1992
Eggs. Berries. Coffee. A few simple foods that made for a remarkably effective breakfast.
Adam might have been a bastard that Lilith had every right to break down into the slave he was now, but that didn't mean she was just going to keep him as an utterly useless baby that couldn't even wipe his own ass right. It'd taken her a few tries, sure, but she'd managed to build him up into an effective servant, with cooking food and brewing drink as two things among many that- as much as she hated and still hated him- he was pretty good at.
Lilith- dressed in nothing but a dark purple dressing gown- let out a sigh as she took another gulp out of her coffee-cup, before reaching over her plate, picking up a couple of berries and transferring them to her mouth. Chewing on them slowly, she looked out across the table- big enough for at least eight people to sit and eat at with all the space they could want- though she was the only one currently sat at it. Hikari and Kurumi hadn't come downstairs yet so they were probably still in bed, she knew Eve was still in bed, and Adam was off doing… who knew what, Lilith really didn't care all that much.
Taking another sip from her coffee, Lilith looked up as she heard the sound of two people approaching the dining room, and allowed herself a soft smile as she saw Hikari and Kurumi, her two adoptive daughters, stepping into the room.
Hikari- formerly known as Valian, was a far cry from the scared little girl that she'd picked up on the highest mountain in Western Europe. She was older now, a gorgeous young woman of seventeen with her light silver hair worn in a short pixie cut, and red eyes that she found herself rubbing the sleep out of with the back of her hand. Since Lilith had rescued her from those Angels, she'd blossomed: she'd grown exponentially in power and skill thanks to both her heritage as her and Lucifer's great-granddaughter, but thanks to her Sacred Gear, Divine Dividing. It was a minor miracle (or the demonic equivalent of one), Lilith thought, that one of her own descendants would turn out to possess one of the thirteen Longinus-class Sacred Gears, and- Albion's grumblings or no- she was determined for Hikari to reach her full potential as one of the strongest warriors the world would ever know… though she hardly looked such a warrior right now.
Right now, she just looked like a teenage girl who'd woken up after not having had much sleep, with the only attire she was presently clad in being a white dressing gown, tied tightly around her body.
Kurumi was also rather different-looking from when Lilith had originally found her, in little more than rags and on death's door. She actually had some meat on her bones, and had also developed into an astonishingly beautiful young woman of seventeen, nearly eighteen. Pearly-white skin and long, black hair that was currently worn free, and went down to just above her hips. Her right eye was red- a coincidentally similar shade to that of her adoptive mother's- though her left eye was covered by some of her hair. Similarly to Hikari, Kurumi had blossomed in the few years that she'd lived with Lilith, getting more of a handle on her powers and growing into a powerful warrior. Though, also similarly to Hikari, Kurumi didn't look that much of a powerful warrior right now, just someone who'd barely woken up and managed to drag themselves out of bed this morning, with all she was wearing being a black dressing gown.
"Morning, you two." Lilith greeted Hikari and Kurumi, raising her almost-empty coffee up by way of greeting and downing the rest of it as her eyes flicked from Hikari to Kurumi, a knowing smile on her face. "Not often you end up coming down together. Am I right in guessing that you helped wake yourselves up a bit?"
"Not this time, Mom." Kurumi replied, her eye flicking from Lilith to Hikari and back again. "Had another… incident."
Lilith's eyes widened slightly as she put down her coffee-cup, before she understood what Kurumi was saying without her needing to directly say it, and nodded.
"I see." She replied, quietly, before snapping her fingers and conjuring up a couple of plates of breakfast foods for Hikari and Kurumi: mushrooms on toast for Kurumi and baked salmon/eggs for Hikari. "Anyway, breakfast. Had Adam whip some up for you."
"Sweet. Thanks, Mom." Kurumi replied, being the first to dash over to her seat at Lilith's left, sit down and tuck into her breakfast. Hikari didn't say anything, only making her way over to her seat at Lilith's right, sitting down and silently beginning to eat hers. Lilith- who was almost done with her eggs and berries anyway, was the first to finish, and remained quiet as Hikari and Kurumi went through hers.
She looked over at Hikari a couple of times as she kept her head down, making her way through her breakfast. If what Kurumi had said was true…
Speaking of, she noticed that Kurumi was almost done with her breakfast and lightly cleared her throat, holding up one hand and summoning a folded sheet of paper with one hand.
"Kurumi, remember that band of traitorous Incubi and Succubi that I told you I was tracking down?"
Kurumi hummed, acknowledging she was listening as she continued to quickly work her way through the rest of her morning meal.
"Well, I've found them." Lilith replied, placing the folded sheet of paper down on the table and sliding it over to her second adopted daughter. Upon noticing it, Kurumi swallowed her mouthful of food, reached over after wiping her hand on her dressing gown and picked up the sheet of paper, unfolding it. "You can use that transportation-circle to make their way to where they're holed up, and do what you need to do."
Kurumi's eye widened slightly as she looked up at Lilith, folding up the paper and slipping it into her dressing gown pocket, letting out a giggle.
"Kihihihihiii… got it, Mom." She replied, a twisted smile beginning to form as she picked up the last of her food, raising it towards her mouth. "I'll just finish this, then go."
Lilith nodded, watching as Kurumi transferred the last of her breakfast to her mouth, chewed, swallowed, and stood up. After taking a couple of steps away from the table that she'd been sat at, she snapped her fingers, switching out her dressing gown for an elegant crimson and black Gothic Lolita dress. Her hair went up as well, into uneven twintails, with a big crimson net bow to hold it all in place. Her golden left eye, which appeared as an inorganic clock face rather than as a regular eye, was revealed as her hair went up. She also wore a red and black collar around her neck.
"See you later~" Kurumi bade her mother and sister goodbye, pulling the folded piece of paper with the transportation-circle on it out of her cleavage and keeping it held in one hand as she left the room, leaving Hikari and Lilith alone together. Silence continued to reign once Kurumi left, apart from the quiet sounds of Hikari working her way through- and eventually outright finishing- her breakfast, upon which Lilith cleared her throat.
Hikari's head snapped up almost immediately at the sound, as alert as Lilith expected a warrior of her calibre to be, but this wasn't about anything relating to that.
"Hikari…" she began, softly. "Was it nightmares again?"
Her biological great-granddaughter/adoptive daughter's eyes widened slightly, and flicked down towards the table she was still sat at, before she nodded. Lilith let out a sigh, silently got up from her seat and walked around to where Hikari was still sat at. Placing her hands down at the silverette's shoulders, she gently guided her to her feet, turned her around and wrapped her arms around her. Hikari- whether it was out of surprise or out of some desire to keep the image of the cold, ruthless warrior that everyone except Kurumi and Lilith knew her as- hesitated for a couple of seconds before quickly wrapping her arms around Lilith and burying her face in the crook between her neck and her shoulder, letting out a slightly muffled sob.
Lilith could only hold Hikari tighter, closer to her as she heard her attempts to not break down crying, which prompted Hikari to hold her tighter in response. The pair of them stayed like that for a solid minute, with the only sound in the room being Hikari's choked sobs, which generally varied in volume but took a trend downwards soon enough.
Deciding in that moment that things would be easier if they were in a more comfortable environment than standing in a dining-room, Lilith cast a transportation-circle that took herself and Hikari to Hikari's room, before gently freeing herself from her great-granddaughter's hold on her, and guiding her into sitting down on the bed before joining her a second later.
"Do you remember anything?" she asked, softly. "And if you do, do you want to tell me about it?" Hikari, after a second or two of silence, nodded, sniffing rather loudly as she wiped her eyes with her sleeve.
"It was… Razevan." Hikari began. "I was… trapped with him, and he was hitting her… saying things to her…"
She found herself physically trembling again, which Lilith noticed immediately. She leant over, wrapped one arm around Hikari and pulled her closer, sprouting her tails and using one to soothingly run it over her back, a method she knew to be effective whenever Hikari (or Kurumi, for that matter) got upset.
