In one of the many military outposts built throughout the Underworld, a regiment of approximately 2000 Devils and Lilim were gathered inside the biggest building in the outpost, waiting for the order to be given for them to enter the latest battle of what was being called the 'Great War'.
A group of Fallen Angels had managed to break through the defences put up by the Pillar Devil Cimerius, with Cimerius and her entire bloodline meeting their end in the battle that had followed. Now, that group of Fallens had increased in number, had managed to make their way to the territory ruled by Pillar Furcas, and were working to establish a base there.
Fyzvile, the last remaining Devil of Furcas' bloodline, now leading the charge to wipe out the Fallen Angels that had made their way into his territory, had called for assistance in fighting the Fallen Angels, which was why the company of Devil/Lilim were here now: waiting for Zeoticus, who would be leading them, and for his son Raylix, who would be fighting among them.
A crimson transportation-circle, bearing a symbol that roughly resembled a rose in the middle, formed at the entrance to the base, with all approximately-200 Devils/Lilim turning to face the place where the circle had formed. Less than a second later, the circle faded away, with Zeoticus appearing from the spot that the circle had formed from. Dressed in elaborate yet practical combat attire, wearing a black helmet that contrasted brilliantly with his crimson hair, and a double-edged straight sword with a glowing crimson blade held lightly in one hand, Zeoticus stood out very well against the Devils and Lilim that stood before him.
At the back of the room, another, bigger, crimson transportation-circle materialised, with two individuals popping out of it: Raylix and Irene. Every Devil and Lilim soldier in the room turned to look at Raylix and Irene as they stepped away from where they had popped out of the transport-circle, but turned back to Zeoticus as Raylix and Irene joined the crowd.
"Alright, all!" Zeoticus spoke up, his tone alone being enough to call everyone else in the room- including Raylix and Irene- to attention. "You've all been briefed on the situation we'll be assisting Fyzvile in, but I'll give you a rundown on what needs to be done." With a wave of his hand, a map of the Furcas-ruled territory appeared, large enough for everyone in the room to easily see. With another wave of his hand, the map zoomed in on a specific part of the area, particularly the part in the far east of Furcas territory. There were hills, towns and villages indicated on the map in reference to where they actually were in the Underworld, as well as a unique marker in the middle of the zoomed-in area.
"The Fallen Angels have managed to fully establish a base here." Zeoticus explained, pointing on the map to the unique marker, presumed to be the base that he had just mentioned. "Fyzvile has, with a division of his best soldiers, engaged with the Fallen Angels in order to drive them out of the base they've established, and out of his territory as a whole. We're going to assist them."
Zeoticus snapped his fingers, and a wide circle appeared around a good portion of the zoomed-in map, with the base marker at its centre.
"Fyzvile's troops have already placed an anti-teleportation ward up around this area here." Zeoticus continued, indicating the circle that had just appeared. "You will all be stationed around this portion of the border of this ward," he indicated the bottom-left portion of the circle with a finger "and other regiments, just like you, will be stationed around other portions. You, alongside them, will be on standby around the ward to both prevent any Fallen Angels from escaping the ward, and to act as a rearguard when we begin advancing on the base. That understood?"
There was a general murmur of ascent from everyone in the room, which Zeoticus nodded at.
"Good." he spoke, spreading his eight Devil wings and conjuring a giant transportation-circle that covered the entirety of the wall that he stood in front of. "Now let's go crush those damn Fallens to dust." He adjusted his grip on his sword so it was more secure in his hand, turned around and walked through the transportation-circle, disappearing from sight.
The Devils and Lilim in the room let out loud battle-cries and dashed forward, rushing through the transportation-circle after Zeoticus had disappeared. There were a few overly-enthusiastic ones among the group that jumped into the circle, spreading their wings just like Zeoticus had done. After summoning the sword-hilt that Sirzechs had gifted him five years ago and switching it on, projecting a blade of the Power of Destruction out of it, Raylix jogged forward through the transport-circle, spreading his Devil wings as he did so.
After coming out the other side, Raylix raised himself into the air alongside the other Devil and Lilim soldiers, following them as they followed Zeoticus, who flew towards the sounds of battle going on in the distance. Raylix briefly turned around, a couple of seconds after he left the transportation-circle, and saw Irene coming out of it, flying without wings (Raylix simply presumed that she was using her magic to do that), a look of cold determination on her face.
"Ready for this, Irene?" Raylix asked, twirling his sword around in his hand for a second or two.
"Yea. You?" Irene replied, before floating past Raylix without waiting for his answer. Not that Raylix really had the words to give one, as he turned around again and flew past Irene, catching up with the rest of the Devil/Lilim soldiers that Zeoticus led closer and closer to the battle going on.
Raylix felt a ripple of magical energy pass over him as he passed over the border of the anti-teleportation ward that his father had informed him, Irene and the rest of the soldiers about, and slowed down until he floated alongside a small squad of other soldiers, ready to carry out the role that Zeoticus had said he (and the others) would have in the present engagement.
From where he hung in the air, Raylix easily spotted Fyzvile, grandson of the Pillar Devil Furcas. Dressed in similarly elaborate gear to Zeoticus, and wearing a silver helmet that covered his entire head, and riding a black armoured pegacorn (a horse-like creature with the wings of a pegasus and the horn of a unicorn), it wasn't hard to spot him among the other Devils and Lilim.
"Nice to see you joining us, Zeoticus!" He called loudly, as Raylix saw Zeoticus approaching him. Both Raylix and Zeoticus saw a Fallen Angel approaching Fyzvile on his mount from behind, a spear of light in each hand, with clear intent to kill him, but Fyzvile seemed to have sensed him coming as well. He jumped off his pegacorn, summoned a lance with a projected blade similar to the sword that Raylix held, landed ON the Fallen Angel that approached him and his pegacorn, and impaled the black-winged man through the back.
The Fallen Angel writhed around in pain, the lance still in his back for a second or two before Fyzvile pulled it out, allowing the Fallen to drop to the ground as life left his eyes. Fyzvile spread eight Devil wings as his pegacorn flew down, allowing him to easily drop down onto its back, as if nothing had happened.
"There are more of those crows here than I thought." Raylix heard Fyzvile informing Zeoticus, while he twirled the lance that he held in one hand. "And the base they've set up is pretty damn secure, according to those I've sent forward. I'm sure I could retake the base with what I've got now, but better safe than sorry. Which is why I sent for Arath, Meneth, Assha and their troops: they should be at the north, south and east by now, respectively."
"I see." Zeoticus replied, putting a hand to his chin and scratching his chin-beard for a second or two, before looking back at the regiment he'd brought with him. "Everyone, change of plans!" he called out, using demonic power to amplify his voice to the point that Raylix's ears rang, from where he was floating in the air. "We're advancing on the Fallen's base with Fyzvile's division! You!" he called out to a soldier a couple of dozen meters above and behind Raylix, pointing at him as he did so. "Fly around the ward's border and make sure the message is spread! And you!" he pointed to another soldier, this one a female. "Do the same in the other direction!"
"Yes, sir!" both soldiers shouted out in unison, before instantly flying away in opposite directions. Once both were out of earshot, Zeoticus turned to Raylix, and flew over to him.
"Raylix, I want you to stick close to me while we advance." Zeoticus stated, fixing his son with a cold, hard, this-is-not-up-for-discussion face. "You might have to serve on the battlefield from now on, but I won't have you in more danger than you need to be."
"Understood, Father." Raylix replied, adjusting the grip on the sword in his hand. "I-"
"INCOMING!" One of the soldiers that Zeoticus had brought onto the battlefield alongside Raylix shouted out, and Zeoticus, Raylix and Fyzvile turned around as one, ready to meet the crowd of Fallen Angels that flew towards the Devils at breakneck speed. Their leader looked to be a busty woman with long dark-blue hair, with six black-feathered wings on her back.
"Shit, Devils in the way!" she called out to the other Fallen Angels in the group she was leading. "Don't engage with them, just keep going! The edge of their anti-teleportation ward should be- AAAGH!"
The Fallen woman let out a blood-curdling scream as white-hot fire erupted around her. Raylix could only see a silhouette of the Fallen woman within the flames, which were so hot that he almost instantly felt himself beginning to sweat from the heat he could feel from where he floated.
The woman was incinerated within seconds and fell lifelessly towards the ground, nothing more than an unrecognisably charred corpse. The flames reduced her hair, her clothes and the feathers on her wings to ashes, which fell around her body as she hit the ground, life gone from her eyes.
The tip of a magical staff entered the corner of Raylix's vision, and he turned to see Irene floating up next to him, pointing her staff at where the Fallen woman had been before she had incinerated her, a slightly sadistic smirk on her face. Raylix didn't have time to address his Pact Mage as one of the Fallen Angels that were still alive shouted "SCATTER!", with all the Fallens in the group instantly scattering and flying around erratically, in an attempt to get past the Devils that blocked their path to outside the anti-teleportation ward.
"Engage!" Fyzvile shouted, pointing his lance at one of the Fallen Angels, directing the pegacorn he was riding to charge up energy from its horn for a couple of seconds, before releasing it at the Fallen he had pointed at. The energy-bolt made contact with the Fallen before he even had a chance to react, blowing a hole through him where his heart was, killing him instantly. "Don't let a single one of them escape!"
All the demonic soldiers in the area let out loud yells, and rushed at the scattering Fallen Angels, Raylix and Zeoticus amongst them. As one of the scattering Fallen Angels summoned a light-spear to his hand and flung it at Raylix and Zeoticus, Zeoticus raised his sword between his younger son and the light-spear, with the sword itself glowing a bright crimson as it absorbed the energy of the light-spear.
The black-winged Fallen Angel in question could only stare in dumb shock at what had happened to his light-spear, with Raylix summoning a ball of his Power of Destruction in one hand and firing it at said Fallen Angel. Unlike the first time that Raylix had used his mother's power in a fight for his life, the thrown ball of destructive energy both made its mark, catching the Fallen Angel in the neck and doing explosively heavy damage to said Fallen.
From the Fallen's collarbone to his lower jaw, the entirety of his neck was blown out by the attack that Raylix had just cast, and as the top of the Fallen's head was blown off its body from the force of Raylix's attack, a fountain of blood erupted from where the Fallen's neck used to be as his body dropped like a stone.
