Author's note:And the wait is finally over! The first chapter of the Rating Game is finally here! I truly hope you all enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it, even if it was a very soul-killing week when I first wrote these chapters.
The next chapter will come as soon as I can get it out. And I hope to hear what you all think!
Disclaimer: All characters depicted in this story are eighteen years of age or older. Any sexual content involves only consenting adults. This is a work of fiction.
A Marvelous Devil.
Chapter 77: A demon's presentation.
Dante Andromalius.
"I wonder what the appropriate punishment is for when a peerage is filled with disrespectful brats," I sent through the psionic connection Jean had linked us to.
"Spanking?" Tandy giggled.
I could feel the air soaring against her body as she flew towards where she was supposed to be.
"Do not tempt me with a good time, sugah," Rogue chuckled.
I grinned as I traveled through the Dark Force, laughing at Jean's exasperation and Wanda's curiosity.
Our latest member was made for devilhood, which made me wonder how the knowledge of what I truly was had affected her own reincarnation through her connection with Chthon.
Her devil form, something she was immensely proud of and liked to use often, was just one of the few things that had changed from before.
And Rudiger loved her as if she were the most precious thing on earth. He even ended up making her his student.
"Can I watch?" Wanda asked curiously as Jean and Rogue filled the connection with white noise.
"Brats." I shook my head amusedly. "How we going?"
"I'm in place," Tandy saluted.
She was nervous.
Hell, they all were. Not that they should be, considering how hard they had pushed each other the previous weeks.
"I know that you all will make me proud, girls." I sent genuine praise their way. "You already do. All I ask you is to…"
I targeted Roygun and her peerage's location, nodding to myself as I completed my pathing of the arena.
"To?" Wanda asked nervously.
"Have fun. And do your best. That's all; everything else is a plus."
The girls grinned, and we all felt their shoulders untensing.
"Three minutes," Jean, Wanda, and Rogue chorused.
"Good," I chuckled proudly, sensing their fervor through our link.
Stepping through the Darkness, I nodded courteously at the group in front of me.
The girls… they cared a lot about this fight. And it really made my ancient heart feel excitement at what they would unleash on the world during the fight.
There was something more important than just winning, at least for them.
Ever since Rudy had learned about their capabilities and laid down the law about how blessed they were that I found them without anyone else knowing about their existence, it had changed the reason they trained so hard.
They were now fighting to ensure no one would risk what we had built. The family they were now part of.
I wasn't lying when I said I found Roygun similar to me, which was why I had to do something before the game started for real.
"I'm enthused all of you are still here," I chuckled, receiving a variety of glares from the bunch in front of me.
Some had shock, for very obvious reasons; others were just eager to get started.
Case in point…
Ducking, I extended my hand and grabbed the vampire by the throat as soon as she reached my location.
Her eyes narrowed as she tried to get free from my grasp, her pale skin growing redder by the second as she sent the inert blood inside her body into overdrive.
I was wondering how she would act in this game.
"Not yet, child." I shook my head, getting a wide-eyed stare from the now meek vampire. "I have some words for your King. And you will listen."
I didn't focus on her anymore, cocking my arm and launching her towards the biggest man on the team.
Hrimvald caught her, looking down at the vampire with worry when she didn't return to her rage and instead stayed put.
Heh. I loved meeting creatures that thought their race was the apex predator. They usually made things easy for me because they learned the fastest how insignificant they were.
"That was an impressive opening, Dante," Roygun praised casually, her insane demonic power reserves churning inside her body.
"My girls will be happy to hear that." I smiled genuinely before my face went blank.
"But I'm here for another reason, Roygun. I owe you an apology." I shook my head, sighing.
The Dark Force formed a pool to my right as something started to take shape below my outstretched hand. Roygun, despite knowing I was planning something, didn't do anything more than raise an eyebrow in curiosity.
I took that time to observe the older devil before grinning. She was beautiful, but I focused less on that than on the qualitative change in her soul since our last meeting. That bond which I noticed with her peerage back then had strengthened significantly, and all of them were connected to her just as brightly as her own.
She was dressed in a battle dress that hugged her figure tightly. A blue thing with a shining green gem around her neck.
All her team had armor with a respectable number of enchantments. I didn't recognize the metals they were made of, but they were of acceptable quality.
For mortals.
"Apologize?" she asked, her look hardening. "Is it because your Bishop attacked us with enough light magic to vaporize an entire battalion of devils? I'm sure many older devils are shaking in the booths, you know? Or is this about whatever the hell your Pawn built over our heads? Or maybe because of the sheer disrespect of showing up alone, unarmed, in front of us?"
"None of that."
She narrowed her eyes.
"I want to apologize because when I agreed to those idiots' obvious plot," I scoffed quietly, wondering what kind of expressions they were making wherever they were watching, "I didn't care about who my opponent was. You were just a prop for my team."
"Careful, Dante," she said dangerously. "You might be fun, but I don't enjoy me and my family being treated as jokes."
I smiled genuinely at that.
"There were many reasons why I accepted despite knowing what they were planning. For supposedly being old, manipulative devils, they had no chance in hell of playing someone like me." I shook my head. "But the main reason was our own introduction."
She looked at her peerage, whose expressions turned ugly at my words.
"So that's all we are? Your stage?"
I tilted my head consideringly before nodding. "At the start? Yes, that's all you were. It didn't matter if it was you, or anyone else in the top 10. I would say this to the emperor's face if he were standing in front of me."
"Confidence stops being attractive when it turns into arrogance," the woman dressed completely in black and holding a scythe snorted. "You know what the odds of your team winning are?"
"Oh, it was ten to one," I chuckled, waving my hand through the air. "I assure you, all my friends and my family will be even richer after today is over. But that's not the point, my dear. The point is that after meeting you, I changed my mind. I pride myself on being fair, you know?"
Charon raised her scythe, the weapon large enough to reach my throat even from a distance.
The pool of Darkness bubbled nastily as a thin, dark pillar began to grow from it.
They looked at it warily while I looked down at Charon's weapon, then slowly pushed it away with the tip of my finger.
It was dangerous enough to my current body that I had to coat my digit with a film of Cosmic Power.
