RU-RU-RUNEAS GREMORY! HEROINE OF THE UNDERWORLD! - Chapter 2

Present Time - 2000 A.D. 

"The Lone Attack on Heaven?"

"Literally was her desperately asking for a ceasefire due to the Two Heavenly Dragons."

"The Siege of Dun Scaith?"

"She got lost in Scotland, accidently wandered into the castle, and the Witch Queen of the Shadow Lands overreacted."

"The Conquest and Burning of Rome?"

"Literally never happen. The 'Conquest' part at least."

"But Nero summoned her!?"

"Your Grandmother literally never met him in her life."

"The Relentless Legendary Feuds with King Solomon?!" 

"Those were a fake show they put on. They were best friends and even roommates."

"Best—THEY WERE ROOMMATES!?"

For the past ten minutes Rias had been bringing up examples of her Great Ancestor's achievements, and have her idol's image be shattered by the truth.

Rias was holding her head, desperate to find a story, any story about her Great Ancestor that she idolized, that was true.

"The Confrontation with the Savior?" Rias asked.

That was a famous story. Lucifer, in caution over confronting the Son of God directly sent his most devious servant to confront him. Runeas Gremory.

Of course, while the Jesus was tempted (according to Hell's propaganda, and to bolster the Gremory Ancestor's image), in the end he rejected all temptation and stayed set on his path.

That Runeas Gremory managed to stand before Jesus Christ without being smote by his presence only added to her legend.

"Remember when I told you, your Grandma's future knowledge ability almost never helps her?" Zeoticus proceeded to take another hammer to Rias' idolized image.

"Yeah?" She said hesitantly.

"Right, so when the three infamous Wise Men went to Bethlehem, your Grandmother intentionally went on her well known slumbers and made an order for our family to, and I quote 'no one wakes up her until it's 300 A.D. At minimum'. Mind you, we weren't sure what she meant, since we didn't know what Anno Domini was. It wasn't a thing on the calendar back then, not even the human one. It didn't exist yet." Zeoticus explained with a chuckle. "Runeas was adamant no one wake her up, not even if Lucifer himself came personally to command her for a mission. She said that if the Devil King was angered and wished to kill her in her sleep, then to let that happen than for her to be awake during that period of time, while the Savior was alive."

"Oh."

"Also she told us that when Jesus comes down to hell, to stay out of his way and to be very accommodating if he visited.

"...Well, I guess I can't fault Grandma for being that cautious. It must have been a scary time when Harrowing was happening." Rias said reasonably.

"I dunno, I thought Jesus was a delightful young man when he visited. He even talked to your Grandma Runeas a bit before leaving." Zeoticus said with a sly smile, almost taking pleasure in his daughter's new found anxiety.

"WHADDA YA MEAN HE VISITED!?"

Rias' shout echoed across the Gremory lands.

For a long while there were shouts from Rias, and laughs from Zeoticus as he placated his daughter.

"But I never noticed anything holy in our lands. Shouldn't there have been some sign of him visiting or something?" Rias asked after she finally calmed down.

"Oh this manor isn't the original one we used to live in." Zeoticus pointed out. "That one became consecrated ground and is still lowkey sacred ground to this day that causes low level burns if you stay in for too long and were a Low Class Devil. We moved everything out of that place, moved to this region and cut that area out of our territory and the maps we used to have."

"THIS ISN'T OUR ORIGINAL HOUSE!"

===x===

Date: 7900~ B.C.

There's a saying in my old life, that the reward for hard work was more hard work.

In this life more success only begets more chances for success.

Sounds nice, right?

Well, the price of failure is 100% death.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" I was scream at the top of my lungs, running away from blast of concentrated energy and sunlight. "THIS IS TEN THOUSAND YEAR AGO! WHY DO THEY HAVE MAGITECH RIFLES? THIS IS BULLSHIT!!"

I continued to scream as another squad of titan-bloods rounded upon me, now firing and chasing me.

Now I had a whole squadron after me, something like three hundred titan-blooded Greek soldiers minimum.

Now you might be wondering what the hell is happening?

Welp, since Heaven was doing it's usual 'expand influence into all directions' thing, that meant naturally that the Underworld—And wow was Lucifer arrogant to just say that that Devils represent the 'Underworld' in it's entirety. Other Factions call us Devils or the Hell Faction. Also Hell the whole territory that Devils occupied was different to, well, Biblical Hell, called Gehenna, which is the place the souls of people that lived sinful life fall into.

That's a whole separate issue that I'd rather not talk or even think about, thank you every much.