"I tried to stop him." Hikari continued, after taking a breath in an attempt to calm herself. "But I… nothing I did did anything. I couldn't do anything, just like back then… and then, I was falling. I tried flying, but…"
"It didn't work." Lilith softly remarked, gently squeezing Hikari with her arm. "That part seems to be a recurring moment, doesn't it?"
"Mmhmm…" Hikari hummed, nodding. "After that, I woke up."
Lilith nodded, her silence an invitation for Hikari to continue.
"I was crying, I was… breathing really hard, and Kurumi heard." Hikari spoke. "Must've been coming past after a midnight snack, or something. But she came in, and stayed with me. Helped me get back to sleep."
"Right." Lilith replied, releasing Hikari from her grip and turning herself slightly on the bed to face her. "Hikari… Razevan is gone. He can't hurt you, or anyone, ever again. You know that, right?"
"I know…! Hikari nodded, her recently-dried eyes beginning to well up again. "I know that in my mind, but the thoughts… that he might just somehow come back and hurt me, hurt my… my first Mom…"
And this time, Hikari's dam burst. Lilith found herself letting out a small, involuntary "oof!" as she threw herself forward into her arms, audibly crying again. The millennia-old Succubus gently pulled the silverette Human/Devil Hybrid onto her lap, wrapping both arms- and several of her tails- around her, holding her as tight as could be allowed without accidentally hurting her, allowing her to cry into her dressing-gown, as much as she needed to.
She was sad- of course she was- to see her great-granddaughter, her first adopted daughter, in such a state, but there was more than that going on in Lilith's head. She hid it well, but she was angry. Almost inconceivably so, at Razevan for the bullying and abuse that he'd laid on his own daughter, at Razevan's father- the being she easily hated the most (out of everyone that still drew breath, as far as she was aware)- for ENCOURAGING it all to happen, and at herself for disconnecting herself so much from her own descendants that she wasn't even aware of what was going on until it was far too late. The effects of what Razevan had done, what Rizevim had encouraged, would surely stay with Hikari in one capacity or another for the rest of her life, no matter how much Lilith tried to help. There were just some things one couldn't heal from, she knew that all too well. And not for lack of trying on her part, either.
That bastard Razevan, she thought, should count himself lucky that he'd died- whether it was by Rizevim's own hand, or it was illness, or if a Stray got in an extremely lucky shot on him- before she could get to him. The things she would do to him if she'd found him alive, rather than as a rotted, bloody corpse…
It would have made the treatment she'd given Adam since gaining custody of him look positively LOVING by comparison.
----- ----- -----
There wasn't much in the way of hesitation or remaining tiredness when Raylix woke up. No more reason to sleep, eyes open, that was that, he was awake.
After allowing himself a moment to stretch and yawn, the former Gremory Heir- now one of the many Gamma Commanders of the True Satan Faction- swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood up. Immediately, he made for the door, after noting that there was nothing on the desk at the other side of the room that Katerea had left for him to look over or take care of the night before. He took a quick glance at himself in a mirror that was affixed to the door of the wardrobe.
Physically, Raylix hadn't gone through much change since leaving his former life behind and joining the TSF. His chestnut-coloured hair remained at medium-length, having not taken much effort to personally maintain. His eyes were still the same cool blue like his brother's, his father's and his grandmother's, but if one looked into them, they wouldn't see the same… life, behind them as there would be if one would have seen them back when he was living at home, enjoying himself, having the time of his life with…
He'd kept up his figure, as well. Striding naked through his room gave himself a good look at his own body: defined muscles all over, not a trace of unneeded fat anywhere at his chest, abdomen, arms, legs, nowhere. With a snap of his fingers and in a flash of light, Raylix had summoned what had become his usual attire that he'd gotten used to wearing over the last three years onto himself.
Snapping his fingers, Raylix summoned the clothes he'd gotten used to wearing during the last three years. In a flash of light and in less than a second, he was clad in what had become his usual attire. A dark-blue shirt with white buttons, black trousers that were done up with a simple black belt, a black coat with white trim that he wore unbuttoned, that featured whitish-grey Wulf-fur around the collar. Without even breaking stride, Raylix continued out of the room, pulling his bedroom door open with a quick flick of his less dominant right hand, walking through and shutting the door behind him with a similar flick of the same hand.
He continued down the hallway of Katerea's apartment, through the open door and into the kitchen. Katerea was sat at the table, a book in her hand. Her eyes flicked up from it for a fraction of a moment, all it took to mentally acknowledge Raylix entering the kitchen, and briefly inclined her head to him as he passed. Raylix returned the gesture, not breaking stride as he made his way through the room, past the table Katerea was sat at, and turned towards a large window- large enough for him to easily get through- behind and to the right of where Katerea was sitting.
"Training your division again today?" Katerea asked, not looking up from her book.
"Mock battle." Raylix replied, his answer short and simple as he didn't look back. After getting close enough to the window, he flicked his hand again, opening it and pushing it open. It was then that his pace changed for the first time, from a brisk walk to a short jog as Raylix spread his Devil wings and jumped through the open window.
He caught himself easily on his wings and flapped them once, giving himself enough thrust to send him at a reasonably quick pace across Hebeth- the city that had been his home for the last three years. One of the many fields on the outskirts of the city, the same one as he'd had his first training session with the village-Devils he'd escaped Gremory territory with and that first spar with Katerea, if he remembered correctly, was his destination: even from where he was, he could see the brigade that he'd been placed in charge of since ascending to the rank of Gamma Commander gathered, waiting for him.
Just over twelve-thousand Devil soldiers in all, a much larger contingent than what he'd ever had to personally command while fighting during the Great War or Devil Civil War. The idea of all of them waiting for him would've seemed quite absurd to the former Clan Heir, had he not been placed in charge of them for several months now, and had long-since gotten used to it. He flapped his wings to slow himself down and turned himself in mid-air, lowering himself down to the ground in front of the soldiers he was in charge of. He cast a cursory glance over all the soldiers, recognising some familiar faces from Sabemka and Tomosei's village among those in his brigade: in fact, almost ALL of the village-Devils in question that had made the trip to Hebeth with him were in his brigade. Thankfully, during the last few years, no-one (to Raylix's knowledge, at least) had died during training.
As Raylix continued to descend to the ground, and eventually lightly touched down upon it, smatterings of conversation reached his ears. He would normally have taken no interest, and just sounded a magical blast into the air in order to get his brigade's attention. But the fact that he heard his name among the conversation, he paused.
"Kind of weird how Raylix is nowhere near the top, but he's the most focused out of… all the commanders in the entire Faction?"
"Yeah. Does he do anything else? Does he even have any lovers?"
"Has he even taken any?"
"No… not that I know of. Haven't heard any stories, either."
"What?! Seriously?!"
"Yeah. No one-night stands or sex pets. No long-term lovers, nothing."
"Damn… maybe he's just sleeping with Katerea and the pair of them are hush-hush about it."
"Probably-"
And that was enough, Raylix thought, raising his hand into the air and sounding off a powerful magical blast into the air. It went off with a loud enough bang that any conversation that anyone in his brigade were sharing was stopped, immediately, as everyone stood to attention and looked over at him.
"Morning, all." Raylix greeted the group, focusing a quick voice-amplification spell into his voice in order to easily be heard. "We're gonna be doing something different today, so no need to split off like you usually do. Hmm…"
Raising his hand again, Raylix snapped his fingers, casting a line through the group, roughly splitting them three-quarters against one. As well as this, he used the same hand to conjure up red armbands around the right arms of all in the larger group, and blue ones around the left arms of all in the smaller group.
Flicking his other hand, he used the earth to the further left of the one-quarter of the group (which he'd split off to the left) to create an enormous structure, more than large enough for the smaller group to easily fit into and around. Taking a breath after creating the structure in question, Raylix lowered his hand and looked back at the group.
"Smaller group, take up defensive positions over there." Raylix ordered, gesturing to the structure that he'd just created. "Bigger group, you're going to be attacking. You have five minutes to get into position, let's move!"
