He'd done it.
It was finally happening.
HE'D DONE IT.
The wind in his face had never felt so good.
HE'D DONE IT.
It took everything that Raylix had to not laugh, scream, anything that could immediately alert people to the fact that he was out of the Gremory castle. He held it in for the first few seconds, as he flew over Gemyem at top speed. Though once he cleared the outside borders of the city, the urge fully overcame him and he let out a primal ecstatic scream.
Tears streamed down the Heir's face as he left Gemyem and the Gremory Castle behind him. As he looked behind him, he could see the city, as dimly-lit as it was, quickly fading away. The castle, with no lighting, was already gone from his sight, with the city itself fully fading from his sight after a few seconds. Raylix let out a laugh as he flew over the vast fields, rolling hills, towns, villages, small cities of Gremory territory, it all became a blur beneath him as he flew at such high speeds that the tears that left his eyes almost immediately dried and fell off his face, as if he'd never shed them at all.
He could barely believe that after so long of wanting to leave, after multiple failed plans to do just that, he was finally leaving the Gremory Clan, leaving noble society as a whole, to join the Old Satan Faction. Whatever happened, at least he could say that he escaped. With the caveat that said escape probably wouldn't have been as successful as it was had Grayfia not literally opened the door for him, but that didn't exactly matter much to Raylix in the moment as he increased his flight speed, wanting to get to Malech's village as soon possible. He'd flown this route so many times with Sabemka and Tomosei in tow, that he could practically do so in his sleep.
So it came as a slight shock to him when he saw a Giant Byrd that had, for whatever reason, decided to have a night-flight straight into Raylix's flight path. The large creature, wingspan of thirty feet, body about twelve feet tall, didn't even notice Raylix coming up on it at the speed he was flying at, nor would it even have the reaction speed to get out of his way if he did. With the speed he was going at, Raylix flew right through the Byrd as if nothing had even been in his way at all, obliterating the beast and reducing it to bloody mush.
"Ugh, gross!" Raylix muttered to himself as he looked over himself in the aftermath of his trip through the Byrd. Though he'd only been flying through it for a fraction of a fraction of a second, he'd still managed to get himself- and his clothes- covered in some of the bloody mush that the Byrd had been reduced to as he flew through it. And it had already dried into his clothes thanks to how fast he was flying, too, so cleaning spells (at least the ones he knew) wouldn't be able to do much against it.
But that didn't matter much right now, as Raylix noticed Malech's village coming up on the horizon, and began reducing his speed and descending from his position in the sky towards the ground, landing relatively smoothly and walking through the gates into Malech's village. It was dark, with all the buildings seemingly vacated, but Raylix could hear hushed voices coming the square. He rushed towards the hushed voices, and immediately spotted Malech at the front of the crowd of villagers.
Malech heard Raylix coming as he headed towards them, pulling off his hood as he did so.
"You cut this pretty close, Raylix, it's one minute to midnight!" he whispered. "And… ugh, what the hell happened to you? You fly through a Byrd or something?"
"Got a bit held up," Raylix replied to the first thing the village-chieftain said. "And, yeah, I did."
"Right…" Malech sighed, waving his hand and magically replacing Raylix's bloodied-up clothes with new ones, presumably some of his, magically resized to fit the Gremory Heir's body. "There, so you don't end up stinking too badly. Don't say I don't do anything for you."
"Never said, never thought that, never will." Raylix replied, shuffling around a bit and pulling the hood of his new clothes up to hide his face. "Thanks."
Malech smiled, but said nothing as a transportation-circle lit up in front of the crowd, with a symbol in the middle that Raylix didn't immediately recognise. He shuffled into the middle of the crowd, out of sight, as the circle rose and dissipated, with a young woman with dark hair done up into a bun, and wearing black armour, appearing on the spot where the circle had been. Upon seeing her, Malech stepped forward instantly, nodding in greeting to the young woman.
"I take it you're our escort from the True Satan Faction." Malech spoke, his voice quiet, though Raylix was still able to pick it up. "Here to take us to where your faction operates from."
"I am." The woman replied, her voice also quiet, but with a hard edge to it. "And you must be Malech. I must say, I wasn't expecting someone like you from what I've heard."
Letting out a short "hmph", Malech turned around and rejoined the group, as the woman pulled out a device from within a magic-circle and seemed to fiddle with it. From where he was in the crowd, Raylix couldn't get a good enough look at the device to see what the woman was doing with it, or what purpose it could serve. A couple of seconds later, a large portal opened behind the True Satan Faction woman.
Murmurs and hushed whispers broke out among the crowd, and Raylix couldn't help but raise an eyebrow. The use of portals for transportation was pretty rare for Devils, nowadays, due to the fact that the amount of magical energy needed to generate and maintain two connecting holes in space for transportation (at least of small numbers of people, like a King and their peerage) was higher than would be needed for a transportation-circle, which simply transported whatever was in the location that the transport-circle was at to another chosen point in the world. That, and using a portal ran more of a risk of things, or people, that one didn't want coming through with them… coming through with them, than a transportation-circle did.
Portals were so rare, in fact, that Raylix himself hadn't seen one himself in his life, only heard about them used for transportation before the magical formula behind the modern transportation-circle was discovered and perfected. It seemed that the device they were using seemed to be behind the generation of the portal, which took care of the energy-cost issue at least. Through the portal, he could see what looked like a city centre on the other side, with a few figures moving in front of it. All of those that could be seen on the other side seemed to notice the portal's generation within a couple of seconds of it popping up, and curiously looked through it towards the other side, the side that Raylix and the crowd from Malech's village were on.
"On the other side of this portal," the TSF woman who had opened the portal called out, loud enough for everyone in the crowd to clearly hear. "Is the home city of our True Satan Faction: Hebeth, housed inside an alternate space to hide from the current Devil government." A sneer crossed her face as she said the last three words, but it quickly disappeared from her face. "Step through now, if you wish to join us and be a part of the revolution!"