Their eyes narrowed as the weapon failed to cut through my skin.
"Fairness?" the Tengu asked. His name was Hayate.
"Indeed. It's my whole motto."
"Is this pity, Andromalius?" Roygun's voice turned frigid.
"Not at all, my dear Roygun. It's the truth. I thought about what would be fair to give you all for what you're doing for me."
I took a peek into the pillar below me, which was now reaching my knees. It was darker than black, almost void-like, consuming all light that went near it, and distinctively in the form of a staff.
And considering how much light was above us, that was saying something.
Creating artifacts took a bit of time and focus, especially when I wanted them to be interconnected to this very pseudo-dimension.
Ajuka created way too many systems to make sure people didn't fuck with his creation, and despite enjoying pissing him off, he was still a damn genius. I needed a bit more time.
"Money would be useless," I chuckled derisively.
Roygun and her peerage imitated me.
"Fame? You have more than enough." I shrugged.
Despite everything, Roygun's soul showed a hint of interest at my words.
"Flowers? I don't think we've reached the point where you forgive me for all the bullshit I pull with something that simple." I grinned. "Give it time, though."
"Are your girls that easily managed?" the once-human man, Gideon, asked curiously.
"Wouldn't you like to know, brat?" I chuckled.
"I'm like a decade older than you."
He went ignored.
"There's only one thing I can give you and your family that you will actually remember fondly despite hating my guts."
The staff finished forming.
Palming the edge, I felt my muscles bulge as I pulled it out from the pool of Dark Force.
Damn. I probably pumped too much into it.
The other end dropped on the ground, and the pavement instantly cratered beneath it.
Frowning minutely, I forced my demonic power into my muscles, much like Sai used Touki. I couldn't use that for multiple reasons, but imitating it with something else was easy.
With just a bit of effort, I lifted it enough to rest it on my shoulder.
My eyebrow twitched when the ground dented inwards just from the weight alone.
"And what is that gift, Dante?"
"The best fight of your fucking life." I grinned widely.
Roygun, Hrimvald, Hayate, and Charon, burst out laughing at that.
"That is something we might forgive you for."
"We're ready," my peerage sent through the connection.
I grinned excitedly before raising the staff toward the sky, my neck bulging and my arms shaking just slightly.
"Then prepare for the hell I'll put you all through." I winked.
And I brought the staff down.
The shadows inside the arena began to act strangely as everything slowed down to my senses. It wasn't often that I accelerated my thought process, but I wanted to enjoy this very moment.
Glancing at Roygun's stretching hand, I decided to ignore it, merely enjoying the connection to the Dark Force building behind the staff as it continued its descent.
A haze of darkness followed its path.
The tip cut through the empty air as it descended, leaving behind a darker-than-black crack that refused to close. Inch by inch, the staff fell, and inch by inch, the wound in reality became longer above it.
Roygun's shadow extended first.
Charon's followed. And the rest of her peerage soon joined them.
The shadows cast by the buildings twisted against the direction of the light. Tandy's, miles away, answered next. Then Rogue's. Then the rest of my girls. Every person, every piece of rubble, every broken window, and every ruined vehicle, all the way to the edge of Ajuka's pseudo-dimension.
One after another, they stretched toward me.
Or better said, toward the rift forming above my head. The one connected to my staff.
The one that kept on dropping.
More and more tendrils latched onto the impossibly black line in the air until there were no longer millions of separate shadows throughout the dimension.
There was only one.
Light tried to remain between them only to fail spectacularly.
My plotting of the dimension had taken a significant amount of time, but once I knew where everything existed at every point inside it, doing something like this was almost trivial.
The sky grew dark as light no longer reflected off the ground.
Funnily enough, the sun and Jean's creation seemed to grow brighter in response, a blinding white lamp suspended above a world that was turning pitch black beneath it.
Then the darkness began to expand.
The shadow climbed to cover the few parts that stayed untouched.
It crawled up buildings against the light. It spilled out of the alleys until the streets looked flooded. It poured beneath doors, swallowed rooftops, and rolled over the sides of towers like a tide.
And then night rose from the ground.
High above the city, Jean's enormous creation still covered the arena, Tandy's spears held together by her psionic energy.
Then my darkness reached it.
The Dark Force giggled like a baby inside my soul as it devoured its favorite meal. Spear after spear, until Jean's fiery connections unraveled.
Roygun and her peerage gave up on attacking me. They were experienced enough to understand it wouldn't change the outcome.
Their wings spread behind them in slow motion as they tried to take to the sky, their breath hitching as they finally realized height would not save them.
Tendrils caught their ankles before they could escape.
Five seconds.
That was all it took for the city to disappear.
Two more, and even the outskirts were gone.
Nothing had actually been destroyed. Even the artificial sun continued burning overhead.
But there was no longer a city for its light to reach.
Everything beneath the sky had become interconnected.
And every piece of it led back to the fissure above me. My domain.
The staff finally struck the ground… And the city jumped.
The intersection beneath me collapsed as the ground shattered under the impact. A violent tremor raced through the streets, buildings groaning on their foundations as Roygun and the others were thrown off balance.
Then the shadow in the pseudo-dimension rippled once.
The fissure stopped growing.
The entire dimension answered my will.
I felt every street. Every building. Every person.
Gideon vanished first.
Charon disappeared a fraction of an instant later, absorbed by the darkness and delivered directly into the waiting hands of my light.
Suzune managed a startled squeak before she disappeared as well.
Ilsabet followed. Then Hrimvald. Then Hayate.
All of them torn from one location and deposited somewhere else without ever crossing the distance between.
Nasrin went missing last.
Then there were only three of us.
I grinned as disbelief finally broke through Roygun's expression while she looked around the lightless world, Bree standing next to her in the small human form she preferred.
"I hope you survive this night, my dear Roygun. Or not." My grin widened. "You earned that I try."
I finally relaxed the staff's density enough to make the damn thing somewhat manageable and rested it against my shoulder.
Roygun flicked her wrist.
My hand shifted at the same time.
The shaft met something invisible with enough force to send a tremor through the darkness around us.
I tutted.
"You'll have to try harder than that."