And move, everyone did. After a little moment taken to find the needed space to individually spread all their wings without hitting anyone else with them, the groups made their way over to their designated positions, while Raylix spread his own wings and headed back from the makeshift battlefield a couple of hundred feet. It was a crude job he'd done with that structure, and he probably could have made it a lot better if he'd had the time to, but he didn't. His only goal with it was making sure those under his command knew how to attack- or defend- a fortified location. Whether the bigger group that was attacking, or the smaller group that was defending, came out on top in this exercise, a good chunk of the group would have learned something: better to have learned here, in a more controlled environment, than in a real-life firefight in which one could have only a couple of seconds to process the fact that one had learned anything at all before one had their head blown to bloody giblets.
Something that Raylix had seen too many times to count…
"Alright, all of you!" Raylix called out, once the five minutes that he'd begun counting in his head had elapsed. "Everyone in position?"
There were shouts of ascent from those under his command, from both sides. Satisfied with their answer, Raylix spread his ten devil wings and rose above the makeshift battlefield, looking over it. Everyone seemed to be in position, everyone was ready.
"Remember, if you get knocked down, you're out of the fight!" Raylix called. "Now, then… BEGIN!"
At Raylix's words, the larger group charged, on foot, towards the structure housing the smaller group. Almost immediately, from his position at a safe distance away and up in the air, he could see magic-circles appearing in the hands of some from the larger group, with another, larger one appearing in front of the group at large, cast by some slightly closer to the front. Raylix smirked- for about a second- as he saw it, knowing what was coming: the bolts left the individual magic-circles and were collected into the large one, which began glowing rather dully at first but quickly intensified with a bright light.
When it got bright enough, all the collected bolts of energy that had been fired into the magic-circle left it in an enormous beam of energy that streaked across the sky towards the structure. As it came, several Devils among the smaller group that had begun the battle in the structure that Raylix had created jumped down, spreading their wings and putting their collective efforts into creating a large, powerful barrier just in time for the beam to come out and meet it. Beam and barrier struggled against each other for a second or two before the beam won, and broke through the barrier, striking the front of the structure and dealing some visible- yet minor- damage to it. Those that had cast the barrier were struck by the beam as the barrier broke, falling from the sky and looking rather dazed as they hit the ground.
From the damaged structure, a volley of bolts of energy came flying out, courtesy of the smaller group inside, seemingly in reply to the opening beam-attack that had taken out a few of the said group's comrades. Raylix could easily see the blasts and bullets entering the larger group as they charged, with some stumbling and others falling down outright after being struck by the energy-bolts. Almost immediately, the larger group scattered out of their formation to avoid the bolts that continued to come down upon them, with a few air-based groups (consisting of those that had taken to the air as part of the initial scattering) and several ground-based groups (consisting of those who had remained on the ground) forming a few seconds later.
A good tactic, Raylix internally mused, as his eyes shifted from the groups on the ground spreading out and beginning to launch volleys of energy towards various parts of the structure, assaulting from multiple angles, to the groups in the air that were swooping around and about the top half of the structure, sending their own volleys of energy-bolts at the walls while doing their best to dodge out of the way of any returning fire that came their way. It was an entertaining sight, Raylix thought, as his eyes followed the trajectory of one of the groups in particular for a few seconds, watching them dodge and retreat as they took fire, turn around and come back at the structure while returning fire themselves, then backing off again in the same motion.
His eyes narrowed as he saw an energy-bolt flying straight into the group in question and striking one of its members, who fell a couple of dozen feet out of the group before righting themselves in mid-air. However, they weren't able to rejoin the group before several more bolts of energy struck them in succession, sending them down to the ground and out of the fight.
However, Raylix continued to think to himself, as he switched his focus to a group on the ground, the war-veteran in him couldn't help but notice some flaws in the larger group's attack on the structure that housed the smaller group. Or rather, one flaw, a rather big one. Thanks to which, he was pretty sure that unless the larger group as a collective came up with new methods of attack soon, the smaller group defending the structure he'd created would be the ones to come out victorious.
The sound of energy-bolts striking dirt and flesh shook Raylix from his thoughts, and he refocused his attention on one of the ground-based groups: it had been forced to scatter by a volley of concentrated beams of energy. The chestnut-haired Devil couldn't stop himself from smiling slightly in approval of the smaller group's willingness to neither stick to individually firing bullets of energy out at their target, or to pour all their resources into one large energy-beam, but rather to find a middle-ground and split their resources into multiple, smaller energy-beams… or at least he assumed that that was what they'd done.
He noticed a not-insignificant number from the group he'd been watching falling to the ground after they'd been struck by the energy-beams, and staying down as per the rule he'd set out before the battle had started. Casting his eyes over the battlefield before him, he noticed several of the other ground-based groups clearly reacting to what had happened. Some attempted to retreat, prioritizing taking cover and defending themselves from the energy-bolts and beams that were sent their way, while overs pushed forward, meeting the enemy fire head-on and returning in kind. Those that were part of the original group that had been scattered seconds before were shot down before they could get a safe distance away, or join up with one of the other groups.
One of the groups that was pushing forward towards the makeshift base that Raylix had crafted seemed to become the next main target of those that resided within said base, as more combined beams of energy looked like they were beginning to be charged up, and looking like they were aimed towards the group in question. But before any beam could be fired off, however, one of the groups that had been swooping around in the air and harassing the base with their own occasional volleys of energy-bullets seemed to catch those within who had been charging up off by surprise, causing those within to cancel the attacks that they had charged up and refocus their attention towards those who had assaulted them from the air, who had suddenly swooped away rather than press their sudden advantage, as if they hadn't expected for that to have any effect on the battle at hand.
Without any airborne groups to harass the smaller group within the structure, there was nothing stopping them from re-charging their combined beams of energy and sending them down towards the group that they had initially been aiming at, just as one of the airborne groups began swinging around again to try and fire more harassing shots. But they were too late to offer any kind of help as the shots met their mark, in the ground-based group that those in the structure had been aiming at. Just like with the first group that had been bombarded from above, they scattered, with some falling immediately as they were directly struck by the lasers and the others being picked off by smaller bolts and bullets.
It was only then that the flying groups finally got close enough to the structure to start firing bolts and the occasional beam of their own, though most of their efforts just landed ineffectively against the structure's walls, scrapping centimetres worth of earth and rock off of the front of the structure at most, and just kicking up dust at worst. The return fire from those inside causing them to scatter in turn, with some falling from the sky right as they were struck. The other few ground-based groups, now without protection or backup fire of any kind from the scattered flying forces, were left completely exposed and with the smaller group's full attention.
With their numbers cut down so much from the start of the battle, and it quite obvious how the rest of things were going to go, Raylix flew forward, deciding to cut things off here.
"Alright, that's enough!" he called out, landing on the makeshift battlefield with his voice amplified so he could be heard by all. "I'm stopping it here! We all know how things would have ended! Congrats to the blue team for winning." he swung his left arm towards the structure, which slowly came down, gently ejecting those from the smaller group- the ones wearing blue armbands- as it did so, until it had gone back into the ground as if it were never there. "You're all dismissed for today, good job."
There were shouts of thanks from those on the blue team as they left the field, either flying back to the city or going on foot.
"Now, red team," Raylix looked over at all those on the losing side, some of whom were picking themselves back up. "What happened?"
There was silence for a few seconds from all that Raylix had addressed for a couple of seconds, before one of the guys that had just got up spoke up, rather tentatively.
"Well, uh, we lost the fight, sir, and-"
"Why?" Raylix cut across the soldier in question, his gaze so intense that the soldier in question, physically bigger than Raylix (both in terms of height and in muscular bulk) though he was, seemed to physically shrink under it. "Why did you lose. What. Happened. That caused you to lose?"
Silence, again, except for a few murmurs from those around the group. Raylix sighed, annoyed that he'd seemingly have to spell it out for them, before someone else spoke up.
"No-one was willing to change their strategy."
Raylix immediately turned around towards where the voice had come from, immediately identifying the person who had spoken up: a young-looking brunette. Raylix's eyes couldn't help but rest on her for a fraction of a second longer than he really wanted to, she just looked so similar to a certain female bodyguard that he'd known nearly all his life. There were some small differences between the female in front of him and one of his dead best friends, however: the soldier in front of him had her hair up in a bun, and her eyes were a darker shade of green than Raylix remembered Tomosei's being.