Raylix let out a short breath as his eyes followed the falling Fallen. He had generally been indifferent to death up until now, as he'd seen beings die and be killed all the time. Hell, he'd killed his fair share of beasts in the Underworld, and was seeing Devils, Lilim and Fallen Angels alike being killed all around him. But in spite of all that, he couldn't help but acknowledge an unpleasant feeling in the pit of his stomach, from the fact that he'd just killed someone that looked so like himself (not only were Devils and Fallen Angels physically similar to humans, aside from their wings, but the Fallen that Raylix had just killed had dark-brown hair, a few shades darker than Raylix's own chestnut locks), in such a gruesome manner.
As he saw a four-winged Fallen Angel getting too close to him and Zeoticus, Raylix forced the unpleasant feeling down and flew forward, switching out his sword's projection of a Power of Destruction-blade for a projected blade of darkness. On instinct alone, he swung the sword to meet the light-sword that the four-winged Fallen, an older-looking man with black hair and matching dark eyes, created and swung at him. Raylix's sword of darkness overpowered the Fallen's sword of light, and carried on until it cleaved off the Fallen's sword-arm.
The Fallen's yell of pain at the loss of his right arm was quickly silenced as Raylix drove the darkness-blade into his chest, driving both the breath and the life out of him. As he dropped like a stone, similar to the first Fallen Angel that Raylix had killed, Zeoticus flew up alongside him, laying a hand on his shoulder.
"Nice work, Raylix." Zeoticus praised, sending the sword he was holding back to a pocket-dimension and summoning a barrier out of demonic energy to block a trio of Fallen Angels from getting too close to them in the same hand-movement. He then noticed the look on Raylix's face, as his son still looked down at where the second Fallen Angel he'd killed had fallen. "Are you... alright?"
"I'm fine." Raylix replied, shifting himself away from his father's hand on his shoulder. "I know, I need to get used to this."
"You do." Zeoticus nodded, only taking the barrier between himself, his son and the Fallen Angels down for long enough to quickly charge up a sharp wave of demonic energy that horizontally bisected all three of them, sending them spiralling down to the ground in a display five times as gruesome as Raylix's first kill alone. "Out here on the battlefield, it's kill or be killed. Remember that."
Raylix simply nodded, following both his father (who had re-summoned his sword into his hand) and Fyzvile as they advanced forward through the air, accompanied by over many other Devils and Lilim. Raylix vaguely recognised said Devils and Lilim, by the gear that they wore, as being from groups led by Arath (son of the Pillar Devil Gäap) and Meneth (granddaughter of the Pillar Devil Foras).
Raylix summoned a spear of demonic energy in his free hand and thrust it towards the first Fallen Angel that came too close to him and Zeoticus, piercing him through the heart and killing him instantly, his third kill of the battle. As the Fallen dropped to join many others (and several Devils and Lilim, though Raylix noticed more dead Fallen dropping to the ground than Devils and Lilim) on the ground, Raylix noticed what looked like a large tree with humanoid features running on the ground, with the tops of its branches approximately on a level with the height that Fyzvile was flying at. It seemed to distract the Fallen Angels, who all either floated dumbly in the air, shocked at the sight of the running tree, or flung weapons of light in the tree's direction in an attempt to slow it down.
But the tree didn't slow down: it just ran right at the Fallen Angels, barrelling right through the attempt at a formation they'd attempted to put together seconds earlier and sending them all scattering again. Irene appeared a second later, and swung her staff around in a wide arc, creating several magic-circles in the air above the Fallen Angels and summoning many, many bullets of magical energy to rain down upon them.
Those that were hit by enough of Irene's magical bullets were shredded and slain, while those lucky enough to escape Irene's magical bullet-hell alive attempted to retaliate, to get revenge for their fallen comrades. But they quickly realised, once the bullet-storm was over, that someone had a much quicker, probably much more gruesome, death in mind for them. That someone being a certain chestnut-haired younger son of Zeoticus, who'd switched out his projected darkness-blade for a projected blade of the Power of Destruction.
Raylix had also summoned a sword made purely out of his mother's power into his free hand to go with the projected blade of his Power of Destruction in his dominant left hand, and flew at speed towards the crowd of surviving Fallen Angels. He span over and over in mid-air, swinging almost wildly as he positively rocketed through the crowd of black-feathered beings, easily carving up the group of mostly four-winged impure Angels (as well as a couple of six-winged ones) into bloody, partially-dissolved chunks that dropped like rocks when he was through with them.
Raylix stopped next to Irene, once he was done carving through the remaining Fallen Angels. After the large attacks that he and Irene had pulled off, the crowd of around a hundred Fallen Angels that had advanced on the multiple regiments of Devils and Lilim were now cut down to less than twenty, with those Fallens now being ganged up on and picked off by the other Devils and Lilim, in spite of their attempts to surrender.
"How many did I just take out, now?" Raylix asked, nervously looking back down at the gory mess of severed body-parts that was the remains of his latest attack. "I don't think I could count that. Had to have been more than what you took out with your bullet-rain attack, right?"
"Maybe." Irene shrugged. "I wasn't counting either. Let's just say we killed forty each and add it to our respective totals, yeah?"
"Works for me." Raylix replied. "That'd make forty-three for me."
"Forty-seven." Irene smirked. "Hopefully you can catch up later on, given that there aren't many Fallens left here right-" Her remark was interrupted when a light-spear thrown by an eight-winged Fallen Angel, seconds before she was pierced through the chest by Fyzvile's lance, pierced her shoulder. Irene let out a yell of pain and immediately began focusing healing magic onto her shoulder as Raylix flew forward, having realised before Fyzvile that the eight-winged Fallen that had thrown the lance in question wasn't dead yet.
The eight-winged Fallen struggled through the pain of impalement by lance, and rather than shape her light into the form of a weapon, she just summoned an orb of it to fire in a powerful blast at Fyzvile from point-blank range, but Raylix had noticed her attempt to stealthily prepare for such an attack. He threw out his hand and cast a crimson hole, one of his Amalgamation-holes, from said hand and caught the shot of light that the eight-winged Fallen Angel had fired from close-range.
Forming a second Amalgamation-hole in his right hand and infusing it with fire, Raylix fused the two holes together and charged up the combined light and fire. The eight-winged Fallen, having seen what Raylix was trying to do, tried to fire another powerful shot of Light at him instead, but from his close range, Raylix headbutted the woman hard enough to break her nose, dazing her for long enough for him to finish charging up his attack, at which point he fired it right into her face.
The combination of the power behind the Fallen woman's light and Raylix's own fire-magic, charged up by a good portion of Raylix's reserve of demonic power (which was growing by the day as he came closer and closer to full maturity) was enough to practically scorch her face and stun her some more, to the point that Fyzvile pulled his lance out of her chest and got in another couple of stabs. The second of his stabs seemed to get her heart, judging by the fact that she instantly went limp and slid off his lance, falling to the ground like all the others.
"Nice one!" Fyzvile praised Raylix, twirling his lance around in his hand as Raylix flew back to Irene, who was still trying to heal her shoulder, which had a hole all the way through it thanks to the Fallen Angel that Raylix had just killed.
"Ahh, goddamn it." She muttered. "I'm sorry, Raylix, but this-ahh!" she winced as she moved her injured arm a little too much, and clutched it in an attempt to stop the stab of pain that shot through at that very moment. "It isn't safe for me to heal this on the battlefield. I'll have to retreat."
"It's alright, Irene." Raylix replied. "You did fine." He reached out and placed a hand on her shoulder (the one that hadn't just had a light-spear thrown through it), a reassuring look on his face for a second, before it became a smirk. "I'll do my best to surpass your tally of 47 Fallen Angel kills while you're healing yourself."
"Ha, ha." Irene replied, sarcastically, pulling herself away from Raylix and casting a transportation-circle for herself. Though as she retreated through it and disappeared, Raylix could see a smile playing about her lips. He smiled back until she was gone, and turned around before flying forward, catching up with the regiments of Devils that got closer and closer to the base that the Fallen Angels had established.
It was a large fortress, on top of a hill. From his position in the air, Raylix could see many Fallen Angels in and around the area, preparing for the arrival of the Devils and their inevitable attacks. Looking past the fortress, Raylix could see more Devils and Lilim bearing down on the fortress from the opposite direction, these ones being led by Assha, granddaughter of Pillar Halphas.
"Raylix, do you think you could do some damage to the fortress itself with your Power of Destruction?" Fyzvile asked of the teen Devil. "The way you used it to take out most of that gang of crows back there was impressive, to say the least, so could you do something like that again?"
"Uhh..." Raylix looked over at Zeoticus, who shrugged as he flew, before looking back at Fyzvile, and then at the fortress. "I can try. Haven't tried to hit something from this range before, though."
"Good thing you're aiming for a pretty large target, then." Fyzvile replied, pointing his lance at the fortress and gesturing at it, pointing out just how large it was. "Come on. Give it a go, at least."
"Sure, sure." Raylix replied, raising both his arms and hands and beginning to channel large amounts of demonic energy through them, with the crimson and black Power of Destruction forming around his hands as the power he channeled grew more and more. He could feel his reserve of demonic power, which had been going down and down since the battle started, with every time he'd used his power, growing more and more strained, the more he charged it up. Raylix eventually let out a loud yell as he threw his hands down, pointing them at the fortress full of Fallen Angels, and unleashed his mother's power in a pair of short waves that quickly travelled down towards the fortress he had been aiming at.
The first Fallen Angel, another four-winged one, to notice Raylix's powerful charged attack coming, let out a shout of alarm and threw up both his hands in an attempt to cast a barrier that would block the attack, but the barrier that he attempted to cast had barely even been half-formed before Raylix's two destructive waves cut through the barrier, the Fallen Angel who'd attempted to cast it, and kept going towards the fortress.
The destructive waves eventually crashed into the fortress with an explosion so loud that Raylix's ears rang, even from where he was in relation to the fortress, part of which was coming down as a result of the attacks he'd flung at it. Pandemonium clearly reigned in the half-destroyed fortress now, as Fallen Angels flew out of it like hornets out of a nest, and met the Devils in all directions in an unorganized, haphazard manner.