Where was I?

"Foul demon! Accursed Gremory, today is the day you—"

"AAAAAAAAAAH!" I screamed in terror at the sudden arrival of a four winged angel.

"Huh?" Stab! "Arugh!"

I didn't think I just attacked with a sword filled with demonic energy, punched the angel's head, which ripped it off. Blood geysered out of the corpse and I screamed in horror some more before resuming my blitzing flight.

First time I ever killed an Angel a century ago, I was scared cause it definitely meant I'm going to Hell. I forgot I was living there. Now, I'm scared of killing an Angel because they just become more motivated!

"By our Father, did you see her killing Hadramiel?"

"He just froze! He saw her face and just froze!"

"So it's true! The Gremory's face is so hideous, even an Angel would be petrified still from seeing that horror."

"Careful brothers and sisters! Do not look the abomination in the face!"

Why are you all so mean!?  

Of course the titan-blooded and the angels didn't join forced and began to hunt me together, but rather upon meeting each other, they began to fight.

Back to the question of what the hell is going on?

In the land that would later become Greece, this is the Golden Age, or as it should be called the Age of the Titans.  

Othrys was ruled by the Titan King Cronus, and now it was age of "peace" was over due to an internal rebellion. The Titan King's children have escape his infamous stomach after being eaten, rallied troop of oppressed mortals, disenfranchised godlings and other titans, and began a rebellion lead by, who else, Zeus.

Now, this all seems as standard mythology stuff, but you need to keep something else in mind.

This is the world of DxD, and all mythologies are real here.

So naturally upon seeing a weakness in the titan's rule of Othrys, the forces of Heaven struck, aiding people and fighting the evil titans to free humans, and convert them to Christdom vie reverse Florence Nightingale effect.

Okay, yes, Christdom isn't a thing yet, since Christ is yet to be born (gonna have to avoid Earth for a whole fucking century while that's happening).

But the Heaven Faction is tentatively called the Eloah Faction or El religion. Heh. Yeah, I laughed too.

Or basically the One True God Faction.

Heaven for short.

Now Heaven's base stationed on Earth is in Jerusalem, or the place that will be called that. They are right next to the kingdom of Edom which we, the Devils, are still in the process of conquering.

Now, as you might expect, both factions butt heads all the time.

Where's the Grigori in all of this?

Haven't formed yet! That's gonna be 'fun' to deal with.

So the Heaven Faction began to expand into Europe and Asia. Or the places which will be called—You know what I'm just gonna call them by the names I know them by. It's my fucking head and I can do what I want.

Now, where was I?

Right.

So God's expanding his forces and influence into Europe and Asia. Naturally Hell opposed that on sheer pettiness and the hate boner the OG Devil and the OG Whore just on principle, and pushed out forces to do the same.

Heaven came in to the Kingdom of Othrys to conquer it?

Not if the Devils didn't came to conquer it first.

What? You thought Heaven would aid the Olympian's rise, while Hell would help the Titan's maintain their rule, and each side is getting some political and military benefits?

Naaaah, this shit ain't Game of Thrones. It's a four-way and everyone is punching everyone else.

And notice how I said Kingdom of Othrys?

Turns out, in this world, Othrys isn't a mountain but a kingdom. I guess its borders have yet to shrink till they are confided to capital city of Kronion, on top of its mountain. 10 bucks that, that mountain is what becomes Mount Othrys later on.

Right now where were in the eastern city of Hyperionis, the seat of the power of Hyperion, Titan of East and Heavenly Light.

So right now I'm responsible for leading the forces to take Hyperionis and push back the invasion of the Heaven forces.

Now you might be thinking 'Wow, that's a lot of responsibility. You must be high up the command chain to lead an army'.

Fucking nope!

That fucker, Asmodeus, one of the Four Satans and one of the Grand Generals of Hell, just told me to take my legions and go take down Heaven's Damned Weapon, while he fought Hyperion and Uriel.

That wouldn't be a problem—No. That is a problem, but I could have figured something out.

If it wasn't for That Fucker Asmodeus use his Demonic Ability on me and my forces to "raise morale".

The Flame of Passion was the Demonic Ability of the Asmodeus bloodline.

It's exactly as you'd think.

It's fucking mind control.

Oh sure, it "influences" emotion. Yeah, it can make your sadness into depressed, or your happiness into exaltation, or excitement into fervor.

So when you have some date rape magic cast on you and your men, and then teleported in the middle of a Titan major city where the forces of Hyperion and the Forces of Heaven were already battling, then obviously things go FUBAR!

