Part 2 of the Side Story

Here's part 2 of our (as of yet) unnamed side story wher eI'm getting my mojo back and shaking of the creative rust.

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Ruval Phenex fidgeted in equal parts excitement and trepidation. While this was far from his first battle, it was his first military incursion into another universe. How novel!

By order of Lord Falbium, he had been chosen as one of the six Ultimate-class Devils that would partake in launching a counteroffensive into the dimensional fissure which was currently pouring out thousands of mutant cyborg creatures that seemed Hellbent on invading the Underworld.

So here he sat with his peerage, among five other Ultimate-class monsters, and their own peerages.

His dark blue eyes flickered over his fellow Vanguard team members.

The one that stood out the most was the gigantic form of Tannin, the former Dragon King and fellow top ranker in the Rating Games… and one of his favorite drinking buddies too. The ancient dragon’s scales glinted with a faint purplish shimmer. Algierex Barbatos, the eldest son and heir to the current Duke Barbatos sat next to Tannin, a shadow knife dancing in and out of existence between his hands. His entire face obscured beneath a hood, but Ravel had seen the Barbatos family enough times to know they all had messy white hair and stunning violet eyes.

Beside him, with her long and flowing blonde hair, was the lovely Nalentia Purson, the wife of the current King Purson and one of the foremost swordsmen of the Devil Empire. Her duels during the Civil War against the now extinct Botis family head were the stuff of legends.

Leaning on the opposite wall was the cool and collected visage of Cornelia Contescu, a powerful and ancient vampire who had been reincarnated some centuries before as Lord Falbium’s Bishop. She had earned enough military merit to be given her own peerage as a viscountess and was now a highly respected ranker in the Ranking Games. Her long dark hair fell in a heavy braid over her shoulder, and she wore a rather thought-provoking choker. As she caught his gaze, she sent him a flirtatious wink. A lesser man would have blushed scarlet.

And rounding out their sextet, was Jaqrin Vassago, the younger brother of the current Duke Vassago, as well as the current holder of four of Lord Falbium’s Pawn Pieces. He was in full battle regalia, suited in magical armor with a pair of Devil horns adorned to his helm, reminiscent of his demonic ancestor. He was also the current assigned captain of the Vanguard team to lead the Empire’s counteroffensive.

Breaking his gaze away from his compatriots, Ruval gathered his thoughts and set his mind to the assigned mission.

He mentally ran through his orders again. First objective: establish a secure perimeter within the breach zone. Second: suppression of any ariel weaponry that could threaten follow-up strikes. Third: locate and neutralize enemy command-and-control hubs within fifty kilometers of the fissure – helpfully marked in blue, across the projected map before him.  He repeated the list in his head until it sat clean and ordered.

“Marquis Shax has given us a five-minute countdown,” Jaqrin Vassago suddenly said, voice cutting through Ruval’s thoughts. “If you have last-minute checks, now’s the time.”

Ruval glanced over his shoulder at his own peerage lined up behind him.

All of them had been with him through countless Rating Games, dozens of serious engagements in the wild regions of the Underworld, and more skirmishes and patrols than he could count.

But this was the first time any of them would be stepping into another universe via an actual full scale military operation. Again, he felt that odd mix of eager anticipation and dread creep through his veins.

“Lost in your head, Lord Ruval?” Cornelia Contescu asked lightly.

He turned his head toward her. The vampire-turned-Devil stood with one hand balancing her helm on her hip. Her red eyes flicked over his face, amused.

“Just making sure everyone’s ready,” he said.

Her lips quirked. “First time beyond the void?”

He gave a deft nod.

Despite being nearly six-hundred years old, Ruval was still the youngest amongst the six of them. If he recalled correctly, Cornelia had a couple of centuries on him, and Jaqrin, Nalentia and Algierex were all born during the twilight of the old regime, the same generation as the current Satans, sans Lord Ichigo. As for Tannin… Ruval cast the great dragon an appreciative glance. Well, he wasn’t certain, but the former Dragon King has been continuously appearing in history for well over six thousand years now. Well, written history, anyways.

“Yes,” Ruval admitted, turning back to the Vicscountess. “I’ve been to Earth and other planes of existence that are anchored to the Underworld, but I’ve never stepped beyond our folds of reality.”