"Seems you rattled them with that move, Raylix." Zeoticus patted his son on the shoulder, smiling down at him in an appreciative manner. "You can retreat for now, you've done more than enough. Remember that you'll have to fly for a bit before being able to teleport out, so-"
"I remember, Father." Raylix replied, floating backwards as Zeoticus, Fyzvile and all the other soldiers descended on the Fallen Angels pouring out of the fortress, letting out battle-cries as they did so. Raylix kept his eyes on Zeoticus as he flew down, sword in hand, and watched as he impaled three Fallens in a single thrust of his sword. It was when a light-spear was thrown past him, missing him by a couple of meters, that Raylix realised he was allowed to leave, and that maybe he should take advantage of that.
Swivelling around in mid-air on his six Devil wings, Raylix made for the anti-teleportation ward's border, knowing that he'd feel it when he crossed the border and was able to teleport again. He knew he had enough energy left in him to cast a transportation-circle, but still felt slightly drained in the aftermath of the big attack he'd done on the fortress.
His thoughts then shifted back to that fotress, and the attack that his father was now leading on it against a group of Fallen Angels who, in all likelihood, knew now that they had nothing left to lose. Given what Raylix had seen of them during the battle, that meant the Fallens would probably fight harder than they had been before... he could only hope that that didn't mean his father would meet his end.
Shoving those thoughts down, Raylix kept flying, knowing that the border of the anti-teleportation ward was coming up soon, and that after that, he'd be able to head home.
But before Raylix reached the border, a yell of pain from below reached his ears. He slowed down, almost on reflex, scanning the ground in an attempt to look for who had yelled out, whether they were a Fallen Angel so he could fly down and finish them up, or if they were on his side so he could help them.
A few seconds later, the sight of an eight-winged Fallen Angel standing over two other beings indicated that the yell of pain he'd heard was probably a result of something closer to the latter scenario. Deciding that going home could wait, he flew down towards the Fallen Angel, acknowledging the two Devils that he was standing over as he came closer.
One of the Devils was a four-winged, muscular-looking guy with short blond hair, and wearing tattered combat gear with the Furcas symbol (a brown horse's head) on it. He looked far more injured than the other Devil, and was picking himself up off the ground after, presumably, being knocked down by the Fallen Angel.
The other one was a four-winged, petite girl with dark brown hair (definitively brown, no doubt about it. Absolutely not a mixture of brown and some other colour, like Raylix's own hair) done up in a ponytail. She wore combat gear with the same symbol on it, though hers was less tattered than the guy's. She wielded a staff in one hand, which she swung at the Fallen Angel before firing a magical attack at him out of one end of the staff, sweating profusely as she did so. However, the attack she'd fired at the Fallen was simply batted aside as the Fallen Angel, a pale man with long white-blond hair and pointed ears, casually stepped towards her. It was clear that he was toying with the two Devils that he'd seemingly overpowered.
The Fallen Angel stopped, a couple of paces before reaching the petite girl, and turned around, evidently having noticed Raylix approaching him from behind. He lazily summoned a light-spear in one hand and pointed it at Raylix, in a mocking attempt at an intimidation tactic that came off more like an attempt to goad Raylix into attacking him, so he could have fun toying with Raylix as well, before he killed him.
Raylix kept travelling forward, one hand at the belt that he wore, which his sword-hilt was attatched to. As the Fallen Angel pulled back his spear-arm, preparing to stab Raylix with his spear, Raylix willed away his Devil wings, letting gravity and momentum carry him down and forward, out of the way of the spear that the Fallen Angel thrust where he would have been had he not pulled a trick like that. Whipping out his sword-hilt and igniting it, projecting a blade of darkness out of it, Raylix rolled forward and jumped up, thrusting his sword straight into the Fallen Angel's stomach and out the other side.
The light-spear that the Fallen Angel had summoned to his hand dissipated almost instantly, as the Fallen Angel let out a gasp of mixed shock and pain. The element of Darkness was just as much poison to Angels, Fallen or not, as the Light that they naturally commanded was to Devils, and he'd just been stabbed through the stomach by a sword made purely out of the stuff. And to make matters worse, the pathetic four-winged Devil that he'd beaten down so convincingly had gotten back up AGAIN, and delivered a couple of hard punches to his face and chest, sending him staggering backwards, followed up by a sweep-kick that put him on his back, a projected sword of darkness sticking out of him.
The Fallen Angel saw his life flashing before his eyes as Raylix pulled the projected sword out of his stomach, and stood over the defeated being.
"Ko... ka..." the Fallen tried to speak, tears beginning to make themselves known in his red eyes. "Dad, help-" Raylix swung his darkness-sword again, removing the Fallen's head from his neck, and he spoke no more.
There was a silence between Raylix and the two other Devils as Raylix turned off his sword, and returned it to his belt. Raylix then broke said silence, addressing the guy.
"Not bad. You've got a good set of fists. That sweep-kick was nice, too."
"Thanks!" the guy replied. "Comes from training!" He flashed Raylix a smile that, in spite of how wide and inviting it was, came off as more creepy than the guy probably intended, due to the injuries surrounding said smile. There was a long, still-bleeding slash-wound that went from the left-side corner of his mouth diagonally up to a centimeter or two below his left eye, and he had a black right eye. The rest of his body didn't look much better: his combat-gear was stained red with fresh blood, clearly from multiple bleeding wounds that he'd suffered at the hands of the Fallen Angel that Raylix had just killed, most of the skin on his right hand seemed to be burned off, and Raylix noticed that he was putting more weight than necessary on his right leg over his left. The same left leg that he'd sweep-kicked the Fallen Angel with.
"You okay?" Raylix asked the guy. Before he could reply, the girl spoke up.
"No, he's not." She replied. "This is what he gets for running into a fight without a plan..." she just sighed and raised her staff, and the guy was enveloped in a healing aura for a few seconds, long enough for the burnt skin on his right hand to be healed. "Shit."
"What?" Raylix and the guy spoke up, in unison.
"I'm all out of power." The girl replied, still sweating hard. "I can't heal anymore." She looked over at Raylix. "Can you?"
"Sorry." Raylix replied, raising his hands. "I don't know the first thing about healing magic. We could take you to a medical facility?" He spoke up, addressing the guy again. The girl answered, before he could, though.
"Good idea." She replied. "Hope you can take us there... uhh..." she trailed off while looking at Raylix, and it was at that point Raylix realised that he hadn't introduced himself.
"Raylix." He clarified, extending his hand out to the guy. "Mind if I lift you up? There's an anti-teleportation ward around here, so I'll have to take you beyond it before teleporting you.
"I don't-" the guy tried to protest, but one look at the expression on the girl's face was enough for him to acquiesce. "Alright. Do what you need to do."
Raylix nodded, and cast a telekinesis-spell on the guy, easily lifting him up before lifting himself up on his six demonic wings. The girl lifted herself up alongside him on her four wings, and the two flew together while Raylix held the guy in a telekinetic bond. As he and the girl flew, a magic-circle appeared by his ear, indicating a call. With his free hand, Raylix touched the circle, answering the call.
"Hello?"
"Raylix!" Raylix heard Zeoticus' voice on the other side. "We've taken the fortress you wrecked, and all the Fallen Angels are gone! The battle is won!"
"Nice!" Raylix replied, relieved that his father sending him on his way wouldn't be the last time he'd ever see him. "That's great!"
"Damn right it is." Zeoticus replied. "And we couldn't have done it without you. You made it home, yet?"
"Not yet." Raylix replied. "I just had to do something. Help a couple of soldiers I found on my way out to a medical facility. I'll be home right after, though."
"Alright." Zeoticus replied. Raylix could hear the cheers of Devils and Lilim from his father's end of the call. "Do what you need to do. I'll see you at home."
"See you, Father." Raylix replied, seconds before the magic-circle by his ear disappeared. Around that time, Raylix felt the same ripple of magical energy over himself while exiting the anti-teleportation ward as he'd felt when he entered it, and instantly cast a transportation-circle with his free hand as the girl stopped alongside him.
"By the way," Raylix spoke, looking between the guy and the girl, just before he began passing through the transport-circle. "I never got your names."
"I'm Sabemka." The guy replied, from his postion in Raylix's telekinetic hold. "The girl who worries too much is Tomosei."
"Nice to meet you both." Raylix nodded, ignoring Tomosei's pout as he travelled through the transportation-circle with her and Sabemka.
----- ----- ----- ----- -----
With the base that the Fallen Angels had attempted to put up now destroyed, and every last one of those who had defended said base against the counterattack by the Devils and Lilim soldiers (mainly lead by Fyzvile and Zeoticus, both of whom had survived the battle) now dead, the crows had lost any major footing they could have held in the Underworld, and retreated from the territory entirely.
In the aftermath of his first battle, thanks to recommendation from both Fyzvile and Zeoticus, Raylix had been assigned a personal company of around 250 soldiers to lead in future battles that he was called up to fight in, the members of which he was supposed to be meeting in a couple of days. It was unusual for Raylix, who was barely a couple of months over 16 years old now, to get his own unit to lead. In fact, if Raylix was right, he was the youngest Devil/Lilim so far to get that kind of military privilege: a record that, as little as it mattered on the battlefield, Raylix didn't feel bad in taking pride in.
The youngest Gremory child was in his favourite spot within the grounds of his parent's estate, a pair of books laid semi-neatly on the dry ground beside him, with one more in his hands as he lay down, scanning the pages. The book he was reading, and had done for the past hour or so, was on miliary strategy from a Devil point of view, a tome leant to him by Zeoticus soon after the assignment of his company. The book discussed many situations that a Devil military unit might run into during a battle (most likely against Angels and Fallen Angels, and challenged good potential commanders to come up with strategies that most easily eliminate the advantages of their opponents, giving examples of how prominent figures among the Devils had done just that. As he turned a page and adjusted his position on the ground that he lay on, Raylix scanned over a particularly wordy explanation of a complex strategy that Lucifer himself had used to wipe out several hundred thousand Angels at once in a single battle, and force the Biblical God's own wife to turn tail and run for her life.
It made sense that there would be at least some probably-exaggerated praising of the Satans, Raylix thought, as he continued scanning the pages. After all, the Four Satans controlled... just about everything that went on in the portion of the Underworld that was inhabited by the Devils and Lilim (about 80% of the whole Underworld. Anything that a Devil or Lilim could think of that contributed to life in the Underworld, it all got the approval of at least one of the Satans. Whether it was ordering an entire battalion of soldiers and its leader to assist another Devil in defending or attacking against the Fallen Angels or Angels, or a specific Devil going to make a Pact with a Magician in the Human World, the Satans had to have a say in everything.