Raylix felt his breath involuntarily quickening for a fraction of a second, before he got a hold of himself and cleared his throat, nodding.
"That's exactly right." He replied. "You were all far too rigid in your chosen strategy, too stuck with the way you initially thought you could win to even change things up a bit when it became clear that you wouldn't be able to win if you kept going that way. That's a TERRIBLE attitude to go into a battle with, but the perfect thing to do if you want to get yourselves and everyone around you killed, for absolutely no good reason!"
The soldiers around him remained silent as Raylix looked like he was about to continue into a full-on rant, but unlike the last few times, he caught himself before he could really get going, took a couple of breaths, and calmed down before continuing in a much calmer tone.
"Run through your regular drills for the rest of the day." He ordered, before spreading his wings and taking off from the ground. Turning around in mid-air, Raylix was off like a rocket, making it back to Hebeth within a few minutes. He noticed the window at Katerea's place that he'd jumped out of to make his way to the training field this morning, mainly that it had been closed since he'd left. Letting out a low sigh, Raylix continued towards the window, bringing himself to a stop and floating in mid-air as he reached out and gently knocked on the window.
He allowed himself to drift backwards a little bit as, a couple of seconds after the sound of him knocking on it presumably rang through Katerea's residence, the window swung open, seemingly of its own accord. Raylix then drifted forward, through the window, pulling it shut behind him and landing on his feet on the floor. Katerea, who was sat at the table by the window with Shalba and Creuserey (who seemed to be in conversation about something), quickly looked up and nodded at Raylix before returning her attention to Shalba and Creuserey, who didn't acknowledge Raylix as he walked past them.
The faintest sound of someone gagging met Raylix's ears, but he didn't turn around. He'd had a feeling that, like the last few times Creuserey had come around to Katerea's for whatever reason, he had someone under the table making sure he was well taken-care of down there, and today didn't seem to be any different to said last few times. Barely mentally acknowledging what the three leaders of the TSF were talking about, Raylix made his way over to the freezer, grabbed a pizza (just a plain cheese pizza. He was sure that Sabemka and Tomosei would be sniggering at him from whereever he was for his common taste in pizza) from inside and used the slightest, most minimal possible pulse of the Power of Destruction around it to atomize the packaging around it.
Idly balancing the pizza on his dominant left hand, Raylix bent down, pulling open one of the cupboards and pulling out a plate, which he laid on the counter before tossing the pizza onto it. As the pizza left his hand, Raylix snapped the fingers of his right hand, focusing enough energy into the pizza to heat it up to an eatable temperature in the span of a fraction of a second, by which time the pizza had landed on the plate. A few lazy waves of his hand were all Raylix needed to do after that to slice the pizza into eight pieces, after which he picked the plate up and headed past Katerea, Shalba and Creuserey and towards the door that led into the hallway that would lead to his bedroom. Just as he laid his free hand on the door-handle, however, Katerea cleared her throat.
"Before you get super stuck into your work, Raylix," she called out. "I wanted to ask you if you'd be up for a spar later. Some hand-to-hand, maybe a bit of weapons as well?"
Raylix paused for a second as he took in Katerea's words, but didn't turn.
"Sure." He replied, pulling the door open. "Just come get me when you're ready."
He heard Katerea's hum of acknowledgement as he shut the door behind him, and continued back to his bedroom.
----- ----- -----
Katerea was forced to raise one of her arms to block a roundhouse kick aimed at her head from Raylix, with the chestnut-haired subordinate being forced to jump backwards as Katerea thrust out her hand, casting a powerful shotgun-like burst of boiling water at close range.
It was a couple of hours later, and Raylix and Katerea were back in the same field that the former had directed those on the losing side of the mock battle from earlier to continue their training drills. Raylix had dismissed said soldiers when he and Katerea entered the field, giving them all the space they needed to spar as hard as they needed to.
And they had been going at each other pretty damn hard, ever since they'd started.
After landing back on the ground several feet from where he'd been before, he thrust out his own hand to throw up a wall of ice between himself and Katerea. When the boiling water hit, the difference in temperature caused the ice to shatter, and steam to immediately burst up and around the two Devils, temporarily concealing their vision of the other.
Neither of them hesitated before launching into the steam, missing each other as they went through it, yet getting close enough to each other that they were able to see each other in spite of the steam surrounding the two of them. After coming out of the other sides of the steam compared to where they originally were, they both span around and summoned weapons into their respective dominant hands: Gaeneron for Raylix and a basic-looking spear for Katerea, who had decided on a spear as a weapon for herself pretty early-on in her and Raylix's regular sparring sessions.
Katerea was the first to act, swinging her spear downwards at Raylix as he came at her. Raylix was forced to quickly dodge sideways and counterattack with a swipe aimed at his superior's side. Said superior quickly pivoted and parried Raylix's attempted strike, thrusting her spear towards his body as her own counterattack. This time, however, Raylix wasn't exactly able to get out of the way in spite of his attempt to jump backwards: Katerea's spear caught the back of his left hand, slashing it as he made his jump. Raylix's hand dripped blood as he landed on the ground, and as he looked down at his own hand to access the damage, he found himself further on the defensive as Katerea pressed her advantage. Her swipes and strikes were quick and precise, with Raylix having to move quickly in order to parry each and every one of them.
His guard was eventually worn down, however, as he misjudged the timing of his parry by vital fractions of a second, causing the head of Katerea's spear to slide along the edge of his sword rather than be smacked back the way it came, and leave a slightly deeper wound in his upper arm than the graze that Katerea had left on his hand a few seconds earlier, and prompting a grimace of pain from the former Clan Heir. Raylix was forced to jump further backwards, putting some distance between himself and Katerea, and sending several powerful bolts of the Power of Destruction out of his free (and unharmed) right hand at the brunette TSF leader. Katerea initially started forward to try and re-close the distance between her and Raylix, but stopped in her tracks when she saw the first destructive energy-bolt coming her way. Coating the entirety of her spear in her own demonic energy, Katerea was forced to spin it to deflect the first few destructive bolts away from her, before casting a barrier with her free hand to block the remaining bolts.
As soon as the barrier went up, Raylix leapt into the air, his eyes turning from sapphiric blue to crimson red half a second before he let loose his destructive eye-beams. The beams struck Katerea's barrier, burning against it as he continued over her head and landed behind her. He cancelled the beams as Katerea span around and slashed at him, jumping back far enough for her to miss him entirely and causing her to overswing, leaving her open to a heavy shove that sent her stumbling.
Katerea stayed on her feet, however, but was very much on the defensive. Raylix was now the one to start laying down blows, each coming harder and faster than the last. Her eyes swung around wildly as she tried to keep up with and parry every movement of Raylix's sword, and though she was able to, she was caught very much off-guard by Raylix's free right fist crashing against the side of her head unseen, completely upsetting her balance and sending her rolling on the ground.
She was back up in a second, a bruise already forming on her cheek where Raylix had struck her, but still unbalanced enough for her retaliatory thrust in Raylix's direction to be far sloppier and more unbalanced than it perhaps could have been, one that Raylix easily sidestepped and countered with a single, hard swing downwards that was strong enough to send the spear from Katerea's hands, disarming her entirely. As the spear landed on the ground, Raylix kicked it away before Katerea could reach down and grab it, before dispelling Gaeneron from his grasp and rushing towards her, fists raised.
Katerea was barely able to keep up with the onslaught of physical blows that Raylix sent her way: deflect a punch, meet a kick with her own, send a bolt of energy Raylix's way as he span around while winding up for his next punch (he ducked under it), be forced to take that punch in the stomach as she left herself open to it, stumble backwards with no defence against Raylix dashing forward and grabbing her around her midsection, spinning her around a couple of times and bodily throwing her towards a nearby clump of trees. She felt her body crashing against their trunks and ripping through them like paper before she hit the ground, rolling over a couple of times before she came to a stop, groaning lightly as she tried to pick herself up.