By the time I regained my mind, we already lost three legions. Only the element of surprise kept our momentum, and the troops increased fervor from Asmodeus' fucking mind whammy kept them going.

Then he came.

Heaven's Damned Weapon.

A figured flew through the air. Not through any flight ability, but through physical prowess, kicking the air so hard that they hit the air molecules before they could disperse.

This insane figure slammed through into a ten store building of metal, shattering it. It's loud destruction causing a lull in the battle between the angels and the titan-blooded for a moment.

And out walked the reason I was all alone in the middle of enemy territory.

"Found you!" Growled the man, walking out of the rubble. The mark on his forehead, his aura of death and blood that inspired only disgust.

The man wore no armor or clothes by a robe around his waist. He held no weapon but a stone beaten into a sword's shape. His body ravaged by scars and tribal tattoos, hair long and unkempt.

"Tsk. He's here."

"Why is it stopping? It needs to finish its tasks of slaying the Devils and get out of our sight."

"No, Malik. Do not reduce him to an it. To do so distances him from his action. As though he wasn't responsible for them, or didn't know what he was doing."

"Yes, you're right, sister."

The angels around me were disgusted by the man's arrival, even if he was their ally.

It was Cain, firstborn of Adam and Eve.

"Why the fuck are you so focused on me!?" I couldn't help but shout back.

23 legions.

Twenty three! And over the course of the pervious day till now, they were reduced to a mere five!

Cain had the body easily on the level of an Ultimate Class being, if not higher. I couldn't be sure because I sure as fuck didn't test it myself with his Mark.

Yeah, the Mark of Cain. The Seven-Fold Retaliation.

That shit has to be some proto-Sacred Gear of some kind.

The minute any attack touches his skin, it reflects it, along with seven copies of that attack, all stronger seven times.

And if that shit wasn't unfair enough as it is, if Cain is actually injured, then added onto everything just mention, the same injured is reflected directly on the attacker, appearing on their body but seven times worse.

Bitch, are you Angra Mainyu!

At that point I had the remaining five legions retreat back to the Underworld, while dragging ten of them to dress and look like myself with a Transformation Magic, and sent them off in different directions, all throw Cain off my trail.

For some fucking reason, he picked me over the other ten and been chasing me since through the battlefield.

"A Devil with the power over fortune itself? Why would I let you continue to exist? The two Damned Blights upon Mankind were too arrogant to let your blood propagate. You have sired no child, thus your bloodline and demonic trait ends with you. Why shouldn't dedicate everything to end your bane of existence as soon as possible?" Cain laughed. "It seems you overextended your Luck. Did you think you'd be the one to finally overcome the Lord's Mark and kill me?" He said with a deranged smile, as he threw his head back and laughed.

FUCK! It all circle backs to the damn Luck ability again!

When Lucifer asked Lilith about it again, rather than the Luck thing was a misunderstanding, or a lie because I was a newborn devil and want to look cool, she told him she hid the "Luck" ability to surprise him.

When I asked her why not tell the truth, she said she wanted to help me playing my prank on the Father of Devil.

When I said this would blow up in my face, Lilith said:

"Then you should have thought of that before coming up with something that fanciful, my child."

"How should I have known what my powers were!?" I begged.

"I told you plainly what they were. 'May your power remain ever monumental, as your grasp and rule never fails', I couldn't have made it more obvious," She said tilting her head in confusion. 

Lady! That was you telling me my powers? How the fuck could I have known!?

In the end I had to live with the lie. Mostly because I was sure if I pushed in asking Lilith to tell the truth, she would have maimed or killed me for being an annoyance.

So I was thrown into more and more battles by Lucifer or other Satans, to "celebrate my birth". I.E. test my Luck power.

I won.

God help me, I don't know how I kept surviving but I kept winning, taking more and more land for Hell, till the kingdom of Edom fell to us.

At that point, I was told by Lucifer to stay in Sela, the capital city of Edom, and manage Hell's foothold on Earth till I was given new orders.

Great. Awesome. No more fighting, I love it.

Except apparently I did too much of a good job in winning the battles against Heaven, and in ruling Edom while on Earth.

I haven't been back to the Underworld since my birth, dammit!

I didn't take a husband, or just have sex and make a kid, because I'm constantly worried I'd have to stay on Earth and keep fighting even while pregnant. I don't think Lucifer or Lilith will give me fucking maternity leave.