Not even the 72 Pillar Devils (or at least, they WERE 72 prior to the beginning of the Great War. Now, they were down to approximately 50), Devils chosen for their apparent contributions to the forming of Devil/Lilim society as all living Devils/Lilim knew it, with the unique powers (which their blood descendents inherited, in most cases) to prove it, held any power: it was all concentrated in the hands of Lucifer, Leviathan, Beelzebub and Asmodeus. Though there were rumours that the spouses of the Satans, or more specifically Lilith, the first Succubus, progenitor of the Lilim and Lucifer's loving wife, held power of one kind or another, they were just that: unproven rumours.
Raylix turned the next page in the book, and before he even got halfway down the next page, which detailed another complex and wordy strategy that Beelzebub had used in a three-way battle that took place before Raylix himself had even been born, he shut the book and set it aside, sighing and looking up at the purple Underworld sky for a few seconds. The constant reading was pressing pretty heavily on the young Devil's mind, and after an approximate hour of such a mind-numbing task, he felt the need for something a bit more... practical. Like... actual training.
Stretching, Raylix got to his feet and picked up the other book via a telekinetic bond, lifted it into his hand and opened it up, flicking through to the brand of magic he had recently taken an interest in: sealing.
Being able to take on an opponent directly, with nothing held back, certainly had its place in a good Devil's combat arsenal, but Raylix couldn't deny the advantages that one could gain in battle by being able to restrict one's opponents: from simply holding said opponent in a specific space, or just suppressing their ability to perform a specific action, learning sealing sounded like something that would help Raylix survive more intense battles in the Great War. Which Raylix definitely liked the idea of, as dying at 16 by getting ran through with a light-spear wasn't anywhere close to being on his bucket list.
Raylix stretched, and idly scratched an itch that made itself known on his lower back as he read. The chapter on seals detailed that the best way to practice casting them was on a living being: and there weren't any around that Raylix figured he could practice with. His parents were at another war council right now, Sirzechs was likely doing something with either Ajuka or either of his other friends (Serafall, great-granddaughter of Pillar Sitri, or Falbium, great-grandson of Pillar Glasya-Labolas), Irene was probably busy with whatever Magicians did in their spare time (plus, the idea of asking her for help after she'd taken that light-spear to the shoulder in a battle that he himself had asked her to come to left a pretty bad taste in Raylix's mouth), and going out and finding a wild Demonic Wulf/Byrd to fight and practice sealing spells on was probably the literal definition of the term 'reckless' in some corners of the Underworld.
So, what to do?
Raylix's internal musings were interrupted as he heard as he felt the presence of two Devils crossing over the anti-teleportation ward that bordered his and his family's home. As their son, Zeoticus and Venelana had keyed Raylix to the wards so that, whenever he was alone at home, he would know whenever someone arrived at the home, so he could either go to greet them, or call them in case he needed their help in a fight. They had done the same with Sirzechs (though he wasn't home very often) and with each other (though they weren't home very often either).
Spreading his six Devil wings, Raylix raised himself into the air and flew over the house, landing on its other side and easily suppressing his slight surprise at the sight of Sabemka and Tomosei stepping away from where their transportation-circle had presumably manifested, just beyond the borders of the ward, and dressed in light combat gear that, as opposed to the gear that Raylix had seen them wearing two weeks ago, wasn't messed up to hell, and was emblazoned with the Gremory symbol instead of the Furcas one. The wounds that Sabemka bore in the aftermath of his battle with the Fallen Angel that Raylix had killed two weeks ago were now completely healed, and the smile that he wore now had the effect of looking wide and inviting that he had probably intended to give a couple of weeks ago.
"Hey, uh..." Sabemka called, faltering almost instantly mid-greeting.
"Raylix." Tomosei finished for him. "Sorry that Sabemka forgot your name, Raylix, he'll remember eventually."
"It's fine." Raylix replied. "You're looking better, Sabemka."
"Feeling better, too." Sabemka nodded, flexing one of his arms and grinning. "With the work the doctors from that medical facility did for me after you dropped me off there, I'm better than ever!"
"Glad to hear it." Raylix replied, as he just now noticed the Gremory symbol on Sabemka and Tomosei's gear. "Hey, did you get transferred? I thought you were with Fyzvile's division."
"Well, we were." Tomosei replied, shifting herself from foot to foot slightly. "But after we heard that you'd been assigned a company of your own to lead in battles, we went to Fyzvile and asked to be transferred to your company. After he heard what you'd done for us, and after he got the okay from the Satans, he let us be transferred."
"Huh." Raylix shrugged. "Well, I appreciate that. That aside, what are you doing here? I think I'm supposed to be meeting everyone from my company in a couple of days."
"We came to see you personally, before that meeting could happen!" Sabemka replied, his grin still on his face. "Tomo and I both thought it'd be okay, since we know you better than anyone else that'll be in your company."
"It was your idea more than mine." Tomosei replied, seemingly resisting the urge to roll her eyes. "Even if I agreed with it."
"Well, however you both got to the point of coming to see me, I do agree that you know me better than anyone else who'd be in my company." Raylix replied, shrugging. "Even if you have to admit, that isn't saying much at all."
"True enough." Sabemka replied. "But anyway... sorry that we interrupted whatever you were doing, I didn't have much of a plan beyond coming to see you."
"You don't have much of a plan for most things, Sam." Tomosei remarked. "But out of curiosity, what were you doing before we came?"
"Training." Raylix replied. "Or, I was about to start some training, but that doesn't really matter."
"Training?" Sabemka seemed to perk up at the mention of the word. "Nice! Mind if I train with you?"
"Eh, not at all." Raylix replied, shrugging. "I could use someone to practice with. You want to come too, Tomosei?"
"I don't have anything else to do, so sure." Tomosei replied. "What were you going to be training? Swordwork? Magic? Hand-to-hand?"
"Uh, I was thinking of sealing." Raylix answered. "Been interested in them for a bit, and I know they can be useful in battle, so you know..." he spread his wings and raised himself into the air. "I thought I'd try my hand at them. I train in the back garden, if you want to come."
"Oh yeah!" Sabemka replied, spreading his own four Devil wings and raising himself into the air, fully intent on following Raylix.
"Why not?" Tomosei added, spreading her own four Devil wings and rising herself into the air, following Raylix and Sabemka over Zeoticus and Venelana's house until they touched down in the back garden, where Raylix had just been relaxing and reading a few minutes before.
"Sealing, huh?" Tomosei continued, as she touched down a couple of seconds after Raylix and Sabemka had, and picked up one of the books that Raylix had laid down earlier, which was open at the chapter on sealing. She looked over. "I guess you'll need someone to test the seals you cast on, right?"
"You could say." Raylix replied, with a nod. "Probably not going to try anything too elaborate or long-lasting, though, so you wouldn't be hurt if I tested my casting on you."
Tomosei raised an eyebrow. Sabemka had just turned away from the pair of them, throwing a few punches at an imaginary opponent.
"Not that I would, of course." Raylix continued. "Without your permission, of course." He added. Tomosei just grinned.
"Permission granted." She replied, looking over at Sabemka. "Hey," she called over to him. "Think you can come and help, too?"
"Huh?" Sabemka, so invested in his imaginary fight that he'd already tuned out the conversation between Raylix and Tomosei, turned around. "What's up?"
"Raylix is gonna try casting some seals, want to help him out by taking some of them?" she asked. "It'll help Rayliix with learning to cast one in a fight, and it could help you with resisting them if you ever get one cast on you in a fight."
"Sure thing!" Sabemka replied, disengaging from his imaginary fight entirely and turning towards Raylix and Tomosei, happy to help. Nodding, Raylix took the book that Tomosei handed over to him, and flipped through some of the chapter on seals that he'd been reading before Sabemka and Tomosei had arrived. He quickly scanned through the many seals that the chapter detailed until a passage on one that he thought simple enough to work caught his eye. After looking over the passage that had caught his eye one more time, he put the book down and focused his power, fully concentrating on the seal that he intended to cast and pouring a decent amount of his power into what he intended to cast, before finally letting it out.
The seal burst forward from Raylix's hand as a bolt of dark energy, and struck Sabemka in the chest. He stumbled back, letting out a short "Guh!" as he did so, but still remained on his feet. The spot on his body that the seal had hit him glowed, a sign that the seal was on him and effecting him.
"Alright, Sabemka." Raylix addressed the man he'd just put the seal on, casting his eyes down at the book he'd put down, and taking a second to scan through it. "Could you try to move? Walk, run, fly, anything, just try to physically move, please?."
"Got it!" Sabemka replied. Doing as Raylix asked, he spread his two pairs of wings and attempted to lift off from the ground, to take flight as all Devils could. However, as much as Sabemka tried to lift himself up, he found that he couldn't. With his attempts to take off, his body began feeling a lot heavier than it actually was. He looked over at Raylix and Tomosei, who were both fixated on the spot on Sabemka's chest that Raylix had cast the seal on.
It was glowing, a telltale sign that the seal was working its intended purpose: to halt Sabemka's physical movement.
"Alright, that worked." Raylix remarked. "Nice."
"Is there any way to get this seal off me?" Sabemka asked. "Remove its effect?"
"There are three ways of getting rid of a seal." Tomosei spoke, picking up the book, flicking back a couple of pages and poring over a specific passage intently. "Overpower it yourself, Emka, wait for it to wear off naturally, or Raylix can cast an anti-seal spell. The method to the latter should be somewhere in here" she flicked back through the pages of the book, looking over every line of text at fast as she could reasonably go while taking it all in. "Should be... ah! Here it is." she put the book down and summoned her magical staff out of a magic-circle, catching it and pointing to a speciic passage on a certain page with it, a passage that, when Raylix inspected it, did indeed detail the method of how to cast a spell that undid the effects of seals.
There was also mention of a method to protect the seals one cast from an anti-seal spell, but that wasn't something that Raylix felt himself exactly ready to learn. Maybe in the future, just not now.
Tomosei span her staff around in her hand for a couple of seconds, pointing it at Sabemka and firing a bolt of energy at him out of said staff, similar to the bolt that Raylix had fired at him out of his hand. The energy-bolt struck Sabemka in around the same area that the bolt that Raylix fired struck him, with the glowing affect around Sabemka's chest that had been there before fading away.