The crowd roared their general approval of what the TSF woman had just said, and moved forward as a single unit towards the portal, Malech in the lead. Raylix, from his position, felt himself getting buffeted around slightly in the middle of the crowd as they moved through the portal, out of Malech's village- out of Gremory territory entirely- and into the alternate space, into Hebeth.
Upon stepping through the portal, Raylix immediately guessed that the group- him included- had arrived in some kind of park-like area, most likely in the middle of the city. There were no buildings immediately around the group, but there were some a little further away, in all directions. The immediate area that they had stepped into was far more nature-filled than one would expect a city to be like (and DEFINITELY more so than any city he'd visited in the Underworld), and he could spot some Devils relaxing around the place: some alone, some with people who he could only assume were friends or families. It just seemed like a regular city, with regular Devils, but Raylix knew from experience that looks could be deceiving. After all, he and his family were a regular Devil family (prior to ascending to noble status in the Underworld), and every one of them could massacre an army of lower-tier Angels with barely a thought.
Another thing that he immediately noticed was that the sky was a brighter colour than the so-dark-it-was-almost-black shade of purple than it was back in the main Underworld, with the brightness similar to early evening, or early morning.
"Everyone, follow me!" the TSF woman called, spreading her six Devil wings and ascending into the air above them, either to make herself seen or in an attempt to further assert her authority over the group that she'd just escorted into Hebeth. Either way, it seemed to work, at least for most of said group. She pointed, with the group following her arm towards a small building that no-one seemed to have noticed before now. "You'll be getting registered with the True Satan Faction now, after which accommodation will be found for you! And after that, you can begin your training as valued service-Devils of the revolution!"
A smattering of cheers broke out among the group, before they headed over to the building in question and filed inside. When inside, there were desks lined along the walls, and Devils- that Raylix presumed were members of the True Satan Faction- standing at the desks with stacks of papers, and holding pens. Everyone seemed to get the gist of what to do, and began heading over to the desks to get registered.
Raylix initially hesitated, but took a breath and stepped forward towards one of the Devils that were free, adjusting his hood as he did so. The TSF member at the desk that he stepped up to let out a quiet sigh as he looked up at Raylix.
"Hood off, please." He spoke, sounding bored out of his mind. "Can't have faces we don't know, I'm sure you understand."
Shrugging, Raylix reached up and pulled down his hood, shaking his head to free his hair.
Every TSF member in the room seemed to gasp, in unison, as Raylix finished pulling down his hood. The TSF member who asked him to pull down his hood raised his hand, and a magic-circle appeared in his hand.
Raylix, in just under a second, came to the realisation that maybe he should've put on a glamour of some kind, rather than just a hood. It was after that just-under-a-second that he felt a transportation-circle forming under him before instantly activating, pulling the Clan Heir out of the building. An instant later, he came out of the transportation-circle, but he wasn't in the registration area anymore. Rather, he was situated in a rather dark, blank room, with nothing but a single chair (which he was suddenly sat on) and a table in front of the chair. The room was incredibly brightly lit, almost uncomfortably so.
Immediately, almost by instinct, Raylix tried to open a transportation-circle of his own to get out of where he'd currently been teleported to, since that light was actually getting annoying in his eyes, and attempted to activate it. However… it didn't.
'Okay, so anti-transportation-circles, got it.' Raylix thought to himself. 'Makes a lot of sense, actually.' And he didn't know how to cast portals, which meant the only way out was to blast his way out. What he'd always been good at. He was just about to call upon his mother's Power of Destruction so he could blast the door to pieces, before said door opened and three Devils walked in. Three Devils that Raylix almost immediately recognised, from that one rally that he'd gone to nearly four weeks ago.
Shit, had it actually been four weeks? Time sure flies, doesn't it?
"Well, well, well…" one of the two men out of the three Devils, Shalba Beelzebub, remarked, a look on his face that conveyed equal distain and surprise. "I never imagined that I'd see a noble," the last word came out as a sneer "attempting to join us. Never mind the Heir to one of the most powerful families among the Devils."
"Have you actually gone insane?" The sole woman, Katerea Leviathan, asked, crossing her arms under her bust- it looked even more impressive in person than the image of her that that one TSF member had shown during the rally that Raylix had attended four weeks ago. "Or are you just suicidal, Raylix Gremory?"
"Maybe…" Raylix replied, in a far more even tone than he felt most other Devils would be speaking with in a situation like this. The three remaining known grandchildren of the Old Satans: Shalba Beelzebub, Katerea Leviathan and Creuserey Asmodeus, all staring him down, and none of which seemed to like him, judging by the looks on their faces. Shalba was leaning over the table, a hand pressed down upon it, staring down at Raylix with a look as if he was something unpleasant that he'd gotten on his boots. Katerea was a couple of steps back, arms still folded: her expression relatively even, but she didn't hide the hardness in her eyes as she looked over at Raylix. As for Creuserey-
"Well, I'd be happy to satisfy your urges!" the grandson of Asmodeus cried out, a manic gleam in his eyes as he took a step or two closer to Raylix, his hand stretched out to presumably call upon his grandfather's power in order to attempt to blast Raylix to kingdom come. "For what you did to my father, and so many of our comrades, they'd thank me for getting rid of you!"
"Creuserey…" Shalba spoke up, looking over at his fellow leader, before looking back at Raylix. "Not yet." The sneer returned to his face in full force as he leant down a little further, his face a little closer to Raylix's. "I hate the Gremory Clan in particular, just like you, but keep a lid on it for just a bit longer…" he smirked at Raylix, with an expression that almost felt unnerving to the Gremory Heir. "Now, you. What did you possibly hope to achieve by SNEAKING into Hebeth and attempting to join us, you little shit?"
"Getting away from the Devil nobility, I guess." Raylix replied, looking right back up into Shalba's eyes, meeting his gaze with one of his own. "Making things better for the common Devil, isn't that what you guys want?"
"At the expense of the noble class that YOU are a member of." Katerea remarked, taking a step of her own closer to Raylix, one eyebrow raised. "You HAVE to have realised that, right?"
Raylix nodded.
"Then you're an idiot!" Creuserey cried out, his face a snarl as he stomped over to Raylix. "And you can die an idiot!"