Raylix was over at her location in a second, bending down and extending a hand towards his superior. Said superior, upon noticing her charge's outstretched hand, reached up and took it, pulling herself to her feet.
"I think that's another win for me." Raylix remarked, his tone neutral as Katerea swayed slightly on her feet, managing to keep herself from immediately falling on her ass as she righted herself and stood on her own.
"You think?" Katerea replied, slightly sarcastically, as Raylix took a couple of steps back. A second later, she sighed, nodding. "Yeah, you win. Nice one. Shall we head back?"
Raylix nodded, spreading his wings and rising into the air, with Katerea doing the same a couple of seconds later. It didn't take them long for the pair of Devils to make it to full speed as they streaked over Hebeth's skies, well on their way back to the city within a minute or two.
"Any notes, Raylix?" Katerea called, amplifying her voice so it could easily be heard over the rushing air as they coasted at dozens of hundreds of miles an hour. "On how I fought this time around?"
"You need to keep a stronger grip on your weapon!" Raylix replied, amplifying his voice in return. "And keep a better balance when fighting physically! Otherwise, you were pretty good!"
"Understood. Thank you!" Katerea replied, speeding up slightly to catch up with Raylix, who was flying a few meters ahead of her. "I can imagine that comes from whoever taught you as well!"
"Huh?"
"Being able to analyse ho, hemeone fights, figure out mistakes, and point it out." Katerea elaborated, slowing down to an equal pace with Raylix once she caught up with him. "Even when it's a superior that you're pointing it out to. Though I somehow doubt that you ended up getting taught by someone beneath you-"
"I did, actually." Raylix replied, as he and Katerea slowed down upon reaching the outer borwell, beforeity of Hebeth, changing direction slightly to make a beeline for the latter's residence. "A soldier that got transferred to my command, he taught me a good chunk of what I know hand-to-hand-wise, everything I didn't figure out for myself."
"Oh?" Katerea looked over at Raylix as the pair of them reached the large window of her residence, which she pulled open with a quick motion of her hand. She went in first, stepping aside once she landed on the floor to allow Raylix the space he needed to get in and land as well, before proceeding to shut and lock the window behind the pair of them. She raised an eyebrow as a surprised expression crossed Raylix's face for a fraction of a second: surprise that something like that had even been able to happen to a noble- though to be fair, if what Raylix had said was true, he wouldn't have been a noble at the time? Surprise at having slipped up and finally revealed something about himself, a subversion of how incredibly tight-lipped he'd been regarding himself over the last few years? Even during the rare times that Katerea had, for courtesy's sake, probed her charge for information regarding himself, she could count the number of things she'd learned about Raylix as a person on one hand, with fingers to spare... he was five hundred and six years old.
That was it, that was the ONE AND ONLY thing she'd learned about Raylix that didn't directly relate to his noble (or now very much FORMERLY noble) life before today.
Raylix immediately turned away from Katerea, making a beeline for the door that led to his bedroom, not even turning around as he heard her following him.
"Come on, you're not going to tell me anything else?" Katerea asked, thrusting out a hand and quickly casting a spell that silently locked the door before Raylix could even make his way there and pull the door open. "You're gonna blue-ball me after the first thing you've told me about you in... a year and a half, I think?"
"Why do you even want to know?" Raylix asked, not stopping as he continued towards the door, seemingly not noticing that Katerea had locked the door. It took him until he reached the door and pulled on it- upon which it didn't budge in any way- to realise that there wasn't any way in which he'd be able to get out of the room. Not in any way that didn't involve violence, which he somehow didn't think Katerea would exactly appreciate.
"Because I'm curious?" Katerea replied, settling herself against a table and crossing her arms and legs as she met the look Raylix gave her when he turned around. There was just the right combination of calm and authority in the look that she met Raylix with that Raylix, rather than challenge her further, just let out a quiet sigh and leant against the locked door, shutting his eyes for a couple of seconds before opening them again and looking over at Katerea.
"What did you want to know?"
"There, now, was that so hard?" Katerea smiled, her expression now a good bit more gentle to match Raylix's own. "Well, I guess the first thing that comes to mind is how you came to meet this mystery soldier. Must've been a pretty special guy, if their teachings helped make you the fighter you are now."
"Yeah... he was." Raylix replied, moving away from the door and taking a couple of steps back into the room. "It was during a battle in the war that I met him. Saved him and another soldier from being killed by a Fallen Angel. By Kokabiel's son, I think it was... yeah, it was."
"Ieshim?" Katerea raised an eyebrow again. "You sure it was him? And how did you know it was Kokabiel's son?"
"How many other Fallen Angels do you know whose names begin with 'Koka'?" Raylix asked. "He got as far as that, before switching to a general cry for help from daddy, before-" he paused, drawing a finger across his neck. Katerea nodded, getting what Raylix was saying without him even saying it. "I didn't see a pair of tits on them, either, so I'm guessing it was a guy."
"Fair enough, fair enough." Katerea nodded. "I'm assuming that soldier you saved got transferred over to your command soon after."
"Mmhmm." Raylix nodded. "Both of them did."
"Right, both of them." Katerea nodded. "Was that when the teaching started?"
"Around then." Raylix replied, nodding again. "And it... never really stopped, after that, Sabemka and I would just spar with each other whenever we had time to, he'd teach me certain techniques or moves once he'd learned them himself and got them down."
"Sabemka... I see." Katerea replied. "What about after the wars? Did you use one of those..." her face momentarily creased into a slight frown. "Pieces, on him?"
Raylix shook his head.
"Nah, no point." He replied. "He and Tomosei- the other soldier that I rescued from Ieshim- ended up becoming my bodyguards. By then, they'd also become my closest friends... or rather, my only friends."
"I imagine they joined you, when you made the decision to join us." Katerea remarked, shifting her position on the table. It was slight, but it was enough for her impressive bust to bounce around a little bit, in the dress that she was wearing. When she noticed Raylix's face creasing up into a slight frown to match the one she'd given off a moment earlier, she tilted her head slightly.
"Or not?" she continued. "Did you leave them behind? To fend for themselves against your parents' doubtless rage at-"
"They're dead."
Katerea stopped cold as Raylix cut across her question by way of answer. He turned away from her, towards the window, letting out a long breath- seemingly to calm himself- as he did so. The True Satan Faction's only female leader considered, for a second, approaching Raylix from where she was sitting and doing something, maybe laying a comforting hand on his shoulder? She thought better of it after a second, figuring that Raylix probably wouldn't appreciate being touched, with the emotional state he was clearly in.
That, and she didn't want to do anything that Raylix could construe as her wanting to get with him.
"Dead?" Katerea repeated, shifting herself again on the table as she looked over at Raylix, who didn't turn.
"Murdered." Raylix replied. "By Fallen Angels."
"I see." Katerea nodded, slowly. "I can't claim to know how you felt- or must still feel- but you have my condolences. I'm sure they were fantastic soldiers and bodyguards... and good friends."
"The best." Raylix replied, reaching up to his face and wiping it with one of the sleeves of his coat, giving particular focus to his eyes before turning around. "Not that anyone , though. Better part of five centuries of service, gone, done, forgotten about, replacements within weeks. Don't bother mourning your two only friends, Raylix, we'll put on an event for you to pick out replacement-friends, make a fun day-trip out of the whole thing! More friends will always come along, Raylix, so everything you had and did with who came before meant nothing! Mourning is improper, Raylix, so knock it off! Stop being childish! Let everyone talk shit all they want but if you DARE to clap back, you're the prick!"
Katerea decided it best to undo the spell that locked Raylix- whose eyes had shifted from blue to crimson once again- in the room with her, which proved to be the right thing to do as her charge made for said door, yanked it open and strode through, heading for his bedroom and leaving Katerea alone. Raylix's stomping footsteps could be heard the whole way down the hallway, followed by the opening and shutting of his bedroom door. The brunette beauty deigned it best to not follow Raylix, especially not when he had clearly worked himself up into a state. Over her touching on a subject that, clearly, was a damn sensitive one.