I chuckled just before sinking into the shadow beneath my feet.
Tandy Bowen.
Dante's trust in us was helpful in many ways. It wasn't like I didn't trust myself or didn't believe in my strength.
It's just… we were so different from when we were humans. The girls felt that way worse than me, which was a little funny since they had been superheroes or a somewhat villain in Wanda's case.
I was just plain old Tandy. The druggy.
I had done things I wasn't proud of just to ensure I had my next fix at hand.
And then I went and destroyed an entire terrorist cell in Afghanistan. I fought people that could give the military back home genuine trouble. I had seen Dante battling against Wenwu, the bastard.
I still owed him for the cute game he pulled me in.
And yet, none of that mattered as much as this fight. Because as bleak as Rudy's worldview was, he wasn't wrong.
We were a danger. Or an opportunity for almost every faction, be it this reality or my original one.
And we wanted to keep the life we had as it currently was. I wouldn't let a devil, a god, or even someone as scary as Red get in the way of that. Not anymore. I wasn't weak old Tandy at this point.
Dante's darkness covered the entire arena before I could say something suitably funny through our connection.
"Don't pout," I could feel Jean rolling her eyes.
That only made me pout even harder as the girls giggled at me.
I shrugged my shoulders. Eh, it worked, so I wasn't that upset.
White daggers appeared over my palm.
The darkness didn't recoil, but I was already used to the big baby begging for attention from her mommy.
Hehehe.
"Tandy," Rogue let out a long-suffering sigh. And Dante sent his amusement.
Before I could quip at her, the instincts honed by weeks of grueling fighting inside the sealed zone and Dante's sadistic training shouted at me to move. My wings spread as I launched myself to the side.
A scythe went through the place where my neck had been a moment later, the weapon continuing through the side of a building and carving through the wall like it wasn't even there.
Without looking in that direction, I threw my dagger.
Charon tilted her head.
The scythe that had been behind me suddenly disappeared, and my dagger was blocked. She wasn't as surprised anymore by the fact that my constructs didn't disappear with a mere cut.
It just dimmed noticeably before it vanished.
"What a curious power," she said conversationally.
Then Charon grinned, "Though I believe you or your team miscalculated if I was chosen as your opponent, little girl."
I frowned at her.
She then disappeared.
My arms crossed in front of my face just before her leg slammed into them.
The street beneath me cracked as I slid backward, barely managing to grab her ankle before she could retreat, willing the light force to become a whip that held her as tightly as I could.
Charon screamed as the light-made whip became barbed and dug into her skin.
Heh. I knew she had some flesh on her bones. There had to be, considering the way her tits pushed against her robes.
Stretching my hand, I allowed the whip to lengthen and swung the grim reaper into the nearest building.
The wall gave in; the one behind that one did, too.
I stopped wasting time. The light force gathered around my hands and pushed them forward, the blast tearing through what remained of the building and carrying Charon hundreds of meters away.
She stopped in place, fending the energy blast with her bullshit weapon.
Then she took a difficult step ahead.
Her scythe moved, leaving a dark crescent that tore through the street and somehow split the beam in two, leaving her exact location free of my attack.
She swung once more.
My eyes widened, widening my stance and willing a barrier in front of me.
The darkness that followed her scythe struck hard enough to make a sound that I was sure traveled all the way to Rogue's location, denting the light.
But that wasn't what changed my expression.
Something… something was wrong.
It wasn't much, and not even that noticeable. The only reason I realized what had happened was because Rudy had been insistent on controlling our own energy, and my light force dipped a bit more than usual before it was replaced.
Charon stepped once more, moving… just a tiny bit faster than before.
Her smile widened.
"You might not get expelled as easily as the other girls would have, Tandy Bowen," Charon said confidently, "but by facing me, you signed your team's defeat."
She flew forward. I met her halfway as my mind swam with the ramifications of what she had done.
Ducking under her swipe, my fist collided against her cheek. The force alone broke the remaining glass in our street. She brought her scythe down, and my wings materialized behind me, blocking the blow.
Clenching my teeth, I barely avoided crying out loud at the searing pain and even more noticeable dip in the light force.
I kicked the grim reaper away and flew backward.
Charon's demonic power rose.
She appeared in front of me once more, forcing me to catch her scythe with my naked hand coated in light force. My light flowed almost continuously into her weapon. Her eyes narrowed in surprise as I regenerated faster than what she was taking, and I took that opportunity to drive my knee into her ribs before she could take anything more.
"That's kind of cool, I have to admit," I cackled, a plan forming inside my mind. An insane one.
Jean wasn't completely sold on it, but I could feel her curiosity as she blocked the rest of the team from hearing it.
"You don't sound worried?"
"Should I?" I grinned widely, calling for even more Lightforce into my body.
"Yes, my dear battery."
A hundred or more daggers formed behind my back.
They launched against the grim reaper in front of me.
She swiped her weapon, blocking the first thirty or so. The rest didn't even reach her, exploding in a blast of light before she could block them.
The Darkness retreated for a moment as pure white filled the streets.
The shockwave pushed cars away from the center of the explosion and tore another section from one of the buildings, toppling it over.
Not that I needed my eyes to know where Charon was. I just had to focus on the area with lessening light force.
God… This was going to bite me in the ass. And not in a fun way.
But it was just so damn tempting…
The smoke and debris cleared a moment later with a single swipe of Charon's hand.
She was bruised, her clothes ruined, and she had several tears despite the enchantments I could feel.
And yet, the pressure emanating from her was growing even stronger.
I stopped smiling at the difference since we started our little fight.
"Jean?" I asked quietly.
"Are you sure, Tandy?" she asked nervously, but also not against it as at the start.
I knew she'd see it my way.
"I don't know," I chuckled, feeling a bit irritated. "Not going to talk me out of it?"
She remained silent for a couple of seconds before replying.
"Just like Dante said… I trust you, girl."
I took a deep breath, ducking as Charon rushed me again, and I formed another barrier in front of the gluttonous skeleton.
Maybe I should take a page out of Peter's book.
"You sure are a fat ass despite being all bones," I quipped as the entire barrier flickered and a bit more of the light force left my body.