"What reason," Katerea spoke up, again, stepping in front of Creuserey and pushing him back slightly as she approached the table "what circumstance, could be such that it would cause you to leave the nobility that you've lived with for all your life, Gremory?"
"Most of it." Raylix replied, almost by reflex. "And… it's personal. Let's just say that everyone I knew turned out to not be like I thought they were. With… some exceptions."
Katerea, Shalba and Creuserey all shared looks with each other, before Shalba spoke up.
"Katerea, Creuserey, come on."
He ceased leaning over Raylix, fully standing up straight, and motioned to his two fellow faction leaders to follow him out of the room, which they did. Creuserey shot Raylix a scowl as he slammed the door behind them. Once the door was shut, and magically sealed on top of that, prohibiting the Clan Heir from having any chance of listening in on the three of them, Shalba turned to Katerea and Creuserey.
"So?" the brown-haired descendant of the Lord of the Flies asked, gesturing to the shut and sealed door.
"He's lying!" Creuserey replied, immediately. "He's making that shit up in an attempt to gain favour with us! He's been sent to spy on us by those traitors in the Devil government! We've got to kill him now!"
Shalba had no visible reaction to Creuserey's outburst, but Katerea let out a quiet sigh.
"Creuserey, I know you don't have much love for Raylix considering what he helped do to Damaidosu, but try to keep at least a semi-level head." Leviathan's granddaughter spoke. "Do you seriously think that Sirzechs would let his brother- his SOLE YOUNGER BROTHER, and the sole remaining Heir of 'Clan' Gremory- be sent all the way out here to Hebeth, to act as a spy against us? Wouldn't he, instead, send out less recognisable- supposed 'commoner' -Devils instead?"
"She has a valid point, Creuserey." Shalba remarked, looking from Creuserey to Katerea and back to Creuserey. "Though now that you mention it, Katerea, just to be sure that there are no such spies in our midst, we should start conducting more loyalty-checks among Hebeth's population. I trust that you two can both agree on at least this."
"Sure." Creuserey replied, continuing to scowl at the closed door.
"No arguments from me." Katerea replied, nodding as she looked back at Shalba. "I'm not opposed to killing him if he" she cast her eyes at the closed door before casting them back to Shalba "fails any checks, but it's certainly worth keeping him alive, Shalba."
Both Creuserey and Shalba looked over at Katerea, Shalba with a raised eyebrow and Creuserey with a look of mixed incredulity and anger on his face.
"I understand any reason you might have for wanting Raylix dead: believe me, I probably have similar reasons for wanting Ajuka dead." Katerea began. "But if he's truly genuine, and not acting as a spy, or not even just attempting to look like a big hero to the traitors in power… he'd be a genuinely powerful ally. "I'm sure that you two guys can both accept THAT, at least."
"I suppose…" Shalba replied, crossing his arms and looking back at the closed door.
"A powerful ally, or someone waiting to KILL US ALL, LIKE HE HELPED DO TO OUR PARENTS?" Creusery spoke up. "Have you conveniently forgotten that, Katerea?! Or has that Gremory brat already charmed you somehow?!"
"I haven't forgotten." Katerea replied, ignoring the last thing that Creuserey had insinuated about her feelings towards Raylix. Conventionally attractive as the Gremory… well, she supposed that he wasn't much of an Heir anymore, so FORMER Gremory Heir was, she wasn't that easy. "I'm just pointing out some factors worth considering that don't just boil down to 'kill him'. Playing- pardon the phrase- devil's advocate, if you will."
"Hmm." Shalba hummed, looking between Katerea and Creuserey. "Seems I'm the deciding vote in this matter, aren't I?" He sighed, closing his eyes for a moment, seemingly lost in thought for a moment, before opening them again. "Katerea, you haven't led us wrong before, so I think I'll trust your judgement in this matter."
Creuserey let out a loud scoff, but otherwise did nothing else. It took a great effort for him to keep himself from tearing open the door and ripping Raylix to shreds with his bare hands, and he was sure that it would take a great deal more effort to keep himself from doing so for however long he would be with the TSF from now on. But he'd have to keep that urge to himself, at least for now, considering he'd clearly been outvoted on the matter, and Shalba and Katerea could very easily… get rid of him, if he acted directly against them.
"…Fine!" he spat out, after a couple of seconds of seething. "But since Katerea loves him so much, she should be responsible for him! Right, Shalba?"
"That sounds reasonable." Shalba replied. "Katerea?"
"Yes, alright." Katerea nodded. "I suppose it's only fair."
Creuserey scoffed, magically unsealed the door that he'd sealed up earlier and stomped off, muttering to himself, while Shalba simply nodded at his fellow TSF leader and walked off, in the same direction as Creuserey, leaving Katerea alone. Once the sound of Creuserey's stomps and Shalba's steps had faded away, Katerea pushed open the door, stepping inside and leaning against it as she looked inside.
Raylix got to his feet as soon as he heard the door opening, and after a couple of seconds' silence between himself and Katerea, he spoke up.
"So… I'm not being executed? I assume you'd have opened fire on me by now if I was being executed."
Katerea let out a quiet laugh as she stepped into the room.
"No, we'd have dragged you out in front of everyone and made a spectacle out of the fact that one of the nobles they hate so much had just wandered into our midst, THEN opened fire on you." She replied. "Either way, you're not being executed. We- that is to say Shalba, Creuserey and I- put it to a vote and decided that you'll be allowed to live. However, you'll be under my supervision for the time being. Do you understand?"
"I do." Raylix nodded. Katerea nodded back, a small smile forming on her face.
"Good. Then, since my second-cousins surely won't, I guess I have to be the one to say this to you… Raylix, welcome to the True Satan Faction."
----- ----- -----
It was a wonderful sight. Nobles lining the walls as far as the eye could see, dressed in their finest. A grand, newly-constructed wedding hall, lined with the colours of the Gremory and Phenex Clans. Raylix and Ruvella themselves, the future Duke and Duchess Gremory, embracing as the marriage pact between them was truly sealed.