She'd apologize later. Give him some time to calm down, then apologize. But as she sat down at the table, what Raylix had just said beginning to replay in her head, she found herself linking it to some of what Raylix had told her, Shalba and Creuserey that night, three years ago.
Everyone he knew turned out to not be like he thought they were? That seemed to track wth the little rant- likely impersonating some who'd spoken to him in the past in the aftermath of Sabemka and Tomosei's murder- that he'd gone on before storming off. It was personal? Two of one's best- one's only- friends getting murdered and no-one around caring, or even admonishing HIM for caring, seemed like a pretty personal catalyst for running away from home to her.
Even if it wasn't under the most pleasant of circumstances (Raylix definitely sounded like he was in considerable personal pain, and some of the hits she'd taken during their earlier spar still hurt a fair bit), Katerea couldn't help but feel like she understood her subordinate of three years a little bit better now. Not a lot, but just a little bit.
And she appreciated that.
----- ----- -----
The previous day's financial report. File it away with the other reports.
Letter addressed to Katerea proposing some kind of deal between her company and one belonging to whoever wrote the letter. Skim over it and file it away with the documents that require Katerea's direct attention.
It had been a few days since the training session, Raylix's spar with Katerea, and the subsequent outburst that he'd had. He'd spent all his time in his room since, taking care of any paperwork that had come his way.
Another letter, copy of the one he'd filed off with the documents that needed Katerea's attention a moment or so ago. No need for a copy of it when Katerea had the original, reduce it to dust with a quick pulse of his Power of Destruction, move on.
Tax invoice from the human world. Pretty new one. File it away.
He hadn't spoken to anyone, let alone Katerea, since then. Lilith knew she was probably pissed at him for the outburst he'd had, and that punishment of some kind was sure to follow. Maybe even exile. If it was exile, he'd be screwed: joining the True Satan Faction had really been Raylix's only plan, so what the hell could he do after this? Go back to his family? Out of the question. Move on to the human world and try to start a new life there? With what resources?
Join the Fallen Angels? The most laughable notion of all, easily, from a logical, "I want to live" standpoint. Though considering that he'd placed all his eggs in the True Satan Faction basket up until now, he wouldn't have anything left if he got exiled from the TSF, so…
A knock at the bedroom door jolted Raylix from his thoughts, to the point that he almost dropped the paper that he'd picked up off of his desk, a record of some purchase or other. Or rather, he DID drop it, but he reacted quickly enough to grab it before it landed on the ground.
"Raylix?" The former Heir-turned-mid-level-commander-plus-assistant turned, hearing Katerea's voice through the shut door. "You in there? Actually, never mind, of course you are. Can I come in? I need to talk to you about something."
Raylix let out a quiet sigh, shutting his eyes for a second as he set down the record on the desk, and stood up from his chair.
"I'm here, Katerea." He replied. "If it's about a few days ago, can I at least say that I'm sorry?"
"What?" Katerea replied, as the door to Raylix's bedroom door was pushed open, and Katerea entered. "What about a few- ohh, that. You don't have to apologize for that, I think I should be the one apologizing, I shouldn't have probed like I did."
"Thanks." Raylix replied. "And it's fine, you were curious. Anyway, what is it you wanted to talk to me about?"
Katerea continued to look at Raylix for a couple of seconds, before shrugging and shutting the door behind her.
"About an important mission for the TSF." She explained, walking across Raylix's room and sitting down in the chair that he'd just been in. "Over the past few years, there's been a bit of an uptick in the rate of new Devils that are joining us."
"That's… a good thing, right?" Raylix asked, electing to sit down on the bed, since the chair was now taken.
"It's a GREAT thing." Katerea replied, nodding. "However, even great things come with drawbacks. Like Hebeth becoming too cramped to easily continue operations as they've been going for the past few decades, and the cost of expanding our space beyond what we've we have now in enough of a manner to compensate for the new recruits. Shalba, Creuserey and I've decided that it's not worth it, and we're switching to a new plan: finding new locations for bases in the human world, and sending some of the new recruits there."
"And you want me to look for locations for those bases." Raylix remarked. Not as a question, but just as a statement. One that proved to be true, given how Katerea nodded in response.
"That's exactly right." She replied. "We'd agreed on this a few days ago, and that you'd be the first Devil we sent out to do that, but I decided to hold back on sending you out on the mission, thanks to, well…"
"Yeah." Raylix nodded. "I'll go right now, if you need me to."
"Well, the sooner you get going, the sooner you can find good locations." Katerea replied, a small smile crossing her face before she stepped closer to Raylix, holding out her hand. "I just need to put something on you before you go, though."
Raylix initially took a fraction of a step back from Katerea's outstretched hand, but didn't resist the brunette placing a hand on his shoulder. There was a dull flash of light that crossed Raylix's entire body, but after that, nothing. Katerea stepped back, taking a breath.
"There you go." She remarked. "An Enchantment. It'll let you transport in and out of this space without having to worry about the wards that we've put up around the place. To stop anyone from transporting themselves in without us knowing about it."
"Uh-huh." Raylix nodded. "Thanks."
"When you find somewhere that could be good, just put together a quick report on it and bring it back here." Katerea remarked, standing up from the chair and heading to the door. "I, Shalba or Creuserey will look it over… probably me, now that I think about it. Anyway, good luck." Upon opening it, she turned around and looked back at Raylix, nodding at him. A small smile played about her face as she did so, one that she noticed Raylix did not return as she left the room and shut the door behind her.
Raylix took a breath as the sound of Katerea's footsteps faded from his ears, before casting a transportation-circle and stepping into it. He didn't have much of a concrete location in mind as he activated the circle, just the human world in general. He could end up getting dropped anywhere, though he would prefer to not end up in the middle of the ocean… or in a heavily populated area. Though if the latter ended up being the case, it wasn't anything that a widespread memory-erasure spell couldn't fix.
When Raylix opened his eyes when the light of the transportation-circle faded away, however, he was pleased to see that this wasn't the case. He didn't find himself in a heavily-populated area… in fact, there was no-one around at all. He seemed to have sent himself to the summit (or near-summit) of a mountain in the human world. He could feel the snow beneath his feet, beneath his shoes, which he immediately magically switched out for a pair of more mountain-ready red and black boots.
He immediately summoned his coat- black, white trim, whitish-grey Wulf fur around the collar, onto his body as well, and buttoned it up. Ever since he'd made it for himself about a year ago, he'd worn it more for comfort or style than anything else: the temperatures anywhere in the Underworld- or at least the realm of the Underworld that Devils, Lilim and Fallen Angels had called home, which Hebeth had obviously been modelled after- never reached the extremes of the human world. Not the highs of Death Valley or Dasht-e Lut, or the lows of Antarctica or Greenland. And wherever Raylix had sent himself… it was obviously a good bit closer to the 'Antarctica and Greenland' end of the scale.
It was definitely colder than anywhere he'd been in the Underworld, at least.
Taking another breath as he adjusted his coat again, Raylix began walking, feeling the urge to shiver from the cold but not letting himself do so. The first thing he noticed around the area was that it was quiet: there didn't seem to be any signs of human habitation on this mountain, at least in the area that he'd dropped into.
He'd obviously look around a little more, but if nothing was to be found, then it could be a decent enough location for an alternate TSF base. Of course, any Devil that got sent up here would have to contend with the temperature, which could be uncomfortable for them… but it wasn't like Devils (or any other supernatural being) hadn't contended with fluctuations of temperature while stationed in the human world for centuries, or anything like that. It wasn't like every few cities- all over the world- had at least one or two Devils living in them.
Spreading his wings, Raylix took to the skies, the wind striking against his body but not hard enough to move him as he floated in the air, before he took off towards the mountain's summit, which he figured would be a good place to start looking around from. Higher vantage point, better view, he figured.