Cornelia leaned in a fraction, a soft smile on red painted lips. “My own seventh time now. Perks of being under the Satan in charge of the military, we’re always the first ones thrown into the frontlines against hostiles. Mind you, you have nothing to be worried about. Both Ministries of Magic and Intelligence have not reported a single entity even approaching Ultimate-class on the other side. The only thing to watch out for are high-yield weaponry. Though given it’s non-magical capabilities, simple intangibility spells should serve you well. Stick to your objectives and survive.”

He looked back at the map, jaw tightening. “Just like any old Rating Game,” he murmured to himself.

“Absolutely not.”

Jaqrin’s tone cut across the room like a blade.

“This is nothing like a Rating Game,” Jaqrin said, eyes fixed on him. “You lose there, you get teleported out, lick your wounds and try again next match. You lose here - you effing die. Permanently. Throw that mindset in the bin, young Lord Ruval. These are no games.”

Ruval bowed his head. “Understood, Captain.”

A heartbeat of silence stretched. Then Jaqrin’s mouth twitched wryly. “Then again, death is more of a minor inconvenience for you Phoenixes, now isn’t it?”

A low chuckle rippled through the room. Ruval allowed himself a tiny smile. “It still hurts, sir.”

“Right.” Jaqrin flicked his fingers, dismissing the moment and turning his attention back to the projection. “One minute and counting, take your places.”

Ruval exhaled slowly and rolled his shoulders back, letting heat flicker low in his core. Phoenix fire stirred in his veins, warm and steady. The noise of the room faded to a manageable hum as everyone stood and turned towards the teleport circles.

But then his skin prickled and the air shifted.

Not in a physical way though. There was no breeze, no tremor in the stone. But Ruval felt something heavy and malevolent press down on the world all at once.

The protective wards woven into the walls reacted, flaring in visible lines and someone behind him hissed under their breath. Another swore rather audibly.

Ruval gritted his teeth and rode out the sudden weight. It didn’t take a genius to recognize the malignant presence of one of the Crown Princes of Hell. But that begged the question, why was one of the Ruling Satans here? And which one?

A telepathic pulse then slammed into his mind.

“WARNING! WARNING! All forces are to retreat to the Forward Camp! Repeat: all forces are to retreat to the Forward Camp! The Lord Wrath has entered the battlefield!"

His eyebrows raised even as he sucked in a breath and held it, letting the implications settle. Behind him, his peerage traded uneasy looks. Across the room, Algierex Barbatos’ brows climbed and Nalentia Purson’s expression turned thoughtful. Tannin, enormous even in his humanoid form, turned his gaze to beyond the walls.

So, the Sin of Wrath himself had descended.

Ruval swallowed nervously. He had met Lord Ichigo some time ago. His own father was Deputy Minister to the youngest of the Five, and with that connection, the Phenex territory had hosted Lord Ichigo for dinner, once upon a time. He was an affable and easygoing young man, marked with quick intelligence and thoughtful speech. Nothing at all with what one would expect from someone who held the mantle of the Sin of Wrath.

And before any of them could ask any questions, the telepathic channels reserved for their team suddenly blared to life.

“Orders from High Command,” Marquis Shax’s voice echoed within his mind. “Lord Ichigo will be taking command of the Vanguard from here on out. Good hunting.”

There was a brief beat of silence as the message settled.

Algierex let out a low whistle. “One of the Satans deploying for a civilization that can’t even manage acausal warfare?” he drawled. “Bit overkill, isn’t it?”

“He could be bored?” Nalentia Purson mused, fingers to her lips. “Lord Ichigo does have a reputation for heading off and wandering into other realities when it suits him. Perhaps he’s just indulging himself?”

“What do you think Tannin?” Ruval asked his old friend.

“Do not bother trying to unravel the minds of the Satans,” the ancient dragon rumbled. “They have their machinations; we hear and obey.”

“Hear an obey,” they all muttered in tandem. And Ruval was forced to agree with his friend. The Satans were so far above the rest of the Empire that there was no point trying to decipher their motivations. They simply had to have faith that the Crown Princes had their best interests in mind.

He turned to ask Cornelia her opinion, as she had remained silent through the exchange, but he quickly noted that her posture had shifted rather rigid, a mark of worry clearly etched onto her face.

It didn’t take him long to discern the reason for her sudden discomfort. She was a reincarnated Vampire and a gifted necromancer in her own right, (a fact he knew quite well as he had faced her in the Rating Games many times) and Lord Ichigo’s distaste for the undead was infamous throughout the Empire.

She was probably worried that she'd somehow earn the ire of Lord Ichigo simply by being in close proximity.