Zeoticus beamed as he looked out, again, towards the applauding nobles, a familiar sense of pride swelling up within him again. All those noble Devils, everyone was there for HIM, HIS family (and Rika's… but the wedding was in Gremory territory, so who were they really there for?), HIS son's marriage… it was everything he'd ever wanted. And it would be reality soon enough, he just had to wait a little longer. But still, it was sure good to think about these sorts of things…
Zeoticus heard a faint banging noise coming from… somewhere, he couldn't quite pinpoint where. He looked around a bit, trying to find the source of the noise. The noise didn't return for a couple of seconds, but then did, much louder than before, to the point that the Duke Gremory was roused from his slumber. Blinking the sleepdust from his eyes and pulling himself up into a sitting position, he pulled his hand up and away from one of the three maids that he'd shared his bed with since last night and waved it at the door, magically unlocking and opening it, allowing one of the many butlers in the Clan's employ to burst into the room, eyes wide in a panic.
"This had better been worth waking me up so… early…" Zeoticus attempted to sound somewhat impressive and intimidating as the boss of said butler, though any intimidation effect was swiftly crushed by the loud yawn he let out near the end of his words.
"Apologies for rousing you at such an early hour, Duke," the butler replied, hastily bowing to the naked Clan Head. "But Gaeneron has gone missing from the living room. As well as that, Raylix is nowhere to be found!"
"What?" Zeoticus blinked, sitting up a little straighter. "Raylix usually sleeps even later than I do. Isn't he in his room?"
"No!" the butler replied. "His room is empty! And he's not in the dining room, in the kitchen, in the lounge, anywhere he usually is! He's gone!"
Any feeling of sleepiness that Zeoticus still had was now long-gone. He instantly teleported himself out of bed, summoned clothes to his body and strode out of the room with the butler right in front of him. As he shut the door behind him, Venelana poked her head out of the door, blinking sleepily.
"What's with all the excitement this morning?" She asked, raising a hand to rub her eyes. "Raylix's wedding isn't for a couple of days, isn't it?"
"Raylix is MISSING." Zeoticus replied. "Gone. Vanished into thin air, and I'm willing to bet our share of the Enterprise that he stole Gaeneron on his way out, too!"
"WHAT?!" Venelana shrieked, stepping out of the room and summoning clothes onto herself, too, before taking a breath and looking sharply at the butler. "Are you sure that Raylix isn't anywhere in the castle grounds?"
"Y-yes, ma'am!" the butler replied, almost visibly quaking in his shoes at the sight of the Brunette Madam of Extinction staring him down. "Castle security have triple-checked every square inch of the grounds, Raylix is nowhere to be found!"
"Oh, no, no, no, no, no!" Zeoticus muttered, bringing a hand to his head and taking a breath. "Send out a message to all commoners living in this territory!" he barked at the butler. "I want Raylix found, and his location reported to me IMMEDIATELY upon sight!"
The butler nodded, and dashed off, not wanting to be in the presence of two angry/worried Ultimate-Class Devils, that also happened to be parents.
"I can't BELIEVE" Zeoticus hissed, as he stomped out of the residential suite and descended the stairs, Venelana behind him. "that Raylix would do this NOW, of all times! And… so Satan-damn close to his wedding, too! GRAYFIA!"
"Yes, Lord Zeoticus?" Grayfia's voice came from behind, as the silverette maid appeared behind her master and his wife. "What do you need this morning?"
"You to call Sirzechs' peerage!" Zeoticus replied. "Raylix is missing, and all available resources must be dedicated to recovering him, if we're to find him before his and Ruvella's wedding!"
"It will be done, my lord." Grayfia replied, inclining her head to Zeoticus and Venelana before walking past them, down the stairs and out of the castle-doors after opening them, before shutting them behind her. Once she was gone, Zeoticus continued his descent of the stairs, turned right and dashed into the living room. Just as the butler that had woken him up had said, Gaeneron- the very sword that had belonged to their family for over two thousand years- no longer hung from the mantlepiece of his home, as it had done for the past… at least five hundred years. Raylix had taken the sword and run, while everyone else was asleep: that seemed like the most likely scenario.
He felt a familiar magical presence by his ear, and unconsciously reached up to touch it.
"Sirzechs?"
"Raylix is missing?!" Sirzechs cried into the comms-circle, his voice coming almost too loud for Zeoticus' ears. He almost disengaged the comms-circle just for that, but decided against it a second later.
Hanging up on his older son, who just so happened to hold the title of THE Satan Lucifer, didn't feel like the best thing to do right now. Especially not when said older son seemed to have gotten the message that the younger son, the younger brother, was missing.
"Yes, Sirzechs, he is." Zeoticus replied. "I trust I have your say-so to utilise your peerage, to make sure he's found?"
"Of course, Father!" Sirzechs replied, hurriedly. "Whatever you need! Should I put out a call to the other Clans?"
"No thanks, Sirzechs." Zeoticus replied. "I think I'll do that myself."
Sirzechs sighed, on the other end of the line.
"Alright." He replied. "Damn, did Raylix really have to go and do this, so close to the wedding? I'd just gotten the suit I'd picked out for myself delivered yesterday!"
"Me too…!" Zeoticus growled. "And Venelana had just gotten her dress, and Raylix's suit will probably be delivered sometime today! Not that it'll be much use if he can't be found."
"Well, Grayfia's already assembled my peerage to begin their searches for Raylix." Sirzechs replied. "And I'm guessing that you've already put out an order for some kind to all the commoners of your home territory, Father."
The shuffling of papers could be heard on Sirzechs' side of the comms-circle. He'd probably been doing some early-morning work, relating to his position as Satan Lucifer, when the news from Grayfia came that Raylix was missing.
"Yes, I have." Zeoticus answered. "It should've reached all the major towns and cities of the territory by now, though I suspect it'll take a bit longer to reach the smaller settlements."
"Right." Sirzechs replied, sighing. "I was the last one to speak to Raylix last night, I should've known that something was up with him. I should've been able to tell that he was planning to leave. I should've stopped him, or alerted you… I'm sorry, Father."
Zeoticus sighed himself, raising a hand to his temple and gently rubbing it.