My own energy replenished even more, filling the loss before it became anything remotely dangerous.
Charon's eyes narrowed before grinning excitedly.
"You're perfect for me, Tandy," she cackled, swiping her scythe back and forth as I blocked it with constructs or my wings, attacking her in between.
And yet, my opportunities were growing scarce.
"I might have to call Roygun so that you leave me alone, Charon. You're fucking panting, girl," I shook my head, a little disturbed at the genuine drool leaving her mouth.
Charon just cackled and started going even harder.
"Jean… might need some help soon," I sent through the connection hurriedly.
Rogue and Wanda sent their worry, but I shut that down. They had their own things to do.
"Survive for four minutes, Tandy. I'll be done soon." Jean responded.
The next few minutes became significantly less entertaining.
She wasn't impossible to deal with; she was still in a safe-ish margin for me, but damn if she wasn't leaving that bracket behind, and fast.
We were both ultimate-class devils at the start, and while she was so much more experienced than I was in actual combat, no one could deny that Dante's methods worked. We weren't incapable of dealing with someone around our own level or even a bit stronger.
The problem was that she wasn't attempting to get me out of the game. Not like she was at the start.
She was intent on growing as strong as she could feasibly be.
Every barrier she struck gave her something. Every dagger she intercepted did as well.
Every blast, be it blocked or not, amped the insane woman up.
And when she learned that merely grazing me with that disgusting weapon of hers was enough to pull even more than my own attacks?
I wasn't having a good time.
Because unlike every other living creature in the world… I didn't run dry. It was impossible because of what I was.
And the lightforce had my back as it always did, replenishing what was stolen and growing even brighter every time I managed a solid hit.
Every time I expended everything in a flash of white to get her, destroying entire streets at once, my light force replenished an instant later.
And Charon loved that, because it meant that she could keep taking from me.
I slammed my fist into her jaw, twisting at the same time to avoid her scythe for what felt like the thousandth time. My wings flared behind me as I accelerated into the Queen.
My shoulder hit her stomach and carried both of us through three buildings before I aimed into the sky, taking her with me.
Spreading my wings, I stopped dead in the air and unleashed every last ounce of Lightforce in my body at point-blank range.
It erupted out of me like a star being born.
Dante's domain and darkness trembled from the shockwave. The black sky above rippled and split apart around the column of light, retreating from it as if the shadows themselves had been scalded.
The sun appeared in the dimension once more before the darkness returned.
The Queen was blasted even higher, thrown through the center of that radiant pillar before the expanding detonation billowed outward, forming a genuine mushroom cloud.
Then the recoil hit me, sending me crashing back to earth.
Every bone inside my body groaned in protest.
"How much longer, Jean?" I panted as the light force started mending my body.
"Roygun Belphegor's Pawn has retired." The announcer said in a quiet, disbelieving tone.
"Two minutes," Jean grunted. "Nasrin took longer than anticipated. She did her best so that I wouldn't reach their base. But I'm here."
"Promotion, Queen." Jean's voice filled the arena.
"Then hurry the fuck up," I barked, watching as Charon's body fell from the sky and impacted against a building that dropped with her from the force. "I don't think I managed to take her out with that. She grew too fast."
"Then stop feeding her more."
I looked down at my hands as a raspy cough came out from the distance.
She sounded like I had destroyed her lungs, but the deathly aura only strengthened.
"How, exactly, do you expect me to do that?"
Jean didn't respond, just letting me feel the distance between us.
Yeah, that's what I thought.
Charon stepped through the debris, clutching her chest, which was now bare to the world.
Damn this lecherous reality.
I pulled one of the shirts we all had saved for this very situation and threw it her way.
Charon's expression grew blank as she looked at the bundled cloths in front of her.
Then a genuine smile spread across her face, lifting it and hiding the olive skin beneath it.
She was kinda hot in a scary way.
"You do know that even if I'm grateful for this, I won't hold back anymore, right? I'm already stronger than I was when I battled Diehauser. And your team has already caused enough trouble."
The excitement in her eyes couldn't be more obvious.
The scythe had begun radiating enough power that even looking directly at the blade made me feel dizzy.
"And even that much won't be enough to defeat us," I glared at her, feeling genuinely offended that she was comparing us to a mere devil.
We were Dante's devils, damn it!
The street shattered under her stomp, and I couldn't do anything as she appeared in front of me and kicked me for what felt like a mile or two.
My hands caught the blade before she could slice my throat, pumping so much life force into them that it made me feel sick in the stomach.
Charon hadn't retreated at all, literally holding me in place as her arms bulged.
The floor collapsed beneath my feet.
The cold of her weapon made me shiver as the glow in my hands dimmed.
Her power rose again.
Then more.
And more.
The Darkness around my body came to life as it latched into Charon's body and sent her flying towards the park.
"NO!" I shouted at Dante through our connection. "Don't weaken her, Dante!"
I sensed his worry for me, but the darkness returned to its passive state.
Charon reappeared in front of me, her hand stretched as if she was going to rip my throat out.
Then she froze in place.
Jean descended from above, her red hair moving around her despite the complete lack of wind in Dante's darkness.
"I knew this was a bad idea."
I snorted. "Pros and cons, now help me here, you bitch."
Jean looked down at the now moving Charon.
It was slow, not even snail pace, but even that was impressive.
I had created a monster.
The street erupted, and Jean's eyes widened as Charon forced herself upright against her telekinesis.
Then she took one step.
Then another.
"She truly had a Tandy buffet. Dante will be jealous," Jean chuckled.
"Can't say I enjoyed having her going down on me as much as others," I grunted irritably.
Jean burst out laughing, and even Charon stopped her movement to deadpan at me.
I fist pumped inside my mind. Heh.
Jean stopped Charon's scythe from moving, and I shot thousands of spears, feeling my head spin as I pushed myself further than ever.
Charon's eyes dilated when, instead of launching them at her, they burrowed into the shadow.
Then a pin cushioned grim reaper was the only thing that could barely be seen in the darkness, the spears emerging from the ground under Jean's telekinetic control.
Charon spat out blood as hundreds of holes appeared on her body.