"Alright. Try moving now, Emka." Tomosei remarked, and stepped back as Sabemka instantly took to the air via his wings, with a smile back on his face as he fipped over in the air a couple of times, before landing on the ground. The seal was gone.
"Well, that's that sorted for now." Raylix spoke, stretching again as he bent down to pick up the book, flip back through its pages. Another seal detailed within the book caught his eye, and he focused on it for a couple of seconds before looking over at Tomosei for a second or two. "Hey Tomosei, I've got another seal that I want to try out. And it's one that'd be effective against you, unless Sabemka is any good at casting magic."
"Not really, no." Sabemka replied, shrugging. "Fists, feet and strength are all I need!"
"Fair." Raylix replied. "I always wanted to try learning hand-to-hand. Anyway, I guess I'm casting this one you, Tomosei, if that's alright?"
"It's fine." Tomosei shrugged, stepping forward. "Just by what you said about this seal being effective against me, who's good with magic, I think I know what this is gonna be. You sure you can cast the anti-seal after you cast the seal?"
"Absolutely." Raylix replied, looking over the passage on the seal he wanted to cast before firing the seal at Tomosei. It hit her in the stomach and, like Sabemka had done, she stumbled back slightly, letting out a small "Oof!" as she did so. After Raylix had confirmed that the seal had taken hold of Tomosei, he spoke up again "Alright, now try and cast a spell of some kind."
"Sure, sure." Tomosei replied, lifting her staff again and pointing it up into the air. The look on her face was enough of a marker that she was actually trying to focus a spell through her staff, but no spell of any kind burst forth from her staff. "Damn. Guess it worked."
"Yup." Raylix did a mental fist-pump at the fact that his magical suppression seal had worked. "What kind of spell were you attempting to cast just now?"
"Basic fire spell." Tomosei replied. "Now, the anti-seal, please?"
"Oh yeah, right." Raylix nodded, looking down at the book, which conveniently contained the passage on the anti-seal spell on the same page as the magical suppression seal. A couple of seconds later, the glowing seal disappeared from Tomosei's body, which she confirmed by sending a fireball up into the purple Underworld sky.
Over the next couple of hours, Raylix, Sabemka and Tomosei worked and trained together, with Raylix working his way up and testing more and more powerful and complex seals on the two soldiers of his company. Sabemka was able to get in a sort of training of their own from Raylix's seals, with the larger Devil working on trying to move around and dodge attacks fired at him by Tomosei, while having an anti-movement seal cast on him by Raylix.
Tomosei herself got in on it in a way, developing a competitive game of sorts against Raylix, where the staff-wielding caster would try to get past Raylix and hit Sabemka with an anti-seal while Raylix attempted to stop her by any means necessary. Or rather, by any means necessary that fell within the realm of reason: he didn't want to turn one of his own subordinates into a useless cripple, after all.
Raylix and Tomosei were in another of these contests against each other, thirty seconds into the latest round, up in the air and attempting to fly around one another. Tomosei fired an anti-seal spell around Raylix, aiming for Sabemka- who was on the ground, struggling against the anti-movement seal that Raylix had cast on him. However, she missed, and paid for it as Raylix sunk a fist into her stomach. She gasped out loud as Raylix span around in mid-air, with her still on the business end of his fist, and flung her down towards the ground before pursuing her less than a second later.
Tomosei righted herself in mid-air, coughing, and readied another anti-seal spell to fire at the struggling Sabemka, but Raylix flew down before the spell could hit the male Devil and blocked it with a quickly-created barrier that shattered from the power of Tomosei's anti-seal spell. Gritting her teeth for a second, but noticing something that Sabemka was doing that gave her an idea, Tomosei aimed her staff at Raylix's left side and fired a powerful ice spell at him. Raylix instinctively dodged to the right, just fast enough to notice the petite Devil in front of him charging up an attack with her free hand, aiming it squarely at his head. Half a second later, Tomosei fired the attack in question right at Raylix, smirking as it travelled towards him. Apart from him ducking the head-aimed shot of fiery energy that she had shot at him, there was no way that the attack couldn't hit him.
...
Raylix ducked under the fiery attack that Tomosei had shot at him, and came up with a satisfied grin on his face.
"I think I win this round again, Tomo-AGH!" Raylix let out a cry of surprise as Sabemka finally overpowered the anti-movement seal that Raylix had placed on him earlier, and jumped on him from behind. Raylix didn't have time to even fire off an attempt at an attack to slow the larger, muscular Devil down, so he was instantly overpowered and dragged to the ground.
"What was that about winning this round again, Raylix~?" Tomosei asked, holding her staff behind her back and teasingly leaning over at Raylix in a cutesy manner, looking down at him with a smirk. A smirk that she held for all of two seconds before both she and Sabemka burst into laughter, with Sabemka getting off of Raylix, getting to his feet and offering the chestnut-haired Devil a hand up, which he took.
"Well, I don't think I lost, strictly speaking!" Raylix replied, slightly indignantly as he brushed dirt off himself and his clothes, even spitting some out of his mouth and gagging slightly. "You didn't get past me to put an anti-seal on Emka, meaning you didn't exactly win either. So I don't know what that smug look was for!"
"I'm not the one who just ate dirt for lunch," Tomosei retorted. "So, I think I came out more on top than you this round!"
"You didn't!"
"Did!"
"Raylix, Tomo!" Sabemka spoke up, stepping between the two of them before they could get into an actual altercation over who won that round. "Just call it a draw and let's move on, okay? Besides, whether you won or lost this round or not, Raylix still won more rounds than you, Tomo. One extra win or loss doesn't really change anything, right?"
"...Fair enough." Raylix replied, taking a step back. "Fine, it's a draw."
"Yeah." Tomosei nodded, de-summoning her staff. "Sounds fair to me."
"Nice." Sabemka's grin was now firmly back on his face. "Now that that's over, didn't you say you wanted to learn hand-to-hand, Raylix?"
"Uh, yeah." Raylix replied, remembering that he had indeed said that before his and Tomosei's games began, and turned around, his hands clenched into fists. "Guess it'll give you something to do other than be a target for Tomosei like you've been for the past hour and a half, right?"
"Sure will!" Sabemka replied, taking a couple of steps back from Raylix and forming fists of his own. "Oh, by the way, your thumbs should be on the outside of your fists. You could break them otherwise, when you throw a punch."
Raylix looked down at his own fists, and realised that he had, subconsciously, done that. He adjusted accordingly and held his fists up in front of his face, just as Sabemka was doing himself.
"Now, there are a few tricks to punching, which we'll start with." Sabemka remarked. "The most important of which is that when you're throwing a punch at an opponent, like me, you shouldn't exactly aim for them. Rather, you should aim for a spot just behind them, and catch your opponent- again, me- before you hit that spot. That way, you'll still have momentum and power in your fist when you hit your opponent, and be able to do damage. For example, this." he took a step forward and threw a punch at Raylix.
His fist, at full stretch, grazed Raylix's nose. Despite the obvious strength and power behind Sabemka's punch, it made absolutely no impact on Raylix.
"Compared to... this." Sabemka continued, taking half a step forward and throwing the same punch as before at Raylix. Fist met face while his arm was somewhat bent, with the momentum and remaining power behind his extending fist being enough to send Raylix flying backwards. He crashed into the ground, a couple of feet away from where Tomosei had sat down to continue reading the spellbook that Raylix had put down an hour and a half ago, slightly dazed and feeling his nose bleeding.
"Get what I mean?" Sabemka asked, as Raylix picked himself back up. Wiping the blood from his face, he grinned back at Sabemka.
"Yeah, I think I get what you mean, Emka." Raylix replied, readying himself before beginning to rush at Sabemka. "Don't hold back!"
It took Sabemka all of thirty seconds to send his teenage commander back to the floor with another hard punch, which was accompanied by a rather unpleasant cracking sound as Sabemka's fist hit Raylix's nose again. From where she was sat a dozen or so feet away, Tomosei sighed, picked up her staff and walked over to the downed Raylix, who moaned slightly as he gingerly touched his broken nose.
'Well, better Raylix with a broken nose than me.' She thought, as she focused her demonic power through her staff and began healing him up. 'And at least I don't have to be the one that takes Emka's punches anymore.' She mentally added as she finished healing Raylix, who jumped back up and engaged with Sabemka again.
----- ----- ----- ----- -----
Things had taken a turn for the worse for the Devils and Lilim in the few weeks since Raylix's first battle.
The Angels had launched a surprise attack through presently-undefended Underworld territories controlled by Pillars Gusion and Buer, cutting through the weak defences like holy hot knives through demonic butter. They were only slightly halted in a battle at Valefor territory, but Pillar Valefor and his entire bloodline were eventually defeated and wiped out, further reducing the number of Pillar Devils remaining in the Underworld to 47 out of 72. Just under two-thirds of the original Pillar Devils remained.
The Angels continued their assault, making a beeline for the Underworld territory directly controlled by the Satans, the destruction of which would utterly cripple the Devils and Lilim. Upon hearing of this, the Underworld's best minds that were still alive today had devised a strategy to slow the Angels down, and hopefully stop them entirely: at various points along the Angels' established route to the territory owned by Pillar Bael, which was the last line of defence before Satan territory, five hastily-formed groups of around 1000 to 1500 Devils/Lilim would be stationed in secret at strategic points along the route that the Angels had been taking.
When the time was right, a signal would be given, and the groups of Devils/Lilim that had been stationed would rise up against the ongoing stream of Angels all at once, splitting said stream into more easily-manageable chunks. After this was done, larger groups of more powerful Devils/Lilim would be teleported to the strategic points that the smaller groups of Devils were presently stationed at, and destroy the Angels that the original group would hopefully have caught off-guard.
Once that was done, the now-combined five forces of around 4,000 Devils each would advance to the portal that had been opened several weeks ago, the origin point of how the Angels had been getting into the Underworld, and close the portal, and close the portal, killing the Angels that had been presently guarding it.
This operation was what Raylix, Sabemka, Tomosei and the rest of Raylix's company had been ordered to be a part of. Along the route from Bael's territory to the location of the portal that the Angels had been coming out of, Raylix and his company were part of the group that was stationed second-closest to the portal, meaning that as part of the plan that he had been briefed upon by Zeoticus an hour or so ago, he, his company and the group that he was a part of would be the second to reach the portal that they would then endeavour to close.
