensive spell," Philip said around the stack in his arms. "What happened to you?"
"Stray in Arizona," Rob grunted. "Moreal killed it after it damaged the warehouse there."
"Any luck finding out where they are coming from?" Philip asked, shifting the stack of papers in his hands.
"Kinda," Rob shrugged. "I heard they ID'ed the human they used to be. Death row inmate that should have been dead a year ago, which is alarming."
"Yeah, that would give them a steady supply of disposable recruits, wouldn't it?" Philip sighed. "I heard from Serafall about a dozen other attacks in the Underworld by strays trying to get loose. She was complaining that it was making it hard to identify the ones with actual grievances who were just trying to get out of bad peerages. How much of that is true… well, I suspect she thinks it's true."
Rob frowned.
"Not sure how far I'd trust a devil," He said. "But then, she did help keep… You know what from getting loose, so I guess I can give her the benefit of the doubt. The people that might be lying to her, though? No. So, where's your other half?"
"Aya's in a practice room, running a ki version of the spell, the original we're trying to replicate," Philip said. "Anyway, I got to go over these, I only have so much time I can use the supercomputers."
"Wait," Rob blinked. "You got permission to use them? I haven't been permitted to use them."
"When was the last time you tried to make a new spell that needed to be calculated by a machine?" Philip asked.
"I wanted to test an algorithm for checking spells from errors, but I keep getting denied," Rob grumbled. Jealousy towards his younger co-worker bubbled up.
"Who do you ask?"
"Uh, Will? The guy in charge of them?"
"Oh, I was told to send it to the Council," Philip blinked. "Will's an ass. And uses one for gaming half the time. It's a supercomputer, using alchemical solutions to cool it, rare metals to handle the heat better, and a spell to quickly replace the heated coolant through teleportation. And he uses it to play games."
"… I mean, I would too," Rob admitted.
"Dude, it's safer, easier, and cheaper, to get a regular PC, and then modify it. Besides, the games are throttled by not being made for those rigs," Philip rolled his eyes. "Anyway, I seriously got to go."
"Yeah, yeah, later," Rob waved as he headed to his quarters. "Tell Aya I said hi!"
Philip snorted and continued towards his office.
He blinked when he found Kuroka sitting behind his desk.
"What happened?" He asked, setting the papers down.
"Who said anything happened, nya?" She meowed, leaning forward onto the desk. "I can't come to visit?"
Philip just raised an eyebrow at her antics.
The catgirl pouted.
"You're no fun," She sighed. "Fine. So, I'm sure Aya told you what I've been up to?"
"Spying on the Hero Faction of the Khaos Brigade, using the ki tag you hid in Jeanne's underwear," Philip sighed. "I thought Aya convinced you to stop, given you hadn't found anything?"
"No, I agreed to not spend so much time spying on them," Kuroka corrected. "But I did find something, yesterday. I spent some time hiding my trail."
Philip looked at the object she placed on his desk. He looked back up at her, unamused.
"Jeanne's underwear is not of any value or interest to me," Philip glowered at her.
"Fine, I'll skip the teasing," Kuroka pouted as she made the clothing vanish. "I had a whole bit thought up, but you have no sense of humour."
"Not on serious matters, no."
Kuroka made a dramatic sigh, making a show of crossing her arms beneath her breasts as she leaned back in the chair.
"How about this, then?" With a flick of her tail, a seal appeared on the desk, disgorging a copy of a map, alongside several photos.
"What am I looking at?" Philip frowned. He recognised Cao Cao and George, though several other figures they were meeting with in the photos were unfamiliar with him.
"The map is of Kyoto, I'm sure you know why they are interested, and why it has the leylines marked," Kuroka smirked. "As for the photos, I overheard most of them talking about Sacred Gears, and a few of them displayed them. All 'pure' humans."
Philip sighed, rubbing his face as he felt the stress build.
"Do we have anything that connects them to the Khaos Brigade?" Philip blinked as she handed him a photo. Philip stared at it for a moment.
"You were spotted."
"You try avoiding Ophis!" Kuroka grumbled.
Philip acquiesced the point, glancing back at the photo of Ophis, next to Cao Cao and a human he was talking with, looking straight at the person taking the photo.
Even in a photo, Philip felt something unsettling about her.
"I'll take this to the Archmage," He sighed. "But he is probably going to want you to give a report."
"Noo…" Kuroka whined. "I don't want paperwork…."
"Verbal, not written," Philip corrected. He exhaled in annoyance as his cell phone rang. "When it rains it pours. Hello?"
Kuroka snickered at the emotions that flickered across Philip's face as he listened.
"Wait, hasn't it been a week, and your just now telling him about the supernatural? Why leave him in the dark, no pun intended, about what happened for so long?" Philip asked. "Fine. Fine, but I'm not agreeing to teach him more than the basics. Right, then I will see you then to discuss the details."
Kuroka gave him a questioning look as the call ended.
"That… is a stupid amount of money she is willing to pay," Philip snorted. "Okay, so, Rias is paying me faaaar too much to teach her new pawn the basics of magic. I don't know why, but I intend to find out. She also didn't give a very good explanation on why she didn't tell him about the supernatural until he ran into a Fallen at the edge of her territory. Claimed it was to 'let him settle in' before dumping everything on him. Bloody hell. Aya's coming, I'm willing to bet. And I am dragging you along because Rias asked me to on behalf of her sister."
"I'll come, no need to force me…" Kuroka said, before continuing with a suggestive tone. "But if you want to have to tie me up…."
"Not dignifying that with a response," Philip gave her a flat look, ignoring the heat on his cheeks. "Meeting is tomorrow. In the meantime, let's go talk to the Archmage."
"Who is he anyway?" Kuroka asked. "I get he's old, and not Merlin, but you never told me his name."
"Oh," Philip gave a half snort, gathering up the map and photos. "Uh, Cain. The first murderer. Turns out, he was made immortal by God, and has been spending his time learning magic."
Philip paused.
"Also, you better hope Ophis doesn't care about you, because this place is not a fortress, and most people here are researchers, not soldiers."