The wind was loud enough in Raylix's ears that he couldn't even hear his own wings flapping as he made his way upwards. Or his own clothes rustling around his body as he moved through the sky. It was extremely cloudy, to the point that Raylix couldn't see any blue sky behind it, but judging by how lightly-coloured the clouds were, and the position of a certain ball of light behind the clouds, he could only guess that it was morning, wherever he was. Pretty early in the morning, too.
Flapping his wings again to give himself a little more momentum, Raylix continued, making his way closer to the mountain's summit, still not able to hear anything other than the wind howling in his ears. It'd picked up a little bit in the minute or so he'd been flying, and the fact that he was flying directly into the blowing wind.
Which, of course, didn't help when Raylix found himself smacked in the side by something, upsetting his momentum and sending him spiralling out of control. Letting out a very un-man-like squawk of surprise, Raylix span around in the air, managing to right himself before he hit the ground. Once he stopped rapidly descending, he looked around. Judging by the feeling of whatever had smacked him in the side, it was a bolt of magical energy: he'd been hit by enough in his life to know what that felt like.
Raising his hand as he floated above to the area on his body that he'd been struck, just the left of his stomach, above his left kidney, Raylix's mind went to work. He'd been flying chest-down, and the energy-bolt had come from below. Judging by exactly where he was in he air relative to when the bolt had hit him, the person who had sent it his way must have come…
Twisting around in mid-air, Raylix dived down to where he'd calculated the area of ground whoever had hit him must have been standing when they let off the energy-bolt, immediately figuring that he was right considering how multiple more bolts of energy came flying up to meet him as he came down. He was more prepared for it this time, throwing up a barrier in front of him to block any of the other bolts that came close to him. Landing on the ground at the speed that he did kicked up a massive amount of snow, obscuring his view (and the view of his assailant, or assailants, whoever they might be) for a couple of seconds. Summoning Gaeneron to his side, Raylix immediately dashed into the cloud of snow, sword at the ready to immediately fight whoever had attacked him.
Raylix's first swing would almost certainly have connected with some part of the body of whoever attacked him, had it not connected first with something hard, something not fleshy in the slightest. As the cloud of snow kicked up by Raylix's landing a few seconds ago cleared, Raylix noticed his sword having clashed with a wooden staff… what looked like a magical staff that a Magician would carry. The top end of it had six spikes, two smaller ones curving outwards, two larger ones curving inwards, and two more smaller ones curving further inwards.
It was then that his eyes shifted towards the one holding the staff in question. It was a woman, VERY much a woman, with brown eyes and scarlet hair… rather familiar-looking brown eyes and scarlet hair. Her hair was thick and done up in three braids: two in the front and one in the back. There were golden ornaments near the upper sections of the two front braids, with her other accessories being two U-shaped earrings on her… ears, and red lipstick on her… lips.
As far as her attire went, it was… risqué, Raylix figured that much. She wore a black top with a diamond-shaped opening that exposed the lower portion of her sizeable breasts. It extended down to her naval where a large, angular scar was on her left side, with a dark-coloured cape with a light-coloured inside draped over her body but left open to reveal said top and stomach. Additionally, she wore a black loincloth with a symbol that Raylix didn't recognise emblazoned on its front, with white borders on the edges. She also wore black thigh-high heeled boots that had a light-coloured border near the top, and matching gloves with claw-like extensions. All of the white trims of everything she wore had a black heart-shaped pattern on it.
Capping off the entire outfit was her black hat, which was much larger than her head. It had dreadlock designs of some kind, with white bandaging near the top ot it. There was also a white fur lining around the brim.
She definitely looked pretty different from the last time he'd seen her, but the brown eyes, the scarlet hair, the… very nice figure, that was enough for Raylix to recognise who it was.
"…Irene?"
The Magician's eyebrows raised slightly as she heard her name being called out, but after half a second's pause, during which she looked up and down at the guy that she'd just shot, and then defended herself from as he came at her.
"Raylix." Irene replied, her mouth dropping open slightly as she took a step back, pulling her staff away from the position she'd raised it to to block Raylix's sword. "What… are you doing here?"
"Travelling." Raylix answered, immediately. "And, honestly, I could ask you the same thing. I didn't know you liked… places like this."
"There's a lot that you don't know about me." Irene replied. "And I guess you could say that I've been travelling, also."
There was silence between the Devil and his Pact Magician for a couple of seconds, before Irene broke it again.
"Apologies for, you know…" she spoke, gesturing to the sky with her free hand. "That. If I'd known it was you, I wouldn't have done it."
"Yeah, I get it." Raylix replied. "No worries, it doesn't even hurt anymore. Good shot, by the way."
"Thank you." Irene replied, a prideful smirk before raising a hand to hold onto her hat, as the wind began to pick up again. She also tapped her staff on the ground, casting some kind of spell on her clothes to stop them blowing around in said wind, most likely to stop anything unnecessary from being revealed.
"We might want to get inside." She continued. "I'm pretty sure a snowstorm's coming soon, and I doubt you'd want to be stuck in the middle of that, Devil or not."
"Definitely not." Raylix replied. "You live far from here?"
"Not at all." Irene shook her head, before turning around and beginning to walk away from Raylix. "Follow me."
As Raylix began to do so, his eyes drifted from Irene's hair and back down to her shapely ass: covered by a similar loincloth to the one that covered Irene's front.
Was it just his memory messing with him, or had Irene matured quite a bit- physically- since the last time they'd met. It HAD been a while, now that he thought about it. Ten years after the initial pact between Raylix and Irene had been made, it had been renewed, with the additional agreement of a period of fifteen years before any discussions of renewing the pact. Considering how they'd shared a good relationship over their initial ten years, both had figured it to be a good idea at the time.
And a good idea it had proved to be, considering how the next time they'd decided to renew the pact, the period they'd decided to keep the pact going for had been extended to thirty years, and then fifty years once THAT thirty years had come to an end.
They'd kept going with renewing their pact every fifty years for a while, before deciding to extend said period to a hundred years. That had proven to be good for a while, before in 1804- the last time that Raylix and Irene had seen each other- Irene had proposed extending the period AGAIN to two hundred years. Raylix had agreed, and that was that.
Now that he thought about it, Raylix considered the potential scene of Irene showing up at the Gremory Castle to renew her pact with Raylix, only to find him gone without a trace… to be honest, she'd have probably just declared the pact broken (he couldn't think of much of a reason why his parents wouldn't have approved of that) and moved on with her life. Probably made a pact with another Devil and moved on with her life.
Well, considering that it HAD been a while since Raylix had last seen her, Irene probably HAD physically matured a good bit. And he couldn't lie… he liked what he was seeing.
"Here we are." Irene spoke up, shocking Raylix out of his thoughts as he looked up, past her ass, past Irene in general. The pair of them had walked into a cave of some sort, sheltered from the rest of the mountain and the wind that had picked up even more than it had done before they'd started walking. Within the cave, there was a small cottage, clearly one that belonged to Irene.
"Nice place." Raylix remarked, slowing down slightly as he raised a hand to gesture to the cottage. "You build it yourself? Here?"
"Myself? Yes." Irene replied, turning around. She tapped her staff on the ground again, undoing the anti-wind spell she'd done on her clothes while out on the mountain. "Here? No. I just transported it here from somewhere else. I like this place, I'm not planning on selling it anytime soon."
"Fair enough, fair enough." Raylix nodded, shrugging as he followed Irene through the front door (which she opened with a flick of her hand), shutting it behind him. "Still, nice place."
"Thank you." Irene replied, looking around at Raylix and nodding before continuing through a door, further into the house. "Just sit down, I'll get something for us to drink."
"Sure." Raylix nodded, looking around in the living room that they'd directly walked into from the front door. There wasn't much by way of seating in the room, only an armchair and what looked like a couch, both of which were positioned in front of a fireplace (which was currently unlit). Lined up against the wall on either side of the fireplace, there were a couple of bookcases. Upon closer inspection, most of the books that Raylix noticed were of the non-fiction type: the histories of all kinds of beings, from humans to Devils to even Gods, theory on various kinds of magics, he noticed one on how to craft the best magical staff possible for oneself, a volume or two on Sacred Gears, quite a few with Dragons as the main focus…
Very, VERY few fictional books of any kind, however. Fair enough, Raylix supposed, he never figured Irene to be the fiction-reading type. Just to the right of the door that the pair of them had come through was a flight of stairs that presumably led up to Irene's bedroom, probably a bathroom as well.