Until my light began decaying.
"No fucking way," Jean gaped.
The light sphere around Charon began shrinking. A black silhouette moved inside of it.
The holes in her body began closing at a visible rate, her blood decaying the pavement beneath the Queen.
One of her arms hung at an awkward angle, and her scythe showed cracks along the edge.
"I feel like we should be running," Jean shook her head.
Charon's arm snapped back into place.
I sighed, cursing my myself for my insane plan.
We went at her together.
Jean cut the connection with the rest to focus entirely on the fight that had long since gone past casual.
Buildings began to groan as they fell around us.
The concrete ripped itself out of the street and slammed into Charon from every direction while I filled every possible opening with normal magic.
Charon cut through some of it, barely.
Dodged others.
Jean threw her across three blocks. I was waiting for her with a steel beam I ripped out of a ruined building and coated it with demonic power.
I drove it inside her stomach, impaling her.
Then fire rained down from the sky as I retreated.
Charon disappeared as entire buildings fell from the sky next, forming a cocoon around her, and the fire burned even hotter until everything was melded together.
Then the rubble exploded outwards.
I barely had time to register the frown on Charon's face before it appeared before me.
I couldn't move.
And her scythe impaled my heart.
"You lasted longer than I thought," she murmured, her hand caressing my cheek as I spat blood into her face.
It burned.
It burned. It hurt so bad.
Something incredibly cold passed straight through my body.
Jean screamed something through the connection.
My body twitched violently, but I didn't feel myself move.
I looked down at my chest.
The curved blade had gone through my chest.
Charon's face lost its gentle smile as she looked at the same thing I was focusing on.
Something was… wrong.
And I wasn't talking about my injuries.
Blood stopped flowing out of the cut. It was a white, almost solid light that leaked from the wound.
A ridiculous amount of it.
I gasped as I felt something inside me rip open.
The connection that had always existed ever since I met Dante, the thing I reached through every single time I channeled my light force, felt different.
Too close. Too wide. Too present.
The street beneath us cracked, and life began to bloom all around us.
Green pushed through the broken pavement as the darkness screamed in joy.
Grass was born first. Then flowers, followed by the vines that erupted over the sides of the building as more and more light flooded outward from my body.
Charon's eyes widened.
My mind grew hazy until I could see nothing but white.
The last thing I understood was Nova saying something through Jean's connection.
And then the way Jean's eyes turned white.
Anna Marie, Rogue.
The girls had gone irritably silent, and the only thing I could hear was the impacts and destruction coming from different areas inside the arena.
Eh… I trusted them with my damn life.
So, I did what I enjoyed the most.
I had fun.
And I had severely underestimated how much fun Rias's bloodline would be.
The crimson sphere coating my palm looked almost harmless if one ignored the way the darkness around it seemed to shy away. The Power of Destruction tore through the air with such ease that it made me feel even faster than I had since I became a devil.
It was like it was blocking the air resistance from affecting me. By destroying it.
Hrimvald looked at my hand in disbelief.
The giant pushed the tengu aside before twisting his torso as I threw it, the sphere barely missing his side by less than a meter before continuing through the building behind my opponents.
I was tasked with keeping most of Roygun's peerage busy because of who I was. The only ones that weren't here were those that could complicate matters for me.
But these? These were manageable.
And manageable was what was best for me, because it never stayed that way for long.
I grinned seeing the clear-cut circle in the building before it toppled over. It was like it just vanished the matter around it.
Hrimvald looked behind, and he groaned into his palm.
"That," his voice rumbled as he turned back toward me, "is not something I expected to see in this match. Another Bael, lass? That's why you hide your name?"
"I just borrowed it," I drawled amusedly.
"That's not how it works," he muttered in confusion.
"You sure?" My right arm ignited with the crimson destruction.
His expression hardened as I grinned.
Then Hayate hit me from the left side hard enough to send me through a bus.
My right hand tried to dig into the metal and simply vanished what I tried to grab.
Damn Rias. She didn't have experience getting launched through buses. I would tell Dante... later.
Lightforce-made wings exploded from my back, stopping me midair before I could hit a building on the other side of the street.
"You're irritating," I glared at the flying Asian man.
I hadn't even seen him move, and I was much faster than I was before.
"That's my specialty, princess," he chuckled from the air before vanishing once more.
I couldn't follow him with my eyes, which was annoying as hell, but I wasn't someone inexperienced enough to allow something like that to stop me.
Not after dealing with Pietro in the Brotherhood or when I was with the X-Men.
A slight shift in the air was all the warning I got, and the lightforce burst outward from my body.
Hayate's form materialized as he stopped himself, then tried to change direction, the white light brushing the edge of one of his wings as he escaped.
He hissed.
Hm. Curious, but unsurprising.
Tandy's power was weird like that.
My wings flared behind me as I dropped toward the street; midway, Hrimvald decided to meet me head-on.
I grinned as Touki exploded out of my body, courtesy of Sai.
The frost giant's fist was almost as large as my chest.
Reinforcing my body with Life Force felt like second nature at this point, coating one arm with Lightforce and the other with destruction a little bit less.
The hit still felt like getting run over by a mountain, just as Sai's were.
Fucking monsters.
The ground beneath us gave in, then the shadow thickened enough to step on it.
My arms cracked as Hrimvald hissed from the burns, but the damage was healed almost immediately as Hrimvald's expression changed from satisfaction to irritation.
"Big bastard, ain't you?" I shook my head. "At least you and Sai look the part."
They really did; they looked like tanks in a man's body. It made it easier to stomach than Dante's dainty hand punching the air out of my lungs and doubling me over.
Hrimvald wasn't that talkative, so he punched again.
I slipped underneath it this time, following Sai's experience in close-quarter combat.
My palm touched his stomach. One single second.
"Gotcha," I grinned as the connection opened.
Cold…
That was the first thing I felt.
A cold so frigid it could freeze the very soul.
Then strength.
Hrimvald didn't know what I was doing, but he roared and grabbed my shoulder.
Five seconds.
His childhood. His unhappy parents, who even to this day plotted against the All-Father's reign.
The one-eyed cunt that didn't make it easy to like him.