But then, Jaqrin clicked his tongue. “Suppose that means I’m not in charge anymore,” he said lightly.

“Is that a problem?”

The new voice echoed through the room.

Ruval’s head snapped around along with everyone else’s. One heartbeat there was nothing, the next, a tall, young man stood beneath the hovering map, eyes burning a deep crimson behind heavy bangs of orange hair.

The relaxed, half-amused man he remembered from his father’s dinner table was gone. No, this time, Lord Ichigo did not carry the guise of an amiable guest, but rather the full mantle of a Crown Prince of Hell assured in his dread might.

Every instinct Ruval possessed screamed at him to bow.

And he did.

As did everyone else.

Protocol in war-time dictated no full kneeling for the sake of alacrity, so Ruval bent clean at the waist, eyes down but not closed. Beside him, he felt his peerage mirror him, their movements sharp and synchronized. Throughout the room, all the Kings and their Peerages followed in suit.

“Of course not, my Prince,” Jaqrin said immediately, straightening slightly but not fully. “We’re honored to have you lead us.”

Lord Ichigo didn’t answer right away. His gaze lifted, looking somewhere past them, past the walls and their flickering magicks. Ruval felt something alien and painfully grating press against his brain as the Satan’s demonic mind brushed through the command flows of the telepathic channels. And then:

“I’ll be taking your Vanguard, Shax,” Lord Ichigo said, voice raised just enough to carry. The Demon Lord’s tone made it quite clear that this wasn’t a request.

“As you will, Sire,” came Marquis Shax’s telepathic reply, smooth and unruffled.

Lord Ichigo’s eyes dropped back to the six Ultimate-class Devils.

“The Satans want this settled,” he said. “We’re not interested in a potential repeat invasion. So the objective is simple: annihilate the enemy.”

Oh…

“Once we’ve secured control of the fissure from the other side, I’ll separate from the group and handle any aerial and orbital defenses,” Lord Ichigo said plainly.

“Barbatos, Puron,” the Crown Prince continued, looking between them. “You and your peerages will defend our hold on the fissure.”

“Understood, my Lord,” Algierex said, all earlier joking drawl gone.

“As you command, Sire,” Nalentia replied, bowing her head.

“Tannin, Vassago, Phenex, Contescu: you and your peerages will sterilize the planet. Once the DDE confirms that the fissure is ready to be sealed, we’ll withdraw.”

Ravel rolled his jaw.

Algierex was right, this was overkill. The Satans had just consigned an entire world to fire. While not an unusual thing for a cabal of immensely powerful Demons to do, this random world which had made the piss poor choice of invading the Underworld hardly warranted such egregious actions. Simply sealing the barriers shut to ensure it would never happen again would suffice.

But Ruval’s Devilish mind turned the gears.

There was more to this. His father’s instilled wisdom and his own instincts told him the Satans had some greater purpose here. Notably, Lord Ichigo would separate from their group once they were on the other side. Away from them… to do and accomplish who knows what.

But then… do not bother trying to unravel the minds of the Satans.

Tannin was right. Sticking his nose into the business of the Crown Princes was a quick way to book himself a one way trip into the darkest depths of Hell.

Ruval held Lord Ichigo’s gaze for half a second longer than was comfortable, then bowed his head.

“Yes, my Lord,” he said quietly.

His flames burned warmer in his veins, responding to purpose. Whatever else he felt about the scale of what they were about to do, hesitation wouldn’t change it. His orders were clear and the path forward was simple.

Hear and obey.

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Mal tried not to stare, but the readings on the projected screens were… insane.

The entire Forward Command pulsed with frantic movement as Devil battalions poured back in from the frontlines - armor scorched, weapons glowing, officers barking overlapping reports. She did her best to keep her gaze glued to the telemetry feed… because staring at any of the casualties at the hands of those cybernetic mutant monsters was far too gruesome for her lab accustomed stomach.

But then her eyes set on the full visuals of the outside.

“Lucifer,” she whispered before she could stop herself.

The battlefield, previously a savannah of broken stone and tall grass, had been reshaped into something unrecognizable. Lakes of roiling molten rock stretched for kilometers, black towers of smog billowed in plumes that reached the cloudline and entire trenches had become still rivers of toxic ash.

The terrain itself buckled and warped as though a rampaging pack of dragons had swooped down and filled the Underworld with their fire.

Except it hadn’t been dragons.

Just a single Devil.

No, Mal corrected herself, not a Devil.