As for the other method of increasing the number of Gremory Devils, Blood Propagation? Basically, with permission from L&L, I could go to the Pool of Dark Genesis—yes, they literally call it that. It's the blood pool I was born in, where Lilith makes Pillar Devils, or the normal mass produced ones devils—and spill my blood there, and according to the quantity and density of demonic energy I poured into my blood, the Pool would create a number of devils of my bloodline.

I wasn't given permission for the Dark Genesis Pool no matter how much time passed. Something about how so many Devil Pillars were queued up before me.

I think L&L and, or the other Satans actually started buying into the Luck ability as well, and were afraid of an entire Pillar bloodline with that Demonic Ability.

So of fucking course, after ruling Edom for a good fifty years, I was plucked from my position, told to take my legions and aid Asmodeus in taking over Hyperionis. A major city of the Othrys Titan Kingdom, filled with towers and observatories.

The propaganda is that they are for studying the world. The truth is that they are for the spy state of Othrys. Through the towers, Hyperion's light can reach any part of the kingdom and report to Cronus any finding instantly.

So of course 26 legions of Devils each one made of 6000 devils were found immediately when they appeared in the middle of battle with the angels.

Asmodeus used us as a distraction, while he went to fight Hyperion. That's obvious. But was the fucker trying to get me killed too!

"Now then," I didn't have time to contemplate things any further, as Cain focused on me again. "Are you finally going to test your Luck against me, demon? Or..." he tilted his head and smirk. "Was your power telling you, you'd die this whole time?"

"Fuck me, you talk a lot." I scoffed back. "I thought you were more famous for your actions, rather than your words." And as soon as I said that, the words 'OH SHIT, I FUCKED UP!' materialized in my mind.

I brought my old sword up, pumped it full of demonic power, while flaring all my energy into and around myself to strengthen my being.

BOOM! 

A roar of rage. A force that sent vibrations through my body and down to my bones slammed into my defensive stance.

I didn't see what happened, even if I felt it.

I was flying through the air so fast, it was coning around me. I saw the end of Cain's blade swing, and I was gone.

I'm pretty sure I crashed through some titan-blooded, as I felt bodied pop around me like a balloon of blood and meat, from the sheer force and speed I was launched with.

Everything moved fast-paced around me. Building and people zooming past, while Cain roared and jumped after me.

I crashed through wall, and kept crashing through multiple others. All I could see was I was in a gigantic building with multiple large rooms. All of it looked neat and fancy, but I couldn't take a gander at anything. All I could tell was that the place was clean and... oh fuck me, divine.

I crashed through a final wall to hit the ground and roll a few times. The sound of magic being through around halted at my arrival.

"Haha! Was this suppose to be reinforcement to aid you foul Devil?" Said a grand imperious voice boomed, filled with thick divinity.

"Gremory, I hope the theatrics of arriving here is to tell me you took over the city?" A familiar contemptuous voice said to me.

I looked up to see golden armor, filled with living shining light and fire.

On the other side was the most handsome devil I've ever seen, lithe yet with muscles, massive horns up his head signifying his status.  

It was Hyperion and Asmodeus fighting in the throne room that looked like it was the size of a stadium.

"N-No, great Satan Asmodeus." I gritted my teeth as I stood up. "The Angels had Cain within their ranks. My legions have all but nearly been destroyed. I had them retreat to the Underworld least they be completely annihilated."

Hyperion laughed, as the Satan scowled.

"How pathetic. How uncoordinated. Angels, Devils." Hyperion shook his head. "All of you of the Eloah Factions, it matters not if you had even attacked me together, you still would have lost. Yet seeing this, it's more of a jester's play than anything."

"Gremory." Asmodeus addressed me with a frown while staring down the Titan. "Have you come here to simply regal me of your failure and humiliate me before an enemy?"

"What?" The fuck's he talking about?

 "If you're here then you must have already overtaken the city, and left everyone outside. You are only a century old, far too young to play these clever ploys on me."

What the fuc—Okay, let's continue to be polite, don't lose your shit just yet.

"Lord Asmodeus, I am not playing any ploy. My legions are gone! The city is in chaos with fighting in all area. Who takes over between us or the Angels is a coin's toss."

I felt Hyperion's irritation at my words and kept him in my periphery to be ready to react, but kept my eyes on the Satan. I don't think there's one enemy here for me to deal with.

"So you took over half the city." WHAT THE FUCK!? That's literally not what I said. "Then make yourself useless and weaken the Titan for me, as I prepare my attack." 

"WHAT!?"