"Don't be too hard on yourself, Sirzechs." He replied. "No-one else- not even I or your mother, I'm ashamed to admit- suspected that anything was off with Raylix, either. We should've all kept a closer eye on him, the blame for him leaving lies with all of us."
"I understand." Sirzechs' voice came back through the comms-circle, lower than before. "Well, keep me posted about the search for Raylix. I'll step in myself, if you need me to."
"I appreciate that, Sirzechs." Zeoticus replied. "If we feel you're needed, I'll call. Now, I'll let you get back to your work."
Without waiting for his son's reply, Zeoticus cut the comms-circle between him and Sirzechs, before dropping into a chair and sighing deeply. He cast a look up at the mantlepiece, where Gaeneron used to hang above the fire, and sighed as he looked back at the ground.
"I guess all we can do now," Venelana spoke up, sitting down in a chair close to the one that Zeoticus had plopped down into. "Is… hope that Raylix is found, within the next couple of days."
"Indeed, Vene." Zeoticus replied, letting out another sigh. "But that's about as likely as one of the Seraphs falling."
Venelana took a breath, adjusting her position on her chair.
"Indeed." She replied. "Though if Raylix isn't found in time for the wedding-"
"Then EVERYTHING we've been planning for the past YEAR AND A HALF will have gone to waste!" Zeoticus replied, banging the arm of his chair with his fist. "All for… ugh, what? What possible reason could Raylix have to steal our prized sword" he gestured up to where Gaeneron no longer hung, above the mantlepiece "And just… leave? And another thing, how in Lucifer's name are we "
"Maybe we should've had Grayfia keep a closer eye on him since we lifted his grounding, after the incident with Father just over half a year ago." Venelana replied, looking down at the ground herself. "Though that's just hindsight at this point, I suppose."
"Hmm." Zeoticus hummed, leaning back in his chair. "And all of that's not to mention the shitstorm that will blow up around us when this news inevitably leaks to the rest of the Clans, that'll be fun to deal with... ugh."
He placed his head in his hands and let out a heavy sigh.
"I know, dear." Venelana replied, standing up, moving over to Zeoticus and resting a hand on her husband's shoulder. "We can get through it."
"I hope." Zeoticus nodded, looking up at Venelana before he felt another familiar magical presence by his ear. Recognising who it belonged to a couple of seconds after it had appeared, stood up and answered the call.
"Rika! How... nice to hear from you this morning!" Zeoticus spoke, trying his best to sound jovial about the fact that the Marchioness Phenex was calling him.
"Raylix is missing?" Rika, clearly not in the mood for smalltalk or pretense, curtly asked. "You actually let him leave? Now? At THIS time?"
"I... uh..." Zeoticus stammered a bit. He was caught rather off-guard by the fact that Rika seemed to already know that Raylix was missing, but initially didn't say anything, not wanting to give away that he knew too, and she was right. "What... are you talking about?"
"The fact that we have NOTHING left to talk about, unless you find Raylix and bring him back before the wedding!" Rika replied, sharply. "And even if you're able to, I expect an apology to my Heiress, myself and the rest of my Clan, TODAY!"
And with that, Rika cut the connection between herself and Zeoticus, leaving the Duke Gremory somewhat speechless as he stood in place for a couple of seconds.
If Rika had found out, there was nothing stopping her from telling the other Clans about what had happened. And given the opinion that a majority of the other Clans had on Raylix, and had held since the Zekram incident, any doubt that might have been cast on Rika's words thanks to her Clan being lower-ranked in the Underworld than Zeoticus' was unlikely to be a factor here.
Raylix lasering his grandfather's balls had done enough to the Clan's reputation, which Zeoticus had carefully built up ever since the Devil nobility's establishment- with shrewd business decisions in both the Underworld and the Human World, subtle power plays over the other Clans, and just the right amount of coasting off of the prestige that having the current face of Hell for an older son and a war hero for a younger son- but him bailing on his fiancée, the single most eligible bachelorette (that wasn't a Satan or Lilim Queen) in all of Hell, so close to their wedding... that could very well just kill it off for good! Three centuries of gruelling work could very well be rendered worthless!
And on top of all of that, Zeoticus' plans, his fantasy of his family being at the centre of the grandest wedding since that of Lucifer and Lilith's, over three thousand years ago, were now worth... nothing. They meant nothing. Barring the demonic equivalent of a miracle, they would NOT be coming to pass.
Zeoticus collapsed back down into his chair, looking down at the ground and not responding to his wife's questions of if he was okay, and if he needed anything.
He wasn't okay, he needed a Satan-damn drink.
----- ----- -----
When Raylix woke up the next morning… he almost didn't remember where he was.
Not in his home bedroom back in the castle, that much was immediately obvious. The room he was in was… probably larger than the average bedroom from the human world, yeah, but definitely not as large as his bedroom back in the castle, or even as big as the one he'd had way back in his family's first home.
Two of the walls were a light purplish colour, with the other two being a darker purple, and a white ceiling. The floor was a similar neutral grey to how he remembered his former bedroom's floor being, but without any comfortable carpet to cover it up: instead, it was just hard wood. Still nice, but not quite as nice as the carpet was. The only similarity in that regard were the same five dull-looking metallic orbs, the middle one of which Raylix lit up immediately with a wave of his hand upon opening his eyes.
The bed that Raylix currently lay in was smaller- FAR smaller- than the one he'd been lying in only last night. Only not even big enough to comfortably fit two people, never mind the three (or potentially four, provided they were small) people that his previous bed could've fit. Sitting directly opposite to the bedroom door, the bed's covers were a blank grey colour. There wasn't much in the way of… anything, around the rest of the bedroom, either: bedside table (which had nothing on it but a clock) desk, chair close to the desk, window, empty wardrobe set into the wall, the room was bare apart from that.