Under a mass camouflaging spell cast by Tomosei along with the rest of his company, and his broken nose long-since repaired, Raylix and his group hung just above a semi-destroyed village that. A village that, just a fortnight earlier, had been wrecked by the Angels on their way to Bael territory. Nervously playing with the handle of the sword-hilt that Sirzechs had given to him five years earlier, Raylix looked down and to the right, where he knew Albedo, the Succubus that had been assigned as leader of the group that he was in, floated, also under a camouflaging spell of her own. Raylix was inwardly thankful that she was under a camouflaging spell, as before the battle began, he figured that he'd be distracted by her supernatural good looks.
He didn't need a boner, or the wish to bone a member of the Devils' sexier cousin-species, getting in the way of the job ahead. Especially considering how bloody said job was going to be.
"Raylix?"
Raylix turned away from where he knew Albedo still hung as Sabemka flew up, coming to a stop just beside him.
"Yeah?" Raylix replied, continuing to nervously play with his sword-hilt.
"You're practically shaking, man." Sabemka spoke, laying a comforting hand on Raylix's shoulder. "You ill, or something?"
"I'm alright, Emka." Raylix replied, clenching the sword-hilt so tightly that his knuckles were practically white, forcing himself to stop subconsciously playing with said hilt. "I'm alright, I'm alright, I'm alright..."
"Sounds like you're trying to convince yourself, more than anything." Sabemka remarked, a smile flashing over his face for a fraction of a second at Raylix using his nickname. "Hey, tell you what. When we're through with this battle, I'll make you something to eat. Whatever you want. That sound good?"
"I'm al-" Raylix stopped repeating to himself that he was alright and looked over at Sabemka, considering his offer for a few seconds. "That sounds... good, Sabemka. Yea, I'd like that."
"Great!" Sabemka replied, smiling. "Don't mean to brag, but Tomo goes crazy over my cooking. Can't wait to see how you like what I make you!"
"As long as we both survive." Raylix retorted, forcing a smaller smile to the surface of his face. "You better survive, got it? None of that 'flying into a fight without a plan' stuff, yeah?"
"Got it." Sabemka nodded, floating away on his wings and summoning a pair of gauntlets onto his hands. Raylix watched him go, before a sound that came from several hundred meters away caught his attention. He turned his head towards where he heard the noise coming from, and almost instantly noticed what looked like a large ball of white light, swiftly heading towards the village that he (and the rest of the Albedo-led group) were stationed around. Everyone else in Raylix's company, from the safety of underneath the camouflaging spell, noticed the ball of light approaching them, as well.
As the large ball of light came closer and closer to the village, Raylix was able to visually pick out many... human-like figures from within the large approaching ball of light. Human-like figures wearing light-coloured (mostly white) clothing, with various numbers of white feathered wings sprouting from their backs (ranging from two to eight), and golden halos positioned directly on top of their heads, halos that emanated the intense white light that made up the immense ball of light that they travelled through the air in.
"Angels." Albedo's low, sultry voice telepathically echoed in Raylix's ears, as well as in the ears of everyone else presently stationed as part of the ambush group. "Right on schedule. On my mark..."
The silence that stretched over the several seconds between Albedo's last words and her next was thick and heavy, to the point that Raylix almost felt it physically weighing down on him as he floated in the air. He moved his thumb over the switch that would ignite the blade of the sword-hilt he held in his hand, preparing to turn it on and charge at less than a second's notice. He saw the Angels coming closer and closer to them, blissfully ignorant that they were flying right through a trap: one that was about to catch and kill them all. All that was left now was for Albedo to call out...
"NOW!" Albedo yelled, dispelling the camouflage spell around her and revealing her gorgeous form to everyone around her: lustrous hip-length jet-black hair, golden-coloured eyes, two horns (which all Succubi and Incubi had) protruding from her head, pure-white dress that accentuated her incredible figure, a golden spiderweb necklace that covered her shoulders and chest, and four tails protruding from her lower back (indicating that her power was at least in the same league as the eight-winged Angels, of which there were only a few). Each of her tails had a little love-heart on the end of each one, conveying that she was, indeed, a Succubus rather than an Incubus.
Following her example, all the other Devils and Lilim in and around the village they were stationed in, Tomosei included, disengaged their camouflages, revealing themselves to the Angels. Raylix ignited his sword-hilt in his left hand, and used his other hand to throw a summoned ball of the Power of Destruction at the nearest Angel to him: an admittedly-cute-looking four-winged female Angel, who didn't look all too different to him in age.
The poor girl in question didn't even see the ball of Raylix's Power of Destruction coming at first: as soon as she did, it was too late for her to make any attempt to stop it from hitting her, after which she was instantly obliterated: the first kill of the battle.
"Let's go!" Albedo shouted, summoning a large battle-axe into one hand and raising it up. "Mages, get the anti-teleportation wards in place! Everyone else, attack!"
Raylix saw a ripple of magic raising up around the village that the Devils, Lilim and Angels were in: the anti-teleportation wards that Albedo had just mentioned. He and the other Devils/Lilim, who were prepping for battle all around them, let out various battle-cries and flew towards the Angels, most of whom within the group had seemingly steeled themselves to take on the Devils/Lilim that had just ambushed them. A minority few Angels turned tail and flew towards the border of the barrier in an attempt to escape the anti-teleportation wards and run back to Heaven: either that or try to inform their comrades of what was going on.
Volleys of magical bolts of energy flew out from the Devils and Lilim in response, fired by everyone who was magically able: this included Raylix, whose shot of fire-magic set one of the wings of a two-winged Angel on fire. The Angel in question twisted around and attempted to put the fire out with magic, yelling out in shock and pain as one of his wings burned on his back. But he wasn't fast enough to save himself, as Albedo flew up and cut the Angel in half at the waist with her axe. Blood and guts fell on the lower portions of her white dress, staining it at the two parts of the Angel she had just cut up fell lifelessly to the ground.
Raylix whirled around as he heard the sound of displaced air moving behind him, and raised his sword just in time to meet a sword of light created by a six-winged Angel, who now bore down on him. He struggled against the Angel, but was pushed back through the air by said Angel's superior strength. Raylix was forced to disengage from the clash, and dived downwards to avoid the Angel's next slash. The Angel then followed him down, seemingly fixated on destroying the sinful being in front of him, if only so said sinful being wouldn't destroy any more of his Father's holy creations.
It was a 'greater good' thing, you know?
Raylix, however, wasn't ready to go down without a fight, or indeed at all. Dodging, weaving and rolling through the volleys of magical energy that were fired around him, with the Angel behind him in hot pursuit, he quickly twisted around and flung a couple of hastily-created small balls of the Power of Destruction behind him, hoping that they would make their mark. The first one would have, if it weren't for the aforementioned light-sword being brought up to meet Raylix's thrown destructive-balls before they could meet the Angel's face. The blade of the light-sword was destroyed upon impact with the destructive ball, which the Angel let out a cry of surprise at, pausing as he tried to reform the light-sword quickly enough to shield himself from the second ball of PoD coming his way.
He wasn't fast enough, however, with Raylix's second thrown attack not quite fully making its mark, but hitting the Angel in the shoulder and blowing off his sword-arm, leaving the Angel in question one-armed and stunned: stunned for long enough for Sabemka to fly in and deliver a devastating punch to the Angel's head, dazing the Angel and breaking his nose instantly. Without wasting a second, Sabemka grabbed the Angel by the hair and drove his head into his knee a couple of times, dazing the Angel even further. He then flew up, away from his stunned opponent, and Raylix prepared to finish him off. However, just as he fired off a bolt of his Power of Destruction, a powerful bolt of lightning shot past him and hit the Angel square in the chest, holding for long enough to essentially cook him.
The Angel then dropped like a one-armed stone as Tomosei flew up, raising her staff (which she'd just used to cast the lightning-spell that had finished off the Angel) to cast a shield that blocked a four-winged Angel from coming too close to Sabemka, before said four-winged Angel was distracted by an Incubus wrapping one of his two tails around his hand, and flinging him down to the ground.
"Nice one, you guys!" Raylix praised both Sabemka and Tomosei. "Or... guy and girl."
"Where are the reinforcements?!" Tomosei spoke, her voice raised above the din of battle. "Weren't there supposed to be reinforcements coming?"
Just about right on cue, transportation-circles opened all around the village, just outside the borders of the anti-teleportation ward that had been cast around the area. Though the transportation-circles were all located an approximate half-mile away from his location,.Raylix could easily see Devils and Lilim pouring out of every one of them, with the combined numbers of the ambush-group that he, Sabemka and Tomosei were a part of and the incoming Devils and Lilim vastly outnumbering the remaining Angels.
"I think they're here right now, Tomo." he remarked. "Though you're right, I thought they'd be here soon- WATCH OUT!"
He flung an arm around Tomosei's waist and dived like a stone, dodging a volley of light-spears that had flown past Sabemka and would have hit her (and most likely killed her) had he not moved to drag her down and away from danger. The two Devils landed in the street and moved under an abandoned building, with Sabemka joining them a couple of seconds later.
"Th-thanks." Tomosei spoke, blushing slightly as Raylix let go of her.
"That's for the earlier save." Raylix replied. "Back to me having one up on you, I think."
"I'll make sure that doesn't last long!" Tomosei replied, twirling her staff threateningly and firing up at an Angel from below. Her shot of demonic energy missed the six-winged Angel, but a second later, a huge formation of ice was seemingly conjured on and around the Angel that Tomosei had fired up at, freezing him dead in his mid-air tracks. A second or two later, the formation of ice shattered and the Angel dropped out of the sky, frozen completely solid.
As the Angel came down from the air, Raylix pre-emptively put up a barrier in front of himself, Sabemka and Tomosei as the frozen Angel hit the ground. His body shattered like glass on impact with the ground, sending half-frozen blood, guts and bits of viscera in every direction, including directly at Raylix, Sabemka and Tomosei. Thankfully, the barrier that Raylix had conjured a second earlier shielded them from being drenched.
Raylix then flew up, a short list forming in his mind of all the Devils and Lilim he knew that could so easily freeze a being in the same league of power as him in that short a timeframe. He cast his eyes around for a few seconds, smiling slightly as he saw the being that occupied the #1 spot on that list: Serafall, daughter of Sylpha and Saylx, and great-granddaughter of the Pillar Devil Sitri.