Hrimvald's fist drove into my stomach, and I got whiplash as my body tried to fly away from the impact, but Hrimvald's grip didn't allow my body to move more than thirty centimeters.
I coughed as the impact folded me around his arm, but my hand on him remained in place, as well as his on my body.
His strength came pouring in.
And even more memories.
Ice. Mountains. A beautiful, if daunting, bridge above nothingness.
Fighting something so large I couldn't imagine it if it weren't for his experiences.
Roygun's laughter, half-buried in a snowstorm, as she asked if I wanted to join her on an adventure.
The irritation I felt when the little devil girl didn't leave after I told her no, and instead stayed with me for months, keeping me company as I pondered how feasible my parents' plans were.
I decided to ditch their insane plans and leave the Nords behind.
I cut the connection before the memories could become even more distracting.
Hrimvald shivered before throwing me away.
A solid block of ice prevented me from impacting the building.
My boots touched the ground with more force than was necessary, and I pulverized the pavement.
"Oh. This will be fun, Drengr," I struck my fist against my chest and inclined my head.
My body felt much heavier than usual.
I clenched my hand, feeling the strength coursing through my veins. As I straightened, cold mist left my mouth even though the arena was still mild enough.
Hrimvald stared at me in confusion, which soon turned into disbelief.
"What did you do?!"
"I told you already, my friend," I tilted my head, "I borrowed."
Hayate appeared above me.
I didn't look up as a tide of mist enveloped his body, making him slow enough that I could track him.
He realized his mistake a little too late.
"Oh fuck."
"Fuck indeed." I felt something entering my body as my hand closed around his ankle.
Then I swung him into the darkness below.
Hayate bounced once, and I used the momentum to swing him the other way.
He twisted in the air as much as he could, driving the heel of his free foot into my jaw.
My head snapped sideways.
I laughed boisterously, "You need to eat better, Hayate-bro."
I blushed in embarrassment at the slip up.
His eyes narrowed in confusion as I grabbed him in a bear hug before he could react.
He started fighting to get free, but he was a mere Tengu. I was a frost giant.
His efforts slowed as the cold mist enveloped our bodies.
Wind rushed through me. Speed. Flight experience. More touki, a different way than what Sairaorg used.
His body knew what speed was in a way that only Tengu could understand.
Well, Tengu and me.
Every movement and tensing of the muscles that ensured drag wouldn't affect me, or even aid me in some cases. Every weight shift that had been refined around the sky for centuries without stopping.
The sky itself was a friend.
Hayate ripped himself free after only a second.
I disappeared.
His eyes widened when I appeared next to him.
"That's kind of cool," I laughed brightly.
My fist hit his ribs.
Hrimvald's and Sairaorg's strength did the rest.
I was about to go after him, as taking more from him wouldn't aid me in the fight any further.
But I tilted my head to the side as blood moved behind me.
Several red blades passed beside my face, one slicing through the edge of my lightforce wing before curving around for another attempt.
Ilsabet landed on a nearby wall and stared at me blankly.
She didn't say anything as more blood began floating around her.
The blood from a previous cut on my skin trembled.
Fuck…
Ilsabet grinned as the blood ripped itself out of the wound and became a needle trying to dig inside my skin.
I burned it with the lightforce before it could damage me.
She moved toward me, even faster than Hayate.
And yet, I could follow her movements.
Her sword hit my forearm while my fist caught her shoulder, both of us spinning from the exchange before her blood gathered behind me.
The spears that formed froze and fell into the ground.
Ilsabet took the chance to knee me in the face anyway.
My head tilted back, and she grabbed my hair whilst her sword went straight for my throat.
Lightforce erupted from every inch of my skin.
Ilsabet opened her mouth for the first time and screamed, releasing me in an instant as smoke began rising from her hands as she retreated hundreds of meters.
I stared at her curiously.
The wounds were already healing, but slowly.
I smiled at her as lightforce enveloped my body.
Her expression became noticeably less pleased.
They decided to come at me all at once.
Hrimvald came from my left. Hayate came from above. Ilsabet took my blind spot.
The next few minutes were the hardest I had worked since Dante decided to throw us into the deep end against himself.
Hrimvald kept hitting harder than before, and with every hit, every counter, and every failed block, my strength soared even further, my body becoming denser and making my other powers even more manageable.
Hayate refused to stay still for longer than a second.
Ilsabet kept weaponizing every drop of blood that came from me or from them.
And somewhere beyond them, Suzune kept blocking my sight with illusions that looked real enough to confuse me.
I blocked my left as Hrimvald's fist came in with such speed that the air around froze.
Then it shimmered, and I went through an apartment building for my trouble as the crushing blow came from the other side.
I closed my eyes. I knew how they fought.
I was them, after all.
The only one I hadn't drained was Suzune, but while she could fool my eyes, she couldn't make the frost from spreading beneath their feet disappear from my awareness.
I spun, catching the actual giant in the jaw.
He rose four meters, and I followed with a flap of my wings, faster than ever before, grabbing him by the shoulders and spinning in the air as I launched him against the floor, where a pool of blood bubbled before a spear formed from it.
It caught the giant in the leg and went straight through it.
Ilsabet appeared behind me as she preferred to because it reminded her of catching prey.
Her expression morphed into surprise as my hand closed around her wrist.
"That was stupid."
Lightforce flooded our bodies.
The skin on her arm began smoking immediately as I pulled her closer, making her scream in anguish.
She punched me twice in short order.
The blood that came out of my cheek dropped to the ground as I claimed dominance over it before she could.
I understood Ilsabet.
The hunger that couldn't be ignored. The taste of blood. Centuries of pain under a bastard master. Fighting for my life in the pits. Running.
Killing. Then finding Roygun, our savior.
The ridiculous amount of affection for the devil was shoved into the deepest part of my psyche.
A heartbeat announced itself. Then two, then three. A final one that was the closest, and the dimmest at the same time.
I pulled harder from the vampire as she went into her knees.
"You want my blood?!" I grinned, my eyes probably wild from the euphoric need for violence. "Fair is fair, sugah. Try to get all you can."
Ilsabet tried to bite me.