As he heard footsteps approaching, Raylix moved away from the bookcase that he was looking at, and quickly settled onto the couch as Irene came back into the room (now having taken off her gloves), holding a couple of bottles in one hand and a couple of glasses.
"I'm afraid I don't have anything close to the kind of drinks that you'd have at home," Irene remarked, holding up the bottles in question, which Raylix identified as wines of some sort. "But I can vouch for these, at least."
"Thanks." Raylix nodded, accepting one of the glasses and bottles from Irene as she sat down in the chair. After setting the other glass and both bottles down on a little table between herself and Raylix that she conjured up at that moment, she opened one of the bottles and poured some of its contents into the glass, gesturing for Raylix to do the same as she leant back in her chair, crossing her legs as she took a sip of her drink. Raylix had to allow himself to admire Irene's impressive body and legs for a couple of seconds before tearing his eyes away and reaching for the bottle that Irene hadn't touched, opening it and pouring some of the contents into his glass just as Irene had done with hers, before adjusting his position on the couch to make himself slightly more comfortable. "So, uh… how've you been?"
"Hm?" Irene looked over at Raylix, waving her hand at the fireplace without even looking at it as she did so in order to magically get a fire going. "You're actually interested in what I've been up to?"
"Kind of, considering we haven't talked- really talked- since… what, the sixteenth century, I think?" Raylix replied. "It would beat sitting here in silence, at least."
"Fair enough." Irene nodded. "Well, you could say I've moved up a bit in Magician society, since we've last talked. Or a lot, actually."
"Hm." Raylix replied, taking his first sip of his drink. "So, how high've you gotten? A-Rank? S-Rank?"
"Try SS-Rank." Irene remarked, not even trying to hide the prideful smirk on her face. "I'm one of the Ten Platinums. Officially recognised as one of the strongest and wisest magicians out of all currently alive today. I'm on the Magicians' Council."
Raylix almost gasped, but the wine in his mouth objected quite harshly to that, resulting in some of it immediately leaving his mouth as he began coughing violently. Irene looked like she was holding back a laugh as Raylix continued to cough and splutter, trying his best to not lose any more of the wine still in his mouth, as it tasted pretty nice, all things considered.
"Oh… shit!" he wheezed out, between coughs. "Nice… nice one, Irene! Don't you guys vote on the Sorcerer Supreme as well?"
"We do, indeed." Irene replied. "Though I haven't participated in such an election yet myself. And I don't expect to participate in one for quite a while, considering the one currently holding the mantle is the youngest one to ever do so."
"Mmhmm." Raylix hummed and nodded, swallowing the rest of his wine and taking a breath. "I guess that whole business with Belserion ended up being worth it."
"Goddamn right." Irene replied, looking down at her own chest and raising her free hand towards it for a moment, before lowering it again. "Now that you mention it, I haven't spoken with him in a while. I wonder how he's doing."
Raylix shrugged, taking another sip.
"Maybe you'll run into him during your travelling." He remarked. "Anything else you've gotten up to?"
"Yes, actually." Irene replied, taking another gulp of wine herself as she smirked over at Raylix. "I've founded my own Guild as well. You might have heard of it down in Hell, it's known as Alvarez."
"Nope, sorry." Raylix shrugged, setting his glass down. "Can't say I've heard that name. Not that you ever told me that you'd founded your own Guild."
Irene's mouth hung open in mock-outrage for a second or two, before she shrugged it and closed her mouth, uncrossing and recrossing her legs as she did so.
"Fair point." She replied. "I did found it relatively recently, so it's not like I would have had a chance to tell you about it last time we met. And I guess you were a bit busy with… whatever it is you do as the Heir of the Gremory Clan, to hear or remember it."
"Yeah…" Raylix replied, nodding quietly as he looked down into his wine-glass, before raising it to his lips and taking a sizeable gulp out of it.
"Speaking of, what've you been up to?" Irene asked. "How's your big bad Satan Lucifer brother? How're Tomosei and… Sambeka?"
"Sabemka." Raylix corrected her, looking down at his glass again, and taking another big gulp out of it, draining the rest of the glass' contents. "And…" he blinked a couple of times, his grip on the glass tightening slightly. "They're dead."
Silence filled the room again, as Irene- her face impassive- reached over to pick up the bottle that Raylix had initially poured from, and refilled his glass.
"I'm… very sorry to hear that." She spoke, gently setting the glass down. "They were great friends, weren't they?"
"The best." Raylix nodded, turning his head away from Irene as he took another gulp out of his freshly-filled glass. "Right up to the end."
"If you're okay with answering…" Irene continued, her voice noticeably softer than before. "How did they-"
"Killed." Raylix cut across his Pact Magician, his voice harsh. "By Fallen Angels. During my engagement party, of all things."
"Shit…" Irene whispered, letting out a slow breath. "Tell me you got the bastards that did it to them, at least."
"Some of them." Raylix replied, clenching his teeth as his grip on his glass tightened even further. "But not enough. Not nearly enough."
Irene hummed, refilling her own glass as Raylix continued.
"And I haven't spoken with my brother. Not for a while. Haven't spoken with anyone in my family, not since I left them three years ago."
"Left?" Irene repeated. "Why? What for? Did Sabemka and Tomosei's deaths have anything to do with it?"
"Personal reasons… and yes." Raylix replied. "I'm not the Gremory Clan Heir anymore, I've actually joined the True Satan Faction. Been with them ever since I left."
"I see…" Irene slowly nodded, taking another drink from her glass. "That's… quite a shift, Raylix, I thought those guys hated nobles."
"Why do you think joining them was my first course of action after leaving?" Raylix asked, looking back at the scarlet-haired SS-Rank Magician, a one-sided smile playing about his lips for a couple of seconds. Irene raised her eyebrows at Raylix's answers, before something seemed to click in her mind.
"Ahh, I think I get it." she replied. "Nobles disrespecting the memory of your lower-class best friends. And I take it you didn't much appreciate that."
"Bit of an oversimplification." Raylix remarked, his tone calmer, more even as he took another gulp of his drink. "But, yeah, that about sums it up. And no, I didn't. Not one bit."
"Understandably." Irene nodded. "To the point that you chose to join an organisation dedicated to tearing them all down, in spite of your own noble status."
"Mmhmm." Raylix hummed, nodding himself. "I'd completely get it if you want to dissolve the Pact we've had between each other over, you know, me not being Gremory Heir anymore."
"Meh." Irene shrugged. "I'm fine keeping it going. Gremory Heir or not, you're still one of the strongest Devils alive. And SS-Rank or not, I'd very much like to keep someone like that in my corner in case something happens. You know on my end."
"Alright, then." Raylix replied, a small sigh escaping his lips. "Thank you, Irene."
"No worries." Irene nodded, raising her glass before draining the rest of it in a couple of gulps, and setting it down on the table. "Though that, plus the fact that we're now here talking to each other, leads me to my follow-up question: what is a True Satan Faction operative doing all the way out in the Human world, on Mount Smolikas, no less?"
"So that's where we are." Raylix replied. "Huh. Anyway, I was sent out here- well, not HERE specifically, but the human world in general- to start looking for potential locations to set up alternate bases. Numbers are approaching the point that Hebeth won't be able to hold them all, and best to spread out the forces over multiple locations so all of them aren't taken out all at once in case Falbium comes storming in with the full might of the Devil military behind him."
"From what I know about Falbium, he probably won't be doing any storming of any kind." Irene remarked. "But, yeah, I suppose that makes sense. You know, if you want somewhere to stay while you're doing all of that, you're more than welcome to stay here… though I don't have a second bedroom, so you'd have to take the couch."
"That's fine." Raylix replied. "And I think I'll take you up on that offer, Irene."
"Nice." Irene nodded. "I'll set the couch up to be more bed-like for you in a bit, but for now… lunch?"