Serafall was a beauty, in every sense of the word: sleek black hair done up in a braid (it would've been similar in length to Albedo's hair, had she not tied it up), eyes that were more like blue chips of ice than anything resembling windows to the soul, and wearing a dark-green bodysuit (emblazoned with Sitri's symbol, a blue necklace, on the back) that left very, VERY little to the imagination: especially in regard to her voluptuous figure.
The fact that she hung on TEN Devil wings, the same as Sirzechs and Ajuka, certainly didn't hurt her case either.
Serafall twirled a magic wand in one hand, pointing it at one of the eight-winged Angels, firing several large spikes of ice at them. The Angel turned around in mid-air fast enough to dodge most of the ice-spikes that Serafall had fired, but not fast enough to dodge the last one, which impaled him, along with a couple more Angels and even one Devil unlucky enough to be caught behind him. As the ice-spike flew on, its four impaled passengers being brought on for the ride, Albedo flew up, axe in hand, and swung it so hard that she easily cut through all three lucky Angels that had been caught on Serafall's spike, as well as the unlucky Devil, killing them all instantly.
But one Devil for three Angels? Not a bad trade-off, especially in a battle that any fool with even half a brain cell could see that the Devils and Lilim were now winning.
Even the Angels were beginning to see that, and more and more of them were turning tail and attempting to flee, with a few lucky Angels managing to get beyond the borders of the anti-teleportation ward, at which point they were practically killing themselves in order to be the first to get out of the hellish (ha) battle that they had been fighting in.
But the remaining Angels that managed to escape were vastly outnumbered by the ones that weren't able to. A brave (or stupid) remained defiant to the very end, and were cut down, and with many others seemingly floating stilly and accepting their fates, only offering up a prayer to their impotent God as they met their ends at the hands of the Devils and Lilim.
"Onward!" Albedo let out a magically-enhanced shout, firing out a loud noise from her hand to get everyone's attention (as if her sexy body wouldn't have done that already), then pointing her axe forward, in the direction that the portal that they had all heard about was in. "The portal's that way! We close it, those Angels stop pouring into our home! MOVE, MOVE, MOVE!"
Emboldened by her shout, all the Devils/Lilim that hadn't been killed by the Angels over the past half an hour or so began flying in the direction that Albedo presently pointed, making a beeline for the portal: which, if the information that had been delivered to every fighter before the operation (which, so far, was a complete success) had begun, was dead-ahead.
It took the new, combined forces of the original ambush group and the reinforcements, which totalled to close to 4,800 Devils and Lilim, around five minutes of straight, fast flying to reach the location of the closest ambush to the portal. Judging by the... gory, scene left behind, Raylix judged that the battle that had taken place here, in a similarly-destroyed town to the one that they had ambushed their group of Angels at, had gone similarly to their battle: crushing victory for the Devils and Lilim.
Raylix widened his eyes slightly as he saw a black-haired Incubus pulling a heavily-injured female Angel towards him with one hand, while using the other to undo his pants. From his position in the air, he could see the Angel in question, who realised what the Incubus intended to do to her, summoning a light-sword in one hand and attempting to swing at the Incubus' crotch. However, the Incubus used one of his tails (which had arrowheads at the end of them instead of love-hearts, like the Succubi) to wrap around the Angel's sword arm and hold it up, keeping himself and his crotch safe from being mutilated as he forced the Angel down onto her knees...
He didn't get any further with his captured prize, however, as Serafall froze both Incubus and Angel in a block of ice, similar to how the first Angel she had killed had met his end. Raylix saw Serafall pause in mid-air, wand in hand and a disgusted look on her face as he and the other forces flew on, leaving her behind. She returned a few minutes later, however, her expression slightly steelier than it had been before noticing what the Incubus had been doing to that Angel. Raylix could only assume that both the Incubus and the Angel that she'd frozen were now little more than shattered chunks of frozen Incubus/Angel on the ground.
The 4800-strong force that Raylix was a part of took another ten minutes of flying to reach the portal, that the Angels had been arriving in Hell through at a steady pace for the past couple of weeks.
Unlike the transportation-circles that all supernatural beings (and even magically-capable Humans) could cast and jump through safely with even the smallest amount of study and practice, with the amount of energy required to cast said circles being positively miniscule, portals required a constant flow of magic to keep open for extended periods of time. The amount of energy needed to maintain the portal, whatever size and shape it was, went up greatly when the portal stretched across different supernatural realms: which this particular portal happened to do, stretching between Heaven, home of the Angels, Yahweh (also known as the Biblical God) and his wife Asherah.
So, if one had to guess, chances were that the portal was being held open by a particularly powerful Angelic being (probably one present on the other side of the portal), or the magical energy current needed to create the portal was being generated automatically by some kind of heavenly technology. Whatever the situation regarding the portal's creation, the fact was clear to see: Angels were pouring out of the portal at an alarming rate, and though many Devils and Lilim confronted the Angels that came out right into the battlefield, they still needed to be beaten back.
Serafall seemed to have that under control, waving her wand and casting an enormous sheet of ice that was thrust towards the opening of the portal, wrapping itself around it and seemingly closing it. At the sight of this, victorious cheers began to rise from the Devils and Lilim, particularly the ones closest to the portals, who as far as they were concerned, had just escaped death by Angelic light. In spite of the cheers rising up, Serafall raised her wand again, ordering a company of Devils that hung close to her to reinforce the ice-sheet that she had formed around the portal to Heaven. Catching on to what she presumably thought, that the ice-sheet that she had wrapped around the Heaven-portal wasn't going to last long against a serious assault from the other side, Albedo, Raylix and other various commanders of Underworld military units organized their subordinates around the portal at a safe distance, in preparation for what they all now seemed to know would come.
Though Serafall's cast ice-sheet wasn't a move that would end the battle for them in their favour, it had given the Devils and Lilim the moment's breather they desperately needed in order to reorganize and re-prepare for whatever heavenly assault would come through the portal. And when said portal came, they would be ready to either beat whatever came out of the portal back in, back to their stuffy home, or destroy whatever came out of the portal entirely.
After a second or two, what the thousands-strong group of Devils and Lilim knew was coming finally came to pass: the thick ice-sheet that Serafall had cast over the portal was obliterated, and scores of Angels poured through, brandishing weapons of light.
"FIRE!" many of the commanding Devils/Lilim, including Raylix, yelled to their ranged fighters, who all fired powerful bolts of energy at the Angels in unison. Not many Angels were able to escape harm at the hands of the opposing Devils and Lilim: a good number were hit and hurt by the bolts of energy that they'd flown into, and many more were killed outright, dropping like flies. One of the surviving Angels, another eight-winged one, clearly terrified of what he had just flown into, yelled out an order for all surviving Angels to retreat through the portal, back to Heaven.
If the Angel commander who'd yelled out this order thought this would stop the Devils and Lilim from firing upon him and the Angels, he was very, very wrong. Dead-wrong, actually, as Albedo proved as she flung a wave of pure demonic energy through his neck from the battle-axe that she held, decapitating him instantly. More volleys of energy followed as the Angels continued to retreat, practically scrambling through the portal and back into the safety of Heaven. At this sight, it didn't take long for victorious cheers to rise from the Devils and Lilim again, which rose up even higher as the portal closed behind the Angels. Raylix himself joined in with the cheers, to a degree, as the objective was completed, the battle was won.
The shared euphoria that the Devils and Lilim shared continued for a good half-minute, with several Devils and Lilim opening communication-circles at their ears, ready to report the victory from the front lines to their superiors. Raylix himself opened a communication-circle of his own at his ear, ready to open a call to his father in order to inform him of what had transpired.
But it wasn't to be. Just as the communication-circle finished forming by Raylix's ear, he (and many other Devils and Lilim, noticed a large transportation-circle opening in the dark purple sky, a fair way away and above them. A second or so later, what came out of the transportation-circle was...
A dragon.
A large Western Dragon with pure-white scales, emerald-green eyes and a pair of immense horns on her head. Literally every Devil and Lilim in the area knew, on instinct alone, that this was something far beyond the Angels that Yahweh and Asherah had been throwing through the portal up until now. Now... they seemed to have gotten serious.
The dragon that had just appeared above them opened its mouth, and with a roar, let loose a beam of Holy energy from her mouth that instantly vaporized the hundred or so Devils and Lilim that were caught up in it. She kept the beam going and turned her head, cutting through many of the remaining Devil/Lilim forces. All those who couldn't escape from the beam of Holy energy were vaporized like the others, with all the other Devils and Lilim scattering away from the area that she'd shot at, the cheers of victory changed to screams of panic seemingly instantaneously.
"What the...?!" Albedo shouted, flying up to join Serafall. "I thought the Dragons chose not to join the war! On any side!"
"This one clearly did, whoever they are!" Serafall replied, raising her wand as well as her voice. "I'LL BUY YOU ALL TIME!" she shouted to everyone else. "EVERYONE, RETREAT!"
"I'll double that time with you, Serafall!" a thankfully-familiar male voice called, as Sirzechs arrived on the scene, leading a group of around 5,000 Devils and Lilim. "And Ajuka and Falbium can quadruple that time, once they arrive!" he then raised his voice to the group behind him. "You heard the woman, everyone! Retreat! Leave and live to fight another day, as opposed to dying here and now!" With that order given, and the group he commanded turning tail and flying back the way they had come. he scanned the crowd of Devils and Lilim closest to the dragon, who seemed to be charging up another beam of holy energy. "Raylix?! RAYLIX?!"
"I'm here!" Raylix shouted, re-igniting his sword and waving it above his head so he could stand out more easily. From his position, he easily saw Sirzechs letting out a sigh of relief, before steeling himself and firing several balls of his Power of Destruction at the dragon, with Serafall joining him in firing bolts of both icy and fiery energy.
With Sabemka and Tomosei by his side, Raylix flew away as fast as his wings could carry him. Another beam of holy energy flew over his, Sabemka and Tomosei's heads as the three of them retreated away from the battle.
The younger child of Zeoticus and Venelana could only hope that his big brother would make it out of his next battle alive.
----- ----- ----- ----- -----
Sabemka hummed idly to himself as he worked a certain brand of culinary magic on the ingredients in front of him, his back turned to Raylix and Tomosei. Tomosei had a book lightly held in her hand, but was mostly occupied with looking over at Raylix, who was sat close to a table and breathing heavily, in an attempt to keep himself as calm as possible. Or rather, to keep himself from losing his composure.