Then the events of the previous night came flooding back to Raylix. He'd left the Gremory Castle in the dead of night, joined up with Malech and the population of his village, and travelled to the home city of the True Satan Faction (Hebeth, he thought he remembered someone calling it?). Then he'd been recognised as a noble Devil, and interrogated by the leaders of the faction in question. Part of him at the time assumed that that was it for his attempt to join the TSF, and he'd either have to fight his way out or die, but instead he was allowed to remain, but under the direct supervision of one of the leaders- one Katerea Leviathan- definitely the best outcome Raylix could have realistically hoped for, in his opinion.
And after all of that, Katerea had taken him to her home, in the centre of Hebeth, and had him set up into a hurriedly-made guest room. After which Raylix had immediately gone to sleep, having not had any sleep since the previous morning. The sky outside the window wasn't any lighter or darker than it had been when he and the population of Malech's village had entered the city, probably due to the nature of the alternate space in which the city was housed, but a cursory glance at the clock on the bedside table told him that it was mid-morning, almost afternoon-time. The former Gremory Heir let out a yawn, stretching before raising a hand to his eyes and rubbing at them to get the sleepiness out.
The sound of footsteps approaching the bedroom at a brisk pace reached Raylix's ears, and he sat up just in time for whoever was approaching to reach the door, open it and step inside. It was Katerea, dressed in a slightly simpler and more conservative dress than she'd been wearing the night before when she, Shalba and Creuserey had interrogated Raylix. She had a few folders under her arm, and looked far more wide-awake then Raylix had been.
"You'll be working under me for the time being." Katerea remarked to Raylix, by way of greeting. "I found some financial stuff that needs looking through and sorting out, sooner rather than later."
Raylix looked from the folders, that Katerea set down on the desk, to Katerea herself, who was looking at Raylix with a raised eyebrow.
"What, you think all of this came out of nothing?" she asked, rhetorically, as she strode back to the bedroom door and leant against it. "One of us just waving our hands and pouring energy into it?"
"Probably not ALL of it," Raylix replied, swinging the bed covers off of himself and getting to his feet, stretching again as he did so. "But at least some of it, surely."
"Well, the initial creation of the alternate space that houses this city, sure." Katerea remarked. "And the expansions made to said alternate space. But we can't keep up the energy needed to maintain this space, so the load for that's offset onto some specialised gems that we commissioned from a Gold-Ranked Magician about a century ago, and they cost a pretty Soul to have made and installed. Then there's all the buildings around here, construction of which usually gets done by a company headed by a servant of the Vapula Clan that's loyal to us, and that costs a lot to get done without rising suspicion from her master and master's family. And then there's just some of the finer things in life, from Earth, Hell and everything in-between, that we like to enjoy. And those are just the biggest example of stuff we need money for, hence the companies that Shalba, Creuserey and I started soon after forming this faction."
"Fair enough, I guess." Raylix replied, shoving his hands in his pockets as he finished stretching. "Family fortunes not cutting it anymore?"
"They did, for a while." Katerea looked down at the floor, momentarily. "Or at least, what we were able to hurriedly squirrel away before the traitors in charge took over and seized all our family's assets. But even for us, money eventually dries up over several centuries."
"I guess." Raylix nodded, walking over to the desk, opening the folder and idly flicking through it. "I occasionally had to do stuff like this back at home, before I left, so this shouldn't be too hard… hopefully."
Raylix could've sworn that he saw the slightest inkling of surprise crossing Katerea's face, only for an instant, as if one of her many assumptions of him had been proven wrong. Her impassive expression returned, as she let out a quiet "Hm", before turning on her heel and leaving the bedroom.
"You have more responsibilities that I need to tell you about, so follow me!" she called sharply, over her shoulder, prompting Raylix to put down what he was looking at and dash out after her. "You won't have to cook and clean for me, if that's what you were thinking, by the way." She added, once he managed to catch up with her.
"Well, thank Lilith for that." Raylix remarked. "I wouldn't even know where to start with the whole 'cleaning' thing, and I'm not that much of a cook. Been meaning to learn, though."
Katerea hummed, non-committally, in response, as she opened a transportation-circle.
"What I had in mind, Gremory, was that you'll be working with any new recruits, making sure they at least know the basics of combat. Barring our equivalent of a miracle, we'll never have any kind of numbers-advantage against the Devils' armed forces-"
"So, you have to compensate by making the fighters you've got into the best fighters possible." Raylix remarked. "Not an idiot, Katerea."
Katerea turned around on her heel, glaring silently at Raylix for a couple of seconds, more than long enough for Raylix to realise his mistake.
"…Sorry."
Katerea held her glare for a second or so longer, before letting out a low sigh and stalking past Raylix, thrusting her hand out to cast a transportation-circle.
"Come on." Katerea turned around, her expression hard. "You've got a batch of recruits to begin training today." With that, she walked through the transportation-circle, with Raylix following half a second later, and the pair of them coming out in what looked like a large field on the outskirts of the city. It was vast and empty, but looked like the used location for this kind of thing, considering that it looked far more trampled-upon and lived-upon than most other fields that Raylix had seen, been on or flown over in his days. The crowd that Raylix and Katerea came out in front of numbered at least three thousand, if Raylix had to guess. Some of which he actually recognised from the previous night, the folk from Malech's village who he'd made his way into Hebeth with after fleeing the Gremory Castle.
The crowd almost immediately noticed Raylix and Katerea's presence in front of them, and any quiet chatter that they'd been engaged in prior to their appearance immediately ceased.
"Listen up, everyone!" Katerea called out, applying a mild amplification-spell to her voice as she did so, to make sure that she could be clearly heard by even those standing at the very back of the crowd that she and Raylix had appeared in front of. "You're new recruits, having only arrived here within the last couple of days, and that means we don't know your capabilities as fighters yet. Raylix here," she cast her eyes over towards Raylix for a fraction of a second, before looking back across the crowd. "Will be taking your measure throughout today. Noble Devil he might have been" her voice raised slightly as the crowd began to murmur amongst themselves, most of them now looking at Raylix instead of Katerea. "But as of last night, he's just as much a member of the True Satan Faction as the rest of you, and you WILL treat him as such. Understood?"
The crowd quietened down, practically instantly.
"Good." Katerea nodded, cancelling the amplification-spell on her voice, before turning on her heel and opening another transportation-circle. As she walked into it, she looked back at Raylix, wondering just exactly how he'd do.