A Demon Lord.

A Crown Prince of Hell.

There had been thousands of signatures on the displays as the mutants cyborgs poured out of the fissure in droves. And she watched in horrified silence as all but a scant few winked out, vaporized into nothingness.

“He just flew…” someone muttered disbelievingly. “He just flew across and… and everything died…”

Mal could only continue to stare in utter shock. The Crown Prince’s sheer presence, the brief seconds it took for him to fly through the fissure, had utterly warped and terraformed the very land and massacred the invading army.

What monstrous power…

Two junior officers stood off to the side from her; their eyes wide and faces drained of color.

“Ancestors below,” one breathed. “Thank Lucifer he’s on our side.”

The second gave a shaky laugh. “Fucking Hell. Imagine being the poor bastards on the other side having to face that. I’d sooner send my soul flying than be confronted with an angry Satan!”

Mal silently agreed. Then bowed her head slightly and gave a prayer of gratitude to the Crown Princes for their continued protection.

“Enough gawking, you lot!” High Mage Acunda’s voice cracked like a whip.

Mal snapped her head up.

“We have an issue,” the High Mage said grimly.

Granfelt frowned. “What kind of issue?”

The High Mage twisted his mouth sourly. “Two, actually.”

They all stared.

“Firstly: the Crown Prince’s presence has completely warped the ambient mana field. We’ll need to recalibrate our entire sealing spellweave to compensate for the saturation of his demonic miasma.”

A collective groan went through the group.

“And secondly,” Acunda continued, “the metaphysical weight of a Satan crossing through the fissure has destabilized it. Ergo, we must stabilize the aperture before we can begin the actual sealing procedure.”

Vickle muttered, “Rather inconvenient having a Satan stomping around…”

The group went silent and everyone turned dumfounded towards him.

Granfelt looked up at the ceiling and let out a sarcastic mutter, “It’s like he wants to die.”

Vickle sputtered. “I-I was just pointing out-”

“The quickest and surest way to commit suicide by Hellfire?” Granfelt supplied in a sarcastic manner.

Behind her helmet, Mal grinned.

But then she raised her hand and said, “If anything, it’s beyond impressive. The kind of power they’re capable of, I mean.”

Acunda nodded approvingly. “Indeed. You are witnessing firsthand the natural corruption that Demons exert upon their space-time viscinity. You should feel fortunate that the Satans are constantly restraining themselves. If they did not, the Underworld would be a very different place.”

She briefly looked back at the images of the hellish landscape the Lord Ichigo produced in seconds. She then returned her gaze to her boss and tilted her head. “By any chance, High Mage, would you know what Lord Ajuka’s corruption would look like?” As much as she respected Lord Ichigo, Lord Ajuka was her hero! She even kept a small pocket shrine to the Sin of Greed in her apartment.

Acunda grimaced. “Well, to be frank, it is literally unfathomable. Lord Ichigo’s corruption is relatively direct: rage, torment and malignant fire pressed onto reality by his dark Will. Lord Ajuka’s, however, defies logic. Or, rather, it upends it. His demonic miasma is capable of rendering lesser minds outright insane.”

Mal grimaced.

Yeah, thank Lucifer she was born on the right side of the Empire. She couldn’t imagine how those poor, deluded fools of the Old Satan Faction ever thought they could over throw the Crown Princes.

“High Mage!” Marquis Shax’s voice boomed from across the chamber. “I hope you’re working on those recalibrations! The Center just deployed to sweep for stragglers left in Lord Ichigo's wake! And readings from the other side indicate that the Vanguard is fully engaged behind enemy lines!”

“Right away, Your Grace,” Acunda said, raising his staff.

Dozens of arcane circles burst into existence, spinning with magical matrices and shifting formulae.

“Gather round,” the High Mage ordered. “Let us begin our calculations.”

Mal stepped forward, shoulders squaring, resolve hardening in her chest. Time to do her part even as the Vanguard bravely followed Lord Ichigo into hostile territory to protect the Empire.

Time to obey.

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So this was fun. We got Ruval's perspective, and he has that middle perspective. He's not family or friends with the Satans, but he's met them on a personal level. So he's just far enough removed to recognize them as people, while still understanding that they're complete and utter monsters. And, of course, there's Mal and the average every day Devil who are so far removed from the Satans that all they see are the monsters out of myth and legend.

Part 3 of this Side Story (the final part) will be published tomorrow, and with that, I will be back in full.