He'd been in exactly that position, or at least a position similar to it, ever since the trio had returned to Raylix's home. With Zeoticus and Venelana at the Bael Castle, delivering orders to the front lines from the safety of one of the most fortified locations in the whole Underworld, Raylix, Sabemka and Tomosei had the place to themselves.
Having escaped death by immensely powerful Holy energy beam, it'd taken him some time to realise that he, Sabemka and Tomosei weren't going to die. As soon as this had sunk into him, he then had to grapple with the more important fact that his older brother could very well die against the Dragon that he, and so many others, had left him, Serafall, and presumably Ajuka and Falbium (the great-grandson of Pillar Glasya-Labolas, and a Devil whose immense potential and power were only rivalled by his extreme laziness) to fight against.
"Raylix, I'm sure Sirzechs will be fine." Sabemka spoke, in an attempt to be reassuring. He didn't turn around as he continued his work on the ingredients in front of him, sure that he'd put together a good meal for his fellow soldier and commander. "He's got Serafall with him, and she's insanely strong! As well as... well..."
"Oh yes, I'm sure that physical attractiveness is a good indicator for how strong someone is, Emka." Tomosei remarked in a dry tone, not looking up at him. "It's worth pointing out that they'll have Ajuka and Falbium with them by now, as well. And they're not exactly slouches in battle, so you've got to admit, Raylix." she looked over at the chestnut-haired Devil. "Unless that Dragon that showed up out of that transportation-circle is on par with the Satans themselves, the chances of the four of them- Sirzechs included- living to fight another day are much higher than them... not."
"I know, I know..." Raylix replied, rubbing his index fingers against his temples and resting his head against the table he was sat at. "But that doesn't stop me from still being worried! It's pretty hard to stop worrying about your damn family when they're fighting in a battle that they could very well DIE in, you know!"
"Oh, we know." Sabemka answered, stopping dead in his cooking tracks. "We both know, Raylix. All too well."
A few seconds later, he got back to cooking, and an awkward lull fell over the conversation. The only sounds that really permeated the dining room/kitchen hybrid room were the noises made by Sabemka as he continued working on the meal he had promised to Raylix, as well as Tomosei. A pleasant smell began making its way through the room as Sabemka worked silently, a strong indicator that he was making good progress on whatever he was whipping up.
Raylix's breaths weren't as loud as the noise coming from where Sabemka was working, but they were still audible from where Tomosei (who had returned to the book that she was reading) was sitting. They were also slowing, and becoming quieter, as Raylix made a conscious effort to regain composure. Judging by the sound of his breaths slowing to a more regular tempo, he seemed to be succeeding.
"Hey, Tomo?"
"Hmm?" Tomosei asked, looking up from the book again.
"How did you and Sabemka meet?" Raylix asked the petite brunette. He continued as Tomosei raised an eyebrow at him, from her place on the other side of the table. "Sorry, I know it's a weird way to change the subject. But you and Sabemka don't look related, so chance are you're not siblings, and... I was just curious."
"It's fine." Sabemka replied, stepping back from the stove and procuring two bowls from a cupboard, where he began navigating the food he'd cooked onto it with a large spoon. "You could say that Tomo and I've known each other all our lives."
"Definitely true, on my end." Tomosei piped up, setting her book aside on a chair as Sabemka walked over to the table, bowls in hand. "What've you decided to bless us with this time, Emka?"
"Eh, something simple." Sabemka replied, setting one bowl down in front of Raylix, and the other in front of Tomosei. "Just some cheesy pasta with chunks of fried Byrd meat inside. Nothing too fancy."
"Still smells good, though." Raylix remarked, summoning a fork out of the air, stabbing it into the food and transferring said food to his mouth. It took him barely half a second to realise that this was some of the best food he'd ever tasted, before rapidly chewing and swallowing the stuff down. "U-unholy shit!"
"Like it?" Sabemka half-jokingly asked. He knew the answer that was coming, it was written all over Raylix's teenage face.
"L-love it!" Raylix replied, his eyes widening as he looked over at Sabemka, before taking another large mouthful of the food in front of him. "I-if you weren't in my company," he continued, his voice slightly muffled by the amount of food in his mouth. "I'd hire you as a chef from this alone!" he swallowed his mouthful. "If I had any money to call my own, that is." he added, semi-sheepishly as he already had a third forkful of food halfway to his mouth.
"I concur." Tomosei spoke up. Her table-manners were rather more refined than Raylix's, judging by the fact that she didn't choose to talk with her mouth full of food. "Without the whole 'hiring you' bit. It's as good as ever, Emka." she added. Sabemka just chuckled, pulled up a chair and sat down on Raylix's side of the table.
"Thanks for the praise." Sabemka replied. He'd already had a feeling that Raylix and Tomosei were going to like his food, but his pride as a Devil was that extra little bit sated when Tomosei and Raylix (particularly Raylix) were able to articulate their positive feelings into coherent speech. "Anyway, Raylix, to elaborate on my answer before you got distracted by what I promised you, we were both born in the part of the Underworld that Furcas had dominion over, in the same town. I came a few years before Tomosei, who turned 17 a few weeks ago."
"Huh?" Raylix looked up from his fourth mouthful of food. "Ohh, right." he mumbled to himself, settling back and slowing down, dividing his focus between the indescribably good food in his mouth/in the bowl in front of him, and Sabemka's recounting of his and Tomosei's pasts.
"Our respective parents were good friends." Tomosei spoke up. "Like, REALLY good friends. Looking back, I think they were in a poly relationship with each other." She took the time to chew on and swallow her second mouth of food before continuing. "You know, my father with your father, Emka, your mother with my mother, your mother with my father, my mother with your father."
"Yeah, hindsight tells me that they probably were." Sabemka replied, nodding. "Would sure explain all the times we saw them all cuddling up together with each other."
"I guess that also explains how you came to know each other, too." Raylix replied. "While they were all busy with each other, it makes sense that you'd meet."
Tomosei simply nodded, continuing with her meal.
"They fought together in this damn War, too." Sabemka continued, his voice taking on a slightly lower tone. "Battle after battle, they fought through, back-to-back-to-back-to-back, time after time. We both thought they were the coolest bastards and bitches ever for constantly taking on Angels and Fallen Angels time and time again, right Tomo?"
"We did." Tomosei replied, her voice also taking on a slightly lower tone. "Until all four of them, after leaving for a battle ten years ago, just... never came back."
"Oh..." Raylix replied, instantly getting what Tomosei meant by her last sentence. "OH." he repeated, realising that what he'd said earlier, before he asked about how the two Devils in the dining room with him had met, must have been insanely insensitive: downright insulting, even. "Sh-shit, I'm sorry."
"Don't worry about it." Tomosei answered, waving away Raylix's apology. "You didn't know. And it's nothing close to your fault, so no need to apologize. Though having to suddenly learn how to take care of ourselves, with no help from any other Devil or Lilim, until I was old enough to fight in the Great War alongside Emka, wasn't easy. Kind of obvious to say that we don't have anything left, except each other."
"If it's obvious to say, then you didn't exactly need to say it." Raylix replied. "Plus, that's kinda wrong, you know?"
"Really?" Tomosei asked, raising her eyebrow again. "How so?"
"I mean... you've got me, too." Raylix replied. "If you'll have me, of course."
Tomosei shared a look with Sabemka, and Raylix felt himself blushing at what he'd just said a couple of seconds later.
"A-actually, never mind what I said!" he continued, slightly hurriedly. "That just sounded a lot cooler in my head, I'm sorry I said-"
Hey, no need to apologize, Raylix." Sabemka replied, cutting across his five-years-his-junior commander. "I'd be glad to have you. If you're talking about as a friend, because I don't swing that way, sorry."
"Wha- I-?!" Raylix was momentarily taken aback by Sabemka's remark, with the resulting expression on his face seemingly being enough to amuse Tomosei to the point that she burst out laughing.
"Pfffft! Hahahahahahahaha!" Her laughs quickly ascended to a positive screech of mirth. "Dude, Raylix, your faaaa-hahahahaha! Ahh, that's the best thing I've seen all day!" She took a couple of breaths, calming herself down. "Ohh, thanks for that Emka, Raylix. I needed a good laugh." After another breath, she continued. "I'm with Emka happy to call you a friend."
"Oh..." Raylix spoke in reply, surprised that his proposal to the two Devils with him had actually turned out successfully. "O-okay, then."
The rest of the meal was spent in relative happiness and tranquillity, with Sabemka, Raylix and Tomosei sharing generally chill conversation with each other as the latter two now-friends finished the meal that the former had cooked for them. When both Devils finished their respective meals (Raylix faster than Tomosei), Raylix helped Sabemka clear up everything he'd used to cook, an endeavour that during which, a transportation-circle appeared in the dining area of the room. One that Raylix, upon turning around at the sound of it appearing, instantly recognised.
"Hmm, something smells goo- ohh, did I miss dinner again?"
"ZECHS!" Raylix shouted, dropping what he was holding and dashing across the room. Sabemka, with his hands free, quickly moved down in order to catch the dishes that Raylix had dropped, but Tomosei was faster, summoning her staff and catching the dishes in a telekinetic bond before they fell onto the ground and smashed, before guiding them up onto the counter that Raylix had been carrying them towards. Raylix himself positively barrelled into Sirzechs, almost knocking him off his feet with how hard Raylix had ran into and embraced him.
"Woah! Easy, Raylix!" Sirzechs wrapped his arms around his little brother, never one to pass up on a hug with any of his family, Raylix in particular. "Were you scared that Divine Dragon was gonna take your badass big brother away from you for good?"
Raylix could only nod, a small "Mmhmm" escaping him as he did so.
"Well, she didn't." Sirzechs replied, gently prying Raylix away from him and holding onto his shoulders so Raylix could look up at him. Though Raylix was well into puberty, and had had his growth spurt by the time he was sixteen, there was still a very noticeable height difference between himself and Sirzechs. "Serafall, Ajuka and Falbium helped me beat her dragonic ass. Once she'd had enough, she ran away to Heaven, tail between her legs. We won't have to worry about her again, I'm sure of it."
Raylix could only smile, and dive into another hug with Sirzechs.