Leviathan's granddaughter hadn't exactly had the luxury of being able to keep up with the ins and outs of modern Devil society ever since her mother's death, being declared an enemy of the Underworld and going into hiding in the aftermath of the Devil Civil War, but she still remembered what Raylix had been like on their side during the Great War, and on the opposite side during the Devil Civil War. Or, at the very least, heard the stories of what he was like.
Capable fighter, a father to his men, wielder of Gremory's own famed sword Gaeneron (which he seemed to have brought with him from the Gremory Castle, where she presumed it'd been kept up until now), she remembered hearing rumours from spies sent from the Royals' side to the Anti-Royals that his name was one of many in the conversation for the position of one of the new Satans, even though he was passed over in favour of his brother Sirzechs. Katerea couldn't help wondering if it was resentment, ENVY for his older brother, that was also a factor in Raylix's decision to leave the nobility behind and join the True Satan Faction, as well as what he'd said the night before about everyone he knew turning out to not be like he thought they were.
Though whether it was, or it wasn't, that didn't matter right now.
As the transportation-circle shut behind Katerea, leaving Raylix alone with the three thousand-strong crowd. Standing in front of them, with them all looking at him, he almost immediately felt reminded of the Great War, the Devil Civil War, in which increasing numbers of troops had been placed under his command. The only difference was that… now he was alone, with no-one but future soldiers for company.
No friends. Just one him.
"Alright, everyone." Raylix called out, his voice shaking a tad, but eventually catching himself and shifting into his 'military-commander' tone, which he hadn't used in a while. "We'll start out with some basic hand-to-hand combat, and then move onto weapons-usage, then magical casting after that, see what everyone specialises in! I want everyone in groups of… hmm, 100! Groups of a hundred, right now!"
----- ----- -----
Meanwhile, in a random, unimportant town in Japan, a young girl almost tripped over herself as she stumbled down the street. Very few among those that she passed close to on the street looked even once, let alone twice, at her, and those that did… quickly averted their eyes and continued on their marry way, as if they hadn't just noticed a young girl- who couldn't have been a day over fifteen- wandering through the street and looking like she was on the edge of death.
And with each person whose eyes she caught, followed by them quickly moving to avoid her, she felt deeper and deeper pangs in her stomach. Helping people- or just helping humanity as a whole- was what she'd wanted to do with her life from an early age, and it was something that she'd been wholly devoted to ever since she came to that realisation, even when… whatever it was, was wrong with her had reared its ugly head, and left her mostly bedridden. It'd been hard, incredibly so when whatever kept attacking her left her only able to healthily function outside of her bed for 4 hours a day (and not even that, on some days), but she'd managed. Thanks to her wonderful family, her best friend, and everyone she'd met during her lifelong chosen mission, the phantom illness that'd messed her up since she was young didn't seem so bad…
Or at least, she (and everyone else) THOUGHT it was a phantom illness.
That was before one time, a couple of weeks ago, she'd been hit a bit harder than usual, coinciding with some… otherworldly (that was the only word she could find to describe it) energy had come pouring out of her. Without any idea of how to control what had started happening, let alone try to stop it, her family's home had come down around her. Her parents, the family's servants, her best friend… all crushed under the rubble, with her the inexplicable only survivor. With that, the young girl had ran: there was no question of staying in her utterly-destroyed home, not when the memories of her dead parents and best friend haunted her the hardest when at where she'd accidentally killed them. The destruction of her home had been blamed on a gas leak, much easier for any consumers of news to swallow and accept than… whatever had happened that day.
And now, a couple of weeks later, all she could do was wander aimlessly throughout the streets, banking on the kindness of strangers to acquire sustenance of any kind. The results of such a strategy… hadn't been great, to say the least: and yet somehow, she still lived. In spite of how little food and drink she'd consumed since the… incident, which even she- with her middling knowledge of human biology- knew shouldn't be enough for her to survive as long as she had, she still lived. She was little more than skin and bone (she never had much in the way of muscle, even before whatever she had first surfaced and began acting on her), and she had so little energy that she could barely do anything but shuffle around town before needing to sit down again, but still she lived. And yet, she wished she didn't.
Everyone she loved was gone, dead at the hand of whatever the hell had burst out from her. She had no-one else to go to: both of her parents were only children, so no aunts or uncles, and both sets of grandparents were long-dead, so they were out. And the guilt that wracked at her thanks to what had happened to her best friend, who she had the unfortunate pleasure of seeing die right before her eyes when her house came down, meant that going to her parents was out of the question. That, and as far as they (and all who had heard about what had happened two weeks ago) were concerned, she was dead, so her showing up at their doorstep would surely bring unwanted attention, not to mention put them at great risk, so… no.
Another long, shuddering breath that took a not-insignificant portion of the girl's remaining energy, left the girl as she turned off of the street she had been walking down for the past few minutes and down a different road, shivering from the coldness of the day. She cast her eyes up, trying to meet the eyes of some of the people that passed her in hopes that at least ONE of them would throw her a metaphorical bone and offer her some money, or at the very least some- or any- amount of food or drink to satisfy her hunger or thirst. No such charity was afforded to her as her walk continued, however, which only hurt more and more, and just seemed to make her hunger worse and worse with every passing minute.
She knew that bystander syndrome- the theory that people were less likely to step in and offer assistance to someone suffering when there were other people present, under the assumption that someone else would do it- absolutely sucked. Hell, she could explicitly remember times in the past where she had gone out of her way to AVERT such a syndrome herself, as observing it in action… hurt. A lot. But to be on the receiving end of it herself, that seemed to hurt more, and that was just about the last thing she needed right now.
As she took another slow breath, she turned again, stumbling into an alleyway and slumping down against a wall. She tugged her legs up against her chest in an attempt to conserve body heat, to try and give her some kind of comfort. Though it was somewhat in vain, as she had very little in the way of body heat in the first place. All she could do was just sit there, hoping that whatever had taken hold of her, whatever had gone and ruined her life over the past near-decade, would just leave her alone… or allow her the sweet relief that death would bring. It wasn't like she had anything left to live for, after everything she'd been through.