"You Devils really do have a way of infuriating your betters." Hyperion aura surged out. I had to flex my own aura just to not be burned by his divine presence. "I've grown tired of this charade. I will simply burn you both now and go deal with the pigeons and bats outside in my realm."

"Gremory." Asmodeus said with a calm warning tone, as he charged up a massive flame energy orb in front of him.

"Your dark highness, I don't understand!" I shouted. "I can't fight a Titan!"

"Then you should have thought of that before trying to rise above your station. This of this as the reprimand for daring to harbor too great an ambition."

Okay. Seriously. At this point, what the fuck is he talking about?

"Satan Asmodeus, I literally have no clue what you mean?" I argued.

Hyperion seem to let us argue, like he hadn't a care in the world.

"You youngster really like to play dumb, don't you?" Asmodeus sighed. "You dare to amass and cultivate your power, preparing to rule on Earth in place of our king and queen. Leviathan, Beelzebub and I have warned Lord Lucifer and Lady Lilith of your actions. Lilith didn't seem concerned, but Lucifer thought to see how great was the power you amassed. You were brought here as a test for a higher rank. I suppose your Luck couldn't account for everything, given the presence of Cain, but at least it proves you aren't invincible."

I lost my shit.

"When. The fuck. Did I amass power or do anything of that crap you just said!?" I just bellowed out.

"Growing your troops strength. Training them to be subservient to you and your trusted subordinates. Having a day of celebration around yourself. Honestly don't make me spell it out, child, it's quite a humiliating look for you." Asmodeus said with a condescending mocking smile.

...He's joking.

He has to be. There's no way, all this shit happened because...

"Making. My legions an actual army. Giving them training and structure. Having them," my anger made me speak slowly and pause every few words. "Not kill each for petty shit. Making have a tradition to enjoy during their time on Earth. You all call that amassing power!?"

"Watch your tone, Gremory." Asmodeus growled.

"Fuck you! You mind raped me and my mind, throw us into this fight half-assed without any preparations! I lost over a hundred thousand soldiers because of you and the other Satans, imagined bullshit and then involved me in your dickery—"

Asmodeus pointed his Passion Flame at me. A concentrated beam of purple and pink plasma fired at me at blazing speeds.

Even enraged at the sheet petty bullshit I learned I was involved in, I still had my senses ready.

I summoned up all my power, made a double energy shield, one for defense, one for reflect focusing all my Imagination on the Sacred Gear, Mirror Alice. I focused on Angra Mainyu's Verg Avesta. I focused on Cain's Seven-Fold Retaliation.

Devil's magic is about bring what you visualize to life.

I'm an Ultimate Class Devil. I'm magically strong enough to destroy a human city. Asmodeus is a Satan. In sheer magic strength he dwarfs me.

This is a Titan's city, fighting here isn't the same as a human city, so the damage is easily mitigated by the stronger structural material.  

Yet, I'm not gonna fool myself about how strong Asmodeus' attack was.

So I had to lean hard on my Visualization.

I don't have time to train. I never do. There's always something. And I'm afraid. Afraid of seeming weak because I need training. For other devils I always have to appear strong.

I'm limited to what I can train in secret.

So I lean hard on training my mental aspects. Spells to increase focus, or speed up thoughts. Training mentally to have a perfect image of what I want my spells to be.

That is what I spent a century training on.

The energy shield formed instantly. The Ardent Flame Blast slammed into it, activating it.

The energy shield pulsed and rippled constantly with energy washing over it, as it acted as a mirror to fire the beam right back at Asmodeus.

However even with all my preparation and training, I still couldn't account for the Satan's colossal magical might, and ended up pushed back a bit.

That resulted in my shield spell being tilted, rather than perfectly facing Asmodeus.

The demonic energy blast was redirected away.

Right to Hyperion.

The titan's eyes shot wide open. The orbs of fire that were his eyes, growing from surprise.

Asmodeus' widened in surprise and anger.

"You sly bitch! You angered me to take the kill yourself!" He shouted.

My eyes widened as I ignored the BS Asmodeus spewed. What the fuck was my luck finally working for me?

The beam neared Hyperion...

And he turned quickly, dodging the beam by inches as it passed him by.

Asmodeus began laughing. Hyperion looked back at me with murder in his eyes.

Fuck me, this can't get any worse.

The walled behind Hyperion shattered. Not because of the beam, but because Cain broke through it.

"GREMORY!" Shouted the man who seemed more like a demon.

And got hit by the beam square in the chest.

Cain screamed as his body burned. A massive chuck of his torso was torn through like those circular anime wounds.

Then the Mark of Cain activated.