I headbutted her, breaking her nose.
Laughter bubbled out of her throat before I drove more lightforce through our bodies.
Her laugh stopped as the vampire convulsed.
The blood forming in the distance dropped into the ground, and Ilsabet disappeared into motes of light.
"Roygun Belphegor's Knight has retired."
I stumbled to my knees, feeling a bit wobbly.
"And there were three," I looked into the distance.
"You're one scary lass," Hrimvald grunted, looking at the place where Ilsabet used to be.
I shrugged, locking onto his form as I focused on something else.
"I've seen that look," he said in a disturbing tone.
"You've seen it while we train," I chuckled, vanishing from my place and appearing behind nothing, plunging my arm into the empty air.
A choked gurgle came out as the clear place shimmered into a Japanese woman spitting blood onto the floor.
"And then there were two," I said in a singsong voice.
Hrimvald stopped in place, looking at the vanishing Suzune in disbelief.
"Roygun Belphegor's Bishop has retired."
I let free everything I had gathered.
Frost formed a crown on top of my head. Blood formed weapons behind my back. My wings spread just as Hayate's did. My right side was filled with Lightforce and the left side with destruction.
I must have looked like an abomination.
I grinned widely.
The giant didn't shy away, roaring as his human form began to unravel, growing to forty feet tall and crossing the distance faster than anyone his size should have been able to.
I launched everything into him.
Ice several feet thick appeared between us.
The power of destruction opened the path; the light force followed, forming a drill the size of a building.
Hayate screamed from the distance as a blood spear impaled his left wing.
Hrimvald roared even louder, bringing his hands together as the entire district froze in an instant, bringing everything to a stop.
I clenched my fist, my grin growing even wilder.
At a distance, very, very far away, the Darkforce retreated as a pillar of light broke through reality, destroying the very limits of the pseudo-dimension and cutting a hole into the dimensional gap.
That kaleidoscope of colors wasn't something I'd forget anytime soon.
I caught Hrimvald's face as I sent a worried look my friend's way.
That was more light force than anything I had ever seen before. It was a straight, solid block of pure light from the ground all the way, piercing deep into Red's home.
Hrimvald's cold flooded into me, his strength, more of that ridiculous frost giant body.
He grabbed my arm and squeezed hard enough to shatter a high-class devil's bones.
I wasn't that weak anymore.
"Rogue," Jean's echoing voice drilled into my brain.
"Little busy, Jeannie."
"You're needed."
"Give me..."
The shadows under my feet opened and swallowed me whole before I could finish my fucking sentence.
"Dante, you son of a bitch! I almost had him!"
Then light hit me so hard I thought Tandy had made a sun inside the city.
Jean… No, it wasn't Jean.
Nova stared at me with a neutral expression.
Tandy, a very impaled Tandy, also looked at me.
"What the fuck happened here?" I snapped worriedly, staring at the sight of the deathly scythe embedded in my friend.
"I have to make clear that Dante has been deeper inside of me, even counting this," Tandy said after a moment.
I rolled my eyes, hoping that she wasn't dying or something like that. Normally one would be able to tell that from the ability to make a dumb joke in a dire situation, but Tandy wasn't a normal girl.
Still, I ignored her words for a moment.
There was a crater a mile wide where literally nothing but light existed.
Nothing else lived inside.
No… There was something. A dark silhouette frozen in place in the epicenter of it.
The rest of the area was so full of nature that I had to do a spit take.
And above everything, so high that I had to crane my neck, the dimensional gap waited for us.
There was a fissure inches away from Tandy's wound that bled so white that just looking at it fixed everything that was wrong with my body and filled me with so much hope that made me feel uncomfortable.
I looked at the side.
Inside the everlasting pillar of lightforce, the once normal Charon had cocooned herself in a deathly aura thick enough to dim the lightforce around her body.
"Took you long enough," Tandy groaned.
I looked at her in disbelief.
"What the fuck happened here?!" I snapped, repeating myself.
Inside the pillar, Charon's finger twitched, and a line of pure darkness surged, trying to break free.
It didn't last even a meter.
The entire fissure shook as even more light filled the dimension.
"Less talking, more draining," Nova ordered.
"That?!" I looked at Jean in disbelief.
"A buffet for you," the Phoenix snorted.
I could barely see Charon's pupils moving in slow motion toward me.
I coated my hand in the light force and ripped the scythe out of Tandy's chest. She buckled over, the fissure following her chest as she heaved.
I stared at her, then at Charon.
Then focused on the amount of power radiating from the woman.
I opened my mouth to say something, but no words came out.
Nova's lips curved in glee as she spoke into our minds.
"Seere will thank me later."
Tandy laughed loudly.
"She thought I was a battery; you should have heard how gloating she was because she grew stronger than her highest peak. Hmph."
I stared at her in disbelief.
"So she called you a battery… and you let her fatten herself up just for me to get her?"
Tandy nodded her head proudly.
I was in a madhouse.
But I belonged here. Approaching Tandy with small steps, I kissed her lips gently.
"You get me the best gifts ever, sugah."
Tandy giggled dumbly as I sauntered towards the pillar of light.
She truly was making it difficult not to jump her and Dante as soon as I could.
I was nervous, never having done something like that. But them? I trusted them like no one else in the world. And I was theirs as much as they were mine.
"How strong is she?" I asked without looking back.
"Respectably enough," Nova replied as Tandy snorted.
That meant a lot coming from Nova herself.
"Too strong," Tandy said dreamily.
"Jean and Tandy can't defeat her at this point. She'd only grow stronger. Wanda could… but that comes with its own risks. You're the answer for this, Rogue." Nova said simply.
Charon's eyes followed me as I approached.
The pressure of death grew around her with every step.
Pure death, it was the only word that fit.
My stolen light force was being sucked into the void that was her body.
Hrimvald's power didn't.
Charon's body tensed.
"You can go all out, Rogue."
"She's not an enemy." I shook my head,
"I already took a snapshot of her. Trust me, I know what I'm doing," Nova scoffed, as if my lack of trust genuinely offended her.
It made me feel bad, but I was worried. Still was, even after hearing her words. I'd never done something like this.