The girl let out another breath- this one coming a bit more painfully than the last two- and closed her eyes, trying to focus on anything other than the pain coursing through her. It was kind of nice: made the pain presently coursing through her a little less… painful.
…
"Hm."
The sound of a light female hum, and of heeled shoes clacking on the pavement close to the young girl, getting louder and louder before eventually coming to a stop, registered in her mind, but she didn't open her eyes. She didn't even have the strength to.
"Took a while to pin down the source of that anomaly a couple of weeks ago." The woman, who the girl assumed was standing right in front of her, remarked. The girl felt her chin being tilted up by a gentle finger, as she summoned the strength to open her eyes and look up at the person that had showed up in front of her: a woman who looked to be a little younger than her own mother had been, around late-twenties to early-thirties. She was also quite a bit taller than her mother had been in life, though possessed the same black hair that the girl had inherited from her father. Though what the woman in front of her had that neither of her parents possessed were the colour of her eyes… or rather, the shade of the colour of her eyes. While the girl's father (which the girl had also inherited) were a more regular red, the woman's eyes were darker than that. MUCH darker, not quite to the point that they could be confused with being black, but certainly on the border of such a distinction.
The girl had never all that much been into fancy clothes, but even she could tell that the dress that the woman in front of her was currently clad in was exceptionally elegant, probably of extremely expensive make. And certain parts of the body that the dress covered up… the woman was definitely GIFTED, the girl could tell that much.
"And now that I've found you, it's not hard to see why." The woman continued, an unreadable expression on her face as she looked intently at the girl, seeming to study her form with her eyes alone, as if she was looking for something that the girl couldn't see herself, before looking back up and meeting the girl's eyes. "Would you mind telling me your name, little one?"
The girl opened her mouth, though nothing but a strangled exhalation came out at first. It took a couple of tries, before she was able to croak out a response to the woman's question.
"K-K…Kurumi."
Lilith broke out into a soft smile, nodding at the girl's response.
"Well, Kurumi. I'm sure you must have questions about your situation, guilt about what's happened to you, and much, much more. I can help you… if you'll allow me."
The Prime Succubus extended a hand to the young girl: one that Kurumi- after a few seconds of seeming consideration- shakily reached up and clasped, with what little strength she had left. Lilith's smile widened slightly as she felt the young girl's hand in hers. As Kurumi didn't look like she had the strength to stand up on her own, she moved forward herself, extending her other arm around the teenage Human and lifting her body up. A cursory look at Kurumi (whose body was alarmingly cold) told Lilith that she'd fallen asleep in her arms, her grip on Lilith's hand having slipped and disappeared.
"Poor thing…" Lilith mused, adjusting her grip on Kurumi slightly as she opened a transportation-circle underneath herself. "You'll never have to suffer like this again. Not on my life."
Disabling the illusionary barrier at the entrance to the alleyway, Lilith activated the transportation-circle beneath herself and Kurumi, warping the pair of them out of the alleyway, and instantaneously transporting them to the foyer of her human-world villa. Taking a second to adjust to the French morning sunlight, Lilith pushed the door open with a small pulse of her demonic energy and stepped inside, using another small pulse of energy to shut the door behind her.
Making her way through the foyer and turning towards the stairs, Lilith turned as she heard someone coming out of the dining room, and smiled as she saw who it was.
"Morning, Eve." Lilith remarked. "You mind helping me out, here? It won't take too long, I promise."
"Sure thing, Lily." Eve replied as she made her way over to her owner, clad in a simple light pink dress that reached down to her knees, which concealed more of her figure than it revealed yet emphasized it at the same time, along with light brown sandals with simply white straps. "Who… is that?"
"Remember what happened in Japan a couple of weeks ago? To the Tokisaki family home?" Lilith asked, in reply to Eve's question. When Eve nodded, Lilith gently lifted Kurumi up a bit. "Well, here's who was behind that. Unintentionally, I'm willing to bet, but she's got potential. Definitely got potential."
"I'll get some food for her." Eve replied, instantly. "Something to drink, too."
"Thank you." Lilith nodded. "Bring it to the bedroom straight across from Hikari's, and if you won't mind, keep an eye on her once I've got her set up in there. I have business in the Underworld to attend to today."
Eve nodded herself, in understanding of Lilith's order, and headed off towards the kitchen that she'd just come out of, as Lilith continued on her way towards the stairs. After quickly ascending them, while being careful to not disturb Kurumi while she slept in her arms, she came to the floor on which the bedroom she mentioned was, and made her way towards it. As she made her way out, one of the doors opened, and a teenage girl stepped out. One with light silver hair, red eyes, and dressed in a simple white t-shirt, a pair of black panties and… nothing else. Her hair was wet, as if she'd just stepped out of the shower.
"Morning, Mom." The girl nodded to her adoptive mother, an eyebrow raising as she noticed the other girl in Lilith's arms. "Who's that?"
"Someone a little like you, I'd wager, Hikari." Lilith replied, adjusting her grip on Kurumi again as she stirred lightly, in her arms. "A potential older sister for you, if you will."
"Really?" Hikari replied, in a very specific tone of voice that Lilith had come to know all too well coming out of her. One that tried to convey that she wasn't all that interested, but really conveyed that she was, actually, quite interested. "Is she strong?"
"Potentially." Lilith replied, looking down at Kurumi again. "With the right nurturing. You going to train again?"
"Yeah." Hikari nodded, stretching her arms above her head. "Just gonna get something to eat, then train."
"Alright." Lilith nodded in reply. "Carry on." Adoptive mother and daughter continued on their respective ways, with Lilith zero-handedly opening the door to the bedroom that she had intended to carry Kurumi to, before stepping in and tucking Kurumi into the simple bed, making sure that she was as comfortable as she could possibly make her. A minute or so later, Eve arrived, carrying enough food and drink to feed THREE people, never mind just ONE.
Kurumi was in good hands, Lilith thought, as she gently pecked her preferred pet's lips before leaving the bedroom, shutting the door behind her.