Charon's scythe materialized next to her and moved a single inch before stopping.
"Hurry," Nova grunted, "I can't control Jean for too long. She's not ready."
I stepped forward, and my hand closed around Charon's face.
And the white disappeared.
Only death remained.
The first surge ripped through my mind hard enough that I forgot who I was.
Thousands of alien sensations hit me all at once.
Reaping souls. Guiding them to Hades. A scythe being custom-made as a copy of my ancestor's.
A realm filled with the dead of an entire cosmology.
Roygun… So much Roygun.
Fights. Arguments. Laughter. Tears. Irritation. Longing. Belief.
The first time someone had looked at me and cared more about what I wanted than what I could do.
I almost released Charon as the grim reaper screamed.
Then her memories ended.
Time lost its essence. I wasn't sure how long I had remained like this.
And power started flowing into my body.
Far too much power. Drained power, like mine.
My knees buckled.
Nova kept me straight, keeping my spasming hand glued to Charon's face.
Life and death filled my body, fighting for dominance, trying to kick the other one outside and destroying my body at the same time.
And yet, the lightforce still healed me as fast as they damaged me.
The two colors collided inside my soul. White, blinding white. Dark, void black.
Life and Death.
Two sides of the same coin.
The beginning… and the end.
I screamed, matching Charon's pitch.
But her power didn't stop coming.
Below all her stolen power lay the very nature of her being.
Tandy's light force. Jean's strange fire. Life she had accumulated through her very long life as a grim reaper.
Every bit of it crossed through the connection between us.
My wings flared blindingly for a moment.
White at first, then flashed dark.
I closed my eyes as every fiber of my being was ripped apart and remade at the same time.
Hrimvald's strength increased again despite being nowhere near me.
Ilsabet's senses twisted into something new.
Hayate's knowledge of life force and natural energy gained new depth.
Then the light force fissure pulsed.
Charon gasped as it flowed into her, trying to replenish the grim reaper, just as it had for Tandy.
But it all went straight to me.
"Oh fuck… that's bad," Tandy murmured worriedly.
The three of us had become one ridiculous buckle.
Lightforce poured through Tandy's wound in reality. Charon consumed it. I consumed Charon.
"This wasn't part of the plan?!" I gasped.
It sounded like a mix of a sob and a scream.
"Fucking turn it off!"
"I'M FUCKING TRYING!"
God damn it.
Charon's aura kept shrinking even further as mine kept on growing.
I was feeling bloated as a dark shadow fell behind me.
A green, ethereal wing emerged from my left side, larger than my usual one. It stank of death.
Something formed around my right hand. I didn't have to look there to heft the familiar weight of a scythe made out of energy. The curved blade was the same color as my wing, leaving deep gushes of emptiness as it cut through the lightforce like it was its favorite food.
The wing on the right side of my body grew even further, matching the size of the one on the left. But this one was white.
It was life.
And a moment later… something formed on the ground to my left.
A solid block of pure white dropped onto the ground.
I focused on it… and it floated.
Its shape changed into a rapier… then, as if it was a fluid, it became a shield. Then a gauntlet.
I laughed in disbelief.
My hand on top of Charon's face tightened just slightly.
The Queen threw her head back as I let go of my power for the first time in my life without any fear. She wouldn't die. She wasn't an enemy. She wouldn't weaken. She was still grabbing power through her siphoning.
She wouldn't forget herself. I trusted Nova.
Everything was fine...
And yet… those weren't the real reasons.
I wanted more.
A moment later, something clicked for me.
And I simply knew, without a shadow of a doubt… that part of what she was had become mine.
"That's enough, Rogue," Nova grunted. "I need to close the rift."
I tried to release the slumping queen, holding her weight with a single hand. She was already unconscious.
My hand didn't move.
"Tandy, take her hand away!" the phoenix sighed irritably.
A whip latched around my wrist and pulled, sending me flying all the way to the building.
The ethereal scythe in my hand… cut through everything without any resistance.
It was comical how straight the line was. It reminded me of Rias's bloodline in the form of a blade.
Charon's body slumped into the ground.
I watched Jean's body as she allowed the light force to return Charon to her original level.
Then Nova's hair began rising, her eyes turning even brighter.
And something latched, the sound like a lock as the fissure returned to Tandy's body.
The Rating game system activated.
The announcement came through the arena.
"Roygun Belphegor's Queen has retired."
The tone was… almost dead.
I could hear the sheer disbelief in it without knowing the person. And yet… they didn't understand what had truly happened.
Not many would.
And those that did… They could only hope they were intelligent because I wouldn't allow anyone to rip my family apart.
A strange snap of a finger could be heard throughout the arena at once, and the hole in the dimensional gap closed entirely; then the darkforce returned to where Tandy had moved it out of the way with her brightness.
The block of light floated toward me, and I palmed it carefully. I probably looked alien, an inverse mismatch of opposite parts of nature.
And yet… to me… it was perfect.
It was who I was.
I stepped into Tandy's personal space and hugged her tightly.
Tandy didn't return the hug, making me feel hurt.
I looked up at the girl's face, only to realize she was deadpanning at the ground.
The grass beneath my left wing had withered.
The one beneath my right wing had flourished.
I immediately pulled back.
Tandy burst out laughing.
Jean, and this was Jean, joined her a moment later.
Tandy pointed at me, almost panting from lack of air.
"You look so fucking goth," Tandy grinned from ear to ear. "Our very own life and death goddess."
Jean chuckled, dropping next to us.
My scythe disappeared and entered my body.
The light block did the same a moment later.
Tandy giggled perversely.
"Dante will ravage you once he sees you like that, sugah," she smirked widely.
My heart skipped a beat before I shook my head and slapped my cheeks.
"Then he can wait until the game is done," I chuckled, feeling anticipation as my wings spread behind my back. Green and White.
Life bloomed from one side. Rot spread from the other.
"It's time I get my due from the last two."
If you'd like to support me and read up to FIVE chapters ahead, you can find me on pat * e*n . com (slash) Infinityreads99 Heads up: I post chapters fully edited, but I sometimes make minor tweaks before they go live here. Thanks for reading!